SORE MUSCLES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2671, 24 May 1905, Page 82

SORE MUSCLES.

Prominent athletes throughout the country find that the best treatment for sore muecles after severe exercise or hard work of any kind is a hot bath at bed time, which opens the pores. This should immediately be followed with an application of Chamberlain's Pain Balm vigorously rubbed into the skin. This liniment removes all stiffness and soreness, and has become a favourite rub down, as it acts promptly, and keeps the muscles in excellent condition. For sale by all dealers.

beautiful combinations], I hope ter goodness yer'll want it yerself some day. A huigry swine like you, wot wouldn't give a swagman a bit o' meat, wants !" He walked round Swiker, giving peculiar little hitches to his shirt sleeves^ and accused him of being several kinds of a product, the particulars of which need not be enumerated here. Swiker paid no heed to him. He was interested in his paper. Swaggie kicked a piece of tussock at him, and walked away disgusted. Then Swiker plunged into his tent^ to peruse his newssheet in peace. We camped by the side of a grave in which 54 blacks, killed by the early settlers around Forestvale, wer9 buried years ago. The grave was on a sandhill in a clump of cypress pine. The sand was heaped over ' it still to a height of 2ft, and this was covered with a stack of d«ad timber. Near KTlarney, not faT from us, there is a similar grave, containing the remains of 74 slaughtered aborigines. | The destruction of one of these stacks of wood is considered a horrible deed by the aborigines. A man named Kennedy once accidentally burnt a stack whilst boiling his billy. They called him "Wokka-atchie" (a crow), and no black would ■willingly go within miles of him. During the dog-watch I got Jinn on one side. "Look here, Jim," I said, "how ; much was Swiker paying you for building , up his fighting reputation?" "Nuthin!" "Then why did you tell so many confounded lies about him?" j "He told 'em ter me when we was comin' up. I thought they was true." Peter tackled him on the same point when Jim relieved him in the morning. "If you wasn't a sort o' friend o' mine, Jim," he said, "dang me if I wouldn't plug you ! Lor', strike you blind ! we'd have had Swiker good long ago if it hadn't been for your lies. Put them frauds o' gloves in a bag, an' shut up for the future." The day after the antiquity and incapacity of our old waggonette was much commented upon along the Maranoa. It was patched from end to end with rough bush timber, lashed with green hide, ropes, leather, and dog chains, and there was enough wire about the old rattletrap to fence in an ordinary selection. The brake had dropped off somewhere, and ' wasn't missed till we got into billy country. Swiker saved us from destruction by inventing a substitute. It was very simple. All that was needed was an axe 4 a trace chain, and a young tree. You cut the tree down with the axe, then you drove the waggonette over the end of it, and secured it to the axle with the trace chain. You regulated the size of your tree to the gradient, dragged it to the bottom, and left it there "blocking the highway. It mostly required as much effort to pull the trap aown, by this means as it required to pull it up. Swiker said ifc was "fus'-rate," andi wrote an article on it. We crossed the Maranoa below Forestvale. Swiker himself picked the crossing, and it was as well he did so. There was a bed of quicksand on each side of us. We left a horse in one, and it is presumed we left some cattle in the other, for they were missing at our next count. Out of *700 we had only 500 on their feetMost of the others (brands) were contained in bags in the waggonette. Jim, the cook, was in charge of this lot. Camped at Donnybrook, and on the steepest bank it was possible to find. It was 200 yds from the top down to water, and up this I had to climb with bucket after bucket. There was more water used there than had been used) in any three previous camps. Swiker couldn't abear .to see a man idle for two consecutive minutes. When there was nothing to do at the camp, he'd send me out to shift the horses from one patch of grass on to another. If he'd thought ' of nothing else by the time I returned, he'd tell me to shift them Dack again, as they didn't appear to be feeding as well as they were before. I often felt sorry that Swiker didn't carry a grindstone. Such a thing could be rigged at every camp, and I could have put in all my spare moments turning it. It would have saved Swiker a lot of brain work, and been a profit to me in the saving of shoe-leather. There was considerable excitement in camp at night, and every one was unusually cheerful. Swiker had bought a Christmas puddling from Donnybrook pub. for five shillings ! In the exuberance of his , feelings, Jim actually greeted us with some 1 sort of a Christmas carol: ! Christmas time is coming, and the geese are getting fat, Please put a penny in the old boy s hat. Christmas Eve. — Felled about 40 trees for brakes — and left them all on the road. Swiker gave me numerous instructions about the horses. I was to feed them awhile along the river at the camp, then turn them along the sandi ridge and intothe cypress pine ; stop with them and note which was their favourite feed ; towards night, turn them round that selection on to a flat, where they'd findi water if they caught a thirst in the night. Then Mr Swiker rode off to Mitchell. I purloined his papers, spread myself out under a tree, and greedily devoured the contents of the Christmas numbers. When a boss endeavours to worry the life out of his man by keeping him going every minute of the day for the mere sake of making him work, it is essential for that man to take advantage of every point. Though I always held this view, I didn't put it into practice previous to Swiker's i tight. I only contracted the habit afterwards. Christmas Day. — Had stew for breakfast, which was shared by millions of flies. The i pest had been exceedingly bad ever since •we struck the Maranoa. This stew affected their olfactory nerves remarkably. A The grass and bushes were one black mass of flies, and the air was so thick with them that when one bumped another he had to It fall to the ground for space to spread his

