Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/350

 is a hard thing for a man to go into exile with his cattle and his black retainers, but if Australian or European women will consent to share the hardships, and the rough life, and the loneliness, in order to make a home for their men; bringing to it, as opportunity offers, the atmosphere and the comforts of civilisation, the problem of opening up the inland country is helped considerably on its way. That there are compensations in the life no one can doubt, who has talked with those who know it, or seen the lonely homesteads in the bush, that wonderful primeval forest with its manifold beauty and mystery.

For those who stay at home, no better idea of it can be derived than from reading Mrs. Gunn's "We of the Never Never," in which she describes the daily life of a cattle station up-country, and all her odd adventures with the native servants, honest warm-hearted creatures, with the artless cunning, and the caprices of children. The residents of Port Darwin talked of the light-hearted gaiety of their native servants, and their happy irresponsibility. Yet they seem to work well in their own erratic way; but from time to time they find the call of the wild irresistible, then they obey it, and steal away to their native island, or forest tribe, till the conditions of life there weary them, and the whim seizes them to return.