1846
The Australian twilight is short; and it was now become almost dark. Happily we had but a short way to travel before reaching our resting place for the night. We were now on that, flat bordered on the one side by the sea, and on the other limited by the mountain, which I have already mentioned as being the Illa Warra district; and at this particular point it is scarcely a gunshot across. We consequently could hear the measured wash of the sea distinctly through the solemn stillness of the evening forest. A feeling of breathless awe steals over the spirit in traversing these grand and solitary forests amidst the thickening obscurity of evening: and buoyant as my spirits then were, I could not help being sensible of this influence. Suddenly the quick, cheerful bark of a dog startled the echoes; and in another instant a voice of Irish accent called him back as he came bounding towards us from round the corner of a square low building that was just discernible in the dark. A few more steps and turning the corner of this building we stood at the door of the settler’s hut, where we were to stop for the night. It was one of those huts which must be ranked among the remarkable objects of Australian life. Situated on some main track and alone in the midst of the wilderness, one of these little “cribs” necessarily becomes the nightly rendezvous of numbers of travellers. If the traveller have no food with him, a share of what there is is always freely offered him; whether any remuneration is given depends upon the circumstances and disposition of the parties. If it be a poor man whose hut the wayfaring public has thus invested with the dignity of an inn, persons in good circumstances always make him some present for the accommodation: if it be a settler in tolerably good circumstances who is thus situated, remuneration is not thought so imperative; but in either case if the traveller be a poor man, he is welcomed to whatever there may he, and nothing is expected from him in return. The same hospitality is maintained in accommodations for rest. Those who have a blanket with them contribute it to the general stock; those who have none have equal share with those who have. These customs lead very naturally to a great degree of frankness and cordiality among the persons, most of whom are thus meeting for the first time, and the evenings consequently are for the most part spent in cheerful conversation and merriment. This species of arrangement extends throughout the colony; with this difference, that off the main lines of road, and still more so the farther you advance into the bush, the usual run of travellers are not only not expected to make any recompense, but in many places it would be treated as an insult to offer it. As full two-thirds of the labouring population of the country are in perpetual migration, the custom is a very proper one. It probably originated in the first place from the smallness of the community, almost every one knowing almost every other; and there is no doubt that the great scarcity of cash in the up country parts has principally maintained it.
Meantime such in this respect were our night’s quarters.The hut was well built of slabs split out of fine straight-grained timber, with hardly a splinter upon them and consisted of several compartments, all on the ground floor The only windows were square holes in the sides of the hut and a good log fire was blazing in the chimney. On stools, and benches, and blocks about the hut sat a host of wayfarers like ourselves, and several lay at their ease in corners on their saddlecloths or blankets, whilst saddles and packs of luggage were heaped up on all sides. Supper was over, and the short pipes were fuming away in all directions. Our hosts were two Irishmen, brothers, who had got a little bit of good land cleared here in the wilderness, and refused nobody a feed and shelter for the night. They soon put down a couple of quart pots of water before the blazing fire, made us some tea, and set before us the usual fare, a piece of fine corned beef, and a wheaten cake baked on the hearth. And here I should inform the reader how a damper is made. Flour is mixed up merely with water, and kneaded for about a couple of minutes; the dough is then flattened out into a cake, which should never be more than an inch and a half or two inches thick, and may be of any diameter required; the ashes of the wood, which is burnt almost everywhere in great profusion, owing to its plentifulness, are then drawn off the hearth (for the fire is on the ground, not in a grate) by a shovel; and on the glowing smooth surface thus exposed the cake is lightly deposited, by being held over it on the open hands, and the hands suddenly drawn from under it. The red ashes are then lightly turned back over the cake with the shovel. In the course of twenty minutes or half an hour on removing the ashes, the cake is found excellently baked; and with a light duster, or the tuft of a bullock’s tail, every vestige of the ashes is switched off, and the cake, if the operations have been well conducted, comes to table as clean as a captain’s biscuit from a pastry-cook’s shop. Merrily sped the couple of hours betwixt our arrival and going to bed. One sang a song, another told some tale of the olden time, when but few white men were in the colony, another repeated the news he had just heard of the bush-rangers, another described a new tract of land he had just found out for a cattle-run, and others contented themselves with that endless subject of dissertation among the colonists, the relative excellences of their working bullocks. My share was to answer all the questions (rather all that were answerable) which any and all thought proper to put me on the subject of affairs in England; and to pocket with the best grace I could (for most of these men had been convicts) the jokes they not very sparingly, but I must say with very good humour, cut on me for having come to the colony “to make a fortune”, or for being “a free object” (subject), or for having “lagged myself for fear the king should do it for me”. All these little matters notwithstanding, the evening passed away very pleasantly; if there were many things in these men which I could not approve, there was much more that I could not but admire. There was a sort of manly independence of disposition which secured truthfulness and sincerity at least among themselves. If the penalty for the practice of that truthfulness toward the superior classes had been fixed too high, I felt that allowance ought to be made for it in estimating their character. Some time before midnight a general collection of bedding took place, as usual; the customary belt of bed was constructed all across the hut in front of the fire; and as in this instance the hut happened to be about 12 or 15 feet across, and we mustered nearly a man to each foot of the diameter, a very pretty row of capless heads and bare feet soon displayed themselves beyond the opposite ends of the blanketing. On blazed the merry fire made up for the night; loud snored those who were so disposed; and louder grumbled ever and anon those who were not; hither and thither bounded and barked the dog around the hut, till he thought his master was asleep, and could no longer take notice of his vigilance; and dreams came and realities went; and memory had no more added to her task of the day.
Settlers and Convicts: Recollections of Sixteen Years’ Labour in the Australian Backwoods,
by an emigrant mechanic, Melbourne University Press, 1986