north-west wind, hot as the breath of a furnace, blew against our faces with such force as to cause intolerable pain; while the fine gritty sand would penetrate eyes, ears, and nostrils with a persistency anything but agreeable. The thermometer, when we left Sydney, marked 115 degrees in the sun; and as that luminary rose higher and higher in the pale, steel-grey, cloudless sky, the intensity of its rays became more and more unbearable. I tried to picture the verdant pastures, shady woods, and rippling streams of England, but that rendered the sufferings I endured still more unpalatable.

It was too hot to talk, and my mate was as glum and discontented as myself; and so we slowly trotted along the solitary bush-road, silently and spectre-like, our poor horses black with sweat, their heads drooped, and their tails as limp as a shirt-collar without starch. Around us the straw-coloured vegetation was unvaried by the slightest tint of green, and the tall white trunks of the gum-trees, with their scanty vertical foliage, mingled with sombre peppermint and stringy bark, formed about as dreary a scene as it is possible to imagine.

As to the road we were travelling, they talk of corduroy roads in America, but I should like to show a Yankee a mile or two of the one we that day travelled over. Imagine a stony plain, the surface entirely covered with large swampy holes, filled with water, slush. and glutinous mud; then throw into these hollows a number of angular blocks of stone, half concealed by the muddy waters; and let mud and water turn into dust (twelve hours will in New South Wales effect the metamorphosis), and you will have a faint con ception of our road. At length the scrub on either side grew less thickly, and we gladly quitted the rugged path for the open country. We had not ridden on for more than a couple of miles, however, congratulating ourselves that we had bidden farewell to dust, if not to heat, when a far greater annoyance than either befell us. This arose from the pertinacious attentions of the sandflies, which are a kind of midge-small filmy things, like the midges at home, but much more lively, bloodthirsty, and venomous. They were as numerous as the grains of sand in the sterile Iron Bark ranges. They covered the whole ground for miles, and as we advanced, would rise up and get on our horses' legs and chests, puncturing them in such a manner that their legs were completely covered in a few minutes with blood. The poor animals of course became quite frantic, not being able to brush them off. It was often no trivial matter to keep one's seat, owing to their rearing and kicking from the pain. My mate told me in another month the birds would have eaten the midges up; it was only in spring they were so numerous. The effect of the bite on man is much worse than on horses. Wherever they bite, the part swells excessively, and becomes a great livid boil as large as a walnut. He had been bitten on the wrist the preceding spring, when riding on the banks of the Murray. The next day his hand was swelled enormously; it settled into one of those boils which are very sluggish and difficult to cure. It was not well, in fact, for a

month, and would not heal till treated with caustic. Another, only a month ago, had bitten his other hand; the venomous puncture had gone exactly through the same process. As a proof of his words, he showed me a scar on each hand, which no doubt would never wear away.

About midday we reached a creek, where we watered and bathed our horses, to their great relief, and on whose banks we encamped to eat luncheon It was a lovely spot; on account of the moisture the grass was green, and adorned with myriad-tinted flowers, while forty miles in our front rose the purple peaks of the Blue Mountains. Close to where we sat grew some grasstrees, but only dwarf ones, splendidly in flower. The flower is on a rod of two or three feet high, which rises perpendicularly from the centre of the tree, and surrounds some half a yard of it in the manner of the flower of the clubrush, but white, and the florets resemble those of the water tussilago.

During our meal we were terribly persecuted by "jumping ants." They were about half an inch long, and jumped surprisingly. They were great fly-catchers, and so far proved themselves our benefactors; but we soon found that it was only one pest giving place to another. These little black flies were, even in this comparatively cool and shady spot, the most impertinent, persevering vermin possible. The moment we produced our meat from our saddle-bags, they covered it. They also managed to settle on our hands and faces, where they raised up blood-blisters, and then sucked at them till they burst. The moment the spots were raw, they thrust as many of their heads in as they could, and so continually irritated and enlarged the orifice. What was a mere scratch, became a sore under their incessant operations; and unless such sore was speedily defended by handkerchiefs or gloves, it would soon become a wound. Plaster was not enough, for they would suck and envenom the wound through it.

After we had discussed our beef and damper, enjoyed a delicious drink from the creek, and had half an hour's draw at our pipes, we remounted and resumed our journey, making another twelve miles before sunset, when we encamped for the night, unsaddled our horses, hobbled them, lit the fire, boiled some tea in our billy, and sat down to enjoy our evening meal. Then we again had recourse to our pipes, and at length rolling ourselves in our blankets and with the saddles for pillows, soon sank into slumber both sound and deep.

The second day's journey was but a repetition of the first. There is great monotony in bush-travelling. The heat, the thirst, the mosquitoes and other insects, were the same; the only difference in the scenery was that every hour the towering mountain range we had to we had to cross seemed looming larger and mightier before us; their summits, glittering in the sunlight three thousand feet and more above the level plains we were traversing, presented only a little deeper azure tint than did the cloudless firmament above. Well did they deserve their name of Blue Mountains.

