THE BUSH TRACK 



" They trade with Nature and the earth — a trade by which all 

 that breathe upon the earth live." — Raleigh. 



It has no beginning. It ends — who shall say where ? 

 Every high tide smooths away the footprints of those 

 who use it now, just as it did the erratic tramplings 

 of the host of the past. In those free, unregulated 

 days piccaninnies sprawled and scampered on the 

 hard, glistening beach; young men and girls sported 

 there ; men lazed and fought on its convenient spaces ; 

 women wandered on the serious business of food-getting. 

 The camps stood a pace or two above high-water mark 

 in the meagre shelter of sighing casuarinas, and were 

 often changed, for there were six miles of gently curv- 

 ing, ripple-embroidered shore on which to rest. To 

 this day most of the traffic is regulated by the tide. 

 High water drives the wayfarer to the loose, impeding 

 sand, over which the great convolvulus sends its tire- 

 less tentacles, to be thrown back twisted and burnt 

 by salt surges. 



The ebb discovers a broad space, firm and wellnigh 

 unimpressionable. The barefooted traveller may walk 

 for miles and be trackless, so tough and elastic the 

 moist sand. It is not an officious thoroughfare, made 

 formal and precise by coarse hands working to plans 

 correct to a hair, but subject to economic deviations 

 of some soulless contractor. It was not laid with the 



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