2-888-261 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Cattle Mustering in Australia, 1850. Drovers and cattle at a waterhole. 'The object of a Cattle Muster is, as its name denotes, the collecting together of all the cattle belonging to the settler upon whose run, or grazing territory, it takes place; and this, in order either to brand the calves or to draft out some particular description of cattle-bullocks for the knife, perhaps, or young heifers to be sent to the heifer station...Bulls are seldom at all savage, or even wild, and, in company with the latest dropped calves, bring up the rear of the mob. In fact, it often requires a vigorous application of the stock-whip to induce them to go to the camp at all...The noise of a couple of thousand head of bush cattle, trumpeting forth a salute to each fresh mob that appears, blended with the cracks of the sonorous stock-whip, the yelping of curs, and the hooting and hallooing of stockmen, is tremendous'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.