AUSTRALIAN SKETCHES.

BY THOMAS M'COMBIE.

No. V.-THE OVERLANDER.

even if successful. Few expected to hear more of either the party or the stock when they entered the wilderness. Men shook their heads, and deemed it the rash act of insanity; yet, the party reached Adelaide in safety, although, strange to say, they were in more than one instance indebted to the sagacity of the friendly natives in their party, from being cut off, or perishing in the wilderness.

THE men recognised in Australia by this title, are such as make it their calling to convey stock from the middle districts to the new territories. They are a migratory class, and have seldom any fixed place of abode. They are always changing, and always dissatisfied. When a new country is opened, the Overlander is in the very hey-day of spirit; for he knows it will be a fortune to him. He purchases flocks and herds in the Sydney districts, and starts for the distant territory. The journey is often one of no ordinary hazard: to traverse a country little known, encumbered with many thousand sheep; where the difficulty of procuring water is often great; and where no one, unless possessed of great intelligence, and accustomed to wander through desolate regions, could thread his way. The Overlander, however, loves such a life for the very excitement it affords; and he would not exchange with the easy and wealthy men of Europe. In personal appearance, the Overlanders are rough, dirty, half-shaved, and ill attired; the stranger would look upon them as of small repute in society, and as ignorant and poor. How would he be surprised to learn, that those men could tell down their twenty thousand pounds; that they claim kindred with the nobility of Britain; nay, more, that not a few of them could correct a false quantity in Sophocles, and are versed in the literature of all ages. Many of them have travelled over every country in the world, and acted their part in the gaieties and frivolities of a continental life; and they pride themselves upon their knowledge of languages. Some of them have been extensive merchants; others, army and navy officers; others, professional men; but few of the Overlanders are of mean extraction. Their business is not exactly confined to the transmission of stock, although this is what they prefer they are likewise land speculators, and extensive graziers. It is no uncommon thing for an Overlander to hold stock in nearly every dis-party is in motion. This privation is, however, trict of Australia; some of them have, also, thousands of acres of land in Australia and New Zealand. When a new township is opened, the Overlanders buy up the most promising town-lots, which they hold until the town is fairly established, and then dispose of them at an advance of a thousand per cent.

Perhaps the most gigantic undertaking of the kind on record was that of the first Overlanders, who carried stock from New South Wales to South Australia. This party started from the Port Phillip district soon after the formation of the South Australian colony, about the year 1837. The route was totally unknown, except from the vague and conflicting accounts of the Aborigines. The distance to be traversed was supposed to be one thousand miles; which, encumbered by a large number of sheep, would make the journey tedious,

When sheep are driven over land, they are divided into separate flocks of about eight hundred each. They are folded at night, and a rigorous watch observed. The wild dogs are at times very daring, and unless scared by the large fires, will break in amongst the sheep, notwithstanding the precautions of the shepherds, who sleep near them. Good, strong, healthy sheep will travel from ten to fifteen miles a-day on a journey. The Overlander's great care is to provide water for stock on the road, and he is often obliged to take a circuitous route for that purpose. Great delay occurs where deep and rapid rivers intervene ; as the sheep have to be taken across in a punt. Days will often pass, and the Overland party be unable to get the sheep across ; for it is a tedious and laborious work to get ten or twenty thousand head of sheep taken over in a small boat. When everything is going forward in a proper manner, and the minds of the Overlanders are at ease about the safety of their flocks, theirs is a life of great variety, and many amusements may be found to pass away the time. Like all bushmen, the Overlanders consume a large quantity of tobacco; and when a moment's leisure presents itself, the black, short pipe is put in requisition, and large clouds of smoke ejected from the capacious bowl. The other great luxury is tea. The kettle is never off the fire in the hut of an out-and-out bushman; but however fond the Overlanders may be of the refreshing beverage, it is out of their power to partake of it throughout the day when the whole

amply made up for at night, when the camp is struck, the tents pitched, and the fires lighted. Tea-drinking and smoking form the amusement of the evening. However wild and dissipated the Overlander may be in the towns, such a thing as grog is never heard of in an Overland party; nothing stronger than the pure element wets his lips from the time he leaves his former place of abode until he reach his place of destination. There are generally abundance of wild turkeys and other game to be found, as well as fish in the rivers; so that the Overlander need never want sport. Sometimes a hostile party of natives are met, and the camp is attacked; when nothing but the greatest coolness, and the most undaunted courage, could save the lives of the whole party. The natives are easily repelled, if received with a bold front; but, if they perceive the smallest ap

has fallen from his station in society, without any compunctious feeling whatsoever. In fact, in making a friend, he calculates how far the person will be able to forward his views or his interests, and deals forth his friendship in proportion as you have the means of lending him a helping hand by your respectability, influence, or purse.

