262 THE PASTORAL AGE IN AUSTRALASIA 



them its fragrant pollen, and again into the scrub, 

 majestic, perfumed, gloomy, and wonderful. A deep 

 ravine blocked further progress. The riders dismounted, 

 and climbed, by the aid of compasses and poles, to the 

 Bungwhal Hump, through the virgin forest, where foot 

 of M'hite man had surely never trod before. They lost 

 tlicir bearings in the hopeless labjrrinth of the scrub. 

 In the intense gloom two of the party shpped, and one 

 of them fell down a precipice and was killed. Thus 

 ends, sometimes, an Australian picnic* 



After a bush wedding a whole cavalcade would leave 

 the station, consisting of the marriage party and the 

 family and friends, and two vanguards of blackboys ; 

 all on horseback. Four long cooees would sound the 

 farewell of the marriage pair. 



Nothing is more characteristic of Australia than its 

 race-meetings, and nothing is more indubitably part of 

 the inheritance of squatterdom. The " Arabhke love 

 for horses and their belongings that marks the pre- 

 destined son of the Waste " was found in Australia, 

 remarks Rolf Boldrewood, " as duly as at Yemen or 

 the Nejd.'' The denizens of a station Mere " reared 

 in an atmosphere " of horses; f and each son and daughter 

 of the station had a riding-horse of his or her own. 

 Moreover, in most of the British colonies at the Antipodes 

 squatters have been the chief breeders of race-horses. 

 They were also long the organizers of race-meetings. 

 The introduction of Arab blood by Patrick Leshe en- 

 gendered a new sport in Queensland, and the whole 

 countryside gathered together from far and near. For 

 many years horses were ridden at races by gentlemen 

 jockies, and then, as he rode past the grand stand, 

 when he was greeted with smiles from under gay bonnets 

 (bonnets were still fashionable in those early Victorian 

 days) the young squatter's cup of bhss was full, and 

 his thirsty lips drank deeply of it.:J: The spectacle 



* Mrs. Cami'Bell Praed, Dwellers by the River, pp. 38-77. 

 f Boldrewood, Old Melbourne Memories, ch. xxi. 

 j Russell, Oeneais of Queensland. 



