CHAPTER V SQUATTLESEA MERE

Pride and successful ambition swelled my breast on that first morning as I looked round on my run. My run! my own station! How fine a sound it had, and how fine a thing it was that I should have the sole occupancy—almost ownership—of about 50,000 acres of "wood and wold," mere and marshland, hill and dale. It was all my own—after a fashion—that is, I had but to receive my squatting license, under the hand of the Governor of the Australias, for which I paid ten pounds, and no white man could in any way disturb, harass, or dispossess me. I have that first license yet, signed by Sir Charles Fitzroy, the Governor-General. It was a valuable document in good earnest, and many latter-day pastoralists with a "Thursday to Thursday" tenure would be truly glad to have such another. There were no free-selectors in those days. No one could buy land except at auction when once the special surveys had been abrogated. There were no travelling reserves, or water reserves, or gold-fields, or mineral licenses, or miners' rights, or[Pg 42] any of the new-fangled contrivances for letting the same land to half a dozen people at one and the same time.

There was nothing which some people would consider to be romantic or picturesque in the scenery on which I gazed. But the "light which never was on sea or shore" was there, to shed a celestial glory over the untilled, unfenced, half-unknown waste. Westward stretched the great marshes, through which the Eumeralla flowed, if, indeed, that partially subterranean stream could be said to run or flow anywhere. Northward lay the lava-bestrewn country known as the Mount Eeles rocks, a mass of cooled and cracked lava now matted with a high thick sward of kangaroo grass, but so rough and sharp were the piles and plateaux of scoria that it was dangerous to ride a horse over it. For years after we preferred to work it on foot with the aid of dogs.

On the south lay open slopes and low hills, with flats between. On these last grew the beautiful umbrageous blackwood, or native hickory, one of the handsomest trees in Australia. At the back were again large marshes, with heathy flats and more thickly-timbered forests. Over all was a wonderful sward of grass, luxuriant and green at the time I speak of, and quite sufficient, as I thought, for the sustenance of two or three thousand head of mixed cattle.

There were no great elevations to be seen. It was one of the "low countries" in a literal sense. The only hill in view was that of Mount Eeles, which we could see rising amid the lava levels a few miles to the north-west. The marshes were for the most[Pg 43] part free from timber. But a curious formation of "islands," as the stock-rider called them, prevailed, which tended much to the variety and beauty of the landscape.

These were isolated areas, of from ten to one hundred acres, raised slightly above the ordinary winter level of the marshes. The soil on these "islands" was exceptionally good, and, from the fact of their being timbered like the ordinary mainland, they afforded an effective contrast to the miles of water or waving reeds of which the marshes consisted. They served admirably also for cattle camps. To them the cattle always retired at noonday in summer, and at night in winter and spring-time. One "island," not very far from our settlement, was known as "Kennedy's island," the gallant ill-fated explorer who had surveyed a road to the town of Portland some years before my arrival having made his camp there. How far he was to wander from the pleasant green west country, only to die by the spear of a crouching savage, within sight of the ship that had been sent to bring him safely home after his weary desert trail!

We didn't know anything of the nature of dry country in those days. All the land I looked upon was deep-swarded, thickly-verdured as an English meadow. Wild duck swam about in the pools and meres of the wide misty fen, with its brakes of tall reeds and "marish-marigolds"—"the sword-grass and the oat-grass and the bulrush by the pool." Overhead long strings of wild swan clanged and swayed. There were wild beasts (kangaroo and dingoes), Indians (blacks, whose fires in "The Rocks" we[Pg 44] could see), a pathless waste, and absolute freedom and independence. These last were the most precious possessions of all. No engagements, no office work, no fixed hours, no sums or lessons of any kind or sort. I felt as if this splendid Robinson Crusoe kind of life was too good to be true. Who was I that I should have had this grand inheritance of happiness immeasurable made over to me? What a splendid world it was, to be sure! Why did people ever repine or complain? I should have made short work of Mr. Mallock, and have settled the argument "Is life worth living?" had it then arisen between us, with more haste than logic. Action, however, must in colonisation never fail to accompany contemplation. To which end I returned to our camp, just in time to partake of the simple, but appetising, meal which Mrs. Burge had prepared for us.

