Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/93

 This sketch would he imperfect, did I finish it without mentioning the bullock-drivers, who are generally old hands, and are a wonderfully persevering and enterprising set of men. Driving bullocks in a hot wind, when there is much dust, and the road stony and difficult, can only be equalled by the same operation in cold, wet weather, when the ground is deep and swampy, when the wheel is constantly up to the nave in the mud, and the water frequently over the bed of the dray. These men generally curse and swear most awfully, to swear like a trooper being but a feeble image to any one who has heard an Australian bullock-driver. I recollect once seeing a fellow stand on the edge of a small, but deep swamp, not very far from Portland Bay, and fairly curse his team through it. Whenever there was the least check, out would come a fresh volley, which seemed to produce a wonderful effect. Bad as this was, I overtook another on the same day who appeared to me even worse. The weather was very bad, and the road very much cut up. This latter driver seemed to have been drilled into not swearing; but he used to say " Bless your pretty hearts*' in such a bitter ironical tone, and then from his heavy whip would come such a cut, in which seemed concentrated the whole venom of his composition, that this mode of combining the "suaviter in modo" with the "fortitèr in ré," seemed to me more disgusting than the undisguised ruffianism of the other. Certainly driving bullocks