Bullock driver

“ There was Dave Regan, the drover, and my old mate, Jack Barnes, and Andy Maculloch, an old droving chum of mine; and old Jim Bullock and Old Peter, station hands from Wall's; and little Jimmy Nowlett, the bullock-driver—he's just brought up a load of fencing wire for Wall; and Ryan, the horse-breaker; and some women and girls who had driven over in spring carts. ”

“ Of course Walter has learnt to stick on a horse somehow, though you couldn’t keep a pony for him? The girl will have to learn to ride, too, if she wants to get about up-country. In the meantime she can go up on the dray. The bullock-driver is an assigned servant, but he’s as true as steel, and that’s more than I can say for some of the beggars I’ve got. ”

“ The driver lifted something weighty from the dray and straggled to the verandah with it and dropped it down. It was a man. The bullock-driver, of course, did n't know that a religious service was being conducted inside, and the chances are he did n't much care. ”

“ The quicker-moving horse teams and the railways, are elbowing the bullock driver out into the never-never, where there are still opportunities for his special faculties, and it is not often that bullock teams, with their wood and iron yokes, and dusty, hairy drivers, are seen on any roads coming into railway stations. ”

“ After that, I turned bullock-driver. That is a dreary life enough, but it's better than being a shepherd: it's more humanising. You get a chance, now and again, of giving a lift to a poor fellow, and that does a man good, you know. I remember, one morning, missing two of my bullocks. I did not find them till pretty late in the day. I was glad enough when I heard the tinkle of their bells, I can tell you; and as I was following the sound, I came upon a man lying in the bush. ”

“ Getting the wool to market is a considerable item in the station’s expenses, especially if it is situated far from a railroad. While motor trucks and tractors are coming into use, much of the clip is still hauled on carts drawn by oxen. Some carts will carry ten tons, a yoke of eight or ten oxen being used to pull them.
[Pg 54]
The bullock drivers, or “bullockies,” as they are called in this land of nicknames, are familiar figures in Australia’s sheep country. Many of them have no other homes than their great, creaking carts, and these often form the homes of their families as well. ”

“ There were not very many wheeled conveyances visible, for the island doesn’t lend itself to them overmuch; the few motors we saw were ancient and honourable members of the fraternity. The principal means of conveyance are the bullock-cars—wooden sledges, drawn by bulls, fine, big, sleek animals, though very leisurely in all their movements. One sees these cars going everywhere about the streets on well-greased runners. Some of the cars are very tastefully got up and drawn by bullocks as white as snow; and the motion when one gets inside is far from unpleasant. ”

“ Locomotive driving at a hundred miles an hour is but mild exhilaration as compared to the feelings of the motor-car driver who travels at fifty miles an hour on the public highway.
Gigantic motor trucks carrying tons of freight twist in and out through crowded streets, controlled by one man more easily than a driver guides a spirited horse on a country road.
Frail motor bicycles dash round the platter-like curves of cycle tracks at railroad speed, and climb hills while the riders sit at ease with feet on coasters. ”

“ All the patients we had were to go off that afternoon if the bullock-wagons arrived. This question [26] of transport is always a terrible problem; in many cases bullock-wagons are the only things that will stand the rough tracks, although here there was a good road all the way to Bitol, and had we had a service of motor-cars we could have saved the poor fellows an immense amount of suffering. Imagine yourself with a shattered leg lying in company with three or four others on the floor of a springless bullock-wagon, jolting like that over the rough roads for twenty or thirty miles. ”

“ She picked out the track of the one motor car that had been through here recently. It was marked with the swastika tread of the rear tires. That track was her friend; she knew and loved the driver of a car she had never seen in her life.
⁠She was very tired. She wondered if she might not stop for a moment. Then she came to an up-slope. The car faltered; felt indecisive beneath her. She jabbed down the accelerator. Her hands pushed at the steering wheel as though she were pushing the car. The engine picked up, sulkily kept going. ”

“ The first appearance of the motor-car, which is now almost as common in parts of India as it is in England, reduced many bullocks to a state of abject terror. Fortunately most mishaps with bullock-carts are not very serious in their results. The cart is not easily broken, and is quickly righted. But having occasion to travel in a public motor-car through a country district where the car was then a novelty, it was alarming to see the state of chaos which we were constantly leaving in our rear. ”

“ Until the horse is accustomed to the machine, it is the duty—by law and common sense—of the automobile driver to take great care in passing; the care being measured by the possibility and probability of at accident.
The sympathy of every chauffeur must be entirely with the driver of the horse. Automobiles are not so numerous in this country that they may be looked for at every turn, and one cannot but feel for the man or woman who, while driving, sees one coming down the road. The best of drivers feel panicky, while women and children are terror-stricken. ”

“ At another time, a man with a whip and a speaking-trumpet, on the stage outside a show, took my fancy, and I thought I should like to be him. But when the train came, the engine-driver put them all in the shade, and I was resolved to be a engine-driver. It wasn’t long before I had to do something to earn my own living, though I was only a young ’un. My father died suddenly—he was killed by thunder and lightning while standing under a tree out of the rain—and mother couldn’t keep us all. The day after my father’s burial I walked down to the station, and said I wanted to be a engine-driver. ”

“ When one approaches a single lighted machine he can not tell which of the two lights is out, or whether or not it is a motorcycle. Many accidents have been caused on account of this fact by not giving sufficient clearance to pass the approaching vehicle. When meeting a one lighted machine the driver should always slow down and give as much clearance as the road will allow. ”

“ The taxi halted, and drew up a little in front of a street light, so that the driver's face was in shadow. He gave his address, opened the door and stooped to fold up his considerable stature into the vehicle.
He had hardly shut the door, and as he was doing so, felt, or thought he felt, some obstacle before him, when the engine was let out at full speed. The cab whirled suddenly round in the opposite direction from that which he had ordered, and as Professor Higginson was jolted back by the jerk into his seat, his left arm clutched at what was certainly a human form ”

