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Among the many tours of business and pleasure which vary the routine of a settler's life, one in particular remains stamped on my memory, as having made me acquainted with the most striking and varied scenery which I ever beheld during my stay in the colony.

We had heard a great deal of a fine plain, or rather a series of small plains, and of a lake, which, not being more than a hundred miles distant, might be considered in our neighbourhood, for in Australia, owing to the vast size of the country and the erratic habits of bush life, one soon acquires a very comprehensive idea of space. Travellers who occasionally passed that way gave a glowing description of the beauty, fertility, and the richness of the soil and pasture in this favoured region. It became the lion of our district, and I felt as if I had never stirred from home because I had not seen Lake Omio.

Just at this time a friend and neighbour, who was on the eve of setting out on one of his periodical visits to his out-stations which lay in that direction, invited me to join him. The road, he gave me to understand, was bad, but it was the end of summer, the least busy season of the year, the weather was fine, and our horses had grown fat and lazy. I should not only obtain sight of a place which seemed to please everybody, but I should pass over a great variety of country, and, above all, should learn by experience what a bad road, in the colonial acceptation of the term, actually was.

Besides I liked my companion: E was the son of an officer, who had left the army and settled in Australia in the earliest days of the colony, and, having married, had brought up a numerous family, to whom he had given the best education that could be procured in the country of his adoption. He was frank and intelligent, and there was not a little originality in his ideas and remarks, or rather conjectures, on the subject of the land of his ancestors, of which he had heard much, and thought more, but which he had never seen. His mind was cultivated, and had not been narrowed by the narrowness of the sphere in which he had lived; our conversation was mutually interesting. He would beguile the way with many an amusing and characteristic anecdote of colonial life, and in turn was never weary of listening to descriptions of the high civilization of merry England,

her shady lanes, her sloping lawns and rich green meadows, and, above all, the wonders of her vast metropolis. I must own, too, that in a country where, as a new comer, I had to receive information from everybody, there might be some little charm in finding one to whom I had information to give. I therefore gladly availed myself of this opportunity, and on the appointed day I joined my companion, bringing with me, according to his pithy advice, a stout heart, a horse of similar "figure,” and as little luggage as possible. E- who was going to "muster at his out-station, also took with him his stockkeeper, and a black from one of the "naturalized " tribes, who was very useful "after cattle."

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For the first twelve or fifteen miles after we had left the open country, and plunged into the vast mass of forest through which our route lay, all went on smoothly enough; the hills were short and by no means precipitous, the woods occasionally opened, and a grassy flat or green creek would appear to relieve the eye. As we approached the end of our journey we came to one or two "pinches," which is the colonial term for steep hills: but as yet there was no indication of a very bad road, and I congratulated myself as I thought, "If we meet with no more broken country or thicker scrub' than we have passed in our first day's journey, our toils will be amply repaid by a sight of the fair lake Omio."

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The first night we "made an out-station, situated in a small open flat, in the midst of deep forest and thickly-wooded ranges. No sooner had we appeared in sight, than a crowd of dogs, starting up from all quarters, ran barking towards us, awakening the echoes far and wide. This disturbance brought out the proprietor, a small settler of the lower grade, who, by a dexterous use of such missiles as were supplied by sundry bullocks' horns and feet which were lying about the place, speedily constrained the noisy crew to draw off their forces and return towards "the hut," all but one luckless cur, who, having thereby drawn upon himself the indignation of his master, was summarily punished by having all the other dogs set upon him, and being hunted "down the creek." The mixed discourse of our host, as he alternately welcomed his guests, and urged his dogs upon the offender, had a very whimsical effect.

"Hie after him! hold him! hold him!-good evening to you; let me take off your saddles: I'm sure you must be tired. The best thing you can do with your horse is to-Hold him! hold him! hold him!—I'm afraid I've but rough fare to offer you, nothing but beef and damper; but in a new country like this we must all learn to-Hold him there! hold him! ho-old him! &c.

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Perhaps I should have mentioned before that a creek, which in most other parts of the world signifies a small inlet or arm of the sea, is very differently understood in Australia, where it generally means a valley, or any open space in the forest, with or without water. The use of the word in the colony is in fact very vague, and might well mislead a stranger. "Which is the way?" '-"Down the creek." "Is Mr. so and so at home?"-" No; he's just gone up the creek. "How shall I find the station?". "Oh, you can't miss it, it's in the creek." On the second day we had not left the station of our entertainer more than a mile when the road divided into two branches, both leading to the point of our destination. Here my companion stopped to give some information to a stranger who was inquiring their comparative merits. I was all attention, and was not a little alarmed to hear of "Jacob's Point," "The Gulf,” the " Snowy River," and, worst of all, the "Nine-mile Pinch." But perhaps, thought I, they were talking of some other road, or perhaps they think to scare me; or, probably, knowing that it is my first trip in this direction, they wish to give me a little "colonial experience;" besides, the badness of a bad road is always exaggerated.

