Once, after many years' wanderings in the North and South Pacific as
shore trader, supercargo and “recruiter” in the Kanaka labour trade, I
became home-sick and returned to my native Australia, with a vague idea
of settling down. I began the “settling down” by going to some newly
opened gold-fields in North Queensland, wandering about from the
Charters Towers “rush” to the Palmer River and Hodgkinson River rushes.
The party of diggers I joined were good sterling fellows, and although
we did not load ourselves with nuggets and gold dust, we did fairly well
at times, especially in the far north of the colony where most of the
alluvial gold-fields were rich, and new-comers especially had no trouble
in getting on to a good show. I was the youngest of the party, and
consequently the most inexperienced, but my mates good-naturedly
overlooked my shortcomings as a prospector and digger, especially as I
had constituted myself the “tucker” provider when our usual rations of
salt beef ran out. I had brought with me a Winchester rifle, a shot gun
and plenty of ammunition for both, and plenty of fishing tackle. So, at
such times, instead of working at the claim, I would take my rifle or
gun or fishing lines and sally forth at early dawn, and would generally
succeed in bringing back something to the camp to serve instead of beef.
In the summer months game, such as it was, was fairly plentiful, and
nearly all the rivers of North Queensland abound in fish.
In the open country we sometimes shot more plain turkeys than we could
eat. When on horseback one could approach within a few yards of a bird
before it would take to flight, but on foot it was difficult to get
within range of one, unless a rifle was used. In the rainy season all
the water holes and lagoons literally teemed with black duck, wood-duck,
the black and white Burdekin duck, teal, spur-winged plover, herons
and other birds, and a single shot would account for a dozen. My mates,
however, like all diggers, believed in and wanted beef--mutton we
scarcely ever tasted, except when near a township where there was a
butcher, for sheep do not thrive in that part of the colony and are
generally brought over in mobs from the Peak Downs District or Southern
Queensland.
Our party at first numbered four, but at Townsville (Cleveland Bay) one
of our number left us to return to New Zealand on account of the death
of his father. And we were a very happy party, and although at times
I wearied of the bush and longed for a sight of the sea again, the
gold-fever had taken possession of me entirely and I was content.
Once a party of three of us were prospecting in the vicinity of Scarr's
(or Carr's) Creek, a tributary of the Upper Burdekin River. It was in
June, and the nights were very cold, and so we were pleased to come
across a well-sheltered little pocket, a few hundred yards from the
creek, which at this part of its course ran very swiftly between high,
broken walls of granite. Timber was abundant, and as we intended to
thoroughly prospect the creek up to its head, we decided to camp at
the pocket for two or three weeks, and put up a bark hut, instead of
shivering at night under a tent without a fire. The first day we spent
in stripping bark, piled it up, and then weighted it down heavily with
logs. During the next few days, whilst my mates were building the hut,
I had to scour the country in search of game, for our supply of meat
had run out, and although there were plenty of cattle running in the
vicinity, we did not care to shoot a beast, although we were pretty sure
that C------, the owner of the nearest cattle station, would cheerfully
have given us permission to do so had we been able to have communicated
with him. But as his station was forty miles away, and all our horses
were in poor condition from overwork, we had to content ourselves with
a chance kangaroo, rock wallaby, and such birds as we could shoot,
which latter were few and far between. The country was very rough, and
although the granite ranges and boulder-covered spurs held plenty of fat
rock wallabies, it was heart-breaking work to get within shot. Still, we
managed to turn in at nights feeling satisfied with our supper, for we
always managed to shoot something, and fortunately had plenty of flour,
tea, sugar, and tobacco, and were very hopeful that we should get on to
“something good” by careful prospecting.
On the day that we arrived at the pocket, I went down the steep bank of
the creek to get water, and was highly pleased to see that it contained
fish. At the foot of a waterfall there was a deep pool, and in it I saw
numbers of fish, very like grayling, in fact some Queenslanders call
them grayling. Hurrying back to the camp with the water, I got out my
fishing tackle (last used in the Burdekin River for bream), and then
arose the question of bait. Taking my gun I was starting off to look for
a bird of some sort, when one of my mates told me that a bit of wallaby
was as good as anything, and cut me off a piece from the ham of one I
had shot the previous day. The flesh was of a very dark red hue, and
looked right enough, and as I had often caught fish in both the Upper
and Lower Burdekin with raw beef, I was very hopeful of getting a nice
change of diet for our supper.
