would hardly have lived to describe it. He went back with spirit on the
details, more armour of youth to be placed in the scabbard of age. One
item held a small essay on the influences which determine human action in
a crisis of life or death. He was speaking of the feeling that seized him
when spear after spear cut into his flesh. Here was a struggle between
mind and body, each determined to conquer--a study in the inner
sanctuary; but how began the fight?
With two of his men, Sir George was on the march, notching trees by the
way, so that the rest of the party could follow. At a turn they found
themselves beset by a swarm of blacks, who had gathered in strength,
determined to act against so small a force. Not many of the warriors
could be seen at the outset, the rough ground sheltering them. But there
they were, and in a most warlike humour.
A spear clove the air, singing their menace, as they yelled it in a
hundred raucous voices. Scare shots, fired by Sir George, had no effect,
not even when an incautious warrior was winged as an object-lesson. The
Aborigines grew bolder, leaping hither and thither in the attack--evil
spirits of the bush. The sight they made, all pigments, was expressed in
the shout of one of Sir George's men, 'Good God, sir! Look at them!'
The cry rose from behind a rack, where Sir George had ordered the man and
his comrade to seek shelter. Fortunately, a series of rocks made a
natural parapet to the right, and in a degree in front. Sir George, his
gun empty at the moment, placed himself on the exposed left position. The
spears rained round him, as if they were falling from the clouds. Things
could not go on thus for long, and the natives planned to end them.
A superbly built fellow, lighter of skin than his companions, arrogant of
air, showed to the front, evidently a general in command. He clambered,
shouting the lust of battle, on to the summit of a rock, not more than
thirty yards from the spot where Sir George lay. Then he swung a spear,
with agile trick, and it grazed the hem of the white captain's coat. It
would have done more, had not Sir George by instinct, which is ever
alert, jerked himself free of its path. Another spear, from the same
supple hand, just missed his breast, striking the stock of his gun. This
was too near for comfort and the future well-being of the expedition.
Sir George passed his empty gun to the Englishman handiest, with the
direction 'Please re-load it.' He had tried to do that himself, but his
cramped position made it difficult to ram home the powder and ball. For
his own gun, he snatched an unshot one which the man was struggling to
release from its cover. In the hurry, piece and cover got entangled, but,
with a wrench, Sir George tore the two apart. His plan of campaign was
settled; he advanced to the rock where the light-coloured native had
head-quarters. In bold initiative, there remained the only hope for Sir
George and his following, against imminent massacre. Would it be a moral
victory, won by a simple advance on the rock, or would it be necessary to
strike? He had hesitated, as yet, to shoot straight; and he trusted still
to avoid that extreme measure.
Three strides in the open, and three spears had him square and fair, a
rent archery target. The first struck his watch, denting it, the second
caught the fleshy part of his arm, the third tore into his thigh. The
Aborigines were skilled spear-men, and proving it by Sir George's
impalement, they shouted triumph. The shook of the weapons drove him to
his knees, but what stung him was the crow of the blacks.
'That,' he said, 'produced in me a heated anger, and I was in the fight
as I had not been till then. Stung by their mockery, I pulled myself
together and was on my feet again in a trice. A spear was still sticking
in my thigh, and blood flowed freely from the wound. I dragged out the
spear, covered the wound with my haversack, so that neither enemy nor
friend might be aware of it, and once more advanced.'
The chief grew alarmed at this steady investment of himself, and showed
it by brandishing a club, as if to convey, 'Just you come nearer and this
will drum on your head.'
Sir George's faculties were so keenly edged that he noted, in this
bravado, a common link of mankind, high and low, civilised and barbarian.
As long as the chieftain had been sure of his skin, he flung spears and
sang valiantly; but when alarm entered him, those deadly measures were
replaced by a mighty show. On the surface there was vast play of battle,
but inwardly quaking. And Sir George marched forward, his right hand
gripping the gun hard, his lip quivering, his eye burning.
The injured physical man was triumphant over the peace-loving soul, and
anyhow there must now be a lesson. Of all those lines of thought Sir
George was not, perhaps, conscious in his peril, yet, fetching back, he
could trace them as they had worked. Seeking a solution by measures not
violent, he had been given sore spears, whereon his finger tightened at
the trigger, and he was a wound automaton; fixed, stern, a fate on feet,
bearing down upon the chief in the shelter of the rock.
