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 loading; it is a very gingerbread affair. Now all is ready, Hodgkinson and self start with the first load, he towing the said machine, and I behind helping him along, both doing our best to get to the other side as fast as possible. I never expected to get across; I thought that one of us must certainly go, as the alligators were close to us. We did not get across very fast, but at last landed on a spit of sand, and felt more at our ease. This was to be my place, for to the raft was attached a long string, composed of every available rope, fishing-line, bridles, etc., so as to make it long enough to reach the nearest point, I remaining to pull the raft across, and another fellow paddling back again to the other side. I took what we had brought up a kind of inlet, and landed it on terra firma; so I had to be dressing and undressing, in and out of the water all day.

Well, we got all across safely, and camel, but the nags would not come, and night closing on us we had to defer bringing them till tomorrow. Mr. McKinlay, Bell, and Poole are over there. How cold it was. I had to strip and pilot the governor through the intricate passage, and land him safely with the other goods. Old Kirby had got a good fire, and we made ourselves comfortable, but alas! I had to take the three men's dinners to the spit, where Wylde was waiting to row the concern over with the grub to the fellows


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Rh what I have said, and I hope you'll mind some of it."

"I'll mind it all," said George, "but we cannot part like this." Jessie looked almost beautiful as she looked at him, and she loved him, so he thought there could be no harm in snatching a kiss. Without being at all in love with her, only having leadings in that direction, and having been long removed from that rural English society where he had spent his boyhood, where kisses were as plenty as blackberries and were given and taken without much being thought of them, the temptation to give a warmer farewell than mere hand-shaking was irresistible at the moment. But to Jessie Lindsay a kiss was a solemn thing—the seal of true love and of nothing else—to be given to the man she was to marry, but not until the troth was plighted. She drew back with an indignant blush and extended her free arm, for George held the other fast, to show how physical could support moral force, but Copeland understood the colour and escaped the threatened blow.

"Has anything I have said to you made you think that I'd allow of such a liberty " said she. "It is little you now Jessie Lindsay if you think she would have such goings on from a man that does not care for her, at

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 on the other side. This was a fearful day's work. How we escaped, God knows. After giving the grub over to Wylde I returned over the rocks to the bivouac fire, and had a good feed of "Joe Buggins." We had to kill him yesterday. The camel too is almost done. He can't go much further, as it seems there are only ranges ahead of us. Middleton and Hodgkinson had a good deal of swimming to-day, and I think they are about the best two that could have been selected, being strong swimmers. The governor says the horses would not cross, so left them and hoped for better success. It is a difficult, intricate, and dangerous place, and if they cross in safety it is more than I expect.

29th. (Camp. xlv.) It was a work of difficulty, and no mistake. First we had to get the horses to the spit; that was not so bad, but to get them to the place where we were camped, that was the rub. We had to get three lines fastened to each horse; one in front to guide him to the landing-place, and one on either side to keep him straight, and keep him from swaying. It is a vile place, and I hope I may never see it or its like again if I have to get horses through it. Went about thirteen miles.

30th. (Camp xlvi.), Camped on a small stream running into the Burdekin, 100 yards off. Wylde and Hodgkinson are to dig a hole, for here everything is to be left behind and buried, and only the


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166 least does not care for her in the way that alone can make it right and fitting to touch lip with lip. Although I have not had much learning I know my own place and yours. Let go my hand, if you please, this minute."

"I beg your pardon, Miss Lindsay," said Copeland, dropping the hand he held and feeling a little cowed by her grand manner. "I did not think you would take it up so seriously. I used to kiss my sisters and cousins and the girls about, and nobody thought anything of it."

"I'm neither your sister nor your cousin, and I don't feel like one, nor do you feel like a brother to me, and besides I'm not used to kiss anybody and I won't have it. Write your letter and go your way to-morrow, George. We part friends if you do not offend me again," and Jessie lifted her milk pails and walked slowly to the house, leaving George Copeland in a state of bewildered admiration at her spirit and her sincerity.

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 clothes we stand in and our blankets, those carried on our horses, to be kept. We take old "Siva" on to our next camp, and there he is to die, poor old fellow! he is to be lightened of everything; for on the first onset we have to climb a high and very steep hill, and were he loaded he could not by any means get up it; so this is the reason why we are leaving all our household goods to be buried. I wonder if we shall find a station near enough to send for them—seeds, stones, curiosities of all kinds, some brought hundreds of miles.

Started about 10, and had to skirt the hill, for the horses could not carry us straight over; the old camel got on well. Up a steep ascent, down into a valley, then over another, and so on till we camped. A very heavy day for all of us, as we had to walk the greater part of the time.

We camped at a running stream of beautiful water; there we shall kill our faithful ally "Siva." I shall be sorry to see him drop—he has been such a noble animal. We have a fine shady camp here; fine trees, with leaves twelve to fifteen inches long by ten inches broad; these leaves smoke well, as I learned by one of our party (Ned) coming to me and asking for my pipe. I lent it to him, and soon discovered him blowing a cloud; and happy he looked, with a knowing smile on his face, as much as to say "have a whiff." I was not


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 long in trying it, and it turned out first-rate. Quickly did all the rest gather some leaves; and that night we had a good smoke of this very fine substitute for the nicotian weed.

There has been an old native encampment here. The remains of ancient whirlies are to be seen, etc., etc. Had some "Siva" for supper; his tripe very good, so we shall have all the rest prepared to-morrow, which, with his feet, will make one good meal, and his head, etc., another. Our spell here will do the horses good too. We shall boil down the meat, and each man carry so much on his saddle. The governor, in feet, will handicap us.

31st. Spelled here in this comfortable cool camp. Very convenient finding these leaves to smoke. Natives not far off, firing the grass in different directions.

August 1st. Boiling down camel all day. Poole sick with a touch of fever and ague, and cannot eat anything. There is not much choice, that's quite certain. Mr. McKinlay and Bell off for a ramble over the hills to see what they can see. On their return, they report the country ahead pretty level. Preparing for a start to-morrow. Four days' meat left, so that if we don't hit a station in that time look out those that have not good boots, as we must kill another horse. So we shall all have to walk in our turn. My boots, happily, are good.


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 2nd. Started early this morning; last man taking with him on his saddle in front a certain quantity of boiled camel, as we are now reduced to one riding-horse and one pack ditto. He carries the few necessaries of Mr. McKinlay—books, papers, etc.

After travelling for some ten miles we suddenly came on some cattle tracks, and shortly after were gratified by seeing the animals themselves, with two of our own countrymen "tailing" them. Were we not jolly! The station is situated on the "Bowen," a stream running north into the Burdekin, and belongs to Messrs. Harvey and Somers. Mr. Somers was from home when we arrived; but he soon made his appearance, and hospitality in the most extended sense of the term was the law. We had already astonished some cold roast-beef, etc., etc. The murphys were fine, and you may be sure we did justice to the novel fare.

Singular enough, here we met Mr. Brahe, a gentleman who was out in that fatal expedition with Burke, and, as many of my readers may remember, was stationed at Cooper's Creek, where he waited till he could wait no longer, but he was blamed for leaving. I don't see that the slightest blame can be attached to him; that is my opinion, and also of many others whom I have conversed with on the subject.

The flour we eat in the shape of bread,


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Jessie Lindsay had undergone a great disappointment and a great mortification she did not retire to mourn over it in secret. No excuse of headache or of other ailment was offered to prevent her taking her place at the tea-table as usual, or joining in the family conversation. Perhaps she talked a little more than her wont, for the others were rather silent, for all were sorry at George Copeland's intention of going away, and old Mr. Lindsay was somewhat offended.

"You. said you were going to write, George,' said Jessie, after the tea-things had been taken away. "Will I get you some paper and pen and ink, or have you got them? I suppose you'll write in your own room."

"No; if you've no objection I'll write here," said George. He wanted an occasional glance at

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, etc., has had a most curious effect on us all. We have been in the greatest pain; it would not digest somehow or other, and, strange to say, all are suffering from swelled legs and feet.

And now, dear reader, having brought you into the settled districts again, with just one concluding chapter I shall take my leave.


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168 Jessie to help his resolution. He sat awhile with the paper before him after she brought it, and the old home feelings and memories crowded upon him. The old-fashioned roomy farmhouse; the jolly, good-natured, but yet sometimes imperious father; the careful affectionate mother; the teazing but pleasant brothers and' sisters; the old church with the elms round it; the good-humoured rector, with his stately lady; the young curate whom all the girls worshipped; the village alehouse, where the smock-frocked peasants resorted on Sundays and holidays; the old pear-trees in the garden; the old horses in the stable; the middle-class school to which he had been sent as a boarder and where he had learned very little for the money it had cost, but where he had first entertained the notion of going to sea.

"No wonder it is hard for George Copeland to begin his letter, the first he's written since he came here," said Hugh Lindsay rather bitterly; "for he has only to acquaint his friends that he is as changeable after ten years in the colonies as he was when he went from his father's house."

But when George fairly began his letter he wrote quickly and evidently a good clear flowing hand. Jessie sat down with a book where she could not see him, but George changed his position and she would not change hers.

