It is high noon as I and my friend stroll along the fiery, dusty track amongst the iron-roofed ovens large and small.
Everybody seems asleep, save that now and again we catch a glimpse of women, wan and prematurely old-looking.
In the sun’s eye a man lies in the brown dust. He is on his back, his hat off, and snoring stertorously up at a cloud of mosquitoes, sandflies, and other abominations hovering and buzzing about his face.
With a look of solicitude my guide exclaims,—
‘Sure, now, that’s Tim Healy, come in from Out Back, an’ his cheque gone already! Lend a hand, will ye, sorr, wid the other ind av him. The poor devil ’ll be sthruck intirely here, so he will.’
So, one at each ‘ind,’ we bear the man from Out Back into the comparative shade of a verandah, where the constable takes off his boots, loosens his shirt collar, and props his head up, saying,—
‘There, the cratur, mebbe he’ll waken wid nothin’ worse nor a sore head, an’ a limekiln in the throttle av him.’
[119]
]A fit man and a proper, this one, I reflect, to be Officer in Charge of this half-forgotten fragment of a people.
So, presently, I am not surprised at hearing that, in addition to that title, he bears the important ones of Clerk of Petty Sessions, Registrar of Small Debts Court and Births, Land Bailiff, Inspector of Slaughterhouses, Curator’s Agent, and others equally pertinent to his surroundings, but which I have forgotten.
Entering the parlour of the one public-house, silent and deserted but for clouds of humming flies, a drowsy landlord, booted and spurred for riding, answers our knock.