KALANGADOO.
(From our own Correspondent.)
September 12th 1906
EXTRACTS
The following is a short sketch of the deceased gentleman's life,
which may prove interesting to his many friends...
~
Mr. Walker was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on September 2, 1821.
He sailed from Leith on February 2, 1839, in the ship Midlothian,
and after a voyage of nearly five months arrived at Port Phillip
at the end of June.
~
While on board he was engaged by a gentleman
to act as shepherd on landing,
for which he was to receive £20 per year.
He worked for three years for this employer,
living on damper and mutton,
and this was all he actually received,
as the farmer turned insolvent,
and the shepherd
never received a shilling.
~
After this he was employed on a station called the Coran.
While there some excitement was caused by the news
that a woman and three children
were lost in the bush.
The woman had been to a neighbouring station for butter,
and on the return journey lost her way.
For seven days the country was scoured
in the hopes of finding them,
but without success,
On the eighth day,
while Mr. Walker was following his sheep,
he found them all alive.
The mother said that:
that morning the children were too weak to travel,
so she left them under a tree
while she went
to make a further search for some homestead,
but before she had got more than a hundred yards
she heard her little ones crying for her,
and she turned back to them,
determined to
stay and die
with them.
All they had to subsist on was three pounds of butter.
~
Mr.Walker's next engagement
was on a station
called Broadmeadows,
near Narracoorte,
owned by
Messrs. Oliver and Brown.
The blacks here were very treacherous.
One day three of them came with their lubras
to the camp fire
where Mr. Brown was working.
Mr. Brown helped them to smooth a waddy with the tools that he had at hand.
The next morning Mr. Brown
took the sheep to water,
and on his not returning
Mr Walker was sent to look for him,
and found him quite dead,
killed presumably
with the waddy
that he had helped the blacks to make.
~
When the Victorian diggings broke out
Mr. Walker's employers offered £2 per hundred for shearers,
but could not get them, so intent were they to get to the diggings.
Mr. Walker,
who also had the gold fever,
started with his wife
and another married couple for Ballarat,
taking with them a horse
and cart
and £100.
After 12 months all his money was gone,
and he was £13 in debt.
~
He returned to his former master,
and began carting wool to Geelong with bullocks,
a distance of nearly 300 miles.
The time occupied by the journey was 6 weeks.
He was on the road on the memorable "Black Thursday",
and was surrounded by bush fire
that swept the country.
~
On arrival at Geelong he unloaded and received his money (£80).
He had to remain there a night,
and the only accommodation was a tent.
The landlord of the tent
suggested
that he should give him
the money
for safe keeping.
He had put £70 down,
when a man sprang up
and swept it off the table,
and before he had time to
think was gone.
He had £10 left,
and had to pay £2 for getting his horse shod.
Later in the day,
while his horse was feeding at the store,
someone stole it,
and he never saw it again.
~
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