The one we ascended was partly composed of clay and partly of sand; but the former, protruding in large masses, caused deep shadows to fall on the faces and gave the appearance of a rocky cliff to the whole formation, as viewed from a distance.
Broad and striking as were the features of the landscape over which the eye wandered from the summit of this hill, I have much difficulty in describing them.
Immediately beneath was the low region from which we had just ascended, occupying the line of the horizon from the north-east point, southwards, round to the west.

Southward, and for some degrees on either side, a fine dark line met the sky; but to the north-east and south-west was a boundless extent of earthy plain.

Here and there a solitary clump of trees appeared, and on the plain, at the distance of a mile to the eastward, were two moving specks, in the shape of native women gathering roots, but they saw us not, neither did we disturb them,--their presence indicated that even these gloomy and forbidding regions were not altogether uninhabited.
As the reader will, I have no doubt, remember, the sandy ridges on the S.E.side of the Desert were running at an angle of about 18 degrees to the west of north, having gradually changed from the original direction of about 6 degrees to the eastward of that point.

I myself had marked this gradual change with great interest, because it was strongly corroborative of my views as to the course the current I have supposed to have swept over the central parts of the continent must have taken, i.

e.
a course at right angles to the ridges.