As evening drew on, causing me to be on the alert for quarters, I espied a rather pretentious homestead, cosily placed in a natural shelter half-way up the hillside. This proved to be Mr. Edward Henty's. He was not at home, but Mrs. Henty happily was. Young, ladylike, beautiful, she received me with that high courtesy which sets one at once at ease by the flattering impression that in these squatting solitudes it is rather the visited than the visitors who are the obliged parties. Ten years later I, with my wife, called upon her in Melbourne to renew this early acquaintance. She was then, of course, ten years older, but hardly less charming. Thirty-four more years have since elapsed, and yet I must still hope to meet her once more in that country which has become so great, and which is, in so special a sense, her own. I reached the Glenelg, which, however, I found to be, at or near the Wannon junction, hardly better than a big, irregular, ugly ditch. How curious!--for not far off, above or below, I might have found great deep waterholes and picturesque water stretches as sketched by Mitchell. I took all for granted, and turned back homewards. I struck a little north towards Victoria Range, and passed one of my nights with a solitary shepherd in an out-hut, so far and away from all companionable life but that of his sheep that I could well realize, in this extreme case, the dolorous side of squatting. My breakfast was a tin of tea without milk, and a hunch of damper of my host's own baking--not altogether rejectable in the keen fresh air when one had nothing else. A sheep could not be killed for two, even if the business could afford it. On I went, merrily withal, for it was the heyday of youth and strength, making steadily eastwards for the southern extremity of the Grampians, which rose in grand outline before me, forty miles away. Neither station nor human being came in my road afterwards till I reached and was rounding Mount Sturgeon, upon whose rocky summit the setting sun already glinted. I was now upon a good, broad bush track, which must lead to some station. But when? This small side-track to the left looks as though a hut at least were nearer, and so I diverged into it. Mile after mile I trotted, as well as the rough track would permit, and when night fell, and for long after, I still pegged away. A dozen miles right up, within the outer sierra, towards Mount William, brought me at last to an open glade, where some small piles of "split stuff" showed me at once my mistake. Dodging about till day, thus giving rest to my horse, I soon regained my road, and after an hour's further ride, reached Dr. Martin's sheep station, where a pleasant young fellow, Byass by name, who had lost an arm in wars of some kind, and was then in charge, ministered to my wants, and allowed me to take well-nigh the largest breakfast on record in those parts.