m of the water,
the immensity, so to speak, of my venture seemed to strike me, giving me
a chill of dread. This had not passed off when I woke up at daybreak
next morning, to find it raining heavily, and everything looking as
doleful and depressing as a strange place will look at such a time as
this.

CHAPTER TEN.

HOW WE SAW STRANGE THINGS.

"You rascal!" I exclaimed; "how dare you! Here, doctor, what is to be
done? How am I to punish him?"

"Send him back," said the doctor; "or, no: we'll leave him here at the
village."

Jimmy leaped up from where he had been squirming, as Jack Penny called
it, on the ground, and began to bound about, brandishing his waddy, and
killing nothing with blows on the head.

"No, no," he shouted, "no send Jimmy back. Mass Joe leave Jimmy--Jimmy
kill all a black fellow dead."

"Now look here, sir," I said, seizing him by the ear and bringing him to
his knees, proceedings which, big strong fellow as he was, he submitted
to with the greatest of humility, "I'm not going to have you spoil our
journey by any of your wild pranks; if ever you touch one of the people
again, back you go to the station to eat damper and mutton and mind
sheep."

"Jimmy no go back mind sheep; set gin mind sheep. Jimmy go long Mass
Joe."

"Then behave yourself," I cried, letting him rise; and he jumped to his
feet with the satisfaction of a forgiven child. In fact it always
seemed to me that the black fellows of Australia, when they had grown
up, were about as old in brains as an English boy of nine or ten.

That morning we had made our start after days of preparation, and the
chiefs of the village with a party of warriors came to see us part of
the way, those who stayed behind with the women and children joining in
a kind of yell to show their sorrow at our departure. The chief had
offered half-a-dozen of his people for guides, and we might have had
fifty; but six seemed plenty for our purpose, since, as the doctor said,
we must work by diplomacy and not by force.

So this bright morning we had started in high spirits and full of
excitement, the great band of glistening-skinned blacks had parted from
us, and our journey seemed now to have fairly begun, as we plunged
directly into the forest, the six men with us acting as bearers.

We had not gone far before our difficulties began, through the behaviour
of Jimmy, who, on the strength of his knowledge of English, his
connection with the white m