WE OF THE NEVER-NEVER
a sly look at my discarded gloves and gossamer, “Té’s wonderful how quietly the Territory does its work.”
The Man-in-Charge smiled openly as he poured out the tea, proving thereby his kinship with all other Territorians; and as the train came to a standstill, swung off and slipped some letters into a box nailed to an old tree-trunk.
At the far end of the train, away from the engine, the passengers’ car had been placed, and as in front of it a long, long line of low-stacked sinuous trucks slipped along in the rear of the engine, all was open view before ns; and all day long, as the engine trudged onwards—hands in pocket, so to speak, and whistling merrily as it trudged—I stood beside the Maluka on the little platform in front of the passengers’ car, drinking in my first deep, intoxicating draught of the glories of the tropical bush.
There were no fences to shut us in; and as the train zig-zagged through jungle and forest and river-valley—stopping now and then to drink deeply at magnificent rivers ablaze with water- lilies—it almost seemed as though it were some kindly Mammoth creature, wandering at will through the bush.
Here and there, kangaroos and other wild creatures of the bush lopped out of our way, and sitting up, looked curiously after us; again and again little groups of blacks hailed us, and scrambled after water-melon and tobacco, with shouts of delight, and, invariably, on nearing the tiny settlements
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