With A Billabong At The Door, A
Bathroom Was Easily Dispensed With; And As Every One Preferred The Roomy
Verandahs For Lounging And Smoking, The House Had Only To Act As A
Dressing-Room For The Hosts And A Dining-Room For All.
The meals, of course, were served on the dining-table; but no apology
seemed necessary for the presence of a four-poster bed and a washing
stand in the reception-room.
They were there, and our guests knew why
they were there, and words, like the spare rooms, would have been
superfluous.
Breakfast at sun-up or thereabouts, dinner at noon and supper at
sun-down, is the long-established routine of meals on all cattle-runs of
the Never-Never, and at all three meals Sam waited, bland and smiling.
The missus, of course, had one of the china cups, and the guests enamel
ware; and the flies hovering everywhere in dense clouds, saucers rested
on the top of the cups by common consent. Bread, scones, and such thing
were covered over with serviettes throughout all meals while hands were
kept busy "shooing" flies out of prospective mouthfull.
Everything lacked conventionality, and was accepted as a matter of
course; and although at times Sam sorely taxed my gravity by using the
bed for a temporary dumb waiter, the bushmen showed no embarrassment,
simply because they felt none, and retained their self-possession with
unconscious dignity. They sat among the buzzing swarms of flies,
light-hearted and self-reliant, chatting of their daily lives of lonely
vigils, of cattle-camps and stampedes, of dangers and privations, and I
listened with a dawning consciousness that life "out-bush" is something
more than mere existence.
Being within four miles of the Overland Telegraph - that backbone of the
overland rout - rarely a week was to pass without someone coming in, and
at times our travellers came in twos and threes, and as each brought news
of that world outside our tiny circle, carrying in perhaps an extra mail
to us, or one out for us, they formed a strong link in the chain that
bound us to Outside.
In them every rank in bush life was represented, from cattle-drovers and
stockmen to the owners of stations, from swag-men and men "down in their
luck" to telegraph operators and heads of government departments, men of
various nationalities with, foremost among them, the Scots, sons of that
fighting race that has everywhere fought with and conquered the
Australian bush. Yet, whatever their rank or race, our travellers were
men, not riff-raff, the long, formidable stages that wall in the
Never-Never have seen to that, turning back the weaklings and worthless
to the flesh-pots of Egypt, and proving the worth and mettle of the
brave-hearted: all men, every one of them, and all in need of a little
hospitality, whether of the prosperous and well-doing or "down in their
luck," and each was welcomed according to that need; for out-bush rank
counts for little: we are only men and women there. And all who came in,
and went on, or remained, gave us of their best while with us; for there
was that in the Maluka that drew the best out of all men. In life we
generally find in our fellow-men just what we seek, and the Maluka,
seeking only the good, found only the good and drew much of it into his
own sympathetic, sunny nature. He demanded the best and was given the
best, and while with him, men found they were better men than at other
times.
Some of our guests sat with us at table, some with the men, and some
"grubbed in their camps." All of them rode in strangers and many of them
rode out life-long friends, for such is the way of the bushfolk: a little
hospitality, a day or two of mutual understanding, and we have become
part of the other's life. For bush hospitality is something better than
the bare housing and feeding of guests, being just the simple sharing of
our daily lives with a fellow-man - a literal sharing of all that we
have; of our plenty or scarcity, our joys or sorrows, our comforts or
discomforts, our security or danger; a democratic hospitality, where all
men are equally welcome, yet so refined in its simplicity and
wholesomeness, that fulsome thanks or vulgar apologies have no part in
it, although it was whispered among the bushfolk that those "down in
their luck" learned that when the Maluka was filling tucker-bags, a
timely word in praise of the missus filled tucker-bags to over-flowing.
Two hundred and fifty guests was the tally for that year, and earliest
among them came a telegraph operator, who as is the way with telegraphic
operators out-bush invited us to "ride across to the wire for a shake
hands with Outside"; and within an hour we came in sight of the telegraph
wire as our horses mounted the stony ridge that overlooks the Warloch
ponds, when the wire was forgotten for a moment in the kaleidoscope of
moving, ever-changing colour that met our eyes.
Two wide-spreading limpid ponds, the Warloch lay before us, veiled in a
glory of golden-flecked heliotrope and purple water-lilies, and floating
deep green leaves, with here and there gleaming little seas of water,
opening out among the lilies, and standing knee-deep in the margins a
rustling fringe of light reeds and giant bulrushes. All round the ponds
stood dark groves of pandanus palms, and among and beyond the palms tall
grasses and forest trees, with here and there a spreading colabar
festooned from summit to trunk with brilliant crimson strands of
mistletoe, and here and there a gaunt dead old giant of the forest, and
everywhere above and beyond the timber deep sunny blue and flooding
sunshine. Sunny blue reflected, with the gaunt old trees, in the tiny
gleaming seas among the lilies, while everywhere upon the floating leaves
myriads and myriads of grey and pink "gallah" parrots and sulphur-crested
cockatoos preened feathers, or rested, sipping at the water grey and pink
verging to heliotrope and snowy white, touched here and there with gold,
blending, flower-like, with the golden-flecked glory of the lilies.
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