The Trooper First Loaded His Empty Barrel, And Then Twitching Abiram By The
Sleeve, Whispered, "You Give 'em Rum Now.
Plenty you make him strong, mine
believe." His task was accomplished, and that the reward should
immediately follow was with him a natural consequence.
Ferdinand's shot and Lizzie's eloquence had, however, rid us of all further
trouble. The blacks laid down their arms, and expressed themselves quite
willing to assist us in any way. They vehemently denied having seen any
white men, but acknowledged that some had been heard of on the Macalister
River, and thought they were detained by the tribes inhabiting its banks.
They were cognizant of our expedition up the Herbert, and knew that we were
searching Hinchinbrook, but never thought we should have found them in
their present position.
It was now evident that further search on Hinchinbrook was useless. There
was no reason to doubt the truth of what they told us, for Lizzie would
have gathered information had there been any outrage, or some small piece
of rag or blanket would have betrayed them. That the unfortunate men might
be on the Macalister was not improbable, and thither we must bend our
steps, as the last resource. If we were unsuccessful then, we could only
conclude that the vessel had foundered at sea, and we should have the
melancholy satisfaction of knowing that we had done everything in our power
to rescue the sufferers.
We camped for the night at one extremity of the little bay, while the
natives occupied the other, in which there was a well sunk, where we
supplied ourselves with fresh water. We soon became on friendly terms with
our wild neighbours, but took care never to linger amongst them singly, and
always had our weapons ready for immediate use.
In the evening Lizzie came over from the blacks' camp, where she had been
holding a great palaver, and asked us if we should like to see a
"corroborrie," or dance; and much pleased at getting a glimpse of the
native customs, and glad of anything to break the monotony of our lives, we
followed her to the group of palms, and there took up our positions to
watch the proceedings. A tremendous fire was soon flaming on the beach,
near it the gins and piccaninnies assembled, with bits of stick, clubs, and
calabashes, on which to beat time. Some thirty of the men then stood up,
armed with spears, tomahawks, nullah-nullahs (war-clubs), and boomerangs,
and commenced a series of ludicrous antics, to a most melancholy dirge
chanted by the women, a kind of rude time being observed. Gradually,
however, they grew excited, and worked themselves up by going through a
sort of mock fight; and when at the last the women danced round them with
torches, all howling and shrieking at the top of their voices, and banging
the calabashes with kangaroo bones or anything that would add to the noise,
the whole scene reminded one of the infernal regions broken loose. This
lasted an hour, at the end of which time we withdrew, after expressing
ourselves highly gratified, and the whole camp was shortly buried in
repose. We kept double sentries, but we might all have gone to sleep, for
there was no symptom of treachery. At daylight we had breakfast; gave the
warriors and gins a few trifling things we could spare, such as knives, two
or three blankets - for we hoped to reach the township that night - and,
wonder of wonders to the savages, some matches (nearly all of which they
expended in verifying the fact that they would go off), and then took our
departure from the "bora ground," guided by a native, who showed a very
short way, unknown to Lizzie, by which we arrived at the 'Daylight' early
in the afternoon, to find that the latter had been joined by the 'Black
Prince', the steamer that had brought up the Cleveland Bay party. We
quitted in our little craft for Cardwell, and the Townsville men went south
in their steamer, intending to get some shooting at the Palm Islands before
going home for good. Eleven o'clock that evening saw us at our township,
fully determined to carry out the work thoroughly by searching the
Macalister River, an account of which I hope to give in a future chapter.
AN AUSTRALIAN SEARCH PARTY - V.
BY CHAS H. EDEN.
HOW WE EXPLORED THE MACALISTER RIVER.
The reader who has been good enough to follow me so far, will see that
hitherto our efforts had been unattended with the slightest success, and
that the fate of the missing schooner and her living freight still
remained buried in the deepest mystery. To say that we were not
disheartened by our numerous disappointments would be untrue, for we
well knew that each closing day rendered our chances of affording relief
to the survivors more and more difficult; so much so, in fact, that at
the council assembled to discuss the matter in the large dining-room of the
hotel, several voices urged the expediency of abandoning any further
attempts. Much valuable time, they remarked, had been already expended by
men to whom time represented money, nay more - the means of living. Their
own avocations imperiously demanded their presence, and although they were
the last men in the world to desert their fellow-beings in extremity,
still, in a country where every man lived by the sweat of his own brow,
self-interest could not be entirely sacrificed.
[ILLUSTRATION - AUSTRALIANS IN CAMP.]
Even we, who were most anxious to organise another expedition, could not
but acknowledge that the searchers had much justice on their side; but when
we were discussing matters in rather a despondent tone, a new ally came to
the front in the person of Jack Clarke, the horse-breaker.
"Where do you propose going next?" he asked Dunmore.
"We must search the ranges at the back of the township first, and another
party must go up the Macalister River," was the reply.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 21 of 31
Words from 20410 to 21417
of 31542
