Australia Twice Traversed - The Romance Of Exploration, Through Central South Australia, And Western Australia, From 1872 To 1876 By Ernest Giles
- Page 53 of 753 - First - Home
Force Was Useless To Detain Him; Argument Was Lost On
Him, And Entreaty I Did Not Attempt, So In The Morning We Parted.
I
shall mention him again by-and-bye.
He was a small, very handsome,
light-complexioned, very intelligent, but childish boy, and was
frequently mistaken for a half-caste; he was a splendid rider and
tracker, and knew almost everything. He was a great wit, as one remark
of his will show. In travelling up the country after he had been at
school, we once saw some old deserted native gunyahs, and he said to
me as we rode by, pointing to them, "Gentleman's 'ouse, villa
residence, I s'pose, he's gone to his watering place for the season
p'r'aps." At another time, being at a place called Crowlands, he asked
me why it was called so. I replied pointing to a crow on a tree, "Why,
there's the crow," and stamping with my foot on the ground, "there's
the land;" he immediately said, "Oh, now I know why my country is
called Queensland, because it's land belonging to our Queen." I said,
"Certainly it is;" then he said, "Well, ain't it funny? I never knew
that before." In Melbourne, one day, we were leaning out of a window
overlooking the people continually passing by. Dick said, "What
for, - white fellow always walk about - walk about in town - when he
always rides in the bush?" I said, "Oh, to do their business."
"Business," he asked, "what's that?" I said, "Why, to get money, to be
sure." "Money," he said; "white fellow can't pick up money in the
street."
From the Peake we had only pack-horses and one little Scotch terrier
dog.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 53 of 753
Words from 14130 to 14413
of 204780