bushed between the Darling and South Australian border. The
waters went away before he could find the river again, and left his boat
in a scrub. They had a cargo of rations, and the crew stuck to the craft
while the tucker lasted; when it gave out they rolled up their swags and
went to look for a station, but didn't find one. The captain would study
his watch and the sun, rig up dials and make out courses, and follow
them without success. They ran short of water, and didn't smell any
for weeks; they suffered terrible privations, and lost three of their
number, NOT including the newspaper liar. There are even dark hints
considering the drawing of lots in connection with something too
terrible to mention. They crossed a thirty-mile plain at last, and
sighted a black gin. She led them to a boundary rider's hut, where they
were taken in and provided with rations and rum.

Later on a syndicate was formed to explore the country and recover the
boat; but they found her thirty miles from the river and about eighteen
from the nearest waterhole deep enough to float her, so they left her
there. She's there still, or else the man that told us about it is the
greatest liar Out Back.

. . . . .

Imagine the hull of a North Shore ferry boat, blunted a little at the
ends and cut off about a foot below the water-line, and parallel to it,
then you will have something shaped somewhat like the hull of a Darling
mud-rooter. But the river boat is much stronger. The boat we were on
was built and repaired above deck after the different ideas of many bush
carpenters, of whom the last seemed by his work to have regarded the
original plan with a contempt only equalled by his disgust at the work
of the last carpenter but one. The wheel was boxed in, mostly with round
sapling-sticks fastened to the frame with bunches of nails and spikes
of all shapes and sizes, most of them bent. The general result was
decidedly picturesque in its irregularity, but dangerous to the mental
welfare of any passenger who was foolish enough to try to comprehend
the design; for it seemed as though every carpenter had taken the
opportunity to work in a little abstract idea of his own.

The way they "dock" a Darling River boat is beautiful for its
simplicity. They choose a place where there are two stout trees about
the boat's length apart, and standing on a line parallel to the river.
They fix pulley-blocks to the trees, lay sliding planks down into the
w