ing up the tracks in
this way; but after all, was it not merely killing time?--a mild sort of
sensation which served to break the eternal monotony that sometimes
threatened to crush me.

How I treasured that soiled copy of the _Town and Country_--as it is
familiarly called in Sydney! I read and re-read it, and then read it all
over again until I think I could have repeated every line of it by heart,
even to the advertisements. Among the latter, by the way, was one
inserted apparently by an anxious mother seeking information concerning a
long-lost son; and this pathetic paragraph set me wondering about my own
mother. "Well," I thought, "she at least has no need to advertise, and I
have the satisfaction of knowing that she must by this time be quite
reconciled to my loss, and have given me up as dead long ago." Strangely
enough, this thought quite reconciled me to my exile. In fact, I thanked
Providence that my disappearance had been so complete and so prolonged as
to leave not the slightest cause for doubt or hope on the part of any of
my relatives. Had I for a moment imagined that my mother was still
cherishing hopes of seeing me again some day, and that she was undergoing
agonies of mental suspense and worry on my behalf, I think I would have
risked everything to reach her. But I knew quite well that she must have
heard of the loss of the _Veielland_, and long ago resigned herself to
the certainty of my death. I can never hope to describe the curious
delight with which I perused my precious newspaper. I showed the
pictures in it to my children and the natives, and they were more than
delighted,--especially with the pictures of horses in the race at
Paramatta. In the course of time the sheets of paper began to get torn,
and then I made a pretty durable cover out of kangaroo hide. Thus the
whole of my library consisted of my Anglo-French Testament, and the copy
of the _Town and Country Journal_.

But I have purposely kept until the end the most important thing in
connection with this strangely-found periodical. The very first eager
and feverish reading gave me an extraordinary shock, which actually
threatened my reason! In a prominent place in the journal I came across
the following passage: "_The Deputies of Alsace and Lorraine have refused
to vote in the German Reichstag_."

Now, knowing nothing whatever of the sanguinary war of 1870, or of the
alterations in the map of Europe which it entailed, this pas