“i had always heard the indian (north american) spoken of as a revengeful, bloodthirsty man. to find him a man capable of feelings and affections, with a heart open to the wants and responsive to the ties of social life, was amazing.”—from the memoirs of henry r. schoolcraft, the hero-explorer of “garden of the west” fame.
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or the purposes of our narrative we must turn back in our portfolio of australian reminiscences, and present to our readers a sketch of an event that took place sixteen years previous to the date of the commencement of our story.
an august evening is sealing up in long red rows of clouds another day of the year of 1873. the scene before us is the heart of the weird “never, never land,” so-called by the earliest pioneers from the small chance they anticipated, on reaching 86 it, of ever being able to return to southern civilization. eight hundred miles in a direct line nor’-north-west from sydney on the sea-board, and over fifteen hundred miles by the dreary ways a traveller must follow, the sand-hills, clay-paws, and low sandstone prominences of the district, now called the country of the upper mulligan, was still a terra incognita to europeans on the aforementioned evening. it is true those ill-fated heroes, burke and wills, had passed through it twelve years before; but, poor fellows, they were hurrying southwards for the relief that came too late, and had no time to take much notice of the country. night is coming on, with that gloamingless presumption that is mentioned as one of the oddities of the new land by most new chum visitors to tropic australia, in their epistolary offerings to friends in the old country. the crimson clouds just above the horizon flash out brighter than before, as the sun sinks its lower edge behind the dim grey-blue line of dreary sand-hills. the earth grows darker suddenly, and the bosom of the piece of water in the foreground, is led and fringed with graceful lignum bushes, and backed by a picturesque outline of broken sandstone cliffs, becomes lighter by contrast as all else merges into purple shadows. native companions (a large kind of crane) croak hoarsely high overhead, as they follow the sun westward, across the violet expanse of sky, to their feeding grounds by the salt lakes; large buzzards, called turkeys by the australian settlers, come out to wrangle over grubs by the water’s side; mosquitoes rise in shrill-voiced, murmuring clouds to address the night-feeding fauna of the locality, vice swarms of persistent house-flies retired, the latter having now 87 festooned themselves in countless myriads upon the zigzag branches of the gidea scrub around; dingoes are slinking by, like the guilty shadows of departed thieves, to the dark, slippery mud-pools, where the overflow of the water-hole (a small lake left in an intermittent river’s bed) has formed a broken, snake-haunted swamp; and all the life of the half-desert country around this part of the parapee (now mulligan) river gathers to enjoy the moisture, the comparative coolness, and the food-producing qualities of this australian oasis.
westward across the dreary salt pans, were we to follow the pelicans and native companions in their evening flight, we should find bitter lakes, with dazzling fringes of snowy salt, and strange—and, according to native legend, cunmarie-haunted—mound springs. there, also, in the neighbourhood of the rocky gnallan-a-gea creek and sand-locked eta-booka, we may find the wondrous pitchurie plant (of the poisonous order of solanacea). growing here, and nowhere else in australia (at the time we write of), the location of this valuable native drug, with its lanceolate leaves and white flowers,—that fires the warrior, soothes the sufferer, and inspires the orator,—was shrouded by the cunning protectionist inhabitants of the wilds with the grimiest, most mysterious surroundings their medicine men could possibly invent. black boiling lakes, cerberus-like portiers, half man, half emu, and devils of the most uncivil type were supposed by the natives of other districts to guard this sole source of revenue, in the shape of boomerangs and red ochre, of the paree and mudlow country.
eastward a matter of twenty miles from the 88 water-hole are the castellated “spires and steeples” of a long range of flint-crowned sandstone hills, whose débris has covered the intervening country with an almost unbroken “dressing” of glaring yellow and red brown stones, or “gibbers.” if we were to follow the river bed southwards we should come upon magnificently grassed flats, now covered with the shorthorns of various squatter-kings.
