not long suffice, for a man who has been for days hungry. Tissues get
eaten away, and it takes days--nay, perhaps weeks--of substantial
feeding before the loss can be made up and the used tissues replaced or
replenished. At Tennant's Creek, during the many days I remained at the
telegraph station, I could eat almost continuously. My happiest thoughts
were centered around the dinner table, and there was a savage delight in
the partaking of every meal.
At many of those stations I was ashamed of my appetite. Everywhere I
was apologising (needlessly of course) because of this unnatural-seeming
craving for food which for days possessed me. And it appeared so
extraordinary to see people sit down to a viand-loaded table and eat
only a little. And that, too, without much apparent enjoyment! When a
fellow finds he has eaten much more than two others together, at the
same table, he is apt to be backward in asking for more; and, perhaps,
therefore it was that often when the time had arrived to get up from a
meal I felt reluctant to leave without taking what remained of the joint
with me.
* * * *
The telegraph station at Tennant's Creek is, in outward appearance, like
a substantial stone farmhouse, and is situated out on the plains 3 or 4
miles past the foot of the McDonnell Range. There is a main building,
three-roomed. One of these is used as a harness room; there are several
small cottages and sheds; and a large stockyard is at no great distance
away.
In the Creek, about a quarter of a mile from the station there are some
nearly permanent waterholes, and a freshwater well is sunk on its nearer
bank. Close by this well is a bath-house, and a vegetable
garden--adjuncts, these latter, of all the telegraph stations. As at the
other stations also, cattle and sheep, horses and milch cows are kept
and attended to or shepherded by blackfellows.
Located here was, in addition to the officer in charge (whom I had
often heard spoken of, always in terms of high praise and respect, down
Alice Springs way), an assistant (operator), a white man cook, and one
other white employee, this last generally useful hand.
* * * *
As I have already stated, I had very often straightened out the rat-trap
pedal cross-bars of the bicycle. The unavoidable stumps, small ant-hills
and prostrate telegraph-pole ends, _et hoc_, had bent them inwards
frequently; and as one of the four exhibited signs of the very rough
usage to which it had by this time been subjected, the handy man obliged
me by taking it out altogether and replacing it with an exact
counterpart of one of the less marked ones--a substitution effected as
neatly as if one of the most expert of cycle-repairing shop hands had
been the craftsman.
Of this trifling alteration, which was in no way necessary, I have
paused to write, for the triple purpose of giving acknowledgment to the
ability of the workman, and of remarking that after all the rough usage
to which it had been subjected, the bicycle still continued to look
almost as if just from the shop window (in reality it was better than
new, since it had been tested and proven), and, thirdly, of making for
myself opportunity to say that, notwithstanding the many haul knocks it
received after leaving Tennant's Creek, it yet kept in that excellent
condition which was my pride to the very last moment I had use for it.
* * * *
Having no wish for a recurrence of those hungering qualms which had been
felt before arriving there, I departed from Tennant's Creek loaded up
with all the provisions I could conveniently or otherwise stow away
inside and out, and proceeded for 33 miles over ground which in places
was fair, but which for its greater part was rather sandy for cycling
over, to water and a camp, at one of the Hayward Creek branches, of
which there were three to be crossed. The route was waterless between
Tennant's and this creek, although Phillip's Creek was met with at 21
miles, and the Gibson at 27; also several low hill-ranges were passed
through.
An excellent sketch plan of the route had been made out for me at the
telegraph station by the exceedingly obliging officer in charge there
and his assistant; nevertheless, there were so many creeks to be crossed
and, as it seemed to me re-crossed, that almost before the first day was
over I continually doubted which of them was the particular one I was
next coming to or had last left behind.
This doubt, however, did not exist on arriving the following day at
Attack Creek, some 12 miles on from the Hayward, because of the
beautiful sheet of clear fresh water which existed in it. This Attack
Creek is deep, and its sides are fringed with giant gum trees. It is
not wide; but the nearly permanent sheet of water when I passed there,
was fully a quarter of a mile in length between the banks.
There is a solitary grave away up from the crossing; and, again, after
passing the Morphett (10 miles on), is the last resting place of a
traveller who, a couple of years back, when dying of thirst, attempted
unsuccessfully to so damage the telegraph line as to attract to the spot
a repairing party.
