A prickle seldom punctures at once; a few revolutions of the wheel must be made before the thorn gets through into the air tube. The object, then, was to remove the thing before those revolutions were made.
When experimenting with the puncture preventative I found that the part of the tyre immediately over the valve bulged out further from the rim than any other portion of it, and so touched the tin. Thiswas remedied by deflating the air tube, loosening the valve and shoving it well in and back from the rim; then properly bedding the outer cover and inflating slightly before again screwing the valve up. A final tightening was given when the tyre had been fully inflated, and I had the cover an equal distance all around from the thenceforward ever-ready and effective appliance.
Then, having tested it on the burrs about the "camp," I debated whether it was an ejector or a dissuader, an interceptor or an arrester, a burr-catcher or a burr-guard—and, so debating, to sleep.
* * * *
But not for long—soon I had company. Dingoes—the howling nuisances of the bush—began their unearthly wailings in the scrub. A revolver-shot scatters or quietens them for a while; but soon they collect again, and emphasize their piteous, dismal cries.
An early start from the Tea-tree; and soon Central Mount Stuart is sighted, rising slowly into distinctness, until, at about 20 miles on, the track is within about 3 miles of it.
A gum creek, the Hanson, runs between the track and the mountain, and between the creek and the track is a belt of mulga.
The mount itself rises out of the heart of a vast stretch of level country.
For myself, with memories of printed and spoken descriptions, I expected to see a solitary peak; instead there is a short range, consisting of three or four hills,the highest of which—this Central Mount Stuart—rises 2500ft. above sea level. Its formation is among its peculiarities, but its layers of red and bluish rock give little foothold for vegetation. And, above all, it is affirmed that it is only 2½ miles out from the exact centre of the continent of Australia. But on this point there is room for doubt.
Central MountStuart, too? Yet I remember to have read in one of Stuart's diaries:—
"There is a high mount about two miles and a half, which I hoped would have been in the centre; but on it to-morrow I will raise a cairn of stones and plant the flag there, and will name it Mount Sturt, after my excellent and esteemed commander of the expedition in 1844 and '45, Captain Sturt, as a mark of gratitude for the great kindness I received from him during that journey."
The hill must always be an object of surpassing interest to each fresh observer. One cannot but feel saddened by the crowding thoughts of hardships undergone by those intrepid ones who first penetrated here.
* * * *
But it was an exceedingly warm forenoon; and, although Mount Stuart is a sight well worth travelling many a mile to see, I notice the short Philistinish sentence in my note book—"Would have preferred a brewery."
Some day there may be a Central Mount Stuart Hotel.
* * * *
The road from the Tea-tree had been fair and level, and so it continued to the Hanson Well—a total of 33 miles.
At the Hanson a blackfellow was bending over and drinking from the troughs. He was somewhat startled on turning and seeing me dismount; but, though he had with him a few implements of the chase and an iguana, he did not look particularly wild.
My waterbag was empty. Leaning the bicycle against something, I stepped over towards the well and began—"Here, 'Hanson,' lend a hand to——"
But he had very civilly started walking after me to lend the hand before I had asked it of him.
The bucket was soon landed, and not another word was spoken until I had drunk deeply of the sparkling liquor. Then I found that the naked one was capable of "yabbering" fairly well.
"'Nother white pfella walk longa track?" he said, inquisitively.
"No more—which way blackpfella sit down?"
"By and bye more blackfellow come."
Then, indicating a direction by a hand-wave he added vaguely—"Longa scrub."
Then I went to the machine. Lighting my pipe, I overhauled the parts, spinning wheels and performing other simple operations.
"Hanson" had approached cautiously; but at length his curiosity got the better of him, and he came near. He sat down on his haunches and eyed it quizzically, and for several minutes in silence. At length—
"My word, good pfella nanto that one!" ("Nanto"=horse.)
I jumped into the saddle and exhibited my nanto's paces. Then laid it down.
He quizzed it again.
"Him no wantit feed? No walk-about?"
"Ah, wait," I said; and took out the air pump, and set to work.
"Hanson" rose from his haunches and bent over the inflating tube.
"My word," he cried, slapping his legs in prodigious glee—"My word, him grow fat all right,myword!"
I gave him half a stick of tobacco. Never yet have I heard a blackfellow say "Thank you." "Hanson" received the tobacco in silence, and just as if he didn't know he was on the point of asking for it. Yet he may have been thinking of something else because, as I handed it to him, he said—
"White pfella him big one clevah. What him think, him do?"
I thought I had heard the same thing somewhere before.
"Yes," I coincided, and felt for the moment that it devolved upon me to say or do something towards proving myself worthy of a share in the flattering opinion. "Awfully clevah. I-er have known—"
I was about to speak of a scientific American's flying machine; but the bicycle was quite far enough in that direction.
"Have known-er eccentric bodies of them stand bolt upright on their heads. Say 'Nansen'—I mean 'Hanson'—" as the thought struck me—"didyouever have a try at standing on your head?"
But "Hanson" didn't savee. He giggled; repeated to himself vacantly a few times "Head? Head?" and finally put a poser to me.
"Which way?"
It was but a Christian duty that I should instruct and edify the poor benighted heathen. No one besides us two were near to witness the good deed; so as he sat on his haunches and continued gazing up into my face expectantly, I slung my satchel on the handle-bars, emptied into it a few things from my pockets, levelled off a little sandy space on the ground, and showed "Hanson" by a single object lesson how the "clevah" thing was done.
The benighted one took very kindly to my humble Christian endeavour.
"Well, 'Hanson,'" said I, taking up my satchel and replacing the articles, "do you think you could manage it? Tell you what; suppose you stand alonga upside down, then this other fat—one stick of tobacco I give it. Savee?"
"Hanson" saveed.
"Me do it all right, I think," he said, scrambling from his squat, and valorously stepping over to the small clear space.
There he went down on all fours, and jambing his head on the ground sought to invert himself. He wasfar from succeeding the first time he tried, or the second, but needed not the slightest word of encouragement from me to try and try and try again.
"Here 'Hanson,'" said I at last, compassionately, "knock off. You'll be suffocating yourself. Besides, I want to ask you which way track go."
But he had taken it very much to heart, this feat of standing on his head, and was bent on its achievement.
"Which way track go?" I said again.
"Me do it this time all right, I think;" and was "this time" just as near success as before.
"Don't you hear?" I called out. "I want to ask you about the road." Butheonly wanted to stand on his confounded head.
