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54 a bushman of great and well-known experience, and, like Mr. Fetherston, he had been with Stuart on one or more of his exploring expeditions. I guessed from his presence that Mr. Fetherston intended that I should before the evening was over state my intention of going westward. Accordingly, when dinner was over and as we were about to light our pipes, I said before them all,

"Well, Mr. Fetherston, my friend Wilbraham and I are going to leave you for a few days at least. We propose to go westward with Sir Gioro, in order to see something of the aborigines. We may be back within a week, but we may push on with the blacks into the interior, and perhaps we may make for the north-west or west coast."

Mr. Fetherston turned to the man of whom I spoke just now and said:

"Well, Tim, what do you say to that?"

The man turned to me and said: "I didn't quite catch all you said, governor. Would you mind saying it again?"

I repeated what I had said. "Well," he replied, "it has been a main wet season out north, that I can see, and if you don't go more than forty or fifty miles from the track you may get back within a week safe