Stockmen & Station Life
Farmers and graziers have a running joke – that city slickers live under the belief that all food – including bread, meat and dairy – miraculously comes from the local supermarket.
They could be half-right in that city people rarely acknowledge the massive investments and skills required to put tucker on their tables.
With changing times, especially in how we look at climate, water and power resources, labour, and the increasing costs of bringing food to market, new respect is being given to agriculture and the people working on the land.
If any one historical figure stands firm to represent the typical Australian bush worker, it is the outback stockman.
Often characterised as lean, sunburnt, awkward with the opposite sex, and, possibly, when on the rantan, a bit of a larrikin, he is, at the same time, seen as an exceptionally skilled rider, plain-talker, expert stock handler, practical and a determinedly hard worker.
After the hysteria of the Australian gold rushes settled in the early 1870s, the sheep and cattle industries led the way for our colonial economic boom ride for the next thirty years. It was the ‘new gold’, and we rode high on the backs of sheep and cattle with world-record exports of wool and beef.
Stockmen were, and still are, expected to be expert all rounders. The drovers, responsible for moving the herds across the country, had their skills, but once the sheep and cattle were in their home territory, the stockmen and station hands took over.
There were horses to be broken, working dogs to be trained, cattle to be fed, watered and moved from paddock to paddock, and calves needed extra care; then there was mustering, branding, castrating, vaccinating and preparation for market.
The boundary rider was a particular type of stockman. Maintaining boundary fences has always been important in a country as wild and large as Australia. It is the boundary rider’s job to regularly inspect and repair these fences. The station hands jokingly referred to boundary riders as ‘lizards’ – suggesting they spent much of their day in the sun.
Tending sheep was just as demanding as cattle, and, of course, in season, they needed extra care, particularly during lambing – shearing, dipping, ear-tagging and marking. The men, and in the nineteenth century, they were mainly men, worked long hours in often harsh conditions. The working day was until the job was done.
The shearing shed usually had a ‘boss of the board’ and the cattle station a head stockman. The title ‘ringer’ was often given to the fastest or ‘gun’ shearer and also, sometimes, to the head stockman. They reported to the manager or simply ‘the boss’ in both cases.
Duke Tritton ‘rescued’ the shearing ballad known as ‘Goorianawa’. A fragment had appeared in the Lone Hand Magazine and Nancy Keesing and Douglas Stewart, editors of the 1957 edition of A. B. Paterson’s Old Bush Songs (1905) eventually found Duke had a complete set of words. It’s a grand song which takes the listener on a tour of some of the big outback stations, including mentioning some of the leading graziers.
There were other colonial station workers – some itinerants and others employed full-time – sheep washers, well-sinkers, fencers, rabbiters, doggers and, of course, shearers, rouseabouts, cooks, wool classers and transport drivers.
The large station house, often jokingly called ‘Government House’, also had staff, often a storekeeper, bookkeeper, and a husband and wife domestic team.
Indigenous Australians played a large part in the development of the cattle industry and highly regarded as all-rounder stockmen and drovers.
The stockman’s life is one in which danger is ever present. It is a life where the presence of mind, coupled with an iron nerve, are essential if the stockman is to avoid serious injury or death.
To these men, thrashing hooves or charging steers are just part of the day’s work. They know what to do in these emergencies; and they do it. To fail once may mean the end of their riding and working days.
The breaking-in of wild horses, brumbies or broncos, is a necessary and hazardous job. The challenge of cornering a mob, and then running them home is a difficult one. The wiry broncs possess a lively sixth sense, often setting them away in a mad dash long before the horsemen arrive.
When the mob is eventually yarded, the dangers and thrills of breaking in begin. Hoots and hollows and lassoes whistle through the air. The wild-eyed creature is hauled to a solid object and secured. He is seized in a headlock, blindfolded and hobbled. Following this, the blindfold is removed, and the wild horse takes his first lesson.
Both man and animal must respect each other.
The stockman’s dread — a stampede — happens often. Restless cattle mustered to a strange locality will stampede at the slightest provocation. By night it is doubly dangerous. Furious night riding can mean anything. Trees, creeks, fox and wombat burrows, and fences are traps to the rider. But above all, there is the danger of getting in front of the herd and trampled, to a horrible death. Stockmen know mustered cattle also have a nasty habit of charging men who happen to be on foot.
After long journeys without water, cattle will stampede at a whiff of the liquid. The crazed beasts need to be held back, but the stockman faces grave danger in so doing. On numerous occasions, both horse and rider have been found dead, victims of a water stampede.
As if his work is insufficient, the stockman fills his spare time rough riding for sport.
Rough riding, either at the station yards or a bushman’s carnival or rodeo, is considered a mark of honour.
Many stockmen now follow the American fashion when participating in rodeo events, but the aim is the same – to stay on the bullock or outlaw horse. It’s easier said than done.
The first competitive bushman’s display riding carnivals appeared in the 1880s and remain popular. One of the largest turn-outs for a bushman’s carnival occurred at Adelaide’s Jubilee Oval, in 1932, to mark the 75th birthday of Sir Sidney Kidman. Organisers expected 5000, but nearly 50,000 people turned up.
When stockmen go on the spree the whole town lights up!
Kidman, surely one of Australia’s finest bushmen, declared, “Australia’s stockmen are the finest in the world. Our stock horses can turn on a plate and single out a cow in minutes.”
Stockmen still ride across Australia’s vast continent. Women have broken through the ‘grass ceiling’ to join the workforce, and although the horse and dog are still to be seen, so are 4-wheel drive ‘paddock bashers’, motorbikes and helicopters. Despite the changes, the spirit of The Man From Snowy River’ lives on.
The early outback was harsh, still is, and the typical bushman’s wardrobe reflected how best to deal with scorching heat, blistering cold, floodwaters, dust – and days, weeks and months of hard riding – and, by necessity, often working and sleeping in the same clothing.
Australian bushmen would scoff at the flashy Hollywood western heroes such as Gene Autry, Roy Rodgers and Hopalong Cassidy – with their ten-gallon hats, freshly ironed shirts, immaculate trousers, glistening spurs and highly polished boots.
That’s not to say that our colonial bushmen were without affectation. Hopefully, with a fat cheque in his pocket at season’s end, he wore a cabbage-tree hat trimmed with velvet, jauntily set on his head, tightly strapped moleskins, and a clean white shirt. Around his neck, a white handkerchief fastened by a bone ring, on which, possibly, was carved a bucking horse or a bounding kangaroo. Maybe even his boots had enjoyed their annual polish. Mounted on his equally flash horse, he went on the rantan. For the rest of the year, he dressed for practicality, not fashion.
Drovers, Stockmen and boundary riders dress for efficiency, comfort and hard riding.
The traditional stockmen’s job was varied – a ‘Jack of all trades’ – boundary riding, mustering, branding, washing cattle and sheep for ticks and other parasites, breaking in outlaw horses, tending to strays, protecting newly born calves and lambs (with a watchful eye on dingoes) and ensuring everything went according to plan at the station or on the road.
The drover, although well-deserving of the name ‘stockman’ or ‘overlander’, had an additional set of skills in managing huge mobs of cattle and sheep overland, fattening them up for market and delivering them to the agent or sales yards.