on the sandy summit of a mass of brittle, broken sandstone, overlooking the water-hole, is the chief camp of the aboriginal inhabitants of the district. the father of this little hamlet—if we can honour the collection of beehive-like, mud-coiffured gunyahs by that name—belongs to the strong class-family, or totem, of the mourkou (ignana-lizards); and, food being plentiful, enemies scarce, and no death-avenging troubles on hand, the little community is happy and contented on this winter evening, as the sun goes down. the smoke from the camp-fires curls up fearlessly from the tree-studded flat below the village, setting the more-porks (night-jars of australasia) coughing in the branches; and the peaceful though monotonous chants of infant-suckling mothers come with a soft lullaby murmur upon the ear. there is something very soothing about these native yika-wimma (literally, milk songs), although we have heard them facetiously likened to the buzz of a meat-tin-imprisoned blow-fly; but, anyhow, their effect on a quiet evening like this is perfectly in sympathy with the spirit of the surroundings. presently some twenty male natives, naked almost as the day they were born, collect round one of the fires, and proceed to discuss the merits of sundry lizards, fish, and 89 bandicoot which have been roasted on the embers. the menu also includes two varieties of potato-like roots,—kylabra, a rather rare climbing plant, and that yellow-flowered “praty” of the interior, tintina. the women sit patiently waiting for their turn to come, each watching her particular lord, much as a brown-eyed collie does his master, but scarcely ever ceasing their droning song. now and then their patience is rewarded by a morsel being flung to them; and by-and-by, at a few words from the village-father—there is no real chief in these truly socialistic circles—the men gather round him to hold a consultation of some importance, the “ladies” immediately proceeding to do justice to what remains of the dinner. the men now gathered round the white-haired old native are mostly athletic-looking fellows, whose dark, naked skins, freshly polished with the fragrant fat—to an aboriginal’s olfactory ideas—of the ignana, shine in the firelight like the dark oaken carvings of saints in an antwerp cathedral during midnight mass. the younger men and the boys (derrere), who keep at a respectful distance, and have eaten their meal apart from the fully-initiated males, are far from bad-looking as a rule. ceaseless fun and joking, with occasional tale-telling, is going on amongst the youths; and presently they skip off into the shadows of the wurleys (huts) on the hill, where one of their number tells the oft-repeated native yarn of the “crow and the parula pigeon,” amidst the shrieks of laughter of his delighted audience as they open their white-ivoried jaws in merriment at his imitations of the car-car, car-car, of the feathered rascal of the story.
the aged" target="_blank">middle-aged men have the usual distinctive 90 characteristics of all australian aborigines,—the slightly-made, calfless leg; the brilliantly-expressive yet bloodshot eyes; the short, flat, “tip-tilted” nose and strongly emphasized corrugator muscles of the forehead. they wear their hair generally in a matted collection of wiry curls, cut so as to fall round their heads in the modern high-art fashion; but some, having need of materials for fishing-net and line making, are cultivating their locks into cone-shaped elevations, by means of bands of grass. all of them stalk, rather than walk, as they move about, with long, from-the-hip strides that remind one of harry furniss’ caricatures of irving. and what is particularly noticeable is, that the hunted-thief look one nearly always sees on the face of the average “station boy” (squatter’s aboriginal servant) is absent.
“what does the father of my mother’s sister, pirruup, the clever sandpiper, think of these warnings, of these warnings?” chants one of the men, addressing the grey-haired patriarch, who sits a little apart from the rest, all being now squatting on their hams around the fire. “shall deder-re-re, of the duck-haunted bindiacka water-hole, tell us once more of the strangers he saw, so that all may hear?”
only two of the men have yet heard the important news brought by their red-ochre trader on his return home an hour before, so with the eagerness of children they wait open-eyed for the sage’s answer. gazing heavenwards, where the stars are fast appearing at their brightest, the old man sits blinking his cunning old whiteless eyes, without apparently having heard the question. upon his shrivelled, old, monkey-like features, lit by the fitful, dancing glare of the flames,91 nature has written a long history of privations, of weary trackings and watchings, and of savage battles. yet there is something decidedly picturesque about him, and even admirable; for there is a certain air of dignity, command, and superior knowledge that makes itself manifest in all his movements.
after a somewhat lengthy silence, broken only by the laughter of the boys, and the distant, musical howling of far-off dingoes, the old man turns his head towards a young man, wearing the yootchoo, or “string of barter,” and murmurs, “yathamarow” (you may speak).
all the men present are busy plaiting hair, scraping the thigh-bones of emus for dagger-making, and the like; but they cease their work as their trader, who has the distinctive red-ochre marks upon his body that show his profession, begins to speak.
“three are the moons that have broken, as the nerre (lake-shells) break upon the wave-beaten shore, since i departed for the land of the dieyerie, for the land of the yarrawaurka. the sun is hot. the birds fly only in the shade. after two days water is needed by the man who carries a weight.” the speaker proceeds, in a roundabout way, to notify to his hearers that, partly through want of water and partly by fear, he had not cared to follow up a certain discovery he had made,—of approaching strangers.
“they travelled slowly,” he continued, gesticulating, and glancing round as his growing excitement fired the faces of his audience with reflected interest.
“their heads were ornamented with the white moongarwooroo of mourning, but worn differently to ours. their skin is covered with hair like the thulka92 (native rodent), and they carry the fire-sticks of the southern people in their hands. their women are large as sand-hills, and bent double with the weight of their loading,—their black hair sweeping the sand, and their resemblance to emus in the distance being great.”
we are bound to pause again, to explain that the natives of the interior have often told us they mistook the first-comers’ horses for their women, as they carried the packs, the females of a native party on the march always taking the part of porters. this will explain the ochre trader’s error.
a general conversation follows for a time, when the red-marked native cries,—
“listen! i have learned a new wonka (song).” then commencing to mark time with his nodding head, and tapping an accompaniment with two carved boomerangs, he commences to chant the following verse:—
“pooramana, oh poor fellows,
oro tora tona, cooking,
in the embers savoury morsels,
came the strangers, plukman holo
bum, bum.”
