They roamed long amid the glories of that semi-tropical park, rich with the spoils of the Orient and many a fairy isle of the Great South Sea. As the palms and strangely formed forest trees waved in the breeze fresh from a thousand leagues of ocean foam, as the blue waters glanced and sparkled through the clustering foliage, while they sat under giant pines and looked over the sea-wall and at the white-winged sailing boats flitting over the wavelets of the ocean-lake which men call the harbour of Sydney, Mr. Neuchamp freely acknowledged his wonder and his admiration. Stronger than ever was his faith in the destiny of a people with whom he was fixed in determination henceforth to cast in his lot. Mr. Selmore had obtained his consent to dine with him at a well-known _café_, and thither, after visiting the baths, as the short twilight was deepening into night, they wended their way. Upon entering the room the appearance of an extremely well-arranged dinner service was pleasant enough to view, after the somewhat less ornamental garniture of the table of a clipper-ship. Ernest was introduced to two other friends of Mr. Selmore, also of the pastoral persuasion, and who looked as if town visiting was the exception in their rule of life. The dinner passed off very pleasantly. The _menu_ was well chosen, the cooking more than respectable, the wines unimpeachable. Ernest was sober from habit and principle. It would have been vain to have made the attempt to induce him to exceed. Still, with all reasonable moderation, it must be confessed that a man takes a more hopeful view of life after a good dinner, more especially in the days of joyous youth. Mr. Selmore’s friends were up-country dwellers, and it appeared that they were, in some sort, neighbours of his when at home. Much of the conversation insensibly took the direction of stock-farming, and Mr. Neuchamp found himself listening to tales of crossing flooded rivers with droves bound for a high market, or of tens of thousands of sheep bought and sold in a day, or the wonderful price of wool, while intermingled were descriptions of feats of horsemanship varied with an occasional encounter with wild blacks. In the midst of all this, Mr. Neuchamp’s ardour kindled to such a pitch that he could not forbear asking one of the last arrived strangers whether there was not any station for sale in their district that would be suitable for him. One of the pastorals looked at the other in astonishment, when they both looked reproachfully at Mr. Selmore. ‘You don’t mean to say,’ at length broke out the older man, whose assiduity to the bottle had been unabated, ‘that you haven’t told our young friend here that Gammon Downs is for sale, ’pon my soul it’s too bad!’ ‘Why, it’s the very place in the whole blessed colony,’ said the other, ‘for a new arrival—good water, good sheep, a nice handy little run, and the best house in the district.’