Both drover and stockmen were expected to be expert horsemen. Today, women are just as likely to undertake both jobs. Trainees – Jackaroos and Jillaroos – might well be considered ‘new chums’, but they usually slip into their roles quickly.
The term Jackaroo went into circulation in 1850 to describe a station-apprenticed stockman. The term Jillaroo appeared during WW2 when many young women took rural positions to help the war effort. Along with the Women’s Land Army, they kept the farms operating.
Excellent horsemanship meant understanding riding equipment, particularly the best saddle and bridle. These were the tools of the trade, and drovers and stockmen took great care of their horses and leather riding equipment.
Throughout our rural history, bush workers have had a definite look – a quasi-uniform born of necessity and practicality. In the colony’s early days, shepherds and station workers dressed similarly to English shepherds but colonial practicality soon saw the clothing adapted to the rugged Australian bush.
Between 1860 and 1880, many ‘new chum’ emigrants came to Australia and worked on rural properties as a ‘colonial experience’. They even get a mention in ‘Click Go the Shears’
Many of these ‘new chums’ had been on the land in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland but nothing prepared them for the Australian experience. Lord help them if they tried to teach the colonials how to do a job!
‘New Chums’ were often young men and ill-equipped for bush life. Most were immediately identifiable by the clothes they wore. Some arrived in heavy English-styled worsted suits, and some even sported top hats and carried walking canes.
Although ridiculed by the old hands, they were usually allowed to become ‘one of us’. Any la-de-dah manner of speaking was frowned upon, and the new chums learnt quickly to temper their language with the local vernacular. Airs & graces were not the way of the bush.
They also learned quickly to adopt locally-favoured attire.
Hats are a necessity in the sun-scorched outback. The first popular hats were homemade from cabbage palm leaves…..cabbage-tree straw hats were light, wide brimmed and inexpensive.
If there is a fashion of the outback, hats would be the number one item. They come in all shapes and sizes – from the ‘Cunnamulla cartwheel’ to the grazier’s ‘cattleman’ – and today, where they are commercially made, they are soon moulded to suit the identity of their wearer.
Our sniggering egalitarian attitude is shown in the saying: the larger the hat, the smaller the property. The working stockman, drover and teamster had to have a stock whip.
Australian Town & Country Journal 1875 stated:
‘The handles of these instruments are short and thick at the butt — about 24 inches in length, and tapering to a very fine point. On this is a lash varying in length from 12 to 20 feet. An inexperienced youth — or rather a “colonial experience” — invariably cuts his face or twists it around his body trying to crack the whip. The old stockmen will, however, draw it grandly out and with a flourish make it crack with a noise like the explosion of a gun, which can be heard for miles.’
One of the most popular bush songs, ‘Wrap Me Up With My Stockwhip & Blanket’, pointed to the importance of the stock whip in everyday working life.
Many stockmen and drovers were expert leatherworkers, curing their own greenhide leather, and cutting and sewing to do repairs or make everything from concertina leggings to pouches for bush necessities such as tobacco, horseshoe nails etc.
One of the outback’s greatest experts with the greenhide whip was a North Queenslander, known as ‘Greenhide Jack’. A stockwhip, bridle, halter, girth, belt, or any other article made by him was treasured by stockmen. Jack was also a great horseman and a champion wielder of the whip. It was claimed that he could take a threepenny bit off a man’s tongue with an 18-ft. whip without hurting him, and cut a mosquito off a man’s eyelash without making him blink.
Whether working on the station or droving, the stockman relied on horses. Clothing and riding accessories were purchased from the mail-order catalogues of the big city department stores like Anthony Hordern’s and Myer or direct from speciality retailers in key rural commercial centres. Hawkers, many of them Afghanis, also carried a range of outback clothing including hats, boots and buckles.
The R. M. William’s company, established in Adelaide in 1932, revolutionised how outback workers purchased clothing and, in some ways, dictated fashion because of their range. They published their first mail-order catalogue in 1935 offering everything from saddles to drover’s leather sewing kits.
The drover had to be skilled at emergency repairs and his kit usually contained saddle nails, bulldog pincers, rasps, saddler’s thimble, nail claw, needles and wax thread, beeswax, bridle bits, and various knives. Body brushes and spiral curry combs for his horses were essential.
Good boots are necessary for anyone working in the bush and the old saying, ‘as tough as old boots’ has particular meaning for the drover and stockman.
The image of ‘Saltbush Bill’, ‘Crooked Mick Of The Speewah’ or ‘Dad and Dave Rudd ‘would not be complete without their bush boots even if the laces were made of stringybark or fencing wire.
Pioneering life was unbelievably hard, and boots, along with your wide-brimmed hat, horse and dog were your best mate as you kicked and stomped doing battle with the outback. Hours in the stirrups, the bracken, the river beds and in the dark loam soil followed by the slosh of the chook yard, pig pen and dairy – all demanded strong footwear. Snakes were another reason for sturdy boots and many the poisoned fang snapped at a pair of solid boots to reptilian frustration.
Bushmen looked after their boots as best possible. The Bulletin Magazine of 1898 reported that:
‘On the Palmer River, when boots ran from two pounds a pair for ‘cossacks’ to three-pound ten shillings for Wellington’s, leather, tools and grindery were impossibilities; so the diggers did not wait for their boots to wear out but protected them in time. They cut out a piece of greenhide that would overlap the sole and heel of the boot by an inch or two and pierced it all around with a knife and then laced it across the upper and around the heel with strips of the same hide’. Cheap, efficacious and easy to renew.’ A case of ‘look after your boots, and they’ll look after you.’
Another correspondent to The Bulletin suggested that the best way to keep your feet warm whilst in the saddle was to wear socks outside your boots. Another suggested soaking new boots in corn beef water to waterproof them!
Elastic-sided boots were preferred, and many riders chose high-heeled – so-called ‘Cuban heels’ – as to allow good stirrup control. These boots, completely unknown in Cuba, owed more to Hollywood than Havana.
The drovers who worked the long grass wore concertina leggings on their boots. These cowhide leggings, so-called because of their corrugated concertina bellowing, were important to prevent bruising and burrs digging into the legs. Without the hard yet flexible leggings, the burrs attached to the socks and itched their way into the boots and skin.
Many drovers made leather boots for their dogs. Made of green hide, soaked in water and moulded to the dog’s paws, these dog boots protected the working dogs from burning hot stones and grass seeds, spikes and razor sharp burrs. Drovers often massaged their dog’s paws with mutton fat to keep the pads from cracking.
No cattleman ever rode without his goose-neck spurs long in the shank.
At night the drover slept with his boots by his head so that he could quickly grab them if the herd moved or a curious dingo came too close for comfort.
Even today, you can walk into a big city hotel bar and see young men and women, either accidentally or intentionally, dressed with elements of the traditional uniform of the bush. Elastic-sided boots, two-pocket checkered shirts, kangaroo plait belts, scarves and even a fine bush hat. Never mind, they have probably never been on a horse – never slept on a blanket roll whilst gazing up at a star-studded sky – or wondered at the sheer magnificence of the outback. In their own way, they are saluting the great achievements of the outback.
