They spent the rest of the day in this necessary preliminary, and by nightfall had a couple of mia-mias solidly built with their backs to the sea wind, and neatly thatched with tussac grass from the marsh.
During the afternoon Buckup held consultation with me, Joe Burge, and Old Tom, at the conclusion of which he professed himself to be in possession of the requisite information, and decided as to future operations.
Next morning, early, the white troopers and the blacks started off for a long day in the Rocks, on foot. It was almost impossible to take horses throughthat rugged country, and the police horses were too good to be needlessly exposed to lameness, and probably disablement. Long afterwards a trusty retainer of mine was betrayed into a hardish ride therein after an unusually tempting mob of fat cattle and unbranded calves, which had escaped muster for more than a year. The shoes of the gallant mare which he rode came off before the day was done. He was compelled to leave her with bleeding feet a mile from the edge of the smooth country, bringing out the cattle, however, with the aid of his dogs. Next day we went back to lead her out, but poor Chileña was as dead as Britomarte.
So, lightly arrayed, the black troopers stole through the reeds of the marsh, in the dim light of a rainy dawn, and essayed to track the rock-wolves to their lair. Camps they found, many a one, having good store of beef bones at all of them, but theindigèneswere gone, though signs of recent occupation were plentiful. An outlying scout had "cut the track" of the trooper's horses, and "jaloused," as Mr. Gorrie would have said, only too accurately what was likely to follow. Anyhow, the contingent returned tired and rather sulky after sundown, with their boots considerably the worse for wear. I did not myself accompany the party, nor did I propose to do so at any other time. I took it for granted that blood might be shed, and I did not wish to be an eye-witness or participator. The matter at issue was now grave and imminent. Whether should we crush the unprovokedémeute, or remove the remnant of our stock, abandon our homesteads, and yield up the good land of which we had taken possession?
It would hardly have been English to do the latter. So we had nothing for it but to make the best fight we could.
A fresh reconnaissance was made daily from my homestead, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another. But though rumours were heard of their appearance in different and distant parts of the district, no actual sight of the foe could be accomplished. Buckup and his men-at-arms, after the first day, were very patient and cheerful about the matter. They played quoits, of which I had a set—wrestled and boxed during their leisure hours, shot kangaroo and wild duck, and generally comported themselves as if this sort of thing was all in the day's work. Meantime, the heavy winter rains had begun to fall and the marshes to fill; the forest became so saturated that horses could hardly be ridden over it in places. I had occasion to go to Belfast for a couple of days on business. When I returned I found that a regular engagement had taken place the day before, the result of which would probably be decisive.
Neither of my men had been out, as it happened, but they had gleaned their information from the white troopers, and very sparingly from Buckup. Beyond saying that they had come up with the main body of the tribe and given them a scouring, he was disposed to say but little.
On this particular day an expedition had been made to a "heathy," desolate tract of country which lay at "the back" of the run. Here were isolated marshes covered with rushes, and for the most part surrounded with belts of tall ti-tree scrub. Betweenthese were sand-hills with a thick, sheltering growth of casuarina and banksia, while here and there grew copses of mimosa and blackwood, the Australian hickory. Here, it seems, the police were plodding along, apparently on their usual persistent but unavailing search, when suddenly one of the men pulled up, dismounted, and, picking up something, gave a low, sibilant whistle. In an instant the whole troop gathered around him, while he held up a small piece of bark which had quite recently been ignited. Not a word was said as Yapton took the lead, at a sign from Buckup, and the rest of the black troopers followed in loose order, like questing hounds, examining with eager eyes every foot of the way. Shortly afterwards a tree was discovered where, with a few fresh cuts of a tomahawk, a grub had been taken out of the hollow wood. The trail had been struck.
Patiently for several hours the man-hunters followed up the tracks, while fresh signs from time to time showed that a large body of blacks had quite recently passed that way. Suddenly, at a yell from Yapton, every man raised his head, and then rode at full speed towards a frantic company of savages as, startled and surprised, they made for a patch of scrub.
The horses fell and floundered from time to time in the deep, boggy soil, but their desperate riders managed to lift and hustle them up as the last black disappeared in the ti-tree. Unluckily for them, the scrub was not a large one, and the ground on either side comparatively clear.
