by Robert Reed
They kept a great feast every year . It seemed to have some con-
nection with the Pleiades and Aldebaran, for it was always celebrated
when these stars were in conjunction with the sun . Several kindred
tribes kept it, each in his own place westward, and every three years
all the tribes who kept the feast celebrated it all together in a place
farther west still . The triennial celebration was approaching, and
Gioro intended to be there . He knew the way by which Bomero and
his people would be travelling; he would cross their course, meet
them, and go with them to the trysting-place .
Jack suggested that he and I and Gioro should all go together and
visit his tribe .
Gioro hesitated for a little while, but after some apparently care-
ful thought he said yes, he thought we could go .
After that we often talked it over with him, learning front him what
we could about the disposition of his tribesmen towards white men,
and about the distance of the triennial meeting-place of the tribes . It
was quite impossible to say how far or how near this meeting-place
might be; and on this depended in my judgment the practicability of
the scheme . But at least, I thought, if the black fellows were friendly
we might, under Gioro’s guidance and protection, see a good deal
of strange life and return home in a few days by the way we came .
As far as I could gather, Gioro was the only one of his tribe that had
ever seen a white man, although they had often heard of them, and
curiosity rather than fear seemed to have been for some time the
dominant feeling about them . But quite lately, for some reason or
other, their fear began to exceed their curiosity .
The cause of this change was evidently something that had hap-
pened in the far west; some encounter with white men as Jack and
I thought at first. But we had reason afterwards, as you will hear, to
think that we were mistaken .
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One evening I said to Gioro, “When did you see your people
last?” He looked at the stars, and I knew he was going to be exact .
Then he said, “One year .”
“Did you tell Bomero then about the white men?”
“Yes, tell Bomero . Bomero never see white man .”
“What did Bomero say?”
“Bomero say, white man all same dibble dibble .”
“But Bomero never saw dibble dibble?”
“Yes, Bomero saw dibble dibble one, two, three, two two, two
three, great many .”
“Where?”
“Far away west .”
“Where black fellows meet every three years?”
“More far .”
“Bomero saw white men, not dibble dibble .”
“No fear, Bomero saw dibble dibble and run away . Bomero run
away from no man, black man, pigtail man, white man; but Bomero
run from dibble dibble .”
“Did any black fellow but Bomero see dibble dibble?”
“Yes, two three black fellow, more, all run away .”
“And what like was dibble dibble?”
“White man all same dibble dibble .”
That was all I could ever get out of him on the subject .
I spoke to Mr . Fetherston about our purpose of going westward
with Gioro . He shook his head very gravely . “Well, Easterley,” said
he, “if you will be guided by me you will do nothing of the sort .
You see we know next to nothing of those north-west blacks, and if
you go it is even betting that you never come back . If you get, say,
a hundred miles west of here you will be entirely dependent on the
blacks . You will have to live among them, and to live as they live, if
they let you live at all .”
“But we have our compasses and the telegraph line .”
“That would be all very well if it were a country through which
you could make a ‘bee line .’ But you will want water and food, and
you cannot get either without the help of the blacks .”
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“But,” said I, “Gioro will come back with us .”
“Gioro is a very good fellow, but if I were you I would not put
myself altogether in his hands like that . He won’t understand your
anxiety to get away; he will think you are very well as you are . His
interest in his own people will make him careless about you .”
“But I know Gioro well, and I should trust him anywhere .” So
said I, and Jack eagerly agreed with me .
“But,” said Mr . Fetherston, “Gioro may die or may be killed; they
fight a great deal, and those who have been among white men are
often subject to special enmity .”
“I expect we shall have to chance that,” said Jack . “Any of us
may die or be killed .”
“Well, gentlemen, wilful men you know—— I don’t pretend to
any right to constrain you, only let it be fully understood that if you
go, you go against my wish and in defiance of my advice.”
We agreed that everyone should know that, and so the matter
dropped .
The road was now growing very difficult, the water scarcer, and
the timber very much denser . But we pushed on little by little from
day to day . We were ascending slowly the watershed between the
north and south, and we had left behind us the last point to which the
wire had yet been carried, when one morning Mr . Fetherston, after a
specially careful observation, announced that within three days we
might expect to meet the superintendent’s party from the north, if all
had gone well with them . The same afternoon Gioro took me aside,
and told me that he meant to start the day after the next in search of
Bomero and his people . We had come, he said, to certain landmarks
that he recognised . The tribe would be already on the march, and
he was confident that he could pick them up by following the water
until it crossed their track . Next day was not Sunday, but we made a
Sunday of it . We camped early, the Union Jack was hoisted, and Mr .
