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wool was now sent down, abundance of provisions would come up with the
empty drays.

Everything being now ready, all the hands on the station turned out to
see us off, and we started on our journey, not very long after the summer
solstice of 1870.




CHAPTER III: UP THE RIVER


The first day we had an easy time, following up the great flats by the
river side, which had already been twice burned, so that there was no
dense undergrowth to check us, though the ground was often rough, and we
had to go a good deal upon the river-bed. Towards nightfall we had made
a matter of some five-and-twenty miles, and camped at the point where the
river entered upon the gorge.

The weather was delightfully warm, considering that the valley in which
we were encamped must have been at least two thousand feet above the
level of the sea. The river-bed was here about a mile and a half broad
and entirely covered with shingle over which the river ran in many
winding channels, looking, when seen from above, like a tangled skein of
ribbon, and glistening in the sun. We knew that it was liable to very
sudden and heavy freshets; but even had we not known it, we could have
seen it by the snags of trees, which must have been carried long
distances, and by the mass of vegetable and mineral _debris_ which was
banked against their lower side, showing that at times the whole river-
bed must be covered with a roaring torrent many feet in depth and of
ungovernable fury. At present the river was low, there being but five or
six streams, too deep and rapid for even a strong man to ford on foot,
but to be crossed safely on horseback. On either side of it there were
still a few acres of flat, which grew wider and wider down the river,
till they became the large plains on which we looked from my master's
hut. Behind us rose the lowest spurs of the second range, leading
abruptly to the range itself; and at a distance of half a mile began the
gorge, where the river narrowed and became boisterous and terrible. The
beauty of the scene cannot be conveyed in language. The one side of the
valley was blue with evening shadow, through which loomed forest and
precipice, hillside and mountain top; and the other was still brilliant
with the sunset gold. The wide and wasteful river with its ceaseless
rushing--the beautiful water-birds too, which abounded upon the islets
and were so tame that we could come close up to them--the ineffable
purity of the air--the solemn peacefulness of the untrodden region--could
there be a more delightful and exhilarating combination?

We set about making our camp, close to some large bush which came down
from the mountains on to the flat, and tethered out our horses upon
ground as free as we could find it from anything round which they might
wind the rope and get themselves tied up. We dared not let them run
loose, lest they might stray down the river home again. We then gathered

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