Buckup sent a man to each corner, and himself with two troopers charged into the centre. Spearsbegan to fly, and boomerangs; but the wild men had little chance with their better-armed countrymen. Out bolts a flying fugitive, and makes for the nearest reed-bed. Tallboy is nearest to him, and his horse moves as he raises his carbine, and disturbs the aim. Striking him savagely over the head with the butt end, he raises his piece, fires, and Jupiter drops on his face. Quick shots follow, a general stampede takes place, but few escape, and when the troop turn their horses' heads homeward, all the known leaders of the tribe are down. They were caught red-handed, too, a portion of a heifer and her calf freshly slaughtered being found on the spot where they were first sighted.
Such was the substance of the tale as told to me. It may have been more or less incorrect as to detail, but Jupiter and his associate with the unclassical profile were never seen alive again; and as no head of stock was ever known to be speared or stolen after that day, it may be presumed that the chastisement was effectual. Years afterwards a man showed me the cicatrix of a bullet-wound in the region of the chest, and asserted that "Police-blackfellow 'plenty kill him'" on that occasion. He further added that he promptly, upon recovery, hired himself as a shepherd to "old man Gorrie," as he disrespectfully termed that patriarch, being convinced that lawless proceedings were likely to bring him to a bad end.
This would seem to have been the general opinion of the tribe. After due time they came in and made submission, working peaceably and usefully for the squatters, who were only too glad toassist their efforts in the right path. Many years afterwards the remnant of the tribe was gathered together and "civilised" at the missionary station of Lake Condah, a fine sheet of water at the western extremity of the lava country, and less than twenty miles from the scene of the proceedings described. There the black and half-caste descendants of the once powerful Mount Eeles tribe dwell harmlessly and happily, if not usefully to the State. A resident of the district informed me some time since that a black henchman of mine lived at the Mission, and was last seen driving some of his kinsfolkin a buggy. Tommy had taken advantage of his opportunities, moreover, for he sent a message of goodwill and remembrance to me, further intimating that if I would write to himhe would answer my letter! Such is the progress of civilisation; but, with all good wishes for the success of the experiment, I do not anticipate permanently valuable results.
When Tommy and I swam the Leigh together, one snowy day, bound for Ballarat with fat cattle, I suspect he was employed in a manner more befitting to his nature, and more improving to his generalmorale.
Our border ruffians being settled with for good and all, we pioneers were enabled to devote ourselves to our legitimate business—the breeding and fattening of cattle. For this industry the Port Fairy district was eminently fitted, and at that time—how different from the present!—sheep and wool were rather at a discount. Of course, some men had sufficient foresight and shrewdness to back the golden fleece, but their experiences were not encouraging.
The heavy herbage and rich soil of the West tended lamentably to foot-rot. The flocks seemed to be in a state of chronic lameness. The malady either reduced wool increase and condition to a point considerably below zero, or necessitated the employment of such a number of hands in applying bluestone and butyr of antimony (the remedies of the period), that the shearing subsidy was considerably encroached on.
Then there was "Scab"—word of dread and hatefulness, herald of ruin and loss, of endless torment to all concerned, of medicated dippings, dressings,deaths and destructions innumerable; the dreadful multiplication of station hands, who assisted with cheerful but perfunctory effort, patently disbelieving in "any species of cure," and looking on the whole affair—disease, dressing, and dipping—as a manifest dispensation of Providence for the sustentation of the "poor man."
When all had been done that could be done by the proprietor in his desperate need, a single sheep straying among the straggling flocks, or reintroduced by a careless or malignant station hand (and the latter crime is alleged to have been more than once committed), was sufficient to undo a year's labour. Then the distracting, expensive task had to be commencedde novo.
In those days, too, when fencing was not; when the shepherds comprised, perhaps, the very worst class of labour in the colonies, it may be guessed how hard and anxious a life was that of the western Victorian sheepowner.
His neighbour, too, was but too often his natural enemy. A careless flockholder might supply a nucleus of contagion from which a whole district would suffer. This state of matters continued until the gold discoveries, when the shepherds having mostly withdrawn themselves, and a compulsory admixture of flocks taking place, scab spread throughout the length and breadth of Victoria. What its cost to the Government and to private persons was before it was finally stamped out would be difficult, very difficult, to find out—so large a sum that it would have paid all concerned ten times, a hundred times over, to have purchased all infectedstock at, say, £5 per head, only to have cut the throats of and cremated the lot.
"Behold how great a matter a little fire kindleth" is a scriptural aphorism strictly applicable to acarian development. Many a well-to-do sheepholder was burnt out of house and home by the quick-spreading ovine leprosy which germinated at a friend's carelessly-ordered establishment. So that it came to pass that the "Gallants of Westland" were loath to exchange the free roving lives of cattle-tending caballeros for the restricted, "pokey," worrying round of duties to which the sheepholders seemed doomed. At one of our gatherings, at which—the majority being cattle-men—a toast involving a little indirect self-laudation was duly honoured, a pioneer squatter from a distance remarked gravely, "How little you fellows can realise what a lifewehave been leading in our district the last year or two!" He had just finished "cleaning" his flocks, as had also his neighbours. He certainly looked, as the financial survivor of a drought expressed it once, as though he had "come through the Valley of the Shadow."
