merchants of the country. Having remained in St. Petersburg for five years afterwards, he then returned to England, where he devoted the remainder of his long life to literary labours, and to those charitable and philanthropic schemes which subsequently made his name known throughout England.
MAJOR MITCHELL AND THE BUSHRANGER.
The expedition of Major Mitchell into the interior of Australia has a curious origin. About thirty-five years since, the authorities at Sydney captured in the bush a runaway convict, named George Clarke, but known by the sobriquet of the Barber, a man of singular appearance, who had lived a long time in the interior among the natives, and had adopted their customs. He went naked like them, was painted black, had his body deeply scarified, and was usually attended by two aboriginal women. Thus disguised as a native, he had organized a very daring system of cattle stealing on Liverpool Plains, which had increased to an alarming extent before he was taken. This man, probably to direct attention in some degree from his crime, informed the authorities, who at that time knew little of the country, that he had discovered a very important river in the interior which the natives, he said, called the Kirdur. He gave very circumstantial details of his travels to the north-west along the bank of this river, by
