'Y^^y-] 0'Doi>!OGHUB, Rambles in Raak. 15 



had just traversed without beholding a wild or a domestic 

 animal was enlivened by thousands of emus and kangaroos, 

 numbers of dusky aborigines, and vast herds of wild horses and 

 cattle. Raak, according to documentary evidence, was first 

 traversed by a white man in 1848, and stocked a year or two 

 later. In the '70'? it was the stronghold of innumerable wild 

 horses and cattle, which rendered it difficult for the station- 

 holders on the areas fronting the Murray to keep stock unless 

 great and unceasing vigilance was exercised. Issuing from their 

 native fastnesses during the hours of darkness, these warrigals 

 descended in droves on the home paddocks and inveigled the 

 station stock away to a life of liberty in the remote recesses 

 of the Mallee. So numerous did they become that, in the 

 vicinity of the water-holes and puddles to which they resorted 

 after nightfall, it is said, one could not hold converse with a 

 companion unless by shouting, by reason of the angry and 

 incessant bellowing of the bulls. To reduce their numbers a 

 drive was determined upon, and resulted in 500 head of cattle 

 being yarded and travelled to the Melbourne market. This 

 procedure, however, was not persisted in, owing to the warrigals 

 realizing little more per head in the city than it cost to yard 

 them on their native wild. Shooting was next resorted to, 

 and, with aborigines to flay the victims of his skill, one 

 individual is credited with slaying nearly 1,800 head in a very 

 short period. The number slain in any one day was regulated 

 by the expertness of the flayers, and the greatest number shot 

 in any one week, it is said, was 80, for which a sum of 12s. 6d. 

 per head was paid the hunter, he surrendering to the owner 

 of the run the cured skins. The method invariably adopted 

 in slaying the cattle was to ride hard after the beast selected, 

 and to place the muzzle of a shortened shot-gun, loaded with 

 a heavy spherical ball, close behind its shoulder and fire, the 

 animal in nearly every instance being killed outright by the 

 discharge. The bleached and massive bones of these un- 

 fortunates are still to be met with, and, when one comes upon 

 them in the midst of the Mallee, the mind at once reverts to 

 the last headlong rush of the terror-stricken beast through the 

 eucalyptus thickets, closely followed by the wildly-excited 

 horse and its reckless and determined rider, to the loud report 

 that knelled its doom, to the dusky beings who subsequently 

 busied themselves about its body, and to the dingoes that, 

 later on, fought over and gorged themselves upon the reeking 

 flesh. 



{To be continued.) 



