It is midwinter. The season has been severe, the rainfall heavy and continuous, almost without parallel. The floods are out and the whole country is generally spoken of as being \'under water.\' We are on the road from Goulburn, New South Wales, to Gippsland with a thousand head of store cattle. We have crossed the high bare downs of the historical district of Monaro, rich in tales of wonderful feats of stock-riding, performed by \'the old hands,\' and repeated by one generation of stock-riders after another. The Snowy River, rushing savagely over granite boulders, is in sight, and we hail that turbulent stream as a midway stage in our long, tedious, and adventurous journey.

Now there is cattle-droving and cattle-droving. When loitering in early summer-time over rich or level country the expedition is an idyll. The cattle follow one another without pressing, feeding as they go. The horses lounge along or are driven among the cattle, some of the men always preferring to be on foot. The dogs are easy in their minds, the whips are at rest. Around the camp-fires at night are heard sounds of careless merriment; the air seems charged with exhilaration, and all is couleur de rose. This sort of business is occasionally the rule for weeks, causing the unreflecting newcomer to exclaim, \'Is this the overlanding of which we have heard so much? Why, any fellow could do this.\'

Quite another style of travelling was that which we had experienced for weeks and which was even now becoming intensified. When the country travelled through is rough, thickly timbered, or mountainous; when ceaseless rain floods the rivers and soaks the baggage; when the horses and cattle are 342enfeebled and therefore prone to straggle, ordinary difficulties are increased fourfold. Everybody is required to be at the fullest stretch of exertion, with both head and hand, from daylight till dark—occasionally for all night as well. Horses become lame or die; losses occur among the cattle; the person in charge has a tendency to become gruff, even abusive; hard work, anxiety, and perhaps short commons are frequently inscribed on this, the reverse side of the shield. Such is the prospect which we shrewdly suspect lies before us as we halt the drove nearly a mile from the formidable ice-fed stream, \'rolling red from brae to brae,\' and prepare for a swim over.

Our party consists of eight mounted men, exclusive of a cook or tent-keeper, and a boy, hardy, knowing, and, it might be added, impudent beyond his years. The leader is Mr. Harold Lodbroke, an Australian of English descent; he has managed cattle from his youth up, and these are not the first thousand head that he has personally conducted from one side of the country to the other.

Mr. Elms, the second in command, is an Englishman who has plainly, by some peculiar arrangement of circumstances, been \'born out of his native country.\' In speech, in manner, in the fifteen stone which he walks, in the square-built, clever cob which he rides, he is as conspicuously English as his name \'John Meadows Elms\' would lead you to suppose. Nevertheless he is a \'Campbelltown native\'—(why were so many of the early Australians born in that curious old-fashioned village in New South Wales?)—and he knows, I feel persuaded, not only what any cow or bullock would do under given circumstances, but what they would think.

James Dickson (otherwise Monaro Jim) and his mate, whom he introduced at their hiring as \'a young man from the big Tindaree,\' are stock-riders of the ordinary run of Australian bush natives. They are given to long hair, tight breeches, tobacco, and profane swearing; it is possible they may be \'everything that is bad,\' but bad riders—their worst enemy could find no fault in that respect. They require to be kept well in hand, but as they will receive no payment until the completion of the journey, it is probable they will do their work well.

Mr. Jones (of England) is a young gentleman recently arrived, who has joined the partly mainly for the sport and to 343add to his colonial experience—of this last commodity he is likely to gain on this expedition perhaps a little more than accords with amusement; but he is plucky and energetic, so he will most likely come well through, with a fair allowance of grumbling, as befits his nation.

Some preparation for the wilderness is now progressing, this being the last outpost of civilisation. Whips are looked to, and \'crackers\' are at a premium; every horse has his shoes examined in anticipation of rocky passes and absence of blacksmiths. \'You won\'t find no shoes on the Black Mountain,\' says Monaro Jim to Mr. Jones, \'and you\'d look well leading that chestnut mare fifty mile.\' At this cheerful way of putting things, Mr. Jones has a close overhaul of his charger\'s feet and makes at once for the smithy. Flour and beef are laid in, spare boots, and, above all, full supplies of tobacco are secured by the men, and lastly the pack-saddles, provisions, tent, and general property are ferried across the river in a rough sort of punt. It is now mid-day, dinner is ready, and after due observance of that ceremony, every one mounts and real work begins.

