AN ATTRACTIVE SIGHT. 



257 



when such services were required, so when I asked 

 where the water was to be found, he stepped to the 

 front and took charge of the leading *' forc-loper," and 

 pointed out to him the course we were to travel to 

 obtain that essential of life. 



The cavalcade really made an uncommonly pretty 

 picture as it wended its way along the edge of 

 the timbered country, and how could it do other- 

 wise, when the reader has learned its component 

 parts ? First there were the waggons, brilliantly 

 painted ; over the body of each was a tilt that 

 nearly approached the whiteness of snow. The 

 leading one was drawn by a span of black and 

 white cattle, as nearly alike in size and markings as 

 it was possible to obtain them, while the rear one 

 had nothing but black bullocks in its yokes. These 

 were followed by spare oxen ; a little behind them 

 the horses ; and all along the line dogs scattered as 

 fancy dictated for them to place themselves. Of the 

 temporary attached natives, little could be said more 

 than that their costume was conspicuous by its 

 absence, but for this want of apparel among their 

 countrymen the drivers made up, for their clothing 

 was of every colour known, while magnificent 

 ostrich plumes — such as would have created a 

 yearning in a duchess's breast to possess their 

 floated far out in the breeze beyond the rims of 

 their soft " wide-awake " hats. How to carry a 

 whip a white man will never know till he has seen 

 it done by a thorough- bred interior driver. He 

 regards it as his badge of office, his treasure, his 

 ornament, and his plaything. With a twist of his 

 wrist, and apparently little exertion, he can make it 

 produce a report as loud as that of a gun, or, by a 

 trifling underhand manipulation, cause the lash to 

 ping over a bullock's flank with a venomous stinging 

 noise, almost like the exaggerated voice of a mosquito. 

 Then to observe how the fellows walk ; the '* Grecian 



