The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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

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  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 .