The grape is providing us with a national industry; the orange-groves of Sydney, Perth, and other districts are amongst the sights of the place.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE SQUATTER AND THE SETTLER.
PRESENT MEANING OF THE WORD "SQUATTER"--CATTLE-RAISING--CAPITAL HAS CONFIDENCE IN SQUATTING NOW--ORIGIN OF MERINO SHEEP-BREEDING--MANAGEMENT OF A RUN--DROUGHT--BOX-TREE CLEARINGS--MODERN ENTERPRISE--SHEEP-SHEARING--"SUNDOWNERS"--FARMING PROSPECTS--CHEAP LAND--EASY HARVESTING--SMALL CAPITAL--SELECTION CONDITIONS--BUSH FIRES--BLACK THURSDAY--THE OTWAY DISASTER--LOST IN THE BUSH--MISSING CHILDREN.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GRa.s.s-TREES.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: DRIVING CATTLE.]
The terms "squatter" and "squatting" are now misleading. They cover a number of different occupations, and perhaps the words "grazier" and "grazing" ought to be subst.i.tuted. The original squatter paid his 10 licence fee, and he was at liberty to go where he pleased and to take up as much land as he required for his sheep and for two years" increase.
Whether he had five hundred sheep or five thousand did not matter.
Australia was large, and the adventurous pioneer was at liberty to pick and choose. The flocks were "shepherded"--that is, were not confined between fences, but were looked after by men who drove them to their feed during the day, and placed them inside hurdles at head-quarters at night. But, as land was taken up, the squatter obtained a particular run for a term of years. He subdivided it by fences into paddocks, and so reduced his number of herds and conducted his operations more scientifically.
When a new run is taken up, it is pretty sure, in the first instance, to be stocked with cattle. Cattle-raising requires no heavy outlay of capital, because, beyond horses for the men, yards to work the stock, and perhaps one or two paddocks to enclose young heifers and separate them from the general herd, no buildings have to be erected. Then the produce of a cattle station--the fat stock--can be cheaply driven to market. Travelling with stock through the bush costs no more than the wages of the men employed, and, if carefully driven, the bullocks do not deteriorate. Last but not least among the advantages possessed by the cattle squatter is the fact that he can make shift with comparatively few water-holes. Cattle can feed their way to water much more readily than sheep.
At first cattle are not happy on a new country, and will make frequent efforts to break away. Often have the stockmen left a herd quietly grazing at night, and found not a hoof in the morning, whereupon comes a fine gallop after the runaways, who always head straight for home.
Nevertheless skilful herding of the cattle on the run, and extra vigilance for a few months, suffice to accustom the animals to their new home. Once "broken in to the run," as it is called, the cattle remain on it, and can indeed hardly be driven away. They select their camps--generally tracts of open country, with trees growing in groups, and near water--and the choice is often directed by the stockmen when first they are brought on to the country. On these camps the cattle a.s.semble in the heat of the day, lying lazily in the shade, and moving off to feed at night and in the afternoon and morning. They are easily trained to a.s.semble on the camp whenever hunted up, and the crack of a stock-whip anywhere on a cattle-run, with a well-broken herd, will set all the animals within hearing moving off to the camp. Mustering is attended to at frequent intervals on a well-worked cattle station. The stockmen ride round, hunting up all stray groups, and direct them to the central camp, where they a.s.semble in a great compact herd. When thus gathered together, the animals required for any special purpose--fat bullocks for market, or cows and calves for branding--are ridden out of the ma.s.s by the stockmen on their well-trained horses, and collected in a separate herd.
There is no more interesting sight than this "cutting out," as it is called. The stockman rides into the ma.s.s of animals, which opens out uneasily as he enters. A touch of the stock-whip on the selected beast indicates him to the intelligent horse, whose rider practically leaves to him the rest of the work. The selected beast tries to escape by wedging himself into ma.s.ses of his companions; but the horse, who apparently enters thoroughly into the fun of the thing, turns and twists with surprising rapidity, and, before the hunted animal knows what is happening to him, he finds himself edged outside of the main herd, and driven to a separate little group. Other men guard this group, and prevent them from rejoining the ma.s.s, plying their stock-whips with terrible effect on any refractory beast. When the selection is complete, the chosen herd is driven towards the head station yards, and the main body of cattle allowed to disperse again.
