The Australian boasts his stock-whip stout, with which in mad career He urges o’er the boundless plain the wild unbroken steer, Or drives his herds to pastures new in swift and headlong flight, Down many a stony torrent bed, o’er many a rocky height. But though loud and sharp its cracks resound adown the mountain’s side, Yet it cannot match our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide, Yet it cannot match our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide. By Canada’s backwoodsman aye the narrow axe is borne, Fit emblem of his wooded home—no theme for jest or scorn, Right well her darksome forests know the sway of its fateful stroke, As in answering crash comes thundering down tall pine or stately oak. We may not scorn the narrow axe, the bold backwoodsman’s pride, But we’ll shout ha! ha! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide, But we’ll shout ha! ha! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide. Then here’s to the tree our gardens yield, the tapering light bamboo, And here’s to the hand that can wield it well, gin his heart be leal and true, And here’s to the slow and steady team that all the livelong day, Through rough and smooth, with even pace, still plod their onward way, And here’s to the Vorslacht’s clap, which wakes the echoes far and wide. Then hurrah! hurrah! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cow hide, Then hurrah! hurrah! for our wagon whip, with its lash of sea-cowhide. But the rest from work did us all good. About thirteen miles from Maritzburg we made a halt in order to see the beautiful falls of the Umgeni, which are close to the drift where we crossed. The river here has worn its way through piles of columnar basalt to the edge of an awful precipice, where in one terrific leap of 372 feet it has for countless ages fallen into the broad, deep pool below, the encircling rocks around being clothed with trees, exotic ferns and flowers both beautiful and rare. Many a tale was told us of “moving accidents by flood and field,” of the sudden, tumultuous rush of waters when a flood came down, of belated wayfarers and of rash unfortunates washed over into the abyss. Leaving the pretty village adjacent to the falls, with its church and wayside inn, reminding one of old England, we went on, still ascending, another 1,600 feet to the Karkloof. I must not forget to mention that a few miles before we came to this range we passed Lidgetton, where the early settlers under the Burns’ scheme were first located. Here our attention was drawn to the gentle puffs of smoke lazily curling up from the steam mills working away in the forest, where, almost unseen by mortal eye, they were turning out the timber from which the colony obtains most of its best wagon material.