THE CHILDREN OF THE ROCKS
Mr. Learmonth had taken up Ettrick and Ellangowan, a few miles higher up
on the same creek, about the same time that I "sat down" on the Lower
Eumeralla. This gentleman, since an officer of high rank in the
volunteer force, had lately come from Tasmania, whence he brought some
valuable blood mares, with which he founded a stud in after years. The
cattle run comprised a good deal of lava country. It was there that
Bradbury, the civilised aboriginal before mentioned, met his death. All
the land that lay between Eumeralla proper and the sea, a tract of
country of some twenty or thirty miles square, had been probably from
time immemorial a great hunting-ground and rendezvous for the
surrounding tribes. It was no doubt eminently fitted for such a purpose.
It swarmed with game, and in the spring was one immense preserve of
every kind of wild fowl and wild animal that the country owned.
Among the Rocks there were innumerable caves, depressions, and
hiding-places of all kinds, in which the natives had been used to find
secure retreat and safe hiding in days gone by. Whether they could not
bear to surrender to the white man these cherished solitudes, or whether
it was the shortsighted, childish anxiety to possess our goods and
chattels, can hardly ever be told. Whatever the motive, it was
sufficient, as on all sides at once came tales of wrong-doing and
violence, of maimed and slaughtered stock, of homicide or murder.
Next day we saw the greater part of the cattle, but those particular
ones that Old Tom had missed were not to be found anywhere. We were
turning our horses' heads homewards when I noticed the eaglehawks
circling around and above a circular clump of ti-tree scrub in a marsh.
While we looked a crow flew straight up from the midst of the clump, and
we heard the harsh cry of others. The same thought evidently was in all
our minds, as we rode straight for the place, and forced our horses
between the thick-growing, slender, feathery points. In the centre, amid
the tall tussac grass, lay the yellow heifer with the white flank, stone
dead. A spear-hole was visible beneath the back ribs. Exactly on the
corresponding portion of the other side was another, proving that,
strange as it may seem, a spear had been driven right through her body.
After Old Tom had concluded his exclamations and imprecations, which
were of a most comprehensive nature, we agreed that the campaign had
been opened in earnest, and that we knew what we had to expect. "We'll
find more to-morrow," said the old man. "Onest they'll begin like this,
they'll never lave off till thim villains, Jupiter and Cocknose, is
shot, anyway."
These strangely-named individuals had been familiar to our ears ever
since our arrival. "Jupiter" was supposed to have a title to the head
chieftainship of the tribe which specially affected the Rocks and the
neighbourhood of the extinct volcano. Cocknose had been named by the
early settlers from the highly unclassical shape of the facial
appendage. He was known to be a restless, malevolent savage. Again on
the war trail next morning, we tried beating up and down among the paths
by which the cattle went to water, at the lower portion of the great
marsh. It may be explained that the summer of 1844 was exceptionally
dry, and much of the surface water having disappeared, the cattle were
compelled to walk in Indian file through the ti-tree, in many places
more than ten feet in height, to the deeper portion of the marsh, where
water was still visible.
Here Joe Burge hit off a trail, which seemed likely to solve the
mystery. "Here they've been back and forward, and pretty thick too," he
said, getting off and pointing to the track of native feet, plain enough
in the swamp mud.
"Cattle been here," said the old stockman, "and running too. Look at
thim deep tracks. The thieves of the world, my heavy curse on them!"
As we followed on the trail grew broader and more plain. A few head of
cattle had evidently been surrounded--two or more bullocks, we agreed,
and several cows and calves, heading now in this direction, now in that.
Presently half of a broken spear was picked up. We followed the track to
a thick brake of reeds nearly opposite to a jutting cape of the lava
country. There we halted. A new character was legible in the cipher we
had been puzzling out.
"They've thrown him here," said the old man. "Here's where he fell down.
There's blood on that tuft of grass; and here's the mark of the side of
him in the mud. They've cut him up and carried him away into the Rocks,
bit by bit--hide and horns, bones and mate. The divil resave the bit of
Magpie ever we'll see again. There's where they wint in."
Sure enough we saw a plainly-marked track, with a fragment of flesh, or
a blood-stain, showing the path by which they had carried in a
slaughtered animal. Further we could not follow them, as the lava downs
were at this spot too rough for horses, and we might also have been
taken at a disadvantage. So, on the second evening, we rode home, having
found what we went out to seek, certainly, but not elated by the
discovery.
