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- Колин Маккалоу
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- Стр. 66/535
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All
this
sat
in
just
about
the
middle
of
a
treeless
circle
whose
diameter
measured
three
miles
:
the
Home
Paddock
.
Only
at
the
point
where
the
head
stockman
's
house
lay
did
the
conglomeration
of
buildings
almost
touch
the
forests
beyond
.
However
,
there
were
many
trees
around
the
sheds
,
yards
and
animal
runs
,
to
provide
welcome
and
necessary
shade
;
mostly
pepper
trees
,
huge
,
hardy
,
dense
and
sleepily
lovely
.
Beyond
in
the
long
grass
of
the
Home
Paddock
,
horses
and
milch
cows
grazed
drowsily
.
The
deep
gully
beside
the
head
stockman
's
house
had
a
shallow
,
sluggish
stream
of
muddy
water
at
its
bottom
.
No
one
credited
Father
Ralph
's
tale
of
its
rising
sixty
feet
overnight
;
it
did
n't
seem
possible
.
Water
from
this
creek
was
pumped
up
by
hand
to
service
the
bathroom
and
kitchen
,
and
it
took
the
women
a
long
time
to
get
used
to
washing
themselves
,
the
dishes
and
the
clothes
in
greenish-brown
water
.
Six
massive
corrugated-iron
tanks
perched
on
wooden
derricklike
towers
caught
rain
from
the
roof
and
provided
them
with
drinking
water
,
but
they
learned
they
must
use
it
very
sparingly
,
that
it
was
never
to
be
used
for
washing
.
For
there
was
no
guarantee
as
to
when
the
next
rains
might
come
to
fill
the
tanks
up
.
The
sheep
and
cattle
drank
artesian
water
,
not
tapped
from
an
easily
accessible
water
table
,
but
true
artesian
water
brought
from
over
three
thousand
feet
below
the
surface
.
It
gushed
at
boiling
point
from
a
pipe
at
what
was
called
the
borehead
,
and
ran
through
tiny
channels
fringed
with
poisonously
green
grass
to
every
paddock
on
the
property
.
These
channels
were
the
bore
drains
,
and
the
heavily
sulphurated
,
mineral-laden
water
they
contained
was
not
fit
for
human
consumption
.
At
first
the
distances
staggered
them
;
Drogheda
had
two
hundred
and
fifty
thousand
acres
.
Its
longest
boundary
stretched
for
eighty
miles
.
The
homestead
was
forty
miles
and
twenty-seven
gates
away
from
Gillanbone
,
the
only
settlement
of
any
kind
closer
than
a
hundred
and
six
miles
.
The
narrow
eastern
boundary
was
formed
by
the
Barwon
River
,
which
was
what
the
locals
called
this
northern
course
of
the
Darling
River
,
a
great
muddy
thousand-mile
stream
that
finally
joined
the
Murray
River
and
surged
out
into
the
southern
ocean
fifteen
hundred
miles
away
in
South
Australia
.
Gillan
Creek
,
which
ran
in
the
gully
beside
the
head
stockman
's
house
,
merged
into
the
Barwon
two
miles
beyond
the
Home
Paddock
.
Paddy
and
the
boys
loved
it
.
Sometimes
they
spent
days
on
end
in
the
saddle
,
miles
away
from
the
homestead
;
camping
at
night
under
a
sky
so
vast
and
filled
with
stars
it
seemed
they
were
a
part
of
God
.
The
grey-brown
land
swarmed
with
life
.
Kangaroos
in
flocks
of
thousands
streamed
leaping
through
the
trees
,
taking
fences
in
their
stride
,
utterly
lovely
in
their
grace
and
freedom
and
numbers
;
emus
built
their
nests
in
the
middle
of
the
grassy
plain
and
stalked
like
giants
about
their
territorial
boundaries
,
taking
fright
at
anything
strange
and
running
fleeter
than
horses
away
from
their
dark-green
,
football-sized
eggs
;
termites
built
rusty
towers
like
miniature
skyscrapers
;
huge
ants
with
a
savage
bite
poured
in
rivers
down
mounded
holes
in
the
ground
.
The
bird
life
was
so
rich
and
varied
there
seemed
no
end
to
new
kinds
,
and
they
lived
not
in
ones
and
twos
but
in
thousands
upon
thousands
:
tiny
green-and-yellow
parakeets
Fee
used
to
call
love-birds
,
but
which
the
locals
called
budgerigars
;
scarlet-and-blue
smallish
parrots
called
rosellas
;
big
pale-grey
parrots
with
brilliant
purplish-pink
breasts
,
underwings
and
heads
,
called
galahs
;
and
the
great
pure
white
birds
with
cheeky
yellow
combs
called
sulphur-crested
cockatoos
.
Exquisite
tiny
finches
whirred
and
wheeled
,
so
did
sparrows
and
starlings
,
and
the
strong
brown
kingfishers
called
kookaburras
laughed
and
chuckled
gleefully
or
dived
for
snakes
,
their
favorite
food
.
They
were
well-nigh
human
,
all
these
birds
,
and
completely
without
fear
,
sitting
in
hundreds
in
the
trees
peering
about
with
bright
intelligent
eyes
,
screaming
,
talking
,
laughing
,
imitating
anything
that
produced
a
sound
.
Fearsome
lizards
five
or
six
feet
long
pounded
over
the
ground
and
leaped
lithely
for
high
tree
branches
,
as
at
home
off
the
earth
as
on
it
;
they
were
goannas
.
And
there
were
many
other
lizards
,
smaller
but
some
no
less
frightening
,
adorned
with
horny
triceratopean
ruffs
about
their
necks
,
or
with
swollen
,
bright-blue
tongues
.
Of
snakes
the
variety
was
almost
endless
,
and
the
Clearys
learned
that
the
biggest
and
most
dangerous-looking
were
often
the
most
benign
,
while
a
stumpy
little
creature
a
foot
long
might
be
a
death
adder
;
carpet
snakes
,
copper
snakes
,
tree
snakes
,
red-bellied
black
snakes
,
brown
snakes
,
lethal
tiger
snakes
.
And
insects
!
Grasshoppers
,
locusts
,
crickets
,
bees
,
flies
of
all
sizes
and
sorts
,
cicadas
,
gnats
,
dragonflies
,
giant
moths
and
so
many
butterflies
!
The
spiders
were
dreadful
,
huge
hairy
things
with
a
leg
span
of
inches
,
or
deceptively
small
and
deadly
black
things
lurking
in
the
lavatory
;
some
lived
in
vast
wheeling
webs
slung
between
trees
,
some
rocked
inside
dense
gossamer
cradles
hooked
among
grass
blades
,
others
dived
into
little
holes
in
the
ground
complete
with
lids
which
shut
after
them
.
