and the virgin volcanic soils. They will continue to
regard manuring and draining and so forth as a folly and a sin almost,
until the population becomes numerous, and all the first-class lands are
filled up.

Fresh from high-dried systems and theories of agriculture as practised
in Great Britain, we are dumbfounded by the tirade against manuring, and
the revolutionary ideas which our coach-companion further favours us
with. We are evidently beginning to learn things afresh, though this is
our first day in the bush.

By the way, I must explain this term to English readers. "Bush" has a
double signification, a general and a particular one. In its first and
widest sense it is applied to all the country beyond the immediate
vicinity of the cities or towns. Thus, Riverhead may be described as a
settlement in the "bush," and our road lies through the "bush," though
here it is all open moorland. But, in a more particular way, "bush"
simply indicates the natural woods and forests. A farmer up-country, who
says he has been into the "bush" after cattle, means that he has been
into the forest, in contradistinction to his own cleared land, the
settlement, or the open country.

Our road lies at first through the fern lands beyond Riverhead, and we
soon lose sight of the settlement. We appear to be travelling at random
across the moor, for not a trace of what our English eyes have been
taught to regard as a road can we discern. The country is all a rugged
wilderness of range and gully: "gently undulating," you say, if you want
to convey a favourable impression; "abruptly broken and hilly," if you
would speak the literal truth. There is not a level yard of land--it is
all as rough and unequal as it is possible for land to be.

The road is no macadamized way: it is simply a track that, in many
parts, is barely visible except to practised eyes. Further on, where we
pass through tracts of forest, the axe has cleared a broad path; and
down some steep declivities there has been a mild attempt at a cutting.
Where we come upon streams of any size or depth, light wooden bridges
have been built; and fascines have made some boggy parts fordable in wet
weather. Such is our road, and along it we proceed at a hand-gallop for
the most part. The jolting may be imagined, it cannot be described; for
the four wheels are never by any chance on the same level at one and the
same time.

When we have proceeded eight or nine miles, Dandy Jack seems to