I rather regretted having put him up to the wrinkle; the track from the well might be in any direction.
"Me give it you that fellow stick of tobacco all the same you stand up," I said.
Again he only muttered a choking "Me do it all right," and again another try.
But it was all of no avail. He couldn't stand on his head and I couldn't stop him from trying. His face might long since have grown purple; but I was unable to see. His ulster would hang downwards and get in the way.
"What infernal nonsense," I said impatiently to myself. Here was I, in the heart of a continent, miles from any other white man, my sole companion anunknown black, myself ignorant of the track, and paying for the freak of a moment in this absurd way.
"Hanson" was still struggling. I gave him up as hopeless, got into the saddle, and wheeled away.
I wonder if "Hanson" has done it yet, and if upon the strength of it he's been raised in rank in his tribe!
* * * *
Those aborigines are a perverse lot. Bushmen and those who have long lived at the telegraph stations or at Port Darwin agree that you can never rely upon astonishing them. Take a tribesman from the inlands, as the native police have sometimes had occasion to do, show him the "mighty ocean," and he regards it stolidly; and so with many of the marvels of civilisation. But do some fantastic trick or show him some simple, gaudy thing, and he is transported.
But their laughter is mostly a giggle, especially in the presence of white men. I never heard from any of them a boisterous outburst, nor ever heard one with a bass voice—unless he also had a bad cold.
My "Hanson" was not wholly uncivilised. He wore, as I said, an "ulster." Now, a blackfellow's full dress away from settlements consists of an "ulster"—not universally so called—and a waist band, which are worn low down in front. The "ulster" measures about 10 inches by 6, and is suspended from the band. Of course where white men are stationed and the blacks are permitted to congregate, the "nager,"or clothes-line, is drawn lower down and higher up on the part of the females, and those of the males who can procure them wear bifurcated garments.
* * * *
Eight miles from the Hanson Well, and we are at the Stirling horse-breeding station. Fair road for most of the spin, though there are three sandhills near the end of it. And in the short spin, too, we say good-bye to that salt bush—here a strongly-growing patch—which has been for so many miles, so many hundred miles, our sole companion.
A wide, fertile and picturesque creek-flat, studded with gums, was ridden over before the Stirling Creek itself, and afterwards the station, came into view. Following up the watercourse I had arrived within a couple of hundred yards of a not imposing little row of buildings (for all that, there was a pleasure in sighting them) without being able to detect a soul, when suddenly out of the creek started up, as if by magic, about fifty of the best specimens of Australia's hirsute savages I have ever had the opportunity of picking up broken pieces of volapuk from—a handsome, murderous-looking set of able-bodied cut-throats, who came racing towards me.
"Hello, my beauties," I said, and pressed as quickly as convenient to an open door.
Resting the bicycle against a verandah post, I looked inside and asked hungrily "Anybody home?" but there came no reply.
Wheeling sharply and addressing the crowd of sable ungarmented savages, now volubly "yabbering" and deeply interested in a discussion of the bicycle—"Which way boss walk, sit, run, tumble down, or jump up?" I enquired anxiously.
One only, so far as I could make out, laid claim to be a linguist.
"Him go after bullock. Not long him come back. You wait?"
This was a re-assuring start, anyhow.
Wait? Rather! Though I badly wanted to push on to Barrow's Creek I would have waited a week, could it have been so arranged, to see this man—for the bare sake of having one good look at him, for the possibility of a hand shake from him.
For I had heard of him, though never previous to my passing Oodnadatta. And I had heard of his lion courage from those who must themselves be brave men. I knew of the spear marks he bore, and how it was he came to bear them; yet fearlessly as ever remaining here by himself for months at a stretch, a kindly master to a horde of athletic treacherous savages, with not the slightest chance of anybody coming to his assistance should he ever be in need of aid!
When, after a couple of hours "wait," I saw him riding up, I felt no pang of disappointment; he looked in full the hero I had pictured him. I managed an indifferent-sounding "Good day—a bit hot?" and looked away over to where stood his horse; but I watched him with a leaping, boyish happiness throughthe corners of my eyes, and there came again and again to my mind the expressive deliberate words of more than one quiet-spoken old bushman—"Ah! But it ishewho is the grand man!"
There was no doubt that I was outside the pale of civilization now; he had heard nothing of a cyclist being on the road.
There was no occasion to tell him I was hungry. A welcome feast was soon prepared, and I ate—no, I fear, I gorged.
And what a mine of information is this man himself! What would he not be worth to the interviewer? But he talks with more than the modesty of the bushman, and that is saying much.
The natives now-a-days along the overland track are not, in his view, quite so black as they are painted in the imagination of some residing south of Alice Springs. Articles might be pilfered from a camp left without anyone in charge, but otherwise the natives near the wells and on the road might generally be looked upon by the passer-by as harmless, if properly handled. To east and west, however, are several places in which the natives are "cheeky." "And," added my host, "some 'bad' fellows now and again find their way into the Bonney"—a fresh water well to which I had not yet come.
* * * *
From Stirling to Barrow's Creek is 22 miles. The first eight or nine of these takes the traveller along the Stirling Valley, over well grassed and timbered reek flat sand plains.
Here are many healthy specimens of the celebrated Stuart's Bean tree. This is one of the most beautiful of shade trees. The few I had noted particularly had grown to a height of from 35ft. to 40ft. The pods when ripe split open, and, the bright scarlet beans within being exposed, a very pretty picture indeed is presented. The beans are very hard, and about three-eighths of an inch long. Dusky damsels gather them, bore a hole through each one, and string them into necklaces. Even lying about on the ground those bright-coloured little ornaments served to add another charm to the romantic scenery of Stirling Vale.
Although not given to collecting curios, I took one with me over the Foster range (five miles of barren mountain-top and very stony track, the descent on the north side being particularly steep) and along the further eight miles of stony creeks, cutting through flats between other ranges, which led to Barrow's Creek.
* * * *
At the crossing the creek is wide, and heavily timbered with gums. The telegraph station lies the other side, and is very prettily situated at the foot of a steep hill which marks one side of a gorge in a range bearing away to the east. The buildings are of stone, and everything about the place bears evidence of a very attentive supervision. The whites "in camp" at the time were the station master, two or three assistants a cook and a police trooper. A well-kept and prolificgarden is close by, and a low stone wall and headstone mark the burial place of those who were killed when the natives made their oft-told-of attack.