I was not disappointed, for the fish literally jumped at the bait, and
I had a delightful half-hour, catching enough in that time to provide
us with breakfast as well as supper. None of my catch were over half
a pound, many not half that weight, but hungry men are not particular
about the size of fish. My mates were pleased enough, and whilst we were
enjoying our supper before a blazing fire--for night was coming on--we
heard a loud coo-e-e from down the creek, and presently C------, the
owner of the cattle station, and two of his stockmen with a black boy,
rode up and joined us. They had come to muster cattle in the ranges
at the head of the creek, and had come to our “pocket” to camp for the
night. C------ told us that we need never have hesitated about killing
a beast. “It is to my interest to give prospecting parties all the beef
they want,” he said; “a payable gold-field about here would suit me very
well--the more diggers that come, the more cattle I can sell, instead of
sending them to Charters Towers and Townsville. So, when you run short
of meat, knock over a beast. I won't grumble. I'll round up the first
mob we come across to-morrow, and get you one and bring it here for you
to kill, as your horses are knocked up.”
The night turned out very cold, and although we were in a sheltered
place, the wind was blowing half a gale, and so keen that we felt it
through our blankets. However it soon died away, and we were just
going comfortably to sleep, when a dingo began to howl near us, and was
quickly answered by another somewhere down the creek. Although there
were but two of them, they howled enough for a whole pack, and the
detestable creatures kept us awake for the greater part of the night.
As there was a cattle camp quite near, in a sandalwood scrub, and the
cattle were very wild, we did not like to alarm them by firing a shot
or two, which would have scared them as well as the dingoes. The latter,
C------ told us, were a great nuisance in this part of the run, would
not take a poisoned bait, and had an unpleasant trick of biting off the
tails of very young calves, especially if the mother was separated with
her calf from a mob of cattle.
At daylight I rose to boil a billy of tea. My feet were icy cold, and
I saw that there had been a black frost in the night I also discovered
that my string of fish for breakfast was gone. I had hung them up to a
low branch not thirty yards from where I had slept. C------'s black
boy told me with a grin that the dogs had taken them, and showed me the
tracks of three or four through the frosty grass. _He_ had slept like a
pig all night, and all the dingoes in Australia would not awaken a black
fellow with a full stomach of beef, damper and tea. C------
laughed at my chagrin, and told me that native dogs, when game is
scarce, will catch fish if they are hungry, and can get nothing else.
He had once seen, he told me, two native dogs acting in a very curious
manner in a waterhole on the Etheridge River. There had been a rather
long drought, and for miles the bed of the river was dry, except for
intermittent waterholes. These were all full of fish, many of which had
died, owing to the water in the shallower pools becoming too hot for
them to exist Dismounting, he laid himself down on the bank, and soon
saw that the dogs were catching fish, which they chased to the edge of
the pool, seized them and carried them up on the sand to devour. They
made a full meal; then the pair trotted across the river bed, and lay
down under a Leichhardt tree to sleep it off. The Etheridge and Gilbert
Rivers aboriginals also assured C------ that their own dogs--bred from
dingoes--were very keen on catching fish, and sometimes were badly
wounded in their mouths by the serrated spur or back fin of catfish.
C------ and his party went off after breakfast, and returned in the
afternoon with a small mob of cattle, and my mates, picking out an
eighteen months' old heifer, shot her, and set to work, and we soon
had the animal skinned, cleaned and hung up, ready for cutting up and
salting early on the following morning. We carefully burnt the offal,
hide and head, on account of the dingoes, and finished up a good day's
work by a necessary bathe in the clear, but too cold water of the creek.
We turned in early, tired out, and scarcely had we rolled ourselves in
our blankets when a dismal howl made us “say things,” and in half an
hour all the dingoes in North Queensland seemed to have gathered around
the camp to distract us. The noise they made was something diabolical,
coming from both sides of the creek, and from the ranges. In reality
there were not more than five or six at the outside, but any one would
imagine that there were droves of them. Not liking to discharge our guns
on account of C------'s mustering, we could only curse our tormentors
throughout the night. On the following evening, however, knowing that
C------ had finished mustering in our vicinity, we hung a leg bone of
the heifer from the branch of a tree on the opposite side of the creek,
where we could see it plainly by daylight from our bank--about sixty
yards distant. Again we had a harrowing night, but stood it without
firing a shot, though one brute came within a few yards of our camp
fire, attracted by the smell of the salted meat, but he was off before
any one of us could cover him. However, in the morning we were rewarded.