an impromptu chorus here came in from all the men present of—
“paramana, oh poor fellows,
bum, bum.”
with the ready appreciation of australian aboriginals, all those present took in immediately the significance of the above words, and saw in them the singer’s wish93 to warn his brethren that the approaching strangers were of the same kind as those mentioned in his song. as, however, the difficulty of true translation and the obscureness of the meaning may puzzle our white readers and prevent them culling the poet’s idea, we will explain that the trader had, in these terse lines, pictured how some poor black fellows, having obtained some savoury morsels, were cooking the same over the fire, when the dreaded strangers surrounded and destroyed them by means of smoke-emitting fire-sticks, that made a great noise, the imitation of which formed the chorus of the song “bum, bum.”
there is a cessation of the song, and a feeling of insecurity saddens each face, for it is only before whites, and the natives of other and possibly hostile districts, that the stolid, expressionless physiognomy, sometimes mentioned as characteristic of the american indian, is seen in australian aborigines.
the old man has taken a plug of a tobacco-like compound from behind his ear and is chewing it, growing excited meanwhile. he is seeking for inspiration from a sort of hasheesh, formed of the dried and powdered leaves of the pitchurie mixed with the ashes of the montera plant.
the author of the didactic dialogues of thebes, the old world expounder of some of the theories of modern psychology, if he could revisit the earth and wend his way to central australia, would there find some of his ideas, or rather the ghostly semblance of them, passable as religious coinage amongst the old men of the tribes. grand old cebes taught that man had a sort of life of apprenticeship before he entered upon this world’s stage, and could (if pure of heart) sometimes94 take counsel in times of perplexity by looking backward into his sinless anterior existence.
one of the virtues that the native drug pitchurie is supposed to possess when used by the old men is the opening up of this past life, giving them the power and perquisites of seers.
to return to the old man and the camp. all the men watch him, waiting for him to speak. the boys, meanwhile, having tired of story-telling, are playing at beringaroo over a large fire they have started. this game is performed with boat-like toys formed out of the leaf of the aluja, warmed and pinched into shape. flung upwards with a sharp twirl, imparted to it with the first and second fingers, concave side downwards, over the blazing fire, the plaything mounts with the draft, spinning rapidly, till it meets the cooler air, when it descends, only to mount again, still whirling in hawk-like circles. shouts of applause reward the player whose toy keeps longest on the wing.
“let the big fire be extinguished!” comes the word of command from the old man, uttered in a low voice. then the speaker rises, and stretching out his arms towards the west, with the saliva caused by the chewing process running from his mouth upon his white beard and tawny chest, he commences to speak. the boys’ fire has been quickly subdued, and men, women, and children watch the figure of their “guide, philosopher, and friend.”
slowly, at first, come the words; the old man’s voice growing louder and more excited towards the end of his speech, which is a kind of address to his patron-, or birth-star, in this case that of the evening, or lizard’s eye:—
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“amathooroocooroo, star of approaching night, kow-wah, thou risest, dilchiewurruna, from the sun’s camping-place.
“boonkunana boolo, thy shining head ornamented with gypsum,
“is slowly ascending o’er waieri, the sand-hills.
“aumin thieamow, remain and tell us, purrurie, what see you, ooyellala, beneath you?
“the red-ochre hunters, wolkapurrie.
“the braves who have carried murulyie, the red-ochre, hither, wilchrena, are fearsome!”
here the men and women burst in with a chorus of one word, dwelling on the last two syllables:—
“muracherpu-nā, we are groping in the dark.”
the old singer continues:—
“quiet is wathararkuna, the south wind; but gna-pou kouta,
“the noise of the waters reaches us.
“the ko-ning-chteri, the noisy gnats,
“chaudachanduna kuriunia, are whispering over the spinifax (spiny grass).”
chorus: “muracherpu-nā.”
“thou dancest as kintallo, the shrimp,
“as o’er kuldrie, the salt-lake, thou risest.
“kouta, the waves, koolkamuna, dance round you,
“apoouna, apoouna, bathing thy face.
“murieami mungarina, farewell, thou silent one!
“mungamarow mungara, let my soul speak!”
chorus: “mungamarow mungara!”
as the last vibrations of the chorus die away, the aged vocalist suddenly turns, and, filled with the spirit of prophecy, cries aloud in a different tone of voice, “the strangers are coming,” and then proceeds96 to march rapidly up and down beneath the walke trees, his limbs quivering with excitement, and his staring eyeballs almost flashing with the wild madness of intoxication.