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 THE RETURN HOME—PORT DENISON TO SOUTH AUSTRALIA.

the expeditionary party are enjoying their short respite at the station of Messrs. Harvey and Somers, and doing ample justice to the roast-beef they had so often consumed in imagination, when in reality only a tough old camel was between their hungry teeth, we shall make a digression to relate an interesting occurrence connected with the time and the place. About six months after the party's arrival, and a little to the north of their present quarters, a man suddenly presented himself to two shepherds at the outpost of a sheep-station. Quite naked, and of a reddish yellow hue, he was seen to be no aboriginal native. On the shepherds seizing their fire-arms, under a sense of possible


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 danger, he called out in English, although speaking with difficulty, that he was their countryman. He then informed them that he had lived for seventeen years with the Aborigines in the neighbourhood,, being the sole survivor of the crew and passengers of a ship that had been wrecked, so far back as the year 1846, upon a reef off the adjacent coast. He had been wandering over the country about Mount Elliott, a lofty hill, above 4000 feet in height, near the mouth of the Burdekin, and he must have been but a short way to the east of McKinlay's party, as they passed down the river. His name was James Morrill, and he was born near Maldon, in Essex, England, and had been a seaman of the wrecked vessel the "Peruvian." He was supplied with clothes by his new friends, and after a short interval taken to Port Denison, where a subscription was made on his behalf, and where both himself and his narrative were the subject of very general interest.

The captain of the "Peruvian" had warned the watch against "broken water," that dangerous symptom of this coral reef coast. The vessel was wrecked during the night, after the watch had indeed detected the fatal symptom ahead, but too late to be of any avail. There was a considerable gale blowing; the two boats were lost, and with them the first and second officers. The


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 of a raft was the next resource. It was promptly made, launched, and loaded with its living freight, but it broke away from the wreck before any adequate supplies of either provisions or water had been secured. There had been fourteen of a crew and seven passengers, and for forty-two days these miserable creatures were drifted to and fro, until at length the raft, with a small remnant of survivors, was cast ashore on the north side of Cape Cleveland. They had prolonged their lives mainly by catching three sharks, part of a legion that followed the raft for the sake of the dead bodies that were at intervals committed to the waters.

Ashore at last, they were for a time undisturbed, and subsisted on shellfish; but after a fortnight they were discovered by the Aborigines. They were by this time reduced to four—the captain and his wife, Morrill, and a boy. The natives, after gratifying an intense curiosity by examining all of them, from head to foot, behaved kindly after their rough fashion, and took them to the great tribal camp in the neighbourhood, where they again underwent a thorough inspection, their white skins causing a general astonishment, and


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 inspiring some with such terror that they at first ran away. For some time the neighbouring blacks were arriving in streams to gratify the common curiosity, but there was no violence used, nor was insult ever offered to the female. Meanwhile the poor outcasts were at first supplied with food, and afterwards were shown how and where they could find roots and other edibles for themselves.

Exposure and privation caused much suffering, especially when their clothing, gradually falling to pieces, had disappeared, and left them entirely naked. The poor wife, the only female of the party, contrived to retain to the last a few scraps of covering. Severe rheumatism attacked them all, and in a little more than two years Morrill found himself sole survivor. The captain had died before his wife, and she, thus desolate and forsaken, survived him but four days. Morrill had a strong frame and a good constitution, and survived the trying ordeal of his new mode of life.

His narrative of his life among the natives is interesting in its account of native manners and habits. He forms a very low estimate of their qualities, as they are cruel and treacherous, even to each other of the same tribe. "There is," he says, "a sort of partizanship of private friends and private foes in each tribe. Some individuals are occasionally the victims of these enmities, but


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 many more are preserved by the watchfulness of friends. He himself had both friends and enemies, and would have fallen on many an occasion by the hands of the latter, but for the vigilance of the former, who threatened the direst vengeance in case any injury happened to him. As already mentioned in our Introduction, he confirms the now perfectly authenticated cannibalism of the Australian natives. He brightens the dark picture a little by stating that they will not kill their fellow men merely for the sake of eating them. In eating their friends or chiefs, after death, there seems some vague notion of appropriating yet something of the virtues of the deceased; all at least that the grasping appropriator death has left them.

It is remarkable that he scarcely ever heard reports of his countrymen, many of whom must have traversed the country at no very great distance from the scene of his protracted wanderings, not a few having from time to time been murdered, or killed in hostile attacks. This circumstance is to be accounted for, perhaps, partly from the desire of the natives to withhold information of his countrymen from him, as they seem really to have valued his presence amongst them; and partly from the mutual hostility, or at least the alien feeling generally prevalent between the various tribes, which greatly restricted any intercourse, and prevented the spread of news, however


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. At length, however, reports meet his ear, which he cannot misunderstand. The new settlement of Bowen, about two years before his deliverance, had attracted the natives' attention, and Morrill was certain his countrymen must be somewhere near him, and that the continually advancing wave of colonization had at last rolled up to his neighbourhood. There was a twofold difficulty in reaching the settlers, however; for not only were the tribes he lived with unwilling that he should leave, but he could hardly venture any distance away without falling among natives unfriendly to the tribe he was identified with, and thus endangering his life. After some time he transferred his residence to a friendly tribe, living between Cape Bowling-green and the Burdekin. He seems to have been on the outlook nearly a year with this tribe, when he hears of cattle being seen feeding and drinking at the Burdekin, and a white man with a whip attending them. Soon afterwards two females describe some sheep as among the long grass, a short distance to the south. One of them he induces to accompany him; but at sight of the sheep, she will go no further, fearing to be murdered by the whites; and earnestly advising Morrill too, by all means, to avoid the wicked intruders. She returns therefore, and Morrill goes on, presenting himself to the shepherds, as already related.


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 Morrill describes the natives as in great dread of the whites, from an incurable notion of their cruelty and murderous intentions towards them. He greatly regrets this feeling, and alludes to a recent massacre of a number of blacks by the colonists, in order to show that it has too good a foundation. He returned to the tribe after the interview with the shepherds, and advised the natives to keep out of harm's way, stating, for the sake of peace, that the power of the whites was something far beyond what the natives could resist. The poor creatures seem to have had some sorrows at leave-taking, looking on Morrill as a kind of protector, and begging him to arrange for them with his powerful countrymen that the poor natives should be left in possession of the swamps and salt water creeks at least, if they gave up the rest of the country. Morrill's views for the future seemed to be to spend the remainder of his life in the country so long familiar to him, acting under sanction of the Colonial Government as a protector and interpreter for the Aborigines.

From these adventures of Morrill's let us return to those of our travellers, who now, with freshened energies, direct their steps to Port Denison, to enjoy the hospitalities of Bowen, the young capital of this tropical part of Australia. Port Denison is an inner harbour on the west side of Edgecumbe Bay, and is well protected seawards by


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 islands, with excellent anchorage for the largest fleet of ordinarily sized shipping, and a depth of twenty-seven feet of water. The port was discovered only in 1860, during a coasting search for the mouth of the River Burdekin. This fine stream was found debouching near Cape Cleveland, but with a branch, previously known as the Wickham, entering the sea near Cape Upstart. As these outlets proved to be subject to the mischance common to so many Australian rivers, of having bars that impede navigation, the discovery of Port Denison a little to the southward was all the more important to the settlers, who have already begun a rush with their flocks into the vacant neighbourhood. Bowen was commenced about a year before our travellers arrived, and has already a presentable array of buildings, including of course public houses, blacksmiths' forges, and general stores. Whether that very early necessary of a colonial town, a daily local newspaper, had yet appeared we are not told, but "our own correspondent" for somewhere else was already on the ground some months before the expedition's arrival, and in writing, on 27th May, 1862, to a Rockhampton paper, this universal and aimable inconnu describes the little township as having been first settled about ten months previously, and as possessing already a population of 120, of all ages, whose numbers are steadily


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 through this intricate and dangerous country. I wonder the cart has not been smashed long ere this.

Wind to-day disagreeable, blowing from north. The heat fearful in the extreme. Mr. McKinlay taken violently ill with dysentery. Our last native quite forlorn at being left all alone by himself, so Mr. McKinlay has taken pity on him and let him slip his cable and go; he seems delighted, and is off like a shot down the creek. It is a pity too, for they are very useful in pointing out the waters, and it does not seem likely that we shall see any more of them for some time, as we have not seen any lately; they must have gone up into the sand hills after their game, and left the creeks, as there are plenty of water-holes down the creek, and from the number of them they must be pretty numerous at all times.

Many fish to be seen in the water-holes, and plenty of mussels, judging from the number of empty shells round the fire-places at the native whirlies. The country on this side of the creek is better wooded than the other, but not a blade of grass, excepting in the bed of the creek and watercourses, and not much to boast of in them on the sandy side of the creek.

We found a small plant with a thick velvet leaf. We pulled a lot, and had it boiled; had we but salt and a little butter it might have been


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 taken for asparagus, though not much like it in taste, only resembling it slightly; it is also very nice eaten raw, it has a slight acid flavour, and I should say first-rate for us, who have not had any greens for so long a time. It will improve the blood, a thing which we all require, as it is as pale and as thin as possible. The plant is best picked early in the morning, as, if the sun has been on it any time, it is tougher and not so acid. I hope we shall continue to find it, as it does us a world of good; besides being a great treat to us all, it helps out our small allowance of bread, as we can save half our bread at a meal having this stuff to eat with our meat.

