Chapter IV: First Impressions of the Bush

Next morning, my brother and I saddled up early, and started off through the Bush for Mount Spencer, directly after breakfast. There is something very bewildering about one’s first introduction to the Bush, especially in the coast country of Queensland, which is one vast stupendous forest of different sorts of trees. Mile after mile, day after day, you ride on through the forest, with a tree on an average every ten yards. If you keep in the valleys you see nothing but trees, and if you climb up a mountain you see nothing but more trees. Here and there you come upon a small open plain, a few hundred yards in extent; but until you get used to it the monotony of the endless timber is appalling, and it is easy to realise the terrible madness that so often comes over those who get lost in the Bush. The only change is from white gum-trees on the flats, to black iron-barks on the ridges, and one ridge and one flat is so like another, to an inexperienced eye, it seems incredible that anyone can ever find their way about, or know exactly where they are. Some people never can, and I have known natives of the country, who have lived for twenty years in the Bush, and who have still been helpless to get from one place to another without a guide, in country that they had ridden over for years. These are the exceptions, however, and, as a rule, a man with a moderate bump of locality soon learns the art of finding his way in the Bush. Very slight landmarks will serve to guide a good Bushman, for no two places are really exactly alike, and on the coast country there is generally some mountain or other to get a sight of, which will enable anyone who knows the country he is in to take his bearings. Away on the open rolling plains of the West, or, worse still, in country covered with endless brigalow scrub, the Bushman has often not a single mark to guide him for many miles, except the sun or stars. In such country, finding one’s way about is reduced to an instinct, which is a natural gift by no means to be acquired; and unless a man be endowed with it, he had better never attempt to wander far alone in the trackless wilds of the Australian Bush. Many a man who has tried it, under the delusion that he was born to be an explorer, has paid the penalty of his rashness with his life. Witness the fate of Burke and Wills, whose miserable end was due not nearly so much to the force of circumstances, as to their being by nature utterly unfitted to find their way about the Bush; for they perished within a few miles of their own plant of provisions, without having the slightest idea where they were.

The first thing that strikes one is the lifeless solitude of the Bush. The fierce searching light of a vertical sun prevents it from being gloomy, and, indeed, the trees in the open timbered country give a very scanty shade, but everywhere there is a weird solemn stillness that is most impressive. In the middle of the day, birds and beasts retire to the cool shade of the scrubs on the banks of the creeks, and there is not a sound to be heard, nor a living thing to be seen. The accumulated silence of a thousand years seems to brood over some of the mountains and valleys of this vast land, where, perhaps, the sound of man’s voice has never yet been heard. Now and then a light breeze rustles in the tops of the trees, which move softly, as if stirring in their sleep, but it quickly passes away, and sunshine and silence are everywhere again. But the sensation of loneliness very soon wears off, and in a little while even the endless trees come to look like friends in whose company it is no hardship to pass a day. There is a deep fascination about the freedom of the Bush, whose subtle influence very soon enslaves those who go to live there, and generally unsettles them for any other mode of living.

