No Sundays in the bush : an English jackeroo in Western Australia 1887-1889 9780850912968, 0850912962

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in the,'Bush An English Jackeroo in Western Australia 1887-1889

From the Diaries of Tom Carter Lothian Publishing Company MELBOURNE· SYDNEY ·AUCKLAND Produced by Ross Publishing

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The author on his wedding day, 1903

First published 1987 Produced by Ross Publishing for Lothian Publishing Company ©Violet Caner, 1987 This book is copyright. Apan from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no pan may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publishers, Lothian Publishing Company Pty Ltd, 11 Munro St, Pon Melbourne, 3207. Carter, Tom, 1864--1931. No Sundays in the bush; an English jackeroo in Western Australia. 1887-1889. ISBN 0 85091 296 2 l. Caner, Tom, 1864--1931- Diaries. 2. Jackeroos- Western AustraliaCarnarvon region- Biography. I. Title.

636.3'0092'4 Designed by Sandra Nobes Photo Research: Jennifer H. Muir Typeset by Meredith Typesetting Printed by Globe Press, Melbourne

Contents Introduction

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PART 1 A New Chum

1

PART 2 To The South

37

PART 3 An Old Hand

75

Footnotes

131

Introduction

M

y Father Thomas Carter - always known as Tom Carter- was born at Burton House, Masham, Ripon, Yorkshire, on 6 April 1864, the eldest surviving child of James and Amelia Carter. Burton House, a delightful old stone house, had been the home of the Carter family for several generations. As a child Tom went first to the village school at Masham for a few years and then to Sedbergh School, leaving there in July 1880. One of the Masters there, realising his love of natural history, helped him all he could in this hobby, which lasted throughout his life. After leaving school he worked for several years in Mincing Lane, London, in his Father's office (his Father being an East India merchant), but City life did nor appeal to him. While working there he met some people on a visit from Western Australia; they became close friends and he worked for them when he went there. Their accounts of life in Western Australia inspired him and he decided he must go himself as a 'new chum' to take up sheep farming. He left London in 1886, sailing on the 900 ron Australind, and arrived in the Carnarvon Roads in February 1887. He worked as a 'new chum' for just over two years, returning to England for a short trip in May 1889, and his many and varied experiences during these two years are contained in the narrative he composed from his diaries - most meticulously kept - which appear reproduced in the following pages. Since childhood he had been a keen naturalist, birds being his greatest interest, and Western Australia provided plenty of scope with its unusual bird and animal life and the colourful wild flowers. He visited the islands in Shark Bay many times and in later years had his first sheep station near Point Cloates. He had a small cutter and used to sail along the coast there, and realising the reefs were incorrectly charted, accounted for a number of shipwrecks in that part of the coast. He reported this to the Admiralty and at one time his name appeared on the Admiralty charts for that area - a signal honour. He left Point Cloates about 1903 and returned to England to marry his childhood sweetheart, Annie Ward from Twickenham. Later that year they returned to Perth and settled on a sheep station at Broome Hill, to be called Wensleydale from his childhood days, leaving there in 1914 to return to England to live, although he made several visits to Western Australia afterwards. Tom Carter was of a quiet retiring nature but with a lively sense of humour. He was probably happiest in the country in some quiet spot watching birds

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through his spyglass, binoculars being useless as he had been blind in his left eye since birth. In spite of this he was a crack shot and had shot at Bisley. He was rejected for Active Service in 1914 because of this blindness but joined the East Surrey Volunteers. He contributed to various journals and books on the subject of birds whilst living in Australia and also later; his knowledge on the subject was considerable. His childhood spent in Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales proved to be of great advantage to him in his travels and experiences in the Bush and he was never at a loss to find a solution to any of the daunting trials which arose constantly and the various contingencies arising which had to be solved. He was a keen horseman and amazing distances had to be travelled in this manner 100 years ago through almost unknown country driving large flocks of sheep through scrub or almost desert areas. There was no doubt Tom Carter loved the life and the challenge it brought. Mention must be made of the Aborigines, many of whom worked for him and well, their knowledge of the land and water holes and poisonous insects or snakes being a great advantage when travelling. Tom Carter had a marvellous collection of Australian specimens of birds and after his death more than 1,000 were given to a museum. He found several unknown birds but his greatest joy was in his discovery of Eremiomis carteri - the Spinifexbird, a beautiful thrush-like bird which is peculiar to NorthWest Australia and the Northern Territory. He died in 1931 after several years of ill health but after a full and most interesting life. Violet Carter Brecon, Wales, 1987

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The S.S. Australind on which Tom Carter travelled to Carnarvon in 1887. Carnarvon is situated on ShaTk Bay on the TWTth-west coast of Western Australia.

PARTl

ANew Chum O

ur good little steamer, the Australind, 900 tons, dropped anchor in the Carnarvon Roads at 4 p.m. on the 6th February 1887. The Roads are part of Shark Bay, sheltered by the islands of Dirk Hartog, Bernier and Dorre to the West. A good many residents came out on the sailing lighters to see the first electric-lighted steamer that had visited that coast. Amongst others was J. Brockman, of Boolathana Station, seventeen miles out from Carnarvon. He, being an old friend of Mrs. Gale's, agreed to take me on as 'New Chum', or 'Jackeroo', without wages, as is the custom at first. The usual free and easy concert was held until late at night in the Smoking Room, which I quitted in order to get my two trunks put on one of the lighters. Assisted by the boatswain, I was in the act of lowering one trunk over the vessel's side when someone, whose identity I never discovered, came up and advised me to put my luggage on the other lighter if I wanted to have my belongings taken quickly to the shore. Fortunately for me I followed his advice; when those for the shore went to find their respective boats at 2 a.m. it was discovered that the other lighter was missing, and had evidently had the lines securing her to the steamer maliciously cut. She washed up on the beach about twelve miles North the next morning, and went to pieces. The boat I was in, after bumping over several sandbanks, eventually grounded hard and fast when near the Southern mouth of the Gascoyne River and we all had a long wade to reach the shore, just as day was breaking. We made our way to the Carnarvon Hotel (Townshend proprietor) and succeeded, after some trouble, in awakening the maidservant (Kitty Lingtot) and persuading her to supply us with drinks, after which we found vacant beds and turned in until breakfast.

The Gascoyne Hotel at Carnarvon. Bush hotels in Australia were built to accommodate the large numbers of itinerant workers and travellers mooing through Australia, as weU as off duty station owners, managers and workers.

At that date, Carnarvon contained about one hundred inhabitants, a large proportion consisting of Government officials, the Resident Magistrate (C. D. V. Foss, a son of Colonel Foss, previously Commandant at Fremantle Gaol in the convict days), Land and Water Police, Post Master, Telegraph officials, Schoolteachers and Doctor. Here I may remark that the duel that had been arranged on board the Australind (one of the participants being Dr. Roberts, who had come out to replace the old resident Doctor Shields) did not take place, both men being, as a matter of fact, too shaky for anything of the sort. Dr. Shields spent a good part of the day feeling Roberts's pulse, and murmuring at intervals, in a gratified tone, 'Getting normal- almost normal again'. The township consisted of about a dozen corrugated iron buildings (two of which were 'Hotels') and three general stores, built in dangerous proximity to the South bank of an arm of the great Gascoyne River. Behind the town, at a short distance, was a scrubby, sandy ridge, where numbers of natives camped behind their breakwinds of broken bushes, for they do not trouble to build huts. On the opposite side of the River branch was Babbage Island, mostly low, swampy, and fringed with mangroves. When the River runs, the bulk of the immense volume of water flowing down it reaches the sea by the North Channel, on the North side of Babbage Island. When we landed, the River had not run strongly for some time and was then dry, with the exception of scattered pools. Yankee Town was a small suburb situated on the bank of the River about two miles from Port, consisting then of the houses of two or three settlers. One of them was owned by a burly and genial Scotchman with a large family, and one or two pleasant evenings were spent there in dancing and singing.

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The Port of Carnarvon, with the pearling fleet at anchor.

A few days were spent here before Brockman left for his Station. One afternoon, in company with J. Bussel from Margaret River, South-West Australia, I walked out to the River bed proper, above tidal influence; this is about one mile from the township. There were steep banks of clay or sand about twelve feet high to the River bed, which is formed of deep, coarse sand and gravel and is about a third of a mile wide, with islands of some size in places. A fringe of large white gum trees lined each side of the River, their pure white trunks and green tops having a pleasing effect. Great flocks of white cockatoos (Cacatua sanguinea) 1 assembled in the trees near pools of water - many of which are permanent - and we shot several of them. These birds have to be stalked with a considerable degree of care, as one or more sentinels are always on the alert. The idea is to approach so as to be able to fire a raking shot along a branch crowded with cockatoos, when ~rhaps a dozen birds might fall to a shot. The large kingfisher (Dacelo leachii) also occurs plentifully along the River banks. They resemble, but are not so large as the laughing jackass of the Eastern colonies (D. gigas) 3 and are most in evidence at daybreak and sunset, when a family party, uttering their loud cackling notes, enlivens the silence of the bush. We waited at one pool until the moon was well up and succeeded in shooting a couple of ducks. Returning to the pool we halted at my friend's camp where he was engaged with a mate in sinking a well for the Roads Board, and I had my first bush supper of salt mutton, damper and tea. I recollect well the mutton contained numbers of the small red ants which make life so often miserable when camped out. Besides their bite, they possess a very pungent and disagreeable taste and smell.

3

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Baston's and Co., store owners and shipping agents, were the commercial heart of Carnarvon. A bullock team and wagon await a load for the long road south.

My two trunks had been landed at the end of a short jetty (Baston's) in front of the town, and lay there exposed to public view until I got someone to carry them to the Hotel. Inside one of them, on top of clothing etc., lay about three pounds of tobacco obtained on the steamer. I wondered if the Customs would search the luggage, but they did not trouble about it. At the end of three or four days we started out to Boolathana. Brockman and Mr. Foss drove in the former's buggy, and a son-in-law, C. Ridley, took turn about to ride a horse or go in the buggy. The road crossed the River (at an island) a little above where it divides into the two branches. A few months previously, a party of surveyors who were surveying the route of the telegraph line then being constructed to Derby in the North, were camped on the island when the River ran a banker. The party were obliged to take refuge in the gumtree branches, whence they were rescued by rowing boats after a very unpleasant night- only to find afterwards when the water subsided that a great deal of their stores and equipment was lost. The leader of this party, Price, was attacked a few miles from this spot by some of the Chinamen employed in clearing the scrub from the line of telegraph. They surrounded him armed with knives and tomahawks, but were so eager to kill him that they hindered one another. Joe Scott, a man employed as teamster for the survey party, ran to his tent, and returning with a rifle picked off four of Mr. Price's assailants, enabling him to escape although badly mauled and cut. The Government afterwards awarded £20 to Scott for his

4

Boolathana Station, near Carnarvon, was Tom Carter's first place of employment. He at first received no wages 'as was the custom'.

'

presence of mind and courage and he remarked he would willingly shoot every b----- Chinky in the country at the same terms. Just under the North bank of the River was a permanent pool of water known as Yanget Pool- from the bulrushes growing~-it, the native name the Mission then of which is yan get. On the bank above the Pool st recently started by the Revd Gribble for the natives; b . through ill-judged means and exaggerated reports he sent to newspapers etc., he was boycotted by the settlers, and had to leave Western Australia after losing a libel case concerning the Mission and its management. After leaving the River the road runs through typical North-West country - hard clay flats dotted with the low saltbush, cotton bush, blue bush etc., and in places rather thicker scrub growing to twelve or fifteen feet. Almost all the bushes are readily eaten by sheep or large stock, and are the main feed supply after the grass and annual herbage has dried off and been eaten down, or blown away by the winds. Low ranges of red sandhills occur at intervals, usually running from about South-West to North-East, the South-West wind being the prevailing one. There is no timber, excepting on the margins of pools, creeks and rivers, and that is almost entirely white gum. Claypans are a great feature of this district; they are almost perfectly level, of hard clay, often circular and of considerable area. After rains, they hold from two to six inches of water. We arrived at the Boolathana Station about sundown. It was a low, onestoreyed, stone house built by Charles Brockman, a pioneer of this district. The natives caused much trouble at that time and many white men were killed, some by having their heads cut off, or battered in with tomahawks as

5

Stockmen crossing the Gascoyne River.

they slept; others were speared. In many cases these outrages were unprovoked (except in so far as the pioneers were trespassers) and they led to rough retaliation in return. Naturally, the house was not built without intervals away looking after the sheep and stock. Returning to his masonry work after one such absence, Brockman found the natives had broken into the store room, looting precious rations. One of the ringleaders named Charlie - a young fellow afterwards notorious for many villainies - was attired in a white shirt and silk hat, and between intervals of playing a stolen accordion, harangued the admiring crowd of blacks, declaring he was 'Boss now'. This same native caused an excitement a few weeks after my arrival at Boolathana: he picked up a couple of baits (pieces of meat poisoned with strychnine and laid for the benefit of wild dogs or dingoes) out on the run and, arriving at the natives' camp near the house, presented them to his Father, an aged man, for his supper. Of course the poor old 'governor' was soon in violent convulsions, and messengers ran post-haste to the house for remedies. These were administered in the shape of chunks of black fig tobacco swallowed by the patient who, after vomiting several times, recovered. When the young would-be parricide was questioned as to his motive, he callously replied, 'He too much old beggar, what for him nothing dead'. just below Boolathana Station was a gully, apparently an old by-wash or side channel of the Gascoyne River. This had been dammed across close to the house and, throwing the water back, formed a splendid pool about two miles in length, a quarter of a mile wide and probably fifteen feet in depth

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in places. Many ducks and wild fowl visited it. The morning after my arrival, I put together my 380 rifle and walked down to the pool for a trial shot. There were two cockatoos walking near the edge of the water and, waiting until they crossed one another, I fired and killed them both. On the far side of the pool from the homestead was a considerable thicket of wampoo and wattle bushes. A species of wallaby was abundant in it, and many times I shot four or six there within an hour or so, with the rifle. A couple of years afterwards, not one could be seen. I think sheep constantly feeding about drive away almost all the smaller bush fauna. After a few days I was driven about five miles out to Coorooboodgo, where an old shepherd, R. Shaw, was attending to some flocks of lambing ewes. Owing to the dry season feed was very scarce, and the unfortunate sheep and lambs were having a very bad time - as was also the shepherd. For the first time I now commenced to rough it. As the only object is to keep off the sun's rays, Shaw had a hut formed by bushes under the shade of a white gum. A native was told of to make a similar screen for me by cutting down the centre bushes in a thick patch. He carefully cut a large yellowish mass, the size of a man's head, from the top of one bush, and showed it to me after cautioning me not to touch it. It was the 'nest' of a colony of large hairy caterpillars; the slightest touch causes the hairs to stick in one's skin and bring on instant irritation lasting for some days. Any place where the caterpillars have crawled is full of shed A sta!ion homestead in the nor!h-wes!

7

hairs and if once they get into one's blanket, it may as well be burnt. After rain or before, these caterpillars hook on to one another, and form crawling strings composed of perhaps two hundred caterpillars, processionary. We were, of course, now on the regulation bush fare- damper, mutton and tea. Damper is made of flour (baking powder, soda or occasionally Eno's Fruit Salt being added to lighten it if one is luxuriously inclined) mixed with water which is gradually poured in the centre of the mass of flour. It is kneaded to the consistency of fairly stiff dough, and shaped into a round form. A bag laid on the ground (which is the usual thing on which to make damper) is sprinkled with dry flour and the round lump of dough placed on it and pressed out by the hands into a flat cake about two inches thick. The camp fire, which has previously been tended into a brisk blaze, now has the top part of unburnt sticks and coals put on one side. The heap of hot ashes beneath is carefully opened out in the centre until the opening will admit the unbaked damper, which is now dropped in, taking care that there is a layer of ashes between it and the ground. The ashes previously put on one side are now carefully raked evenly over the damper with a stick, and it is left to cook. Usually it will require to be opened out and turned over after about twenty minutes, according to the size of the bake, but if there is a good accumulation of ashes it will cook through without turning, and be better for it. After taking out of the fire, it only needs the fine wood ashes dusted or brushed from it with a bunch of leafy twigs, a bag, one's hat or saddle cloth - whichever happens to be nearest to hand. Good damper is very fair eating, and is much better to carry when travelling than bread, especially on horseback. It is best to keep a damper standing on its edge while it is hot, as otherwise it will go 'sad'. On a camp like this the man in charge kills his own mutton, keeping a portion - as much as he thinks will not go bad before he can eat it. This portion in summer is usually nil, as a sheep killed at sundown may be green next morning. The rest of the meat is salted and hung up in a bag to drip, and to keep the ants off it. Every bushman carries a quart pot which is placed on the fire at meal time; according to taste a pinch or handful of tea is added when the water boils, and the pannikin at once lifted off the fire. Sugar is added or not, according to individual taste, and the tea drunk without milk. If one has fresh meat, a few slices are cut off the joint and grilled on carefully selected and levelled hot coals, 'while the billy boils'. If one is in a regular camp, one may possess the luxury of a gridiron made of fencing wire, or even attain to the heights of frying in a frying pan or camp oven. These latter cannot be carried when one is travelling with one horse. The three flocks of sheep at the camp were shepherded by black shepherds - usually a man and his woman or gin. The woman usually does most of the shepherding, the man hunting for wallabies, rats and snakes and helping her to drive the sheep back to camp at night. The lambing ewes were, of course, in need of the greatest attention. Every morning, as soon as it was light enough to see, Shaw, myself and three or four natives went over to where they were camped and proceeded with great care to 'draw out' the lambs dropped the previous night, with their mothers. It was not always easy, as often the mother would prefer to keep with the flock and leave the lamb. Frequently the lamb would be left alone, and we

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had to pick out the mother from the flock of about a thousand which were not in a yard but in the open, and moving about. When a ewe is about to lamb she usually tries to get to the outside of the flock, and it is much better not to yard them when lambing unless wild dogs are about. The day's 'drop' of lambs are put with their mothers in charge of a native - usually a woman, as being more reliable - and kept by themselves for two or three days; by then they should be fairly strong on their legs and fit to run with the older lambs. There is always, too, the mob of strong lambs which feed further away, so a man in charge of a lambing camp may have perhaps ten or twelve different lots of ewes and lambs to superintend, and to count at least twice daily; what with having to cook his meals and see that all the different lots are watered twice a day without getting 'boxed up' (i.e. mixed), he has enough to do. We had two wells at which to water the sheep, about a quarter of a mile apart. The wells were shallow, the water being only about six feet from the surface of the ground. Water is drawn by a long gum sapling (lever) working in the fork of a large limb set upright in the ground. The bucket hangs by a rope or a long, thin stick at the small end of the lever, and the other end of the lever has a weight attached, heavy enough to raise the bucket out of the well (after it has been dipped full of water) just high enough to allow of the water being tipped out into the long length of troughing. With the exception of having to pull down the lever-end by the rope until the bucket reaches the water in the well, there is little exertion in drawing the water. The principle Shearing time a! a nonh-wes! srarion

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is that of the oriental shadoof, used for irrigation. The troughs are made of white gum trees, hollowed out and put end to end. A ewe with lamb at foot, living on dry feed, will easily drink two gallons of water when brought to the trough. After a short time the mobs of sheep, by travelling in and out between camp and the wells, destroyed all the dry grass and herbage around, and lambs began to die and ewes to forsake their lambs; we had to cut down some of the edible bushes so that the starving sheep could eat the top leaves. By dragging the bushes into position, we made small yards to hold a few ewes and their lambs, but soon these means failed and we had to kill the lambs as soon as they were born, and bum them in heaps, as the ewes got too weak to be able to rear them; it was better to sacrifice the lambs than to lose both ewes and lambs. Numbers of the great wedge-tailed eagles (the eagle-hawks of the colonists) 4 also appeared and killed, especially, numbers of lambs, and to get rid of them we poisoned the carcases of dead lambs with strychnine. One day I was hidden under a bush, watching a poisoned carcase with many eagles feeding from it. Before long, five of them began to show effects of the poison in their drooping wings and staggering gait. Two of them flapped to a lower limb of a white gum tree, and after much wobbling, fell to the ground. I then came up and, wishing to make skins of some, selected two of the finest of the (apparently) dead birds; grasping their legs above their formidable talons, I slung them over my shoulder and started back to the camp. I had not gone far, however, before one of the birds began to struggle and work its claws, which did no harm, but when its beak began to work on my rear I thought it time to drop the bird and kill it outright, before proceeding further. I may here mention that three or four years previously Brockman had started out with another man, Lowe, to examine the country further North. They failed to find water at Yalobia- having a bad native for guide- and reached the Minilya River, eighty miles North of the Gascoyne, without getting any water on the way; they also failed to find any water or any of the good pools near where the Minilya Station was afterwards built. After looking around, Lowe went mad and, taking the horses with him, left Brockman. The man never returned, and after waiting a few days at a very small 'dub' of muddy water that he found, Brockman decided to attempt to return alone. Shooting an emu with his revolver, he cut off a supply of meat and started back South, there being no road of any description. How long his walk lasted he never knew, but he eventually landed up- crawling on hands and knees - at the Coorooboodgo well, where we now had our camp. A man called Charles Wheelock happened to be there; he would not allow Brockman to drink his fill (which would probably have proved fatal}, but laid him in the trough and let his skin soak in water until his dreadful thirst was somewhat assuaged. I have heard the story from Brockman himself, who related how he travelled mostly by night to avoid the heat and how, in the latter stages of exhaustion he was tantalized - but yet urged to further efforts by visions of running brooks, and dainty feasts just beyond them. The following day John Brockman got horses and returned to Minilya to find Lowe; though the horses died of thirst and were never seen again, the dead body of Lowe was found near the River about twenty-five miles above the Station site.

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The most noticeable bird at Coorooboodgo was a honeyeater, afterwards described as a new species, Ptilotis carteri 5 ; its lively notes were heard at first daybreak. White cockatoos were also numerous, and the pretty, crested bronzewing pigeons6 used to visit the troughs in numbers for water. After some weeks there we had visitors in the shape of teams calling, as the Carbadia well, a few miles away on the Minilya road, had gone salt. On one occasion I walked in to Boolathana Station, carrying my two eagles' skins as I feared some of the skin beetles (Dermis) would get into them if they lay about in the open. The hairy grubs of this beetle are very destructive to sheepskins, or any other specimens. Arriving at the Station I found no one there except an old American black, Fisher, who had been a slave, then a sailor and a whaler, and subsequently had 'done time' for bushranging in the Eastern colonies. The old villain declared he had nothing to cook except bread and tea, upon which he fed me, though I afterwards found out he was eating poultry and eggs himself. Next day on awakening I found I had a bad attack of ophthalmia (sandy blight of the colonists) and could not bear any light- not even the striking of a match to have a smoke - and had to lie in a darkened room for two days until Brockman returned from Port and put my eyes right with eye water. No one accustomed to living in the bush travels without this, as one is liable at any time to get the 'blight' either from flies, or dust, or intense heat radiated from the ground. Unless prompt measures are taken permanent injury to the eyesight- or even blindness- will result; I knew several cases of the sight of one eye being lost, and one case of total blindness. Retribution overtook this black cook very shortly afterwards. He was acting cook on the Gascoyne River at one of Mr. R. E. Bush's stations and apparently died in a fit, as the mailman calling there found him lying outside, with the fowls eating the maggots off what was left of his body. I stayed a week or two at the house until my eyes were strong again. Meanwhile, as the lambing at Coorooboodgo was over, Bob Shaw went to Port where, as was usual in such cases, he had a wild bout of drinking and was found there and driven out by Brockman's brother Ned. Shaw was in the habit of carrying his bottle of strychnine for dogs, etc. in his trouser pocket and on the way out, when he wanted to smoke, he found his pipe was in the same pocket as the poison. Not knowing the cork had come out of the bottle, he filled his pipe and tried to smoke, but after several attempts discovered the stem of the pipe was blocked by grains of strychnine. The shock somewhat sobered him, but no ill results followed. He passed the night at the Station but next morning was missing, which caused alarm, as from his manner we had imagined he was beginning to show delirium tremens (jimjams). Not knowing what might have happened to him, ]. Brockman drove out with a blackfellow and followed his tracks which led them to his old camp at Coorooboodgo. Brockman stayed with him for a day or two but became alarmed as Shaw had a grudge against him and began to threaten him. (Shaw, in a former similar bout at Port, had cut his own throat - nearly cutting the windpipe - and then charged another man with doing it.) Brockman became rather nervous, and drove in to ask if I would go out and stay with Shaw! This I consented to do; as I had previously made a great impression on him

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by offering him the loan of my netted hammock to sleep on as he had bad rheumatism and sciatica, I hardly thought he would injure me. Accordingly, Brockman drove me out with half a bottle of whisky which I had strict orders to dole out to Shaw (a nip only, night and morning) to 'straighten' him up: a case of 'the dog that bit him'. Shaw insisted on my having a nip with him that night, and I well remember that one of the large, savage bulldog or sergeant ants chanced to have got into the pannikin and gave me a very severe bite in the mouth - my first. Shaw was very queer next day, and when the natives came for their meals, insisted in wrapping up each one's portion in paper and tying it round with string. At night I heard him talking much to himself, and before lying down on his blanket he arranged an axe, tomahawk, pickaxe and loaded gun at his head in case, as he said, Brockman or anyone else came up at night. After he had turned in, I slept some little distance away from him. Next morning he insisted on my writing down a statement full of the most outrageous stories respecting people who, he said, had been at his camp that night. A team called the next day, driven by G. J. Grierson; after seeing Shaw, Grierson called me to one side and asked me if I knew Shaw was stark mad. I said I was quite aware of it, but did not think he would harm me. Grierson said he would not camp with him for any sum of money, and left. However, Shaw was all right again within a week. Soon after this little episode Grierson called again. He took me out with him about a mile higher up the gully or creek where we camped at a spot where he had a contract to sink a well at a 'soak' - in the banks where the natives used to get water. The two wells at Coorooboodgo had begun to fail a little: all the sheep watering there, and the teams carting water away for the long waterless stage on the Minilya road (sixty miles), was a great strain, and Brockman began to be afraid they might fail altogether. So we started to sink a hole about five feet by four feet in the bed of the creek, just opposite the natives 'soak'. ('Soak' is a term used to indicate where water occurs but not permanently in any great quantity.) After sinking about three feet the water came in fast, necessitating constant baling, and we had to erect a lever and fork to keep it down so that the pick and shovel could keep working. We then made the 'box'- formed of four strong corner pieces of timber with side planks of six inches by one inch nailed on- and lowered it down the hole. The man inside kept excavating, and as he cleared away the earth from the under edges of the box, it gradually sank. That night we turned in feeling confident there would be a good supply of water, but next morning, after baling out all the water accumulated during the night hours we found that no more came in as the supply was exhausted. So we laboriously levered and parbuckled the heavy box out again to save the timber, packed up, and returned to the Coorooboodgo camp. I found this well-sinking was done on Easter Sunday- 'no Sunday in the bush'. Soon after this a light thunder shower fell, and Shaw took a flock of sheep to a claypan about two miles distant that had collected a little water. The sheep refused to drink the water in it - which was muddy as usual - being used to the clear water from the wells, and he had to bring them back. Sheep are often very dainty about water; if taken from clear water to muddy they will refuse to drink it, even, at times, vice versa.

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A north-wesrem riveT during the dry season.

As the feed around Coorooboodgo camp was now finished and a great proportion of the edible bushes had been cut down, Shaw decided to ease the wells by sending one flock of about a thousand to Yandoo well, about two miles higher up the creek from where we were camped. A native (Neddy) and his woman (Badja) were to be the shepherds; a few 'loose' natives (not employed) having turned up, they were persuaded to carry my few belongings and rations to the new camp for a stick or two of tobacco and some tucker. Thus, for the first time, I was quite 'on my own'. On arriving at the well I found the water was about sixty feet from the surface, and had to be drawn up in a ten gallon drum by a windlass with handle at each end. My belongings were placed under the shade of a large white gum about one hundred yards from the well. They consisted of: a small leather valise with a few spare shirts, socks and pair of pants; a blanket; a doublebarrelled gun brought from home; and spare pairs of boots. My stores and cooking gear consisted of: my own tin pannikin (or 'quart pot' as it holds a quart); the usual quantity of tea (drunk at each meal); a bag containing a little salt mutton; another bag with some flour and a small amount of tea, sugar and tobacco; an empty flour bag on which to mix up my damper; and an old bucket in which to boil my salt mutton. It is surprising, at first, to find out what a lot of things one can do without when one has to, and how civilization entails the use of many superfluities. Like all bushmen I carried a sheath knife on my belt, from which also hung a leather pouch to hold my day's store of tobacco, matches, my pipe and a pocket knife with which to cut up the hard, black figs of tobacco for the pipe;

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another small pouch on the belt holds one's watch. Regular clothing is a pair of light boots, socks (or not, according to taste), a pair of white cotton moleskin trousers and flannel or cotton shirt - the former is much the best - and a broad-brimmed, soft, felt hat. I also owned the luxury of a netted hammock brought from home. This was the cause of much scoffing among the regular hands as being a very superfluous comfort, but I hung it from a lower limb of the tree and found it useful to keep my little stock of things in (as ants did not readily get on it), and afterwards, as will be related, useful to sleep in. The troughing at Yandoo well was not long enough to meet the requirements of a thousand sheep, being about forty feet instead of a hundred feet in length. When a mob of sheep comes in for their daily drink, the first lot to line the troughs will finish all the water already drawn beforehand. The other sheep, crowding and jostling behind them, prevent the first lot backing out and getting away when they have drunk their fill. When they do get out and leave room for a few of the second lot to get in, the troughs are dry, and only a fortunate few nearest the well (where the water is poured into the troughs from the bucket) have a chance of getting a decent drink; those at the far end of the troughs find no water gets down there at all. If no more troughs can be obtained at the Station, the way to remedy this is to stop the flock of sheep some distance from the well, and let only two or three hundred come in at one time and drink their fill. When they are satisfied ('choked off'), one then 'cooees', or shouts to natives left with the main flock, and they cut off another mob of sheep to come in to drink until all are satisfied. This method is better for the sheep and means less work for those drawing water. When sheep only get a sip now and again, they never seem to be satisfied, and there is always a cloud of choking dust stirred up all round. Many sheep in the jostling, frantic crowd go down and are trampled under, and they smother very quickly unless got up and carried out into the open. One person really is required to walk up and down the troughs among the struggling sheep to keep them in some degree straight, and to allow those who have been drinking to get out. They at once seek the nearest shade of tree or bush and lie down (lay up, colonial) until about 4 p.m. when it is cooler, and they are driven away by shepherds to feed until sundown. Long lengths of troughing prevent this, and when sheep are loose in paddocks (instead of being shepherded) they come in themselves in small mobs. Many sheep always drink at the same part of the troughing every time they come in, and until they can get in to drink at that one particular spot, refuse to drink. In the same way, sheep in a driven flock usually have their own places, in front or rear, right or left flank etc. To one unversed, all sheep seem much alike, but a good man (shepherd) gets to know by sight an amazing proportion of the individual sheep in his flock. Before I had been many days at Yandoo well, I discovered that the supply of water in the well was not good, that is, it did not flow in rapidly to replace that drawn out for sheep. The depth of water in the well was about seventeen feet, and after watering the thousand sheep there was very little left. The native and I used to fill the troughs every evening ready for next day, but although the troughs did not leak to any extent, they were always empty next

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morning- which meant extra work filling them again. The native was the first to discover that a mob of horses running in the bush used to come in at night and drink the water we had laboriously drawn up, so we decided to fill the troughs early in the morning when one could watch that the horses did not drink the water, or 'swamp it' (colonial), before the sheep came in. The second night after this decision I had a scare: I was sound asleep on my usual bed- 'the big floor with the blue curtains' (i.e. the bare ground) - when an unusual sound woke me with a start. I saw myself surrounded by large forms of some sort, and something that I imagined was a wild black was stooping over me almost touching my chest. As I jumped to my feet the forms around me scattered with a great noise, and in a few moments I realised that the mob of horses had come to the well and, apparently finding no water, had come to me, and one had his nose almost touching me as I lay asleep. I had put two sheepskins on the ground under my blankets as I thought they would tend to soften the bumps a little: this was the means of my receiving another scare. I was roughly awakened one night by something actually jumping on my chest, and staying there. I grabbed as many of its legs as I could from under the blanket and, getting my head clear, found I had caught a fair-sized lamb - not a native dog as I had imagined. The lamb had lost its mother and the flock, and being attracted by the smell of the sheepskins, had evidently smelt about and then jumped onto me. Another night I was severely bitten by a large centipede in two places near my right elbow, and my arm swelled badly and was very painful for some time. I shall have the marks of the bites as long as I live. Shaw got his stores from the station, and was supposed to supply me with the same flour, sugar and tea as they had at the station. However, he sent me a little rice in place of the flour, which was sheer laziness as the station was only seventeen miles from Port. I was supposed to kill my own sheep for myself and the native shepherds but, as no salt had been sent out, it was useless killing as only a quarter could be eaten before the rest went bad. This I found out after killing a couple of wethers, and for some days the only meat I had was the parrots or cockatoos that fell to my gun. All this time I had had no letters or news from home, as all of them had been directed to the base where I had originally landed. Brockman had promised to bring them right out to me as soon as they came, and day after day after my work was done, I would walk down the track which led to the Station, hoping to see the dust announcing the approach of the Station buggy; but no letters came until I had been in the bush for about three months, and then they were casually sent out to Shaw's camp by a passing team. How I enjoyed them when I got them! On my first arrival at Yandoo there was a small pool of muddy water about one quarter of a mile from the well, left from the thunder shower previously mentioned. It was too muddy even for the sheep, and emus used to water at it - but I had not enough bush lore to succeed in shooting one, as it is necessary to make a bush screen near the pool and be absolutely invisible, or they will not approach within sight. After working a while at this well, the man shepherd Neddy concluded water-drawing was hard work (it was!) and, telling his woman to stop with the sheep, went in to Carnarvon for a holiday. Luckily, J. Grierson, who was

15

sinking a well at Cooralya for R. Cleveland some miles beyond Yandoo, called with his team. He knew I could not draw the water single-handed, as one man must hold the windlass steady when the bucket arrived at the top, while another (myself) landed the bucket onto the edge of the well, ready for emptying into the tr.oughs, and he told his native- a lazy old villain- to stay and help me until someone was sent out to me from Boolathana where he was calling. I had noticed for some days that the water was acquiring an increasingly rank taste and smell, and next morning a sheep's ear and part of a scalp came up in a bucket; I thought it time to get out the putrefying carcase (which I could see floating in the water below) before it burst and sank in the well. Accordingly, I told the native to get into the bucket and I would lower him down, but he steadfastly refused to do anything of the sort. As I would not trust him to lower me single-handed, I got a light line from Grierson's cart which he had left at the well and, making a noose at one end, lowered it down the well, making the other end fast above. Then I let out all the rope off the windlass and went down it, hand over hand. The first part was all right as the well was timbered some fifteen feet from the top and I could get toehold between the timbers, but when I got below the timbers where the sides of the well were smooth greasy sandstone, I wondered if I could manage to climb up the rope again without any assistance from foothold on the sides. However, I wanted that sheep out of my only drinking water, and I went down, got the noose at the end of the light line round the carcase, and shouted to the native to haul it up. This he did - the foul drippings falling all over me until he got it to the top. Then I went up, hand over hand, and was almost exhausted on reaching the top again. Two days after, the same rope broke when lowering the empty drum, so I had to send Grierson's native straight in to the station for new rope and a bucket. Grierson sent out two five gallon drums and a strong, willing native (Shark Bay Billy), who was a great improvement on the two previous natives. The two five gallon drums, being fixed one at each end of the windlass rope, made much easier work as the empty bucket going down helped materially to pull up the full one. Billy borrowed my gun one day and shot a fine emu at the little pool of muddy water and, to my surprise, quite a number of natives (of whose neighbourhood I was unaware) turned up to help eat it. One morning, while I was having my solitary and meagre breakfast, two gaunt dingoes (wild dogs) trotted up and calmly sat down about fifty yards away from me, surveying the scene; but when I moved to reach for my gun they rapidly cleared out. At last, after many weary weeks, a local thunderstorm brewed up and we had a heavy shower of rain. As the bulk of it apparently fell a little distance East of Yandoo, Shaw sent a native out on horse to report. He returned saying the rain had been heavy, filling the clayholes and claypans for some distance, and making a small gully run; but a mile away not a drop of rain had fallen. Shaw immediately started to move all sheep towards the water. None of the surrounding country had the boundaries of the various blocks of leasehold land surveyed and this particular portion was claimed both by Boolathana Station

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and by its neighbour, Brick House Station. In this case the Boolathana sheep arrived first, and stopped there, but when the land was surveyed some time after, this portion was decided to be on Brick House run. All land in this district, and the North-West proper, was leased from the Government for twenty-one years. The smallest block allowed to be taken up was 20,000 acres, and the rent was 10/- a thousand acres per annum for the first seven years of the lease, 12/6d for the second seven years, and 15/for the third, with an option of renewing the lease. After the heavy losses sustained by squatters in the drought of 1889, 1890 and 1891 (the first experienced in Western Australia), the Government agreed to allow the rent to remain at 10/- until the termination of the leases which all expired in 1907. In order to form an average sized station one required from 200,000 to 500,000 acres, and as the maximum number of sheep that could be safely run on land there was roughly one sheep to ten acres, these were just nice comfortable runs. This seems to speak badly for the land, but it was not the fault of the land, or feed grown, but the irregularity of the rainfall which was quite uncertain; twelve months without rain being nothing unusual - only a dry season, not a drought. After winter rains, a dense growth of annual herbs, grass, everlastings, vetches etc., all of splendid fattening qualities, grew rapidly to the height of six or ten inches; on hot weather setting in they rapidly withered, breaking off with the wind and disappearing in a marvellous manner. These annuals never shot (i.e. the seeds did not germinate) no matter how much rain fell in the summer, which seems remarkable. The summer rains Country near Carnarvon three months after a drought, with abundant growth.

