to Colac, and joined the remnant of the Colac blacks, but one night
he was killed by them at their camp, near the site of the present
hospital. A shallow hole was dug about forty or fifty yards from the
south-east corner of the allotment on which the Presbyterian manse
was built, and the Colac tribe buried his body there, and stuck
branches of trees around his grave. About six months afterwards a
Government officer, the head of a department, arrived at Colac, and I
rode with him about the township and neighbouring country showing him
the antiquities and the monuments, among others the mausoleum of the
last of the Barrabools. The leaves had by this time fallen from the
dead branches around the sepulchre, and the small twigs on them were
decaying. The cattle and goats would soon tread them down and
scatter them, and the very site of the grave would soon be unknown.
The officer was a man of culture and of scientific tendencies, and he
asked me to dig up the skull of the murdered blackfellow, and sent it
to his address in Melbourne. He was desirous of exercising his
culture on it, and wished to ascertain whether the skull was
bracchy-cephalous, dolichophalous, or polycephalous. I think that
was the way he expressed it. I said there was very likely a hole in
it, and it would be spoiled; but he said the hole would make no
difference. I would do almost anything for science and money, but he
did not offer me any, and I did not think a six months' mummy was old
enough to steal; it was too fresh. If that scientist would borrow a
spade and dig up the corpse himself, I would go away to a sufficient
distance and close my eyes and nose until he had deposited the relic
in his carpet bag. But I was too conscientious to be accessory to
the crime of body-snatching, and he had not courage enough to do the
foul deed. That land is now fenced in, and people dwell there. The
bones of the last of the Barrabools still rest under somebody's
house, or fertilise a few feet of a garden plot.
ON THE NINETY-MILE.
A HOME BY A REMOTER SEA.
The Ninety-Mile, washed by the Pacific, is the sea shore of
Gippsland. It has been formed by the mills of two oceans, which for
countless ages have been slowly grinding into meal the rocks on the
southern coast of Australia; and every swirling tide and howling gale
has helped to build up the beach. The hot winds of summer scorch the
dry sand, and spin it into smooth, conical hills. Amongst these, low
shrubs with grey-green leaves take root, and thrive and flourish
under the salt sea spray where other trees would die. Strange
plants, with pulpy leaves and brilliant flowers, send forth long
green lines, having no visible beginning or end, which cling to the
sand and weave over it a network of vegetation, binding together the
billowy dunes.
The beach is broken in places by narrow channels, through which the
tide rushes, and wanders in many currents among low mudbanks studded
with shellfish--the feeding grounds of ducks, and gulls, and swans;
and around a thousand islands whose soil has been woven together by
the roots of the spiky mangrove, or stunted tea-tree. Upon the muddy
flats, scarcely above the level of the water, the black swans build
their great circular nests, with long grass and roots compacted with
slime. Salt marshes and swamps, dotted with bunches of rough grass,
stretch away behind the hummocks. Here, towards the end of the
summer, the blacks used to reap their harvest of fat eels, which they
drew forth from the soft mud under the roots of the tussocks.
The country between the sea and the mountains was the
happy-hunting-ground of the natives before the arrival of the
ill-omened white-fellow. The inlets teemed with flathead, mullet,
perch, schnapper, oysters, and sharks, and also with innumerable
water-fowl. The rivers yielded eels and blackfish. The sandy shores
of the islands were honey-combed with the holes in which millions of
mutton-birds deposited their eggs in the last days of November in
each year. Along many tracks in the scrub the black wallabiesand
paddy-melons hopped low. In the open glades among the great
gum-trees marched the stately emu, and tall kangaroos, seven feet
high, stood erect on their monstrous hind-legs, their little
fore-paws hanging in front, and their small faces looking as innocent
as sheep.
Every hollow gum-tree harboured two or more fat opossums, which, when
roasted, made a rich and savoury meal. Parrots of the most brilliant
plumage, like winged flowers, flew in flocks from tree to tree, so
tame that you could kill them with a stick, and so beautiful that it
seemed a sin to destroy them. Black cockatoos, screaming harshly the
while, tore long strips of bark from the messmate, searching for the
savoury grub. Bronzed-winged pigeons, gleaming in the sun, rose from
the scrub, and flocks of white cockatoos, perched high on the bare
limbs of the dead trees, seemed to have made them burst into
miraculous bloom like Aaron's rod.
