32 
SMOKING AN OPOSSUM. 
seemed as incapable of enduring it as if they had expe- 
rienced the rigour of a northern snow storm. 
The morning of the 2nd December was cloudy and 
lowering, and the wind still hung in the N. W. There was 
truly every appearance of bad weather, but our anxiety 
to proceed on our journey overcame our apprehensions, 
and the animals were loaded and moved off at 7 a. m. 
The rain which had fallen the evening previous, rendered 
travelling heavy ; so that we got on but slowly. At 1 1 , 
the clouds burst, and continued to pour down for the rest 
of the day. On leaving the creek we crossed the spine of 
the range, and descending from it into a valley, that con- 
tinued to the river on the one hand, and stretched away to 
the N. W. on the other, we ascended some hills opposite 
to us, and moved generally through open, undulating forest 
ground, affording good pasturage. 
One of the blacks being anxious to get an opossum 
out of a dead tree, every branch of which was hollow, 
asked for a tomahawk, with which he cut a hole in the 
trunk above where he thought the animal lay concealed. 
He found however, that he had cut too low, and that it 
had run higher up. This made it necessary to smoke it 
out ; he accordingly got some dry grass, and having 
kindled a fire, stuffed it into the hole he had cut. A raging 
fire soon kindled in the tree, where the draft was great, 
and dense columns of smoke issued from the end of each 
branch as thick as that from the chimney of a steam 
engine. The shell of the tree was so thin that I thought 
