Bush-Riding in Australia.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 192, 19 February 1887, Page 5

Bush- Riding in Australia.

It was an early eprinir morning on a large " cattle-run " in the eastern division of the colony of New South Wales. The sun roee in a cloudless sky upon the countless tree-tops which clothe the undulating slopes of the thickly-grassed hill country of the upper Clarence River, and lit up the head station stock-yard and the bark-roofed huts, which lay grouped some four hundred yards from the manager's houee. i A quite cloudless eky, a country clothed with grass ot a vivid green, for every bla^e tor miles around was new since the last great bush fire of a month ago, and covered with the typical gum tree, with its buge bare trunk stretching up from thirty to one hundred feet without a branch ; a country mostly hilly, but with lovely little treeless flats dotted here and there along the courses of the streams and the great river ; the river itself a succession of still reaches and noisy rapids, with a bed averaging a quarter of a mile in width, filled from time to time with swiftlyrieinu floods. Stretching away into the distance, hill upon hill lay piled confusedly, bounded only in the dim distance by the threat dividing range of the sister colonies ot New South Wales and Queensland. At that early hour a great level sea of tuict lay upon the flats and valley?, out of which the hills roee clear and resplendent in the first ray* |of the rieing sun. A little later the troubled sea rolled in huge waves up the sides ot tho hills, and melted away into 'he clear still air above. On a neighbouring ridge could be seen the large propped-up sheets of bark which formed the " gunyahs " of the blacks' camp, under which, each rolled in bis Government blanket, lay the prostrate forms of Pincher Jimmy, Long Charley, and Brandy, once chiefs of the powerful Yulgilbar tribe, but now— must we say it?- content to work for a shilling a day and tht-ir rations. One can almost, imagine, as " Bunbarrajum " mut ters in his sleep, that his thick lips are forming the words "Ichabod ! Ichabod !" Vain thought, he is only dreaming of thrashing his " gin " (wife) with a boomerang. Tins day on which the sun rose so gloriously was to be an important one— one on which the energy and etraight-riding qualities of the little circle of head-station stockmen would be called into active play. The station had been getting short of horses, and it had been decided the night before to make it the work of the day fol lowing to recruit our stock of horseflesh by 11 running-in " some wild horses, many of which were to be found among the ranges which bound the " run." " Running-iu " wild horses in Australia, where the lanso in unknown, is chance work, and has to be done by sheer hard galloping and good riding A wild horse hap greatly the advantage, as he is minus the weight of a rider. Thu* the only way to knock them up is to divide the party into relays of horsemen, which take up the chaee in turns, and reat between times. Of course, steering the horses in one direction while fre*h ie almost impossible, so they must be galloped in any direction till exhausted, and then steered towardvS the stockyard. So fast are some of them that the best sometimes defy all efforts and have to be shot at laet An hour after sunrise and we were ready. A little party of eight, seven of whom puffed " Eureka '' tobacco from clays of varying rize and colour, rode quietly at a foot pace out into the bush. No one spoke, but each looked anxiously about in all directions Each man rode a picked horse, warranted not to fall, which of all calamities an old bushman fears the most. We were riding across a little flat where the "foxtail" grass, laden with dtw, came half-way up the hordes' sides, when Littlo Tommy, our smartest black-boy, who haa eyes like a hawk, suddenly spoke, " Wuh 1 me bin see him, six fellow horse galloping, my word !" It was time for action, and in a moment of intense excitement we simultaneously and with accuracy placed our hut-string& beneath our noees. At least seven of ue, for Tommy's hat had no string. Then we separated. Three men went off by a short cut to a point known to be in the beat of the horses Two remained a mile or so from the stockyard ; the other three followed the '•mob " of wild horses which Tommy had discovered. Then the galloping began. And such galloping ! Away, away, far into the boundless forest, through the thick-standing timber, over great fallen trees, through treacherous gullies and quaking swamps ; clattering over rocky water-courses, half swimming the swollen river ; escaping only by a hair's breadth the half-hidden forsaken shaft of the übiquitous gold-digger, and. the eraes grown stump-hole; through "ring-barked" country, where the rotting limbs of the sap forsaken trees fall without warning cease leaply ; brushing aside the long, rank, " blady " graae, four or five fact high ; uphill and downhill — down slopes so steep that the loosened stones clatter behind on their downward | course ; sitting well back behind the great knee-pads of the Australian built saddle, a rein in each hand, with feet home in the stirrups, with set teeth and strained nerves, with a rush and a swing, aud with a feeling, and a true one, that a einglo false step or a single misjudged turn and all might be over. On, on, past sunny slopes, through gloomy mountain gorges, where seldom, if ever, before h»fi the voice of the white man echoed ; scaring with long-drawn halloo the shorfc-aighteu kangaroo and ever-hungry dingo ; awakening the carpet-snake from his winter sleep, and panting confusion in the nept of the fierce eoldier-ant ; riding fearlessly, recklessly, regarding nothing but tho distant long-waving tails of the wisher? - for steeds; never swerving or. slackening till the heavy flanks and labourod strides of tho worn-out horse beneath one remind that even the winners of " big handicaps " i are mortal, and give warning that it is time to signal with far-resounding " coo ee-ee " to the freah relay of the horsemen who ought to be near. It is simply glorious. Those only know the charm who ride straight through Australian timbered country at the gallop ; ride anywhere and everywhere, without a thought of "funking" or slackening speod. Such men are rare, even in Australia. The game is too risky to attract many. After a gallop such as this we at last succeeded in gradually steering the winded and exhausted horses toward the stockyard gates. Surely their spirit was broken, we imagined. We soon thought differently, however. The gates were in a corner where two post-and-rail split-timber fences met at right angles. Into this corner the horses were now steered, the eight riders forming a eemi-cirole round the opening, and gradually closing them in towards the gates. • The manager now joined us. He was a stout old fellow, about sixty years of age, on an old horse, and he had taken no part in the galloping— naturally. He helped us to close in the wild horses, and we thought they were quite knocked up. So

they were, except one, and he faced round, made a straight forward rush at the " boee," bore horee and rider to the ground, and galloped off through the gap thus made, followed by the whole " mob," It took some time to persuade the " boss that the end of the world had not come. Certainly it was an unusual and very extra ordinary occurrence. Oar horses unsaddled and "turned out" in the paddock, we went inside to console ourselves with quart-pot-tea, palt beef, and damper as beet we might, and^ to anathemiee, in language more or lees choice, the perversity of wild horses in general and that "mob" in particular.— "Australian Stockman."