Respect for right of property—New country—My camp—Mountain
ascent—Tree-ferns—A dangerous nettle—A night in a cavern—Art among
the blacks—Eatable larvæ—_Omelette aux coléoptères_—Music of the
blacks—Impudent begging.
I was now to make an expedition to Willy’s much-lauded country, taking
both him and his friend Chinaman into my service, and retaining some of
my previous companions. On account of the recent borboby, several of my
men were supplied with swords and spears. As they would have no use for
them, they hid them in the course of the day under a bush for some other
occasion. I never heard of such things being stolen from them. They
always left them in the fullest confidence that they would find them
again. The contrary is the case with provisions, which they sometimes
conceal in this manner; every man will take what food he can lay his
hands on. There is, however, considerable respect for the right of
property, and they do not steal from one another to any great extent.
If, for instance, a native finds a hive of honey in a tree, but has not
an immediate opportunity of chopping it out, he can safely leave it till
some other day; the discoverer owns it, and nobody else will touch it if
he has either given an account of it or marked the tree, as is the
custom in some parts of Western Queensland. If they hunt they will not
take another person’s game, all the members of the same tribe having
apparently full confidence in each other. Thus the right of property is
to a certain extent respected; but least of all, as has before been
pointed out, when it concerns their dearest possession—the women. But it
is, of course, solely among members of the same tribe that there is so
great a difference between mine and thine; strange tribes look upon each
other as wild beasts.
The road was very difficult. We climbed hills and marched through deep
valleys, and sometimes had to fell the trees in order to get through. I
was surprised to see how quickly the blacks cut down the trees with
their tomahawks. Though I was stronger than they, still they brought a
tree down more rapidly, because they understood how to give the axe more
force. After riding for some time up a grassy slope, which at length
became perfectly level, we suddenly caught sight of a broad and long
scrub-grown mountain valley, through which there flowed a river, which
now foamed in rapid currents and now fell over high precipices, forming
magnificent waterfalls. The roar of the waters and the dark green
vegetation clothing the hills on both sides of the valley from base to
top made me cheerful, and awakened in me hopes of interesting finds.
Against the dark green background the palms stood out in strong contrast
among the lower parts of the scrub. There were great numbers of these
stately trees, with their bright, glittering crowns towering far above
the rest of the forest.
An air of indescribable freshness seemed to breathe upon us as we
entered the last grassy plateau. Willy proposed that we should build our
huts in a different manner from what we had done before. His motive was,
of course, laziness, for he wanted to avoid fetching palm leaves from
the scrub, but his proposition was a fortunate one, for I thereby
obtained a more solid hut than I should otherwise have had. He hewed the
stems of some slender trees, and made four short fork-shaped stakes, the
lower ends of which were sharpened so as to be easily driven into the
ground. The stakes were put in a square, and were scarcely a yard high.
In the forks long branches were laid, and over these the roof was made
with more branches and long dry grass. I made myself a very comfortable
bed of leaves and grass, spreading a mackintosh over the latter, and
using some of the things I carried with me for a pillow; among these was
my dearest treasure—the tobacco. By my side was my gun, which was always
my faithful bedfellow.
While we were occupied in making the huts, Chinaman had disappeared. He
soon returned with a large number of jungle-hens or _grauan_
(_Megapodius tumulus_), a name applied by the natives both to the bird
and to its eggs. This was Chinaman’s own “land,” and so he knew every
spot in the forest, and particularly all the mounds in which
jungle-hens’ eggs were to be found. November was just the time for the
_grauan_, which is found in great abundance in the lower part of the
scrubs, but not higher up, where the _cootjari_ (_Talegalla_) takes its
place.
[Illustration:
JUNGLE-HEN (_Megapodius tumulus_).
]
The eggs are about four times the size of hens’ eggs, and are prepared
and eaten in the following original manner: The blacks, having first
made a hole on one side of the egg, place it on the hot ashes, and after
a minute or two the contents begin to boil. Two objects are gained by
making a hole in the egg—in the first place it does not break easily,
and in the second place it can be eaten while lying boiling in the
ashes. They dip into the egg the end of a cane that has been chewed so
as to form a brush, and use this as a spoon.