Creeping to the bank of the creek at daylight we looked across, and saw
three dogs sitting under the leg bone, which was purposely slung out
of reach. We fired together, and the biggest of the three dropped--the
other two vanished like a streak of lightning. The one we killed was
a male and had a good coat--a rather unusual thing for a dingo, as the
skin is often covered with sores. From that time, till we broke up camp,
we were not often troubled by their howling near us--a gun shot would
quickly silence their dismally infernal howls.
During July we got a little gold fifteen miles from the head of the
creek, but not enough to pay us for our time and labour. However, it was
a fine healthy occupation, and our little bark hut in the lonely ranges
was a very comfortable home, especially during wet weather, and on cold
nights. A good many birds came about towards the end of the month, and
we twice rode to the Burdekin and had a couple of days with the bream,
filling our pack bags with fish, which cured well with salt in the dry
air. Although Scarr's creek was full of “grayling” they were too small
for salting; but were delicious eating when fried. During our stay we
got enough opossum skins to make a fine eight-feet square rug. Then
early one morning we said good-bye to the pocket, and mounting our
horses set our faces towards Cleveland Bay, where, with many regrets,
I had to part with my mates who were going to try the Gulf country with
other parties of diggers. They tried hard to induce me to go with them,
but letters had come to me from old comrades in Samoa and the Caroline
Islands, tempting me to return. And, of course, they did not tempt in
vain; for to us old hands who have toiled by reef and palm the isles of
the southern seas are for ever calling as the East called to Kipling's
soldier man. But another six months passed before I left North
Queensland and once more found myself sailing out of Sydney Heads on
board one of my old ships and in my old berth as supercargo, though,
alas! with a strange skipper who knew not Joseph, and with whom I and
every one else on board was in constant friction. However, that is
another story.
After bidding my mates farewell I returned to the Charters Towers
district and picked up a new mate--an old and experienced digger who had
found some patches of alluvial gold on the head waters of a tributary
of the Burdekin River and was returning there. My new mate was named
Gilfillan. He was a hardworking, blue-eyed Scotsman and had had many
and strange experiences in all parts of the world--had been one of
the civilian fighters in the Indian Mutiny, fur-seal hunting on the
Pribiloff Islands in an American schooner, and shooting buffaloes for
their hides in the Northern Territory of South Australia, where he had
twice been speared by the blacks.
On reaching the head waters of the creek on which Gilfillan had washed
out nearly a hundred ounces of gold some months previously, we found to
our disgust over fifty diggers in possession of the ground, which they
had practically worked out--some one had discovered Gilfillan's old
workings and the place was at once “rushed”. My mate took matters very
philosophically--did not even swear--and we decided to make for the Don
River in the Port Denison district, where, it was rumoured, some rich
patches of alluvial gold had just been discovered.
We both had good horses and a pack horse, and as C------'s station lay
on our route and I had a standing invitation to pay him a visit (given
to me when he had met our party at Scares Creek), I suggested that we
should go there and spell for a few days. So there we went and C------
made us heartily welcome; and he also told us that the new rush on the
Don River had turned out a “rank duffer,” and that we would only be
wearing ourselves and our horse-flesh out by going there. He pressed us
to stay for a week at least, and as we now had no fixed plans for the
future we were glad to do so. He was expecting a party of visitors from
Charters Towers, and as he wanted to give them something additional to
the usual fare of beef and mutton, in the way of fish and game, he asked
us to join him for a day's fishing in the Burdekin River.
The station was right on the bank of the river, but at a spot where
neither game nor fish were at all plentiful; so long before sunrise on
the following morning, under a bright moon and clear sky, we started,
accompanied by a black boy, leading a pack horse, for the junction of
the Kirk River with the Burdekin, where there was excellent fishing, and
where also we were sure of getting teal and wood-duck.
A two hours' easy ride along the grassy, open timbered high banks of the
great river brought us to the junction. The Kirk, when running along its
course, is a wide, sandy-bottomed stream, with here and there deep
rocky pools, and its whole course is fringed with the everlasting and
ever-green sheoaks. We unsaddled in a delightfully picturesque spot,
near the meeting of the waters, and in a few minutes, whilst the billy
was boiling for tea, C------and I were looking to our short bamboo rods
and lines, and our guns. Then, after hobbling out the horses, and eating
a breakfast of cold beef and damper, we started to walk through the
high, dew-soaked grass to a deep, boulder-margined pool in which the
waters of both rivers mingled.
The black boy who was leading when we emerged on the water side of
the fringe of sheoaks, suddenly halted and silently pointed ahead--a
magnificent specimen of the “gigantic” crane was stalking sedately
through a shallow pool--his brilliant black and orange plumage and
scarlet legs glistening in the rays of the early sun as he scanned the
sandy bottom for fish. We had no desire to shoot such a noble creature;
and let him take flight in his slow, laboured manner. And, for our
reward, the next moment “Peter,” the black boy, brought down two out of
three black duck, which came flying right for his gun from across the
river.
