THE VICTORIAN NATUKAHST. 37 



the novelty of the situation ; and, after all, things might have been 

 worse. It had stopped raining, and we were too tired to rig up 

 the tents, so we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and water- 

 proof, after drying our clothes at the fire, and were prepared to 

 spend the night thus. About midnight, however, the thunder- 

 storm returned, with much rain, and we got up in a hurry and 

 hastily rigged one of the tents, into which we all squeezed, and 

 lay in a row, more or less unconsciously waiting for daylight. 



29TH December. — When daylight came it was still raining 

 hard. We turned out at 3 o'clock, stiff and more or less miser- 

 able, and packed up as quick as we could. We did not stop 

 for breakfast — indeed, there was none to stop for — but contented 

 ourselves with a pannikin of water-cocoa apiece, and set ourselves 

 in marching order. The lame horse was now stiffer than ever, 

 with his leg fearfully swollen ; but we found he could go along 

 fairly but very slowly when his leg warmed up, though at first he 

 seemed to progress only on " three legs and a swinger." We 

 made our way up the hill through the wet bushes, hoping to 

 strike our old track, but were too far to the east. Our leader, 

 however, knew the lie of the country, and we made a new track, 

 striking the Barrier Creek two or three miles above our camp^ 

 and reached the latter at 8.30, uncommonly glad to get there. 

 The rain had soaked everything, and we had the greatest diffi- 

 culty in lighting a fire. There was no stringybark near, and we 

 spent a good hour or more before we succeeded in establishing a fire. 

 We made a good breakfast off rashers of bacon, toasted on forked 

 wattle sticks, had a swim, and felt all right again. We were now 

 bush seasoned, and nothing came amiss or seemed to seriously 

 inconvenience us. Before we could leave Mr. Howitt had ta 

 shoe Alfred's horse, and it was 2 o'clock before we were once 

 more on our way, Dr. Dendy leading the lame horse. Our pro- 

 gress was necessarily slow, but we had all the better opportunity 

 for looking around us. There was always a fresh excitement 

 when we had to get the lame horse and the pedestrian over 

 a ford. At first we rode him, which was rather a risky pro- 

 ceeding, and nearly resulted several times in the ducking of the 

 rider. Then we gave that up, and led him over, the Doctor 

 staying behind till another horse was led back for him. This 

 caused much delay in mounting and remounting. The fordo were 

 so numerous that on our way up we had altogether lost count of 

 them, so we cut a long wattle stick and made a notch in it for 

 every ford we crossed. We thus found that in going down we 

 crossed the Wellington River 35 times (in about 20 miles) and 

 the Macallister five times. The fordings were much alike. 

 One had to first brace up the mind of one's horse to go down a 

 rather steep bank into the water, pulling down a packer after us i 

 then the horses felt their way among the boulders, some of 



