Page:An Australian Parsonage.djvu/198

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A DOLGHITE.
169

tinguising features to point out our road as he led us mile after mile, winding in and out through the interminable trees. We arrived at length, I remember, upon a large flat expanse of granite even with the ground, where there was a round hole in the rock, as perfectly smooth and circular as if made by art, and fall of water, around which some cattle had gathered; but not a human creature did we meet till near home in the evening, when we passed and spoke to a merry-looking little old native who was coming along upon a pony to bring rations to the shepherd.

I have not forgotten the dinner which we had on our return, for it was an experimental one on a bush animal called a dolghite, which Rosa had consented to dress according to the directions in a cookery-book for serving up a roasted rabbit. Not that Rosa had any objections to dolghites in particular, though I do not think that she had ever eaten one, still less had she ever tasted a rabbit; but for all bush meat that was not kangaroo she had a general feeling something between a contempt and a prejudice, for which she never gave any other reason than that "it smelt wild." The dolghite proved, as we had expected, so exceedingly like a rabbit when cooked that we could detect no difference in taste, although we were in the secret; in fact, if the dolghite is cut up as for a fricassee the slight difference in the shape of the two animals is unperceived, and the flesh of both being white the deception is complete. The parallel, however, does not extend to their dispositions, for the confidence of a dolghite is so difficult to obtain that my husband piqued himself not a little in persuading one, that was given him as a pet, to be on terms of even distant civility with us;