upon them the animals were overloaded; and my experience has since shown me that they cannot, continually day after day, carry more than 150 lbs.

for any distance.

The difficulties which we met with for the first three weeks, were indeed very trying:--the loading of bullocks and horses took generally two hours; and the slightest accident, or the cargo getting loose during the day's journey, frequently caused the bullocks to upset their loads and break the straps, and gave us great trouble even in catching them again:--at night, too, if we gave them the slightest chance, they would invariably stray back to the previous camp; and we had frequently to wait until noon before Charley and Brown, who generally performed the office of herdsman in turns, recovered the ramblers.

The consequences were that we could proceed only very slowly, and that, for several months, we had to keep a careful watch upon them throughout the night.

The horses, with some few exceptions, caused us less trouble at the commencement of our journey than afterwards, when our hobbles were worn out and lost, and, with the exception of one or two which in turns were tethered in the neighbourhood of the camp in order to prevent the others from straying, they were necessarily allowed to feed at large.