A “new chum,” as a new arrival in Australia is called, is never very long in the country without getting some sort of fall off a horse, and I got my first one a few miles from the Hollow. Like nine out of every ten station horses, the animal I was riding had a sore back, and was girth-galled as well, so I was riding with the girths very loose. Now there is one thing in riding through the Bush which the sooner a man learns the better, and that is, however fast he is going, and however thick the timber is, never to attempt to guide his horse clear of the trees. As long as he gives him his head and does not attempt to interfere with him, his horse will never run him against a tree; but he is certain only to have one side to his mouth, and any efforts to keep him clear of one tree will probably send him into another. The way in which an old stock-horse shaves the trees with just a couple of inches to spare, at racing pace, makes his rider’s hair stand on end, and gives him a cold feeling down the back at first, but he soon drops down to sitting back and leaving his horse to steer clear of the timber by himself. These sorts of little peculiarities are so well known to everyone who has been a little while in the country, that they always forget to tell anyone of them who has not. As I followed my brother at a hard canter along the track winding through the timber, an ill-judged attempt to induce my horse to give rather a wider berth to a gigantic gum-tree produced exactly the opposite effect, and a collision was the result. The girths being quite loose, the cant which we got from the gum-tree, turned me and my saddle half round, and, as my intelligent animal at once redoubled its speed, it was not long before we parted. I landed on my shoulder, and the pace at which we were going sent me head over heels, my farther advance being abruptly stopped by an iron-bark tree, against which I brought up with considerable violence. My horse tore past my brother, who immediately set off after it, and they both disappeared in the Bush. The first impulse of anyone under the circumstance would have been to have a smoke, and my temper was by no means improved by finding that my pipe had been smashed to pieces between myself and the iron-bark tree. However, I set off down the track, and after about half a mile, met my brother coming back, leading my horse. He had hunted it for about a mile, and fortunately bailed it up between two gullies, and caught it; for, as a rule, it takes at least three men to surround a loose horse in the Bush, and even then, unless it is a very quiet one, they will not catch it. After about fifteen miles of low ridges and flats, we came to the foot of the main coast range.

A zigzag road cut through the scrub took us over the pass, and the moment that we got to the top the change in the atmosphere was quite extraordinary. Though the sun was just as hot, there was a delightfully fresh light feeling in the air, the horses ceased to sweat, and one felt the same sensation as when one comes out of a greenhouse into the open air. The top of the range was covered with spotted or scented gum, the perfume of which is very strong, and rather like that of a lemon-scented verbena.

About sixteen miles of monotonous stony ridges covered with endless black iron-barks brought us to a dense clump of wattles, a sort of mimosa--tall, feathery, graceful trees, with leaves like a willow, and sweet-scented yellow flowers. Through this the road passed, and we emerged on to a piece of level country covered with white poplar-gums and grass-trees. The latter are most comical-looking objects. They have a black bare stem, from one to eight feet high, surmounted by a tuft of a sort of half rushes and half grass, out of which, again, grows a long thing exactly like a huge bulrush. A lot of them always grow together, and a little way off they are not unlike the illustrations of Red Indian chiefs in Fenimore Cooper’s novels. The tuft of grass at the top has a sort of core, white and soft, that tastes rather like a Spanish chestnut, and is good to eat, when there is nothing else to be had. About a mile along the flat brought us to the Mount Spencer horse-paddock fence, through which we passed, and got to the station just at sundown.

Somehow or other, in Australia, no matter how long or how short one’s journey is, one nearly always gets to the end of it about sundown, which seems to be the orthodox hour, especially for strangers, to arrive at a station. As we emerged from the timber in the paddock into the large open space in which the station lay, it struck me as one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. As a rule, on the coast country the timber is so thick that the look-out is necessarily very limited, and although here and there there are very pretty spots, it is very seldom that there is a panorama of any extent worth looking at. Of course on the downs you can see as far as the horizon in every direction, but the monotony of the rolling plains of grass is almost as bad as the Atlantic. The view, however, from Mount Spencer is magnificent, and certainly beats anything I ever saw in Australia. The station stands on a low broad ridge, which was originally timbered like the surrounding Bush; but the trees have all been cleared away, the stumps burned out, and the holes filled in, so that the ground is now a smooth expanse of short green turf, sloping gently down to the edge of a large lagoon, about 300 yards away. The lagoon itself is a mile and a half long, and about a mile across, the centre covered with water-lilies, and the edges fringed with a thick wide belt of rushes. On the far side from the station a forest of huge gum-trees follows the winding shores of the lagoon, its outline broken by one or two little promontories running out into the water; and above the forest, like an amphitheatre, rise the mountains of the coast, running back in broken rocky spurs to Blue Mountain, a vast densely-wooded range 3000 feet high and fourteen miles away.

