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Updated: June 4, 2025
It would be a bad thing a night like this." To keep out the cold, Dick crawled to the top of the opening and bound in the cedar limbs closer than ever. He also got some brush-wood and some vines, and on these placed a thick layer of snow. "That's fine!" cried Sam, from below. "It's almost as tight as the roof of a cabin."
This track of good ground runs to the eastward, and was separated from the cultivated land on the north side of Rose-Hill creek by a small patch of brush-wood, and a narrow slip of poor sandy soil.
We rushed through the brush-wood, elated as schoolboys who have shot their first throstle with a horse-pistol, and found the bustard flapping out its last breath in the hands of the native, whose dark visage gleamed with triumphant pride. Resuming our march, we passed over the side of a hill covered with inferior Jarra trees, and soon entered the ravine in which we expected to find the cattle.
In dry weather, with a brisk wind, the fire is apt to run on the surface of the ground in the bush, where the dry leaves are thickest. In clearing the land a good deal of brush-wood and tops of trees are thrown into the edge of the woods. It follows, as a matter of course, that the greatest danger to be apprehended is the burning the boundary-fences of farms.
According to the King's custom, when he wishes to lie down and sleep, they make for him a hedge of brush-wood and of thorns behind which his tent is pitched, which was done for him all along this route; on which route was seen a wonderful thing, namely that on passing a river which, when they reached it, came half-way up to the knee, before half the people had passed it was totally dry without a drop of water; and they went about in the sand of it making pits to find some water.
But this is by the by: While I was cutting down some wood here, I perceived that behind a very thick branch of low brush-wood, or under-wood, there was a kind of hollow place: I was curious to look in it, and getting with difficulty into the mouth of it, I found it was pretty large: that is to say, sufficient for me to stand upright in it, and perhaps another with me: but I must confess to you that I made more haste out than I did in, when, looking farther into the place, and which was perfectly dark, I saw two broad shining eyes of some creature, whether devil or man I knew not, which twinkled like two stars; the dim light from the cave's mouth shining directly in, and making the reflection.
When I went out to fetch water this morning I smelt something queer. I went round to the back of the cabin and found a hole dug under the floor, and piled against the corner wall a lot of brush-wood and a can of kerosene. Some of the kerosene had been already poured on the brush. Everything was ready to light, and only my coming out an hour earlier had frightened the devils away.
In the twinkling of an eye, the ground was cleared of brush-wood and our hut constructed. We had scarcely sat down to take breath when a slight rustling in the foliage attracted our attention, and an animal with a bushy tail sprang down from a tree. Gringalet darted at it, but an abominable smell, which almost suffocated us, at once made him retreat.
The bright tints of the lettuces and other fresh green vegetables serve to set off the rich colours of the God-made delicacies, but the prevailing hue of the scene is a restful earth-brown, an autumnal leaf-tint; the trodden ground, the sun-dried brush-wood of the booths and awnings, and the wet-stained wood-work. No glamour of paint or gleam of glass destroys the harmony of the surroundings.
Long, long years ago, I have seen a dozen men toiling in one little cleared spot, jollily engaged in burning them with huge fires of brush-wood, chopping at them with desperate axes, and tearing the less tenacious out by the roots, with a rude machine made on the principle of that instrument by the aid of which the dentist revenges you on an offending tooth.
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