As There Are Always Plenty Of Bad Characters Lounging In The Neighbourhood Of Such Places, We Kept At A Respectful Distance, And Did Not Make Our Final Halt Till Full Two Miles Farther On Our Road.

Tents were again pitched, but owing to their not being fastened over securely, many of us got an unwished-for shower-bath during the night; but this is nothing - at the antipodes one soon learns to laugh at such trifles.

THURSDAY, 9. - This morning we were up betimes, some of our party being so sanguine as to anticipate making the "Bush Inn" before evening. As we proceeded, this hope quickly faded away. The Keilor plains seemed almost impassable, and what with pieces of rock here, and a water-hole there, crossing them was more dangerous than agreeable. Now one passed a broken-down dray; then one's ears were horrified at the oaths an unhappy wight was venting at a mud-hole into which he had stumbled. A comical object he looked, as, half-seas-over, he attempted to pull on a mud-covered boot, which he had just extricated from the hole where it and his leg had parted company. A piece of wood, which his imagination transformed into a shoe-horn, was in his hand. "Put it into the larboard side," (suiting the action to the word), "there it goes - damn her, she won't come on! Put it into the starboard side there it goes - well done, old girl," and he triumphantly rose from the ground, and reeled away.

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