WALLACE'S STANDARD-WING BIRDS-OF-PARADISE, MALE AND FEMALE.
Frank summed up the rest of the ornithology of Australia as follows:
"The great southern continent has many varieties of the parrotfamily; it possesses the king parrot, the bird-of-paradise, the blue mountain-parrot, the cockatoo—blue, white, and crested—lories, paroquets, and love-birds. It has the wild turkey, which we have already mentioned, and a bird closely allied to it, called by the singular name of 'native companion.' Wild-ducks are found all over the country, the 'mountain duck' being the finest; then in their order come the black duck, wood-duck, and the Australian teal, followed by five or six other varieties less known and less liked by sportsmen."
"Don't forget the black swan among the water-birds," said Fred, as Frank paused after reading the foregoing paragraph.
"I was not forgetting him," replied Frank; "what would be our picture of Australia without the black swan? He is found in all the lakes and swamps of the southern coast; in the Gippsland lakes thousands of black swans may sometimes be seen in a single flock, and the sound of their feet and wings striking the water as they rise for a flight may be heard for miles when the air is still. The black swan is not strictly a game-bird; his flesh is rather rank, but this taste can be removed in cooking, and then he isn't at all bad to eat.
"Going from large birds to small," continued the youth, "I learn that snipe are abundant in many localities, but they do not seem to be appreciated as in England and America. The Argus snipe is the prettiest of the family, and also the most difficult to find; he is beautifully marked on the back and wings, and is a valuable addition to an ornithological collection.
HEAD OF THE VALLEY QUAIL.
"There are at least a dozen varieties of quail in Australia, and as articles of food they are abundant and cheap. With very little effort a settler in most parts of the country could have quail on toast every day in the year; at least the quail would be easily forthcoming though the toast might not. Cold roast quail and damper are not to be despised for lunch after a long ride in the bush."
A QUAIL FAMILY.
While Frank was busy with the study of the birds of Australia, Fred contemplated with great care the map of the country. He observed that all the mountain ranges were near the coast, so that the course of the larger rivers was towards the interior. "There is not," said he in his note-book, "a single large river flowing into the ocean from all this great continent, with the exception of the Murray. Every other stream is short and insignificant; and even the Murray and its tributaries do not form a first-class river.
"Here we are," said Fred, "on the head streams of the Darling, one of the rivers that unite with the Murray to pour into the sea through Lake Alexandria, between Melbourne and Adelaide. On looking at the map I thought we should be able to descend in a boat to the ocean, but Mr. Watson tells us we can do nothing of the sort. Some of the rivers on the maps are at this season simply dry beds, though at times they have water enough to float a first-class boat from the Mississippi.
"Steamboats have ascended the Darling to Walgett, 2345 miles from the sea, but they can only do so at certain, or rather uncertain, times, and therefore no dependence can be placed on the navigation of the Murray and its tributaries. The Darling depends on flood-waters; sometimes they will fill the stream to its junction with the Murray, and thence to the sea, and again they fail before going half way. The river can never be navigated throughout the year, and in some years boats are not able to run at all.
"So my scheme of going down by water to the ocean is not practicable, and we return to the coast the way we came."
OUT PROSPECTING.
And return they did, taking the railway to Brisbane, and thence going by coach and rail to Gympie, the centre of the Queensland gold-mining region, or rather one of its centres, as the colony possesses several auriferous fields. There is a standing offer of a reward of £1000, or $5000, to any one who discovers paying gold-deposits in a new locality upon which there shall be upwards of two hundred men at work six months after the fields are opened. Consequently a great many prospectors are constantly at work, through the double hope of the reward and of making a fortune out of the discovery.
The gold-fields of Gympie were discovered in 1868 by Mr. James Nash, and the settlement which rose there was at first called Nashville. The existence of the precious metal in the colony was known for at least a decade before that date, but none of the mines had proved remunerative. At present there are upwards of twenty gold-fields in Queensland, and the aggregate annual yield exceeds $5,000,000. From 1867 to 1885 inclusive the mines of Queensland yielded 4,840,221 ounces of gold, valued at not far from $80,000,000.
