534 Terra Incognita. [JUNE, 



by a troop of yelping curs, of European breed, do not appear to havo ever 

 sought the companionship of the wolfish beasts that infest their forests ; 

 and attempts that have been made at taming, by rearing them from pup- 

 pies, have only proved, that they want all the noble qualities of the dog, 

 and possess not the daring prowess of the wojf. 



Our men regularly relieved each other through the night (than which 

 1 do not remember a longer), and if I happened to doze from excessive 

 fatigue, the words they would exchange, whilst rousing each other, would 

 startle me to inquire how time went. At length the morning dawned, and 

 the wild beasts (not lions, tigers, and the like, for there are none; arid 

 birds of night skulked in silence, and I feel asleep. They did not arouse 

 me till the camp kettle was singing to breakfast, and a more beautiful 

 morning never shone from the heavens than that on which I awoke, with 

 air as pure as ever man breathed, on my lungs, to see the sun rising from 

 behind a long range of hills in the distance, and lighting a primeval scene 

 of such chaste and natural beauty, as can never be met with in the old 

 world. The Alps and Appenines I have traversed have seen the vine- 

 clad hills of France the chestnut forests, the trelised plains, and the irised 

 cascades of Italy the volcanic majesty, and the teeming vallies of Sicily 

 and the park scenes of my beautiful native land ; but have never seen any- 

 thing that supasses in beauty the scene that met my eyes, when I awoke, 

 in a glen of the forest, on the cow-pastures of New South Wales. 



According to custom, in such cases, our horse had been hobbled and 

 turned loose to feed ; he had not wandered so far during the night, but 

 that one of the men found and brought him back in the course of half-an- 

 hour. Our baggage was soon mounted, and we started to complete our 

 survey of the country on the other side of the river. As we ascended the 

 hill that bounded the valley in which we had slept, we saw a small lot of 

 the wild cattle coming at a brisk trot along its summit, to descend, by the 

 track we were on, to the pond to drink. They were in a line, and ran so 

 blindly, that they had approached to within a few yards of us before they 

 saw us in a few seconds they were out of sight ! the second in the file 

 noticed us before the leader, arid pointed his attention to the stranger 

 group, by a tremendous butt on the haunch instantaneously they turned 

 and went off at full gallop, in the same order in which they had advanced ; 

 they were seven fine young bulls. 



The next thing that attracted our attention was a family of kangaroos, 

 grazing on a plain before us ; one of them was the largest animal of the 

 kind 1 ever saw. Unfortunately there was a brush close behind them, 

 into which they made good their retreat, before the dogs could come up, 

 and they, too, lay wide when we discovered them. 



The kangaroo dog is a fine, strong, and swift animal across, I should 

 think, between the stag-hound and greyhound. It is not so large as the 

 former, nor so small as the latter, and seems to partake of both, in shape 

 and qualities. At fair running it is too fleet for the game to give much 

 sport ; but in a country so much wooded, the latter has too many chances 

 of finding covert for a slower dog to be preferred. When the kangaroo is 

 bard pressed, it will take to the water if a pond bo in its course, and the 

 dogs never dare follow without a fair chance of being drowned, as it then 

 stands at bay, and striking up with its hind legs at the throat of the dog, 

 hooks the sharp and strong mioMle toe into the skin on the chest, and rips 

 it off, or pulls him under water. If overtaken on land, the kangaroo will 

 fight desperately in the same way ; indeed, I do not remember ever to 