BOOTS AND ALL
It might be okay for those new age types to bravely walk across a bed of burning coals however I’d like to see them try such a stunt on a field of tough-as-hell Australian Bindi-eye. These little burr devils have a canny knack of puncturing even the toughest of hides and considering that they breed like rabbits, a bare-foot walk will produce tens of the monsters snapping at your heels like a field of funnel-web spiders. I grew up in the ‘fifties before the age of Nike and, God forbid, even flip-flop thongs. We had our school shoes, our gumboots and, if we were lucky, a pair of white sandshoes. If you were really lucky you also had a pair of lace-up boots which most people referred to as ‘work boots’. I didn’t get lucky until 1958 and my first pair of boots came at age twelve when I joined the school cadet unit.
I suspect my father had some sort of shoe fetish for every Sunday afternoon you would find him on the back verandah polishing his shoes until ‘you could see your face in them’. His particular trick was to keep spitting on them as he brushed and brushed. There was also a ‘right’ way to brush so you covered the optimum shoe area without wasted strokes – something, he said, that he learnt in the army. However enthusiastically I spat and religiously brushed I could never quite get his ‘face in the mirror’ result.
Like most kids in the fifties I knocked around bare-footed. We knew where the most vicious Bindi-eye patches were and could criss-cross Scarborough Park with scarcely a hop and a jump. I suspect that after years of running around without footwear my soles were like iron plates. Lord knows I couldn’t do it now. In my late teens I became an avid bushwalker and boot wearer. An annual trip to that hiker’s Mecca, Paddy Pallin’s Bathurst Street store, yielded another pair of boots, each one being remarkably lighter than the year before. These were boots that could walk mountains in Tasmania, go canoeing down the Colo River, slush through leech-infested bogs in the Megalong Valley and cross salt-caked plains of the inland. It was a common rule: look after your boots and they’ll look after you. In truth they did become part of you and many the bitter night I refused to take them off in fear of frostbite on my tootsies. A good pair of boots had to withstand water and also the intense heat of the campfire because you really could never quite get close enough to those gloriously comforting red-hot ashes. Every camper recognises that distinctive smell when they got too hot and it was time to withdraw to allow them to cool down.
Australian bush workers, especially drovers, fencers, shearers, timber and cane workers would never had been able to work without a good pair of boots. Bluntstone and R.M.Williams have been making them for years and they know the importance of good sturdy footwear just like a good hiker.
One exception was the turn-of-the-century legendary bushman, Matt Robinson, who was better known as ‘Barefoot Harry of Louth’. Robinson never wore boots and it was said that he could ‘walk on the bindies as good as any native’. One story tells of ‘Barefoot Harry’ arriving at a teamsters’ camp and standing around the fire yarning to the men. After a few minutes one of the men said, “What’s burning? Smells like hide.” “Why,” answered another, “it’s Harry’s foot! he’s standing on the oven lid that’s just come off the fire.” Harry sniffed, stepped back and reached down and touched the still red hot metal. “Cripes! It’s hot all right,” he agreed.
During the hungry years of the 1890’s depression the sundowners and swaggies didn’t have money for socks let alone shoes so they wore ‘Prince Alberts’, any piece of cloth large enough to wrap around the feet and so called because of the suggestion that when he married Queen Victoria he was so poor that he wore ‘toe-rags’. Whilst they looked unwieldy they were in fact practical because they were actually more comfortable than barefoot and they could be washed clean. A case of necessity being the mother of invention.
The image of Saltbush Bill, Crooked Mick Of The Speewah or Dad and Dave Rudd would not be complete without their bush boots even if the laces were made of stringybark or fencing wire. Pioneering life was unbelievably hard and boots, along with your wide-brimmed hat, horse and dog were your best mate as you kicked and stomped doing battle with Mother Nature. Hours in the stirrups, the bracken, the river beds and in the dark loam soil followed by the slosh of the chook yard, pig pen and dairy demanded strong footwear. Snakes were another reason for sturdy boots and many the poisoned fang snapped at a pair of solid boots to reptilian frustration.
Years back I remember yarning with a boundary rider who had spent countless years checking the endless fences of the outback. He told me of the isolation and loneliness and how his dogs were his only company. “We would ride all day, repairing broken fences, shooting at dingoes and riding some more. At night the dogs would join me around the campfire for a song and a yarn. I also had to repair and sew their dog shoes. I made little leather dog shoes with lace-ups so they could run on the burrs. They looked a bit silly but they certainly knew why they were wearing them.”
The drovers who worked the long grass wore concertina leggings on their boots. These cowhide leggings, so called because of their corrugated concertina bellowing, were important to prevent bruising and burrs digging into the legs. Without the hard yet flexible leggings the burrs attached to the socks and itched their way into the boots and skin. Their boots tended to be high-heeled as to allow good stirrup control.
The drovers looked after their boots as best possible. The Bulletin of 1898 reports that: ‘On the Palmer River, when boots ran from two pounds a pair for ‘cossacks’ to three pound ten shillings for Wellington’s, leather, tools and grindery were impossibilities; so the diggers did not wait for their boots to wear out, but protected them in time. They cut out a piece of greenhide that would overlap the sole and heel of the boot by an inch or two and pierced it all round with a knife, and then laced it across the upper and around the heel with strips of the same hide. Cheap efficacious and easy to renew.’ Another correspondent to the Bulletin suggested that the best way to keep your feet warm, whilst in the saddle, was to wear socks outside your boots. Mind you, I have also heard of soaking new boots in cornbeef water to waterproof them!
It has been said that the best way to describe a stockman is to look at the boots he is wearing. The true stockman always wore the elastic-sides boot as opposed to the city fashion of the ‘thirties and ‘forties for lace-up riding boots. The R.M.Williams boot became the most popular amongst bush workers and especially horse riders however the Koorelah brand of ‘laughing side’ with its high Cuban heel also gained some popularity.
No cattleman ever rode without his goose-neck spurs which were long in the shank. At night the drover slept with his boots by his head so that he could quickly grab them if the herd moved or a curious dingo got too close for comfort.
If you look at today’s bushman or woman you can spot the difference from the city-living would-be squatter. Once again the footwear tells the story and it’s easy to identify if the R.M.Williams boots have spent their time in the saddle or in the Range Rover. A good bush boot will be lacerated, grime-covered and creased and even after a decent brushing they still look ‘worn in’. Most jackeroos refrain from ever cleaning their boots claiming it to be bad luck. They make an annual exception to this rule when they head for the B&S Balls.
The Australian Digger also relied on a good pair of ‘Daisy Roots’ and if you have ever seen film footage of our soldiers slogging it across the Kakoda Trail you would realise how necessary strong waterproofed boots were for sheer survival. Unlike the stockmen these men were obligated to polish their boots whenever in the Barracks.
