AustLit

Picture this scene from our past, if you will.

It's a hot, still noon in the Australian bush. The deep blue sky has not a wisp of cloud and the sun beats down pitilessly. The only sound is the harsh cark of crows as they roost in some defeated gums by the dried-out creek bed. A small herd of dead sheep lie shrivelled and stinking in the now parched mud. Surveying this desolate scene from the creek bank is a tall lean bushman mounted on horseback. Eyes narrowed under the deep shadow of his bushman's hat, he slowly strokes his chin and utters a couple of brief, well-chosen observations about sheep, death and existence.

In these circumstances, such words as pass for humour were generally a masterpiece of deadpan understatement, a joke so dry and scarcely detectable that only a brown dog could sniff the wit in it.