NOTES OF A JOURNEY ON THE DARLING, 61 
saving of time, but even then, and when capital is plentiful, the 
lessee will in very few cases get any return for hi i 
until after the lapse of at least two years, and the time may be 
extended by a few adverse seasons to four or five years, which 
are passed through our ports. These are the spoils, and the export 
entries are often the only records of victories as great and glorious 
as any that have ever been won by “the hardy Anglo-Saxons, to 
to be met and where lives are sometimes lost, is not done with any 
public or patriotic object in view; but, nevertheless, the public 
will and do reap the benefit, and the men who undertake it 
deserve all the honour and encouragement that can be given to 
em. 
We see and hear much of the successes, but the failures—the 
cases in which money and youth, and courage and energy, and 
even life, have been expended in vain—go unrecorded. I suppose 
there must be failures; sacrifices must be offered to the spirit of 
progress-—often the best we have ; but when the victory is won, 1s 
it well to reward with abuse those who have fought the battle for 
When Jack Smith, with his trusty revolver at his side, goes 
forth into the unknown wilderness in search of a new run ora 
new gold-field, risking all that he has, even to his life, he is doing as 
ress = and, although he is unconscious of it, is as much a hero 
s. 
These back lathes had little i no value in their natural state, 
and the value which they now possess is chiefly that which has 
n given to them by the money and energy which have been 
expended on them, and these certainly formed no part of “the 
public estate,” 
To people who have seen these things and know what settle- 
ment in the dry back country really is, it is not a little stin 
hear the outcry that is continually being made about great 
