stic
pendants like crimson stalactites; ravines along the sides of which
the long-bladed grass grows rankly; level untimbered plains
alternating with undulating tracts of pasture, here and there broken
by a stony ridge, steep gully, or dried-up creek. All wild, vast
and desolate; all the same monotonous gray coloring, except where
the wattle, when in blossom, shows patches of feathery gold, or a
belt of scrub lies green, glossy, and impenetrable as Indian jungle.

"The solitude seems intensified by the strange sounds of reptiles,
birds, and insects, and by the absence of larger creatures; of which
in the day-time, the only audible signs are the stampede of a herd
of kangaroo, or the rustle of a wallabi, or a dingo stirring the
grass as it creeps to its lair. But there are the whirring of
locusts, the demoniac chuckle of the laughing jack-ass, the
screeching of cockatoos and parrots, the hissing of the frilled
lizard, and the buzzing of innumerable insects hidden under the
dense undergrowth. And then at night, the melancholy wailing of the
curlews, the dismal howling of dingoes, the discordant croaking of
tree-frogs, might well shake the nerves of the solitary watcher."

That is the theater for the drama. When you comprehend one or two other
details, you will perceive how well suited for trouble it was, and how
loudly it invited it. The cattlemen's stations were scattered over that
profound wilderness miles and miles apart--at each station half a dozen
persons. There was a plenty of cattle, the black natives were always
ill-nourished and hungry. The land belonged to them. The whites had not
bought it, and couldn't buy it; for the tribes had no chiefs, nobody in
authority, nobody competent to sell and convey; and the tribes themselves
had no comprehension of the idea of transferable ownership of land. The
ousted owners were despised by the white interlopers, and this opinion
was not hidden under a bushel. More promising materials for a tragedy
could not have been collated. Let Mrs. Praed speak:

"At Nie Nie station, one dark night, the unsuspecting hut-keeper,
having, as he believed, secured himself against assault, was lying
wrapped in his blankets sleeping profoundly. The Blacks crept
stealthily down the chimney and battered in his skull while he
slept."

One could guess the whole drama from t