THE SQUATTING TOWNSHIP 301 



On the roads or in the streets would be seen parties 

 of aboriginals — ^the men in tattered clothes, the women 

 in shirts or skirts, sometimes wearing opossum cloaks, 

 and often carrying children on their backs. For some 

 kind of clothing was compulsory by law. Most of them 

 idly loitered. Sometimes the men chopped wood or 

 brought water. The gins might be engaged in domestic 

 duties. Some begged for tobacco or money. Others 

 sat or lay stretched alongside of a building, sleeping 

 or singing, " A merry, happy, tolerably well-fed, dirty, 

 greasy set of black people, with a pecuhar smoky, 

 overpowering smell about them," is the judgment of 

 the new chum on the Australian indigenes. 



Or take another picture of a squatters' township, 

 whose size and importance has been swelled by the 

 alleged discovery of a gold-field in the neighbourhood. 

 Like Ipswich, Rockhampton is a depot of supplies for 

 the stations that are being taken up and stocked in 

 the vicinity. It swarms with young men who belong 

 to these stations and who are down for supphes. Others 

 were about to start on an exploring expedition or had 

 just returned from it, and were loading suppHes and 

 waiting for the arrival of the Crown Lands Commis- 

 sioner to inspect their run. Others still were over- 

 landers, who were driving overland mobs of cattle, 

 sheep, or horses for sale or to stock runs. Crowds of 

 shepherds, stockmen, drovers, bullock-drivers, shearers, 

 bushmen, were recklessly spending their hard-won 

 cheques. Swarms of loafers hung about them. And 

 there was the usual cortege of Government officials, 

 bankers, merchants, and publicans who were dependent 

 on the squatting crowd. The band of young men who 

 were overflowing with vitality and high spirits, gave 

 the town a disagreeable reputation for rowdyism. 

 Drinking, fighting, practical joking, and blatant boasting 

 went on at all hours of the day, and in the intervals 

 a Httle business was transacted.* 



Larger towns than either Ipswich or Rockhampton 

 * Grant, Bush Life, ii. 7-9. 