The sun had just set when we arrived, and everything was deadly still. The shadow from the hills at the back of the station had fallen across the lagoon, in whose dark waters the forms of the white gum-trees around were perfectly reflected. The shades of evening had fallen upon the forest, but the mountain ranges beyond were still lit up with the rosy after-glow of sunset, and looked almost transparent against the deep pure blue of an autumn evening sky. Hundreds of water-fowl of every description were dotted over the expanse of the lagoon, the ducks now and then rising up in flights, and passing over the station to a swamp at the back. Rows of solemn-looking white egrets were sitting on the fences, running out into the water, or stalking about amongst the reeds; and high overhead a solitary pelican was wheeling round in circles, with wings outstretched and motionless. Now and again a flock of whistlers would rise up with a tremendous clatter and excitement out of the rushes, as if they were frightened out of their wits, and then, after going for a fly round, settle again close to where they started from. The shores of the lagoon, in front of the station, between the two fences of the small paddock, were always kept as a sanctuary for all the ducks and white fowl. Here they were never fired at. They knew it perfectly well, and, when inside the bounds, they were so tame that they would let anyone walk up to within twenty yards of them.

On the far side of the lagoon the smoke of a Black’s camp was rising up through the trees, and a mob of cattle were standing up to their knees in the water, taking their evening drink, and lazily nibbling at the rushes round them. The whole place looked wonderfully peaceful and quiet,--altogether the kind of place that it would be very easy to make a home of, and where it would be very difficult to keep up the feelings of an exile for very long.

The last feed on a station--dinner, tea, supper, or whatever it may be called--is always just after dark, and is the most solid meal in the day. Bushmen smoke so much and drink so much tea, that they are rather mean performers at breakfast, and in the middle of the day they are generally out on the run, but there must be something wrong if they cannot eat a square meal in the evening. After we had had supper, and a smoke, of course, I was shown my camp, which was a slab hut about a hundred yards away from the big house. The furniture consisted of a canvas stretcher for a bed, a fragment of looking-glass balanced on two nails driven into a post, a table with a tin basin, and a bucket. But there were heaps of blankets, and a fireplace, which is all that is wanted to make one perfectly comfortable. The slabs which formed the sides of the hut were put up vertically, and as I lay in bed the spaces between them afforded a fine view of the surrounding country. There was no door, and the roof was not as water-tight as it might have been, so that when it rained, five little streamlets of water descended on my bed; but I subsequently diverted them on to the floor by means of a couple of sheets of corrugated iron, which I secured overhead.

Besides the light of a wood fire, the inside of the hut was illuminated by a fat-lamp, a simple contrivance, in the form of a jam-tin full of fat, with a fragment of tweed trousers stuck through a hole in the top for a wick, which gives a very fair light. I was rather tired, and not sorry for the prospect of a camp; but when I dragged back the blankets to turn in, I discovered an enormous carpet-snake, about eleven feet long, comfortably coiled up in my bunk. It raised its head lazily, and after looking at me for a second or two with a want of interest that I was far from feeling myself, it coiled itself up again, and prepared for another sleep. My brother had just gone, but I shouted to him to bring a stick or something and help me kill it. He came back and looked in.

“What’s the matter? Snake? Oh, don’t kill that one. That’s a tame one, that belongs to Rice. He wouldn’t have it killed for anything, and, besides, it’s only a carpet-snake, and they are perfectly harmless.”

“H’m, it’s all very well to say it’s harmless,” I observed; “I suppose you mean it’s not poisonous. From the look of its head, it could bite a piece out of you about the size of a tea-cup, and anyhow it’s not going to sleep in my bed.”

“Oh no,” said my brother, “it has no business here. It lives in a tub. Here, I’ll take it away and put it to bed,” and seizing it by the neck, he dragged it off, and dropped it into a barrel outside the store, about fifty yards away, from which I devoutly hoped that it would not be able to get out again that night.

