At four in the afternoon we had crossed
this belt of low mountains, and came upon
a tract of country which resembled a well-
kept park in England. We were all so
greatly fatigued that we were compelled to
halt for the night. Great as was my longing
to proceed—a longing not a little whetted by
the fact that the blacks now held up only
one finger, in order to express that the object
of our search was only one day in advance
of us.

At midnight the four blacks, who were not
bound, and who were in a rude hut a few
yards distant, came to the opening of my
tenement and bade me listen. I did listen,
and heard a sound resembling the beating of
the waves against the sea-shore. I explained
to them, as well as I possibly could, that the
noise was that of the wind coming through
the leaves of the trees. This, however, they
refused to believe, for there was scarcely a
breath of air stirring.

"Can it be that we are near the
seacoast?" I asked myself; and the noise,
which every moment became more distinctly
audible, seemed to reply, " yes."

The morning dawned, and to my intense
disappointment, I discovered that the four
unbound blacks had decamped. They had,
no doubt, retraced their steps by the road
they had come. The remaining two were
now put upon the track, and not for a single
moment did I relinquish my hold of the cord.
To a certainty, they would have escaped, had
we not kept a tight hand upon them. Any
attempt to reason with them would have
been absurd. Fortunately, the boy who had
charge of the horse had been faithful, and
had remained.

As the day advanced and we proceeded
onward, the sound of the waves beating against
the shore became more and more distinct,
and the terror of the guides increased
proportionately. We were, however, some miles from
the ocean, and did not see it until four in the
afternoon. The faces of the blacks, when
they gazed on the great water, of which they
had never formed even the most remote
conception, presented a scene which would have
been worthy of some great painter's
observation.

It was a clear day, not a cloud to be seen
in the firmament; but the wind was high,
and the dark blue billows were crested with
a milk-white foam. It was from an eminence
of some three hundred feet that we looked
upon them. With their keen black eyes
protruding from their sockets, their nostrils
distended, their huge mouths wide open, their
long matted hair in disorder, their hands held
aloft, their bodies half-crouching and half-
struggling to maintain an erect position;
unable to move backward or forward; the
perspiration streaming from every pore of
their unclothed skin; speechless, motionless,
amazed and terrified; the two inland
savages stood paralysed at what they saw.
The boy, although astounded, was not
afraid.

Precious as was time, I would not disturb
their reverie. For ten minutes their eyes
were riveted on the sea. By ( slow degrees
their countenances exhibited that the
original terror was receding from their hearts;
and then they breathed hard, as men do after
some violent exertion. They then looked at
each other and at us; and, as though
reconciled to the miraculous appearance of the
deep, they again contemplated the billows
with a smile which gradually grew into a
loud and meaningless laugh.

On the rocky spot upon which we were
standing, one of the blacks pointed to his own
knees; and placed his forefinger on two spots
close to each other. Hence I concluded that
the lost man had knelt down there in prayer.
I invariably carried about with me, in the
bush of Australia, a pocket-magnifying-glass
for the purpose of lighting a pipe or a fire ;
and, with this glass, I carefully examined the
spots indicated by the blacks. But I could
see nothing not the faintest outline of an
imprint on that piece of hard stone. Either
they tried to deceive us, or their powers of
perception were indeed miraculous.

After a brief while we continued our search.
The lost man had wandered along the
perpendicular cliffs, keeping the ocean in sight.
We followed his every step until the sun
went down; then halted for the night and
secured our guides, over whom, as usual, we
alternately kept a very strict watch.

During the night we suffered severely
from thirst, and when morning dawned we
were compelled to leave the track for a while,
and search for water. Providentially we were
successful. A cavity in one of the rocks had
been filled by the recent rain. Out of this
basin, our horse also drank his fill.

I may here mention a few peculiarities of
the colonial stock-horse. Wherever a man can
make his way, so can this quadruped. He
becomes, in point of sure-footedness, like a
mule, and in nimbleness like a goat, after a
few years of servitude in cattle-tending. He
will walk down a ravine as steep as the roof
of a house, or up a hill that is almost
perpendicular. Through the dense brushwood he
will push his way with his head, just as
the elephant does. He takes to the water
like a Newfoundland dog, and swims a river
as a matter of course. To fatigue he seems
insensible, and, can do with the smallest
amount of provender. The way in which the
old horse which accompanied me in the
expedition, I am describing, got down and got up
some of the places which lay in our track
would have astounded every person who, like
us, had not previously witnessed similar
performances.

We pushed on at a speedy pace, and, to
my great joy, the blacks now represented
that the (to me invisible) footprints were
very fresh, and the missing man not far