CHAPTER XXXVI 



SOCIAL LIFE, SPORTS, AND RECREATIONS 



Social life was cheerful and bright in those early days. 

 What society, we may wonder, could there be on the 

 Darling Downs, where each station, or little group of 

 human beings, was separated from all the others -by 

 many miles of roadless tracks, where there were few 

 women, few luxuries of any kind, few of those contriv- 

 ances subsidiary, but so necessary, to enjoyment 1 Yet 

 those days, by the account of those who lived through 

 them, were the happy period, the golden age, of young 

 pastoral Queensland. In 1843 there were already twelve 

 stations on the Downs. There some house, whether a 

 station or that of a Commissioner of Lands, was a social 

 centre that " it would have been hard to match for 

 good-fellowship and warm attachments." The beauty 

 of the new scenery and the delightful atmosphere gave 

 health to all, imparted cheerfulness, and engendered 

 social brightness. There were constant rounds of visits, 

 and everywhere the guests met with a hearty welcome. 

 Reciprocal services were cheerfully rendered. A cheery 

 spirit was ever the squatter's viaticum. Hope gilded the 

 future and cast retrospective rays upon the present. 



Those who have lived through the patriarchal phase 

 in AustraUa or New Zealand recalled their life there 

 with the regretful longing that we feel for " days that 

 are no more." The wife of one of the oldest pioneer 

 settlers in Queensland said that " those wild days were 

 the happiest," and the lady who reports the saying 

 speaks in her own name as well. *' Those journeys, 



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