But we are forgetting Frank and Fred in our contemplation of these dry statistics. Here is what Frank wrote concerning their visit to Gympie:
"We came here partly by rail and partly by coach, the railway from Brisbane to Gympie not being completed, though perhaps it will be bythe time this is in print, if it should ever have such good-fortune. It is one hundred and sixteen miles from Brisbane to Gympie, and sixty-one from here to Maryborough. The town is prettily situated on the side of a range of hills on the river Mary; it has handsome public buildings, and bears every evidence of prosperity. It has a School of Arts, a public library, and other institutions not always to be found in mining towns, and altogether deserves the good name that it bears. It has a population of nearly eight thousand in the municipality alone, and there are four thousand more in the immediate neighborhood.
QUARTZ-MILL IN THE GOLD-MINES.
"There are the usual paraphernalia of the mining industry, which we have already described in other places. In every direction there are mining-shafts and reduction-works, and for miles and miles around the country is full of prospecting holes, where gold has been sought but not found, at least in paying quantities. The first rush here was for the alluvial diggings, and large amounts of gold were taken out by the early comers.
"We were much interested in hearing about the adventures of Mr.Nash, the discoverer of the gold-diggings here. He had been an unsuccessful prospector for twenty years, had gone through all kinds of privations, narrowly escaped death at the hands of the blacks on many occasions, and was almost killed by the earth caving in on him while working a prospect hole. He always went by himself, and worked alone. When he found gold here he managed to work away for three months without interruption; then he was discovered by a stockman, who took a claim next to his and spread the news abroad. Nash became a rich man at last, but his health was ruined, and he had little real enjoyment of his wealth.
AUSTRALIAN GOLD-HUNTERS.
"The alluvial diggings at Gympie were soon worked out, and reef, or quartz, mining followed. In fact, the reef mining began while placer mining was at its height and the alluvial diggers were in the full tide of success. The placers were, and the reefs are, very rich, and many of the workings have paid enormously to their owners. Of course where there have been so many prizes there has been a proportionate number of blanks, and there is no telling how many thousands of men have left Gympie poorer than when they came here.
"The town consists practically of a single street which straggles up and down for more than a mile, with here and there an attempt to runa lateral street in the direction of a mine or a crushing-mill. Most of the houses are of wood, and scattered over the hills are the huts of the miners, in order that they may be near the places where they are employed. This does not prevent their coming into the town in the evening, and occasionally making it a very lively place. In the early days there were the usual disorderly scenes of the centre of a 'gold rush;' and one of the old inhabitants told us that a few months after the discovery became known, it seemed as though half the bad characters in Australia had congregated there.
A GOLD-MINER'S HOME.
"When the alluvial diggings had been exhausted, the wandering miners disappeared and wended their way to newly reported fields. The place became more orderly, and then the abandoned claims were occupied by the Chinese, the most patient workers the world ever saw.They are contented to take up what white men consider unprofitable, and, considering all their disadvantages, they have done wonderfully well. They are not allowed to enter any gold-field until it has been open for two years; and there is a poll-tax of £10 a head upon every Chinese who enters the colony. They are generally peaceable, but occasionally they quarrel among themselves over the right to work a certain spot, and then the noise they make is something tremendous."
A CHINESE DISCUSSION.
From Gympie our friends went by rail to Maryborough, a seaport town on the Mary River, twenty-five miles above its mouth, and one hundred and eighty from Brisbane. The railway carried them past many sugar plantations, and they learned that Maryborough is the outlet of a considerable district devoted to sugar cultivation, the annual product being not far from five thousand tons. Large quantities of lumber are exported from Maryborough, and there is also a considerable business in wool and hides from the cattle and sheep stations in the country towards the interior.
Here they took steamer for Sydney, touching at Brisbane, Newcastle, and several other ports of lesser consequence. During their voyage they became acquainted with a resident of one of the northernports, who had much to say about the advantages of his part of the colony, and greatly regretted that they had not been able to visit it.