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(thunderstorms) caused the permanent-rooted grasses to grow at a wonderful pace, and they did not blow away with the wind like the annuals. These permanent grasses did not grow nearly so tall, or as quickly, with the winter rains, both air and ground being then comparatively cold. It did not take us very long to get all the sheep and our gear moved to where the shower had been. Oh! What a treat it was to smell damp earth and see bright green vegetation springing up like magic and little pools and dubs of water all round - how different from the blinding hot glare from the previous bare, dusty, red-hot ground! Birds of all sorts appeared at once, and were in full song and building their nests within a few days. This appears to be a very wise provision of nature, instinct or intelligence, on the part of the birds, as the majority of small birds breed only after rain when a plentiful supply of food is assured for their young. Emus also follow this rule in a great measure, and in dry seasons apparently do not lay at all. Eagles, hawks, cockatoos and parrots have a more regular laying season, to which they adhere irrespective of seasons; the warbling grass parakeet 7 breeds any time of the year after rain. Our new camp was quite luxurious with plenty of green feed for the surviving ewes and lambs and no water to draw. The thing we, especially Shaw, felt most was that we were still without any sugar, but after a week a supply reached us and the old man at once sat down by the bag and ate sugar in handfuls until he was satiated. It seemed to me the amount of sugar (usually a handful) that is generally put in the quart pot of tea at each meal and the frequent A beautiful pool

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at

WiUiamsbury Station is enjoyed lry

two

visitors.

extra quarts drunk between meals in hot weather or after an unusually dusty spell of work, was the source whence we derived most of our support and nutriment, as there is not much in damper and salt meat. As there was really no actual work to be done, I put in a good part of my time walking round with my gun, procuring a few skins and eggs. One day Shaw sent me, with a native to show the way, about seven miles over to a large pool, Tirigie, which he thought might now hold water, but we found it dry and no water on the way, and arrived back at the camp very thirsty. A good many bush natives now camped with our native shepherds and, as usual, owned a number of mongrel dogs, many of them a cross with dingoes, which cross is more prone to worry and chase sheep than even the dingo itself. So we planned a raid on them one moonlight night. Shaw took my doublebarrelled 12 inch gun and I had my 450 Colt revolver. There was great excitement at the camp when we arrived and began to drop the dogs. Shaw got three, and I got five out of my six shots, which was a good night's shooting. We kept watch at our camp the rest of the night as the blacks were very cross, and threatened to spear us. They would sooner lose their babies than their dogs; when blacks are travelling and the women run short of water and are carrying infants, they will sacrifice the children before the dogs. They argue the dogs catch game and act as sentinels, whereas infants are only an encumbrance. We had not been at this camp very long when I received orders from &olathana to bring one flock in to the Station, which I did with two black shepherds. We camped on the road one night, and the only incident of note was an exciting hunt of a large, poisonous snake by the black shepherd. He eventually speared it in some scrub, after it had turned and attacked him several times. When we arrived at the house we found no rain had fallen there. Clarence Spencer, Mrs. Gale's brother, had recently arrived from the South-West to learn the management of sheep, and we started off to the coast to Beejaling (about 20 miles West) where Neddy Brockman was camped with two flocks of later-lambing ewes. It was late before we left the house, and most of the way traversed in the dark. A vast area of salt marsh extends from the North bank of the Gascoyne River, not far from the sea, up to Cape Farquhar, about ninety miles North. It is mostly level and bare, with a hard baked crust a few inches thick covering unknown depths of salt mud ooze. In places the marsh is twenty or more miles in width; at any rate it is so wide one cannot see across it, even from the summit of considerable hills. A great part of it is absolute ooze, or quicksand, and quite impassable even for dogs, as once anything gets down into the tenacious mud it cannot get out again. The natives are much afraid of venturing on any part that is not known to be hard, and declare huge snakes or monsters inhabit the mud, seize one's legs and drag one down. It is dangerous to take horses over even the hardest parts until constant traffic has beaten the crust into a compact mass, and even then it may break through at any time. When the Minilya and Lyndon Rivers are in flood, they empty on the North end of this vast marsh and not in the sea, and the whole of the marsh is a vast impassable lake, or swamp. The large majority of 'lakes', as marked on

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maps in the interior of Australia, consist of these treacherous salt marshes, such as Lake Wey in Western Australia, Lake Eyre in South Australia etc. Wonderful mirages of green trees, islands and landscapes are almost always to be seen on them unless the sun is not shining, which rarely happens. We safely crossed the narrow arms of the marsh on the track to Beejaling with a native guiding us, and after a light supper at the small corrugated iron hut in which Neddy Brockman was camped, turned in. Next morning I was up early and went down to the beach, a hundred yards away. It was a beautiful clear sea with surf breaking on the beach, and on the reefs further out to sea. High, steep sandhills up to one hundred feet in height extended as far as one could see North and South, formed of very white fine sand with patches of thick, bright green scrub, very stiff and matted in growth. Just opposite the camp was a vast expanse of absolutely bare white sand, sand drift, and at the foot of it near the sea was Beejaling well, which held a magnificent supply of good water about three feet from the surface. These sand drifts (which occur at intervals along a great portion of the West and South coasts of Australia) almost always indicate a supply of good water of shallow depth, usually on the sea side of the drift and frequently within one hundred yards of the sea. Many unfortunate persons, especially shipwrecked seamen unused to the country, have lost their lives from thirst when they have been actually walking over good water hidden below the barren-looking white sand. We found this clean white sand was good for cooking damper; if a large fire was made on the surface, the sand beneath became hot enough to cook a damper buried in it, without waiting for the usual accumulation of ashes to form. The dampers so cooked were not burnt or charred, and required little cleaning after taking out; certainly a fair proportion of sand adhered to the outside but, according to many medical experts, we should all eat a certain amount of fine grit to aid digestion. All along these coast hills grew great bunches of the succulent milk bush, one of the most valuable and fattening fodder plants that grow in Australia. It grows very locally, usually near the coast, and being entirely composed of leafless green stalks growing as thickly as possible and full of a thick, white, intensely bitter juice which oozes out freely as soon as stock bite off the ends, it very soon 'bleeds' its strength away if eaten of much, and becomes a heap of withered stalks which never shoot again. Sheep and bullocks eat it greedily and do not require water when feeding on it, but horses refuse it absolutely. It is an invaluable standby for dry seasons, but as sheep will not leave off eating it as long as any part remains green, it has no chance of growing, and rapidly dies off and disappears as soon as the country is regularly stocked. The sheep at Beejaling had been sent there to recuperate on the luscious milk bush which causes ewes to have a good supply of milk, among other good qualities. Sheep shepherded on milk bush will not leave it, or wander away any distance, and give the shepherds absolutely no trouble - if put on it, 'dog poor' will be fat within a month. The morning after arrival some trouble was caused by almost all the lambing ewes (which were camped at night in the open near the well) having 'drawn off', or gone away, during the night. As it happened to be a 'heavy drop' night, about ninety newly-hom lambs were left motherless at the camp, but

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the natives rounded up the flock and brought them back, and before noon we had almost all the lambs mothered. A day or two afterwards Spencer and myself started off with a mob of strong lambs and ewes to camp at Cooranderra well, a few miles North of Beejaling. We had a light spring dray with two horses to carry camp gear, tools, troughs, etc. and left towards evening, the cart travelling along the beach to avoid the heavy going through the sandhills where there was no track. The rising tide forced the cart to keep up near the high tide mark where the sand is dry and the going heavy, so slow progress was made and dark set in long before we were near the well. The beach turning into rough rock and boulders, we were obliged to leave it altogether. We somehow managed to get the cart over the first row of sandhills without capsizing, with both of us having to pull hard on the top rail of the cart on the high side to keep it from rolling over and over down the beach again. When we revisited the place again next morning we wondered how we had safely got up without any accident- it was a place no sane driver would think of attempting in daylight. Guided by our native we soon after reached the well, and found it was made of sheets of corrugated iron put down perpendicularly and was consequently only two feet square and of unknown depth. However, we badly needed a drink, and I volunteered to go down the well with an old kettle we had to get water. As soon as I got inside with my feet on the pieces of wood that acted as braces to the comer timbers, these pieces of wood collapsed, having been destroyed by white ants, and I fell to the bottom (fortunately only ten or twelve feet distant and covered by a few inches of water). Next morning we proceeded to clean out the well, fix the trough we had brought with which to water the two horses, and form our camp. The sheep were to go without water and depend entirely on the milk bush - there would not have been nearly enough water in the well to water fifty sheep had they required it. There was little to do at this camp, and I spent a good deal of time fishing off the ledges of rocks on the beach which ran out into deep water: with a native woman's wana or six-foot fighting 'quarter staff' for a rod, a short line and piece of land crab or dead lamb for bait, I had very good sport, a species of rock cod averaging three to five pounds being readily caught with other species. One day while fishing I observed a large, yellowish animal, about seven feet in length and shaped somewhat like a thickset seal, swimming and playing near the shore, attended by a young one about three feet in length which at times suckled the mother. The animal was quite strange to me, and having my 450 revolver I fired two or three shots into it and it sank, apparently dead, much blood coming from it. On my return to camp I found Neddy Brockman, and on my describing the animal, he at once said it was a dugong. When the natives were told they became wildly excited, and all those not working at the time ran wildly down to the beach about half a mile distant, but they failed to find the dead body as the water went down to a considerable depth sheer off the rocky ledges. The dugong which inhabits the Indian Ocean is much valued as food both by natives and white settlers, as large masses of good, coarse meat resembling beef can be cut from it between the ribs and tail, without any bone. The meat covering the ribs is streaked fat and lean, and when well-cured is equal to

21

prime bacon. The oil obtained from the fat is tasteless and odourless, very good for frying in cooking or pastry, and also is reputed to be more efficacious than cod liver oil in pulmonary affections, and much more pleasant to take. The bull dugong weighs twelve hundredweight or more, and possesses two tusks of ivory, about nine or ten inches in length. The meat from the males is coarser than that from the females, the latter being from six to seven feet in length and weighing from four to six hundredweight. They1ive on various species of seaweed, especially a bright green variety with rounded leaf growing on the ocean bed, but I shall have more to say of these shy and inoffensive mammals when writing of my time at Point Cloates. As usual, we ran out of sugar, and I walked down to Beejaling one day to see if Neddy Brockman could spare us a few pounds, which he did - three pounds. When walking back along the beach the first heavy winter shower came on, and although I stuffed the sugar in the breast of my shirt, it was very syrupy on arrival at camp. I well remember this occurred on the 22nd June, Jubilee Day. I may not have made it very plain, but Beejaling and our camp lay on the strip of coastal sandhills between the salt marsh and beach. This land extended right through to Cape Farquhar, and at that time was almost unknown. I believe the only man who had travelled right through was Charles Brockman, who nearly lost his life and suffered much through want of water, although he was accompanied by a native. There was no sand water between Cooranderra and Boolbardi, North of Cape Farquhar, and the heavy sand, high hills and scrub made travelling difficult. One of his horses died and, when apparently in sight of Yalobia Hill below which was a good supply of water, Brockman retraced his steps. Natives did not camp on this strip of coast except after heavy rains when they get a supply of water for a few weeks out of cavities in the rocks filled by rain. Police Constable W. Turner was, I believe, the second man to go through here when searching for traces of a schooner supposed to have been wrecked in 1888. About 1903 C. Fane got water by sinking a well through rock, and the country was stocked with sheep. Leiopa Leiopa ocellata ('mallee hen' of the colonists, ngow of the Aborigines) used to breed near Beejaling, and also in quantities near Cape Farquhar according to the natives. A full account of their wonderful egg mounds will be given further on. One day while out I picked up a boobook owl (Ninox novae~ee/andiae), whose head, lying near the body, had apparently been struck off by a falcon or a hawk. There being no timber along the coast, the wedge-tailed eagles had to build their nests on the summits of high bushes. I found one such large structure about eight feet from the ground, but the natives got the eggs before me; two is the usual clutch. Emus also resorted to the smaller 'islands' on the marsh to lay, and the natives took several clutches of eggs in May. One night, after Spencer and I had turned in, we were aroused by great shouting and excitement at our native shepherds' camp a short distance away. On walking over, we found the woman holding their mongrel dog in her arms, and crying bitterly; it expired as soon as we arrived. It appeared a large snake had come up to the camp fire, bitten the dog and then disappeared down a hole in the ground near the man's head.

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He endeavoured to dig it out, but lost the run of the hole and, of course, the snake. These natives camp and sleep behind the shelter of a semi-circular wall of broken bushes about two feet in height which serves simply to shelter them from the wind; the bushes are moved if the wind alters, so that the natives, and the main fire, are always on the lee side of the bushes. They generally keep two or liluee smaller fires in front of their bodies and behind their backs if the nights are cold, as they often are in the winter. The sand where their bodies repose is dug out and thrown outwards to the inside of the bushes, forming a ridge about six or ten inches in height, which serves them as a pillow. No matter how strong a wind is blowing, perfect shelter is formed for anyone lying down by these primitive means. After two or three weeks at this camp, Neddy Brockman decided our sheep were beginning to want water. Showers of rain had now fallen at the station and telling us to bring our sheep back to Beejaling, preparatory to returning to Boolathana, he started away from there with his flocks. There was no mistake about the sheep wanting water and I went on ahead and filled the troughs ready for the arrival. The shepherds let the whole flock 'string in' when the rear of the flock was still some distance away. The consequence was that they drank all the water in the troughs, began to crowd, and some of the weak ones were going down and starting to smother. I had to leave the waterdrawing to try and extricate the fallen sheep and, while I was doing so, the flock became so frantic that through an awkward bump I fell myself, and got below the struggling thirst-maddened sheep. It was with the greatest difficulty I got out again, and might have fared badly if the old shepherd had not come in and managed to drive away a part of the flock. Several sheep were dead when we eventually got them out of the muck. We found there had been a sad mishap at Beejaling. Neddy Brockman had a fine cart mare there for drawing the spring cart. She was hobbled, as usual, and had a yearling foal running with her. Apparently she had started to return to the Station and tried to cross the marsh off the regularly-used small, beaten track. The treacherous crust broke under the weight, and the native sent out next morning to bring her in found her buried in the horrible ooze up to her withers; all our attempts to extricate her failed, so a bullet ended her struggles. The foal, which had been standing near her, was with great difficulty driven away from its dead mother. One day, some of the young native boys at the camp had conceived the bright idea of riding races on a few rams, and one boy who fell off his steed had most of his front teeth knocked out when the ram put its foot in his mouth as it passed over him. Charles Spencer now started in to the Station, leaving me to bring back the sole remaining flock of sheep now left at Beejaling. An old pony, Chubby, the regular knockabout station hack, was left for me to ride, and to carry my blanket etc. As ~sua!, the flock of sheep got away at daylight, and I followed a short distance behind leading my pony, as he had a good load of one thing and another. The sheep ran gaily across an arm of the marsh about a quarter of

23

a mile wide; I followed what seemed an old foot pad, thinking it would be safe as I could see old horses' footprints on it, but about halfway across I saw where a previous horse had broken through the surface, and unfortunately I turned off the track. The next moment poor old Chubby broke through and went down to his saddle flaps. I relieved him of his load and saddle as quickly as possible, meanwhile cooeeing loudly to the natives for help. Some of them came back a little and then, seeing the state of affairs, sat down and began crying and howling, throwing handfuls of sand over themselves (a sign of lamentation), and begging me to come away at once before the monster living underneath pulled me down too. By this time the hole in the marsh was enlarging with the horse plunging and breaking down more crust with his forefeet, and I went thigh-deep in the mud below, dropping the horse's bridle. I managed to get out and, running across to the natives, succeeded in persuading two of the men to break off some armfuls of thick, scrubby samphire bush which always grows near the edge of marshes. Returning with them we got some of the bush under the pony's feet, and after much plunging he got out on the harder crust (which luckily supported him), trembling violently and coated with sticky salt mud - as were my legs too. I was careful to keep to the old track for the rest of the way, and very glad to be clear of the last piece of marsh. Had Chubby been a heavy horse he would have followed the fate of the mare, whose remains were in sight some little distance away. We arrived at Boolathana the next day to find the country beginning to look green with grass and weeds growing after the showers. All the claypans and crab holes held water, so there was no more water-drawing until the next summer set in. I used to carry out rations for the shepherds and still being somewhat of a New Chum, I did not always find it very easy to follow up the tracks of the flock that had gone out from a camp to feed that morning - perhaps two or three miles away in the thickets etc. - as the whole ground was a labyrinth of sheep footprints and tracks. It was necessary to deliver the rations into the hands of the shepherds themselves, as passing natives might get them if left at their camp. One two or three occasions I came across the flock scattered about feeding, but could not see the shepherds, and cooeed without avail until I discovered they were purposely hiding to see if I could find them. I soon put a stop to this little form of joke by taking their rations back again, and the man shepherd came in one night very indignant because that 'fool New Chum no find me'. From then on, however, the shepherds would be seated on the top of a prominent sandhill to catch my eye. The regulation week's ration was one and a half pounds of flour, one and a half pounds of meat, a quarter ounce of tea, a quarter ounce of tobacco and two ounces of sugar per day for each, the tobacco being optional. The natives almost invariably ate the whole of the week's supply within one or two days of receiving it, and then depended on what game the men could spear or secure, or the berries and roots etc. gathered by the women. If any other natives were near, it was a point of honour to invite them to help finish up the rations 'quick fellow'. Owing to the rain there was not much work to be done, and I had a good deal of spare time which I employed in bird's-nesting. Hawks were very common, especially the brown hawk8 which is of a tame sluggish nature and feeds

24

largely on lizards. The native name is kerra-jinga, probably derived from its loud querulous cry frequenrly urrered while on the wing ( rwo birds or often more circling round and round each other at a great elevation, crying out all the time) and also at sundown when a pair make a great fuss before setrling down to roost. The natives have a peculiar superstition about the cry of this bird: on hearing it the women shake their breasts as they say otherwise they would have no milk if they brought forth a child. The eggs are three or four in number laid in a flattish nest, usually built in the limbs of a gurntree. I found a nest of the wedge-tailed eagle, built in a small isolated white gum surrounded by thicket, and on three different occasions I disturbed the bird from the nest which contained no eggs. On the third occasion I shot at the bird as she left the nest, feeling sure it must contain eggs, bur it did not and the bird either forsook the nest or died from the shot. The nest was about twenty feet from the ground. In a large white gum, close to the Minilya road where a good many teams passed, I found another nest but a native shepherd rook and ate the eggs, much ro my disgust. The prerry litrle kestrel 9 was also a common species, laying five or six eggs in the decayed timber inside a hollow tree limb. I only found one nest of the sparrow hawk 10 , built on a horizontal white gum limb about twenty feet from the ground. Fairy martins (Hirundo ariel) built their peculiar, retort-shaped, mud nests under the house veranda; there was also a colony of them about four miles distant at Cardabia Creek, many nests being built on the steep shady bank hanging over a pool of water - and rwo or three were built on the trunk of a white gum tree also hanging over the water, a situation which I never observed again. I well recollect getting half way up to a hawk's nest, situated near the rop of a lofty gurntree, only to find that hundreds of the large fierce sergeant or bull ants (bulldogs) were in possession of the trunk and limbs, and gave me many painful bites before I reached the ground again. Brockman asked if I would like to go on board the Australind again and meet old friends as she was due in port soon, and I gladly accepted his offer of a horse on which ro ride. The Australind had been very unlucky in her first year on the coast. The first time she carne our of Frernanrle she ran down the schooner Annie Usle which was riding at anchor at night. This cost the owners about £2,000 in compensation. Then, I think on her next trip, she lay alongside Geraldton Wharf to take in cargo, trusting to her shallow draught, but when she tried to get under way she was hard and fast aground, and a great deal of her cargo had ro be discharged into lighters before she floated. These, and other lirrle mishaps, cost Messrs. Bethel Gwynne & Co. a great sum of money, so much so that as Mr. C. Bethel himself told me afterwards it was decided at the Annual Meeting of Directors to rake her off the coast of Western Australia; Mr. Bethel pleaded to give her another chance, and she had no more bad luck and paid handsomely. Well, I duly rode inro Carnarvon, and spent a very pleasant evening on the old boar meeting Mr. and Mrs. C. Bethel and all the old officers. We had a sing-song with 'Auld Lang Syne' to end. Spencer had come into Carnarvon to ride out an old white mare that had got away from the station, and been running wild for many years. He tried ro ride her first in front of Mr. Campbell's house at Yankee Town; as soon as he mounted she prornprly backed

25

on to the veranda, and wiped him off her back with the roof. After trying a few more times, he decided to lead her out to the Station and re-break her in there. It had rained heavily the previous night, and rained again steadily the next night - about two inches in all. This welcome winter rain usually falls at least once in winter- usually in July - and helped by other showers causes a plentiful growth of feed. We had to take back the Boolathana buggy from Port, and started out with the old white mare towing astern of it. We wanted to get away quickly as it was possible the Gascoyne River might run, and we should be unable to cross it. However, it had not, and we got well on our way until we came to the large clay flats that extend for miles to the head of the Boolathana pool. These flats were covered with water from six to twelve inches deep, and of course no signs of the road or track could be observed except at long intervals where a piece of high ground was out of the water, and we had to steer as straight a course as we could from one of these ridges to the next where the road appeared. Consequently, the wheels frequently got into clay holes two or three feet deep, and we had to proceed at a walk, not arriving at the Station until sundown. One could see what enormous quantities of water are drained off these flats as the water cannot soak through the clay. The gully leading into the Boolathana pool was now a fair-sized river. The Gascoyne River in my experience has more than once come down in flood (run a banker, colonial), and then run strongly for weeks after, without any rain or even clouds having been observed from the lower settled parts: heavy rains falling in the interior, perhaps 600 or 800 miles from the mouth of the River on the immense open clay flats towards the head of the River, accounted for this. Bets were made at the Station as to the hour when the pool would be filled, but no one could claim the bet, or state the exact time, as the second night after our return we were all aroused from our sleep by a deep, mighty roar. Running down to the huge dam that blocked the end of the pool about one hundred yards below the house, we found that it had been carried away, and a raging torrent was pouring through the gap with all the summer store of water making its way to the sea. The mistake was in allowing the water to run over the dam itself: this was formed of clay in which there was a large proportion of sand and it began to be eaten away as soon as the water trickled in. It should have been faced with stone or, better still, a 'bywash' provided at one end, paved with stone, to allow the surplus water to escape. This was done some years later when the Station changed hands. As soon as the flats had drained a little, we started to tail the lambs of the more recently dropped (born) lots. The operation is simple and speedy: two or three lamb catchers are appointed to each operator; the lambs when caught are held against the shoulder of the catcher, one of whose hands (the right) holds the right fore and hind legs of the lamb, doubled up, his left hand holding the legs of the left side; the lamb is then rapidly castrated and, if a male, ear-marked and tail cut off. It is surprising how many a smart man will get through in an hour, if the catchers do not keep him waiting. If the lambs are of good size and condition the tails are very palatable grilled on hot coals after being cleaned by the simple process of squeezing off the skin

26

in one piece. The natives usually ate the bones as well, as the bone at that age is really only gristle. Mushrooms had sprung up in considerable quantities, and we had lunches of lamb tails and mushrooms. R. Walcot, who had been with C. Brockman in the earliest days of settlement in this district, gave us a hand at the lamb tailing. He was of Boer origin, naving come over from Africa with his father when a boy. He could recollect mme of the large game, and told me of how a rhinoceros once attacked their wagon when travelling. He also told me a few incidents that had happened at Boolathana, when the natives gave much trouble by killing sheep. One ~vening, Brockman and Walcot went over to a native camp where they mspected sheep killers were at work. They found them at their camp fire with a freshly killed sheep. Brockman, who was himself a powerfully-built man, presented a revolver at a tall native who appeared to be the leader. The native instantly closed with him and tried to wrest away the revolver, holding his hands over Brockman's in such a way that he could not free himself, nor use the revolver. Fearing the other natives would join in the fight he told the native that if he did not let go at once he would shoot him dead. The native immediately released his grasp and was handcuffed, with the mistance of Walcot. All the other natives, upon being questioned, resolutely :lenied having had anything to do with the sheep killing, whereupon Walcot ;eized one and asked Brockman to lend him his knife to cut him open to see if he had eaten any; the native then confessed that they were all guilty together. About this time two natives were arrested on the Wooramel River about ;eventy miles south of Carnarvon on a charge of having killed and eaten a woman, who was elderly and the mother of one of the prisoners. The Sergeant Jf Police prosecuting charged them before the Court with having knocked 1bout the native woman with clubs (waddies) and kylies (boomerangs) with 110 malicious motive, until life was extinct, when they cooked and ate part Jf the body. The prisoners pleaded guilty and were quite apologetic because, 1s they said, she was so old and tough that they could not eat all the body. fhey were sentenced to two years imprisonment, as it was pleaded that they flad only followed a tribal custom. Another well-authenticated case of cannibalism - from choice, not from flunger- also occurred at Carnarvon about two years later. G. J. Brockman Jf Minilya Station sent an old native (governor) with a letter in to Carnarvon. Jn the way in this native either attended, or heard of, the funeral on the banks of the Gascoyne River of a stout young gin, Judy, who was assisting at the Boolathana Station when I was there. The native delivered the letter in ::::arnarvon and was started off home again (having been given his rations for the road), but apparently he thought Judy's burial was a waste of good meat, ;o he visited the shallow grave and, after opening it, cut some flesh off the thighs of the body and took this with him to ear on the road. There was a quaint old character at Boolathana in the shape of a grizzled Jld native known as Happy, from the fact that one of his legs had been lmputated by himself a few inches below the knee, and he always moved about :lou bled up, alternately using the palms or knuckles of his hands on the ground md his remaining foot to progress. It was amusing to see him coming to the house to get his meals. After

27

Aborigines in chains after arrest in a case similar to those encountered by Tom Carter in Carnarvon.

receiving his portion (whack) he would put his pannikin of tea on his head, and on top of that again he put his chunk of damper and meat, and in his peculiar mode of progression would return to the native camp two hundred yards distant without spilling any of his load. As far as could be learnt, his leg was seriously injured by a boomerang in a fight, and mortification set in. He had a fierce fire made and, placing his leg on a bed of hot coals practically burnt it off, after which, as he himself explained, he broke the bones with a stone. Of course the burning, or searing, would stop all bleeding, but it shows how little nervous feeling the native possesses. There was a very fine specimen of the uncivilized type of Aborigine at Boolathana in the shape of Neddy's father, who stood about six foot four inches and as upright as possible; although he must have been of considerable age, his hair and beard were quite white. From the first he had been friendly to the pioneer C. Brockman, and his influence for good over the other natives was of great service. Like the majority of the governors- the aged natives at first settlement - he would not learn to speak English, nor yet wear any clothes. The Aborigines of North-West Australia in their wild state do not wear any covering, but go about naked. One more than one occasion Neddy's father asked me, by gesture, to break down for him limbs of the white gum tree that bore quantities of seed capsules, the tiny seeds of which (after being collected by shaking out of the capsules) were ground into a paste with water, using a round hard stone and placing the seeds on a large flat stone.

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•

:J. ]. Brockman of Minilya Station.

When the natives got regular meals at stations, they soon gave up the tedious work of collecting and grinding the various small grass and other seeds, which formed a great part of the women's work in their wild state. An item of food much appreciated by natives at this time was the carcases of eagles, dogs, etc. that had been poisoned with strychnine. They were very eager to have them and after having partially cooked or grilled them, never suffered any ill effects (although I did not think that the amount of cooking they received was sufficient to neutralise the effects of this deadly poison). The carcases were usually eaten as soon as possible after death had occurred, but on one occasion an old bush native came to my camp to ask my permission for him to eat the body of a dingo that had lain in the sun two or three days. I had no objection, so he joyfully hurried over to the dingo and started to drag it away by a hind leg, but decomposition being advanced the leg came off. So the native gathered up the rest of the carcase tenderly in his arms and, carrying it to where he had made a fire, roasted it in a very superficial manner

29

and ate the greater part of it before me, very quickly, and enjoyed it exceedingly. The natives of the Gascoyne Lower River were of the lnggarda tribe and spoke a quite different language from the By-oong tribe of the Minilya River, only eighty miles distant. The natives at Point Cloates on the coast, one hundred miles North of the Minilya River, were of the same tribe as the natives of the North West Cape Peninsula, and of the Ashburton River, namely Talandjis, and spoke the typical North-West dialect which prevails a long way North, almost to the Kimberley district. This dialect consists of much shorter words, and is much easier to learn than the Gascoyne dialect. There are a few general words such as karla (fire), weelarra (moon), koorga (one), kutjarra (two), etc. peculiar to the three tribes. In the central district of the Gascoyne River (about 250 miles from the coast) live the Peedong tribe, who have different rites from the others, the men undergoing a mutilation (sub-incision) that excites the ridicule of the neighbouring tribes. A curious accident happened to a horse at the Station when the creeks were still flooded. It was turned out to feed with its forefeet hobbled in the usual way, i.e. a strong chain, about twelve inches in length with swivel in the centre, is attached by buckling a leather cuff attached to each end of the chain, round the horse's fetlocks. The horse in question had tried to cross the creek where the bank on one side was steep and slippery with mud. This was proved by following up the horse's tracks. The horse had slipped down the bank with all feet, and in doing so its hind feet had slipped over the hobble chain attached to its forefeet, and being absolutely helpless in this predicament it had rolled into the creek below and been drowned. This accident occurs occasionally, and a good bushman, when he hobbles out his horses in a wet spell, will give them a longer chain in which to feed, well knowing the risk of horses getting bogged and their feet caught in the chain, or over it. A Carrobboree among Aborigines in

30

~

north-west.

About the middle of August, there not being much work on the Station, I accepted the kind offer of Bob Shaw to accompany his team as far as George Gooch's station on the Minilya River, where he would load up with wool to bring back to Carnarvon, 120 miles distant, for shipment. It was a good opportunity to see more of the country. As Shaw's wagon was going up empty, there was plenty of room for our small swags, and also for riding when we felt so disposed. Cardabia well, four miles from Boola thana, was our first stopping place; beyond there, for seventeen miles the road goes through a vast thicket composed of bush and scrub up to fifteen feet high, growing not so close together as to prevent driving sheep through in deep, red, sandy soil. This was cut up very much by traffic, and deep ruts, fully a foot deep were formed, making it very heavy work for horses drawing a load. The scrub was cleared half a chain wide to allow a clear passage for teams. Being so shut in by this scrub, it was very hot passing through in hot weather, and clouds of dust accompanied all teams. Emerging from this thicket we camped the second night at a large tank that had been recently excavated (put down) by Shaw under contract from the Roads Board. The tank was always afterwards called Shaw's Tank. The mode of making a tank is, after the area is marked out, to scoop away all the loose surface earth and sand as far as the tip scoop will get down, and deposit all material thus removed well away from the tank on the low side. When the ground is too hard for the scoop (drawn by a team of horses or bullocks) to touch, the ground is ploughed by a large plough specially made for this work, and the loose material moved away by scoop. The plough and scoop work alternately, until the required depth is reached - usually ten or twelve feet - and the sides of the tank slope down evenly at a grade of about one in two, or one in three feet. These tanks are usually sunk in the centre of a large claypan area, thus ensuring a good depth of clay to hold the stored water, and also a good catch or flow in of water from all round. A trial shaft of about four feet by two feet is usually sunk at the proposed tank site first, to test the ground and make sure that good clay-holding ground extends deeper than the bottom of the tank will be. These tanks are put down by contract at a cost of from lOd to 113d a cubic yard, according to hardness or otherwise of the ground. Soon after leaving Shaw's Tank we crossed some narrow arms of the vast salt marsh which was previously described, and which extended North, West and South as far as the eye could see, the road skirting its Eastern side. The mud on some of the marsh was of a very sticky nature, necessitating us having to stop the team occasionally in order to scrape the mud off the wheels, which got quite covered with masses of it and which must have weighed many hundredweights in all. Every now and then we passed the skeleton of a horse or bullock that had died along this barren track in former years. Twenty-four miles from Shaw's Tank we came to better land, and camped the third night at a claypan area where]. Grierson, and a well-known identity of the district invariably known as 'Yankee', were busy putting down another tank for the Roads Board. Yankee, whose real name was Charles Whiting (which few people knew), was a very typical, tall, gaunt, wiry American, who had been through the American Civil War, and many yams he could tell.

31

He was noted for his dry, caustic humour, his good working capacities, and also for the wild drinking bouts in which he periodically indulged. There were in the district three or four heaps of old grog bottles alongside the roads, where such orgies had been held, and they became landmarks known as Yankee's Heap, Grierson's Heap etc. Yankee and Grierson had dug a hole in a claypan close to where they were making the new tank, so that it filled with water and held a supply for them and their horses when working after the other shallow waters had evaporated. Shaw asked leave to water his horses there, to which Yankee readily agreed, and we all had supper together. Grierson told us how, a few days previously, a well-known Perth man (one of the seven old families) who, being unused to the free and easy bush style, had ridden up attired in a fashionable town suit. He addressed Yankee saying, 'Can I haw- watah my horse he-ah?', to which Yankee replied, 'Why yes'. The stranger, who was going to inspect a station in which he had invested money, began to introduce himself saying, 'My-ah name is S---n ah S---n from Perth', to which Yankee instantly replied, 'That does not matter a g-d-d-n -you can water your horse just the same'. I will quote two more of Yankee's sayings which became rather famous. He was talking to me about some well-known characters in Port, who were always hard-up, did no work, but hung around the public houses there on the chance of being asked to join in a drink, but at the same time gave themselves considerable airs. Yankee remarked, 'You go down to that g-- d--- Port and see men walking about who do not own the shirts on their backs, but to look at them you would think the Almighty's greatcoat would not make them a waistcoat- it would not go half way round one of them'. On another occasion A healthy flock of sheep at WiUiamsbury pool in the north-west area.

