I had been compelled to part with all my belongings except a short-handled pick. All my other tools were gone, and tent and blankets as well; not a shilling in my pockets, but happily the best part of a cake of cavendish and a cutty. No man knows the comfort that lies in a pipe of tobacco as a bushman does; it has sustained the courage of many a man in as desperate a plight as I was in on that day. I had started in the early morning for a cattle station where I had heard there was the chance of a job, and towards evening found that I had missed my way. Had there been such twilight as we enjoy in England there would have been time to get into the right track, but in Australia night treads close upon the shadows of evening. It was not the first time I had been "bushed," and I accepted the position as cheerfully as my circumstances would permit. The night was fine, the sky was filled with stars, the air was sweet and warm. I had camped out under more favorable conditions, but I made the best of this, comforting myself with the reflection that I had only a few hours to wait before I obtained a meal at the cattle station I had missed. Meanwhile I smoked my pipe, and soon afterwards fell asleep upon a bed of dry leaves. I was up with the sun, and was about to resume my search for the lost track when my eyes fell upon a range of hills studded with quartz. I thought of the stories I had heard of rich reefs being accidentally discovered by men who had lost their way in the bush, and considered that it was as likely to happen to me as to another. It is true I was hungry, but I could hold on a bit longer, and I determined to spend an hour or two in prospecting. So to it I went, selecting the most likely-looking hill, on the uppermost ridge of which rested a huge boulder of quartz, which a vivid imagination might have converted into the fantastic image of a human monster. Detaching some pieces of stone from the base of this boulder I saw fine specks of gold in them in sufficient quantity to give promise of a paying reef. The specks were so finely distributed that they could only be won by the aid of fire, water, and quicksilver, and the pulverizing stamps of a crushing machine. The discovery was therefore valueless to me in its power to relieve my present necessities, but I marked the spot and determined to return to it when my circumstances were more favorable to the opening of a new reef. I reached the cattle station in the evening, and to my disappointment learned that there was no work for me. The kind-hearted people on the station gave me a plentiful supper and a shake-down, and when I rose the next morning to continue my wanderings I was not allowed to depart empty-handed. The life I led in the Colonies was rough and hard, but it was studded with stars of human kindness which I can never forget.