I turned in, in hopes of a good sleep, but I soon discovered that I was very unlikely to get it. The station seemed peaceful enough at sundown, but no sooner had night fairly settled down than a combination of noises arose that would have awakened Rip Van Winkle himself. In the first place my camp was not far from the calf-pen, in which the six or seven calves belonging to the milkers were shut up every night. These little brutes bellow incessantly all night, and their mothers come and look over the railings, and answer them. Then my partner Rice was a great poultry fancier, and had a vast army of chickens. Cocks in Australia always begin to crow about twelve o’clock at night, and leave off at sunrise, so about twelve of these pests added their voices to the general clamour, supported by a dozen or so of call-ducks, which were certainly pure-bred, if the noise that they make has anything to do with their pedigree. But the din reached its climax when a native dog howled somewhere away in the Bush. Instantly every dog on the station started up mad with excitement, and began barking with a fury that nothing but exhaustion could abate. Two Russian wolf-hounds, three Kangaroo-dogs, three cattle-dogs, four bull-dogs, and five fox-terriers, all started a volley of barking which was kept up incessantly for a quarter of an hour, and then slackened down to a sort of platoon-fire of yaps and howls which lasted the rest of the night. In time one gets perfectly used to this sort of nocturnal concert, and can sleep through any amount of it; but at first it is simply maddening, not one wink of sleep did I get the first night, and I was glad when daylight came, and it was time to turn out.

No words can describe the glory of a morning in the Australian Bush. There is a pure soft freshness about the air, full of the peculiar scent of the gum-trees, of which no one ever tires, and a sparkling brilliancy in the morning sunlight that no other climate can produce. Surely this is the time of all others for a smoke. There is sure to be something left in your pipe from the night before. If not, fill it again, and light it with a fire-stick from the hearth; and years after, if you are a true lover of the weed, you will own that no smoke in the world comes up to the one before breakfast on a summer’s morning in the Bush. There is something in the climate that brings out the flavour of tobacco, and a good deal in the way of living that encourages smoking; for Bushmen, as a race, are probably the heaviest smokers in existence. The tobacco they smoke is very good and very strong, mostly manufactured in America, and known as fig-tobacco. When once a man takes to smoking it, it ruins him for any other sort of tobacco, but as a general rule, about ten years is as long as a man can go on smoking it without finding that it is knocking his nerves to pieces. A fig a day, or just short of an ounce, is a common allowance, but a Bushman’s pipe is never out of his mouth. He is always lighting it to have a few whiffs, which is a most poisonous form of smoking. The last thing he puts away at night, and the first thing he looks for in the morning, is his pipe; and if he wakes in the night, he has a smoke then.

I was not long in falling into the ways of the country in this respect, and, lighting a pipe, I sallied out to have a look round. A soft white curtain of mist was rising off the lagoon and rolling away before the sun, to gather for a little while on the sides of the deep blue mountains around before it finally disappeared. The sun rose over the range in a blaze of heat, turning the dark waters of the lagoon into a sheet of gold, and streaming through the forest in long bands of glittering light. The water-fowl on the lagoon awoke, uttering a hundred different cries, the ducks standing up on the lily leaves and flapping the dew from their wings. Close to the station one or two butcher-birds were piping their morning song, a strange little melody with not many notes, which no one who has heard it will ever forget. On a dead iron-bark tree, just outside the horseyard, three or four black crows were sitting, talking to each other, and looking as wise as nothing but an Australian crow ever did. They are far the most interesting birds in the Bush, and the way in which they talk to each other is simply fascinating, for it really seems as if one could not help knowing exactly what they are saying.

Round the store-door a sound assortment of poultry were assembled waiting for their morning feed, most of them thoroughbred game, bred from imported birds, and on the roof were about a hundred pigeons of every conceivable breed. Rice was immensely fond of his chickens and pigeons, never went home to England without bringing back a fresh supply, and some of the birds which he raised on the station were very high-class specimens indeed. Besides all these he always had a menagerie of tame birds and beasts of all kinds. When I got there the collection contained an eagle-hawk, three crested falcons, seven wood-ducks, five whistlers, a magpie, three teal, a kangaroo, a wallaroo, a native bear, five flying squirrels, three spur-winged plovers, and a cageful of parrots and small birds, and last, but not least, the infernal carpet-snake which I found in my bed. They were all quite tame, and, except the flying squirrels and parrots, which lived in cages, and the eagle-hawk, which had a string to its leg, they all used to hang about the place on the loose.