Cattle-raising is a pursuit full of excitement and danger. Chasing the wild animals through the bush or down the steep sides of precipitous hills is work that requires sure feet on the part of the horse, and cool heads and firm seats on the part of the riders. Even more perilous is drafting in the yards. The men who enter the great enclosures full of angry frightened animals, to separate and drive them into different compartments, often run quite as much risk as the Spanish bull-fighters.
But they have quick feet, sharp eyes, and cool heads, and fatal accidents seldom occur; though it often happens that a charging cow or bullock will send all the men in the yard scrambling precipitately to the top rail of the strong high timber enclosure.
Drought is the great enemy that these pioneers have to dread. Nature has fitted the gra.s.ses and herbage of the interior to withstand prolonged dry periods. By many beautiful adaptations the herbs growing on the plain are enabled to flower and mature their seed with great rapidity; so that even one soaking downpour will often suffice for the lifetime of a plant, and allow it to shed its ripened seed, which lies hidden in the cracks of the arid, sun-baked soil till the next favourable season occurs. The princ.i.p.al gra.s.ses have a remarkable power of remaining in what seems like a state of suspended animation. This is especially noticeable in the case of the Mitch.e.l.l gra.s.s, which becomes white and apparently dead, but still retains nourishment for stock in its dried leaves, and vitality in its apparently withered stems.
One great reason why the squatter is better off now than he ever was before is that capital has confidence in the occupation. Thus the individual is more secure than he was. And large inst.i.tutions have been formed that make it their business to finance for the squatter. These inst.i.tutions have their one, two, or three millions of English and Scotch capital, and they are managed by men of great colonial experience, who know it is bad policy to do other than support a deserving pioneer right through. Their capital is indeed subscribed for the purpose of making stations drought-proof, and their record shows that the system is highly profitable. An enormous amount of the annexation of the desert which is now going on has English and Scotch gold as its basis; and this union of home capital and of colonial enterprise is as happy and as effectual a form of federation as can be desired.
The following remarks on squatting are contributed by Mr. G. A. Brown, author of the standard work, _Sheep Breeding in Australia_: "It is curious that the first settlers in Australia firmly believed the country to be quite unfitted for rearing wool-bearing sheep. For fully a quarter of a century the hairy sheep of India and the Cape of Good Hope were bred by the colonists; and it was not till Captain McArthur sold Australian grown merino wool in the London market at the rate of 5_s._ per lb., that the sheep-owners became aware of the splendid industry that awaited development. Merino sheep then became the rage, and large sums of money were spent in importing the finest specimens of the breed from the purest flocks in Germany. In a few years Australia took her place at the head of the list of fine wool-producing countries, and has held it ever since. The world never before saw merino wool so soft, so bright, or so long in staple. It produced a revolution in the manufacture of woollen fabrics, and it brought within the reach of the artisan cloths of a quality that only the wealthy could afford in the previous century. This great work has been effected by the Australian squatters.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A MERINO SHEEP.]
The management of live-stock in the old squatting days was thoroughly patriarchal. The sheep were kept in flocks varying from 800 to 2000 head, according to the character of the country, tended all day by shepherds, and inclosed at night in hurdle yards. As a further protection against lurking blackfellow or prowling dingo, a man slept in a small wooden portable cabin, called a watch-box, close by the sheep.
It was no uncommon thing for the men to be roused up two or three times during the night; but, as they had plenty of time to sleep during the day, this was thought no great hardship. The shepherds led an inexpressibly dreary life; they were out at daybreak, and, having turned their sheep in the proper direction, they followed them all day, seldom exchanging a word with a human being till they returned to the hut at night. Many of them became eccentric, or, as the working bushmen called it, "cranky," and were quite unfit for any other occupation. As the stock increased, the whole flock could not be fed from the home station, round which the gra.s.s was usually reserved for the horses and working bullocks; huts were then erected from three to ten miles or even farther away, according to the size of the station or run, as the leaseholds were called. At these huts, known as out-stations, generally two flocks of sheep were kept, a hut-keeper being employed to cook for the shepherds and shift the hurdle yards every day, so that the sheep might have a clean bed.
