e; and if it had not been that
our driver sent them spinning down one hill at full gallop, and up the
next, thus leaving them no time for kicking, and preventing the
carriage from ever touching them, we should probably have had a
repetition of our smash the other day. We did not see a single
kangaroo all the way, but passed a number of good-looking cattle and
horses. Years ago this country swarmed with game, and was so eaten up
that the ground looked as bare as your hand, the pasture being
undistinguishable from the roads. By a strenuous effort the settlers
killed 30,000 kangaroos on a comparatively small area on the Ekowe
Downs, the adjoining station to this, and thousands more died at the
fence, which was gradually pushed forward, in order to enclose the
sheep and keep out the marsupials.

By-and-by we arrived at a smart white gate in the fence, which a nice
little boy dressed in sailor costume, who had accompanied us from
Springsure, opened for us. These paddocks held some merino sheep. Some
fine timber had been left, so that the station looked more like an
English gentleman's estate than any place we have yet visited. We
jolted wearily over huge boulders and great slabs of rock, and went up
and down tremendously steep pitches in the roads, until at last we
arrived at Rainsworth, where we received the warmest welcome from Mr.
and Mrs. Todhunter. After luncheon I stayed in the verandah and
rested, whilst the rest of the party went out to look round the
station and the opal-fields.

The view from the verandah of the house up to the Rainsworth mountain
was remarkable, its most conspicuous feature being the peculiar-shaped
hill, 1,500 feet high, with its top cut off, leaving a table-land,
where what is called opal-glass is found. This substance resembles
opal in its consistency, except that it is white and transparent and
does not possess prismatic colours like imprisoned rainbows. Before we
left, Mrs. Todhunter kindly gave me some curious specimens of
limestone, stalactites, and stalagmites, picked up on the surface of
the black soil in the neighbourhood, besides two very curious little
iron balls, joined together like a natural dumb-bell. We left in good
time, and had an uneventful drive home. I felt curious to know the
value of this fine station, and was told it was 40,000_l._ This,
certainly, if correct, does not seem high for an extra-good station
with a comfortable house on it, besides stables, farm-buildings of