deed, the prospect was anything but inviting. On both sides of
the creek the soil showed evidences of the severity of the past drought.
Great gaping fissures--usun cracks we called them--traversed and
zig-zagged the hot, parching ground, on which not a blade of grass was
to be seen. Here and there, amid the grey-barked ghostly gums, were
oases of green--thickets of stunted sandalwood whose evergreen leaves
defied alike the torrid summer heat and the black frosts of winter
months; but underneath them lay the shrivelled carcasses and whitening
bones of hundreds of cattle which had perished of starvation--too weak
even to totter down to die, bogged in the banks of the creek. As I
sat and smoked a strong feeling of depression took possession of me; I
already began to hate the place, and regretted I could not withdraw from
my engagement.

Yet in less than a week I began to like it, and when I left it I did so
with some regret, for I had made friends with sweet Mother Nature, whose
loving-kindness is with us always in wild places, though we may not know
it at first, and take no heed of her many calls and silent beckonings to
us to come and love, and rest and dream, and be content upon her tender,
mighty bosom.

My horse, cropping eagerly at the soft grass and salty pigweed, suddenly
raised his head and pricked up his ears. He had heard something and was
listening, and looking across to the opposite bank I saw a sight that
lifted me out of my sudden fit of depression and then filled me with
delight.

Two stately emus were walking along in single file, the male bird
leading, holding his head erect, and marching like the drum-major of a
regiment of Guards. On the margin of the bank they halted and looked at
the horse, which now stood facing them; a minute's scrutiny satisfied
both parties that there was nothing to fear from each other, and then
the great birds walked down the bank to a broad dry patch of bright
yellow sand, which stretched halfway across the bed of the creek. Here
the male began to scratch, sending up a shower of coarse sand, and
quickly swallowing such large pebbles as were revealed, whilst the
female squatted beside him and watched his labours with an air of
indifference. Her digestive apparatus was, I suppose, in good order, and
she did not need three or four pounds' weight of stones in her gizzard,
but she did require a sand bath, for presently she too began to scrape
and sway from side to side as she wor