Mr. Burchett was rather famous for combining pleasure with business when travelling on the road with stock. At times his experiments were thought un 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"[Pg 99] 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 of very 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 millionaires now of 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 whole[Pg 100] herd, 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. Bolden[Pg 101] Brothers. 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 agrarian[Pg 102] invasion, no blackmailing, no sham improvements were possible on the part of the farmer.
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