BUSH LIFE. 213 



tent, and, after ten hours' fasting, had to light my firo 

 and cook my solitary supper ; and often have I turned 

 in fairly " baked," and put my supper off till morning. 

 But with a good mate, the case is different. It is true I 

 have spent many a rough day in the forest ; and many a 

 night, when lost, I have lit my pipe, and thrown myself 

 down to sleep before a log fire : no companions but my 

 dogs, no covering but the sky, and no supper but ant 

 opossum or bandicote thrown upon the ashes. And the 

 shooter should never leave his tent without a few matches 

 and a little salt, for he never knows where he may sleep 

 at night, or of what his supper may consist. But I can 

 also truly say that some of the happiest hours in a life 

 which certainly has had its bright as well as gloomy pas- 

 sages, have been passed in my bush-tent, when, after a 

 good day's sport, supper finished, and pipe lit, I have 

 thrown myself on my opossum rug, and the toils of the 

 day fairly over, have spent the hour before turning in 

 yarning with my mate over " the days past, the present, 

 and the future." At such a moment I would not ex- 

 change the rough freedom of the shooter's life for the 

 best situation in the colony. 



The only thing he has really to fear is illness ; but, 

 happily, few disorders prevail in this favoured land, and 

 these are chiefly confined to the towns and diggings, and 

 two-thirds of them the result of intemperance and a 

 reckless habit of life. Except in cases of accident, we 

 rarely hear of a bushman being laid up. Sickness will, 

 however, at times, enter the bush-tent, and on such occa- 