32

he remarked publicly to J. Brookman (the mismanagement of whose station was notorious), 'Look here Johnny, if I were you I would sell that g-- d--station of yours, yes sir, I would sell the business, drink the money, and start level somewhere else'. Well, that night our conversation turned again upon the great boon that Shaw's Tank and Yankee's Tank would be to travellers and teamsters on this road, and indeed they were; previous to their construction, unless immediately after rain, there was no water between Cardabia well and the Minilya, a distance of sixty miles, more than twenty of which were through exhausting heavy sand. T earns passing through with a load had to carry empty iron water tanks capable of holding at least 400 gallons of water, either with the load, or in a separate water cart or dray accompanying the wagon. The former was usually done, which meant when a team reached Cardabia going to Minilya, most of the load would have to be taken off, the water tanks filled with water, and carted ahead a day's journey - usually twenty miles. Then the horses would have a drink out of one tank which, being emptied or partly so, was put on the ground, and the rest of water on load also deposited. Then the teamster would go ba-ck for the load left at Cardabia, water his horses there, load up, and come on to the water tanks where the horses would drink that water. The empty tanks would be placed on the wagon and it would be driven as far as possible the next day and night, probably getting within ten or twelve miles of Minilya. Horses would be driven out loose to the nearest water on Minilya, and then driven back to the wagon to bring it through. No wonder teamsters dreaded this stage which was known as 'The Desert'. Leaving Yankee's Tank next morning we crossed the last branches of the salt marsh that crossed the road, and had dinner at the Tea (ti) tree (Melaleuca) swamp which, after the rains, looked really pretty. Clumps of stunted, but still shapely, ti or paperbark trees surrounded an area of green grass and flowers, in the midst of which, at one point, was a large sheet of water with smaller pools and similar surroundings further along the road. A few miles further on we entered the first paddock on the Minilya station, and camped at Mooricooroo pools- fine, deep sheets of water- about three miles from Minilya Station. I succeeded in shooting some ducks for our supper and breakfast. We were now in splendid pastoral country, covered with a dense growth of grasses and beautiful flowers, of which pink, white and yellow everlastings formed dazzling areas of great extent. Our next stage was Gnabbaree-yarra well, then on to broad, open flats which are flooded by the Barrabiddy Creek after unusually heavy rains. Wild turkeys or bustards (Otis australis) were plentifully dotted over the plain as far as one could see, feeding about with their stately gait. I tried to shoot some more ducks, of which we saw a flock. I got a couple and, the flock rising, I followed them up the Creek hoping to get another shot. Arriving at the pool where I had marked them as alighting, I was surprised to see no trace of them until, to my surprise, they all flew away from the top limbs of a large white gum under which I stood. To me this was quite a new thing for ducks to do, but the species referred to (wood ducks, Cherwnettajubata) habitually perch in trees, as do other ducks, such as whistling 11 and Eytons tree ducks 1 etc. Heavy rain set in while

33

Aboriginal women sorting wool. Tom Caner stales that, despite stories of exploitation, the Aborigines 'looked forward w shearing time'.

crossing this flat and we camped early, spending a rather uncomfortable night as the water accumulated rapidly on the hard clay. Next day we passed Wandagee Hill, which is a landmark for a considerable distance, and ten miles further on reached Gooch's Wandagee Station where we found shearing in full swing. The shed was the first put up in that district (Minilya), and was entirely made of bush timber, uprights, tie beams, rafters and battens, and roofed with thatch of coarse grass. The wool press was of the old lever type, also made of bush timber, but l propose giving fuller descriptions of sheds and presses later. All the shearers were natives, and they look forward to shearing as it is the one season on a sheep station where all the hands are together at any one time, giving them the opportunity of grand corroborees or, as they term it, tehallera, the former word being borrowed from the Eastern colonies. Unless checked, they will shear all day and think they can dance and sing all night, without exhaustion; but after the first few nights their employer usually tells them to limit their night festivities, or the shearing will suffer. Many of the Aborigines become expert shearers, and l have known a few who could tum out one hundred well-shorn sheep a day, and 'sandbacks' at that, but if they average sixty per diem they do very well. Young girls and boys (rouseabouts), are employed to pick up the fleeces as they are shorn and some women who have been taught a little 'wool-classing' usually 'shirt' the fleeces, roll them, and to some extent class them. Some strangers, having a casual look through such shearing sheds and seeing women at work inside, have straightaway published stories of the wicked squatters forcing the unfortunate women to shear. All my experience has been that the natives eagerly look forward to shearing time, and that they work at

34

Wool washing work by Aborigines.

their various duties then with more energy than at any other time (the main reason, I think, being that they are all together, and shearing is over before they have become tired of the change of work). A white man usually ground the shears, and kept them sharp for the natives, it keeping him fully occupied to keep two pairs of shears each in good working order for about ten natives. I met an old man countryman, Fred W. Lukis, in the sharpener at Wandagee. He was the son of the clergyman formerly at Wath, Yorkshire, who was a friend of my Father's and an eminent archaeologist, and with whom I had helped to dig out ancient British and Roman antiquities a few years previously. At night there was the usual corroboree in the bed of the river below the house, and as I had not seen one, Lukis and myself went to see it. Next day Shaw got his wagon loaded with bales of wool, and we started on four trip back. The native employed by Shaw as horse boy, and myself, did a good deal of nesting along the roadsides, finding great numbers of eggs, principally of the grey breasted wood swallow (Artamus cinereus) 13 , whose nests were in almost every bush, and also the nests of the black-shouldered caterpillareater (Lalage sueurii) 1\ the white-browed babbler 15 , the bell-bird (Oreioca gutturalis cristala) 16 ground pigeons (Geopelia placida tTanquilla) 17 , and some species of honeyeaters. The trip was an enjoyable one for all of us, and as the roads were not boggy, and there was plenty of feed and water for the horses (which were in good condition), the teamster had nothing to complain of.

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PART2

To The South n my return to Boolathana Station from my trip up the Minilya River with Bob Shaw, I found that C. Dowden (Father-in-law to Charles Brockman) was preparing to drive 2, 100 wethers from G. J. Brockman's Minilya Station overland to Perth, a distance of about 600 miles. The sheep were first being shorn at Boolathana; they travel better without their wool, and always rapidly improve in condition as soon as they are shorn, provided that they get plenty of feed - which should be at its best at that time of year (early September). Dowden had engaged a good man to help to drive the sheep, but as he afterwards could not get him to accompany him, I applied to act as cook, look after the horses, prepare camp and assist generally for what would be a three months' trip. Dowden, knowing I was eager to go for the sake of passing through so much new country, took advantage of my rawness as a New Chum, and would make no definite promise of wages, but said he would 'sling me' something at the end of the trip if all went well; on this vague understanding I agreed to go with him. Being the best penman on the station, I was deputed to draw up the usual agreement between Dowden, as drover, and Brockman, as owner of the sheep. Dowden was instructed to follow a route very rarely taken by travelling stock, that is, to follow the telegraph line close along the coast. It was much shorter than the regular stock route, which is much further inland, and as the season was getting late for droving, the short route was advisable. Dowden agreed to take all care and the usual precautions in droving - but no responsibility - and upon this clause a good deal depended, as will be afterwards shown. Brockman agreed to pay him 2/3d for each sheep he drove, not delivered at the other end, which was a mistake on Brockman's part. Dowden provided tucker (food) for those engaged in droving the mob, with the exception of mutton, which was to be killed from the flock as required. He took one riding

O

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horse and one pack horse from the station, which were to be returned to the station by a certain date - or their value reimbursed in cash. Two natives- one from Minilya and one from Carnarvon- were engaged to help, and there was the usual clause to send them back at the end of the trip to the stations where they worked, at the drover's cost. We had a sort of a sheep dog with us called Rover, but he was of little use. The main preparations were getting ready the pack saddle, and its accompaniment of straps, hobbles, bells. Two five-gallon drums that had held carbolic sheep dip were boiled for some time, and declared fit to carry water for drinking purposes which, as events afterwards proved, they certainly were not. They were carried, laid lengthways, on top of the pack bags. One bell only {when there should have been at least six) was put on a large homed 'stag' in the flock of sheep, and we were ready to start as soon as the correct 'tally' {or count) was agreed on; Dowden counted for himself, J. Brockman counted for his brother Julius, and Neddy Brockman kept 'tally' by making a notch on a stick he held as every hundred was called out. The sheep were counted as they ran out of the yard, and shorn sheep especially wethers- run out at a great pace. Neddy was to declare the number of hundreds, as shown on his stick, and he said there were only 2,000 {one hundred short), and Dowden, beginning to use strong language, started to round up the sheep again, the bulk of which were already a considerable distance away. Neddy called out 'It's all right, it's all right, I missed one notch' and Dowden let the sheep go on, instead of having insisted on a fresh count, as a careful drover would have done. We were not long getting the sheep past Carnarvon, and when traversing the open flat plain beyond, we met a mounted black police tracker. He spoke to the natives with us and then, as they went ahead with the sheep, called Dowden to one side, and told him that both the natives intended to run away that night. Dowden, foolishly, did not tell me of this at the time. We camped that night at a pool of water called Yoondoo, about eight miles from Carnarvon, and I well remember how I excited Dowden's anger by spoiling the only tomahawk we carried, and a new one at that; I struck a hard blow at some dead wood I was collecting for the camp fire, with the result that a large section of the face of the tomahawk blade chipped clean out as if someone had bitten a large mouthful out of it. Highly-tempered axes will frequently chip this way on the extremely hard Australian woods, unless care is used always to cut with a slanting blow. After supper, Dowden and one native elected to watch the sheep until midnight, when they were to tum in to sleep and the other native and myself were to watch until daybreak. The sheep were simply camped out in the open without any yard, and were restless, as sheep (especially paddock sheep) usually are until they have travelled a good many stages. Accordingly, at midnight, I took the watch, Dowden and I being camped at our fire on one side of the flock and the two natives having a fire on the farther side. As the sheep would not camp, I had walked round the flock a few times when the natives got up and said they would watch them, and walk round if necessary; I sat down at our fire but did not lie down. After some time I noticed that the natives who had started to walk round the flock did not return within sight or hearing again, and I at once got up and started to walk round myself.

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After completing the circuit I went across to the natives' fire, and found they had gone and taken their blankets etc. with them. They had each a complete rigout of trousers, shirts, blankets, hats, etc. given to them on starting away. I at once woke Dowden and told him they had run away. He would not believe it at first, but on going round and cooeeing a few times without any reply being received, found I was right, and he then told me what the black tracker had said to him. After reviling natives and their ways, we discussed what was best to be done, and decided that at daybreak Dowden was to ride back to Carnarvon and try to hire some other help, while I stopped at camp and shepherded the sheep with the dog (who was no good at shepherding and not much at droving). It was nearly dark before Dowden returned, and I was beginning to fear he had not succeeded in procuring anyone when he rode up and told me he had procured the services of a good, civilized native from the Vasse in the SouthWest district, who had been working for Townshend at the public house; he wished to return to his own country, so was not likely to run away from us. He was rather lame and was known as Townshend's Johnny. The other native was a rascal of a boy about 16 years old who had committed some villany, and hearing Dowden wanted a native, applied to him to get out of the district. There was a warrant issued for his arrest and he preferred to evade it - if possible- so he also was not very likely to run away, at any rate not to Carnarvon. His name was Tommy, and he had been for some little time at Mr. Gribble's notorious mission. These two natives were driven out to us by Harry Campbell early the next morning, and we made a fresh start, keeping along the telegraph line where the scrub had been cut down, and cleared away half a chain wide on each side. The scrub for some days was very thick and mostly dead, and so very hard to get sheep through. The next water we found after leaving Yoondoo was about fifteen miles on, and merely a small hole dug on the edge of a claypan. We had dinner there the second day out of Yoondoo and, as we had been told that the next water was about twenty miles from this, and would probably be dry, we filled up our old carbolic drums with the thick, muddy, smelling liquid, swarming with tadpoles that filled the holes, to carry us on to the next stage. We pushed the sheep along that afternoon and all the next day, Dowden riding a few miles ahead in hopes of finding the next water. But as he found none, he told me after supper that it would be best and safest for me to ride back with the horses and drums to the last water holes, to give the horses a drink and to refill the drums. The water we had brought in the drums was bad enough at first, but after being shaken and jolted for nearly two days, it had acquired a very strong taste and flavour of carbolic, and when boiled for tea it turned black; it was, I am sure, quite unfit to use, but we had nothing else. After supper, Tommy and I started back on our tracks and, having got a fresh supply of liquid, reached camp again about 3 a.m. the next day. We were allowed a little extra sleep, Dowden and Johnny going on with the sheep at daybreak, and we followed later with orders to overtake the flock at noon, which we did, to find they had reached the next water holes which were very similar to the last supply. From there to the Wooramel River the stages were

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not too bad, the next water being about twelve miles on. The Wooramel is much smaller and shorter than the Gascoyne River (about seventy miles away). For many years the first men who took stock to the Wooramel had nothing but bad luck, the seasons being dry and water very hard to find by sinking wells. The district was practically abandoned more than once, but eventually, when water supplies were found, both sheep and cattle did well there. Ludwig von Bibra and his Father will always be associated with the pioneering days there. In his early days at the Wooramel River Ludwig von Bibra was much annoyed and put to considerable loss through the dingoes killing his sheep. So he had a brushyard made for the flock at his camp, and had them put in it at night, as wild dogs rarely jump a fence. One of his men sat up at night on the chance of getting a shot at any dingo prowling round outside the yard. He saw a four-legged animal (about dog-size) sniffing about and, shooting at it, found he had killed an old ewe that had been unwittingly left behind and had followed up the flock. Naturally he was chaffed about it, and next night von Bibra himself sat up to try his luck with the gun. After a while, in the dim light he saw an object on the edge of a claypan close to the yard, apparently drinking, so after a careful stalk, he fired and was amazed to hear a loud 'Hi-he-yah'; on going up he found he had severely 'peppered' an unfortunate Chinaman who had been trudging through the Bush humping his bluey (colonial: carrying his swag), and being very thirsty had knelt down for a drink of the claypan water. Von Bibra had to drive him to Carnarvon for medical treatment, and pay the bill, which was not a small one. We had heard that Ludwig von Bibra was camped somewhere near the Wooramel River, engaged in cutting sandalwood, but as there were no roads anywhere about we were at a loss to know where to find him until, while we were having our dinner at a well in the river bed, an old native came up and (in the usual way) sat down and watched us without uttering a word. After a while, Dowden opened conversation with him. He was minding a few sheep for von Bibra there with his woman. When asked where von Bibra was, he merely pointed with his chin (a common trick of natives) vaguely to the South-West. When asked how far, he said he was 'Far away close fellow', which means not very far, anything from two miles to ten. In those days it was extremely difficult to obtain from a native any idea of the distance of a place, thus: 'Close fellow' meant quite near, perhaps one mile; 'Little bit close fellow' meant farther away, say two miles; 'Far away close fellow' might mean ten miles; 'Far away' might mean twenty or two hundred miles, the word 'far' being accentuated according to distance, thus 'Far-r-r-away' (crescendo) meant a very long way indeed. Some idea could occasionally be formed by asking how many meals, or how many sleeps it would take to reach a certain place, but as no native could count in his own language beyond two or three at the most, he was easily confused. The language has no word for any number beyond three, thus koorga is one, kutjarra is two and boolgar is three. Beyond three, the only word is wooni, that is, a great many, uncountable (five or five hundred being about the same to a native in meaning). However, the native offered to guide us to von Bibra's camp, declaring we

40

should be there at noon next day. But we went all that day and night, and all the next day to sundown, without seeing any signs of a camp, and as we had not filled up our water drums we had no water (or tea) the second day, and were eating a fleshy, succulent leaf to quench our thirst. The plant is of great value to stock, for the short time after winter rains that it lasts, as they can go without water if there is a good supply of it; the natives eat it also. The leaves are rather long and narrow, growing in bunches with a bright pink flower the size of a shilling. The native name is koonda, that is 'water'. After our dry supper, Dowden sent our 'guide' on alone to find von Bibra, and to our relief, about 11 o'clock at night, he returned with another native having found von Bibra's camp. Next morning we got away as soon as possible, and arrived at the sandalwood camp before noon. Von Bibra was camped close to the beach of Hamelin Pool with several Chinamen and natives, near where Gladstone township was later built. The scrub was very dense there with any amount of the succulent koonda growing, and the sheep did well on it. After locating a patch of country where it appears abundant, the usual method of collecting sandalwood is to obtain a licence from the Government and then camp out, in or near the patch, with a party of natives. They go out with axes, find the trees, grub them out (or cut them down close to the ground and then grub out the roots) and carry them in to the main camp, or, if too far from camp, collect the trees in heaps. There each tree is gone over, all side limbs trimmed off, the main stems barked and sawn into even lengths (as well as the branches and roots), for convenience in handling, carting or shipping, as well as economy of space. The trees in this district grow from five to ten feet in height. The leaves are of an oval, dark green, and are readily eaten by sheep - which will also crack the circular, hard nuts in order to eat the kernel. Emus eat largely of the nuts, and the blacks extract the sandalwood oil by boiling them and skimming off the floating oil, which they use as medicine both by partaking inwardly and smearing over the body, very frequently over the face as well. Thousands of tons of sandalwood have been exported from the Shark Bay and Gascoyne districts, where it grows a long way inland. It is usually shipped to Singapore or Hong Kong, and used by the Chinese for joss sticks which they burn before their idols, the oil being extracted first for medicinal purposes. Larger pieces of wood are used for carvings. Many men I know have made a few hundreds of pounds in sandalwood when prices were good, and then buying sheep or going in for other ventures as pearling on the capital thus obtained, and have made a good start in life at a small outlay. The whole air round a camp was reeking with the rich, heavy odour of the oil in the wood, and the ground was covered with small chips and debris. At von Bibra's camp we noticed that he had formed a 'road' over the heavy, white, coast sand from his camp to the beach, opposite where his boats were anchored, by strewing it thickly with chips. I may mention here that the blacks in the Gascoyne and North-West Cape regions are very careful not to put any sandalwood on their camp fires; if a piece is accidentally picked up and put on the fire, as soon as they smell it they throw it off, averring that otherwise a drought would ensue. I have frequently known them take a piece off my own camp fire, and throw it away.

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A bullock team pulling a load of sandalwood in the Gascoyne district. Thousands of tons of this valuable timber was exported from Carnarvon, mainly to Singapore and Hong Kong.

Von Bibra was very glad to see some visitors and have a talk. As is the bush custom, he insisted on us having a meal with him, and let our horses have a drink (and they took a big one) out of the tanks of water that he had had to cart in from claypans some miles out from his camp. The second day after leaving his camp we arrived at Hamelin Pool Telegraph Reporting Office at Flint Cliff where we were invited in to supper by the head of it, and hospitably entertained. I have constantly heard the rumour, and believe it true, that the shallow waters of this part of Shark Bay, Hamelin Pool, are so salt that no fish can or will live there. At Hamelin Pool we heard the news that the Adelaide S. S. Perth had just been wrecked at Point Cloates going from Carnarvon to Onslow. I had no idea at that time of the intimate dealings I was afterwards to have with this wreck, which I bought in 1889 when I lived at Point Cloates, and of which I hope to write in due course. After leaving Hamelin Pool, we kept along the telegraph line which ran through dense scrub and small timber, mostly impassable to sheep, except where the scrub had been cleared for the width of one chain along the line; even here, in places for miles at a stretch, the new growth of scrub had sprung up to a height of about three feet, and we had the greatest difficulty to get the sheep through it. The only way we could do it was by Dowden (accompanied by Johnny and the dog) forcing a mob of about fifty sheep before them, with the rest of the flock strung along behind, mostly in single file; Tommy and myself, with the horses, brought up the rear, which was often a mile from the head of the flock.

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The country was of high, rolling sand ridges at right angles to the telegraph line, and when we mounted the top of a ridge we would see a similar ridge about half a mile ahead of us; the telegraph being in a straight line, this went on for many days, and was monotonous in the extreme. Occasionally we came across more open patches, where we allowed the sheep to spread out and feed. There was about sixty miles of this country, a great part of it being overgrown with the mallee dwarf timber, about twenty-feet high. Here were hundreds of great egg mounds of the mallee hen; it was then October and rather too early for eggs, but we met parties of bush natives who had come to camp there with the purpose of digging out the eggs later on for eating - we saw only one mallee hen. There were also numbers of the large white ant hills up to eight feet in height. From one of them I dug out a kingfisher's nest (Halcyon pyrrhopygius) with five fresh eggs. The nesting cavity was about three feet from the ground. The only water we could get was from the galvanized water tanks, put down by the Government for the use of the telegraph linesmen who attend to the line for repairs. These tanks were about twenty miles apart. The tanks were put on the ground, four together, each containing 400 gallons, and over them was built a roof of corrugated iron which conducted the rain and dews into the tanks by downpipes. The telegraph people told us that the heavy dews occurring there formed a large proportion of the water collected. Une night, as the sun set, we were forced to camp in the midst of one of the thickest patches of scrub we had encountered. It was a bad camp; the scrub was too thick to allow walking round the sheep - and sheep always dislike camping in a thicket (probably from instinctive fear of their natural enemy, the wild dog) - but there was no help for it. It was my first watch and, being tired with forcing our way for so long through the scrub, I fell asleep towards midnight. When I awoke I found it was one o'clock, and almost all the sheep had gone out of sight away from the camp. I had the greatest difficulty in working my way round them through the thicket and, as it was very dark and the camp fire out of sight, I was not always sure I was heading them back the right way, or even that I had got all the sheep. Eventually I succeeded in getting all I could find back to the camp, and then roused up Dowden for his watch. At last, to our great relief, we got out into open country again. Oh! What a treat it was to us all, including the sheep! The second night out of the scrub Dowden did even worse than myself, as he, taking the first watch, fell asleep, and did not awake until daybreak, when he frantically woke me, saying 'It is daylight and not a blessed sheep on the camp'. While we had a hurried breakfast, Tommy was hastily sent after the horses, then Dowden and Johnny rode out to pick up the tracks of the lost flock, and Tommy and I followed on foot. The bulk of the sheep were about three miles away and, luckily, no wild dogs had found them. Then I saw the first of the South-Western birds, white-tailed black cockatoo (cacatua bandini), also leaden crow-shrikes (strepon plumbea) 'Squeakers', and saw- and heard- the beautiful notes of the magpie (crow shrike- gymnorhina). This was about ten miles North of the Murchison River which at that point is about 120 miles South of the Wooramel, and 190 South of the Gascoyne.

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What a joy it was to descend to the bed of the Murchison River, seventy miles from Hamelin Pool, and let the sheep go and drink their fill of the water which was then running clear and strong, but slightly brackish - the first running river I had seen since leaving England. The river there seems to form a natural division in both the animal and vegetable world, as the peculiar Black-boy trees (Xanthorrhoea) grow to the river edge on the South side, but do not flourish on the North bank. Kangaroos, we were told, abound on the sand plains immediately South of the river there, but are rarely found on the other side. The dreaded, deadly York Road poison plant also finds its Northern limit here, as we were to discover shortly to our great loss. As there was here abundance of good grass and feed, Dowden decided to spell the sheep for a few days after their recent hard times in the scrub, and give us all a rest, so we camped at some old horse and cattle yards close to a large permanent pool called Betty. The land here was leased by Mr. A.]. Ogilvie of Murchison House. When he first settled he found great mobs of wild cattle and wild horses, which were a great nuisance as his own cattle and horses would go away with them. Accordingly, he had a strong lot of 'trap' yards erected at Betty, where the wild stock could always obtain water in the summer when other pools had gone dry. The pool was fenced off, so that the only access to the water was through the yards- the slip rails or gates being left open to allow free passage to and from the water. Then, when considerable mobs were coming through them, a party would go down and, watching a mob, say of horses, pass through the yards down to the water, the watchers would hastily and quietly put up (fasten) the slip rails behind them; when the startled animals hurried from the water to escape, other slip rails were put up between them and the water, and they were prisoners. At daybreak an inspection of the captives would be made, and if any seemed to be worthwhile keeping to break in for work, they were passed into another yard, and the remainder were killed. Usually, old shear blades were sharpened and securely lashed to the ends of long poles, and men leaning over the rails of the yard stabbed the unfortunate horses in or near the jugular veins; the slip rails being let down, the poor wretches were allowed to run out and die as they dropped in the bush, thus taking away their own carcases from the yards. Cattle were treated in a similar way, or shot, as only a very small percentage of wild cattle or horses are of any value, usually being small and stunted through interbreeding of bad sires and hopelessly wild 'scrubbers'. We were asked, while camped there, to shoot any that we could, but although we saw a few small mobs they kept well out of range of my small rifle. The morning after our arrival, Dowden got a good count of the sheep as they ran out of the yards, and found they were one hundred short. He accordingly rode back to where the sheep had gone off the camp in his watch, and rode round some distance; he found no tracks or traces of the missing sheep, and we came to the conclusion that the sheep were most probably one hundred short when we left Boolathana. Then Dowden rode down to the Murchison House- about eight miles down the river and near the coast. As mentioned before, A. J. Ogilvie lived here, leasing the surrounding land (including that where we were camped).

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Dowden found that Ogilvie was himself away up the coast at T amala, where he had recently started a new station, and only an 'old hand' cook was at the Station. Dowden therefore concluded it would be safe to do a 'mauch', that is, a trespass, by spelling the sheep at Betty for a few days; and this we did. By law, travelling sheep are compelled to move along from five to seven miles a day, as otherwise there was nothing to prevent a drover dawdling along through a man's run, or actually camping some time on it, if feed was plentiful. We remained at Betty about a week, much to my enjoyment, as the two natives shepherded the sheep and I roamed along the river banks with my 380 rifle, shooting ducks etc. (which were there in hundreds), as well as black swans, many of whose young were on the pool; there were also musk ducks, swamp terns, coots and many species of water birds on some very large, permanent pools below Betty. Large she-oak, or casuarina, trees grew along the river, and in them I observed several nests of, I think, whistling eagle. The nests were very bulky structures, and I climbed to three of them. Several pairs of chesnut-eared finches had built their flimsy little nests in the under part of the eagles nests, and were rearing young. Two of the nests each contained two eagles' eggs; the other nest had young birds. This was October 5th 1887. I climbed to several parrots' nests (Bamardines), but they all had young. Further up the river was a remarkable peak, the summit being precipitous for some distance, but after some trouble I succeeded in reaching the top which was a few yards across, and flat. This hill was a landmark for some distance, and called Mount Curious. At the end of the week we moved on to Murchison House, and stopped the night. It was a well-built stone house, but in bad repair. It stood on tl~ . A loaded wagon and a horse team cross a north-west creek.

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edge of the river valley where the bank sloped steeply down to the river. Just below the house was a spring of water, and a few mulberry and fig trees grew there with some bamboos, or Nile reeds. The view from the house was very fine, looking down to the ocean at Port Gregory which, in former years was much used as a whaling station, being one of the few places on the coast where a vessel could lie fairly safely at anchor and cut up and dry out the whales caught. Bill Henrietta, who afterwards worked for me at Point Cloates, told me many stories of the time when he was on whaling ships there, and of the numbers of bush natives who came down to carry away the whale meat to their camps for food. At Murchison House there was ground cultivated for com crops, at that time, I believe, the farthest North point of cultivation. Our host, the cook, in reply to Dowden's enquiries as to whether we were likely to come across any York Road poison on the sand plain after leaving the house, made very light of it, and said there was nothing to hurt the sheep, or be afraid of. We started away next morning, not feeling at all anxious, although none of us would have known the poison if he saw it. Our road was over open sand plain country, that is, poor-looking, sandy ground, with low, stiff scrub and coarse grass growing on it in tufts. Kangaroos were fairly numerous, and we saw the sheep divide and run, a little frightened by a large turkey (bustard) which was walking away among the sheep with its powerful wings extended. It had an egg laid on the ground, as is usual, with hardly a trace of nest, and it was apparently trying to keep the sheep away from the vicinity - which it did, the sheep being afraid of the unusual sight. (Two eggs are occasionally laid, but I think more frequently one only.) We camped for dinner at a claypan which contained water, and when Tom my and myself were going on in the afternoon with the horses, we saw a very large yellow snake was about to cross the road- just as I was getting to where it meant to cross. Tommy shouted to me to look out, as it was a 'sulky fellow' (i.e. poisonous), and it erected its head and forepart of body, evidently intending to strike at the horse's legs which were close to it. Tommy diverted its attention by throwing a stick at it, and after a smart chase in which the snake turned on him several times, he killed it. It was about seven feet in length. We camped at sundown as usual, the sheep seeming to be in good condition; but just after dark, as we were sitting round our camp fire, a sheep came blundering up, and ran right over the fire. There was a sheep in the flock that was blind, and Dowden, imagining this to be the sheep that came over the fire, jumped up and caught it, saying 'We want to kill a sheep tonight so I will kill this blind one, as we might lose it some day.' Immediately after he had killed it, another sheep came staggering up, just as the first had done, and Dowden exclaimed, 'My God, the sheep have got the poison'. We all hurried down to the flock and found the sheep in great excitement; every few minutes one would suddenly start off, jumping in the air, and running through the flock, many of the sound sheep naturally following each one, thinking something had alarmed it. Consequently, Dowden put us on to keep walking round and round the sheep to keep them together as much as possible, and it was a most miserable night to hear the poor sheep tearing about, jumping in the air, then falling to the ground, struggling and groaning, amid the bleating of the remainder of the excited and frightened flock.

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There was one sheep in the flock that had been a great nuisance every night since we had started. This was the big horned 'stag' with the bell on. It would not camp, but always kept on the move. If one headed it back, as it went out on one side of the flock, it would go straight through the flock, and stray out on the opposite side and as it was a bell sheep, numbers of the flock always followed it. I had asked Dowden to take the bell off it, or else kill it, but the latter he refused to do as it was one of the largest sheep in the flock. I was wondering, in my monotonous rounds of walking round the flock, if this sheep would fall a victim to the poison, hoping it would, and after a while I heard its bell frantically ringing in various directions as its bearer dashed about, and then clang as the sheep fell to the ground. I went up to it and, drawing my sheath knife, killed it, saying I would not give it the chance of recovering from the effects of poison. T awards midnight a drizzling rain began to fall, and I went to our fire to put on my oilskin coat and get a drink of tea and a bite of food, as there was every appearance of our having an 'all night job'. Our two natives had put some blackboy stumps on the fire which, being full of a resinous substance, make excellent fuel. They emit a strong, peculiar odour as they burn, and this being the first blackboy fire I had ever seen or smelt, I ever afterwards associated that smell with our night vigil over the poisoned sheep. Resuming my tramp round the flock for some time, the next thing of which I was conscious was being roused up at daybreak by Dowden. I had fallen asleep as I walked, and lain down - or fallen - unwittingly, on the wet ground. A miserable sight met our gaze as the light increased; all round were the carcases of dead sheep, apparently hundreds, and between them the rest of the flock were standing looking very dejected and forlorn, as a great many of them were ill too from the poison. Dowden and I went round counting the carcases, each of us placing a stick or stone on each body as counted, so that none was counted twice over. We made the tally of dead three hundred and nineteen. The rain made matters worse, as if a sheep gets a small drink after eating poison it is almost certain to die, as is the case with strychnine poisoning. Moving sheep, too, is very bad for them; absolute rest and quiet are essential for any affected. As none of us knew the plant that had caused all the trouble, we did not dare to attempt to move the flock for fear of coming across any other patch of it. Dowden rode back along our tracks to where we had had dinner the previous day· to try to find the plant, and got some specimens which afterwards proved to be some of it, right enough. He said the flock had fed just along the edge of a large patch of the plant, and if they had gone straight over it, doubtless the bulk of the flock would have died. The place was well known to inhabitants of that locality as Yanger's thicket. Dowden then decided to ride ahead about twenty miles to the next homestead, which belonged to Drages, the 'Forty Acre', before moving the sheep again. There they showed him the real poison growing, and also a very similarlooking plant, but with slight differences in the absence of prickles on the end

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of leaves etc. that was harmless if eaten by stock, but might easily be mistaken for the real poison by a new hand. This plant was locally known as the 'Bastard poison'. As we now knew the poison plant by sight, and Drages had told Dowden where we should find patches along the road, we moved on with the flock, passing the Forty Acre, and a day or two afterwards we camped close to the prettily-situated little township of Northampton, seventy miles from Murchison River. We spelled the sheep here for a day as Dowden wished to get a man who knew the patches of poison along the road between there and Geraldton, as we were told they were numerous and dangerous. A rather amusing incident occurred here. I went into Northampton to make a few purchases and was accosted by a gentleman sitting on a house veranda; becoming engaged in conversation I narrated some of our earlier troubles with the sheep, and how we had to procure fresh natives at Carnarvon to replace those who ran away. When I told him of Tommy volunteering to come with us to prevent his being arrested, he advised me not to mention it to any one else, and keep him out of the town as much as possible in case the Police there had his description, and would arrest him. On enquiring after as to who the gentleman was, I was informed that he was the Police Magistrate! Dowden succeeded in engaging the services of a man called Davey Judge to accompany us until clear of poison country, and the next day we moved on again (after Judge had put bells of his own upon several more sheep). We passed through rather picturesque, hilly country, but full of poison, through which Judge guided us well. At one place there was a strip of poison right across the road, that is, growing and extending a considerable distance from each side of it, and we had, by dint of shouting, yelling and dog barking, to urge the mob of sheep into a run and keep them so moving until across the patch, as one mouthful of the plant is often fatal. We passed not far from the Geraldine copper mines, which were served by a railway specially built for the purpose. This ran between Geraldton and Northampton, about thirty-five miles, the only railway at that time in Western Australia, except for the one from Perth to Fremantle which was twelve miles in length. The train for Northampton ran twice a week, and we were crossing the line about the time a train was due. As Tommy had never seen a train, I waited until it was approaching, it being visible some distance away, head on. Tom my boldly stood between the rails, and remarked he did not think much of the train, but as it got nearer the driver sounded his whistle freely, and Tommy edged off the line, finally running to a safe distance as the train passed us. When it was well past us Tommy came up to me and said 'My word, that steam wagon plenty pull em house (i.e. carriage) with white fellow inside'. We now began to cross country that was paddocked (fenced with posts and wires). In places the road was fenced on each side, and we found we had 'picked up' about a dozen sheep, not noticing them until they were mixed up with our flock. They had evidently got out of a paddock and had been feeding along the road. They were branded with a large 'B' in red, and Judge said they

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would belong to one of the Burges family, an old pioneer stock of whom several were in the district. As it was not our fault that they had got in our flock, and it would mean considerable trouble and delay to get them out and restore to their proper owner, Dowden said they could stop in the flock until their owner claimed them - and if no one did so, they would make up a little for our heavy losses before. (There is a maxim between drovers and the squatters who engage them to drive stock, 'Never ask a drover what he picks up on the road'.) About here we saw a nice house standing in a fine garden and orchard, and a welcome sight it was to see roses and other blooms; they were the first I had seen since landing in Western Australia, as the more Northern parts were still too young for the settlers to indulge in such luxuries, as gardens were then considered. As our horses needed water, I called at the house for permission to give them a drink from a well that stood in the stockyards close to it. This was readily granted, and one of the household- Logue - came out with me. As usual, many questions were asked about our trip, and I was too busy talking to pay much attention to the ten gallon drum of water that I was hauling up from the depths of the well as hard as I could by a windlass. There was a stone or projection from the side of the well, some distance from the surface, and the edge of the bucket caught on it, the result being that the windlass handle was jerked from my hold. At once it began revolving rapidly from the weight of the falling bucket, and the handle struck me a violent blow on my right brow; I was knocked senseless. The next thing I knew I was in the house kitchen, and Logue was preparing to sew up the long cut that was made by the bone cutting through skin and flesh on the eyebrow. I said if it were bad enough to need stitching I would prefer to have it done by a doctor in Geraldton, which town was then close by, but he went ahead. One of the Logues said they should have cautioned me about the windlass, as the bucket frequently caught on the projection from the side of the well, and that a native's arm had been broken in a similar way to my accident a short time previously. After having my head bound up and plastered, I set off again to overtake Dowden, feeling very shaky and in considerable pain. A short distance before reaching Geraldton we crossed the Chapman River, a small river and at that time (as usual) dry, except for pools here and there. In the earlier days of the colony Mr. Lot Burges, who was for some time the Police Magistrate at Geraldton, would frequently be unable to get into the Court to try any cases, especially in the winter months when the River was running and he lived on the farther side of the River. He would therefore ride down to his side of the River, and the Sergeant of Police from Gerald ton would come to the other side, and something like the following would take place. Mr. B: 'Are there any cases this morning Ser-r-geant?' (He was Irish.) Sergeant: 'Yes Your Worship.' Mr. B: 'Who is it?' Sergeant: 'Pat Dennis Your Worship.' Mr. B: 'And what has Pat been doing?' Sergeant: 'Drunk Your Worship.'

