275 

 DOWN THE EIVER. 



BY J. S. WALKER, ESQ. 



I LIVED on the east coast of Australia, in the district of Twofold Bay, a 

 few miles from the sea. This part of the country may be described as a 

 succession of gently undulating well-grassed hills, thinly timbered by dwarf 

 Eucalyptus and Biinniiiin, trees ; the Moneroo mountains, so steep as to be /5<?t>*^ 

 quite impassable, except at two or three places, hemmed it in, their sides 

 and summits covered with huge forest trees, whose stems were charred and 

 blackened by successive bush fires. Several streams wound their way 

 between groves of camarinse, and uniting at Bega, emptied themselves into 

 the sea, about two hundred miles to the south of Sydney. I say emptied, 

 but percolated would be a better term ; for these rivers, which were the 

 drainage of sixty or seventy miles of country, and which for several miles 

 from its mouth formed a noble stream, when it reached the ocean was 

 . separated from it, during at least nine months in the year, by a narrow bar 

 of sand; the south-eastern gales, which occasionally during the winter 

 months lashed these shores with the fury of a hurricane, would sweep away 

 the bar, and allow the pent up stream to disgorge itself into the Pacific ; but 

 a few weeks of calm weather again replaced the sand. 



About eight or ten miles up the river we had a cattle station ; and here on 

 the banks, at the veiy water's edge, we built a Uttle cottage, where, during 

 the heats of summer, we spent a few weeks with our wives and families. 

 Having at last procured a boat from Sydney, we determined to take a trip 

 " down the river," and explore its beauties ; for it was situated in so lonely a 

 part of the countrj^ that only one or two white men had ever followed its 

 course to the sea. 



Behold us, then, one calm summer's moi'ning, prepared for a start ; two 

 days' provision, blankets, fowling pieces and ammunition, fishing lines and 

 hooks, &c., having been safely stowed away, and having secured the services 

 of a couple of black fellows to row the boat, we gently glide down the 

 stream. It soon begins to widen to 150 yards, and the water gets brackish; 

 a few miles further, it is quite salt ; the hills are steep, and in some places 

 may almost be called mountains. Now we pass some sheltered corner, 

 where the vegetation is quite tropical ; the hugest trees are covered with 

 climbing plants, and lovely broad-leaved ferns; flocks of Paroquets, with 

 loud screams, flit by, — their scarlet and golden plumage flashes for a moment 

 in the sun, and they are gone. Shoals of Mullet spring from the water, and 

 iall back with a loud flop ; then the black fellows start up, seize their spears, 

 and immediately a splash in the water proclaims a prize, and we haul into 

 the boat a fine Sand Mullet, of three or four pounds weight. Now a flock of 

 Wild Ducks, with their necks stretched out, as if wondering at our unusual 

 appearance, with loud fluf-fluf; bang go both baji-rels, and my friends the 



