Our turnout was rather a curious one. The season was dry, and, feed being scarce, Treloar had concluded that, at such a time, a bullock would be better able to eke out a living than a horse. Therefore, a working bullock drew our tilted cart about the country. ‘You see, my boy,’ said Treloar, when deciding on the purchase, ‘an ox is a beggar that always seems to have something to chew. Turn a horse out where there’s no grass, and he’ll probably go to the deuce before morning. But your ox, now, after a good look around, seeing he’s struck a barren patch, ’ll draw on his reserves, bring up something from somewhere, and start chewing away like one o’clock. That comforts his owner. I vote for the ox. He may be slow, but he generally appears to have enough in his stomach to keep his jaws going; and, in a dry time, that is a distinct advantage.’ So Eclipse was bought, I merely stipulating that Treloar should always drive. I have an idea, that, after a while, as the old ‘worker’ sauntered along, regarding the perspiring Harry, and his exhortations and exclamations, often in Hindustani, with a mild stare of surprise, as he slowly stooped for a dry tussock, or reached aloft for an overhanging branch, the latter somewhat repented him of his experiment. But he never said so. And, to do him justice, Eclipse was not a bad ‘ox’; and, when he could get nothing better, justified Harry’s expectations by seeming able to chew stones. But his motto was decidedly _festina lente_. Yamnibar, ‘Old Yamnibar,’ at last. Behind us, on the far inland river, we had left a busy scene of activity. Hurrying crowds of men, the whirr of a thousand windlasses, the swish of countless cradles, and the ceaseless pounding by night and by day of the battery stamps. And now what a contrast! A wide, trackless valley, covered with grave-like mounds, on which grass grew rankly; with ruined buildings and rotting machinery, and, here and there, pools of stagnant water, whilst the only thing save the sweep of the wind that reached our ears was a distant rhythmical moaning, coming very sadly in that desolate place—the sounding of the sea on the rock-bound coast not far away. The only signs of life, as Eclipse, pausing now and again, and taking a ruminative survey of the valley, drew us by degrees down the sloping hills, were the buglings of a squad of native companions flying heavily towards the setting sun. ‘What a dismal hole!’ I muttered, as the ‘ox,’ spying some green rushes, bolted at top speed—about a mile an hour—towards them. ‘Let’s try and find a golden one,’ laughed my mercurial friend. ‘Here we have a whole gold-field to ourselves. Just think of it! “Lords of the fowl and the brute”—Eclipse and _Kálee_ and the bralgas. Take the old chap out of the _gharri_, and we’ll pitch our camp.’