As is well known, the jungle-hen, like the brush-turkey (_Talegalla_),
hatches her eggs in a large mound, which she constructs herself from
earth and all sorts of vegetable debris; and the heat generated in the
mound by the fermenting of the decaying vegetable matter is sufficient
for hatching the eggs. Several females use the same mound, and the eggs
being laid at long intervals, they are, of course, in different stages
of development. As a rule there are chickens in them, but far from being
rejected these eggs are preferred to the fresh ones. If the chicken is
about half developed and lies, so to speak, in its own sauce, the
natives first eat with their “spoons” the white and what remains of the
yolk, and then the egg is crushed and the chicken taken out. The down
having been removed, the chicken is laid on the coals, and then
eaten—head, claws, and all.
The next day we made our ascent along the river. We had to wade most of
the time. The natives made the most remarkable progress, stepping
lightly on the stones, while I with my shoes on could scarcely keep pace
with them. It was a long and difficult road to travel. Weary and
thirsty, I often stooped to drink the cool water, and to bathe my head
in it. But I was cheered by the sight of the luxuriant and beautiful
surroundings. Trees and bushes formed a wall along the mountain stream,
overhanging the babbling water. In the woods all was dark and damp, but
on gazing upward I saw the tree-tops flooded with the most brilliant
sunlight, which occasionally penetrated through the branches, and above
us was spread the sky in an infinite expanse of azure blue. Occasionally
among the trees I caught a glimpse of the hills, rising on both sides in
a mass of green of the most varied shades and tints. Here and there
could be seen the tall slender stem of the common Australian palm, or of
the fan-palm with its large glistening leaves.
Now and then we startle from its branch the beautiful little indigo blue
and red kingfisher (_Alcyone azurea_), which with quick wing-strokes
flies before us up the stream. Among the tree-tops the large brilliant
blue or green butterflies (_Ornithoptera_) flutter. In the water pools
were seen numerous crawfish, which the natives are fond of spearing with
a stiff palm branch sharpened at one end, which they thrust down to the
creature, at the same time uttering a low babbling sound to attract its
attention. The crawfish takes hold of the stake; a quick thrust with the
nimble hand of the black man, and it is pierced by the point.
As we ascend, the landscape gradually grows wilder and more picturesque.
The river gorge becomes narrower, the amount of water diminishes, and no
more kingfishers are seen. The palms are replaced by gigantic
tree-ferns, which here, in the damp rocky clefts, spread their mighty
leaves in all their splendour over trickling brooks, which frequently
disappear in little waterfalls down steep precipices. To form an idea of
the size of these ferns I broke off one of the secondary leaves, and
found that it reached up to my chin, but I saw several that were much
larger. The effects of light and shade are magnificent here, the scenery
is simply overwhelming in its splendour, and yet there is no one to
admire all this beauty save the blacks, who do not comprehend it!
Thus approaching the end of our day’s march, and making our way up among
the rocks, Willy, who led the way, suddenly stopped, and gave me to
understand that I must come to him quickly with my gun. But before I got
half way the animal had disappeared. It was a young yarri, which he had
frightened up from its lair only a few steps away. Willy might have
killed it with his tomahawk, but neglected to do so, as he had
contracted the habit of thinking that everything must be shot with the
gun, in whose fatal and unerring influence my blacks had acquired great
confidence, and for this reason they usually left it to me to kill the
game we happened to find. On account of Willy’s stupidity we this time
failed to secure this rare animal. Then we had a difficult march over
debris of round stones or in thorny scrubs. Among these thick masses of
stony debris there grew tall, slender, foliferous trees, and here it was
that my blacks expected to find boongary; for the leaves of these trees
are their principal food. Where no trees grew, creeping plants covered
the debris like a carpet, which made walking dangerous, for the stones
would roll away, while our feet stuck fast in this net of climbing
plants.
On the summit we also meet with scenes of a wholly different character.