That was in '73, when as yet the natives were unaccustomed to the new institution of the Overland, and when their favorite recreation was the cutting of the wire. They watched a line repairing party file out, northward; and having waited, with their native cunning, until those men were beyond the possibility of recall, on a Sunday evening, when the eight inhabitants of the station were talking together outside the stone wall, they suddenly sprang from ambush and poured in a shower of spears. And yonder are the graves of the station-master and a linesman, who paid for the natives' treachery with their lives, while others paid for it with months of agony from spear wounds and thrusts.
* * * *
There is no place of call in the 160 miles between Barrow's and Tennant's Creeks, and it was certain I would be very hungry before that distance had been travelled, however short a time it might occupy.
Here was a stage in which a sporting rifle or a shot gun would very probably come in handy. But then a gun is of no avail without powder and shot, and the carrying of these, to say nothing of a kangaroo leg or turkey (buzzard), loomed up an altogether swamping difficulty.
Still I knew I could do comfortably for a fair time without food, provided I had plenty of waterThis latter was promised me in the several wells ahead. The "going" was said to be fair; so, after looking into the matter, I saw no reason why the distance could not be covered without weighting myself with bulky provisions; and I finally resolved on trying to make the run with water only by me.
So before breakfast time on the morning fixed for the departure I gave notice of my intention not to take anything; and, happening to have in my hand at the moment the only article in my possession which I could very well do without—the 3dwt. bean—I handed it over to the resident trooper, who had made out a road plan for me.
"Why not keep it? You know there are thousands to be got about here?" the officer asked wonderingly.
"Then throw it away," I answered; "it's altogether too much of an unnecessary weight for me."
"Three pennyweights!" The trooper ejaculated in his surprise.
But I was not allowed to keep intact my resolution; and out of the multitude of good things pressed upon me. I chose a small piece of cake, rolled it in paper, and hung it to the lamp bracket.
* * * *
Within the first half-mile I overtook a small mob of sheep, with two or three black boys in charge; and, rather than scatter the little flock, rode to one side, in through the scrub, until they had been left behind.
Before another mile had been covered, I noticed that my cake had disappeared. It could not have been long gone; and, as the thought had just entered my mind to eat it up and so be finished with it, I stopped, leaned the bicycle carelessly against a bush, and walked back; but the tracking through the scrub was slow, whereupon I gave up the search and returned.
The bicycle had been blown over by a gust of wind, and was lying on the ground. Worse still a thousand times, the stopper had been jerked out of the neck of the waterbag, and the precious water had drained out. However, it was only 20 miles to a soakage; my spirits were high after my recent good living: so, with a few cursory remarks to the wind and to Diamond, I remounted and rode on.
* * * *
Before many miles had been covered, against a head wind and under a sweltering sun, a sharp thirst reminded me that I had eaten a salt-meat breakfast; and that thirst became sharper still before Taylor Creek was reached. The track, too, was a bit heavy—over flats of light loamy soil and sandy plains for the greater part of the 20 miles.
On coming opposite the bend, where the Taylor Creek is nearest on the track's eastern side, I rode across to refill the waterbag; but all the soakage water had dried up. Holes had been sunk in the gravel about two feet deep, but only a white gritty clay showed at the bottom of each one.
It was a weary search along that creek's bed; up and down I tramped anxiously, burrowing and scratching, but unavailingly; and after an hour spent in this way, it was a sadder man who returned to pursue an onward course.
Six miles is not far; but it counts for very much when a man has done twenty before it on a hot day, and that is topped up with an anxious search, a sandy road, and a disappointment. That six miles took me to a well sunk in the Taylor, at a point where the creek passes through a range. A bucketful of water was soon hauled up, and, pushing in one of the two stop-bolts which were provided at the sides for that purpose, thus leaving the bucket suspended on top of the well, I leaned over and had gulped down three or four mouthfuls before I made a shocking discovery.
The horrid stuff was almost salt!
I spat out what I could; but what I had swallowed had far from given me relief.
Yet how it glistened! Was it mockery? I laughed a little, and knew the laugh was forced. Yes, this was thirst.
Would the tantalising stuff be better boiled? I made the experiment; it failed.
I tried it with some meat extract (a few capsules of which I had); but—it was salter than ever.
With tea? Perhaps, but I had no tea.
A smoke for consolation—no, I dare not.
I bathed my face and hands, and was a little relieved. Then, filling the waterbag, on the off chance of later on feeling more disposed towards poisoning myself, made all the haste I could for the Wycliffe.
* * * *
An old turn-off track beyond the Taylor Well leads out in an easterly direction to the Frew River and El Kedra—both abandoned stations. The country about there had been stocked at one time, but the natives were uncontrollable and very troublesome, spearing and slaughtering many of the cattle; and the lessees deemed abandonment advisable. From those places, and from another lower down and to the west—Anna's Reservoir—the natives count upon having frightened away the white men, the would-be settlers, and are inclined to "fancy" themselves accordingly. In other words, they are said to be "bad" about those places, and, as somebody significantly expressed it, are "spoiling for a hidin'."
It was dreary "going"; and the thoughts associated with the country were not cheering. It was flounder, flounder through the heavy sand, with the lips parched and the throat dry—and growing drier and drier. I turn back now to my note-book and find the single entry—"This five-mile 'plug' is the killing gait."
Yet no creek showed itself. My legs were beginning to send up signals of distress—and all the time that water "flopped" in the bag and tormented me.
The night came on swiftly. Diamond, we must make a dash for it! On, on!
An ant-hill or a stump overlooked as I tried to make out the timbers of a creek in the far distance, now wrapped in the evening haze, and I was sprawling on the ground, and Diamond had been thrown heavily as well. I limped over, and tried to mount—tried again and again, but each time a numbed knee refused to answer to the call.
I sat down to ponder things. That knee-cap—the swelling startled me for a moment. I might crawl, no more—crawl, and leave Diamond behind. But whither? That could not be thought of.
No sleep that night. And water—!
The bag—! No; it were better not. I tried to sleep.
Yet, that water—was it soverybad? I wasn't so thirsty back at the well; it would be palatable enough now.
I reached for it, and drank it greedily.
"Fool!" The reflection came instantly. "Now look out!"
How hot it was—stifling.
My brain was converted into a busy telephone exchange, and every subscriber was ringing up viciously.
"Hello? hello?"