Not every man can climb a telegraph pole; and one cannot cut or undo
stout and firmly fastened wires with one's teeth.
Near the Morphett Creek a narrow pad branches off to the west of the
telegraph line, loops out to the headquarters of a very seldom heard of
cattle station, and proceeding thence, rejoins the line track at about
35 miles south of Powell's Creek.
One may keep nearer to the telegraph line and travel _via_ Kuerschner
Ponds; but against going that way I had been advised. The track was said
to be very rough. Nevertheless the straight-ahead road might be the
better for cycling. The good people of these parts do not regard tracks
or the cyclist's eyes. It has often been recommended to me to turn off
at certain places from "hard gritty rises" on to where the track runs
over "nice soft flats." Of course the flats were found in such places to
be well grassed and suitable for travelling mobs of cattle, whereas the
gritty rises (some, good cycling) invariably were barren or
spinifex-covered.
Right up almost from Tennant's Creek to the re-junction spoken of, the
88 miles stretch of country is of a very unkindly nature, for the
stranger, anyway. The supplies which are annually sent to the various
telegraph stations are forwarded only as far as Tennant's Creek from the
south; down as far as Powell's, they come from Palmerston. The
intervening distance (from Tennant's to Powell's, 123 miles), does not
therefore bear those evidences of traffic which are distinguishable
between most of the other stations.
* * * *
This lack of clear guiding marks is most troublesome about the stony
creeks, whether there be water in them or not. When a waterhole has been
reached it is not always easy to pick up the track on the other side. In
many cases there is no pad at all visible to the unaccustomed eye, as
cattle and horses spread out on approaching water, wander aimlessly
awhile after drinking, and destroy all traces of a particularly beaten
path, as not until long after leaving do they "string" again.
At waterholes, too, (and these remarks apply to many watering places
higher up the road) the track is so "freaky." From one hole full or dry,
you must pass straight on; from another, the track may take a sudden
bend to the east or the west; at still another, the pad does not pass
the water, but, after leading to it, forms with the pad going out, more
or less of a V; while at a fourth, you have to double back for some
distance on the pad by which you entered. When the grass is high and
the track not clear, or where many paths lead out from, where one finds
oneself, as it were, "cornered," and when one does not know whether the
follow-on section of his road runs northerly, easterly, or westerly, one
is liable to feel--well, uncomfortable.
As cattle had been lately running in some parts of the country in this
stage, between Tennant's and Powell's Creeks, the main pad, if there be
one at all, was cut into in places by better beaten ones, and in other
places there were such puzzling branches that the non-bushman traveller
might be just as likely to follow up the wrong one as the right. How it
may be with the expert bushman, I do not know.
Before reaching the cattle station (known as Bankabanka, I believe;
there was no one at home except a few blackfellows and lubras, who
greatly enjoyed the sight of a so ragged a whitefeller and the bicycle,
but who were a very inoffensive lot of people), I was so fortunate as to
come upon a couple of horsemen; and in their company I was glad to
"spell" awhile. Valuable directions also were obtained about those pads
ahead which led out and in again to the telegraph line, and I had word,
too, of a mob of sheep in charge of a white man, who, by this time, was
expected to be camped somewhere between the station and the line.
After a day's travelling away from the cattle station, first over an
expansive, luxuriantly-grassed plain on which not a tree was to be seen
for many miles, and then into and through rough, rugged ranges, I
reached the waterhole on which the sheep were camped, and spent there a
happy night, eating and thinking of the fresh mutton, cake, and other
acceptable novelties with which the gentlemanly drover-boss plied and
supplied me.
