Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days

Simon Labosseer, the bridegroom of the morrow, had found favour with the master of Three Rivers long before the daughter did anything besides ridicule him for his ability to intelligently discuss all kinds of subjects, political and otherwise, with her father. There were other bonds as well between the two men. The surname Labosseer, like Mazere, was the corruption of an old Huguenot name, though the La Bossière family had taken refuge in Holland while the de Mazières had fled to England. The name of de Mazières had speedily been anglicised, but La Bossière retained the original spelling till he became domiciled in the colony.

On his mother's side he sprang from one of the great Dutch seafaring families; a remote ancestor had served as one of Dirk Hartog's lieutenants in the celebrated expedition of 1616 to the west coast of Australia. Family tradition and legend had therefore early turned his thoughts towards the continent called New Holland, but his family had long since left the sea for professional and mercantile pursuits, and it was as a surveyor that the young man had presented himself for acceptance as a colonist about eight years before the night of the great flood.