It now became a serious question how to bear ourselves in the face of
the new state of matters. If the blacks persisted in a guerilla warfare,
besides killing many of the best of our cattle, they would scatter and
terrify the remainder, so that they would hardly stay on the run;
besides which, they held us at a disadvantage. They could watch our
movements, and from time to time make _sorties_ from the Rocks, and
attack our homesteads or cut us off in detail. In the winter season much
of the forest land became so deep and boggy that, even on horseback, if
surprised and overmatched in numbers, there would be very little chance
of getting away. By this time the owners of the neighbouring stations
were fully aroused to the necessity of concerted action. We had reached
the point when "something must be done." We could not permit our cattle
to be harried, our servants to be killed, and ourselves to be hunted out
of the good land we had occupied by a few savages.
Our difficulty was heightened by its being necessary to behave in a
quasi-legal manner. Shooting blacks, except in manifest self-defence,
had been always held to be murder in the Supreme Courts of the land, and
occasionally punished as such.
Now, there were obstacles in the way of taking out warrants and
apprehending Jupiter and Cocknose, or any of their marauding braves, in
the act. The Queen's writ, as in certain historic portions of the west
of Ireland, did not run in those parts. Like all guerillas, moreover,
their act of outrage took place sometimes in one part of a large
district, sometimes in another, the actors vanishing meanwhile, and
reappearing with puzzling rapidity.
We went now well armed. We were well mounted and vigilantly on guard.
The Children of the Rocks were occasionally met with, when collisions,
not all bloodless, took place.
Their most flagrant robbery was committed on Mr. John Cox's Mount Napier
station, whence a flock of maiden ewes was driven, and the shepherd
maltreated. These young sheep were worth nearly two pounds per head,
besides being impossible to replace. Mr. Cox told me himself that they
constituted about a third of his stock in sheep at the time. He
therefore armed a few retainers and followed hot on the trail.
He had unusual facilities for making successful pursuit. In his house
lived a tame aboriginal named Sou'wester, who had a strong personal
attachment for Mr. Cox. Like most of his race, he had the true
bloodhound faculty when a man-hunt was in question. He led the armed
party, following easily the trampling of the flock in the long grass
until they reached the edge of the Rocks.
Into this rugged region the flock had been driven. Before long
Sou'wester's piercing eye discovered signs of their having been forced
along the rocky paths at the point of the spear.
It was evident to him that they were making for the lake, which was in
the centre of the lava country.
By and by he pointed out that, by the look of the tracks, they were
gaining upon the robbers. And shortly too sure an indication of the
reckless greed and cruelty of the savage was furnished.
Passing round an angular ridge of boulders, suddenly they came upon
about a hundred young sheep, which had been left behind. "But why are
they all lying down?" said one of the party.
The tracker paused, and, lifting a hind-leg of one of the helpless
brutes, showed without speech that the limb was useless.
_The robbers had dislocated the hind-legs_ as a simple preventive of
locomotion; to insure their being in the same place when it should
please their captors to return and eat them.
"I never felt so wolfish in my life," said Mr. Cox to me, afterwards,
"as when I saw the poor things turn up their eyes reproachfully as they
lay, as if imploring our assistance."
A few more miles brought them up with the main body. They opened fire
upon the tolerably large body of blacks in possession, directly they
came within range.
"It was the first time I had ever levelled a gun at my fellow-man," John
Cox remarked. "I did so without regret or hesitation in this instance. I
never remember having the feeling that I could not miss so strong in
me--except in snipe-shooting. I distinctly remember knocking over
_three_ blacks, two men and a boy, with one discharge of my double
barrel."
Sou'wester had a good innings that day, which he thoroughly enjoyed. He
fired right and left, raging like a demoniac. One huge black, wounded to
death, hastened his own end by dragging out his entrails, meanwhile
praising up the weapons of the white man as opposed to those of the
black. Sou'wester cut short his death-song by blowing out his brains
with the horse-pistol of the period.
A few of the front-rankers were shot on this occasion; but most of the
others saved themselves by precipitately taking to the lake.
After this nothing happened for a while, until one day a good-sized
party was discovered killing a bullock of Messrs. Jamieson, near
Ettrick. The brothers Jamieson and Major Learmonth--then unknown to
martial fame--went out to dispute title. The scene was in a
reed-brake--the opposing force numerous. Spears began to drop
searchingly amid and around the little party. It looked like another
Isandula, and the swart foe crept ominously close, and yet more close,
from tree to tree.
