A DARLING DUST-STORM AND ITS EFFECTS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 21, 25 May 1899, Page 5

A DARLING DUST-STORM AND ITS EFFECTS

A howling noi '-vv < stcr on the Canterbury plains is far from enjoyable, depress s man aim Ir ast, and is ottui very destructive in lb 1 effects on crops and \e;'e:.i.io,i generally. A s-uid-atorm in the V rral Ot.i«:o iioldiields' di-Mrict — and especially at Cromwell — is a t^inn to be i\ uieinlji rei'. < specially by a visitor unaccustomed to such climatic \agaii> •-. Tir-> , however, are mere plavthmgs, when compared to the lul'-growu dust-laden hurricanes that blow ov< r the sun-^ori. h< dpi .ins o| (. t nli<. l Australia. Most pi ople consider tVu'ir own biirdiiis t he -mi i»ie-t but the Canterbury tanner and the resident of th>- Otago geiiul.elds district will udinit. alter reading th' 1 following ur.iphie d. ss 1 ' ipt ion of a dust-storm on the Riverinu, by a corie'-poiicent c t \lw Jt'i i ntn <t <j ftiinu.s- that theie aic worse places than .New Zialmd to le-if'.e in. The writer says. :—U one) ally THC FIIiST I'NTI.MA" ION OF THI.SI, PCSI-sTORMs

is given on waking 1 in the early morning, when a north-westerly wind blows a yak 1 , and dus ( . ai fi.ie as the sand in an hourglass, besprinkles every corner oi ihe room. As the day ad van 'es. the pattern disappears oil' the carpet, every icotatep leaves an impression, and every one gives his or Ler^elf up to a day of the. grtatest misery. All doors and windows are securely iastmed, lamps ,u e lit, sometimes soon after breakfast, sometimes on and off all day. and the darkness which prevails outside is darker than the darkest night, as the blinding clouds of dust — yet scarcely a cloud, more like a continuous sheet of dust — rushes madJy on, swaying and bending the trees and shrubs as it goes. Some brave man ventured out on the verandah and held up a white pocket handkerchief before his eyes. Not the shape of ie was even visible. Inside a strong kerosene lamp burned, and those on the opposite side of the room were not distinguishable. Work of any kind was out of the question, and we sat there abusing our fate, and sometimes flying to the window, wondering what was about to happen. Even lunch had no effect to soothe. Every mouthful of food made me wonder if those mud pies we made when we were children were less appetising than the food we thun were eating, which ground the sharp edge off our teeth. THE TEA HAD A SCUM 01' DUST on the top, and round the edge a ring of mud stuck to the cup. The cook sent over one night to say he was very sorry there was no gravy, for as fast as he made it it turned into mud. The bedrooms looked things of the past. A big mound, the shape of a bed. indicated where once stood the b d. covered with its snowy quilt of yesterday, and the looking-glass absolutely refuged to do its work. How things fared outside, when the storm stopped, the next day told. Sheep that escaped bleated forlornly a« they scampered over the plain, with their lank sides hanging together, and then, as the boundary rider rode on till he came to a bank of sand, sometimes collected by a few bushes, sometimes by a wire-netting fence, under this fence of dust those sheep who were not able to keep on the move with the stronger ones had lain down, and had been buried alive. A nose was the only sign, which moved, slowly, in a last struggle, just above the sund. DhsOL VI ION' ANT) DLS'I Rl'( TIOV on all sidfs Dams, seine thousands of tut 111 cx'iiit, v. ire fi-t silted up. and round the < (ige of the dam, extending 11; l\.i e'lrht or ten feet, shee p w eie b I g^'C(J. some eh aj, and otlu r-. still alive, with both eyes picked out by the mp-uless crows, Oi,e place, wheie a few days before a dam hud stood, was level with the surrounding ground, and over the surface, numln rs ot JirtJe mounds told that underneath lav the caicm ? of she<-p buiied alivr in the s<j aw ful storms. One of the owntr- of a station startid out in, m the homestead at; four a.tr. to get his mail-b;ii>. Mono t\\ rive miles distant. He came across a man on horseback. wanderin:r about 111 a \try torlorn and helpless way. As he got m aier he recognised the wanderer as a man who lived foity miles aw.iy at the m a rest post town. 'Hullo, jNliek,' shouted the owner, • what sup' ' llh s-ed if I know, sir, where i am. 1 was never " bushi 1 before, and, as you kno.v, I"ye been out this vw:y bet.no many a tnn< , but 1 recognise this part of the cmntiy ' — pointing to a sandhill between three and four feet high — "so i just camped here last night and trusted to find some erne to din ct me to-day.' 'That sandhill,' replhd the owner, ' forms part of the boundary of my station, and underneath it you will find Till: WIKE Ni.TI'IM. V,OVMIMt\ I I.M 1. ' A paitner of one of the mo-r prominent stock and station firms was making bis way down to Melbourne with a friend, when one of these dust-storms overtook them. P,y the middle oi the day it was impossible to proceed As they ou^rht to be cb>v> to the Lachlan River, they decided that one should net out and go on a little way to see if they were on a track, ard try and follow it up. Finding the search fruitless, the friend guided by the shouts .>f his companion in the buggy, precede i t'> return on his hands and knees, on account of the violence ol the wind, and. alter going some little distance, ran into the pele or the bj»gy. There they sat lor four hourstf" -hen the wind suddenly dropped, ami re\eahd, not more than hundred yards off. the bridge aero-s the Latham lliver. and che township of JJuohg.il ahead.

