20 THE RIVERINE DISTRICT 



meteorology here is a branch of the science of chances. 

 It may be anticipated that one year in fourteen will be a 

 phenomenally wet one, and one in fourteen a more than 

 phenomenally dry one. The intermediate years are all 

 uncertain ; sometimes a fair amount of rain, sometimes a 

 few drops only. Sometimes it comes down as if it was 

 emptied from hogsheads — in one torrent ; and sometimes 

 it drizzles down in a few scanty showers, with long intervals 

 of time between them. 



In a good year the sheep of the squatter increase as 

 rapidly as those of Jacob ; in a bad one he may lose his 

 whole stock. The squatter, therefore, who prepares for a 

 non-rainy day, and takes care to have by him the where- 

 withal to meet such a disaster, is the only one who is safe 

 in this trying country. There are instances on record of 

 squatters having lost every head of their stock ; and such 

 disasters too often entirely ruin the unfortunate men who 

 suffer them. 



Westward, beyond the Blue Mountains, the country 

 appears to be absolutely flat. The rivers have no current. 

 Many of them have not a fall of an inch per mile, and some 

 of them not an inch in three or four miles. In dry 

 seasons the smaller ones shrink into a series of ponds or 

 mud-holes, or perhaps become entirely waterless ; while 

 some of the larger streams cease to be navigable by the 

 small steamers and launches that ply upon them. The 

 waters of even such rivers as the Murrumbidgee and 

 Darling are quite currentless, and appear like canals. This, 

 indeed, is their normal condition. 



The country on the eastern plains is as desolate looking 

 as it is in the west. The soil is generally darker coloured 

 — almost black ; there is little or no grass, and the herbage 

 consists of puny tufts of mallee-scrub only a few inches in 

 height. Here and there this scrub forms clumps of bushes 

 which rarely rise higher than the traveller's head. The 

 few trees that are met with are scattered about singly, or 

 in twos and threes, and never form woods or groves. This 

 is the summer aspect of the country. In winter, so-called, 

 the land assumes a normal aspect. Grass five or six feet 



