Читать книгу Pelican Pool. A Novel онлайн

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The Sea of Carpentaria woos the north land. The north land gives no sign.

. . . . . . .

The mining camp of Surprise Valley lies in the folds of those ranges which break the long plains of the Gulf country. Ten years ago it grew along the bottom of a cup of the hills, and since that season neither has waxed nor waned, being nothing troubled by the wilderness which marches to the door-ways of its tents and humble iron houses.

The traveller, by circumstance brought thither from the East, with ill grace leaves his steamer at the coast, boards the casual train, and presently finds himself jerking forward on the second stage of the journey. He bumps westward for five hundred miles. He moves through plains which—right and left—push into the horizon. The ocean has not seemed to him more immense. A curtain of heat is about their edges, a haze dwells about them. The clamour of his coming scatters sheep at their grazing, alarms the kangaroo at matins, sends the wild turkey into the taller grasses. For a night, for a day, for half another night, he is held in thrall. He alone appears eager for the journey end. He smokes, he reads, he eats: a dozen ways he sets himself to hurry time. The cool of the evening takes him to the outside platform of the car to reflect and watch the darkening of the skies—to remark the first white stars. At such hour maybe he takes his lot in better part.