allarat, I set out on my return to Majorca.
There was the same jolting as before, but this time the coach did not
stick in the mud. On reaching Clunes, I resolved to walk straight to
Majorca across the plain, instead of going the roundabout way by the
road. But the straightest route is not always the shortest, as my
experience on this occasion proved. I had scarcely got fairly into the
plain before I found myself in the midst of a succession of
crab-holes. These are irregular depressions, about a yard or so apart,
formed by the washing up of the soil by eddies during floods, and now
the holes were all full of water. It was a difficult and tedious
process to work one's way through amongst them, for they seemed to
dovetail into one another, and often I had to make a considerable
detour to get round the worst of them. This crab-holey ground
continued for about four miles, after which I struck into the bush,
making for the ranges, and keeping Mount Greenock and Mount Glasgow
before me as landmarks. Not being a good bushman, I suspect I went
several miles out of my way. However, by dint of steady walking, I
contrived to do the sixteen miles in about four hours; but if I have
ever occasion to walk from Clunes again, I will take care to take the
roundabout road, and not to make the journey _en zigzag_ round
crab-holes and through the bush.

Among the other places about here that I have visited were Talbot,
about seven miles distant, and Avoca, about twenty. One of the
occasions of my going to Talbot was to attend a ball given there, and
another to attend a great fete for the benefit of the Amherst
Hospital. Talbot gives its name to the county, though by no means the
largest town in it. The town is very neat and tidy, and contains some
good stone and brick buildings. It consists of one principal street,
with several little offshoots.

The ball was very like a ball at home, though a little more mixed. The
young ladies were some of them very pretty, and nicely dressed--some
in dresses "direct from London"--while a few of the elder ladies were
gorgeous but incongruous. One old lady, in a juvenile dress, wore an
enormous gold brooch, large enough to contain the portraits of several
families. I was astonished to learn the great distances that some of
the ladies and gentlemen had come to be present at the ball. Some had
driven through the bush twenty and even thirty miles; but distance is
thought nothing of here, especially when th