Cold corned beef, hot tea, and a famous fresh damper, the crust of which I still hold to be better than any other species of bread whatever, when accompanied, as in the case referred to, with good, sweet, fresh butter. How splendid one's appetite was after hours spent in the fresh morning air. How complete the satisfaction when it all came to an end.

Then commenced a council of war, in which Joe Burge was a leading spokesman. "Old Tom can look after the cattle. Mr. Cunningham and I will go and fell a tree. I know one handy that'll run out nigh on a hundred slabs, and if you'll bring up the bullocks and dray to the stump, sir, to-night, we'll have a load of slabs ready to take home."

What was the next thing that was necessary to be done?

[Pg 45]

To build a house.

At present we were living under a dray. Now, a dray is not so bad a covering at night, when extremely sleepy and tired, but in daylight it is valueless. And if it rains—and in the west it often did, and I am informed does still, though not so hard as it did then—the want of a permanent shelter makes itself felt.

The walls of a sod hut were indeed already up. Clean-cut black cubes, rather larger than bricks, when new and moist, make a neat, solid wall. In little more than a day we had a thatched roof completed, so that we were able to have our evening meal in comfort, and even luxury. A couple of fixed bedsteads were placed at opposite corners, in which Mr. Cunningham and I arranged our bedding. Joe Burge and his wife still slept under the "body" of the dray, while Old Tom had a separate section allotted to him under the pole.

But the "hut," of split slabs, with wall-plate top and bottom, and all the refinements of bush carpentry, was to be the real mansion. And at this we soon made a commencement. I say we, because I drove the bullocks and carted the slabs to the site we had pitched on, besides doing a bit of squaring and adzing now and then.

Joe Burge and Mr. Cunningham (who was an experienced bushman, and half a dozen other things to boot) soon "ran out" slabs enough, and fitted the round stuff, most of which I carted in, preferring that section of industry to the all-day, every-day work of splitting. Old Tom looked after the cattle. They needed all his attention for a while, displaying, as[Pg 46] they did, a strong desire to march incontinently back to the banks of the Merai.

In two or three weeks the hut was up. How I admired it! The door, the table, the bedsteads, the chairs (three-legged stools), the washstand, were all manufactured by Joe Burge out of the all-sufficing "slab" of the period. A wooden chimney with an inner coating of stone-work worked well without smoking. The roof was neatly thatched with the tall, strong tussock-grass, then so abundant.

Our dwelling transcended that of the lowland Scot, who described his as "a lairge hoose wi' twa rooms intil't," inasmuch as it boasted of three. One was the atrium—being also used as a refectory—and chief general apartment. The rest of the building was bisected by a wooden partition, affording thus two bedrooms. One of these was devoted to Joe Burge and family, the other I appropriated. Mr. Cunningham and Old Tom slept in the large room, where—firewood being plentiful—they kept up a roaring fire, and had rather the best of it in the cold nights which then commenced to visit us.

Excepting a stock-yard, there now remained next to nothing to do, and being rather overmanned for so small a station, Mr. Cunningham, with my free consent, elected to take service with the Dunmore firm, with whom he remained for some years after. I had now attained the acme of worldly felicity. I had always longed to have a station of my own. Now I had one. I had daily work of the kind that exactly suited me. I went over to Dunmore and spent a pleasant evening every now and then, rubbing up my classics and having a little "good talk." I[Pg 47] had a few books which I had brought up with me in the dray—Byron, Scott, Shakespeare (there was no Macaulay in those days), with half a score of other authors, in whom there was pabulum mentis for a year or two. I had, besides, the run of the Dunmore library—no mean collection.

So I had work, recreation, companionship, and intellectual occupation provided for me in abundant and wholesome proportion. What else could cast a shadow over my prosperous present and promising future? Well, there was one factor in the sum which I had not reckoned with. "The Amalekite was then in the land," and with the untamed, untutored pre-Adamite it appeared that I was fated to have trouble.

