preferred dreaming to creating. Now, however, he was excited by the flattery of Riverina society; and when he found that a newspaper with the literary reputation of The Bulletin would print and pay for his impressions and fancies, he took more pains to rightly embody them. In the pleasure of composition Boake was at times able to banish gloom and anxiety, and even fitfully to nourish the bright hopes of his Monaro days.
Of Boake at this time Mr. Lipscomb says—
He was a good horseman, and a first-class bushman. When he left me and came to Sydney he intended passing the examination for a license as surveyor, and he was thoroughly qualified to do so. In the field he was sufficiently capable, and he was a particularly good draughtsman. His work in the field-books (outlining the topography of the country) was the best I ever saw. He was very temperate—except in the use of tobacco: his pipe was hardly ever out of his mouth. He was fond of reading, whenever he had the chance: a surveyor's life gives little opportunity for study. I remember his devotion to Shakespeare and The Bulletin. His health seemed good; but his habits were solitary, his disposition melancholy—even morose. He made few friends: indeed, the only people I knew him to be friendly with (besides Raymond, my other assistant) were Dr. and Mrs. O’Connor and their daughters, of Connorton, Wagga Wagga.
Mr. L. C. Raymond writes—
I first met Boake when I joined Mr. Lipscomb's survey camp at Terong Creek, N.S.W., in August, 1890; and for sixteen months thereafter we lived and worked together, and
