202 TEE PASTOBAL AGE IN AUSTBALASIA 



to quarters that are fifty miles from the head-station, 

 where he will reside in a bark hut and close by a fenced- 

 in M^ater-hole. His duty is to ride a patrol fifteen miles 

 north and south of his hut, and turn back all cattle 

 that have crossed during the night. Once a fortnight 

 his food, with a newspaper, is brought him by the 

 ration-carrier.* 



Often these stockmen were men of good family, with 

 bronzed and bearded faces, quick in their movements, 

 first-rate in the saddle or with a stock-whip, a dead shot 

 with a revolver, and yet, if put in dress clothes, and 

 dropped down in a London ballroom, would bear him- 

 self confidently and be the hero of the ladies. f Some- 

 times a newly arrived immigrant, a hard-headed, 

 resolute-looking sort of a farming-man, would soon learn 

 the work of a station, and become a thoroughly good 

 horseman, who knew the ways of cattle and was inured 

 to labour. It was a case of a natural vocation for 

 bush-life. In the early fifties, in the dearth of labour, 

 the Queensland squatters imported Germans — two 

 shiploads of them arrived in 1855 ; the majority turned 

 out excellent. They remained long in the service of 

 the squatters, who engaged them for two years ; but 

 many of them remained for fifteen. English immi- 

 grants of a good class followed them, and were equally 

 stable. Never again was there the same dearth.^ 



Their duties were sometimes rendered dangerous by 

 the proximity of hostile blacks or the treachery of 

 black boys employed as their assistants. Murders of 

 stockmen were common, and many a station was de- 

 serted in consequence. They ^^'ere told always to 

 carry a revolver, not to give rations to blacks, and, 

 if cattle were killed l)y the blacks, to follow them 

 up. " You know what to do then, eh % " A. E. gives 

 an account, evidently from personal knowledge, of 

 one such murder. Jim, the stockman in question, 

 gave his nigger, or blackboy, " a big-follow growl," 



• A. E., Overlanding, pp. 21-2. f I^id., p. 2. 



X Babtusy, Pioneering Reininiacencea. 



