BY THE HON. A. NORTON, M.L.C. 149' 



where it was wont to kill many cattle and sheep as they were 

 being taken to the Sydney market. When I took sheep through 

 the Coolah country in 1854 it killed some of them also. By 

 the time we reached Dubbo, on the Macquarie, we were well 

 into a drought, and until we drew near the Lachlan River at 

 Cummin's Crossing we had more and more drought. Cattle 

 and horses had been dying by thousands, and the water we were 

 compelled to drink told its own never-to-be-forgotten tale of 

 thirst and starvation. Before we reached the Lachlan River the 

 rain came. It filled the water channels and holes ; as for the 

 remains of the dead — let us hope they were drifted to some spot 

 where there was no water to pollute ! We had several days of 

 rain, and it made things as damp and uncomfortable as usual. 

 But it brought up the grass and herbage, and the wide plains of 

 the Lachlan became emerald ; trefoil sprang up abundantly, and 

 the cattle ate it greedily, with hoven as the result ; and on the 

 lower flats beside the river there grew an interminable field of 

 wild oats which were full of seed before we reached Walgiers. 

 I would have liked to forget in this land of abundant pastures 

 the drought we had gone through, but the remembrance of the 

 cattle dying of starvation, the flash of the tomahawk with 

 which I ended the agony of scores of starving animals that 

 could not rise and were being picked cruelly to pieces by hawks 

 and crows — these things would not allow one to forget. Besides, 

 the grass was all green ; not a single dry blade could be found, 

 It had all grown after the rain, before which there was nothing 

 but dry, bare, dusty soil. How could one forget ? 



As we slowly shaped our course along the lazy Lachlan — 

 there were no fences in those days, and what cattle there were on 

 the runs did not need much of the almost too abundant green 

 pasture— I often turned my thoughts northwards, where it was 

 all green and beautiful all the year round, just as we saw it here 

 now — at least so I had been told. There was a suggestiveness 

 about this country, too, which it was not easy to overlook. The 

 river oaks had all been cut down for the horses of travellers, and 

 the bleaching bones told a silent tale of starvation, ending at 

 last in — oh ! such a cruel death ! These things the green grass 

 could not hide, nor could the murky water of the river cover all 

 the carcasses which lined its banks. Then I asked some of the 

 residents about the road across to the Darling River, and they 

 told me how one might travel through nuiv, but soon the rain 

 water which had filled up the small hollows would have disap- 