When we rubbed along thus jovially, deeming life to be "a great and glorious thing," fat cows were well sold at £2 per head, and bullocks at £3. Certainly you could buy stores (or, as they primevally called them, "lean cattle") at from 10s. to 16s., prices which left a margin. The Messrs. Manifold bought a large number of bullocks from the Shelleys, of Tumut, at the latter price, somewhere about the year 1845. How they fattened at Purrumbeet and Leura may be imagined! They fetched top prices, but were not thought to pay sowell as the early ripening station-breds, on which the 3M brand was thenceforth chiefly placed.
I became possessed of a herd of a thousand head about the same time, which I took "on terms," as the arrangement was thus called—a convenient one for beginners with more country than capital, andvice versa. I was to have one-third of the increase, and to be paid ten per cent upon all sales of fat cattle. They were to be "personally conducted" by me from the Devil's River—a place uncanny sounding, but not otherwise objectionable. They were the property of Messrs. Curlewis and Campbell; the first-named gentleman arranged preliminaries with me in town, and in a few days I again started from Melbourne with high hopes and three stock-riders.
Our route lay over country that has since become historical. One half of the herd was located at Strathbogie, and through those forest-clothed solitudes and adown the steep shoulder of the leading range had we to drive our unwilling cattle. It was on that occasion that I made acquaintance with my good, warm-hearted friend Charles Ryan—then a gay young bachelor living at Kilfera, on the Broken River. We met at an extremely small, not to say dismal hut at Strathbogie, already inhabited by Messrs. Joe Simmons, Salter, and Hall, who, together with my men and myself, were constrained to abide therein till the cattle, weak and low after their drive from the head of the Abercrombie in New South Wales, were mustered.
"Come along over with me and let them muster the cattle themselves,youhave only to take delivery,"was his highly natural salutation (i.e.natural to Charles Ryan), and I came along accordingly.
Kilfera station was a comfortable bachelor homestead, and it struck me, as I saw it for the first time, that it had a distinctly "Galway" look about it. The hospitality was free and unstinted. I was not the only guest. As we rode up we came upon a match at quoits, the players at which wore the air of non-combatants. There was a fine upstanding son of Peter Fin, "Modderidderoo" by name, in the stables; on the next day I was shown the very panel where Mr. Jack Hunter had jumped "The Badger" over a three-railed fence, without bridle or saddle.
"We saw him coming up the paddock," said my host (he had gone down to catch his horse and taken no bridle with him), "at a swinging hand-gallop, and all turned out of the verandah to look. He had only a switch in his hand; when he came to the creek he took it at a fly, and then faced the three-railed fence at the stable. He went over here—over this very rail—and came down sitting as square as if he was riding in the park, holding his hat, too, in both hands." "How did he stop the horse?" "He jumped off on the straw heap here, and fell on his legs like a cat." I had a slight previous acquaintance with the gentleman referred to, whose whilom sobriquet of "Jack the Devil" was fully deserved, as far as feats of horsemanship were concerned. He rode equally well in a side-saddle, and once at least defied the minions of the law decorously attired in a lady's riding habit, with hat, gloves, and whip to match.
To complete the "wild sports of the West" flavour with which my fancy had invested Kilfera, entered to us that night, travelling with horses, one Mr. Crowe, evidently of kin to the "three Mr. Trenches of Tallybash," popularly known as "mad Crowe." Slightly eccentric to an unprejudiced observer he appeared to be. He was a tall, fair-haired, athletic fellow, and he had not been half an hour in the house before, after gifting all his horses with impossible qualities and improbable pedigrees, he offered to row, wrestle, ride, drink, or fight any one of the company for a liberal wager. He finished off the evening's entertainment by volunteering and going outside to execute an imitation of an Irish "keen" at a wake, a performance which was likely to have cost him dear, as it offended the sensibilities of several of the station hands, who were strongly minded to arise and "hammer" him (Crowe) for belittling their native land. "How happily the days of Thalaba went by" at Kilfera; indeed, I regarded with complacency the somewhat protracted muster of the Strathbogie herd. However, one fine day they were mustered and counted out to me, mixed with the Devil's River contingent; blacks and brindles, yellows and strawberries, snaileys and poleys, old and young, they were "a mixed herd" in every sense. But cattle were cattle in those days. So I bade farewell to my kind friend and pleasant acquaintances, and took the road for Port Fairy—four hundred miles or so. But an odd hundred leagues of a journey was nothing then. How the country must have altered since those days. No Beechworth diggings—Castlemaine, Sandhurst, andBallarat all in the "forest primeval" stage, innocent of cradle and pick, windlass and bucket. Quartz indeed! The first time it was mentioned in my hearing was by James Irvine, who was chaffing Captain Bunbury about the quality of his run on the Grampians, and averring that the only chance of his cattle getting fat was in the event of their being able to live on quartz. Quartz, quotha! I hardly knew what it meant, save that it was a kind of rock. Heavens! Could I have foreseen how closely it was to be interwoven with my destiny—with all our destinies, for the matter of that!
