1394 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



The pioneer days of squatting in Australia are long since over, and the life has 

 lost much of that element of adventure and unrestraint which characterized it in the 

 days when the early pastoralist went forth into unexplored country to seek a location 

 for his flocks. When he found it, he lived there in a very primitive way. The 

 squatter himself had his head-quarters at the home-station, which in those clays consisted 

 of what was called the " main hut," generally a structure about forty feet long by 

 twenty broad. This was usually flanked by a deep verandah, made to face the %outh- 

 east, so that the fierce rays of the mid-da)' sun might be in some measure guarded against. 

 If there were a woman's hand about the place, which was not often the case in those 

 days of single-handed adventure, a trailing vine might throw the shadow of its green 

 leaves along this verandah, and here it was the custom for the master of the pastures 

 to recline and take his ease when not in the saddle, or otherwise occupied. The roof 

 of the hut was of bark, and at the back, branching off the main apartment, were 

 smaller buildings of the skillion order, which served as store-rooms, and for other purposes 

 of the kind. The squatter's fare was of the simplest. He baked his damper in the 

 ashes, and dined on the mutton-chops his sheep provided, or on the salt beef he had 

 stored in his harness-cask. His black tea and his blacker pipe completed his list of 

 luxuries ; and so the old-time squatter lived his life, and laid the foundations of the 

 colossal pastoral fortunes of to-day. The lines of those who came after him have fallen 

 in pleasanter places. The home-station is now a hospitable mansion, graced by the 

 refinements and surroundings of a gentler life and the charm of feminine society. The 

 owner spends as much of his time in one of the colonial capitals as on his "run," and 

 the actual work of the station, which is reduced to a minimum by the improved system 

 of more modern times, is usually carried on by a superintendent and his boundary- 

 riders, with the assistance of shearers in the season. The wire-fencing introduced of late 

 years has done away with the necessity for shepherds, and these worthies, once so 

 characteristic a type of Australian bush-life, are rapidly becoming mere relics of the 

 past. The lot of these old shepherds, it must be confessed, was not always a very 

 bright one. They lived solitary lives for nine months out of the year, and many of 

 them saw a human being much seldomer than that, with the exception, indeed, of the 

 driver of the ration-cart who visited them once a week with supplies. Many years spent 

 in the bush had unfitted these men for anything else but shepherding, and so their 

 monotonous life went round without any other than the periodical break which followed 

 the receipt of their wages. These were usually paid by an order on the squatter's 

 agent in the nearest township, after the value of all lost sheep had been deducted a 

 piece of prudent thrift on the part of the squatter which often left the shepherd without 

 much to spend. The orders were taken to the first bush shanty, to be cashed by the 

 publican. He took possession of the order and supplied the victim with liquor, of 

 which an important ingredient was not infrequently blue-stone, until the funds were 

 supposed to be exhausted. This process was known by the name of " lambing-down," 

 from the publican's point of view, and "knocking down his cheque," from that of the 

 reckless reveller ; frequently the process was assisted, more especially of late years, by 

 the wiles of some more or less fascinating barmaid brought up from the city for the 

 season. When the value of the order was supposed to have been covered by the liquor 