The station itself was quite a small village of houses. The big house stood a little way apart, in a garden with a paling-fence round it, about eighty yards square. Unfortunately it was right on the top of a quartz ridge, where there was very little soil, so that it was difficult to get trees of any size to grow; but all sorts of creepers throve wonderfully. In front of the house were one or two Poincianas, and a very pretty bunya, a sort of fir-tree; and round every pile of the house grew masses of scarlet geraniums, which are supposed to possess the virtue of keeping away snakes. At the back there was a rockwork covered with beautiful ferns, and beyond that a small pond with dwarf bamboos round it, where the tame wild-ducks lived.

The house itself was a very comfortable building, two stories high, about sixty feet long and thirty-five feet wide, built upon round piles seven feet high, with an eight-foot verandah all round. Down below was the dining-room, with a huge brick fireplace, the pantry, a small store, an office and a bathroom. Over the dining-room was the sitting-room, also with a large fireplace, and with “French-lights” opening on to the verandah, and, on the same floor, four very comfortable bedrooms. The house, with the exception of the chimney, was built entirely of wood, the walls being made of iron-bark slabs, dressed very smooth, and laid horizontally; and the roof covered with shingles, which are small pieces of wood, eighteen inches long and about four inches wide, split out of iron-bark or stringy-bark wood. If properly laid on, with sufficient pitch, shingles make about the best roof possible for a hot climate; they are perfectly water tight, keep out the heat, and last for many years. But there is a good deal of art in laying them on, and unless it is done scientifically, they let the water through like a sieve. The sitting-room was very well furnished, with any amount of tables, pictures, bookshelves, armchairs, and above all an excellent piano. Rice and my brother had been there for some years, and had made the place very comfortable, and altogether hardly what one would expect to find in the Bush.

Near the house stood the kitchen, with a cook’s room adjoining, and a little covered way all overgrown with creepers, leading from it to the house.

About a hundred yards away were the rest of the station buildings, consisting of two stocksmen’s houses, a store, a meathouse, the spare hut in which I camped, the men’s kitchen, the blacksmith’s forge, and the black boys’ hut, all slab buildings with shingle roofs; also a large dovecot and a row of fowlhouses, surrounded by wire-netting yards, and beyond these again the milking-yards, killing-yard, calf-pens, and horseyards.

Having completed my round of the station, I had just arrived at the rails of the horseyard, when I heard a sound like distant thunder away down the horse-paddock. In a few seconds a mob of about seventy horses came tearing down the track in a cloud of dust, with their tails in the air, and dashed into the big yard, of which the slip rails were down. Behind them came a black boy, cantering leisurely along, who proceeded to put up the rails, and then, taking the saddle off the horse he was riding, he turned him out in hobbles into the small paddock. All the station-horses in use are run up every morning into the yards, and then turned out again, when the stockmen have picked out those that they require for the day.

Anyone would think that with seventy or eighty horses in the yard, and only three or four men to ride, there would be plenty for everyone. But a nearer inspection generally shows that at least half of them are unavailable from sore backs or want of condition. No one ever yet saw a cattle station that was not in a chronic state of being short of horses, and it is easier for a stranger to squeeze blood out of a stone than to borrow a horse from the manager.

