ucky digger, he was obliged to travel the country
in search of work on the sheep and cattle stations.

A well-known pastoralist of the western district of Victoria, the late
Hon. Philip Russell, was accustomed to describe to his friends the
arrival at his station many years ago of a party of 'sundowners'
(_i.e._, tramps), among whom was Kingsley, looking 'very much down on
his luck.' Soon found to be no ordinary swagman, he was made a guest at
the station, where he remained for several months. The most agreeable
glimpse obtainable of his colonial life is given in _Old Melbourne
Memories_, a little collection of sketches published by Rolf Boldrewood
twelve years ago.

At the period which they recall, Boldrewood was a young man, and making
the experiment in squatting which, though disastrous in its ultimate
commercial results, was afterwards turned to a rich literary account by
him. A friend of his named Mitchell occupied a station in western
Victoria named Langa-willi, and there on one occasion Boldrewood met
Kingsley. The passage in which he gracefully records the event is worth
quoting in full.

'Why Langa-willi,' he says, 'will always be a point of interest in my
memory, apart from other reasons, for I spent many a pleasant day there,
was that Henry Kingsley lived there the chief part of a year as a guest
of Mitchell's.

'It was at Langa-willi that _Geoffry Hamlyn_, that immortal work, the
best Australian novel, and for long the only one, was written. In the
well-appointed sitting-room of that most comfortable cottage one can
imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated author sitting down
comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his host had ridden
forth with his overseer to make-believe to inspect the flocks, but in
reality to get an appetite for lunch.

'I like to think of them both spending the evening sociably in their own
way, both rather silent men--Kingsley writing away till he had covered
the regulation number of sheets or finished the chapter, perhaps when
the bushrangers came to Garoopna; Mitchell reading steadily, or writing
up his home correspondence; the old housekeeper coming in with the
glasses at ten o'clock; then a tumbler of toddy, a smoke on the
verandah, or over the fire if in winter, and so to bed. Peaceful, happy,
unexciting days and nights, good for Mitchell, who was not strong, and
for his talented guest, who was not always so profitably employed. I
suspect that in England, where bot