We Got Farther On Our First Day Than Our Predecessor Had Done In Two, And Then Possum, One Of The

Bullocks, lay down (I am afraid he had had an awful hammering in a swampy creek where he had stuck

For two hours), and would not stir an inch; so we turned them all adrift with their yokes on (had we taken them off we could not have yoked them up again), whereat Possum began feeding in a manner which plainly showed that there had not been much amiss with him. But during the interval that elapsed between our getting into the swampy creek and getting out of it a great change had come over the weather. While poor Possum was being chastised I had been reclining on the bank hard by, and occasionally interceding for the unhappy animal, the men were all at him (but what is one to do if one's dray is buried nearly to the axle in a bog, and Possum won't pull?); so I was taking it easy, without coat or waistcoat, and even then feeling as if no place could be too cool to please me, for the nor'-wester was still blowing strong and intensely hot, when suddenly I felt a chill, and looking at the lake below saw that the white-headed waves had changed their direction, and that the wind had chopped round to sou'-west.

We left the dray and went on some two or three miles on foot for the purpose of camping where there was firewood.

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