But on the mountains both birds and beasts were scarce, as many a
famishing white man has found to his sorrow. In the heat of summer
the sea-breeze grows faint, and dies before it reaches the ranges.
Long ropes of bark, curled with the hot sun, hang motionless from the
black-butts and blue gums; a few birds may be seen sitting on the
limbs of the trees, with their wings extended, their beaks open,
panting for breath, unable to utter a sound from their parched
throats.
"When all food fails then welcome haws" is a saying that does not
apply to Australia, which yields no haws or fruit of any kind that
can long sustain life. A starving man may try to allay the pangs of
hunger with the wild raspberries, or with the cherries which wear
their seeds outside, but the longer he eats them, the more hungry he
grows. One resource of the lost white man, if he has a gun and
ammunition, is the native bear, sometimes called monkey bear. Its
flesh is strong and muscular, and its eucalyptic odour is stronger
still. A dog will eat opossum with pleasure, but he must be very
hungry before he will eat bear; and how lost to all delicacy of
taste, and sense of refinement, must the epicure be who will make the
attempt! The last quadruped on which a meal can be made is the
dingo, and the last winged creature is the owl, whose scanty flesh is
viler even than that of the hawk or carrion crow, and yet a white man
has partaken of all these and survived.
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