It was the autumn season, and the way was pleasant enough, after we left the sunless glens and darksome mountain-sides of Strathbogie. We passed Seven Creeks homestead, then, or somewhat later, the property of Mr. William Forlonge. He, like the rest of us, did not know when he was well off, and must move northward evermore, towards the great Saltbush Desert, that false Eldorado, which, like the loadstone mountain in the Arabian tale, has attracted and ruined so many a life, swallowed how many a fortune! However,nil desperandumis his motto; and if fortune favours the brave, the plucky veteran of the pastoral army should come out well in the end.
By easy stages we fared on till we came to Kilmore. That flourishing city, as I suppose it calls itself now, was then chiefly noted for its mud, the depth and blackness of which were truly remarkable. A few potato-growing farms and the usual complement of public-houses made up the town. There I lost two horses, a serious and melancholy occurrencewhich was likely to interfere with our march. I left the cattle to come on, and resolved to ride to Melbourne to find them or get others. I knew they were likely to "make" in that direction, about the Upper Plenty.
At Kinlochewe I encountered the late Mr. Dalmahoy Campbell. He condoled with me. How pleasant is a sympathetic manner from an older man to a youngster! I have never forgotten those who, in my youth, were kindly and tolerant. He gave me the advice of an experienced overlander, and promised to write to a friend in the neighbourhood to look out for the runaways.
At the next stage I encountered my old friend Fred Burchett, late of "The Gums," another Port Fairy man, luckily also bound that way with a herd of cows and calves—the latter given in—which he had purchased from Mr. Shelley, at Tumut. His cattle were just ahead, and he proposed that we should join forces at Keilor, and journey together the rest of the way. Nothing could be nicer. I forgot my griefs. "Lost horses," like "lost sheep," produce acute suffering while they last; but the agony abates, as Macaulay said. I spent the evening with him, and next day went on to Melbourne.
Poor dear Fred! The kindest, the best-tempered, the most humorous of men! How many a laugh we had together! It has always been a grief to me that he died before the advent of Bret Harte or Mark Twain! How he would have revelled in their inimitable touches, their daring drolleries, their purest pathos. A well-read man and a fair scholar,his was a mind nearly related to that of Charles Lamb, of whose wondrous semitones of mirth and melancholy he had the fullest appreciation. He, though living fifty miles away, was one of the "Dunmore mob," and aided generally in the symposia which were there enjoyed. It was a great stroke of luck our being able to join forces, and I looked forward to the rest of the journey as quite a pleasant picnic party.
I did not get my truant horses (they were ultimately recaptured), but I foraged up other remounts and rejoined my cattle, with which I made a cut across countryviaDeep Creek, Woodlands, and Keilor, then the property of Mr. J. B. Watson, and exhibiting no foreshadowing of a railway station. Mr. Burchett was only one stage ahead, I was told. At the Little River I overtook him. This was his observation on that eccentric watercourse. Scanning with an eye of deepest contemplation its cavernous channel and apparently perfect freedom from the indispensable element, he thus delivered himself: "They call this the Little River. Well they may! It's the smallest blooming riverIever came across! Why, we had hard work to get water enough in it to boil our kettle with!"