"In the old days the country was all unenclosed from one end to the other. Vehicles were scarce--there were few coaches, and occasionally a gig would be seen on a main road. The ordinary mode of travelling through the country was on horseback. On arriving at a station the usual plan was to ride up to the princ.i.p.al hut, ask for the proprietor, and announce your name; an invitation to stay all night followed as a matter of course. Hospitality was a duty that was most religiously performed by almost every squatter. There were a few exceptions, and they were branded with the prefix of "hungry" attached to their names, and, being known, were avoided alike by hors.e.m.e.n and footmen.
"Improvements in bush life were being steadily made when the discovery of gold brought the country prominently under the notice of European countries. The old pastoral life, with all its rustic charm and quietude, disappeared as thoroughly as if it had never been. In the rush and turmoil that ensued many of the old squatters were ruined, while others, more lucky, succeeded in making immense fortunes. Over the greater portion of Victoria and a considerable area of New South Wales the land has been converted into freeholds, and squatting is confined to Queensland, and the vast sultry plains of Northern, Central and Western Australia. In these countries the areas held under leasehold from the Crown are of immense size, many of them being capable of carrying 300,000 sheep in good seasons. These great runs are all fenced in and subdivided by wire fences. The sheep are run in paddocks often containing over 20,000 acres. As there are few watercourses the stock are watered by means of immense excavations, called tanks, containing an area of 10,000 cubic yards of water when filled. Large as they are many of them were dried up by the long drought of 1885 and 1886. The result has been that the holders of these great pastoral properties have suffered heavy losses. I pa.s.sed by one cattle station in Queensland, four years ago, on which 60,000 head of cattle were grazing. Since then, so severe has been the drought, the stock has been reduced by deaths from starvation to 20,000 head. The deaths of stock on the sheep stations in the same district have been equally heavy. When the seasons have a fair average rainfall in these hot districts everything goes well, and squatting is the most profitable occupation in the colonies, but when a series of dry years set in the squatter"s lot is a heartrending one. He can do nothing for the poor creatures he sees slowly starving to death, while overhead, month after month--ay, and year after year--there is the cruel clear sky and the bright hot sun steadily withering up all life. The birds and wild animals die in thousands, and the few that still live are so feeble that their wild nature seems gone out of them. This last drought is not an exceptional event. Since Central and Northern Australia have been known, the country has suffered from periodical droughts; but every year the skill of the squatter is exercised in providing fresh supplies of water for his stock, and that is the great requisite in this climate. Given a good supply of water, and it is wonderful what a little food will keep sheep alive on the plains of Central Australia. I have seen sheep in excellent condition on country that to all appearance was absolutely bare of gra.s.s. A stranger would not believe that any animal could support life on such scanty pastures.
"Under the new order of things that followed the discovery of gold many large freehold estates were put together by the old squatters, and then it was found that a different style of management was required to make the properties pay interest on the capital expended on them. The runs were fenced and subdivided, dams were constructed on the watercourses, and where the country was too flat for dams tanks were made for supplying the stock with water. Good houses were built, and fine gardens and pleasure-grounds formed. As the proprietors of these estates became wealthy, they erected houses that for size, style and convenience would rival the pleasant homes of the country gentlemen of England. Often in a country that a score of years ago was considered a remote district in the back country, one will now meet with a handsome mansion surrounded by extensive gardens, pleasure-grounds and plantations. Where in the old squatting days water was often very scarce, there is now ample to irrigate a garden, and indeed water is usually laid on all over the modern squatter"s establishment.
"Over a large area of New South Wales and Victoria the surface of the country was covered by a dense forest of the eucalypt called the box-tree. They were of medium size, and their timber was of little or no value. Having surface roots, they robbed the soil of all substance, and the result was that the box-forest country was always bare of gra.s.s. It was noticed by a few observant bushmen that the soil in these forests was excellent, and a few experiments were made in the way of clearing the land. The result was satisfactory, but felling the trees was too expensive to practise on a large scale, while the stumps were very apt to throw up a number of vigorous shoots that did as much harm as the parent tree. What use to make of the box-forest country was a puzzle, and most people regarded it as worthless. At this time a firm of squatters astonished their neighbours by purchasing a block of 20,000 acres of box-forest, at 1 per acre, that the Surveyor-General of the colony declared was not worth 2_s._ 6_d._ per acre. The plan they adopted for killing the box-trees was one that had only lately been tried. It consisted in cutting a notch round the tree through the bark and into the sap wood, to prevent the sap rising. This plan, called "ring barking," when performed at the proper season, effectually kills the tree, and it has since come into general practice all over Australia. I have ridden over the estate in the box-forest that was formed by the squatting firm mentioned, and where, years ago, there was not a blade of gra.s.s to be seen, is now a fine pasture, that even in indifferent years will keep a sheep to the acre.