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Mr. B: 'Foine him a pound. Are there any more Ser-r-geant?' Sergeant: 'Yes Your Worship.' Mr. B: 'And fwhat is it?' Sergeant: 'Micky Murphy Your Worship.' Mr. B: 'Ah! The cattle thaiving vagabond, and fwhat has he been doing?' (Mr. Burges always suspected this man of stealing his stock.) Sergeant: 'Drunk Your Worship.' Mr. B: 'Are ye shure he wasn't dishorderly too Ser-r-geant?' Sergeant: 'No Your Worship, he was quite peaceable.' Mr. B: 'Humph! Then foine him a pound.' If this was all for the day Mr. Burges would return home, and the Sergeant would return to the lock-up and inform the inmates that upon payment of £1 each, and costs, they could return to their homes. We did not take our sheep into the town but kept them behind it, and Dowden and Judge went in. We camped for the night some little distance out, near a small railway station, and the Station Master and his wife (whose names I much regret to have forgotten) invited us in to supper with them, and made us shakedown beds on the Station premises. My right eye was now almost completely useless, owing to the cut having swollen so as to obscure it. The pain was very considerable, and I was not in a state to enjoy their very kind treatment and attention. I retired early to rest - but not sleep. As Davey Judge had not put in an appearance next morning, Dowden rode back to Geraldton to enquire for him, and found him very drunk and not at all inclined to move from the public house. After some argument Dowden left him there and we went on with the sheep, taking Davey Judge's bells on them as we thought he might come on after us, but we never saw him again. After leaving Geraldton, we struck inland again passing through the rich, com lands of the Greenough, or Back Flats. Small settlers' homesteads were plentiful here. My injured eye began to be very painful, apparently having got cold in the cut, and the brow swelled to such an extent that after three days my right eye was completely closed. As my left eye is of very little use - being in fact almost blind - I began to think of returning to Geraldton for attention; I was only an encumbrance on the road, having to be led by Tommy. However, on the third evening, while I was fomenting the swelling with hot water, it burst, and a considerable discharge of matter followed. It gave me immediate relief, and I was very thankful to find the sight of my right eye unimpaired. After passing the Back Flats we passed through a stretch of sand plain country, the vegetation being principally of short, stiff scrub and rushes growing out of hungry-looking yellowish sand. While having our usual midday halt at a spring of water (the Diamond), with the flock of sheep quietly resting, we noticed the dozen red 'B' sheep we had picked up North of Gerald ton draw out of the flock. Gathering together, they turned their heads North, and deliberately started back homewards, with none of our own sheep attempting to accompany them. It was a very curious incident, and to Dowden an annoying one, for he remarked 'Just look at the brutes clearing out, after coming all this distance!

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I have not the cheek to head them back again into the flock'- and so they went away. About 20 miles North of the Irwin River we found kangaroos (both red and brown) in such numbers that they were a real nuisance to us; they would keep jumping up in twos or threes or more as our sheep got near them, and frightened them back. Around Yallanooka and Yardanooka we were told the country simply swarmed with them, but a short time after our passage through this district, the price for dried kangaroo skins went up to 3/6d - and even 4/2d - a pound for extra-thick, heavy skins, and parties of men traversed the bush shooting kangaroos for the sake of their skins, and made good money out of it. A good-sized old male's (boomer) skin would weigh four and a half pounds here, but further North in the Tropics all skins, including cattle, are much thinner and lighter, and not worth so much. The skin of a North-West boomer might weigh one and a half pounds when dried. We crossed the Irwin River near Sam J. Phillips' house, where Dowden went to give notice of our travelling through his paddocks. The custom is for a drover to personally give notice, or send a written notice, to the homestead of the station the day previous to his entering any paddocks through which his road leads. The station usually sends out a mounted man to drive any station sheep away from the route of the travelling sheep and, when they pass through the last gate on the run, to count the flock and make sure that the drover has not picked up any station sheep en route. After leaving the Irwin River, the country begins to get more timbered, and swamps and permanent lakes of fresh water occur in low-lying localities. We passed along the edge of Lake Loge, a fine sheet of water. The bittern occurred in almost all the swamps, its loud, booming note being frequently heard during the day, and also through the night it frequently mingled with the grunting and squealing of the numerous wild pigs which had got away from settlements and lived and bred in the recesses of the swamps. Thirty miles south of the Irwin River we crossed the Arrowsmith, and soon afterwards the Frederick Smith River, which contained pools of fresh and salt water alternated in a very curious manner. Bees that had swarmed and gone away from homesteads were plentiful in the timber here, and our natives from the Vasse were very quick at pointing out nests or hives, usually high up in the tops of hollow limbs of gum trees. There chanced to be a hive close to where we had our midday halt one day, and Johnny climbed up to it and vigorously puffed clouds of tobacco smoke from his pipe into the entrance of the nest. This seemed to stupefy the bees very quickly, and although many settled and crawled about him, he did not receive many stings- or at any rate would not admit it. He very soon enlarged the hole with his tomahawk and, putting in his arms, passed masses of comb full of good honey down to Tommy, who held our damper dish to receive it. Johnny took several hives this way and Tommy, who had had no previous acquaintance with bees, was very anxious to get some honey himself. One day, when he and I were following the flock with the horses, he espied bees entering a hole high up in a tree; rapidly climbing up to it, he began to blow his tobacco smoke in, as he had seen Johnny do.

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I was watching him from below, and thought he began to tum a pallid grey colour, and not smoke so vigorously. Very soon he desisted altogether and, dropping his rank clay pipe, exclaimed 'My word me big fellow drunk, me directly tumble down'. He had apparently swallowed some smoke and got into a cold sweat. I told him if he fell from that height he might hurt himself, and told him to hold on until I could get up to him, and help him down again. Afterwards, he was violently sick, and did not attempt to take wild bees' nests unaided again. Tommy had been at the notorious Mr. Gribble's mission on the Gascoyne River, and often related some of his experiences to me. He had a profound contempt for Gribble and his teachings, for instance: Tom my said one day 'That fellow tell urn me that s'pose me good boy and me die me have me wings grow out my back and me go up high fellow {pointing to sky for heaven) white fellow nothing me see urn go up that way so black fellow can't. What for Gribble too much lie wange' {i.e. tell falsehoods). This shows the mistake of explaining strange things too literally - had Tom my seen a white man actually flying heavenwards, he would have thought there might be some truth in the missionary's exhortation. We camped one night at Stockyard Gully, about fifty miles south of the Irwin River. This is a great depression caused by the collapse of the roof of an immense cave due to the erosion of a stream below eating away the limestone. Clambering down the steep side of the depression we found what is now the entrance to the original cave; I calculated the height of this entrance to be fifty feet and the width about one hundred feet. I followed up the cave for some distance, and it became still larger, with many side branches. From here down to the Swan River about 150 miles South, and then at intervals for still another 150 miles {nearly down to Cape Leeuwin), the whole of the coast country is honeycombed with caves in the prevailing limestone formation. They are being gradually explored, and their beauties of stalactite and stalagmite made accessible to the sightseers - as at Yanchep, Yallingup and the Margaret River. If one leaves the beaten tracks when travelling along the coast country, one has to keep a good look out for holes of various sizes and unknown depths; they are the cause of many deaths to stock. About 15 miles South of Stockyard Gully where, by the way, there was the largest Zamia Palm that I have ever seen, we were overtaken by a settler called Grigson who was residing at Cockleshell Jetty. He was driving twelve head of his fat cattle down to Perth market but, two days later, we met him sorrowfully driving home four sick beasts; and he said the other eight were poisoned on the road, and we passed some of the carcases on our way. We were now getting into country that was, for the greater part, heavily timbered. Swamps full of water were plentiful, so we had no more trouble about dry stages, but at some of the swamps another species of poison plant grew - known as Swamp poison. We had to be careful to avoid it when taking the flock in and out to water. We had one or two thunderstorms, which are not pleasant when one is surrounded by dense timber, and were told by those accustomed to that part of the country that red gums are the trees most frequently struck by lightning. We passed Jurien Bay and the Hill River, near which we had our first sight of brush kangaroos. For some days we travelled at about the same pace as a mob of cattle being

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driven to Perth by Harry Bowers, an old and well-known settler, and we often camped near enough to each other to yarn over our fires at night. The Moore River, nearly fifty miles from Perth, was running with a good stream of water, and we had considerable trouble getting our sheep across. We had purposely kept them away from water for two or three days, fondly hoping that on reaching the water they would be so thirsty as to rush in and get across without much difficulty; but although we tried to cross where the water was less than twelve inches deep, the sheep resolutely refused to wet their feet. We had to drag and carry about fifty across before the flock would condescend to join them. We crossed close to the junction of Moore River and Gingin Brook, where there was a bush pub (public house). We found a Police trooper, J. Gee, there, and he enquired if we had seen any bushrangers or suspicious characters in the area. At first we thought he was joking, but this was not the case. It appeared that some time before the police at Fremantle had been suspicious of the doings of a young fellow named Tom Hughes, and one night a constable in plain clothes stopped, and tried to search him. He broke away, and when the constable following him seized hold of him as he was getting through a fence, Hughes drew a revolver and shot the policeman, but not fatally. He was of course arrested and tried for what is a capital offence in Western Australia. He got a heavy sentence, but had escaped from jail shortly before with another prisoner, and they were then roaming the country and had robbed several houses and stations in our vicinity, obtaining firearms. We saw nothing of them, but a day or two afterwards J. Gee and other constables came upon them and, after some shots had been exchanged, Hughes was shot in the thigh by Gee, and surrendered. He said they would not have been captured so easily but for the fact that his mate had both eyes swollen completely up from the sting of a small fly prevalent in the summer ('bung eyes'), and Hughes would not leave him. Some time later Hughes again broke out of jail, seriously assaulting a warder; he was caught, flogged and sentenced to wear heavy leg irons, and after that he appeared to be quiet, as nothing more was heard of him by the public. We were now passing more settlers' houses, mostly of the small selectors or Cocky farmers. It was quite common for them to enquire insinuatingly if we had a 'lame' sheep to sell that could not keep up with the flock, and would offer a few shillings as inducement for us to find one. It shows the temptation to which an unscrupulous drover may be exposed, as it is very easy to report one or two sheep lost, or dead, or left on the road unable to travel. At Wanneroo, about eight miles from Perth, we got on to the old road built by convicts. It was made of cross sections of trunks of large trees, laid down without squaring them off at all; consequently they did not fit very closely, and although making hauling easier than it otherwise would have been through the heavy white sand, it was a very bumpy road for vehicles. Our last camp before entering Perth was at the third swamp. We were surrounded by the typical heavy timber and giant paperbark, or ti trees and although no signs of civilization were visible, we could hear the clock at the Perth Town Hall striking in the distance, a band playing, the rattle of vehicles, and other sounds of city life. (At that date, December 1887, Perth had only

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A market garden at W anneroo on the outskirts of Perth. Tom Carter's overland droving party passed through there on the way to sell them in Perth.

about 10,000 inhabitants.) After we had turned in we were kept awake by continued and loud, excited shouting nearby. Eventually, thinking someone was in difficulties, Dowden and I got up, and after much searching we found the cause of the noise; it was a man in delirium tremens who did not know where he was. We told a policeman about him next morning. While having breakfast, we had an early call from an indignant man who owned a small plot of ground near our camp. He declared that our horses had broken down his fence, and ruined his vegetable garden. Dowden went over to investigate, and found the fence intact and no horse footprints inside - this was our first introduction to civilization after our three months journey. Years later, in the early 1900s, I again visited the old third swamp, and after some trouble found it converted into a neatly-kept artificial lake in the middle of a reserve in North Perth, with houses and streets extending all round it. The only relic of its early days was a few of the big paperbark trees. The trunks of these trees are covered with a great thickness of untidy, raggedlooking bark, which, upon close inspection, resembles scores of layers of dirty white, coarse paper, hence the name. The bark is easily stripped off in large sheets, is much used by the blacks for making a quick rain shelter, and also as a roofing material by men camping out in better-made frame huts. The trunks of the trees frequently have cavities in them in which water is stored; our native, lame Johnny, explained to me how to recognise the proper place to cut the tree to find a cavity full of water, as when swamps are dry in the summer months, it is often convenient to tap a tree. One tree Johnny cut when we camped for dinner on the road produced a stream of water about an

54

inch in diameter, and kept running out for over an hour - and was still running when we came away. The water had a sour taste, and was not very palatable, but still if one was really thirsty that fact could be overlooked. The morning after our camp at the third swamp, we drove our sheep on their last stage very early through the streets of Perth, as it was not allowed to drive stock there after, I think, 7 a.m. We put them on a vacant block overlooking the Swan River, near where the Customs bond store now stands. There was no auction sale that day, and so Dowden went round to interview likely buyers. He had considerable difficulty in disposing of them, but sold two lots of 250, each of which was duly counted out at 11/6d. a head; it looked as if the remainder ( 1, 200 odd) could not be sold, but in the afternoon Dowden got Alec Forrest to inspect them, and he agreed to take 1,000 only at 11/-. He and Dowden were to count out the sheep, standing one each side of the gate leading into the street. I was to keep tally, but no one told me to say when the 1,000 had passed out, so worked out how to get rid of the lot, and at each hundred sheep I simply called out 'tally', but not the number of hundreds gone out. At 1, 200 Alec Forrest suddenly blocked the sheep, and called out 'How many is that?'. I replied 'Twelve hundred', whereupon he was cross, and said the sheep would have to be brought back as he had only agreed to take 1 ,000. But Dowden said there were only a few left now, and better take the lot, and so, after calling me several different sorts of names and a fool of a New Chum etc. Forrest took the lot, much to our relief. I then asked Dowden to pay me off - as much as he thought was a fair wage - and he most shabbily gave me only £5 for the three months' trip, saying in excuse that he would lose so much on account of the sheep being poisoned. (This was not true, as I found out afterwards that he deducted from the amount of the sale moneys the full price of the 2,100 sheep we were supposed to have started with, and this very nearly led to a lawsuit.) I stayed for a few days at a carpenter's house and saw a little of Perth, which was then a very quiet town. I only had the rough clothes in which I had travelled overland, so was not respectable enough to call on anyone whose names had been previously mentioned to me by the Gales. There were not many coastal steamers running at that time, and none going to the Vasse for about a fortnight, so I arranged with Captain William Reid of the coasting schooner Theresa to give me a passage for 30/- down to the Vasse River, or the township of Busselton. Captain Reid was in no great hurry to sail for the Vasse; one of the prevalent heavy South-West gales was blowing - a Southerly Buster - which meant a dead headwind. I took my small valise of belongings down to Fremantle and stayed at the Pier Hotel, then kept by George Flindell, whose aged Mother (who came from Ripon) was much interested in hearing comparatively recent news of the old city, and of the Millenary festivities that were held at Fountains Abbey just before I had left home. At that time there were hardly any houses in the twelve miles between Perth and Fremantle, except midway at Claremont where the trains passed each other; there was only a single line the rest of the way. I called at the Bank of New South Wales where I had had £50 sent out to my credit before

55

leaving England, and drew £10 of it. I had left instructions for J. Brockman of Boolathana to send my trunk of clothes down by steamer from Carnarvon, which he had willingly agreed to do. Although I wrote and telegraphed him, my clothes never turned up, and consequently for the three months I spent in the South-West after arriving at Perth with the sheep, I only had my rough bush clothes and no collar or tie to go about in, as I did not care to spend any of my small stock of money on extras when I was expecting my trunk by every boat. There was some excitement caused by the wreck of the schooner Janet off Rottnest Island, ten miles out from Fremantle, when returning from Mauritius with a cargo of sugar. All hands were saved, and I saw them land from the Government tug. At last the wind moderated and Captain Reid decided to sail next morning, calling me out of bed at about 3 a.m. On board was another passenger Harry Wood from Bunbury. There were many and dangerous reefs to the South and West of Fremantle, and the wind blew heavily again in the afternoon, causing us to reef down and reduce sail. Our cargo largely consisted of 'live' guano, which swarmed with bird lice and emitted such a dreadful smell that we had all our meals on deck; we also slept there, but as we usually anchored at night either under the lee of a reef or near the land, we slept fairly comfortably, and on some nights had some very good catches of fish, mostly schnapper, caught by hand lines. Perth in the late 19th century showing Wellington Street and the approach to the Central Railway Station.

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-ON TH£

SW!IN PERTH .

The William Street jetty in Perth and pleasure steamers on the Swan River.

We made very slow progress owing to the head winds, and took five days to reach the Port of Bunbury (about ninety miles from Fremantle) where we anchored one noon and went ashore. I made my way to Mr. W. Spencer's (Mrs. Gales's Father) where I was most hospitably received by the family. I spent the night and next day there, having a good ride through the country and a swim in the river with young Spencer. The Theresa was due to sail the second night at midnight, and I took leave of my kind friends; I shall not forget Mr. Spencer's great kindness in asking me if I was short of money, and offering to lend me anything for my present requirements - but I said I had enough. When I arrived at the end of the jetty I found the Theresa was anchored some distance away, and after vainly hailing her I walked up and down to keep myself warm. After some time a light appeared, coming down the street from the town, accompanied by what seemed a very weird procession. In the dim light what looked like a coffin on wheels was escorted by a policeman and three other men, one of whom was leading an extraordinary object of demon-like appearance. Had I been a man who drank heavily, I should probably have been considerably alarmed. However, the procession turned out to be our Captain, accompanied by Ralph Dobson (the trapezist and athlete of a travelling circus), who was leading a large and fierce baboon dressed in its performing clothes; another man pushed a low carriage that formed part of the stock property for the baboon's performances. It seemed Dobson and the baboon were to be passengers as far as Busselton, the Vasse, and a lively couple they were. Dobson was full of life and anecdotes, and I fancied he was the runaway son of a certain Mrs. Dobson living at Hull, of whom I had often heard my Father speak - at any rate, he came from

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A view of Perth from the Town Hall tower in the 1880s. Showing Barrack and Beaufort Streets.

58

A view of Perth in 1888 from Kings Park. Engraving from the Picturesque Atlas of Australia.

Hull. The baboon was kept chained to the main mast in unpleasant proximity to where we slept on the deck. It was a dangerous beast, and broke its chains more than once: the first time it climbed the rigging and took a lot of coaxing from Dobson before it came down again; the next time it took up its quarters at the stern, close to the wheel where our skipper was accustomed to sit on a chair, steering with one hand and holding a book in the other that he read as we went. Naturally, he resented the baboon's presence and tried to dislodge it with a broom, but the baboon instantly snatched it from him threw it overboard, and then seized the skipper's arm giving him a severe bite. After some trouble Dobson got the brute off and chained up again, but he had a great deal more trouble soothing the Captain's feelings. It was a powerful, dangerous animal and I heard later that it escaped from the circus at Perth and, defying all attempts at recapture, had to be shot. We arrived at the Vasse on the ninth day after leaving Fremantle, and had the pleasure of seeing a ~teamer that left that port a week after us overtake us, and pass us two days before we reached our destination. The Vasse township (as it is usually called in preference to Busselton) is small, and built on a flat area that is almost made into an island by the River Vasse winding round it. Its chief glory and ornament are the rows of handsome peppermint trees that grow along most of the streets: this tree never grows at any great distance from the coast, it has handsome foliage, gives good shade, and makes fine firewood. After having breakfast at one of the Hotels I went to the Post Office to enquire for letters and, also to ask the way out to Fairlawn; I found there a young fellow named Reginald 0. Christmas who was staying at Fairlawn, so

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The wharf at Bunbury, with a steamer and tug approaching from the left. Tom Carter visited Bunbury on the way to an extended stay in Busselton.

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A street scene in Bunbury in the late 19th century.

we wem there together. He was an invalid from liver complaint, and died a year or two afterwards in Perth Hospital. Fairlawn, the residence of Mr. Richard Gale, was built on the West bank of the Vasse River, about two miles up from the township. It was a large, stone house, with shingles of wood for roofing. Mr. Gale was a farmer, mostly in cattle and dairying, and some agriculture, corn, maize and potatoes. On the opposite side of the river - and about half a mile up - was Fred Vines' house, Cattle Chosen, a house and farm similar to Fairlawn. I arrived just before Christmas Day and we had our Christmas dinner at Beechlands (the residence of Mrs. Bunbury) a few miles West. The River was where I spent most of my time while staying at Fairlawn. Mrs. Gale had a small rowing boat, rejoicing in the name of Minnehaha, and this was very useful for rowing to town for letters, parcels of groceries etc., although the bed of the River was much obstructed by snags and shallow places. It being summer, the River was not running, and a short distance above Cattle Chosen it dried off into a chain of pools - some of them of considerable size, and deep. Black snakes abounded in the rushes and rank growth along the river banks, to such an extem that one had to watch one's steps when walking near it, for fear of stepping on one laid out in the sunshine. Miss Car. Lockhart lem me her canoe, and I had a lot of sport on the river with my 380 rifle, brought down from the North, killing the innumerable snakes which constantly swam across the river. One day, a large snake I had slightly wounded crawled under the roots of a tree growing on the river side, leaving its tail visible. I paddled up in the

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A view across the V asse River, Busselton, to the property of Fairlawn, where Tom Carter stayed as a guest of Richard Gale.

Cattle chosen at Busselton, the property of Fred Vines.

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canoe and, seizing the end of its tail, tried to pull the snake out, but without avail. I then used a considerable amount of force, and the snake eventually came in half about its middle, leaving the tail part in my hands while its business end disappeared under the tree roots. White-fronted herons, bitterns, little cormorants, black musk and mountain ducks were also numerous about the river and I shot one common sandpiper. Hawks appeared in very great numbers, mostly the brown hawks, with a few goshawks and sparrow hawks. A few days after my arrival Mrs. Gale's nephew, Dick Gale, arrived from England. He had sailed with some fantail pigeons that he wished to introduce into Western Australia, but having lost some on the voyage he had only one pair left. He wanted to let them out in the garden for a change, but I told him it was not safe on account of the numbers of hawks. However, he let them out- and five minutes afterwards a hawk struck the head off one and, perching in a tree, calmly commenced to eat the body. I took my rifle and got the bird, but it was rather too late to do much good. Crows were very abundant and wary and their cries differed from the notes of the North-West birds. They stole figs and mulberries from the trees, especially the latter, early in the morning when no one was about. Leaden crowshrikes (Stepera plumbea), more commonly known as 'squealers', were also common and wary, stealing figs wholesale; if detected in a tree before they had a chance to fly away, they would keep out of sight in a marvellous way. As one carefully walked round a tree, trying to sight a bird that you knew was in the foliage, it would move round too, so as to keep a branch or leaves between you and it in the most artful way. Silvereyes (Zootrops gouldi) were also most destructive to fruit, especially grapes. They will pierce every grape in a bunch with their needle-pointed beak in a very short time. Magpies were fairly plentiful, but they are peculiarly local in some degree. Mr. Gale pointed out to me that the Carbadup Creek, only a small water course a few miles West of the Vasse, forms a natural barrier for them, as although they occur right up to the Creek, they are not seen Westwards of it, or along the coast. On several occasions Mr. Gale took magpies that were procured from nests on the Vasse River and turned them loose at Wallcliff, his cattle station homestead on the Margaret River on the coast thirty-five miles South-West of the Vasse, but such birds did not stay there, and were not seen again there after being released. I cannot account for it - except by something to do with the food supply and difference in timber or vegetation. The dense, dark Jarrah forests are peculiarly destitute of all birds. As I found that my 380 rifle was not always the best of weapons for shooting, I borrowed a double-barrelled gun from Mr. Lockhart of the Vasse. It was a muzzle-loader, and I loaded both barrels and had a shot at a mob of ducks. The gun kicked tremendously, and on reloading I was surprised to find that both barrels were discharged although I was pretty sure that I had only pulled one trigger. I reloaded, and soon after had another shot when the recoil sent me backwards. I now carefully examined the weapon, and found there was a small hole leading from the powder chamber of one barrel to the other; so I took the gun back to Mr. Lockhart (who was a butcher by trade), and asked him if he was aware of the condition of it. He said he was not, as he only used it occasionally for killing a beast, and then only loaded one barrel with a

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The V asse River at Busselton. bullet. So I returned him the gun with thanks, as it did not seem a comfortable one to use. About the first week in January I came across a nest of the beautiful banded wren (Malurus splendens), locally known as blue bird. The nest was about a foot from the ground in a small scrubby bush and contained young birds just ready for flying. Riding parties were at that time a great social institution. A number of young ladies and gentlemen would agree to meet at a certain place, and ride on some miles to some favoured spot where a picnic was made and tea and refreshments consumed, usually brought by someone driving. The day usually ended with a long canter, or gallop, to our respective homes. On our return to the Vasse from Wallcliff, we all, i.e. Mr. and Mrs. Gale, Dick and myself, went to stay a week or two at Marybrook, another cattle run owned by Mr. Gale a few miles distant near the coast. There were large, deep pools near there on the Carbadup Creek which I have mentioned before, and where I had some duck shooting. The musk duck is a remarkable bird as it cannot be induced to fly- in fact many bushmen will affirm it cannot fly, which is nonsense. In the North-West I have myself noticed that on inland water holes that had been dry some time, and then suddenly filled by a heavy shower, musk ducks would appear the day after the rain; they must have flown, or otherwise walked scores of miles to reach the pools in the time. They dive at the flash of a gun, and are hard to kill, being under water before the shot reaches them.

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One day I was standing on a large dead tree that projected over the pool when I observed some furry animal in a hole of the tree, and, putting in my hand, I drew out a ringtail possum that scratched and bit my bare arm severely. This variety of possum (or phalanger) is black except for the terminal half of the tail, which is white and tapers to a point. It makes bulky nests in the tops of bushy saplings and trees. Its fur is poor and its skins of little market value, whereas the common grey possum has good fur being worth, as dried skins, about 9d. each. Occasionally a black variety is met with, usually in red gum country, and their skins are worth from 7/- to 10/-. Possum shooting is fairly good sport when one is young, and we often went out. The nights must be moonlight and the moon high up in the sky, so that one can get the possum between yourself and the moon as it is perched high up in the twigs of the trees, and so get a glint of the fur shining in the moonlight. The usual way is to go out with a dog that understands the game. He noses around until he comes across an possum feeding on the ground; this is promptly pursued until it takes refuge up a neighbouring tree, and the dog, barking at the base of the tree, draws one's attention, and as soon as the possum is located, one shoots it. Not unfrequently, although dead, the possum remains suspended by its tail. Sometimes we would walk down to the beach about a mile away and throw in our fishing lines from the shore, but as it was a sandy beach and the water shallow for some distance out, sport was poor, and the fish small. Several times among my letters received from the post were some addressed to Tom Carter, Vasse - one or two of which I had inadvertently opened - and so I enquired where my namesake lived; finding it was at Quindalup, about twelve miles South of the Vasse on the beach, and not far from Marybrook, I rode over one day to make his acquaintance. He himself came from Malton in Yorkshire, but Mrs. Carter had known my Father and seen me as a baby. She was sister to Miss Ellerby, who was formerly Housekeeper to Lady Harcourt at Swinton Castle, and had actually lived for some time at High Burton House, only about half a mile from my old home- which made me think it is only a small world after all! They had only recently come out to Western Australia with their large family, who all got on well; in after years one of the boys, Tom Carter, held a high position in Dalgetys, and he and myself in later years were constantly mistaken for each other. We had a little excitement occasionally at Marybrook, when snakes were seen near the house. A very large tiger snake was nearly trodden on in the garden and, as they are the most dangerous venomous species, we proceeded to hunt it. It got away down a hole, but was dug out and killed. One great drawback to all this part of the South-West is the fleas which apparently cannot be kept out of the house; the loose, sandy ground swarms with them in the summer, and people going in and out of houses are bound to take some inside, where they remain. After an enjoyable time at Marybrook, we all prepared to return to Fairlawn. Mr. Gale was driving Mrs. Gale in the buggy and I came behind, riding a spirited horse on a saddle with rotten girths, and leading an unbroken colt by a rope halter. The colt persisted in attempting to go round the wrong side of various trees growing near the edge of the road, and on three occasions the

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girth broke when I was pulling him back, and had to be patched up with pieces of bad string. The fourth time the colt got round a tree when we were trotting smartly, and gave the leading rope such a jerk that I lost hold of it; at the same time the girth again broke, and I nearly came off the horse. Mr. Gale was rather cross to see the colt trotting off with the trailing rope and, after watching me trying to catch it for some time, said it was no use, and we had better leave it and get home as it was across country roads with many gates to unlock, and he drove on. However, I had another try to catch the colt, and to my joy was successful, but the buggy being long out of sight I concluded Mr. Gale would have passed through and locked a gate or two. So I turned back to Marybrook to get on the high road going round by the Yasse township. Upon reaching it, I got both horses into a good canter to make up for the lost time, and was just congratulating myself that I would be at Fairlawn as quickly as the Gales, when my horse stepped on a nasty stone projecting from the road, went right down, and shot myself and saddle right over his head -but I kept hold of the colt's rope. Again I patched up the girth but found my horse's knees badly skinned, and had to proceed home at a walk, feeling rather uncertain as to how Mr. Gale would receive me; but he said nothing, except that the horse could not be ridden for some time. I think the girth was most to blame. White-tailed black cockatoos (C. bandini) were fairly plentiful about the Yasse, the large flocks usually uttering a rather plaintive cry resembling 'oolac' or 'quill-ac', as they fly. They feed largely on the seeds of the banksias and red gum, which they obtain by breaking up the hard cones and nuts with their extremely powerful bills. The red-tailed black cockatoo was not so numerous as the former species, but still not uncommon. They had a shriller and harsher note, and if one of a flock is killed or wounded, the remainder hover around it. These birds were much less numerous in later years, but I saw flocks on the Blackwood River and near the Margaret River in 1904. At the Mission house on the river my attention was called to a pectoral rail (Hypoteamidia philippenansis), which had been captured near the Mission and was kept in a cage as a great rarity. I found that the red-tailed cockatoos were in the habit of drinking at a secluded river pool every morning about 10 a.m. I was sitting by the pool one morning, waiting to get a shot on the arrival of these birds, when I saw what appeared to be two larger black snakes swimming about in the pool, which had only about a foot of water in it. I attacked them at once with a stick, but was much surprised on getting them out of the water to find they were two large eels, one about one and a half pounds. I took them to Fairlawn but no one there had ever heard of eels occurring in the river, nor had any of several residents whom I questioned about them. I handed them over to the cook as I wished to know how they tasted when cooked, but she resolutely refused to touch them, and I had to dress and cook them myself; they were good eating. Fred Vines of Cattle Chosen and myself often went out together, cattle or horse hunting. There were a good many brumbies (wild horses) a little distance away on the sand plains, and we went out shooting them two or three times - but I found it quite tame sport, and nothing like as exciting as I had

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anticipated. We would ride along until we sighted a mob then, after a smart gallop after the one singled out by us, it would usually turn and face us, giving time for an easy rifle shot. Brumbies are a great nuisance near a station, but I felt rather sorry for them in this instance and certainly they were small and weedy. One evening Miss Vines had a narrow escape from a black snake. She was sitting in the house sewing by lamplight when she heard a hen sitting on a clutch of eggs in the garden make its alarm clucking. This went on for some time so Miss Vines walked down to her and, putting her hand under the sitting hen, felt if her eggs were all right. They were, so she returned to the house, but almost immediately she had resumed her needlework, the hen made a louder noise, and then was silent. Miss Vines took the lamp and again visited the hen, which she found dead on the nest, and a black snake with her. The snake must have been at the nest at Miss Vines' first visit. Miss Vines also told me an amusing experience she had with some of the few surviving blacks in the district, who made a little money by collecting and selling such bush products as kangaroo and possum skins, dingoes, the woolly growth of the Zamia Palms to stuff mattresses, manna wattle gum, wild honey etc. Some of these blacks called at the house with a billy can containing a lot of nice-looking 'dropped' honey, which they sold Miss Vines for 6d., and asked if she would like to have any more. She said 'yes', and asked where they got it. They said it came from the large bottlebrush-like blooms of the various banksia trees, the aboriginal name for which is mungite. In the early morning before the sun has much power, these blooms contain quite a quantity of clear honey which is much sought after by various birds such as honeyeaters. A few days afterwards the same blacks turned up with a further supply of honey, and Miss Vines asked them to show her the exact way in which they got it. One of them replied by breaking a bloom from a neighbouring banksia tree and, sucking the honey from it with his mouth and lips, discharged it into the billy, which action at once stopped all sales of 'mungite honey' at that house. There was great excitement at the Vasse in February over a Fancy Dress Ball that was planned. The brewing of the claret cup was entrusted to me and, as I knew absolutely nothing about it, I consulted Dr. Lepper who was Resident Magistrate and Doctor combined. He gave me instructions and a good recipe, and between us we brewed a mixture that at any rate caused no complaints - although we quite failed to find the essential bay leaf for it. Dancing not being in my line, I had resolutely declined to participate in the Ball itself, until one day Miss Moore of Perth (who was staying at the Vasse with her three nieces) called me a 'nasty disagreeable old thing' because I declined to attend at her invitation; I thereupon said I would go, and went as a Water Policeman in a summer uniform borrowed from the Sergeant of Police. The Ball was a great success. Fred Vines was to drive a mob of dairy cows and calves down to the South coast to Mr. Edward Brockman's station on the Warren River, as the cows had dried off at the end of summer. He was arranging this with some neighbours and asked me if I would care to accompany them, to give a hand and to see more new country, including some of the finest Karri country in Western Australia. I was only too glad of the chance, and we started from Cattle

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Chosen at daybreak with about 140 head of cattle, including a young shorthorn bull just imported by Mr. Brockman. Our party consisted of Fred Vines, Hutchinson (a young farmer), one of the young Brockmans from the Warren, and myself. There was a little trouble at the start to get them well away as is usual with cattle leaving home, and then we rattled them along at a shameful pace hoping to get them across the Blackwood River (about twenty-five miles distant) that night; we succeeded, and got them over the bridge and headed down the river to feed just about sunset. We camped close to the bridge in case any of them tried to sneak back. They could not cross the River below without a long swim, as the Blackwood is a fine broad deep river. We were up early the next morning and found the cattle all fairly close, as the previous hard day's drive had tired them. The country was heavily timbered all the way, the sun's rays hardly penetrating the dense foliage, and I thought what a contrast it was to driving stock over the hot, dusty, open country of the North-West, where swarms of flies torment you from daylight until dusk. We were a merry reckless crowd: Hutchinson and Brockman had just seen a performance at the travelling circus and, it being the first one they had ever seen, they had been much impressed, and were continually trying some of the feats such as riding their horses, standing or kneeling on the saddles - but after a few falls they were not so keen on it. The banksias were in full, beautiful bloom, and we had many a good mouthful of pure mungite honey in the early mornings. We did about ten miles the second day as many of the calves were weak and 'poddy', and we had to leave some on the road that could not keep up. We camped near Carlotta. The next morning the imported bull was missing. As is often the case with a newly-imported animal, he would not associate with the mob, and kept trying to stray off; no doubt the sea voyage makes them easily tired at first, and the rough vegetation that grows in this dense forest country is strange, and unpalatable as well. We knew that if we arrived at the Warren without the bull there would be trouble for us, so a half-day was spent in finding him, and one of us always specially watched him from then on. I found rough-riding through this timber rather trying, not having had any experience of it, and the dense thickets of tall blackboy trees were especially hard to ride through at any great pace. They grow closely together up to eight or ten feet in height, barely leaving room for the passage of a horse, and these old stock horses twist and tum about in a way confusing to a New Chum. I had two rather bad falls, but only a few bruises resulted on one occasion, when putting a lagging cow up to the mob at a hard canter, I threw out my leg to avoid a collision with a blackboy, but did not notice that it had a forked top; my heel jammed right in the fork and the horse went on, leaving me hanging, head downwards, for a while. Another time my horse was scrambling up the steep bank of a gully when the edge of the bank broke under his forefeet; he fell backwards and rolled under the trunk of a large, fallen tree that rested across the gully to my right. I just managed to slip off the saddle in time, but it took some hard pulling from all of us to get the horse out from under the log, as he could not rise - the tree trunk being only about three feet from the bed of the gully. However, it was all 'colonial experience' for me.

