74 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTBALASIA 



explorer for a comparatively brief space surrounded the 

 pioneer squatter for long years. 



" It is the most difficult of tasks to keep 

 Heights which the soul is competent to gain ; " 



and the task of the pioneer squatter to make head 

 against both natural obstacles and the acquired obstacles 

 arising out of his occupancy of the new ground was 

 often more arduous, as it was always continuously more 

 exacting, than that of the discoverer who left his natural 

 enemies behind him. As the work of the explorer on 

 a large scale was the necessary forerunner of pioneermg, 

 so was the pioneer squatter the indispensable precursor 

 of the grazier m ho reaped where he had not sown, and 

 so was his function again the inevitable preparation for 

 agricultural settlement. 



Even in the early days the men who took up a station 

 were not always the men who formed it ; in later days, 

 of covnse, prospecting for stations, and immediate sale 

 of them, became a business. Thus, to give a single 

 example where many could be given, all the country 

 for hundreds of miles from Dogwood Creek, in Southern 

 Queensland, was taken up in 1849, but none was occu- 

 pied save Narrandoo, which was taken up by the Halls 

 of Dartbrook, who stocked both it and Weribone. Yet 

 in this comparatively safe country occupation was not 

 long delayed. Talavera and Yamboogle were soon after- 

 wards formed. 



The vicissitudes of individuals are as numerous as 

 those of runs. Lord John Russell's suggestion (it 

 hardly amounted to a proposal) to raise the license-fee 

 from £10 to perhaps £50 was doubtless made in ignorance 

 of the real circumstances of many of the squatters, 

 especially in Queensland, or it would not have been 

 made. At this very time many of them actually lost 

 their stations through being so impoverished as to be 

 unable to feed their shepherds and stockmen. No 

 wonder they were filled with consternation. " Johnny 

 had " again " upset the coach ! " A drought was 



