A Single Tree Read online

  A lot of them just had to pack up and walk off. Most of those people that went, the community would get together and hold a dance and give them a farewell. The hat would be taken around and a collection taken up. They’ d be given whatever money they could collect, which wouldn’t amount to a lot, enough to get them a train fare to somewhere . . .

  My grandfather had been in the country since the end of 1909. If you’re what I call a true person of the land, you develop a feeling for your property. I think that becomes instinct to you, to preserve what you think is the better part. You have to clear enough to be viable. We cleared what we thought was the least attractive part and retained anything that we thought had some historical value attached to it, plus for the bird life and especially the mallee fowl. We never, ever cleared any that had mallee fowl mounds that were active in it.

  One of the main reasons that helped us decide not to clear first growth was the birds. We still had quite a lot of Major Mitchell cocka­toos here and, of course, they nest in the hollow mallee. We have far more galahs than we would like. But there were also the ringnecks, the grass parrot, the blue bonnet [parrot]. Not a lot of the lorikeets, but there are some. And in some years – there haven’t been a lot in the last 10 or 15 years – the shell parrots [wild budgerigars] come down from the north. In the 1940s and 1950s, we had them here in the thousands and thousands, in mobs. When the season is dry in the north, they come down here to feed on the speargrass, on the seed. There’s been that many here that there wasn’t enough hollows to nest in, they’d fight over the hollows.

  When he was first woodcutting, Evans remembers shell parrot eggs falling out of the hollow logs as they were loaded onto the railway wagons. He estimates some big old growth mallee trees to be at least 1000 years old. “I don’t really know, but just a feeling, the size of the stumps on them. They may even be older than that”. He’s seen regrowth mallee at least 100 years old showing no sign of developing hollows. “It might take 200 or 300 years.”

  The year before he died in 1984, Tom Evans – along with his two sons, John and Les – signed the second ever Heritage Agreement on private land in South Australia. It bound the family – and subsequent owners – never to clear agreed areas on the property.

  I know we were discussed by others in the district and perhaps looked upon as bits of fools, but that never worried me, because I had the same feeling in reciprocation. Because it was voluntary, it did cause a lot of controversy. We were dubbed ‘The Greenies’. It never came to blows, arguments, but it did create quite a bit of feeling. I think what it did cause was the sense that the writing was on the wall, that there was going to be control put on land clearance. They felt it was their right to do as they wanted with the properties. Our opinion was that we were only leasing the land, we weren’t the sole owners and no one ever will be.

  It was through my father’s influence that we realised that we didn’t live forever, that there would be other generations who would have the land and if someone didn’t start preserving parts of it, eventually we would have nothing to show what it was like when white man first saw it. Apart from the conservation side of it, there were areas that should never have been cleared. The land was too fragile.

  The People’s Forest: A Living History of the Australian Bush, Gregg Borschmann (ed.),

  The People’s Forest Press Foundation Ltd, Blackheath, NSW, 1999

  George Everard

  1892

  When I first came to Albacutya, there was a chain of lakes between Rainbow and the Albacutya homestead, on the east side of the road, and on the west for a mile or so a water course like a river, and at the west side of the run three beautiful lakes, irrespective of Albacutya. All these depressions have been dry every since, with the exception of Albacutya, the latter having filled three or four times and dried up as often. I have even shepherded sheep on the big Lake Hindmarsh, and now to return to Pine Plains.

  There is no doubt at that time I thought it one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen, such diversity of hills and plains, the hills covered with pines, and the open country dotted with clumps of pine and bulloak, and here and there quandongs and currant bush. At the foot of the Sand Hills the ground was one mat of pigfaces (miserbreanthmums) with their beautiful flowers. The rabbits have killed most of these. (The quandongs and pig faces entirely.) Dogwood and sandal wood have all disappeared years ago, and are lying prone on the ground, and for years now the place has been of little use, and as far as I can see will not recover until the Government cut it up and the cockies get on it. They will soon alter the place. I was on it for years, and never knew of anyone contracting disease there. It is hot in summer, but a thoroughly healthy dry heat. This I can safely say after fifty-five years. I know of only one man, an old Chinaman, who died there, and he died through want of opium. There are four graves near the home station – all suicides – and the poor old Chinaman’s. Three of the graves were occupied by victims of drink; the fourth, disappointment was the cause . . .