[Ill.u.s.tration: RING BARKING.]
"Drought does not always ruin the squatter, and there are many instances of their surviving the hard time. A squatter of my acquaintance embarked in a heavy purchase in Central Australia. The run was of vast size, and the soil admirable, but soon after he purchased the property a severe drought set in, water was scarce, and gra.s.s almost entirely disappeared.
There was no disposing of a portion of the sheep, for every one was short of gra.s.s, and there were no buyers. Before the drought broke up he had lost eighty thousand sheep from starvation, and the remainder of the flock were in a very emaciated condition. At last the welcome rain set in--not in a heavy shower, but in a continued downfall that lasted for several days. Such an ample rain at that time of the year meant abundance of food and water for the next twelve months. The squatter was a man of quick perception and prompt to act in an emergency. His station was in telegraphic communication with Melbourne, and, knowing how to operate, he purchased through the stock agents about ninety thousand ewes to lamb from the best flocks in the country. The story is told that he walked up and down his verandah watching the rainfall, and as each successive inch was registered over a certain point he telegraphed to Melbourne to purchase ten thousand more sheep. He got the season"s lambing and the fleece from the sheep he bought, and then sold the greater portion for nearly double what he paid for them a few months before. That splendid rain made all the difference between ruin and wealth.
"Sheep-farming is carried on everywhere in Australia, while squatting on Crown lands, as we have said, is confined to the vast area of Central Australia and Western Australia. The shearing on one of the great stations in the interior is a most important operation, there being a small army of men employed while it lasts. Some of the wool-sheds are of great extent, and provide shelter for seven thousand sheep. I have seen as many as a hundred shearers at work at once. They work very hard, and earn a considerable amount of money during the season. They form bands of from forty to eighty men, and start in Queensland in July, gradually working their way south. During shearing-time the wool-shed presents a very busy and interesting scene. A hundred shearers are all working as if for a wager, for the element of rivalry enters largely into the work; a dozen half-clad blacks, male and female, are picking up the fleeces and carrying them to the wool tables, where they are skirted, rolled up, sorted and thrown into their several bins. Immediately behind the wool-bins are the presses, in which the wool is packed into bales, and at the rear the waggons are loading with bales for the distant railway station. Outside the shed men are engaged in branding the sheep after each man"s work has been counted from his yard.
"The waggons load heavily, and have often teams of twenty bullocks each, while there are always a few spare bullocks travelling loose to be used as required, when one of the team gets a sore neck or knocks up. The carriers form a distinct cla.s.s in the back country. They generally travel in bands of four or six teams, which are often owned by one man, who generally accompanies the caravan in a buggy, or, if unable to afford that comfort, drives one of the teams.
"A peculiar feature in station life in Australia is the existence of a cla.s.s of wanderers known as "swagmen," or "sundowners," who wander over the face of the country under the pretence that they are looking for work; but they seldom accept it when offered. They lead a lazy, careless life, making for the shelter of some station towards the close of the day, when they go through the formula of asking for work, after which follows the usual inquiry for accommodation for the night. On some stations these men are such a nuisance that huts are put up for their accommodation; and, instead of permitting them to mingle with the men at their meals, they are given a certain quant.i.ty of flour, and sometimes meat. During the day they camp by the side of a creek where there is shelter from the sun, whence they do not stir till it is time to start for the station where they intend pa.s.sing the night, timing their arrival about sunset. Once a man becomes a "sundowner" he is useless for any honest employment.