The great white pelican stood on one leg on a sand-bank, gazing along
its huge beak at the receding tide, hour after hour, solemn and
solitary, meditating on the mysteries of Nature.
But on the mountains both birds and beasts were scarce, as many a
famishing white man has found to his sorrow. In the heat of summer
the sea-breeze grows faint, and dies before it reaches the ranges.
Long ropes of bark, curled with the hot sun, hang motionless from the
black-butts and blue gums; a few birds may be seen sitting on the
limbs of the trees, with their wings extended, their beaks open,
panting for breath, unable to utter a sound from their parched
throats.
"When all food fails then welcome haws" is a saying that does not
apply to Australia, which yields no haws or fruit of any kind that
can long sustain life. A starving man may try to allay the pangs of
hunger with the wild raspberries, or with the cherries which wear
their seeds outside, but the longer he eats them, the more hungry he
grows. One resource of the lost white man, if he has a gun and
ammunition, is the native bear, sometimes called monkey bear. Its
flesh is strong and muscular, and its eucalyptic odour is stronger
still. A dog will eat opossum with pleasure, but he must be very
hungry before he will eat bear; and how lost to all delicacy of
taste, and sense of refinement, must the epicure be who will make the
attempt! The last quadruped on which a meal can be made is the
dingo, and the last winged creature is the owl, whose scanty flesh is
viler even than that of the hawk or carrion crow, and yet a white man
has partaken of all these and survived. Some men have tried roasted
snake, but I never heard of anyone who could keep it on his stomach.
The blacks, with their keen scent, knew when a snake was near by the
odour it emitted, but they avoided the reptile whether alive or dead.
Before any white man had made his abode in Gippsland, a schooner
sailed from Sydney chartered by a new settler who had taken up a
station in the Port Phillip district. His wife and family were on
board, and he had shipped a large quantity of stores, suitable for
commencing life in a new land. It was afterwards remembered that the
deck of the vessel was encumbered with cargo of various kinds,
including a bullock dray, and that the deck hamper would unfit her to
encounter bad weather. As she did not arrive at Port Phillip within
a reasonable time, a cutter was sent along the coast in search of
her; and her long boat was found ashore near the Lakes Entrance, but
nothing else belonging to her was ever seen.
When the report arose in 1843 that a white woman had been seen with
the blacks, it was supposed that she was one of the passengers of the
missing schooner, and parties of horsemen went out to search for her
among the natives, but the only white woman ever found was a wooden
one--the figure-head of a ship.
Some time afterwards, when Gippsland had been settled by white men, a
tree was discovered on Woodside station near the beach, in the bark
of which letters had been cut, and it was said they would correspond
with the initials of the names of some of the passengers and crew of
the lost schooner, and by their appearance they must have been carved
many years previously. This tree was cut down, and the part of the
trunk containing the letters was sawn off and sent to Melbourne.
There is little doubt that the letters on the tree had been cut by
one of the survivors of that ill-fated schooner, who had landed in
the long boat near the Lakes, and had made their way along the
Ninety-Mile beach to Woodside. They were far from the usual track of
coasting vessels, and had little chance of attracting attention by
signals or fires. Even if they had plenty of food, it was impossible
for them to travel in safety through that unknown country to Port
Phillip, crossing the inlets, creeks, and swamps, in daily danger of
losing their lives by the spears of the wild natives. They must have
wandered along the ninety-mile as far as they could go, and then,
weary and worn out for want of food, reluctant to die the death of
the unhonoured dead, one of them had carved the letters on the tree,
as a last despairing message to their friends, before they were
killed by the savages, or succumbed to starvation.
"For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?"
GIPPSLAND PIONEERS.
AT THE OLD PORT.
Most of them were Highlanders, and the news of the discovery of
Gippsland must often have been imparted in Gaelic, for many of the
children of the mist could speak no English when they landed.
Year after year settlers had advanced farther from Sydney along the
coastal ranges, until stations were occupied to the westward of
Twofold Bay. In that rugged country, where no wheeled vehicle could
travel, bullocks were trained to carry produce to the bay, and to
bring back stores imported from Sydney. Each train was in charge of
a white man, with several native drivers. But rumours of better
lands towards the south were rife, and Captain Macalister, of the
border police, equipped a party of men under McMillan to go in search
of them. Armed and provisioned, they journeyed over the mountains,
under the guidance of the faithful native Friday, and at length from
the top of a new Mount Pisgah beheld a fair land, watered throughout
as the Paradise of the Lord. Descending into the plains, McMillan
selected a site for a station, left some of his men to build huts and
stockyards, and returned to report his discovery to Macalister.
