ACT III.--Each of the noisy players came suddenly into the glare

carrying a rotund, compact bundle, and, squatting down, began with

grunts and sighs the great “coco-nut” act, obviously one of the

masterpieces of the corroboree. In perfect time the sham coco-nuts

were beaten with hands in lieu of sticks or tomahawks, while the

accompaniment became faster and faster. Ever and anon each, still

rocking, would peer closely at his prize to satisfy himself as to its

quality, and forthwith continue the resonant belabouring of the shell,

until the meat therein was available with joyous shout.

ACT IV.--Most of the accumulated bark and leaves having by this time

passed into flame and smoke, the attendants raided the nearest gunyah

for fresh supplies of material for illumination. The big fires lit up

the arena anew, and, marshalled by the conductor, the band rushed out

of the darkness uttering grunts which rang a change on the monotony of

previous vocal efforts. A masterpiece of composition, it conjured up the

dimness of the jungle and the smell of damp vegetation. All squatted in

a double ring, back to back. This formation was not strictly maintained,

for each individual made half turns to right and left alternately,

simultaneously scratching the sand with distended fingers and kicking

vigorously until the sand ascended in the smoke-tinged glow, heads

bowing and ducking with mechanical regularity, as the entertainers

sought--and with conspicuous success--to portray a community of scrub

turkeys building an incubating mound.

Then it was that the favourite and belle of the camp, the fascinating

creature whose magnificent condition bestowed privileges undreamt of

by other ladies, became conspicuous. Her costume had evidently been

designed for a lady not divinely tall, but considerably less of flesh

than the wearer. Maria did not actually overflow, though perilously near

that point. Surely buttons were never designed to resist such strain.

Coloured ladies generally sit meekly among the audience and chatter

and maintain the drum-beats, lacking which no corroboree could be

successful. During the intervals they may emboss pictures in the

impressionable sand with cunning forefinger and giggle, for the subjects

are often quaint. Maria, sure of her privileges, waddled out from the

flame-obscuring dusk, turned an ample back upon the double ring of boys,

and played her part as one of the giddy and industrious wild-fowls. Her

fingers scratched the air and her feet the dust with a realism not to

be excelled by the most gifted of the boys, while her half grunt, half

chuckle, exactly imitative of the social garrulity of the turkey, gave

artistic finish to a scene which would have been absolutely delusive

if feathers had been in fashion. Maria, a fleer at mere ponderosity,

skipped and whisked from left to right with fay-like airiness of foot

until a thrill of delight went through the camp. The frolicsome turkeys

scratched and scattered leaves that were not, and gobbled and clucked,

until, panting and perspiring, all rose, and with a simultaneous

shout scampered for the screen, while the master of ceremonies shouted

“Finis!” The music ceased, the flames faded, and substantial Maria

dissolved in the gloom.

SOOSIE

“No legend! Well, let us invent one.”--SCOTT.

A crinkled fist, fumbling and twisting, protruded from a rent in a

dilapidated dilly-bag. It had done so with infinite feebleness for many

an hour in unavailing protest against the woes and weight of life, for

faint scratch smeared with blood denoted the friction of tender skin

against the broken edges of the cane-made bag.

A scarcely audible, inhuman wail--pathetically staccato--told of

unceasing pain. Whomsoever the bag contained was enduring martyrdom.

“That fella, him no good. Close up finis. B'mbi me plant'm along scrub.”

Thus spoke the pleasant-faced gin who passed with the dilly-bag along a

narrow aisle of the jungle, intent upon ridding herself of a vexatious

encumbrance, and at the same time performing the rite of unrighteous

burial.

Squirming in dirt was a naked infant-black, foul, and but a few days

old.

“Mother belonga that fella him dead--finis. That fella, him no good. Him

sing out all a time. More better tchuck'm away.”

Frail outcast--the very scum of a blacks' camp, its repulsiveness was

tragic. Dirt and odour sickened, yet its appeal was irresistible. That

universal language, a human cry, which everywhere and always quickened

the pulse, stirred pity to its depths. I seized the stained bag (it

was a desperate deed) and, breaking down its worn sides, displayed its

contents--a girl in all the infamy of neglect, starvation, and dirt--a

panting mummy reeking with offence.

Spreading out a handkerchief, I put the awful atom on it gingerly, while

the foster-mother reiterated her counsel to “tchuck'm alonga scrub.”

In the guise of a frail bundle at arm's-length was Soosie conducted to a

civilised home.

Dismay tempered with pity greeted her.

“How horrible! How dirty!”

“Is it really a little girl? It looks like a wild animal.”

“Do let me nurse it.”

Thus was crinkled-faced Soosie welcomed.

Many successive baths did she endure, faintly wailing, until dirt soaked

off and the wails ceased for the time being as Soosie sucked ravenously

at a tiny sugar-bag.

What a frail little life it was--feeble beyond expression, and ugly

with the ugliness of savagery. She wriggled and screwed up her skinny

features with inane ferocity. A motherless wallaby would have submitted

to human solace and ministrations with daintier mien; but the whole

household thrilled with excitement. Could the spluttering spark of life

be made to glow? That was the all-absorbing topic for days. Gradually

some sort of a human rotundity became manifest, and on the occasion

of the bath it was more and more apparent that instead of being

impenetrably black the skin-tint was a mingling of pale brown and pink;

and as regular nourishment began to be effective the features changed,

losing their gross animalism.

Just because of the waif's helplessness was repugnance to her conquered.

She had no other redeeming quality. In a certain sense she was fearsome;

she required unremitting attention and care; her whimpering fits,

in beast-like monotone, shook the nerve of the most patient of her

attendants. She was a charge to keep and foster, and the duty was

performed with devotion, which took little concern for self-sacrifice.

Before many months had passed Soosie had been transformed into a fat

roly-poly with a perpetual smile and gurgles of satisfaction, which even

vocalised sleep.

All this happened years ago. In infancy Soosie had been informally

adopted. She was now a bright, sensible, slender girl, whose full,

melting eyes pleaded for inevitable facial defects, and whose complexion

was very greatly at fault. She grew up more averse from the manners

and moods of her mother than those of us who better understand the

differences of race. To her a black was more abhorrent than a snake.

She loathed the sight of those who came about the place, and would not

defile herself by touching the cleanest--kind-hearted “Wethera,” who had

so nearly interred her, and to whom she was as a princess; “Wethera,”

who was wont to say, “That fella Tchoosie, too flash. Close up me bin

tchuck'm away. Boss he bin catch'm.”

Soosie evaded all possible reference to her kin, and when others spoke

in sympathetic terms would say: “How can you bear to think of those

horrible people who live in dirt and only half dressed in the bush? I

love the scrub, and but for them would like to wander in it all day. I

dare not while they are about, for some day one of them might touch me,

and I would never feel clean again.”

We often wondered at the irreconcilable attitude which Soosie (she was

always “Miss Soosie” to all but members of the household) adopted to her

own race, for she well understood where she had been born and the manner

of her salvation from imminent death.

Though no special training had been hers, none of the domestic arts were

unknown to her. She acquired them with ease and practised them with the

air of a dignified princess and neat-handed facility. While the other

children of the house stewed over lessons and rebelled against essential

tasks, to Soosie everything seemed to make for holiday. She read

voraciously, so that her application of English became so keen that she

was the first to detect verbal dissonances. She, the youngest of two

girls and a boy, would often correct their speech, not as a budding

pedant, but because her ears were delicately attuned to the music of the

tongue and could not, without offence, hearken to discords. She was an

affected prude. Her self-chosen style of dress, her pose, her disdainful

airs, her repugnance to coarse work, her inclination towards occupations

and pastimes which involved isolation, showed that self-consciousness

ruled her life. She lived within herself, and her life was gentle,

contrasting with the boisterous playfulness of her foster sisters and

brother, upon whose romps she smiled indulgently, but in which she

never took part. In her own estimation she was a girl quite out of the

ordinary, and one to whom the most honoured of guests must be polite, if

not deferential. She exacted little niceties of demeanour from all,

her equals and inferiors, for was she not treated as a daughter of the

house? Often, however, in her preoccupied moods would she assume an air

of detachment and jealousy towards the other children, for she could not

but contrast herself with them. They were white; she was pronouncedly of

the despised race. How wistfully would she scan the face of strangers!

How teeming with resentment against fate her inevitable conclusions!

In all save features she was white. Over her inheritance, the cruellest

which fortune could bestow, she was shudderingly horrified. Not all the

longings of an untainted mind could make her skin less tawny. Its stain

was too deep to be blanched by the most fervent of prayers. Her outlook

on life, her intensest wishes, were those of a white girl of more

than decent perceptions--of actual refinement, for they tended to the

avoidance of everything unpleasant and unsightly. In other respects,

too, she was an absolute variant from the type, for her sensitiveness to

the pain of others and of the lower animals amounted almost to a mania;

for though she had a girlish horror of blood, her eagerness to solace

sufferings made her so courageous that she became most apt and prompt

in the administration of first aid. Her big, startled eyes showed

the sincerity of her feelings, while her firm, slender fingers deftly

applied bandages as she spoke in soothing tones.

The soul of a white damsel was in habitation of the body of one whose

parents had been black and utterly degraded. In the days of old evil

spirits were believed to be capable of taking spiteful possession of the

bodies of the weak to work, in unseemlinesses and indecencies, for the

mischief of the soul. Here was a good and gentle spirit which strove

undemonstratively for the salvation of a being the circumstances of

whose birth bordered on the infernal. It was as if the baths of infancy

had purified the soul, while the permanence and perversity of blood

triumphed in feature and complexion.

While the other children of the house deserved and obtained love

and affection in full measure, towards Soosie were exhibited similar

sentiments, with, perhaps, more consideration, for was it not plain that

her life was a continual conflict--a conflict between body and soul--a

body self-abhorred, a soul which needed no purification?