"The life of a successful squatter is a very pleasant one, with a large freehold estate in a settled part of the country, and an extensive mansion in which to entertain his friends, he can pa.s.s a few months very enjoyably in the country; but his real home is in one of the most aristocratic suburbs of Melbourne or Sydney, where he lives in a house that cost fully five times the value of his squatting run in the old pioneer days. The pioneers deserve rest and prosperity. They did good work in their day, and their successors are emulating their example in the great sultry plains of Central Australia."
In due course everywhere the Australian squatter gives way to the agriculturist. The sheep become a secondary agent to the plough. In place of the squatter we have the "selector." Land is not given away by the state in Australia to the immigrant, and yet it is unusually easy--even for a new country--for the poor man to start farming. This remark is made on the authority of Mr. T. K. Dow, the agricultural "special" of the _Australasian_ newspaper, with whom the writer conversed on the subject for the purposes of this volume. Mr. Dow had just returned to the colonies after a tour through America, made for the purpose of procuring information on agricultural matters, and he could thus speak as an expert. He says:--
"In Australia a man selects a piece of land; he pays the survey fee, and then he pays for the fee-simple by annual instalments. But nearly all the land so selected is fit for the plough. The man gets a crop off it the very first year, so that he can pay his way as he goes. The land you get for nothing in other countries is worth nothing in the first instance. It has to be made valuable. There are expensive improvements that have to be effected, and so you want more money to start with there than you do in Australia. It is surprising with how little capital men do start here.
"The Australian harvesting system is the cheapest in the world, and is peculiar to the country. There is a dryness about the crops of the northern plains, on which the bulk of the wheat in South Australia and Victoria is grown, and this enables the "stripper" to be used. The stripper is an Australian invention. It is described by its name. It squeezes the corn out, and leaves the stalk standing. The corn is threshed upon the straw, and the straw is afterwards burnt off or is ploughed in."
Mr. Dow is an enthusiastic irrigationist, and it is pleasant to hear him converse about what is to be the future of farming in Victoria, when water has been systematically impounded, in order to flood the land in due season. Our farmers, it is to be noted, have hitherto sought the plains, where the timber was not more than was required for firewood, and where they could sow and reap at once. But the value of the forest country is now being appreciated. There is heavy clearing to be done, no doubt; but then the land is rich, and gives astonishing root crops, and fattens many sheep to the acre. And when a railway is run into the forest it is found that the timber pays for itself, and for the land also, and is as good a crop as the selector is ever likely to take off the soil.
The following are the present conditions under which land can be selected in Victoria: The best unsold portions of the public estate, amounting in the aggregate to 8,712,000 acres, are divided into "grazing areas," not exceeding 1000 acres in size, each of which is available for the occupation of one individual, who is ent.i.tled to select, within the limits of his block, an extent not exceeding 320 acres, for purchase in fee simple at 1 per acre, payment of which may extend over twenty years, without interest. The selected portion is termed an "agricultural allotment," and of it the selector is bound to cultivate one acre in every ten acres, and make other improvements amounting to a total value of at least 1 per acre. The unselected portion of the original area is intended for pastoral purposes, and for this the occupier obtains a lease, at a rental of from 2_d._ to 4_d._ per acre, for a period of fourteen years, after which it reverts to the Crown, an allowance up to 10_s._ per acre being made the lessee for any improvements he may have effected calculated to improve the stock-carrying capabilities of the land. In New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia, and Western Australia, the facilities are greater than in Victoria. But it is better to state the minimum than the maximum advantage. All cla.s.ses go on the lands with success, because "high farming" or "scientific culture" is not attempted in the bush--only in exceptional instances near the towns.
A county prize for the best-kept farm was recently awarded to a freeholder whose culture and whose crops were highly commended by the judges. "You were trained in a good school, evidently," said one of the judges to the prize-taker. "Not at all, sir," was the reply; "until I took up this land I was serving all my life behind a linen-draper"s counter." A handsome endowment has, however, just been made for the establishment of Agricultural Colleges in Australia.
Without a wife the settler"s is but a lonely lot. There are bachelors, of course. Our picture represents a forlorn individual returning to his home. He will have a warmer welcome no doubt some day from wife and weans than that which he receives from the c.o.c.katoo which he has taught and tamed.
