In Time of Drought 93 



tries to hide its nakedness in this short-lived life, 

 but the skeleton bare, gaunt, blackened with 

 fire, tortured by thirst cannot be so quickly hid- 

 den. It is hideously apparent, and pitiful to see. 

 Down in the gullies, on the plains, which a few 

 months ago danced with white molten heat, now 

 tinted soft with the crude tints of verdure, lie the 

 white gleaming bones, sorrowful amongst the 

 newly sprung grass. The depleted flocks drift 

 and browse around them menacing landmarks 

 of the summer to come. ... It will be a bare, 

 bleak world for this year's lambs. The poor 

 weakly mothers will be little protection against 

 the cold of early spring and the devilment of the 

 crows, who, preening themselves high in the 

 oaks, or flapping lazily over the paddocks, are 

 bitter forecasts of the heat- time to come. ' ' 



The unstable nature of the foundation upon 

 which the pastoral industry has been reared is 

 shown by the fact that of the last twenty-five 

 years of the nineteenth century only nine brought 

 good seasons. In some of the worst years, the 

 agricultural districts also suffered, and so severely 

 was the drought of 1901 and 1902 felt in the 

 wheat-growing Mallee district of Victoria, that 

 many farmers actually left their holdings, some 

 of them turning their backs on Australia in de- 

 spair. In the Australian cities, which are largely 

 dependent upon the prosperity of the back coun- 

 try, the pinch of drought causes an unwelcome 

 tightness of money, as well as an increase In the 



