CHAPTER XVII 

 LOST 



ONE of the greatest disasters which can happen to the 

 traveller in a strange land is to lose his way. While 

 it is almost impossible without actual experience to 

 realize what it means, Mrs. Campbell Praed's vivid 

 description of a tragedy in the Australian bush will 

 give some idea of the terrible sufferings sometimes 

 endured l : "A woman, her husband, a mate, .and a 

 child started from a tiny bush township, to which 

 they had come in coaster and bullock-dray to look 

 for work. They had ' humped bluey ' and were ' on 

 the wallabi track/ in Australian vernacular, which means 

 that they walked and carried with them their earthly 

 goods on the men's backs, rolled up in a blue blanket. 

 Of course they were ' new chums ' and very new ones 

 or they would have taken water-bags. But they did 

 not, and very soon they got thirsty ; and they were 

 in sandy gum-bush nothing round them but stringy- 

 bark and grass-trees, which is a sign of bad country, 

 and no water anywhere. The child cried and became 

 heavy in the woman's arms ; it was a toddling thing 

 of two or three, and had to be carried except for 

 small spells, when it walked, supported by its mother's 

 1 See Bibliography, 51. 



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