Referring to my note-book, I make out the following random
jottings:--"The mulga has disappeared. The prevailing trees appear to me
to be dwarfed, stunted gums; whether in truth they are properly gums or
box, or peppermint, or what--I cannot tell; but they are clearly of the
Eucalyptus family. Nearly all white-stemmed, and averaging from 20 to 30
feet in height. The yellow blossoms of a wattle bush relieve the lower
but never thickly growing scrub. Extensive belts of spinifex; and, on
less sandy soil, and about the creeks, many flats covered with long
spear grass. This grass is over six feet high--a continual source of
annoyance, as now is the time to catch the falling seeds; sharp pointed
things these, which wriggle and twist about in one's clothes, until they
enter so far that a fellow has to stop and pull them out of the various
parts of him. Further north, the people tell me, this spear grass grows
to a height of 12 feet (and over that; but 12 feet is tall enough for
me), with worrying seeds of proportionate size. Have torn my
handkerchief in two and wrapped a half around the extremity of each
pyjama leg to prevent the obnoxious things accumulating around my
ankles.
"Much walking--sand. Riding northerly; the cross shadows before and
after midday add to the already many risks. And the pads are so narrow;
branches of trees and bushes hit the face; often an eye-lash from an
eye. Find myself at morning time or evening dismounting hurriedly to
lead the bicycle over the shadow of a branch which I mistook for
substance, and a minute after, running full tilt into a log which I had
mistaken for a harmless shadow."
"Stony hills, small creeks, and grassed flats" was the order of the day
on which I again struck the telegraph line; and along by that the track
was both distinct and fair "going" passing between low hills to Renner
Springs. Glazed pebbles and agates (of no value except as curios) were
thickly scattered on the hill-tops and at the foot of the various rises
for some distance.
* * * *
Where the pad led on to the line-track two natives were walking on
ahead. On turning and seeing me they only backed a little from the
twelve inches of highway, and looked astonished. I pulled up to
interview them--or it may be I trembled so much with terror that I was
unable to continue riding. Two very good specimens, these. Well set up
and picturesquely ornamented with many cicatrices rising across the
breasts and arms. One was able to speak comprehensibly; the other wore
feathers in his hair, and looked from head to foot an unsophisticated
savage, reminiscent of a Fenimore Cooper's Injun fresh starting on the
war trail and bent fixedly on acquiring somebody's "skelp" for his
wigwam. As it was, I daresay he was out on a hunt after bandicoots for
his dinner.
After inquiring the distance to Renner Springs--which I knew to be about
15 miles--and getting the usually precise information "long way," from
the one, I asked politely of the other what his name might perchance be.
But he did not answer; and the spokesman, in explanation of this
silence, probably, told me, "Him German blackfellow."
Ha! here was a discovery. The "Made in Germany" grievance had invaded
the north-central Australian tribes!
"Sprecken sie Deutch, herr blackfellow?" He condescended to give me the
disrespectful-sounding monosyllable "Yah!"
Now this was a serious quandary. I had used up all my German that seemed
suitable for the occasion.
I struggled with memory for a few moments.
Ah, yes! "Hast die das Schloss?"
He shook his head, and said, "Er," in disgust.
Beyond this I could not go. It was, perhaps, just as well. Later on I
knew what "German blackfellow" meant. When a white man can't make
himself understood the 'bout camp black (who knows _he_ speaks pure
English) says, disdainfully:--"What 'im pfeller talk? 'Im German, me
tink it."
So it comes about that the "German blackfellow," is the blackfellow who
no speak it Inglis--the "myall," the wild-fellow.
* * * *
Having cycled what I counted on as being the 15 miles, and while yet
looking ahead expecting at any moment to catch sight of the Renner
Springs station buildings, I was surprised to hear much shouting and
many strange cries. A ridge chain ran parallel with the track, a quarter
of a mile off, on my left-hand side; and in the bushes a little way out
from this a dozen or more wurlies had been erected. From the vicinity of
these wurlies scores of natives were now pouring, laughing, screaming,
and yelling to each other to hurry up and see the circus. They had
observed me before I had sighted them and were running towards a bend in
the road ahead of me.
I slowed down; and as they were so considerate as to hoot back their
yelping dogs, and as the pedalling operation appeared to divert them
hugely (I believe they had never witnessed anything half so funny in
their lives before), I stopped when part way along the line they formed
to give them a better chance of satisfying to its full their very patent
curiosity.
Those who had collected were of all sizes and ages, and most of them had
left home so very hurriedly that they had quite forgotten to put on
their "ulsters." But there were no females in the assembly. Here (and
likewise back at the Stirling) I notice the lubras come but a very short
distance from their wurlies, near which they remained
standing--screaming during the first few minutes of the excitement with
delight, and, I think, calling the dogs back.