In Australia today boots have very much become a fashion statement. Companies like Doc Martin and Airwave produce all manner of boot footwear to suit the fashion personality of the young. They have conventional lace-ups plus an array of loops, clips, buckles and bows. They have coloured stitching and coloured laces. The biggest development has been in the comfort zone for these boots now offer ‘magic carpet’ cushioning and even ‘air conditioning’. You can look high camp, bovver boy, skin head or whatever you fancy. Gay boys also adopted the boot, especially those yellow-hide numbers, and the sight of a so-called ‘Muscle Mary’ resplendent in tight body shirt, even tighter shorts and these huge worker’s boots looked simply ridiculous. Be assured that boots are not just for males and young women, echoing Nancy Sinatra’s musical call ‘Are you ready boots?’, also wear them to achieve a certain Gothic look that suggests a cross between a bricklayer and a Sydney Swans player. Of course there is that other image of women in high boots – a simply wouldn’t look right is anything else!
For my money you still can’t beat a good pair of R.M.Williams boots. I prefer the standard drover’s style with the elastic-sides and that handy rear loop so you can yank them on and off with ease. Wear them with a good pair of moleskins and a shirt and you’ll be wearing the ‘Australian uniform’ that has stood the test of time.
The name Sidney Kidman is firmly stamped into the history and mythology of the Australian outback. It is a pioneering story bound by determination, luck, pluck and an exceptional, almost uncanny, knowledge of the outback and the changing and challenging Australian physical and economic climate.
One hundred years ago, most Australians, particularly those in the bush, knew the name of Sidney Kidman and his accomplishments as Australia’s ‘cattle king’.
Born at Black Hill, South Australia, in 1857, when Australia had been turned upside-down by gold fever, he was only six months of age when his father died. Leaving school at 13, he was obliged to support himself, and, with a horse he bought for 50 shillings, he set out for New South Wales.
Passing through what is now Broken Hill, he headed for Mount Gipps Station, where he took a job as a station hand and jackaroo at 10 shillings a week. He must have been a quick learner for two years later he moved to a better job (at a pound a week) at the nearby Poolamacca station as a boundary rider and stockman.
Whilst most men would have been content to stay in the saddle, young Sidney Kidman saw the ruggedness and challenges of the outback as an opportunity.
When severe drought hit the central west, and commodity prices soared, Kidman realised a more reliable income could be made as a carrier carting supplies – so he left Poolamacca and invested his savings in a bullock team and waggon – he began working for himself as a carter!
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Broken Hill, established in 1883, was booming with one of the world’s richest silver, lead and zinc deposits. Kidman recognised, above all, miners had to eat and opened a butcher shop (in truth it was nothing more than a lean-to with some meat hooks) and a delivery service to cater for the growing population. A quick dash to hometown Adelaide saw him purchase 60 horses, return to the Barrier, sell them at a tidy profit and immediately buy another mob from Bourke and sell them.
In 1884 Kidman made what looked like the deal of the century when he bought a one-fourteenth share in the Sliverton Mine in exchange for ten store bullocks. Reckoning he had already doubled his money on the sale, he soon sold his share for a 40-pound profit. In retrospect it probably wasn’t a wise decision, as Silverton became BHP and his share today would be over a billion dollars. One suspects, at the time, Kidman didn’t think twice about selling the shares – he had other fish to fry.
In looking at Kidman’s life story, it is impossible not to be impressed with his business acumen. He seemed to be everywhere and rarely missed an opportunity. If an opportunity was absent – he’d still find it.
Even more remarkable was his ability to memorise his accounts. For many years, he kept all his financial dealings in his head and reputedly knew exactly how many cattle, sheep, and horses were on his properties, their value and the size of the runs.
Joining with his brother, Sackville Kidman, he established S.Kidman & Co as wholesale and family butchers. Sackville managed the office whilst Sidney knocked down deal after deal, including diversifying into a mail coach service. After winning the mail contract, he immediately sold the coach service for a profit and, as he was fond of explaining, “without putting a single horse on the road.” Obviously, Sid knew the ways of the bush and especially the importance of water. By age 22, he had been through the central floodplain country and realised if you had an interest in, or controlled a large number of cattle stations along the river system and creeks of the flood plain – you’d do okay. That proved a whopping understatement as S. Kidman & Co set out to purchase vast rural holdings until it was claimed Kidman owned more land in the British Commonwealth than any other individual. He had earned his prized mantle of ‘The Cattle King’.
In 1887 he joined with James Nicholas to establish a coaching service to break the Cobb & Co monopoly. Operating out of Perth, Nicholas and Kidman’s Cobb & Co eventually became the second-largest coaching service in Australia. James Nicholas, once a Cobb & Co driver, handled the business whilst Kidman handled the all-important livestock.
Midst all of Sidney Kidmans’ wheeling and dealing, he managed to marry, raise a family and have a life.
It is clear his passion for the outback never varied and never waned. Even after the unexpected death of his brother from peritonitis in 1899, he did not slow down.
When a devastating three-year drought commenced in 1900, Sidney Kidman saw opportunity where others saw nothing but despair. By this stage, he had amassed 17 stations but with entire herds of stock perishing, he continued to push against despair. He sold his interest in Cobb & Co, sold Owen Station, took a deep breath and gave firm instructions to his station managers – “make the place pay, feed the men and allow no waste.”
As the drought broke he went on another buying spree which lasted for another 25 years. He once joked that his philosophy was “if you don’t own it – buy it – if you own it sell it!” His voracious appetite for buying and selling rural property knew no boundary fence and, if obstructed, he’d find a way to jump over the fence or tear it down.
It was even said at one stage that he was interested in purchasing the entire colony of Victoria as a cattle and sheep station – but decided it was a bit too small for his liking!
One campfire yarn recounted how Sir Sid attended the Brisbane cattle sales and accidentally dropped his wallet in Queen Street – and it was so heavy it took two shearers and a rouseabout to lift it off the pavement.
There was some criticism surrounding purchasing properties brought to their knees by the drought but the Pastoralist’s Review of 1903 commented, The cattle king knows a lump of ground just as he knows the difference between a fat bullock and a giraffe – he stepped in and did the business.’
He was also accused of ‘ruining the back country’ near the Darling where he replaced sheep with cattle. Although he ran sheep on some of his stations, he openly described them as ‘jolly little monkeys’. Mind you, and his dislike came from the fact that he didn’t like paying excess wages and sheep demanded twenty men when three could handle cattle.
Kidman was a fighter; some of his biggest fights were with his bankers, especially in tough times. In truth, he was too big to bust.
One suspects his indefatigable energy for making deals, establishing new businesses and being away in the scrub made it difficult to track him, let alone fence him in. At that time, bankers took a man on their word, and Sidney Kidman never failed them. In 1907 he said, ‘My ambition is not to be rich but to hold the largest herd of cattle in Australia, if not the world, and the same with horses.” He was true to his word.
There is no doubt Sidney Kidman knew about cattle and horses. He was an exceptionally good rider, including wildbucking broncos. He was a regular at the sales, whether buying or selling. The Adelaide Register newspaper said, “Kidman knows beforehand what every beast is worth to the shilling. He knows the value of every hair on their hides.’
Dressed in his customary grey blue suit, felt hat turned up at the back, he looked like a wiry bushman with eyes that had absorbed the weird and strange light of the outback. He was recognised as a jovial ringmaster at the sales friendly, casual, and yarning between his familiar call of ‘knock ‘em down!’.