  To return to the sheep. We were two or three days on the road to the homestead, picking up on the way the other folk five miles from where we started. On arrival, we found them nearly cut-out, and they commenced at once on the fresh ones. They soon cut out, and after paying off the shearers, drafted a flock for sale, starting in a day or two. My brother and I were about eight or ten days before we made tracks for Melbourne. We padded the hoof as far as Ashens, where we overtook the sheep, keeping with them two days, when they were sold to Mr. Pearce, of Newington, near Glenorchy. We all made for Stawell, and took the coach for Ballarat, and the train from there to Geelong, and steamer thence to Melbourne. Four of us put up at the old Rose, Thistle, and Shamrock, in Elizabeth-street and had a good time for a couple of weeks. G. V. Brooks was at the Royal, and we saw him in “Richard III”, “Othello”, and “Rob Roy” at the old Princess. There was an American named MacKean Buchanan performing in Sheridan-Knowles’ “Virginius”, with his daughter as Virginia, and two bigger muffs Yankee Land never turned out. The house was laughing most of the time, especially during the most tragic scenes. They both spoke with a delightful twang, and their by play was a caution. We managed quite easily to get through nearly two years’ wages, but before low water mark was reached bought a spring cart and horse to bring three of us back to the mallee. After ten days’ travelling we made Pine Plains, and hearing they were wanting two shepherds at Wonga Lake applied there, and both of us got on . . .

  About this time there was a rush for the Barrier Ranges, long before Broken Hill was thought of. My brother and I started for the Darling, intending making the Barrier from Menindie. It was the worst season on the rivers and Northern Wimmera I have ever seen. We rode through the Kulkyne, and the people there gave us such a bad description of the road that we left our horses at the Mournpool Lakes, and padded the hoof with matilda up the rest of our journey. After spelling a day or two at Kulkyne, we made down the river to Wentworth. I have never seen the Murray so low since. We could cross quite easily in most places, having to swim the middle about a chain; the rest we could walk, the water being so shallow. All along both sides of the stream was a fringe of dead and dying sheep, bogged in the mud, and too weak to free themselves – a fearful sight – the poor creatures still alive with their eyes torn out by the cursed crows; flocks of the wretches in every gum tree.

  We made Wentworth in a day or two, and camped for a spell, and then started up the Darling River. It was very warm weather, and the feed something awful. You could see the different flocks of sheep miles away by looking in the sky. Above every flock there was a dense red cloud of dust. How they managed to keep the sheep alive was a caution, as they were all shepherded at Tapio Station, twelve miles above the junction of the rivers. We met two or three parties returning, and by their accounts we came to the conclusion to turn back. There was a dearth of provisions, and teams could not travel for want of feed for horses. One of the parties we met had sold a bag of flour at Pooncaire for twelve pounds, and
we paid [sic] pound for flour, four and six for tea, and ninepence for sugar. At Tapio Station we made a cut across the back country for Gall Gall, on the Murray, thus saving a good many miles, and here we saw further proofs of the dreadful season. Most of the way the country was intersected by billy-bongs and a few swamps, mostly dry or nearly so: having six or seven inches of water on the top, and the rest thick mud. Cattle were running on this part of Tapio, and in every creek or swamp were dying cattle up over their backs, their heads just out of the mud, and not a solitary eye among them. The crows had served them the same as the sheep, It was a sickening sight to see the poor creatures constantly turning their heads from side to side, and not be able to aid them in any way. Crows from that time get but a poor chance from Q.E. Of all the birds these are most damnable – the black fiends. I shall never forget the awful sights I saw during that trip. It was enough to give one the horrors, the poor beasts; and to have to leave them to their fate made one miserable. Thank Heaven there has never been anything like it since . . .

