have been thoroughly pleasant, had the accommodation included supper as well as bed; but what we most wished for was water, which of course it was impossible to procure. Nevertheless, I was glad for once to feel the solitariness of a night in the open bush, even at the expense of a little privation. A night bird was singing in a note something like a cuckoo, but with a hoarse foreign tone, and when he left off the silence was only once broken by a little opossum scampering up a tree near our fire. The picture was beautiful as we lay looking at the stars in the blue-black vault overhead, against which every twig and branch shone white as it caught the firelight, whilst the perfect stillness carried with it a sensation of awe.
We were awake soon after dawn, very glad to be stirring, and as we were quite out of our reckoning we retraced our steps towards the last house which we had passed. The poor horse was as thirsty as ourselves, and nearly overturned us in making an eager rush at a puddle near the wayside, but the spring when tasted was worse than nothing, being briny rather than brackish. About six miles from our sleeping-place we again espied the unlucky urchin with his cows; he did not wait to confront us, but dived amongst the trees as soon as we came in sight.
Our next adventure, although in the daylight, was even more perplexing. We had made a night's halt at the inn where we witnessed the execution of the black snake, and where not even the chance of meeting an incensed relation of the deceased could prevent our paying visits whenever we took a holiday, for, though only twenty miles removed from Barladong, a different soil produced an entire change in the aspect of the forest and such great variety of beau-