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That night we had supper at the hospitable house of Mr. Dickson on the Donelly Brook, which is a bright, rapid stream. The next day we got into dense forest of giant Karri trees. It is worth a long journey to visit a forest of this nature. Karri trees grow fairly close together, frequently attaining the height of 200 to 250 feet, the first limb usually being 100 to 150 feet from the ground. The stems of the trees are a bright, clean candle-yellow, and give a Karri forest a very much brighter and cleaner appearance than a Jarrah forest where the stems of the trees are always charred black by bush fires for a considerable height from the ground. Karri usually grows on loamy, red soil of good quality, while Jarrah invariably grows best on ironstone gravel, often on almost bare rock; occasionally an inferior stunted sort grows in hungry white sand. We crossed the Fly Brook at noon, where the country is almost all giant Karri for an unknown distance South and East. We camped in the most open space we could find, as a strong breeze sprung up and there is always a danger of falling limbs or trees. Occasionally a sort of whirlwind visits these forest areas, tearing down every tree in its path in a swathe five or ten chains wide and twenty or so miles long. The next morning we arrived at the Warren House about 10 o'clock, not without some qualms of conscience about the many calves we had left to the mercy of the numerous wild dogs that roam these forests. Many of these dogs, having crossed with tame or escaped kangaroo dogs, are of great size, and easily pull down and kill a yearling calf. Mr. Brockman met us near his house and rated us soundly as a lot of careless, idle larrikins when he learnt the difference between the tally of the cattle we had started away with and those we delivered; but his wrath was short-lived, and he pressed us to stay a week at his house. (This we could not do as Fred Vines had business calling him home, and he, Hutchinson, and myself started our return journey after spending one night at the Warren.) Mr. Ed. Brockman, who was somewhat eccentric, was uncle to Julius Brockman who was afterwards my neighbour when I resided at Point Cloates. I have been told by those who stayed at his house that he always held family prayers every morning before breakfast and, if he happened to raise his eyes and see any cattle or stock straying in his orchard or crop, would cease his prayer reading and address his sons saying something like: '0--- those infernal cows! They are in the com again. Jump up you boys, and hunt the devils out again', and then resume his devotions. I may here mention that when I was staying at Fairlawn in the summer of 1902, preparatory to sailing for England after selling Point Cloates, Mr. Brockman was brought in to the Vasse for treatment of a cancer that had formed on his shoulder blade which had been fractured years before. He was dying, and the only thing he fancied to eat was stewed white-tailed black cockatoo; I used to try to get one or two for him every day, and was fortunate enough to succeed in doing so most mornings of my stay. He died in January 1903, shortly before I sailed for home. Our return journey was commenced at too great a pace to last, as our horses were getting tired. Hutchinson's horse knocked up in the afternoon; after taking off his saddle and bridle we had to leave him there, taking it in turns to ride and walk until we reached the Blackwood. We stayed there with a

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friendly farmer, a steady, soaking rain having set in, and next day we landed back at the Vasse after a very enjoyable outing. One of the Misses Thompson from Brookhampton, who had driven over to the Vasse soon after our return from the Warren, kindly asked me to return with her and see their neighbourhood. We started to drive out, but had not been going very long when Miss Thompson said she thought we were off the proper track; of course, I had no idea, that part of the country being new to me, but at her suggestion I got out of the buggy and walked across a field to a house to Plake enquiries, and found we were miles off our proper road. I was much struck, when walking over to this house, at the sight of the hull of quite a considerable-sized vessel, lying on stocks on the edge of a small watercourse below the house; I could not imagine how a boat of such size could ever reach the sea (from which we were many miles), but was told there was ample water to float it down after the winter rains. Still - it looked a most unusual place for a building slip. This was at the Capel River. We had to take a very cross-country route to get back on our proper track, which we eventually did in the afternoon, and towards evening got into heavily timbered country with great bush fires burning up to the road on both sides. There is always a risk driving alongside timber on fire, as a tree or limb may come down at any moment. A tree burning through gives no crack or warning that it is about to fall, as the wood is softened by the heat of fire. A fire in large timber is a fine sight at night, especially when there are many blackboy trees growing below; as the fire reaches the resinous bunch of leaves at their crowns they make a great flare. We had tea at a house on the road, and went slowly on in the dark as the horse- which was a very old one- was beginning to show signs of knocking up. After a while we met one of Miss Thompson's brothers and Forrest Brown who, becoming anxious at her non-arrival, had ridden out to meet her, fearing that an accident had happened, and it was very late when we reached the house. I spent some pleasant days there. One day, Forrest Brown and I rode over to Brooklands, the homestead of Charles Brockman, on the Blackwood River; he is the C. Brockman who pioneered the Boolathana and Minilya Stations. On the way we noticed a very clean envelope on the road. Brown picked it up and found it was addressed to Miss Foss, who he said was staying with Charles Brockman, and as she was confined to the house suffering from the effects of a kick from a horse, he thought something was wrong and put the envelope in his pocket to ask her about it. Miss Foss's Father was C. D. C. Foss, for many years Resident Magistrate at Carnarvon. On arriving at the house and questioning Miss Foss, she said she had been expecting a letter from her Father with some money in it, and that the envelope was addressed by him and must have been opened by a thief. As the sequel will show, I was in Carnarvon about a fortnight after this and mentioned the occurrence to Mr. Foss. He said the envelope had contained a £5 note, and he at once wired down about it; the local postman was arrested, and found to have opened the letter and stolen the money. At Brook lands we found Dowden (with whom I had travelled overland), Mr. and Mrs. Brockman senior (early settlers from England, parents of C. Brockman), F. Lukis (from Wath, Yorkshire, whom I had met at Gooch's on

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the Minilya), and an old identity who had worked for C. Brockman in the North-West, Dick Howard, usually known as Dirty Dick- who had served as a sailor in the Crimean War in a man-of-war, and been present at the taking of Archangel of which he told many yams. He was found dead in a harvest field near Balingup on the Blackwood in 1904, just a few days before I visited there. Brooklands was beautifully situated near the river with a nice orchard and garden round it. Brockman was busy clearing some of the heavy timber and invited us to go out next morning and see a new invention (the Forest-Devil) at work, pulling down trees; so we all sallied out after breakfast. The Devil consists of a strong, iron plate of about ten feet by eight inches pierced with a double row of holes, along which a strong lever works backwards and forwards; every time the lever is worked by a man pushing and pulling it, an iron pin is shifted behind it, as a fulcrum, the pin fitting in the holes and gaining a hole at every stroke of the lever. Lengths of heavy iron bars, about one and a half inches in diameter are fastened to the lever, and hooked at each end to join on the various lengths. The iron plate is chained at one end round the butt of a strongly-rooted, stout tree which acts as an anchor post, from which all the trees growing round are pulled down, for as far as the length of iron bars will reach. A strong iron chain is fastened to the tree next selected to be pulled down as high up from the ground as possible to obtain the greatest amounts of leverage. The end iron bar is hooked to this chain, and then other lengths of bars hooked to each other until connected with the lever; this is then worked backwards and forwards by a man or two, a boy usually moving the pegs forward as required. By this steady means - gaining about two inches at each movement of the lever - the largest trees can be pulled out by the roots, and only the anchor trees are left as there is nothing left round to anchor to to pull them down. Various improvements of this patent have been effected over the years, such as having the plate and lever fastened to a strong carriage on wheels, for easier transportation from one point to another of the country, but the general system of purchase- power- remains the same. We pulled down a couple of goodsized trees in the time taking about twenty minutes for each tree, and thought the machine a good one. We returned to Thompson's that night, and next morning I rode across to meet the mail coach going in to Bunbury, where I arrived the same evening and went to Mr. Spencer's. A considerable area of country was on fire on each side of the road going in, and trees that had fallen across it frequently caused our driver to make a detour round them, and use bad language. Several of the culverts where the road crossed watercourses were also on fire, being built of timber; our driver crossed these at a hand gallop, without any mishap. It was rather amusing at Bunbury to see large, glaring notices at many street crossings where the railway line crossed the streets, reading 'Look out for the train', 'Beware of engines', and 'Look both ways before crossing', when, as a matter of fact, the line was not opened for traffic then, and no trains were running within ninety miles. Next day I took my ticket for a steamer due to leave Bunbury for Busselton at midnight. At supper, Mr. Spencer was speaking of the great trouble and mischief that a native cat (Dasyure geoffroyi) had been causing him with his

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fowls. He had been obliged to make a large, netted run in which to confine his fowls, roofed also with netting, but he said the bloodthirsty little animals burrowed under the netting and got in that way. The family retired to sleep at about 10 p.m., excepting for one of the Misses Spencer who was expecting a friend to arrive by the steamer on which I was to leave; she was to go down to the jetty with me about midnight. We were sitting in the house when a great commotion arose in the fowl house behind the house, and I remarked it was probably a native cat and we had better investigate. We went out, and I opened the fowl house door and went in; a native cat instantly rushed at me and, running up my clothes commenced to bite my neck - but I seized it and threw it to the ground before it really hurt me. I came out of the fowl house and suggested we should go back to the house where I could get a stick, and I selected one from the umbrella stand in the hall. Miss Spencer, carrying a lighted lamp, stood outside the fowl run while I went in again. Directly I opened the door, the cat attacked me again; it ran up the netting inside the fowl house until level with my face, and then sprang straight at me, doing this two or three times before I succeeded in hitting it in midair and bringing it to the ground where I killed it, also breaking the walking stick in doing so (for which I apologised). Miss Spencer said it did not matter as the cat was dead. Three hens lay dead in the fowl house, so the cat had not wasted any time after it got inside. They seem to have a great partiality to fowls, and, like weasels and stoats, kill more than they can eat for the pleasure of killing. Mr. Spencer wrote afterwards to thank me, and said he had had no more losses. As soon as this little episode was over we went down to the jetty to meet the steamer where we had a long wait. In fact, it was broad daylight before we sighted her, and she was then coming from the South instead of from the North; it appeared that the dense smoke from the numerous bush fires had hung so much along the coast as to obscure all lights, and the steamer had overrun the port. It was only about three hours' run to the Vasse; we arrived before noon and I went on to Fairlawn. I found George G. Gooch from Wandagee Station on the Minilya River was staying here, and I agreed to meet him at Perth and accompany him back and work for him. He had just bought a well-bred horse (which had won a prize at Bunbury) from Messrs. Locke Bros of Lockville, near the Vasse, and was taking it back with him to his station. We rode over to Lockville one day to see the horses and stables there, and arrange to ship Gooch's recent purchase up to Carnarvon. He was a small dark horse, very quiet, and Gooch christened him 'Match Box'. My long visit to the South-West now came to an end, and I said Goodbye to the Gales and took my passage to Perth by the coastal steamer South Australian. I had a wait for her on the Vasse jetty similar to that I had at Bunbury, as she could not pick up the jetty lights owing to the dense smoke haze. On board was Mr. Anstey, returning from the Eastern colonies. He had recently discovered gold at Yilgarn, Western Australia, and was trying to form a company to exploit it; no one cared to take it up, as the failure of the recent rush to Kimberley in the far North ofWestem Australia had caused a bad impression. He was offering large wages to men to go out with him again, and although

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George G. Gooch, who met Tom Carter at Fairlawn and engaged him to work at his station in the north-west, Wandagee.

he showed good specimens of gold-bearing quartz and 'specks' he had procured there, no one seemed at all anxious to accompany him. I was much tempted to go myself for a change, and probably should have done so had I not agreed to go with Gooch.

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PART3

An Old Hand left the Vasse, Busselton, in March 1888, in order to return to the Gascoyne River district and work on George Gooch's station, Wandagee, on the Minilya River. The River is about eighty miles North of the Gascoyne, and Wandagee Station about 120 miles from the Port of Carnarvon which is at the mouth of the Gascoyne River. While waiting to travel North with Gooch, I went to Perth to make a few purchases, calling on Miss Moore who was always most kind to, and took a great interest in, any young fellows going to the North-West. The evening was spent at Mr. (Judge) Hensman's, then Attorney General for Western Australia. His daughter had been staying at the Vasse with Miss Moore and her nieces when I was there. She was soon afterwards married to Dr. Jameson, (subsequently Minister for Lands in Western Australia and South Africa, where he was killed in a railway accident), and she died offever in Italy two years later. After supper an impromptu dance was got up, at which I did not feel at all 'at home' as I was attired in my bush costume of blue shirt and moleskin pants. Our steamer the South Australian sailed the next evening. As is usual with the coastal vessels, the ship carried a lot of deck cargo- timber, chaff, etc. - and as the weather looked very threatening with every promise of a bad Nor-Wester brewing up (the bad weather wind in the North-West in winter) many passengers decided to go to Geraldton by the recently-opened Midland Railway to join the boat there. However, the weather cleared and we had an uneventful passage, Gooch going up by the boat with his Mother, Mrs. Waldeck (married twice), and two half-sisters Eleanor and Mena Waldeck. When we arrived at Geraldton several of the passengers drove out to see the effects of a recent disastrous flood on the Greenough Flats. The natives had warned the settlers of an impending great flood, as they said they could tell by the ants moving to higher ground and climbing up trees, but as the Greenough is only a small river, and since the colony had been settled had

I

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judge Hensman, Attorney General of Western Australia, with whom Tom Carter stayed.

never been strong enough to overflow and flood any land, the settlers ridiculed the idea and took no notice of the natives. But sure enough there was a great flood which formed a large lake and overwhelmed many farms, and caused some of the settlers to take refuge on the roofs of their houses whence they had to be rescued by boats carted out from Champion Bay, the Port of Geraldton. Some lives were lost by drowning, ·and I believe it was not until nearly two years afterwards that the waters dried off. The coast is very precipitious North of Geraldton and Gautheaume Bay (the mouth of the Murchison River) the cliffs being probably 400 feet high with many fissures or blow holes high up, through which the sea water is

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blown out with great force. Immediately after passing Steep Point, the most Westerly point of the Australian mainland, is the South Passage, a very narrow channel between the South end of Dirk Hartog Island and the mainland, which can only be taken by vessels of not more than twelve feet draught. It has, I believe, become shallower since then, and is not used now by the regular steamers. The West side of Dirk Hartog Island is also precipitous, the Herald Heights being 400 feet. The Island is about sixty miles in length and about seven miles wide in places. It is named after Dirk Hartog who called there in 1616 when in command of the Dutch ship Eendracht bound from Holland to the Indies, and Hartog named Dorre, the next island to the North. After passing through the South Passage, the shallow inland waters of Shark Bay extend as far as Carnarvon, the islands of Dirk Hartog, Dorre and Bernier lying to the Westward of it. For many years pearl-shell fishing was a big industry there, many boats being engaged. The shell is small and yellow, from two to three inches in diameter, and not nearly as valuable as the larger and thicker North-West shell; in fact in the early days the bulk of the shell was thrown away after being opened for any pearls, which were common. It was quite the usual thing for anyone from Shark Bay to have on his person a bottle or two full of pearls of various sizes and value. The value of pearls is decided by size, colour, shape and lustre, and also by weight; uneven, inferior Loading wool onto boats at Shark Bay.

(

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pearls were called 'Barrack' stuff, and were of little value. In these shallow waters the shell was mostly obtained by the boats dragging a dredge from each quarter. The shells were opened and any visible pearls taken, the fish (oyster) contained within was put in tubs to decompose, and the vile, putrid mass kept constantly stirred so that any remaining pearls would sink to the bottom of the tubs and be easily obtained by straining off the putrid matter; this evil smelling substance was called 'Pogie'. When pearl shell rose in value, so many licences to fish were issued to Malays, Japanese, Chinese and other nationalities (as well as to white men) that the banks were overfished and exhausted, and had to be closed for some years to recover - which they did to a certain extent. For some years Dirk Hartog Island was leased to Aubrey Brown by the Government as a sheep run, for which purpose it had many advantages although the land was mostly poor sand with scrubby vegetation: the island was easily paddocked by running short cross fences; sheep could not get off it - nor dogs get on it; and there was a good demand for mutton from the numerous passing boats. Mr. Brown who kept a general store, did a good business, often taking payment in pearls and shells, on which he would make a profit again. Our steamer dropped her anchor, as usual, off the small settlement of Shark Bay, and numerous pearling boats came off and lay alongside to get their stores or cargo, hear the news, get their mail, and have a few drinks on board. Soon after leaving Shark Bay our Captain and First Officer went round to take pay for the new passengers' tickets. One ·rough-looking man, attired only in a ragged shirt, pair of trousers and hat, was enjoying himself at the Saloon Bar and doing a lot of tall talking. The Skipper said, 'Here - what are you doing? I'll bet you have not got a saloon ticket'. Steve Hogan, as the man was called, drew himself up, and superciliously surveying the Captain replied, 'Who the hell are you? I would not ask Y"U to have breakfast in my kitchen'. He was unceremoniously bundled away forrard and, as he had no money at all, a man from Shark Bay who knew him paid his passage to Carnarvon. Steve Hogan was one of the characters one meets in Australia whose original position in life is a mystery known only to themselves. He could speak fluent Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, was a splendid horseman and a fine bushman, but his failing was drink. A few months after this incident the crew of the revenue cutter Meda, which used to patrol this coast under command of Captain Smith, were busy rummaging the Australind at Carnarvon for contraband goods such as tobacco, cigars, opium, silver-mounted Malacca canes etc. which were largely smuggled by the Chinese stewards and Malay crew from Singapore. The Meda's crew- who were all special constables- were making good hauls, and as they discovered them the goods were brought on deck making a gradually increasing heap, until Steve Hogan - who was on the steamer and sympathized with the smugglers- began to throw the articles over the side into the sea when nobody was looking. After a while, as the heap did not increase in proportion to the goods being seized and brought on deck, Captain Smith set a watch; Hogan was caught in the act, promptly put in irons, taken ashore to the Carnarvon gaol, tried and sentenced to a term of imprisonment which he had to do at Fremantle.

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l was in Carnarvon when Police Constable Wm. Turner was escorting him to the Police boat to take him off to the steamer going to Fremantle. A few of the townspeople passed remarks to Steve Hogan as to where he was going etc. and he suddenly turned to the Constable and, holding out his hands to him, said, '0--n it all Bill, put the b----y darbies on me or no one will think l am a prisoner'. The last l heard of him was some years later when he was at one of the Agricultural Shows down South, York, l think, and was noticed by the Police to be gambling. They went to arrest him but he, being a very smart runner, evaded capture by running to a saddled horse nearby (l believe a Police horse), and jumping on it gave the mounted Police a good gallop after him round the show enclosure; on getting cornered he jumped the high fence surrounding the ground and, when the Police {who would not risk the jump) rode out to try to catch him outside, he jumped his horse into the Show ground again. Another well-known identity of Shark Bay at this time was Louis Williams. He was on the deck of a sailing vessel on.e day, making use of very strong language, when the Captain's wife who was also on deck retired below, and complained to her husband of Williams' conduct. The Captain thereupon came up and told him he must apologize to his wife or clear off, whereupon Williams expressed great regret that he had unknowingly offended the lady, and begged to be allowed to apologize to her. On being presented to her below, he said 'Well mum, the Skipper here says l have offended you by my talk, and l am very sorry indeed, for l would not do or say anything before a lady that l thought would offend her - not on any account - no, l am da---d if l would'. There was a fine young pearler passenger on our boat on this trip named Durlacher. A short time later he was out shooting and, having got out of his dinghy as it beached, he took his gun out of it by the muzzle; the hammer caught on something, fell on the cap of the cartridge which exploded, and he was shot through the body and killed instantly. Owing to the great number of coloured men at Shark Bay to my recollection there were some very bad knifings and murders of whites- but l am digressing too much. Our steamer anchored in Carnarvon Roads, some three miles out from the Port, as the water along shore is very shallow. The Government had just built a jetty about a mile long, but steamers did not lie alongside it, goods and passengers having to be lightered to and from shore. lt was said that owing to Karri piles having been used in the building of the jetty instead of Jarrah, it became unsafe for the use of trucks about ten years afterwards, and was partly washed away about 1900: a waste of public funds! The morning after we arrived I helped Gooch get his new horse Match Box ashore from the jetty, which we did without any accident except for the breaking of a good meerschaum pipe which I had purchased at Perth. We did not remain long in Carnarvon, and when Gooch got in to his buggy, the whole party of us started for Wandagee, I riding Match Box for most of the day. He was a good, kind horse and it was a pleasure to ride him. Our 120-mile journey passed without incident, except that on arriving at Shaw's Tank there was no bucket to be found to draw up water and from quite fresh tracks of natives it appeared that they had stolen the bucket provided

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by the Roads Board- so after my diving in the muddy water, we had to draw water for our horses with the billy can. After camping that night and having supper, the three ladies slept by themselves a short distance away from- but within earshot of- the male travellers (Gooch, myself and the black boy). When we arrived on the Minilya River we found the country covered with a fine growth of grass due to heavy thunderstorms, but the plague of flies - which are always worst in summer when grass is green after rains - was dreadful. From daylight until dusk they swarm round one, pertinaciously getting into the comers of one's eyes, or into one's nose, ears, or, if possible, one's mouth. At Wandagee the grass was, if anything, better than it was at G. J. Brockman's Minilya Station, and Gooch (having agreed to give me £1 a week wages, with tobacco thrown in) put me to work cutting grass to make a haystack. Wandagee Station consisted of one building divided into kitchen, dining and spare room, and another similar building, about twenty feet distant, divided into two sleeping rooms and a store room. These houses were built of 'Bats', i.e. bricks about eighteen inches by nine inches, made of clay and sand mixed together and dried in the sun. The roofs were thatched with coarse grass or rushes, as was the shearing shed, which stood quite close. Other smaller, detached buildings which served as men's hut, harness room, cart shed, blacksmith's shop, etc., were scattered about promiscuously. With the exception of the flooring boards, all the material for these houses was obtained on the spot, so there was only the labour of putting them up rather than actual outlay. A typical station homestead in the north-west gravng area.

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The two main buildings had wide, low verandas around them to keep out the sun and the rain, as if heavy rain gets onto the sun-dried bricks, they absorb it, get soft and fall with their own weight. The station stood on a plateau, about thirty feet above, and two hundred yards from, the river. Across the river was an extensive view for some miles to Mt. Moogooloo (apparently a dead volcano, eighteen miles to the North) and to a long range of rugged country to the East of Mt. Moogooloo. About five miles to the West was the isolated Mt. Wandagee, a prominent landmark from which the Station derived its name. As the natives had been bad and troublesome when Gooch and Charles Wheelock first started there, all scrub and bushes had been cut down for about a quarter of a mile all round the buildings, which made the surroundings bare and hot. About eight natives - men and women - went out with me to cut grass; the men used sickles and the women carried the hay into heaps convenient for carting away. Naturally, in the great heat the grass became hay within a few hours. We cut it on the little flats adjacent to the river, moving our camp as required. A species of wild melon (native neabuddah) was abundant, bearing fruits as large as a walnut; it was eaten by all of us and the skin, being bitter, was rejected. Another palatable wild fruit was called kogla. The fruits were oval, as large as a hen's egg and green. They grew on a creeper that climbed up rhe bigger bushes, and when picked and eaten before the seeds were much developed, were full of sweet, white, milky juice, which was refreshing. Snakes were not uncommon, and made us keep a sharp lookout. I was on top of the cart one day, loading the hay as the natives forked it up to me, when a good-sized snake was forked up on the top of the load with some hay; I promptly slid to the ground on the opposite side of the cart. The snake escaped- but we all had a good laugh at my sudden descent. The numerous narrow, deep gullies running into the river made carting the hay rather difficult, but eventually a good-sized stack was built near the stockyard at the homestead- the first haystack on the Minilya River. I then had to set to work to thatch it, and I found my boyhood experience of helping in the hayfields in Yorkshire very useful now. For thatch we had to go out again and cut the stalks of a coarse grass that grew about five feet in height - and very disagreeable stuff it was to handle; particles of the external sheath of the stalk came off in fine strips like needles, would penetrate the skin and flesh just as readily, and were difficult to locate and extract. One of rhe old hands working at Wandagee known as Balaclava Jim told me I had made a good job of the thatching. His correct name was James Clark, and he had been Colour Serjeant in the Royal Artillery in the Crimean War; he was sentenced to be shot for desertion, but was able to prove that he had been taken prisoner by the Russians. He was, I understand, afterwards transported for embezzling mess funds. My next job was to finish putting up a fence round the horse paddock, which was one mile square. Someone else had started it and dug a lot of the holes for the posts, which had been dropped into the holes without properly filling them up. During the heavy summer rains, the clay ground turned into mud which filled up the holes, and the posts - leaning at different angles - were fimly embedded in the hard dried mud. Consequently, each post had

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Hay carting in the north. Tom Carter observed: 'In the great heat the grass became hay in a few hours. '

to be got out again, which was a much worse job than the first digging (sinking) of the holes. The natives worked round the posts with a stick (chisel-ended and hardened in the fire) until the posts could be pulled out, then the holes were opened out again. (We found that the dried mud in the holes was full of centipedes of great size.) After the posts were set up they had to be bored with a half-inch bit to carry six wires, and as Gooch's cousin (J. Mears) had come up to work, he was put on to bore the holes, while I ran and strained the wires. A good day's work at boring is considered to be 100 posts with five holes each; Mears did about thirty and when I complained to Gooch, he put on one of his natives, Tiger, who bored one hundred posts a day. (Mears lost time by making little fires near each post before he started boring- to keep the sand flies away!) These flies certainly were bad. They are much like the English midges, but much worse in that they will crawl into all openings of one's clothing at the wrists, neck, trouser bottoms etc., and work their way along until they reach one's flesh - and then bite. The irritation of the bites is very great, and if one rubs the place it makes them ten times worse, and large lumps come up that tickle and irritate for a week or more. Sandflies are worst in the calm, winter days, but a slight breeze clears them all away. They are also worst in the sheltered scrub growths; when I was at Wandagee, two Swedes and some natives who were cutting jam posts for fencing in a thicket could not bear the irritation, and had to leave off cutting until the flies were less numerous. The old days of shepherding sheep by the natives had begun to wane, and all the settlers in the district were busy putting up scores of miles of fencing. The country can carry far more sheep when they are paddocked, as sheep

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driven about in flocks of 1,000 or 1,500 (as they were when shepherded) create much dust, and trample and destroy more grass than they eat. Also, when paddocked, sheep 'lay up' in the heat of the day and feed mostly by night, which is much better for them and their wool. The timber universally used for fencing in the North-West was jam or raspberry jam a species of acacia akin to the mulga of the Eastern colonies. The trees grow to about twenty or twenty-five feet high with a bushy top on a straight stem; sometimes the stem branches in an old tree some feet from the ground, and several posts can be cut from it. The posts were usually cut two and a half or three inches in diameter at the small end. The wood is intensely hard and almost black, excepting the outside sap wood, which is white and not more than half an inch in thickness. White ants do not eat the wood and it will last in the ground for forty or fifty years. The freshly-cut wood had a scent resembling raspberry jam or, as I sometimes thought, more like violets. Jam usually grows in open thickets, and most stations had enough growing on them to supply the necessary fencing posts. About 8/- per hundred was the usual price paid for cutting posts. Gooch put me on to peg out and clear the scrub from a line for a new fence some miles long. He went out with me to start the line in the required direction, so that all I had to do was to drive straight pegs in the ground about every fifty yards and continue the line in a perfectly straight direction (which is not nearly as easy as it sounds, especially if the ground is hilly). I had two native boys with me to clear away any scrub that grew on the line. Gooch had a great habit of continually catching flies on his face then drawing his hand gradually off, to be sure of getting the fly. One day, I had gone a little ahead of the two boys while they cleared away some scrub; happening to tum round suddenly, I found one boy was mimicking Gooch, directing the other boy where to put a peg in the ground, and catching imaginary flies off his face exactly as Gooch did. He was rather scared when he saw me watching him but, as I burst out laughing, he did the same. All natives were wonderfully quick in detecting any of a white man's little peculiarities, and in mimicking them. As soon as one side of this projected paddock (five miles) was marked out, the two Swedes - Petersen and Johansen - who had been cutting the necessary posts set to work to put up the fence, and the regular teamster, Dan O'Hearn, carted posts (200 to a load) on the wagon up to the South side of the river; I carted posts down to the North side with a five-horse dray, the two native boys, Banjo and Crooked Legged Jumbo, accompanying me with a small two-horse cart. We camped out between the river and the thicket where our lot of posts had been cut. Winter rains had commenced and little dubs of water were everywhere in the clay holes; grass and flowers had grown well and it was delightful to be about at such an occupation. As soon as winter showers commence, thousands of small birds appear, and straightaway start to build their nests and rear their young, their little songs resounding on all sides. It is a very great mistake to say that Australian birds do not sing; almost all of them have their own little son~ - some of them being charming. There are the brown 18 and rufous larks 9 , the redthroat 20 (which has a particularly sweet song), the red-capped 21 and hooded robins 22 ,

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the pied 23 , singing 24 and brown honeyeaters 25 , the bell-bird and crested wedge-bill 26 - both of which birds have loud and singular songs - pallid 27 and bronze cuckoos 28 , little turtle doves 29 , white-browed babblers and the rufous-breasted babblers 30 with their peculiar and fantastic notes and antics, black-faced cuckoo shrikes 31 , black-throated butcher birds 32 (which have a wonderfully rich series of flute-like notes), and many other species. The tricolouredJJ and yellow-fronted chats 34 are beautifully plumaged, but have not much song. The great Australian bustards (turkeys, colonial) stalked majestically all over the vast plains, and bands of emus35 were seen daily. One day my boys tracked a possum 36 to its abode in a hole in a jam tree, and chopped it out to eat. It was the only one I saw on the Minilya. Rabbiteared bandicoots 37 had colonies of burrows among the red sandhills, and I was anxious to examine a specimen closely. I had brought out a couple of pole traps which I used for hawks in England and I set one down each of two holes. However, I omitted to fasten them to a stake and consequently the unfortunate bandicoots that sprung them took them into the recesses of their burrows, and I did not see those two traps again. The native women dig out bandicoots (marawar- native) with the aid of pointed sticks, and wear the terminal white tail tufts of hair in the wool of their heads as trophies or signs of their skill as hunters. One day, I was laying a load of posts where the Swedes and their natives were working, there was great excitement when Petersen espied a large species of monitor (great lizard), coiled up under a bush. He had a great dread of snakes, and thought this was a big one, until one of the natives (Tiger) came up and declared it was a boongarra (aboriginal). Tiger picked up an axe hit it a blow, but the bush prevented the full force of it falling on the boongarra which promptly rushed out and seized the native, giving him some severe bites on his calves and thighs before the other natives who had run up could manage to kill it. It was about eight feet long, as thick as the calf of a man's leg, and with a head and jaws as large as a fair sized dog's. They were not uncommon on the Gascoyne and other North-West rivers, mostly living in rocky ground, and will not attack anyone unless attacked first. The word boongarra in the Gascoyne native dialect means: 'Let it alone', yet the natives there readily eat the meat, which is like that of the lace and other lizards occurring there, that is, white meat but very dry eating. As well as having to cart posts on to the line it was also part of my work to move the camp gear of the two Swedes further along the fence as the work progressed, and cart them out tanks of drinking water, as there was no water near where they were working. I usually got the water out of river pools as being the most convenient, but the water in that part of the Minilya River where it flows through shale or 'blue jack' formation, acquires an unpleasant, bitter, salty taste when the river has not run for some time, and it does not quench one's thirst much - but rather acts as a purgative. Both the Swedes were grumblers, but one of them growled so much and so persistently about the water, asking why I did not bring them rain water, that I promised to bring some next trip, if possible. As a matter of fact the small dubs of water from the early showers had dried up on the flats, and it was not easy to find one big enough at which to fill the 200 tank; on my way to their

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camp on my next trip I found one that was big enough but excessively muddy, and alive with large tadpoles, and, to improve matters, when I was having dinner there, all my horses rolled in it when hobbled out. But I filled the tank and took it on, telling the Swedes I had brought rain water this time, and emptying it from the tank in the cart into their stationary one at camp without their noticing the condition of the water- but I heard a lot about it next time I saw them. I said they were never satisfied. My natives had pointed out to me that, judging by the tracks, great numbers of emus came to drink at this little pool. As I usually went to the Station on Saturday evening and spent the Sunday there, the following Sunday I walked over to the water hole with two natives and the Station sheepdog. I took my rifle and 12 gun. There was a prickly reminder tree growing near the pool, and one of the natives esconced himself in the bushy top part of it so that he could give timely warning to myself and the other natives, who were concealed behind a heap of bushes close to the water, of the approach of any emus over the flat. Before long a pair of fine emus came majestically up, quite unsuspecting of any danger, and I fired at the largest with the rifle but, although I was certain it was shot through the body, it ran away out of sight. Almost immediately afterwards five emus came up unexpectedly from behind us. I snatched up the gun and fired at their necks (the part most vulnerable to a gun) which were close together; three of them fell and one started to run away, apparently hard-hit. We let the dog go and he soon turned the emu back to us, and it splashed into the water with the dog on it- and the two natives promptly fell on the emu and the dog. However, the poor bird got clear of them and commenced running round in circles, the dog trying to seize it and the natives throwing boomerangs (kylies) at it, but they were too wildly excited to hit it and too close to it for me to dare to shoot again, and hunters and hunted splashed through the pool several times before one of the natives brought it down with a kylie striking its neck. We found a shot had destroyed the sight of one eye which caused it to run in circles. How excited they were, and happy at the prospect of so much meat! The first thing a native does in such cases is to see if the quarry is fat; in the case of an emu, they pull out a handful or two of feathers above the rump, and by so doing spoil the skin- if one intends to use it as a skin or mat. The tail feathers proper are carefully kept and tied together to be used at corroborees, the men wearing them over the buttocks to imitate an emu, or on the head, or in smaller bunches tied round the upper arms. Some emus, generally the old ones, have a layer of fat fully an inch thick surrounding all the lower part of the body, and such skins can never be really cleansed of the fat. Very fat birds have plumage of a glossy, almost black, appearance; birds in poor condition are usually rusty-coloured. The fat renders down into beautiful, clear oil, which is much used on stations, and thought to be a sure remedy for rheumatism. An emu can give severe and dangerous kicks with its powerful legs, the strong nails inflicting deep cuts. We found the dog was badly cut in many places - one long, deep wound extending from the shoulder to the hip and it had to be sewn up on our return to the Station. The natives there were greatly excited at the news of the 'bag', and soon had all the meat carried up

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to their camp, but I noticed that pregnant women were not allowed to eat emu flesh. We found the emus I shot and wounded with the rifle dead on the flat, when we were carting a few days afterwards, about half a mile from the pool where I shot them. I had a narrow escape from an accident while carting posts out of a thicket of jam trees. The nearside wheel of the dray caught a small tree and brought it down; as it fell, the top of it struck me from behind- I being ahead of it, alongside the horses - and knocked me down. As the wheel rolled along the lower part of the stem, I was pinned tightly down under the top of the tree, where I lay immediately in front of the wheel. However, I sang out 'Who-a' to the horses and luckily they stopped, and I was able to scramble to my feet none the worse for the incident. Another day, as we were getting clear of the thicket and going down rather a steep piece of ground, the load shifted on the natives' cart which was just ahead of me, and Jumbo stopped his team at once. My team being close behind, I could not stop it until my leading horse (Dodger, a fine spirited animal) was abreast of their cart, alongside their off wheel. After re-adjusting their load, I said, 'Wait a minute, don't go on until I get hold of Dodger's head', but Crooked Legged Jumbo (who was always an ass) ran behind his cart, slipped round it and under Dodger's head, hitting him as he did so, and started off his cart. Of course, Dodger started too. The end of his 'spreader' caught the tail of the natives' cart, and he started plunging and rearing, and every time his forefeet came to the ground, the off wheel of the natives' cart went over his near foot. When I got the carts stopped I found poor Dodger's near forefoot was half cut through just above the hoof, the coronet mostly bruised off, and blood spurting out. I took him out of harness, tore off strips of my shirt to bandage his foot and stop the bleeding, and let him go, sending word into the Station. He was at work again some months after, but his foot was deformed, and he limped. About this time arrangements had been made for a sailing boat to sail from Carnarvon with stores and to land them at a place on the beach near Cape Farquhar to which spot Gooch and other squatters would cart their wool; Cape Farquhar being about forty miles nearer to Wandagee than Carnarvon, eighty miles would be saved on each trip. Dan O'Hearn had gone down to the coast to bring back some rations, which were running very low at the Station, and had been away some time. As the last time I was at the Station I was told I could have no more flour until the team returned from the coast, I was very careful of my little stock, but at last had only enough flour left to make one small damper. This I mixed up, and put in the ashes to cook while I ate dinner at my camp; but after my meal I harnessed up the horses and went away for a load of posts, forgetting all about my last damper which I found- burnt to a cinder- on returning that night. The team returned without any rations as the teamster could not find any on the beach, and afterwards it transpired that the boat could not find the landing place agreed upon- so the whole thing was a failure, and we were out of some of the bare necessities of life such as flour, tea and sugar until the team had been to Carnarvon and back for a load, which meant a 240-mile trip taking a fortnight.

