A family of zoologists—Flesh-eating kangaroos—How the ant-eater
propagates—Civilised natives—Weapons and implements—Civilisation
and demoralisation.
[Illustration:
_Nephrurus asper._
]
Some time afterwards I made a journey to the west to a station owned by
Mr. Barnard, and bearing the strange name Coomooboolaroo. The family of
the squatter was particularly interested in natural history, an interest
I had observed in several places, but rarely so marked as here. Mr.
Barnard himself was a very able entomologist, and possessed a fine
collection of insects, which he was constantly increasing. His wife was
a great help to him, and made excellent drawings of the specimens. Their
four sons had a similar taste, and they added to the family museum many
valuable specimens. Upon the whole, these boys were the most skilful
collectors I have ever met. They accompanied me on many excursions into
the woods, when we camped together, and on such occasions I had the best
opportunity of witnessing their matchless skill.
They climbed the trees as easily as any black man. When they had their
tomahawks in their hands no tree was too high for them. Like the blacks,
they cut niches in the bark for the support of their toes, and in this
way they were able to secure insects found only in the highest
tree-tops.
They were always barefooted, in order to get about more easily, and the
stones and uneven ground gave them no trouble on our excursions, as they
planted their supple and sure feet in the most difficult places. Ever on
the alert, nothing escaped their attention. Even when they stood ready
to fire their guns, they would suddenly start off to catch an insect
flying by; and in the woods they were able to seize with their hands,
while running, one beetle after the other that came flying past.
Their keen faculty of observation astonished me again and again. They
studied the life and habits of animals, and gave me much valuable
information, for they knew the fauna of the locality perfectly. They did
not confine themselves to the neighbourhood of the station. Their father
sometimes sent them on long expeditions, and they invariably returned
with large collections.
There were many brush-turkeys (_Talegalla lathami_) in this region. So
far as I am aware, it has not hitherto been known how the young of this
bird work their way out of the peculiar mound in which the eggs are laid
to be hatched by artificial heat, after the custom of the megapodidæ.
Mr. Barnard thinks he has found this out. His sons had at one time
brought home some eggs from such a mound made of earth and decayed
plants. Two of them were laid under a hen, but rotted away. One egg he
placed in a heap of goats’ manure near his house. When a few days later
he went to look after the egg, and carefully removed the covering, he at
once discovered the fact that a little bird was lying on its back and
trying to work its way out of the heap of manure. It had already reached
to within two inches of the surface.
His sons had also, in digging for talegalla eggs, observed young birds
lying on their backs and trying to work their way out with their feet.
The material of the mound seems to be more loosely put together at the
bottom than at the top, where it is made of coarser stuff.
At a station in the neighbourhood there was a tame male talegalla which
lived with the hens. It was in the habit of chasing them together into a
little grove near the house, and the proprietor of the station was
convinced that the bird in this manner was trying to compel the hens to
build a mound. When the hens, not understanding what was expected of
them, ran away, the talegalla would chase them back into the grove, and
at last he became so troublesome that it was found necessary to shoot
him.
Near Fairfield, close to the station, my young assistants found, in the
month of September, nests belonging to the beautiful Australian parrot
_Platycercus pulcherrimus_. Usually the nests were several miles apart.
The eggs were partly hatched. The strange fact about these nests is that
they are built in the hills of “the white ants.” There is an irregular
entrance about two inches in diameter and about a foot above the ground.
In the interior the parrot makes an opening about a foot high and two or
three feet in diameter. None of the building material is carried away,
but all the cells and canals are trampled down, so that there remains
simply a wall one or two inches thick around the whole nest. Here the
female lays five white eggs.
In this locality there were countless kangaroos. Though these animals
are really harmless, still the colonists keep at a respectful distance
from an old kangaroo which has been driven to a tree by the dogs. This
is not surprising, when we learn that in a sitting posture it may attain
a height of six to seven feet. A specimen measuring eight feet has been
shot. It is said that the male marsupials, particularly kangaroos,
continue to grow as long as they live. The kangaroos never make an
attack, but I know of instances when this animal has given proof not
only of its strength but also of its fearlessness.
Mr. Barnard informed me that his dogs were one day chasing an old
kangaroo when an ox-driver happened to be passing with his waggon. At
the sight of the animal the man ran behind his waggon to avoid the
kangaroo, which was advancing toward him, but when it came near the
ox-driver it made a jump sideways, seized him, and carried him about
twelve paces, until the dogs compelled the powerful animal to let go of
its victim.
A stalwart Highland shepherd was on his way home one evening with his
dog, when suddenly he discovered a large object in front of him. Having
lately come to Australia he had scarcely seen one of these animals
before, and being very superstitious, he thought it was the devil
himself. Meanwhile his dog attacked the monster, but instead of taking
flight it assumed the form of a great kangaroo, came up to the shepherd,
put its large arms around him, and hopped away with him. The dog pursued
the bold robber until the latter let go of its victim, after having
carried him ten to twelve paces.