That was from the leg; a cramp. I attended to it.
Again a vicious ring. The swollen knee called for sympathy—anything else I couldn't give it.
A violent call. The tongue this time. Poor member, poor badly-treated member. But be still. Yet somehow, try as it would, it couldn't get back to its proper place.
Then, in a quiet moment, the brain set to work on its own account. Diamond—was Diamond safe? What were the faithful one's injuries?
But another interrupting call: those muscles again.
A mosquito! Ha, sing away, fasten your sucker where you please—you are but a mere circumstance to-night!
Hot Moisture! on my forehead! Now, what mysterious well within me held yet a drop of water? (Was that a rustle? Niggers, perhaps. Ah, well—)
Ants? Very well; what matter? But—but keep off that knee!
And, oh, for one long deep drink of water!
Dives, has that monster Lazarus relented and begged for you a drop of water yet?
* * * *
It is wearisome to write howIfelt and whatIsaid and did—more wearisome perhaps than it is to read. But these unpleasant incidents seem to be regarded as the "most prominent features" of the journey; and they are here set out, not because there is any gratification to be got from the operation, but because by pointing out the pitfalls, they may serve to make easier the path of those who shall follow me.
* * * *
The dawn, if it brought no assuagement of the thirst, brought at any rate more hope; and still stiff and sore and aching, I limped, leading Diamond, towards the Wycliffe, which I knew could not be far away. It was an hour's drag through sand and scrub before the turn-off pad was reached; then a mile down the pad, the waterhole itself.
The Wycliffe is a wide watercourse which, after rain, stretches out unrestrained at many places in its course into a series of shallow swamps and clay-banked waterholes. One of these was filled to overflowing with "the nectar of the gods;" and, literally, rushing to its edge, I drank with rapturous delight.
The cravings of an abnormal thirst having been satisfied, I placed the polluted water-bag to soak, made a pot of tea, further refreshed myself with a wash, and had hardly touched the earth when I fell asleep.
* * * *
It may have been reality, or it may have been fancy; certainly I heard a rustle, and sat up quickly.
Three blackfellows were walking towards where I lay. At the instant of seeing them they were scarcely half a dozen yards off. I did not move—where was I to move, and why?
"What name you wantem?" I asked.
As none of them had on anything more than what looked like a piece of old clothes line with the frayed ends knotted together in front, with boomerangs thrust through it at the sides, and as each carried a woomera, or throwing stick, and a spear, they appeared to be quite respectable wild savages.
It is at such moments that a self-respecting person should, in a twinkling, live his life over again—he should look down through the corridors of his years, and renounce all his wickednesses.
Also the armed and treacherous natives; these denizens of the wildest tract of the Australian continent, descendants of those (or maybe the men themselves) who have murdered settler and traveller in cold blood—these formidable fellows, I say, should have raised a whoop, and casting their spears at my prostrate form, should then have robbed me of the few trinkets I possessed, and my revolver, and have left another carcase to tell silently of the infamy of the black people.
But things go wrong. For my own part, instead of looking back through any corridors, I observed that the feet of my visitors were much larger than were those of the natives south of the Alice. And, instead of a war-whoop and a deadly lunge, one of the three stretched out a hand and whined the single word "Baccy?"
And this is the romance of our Dark Continent!
These undraped fellows, carrying spears and boomerangs, roaming about an unfenced wilderness, romantic enough in contour and general setting, capable enough, one would judge, of eating uncooked rattlesnakes for choice—whining "Baccy?"
It was exasperating. Besides, I wasn't going through the country loaded up with tobacco for free distribution among blackfellow-strangers.
It, at the instant, occurred to me that those three strapping fellows might, if they chose, possess themselves of all the tobacco I had, and the bicycle into the bargain, I was certainly too weak to—
Then it flashed through my mind—"What would the fearless fellow back at the Stirling do?" I made up my mind for him at once.
"You fellows, get!"
Then I turned over, as if dead certain they would "get!"
And after "yabbering" to or about the bicycle they disappeared—whither I did not know.
By the generality of those white men with whom I conversed on such matters before reaching Alice Springs, it is—or was—an accepted belief that, from that place onward, natives are nearly always about at watering places along the overland track, although the traveller may not catch sight of even one. They are ever so much more sharp of sight and hearing than the whites, and, being treacherous themselves, they are very suspicious of strangers, and so they hide if they do not clear out on learning of a strangers coming.
Some of them believe or pretend to believe the whites have robbed them of their choicest hunting grounds, and, naturally, these work themselves up into revengeful passions when dwelling on their wrongs.
It is always best, or so I heard, when the traveller is alone, or there are only two together, to keep moving—not to linger long at one spot. And I must say thatI have noted a spicy and suggestivesoupçonof restlessness at night-time in the manners of those few travellers with whom I camped beyond the Alice. The revolver was invariably seen to before turning in.
And, on principle, a revolver should be carried. If whites ceased to carry the weapon, then the natives, observing its absence would grow braggishly bold and presuming.
* * * *
Seventeen miles of bad travelling ground—red loam and sand plains—brings the traveller to the Devonport Ranges. A couple of miles before passing through them, a creek, the Sutherland, was crossed. The white sand in the channel was piled up in strange formations. How terrific and eddying the current of water must be which at wide intervals comes tearing down! As it stood, the bed suggested a reproduction, in the solid, of a narrow strip of wild-surging tempestuous ocean—a series of waves and billows, small mountains high.
Through the range though, it is good riding.
A mile or two beyond the Sutherland, on a flat among the low hills, huge, smooth boulder-like masses of granite threaten to block the way; but the track winds in among them, and out again.
The boulders lie thickly around in every direction, singly or piled one upon another. They are of all shapes—round and oval predominating—and run from scores to hundreds of tons in weight. Some are so perched as almost to tempt the passer-by to bring a crowbar with him next time he comes and tip them over.
These are "The Devil's Marbles," and a very novel and rather fantastic appearance they present. The solitary traveller may easily conjure up images of giant hobgoblins coming along in play hours to practice the game of "Catch"—surely, by the way, the devil's own favorite game.
I was about to sit in the shade of a large boulder, when from the further side of it came out an animal uncanny and weird as its surroundings. In form it resembled an iguana, but was five or six times larger than any one of that species I could remember to have seen, and, while I stood and looked in mild astonishment, it rose on its two long hind feet, and so walked a short distance; then as suddenly "flopped" down again, and disappeared.
