Democratic Northwest and Henry County news. [volume] (Napoleon, O. [Ohio]) 1894-1905, 1896-08-27
NQUEENSLAND VILDS.
By PERCY RUSSELL.
tCopyright, 1851

and more forbidding appearance. Eyel
and anon they came on deep ravines, a'
they fancied, but in a little while Os
wald divined the truth and knew that
they We're simply passing the beds Of
dried up rivers. and then he recollected
that at Port Douglas he had casually
heard some one say, 81 remember ouI
creek never ran for two years. F" Far in
the distance the plains extended like an
ocean, and sometimes puffs of fine dust
rose like smoke from the surface. In the
horizon both Oswald and Emily fancied
they could discern mountain range,
but they could not quite determine
whether it was not simply formation
of those solid looking clouds that some
times seem to rise right on the horizons
edge. In O word, the conviction forced
itself on each that they had entered the
land of drought. Their poor horse ap-
peared now quite worn out and evinced
symptoms Of failing, and Oswald began
TO seriously think Of attempting to re-
turn, but the forest they had traversed
was scarcely more inviting than the
country before them, as there was an
absence of any edible fruits except the
seeds Of the pine cones, and they had
still left o little -four and sugar, and
after all, as Oswald thought within
himself, they could at pinch eat the
horse.
That evening they rested in a shelter.
ing hollow, where they kindled fire
and boiled up some Of the objectionable
water they discovered at the bottom of
a deep hole by way Of purifying it
Emily still kept up her spirits. She
laughed and affected to be free from
fear, and Oswald practiced the same af-
fectation and pretended to be quite un-
concerned. They were playing indeed
at make believe" like two children,
and each knew it.
Like many other unfortunates, once
fairly entangled in the arid desert Great
ed by an Australian drought, Oswald
and Emily could not determine whether
to push on or to retrace their steps. ALI
grass disappeared and the fine dust
grew an intolerable plague. They now
sought for water in vain and looked ST.
lently at each other In unspeakable dis
may. Those who have never been in a
desert under such circumstances cannot
realize fully what 1t is to look all around
on miles Of vapory distance and to feel
that you may run your hardest until
you sink down exhausted, but yet never
practically change your surrounding
conditions. You will still have the same
dry dirt under your feet and the same
horizon Of hopeless misery about you on
every side.
Striving further seemed vain. Per-
haps they lacked the energy they natu-
rally had owing to the sapping effect Of
their previous journeying through the
bush. and they lay down near the horse
feeling that they could not make any
further effort It then grew suddenly
dark, and just as they began wondering
what this sudden darkness might mean
there came across the blackness above
swift succession of lightning flashes,
LCu 1L1NA NhAchALOtI Cbh Ul1CAl ltA4llO Gll4lC
gigantic drops Of rain.
The air grew for the moment refresh
ing and reviving, and they. with the
horse, instinctively looked up. Then
there was terrible clap of tremendous
thunder and rain began to fall in tor
rents. No clothes could long protect any
one against such rain as this in place
so entirely exposed. Indeed, it was only
possible to breathe freely by keeping
the back to the wind, that now began
to blow furiously. and on all sides there
began to exist an unnistakable food,
Oswald shuddered. He recollected
what he had been told about the occa-
sionally awful foods known in some
parts Of Queensland. when the water
rises 60 or 10 feet and sweeps right
across miles of country in an irresisti-
BILE ocean.
1t seemed to him that at last their de-
in an utter despair. Strangely enough,
as be thought, however although the
rain fell with increasing violence, the
water appeared to rise but slowly as
they struggled out Of the hollows and
endeavored to gain the higher ground,
and be began to hope that they might
escape If the water continued to rise so
gradually, as he and Emily We're now
together making desperate effort to gain
some higher ground that they perceived
in the distance by the frequent and
sometimes almost continuous lightning
The horse, terrified beyond measure,
had broken away and was lost in the
gloom, and they had abandoned their
packs, so they were now stripped of all
their little possessions, circumstance
that at that time did not, of course, in
che least concern either, as hand in
hand, and occasionally tightly clasped
to the rain. wind and food and water
rising above their knees, they wrestled
hard to gain the elevated ground. which
was TO them true ark of refuge Then
the lightning blazed forth more vividly
than ever, and both clearly saw fiat
wave like the tide of the sea as you can
watch it coming in from the shore ad-
vancing toward them, all crested with
branches of trees and masses of foliage.
AS far as the eye could reach on the
right and left this awful wave could be
seen, and as far as they could see it it
was crested, mixed with boiling foam,
by confused mass of trees evidently
uprooted and floating on, grinding their
branches together and waving their
lighter boughs, still clothed with foli-
age, high in the air, which was filled
with the mist and spray of the rain
and had strange and awful look as
momentarily revealed by the fitful CLEAN
of the red lightning.
Some deadly perils, like starvation.
and the certainty of dying from that,
are often found to induce a paralysis or
despair which is equivalent to resig-
nation. Thus the Australian settler who