I had drifted slowly across the river, clinging with one arm thrown over
a log, expecting each moment the musket of some startled picket would
spit red through the dark, and scarcely daring to guide my unwieldy
support by the slightest movement of hand in the water. The splash of
motion might mean death in an instant, for keen eyes, sharpened by long
night vigils, were on the stream, and those who had ventured the deed
before me had failed utterly.

Sku: loveunderfire

Oft had I shadowed such a group
Of beauties that were born
In teacup times of hood and hoop,
And when the patch was worn;
And legs and arms with love-knots gay.
About me leaped and laughed
The modish Cupid of the day,
And shrilled his tinselled shaft.–Tennyson.
If times differ, human nature and national character vary but little;
and thus, in looking back on former times, we are by turns startled
by what is curiously like, and curiously unlike, our own sayings and
doings.

CHAPTERS.
I.         A SYLLABUB PARTY.
II.       THE HOUSE OF DELAVIE.
III.     AMONG THE COWSLIPS.
IV.      MY LADY’S MISSIVE.
V.        THE SUMMONS.
VI.      DISAPPOINTED LOVE.
VII.    ALL ALONE.
VIII.  THE ENCHANTED CASTLE.

Sku: loveandlife

The north-eastern quarter of the continent of Africa is drained
and watered by the Nile. Among and about the headstreams and
tributaries of this mighty river lie the wide and fertile provinces of
the Egyptian Soudan. Situated in the very centre of the land, these
remote regions are on every side divided from the seas by five hundred
miles of mountain, swamp, or desert. The great river is their only
means of growth, their only channel of progress. It is by the Nile
alone that their commerce can reach the outer markets, or European
civilisation can penetrate the inner darkness. The Soudan is joined to
Egypt by the Nile, as a diver is connected with the surface by his
air-pipe. Without it there is only suffocation. Aut Nilus, aut nihil!
The town of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles,
is the point on which the trade of the south must inevitably converge.

Sku: riverwar

The Australian continent is not distinguished, as are many other
continents of equal and even of less extent, by any prominent
geographical feature. Its mountains seldom exceed four thousand feet in
elevation, nor do any of its rivers, whether falling internally or
externally, not even the Murray, bear any proportion to the size of the
continent itself. There is no reason, however, why rivers of greater
magnitude, than any which have hitherto been discovered in it, should not
emanate from mountains of such limited altitude, as the known mountains
of that immense and sea-girt territory. But, it appears to me, it is not
in the height and character of its hilly regions, that we are to look for
the causes why so few living streams issue from them. The true cause, I
apprehend, lies in its climate, in its seldom experiencing other than
partial rains, and in its being subject to severe and long continued
droughts. Its streams descend rapidly into a country of uniform equality
of surface, and into a region of intense heat, and are subject, even at a
great distance from their sources, to sudden and terrific floods, which
subside, as the cause which gave rise to them ceases to operate; the
consequence is, that their springs become gradually weaker and weaker,
all back impulse is lost, and whilst the rivers still continue to support
a feeble current in the hills, they cease to flow in their lower
branches, assume the character of a chain of ponds, in a few short weeks
their deepest pools are exhausted by the joint effects of evaporation and
absorption, and the traveller may run down their beds for miles, without
finding a drop of water with which to slake his thirst.

Sku: centralaustraliaV2

The colony of Western Australia was established in 1829; but its
isolation from the older settlement of New South Wales rendered it
necessary to import all the horses, cattle, and sheep by sailing vessels
from Tasmania, or other remote sources, while the heavy losses and
difficulties attending long sea voyages prevented any large importations
of stock–so that, though there was a fair rate of increase, the flocks
and herds of the settlers had found sufficient pasturage for the first
ten years on the banks of the Swan River and its upper valley, the Avon,
together with the coast district southward to the Vasse Inlet; but after
1840 the stock-owners began to feel that all prospect of material
increase must be relinquished unless additional pastures could be
discovered.
Several public as well as private expeditions were undertaken for the
purpose of ascertaining whether in the interior or along the coast on
either side of the settlement there existed any available country, but
they had only encountered dense scrubs of acacia and eucalyptus, with
salt marshes and scarcity of fresh water in the interior. The coast to
the east had been traversed from Adelaide to King George’s Sound by Mr.
Eyre, and found to be altogether unfit for settlement, while to the north
the coast presented a series of sandy plains for more than 200 miles.

Sku: journalsofaustralian

These stations are established on creeks which come down from the western
slopes of the Coast Range–here extending in a north and south
direction–and meander through plains of more or less extent to join the
Condamine River; which–also rising in the Coast Range, where the latter
expands into the table-land of New England–sweeps round to the
northward, and, flowing parallel to the Coast Range, receives the whole
drainage from the country to the westward of the range. The Condamine
forms, for a great distance, the separation of the sandstone country to
the westward, from the rich basaltic plains to the eastward. These
plains, so famous for the richness of their pasture, and for the
excellency of the sheep and cattle depastured upon them, have become
equally remarkable as the depositaries of the remains of extinct species
of animals, several of which must have been of a gigantic size, being the
Marsupial representatives of the Pachydermal order of other continents.

Sku: overlandaustralia

The charm of romance and adventure surrounding the discovery of hitherto
unknown lands has from the earliest ages been the lure that has tempted
men to prosecute voyages and travels of exploration. Whether under the
pretext of science, religion or conquest, hardship and danger have alike
been undergone with fortitude and cheerfulness, in the hope of being the
first to find things strange and new, and return to civilized communities
with the tidings.In the days of Spain’s supremacy, after the eyes of Europe had been
dazzled with the sight of riches brought from the New World, and men’s
ears filled with fairy-like tales of the wondrous races discovered, it
was but natural that the adventurous gallants of that age should roam in
search of seas yet to be won.

Sku: historyofaustralian