Australian Squatters by Hubert De Castella and CB Thornton-Smith
Of Swiss birth, de Castella was naturalised as a Frenchman to join the French army. He later left it for Australia to join his brother Paul in Victoria, and subsequently bought a station next to his brother's in partnership with another Swiss. While seeing Australia's landscape with a painter's eye, he enjoyed a vigorous outdoor life, happily combined with interludes in Melbourne, which he was prepared to defend as a thoroughly modern city.
Thornton-Smith's lively translation gives us fascinating glimpses of working and social life on a cattle station near Melbourne in the years following the gold rush. There are particularly interesting chapters on stock-handling, hunting, his brother's two indentured Chinese servants and the Aborigines, while the long account of an epic droving trip made by a friend offers additional colour on outback New South Wales.
Hardcover in excellent condition. One copy only.
Price: AUD$8.00
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