The aboriginal blacks on and near the western coast of Victoria—near Belfast, Warrnambool, and Portland—had always been noted as a breed of savages by no means to be despised. They had been for untold generations accustomed to a dietary scale of exceptional liberality. The climate was temperate; the forests abounded in game; wild-fowl at certain seasons were plentiful; while the sea supplied them with fish of all sorts and sizes, from a whale (stranded) to a whitebait. No wonder that they were a fine race, physically and otherwise—the men tall and muscular, the women well-shaped and fairly good-looking. To some even higher commendation might with truth be applied.

One is often tempted to smile at hearing some under-sized Anglo-Saxon, with no brain power to spare, assert gravely the blacks of Australia were the lowest race of savages known to exist, the [Pg 48]connecting link between man and the brute creation, etc. On the contrary, many of the leading members of tribes known to the pioneer squatters were grandly-formed specimens of humanity, dignified in manner, and possessing an intelligence by no means to be despised, comprehending a quick sense of humour, as well as a keenness of perception, not always found in the superior race.

Unfortunately, before I arrived and took up my abode on the border of the great Eumeralla mere, there had been divers quarrels between the old race and the new. Whether the stockmen and shepherds were to blame—as is always said—or whether it was simply the ordinary savage desire for the tempting goods and chattels of the white man, cannot be accurately stated. Anyhow, cattle and sheep had been lifted and speared; blacks had been shot, as a matter of course; then, equally so, hut-keepers, shepherds, and stockmen had been done to death.

Just about that time there was a scare as to the disappearance of a New South Wales semi-civilised aboriginal named Bradbury. He was a daring fellow, a bold rider, and a good shot. As he occasionally stayed at the native camp, and had now not been seen for a month, it began to be rumoured that he had agreed to accept the leadership of the outlawed tribes against the whites. In such a case the prospects of the winter, with thinly-manned homesteads eight or ten miles apart, looked decidedly bad.

However, the discovery of poor Bradbury's bones a short time afterwards set that matter at rest. He always took his gun with him, distrusting—and with[Pg 49] good reason—his trans-Murray kin. On this occasion they "laid for him," it seems, and by means of a sable Delilah, who playfully ran off with his double-barrel, took him at a disadvantage. He fought desperately, we were told, even with a spear through his body, but was finally overpowered. Just before they had killed and chopped up a hut-keeper, and at Mount Rouse they had surprised and killed one of Mr. Cox's men, the overseer—Mr. Brock—only saving himself by superior speed of foot, for which he was noted.

I was recommended by my good friends of Dunmore and others of experience to keep the blacks at a distance, and not to give them permission to come about the station.

Being young and foolish—or, let me say, unsuspicious—I chose to disregard this warning and to take my own way. I thought the poor fellows had been hardly treated. It was their country, after all. A policy of conciliation would doubtless show them that some of the white men had their good at heart.

To the westward of our camp lay the great tract of lava country before mentioned. This had been doubtless an outflow in old central-fire days from the crater of Mount Eeles. Now, cooled, hardened, cracked, and decomposed, it annually produced a rich crop of grass. It was full of ravines, boulders, masses of scoria, and had, besides, a lakelet in the centre. It was many miles across, and extended from Mount Eeles nearly to the sea.

It was not particularly easy to walk in. And, as for riding, one day generally saw the end of the most high-couraged, sure-footed horse. As a natural covert for savages it could not be surpassed.

[Pg 50]

In this peculiar region our "Modocs lay hid." We could see the smoke of their camp fires in tolerable number, but had no means of seeing or having speech of them. One day, however, having probably sent out a scout previously who had made careful examination of us while we were totally unconscious of any such supervision, they debouched from the rocks and came up to camp. They sent a herald in advance, who held up a green bough. Then, "walking delicately," they came up, in number nearly fifty. I was at home, as it happened, as also was the old stockman. How well I remember the day and the scene!

We all carried guns in those days, as might the border settlers in "Injun" territory.