After a night spent at this resting-place the party advanced through a grove, and at evening encamped on the shores of a brackish and muddy lake. Mr. Olbinett prepared supper with his usual promptness, and the travelers—some in the cart and others under the tent—were not long in falling asleep, in spite of the dismal howlings of the dingos,—the jackals of Australia.
The next morning Glenarvan and his companions were greeted with a magnificent sight. As far as the eye could reach, the landscape seemed to be one flowery meadow in spring-like luxuriance. The delicate blue of the slender-leaved flax-plant mingled with the flaming scarlet of the acanthus, and the ground was clothed with a rich carpet of green and crimson. After a rapid journey of about ten miles, the cart wound through tall groups of acacias, mimosas, and white gum-trees. The vegetable kingdom on these plains did not show itself ungrateful towards the orb of day, and repaid in perfume and color what it received in sunshine.
As for the animal kingdom, it was no less lavish of its products. Several cassowaries bounded over the plain with unapproachable swiftness. The major was skillful enough to shoot a very rare bird,—a "jabiru," or giant crane. This creature was five feet high; and its broad, black, sharp conical beak measured eighteen inches in length. The violet and purple colors of its head contrasted strongly with the lustrous green of its neck, the dazzling white of its breast, and the vivid red of its long legs.
A FOUR-FOOTED ARMY.
This bird was greatly admired, and the major would have won the honors of the day, if young Robert had not encountered a few miles farther on, and bravely vanquished, an unsightly beast, half hedgehog, half ant-eater, a chaotic-looking animal, like those of pre-historic periods. A long, glutinous, extensible tongue hung out of its mouth, and fished up the ants that constituted its principal food. Of course, Paganel wished to carry away the hideous creature, and proposed to put it in the baggage-room; but Mr. Olbinett opposed this with such indignation that the geographer gave up his idea of preserving this curious specimen.
Hitherto few colonists or squatters had been seen. The country seemed deserted. There was not even the trace of a native; for the savage tribes wander farther to the north, over the immense wastes watered by the Darling and the Murray. But now a singular sight was presented to Glenarvan's party. They were fortunate enough to see one of those vast herds of cattle which bold speculators bring from the eastern mountains to the provinces of Victoria and South Australia.
About four o'clock in the afternoon, Captain Mangles descried, three miles in advance, an enormous column of dust that spread along the horizon. What occasioned this? It would have been very difficult to say. Paganel was inclined to regard it as some phenomenon, for which his lively imagination already sought a natural cause. But Ayrton dissipated all his conjectures by declaring that this cloud of dust proceeded from a drove of cattle.
The quartermaster was not mistaken. The thick cloud approached, from the midst of which issued a chorus of bleatings, neighings, and bellowings, while the human voice mingled in cries and whistles with this pastoral symphony. A man emerged from the noisy multitude; it was the commander-in-chief of this four-footed army. Glenarvan advanced to meet him, and friendly relations were established without ceremony. The leader, or, to give him his real title, the "stock-keeper," was proprietor of a part of the herd. His name was Sam Machell, and he was on his way from the eastern provinces to Portland Bay. His cattle comprised one thousand oxen, eleven thousand sheep, and seventy-five horses. All these animals, bought when lean on the plains of the Blue Mountains, were to be fattened in the healthy pastures of South Australia, where they would be sold for a large price.
Sam Machell briefly told his story, while the drove continued its course through the clumps of mimosas. Lady Helena, Mary Grant, and the horsemen dismounted, and, seated in the shade of a huge gum-tree, listened to the stock-keeper's narrative.
He had set out seven months before, and had made about ten miles a day, at which rate his journey would last three months longer. To aid him in this laborious task, he had with him twenty dogs and thirty men. Five of the men were blacks, who are very skillful in recovering stray animals. Six carts followed the drove; and the drivers, provided with stock-whips, the handles of which were eighteen inches and the lashes nine feet in length, moved among the ranks and maintained order, while the canine light dragoons hovered about on the wings.