180 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



north-west to Myall Creek, of infamous memory.* In 

 1840 Captain McAlister despatched his overseer, 

 McMillan, on a journey that resulted in the discovery 

 of Gippsland.f R- Scougall, of Liverpool Plains, sent 

 Henry Dennis exploring up north, and he found " the 

 huge Jimbour run." Often these deputies took up runs 

 for others. The same prospector took up Dalby, on 

 Myall Creek, for Charles Coxen. 



Another would set out on horseback, hke Don Quixote, 

 in search of a run and also of " colonial experience." 

 After riding many miles he would find quarters for the 

 night in a bark hut, where, after unsaddling and hobbling 

 his pony, he would sup with some fifteen or sixteen 

 stockmen on tea, damper, and boiled beef. He would 

 sleep warm on a sheet of bark near the fireplace, under 

 a pair of not over-clean blankets, in company with the 

 stockmen. Edward Palmer spent a whole year in the 

 search of a run. 



As the art of prospecting develops, it becomes more 

 collective. At first conducted by a single individual, 

 or by two friends together, with a few servants, usually 

 convict in the beginning, each expedition now grows 

 co-operative. The party consists of a band of pro- 

 spectors (often six in number) of equal rank, who may 

 all be in search of new country, and who, indeed, may 

 be secretly endeavouring to forestall one another. In 

 older days the prospector provided the entire equip- 

 ment of his party. In more recent times each equal 

 member of the party provides a certain number of horses 

 and his share of the food and other necessaries likely 

 to be consumed or needed during the journey. There 

 may be as many as forty horses, 24 of them pack-horses, 

 laden with food-supplies, clothing, tents, medicine, and 

 tomahawks — the tomahawks being needed, not for 

 scalping the blacks, but for the chopping of wood for 

 the camp-fires. There are generally also blackboys 

 (blacks of any age), and all are weU-armed. A leader 



* Baetley, Australian Pioneers, ch. viii. 

 t Bbocbxbb, Reminiscences, p. 8. 



