by Robert Reed
had been with Stuart on his third and successful expedition n search
of a practicable route from Adelaide to the Indian Ocean, and all the
time since, except about a year and a half in England and on the way
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 441
there and back, he had spent in pioneering work in Queensland and
the north .
The undertaking in which he was now engaged was in rather a
critical condition . The entire length of the route, from Adelaide to
Port Darwin, would be about two thousand miles, and over the cen-
tral section of eight hundred miles, passing through, as some would
have thought, the most difficult part of the line, the wire had been al-
ready carried . And after some further delay this had been connected
with Adelaide . But about six hundred miles at the northern extrem-
ity still remained unfinished. The first expedition for the purpose
had absolutely failed, and one or two attempts made since had not
been any more successful . The chief superintendent of the work was
either about to start for Port Darwin by sea, or was already on his
way . And Mr . Fetherston’s expedition was to meet him in the north .
They expected to hear of one another somewhere about the Daly
Waters . So there would be no work but simply travelling until that
point was reached; none, at least, for Mr . Fetherston’s party .
Mr . Fetherston introduced us to his chief assistant, Mr . Berry,
telling us that we could do no better than take his advice about our
preparation for the journey . Mr . Berry was also a veteran bushman
and an experienced surveyor . He had been to Cooper’s Creek twice,
and he knew the Darling from Bourke to Wentworth as well as King
William Street and the North Terrace . So Jack and I put ourselves
into his hands . We purchased two strong saddle horses, each with
colonial saddles of the sort used by stockmen, and everything to
match . We hired a man, specially recommended as a good bushman
by Mr . Berry . This man was to ride one horse and to lead another, so
that we should have one spare horse in case of accident . Mr . Fether-
ston introduced us also to the department which had oversight of the
work . And they allowed us to pay a bulk sum to cover our expenses
on the journey . The sum seemed to me very moderate, but, as Berry
explained, “it was only to cover tucker and tents;” and the former
was to be of a very simple and primitive sort, consisting simply
of tea and sugar, sale meat and flour, and lime-juice, and we were
to manage our cooking the best way we could . The store wagons
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 442
would carry tobacco and soap; but these were to be sold, and Mr .
Berry advised us to take a private supply of the former . We also
procured a revolver each, and as many cartridges as we could con-
veniently carry . We each provided ourselves with a pair of blankets,
an opossum rug, a couple of changes of coarse outside clothing,
and half-a-dozen flannel shirts. Our dressing gear was limited to a
comb and a tooth-brush each, with a few coarse towels . The towels
and shirts we hoped to be able to wash from time to time on the
way, and Mr . Berry told us that at depôts along the line there would
sometimes be a supply of flannel shirts, and moleskin trousers, and
cabbage-tree hats . The cabbage-tree hat was the head gear that we
adopted by his advice .
Before leaving Adelaide we put our money in the bank, arranging
that it should bear interest at some low rate for six months, and then
we made our wills, which we left in the safe belonging to the bank .
By Mr . Fetherston’s advice we took very little money with us . A few
sovereigns and some silver, he said, would be more than enough .
Whatever we might buy at the Government depôts would be paid for
by cheque, and if we should have occasion and opportunity to pur-
chase fresh horses our cheques, endorsed by Mr . Fetherston, would
be readily accepted .
Mr . Berry, with the horses and wagons, left Adelaide within a
week of our arrival here . Mr . Fetherston, Jack, and I, remained a
week or ten days longer . It was arranged that we should join them
at Port Augusta, whence the real start would be made . Most of the
time thus gained Jack and I spent in trying to make ourselves as well
acquainted as possible with the route we were to travel by, and its
position with reference to the other parts of Australia . In the Gov-
ernment office there were several charts and plans which we were
permitted to study and to copy . The route was in the main identical
with Stuart’s track, but of much of the northern extremity it seemed
to us doubtful if it had ever been surveyed at all . Of the other parts,
however, a good deal was known, and the creeks and ranges were
laid down with much apparent precision . Parts of the route might
prove to be almost impracticable after a dry season, but as far as our
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 443
information went, the worst country would be met with, not in the
far interior but somewhere between Port Augusta and a point a little
north of Lake Eyre .
Mr . Fetherston, Jack, and I, left Port Adelaide for Port Augusta
he first week in November in a slow little steamer that took near
a week on the passage; and we had to stay nearly another week at
Port August before the overland party arrived . I remember nothing
of Port Augusta except a very miserable public-house, at which we
lodged, and the sand hills, long, low, and white .
