Had Wylie deserted him he must have perished, for in the boy's quickness in detecting traces of the natives and indications of their 'wells' lay the only chance of safety. At last, when nearly exhausted, Eyre saw two boats at sea. They belonged to a French whaler. Eyre was taken on board, was well fed, was supplied with stores and ammunition; and, after a rest of eleven days, he and Wylie continued their journey, and, the country improving, they reached King George's Sound in safety.

Thirty years after this journey was made it was repeated from the opposite side by Mr. John Forrest, a fine young West Australian explorer, who with a small party pa.s.sed over it with but little inconvenience or difficulty. Mr. Forrest again and again camped on Eyre's old camping ground, which he recognised at once, and which seemed to have remained undisturbed from the time Eyre and Wylie left it.

Next comes the tale of the explorer over whose fate a veil of mystery and romance has fallen. In 1844 Ludwig Leichhardt was an eager young German botanist. He set his heart upon exploration. His first trip was most successful, as, starting from Sydney, he made his way to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and discovered many of the fine rivers of Northern Queensland. So much enthusiasm was occasioned by these revelations of a grand country in tropical Australia that the Sydney people subscribed 1500 for Leichhardt, and the Government presented him with 1000. After a short trip of seven months in the Queensland bush, Leichhardt organised an expedition to cross Australia from west to east, a feat which no man has yet performed, though explorers from the west have met the tracks of those coming from the east. His party consisted of H.

Cla.s.sen, six white men, and two blacks, with cattle and sheep. His last letter, which was dated from McPherson's Station, Cogoon, April 3rd, 1848, concluded in the following words: 'Seeing how much I have been favoured in my present progress, I am full of hopes that our Almighty Protector will allow me to bring my darling scheme to a successful termination.'

The hope was not realised. He has been tracked to the banks of the Flinders, in Northern Australia, but his fate is unknown. The disappearance of his party has been absolute, and the Australian imagination has dwelt long, anxiously and lovingly upon the mystery. No theory has been so wild but that it has found some eager adherents; every straw of hope has been grasped at. Expedition after expedition has sallied forth to rescue the living or to bury the dead, but all in vain: the tales have proved false, and slowly hope has faded away.

The explanation now generally accepted is that the party was surprised in low country by some tropical flood, in which all perished. A capital bushman, Leichhardt was not likely to starve. And if he had died from thirst, or if he had been murdered by the natives, some of his animals would probably have escaped, or some weapon or some piece of their equipment would have been found, and would have furnished a clue to the mystery. But the earth gives no more trace of him than the deep sea of a vessel that has foundered, or the air of a bird that has pa.s.sed by.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AFTER STRAY CATTLE.]

The Kennedy disaster was on a large scale. Edmund Kennedy had explored the course of the Barcoo with success, and in 1838 he was landed with twelve men at Rockingham Bay, to strike across country, to a schooner at Cape York. The dense jungle of the tropical bush and the vast swamps checked their progress. He left eight men at Weymouth Bay, and proceeded with three men and a black boy, Jacky, on his journey to the schooner.

The blacks were numerous and hostile, and the bush gave them shelter.

Kennedy was speared by an unseen hand, and died in the arms of Jacky.

The three men were never heard of, and only two of the other party of eight escaped. Jacky, however, turned up at the schooner with the papers confided to his care, a living skeleton. He is one of the many instances of the fidelity of the Australian black when once he has become attached to his master.

The rush to the gold-fields checked exploration for a time. All thoughts were directed to the auriferous treasure. But after the new population had settled down somewhat, a strong desire manifested itself to discover the secret of the continent. The South Australian Government offered a reward of two thousand pounds to the first person who should cross the continent from south to north, and the intrepid John McDouall Stuart was soon in the field to earn the money and to secure the fame. Stuart had been one of the officers in Sturt's last party, and he had discovered for South Australian employers a fine belt of pastoral territory beyond the salt lakes that had discomfited Eyre. In Victoria the public subscribed a large sum of money, which the Government doubled. The Government also sent for camels, at a great expense, and the Royal Society appointed a committee to organise the expedition. The command was given to Robert O'Hara Burke; Landells, who had brought over the camels, was second; and a young man from the Melbourne Observatory, W.

