There is often a lot of argument about what is a fair day's journey on horseback. Of course it is a matter which never can be decided, because so much depends upon the horses, the road, what the horses get to eat, &c., but I do not believe many careful travellers will take their horses more than twenty miles a day for a long journey, and then rest them occasionally, but to hear some people talk one would think their horses could go a hundred miles every day. In Queensland travellers have sometimes to ride forty or fifty miles between watering-places. Most horses can do it, if taken care of, but not every day. When travellers meet on a Queensland road their first question after greeting is, "How far is it to water?" and the distance between watering-places is practically what decides a day's journey. In times of drought these water-holes get scarce or dry up completely; rivers stop running; then it behoves the traveller to look out where he goes. If misfortune happens, or he has not calculated rightly the endurance of his horse, or the water-hole on which he depends should be dried up when he arrives there, then he is likely to perish! As for myself, I have on more than one occasion arrived in a parched condition at a water-hole, only to find a lot of dead cattle bogged in the soft mud, and still have been compelled to drink the pint or two of putrefied water that might be left. The reader will therefore see that travelling in the Queensland bush is not exactly a perpetual picnic. Nothing of importance happened to me on this road, unless I were to mention that when I was about half-way I met a swag's-man, that is, one who carries his swag on his own back and has no horses. This fellow asked to let him put his burden on my horse, which I let him do. I then, by talking to him as we went along, found out that he had neither money nor rations, and as we were only a few miles from Hugton Hotel I promised to pay for dinner at that place for us both. Arrived at the hotel, I ordered a first-class dinner for two; it was five shillings. The table was laid for us with a big roast of beef and a plum-pudding. After we both had eaten what we wanted, my fellow-traveller put nearly all the remaining food into his bags and decamped, in spite of my protestations. I remember well how scandalized I felt! Otherwise the road was not lonely; every day I passed waggons hauled by sixteen or eighteen bullocks each and filled with merchandise for the diggings. There were also other travellers, both on foot and on horseback, but I did not go myself in company with any, and so at last, one forenoon, I saw the township of Ravenswood lying before me. I stopped the horses to have a good look.