DIFFICULT COUNTRY. 209 



hesitated about crossing as it was late and the mules were tired, 

 so we camped on the near side. During the night a storm 

 came up and the heavy rain lasted till morning, by which time 

 the stream was impassable, keeping us there for three days, and 

 giving us a good lesson always to cross a stream and camp on 

 the further side when arriving on the banks of one at night, as 

 the storms are so violent and sudden in the south, which 

 cause the streams to swell very rapidly. From this point we 

 had a very unpleasant time of it, there seeming to be no end to 

 the streams, almost all having muddy bottoms and requiring 

 bridges to be made over them; and in a distance of forty 

 miles we must have made quite seventy of these, sometimes 

 not advancing a mile in twenty-four hours, and in one case 

 being four days in crossing one stream. This one had banks 

 about thirty feet high and a very bad crossing, and we had to 

 cut down about sixty trees to make the bridge with. When 

 this was ready, and a road, though a very steep one, cut down to 

 it, we unloaded the waggon, took off the leading mules and 

 led them across so as to have them ready to pull it up the 

 opposite side ; then we tied ropes to the back of the waggon 

 and passed them round trees, two men holding on to each, 

 chained both hind wheels, and then the driver went forward 

 riding the near mule. For some yards all went well, when 

 suddenly both ropes broke at the same moment, and away went 

 the whole thing. We were afraid to look over and see what 

 had happened, till a shout came from below, when we found 

 that the driver, hearing the ropes snap, had at once put in the 

 spurs, and had landed his mules on the bridge in two desperate 

 leaps, both of them coming down, but luckily there was no 

 damage done to either mules or waggon. 