"It's a pity," said he, "that you missed the Great Barrier Reef, which is one of the most remarkable geographical and geological phenomena to be found anywhere on the globe. It stretches along the whole eastern coast from opposite Port Bowen, in latitude 23°, to Torres Strait, at the extreme north of Queensland, and is one thousand two hundred miles long. Its greatest width, which is near its southern end, is about seventy miles, and it is from five to one hundred miles from the shore of the continent. All along its whole length there are sunken reefs, which make navigation in its vicinity very dangerous. Many a ship has been lost on this reef, and scores or hundreds of persons have found a watery grave by its side."
Fred asked if a ship inside the reef was obliged to go its entire length before finding an opening to the ocean.
"Not at all," was the reply. "There are many openings to the ocean through the reef, some of them very narrow and others several miles in width; and the reef contains specimens of all kinds of coral formation—atolls, fringing reefs, and others. The portion of the reef above water, and the numerous coral islands near it, are thought to have an aggregate surface of thirty thousand miles."
"What is supposed to have caused the formation of this reef?" Frank inquired.
WRECKED ON THE REEF.
"The outer margin of the Great Barrier Reef probably indicates the former coast-line of this part of Australia," was the reply. "This was fringed with coral reefs; but as the land sank, the coral animals continued to build upward to the level of the sea, and thus a great ridge was formed which was broken and heaped up by the waves of the Pacific. Fresh water prevents the formation of coral, and the openings in the Great Barrier Reef are thus formed by the fresh-water streams. The largest is opposite the mouth of the Burdekin River, which drains a considerable area of country.
"The reef is a good place for sport, just as are the reefs of the Feejee, Samoan, and Society Islands, which you tell me you have visited. Vessels go there in search of beche-de-mer, for which they have a good market in China. The fishery for this curious article of food is practically just the same as in the island groups of the Pacific, and therefore I need not describe it to you.
THE MANATEE, OR DUGONG.
"Very good sport can be had in Northern Queensland in hunting the dugong, or sea-cow. This animal abounds along the coast of thatregion; its flesh is not bad eating, and its oil was formerly in demand as a substitute for cod-liver oil, but some of the fishermen got to mixing it with shark-oil and other abominations, so that its good name was ruined. If you have a taste for turtle-catching, it can be accommodated. We supply the Sydney and Melbourne markets with green turtle, and also put the soup and meat into tin cans and send it to England. There are numerous fishes, some good to eat, and others worthless as articles of food but with all the colors of the rainbow. We have sharks of the largest size, and the stranger should be careful about venturing into the water for a bath."
Their new acquaintance had a great deal to say about the northern part of Queensland, whose praises he was never weary of sounding. He declared that within a very few years Queensland would consist of two colonies instead of one, as the north was inclined to cut loose from the south and set up a government of its own. He thought it did not receive its fair share of the public money, and having paid its proportionof the taxes, it had a right to grumble when the south received all the appropriations for railways and other costly improvements.
On his arrival in Sydney Doctor Bronson called at once on the gentleman who had invited the party to see the interior of New South Wales. Arrangements were made for immediate departure, and at nine o'clock on the following morning they were off for the upper country.
So far as their experiences of cattle and sheep stations were concerned, they were practically a repetition of what they had gone through in Queensland. A new feature of the trip was a kangaroo hunt to which they were invited, and of which Fred gives the following account:
"You must know that this is the land of marsupials, or animals which carry their young in a pouch until they are able to take care of themselves. Nearly all the animals of this country belong to this family; and geological researches show that there were once some marsupials here that equalled if they did not exceed in size the rhinoceros and hippopotamus. But these big fellows are all extinct; there are one hundred and ten species now, and the largest of them does not exceed two hundred pounds in weight.
"The largest of the marsupials is the kangaroo, and the next in size is the wallaby. There are eight species of large kangaroo, inhabiting different parts of the country, the prince of them all being the red kangaroo of South Australia. Then come seventeen species of small kangaroos (Halmaturus) weighing from ten to fifteen pounds; and thenthree species of silky-haired kangaroos (Onychogalea), inhabiting the interior of the continent. They weigh eight or ten pounds, and are about the size of a common rabbit; then come five species of hare-kangaroos, five of jerboa-kangaroos, and then the rat-kangaroos, the bandicoots, opossums, 'rabbit-rats,' and numerous other small animals. We'll go back to the large kangaroos, where we began.