Both rivers had long been low, and although the streams were running
in the centre of the beds of each, there were countless isolated
pools covered with blue-flowered water-lilies, in which teal and other
water-birds were feeding. But for the time we gave them no heed.
From one of the pools we took our bait--small fish the size of
white-bait, with big, staring eyes, and bodies of a transparent pink
with silvery scales. They were easily caught by running one's hand
through the weedy edges, and in ten minutes we had secured a quart-pot
full.
“Peter,” who regarded our rods with contempt, was the first to reach
the boulders at the edge of the big pool, which in the centre had a fair
current; at the sides, the water, although deep, was quiet. Squatting
down on a rock, he cast in his baited hand-line, and in ten seconds
he was nonchalantly pulling in a fine two pound bream. He leisurely
unhooked it, dropped it into a small hole in the rocks, and then began
to cut up a pipeful of tobacco, before rebaiting!
The water was literally alive with fish, feeding on the bottom. There
were two kinds of bream--one a rather slow-moving fish, with large, dark
brown scales, a perch-like mouth, and wide tail, and with the sides
and belly a dull white; the other a very active game fellow, of a more
graceful shape, with a small mouth, and very hard, bony gill plates.
These latter fought splendidly, and their mouths being so strong
they would often break the hooks and get away--as our rods were very
primitive, without reels, and only had about twenty feet of line.
Then there were the very handsome and beautifully marked fish, like an
English grayling (some of which I had caught at Scan's Creek); they took
the hook freely. The largest I have ever seen would not weigh more than
three-quarters of a pound, but their lack of size is compensated for by
their extra delicate flavour. (In some of the North Queensland inland
rivers I have seen the aborigines net these fish in hundreds in shallow
pools.) Some bushmen persisted, so Gilfillan told me, in calling these
fish “fresh water mullet,” or “speckled mullet”.
The first species of bream inhabit both clear and muddy water; but the
second I have never seen caught anywhere but in clear or running water,
when the river was low.
But undoubtedly the best eating fresh-water fish in the Burdekin and
other Australian rivers is the cat-fish, or as some people call it, the
Jew-fish. It is scaleless, and almost finless, with a dangerously barbed
dorsal spine, which, if it inflicts a wound on the hand, causes days
of intense suffering. Its flesh is delicate and firm, and with the
exception of the vertebrae, has no long bones. Rarely caught (except
when small) in clear water, it abounds when the water is muddy, and
disturbed through floods, and when a river becomes a “banker,” cat-fish
can always be caught where the water has reached its highest. They then
come to feed literally upon the land--that is grass land, then under
flood water. A fish bait they will not take--as a rule--but are fond of
earthworms, frogs, crickets, or locusts, etc.
Another very beautiful but almost useless fish met with in the Upper
Burdekin and its tributaries is the silvery bream, or as it is more
generally called, the “bony” bream. They swim about in companies of some
hundreds, and frequent the still water of deep pools, will not take a
bait, and are only seen when the water is clear. Then it is a delightful
sight for any one to lie upon the bank of some ti-tree-fringed creek or
pool, when the sun illumines the water and reveals the bottom, and
watch a school of these fish swimming closely and very slowly together,
passing over submerged logs, roots of trees or rocks, their scales of
pure silver gleaming in the sunlight as they make a simultaneous
side movement. I tried every possible bait for these fish, but never
succeeded in getting a bite, but have netted them frequently. Their
flesh, though delicate, can hardly be eaten, owing to the thousands of
tiny bones which run through it, interlacing in the most extraordinary
manner. The blacks, however “make no bones” about devouring them.
By 11 A.M. we had caught all the fish our pack-bags could hold--bream,
alleged grayling, and half a dozen “gars”--the latter a beautifully
shaped fish like the sea-water garfish, but with a much flatter-sided
body of shining silver with a green back, the tail and fins tipped with
yellow.
We shot but few duck, but on our way home in the afternoon “Peter” and
Gilfillan each got a fine plain turkey--shooting from the saddle--and
almost as we reached the station slip-rails “Peter,” who had a wonderful
eye, got a third just as it rose out of the long dry grass in the
paddock.
And on the following day, when C------'s guests arrived (and after we
had congratulated ourselves upon having plenty for them to eat), they
produced from their buggies eleven turkeys, seven wood-duck, and a
string of “squatter” pigeons!
