306 WANDERING THOUGHTS. 



destitute of timber. On those slopes, devoted to 

 grass and bush- wood, the sun has shone so brightly 

 that I cannot resist the attraction, so determine to 

 pay it a visit, for the canoe can be caulked without 

 my aid, and the old man does not object to my 

 shirking my part of the work. 



The day was wonderfully warm and oppressive, 

 the flies were more than usually troublesome, and I 

 felt such fatigue as made exertion almost painful ; 

 thus I was far from being on the qui vive, as I 

 traversed the intermediate ground, so doubtless 

 would have walked by a deer, or possibly a buffalo, 

 if they had been distant fifty yards from my course, 

 without being cognisant of their presence. A dip 

 occurred in the landscape ; it was not sufficiently 

 steep to be designated a ravine, yet the shelter it 

 afforded caused the wild raspberry-bushes to grow in 

 unusual abundance. As there were several tracks 

 made by deer which exactly led in the route I was 

 going this brush did not inconvenience my course. 



The load which I carried. only my double-gun 

 and side-arms, viz., revolver and bowie-knife made 

 the distance traversed appear longer, for already I be- 

 gan to look forward to the time for a retrograde move- 

 ment, the loll about camp, the hour or two's rest be- 

 fore sleeping-time. Moreover, possibly, my thoughts 

 wandered across the Atlantic to an old-fashioned 

 house covered with ivy and monthly roses ; to a 

 wide extent of grazing country spread out before it, 

 or in imagination I heard the bells of the village 