A creek which had its source in a ravine of the huge mountain which

intercepted the rising sun and caused accustomed shadow an hour after

the illumination of the western hills, ran past the lonely little

house, which stood in a clearing the upright walls of which were on the

sky-line scalloped with fan-palms. For many years Soosie never ventured

into the jungle unaccompanied, yet she seemed to possess a sense of

happenings beyond the almost solid screen of vegetation. Primal instinct

contended against her affections and her love for a sheltered, clean

life. Though she had always avoided association with the children of the

camp, and her knowledge by imitation or precept was negative, yet

was the bush an open book to her. She knew when and where to look for

birds'-nests. She knew at a glance a venomous from a non-venomous snake,

an edible from an inedible nut. As a child her favourite head-dress was

a squat, fat mantis, the bright orange and yellow of which contrasted

boldly with her fuzzy, coarse hair; and when the insect palled as an

ornament it would be frizzled and slyly eaten.

Once as we strolled on the bank of the creek gazing at the lazy,

red-finned fish among the swaying weeds, her wandering eyes detected

a neat circular bore in the trunk of a huge silky oak. Having shrewdly

scrutinised the bark, she judged the tenant to be at home. With a

portion of one of the “feelers” of creeping palm stripped of all the

prickles save two, she probed the tunnel and, screwing the instrument

triumphantly, withdrew a huge white grub, which she ate forthwith; and

then, with a grimace, assumed an air of shame and contrition, for she

had astonished herself as well as others by an exhibition of untaught

bush-craft and ancestral appetite.

She more than once confessed in shamefaced terms to an almost

uncontrollable impulse to rush away to the mountain, that she might

solace herself with the solitude and food in plenty there; but that when

she conjured up the chance of meeting some “dreadful native” she thanked

God for home and loving companions. How frequent and how intense was

this unconfessed lust for the bush we knew not.

When Soosie was fourteen there came to the neighbourhood a hardy young

fellow who began to clear a small area of jungle land; for civilisation,

which had been marking time for nigh upon two decades, now marched

slowly, and to no throb of drum, in our direction. Times were changing,

and in some details less desirable conditions arose. The infinite

privacy of the bush suffered. The little clearing was no longer our own.

Soosie's demeanour became more reposeful. She had seemed to think that

it might be her fate, in common with others, to become a ward of the

State at some mission-station; but as settlement advanced, though still

miles away, for we were the furthest out, and no interfering guardian of

the peace came to enforce officialdom and insist upon obedience to the

letter of the law, it was comforting to reflect that this unofficial

daughter might be permitted to live out her life unhampered even by the

goodwill expressed, in the first stages, by the visit of a policeman.

Her presence was necessary, not only on account of her amiable

disposition and self-sacrificing ways, but for the actual load she bore

of the duties of a quiet home. We had failed, however, to take into

calculation the chances of another means of separation. There was now

no disguising the fact that our new neighbour, Dan, was casting sheep's

eyes in Soosie's direction, and to her evident dismay. It was of little

avail to upbraid him as to the unseemliness of attachment to a girl who,

however civilised, was of inferior race and despised colour. He frankly

confessed that he wanted a wife as a companion and helpmeet; that he

could not hope, in consideration of his own lowly birth and slender

means and uphill task, to induce a white girl to halve his loneliness.

He had studied Soosie, and was sure that she was his superior except

in matter of colour. She was far better schooled and had been used to

softer life.

“What,” he asked, “don't you and the Missis and Miss Clare and Fan, and

Bob, here, love her? You couldn't help it; and you are not ashamed. You

treat her as your own child. It would be no sin for me to take her as my

own wife. If she'll have me I'll marry her before the best parson in

the North. What of her complexion? It's only a little more sunburnt than

mine.”

But Soosie was shy--more than shy. Her sensitiveness amounted to

physical repulsion. She declared that, though she liked Dan, she would

never marry.

“I do feel in my heart that I am nothing more than a black girl, and

almost a savage. What if some day the horrible part of me got stronger,

and I did go to the mountain by myself? I have heard you say that blood

will tell. Often I am frightened of myself, especially when the nights

are very still and I listen to the scrub hens chuckling and the flying

foxes squealing, and smell the scents of the scrub. It must be very

nice to live away from everybody in the very loneliest part of the big

mountain, and to feel at home with actually wild things.”

There was no affectation between us, so I said in comfort: “But my dear

girl, you are whiter at heart than many a girl born white. It is only

your skin that is dark. Perhaps if in a year or so you did marry Dan it

would be the best, for a good woman, no matter what her complexion, will

always earn respect. Society may not want you, but you would not want

society; and it will be very many years before society hampers life in

this part of the bush.”

Soosie thought for a few minutes, and then replied with delicate

discretion. “I can never marry Dan. Sooner or later he would despise

me. It might be all right while I was young, but--we--we--blacks get

old very soon. Fancy Dan having an old gin in his house; for he won't be

living in a one-roomed hut all his life!”

“You are spiteful against yourself, and that's not like you, Soosie.”

“I have my feelings. How else may I restrain them?” she petulantly

exclaimed. “He must never think of me. It might drive me to the

mountain--just to save him from me.”

Dan, good fellow, was discreet. He decided to play the laggard in love,

realising that any show of impetuosity might frighten Soosie. It came

to be understood that in time she might see the wisdom of accepting

him, and I, knowing both, and to whom mixed marriages are abhorrent,

was convinced that no girl could have been better qualified to fill the

position of a bushman's wife. Modest, clever, sympathetic, healthful,

none of the stains of the town had ever tarnished her mind. Her

voice was that of a well-schooled white girl, and all her perceptions

coincided. If the wander lust was to be suppressed for ever, it seemed

to me that Soosie must marry, and marry young.

While Soosie's demeanour was still the cause of earnest solicitude, a

perplexing complication arose. An old man of the camp whence she had

been discarded began to do his best to attract her attention.

Gifts of birds'-nests, eggs, ferns, orchids in flower, a cassowary

chick, neat dilly-bags, gay with crude Pigments, were brought to the

house with messages such as this:

“That fella 'Pad-oo-byer' he bin gib'em alonga 'Ky-ee-rah.'”

“Ky-ee-rah” (the evening star) had been proclaimed to be Soosie's

totemic name, and “Pad-oo-byer” we knew as “Duckbill,” because of a

fancied resemblance to a platypus.

The gifts were tearfully repudiated. They seemed to announce that

Soosie, was regarded by her mother's kin as one of themselves,

notwithstanding her civilised environment.

Though for the girl's sake, not on account of any personal repugnance or

despiteful attitude, the blacks had been kept at arm's length, I was on

good terms with all in the district, and took interest in their doings

and folk-lore. One of their primary beliefs was that children, black

and white, were actually the produce of the locality, belonging, not to

chance parents, but to the very land on which they were born. The germs

of life, they assumed, came from the soil; the soil assimilated all

flesh after death. Infants were but phases of the life with which the

soil teemed. All the neighbourhood belonged to the camp--the land and

everything which sprang from it, for they were the original possessors.

It was their country. They argued that such things as sweet potatoes,

pumpkins and mangoes, the very roses which adorned a sprawling bush, the

richly tinted crotons, the flaunting alamanda over the gateway, were,

strictly speaking, common property. So, too, over those children born

on the place certain proprietary rights were claimed. They were akin

to them, alien to their parents. Whites and blacks born in the same

district must, according to their ideas, be more closely related

than folks whose birthplaces were separated by distances beyond

comprehension.

Such being the general opinion, fortified by undeviating oral tradition,

in Soosie's case the theory was ever so much the more arguable. She was

claimed, not alone on the grounds that she was a native of their own

land, but because, having been born in their own camp, she must be

subject to it.

Duckbill intercepted me on the edge of the clearing one morning

especially to propound the law of the land.

Soosie, he told in his pidgin English, had been given to him by her

uncle. She was to be his gin now that she was grown up. “More better you

hunt that fella. Him want sit down alonga camp.”

The bald proposition shook me, for I could not but see the logic of it

from Duckbill's standpoint. He was the “big man,” a wizard--ugly, old,

and villainously dirty. Here was the camp's husband for the coloured

girl with the white heart. The idea was revolting, and then and there I

resolved at whatever cost to save the girl from such degradation.

“Clear out!” I shouted, assuming frantic anger. “You fella chuck'm

Soosie away when she little fella piccaninny. That one belonga me now.

Suppose you fella kick'm up row big fella government come clear you

fella out. No more let you sit down longa this country.”

“Country belonga me. You no humbug. You bin catch'm that fella Tchoosie

l-o-n-g time. You bin make'm good fella. Belonga me now.”

The disgusting old fellow went on to explain that he intended to come up

to the house that evening. “You hunt'm that fella Tchoosie, me catch'm.

No good belonga you.”

I was to drive the gently nurtured girl out of the house so that this

foul creature might seize her as he would a struggling wallaby, and take

her to live a degraded life in the camp! Explanations and threats were

of no avail. Duckbill, who was unable to comprehend that he and others

of the camp had by abandonment forfeited all rights to Soosie and that

she was now a “white Mary,” made it plain that he would forcibly

abduct her if I would but give him the slight assistance of expulsion.

Otherwise he would catch her himself.

Threatening the camp with the presence of the “big fella government” if

he or any of them dared to interfere, I went off, while he shouted his

orders to “hunt that fella close up karrie badgin!” (sunset).

Forthwith the house was put in a state of semi-siege. Soosie, with

tearful eyes and tremulous hands, hysterically implored us to protect

her from a fate worse than death. A message brought Dan, who first

disdained to take Duckbill seriously. Told how Soosie had been wooed

with gifts, and that her maternal uncle had officiously bestowed her

upon the gaunt, ill-favoured king of the camp in accordance with tribal

law, which regarded her as a mere chattel at the disposal of the

whim and fancy of the nearest relative or at the demand of the most

authoritative man, he became concerned and installed himself as Soosie's

special guardian.

A few minutes after sundown Duckbill appeared, quite unconscious of

offence against civilised customs, carrying a waddy with which to

administer an anodyne should his capture prove the least refractory.

Threats and scoldings were lost. He was incapable of comprehending

why there should be a moment's hesitation about the fulfilment of his

legitimate rights and demands.

Though protests were vain, the fact that Soosie did not show herself

imparted some glimmering of sense of the situation to him, and he

wandered off in the gloom grumbling “That fella too flash,” and frankly

announcing “B'mbi me catch'm.”

