256 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



fall on the squatting families. Loss of oJBfice meant to 

 them a return to their stations in the country, which was 

 a fall from Heaven to Earth. Their fate might be 

 suspended. An appeal to the constituencies at least 

 promised a reprieve. But social " functions " were at 

 an end for a time.* 



Still, there remained the birthnight or other great balls 

 at Government House, to which ins and outs were ahke 

 invited, and then the more prominent pastoral famihes 

 shone like stars. Long years afterwards, when those 

 splendours had faded into pictures of memory, high 

 ladies would tell how, when days of continuous rain 

 made the roads impracticable for vehicles, they rode as 

 far as twenty-five miles to attend a big ball at Govern- 

 ment House, arriving in the evening at half-past six 

 o'clock. Far into the night they danced, and in the 

 glorious Australian dawn they rode back to their homes. 

 How and where did they carry their gorgeous ball- 

 dresses ? it may be asked. They had practically none. 

 Tarletan frocks were their chief raiment, and natural 

 flowers their only adorning. Those were still the days 

 of the simple life.f 



The pastoral life engendered new types of occupation. 

 It changed the character and affected the activities of 

 prominent individuals not directly connected with it. 

 It exhibited beautiful specimens, individual and domes- 

 tic, of the pastoral type. It gave a new complexion 

 to features inherited from its Oriental forms. 



It illuminated the path of empire, and opened up new 

 and vast dominions. The work of mustering and taiUng, 

 the pursuit of runaway or stampeding cattle, and the 

 amusements of the chase serve, as Gibbon, not only 

 historically but prophetically said, as " a prelude to the 

 conquest of an empire." 



The "most honourable" of the Asiatic shepherds 

 devolved on their captives the management of their 

 flocks and herds ; and the early Australian pastorahsts 



* My Australian Girlhood, p. 216. 



t Etta Young, Queenslander, August 7, 1909, p. 23. 