“i hear them crush the yedede with their feet,” he howls. “no more shall our women gather the food-seed of warrangaba.” then stopping, and raising his arms, he continues in a lower tone: “high above my head soars the hawk kerrek-i, laughing as he smells the slaughter.” then mournfully, as he goes on with his promenade: “no more shall the emu seek the nunyakaroo for its young ones. both the yeraga and galga, will disappear from the land. what does tounka, the crayfish, whisper in the waters of palieu? why does mol-la, the crab, cry kow-wah! come here! kow-wah! come hither?”
the old man goes on marching and gesticulating, as he continues his prophetic lament; and the frightened boys, huddling together near the women, have ceased to laugh, and can hardly breathe with terror. the mothers hug their fat little offspring closer to their breasts, and dismay is pictured on all faces save that of the travelled bearer of the dreadful news. he had already owned to feeling timid, when two days since he found himself alone in the proximity of the dreaded white-faced devils from the south, of whose cruelty and far-reaching lightnings he had heard account on his travels. but he is with his friends and brethren now, he thinks, and besides, the new-comers will not arrive at the village yet awhile, perhaps not at all. the white-faced ones were not always victorious either; he had heard of a party of them, who had been on a slave-making expedition, 97 being attacked, and their prisoners rescued, at congabulla creek, to the south-east. to-morrow the signal fires could be lighted, and the whole tribe collected for a grand consultation upon the subject of the invaders. three hundred braves could surely defy the handful of approaching purdie (locusts). the pulara (women who collect the braves and hunters together) should start at day break. just as the thinker’s meditations gave birth to a more hopeful view of things, the old prophet of evil ends his harangue from sheer exhaustion, and sinks theatrically upon the sandy soil, lying there motionless in a state of coma.
nearly every emergency produces its hero. stepping forward into the open space before the other natives, bold-hearted deder-re-re, of the red stripes, expresses aloud his hopes and plans, and winds up with a kind of nasal chant, that only a few of his audience—wonderful linguists as most of them are—can understand, as it is of southern origin, and in the language of the warangesda tribe of new south wales. the words have, as in most native songs, a hidden meaning,—a double entendre,—and in this case they are intended to illustrate the fact that a tribe is safest when its members are collected, or “rolled together,” much after the manner of the fable of the bundle of sticks. the song sung and explained has a visibly cheering effect upon all. at the risk of being tiresome, we place the words before our readers, with a fair translation of it, as another example of australian aboriginal poetry:—
“chuul’yu will’ynu,
wallaa gnor??
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chill? binu? aa gna,
kinun?a gnuura? jeeaa
chi?ba-a gnutata.”
chorus: “kirr?girr?, kirr?girr? leeaa gna.”
translation.
“the porcupine has fiery spikes,
burning like the fire-stick,
surely some one is pinching me,
softly, as a sister pinches her brother,
but i am safe, safe beyond danger
grinning, grinning, grinning, are my teeth.”
the men now begin to discuss the matter in hand in a low voice, the old patriarch still lying upon the ground meanwhile; and a strange, wild group they form in the firelight, as they squat round in various attitudes. the women and boys now retire to the hut-crowned hill above the river flat. the heavenly peacefulness of the night scene, with the star-spangled sheet of water lying silent in its dark fringe of verdure; the purple dome above, pierced with the golden eyes of native deities; and the tremulous cries of various night-prowling birds and beasts, softened and sweetened by distance,—all seems in curious contrast to the anxious faces of the little community.
a woman wearing the bilpa forehead ornament of kangaroo teeth is sitting at the door of one of the gunyahs on the hill, with a child in her arms. the hut, which is exactly like all the others in the group,—and for the matter of that all within two or three hundred miles,—is built of sticks, which have been stuck into the ground at the radius of a common centre, and then bent over so as to form an egg-shaped99 cage, which is substantially thatched on top and sides with herbage and mud. the door, on opening, faces the least windy quarter, namely, the north. reclining against the portal is the satin-skinned native mother, who, dark as night, has the beautiful eyes, teeth, and hair of her race. she is gazing at the fat little man-animal on her lap by the light of an anti-mosquito fire-stick which she gracefully holds above her, and the group would form as beautiful a model as any artist could wish for to illustrate that affectionate adoration for their offspring which is the pleasing attribute of most mothers, civilized or uncivilized, all over the world. a slenderly formed boy, of about eight years of age, kneels by her side, amusing his baby brother with a toy boomerang that he has that day won as a prize, in the throwing game of wu? whuuitch , with his fellows. the woman is singing the chorus of the chant with which the villagers have that day welcomed the returning ochre trader, her husband:—
“mulka-a-a-a-wora-a-a,
yoong-arra-a-a oondoo-o-o
ya pillie-e-e-e mulka-a-a-a
angienie,
kooriekirra-a-a ya-a-aya.”
translation.
