The pebbles on the shore were pitch.

A tide-pool close by was enclosed in pitch: a four-eyes was swimming about in it, staring up at us; and when we hunted him, tried to escape, not by diving, but by jumping on shore on the pitch, and scrambling off between our legs.

While the policeman, after profoundest courtesies, was gone to get a mule cart to take us up to the lake, and planks to bridge its water- channels, we took a look round at this oddest of corners of the earth.
In front of us was the unit of civilisation--the police-station, wooden, on wooden stilts (as all well-built houses are here), to ensure a draught of air beneath them.

We were, of course, asked to come in and sit down, but preferred looking about, under our umbrellas; for the heat was intense.

The soil is half pitch, half brown earth, among which the pitch sweals in and out, as tallow sweals from a candle.