Here is the real home of the lawyer-palm, which grows on small hills,
where the soil consists of a deep black mould, and consequently is so
fertile that it produces everything in the greatest abundance. Progress
is difficult here, because this palm grows into immense heaps twenty to
twenty-eight feet high, one by the side of the other, and often firmly
woven together. In this way large connected masses are formed, appearing
like an impenetrable wall. But the native usually finds a narrow
passage, through which he can crawl, but not without getting badly
scratched.
In this dense and pathless forest the boongary has his home, and we
found many traces of the animal, some of them quite recent, both on the
high slender stems and on the smaller trees of the scrub.
Working our way up the side of the mountain near the summit, the natives
called my attention to an animal the size of a cat, which ran about in
the branches of a tree. They called it toollah. It was late in the
afternoon when I killed this animal, which proved to be a kind of
opossum now known in zoology by the name of _Pseudochirus archeri_; it
has a peculiar greenish-yellow colour with a few indistinct stripes of
black or white, and thus looks very much like a moss-grown tree-trunk.
Though it is a night animal, it also comes out about three or four
o’clock in the afternoon, and is the only one of the family which
appears in the daytime.
One of the greatest annoyances in this almost inaccessible region is the
poisonous nettle, the stinging-tree (_Laportea moroides_). It is so
poisonous that if its beautiful heart-shaped leaves are only put in
motion they cause you to sneeze. The fruit resembles raspberries in
appearance, the leaves are covered with nettles on both sides, and a
sting from them gives great pain. It will make a dog howl with all his
might; but it has an especially violent effect on horses. They roll
themselves as if mad from pain, and if they do not at once receive
attention they will in this way kill themselves, as frequently happens
in Northern Queensland. The natives greatly dread being stung by this
nettle, and always avoid it. If you are stung in the hand you soon feel
a pricking pain up the whole arm, and finally in the lymphatic glands of
the armpit. You sleep restlessly the first night. The pain gradually
leaves the arm, but for two to three weeks you have a sense of having
burned your hand if the latter comes in contact with water, for then the
pain at once returns where you were stung by the nettle.
[Illustration:
Harald Jensen lith. Hoffensberg & Trap^ṣ Etabl.
PSEUDOCHIRUS ARCHERI. N.SP.
]
Still, I found the fear of this nettle to be exaggerated. If you at once
put on some of the juice of the plant called _Colocasia macrorhiza_,
which resembles an _arum_, and which is always found growing near the
nettle, the pain is soothed and the effect of the poison neutralised.
This sharp white juice, which is itself poisonous, produces a violent
smarting pain where the skin is thin, as for instance on the lips.
It is a remarkable fact that the antidote to this poisonous nettle
always grows in its immediate vicinity, and I cannot help thinking of a
parallel case, viz. _kusso_ and _kamala_, the best remedies for
tape-worm, which are found in Abyssinia, the home of the tape-worm.
One night we spent in a cave near the brook. I had some hesitation at
first in spending the night in these scrubs, where the air is unhealthy
and apt to produce fever. Four white men died in one week in the scrubs
along Johnston river. But I assumed that I, being by this time used to
the climate, could sleep there as well as the blacks, who did so without
injury. Besides, the lower scrubs are surely much more unhealthy than
those farther up the mountains, and I had never suffered any harm from
stopping in them overnight. The cave was not large, and was low, cold,
and damp, and thus not very inviting. We had but its naked stones for a
couch, for there was of course no grass to be found in the scrub. A big
fire was kindled; outside it was pitch dark.
My blacks had found in a large fallen tree some larvæ of beetles
(_Coleoptera_), on which we feasted. There are several varieties of
these edible larvæ, and all have a different taste. The best one is
glittering white, of the thickness of a finger, and is found in the
acacia-trees. The others live in the scrubs, and are smaller, and not
equal to the former in flavour. The blacks are so fond of them that they
even eat them alive while they pick them out of the decayed trunk of a
tree—a not very attractive spectacle. The larvæ were usually collected
in baskets and so taken to the camp. The Australian does not as a rule
eat raw animal food; the only exception I know of being these coleoptera
larvæ.