For weeks Soosie kept within doors, or if she ventured out was

accompanied by one or other well able and determined to protect her. Her

nerves were at acute tension; her life that of a hunted creature; for

though she thought her fate inevitable, she concentrated her mind on

what seemed to others pitiably weak and inconsequent schemes for the

bafflement of Duckbill.

Was it that some ineffaceable trait told her that the tribal law as

expounded by Duckbill was so wise that resistance to it was vain, and

that the trivial plans over which she worried were merely invented as a

sort of temporary palliative? She scorned the possibility of existence

in the camp, yet strove to contest it by the use of fantastical devices.

She urged that Dan and I should get some fearsome masks and rush the

camp in the gloom, at the same time setting off fireworks, and so create

such terrifying effects that none would venture near the spot again.

With bated breath, she even suggested that I should make a “death-bone”

to be employed for the secret ill of Duckbill; she thus exposed the

dross of hereditary superstition which rose to the surface during mental

ebullition.

It was quite in the nature of things that under stress such a nature

should break down. She nestled close to Dan, promising to be his

sweetheart on the condition that, rather than that Duckbill should take

her away, he would shoot her. If it came about that the dreadful black

man was himself driven off or disposed of by some other means and the

country made safe for her, then she would marry the man who had saved

her, and she hoped that she might never disgrace him.

Dan accepted the guardianship. His hut was two miles away and on the far

side of the river. He saw little of it for the next few weeks.

Duckbill and his friends, as we were well aware, knew of our plans for

the defeat of his proposed outrage. If Soosie could be ceremoniously

married to the faithful Dan, no black in the neighbourhood would

endeavour to molest her. Indeed, all, even to Duckbill, would be

flattered and demonstrative of pride in the alliance.

A fortnight later Duckbill again intercepted me. Since the previous

verbal encounter I had gone armed. He carried, somewhat ostentatiously,

a tomahawk and a couple of nulla-nullas.

“No good you keep'm that fella Tchoosie. Me bin look out plenty. That

fella belonga me. Suppose you no lat'm come, more worse b'mbi. Me want

mak'm that fella all asame black fella. You gib it Clare belonga Dan.”

My fingers twitched on the butt of the revolver. It was an ultimatum.

That which from other lips would have been resented as complacent

insolence had to be endured with apparent calmness. Threatening him

with all the consequences of a visit from the “big fella government,” I

hurriedly left, for I was not too sure of self-control.

A stricter watch than ever was maintained, for the least relaxation of

precautions might have involved results for which a lifetime of regrets

would not have atoned. Though of such a low type of the human race, the

North Queensland aboriginal possesses certain admirable characteristics.

His mind seldom swerves from a set purpose within view of attainment.

He may be rebuffed and disappointed, and may assume indifference to or

forgetfulness of his purpose; but in his heart he does not accept defeat

until an absolutely decisive blow is received. Invisible to us, the old

man persistently waited, and watched. The dogs frequently detected

his presence, if their eloquent alarms and their excursions were to

be credited. Though she continued to pit her wits against the secret

cunningness of the dreaded old man, Soosie was often preoccupied,

seeming to regard herself as one not primarily concerned. Her calmness

was preternatural, contrasting strangely with her previous petulant

agitation and tragic despair. She avoided Dan, while clinging with

profuse demonstrations of affection to her foster-sisters.

The reason for her change of policy and manner was revealed with

distressing suddenness. At daylight one morning the door of the room in

which she slept under lock and key was wide open, and on her quaintly

embellished table a primly written note:

“DEAR MUM,

“That horrible man who wants to take me away is right, and the Bible is

right. I belong to this country, and must go. I would rather die than go

to the camp; but I must know the big mountain. The dreadful people don't

go there. They are frightened of it; I love it. I shall live there by

myself till I die, and Dan will never be disgraced. You and Dada and

Clare and Fan and Bob have been all the world to me. You did your best

to make me white at heart; but since this trouble began I have thought

and thought, and found that the black in me smudges all the good out.

Don't try to come after me. I shall hide. I would be too much ashamed

ever to look at you again. Forget me, for I am nothing but an ungrateful

little savage.

“SOOSIE.”

In all haste Dan and I set out for the camp, a mile or so further in

the jungle. It was situated in a natural, symmetrical clearing, a circus

hemmed in by sullen vegetation, and upon which no plant save blady grass

ever invaded.

The camp was deserted. Save for a few still warm spots indicative

of artfully smothered fires, there were few signs to indicate recent

occupation. An hour's search revealed definite tracks leading east--to

the mountain.

No pains had been taken to baffle pursuers. Apparently the blacks had

just wandered off aimlessly in obedience to a whim of the moment. There

was nothing but conjecture to support the opinion that the decampment

had anything to do with the disappearance of Soosie. Probably the blacks

were aware, in advance of ourselves, that she had stolen away. If so,

they would inevitably get her, having, possibly, the advantage of hours

of start and being efficient in the art of tracking. Our plan was to

hasten so that we might, if fortune favoured, be in time to save the

distracted girl from the repulsive and obscene ceremonies to which she

would be subject if she fell into the hands of Duckbill.

An hour's walk brought us to the foothills of the mountain. The tracks

turned abruptly north, winding indeterminately as if no special object

had been in view. It might be that while the men of the camp had

been intent on following Soosie's tracks, the women and children had

straggled after as if the quest was of no special concern to them.

In the broken country well in to the base of the mountain all traces of

the exodus was lost, though bush instinct, supplemented by the actions

of the dogs, gave sense of its direction. Blundering down into a ravine

where blanched vegetation betokened complete seclusion from the sun, we

clambered up the opposing steep emerging from an entanglement of jungle

on a high and open ridge which commanded an unimpeded view to the

west--a scene of theatrical clarity with a single theatrical smear. From

a hollow far below slothful smoke filtered through the matted,

sombre, dew-bespangled foliage, rose a few feet, and drifted abruptly,

dissolving from diaphanous blue to nothingness. The resonant whooping

of a swamp pheasant, antiphonal to a bell-voiced, crimson-crowned fruit

pigeon in a giant fig-tree, the screeches of a sulphur-crested cockatoo

as it tumbled in the air, evading the swoops of a grey goshawk,

materialised the peace and the conflicts of a scene upon which no man

had made mark.

The phantom trail of smoke betrayed the resting-place of the fugitives,

though all tracks on the uneasy earth had failed. Odours of the jungle

soothed my mind, contradicted the transaction of any unholy orgy, and

gave assurance that the men had unravelled Soosie's wanderings until she

had begun to ascend the mountain, and that, being then on strange and

terrifying ground, they had abandoned the search, returning to familiar

level country free from the excursions of dreaded spirits.

With light hearts we descended the ridge, and, plunging again into the

dimness of the jungle, struck as direct a route as possible for the

smoke-revealed camp. Crossing a narrow creek, we peered silently through

the screen of ferns and banana plants, where in a secluded glade were

the wanderers in happy festival.

Could any scene approach nearer the ideal? Men, women and children,

mostly unclad, talking and laughing in modulated tones, while amusing

themselves with trivial occupations and eating convenient food in the

depths of the jungle, sanctified by distance and scene and sound! Peace

smiled, propriety approved. They ate of the fruits of the earth. The

fern-embowered stream gave them to drink. No sign of the white man, with

his interfering and desolating ways, assailed the sight. It was as if

the mist of centuries had lifted, and for once time-soiled mortals were

permitted to gaze on a Garden of Eden free from danger and innocent of

sin. There was none here to make the quiet folk afraid or discontented.

As I stepped out, the scene changed with pantomimic celerity. We were in

the midst of a community of excitable and resentful people, who, viewing

us, if not with active hostility, at least with surprise and anger,

seemed embarrassed by guilty knowledge. None of the customary greetings

welcomed us. None offered other than scowls.

“Where Soosie?” I demanded in authoritative tones of a boy accustomed to

treat my slightest word with respect.

With averted face he sullenly said: “That fella Tchoosie he run away. He

go l-o-n-g way, alonga mountain!”

“Look here! You no humbug. Where Soosie sit down? Plenty row along

white man suppose Soosie no come back. That fella Soosie belonga Missis.

Missis very sorry. She bin make'm Soosie all asame white Mary.”

Still the face-averting boy reiterated: “That fella Soosie he bin go

long way--more far. You fella make'm Soosie no good.”

Others gathered round. Several carried weapons--nulla-nullas and wooden

swords--and assumed hostile attitudes.

Dan became uncontrollably excited, storming for the production of

Soosie, and being met with inconclusive statements and evasions. Being

one who knew no fear, who deemed his questions justifiable, who felt

himself more than a match for the whole camp, and was convinced that the

blacks were in possession of essential information, he urged the policy

of chastising the sullenness out of a couple of incommunicative boys.

His attitude, and mine, hitherto, towards the blacks had been of cheery

good-nature tempered with considerate authority. Present moroseness was

novel, and he was eager to sweep it away with a sturdy stick, and thus

to demonstrate that when a friendly white man visited a camp blacks

should be deferential and alert to assist his mission.

In the mood of the men tragedy was inevitable unless both of us kept

cool. What would be the ending of a fray between two white men and

many armed blacks, some of whom were aching under a prolonged, however

inconsequent, grievance against a white family?

“Look here, Dan. Leave those fellows alone,” I said firmly but quietly.

“There'll be sorrow for some if you begin a row.”

“I don't care for a hundred blacks! I'd kick myself if I could not floor

half a dozen single-handed! Where that Soosie?”

To distract attention from Dan, I moved off a few yards.

“What you ki-ki?” I asked of Wethera, who gnawed with concentrated

satisfaction at a charred bone. “You ki-ki wallaby?”

“No wallaby! This one 'mandee' (hand) belonga Tchoosie!”

Scorched flesh and blackened bone had left their smear on the face of

the kindest cannibal of them all. On the fire was a foot with

charred ankle-bones; in a dilly-bag other fragments, but in Wethera's

countenance no consciousness of evil-doing.

“Come here!” I shouted.

The excited man strode to the spot.

“Soosie,” I said, in the calmest tones I could command, “has been

murdered. This is a cannibal feast!”

