Old Melbourne Memories

ening 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

alady either reduced wool increase and condition to a point considerably below zero, or necessitated the employment of such a number of

hs and destructions innumerable; the dreadful multiplication of station hands, who assisted with cheerful but perfunctory effort, patently disbelieving in "any

ling flocks, or reintroduced by a careless or malignant station hand (and the latter crime is alleged to have been more tha

erhaps, the very worst class of labour in the colonies, it may be guessed

mostly withdrawn themselves, and a compulsory admixture of flocks taking place, scab spread throughout the length and breadth of Victoria.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 d

d" 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 dist

m, "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 th

o 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 objectionab

. 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

you have only to take delivery,"[Pg 91] was his highly natural sal

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,

nce 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

g

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 o

iam 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

emarkable. 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 occurrence[Pg 94] which was likely to inte

om an older man to a youngster! I have never forgotten those who, in my youth, were kindly and tolerant. He gave me the

ad 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 for

hes, their daring drolleries, their purest pathos. A well-read man and a fair scholar,[Pg 95] 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

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 appa

d 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 unseat

e were amid "purchased land," that bane of the old-world pastoralist,[Pg 97]

iles 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 prev

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