Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/364

 oo-- ADELAIDE AND VICINITY Hon. Andrew Tennant, M.L.C. OF the men who made Australia, the pastoral settlers in the lonely and forbidding wilderness are not the least. These men have entered the theatre of hardship with a smiling face, and voluntarily accepted a living burial of months and years duration. Though the pioneer of Africa had to fight wild beasts and wild men, the pioneer interior pastoralist of Aus- tralia had to face more dispiriting enemies. There is some excite- ment in a battle with large game ; there is nothing inspiriting in an encounter with droughts, in melan- choly scenery and awful silence. But the squatters in the interior deserts of South Australia have always shown the courage and persistency of truly brave men. A glance at the map of the Province conveys an impression of distance; a perusal of the works of explorers in these wilds tells of dread deso- lation and every kind of dis- couragement. And yet men of the good old home stock have b(en found willing to face the dangers and difficulties of the remote "bush"; and among such in South Australia have been members of the Tennant family. Mr. Andrew Tennant was born in Dumfriesshire in 1835. His father, Mr. John Tennant, was one of the earliest pioneers of the when Andrew was but three years Hammer ijf Co., Photo Province of .South Australia, arriving here in 1838, old. Immediately upon his arrival, Mr. John Tennant began pastoral pursuits at Dry Creek, near Adelaide. In those days the pastoralist desiring wealth depended chiefly on the natui-al increase of his flocks. To purchase stock cost a modest fortune ; and to sell sheep was at times equally difficult. .So the pastoralist had to carefully nurture his small flock — not even killing an animal for food ; while the blackfellow, whenever he could, wantonly speared the stock, and thus often ruined the struggling owner. Mr. John Tennant, however, gradually extended his operations, selecting station properties at the