DKIVE TO BATHUKST. 367 



mail-bags, I stood by the wheel till they should be put in, as 

 I could not place niy feet anywhere whilst the boot was 

 open. The coachman, seeing me stand there, called out, 

 " Aint you going with us r " Yes," said I. " Well then, 

 I advise you to get up somewhere, for I shall start the 

 moment the bags are in." This sentence, delivered in a tone 

 and manner that seemed to be studiously made as insolent as 

 possible, was my first specimen of what I soon found was the 

 ordinary mode of proceeding amongst this class of people in 

 this country. The coach was a very good omnibus, with 

 four excellent and well-appointed horses, and I began to 

 think I had been misinformed when warned against the 

 mail. We drove to Paramatta (to which place there is now 

 a fine railroad) in two hours, a distance of fifteen miles. 

 The road was macadamized, and in tolerable order, but the 

 country very ugly and uninteresting. A small portion of 

 it was still covered with forest, but the greater part divided 

 into paddocks, with post and rail fences, with muddy water- 

 holes interspersed amongst them, and now looking very 

 muddy and uninviting to man or beast. There was nothing, 

 however, to distinguish the look of the road very markedly 

 from what one might see in England, except the number of 

 sheep, cattle, and horses which one met, driven by wild- 

 looking stockmen in their shirts, white or blue, with broad- 

 brimmed cabbage- tree hats, long boots, and tremendous 

 stock-whips, and the wool-drays (two-wheeled vehicles, drawn 

 by from four to ten horses or bullocks, generally the latter, 

 and carrying from one to two tons of wool in bales). The 

 public-houses are frightfully numerous ; yet it seems to me 

 as if we stopped at all of them, and wherever we stopped, 

 our driver took a glass of grog, and then had a few minutes' 

 lounge and gossip, so that we had to go at a good pace in 

 order to keep our time. 



Paramatta, as every one knows, is situated at the farthest 