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After Dodger was crippled, his place in my team was taken by a fine mare with a very wild disposition, and known as the Wild Mare or Darling. She was very hard to catch and when in the team was very liable to take fright and bolt, and I had some lively runaways for a while - almost daily - but luckily no great harm was done. On one occasion, some emus crossed the road ahead of us, and my team straightaway bolted after them. Another time, the boys with their cart, and I with mine, had arrived on the high, steep bank of the river with many deep gullies all round us. I left the carts on the bank, which was about thirty feet above the river, and walked down to see the best way to get across, taking my little rifle with me as there was a good pool there which often held ducks. I had a shot, some distance from the carts, but at the noise of the slight report the horses bolted, and came galloping down the bank. The horses in the small cart tried to cross a dry, narrow gully about ten feet deep; the two leaders nearly got out up the far bank but were held back by the shaft horse, which was pinned to the ground as the points of the shafts were stuck deep in the bed of the gully, with the cart on the slope of the other bank, which shows what a steep place it was. My team- which I worked with five horses in a line, for better convenience threading our way through some of the snake wood thickets - bolted right into the white gum trees growing in the river bed proper, where they got so entangled that they came to a stop. Nothing was broken but a strap or two. Little incidents like these were often occurring. Tiger, the native, was boring posts for the Swedes, and one day Gooch's foreman (or nigger boss) came to my camp and asked me if I had seen Tiger, as he had run away. I said I had not, so Ned Comelly, foreman, said 'If you see him, catch him, and bring him into the house on a chain'. Although this, of course, was illegal, I promised to do it, and when Tiger and his gin came up to us on my way in to the Station the following Saturday, I promptly seized him; I put a trace chain round his neck and fastened the other end to the cart, and, although he protested that it was all right and that Comelly had told him to go for a holiday (or 'bush walk'), I considered this was a lie. As often happens in such cases, his gin suddenly attacked me from behind with a heavy six-foot fighting stick (or wana), but I took it from her, and told her to be careful. On our way to the Station the horses took fright at something and bolted, and as I ran alongside trying to stop them, Tiger was obliged to do his best running to keep up to the cart to which he was chained, and I was afraid he would be pulled off his feet and probably killed; but I stopped the team and Tiger treated the affair as a great joke. I then made him get up in the cart and ride. When I arrived at the house there was no one there but natives and, as they all assured me that Comelly had already given Tiger a beating and told him to go away for a while, I let him go none the worse. The natives also told me that Balaclava Jim had fallen off his team some days before and was laid up very ill at one of the smaller men's huts, quite alone. So after supper I went and attended to him, and as he seemed very bad indeed I passed the night with him, doing what I could (which was little) and getting no sleep. All the station natives were having a big corroboree a short distance away

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which lasted all night and was not conducive to sleep. Gooch and some of the others returned next day, and when I told him of old Bally's condition, he went to see him. I went out again that evening, but poor Balaclava died next morning and was buried near the river bed, wrapped in his solitary blanket. Gooch had two smart little mares, Maud and Flora, which he used for going in his buggy, but occasionally they were sent out with a couple of natives in the light cart to bring in firewood from the flat. They were so employed one day when I was working near the stockyard and talking to Newman, who had come down there; we heard a rattling and shouting, and the wood cart came back towards us at a gallop, the horses having bolted. There was a wing, or break, of a few posts with wires at one side of the stockyard gate, and the runaway team, trying to come in, caught the nave of one wheel on the outside post, turning the cart right over and the mare in the shafts onto her back. Newman and I went up, and he (a Wiltshire man) after surveying the cart for a moment or two, calmly drawled out 'Doant she lie handy for getting at any loose bolts'. A first, and very practical thought! The native boys ran up, we got the cart backed and turned over and the mare up on her feet, finding no damage of any consequence had been done. About this time (May 1888) those fine and useful birds- the straw-necked ibises 38 - made their first appearance on the Minilya and in nearby districts, as I recorded in the 'Zoologist' Vol. XIII, No. 151, July 1889. The first one seen was feeding quietly near the stockyard, and I had a shot at it with my 380 rifle. The natives said they did not know the bird at all but Charles Brockman, formerly of the Minilya Station, afterwards told me he had shot one there, the only one he saw. A few days after we saw the first bird, flocks were seen all over. I shot several birds at different times, and we found them fat and good eating. They have since been protected as they are most useful birds, feeding very largely on grasshoppers. I had an agreement with Gooch that he would provide ammunition for my gun, and all game I shot was to be used as food on the Station. On Sundays I always went out, usually along the river, to shoot at the ducks that abounded on the pools. One Sunday Dan O'Hearn accompanied me, carrying my gun. I carried the little 380 rifle, and at various times had made some good shots with it. At one big pool - Boolgarder - were two little grebes, and O'Hearn bet me a pound of tobacco I would not kill one with the rifle at the first shot. I took the bet and, although the little birds were some distance away and only showing on the surface for a very few moments, I took a snap at one, and cut his neck in two. O'Hearn at once said 'I bet another pound of tobacco you do not kill the other the same way', but I declined that bet. As I had laid all the posts required on the North side of the river, O'Hearn (with the wagon) and I (with the dray) were sent to cart posts from Moongadam, ten miles from the house on the South side of the river. Gooch gave us our orders, telling us to go round the house paddock, which was about four miles round, pick up all the posts that were 'over' (not used), and lay them along the line near the river, five miles further on. We were then to go to

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Moongadarn, another ten miles, load up posts from there, lay them near the river, and return to sleep at Moongadarn, where there was a big pool dammed across. In all, it meant doing about forty miles in the day, without taking into consideration the large amount of time expended in stopping the teams to pick up and put down the posts. The posts are usually laid in threes. What we did was pick up the posts round the horse paddock and then, as we had not got a quarter of a load, we went on to Moongadarn and camped, and that took us nearly all day. That evening a very heavy downpour of rain set in, but O'Hearn had a calico tent, and we kept fairly dry- but we were worried by the great number of large centipedes crawling about everywhere, as they always do at a wet time. The pool began to rise rapidly, and as our tent was pitched close to it, we kept going out through the night to see if we should not perhaps move further away; but this we did not have to do until daybreak. It rained very heavily all the next day, and we had a quiet- though dull - day in the little tent. The next day the whole country was so wet and boggy that Gooch rode out to tell us it was impossible to do any carting for some time, and put us on to help tailing lambs from a flock camped near the

pool.

We now had visitors at Wandagee who had come up from Carnarvon: J. Morrell, the blacksmith, and his wife and family. He brought mail with him, and in it was a bill for me from J. Brockman of Boolathana, charging me for a pound or two of tobacco and some matches I had from his store while working at his station, although he had given me no wages at all for the nine months 1 was working there. A little black girl about nine years old, who used to help in the kitchen at Wandagee, died of consumption, and there was great distress among the natives who had thought a good deal of her. A day or two after her death, Cornelly sent me over to the Barrobiddee (Flint) Creek to look at, and count, the six flocks of sheep then being shepherded along it by natives. A native called Paddy accompanied me to show the way as I had not been in that direction. Just before 1 was coming away after counting the sheep, Paddy touched every shepherd on the shoulder and said 'Mary Ann (the girl's name) is dead', whereupon a burst of howling and crying arose from the shepherd and his gin, and this wailing followed our departure from each shepherd, and had a depressing effect. Paddy was the best native Gooch had and could speak fairly good English, but although he could count to a hundred by rote, he could not tell how many sheep were in a mob. Thus, one day, after picking up a mob of sheep that a shepherd had lost, Paddy reported on his return to the Station, 'My word that fellow Friday plenty losum sheep. I catch urn a hundred thousand million, I think must be very near a dozen'. Paddy, like all natives, had m1e kind of food he was forbidden to eat (tjatji} being his totem or namesake, and with him it was wild duck. We were camped out one night and while I was enjoying some roast wild duck that I had shot in the day, Paddy declined to eat any, although there was no other meat- but he watched me wistfully. After a while, he remarked that if I made him eat some, it would be my fault, and if the other natives

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heard of his breach of their law he would not get into trouble about it; so I put a piece between his lips and he then had a good feed off the ducks, enjoying it very much. Some few years after I left Wandagee a shod horse stepped on poor Paddy's great toe, cutting it badly and he died from lockjaw- so Gooch informed me. There was a native employed there called Friday, who was away driving sheep when his woman was confined of a girl child at the camp near the homestead. On Friday's return he heard the news and, as soon as he was told the sex of the baby, he picked it up by the feet and knocked its brains out, saying he did not want a girl. While I was at Wandagee, a woman was sent with a letter for Gooch from Middalya, the next Station up the river about 17 miles distant. It was afterwards related by a traveller (who saw the child's body by the roadside) that she was confined on her way, and as soon as the child was born she had killed it and continued on her way, leaving the body there. Paddy's gin, Annie, a fine strong woman, was confined with twins while I was on the Station. I believe twins to be a very rare occurrence amongst aborigines- at least this was the only case that I knew. Annie's twins died, according to the natives' story, but we were always suspicious that the mother killed them as being unlucky. They were born some miles from the homestead, so no one knew the full facts of the case. There was a tall, fine old native shepherding for Gooch, known as Happy of whom I have already written. When fencing of the first part of the paddock round which he was shepherding his flock was completed, up to the low cliffs of blue jack that formed the river bank, Happy had orders to bring his sheep to the house. He arrived with them late in the day, very angry with the Swedes who had put up the fence, because he said they had fenced across the road and he had to drive his sheep round the end of the fence at the river cliffs. He had come to the gate across the road, but did not understand that it was meant to be open - it being the first gate of his experience. He died some years later from a tumour, or cancer that formed on his right breast. Dr. O'Mehan (who was travelling with an insurance agent) had inspected the growth, and said it was probably caused by the constant irritation of using the staff for walking, and leaning on it, as Happy did, when standing still erect. There was a very fine-looking, well-built old native (governor) with a flowing white beard, who never would come in to work, but lived with his gin in his own wild state, hunting in the vicinity of Mount Moogooloo which was his own country- hence he was always known as Moogooloo Governor. He came to the Station about twice a year, usually bringing some emu eggs, for which he would ask a little tobacco or sugar in return; he disdained any clothing except a blanket, the comfort of which he could appreciate on a cold winter's night. After he had brought in some eggs, I thought I would like to go out and try to get some myself, in the spinifex sandhills a few miles North of the Station where the emus mostly bred. So one Saturday night I started away with a native called Louis, who assured me we should get lots of eggs. I was riding a mare that Gooch had lent me, but did not know that Gooch had thought it a good chance to wean her foal, which was left behind. We got some miles out before we camped, but next morning, when Louis went

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for my horse, he found her back at the Station, so most of the morning was gone before he returned with her. However we had a good tum round, seeing plenty of emus' footprints. Louis explained to me how natives hunting for a nest travel in a large circle, so as to cut across a number of tracks, and judge by their convergence in one certain direction if they lead to a nest anywhere near. He also tried to explain how the natives set the spinifex on fire to aid finding nests, or, as he said, 'Wake em up emu', though I could not reason out why it was done. I think the only game we brought home was a fine wallaby that Louis speared very cleverly. Gooch's cousin, Bob Mears, was so excited at seeing the emu eggs that Moogooloo Governor had brought in that he also badly wanted to get some. He plied O'Hearn and myself with questions as to where they were laid, and what the nests were like, and I must confess we both 'filled him up' (as the Yankees say). Next Sunday we took him for a long walk down to the river bed where we assured him the emus mostly laid, making their nest in the white gum trees there; as many of the trees had large bunches of wrack, dead twigs, and leaves lodged in their forks from the last great flood, O'Hearn told him these were old emus' nests, and if he kept climbing to them in time he would be sure to find a new nest with eggs in it. The poor dupe, who was fat and clumsy, climbed trees until he was exhausted- and yet he was a native of Western Australia and should have known better. There were two native boys at Wandagee, Bandy and Moses, whose main work was that of horse boys. They were incorrigible villains and always in mischief. Comelly had a lambing camp where he was lambing some flocks of ewes in the old method, employing a number of natives among whom were Bandy and Moses, who were in charge of a lot of ewes with newly-hom lambs. Apparently they found sheep work dull and uninteresting after horses, so they caught most of the lambs and marked patterns all over them with charcoal, 'all same corroboree fellow', as they explained. However, with the marks (but probably more because of the smell of the natives' hands) on the lambs, the ewes refused to have anything to do with them, and the lambs naturally died. Cornelly was very wroth- and the boys suffered. They were then sent back to the house where they discovered that the mailman, who had gone up the river with the mail, had lessened the load for his horses by leaving some of his rations in the open shearing shed, to be picked up on his return journey. On his return he found his rations gone, and he complained. Suspicion fell on the two boys, and they naively confessed that at first they 'only little bit eat urn but behind (afterwards) come on and finish em up', so they were punished again. But I think what deterred them from pilfering eventually was the following: Mrs. Waldeck (Gooch's Mother) kept all hands well-fed, and was in the habit of making nice little cakes which we ate with our cups of tea in the morning and afternoon when employed near the house. These cakes were kept in the large meat safe under the veranda, close to the kitchen door at which the natives had their meals served out to them. Mrs. Waldeck missed some cakes on different occasions, and asked me if I had ever taken any out of the safe- to which I replied that we got enough to eat without taking any more. She then asked Ned Comelly, who replied to her in tones more forcible than polite; so I said I was sure it was some of the natives who had stolen them. Mrs. Waldeck suggested that she should

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make some cakes with a strong emetic, or purge in them, but I said we should then never know the result - nor get any fun of it. I suggested if she put a plateful of nice cakes in the meat safe in full view of all the natives when they were 'rolled up' at the kitchen door to receive their meal, as soon as the natives had gone to their camp to eat their food, I would quietly put two of my pole traps for birds (already described) on the same shelf as the cakes. I suggested supper as the best time to do it, as the thief would have to grope in the dark to find the cakes. Accordingly this was done, and as we were eating our supper in the house soon after the natives had been served, we heard a great yell from the veranda; running out we found Bandy dancing around in great terror, with one of the traps tightly gripping his thumb and fingers - and yet he had the impudence to deny having been at the meat safe! However, no more cakes were taken. G. ] . Brockman was courting Miss Waldeck at this time, and frequently drove his buggy forty-five miles on the Saturday evening, to spend the Sunday at Minilya. His procedure was erratic - as were most of his methods. Our first intimation of his approach would be the sound of a distant bugle blown from the direction of the road to the Station. Then a cloud of dust would appear, and from it would emerge Brockman standing up in his buggy and blowing his bugle while driving his horses at a good canter off the road. This was his usual method of approaching a house. The next day, if it was the watermelon season, he would borrow Gooch's buggy and drive Miss Waldeck and her sister up to the garden, about three miles above the house, for a feed of melons; but more than once the buggy came to grief in one of the numerous deep and narrow gullies on the road, and they would have to leave it there and walk ingloriously back to the house, leaving it to Gooch to send out for the buggy and bring in to repair. Bush courtship! But in the end Miss Waldeck was married to Jack Stewart, a squatter on the Ashburton River, and the poor girl died very sadly two or three years afterwards - much to the surprise and grief of her relations and friends. Talking of melons reminds me that Gooch had got up an old character of a hunchback named George, who was to make and keep a garden going on a patch of beautiful soil on the river bank above the Station homestead, and this the old man did to perfection; one or two natives stayed with him to do the heavy work, carrying water and firewood etc. The decrepit old man was quite simple in some things, and he became enamoured of one of the natives, a stout, elderly woman. He declared his intention of marrying her outright, and asked if Gooch was able to perform the ceremony. Comelly told him Gooch was not authorised to marry people, but that the Resident Magistrate from Carnarvon would be travelling past shortly, and he would do it for George if he asked him. The poor old fellow wrote a letter to Gooch asking him to have a wedding breakfast prepared at the homestead, so that all could partake of it after the wedding, and gave a list of things he would require Gooch to procure for him - including wedding favours, white kid gloves, and the ring. Constable W. Turner was going his rounds soon after, and the inveterate story-teller Comelly took him to the garden for a melon, introducing him to old George as the Magistrate who would marry him. T umer entered into the joke and told George he would oblige him with great pleasure, but that as he

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did not happen to have a Proper Book with him, he would get one and call on his way back to perform the ceremony. Needless to say he did not call again, and George was disconsolate for a long time, until Comelly roused his cupidity by spinning him yams of the King of Moogooloo, a black Monarch who lived in great pomp at Moogooloo and required the services of a Court gardener to attend his hothouses. The old gardener was much excited, and asked all sorts of questions of the natives working with him. One day, Tiger called at the garden, and old George asked him if he would take a present from him to the King of Moogooloo. Tiger did not know to whom he referred, but took the melons anyway. As he happened to be out for a holiday, and was going up the river to see some friends at Middalya, the next Station, he handed over the melons there to the Manager for the Minilya River Squatters Co., J. H. Mansfield, a jovial old fellow who took the melons and of course ate them. Some time later the old gardener was taken very ill and had to be brought to the Station where he nearly died, but he recovered a little and was sent down to the Port by the team. The next work on the station was the all-important shearing - the harvest of a sheep station. All the shearing was done by the natives employed there and my work was pressing the wool, although I shore the odd sheep between pressing bales. In a lever wool press, the lever (a gum tree) is hoisted up, and when the wool box is filled with wool, a square, solid cap with a square hole let in the centre to receive the butt end of the prop stick, is put in the box on top of the wool; sitting on the edge of the top box, I held the prop stick fitted in the cap so that the top of the prop stick would fit in a hole morticed on the underside of the lever, which was lowered gradually by those at the capstan until the prop stick was in its proper place. The lever was then hauled down by the capstan until all the wool was forced into the bottom half of the wool box, and the lever was lashed down to the capstan until ~he bale was sewn up in the press, access for this being provided A shearing team of Aborigines at Minilya Station.

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Bales of wool transported to Baston's store, Carnarvon.

by opening doors in the back and front of the press, or box. If the lever was not lashed down, the spring of the wool inside the box would force the lever up again before the bale top was sewn. Once the bale is sewn, the lever is hoisted up again, and lashed to hold it there ready for the next bale. One day, I was perched on the top edge of the box, holding the prop stick while natives at the capstan gradually lowered the lever, when - through carelessness - they let go the capstan handles, and the great gum tree stem that formed the lever began to fall rapidly; I had to scramble out from under it instantly, to avoid being crushed to death by it. It was a very narrow escape, and the thud of the lever as it fell brought Gooch running out fearing a bad accident. A travelling insurance agent was staying a night at the house, and this little incident caused him to make a determined and persistent effort on me to have my life insured. The morning after his arrival the insurance agent had a good late sleep, and the natives - who are always very inquisitive about strangers -anxiously asked if he was 'making it Sunday' from the lateness of his coming out. Another visitor called during shearing. viz. Sotheran who had come out with me on the Australind and was nicknamed 'The General'. He had not travelled alone in the bush before, and was very nervous. He had not reached the house when he had expected to and, not caring to travel in the dark, he lay down; for fear of losing his horse he tied it to his belt by a long strap, and let the horse feed round. When the grass close by was eaten off and the horse began to pull to reach more he got up and lay down again a little further away - rather an uncomfortable method of camping out.

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The shearing shed at Minilya Station

Station hands prepared fcrr a Ccrrrobboree.

G. ]. Brockman drove over one day to interview me about my overland trip with Dowden, as he was contemplating bringing a lawsuit against him for taking pay for the sheep that got poisoned. I told him Dowden had taken all care, and had not known about the poison plant, and that I would not tell anything else unless my fare was paid down to Perth, as a witness; as Brockman had not much chance of a case against Dowden, it all fell through again. After shearing, wool carting was the order of the day, and O'Hearn was kept going for some months taking wagon-loads of wool each about sixteen bales down to Port, and bringing back rations, stores and fencing wire, etc. The great thing was to get all the wool carted down before the grass and water dried off, with the approach of the summer heat. Some loads of sand were required at the house, and I was carting some up from the river assisted by a willing - but stupid - native called Jacko. It was a tip cart, and we were tipping a load out by lifting up the front of the cart, (one of us on each side) when the weight of the cart came up on us as

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the sand ran out behind; Jacko tried to let go, but got his forearm caught, and the body of the cart dropped on it. I lifted it from my side again and called to Jacko to do the same on his side, but he walked round to me, shaking his arm up and down so that I could hear the bones scraping against each other where it was fractured, and calmly said 'This one breakum now'. Both bones - ulna and radius - were broken in two places, so I made some splints out of an old packing case, set the bones, and bandaged it up at once, telling him to go to his camp and come up the next day to see if the bandages required loosening from the arm swelling. He came up next morning with the splints and bandages off, and his arm swollen and curved out of shape. As I had to go out on other work, I told him his arm would have to stop so, and it did, setting crooked for his life. The natives were very ignorant in those days and one had to be very careful when working with them; if anything large was being lifted, and the natives considered they were getting too much weight, they would calmly let go, without any warning. On one occasion the teamster O'Hearn had two natives with him driving a dray loaded with wool. One night when camping, the load was rather 'light on', and one native was kneeling behind the dray to adjust the back prop stick. The other native led out the shaft horse and allowed the dray to tip backwards, and somehow it caught the native kneeling behind and the back of the cart pinned him to the ground across his neck; the tail pieces kept the weight from choking him, and he was got out all right. I was much amused, one day, watching four natives set to carrying a 400 gallon empty tank to a fresh site. They were finding it rather heavy and awkward when a bright idea occurred to them: one of them told the others to keep off and he would carry it himself, so he got inside through. the manhole and, putting his shoulders under each side, endeavoured to stand up inside and carry the tank on his shoulders - he was quite surprised to find he could not move it. Peter, one of the horse boys, was sent out on the run to bring in some horses that had been turned out for a spell and rest. At the end of a week he came back, with his horse half dead and a very sore back behind the saddle, saying he could not find the horses. As this was undoubtedly a lie, Cornelly set out to make enquiries from some of the shepherds camped out as to his doings. He found that Peter had accommodated a friend of his, Jumbo, by allowing him to ride behind him, and the two villains had been touring the country for a week, visiting friends -both riding the poor horse at one time. Very few natives could be trusted out of one's sight. But the most incorrigible young scoundrel on the station, named Tim and about 12 years old, came to his end in a very peculiar manner about August 1888. A Queenslander named Frank Ogilvie called at Wandagee on his way to the North-West, with two racehorses which he wanted to run soon at the races. As he had not much time to spare, he asked Gooch to lend him a boy who could take him on a short cut across country to the Ashburton and beyond, and Gooch lent him Tim. We heard soon after that within forty-five miles of Red Hill Station, Ogilvie sent Tim out at daybreak for the five horses (as is usual), Ogilvie staying on the camp to cook breakfast for them both. The boy did not return by sundown so Ogilvie guessed he had run away and,

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managing to reach the Red Hill Station unaided, reported the runaway to the Police on his arrival. Ogilvie had walked the forty-five miles, following the tracks of the boy Tim, and the five horses. (Tim rode one horse and drove along the other four, so that no horse was left with which Ogilvie could overtake him.) The Police made enquiries, and it seems Tim had recollected that he had an aged uncle living in that part, so he rode one of the horses till he found him. This uncle was very glad to see him, called in a friend of his, and between them they killed Tim, cooked and ate him, hiding the bones in a cave. The Police brought them down to the lock-up, but one died there soon after arriving - and I think the other was let off with a caution, as cannibalism was a 'tribal custom' and not recognised by law as a serious crime, most of the barbarous tribal customs coming under this same category, and the Police not troubling about them. Our nearest neighbour was J. H. Mansfield, Manager at Middalya Station. He came over one day and gave a very glowing account of a trip he had recently taken to the Barlee Ranges, near which he had taken up an area of country on the Henry River (a tributary of the Ashburton). He expressed his intention of starting a station there for himself very shortly. Gooch had some blocks of land on the Lyons River, not very far from the Henry River, and he suggested to me that we should take a trip to look at them and, if I liked the country, he would sell me the right to the blocks and I could start myself. Shearing now being well over and the slack season of stations set in, we started for our trip, taking a pack horse to carry our rations. On our way to Middalya we passed Brackle's grave close to the river. Brackle was a man employed as a teamster by Gooch and Wheelock when they first started Wandagee Station. The natives were very bold and treacherous then, and Brackle was in the habit of sleeping under his wagon, as he thought it safer than being out in the open. However, the natives speared him one night and cut off his head. As Brackle did not arrive when expected, Gooch and Wheelock went to see what was wrong, found his body, and buried it. Then, as other unprovoked outrages had been committed by the blacks, a punitive party went out and shot a good many of the men, after which there was not much serious trouble round that part. Shortly before arriving at Middalya we observed a peculiar track, crossing and going along beside the road for a short distance, as if some thing large had been dragged along. On arriving at the house we told Mansfield about it, and he said a foal belonging to a mare had died just off the road, and she had dragged the body- it was only a few days old- down to the river bed. He had been out that way with a native, and they followed up the tracks, being as puzzled by them as we were. He also told us that a stray camel was wandering about, and that his natives had been greatly excited and puzzled - first at the camel's tracks, and then at the camel itself. Mansfield, who had run a hotel in the Eastern colonies before coming to Western Australia, was a sporting character. The house was built of long jam tree stems, set upright in the ground, and the roof was thatched. He had terriers chained all round his house veranda, and he used them as a last resource

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to work his sheep at shearing time, or when drafting. When the regular sheep dogs were exhausted by the heat and dust, and refused to work, he would give the order: 'Let the terriers loose', and two or three of them would at once be running about the sheep's backs, snapping at their ears and noses, while the remainder were barking and snapping below at the sheep's legs - and the sheep would crowd into the desired pen before they knew where they were. Mansfield had his own method for punishing refractory natives. He filed the teeth of a handsaw and fastened it to a straight handle, which he wielded with both hands, and he said the effect of smacking it on a native's back or behind was wonderful, and it did not leave any marks nor injure the offender. Poor old Mansfield fell ill some years later and, on going to consult a doctor, was told that he had an aneurysm, and so he asked the doctor how long he thought he would live. The doctor replied that, with care, he might live one year. Mansfield instantly said, 'I bet you a fiver I live two'; he lived another five years, and took a trip home to Ireland to see his parents before he returned to Western Australia, where he died about 1907. Mansfield told us a good story of one of his native shepherds, Micky, which had just happened. Mansfield went round to where Micky was camped one night, saw his sheep were all right and so returned home as usual. Micky had apparently had his mind made up to run away so, feeling sure that Mansfield would not be round his way again for a day or two, started off that night with his gin and three young children. The woman carried a large wooden dish (yandee) filled with water for the road. After going some miles she tripped and fell, spilling all the water, and then they all got very thirsty, and the children began to cry and wanted carrying. So Micky thought shepherding was easier work, and started to return, but instead of quietly going back to his old camp and saying nothing about his little trip, he went to the homestead, and awakened Mansfield in the middle of the night by knocking at his window. Mansfield asked, 'Who is it?' Micky said, 'It's me, Micky'. 'What do you want this time of night?', roared Mansfield. Micky said, 'Me run away, me come back. You sulky mine?', meaning 'Are you angry?'. At first Mansfield could not understand how he had run away since he saw him that afternoon, but ~hen he had the whole story explained he could hardly speak for laughing, but told Micky that he was very angry, but that if he went straight back to his sheep - and Mansfield found they were all right next morning - he would forgive him. After crossing the Minilya River when we left Middalya, we crossed some miles of spinifex country. Spinifex, or porcupine grass, grows in large tussocks. There are many varieties, but most have each blade terminating in a point as sharp as a needle; buck spinifex will pierce through stout boots. We then reached a low, stony range and passed Grindstone Hill, and thence on to Williambury Station, Mr. C. R. Bunbury's homestead. This is prettily situated near a fine permanent pool in the river, from which the station is named. Next day we entered on the fine grassy flats of the Lyndon River, which flows to the West and empties into the great salt marsh about twenty miles North of where the Minilya does the same. We stopped at the homestead of Gerald and Willie Lefroy where we were hospitably entertained; we remained for the night, as we had come here out of our direct route in order to shoe

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our horses. We had some difficulty shoeing our pack mare, which was a wellbred, fiery-tempered animal, and in the end had to tie her head to one tree, a hind leg to another and one of us support her on each side, while the acting smith affixed the shoes. We met an old acquaintance who was working here- Yankee (Charles Whitney) - who greeted us as we rode up with: 'Hullo Gooch! And how long have you been bushed?'. He called our attention to a slab of wood, cut out of a tree growing in the vicinity, which was of a dark chestnut colour, blotched fairly evenly, with cream coloured spots, reminding one of the marking of a fallow deer. I never saw, or heard of, a similar piece of wood. After leaving there we struck across quite unsettled country towards Mount Thompson on the Lyons River, crossing some miles of rugged, granite country, where we saw a few large kangaroos. Settlers had all said that kangaroos were very plentiful all over the Gascoyne district when it was first occupied, but they disappeared, or died, at the same time as the natives had a severe epidemic of measles (of which scores died). Kangaroos must have been numerous on the Minilya River, as there were the remains of several large V-shaped fences (or wings) made of brushwood, leading to a deep pool at the end of the V, down whkh the natives used to drive them and then kill them for the meat. We arrived at Mount Thompson the next afternoon, where we struck the wide deep course of the Lyons River. The Alma and another creek join the Lyons here from the North side, and the several watercourses of washes and gullies were rather confusing to a stranger in the district. We were now in country where the wild natives were not to be trusted, and one of us always remained at the camp when the other went to get in the horses at the early morn or midday halt. Wild cattle were not uncommon, being the offspring of those which got away from surrounding stations, or from travelling mobs; Mount Thompson was a landmark and stopping place for any of the infrequent mobs of stock travelling from the far North-West to the Southern districts. We saw several large pitfalls, dug by the natives to catch wild cattle or kangaroos etc., and covered over with leafy branches. They would be nasty places to get into while riding, and we had to go carefully about the scrubby river banks just there. There were several pools in the bed of the Lyons, and in the shallow parts of some we saw fresh natives' tracks, and a sort of ladder trap made of bushes and long rolls of grass. Fish such as mullet and yellowtail, which abound in this river, were driven up into shallow water and then caught by the natives. Long rolls of coarse grass were made, and rolled along by several natives up a branch of a pool where the water shoaled. The open grass, or bush let the water run back through it of course, but any fish were forced into water shallow enough to be easily captured. On leaving Mount Thompson for the higher reaches of the Lyons where Gooch's blocks of land were, he got confused by the various watercourses, and we went up the Alma until the bed got so narrow that the fringing white gum trees interlaced their branches overhead. Gooch had been in this country some years before, so I thought he ought to know his way about, but at last I told him if that was the Lyons, it was a very twopenny little river, and not nearly so large as I had expected it to be from accounts; I thought we were not on it at all (with which he agreed), and as it was getting late and we had

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brought no water along with us, we dug with our hands on the sandy bed of the creek to try and get some. But what we got was very salt, and the horses would not touch it. We camped in as clear a place as we could find, on account of natives, who we knew must see us although we could not sight them. We saw many fresh footprints and places where women had been recently digging up roots. Early next morning we struck across country to the South-East, where the Lyons ought to have been, and we struck it about noon; a fine, large river bed, with deep pools of water at intervals - though some of them were brackish. We were now on the land that Gooch was leasing from the Government but not stocking it. We rode along easily, sometimes away from the River to inspect the country, and then returning to the River where an extra large growth of flourishing white gum trees indicated the presence of a large pool. We camped again in the centre of a wide, clear, sandy stretch of river bed, and next day about noon came upon another large pool upon which were many ducks. As our meat supply was exhausted, Gooch took the gun for a shot at them while I took the horses on to a high bank of the River, hobbled them out, and lit a fire preparatory to cooking ducks. I heard two shots fired and, looking down to the pool, saw Gooch strip off his clothes and then swim out to where dead birds were floating. He got to them, apparently swimming very slowly, and turning back towards the shore he seemed to splash a lot, and be in some trouble. I ran down to see what was wrong, and met Gooch just as he landed in an exhausted, breathless state. He said the pool was full of weeds under the surface and he had got his legs entangled in them, and only extricated himself with much difficulty. However, he had got the ducks which we enjoyed. Further up the river the next day we came upon a very large, deep pool, fully a mile in length - but the water was salt. This was Edeethanna Pool, close to which the township and goldfield of Bangemall was afterwards founded in about 1894. Gold was known to be in the district, and we had seen the tracks of those whom we afterwards found to be Charles Gale and a prospector Daniel O'Driscoll, who had been there three months before us but had found nothing payable. The great bulk of Mount Augustus, a well known landmark, had been plainly visible to us for the last two days, and as it was only about twenty miles away I wanted Gooch to go on and have a look at it - but he would not, being rather nervous about the natives who were a treacherous lot and abounded there at that time. Mount Augustus was a cattle station belonging to R. E. Bush, and the natives gave a lot of trouble. From here we commenced our return journey. Game was plentiful all over, and quantities of herons, egrets, ducks, cormorants etc. occurred at the pools; the fawn-breasted kingfishers (which were not on the Minilya River) were common, their loud cackling notes being heard every evening and morning. The beautiful little rust-coloured bronzewing pigeons were also often seen, and I secured a pair of their cream-coloured eggs laid on the ground in October, with hardly a vestige of nesting material. After passing Mount Thompson we went straight for the head of the Minilya