Not from anyone of the crowd, for whose edification I spun the wheels
round, could I get a word of white-fellow lingo; and all I have by which
to remember my futile attempts at a conversation is a note written on
the spot to the effect that they, in common with other of the natives
whom I had met "laughed in fairly good English."
* * * *
The first beholding of adult blackfellows and blackfellowesses naked,
may be slightly shocking to sensitive nerves. An uncomfortable, uneasy
feeling will probably be induced. But this creepiness soon passes, and
one comes to either look upon or pass unnoticed the ungarbed blackfellow
(and later on the average lubra), as he might the apes and monkeys in a
zoological gardens.
Some of the habits of those animals are theirs, too; when collected and
watched awhile it will for evermore "go without saying" to the observer
that they are natural-born hunters.
They have no thought for the things of the morrow, but they consider the
birds of the air and how they shall catch them. The youths are adepts in
the art of stone throwing; lubras, though, are by far the better hands.
They ask not for money as wages--only "tucka," "toombacca," or "bacca,"
and "ole clo."
One of them in a quiet confidential chat gave it as his opinion--"White
fella big one fool; him _work_ all the time!"
I explained how it might be: the whitefellow worked to save up money
with which to purchase leisure in his old age--"all the same sleep all
day _then_," I explained.
After ruminating--"Why not him sleep all day along-a _now_?" he asked
puzzled. And so puzzled me.
* * * *
Sometimes there is a charm in the simplicity of their "English."
"That one big fool hoss," remarked a blackboy, referring to an animal
which, instead of remaining near and feeding, had a tiresome habit of
travelling afar off when hobbled out of an evening--"every day him walk
about all night."
This boy had seen a kangaroo close by the camp, and made an observation
to that effect to his employer,--thinking probably the latter would like
to have a shot at it.
"What sort of kangaroo; Big fellow?"
"N-o," came the answer slowly, "not big pella."
"Little fellow, then?" by way of suggestion.
"N-o," still the reply, "not little pella."
"Well what size was it?" impatiently.
"Lee-tle bit big pella."
It is fellow, fella, pfellow, pfeller, pfella, pella according to the
pliancy of the talker's tongue.
Renner Springs is the name of a cattle station situated on the edge of a
wide belt of table lands (and downs country as it is called), which
stretches away eastward with hardly a break to Queensland. It is about
20 miles south of Powell's Creek. One white man only resided there. A
chinaman cook is employed, and blacks do all the station work. Although
not good for cycling over, most of the land between Tennants Creek and
here seemed to me to be well suited for pastoral purposes.
Near the small homestead are several springs--circular ponds of clear
drinkable water, occurring out on the flat; but along the line of an
adjacent quartzite and--sandstone ridge, one overflows, is fenced in,
and serves to irrigate a garden by means of the trenches in which the
water is continually running. On leaving the garden what remains
unabsorbed of the water (which on coming to the surface has a
temperature of 95°), is soon lost again in the sand.
At Renner's there was the usual cordial invitation to eat, and the
equally usual "Thanks--many thanks, yes." The blacks, the manager said,
had during the past few days been gathering from all quarters for the
purpose of holding a big corroboree, and the number in camp was being
added to hourly.
The first part of the twenty miles or thereabouts to Powell's Creek
consisted of sandy flats between the usual low hills; and for the rest
the track kept on fairly hard ground between and over the hills of
various small ranges.
Natives must have been about in great numbers, yet I saw none for some
time after leaving Renner Springs. Stopping to make a note of something,
and looking back, I was surprised to see a thin column of smoke
ascending from a hillock which I had passed within the last quarter of a
mile. Stopping again, further on, I observed the same thing had "again"
occurred, and wondered if there was any truth in the smoke-signalling
theory, and, if so, what did these present signals convey.
I missed a turn-off track at about 15 miles from Renner Springs, and,
keeping close to the telegraph line, did some very rough hill-climbing.
An hour or two's slow travelling, however, brought me first to Powell's
Creek itself, and then, all safe but more clothes-torn, out through a
gap in the ranges, immediately behind the telegraph station.
