Notwithstanding the long-continued gale, the descent was so steep that only a vestige of a stream trickled down the main gully. Here and there lay a pool.
Though the water was brackish, it was strongly pigmented with iron, and the roots of vigorous young trees seemed to find sustenance in it.
At any rate, they must drink or die, so they drank, though Maseden warned them to be moderate. They laved their wounds, which were intensely sore at first, owing to the encrustation of salt on their skins. But here, again, nature’s surgery, if painful, was effective. Salt is a rough and ready antiseptic. None of them owned any real medical knowledge. In their hard case ignorance was surely bliss, because they must have had the narrowest of escapes from tetanus.
The descent, though trying, was not s