J. Wills, was placed in charge of the instruments. The dash and energy of O'Hara Burke, and the talent and Christian fort.i.tude shown by Wills, have endeared the memory of both these leaders to the country; but the admission must be reluctantly made that the tragic issue was due to Burke's unfitness for the command. He was no bushman, and was too eager and impulsive for a leader. As a second in command he would have been invaluable; as a chief he was overweighted.

The expedition left Melbourne August 20, 1860. Burke's orders were to take his stores up to Cooper's Creek, and, when he had established his depot there, to start for Carpentaria. On the way up Burke quarrelled with Landells, who resigned, Wills taking his place. At the same time Burke met with a man named Wright, who struck his fancy, and this stranger, utterly unqualified for the post, was placed in an important command. Burke left the bulk of the stores and most of the party on the Darling in charge of Wright, who was to bring them on with all possible speed, while the leader made a forced march with a light party to Cooper's Creek. Days pa.s.sed without Wright's appearing; and, instead of returning to hasten up his stores, Burke, with characteristic boldness, resolved to make a dash for Carpentaria. He divided his party and his stores, leaving Brahe and three men at the creek to wait for Wright, and started with Wills, King and Gray, on December 16, with six camels and a horse.

The party made a rapid journey through fair and good country. Box forests and well-gra.s.sed plains--a good squatting country--was traversed, and finally the explorers struck a fine stream, the Concherry, running to the north, whose banks were clothed with palms and tropical vegetation. They were greatly pleased, for they knew they had but to follow this river to reach the northern sea. But the camels broke down. Leaving them in charge of Gray and King, the leaders proceeded on foot, and came with exultation to an inlet of the great Northern Gulf.

Their task was done; they could turn back. But this was their last moment of joy, troubles thickening afterwards to the end. Their rapid travelling over broken country under a tropical sun, with scanty rations, began to tell upon all. There was no time for rest nor for hunting. The party must push on and on to reach the depot where food awaited them. Gray complained of a failure of all his powers, and in particular of an inability to use his legs. It was thought he was shamming, and he was punished and hurried on; but soon afterwards he laid down and died, and the same symptoms attacked them all, Burke bitterly regretting his severity. They began to kill their camels, and, scarcely sustained by this food, they pushed on, their pace dwindling to a crawl, and then to a totter. On April 21 they came in sight of the depot, and a grateful 'Thank G.o.d!' burst from their lips. They fired a gun. It was not answered, and they found the place deserted. Wright, with the stores, had never reached the creek, and Brahe, seeing week after week elapse, had fallen back to ascertain what was the matter in his rear, leaving half of his remaining provisions for Burke and Wills.

When the three travellers entered the desolate depot they gazed round in dismay, and Burke threw himself on the ground to conceal his feelings--they had expected safety, and they were confronted by death.

But a tree marked 'Dig' caught their eyes, and they came upon the buried provisions. A rest for a couple of days was indispensable. And then Burke came to the decision not to strike for the Darling, as Wills desired, but to make for a pioneer cattle station at Mount Hopeless on the South Australian border. This was a fatal choice, the camp being a few miles away. The same day Brahe, who had met Wright, rode back to the depot. By one of those fatalities which mark the expedition, Burke had buried his despatches in the _cache_, and had taken some pains to restore it to its original condition, and so Brahe thought it had not been disturbed. It was clear that some disaster had happened to Burke.

But Wright, who was in command of the stores, decided to fall back on the Darling to report matters to the committee. Thus were Burke and Wills abandoned. Wright and Brahe, when at the depot, were within two hours' journey of the perishing leaders. Growing weaker and weaker, the forlorn and deserted trio struggled on. The country became worse and worse. They struck the wretched desert where Sturt suffered so severely.

Water failed there, and all vegetation disappeared, and all hope of food, from the country. Their torn and rotten clothing dropped from their backs. They killed their last camel. In despair they walked back to Cooper's Creek, on the chance of finding the natives--just at the moment when another day would have rewarded them with the sight of Mount Hopeless on the horizon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT TO BURKE AND WILLS IN MELBOURNE.]