Harold Lodbroke on The Dromedary, a long brown horse, not far from thoroughbred, plain enough, but with legs of iron and a constitution to match, slides in among the cattle, followed by Monaro Jim and his mate. They bring on separately, or as they would say \'cut off,\' three or four hundred of the vanguard; the rest of the party close up behind these and they are brought briskly towards the river. There is a steep but sandy bank, below which is the river shore. The cattle see this and hesitate; at a shout from the leader, every whip and every voice is raised simultaneously; the half-wild, half-fierce bullocks dash forward like a herd of deer. Down the bank they go, dropping over and breaking down the overhanging bank as they are forced on by the maddened animals in the rear. Harold jumps The Dromedary over the crumbling ledge, and, making a drop leap of three or four feet, lands right among their undecided lead. Swinging his twelve-foot stockwhip and yelling like a Sioux Indian, he forces half-a-dozen bullocks into the foaming water. The next moment they are struggling with the deep, violent stream, heading straight for the further shore and followed by all the rest. Other detachments are brought down, which readily 344follow their comrades, and in little more than an hour the whole expedition is safe on the right side of the treacherous Snowy River. We do not purpose to camp after the usual fashion to-night; no watching is thought necessary, we can see for some ten miles in every direction, the cattle are not likely to re-swim that pleasant rivulet, so the order goes forth, \'Let \'em rip.\' They graze peacefully in the gathering darkness, a fire is made of drift-wood, the tent is pitched, and that day at least is successfully over. I have often thought that a nearer approach to perfect contentment, and therefore to happiness, is more frequently realised \'on the road\' than under any other circumstances of life\'s travel. Everything conduces to those \'short views\' which Sydney Smith recommended. The hours spent in the saddle or at the watch-fire tend to a pleasant weariness of mind and body. Health and spirits are at a high register, owing to a freshness of the atmosphere and the regularity of muscular action. A certain amount of anxiety is felt for the success of the daily enterprise, and when that is reached in the crossing of a dangerous river, or by the attainment of a favourable camp, the needs of our nature seem fully if temporarily gratified. Let the morrow provide for itself. The abstract incompleteness appears to diminish, almost to disappear in the illimitable distance, and we smoke our meerschaum by the watch-fire, or sink into well-earned repose, in the luxurious enjoyment of that unbroken slumber which is born of toil and toil alone.

So, one by one, we lie down to rest with the lulling sound in our ears of the turbulent, rock-strewn river. The réveillé is sounded at 5.30; there is no possibility of daylight for more than an hour, but breakfast can be cooked and eaten before dawn, whereas horses cannot be profitably searched for without some manner of daylight. The day breaks, cold and discouraging. The rain, which had poured steadily during the latter part of the night, causes us to congratulate ourselves that we are on the right bank of old Snowy, now rising fast. The faintly chiming bells, which every other horse of the twenty-three composing our \'caballada\' wore, warn us of their whereabouts. We see, as the mist lifts, long lines of the cattle at various distances, but within easy reach of the camp. The horses, now driven in by the boy, Sydney Ben, and the \'young man from the Tindaree,\' arrive. The cattle are soon 345put together. It seems improbable that any stragglers had left the main body. Mr. Elms, after looking through them, gives it as his deliberate opinion that he didn\'t miss any of the \'walk-about mob.\' We take the trail that faces the dark woods and frowning ranges of the south, and the grand array moves on. It would be hard to find a more bitter day, except on a Russian steppe in a snowstorm. The unsheltered, stony downs over which we pass seem to invite the whirlwinds of sleet which ever and anon sweep over them. The cattle refuse to face their course from time to time, only to be forced on as regularly in the very teeth of the blast. The stage is comparatively long, so we toil on, drenched to the skin and cold to the very marrow, in spite of oilskins and wraps. Still \'the day drags on, though storms keep out the sun,\' and nightfall find us at the appointed halting-place. We do not propose to \'chance\' the cattle to-night, so a camp is made. First of all the drove is permitted to graze peaceably to the particular spot selected. This is either a dry knoll or the angle of a creek, fence, or whatever boundary may help to confine the cattle at night and lessen the labour of watching. This being accomplished, they are gradually driven up into such a compass as gives room for comfort without undue extension of line. Fires are as quickly as possible lighted around them. The horses are unsaddled, hobbled, \'belled,\' and turned loose. For all night purposes cattle can be managed on foot, always excepting when they have been recently brought from their native pastures, in which case a relay of fresh \'night horses\' is always kept ready for a rush or other emergency. Regular watches now are allotted to the different members of the party, changing, of course, every night. On this occasion Mr. Jones, who is............