II

A few days later my mate arrived with the dray, which we at once

unloaded, and then turned the horses out to feed and have a spell before

working them again. Every night since I had arrived a thunderstorm had

occurred, much to my delight, and already the once cracked and baking

flats were beginning to put on a carpet of grass; and indeed, in three

weeks it was eighteen inches high, and made a glorious sight, the

few remaining cattle eating it so hungrily that when night fell the

creatures were scarcely able to move, so distended were their stomachs.

Having started our aboriginal friends to cut down ironbark saplings

to repair the fencing, we first of all paid a visit to our nearest

neighbour, a settler named Dick Bullen, who lived ten miles away. He

received us most hospitably, like all good bushmen, and offered to

assist us in looking for lost cattle. He was a splendid type of the

native-born Australian bushman, over six feet two in height, and simple

and unaffected in his manner. I shall remember this man for one thing.

He had two of the finest teams of working bullocks I have ever seen, and

handled them in a way that commanded our admiration. Never once did he

use his whip for any other purpose than to crack it occasionally, and it

did one good to hear his cheery call to the fourteen labouring beasts as

they toiled up the steep side of a creek or gully with a heavy load of

timber, straining every nerve in their great bodies, while the sweat

poured off their coats in streams. He was like one of his own bullocks,

patient, cheerful, and strong, and an exclamation of anger seldom passed

his lips--an oath never. He took a great pride in the appearance of his

teams, and especially of the fact that no one of them showed the marks

of a whip.

We spent a pleasant hour with this man, and returned home by a different

route, in the hope of getting a “plain” turkey--an altogether different

bird from the “scrub” turkey. Hansen (my mate) was an excellent shot,

especially with a rifle, and indeed when shooting turkeys preferred to

use a 44 Winchester rifle. We managed to get one bird--a cock--but so

old and poor that we gave it to the black contingent to eat. Nothing in

the shape of food came amiss to these people, and their appetites were

astounding. One day Hansen and I were following down a creek which

junctioned with the Reid River, when we saw smoke ascending from a dry

gully. Riding up we came across a very old and shrivelled gin and a boy

and girl of about eight years of age. They were busily engaged in eating

emu eggs, and out of thirteen had already devoured eleven, together

with four or five hundred of fresh-water cockles! Such a meal would

have satisfied half a dozen hungry white men. Their over-loaded stomachs

presented a disgusting appearance, and they were scarcely able to

articulate.

A week after our arrival the blacks told us that there were indications

that the rainy season would come on earlier than usual, and that game,

except duck and spur-winged plover, would be very scarce; also that if

the creek came down in flood, it would carry away most of the fish. This

was bad news for such ardent sportsmen as Hansen and myself, for we were

looking forward to plenty of fishing and shooting, not alone for its

pleasures, but also because we were charged heavily for anything but

the ordinary salt beef, tea, sugar and flour. Sardines and tinned salmon

were luxuries we could not afford, but fresh fish and game were better,

and, even when salted, were preferrable to a continuous diet of beef.

We had among our stores a 250 lb. bag of coarse salt--we had to kill our

own meat and salt it down--and I proposed that we should at once set to

work whilst the weather was fine and spend a week shooting and fishing.

Such game as plain turkeys (the bustard), scrub turkeys, cockatoos,

ducks, &c., we could put in brine, whilst the fish could be drysalted

and then put in the sun to dry. Hansen quite approved the idea, and

we at once set to work. I was to be fisherman, and he the gunner;

for, curiously enough, my mate was the most helpless creatures with a

fishing-line or rod that I ever saw. In five minutes he would either

have his line hopelessly tangled, his rod broken, or his hook caught in

his hand; and yet he never lost his temper.

Taking with me two sturdy black boys as porters, and also bringing my

gun and ammunition in case of meeting duck, I set out on foot, Hansen

riding off, accompanied by a blackfellow, to a chain of shallow lagoons

five miles away.

Within a quarter of a mile from the house was a fine deep water-hole

formed by the creek being here confined between high banks. At one

end, however, an exposed bar of small, coarse round pebbles ran almost

across, and here I decided to begin, instead of from the bank, for not

only were snakes difficult to see in the undergrowth, but plants of

the dreaded stinging-tree were also growing around and between the

magnificent gums and the Leichhardts. These latter trees, named after

the ill-fated Dr. Leichhardt, are, I think, the most strikingly handsome

of all large trees in the north of Queensland. They love to grow near

or even in the water, and their broad, beautiful leaves give a welcome

shade.