Fetherston, the officers and volunteers, with one guest selected from
the men in charge of the teams, sat down to dinner together . The
man selected was a bushman of great and well-known experience,
and, like Mr . Fetherston, he had been with Stuart on one or more
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 451
of his exploring expeditions . I guessed from his presence that Mr .
Fetherston intended that I should before the evening was over state
my intention of going westward . Accordingly, when dinner was
over and as we were about to light our pipes, I said before them all,
“Well, Mr . Fetherston, my friend Wilbraham and I are going to
leave you for a few days at least . We propose to go westward with
Sir Gioro, in order to see something of the aborigines . We may be
back within a week, but we may push on with the blacks into the in-
terior, and perhaps we may make for the north-west or west coast .”
Mr . Fetherston turned to the man of whom I spoke just now and
said:
“Well, Tim, what do you say to that?”
The man turned to me and said: “I didn’t quite catch all you said,<
br />
governor . Would you mind saying it again?”
I repeated what I had said . “Well,” he replied, “it has been a main
wet season out north, that I can see, and if you don’t go more than
forty or fifty miles from the track you may get back within a week
safe enough .” He paused for a moment, and looked me steadily in
the face, and went on—
“But, governor, if you go for the second part of the programme
you’ll never see a white man again .”
“Why so?” said I .
“Well,” said he, “you are depending on Gioro . Now Gioro is a
good fellow, far the best black fellow I ever knew by a very long
way . And my best hope for you is that Gioro will take you back
once he has had a look at his people . He will, if he knows what will
happen as well as I know it .”
“And what will happen?” said I .
“Well, they’ll kill Gioro before he has been very long among
them . Sooner or later they always kill the blacks that have been
among white men .”
“And then,” struck in Jack, “I suppose they will kill us .”
“They may and they may not . You have ten times a better chance
that Gioro . But if they don’t you will be as good as their slaves for
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life . You won’t be able to get back unless they take you back, and
they will never take you back .”
“Suppose we start to return on our own account?”
“Well,” said the man, “if you are not more than forty or fifty miles
to the west of the wire when you make the start eastward, and if you
are able to make straight for the wire you may get back . But if you
are much further away, or if you have to go a long way round you’ll
die of thirst or hunger in the bush.” I noticed that he put thirst first.
“And, mind,” he went on, “the chances are that you will be three
times fifty miles to the west before you think of turning back.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s easy enough to travel with the blacks, easy enough
for men of your sort, men that are hardy and are up to larks . The
blacks know how to get food and water and fire, and you can live
while in their company . It’s only when you leave them that you will
be done for .”
Here Jack chimed in again . “Never mind,” said he, “Mr . Easterly
and I are going to try it, win or lose . Besides, after what you have
told us, I wouldn’t let poor ‘Jo’ go alone . We’ll save him and he’ll
help us .”
The answer came slowly . “Jo is your trump card, certainly…and
your only one .”
Then Fetherston spoke . “Gentlemen, if I were your master I
should absolutely forbid you to go, but I have not the right to inter-
fere with your liberty. But I am glad that you have had the benefit of
Mr . Blundell’s experience .” (Mr . Blundell was Tim .) “His opinion
and mine coincide exactly .”
“Well,” said I, “Mr . Fetherston, we will be careful and we will
bear in mind your advice, and I think it is on the whole most prob-
able that you will see us back within the week .”
“Possible,” said Jack .
They all looked very sober then, and nothing more was said on
the subject, and indeed little on any subject until the company broke
up .
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CHAPTER V
AMONG THE BLACKS
Our preparation for this madcap expedition was very soon made .
We took our horses, for on foot we could not keep up with Gioro,
and it was better to have the full benefit of his fleetness. We strapped
our blankets to the pommels of our saddles . Jack carried a small
fowling-piece, and I carried a pistol . We both had serviceable knives .
A few small packages of tea and tobacco and what we thought a fair
supply of ammunition completed impedimenta .
We left our spare horse in charge of our man, and entrusted Mr .
