must no doubt form a splendid cascade. Now a person
could stand on a vast boulder of granite and look down
at the waters, as they fell in little sprays from
the springs that supplied the spot; the small streams
rushing out from among the fissures of the broken
rocks, and all descending into a fine basin below.
To Alec’s eyes was this romantic scene displayed.
The rocks above, below, and around, were fringed and
decked with various vegetations; shrubs and small
trees ornamented nearly the whole of the surrounding
rocks, amongst which the native fig-tree, Ficus platypoda,
was conspicuous. It must have been a very pretty
place. I could hear the water rushing and splashing,
but could not see anything. It appeared also that
the water ran out of the basin below into the creek
channel, which goes on its course apparently through
or into a glen. I describe this peculiar freak
of nature from what Alec told me; I hope my description
will not mislead others. Soon after we found
that this was the case, as we now entered an exceedingly
rough and rocky glen full of water—at least
so it appeared to Alec, who could see nothing but
water as far down as he could look. At first
the water was between three and four feet deep; the
farther we went the deeper the water became. Could
any one have seen us we must have presented a very
novel sight, as the camels got nearly up to their
humps in water, and would occasionally refuse to go
on; they would hang back, break their nose-ropes, and
then lie quietly down until they were nearly drowned.
We had to beat and pull them up the best way we could.
It was rather disagreeable for a blind man to slip
off a camel up to his neck in cold water, and, lifting
up his eyelids with both hands, try to see what was
going on. Having, however, gone so far, we thought
it best to continue, as we expected the glen to end
at any turn; but the water became so deep that Alec’s
riding cow Buzoe, being in water deep enough for her
to swim in, if she could swim, refused to go any farther,
and thought she would like to lie down. This
she tried, but the water was too deep for her to keep
her head above it, and after being nearly smothered
she got up again:—
“And now to issue from the
glen,
No pathway meets the wand’rers’
ken,
Unless they climb, with footing
nice,
A far-projecting precipice.”
It would be out of all propriety to expect a camel
to climb a precipice; fortunately at a few yards further
a turn of the glen showed Alec a place on the southern
bank where a lot of rocks had fallen down. It
was with the greatest difficulty we got to it, and
with still greater that at last we reached the top
of the cliff, and said good-bye to this watery glen.
Our clothes, saddles, blankets, and food were soaked
to a pulp. We could not reach the depot that night,
but did so early on the following day. I called
this singular glen in which the camels were nearly
drowned, Glen Camel.