But before I descended to the bank I had to remain for some minutes to

gaze on the beauty of the scene. The water at one end of the pool was of

the deepest blue, towards the pebbly bar it gradually shallowed, and

for the next eight or ten feet from the margin was as clear as crystal.

Close in under the banks the broad leaves of blue flowering water-lilies

covered the surface with a carpet of many shades of green and pink;

hovering above the lily leaves were hundreds of small white

butterflies, with here and there a black and yellow-banded dragon-fly--

“horse-stingers” the Australian youth call them. Not a sound broke the

silence, except now and then the rippling splash of a fish rising to

the surface, or the peculiar _click, click_ made by a crayfish burrowing

under a stone.

I leant over the bank and looked down, and then gave a start of

pleasure, for right beneath me were three fish floating motionless on

the surface--fish that, until then, I never knew lived in fresh water.

They were in shape, colour, and appearance exactly like the toothed gar

so common on the sea coast--a long slender body with back of dark blue,

sides of silvery white, and fins and tail of blue tipped with yellow. I

was so excited that I was about to shoot them, but remembered that at so

short a distance I should have only blown them to pieces, especially as

they were directly beneath me. I motioned to the blackboys to come and

look; they did so, and I learnt that these fish, when the creek was

low, were sometimes plentiful, and would take almost any floating bait,

especially if it were alive.

Eager to begin, I told the boys to collect some crayfish for bait, but

they said that it would take too long, and small fish were better, and

running to some small lily-covered pools about two feet in diameter, and

very shallow, they jumped in and stirred up the sand and muddy sediment

at the bottom. In a few minutes some scores of very pretty red and

silvery-hued minnows were thrown out on the sand. I quickly baited my

line, and threw it, with the sinker attached, into the centre of the

pool; before it could sink the bait was taken by a fine bream of 2

lbs., which I landed safely, and tossed to the boys. It was the first

fresh-water bream I had caught in Queensland, and I felt elated.

Finding that the pool was clear of snags, I bent on three extra hooks,

baiting each one with the whole of a tiny fish. Again the baits were

seized before they reached the bottom; I hauled in two more bream, and

as they came struggling and splashing into the shallow water I saw they

were being followed by literally hundreds of the same species, and also

by fish much like an English grayling--the pool seemed to be alive!

The presence of such large numbers in so circumscribed a space could,

however, be easily accounted for by the absence of rain for so many

months, the drying up of many minor pools and stretches, and the

diminution of the water generally throughout the creek and its

tributaries driving the fish to congregate in the deeper and larger

pools.

By noon I had caught as many fish as the boys could carry. None, it is

true, were very large, 2 1/2 lbs. being the heaviest; but I was pleased

to learn that there were places farther down the creek where the blacks

frequently caught some very large cat-fish; when the water was

muddy from heavy rain. These cat-fish, or, as some people call them,

“jew-fish,” are the heaviest and best of all the Queensland river fish

I have ever tasted, except those which, for want of their true name, I

called grayling, and Hansen asserted were trout.

Sending the black boys off with the fish, I cut a rod from a she-oak and

quickly rigged a line; for a float I used a small piece of dead wood,

and baited with the largest minnow I could find. Then, clambering up

the bank, I found a suitable open place to stand at the butt of a

Leichhardt, from where I had a good view. I could not, however, see any

of the gars, one at least of which I was so anxious to get, but made a

cast into the centre--and almost instantly one darted out from under the

lily leaves and hooked himself beautifully, but in swinging him out my

line fouled a thorny bush, and for a minute I was in despair; there was

the shining beauty suspended over the water, and almost making a circle

of his body in his struggle to escape. At last, however, I cleared my

line, and swung my prize high up on the bank. Determined to get a better

rod, and return after dinner, I picked up gun and fish and followed the

boys.

By sunset I had a catch of fish that fairly astonished Hansen when he

returned at dusk with but half a dozen black duck, two or three teal,

and two turkeys. All that evening we were employed in cleaning and

salting the fish and birds, except some for immediate use.

We had many such days. Fish were to be had all throughout the course of

the creek, and had we possessed a net like those the blacks sometimes

used, we could have taken a hogsheadful in half an hour.

