34G 



THE AM H 111 VAN BEE-KEEPER. 



December 



THE SONG OF THE GuiX. 



The furnact? was white with steel alight 

 When my new born spirit came 



In a moKen flood of the war god's blood, 

 In a passion of lire and flame. 



I looked o'er the deep from a lofty steep 

 With a strong hearr. full of pride, 



Like a king alone on his stately throne 

 Whose word no man denied. 



My thunder spoke from the battle smcke 

 When the waves ran crimson red, 



And heroes died by ray iroji side 

 Till the foreign foemen fled. 



The sentence of death was in my breath, 



And niary a ship went down. 

 Oh, the gun is lord of the feeble sword, 



And greater is his renown. 



Now the long grnss hides my rusty sides. 

 And round nie the children play. 



But I dream by night of a last great fight, 

 Ere the trump of the judgment day. 



For men must fight in the cause of right 

 Till the time when war shall cease, 



And the song of the gun will ne'er be done 

 Till the dawn of lasting peace. 



—New York Tribune. 



DAPHNE. 



Tall, aiicnlar and peculiarly plain, 

 she was the wife of a Queensland 

 bush carrier, and it is, I believe, an 

 accepted fact that ladies of that sta- 

 tion are not noted either for their 

 culture or their refinement. 



Crawlins; with heavily laden bul- 

 lock wagons across the plains and 

 never ending scrubs would not ap- 

 pear to be an existence possessed of 

 many charms, and yet I believe 

 there is no case on record of a man 

 or woman who, having once served 

 his or her apprenticeship to the 

 trade, has ever returned to a civi- 

 lized life again. 



In the Queensland bush carrying 

 trade, you must understand, there 

 are three main arteries — the town- 

 ships of Hughenden, Longreach and 

 Charleville — and from each of these 

 places there flows continvially a 

 stream of enormous table topped 

 wagons bound for the stations in the 

 great west, all more or less remote 

 fx'om vvhau is gcneially suppo,j3d to 

 make life worth living. 



The existence of the carrier is 

 rougli to a terrible degree and must 

 in no way be confounded with that 

 of the respectable, jogtrot class who 

 plj^ their trfde in English rural dis- 

 tricts. Let me picture for you a 

 night's camp of one of these nomad 

 families. 



Ima,<.'ine a treeless plain, say, 

 some 200 or. 300 miles from civiliza- 

 tion, extending as far as the eye can 

 reach on every side. In the fore- 

 ground j^ou will probably have a 

 fair sized water hole, up to the side 

 of which as you look lumbers an 

 enormous wagon, piled with loading 

 of every kind and description and 

 drawn by perhaps 20 bullocks. 

 Wearied after their long day's 

 march, the team drags up to the 

 water and then comes to a halt with 

 a deep grunt of satisfaction. The 

 sun, which throughout the day has 

 caused them untold agonies, now 

 lies low upon the horizon, turning 

 the dreary plain into the likeness of 

 a waveless sea and painting the 

 placid water hole with colors of ever 

 changing beauty. Once at a stand- 

 still, the work of unyoking com- 

 mences, and after this is accomplish- 

 ed the off sider, or driver's assistant, 

 bells certain bullocks and conducts 

 the herd to water and the best grass. 

 The driver meanwhile places the 

 yokes in proper order upon the pole 

 preparatory to an early start upon 

 the morrow. 



The carrier's wife by this time has 

 descended from her perch on the 

 summit of the load, and with a 

 crowd of nut brown children at her 

 heels has set about her preparation 

 of the evening meal. Ere it is eaten 

 the sun has packed his pillows in 

 the west and dropped into his crim- 

 son bed. 



As daylii.ht disappears and with- 

 out an interval of twilight, darkness 

 descends u])on the plain, and one 

 by one sundry jewels drop out of 

 the X.z'^'.'^'.y.v.v'j ]'"'U^-'9 of ji.'^ht to dock 

 the canopy of heaven. The stillness 



