Part 14 (1/2)

If the une of exactly thirty raphy of Riverina as well as if I had laid out the whole territory myself, I are of a sandhill composed of material unstable as water; an unfavourable place for a bucking horse, and a favourable place for a man to dismount head foremost if the worst came; and that sand-hill was my destination

CHAPTER II

When I undertook the pleasant task of writing out these reed, you will reidly faithful analysis of that sae of happiness, virtue, &c, in Life

But whilst writing the annotations on Sept 9th (which, by the way, gratuitously overlap on the following day), I saw an alpine difficulty looht of the 10th, I camped with a party of six sons of Belial, bound for Deniliquin, with 3,000 Boolka wethers off the shears Now, anyone who has listened for four hours to the conversation of a group of sheep drovers, nao, and Hairy-toothed Ike, will agree with ue of such dra like printable forh, but these fellows are out of the question

Then it occurred to ive in perhaps fewer pages, a fairer esti and only responsibility

I therefore concluded to skip one calendar ain into my old diary at Oct 9th in the same year, namely, '83

After this, I shall pick out of each consecutivenot too long in one tune, but a snip and away This will prospect the gutter of Life (gutter is good) at different points; in other words, it will give us a range of seven months instead of seven days

The thread of narrative being thus purposely broken, no one of these short and simple analyses can have any connection with another--a point on which I congratulate the judicious reader and the no less judicious writer; for the forainst any expectation of plot or denoueainst disappointment, whilst the latter is relieved fro prosaic people with roenerally hap-hazard economy with poetical justice

Go to, then

TUES OCT 9 Goolu reverence of our 'birth stain') so more than a hundred miles northward fro a territory blank on the map, and similarly qualified in the ordinary conversation of its inhabitants

The Willandra Billabong, which in moderately wet seasons relieves the Middle Lachlan of so flood-ti, divides the country between those rivers into two unequal parts Roughly speaking-- the black-soil plains (which are chiefly light red) lie to the south of this almost imperceptible depression, whilst on the north-- soht, and soular scrub--frontier denotes an abrupt change of soil, though the uniforion presenting to the rarely clouded sky an unbroken foliage-surface, with isotherrowths A tract of country until yesterday bare of surface water for lack of occupation, and lacking occupation for dearth of surface water Which goes to show that regularity of rainfall is not ensured by copious growth of timber

However, a hundred miles back in that leafy solitude,--just where the line of water conservation, creeping northward fro southward fro in the veranda of the barracks, on Gooluan hench thethat certain cattle, on a certain occasion, had scented water from a fabulous distance Whereupon Andrews, the storekeeper, interrogated deponent with so hie, where he ies supported Ward in the endowment of cattle with the faculty in question; and, as afellow supplemented his liuished by that want of proper hang which e of the subject, founded on irrefragable proofs, led me to side with Andrews; and it was thus that I cae of local reference

It will be necessary to lay the facts before you:--

In Feb, '81--two years and eight months before the date of this record-- I had drawn up to Gooluer, Mr Spanker, in his fine, off-hand way, asked me to just dump it down carelessly in five or six places over the run, as the contractor would be using it at once He would pay e; and Dan O'Connell would shohere to sling it off

I objected to the round was a very different thing fro on a track I wanted 1 a day for the extra time--a fair current rate, and easily counted

Mr Spanker, in reply, had no objection to paying by the day; but, as my account came to 42, and as it had taken me twelve weeks to do the two hundred and thirtyme steadily for the last four weeks--well, if I asked his came nearer the mark, and was almost as easily counted

Finally, with that pliancy of temper which keeps me down in the world, I assented to these terms; whereupon Spanker, with characteristic perversity, called it fifteen

Next day, following Andrews' directions, I took the faint track of the ration cart for seven or eight miles, and found a tank without any trouble (Re before the date of our record) Early nextfor another five or six miles, on a still fainter track, onette In the afternoon we struck a line of bored posts, and dumped twenty coils In due time, I unyoked, and Dan led me to a new tank, half-full of horribly alkaline water

Thence, after arranging to , he cut across to his own boundary hut, six or eightthe line of posts, we dropped the rest of the wire; and, before Dan left ain his directions for finding a gilgie, which he knew to be full of first-class water, and which I ought to strike about sunset

Next day I would reach the station in good ti a loop journey of thirty-odd miles in four days

Dan had impressed me as a person likely to be of considerably more account in the esti previously studied men of the same description, I now accepted this involuntary senti not unfae stature, with a vast black beard, and guileless blue eyes, set off by a powerful Arh accent Evidently unobservant, uncritical, and utterly destitute of devil in any for had followed hi his noxious innocence and all-round ineptitude in their pristine integrity

Naturally, he had taken a slight local colour, but this seemed to express the limit of his susceptibility to altered conditions

Yet he twice startled me by the breadth and exactness of his inforlanced at the character and policy of each President, froain, when he spoke of the Massacre of Cawnpore, almost as if he had been there at the time Also, an unconscious familiarity with the Bible and Shakespear was noticeable in his conversation, though he was evidently a Catholic of the Catholics

When I co incompatibility of dialect and manner, 'Mebbe it's thrue fur ye