“put colour in the bags,
close it all round,
and make the netted bag
all the colours of the rainbow.”
but leaving the peaceful village for a time, let us turn our mental night-glass towards a point four miles down the river’s course. here the stream, having left100 the rocky, sandstone country, rushes its spasmodically flowing waters, from time to time, between banks of alluvial mud. a rank growth of various herbs, rushes, and fair-sized gum-trees has arisen here from the rich soil, whose fertile juices are more often replenished by the river than that farther afield. it is very dark below the branches; but if the meagre starlight could struggle in sufficient quantity between the pointed leaves, we should be able to see upon the water’s brim a strange mark in these solitudes, the footprint of a horse’s hoof,—the first of its kind that has ever refreshed its parched and grateful throat in the little billabong before us.
the ochre-hunter was in error when he calculated the speed at which the strangers were approaching his village. he had seen only the pack-train, which was proceeding leisurely to palieu water-hole. the invaders were squatter-explorers pushing northwards in the van of that great red wave of european enterprise that, set in motion by the land fever of the “seventies,” burst with a cruel and unbridled rush over the native lands lying north of the cooper and diamentina rivers.
delighted with the mitchell-grass and salt-bush country which the party had discovered a few days before, four of their number were now making a flying trip round in order to ascertain the extent of the “good country.” hearing from their trained native scouts of the village on the rocky water-hole, they have decided to disperse the dwellers therein after the usual fashion, that still obtains in australia when land belonging to and inhabited by the weaker aboriginal race is being taken up.
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a consultation is being held by the four whites in the shadow of a group of native plum-trees. the two scouts, both armed with snider carbines, stand close by, and answer the questions put to them from time to time in the strange pigeon-english taught them by their masters. each carries a tomahawk in the cartridge-belt that, fastened round his dark, oily waist, forms his only article of clothing.
“well, it’s too dashed early to go near them beggars yet, by least three hours,” says one of the white men at last.
“and yet,” he adds to himself, “it’s risky not to get the job done, for if that blank, blank englishman got scent of what i’m really after in pushing up here, he’d try his best to let the black devils escape. we’ll go back,” he adds aloud, with a curse, “to the old-man sand-hills by the clay-pan, where i sent jackie back with the pack-horses. it won’t do to stop here, or the black devils, curse ’em, will drop on us, you bet. so we’ll retire and doss down for a couple of hours’ camp—say till one o’clock. take us an hour to reach the beggars; half-past two’s the time to catch ’em sleeping.”
turning to one of his boys, he asks,—
“how many black beggars sit down alonger camp, bingerie?”
bingerie, who has been close to the village that our readers have just left, and on business not altogether unconnected, as country newspapers would say, with the proposed slaughter of its inhabitants, murmurs huskily in reply,—
“mine bin think him plenty black fellow sit down longer camp. big fellow mob. plenty little beggar, 102 plenty pickaninnie all about gunyah.” the speaker’s black face wrinkles up into a cruel, satan-like grin, as he touches the tomahawk in his belt, the two actions boding no good for the said pickaninnies if he gets them in his clutches. then glancing with cunning, obsequious eyes at his master’s face, to try and catch through the darkness a facial expression of approval, he continues, “mine see um plenty gin, plenty little beggar gin (little women, i.e., girls); mine catch um, by’m-bye.”
the white men laugh at this, and the “boss,” flinging a stick of “station-twist” to the black imp before them, gives him some directions.
“well, bingerie, you black devil, there’s some ’baccy for you. now, you see that fellow star,” point-to that part of the heavens where the constellation of orion’s belt was looking down from the calm australian sky upon the group of explorers,—“you see one, two, three fellow star. all the same star longer brandy bottle.”
“me know,” murmurs the black “boy,” with a smile of pleasant recollections crossing his attentive features for an instant.
“white fellow go alonger gunyahs, when three fellow star catch ’em that fellow branch. big fellow hoot then, eh! you black limb of satan, you!”
the black “boy”—all aboriginal male servants of australians are called “boys,” regardless of the age to which they have attained—regards the overhanging branch, and, mentally gauging the time it will take for the stars indicated to reach it on their track westward ho! across the heavens, grunts “me know,” and slinks off as noiselessly as a cat after sparrows, and 103 presently reappears with another attendant sprite, both of them being mounted on wiry little horses, and leading the steeds of the rest of the party.
“now, jim,” says the man who has previously spoken to one of the others, as they ride over the sound-deadening sand, “we’ll have a camp for a couple of hours, and then we’ll proceed to give these cursed niggers something to let ’em know we’re not to be trifled with. curse their black hides, i’ve tried kindness, and i’ve tried the other thing; but curse me if it ain’t less trouble to clear ’em off first thing,—i’ve always found it so, instead of having to shoot ’em in compartments afterwards.” he laughs a short, hard, hac! hac! as he finishes, to which his companion responds with,—
“my trouble’s about shooting of ’em hither way, curse their livers; all in the day’s work. safe to light up yet, capting?”