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River which is at the Muluwun Spring, a curious, rectangular, small pool of water, surrounded by solid rock and high up on a range. When we tried to eat our dinner there the small ants were so very troublesome that at my suggestion we rolled some large rocks into the water, perched on them, and ate our meal in peace. In due course we stayed another night at Williambury reaching Middalya where Mansfield was very anxious to learn of our wanderings, and if we had been near his land at the Henry River. We had prepared a map for him, showing a fictitious track we had taken over his ground, spotted with occasional crosses, and a large dot. We showed him this and he asked what the crosses meant; I said each one meant a good pool or a spring of water, at which he was much excited and said he had not noticed them on his trip. He then asked what the dot was, and we said it was a large camp of natives we had found, and that I was going to buy Gooch's land, and all the natives were coming to work for me. At this he got quite cross, and said, 'Why, that must be the same mob of natives I found on my trip, and they promised to work for me. It is very mean to try to get them to come to you now', etc., etc. After keeping up the joke a while, we confessed we had not been near his country. Mansfield showed us a smart little chestnut horse - Goldfish - that he was training for the Carnarvon Races, and of whom he expected great things. He kept him in a small stable, roofed and walled of interlaced bushes, that he had made at one end of the stockyard in front of the house. Gooch and myself were sleeping in the shearing shed which was close to the house, and had got nicely to sleep when we heard Mansfield bellowing out; 'Gooch, Gooch, fire, fire'. As Mansfield was given to practical joking, I murmured to Gooch, 'He's only having us on in revenge for that map we invented', but a sudden glare of light outside caused me to exclaim, 'By Jove! There is a fire', and out we ran, clad only in short shirts. The bush stable was burning fiercely, and poor Mansfield, clad only in a shirt, was dancing around wildly, trying to stamp out some of the fire so as to get to the horse. As we came up close past the front door of the house, Mrs. Mansfield and two lady visitors were standing there, also in dishabille. Mrs. Mansfield held out a large bucket for me to take, and I started forward for it but, remembering my nakedness, had not the courage, even at such a time. I went over to Mansfield, who had just succeeded in getting the horse out (none the worse, except for a little singed hair), and with natives coming up, all vestiges of fire were put out. Mansfield took the blame, as he said he went down to look at the horse while smoking his pipe, just before he went to bed. No doubt a spark set some dry dung smouldering, and that burst into flame- but it was a very close shave for the horse. We reached Wandagee the next day and, to my surprise, I found there William Turner who had been managing Aubrey Brown's sheep station at Dirk Hartog Island for about fifteen years, and who had come up, at Gooch's invitation to manage my sheep run on the Lyons (as Gooch had told him I was sure to buy the land). I told Gooch he had no right to say anything of the sort. After being over his land, and considering that it was scattered with the blocks not adjoining but having unstocked land belonging to other people

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in between, I thought it was not very good, that it was a very long way to have to cart wool down to Port, and I would therefore not have anything to do with it. G. ]. Brockman carried a lot of cattle on his station but, as the country up to this time had not been fenced, a large proportion of his cattle were often feeding on Gooch's land along the Barrobiddee Creek. Mr. Nat Cook from Northam, accompanied by his son, came up to buy a mob, and the cattle were driven up to the stockyard at Wandagee as being the most convenient to where they were mustered; we had rather an exciting morning, cutting out and drafting off those that Cook decided to take. The cattle were very wild, as Brockman liked the excitement of it. Gooch bought one very wild beast that had given a lot of trouble at a low price, thinking it would be a change to have a little beef to eat. I was sent for to shoot it, as my 450 revolver was the only suitable weapon on the Station for the purpose. The horseman had it cut off by itself against the stockyard, and I came up rather hurriedly with my revolver; rounding a comer of the stockyard I came almost upon the beast, which promptly charged me. Cattle always charge anyone on foot if they cannot get away, as they are always worked by horsemen on stations. I fired a hurried shot at its head which checked it, but did not kill it, and as it paused for an instant I fired again, and dropped it; Brockman took on the butchering part and had the hide off and the meat jointed in record time. Mr. Cook promised to send Brockman up a cask of his homemade wine from Northam, for which he was famous, and I shall have something to say about that later. Brockman's land ran up into Gooch's for some distance, taking both sides of the river, while Gooch, who leased the land a little way out from the river, was unable to use the pools in the river for his stock. He had long tried to buy this strip from Brockman, so as to square off his run before he began to fence that part, and at last made a bargain for it (taking 3000 old ewes from Brockman as part of the deal, for of course all land in the North-West was only leased from the Government and one could only sell the right of using it, and transfer the lease). Accordingly, on the day appointed, Gooch and I went over to Minilya Station to take delivery of the sheep. Brockman was always slippery over a deal, and on our arrival he told Gooch that the Bank which held a mortgage over the Minilya Station, would not allow him to sell any stock off it, except for cash, although he had agreed to give Gooch terms. Apparently he thought that Gooch could not pay such a sum in cash at a moment's notice, and that the deal would be off, but as it happened I had had money sent out from home by my Father and Thomas Burrill, my brother-inlaw, either to loan, or invest, or start a station for myself. So I took Gooch aside and told him if he would give me a Bill of Sale or note of hand transferring the blocks of lands and the 3000 sheep to me, I would give him a cheque for the amount of purchase money required; he was to pay eight percent interest for the accommodation, and we were to go to Port as soon as possible to have the papers and bills legally stamped and witnessed by the Resident Magistrate. Accordingly, very much to Brockman's surprise, Gooch told him he was prepared to pay cash and the bargain had to be fulfilled. Gooch was most

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grateful for my share in it, and promised to do me a good tum if ever he had a chance - this he did, years afterwards. We then went up to the drafting yards, to get the 3,000 ewes drafted off to take back with us. They were the dirtiest yards I ever saw, being ankle deep in powdered sheep dung that rose up in dense suffocating clouds. We constantly had to cooee to know where the gates were, and to go outside to get a breath of air. All the sheep were bottle branded, i.e. Gooch and I stood one each side of the race, armed with an old beer bottle and a tin of black brand (charcoal and oil), and dabbed the bottom of the bottles, which were the hollow ones, on each of the sheep as it passed us, thus making a circle of black on their backs; this is a common way of putting a temporary mark on sheep, so as to distinguish them in case they get mixed with others. Several of the ewes had bad cancers on their eyes, nose or ears, and all such were rejected by Gooch. Cancer is about the only disease sheep are subject to there - and that only in old ewes. Gooch now left for home to make preparations there to receive the sheep, and I took charge of them. With the help of some natives I drove them in two mobs of 1500 each, up the river for two days, until I met Comelly. He took them over at Coolquilya Pool, a fine pool formed by the Minilya River falling over a high ledge of rock which was one of the permanent water holes that had made Gooch so anxious to secure the land there. The first night I camped with the sheep, I opened my flour bag to make a damper for supper and found that it contained only pollard (with which Brockman then fed his natives for cheapness), and so I had to be content with that; someone had doubtless taken my flour at the sheep yards and substituted the pollard, but I never learnt who it was. As soon as I returned to Wandagee I was started off with 500 of the ewes just purchased, and 50 rams, which I was to drive to Carnarvon, leave the rams and take the ewes about sixty miles up the Gascoyne River to Doorawarrah, where Mr. James Munro had recently started a station. I had a man and woman to drive the ewes and a fine young black named Charlie to drive the rams. Charlie had always been a bit of an outlaw for spearing a station native at Wandagee and had lived out in the bush; one day he came to where I was camped out, and I persuaded him to stay and work regularly. I had bought a new saddle from Mansfield that had taken my fancy (one of Purdoos of Ballarat) and was using it, and a very good saddle it proved. After passing Gnabbarree-yarra on Brockman's land, I entered a paddock he had just had completed, and so started to ride into the Station to give notice of my sheep travelling through (as is required by law). On my way I met Johnny Grierson, who was then Brockman's foreman, and he told me my giving him verbal notice would be all right; so I went back to the sheep and drove them to Mooricoora Pools to lay them up for the midday rest. There I met Robbie Walcot who was there with his team, so we had dinner together. Soon after Julius Brockman came up and, seeing my sheep, wanted to know what I meant by driving them through his paddocks without giving him notice; he said that he would have me summonsed, and Gooch, and all the rest of it. I told him I had seen his foreman, but he said that was not giving proper notice, and that I must not dare to take them out of his paddock gate further

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on the road until he or one of his men had seen and counted them out, to see if I had picked up any of his sheep. I told him I would be at the gate at 5 o'clock and, if no one was there, I should go straight on with my sheep without waiting, and this I did. Gooch and party overtook me while I was crossing the saltmarshes, and were able to help me by letting me have some water for myself, the natives and my horse, as we were a good way from the tanks on the high road. I called at Boolathana to get a little tucker, and laid up my sheep at one side of the big pool there. Johnny Brockman sent a native down to me asking me not to feed my sheep along the gully, as he was reserving the feed there for lambs; I thought he meant lower down the creek, below the house, but anyway my sheep were laid up and not feeding at all. After dinner I started Charlie off over the dam bank with the rams, to take them straight in to Carnarvon where Gooch would meet him. Directly after, I heard loud shouting and, looking back, saw J. Brockman hunting the rams along with a big stick, with which he was also threatening Charlie. I hastened back, meeting him on the top of the dam, and asked him why he had interfered with my native - to which he replied that he was keeping the rams from eating off the grass he had asked me to avoid taking my sheep over. I said I had not understood him to mean that piece of ground, which was quite bare and devoid of grass, and did not see how the rams could eat much walking over it. I then told him what I thought about him sending me a bill for a few shillings worth of tobacco and matches, after I had worked so long on his station without wages, and we had some hot words; at last I told him he had better sue me for the money, as I would like the opportunity of showing his meanness in the Court. I then returned to the mob of ewes and we started away, intending to go across country to Brick House, instead of going out of our way round by Carnarvon, as Gooch thought it was better to go straight across. However, when camped at night with the sheep, the natives told me they could not go straight across, as some of the Brick House natives would spear them, and after a lot of talk it dawned on me that it had something to do with the following incident. When I was working at Boolathana a native boy was taken ill, and died there. In his delirium he constantly mentioned the name of a boy working at Brick House who had been a great friend and playmate of his. Now the Aborigines never believe that anyone dies naturally, but rather from being bewitched by some other native, and that the last native's name mentioned by a dying black is supposed to be the name of the one who bewitched him. So when this boy died at Boolathana, all the available male natives there armed themselves with spears, kylies, knives, shear blades etc. and set off the following Sunday morning to kill the boy at Brick House, who was believed to have caused the death of the other boy. As luck would have it, Police Inspector Troy happened to be there, and for some reason J. Brockman wanted some of the natives and sent for them, only to be told by the gins that all the boys had gone to Brick House intent on murder. So Troy and Brockman rode away after them, overtook them and, piling up their weapons, destroyed them before any harm was done. What my natives from Wandagee had to do with it I do not know, but they refused to go by Brick House. So next day I took the sheep in to Yankee Town on the

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Gascoyne River, two miles out from Carnarvon, where I met Gooch and told him the circumstances; he persuaded the natives to go on, accompanied by Charlie who had delivered his rams, and so we all went on up the main Gascoyne road. On reaching the first paddock gate of Brick House Station, I left the sheep and rode in to the house to give the usual notice. I found that the Manager, Dan Matheson, was out on the run and only J. Macintosh was there, a squatter who was bringing down some racehorses, and so I had dinner with him. Returning to the sheep I brought them on, but found that my horse had such a sore back from the stuffing of my new saddle having settled (as it always does in a new saddle) that I had to walk. I speedily developed a blistered heel and so took my boots off, and was so plodding along towards sundown when I met Matheson in the Station buggy, and explained why I was bringing on the sheep, without notice. Next day we had dinner at Rocky Pool, a fine, permanent pool in the river bed surrounded by rocks. There were several rustcoloured bronzewing pigeons there. Rocky Pool, like all the permanent pools in the river, contained mullet and other fish. About three days later I reached Doorawarrah where I handed the sheep over to Munro, and I slept there with Gooch who had driven out with the parson from Carnarvon. Next day, the man and gin from Wandagee decided to return home straight across country, which was a much shorter cut, and Charlie - who was in great fear of the Gascoyne blacks- trotted alongside us as we rode and drove, and easily kept pace with us. We all slept at Rocky Pool and reached Yankee Town the next night, where we found great excitement, with all the talk and conversataion of the impending Race meeting. Gilbert H. Rotton, formerly Manager of Brick House, had a good string of horses, several of which, being recently imported from the Eastern colonies, were unknown quantities. Johnny FitzPatrick, another well-known racing man who owned Dairy Creek Station, was having a horse, Fishmonger, which had recently won races in the North-West, shipped down after purchase to run, and there were rumours of a stranger from Derby, Kennedy, also bringing down an unknown horse supposed to have wonderful powers; so the Race meeting gave promise of being an unusually exciting one, as it was. I found there was an absurd rumour current in Carnarvon that J. Brockman and myself had had a fight on the Boolathana dam, in the course of which I had thrown him into the water. Who originated it I never knew. I had two or three days holiday there, staying at Campbell's house at Yankee Town and helping in anything going on. One of his sons, Angus, was carting wool down from the stations with his bullock team and I went out to give him a hand to get them across the bed of the river, which, being nearly half a mile across and of loose deep sand, was usually the hardest bit of the trip, both bullock and horse teams frequently jibbing there. I found this little bit of experience very useful to me afterwards at Point Cloates, where I started to drive my own bullock team. The same evening I was helping the elder son Harry (who was killing meat for the supply of the Port) when we heard a lot of blacks making a commotion as if fighting, and then a white woman calling for someone to come. We ran across and found the disturbance was at the back of Mrs. Miller's house, which was close to Campbell's. A native had quarrelled with his woman and, as they frequently do in such

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cases, had picked up one of his spears and deliberately thrust it through one of the gin's legs, at the calf. He was flourishing a kylie when I came up, and threatening further mischief, so I seized him and took it from him (as well as two others he had stuck in his belt), whereupon he began to abuse and threaten me, for which I kicked him a little and he went off to report me to the Police. A steamer came down from the North one night bringing FitzPatrick's new horse Fishmonger on board, in the charge of its former owner, Sandy McPherson. As no boat capable of bringing the horse ashore as it stood in its horsebox went out to meet the steamer, it was discharged by the steamer onto the deck of a hulk, moored out in the roadhead for convenience of receiving cargo in such cases and letting the steamer get away quickly. The boat Republic (belonging to George Baston, a storekeeper) went out late at night to bring the horse ashore, but McPherson, who had been drinking, was very abusive, and refused to allow anyone to touch it. Next morning I was in the Port and Dick MacNeil, who was in Baston's store, asked me if I would like a sail, to which I readily assented. When we got away on the Republic I found MacNeil had also asked Loeffleur, and one or two other strong young fellows, and that we were to act as emergency men and, if necessary, fight McPherson and take the horse by force, under orders from FitzPatrick who accompanied us. However, we found McPherson quite quiet and peaceable, and we got the horse in its box safely lowered into the hold of the boat, which was only just large enough to receive it. Paddy McCaul was Baston's lighterman. There was a strong South-West wind blowing, and a good bit of sea on crossing the numerous sandbanks, but we got the horse landed very comfortably- though he did not do any great things at the Races. The morning of the first Race day young Ridley caused a little sensation by riding into the town at a gallop, and excitedly enquiring for the Doctor (Roberts off Australind) and the Police, as he said that riding across the flat between the River and town he had found the man Hampson, who ran the Minilya mail for the contractor, Townshend, lying dead. Taylor, the Sergeant of Police, was the first to reach the supposed corpse; Harry Campbell and myself rode up just as he was lifting up Hampson who opened his eyes and, recognising the Sergeant said 'Are you going to take me, Sergeant?' Taylor replied, saying 'Well, no, not this time, but I have a jolly good mind to lock you up for giving us all such a scare about nothing'. It seemed that Hampson, who was a 'remittance' man (i.e. a man sent out from England by his people for bad behaviour, and paid regular sums of money to keep out and not return home), had been drinking, and had taken two horses out to give them a drink at a pool of water a little way from the town. He rode one horse and led the other and, as the latter lowered its head to drink, it jerked the leading rope and pulled Hampson off his horse, and he fell head-first on the ground. (As the sequel will show, he was more hurt than any of us thought at the time.) The Race meeting was one of the best ever held at Carnarvon, but Rotton's string were much too good for the local horses, and pulled off most of the events. Kennedy, the owner of the 'dark horse' Shamrock, found his horse outclassed so did not run him, averring he had gone lame. Bill Henrietta, an old sailor and whaler, caused some commotion by mount-

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Baston & Company's Store.

Inside Baston's Store.

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ing someone's horse and galloping wildly round the field; sailor-like, he scorned to use the stirrups, but rode the horse as if it were a ship's yard, he being the worse for drink. He wound up his ride by jumping into a native's camp, and a gin was stunned by one of the horse's hoofs; so Henrietta was locked up until it was seen how the woman would fare, but as she was all right the next morning he was dismissed with a caution. The day after the Races we prepared to return to Wandagee. I had got my saddle restuffed at the saddlers, but when I went to get my things together I found the saddle only; hunting about, I found my stirrup leathers and irons on another man's saddle and another man was using my bridle minus the throat-lash (by good luck I chanced to notice a native wearing the latter as a belt). We formed a strong party returning as, beside Gooch, Mrs. and the two Misses Waldeck, Joe Mills and a drover (Edwards) accompanied us, and of course a native boy, Peter, who had ridden Match Box unsuccessfully at the Races. G. Baston wanted his racing mare, Envy, to run at Wandagee with Match Box, so I rode her, and a very good, quiet hack she was. We had one or two exceedingly hot days at the start and, when we camped for dinner at Shaw's Tank, a sacred kingfisher came and sat on the buggy axle, underneath the buggy as we were. Julius Brockman, who was not a racing man, had sailed from Carnarvon a day or two before we left, in, the Ada May a three ton cutter he had bought. He was accompanied by one of his Station natives, two Manila men, Peter and Meagle (whom he had had sent down from Singapore under agreement to work for him), and Bob Miller, who was the Sheep Scab Inspector for the district and who, not having felt very well of late, had been induced by Brockman to take a sail with him in the Ada May as far as Yalobia to have some good feeds of the rock oysters there. Before we reached Yankee's Tank we were overtaken by John Brockman and a young fellow, Bob McGinnett. Brockman was driving his buggy and pair and McGinnett was driving with him - it being easier than riding and his horse was tied alongside the buggy horses so as to be under the whip. It seemed news had just come down from the Minilya that the Ada May was wrecked and poor Miller drowned, and J. Brockman was going up as a Magistrate to take his brother Julius's statement of the occurrence. We all camped together and Brockman left Yankee's Tank next morning some time before we did. We had not gone many miles before we saw McGinnett's horse lying dead by the roadside- which seemed peculiar, as it was not doing any pulling as it travelled. On arriving at Minilya we all were very thirsty, as the heat continued, and J. Brockman - who had been exploring the Minilya before we arrived introduced us to a ten gallon keg of sugar beer just right for drinking; he had found it in a comer of the store room and imagined it belonged to the Chinese cook, but we all drank freely, and asked no questions. The day after our arrival J. Grierson came back from the coast, where he had gone down on the chance of finding poor Miller, but he had had no success. It seemed it was he who had brewed the cask of beer, and he had been looking forward to some good drinks from it on his return; he hastened

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to it with a quart pannikin directly he reached the house, but found the cask empty - a great disappointment, but he bore it in good humour. Brockman then gave us an account of the wreck. They had a beautiful passage from Carnarvon to Yalobia (120 miles by sea) which they reached on the evening of the day after leaving Port. They were towing a small dinghy, and tried to get through a broken passage of the reef halfway between Yalobia and Maud's Landing. (I have often looked at the place, and should not consider it a safe passage at any time.) There were running in with a fair wind when a big swell sent them forward, and snapped the tow-line of the dinghy. One of the Manila men was steering and started to luff the boat to try and recover the dinghy, but Brockman- noticing a big dumb breaker following- shouted to him to keep her away; but was too late as, before the Ada May paid off again, the breaker caught them broadside and, as the hatches were off, halffilled her. Another breaker followed and swamped her, just at sundown, about one and a half miles from the shore. They were all good swimmers, though Miller was perhaps the poorest hand at it, so Julius Brockman, seeing one of the Manila men had an oar, told him to let Miller have it, which he did- then another breaker came and separated them all. (I am quoting from Julius Brockman's own description to me.) Brockman kept swimming on steadily towards the land, which was high, trying not to think of the sharks that abound in these seas, but occasionally bumping into a large jelly-fish, which he said gave him a nasty feeling. Just as he was beginning to feel exhausted he heard the familiar cry of a red-bill (the pied oystercatcher), which are found on the edge of the beach; this encouraged him to further effort, knowing he that must be near the beach, and after a while, letting down his legs, he found he could touch bottom. He reached the shore naked, as he had got rid of his clothes when he began to swim. He shouted and cooeed but could get no reply, and so dug a hole with his hands in the warm, dry sand above high water mark and, lying down, covered his body with the warm sand, and slept. Next morning he could see no signs of the others and so proceeded to walk South to his Yalobia well about three miles distant, where he got a drink of water and saw the tracks of two men who afterwards proved to be the two Manila men. The Aborigine and Miller were never seen again, undoubtedly eaten by the sharks. The sun now began to get fierce and Brockman, whose feet were badly cut by the reefs, put seaweed on his head and walked on to Warroora about seventeen miles South, where he found some of his Station blacks. He sent one of them in to the Minilya Station to tell the news and have the buggy sent out for him, while he got an old frock from a native woman, and waited for the buggy. The heat of the sun had burnt the whole of his body, and when I saw him he looked as red as a boiled lobster, and was suffering severely from the irritation of the sunburn; all the skin, being so burnt, peeled off after a few days. He was going about clad only in a white sheet for some days, not being able to bear clothes. The Insurance Company in which Miller had his life insured, behaved very badly, refusing to pay the money to his widow until after a very long interval (two years I think), because they said no one saw his body and

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so there was no proof of his death. It was a very bad advertisement for that Company in the district. As it had been a good wet season, Julius Brockman had commenced a dairy on a small scale, and had been making butter for use on the station. Now it happened that a certain firm, Tunstall Pottery Co. had been advertising a complete dinner and bedroom set of crockery for £1, and Brockman had got a set but, finding no use for the chamber utensils, it occurred to him he might as well use them in the dairy; so when we were at the Minilya with great pride he invited the ladies from Wandagee to come and see the dairy, forgetting the articles in question. As he opened the dairy door these articles were in a most prominent position on a shelf, full of cream! The heat was excessive and the ladies felt it, and so we remained at the Minilya for two days. As Brockman said there were quantities of wild swans and ducks on the Lake, some of us walked down there to try and shoot some. The Lake was a large lagoon, formed by an overflow from the river. There were over three hundred swans on it, and several nests in the rushes along the margin, but the birds were very wary and kept out of shot in the centre of the water. We eventually had three wounded birds down, incapable of flying, and although we did our best to kill them outright by wading in a line (five white men and two or three natives who had joined us), and getting them pinned in comers, they always dived back between us. The water was about breastdeep all over, and very muddy. When we camped for dinner at Moongadam dam, before reaching Wandagee, all of us men stripped off, and had a good swim with, and on, our horses, which much refreshed them and us. A day or two after our return I was started off to Minilya, with a native and his gin, to bring back one hundred weaner lambs that Brockman was giving to Gooch in return for the use of some of Gooch's rams. I was riding a miserable Timor pony mare known as the 'Great Eastern'. When I arrived at Minilya it was very hot with clouds of dust eddying about the country in whirlwinds, a common thing in hot weather in those parts. I was lying on a stretcher on the veranda, trying to doze off to sleep (which the flies would not allow), when Brockman called out to me, 'Carter come and look here. See what the Almighty is doing now'. As I went up to him he said, 'Just look at Him filling up those beautiful pools of water with sand as fast as He can - they are all right if He would only let them alone'. He was in the habit of saying the most outrageous, and often blasphemous, things, often, I think, merely for the effect he produced on his audience. As it got cooler towards evening, Brockman and I rode up to the dip yards in the river bed, and got the weaners drafted out and ready for an early start - at first daybreak - the next day; weaners travel on the run for an hour or two after starting, but as soon as it begins to get really warm they want to stop in the shade of every bush or tree that they pass. They always travel better with some old sheep with them. That night, after leaving the yards, we slept at the well at Gnabbarreeyarra. The following morning I started away the two natives with the sheep very early, and after breakfast went to get my pony, which I found some miles away on the road to Wandagee; consequently, it was late in the morning before I got back to my camp and, very foolishly, I came away without filling

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up my water bag (which one should always fill), depending on getting water for dinner at a small clay hole in the roadside where we had obtained water two days previously. However, on reaching it the water had dried up, and although the native hunted all round for some distance, he could not find a drop anywhere. We all had to wait, thirsty and hungry- as we were all much too thirsty to eat anything without any liquid to wash it down - until about 4 p.m., when it was possible to drive the weaners on again. The wretched pony had been standing up motionless, all the time, but directly I went up with the bridle to catch her, she started up the road towards Wandagee, and I could not head her as she galloped in her hobbles. I ran until I was quite exhausted, then returned to the camp and told the native to see if he could catch her, as a horse will sometimes let a native catch it and not a white man - and also vice versa. After a while, about sundown, he returned with it, and I told the native to bring on the sheep and I would ride quickly ahead to Moongadam (about fifteen miles), fill the water bag and return to them as soon as possible. It was long after dark when I reached the water at the dam there, and I remember I drank four quart pannikins (one gallon) of water before my thirst was at all satisfied. I was evidently also somewhat lightheaded from my activities since early morning, all owing to the miles I went after the wild Timor pony, for I never had any recollection of going back to the natives, but seemed to wake up some time in the night before a fire with my two natives and another who had joined them; they said next morning that I had been 'cranky fellow' the night before, and talked very foolishly, but we reached Wandagee without further incident. Fowls were kept on the Station, but we did not see many eggs. The bulk of them went down by the team to Carnarvon, where the storekeepers gave good prices for them. If ever the ladies went out for a drive there was a rush for eggs by whatever men happened to be left at work near the house, and Mrs. Waldeck remarked once or twice what a curious thing it was that no eggs could ever be found on her return after any little outing. As summer was now set in and the outlying pools of water away from the river were rapidly drying up, I was set to work to find, clean out and repair the wells, which in those days were all placed in the actual bed of the river. This, of course, meant water being got at a much shallower depth than if the wells were sunk on the banks of the river, where ordinary floods would not reach them. The consequence was that every time the river ran all the troughing (which was made from hollow gum tree trunks), the levers and forks, the fences that went round the wells, and often some of the top timbers of the wells, were washed away. When the latter happened, it was often difficult- or impossible -to locate the well, as it would be covered up with a level bed of sand. The first thing to be done then was to find the well, then get it cleaned out by means of a shovel- and a bucket as soon as the water was reached- digging and baling alternately. If any of the top timbers had gone, new logs had then to be cut from timber growing near, as well as new levers and forks, and posts and rails to make a fence round the well to keep sheep from falling into it when being watered. Then the river bed below the well had to be searched, through all the

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timber, scrub, and gullies that occur, to find the heavy cumbrous log troughs which, when found, had to be hauled back by a couple of horses, laid in position, and fastened down by rows of strong stakes driven into the river bed on each side of the troughs. A line of strong rails was fixed lengthways above the troughs for their whole length, to prevent sheep from jumping over the troughs when watering, and last, the joints had to be made secure, by stuffing old bags into the larger crevices and puttying up the cracks with a mixture of fat and ashes. The latter is a common makeshift in the bush, and is a first rate mixture as it sets as hard as putty after being out in the sun for a while. It is made by heating and melting some mutton fat, then gradually adding fine wood ashes to it and stirring well until the mixture is too stiff to be stirred readily. It can be applied hot or cold. I started at a well near the house and worked down the river, cleaning out and fixing up in all twelve wells. In two places the old wells could not be found, so I had to make new ones, but as I finished every well I marked the situation of it for the benefit of the next man who had to do it, but cutting 'WELL' deeply into the trunk of a big tree growing near it or, if possible, marking a tree on each side of the river so as to have the well in a straight line between them. Turner assisted me at one well and, as I was cutting the notches on the ends of some new top timbers with an axe, a large chip flew out and hit him in the mouth, cutting it severely and knocking out three front teeth- which the old man could ill spare. The water in all these wells was simply the water held in the sandy bed of the river, so when the underlying hard blue jack stone was reached, no water came from it. The supply of water at some of the wells was so great at the first cleaning out that we could not empty the water to get to the bottom of them. After making all the wells fit for use, I was then sent to clean out to the bottom of those I had been unable to get at the first time, as the large mobs of sheep that had been drinking had reduced the water level considerably. I was so engaged in a part of the river bed which was walled in for about a mile by blue jack cliffs of about twenty-five feet in height, when we had one or two exceedingly hot days, so that for a great part of the day it was quite impossible to work; as I lay perspiring under the shade of the white gums, birds were dropping from the trees, and dying in great numbers from the heat. I saw several crows and white cockatoos fall. Towards evening the native women went out and gathered hundreds of these birds to eat, and I saw several of their large wooden dishes, yandees, heaped with small birds of all descriptions. The mortality of bird life in these occasional abnormally hot days is immense. Clouds had been forming since the morning, which was a good sign for thunder rain. About sundown it was heavily overcast, and thundering loudly. As I was camped on a small island in the river bed between the cliffs, with a dray for carrying my tools and camp gear and tucker, I did not relish the idea of the river coming down a banker during the night. I sent a native out to get the horses, but he could not find them, and came back exceedingly cheerful, prophesying 'a more big fellow rain tonight my word'. There is an old and true saying on sheep and cattle stations of 'More rain, more rest' from the men, but the boss says 'More rain, more grass'. Anyway,

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after I had had my supper, which was only a little cocoa, sugar and flour mixed up in water, as the drinking of the blue jack water had given me violent diarrhoea, the rain came down in sheets, and the thunder and lightning were incessant for hours. As I lay under the poor shelter of the dray, the water came down on me in rivulets between the crevices of the body boards, and I wondered how long it would be before the river ran, and how high it would rise. I think nothing makes a man feel so insignificant and lonely as being camped out alone and exposed to a violent thunderstorm - unless it be an earthquake. Towards morning I was roused by the sound of the river suddenly running strongly within a few feet of my camp but, as it was very dark, I could only wait for daybreak to rescue all I could of the outfit. However, the water did not quite reach me, and after sending the native out for the horses as soon as possible, we got harnessed up and started downstream (as we could not make much headway against the stream), to get out of the river as quickly as possible. After going about a mile we found we were ahead of the water, the river bed there holding a great depth of sand which was not saturated with the coming flood; so we went on to the next well and stopped there, ready to deepen it if the flood came no further. While we were there Comelly rode up, having ridden out to see how I had fared. He said the river was not running more than a mile above where I had camped, and what water there was in it was coming from a big side creek called the Lucky Gully, as thunderstorms often fell over it. He said he thought the river would run as far as where we were standing at the well, and almost immediately we saw a rush of water come round a bend a hundred yards above us. I said 'Let us stop and see what happens to this well when the flood reaches it', so Cornelly and I stood close to it. Suddenly, before the water coming down the river had got anywhere near us, water commenced to pour into the well some feet below the surface of the river bed, having come more quickly under the sand than on the surfacewhich was the reverse of what most people would think. As the water poured through the crevices of the timbers, sand caved in with it, until the well timbers were left exposed, surrounded by water only. I had just said to Cornelly that that is where the packing goes, when suddenly both he and I dropped to our waists in water, the sand having caved in from below us; we scrambled out none the worse. What had been a mystery to all of us was now cleared up. When timbering a well in the river sand, sometimes the timbers did not fit very closely, but allowed the dry sand to trickle through the crevices into the well. This we stopped, by putting rushes or coarse grass behind the timbers (this was called packing). When cleaning out wells, we often wondered why there was no packing behind the crevices, the sand flowing through them freely as the sand inside the well was taken out. Now this was explained - and also the reason why the top timbers often went bodily. Being only laid in tiers, one above the other in sets of four, there was nothing to stop them floating away when the river ran, as we had just seen it. Afterwards, I used to put fencing wires separately round all the timbers of each side. As the wells in that part of the river would not be required for

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some months, I returned to the house with the dray and gear. Most of the ground traversed was absolutely bare of vegetation in the way of grass or herbage; next morning, a distinct green shade could be noticed, the seeds having started to sprout; and within a week there was a luxurious growth four to six inches in height. At shearing time, Gooch kept all the sandy wool off the sheep's backs, purposing to have it washed, or scoured, before baling and shipping. As news had been sent down from Middabya that the river was running strongly there, we expected to see it reach Wandagee hourly, as the distance between the two Stations was only about twenty miles and I got the tanks and troughs ready for wool washing. After waiting three days with no signs of the river coming down, Cornelly told me to start wool washing in some pools in a gully on the opposite side of the river to the house, as he thought the river was not going to run as far as Wandagee. I had just got into the middle of the dry river bed, with the dray and three horses, when the native with me said, 'My word, look at that', pointing up the river. There was the water, coming rushing round a bend of the low cliffs there and, before I could tum the team round, the water was round us. It was up to my waist before we could traverse the few yards to get out of the river bed again. Had we been a few minutes earlier in starting from the house, the team could not have got back over the river again, so rapidly did it rise. We had to wait a few days until the river was running lower and slower before we could start wool washing. Julius Brockman rode over to see the river as he had heard of its running, but it only ran to his boundary and got no further- and did that same aggravating thing to him no less than three times in the course of that summer. While the river was still running strongly, one of the natives, a shepherd, appeared on the North side of the river and, as like most inland natives he was not much of a swimmer, he cooeed across that he wanted his week's rations; so Cornelly got them put up and, partly I think out of bravado, said he would swim across with them. He put the twelve pound bag of flour with the tea and sugar inside it on his head, and fastened it there by a string passed round and tied under his chin. When halfway across the bag slipped round, and got under his chin - the string being across his neck and the weight of it pulling his head down. He was in difficulties - not to say peril - as he could not untie the string. However, just as I was on the point of going to his rescue, he reached water shallow enough to get his footing, and scrambled out, violently abusing the native for not coming across to get the rations himself. As soon as the river was low enough I commenced wool washing in the wash pool nearly a mile from the house, with the aid of about a dozen natives. I had a large 200 gallon tank built up off the ground on stones, so that a fire could be lighted under it to heat the water into which a lot of wool was placed. When the wool was taken out, it was squeezed between the hands and then rinsed out in another tank of warm water, and passed on to one of the natives, who were all seated in the pool (the water of which was of course tepid with the summer heat). There they opened out and rinsed again the ball of wool thrown to them, until it was as white as it could be made, then it was thrown out to bags spread on the stoney edge of the water, picked up, and opened out to dry in the sun by the other natives.

