Up Rode The Squatter

by Hector Holthouse

Rigby, 1970, [First Edition], ISBN 0851790534, black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, minor rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, no inscriptions,  dustjacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping, chipping and small tears (see photographs)

“The early settlement of western Queensland is a story as savage as any in Australian history.  The squatters were thrusting relentlessly into lands which had been tribal territory since time immemorial and ran head-on into fierce Aboriginal reprisals.  The struggle for supremacy soon rivalled the Indian wars of the American frontier.  Aboriginal war-parties would attack lonely homesteads, killing the families and their employees, and the settlers responded by hunting down the tribes.  But Aborigines were not their only enemies.  Cattle duffers roamed the country, sometimes herding stolen cattle for hundreds of miles, and the toughest of them all was Big Harry Bedford.  It was a hard-riding, fast-shooting era, and the author brings it vividly to life with his stories of such characters as the Eulo Queen, Billy the Boy, and the Kenniff Gang – described as being “just as bad as the Kellys.”  Everyone in that raw country was an individualist, and their quirks of character sometimes displayed themselves in very strange ways – but there was plenty of fun by contrast to the seamier side of life, and plenty of solid achievement beneath the rough and tumble booze-ups, brawls, practical jokes and impractical schemes.  The first shearers’ strikes, the gold rushes, and the writing of Waltzing Matilda are also part of this powerful book, full of the pathos, humour, and savagery of the frontier and written with the same vivid accuracy as Mr Holthouse’s previous historical narratives: River of Gold and Cannibal Cargoes.”