BURNING THE BUSH.

On our way we met a party of natives engaged in burning the bush, which
they do in sections every year. The dexterity with which they manage so
proverbially a dangerous agent as fire is indeed astonishing. Those to
whom this duty is especially entrusted, and who guide or stop the running
flame, are armed with large green boughs, with which, if it moves in a
wrong direction, they beat it out. Their only object in these periodical
conflagrations seems to be the destruction of the various snakes,
lizards, and small kangaroos, called wallaby, which with shouts and yells
they thus force from their covert, to be despatched by the spears or
throwing-sticks of the hunting division. The whole scene is a most
animated one, and the eager savage, every muscle in action and every
faculty called forth, then appears to the utmost advantage, and is indeed
almost another being. I can conceive no finer subject for a picture than
a party of these swarthy beings engaged in kindling, moderating, and
directing the destructive element, which under their care seems almost to
change its nature, acquiring, as it were, complete docility, instead of
the ungovernable fury we are accustomed to ascribe to it. Dashing through
the thick underwood, amidst volumes of smoke--their dark active limbs and
excited features burnished by the fierce glow of the fire--they present a
spectacle which it rarely falls to our lot to behold, and of which it is
impossible to convey any adequate idea by words.

COURSE A KANGAROO.

After tethering out our horses and making our breakwind for the night, we
went out in the evening to look for a kangaroo. I had never as yet seen
one put fairly at his speed on open ground before a dog, but this evening
I was fully gratified; for we soon found a couple lying out on our side