The brandished club was no stop; no more did the skirmishing support of
the clan bring pause to the oncomer. The black general bobbed quite
behind his rock, considering the necessity of absolute retreat. Next, he
snapped off quickly, dodging here and there, as the aboriginal plan was,
to avoid a cast of spears. It was not suited to avoid lead.
Everything had occurred within the space of a few minutes; for such
crises do, otherwise the tension would kill. The chief ran; a tall dark
body, with many other bodies watching it. Sir George raised his gun and
pointed it at the warrior, struggling to a shelter from which the attack
could be renewed. Snap went the trigger. With a bullet, the marksman
could shoot a greater seabird, by the head, at a range of a hundred
yards. This bullet caught the black between the shoulders, and he fell
with a thud and a groan. In Sir George, the physical being surrendered
itself again to the intellect. The situation was saved, his wounds stung
him no more to vindication--he was sorrowful, a-weary.
There was no sound after the echoes of the shot had died away, a
spluttering funeral knell. Other natives, laying their spears aside,
sprang from behind trees and rocks to the help of their fallen chief.
Nobody would harm them; the magic had ceased. They raised him with the
greatest solicitude, and bore him off. His head hung on his breast; he
could just stagger.
Faint from loss of blood, Sir George watched the serpent-like procession
twine itself into the inner depths of the forest. Having conquered; he
had to console himself on the victory and bind up his own hurts. These
made him so weak that he must send to the camp for assistance, and he
awaited its coming, a loaded gun on his knee. The blacks assailed no
more; instead, the birds sang in the sun, and he asked himself, 'Is it
all a dream?'
'Why,' declared one of his men, helping him towards the camp, 'should you
worry yourself over having shot that black fellow? If you hadn't, where
should we all have been? and anyhow there are plenty more like him in the
country.' This comforter was himself to need comfort, by and by, on a
less sombre subject. He dashed in upon Sir George, crying, 'Sir, I have
seen the Old Gentleman,' and with his frame shaking as if he had. It was
the Australian bat on midnight circuit, a strange serenade to the
European. Another of nature's creatures was to figure amid circumstances
which did hold cause for terror.
'It's curious,' Sir George mused, 'how we remember trifles of the long
ago with preciseness, when often bigger events are blurred. I recollect,
very well, a slight incident of the scene on the island of Dorre, off the
north-west coast of Australia, when a storm caught us. In turn, I caught
an old cormorant by the neck, and the bird was all we had for breakfast
next morning. A most sedate character he was, trying hard to maintain a
dignified attitude in face of a very tempest of wind. He wished to fly,
but could not, the violence of the gale pinning him to the ground. That
was his death, which we all regretted; and I'm sorry to add that we were
grudging enough to call him tough in the eating.'
This gale was preface to the great adventure of the second stage of Sir
George Grey's Australian explorations. He was to have plenty of
opportunity for the study of the Australian Aborigine, who, by and by,
received him in better wise than at the point of a spear. Somewhere, an
old crone felt inspired to hug and kiss him, in the belief that he was
her own dead son, spun white, and back on earth. Having recruited from
his earlier sufferings, he had gone by Perth, up the coast to Shark's Bay
in an American whaler. He arranged to make a depot of Bernier Island, in
the region of Shark's Bay, and there, on a lovely day, he landed his
stores, burying them for safety in the soil. Up blew this storm, three
nights later, when the explorers laid hands upon the solitary cormorant
of Dorre. Had they been on Bernier, instead, the spoil might have been a
kangaroo, for it owned a special breed of that family.
But to Bernier Island, the larder, Sir George returned, having completed
a section of exploration. He had a dread lest the gale might have
ravished his stores during his absence. Accordingly, he took only one or
two of his people with him when he went, full of anxiety, to the spot
where the provisions had been buried. He did not desire to alarm the
others, should affairs turn out ill, as indeed they did.
