they found it impossible to kindle, or keep
in; everything, like themselves, being soaked
with wet. Occasionally, they could find a
hollow tree into which they could crowd, and
where all day they stood steaming and shivering;
but at night they were compelled to be
on the alert, for troops of wild dogs came
down upon their flock, and at the first
furious bark of their own dogs, giving
the alarm, they must out, though it poured
torrents, and chase away the sneaking, wolfish
beasts, or their flock would speedily be
dispersed through the bush, and scores of them
killed.

In the course of a fortnight, they had made
considerable progress; but they had almost
perished with cold and wet during the rainy
weather; and inured as they had been to
years of forest life and labours in Van
Diemen's Land, they were now attacked with
rheumatic pains, and were hoarse with colds,
from living day and night in their wet clothes.
What flour and tea they had they carried
with them; there were here no shops, or
road-side inns to resort to; and though Tom
Scott had turned his mare into a pack-horse,
and carried along with them their stores in
panniers covered with a bullock's hide, they
were compelled to be extremely sparing of
their resources, for they did not know when
they should get more. Their only chance of
supply was from stations, and stations yet
were few and far between, and only newly
settled. The inhabitants, therefore, were
themselves mostly at their wits' end, and
when they had the necessary commodities
were not willing to part with them. Their
only chance of maintaining subsistence was
to arrive at a suitable location for sheep, that
was still unappropriated, and then to build
their hut, and send down to Melbourne for
fresh stores.

Meantime, they spared their flour as much
as possible, by killing game, but ammunition
too was precious, and they rarely expended it
except on the amply remunerating mass of a
kangaroo. Parrots and bronze-winged pigeons
flew in flocks around them, but they could
not afford to waste powder upon them, and
the opossum, dragged from his hole in the
hollow tree, furnished them and their dogs
with meat, when better failed.

Thus they wandered on, looking daily
for the desired spot, where they should
build their hut, and call the place their
home. And many such they saw. Here
pleasant undulating lands, thinly scattered
with trees, and clothed with richest turf,
offered amplest pasture for their flock. Here
valleys stretching between forest hills, and
watered by clearest streams, presented all
the elements of a pastural home. Here
richest meadows, lying at the feet of the
mountains, suggested dreams of roaming
herds, and the uplands on the spurs of the
hills for their flocks. Vast plains, capable of
grazing boundless flocks, and green conical
hills, which gave immense prospect over
them, invited them to stay. But it was
nature alone which invited them; man bade
them sternly move on. Other adventurers
were already tracking these wilds; other flocks
and herds were already seen streaming up
through the woods, as it were in inexhaustible
trains. Men, eager, in hot haste, keenly
fired by the spirit of acquisitiveness, as in
the most crowded city, were running and
riding onwards to seize and to possess the
world that had so marvellously opened upon
them, with its rich pastures and
greenswarded woods. Meum and Tuum were
abroad with all their furious, jostling,
hostile-hearted tribe, and sleepless eyes were
restlessly, fiercely glancing before, and behind,
and sideways, to descry a goodly heritage,
and strong, clutching, armed hands were
quivering to clutch, and pounce upon, and
hold. To clutch, and hold, and defend.
Wherever our travellers stopped to camp for
noon, or for night, some strange wild object
came riding from the forest, and cried, "This
is mine! move on!"

When they thought themselves all alone in
the woods; far, and immensely far from any
human being, the first blaze of their evening
fire was the signal for some one to start
forth, from what appeared the desolate and
manless woods, and cry, "What are you
doing here?"

How far these men of the woods, these self-
constituted lords of the wilderness, extended
their claims; how many scores of square
miles they grasped in their giant embrace;
what boundaries of seas, rivers, lakes, or
mountains they had set themselves, our
travellers did not know, and it was vain to
ask, for whether they turned right or left,
these large-souled men still cried, "This is
ours!" They could not see the extent of
their assumed domains, but they could see
the men themselves, and that was enough.
They were of a countenance and a kind not
only to take but to defend vi et armis. They
rode well foreseen with rifle and pistols, as
well for the resistance of their countrymen as
of the blacks. They were from the Tasmanian
Isle many of them, where they had been
accustomed to shoot down, indiscriminately,
kangaroo, wolf, native, and marauding felon.
Years of conflict and danger, of onslaughts
from banded convicts, and onslaughts on
natives, when a Michael Howe led the one,
and a Musquito the other. Days of rough
riding and nights of watching, years of climbing
rugged mountains and threading dense
forests, far unlike these which they now
inhabited, in search of new fields or of old
enemies, with their homes suddenly burning
about their ears at midnight, and their
families rushing forth from the flames, and
anon carrying the conflagration of vengeance
into the retreats of their assailants—these
were the men that they often found themselves
front to front with; these were the men that