MAILMEN OF TO-DAY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19311, 24 October 1924, Page 11

MAILMEN OF TO-DAY.

ANCIENT ANT) MODERN. AUSTRALIA’S CONTRASTS. HOW THE CAMEL SERVES THE KING. (From Ocb Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 9. Australia is famous as a. land of contrasts, and there is no more striking instance than is provided by its inland mails. In thia continent iy represented the most quaintly ancient and tho most ultra modern. Besides all the intervening grades of progress in the transit of mails—the swift horse, the lumbering mail coach, the snorting locomotive, which every day are engaged in the service of his Majesty’s most honourable Post Office, that august institution still relies on some of its far-flung routes upon that majestic monarch of the desert—the camel —and that same august institution has in its service one of the most successful long-distance air mail services to be found anywhere in the world. ’The clockwork regularity with which that fine service has been carrying mails and passengers for some years now over a route some thousands of miles long over tho huge tracts of Western Australia has been described, but many people will share the surprise which Stefansson, during his recent inland tour, evinced at seeing the ancient “ship of the desert” still j a valued servant of the King in so unexpected a place as arid Australia. Yet, with their Afghan riders, camels are a common feature of the landscape in some parts. Their service in carrying his Majesty’s mails is picturesquely described by a writer in the Adelaide Register. A letter, he says, is posted in the city, with a stamp to the value of a pennyha'penny on the envelope, and tho address is, say. Alice Springs. Tho train journey to Oodnadatta is an uneventful one, being conventional and ordinary, but, arriving fi-t the railhead it is a different matter. Not only letters, hut parcels, boxes, and bundles, and passengers go with the camels and the mailman, on the long trek northward. starting in the yards of tho mail contractor at Oodnadatta-. The camels roar and bubble and froth as tho bundles and boxes are fixed on the crude but efficacious saddles made by the Afghans, from thick sticks, straw, and sacking, and finally the tatters, etc., are lashed into position. The passenger is not lashed, but, as the camel first unfolds itself from the ground, wishes he (or she) were. Lurch, jerk, lurch again, and the long-necked steed is iipright, and stands waiting. With everything ready, the string of animals, heavily laden, starts off from the town, and just a little ahead of the immensity of the journey is realised by the solitary passenger, swaying in the odd motion, and wondering at the method of driving, irom one peg in. one nostril of the camel, with two reins from the one side. The passenger becomes used to the swinging movement, and learns to adapt himself to the strange mode of progression. Oodnadatta vanishes, and a path is followed across a plateau, stoTiy and bare hut for gidgee scrub. The sky is cloudless, and has been for many a long week, for this season has found the interior in (he grip of a serious drought. To travel north with horses is impossible, owing to lack, of feed and water, and that condition sends the .traveller to the camel mail. First stop on the way is for lunch at a creek bed, sandy and hot, about six miles out from Oodnadatta with the quart pot boiling behind a brisk fire of dead wood, and meat bags open. On again about 20 minutes later, and the same rate roughly three miles an hour is adhered to ail through the day until dark. Sometimes (this season) there is no feed, and the mail goes on an hour or so until it is found.

The camp fire is lit, and crackles loudl; in the dry air, throwing- a wicrd g-oldei light on tl)e figures nearby, and intensify ing the pitch blackness outside. The quar pot. boils again, while the mailman unload, the noisy camels, .dropping the bundles bags, and boxes to the bare earth, am then the heavy saddles. The hobbles ar then put on the front legs, and the “shim of the desert” are turned loose for th< night, to roam and find what feed can. The night meal of the mailman am his passenger is the one break in th( monotony and labdurj of the strenuou: journey, which could not be attemptec by a' weakling or a coward. The mailmai endures, and endures again, and traveli long distances over huge plains and sane tracks across wide dry creeks, and throug. scrub, past watorholes containing no water and stops at bores to refresh the animals. Ho walks at times, but mostly rides the loading camel, swinging evenly one steadily, for he arrives and departs or schedule, and loses no time. At present the way is hard, with nothing living for miles but crows, whose raucous cries lenc horror to a scene of desolation. Cattle lying dead 1 here and there, and the heal rippling and winking over a silent waste of sand and stone. Sometimes the scene is anything but desolate, where the almost boiling water gushes from the bores, and forms great pools and b .goons, where weeds and rushes grow, an<J butcher birds and wild duck fly, and where camels, cattle and travelling parties pause for water. And sometimes they are heavily wooded creek beds, with white-trunked gums, boxwoods, red mulga, pidgee, and a hundred other varieties of well and little known trpes, throwing welcome shade, and sheltering birds. The mailman pauses at many places on the way, and talks with station managers, stockmen, householders, travellers, and manv others travelling up and down never does he allow his mails to be late, or his duties to be neglected. It is because -of such men that we arc able to_ send a letter so many hundreds of miles in complete safety, and also human packages, but the world is very ignorant of those who keep the outback in existence.