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246 Can we try to estimate the rate at which we are travelling?

By this time it was much brighter, the clouds were quite cleared away, and the moon, which was only two or three days past the full, was fairly well up in the sky.

So I said to Jack, "Lower the car a little, then take the steering gear in hand and let me try to estimate our speed. He let the car descend slowly until he could distinguish the trees and other prominent features of the landscape. Then he took the steering gear into his own hand and I looked over the side of the car. The forest was thick in parts, but there were wide spaces of treeless plain; and we were just passing over a range of hills which I think I am right in identifying with a range that we had observed at a distance of several miles when we were among the blacks.

I took particular notice of the larger trees, trying to guess their distance each from the other and referring to my watch every few seconds.

"What do you make of it?" said Jack at last, when he had raised the car to its former height.

"It is hard to fix it," said I, "but I cannot think that we are travelling less than twenty-five miles an hour and I should say much more probably thirty."