Fern Vale; or, the Queensland Squatter. Volume 1

by Colin Munro

In the meantime, John had got all his buildings so far completed, as to have them ready for the settlement of the station as soon as the flocks and the drays with the supplies should have arrived. It was not his intention to build the house until they settled themselves, and got some little leisure after shearing time; and, until then, he proposed living with his brother in one of the huts erected for the men. He now looked anxiously for the drays; and as the weather had been fine since they started, and they had been a good time on the road, he believed they could not be far distant; especially as he had received intimation from Mr. Smithers that a man had arrived at Brompton, who had passed them the day before he reached that station. He therefore thought it advisable to leave the carpenters at work on a few odds and ends that still required doing, and proceed along the road to meet the drays, and hurry them on to their destination. He did so; and some few miles past Strawberry Hill he descried the lumbering vehicles jogging on at their (or rather the bullocks') leisure; and he turned with them, in company, until they reached the crossing-place of the Wombi. The appearance of this spot did not, by any means, favourably prepossess the minds of the bullock-drivers: the banks were of black alluvial soil, and had a steep descent to the water; which, though reduced to its ordinary level, looked black from the colour of the banks and the soil through which it passed; and had an appearance of depth, not at all inviting to drivers of heavily-laden drays.

However, cross it they were compelled to; for there was no other place where the river could be passed with any degree of safety, without going considerably farther; so, after directing John to go over with his horse, that he might see what he had to encounter, the first bullock-driver urged his team down the slope and into the water, where it splashed and floundered on until it succeeded in bringing the dray about half way across. There the bottom was so soft, and the dray wheels had become so embedded in the mud, that only with the assistance of the second team could the passage be effected. The second dray was not even so fortunate as the first; for all efforts of the double team were unavailing to pass the rubicon; and it settled in the mud mid-way between the banks. Adding to this, the fact that the water was already above the axle, and consequently damaging the loading; and that in all probability, if not speedily extricated, the dray would become even more immovable; it was evident, to the men, some strenuous efforts were required to overcome the difficulty.

The Australian bullock dray with its bovine traction, we may remark, is without exception the most primitive means of conveyance that can either be devised or imagined. The ponderous vehicle, in perfect keeping with the heavy and drowsy quadrupeds who draw it at a snail-like pace, stands prominently forth as a reproach to the inventive genius of man; and, excepting perhaps the substitute of iron in coupling and linking the animals, and in some parts of the vehicular construction, the whole equipage possesses not the shadow of an improvement on the popular conveyances of the age of Sesostris. But in this sunny land, settlers are content with the questionable facilities of transit offered by these primeval means; while they console themselves with the belief that no other style of vehicle would stand the wear and tear of being drawn over logs and stumps of trees, rocks and precipices, and through rivers and swamps; and that no other animal but the patient bullock, could endure the fatigue and privation of alternate heat, wet, hunger and thirst, and a constant taxation of strength and resignation. 'Tis true, at times, the obstacles to travelling are almost insuperable, and that the roads have no title to the dignity of such a name; being, in most instances, merely tracks formed by the drays following the course of a predecessor; but still, no attempt even is made to improve the means of conveyance. The settlers content themselves with the existence of things that be, and are satisfied with the progressive rate of from fifteen to twenty miles a day; at which speed a team of ten bullocks, in fine weather, will draw a dray with thirty to forty hundred-weight; while during wet, they may not perform the same distance in a week.

The individuals who manage the guidance of these machines, and who are generally accompanied by an assistant, are too often some of the most reprobate members of the family of man. Their sole accomplishments are the management of their drays; the forcible appeals to their bullocks, made by the application of their long whips (upon the expertness in the use of which they pride themselves); the facile utterance of their blaspheming interjections; and their ability to plunder without detection. The acme of their human felicity is perpetual intoxication; and to gratify this propensity, they have no scruples in assisting themselves to any liquor which they may be entrusted to carry; frequently adopting ingenious plans to abstract it from the bulk, and replace it by water in such a way as to defy detection. They are ignorant in the extreme, and though assumed to be civilised and sentient beings, their vices render them, in the scale of humanity, on a par with the aboriginal blacks; individuals of whom, frequently follow in their train, and, until debased by their vile influence, by far their superiors in an ethical point of view.

