monotonous chantings, and beating of tom-toms, or sticks upon the
ground. They think themselves very clever if they succeed in working up
an echo. When ferreted out, the discoverer claims it as his very own,
and the others listen in admiring silence whilst he works the "wondrous
vocal gift" for much more than 'tis worth.
I was surprised to notice that the niggers' hands and feet were not
particularly large. The heels, though, are roughened, hardened, and
split like battered and blackened pieces of corrugated iron. The soles
are apparently made out of rhinoceros hide. "Three cornered jacks" only
tickle them--even when they happen to sit down on the spiky
abominations.
* * * *
One black, an "old hand" at the station, but transported from somewhere
afar off, inveighed in good, angular Whitechapel English, pidgin-ised,
against the fool blackfeller who sit down alonga here!
Wherefore was it, if he had such a very poor opinion of them, that he
remained among them?
He withered me with the contempt that was in his answer.
"No can make it rain!"
In his country--a majestic wave of the hand indicated where that was--if
the porter at Heaven's flood-gates went to sleep or forgot to open them
within a reasonable time, certain old men jumped up and walked alonga
blackfellows' camp, where they called in the aid of eagle-hawk's
feathers, paint stripes, many fires and a good deal of fuss. And then--a
big thing in corroborees: big one, plenty shout out. After the
corroboree the "old men" and the other participators in it shifted their
spears and boomerangs to high ground, built mia-mias, and waited. And
when they had waited long enough the rain fell. "Sometimes piccaninny
rain--one night corroboree. Big fellow corroboree? My word! B-i-g
pfeller rain."
Should no rain fall the explanation was not far to seek. "Nudder"
(opposition shop) "blackfeller hold it corroboree. Too much big pfeller
noise make it, and frighten _him_ away."
What wouldn't some perturbed whitefellers give for so simple a
philosophy!
* * * *
Horseshoe Bend, 28 miles from Crown Point. Mostly sand; very little
riding. Here is a depôt and accommodation (meal-providing) house.
The depôt is picturesquely situated in a sharp bend of the Finke River.
Rugged hills show up on all sides. In front, by the river's side, a
well; and in the sandy bed itself, many nearly permanent soakages
delight the casual traveller.
* * * *
Here it was that one of the encamped blacks on spying me rushed
helter-skelter to the storekeeper to breathlessly inform him that
whitefellow come along ridin' big one mosquito.
Previously blackfellows had described the bicycle as a "piccaninny
engine." "Big pfeller engine come alonga bime-bye, I suppose?"
questioned the blackfellow, having in mind a Transcontinental railway
doubtless. "One-side buggy" had also been a native's not inapt
description of the novel vehicle.
* * * *
The blacks (always camped near-by wherever white men linger) are of
great help to the whites in dealing with horses and cattle. Their
cleverness at tracking is well known. An illustration, out of the way.
At one of the very few houses between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs the
proprietor brought three cats--three of about a like size--into the back
room; told me the various names by which they were called to breakfast,
and then requested me to drop one of them--any one of them I
chose--through the window. I did so to humour him, and off scampered
pussy to a brush-shed over the way. Going outside, after shutting the
window and locking the room door, the "boss" called loudly for "Billy."
From the further side of the stock-yard's fence came a blackfellow.
"What name that fellow cat make it tracks?" the "boss" said, pointing to
the very faintest marks.
A moment's scrutiny, and the blackfellow replied "That one Nelly me
think it." And he was right.
* * * *
At the Horseshoe Bend depôt I purchased a water-bag (and a good one it
was--lasted me all the way through) and a small billy-can, which served
my purposes until I reached Alice Springs.
So far the sparse, low scrub on the sand flats and rises was chiefly
acacia, of many varieties, while clumps of mulga marked the firmer soil.
Spinifex (not of such coarse growth. I fancy, as what in other places is
known as "porcupine") was everywhere. The track through the sand gets so
badly cut up that when walking one keeps well in to where a thin crust
may be left, and finds oneself steering a very erratic course. Beyond
the Bend we reach the first desert oak--a very good shade tree, with
from 10 to 15 feet of straight stem. The wood is very hard and heavy;
one can hardly drive a nail into it.
At Oodnadatta we left the regularly fenced country. Apparently one may
here take up for grazing purposes a hundred acres, and use a hundred
thousand.