“Thought we'd better bring you some fresh tucker, old man,” said one of
them to C-----. “And we have brought you a case of Tennant's ale.” “The
world is very beautiful,” said C------, stroking his grey beard, and
speaking in solemn tones, “and this is a thirsty day. Come in, boys.
We'll put the Tennant's in the water-barrels to cool.”
*****
The first occasion on which I ever saw and caught one of the beautiful
fish herein described as grayling was on a day many months previous
to our former party camping on Scarr's Creek. We had camped on a creek
running into the Herbert River, near the foot of a range of wild, jagged
and distorted peaks and crags of granite. Then there were several other
parties of prospectors camped near us, and, it being a Sunday, we were
amusing ourselves in various ways. Some had gone shooting, others were
washing clothes or bathing in the creek, and one of my mates (a Scotsman
named Alick Longmuir) came fishing with me. Like Gilfillan, he was a
quiet, somewhat taciturn man. He had been twenty-two years in Australia,
sometimes mining, at others following his profession of surveyor. He
had received his education in France and Germany, and not only spoke
the languages of those countries fluently, but was well-read in their
literature. Consequently we all stood in a certain awe of him as a man
of parts; for besides being a scholar he was a splendid bushman and
rider and had a great reputation as the best wrestler in Queensland.
Even-tempered, good-natured and possessed of a fund of caustic humour,
he was a great favourite with the diggers, and when he sometimes “broke
loose” and went on a terrific “spree” (his only fault) he made matters
remarkably lively, poured out his hard-earned money like water for
a week or so--then stopped suddenly, pulled himself together in an
extraordinary manner, and went about his work again as usual, with a
face as solemn as that of an owl.
A little distance from the camp we made our way down through rugged,
creeper-covered boulders to the creek, to a fairly open stretch of water
which ran over its rocky bed into a series of small but deep pools. We
baited our lines with small grey grasshoppers, and cast together.
“I wonder what we shall get here, Alick,” I began, and then came a tug
and then the sweet, delightful thrill of a game fish making a run. There
is nothing like it in all the world--the joy of it transcends the first
kiss of young lovers.
I landed my fish--a gleaming shaft of mottled grey and silver with
specks of iridescent blue on its head, back and sides, and as I grasped
its quivering form and held it up to view my heart beat fast with
delight.
“_Ombre chevalier!_” I murmured to myself.
Vanished the monotony of the Bush and the long, weary rides over the
sun-baked plains and the sound of the pick and shovel on the gravel in
the deep gullies amid the stark, desolate ranges, and I am standing
in the doorway of a peaceful Mission House on a fair island in the far
South Seas--standing with a string of fish in my hand, and before me
dear old Père Grandseigne with his flowing beard of snowy white and
his kindly blue eyes smiling into mine as he extends his brown sun-burnt
hand.
“Ah, my dear young friend! and so thou hast brought me these
fish--_ombres chevaliers_, we call them in France. Are they not
beautiful! What do you call them in England?”
“I have never been in England, Father; so I cannot tell you. And never
before have I seen fish like these. They are new to me.”
“Ah, indeed, my son,” and the old Marist smiles as he motions me to a
seat, “new to you. So?... Here, on this island, my sainted colleague
Channel, who gave up his life for Christ forty years ago under the
clubs of the savages, fished, as thou hast fished in that same mountain
stream; and his blood has sanctified its waters. For upon its bank, as
he cast his line one eve he was slain by the poor savages to whom he
had come bearing the love of Christ and salvation. After we have supped
to-night, I shall tell thee the story.”
And after the Angelus bells had called, and as the cocos swayed and
rustled to the night breeze and the surf beat upon the reef in Singâvi
Bay, we sat together on the verandah of the quiet Mission House on
the hill above, which the martyred Channel had named “Calvary,” and I
listened to the old man's story of his beloved comrade's death.
As Longmuir and I lay on our blankets under the starlit sky of the far
north of Queensland that night, and the horse-bells tinkled and our
mates slept, we talked.
“Aye, lad,” he said, sleepily, “the auld _padre_ gave them the Breton
name--_ombre chevalier_. In Scotland and England--if ever ye hae the
good luck to go there--ye will hear talk of graylin'. Aye, the bonny
graylin'... an' the purple heather... an' the cry o' the whaups.... Lad,
ye hae much to see an' hear yet, for all the cruising ye hae done....
Aye, the graylin', an' the white mantle o' the mountain mist... an' the
voices o' the night... Lad, it's just gran'.”
Sleep, and then again the tinkle of the horse-bells at dawn.