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Updated: May 16, 2025
But when once on the sandstone platform, the scenery becomes exceedingly monotonous; each side of the road is bordered by scrubby trees of the never-failing Eucalyptus family; and with the exception of two or three small inns, there are no houses or cultivated land; the road, moreover, is solitary; the most frequent object being a bullock-waggon, piled up with bales of wool.
Only the creaking of a bullock-waggon, or the thud of a falling cocoanut, breaks the hush of the tropical daybreak, when the leaves only whisper in their dreams, and the vernal earth, fresh as from her Creator's hand, renews her strength for the heat and burden of the coming day.
Once I was riding with my husband up a lovely gulley, when we heard the crack of a stockwhip, sounding strangely through the deep eternal silence of a New Zealand valley, and a turn of the track showed us a heavy, timber-laden bullock-waggon labouring slowly along.
Every now and then they passed on the roadside a noble tree, with wide-spread, drooping branches, a species of banyan tree, under which was often seen a bullock-waggon with its team. All this was oriental and picturesque; but the scenery sometimes reminded them of spots in Devonshire, so green and fresh was all the vegetation, and so pleasant were the deep narrow lanes and sparkling brooks.
We lost a good many men, but did fairly well in the end, as our infantry got into the enemy among some hills, where there were not supposed to be any enemy at all, and cut them up a good deal. The following day I made the march on a bullock-waggon, which is really a very fine and imposing way of getting along.
This, too, failing in its effect, she nosed the ground for a few yards, then set out at a gentle, mane-shaking trot for home. Found, a dark conspicuous heap on the long bare road, and carted back to town by a passing bullock-waggon, Mahony lay, once the death-like coma had yielded, and tossed in fever and delirium.
So I slept and woke, and slept again, day after day, week after week, in the lazy bullock-waggon, among herds of grey cattle, guarded by huge lop-eared mastiffs; among shaggy white horses, heavy-horned sheep, and silky goats; among tall, bare-limbed men, with stone axes on their shoulders, and horn bows at their backs.
If I can find people going in a bullock-waggon, I will join them; it costs 1 pound a day, and goes twenty miles. If money were no object, I would hire one with Caffres to hunt, as well as outspan and drive, and take a saddle-horse. There is plenty of pleasure to be had in travelling here, if you can afford it. The scenery is quite beyond anything you can imagine in beauty.
To these, the madcap driver would reply with a shrill and fiendish yell, belabouring his frantic cattle with a view to attempting fresh feats. They succeeded. It only wanted a bullock-waggon coming down the street to afford them the opportunity. The bullock-waggon came. Then a dead, dull scrunch an awful shock and the cab was at a standstill.
But when once on the sandstone platform, the scenery becomes exceedingly monotonous; each side of the road is bordered by scrubby trees of the never-failing Eucalyptus family; and with the exception of two or three small inns, there are no houses or cultivated land: the road, moreover, is solitary; the most frequent object being a bullock-waggon, piled up with bales of wool.
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