After this amalgamation everything went prosperously. We had plenty of driving power, and the cattle strung along the road daily with comparatively nimble feet. Something of this cheerfulness may be attributed to the fact that we had ceased to camp or watch them. Judging correctly that after so long a trail they would be indisposed to ramble, we left them out at night, and slept the sleepof the just. At daylight they were always well within view, generally lying down, and half-an-hour's work put them all together. Fred was always averse to early exercise, so we compromised matters by his lending me his one-eyed cob, "The Gravedigger," so called from a partial resemblance to the animal incautiously acquired by the Elder in "Sam Slick" at a Lower Canadian horse fair. "They're a simple people, those French; they don't know much about horses; their priests keeps it from 'em." This quotation Fred had always in his mouth, and as "The Gravedigger" was not quite what he appeared to be, a perfectly-shaped and well-mannered cob, there certainly was a resemblance. One of his peculiarities, probably arising from defective vision, was an occasional paroxysm of unreasonable fear, accompanied by backjumping, which had occasionally unseated his master and others. One day, however, Fred rode into camp with a triumphant expression, having just had a stand-up fight with "The Gravedigger." "He tried all he knew, confound him!" he explained, "but he couldn't shift me an inch. I had too much mud on my boots." This novel receipt for horsemanship was comprehensible when we glanced at the amount of solid western mud disposed not only on the boots, but upon his whole person and apparel. I had no compunction, therefore, in taking it out of "The Gravedigger" in those early morning gallops, and he was decidedly less unsocial for the rest of the day in consequence.
The only bad night we had was just before we came to the Leigh River. There we were amid "purchased land," that bane of the old-world pastoralist,so had to watch all night and keep our horses in hand, which was unprecedented.
When daylight broke my comrade said, with an air of tremendous deliberation, "The men can bring on the cattle well enough now, Rolf; suppose you and I go and breakfast at the Leigh Inn?" I caught at the idea, and we rode on the seven miles as happy as schoolboys at the idea of a real breakfast with chops and steaks, eggs and buttered toast, on a clean tablecloth. After a night's watching, too, our appetites were something marvellous. Fred related to me how on a previous occasion he had originated this "happy thought," and, not to be deficient of every adjunct to luxurious enjoyment, had ordered a bath, and borrowed a clean shirt from the landlord. We contented ourselves with the bath on this turn.
As we sat in the pleasant parlour a couple of hours later, serene and satisfied—I might say satiated—reading the latestPort Phillip Patriot, we saw the long string of cattle draw down a deep gorge into the valley, and cross the river in front of the house. Then we ordered out the horses, paid our bill, and, with a sigh of gastronomic retrospect, followed the trail across the plain.
Mr. Burchett was rather famous for combining pleasure with business when travelling on the road with stock. At times his experiments were thoughtun peu risqués. It was related of him and Mr. Alick Kemp (I think) that finding themselves so near Melbourne as the Saltwater River, in sole charge of a mob of fat cattle from "The Gums," they held council, and decided that the cattle would be all right in a bend of the river till the morning, being quiet and travel-worn. The friends then started for Melbourne, where they went to the theatre and otherwise enjoyed themselves. They came back the first thing in the morning, to find the cattle peacefully reposing, and as safe as houses. It might well have been otherwise. There was a dismal tale current in the district of the first mob of fat cattle from Eumeralla—magnificent animals, elephants in size, and rolling fat—stampeding at the sight of a pedestrian, on the road to market, being lost, and, as to the greater part, never recovered.
This time we decided to take "the Frenchman's"road, past Crécy, a trifle monotonous, perhaps,—it was all plain till you got to Salt Creek,—but possessing advantages for so large a drove. We reached an out-station of the Hopkins Hill property, then owned by a Tasmanian proprietary, and managed by "a fine old 'Scottish' gentleman, all of the olden time." We put the cattle into a small mustering paddock, and retired to rest with great confidence in their comfort and our own. About midnight a chorus of speculative lowing and bellowing acquainted us with the fact that they were all out. An unnoticed slip-rail had betrayed us. We arose, but could do nothing, and returned to our blankets. Our rest, however, had been effectually broken.
"How did you sleep, Fred?" was my query at daylight.
"Well," meditatively, "I've had a quantity ofvery inferior sleep," was his rejoinder.
At Nareeb Nareeb, the station then of Messrs. Scott, Gray, and Marr, we, by permission, camped for the purpose of separating our cattle, either by drafting through the yard, or by "cutting out" on horseback. After a brief trial of the latter method, we decided for the stock-yard, there being a large and well-planned one on the ground. But the mud!—it was the merry month of May, or else June only, and rain had fallen in sufficient quantities to make millionairesnowof all the squatters from Ballarat to Bourke. We put on our oldest clothes, armed ourselves with sticks, and resolutely faced it. What figures we were at nightfall! We smothered a few head, but the work was done. Our entertainers had a short time since mustered their wholeherd, and sold them in Adelaide. We heard some of their road stories. In crossing the great marshes which lie to the north-west of Mount Gambier, they had to carry their collie dogs on horseback before them for miles.
