ow
connected my last station upon the Namoi. From Ydire, a hill nearer the
camp, I also obtained, in returning, some observations, and one angle of
great value with Mount Forbes, much required for the purpose of mapping
the country we had explored. On the side of Warroga, we saw a very large
black wallaroo which sat looking at us with apparent curiosity.

Scurvy now began to affect the party. We endeavoured to counteract the
progress of this disease by plentiful issues of limejuice, and some
portable vegetable soups, but of the latter we had but a very small
supply. Dysentery did not alarm us much for The Doctor generally set the
patients to rights in eight and forty hours with something he found in
the medicine chest.

February 28.

The morning was fine* when we again saw the plains of Mullaba on passing
through the gorge under Mount Ydire. As we travelled across the plains,
on which the young verdure, first offspring of the late rain, already
began to shoot, four emus were observed quietly feeding at no great
distance, apparently heedless of our party. I approached them with my
rifle, on a steady old horse, and found that this large quadruped,
however strange a sight, did not in the least alarm those gigantic birds,
even when I rode close up. I alighted, leveled my rifle over the saddle
and fired but missed, as I presumed, for the bird merely performed a sort
of pirouette, and then recommenced feeding with the others as before. I
had no means of reloading without returning to the party, but I was
content with discovering that these birds might be thus approached on
horseback for in general the first appearance of men, although miles
distant, puts them at once to their speed which, on soft loose earth,
perhaps surpasses that of a horse.

(*Footnote. "Felicissimos eran los tiempos" (the weather was fine) said
Cervantes, which words Smollett literally translated: "Happy were the
times." Both meanings would apply to our case then.)

The ford of Wallanburra was now our only separation from the christian
world. That once passed, we might joyfully bid adieu to pestilence and
famine, the lurking savage, and every peril of flood and field. Under the
sense of perfect security once more, and relieved from the anxiety
inseparable from such a charge, every object within the territory of
civilised man appeared to me tinged couleur de rose.

RE-CROSS THE PEEL.

The Peel was crossed without difficulty, and on the following mo