[Illustration:
Edible Beetle (_Eurynassa australis_) (natural size).
]
[Illustration:
Larva of Same (natural size).
]
The large fire crackled lustily in the cave while we sat round it
preparing the larvæ. We simply placed them in the red-hot ashes, where
they at once became brown and crisp, and the fat fairly bubbled in them
while they were being thus prepared. After being turned once or twice
they were thrown out from the ashes with a stick, and were ready to be
eaten. Strange to say, these larvæ were the best food the natives were
able to offer me, and the only kind which I really enjoyed. If such a
larva is broken in two, it will be found to consist of a yellow and
tolerably compact mass rather like an omelette. In taste it resembles an
egg, but it seemed to me that the best kind, namely the acacia larva,
which has the flavour of nuts, tasted even better than a European
omelette. The natives always consumed the entire larva, while I usually
bit off the head and threw aside the skin, but my men always consumed my
leavings with great gusto. They also ate the beetles as greedily as the
larvæ, simply removing the hard wings before roasting them. The natives
are also fond of eating the larger species of wood-beetles. Some
crawfish, moreover, were roasted, and had as fine a flavour as those in
Europe; unfortunately there were not many of them.
In the strong light from the fire my eyes discovered on the roof of the
cave some figures made by the blacks who frequented these regions: these
figures represented a man and a woman with a baby. The drawing consisted
merely of a few lines scratched with charcoal and red paint, and the
figures had large spreading fingers and toes. They were upon the whole
very imperfect, still not without symmetry; the left side was precisely
like the right, but apart from this the figures were very irregular. The
natives can draw pictures only of the crudest kind. I once showed them
my photograph, but they had no idea of what it was meant to represent,
or of how it was to be held; they turned it upside down and every other
way, but the Kanaka, who was present, at once knew what it was. The
civilised blacks, on the other hand, have a clearer notion of pictures,
and easily recognise a person from a photograph.
In the morning we were roused by the lively singing of birds. Most
prominent was the monotonous and persistent sound of a bird which the
blacks call towdala, on account of its unceasing chattering. Its breast
is reddish-brown; it is about as large as a quail, is very shy, and
usually stays on the ground, moving very rapidly. This morning one was
sitting on the other side of the river singing so persistently and so
loudly that it irritated one of the natives, who tried to drive it away,
throwing stones at it. The bird (_Orthonyx spaldingii_) is inseparably
connected with the scrubs, and keeps up a lively song morning and
evening. Though its song is monotonous, I always liked to hear its
jubilant and happy voice.
In the sand along the stream the common “water-iguana” had laid its
eggs, which are so well concealed that it is almost impossible to find
them, but nothing escapes the keen eyes of the natives. Every now and
then they dig out the eggs, which are not, however, very numerous in any
one place. They also occasionally succeed in capturing the lizard
itself, or in killing it by throwing sticks at it. It usually lies
resting near the stream, but is very shy, and on being disturbed
disappears into the water with a great splash. Both the lizard, which
tastes like a chicken, and its eggs are eagerly eaten by the natives.
We spent several nights at our headquarters in this beautiful and
invigorating mountain region. When we had eaten our supper and put all
things to rights we laid ourselves round the fire, feeling very
comfortable after the fatiguing journeys of the day. One of the natives
then usually sang a song while lying on his back, accompanying himself
with two wooden sticks. The song was, as usual, a ceaseless repetition
of a couple of strophes, each one of which ended in a long monotonous
series of deep tones by which the strophe was repeated. To be able to
hold the last tone very long is a sign of ability to sing well. If a
song has been known a long time in a tribe, it gradually loses its
popularity, and gives place to a new composition, which is either
original or borrowed from a neighbouring tribe. But they do not often
have the opportunity of learning new songs, and consequently their
repertoire is very limited. The song in vogue at this time, and which
was sung repeatedly, was as follows:—
[Music:
_Tempo di marcia._
Mol-le-mom-bâ va-ri-nâ (â) mombâ va-ri - nâ
Kat - su - râ in-dan-gô gân-go-ril - la
mol-le-mom-bâ va - ri - nâ mom-bâ
va - ri - nâ kat-su-bu - râ in-dan-go gan-go-
ril - la mol - le - mom-bâ va - ri - nâ mom-bâ
va - ri - nâ kat-su-bu - râ in-dan-gô gan-go-
ril - la - - - -
It is a remarkable fact that they themselves sometimes do not understand
the words which they sing, the song having been learned from a tribe
which speaks another dialect. Thus a good song will travel from tribe to
tribe. I heard the above-quoted song sung by “civilised” blacks near
Rockhampton, 500 miles due south of Herbert Vale. Doubtless it
originated in the vicinity of Rockhampton, and accordingly it must have
travelled through “many lands” before it came to the savages in the
mountains on Herbert river, where it was sung without being understood.
