Or the country either--and he let his eye roam unlovingly over the wild, sad-coloured landscape, with its skimpy, sad-coloured trees.
Meanwhile they were advancing: their nags' hoofs, beating in unison, devoured mile after mile of the road.

It was a typical colonial road; it went up hill and down dale, turned aside for no obstacles.

At one time it ran down a gully that was almost a ravine, to mount straight up the opposite side among boulders that reached to the belly-bands.

At others, it led through a reedy swamp, or a stony watercourse; or it became a bog; or dived through a creek.

Where the ground was flat and treeless, it was a rutty, well-worn track between two seas of pale, scant grass.
More than once, complaining of a mouth like sawdust, Purdy alighted and limped across the verandah of a house-of-accommodation; but they did not actually draw rein till, towards midday, they reached a knot of weatherboard verandahed stores, smithies and public-houses, arranged at the four Corners of two cross-roads.