ARRIVAL OF THE WEEKLY MAIL.
"The rest of the party had turned off to the right as soon as our mob of cattle started, and didn't come up to us until we had been fully half an hour on the ground. They were preceded by three or four mobs of cattle that came dashing in with tails in the air, and acting as though they enjoyed the sport.
"The camp was a picturesque sight. The stockmen and the black boys were riding constantly around the herd, to keep the animals from straying or breaking away; the cattle were moving restlessly about, the cows lowing for their missing calves, the bullocks indulging in an occasional fight, in which none of them was hurt, and the whole herd separating occasionally into little groups composed of those that had been accustomed to run together on the pastures. The camp was partially covered with a very thin forest of iron-bark trees, and the white, red, and roan colors of the animals made a very pretty contrast against the black tinge of the wood and the green of the grass.
"We dismounted, and sat down on a log, while the stockmen and the cattle-dealer proceeded to draft out the animals that were wanted. I may as well explain some of the terms used here, as they will doubtless seem strange in America.
"A 'mob' is a bunch or group of cattle that have assembled for grazing purposes. A herd consists of several or many mobs.
"'Tailing' is the assembling of one or a few mobs at the stock-yards or cattle-camps; tailing is sometimes called mustering, but the latter term applies more particularly to the annual or semi-annual assemblage of all the cattle belonging to a run for the purpose of counting, branding, and other operations to which cattle are devoted. The muster is exactly analogous to the American 'round-up.'