He is quoted as saying, ‘a man who never made a mistake never made anything else’.
Knighted in 1921, he remained down to earth and, whether in the city or bush, Kidman was known for talking bullock. Bullock tor breakfast, bullock for dinner, bullock for supper; sheep and horses in between meals, and, if there’s was a lull in the conversation at any time, even in the middle of the night, he was always willing to talk bullock again.
In 1928 Sidney Kidman and his son-in-law, Sidney Reid, as company shareholder and general manager, took an epic trip by rail and car to inspect their properties. Kidman had the foresight to buy a movie camera for Reid to capture their escapades and provide a rare archival record of the outback.
On the occasion of his 75th birthday in 1932, Sidney Reid organised a celebratory rodeo at Jubilee Oval, Adelaide. Many of Kidman & Co’s leading riders and horses displayed their skills.
Expecting 5000 people, the organisers were astounded when nearly 50,000 people came to pay their respects to the ‘cattle king’ and the empire he had built.
In Depression-gripped 1933, the elderly Kidman, accompanied by his son, Walter, made a passionate plea of hope, reminding us that, ‘farmers are the backbone of Australia’.
Sir Sidney Kidman died in 1935 aged 78.
Acknowledging his early days, it’s difficult not to see the man as restless. Always on the move, looking for opportunity, he travelled enormous distances, always learning about the ways of the bush and how to work with it, rather than against it. His fortune was built on gambling not with cards or frivolous pursuits but with enormous gambling against the odds, especially of nature.
Sidney Kidman’s story is one of a self-made man – and that’s something Australians have always respected.
His legacy, S. Kidman & Co., remains at the forefront of Australian rural achievement.
STATION LIFE – a miscellany
Warren Fahey sings ‘Garrawilla’. A song collected by John Meredith. There are very few songs in praise of the boss – this one is an exception.
Farmer Versus the City
I was working at a station up Womboyne way
When a chap came from the city to spend a holiday
One day in conversation he told me to my face
You must be flamin’ mad to work in this god forsaken place
It was then that I replied “although it seems a pity
I wouldn’t give an inch of bush for an acre in the city
I’ll take the snakes and sandflies. I’ll have the heat and dust
For it’s the reptiles in the city that we can’t afford to trust
So listen here young fellow, I make no ifs or buts
Someone has to work up here but few have got the guts
And when next you’re back in Sydney walking down an ashfelt street
Stop awhile and ponder where the butcher gets his meat
Or where the milkman gets his milk, his butter cheese or cream
Do you think you just go off to sleep and get them in a dream?
So unless you’re down at Bondi with little else to do
Then thank the Lord there’s blokes like us to feed the likes of you
SOURCE
Charlie Lollback, Grafton. Fahey Collection
The next song, taken from a Sydney-published magazine, is typical of the satirical songs composed to take the ‘mickey’ out of local issues and politicians.
| SONG OF THE AUSTRALIAN SQUATTER While senators make the Macquarie Street halls Resound with their eloquence shallow or deep. O’erjoy’d to escape from political thralls In peace I’ll stay at home, and look after my sheep. While solemn savants of the bench and the bar, In black bombazine and white-poodle wigs, With helpers more snappish than dingoes by far, Are melting out justice to squabblers and ‘prigs’. While bankers and merchants and brokers and scribes, (A multitude more than five frigates could hold), With brewers, distillers, and victualling tribes, Are delving like diggers for nuggets of gold. While doctors and surgeons, and brave volunteers, Stand ready and willing to kill or to cure; And characters, sharper than sickles or shears, Are groping for garbage like rats in a sewer. I placidly smile, though they simper or frown; I’ve comfort by day, and at night soundly sleep. A fig for the honours or gains of the town! I’d rather be home. Looking after my sheep. Who cares for the weight of your carcass or fleece, Your mutton or wool, except butchers and weavers? Pshw! Rather than study such fellows to please, I’d see them all pelted with shuttles and cleavers. Your ‘jumbucks’ will gambol and nibble their feed, Grow fleshy and woolly, though lacking your care. Hie hence from the bush, for the country’s in need Of the talent you’re wasting on wilderness air. You ask me who cares for my mutton and fleece? (O ghost of MacArthur please to howl in his ears) Such questions might grieve my fat wethers to grease, Or melt Mac’s bronze bust, if he had one, to tears. Those wool-ships now afloat at your quays, With scarce room on board for a cockroach to creep, Would seldom indeed meet your cynical gaze, If squatters left home, and neglected their sheep. Don’t boast of your export of gold dust to me, (To say I despise it would stamp me a fool) John Bull doubtless pockets your bullion with glee, But what would he do if we grudged him our wool? If care will improve both my carcass and fleece In weight, Mister Cynic, and quality too, And meanwhile I add my comfort and peace, I will stay in the bush, though it irritate you. Tune: Rory O’More SOURCE:Quoted in ‘Australian Capers’ (Old Boomerang) 1867. London. |
Damn
1880s
Damn Coolgardie, damn the track
Damn it there and damn it back
Damn the country, damn the weather
Damn the goldfields altogether
On Bourke’s heat
The only message from the dead
That ever came distinctly through
Was send my overcoat to hell
It came to Bourke in 92
The Bulletin
Jingle for first issue.
The Bulletin, the Bulletin,
The journalistic javelin
The paper all the humour’s in
The paper to inspire and grin
The Bulletin, the Bulletin
Horses & The Bulletin
Whalers, damper, swag and nosebag, Johnny cakes and billy tea
Murrumburrah, meremendicoowoke, youlabudgeree
Cattle duffers. Bold bushrangers diggers, drovers, bush race courses,
And on all the other pages horses, horses, horses, horses
The Australian Pastoralists’ Review
This next item needs to be read in conjunction with the following piece which is ‘an answer’ from the pasturalists. It also carried a note ‘unionism is not always strength’. As they say ‘Them’s fightin’ words!’
| P.U. TICKET “I’m travelllin’” the loafer said; Said the shearer, “Say no more! But come inside and have a feed, For I see you are footsore.” “I’m travellin’” the loafer said; said the slushy: “say nae mair! You’ve a ticket, I s’pose, you’re a Union chap, You’re travellin’ fair and square.” “I’ve a Union ticket, “ the loafer said; said the shearer, “Right you are! Just come inside and wet your beak, Us chaps are on the square.” “I’ve a Union ticket.” Replied the cove; said the slushy, “That’s the thing!” “I’ve a Union ticket,” the loafer said, “One issued by Whitely King!” Then the shearer spake him never a word, But he made the welkin ring, With the thumps he thumped that loafing cove, Who’d a ticket from Whitely King. Now, if humpin’ bluey you’ve got to go, Just give Whitely King a rest, For the P.U. ticket won’t carry you far, Among the shearers’ huts out West! |
The above extracted from a labour organ. We now publish the Conclusion
| THE INDUSTRY CONCLUSION BY JIMMY THE RINGER “Quite right!” the weary pedestrian said, as they doctored the shearer with tar; “as you say, a ticket from Whitely King In the West, won’t carry you far. “For a manager runs to secure us as soon as he hears we’ve landed in Bourke, and says, as he putting us on, ‘Thank God! I’ve now got some men who can work.” And loafing for tucker in shearers’ huts With us isn’t reckoned the thing, We leave that sort of work to bummers who can’t Get a ticket from Whitely King. “Quite right!:” the battered old shearer said, as he turned to his humpy to go; Of course you’re aware what I said up above, Is only the regular blow.” Got up by those jokers who seem to be fit For nothing but putting on airs; The half-swell blokes, in the half-boiled shirts, “Who howl ‘workers herwake,’ and ‘toilers herise,’ Though they know it isn’t the thing, For both workers and toilers have ‘riz’d’ and ‘herwaked’ And they now swear by Whitely King. |
A poem that invokes the legendary outback station, The Speewa.
