Page:Australian Emigrant 1854.djvu/120

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THE AUSTRALIAN EMIGRANT.

had the appetite (but he had the heart too) of a man. Well, the Gorger and I, after putting up the hut as you see it, were considerably bothered about a substitute for door-hinges. 'Nail up strips of bullock's hide to the door and to the wall' suggested the Gorger. But where are the nails, Gorger?—Some old fellow once said, if he could find a resting place for his lever he would move the world.—Find me the nails, Gorger, and I will hang the door. Try again Gorger. And the Gorger thought and thought until he grew hungry, when he set to work upon a piece of beef and damper, and then fell asleep. Happening to have a half bottle of rum in store, I took it out of plant (how fond Gorger was of rum to be sure!) and after a glass or two I felt as if I was getting nearer the solution of the problem. The bottle at last stood before me in all its hideous emptiness:—in an attempt to drain a few last drops from it, I turned its bottom upwards. One hinge was before me—the problem was worked. So I woke the Gorger, D'ye see the hollow in the bottom of this bottle?—Well, that's a hinge; rummage out another bottle—that's a pair of hinges: put one bottle in the ground, bottom upwards, another in the slab above the door, bottom downwards; fix the ends of the post the door is built on into the hollows, and the thing is done. 'Mind the bottles are empty, guvnor' said the Gorger. Leave me alone for that, Gorger, said I. And now we are on such an interesting subject as the bottle, I mean to talk a bit—I hate a man who is eternally abusing it. Now there are two ways of doing this; one is by getting drunk on its contents and breaking heads with it, and the other by an indiscriminate condemnation of all liquoring. And baccy too—fancy a bushman abstaining from baccy!—Ridiculous. Leave him his baccy and he is not destitute:—it is often his substitute for every other comfort. Baccy and the bottle are the first signs of ci-