Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/241

 How often has that picture been recalled to me in later years amid the arid plains of Australia Deserta! The sad-toned, far-stretching shore—the angry storm-voices of the terrible deep—the little band of horsemen—the lowing, half-wild drove—the red-litten cloud prison, wherein the sun lay dying!

Pleasant exceedingly, in contrast, when the cattle were yarded and rails securely pegged, to unsaddle and walk into the house, where lights and glowing fires, with a well-appointed table, awaited us, presided over by a Chatelaine whose soft voice and ever-varied converse, mirthful or mournful, serious or satirical, practical or poetic, never failed to soothe and interest.

Stock-riding in those days, half real business, half sport, as we youngsters held it to be, was certainly not one of those games into which, as Lindsay Gordon sings—"No harm could possibly find its way."

Part of the "Yambuk" run was distinctly dangerous riding. Where the wombats dug their treacherous shafts and galleries, how many a good steed and horseman have I seen o'erthrown! These peculiar night-feeding animals, akin to the badger of the old country, burrowed much among the coast hummocks. Their open shafts, though not particularly nice to ride among at speed, with your horse's head close behind the hard-pressed steer, were trifling drawbacks compared to the horizontal "drives" into which, when mined too near the surface, your horse's feet often broke. The solid turf would disappear, and letting your horse into a concealed pitfall up to