[CHAPTER XI.]
At Rollands Plains.
"Life as tedious as a twice-told tale."
—Shakespeare.
Rollands Plains is situated some twenty miles from Port Macquarie in a westerly direction, and derived its name from Surveyor Rollands, who laid it out. This place was made a farming centre some time after a settlement was formed at Port Macquarie, as it was considered good country both for agricultural and pastoral pursuits.
Early in the forties a road party was picked out of the men who were in the main Settlement, and they were despatched to Rollands Plains for road-making purposes—many of the thoroughfares which remain there at the present time being the outcome of the labour of these men.
About this time there was a doctor residing at the Plains, and as an experiment to make some kind of ointment, he had several large cedar boxes constructed, each one being of sufficient size to hold the carcases of four bullocks. In due course the cases were filled with the dead oxen, and the four boxes lowered into the bed of the creek—the supposition being that in a certain length of time all the flesh and fat would become separate substances. The boxes had not been under water long, however, before heavy weather came on, which caused the creek to become flooded, and the encased oxen were swept down stream. When the flood waters subsided search was made for these cases, but only one was found, and it was filled with sand, mud, etc. So the doctor's loss was considerable, as the cedar boxes alone were worth some money.
During this flood most of the farms around the place were in a state of inundation, and all kinds of farm produce was strewn about in all directions; cedar logs, which had been washed down, were plentiful, too. The men in the road party went about gathering these products, for it was seldom that they got anything of the kind. They proceeded to cook some potatoes which had been collected, when the supposed owner of the "spuds" came up and wanted to take a number of sweet potatoes out of the pot whilst they were boiling, claiming them as his property. The men could not see losing the potatoes, and blankly refused to give them up. He then laid a complaint to the boss of the party, who said: "Well, if you can swear that nobody else about here has sweet potatoes but yourself, you can take them." But the hungry individual failed to do this, and so had to go without his "murphys."
The weather cleared up, and the men in the party were sent to assist the residents near at hand to pull what remained of their maize crops, and when the first day's labour was over, they asked the farmer whom they had been helping for some tea and sugar. He looked at them for a moment, and then answered: "I will not give you a d—— bit; you have stolen plenty of potatoes and pumpkins, and if you don't help me finish the corn-pulling, I'll get your rumps tanned. Since the road party came here, I can't keep fowls, turnips, cabbage, or anything else." This was his thanks, and also his usual way of doing business.
One young fellow tried to do the men in the road party a good turn, by killing one of his master's calves for them. But while he was in the act of killing it, the calf bellowed out and drew the master's attention, when he ran up and caught the culprit, and got him six months in irons for trying to do others a good turn.