the Fremantle and Perth road crosses the river (which is there about
four hundred yards wide) by a ferry. John-of-the-Ferry, the lessee
of the tolls, the Charon of the passage, is a Pole by birth, who
escaped with difficulty out of the hands of the Russians; and having
the fortune to find an English master, after a series of adventures
entered into the employment of an emigrant, and settled in Western
Australia. He had now become not only the lessee of the ferry, but a
dealer in various small articles, and at the time to which I refer,
was the owner of several Timor ponies. Singular enough for a
horse-dealer and a colonist, John had the reputation of being an
honest man, and his customers always treated him with the utmost
confidence.

Having learnt his good character, we repaired to his neat,
white-washed cottage on the banks of the river to inspect his stud;
and soon effected a purchase of two of his ponies. These animals,
about thirteen hands high, proved to belong to the swiftest and
hardiest race of ponies in the world. They required no care or
grooming; blessed with excellent appetites, they picked up their food
wherever they could find any, and came night and morning to the door
to receive their rations of barley, oat-meal, bread-crusts, or any
thing that could be spared them. The colony had been supplied with
several cargoes of these ponies from Timor, and they proved extremely
useful so long as there was a scarcity of horses; but afterwards they
became a nuisance, and tended greatly to keep back improvements in
the breed of horses. Pony-stallions suffered to roam at large,
became at length such an evil, that special acts of Council were
passed against them; and as these did not prove of sufficient
efficacy, the animals were sometimes hunted like wild cattle, and
shot with rifles.