Mr. McKinlay very ill this afternoon; he must have a very serious attack, as his face is very much pinched since this morning, and he walks really very ill indeed.

16th. Remained in camp. Mr. McKinlay in his tent all day, and looks worse than ever; he is taking some medicine; I think it is chlorodine—it quite warms you through after a dose of sixty or seventy drops. I hope it will soon restore our worthy leader to us in his usual health and spirits. We are all rather down in the mouth at this sudden illness of the governor, for he is certainly much worse to-day.

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 creek, as we were obliged to follow their tracks. However, we managed a spell and a smoke or two; we found no beauties to flirt with, but spun yarns of the old country. We got the camels into camp all right, and found on our way some old horse and camel dung, so that Burke must have been here also. When we returned to camp we set to work to jerk mutton; the cart is to be left here, so we shall have a lot of traps to put on the camels—cooking utensils, rations, and God knows what else. There is no lack of mosquitoes here, but they don't seem to trouble me as much as they do the others, and a very good job too; what between the swarms of flies by day and the mosquitoes at night, we have a very lively time of it indeed. We retired to our blankets early, but, alas! not to sleep; at least several fellows were seen perambulating up and down, keeping the sentry company, for they could not sleep on account of these torments of the dark hours.

17th. Mr. McKinlay still very ill. Most of us hard at work, getting the baggage from the cart to separate the things that are to be taken with us from those that are to be left behind. Another long trudge up the creek after the camels and, horribile dictu, I forgot my pipe, and now I have only one left—a short clay. We have had no salt for some days past, and our meat, etc., is very insipid, but hunger is a good sauce, and we


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 generally have it at meal-times. Very scanty food indeed for the horses, so they break up into different mobs and stray away. We take leave of the old cart to-day, as to-night it is going to the top of a sand hill, to be there left to its fate; the goods are to be buried on the sand hill, also, in consequence of all this country being under water at some periods, from the flood-marks left on the trees. We bury no end of lucifers and candles, and, as the Yankees say, notions too numerous to mention.

Some of us weighed to-day, Mr. McKinlay one of the number. He weighed when he left Adelaide, in August, 15 st. 11 lb.; to-day exactly 12 st.! A slight shower with thunder this morning, and promises for some more. Mr. McKinlay a little better this evening.

Camels will miss the cart, as they now have a stiff" load; the "old woman," as we call her, has over 433 lb. on her, which is a good weight for this difficult country. We did not get away till after 3 o'clock, and arrived in camp on a muddy water-hole about dark, long after all the others. Distance, sixteen miles. I fear Mr. McKinlay will feel the journey, as he is still very weak, though he says he is better.

18th. The country passed over to-day quite destitute of vegetation, the low, black flats looking as though they had been prepared for crops.


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 Passed a creek to east; no water. Crossing the plain one of our bullocks (the one that had been ill) was struck dead by the heat of the sun, though carrying nothing, only walking along by himself. Nothing could be done with him, as all the party save those with the camels were a long way in advance; so he was left to the tender mercies of the wild dogs. There was not a drop of water to be seen, and I feared for some time we should have been obliged to camp without any. "We passed several magnificent creeks, and saw through the breaks in the sand hills others with timber. Passed over more flooded flats, on to a creek without water; then went on the same kind of country well wooded till we came to a rain-water hole, where we camped. Mr. McKinlay went further on in the hopes of finding water, but to no purpose, so came back to this water, and we found him and the horses camped when we arrived. There was sufficient water in this hole for all our purposes, first taking out enough in our water-bags and canteens to supply us to-night and to-morrow in case we see no more.

This must be a splendid country after the floods, for, though destitute of anything like grass, it is really very pretty, some parts of it undulating and well wooded; but it is desolate enough now. We find more similar traces of Burke and his unfortunate companions. Mr. McKinlay says he is very


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 ill this evening, and hardly able to sit in the saddle, and he really looks so.

19th. Hodgkinson and Middleton are sent out up the creek to look out for water for next stage. Middleton returns about 11, having found plenty of water about eight miles up. Hodgkinson proceeded further, and is to return to the aforesaid water, where we shall camp to-night. So we all saddled up, and started for this water late in the afternoon, as the distance was so very short. Mr. McKinlay suffered a great deal, and we rigged up a kind of shade for him under the only tree near the camp with our blankets, for he did not wish the tents pitched, as they would keep us back at starting.

Mr. McKinlay and party found the water-hole from the direction given by Middleton, who was taken so ill by the way that we were unable to get him to camp that night; so he camped on a plain, under a large tree, without water or anything to eat. Poor fellow! he was awfully bad, and unfit to go further. He craved for water so much, and there was not a drop to give him, although I drained my canteen and bag for him. I lighted a large fire, and unpacked the camels, making him a bed under the tree. I thought he would have died. I fancied he had the cholera; he was doubled up, and rolling about so fearfully. I knew we could not be far from our camping place by what he told


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 me, and I sent up a blue light and a Roman candle. I was very hungry and thirsty, and went to sleep after seeing Middleton a little better; strange to say, when I woke I was neither hungry nor thirsty.

20th. (Camp, iv.) Poor Middleton was hardly able to rise this morning, so I saddled up the camels and horses, and started. We shortly got to camp, Middleton very ill indeed. I was glad to get a drink of water and a scon. This creek where we are camped is some two hundred yards wide, and about eighty or ninety feet deep, with rather steep banks. We are on the east side; it is well wooded, which affords good shelter for the sick. The men in camp saw nothing of our blue light, though they had been looking out and keeping up roaring fires all night. Mr. McKinlay could not imagine what had become of us. We have, ever since we abandoned the cart, to carry the stock for the larder on the camels, so that the men at head-quarters had not much of a supper; we, as I said before, did not touch them either. Middleton was so bad on arriving at camp, that he had to be helped up the side of the creek to the place where we are to camp, just on the top of the bank, under some nice shady trees. The tent was soon up, and Middleton quickly between the blankets; I thought at one time I should never have brought him into camp.

After breakfast took the camels to water and


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 feed; I took a bath, and very much refreshed I was after; the water, nice and cool, but the bottom muddy. About 6 I went on horseback after the camels, the horsemen reporting that they were not to be seen on the creek for three miles. I overtook them about four miles down the creek on the tramp; God knows where they would have been in the morning had I not gone after them. There was plenty of feed on the creek, and they had a good drink on arriving, so that I cannot account for their getting on the spree; tied them up at camp to-night; Mr. McKinlay much better to-day, and looks quite a different man; Ned very bad; the day was hot in the extreme.

21st. This is not a very first-rate camp, but Middleton is too ill to move. Repairing camel saddle to-day, and doing odd jobs, others washing.

22nd. Up early; Hodgkinson and Bell start off with two days' rations to examine the stony ranges in the distance, and to ascertain if this creek receives any waters from the west or north-west, and to return by this creek and see how the water is in it. Parallel ruler not to be found; it must have been left behind or else dropped off the earners back; unpacked everything, but non est. McKinlay quite well to-day, and Middleton improving, thank God!

There is only eight weeks' flour from to-day, but we still get a lot of that greenstuff, and


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128 to its weight. But some Hunnish remnants probably lingered in the grassy vacancy of the Hungarian Plain, to be absorbed by new tribes of horsemen advancing westward, the Avars, against whom Charlemagne made war, and presently the Magyars. In the year 1000 these Magyar Turks, who had done much ravaging in Germany during the previous century, were converted to Christianity from Rome, and became thenceforth some sort of a bulwark to Latin Christendom, so that no more Tartars were admitted into Hungary. But the economic life of the Magyars continued in the main to be that of the steppes until less than a hundred years ago.

When we reflect that through several centuries of the Dark Ages the Norse pagans in their ships were at piracy on the northern seas, and the Saracen and Moorish infidels in their ships at piracy on the Mediterranean, and that the horse-riding Turks from Asia raided thus into the very heart of the Christian Peninsula when it was clasped by hostile sea-power, we have some idea of the pounding, as between pestle and mortar, which went to the making of modern Europe. The pestle was land-power from the Heartland.

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Rh If these historical events be followed on the map, the strategical fact of decisive meaning which emerges is that the continuous plains of the Great Lowland overlap from the Continental and Arctic drainage of the Heartland into the East of the European peninsula. There was no impediment to prevent the horsemen from riding westward into regions drained by such wholly European rivers as the Dnieper and Danube. In sharp contrast to this open passage from the Heartland into Europe is the system of mighty barriers which separate the Heartland along its eastern and south-eastern border from the Indies. The populous lands of China proper and India lie round the eastern and southern slopes of the most massive uplands on the Globe; the southern face of the Himalaya Range, curving for 1500 miles along the north of India, rises from levels at most only 1000 feet above the sea to peaks of 28,000 and 29,000 feet. But the Himalaya is only the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, which is as large as France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary put together, and of an average elevation of 15,000 feet, or the peak height of Mont Blanc in the Alps. As compared with such facts as these, the distinction between the lower uplands and the lowlands, between the


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130 Iranian Upland, let us say, and the Great Lowland, becomes altogether subordinate. Tibet, with its attendant Himalaya, Pamirs, Karakoram, Hindu Kush, and Tianshan—call them together the Tibetan Heights—has no parallel on Earth for combined height and area, or, in a single word, for massiveness. When the Sahara shall be crossed and recrossed daily by the traffic of civilisation, it is probable that Tibet, the 'roof of the world,' will still deflect round its flanks and widely separate the overland routes into China and India, thus giving a special significance to the North-west Frontiers of those two countries.

