I am there now, as I write; I fancy that I can see the downs, the huts, the plain, and the river-bed—­that torrent pathway of desolation, with its distant roar of waters.  Oh, wonderful! wonderful! so lonely and so solemn, with the sad grey clouds above, and no sound save a lost lamb bleating upon the mountain side, as though its little heart were breaking.  Then there comes some lean and withered old ewe, with deep gruff voice and unlovely aspect, trotting back from the seductive pasture; now she examines this gully, and now that, and now she stands listening with uplifted head, that she may hear the distant wailing and obey it.  Aha! they see, and rush towards each other.  Alas! they are both mistaken; the ewe is not the lamb’s ewe, they are neither kin nor kind to one another, and part in coldness.  Each must cry louder, and wander farther yet; may luck be with them both that they may find their own at nightfall.  But this is mere dreaming, and I must proceed.

I could not help speculating upon what might lie farther up the river and behind the second range.  I had no money, but if I could only find workable country, I might stock it with borrowed capital, and consider myself a made man.  True, the range looked so vast, that there seemed little chance of getting a sufficient road through it or over it; but no one had yet explored it, and it is wonderful how one finds that one can make a path into all sorts of places (and even get a road for pack-horses), which from a distance appear inaccessible; the river was so great that it must drain an inner tract—­at least I thought so; and though every one said it would be madness to attempt taking sheep farther inland, I knew that only three years ago the same cry had been raised against the country which my master’s flock was now overrunning.  I could not keep these thoughts out of my head as I would rest myself upon the mountain side; they haunted me as I went my daily rounds, and grew upon me from hour to hour, till I resolved that after shearing I would remain in doubt no longer, but saddle my horse, take as much provision with me as I could, and go and see for myself.

But over and above these thoughts came that of the great range itself.  What was beyond it?  Ah! who could say?  There was no one in the whole world who had the smallest idea, save those who were themselves on the other side of it—­if, indeed, there was any one at all.  Could I hope to cross it?  This would be the highest triumph that I could wish for; but it was too much to think of yet.  I would try the nearer range, and see how far I could go.  Even if I did not find country, might I not find gold, or diamonds, or copper, or silver?  I would sometimes lie flat down to drink out of a stream, and could see little yellow specks among the sand; were these gold?  People said no; but then people always said there was no gold until it was found to be abundant:  there was plenty of slate and granite, which I had always understood to accompany gold; and even though it was not found in paying quantities here, it might be abundant in the main ranges.  These thoughts filled my head, and I could not banish them.