persons secretly the satisfactory results of a
few days' efficient labour.

Plodding along a few yards in the rear of
our cart, while the boy drove, Browden and
I conversed cheerfully on various topics, but
chiefly of course on the (to us) engrossing one
of all—the newly discovered gold field, and
our prospects in connection with it. I found
that, in intelligence and practical experience,
I had not overrated my companion's power;
but in the course of our talk I was surprised,
and even fidgetted to hear only then for the
first time that he had been in California. I
forget exactly how the fact came out; but I
remember asking him point blank if it were
not so, and being struck with the odd way in
which he replied to so natural a question.
His eyes wandered restlessly from me to the
ground, and his words sounded more like the
confession of a crime than the acknowledgment
of a plain fact. He was not long
embarrassed, and soon told me with his usual
carelessness that he had been unfortunate in
California, had lost in the gambling saloons
of San Francisco all that he earned at the
mines; therefore he hated the place, and
abhorred its very name. In short, he never
wished to have it again mentioned. He then
abruptly changed the subject; but, after a
few minutes, fell silent and seemed to retire
within a cloud.

Towards afternoon we passed through
Paramatta, where we only stopped to buy
some mutton. Four or five miles onward
beyond the Paramatta toll-bar we encamped
in the bush, as became us vagrants after gold.
We made a bedstead of the cart, and as
Browden was not talkative over the mutton,
tea and damper, I very soon turned in and
left him brooding in the moonlight over the
great fire. I awoke once in the night and found
my partner sleeping by my side, but scarcely
seeming to enjoy his rest. He tossed his
arms and murmured incoherently, while I lay
somewhat oppressed with the general dreariness
of my bush bedroom. A sound of horses' hoofs
coming along the road at a short trot attracted
my attention. A patrol of mounted police
rode briskly past with their long dark cloaks
waving behind them, and their steel sabre
scabbards rattling loudly as they went.
They had a right, I suppose, to create a
disturbance in our bedroom, but they broke
the slumbers of my partner, who woke with a
scream. I spoke to him, and reassured by my
voice he muttered something about nightmare,
and turning on his side was soon asleep
again. I lay for some time wondering
uncomfortably. The wild wood perhaps helped
to put into my head that my companion's scream
was an uncanny sound, not to be accounted
for by any common nightmare theory.
Well, never mind, I went to sleep, and the
next morning we had breakfast and went on
again towards the gold. We rested at noon
under a gum tree. Towards evening we
passed tlirough Penrith, and crossed soon
afterwards a ferry on the river Nepean,
which accommodated five or six loaded teams
with any number of foot-passengers. This
ferry—since the gold-digging fever set in—
had turned out to its owner, as he told me
himself on my way across, "better than
digging by long chalks." Having crossed the
river we were at the edge of the large tract
of open country lying at the base of the Blue
Mountains, called Emu Plains, an extensive
and cultivated flat, stretching away as far as
the eye could reach, dotted with cottages and
farm-houses. The lofty and rugged
mountains rising abruptly out of such a plain,
formed the best bit of scenery we had yet
met with. We were anxious to camp before
it became quite dark. There were unpleasant
symptoms too of an inclination to a change in
the weather, which had so far favoured us.
A dense mass of lurid-looking clouds hung
threateningly over the crests of the
mountains and obscured the last beams of the sun.
The air, which had been during the day
almost unnaturally oppressive for the season,
had now become disagreeably cold; and the
bleak wind swept with momentarily increasing
violence over the wide and unsheltered
plain. On arrival at our camping-place
(almost at the foot of the mountains) we
found a complete little settlement of a dozen
teams or more, with at least thirty or forty
persons belonging to them, bivouacking on
the ground. Some had already pitched their
tents, lighted their fires, hobbled their horses,
and were in the full enjoyment of their
suppers. Others, more recently arrived,
were hurrying their own day's labours to a
close. We lost no time in imitating their
example. It was dark by the time we had
made ourselves snug for the night, and were
boiling our pots and cooking our suppers on
the huge fire which burnt in the centre of the
encampment;—a joint-stock fire established
on the equitable principle that each party
using it should fetch his share of fuel. It was
a very dark and wild and winterly night.
To windward of the immense fire—which
now rose blazing high into the air, and now
sent roaring and spitting myriads of sparks
before the fury of the blast—were sitting or
reclining the assembled party, almost every
man glowing in the red firelight, and the
whole forming a group which with its strong
lights and deep shadows, the surrounding
accompaniments of tents and horses, and with
the dark mountains rising like ghosts in the
background, would have been extremely
welcome to Salvator Rosa. We were very
merry, and after suppers had been all
discussed, pannikins of spirits were produced
and handed round, stories were told, jests
were attempted, and songs sung, perhaps a
little coarser than such things even in such
assemblies generally are.

Browden and I of course fell in with the
humour of the party. Extended, at his
length on the grass, in the full blaze of the