The Gold Deposits in Australia; Their Discovery, Development and Geognosy, with a Disquisition on the Origin of Gold in Placer-Deposits and in Quartz-Veinstones (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: consideration that Gundawinda, where I had recently been in temporary occupation, was an abandoned run with very substantial stock yards and paddocks remaining, and within three miles of the homestead of Boogabila, I concluded to remove to Gundawinda with my cattle, and to occupy that run in lieu of Carbucky. The run of Gundawinda was much inferior of the two, but then Carbucky far exceeded my immediate wants in its immense extent. The blacks of McIntyre were always an interesting study to me. Many of them I am not ashamed to speak of as being my intimate friends. Some of the warriors were fine noble fellows individually, and by no means so very inferior in intellect as they are often represented to be. There were in these people, as in all savages, noble traits of character often to be met with, and I, as the only resident proprietor in the neighbourhood (a distinction which they perfectly well understood), was always treated by them with the most marked respect. The depredations committed were, I am persuaded, mostly commenced by a few incorrigibles, while the better disposed individuals of the tribe were unable to control the less tractable ones. It is quite a popular error to imagine, as is often done, that these people are under the absolute control of chiefs or kings, who can manage the whole tribe according to their will. They have no hereditary chiefs or kings, the personal prowess of a warlike individual alone giving him an uncertain temporary influence and authority. Soon after removal to Gundawinda I drafted from the herd about seventy head of fat cattle for market. One of the greatest evils of being surrounded with troublesome aboriginals is the difficulty of getting cattle to grow fat when harassed by them. This evil is far more important than the loss of the fe...