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On the 10th of July travelling down the Finke near a place called Crown Point on the telegraph line, we saw a white man riding towards us. He proved to be a Mr. Alfred Frost, the owner of several fine horse-teams and a contractor to supply loading for the Government to several telegraph stations farther up the line. I had known him before; he was most kind.
I got the feed-bags stretched across the shafts, and the chaff-and-corn into them; and there stood the horses all round with their rumps north, south, and west, and their heads between the shafts, munching and switching their tails. We use double shafts, you know, for horse-teams two pairs side by side, and prop them up, and stretch bags between them, letting the bags sag to serve as feed-boxes.
"'Hold-on! says I. 'On second thoughts, I haven't possession. But I think I know your voice. Are n't you Barefooted Bob? Where's Bat? "'Laying for Potter's horse-teams to-night, says Bob. 'He'll get them, right enough. "'Come over to the wagon, and have a drink of tea, says I. "'No, no, says he; 'none of your toe-rag business.
The poor devil with neither money nor luck, who looked into each dishful of dirt for the wherewithal to live, and found it not, was indeed scarcely to be envied. Water at this time was carted by horse-teams in waggons with large tanks on board, or by camel caravans, from a distance of thirty-six miles, drawn from a well near a large granite rock.
I lost a summer in 1853, and had two winters instead, one in England, the other in Australia. It was cold in the month of May as we neared Bendigo. We were a mixed party of English, Irish, and Scotch, twelve in number, and accompanied by three horse-teams, carrying tubs, tents, and provisions.
"I give my word truly," said Iriel; "it seems to me that there is not ford on river, or stone on hill, nor highway nor road in the territory of Breg or Mide, that is not full of their horse-teams and of their servants. It seems to me that their apparel and their gear and their garments are the blaze of a royal house from the plain."
Soon after the Fizzer left us the horse-teams came in, and went on, top-heavy with stores for "inside"; but the "Macs" were now thinking of the dry stages ahead, and were travelling at the exasperating rate of about four miles a day, as they "nursed the bullocks" through the good grass country.
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