se farmers; I was cordially invited
to remain and hunt with them for as long as I liked. I might have done
worse than accept; the life they were leading was a lordly one.
However, I had to bid them a regretful farewell. Then I tramped on
after the wagon.

The people with whom I was traveling did not go beyond Lydenburg, so
from there I had to tramp to Pilgrim's Rest, my destination, a distance
of about forty miles. I tied my worldly possessions into a "swag" a
process in which I was skillfully assisted by an old miner, with whom I
casually foregathered. Then I set forth with three companions, likewise
casual acquaintances. We all belonged to that despised class known as
"new chums" that is, men who were without practical experience in the
art of goldmining.

We started early in the afternoon. Our pilgrimage was a painful one; my
swag was heavy, and the straps galled my unaccustomed shoulders. After
walking about fifteen miles we camped in a small grove of trees. Here
we shivered through an apparently interminable night around an
inadequate fire. None of us were experienced bushmen, and we had
neglected to gather sufficient fuel. The wind was cold, and I had not
then acquired that toughness of fiber and insensibility to extremes of
heat and cold which long wanderings and many hardships afterwards gave
me.

Two only of my companions are worth recalling. One was an ex-larrikin
from Melbourne, who went by the name of "Artful Joe"; his real name I
never learnt. Joe had been the victim of a horrible accident in the
Kimberley mine about a year previously. He had fallen from one of the
"roads" sixty feet sheer on to a sorting table at the bottom of the
claim. Both his legs had been broken in several places. I was not
present when the accident occurred, but I witnessed the tedious and
terrible process of hoisting the injured man out of the pit and
conveying him to the hospital. With the exception of a slight lameness,
and of being more or less bandy-legged, Joe had not suffered much
permanent injury.

He sang many comic songs to cheer us up during that night of dolor,
filling the intervals between the ditties with anathemas against his
South African luck and realistic stories of his Australian experiences.
He had lived, he told us, for several years by earning pennies in the
Melbourne streets. Outside the sculleries of the large hotels, or where
banquets had been held, barrels of 'feast fragments used to be set. In
these b