We Wound Along The Path, Or Rather Track, That The
Blacks Had Made, With The Greatest Difficulty.
It was all very well for
the troopers, who had stripped, but our clothes hitched up on a thorn at
every other step.
One of our most provoking enemies was the lawyer vine, a
kind of rattan enclosed in a rough husk, covered with thousands of crooked
prickles. These, with their outer covering, are about an inch and a
quarter in diameter, and extend to an enormous distance, running up to the
tops of lofty trees, and from thence either descending or pushing onward,
or festooning themselves from stem to stem in graceful curves of
indescribable beauty. From the joints of the parent shoot are thrown out
little slender tendrils, no thicker than a wire, but of great length, and
as dangerously armed as their larger relation. These miserable little
wretches seem always on the watch to claw hold of something, and if you are
unhappy enough to be caught, and attempt to disengage yourself by
struggling, fresh tendrils appear always to lurk in ambush, ready to assist
their companion, who already holds you in his grasp. I have measured the
length of one of these canes, and found it over 250 paces; and this is not
the maximum to which they attain, for I have been assured by men employed
in cutting a telegraph road through the scrub that they had found some over
300 yards long. They seem to retain the same circumference throughout
their whole length, and, as the bushman puts everything to some use, the
lawyer is divested of his husk, and takes the place of wire in fencing,
being rove through the holes bored in the posts as though they were ropes.
It is almost needless to add that this cane derives its 'soubriquet' of
"lawyer" from the difficulty experienced in getting free if once caught in
its toils.
Another of the torments to which the traveller is subjected in the North
Australian scrubs, is the stinging-tree ('Urtica gigas'), which is very
abundant, and ranges in size from a large shrub of thirty feet in height to
a small plant measuring only a few inches. Its leaf is large and peculiar,
from being covered with a short silvery hair, which, when shaken, emits a
fine pungent dust, most irritating to the skin and nostrils. If touched,
it causes most acute pain, which is felt for months afterwards - a dull
gnawing pain, accompanied by a burning sensation, particularly in the
shoulder, and under the arm, where small lumps often arise. Even when the
sting has quite died away, the unwary bushman is forcibly reminded of his
indiscretion each time that the affected part is brought into contact with
water. The fruit is of a pink, fleshy colour, hanging in clusters, and
looks so inviting that a stranger is irresistibly tempted to pluck it; but
seldom more than once, for though the raspberry-like berries are harmless
in themselves, some contact with the leaves is almost unavoidable. The
blacks are said to eat the fruit; but for this I cannot vouch, though I
have tasted one or two at odd times, and found them very pleasant. The
worst of this nettle is the tendency it exhibits to shoot up wherever a
clearing has been effected. In passing through the dray tracks cut through
the scrub, great caution was necessary to avoid the young plants that
cropped up even in a few weeks. I have never known a case of its being
fatal to human beings; but I have seen people subjected by it to great
suffering, notably a scientific gentleman, who plucked off a branch and
carried it some distance as a curiosity, wondering the while what was
causing the pain and numbness in his arm. Horses I have been die in agony
from the sting, the wounded parts becoming paralysed; but strange to say,
it does not seem to injure cattle, who dash through scrubs full of it
without receiving any damage. This curious anomaly is well known to all
bushmen.
For a couple of hours we followed the tortuous windings of the track,
without we white men having the faintest conception where we were going,
though the troopers and Lizzie declared that we were pushing straight
through. At length a ray of sunlight became visible, and in a few minutes
we emerged from the sombre depths of the jungle, and found ourselves on the
banks of a splendid river, the Mackay. Traces of blacks were seen in every
direction, the white sand being covered with their foot-prints. Abandoned
gungales were plentiful on the opposite bank, which was clear of scrub, and
whilst we were eating the damper and beef with which each of the party was
provided, Lizzie espied a thin column of smoke at no great distance.
We approached it as cautiously as possible, taking advantage of every shrub
that offered a cover, and finally, lying down and worming our way through
the grass on all fours, a mode of progression that is in itself
particularly fatiguing and objectionable, but not without excitement, for
we never knew the moment when we might chance to put our hands on a dormant
snake, or find ourselves sprawling over a nest of bulldog ants. We were
successful in completely surprising the camp, which consisted entirely of
gins and piccaninnies, all the males, as usual, being out hunting. The
gins spoke quite a different language from that of the Hinchinbrook and
Herbert River people, and Lizzie was a long time before she could make them
understand. They seemed to know nothing of any white men, nor, I may say,
of anything else in particular. They were ignorant where the Mackay rose,
or where it debouched, and could give us no information regarding the
waterfall we saw on the distant range, what river it supplied, or what kind
of country was between us and the hills. Altogether they were a most
unsatisfactory lot; and having rummaged their camp without finding any
suspicious articles, and threatened them with wholesale destruction if they
gave warning of our approach to any other tribe, by either smoke signals or
messengers, we departed, much disgusted.
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