'O God, we are all lost!' This was the wail for Sir George's ears, as the
spade made it clear that the food-stuffs, with a trifling salvage, had
been uprooted and scattered by the storm. It was almost the pronouncing
of a sentence of death upon the party, having regard to the desert
country which surrounded them, and their distance from civilisation.
'I hadn't an hour to lose,' Sir George realised, 'so back we hurried to
the main camp and I delivered the news, counselling calmness and courage.
I added my decision that we must endeavour to make Perth in the whale
boats we had with us. It was a forlorn chance.'
The boats strained in a boisterous sea, and ultimately flung the voyagers
ashore, three hundred miles, in a direct line, from Perth. Never were men
given a harder tramp than across those miles, so parched and barren that
they hardly echoed the koo-ee of a native. Yet there was no succour, no
hostel, unless they could be covered.
For a little while fair progress was made, then strength declined through
want of food and water. Sir George Grey sought courage and consolation in
the dog-eared New Testament which he had in his knapsack. The hymns his
mother had taught him came back into his head and heart, true comforters.
The land where she dwelt swam dim before his eyes, but his courage found
strength anew. He pushed on, with a small company, in order to send back
relief for those unequal to a sally. It was the perishing to the rescue.
A bird shot, was welcome as manna from heaven, and a muddy water-hole the
sweetest of discoveries. The dew was eagerly licked from shrubs and reeds
while the sun lingered a-bed. Lips grew black, tongues swollen, eyes
wild, and the hopeless cry was: 'Water, or we die.'
The native guide schemed to lead Sir George from the others, begging,
when discovered, 'Yes, we two may be saved if we go on; the others are so
weak that they can't walk.' The master cocked his gun until the guide had
carried him back to the party. They moved Perth-ward, a stricken line of
famished men, wondering dumbly what was to happen. Did they really care?
If the leader had cheering and example, what were these set against this
final ordeal: a blistering thirst of three days and two nights? Happily a
water-hole, not bereft of all moisture, was found in the nick of time. A
few birds flew about it in the evening, but Sir George Grey's hand shook
so that he could take no aim. He headed a last desperate spurt for Perth;
the reaching of succour, or the arrival of death. Which would it be?
How attractive to lie down and rest for ever on the parched grass, with
some thin bush to keep off the sun. In the other extreme a shepherd of
the hills, caught in a snowstorm, folds him in his plaid and goes to the
sound sleep. Life in those wrestlers for it had sunk low; better die than
hang on to a mere tether of living. Yet the better instinct asserted
itself. And the second half of the expedition, far in the rear, cried for
relief. On, on!
Sir George staggered across the miles until, in the goodness of fortune,
he met natives who gave him food and water. He crawled into Perth, black
with the sun, bones from want; he was not recognised by friends. A Malay,
daft but harmless, led a vagrant life at Perth, getting bit and sup from
the open tables of the colonists. The good wife of the outermost
settlement, where Sir George Grey knocked, seeking refreshment, took him
for 'Magic.'
'When I spoke to her in English,' he said, 'she looked so surprised that
I feared she might run away, leaving me without the food and drink I
needed. However, she merely exclaimed, "Well if you're not 'Magic,' who
are you?" Being told, and in time convinced, she brewed Sir George the
most delicious cup of tea he ever drank. Soon, relief to the expedition
was scurrying across the plains.
At the start of the journey Sir George had his sextant, but, having to
walk hungry and thirsty, he needed to walk light. Therefore he hid the
sextant in a tree, where many a year later it was found, a rustic relic,
by some settlers. Death raced him so hard that he eased the burden of
keeping in front of it by tearing the boards from his New Testament. To
the Word itself he clung impregnably.
The perils of Sir George Grey, as an Australian explorer, match some of
those experienced by Captain Sturt. That brought up the name of the
latter, and Sir George passed the eulogy: 'Australia owes to Sturt a
greater debt, perhaps, than to any other of her explorers. His
discoveries, apart from their own stir and colour; were of the first
importance in the successful settlement of the country. I knew him well;
a man who would do anything for anybody, and never think of his own
interests.'
Admiring Sturt so heartily, Sir George, with others, had urged that the
honour of a title should be conferred upon him. He died in England before
actually receiving it, 'Whereupon,' said Sir George, 'I next suggested
that his widow should have the rank which otherwise would have been hers,
and from that, I judge, sprang the very proper rule now obtaining in such
a case.'