Then, as the rainy season began, I ceased fishing and took to the gun,

for now three or four kinds of duck made their appearance, and one

moonlight night an immense number alighted in the creek just below the

hut, and kept up an incessant gabble and quacking till sunrise.

In less than ten days we had enough salted game and dried and smoked

fish to last us three months, even had we eaten nothing else. Our black

friends--with the exception of one lad who desired to remain--left us

one morning at sunrise, and we saw them no more. I am afraid they were

deeply hurt by our poisoning half a dozen of their mangy dogs, which

were, with the rest of the pack, a continual source of annoyance to us

by their expert thieving.

One dull, rainy day, as we sat indoors mending our clothes, and yarning

and smoking, we heard the scream of parrots, and, going to the door, saw

some twenty or thirty of them, large, fine, green and scarlet plumaged

birds, hanging on to and crawling in and out among the branches of some

low trees growing between the stockyard and the creek. These trees

were a species of wattle, and were just opening out their yellow,

sweet-smelling, downy flowers, which the beautiful birds were devouring

eagerly. We did not disturb them, and they did not appear to be alarmed

when we walked up to within a few yards of the trees, merely screaming

defiance, and flying up to the higher branches, or to other trees near

by. These birds the local settlers called “king-parrots”; they were

larger than those of the same species in New South Wales, and later in

the season we shot a few of them for soup. This particular flock visited

us for many days in succession, forming a pretty picture as they hung

on the branches, chattering loudly the while, and flashing their

gaily-coloured plumage in the bright sunshine. Like the spur-winged

plover, they were very inquisitive birds; if one of their number was

shot, and fell wounded, the rest of the flock would fly round and round

the poor creature, watching its movements and listening to its cries,

not out of pity, but of sheer curiosity, and each could be shot in

succession, or sometimes knocked down with a stick. I was told by a

stockman on Fanning Downs station that on several occasions when he

had wounded birds of this variety of the parrot tribe, their companions

descended upon them with fury, tore out their feathers, and bit and

lacerated them savagely.

Now and again a few wandering emus would cross the grey gum plains

around us, and then, as they caught sight of our figures, shamble

quickly off again. In former years they had been plentiful in the

district, and provided good food for the aborigines when the latter

organised their big hunting parties. But as the country was taken up as

cattle runs, hundreds of the great birds were wantonly shot by white

men for the mere pleasure of killing, and all the months we lived in the

district we did not see more than twenty.

I have before spoken of the number of snakes that were everywhere to be

seen in the vicinity of the water, particularly about pools with a reedy

margin. Scarcely a week passed without our killing three or four, and

we were always careful in bathing to do so in very shallow water, where

there was a clear sandy bottom. There were three kinds of water-snakes,

one of which was of a dull blue colour, and these the blacks said were

“bad fellow,” _i.e._, venomous. They seldom grew over two feet and

a half in length, and on a bright day one might see several of these

reptiles swimming across from one bank to the other. Of the common brown

snake--the kind we most dreaded--and the black-necked tiger snake, we

killed numbers with our guns and with sticks, and one day, when crossing

some red ironstone ridges on the Ravenswood road, we despatched two

death-adders which were lying asleep on the bare, hot road. They were

of a dull reddish brown, the same hue as the ground in the ironstone

country, just as they are a yellowish brown in a sandstone region.

One great pest to us when fishing were the number of mud turtles, greedy

little creatures which persistently swallowed our hooks, which could

only be recovered by placing one's foot on their backs, drawing out

their long snaky necks to the utmost tension, and cutting off their

heads; the other pests were the hideous flabby water iguanas (I do not

know their proper name), which, although they never interfered with our

lines, sickened us even to look at them. They were always to be seen

lying on a log or snag in the water. As you approached they either

crawled down like an octopus, or dropped, in a boneless, inert mass,

without a splash. Their slimy, scaleless skins were a muddy yellow, and

in general they resembled an eel with legs. Even the blacks looked on

them with disgust, though they are particularly fond of the ordinary

iguana.

The time passed somewhat wearily to us when heavy rains and flooded

country kept us indoors for days together. Then one night after

the weather had begun to get cooler and clearer, we heard, far, far

overhead, the _honk, honk_ of the wild geese, flying southwards to

distant lagoons, and Hansen reminded me that in another week our term of

service came to an end.

“What made you think of it?” I asked.

“The cry of the wild geese going South.”

For we, too, longed for the South again.