Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 21, 2025
As this dray was apart from the others, and at a distance from any fire, I was at a loss to account for the accident; but it appeared that Jones had placed a piece of lighted cowdung under the dray the evening before, to drive off the mosquitos, which must have lodged in the tarpaulin and set it on fire.
The country we travelled through was low, level, and for the most part covered with salsolae, or brush, the latter in some places being very dense, and causing great fatigue to the horses in dragging the dray through it. September 18.
I was stuck in a bog for five weeks, rain pouring the whole time. I eventually delivered the wool, loaded up rations from Brodziak Bros., and started on my return journey. In those days the range was in a primitive state, and coming down my mate capsized his dray.
We had no draught horse, and if we had there was neither water-cask, trolly, nor dray; so we humped it and talk about a drag! By the time you returned, if you had n't drained the bucket, in spite of the big drink you'd take before leaving the springs, more than half would certainly be spilt through the vessel bumping against your leg every time you stumbled in the long grass.
The burly labourers of the Victorian times had followed the dray horse and all such living force producers, to extinction; the place of his costly muscles was taken by some dexterous machine. The latter-day labourer, male as well as female, was essentially a machine-minder and feeder, a servant and attendant, or an artist under direction.
We decided that as we were so far on the way to our new property, we would go and look at it before returning to the Malvern Hills, and the next few days were very busy ones, as we had to arrange our small domestic affairs, send up the dray, etc., etc.
It is considered safer practice to load wool as soon as may be; fifty bales represent about a thousand pounds sterling. In a building, however secure, should a fire break out, a few hundred bales are easily burned; but once on the dray, this much-dreaded "edax rerum" in a dry country has little chance.
A closer inspection showed them that there were carpenters' and blacksmiths shops; indeed, it was a complete farm establishment on a large scale. As riding on, in advance of the dray, they reached the door, a stout, hearty-looking old gentleman came out to meet them, and welcomed them in the most cordial manner.
He lay in bed for a long time, tenderly nursed by his companions; and, when the whole party set out on its return to the settled districts, he had to be lifted in and out of the dray in which he was carried. As they neared their homes his sight began to fail. The glare of the burning sands had destroyed his eyes, and he passed the remainder of his days in darkness.
"Some of the wreaths must have been four feet across, and I invariably tripped over the ribbons, when I carried them off the stage. I did wish they would furnish a dray; garlands are horribly in the way in a carriage." "And then what became of them?" Thayer shrugged his shoulders. "Ask the chambermaids along the route.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking