It is more than probable that the horses having
been hunted by the natives, and having found more water, will not come
back here of their own accord to water any more; so I shall keep one
tied up at the camp, to fetch the others up with every morning.

And now comes Thursday, 25th December, Christmas Day, 1873. Ah, how
the time flies! Years following years, steal something every day; at
last they steal us from ourselves away. What Horace says is, Eheu
fugaces, anni labuntur postume, postume:--Years glide away, and are
lost to me, lost to me.

While Jimmy Andrews was away after the others, upon the horse that was
tied up all night, we were startled out of our propriety by the howls
and yells of a pack of fiends in human form and aboriginal appearance,
who had clambered up the rocks just above our camp. I could only see
some ten or a dozen in the front, but scores more were dodging in and
out among the rocks. The more prominent throng were led by an ancient
individual, who, having fitted a spear, was just in the act of
throwing it down amongst us, when Gibson seized a rifle, and presented
him with a conical Christmas box, which smote the rocks with such
force, and in such near proximity to his hinder parts, that in a great
measure it checked his fiery ardour, and induced most of his more
timorous following to climb with most perturbed activity over the
rocks. The ancient more slowly followed, and then from behind the
fastness of his rocky shield, he spoke spears and boomerangs to us,
though he used none. He, however, poured out the vials of his wrath
upon us, as he probably thought to some purpose. I was not linguist
enough to be able to translate all he said; but I am sure my free
interpretation of the gist of his remarks is correct, for he
undoubtedly stigmatised us as a vile and useless set of lazy,
crawling, white-faced wretches, who came sitting on hideous brutes of
hippogryphs, being too lazy to walk like black men, and took upon
ourselves the right to occupy any country or waters we might chance to
find; that we killed and ate any wallabies and other game we happened
to see, thereby depriving him and his friends of their natural, lawful
food, and that our conduct had so incensed himself and his noble
friends, who were now in the shelter of the rocks near him, that he
begged us to take warning that it was the unanimous determination of
himself and his noble friends to destroy such vermin as he considered
us, and o