“not yet,” replies the “boss;” “round the sand-hill it’ll be all right,” and soon the party emerging from the brushwood, where a dark, spinifax-covered sand-hill overhangs an empty water-hole, pipes are lit, and the horses given in charge of the “boys;” the whites lying down for a spell, for they have ridden many weary miles that day.
let us return to the village. whilst we have been away, two braves have arrived at the water-hole with a message-stick for the head man of the village from the eta-booka branch of the tribe. this curious means of communication consists of a piece of wood about five inches long—the half of a split length of a small branch. on the flat side a number of transverse notches have been cut with some rather blunt tool,104 probably a flint-knife. the larger cuts denote the names of men and places; the smaller are symbols of sentences. the message, which is soon read, is to the effect that eta-booka people have seen the white strangers whose approach has alarmed the paree-side villagers; and finishes by proposing a “meeting of the clans” for the next day. a reply message is determined on, manufactured, and despatched by the trusty runners, who start homewards with rapid feet, happy in the possession of a small piece of ochre each, with which they intend to beautify themselves at the “full dress” meeting to be held.
the thought of combination and safety on the morrow now sends the villagers, tired with the excitement of late events, to their gunyahs on the hill; and soon slumbering, they do not see the fateful fall of myriads of ditchiecoom aworkoo, shooting stars, that takes place at one o’clock. deder-re-re is restless, however, in his smoke-filled wurley; and, half awake, dreams he is on one of his distant expeditions, and that the southern night-owl is screeching to its mate, as it flits past him on its ghostly wings. suddenly he wakes. he listens, with upraised head. yes, there is no mistaking it; the cry he heard in his dreams comes to his ears once more. creek-e-whie, creek-e-whie, this time from the back of the hill. it is answered by a somewhat similar call from the water-hole below. a southern bird up here; and two of them. trained hunter-warrior that he is, deder-re-re takes in the situation in an instant. foes are at hand, probably the dreaded white devils; and are surrounding the camp, signalling their position to each other, before the final attack, by imitating the105 cries of a night-bird. smiling to himself at the foolish mistake of the enemy in using the note of a bird foreign to the district, he prepares for action. a touch and a whispered word to the wife of his bosom, and he slinks out of the gunyah, crawling on noiseless hands and knees to warn his fellows in the other huts. his sharp sense of hearing, made doubly powerful now that all his savage heart holds dear is in peril, distinguishes the crushing of branches close by. only white men could be the cause of that, he instinctively guesses. a passing dingo or emu would brush by the branches, and a black foe would make no noise whatever. it is too late for resistance. he must alarm the camp openly and effectively at once, and perhaps his loved ones may escape in the general excitement. a bright idea, heroic as ingenious, suddenly strikes him. if he can get the enemy down by the river flat to chase him, and at the same time make noise enough to wake his brethren, perhaps the majority of the latter will be able to reach the water-hole, their only chance of escape, through the gap thus formed in the circle of foes. with a fearful yell, he therefore springs to his feet, and bounds down the rocky side of the hill, sending a rattling avalanche of stones all round him as he goes, and reaches the flat below. here the white “boss,” having arranged his men, is taking up his position for potting the black fellows as they make for the water, as his long experience in taking up “new country,” and knocking down the inhabitants thereof, has taught him they are sure to do. the cool-headed white man hears deder-re-re’s yell, and can just see him as he bounds past the smouldering fire towards him. a snap-shot 106 rings through the air, and the black fellow, springing upwards, falls dead upon the red-hot embers, crushing and fanning them into a sudden blaze, that shows the dark, flying forms of the villagers rushing towards the water-hole. now ring the short, sharp carbine shots through the still morning air! now whistling swan-shot from fowling pieces buzz through the falling leaves! wild shrieks, deep groans, the scream of frightened birds, the plunge of swimmers in the water, and all the fearful turmoil of a night surprise! where lately the silent brushwood hooded over its dark image in the lake, the leaves blush ruddily with the sudden blaze of bursting stars of flame, as the white men fire upon the swimmers in the water-hole.
then comparative quiet again. the opening scene in the act of bloodshed is almost as soon over as begun, and then the fearful work of despatching the wounded commences. the whites leave this job to their black accomplices, and retire to the gunyahs on the hill, to mount guard over those who are giving the coup de grace to the unfortunate wretches writhing on the flat below. well do they know that their “boys” will miss no opportunity of painting those already dripping tomahawks of a still deeper tint. brought from a far-off district, and believing it to be perfectly legitimate for them to kill their black brethren if belonging to another tribe, their savage natures, moreover, trained to the awful work, they glory in a scene like this. the rapid and sickening thud, thud of their small axes, right and left, at last ceases as the early blush of dawn begins to break behind the weird hill to the eastward. the mangled 107 bodies of some thirty men, women, and children lie here and there amongst the broken bushes and half-burnt gunyahs; and the wild duck skimming down on to the once more placid bosom of the little lake, rise again with frightened squeaks on seeing the ghastly objects on its red-frothed banks.
