Thus the _Australian Gazetteer_, speaking of the far-inland village of Jillibeejee. For days you shall have ridden over bush roads, fetlock deep in dust, through monotonous open forest, or over still more monotonous plain, ere, far away on a dry brown ridge, you catch the glitter of something in the bright, hot sunshine. This proceeds from the first roof in Jillibeejee. Then, making your horse stride carefully over the Trickle Trickle, whose banks are apt to crumble, you breast the ridge and take a bird’s-eye view of the township as it lies frying in the sun. This ridge must be fully fifty feet above the level of the surrounding country, and is probably the ‘rising’ referred to by the jocular _Gazetteer_. The first building is deserted; so is the second. As you ride along you come to others, dilapidated but, from sounds within, peopled. There are altogether forty houses in Jillibeejee, which, by the _Gazetteer’s_ reckoning, gives us an average of ten inmates to each one. I am afraid the _Gazetteer_ has never been to Jillibeejee. In fact, very few people ever do seem to go there. Those that do, either depart again very shortly, or stay until theirs makes one amongst a collection of rudely-fenced enclosures on the banks of the Trickle Trickle, inside which sleep the pioneers of the place. Perhaps the first emotion that arises in the visitor’s mind is of wonder that any pioneer, no matter how hard up he may have been, should have thought it worth while to commence pioneering at Jillibeejee. The second, that any others should ever join him in such a speculation. Neither tree nor any other green thing meets the sight. All is brown, barren, desolate—apparently a ‘waste land where no one comes, or hath come since the making of the world,’ except that intrepid band in possession. Why do people live here? How do they live? I must discover this, if possible, before leaving. Having no time to spare, I begin at once. He is six feet in his stockings, broad, massive, hirsute, and tanned. The insignia of office in such a place would be an absurdity. Therefore his raiment is nondescript, and mostly slouch hat. This is the man who rules the official destinies of the settlement—the ‘Officer in Charge.’ To him I propound my conundrum. ‘Ah,’ replies he; ‘ye shud jist come aroun’ whin ut’s a wet saison, an’ thin ye’d see the differ av ut.’ ‘Yes,’ I remark. ‘And when may that time be due?’ ‘God knows,’ says he piously, and with a sigh. ‘I’ve bin here four year, an’ I’ve seen ut wanst. Ye cudn’t see the counthry for a week bekase av the wather. Thin, afther, comes the grass an’ the clover six feet high. Ut’s a great counthry, them times, so it is, sorr.’ It is high noon as I and my friend stroll along the fiery, dusty track amongst the iron-roofed ovens large and small. Everybody seems asleep, save that now and again we catch a glimpse of women, wan and prematurely old-looking.