INTEODUCTION. XUl 



be found in other countries, wliile it renders the chase 

 here less exciting, at least adds a greater security to 

 bush life in Australia ; and as there is now little or 

 nothing to fear from the natives in the settled districts, 

 the sportsman can roam the plains and forests day and 

 night in perfect safety with no other companions but his 

 dogs, and no requirements, in case of being benighted, 

 except a few matches and a little salt. 



There is, perhaps, no other country where a man who 

 depends upon his gun for a living, has to work harder 

 than he does in this. He must of necessity be camped 

 within reach of a market for his game, which, on account 

 of the increase of population, becomes every year more 

 scarce and wild in the settled districts. Moreover, the 

 shooting grounds here lie so wide apart, and so much in 

 patches, that the shooter has to travel miles from one 

 place to another before he reaches a likely spot, and I have 

 many a time had to walk home six or eight miles to my 

 tent, after sunset, with a heavy bag of game, when I was 

 already pretty well tired out with my day's shooting. 

 In the winter all the swamps are full, and many of the 

 plains covered with water, and most of the best ground 

 inaccessible except by wading. In the summer the heat 

 is dreadful, and I can hardly say which is the most 

 laborious, fagging on the dry plains under a burning 

 summer's sun, or plashing through the swamps in winter 

 up to the knees in mud and water for miles. "What 

 with the heat and the blowflies, which infest this country 

 during the summer months, one third at least of the 