With a bound he upset the gin, who shrieked as she grovelled in the

embers.

“You wretches! You kill Soosie! I kill you!”

As he drew his revolver from his belt I seized his hand, and,

restraining him as best I could for a moment, spoke authoritative and

soothing words, and led him away weak and tremulous.

Not for many months--long after Dan had left the district--did exact

information as to the fate of the hapless girl reach our ears. Wethera

told of the tragedy. Duckbill had followed her tracks from the house

towards the mountain, had overtaken her, and, since she had fought

frenziedly, had “killed her alonga head little bit,” not intending to

kill her “dead, finis.” Carried to the camp, it had been found out that

she was actually dead. Then all had become stricken and run away.

By her obstinacy Soosie had offended tribal law. She had suffered. In

the necessitous jungle animal food is never wasted, be it beast, bird,

or reptile.

It had been an edifying sacrament, too, founded on immemorial truth,

for had it not been devoutly believed that Soosie's most excellent and

potent personality would remain with and glorify every participant?

BLUE SHIRT

“A strong, untutored intellect, eyesight, heart; a strong, wild

Man.”--CARLYLE.

Half a century ago, when hardy and adventurous men made laws unto

themselves, and their somewhat hasty and inconsiderate hands began to

sting the aboriginal population, there lived on this Isle a stalwart

native whose force of character constituted him a captain among his

fellows.

Possibly he was Tom's father. Before he passed away, Tom had often told

that his father was king of this realm and a man of parts. He it was

who harpooned a huge green turtle to the east. The game was so

extraordinarily strong that others hastened to his aid, for the capture

was beyond the capabilities of one man kneeling in a tucked-up sheet of

bark. The whole fleet of canoes barely succeeded in towing the massive

and reluctant creature to the nearest beach, and Tom was wont to

tell that it took eight strong men to turn it on its back. It was

“kummaoried” on the sand, and Tom oft pointed out the very spot as proof

of the most famous feast within the range of tradition.

Let it be accepted, then, that Blue Shirt was Tom's father, since

history is silent on the point, and none is left to question or

authenticate it. He was a big man, and his son was like him. He was

fond of colours; so, too, was his son. He was a fighter; his son's

meritorious scars proved him worthy of his blood. He was a man in

authority and full of territorial pride; his son's dominance was

undoubted, for did he not chide the “big fella gubbermen” on its

audacity in disposing of his Island--his country--even to a friendly

white man?

Blue Shirt was the ruler and lawgiver of this Island when a barque

strove with a cyclone which eventually shattered her to pieces and

scattered her cargo of cedar-logs to the four winds. After the wreck a

boat put out from a not distant port on a beach-combing cruise. The boat

was known as the CAPTAIN COOK. About a hundred years before her namesake

had reported that he had seen about thirty natives, all unclad, on an

adjacent islet. With the captain was his mate, two other white men, a

black boy, and a young gin. Many derelict logs were seen and certain

wreckage, which made the boat's company inclined to the belief that some

of the castaways might have landed on Dunk Island. They steered hither,

anchoring in the evening.

Early the next morning three stalwart black boys put off in canoes to

the CAPTAIN COOK, and, making friendly demonstrations, were invited on

board. Food was given them, and to the leader the captain presented a

blue shirt. No dweller of the Island had ever before possessed such a

sumptuous and glorious garment. Indeed, if the absolute truth must

be told, no dweller had dreamt of anything more desirable than an

inadequate cloak laboriously wrought from the inner bark of a fig-tree,

raiment sanctioned by the first of fashions.

Having made it known that they belonged to a neighbouring islet at the

moment unfriendly to the overbearing Dunk Island tribe, Blue Shirt and

his attendants mentioned that cedar-logs and other attractive flotsam

bestrewed the beaches, and volunteered to conduct the strangers to the

best places on the understanding that they, being alien and hostile,

should remain under the protection of the rifle-carrying white men.

The captain, two men, and the black boy, followed Blue Shirt ashore;

but, although he was conspicuously clad, could not find him or any other

man. A few old and casual women represented the hospitable inhabitants,

while Sabbath quietude brooded over the scene as they strolled along the

yellow beach. By chance one of the party glanced towards the spot where

they had landed, and saw half a dozen vigorous gins endeavouring to haul

the boat above tideway.

How excellent the strategy!

The designing but faint-hearted women fled when the white men charged

for the boat, which now was seen to be endowed with an incredible,

uncanny rocking movement of its own. Looking beneath, they saw a huge

cripple straining himself, Atlas-like, to heave it over. In spite of

inferior legs, his brawny shoulders had almost accomplished the feat

when he was unceremoniously interrupted. While he sprawled away, a mob

of blacks rushed suddenly from the cover of some rocks, the leader

of the assailants being Blue Shirt, who had painted his unclad parts

martial red and white. The strength of the party was guessed at thirty.

An exact census was not taken, for with spears and nulla-nullas and big

swords, each warrior having the protection of a shield, the treacherous

band swept on the deluded guests of their leader, whose hostile yells

scandalised the meek phrases and friendly signs of a short hour before.

The captain, poor, outwitted man, had laid his rifle beside the boat.

It was too late now to bring it into decisive action. Keeping close

together, the defenders warded off the first rush with whatever came

to hand. The rifle was recovered; but Blue Shirt, recognising that it

represented victory, struggled for it determinedly. A spear was thrown

at close quarters straight for the captain's neck, but one of the men

deftly twitched it off, a feat that so enraged the warriors that they

made him their special target, until at last one of their spears pierced

his hand. Being rough and thready, the black palm-point made an ugly

wound; but the resolute man drew it out, and, breaking the spear in

twain, threw it into the boat, and as he did so, another grazed his

abdomen. While he was thus defending himself against the spears and

nulla-nullas of outrageous fortune, the captain made wide, sweeping

movements with the butt of his rifle, and the other man and the boy, the

boat being by this time afloat, tugged at the oars. The attacking party

followed, the captain making good misuse of the rifle, the odd man and

the boy occasionally perverting an oar to wrongful but, at the crisis,

effective purpose, while the wounded suffered the hate of him who earns

personal as well as racial animosity. He sustained a cut on the head

from a wooden sword, yet he fought on, retaining his wits, while a

kind Providence, and his own artfulness and agility protected him from

hurtling spears.

The cost of the little excursion was paid in wounds and bruises and,

eventually, putrefying sores, while the souls of all instantly mortified

under the sight of triumphant Blue Shirt jeering and gesticulating as

only an uncouth black dare, as he waved over his head a tomahawk he had

abstracted from the boat during the morning's pleasant entertainment.

No one of the poor, depraved representatives of the race has any

knowledge of the event in which Blue Shirt showed himself to be a

successful plotter, a bold strategist, an original tactician, and a

brave fighter. His son is dust. His grandson, though true in complexion,

knows more about engines than he does of wooden swords and how to use

them. The zest of life was with his ancestor, who during a long life had

but one shirt.

THE FORGOTTEN DEAD

“Of lonely folk cut off unseen.”

HOOD.

A few months ago chance bestowed the opportunity of listening to the

conversation of one who for very many yearn has hung upon the skirts of

civilisation. A bushman of rare resourcefulness, wide knowledge of the

dry as well as the moist parts of North Queensland, a reader, and

an acute and accurate observer of natural phenomena, he has often

entertained me with the relation of episodes in his career which, though

quite unsensational, is of the material of which the history of the

bush must be compiled. He is now settled on a tidal creek, his nearest

neighbours miles away. Independent of the regular assistance of

blacks in the cultivation of his land, he is one of those who, while

acknowledging no such thing as comradeship, and who, true to his

sentiments, keeps them at arm's-length, has, albeit, acquired

confidences rather unusual.

When his reading matter has become exhausted, he has sat night after

night for months together absorbing the lore of the camp. To him has

been disclosed many a well-guarded secret. Not unto every man who asks

do the blacks tell their thoughts or impart their legends. You may study

them; but they, too, are discreet students, who often keep their counsel

while seeming to comply with your anxiety to learn of their ways and be

wise as they are wise.

My friend is one of those undemonstrative, self-contained men in whom

some of the coloured, cautious metaphysicians find a congenial

soul. Therefore is he a compendium of much out-of-the-way and covert

knowledge.

As we talked on the subject of the unexplained disappearances of men in

the bush of Australia, he told the incidents of the forgotten dead to

which these writings have special reference. I use my own words, so do

not bind myself to historic exactness.

He had been away earning his own living, for his estate, fruitful as it

is, did not then quite provide for his sustenance, markets being

distant and far from consistent. Returning, he found the blacks who had

associated themselves with his humble establishment had in the interval

sought change of scene. The land that he called his had belonged

to their ancestors centuries before Cook tied the ENDEAVOUR to that

disputed and historic tree, and was theirs when he had first intruded.

His hut, his horses, his implements, were much as he had left them. The

camping-place of the blacks appeared to have been unoccupied for some

time. Such was in accordance with usual happenings. Going about his

lonesome work, he reflected that his dusky acquaintances would return

in their own good time, and being a man of mental resource, the solitude

was by no means irksome.

Within a fortnight they appeared unceremoniously, and, taking casual

part in the ordinary work, the affairs of the isolated estate went on as

smoothly as before. There was a stranger in the camp, a middle-aged man,

timorous, and knowing little of the ways of white men. Of him scarcely

any notice was taken. Yet in a few weeks it was evident that the

stranger was determined to make himself pleasant. Accordingly, the white

man refrained from advances, while for the love of mental exhilaration

he pondered: “That boy wants to tell me something. He shall tell me all

he wants to in his own way, while I will play the part of an indifferent

auditor.”

That the stranger had some secret on his soul was apparent. My friend

resolved to receive that secret in the spirit of gracious condescension.

So played he his part, and line upon line, here a little and there a

little, the story was told.

Few of the tribe of the stranger had ever seen a white man. None

had ever visited the coast. All were myalls, living naked among the

mountains in gorges gloomy with jungle, and but rarely hunting on the

foothills. One day consternation and curiosity spread through the camp.

Three strange men with yellow faces and short black hair had been seen.

They carried nothing in their hands, and seemed frightened. Thus the

nervous couriers of the camp spoke.

