at 96 or 98 degrees than when it ranged up to 108 or 110 degrees.  The afternoons are excessively relaxing, for although the mercury falls a little after three o’clock, still the morning’s heat appears to remain until the sun has actually set.  It is more than probable that the horses having been hunted by the natives, and having found more water, will not come back here of their own accord to water any more; so I shall keep one tied up at the camp, to fetch the others up with every morning.

And now comes Thursday, 25th December, Christmas Day, 1873.  Ah, how the time flies!  Years following years, steal something every day; at last they steal us from ourselves away.  What Horace says is, Eheu fugaces, anni labuntur postume, postume:—­Years glide away, and are lost to me, lost to me.

While Jimmy Andrews was away after the others, upon the horse that was tied up all night, we were startled out of our propriety by the howls and yells of a pack of fiends in human form and aboriginal appearance, who had clambered up the rocks just above our camp.  I could only see some ten or a dozen in the front, but scores more were dodging in and out among the rocks.  The more prominent throng were led by an ancient individual, who, having fitted a spear, was just in the act of throwing it down amongst us, when Gibson seized a rifle, and presented him with a conical Christmas box, which smote the rocks with such force, and in such near proximity to his hinder parts, that in a great measure it checked his fiery ardour, and induced most of his more timorous following to climb with most perturbed activity over the rocks.  The ancient more slowly followed, and then from behind the fastness of his rocky shield, he spoke spears and boomerangs to us, though he used none.  He, however, poured out the vials of his wrath upon us, as he probably thought to some purpose.  I was not linguist enough to be able to translate all he said; but I am sure my free interpretation of the gist of his remarks is correct, for he undoubtedly stigmatised us as a vile and useless set of lazy, crawling, white-faced wretches, who came sitting on hideous brutes of hippogryphs, being too lazy to walk like black men, and took upon ourselves the right to occupy any country or waters we might chance to find; that we killed and ate any wallabies and other game we happened to see, thereby depriving him and his friends of their natural, lawful food, and that our conduct had so incensed himself and his noble friends, who were now in the shelter of the rocks near him, that he begged us to take warning that it was the unanimous determination of himself and his noble friends to destroy such vermin as he considered us, and our horses to be, and drive us from the face of the earth.

It appeared to me, however, that his harangue required punctuation, so I showed him the rifle again, whereupon he incontinently indulged in a full stop.  The natives then retired from those rocks, and commenced their attack by throwing spears through the tea-tree from the opposite side of the creek.  Here we had the back of our gunyah for a shield, and could poke the muzzles of our guns and rifles through the interstices of the boughs.  We were compelled to discharge our pieces at them to ensure our peace and safety.