Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/183

Rh caked lake-bed; but that would have implied foresight and system with respect to settlement, not to be expected of a country where few look beyond their nose, or wider than the lobbies of Parliament House.

Nay, some water-works there may be near the thirsting selector. Of these, however, a few "boss-cockies" are the virtually self-appointed trustees. Their own wide wheat-fields they drown in ignorant endeavour to irrigate. Every care at least they take that no water passes them down the baked channels—run, by the way, beneath the surface instead of above it. The wheat-fed selector has the satisfaction of knowing that hundreds of thousands of pounds have been expended by an enterprising State on "colossal irrigation works." He may know that the overgrown farmer who represents him in Parliament has enough water and to spare. Strange to say, such reflections impart not extra relish to the baked-wheat coffee and 'possum puddings of his Sunday's repast. He is an unreasonable man.

Be it remembered, not every year, by a great many, brings a drought. Thousands of yeomen have overcome a score of the disabilities outlined in these pages, and by dint of sheer pluck have established themselves on the broad acres they own. Within the favoured Vale of Mimosa "the sound of many waters" was ever in the ear.

the settler is singing. His wife is watching her rosy-cheeked two-year-old paddle amongst the sedges. Along the wide channels maidens are propelling their dingeys. The village hand is angling for "a bit of a fish to take home to the missus."