We had nothing quite so bad as this, but after we parted next day, Fred for "The Gums," and in cheering proximity to the Mount Rouse stony rises, the best fattening, and withal best sheltered, winter country in the west, I envied him his luck. I had farther to go, and when I arrived my homestead was situated upon an island, with leagues of water around it in every direction.
To "tail" or herd cattle daily in such weather was impossible, so both herds were turned out, and by dint of reasonable "going round" and general supervision, they took kindly to their new quarters.
Fred, I remember, told me that his cattle went bodily into the "Mount Rouse stones," which by no means belonged to his run, and there abode all the winter. He did not trouble his head much about them till the spring, when they came in, of course, as mustering commenced. There were no fences then, and no man vexed himself about such a trifle as a few hundred head of a neighbour's cattle being on his run.
On our way we returned to and camped opposite Hopkins Hill station homestead. A neat cottage in those days, slightly different from the present mansion. Thence I think to Mr. Joseph Ware's of Minjah, a cattle station which had not been very long bought from Messrs. Plummer and Dent, who had purchased from the Messrs. BoldenBrothers. Then past Smylie and Austin's to Kangatong, where dwelt Mr. James Dawson.
We remained at Kangatong for a day, so as to give Joe Burge time to come and meet us, which he did, considerably lightening my labours and anxieties thereby. Thence to Dunmore, which was "as good as home." The next day saw the whole lot safe in a big brush-yard, which Joe Burge had thoughtfully prepared for their reception, thinking it would do to plant with potatoes in the spring. And a capital crop there was!
I always think that the years intervening between 1846 and the diggings—that is, the discovery of gold at the Turon, in New South Wales, in 1850, and at Ballarat in 1851—were the happiest of the pastoral period. There was a good and improving market for all kinds of stock. Labour, though not over-plentiful, was sufficient for the work necessary to be done. The pastures were to a great extent under-stocked, so that there were reserves of grass which enabled the squatter to contend successfully with the occasional dry seasons. There was inducement to moderate enterprise, without allurement to speculation. The settlement of the country was progressing steadily. Agricultural and pastoral occupation moved onward in lines parallel to one another. There was no jostling or antagonism. Each of the divisions of rural labour had its facilities for legitimate development. There were none of the disturbing forces which have assumed such dangerous proportions in these latter days. No studied schemes of resistance or circumvention were thought of by the squatter. No spiteful agrarianinvasion, no blackmailing, no sham improvements were possible on the part of the farmer.
From time to time portions of land specially suited for agricultural settlement were surveyed and subdivided by the Government. On these, as a matter of course, when sold by auction at some advance upon upset price, according to quality, was a purely agricultural population settled. It had not then occurred to the squatter, hard set to find money for his necessary expenditure upon labour and buildings, stock and implements, to pay down £1 per acre or more for ordinary grazing ground. The farmer, as a rule, sold him flour and forage, supplied some of the needful labour, and hardly more came into competition with his pastoral neighbour than if he had lived in Essex or Kent.
I can answer in my own person for the friendly feeling which then existed between the two great primitive divisions of land-occupation. The Port Fairy farmers were located upon two large blocks, the Farnham and Belfast surveys, about ten miles from the nearest and not more than fifty from the more distant squattages. "The Grange," afterwards known by its present name of "Hamilton," was then part of a station, and was not surveyed and subdivided till some years after.
The majority of the squatters found it cheaper to buy flour and potatoes from the farmers than to grow them. Most of us grew our own hay and oats; but in after years our requirements were largely supplemented from Port Fairy, even in these easily produced crops. In return the farmers purchased milch cows, as well as steers for breakingto plough and team; and if these, with the increase of the female cattle, strayed on to the runs, they were always recoverable at muster time, and no threat of impounding was ever made. The agricultural area was enlarged when needed. To this no squatter objected, nor, to my knowledge, was such land purchased by other thanbona-fidefarmers. I cannot call to mind any feud or litigation between squatter and farmer having its inception in the land question.
Both classes met alike at race meetings and agricultural Shows; and, as far as could be noticed, there was none of the smouldering feeling of jealousy regarding the prevalence oflatifundia, or othercasus belli, which has of late years blazed up and raged so furiously.
Wages were not high in those days, and yet the men were contented. They certainly saved more money than they do now. They managed to acquire stock, and after taking up a bit of unoccupied country, became squatters, and wealthy ones too. Joe Burge and his wife received £30 a year. Old Tom had 10s. a week; lodging and rations, in which matters, at that time, we shared much alike, were included.