The 36 miles from the Wycliffe to the Bonney Creek is nearly all bad country for cycling over. I was riding at the moment of first sighting the Creek, and a little while afterwards was able to discern the well away out from the farther bank. To the left of the crossing and not far from it, a small column of smoke was rising; and by the fire—two standing, the others sitting or lying down—were half-a-dozen bandicoot-hunters.
I had reached the Creek's bank before observing the blackfellows, and had been on the point of dismounting; but their unexpected presence (I had noticed no fresh tracks), induced me to keep going, and I spurred Diamond cruelly on to make him cross the pebbly bed, past which there promised to be a stretchof good hard level road on which I could—well, manœuvre, should the occasion for doing so arise; although it would have taken much forcible persuasion to induce me leave the water once I reached it.
But Diamond was very weakly and out of condition that afternoon and stuck its rider up right in the middle of the gravelly passage. I came off with a right-pedal dismount and faced over the skeleton barricade only just in time to see the backs of two fast-running niggers before they disappeared into the scrub.
I pushed Diamond up the Bonney's bank and over to the well.
One hesitates to perpetrate an obvious joke about this Bonney water. But I had eaten nothing, with the exception of the "gooseberries" already mentioned, since leaving Barrow's Creek, so now made the quart-pot full of thick soup, and devoured it, before carting in a stock of firewood, for we must camp this night at Bonney Well, notwithstanding its rather evil reputation.
Firewood was scarce, and the coming night gave promise of being chilly; but, a sufficient stock collected, I strolled down to the blackfellows' camping ground. They had left no weapons, but had generously allowed to remain for my inspection (or it was hospitably intended?), one iguana (on the still smouldering embers, and over-done now), six inches intact, and several small pieces of frizzled snake, and one half-picked bone—which last may have been part of a picaninny's arm, so evil did it smell. The flies had taken possessionof everything eatable, and there appeared no good and sufficient reason for disturbing them.
* * * *
"Better not light a fire," I had been warned, wherever unfriendly blacks are said to visit, especially when camping alone. But when the chilly early morning comes and the marrow in one's bones gets frozen, a fellow having insufficient covering is certain to start a thawing blaze, and take his chances with the waddying niggers. Last night had been warm, but this was a season of sharp changes—with the day time only there invariably came great heat.
As I lay stretched on my sheet of waterproof, I ruminated on many things—on the many narrow escapes from dire disaster of this and other days. How often had I straightened out those pedal cross-bars, which luckily ever seemed to receive, give to, and so dull the hidden timber's sharp upsetting blow! Fortunate to be sure was I in having chosen this priceless treasure of a bicycle frame. Again and again my eyes opened wide in astonishment, when, after some unavoidable stump's onslaught, a tumble, or other mishap, its every part was found to be perfect.
So with my head shoved into the widest part of a pair of pyjama mosquito-curtains, I made certain that my revolver was close at hand, and, being hungry enough to make me feel miserable, was yet quite happy and contented in the knowledge that I was to some extent experiencing the reality of those indefinite possibilities of which I had been forewarned.
* * * *
A mosquito-curtain is grateful and comforting; but after a hot day's toil one feels little inclined to erect a frame-work about one's couch, fix up the netting, and cut pegs to keep it down all around. For pegging would be necessary; if it were left anyway loose, the average able-bodied, athletic mosquito of these parts would just lift the thing up and get to work. Therefore I contented myself with shoving my head into whatever most bag-like spare wearable I happened to possess—pyjamas, for instance—thus lessening the effectiveness or length of the insects' sting by the thickness of the sheltering material.
It is further South that the story is told of the mosquitoes and the boiler-maker.
A man was engaged re-riveting a faulty boiler-plate. The mosquitoes were very troublesome; but, after showing fight awhile, this rivetter devised a plan of revenge, and resolutely worked on until the job in hand was finished. Then, smiling through his swollen lips and eyelids, he climbed in through the man-hole, clapped on the cover, and laughed in wild derision as those on the outside stamped on the plates, frantic and enraged at thus losing their prey. Then came a silence. Then a strange humming was heard; next a boring noise; and then, to the hidden one's dismay, an intruding sting appeared, and yet another, and still countless more, all feeling around to grip and fasten on to him. But the boiler-maker was a man of resource; and as the stings projected, or injected, with mighty blows he clinched them tight, chucklingthe while, until those outside, making discovery of what was being done to them, took fright, and, spreading their wings flew upwards—and nothing whatever has been seen of that man or that boiler since.
* * * *
From the Bonney Well I started, after breakfasting on a pipe-full of tobacco, with the intention of making Tennant Creek (62 miles) that same night. But several unforeseen events altered those plans.
Gilbert Creek is 14 miles ahead. And here (I smile disdainfully now) I made myself uncomfortable. I picked up a pad that led into the creek; then having dined on meat extract and smoke, carelessly led the bicycle across the creek. But no pad in this direction was to be seen, and I heedlessly wandered on until what appeared to be another creek was crossed. Then a bend; this was crossed also—the bicycle having to be led much of the time. Now this was getting monotonous; still no pad leading onwards. There was nothing for it but to go back on my tracks. But my tracks—where were they? We had been passing lately over a hard gum flat, covered with leaves, and no mark showed to my inexperienced eye. I remember at this moment, that I paused, ran my finger through my hair, and felt as lonely as that other unfortunate man who lost his shadow.
I had come from the East; going by compass, I rode on—to a creek. This I followed back, pushing the machine over the uneven surface, and not at all sure, after all, whether this was the right creek. But—a furrow!
I put the water-bag to my lips, and, I think, almost drained it.
All was plain sailing back to the waterhole now, and there the existence of the several creeks was explained away—the water was in a billabong, or a short creek-arm, which had been mistaken by me for a separate watercourse. But the last hour or so had taken more out of me than a day's hard work could do.
* * * *
Three parts of a mile up the pad, a dozen dingoes were scampering over a short patch of heavy sand through which I had walked when coming down. I stopped short to observe them. They were as confounded as those niggers were whom I had before watched examining the tracks of the machine. A man had passed over that patch; of that those dingoes certainly had no doubt. But whence had he come, and whither gone? They scented up and down on either side in vain. The trail of the bicycle they disregarded—that was no man's marks. And there they were excitedly scampering up and down when a revolver shot led them to slink into the scrub, each taking a way of his own.
