Explore "Old Melbourne Memories" by Rolf Boldrewood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was in a year "before the gold" that I had occasion to ride to Kalangadoo, across the Adelaide border near Mount Gambier. Kalangadoo was a cattle station, then the property of the Messrs. Hunter, Alick, Jemmy, and Frank, who then dwelt there, and led the half-laborious, half-romantic life which to the cattle-station holder of the day was allotted. The "Mount Gambier mob," as in colonial parlance described, was at that time composed of men the majority of whom had attained to social distinction. Not far off, at Compton, lived Evelyn Sturt, to my eyes the veritable _fine fleur_ of the squatter type. In that year, let us say about 1850, he was a very grand-looking fellow -- aristocratic, athletic, adventurous; an explorer, a pioneer, a _preux chevalier_ in every sense of the word, a leading colonist, with a strong dash of Bayard about him; popular with the men of his set, and, it is unnecessary to say, a general favourite with the women.
He had the features, the bold autocratic regard with which the early romance-writers were wont to depict the Norman Baron, whose part I make no doubt he would have acted creditably had Fate but arranged his existence synchronically.