Next morning the men took up the tracks, and, sneaking close up,

followed, alert and unseen, the unsuspecting visitors to their country.

Bewildered in the jungle, the queer-looking men wandered aimlessly,

moaning and wailing. They were lost. Suddenly the blacks appeared.

Two of the strangers, glad of the company of any sort of human beings,

smiled and gesticulated pleasantly, making it plain that they were

hungry, tired, and frightened, and, longing to get back to the coast,

would bestow upon their guides unheard-of blessings for safe-conduct

thither. Strangely, the black men accepted the trust. Four each took

a hand of the confiding strangers, and, pointing ahead and chattering,

induced them to walk quickly in a direction in which by signs they

indicated the dwelling of a white man.

The third wanderer had run away, blundering through the jungle, and the

blacks had refrained from following him. Nodding gaily and jabbering

volubly, but with mutual intelligibility, hosts and guests paced along a

narrow track, each of the latter personally and firmly conducted by

two of his newly found and most attentive friends. Others of the tribe,

“like frightful fiends, did close beside them tread”; and while the

escorts lured the yellow men with comforting pantomime, the frightful

fiends fell on them suddenly with great wooden swords, killing them

off-hand and on the very verge of the camp.

Willingly hurrying to the place of execution, the murdered men had saved

the calculating blacks the trouble of carrying their carcasses.

Then four went back for the nervous escapee. He was safe, for the tracks

were as obvious to them as a plough furrow to a European. Crouching

beside a fallen, decaying tree, where bird's-nest ferns grew

outrageously gross, they found him; and they jeered. He screamed and

shouted in unknown tongue, while the brisk, stubby hair of his head

stood on end. (My friend's hair-brush was alluded to in graphic

illustration.) They struck him down, and, smashing in his head and

seizing arms and legs, jogged back to the camp.

And the festival lasted many days, though plenty made gluttons of them

all.

The forgotten dead were Javanese--deserters from a sugar-plantation; for

the tragedy happened long ago, when labour was being drawn from Java

and other oversupplied countries. Desertions were not uncommon, for the

sanguine men of the equator endure with less philosophy than others that

sickness of the heart which comes from love of one's native land when

absent from it.

From Java's seething millions were the nostalgic three ever missed?

EAGLES-NEST FLOAT

“My raft was now strong enough to bear any reasonable weight.”

ROBINSON CRUSOE.

Those who study primitive races, applying their wisdom and learning to

the investigation of the origin of domestic and other implements and

contrivances, inform us that the first boat was probably a log, on which

the man sat astride, using a stick as a means of propulsion. In time the

idea of hollowing the log occurred, Nature undoubtedly presenting

the model and inviting the novice to squat inside. But what was the

inhabitant of a certain island in the Gulf of Carpentaria to do since

Nature failed to provide a tree big enough to possess the degree of

buoyancy necessary for his frail frame, when he wished to cross the

narrow channel separating him from a lesser island where turtle are

plentiful and unsuspicious?

Being in status something above a wallaby--the largest animal other than

himself of his native land which, when hunted, occasionally swam towards

the opposite shore, he constructed one or other of two rafts or floats,

both derivable from Nature's models. One was in the form of an eagle's

nest, and not nearly so large as that in which some eaglets are reared,

made by interlacing branchlets of white mangrove until the mass was

sufficient to support his weight. With a double ended paddle rudely

shaped from the thin buttress roots of the red mangrove, and comic in

the crudeness and disproportion of its parts, he felt himself safe

miles out to sea. When he approached a passing vessel he presented the

illusion, not of walking, but of sitting on the water, for the float

was almost completely submerged. If it became necessary for his wife to

attend him on his marine excursions, she was towed behind, and used her

own pedal power. Possibly this primitive raft is the pathetic expression

of man's first struggle against the restrictions of the sea.

The other resource of the boatless islander was another description of

float, also retrogressive from the log; the idea not transmitted to

him by any high-minded bird, but forced upon his attention by elemental

strife. He would have seen that the wind and the waves occasionally

tore from his beaches Pandanus palms, and that the matted, fibrous roots

thereof floated. Pondering in his dim way, and being sadly an hungered

and aware that fat and lazy turtle were basking in the sighed-for

shallows, he took a bundle of buoyant roots and light sticks and lashed

it securely at one end with strips of bark. He then spread out the other

end until it took the shape of a fan, and weaved the strands loosely

together with beach trailers. His raft was complete. At least this

description applies to that in use to-day, which represents the highest

stage to which the design has been brought.

Under the influence of the peril-ignoring hunger, the hunter sat on

the float with legs extended frontally. Across his thighs crouched

his favourite dog, and behind him, her thin shanks outside his and her

skinny arms round his slim waist, sat, uncomfortable, his cowed wife--a

necessary part of his equipment. Can he be imagined half turning to his

deferential spouse, and saying: “My dear, in the words of Shakespeare,

“On such a full sea are we now afloat

And we must take the current when it serves

Or lose our'--turtle”?

Is it not edifying, too, to reflect that the timid man, encouraged

by the object-lessons of Nature, given in pity of his simplicity, had

contrived the only rafts the resources of his island made possible?

And does not the fact that he had courage to cross the estranging deep

thereon give graphic proof of the inhospitality of his native soil?

Flat and generally of sad aspect, the country of the raftsman lies

remote and uncommended. The scented sandalwood is there, dwarfed,

attenuated, worthless. The most fragrant of the Pandanus palms is

plentiful, the fruit forming the chief part of the vegetable diet of the

lean and stunted inhabitants, who find difficulty in fashioning weapons

with which to obtain fish and turtle, the land failing to supply

straight sticks of the length needed for spears. Each has to be spliced.

The islands are expressed in the race they sustain--possibly the lowest

of Australian types. Does it not bespeak much to the credit of men

and women who have been used to the cities where the advantages of

civilisation are at command and its comforts available, that they should

abandon the society of kin and friends and isolate themselves in a drear

and unfriendly tract for the sake of a few coloured folk whose mental

capacities are feeble and whose habits are shockingly disgusting?

NATURE IN RETALIATION

“Red in tooth and claw.”

TENNYSON.

In a mangrove creek a shoal of barramundi had been bombed with dynamite.

Immediately after the explosion the white onlookers as well as the

blacks dived off-hand into the stream to secure the helpless fish. One

of the party seized a weighty and unconscious victim of the outrage, and

to retain it thrust his fist through the gills and found himself unable

to withdraw, and when the fish began to revive he realised that he was

not master. With a supreme effort he did manage to get his head above

water to gulp a mouthful of air, but the gallant fish promptly exerted

itself, and a deadly struggle took place on the muddy bottom. Once more

the fish was tugged to the surface, only to dive just as the man became

conscious of the applause of the interested spectators. When they came

to the surface again ill luck on the part of the fish had brought it

into the shallows caused by a ridge of rocks, and the man hauled his

prize ashore, frankly acknowledging that the happy chance of the rocks

and not his own wits and strength had given the victory into his hands.

On another occasion heartless dynamite was used in a creek, where had

assembled many blacks, who scrambled riotously in the muddy water for

the spoil, among which were several huge crabs, some dismembered by the

force of the explosion, some stunned, some merely agitated. Dilly Boy,

the biggest and the greediest of the crowd, acquired several fish and

three or four crabs, the largest of the latter of which seemed sound

asleep. The dynamite had ministered an anodyne from which, apparently,

there would be no awakening. It the boy disregarded, while he secured

those which were more or less active. Busily engaged, he was not aware

that a crab when he seems asleep may be merely plotting. This hero was

hatching out a scheme whereby it might be revenged for the outrage.

It watched and deliberated, and as the boy sat down grabbed him with

ponderous and toothed pinchers on that part of the body which is said to

be most susceptible to insult. The boy rose. Not half a plug of

dynamite could have given more hearty impulse, not all the clamour of a

corroboree equal his yell of surprise and anguish. He capered. The crab,

which had not speculated on the caper, and to avert summary divorce,

locked its claws, now guaranteed to hold to death and beyond it--to

destruction. Astounded--indeed, petrified--by the high antics of the

boy, none of the spectators could venture to his aid. They were fully

engaged with unrestrained and joyful hysteria. The more the boy

yelled and cavorted, the more frantic the fun. Blood trickled down the

chocolate-coloured skin, but the valiant crab held on. It was there for

a definite purpose. The hour and the crab had arrived. Vengeance for

centuries of wrongs to the race and heroic self-sacrifice animated brain

and inspired the claw with the dynamics of ten; while the afflicted

victim imagined--he had no mirror to hold up to Nature--that he was the

sport of a lusty crocodile.

Amidst his shrieks he commanded the ministration of his wife. She ran

to meet him with a waddy. True to the limitations of her sex, though her

intentions were admirable and dutiful, the result was disastrous. The

boy got a paralysing blow on the small of the back, and flopped down. Up

jumped Dilly Boy, and the gin raced after him, murderously inclined

to the crab. Half her blows were misses and the other half seriously

embarrassed her husband, as his tumbles testified. She belaboured him

impartially and with perverted goodwill from shoulder to heel, for she

aimed invariably at the crab, and where is the woman who ever hit where

she designed? The crab was merely tickling; the faithful spouse, with

the tenderest motives, was cruelly beating her lord and master to

disablement, and it can scarcely be credited that the echo of his

remarks has yet subsided. In his fervour the boy made an exceptionally

vicious threat against the gin, and in response she missed him and hit

the crab. Under such forceful compulsion the crab parted with its claw.

It was ponderous and toothed, be it remembered, and well and truly

locked, and retained its grip. The target being smaller, the aims of

the gin went more and more astray. The back of the boy, owing to the

incessant misses of the waddy, changed from brown to purple, and a red

ribbon wavered down his thigh. Still he ran, and the devoted gin coursed

after him with the energy of a half-back, the fury of a disappointed

politician, and the riot of three-dozen cockatoos scared from a

corn-field. Almost worn out, the boy sprang round, and, seizing the

waddy, began to chastise the gin, whose screams blended with his

unwholesome threats. But the claws held on--not like grim death; they

were grim death. Every second blow was directed aft--one blow forward,

which generally severely disagreed with the gin; one blow astern, which

afforded neither mental relief nor physical comfort. The gin fled from

the infuriated boy; the boy from the fearsome relic of the crab, and

called louder as he ran. When in full flight, the gin tripped over a

mangrove root, and, spread-eagled, fell. The boy came tumbling after,

but the remnants of the crab--the bony bud of a tail--stood erect and

firm. Then the pitying spectators seized Dilly Boy, and, holding

him, unlocked the pinchers. He rolled over--it was the only easeful

attitude--as he cursed all gins, crabs, and dynamiters with wondrous

fluency. And may the potency of those coloured curses rest upon the

latter!