started to Lumbock for horses, others to South | the greatest indifference: the life of an Overlander America for flour, and some to India for sugar. has little about it to make those who follow it Few, however, succeed well at such specula-kind-hearted; and he will cut an old friend who lations, as the regular mercantile houses have a great advantage over them both in buying and selling; and when the Overlanders turn their attention to this branch of business, they soon find out their mistake, and abandon it to more experienced hands. Not a few of them, however, when the colony was first started, made large sums by flour speculations; but whenever the regular merchant enters the field, and comes into competition with them, they have not a shadow of a chance. They will not believe this, however, and laugh at the remonstrances of their friends. Nothing will convince them until experience teaches them to the contrary. The cause of their ill luck in such speculations is, that, accustomed to form their ideas of a speculation as a whole, they cannot enter into the various nice calculations of a merchant: the stock of a particular article at a given time; the likelihood of shipments from various markets; the course of exchange at particular times of the year; or have the steadfastness of purpose of an extensive mercantile house. A stranger has likewise a greater chance to be imposed upon in a foreign market than a house of trade, which, of course, knows something of the houses it corresponds with, and can depend upon their fidelity. A person out of business has very little chance when he competes with established merchants; and the Overlander soon throws up such an unprofitable game.

The Overlander soon finds that he is most at home in the trade to which he has been most accustomed; viz., dealing in land and stock. Here he has every advantage over the merchant; and both find it their interest to confine their operations to their legitimate calling. The Overlander is rather a dangerous man to deal with, especially to a person who does not thoroughly understand what he is about. He takes it for granted that all the world are as wide awake as himself; and in his dealings he shows no quarter. If he ruins you, and in return you upbraid him, he laughs, and asks you to ruin him. If you find he has done you brown in some transaction, and ask him how he could deceive a friend, he laughs, and asks you to do him. He looks upon life as Mrs. Battle did upon whist, as no child's play; takes and gives no concessions; hates favours. If he loses by a bargain, he is contented, and bears the loss without a murmur; but if you are the loser, he will make you abide by the loss, nor bate a farthing of his demand. The chances of a colonial life are so precarious, that a man is up one day and down the next; and men laugh at a misfortune which at home would make them hide their head ashamed. The Overlander knows that it may be his fate some day to find himself minus a half, or perhaps the whole of his fortune. When his turn arrives, he will be prepared to meet it; and he will hear nothing from any person about misfortune or ruin. If you played at a stake, where it was beyond your means to pay the forfeit, 'twas your affair, not his. He will look upon the ruin of even a friend with

This selfishness of character is the only thing to find fault with in an Overlander. Most of them are brave, sharp, and of a perseverance which nothing can overcome. Peril they despise; personal comfort they care nothing for. By their anxiety to make money, they confer lasting benefits upon society: it is, therefore, a matter of regret that they want the generosity of character which so nobly distinguishes the British merchant. This, however, can hardly be expected: the operations of a merchant are generally connected with a foreign port; he has it not in his power to overreach, if he had the will. Moreover, a sympathy exists among men engaged in commerce: it is a vast empire, the subjects of which are in every quarter of the world. The merchant of London learns with sorrow of the death or bankruptcy of a man in China whom he never beheld; in the loss of an old correspondent, he mourns for a brother. The misfortunes of an extensive firm are felt in every quarter of the globe. One unfortunate speculation may entail ruin upon hundreds of individuals; some of them, perhaps, at the ends of the earth. A great fall in any particular article of produce does not only hurt the merchant in Britain or America: it is felt in every large emporium in the world. However much the other inhabitants of a country may differ from each other; however opposite in manners and character, the intelligent merchants of every country have much in common. A merchant may be not inaptly named a walking encyclopædia of useful knowledge. Their constant intercourse with other countries gives liberal notions, and places them above the common prejudices of the vulgar and ignorant. Many of them have mixed much with foreign society; have looked upon men of all nations employed in their exchanges and marts of business; and are hence accustomed to regard mankind as one community. In the cities where they have sojourned, the avocations of the inhabitants appear to be everywhere much alike: buying and selling seems to be the principal occupation of life. The trader, standing upon the jetty at Batavia, and overlooking the natives as they load their prows with coffee for a noble vessel seen resting proudly on the water, thinks upon the scene of bustle when that vessel will enter the dock in London. Perhaps, if he ever inhabited that city, the sigh of regret escapes him almost unconsciously for what man in business can think of London, the centre of the commerce of the world, without regret at being obliged to leave it? London! what a strange place! who has not heard the magical sound? What strange, misty conceptions has the dweller in many a far land and distant isle of the sea, of what that wonderful place is like. The eyes of

the whole world look towards London as one vast bank, or a corporation of bankers: its streets paved with gold, the houses built of silver, the transparent windows glittering with precious stones of all costly and glorious hues.

