A

or of the bark of the currajing tree. skeleton of this fish may be seen in the Sydney Museum.

The writer might, perhaps, have formed one of the party, had he not had much previous experience of small boats on a tropical coast. Not long before, the Surgeon-superintendent of the emigrant ship the "Argyle," who was on his way to visit the quarantine ground, together with the chief mate of the vessel, and two emigrants, were capsized in the ship's boat in a heavy squall; the two first named were drowned, while the two last were taken from off the keel of the boat, after having hung there many hours, in a very exhausted state, by some natives who swam to them from the shore. It was sad after having sailed so many thousand of miles to meet a watery grave, when the port was gained, but such was the destiny of the sufferers. The surgeon's widow heard of his safe arrival and his death by the same communication; the mate, also, left a young family to mourn his loss. On this occasion the blacks behaved with great humanity.

KANGAROO HUNT.

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Our reverend friend was also a great Nimrod on land, being a lover of kangaroo hunting. Away you go with dogs of nondescript race, something of every breed in them, lurcher, greyhound, and sheep-dog; mounted on lean looking horses, perhaps with rusty stirrups, bearing for the ridges, where the "old man" may be seen in the long grass, which takes its name after him. Away go the dogs after the "flyer," who bounds, by the aid of his tail, many yards at a time; and take care of the trees as your nag threads his way between them; broken ribs and limbs are sometimes the penalty of careless riding. If there are no ox-fences, or five-barred gates, and raspers to get over, as in Lincolnshire, the plains are not as free from impediment as Leicestershire, nor is the pace as killing. Look out for fallen logs, which lie concealed in the long grass, or else you will get such a pealer as you will remember as you do your first "blooding." At last the "old man" puts his back against a tree, and stands at bay; the dogs are at him, he seizes one in his short fore-paw, and

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BRISBANE HOSPITAL.

rips up the other with the claw at the end of his long hind-leg; you dodge behind the tree, and knock him down with your "waddy," a heavy-headed hunting-whip; cut off his tail for soup; preserve his skin for a carpet; and make steaks of his flesh, there and then. Look at him after a burst of twenty minutes without a check; he lies dead at your feet, weighing thirty pounds, a big "old man kangaroo"-such is hunting in Australia.

At Brisbane there is a very good hospital, supported by voluntary subscriptions, with a resident house-surgeon, who is skilful and attentive. Mr. Barton corroborated to us the statement relative to the virulent form in which syphilis developes itself in the colony among the "aborigines." We saw some lamentable cases in its most malignant stages. Bullock drivers and stocksmen, far from medical advice in the interior, saturate the system with mercury, and then expose themselves to the effects consequent on riding in the long wet grass. An operation was performed very neatly and successfully by the surgeon on a withered finger of a stock

SALUBRITY OF BRISBANE.

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man, or shearer, who had been stung by a centipede; the man did well after the amputation. Neuralgia, diseases of the eye, and rheumatism, are the endemics of the colony. There were several invalids with pulmonary complaints at Moreton Bay, sent there by their medical advisers; one had tried Egypt and Madeira, but found more benefit from the air at Brisbane. One thing in favour of this pleasant district is, that it is free from hot winds and sand storms.

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STEAMER TO IPSWICH.

CHAPTER IX.

STEAMER TO IPSWICH-LIMESTONE-SCENERY-BREMERWILD FOWL-SIGNOR POCOFIT-BOILING DOWN-PIGS

66

LOST IN THE BUSH- -SURGEON OF MERIDIAN"-COLOGNE

-STORM-CREEKS

UP-KILLING A BULLOCK-POWDER

FLASK LOST AND RECOVERED-BUSH LIFE.

WE started to go two hundred miles into the interior, and took the steamer to Ipswich, distant from Brisbane about twenty-six miles by land, and seventy odd by the river. Limestone is contiguous to Ipswich, and built, as its name indicates, on that formation. It is a thriving little place, and much of the wool from the interior is brought down, to be placed on board these steamers, and then shipped for Sydney, by schooners from Brisbane. "There will be a great mob of things going down to-day," said one to another,