| CAMELS BY JIMMY THE RINGER The public men of Speewa, in indignation met To pass a resolution, that the People must not let The Speewa squatters have their way, to work their deep-laid schemes To substitute the camels for the horse and bullock teams. Tis true great was the distance where their loading had to go,’ And camels travelled easily, while bullock teams were slow,. But squatters yet must learn the fact, if things come to the push, That the bush was made for townships, not the townships for the bush. The landlord of the “Gladstone” being voted to the chair, Said he thanked this public meeting for having placed him there, And then told in graphic language of what the land would be If those hump-backed dromedaries were allowed to cross the sea. The stately homes of Speewa would be levelled to the ground, And a desert be our back yard, where our children now play round; No more we’d hear the laughter of our boys at alley taw, If to keep those awful camels out we didn’t pass a law. And again in Speewa’s township two blacksmiths always dwell. And likewise there’s a wheelwright’s shed and a saddler’s shop as well; For years they’d made a living out of horse and bullock teams, And they’d be also victimised by these station camel schemes. ‘Twas quite absurd that squatters, with some odd million sheep, And some odd thousand station hands, their wretched flocks to keep, Should go against the People’s wish (of Speewa, so it seems), And think teams were made for stations, not the stations for the teams. And in this somewhat doleful strain he rambled on awhile, And told some other fairy tales in back-block patriot style. But the notion was that runs were made (perhaps it may sound funny), for keeping up the back-blocks towns and circulating money. The next who took the platform was one who’s known the best, Among the sporting papers as a ” white man of the West.” He said:—Hi ham a worker’s fren’ and hopposed to hupper classes, For Hi gets up scrappin’ matches, so’s to heducate the masses. “Hi sens below to Sydney for fighters on the job, To helevate the western men at two-an’-six a nob, Hand though Hi fixes up the mill when camels are in town, HI never sees a Hafghan yet part up is ‘arf-a-crown.” — And in this strain the publicans from Bourke to Milparinga Waxed warm with indignation, and all appeared to think a Law should be at once brought in to stop this camel craze, And protect the mighty interests of horse and bullock drays. Then someone else got up and said that worse was yet to come— These camels sometimes had diseases which might prove troublesome For it would spread to men as well, and make them raring mad, And he’d heard it tackled Willis, and he’d got it very bad. Then a panic seized the meeting, from the doorman to the chair, And everyone in fright rushed forth into the open air. Now they say with scared, blanched faces, when they the thing discuss, “Great Scott! it tackled Willis. What must it mean to us?” So there’s panic now on Speewa, there’s rebellion in the air, Twixt camels and their dread disease, there’s commotion everywhere; But they swear they’ll teach those squatters, if things come to a push, That the bush was made for townships, not the townships for the bush. |
Some Auction
From ‘The Riverina, People and Property’. R. Ronald. 1902
When Burrabogie Station, in the Riverina, was auctioned in February, 1882, the auctioneer was heard to open his address with ‘Gentlemen! I am not trying to sell you a station. I am offering you a principality!’
Queensland Punch
April 1890
The Queensland Punch Magazine had a fascination for the ‘famed Barcoo’ and provided it with mythical status along the lines of the Speewah. It also published several songs highlighting the Barcoo lifestyle.
Warren Fahey recites ‘The Free Selector’s Daughter’ by Henry Lawson.
Warren Fahey sings ‘The Freehold on the Plain’
| THE BONNIE BARCOO Now I’ll sing you a song in praise of that land, Which ignorant folk called a desert of sand, Where the thick Mitchell grass grows thick fit to reap And the wide Downs are covered with millions of sheep – I’ll sing of a hardy intelligent race, Whose deeds father Time can never efface Whose hearts to a comrade have ever proved true, I sing of the lads of the Bonnie Barcoo. Chorus Then hurrah! for the creeks, the quartpot and swag, Hurrah! for the back of the trusty young nag. Hurrah! for the hearts to their mates ever true, Success to the lads of the Bonnie Barcoo. You’ll have heard of the time when the drought was abroad, When the sun beat relentless down on the sword, And how nobly Dick Johnson, in spite of his thirst, Attended the wants of his young comrades first – How he fetched in the lad who else would have died, Placed him on his horse and calm walked beside. Ten miles was the track, and waterless too – But Dick was a lad of the Bonnie Barcoo Up to wellshot’s large shed, see the tall shearers ride, (The board’s built for six and for sixty beside) The Boss of the shed is prepared for the fray And their talk is of how many sheep in a day. Then at night when all traces of daylight have fled, they gather together beneath the bough shed, And some play at Euchre while some play at Loo, Both favourite games on the Bonnie Barcoo. At length the day comes when the cheques are all paid, When accounts are adjusted and settlements made. When the ringer and those who now reap the reward Make tracks for Blackall or else Isisford, And those townships soon fill with a boistrous crowd, (For who the deuce cares if their voices are loud?) They’ve worked for their coin and they make a shivoo, Do these sheep shearing lads of the Bonnie Barcoo. Then hurrah! for the creeks, the quartpot and swag, Hurrah! for the back of a trusty young nag, Hurrah! for the hearts to their mates ever true, Success to the lads of the Bonnie Barcoo. Queensland Punch Tune: Bonnie Dundee |
Punch Christmas Chronicle
January 1893
“When it was known that he could play the piano he at once became in great request, and after ‘vamping’ for varous singers, who either sang of their lost loves, or sea songs full of loud ‘yo ho’s’, he was called upon to contribute something to the hilarity of the evning. he at once complied by singing some verses which he had made at Hillton, which he called The Song of the Jackaroo’
| THE SONG OF THE JACKAROO Who would not be a bushman, to lead a life so free, And live on half-starved mutton cooked by sleek Ah Mee; To ride about all day, a life fit for the gods, And come home late at night to feast on damper sods? chorus Hurrah! Hurrah! For salt junk and for tea, Hurrah! Hurrah! A bushman’s life for me; To ride about all day, a life fit for the gods, And come home late at night to feast on damper sods. Away, you city scoffers, what know you of joy And heavenly bliss which fills the heart of that bold boy Who canters over the downs with rein held low and slack, upon a steed with ghastly sore upon his back. What matters it the heat, when there’s a Barcoo breeze? What trouble is the sun, when there are shady trees? Just lie down under one beside your dog who pants, And find true comfort here reposing with the ants. Go you city scoffers, we do not want you here. Go back unto your pavements, go back unto your beer; That man is happier far who works the plough and scoop, And drinks from out the creek the water like pea-soup. away, you city scoffers, go back unto your shops, You ne’er can realise the beauties of fried chops, The beauties of a camp with nary sign of feed, The beauties of the scorpion and the centipede. And you my noble nag, you’ve never yet been stalled, What though your back be blistered, and belly rather galled; You cannot speak your joys, nor use a great big D, Though I can swear at you, you cannot swear at me. Then let us off together, I’ll mount upon your back, And soon the sheep we’ll drive along the dusty track; A canter first, then walk, eight hours before we rest, No matter what folks say, a bushman’s life is best. Punch Christmas Chronicle Tune: A Bushman’s Life For me |
I have collected fragments of this song twice and its localised pioneering story seems to have been widely popular.