“STAR RUN ABOUT”

“It is the stars,

The stars above us, govern our conditions.”

SHAKESPEARE.

Primitive folk have ever looked up to the heavens for signs of good and

ill. Celestial appearances have fought for them terrestrial battles, or

have weakened their arms by prognostications of impending disaster.

Appeals have been made to passionless planets for justice against

mundane decrees, and when coincidences have been favourable the devout

student of the skies has loudly proclaimed them as proof of supernatural

interest in trivial, transient occurrences. In accordance with the

degree of poetry in the fibre of the people, so, in a certain degree,

has the belief in stellar influence been manifest.

The blacks of North Queensland, being, possibly, the least of the races

in a poetic sense, have but slight regard for the interference of the

stars in their poor little affairs, and in this respect are saner than

many a nation which has given abundant proof of wisdom. One of their

beliefs is that meteors are baleful, though under given conditions they

derive from such phenomena longed-for assurance. A meteor is described

as “Star run about.” “That fella no good; him kill'em man!” Yet in

circumstances to be mentioned they find in a meteor a sign that life has

been restored to an individual whom they have done to death. It is the

opinion of men who have studied the customs of the blacks that they--and

to their honour be it said--were never among themselves premeditated,

gluttonous cannibals. Human flesh was eaten, if not with solemnity, at

least with ceremony, for the belief exists to this day that the moral

and physical excellencies of the victim are assimilated by those who

partake of his flesh.

Reincarnation is prompt and practical, and unaccompanied by wasteful

and delusive hope. Herein lies the explanation of many a deliberate and

confessed killing, while to the meteor have the perpetrators looked for

absolution and remission of their sin. That which in the eyes of the

white man is regarded as an atrocious murder has not been, in their

semi-religious code, in any sense criminal, but a rite from which many

if not all the camp must inevitably benefit.

In one respect the killing of a boy is the highest compliment which may

be paid him, for it is proof that he has personal qualities which are

the envy and admiration of others, and for general welfare should be

shared by all. The boy who so dies is an unconscious patriot. This is

proved sufficiently by the fact that only what are considered to be

the more vitalising portions of the boy's body are eaten, whereas if

gluttony were the impulse of the deed the whole of the body would be

consumed.

An illustrative incident has been told me by one who has gained the

confidence of the blacks, and to whom other facts connected with it were

personally known. Not many years ago a boy from from a distant locality

visited a certain district in company with his master. He was tall, well

favoured, a good rider, quite an athlete, an accomplished performer with

the mouth-organ and concertina; ready and persuasive of tongue. These

qualities provoked unaffected admiration; for the natives of the place

are undersized, ill-looking, and deficient generally in the arts of

pleasing. Before the master left, Caesar was persuaded by his envious

fellow-countrymen to remain with them to be flattered and courted.

To evade trouble, the whole camp took to the hills for a while. In the

meantime Caesar's master departed, thinking, no doubt, that the boy

would follow him to his own “more better country.” After several weeks

the local blacks returned, but Caesar was not of the party, and it did

not occur to any of the white residents to ask questions concerning

him. In accordance with the love of notoriety which affects humanity

irrespective of complexion, one of the boys began to boast of being as

good as Caesar, and to prove his contentions by aping the manners of his

absent friend. It was not long before he blurted out the secret by which

he had become superfine--he had participated with others in a cannibal

rite after Caesar had been good-naturedly killed.

Rumours of the tragedy came to the ears of the police. The ringleaders

of the assassins were arrested, and one at least endured a term of

imprisonment as punishment. Caesar had been lured away and killed

because he was a good fellow and strong, and because his murderers

wanted to be good and strong like him. Certain parts of his body were

eaten, without relish, but with fervent hope. A remarkable circumstance

in connection with the sacrifice and ceremonial rite for the general

welfare is that the perpetrators console and comfort themselves with the

belief that should a meteor appear it is a sign that the victim did not

actually die, or if he died under their hands, that he has come to life

again. Those who were concerned in the killing and who had partaken of

the flesh sat together for several evenings gazing with expectation into

the sky. A meteor flashed across it, and it was hailed as a sign that

Caesar was alive and had gone to his own country. The contrary

evidence of relics of the dead was waved away before the imperious and

disinterested testimony of the falling star. “No matter. That fella him

no dead--finish. Him walk about 'nother country. Him good fella. That

fella star run about bin tell 'em.”

They felt themselves to have benefited materially and spiritually by

participation in the rite, and were calm in their belief that the victim

was none the worse for the temporary misfortune from which he suffered.

In another locality a meteor signifies the death of an individual,

and is referred to as “Tee-go-binah.” When a death cannot be directly

attributed to it locally, the phenomenon is referred to with such rustic

logic as this: “Some fella dead alonga 'nother camp. Might be longa

way.” The ancients felt “the sweet influences of the Pleiades.” One

of the two intimacies of the blacks of North Queensland with

stellar phenomena which has come to my knowledge is associated with

reincarnation after a deed of blood. Their faith is as absolute,

perhaps, as was that of the men of old.

BLACKS AS FISHERMEN

“For I tell you, scholar, fishing is an art, or at least it is an art to

catch fish.”--IZAAK WALTON.

Along the coast of North Queensland evidence may still be obtained,

though it ever becomes more difficult to secure practical demonstration,

of several novel methods of killing fish in vogue among the blacks prior

to the advent of civilisation. In many parts, indeed, the presence of

the white man has swept away not only the use of decent, if trivial,

pursuits and handicrafts, but the knowledge also that they ever existed.

The few facts here presented are, with some slight reservations, drawn

from actual observation. No doubt the well-informed on such subjects

will have plenary reasons--if ever these lines are honoured by perusal

of the class--for the accusation that there is nothing in them having

the virtue of newness or novelty. But I am not a professor with a mind

like a warehouse, rich with the spoils of time, but a mere peddler,

conscious of the janglings of an ill-sorted, ill-packed knapsack of

unconsidered trifles.

Some pioneers know more about the acts of the past than the best

informed of the younger blacks, who look with wonder and unconstrained

doubt when shown articles similar to those which their grandfathers must

have used almost every day.

Though the blacks of the past had but casual knowledge of the cruel

little barb that the resourceful white fisherman finds essential to

sport, and had neither neat tackle, nor reels, nor creels; though they

were denied the solace of tobacco, and every other accessory, they were

adepts at fishing. They had at command a stock of accumulated lore so

graphically transmitted that the babe and suckling must have seemed to

acquire it almost intuitively. They knew much of the habits of fish.

Their methods of laying under tribute the harvest of the sea were

so varied and unconventional that when one expedient failed, others,

equally free from the ethics of sport, were available at the shortest

notice. Fishing was not a pastime, but a serious occupation in which

nearly everyone was proficient.

Times are changing; but still the mouths of smaller creeks are sometimes

dammed, save for certain sluices and by-washes where puzzling pockets

are set. Weirs formed by stakes driven into the sand and interwoven with

twigs guide incoming fish into ingenious traps, whence they are scooped

up in dilly-bags. Occasionally the whole camp, dogs and piccaninnies

included, take part in a raid upon the sea. Men in deeper water, women

and boys and girls forming wings at right angles to the beach, enclose

a prescribed area in the ever shifting, mobile fence. Certain of the men

have huge dilly-bags made of strips of lawyer-cane, and shaped like a

ninepin with a funnel for a head. The tactics of the party combine to

drive the fish towards the silent men having charge of the dilly-bags,

who manipulate what certainly has the appearance of being a very awkward

utensil in the water with great skill and alertness. Hurried to frenzy

by the shouting and splashing of the crowd, and the flurrying of the

surface with bushes, the fish dart hither and thither until most of them

have found their way into the bags, at the only spots where, for the

time being, peace and quietude prevail. At other times a somewhat

similar design of basket is used for trapping eels.

Men armed with spears surround and exterminate a shoal detected in

shallow water; and the boomerang and the nulla-nulla as well as the

spear form the weapons of the solitary fisherman. On one of the islands

of the Gulf of Carpentaria the boomerang (I am told) alone is used, the

blacks being so expert that little is left to chance.

Though the wommera, or, as it is known locally, the yellamun, is common

in the neighbourhood of Dunk Island, it is not employed as an accessory

in the spearing of fish. Further north it is so almost universally, a

combination of boomerang and wommera being the most popular form. This

dual-purpose weapon is merely a boomerang to one of the ends of which is

fitted a spur, which engages the socket in the butt of the spear. While

on this subject, it is interesting to note that, though the common form

of the implement for increasing the velocity and range of the spear

is generally considered to be peculiar to Australia, its principle is

embodied in a contrivance which was used for a similar purpose in the

New Hebrides in Captain Cook's day.

Describing some of the arts of the inhabitants of Tanna, Cook (“Voyages

of Captain Cook round the World,” vol. i., chapter vi.) says that in

the throwing of darts “they make use of the becket, that is, a piece of

stiff plaited cord, about six inches long, with an eye in one end and a

knot in the other. The eye is fixed on the forefinger of the right hand,

and the other end is hitched round the dart where it is nearly on

an equipoise. They hold the dart between the thumb and the remaining

finger, which serve only to give direction, the velocity being

communicated by the becket and forefinger. The former flies off from the

dart the instant its velocity becomes greater than that of the hand, but

it remains on the finger ready to be used again.”

