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DRYING UP OF GRASS.
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CHAPTER XI.
Winter a favourable time for exploring parties—Explorers turn back for want of water—Second expedition—Excitement at setting out—School copies—Second disappointment—Wild puppies give great umbrage—Bushrangers—Impassable bush serves as prison wall—Fire-arms indispensable to bushrangers—Fatal occurrences—Native trackers—Chain-gang—Conditional pardons—Fact of having been in Western Australia suppressed by immigrants in Adelaide—Tale of escape—Discontent of ticket-of-leave men on cessation of conditional pardons—An oppressive state of law—Truck system—Anecdote of shoemaker—Benevolent master—Tendency of truck system to destroy gratitude—Archdeacon Paley's opinion of paying ready money—Girl thinks it high time bucket should be worn out—Reckless expenditure of wages—Savings' bank discouraged, and why—French convict saves money—Barter—Paying one's creditor with eggs—Dressmaker paid with melons and almonds—Hospital admission—Nursing the sick—Presents to patients forbidden—Hospital orderlies—Dentists—French Colonel—Ophthalmia—"Bunged" eyes—Squints—Measles and hooping-cough—Mortality from measles amongst natives—A "corporal act of mercy"—Native hops and tea—Holloway's pills—Woman severely burnt—Broken leg—Dislocated hip—Answer to coo-ee—Finding of human bones—Lost child—Discovery of relics—Reasons for easily losing one's way in bush—Anecdotes of Irish neighbour and the poor maid-servant—We spend a night out of doors—Silence of bush at night—A perplexing adventure—Horse brought back by Khourabene—A "dropped hip"—We are thrown out of cart and feel injured by horse's indifference to what has happened—Traces repaired with knitting-cotton.
During the long hot summers of Western Australia the bush was gradually denuded of the dried-up grass and herbage which forms the food of both sheep and cattle at that season, and by the time that the first showers of rain fell but little was left to supply the wants of the flocks