wings again. We made little smoky fires with green bushes, and sat in the thick of the smoke, with the plate of stew on. our knees. By stooping over it, and swinging a bush continually between plate and mouth with one hand, and making dexterous tise of a big spoon with the other, we managed to "shovel it into us" without swallowing enough flies to affect the flavour of the stew. Travelled four miles, erected tents, and paddocked the horses. That made dinner^ time — Christmas dinner. We had roast sajfc junk, roast onions, plum duff, and a bottle of currants. We had flies also, got bunged eyes, and afterwards were all more or less sick and otherwise bilious. Our hands and arms were sore andi puffed from fly bites, and my left eye was closed up completely. It was keeping Christmas. We had three hours' spell after our Christmas dinner. Swlker had promised us the whole afternoon ; but he couldn't bear the strain. I was given two hours with the cattle, then assisted to repair the old waggonette. Swiker said it was a good time for repairing, as we were close to ar wire fence. We finished before darklike a pair of fools — and to put in the time Mr Swiker advised me to go over and see if any of the horses were getting out of the paddock, or appeared to have designs that way, I went to the creek and had a bath, then came back and reported favourably. Thus closed our Ghristmas Day — ai day of heat and flies. A week later, on the stony plains of Mungindi, riding slowly round andi round the benighted cattle, watching the stars rise and sink, and listening to the nightvoices of the lonely bush, we saw the Old Year out and the New Year in. •«- INYOrATtWV TO THE MUSES. Rosy-crowned, divine Erato ; Linked by Cupid, thee the poet First invokes, and sings his lyrics To thy lute; Offering a love divided Unto thee and meek Euterpe, Who, with flowers in her tresses, Holds her flute and piping reeds. Soon the dainty-footed Thalia, Shapely-limbed, attracts with laughter; Then he loves the jovial shepherds, And the groves ; There he sings with shepherdesses, While Terpsichore, light-footed, Brings to cheeks the glow of roses, And the love-lights to their eyes. Staider, he invokes Polymnia, With her words and songs harmonious ; Turns to Clio, wreathed with laurel, For renown : Hear 3 Melpomene the smileless, Sees her thin "hand grasp the dagger, Feels the tragedy of living, Sees all frowns where all was smiles. Azure-robed, star-crowned Urania, Muse of all the world of beauty, And its generation, hear me Ais I call Unto thee and trumpet-bearing Haut Calliope to aid me In my utterings heroic, Rise and fall of gods and men! Measurer of worlds and star-worlds, Mother of torch-bearing Hymen, Love of glorious Apollo, Lend thine aid ; Measurer of worlds and star-worlds, Here is sprung anew from chaos A creation, Earth, Olymptis, All arrayed in loveliness! Eurus from Arabian deserts, From Erythraean seas impetous, From beyond the spice of Ophir, Swift shall fly, And shall bear my invocation From a southern sphere sailed never, When through gates of Hercules Bold they plied the westering oar! Heaven in ten high, upward arches, Rears and teems with god-like powers; There the seas restore lost beauty To dead moons! Hell in ten deep chasmal plunges Sinks to glooms where wandering spirits* Goaded, droop to slow extinction, Nights and noons in blackness merged. Here, a dusky-browed Apollo Strides athwart the flashing heaven; Pluto's realms are ruled by Hine, Maid of Night: Here are monsters, scaly dragons-, Pestilences, giant labours For their swarthy-featured hero, Ethiopian Hercules! Past the girding river ocean, Here amid new constellations Is a new, a, great pantheon Sprung to birth; Universe 'mid gods divided, Giant sons and giant daughters, Issue from the southern darkness; Heaven and earth anew are born. Nine long days and nights fell Vulcan, Hurled by Jove from high Olympus; Not in nine long days Plutonian Glooms were passed! And beneath the caves of PlutoMuses! your dominions widen, Flash to beauty 'mid the lurid Belching fires of Erebus! — JOHAXOTZS C- AUDZRSIK. Christchurch, May, 1905.