Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/56

 signal benefit, to imbibe elevated ideas, to share broad and ennobling ideas of colonisation.

As soon as we could see next morning the cattle were let out and "tailed" on the thick, rich pasturage, which surrounded every homestead in those good old days. After breakfast I set out to find my station; that is, the exact spot where it had pleased my retainers to camp. I found them about seven miles westward of Dunmore, on a cape of lightly-timbered land which ran into the great Eumeralla marsh; a corresponding point of the lava country, popularly known as The Rocks, jutted out to meet it. On this was a circular pond-like depression, where old Tom, my venerable guide and explorer, had in a time of drought once seen a dingo drinking. He had christened it the Native Dog Hole—a name which it bears to this day. And at the Doghole-point had my man Joe Burge commenced to fell timber for a brush-yard, put up the walls of a sod hut, unpacked such articles as would not suffer from weather, and generally commenced the first act of homestead occupation. I was greeted with enthusiasm. And as Old Tom the stock-rider was at once despatched to Dunmore to bring over the cattle, with Mr. Cunningham, my friend and travelling companion, I hobbled out my charger and proceeded to inspect my newly-acquired territory.