elder brother immediately pulled up the horse
from a smart trot into a slow walk, saying there was no need to rush
along on such a hot night, and that he liked to hear about the customs
of foreign countries. About ten o'clock they reached their destination,
and the elder brother, without getting out of the trap and entering the
house, hurriedly bade Tom good-bye and drove off as quickly as possible,
fearing that if he stayed till the morning, and the youth saw the place
by daylight, the latter would become a fratricide.

The occupants of the farm were, the new manager found, three black
fellows and two 'gins,'{*} all of whom were in a state of stark nudity;
but they welcomed him with smiles and an overpowering smell of ants, the
which latter is peculiar to the Australian nigger. One of the bucks, who
when Denison entered was sleeping, with three exceedingly mangy dogs, in
the ex-proprietor's bunk--a gorgeous affair made of a badly-smelling
new green hide stretched between four posts, at once got up and gave him
possession of the couch; and Denison, being very tired, spread his rug
over the hide and turned in, determined not to grumble, and make the
thing pay, and then buy a place in the Marquesas or Samoa in a few
years, and die in comfort. During the night the mosquitoes worried him
incessantly, until one of the coloured ladies, who slept on the ground
in the next room, hearing his petulant exclamations, brought him a dirty
piece of rag, soaked in kerosene, and told him to anoint his hair, face
and hands with it. He did so, and then fell asleep comfortably.

* 'Gin,' or 'lubra'--the female Australian aboriginal.

Early in the morning he rose and inspected the place (which I forgot
to say was twenty miles from Cooktown, and on the bank of the Endeavour
River). He found it to consist of two rusty old corrugated iron
buildings, vaguely surrounded by an enormous amount of primaeval
desolation and immediately encompassed by several hundred dead cattle
(in an advanced state of putrefaction) picturesquely disposed about the
outskirts of the premises. But Denison, being by nature a cheerful man,
remembered that his brother (who was pious) had alluded to a drought,
and said that rain was expected every day, as the newly-appointed Bishop
of North Queensland had appointed a day of general humiliation and
prayer, and that poultry-rearing was bound to pay.

The stock of poultry was then rounded up by the black-fellows for h