212 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



without roads, often without foot-tracks ; " "a charm- 

 ing secluded shepherd country, with excellent shep- 

 herd population." " The vast and yet not savage 

 soUtude " — "long miles from farm to farm, or even 

 from one shepherd's cottage to another " — impressed 

 itself deeply on his mind and memory. " You lodged 

 with shepherds who had clean, solid cottages, whole- 

 some eggs, milk, oatbread, porridge, clean blankets to 

 their beds, and a great deal of human sense and un- 

 adulterated natural politeness. ... A kind of confra- 

 ternity of shepherds from father to son. No sort of 

 peasant labourers I have ever come across seemed to 

 me so happily situated, morally and physically well- 

 developed, and deserving to be happy, as these shep- 

 herds of the Cheviots." Carlyle himself, in his last 

 years, with the Annandale peasant coming out plainly 

 in his face, might have sat for one of these Cheviot 

 shepherds. 



Shepherds of as fine a type as these are apparently 

 not to be readily met with in Australia. At all events, 

 the portrait of the " Australian shepherd drawn by a 

 cultured " jackeroo " from England is sketched in sepia. 

 In those daj^s, at least, (the forties) two men were set 

 apart for every flock — a shepherd and a watchman. 

 Every morning, soon after sunrise, the shepherd set oufc 

 with the flock. All day long he folloAved it Avithout 

 intermission, keeping within the limits of the run ; for 

 trespass beyond them was punished by the District 

 Commissioner. At sunset he returned, saw that the 

 sheep were put into their folds, and, the day's work 

 over, resigned them into the hands of the night-watch- 

 man, aided by his indispensable collies. Every day 

 the latter shifted the folds, folloAving the sheep. The 

 wage given to the shepherd was £25, with ample rations, 

 permitting substantial savings to be put past. Yet 

 the occupation was unpopular. It was considered the 

 lowest kind of labour on a station. The life was 

 monotonous and uninviting ; * perhaps it bore the 

 • Hayqabth, Btiah Life in Australia, ch. v. 