On the 20th of November we were well on he road, and we hoped
to reach Daly Waters in about three months, and Mr . Fetherston ex-
pected that the line would be open to Port Darwin in about three
months more . I may as well say here that it was in fact opened in the
month of August, just nine months after we left Port Augusta .
We travelled over a very miserable country for some weeks . Not
a really green thing was to be seen, and water was very scarce and
bad . And the heat was excessive, far worse than we found it on any
other part of the route; far worse, indeed, than any heat that I have
ever endured either in Australia or elsewhere .
But after we had passed Lake Eyre a little way the country and the
climate began to improve . And we had pleasant enough travelling
until we got far beyond Alice’s Springs . We had reached or passed
the seventeenth degree of latitude before the water began to get very
scarce or the ground very difficult again. There was not much vari-
ety in the scenery . We passed through long tracts of wooded country,
and again over nearly treeless plains, and again over a succession
of low hills, some bald and some covered with forest . Though none
of them attained any considerable height, they sometimes assumed
very remarkable forms . We met several creeks whose course was
in the main dry, with here and there, however, ponds or water holes
from ten or twenty to several hundred feet long . At the larger ponds
we often got a variety of water fowl, but in gene
ral along the route
there was a great scarcity of game .
Mr . Berry had in his own special service a certain Australian
black with whom Jack and I formed an intimate acquaintance—of
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 444
which and of whom I must tell you something; for if it had not been
for him Jack and I would never have left the beaten track, and so this
book would never have been written .
His name was Gioro; that was the way we came to spell it,
although J o r o would perhaps have been the better and simpler
spelling, He was the most remarkable Australian black that I have
ever me, and I have met a great many under a great variety of condi-
tions and circumstances, and I find myself unable to differ seriously
from the common estimate which places them near the very end of
the scale . As a general rule (and I have only known the one excep-
tion), they have no really great qualities, none of those which are
sometimes attributed to other barbarous races, as, for instance, to the
American red man and even to the negro . But Gioro had qualities
that would have done honour to the highest race on earth . He always
spoke the truth, and he seemed to take it for granted that those to
whom he spoke would also speak the truth . He had lived with white
men in the North, and they must have been fine fellows, for he spoke
of them always with respect, whereas he spoke with disgust and
contempt of certain mean whites of Adelaide who had attempted to
cheat him in some way . He never put himself forward, but if he were
put forward by others who were in power he accepted the position
as his right quite simply . He was as honest as the sun, and he was
loyal through and through . He had even the manner of a gentleman .
Mr . Fetherston’s tent was notably the largest in our camp, and the
union jack floated over it on Sundays. And every Sunday all the
officers and volunteers, that is to say, Mr. Fetherston, Mr. Berry and
his assistant, Jack and myself, dined there in a sort of state; and it
was Mr . Fetherston’s wont to have in one of the men to make the
number even . And Gioro took his turn with us two or three times and
was far the best conducted of those who were so invited . His ease
of manner was perfect: he was as gentle and suave as an English
nobleman; there was not a spark of self-assertion about him, and yet
there was, or there seemed to be, a quiet consciousness of equality
with his entertainers . He was also very courteous without being in
the least bit cringing . He was glad always to teach us anything that
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 445
we didn’t know and that he knew, and he was grateful for being
taught something in turn . Jack, for instance, took a great interest in
the boomerang, and Gioro took much pains to teach him how to use
it and how to make it . Jack had been distinguished at Oxford for his
athletics . And these were a great bond between him and Gioro . He
taught him several athletic feats, and Gioro’s great suppleness of
body enabled him to acquire them readily .
It was curious to notice the impression which his character made
upon the men . His name suggested a very ready abbreviation, and
indeed, he was often known in the camp as “Jo .” But I never heard
any one but Jack address him so . And Jack, as I have said, was more
intimate with him than any of us . One day, quite near the beginning
of the expedition, Fetherston called him “Sir Gioro .” I don’t quite
know what he meant, probably nothing more than a humourous rec-
ognition of the black man’s unassuming dignity . Anyhow, the title
stuck, and one heard his name afterwards, quite as often with the
addition as without it .