VII PLANTING THE BRITON
'I always got what I wanted in life,' Sir George Grey made arch comment
on himself, 'and many things, also, that I did not want.'
His appointment as Governor of South Australia, with the steps leading up
to it, he could group under the first head. His explorations had shown
that no great river, no second Murray, drained the North-West area of
Australia. This was information for geographers, and he had more, since,
to quote his own words, 'We learned as much about the region, in a
general way, as was necessary.' Next, he acted for a while as Government
Resident at King George's Sound, and he investigated the country
thereabout.
'The settlement of King George's Sound,' he said, 'was quite small, and I
discharged all the duties of the State. I don't remember that I fined
anybody; just decreeing: "Oh, you must make up your disputes yourselves."
Perth, now so grown, was at that date a mere townlet. It had few people,
ships called rarely, and practically it was shut off from the world.'
This was the brand-new Australia. Beside it, there is a glimpse of olden
England, in the manner Sir George Grey was bid to be Pro-Consul. A
special messenger pelted down to Bodiam, where, after his return to
England, he had been staying for a month, the hero of his relatives. The
messenger brought the other London, news that the guns of the Tower had
been firing, to announce the birth of the Queen's first child, the
Princess Royal. Therefore his arrival caused a double commotion in the
family circle, two notes of joy and gratulation. Sir George posted
express to London, changing horses at short stages in order to make the
better speed.
It was his supreme wish to serve the Colonies, and he had a glimmering
notion that the chance would come. Still, he was at one of the crossings
in a young man's life, when it is hard to know what the road is to be. He
had always his commission in the army, but was that his definite
signpost? He sighed for a wider door of usefulness, and behold it opened!
That it should be open so soon, was, perhaps, remarkable, only the word
was to be his constant accomplice.
'I had never met Lord John Russell, who made me the offer,' Sir George
explained. 'He was going upon what little I had done, in regard to
Australian affairs, especially a kind of despatch by me on native
administration. After adequate thought, and acting upon good advice, I
confirmed my first resolve to accept the Governor-ship of South
Australia. It was, apparently, to be an onerous post.'
To Adelaide went this Queen's Governor, not yet thirty, his mission the
undoing of a tangle; for South Australia was on the verge of bankruptcy,
almost before it had entered into business. Hardly an acre of land was in
cultivation, and most of the people were in Adelaide with nothing to do,
clamouring for food. Sir George perceived at once that they must be got
on to the land. To have the settlers securely there, from the first,
meant that they were to grow into a nation, not to amass temporary
riches, and then return to an already overcrowded world.
Again, in South Australia, as elsewhere, he endeavoured to carry out what
he regarded as a cardinal principle in the making of a new country. This
was to draw capital direct from the soil, not by the raising of too heavy
loans. How to rear a nation? Keep its conditions of life natural, even
simple; make it self-creative and self-reliant, train it as if it were an
individual. Let it build its national homestead, as a man might lay out
his own little stance of ground. Then, the community would have the
parents' love and pride towards all that had been created. Sir George put
his shoulder to the wheel of the settlers' cart in South Australia, and
shoved until the harvest drove home.
'I ascertained,' he spoke of those efforts, 'that the soil was very
suitable for wheat, and we sowed widely. The crop, vital to the Colony;
depended upon the weather. Would there be enough rain? I often crawled
out of bed in the morning, while it was half-dawn, to ascertain if there
was any promise of rain for that day. The wheat was at the critical
stage, and if I had made the weather, it could not have proved more
suited in its conditions.
'It was the first extensive wheat crop of South Australia; the first
harvest-home of the bunch of people, who had there been shaken on to the
sea-beach. When the wheat had ripened, everybody--including, I am glad to
say, the Governor--turned to the harvesting of it. Riots had threatened
earlier, the result of the state of affairs in the Colony, and the
measures which I deemed it necessary to introduce. As a precaution, I had
some soldiers, about a hundred and fifty, I think, sent to me from New
South Wales. That was a step on which I was entitled to congratulate
myself. At the pruning hook, in getting in that harvest, they were of
vast assistance, and not often have soldiers been more nobly occupied.'
