was serious, he had recourse to the following crude and barbarous operation, which it appears is not uncommon among these people in their native state.  He made a fire, and dug a hole in the earth only sufficiently large to admit his leg, and deep enough to allow the wounded part to be on a level with the surface of the ground.  He then surrounded the limb with the live coals or charcoal, which was replenished until the leg was literally burnt off.  The cauterization thus applied completely checked the hemorrhage, and he was able in a day or two to hobble down to the Sound, with the aid of a long stout stick, although he was more than a week on the road.”

But he was a fastidious native.  He soon discarded the wooden leg made for him by the doctor, because “it had no feeling in it.”  It must have had as much as the one he burnt off, I should think.

So much for the Aboriginals.  It is difficult for me to let them alone.  They are marvelously interesting creatures.  For a quarter of a century, now, the several colonial governments have housed their remnants in comfortable stations, and fed them well and taken good care of them in every way.  If I had found this out while I was in Australia I could have seen some of those people—­but I didn’t.  I would walk thirty miles to see a stuffed one.

Australia has a slang of its own.  This is a matter of course.  The vast cattle and sheep industries, the strange aspects of the country, and the strange native animals, brute and human, are matters which would naturally breed a local slang.  I have notes of this slang somewhere, but at the moment I can call to mind only a few of the words and phrases.  They are expressive ones.  The wide, sterile, unpeopled deserts have created eloquent phrases like “No Man’s Land” and the “Never-never Country.”  Also this felicitous form:  “She lives in the Never-never Country”—­that is, she is an old maid.  And this one is not without merit:  “heifer-paddock”—­young ladies’ seminary.  “Bail up” and “stick up” equivalent of our highwayman-term to “hold up” a stage-coach or a train.  “New-chum” is the equivalent of our “tenderfoot”—­new arrival.

And then there is the immortal “My word!” “We must import it.”  “M-y word!”

“In cold print it is the equivalent of our “Ger-rreat Caesar!” but spoken with the proper Australian unction and fervency, it is worth six of it for grace and charm and expressiveness.  Our form is rude and explosive; it is not suited to the drawing-room or the heifer-paddock; but “M-y word!” is, and is music to the ear, too, when the utterer knows how to say it.  I saw it in print several times on the Pacific Ocean, but it struck me coldly, it aroused no sympathy.  That was because it was the dead corpse of the thing, the ’soul was not there—­the tones were lacking—­the informing spirit—­the deep feeling—­the eloquence.  But the first time I heard an Australian say it, it was positively thrilling.