Gibson and Jimmy did not agree very well; Jimmy always had some tale of woe to pour into my ear whenever I returned from an outside trip.  He was a very clean young fellow, but Gibson would never wash himself; and once when Jimmy made some remark about it, Gibson said to me, “I can’t think what you and Tietkens and Jimmy are always washing yourselves for.”  “Why,” I said, “for health and cleanliness, to be sure.”  “Oh,” said he, “if I was to bathe like you do, it would give me the ’ives’.”  I often showed the others how to mend their boots.  One day, sitting in the shade of our bough-house, we were engaged in cobbling.  Gibson used to tread so unevenly on his boots that the heels were turned nearly upwards, and he walked more on the uppers than on the soles, therefore his required all the more repairing.  Picking up one of my boots that I had just mended, Gibson looked very hard at it, and at last said, “How do you manage to wear your boots so straight?” “Oh,” I said, “perhaps my legs are straight.”  He rejoined, “Well, ain’t mine straight too?” I said, “I don’t know; I don’t see them often enough to tell,” alluding to his not bathing.  “Well,” he said at last, with a deep sigh, “By G—­“—­gum, I suppose he meant—­“I’d give a pound to be able to wear my boots as straight as you.  No, I’m damned if I wouldn’t give five-and-twenty bob!” We laughed.  We had some rolls of smoked beef, which caused the ants to come about the camp, and we had to erect a little table with legs in the water, to lay these on.  One roll had a slightly musty smell, and Gibson said to me, “This roll’s rotten; shall I chuck it away?” “Chuck it away,” I said; “why, man, you must be cranky to talk such rubbish as throwing away food in such a region as this!” “Why,” said he, “nobody won’t eat it.”  “No,” said I, “but somebody will eat it; I for one, and enjoy it too.”  Whereupon he looked up at me, and said, “Oh, are you one of them as likes yer meat ’igh?” I was annoyed at his stupendous stupidity, and said, “One of them!  Who are you talking about?  Who are they I’d like to know?  When we boil this meat, if we put a piece of charcoal in the pot, it will come out as sweet as a nut.”  He merely replied, with a dubious expression of face, “Oh!” but he ate his share of it as readily as anybody else.  The next day, Christmas eve, I sent Mr. Tietkens and Gibson on two of the horses we had lately brought back, to find the mob, which they brought home late, and said the tracks of the natives showed that they had driven the horses away for several miles, and they had found them near a small creek, along the south face of the range, where there was water.  While they were away some ducks visited the camp, but the tea-tree was too thick to allow us to shoot any of them.  The day was cool, although there is a great oppression in the atmosphere, and it is impossible to tell by one’s feelings what might be the range of the thermometer, as I have often felt it hotter on some days with the thermometer