An interesting memoir by Mr. Clement Shorter, prefixed to a new edition of Kingsley's novels, briefly describes his school-days and literary career, but is almost wholly silent concerning the eventful years spent in the colonies. There is a single reference to the period which succeeded his gold-digging days, when want forced him to seek a less precarious occupation. For a time, it seems, he was a mounted policeman in New South Wales, until, 'compelled by duty to attend an execution, he was so much affected that he threw up the appointment in disgust.' Then, like many another unlucky digger, he was obliged to travel the country in search of work on the sheep and cattle stations. A well-known pastoralist of the western district of Victoria, the late Hon. Philip Russell, was accustomed to describe to his friends the arrival at his station many years ago of a party of 'sundowners' (_i.e._, tramps), among whom was Kingsley, looking 'very much down on his luck.' Soon found to be no ordinary swagman, he was made a guest at the station, where he remained for several months. The most agreeable glimpse obtainable of his colonial life is given in _Old Melbourne Memories_, a little collection of sketches published by Rolf Boldrewood twelve years ago. At the period which they recall, Boldrewood was a young man, and making the experiment in squatting which, though disastrous in its ultimate commercial results, was afterwards turned to a rich literary account by him. A friend of his named Mitchell occupied a station in western Victoria named Langa-willi, and there on one occasion Boldrewood met Kingsley. The passage in which he gracefully records the event is worth quoting in full. 'Why Langa-willi,' he says, 'will always be a point of interest in my memory, apart from other reasons, for I spent many a pleasant day there, was that Henry Kingsley lived there the chief part of a year as a guest of Mitchell's. 'It was at Langa-willi that _Geoffry Hamlyn_, that immortal work, the best Australian novel, and for long the only one, was written. In the well-appointed sitting-room of that most comfortable cottage one can imagine the gifted but somewhat ill-fated author sitting down comfortably after breakfast to his "copy," when his host had ridden forth with his overseer to make-believe to inspect the flocks, but in reality to get an appetite for lunch.