saw that there was another valley running
nearly north, with another creek meandering through it, apparently
joining the one first seen.

(ILLUSTRATION: THE FAIRIES' GLEN.)

Passing across this fairy space, I noticed the whitish appearances
that usually accompany springs and flood-marks in this region. We soon
reached a most splendid kind of stone trough, under a little stony
bank, which formed an excellent spring, running into and filling the
little trough, running out at the lower end, disappearing below the
surface, evidently perfectly satisfied with the duties it had to
perform.

This was really the most delightful spot I ever saw; a region like a
garden, with springs of the purest water spouting out of the ground,
ever flowing into a charming little basin a hundred yards long by
twenty feet wide and four feet deep. There was a quantity of the
tea-tree bush growing along the various channels, which all contained
running water.

The valley is surrounded by picturesque hills, and I am certain it is
the most charming and romantic spot I ever shall behold. I immediately
christened it the Fairies' Glen, for it had all the characteristics to
my mind of fairyland. Here we encamped. I would not have missed
finding such a spot, upon--I will not say what consideration. Here
also of course we saw numbers of both ancient and modern native huts,
and this is no doubt an old-established and favourite camping ground.
And how could it be otherwise? No creatures of the human race could
view these scenes with apathy or dislike, nor would any sentient
beings part with such a patrimony at any price but that of their
blood. But the great Designer of the universe, in the long past
periods of creation, permitted a fiat to be recorded, that the beings
whom it was His pleasure in the first instance to place amidst these
lovely scenes, must eventually be swept from the face of the earth by
others more intellectual, more dearly beloved and gifted than they.
Progressive improvement is undoubtedly the order of creation, and we
perhaps in our turn may be as ruthlessly driven from the earth by
another race of yet unknown beings, of an order infinitely higher,
infinitely more beloved, than we. On me, perchance, the eternal
obloquy of the execution of God's doom may rest, for being the first
to lead the way, with prying eye and trespassing foot, into regions so
fair and so remote; but being guiltless alike in act or intention to
shed the blood