a woman standing at the door
throwing out the wash-up water.

By way of variety, the artist might make a water-colour sketch of a
fettler's tent on the line, with a billy hanging over the fire in front,
and three fettlers standing round filling their pipes.

Slop sac suits, red faces, and old-fashioned, flat-brimmed hats, with
wire round the brims, begin to drop into the train on the other side of
Bathurst; and here and there a hat with three inches of crape round the
crown, which perhaps signifies death in the family at some remote date,
and perhaps doesn't. Sometimes, I believe, it only means grease under
the band. I notice that when a bushman puts crape round his hat he
generally leaves it there till the hat wears out, or another friend
dies. In the latter case, he buys a new piece of crape. This outward
sign of bereavement usually has a jolly red face beneath it. Death is
about the only cheerful thing in the bush.

We crossed the Macquarie--a narrow, muddy gutter with a dog swimming
across, and three goats interested.

A little farther on we saw the first sundowner. He carried a Royal
Alfred, and had a billy in one hand and a stick in the other. He was
dressed in a tail-coat turned yellow, a print shirt, and a pair of
moleskin trousers, with big square calico patches on the knees; and his
old straw hat was covered with calico. Suddenly he slipped his swag,
dropped his billy, and ran forward, boldly flourishing the stick. I
thought that he was mad, and was about to attack the train, but he
wasn't; he was only killing a snake. I didn't have time to see whether
he cooked the snake or not--perhaps he only thought of Adam.

Somebody told me that the country was very dry on the other side of
Nevertire. It is. I wouldn't like to sit down on it any where. The
least horrible spot in the bush, in a dry season, is where the bush
isn't--where it has been cleared away and a green crop is trying to
grow. They talk of settling people on the land! Better settle _in_ it.
I'd rather settle on the water; at least, until some gigantic system of
irrigation is perfected in the West.

Along about Byrock we saw the first shearers. They dress like the
unemployed, but differ from that body in their looks of independence.
They sat on trucks and wool-bales and the fence, watching the train,
and hailed Bill, and Jim, and Tom, and asked how those individuals were
getting on.

Here we came across soft felt hats with straps round the crown