ame to hand was directed to a Wesleyan minister. I called there,
looking as sanctimonious as I could. He heard my story, advised me to
go to chapel regularly, 'And for your temporal wants,' said he, 'the
Lord will provide.' I thanked him, and bowed myself off.

"My first act was to burn my packet of introductory letters, my
next was to engage myself to a stock-holder at 15s. a week and my
rations. He was going up to his station at once, and I accompanied him.
We travelled for about two hundred miles through a most beautiful
country before we reached his home. His house was, in my ideas, a
comical-looking affair--made of split logs of wood, with a bark roof,
and a barrel stuck on the top of the roof at one end by way of a
chimney-pot. His wife, a pale sickly little woman, seemed pleased to
see us, for she had been much alarmed by the natives, who were rather
numerous about the neighbourhood. There was only a young lad, and an
old shepherd and his wife upon the station, besides herself. Before I
had been there six weeks she died, and her new-born little baby died
too; there was not a doctor for miles, and the shepherd's wife was
worse than useless. I believe this often happens in the bush--it's not a
place for woman-folks.

"I was here eighteen months--it was a wild sort of life, and just suited
my fancy; but when I found I had some money to receive, I thought a
spree in town would be a nice change, so off I marched. My spree lasted
as long as my money, and then I went as barman to a public-house at
Clare, some way up the country--here I got better wages and better board,
and stopped about half-a-year. Then I turned brewer's drayman, and
delivered casks of good Australian ale about Adelaide for 30s. a week.
The brewer failed, and I joined in a speculation with an apple dealer
to cart a lot up to the Kapunda copper mines. That paid well. I stopped
up there as overseer over four-and-twenty bullock-drays. Well, winter
came, and I had little to do, though I drew my 30s. a week regularly
enough, when the directors wanted a contract for putting the small
copper-dust into bags, and sewing them up. I offered to do the job at
2d. a bag, and could get through a hundred and fifty a day. How much
is that? Oh! 12s. 6d. a-piece. I forgot to tell you I'd a mate at the
work. That was good earnings in those days; and me and my mate, who
was quite a lad, were making a pretty penny, when some others offered
to do them a halfpenny a bag che