North of Tibet, a considerable part of which has a continental drainage, and is, therefore, included within the Heartland, spreads the Mongolian Upland, also largely of the Heartland. This Mongolian Upland is of a much lower elevation than Tibet, and is in fact comparable in point of level with the Iranian Upland. Two natural ways come over the arid surface of Mongolia to drop down into the fertile lowland of China; the one through the Province of Kansu, round the north-eastern corner of Tibet, to the great city of Sinan, of a million inhabitants; the other directly south-eastward from Lake Baikal to


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Rh Pekin, which city also has about a million inhabitants. Sinan and Pekin, thus just within the Chinese Lowland, are capitals founded by conquerors from the Heartland.

Across the Iranian Upland into India there are also two natural ways, the one over the lofty but narrow spine of the Hindu Kush, down the Cabul VaUey, and over the terminal Kaibar Pass to the crossing of the Indus River at Attock; the other through Herat and Kandahar, round the ends of the Afghan ridges, and by the Bolan Gorge down to the Indus. Immediately east of the Indus River is the Indian Desert, extending from the ocean to within a short distance of the Himalaya, and the Bolan and Kaibar ways converge, therefore, through the ante-chamber of the Punjab to the inner entry of India, which is the passage left between the desert and the mountains. Here stands Delhi, at the head of the navigation of the Jumna-Ganges, and Delhi is a capital founded, like Sinan and Pekin in China, by conquerors from the Heartland. By these narrow and difficult ways both China and India have repeatedly been invaded from the Heartland, but the Empires thus founded have usually soon become detached from the rule of the Steppe-men. So was it, for instance, with the Moguls


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 relish it; it goes down well with a little sugar, when we can spare it from our tea. We must get to Finnis' Springs shortly, or we shall be in a pretty fix; we can't well starve, though, while we have plenty of sheep and horses to eat, to say nothing of a camel or so.

23rd. Up early to-day, to get mutton jerked. Wylde starts off to No. iii. camp, after parallel ruler, a stage of some fifty miles or more there and back, where we buried the things, and left the cart. I hope he may find it, as it is very useful to the leader. I did think we left it behind, but fear we must have dropped it. Middleton decidedly on the mend. McKinlay goes out on horseback, feeling all right, to the east, to examine the country; he went over flooded flats. Here is his account of the journey:—

"'Over flooded flats, and a couple of sand hills. From top of the highest sand hill, changed course to 113' for two and a quarter miles to top of another larger sand hill, passing one other in my course then on bearing of 15° for six and three-quarter miles, over flooded flats, with a few smaller sand hills, but soon terminate on both sides of my course; the current over this tract of flat being to the south of east, then three-quarters of a mile on bearing of 15' over one sand hill to top of rocky hill, from which the flooded flat I have just passed gathers together in the distance to a creek, and goes off on course of 155° and no doubt is the feeder of the waters now in the creek to south and east of our present camp, viz., Barrawarkanya, Marroboolyooroo, Cadrityrrie, Meincounyannie, and Gnappa Muntra; then two and a quarter miles on bearing of 10° to top of sandy and stony hill, with four or"


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134 of India, who were derived from the Mongols of the Interior.

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The conclusion to which this discussion leads is that the connection between the Heartland, and especially its more open western regions of Iran, Turkestan, and Siberia, is much more intimate with Europe and Arabia than it is with China and India, or yet with the Southern Heartland of Africa. The strong natural frontiers of the Sahara Desert and the Tibetan Heights have no equivalent where the Northern Heartland merges with Arabia and Europe. The close connection of these three regions is well typified by that geographical formula into which it was attempted to crystallise. just now certain essential aspects of Mesopotamian and Syrian history; the ploughmen of Mesopotamia and Syria have always been exposed to descents of the horsemen from the Heartland, of the camel-men from Arabia, and of the shipmen from Europe. None the less—and indeed just because of its more transitional character—the boundary between the Heartland on the one hand, and Arabia and Europe on the other, is worth following with some care.


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 "five malice trees and a few other shrubs; marked one of tho mallee trees. From this hill tho creek passed end of table-topped stone range, on bearing from six to nine miles distant north-west and round northward to east. Peaks and hills of stone with intervening flats, some of earth, others of stone, are visible as far as eye can reach; from this hill our present camp bears about 227½° and distant about eleven and a half miles.'"

This evening Bell and Hodgkinson returned; having examined the hilly country, but could find no tributary joining the creek, they saw a little water further up, and also a native and his lubra, but could not get any conversation with them, they were so shy.

24th. To-day a great event occurred; Hodgkinson tendered his resignation as second in command, so he will now join the ranks as horseman. He wished to return to the settled districts, but that Mr. McKinlay would not hear of. The bullocks all astray this morning, and could not be found in time to start.

Poole got a slight sunstroke going after the horses; he was brought in, and from the cold applications continually made, he soon rallied. Middleton all right again.

25th. (Camp v.) After a cool journey of eighteen miles, we camped on a small creek, with plenty of water. The country was flooded flats; passed a large creek, and numerous native "whirlies;" we crossed it, and then went over some high sand hills, the summits of which were almost


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 walls of drift sand, from two to five feet high, and very difficult for the animals to get over; the female camel gave us much trouble to get her to cross them; then over more flooded flats, then over small and stony hills, the stones of the same description as those of the Desert. We reached a creek we descried in the distance, and found plenty of water and abundance of good feed for the animals, which luxury they have not had for some time. Weather cloudy. We saw in the flats fields of very beautifully coloured lilies; the vegetation all this day's journey better than it had been some days previous. Mr. McKinlay has called the creek we left this morning "Burke's Creek."

26th. The weather cloudy, and threatening for rain. Maitland arrived this morning with the intelligence that the bullock that was ill before had dropped down, and would go no further; so they killed him, in order that the flesh might be made use of. He was too fat to travel. Another hurt itself to-day; although generally one of the quietest, it took to bucking, endeavouring to get rid of its saddle, when it fell, and must have hurt itself severely, for there it remains where it fell; the rest are all right, and off to feed. I expect we shall kill it also, but we must have more sun if we are to jerk them. Mr. McKinlay has gone up to the creek, and Maitland has written instructions for three men to bring on the meat and hide of the


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Rh The long range of the Persian Mountains bends westward round the upper end of Mesopotamia and becomes the Taurus Range, Democratic Ideals and Reality, 1919 Fig 24 p 135.jpg 24.—The Heartland, with the addition of the basins of the Black and Baltic Seas, and of the uppermost (plateau) valleys of the Chinese and Indian rivers.

which is the high southern brink of the peninsular upland of Asia Minor. The surface of Asia Minor is a patch of steppes, verging on desert in the centre, where salt lakes receive


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 dead bullock. Wylde, Hodgkinson, and Poole went with three pack-horses to bring in the meat; the remainder of the bullocks arrived at 3·30. They brought in the meat shortly afterwards, but it was so awfully tough that we could hardly get our teeth into it.

Camels not found to-night; it came on so dark, I could not see their tracks; it would be a devil of a go if they were lost. I hope to find them in the morning, as they camp at night, and are, I dare say, now chewing the cud comfortably. The night is as black as Erebus, and if we don't get some rain it is a caution. It is spitting now, and if this continues we shall not be able to jerk the other bullock, so he will have to take his chance in the desert. There is plenty of grass and water here to last him for months; there was splendid green feed on the slopes of the stony hills and water-courses. There is an island in this creek formed by an arm of it; I should say it is 800 or 900 yards wide. Rained very heavily the whole night, and as black as pitch; those who have the middle watch will have a nice time of it to keep the sheep together, for there is no yard for them, for if they do get scared, it would be perfect madness to follow them; thank goodness it is my morning watch, when it will be light.

27th. Rained the whole of the night. Sheep bolted; it was no use trying to see them, much


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Rh Another reason for the general abundance is that no one wastes or wantonly destroys anything; nor does anyone wear or use anything for purposes of ostentation or display. All this is useless in a land where there is no personal wealth, and no means of using riches if specially possessed. All who can work do so for the general good, and working five hours daily causes a rate of production much in advance of consumption. The probability is that the hours of labor will have to be reduced to four, or even three. This would have come about long since had not many millions of men been employed on public works for centuries.

All our magnificent railways are carried under ground on wide, well ventilated, brilliantly lighted roads. This had to be done in order that the land occupied by them might be used for agriculture. Of our rainfall none is wasted. It is stored in thousands of reservoirs, and utilised for irrigation in dry seasons. The failure of a crop would be such a terrible disaster that we provide for it by building and filling immense storehouses. All stores being so preserved and sealed as to ensure their sweetness and nutritive qualities whenever they may be required. These and a thousand other public works, efforts that have made our whole planet a smiling and fertile thing of beauty, have absorbed a vast amount of labor. As it is, each worker follows his occupation about one-seventh of his time, and the number of workers engaged in productive and manufacturing industries are about one-eighth of the population.

One man, tilling the soil, can grow food for fifty, another weaving cloth, can dress three hundred, and four men making boots or hats can cover the extremities of a thousand fellow mortals. Hence it comes that we have to work so little and are yet so well supplied.

