The Land of the Kangaroo Part 7

Most of the country was open and free from trees. Then there were other parts where the line pa.s.sed for miles and miles through "scrub," and at irregular intervals they came upon patches and stretches of Australian forest.

Harry noted that the forests through which they pa.s.sed had very little undergrowth, so that it was easy to ride in any direction among the trees. Most of the trees that they saw were eucalypti, of which there are many varieties. The eucalyptus is by far the most common tree of Australia, and the best known variety is the one that is called "the blue gum." It is said that fevers do not prevail where the eucalyptus grows, and this theory seems to be developed into a well-established fact. Decoctions and other extracts are made from the leaves, bark, wood, and gum of the eucalyptus and are given to fever patients with more or less success. The eucalyptus has been taken to foreign countries, and where the climatic conditions are suitable it has flourished and established itself. The French government introduced it into Algeria and planted it at military stations, where the soldiers had suffered much from malaria. At all those stations the malaria was long ago driven away by the trees, and places that were once unhealthy are now renowned for their salubrity.

The youths observed that most of the eucalyptus trees were tall and slender. The gentleman who accompanied them said that their trunks were often found with a diameter of ten to twelve feet, and some had been measured that were sixteen feet in diameter at a distance of ten feet from the ground. The trees grow very rapidly, and their timber when green is soft, so that they can be felled, split, and sawed very easily, but when dry it becomes very hard. It is a very useful wood, as it is adapted for many purposes. The bark contains a great deal of tannin, and it has become to some extent an article of commerce.

The leaves of the eucalyptus have a leathery appearance and generally stand in a vertical position, so that one side receives as much light as the other. A valuable aromatic oil is extracted from the leaves, and is used for medicinal and other purposes. It is said to be very objectionable to mosquitoes, and Harry was told that if he scattered a few drops of eucalyptus oil on his pillow at night, he would not be troubled with mosquitoes, even though there might be many of them in the room. He promised to try the experiment at the first opportunity.

Ned asked what variety of the eucalyptus was the tallest, and how tall the highest tree of Australia was.

"The giant gum, _Eucalyptus amygdalina_, is said to be the tallest tree in the world," the gentleman replied. "I am not sure whether it is really so or not, as you have some very tall trees in the United States, and there are also some of great height in the valley of the Amazon River. I have heard of giant gum trees five hundred feet high, but their location has always been given very vaguely, and n.o.body knew by whom they had been measured. There is one giant gum tree on Mount Baw-Baw, in Gippsland, that has been officially measured by a surveyor and found to be four hundred and seventy-one feet high. What its diameter is at the base I am unable to say, but probably it is not less than fifteen or sixteen feet. New forests and new groups of trees are being discovered from time to time, and perhaps we will one day find a tree more than five hundred feet high.

"I will add," said their informant, "that the giant gum is also called the 'silver stem,' because when it sheds its bark every year the new surface of the tree, when the old one has come off, is as white as silver. A group of these trees is a very pretty sight, as the trunks are perfectly round, and very often the lowest limbs are fully two hundred feet from the ground."

CHAPTER VI.

AUSTRALIAN BLACKS--THROWING THE BOOMERANG.

"Those giant gums are not easy to climb," Ned remarked, as the gentleman paused.

"Not by any means," was the reply; "at least, not for a white man, but the black fellow will climb one of them, or any other tree, with very little trouble."

"Why, how does he do it?"

"He cuts notches in the trunk of the tree where he can place his feet, and he goes on cutting notch after notch as he ascends, making a broad spiral around the tree until he reaches the limbs. Sometimes he pa.s.ses a piece of rope, made out of twisted bark, around the body of the tree to steady himself, but he is just as likely to take no rope along, and trust entirely to keeping his balance with his feet in the notches."

"Those black fellows are very accomplished in their way," remarked one of the youths.

