204 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



to £150 a year, with food, as their lowest wage. In 

 other parts of Queensland the customary wage was 

 255. per week, with the usual rations — flour, tea, sugar, 

 oatmeal, and salt. Tobacco, soap, and matches were 

 paid for at the ordinary station-rate. The Victorians 

 at least were contented. They saved money, bought 

 stock, and became squatters. In some parts of Queens- 

 land they completed a term of service under indenture, 

 and then, with their savings, bought small farms. Many 

 of the great cattle stations in Western Queensland and 

 North-Western Australia at this day are owned or 

 managed by old bushmen.* 



Such men necessarily played a large part as " makers 

 of Australia." They were the squatters' indispensable 

 skilled instrument in the handhng of cattle. Often they 

 were but little inferior to the squatter, if also they were 

 sometimes little superior to the animals they splen- 

 didly handled. They can seldom have lived with their 

 cattle as the Laplanders live with their herds of rein- 

 deer, which look upon their masters, it is believed, but 

 as a higher sort of deer, who sometimes sink into 

 bestiality ; but the cattle in Australia knew their 

 masters and obeyed them. Many times the stockmen 

 have rendered special services. A bushman discovered 

 the district of Armidale for Mr. Dangar, his employer ; 

 and a similar incident in A Squatter's Dream may be 

 typical. 



Many of the workers on a station were regularly or 

 periodically imported. In 1836-9, at the instance of 

 Dr. Lang, eighteen shiploads of destitute persons from 

 the highlands and islands of the west of Scotland, num- 

 bering upwards of 4,000 individuals, were brought out 

 at the expense of the Colony, and landed in Sydney and 

 Melbourne. Semi-pastoral people, they were found 

 acceptable, and were scattered over New South Wales 

 and Victoria as shepherds and small farmers.f Some 



• Brodribb, Reminiscences, p. 20 ; Old Melbourne Memories, 

 ch. X. ; Bartley, Pioneerina, p. 43 ; A. E., Overlanding, p. 20. 

 I Lanq, Account, i. 267-8. 