EVENING AT HOME ON THE NORTH COAST.
"In former times, when the only human inhabitants of Australia were the savage blacks, the kangaroo was kept from increasing too rapidly, through the combined efforts of the dingoes and the natives. The dingo is the Australian wild dog, and closely allied to the wolf and jackal, of which he is certainly the first-cousin. He is carnivorous, and fond of sheep, and was therefore poisoned and otherwise killed off by the settlers, to prevent his depredations upon the flocks. A bounty was placed on his scalp, and he has been greatly reduced in numbers. The natives have likewise died off since the settlement of the country; and with their natural enemies removed, the kangaroos, which live wholly on grass, have increased till they have become a nuisance. A kangarooeats as much as a sheep, and when a drove is undisturbed its numbers multiply with a rapidity that dismays the squatter on whose land it has made its home.
DINGOES, OR AUSTRALIAN WILD DOGS.
"Our host gave us the foregoing information while we were riding to the place where we were to enjoy the sensation of hunting the kangaroo. He furthermore told us that it was no uncommon thing for them to kill several hundred kangaroos in a single drive, but it could not be called sport. He said a drive wasn't a hunt, and I asked him to explain the difference, which he did.
"The necessity of killing off the kangaroos to prevent their utter destruction of all the grass in the country was forced upon the settlers by the rapid increase of the animals. The Government passed a law giving a bounty for the scalps of kangaroos; and none too soon, as in some parts of the country the droves fairly blackened the plains for many miles, and literally starved the sheep out of the country. The bounty on the scalps, added to the value of the meat and skins, partly paid for the trouble, which required a muster of all the squatters and their employés for a considerable distance around.
"A drive, or battue, is managed in this way: A yard with a highfence is built in one of the scrubs on the plains, and from this yard two fences run out on the plain for a long distance, widening like the sides of the letter V. All the men, boys, and blacks in the neighborhood are mounted on horseback, and scour the country for many miles around; they move in the direction of the jaws of the V, and when the herd is once inside it, the animals are doomed. They go straight towards the scrub which conceals the yard, and do not discover where they are till they are inside the enclosure. Then the rails are put up, the blacks enter with clubs, and the slaughtering begins. A kangaroo can jump clean over a horse, and therefore the fence must be not less than seven feet high to prevent his escape when frightened.
AUSTRALIAN WILD HORSES.
"We were not bent on any such performance, which is nothing but slaughter, though made necessary by the conditions of the country. I may add here that in some parts of the colony it is often necessary to make a drive of wild horses exactly as they drive the kangaroo. It is no uncommon matter for a squatter to make a drive of four or five hundred wild horses, which are killed for their hides, but more especially to prevent their eating the grass, destroying the fences, and enticing tame horses out of the paddocks. We have seen several droves of wild horses, and they look very pretty as they gallop over the plain. We wished we had some of them under the saddle, but were told that the value of the animal rarely pays for the trouble and cost of breaking him. Occasionally horses with brands on them are found in the wild herds; they are impounded and advertised; at least such is the theory, but quite as often they are killed with the rest to save trouble.
"A black boy mounted on a swift horse came riding back to us, and said the kangaroos were in a part of the plain that was concealed from us by a patch of scrub. We moved in their direction, keeping the scrubbetween us and them, so as to get as close as possible before they discovered us.
"Our manœuvre worked very well. There were ten or twelve of the animals feeding quietly, and we were within a few hundred yards of them before they were aware of it. At the first alarm they rose on their hind-legs and took a look all around, and a second later they were away. How they did jump! They seemed to go thirty or forty feet at a time, but our host says it was little if any more than fifteen feet. Even that is a tremendous jump; if you don't think so, just try it.
A KANGAROO BATTUE, OR DRIVE.
"We let loose the dogs, which up to this time had been kept behind us, and they went away without any urging. The dogs are kept for this purpose, just as fox-hounds are kept in England and France, or deer-hounds in Scotland. The dogs soon overtook and pulled down a young kangaroo; this caused some delay, but not much, and they were speedily put on the track of an 'old man' kangaroo, as a full-grown male is called.