On another occasion, when Mr. Barnard was out riding with some of his
friends, he met an “old man kangaroo.” One of the company galloped after
it and struck it several times with his whip, so as to compel it to sit
down and thus be more easily subdued; but suddenly the kangaroo turned,
clasped its arms round the neck of the horse, so that it was hanging
with its breast against the head of the horse. In this position the
kangaroo made desperate efforts to rip the horse’s belly open with its
large claw, while the horse, on the other hand, leapt about frantically
to get rid of its unwelcome embraces. That it was difficult for the
rider to keep his place in the saddle it is not necessary to state. The
scene was so comical that his companions were hardly able to give him
the necessary assistance as soon as they ought to have done.
When a kangaroo with a big young one in its pouch is pursued, it will
throw it out of the pouch in order to make its escape easier. This done,
the mother runs in a zigzag direction, probably to draw the attention of
the pursuer away from the young, which lies perfectly still where it is
dropped. A kangaroo never carries different broods in its pouch; but a
well-grown one may often be seen following its mother while she is
carrying a little one in her pouch.
I am able to relate, as a most remarkable fact, that a wallaroo, a
peculiar kind of kangaroo (_Macropus robustus_), which was kept tame at
a station, showed a marked fondness for animal food, particularly for
boiled salt beef. A dove had been its companion, and these two animals
were the best of friends for half a year, when the wallaroo one day
killed its companion and partly ate it. This wallaroo had been captured
while young, and had been brought up on milk, bread, and fresh grass. As
an analogous circumstance I may mention that rabbits which have been
brought up together with chickens have killed the latter and eaten some
of their flesh.
I brought many interesting things from my sojourn at Coomooboolaroo,
among others a fine collection of _Buprestidæ_. The strange-looking
lizard at the beginning of this chapter, _Nephrurus asper_, and the
_Bolboceras rhinoceros_, given on a separate plate, are also from this
locality. In the evenings a number of insects usually came flying into
the house, attracted by the light, and in this manner I caught this rare
beetle and many other specimens. On the ground near the station there
were large flocks of cockatoos. With their powerful beaks they dug up
roots of a grass (_Panicum semialatum_) of which they are very fond. It
interested me to observe that among the many kinds of grass, so similar
in appearance that a superficial observer would take them to be
identical, the cockatoos never failed to find at once the one they
wanted. One day the rare hawk variety _Astur radiatus_ was shot near the
station while it was consuming a white cockatoo it had caught. The nest,
found close by in the top of a high Moreton Bay ash, resembled the nests
of other hawks, and contained two eggs, of a dirty white colour, with a
few irregular light brown marks (length 2⁵⁄₁₆ inches, breadth 1¹⁵⁄₁₆
inch).
One of my chief occupations during these days was the study of the spiny
ant-eaters’ mode of propagation. One of my young friends at the station
and a black man had found a spiny ant-eater (_Echidna_), from whose
pouch they took an egg which, according to their description, was not
quite half the size of a hen’s egg, and the shell of which was like
leather and resembled that of an “iguana” egg. This egg, however, had
been destroyed, and so I resolved to do all in my power to investigate
the matter, and had a large number of ant-eaters examined. My
investigations extended from the beginning of February to the middle of
March, and I made the observation that the ovaries were constantly
growing in size during this time. As I had to leave Australia at the end
of March, I unfortunately was unable to continue my observations to the
end of the development, but still I came to the conclusion that the
reports I had received from the blacks corresponded with the facts, as
has since been demonstrated in other quarters. According to the
statements of the blacks, the ant-eaters were to have young in April or
May. The nearly mature eggs, lying in the ovaries and taken from a
full-grown specimen, in the beginning of March measured about ⅑ of an
inch[21] in diameter. The _mammæ_ of the same individual were large and
swollen, and contained much milk. The ovaries are very much like those
of birds in appearance, but are distinguished from the latter by the
fact that the right and left ovary are of the same size, while in birds
only one ovary is usually developed.
Footnote 21:
Prof. G. A. Guldberg: _Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Eierstockeier bei
Echidna_. Jena, 1885.
[Illustration:
NATIVES FROM THE VICINITY OF ROCKHAMPTON.
]
In August of the same year the English naturalist Mr. Caldwell
established the fact that the spiny ant-eater actually lays eggs, and he
has shown that the same is the case with the ornithorhynchus. The egg,
which was found at the same time by Mr. Haacke in Adelaide, was ¾ of an
inch in diameter, and had a shell like parchment, which was broken by a
slight pressure of the finger. As is well known, turtles and other
reptiles have eggs of this kind. By this important discovery it is
therefore established that the ant-eater and the ornithorhynchus nurse
their young with milk as do other mammals, but that they lay eggs like
birds and reptiles.
