When we arrived at the five-mile in the morning we found Mac "packed up"
and ready for the start, and, passing the reins to him, the Maluka said,
"You know the road best "; and Mac, being what he called a "bit of a
Jehu," we set off in great style across country, apparently missing trees
by a hair's breadth, and bumping over the ant-hills, boulders, and broken
boughs that lay half-hidden in the long grass.

After being nearly bumped out of the buck-board several times, I asked if
there wasn't any track anywhere; and Mac once again exploded with
astonishment.



"We're on the track," he shouted. "Good Heavens I do you mean to say you
can't see it on ahead there?" and he pointed towards what looked like
thickly timbered country, plentifully strewn with further boulders and
boughs and ant-hills; and as I shook my head, he shrugged his shoulders
hopelessly. "And we're on the main transcontinental route from Adelaide
to Port Darwin," he said.

"Any track anywhere!" he mimicked presently, as we lurched, and heaved,
and bumped along. "What'll she say when we get into the long-grass
country?"

"Long here!" he ejaculated, when I thought the grass we were driving
through was fairly long (it was about three feet). "Just you wait!"

I waited submissively, if bouncing about a buck-board over thirty miles
of obstacles can be called waiting, and next day we "got into the