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their boundaries. I was to see the sheep, not necessarily close at hand,
nor to get them in a single mob, but to see enough of them here and there
to feel easy that nothing had gone wrong; this was no difficult matter,
for there were not above eight hundred of them; and, being all breeding
ewes, they were pretty quiet.

There were a good many sheep which I knew, as two or three black ewes,
and a black lamb or two, and several others which had some distinguishing
mark whereby I could tell them. I would try and see all these, and if
they were all there, and the mob looked large enough, I might rest
assured that all was well. It is surprising how soon the eye becomes
accustomed to missing twenty sheep out of two or three hundred. I had a
telescope and a dog, and would take bread and meat and tobacco with me.
Starting with early dawn, it would be night before I could complete my
round; for the mountain over which I had to go was very high. In winter
it was covered with snow, and the sheep needed no watching from above. If
I were to see sheep dung or tracks going down on to the other side of the
mountain (where there was a valley with a stream--a mere _cul de sac_), I
was to follow them, and look out for sheep; but I never saw any, the
sheep always descending on to their own side, partly from habit, and
partly because there was abundance of good sweet feed, which had been
burnt in the early spring, just before I came, and was now deliciously
green and rich, while that on the other side had never been burnt, and
was rank and coarse.

It was a monotonous life, but it was very healthy and one does not much
mind anything when one is well. The country was the grandest that can be
imagined. How often have I sat on the mountain side and watched the
waving downs, with the two white specks of huts in the distance, and the
little square of garden behind them; the paddock with a patch of bright
green oats above the huts, and the yards and wool-sheds down on the flat
below; all seen as through the wrong end of a telescope, so clear and
brilliant was the air, or as upon a colossal model or map spread out
beneath me. Beyond the downs was a plain, going down to a river of great
size, on the farther side of which there were other high mountains, with
the winter's snow still not quite melted; up the river, which ran winding
in many streams over a bed some two miles broad, I looked upon the second
great chain, and could see a narrow gorge where the river retired and was
lost. I knew that there was a range still farther back; but except from
one place near the very top of my own mountain, no part of it was
visible: from this point, however, I saw, whenever there were no clouds,
a single snow-clad peak, many miles away, and I should think about as
high as any mountain in the world. Never shall I forget the utter
loneliness of the prospect--only the little far-away homestead giving
sign of human handiwork;--the vastness of mountain and plain, of river

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