Slabs were split with which walls were erected, but before a roof was
put on them the blacks suddenly appeared and began to throw their
spears at the intruders; one spear of seasoned hardwood actually
penetrated through a slab. The men, all but one, who shall be
nameless, seized their guns and fired at the blacks, who soon
disappeared. The white men also disappeared over the mountains; the
rout was mutual.
But the country was too good to be occupied solely by savages, and
when McMillan returned with reinforcements he made some arrangements,
the exact particulars of which he would never disclose. He brought
cattle to his run, and they quickly grew fat; but civilised man does
not live by fat cattle alone, and a market had to be sought. Twofold
Bay was too far away, and young Melbourne was somewhere beyond
impassable mountains. McMillan built a small boat, which he launched
on the river, and pulled down to the lakes in search of an outlet.
He found it, but the current was so strong that it carried him out to
sea. He had to land on the outer beach, and to drag his boat back
over the sands to the inner waters.
He next rode westward with his man Friday to look for a port at
Corner Inlet, and he blazed a track to the Albert River. Friday was
an inland black. He gazed at the river, which was flowing towards
the mountains, and said:
"What for stupid yallock* yan along a bulga**?"
[* Footnote: *Yallock, river. **Bulga, mountain.]
McMillan tried to explain the theory of the tides.
"One big yallock down there push him along, come back by-and-by."
And Friday saw the water come back by-and-by.
They reached the mouth of the river on February 1st, 1841, saw a
broad expense of salt water, and McMillan concluded that he had found
a port for Gippsland.
Ten months afterwards Jack Shay arrived at the port. He had first
come to Twofold Bay from Van Diemen's Land, and nothing was known
about his former life. "That's nothing to nobody," he said. He was
a bushman, rough and weather-beaten, with only one peculiarity. The
quart pot which he slung to his belt would hold half a gallon of tea,
while other pots only held a quart, and that was the reason why he
was known all the way from Monaroo to Adelaide as "Jack of the Quart
Pot."
He had arrived rather late on the previous evening, and this morning,
as he sat on a log contemplating the scenery, his first conclusion
was that the port was not flourishing. There was not a ship within
sight. The mouth of the Albert River was visible on his right, and
the inlet was spread out before him shining in the morning sun.
About a mile away on the western shore was One Tree Hill. Towards
the south were mud banks and mangrove islands, through which the
channel zigzagged like a figure of eight, and then the view was
closed by the scrub on Sunday Island. There was a boat at anchor in
the channel about a mile distant, in which two men were fishing for
their breakfast, for there was famine in the settlement, and the few
pioneers left in it were kept alive on a diet of roast flathead. On
the beach three boats were drawn up out of reach of the tide, and
looking behind him Jack counted twelve huts and one store of
wattle-and-dab. The store had been built to hold the goods of the
Port Albert Company. It was in charge of John Campbell, and
contained a quantity of axes, tomahawks, saddles and bridles, a
grindstone, some shot and powder, two double-barrelled guns, nails
and hammers, and a few other articles, but there was nothing eatable
to be seen in it. If there was any flour, tea, or sugar left, it was
carefully concealed from any of the famishing settlers who might by
chance peep in at the door. Outside the hut was a nine-pounder gun
on wheels, which had been landed by the company for use in time of
war; but until this day there had been no hostilities between the
natives and the settlers. From time to time numbers of black faces
had been seen among the scrub, but so far no spear had been thrown
nor hostile gun fired. The members of the company were Turnbull,
McLeod, Rankin, Brodribb, Hornden, and Orr. Soon after they landed
they cleared a semi-circular piece of ground behind their tents, to
prevent the blacks from sneaking up to them unseen. Near the beach
stood two she-oak trees, marked, one with the letters M. M., 1 Feb.,
1841, the other 2 Mar., 1841, and the initials of the members of the
Port Albert Company. Behind the huts three hobbled horses were
feeding, two of which had been brought by Jack Shay. A gaunt
deerhound, with a shaggy coat, lame and lean, was lying in the sun.
