rricades made by fallen trees. These latter
obstacles I found the most difficult, for the bark was so slippery; and
once, when with much difficulty I had scrambled up a pile of _debris_ at
least ten feet high, I incautiously stepped on some rotten wood at the
top, and went through it into a sort of deep pit, out of which it
was very hard to climb. On comparing notes afterwards, we found, that
although we had walked without a moment's cessation for eleven hours
during the day, a pedometer only gave twenty-two miles as the distance
accomplished. Before we had been in the bush half an hour our faces were
terribly scratched and bleeding, and so were the gentlemen's hands; my
wrists also suffered, as my gauntlets would not do their duty and lie
flat. There were myriads of birds around us, all perfectly tame; many
flew from twig to twig, accompanying us with their little pert heads on
one side full of curiosity; the only animals we saw were some wild
sheep looking very disreputable with their long tails and torn, trailing
fleeces of six or seven years' growth. There are supposed to be some
hundreds of these in the bush who have strayed into it years ago, when
they were lambs, from neighbouring runs. The last man in the silent
procession put a match into a dead tree every here and there, to
serve as a torch to guide us back in the dark; but this required great
judgment for fear of setting the whole forest on fire: the tree required
to be full of damp decay, which would only smoulder and not blaze. We
intended to steer for a station on the other side of a narrow neck of
the Great Bush, ten miles off, as nearly as we could guess, but we made
many detours after fresh tracks. Once these hoof-marks led us to the
brink of such a pretty creek, exactly like a Scotch burn, wide and
noisy, tumbling down from rock to rock, but not very deep. After a
whispered consultation, it was determined to follow up this creek to
a well-known favourite drinking-place of the cattle, but it was easier
walking in the water than on the densely-grown banks, so all the
gentlemen stepped in one after another. I hesitated a moment with
one's usual cat-like antipathy to wet feet, when a stalwart bushman
approached, with rather a victimised air and the remark: "Ye're heavy,
nae doot, to carry." I was partly affronted at this prejudgment of the
case, and partly determined to show that I was equal to the emergency,
for I immediately jumped into the water, frighten