Then a spear struck William Jamieson in the forehead--a rough straw hat
alone saving his brain. The blood rushed down, and, dripping on his gun,
damped the priming.
Things looked bad. A little faltering had lost the fight.
But the Laird of Ettrick shot the savage dead who threw the spear, and
under cover of this surprise he and Robert Jamieson carried their
wounded comrade safely out of the field.
Among other experiments for the benefit of the tribe, I had adopted a
small black boy. He was formally handed over to me by his grand-uncle,
who informed me that his name was Tommy, and adjured me to "kick him
plenty." With this thoughtful admonition from his only surviving male
relative I did not trouble myself to comply, though it occurred to me
subsequently that it was founded upon a correct analysis of boy nature
generally, and of Master Tommy's in particular. So he was a good deal
spoiled, and, though occasionally useful with the cattle, did pretty
much as he liked, and vexed the soul of good Mrs. Burge continually.
One night, when we had been on the run all day and had found the cattle
much disorganised, we noticed an unusual number and brilliancy of fires
at the black camp in the Rocks. We could generally see their fires in
the distance at night, and could judge of the direction of the camp,
though, owing to the broken nature of the ground, we did not seek to
follow them up, unless when making a _reconnaissance en force_.
On this particular night, however, something more than usual appeared
to be going on. The dogs, too, were uneasy, and I could see that Old Tom
appeared to be perturbed and anxious.
"I wouldn't be putting it past them black divils to be makin' a rush
some night and thryin' to burn the hut on us," he said gloomily. "If we
lave them there, atin' and roastin' away at shins of beef and the
hoighth of good livin', as they have now, they'll think we're afraid,
and there'll be no houldin' them. Ye might get the gintlemen from
Dunmore, and Peter Kearney, and Joe Betts, and Mr. Craufurd, from
Eumeralla, and give them a fright out of that before they rise on us in
rale arnest."
"No, Tom," I said; "I should not think that just or right. I believe
that they have been killing our cattle, but I must catch them in the
act, and know for certain what blacks they are, before I take the law
into my own hands. As to driving them away from the Rocks, it is their
own country, and I will not attack them there till they have done
something in my presence to deserve it."
"Take your own way," said the old man, sullenly. He lit his pipe, and
said no more.
That night, about midnight, the dogs began to bark in a violent and
furious manner, running out into the darkness and returning with all the
appearance of having seen something hostile and unusual. We turned out
promptly, and, gun in hand, went out some distance into the darkness.
The night was of a pitchy Egyptian darkness, in which naught was visible
a hand's breadth before one. Once we heard a low murmur as of cautious
voices, but it ceased. Suddenly the black boy, Tommy, who had crept a
few yards farther, came tearing back past us, and raced into the hut,
where, apparently in an agony of fear, he threw himself down among the
ashes of the fireplace, ejaculating, "Wild blackfellow, wild
blackfellow!" to the great discomposure of Mrs. Burge.
We fired off a gun to let them know that we were prepared, and
separating so that we surrounded the hut on three sides of a front, and
could retreat upon it if hard pressed, awaited the attack.
It was rather an exciting moment. The dark midnight, the intense
stillness, broken only by the baying of the dogs and the "mysterious
sounds of the desert"; the chance of a rush of the wild warriors, who,
if unchecked at the onset, would obliterate our small outpost--all these
ideas passed through my mind in quick succession as we stood to our
guns, and shouted to them to come on.
"But none answered." They probably came near, under cover of the
darkness, and, true to their general tactics, declined to make an attack
when the garrison was prepared. Had they caught us napping, the result
might have been different. This view of the subject was confirmed by
something which happened a little while afterwards, and gave us a most
apposite text on which to enlarge in our memorials to the Government. I
happened to be away with Old Tom on a journey which took us more than a
week. When I returned, "wonderful ashes had fallen on our heads," as
Hadji Baba phrases it. Our homestead had been surprised and taken by the
enemy. They had held possession of the hut for an hour or more, and
cleared it of all that they regarded as valuable. Blood had not been
spilled, but "it was God's mercy," Mrs. Burge said, "that she, and Joe,
and the precious baby had not all been killed and murdered, and eaten,
and all the cattle driven into the Rocks." I began to think that I would
never go away again--certainly not for a few years--if adventures of
this sort were possible in my absence. After a little blowing off of
steam, on Old Tom's part, I gathered from the calmer narrative of Joe
Burge the substance of the affair.