It is obvious that the Australian implement is much the more reliable

and effective. Cook mentions that with the dart the Tanna Islanders “are

sure of hitting a mark within the compass of the crown of a hat at a

distance of eight or ten yards; but at double that distance it is chance

if they hit a mark the size of a man's body, though they will throw the

weapon sixty or seventy yards.” Such a standard of marksmanship would be

regarded with contempt by the average black of North Queensland. The

use of this becket (introduced very many years ago by the Kanaka) is a

fairly common accomplishment among coastal blacks.

In shallow water, too, fish are chased until they become so exhausted

and nerve-shaken that they partially bury themselves in the sand, or

endeavour to elude observation by concealing themselves beneath stone

or coral, or by remaining passive among seaweed, trusting, no doubt, to

protective tints and assimilation with their surroundings. Few of these

stratagems of the fish are of avail when once a hungry black is on its

track. The science of war, we are bidden to believe, is not designed

for the slaughter of mankind, but so to impress the enemy with a

demonstration of overwhelming power, force, and majesty, that he may

become mentally unable or unwilling to offer resistance, because of its

obvious futility. So it is with the black in pursuit of a fish or turtle

in shallow water. By noise and bluster he works on the senses of the

fish until it becomes semi-paralysed. Then he proceeds callously to the

killing, which, in the case of fish, if his right hand is encumbered,

he generally accomplishes by a crunching bite into the back-bone at the

shoulders.

At rare intervals the black varies his tactics by a night attack, which

is often highly demoralising. When the moon is on the other side of the

world, with spears and flaring torches of paper-bark, he rushes in a

band to raid the reef, to the dismay of startled and bewildered fish.

Substitute for the gurgling cadences of semi-submerged coral and

muteness and universal dimness instant noise and splashing, and dazzling

lights here and there and everywhere, and it is not to be considered

strange that the fish--tipsy with panic and confusion--fail to exercise

their habitual alertness.

At a certain season of the year--November and December in the

neighbourhood of Dunk Island--myriads of fish, about the size of a

sardine, appear in shoals, an acre or so in area, or encircle the

islands with a living, bluish-grey frill yards broad. The blacks bestow

on this godsend, popularly known as “sprats”--HARENGULA STEREOLEPIS

(Ogilby)--the name of “Oon-gnahr.”

How skilfully does Nature dovetail her designs! This great multitude

of fish appears when it is most needed. The terns (sea-swallows)

are rearing their families, and ever need fresh food in unstinted

quantities. The small fry come to an excited and enthusiastic market.

Slim, silvery kingfish, grey sharks, and blue bonito, harry the shoals,

ripping through them with steel-like flashes, and as the little fish

ruffle the surface of sea or emerge therefrom in living silvery spray,

in frantic efforts to escape, the terns take all they want, screaming

with satisfaction. Then, too, the blacks join in the work of

destruction. When the frill of fish lies limp on the beach, they

fabricate a seine net, cheap, but admirably suited for the purpose. Long

strands of beach trailers and grass and slender twigs are rolled and

twisted up--apparently without the slightest art--into a huge loose

cable eight inches in diameter. The men run out the cable into the water

at right angles to the beach while still the gins, with nervous haste,

are adding to its length. If it breaks, a few twists and pokes suffice

to repair it. The men at the lead curve in towards the beach, and the

gins and piccaninnies wade out in line to meet them. Gradually the

cable, shocking in its frailty, is worked in, enclosing a patch of

the fish in a perilous coffer dam. Tumult and commotion are almost

as necessary contributories to the success of the stratagem as is the

cable. But before they realise what has happened, they are in such close

company that escape is impossible; dilly-bags are filled in a single

dip, and it may take half an hour to pick out those “meshed” in the

cable. It is all the work of a few minutes, and the haul often amounts

in quantity to a surfeit for the whole camp.

One of these rude seines which was overhauled was composed largely

of the long, leafless, twine-like branches of the leafless parasite

CASSYTHA FILIFORMIS (which the blacks term “Bungoonno”), IPOMEA

PESCAPRAE (“Koree”), Blady-grass (“Jin-dagi”), and the tough sprawling

branches of BLAINVILLEA LATIFOLIA (“Gallan-jarrah”), the whole being

reinforced with withes of CLERODENDRON IMERME (“Missim”), all of which

plants grow on the verge of the sea.

Vast as is the congregation of small fry, it gradually fritters away,

martyred to fish, flesh, and fowl. By the time the little terns are

thrown upon their own resources the violet frill of the sweet islands is

frayed and ragged, and drifts loosely in shabby remnants.

For large fish--groper, the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah,

sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and

grey)--a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a

point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with

fibre, the binding being made impervious to water by a liberal coating

of a pitch-like substance prepared from the resinous gum of the

arral-tree (EVODIA ACCEDENS).

The point is eight or ten inches long, the barbless end being swathed in

fibre so that it may fit easily into the socket of the eight or ten feet

shaft. A long line is tied to a point above the swathing, and, being

drawn taut along the shaft, is secured to the end by a series of

clove-hitches. When the fish is struck the point is drawn from the

socket, while the shaft acts as a cheek on, and an indicator of, its

course when just below the surface. Such harpoons and lines are also

used for the capture of dugong and turtle, the line being made of the

inner bark (the bast layer) of one of the fig-trees, and is of two

strands only. Occasionally the HIBISCUS TILLIACEUS is laid under tribute

for ropes and lines, which, however, are not considered as durable as

those from the fig. Nets, set and hand, are also made with twine from

the fig or hibiscus.

When, at low spring tides, the coral reef is uncovered, small rock-cod,

slim eels, parrot-fish, perch, soles, the lovely blue-spotted sting-ray,

catfish, flathead, etc., are poked out unceremoniously with spears or

sharp-pointed sticks from labyrinthine mazes, or from the concealment

afforded by the flabby folds and fringes of the skeleton-less coral

(ALCYONARIA), or from among the weeds and stones--a kind of additional

sense leading the black to the discovery of fish in places that a white

man would never dream of investigating. At this opportune time, too,

huge, defiantly armed and brilliantly coloured crayfish are exposed to

capture. A statement was published recently that this was the speediest

of all marine animals. The assertion is much to be questioned, but there

can be no doubt that the crayfish is a wonderful sprinter. Familiar with

its lack of staying power, blacks race after it uproariously as it flees

face to foe, all the graduated blades of its turbine apparatus beating

under high pressure. Two or three rushes and the crayfish pauses, and

then the agile black breaks its long, exquisitely sensitive and brittle

antennae, deprived of which it becomes less capable of taking care of

itself; or it may find its gorgeous armour-plates smashed with a stone

or penetrated by a spear. For the most part, however, the crayfish

lurks in coral caves, sweeping a considerable frontal radius with

ever-shifting antennae--not in pride or conceit of their beautiful tints

and wonderful mechanism, but with a pitiful apprehension of danger, for

the admirers of the creature are many and ever so much in earnest--the

earnestness of unceasing voracity.

Having a decided partiality for eels, the blacks of North Queensland

have devised several means of capture, one of which does not call for

the exercise of the least skill on the part of the individual whose

longing for the dainty becomes imperative. His placid perseverance,

too, is of no avail, unless luck favours. Wading in a shallow,

mangrove-bordered creek, he blindly probes the bottom with a six-feet

length of fencing wire, the modern substitute for the black palm spear.

Frequently he trifles thus with coy Fortune for hours, an inch or so

separating each prod; and again, in a spasm of indignant impatience,

he stabs determinedly into the mud at random. Non-success does not make

shipwreck of his faith in the existence of the much-desired food in

the black mud, for as far back as his own experience and the camp's

traditions go, substantial reason for that faith has been plentifully

revealed. He returns to the monotonous occupation until an unlucky eel

is impaled, and then it is given no chance of escape.

Pushing his spear a couple of feet through, the boy grips the prize

with both hands, or bends the wire into the form of a hook. Fortune may

continue to smile, and the boy takes several during the afternoon.

Many boys enhance the charms of solitude by ingeniously tricking

eels, Nature presenting them with an efficient engine of deceit and

destruction, so designed that neither the agitations of art nor the

invention of science could much improve it. About two feet of the thong

or lorum of one of the creeping palms (CALAMUS OBSTRUENS) is all that

is necessary. These lora are armed with definitely spaced whorls of

recurved hooks, keen as needles, true as steel, about one-eighth of

an inch long. Three or four of the whorls are removed to provide an

unfretful but firm grip. The pot-holes and shallow pools and gullies

and trickling creeks are populated by nervous, yet inquisitive,

semi-transparent prawns, upon which eels liberally diet. So silent and

steady of movement is the boy that even the alert prawns are unaware

of, or become accustomed to, his presence; and what is there to warn the

eel, enjoying its comfort among the dead leaves in the gloomiest corner

of the pool, of danger? Could any but a black boy detect the difference

between the brown sodden leaves and the half-inch of body which the eel

has unwittingly exposed? The “pig-gee” (as some term the lorum) is used

with almost surgical delicacy of touch to hook away two or three of the

leaves. Then it is placed parallel to whatever increased length has thus

been made visible, and with a decisive twitch the eel is torn from its

retreat and killed off-hand.

Even the shy, long-armed little prawns (PALAEMON AUSTRALIS) do not

escape special means for their destruction. A pliant rod about four

feet long is improvised from the midrib of the creeping palm before

mentioned, to the end of which is fastened a slender thread of the same

material, split off by using the nails of the thumb and second finger.

This strand, which is about four inches long, is delicately noosed.

Standing a few feet away from the water-hole, the black so manipulates

the line that the noose encircles the tail of the prawn, which, making

a retrogressive dart upon alarm, finds itself fatally snared. The prawns

are not, as a rule, eaten, being reserved for bait.

In creeks and lagoons thin, hollow logs are submerged. Eels naturally

seek such refuges, and in due course the boy dives, and, sealing the

ends with his hands, brings log and eel to land. Dr. W. E. Roth mentions

that crayfish and a certain fish resembling the rock-cod are similarly

captured, and remarks that the log is lifted at an angle, with one hand

closing the lower aperture, in which position it is brought to and held

above the surface, when the water trickles out between the fingers of

the sealing hand.

