The Implements
Appear So Trumpery, That The European Thinks They Can Be Of Little Use To
Anybody, But The Bad Blood Thus Engendered Between The Aborigines And The
Settlers Is Greater Than Would Be Easily Credited.
Another reason, I would
venture to submit, in opposition to this custom is, that in the case of the
blacks doing any mischief, no method of punishing them can possibly be
devised equal in severity to the destruction of their weapons.
A tribe is
rendered more helpless and more innocuous by this than by shooting down
half the males, and I am sure that if they once found that only in case of
mischief was this punishment resorted to, we should hear infinitely less of
cattle-spearing and shepherd-murdering than at present obtains. I mention
this, not from any good-will towards the blacks, who have been causes of
much sorrow to me and mine, but because I am sure that a discontinuance of
this idle habit would tend to lessen the existing causes of friction
between the two races.
In one of the camps we found a blanket - not, O reader, made of the finest
wool, deftly woven at the looms of Witney, but a blanket of Dame Nature's
own contrivance, stripped by the aboriginal from the bark of the Australian
tea-tree ('Melaleuca squarrosa'), no small shrub, but a noble fellow
standing from 150 to 200 feet high, and generally found in the
neighbourhood of fresh water, or in the beds of creeks. The bark of this
tree is of great thickness, and composed of a series of layers, each of
which can be easily separated from its neighbours, and, in fact, much
resembling a new book, just issued from the hot-press of the binder. From
a portion of this - the inner skins, I imagine - the blacks manage to
make a flexible, though not over warm, covering for the winter nights, or
for the newly-born piccaninnies. The whole of the process I am not
acquainted with, but from all I could gather from Lizzie, the bark is
stripped in a large sheet at the end of the rainy season, the inner cuticle
of several leaves carefully separated from the remainder, and placed in
fresh water, weighted with heavy stones to retain it in its position.
After the lapse of a certain time, known only to the initiated, it is taken
out, hung up to dry, and at a peculiar stage, before all the moisture has
evaporated, it is laid on a flat rock, and cautiously beaten with smooth
round stones, which operation opens out the web sufficiently to make it
quite pliant, after which it is allowed to dry thoroughly, and is then
ready for use. These vegetable blankets are very strong, and must be a
great protection to the naked savages, but, despite the ease with which
they can be obtained, and the small time and labour occupied in their
preparation, but few of the gins have them, and none of the men.
We also found several fish-hooks of a most peculiar shape, and made out of
a curious material. In shape they were like a circular key-ring, with a
segment of exactly one-third cut out. One end was ground sharp, and to the
other was attached the line, cleverly spun from the tea-tree bark. Now, of
all shapes to drive a Limerick hook-maker to despair, none, one would
think, could have been invented better than this, for the odds are
certainly ten to one against its penetrating any portion of a fish, even
though he should have gorged it. The material of which these quaint hooks
are made is tortoise or turtle shell, for both tortoises and turtles abound
on this coast, the former frequenting the fresh-water creeks and lagoons,
and the latter the sea. Whether they were cut out of the solid, or whether
a strip was soaked, bent, and then dried in the sun until it became firmly
set in the required shape, I never could ascertain, but most probably the
former plan was adopted.
The whole island seemed to teem with game, and had we been able to fire, we
should speedily have made a good bag, but this we dared not do, so I made a
mental resolve to return at some future time and make amends for this
enforced restraint. At nearly every step, we put up some bird or beast
strange to European eyes.
I have no doubt it is known to most of my readers that Australia is
destitute of 'Ferae' proper, and that elephants, lions, tigers, etc., are
unknown. They will also know that the kangaroos are marsupial animals;
that is to say, the females have a peculiar pouch for their young, which
are born in a far less advanced state than the young of other animals. But
perhaps it is not so generally known that, with two or three exceptions,
such as the dingo or native dog, the platypus, and several species of bats,
the 'whole' of the animals on the continent are marsupial. The brains of
this species are very small, and they sadly lack intelligence, in which
respect they exhibit a wonderful affinity to the aboriginals who live by
their capture.
[ILLUSTRATION - GROUP OF KANGAROOS.]
Of kangaroos there are more than thirty different kinds, but the English
are now so well acquainted with this curious animal that it needs no
description. There are two things about it, however, that I may with
propriety here point out - viz., the use of the pouch, and the various
ways in which the kangaroo is serviceable to the settler. The average size
of the ordinary female kangaroo is about six feet, counting from the nose
to the tip of the tail; and, marvellous though it may appear, the young
kangaroo, at its birth, is but little over an inch in length, having a
vague kind of shape, certainly, but otherwise soft, semi-transparent, and
completely helpless.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 14 of 31
Words from 13236 to 14237
of 31542