The natives occasionally came to Gracemere either to fish in the lagoon
or to gather the roots of the blue water-lily, which they use as food.
It is claimed that the blacks of this part of Australia are familiar
with the use of stimulants. If the leaves of _Erythroxylon australis_,
which is common in the scrubs near Rockhampton, possess stimulating
qualities similar to those of South America’s _Erythroxylon coca_
(“cocaine”), then we may presume that the blacks are aware of it.
At the lower part of Fitzroy river the natives used to catch mullets
with their hand-nets in the winter season; they knew by the appearance
of a certain star, which they called “Nia,” that the mullet was coming
down the river to spawn, and they always caught a great number of this
fish that were full of roe.
[Illustration:
BROW-BAND FROM CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (⅓ size).
]
The Australian natives are very skilful in various kinds of handiwork,
but their talent manifests itself in different ways. One may excel in
making baskets, another in producing the best fishing-nets, a third the
best weapons, etc. I purchased a number of articles from the natives of
Central Queensland. Near the coast I secured several bands for the
forehead, remarkable for their solidity and beauty. The little bags,
which they plait with great skill, are also very strong and pretty. Some
of these things are made from cotton thread, but the most common
material is the so-called opossum yarn—that is, hairs pulled out of the
opossum skin (_Irichosurus vulpecula_) and twisted into threads between
the flat hand and the thigh. From this yarn the blacks make a little
apron, worn about the waist in this part of Australia. Opossum yarn is
also worn in bunches on various parts of the body, for instance round
the loins or over one shoulder. Sometimes a “band” of this sort is
thrown over each shoulder, in such a way that they form a cross on the
breast and on the back. I have even seen civilised blacks wearing these
bands under their clothes, but their purpose I do not know. The natives
are very willing to part with them. Frequently five or six threads of
opossum yarn are twisted together to form a plain ornament about the
wrist or neck. Opossum skins are also sewed together and used partly as
articles of clothing, partly as mats.
[Illustration:
OPOSSUM THREAD (¹⁄₁ size).
]
Their shields are small, and as a rule are made of the light cork-tree
(_Erythrina vespertilio_). The front side is rather curved, while the
reverse is flat and furnished with a little handle cut out of the shield
itself. Like most of the weapons of the natives, the shield is carved
and then usually painted with white and red.
[Illustration:
APRON MADE FROM OPOSSUM YARN, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (¼ size).
]
Wooden swords are rare, and differ from those of Northern Queensland,
being more curved, not so broad, and usually coloured with cross-bars of
chalk. A weapon even more rare is the so-called _bendi_. It resembles a
small pickaxe, and is made of the _Eucalyptus exserata_, called by the
natives bendo. The bend or curve forms a right angle, and ends in a
point, the wood itself giving the weapon this form. Bendi is not a
javelin, but a weapon to strike with, and with it the natives try to hit
the kidneys of their opponents; for these they regard as the seat of
life.
[Illustration:
SHIELDS FROM CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (⅐ size).
Showing a part of the inner side with the handle.
]
The spears of these natives are thrown by the hand alone, without the
aid of any other implement. Near the point the spear has two to four
enlargements resembling rings, and as the latter are rifled, they form a
sort of barb.
[Illustration:
WOODEN SWORD (⅒ size).
]
[Illustration:
BENDI FROM COOMOOBOOLAROO, CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (⅐ size).
]
The most important weapon of the Australian native is the tomahawk,
which is made of basalt, greenstone, or some other hard stone, sometimes
even of phonolite. The natives have been known to travel great distances
in order to secure, by barter from foreign tribes, the best material,
and thus trading centres sprang up in some districts. The stone is
either cut into the proper shape, or one is used which is naturally of
the correct form, and the edge is generally made sharp by whetting. The
handle is invariably made by bending a piece of vine stalk round the
stone, and then tying the ends of the stalk together with withies as
close under the stone as possible; gum is also put on to make the joint
more firm. Axes with holes through them have not been found. The
Australian makes most of his weapons with the tomahawk, which also
serves as his most important weapon for the chase, and which he is never
without. All kinds of fine work are performed with the aid of pieces of
hard stone, which he usually fastens to a handle and uses as a chisel.
For carving he uses implements of stone or of bone.
[Illustration:
A SPEAR FROM THE COAST OF CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (¼ size).
]
[Illustration:
CRYSTALLINE AXE FROM PEAK DOWNS IN CENTRAL QUEENSLAND (½ size).
