Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/94

 does try the temper severely, and if a few strong observations do at times escape, there is great provocation. Many of them think also that the bullocks won't go without it. It is wonderful to see the places these animals go up and down with loaded drays, and the deep quagmires they will go through. As an instance of the expedients of an Australian bullock-driver, I will just mention that the common mode of dragging a very steep hill, where the ordinary contrivance for this purpose would be quite inadequte [sic], is to cut a tree down at the top of the hill, and to tie it with a chain to the back of the dray, where it acts as a most efficient drag. This has always struck me as the sublime of bullock-driving. To give an idea of the difficulties to which these men are exposed in some parts of the country, I may state that, in one journey in November, 1842, I passed, within seventy miles of Portland Bay, seven bullocks that had been drowned in attempting to bring drays across the river Grange, one dray that had been plundered by the natives, and then shoved into a waterhole, and two others stuck in different swamps, with their axletrees broken. This was, however, a particularly wet spring, and in many places, for half a mile and more, the road lay through swamps, where the water reached up nearly to my saddle-skirts.

The emigrants, or new hands, contrast in some respects very favourably with the class which I have sketched. They are more easily managed, have fewer tricks, are less fond of change, often remaining for a long time in the same situation, seeming to become attached to their employers, and to take an interest in