"The 'old man' led the dogs a lively chase. He made directly for water, several miles away, which is always the custom of the kangaroo;if he cannot reach water he takes his stand with his back against a tree, and in that position he is a dangerous creature to approach. We followed the dogs as closely as we could, but did not come up to them until the kangaroo was at bay in a pool where the water just left his fore-legs clear as he stood upright.
RED KANGAROO.
"The dogs were all experienced in kangaroo-hunting, and knew enough to keep out of reach of his legs. Had they come within grasping distance he would have held them under water till they were drowned, or else have ripped them open with a blow from his powerful hind-leg, which has a claw in the middle capable of inflicting a fatal wound upon man or dog.
"The dogs swam around him, or stood on the shore of the pool, when we came up. The pool was a small one, and the creature realized that it was his safest retreat, and he was evidently determined to die game. A shot from a rifle in the hands of one of the men finished him, and he was quickly dragged to the shore. Fortunately, not a dog was killed or injured; rarely does a hunt terminate without some one or more of the dogs receiving a scratch, and nearly every kangaroo-dog in the country has a scar or two to show as evidence of his experience and prowess.
SHORT EARED KANGAROO.
"After this exploit we dismounted, and took our lunch.Then we made a circuitous journey homeward, and roused up another 'old man,' which we despatched as he stood fighting with his back to a tree, but not till he had wounded one of the dogs. Another full-grown kangaroo was killed by one of the stockmen the same day, in another part of the run, and the three skins will be properly cured and sent to Doctor Bronson and ourselves as souvenirs of the day's experience.
"We supped on steaks from a young kangaroo; the meat of the old and full-grown animals is too rank to be enjoyable, and is usually fed to the dogs. We had soup made from kangaroo tail, and it was delicious; kangaroo soup has become an article of export, and some epicures are said to prefer it to ox-tail, or even to turtle soup, though I very much doubt the latter statement.
"Our host says the natives in former times were very skilful in killing the kangaroo with the boomerang; when a native armed with this weapon was within reach of a kangaroo, the aim rarely missed. Another way of killing the creature was by stalking. The blackfellow dressed himself with twigs and brush to look like a small tree. In this disguise, and carrying his spear between two toes of his foot, he advanced slowly, taking care to keep to leeward, so that the animal could not get the scent. Slowly he closed up, remaining motionless when the kangaroo looked up, and moving again when it began to graze. Once within spearing distance, he speedily settled the question of dinner or no dinner from the flesh of that identical beast."
Frank asked what became of the skins of the kangaroos when they were slaughtered by wholesale, as already described.
"They are pegged out on the ground and dried," said their host, "and then are shipped to market. Many of them go to America, where they are made into leather for boots and shoes and other purposes. The leather is very tenacious, and almost impervious to water, and the demand for it is said to be increasing. Previous to 1869 very few of the skins were tanned, as the merits of the leather had not become known. The first that were sent to America were sold at a loss, and then in a few years, when their qualities were known, the American tanners could not get enough of them. One firm in Newark, New Jersey, is said to receive six thousand skins every week, and even with that number cannot meet the demand for kangaroo leather."
During the evening, stories of kangaroo hunts were naturally in order, and a goodly number were told; but as all were of the same general character it is hardly necessary to give them. Frank made note of the fact that there is one kind of kangaroo which climbs trees andjumps, like a squirrel, from limb to limb. He is called the tree-kangaroo, and has curved claws on his fore-paws to enable him to cling to the branches. He is not a bad pet to have about a park, but his numbers should be judiciously kept down, or he may become a nuisance, like the larger kangaroos that live on the ground.
KANGAROOS IN CAPTIVITY.