Sore backs and girth-galls are the curse of Australian Bush-riding, and are chiefly due to carelessness on the part of the riders. Of course a horse fed entirely upon grass is much more liable to a sore back than one which is fed upon corn. Then, again, they are never groomed, and, therefore, their coats are very dirty. The colonial saddle, too, is a shapeless cumbersome fabric, made of rough leather, with a high pommel and cantel, and huge knee-pads, weighing on an average 20 lbs. The greatest care is necessary to prevent such a diabolical machine from giving a horse a sore back, but still it can be done. The chief points to attend to are, always to brush a horse’s back before putting the saddle on, to wash it and rub it dry after taking the saddle off, and to keep the saddle-cloth scrupulously clean and soft. Few Bushmen ever take the trouble to use these precautions, and the consequence is that it is the rarest thing in the world to see a Bush horse over three years old that has not got either a sore back or the mark of an old sore. An English saddle seldom gives a horse a sore back; with decent care, and all the time I was in the Colony I always used one, unless I knew the horse I was going to ride was certain to buck, in which case it is perfectly hopeless to try and stick on in an English saddle. I have seen men ride very bad buck-jumpers barebacked, and I have often _heard_ of men who could ride them in an English saddle, but I never saw it done, and do not believe that it is possible. As long as a horse bucks straight ahead it is all right enough, being no worse than crossing a succession of high fences; but when he takes to bucking sideways, and turning round as he bucks, I never saw anyone that could stay on in an English saddle.

The performance of buck-jumping is a most extraordinary one to watch, and still more extraordinary to feel underneath one. When seated on a bucking horse the rider sees nothing whatever in front of him but the pommel of the saddle, and feels rather as if he was assisting at an earthquake or a railway accident. The performance is quite peculiar to Australian horses, and no one who has not seen them at it would believe the rapid contortions of which they are capable. In bucking, a horse tucks his head right between his forelegs, sometimes striking his jaw with his hind feet. The back, meantime, is arched like a boiled prawn’s; and in this position the animal makes a series of tremendous bounds, sometimes forwards, sometimes sideways and backwards, keeping it up for several minutes with intervals of a few seconds, and occasionally falling flat down and rolling over his rider if he fails to get rid of him in any other way. Of course a “new chum” succumbs at once to the movements of a buck-jumper, but, after a little practice, anyone who keeps his nerve and sits back can easily learn to stick on in a colonial saddle with big knee-pads to help him. With practice some men become extraordinary hands at sitting rough horses, and a favourite piece of “flashness” is to stick half-a-crown between each thigh and the saddle, and keep it there while the horse is bucking.

The great art consists in getting cleverly on to a rowdy horse; for it is before a man is fairly seated, just as he is swinging himself on, that a horse is likely to get the best of him. An old hand draws the reins tightly through his fingers, and takes hold of a piece of the mane with the same hand to keep his horse’s head well in to his neck, and then, with his face to the horse’s tail, he sneaks one foot into the stirrup, and swings himself into his seat with the rapidity of lightning. A great deal of practice is required to do this neatly, and to avoid touching the horse with either foot during the act of mounting, which would almost certainly start it bucking if it were that way inclined.

The ordinary run of Bush horses show a great deal of breeding, but they are generally deficient in bone, and the worst point about them is the shoulder. You often come across a well-shaped one in every other point, but the whole time that I was in the Bush I never saw a really pretty pair of shoulders on a horse. They run about fifteen two in height, and are very low in the wither, which accounts for the extraordinary feat which I have several times witnessed, of a horse bucking its rider and saddle over its head, without breaking the girths. But whatever they may be to look at, horses raised in the Bush have generally a good heart inside them, and the amount of work that they will do upon nothing but grass is almost incredible.

A ride of a hundred miles from sunrise to sundown is no uncommon performance, and there is a well-authenticated instance of a man who, for a large bet, rode a pony a hundred miles in that time, and then carried it a hundred yards. The unfortunate animal died, and the man ought to have been knocked on the head for his cruelty, but the feat stands recorded as showing what an Australian horse can do.

A still more remarkable performance was that of a son of Panic, bred in Victoria, who carried his rider, Mr. Lord, 263 miles in three days, 88 miles on the first, 83 on the second, and 92 on the third. Mr. Lord rode 14 st. 3 lb., and the journey was accomplished without any bad effects upon the horse.

