Cirrus@Austlit

Three years in the bush narrated by an English doctor. Fom Sydney he proceeds to the Hunter River, Newcastle and Maitland, working for a time on a local farm and then riding solo to a station on the Barwon river via Singleton, Muswellbrook, Murrunrundi, the Liverpool Ranges and the Namoi River. After helping draft some cattle he drives them back to Sydney via Morpeth with the help of a couple of stockmen and a bullock team. Stories of stockmen, shepherds and drought. His encounters with the Aborigines around the Barwon, singly and in groups, which he describes at length including 'gin-hunting', food-gathering, a corroboree and a battle between the Moori and the Yarrawandi tribes. He settles at Yarrawandi and builds a 'bush hospital' - treating patients including an intending participant in an Aboriginal 'dispersement' raid. The doctor eventually returns to Sydney. (PB)