decaying vegetation which accumulates round it during the lapse of
centuries, and the sun gets freer access to the ground. Cattle do much
also: they form tracks through swamps, and trample down the earth,
making it harder and firmer. Sheep do much: they convey the seeds of
the best grass and tread them into the ground. The difference between
country that has been fed upon by any live stock, even for a single
year, and that which has never yet been stocked is very noticeable. If
country is being burnt for the second or third time, the fire can be
crossed without any difficulty; of course it must be quickly traversed,
though indeed, on thinly grassed land, you may take it almost as coolly
as you please. On one of these flats, just on the edge of the bush, and
at the very foot of the mountain, we lit a fire as soon as it was dusk,
and, tethering our horses, boiled our tea and supped. The night was
warm and quiet, the silence only interrupted by the occasional sharp cry
of a wood-hen, and the rushing of the river, whilst the ruddy glow of
the fire, the sombre forest, and the immediate foreground of our saddles
and blankets, formed a picture to me entirely new and rather impressive.
Probably after another year or two I shall regard camping out as the
nuisance which it really is, instead of writing about sombre forests and
so forth. Well, well, that night I thought it very fine, and so in good
truth it was.

Our saddles were our pillows and we strapped our blankets round us by
saddle-straps, and my companion (I believe) slept very soundly; for my
part the scene was altogether too novel to allow me to sleep. I kept
looking up and seeing the stars just as I was going off to sleep, and
that woke me again; I had also underestimated the amount of blankets
which I should require, and it was not long before the romance of the
situation wore off, and a rather chilly reality occupied its place;
moreover, the flat was stony, and I was not knowing enough to have