If, However, They Have Been
Seen Heading Decidedly In Any Direction Over-Night, In That Direction
They Will Most Likely Be Found Sooner Or Later.
Bullocks cannot go long
without water.
They will travel to a river, then they will eat, drink,
and be merry, and during that period of fatal security they will be
caught.
Ours had gone back ten miles, to the Waikitty; we soon obtained clues as
to their whereabouts, and had them back again in time to proceed on our
journey. The river being very low, we did not unload the dray and put
the contents across in the boat, but drove the bullocks straight
through. Eighteen weary monotonous miles over the same plains, covered
with the same tussock grass, and dotted with the same cabbage-trees.
The mountains, however, grew gradually nearer, and Banks Peninsula
dwindled perceptibly. That night we made Mr. M-'s station, and were
thankful.
Again we did not yard the bullocks, and again we lost them. They were
only five miles off, but we did not find them till afternoon, and lost a
day. As they had travelled in all nearly forty miles, I had had mercy
upon them, intending that they should fill themselves well during the
night, and be ready for a long pull next day. Even the merciful man
himself, however, would except a working bullock from the beasts who
have any claim upon his good feeling. Let him go straining his eyes
examining every dark spot in a circumference many long miles in extent.
Let him gallop a couple of miles in this direction and the other, and
discover that he has only been lessening the distance between himself
and a group of cabbage-trees; let him feel the word "bullock" eating
itself in indelible characters into his heart, and he will refrain from
mercy to working bullocks as long as he lives. But as there are few
positive pleasures equal in intensity to the negative one of release
from pain, so it is when at last a group of six oblong objects, five
dark and one white, appears in remote distance, distinct and
unmistakable. Yes, they are our bullocks; a sigh of relief follows, and
we drive them sharply home, gloating over their distended tongues and
slobbering mouths. If there is one thing a bullock hates worse than
another it is being driven too fast. His heavy lumbering carcase is
mated with a no less lumbering soul. He is a good, slow, steady,
patient slave if you let him take his own time about it; but don't hurry
him. He has played a very important part in the advancement of
civilisation and the development of the resources of the world, a part
which the more fiery horse could not have played; let us then bear with
his heavy trailing gait and uncouth movements; only next time we will
keep him tight, even though he starve for it. If bullocks be invariably
driven sharply back to the dray, whenever they have strayed from it,
they will soon learn not to go far off, and will be cured even of the
most inveterate vagrant habits.
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