Excerpt from The Gold Hunters Adventures: Or Life in Australia Since my return from Australia, I have been solicited by a number of friends to give them a history of my adventures in that land of gold, where kangaroos are supposed to be as plenty as natives, and jump ten times as far, and Where natives are imagined to be continually lying in ambush for the purpose of making a hearty meal upon the bodies of those unfortunate travellers who venture far into the interior of the country - where bushrangers are continually hanging about camp fires, ready to cut the weasands of those who close their eyes for a moment and lastly, where every other man that you meet is expected to be a convict, transported from the mother country for such petty crimes as forgery, housebreaking, and manslaughter in the second degree. My friends have all desired to hear me relate these particulars, and have honored me with a large attendance at my rooms, and sat late at night, and drank my Wine and water, and smoked my cigars, with a relish that did me great credit, as it showed that I am something of a connoisseur in.the choice of such luxuries. And then they laughed so loudly at my jokes, no matter how poor they were, that, for a few days after my arrival home, I really thought the air of Australia had improved and sharpened my wit. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.