I recall, moreover, instances of genuine attachment as exhibited by old family servants to the children of their masters, though it is generally asserted that this particular kind of faithful retainership is confined to those who are happy enough to be born in Europe.
Mr. John Cox, of Werrongourt, supplied one instance, at least, which illustrates the feeling so honourable to both master and servant. A shepherdnamed Buckley had saved sufficient money in his service wherewith to purchase a small flock of sheep. He found a run for them on a corner of the Mount Rouse country, where they increased to the respectable number of 14,000. He told me and others that, as Mr. Cox had in the first instance given him facilities for investing his savings profitably, and in every way taken an interest in his welfare, he was resolved to leave his whole property to "Master Johnny," the second son, then a fine ingenuous lad of twelve or thirteen. Buckley was a bachelor, I may state, and had presumably no other claims upon his fortune.
But, about a year before his death, he received intelligence that a sister, of whom he had not heard since his arrival in Tasmania, had emigrated to America, and was still living. He consulted a mutual friend, and was told that Mr. Cox was the last man who would wish, or indeed allow him to neglect his own kin. "I must leave Master Johnny something," he said; and when the old man passed away, and his property was chiefly devised to his sister, a sum of £1000 was duly bequeathed to Mr. John Cox, jun.
Mr. Cox was unfortunately in failing health at that time. The station, Werrongourt, was sold to Mr. Mooney, the great cattle-dealer, for the magnificent (?) price of £5 per head! It was the first rise in cattle after the gold of 1851, and anything over £3 per head was thought a high figure. Mr. Cox, however, was anxious to visit the old country, chiefly on account of his health. The change was unavailing. He died on the voyage, to the great grief of thedistrict, where all revered him as a high-minded, honourable country gentleman. He was, indeed, a worthy son of the good south land, a staunch friend, a true patriot, and as a magistrate famed for the unswerving justice which equally regarded rich and poor. Among his humbler countrymen, "Mr. Cox said it" was sufficient to close any argument, whatever might be the interest involved.
"Master Johnny," some years after, elected to enter the German army. He and a younger brother fought in the Franco-Prussian war; they were both wounded at Sedan, where their mother, an Australian by birth (néeMiss Frances Cox, of Hobartville), attended them till their recovery, continuing her unselfish labours by acting as hospital nurse until the end of the war.
The brothers were, no doubt, promoted. They were in the cavalry, as became Australians, and most probably now, as Baron and Count von Coxe, are adding fresh branches to a wide-spreading and generally flourishing family tree.
When "Master Johnny," one fresh spring morning, rode down to Squattlesea Mere from Werrongourt, bringing two couples of draft foxhounds from his father's pack, to be sent to an intending M.F.H. in another colony, we little dreamed of the ranks in which he was to ride, the sport in which he was to share, ere the second decade should have passed over our heads.
Squattlesea Mere was about ten miles from the coast, and equidistant from the towns of Port Fairy and Portland, the latter lying about thirty miles westward. My first visit to it was on the occasion of a sale of some fat cattle to Mr. Henty for the use of the whalers—who were then still extant. Of course there were plenty of bullocks at Muntham, but it was hardly worth while to send so far for so small a lot. I was ready to deliver, and not indisposed for the trip and adventure myself.
So, having been helped off the run by Joe Burge, I started with my beeves, and made the journey safely to the slaughter-yards, which were then a few miles on the hither side of the town, near the beach. The road lay through the marshes for five or six miles, then through the stringy-bark forest, whence I emerged on an open sandy tract known as "the heath." Such land is not uncommon in the vicinity of Portland and west of Port Fairy; indeed, the greater part of the country between Portland and the wondrous downs of the Wannonconsists of this undesirable formation alternately with stringy-bark forest.
The soil upon the heath is pure sand of a white or greyish colour. Small lagoons, thickly covered with dark-brown reeds, are spread over the surface; it is mostly firm riding ground, though very indifferent pasture. Several species of epacris grow there, the pink and white blossoms of which were gay and even brilliant in spring. Open as a plain, and, apart from a question of grass, an effective contrast to the endless eucalyptus. A few miles of heath—the forest again—and we come to Darlot's Creek, narrow, but running deep and strong, like a New Zealand river.
This singular stream must in some way receive the water of the great Eumeralla marshes, which, as they have no visible outlet, probably filter through the lava country, from which, near Lake Condah, Darlot's Creek issues without previous notice.