Fetherston with a cheque sufficient to pay the man’s wages and to
give him a small gratuity on his return to Adelaide . Meantime he was
to be in Mr . Fetherston’s service until we should rejoin the expedi-
tion, and if we did not rejoin it before its return to Adelaide then Tim
Blundell was to have the horse . Early in the forenoon Gioro showed
me a hill which seemed to be about ten miles away (it proved to be
much further). He told us that at the foot of that hill we should find
a creek which we had crossed at an earlier part of its course the af-
ternoon before, and that creek we must follow down . Mr . Fetherston
had the same hill marked on his chart, and his instructions were that
when he was abreast of it he was to turn to the right nearly at right
angles . So that when he should make this turn that must be our sig-
nal for parting with him . As we did not get abreast of the hill until it
was rather late in the afternoon, we camped a little earlier than usual,
and Gioro, Jack, and I deferred our departure until the next day .
Shortly after sunrise we bade adieu to our friends with those noisy
demonstrations on both sides which often serve the Englishman
as a decent veil for those deeper feelings which he nearly always
hesitates to show . The landscape here consisted of grassy slopes and
plains, alternating with belts of well-forested country . We were in
the middle of a plain when we parted from our fellow-travellers, and
our courses were not in quite opposite directions; ours was about
north-west, and theirs east-north-east . So while we remained in the
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 454
plain we could see our fellow-travellers by simply looking to the
right, and they us by looking to the left . So for a while there was
much waving of hats on both sides. But the first belt of timber that
we entered hid them from our sight. And then I think for the first
time I became fully aware of the meaning of what we were doing .
“Jack, my boy!” said I, giving my horse a slight cut, so that he
bounded forward, “we’re in for it now .”
“You don’t seem sorry for if, Bob,” said he, urging his horse to
join me .
Truly neither of us was sorry for it . A new spirit of independence
and love of adventure sprang up within us . We were young and well
and strong . The morning air was fresh; the unaccustomed aspect of
the forest, the screams of a flock of savage birds of the cockatoo sort
that seemed as if they were making for the same hill as ourselves,
the aspect of our native guide, who trotted on with his body slightly
bent forward, and with the confident air of one who had “been there
before,” all stirred us to a sense of strangeness and expectance
which was quite a joy . Even the warnings of Mr . Fetherston and Tim
Blundell seemed only to intensify the joy .
“For if a path be dangerous known,
The danger’s self is lure alone.”
All the way from Port Augusta, Gioro had been dressed like the
rest of us; he had worn a pair of moleskin trousers, a flannel shirt,
and a cabbage-tree hat . But now he
had discarded all these, and he
wore nothing but a kilt of matting and a head-dress which consisted
of a string bound round his brows adorned with the tails of the small
wild animals of the bush and one large opossum tail hanging down
behind . He ran on steadily towards the hill, which we reached in
three or four hours from the start . It was rather a remarkable hill,
as we saw when we reached it . Sloping gradually from the side on
which we approached, it was on the opposite side steep and even
precipitous . The creek ran on the far side, and the shadow of the hill
lay still across it . It was about half-past ten when we reached it, and
THE GERM GROWERS, by Robert Potter | 455
we rested until about an hour after noon . We made a can of tea and
drank it . We had neither milk nor sugar, but we had a few biscuits
and some slices of meat . Jack and I wondered where our next meal
was to come from, but Gioro did not seem at all anxious . We could
not, however, get a word out of him about the matter except “plenty
duck .”
We made a start in the direction of west by north, or thereabouts,
Gioro leading the way and we following blindly . He ran more care-
fully and rather more slowly, but there was still the same air of confi-
dence about him . It was now very hot, but as we were well within the
tropics, and the sun at noon was now as nearly as we could reckon
vertical, the only wonder was that it was not much hotter . We must
have been still high up on the watershed, although descending it
on the northern slope . There was plenty of grass everywhere, and
a good deal of timber, not so much, however, as to obstruct our
passage or impede our view . The country was undulating, but there
were no steep hills to be traversed . We passed a considerable herd
of kangaroo and two or three dingoes, and there were many birds,
chiefly crows, parrots, and cockatoos.
It was getting near sundown when we reached the summit of one
of those low hills, and Gioro clapped his hands and shouted . We saw
nothing but another hill, but R was clear that he recognised it, for
he clapped his hands again and again, pointed towards it and said,
“Plenty duck .” He did not shape his course so as to cross the hill,
but made for the point where it merged into the plain . And when
we reached that point a sudden turn revealed a beautiful sheet of
water, not very wide, but several hundred yards long, and consisting