Kosciusko nearly behind us, till a great pass, through
the granite walls, opened to the westward, up which we turned, Mount
Murray towering up the south. Soon we were on the Murrumbidgee,
sweeping from side to side of his mountain valley in broad curves,
sometimes rushing hoarse, swollen by the late rains, under belts of
high timber, and sometimes dividing broad meadows of rich grass,
growing green once more under the invigorating hand of autumn. All
nature had awakened from her deep summer sleep, the air was brisk and
nimble, and seldom did three happier men ride on their way than James,
the Doctor, and I.

Good Doctor! How he beguiled the way with his learning!--in ecstasies
all the time, enjoying everything, animate or inanimate, as you or I
would enjoy a new play or a new opera. How I envied him! He was like a
man always reading a new and pleasant book. At first the stockmen rode
behind, talking about beasts, and horses, and what not--often talking
about nothing at all, but riding along utterly without thought, if such
a thing could be. But soon I noticed they would draw up closer, and
regard the Doctor with some sort of attention, till toward the evening
of the second day, one of them, our old acquaintance, Dick, asked the
Doctor a question, as to why, if I remember right, certain trees should
grow in certain localities, and there only. The Doctor reined up
alongside him directly, and in plain forcible language explained the
matter: how that some plants required more of one sort of substance
than another, and how they get it out of particular soils; and how, in
the lapse of years, they had come to thrive best on the soil that
suited them, and had got stunted and died out in other parts. "See,"
said he, "how the turkey holds to the plains, and the pheasant
(lyrebird) to the scrub, because each one finds its food there. Trees
cannot move; but by time, and by positively refusing to grow on
unkindly soils, they arrange themselves in the localities which suit
them best."

So after this they rode with the Doctor always, both hearing him and
asking him questions, and at last, won by his blunt kindliness, they
grew to like and respect him in their way, even as we did.

So we fared on through bad weather and rough country, enjoying a
journey which, but for him, would have been a mere trial of patience.
Northward ever, through forest and plain, over mountain and swamp,
across sandstone, limestone, granite, and rich volca