On the afternoon of the second day after leaving Sydney, we were at their

base; and upon the earnest assurance of my mate that he had crossed them at this point before, and knew every inch of the way, I consented to attempt the ascent at once, fully expecting, as it was only three o'clock and the evenings getting long, we should encamp by sunset on the western side.

We were soon riding along a steep narrow gully, with almost precipitous sides, rising in lofty ridges that were covered with loose rocks and scraggy gum-trees, charred and disfigured by frequent bush-fires. It was a dreary scene, though here and there relieved by groups of pines and other eucalypti, with the jointed horsetail foliage of the shea-oak, and the gaudy blossoms of the blue wattle, while the towering peaks of Mount Gwalior rose gloomy and cloud-wreathed above all.

"Are you sure you will find the pass, Rootes?" I asked; "because, unless you are, it would be wiser to ride a matter of twenty miles round and follow the regular waggon-track."

"Oh! I'm all right. I know it, never fear," retorted the young trooper, with a laugh. "Why, 'tis not two years since I travelled it, man, and on my road to this very same Dunewatha, too. It saves a round of very nearly nineteen miles by crossing the mountain here."

"And is it a pretty fair road for horses all the way?" I asked.

Why, as to that, I shouldn't care to ride an unbroken colt or a brokenkneed old coach-horse over some parts of the track; but with such nags as ours, there is no hazard. In fact, there is only one dangerous place, and that does not continue for more than half a mile or so."

'And what is the nature of the danger, mate? I am unused to mountainscaling, and like to calculate my risks beforehand.”

The place is called 'The Devil's Ridge.' It is a passage along the side of one eminence which a cataract divides from another. It is seldom broad enough for two horses to pass each other, and often not room enough for one. It is bare of all rail or fence; in fact, it is impossible to fix any."

"And how deep is the precious precipice which this narrow pathway overlooks?" I asked nervously.

"Deep? Oh! perhaps a thousand feet; but, owing to the narrowness of the gorge, the bottom is invisible."

"And into this gulf the slightest trip of a horse would precipitate its rider —a worn shoe, a loose pebble, a nervous twitch of the rein, would be certain death?"

"Decidedly so; and I can tell you of a very curious adventure on this very same Devil's Ridge."

The devil you can! Well, then, fire away, for you can scarcely make me more nervous than I feel already."

Rootes laughed. "It happened in this way," he said. "Two horsemen met in the narrow pass. Such a thing doubtless never occurred before, and perhaps never may again, the road is so rarely traversed; but this once it did so

happen. Neither of the parties had space to back his steed, and so make room for the other to go by. They tossed up which should sacrifice his horse. It fell to the lot of the man ascending the ridge. He dismounted, pushed his horse over the precipice into the gulf below, and then, snake-like, crept between the legs of the descending horse and continued his journey on foot."

By the time my mate had concluded his story, which I have narrated in as few words as possible, we had ascended some three hundred feet of the mountain's height, and beheld a prospect of sea and land to the extent of a hundred and twenty miles. Almost beneath was a roaring cataract; to look down upon and listen to its hoarse brawl was enough to appal more daring natures than my own. Still up and up we went, the pathway having a zigzag tendency that made the ascent anything but laborious. As we attained a higher and yet a higher altitude, the change from heat to cold became very apparent; and by the time we had left the level plains some nine hundred feet below us, it was easy to imagine one's self transported from a tropical summer to a bracing northern winter.

Australian mountains differ very much in appearance from those of Europe and this difference mainly consists in their being wooded to such an altitude. In the Northern Hemisphere it is rare to find a mountain bearing trees for more than a few hundred feet of its height, whereas the hardy and sombre eucalypti of Australia and Tasmania frequently flourish to the very apex of mountains three thousand feet in altitude. This, in my opinion, although it sometimes gives a peculiar beauty of its own, in most cases detracts from the majesty and awe-inspiring grandeur that would otherwise distinguish the mountain ranges of Australia, while to the eye it decreases the effect of their height by at least one-third.

Rootes and I spoke little during the ascent; he looked meditative, and I felt nervous, for an indescribable feeling had taken possession of me, to the effect that something terrible would happen to one or both of us before we descended to the level plain again. The very elements seemed impressed with my ill-omened forebodings, for the sky, which had been so blue and sunny when we commenced the ascent, was now flecked with heavy reefy clouds that appeared to be hurrying to a common centre; great drops of rain began to fall, and presently the dull rumble of a distant thunder-peal fell upon our ears.

"I fear we are in for a ducking, mate," said Rootes, turning in his saddle; "the rain comes down here in bucketfuls when it once begins. Thank God, our upward course is at an end, for we are at last opposite the pass. We now skirt the mountain, passing between it and its less lofty neighbour on our right. In five minutes we shall be descending the Devil's Ridge."

"And suppose our horses are startled at a thunder-clap, or shy at a lightning

flash in such a spot?" I asked.

'Why, then 'twill be a long good-night to Marmion," he answered, laughing. "But don't be afraid, friend; I think the storm will hold off for another