When they regained the creek their provisions were gone. The blacks showed the hapless men how to gather the little black seeds of a gra.s.s called the nardoo, on which they mostly lived themselves. The white men hoped that it would support them, but could only starve upon it. An effort was made to reach the depot to see if relief had arrived, but the strength of Burke and of Wills gave out. Wills was the first to sink. As he could travel no farther, Burke and King left him in a native hut with nardoo seed and water by his side, while they sought a.s.sistance from the blacks, who had given Wills a meal of fish a few days before.

When King returned a few days later with three crows which he had shot, the pure and gentle spirit of Wills had taken its flight. Burke had only tottered a few miles from the hut. He laid down to die, asking King to place his pistol in his hand, and not to bury him. The strong man had become as a child. He sent many messages to friends. Then he was silent; and the early morn saw the earthly end of a generous, ardent, manly leader, whose faults were of the head and are forgotten, while his virtues were of the heart and endear his memory.

King made his way to the natives, with whom he lived many months, until he was rescued. The Government granted him a substantial pension. A married sister devoted herself to his care. But those who looked upon his face saw his fate there. Thirst, hunger, and privation had smitten him too severely, and very soon he also fell asleep.

Great energy was shown in sending expeditions to the relief of Burke and Wills, when Wright returned to the Darling without them. One party under M'Kinlay started from Adelaide, another under Walker from Queensland; Landsborough led a third, which was landed at the Gulf of Carpentaria to reach Melbourne, and Howitt proceeded from Melbourne via Cooper's Creek.

The knowledge these expeditions gave of the country was great, and when McDouall Stuart, in 1862, crossed the continent, interest in exploration lapsed. Ten years afterwards a series of efforts were made by Giles, Gosse, Lewis, Forrest and Colonel Warburton, to cross from South Australia to the western seaboard. Forrest pushed his way through from the west, and Warburton from the east. This latter party had a terrible battle for life, and without the camels, and without an intelligent black fellow who hunted for the native clay-pans, all must have perished. The men abandoned everything, even their clothing, down to shirts and trousers; and Warburton arrived, strapped to a camel's back, rapidly sinking from exhaustion.

Still there are vast territories in Australia untrodden by the foot of the white man, but the task of filling up the blanks is now left to the pioneer settler. One squatter pushes out beyond another, as the coral insect builds on its predecessor's cell. Without any stir a district that was once in the desert is occupied, and then the blocks beyond are attached. The process is sure, though without sensation.

CHAPTER XI.

A GLANCE AT THE ABORIGINES.

FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH THE BLACKS--MISUNDERSTANDINGS--NARRATIVE OF A PIONEER--CLIMBING TREES--THE BLACKS' DEFENCE--DECAY OF THE RACE--WEAPONS--THE NORTHERN TRIBES--A NORTHERN ENCAMPMENT--CORROBOREE--BLACK TRACKERS--BURIAL--MISSION STATIONS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CORROBOREE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WADDY FIGHT. (_See p. 168._)]

From large portions of the continent the native has now been absolutely swept away. The immigrant who intends to settle in the populated parts of South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and Queensland, will have no more to do with the natives than he would have to do with the Redskins if he visited Ohio or Pennsylvania. The aborigines, unless in the harmless guise of mission blacks, are not to be found except in the far-off outlying parts where the pioneer squatter is prosecuting his labours, and there the old sad tale of plunder and of murder by the tribes, and of revenge by the white man--too often on guilty and innocent alike--is still repeated.

The blacks of Australia differ in appearance and in size greatly, quite as much as do the inhabitants of Europe. There are poorly fed tribes who are correctly described by Dampier, while on the other hand men of a splendid physique can be found amongst them. It may be said at once that the tales that deny their intelligence and which degrade them almost to the level of brutes are unfounded. They live in their natural state, without care or responsibility, very much as children, and they have the cleverness and the uncertain tempers and the mercurial happiness of children. They could live, it must be remembered, with a minimum of exertion. So long as a country was not over-populated, opossums, fish and roots were obtained with little labour, and there was no occasion for house-building. As animals like the sheep and the horse flourish in the open in most parts of Australia without artificial shelter, so man can 'camp out' with comparative ease. Thus the black was not, and is not, called upon to exercise his higher faculties. Food was too scarce to enable him to multiply and to form permanent settlements. Yet, such as it was, its collection did not brace him up to any mighty efforts.