Thus reassured, I resumed my journey, and we had travelled on some six miles through the eternal forest, when my companion, who was then slightly in advance, stopped, and, on riding up to him, I found that the scene had suddenly shifted; the forest had opened, and for the first time there burst on me the full perception of what is called, in Australia, a bad road.

Immediately before us lay-nothing: beneath us, as far as the eye could stretch, appeared a dark mass of ranges, most of them covered with timber of great height, others showing here and there an open glade. These were intersected in all directions by narrow gullies and innumerable dry sandy creeks, forming

nature.

a landscape which seemed dislocated and disjointed, as if it once had been, or was intended to be, different from what it then was. Before us was the semblance of a vast chasm, as if the earth had formerly been rent by some frightful convulsion of The position of many of the hills was very remarkable. Perhaps the best idea of the scene would be gathered from my friend E--'s descriptive remark, that "it looked as if it had been taken up in a table-cloth and shot out, hills, gullies, and all together, to find their own position, and to sink into shape by the mere force of gravity." In the lowest depths of the ravine all appeared a winding river, which, from the height on which we were then standing, seemed a narrow brook, though we subsequently found it was broad, deep, and rapid. There was something very striking in the landscape before us; it was grand in the extreme, but it was a wild and melancholy grandeur, such as perhaps few countries but Australia can show, bringing weariness to the soul and oppression to the eye, with a sense of infinite desolation.

"This," said my companion, "is the Gulf." "A rough place for a stranger," I replied. have done better if we had taken the other road?"

"Should not we

"Then our journey would have been much longer, and, besides, we must have gone down Jacob's Point.'"

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Well, even that, bad as it sounds, must surely have been better than this."

"Jacob's Point better than this? why, it's half as steep again, with no foothold for man or beast. It's quite a matter of taste, but, in my opinion, nobody that knows the road would go by Jacob's Point as long as there's such a place as 'the Gulf.'

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"Well, but I don't see any track on this side of the river; I suppose we shall have to cross it?"

"Twice," said my companion.

"And the bridge, I imagine, is like the rest of the bridges in the bush, such as the newspapers describe as 'temporary,' or, in plain truth, full of holes."

"Bridge!" said E

with a look of unmixed astonishment; "I hope you did not expect a bridge; we shall be lucky if we can find a ford, for, now that I take a second glance at the river,

its waters look very muddy, which is a sure sign of its being high, not to say a 'banker.'

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I found my prospects did not improve by inquiry, but I was not yet quite dashed, and determined to find comfort at last.

"Well," said I, "I suppose, when we do get to the bottom of 'this Gulf,' and across the river, our troubles, for this day at least, will be at an end?”

"Not quite," said my companion, drily, though with something like a smile lurking about the corners of his mouth.

"Why, what more can we have to do? is there a second 'Gulf' to go down?"

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No, there's nothing more to go down; but do you see yonder range on our right?"

"Perfectly; it's the highest for miles round."

"Well, we must get up that by sundown. I told you it was a rough road, and so, to be sure, it is; but, come what may, tonight we must encamp at the top of the Nine-Mile Pinch."

I was by this time quite satisfied, and resolved to ask no more questions about the road to Omio.

It is not only horsemen that travel these distant roads: we noticed the tracks of drays, some of them quite fresh, leading down the mountain-path which lay before, or rather beneath us. It might well puzzle a stranger to understand how they got down, for the road, which, in addition to its great declivity, was filled with stumps of trees and fragments of loose granite rock, shelved off very rapidly towards the precipice, so as to afford little foot-hold for the cattle, and formed, what, in colonial phrase, is called a “side-line."

Occasionally, in the most critical parts of the road, the drays are assisted in their descent by ropes, which are fastened to the trees on the upper side; sometimes a smaller wheel is carried on the dray, which is substituted for the upper one in places of danger, thus bringing the vehicle more upon a level. But in spite of every precaution, and the wonderful skill and energy of the colonial drivers, one dray in three would upset in this almost impenetrable country. Great is the confusion on such occasions: the driver, who is on the lower side of his team, when he sees, after exhausting all his resources, and making such exertions as few besides a British colonist could make, that an upset is un

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