“didn’t do so badly,” says the white man whom the others address as “boss,” as he looks down from the rugged hill. “got more than half the black devils. but i’ll bet their friends won’t come near this water-hole, at any rate, for a few years to come. no spearing of ‘fats’ here, when they come down for a ‘nip.’” then turning his jolly, sensual face towards one of the other men, as they shoulder arms and prepare to return to their horses, he asks, with a laugh, “what did you do with the little gin you caught?”
“give her ter nero (one of the ‘boys’) when we was tired of each other. she’s begun a long ‘doss’ (sleep),” he continues, with a grin that puckers up one side of his cruel face, winking at the “boss” at the same time with a bloodshot eye; “guess she’s tired with the fun she had. saw her lying precious still jess now, heac! heac!”
the two other white men are gone on in advance a little bit with the “boys,” being glad to quit the place. now that the excitement is over, they begin to find it unpleasant. they have not seen enough frontier service with squatters yet to harden their hearts sufficiently to joke at the scene of a holocaust, although when the water-hole is left behind a mile or two their fast succumbing consciences will be asleep.
“yarraman (horses) come this way,” suddenly cries one of the boys, and throwing himself upon the ground 108 to listen adds, “two fellow yarraman (two horses) come pretty quick.”
the white party stand altogether on the flat, listening, for a few minutes, and then the less perfect auditory organs of the whites can distinguish the “property, property, property” of approaching horsemen. a couple of minutes more, and a rattle of brittle stones, followed by a brief plunging in the narrow part of the swamp close by, and two horsemen appear upon the grassy flat, and, bending upon their horses’ necks to avoid the branches, ride through the shadows at a walking pace towards the men on foot. the first of the new-comers to appear in view is a black “boy” of the conventional type, save that he is better clothed than the usual station native, and wears a scarlet handkerchief, placed turbanwise, upon his head.
“i’ll be hanged if i wasn’t right about that blank britisher!” says the “boss,” angrily, out loud, as the second rider comes into view. “why couldn’t the beggar leave this part of the work to me if he doesn’t like to do it himself, not go poking his nose after me wherever i go. but i don’t care a cursed shake of a possum’s tail if the beggar ‘props’ or not at it.” he openly affirms his feeling of nonchalance, but in his heart he feels very uncomfortable,—which, seeing that the new-comer is his partner, who is to supply the necessary funds for stocking the new run with cattle, and for wages, rations, and fencing wire; and, moreover, since an important contract between them has just been broken by himself, his irritation is natural. “curse me,” he murmurs to himself, biting his lower lip, “if i’d waited till he’d got accustomed to what 109 the other fellows will do when they take up the country round us, and he found the niggers coming for beef on his own run, he’d soon have been the same as all of us.”
the white rider comes up to the group. the broad brim of his dirty, white felt hat, turned up in front, so as not to obscure his view, shows the stern and severe face of a man of about forty-five. he holds a revolver in his sword hand, is spare of form and sinewy, and wears a thick brown beard. the bosom of his grey shirt flaps opens as he moves; and the long stirrup leathers he uses show at once that he has learned riding elsewhere than in australia.
“morning, sam,” says the “boss,” as the horseman pulls up, “anything wrong at bindiacka?”
the other men look on curiously, as if they expected a wordy warfare and were waiting for the first shot.
“have not come from the camp,” answers dyesart, for it is our hero’s uncle that is eyeing his partner keenly as he replies to the latter’s question.
“i had a look round the big flat to the eastward after i left you yesterday. came across a friendly lot of natives at a place,” pointing to his “boy,” “saul says they call narrabella. coming back cut your tracks. lost them on the ‘gibbers’ (stones) last night. what have you been doing up here? no row with the natives, i hope? heard rifle shots early this morning.”
“we camped here last night,” replies the last speaker’s partner, turning to avoid the keen eyes fixed upon him; “niggers attacked us, if you want to know.”
110
“you camped here, leaving your horses and tucker (food) behind,” sneers dyesart, disgusted with the palpable lie.
he continues after a moment,—
“well, i’ll find out for myself what’s been your game. i’m afraid i can guess what has happened.” he rides past without another word into the arena of death, where a few crows are already at work upon the bodies. dyesart has seen many awful sights in his time, and is expecting one now, but the scene overpowers him for a minute with mingled feelings of horror, pity, and indignation.
speaking a few words to saul, who is an educated “boy” he had obtained from the good missionaries of rillalpininna on his way up from adelaide, he fastens the horses to a tree, and proceeds on foot to examine the wounds and positions of the corpses.