"They are, indeed," was the reply; "and they do certain things that no white man can ever do. For example, a black fellow employed on a cattle estate will ride at full gallop and follow the track of a runaway cow or steer without making a single mistake. A white man would be obliged to go at a walk, or a very little better, and quite frequently would find it necessary to dismount and examine the ground carefully. The black fellows are fully equal to your American Indians in following a trail; they can track men almost as well as bloodhounds can. In parts of Australia we have a police force of blacks, and they perform splendid service in hunting highwaymen and others who have committed crimes and fled into the bush for concealment and safety."

Harry asked if the blacks were honest in their dealings with white people.

"I regret to say that their reputation is not by any means the best in the world," was the reply. "Like savages everywhere when brought into contact with civilization, they seem to adopt its vices and reject its virtues. They are generally faithful to those by whom they are employed, and in this respect their characters are commendable. When it comes to ordinary lying and stealing, they are very skillful. They resemble other savages in their fondness for intoxicating drinks, and when they get a little money their desire to go on a spree is very apt to be uncontrollable. They will leave their work and go to the nearest place where intoxicants can be bought, and they keep on buying and drinking until their money is gone. Generally speaking, you cannot keep them in your employ very long. As soon as one learns his business so that he is really useful, he either quits or behaves in such a manner that he has to be sent away."

Just as this last remark was made, the train halted at a station, and as our young friends looked through the window they saw a group of blacks.

They had seen a few black fellows on the wheat farm that they visited, and some had come under their observation in the streets of Adelaide.

These, however, were dressed in civilized garments, and the group at the station was the first they had seen in aboriginal dress.

Harry noted the scantiness of their costume, which consisted chiefly of a strip of cloth about the waist, and another strip thrown over the shoulder or disposed of in some fantastic way. Their skins were black, though not of the inky, coal-like color of the pure-blooded African negro. Their hair was curly, but did not have a woolly crispness. The features seemed to be more like those of the Malay than of the Negro race, and Ned observed that the hair of the women hung down in wavy plaits, which is not the case with the hair of the negro of the Congo or the Nile. Every man in the party carried a spear, and Ned wondered why they were not armed with bows and arrows.

"That is for the very simple reason," said their informant, "that the Australian aborigines have never used the bow and arrow; their only weapons are the spear, club, knife, and boomerang. Their princ.i.p.al weapon for fighting is the waddy or club, and each tribe has a peculiar shape for its waddies. This weapon is made of hard wood, and is somewhat suggestive of the night stick of a New York policeman, with the difference that it has a k.n.o.b on the end to enable it to be grasped with greater security. There is a rule in fighting with the waddy, that you must hit your antagonist on the head. It is not fair to strike him in any other part of the body with these weapons, and the man who would do so would not be regarded as a gentleman in aboriginal society. The difference in the waddies is such that you can very often tell what tribe a party belongs to by examining one of their clubs.

"They are accustomed to spears from their childhood, and can throw them very accurately for a distance of thirty or forty yards. I once saw a considerable number of blacks together, and several white men of us got up a compet.i.tion in spear throwing. We chalked out the figure of a man on the side of a building, and then paced off forty yards from it. We offered a prize of one shilling to every black who would hit this figure with the spear three times out of five at the distance indicated. We had them take turns in succession, and when the compet.i.tion was over we found that we were obliged to give a shilling to every one of the compet.i.tors, as all had hit it three times. Half of them did so four times, and the other half the entire five times."

Ned asked what the spears were made of. He learned, in reply, that sometimes they were single shafts of wood tipped with stone, bone, or iron. Others had heads of hard wood, while the shafts consisted of light reeds which grow on the banks of the rivers and lakes. The spears are usually from six to ten feet long, at least the fighting spears are.

Some of the tribes living along the rivers have spears fifteen or eighteen feet long, intended for fishing purposes and not for war.

Harry wanted to know what was the religious belief of the blacks, and what were their ideas about the creation.