* * * *
Nearly the whole of the 30 miles and the next mile (Kelly's) is bad red sand, unrideable in places, the pads being filled in with loose drift stuff; while tussocks of grass and porcupine, low scrub and fallen jagged timber, await one at the sides.
Riding over telegraph poles is a feat which the cyclist here is called on frequently to perform. In many places the track runs alongside the old line of wooden telegraph poles; in other places, again, the modern galvanised-iron rods stand just where stood those wooden poles of older days. In each case the old poles, in various stages of decomposition, lie often right across the track; and the rider cannot always see them until after he has felt the bump.
Against the continued use of the wooden poles there had been many grave objections. Four of the most pregnant sources of trouble were white ants, lightning, bush fires, and the rapidity with which that part of the wood below ground rotted away.
* * * *
Formerly line-repairers were nearly always at work. Now most of the repairing is done but once a year, before or after the line has had its annual end-to-end inspection.
In the changed circumstances the overland telegraph stations are no longer chiefly depots for the use of those whose chief business it is to keep the line in efficient working order, but are mainly for the occupation of those whose duty it is to re-transmit messages from one repeating station to another, up or down. From Palmerston a "wire" is sent to Daly waters, repeated there, and received at Alice Springs; thence on to Hergott, and so to Adelaide. Or it may be re-transmitted first at Powell's Creek, next at Barrow's Creek, then at Charlotte Waters, and so on toAdelaide. One sequence of repeating stations operate through the night, the other throughout the day. At some—Alice Springs, for instance, the work goes on continuously.
The working of the line from Palmerston down to Attack Creek (between Powell's and Tennant's Creeks) is superintended from the north; the lower part, from Alice Springs.
* * * *
Half way between the Gilbert and Kelly's Well the track runs as a main street through the heart of a thickly populated city of spires, known as Little Edinboro'—a multitudinous array of ant hills, stretching out east and west far beyond the range of vision, and extending also some miles along the track.
There were fresh horse tracks near the well; and at the well itself, two white men, with their two or three black-boys, were camped, "spelling." An offer of hospitality was at once extended to me; and, as I had been three days and two nights without eating "white man's tucker," there was no hesitancy about the acceptance.
And it did not require much persuasion to induce me to camp here; for he who eats not, neither shall he feel much inclined to work.
"You'll not think I'm a beast, will you?" I said apologetically. "The fact is, I've eaten nothing for three days." But there is no need to apologise on the Overland.
* * * *
An army of ants marched up and promenaded on the table-cloth; but provided one is reasonably cautious and brushes the insects off before taking into his mouth any of the pieces of meat to which some may have fastened themselves, their presence at one's dining table is of no great consequence when one is very hungry.
Ants are very numerous everywhere through the continent; and, in a journey through, one comes across communities of them, representing, I believe, every known kind and species.
The traveller is not much interfered with by the white ants found north of the MacDonnell Ranges—those favor a harder diet than that which man provides—but the ordinary meat, sugar and bread-devouring varieties, muster up in myriads wherever one camps.
At many of the camping grounds alongside wells, soakages and water-holes, are oblong 7 × 4 spaces enclosed by sloping, little banks or walls of scooped-up sand, six inches high or so. As the troublesome and evil-smelling insects climb up these walls, the loose sand gives way, and they topple back again. Within such ingeniously-fashioned ramparts the traveller is secure—from one pest, at any rate.
Nor are flies less universal than ants. They are always, everywhere. They attack one's eyes shamefully; but the slightest scratch anywhere calls for immediate protection against their poisoning attentions.
A plaster of wetted clay is not a particularly cleanly covering; but it acts very well for protective purposes, and I believe it also possesses curative properties.
At meal times a piece of meat lifted from hand or ground to the mouth becomes so thickly covered with the pests that the diner finds it imperative to flourish it around him and cry "Shoo!" blow hard upon it, or make one or two feints at biting before taking the stuff in.
But they are philosophers, these men of the bush, and so declare that the flies purify the atmosphere, demolish poisonous matters in the air, prevent the spread of devastating disease—and so on. Some people, tho', if snakes were so numerous that folks couldn't travel the country without wearing a snake-proof suit, would certainly discover how very essential the reptiles were to—perhaps the armour-maker's existence.
* * * *
Up North—or was it down South—a talkative gentleman with a glass eye (named—the man's I mean—Blank), keeps a store. One day,ipse dixit, he was shoeing a restive horse. The flies were very bad. His glass eye suddenly pained him; and when he made effort to take it out of its socket, to his horror, he found he couldn't. The flies had bunged it!
That is the man's story, not mine. I can only vouch for their infinite capacity to bung eyes not made of glass—and to imperil souls.
* * * *
None of the eye-protecting fixings seem to be satisfactory for use by a cyclist in country where careful steering is called for. Those which will keep out the flies are objectionable, for various reasons. The principal being that they also obscure the vision.
At Oodnadatta, a fly-guard made of very fine meshed wire was given to me, and I carried it right through to Palmerston. It was made as a very large pair of spectacles, and when folded occupied but very little space. Because of a few faults, I did not often wear it. It darkened the ground, got uncomfortably hot at times, and when a fly did get underneath, the little wretch invariably wagged its tail with joy at having a whole eye to itself, and "wired in" so avariciously, that hunting it out became an instant necessity. And then outsiders, dozens of them, would hang on to the wires and search for a wide opening, shoving their stings through now and again in the hope of reaching something. Nevertheless, if one of these wire-meshed guards could be had to fit close all round the eyes, it would be as good as, if not better, than most of the others. Goggles with colourless glass were not to be had. The netting of the ordinary hat-veil is too open; a cyclist when riding does not shake his head about so the flies soon enter through. Cheese or mosquito nettings are hot, sticky and uncomfortable; and dangling corks are too ornamental.
* * * *
There were several of the ant-repulsing citadels at Kelly's Well, and in one of them, close by a bush towhich I could fasten Diamond, I spread my sheet of waterproof. But my camp companions pressed upon me some of their own blankets—generosity of a prince was that encountered from first to last.
Well-fed, and kicking about under warm blanketing, with a sense of safety, and with food and water at one's hands—yes, certainly these things have their advantages.
* * * *
The dingoes gathered round and howled; but to their noises I paid little heed—until someone moved. Then, looking out, I saw one of my hosts kneeling on his bed clothes, and in the act of pointing a rifle towards where a loud-voiced member of the serenading party sat.
