salt-bush, and goes away at a great pace, with
zig-zag bounds: his little fore-paws crossed
demurely over his breast.  The bundleman's dog
pursues him, but is rated by his master, and
comes back to heel; he will have far enough to
go to-day, without hunting wallabys.

It is already, though only an hour after sunrise,
very hot; there is the coppery glare about
the north-west portion of the sky which always
accompanies a hot wind; there is a dull smoky
look about the horizon that portends a  "regular
scorcher;" and though he is as yet only about
four miles from the fringe of tall trees that
skirts the river, they already begin to look
cloudy and indistinct.  The dray track is almost
obliterated, and the walking among the low
salt-bushes and cotton-bushes is very bad.  The
bundleman begins to think he would have been
wiser to have followed round the rivers, where
he would have had a beaten track, shade and
water, than to face the plain, for the sake of a
short cut.  However, he is a good walker, and
does not care for the heat; he marches on, with
his bundle on his back, and his "billy" in his
hand.  He has done some twelve or thirteen
miles, the sun is almost perpendicularly over
his head, and he is out of sight of the river
timber —fairly out to sea, as it were.  He
throws down the roll of blankets, sits on them,
opens the "billy," and finds that a good deal
of the precious water has leaked; he drinks
a little; it is very precious, but he pours a
few drops into the lid of the pot for his dog,
who, poor fellow, is suffering already, and looks
strangely dusty, anxious, and dispirited.  That
dog's ancestors came from breezy Scotch mountains,
and he would be far more at home seeking
sheep buried in a snowdrift, than plodding
across the scorching plain.  The traveller stops
the leak with a bit of clay, shoulders his bundle,
and trudges on.  The plain seems endless; no
sound of living thing breaks the deadly stillness;
the very flies that so tormented him near the
river, have disappeared; there is nothing moving
save unearthly-looking columns of red dust,
towering high in the hot air, raised from some
distant sand-hill by the whirlwinds.  On he
plods, hour after hour, looking anxiously for
the faint wheel marks that guide him.  The
hot wind burns his eyes and dries his lips, and
he moistens his parched mouth now and then
with a few drops of the precious water.  He is
unselfish enough, too, to spare his dog a little.
The water does not refresh him much, for it is
very warm and mawkish, and the rim of the tin
pot almost scorches his lips.  At last he sees a
dark grey cloud suspended over the horizon,
quivering in the glare of reflected heat.  He
knows that cloud to be the low timber that
skirts the dry bed of the twenty-mile lake; he
expects to find water in a pit dug on its edge.
Drinking the last of his store, he walks on
more quickly; knowing that on such a day the
trees would not be visible more than a couple
of miles, he begins to have pleasant thoughts of
a "pot of tea," a pipe, and a sleep in the shade
of a pine.  He hurries on, the afternoon sun is
shining in his face, he crosses a beaten track
almost without seeing it.  Perhaps a thought
may arise within him as to the possibility of
the hole being dry, and perhaps his heart may
stand still a moment, but he will not think it.
Everything seems strangely still; why are there
no birds about the water?  Not the twittering
of a wren, not the croak of a crow, to break
the silence.  He notices, with a qualm of fear,
that there is no footmark of living thing in the
dust of the cattle-paths that lead to the water-
hole.

Who can tell what passes through the mind
of the lost sailor, as he goes overboard, in a
gale off the Horn?  Who can realise what that
seaman feels, as the great ship leaves him, far
behind, upon the pitiless waves, among which,
he knows too well, no boat can live to save him?
And this shepherd, as he looks into the pit,
and sees grim death staring him in the face,
from the dry mud at the bottom of the hole?
He has heard his mates talk of dead men's
bones found on that plain, and he knows what
his end is to be.  Poor fellow!  He is very
thirsty now, his tongue is swelling in his
mouth, he feels giddy and sick, and throws
away his pack.  He will stagger on a few miles
more, hardly knowing whither he is going, lured
on perhaps by the treacherous mirage, which
will mock his eyes with phantom sheets of clear
water, reflecting the trees around them, and
rippling in the wind, only a few hundred yards
ahead.  He will wander on at random, throwing
off his clothes; as he becomes weaker, perhaps
he will feel his knife, and think of his
dog; but the dog has lain down to die under
a bush, and that last horrible resource is gone.
Then, a gleam of hope!  Two dark forms looming
large against the red smoky mist in which
the sun is setting, come up rapidly until within
half a mile of him.  Are they horsemen?  They
stop.  Do they see him?  Yes, they have seen
him, and they fly before the hot wind; he
knows they are emu going to water, and that
their long legs will carry them to the cool
river in two hours or so.  Many months after,
some wandering stockman may see some bones
lying on the plain, and may curse the wild
dogs for killing calves; he will never notice
the round white skull under a salt-bush a few
yards off.

Remains of lost travellers are often found on
these plains.  During a residence of twelve years
on them, the writer has had personal experience
of seven instances, but the relics can
seldom be identified.  Clothes and blankets are
soon torn to shreds by wild dogs, and bones
are picked clean by them, aided by the crows
and ants.  Sometimes, however, remains are
recognised.  A friend, in the year 1853, riding
through a strip of " mallee" scrub, not far from
the Edward River, picked up a skull, bleached
by the sun and rain of many seasons.  There
were no other bones near it, and he carried the
skull home, where, for years, with "memento
mori" inscribed upon it, it decorated the
mantelpiece of a bachelor's hall.  Many were the