Yet another method (analogous to “bobbing”) is practised for securing

eels. Huge worms, found under decaying logs, are threaded by means of a

needle formed of a thin strip of cane on a line from ten to twelve

feet long until several feet of bait are available. The line is merely

doubled, the ends made fast to a stout pole, and the loop dangled in the

water. The boy fishes patiently, nor does he strike at the first nibble,

but permits the eel to swallow slowly what might be considered an undue

proportion of the bait, when it is landed and compelled to disgorge for

the benefit of the next comer.

Among coastal blacks--all of whom may be said to be fishermen--some are

ardent devotees to the sea. Others of the same camp restrict themselves

to unsensational creeks and lagoons. The frog in the well knows nothing

of the salt sea, and its aboriginal prototype contents himself with

milder and generally less remunerative kind of sport than that in which

his bolder cousins revel. Such a man, however, may possess aquatic lore

of which the other is admittedly ignorant, and be apt in devices

towards which the attitude of the salt-water man is adverse, if not

contemptuous. The fresh-water man is skilful in the use of a net shaped

something like the secondary wings of a certain species of moth, and

expanding and closing similarly. It is made of fine twine (one-inch

mesh), preferably from the bark of one of the fig-trees or the brown

kurrajong, tightly stretched on two pieces of lawyer-cane each bent

to form the half of an irregular ellipse. This net (“moorgaroo”) is

manipulated by two men working in concert, principally for the capture

of eels. They do not wait for the eel to come to them, but by shrewd

scrutiny discover its whereabouts under the bank of the creek or among

the weeds and roots. Then one silent man holds the net widespread, or

adroitly dodges it into intercepting positions, while the other beats

the luckless fish in its direction with more or less fluster. The

persistency with which the creeks are patrolled by men with spears,

netted and poisoned, invites one to marvel that any fish escape, and yet

once again quite a haul is made.

That great philosopher, Herbert Spencer, once in his life made a joke

and confessed to it, with apologies for its littleness. Lunching at a

tavern in the Isle of Wight, he asked: “Oh, is not this a very large

chop for such a small island?” Similarly, I have been astonished at

the apparent disproportion between the size of the eel and the

insignificance of the creek whence the exultant black has hauled it.

An instance of the poor part which the slimmest eel plays when pitted

against the Smartness and resourcefulness of the black may be related.

A large eel, in a moment of indiscretion, showed itself in a fairly deep

creek. Bewailing the absence of his wing-net, or “moorgaroo,” the boy

hunted the elusive fish hither and thither with cunning determination.

At last it disappeared under a log. In most of his activities the black

boy sniffs at conventions. Hastily stripping, the boy dived and when

he reappeared the eel was vainly squirming in one of the legs of his

trousers which had been knotted below the knee.

Another boy, a stranger, brought with him traditions which he

successfully materialised in favour of the employment of several light

darts instead of a single heavy spear for fishing. The subject was

frequently debated, but none of the camp adopted George's theories. His

favourite weapons were the dried stems of an all too common weed, which

generally grows straight and true. Into the thick end he would insert a

four-inch length of No. 10 fencing wire, sharpened to a delicate point,

and with a battery of eight or ten of these he would sally forth. His

bag averaged high. Often he treated me to practical demonstrations of

the success of his methods. A big flathead reposed in two feet of

water, half buried in the sand. George had one of his darts fast in a

twinkling, and the fish flashed away, the tip indicating its movement.

In a few minutes the hapless flathead was carrying no less than six

darts, and as such a handicap was absurd it abandoned the race for life.

On another occasion he struck a big sting-ray so full of his impish

darts that it resembled an animated pincushion of monstrous proportions.

It, too, realised the futility of kicking against so many pricks. On

the other hand, Tom, with his heavy shaft and barbed point, relied on

a single weapon. It seldom failed, for his right arm was strong and

disciplined to a nicety.

On a shallow tidal creek a settler had made a corduroy crossing of

the fibrous trunks of the Pandanus palms, which the blacks of the

neighbourhood turned to account in the capture of fish. A few frail

sticks, artlessly interwoven with grass, formed a primitive weir at

the down-stream end of the crossing. Fish which went up with the tide

frequently found themselves stranded on the way down, for the water

passed freely between the palm-tree trunks without affording them right

of way, and the rude weir often stopped for ever belated bream, mullet,

and barramundi. This simple trap, though it does not appear to be put

into use on the coast generally, seems almost to indicate an instinctive

knowledge of a studied design described to me by an observant friend who

has travelled into many an odd nook and corner of Queensland. On a deep

but narrow tributary of the Georgina River a permanent trap on a large

scale was wont to be maintained. A tree had been felled across the

stream so that each end of the trunk was supported by the respective

bank. Straight stakes were driven firmly into the bed of the creek as

closely together as possible, the heads resting against the horizontal

tree-trunk. This palisading formed the base of an embankment of packed

grass and rubbish, sufficiently tight to raise the level of the stream

about three feet. In the middle of the embankment, and about one foot

below water-level, a hole about one foot square had been cut. A platform

about ten feet long by three feet wide, having a fall of about one

foot and formed of a number of straight saplings laid parallel with the

stream, and supported by a couple of transverse bearers on four stout

forked sticks, received the escape from the sluice. At the lower end of

the platform was a rough weir of twisted grass, which was continued up

each side for about half its length. Water passed with little hindrance

through the platform, while jew-fish, yellow-tail, and bream, were

retained in considerable numbers.

Many years have elapsed--peradventure centuries--since the blacks of

Missionary Bay, Hinchinbrook Island, built a weir of blocks and boulders

of granite which oysters cemented here and there. On the fulness of

spring tides fish frolicked over and among the boulders. Those which

delayed their exit found themselves in an enclosed pool which at certain

seasons of the year runs dry. To this day the sea continues to pay

tribute, though the blacks of the locality have passed away, and there

is none but the red-backed sea-eagle or the heavy-flighted osprey and a

rare and casual white man, to receive it. Among the few emblems of the

vanishing race, this persistent weir-taking toll of the fish month after

month, year after Year, for the benefit of successive generations of

eagles and ospreys, appeals vividly to the imagination.

HOOKS.

From what can be ascertained at this late date, pearl shell hooks

were very sure and killing, but seem to have been used principally for

smaller fish--whiting, perch, bream, flathead, etc.--the occurrence

of large hooks being exceedingly rare. Mullet (if tradition is to be

credited) were seldom caught by hook and line, but were speared among

the mangroves at high tide--a practice which prevails to this day.

The Dunk Island examples have a resemblance to one of the forms of

pearl-shell hooks used by the Tahitians in Captain Cook's day.

Tortoise-shell hooks capable of holding large kingfish and fair sized

sharks are common among the natives of Darnley Island, Torres Straits.

During the process of cutting and paring the hooks to the size and

design required, the shell is frequently immersed in boiling water,

which temporarily overcomes its inherent toughness. Incidentally, it may

be pointed out that the evidence derivable from these fish-hooks does

not afford proof of Papuan influence on the mind of the Australian

aboriginal, except at the extreme north of Cape York Peninsula and a few

miles down the eastern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. This default

seems the more remarkable in face of the fact that outrigger canoes,

doubtless of Papuan or Malayan origin, were known as far south as the

Johnstone River.

To say that the coastal blacks of North Queensland had no knowledge of

the use of barbed hooks is misleading. In sheer desperation, when the

supply of pearl-shell hooks was exhausted, they were wont to attach

bait to their harpoon-points, and they used such unpropitious means

successfully, and occasionally made a miniature hook by tying a sharp

spur to a thin, straight stick. Recent proof has been obtained of the

use of the lorum of one of the creeping palms, from which all the spurs

save three at the thicker end were scraped off. With the knowledge of

the efficacy of the barb under extraordinary circumstances, is it not

the more remarkable that they failed to employ it systematically? Dr.

W. E. Roth describes crescentic hooks of coco-nut shell and wooden hooks

with bone barb, and also barbs improvised from one of the spines of the

catfish. He also mentions as “the most primitive form of hook” the

dried tendril of HUGONIA JENKENSII (“pattel-pattel” of the Dunk Island

blacks). To anyone familiar with the crescent pearl-shell hooks, the use

of the singular tendrils of the Hugonia would immediately be suggested;

but my observation, inquiries, and opinion do not support the theory.

The shape of the tendril is all that can be said in its favour. It is

neither sharp nor tough enough for actual use.

With these barbless hooks the bait was not impaled, but strapped on with

shreds of bark.

NARCOTICS AND POISONS.

It is said of the great Mogul Emperor Babur that he boasted of being

able to make fish drunk so that he might haul them in shoals, and when

“Carathis” pronounced her “barbarous incantations” the fish with one

accord thrust forth their heads from the water. Is it generally known

that the North Queensland blacks also are expert in the use of narcotics

and indifferent to the ethics of sport? The most commonly used of the

fish poisons on the coast of North Queensland is likewise employed by

the natives of Zambesi Land for a similar purpose. The plant is known

botanically as “Derris.” Two varieties, “scandens” and “uligijiosa,” are

known in this State. The aboriginal titles vary in different localities,

but “Paggarra” will suit the present purpose. Some blacks are so

offensively civilised that they know the plant by the name of “Wild

Dynamite.” Possibly it owes its popularity among fish poisons to the

fact that it is the handiest of all. It trails over the rocks, just out

of touch of high-water mark, but not beyond the reach of the spray

of surges. With roots investigating inclement crevices, and salt air

damping its leaves, the plant flourishes, and flowers prettily in

graceful racemes. In the semi-obscurity of the crevices the flowers put

on a tinge of pink, literally blushing unseen. The heartless blacks tear

up the plant, branches, leaves, flowers and all, coarsely bundle them

together, and, wading into an enclosed pool where fish are observed,

beat the mass (after dipping it into the water and while held in the

left hand) with a nulla-nulla. The action is repeated until the bark and

leaves are macerated, and then the bundle is thrown into the pool. In

a few minutes the fish rise to the surface, gasping and making

extraordinary efforts to get out of the infected water. Death ensues

rapidly, but the fish are quite wholesome as food.

Another of the vegetable poisons is known as “Raroo” (CAREYA AUSTRALIS).

The bark at the base of the trunk and of the roots contains an effective

principle, which is released in a somewhat similar fashion to that

employed with “Paggarra.”