Our last discharge drove away the enemy, and soon after, Jimmy came with all the horses.  Gibson shot a wallaby, and we had fried chops for our Christmas dinner.  We drew from the medical department a bottle of rum to celebrate Christmas and victory.  We had an excellent dinner (for explorers), although we had eaten our Christmas pudding two days before.  We perhaps had no occasion to envy any one their Christmas dinner, although perhaps we did.  Thermometer 106 degrees in the shade.  On this occasion Mr. Tietkens, who was almost a professional, sang us some songs in a fine, deep, clear voice, and Gibson sang two or three love songs, not altogether badly; then it was Jimmy’s turn.  He said he didn’t know no love songs, but he would give us Tommy or Paddy Brennan.  This gentleman appears to have started in business as a highwayman in the romantic mountains of Limerick.  One verse that Jimmy gave, and which pleased us most, because we couldn’t quite understand it, was

   “It was in sweet Limerick (er) citty
    That he left his mother dear;
    And in the Limerick (er) mountains,
    He commenced his wild caroo-oo.”

Upon our inquiring what a caroo was, Jimmy said he didn’t know.  No doubt it was something very desperate, and we considered we were perhaps upon a bit of a wild caroo ourselves.

The flies had now become a most terrible plague, especially to the horses, but most of all to the unfortunate that happens to be tied up.  One horse, when he found he could not break away, threw himself down so often and so violently, and hurt himself so much, that I was compelled to let him go, unless I had allowed him to kill himself, which he would certainly have done.

A small grape-like fruit on a light green bush of the sandal-wood kind, having one soft stone, was got here.  This fruit is black when ripe, and very good eating raw.  We tried them cooked with sugar as jam, and though the others liked them very much, I could not touch them.  The afternoons were most oppressive, and we had our usual earthquakes; one on the 28th causing a more than usual falling of rocks and smashing of tea-trees.

For a few days I was taking a rest.  I was grieved to find that the water gradually ceased running earlier than formerly—­that is to say, between eleven and twelve—­the usual time had been between two and three p.m.; but by the morning every little basin was refilled.  The phases of the moon have evidently something to do with the water supply.  As the moon waxes, the power of the current wanes, and vice versa.  On the 1st January, 1874, the moon was approaching its full, a quarter’s change of the moon being the only time rain is likely to fall in this country; rain is threatening now every day.  After a hot and sultry night, on the 2nd, at about two o’clock, a fine thunder-shower from the east came over the range, and though it did not last very long, it quite replenished the water supply in the creek, and set it running again after