“a night surprise,” he says to himself; “i thought as much. the third of the sort i have seen in two years, and yet those smiling squatters one meets down south swear through thick and thin these things occur only in the imagination of the missionaries. what cowardly devils!” he adds aloud, as he stands before the body of the pretty young mother of deder-re-re’s children. one dark, shapely arm still clasps the baby form; the other, crushed and mangled with attempting to ward off the blows of some weapon, rests upon the gory, horror-stricken face. both the woman’s skull and that of her child have been smashed in with axe blows. over each body in turn the sinewy form of “doctor” dyesart bends, as he searches for any wounded that may still111 be alive for him to succour. but the work has been too well done. thirty yards away the boss’s black boys are peering over the rocks, wondering what he is doing. dyesart is so different to the other white men that have come within their ken. on the road up, his curiosity with regard to rocks and stones, and his perennial kindness to them and all the other “boys,” has often much amused them. presently one of these “boys” spies out a body amongst the rocks he has not noticed before. it is that of a young boy,—the one that played with his baby brother, as it lay in its mother’s arms, last night. the child’s thigh-bone has been broken by a snider-bullet, which has torn a frightful hole in the limb’s tender flesh. he is alive and conscious. but with the firm nerves that he has inherited from his hardy ancestors, he lies motionless, feigning death, though his soul is racked with agony and fear, and his mouth is dry and burning with a feverish thirst. saul is helping his master in the search, and sees the movements of the other “boys,” as they proceed to despatch the victim they have hitherto overlooked. a hurried sign to “massa sam,” and the long barrel of a “colt” rests for an instant on a steady left arm. then the combined noise of a yell and a revolver shot breaks the silence, followed by the ping of a bullet and the whir of rising crows. dyesart has shown his wonderful skill with small arms on many a gold-field, but he never felt more satisfied with his shooting powers than on this occasion. the bullet, hitting the black boy’s uplifted tomahawk, hurls it from his half-dislocated wrist, and poor deder-re-re’s son still breathes. the wounded boy is attended to, and then 112 the question of what to do with him arises. he can scarcely be left behind, for his friends will hardly venture back to the water-hole for many days. in the meantime the horrible dingoes, crows, and ants would leave little of the original youth. dyesart, too, wants a “boy” (as his nephew did long afterwards), as he must return saul to the little mission station before long. so, after fastening a long branch to the child’s side and injured limb as a splint, and fixing it securely with well-trained fingers by means of strips torn from his saddle-cloth and saul’s gaudy head-gear, dyesart makes the little black body look like a newly “set up” skin in a taxidermist’s laboratory. little deder-re-re, junior, who will figure in future in these pages as dyesart’s “boy” billy, is then placed upon the saddle in front of saul; and the waterbags being filled and suspended from the horses’ necks, the two riders proceed across the dreary sand-hills towards the junction of two wet-season creeks, where the explorers’ camp and “station” preliminaries have been established. it is late in the evening when the two horsemen, having been delayed by their wounded burden, reach the white tents, where the “boss” and his subordinates have previously arrived; and after a silent meal of damper and duck, dyesart says a few words to his partner, as the whites sit round the fire smoking.
“i am returning south to-morrow,” he begins. “as it is no use, i suppose, telling fellows like you what i think of your cowardly last night’s work, all i’ll say is that i feel justified in withdrawing from the arrangement we made between us about taking up land. when a man finds he’s made a contract with 113 another fellow who doesn’t carry out his part of the arrangements, he’s right in getting out of it.”
“i don’t want to shirk my part of the agreements,” growls the “boss.”
“part of the contract,” calmly continues dyesart, “between us was that all collisions with the natives were to be avoided if possible,—i quote correctly, don’t i?”
“curse me if i know or care,” comes the muttered reply.
“and that no ‘dispersing,’ ‘rounding-up,’ or employment of the native mounted police was to be allowed on any new country we should take up. you have broken this part of the contract several times, i believe, but this time once too often. i return south immediately, and if you try to hold me to my agreements with you,—but no, i don’t think you’ll be such a fool as that. yon fellows have made me more orthodox than i was, at any rate,” he says, rising; “i never believed really in a material hell till to-day, but now i’m sure there must be one for such cowardly devils as you are.”
next day dyesart leaves, with his “boys” and horses, without bidding farewell to the others of the party, who, though they wouldn’t confess it for the world, are sorry to lose him with his jolly songs and genial temperament.
and this was how dyesart obtained his faithful henchman billy. he had the little savage educated with white children in new zealand, where the natives have equal rights with the europeans, and he flourished into a bright, trustworthy young scholar, 114 like one of those that any of the half-dozen struggling mission stations of australia can produce, in refutation of the popular australian saying that the aborigines “are mere animals, and should be treated as such.”
billy accompanies his preserver on all his later wanderings through the australian wilds; and lastly, after laying the remains of his beloved master beneath the soil, he starts off across the desert with the treasured message, which when delivered in safety to the nearest white man, he sinks unconscious and exhausted upon the ground. billy thus becomes one of the main instruments of providence whereby our hero is set upon his journey and these pages written.
we close this chapter with a saying of the late explorer’s that expresses his views on a somewhat mooted point: “the true definition of civilization, it seems to me, is a state of social unselfishness, combined with useful learning. knowledge and works that are antagonistic to this state of society, i do not believe to be properly designated as civilized.”