]
An idea of the culture of the Australian is easily gained by examining
his weapons and implements. They are made mostly of wood, and bows and
arrows are unknown. On Herbert river the natives employ javelins almost
exclusively for hunting, but when in the dense scrubs they are as a rule
unarmed. If they discover an animal they break branches off the trees,
and try to kill it with these. They are generally successful, for most
of the animals frequent the trees, and escape is therefore difficult
when the natives make an attack from all sides and surround them. When
an animal has been slain and is to be prepared for food, the belly is
opened by the first stone or piece of wood found suitable for the
purpose. The game is divided for distribution either with a stone or
with the teeth, which are also largely used for breaking off limbs of
trees and for making implements. The knives used by the natives of
Australia are either pieces of hard stone accidentally found ready for
use, or are secured by breaking pieces off the rock, but not much
additional labour is bestowed on them, though they are sometimes shaped
or fastened with glue to a kind of wooden handle. On the other hand, the
natives understand how to polish their tomahawks; and when tribes have
been found who had only roughly worked ones, the reason is not ignorance
in polishing, but that the hardness of the material made the tomahawks
quite sharp enough without it. Still, it will be seen that the
aboriginal Australian has not advanced very far in the stone age.
When the natives become “civilized” they at once exchange their stone
weapons for the white man’s weapons of iron. They are particularly fond
of his tomahawk. Even on Herbert river the stone axe had given place to
the latter tool, which however was so rare in some parts that a whole
tribe sometimes had to be satisfied with one or two implements of this
kind. Blacks who have never seen a white man occasionally get iron
implements by bartering with other tribes. After becoming civilised the
Australian native begins to make tomahawks from broken horse-shoes or
from some other piece of iron, and to stud his club with nails. There
are instances on record where the natives have cut down the telegraph
poles and used the wire for spear points and fish-hooks. After becoming
acquainted with the use of iron, the black man makes but little use of
his wooden weapons and implements, and strange to say, does not make
them so nicely as formerly, when his tools were inferior. He also takes
less pains with all kinds of carving.
The natives of Central Queensland have, as a matter of course,
obtained that kind of civilisation which necessarily results from a
prolonged intercourse with the white population. They have long since
recognised the superiority of Europeans, and the new condition of
things is leading them to give up their former occupations. The most
capable ones become servants at the stations, partly as cooks, partly
as stock-men and shepherds, and they are of considerable use to the
white population; but the great mass of them prefer to enjoy their
liberty, while at the same time contact with the white man gives their
life and habits a new character. The settlers are on account of their
flocks obliged to encroach on the hunting-grounds of the black, and
the natives, who have no thought of the future or of posterity, are
satisfied with the advantages obtained in exchange for the loss of
their hunting-grounds—that is, they get the leavings from the kitchen
and the slaughter-house, milk, old clothes, tobacco, etc. Sometimes
the squatter appoints the best native near his station a “king,” and
as a mark of this dignity he gives him a piece of brass containing his
civilised name to wear on his breast. In return for food, tobacco,
woollen blankets, and similar things, the “king” promises to watch his
tribe, and keep them from doing damage to the white man’s property.
Every native is anxious to become “king,” for the brass plate, which
is considered a great ornament, also secures the bearer many a meal.
At first, while the natives are more or less dangerous, a chief of
this kind may be very valuable to a squatter, who may in this way be
warned of attacks from hostile tribes, but after the natives have
become quiet and peaceable the institution is of value only to the
bearer of the brass plate, who continues to demand his pay.
[Illustration:
“KING BILLY OF GRACEMERE” WITH HIS “GIN” (WIFE).
]
The degeneration and demoralisation of the natives, which are an
inevitable result of the march of civilisation, are already far advanced
even in this part of Australia. The natives become more indolent, and
they lose their former self-reliance and independence after they acquire
the habit of relying on what they can get from the white man. They spend
most of their time near the stations and villages, where they are able
to obtain liquor and opium, for which the Chinese immigrants soon give
them a taste. I cannot conceive a more disgusting sight than a camp of
such ragged, impudent blacks marked by all the vices of civilisation. To
me, coming from Northern Queensland, where the natives still were in
their pristine vigour, the picture was an exceedingly sad one, when I
considered the future awaiting the friends I had left there.
Shortly before my return to Europe I visited a camp of “civilised”
blacks near Rockhampton. Even before reaching the camp I felt the smell
of opium, and on coming nearer I was the witness of a most disgusting
scene. Around the camp fires sat natives pale as death itself. The
opium-pipe was constantly in their mouths and their eyes stared out
bewildered from their deep hollow sockets. I approached the man whom I
wanted to see. He had lost his flesh, and his skin had become yellow and
sickly. It was all he could do to stammer forth a request for money to
buy more opium. A month ago I had seen him strong and well, now he was a
mere skeleton and presumably on the brink of the grave.
I turned my face away from this horrible scene and mounted my horse, sad
to think that this was to be my last impression of the world of the
blacks.