82 Australian Life 



happy certainty of a good year. Summer suns 

 and scorching hot winds may parch every vestige 

 of grass from the face of the land, but that he ac- 

 cepts as a matter of course. The stock will live 

 through it all, and prosper and multiply in a 

 manner quite astounding. 



Sometimes these good seasons follow one an- 

 other in succession, or are broken only by a year 

 when the autumn rains are light and unsatisfac- 

 tory, and the summer sees an unwelcome scarcity 

 of water. The history of pastoral Australia points 

 to the fact that just as these good seasons have 

 moved in cycles, so have they been followed by 

 a succession of lean years, terminating in a 

 drought during which the grass has never 

 sprouted, and the edible shrubs have been eaten 

 down to the very root by the starving stock. In 

 times such as these, want of food and want of 

 water have caused terrible mortality among the 

 flocks and herds of the Commonwealth. 



In 1891, there were one hundred and twenty- 

 four million sheep in Australia. Then came a 

 long series of dry years, culminating in the ex- 

 ceptionally bad ones of 1901 and 1902, by which 

 time the flocks had shrunk to less than half that 

 number. These figures are more eloquent of the 

 terrible animal suffering endured than any writ- 

 ten words could be. They mean financial loss, 

 too, and ruined hopes, and the abandonment of 

 homes created by the unflagging toil of a lifetime. 

 Here is a brief story, chosen from among a num- 



