Page:Old Melbourne Memories.djvu/79

 THE CHILDREN OF THE ROCKS

had taken up Ettrick and Ellangowan, a few miles higher up on the same creek, about the same time that I "sat down" on the Lower Eumeralla. This gentleman, since an officer of high rank in the volunteer force, had lately come from Tasmania, whence he brought some valuable blood mares, with which he founded a stud in after years. The cattle run comprised a good deal of lava country. It was there that Bradbury, the civilised aboriginal before mentioned, met his death. All the land that lay between Eumeralla proper and the sea, a tract of country of some twenty or thirty miles square, had been probably from time immemorial a great hunting-ground and rendezvous for the surrounding tribes. It was no doubt eminently fitted for such a purpose. It swarmed with game, and in the spring was one immense preserve of every kind of wild fowl and wild animal that the country owned.

Among the Rocks there were innumerable caves, depressions, and hiding-places of all kinds, in which the natives had been used to find secure retreat and