A SUNDAY IN THE BUSH.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2575, 12 January 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

A SUNDAY IN THE BUSH.

On coming to a small creek, and wherein a few holes there was good water, and around good feed for the horses, we decided to camp for the day. The journey of the previous day h'ld been very long, our horses showed signs of leg-weariness ; in addition it was Sunday, so that we thought half a day's journey would be ample. In the bush there is but little observance of Sunday. It often happens that the requirements of the cattlc and sheep will not allow of delay. As little work as possible is done, but a completely free day is not of frequent occurrence. Our camping spot was rather a picturesque one. . . . After

dinner we cleared away stonea to make level sleeping spots, erected our mosquitotents —shading them, by saddle-cloths and a few branches of bush, from the sun— and lay down to read or sleep, free from the attentions of the numerous flies, which were kept from us by the netting. In the evening we sat chatting over the camp-fire. The night being a little chilly, the flies had gone to rest earlier than usual; the mosquitoes fought shy of the smoke. After a while, under the soothing iufluence of the fire and a pipe, onn dropped into a reverie. I need not inflict my thoughts on the reader, but one could not help contrasting one's position with the condition of things at home. Visions of the cheery, welllighted dining-room came over one—the cosy fire, the home-faces, whilst possibly outside the snow or rain was coming down ; the contrast —sitting on a log in the open air, a desert stillness around one, broken only by the occasional sound of the bells oil the horses' necks. Close by were our little calico sleeping-boxes, many miles from a habitation of any kind. I had come on this expedition purely from the wish to see something of bush life, and of a very certainty I tasted it to the full.—"Leaves from an Australian Journal," in the Leisure Hour.