SOME BUSH YARNS
In this our lazy midsummer holiday in February, our resting-place is
on the margin of the “bush.” As befits the occasion and the place, we
have laid in a stock of bush stories, and in particular we are yielding
ourselves to the enchantment of “We of the Never Never”--that frankly
true and weird story of life in the Northern Territory, where a man’s
nearest neighbour is sixty or ninety miles away. And then, just as we
finish the “Never Never” stories, there comes into our holiday life a
dear old soul who knows all about the “Never Never” country, who has
traversed its wilds and felt the strange pull of its life. She becomes,
happily for our party, reminiscent, and night after night we listen to
the recital of her adventures. Bordering upon seventy, her mind retains
the clearness almost of youth, and the simple life in the open has left
her face bronzed yet scarcely wrinkled, while her hair is as brown as a
woman’s in her thirties. It is difficult to realise that this quiet old
lady, well educated and mentally alert to all that is going on in the
Commonwealth to-day, commenced her career as a bush traveller, and has
wandered over thousands of miles of uninhabited country.
The spirit of adventure is in her blood. Her grandfather came out in
the vessel _Duff_ in 1796 as a missionary to the islands that lie to
the north of Queensland. Then there were real cannibals abroad, and a
white person was in peculiar peril. After a brave attempt to evangelise
these cannibals, the missionary found it necessary to remove to Sydney,
where he became evangelist and missionary to the scattered people in
the country round about. He had “assigned” to him one of the convicts
from Botany Bay, but this precious scoundrel, learning that a little
money was hidden in the house, conspired with another convict and made
a murderous attack upon his master. The “wee little wife”--she was
quite _petite_--rushed forward to assist her husband, and received upon
her arm a blow from a knife which laid bare the flesh to the bone. Both
husband and wife being left for dead, the robbers decamped, taking with
them all the money in the house. When the little woman recovered, she
seized her infant child and ran with him through the bush to Sydney,
seven miles distant, to seek aid. And that little fellow, who narrowly
escaped assassination, became the father of our delightful companion of
the “Never Never” adventures.
The grandfather and grandmother in the region around Sydney were
involved in many strange experiences in the early days of the
nineteenth century. Railways and roads, in the modern sense of the
word, were then unknown. Bush tracks were the only roads available
for travellers. Lawlessness was common enough, and very difficult
to suppress. England at that time was sending her convicts to Botany
Bay, as later to Van Diemen’s Land. Some of the convicts were villains
of the deepest dye; others were victims of iniquitous laws, and were
transported for the most trifling offences. Again and again the
convicts broke loose, and took to bushranging. They raided cattle
reaches, and drove off hundreds of beasts over the border. They “held
up” travellers in the approved Dick Turpin or Claude Duval style. Life
was held very cheaply then.
Persons who lived in the bush were always nervous when they had to go
into Sydney to pay money into the bank, or to withdraw it. One day a
“neighbour” of the missionary grandfather, learning that the latter was
driving into Sydney, begged him to bank a sum of five hundred pounds
for him. The commission was too dangerous, and it was declined. But
the wee little wife, with woman’s wit, hit upon a scheme for conveying
the money safely, and she accepted the commission. The buggy in which
they drove was high, and she, little woman, was very short, hence it
was necessary for her to have a footstool. Within the covering of
this footstool she sewed the bank-notes, and the journey commenced.
Within an hour of the time of starting they were “held up” by masked
bushrangers, who in the most polite manner requested husband and wife
to dismount while the buggy was thoroughly searched. The little lady
was assisted to the ground, and her footstool handed to her. Upon
this she sat, watching the robbers examine the buggy. When they were
satisfied they politely assisted her to the carriage, together with the
innocent stool, and then profusely apologised for the inconvenience
that had been caused. The story of the little lady’s wit is treasured
in the family, and is quoted against cynics who allege that
missionaries and their wives are deficient in the quality of sharpness.
Brought up in an atmosphere of adventure, it is not surprising that the
son of the old pioneer became in turn a traveller. When he married,
the “Never Never” country called to him, and in a few years he started
off, with his little family, upon a journey of two thousand miles.
Our versatile old friend who tells us the story was at that time a
girl of seven, and although sixty years have passed away since the
memorable adventure, the details of the scenes are still fresh in her
memory. First there was a kind of gipsy caravan in which the family
lived and slept when the weather was unpropitious, and in which the
stores were kept. Then came servants and cattle and horses, the latter
for use on the new homestead to which they were bound in the great
West, four months’ march distant. The roads were rough and perilous.
