nd explosive times they, with their wild animal passions,
become tragical and remarkable, like baronesses of old. But in tranquil
times, as I said, they fall into the back-ground, and show us the value
and excellence of such placid, noble helpmates, as the serene,
high-bred Mrs. Buckley.

A creek joined the river about a mile below the Buckleys' station,
falling into the main stream with rather a pretty cascade, which even
at the end of the hottest summer poured a tiny silver thread across the
black rocks. Above the cascade the creek cut deep into the table land,
making a charming glen, with precipitous blue stone walls, some eighty
or ninety feet in height, fringed with black wattle and lightwood, and
here and there, among the fallen rocks nearest the water, a fern tree
or so, which last I may say are no longer there, Dr. Mulhaus having cut
the hearts out of them and eaten them for cabbage. Should you wander up
this little gully on a hot summer's day, you would be charmed with the
beauty of the scenery, and the shady coolness of the spot; till coming
upon a black snake coiled away among the rocks, like a rope on the deck
of a man of war, you would probably withdraw, not without a strong
inclination to "shy" at every black stick you saw for the rest of the
day. For this lower part of the Moira creek was, I am sorry to say, the
most troubled locality for snakes, diamond, black, carpet, and other,
which I ever happened to see.

But following this creek you would find that the banks got rapidly less
precipitous, and at length it swept in long curves through open forest
glades, spreading, too, into deep dark water-holes, only connected by
gravelly fords, with a slender stream of clear water running across the
yellow pebbles. These water-holes were the haunts of the platypus and
the tortoise. Here, too, were flocks of black duck and teal, and as you
rode past, the merry little snipe would rise from the water's edge, and
whisk away like lightning through the trees. Altogether a pleasant
woodland creek, alongside of which, under the mighty box-trees, ran a
sandy road, bordered with deep beds of bracken fern, which led from
Baroona of the Buckleys to Toonarbin of the Hawkers.

A pleasant road, indeed, winding through the old forest straight
towards the mountains, shifting its course so often that every minute
some new vista opened upon you, till at length you came suddenly upon a
clear space, beyond which rose a picturesque l