The Call of the South by Louis Becke — Read

Once, after many years' wanderings in the North and South Pacific as shore trader, supercargo and "recruiter" in the Kanaka labour trade, I became home-sick and returned to my native Australia, with a vague idea of settling down. I began the "settling down" by going to some newly opened gold-fields in North Queensland, wandering about from the Charters Towers "rush" to the Palmer River and Hodgkinson River rushes. The party of diggers I joined were good sterling fellows, and although we did not load ourselves with nuggets and gold dust, we did fairly well at times, especially in the far north of the colony where most of the alluvial gold-fields were rich, and new-comers especially had no trouble in getting on to a good show. I was the youngest of the party, and consequently the most inexperienced, but my mates good-naturedly overlooked my shortcomings as a prospector and digger, especially as I had constituted myself the "tucker" provider when our usual rations of salt beef ran out. I had brought with me a Winchester rifle, a shot gun and plenty of ammunition for both, and plenty of fishing tackle. So, at such times, instead of working at the claim, I would take my rifle or gun or fishing lines and sally forth at early dawn, and would generally succeed in bringing back something to the camp to serve instead of beef. In the summer months game, such as it was, was fairly plentiful, and nearly all the rivers of North Queensland abound in fish.

In the open country we sometimes shot more plain turkeys than we could eat. When on horseback one could approach within a few yards of a bird before it would take to flight, but on foot it was difficult to get within range of one, unless a rifle was used. In the rainy season all the water holes and lagoons literally teemed with black duck, wood-duck, the black and white Burdekin duck, teal, spur-winged plover, herons and other birds, and a single shot would account for a dozen. My mates, however, like all diggers, believed in and wanted beef -- mutton we scarcely ever tasted, except when near a township where there was a butcher, for sheep do not thrive in that part of the colony and are generally brought over in mobs from the Peak Downs District or Southern Queensland.