The Never-Never Land 61 



camping-place, all the more manageable for the 

 experience. 



The Western plains, bare and dusty a few 

 months before, are now knee deep in waving 

 grass and trefoil, and day after day the drovers 

 press their mob forward, ever southward and east- 

 ward. Long days in the saddle and still nights 

 of vigil beneath the moon and stars: the life is 

 exacting, but it has its share of excitement or of 

 pleasure. Henry Lawson, the Australian poet, 

 describes it in one vigorous stanza: 



The drovers of the great stock routes 



The strange Gulf country know, 

 Where, travelling from the Southern droughts, 



The big lean bullocks go ; 

 And, camped by night, where plains lie wide 



Like some old ocean's bed, 

 The watchmen in the starlight ride 



Round fifteen hundred head. 



In time, they reach more settled country, and 

 the farthest terminus of the longest railway line. 

 Then the mob breaks up, some being trucked 

 away to the big cities on the coast, and some go- 

 ing to the refrigerating works to be turned into 

 chilled beef or extract of meat. The Australian 

 city dweller, whose business or pleasure takes 

 him out into the streets in those quiet hours of 

 the morning when the blackness of night is just 

 turning to grey, may sometimes see the mob of 

 cattle on the last stage of its long journey. It is 



