AUSTRALIAN BUSH

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 May 1937, Page 15

AUSTRALIAN BUSH

ITS DISTINCTIVE BUSHMEN.

Some years ago we were foregathered for the evening in a bushman’s camp—men from various parts', of the world (writes Gerald O’Hagen in the Melbourne Argus). We fell to extolling the countries of our birth. A Scotsman told jokes against his -native land; be felt that they were useful to make other people laugh, and the best titne to strike a bargain with other people is. when they are in a good humour. An Irishman had come in from the township with tobacco. He told us that if we' could tell how many tins of tobacco’ he had in his swag we could have' the whole five. Syd., an Australian, declared that in Australia one could experience every degree of climate. Syd was every ready with concrete example to illustrate abstract generalisation. “I was riding along one night,” he said, “when a sharp frost made the snow as hard as a prison road. I camped for the night, hobbled me horse, and tethered him to a clump of shrubs. A hot sun woke' me up next morning. 1 looked round. There was me dawg chasing rabbits, snow in the billy was on the boil, 1 was lyin’ at the. bottom of a. big tree, and me horse was dangling tiom the top.” In later rears 1 was to wander in most parts of Australia. A man is the product of his experiences. He is susceptible, sensitive to a vast variety of conditions, and undergoes varied and opposed experiences. (But never did 1 realise such experiences of vivid immediacy as might be gathered from the stoi’v of my-friend Syd. Comparison is still the soveregn method of judgment, and the detached outlook of the traveller in other lands may discern something in. the Ausiraiian bush which the Australian misses, and which eludes the inkyfingered tourist. Perdition catch that tourist. Mark Twain has something to s-av about him. He is a travelling snail with his house on his back standardised to a pattern. A Wodehouse metaphor may suit his vriticn utterance: “The evening sun cast a glow as warm as the smile on a dr bt-eollector's face." “The azure blue of heaven was never so translucent as the softer blue of a summons form. 1 But. the traveller may catch the spirit .of tin bush and even the thin wraith

of its beauty against a background stark and intense. The Australian bush has a character all its. own. Il is one of negation rath< r than anything Sombre, funereal, almost bizarre, with leiidhss horizons, it presents the only paradox in a land of surprises. H gives the idea of oldness without mysItery There is no great river-bed to fix'emot’onal power to national loyalItim;, yet there is no one prouder ot ihis country than the outback man. i The snell of it is attained through silence--silence. “the angel of the supreme truth which blings to the heart tidings of the unknown." It is 'an original and never-failing source ot inspiration, -accessible to all, <t pure . enough fountain unclouded by doubt

or error .or care. Under its spell the; armour of cynicism may drop from the tired man of the world. The reality becomes as fair as the dream. Its voice may notZ-.e the voice of the prophets, but rather tjie voice Which spoke to them. It is the great safety: valve to the complexities of life in the cities. The bush is the heart of Australia, and, according to Professor Hancock, it is with the bushman that the final fate of the race will rest,, not because the bush is remote, but because it is “tethered to the end of the world.”.. To the bushman it gives character, not colour. He is monochrome. His laconic and spare utterances are well known. He is no conversationalist. Two outback men are riding silently along the track. “Nice bit of country, this, Bill,” re-, marks Joe.

“Yeah,” answers Bill. They ride on in silence for some time. “Good bit of feed hero,” from one. The other assents. They ride on farther and dismount in silence to boil the billy. They ride on again. One turns up a side track. “What! Are you headin’ off on yer own, Joe.” “Yes,” says Bill. “Too many arguments.” ,

TRANQUILITY OF SPIRIT. The outback man’s articulation may not have in it the delicate tracery of running streams, or the imagery of words that spring spontaneously to the lips, but he has animal health and tranquility of spirit in the face of eternal boredom. His soul may not be mysterious, dark, passionate,, as are the more romantically picturesque types in other lands, but he will carry a‘ wounded man for 20 miles on his shoulders. Where, men of other lands accept, the bounties of nature with a listless inactivity, his life is constant, battle with the elements and the animal. Left, to himself and alone with nature, man feels a kinship with . the whole universe, especially with living !kings and huma,n beings. The sense of 'community is latent in the heart. Ho lives ihe vivid life and vigorous abandon of a poet’s mind. Periods of depression alternate with clarion; irritability follows supremo serenity. A more familiar character is . the swaggie. or swagman. He. is either genuinely seeking employment, or he trios to avoid it, -us a profession. The intensity of silence creates in him illusions. It is. no uncommon sight to see one stand his swag on end, argue, preach, quarrel, and boat it. Odd and uncommon characters are mol. among I hem. Two of them whom I moi. wore driving a horse in front of them.

“What do you do with yourself in the long evenings, alone?” I asked of one. "Sometimes 1 sit and think,” he replied wistfully.: "and at other limos I just, sit.” "Any news?" I inqulired. He unfolded an old copy of a newspaper which he handled with a care that had in it a gentle reverence.

"Thai. Larwood,” he said, “is a fair cow." The other man. who was driving the horse, was evidently an Irishman. “Where are you heading that horse for?" 1 asked. The horse showed all the perversity of an artist. “You have him 1 headed the wrong wav." "Whist, or lie’ll hear you,” he cautioned.