The Australian Star – 1878 (Extracted from the Tramp columns)
“The bushman is about the greatest humbug I have come across for many along day. He is so long-winded when he once starts a yarn there is no telling when he will stop. Last night after we had turned in he nagged and talked Jack and me to sleep. I awoke sometime in the middle of the night, and he was still talking away and quoting scraps of poetry. The last few days he has been constantly asking
Will winter never pass? A child said peering through the pain.”
He always said he had been “born hard-up” and “That there is nothing poetical about sundowning.”
There was a squatter so mean if it were possible he’d kill half a sheep at a time.
Going up to the kitchen we will deposit our swags and, if the cook is in a good mood, we will have a mug of tea, light our pipes, and then stroll up to Government House in quite a careless fashion., and inquire for the boss. Jack is always spokesman. “Good evening, sir, Any chance of a job?” “No, I am full-handed at present.” “Oh, I suppose we can stay tonight?’ and stay we do. Sometimes, for a change, Jack will ask if anyone is sick on the station; and when asked wha6t he asks such a question for, will answer “Well, if the man is very bad I would camp in the creek, and wait for him to die, then there might be a chance of a job.’
Australian Melodist No 21
The ‘Duff’ was a popular part of our bush eating tradition and came in all shapes and sizes and, one suspects, tastes. The Christmas Plum Duff inspired the original magic pudding.
| OLDEN “DUFF” Once more we sit beside the silver cover, Hot, as we started in our pie-gone days, – When warm the plate we’d burned our fingers under Proudly endured on olden duff to gaze. Once more we eat and stuff ourselves, you bet; Once more we eat and hand grasps spoon again, Ever to ask, if mother should forget, Never to think of by-gone hours of pain. Ever to ask, if mother should forget, Never to wink, never to blink, Never to think of by-gone hours of pain, Once more we eat the plum-duff filled with raisins, Eat as we started, though all may turn blue; Only the band of pants we loosen gently, Feeling the duff stick to our sides like glue, Once more we eat, and loudly call for more; Once more we eat, and own the last was best. Now for a start, on plum-duff cry “Encore!” Until the buttons fall from off our vest. Now for a start, on plum-duff cry “Encore!” Now for a start, on plum-duff cry ” Encore I” Until the buttons fall from off our vest, Until the buttons fall from off our vest, Our vest, our vest. Parody on “Golden Love” Lance Lenton Australian Melodist No 21 |
Burrabogie Station
Mitchell Library – Mitchelmore Mss papers.
Joseph McGraw & Co sold Burrabogie station by auction in Feb 1882. At the sale the auctioneer called out “Gentlemen, I am not trying to sell you a station. I am offering you a principality!”
Australian Journal – July 1871
This appears to be the original of the song also known as ‘The Old Man Kangaroo’. This version is related to the version sung by Simon McDonald and offers some new verses. John Meredith collected a version quite different in text from Jack Lee where the character is called Bill Chippen
| TAILING A KANGAROO Bill Swiggen and myself were bushed up in the mallee scrub, For two long days and two ling nights we had not tasted grub, And on the third, my blessed word, affairs looked rather blue, When Bill descried, with joyful pride, an old man kangaroo. This old man quite majestically sat upright on his tail, He looked at us contemptuously, nor did he shake nor quail, He seemed to say, ‘To come this way, what business fried had you?’ ‘By Jove!” cried Bill, “I’d like to kill, that old man kangaroo.’ Without another word he rushed with waddy in his hand, To where the old man kangaroo undauntedly did stand, He aimed a blow but this hairy foe upon poor William flew, And grabbed my mate, as sure as fate, this old man kangaroo. He clasped him tightly in his arms and Bill began to roar, A struggle so terrific, I had ne’er beheld before, “Oh Tom, why blow my eyes, you know he’ll break my back in two, Come hither quick and fetch a stick, oh cuss the kangaroo. At my approach the kangaroo made ready for a bolt, But still he clung to William tight, he would not loose his holt, But Bill you see, was twelve stone three, flesh, bones and muscle too, That’s overweight, the truth I state, for any kangaroo. Them stealing up behind the brute, my bag I opened wide, And pulling it down over his ears, I then securely tied, It ’round his neck, this seemed to check his progress so I drew, My dover out and with a shout, I tailed that old man kangaroo. A kangaroo without a tail can’t run we all well know, So finding his appendage gone, he let poor Willie go, He gave a shout, a gory tail I tell you but it’s true, Then with a jump he sunk, a lump of lifeless kangaroo. My mate was slightly bruised about but scarcely he was freed, \When turning round to me he says, “By George, we’ll have a feed.” Then Billy got the billy pot and cooked a splendid stew, The sweetest meal I ever ate was that old man kangaroo. Australian Journal – July 1871 Attributed to Tom Tallfern SITE SOURCE: Bush Life |
Simon McDonald, Creswick, Victoria, sings ‘Old Man Kangaroo’. Recorded by Norm O’Connor & Mary-Jean Officer, 1950s. NLA.