A NATIVE ENCAMPMENT AND A CORROBOREE.—RIDING ACROSS-COUNTRY.—AMONG THE BLACKS.—NATIVE DANCES.—A WEIRD SCENE.—ABORIGINAL MUSIC.—STORIES ABOUT CORROBOREES.—CURIOUS CUSTOMS.—HOW THE BLACK MEN OBTAIN THEIR WIVES.—TESTING THE STOICISM OE YOUTHS.—AN ALARM AT NIGHT.—RETURN TO SYDNEY.—A BRICKFIELDER.—HOT WINDS FROM THE DESERT.—HOW A PICNIC WAS BROKEN UP.—OVER THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.—RAILWAYS IN NEW SOUTH WALES.—SALUBRITY OF THE MOUNTAIN CLIMATE.—GOULBURN.—THEATRICAL GOSSIP.—FIRST THEATRE IN AUSTRALIA.—A CONVICT'S PROLOGUE.—THE DRAMA UNDER DISADVANTAGES.—THE RIVERINA.—ALBURY AND THE VICTORIAN FRONTIER.—PROTECTION AND FREE-TRADE.—FISHING IN THE MURRAY RIVER.—AUSTRALIAN FISHES.—FROM ALBURY TO MELBOURNE.
Before returning to the coast our friends had an opportunity to visit a native encampment and see a corroboree. The reader naturally asks what a corroboree is; we will see presently.
Arrangements were made by their host, and early one morning the party was off for the native encampment, which was nearly thirty miles away. A tent and provisions had been sent along the previous evening, so that the travellers had nothing to carry on their horses beyond a lunch, which they ate in a shepherd's hut at one of the out stations. Early in the afternoon they reached their tent, which had been pitched on the bank of a brook about half a mile from the village they intended to visit.
Taking an early dinner, they set out on foot for the encampment, being guided by a native who had come to escort them. We will let Frank tell the story of the entertainment.
"The village was merely a collection of huts of bark, open at one side, and forming a shelter against the wind, though it would have been hardly equal to keeping out a severe storm. To construct these huts the bark had been stripped from several trees in the vicinity. Fires were burning in front of most of the huts, and care was taken that they did not extend to the trees, and thus get a start through the forest.
"There was an odor of singed wool and burning meat, but no food was in sight. The blacks are supposed to live upon kangaroo meat astheir principal viand, but a good many cattle and sheep disappear whenever a tribe of them is in the neighborhood of the herds and flocks. In addition to kangaroo, they eat the meat of the wallaby, opossum, wombat, native bear, and other animals, and are fond of eels and any kind of fish that come to their hands, or rather to their nets and spears. Emus, ducks, turkeys—in fact, pretty nearly everything that lives and moves, including ants and their eggs, grubs, earth-worms, moths, beetles, and other insects—are welcome additions to the aboriginal larder. All the fruits of trees and bushes, together with many roots and edible grasses and other plants, are included in their bill of fare.
"There were twenty or more dirty and repulsive men and women in the village, some squatted or seated around the fires, and others walking or standing carelessly in the immediate vicinity. A dozen thin and vicious-looking dogs growled at us as we approached, but were speedily silenced by their owners. These dogs were simply the native dingoes, either born in captivity or caught when very young and domesticated. They are poorly fed, and the squatters say they can generally distinguish a wild dog from one belonging to the blacks, by the latter being thin and the former in good condition.
"More women than men were visible, and it was explained that the men who were to take part in the corroboree were away making their preparations. The corroboree is a dance which was formerly quite common among the tribes, but has latterly gone a good deal out of fashion. At present it is not often given, except when, as in the present instance, strangers are willing to pay something in order to see it. Our host had arranged it for us, and the camping party that preceded us with the pack-horses had brought the stipulated amount of cloth, sugar, and other things that were to constitute the payment for the entertainment.
"We tried to make friends with some of the children, but they were decidedly shy, and we soon gave it up. In a little while the men who were to dance came out from the forest, and as they did so the women formed in a semicircle at one side of the cleared space in the middle of the encampment; and some of the men brought fresh supplies of wood, and heaped it on the central fire. The women sat on the ground, and each had an opossum rug stretched tightly across her knees and forming a sort of drum.
A CORROBOREE.
"The dancers assembled in the centre near the fire; they wore only their opossum rugs around the loins, and the exposed parts of their bodies were streaked with paint in the most fantastic manner imaginable.Faces and bodies were adorned with white and red paint, and altogether the aspect was a combination of the ludicrous and the hideous. The leader, holding a stick in each hand, took his place midway between the women and the fire, and at a signal from him the women began a chant, and kept time by beating with their hands upon the opossum-skins.
