"Their pay is trifling, but they are assured of good, healthy food, and clothing if they will wear it, which in some cases they reject with disdain. Our countrymen have never treated the natives as human beings, and hence they have never looked upon us with any love; fear alone keeps them in subjection. A new theory is to be attempted, and with what success remains to be seen."
When we came in sight of the hut, we started our horses, and left the cart and men to follow at their leisure. The place was not very inviting, and did not reflect much credit on the stockman who had charge of the station.
The hut was built of rough boards, patched in a dozen different places with bullocks' hides, to keep out the rain in the winter, and the hot sun in the summer. A small shed was placed at one end of the house, under which all the cooking was done during wet weather.
Two upright sticks, with necks, on which a cross bar was placed, formed the fireplace, and that was all that was required by men who live on meat day after day, and year after year, until, as one stockman informed me, he "felt horns growing on the sides of his head."
Basking in the sun, which was high in the heavens, was a parrot, confined in a rough board cage, evidently whittled out with a jackknife, during the leisure hours of its master. The bird was shrieking out a few words of unmistakable English, and appeared to utter them with the greatest glee, as though charmed by having a number of new listeners to whom it could show off its perfections.
"D—— it, where do you come from?" the bird yelled; and then changing his tune, he shouted, "take that dog away—take him away! take him away—cuss him!"
We could but feel amused at such proficiency in the English language, and were admiring the display of his rare talent, when the proprietor of the bird came to the door, evidently awakened from a nap by his protegé. He first told the parrot to "shut up," and then turned his languid attention on his visitors, whom he did not appear pleased to see, or indeed displeased. In fact, he seemed too lazy to exhibit much emotion any way; and the only energy he displayed was when he used his long, dirty finger nails on his head, the hair from which hung down on his shoulders in tangled masses, and afforded refuge to thousands of animals, that would have been homeless, had he had those locks clipped close to his skull.
The stockman was barefooted, and his feet looked tougher than any sole leather ever brought to market. Dirt, a hot sun, and an entire absence of water as a cleansing agent, had rendered them of an indescribable color, and us he afterwards boasted, he was "not afeerd of any varmin biting them 'ere, 'cos they was toughened."
An old flannel shirt, and a pair of canvas trousers, completed the costume of a man who said he preferred to live on a cattle station, and receive about ten dollars per month, than to trust to luck, and work hard at the mines.
"Hullo, Bimbo," shouted the lieutenant, as the stockman came in sight, and leaned languidly against the door, as though too lazy to support his own weight.