CHAPTER XIIISOME BUSH YARNS
Inthis 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 vesselDuffin 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 quitepetite—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 commonenough, 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, watchingthe 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 merecollection 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 lightthroughout 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 ofhundreds 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.