No sheep beyond Oodnadatta either. Beef and goat's flesh is the vogue.
The goat's flesh is called "mutton."
* * * *
To Depot Well, 15 miles from Horseshoe Bend; no riding--heavy sandhills.
Stopped at a camel camp. Fifteen miles is not much of a distance
certainly; but on a hot day (as all days up in this part appear to be)
to not lead, but get behind and push, the bicycle through, with the
surety of more to-morrow, and for days to come--Diamond and I agreed
that it was a "fair thing."
These drift sand-hills--red, loose, and sometimes very steep
indeed--make travelling, no matter how one may creep, very wearisome and
laborious. When you have struggled to the summit of one of them you take
a view of the surroundings. As far as the eye can see (and, alas! very
much further) an unbroken stretch of the same formation. You wade ankle
deep on descending; and when pushing a bicycle up you have to "tack,"
planting each foot sideways in the sand to get the necessary grip. I was
glad I had provided myself with boots instead of shoes.
Broom-brush, spinifex, and desert oaks (these at long intervals) alone
break the burdensome monotony.
* * * *
Only soon after a heavy rainfall could much riding be done in those
sandy districts. Two-inch tyres should be used; inch and three-quarters
are too narrow. Mine, as well as being one and three-quarter inches
only, were "tandem"--altogether too heavy (or "dead") for cycling over
sand. I deflated them slightly, so that a wider surface might be availed
of.
* * * *
Picked up a bush culinary wrinkle here. An Afghan, whom I watched
kneading up flour preparatory to shaping out a camp-oven damper, made a
sodden centre, the curse of many a "bush cake," impossible by the simple
expedient of pressing the middle part down until scarcely any centre
remained--nothing more than a thin layer, which must necessarily result
in a central crust.
* * * *
It is a twenty mile stage from the Depot Well to Alice Well, through
much sand. The Hugh River crosses the track in half-a-dozen places.
In the afternoon, when within a few miles of this Well, I came
unexpectedly upon a loaded waggon stuck in one of the last crossings of
the Hugh. A very steep bank rose at the farther side, up which the
horses had been unable to pull their load. The harness was lying on the
ground, piled up; but there was no sign, except tracks, of the horses or
their drivers. I coo-eed and mounted on top of the load to look
around--and then, in the midst of this desert, from the interior of a
coverless box, embedded between two flour bags, smiled up at me
seductively a dozen or more beautiful, although quite rotten and
shrivelled, apples! I lifted one out, and to ease my conscience,
remembering having heard that there was a blacks' mission station to the
east, stood, and, naturally assuming that the loading was missionaries'
property, put down a shilling in the apple's place. But tasting one only
was worse than not having any at all; so, coward-like, I sprang from the
waggon, mounted Diamond, and hurried away before the temptation to
appropriate a down-south shilling's-worth of the luscious (because so
rotten) fruit became irresistible.
At the Alice is another "accommodation house," which, however, I did
not need to visit; for the horse drivers, from whose waggon I had been
tempted to take the shilling's-worth of apples, were here giving the
horses a "spell." They fed me liberally; but I said nothing to them
about the apple.
The Hugh is a very large, sandy-bedded creek. The banks are heavily
timbered with massive gum trees. Good camel and horse feed grows in this
part of the country--a species of acacia, and a succulent sage-bush-like
herb.
* * * *
To Francis Well, the next 20 miles, is mostly through sand. Here are
some niggers who keep the troughs full of water on the chance of passing
teamsters supplying them with tobacco or small lots of flour. The mail
passes every three weeks, once going down to Oodnadatta, the next time
returning to Alice Springs; and the mail horses for the change are
running here.
The well, sunk at the junction of the Francis Creek and the Hugh,
contains beautiful fresh water. Black cockatoos flutter among the
branches of giant gums which mark the meeting of the waters--flutter and
squawk incessantly. And now and again, too, one catches sight of the
gaudier galah or the gay ring-necked parrot.
At one of these wells the bucket was too heavy for me to land unaided
from the deep bottom. Here was another annoyance, if nothing worse. I
was desperately thirsty. The water glittered tantalizingly in sight.
Ha! An empty bucket at the surface. I half-filled it with stones, and it
obligingly went down and gave me all the assistance I wanted in weighing
its companion up. Afterwards, at shallower wells, I tied the cord I
carried to my billy-can, and so supplied my modest wants.
