Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
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He Was Nearly Dead; Water
Was Of No Use To Him, And His Hide Might Be Useful In Repairing Some
Packbags, and we might save our stores for a time by eating him; so he
was despatched from this scene
Of woe, but not without woeful cruelty;
for Jimmy volunteered to shoot him, and walked down the creek a few
yards to where the poor little creature stood. The possibility of any
one not putting a bullet into the creature's forehead at once, never
occurred to me; but immediately after we heard the shot, Jimmy came
sauntering up and said, "Oh! he wants another dose." I jumped up and
said, "Oh, you young - " No, I won't say what I told Jimmy. Then Gibson
offered to do it, and with a very similar result. With suaviter in
modo, sed fortiter in re, I informed him that I did not consider him a
sufficiently crack shot to enable him to win a Wimbledon shield; and
what the deuce did he - but there, I had to shoot the poor miserable
creature, who already had two rifle bullets in his carcass, and I am
sure with his last breath he thanked me for that quick relief. There
was not sufficient flesh on his bones to cure; but we got a quantity
of what there was, and because we fried it we called it steak, and
because we called it steak we said we enjoyed it, though it was
utterly tasteless. The hide was quite rotten and useless, being as
thin and flimsy as brown paper.
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