THE DESIRE FOR ADVENTURE 17 



known as " humping bluey," and seeing that it was 

 in the middle of my first Australian summer, in the 

 hottest part of the Continent, I think that my love 

 of the wild life must have been very strong to enable 

 me to put up with the hardships which I encountered. 

 I was not skilled in the ways of the country, or I 

 should never have attempted to " hump bluey " 

 walking. Since horses were so cheap I might easily 

 have bought one, and travelled about in search of 

 work much more comfortably. Ignorance, however, 

 sent me on my travels on foot. Now of course, with 

 my knowledge of Australian life, I would never 

 dream of tramping the " back country " on foot if 

 I had any possible means of getting a horse. Among 

 the seekers for work in the " back country " the 

 aristocrats are the horsemen, and to go in search of 

 work afoot shows usually that you have come down 

 very much in the world. Well, I " humped bluey " 

 for some six weeks, walking in all quite three hundred 

 miles of the plain country in the interior of Queens- 

 land. During the whole of the time I never thought 

 once of going back to London or of seeking work in a 

 city. One day, about Christmas-time, with the 

 thermometer, I am sure, registering at least 100 in 

 the shade, I walked quite thirty-five miles with my 

 swag. I added to my knowledge of life on this tramp 

 by learning to swim. The wet season had come 

 and the rivers were all up. For three days I was 

 kept waiting once for a river to go down, and I took 