be all but forgotten: an overland gentleman is now nothing uncommon, as an exquisite might drive in his carriage the whole way. The original Overlanders are fast disappearing their occupation is gone, and their spirits appear to droop at the dulness of the times. Melancholy to say, many of them have lost nearly all they possessed, in the depreciation of property in the colony of late years. One or two of the most wealthy and enterprising, who were caught by the dull times in operations of magnitude, were utterly and completely ruined. It is hard to see a man who had struggled so hard for his property, left without a shilling in the world; but such is often the case with great Australian speculators; yet, if they are able to meet their creditors, they make light of the circumstance, and commence the world anew with a spirit as inde

But I am afraid the reader will little thank me for wandering from the subject in hand. I set out with the intent to show, that from the nature of the business in which the Overlander is engaged, he has not the same powerful motives to determine him towards generosity of character as the merchant. He has no room to entertain feelings of love and respect for those with whom he has deal- | ings they meet each other face to face as enemies. From the system of chaffering pursued upon such occasions, the weak points in the character of an opponent are discovered. Notwithstanding, it is impossible to think of the brave Over-pendent as ever. landers and not wish that they were equally distinguished for generous feeling as for courage.

The magnitude of the operations of an Overlander, in good times, is wonderful. Many of these parties, at the time Port Phillip and South Australia were discovered, brought over as many as twenty and thirty thousand head of sheep at once, and five or ten thousand head of cattle. The pro- | fits are enormous: when sheep were worth but seven shillings a-head in the Sydney district, the Overlanders were selling them in the new settlements for two and three pounds. The profits on cattle never exceeded cent. per cent., and fell far | short of the profits on sheep. Milking cows and good mares were, however, profitable stock; and one hundred pounds was at first procured for anything like a fair mare, and fifteen pounds for milch cows. Many of the Overlanders who first reached these new settlements with stock, realized enormous fortunes. One party was supposed to have cleared from fifteen to twenty thousand pounds by the trip. The most famous of the Overlanders of that time, were C. Bonney, Esq., Alfred Langhorne, Esq., and Messrs. Handon and Eyrie.

Since that time, there has been no opening for the Overlanders. The bad times have put it out of the question to go on forming new townships; and for four years, with the sole exception of Moreton Bay, there has not been a new settlement opened. The order of Overlanders is, therefore, beginning to

We find, however, that even in Australia, in spite of the confined field for man to distinguish himself, one or two brave men have outstripped their fellows in the acquisition of fortune and fame. The order of Overlanders will be looked upon in after-days with admiration. Their daring deeds will be a theme of which the future poet and novelist of Australia will never weary. Some future Scott will invest them with the character of heroes. The youth of Australia, many centuries hence, will love to think of the daring Overlander, and wish he had been born in such stirring times. A romantic mist will hang over their history; because little about them will be remembered, but the name and the nature of their calling, which in themselves have something calculated to draw attention. And yet the Overlanders, or the explorers of the country, are not noticed in Australia: so eager are men in the pursuit of gold, that they have no time for anything else. The Overlanders wish it not; they wished but to make money. They succeeded; they care nothing for fame. The historian of Australia will do well to preserve a few scraps of information, with regard to the anomalous orders of men in Australia at its early stages. What a benefit will he, by so doing, confer upon the eager inquirer of after ages! How anxiously will the latter search for any shorter record which may cast a gleam of light upon the domestic history of infant Australia, justly named the infant giant!

ILL-FATED AMBITION.
"There were who strove for immortality,
Yet whom death laid unchronicled to sleep."

THE crystal cup that held their life's quick flood
Was poesy, till disappointment high,
Marred with her gall infused, the multitude
Of sparkling hopes bubbling incessantly
About the brim; and then Death o'er it stood-
Shatter'd the cup, and shed eternally

That murmuring wine of life, with echoing faint
Of the spilt stream's expiring, splashing plaint.

And they who felt as if they could not die
And yet a name unwon-O sorrow! sorrow!
Yet died unknown,-yet died with scarce a sigh
Left upon Time's cold wind, with no to-morrow
Of Fame to break death's night, slain witheringly
With inward craving fire; e'en fain to borrow
A covering green from the dull earth, their scorn,
To hide their baffled hopes and noonless morn.
London.
*V.

THE SPIRIT OF ARISTOPHANES.

"When nought I did could Dolly please,
I laughed with Aristophanes."-DR. SYNTAX.

* Doubts are raised by some learned Grecians on these numbers and other statistical questions, which it does not lie in our contributor's way to discuss.-E. T. M.