“Let me see,” he said; “that’s the north; Charles’ Wain and the North Pole ought to be there, but they have gone down somewhere.  There are the Seven Stars—­I never could make ’em seven; if there ever were that number one of ’em has dropped out.  And there’s Orion; he has somehow slipped up to the north, and is standing on his head, heels uppermost.  There are the two stars in his heels, two on his shoulders, three in his belt, and three in his sword.  There is the Southern Cross; we could never see that in our part of England, nor those two silvery clouds, nor the two black holes.  They look curious, don’t they?  I suppose the two clouds are the Gates of Heaven, and the two black spots the Gates of Hell, the doors of eternity.  Which way shall we go?  That’s the question.”

The old adage is still quite true—­’coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt’.  When a young gentleman in England takes to idleness and grog, and disgraces his family, he is provided with a passage to Australia, in order that he may become a reformed prodigal; but the change of climate does not effect a reform; it requires something else.

Dan in Glasgow and Bez in Manchester had both been given to drink too much.  They came to Victoria to acquire the virtue of temperance, and they were sober enough when they had no money.

Dan told me that when he awoke after his first week at sea, he sat every day on the topgallant forecastle thinking over his past wickedness, watching the foam go by, and continually tempted to plunge into it.

After the rum, the dray, and the four horses were seized by the police.  Dan and Bez grew sober, and went to Reid’s Creek, passing me at work on Spring Creek.  They came back as separate items.  Dan called at my tent, and I gave him a meal of damper, tea, and jam.  He ate the whole of the jam, which cost me 2s. 6d. per pound.  He then humped his swag and started for Melbourne.  On his way through the township, since named Beechworth, he took a drink of liquor which disabled him, and he lay down by the roadside using an ant-hill for a pillow.  He awoke at daylight covered with ants, which were stinging and eating him alive.

Some days later Bez came along, passed my tent for a mile, and then came back.  He said he was ashamed of himself.  I gave him also a feed of damper, tea, and jam limited.  Dan had made me cautious in the matter of lavish hospitality.  The Earl of Lonsdale lately spent fifty thousand pounds in entertaining the Emperor of Germany, but it was money thrown away.  The next time the Kaiser comes to Westmoreland he will have to pay for his board and buy his preserves.  Bez made a start for Melbourne, met an old convict, and with him took a job at foot-rotting sheep on a station owned by a widow lady.  Here he passed as an engraver in reduced circumstances.  He told lies so well, that the convict was filled with admiration, and said, “I’m sure, mate, you’re a flash covey wot’s done his time in the island.”