  1866 I killed the time until July, when I turned to again at Albacutya, then in the hands of the Row Brothers. I was cooking at the homestead three months and after this was droving. At this time they were boiling down at North Brighton, then in the hands of Caffery and Jarvis. We were about a week on the road, and when within two miles of our destination two or three men came out, and cutting off about 500 sheep, drove them to the works. When we reached the place at sundown everyone of· the sheep were in the boilers and on the way to make tallow. We stopped a day at the works and by this time the whole of the flock of two thousand sheep were in the vats. During the day I spelled. I had a good look over the place, and real worth-while the day was spent. Everything went on like clockwork. There were about twenty five men killing, each man had a small pen. When they filled it up he would go in with a hammer, and in about a minute he would stun about a dozen sheep, pull them over a grating, and then stick them. There were some men doing over a hundred a day. As soon as the pelts were off and the entrails out, revolving belts with hooks carried them to the cutters, where each carcase was cut into four quarters, and again carried on to the boilers, where men packed them in tightly, the lids of the vats screwed down, and in a few hours was the clearest of tallow. It was about the busiest affair I ever saw on the Wimmera. There was one man constantly employed curing the tongues. He had a place specially adapted to the work – beautifully clean. I don’t know exactly, but should think there were, well, say, a million hanging up in lots of fifty each. When I was starting back, Mr. Jarvis gave me a string, and jolly good they were. Never again shall we see them boiling down good fat sheep. Freezing has altered all that.

  1879 The country was in a deplorable condition with rabbits and dingoes. Some of the stations had no one but a caretaker at the homestead. The sheep were all removed or dead, slaughtered by wild dogs. I made from Nhill through by Pine Plains, from there to the Murray, up the river to Swan Hill, to Kerang, Boort, Morton Plains, Lake Coorong, Pine Plains, Cow Plains, through to Pineroo, down through the Heath to Tintinara, across the desert to Bordertown, back to Lake Hindmarsh, onto the Murray River, thence to Wentworth, at the junction of the Darling, twelve more miles to Avoca, Cudmore Bros. station, where I got a job fencing and cutting cord wood for the engine until the shearing commenced. This was the longest time and the biggest tramp and loneliest I ever made.

  I was sometimes [sic] for weeks together and never saw a man travelling. I went into the most out-of-way places thinking to get work, but things were bad. What with drought, rabbits, and dingoes, there was no work going. By the time I got on at Avoca my funds were down to seventy-two shillings. I started the jaunt with thirteen pounds in my pocket. My troubles were not to end yet. After shearing three weeks I was taken bad with influenza, and was in bed three weeks at the station in company with three other unfortunates. As soon as I began to mend, with a mate, we made Wentworth, and taking passage on the steamer Jane Eliza on Saturday night, made Morgan. On the following Tuesday during the trip we took on shearers at Bookpuram and Lake . . . [sic] Most of them were drunk, and continued in that state until they reached Adelaide . . .

  We spent the time pleasantly, the environs being very picturesque. The nights were passed at the Theatre Royal, Wagner’s “Lohengrin” being performed, Madame Antoinette Link being the star singer. Sunday was rather dull time to put in at the Holy City of Churches.

  Pioneering Days in the Wimmera and Mallee 1851–1883 (1892),

  Horsham, Victoria, 1977

  Edward John Eyre

  1845

  Could blood answer blood, perhaps for every drop of European’s shed by natives, a torrent of theirs, by European hands, would crimson the earth . . .

  It is an undeniable fact, that wherever European colonies have been established in Australia, the native races in that neighbourhood are rapidly decreasing, and already in some of the elder settlements, have totally disappeared. It is equally indisputable that the presence of the white man has been the sole agent in producing so lamentable an effect; that the evil is still going on, increased in a ratio proportioned to the number of new settlements formed, or the rapidity with which the settlers overrun new districts. The natural, the inevitable, but the no less melancholy result must be, that in the course of a few years more, if nothing be done to check it, the whole of the aboriginal tribes of Australia will be swept away from the face of the earth. A people who, by their numbers, have spread around the whole of this immense continent, and have probably penetrated into and occupied its inmost recesses, will become quite extinct, their name forgotten, their very existence but a record of history.

  It is a popular, but an unfair and unwarranted assumption, that these consequences are the result of the natural course of events; that they are ordained by Providence, unavoidable, and not to be impeded. Let us at least ascertain how far they are chargeable upon ourselves.