* * * *
The main buildings at Powell's Creek are of stone, with galvanized iron
roofing; and, when taken together, form two sides of a square. The
operating room, with two other rooms (officer's dwelling) are under the
one roof; a wide verandah, bedecked with potted flowering-shrubs and
faced with lattice-work, overgrown with evergreen climbing plants, runs
along the front and at each end. At a right-angle, but separated from
the more imposing structure by a distance of about one chain is a row of
stone-walled cottages--stores and sleeping apartments, and other
necessary offices; and a vegetable garden.
With the exception of the gums which grow thickly in the rich ground on
the banks of the creek, there are no neighbouring trees of any great
height. The telegraph station itself is in a fork of the creek.
In the stone walls of one of the cottages are several
portholes--reminders of other days, when the natives were troublesome.
To-day the blacks would be almost as likely to wage war on the citizens
of Adelaide as to attack the inmates of one of those telegraph stations.
An enthusiastic cyclist (but minus a bicycle) was stationed, as
assistant, at Powell's Creek. An amateur photographer also in same
person, equipped, too with a camera; and during the several days I
remained, several excellent photos of the bicycle were taken--some with
a lubra or a blackboy "up."
My boots were mended with copper wire; and my cleaner pair of pyjamas
(kept in reserve and put on in any sheltering clump of bushes or behind
a hid-tree, immediately on sighting telegraph or other station
buildings) were minus half a leg. Further, I gave them here, as I did
people everywhere, to understand I was a nobody--one of whom they
probably never again would hear anything more. Yet I was received as
courteously, and welcomed as cordially, as if I had been an influential
politician or a titled governor's son.
* * * *
From Powell's Creek it is but 54 miles to Newcastle Waters homestead.
The road from the telegraph station to Lawson's Creek (26 miles) runs
mostly either alongside or over low spurs and branches of the Ashburton
Range, with occasional stretches of sand and clay flats.
When cycling through range country I have nearly always found the
track, where track there was, fair for riding on; and there is ever a
bright novelty in the panoramic changes. Any sort of surface, in fact,
in preference to sand.
* * * *
Before reaching the Lawson (where I camped for a night) I obtained a
splendid view of an extensive sheet of water, lying away from the track,
about three miles to the west. So very small was my knowledge of the
country that I had not the remotest idea of this vast reservoir's
existence.
Yet Lake Woods is a permanent fresh-water lake, with a circumference of
between 80 and 90 miles. It is fed from the north by the Newcastle
River, and by the annually-flooded flats which drain into that, at
times, noble stream.
The lake is bordered to the water's edge with heavy timber, and the
country everywhere in its vicinity grows abundance of the best stock
grasses--Mitchell and Flinders chiefly. The timber is mostly box; but
among the lower trees are a pea-bearing plant and other bushes which
cattle dearly love.
Native companions, ducks and wild fowl of many varieties gather, too, in
uncountable numbers in the bays and long-reaching arms of this
magnificent lake.
* * * *
From Lawson's Creek up to Newcastle Waters station (28 miles) and thence
for 15 miles beyond, is some grand grazing country, carrying mobs of
the sleek and most healthy-looking cattle that ever delighted an
owner's eyes. But I cannot speak in like terms of praise about the
roads.
Here is a note from my directions for this stage: "From the Lawson to
Sandy Creek is 6 miles. Mostly rough. Rough also to the bend in the line
about three miles on. Kept along the line from Lawson's to the bend.
About a mile north of Sandy Creek water can be had by going across to
the Newcastle Creek (running north and south)--about ¾ or 1 mile
westward. The bend to Pole Camp Shackle, about 8 miles. Water might be
to the left, perhaps a mile; follow pad or tracks into it. The Shackle
to Newcastle Station 12 miles."
* * * *
In this stretch (28 miles), I had the first experience worth noticing,
of that "Bay of Biscay" formation of which much had been heard. And what
there was of it was rough on bike and rider. Undeniably so.
Where "Bay of Biscay" ground occurs, the soil is generally a blue-black
clay--a pug-mixture of silt and decomposed vegetable matter--which the
roots of a thick and wiry blue-grass hold firmly lumped together.