'Hullo!' he would say when Werrina was miles away behind us. 'Who'd've thought o' that baldy-faced steer o' Murdoch's bein' out here?' One gazed about to locate the beast. But, no. No living thing was in sight. In passing, quite casually, Ted's roving eye had spied a hoof mark, perhaps a day old or more, in the soft bottom of a tiny billabong; a print I could hardly make out, leave alone identify as having been made by this beast or the other, even under the guidance of Ted's pointing finger. Yet for Ted that casual glance--no stooping, no close scrutiny--supplied an accurate and complete picture: the particular beast, its gait, occupation, and way of heading, and the period at which it had passed that way. Withal, it was true enough, as the storekeeper said, poor Ted had no 'Systum'; or none, at all events, of the kind cultivated in shops and offices. III However much at fault I may be in recollection of our arrival at Sydney, my memories of our first night at Livorno Bay (so my father christened the derelict's resting-place) could hardly be more vivid and distinct. That night marks for me the beginning of a definite epoch in my life. I passed the spot in a large inter-state steamer last year. There was no sign of any ship there then, so far, at all events, as I could make out with a borrowed pair of glasses; and the place looked very much the same as any other part of the Australian coast. There are thousands of such indentations around the shores of the island continent, with low headlands of jagged rock by way of horns, and terraces of shell-strewn sand dotted over with ti-tree scrub, which merges into a low-lying bush of swamp oak and suchlike growths, among which, as like as not, you shall find, as we found, a more or less extensive salt-water lagoon, over the sandy bar of which big, tossing breakers will roll in from the Pacific in stormy weather. Yes, I would say now that there is nothing very peculiar or distinctive about Livorno Bay for the observer who is familiar with other parts of Australia's coast. But in my youthful eyes, seen on the evening of our arrival, after a fifteen miles' walk, and, seen, too, in the glow of a singularly angry-looking evening sky, Livorno Bay, with its derelict barque to focus one's gaze, presented a spectacle almost terrifying in its desolation. Years must have passed since anything edible could have been found on board the _Livorno_. Yet I hardly think I should exaggerate if I said that two thousand birds rose circling from various points of vantage about the derelict as we approached her sides. That this winged and highly vocal congregation resented our intrusion was not to be doubted for a moment. Short of actually attacking us with beak and claw, the creatures could hardly have given more practical expression to their sentiments. The circumstance was trivial, of course, but I think it somewhat dashed my father's ardour, and I know it struck into my very vitals.