On The Following Day I Sent Down The Groom With A Pair Of Horses To Bring Up The Carriage; At The Same Time I Sent Down The Elephant To Bring Some Luggage From Ramboddé.

Now this groom, "Henry Perkes," was one of the emigrants, and he was not exactly the steadiest of the party; I therefore cautioned him to be very careful in driving up the pass, especially in crossing the narrow bridges and turning the corners.

He started on his mission.

The next day a dirty-looking letter was put in my hand by a native, which, being addressed to me, ran something in this style:

"Honord Zur "I'm sorry to hinform you that the carrige and osses has met with a haccidint and is tumbled down a preccippice and its a mussy as I didn't go too. The preccippice isn't very deep bein not above heighy feet or therabouts - the hosses is got up but is very bad - the carrige lies on its back and we can't stir it nohow. Mr. _____ is very kind, and has lent above a hunderd niggers, but they aint no more use than cats at liftin. Plese Zur come and see whats to be done. "Your Humbel Servt, "H. PERKES."

This was pleasant, certainly - a new carriage and a pair of fine Australian horses smashed before they reached Newera Ellia!

This was, however, the commencement of a chapter of accidents. I went down the pass, and there, sure enough, I had a fine bird's-eye view of the carriage down a precipice on the road side.

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