To-morrow I begin the ninth year of my life, and the first day of my five-hundred days of self-imposed mechanical training. When this year is finished I will travel, and working in various parts perfect my education."

This brief chapter covers about three years of our diarist's records. By Earth time he is a little over seventeen years of age; by that of Mars he has finished his eighth year. All that is of any importance to the narrative and much of what he has learned of the actual life of the Martial Humans is included in the chapter.

CHAPTER IX.

ROM now forward as long as I live I can draw from any depot on the planet anything that I want. I can visit any workshop or mine, can travel by any public conveyance, can work at any trade, can study any subject at any seat of learning, can use to any extent telegraphic, telephonic, or other means of communication, can see the most sacred and ancient manuscripts

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 less to look after them; they were recovered in the morning, with the exception of fourteen, which were not to be seen anywhere. I started early in the morning after the camels; it was no use trying to find their tracks, as they had long since been obliterated, so I went on my travels, and came on the lost sheep, and brought them nearly into camp, when I met Ned in search of them, and made them over to him. I start again after the camels, up to my knees in water, but cannot see anything of them, and got a blowing-up from the governor for my pains; then I brought in a horse, and Middleton started after them, for I was awfully tired, having been walking in water up to my knees for the last two or three hours.

The creek that was almost dry yesterday is running a strong stream this morning, and rising rapidly. All the horses were brought to our side of the creek, and taken to the stone hill, where there was fine feed, as the rain still continued to pour down with a will. If the rain still continues in this style, we shall soon have to take to the sand hills for safety, for all this flat and where we are camped will be under water very shortly—a nice state of things. As it is, the camp is a perfect muck-yard, up to our ankles, and it sticks so to the boots that our progress is slow and tiresome. We are all as wet as drowned rats, and shall continue so, I suppose, till it holds up, for there is no


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46 and books of the ages that are gone, can visit the observatories, of which we have many, and study the heavens by the aid of the most powerful telescopes to be found in the universe. I can dress as I please, and wherever my lot is cast the best of accommodation and provision is at my service. When I marry, if ever such an event should occur, my wife will have the same advantages. Seeing that such a favor has at this early period of my life been conferred upon me I will take care to be worthy of it. Already I can see many ways in which my discovery can be utilised. If I make myself thoroughly capable as a mechanic I shall be able to do much more than I can now. Still, no pupil who has gone through a course at Bertrand's technical school can complain of inability to use tools and understand mechanical operations, and his school is only one of thousands of similar ones.

I have not said much of our sports and games; but it must not be inferred that we have no play. Indeed, I question if there is any place in the solar system, at any race, where we can be beaten in the enjoyment of active sports and games. Public gymnasiums are very abundant, and men and women of all ages visit them. For a few years after she is married a woman has probably other duties to attend to, and does not frequent the gymnasiums, but she comes with her sons and daughters in a while and lets them see that the skill and strength of her youth have not quite departed. Probably we owe much of our activity, vigor, health and longevity to this kind of education. If we did not play we should not develop our muscles and become the well-knit and compact people that we are. For our work is so easy and light that it would not alone cause more than a very partial development. We have ball games of more than a dozen kinds; we have skating and ice dances, sleighing, sliding, hill shooting with small sleighs, upon which only two people can sit. We have dancing and archery and music—music to everything and everywhere. We have air sports. Sometimes a hundred flying fishes will take turns at performing difficult feats. These are generally little air boats built for the use of one person, though larger ones are sometimes brought into play. People are not allowed to use air boats until they have had plenty of practice in rapid movements, executed with great precision.

The swift descent is always one part of a programme of air sports. Twenty boats or so are placed in line, forty feet apart, so that their wings will not be liable to clash, at the height of a thousand feet. At a given signal an article is dropped from each, and each boat darts down in pursuit. The boat has to pass the falling body, and to go underneath and catch it. In a competition of this kind more than half will succeed, and first place is given to the one who catches his falling body the first and commences remounting. The successful competitors are placed in line again at a height

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Rh of six hundred feet, and again at three hundred feet, until the most skilful sailor is discovered.

I take my share in these air sports and have proved myself competent, thanks to father, who, for months, patiently instructed me and superintended my practice. I took great interest in air sailing, for did I not owe my life to father's skill in this very art?

A balloon hunt is another feature of our air sports. A small balloon is inflated and allowed to ascend for about a mile in vertical height, during which time it may have drifted a good distance. When it is supposed to be high enough and far enough away to endure a good chase a number of competitors start in pursuit. It is understood that when the racers see that one of their number is in reach that they cease flying, lest the boats collide. This rule is usually obeyed; indeed, we have no wilful lawbreakers anywhere.

On the occasion of my last balloon hunt, however, I had succeeded in reaching the prize a little in advance of my friends, and had just seized the cord to open the valve, which would have emptied the balloon in two minutes, when crash goes the left wing of my boat, and over it tilts, pitching me from my seat. Fortunately my first instinct led me to clutch the little ring of cords attached to the mouth of my prize, and so when my disabled boat sank from under me I was hanging by my hands to the balloon. This was not large enough, to sustain my weight, and so I began to follow my boat. The man who had drifted against me and caused my accident kept close, so that he could aid me at any moment. We got to the ground in safety, I alighting no more heavily than if I had jumped from a height of six feet. Several of my friends followed my boat, and staying the rapidity of its descent got it to the ground without further damage. Such presence of mind is very common. It is largely used in averting accidents on sea, on land, and in the air.

Although we are not great travellers by water, and in spite of rivers and seas being scarce, those of us who have the opportunity make the most of aquatic sports. We all learn to swim, and sailing and rowing are very common accomplishments. We dive at great depths also, and we keep our seas clear of the enemies of the edible fish. We do not care to have sea monsters robbing us of an important article of food, and also making bathing and swimming into dangerous pastimes. We do a deal of fishing both in fresh and salt water. Our sea water is very cold, and so dense with salt and dissolved mineral matters that we can scarcely sink in it.

We have no hunting of wild beasts; they have all been exterminated long ago. This extermination has extended to vermin and insect plagues, and even to some kinds of animalculæ. There is nothing that can bite, sting, or injure us in any way.

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Rh had rested on his head, and given him another name.

He went straight from Olympia to the School of the Crown of the Law. It struck him as irony that here, in this unrelieved monotony, men should crown themselves. It all seemed so dull and depressing, even more so than it really was. The gay jests and pleasant voice of Olympia still rang in his memory, the Litany of the scholars sitting here and there at the tables sounded discordantly in his ears. He sat down in a corner to follow his own thoughts undisturbed ever an open book, when Chisdai came to him and asked him the meaning of a difficult passage in the Talmud. Baruch did not spend long over it.

"I always said," began Chisdai, "that you would be a perfect Samson in intellect and learning. If people will not let you in and out, you take the door, locks and bolts and all, on your back, and carry them off; but for God's sake, and your hopes of his mercy, do not let yourself be allured by the Delilah to whom you are now straying. I have never seen her myself—God forbid!—but from what I hear from others she is no longer young and should not be fair."

"I do not know what you mean; let me alone," said Baruch crossly.

"What I mean?" replied the other. "How you pretend! The physician's daughter, I mean; what

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202 is her name? Oh, Olympia van den Ende, who is so clever that she speaks seven languages. I entreat you, follow my advice; if those over there really mean well by you, they will have you out and out; act like a Samson, catch the foxes, bind their tails, set fire to them, and send them into the ripe cornfields of the Philistines. You understand what I mean; but I fear, I fear, they will—God forbid!—put out your eyes; they will take away thy strength, and make thee a jest."

"It is a pity," replied Baruch, "you have not kept this new application of Samson's history to religious controversy for your morning's sermon. But, to add the conclusion to it, I will tell you, that if they could or would do what you mean, I too have the courage to cry with Samson, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' and act accordingly."

It pained him like sacrilege to have Olympia's name spoken by Chisdai, and to see her graceful figure dragged into that dismal place. His dislike to Chisdai increased more and more, for he saw clearly how he watched every turn of his mind, and spied into its workings; he must have some special object in it, for Chisdai was not to be kept at a distance by even the most marked rudeness. On that Sabbath Chisdai had given the first public evidence of his oratorical powers. The attempt was an utter failure.

"I was not wholly unfavorably disposed towards

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Rh Chisdai's suit for your sister Miriam," said his father as he left the synagogue with Baruch.

"Chisdai has some fortune, and will some day have a fair addition to it; he is not so very plain, and I cannot understand what has come to Miriam, that she says she feels such an unconquerable aversion for him. I see now, however, that he will never be the remarkable man we thought he would be; and if I am not to have the pleasure of seeing my daughter the wife of a celebrated and learned author, I would rather give her to Samuel Casseres." Baruch assented.

"I think it is time," continued his father, "that you should make yourself heard; it will give honor to your whole family. I should like to see you up there with my old eyes. Who knows how long I may be here to have the pleasure?"

Baruch made no reply; he thought a horrible dizziness would seize him if he stood up there like the others who spoke with such unhesitating decision, as if they had seen the Lord God shuffle the cards, and knew exactly why he played this or that trump, and what he would or ought to play out in the future.

