He
describes also a kangaroo-hunt, and a single combat with an old
kangaroo, grizzled and gray, that in a hand-to-hand fight for a long
time parried all the hunter's efforts to take him, either living or
dead. He was brought down at last by a revolver, and his skin was
carried off as a trophy of victory. The cattle-hunt was even more
exciting, in the wild flight of four or five thousand terrified
beeves, rushing pell-mell through the tall grass or over sandy plains,
stopping occasionally to hide their terrified faces from the dangers
that beset them, but one occasionally succumbing to the trusty weapons
of the count and his comrades. The hunters were certainly not
encumbered with superfluous garments, several of the boys being
clothed only in a pair of boots, and none with more than a single
garment. The immense droves of cattle and sheep herded together in
Australia cannot fail to awaken the surprise of the visitor on his
first arrival in the country, an Australian herdsman reckoning his
flocks by hundreds, and even a thousand or two heads of cattle owned
by one man being no unusual occurrence. Indeed, everything seems on a
mammoth scale in Australia--forests of timber trees that outlive
generation after generation of men, and yet have no thought of dying;
ferns like those near Hobart Town, that lift their graceful fringes
high over men's heads or serve as shade trees to their dwellings;
gigantic emus flying like the fabled Mazeppa over plains the extent of
which the eye cannot measure; and those fathomless mines of
inexhaustible wealth that seem to promise gold enough for all the
world for the centuries yet unborn.
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