SOMETHING FOR BREAKFAST.
"Suddenly the leader struck the two sticks together, and the dancers formed in line. When the line was completed he struck them again, in unison with the chant and the time beaten on the drums. The dancers regulated their movements by the music, throwing themselves into all sorts of positions, moving to the right or the left, advancing or retreating, standing straight in line, circling around each other, and in a general way forming figures not altogether unlike those of civilized dancers in other lands.
"As the dance went on, the leader quickened the time; the chant and drumming quickened likewise, and so did the exertions of the performers. They grew hot, and perspired at every pore; faster and faster went the music; faster and faster were the movements of the bodies, till it seemed as though they would drop from exhaustion.
"Suddenly the men, as if by a prearranged plan, jumped higher than ever into the air, and as they did so each gave a sort of shrill shout. The drumming and chanting ceased immediately, and the men fled to rest in the shelter of the bushes. There they remained for perhaps a quarter of an hour, and then they returned and resumed the dance. The second part was much like the first, except that some of the figures were different; the whole performance showed that it was the result of practice, as the time was well kept and all the movements were based upon a system of no insignificant character. At the end the leader gave two heavy strokes with his sticks, the men retreated, the women followed them, and the dance was at an end.
"We are told that the natives have various dances, and in this particular they resemble the savage tribes of most other lands. They have their war-dances before and after fights, dances for the time when the youths are 'made men'—i.e., when they attain their majority, and are no longer to be classed as boys—dances in which only the women take part, dances in which the movements of the kangaroo and other animals are imitated, and a variety of religious and mystical dances to which Europeans are never admitted. In some dances an entire tribe—men, women, and children—participate; in others only the men, or only the women; and there are certain dances in which several tribes may join. All the people of the tribe are instructed in these dances, and the rules concerning them must be observed with most scrupulous care.
"Nearly all the dances are performed at night, and quite often by the light of the moon added to that of the fire. I have heard some amusing descriptions of dances where there was a mimic battle between white men and aboriginals, the fictitious white men biting their cartridges and going through the motions of loading and firing a gun with great exactness. There was a representation of a herd of cattle feeding, of some of the animals being speared by the blacks, who then went through the motions of skinning and cutting up the slaughtered beasts. The movements of the kangaroo, emu, and other animals were imitated, and so were those of the pig, the bear, and the opossum.
NEAR THE CAMP.
"At the end of the dance we went to our camp accompanied by the natives, who were to receive payment for the performance. After their departure we sat around the fire for a while listening to corroboree stories, and then retired to our blankets and to sleep. Our dreams were filled with pictures of yelling and gyrating natives, and altogether neither Fred nor myself felt much refreshed when we rose in the morning; but we were all right in an hour or so, and shall always remember our adventure among the Australian blacks.
"We heard some curious stories about their customs, particularly of the way the men get their wives. Marriage as understood among civilizedpeople is unknown among the Australian blacks. Fathers dispose of their daughters as they would of sheep or cattle; and if the father be dead, the right falls to the nearest male relative. A man with a daughter of marriageable age arranges to dispose of her, and when the price is agreed upon she is called forward and told that her husband wants her. She may never have seen him before, or seen him only to detest him; if she cries and protests, the father exercises his authority by prodding her with a spear or striking her with a club, and he often winds up by seizing her by the hair and dragging her to the hut of the man who has bought her. If she attempts to run away she is clubbed into obedience, and sometimes her father spears her through the leg or foot, so that she cannot run.
"Among some of the tribes brothers exchange their sisters with other men, so that a marriage is generally a double affair. There is no ceremony, as we understand it, any more than in a horse-trade with us.
AN AUSTRALIAN COURTSHIP.
"If a man has no sister, he steals a wife from another tribe than his own; he lies in wait in the neighborhood of the other tribe, and when a young woman passes near him he rushes out and knocks her down with a waddy, or club. Then he drags her to his hut and pounds her into submission. Such a proceeding is perfectly proper, though it almost invariably leads to a fight between the two tribes, no matter how friendly they may have been before the occurrence. It is the duty of the woman's tribe to avenge her abduction, and that of the man's to protect the newly wedded couple.