"As to religion," the gentleman answered, "they don't seem to have much, and the little they do have is of a very mixed character. Like all savages, they believe in good and bad spirits, and they treat the bad spirits with much more ceremony than they do the good ones; on the ground, I presume, that it is necessary to propitiate the bad spirits to save themselves from injury, while the good ones can be relied upon not to do any harm. Some of the tribes believe in a Great Spirit or Supreme Being, while others have no idea of the kind. They have a good many superst.i.tions, and, though not a people of much imagination, they have quite a variety of mythical stories that originated a long time ago, and have been handed down by tradition. It is a curious circ.u.mstance that some of these myths repeat quite closely the story of the creation, the fall, and the deluge, but where they came from n.o.body can tell."

"Is there any book where we can find any of these traditions?" Harry asked.

"Oh, certainly; they have been collected and published, but I can give you the princ.i.p.al ones from memory."

"The story about the creation is, that one of the spirits that ruled the world created two men out of the dust of the earth, and gave these two men a very rich country to live in. Another spirit created two women and gave one of them to each man. Then he gave spears to each of the men, and told them to kill kangaroos with their weapons, and gave sticks to the women, with which to dig roots out of the ground. Thus it came about that men carry spears and clubs as weapons, while the women perform most of the menial work. The men and women were commanded to live together, and in this way the world in time became full of people. They grew so numerous in the region where they were, that the great spirits caused storms to arise and high winds to blow in order to scatter the people over the globe.

"The tradition about the first sin is, that the first man and woman were ordered by the spirits not to go near a certain tree, as a bat lived there which must not be disturbed. One of the women went too near the tree, her curiosity having got the better of her, and the bat became alarmed and flew away. After that death came into the world, having before been unknown.

"They have another tradition that at one time all the water in the earth was contained in the body of an immense frog, where n.o.body could reach it. The spirits held an investigation, and ascertained that if the frog could be made to laugh the water would run out of his mouth when he opened it, and the drought then prevailing would be broken. All the animals of the world gathered together and danced and capered before the frog in order to make him laugh, but all to no purpose. Then they called up the fishes to see if they could accomplish anything, but the frog preserved a solemn face until the eel began to wriggle.

"The wriggling of the eel was too much for the frog and he laughed outright. Immediately the waters flowed from his mouth and the earth was covered with water. Many people were drowned, and all who could do so sought the highest land. The pelican undertook to save the black people; he made a great canoe and went around picking up the people, wherever he could find them, and thus saved a great many.

"They have a theory about the sun," the gentleman continued, "that is certainly a very practical one. They say that as it gives out a great deal of light during the daytime, it needs a supply of fuel, and it goes at night to a place where it takes in fuel enough for its next day's work. They say that it used to take in wood exclusively before white people came to Australia, but since the arrival of the whites, and the opening of coal mines, they think the sun takes in both coal and wood at the place where it renews its supply.

"They believe in dragons, great serpents, and other wonders, and if you are inclined to laugh at them for their beliefs, you must remember that all the rest of the world shared in them two or three hundred years ago.

The creature in which they have the greatest faith is the bun-yip, which is supposed to haunt rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water, and possesses remarkable powers. According to their description, he is like a dragon; he devours black and white people indiscriminately, and can cause all sorts of misfortune. Many natives, and also quite a number of white men, claim to have seen him, and they certainly give some very graphic accounts of his appearance and actions. Not long ago an account appeared in one of the Australian newspapers, written by a white man and certified to by another white man, who claim to have actually seen the bun-yip in a small lake, and described him very minutely."

"And was the story really true?" Harry asked.

"Well, yes, I suppose it was. That is to say, I believe, as do many others, that there is an amphibious animal living in some of the Australian lakes and rivers of which no specimen has yet been taken. The description of the bun-yip by those who claim to have seen him, and are not carried away by their imaginations, is very much like that of a Newfoundland dog or a seal. The seal exists in Australian waters, and I think that is what the bun-yip will turn out to be if one ever allows himself to be taken."

At the station at the end of the line of railway there was an encampment of blacks, about half a mile away, and our young friends were quite curious to see it.