Yet the pruning hook, which Sir George associated with the historic
harvest, and with Ridley, an early Australian colonist, was hardly of the
Scriptural pattern. It was a subtle machine, invented for a harvest where
the wheat-ears were needed, not the straw. The former were chopped off,
collected in a sort of trough; and the straw was burned for manure. Here
was waste, only there was no avoiding it, and, moreover, the meaning of
'waste' is defined by circumstances. The South Australian soil was so
fruitful that it only needed to be thrown seed. Sir George satisfied
himself that it contained gypsum, such as belongs to the fertile parts of
Egypt. Thus gypsum reared wheat, under the foot-print of the black man,
who shod his spear in obsidian. Things that began before history, were
meeting from very different sides. Nature extended one hand to the inflow
of civilisation, another to the rude holding of it back. There was a
point of contact in the adventure of a settler, Turner by name, whom Sir
George Grey met near the Murray River. It fell out comedy, but might have
been tragedy; and how often those two flirt with each other round a
corner!
The fact, upon which the affair hinged, was that Turner wore a wig, no
doubt for sufficient reason. He was making a journey across country, and
with him were a few natives, guides and packmen. Perhaps his head grew
hot; anyhow, at some stage he took a penknife from his pocket, and ran
the blade under the edge of the wig. The native nearest to him,
suspicious of witchcraft, stared at this act, terror written on every
feature. With a deft lift of the knife, Turner had the wig clear of his
head. The native stayed no longer to consider 'Is this a sorcerer?' He
whipped off, to what he considered a safe distance. The innocent Turner
followed his retreat with laughing eye, amused at the effect produced.
For acknowledgment, a spear cracked through the satchel on his back, and
wounded him slightly. His load had saved his life, and he warily resumed
the wig.
The quality of the early settlers in South Australia, gave Sir George
Grey great trust in the new Anglo-Saxondom to be built up in the south.
Many of them were Nonconformists, which suggested to him the Puritan
founding of New England. As a body they had a worth, a sincerity, a true
ring which could not fail of fine records. That knowledge helped him, in
the difficult task of setting South Australia on its feet. His policy of
severe economy made shoes pinch, but he held on, ever ready with the
courteous word for those who most assailed him.
He could contrast Adelaide, when town sites went at auction for about
five pounds an acre, with the Adelaide of our day. 'If you had yourself,'
somebody put it to him, 'invested in a few of these sites, you would be
rich instead of poor?' The remark bore partly upon the enormously
enhanced value of city lands all over Australia, partly upon Sir George's
simple unconcern for wealth, his disregard of mere money. He was almost
inclined to pity millionaires, as being among the afflicted. The tinkle
of gold was never in his golden dreams.
'Yes,' he answered, 'the land which sold for five pounds in Adelaide,
might, at the present moment, be worth nearer five thousand. Throughout
my career, I followed a very strict rule in those matters. I never had
any dealings in land, or other property, except as Governor, charged with
the interests of the whole community. My despatches were my sole title-
deeds.'
'There is no virtue,' he laid down, 'in honest duty, such as we claim
from every public servant. Our lofty ideal in that regard is true British
wisdom. Moreover, need a man, estimating wealth on its merits, care to be
rich? What private means I inherited, I have spent largely on public
ends. I mean, in particular, those libraries at Cape Town and Auckland,
which I was enabled to help. Why, the bargain is all mine; I am the
debtor for the opportunity.'
To Sir George Grey, Oceana had seemed a fertile land, crying across the
depths, 'Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest.' His mission was to pass that invitation freely to the
shores of the Old World, and to be vigilant on the spot, keeping a clear
ring. He did not want folks to come, only to find a path strewn with the
obstacles and ills they thought to have left behind. His purpose was to
make life as generous, as unfettered as possible. Keep the Old World out
of the New! It became a passion with him; and he counted on making the
New World an influence towards regenerating the Old. The line, in respect
of both aims, was to retain the control of the New World for the Anglo-
Saxon. That meant freedom, because the non-intrusion of arrayed nations,
which would hinder it.