12 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



that of the Australian pastorahst were at bottom the 

 same. 



Classical scholar as he was, and with the scholarship 

 that had been japanned at Oxford ingrained in his 

 mind by a residence in the Ionian Islands, Sir George 

 Bowen was apt to perceive the analogies between the 

 state of Homeric Greece and pastoral Queensland, The 

 "runs" that have replaced the old "sheep-walks" 

 he found verbally anticipated in the 8po/xoi ivptt^ (or 

 " cattle runs," as Liddell and Scott have it) of the 

 Odyssey, and the comparison had already been made by 

 Mr. Gladstone, who was at one time Minister of the 

 Colonies. The high plateau of the Darling Downs 

 reminded him of mountainous Thessaly, and there he 

 found the Larissce campus opimce — "the prairie of 

 opulent Thessaly," while the Peneus had a worthy 

 successor in the Condamine, and the surrounding hills 

 recalled Pindus and Olympus ; he might have added 

 that the snowy crown of the mountain of the gods, with 

 the snowfalls that still occur in Athens, are paralleled 

 by the occasional winter-mantle of the Downs. 



The pastoral system of New South Wales curiously 

 resembles all or most of the other pastoral systems the 

 world has seen at different stages in its history. It 

 may even be said to recapitulate them, as the embryo 

 retraces the evolution of its parent species. It certainly 

 has a remarkable resemblance to the Roman domain. 

 At the summit of that was the Imperial domain, 

 constantly being swollen by confiscations, and amounting 

 under Nero, who confiscated the estates of the six 

 largest proprietors, to one-haK of Roman Africa. So 

 did the fee-simple of New South Wales, which in the 

 early days embraced Victoria and Queensland, belong 

 to the British Government. Its composition was akin 

 to that of the Roman saltus, and consisted of uncleared 

 forest, pastoral lands, and agricultural farms. The 

 status of the denizens on it was similar. There were 

 convicts, who were virtually slaves, at the base ; above 

 these, in both systems, were freedmen, emancipated 