The blackboys' sleeping quarters were near the fireplace; and just after I had become fully conscious of what was going on and expected to hear a shot fired, one of the "boys," rising on his elbow, suddenly exclaimed pleadingly, "No shoot that one dingo, mitta! Him my fadder, I thinkit."
At which interruption the one spoken to muttered—was that a curse?—I laughed, and the dingo vanished.
It was not the first time that thus the white man had been robbed of his prey. For to hold the hand in such circumstances is only prudent.
In the morning the hat of the aboriginal who had saved his father's second-life was missing; but after a short search it was recovered some little distance fromthe camp—or its remains were discovered, in two parts. The brim was torn from the crown, and a strip of about an inch between them had been bitten out all round.
I reckoned nothing would come amiss to that species of wild animal which would chew up a nigger's hat-band, and for ever after was at night time more or less uneasy about my bicycle's tyres.
The natives of these parts hold pretty generally to this doctrine of metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls: your father, dying, may "jump up whitefellow," or be changed into a kangaroo, an emu, an eagle, or a dingo—mayhap even an ant.
One of the natives was named the equivalent for kangaroo, with something tacked to it. Wherefore he must never taste kangaroo flesh.
It has been written somewhere:—"Australian natives are treacherous. You should never in the bush let one walk behind you. Keep him always in front." A bushman told me that was altogether wrong advice. "If you have any cause to be suspicious of a nigger's intentions," he said, "keep him behind you, and well out of sight at that—even if you have to hit him on the head with a waddy to make him stay there."
This authority was rather violently disposed towards the natives, whom,inter alia, he charged with the atrocious crime of having once kidnapped a dog of his. "If anyone of them starts giving you back answers," said he, "to shoot is about the only wayto make quite sure about that one. It's fine," and he laughed, "to see the beggar's jump." He assured me he had, on occasion, known 'em to jump as high as seven feet.
* * * *
From Kelly's Well the 32 miles to Tennant's Creek provided the best stretch of cycling ground for many a day. The soil was of a firm loamy nature, covered in places with gravelly quartz and ironstone.
The first part was over level ground timbered with mulga and box, and with not a hill in sight anywhere to east or west; but at about 20 miles some low flat-topped scattered rises appear, and then, at 26 miles, the McDonnell Ranges. Here ironstone and quartz veins outcrop, and colors of gold are found in many of the gullies.
An excellent track continues on and over the range (which is not a high one) and then level country again spreads out.
* * * *
I had eaten breakfast at Kelly's well; but one meal, or a second does not long suffice, for a man who has been for days hungry. Tissues get eaten away, and it takes days—nay, perhaps weeks—of substantial feeding before the loss can be made up and the used tissues replaced or replenished. At Tennant's Creek, during the many days I remained at the telegraph station, I could eat almost continuously. My happiest thoughts were centered around the dinner table, and there was a savage delight in the partaking of every meal.
At many of those stations I was ashamed of my appetite. Everywhere I was apologising (needlessly of course) because of this unnatural-seeming craving for food which for days possessed me. And it appeared so extraordinary to see people sit down to a viand-loaded table and eat only a little. And that, too, without much apparent enjoyment! When a fellow finds he has eaten much more than two others together, at the same table, he is apt to be backward in asking for more; and, perhaps, therefore it was that often when the time had arrived to get up from a meal I felt reluctant to leave without taking what remained of the joint with me.
* * * *
The telegraph station at Tennant's Creek is, in outward appearance, like a substantial stone farmhouse, and is situated out on the plains 3 or 4 miles past the foot of the McDonnell Range. There is a main building, three-roomed. One of these is used as a harness room; there are several small cottages and sheds; and a large stockyard is at no great distance away.
In the Creek, about a quarter of a mile from the station there are some nearly permanent waterholes, and a freshwater well is sunk on its nearer bank. Close by this well is a bath-house, and a vegetable garden—adjuncts, these latter, of all the telegraph stations. As at the other stations also, cattle and sheep, horses and milch cows are kept and attended to or shepherded by blackfellows.
Located here was, in addition to the officer in charge (whom I had often heard spoken of, always in terms of high praise and respect, down Alice Springs way), an assistant (operator), a white man cook, and one other white employee, this last generally useful hand.
* * * *
As I have already stated, I had very often straightened out the rat-trap pedal cross-bars of the bicycle. The unavoidable stumps, small ant-hills and prostrate telegraph-pole ends,et hoc, had bent them inwards frequently; and as one of the four exhibited signs of the very rough usage to which it had by this time been subjected, the handy man obliged me by taking it out altogether and replacing it with an exact counterpart of one of the less marked ones—a substitution effected as neatly as if one of the most expert of cycle-repairing shop hands had been the craftsman.
Of this trifling alteration, which was in no way necessary, I have paused to write, for the triple purpose of giving acknowledgment to the ability of the workman, and of remarking that after all the rough usage to which it had been subjected, the bicycle still continued to look almost as if just from the shop window (in reality it was better than new, since it had been tested and proven), and, thirdly, of making for myself opportunity to say that, notwithstanding the many haul knocks it received after leaving Tennant's Creek, it yet kept in that excellentcondition which was my pride to the very last moment I had use for it.
* * * *
Having no wish for a recurrence of those hungering qualms which had been felt before arriving there, I departed from Tennant's Creek loaded up with all the provisions I could conveniently or otherwise stow away inside and out, and proceeded for 33 miles over ground which in places was fair, but which for its greater part was rather sandy for cycling over, to water and a camp, at one of the Hayward Creek branches, of which there were three to be crossed. The route was waterless between Tennant's and this creek, although Phillip's Creek was met with at 21 miles, and the Gibson at 27; also several low hill-ranges were passed through.
An excellent sketch plan of the route had been made out for me at the telegraph station by the exceedingly obliging officer in charge there and his assistant; nevertheless, there were so many creeks to be crossed and, as it seemed to me re-crossed, that almost before the first day was over I continually doubted which of them was the particular one I was next coming to or had last left behind.
This doubt, however, did not exist on arriving the following day at Attack Creek, some 12 miles on from the Hayward, because of the beautiful sheet of clear fresh water which existed in it. This Attack Creek is deep, and its sides are fringed with giant gumtrees. It is not wide; but the nearly permanent sheet of water when I passed there, was fully a quarter of a mile in length between the banks.