His life was never in danger from wild animals. If he found many opossums, he indulged in a surfeit; if marsupials, lizards, birds and roots were scarce, he pinched for a time. If the black had discovered agriculture, his state might have been very different, but of cultivation he never had the slightest idea. Once when a tribe was induced by an enthusiastic settler to plant potatoes, the men and women rose in the night and dug up the seed and feasted upon it. It was inconceivable to them why the white man should desire to bury good food.

Thus the black man wandered in one sense aimlessly over vast tracts of country, living on its chance fruits: a restless nomad, with no apparent prospect of rising on the social scale. Even in Victoria, the garden of Australia, it took 18,000 acres to maintain a black. It must be admitted that this waste of power was too great. The European had a right to conceive that the land was not in an occupation that need be respected, though more consideration for the original tenants might have been and ought to have been shown. The mischief was that colonisation was unsystematic. No one knew how to deal with the blacks. The blacks did not know how to establish friendly relations with the white man.

We give two ill.u.s.trations here of Victorian natives. The likeness in profile is that of a civilised black, and is strongly characteristic of the Victorian race. The woman is also a good representative of the Victorian lubra. In civilised races the woman eclipses the man in beauty, but the rule reads backwards in savage races. The Australian black man is often stately and picturesque--his mate is generally hideous.

An offence committed within a tribe was generally settled by the disputants fighting the issue out with spears or with waddies until the elders thought that justice was satisfied. Terrible wounds would be given and received, but to the healthy black man, cuts, smashes, and bruises that would be fatal to the white are as nothing.

Although many pioneer settlers lived on friendly terms with the blacks, yet their sheep would be stolen, and then there were reprisals. Here and there all the hands on a station would be sacrificed. When the settlers were at all near each other, it was the custom in Victoria to fix heavy bells on posts near the house, and thus the warning of an attack was pa.s.sed through a district, and a force would be brought together to relieve the white men and to punish the black. So it has been in turn in all the settlements.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CIVILISED ABORIGINES.]

Mr. G. F. Moore, when Advocate-General at the Swan, gave the following narrative of a defence made to him by a black, who for his crimes had been outlawed: 'A number of armed native men had surrounded the house, when Mr. Moore went to the door to speak to them, having his fire-arms close at hand. He soon recognised Yagan, but the natives near the door denied that he was present. However, when the outlaw perceived that he was known, he stepped boldly and confidently up, and, resting his arm on Mr. Moore's shoulder, looked him earnestly in the face, and addressed him, as the first law officer of the Crown, to the following effect: "Why do you white people come in ships to our country and shoot down poor black fellows who do not understand you? You listen to me! The wild black fellows do not understand your laws; every living animal that roams the country and every edible root that grows in the ground are common property. A black man claims nothing as his own but his cloak, his weapons, and his name. Children are under no restraint from infancy upwards; a little baby boy, as soon as he is old enough, beats his mother, and she always lets him. When he can carry a spear, he throws it at any living thing that crosses his path; and when he becomes a man his chief employment is hunting. He does not understand that animals or plants can belong to one person more than another. Sometimes a party of natives come down from the hills, tired and hungry, and fall in with strange animals you call sheep; of course, away flies the spear, and presently they have a feast! Then you white men come and shoot the poor black fellows!" Then, with his eagle eye flashing, and holding up one of his fingers before Mr. Moore's face, he shouted out--"For every black man you white fellows shoot, I will kill a white man!" And so with "the poor hungry women: they have always been accustomed to dig up every edible root, and when they come across a potato garden, of course, down goes the wanna (yam-stick), and up comes the potato, which is at once put into the bag. Then you white men shoot at poor black fellows. I will take life for life!" And so far as in him lay Yagan kept his word.'

Generally speaking, the colour of the natives is a chocolate brown; their dress is of the simplest kind: the opossum cloak, the strips of skin worn round the loins and the ap.r.o.n of emu feathers const.i.tute their wardrobe. The aboriginal is essentially a hunter. His hands reveal his occupation at once, as they exclude the idea of manual labour. An English ploughman, it has been said, might squeeze two of his fingers in the hole of an Australian shield, but he could do no more. Like most nomads, the objection of the natives to steady work is insuperable. In pursuit of game, in stalking an emu or a kangaroo, they will concentrate their attention for hours, and will occasionally undergo great fatigue, but without some excitement or object they will do nothing. No black man will ever stoop to lift an article if he can raise it with his toe. And the big toe of the black man in the bush is almost as useful and as flexible as the thumb. The missionaries at the blacks' stations have achieved wonders with their pupils, but the one thing they cannot do is to induce the pure aboriginal to labour in any such way as the white man works. Give him a horse, however, and he is happy.