Considering the treatment that Bush horses get, it is wonderful how they live at all. After a long hard day they are turned out, dripping with sweat, into a cold winter’s night, where, perhaps, in a few hours the temperature will be down to freezing point. They are ridden hard after cattle, over stony ridges and black-soil bogs, and yet filled legs and curbed hocks are unknown; and the whole time that I was in Australia I never saw a broken-winded horse, or even a whistler. It is very rare indeed to find a really pleasant horse to ride in the Bush. They are all very badly broken in, and have nearly always had their tempers spoiled when quite young, so that they generally have some disagreeable tricks, and it is never safe to go near the heels of one of them. There are men who make a living by breaking in young horses, going round the stations and contracting to break in a mob at thirty shillings a head. Considering the way in which it is done, it is no wonder that Australian horses buck, and are generally vicious.

A lot of young ones are run into a yard, most of which have probably never seen a man within a quarter of a mile since they were foals, and have certainly never been in a yard more than once in their lives. The horsebreaker picks out one, and with the help of another man runs it into a small yard by itself. If the animal is not very nervous, with a little patience he will be able to go up and handle it, and get a bridle over its head. If all other ways fail, he has to lasso it. The next thing is to sneak a saddle on to it, the wretched animal standing shaking and shivering with fright the whole time. The horsebreaker is most likely a man that no living horse can throw by any means short of rolling on him; so he blindfolds the horse, and gets straight on to its back. His mate removes the bandage from its eyes, and the rider sticks the spurs into the horse, and makes it buck, till it cannot buck any more. He then leaves it for a few hours with the saddle on, and having repeated the process on two subsequent days, he hands it over to the owner as broken in, and it is probably turned out for six months into the Bush. It is real rough work breaking in young horses in this way, and very few men stick at it for more than a year or two. Undoubtedly the very worst man in the world to give a young horse to, to break in, is a “flash” rider. He is not the least afraid of its bucking, and will probably make it do so on purpose, in order to display his powers of riding, or rather sticking on.

Bucking is a regular habit; and when once a horse acquires it he never altogether loses it. The surest way to get a horse quietly and well broken in is to give it to the most nervous and arrant funk you can find, if he will undertake it. He will spend days in getting the horse used to the vicinity of a man, and sit for hours on the top of a rail alongside of it, to accustom it to seeing him above it, before ever he attempts to get on its back, and the odds are that he will have it so quiet by the time that he dares mount it, that it will never think of bucking, except under extraordinary provocation, for the rest of its life.

The proceedings of a “new chum,” as a recent arrival in the Colony is called, are always a source of amusement to all old residents, and nothing is more entertaining than his early struggles to catch his horse in the yard. Having cornered it off, with the help of a black boy, he advances towards it, in a hesitating, doubtful sort of way, addressing it in soothing terms which are entirely thrown away upon a Bush horse. The animal detects him instantly as a novice, and prepares to take advantage of him by every trick that it knows. Jammed up against the rails, in a corner of the yard, it stands, looking at him as he approaches, with an expression in its eye and a droop of its quarters that no one could mistake. When he gets up to it he probably discovers that he has got the bridle over the wrong arm, and while he is changing it the brute gives a frightful snort, rushes past him, rolling him over in the dust, and gallops round and round the yard, with its tail in the air. Once more he pins it up in a corner, and has nearly got the bridle over its head when it gently turns its head away and sticks it over the rails, where he cannot possibly reach it, at the same time turning its quarters round, and lifting a hind foot, in a way that causes its future rider to get out of focus as quickly as possible.

After a few more vain attempts the “new chum” looks imploringly round, and one of the old hands gets down from the rails, where he has been sitting enjoying the fun. Hanging the bridle over his left arm, he walks straight up to the animal and addresses it with, “Stand up, you crowbait!” in a tone that knocks all the folly out of it for the rest of the morning. Bush horses are as cunning as foxes, and, unless they are really rowdy, they never attempt to play the fool with men who are used to handling them, so it caves in at once, and allows him to put the bridle on without any further trouble.