The War with Nature. 87 



dainty gentleman is obliged to blacken his own 

 boots, tame and harness to the plough his own 

 bullocks or horses, kill and cook his own mutton. 

 Nothing is here, in fact, but harsh Nature reluctant 

 to be subdued ; while he, to subdue her and make 

 his own conditions, has only a pair of soft weak 

 hands. 



To one fresh from the softness and smoothness of 

 civilization, unaccustomed to manual labour, how 

 hard then is the lot of the settler ! Behind him 

 physical comfort and beautiful dreams ; before him 

 the prospect of long years of unremitting toil, every 

 day of which will unfit him more and more for a 

 return to the gentle life of the past ; while, for only 

 result, he will have food enough to satisfy hunger, 

 and a rude shelter from extremes of heat and cold, 

 from torrents of winter rain and blinding clouds of 

 summer dust. Yet is he happy. For the vanished 

 substantial comforts and airy splendours there is a 

 compensation gilding his rough existence with a 

 better brightness than that of any hope of future 

 prosperity which may yet linger in his mind. It is 

 the feeling the settler experiences from the moment 

 of his induction into the desert that he is engaged 

 in a conflict, and there is no feeling comparable 

 with it to put a man on his mettle and inspire him 

 with a healthy and enduring interest in life. To 

 this feeling is added the charm of novelty caused 

 by that endless procession of surprises which nature 

 prepares for the pioneer an experience unknown to 

 the rural life of countries that have long been under 