There was also an old cart in front of one of the huts, out of which
two boys came and began to gather wood and to kindle a fire. They
were ragged and hungry, and looked shyly at Jack Shay. One was Bill
Clancy, and the other had been printer's devil to Hardy, of the
'Gazette', and was therefore known as Dick the Devil. They had been
picked up in Melbourne by Captain Davy, who had brought them to Port
Albert in his whaleboat. Their ambition had been for "a life on the
ocean wave, and a home on the rolling deep," as heroic young
pirates; but at present they lived on shore, and their home was
George Scutt's old cart.
A man emerged from one of the huts carrying a candle-box, which he
laid on the ground before the fire. Jack observed that the box was
full of eggs, on the top of which lay two teaspoons. The man was
Captain David, usually known as Davy. He said:
"I am going to ask you to breakfast, Jack; but you have been a long
time coming, and provisions are scarce in these parts."
"Don't you make no trouble whatsomever about me," said Jack. "Many's
the time I've hadshort rations, and I can take pot-luck with any man."
"You'll find pot-luck here is but poor luck," replied Davy. "I've
got neither grub nor grog, no meat, no flour, no tea, no sugar--
nothing but eggs; but, thank God, I've got plenty of them. There are
five more boxes full of them in my hut, so we may as well set to at
once."
Davy drew some hot ashes from the fire, and thrust the eggs into
them, one by one. When they were sufficiently cooked, he handed one
and a teaspoon to Jack and took another himself, saying, "We shall
have to eat them just as they are; there is plenty of salt water, but
I haven't even a pinch of salt."
"Why, Davy, there's plenty of salt right before your face. Did you
never try ashes? Mix a spoonful with your egg this way, and you'll
find you don't want no better salt."
"Right you are, Jack; it goes down grand," said Davy, after seasoning
and eating one egg. Then to the boys, "Here you kids, take some eggs
and roast 'em and salt 'em with ashes, and then take your sticks and
try if you can knock down a few parrots or wattle birds for dinner.
But don't you go far from the camp, and keep a sharp look-out for the
blacks; for you can never trust 'em, and they might poke their spears
through you."
"But, Davy," asked Jack, "where is the port and the shipping, and
where are all the settlers? There don't seem to be many people
stirring about here this morning."
"Port and shipping be blessed," said Davy; "and as for the settlers,
there are only about half-a-dozen left, with these two boys and my
wife, and Hannah Scutt. We don't keep no regular watch, and
meal-times is of little use unless there's something to eat. I landed
here from that whale-boat on the 30th of last May, and I have been
waiting for you ever since. In a few weeks we had about a hundred
and fifty people camped here. They came mostly in cutters from
Melbourne, looking for work or looking for runs. They said men were
working for half-a-crown a day without rations on the road between
Liardet's beach and the town. But there was no work for them here;
and, as their provisions soon ran short, they had to go away or
starve. I stopped here, and have been starving most of the time.
Some went back in the cutters and some overland.
"Brodribb and Hobson came here over the mountains with four Port
Phillip blacks, and they decided to look for a better way by the
coast. I landed them and their four blacks at the head of Corner
Inlet. They were attacked by the Western Port blacks near the River
Tarwin, but they frightened them away by firing their guns. The four
Port Phillip blacks who were carrying the ammunition and provisions
ran away too; and the two white men had nothing to eat for two or
three days until they made Massey and Anderson's station on the Bass,
where they found their runaway blacks.
"William Pearson and his party were the next who left the Port. They
took the road over the mountains, and lived on monkey bears until
they reached Massey and Anderson's.
"McClure, Scott, Montgomery, and several other men started next.
They had very little of their provisions left when I landed them one
morning at One Tree Hill there over the water. They were fourteen
days tramping over the mountains, and were so starved that they ate
their own dogs. They came back in a schooner, but I think some of
them will never get over that journey. I tell you, Jack, it's hard
to make a start in a new country with no money, no food, and no live
stock, except Scott's old horse and that lame deerhound. Poor Ossian
was a good dog, and used to run down an old man kangaroo for us,
until one of them gave him a terrible rip with his claw, and he has
been lame ever since. For eight weeks we were living on roast
flat-head, and I grew tired of it, so on the 17th of last month I
started down the inlet in my whaleboat, and went to Lady Bay to take
in some firewood. I knew the mutton-birds would be coming to the
islands on the 23rd or 24th, but I landed on one of them on the 19th,
four or five days too soon, and began to look for something to eat. There
were some pig-faces, but they were only in flower, no fruit on 'em.