The settler has few enemies. The only two worth naming are drought and fire. The systematic storage of water throughout the country is in part mitigating the one, and already in Victoria no selector is more than three miles from permanent water for his stock. And as irrigation is coming apace, the fire risk, such as it is, will be diminished. Even now it is not serious. Not one farmer will be burned out, but at the same time a watch is required to see that no flame gets the upper hand. When a man burns off stubble he must give notice to his neighbours.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BUSH WELCOME.]
Some of the most dramatic incidents of bush life occur when an alarm of fire has been given, and the entire neighbourhood turns out to beat down the conflagration with bushes. The males form a line and work with all their energy to stamp out the flames, and the women and children help by supplying the toilers with refreshments and with a fresh stock of boughs and bushes.
"Black Thursday" (February 5, 1851), the memorable day of the colonies, would be impossible now. On that dread occasion Southern Australia was all ablaze, there was a sad loss of life, and the lurid atmosphere was noticeable as far away as New Zealand. Bishop Selwyn (who was afterwards translated to Lichfield) told the writer that he was in his yacht off the New Zealand coast at the time, and he was struck by the appearance of a fiery glow in the sky towards the island continent.
But the year 1886 unexpectedly witnessed a "Black Thursday" on a small scale. In one corner of Victoria are situated the Cape Otway ranges, which are covered by fine forests and are the scene of a new and spa.r.s.e settlement--hardy pioneers venturing in advance of the railways which they expect in due course to come up to them. The summer of 1886 opened with great heat: 100 F. was registered in the shade, and over 150 in the sun. And soon the news spread in the towns and cities of a disaster at the Otway. Steamers coming into port reported that they had pa.s.sed through a pitchy darkness in the straits. One of their log records reads: "Off Cape Otway at noon the darkness became so intense that it was necessary to light the binnacle lamp. The gloom was caused by smoke.
A considerable quant.i.ty of ashes and charred sticks fell upon the deck."
This smoky volume rolled across the straits to Tasmania, and it proclaimed the fact that the forest was on fire. Fortunately to the south there is nothing behind the forest but the sea. The northerly wind, which alone fans these conflagrations, blew smoke and fire, not over parched tracts ready to burst into flame, but across the straits towards Tasmania, and the enveloped ships were not put in jeopardy, as hamlets would have been. At first it was almost forgotten that the forest was no longer lonely, but was showing here and there patches of occupation; but so it was, and a sad tale of ruin was soon told. Mr. S.
H. Whittaker, who was on the heels of the flames as an "_Argus_ special," kindly supplies the following narrative: "The night before the great fire was an anxious one in the forest. There was an ominous deep-red glow at sunset--a redness deepened by smoke rising from distant hills. The settlers, as they watched the smoke from the highest points near their selections, fervently hoped for a change of wind, for the country, scorched by the heat of midsummer, was ready to burst into a blaze. Daybreak brought with it the fierce north wind, fiery as the blast of a furnace, and strong as a gale. The bush fires could be plainly seen from many a homestead, but there was at first no apprehension of a general calamity. Some damage is done in the forest every year by fire, but never before has one hundred miles of country been left a smoking ruin. Never before have the selectors been driven half-blinded from their houses, which they had vainly sought to save, to find refuge only for their lives in their small green patches of cultivation. The settlers had seen brushwood fires, had fought the flames and conquered them after suffering some loss, and, profiting by the experience, had cleared the brushwood around their homesteads. The whole forest ablaze, the sky red with lighted fragments flying before the high wind over cleared s.p.a.ces, creeks, and roads, and igniting, like the torches of a thousand incendiaries, fences, orchards, farms, crops, and buildings in many places at once, had happily never been seen before. The people vividly remember the scenes of that terrible day--how the smoke made the day blacker than night, until the flames got nearer; how these made "leaps and bounds" from tree to tree, and the terrified wallaby, dogs, cattle, fowls, and kangaroo helplessly crowded among the people, seeking shelter and protection from the common danger.