There was always the danger of the bushranger. And, most serious of
all, it was necessary never to lose sight of water. There was no
cross-country route available for the travellers; they were compelled
to come down from the north as far as Melbourne, and then turn again
north-west towards their destination. Melbourne was at that time a
mere collection of huts. Where flourishing suburbs now stand there was
the dense bush. In Melbourne itself a creek ran, and the gutters of
the streets were deep streamlets in which one might easily be drowned.
The whole region was wild and unsubdued. In the heart of the country
through which they passed the natives roamed at will, conquered though
uncivilised.
Sometimes they encountered hostile tribes arrayed in their warpaint,
and in search of an enemy to kill. For one of their superstitions
was that the death of any young tribesman must be surely due to the
evil influence of another tribe, and when such a death occurred the
warriors would go forth to kill some black or other--it did not matter
who he was--so that equilibrium might be restored. Once our travellers
encountered a band of warriors in search of a black to kill, and they
had evidently determined to dispatch the native belonging to the
caravan. For three days the poor fellow lay hidden in the van, fearing
to show himself, and for three days the warriors waited for their prey.
At last the discharge of a gun, with a fall of birds, convinced them
that it would be imprudent to remain longer in the neighbourhood of
this new “debbel debbel” which could evidently kill birds and might
kill them. The journey was continued amid profound stillness, which
was broken only by the screaming of parrots and the laughter of the
jackass. On one of its stretches the travellers were three weeks
without encountering a solitary human being, and then they lighted upon
a shepherd, whom they were ready to embrace.
Every week the horses were allowed two rest-days. Saturday was the
recognised washing-day. Although the travellers were “going bush,” the
cleanly habits of civilisation were strictly observed, even to the
ironing of clothes. And the little girl of seven with astonishment
watched her mother convert the tail-end of the caravan into an
ironing-board. Sunday was observed in a Christian manner. There was
always a service, the father reading the Anglican prayers and lessons
to his family and attendants.
And then one day, after four months of continuous travelling, the new
homestead came into view. The woman’s heart sank within her as she
beheld the new “home” to which they had come. It was little more than a
barn, with great gaps between the boards. And the very first thing she
beheld upon entering the bedroom was a tiger snake gliding into a hole.
Did ever woman have such a welcome to a new home? But it was the “Never
Never” country, and homesteads there boast no luxuries. But lo! when
a few months had passed a true home was formed; a man’s labour and a
woman’s deft fingers had combined to make a cosy dwelling, in which our
little girl of seven grew up to womanhood.
The bush is not everywhere so rough as this. Times have changed and
civilisation has altered the aspect of things. Our dear old grandmother
companion of the “Never Never” has a son in North Queensland who lives
in comparative luxury. His house is three hundred and fifty miles from
the nearest railway station, yet he has electric light throughout the
house, and boiling water laid on to bath and sinks. That, however,
is because Nature has been kind to him. Seven years ago, when he
went to his farm, he bored for water, and lo! an artesian well shot
up a column of water to a height of 250 feet above the ground, and
the water was boiling. And for seven years that flow has continued
without diminution. It has already formed a huge lake more than a mile
in width. The bush has a strange fascination for anyone who has once
fallen under its spell. It has happened more than once that a kindly
disposed Englishman has taken compassion upon a native baby and had
it brought up in English fashion, clothed and educated as an English
lad. And one thing has always happened when the lad reaches the age of
eighteen or nineteen. He hears the call of the bush, and one day he is
missing. Nature asserts herself as stronger than civilisation, and the
lad is off to his true habitat.
Even with Englishmen and Australians the spell, once cast, remains. Our
“Never Never” friend has another son who “went bush” for ten years, and
then, weary of it as he thought, he came to Melbourne and entered a
house of business. In less than a year he was back in the bush, unable
to resist its call. For five years they have heard no word of him. But
he is there somewhere in the North on a station, and one day he will
write or suddenly reappear. The bush plays sorry tricks with men.
Slowly the “scrub” is being cleared. Great forest fires consume the
wood and undergrowth of hundreds of square miles of land, thus
making it easier for men to exact from the soil the toll to which
they are entitled. The day must come when there will be no “bush.”
When Australia has its transcontinental railways, from Melbourne to
Fremantle and on to Port Darwin, and when an adequate population
arrives, then the bush will be replaced by cities and farms and
gardens. For there can be no doubt that Australia is a garden of Eden,
and that its chief need is men to till the soil and to replenish the
earth. And when there is true unity in Australia, and a common-sense,
God-fearing and united Central Government, the real move forward will
have begun.