244 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



station." * Often it was situated on a rise, or on a spur 

 running from the hills, as if to command the various 

 out-stations, and to provide, like the feudal castle that 

 was built on a height, against attacks by the natives ; 

 and there, like the homestead of Elsey Creek in the 

 Northern Territory, it might overlook a lagoon so large 

 that it might be called a lake. Yet also thick timber 

 and wattle bushes might hide the approaches to it, 

 though the huge trees were often stripped of their bark 

 for a mile or two, and stumps of large trees that had 

 been sawn down lay scattered. The various buildings 

 were enclosed in a paddock, and they looked ragged, 

 patched up, and rather tumble-down, yet they had on the 

 whole a comfortable appearance. Those trees that were 

 left imparted a parklike aspect to the scene. These 

 buildings formed a quadrangle or square court, in the 

 centre of which might grow a large tree, round which, 

 in Queensland, a merry circle of black girls might be 

 gathering the everlasting flowers and, amid laughter, 

 decorating their short shining curls with them. In front 

 would be a large low-verandahed cottage adorned with 

 roses. The sides were formed by the store, ^vith the 

 offices on one side and kitchen-buildings on the other. 

 The fourth side was occupied by the bachelors' hall. The 

 stable, cowshed, and dry-store were in a Une with the 

 last, while, further away were a hut for the men and a 

 substantially built stockyard. All of these structures 

 had grown up bit by bit as they were wanted, and the 

 straggHng quadrangle had "many corners and un- 

 expected doorways and passages," which made it some- 

 what of a maze. 



The germ of the whole later evolution was a rough 

 slab hut, often containing only two rooms — a hut and 

 a ben, as the Scots would say — with a sloping bark roof 

 fringing ruggedly over the eaves. The slabs stood apart, 



* Babkeb, Station Life in New Zealand, letter x. ; see also 

 Grant, Bush Life in Queensland, i. 132-5, 56, 153 ; Daly, 

 Northern Territory, 340-1. 



