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For some time previously to muster-day, the stock-keepers have been very busy drawing their herds by degrees as near the stock-yard as possible; and when the day arrives, the whole are driven into the yard to be inspected. All the yearlings are then branded, and fat bullocks are picked out for sale or slaughter.
Montgomery Martin was in Australia, he obtained with some difficulty the dead body of an old woman, who had long been known about Sydney. Hearing of her death and burial in the forest, about twenty-five miles from his residence, he went thither, and aided by some stock-keepers, found the grave, a slightly elevated and nearly circular mound.
In our district, I believe, the blacks were harmless people; but, on the Upper Hunter, on Liverpool Plains, they have been not only very troublesome, but even dangerous neighbours. Many settlers have suffered severely from their depredations; and several shepherds and stock-keepers have been murdered by them.
They are placed on the only two good tracts of land crossed by our party before we reached the arid plains of the interior. Even my boat depot on the Namoi, the terra incognita made known only by my first despatch, was immediately after occupied as a cattle-run by the stock-keepers of Sir John Jamieson.
On the Murray River native shepherds and stock-keepers have hitherto been employed almost exclusively, and have been found to answer well. Most of the settlers in that district have one or more native youths constantly living at their houses.
This, however, is more than most of these gentry condescend to do, many of them preferring the company of cattle-stealers and other vagabonds, with whom they are frequently leagued; and if I may judge from the money I have seen in possession of stock-keepers, they share largely in the cattle-stealers' plunder.
On the Murray River native shepherds and stock-keepers have hitherto been employed almost exclusively, and have been found to answer well. Most of the settlers in that district have one or more native youths constantly living at their houses.
He generally employs two men, called stock-keepers, to look after them: these are mounted, and ought to employ their time in riding over and roundabout their master's run, to see that his cattle do not stray, and that his grass is not trespassed on by others.
Passing over the fearful scenes of horror and bloodshed, that have but too frequently been perpetrated in all the Australian colonies upon the natives in the remoter districts, by the most desperate and abandoned of our countrymen; and overlooking, also, the recklessness that too generally pervades the shepherds and stock-keepers of the interior, with regard to the coloured races, a recklessness that leads them to think as little of firing at a black, as at a bird, and which makes the number they have killed, or the atrocities that have attended the deeds, a matter for a tale, a jest or boast at their pothouse revelries; overlooking these, let us suppose that the settler is actuated by no bad intentions, and that he is sincerely anxious to avoid any collision with the natives, or not to do them any injury, yet under these even comparatively favourable circumstances, what frequently is the result?
As they had a pocket compass and had been furnished with a rough map of the country, they had no difficulty in assuring themselves that their guide was conducting them aright. The shepherds and stock-keepers looked puzzled, and as not a single remark of approval or disapproval was uttered, they could not make up their minds how to proceed.
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