Summer and winter this cheery little stream, from twenty to fifty feet wide, and hardly ever less than from six to ten feet deep, rushes whirling and eddying to the sea. We cross at a stone causeway, over which the water runs, and in another mile or two come to the Fitzroy River. This is a true Australian watercourse, and has the usual abruptly alternating depth of channel. Both streams debouch on a sandy sea-beach, a few miles from Portland. The channel mouths are continually shifting, and as the main road from Port Fairy then crossed them, the depth of water was often unpleasantly altered, to the manifest danger oftravellers. Many a misadventure was credited to the "mouth of the Fitzroy," and more than one poor fellow, when the tide was high, essaying to cross with a heavy swag, lost the number of his mess. The proper thing for non-pedestrians at that time was to ride or drive some distance into the waves, where the depth was shallower; but there were said to be quicksands, in which horse or wheel might sink, and, with the surf breaking over, in such case the look-out was bad.
Before reaching this part of the road, at an elevated point of the heath, a full view of the ocean burst suddenly on my view. What a sight it was! A world of forest greenery lay north, east, and west; on the south the tumbling billows of the unbounded sea. Far as eye could reach was the wondrous plain of the South Pacific, stretching away to the farthest range of vision, where it was lost in a soft, shimmering haze. Did I clap my hands and shout "Thalatta! Thalatta!" like the author ofEōthen? I had the inclination to do it, I know.
In the distance, lying north-west, were the cliffs and noble bay of Portland—not a very grand town, but noteworthy as thepoint d'appuiwhence those representative Englishmen and distinguished colonists, the Hentys, commenced the Anglo-Saxon conquest of Australia Felix.
I had the pleasure of knowing these gentlemen; and the longer I live, the stronger becomes my conviction that the genuine Englishman, compacted as he is of diverse races, holding the strong points of each, is the best "all-round man" the earth affords. And the Hentys, as a family, have demonstrated myproposition perhaps more completely than any other which ever landed on our shores. For, consider what manner of colonisers they were! Explorers, sailors, whalers, farmers, squatters, merchants, politicians (Mr. William Henty was chief secretary of Tasmania)—in all these different avocations the brothers were of approved excellence. Indeed, each displayed in his own personality an aptitude for the whole range of accomplishments.
Stalwart and steadfast were they in body and mind, well fitted to contend with the rude forces of nature, and still ruder individuals, among which their lot was chiefly cast in those days. But withal genial, hilarious, and in their moments of relaxation prone to indulge in the full swing of those high animal spirits which, for the most part, accompany a robust bodily and mental organisation.
Always familiar with the great industry of stock-breeding both in Tasmania and their new home, they imported, from their earliest occupation, the very choicest stud animals, as well as the best implements in all departments of husbandry. "Little John," "Wanderer," imported thoroughbreds, were at one time in their possession. Suffolks and Lincolns were not lacking to ensure production of waggon horses, and in general effect to speed the plough. And I saw at Muntham the first English coaching sire that my eyes had rested upon—a grand upstanding bay horse, with a well-shaped head, lofty forehand, and clean, flat legs. I remember describing him to a horse-loving friend as an enlarged thoroughbred in appearance—a description which would hold good of some of the better sort ofcoachers of the present day, the only doubt being whether, having regard to the abnormal shapes of some of our modern racehorses, the coacher's reputation might not suffer by the comparison.
At the time of which I speak Mr. Edward Henty was at Muntham—that Australian "promised land" of rolling downs, hill and dale, all equally fertile, well grassed, well watered; favoured as to climate, soil, and situation; the only drawback being that the great grass crop, summer-ripened, was occasionally ignited in a dry autumn, and, like a prairie fire, swept all before it. In a later day preparation was made for such a contingency, and light waggons, with adequate teams known as the "fire-horses," kept ready to start at a moment's notice for the warning smoke-column. Mr. Frank Henty abode at Merino Downs, the name of which explains the early attention paid by him to the chief source of Australian wealth. Mr. Stephen Henty had his residence in the town of Portland, where at that time he was the leading merchant, and, excepting Mr. Blair, the police magistrate, the leading inhabitant.
No more delightful country home ever existed than the wide-verandahed spacious bungalow, from the windows of which the view was unbroken of the waters of the bay. A well-trimmed garden hedge hid the intervening street and slope to the beach without obstructing the view. There, if anywhere, was to be found true earthly happiness, if such can ever be predicated of this lower world and its inhabitants.
A promising family, full of health, spirits, and intelligence; parents and children alike overflowingwith kindness; hospitality unostentatiously extended both to friends and acquaintances, residents and strangers; a noble property gradually and surely increasing in value; family affection exhibited in its purest form. But