Ill THE LAKE DISTRICT 93 



that we were only at the beginning of our diffi- 

 culties, since this track had been allowed to go 

 to ruin for six years ; the culverts were frequently 

 broken in, the ' corderoy ' logs were mostly rotten 

 and full of holes, and in more than a dozen places 

 huge Gum-trees had fallen across the track, so 

 that we either had to cut them out of the way 

 with axes or else make wide deviations into the 

 scrub to circumvent them. But these were 

 merely enlivening incidents varying the ceaseless 

 jolting and jarring over the greenstone boulders, 

 of which this wonderful track is chiefly composed. 

 But the interest of the country through which 

 we passed certainly repaid any discomfort we 

 suffered. Every mile we made westward the 

 further we went from civilization, and the further 

 into the heart of the virgin country. At long 

 intervals we passed a shepherd's cottage, perhaps 

 with a little bit of cultivation round it, but there 

 were only three or four such ' settlements ' in 

 the whole fifty miles, and they were marked on 

 the map in large and imposing capitals as ' town- 

 ships already settled or partially so '. And here 

 it may be remarked that the traveller in Tas- 

 mania should not trust implicitly to the Govern- 

 ment maps without further inquiries, since in the 

 greater number of the places marked as ' town- 

 ship reserves ' nobody has ever started to build 

 even a hut, and very likely never will. 



Starting from the Great Lake westward we are on 

 the topmost ridges of the plateau,where vast plains 