He had not been at all corrupted by his intercourse with white
men . That intercourse had indeed been very limited . He had spent
the greater part of two years with some settlers near the Gulf, and
he learned there a sort of pigeon English which enabled him to con-
verse with us . He had come to Adelaide with some of the party who
had been engaged in one of the unsuccessful attempts to complete
the northern extremity of the overland wire . His engagement with
Mr . Berry was terminable at pleasure on either side . From the ac-
count which he gave of himself I should think that he was about
twenty-five years old: he had visited his own people since the com-
mencement of his sojourn with white men, and he intended to visit
them again . I had learned all this from him before we were halfway
to the Duly Waters .
One evening, after we had passed the tropic, we camped earlier
than usual because we had come upon a creek where there were
tracks of wallaby and other game, and Gioro was very busy setting
snares for them and showing us how to make and set such snares .
The occupation seemed to remind him of his sojourn with the white
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 446
men near the Gulf . So when we sat down to smoke, Gioro, Jack and
I, Goro said, “Way there,” pointing to the north-east after looking
at the stars, “two three white men, sheep, two three, two three, two
three, great many; one man not white man, not black man, pigtail
man, and Gioro .” “And what,” said Jack, were they doing there, and
what were you doing there?” “Pigtailman cook, wash clothes, white
man ride after sheep, dogs too, Gioro ride, speak English, snare wal-
laby .”
“How long did he stay there?” One year six months .
“How long snce he left?” One year .
I will not give you much of Gioro’s dialect; it was many days
before I could readily understand him, and it was not a sort of dialect
which is worth studying for its own sake . I learned from him that
he belonged to a strong and populous tribe which occupied part of
the country to the west of the Daly Waters . They had a king or chief
whom Gioro held in the highest regard . His name was Bomero: the
accent on the first syllable and the final “o” short like the “o” in
rock . This Bomero was a great warrior and a mighty strong man,
and possessed of great personal influence. It was my fate, as you
shall hear, to make his acquaintance, and I found him by no means
the equal of Gioro in any of the greatest qualities of the man or the
gentleman . Like some public leaders among more civilised people
he owed his position partly to his fluent persuasiveness, partly to
his violent self-assertiveness, and more than all to what I must call
his roguery . Black men and white men are wonderfully like in some
things .
Bomero seemed to have attained his power on the strength of
these endowments alone . At least I could not learn anything decisive
about his ancestry . Indeed, I could not gather that his people had any
but the most elementary sense of the family relation, although tribal
feeling, as distinct from family feeling, was very strong among them .
Gioro had some recollection of “Old man Bomero,” and his recol-
lections would sometimes appear t
o indicate that Old man Bomero
was a remarkable black fellow, but I could not discover that he ever
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 447
attained to any position of special eminence among them . He cer-
tainly had not been their king as Bomero was .
I was at this time beginning to have some thought of a couple
of days’ expedition into the unexplored country to the west of the
Daly Waters, and I had hinted as much to Jack . And I thought that
the present was a good opportunity to find how far Gioro might be
depended on as a guide. So I filled his pipe with my own tobacco (he
was quite able to distinguish and prefer the flavour), and then I gave
Jack a look to bespeak his attention, and began to put my questions .
“When would Sir Gioro see his own people again?”
Several slow puffs, a keen, eager, honest look, yet, withal, a cau-
tious look, and then,
“May he one two months .”
Then I said, “No water out west—die of thirst?”
“Now,” said Gioro, nodding his head affirmatively, “but in one
two months, no, no .”
I saw that he meant either that after three months there would be
wet weather, or that within three months we should have a better-
watered country westward . So I said, pointing west, “What’s out
there?”
“No water, no grass, no duck, no black fellow .”
“But,” said I, looking northward, “we go on one two months, and
then?” making a half-turn to face the west .
“Then,” said he, “plenty grass, plenty fish, plenty duck, plenty
black fellow .”
“Everywhere?” said I, sweeping my arm all round the horizon .
“No, no, here, there, there . Gioro know the way, Bomero know
the way, find Bomero, find water.”
“What,” said I, not understanding him, “Bomero make rain?”
But he replied with great contempt, “Bomero make rain! No, no .
Bomero not witchfellow . No fear . Bomero make witchfellow make
rain .”
I think it was on this occasion that we ascertained that Gioro
fully intended to go away westward in search of his tribe, who, as
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 448
he expected, would be found in about three months at a point with
which he was familiar at some uncertain distance from the Daly
Waters .