Up the Country: A Saga of Pioneering Days

The drays carrying winter supplies for Three Rivers reached the Yarrabongo punt the evening before her departure. The camp fires of the teamsters gleamed in the bend of the river on the flats, and the bullock bells combined with the orchestra of frogs and crickets with which the earth seemed to pulsate.

On reaching the homestead, the teamsters began to unload early next morning. The arrival of the winter supplies was always a time of bustle for the household. Delightful it was to stow away the cases of currants and raisins, and the bags of white sugar and rice in the big ant- and mice-proof bins in the store room. Then there were great chests of tea with queer Chinese characters on the strange paper wrapping, with splendid linings of lead which later, after being melted down in a crucible and poured into a mould, would be made into bullets. There were sugar mats by the dozen, full of rich brown treacly sugar, delicious to taste and smell, which would be rationed out weekly to the station hands.