Their curiosity was soon satisfied, as there was nothing particularly attractive about the spot. The blacks were civilized enough to live in tents, or, rather, they accepted the bounty of the government which supplied them with tents, though it was evident that they did not intend to give up their old way of living, inasmuch as they had two or three bark shelters of the old-fashioned sort, in addition to the canvas house supplied by the government. And we may remark here that the various colonial governments provide for the support of all the aboriginals living within their territory. Government officials take care of them, supply them with food, clothing, and medical comforts, and a.s.sign reservations of land to them, just as the Indian Department of the United States a.s.signs reservations to the red men. But with all the care they receive, their number is steadily diminishing, and the day is not far distant when the last of them will cease to exist.

A man who could speak the language of the aboriginals accompanied our young friends in their visit to the encampment. At Harry's request, he arranged with the men to give an exhibition of their skill in throwing the spear, and after that was over he asked them to throw the boomerang.

While they were getting ready for their performance the interpreter explained that the boomerang was a great deal of a mystery. He said that no white man, even after years of practise, had ever been able to throw this weapon with any degree of accuracy, and that no Australian black could explain how the weapon was handled. If you ask one of them to explain about throwing the boomerang, he usually says, "You throw him, that all"; and that seems to be all there is to it.

Ned and Harry watched the performance with the greatest care, and they afterwards said that they knew as much about it before they witnessed it as they did afterwards, with the exception that they had seen with their own eyes what could be done.

"First, you must understand," said Ned afterwards, "that there are several kinds of boomerangs, the difference being in size, weight, and shape. The variations in shape are so slight that they are not readily perceived by the stranger, though a black would have no difficulty in determining them. The lightest of the boomerangs weigh from four to five ounces, while the heaviest are double that weight. Harry happened to have his spring letter-balance in his pocket, and we weighed one of the boomerangs that we saw used. Its weight was about six ounces and our interpreter said that he considered it rather a light one."

"The heaviest boomerangs are used for fighting purposes and for killing kangaroos, emus, and other large game.

"The boomerang is a queerly shaped weapon. It is made of hard wood and curved like a bow, the curve from point to point being about a quarter of a circle. The piece of wood that forms the boomerang is about half an inch thick, and in the middle it is two and one half inches wide, narrowing steadily towards the end. I took it in my hand and made a motion as if to throw it, whereupon the owner laughed, and indicated by signs that I had seized it by the wrong end.

"When he made ready to throw the weapon, the interpreter told us to stand perfectly still, lest we might be injured. I asked how it could happen, and he said that the performer always selected the spot to which the boomerang returned, and by changing our positions, especially after the weapon had been thrown, we might be struck by it when it came back.

"Both before and after taking his position the performer carefully observed the force and direction of the wind, as it has a great deal to do with the flight of the boomerang. When he was quite ready he flung the weapon almost straight into the air, where it circled about a few times, and skimmed along near the ground until it was about three hundred feet distant; then it turned, made a slight upward motion through the air, and finally fell within an arm's length of where the performer stood. The interpreter explained that this weapon was called the return-boomerang.

"The man repeated several times the performance with the weapon, bringing it close to his feet on every occasion. Then a coin was placed in the end of a split stick forty or fifty yards distant, at the suggestion of the performer, who stipulated that he would knock the coin out without disturbing the stick, on condition that he should have the coin, a one-shilling piece, in case he succeeded.

"He balanced the boomerang with great care and then threw it. It made several gyrations in the air, and when it reached its destination it knocked the coin from its place as neatly as one could have removed it with his fingers. All who stood by applauded the performer, and he was given the opportunity to win several more shillings in the same way.

"I ought to mention that each time when he threw the boomerang he varied his manner of throwing it. Sometimes he sent the weapon straight into the air; next he skimmed it along the ground, and next he launched at an angle of from forty to sixty degrees. Every time he threw it, it came back to his feet, but when he threw it at the coins in the stick it did not return.