These men remain in this happy state of seclusion and ignorance of the
proceedings of the world, from which they are thus (by their voluntary
act of expatriation) excluded, from year's end to year's end; except at
shearing time, when they bring their flocks to the head station to be
shorn; and the only being with whom they have any intercourse, is the
man who brings them their weekly supply of rations. When "old hands,"
they in general pass their lives in a lethargic existence; having no
apparent thought of past, present, or future; but breathe on in a dreamy
obliviousness, until at the expiration of perhaps one or two years,
their wages having accumulated to an amount somewhat considerable, they
leave their employment to proceed to the nearest public-house and plunge
into a course of drinking. After the endurance of a week's delirium,
madness, and unconsciousness, they generally find themselves, when
robbed of the greater portion of their hard-got earnings, thrust upon
the world penniless, wretched, dispirited, and sick, to seek employment
and re-enact the same scenes of solitary penance and wild debauchery.