In stimulating the propulsion of his team, the bullock-driver addresses each of his beasts by name; such as, "eh, Smiler;" "come up, Strawberry;" "Cap-tain," etc.; accompanying every admonition with a profusion of oaths, and a wholesale application of the lash. If remonstrated with for his use of so ungenteel a vocabulary, he will endeavour, with considerable earnestness, to convince you that the bullocks perfectly understand what is said to them; and that they are so wayward in their disposition, that nothing short of such determined and forcible language is of any avail. He will support his arguments with many stories of the wonderful instinct and percipiency displayed by his animals; all of which stories, though exceedingly marvellous, obtain implicit credence in the mind of the narrator; and only come short, in point of hyperbolical marvel, of the wonderful utterance of Tom Connor's cat, in the plain Anglo-Saxon vernacular. Though we do not intend either to support or refute the sophistry of these men, it is only just to say, that considering every bullock has a name, upon the utterance of which it is made to feel an application of the whip, it is not to be wondered at that the animals are soon taught to recognise their appellations, and in the expectation of chastisement, to brighten up when they hear them.

The reader may imagine we have drawn too depraved a picture of this neglected class of men; but we solemnly affirm we have not. There are, of course, exceptions to this, as to every rule; for we have known many industrious, and even respectable well-conducted men, as bullock-drivers; but unfortunately they were only the exceptions: the general mass are as corrupt and vicious as it is possible for human beings to be. Why this is so, we are at a loss rightly to understand; though we imagine the primary cause is this: Attendant on bullock-driving are many discomforts; more, possibly, than in any other occupation in the bush. Hence it is an employment which industrious or enterprising individuals generally shun; and in the successive scales of advancement, in which the steady immigrant effects his rise, it is left to members of the lowest scum; who prefer the freedom of this erratic life, to the more settled conformities of order and society.

We left John Ferguson on the bank of the river, gazing on the dray safely (or rather unsafely) fixed in the bed of the river. The bullock-drivers had lashed, frantically shouted, and swore; while they performed sundry manœuvres, and excited evolutions; to induce the bullocks to strain an extra nerve, to extricate the vehicle: but all to no purpose; the efforts of the beasts were unavailing, while the delay only rendered the case more hopeless. In this state of things, the men perceived the only course open to them, was to lighten the load as much as possible, by partially unloading the dray, and carrying the goods over the river themselves. With this determination they set earnestly to work, and succeeded in removing the greater portion of the goods; when they made another attempt, happily with better success than previously; and brought the dray from its miry adherence to a position on the bank. It was then reladen with the goods; while the men, barely recovered from the chagrin caused by the misadventure, performed their work with a sullen moroseness, enlivening their gloom by animadversions on the river, the country, and everybody connected with their peregrination.

In this humour John left them to follow him, while he proceeded to the station, where we will also lead the reader. Upon his return to Fern Vale, he found, during his short absence, that the blacks, attracted by the appearance of a fresh settlement, had congregated in some considerable numbers; though more out of curiosity than with any idea of aggression. At sight of John, a number of them immediately assembled round him; looking at him, and everything about the place, in a sort of inquisitive manner; jabbering amongst themselves; and handling everything portable within their reach. The group consisted of some twenty persons of both sexes and various ages; and were a family of the Nungar tribe, which usually made its home on the other side of the Gibson river, in the scrub, and the mountains and broken country receding from it.

The sight of this visitation did not altogether please the young squatter, for he thought he saw in the future considerable annoyance from similar visits. He therefore demanded of them what they required; and told them, that though he had no objection to their coming about the place so long as they behaved themselves, if he caught them committing any theft, or becoming in any way troublesome, he would not allow one of them afterwards to approach the station.

They seemed to understand this communication; for one of them informed John, that a good many of their tribe had been employed by the squatters, to wash their sheep, and do work about the stations, and would be very glad to do the same for him. Thinking possibly that it might be the means of coming to some friendly understanding with the tribe, and would give him a means of acquiring some knowledge of their movements and disposition, he thought it advisable to take the services of some of them; more especially as in the then rough state of the settlement, their services could be turned to some account. Acting on this impulse, then, he selected two young athletic black boys; who seemed more intelligent than the majority, and who appeared to have a disposition to remain on the station, and to adapt themselves to the ways of the white man. He then distributed some tobacco and rations amongst them, and they took their departure apparently well pleased.