  Without entering upon the abstract question concerning the right of one race of people to wrest from another their possessions, simply because they happen to be more powerful than the original inhabitants, or because they imagine that they can, by their superior skill or acquirements, enable the soil to support a denser population, I think it will be conceded by every candid and right-thinking mind, that no one can justly take that which is not his own, without giving some equivalent in return, or deprive a people of their ordinary means of support, and not provide them with any other instead. Yet such is exactly the position we are in with regard to the inhabitants of Australia.

  Without laying claim to this country by right of conquest, without pleading even the mockery of cession, or the cheatery of sale, we have unhesitatingly entered upon, occupied, and disposed of its lands, spreading forth a new population over its surface, and driving before us the original inhabitants.

  To sanction this aggression, we have not, in the abstract, the slightest shadow of either right or justice – we have not even the extenuation of endeavouring to compensate those we have injured, or the merit of attempting to mitigate the sufferings our presence inflicts.

  It is often argued, that we merely have taken what the natives did not require, or were making no use of; that we have no wish to interfere with them if they do not interfere with us, but rather that we are disposed to treat them with kindness and conciliation, if they are willing to be friends with us. What, however, are the actual facts of the case; and what is the position of a tribe of natives, when their country is first taken possession of by Europeans.

  It is true that they do not cultivate the ground; but have they, therefore, no interest in its productions? Does it not supply grass for the sustenance of the wild animals upon which in a great measure they are dependent for their subsistence? – does it not afford roots and vegetables to appease their hunger? – water to satisfy their thirst, and wood to make their fire? – or are these necessaries left to them by the white man when he comes to take possession of their soil? Alas, it is not so! all are in turn taken away
from the original possessors. The game of the wilds that the European does not destroy for his amusement are driven away by his flocks and herds. The waters are occupied and enclosed, and access to them is frequently forbidden. The fields are fenced in, and the natives are no longer at liberty to dig up roots – the white man claims the timber, and the very firewood itself is occasionally denied to them. Do they pass by the habitation of the intruder, they are probably chased away or bitten by his dogs, and for this they can get no redress. Have they dogs of their own, they are unhesitatingly shot or worried because they are an annoyance to the domestic animals of the Europeans. Daily and hourly do their wrongs multiply upon them. The more numerous the white population becomes, and the more advanced the stage of civilization to which the settlement progresses, the greater are the hardships that fall to their lot and the more completely are they cut off from the privileges of their birthright. All that they have is in succession taken away from them – their amusements, their enjoyments, their possessions, their freedom – and all that they receive in return is obloquy, and contempt, and degradation, and oppression . . .

  (Near Mt Deception South Australia, 23 August, 1840)

  I penetrated into the basin of the lake for about six miles, and found it so far without surface water. On entering at first, the horses sunk a little in a stiff mud, after breaking through a white crust of salt, which everywhere coated the surface and was about one eighth of an inch in thickness, as we advanced the mud became much softer and greatly mixed with salt water below the surface, until at last we found it impossible to advance a step further, as the horses had already sunk up to their bellies in the bog, and I was afraid we should never be able to extricate them, and get them safely back to the shore. Could we have gone on for some distance, I have no doubt that we should have found the bed of the lake occupied by water, as there was every appearance of a large body of it at a few miles to the west. As we advanced a great alteration had taken place, in the aspect of the western shores. The bluff rocky banks were no longer visible, but a low level country appeared to the view at seemingly about fifteen or twenty miles distance. From the extraordinary and deceptive appearances, caused by mirage and refraction, however, it was impossible to tell what to make of sensible objects, or what to believe on the evidence of vision, for upon turning back to retrace our steps to the eastward, a vast sheet of water appeared to intervene between us and the shore, whilst the Mount Deception ranges, which I knew to be at least thirty-five miles distant, seemed to rise out of the bed of the lake itself, the mock waters of which were laving their base, and reflecting the inverted outline of their rugged summits. The whole scene partook more of enchantment than reality, and as the eye wandered over the smooth and unbroken crust of pure white salt which glazed the basin of the lake, and which was lit up by the dazzling rays of a noonday sun, the effect was glittering, and brilliant beyond conception.