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When first starting to wash, several bars of yellow soap were cut up and put in the 200 gallon tank, but afterwards the grease (lanoline) from the wool itself acted as soap for the rest of the wool. As there were about twenty bales of wool to wash, it took a long time using this primitive method, and before we had done the river stopped running; consequently all the dirt washed out from the wool into the pool remained there, instead of being carried away by the flowing water. The bottom of the pool became covered with a layer of filthy matter, and any small pieces of wool dropped by the natives seated in the water sank into this mud, and could not be washed white. I pointed this out to Cornelly one day, but he said we must finish washing there, but I am sure two or three bales of wool were left in the bottom of the pool. One day, just when a big lot of wool was laid out on the stones, dry and ready to be bagged up, a strong whirlwind passed right over it and scattered it far and wide, a lot of it being left hung up in the tops of the gum trees. Gooch happened to have just come down to see how we were getting on, and was frantic at seeing his wool so wasted, although most of it was got together again. My next task was a different one, and no labour was attached to it. I was sent out with a native to poison some wild dogs that had been troubling the sheep down the river near Coolquibya and Kundalgo, where the river bed was broken by great masses of rocks, and was quite pretty. The way of proceeding was to find out in which direction the dogs mostly came from, or went to, and then prepare some pieces of meat with a little strychnine put inside a slit in them; a piece of scorched sheep, or kangaroo skin or large bone was then tied to a long string and dragged behind the horse I was riding to act as a trail, a bait being dropped here and there at marked places, from the bag of baits carried hung at the saddle. The baits were handled as little as possible, as a dingo is often very suspicious of the smell of a human hand, and were taken out of the bag by piercing them with a pointed stick. One good thing is that wild dogs always prefer to run along a beaten track or road, if there is one, and so their footprints can be noticed. We were out some days and succeeded in poisoning two dogs that we found there, and a third was found afterwards by a native shepherd, and we were on our way back to the Station when, about 4 p.m., a vast bank of lurid sand clouds appeared along the Northern horizon and rapidly gained in height as it approached. Its appearance was certainly terrific. My native at once said it would be useless to try to get back to the Station that night, and that we had better get into the shelter of the river timber before the storm reached us- which we did and camped for the night. Very soon after reaching the shelter of the river scrub the sky became overcast, the air was so full of dense, red sand that one could only see a distance of a few yards, and the wind was blowing a fierce gale. It cleared off somewhat after about an hour, but I remained where I was at a spot called Boolgoordar, where there were great outcrops of rocks. The native begged me not to sleep there, as he said very large poisonous snakes lived in the crevices of the rocks and that no native would sleep there; however, I declined to move, and he went to sleep with some native shepherds camped some distance off, after telling me not to sleep in the actual bed of the river as he thought it might come down in flood that

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night. Very early next morning the natives came down, quite expecting to find me dead, and thought me very foolhardy to sleep there. We learnt afterwards that this storm crossed an immense area of country going across the Upper Gascoyne, and was the remnants of a severe hurricane, or willy willy, in the far North-West. We returned to the Station early next morning, a steady rain having set in, and we found there had been great excitement the previous evening. The sandstorm had come on there very suddenly, and Mrs. Waldeck was much alarmed for Mena, who had gone down to the river to bathe with some native women. First one, and then the other of the two Swedes attempted to go down to the river to find her, but were unable to face the storm, even with towels covering their faces. However, when the storm cleared, Mena returned all right. Billy Turner had been at work close to the haystack I had built about one hundred yards from the house. His first intimation of the approach of the storm was the roaring of the wind and, as he saw he would not have time to reach the house, he ran for shelter behind the stack; but it almost immediately turned right over and buried him in loose hay. Very fortunately for him I had some time previously started building a strong new stockyard, one side of which was within five feet of the haystack, and this took the weight of it, otherwise Turner would have been hopelessly buried under the hay and no one would have known where he was - as it was he scrambled out unhurt. The rain increased in volume all that day and night, and the next morning the river was in big flood again. The country was so boggy one could not ride off the roads, and they were very soft in places. Turner and myself had orders to take the last of the wool down to the Port as soon as the roads were passable. We got the scoured wool baled up and all the harness, hobbles and gear ready. I was to drive the wagon with eight horses carrying sixteen bales of wool, and Turner the dray, with five horses and seven bales. We also had to take with us six loose horses to deliver to R. Cleveland at Carnarvon, and a great nuisance they were on the road; we could not catch them to hobble when we turned out the team horses, and they made our hobbled horses very hard to catch when we wanted to harness up each morning and noon. It takes a good part of a day to load up a wagon and dray and, after the bales are rolled up and carefully stacked and adjusted, they have to be carefully and securely lashed on by many ropes, otherwise the loadwill shift going over some of the rough places on the roads. After the ropes have been hauled as tight as possible, they are still further tightened by 'turtch' sticks, and the day after starting these will want tightening again ___.:__ and probably once or twice more on the trip. Before starting, the wagons want greasing, and a few split links, copper rivets and bits of leather etc. are put in the box for repairs on the road, with a spare spreader or two. The flour, tea, sugar and meat also has to be put in bags for use on the road, so the preparation is usually a day's work. We did not get away until a fortnight after the rain - and then the roads were bad enough in places. The night we camped at Moongadam we were much disturbed by a native dog that would persist in howling dismally round our camp; as I could not get a glimpse of it (although I sat up a long time), I at last fired several shots at

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random from my rifle, which scared it away. The howl of wild dogs is very dismal and exasperating, and if one is camped out alone and is suddenly awakened by one howling close at hand, the effect is very weird. When going through Brockman's paddock we were caught in a very sharp, though short, thunderstorm. The rain came down in sheets, beating into my horses' faces so that they wanted to turn sharp round; I had to hold the head of one of the leaders and my native, Banjo, the other, as I feared they might break a shaft or something if they slewed round sharply. While holding them, a flash of lightning struck a gum tree about twenty yards from us, and sent it flying in splinters. Banjo turned grey with fright, and said to me, 'By C----t, directly you and me dead!', but I said I did not think another flash would come so close, and it did not, the storm passing over in about twenty minutes; but it left the roads there running in water many inches deep, although when we got about two miles further on we found there had been no rain at all. Some of my horses were not very staunch, and I had a little trouble at times with them starting and at bad, steep pinches crossing the salt marshes. Mr. George Baston, owner of Baston's Store and Shipping Company, Carnarvon.

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A group of Aborigines under arrest and in chains. It was a regular thing, according to Carter, for Aborigines employed around Carnarvon to have a good fight and risk entanglement with European law.

My near-side shaft horse was a full draught horse named Glen, a badtempered brute who was always trying to bite me. When we were starting from Shaw's Tank and about to tackle the heaviest pulling on the road, viz. about twelve miles of deep, heavy, red sand between there and Cardabia, Glen hung back in the shafts then made a breach forward, snapping in a moment his tugchain, one of his hames, the main draw chain, and one of the shafts, and a nice mess it was to fix up before starting. For one thing, I had to take off one pair of broken shafts and fasten them on top of the load, and alter the working of my team. The particular shaft that broke was one I had made myself at Wandagee before starting, to replace an old, broken one. Cornelly had given me a piece of white gum timber from which to make it, but I told him the wood was not good, being wormeaten and having dry rot, but he said it was the only available piece of timber; so I made a good job of it, as far as shaping and fitting it went (as he himself, and the Swedes too, said it was), but it did not last long. We reached Yanget Pool on the Gascoyne River at noon on Sunday and, as it was usual to devote the whole day to the crossing of the River which was usually a strong job, we camped there, and in the afternoon were entertained by watching a gorgeous fight amongst about a hundred natives near us. In those times it was a regular thing for aU the natives employed in and around the Port to have a real good fight - on some pretext - every Sunday afternoon. Time after time the police raided them and broke up and destroyed all their spears and weapons, but without avail, as they soon made a fresh

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supply; but in later years there were not enough natives left to get up a good fight. The natives - almost naked, and painted and decorated in most elaborate style- were just lining up, about fifty on each side, preparatory to commencing the fight, when our hobbled horses began to shuffle down to the pool for a drink between the hostile armies. Turner and I ran down to drive them out of the way, in case some got speared or injured, asking the natives not to start their combat until the horses were out of the way; this they readily agreed to, several of them giving us a hand to drive the horses. Then, after much haranguing (mostly by a very big, busy native painted almost all red) they set to in earnest, and several of them were severely wounded before they ceased operations. Turner and myself, perched on the top of the wagon-load of wool, had a clear view of it all, without any risk of being hit by a stray boomerang or spear. Next day we got into Port without as much trouble as we expected in crossing the River. We discharged our wool and got loaded with stores etc. ready for our return, but when I wanted to deliver the horses to Cleveland, Lukis- who was in charge of his store- refused to take delivery of them, saying Cleveland required them delivered at his station Coonalya, which was about twenty-five miles out from Port. As I certainly did not want to take them back to Wandagee, the only thing I could do was to take one of my horses off my team and send the native Banjo across with the horses to Cleveland's Station, whence he was to ride across country and meet me at Cardabia. Turner had started away ahead of me while I was arranging this, and I got a late start out from Port, but I wanted to cross the River that night, as word had come in from Brick House Station that it was running very strongly there, only twelve miles away. A New Chum fresh out from Scotland, Georgie Robertson, a nephew of J. Grierson, had asked leave to accompany me to Minilya, and Dick Gale (whom I had met at Fairlawn), was to go with me to Wandagee and thence go on to Williambury; this was lucky, as my team -being one horse short- jibbed in crossing the River in the main channel where water backed up from the sea, and the wagon wheels sank deep down. With the help of the two young men, we got a good part of the load (which consisted largely of big packing cases of goods) carried from the wagon, clear of the water, and deposited on the dry sand further across. While we were so engaged Bob MacNeil, who afterwards worked for me at Point Cloates, rode up and said, 'You had better get out of that as quickly as possible, as the River is coming down fast', it being then quite dark and late at night. I replied, 'Why don't you give us a hand then, instead of talking - we are doing all we can', but he rode away. On trying the horses again they pulled the wagon out onto the firm ground, much to my relief, and we reloaded the cases, and going over the second River channel we got clear of it, and camped. We got to Cardabia the next night where we overtook Turner and his dray, and Banjo turned up, having delivered the horses to Cleveland. The same horses were all back at Wandagee a few days afterwards, as Cleveland had fences made only of brushwood, and the horses went through them and straight home, where he had to come and get them himself.

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We got back to Wandagee without incident, except that one day a strong foal, whose mother was in my team, lay down in the middle of the road to have a roll, a little ahead of the approaching team. Georgie Robertson ran up and kicked it to make it rise- which it did very promptly, kicking him in return with both its heels catching him in the middle of the back and sending him yards. I called out, 'There is some colonial experience for you George!'. He was certainly bruised considerably, but not really much hurt. One of those ne'er-do-well characters who are to be found so much in Australia, now turned up at Wandagee. He professed to be really a marine engineer, but when I spoke to him of the triple expansion engines of the Australind, he said he had never heard of such things. Gooch put him on, at a large wage, to overhaul and post up the station books; when I told Gooch I would willingly have done it myself (working with my head for a change, at my usual pay), he felt rather disgusted- especially as Hopwood fixed up the books so that Gooch could not understand them at all. He was constantly feeling ill and on this pretence asked for a nip of grog; he had the best nose for scenting out liquor I ever knew. Neddy Brockman brought Gooch's buggy back from the Minilya, and had half a bottle of whisky or so. He had heard Hopwood's reputation, and that night, came quietly to my room where Ned Comelly also was, asking us to join him in a nip. We were just having it when in walked Hopwood, so Neddy had to ask him to join us, which he cheerfully did. Then Neddy very pointedly held the bottle up to the light, and said, 'There are just about two nips left for me to have on the road riding back to Minilya tomorrow'. Next morning, Neddy put the bottle with remnants of the whisky inside his blanket, which he rolled and strapped up ready to put on his saddle and left outside my room. Then he went to the stockyard about one hundred yards away, to saddle and bring his horse, and to put the roll of blanket (which was, as he thought, just as he had left it) on his saddle; but he told me, the next time I saw him, that when he opened his swag on the road to have his dinner, the bottle was empty! About this time ( 1889) some of the Wandagee natives said that the natives on the coast had signalled across to them - presumably by means of smoke - that 'a flock of white men were walking about the beach at Point Cloates', which would be about 120 miles distant in a straight line. We all took little heed of what they said, considering it to be only a nigger's yam, but some days later word came from Julius Brockman that the barque Benan, bound from Cardiff to Hong Kong with a load of coals, was wrecked on Point Cloates reef, and the crew of twenty-nine had landed there. They had then walked, and sailed in the ship's boat, to Yalobia, forty-five miles South, where they were camped with a man in his employ, attending to some sheep there, and eating the sheep wholesale. Gooch's natives had a big series of fights about this time, and night after night we were aroused by the noise of the combatants and screams of women, and had to run down to the river bed- where the fights were usually held - to stop them before some of the natives were badly hurt, or killed outright. It was exciting as one neared the fray, where spears and kylies were flying about, as one might be struck at any moment. The usual procedure was for us to rush in and, singling out the most noisy

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and prominent fighters, seize and disarm them; but they often resisted, being mad with rage, and gave us a good rough-and-tumble struggle before they quietened down. If possible, all the weapons of the fighters were taken and smashed up there and then, which was a great pity as some of the spears were beautifully made, having from 100 to 150 barbs on them; some were triangular-headed and some square-headed, with a row of barbs along each angle. If the spears were confiscated and taken away up to the house, their owners would sulk for a long time after, as they thought we had come down as an excuse to get their spears as curios, and not really to stop the fights. A travelling jeweller once called and stayed the night, selling a good many trinkets to various members of the household. Cornelly bought a lot- mostly to give away- and gave Mena a good silver matchbox. Next day the jeweller saw her with it and said, 'That is no use to you - come with me and get something in exchange out of my box more suitable for you'. She was only about thirteen years old so she went, and he gave her a trumpery gilded chain worth 6d. in exchange for the matchbox that he had sold at 25/- the previous night. Then he went away, before the rest of us had discovered the dirty trick. Cornelly was the most inveterate story-teller, and would keep us amused at meal times when he was there. One night we had a tin of pineapples opened, and Cornelly began to hold forth as to how - when he was in Singapore - he used to go out with a black boy whom he sent to climb up the big trees and throw him down the pineapples to eat, until he could eat no more. He forgot I had been in Singapore, and I knew he had never been there. So I said, 'How did those pineapples grow Ned?', and he said, 'High up in the big trees, of course'. So I said, 'Well, I never saw any growing that way myself, and I saw a good many'. So he said, 'How do they grow then?' and I said, 'Like cabbages, and if you look at the label on the tin before you, you will see that they do'. Owing to the quantity of green grass- and consequently the myriad swarms of flies - most of us were ill with grass sickness, which only occurs at that time. One has great nausea and often cannot look at food, or one may eat part of a meal - or perhaps a whole meal - when, at a moment's notice, one vomits it up again. As this often continues for some time, one gets very weak. I had it severely and then on top of it a bad bout of dysentery. At this time Cornelly asked me, as a favour, to take the wagon down to the coast at Cape Farquhar, and to take twelve bales of wool, that had been carted there nearly a year previously and were still laid there as no one had called (from there to Port). I really did not want to take the trip, but as Gooch was away and Cornelly said that he had left orders for me to go for the wool (which would be rotting after all the rain), I agreed to go, but on condition that I was to get teamster's wages as there was no one else. Among the eight horses that made up the team were four mares, each accompanied by a foal large enough to wean. Two of the wagon wheel boxes were broken, making it much heavier to pull, and Cornelly gave me only a week's shepherd's rations, viz. ten pounds of meat, ten pounds of flour, one pound of sugar and a quarter of a pound of tea. As it would probably be a nasty, tedious trip and the wool might need reba ling on the beach, and I could

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not get any rations after I had left Minilya until, say, my return there, this quantity was out of all reason, but I told Cornelly I should procure any rations I thought I might need at the Minilya, to be charged to Gooch. As we had no load on the wagon we soon reached the Minilya, where Brockman assured me that I might as well turn back as I could not possibly get a load of wool over the Lyndon River- his empty bullock cart had just got bogged there on its way down to the coast to bring back some wreckage off the Benan; but I said I had my orders and would attempt it, and procured another week's rations from him. Brockman said he had had some trouble with natives from the Port coming up to fight the Station natives, one of whom had lost an eye from a spear wound. That evening a row started at the natives' camp again, so Brockman, Grierson and myself ran down to try and secure, or at least frighten off, the Port visitors. Grierson carried a rifle for that purpose and, as I came up to the scene of the fight, Brockman shouted out, 'There he is - that's the fellow that blinds my niggers - shoot him Grierson'. So Grierson banged off a couple of shots over the natives' heads, one of whom started to run away down a sandhill (where the camp was} and onto a hard, clay flat below; I started after him, Brockman shouting to Grierson, 'Shoot all the Gascoyne niggers', and Grierson was firing away over our heads as we ran. I was weak from my illness, and was almost in reach of the native but could not quite close with him; after crossing the flat he headed for a long deep pool of water, dived into it and swam across, and I thought I had done enough on Brockman's behalf. We all went back to the house and, as I felt done in, Grierson got me a quart pannikin filled with wine from a cask that Nat Cook had sent up to Brockman, according to his promise. After drinking that I wisely went to bed, and awoke completely cured of both dysentery and grass sickness - and Brockman said the Gascoyne natives did not return. It seemed Hopwood (who left Wandagee some days before me) had 'smelt' the wine cask, for he had persuaded Brockman to let him fix up his Station books. Brockman knew he could not be trusted with liquor and, as the cask of wine was in his office and he was going out for the day, he took away everything that would hold liquor and locked it up in his room; but when he returned at night he found Hopwood speechlessly drunk on the office floor, and a washing basin Julius had overlooked, half-full of wine beside Hopwood. Brockman called some natives in who carried Hopwood outside and laid him behind the stack of hay to recover; and the next day Hopwood was- as Newman remarked - 'The first man to have the honour and glory of being started away from the Minilya with three days' rations'. Next day I started for Cape Farquhar, crossing the Minilya River near Brockman's house and going twenty-one miles North over the open, clay, flat country that extends to the Lyndon River. We met the bullock dray with some natives, returning from the coast with a load of timber etc. off the Benan. Some of the timber was long and the ends shaking and rattling, and the Wild Mare, Darling, who was one of my leaders, took fright and ran away, my team galloping about a mile - but in the right direction and no harm was done. We crossed the Lyndon River towards sundown, just above where it empties

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into the great salt marsh. It looked only a narrow, insignificant place, about thirty yards across, but the bed was the treacherous salt mud of which I had had previous experience at Beejaling. We camped at a nice pool about a mile beyond the crossing, on a large flat with abundance of grass and feed. Next morning we turned Westwards towards the coast, and had dinner at Warroora, not far from the beach. At Warroora was a limited supply of water - a soak, in a sort of basin surrounded by rocks- and water had to be carried up to the horses in a bucket and emptied into a trough above, so watering took some time. Brockman had been shearing there one year, but loading the wool bales through the surf was so difficult that boats would not call there again. In a cave on the beach were the skeletons of some of the crew of the Australian ship Stefanie, which was wrecked at the Black Rock Channel at Point Cloates. Some of the crew wandered to Warroora, and no one ever knew if they died of starvationwhich was most unlikely as the sea swarmed with turtle and fish, and there were turtle eggs and quantities of oysters all along the beach- or if the natives had killed them. From Warroora we went on to Boolbarty, a few miles further, where a big lot of semi-civilized blacks were camped, living in a quite wild state. There was brackish water to be obtained at a native well, at about six foot deep in dry running sand, so I had to keep my horses away from the edge or they would soon have filled up the wide excavation made by the natives in the sand, at the bottom of which was the water. Fortunately, my horses did not drink much after coming so soon from Warroora. At these sorts of places the four big foals were a perfect nuisance, as they were wild but had to be watered too. The native women got water up in their large dishes of wood, yandees. The next day I got some of the native men to accompany the wagon to Cape Farquhar, a few miles away where the wool was laid, to help to load it. Some of the elderly natives there spoke of a white man, woman and little girl who had landed in a boat (dinghy) years ago, evidently having been shipwrecked, and after living quietly with the natives for a long time had started to walk South along the coast. No one ever knew who they were or how they died, and there was no water procurable between Boolbarty and Beejaling, a distance of about one hundred miles. Some of the natives at Boolbarty, especially three of the young women, were quite light-coloured, with regular features and light brown hair, and doubtless they had a strain of white blood in them derived from Europeans shipwrecked at some time. A little past Boolbarty the track led across a great ravine, with very steep banks and rocky, rugged sides like the steps of a staircase. This was a great surprise, for Cornelly had solemnly assured me that the road to Cape Farquhar was as level as a bowling green the whole way. I found out afterwards he had never been along it. As my empty wagon bumped to the bottom of the ravine, I wondered what would happen returning with the wool. After crossing the ravine the track led through some dense scrub, which had been cleared just wide enough to allow for the passage of a cart, but no room was left for the driver to walk alongside. The natives said that lots of ngows (leipoa) bred a short distance South in the thicket.

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We found the wool in a very bad state. It had been left covered with twelve sheets of corrugated iron, but this had blown off in the storms and the rain had soaked through the bales, which were rotten. But as they held together enough to be reloaded, I thought it best to open out the bales and rebale at a station where there was a press, as there was no water nearer than Boolbarty, either for ourselves or the horses; so we loaded up the wagon and secured the load by ropes. When we got to the top of the ravine I had to let the wagon simply take its chance, as it was too rough to keep alongside the horses. It bumped and crashed down to the bottom, where we had to stop and re-adjust the load which very nearly shook off altogether as the ropes became slack from the jolting. Going up the other side, the horses jibbed; I armed each native with a stout stick and, at the word of command, they started hammering every horse in the team simultaneously, which so surprised the horses that they were at the top of the gorge in no time, much to my relief. We got to Warroora that night, and the next day we reached the dreaded Lyndon crossing in the afternoon. I stopped the team and had a good look at the place, and thought if I could get the team into a trot coming down the slope it might be possible to rush it, before the wagon had time to sink in the narrow bed of the River. We got the team at a good smart trot, and the leaders were actually up the far bank and the front wheels of the wagon just climbing on to the hard ground when, with the weight of the load being thrown backwards, the hind wheels went right down, until the tail of the wagon was on the river bed and the body at an angle of about 45°. It was impossible to pull it out at that angle with my team, so I threw off two bales - and they would not move i t - then two more without avail, until I had only two bales left on the wagon; I vowed I would make the horses get them out, which they eventually did, just at sundown. Of course the bales were at least fifty per cent heavier than if the wool was dry, and the water was dripping out of them all the way along. The twelve bales, when dried and repressed, weighed over two tons, so no doubt the horses were overloaded all the way, and the two broken boxes made it heavier pulling. As they got so hot, I often had to stop on the way to let them cool. Next morning, my native Banjo and myself rolled the ten bales we had thrown off out of the bed of the river, then I leant the twelve sheets of iron against the side of the wagon rail for a skid. I tied the end of a long rope to the rail above the iron, passed the rope down the iron to the ground and round a bale of wool placed in position at the foot of the iron, and then brought the rope right back over the wagon to the other side. I fastened a horse to the end of the rope to roll or parbuckle each bale up into the wagon, and only one horse out of the eight was staunch enough to pull the bales up! We got the bottom tier of bales up fairly easily, as they dropped into the body of the wagon as soon as they were over the rail; but the top tier was worse, as sometimes the horse did not stop at the exact right moment, and sometimes, as the bale came up, it knocked to the ground one already placed on the top of the load. Eventually we got all up again except for the last bale, and this we had to unpack and pass the wool up by hand to be put in the empty bale at the end of the top tier. After relashing the load, we found it was supper time.

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Next day we got in to the Minilya. One of my fingers, the middle one on the right hand, had been exceedinglypainful for some time, and now developed into a bad whitlow, which gave me sleepless nights. I also got my eyes 'bunged' with the flies, and had to depend a great deal on my native Banjo, who was a really good lad. Brockman advised me to return to Wandagee as he said the horses were getting knocked up, which they were; for one thing, the four big foals were a severe drain on their mothers working in the team. Dan O'Hearn had once been sent out with a team with a big foal accompanying its mother, and he got so tired of it being constantly in the way that one day, when it was lying in the wheel rut on the off side, he started his team, drove over it, and killed it. After leaving the Minilya we got past Shaw's Tank without much trouble but the heavy sand there proved too much for the tired horses; so I threw off three bales, took the rest of the load into Boolathana Station where J. Brockman gave me permission to use his wool press to rebale the wool there, then returned to bring in the bales I had thrown off. I then took the empty wagon down to Carnarvon and telegraphed to Gooch (who was in Perth) for instructions as to whether I was to wait and repress the wool at Boolathana, or engage a man to do it and return with the team to Wandagee. Gooch telegraphed that I was to get new boxes put in the wagon, and repress the wool while the wagon was being repaired. As I had to wait some hours to get Gooch's reply, I had my team standing in the Port, and gave them each a feed in a nosebag. I left them for a while to go to the Post Office to see if Gooch's telegram had come, and on my return found the horses gone from the wagon. Mrs. Waldeck was in Port, so I went to find her, and met her in one of the stores. She said, 'I was quite ashamed to see your poor horses standing up, so I sent Banjo to turn them out on the commonage to get something to eat, poor things'. I replied, 'The horses have only come a short distance (this morning}, twelve miles from Coolillee with the empty wagon and have had a nosebag each. I am in charge of them, and if they are not brought back by noon I will hand you the whip and you can take charge of them'; so she sent out to have them brought back. I engaged George Cook, an old sailor, to help me with the wool, and the native and myself drove the horses back to Boolathana, Cook coming out in the springcart belonging to the Station. There happened to be a quantity of timber stacked at Boolathana and I spread it on the ground and put out the wool on it to dry and sweeten, as it smelt very bad and fusty. As soon as we had spread out the wool to dry - all the wool we could get on the boards - showery winter weather set in, and although we could do very little at the wool for some days, the rain washed and sweetened it. A travelling insurance agent called at the station, accompanied by Dr. O'Mehan, and I asked the Doctor to look at my whitlow which was very bad indeed; he said it wanted opening and so lanced it open there and then, and told me to keep on poulticing it. He would take no pay for the service. The insurance agent was going up the river to do business, and had given a lift to a New Chum, Dolan, an Irishman, whom I met afterwards. My finger soon

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improved but took some time to heal thoroughly. It was rather curious, as there seemed to be an epidemic of whitlows on the Minilya just then. Neddy Brockman had one, also Miss McCafferty, sister of Mrs. Mansfield, and several of the natives, one of whom lost a finger which mortified through neglect, and came off. Owing to the showery weather, it was about a fortnight before we got the wool dried and rebated. There were no stencil plates there to brand the wool bales and so I cut out a set from some old tin kerosene cases. We also pressed up a bale of sheepskins belonging to Julius Brockman, which he had asked me to do for him. George Cook and I slept in the shearing shed, and used some of the sheepskins under us to soften the hard boards we slept on. We pressed these skins last, and I told Cook to bring out all the skins to me at the press, and be sure he left none. After we had sewn up the bale and were getting our blankets preparatory to going in to Carnarvon, Cook discovered two more skins under his blankets; I was very cross as we had to rig up the wool press again, open out the bale of skins, put in the other two, press it over again, and sew it up. Cook thought I was very particular. He wore ear-rings and always walked barefoot, and it was his boast that when travelling from one place to another he always walked forty miles a day, carrying a swag of forty pounds - and I know he often did. When helping to press wool for Gooch at shearing, he told Gooch he ought to give him more wages because, when he trod the wool down in the bales with his bare feet, he could feel and pick out any lumps of dung, or other extraneous substances. This reminds me that when I was at Wandagee, another old sailor - Tom Wilson, who also wore ear-rings - strongly advised me to wear them, to keep the sandy blight or ophthalmia away, and to strengthen the eyesight; I got Gooch to pierce my ears, and wore ear-rings for some years after, and think they were a benefit. Well, I took the twelve bales of wool into Port on the wagon after bringing it out from the repairs. It was Sunday when I reached the River, and I intended to stop there and go in to Port next morning. But my wretched team stuck me up a short distance from the usual camping place, and when I got them going again, I decided to go on across the River while they were warm to the collar. However, directly we got into the main bed they jibbed very determinedly, and the noise made by myself and the native- for we were both using language - attracted the attention of the Bishop from Perth, who was just then inspecting the Aborigines' Mission which was on the North side of the River, close to where my wagon was stuck in the sand. So his Lordship sent Mr. Hope, storekeeper, who had driven him out to the mission, across to me to see what all the noise was on a Sunday afternoon. Hope came up, dressed in his best clothes and, after watching my horses for a while said, 'Well, they are brutes', and, taking off his coat, he cut a stick and helped us vigorously, so that we at last got across the River. I took the team right into Port, as it was after sundown and getting dark. (The Police would allow a team to enter Port on a Sunday, but would not let one leave.) We left the wagon in front of the store warehouse ready for unloading next morning. The twelve bales of wool were trucked on to the jetty by the

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storekeeper, for shipment by steamer, and got wet through there again by heavy rain. Banjo and I took the horses out about a mile on the common where there was a pool of water with a few white gums round it, and there hobbled them out. It was quite dark then, and I picked out what I thought was a quiet horse used to the saddle to ride back upon, and so that Banjo could ride it out in the morning to bring in the other horses early. The horse stood quite still while I saddled it, but directly I mounted started pig-jumping and rooting around, getting me under the limbs of the gum trees and nearly knocking me off. I sang out to Banjo, 'What horse is this?'. He came up and said, 'That not Damsel, the quiet one, but Hector. My word, look out, that fellow very nearly kill urn that Charlie Wheelock first time he too much buck'. So I promptly dismounted and chose another steed. After having my supper at one of the Hotels, I strolled up the street and met Taylor, Sergeant of Police who, noticing my wagon had evidently said, 'I wonder whose team that is come in, and it is left right on the main street'. Indeed it was, and I had not noticed it when taking out the horses. He had said he would come down the next day and summons the driver. However, I got up before him and, with the help of the warehouseman, threw off the load and got the wagon pulled off the road before breakfast. George Cook, who had walked in, had been in company the previous night with a friend who got drinking and noisy, and who was finally led off by the Police to be locked up. Cook had called out to his friend as he was being led away, 'Never mind, I will be at the Court tomorrow and say a good word for you'. So, next day when the prisoner was brought before Mr. Foss, the Police Magistrate, and charged with being drunk, old George Cook stood up in the body of the Court and said, 'Mr. Foss, Your Worship, I am defending this prisoner'. Mr. Foss looked across at him, and then, turning to the Sergeant, said, 'Lock that man up, and I will deal with him later for contempt of Court'. So Cook's pleading was cut very short, but afterwards he was dismissed with a caution. Gooch arrived by steamer from Perth, and saw my wagon loaded before I left with the team. He had come up with some rams imported from the Eastern colonies, and they were to be driven up to Wandagee by a young man named Peppin, who had come over with them. I had a pretty good load on my wagon, and considering the rough trip the horses had already done, and the fact that the roads were very soft and boggy from winter rains, it was with some difficulty I got as far as the salt marshes. Rain again set in, and the marshes were so very sticky and heavy that I decided to take the Coolan road which avoids them by keeping further inland; as I was sure the horses could never get the load to Wandagee, as Dochsy, a good mare in the shafts, had slipped her foot at Carnarvon. I threw off part of the load and took the Coolan road, which passes Yalobia where J. Musk started his station some years afterwards. This road joins the other road again near Yankee's Tank. We got along very well with the reduced load as far as Gnabbarree-yarra when it came on heavy thunder rain, with every indication of a real soaking night - and it was. I met J. Musk there, going South and, as we each wanted to cross the gully

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(Barrobiddy) before it ran, he camped on the South side and I on the North side. The rain got heavier every hour, and I lay down to sleep in the middle of the road under the wagon. Some time in the night Banjo woke me up to say the creek was running strongly, and the water was coming down the road - so it was, and I had been sleeping in two or three inches of water without knowing it. So I got up, and hunted around until I got two billets of wood which I laid a few feet apart in the road, and on them laid a few sheets of corrugated iron, sufficient to bear my weight; putting my blankets on top I lay down again, and let the water flow beneath me. Next morning there was water everywhere, and it was still raining. There was so much water for some distance on the flat beyond our camp, that no signs of the road could be seen, and I had to send Banjo ahead to keep on the road so that I could follow it, as to leave it at all with the wagon meant getting bogged instantly. At times Banjo was waist-deep in the water, but I wanted to push on to reach higher ground further ahead, which we did at last. But leaving it we started on another great, clay flat of the Barrobiddy Creek, and very soon the waggon went down to the axles in the middle of the road and, do what I could, the horses could not move it; so I turned them out. I found afterwards that nine inches of rain fell that night at Williambury, and I dare say there was as much - or more - where I was. Soon after we turned out the horses Gooch came up and, after passing a few remarks, said, 'You had better give up teaming as you are no teamster'. I replied, 'No, I am only a Carter, and that is all I intend to be. I took this trip to oblige you when I was real bad and a lovely trip it has been, what with four foals going alongside that should not have been with their mothers, broken boxes in the wagon, bad roads, overloadings, and now all this rain - I would not take such another for £50. You take the whip, and see if you can get the horses along'. But he declined, knowing well it was impossible. So I drove the horses back to Wandagee, and it was bad enough going along with them, as the road was a rushing torrent of water for miles, with water each side as far as one could see. In fact, the road was so cut out by the water, that gullies two and three feet deep were formed and, after the waters subsided, a new track had to be made across this flat for a long distance. Peppin was stopped here with the rams, and could not get to Wandagee for over a week. On my arrival at the Station I had to explain all to Cornelly, who said he thought I had done all possible under the circumstances; but Mrs. Waldeck was rather nasty, as it seemed there had been cases of draperies on the wagon. When I described how I slept under the wagon at Gnabbarreeyarra, she said, 'Yes, I suppose you slept under the cart cover (tarpaulin) and all my things got wet'. I said, 'Yes, you bet I did. I slept under the cart cover right enough because I had already put it over the wagon load. It is there now, and your things ought to be dry.' After waiting a week, Cornelly went down to the bogged wagon with fresh horses and the big dray, on which he put half the remaining load from the wagon. He then had very great difficulty getting back to Wandagee, but I was not worrying any more about it as I had given notice, and was only waiting for the return of Gooch for him to pay me my wages before leaving. I had intended to go to England, as I had partly promised my Mother to return for

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a trip in three years. Gooch did not return, so I told Cornelly, who had promised me teamster's wages (£8 a month) for taking the trip, to send me the money when he came back. I left Wandagee for Carnarvon in May 1889, riding down Garibaldi, a spirited little race horse, for Dick MacNeil. I had been working for Gooch from March 1888 until May 1889.

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Footnotes 1

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7 8 9 10 11 12

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15 16

17 18

19 20 21

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23 24 25 26

27 28

29 30 31

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PART I Little corella Blue-winged kookaburra Laughing kookaburra Aquila audax White-plumed honeyeater (Meliphaga penicillata) Crested pigeon (Ocyphaps lophotes) Budgerigar (Melopsittacus undulatus) Falco berigora Falcocenchroides Collared sparrow-hawk (Accipiter cirrocephalus) Chestnut whistling duck (Dendrocygna arcuata) Plumed whistling duck (D. eytoni) Black-faced wood-swallow White-winged triller Pomatostomus superciliosus Crested bellbird Peaceful dove PART III Brown song lark (Cincloramphus mathewsi) Rufous song lark (C. cruralis) Pyrrholaemus brunneus Petroica goodenovii P. cucullata Certhionyx variegatus M. virescens Lichmera indistincta Psophodes occidentalis Cuculus pallidus Chrysococcyx spp. Peaceful dove Grey-crowned babbler (P. temporalis) Coracina novaehollandiae Pied butcherbird (Cracticus nigrogulari) Crimson chat (Epthianura tricolor) Orange chat (E. aurifrons) Dromaius novaehollandiae Brush possum (Trichosurus vulpecula) Macro tis lagotis Threskiornis spinicollis

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Tom Carter, a young Englishman with a taste for adventure and a passion for ornithology, stepped ashore at Carnarvon, Western Australia in 1887 to begin work for property owners in this hot frontier district of a pioneering state. He was a 'new chum', one of many Englishmen who sought experience and fortune in the rough outdoor life of the jackeroo. The term 'new chum' could be either affectionate or derisory, depending on how these young men, usually of some learning and refinement, shook down among the hard-bitten men of the Australian bush. rom Carter, although he is too. 1 engrossed in his exciting narrative of his adventures to say so, must have met with great approval. He was quickly entrusted with responsible tasks and endured hardship, dangerous situations and isolation with apparent stoicism. He obviously revelled in the life and loved the country, as he later returned to take up his own station in the district before retiring to England in 1914. His story is rich with the adventures and incidents of his two years in the bush, and full of lively humour. Whether he is taking sheep south on a drive of epic length and hardship, well sinking, hunting, shearing or boundary riding his observant eye and natural story telling skill give us all the detail and excitement of the experience. The settlers and the Aborigines of the north-west are the subjects of many engaging anecdotes, contrasted with the more comfortable society he encounters on his visits to Perth and the south west. His love and knowledge of nature are ever present. His manuscript, which has languished unpublished among his papers in England, is introduced by his daughter Violet Carter, and embellished with rare photographs of the places and people of the time. It is destined to be a classic among works on early experiences in Australia.

ISBN 0-85091-296-2