"Why are you so thoughtful?" began his father again. "I verily believe you are shy; shame on you! you were so bold once. Do you remember how you once thought it would be the greatest happiness to stand up there, and pour forth the living

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204 word of the Spirit of God for the whole congregation?"

"I am ill, I have almost always palpitation of the heart. You know not long ago I spat blood."

"Pooh, pooh, excuses! I have already spoken to our Chacham Aboab; he is willing to let you preach this day fortnight. I will speak to Silva, our doctor; if he allows it you must fulfil my wishes, or I will not forgive you it on my death-bed."

What could he reply to this? Silva gave permission, and Baruch must prepare to preach. Who can imagine the conflicting feelings that were aroused by the composition of this sermon? Who can calculate the mocking thoughts that followed him when he went to Olympia, and read with her the pictures of the gay, pleasurable life of the heathens; when he enjoyed the worldly jests of Oldenburg, and then returned to the working out of his sermon?

The young preacher had many books open before him in which to search for examples, similes and questions. His hand rested on an open volume of Maimonides, and his eyes wandered to the rows of books in shelves against the wall. There rested the words and thoughts of vanished minds. They too struggled, doubted, sorrowed and at last found peace. Is it not presumption to turn their life and learning to folly? Thousands were wiser than thou art. Bow thy proud spirit in humility, and thou

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Rh wilt again enter into peace; thou art heir of the blessedness which made happy those of old times. Thou wilt and thou canst, thou must. How wilt thou find the strength for a lonely road in which no one will follow thee but thine own consciousness? The spirits of thy forefathers rise and bless thee, enclosing thee in their circle. ...

Such is the traditional consolation which upholds the wavering powers as if with supernatural aid; long vanished capabilities return to help and support.

A radiant ecstasy shone from the eyes of the gazer, and his left hand was laid on his breast as the new peace possessed it. Will this traditional consolation and resignation, which now pacifies the stormy struggle, always bring the same calm? Or will the yearnings again awake in the soul that can only receive satisfaction from itself?

The appointed Sabbath came; the silence of expectation reigned in the synagogue as Baruch mounted the altar steps. What devil brought the image of Olympia at that moment before his mind so clearly that he heard her mocking tones, "Rabbi Baruch! Rabbi Baruch!" He summoned his resolution to banish all traces of the vision from his mind in such a time and place. He stood up as pale as a corpse, and dried the cold perspiration from his brow. All eyes were upon him. He began in a trembling voice:

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 use in changing, as we should be wet again directly. I talk of changing our clothes, we have only another suit to our back, and we all think it better to keep that dry till it holds up. Some of us I suspect will be having a touch of rheumatism—wet clothes all day, ditto blankets all night. We try and make ourselves as jolly as we can, and even Mark Tapley would allow that some credit is due to him who can make himself so here. The ground in the tent even is so soft that if we sit down we leave an impression. The flat is becoming quite a lake, and you can almost see the water rise, it flows over the ground so fast, and the trees are becoming shorter and shorter—of some only the tops are visible; the creek is now quite swimable, and running like a sluice. The camels arrived safe this afternoon, after a good hunt for them.

28th. It has been raining the whole night as hard as it could pour down. The water last night rose nearly three feet, and is rising fast now. We are making preparations to clear out of this, and high time too, or we shall have to swim for it. Our camp itself will shortly be under water; as it is the water is all round us, our camp being the only piece of high ground about. The rain held up about 12 o'clock, thank goodness, though everything is damp or wet. We shall get out of this in the morning, i. e., if we don't have to flit


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206 "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth." Ps. cxlv. 18. He represented in vivid colors the fate of the infidel, who had no God in Heaven, and none in his heart. He had come to the second part of his sermon, where he extolled the blessedness of the faith common to all men; he described the felicity of being even in life gathered to his fathers, united in the acceptation and building up of what was grounded by them; in this rests the strength of their earthly existence. His eloquence was fiery, his voice echoed powerfully, when he felt a violent choking sensation; he stopped, and blood flowed from his mouth into the damp handkerchief.

The stillness of a graveyard pervaded the whole assembly; the people looked at one another, and then pitifully at the fainting youth. The father had already opened his mouth to tell his son to come down, when Baruch stood up again and closed the service with a short prayer. As with one mouth the whole congregation cried out, "Jejasher Koach!" (the Lord strengthen thee) the usual applause in the synagogue.

Baruch and his father left the synagogue immediately. As they passed Chisdai's seat, he asked kindly if he might accompany them. Baruch thanked him. In all quarters the Sabbath talk was of Baruch's misfortune; old women and the wiseacres prophesied melancholy things. Only Chisdai,

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Rh usually not slow in his judgments, shrugged his shoulders when questioned. He had his reasons for not speaking out.

In three days Baruch again left his bed. He wished to go to Olympia.

"You shall never mention that house to me again," said his father in evident displeasure. "Fine tales I have heard of the little doctor. He is said to be the incarnation of Satan himself. The son of the indigo merchant, Grönhof, who died a week ago, confessed before his death that till then he had had no faith; the doctor had brought him to that pass. He has founded a whole sect. I did know the name; what is it called? But whether or no, you shall never cross his threshold again."

Baruch tried to dissuade his father, but he only went on: "The daughter is said to be worse than the father; she can talk the devil's ear off in seven different languages. I don't attend usually to common talk, but this lady is surrounded by a swarm of learned flatterers. Believe me, I know the world better than you; there all is jesting, laughter and song, witty dispute, rich fanciful ideas, in finely expressed trifling. A pure mind like yours sees nothing in it but the laudable freedom and gayety of the classic world. I have heard it called so too; but, properly looked at, it is frivolous mummery, that recognizes neither law nor limit. Have your parents left their fair native land for this—

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208 all glory and honor to endure mere sufferance—that now their children may fall into frivolous trifling with all that is most sacred? You know the writings of our religion better than I, but I have more experience of the world. Let me not have it in vain. Believe me, you will find dust and ashes if you give yourself up to the allurements of the world. Remain in the quiet sanctuary of sacred learning, and rejoice that you can live there undisturbed, as you proclaimed this day yourself."

The father's voice was deeply moved. Who knows how much lay behind these hastily uttered words? Transplanted to a strange soil he had aged rapidly. It seemed as if sorrow still oppressed him, that the fair native land, with its proud pleasures, had vanished forever for him. Perhaps for that reason he clung all the more to heavenly joys, and strove to bind his son to such alone.

The father's existence was twofold. The rapturous sensations that had filled his soul when Baruch received rabbinical honors were a combination of religious exaltation and worldly pride. On that Sabbath he was another man than on the days of work. He had still to struggle against memories of the past, all the more since his wife had been torn from him; he strove continually, more than was apparently requisite, to live in the present, and external cares and sorrows oppressed him deeply. He was an exile; his own heart was never

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 before. We are all most miserable. Camels can't wander, that's a blessing, for the water won't allow them. It is as well we left the cart where we did, we could not have taken it further, and in all probability it would have been swept away by this flood now rapidly coming on. McKinlay says we are now in that position, and not far from the place where Captain Sturt dreaded being overtaken by rain. It will be awful work travelling through this sea, but we must make the best of a bad bargain and face the difficulty. There is one thing, the quantity of water will enable the governor to go where he pleases, as there will be abundance for months to come. He says, "I wish I had a couple of months' rations of flour, tea, and sugar, as then I could thoroughly examine the country in this quarter." It is very stormy, the creek is rising very fast still, and here we are quite isolated on about a quarter of an acre. Pleasant, isn't it? We shall have a swim for it tomorrow, and no mistake. Poor little sheep, it will be hard work for them. The weather looks very angry, and more rain coming.

Mr. McKinlay remarks in his journal of this date:—

"'If this creek carries me much more to the north, instead of going to the east as it now does, I think it will take a run through to the Albert River; and if the steam sloop 'Victoria,' Captain Norman, has not sailed from there, I think I"


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 "will be able to get flour or biscuits in sufficient quantity to carry me back, and enable me to do all, or nearly so, that was required of me by the South Australian Government; if not at the Albert, I will only be obliged to live the principal part of the return journey on animal food, and what vegetables we may find from time to time. It won't be a very hard case, but much more pleasant and agreeable if it can be obtained.'"

March 1st. And a very pretty first of March it was. Up early and had breakfast, so that we may be off about the animals. First of all the sheep are to be taken to some dry ground, half a mile off. They will have to swim, and there is a strong current too. Kirby and the horsemen go with them. They manage, with care and patience, to get them over in safety after a difficult job, they then go after the other horses some miles away on the hills. Sometimes I can see them swimming, and then a head suddenly disappears altogether, its proprietor having gone down a hole; they were never less than up to their waists. Middleton and self go after camels in the same sort of way, sometimes swimming, and sometimes just touching the ground with our toes. Thank goodness, they were all close by, two and two, on little bits of ground, just big enough for them to stand on. They came with us through the water quite quietly, and I fancy they must have felt some fear of danger, for the female camel in particular has generally a great antipathy to water. She followed me like a dog. We soon got to camp,


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 down tents, load up, etc. Soon accomplished it, but it was frightful work, all our clothes dripping, for we did not take them off when we started, as they were wet already. To mend the matter the wind got up, and it went through us like a knife. We never felt it so cold as during this part of the performance. All ready to start, and off we go. We have to lead the camels to where the sheep are camped. We get on all right. The water sometimes up to our necks, and sometimes we have to swim a little way. Camels may well be called "the ships of the desert." They answered the purpose of boats to-day, at any rate, for us. The most of the provisions would have got soaked if the horses had carried them.

