Mount Abundance by Allan Macpherson — Read

ON my return to Keera, I started at once for Mount Abundance, accompanied by a number of new men--shepherds, etc.--to fill up the establishment there, and also by my own servant, and by a civilised black named Charley, who understood a good many native dialects, and who also spoke English as well as a good many whites. I shall have a good deal to say about him, poor fellow, in this narrative, and I may begin by saying that he was as brave as he was intelligent, and faithful to the death. My own party started from Keera on the 8th of September, 1848, and we made fair progress on our route till we got near St. George's Bridge, on the Balonne; on the 30th of September, when, in the words of my journal of that date, "I heard of the severest misfortune it has been my lot to encounter during the last thirteen or fourteen months. I met two of the men in my employment at Mount Abundance, who stated that they had just come in from there with the following news, viz., that on the 9th of September, the day after the drays arrived at the station, the blacks had attacked Lowe's stock of about 2,000 ewes in lamb; had killed Lowe (one of my shepherds), and at the same time had gone to the sheep station within about three miles of the head station, and killed Gore, the hut-keeper, and had taken away with them 800 to 1,000 sheep. They also informed me that the rest of the men (fifteen in number) had compelled the superintendent to desert the station without any attempt to deal with any of the blacks or to recover any of the sheep; and that, accordingly, they had all left, taking with them the rest of the sheep and the stores, but leaving behind all the cattle, and about thirty bales of wool in the shed. On enquiring where the party were, I was informed that they were all at the junction of the Cogoon and the Balonne, about fifty to sixty miles on this side of Mount Abundance, and that they (my informants) had left them there, being unwilling to remain any longer. They had met the party I was taking up, who were a few miles ahead of me, but did not appear to have succeeded in inducing them to bolt also." On getting on to the station at St. George's Bridge I met another deserter from the Mount Abundance party, who confirmed the horrid news.

I made what haste I could to join the routed band of faint-hearted pioneers at the junction of the Cogoon and the Balonne, and succeeded in partially calming their fears, and in inducing them to promise to return, under my guidance, with the stock to Mount Abundance. I could not, however, induce any one of them--my own servant being the first to refuse--to accompany me on a preliminary visit to Mount Abundance to see how things were getting on there, and, among other things, to ascertain whether the blacks had burned down all the huts after the establishment had bolted, and also the temporary wool-shed, wherein there were between thirty and forty bales of wool. The _only_ volunteer for this somewhat hazardous expedition was my friend Black Charley, who, after applying to my whole party every possible term of contempt that his knowledge (very considerable) of the English language afforded, remarked, in the coolest manner, that "neither master nor he wanted such cowardly wretches with us; white wretch only in the road.' And, accordingly, Charley and I started by ourselves, taking with us a semi-wild Balonne black (mounted) to lead the pack-horse, and to find the horses in the morning and to bring them to our camp."