r and his friends
removed the surcingle and baggage-straps from the jaw-breaker's horse,
tied him to a tree with the latter, and with the former flogged his
black shoulders till he cried _peccavi_, and promised reform. Nothing
of the sort appears to have taken place, the good Doctor contenting
himself, as sole revenge for the injury done to his masticators, with
expelling the delinquent, who was accompanied from the camp by his
countryman and ally, Harry Brown. They soon got tired, however, of
going afoot and shifting for themselves, returned submissive and
sorry, and were allowed to rejoin the caravan. And though they
subsequently again gave cause of complaint, upon the whole they were
tolerably manageable during the rest of the expedition.

The travellers were out a long time before falling in with natives,
although they saw signs of their vicinity, and ascertained that they
were objects of curious observation and some anxiety to the timid
Australians. They stumbled upon various native camps, recently
vacated, and occasionally took the liberty of helping themselves to
kangaroo nets and cordage, leaving in exchange fish hooks,
handkerchiefs, and other European articles. On the 6th of December,
upon rousing from his bivouac, Dr Leichhardt found "the horses had
gone back to Ruined Castle Creek, about twenty-one miles distant (!),
and the bullocks to the last camp, which, according to Charley, had
been visited by the Blackfellows, who had apparently examined it very
minutely. It was evident they kept an eye upon us, although they never
made their appearance." The Doctor's coolness in recording his
disasters is quite provoking. If he exhibited the same laudable calm
and resignation when he arose from his bed of reeds on the banks of
the finch-haunted water-hole, and found his cattle had gone back a
day's journey or more, as he does in writing down the fact, he is
certainly the most Job-like of travellers. We could sometimes quarrel
with him for making so very light of heavy inconveniences and positive
misfortunes. It is necessary to pause and reflect in order to
appreciate what he endured. The hasty reader, skimming the page
without allowing his imagination to dwell on the Doctor's brief
indications of the many sufferings, the wounds and sickness (the
latter often caused by unwholesome diet), the hunger and thirst, the
daily and nightly exposure, for fifteen months, to scorching suns and
drenching rains, undergone by hims