* * * *
By climbing the higher of the hills which are to be seen after you pass
Francis Well, the remarkable column known as Chambers' Pillar rises afar
off in the midst of sandhills to the west. It looks like a mighty
furnace-stack built upon a hill top: the hill about 100 feet high, the
Pillar another hundred. But the soft desert sandstone of which it is
composed is fast wearing away. This still majestic landmark, a solitary
sentinel guarding the heart of a continent--its days are numbered in the
book of Time.
* * * *
Camels do nearly all the carrying in this country; and at Francis Well a
caravan was camped. A white man was in charge. I do not know how the
stranger fares at the hands of an Afghan, but the few white men I met
along the road at halting places between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs
were without exception most generously hospitable and most
kindly-dispositioned. All did what they could--by more or less clear
directions anent the route; by supplying me with food and inviting me to
"spell" with them if they were "spelling"--to make my journey a partly
enjoyable as well as a successful one. I gratefully admit how largely I
am indebted to one and all of them.
From Hergott to Alice Springs the population is grouped under three
generic headings--"Whites," "Afghans," and "Blackfellows." The loftier
Afghan sometimes scornfully denies that he is of our color. I have heard
it asked of a Jemadar--"What name fellow drive so-and-so's camels along
to Birdsville? Whitefellow?" and I have heard him answer: "No, _not
whitefellow_. Afghan-man _boss_ go las' time." Beyond the MacDonnell
Ranges the Afghan and his camel disappear, and are neither seen nor
heard of more. There is a no-man's land; then, further northward, the
vacant place is filled by Chinamen.
It is both interesting and amusing to listen while Afghans and blacks or
blackfellows and Chinamen converse. Not that they make a practice of so
indulging; there are entirely too many vernacular difficulties in their
way.
One such attempt at conversation was suggestive to me of two blind men
who, getting drunk together, led one another up wrong turnings, until,
after a final and protracted endeavour to get back to anywhere near the
starting point, they found themselves both hopelessly lost.
Each has a way peculiar to his class of directing that luckless
traveller who may be so ignorant as to make enquiries of him.
You ask an Afghan how many miles it is to a certain place. He slyly
leads you on to make a guess for yourself--and at once cheerfully
agrees. "Yes, ten mile," or whatever it may be the other has suggested.
The blackfellow tells you vaguely that the certain place is "L-aw-ong
way," "Ova that a way," or "Byen bye you catch 'em all right."
The Chinaman listens very politely to all the questions you put to him,
and then remarks with his most guileless smile, "No savee."
Still some white men's directions are not very lucid. One, for example,
will say, "When you come to there look out for a small stony hill _to
the right_," waving, as he says, the left hand from him. Also East is
spoken of when West is similarly indicated. Others, again, expect a
fellow to perform mental gymnastics. One will clear and level a small
space upon the ground to serve as a blackboard. He begins, "Now, we'll
put it, here's North--" and draws a line pointing due South.
* * * *
Mount Breadin Dam is another 20 miles from Francis Well. The track is
fair for cycling over. Camped somewhere in the scrub. Dry sand makes a
fairly comfortable blanket.
Desert oaks had for the last few days been frequently met with, growing
singly or in groves. The wind soughs through the foliage--like the music
of rushing, seething water in some distant creek.
Water, always water! Thitherward one's thoughts here ever fly; upon
memories of it one lingers with the utmost fondness.
As I struggle on and on, deeper and deeper into the toils of the desert,
there grows upon me a morbid dread of running short of water. To have it
was my greatest craving; to have plenty of it my chief aim.
The wind is mostly in my teeth, but that is of small consequence now
that I am content to creep over these interminable wastes.
* * * *
Everybody carries a bottle of eye-water. Sore eyes are very prevalent in
this sandy country. The flies had it pretty well all their own way with
me down by the Goyder; so now I also have had to procure a small bottle.
A depôt would not be a depôt without a stock of it.
* * * *
By noon Diamond had borne me to the Deep Well and its "accommodation
house." Having obtained some provisions, we pushed on and camped that
night some 15 miles ahead. Deep Well is in flat sandy country, in a
valley of the James Range. As it is about 200 feet deep, the water is
drawn by bullocks attached to a "whip." The surrounding country is
lightly stocked with cattle and goats. The well itself is rented from
the Government, and a small charge is made for the water.