On our arrival on the spit of sand where the sheep were, Mr. McKinlay ordered two of the camels to be unloaded and to return for the ammunition, flour, tea, sugar, etc., which had hitherto been carried by the horses. So we had to take this most delightful journey again for the aforesaid traps, and very fortunate indeed it was that we had the camels, as otherwise all the flour, etc., would have been spoilt, as the water was over the horses' backs in many places, and their packs consequently more or less soaked. The creek this morning was rising some six inches, yesterday it was only three to four inches. It is none too soon for us to be on the move, I'm thinking. We are now in the midst


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 increasing by arrivals from Rockhampton and Sydney.

Let us now follow Mr. Davis for the last time. He is still as far as ever from Adelaide, his starting point, having more than 2,000 miles of sea to traverse; and although his patience is occasionally tried by the slow coach system of the "Ben Bolt" and other impedimental tubs that "express" the traveller in these out of the way latitudes, yet the last of the journey is perhaps quite as pleasant as the first, with a substitute of hospitable colonists for natives, and the varieties of a good dinner table for old Siva and his jerked brethren.

We remained at this station for one day quite enjoying ourselves. Mr. Somers has our warmest thanks for the kindness shown to us, and may the station flourish! No one could have been more kind than he. He gave us everything we wanted—more power to him. We then changed our camp some five miles to another station owned by Germans, called "Strathmore," Mr. Selleim being the chief of the firm, and a Mr. Trussaint the other partner. Here we remained for a week eating and drinking, etc., only the beef was as tough as old leather. The other things were good, and we are beginning to pick up, and are looking quite different men already. The same fine country between the two runs past through by us.


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 At this station, "Strathmore," there is a station of "native police," under the command of a European sergeant. Here we got some police horses and men, and a native trooper went for the things we buried two stages back.

During the week past here we were eagerly ready for the news from papers lent us by Mr. Selleim, for all the latest English news, Yankee war, etc. It was here we first heard of the death of Prince Albert. Mr. McKinlay, after remaining here for two days, started with Poole and one packhorse and a spare nag for Mr. McKinlay, to push into Port Denison. This place is some eighty miles from the port, the most northern settlement of Australia; it will be a pretty little town by and by.

The climate, they tell me is magnificent, for all the summer months. Whilst it is piercing hot in the interior here, this little spot is blessed with the most magnificent sea-breezes. Port Denison is situated on Edgcumbe Bay; the bay is very shallow, having to wade out a long way to get to a boat to take me off to a vessel.

The squatters soon came in to welcome Mr. McKinlay, many of them knowing him personally, and many more by report. They gave us a dinner to welcome us back to the land of the living. Lots of speeches, songs, etc., and we passed a jolly and happy evening; and we did not break up till 4 Some thirty gentlemen sat down to


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 table to do honour to our worthy commander. The squatters here looked quite fierce with their long knives stuck in their belts, and revolvers at their sides. We passed two pleasant days here at the Port Denison Hotel.

The "Ben Bolt" a small coasting "ketch," of some twenty tons, was the only vessel in the harbour. She trades regularly between this place and Rockhampton, a town lower down the coast, and sprung up since the great Port Curtis rush to the Canoona goldfield. She also carries the mails. This is the vessel that is to bear Cæsar and his fortunes. We embark to-morrow, 17th August, for Rockhampton. Nineteen of us in all to be in this small boat. How we shall stow I don't know. How Mr. McKinlay will stow is a puzzler. He is 6ft. 4in., and the berth about 5 by 6, and very narrow. He will have to take to the deck, or else put a knot in his legs. We had a Mr. Bierly, a gentleman who had been up taking out rims (tracts for pasture) in the district, and now returning to Rockhampton on business, Mr. Ham, a young squatter up here, and Mr. Finlay, who was going down for cattle to stock a run. The anchor up, and with three cheers for Port Denison and its inhabitants, we sail from the harbour with a flowing sheet.

Our little vessel sailed well for the first two days, but there came headwinds and baffling gales,


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 and the little craft could not do anything against them. We sighted many islands, too numerous to mention, even had I known the names. It was interesting now and then to hear a sailor spin a yarn that on that island poor Jack so-and-so got killed by the d——d blacks. It gave a kind of interest to the island. Mr. Bierly had a friend murdered on one of them not very long since. We passed close to one island, and were pointed out by the captain, Tom McEwin by name, the remains of a steamer and a quantity of coals lying high and dry on the beach. What steamer it was no one up to the present time has ever been able to discover. She was of iron, at least all that remains of her ribs are of iron. We were knocking about this part of the world for some ten days.

Our provisions getting short, our water nearly done, so the skipper put into an island called L Island. There we went on shore, for at low tide the gallant barkie was quite dry, as the tide recedes a very long way here. Put in a supply of water, which one or two of us found out, for be it known we went and explored the island. It was pretty well grassed and seemingly tolerably watered, for there was plenty of water in a creek, and in several large holes in the rocks. We had to take the puncheon up some three hundred feet to fill it, for the water was high up the mountain. We soon


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 filled it, and we had a job to get it down again; however, it was got down safely and put on board, where we embarked some dampers for use on board.

The captain had laid in enough provisions for some twelve days, consequently we were now beginning to look short in the locker. The beer and porter, however, were holding out well, and other liquors. It was now determined to make for a place called "BroadSound," where there was a bush public store of all kind of "omnium gatherum," where was sold everything, from a bottle of "Lea and Perrin's" sauce to paper collars. To this spot the skipper determined to make, and lay in a fresh supply of the good things of this life.

I forgot to mention that McEwen had put on board a sheep, but had forgotten to put any grub for it; and thereby one poor fellow, who was sleeping in the hold on the ballast, lost his blanket, and could not make out where it was till it was discovered the sheep had nearly eaten it, so we had him killed and eaten.

Very shortly after this sad catastrophe of the blanket, we landed at another island—Middleton, Harding, Finlay, and myself, with two sailors,—to get some more water if we could find any, but alas we only found a little in a hole, about half a gallon, which was no use to us. On this pretty spot, for it was a pretty island, well grassed but


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 not well timbered, we discovered a large beam of white pine timber squared off. It was about eighty feet long, and fifteen inches square. Evidently some ship had been lost coming through Torres Straits. Covered with timber there was also on the same island a piece of a large built ship's mast, which must have belonged to a large ship, perhaps to the very one that got wrecked loaded with timber. Who can tell?

Started for Broad Sound, where we arrived two days after. Broad Sound is the lower part of a river. Here we found a Sydney brig lying, the "Fortuna," having taken up stores to Port Denison, Broad Sound, and Rockhampton. There was also the wreck of a topsail schooner, the "Comet" lying up the river. We all went on shore, of course, and played quoits for bottles of rum, for that was the only drink they had. We start at the making of the tide to-night. The "Fortuna" also starts to-night for Sydney. We drop down the river.

We are all right at last. We are now going up the Fitzroy River, on which is the town of Rockhampton. This is at present rather a straggling town, but will soon be a fine prosperous place. There are already some one or two brick houses in it, and others being built.

None knew anything of our advent at Fort Denison, for we were the first to bring the news;


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 and to the astonishment of the population (for we landed some way below the town), who wondered who the devil such a ragged lot could be. We entered the town and put up at the Royal Fitzroy Hotel, and glad were we to get a good breakfast and some beer. The hotel is kept by Mr, and Mrs. Gardner, and a nicer house or more civil people you could not well meet. They were very kind and attentive to us all, and did the best to make us comfortable.

We stopped in this town some week or so, waiting for a steamer to take us to Sydney. Up to this time no one knew where we were, never dreaming in Adelaide that we should come out at Fort Denison. They will indeed be surprised to hear of our advent at this part of Australia. Two steamers came in, the old "Balcutha" and the "Bomerang." We go in the "Balcutha," at least some of us, as McKinlay stops for a dinner to be given to him, and the steamer can't wait. I take on the telegram to send to Adelaide, leaving him with one or two more, for some of the men remain behind here, and, as I forgot to mention, two had remained at Port Denison. We are reduced now to six, McKinlay, Middleton, Kirby, Wylde, Poole, and myself, the others being left, as I said before, at Port Denison. Messrs. Bell and Hodgkinson remain here.

We start from the wharf at 4, after having


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 a bout of champaign and songs till that hour in the hotel, when we wish good night to all. We start down the river on board the "Balcutha," but we strike on the bar; so, early, say 8, a boat containing Captain Trouton, as jolly a tar as ever walked a deck, starts for town again, as to-day is the Rockhampton races; and we go with Middleton and others off for the races. The dinner to McKinlay takes place to-night, and of coarse Trouton and I stop.

We arrived in Sydney harbour early in the morning, and the sight of it is well worth a voyage from the old country. It has been so often described that it would be superfluous to try even to do it, but of all the harbours I have ever seen, this is the most beautiful. Glad were we on arrival at the wharf to hear that the "Calcutta" was going on the next day to Melbourne. So we shall start for Melbourne to-morrow afternoon with Trouton.