The Hamilton Spectator: Anon – 1865
| THE NEW CHUM IN THE COUNTRY The kitchen, as a rule, in all well-ordered stations is erected entirely separate from the rest of the house, though sometimes connected by a covered gangway. The arrangements is a good one, as the smell of cooking is banished to its own proper realms, the danger of fire to the house itself is lessened, and the servants have thereby their own quarters where they may feel at ease. Our meals on a sheep-station are of a substantial character, not necessitating any great proficiency in the cuisine. Mutton is of course omnipresent on a sheep-station, – at breakfast in the shape of chops, at lunch in the form of cold joints, and at dinner at the end of the day as a hot leg, shoulder or the like. One colonial friend used to have his six mutton-chops as regularly as clockwork for breakfast, and then be off for the whole day, riding till sundown, when he would again line the inner man with deep intakings of shoulder or leg. On the next station to us is pretty well the same all the year round, but on this the presence of a lady and a Chinaman have created greater variety. In the train of the squatter’s wife come such luxuries and delusions as pastry, puddings, and preserves, and the beneficent Chinaman employed as a gardener brings in fresh ‘wegetables’ every day from his continuously irrigated plot of garden-ground. You would think that here, at any rate, where climate and occupation are so wholesome, dyspepsia should not raise its horrid head; but the universal bolting of his meals causes many a bushman to feel that ‘tightness across the chest’ and many of its consequent results which assail Alderman Jones after his luxurious indigestible dinner at the club. Colonials boast of fast feeding, and say that a slow feeder is a slow worker, and that the converse holds true. There is no doubt, too, that a fast feeder should be a fast worker, for if he be consistent he must feel the necessity of cramming as much as possible into a life inevitably curtailed by his mode of eating. There is no doubt, too, that most colonials eat too much meat, considering the hot climate that they mostly enjoy. Were meat dearer than 2d. or 3d. a pound, fever and dysentery, nature’s modes of throwing off the excess of fibrin, would be less known. But as long as you can get a joint for a shilling or so, and a good piece of beef near a cattle neighbourhood for a few pence a pound, so long will this concentrated and heating form of nutriment be favoured. Where so many kangaroos are about, ’tis passing strange that the famous kangaroo-tail soup is not more often seen on the table. How the city gourmet would smack his lips over the thick, glutinous, opalescent liquid that this caudal appendage produces; but prejudice runs high amongst many folk out here against eating any part of such vermin, not because the beasts are bad feeders, for they feed as daintily as sheep, but in that they are ‘vermin’. Game and ducks abound in some places, but in common with pigeons and wild turkeys, which are considered delicacies, are not often obtainable; for, unless on a Sunday, or during the slack season after the wool crop has been gathered, no one has time to go ‘fooling around wit a gun’ after birds. I fancy that the best way to give you an insight into the station-life as it appears to an outsider (and in this it makes but little pretence to deception) is to sketch out for you a week’s occupations. If you begin with a Monday you will be bale to appreciate the rest of the Sabbath at the end as much as one does in reality in the bush. ‘Tis a fine clear winter morning, perhaps a slight frost on the ground, just enough to make you feel that the cold bath is more a matter of duty than a pleasure, if so that the water supply extends to such a luxury. Breakfast over, and an unlimited number of muttonchops consumed, we wander out to the stables, a motley group, ready for the day’s joys and trials. A fine set of horses stand fishing their breakfasts in the stalls. Aye, but you ought to have been here before breakfast, and seen them being raced-in from the horse-paddock, overshooting the mark, breaking back, and playing such pranks as made their respective owners, who formed a posse comitatus in their rear, ejaculate adjectives ad adverbs. If you are a visitor, the groom will clean down your horse and see to your saddle-girths and so on, but if you are going to stop any time you will have to take to the currycomb and brush as you did to a brush and comb in your schoolboy days, from a sense of necessity; and should the groom be a ‘black boy’, you had best see to your saddle and girths yourself, for here a loose strap may mean serious mischief should it chance to slip at a critical moment. It is a cheering sight to see; the squatter himself, with his cheery face and Bedford cords bestriding his steed, the pick of the lot – for what is the good of being ‘boss’ without the perquisites? – the overseer and one or two boundary riders are receiving their final instructions for the day, surrounded by a regular mob of kangaroo-hounds and sheep or cattle-dogs, all testifying in a somewhat noisy though sincere manner their joy at the opening of another day’s work. “Now come along,” says “the boss”, as the station-hands often call him, “we’ve got to clear a paddock before lunch some five miles square and ten miles off, and so we must be getting along! Jump up!” “Oh, it’s very well to say ‘jump up’, but the plaguy horse commences to start before ever I’ve got my foot in the stirrup.” At a later stage of the book he continues……………………… “Out here in the bush we get up early,” says our friend as we go to bed, “and breakfast at six or half-past, so I’ll give you a look in at 5.30.” As he is living alone in this bliss of bachelorhood, next morning sees a motley group at the breakfast table in deshabille. Here we are in the land of beef. This is the piece de resistance; bread, tea or coffee, and molasses afford us all alike a varied bill of fare. “Quantity without variety.” Says the station-owner, “but just you lay in enough of that molasses and you’ll grow as fat as an agricultural show pig.’ Our servant is a veritable specimen of an up-country domestic. Her resources are small, her cooking appliances few in number, her kitchen but a shed of galvanised iron, her range a couple of fire-bars over a wood fire, “but you have yet to see what she can turn out in the culinary way,” says the station-owner. “We draw the line at fricassees, but I know not why, for I do believe the woman could make an ice-pudding out of the material for plum duff and a little cold water, so natty is she.” One does not know what difficulties bush-servant copes with until, as happened once to me, a servant leaves unexpectedly, before another has time to supply her place. The camp-oven, a species of baking saucepan on legs, is hardly the most satisfactory utensil wherein to cook one’s first batch of bread or joint. At first one suffers the same vituperation at one’s friend’s hands as King Alfred did for the burnt cakes, or the plaguy thing gets into the obstinate state of being ‘half-cooked’ when it takes a poker to send a lump of the article down one’s throat, and makes one wish rather to eschew than chew amateur cooking. Meat killed in the morning gets tainted or blown before dinnertime, and somehow it does not appear to add to one’s relish to find a jumper or two on one’s plate. Or, again, leavings one article, to run down the paddock to and bring up the horses to water, may cause its being cooked in such an erratic fashion that, like a celebrated dish I still remember with grief, it might require being thrice cooked, and then may not have arrived at that blissful maturity called ‘done’. I wot of certain suet dumplings, which, instead of having a consistency called firm and light, they could have been safely thrown against a wall with the certainty that they would stick there. The boss on that occasion was suffering from dysenterical fever, and was cured effectually by eating one – not of his taste for dumplings, as a jealous friend asserts, but of his complaint. The process of cooking under the outback sun, with a blazing hot fire in front, a blazing hot sun above, and a hot walk of some yards to the homestead, has all the subtracting effect of the Turkish bath with none of its luxuries. And later…………… A favourite pastime among some colonial bushmen is to have flea races. At evening, when they draw near the fire with pipe in mouth, they resort to the intellectual recreation of sticking up little twigs in front of the fire, one before each man. The little parasite, drawn out by the genial heat, that first mounts the stick of its pristine accommodator, wins for him the pool, whatever it may be. The dizzy height of intellect one must aspire to, and the constant strain of brain-force required for excellence in this pastime, has prevented its attaining the popularity it otherwise should have, for when a lucky player has success he must immediately throw the sick in the fire.” And later………….. Another curious subject to notice in the hotel management of the colonies is, that owing to various causes often to be traced to the hosts pocket, you may find the sum of half-a-crown will both supply you with a banquet that does the cook and her patrons credit, with the accompaniments of plate, glass, flowers, etc. around you, and will also be charged for any meal you may have at a ‘bush’ tavern with stockmen, coach-drivers, and shepherds around, all intent on putting themselves outside some tough mutton or salt beef, which not improbably each man has to cut with his own knife, followed mayhap with a pasty (very much so) containing those apple chips whose presence tides over many a difficulty in the bush menu. I have known meat up-country so tough that the diners found a relief in the occasional mastication of a skewer, and as for bread you may likewise have it of all sorts. There are some loaves which to this day rise up in judgement against me and sit heavy on my conscience whenever I think of the golden opinions and large consumption their lightness and good flavour won for them, and as for sitting heavily they were content to leave one’s conscience alone and locate themselves on a more material portion of the human organization.” |