Between here and Alice Springs another well is badly wanted. Another
well--or, better, two. This absence of, or long distance between, waters
is a well-founded matter for complaint with the teamsters or team
owners, and must impose great hardships on anyone whom business--or
"eccentricity"--may prevail on to travel hither.
At the very best the life of the teamsters on these far-inland tracks
is full of misery and hardship. That anyone should voluntarily go
overlanding they cannot comprehend. Here I am asked in astonished
curiosity what I am going through the continent for. It must be for a
bet! I can only answer that I am going with much the same object in view
as a hen is said to have when she walks across a road--just to reach the
other side.
* * * *
The flies refrained from tackling a couple of very highly-greased
aboriginals whom I spoke to at the Deep Well. They had burnished
themselves with a thick oil, derived from animal fat, no doubt. Each
on-coming fly, when within six inches of the glossy surface, shot off at
a right angle, as though it had run its head into an invisible stone
wall. Now and again one could be seen to drop slightly, as if stunned. I
do not think the oil-skin they wore was of good quality.
This couple were disposed to approach too unpleasantly close whilst I
was re-inflating one of the tyres. Suddenly undoing the pump, I
vigorously squirted fresh air at them. The blast pierced the special
atmosphere in which they had so long moved; the fresh air came as a
shock to them, and they were careful not to venture within range of so
deadly a weapon any more.
The flies, I think, trouble the blackfellows more than the whites. A
blackfellow's hand is constantly passing across his face to drive the
pestering things away; or they protect themselves by starting a small
fire and sitting at the smoky side of it.
* * * *
From the Deep Well, sandhills and sandflats extend northwards for about
20 miles. Then a large range is encountered, through which the cyclist
may ride until he reaches a steep incline well known as The Pinch. Here
the track goes over a high ridge by way of a narrow cutting through the
rock.
Granite hills now hem us in, but soon we enter a narrow pass between two
long and wall-like rock formations. This is Hell's Gate. We hurry
through. The track now passes over well-grassed sandy flats, which make
good riding. At about eight miles a big hill rises to the right.
Opposite a pad branches off to the left.
A welcome break, guiding the thirsty or curious follower to the
rockhole, the Ooriminna. Right into the heart of a range this pad takes
one. Very soon the cyclist will find either leading or pushing his
machine to be out of the question. However others may manage (for the
bicycle will be everywhere in time), I stooped and shouldered mine. And
how its bright parts sparkled with ill-contained inward joy, I persuaded
myself, whenever it was thus borne along the tedious way! Now, with it
held aloft, I walked or scrambled and climbed over the last and rougher
part of the two miles to the water.
* * * *
Very weird is this Ooriminna. It is a citadel of Desolation strongly
guarded; and how the hole was first discovered must for ever be to us a
mystery. Judging from the surroundings, horses or men could hardly have
thought to find water here. And but for water what man or beast would
pierce these solitudes?
The hole is formed in an extremely rocky gorge of the range. Huge
boulders heaped up in strange fantastic shapes, the counterpart in
miniature of castles, fortresses, and towers, stand gaunt and frowning,
or threatening to fall precipitately, above, below, and on the more open
side. The hole itself is almost a circle; it is probably 20 feet in
depth and 25 feet across. Above it, at the back, always in deepest
shadow, are several small caves, wherein are native drawings--rude as
the scribblings of a schoolboy in his snatched moments--of snakes and
hands and things beyond this pen's power to name. From over these caves
the water falls when the rains come.
The rocks are an unkindly-looking grey, spotted mixtures of granite,
quartz, and sandstone.
Still higher up the quickly-rising gorge is a second rockhole, a smaller
one. Approaching from the southern entrance I first came on this
one--inaccessible to horses and camels--and only saw the larger rockhole
as I descended, with bicycle still shouldered, trudging on to strike the
road which leads to Alice Springs, from which this Ooriminna pad loops
out and back again.
* * * *
After getting clear of the Ooriminna rocks there are four or five miles
of sand, low lying between the ranges; and now, at last, the cyclist
finds awaiting him a splendidly smooth and hard clay flat, stretching
right away for over 20 miles to the already faintly outlined MacDonnell
ranges.