Mr. E. M. Carr, Chief Inspector of Stock in Victoria, in his interesting and valuable _Recollections of Squatting in Victoria_, brings the daily life and the customs of the blacks vividly before the reader. His father took up country so far back as 1839, in the Moira district; and Mr.

Carr, though a stripling, was left in charge. He came in contact with the blacks therefore when they were absolutely in a state of nature. He gives a long and interesting account of some matrimonial negotiations carried on between the Ngooraialum and Bangerang tribes. We have s.p.a.ce for only a small part of his graphic story. The young people are betrothed to each other years before the time of marriage, and, of course, have no voice whatever in the arrangements. While Mr. Carr was staying with the Ngooraialum tribe, the Bangerang, preceded by one of their number named Wong, arrived. 'The Bangerang, after they had satisfied themselves by a glance that it was really Wong, continued as if entirely unconcerned at his arrival; taking care, however, to keep their eyes averted from the direction in which he was coming. This little peculiarity, I may notice, is very characteristic of the blacks, who never allow themselves to give way to any undue curiosity as regards their fellow-countrymen, and as a rule refrain from staring at any one.

Wong, when he arrived within twenty or thirty yards of the camp, slowly put his bag off his shoulder without saying a word, gazed around him for a moment in every direction save that of the Bangerang camp, and sat down with his side face towards his friends, and quietly stuck his spears one by one into the ground beside him, with the air of a man who was unconscious of any one being within fifty miles of him; the Bangerang, in the meantime, smothering all signs of impatience. Probably five minutes pa.s.sed in this way, when an old lubra, on being directed in an undertone by her husband, took some fire and a few sticks, and, approaching the messenger, laid them close before him, and walked slowly away without addressing him. Old Wong, as if the matter hardly interested him, very quietly arranged his little fire, and, as the wood was dry, with one or two breaths blew it into a blaze. Not long after, an old fellow got up in the camp, and, with his eyes fixed on the distance, walked up majestically to the new-comer and took his seat before his fire. Though these men had known each other from childhood, they sat face to face with averted eyes, their conversation for some time being constrained and distant, confined entirely to monosyllables.

At length, however, they warmed up; other men from the camp gradually joined them; the ice was broken, and complete cordiality ensued; and Wong having given the message of which he was the bearer, that the long-expected Ngooraialum were coming, the conference broke up, the new-comer being at liberty to take his seat at any camp-fire, at which there was no women, which might suit his fancy. The next evening, from amongst the branches of a tree in which they were playing, some young urchins announced the arrival of the Ngooraialum. The bachelors, being unenc.u.mbered, arrived first; next, perhaps, couples without children; then the old and decrepit; and, lastly, the families in which there was a large proportion of the juvenile element. As they arrived they formed their camps, each family having a fire of its own, some half-dozen yards from its neighbour's; that of the bachelors, perhaps, being rather further off, and somewhat isolated from the rest. After the strangers had arranged their camps (which, as the weather was fine, consisted merely of a shelter of boughs to keep off the sun), and each group had kindled for itself the indispensable little fire, which the aboriginal always keeps up even in the warmest weather, they began to stroll about.

On this occasion two or three Bangerang girls found husbands amongst the Ngooraialum, who returned the compliment by making as many Bangerang men happy. In every instance it was noticeable that the husband was considerably older than the wife, there being generally twenty years--often much more--between them; indeed, as I frequently noticed, few men under thirty years of age had lubras, whilst the men from forty to fifty had frequently two, and occasionally three better halves.'

In another chapter Mr. Carr shows his friends in an unamiable light.

One of the warriors of the tribe died. 'Pepper' was buried with all honours; but, as usual, the great question was who had bewitched him.

The common practice was resorted to for discovering the enemies.

