You have dry nice fern for your bed covered over with oilskin and an oppossum rug. Generally the encampment is on the bank of a river or near a nice spring where there is bush for firewood. When night fully sets in to look out at your tent door you will see the fires of your party blazing up in 20 different places, all of them enjoying themselves singing songs or telling some antiquated tales of times gone by or listening to an old greyheaded senator who witnessed the suns of many summers & the various extraordinary events of past times but all this possesses no charms for you town ladies, something very different is required for your amusement therefore I need say little more on this subject excepting that I am now going to start up the river to select a nice spot as an encampment for myself & party in a bay where we can have wood, water & fish & spend our Xmas quietly. I am obliged to end this letter abruptly. The natives are waiting for me and if I do not avail of this tide I will lose a day so you must not blame for a short letter as the chances are I will write you a much longer one yet before the vessels sail but in case I should