which would take us some time to learn.
However he understood us better than we did him, though we had to put
questions in all sorts of ways and repeat them over and over again. We
then had to puzzle out his replies, not always arriving at a
satisfactory conclusion.

Guy frequently stood up in his stirrups and looked ahead, hoping to
catch the sheen of water. At last we began to have some uncomfortable
suspicions that, although our black attendant professed to know the way,
he had managed to lose it--a circumstance not at all unlikely to occur--
and that we were wandering far out of our proper course. Though the sun
was of some assistance, yet we might be going too much to the north or
too much to the west, and might pass a long way off from the station
which we wished to reach. All we could do therefore was to exert our
wits, and, should we have got out of the direct path, to try and find
it. At length the foliage before us became somewhat thicker, but no
sign of water did we see. We were riding on when a loud cry reached our
ears.

"There's some one in distress!" I exclaimed.

"I fear that you are right, we must find out," answered Guy.

We were urging on our horses, when a peal of mocking laughter seemed to
come from the wood close to us.

"What can that be?" I asked; "some natives who want to frighten us, or
an unfortunate maniac."

The shout of laughter was repeated.

"Him one jackass!" observed our guide, Toby.

"Jackass! What can the fellow mean?" cried Guy.

Then looking up we discovered a large bird not far off who was evidently
uttering the extraordinary sound we heard. It was, as Toby told us, a
laughing-jackass, or a gigantic kingfisher. So ridiculous were the
sounds that we could not help laughing too.

Presently a number of cockatoos, rising with loud screams just before
us, flew over the trees to pitch again not far off. As we were watching
them we found ourselves at the top of a bank, some thirty or forty feet
in height. Below it, to the right and left, stretched a sandy bottom
scarcely less than half a mile in breadth, and on the opposite side rose
another bank. Below the one on which we stood was a stream of water,
flowing sluggishly along, scarcely twelve feet wide, and so shallow that
we could see the bottom.

"Can this be the river we were to come to?" I exclaimed, examining the
map.

"No doubt about it," answered my brother; "perhaps sometimes this broad
bed of sand