"The ceremonies for celebrating the coming of age of a young man vary a good deal among the tribes, but in none of them is the performance a pleasing one for the subject thereof. In one tribe he is shut up in a tent for a whole month, and nearly starved; in another he is shaved, painted with mud and pigments, and compelled to sit in a pool of dirty water for a whole day, while the rest of the tribe pelt him with mud; in another he has two of his front teeth knocked out; and in another the young beard on his chin is plucked out by the roots. In every case pain is inflicted, so that the valor of the youth can be tested; and he is expected to endure everything without flinching.
THE NIGHT ALARM.
"During the night we had an alarm which roused us from sleep, and for a few moments it looked as though we were to have serious business. There was a yell in the forest near us, and as we sprang out of our blankets and went to the front of the tent, we saw a crowd of natives in war-paint brandishing their spears and waddies, and acting as though they intended to attack us. Some of them were hideously painted, and altogether the spectacle was not a pleasing one. After afew demonstrations they retired, and our host told us it was a part of our entertainment, to show how a night attack was made by the aboriginals.
"The mimic attack was quite sufficient for our purposes, and we were quite willing not to pass through the experience of a real one. We were told that had the attack been actual, the first warning of it would have been the hurling of spears. Very often it happens that a camping party of white men has no knowledge that natives are within many miles of them until the spears begin dropping in their midst. Our host was once in a party of this sort; they were eight in all; five of them were killed or wounded by the spears; but the remaining three with their rifles and revolvers beat back the assailants, and thus saved their lives."
Our friends returned to the station without further adventure, and a few days later were once more in Sydney, preparing to leave for Melbourne. Up to the last moment of their stay they were busily occupied with the attentions of the numerous acquaintances they had made, so much so that they had barely time to write up their journals and preserve a record of what they had seen and heard.
But there was one attention which was as unexpected as it was interesting, though it could hardly be said to have been bestowed by an inhabitant of the city. It was a visit from a "brickfielder," and is thus described by Fred:
"Mention has been made already of the tendency of an Australian to speak exultingly of the climate of his own city or section, and to disparage that of other localities. All parts of the country suffer from the hot winds of the interior, but the inhabitants of each place declare that it is worse anywhere else than with them. Be that as it may, our first experience of the hot wind here in Sydney is quite bad enough, and if Melbourne or Adelaide can surpass it we pity them.
"They call this wind a 'brickfielder,' probably because it brings a vast quantity of dust such as might be blown from a field where bricks are made or brick-dust has been thickly strewn; and this was what we saw and felt:
"There was a period of calm and ominous silence, and we observed that the sky was changing from blue to a sort of fiery tinge. Puffs of heated air came now and then, like blasts from a furnace; they grew in force and frequency, and in an hour or so became a steady wind with increasing force. It was hot and dry and scorching, and we seemed to be withering under its effects. 'It's a brickfielder, sure enough,' said afriend, and he cautioned us to get back to our hotel as soon as we could. We took his advice, and went there.
RECEPTION OF A BRICKFIELDER.
"In a little while there was a driving volume of dark clouds like a London fog; the wind increased almost to a gale, and then came the dust. It was not a fine, impalpable sand, like that brought to Cairo by thekhamseenin April, but a perceptible and gritty dust that sifted into every crevice and cranny, blinded our eyes, filled our ears, and made its way inside our clothing, till we could feel that it was all over our skins. Nothing is sacred to it, and it invades the most stately mansions as well as the humblest cottages. The air was filled with dust gathered up from the streets, in addition to what the wind brought from the interior; the dustiest and most disagreeable March day of New York was the perfection of mildness compared to it.
"Windows and doors were closed, and it is the rule to keep them so as long as a brickfielder lasts. The hot gale will make its way inside if it can find the least opening, and then the entire house and all its contents will be thickly sprinkled with dust. The heat was intolerable,but there was no help for it, as an open door or window would only bring more heat and the dust in addition. We looked out of the windows, but the dust-cloud was so thick that we couldn't see across the street. A few luckless wayfarers were clinging to posts or struggling to keep their feet, and those who were trying to go against the wind made very slow progress.