unes and home.

CHARACTER OF THE OVERLANDERS.

The Overlanders are nearly all men in the prime of youth, whose
occupation it is to convey large herds of stock from market to market and
from colony to colony. Urged on by the hope of profit, they have overcome
difficulties of no ordinary kind, which have made the more timid and
weak-hearted quail, and relinquish the enterprises in which they were
engaged; whilst the resolute and undaunted have persevered, and the
reward they have obtained is wealth, self-confidence in difficulties and
dangers, and a fund of accurate information on many interesting points.
Hence almost every Overlander you meet is a remarkable man.

The Overlanders are generally descended from good families, have received
a liberal education (Etonians and Oxonians are to be found amongst them)
and even at their first start in the colonies were possessed of what is
considered an independence. Their grandfathers and fathers have been men
distinguished in the land and sea service of their country; and these
worthy scions of the ancient stock, finding no outlet for their
enterprise and love of adventure at home, have sought it in a distant
land; amongst them therefore is to be found a degree of polish and
frankness rarely to be looked for in such a mode of life, and in the
distant desert you unexpectedly stumble on a finished gentleman.

THEIR ADVENTUROUS MODE OF LIFE.

The life of an Overlander in the bush is one of great excitement which
constantly calls every energy into action, is full of romantic and novel
situations, and habituates the mind to self-possession and command. The
large and stately herd of cattle is at least a fine if not even an
imposing sight. The fierce and deadly contests which at times take place
with the natives, when two or three hardy Europeans stand opposed to an
apparently overwhelming majority of blacks, call for a large share of
personal courage and decision; whilst the savage yells and diabolic
whoops of the barbarians in their onsets, their fantastically painted
forms, their quivering spears, their contortions, and shifting of their
bodies, and their wild leaps, attach a species of romance to these
encounters which affords plentiful matter for after-meditation. As the
love of war, of gaming, or of any other species of violent excitement,
grows upon the mind from indulgence, so does the love of roving grow upon
the Overlanders, and few or none of them ever talk of leading a s