108 A SPRING AND SUMMER IN T LAPLAND. 



snow storm sets in. On the road up I was amused 

 at the eagerness with which my two mates pur- 

 chased pocket compasses, as if they were of the 

 most vital importance, although neither of them 

 had the slightest idea how to steer by them. And 

 this reminds me of a circumstance which happened 

 to me in Australia. I was coming home to my 

 tent one evening from kangarooing, when I en- 

 countered a stranger who had lost his way. He 

 was evidently a " new chum," and looked about as 

 much like a tailor as anything else. I wondered 

 what could have taken him so far from the 

 town, but it seemed that he had a friend down 

 somewhere near "Western Port, and he had been 

 out to see him. He got down very well, for he 

 stuck to the coast and the main road; but on 

 coming back he tried a short cut through the 

 forest. As Mr. Richard Bragg would say, " this 

 was another pair of shoes altogether," and the 

 consequence was he soon got " bushed/' The sun 

 was fast sinking, and he had nothing to eat, and 

 no matches. I took him home to the tent, and 

 on the road he expressed his surprise to me that 

 he should have lost himself, as he had a pocket 

 compass with him; upon which he pulled out a 

 complicated sort of machine, which united a com- 

 pass and sundial on one face — a most useful bush 

 companion to any one knowing how to use it. 