I could find nothing but penguin's eggs and I put some of those in a
pot over the fire. But they would never get hard if I boiled them
all day. There is something oily inside of them, and how it gets
there I never could tell. You might as well try to live on rancid
butter and nothing else. However, on November 23rd the mutton-birds
began to come in thousands, and then I was soon living in clover. I
had any quantity of hard-boiled eggs and roast fowl, for I could
knock down the birds with a stick.
"But, Jack, what have you been doing since I met you the year before
last? You had a train of pack bullocks and a mob of cattle, looking
for a run about Mount Buninyong. Did you start a station there for
Imlay?"
"No, I didn't. I found a piece of good country, but Pettit and the
Coghills hunted me out of it, so Imlay sold the cattle, and went back
to Twofold Bay. Then Charles Lynot offered me a job. He was taking
a mob of cattle to Adelaide, but he heard there was no price for them
there, so he took up a station at the Pyrenees, seventeen miles
beyond Parson Irvine's run at the Amphitheatre. I was there about
twelve months. My hut was not far from a deep waterhole, and the
milking yard was about two hundred yards from the hut. The wild
blacks were very troublesome; they killed three white men at
Murdering Creek, and me and Francis, Clarke's manager, hunted them
off the station two or three times. The blacks were more afraid of
Francis than of anybody else, as besides his gun he always carried
pistols, and they never could tell how many he had in his pockets.
Cockatoo Bill's tribe drove away a lot of Parson Irvine's sheep, and
broke a leg of each sheep to keep them from going back. The Parson
and Francis went after them, and one of our stockmen named Walker,
and another, a big fellow whose name I forget. They shot some of the
blacks, but the sheep were spoiled.
"There was a tame blackfellow we called Alick, and two gins, living
about our station, and he had a daughter we called picaninny
Charlotte, ten or eleven years old, who was very quick and smart, and
spoke English very well. One morning, when I was in the milking
yard, she came to me and said, 'You look out. Cockatoo Bill got your
axe under his rug--sitting among a lot of lubras. Chop you down
when you bring up milk in buckets.'
"I had no gun with me, so I crept out of the yard, and sneaked
through the scrub to get into the hut through the back door, keeping
out of sight of Bill and the lubras, who were all sitting on the
ground in front of the hut. We had plenty of arms, and I always kept
my double-barrelled gun loaded, and hanging over the fireplace. I
crept inside the hut, reached down for the gun, and peeped out of the
front door, looking for Bill. The lubras began yabbering, and in an
instant Bill dropped his rug and the axe, leaped over the heads of
the women, and was off like a deer. I took a flying shot at him with
both barrels. His lubra went about afterwards among the stations
complaining that Jack Quart Pot shot Cockatoo Bill, and Parker (the
Government Protector) made enquiries about him. I saw him coming
towards my hut, and I said to piccaninny Charlotte, 'No talk, no
English, no nothing;' and when Parker asked her if she knew anything
about Cockatoo Bill she shammed stupid, and he couldn't get a word
out of her. Who is that cove with the spyglass?"
"That's John Campbell, the company's storeman. He is looking for a
schooner every day. He would have gone long ago like the rest, but
he does not like to leave the stores behind. Here, Mr. Campbell,
wouldn't you like to take a roast egg or two for breakfast? There's
plenty for the whole camp."
"I will, Davy, and thank you. Who are the men in the boat down the
channel?"
"They are George Scutt and Pately Jim fishing for their breakfast.
They were hungry, I reckon, and went away before I brought out the
eggs, or they might have had a feed."
While the men were roasting their eggs, their eyes wandered over
everything within view, far and near. On land and sea their lives had
often depended on their watchfulness. The sun was growing warm, and there
was a quivering haze over the waters. While glancing down the
channel, Davy observed some dark objects appearing near a mangrove
island. He pointed them out to Campbell, and said:
"What kind of birds are they? Do you think they are swans?"
"I can't think what else they can be," said Campbell; "but they have
not got the shape of birds, and they don't swim smoothly like swans,
but go jerking along like big coots. Take a look through the glass,
Davy, and see if you can make them out."