Telegraph people - all
bent on business, and all glad to get moving after the long compulsory
inaction of the Wet; and lastly that great yearly cumbrous event takes
place: the starting of the "waggons," with their year's stores for
Inside.
The first batch of travellers had little news for us. They had heard
that the teams were loading up, and couldn't say for certain, and,
finding them unsatisfactory, we looked forward to the coming of the
"Fizzer," our mailman, who was almost due.
Eight mails a year was our allowance, with an extra one now and then
through the courtesy of travellers. Eight mails a year against eight
hundred for the townsfolk. Was it any wonder that we all found we had
business at the homestead when the Fizzer was due there?
When he came this trip he was, as usual, brimming over with news:
personal items, public gossip, and the news that the horse teams had got
most of their loading on, and that the Macs were getting their bullocks
under way. Two horse waggons and a dray for far "inside," and three
bullock waggons for the nearer distances, comprised the "waggons" that
year. The teamsters were Englishmen; but the bullock-punchers were three
"Macs" - an Irishman, a Highlander, and the Sanguine Scot.