We arrived in a couple of days at Melbourne, Captain Trouton making us as happy as possible, more power to him! We found the "Hannibal" steamer just leaving for Adelaide, but we are just too late to go by her, and have consequently to stop here for a fortnight. Oh! won't our time fly? Melbourne's the place to make it go well. Went up to the Criterion Hotel, and I should advise any one going to Melbourne to go there. Everything


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 AUSTRALIA TRAVERSED: TROPICAL DISTRICT.

" might expect some enthusiasm in the contents of this chapter, as the party approached the goal of all their exertions, and had the hope of presently emerging upon the northern sea. Our travellers, however, plod on without much troubling the poetry of the occasion. As they descend the Leichhardt, the first of the known gulf streams they have made, they find a gradually increasing rise of the tidal wave, until, on the 18th May, the salt water comes in upon them like a sluice, running through the mangrove creeks.


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 The network of these creeks, and the bog and swamp that appear to fringe the southern shore of Carpentaria, are a sad check to the enthusiasm that might naturally be otherwise called forth upon the successful accomplishment of so great a journey. On the 20th they can reach only within from four to five miles of the sea, and on the 21st they joyfully commence the return to home and the civilized world.

Geographically speaking, we are now within the tropical boundary, but the extra-tropical features still follow us. The weather is fitfully hot and cold, and the nights sometimes bitterly cold, and still there is the ominous spinifex, the sign of a poor soil, such as has not the advantage of regular tropical rains. There are still the marks of great and sudden flooding—the symptoms of a precarious rain supply. At Elder's Creek, for instance, reached on 28th April, there were the marks of a recent great flood, which had left its traces in logs, grass, and rubbish, at a height of thirty or forty feet above the travellers as they lay down to sleep, peaceably enough now, on the sand in the bed of the creek. Tropical indications, however, gradually increase as the party proceed northward. Here they pluck an edible fruit growing on a palm tree, there the dense and substantial vegetation shows it is no longer the creature of a casual shower, and every


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 where the range of the spinifex is gradually narrowed.

The considerable river Leichhardt was struck on 6th May, at a point about one hundred miles from its mouth, where it was a hundred and fifty yards wide between its banks, with a stream about twenty yards in width. Some fifty miles lower down, it presented a more imposing appearance, "its bed," says McKinlay, "vast sheets of stones, and the water in it one hundred and fifty yards wide." Two miles lower down the river goes over a fall fifty or sixty feet in height, and some miles below the fall occurs a sand pit, indicating a tidal influence. Diverging to the westward, on the 13th, a branch of the Albert was met, but its waters proved to be salt, and the party returned to the Leichhardt. The Albert had, at an earlier time, been an object of attention to McKinlay, because the steamer sent round from Melbourne by the Victoria Government the year before had been instructed to lie off that river in readiness with provisions and other assistance for the use of any of the several exploring parties then traversing the country. Latterly, however, this contingent prospect is not alluded to, no doubt from the impression that the long delay in the lake district had brought the party to the Gulf at a date long subsequent to the return of the steamer, as was indeed the case.


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 The aboriginal population are evidently getting more numerous—another indication of the comparative plenty, and of the permanent supply of water and food of tropical regions. They still keep to the ranges, where they seem busy burning the grass. On the 1st May the party came suddenly upon one of them, who ran off in great flight. It seemed strange that more should not be met with in so fine a country. On the 8th, while in the neighbourhood of the line of trees that marked the course of the Leichhardt, the natives were actively burning the vegetation in all directions. A fuller share of tropical life now clusters around the travellers. Pelicans are abundant; like the kangaroo and other Australian denizens they pervade the entire country. Sturt's pigeons are in such numbers that they are described as vast clouds darkening the ground beneath them. The multitudes of ants and their habitations are alluded to by most Australian travellers. In their migrations these industrious communities leave behind them memorials that may well bear a comparison, after its kind, with a Nineveh or Babylon. Writing on 24th April, McKinlay remarks upon the numerous red-ant hills which the expedition, for the previous hundred and fifty miles of its course, saw upon the slopes and tops of the ranges. Untenanted and going to decay, many were like sharp spires, and all


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Rh free from the painful recollections of his home. He had left it for the sake of his faith and to ensure to his children freedom of worship. As it must be so, all the more zealously was he determined to watch over his son, that the peace of his life also might not be disturbed by strange reminiscences. The youth, whom the physician had warned against all violent speaking, tried, in a soft voice and carefully guarded language, to teach his father to think otherwise of Olympia and her friends. There was a knock at the door, and Oldenburg entered, accompanied by a friend. Oldenburg advanced and held out his hand to Baruch.

"That is well," he said; "you have not yet signed yourself a candidate for the lower world. We were anxious, because you gave us no information. Jufrow Olympia sends you her compliments; she remarked some time ago that you must be ill. So on her bidding I ventured to make my first call on you, and because I thought you must be seriously ill, I brought my friend Dr. Ludwig Meyer with me, who, moreover, has long wished to make your acquaintance."

"Yes, I was very anxious about my son," said his father, and Oldenburg bowed to the speaker.

"So you are the father of our young philosopher? Did you not come to me a short time ago about a claim on the house of Trost?"

"Yes."

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210 "Excuse me for being so short then; I was engaged with pressing business. I was very sorry I did not tell you so. Your affair was not forgotten, however. I wrote to Bremen concerning it, and received answer that if you were not paid within four weeks an execution would be put in."

"I am much obliged for your trouble, and for the honor you have done my house by this visit."

Oldenburg then talked earnestly with the father, who felt himself, to his surprise, much taken with Oldenburg's open-hearted manner. It might be said that Oldenburg's whole behavior in tone and character was expressed in his voice, full, tranquil and trustworthy. He told the father that Baruch was the first Jew whom he had learned to know intimately. He was not only astonished at his powers of mind, and in love with his noble spirit; he was under obligations to him for having removed prejudices engrafted by early education and custom. Oldenburg's sincere and extraordinary affection for Baruch, never shown to him in words, was now revealed to his father, and made his countenance brighten with pleasure. The heart of the old Spaniard was stirred by the chivalric appearance of Oldenburg, whose grace was as a memory of his youth.

Meyer meanwhile conversed with Baruch on his breakdown of the previous Sabbath.

"You should have followed the example of our

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 of a vast sea, the shallowest part of which I should say could not be less than five feet. After getting all things to dry land we reloaded the camels with their proper burdens, giving the horses what belonged to them, and what we brought up on the second trip, and started for camp (we are all shivering and shaking, and teeth fairly chattering with the intense cold) on a sand-hill, where there is plenty of water and fine feed for the animals; but the road to it is our difficulty, the beasts all slipping and sliding about, and we expecting some of them to be down every minute. The poor little sheep were sometimes up to their bellies in mud, and had to be lifted out. It was horrid work for them. It still looks rainy. I suppose we shall remain here for some time, for I don't see how we are to get out of it. For the present we are in our new position, above all inundation, and in perfect safety for some time. From this camp the whole country is one immense sea as far as the eye can reach, nothing else visible but the large trees marking the courses of the different creeks and stone-hills in the distance.

Mr. McKinlay remarks again in his journal regarding this flood:—

"'We were very fortunate to be caught in it where we were; had we been caught thus in making this creek, or a day's stage up it, to a certainty we should all have been"


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Rh rough-spoken, brave old Dr. Luther," said the young physician with the dark complexion and flashing black eyes.

"What did he do?" inquired Baruch.

"He once said: 'When I mount the pulpit I look at the human beings, but regard them as mere blocks standing before me, and speak out God's word.' In a certain sense—in which sense, however, he did not mean it—I agree with him entirely. You must study the man; he has a certain proportion of faith which is wanting in me, but he was thoroughly honest. I am much interested in him."

"I am glad you too are a theologian."

"I lead a sort of amphibious life between theology and medicine."

"Yes, Herr von Spinoza," said Oldenburg joining in the conversation. "Meyer has medicine for a wife, and theology for a mistress. You can dispute with him; he knows the Bible by heart." The father accompanied Oldenburg and Meyer to the door on their departure, and was not displeased that the passers-by should see who had visited him. His face was still bright when he returned to his son, and he said:

"Herr Oldenburg thinks very highly of you. I know the difference well enough between mere patronage and real sincerity. You may congratulate yourself on having such a gallant, upright man for a friend,"

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 "washed away, or, what would have been just as bad, be perched on a small island of sand with all the animals round us, and nothing but starvation staring us in the face—as on most of the sand-rises down near the creek there was no vegetation of any consequence upon them.'"

We had a narrow escape from following in the footsteps of poor Leichhardt and party, who have never been heard of to this day, and it is now some sixteen years since they started. I should not be the least surprised if he and party were carried away in one of these floods, as not the slightest trace of him has ever been seen. This is mere supposition on my part, but I believe Mr. McKinlay agrees with me. After arriving and turning out the animals we got into some dry clothes, and not before they were wanted. Then we had some hot tea, and began to feel comfortable once more. Pitched tents, and we all looked more happy than we have done for some days. The sand here is awful, blowing into our eyes, etc., and everything we get to eat is covered with it.

Sunday, 2nd. It rained steadily for some time last night, and is showery to-day. The flats are considerably more covered this morning. Thunder and lightning from north-east. Some of us began to talk of our possible fate, others raking up stories of accidents that had befallen other explorers, and some painted the picture rather dismally; but it is of no use putting a sad