AUSTRALIA’S BLIGHT.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 253, 29 January 1889, Page 3

AUSTRALIA’S BLIGHT.

DESCRIPTIVE EXPERIENCE OF A DROUGHT. A well written description of an Australian drought is published in a contemporary, the writer giving his experience in the Riverina district. MY FIRST EXPEBIENCE OF A DROUGHT was on a station in Riverina thirteen years ago, on a large property owned by a wealthy Victorian. A very new chum, fresh from the Old Country, with all its (to me) irksome restrictions and conventionalities. I. found that I was booked to go up-country on to a fine station in the Riverina. I was in the seventh heaven or thereabouts. Riverina! My Riverina and the Riverina of reality I soon discovered to be different—“ just a few ” as the yankees Would say. Rivers simply chains of water-holes, made ghastly to the unaccustomed eye by a sickening fringe of bogged dead and dying stock. The luxuriant plains of my imagination were wastes ankle deep in dust, and blackened with the stumps of saltbush and bluebush, long since trimmed of all that was green and eatable, and that now looked as if a great fire had swopt over and blasted everything. The water holes either dry or covered at the bottom with a little moisture of green slime liberally dotted with carcases of dead sheep. I found that I had happened on Riverina in the throes of a drought, and a great and terrible drought that was. The privations were so great and supplies of all kinds so hard to obtain that even scurvy broke out among the hands. Somehow I fancy that the humdrum life of the Old Country that I had found irksome so short a time since presented itself to rne in quite a different light just about this foeriod. That drought 1 sated for years, and was followed by heavy floods in 1878. and almost equalling the flood of 1870, which is a landmark to this day with the old hands in Riverina. The signs of an approaching drought are numerous and fairly reliable. These terrible visitations occur periodically about every fourth year, though occasionally, as in the present case, at much shorter intervals ; however, whether at shorter or longer periods TIIXT MUST BS BEGABDBD AS IXEVITIBLE, and truly they make themselves felt with a vengeance. They frequently start with a short, eold, dry winter, with in the early spring alternate changes of unseasonably hot and cold weather, early hot winds, with dust storms, a constant mirage, and whirlwinds innumberable flying about. I have counted as many as twenty of these at one time gyrattag ana undulating in the air, drawing up dust and rubbish in columns fifty feet through at the base, and spiralling away to nothing hundreds effect overhead. A phenomenon very noticeable in a really bad season is a sudden clouding up about mid-day, the sky getting overcast and threatening, giving a false promise to the uninitiated of a speedy termination to their troubles, only to clear off again at night, and you wake in the morning to find the sun ruing as usual in a cloudless sky, the same fiery, insatiable mobster of yesterday, but to be eclipsed again at mid-day by heavy thunderous clouds, Otten this will go on tor days—alternate hot cloudless mornings and muggy overcast afternoons—when suddenly the barometer (if the station be civilised enough to have one) will fall rapidly, and then, Instead of the longed-for, prayed-for, or euned-forrain, lo 1

a bcbSisg mighty wind, bearing with it dust, dust, dust, and, perhaps as a cruel jest, about three drops of rain to the square yard. This “ Darling shower,” as it is locally termed, certainly clears the air, sending the thermometer down 30Jeg, and is followed by a cool south breeze, but putting the chances of rain back perhaps another week, till thereat has worked up another mesa of thunderclouds, which in their turn will probably be dispelled by a •• Darling shower." Of course, there ie always the chance of a thundercloud on occasions bursting over some convenient tank, but somehow it generally happens that it is a neighbour's tank that is thus fortunate. Doubtless many will say, “ Why not sink for water underground in such a God-forsaken country as this ? ” The district in question has done a lot in that direction with more or lest success, and quite recently in the Northwest a party of American borers have been very happy in finding artesian supplies at depths varying from 1200 ft to 2000 ft. No doubt owners are in fault for not making greater prevision daring good seasons for the certain bad ones to follow. The truth is, in a majority of cases, they suffer such heavy losses during the drought that their only aim is, on the advent of a series of a good seasons following it, to make all they can to recoup themselves as quickly as possible, and at as small a cost, of course's putting away from themselves blindly the knowledge (that all experienced inen must possess) that the drought will recur, and find them as little able to do battle with it as on former occasions. But even

SUTPOSE A STATION TO BE ADEQUATELY SUPPLIED with really good serviceable wells. After a few months' use the country all around these wells gets so cut up, and the grass so downtrodden, by the continual streaming in, morning and evening, -of thousands upon thousands of thirsty sheep, that the sheep gradually get weaker as the feed gets scarcer, and eventually decline to go out at all, but hang about the troughs all day, living purely upon suction. The only course to pursue in this ciee is to start gangs of men ont scrub-cutting, if any scrub be handy to the wall. The chief edible sorts are hopbush, emubnsh, mulga, boree, myall and blue. I have seen the expectant sheep in mobs congregated round the axemen, waiting so eagerly for the falling limbs as almost to impede the axe strokes. No tongue can tell the relief when at length the blessed change does come, and the drought breaks. The wind persistently in the North and a Very slowly-falling barometer mark the near approach of rain, and perhaps a day or two beforehand may be noticed a flock of ducks or pelicans passing overhead. Just fancy, after turning in for the night with a pitchpick sky overhead, to be woke up suddenly ay the rain deluging down on the corrugated Ipoo roof above. Should there be !• whisky in the jar," all hands wi<l tumble up and have aqip, and wander about half clad, now Id the torrents, and now under the Varandafe, with pipes aglow, quite regardless of the reptiles (centipedes, for instance) numerous and venomous, that are also meandering about, having “all come into the ark to get out of the rain,” as the old shanty hath it. The iron tanks and spouting have been adjusted the evening before on •pec, so that jiot a precious drop shall be Jeer. In the morning what a hurrying np ol kfirses, end s dallyiag forth of men with long-handled shovels over their shoulders to clear away tank and dam drains. A mounted messenger scurries off as fast as heavy roads

a*da P<x>r, poverty stricken neg will sllow, to toe nearest post or telegraph station with THS WELCOME NEWS to agents and owners—the over-strained bote* careworn brow relaxes—everything Maumee a different aspect; gloom is replaced by cheerfulness t the hitherto silent bush resounds agajn with ths song of birds ; the earth, a Veritable hotbed, sends up green shoots without delay. The drought ii broken, end as “ rain " brings rain, morr may reasonably be expected in a few days. Under these altered circumstances, it strikei One as fancy, on looking back, to think thal you should may be have frequently had t< take your tot of rum off neat, as no watei Was procurable, and that a dry rub shoulc kava beau ths extent of one’s ablutions lik< enough on occasions, from the same cause or that camped out, after carefully collectini and boiling some dirty, stagnant water (al that was to be had) in yonrquart pot for tea you find it concentrated into a brick at th< DOitOQb