They rarely sing without accompaniment. The singer produces this by
beating a boomerang against a nolla-nolla, the former hitting the latter
with both ends, but not quite simultaneously. When weapons are wanting,
pieces of wood are used. Sometimes they also have their own musical
instrument. It is a somewhat thick piece of hard wood in the form of a
club. But this, their only musical instrument, is rare, and I only saw
it once on Herbert river.
The natives have a better ear for rhythm than for melody. Still I
learned from them a few tolerably melodious songs, as for instance the
one above quoted. They took no interest whatever in my songs. There was
but one of them that they could appreciate at all, and this only when
strongly accentuated, namely, Erik Bögh’s: “I have sailed around the
world, and I have walked many a mile.” But I did not often attempt to
entertain so unappreciative an audience.
Their voices are hoarse, but never seem to give out. The singer in the
camp usually sits with his legs crossed before the fire. As a rule only
one, but sometimes two, sing at a time, accompanying themselves, but
they never sing in chorus. A black man rambling among the trees alone
may at times be heard making the woods echo with his joyful song. He
feels free and happy in his native hunting-grounds. The following
war-song, which celebrates the knob on the throwing-stick, I used to
hear in the woods on Herbert river:—
[Music:
_Andante_
Wom - bon ma - ræ - ry! Wom - bon ma-
ræ - ry! mo - ri - dan ko - by bee - bon bindalgoh!
The women are also sometimes heard singing in the woods, but hardly ever
in the camp.
The Australian natives are gay and happy, but their song is rather
melancholy, and in excellent harmony with the sombre nature of
Australia. It awakened feelings of sadness in me when I heard it from
the solemn gum-tree forest, accompanied by the monotonous clatter of the
two wooden weapons.
My men were in good spirits on this expedition, and they sang nearly
every night of their own accord. The sole cause of their happiness was
that they received plenty of the white man’s food. I had taken with me
an abundance of provisions, and I distributed them liberally, on the
false assumption that the more I gave them the better they would work.
Though I had long been careful to give them nothing gratis, and always
to demand work for what I bestowed, I had not yet learned to give them
_only_ fair compensation, for the more they get the more they want. To
be liberal is simply dangerous, for they assume that the gift is
bestowed out of fear, and they look upon the giver as a person easy to
kill. Too great liberality demoralises them. They become exacting and
disobedient, and finally treacherously assault the giver.
As long as they understand that they can have advantages from a white
man, they let him live. The one thing which keeps them from killing him
is fear.
After having received all the food they wanted they became lazy, and
demanded a fuller compensation for their work. Their demands increased
day by day, and were no longer limited to food, but gradually included
the most unreasonable things, such as the clothes I wore, not to mention
my weapons and the whole supply of tobacco.
One morning when Willy and I went out to get the horses, he boldly
demanded the trousers I was wearing. When I positively refused to give
them to him, he wanted to borrow them to protect himself from the dew on
the grass, which he said annoyed him.
No matter how much they had eaten, they never said no when I, in
excessive liberality, offered them more food. They laid by what they did
not eat, but I did not scold them, for I was anxious to keep them in my
service. It soon became plain to me, however, that I must take a
different course if I wished to save my life.