- "There The Passions May Revel Unfettered, And The Heart Never Speak But In Truth; And The Intellect, Wholly Unlettered, Be Bright With The Freedom Of Youth."

Assuredly man in a savage state, is by no means the unhappiest of mortals.

Old Jimmy's faculties of memory were put to the test several times during the eight days we were travelling from Youldeh to this rock. Sometimes when leading us through the scrubs, and having travelled for some miles nearly east, he would notice a tree or a sandhill, or something that he remembered, and would turn suddenly from that point in an entirely different direction, towards some high and severe sandhill; here he would climb a tree. After a few minutes' gazing about, he would descend, mount his horse, and go off on some new line, and in the course of a mile or so he would stop at a tree, and tell us that when a little boy he got a 'possum out of a hole which existed in it. At another place he said his mother was bitten by a wild dog, which she was digging out of a hole in the ground; and thus we came to Wynbring at last.

A conspicuous mountain - indeed the only object upon which the eye could rest above the dense scrubs that surrounded us - bore south 52 degrees east from this rock, and I supposed it was Mount Finke. Our advent disturbed a number of natives; their fresh footprints were everywhere about the place, and our guide not being at ease in his mind as to what sort of reception he might get from the owners of this demesne, told me if I would let him have a gun, he would go and hunt them up, and try to induce some of them to come to the camp. The old chap had but limited experience of firearms, so I gave him an unloaded gun, as he might have shot himself, or any other of the natives, without intending to do any harm. Away he went, and returned with five captives, an antiquated one-eyed old gentleman, with his three wives, and one baby belonging to the second wife, who had been a woman of considerable beauty. She was now rather past her prime. What the oldest wife could ever have been like, it was impossible to guess, as now she seemed more like an old she-monkey than anything else. The youngest was in the first flush of youth and grace. The new old man was very tall, and had been very big and powerful, but he was now shrunken and grey with age. He ordered his wives to sit down in the shade of a bush near our camp; this they did. I walked towards the old man, when he immediately threw his aged arms round me, and clasped me rapturously to his ebony breast. Then his most ancient wife followed his example, clasping me in the same manner. The second wife was rather incommoded in her embrace by the baby in her arms, and it squalled horridly the nearer its mother put it to me.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 255 of 394
Words from 132083 to 132607 of 204780