The track soon enters and winds through densely packed and
tropically-foliaged scrub, with here and there a small clear space
suddenly opening out in front. At the moment of entering each of these
recurring spaces one may discern the fast uprising and darkening blue of
distant mountains--and again the obscuring scrub envelopes bicycle and
rider.
After the stories he will have been told, the cyclist, should he be a
stranger and alone, will surely throw a glance to one side and to the
other--ahead, too, as he turns each of the numerous sharp angles--in
half-timid and half-hopeful expectation of seeing start out or up to
intercept him a score or two of spear-brandishing and yelling bogie men.
And he will almost certainly be disappointed.
* * * *
One who comes upon this mountain wall from the long plains of the south
cannot with a single sweep of the eye take in its mightiness. To right
and left it holds its course until its purple outlines are bathed in
haze, become a mere faint streak, and finally are blotted out. But far
behind that gaudily-tinted curtain of sky, which forms the strange
horizon of these inlands, this range extends, a steep, austere wall of
rock, rising almost perpendicularly from the plain four hundred miles
from east to west.
A gap in this mighty wall of rock becomes clearly defined by the time
one reaches the bank of a wide creek, with a bed of white sand, which
takes its course in the heart of the ranges, and is well known as The
Todd. Following up this watercourse for a few miles, the gap through
which it comes, the Heavitree, is reached.
The distance through the Heavitree is about 200 yards. The creek's
sand-bed spreads right across between the high, bare, sharply-cut
mountain sides. The road crosses the Todd at the same time as both pass
through the Heavitree Gap; then runs along by its eastern flat bank
among the ranges, until three miles onward the buildings at Alice
Springs township come into view.
* * * *
A sheltered, peaceful, cosy-looking place, this isolated Alice Springs.
On a flat, with large gums scattered through and all around it, and
mountains towering up a very little distance off on every side. There
are two clusters of houses. One comprises the hotel-cum-brewery, a
smithy, and a general store; the other can boast of two stores, a
harness-maker's, an often-vacant butcher's shop, and a private
dwelling-house. Both clusters are snugly ensconced, hidden among the
very numerous gum trees with which the whole flat is dotted; between
them some particularly high and shady trees give shelter to the
township stock. Cattle are ever to be seen reposefully cud-chewing
during the hotter portions of the semi-tropical days.
All shade and silence and tranquility! It seemed as I came upon it to be
the veritable "Sleepy Hollow" of romance, with appropriate Catskill-y
surroundings, too.
The supplies for Arltunga goldfields, the mica fields, neighboring
horse-station and cattle ranches, and the telegraph stations up north,
all pass through here.
It is a terminus of townships; beyond it lies the undeveloped.
* * * *
Arltunga is only in its earliest infancy, and is sadly handicapped. But
then one is assured "There's any Scotch quantity of reefs about," and
"The country hasn't been half prospected yet." Country, by the way,
never is, it seems.
The mica field, on the other hand, arrived some time back at a working
age. It has, as it were, bought its shovel and done a little towards
paying for it. Some mica of good quality, and in exceptionally large
sheets, too, is to be had.
I know little or nothing about the value of a mica claim; do not even
know whither when raised the shiny transparency goes. Much is, I know,
used for insulating purposes on electrical machines, but in such cases
only small washers are required as a rule. As to the larger blocks, so
attractive to the eye when prepared for exhibition, ignorance possesses
me.
If one has the inclination one may, however, learn a great deal about
it, if one likes to run up to Alice Springs. In search of information
(and no policeman being handy), I approached a prospector. He was an
encylopædia on the subject. Within five minutes I knew that lawyers
now-a-days wrote out their wills and other people's on mica because it
will not burn, and that lanterns for enclosing electric arc lights are
fitted with the same material in place of glass, the heat (sometimes
reaching as high as 10 or 12 horse-power) emanating from the electric
light being altogether too fierce for combustible glass to withstand! If
I had stayed another day in Alice Springs, I should have written a
treatise on "Mica and its Uses."
* * * *
The telegraph station is a mile and a half beyond the Alice township,
and with its substantial roomy stone buildings and outhouses makes up
another little township of itself. Near the station there is in the Todd
a very large waterhole, which contains a sufficient permanent and
unlimited supply of fresh water to deserve the name of spring. There are
also a couple of wells on a bank of the creek; the water of one of them
is used for gardening purposes, the other's, I was told, is almost salt.