showed us his well, and did what he could to make us comfortable. I shall
never forget the great hospitality here along this road, though no doubt
as time went on the settlers could not afford to house hungry travellers
free of cost, and probably made a fair amount of money by selling
provisions and horse-feed to the hundreds of gold-fever patients who were
continually passing.

Southern Cross, which came into existence about the year '90, was a pretty
busy place, being the last outpost of civilisation at the time of our
first acquaintance with it. The now familiar corrugated-iron-built town,
with its streets inches deep in dust under a blazing sun, its incessant
swarms of flies, the clashing of the "stamps" on the mines, and the
general "never-never" appearance of the place, impressed us with feelings
the reverse of pleasant. The building that struck me most was the bank--a
small iron shanty with a hession partition dividing it into office and
living room, the latter a hopeless chaos of cards, candle ends, whiskey
bottles, blankets, safe keys, gold specimens, and cooking utensils. The
bank manager had evidently been entertaining a little party of friends the
previous night, and though its hours had passed, and a new day had dawned,
the party still continued. Since that time it has been my lot to witness
more than one such evening of festivity!

On leaving Southern Cross we travelled with another company of
adventurers, one of whom, Mr. Davies, an old Queensland squatter, was our
partner in several subsequent undertakings.

The monotony of the flat timber-clad country was occasionally relieved by
the occurrence of large isolated hills of bare granite. But for these the
road, except for camels, could never have been kept open; for they
represented our sources of water supply. On the surface of the rocks