"The struggle to save the home is sometimes touchingly told. Mrs. Hurley was alone on the selection at Cowley"s Creek with her seven children, her husband being away cutting gra.s.s-seed to plant in the autumn. The eldest children were a boy of fourteen and a girl of twelve. She said: "When I saw the fire coming I sent the children to the water-hole to get water in the bucket and dipper and everything that would hold it. We put the water on the fence and houses. The children all worked till they were ready to drop to save the place, even the youngest. The boy was on the roof of the house pouring water on the rafters, and the girl was on the shed. The fire came quick and scorched us. It burned in the tree branches more than on the ground. The wind blew the big sparks right at us and burned our clothes, but the little ones and myself kept going to the water-hole with the dippers and pans to keep the house wet. The boy kept the house well soaked on the roof, and I thought we might keep it safe, when one of the girls cried out, "Mother, it"s alight inside."
Then the place went all up on fire, and we couldn"t get anything out.
The sheds and the reaper and binder and thresher went just after, and the orchards and fences as well. The children asked me to run with them to Mrs. M"Donald, our neighbour"s. I told them to run on ahead, as one of the boys had a bad foot, and I had to help him. The other children got to Mrs. M"Donald"s all right, but before I could get through with the boy the forest was all burning, and the branches were coming down in showers. My boots were burnt off my feet, and I have not been able to wear a boot since. Mrs. M"Donald and the neighbours kindly helped me to put some things on the children, and Bob Cowley gave me the tent we"re living in now."
"The cry, "The house is alight inside," was the despairing message from many a watcher to those who, mounted on the ridge, were striving in the blinding smoke and scorching heat to beat back the fire from the dwelling. The high wind blew live coals underneath the shingles to enkindle the canvas lining, and then the exhausted settler, foiled in his endeavour to save his or his neighbour"s home, could only throw himself face downwards in his potato crop to get a breath of fresh air.
But Mrs. Power, of Curdie"s River, was more fortunate, and it was impossible to belie the simple and unaffected sincerity with which she devoutly ascribed her escape to the direct interposition of Providence.
Her husband, like too many other selectors in the wild and inhospitable Heytesbury forest--inhospitable until by laborious toil it has been reclaimed--was away at other work when the fire happened. The holding was directly in the track of the fire. "It was on the hill yonder," said Mrs. Power, "that we were burned out seven years ago--I mean there where the scrub is as thick as ever, which shows how hard the scrub in this forest is to kill. After we lost our first home we came to this side of the creek, and got on a little better. On the Tuesday morning the fire got all about us, in spite of my boys cutting down a tree and putting water on the fences and houses to keep them from burning. They said we had better go away; but wherever I looked there was fire; and I said, "Where shall we go? We might as well be burnt here, beside the old place, as anywhere else." So I got the boys around me, and I dropped on my knees just here and prayed to the Almighty G.o.d that it should be His will to spare us, and not leave us again without a home over our heads.
The clothes of one of the boys caught fire, as you see, so did the pigstye, and the eighteen bags of gra.s.s-seed that I had put in the little garden in front of the house. I expected it to go every minute, but the house stood through it all. It took fire in four places inside and out, but it did not burn, and the roof was left to cover us, in answer to my prayer. It was too hot to go into the house, and I stayed under the blackwood tree; and the wind changed, and the drenching rain came and doused the fire. If the rain had not come, there is no knowing where the fire would have stopped."
[Ill.u.s.tration: BEFORE AND AFTER THE FIRE.]
"The rain, which will be remembered as one of the greatest downpours ever experienced in the colony, did indeed save the forest selectors from annihilation. It came just when the fire was at its height, when the trees were crashing to the ground in all directions, and when the fire, not merely scorching and singeing the bark of trees, as bush fires usually do, was consuming thousands of huge boles to charcoal, and the ground, as can still be seen, was at white heat, like a smelter"s crucible. The mournfulness of the gaunt, weird scene which the fire has left is peculiarly striking and depressing. Such a mingling of night and day as the sunlight lighting the pitchy blackness of the landscape, as far as the eye can reach, is indescribably grotesque and desolate. It is hard to conceive anything like this contrast of the sunshine sparkling brightly upon the wide, inky, silent waste. It is almost like a smile upon a ghastly death"s-head. There is not a bird to flutter a wing or to break the oppressive silence with a single note. There is no sign of life or what has been life, except here and there the roasted carcase of a wallaby or kangaroo. The dense forest of straight black bare boles alone reveals the might and fury of a bush fire."