There is a solitary grave away up from the crossing; and, again, after passing the Morphett (10 miles on), is the last resting place of a traveller who, a couple of years back, when dying of thirst, attempted unsuccessfully to so damage the telegraph line as to attract to the spot a repairing party.
Not every man can climb a telegraph pole; and one cannot cut or undo stout and firmly fastened wires with one's teeth.
Near the Morphett Creek a narrow pad branches off to the west of the telegraph line, loops out to the headquarters of a very seldom heard of cattle station, and proceeding thence, rejoins the line track at about 35 miles south of Powell's Creek.
One may keep nearer to the telegraph line and travelviaKuerschner Ponds; but against going that way I had been advised. The track was said to be very rough. Nevertheless the straight-ahead road might be the better for cycling. The good people of these parts do not regard tracks or the cyclist's eyes. It has often been recommended to me to turn off at certain places from "hard gritty rises" on to where the track runs over "nice soft flats." Of course the flats were found in such places to be well grassed and suitable for travelling mobs of cattle, whereas the gritty rises (some, good cycling) invariably were barren or spinifex-covered.
Right up almost from Tennant's Creek to the re-junction spoken of, the 88 miles stretch of country is of a very unkindly nature, for the stranger, anyway. The supplies which are annually sent to the various telegraph stations are forwarded only as far as Tennant's Creek from the south; down as far as Powell's, they come from Palmerston. The intervening distance (from Tennant's to Powell's, 123 miles), does not therefore bear those evidences of traffic which are distinguishable between most of the other stations.
* * * *
This lack of clear guiding marks is most troublesome about the stony creeks, whether there be water in them or not. When a waterhole has been reached it is not always easy to pick up the track on the other side. In many cases there is no pad at all visible to the unaccustomed eye, as cattle and horses spread out on approaching water, wander aimlessly awhile after drinking, and destroy all traces of a particularly beaten path, as not until long after leaving do they "string" again.
At waterholes, too, (and these remarks apply to many watering places higher up the road) the track is so "freaky." From one hole full or dry, you must pass straight on; from another, the track may take a sudden bend to the east or the west; at still another, the pad does not pass the water, but, after leading to it, forms with the pad going out, more or less of a V; while at a fourth, you have to double back for some distance on the pad by which you entered. When the grass ishigh and the track not clear, or where many paths lead out from, where one finds oneself, as it were, "cornered," and when one does not know whether the follow-on section of his road runs northerly, easterly, or westerly, one is liable to feel—well, uncomfortable.
As cattle had been lately running in some parts of the country in this stage, between Tennant's and Powell's Creeks, the main pad, if there be one at all, was cut into in places by better beaten ones, and in other places there were such puzzling branches that the non-bushman traveller might be just as likely to follow up the wrong one as the right. How it may be with the expert bushman, I do not know.
Before reaching the cattle station (known as Bankabanka, I believe; there was no one at home except a few blackfellows and lubras, who greatly enjoyed the sight of a so ragged a whitefeller and the bicycle, but who were a very inoffensive lot of people), I was so fortunate as to come upon a couple of horsemen; and in their company I was glad to "spell" awhile. Valuable directions also were obtained about those pads ahead which led out and in again to the telegraph line, and I had word, too, of a mob of sheep in charge of a white man, who, by this time, was expected to be camped somewhere between the station and the line.
After a day's travelling away from the cattle station, first over an expansive, luxuriantly-grassed plain on which not a tree was to be seen for many miles, and then into and through rough, rugged ranges,I reached the waterhole on which the sheep were camped, and spent there a happy night, eating and thinking of the fresh mutton, cake, and other acceptable novelties with which the gentlemanly drover-boss plied and supplied me.
Referring to my note-book, I make out the following random jottings:—"The mulga has disappeared. The prevailing trees appear to me to be dwarfed, stunted gums; whether in truth they are properly gums or box, or peppermint, or what—I cannot tell; but they are clearly of the Eucalyptus family. Nearly all white-stemmed, and averaging from 20 to 30 feet in height. The yellow blossoms of a wattle bush relieve the lower but never thickly growing scrub. Extensive belts of spinifex; and, on less sandy soil, and about the creeks, many flats covered with long spear grass. This grass is over six feet high—a continual source of annoyance, as now is the time to catch the falling seeds; sharp pointed things these, which wriggle and twist about in one's clothes, until they enter so far that a fellow has to stop and pull them out of the various parts of him. Further north, the people tell me, this spear grass grows to a height of 12 feet (and over that; but 12 feet is tall enough for me), with worrying seeds of proportionate size. Have torn my handkerchief in two and wrapped a half around the extremity of each pyjama leg to prevent the obnoxious things accumulating around my ankles.
"Much walking—sand. Riding northerly; the cross shadows before and after midday add to thealready many risks. And the pads are so narrow; branches of trees and bushes hit the face; often an eye-lash from an eye. Find myself at morning time or evening dismounting hurriedly to lead the bicycle over the shadow of a branch which I mistook for substance, and a minute after, running full tilt into a log which I had mistaken for a harmless shadow."
"Stony hills, small creeks, and grassed flats" was the order of the day on which I again struck the telegraph line; and along by that the track was both distinct and fair "going" passing between low hills to Renner Springs. Glazed pebbles and agates (of no value except as curios) were thickly scattered on the hill-tops and at the foot of the various rises for some distance.
* * * *
Where the pad led on to the line-track two natives were walking on ahead. On turning and seeing me they only backed a little from the twelve inches of highway, and looked astonished. I pulled up to interview them—or it may be I trembled so much with terror that I was unable to continue riding. Two very good specimens, these. Well set up and picturesquely ornamented with many cicatrices rising across the breasts and arms. One was able to speak comprehensibly; the other wore feathers in his hair, and looked from head to foot an unsophisticated savage, reminiscent of a Fenimore Cooper's Injun fresh starting on the war trail and bent fixedly on acquiring somebody's "skelp" for his wigwam. As it was, Idaresay he was out on a hunt after bandicoots for his dinner.
After inquiring the distance to Renner Springs—which I knew to be about 15 miles—and getting the usually precise information "long way," from the one, I asked politely of the other what his name might perchance be. But he did not answer; and the spokesman, in explanation of this silence, probably, told me, "Him German blackfellow."
Ha! here was a discovery. The "Made in Germany" grievance had invaded the north-central Australian tribes!
"Sprecken sie Deutch, herr blackfellow?" He condescended to give me the disrespectful-sounding monosyllable "Yah!"