Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/196

Rh A horse that we purchased had the strange history (with which, however, we were not acquainted until after buying him) of having escaped into the bush with a side-saddle on his back, and of having remained there running wild for a year, when he was again caught, but in an unsaddled condition. How or by what means the horse had managed to rid himself of the encumbrance remains of course a mystery, but the recollection of it haunted him to the extent of making him dangerous to his rider, as, whenever anything alarmed him, he seemed to think that the old saddle was still upon his back, and that its removal required frantic exertions.

The young people of Western Australia naturally find their chief amusement in their horses, as without them they would have no means of getting about from place to place, or of enjoying any intercourse with their friends and neighbours. A girl, therefore, looks upon a side-saddle of her own as a possession much to be coveted, and one that she will take not a little trouble to obtain. I heard of some young ladies who, with this object in view, most industriously set to work picking gum until they had collected enough to exchange with a storekeeper for the much-desired prize. To make this intelligible, I must explain that this gum which flows from the wattle-trees is almost identical with gum-arabic, and is used in Manchester for the same purposes, chiefly stiffening calicos, so that at times there is a considerable demand for it, the storekeepers giving at such periods threepence a pound in ready-money for as much as can be brought to them. It is also used as a sort of sweetmeat or lollipop, whence the soubriquet "gum-suckers," as applied