'Shortly after sunrise the men, spear in hand (for no one ever left the camp without at least one spear), went over to the new grave. Entering its enclosure, they scanned with eager eyes the tracks which worms and other insects had left on the recently-disturbed surface. There was a good deal of discussion, as, in the eyes of the blacks, these tracks were believed to be marks left by the wizard whose incantations had killed the man, and who was supposed to have flown through the air during the night to visit the grave of his victim. The only difficulty was to a.s.sign any particular direction to the tracks, as in fact they wandered to and from every point of the compa.s.s. At length one young man, pointing with his spear to some marks which took a north-westerly direction, exclaimed, in an excited manner: "Look here! Who are they who live in that direction? Who are they but our enemies, who so often have waylaid, murdered, and bewitched Bangerang men? Let us go and kill them." As Pepper's death was held to be an act particularly atrocious, this outburst jumped with the popular idea of the tribe, and was welcomed with a simultaneous yell of approval which was heard at the camp, whence the shrill voices of the women re-echoed the cry.

'A war-party, fifteen in number, proceeded stealthily, and chiefly by night marches, to the neighbourhood of Thule station, visiting on their way those spots (known to one of the volunteers) at which parties of the doomed tribe were likely to be found. After several days' wandering from place to place, subsisting on a few roots hurriedly dug up, and suffering considerably from hunger and fatigue, they caught sight, as they were skulking about towards sundown, of a small encampment, without being themselves seen, upon which they retired and hid in a clump of reeds. About two o'clock in the morning the war-party left their hiding-place and returned to the neighbourhood of the camp, and having divested themselves of every shred of clothing, and painted their faces with pipe-clay, they clutched their spears and clubs, and, walking slowly and noiselessly on, soon found themselves standing over their sleeping victims.

'According to native custom, no one was on watch at the camp, and I have often heard the blacks say that their half starved dogs seldom give the alarm in cases of strange blacks, though they would bark if the intruders were white men. They gently raised the rugs a little from the chests of the doomed wretches, and at a given signal, with a simultaneous yell, plunged their long barbed spears into the bosoms or backs of the sleepers. Then from the mia-mias, which were quickly overturned, came the shrieks of the dying, the screams of the women and children, blows of clubs, the vociferation of the prostrate, who were trying to defend themselves; the barking of the dogs and the yells of the a.s.sailants, who numbered fully three to one. Altogether it was a ghastly, horrible scene that the pale moon looked down on that night at Thule.'

Mr. Carr describes the agility displayed by the men in such feats as mounting the trees for opossums, &c., and the ill.u.s.tration on page 12 tells the story of one of these hunts.

Of Australian weapons the most interesting is the boomerang. Mr. Brough Smyth, in his work on the aborigines, discredits the idea that there is any connection between the boomerang and the throwing or crooked stick of the Dravidian races of India, as has been contended, and insists that it is _sui generis_. Its peculiar action depends upon a twist in the wood, the twist of the screw, which may be imperceptible to the careless observer, but which is always there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BOOMERANG.]

When a skilful thrower takes hold of a boomerang with the intention of throwing it, he examines it carefully (even if it be his own weapon, and if it be a strange weapon still more carefully), and, holding it in his hand, almost as a reaper would hold a sickle, he moves about slowly, examining all objects in the distance, heedfully noticing the direction of the wind, as indicated by the moving of the leaves of the trees and the waving of the gra.s.s, and not until he has got into the right position does he shake the weapon loosely, so as to feel that the muscles of his wrist are under command. More than once, as he lightly grasps the weapon, he makes the effort to throw it. At the last moment, when he feels that he can strike the wind at the right angle, all his force is thrown into the effort: the missile leaves his hand in a direction nearly perpendicular to the surface; but the right impulse has been given, and it quickly turns its flat surface towards the earth, gyrates on its axis, makes a wide sweep, and returns with a fluttering motion to his feet. This he repeats time after time, and with ease and certainty. When well thrown, the farthest point of the curve described is usually distant one hundred or one hundred and fifty yards from the thrower. It can be thrown so as to hit an object behind the thrower, but this cannot be done with certainty. The slightest change in the direction of the wind affects the flight of the missile to some extent; but the native is quick in observing any possible causes of interference.