158 AUSTRALIA AND THE AUSTRALIANS. 



clothing except a Crimean shirt, and seizing the rein 

 of a bridle, we clung to the weak bough of an oak 

 tree which was unsteadily swaying in the current. 

 This refuge was very unsafe, and a better tree was 

 descried some six or seven yards away. To reach this 

 1 swam, bearing up my wife, having her neckerchief 

 in my teeth. My wife got under water several times, 

 but the tree was reached, which, however, was found 

 to be but little better than the first, and another tree 

 was chosen as a safer refuge still further on. This 

 swim was accomplished by the bridle rein being fas- 

 tened one end around my wife's waist, and the other 

 end round over my shoulder, my " better half " float- 

 ing behind. This was much more successful, and a 

 strong oak was reached with a stout bough a little 

 above water level. It was now six o'clock in the 

 evening, and the prospect was not cheering, there 

 being only room for one on this bough. I climbed 

 some twelve feet higher, and on another bough I spent 

 the night. 



It might be thought that, in such a sorry plight, our 

 feelings would be gloomy, but our youthful spirits 

 and British pluck were equal to the occasion, and 

 although hungry and weary, with our lives in immi- 

 nent peril, myself with only a shirt on, and wife with 

 hat lost and clothes bedraggled, we passed the night 