liooligal, which has \y en liientimied with Hay ami uuoilu r spot not situated in Austrah.i as the threv hotte-t, pi.e>s mi niuid. was never nearer receiving a yood word than when tJiinc U\ o men j>wt missed the iriendly shelter of the four walls of ' Th.- I)n>\ er - Arms during that storm. And the landscape I littore tli ■ storm it had been a plain, but with draim and depiessions. suuie \egetation and Bundry live-stock. It was still a plain, stretching into the dim distance ; but every depression was lilkd, oven the four-leet drains ; where there had been fences

THERE WERE NOW MILES OF SAND WALLS; where bushes had stood there were now rounded mounds, and everything stranding on four legs had disappearei — either before the clouds of sand, or below the drifts. The miseries of a real Darling dust-storm are, indeed, excessive, nnd may the next clip not hear the voice of the cook from one of the station sheds crying out, 'Now, mates, roll up quick and lively, or the soupll be silted up afore yer gets to it 1' The foregoing graphic and doleful sketch may be fitly concluded by a cluster of verses of Henry Lawbon :—: — THE SONU OF THE DARLING RIVER. The skies are brass and the plains are bare, Death and ruin are everywhere — And all that is left of the lab: year's flood Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud ; The salt-springs bubble and quagmires quiver, And— this is the dirge of the Darling River : ' I rise in the drought from the Queenslani rain, I fill my branches again and again ; I hold my billabongs back in vain, For my life and my peoples the South Seas drain ; And the land grows old and the people never Will see the worth of the Darling River. ' I drown dry gullies and lave bare hills, I turn drought-ruts into rippling rills — I form fair islands and glades all green Till every bend is a sylvan scene. I have watered the barren lands ten leagues wide But in vain I have tried, ah 1 in vain I have tried To show the sign of the Great All Giver. The Word to a people : 0 ! Lock your river. 'I want no blistering barge aground, But racing steamers the season round ; I want fair homes on my lonely ways, A people's love and a people's praise — And rosy children to dive and swim — And fair girls' feet in my rippling brim ; And coil, green forests and gardens ever ' — Oh, this is the hymn of the Darling River. The sky is brass and the scrub-lands glare, Death and ruin are everywhere ; Thrown high to bleaoh, or deep in the mud The bones lie buried by last year's flood, To laugh at the rise of the Darling River. I,* Adi the Demons dance from the Never Never.