“ I remember thinking that the cushions of this automobile were unusually soft, and then I must have dozed off, and when I opened my eyes I did not know how much time had elapsed, but the driver was still at work and I could hear him swearing. He seemed to be having a great deal of trouble, so I got out of the automobile, intending to tell him that perhaps I had better try to get a car, after all. But his actions when he saw me were most unexpected. He waved the wrench he held in his hand, and ordered me to get back into the automobile, and I did. ”

“ There is one good point about bullocks, and that is that if they can only be induced to lean into their yokes, all together, their enormous bulk and weight will move anything. The greatest abomination of all in a drift or on a road is sand, as that causes trouble with both mules and bullocks; and our worst drawback has been the native drivers, as, owing to the enormous number of wagons in use by the troops, the supply of good drivers ran short, and any coolie was accepted. ”

“ Accordingly, the requisite strength being given to the motives that are to drive the driver, there has never, or hardly ever, been an instance of a man stopping his engine through wantonness. But such a case might occur; yes, and it might occur that the engine should break down: but if the train is stopped from some trivial motive it will be found either that the strength of the necessary influences has been miscalculated, or that the man has been miscalculated, in the same way as an engine may break down from an unsuspected flaw; but even in such a case there will have been no spontaneity ”

“ From her cab the girl saw the Lizard and the man on the motorcycle look into each other’s face for a moment, then she heard the Lizard’s quick admonition to his driver, “Beat it, bo!”
A sharp “Halt!” came from the man on the motorcycle, but the taxicab leaped forward, and, accelerating rapidly, turned to the left into the road toward the city. The girl had guessed at the first glance that the man on the motorcycle was a police officer. As the Lizard’s taxi raced away the officer circled quickly and started in pursuit. “No chance,” thought the girl. “He’ll get caught sure.” ”

“ The slowest that the carriage can be driven is three miles an hour and the speed can be increased to fourteen or fifteen miles an hour. The power is transferred from the driving wheel of the motor, which runs horizontally with the main shaft by an endless friction belt running on a drum wheel. The belt is controlled by a lever within easy reach of the driver and is shifted along the drum wheel to increase or decrease the speed. The driving wheel is about twenty inches in diameter, having in its center a depression to which the belt is shifted to stop the carriage. ”

“ Hence the motor car made good progress, nor was it until Fiftieth Street was reached that a [Pg 208] block of traffic caused them to halt. An automobile had collided with a delivery wagon, and a wordy contest was waging between the driver of the wagon, the chauffeur, one of the occupants of the automobile and a traffic-squad policeman.
"You don't know your business," a loud voice proclaimed, addressing the policeman. "If you did you wouldn't be sitting up there like a dummy already. ”

“ Not docked, mind you, but squared-off as closely as might be without resorting to cruelty; while their venerable heads, accustomed to turn freely and look their drivers in the face reproachfully if kept standing too long, were held in place by overdraw checks. At the same time the driver's seat in the buggy or runabout was raised from beneath so as to tilt the occupant forward into an almost standing posture. This worked well enough in an open wagon, but in a buggy the view was apt to be cut off by the hood, if the driving lady (it was always a woman) was tall. ”

“ The drivers are required to go between the stations at a certain speed, and they must not exceed it, neither must they fall short, unless from unavoidable reasons. If they go too fast they are corrected; I do not know exactly how, but from the customs of the country, I should imagine that for a slight offense a driver’s pay would be stopped, and he would be pounded a few days with a hammer, a scythe, or a trace chain, till he died. ”

“ No pleasure car can ever stop the driver of the truck.
He sits his seat in confidence, serene and quite content,
His heavy wheels are never dished, his axles never bent;
A locomotive engineer might jolt him from his place,
But nothing short of that would bring a tremor to his face.
He laughs his cheerful way along, too big for men to buck,
And even millionaires must dodge the driver of the truck. ”

“ The powerful car sped over the roads heedless of police traps or other troubles of that kind, and some time before the appointed hour for the arrival of Blossett's train in London they had reached Victoria. It was an easy matter to store the car in a neighboring hotel, and presently they had the satisfaction of seeing Blossett swagger from a first-class carriage with a heavy Gladstone bag in his hand. He called a cab and was rapidly driven off in the direction of the city. Egan in his turn called another cab, giving the driver strict injunctions to keep the first vehicle in sight. ”

“ In reaching the maximum lock, two complete turns of the steering wheel must be made. Thus, a driver who is used to getting a certain effect by turning his wheel through a certain distance, will find if he is put on to a subsidy car of another make that the same effect is still produced by the same amount of movement. This, of course, helps to make him immediately a safe driver in traffic or at sharp corners. The four-speed change-speed gear is operated by means of a lever in a gate. ”

“ The driver of the motor should then talk soothingly to the horse, and the groom should also encourage it as much as possible. The horse will follow with his eyes the movements of the car, and, as a rule, in a little while will allow it to be driven close by without any further signs of fear. The horse should then be harnessed and taken out on the road, the motor-car driven out to meet it, and sent a number of times past it until the animal takes little or no notice. ”

“ To begin with, the word in reality means “stoker.” On the foot plate of a French locomotive the driver is called “mechanicien,” while the fireman is designated as the “chauffeur.” In the case of motor cars propelled by steam, the word “chauffeur” may thus be held to be remotely correct, but on the ordinary car propelled by the internal combustion engine or by electric power, there is no sense in the term. In the best321 French circles also, the word “mechanicien” is always used to designate the driver of a car and the word “chauffeur” even in France is said to be becoming obsolete. ”