The Profilist

by Adrian Mitchell

  He accomplished those two measures admirably. We stalked an emu, I shot it, and that was our dinner for the day. We ascended some steep gullies, from where I sketched views of the plains we had crossed, and the tumble of rocks, dark when the clouds were massed but turning a bold brick colour in the full sunlight; and the vast sky, faded blue like a seaman’s shirt, and huge brown eagles soaring and circling high above. It is magnificent scenery, but with little vegetation and of no practical use for flocks and herds. And then Jacky brought me safely back to camp again.

  Mr H. returned tired and hungry but pleased with the possibility of a course through the range, and even more immediately pleased with the promise of a good dinner, if late. His route proved more difficult than expected, when we came to it. We had to remove almost all the load from the dray to make the crossing, and even then the horses stumbled and slipped and slithered on the stones, and had as hard a day of it as Goliath. I would have preferred to stay a little longer at the head of the pass, to take in the view of the country opening before us, and along the length of the ancient hills as they stretched away into the distance. You felt that this was quite another country, vast and absolutely silent, almost another world, beyond anything we had experienced, somehow lying in wait and such as makes no concessions to human endeavour. Not hostile, exactly, but certainly not welcoming. Your spirit did not soar before this prospect; rather, you felt apprehensive. We would have to force our way into this wilderness, and quite possibly fight to extract ourselves from it again.

  Here Goliath came into his own. Once into the pass proper, it took him three trips up and over the range and back again, but he carried most of our stores and luggage himself, and one might say with disdain. Though his irritation showed when he twisted about to bite at the sacks of flour and other provisions. When we were once down on the plains at the far side of the range, he stalked through the scrub with his nose held high, not deigning to look at any of us; giving himself Eyres as I supposed.

  The country to the west of the range is much drier, covered by a scurf of dry spiky grasses and brittle dying bushes, and here and there strands of thin low trees; mulga trees they are called. The saltbush that occurs everywhere looks, at a middling distance, like rows and rows of cabbages. This region is not really a plain but rather a series of rolling dunes, up which we had to plod and then scuffle down the other side. Which soon enough became more than a little tiresome. I thought it was not unlike the endless track of the oceans, really. Here dirt gradually turns into sand, and on the soft rippled surface all sorts of tracks, of emu and kangaroo, and snakes and lizards, and miniature craters, which are the entrances to ant nests, and dainty little footprints, which if I understand Jacky aright are made by a kind of hopping mouse. You would not think there was so much life about you. Except for the pestiferous flies.

  We had made the decision not to take our horses any further than Eyre’s Depot Creek—we found his track easily enough, and established our own base camp there, knowing from his record that he had found reliable water nearby. Mr H. proposed that a smaller group of us would press forward on foot, given that we could not be sure of ready water out in the unknown. Goliath would carry everything we needed. I was pleased not to labour my pony any further, for I could not easily replace him if anything untoward were to happen, and we did not really know what lay in wait for us; but that meant I was now committed to tramping, an exercise I was not much used to. Mr H., whose legs were almost as stilt-like as Mr Eyre’s, strode across the landscape in great style, if leather leggings count as style. Telescope ever at the ready, he was intent on making a discovery. The pity of it was that, for all his enthusiasm, there was just nothing to look at. He and Mr Eyre, both coming from good families, both intent on making their fortune but also on being pioneers in this new province, both with lofty ideals, and both concealing deep reservations about their fellow citizens if the truth be known, would so to speak see eye to eye on most things. They thought of themselves as probable men of destiny.

  The rest of us had to scuttle along to keep up, with him and with Goliath. I have made a sly reference to this in one of my sketches, where we are all taking overly long strides—all, that is, except Goliath, who is shown almost mincing along in quite deceptively dainty steps, and Mr H., who does not stretch out as we do. Brisk as he was, even he had work to do in keeping up with his camel.

  Water became an increasing concern to us. We carried a supply of course, and we could hear it sloshing about in the barrel that was one side of the camel’s load. But that was all we had, and when and if Goliath got thirsty it would not go far. Or it would go with him. So we kept a good eye on him, and another good eye for any likely pools, or for native camps, reasoning that they would not be far from some kind of spring or well. Sometimes we came across footmarks of passing natives in the dry ochre sand, wandering away into the far country, and once when we found tracks that seemed fairly recent we followed them up, hoping to find the people of those parts camped at a waterhole.

  At the foot of a kind of plateau or little tableland we came up to a woman and her child, both of them much alarmed when our heads emerged over a rise. They were amazed; they simply did not know which way to run. We made the woman understand we wanted water, and although she was agitated almost to the edge of distraction she eventually led us to a muddy pool, not a spring but the remnant rainwater from whenever the last shower had passed over. While we busied ourselves scooping up as much of it as we could she ran away, calling out loudly; and in a little while after two tribesmen appeared a way off, and started shouting at us and brandishing their sticks, and one, a fierce, thickset scowling fellow, shook his spear at us. We left a gift of tobacco for them, and withdrew.

  It was almost to be expected, then, that we should encounter these two again the next day. The younger one had a red cap, something like the caps the prisoners in Portsmouth had flaunted, but much newer by the look of it. On him it did not look so much revolutionary as belligerent. More worryingly, he knew a knife by name. He was nothing like the friendlier natives with whom I had become acquainted in the Adelaide hills and on the plains. These two stood very pointedly in our way and again shook their spears and stamped their feet and shouted and hooted, making gestures that we should go back. We could not but admire these guardians against our trespass. For truly they had not invited us to come into their lands.

  Charnock, the unlikely diminutive cameleer, had heard of a recent attack by natives on a neighbouring outstation, and suspected these two might belong to the same tribe as the perpetrators, might indeed have been party to it. He showed them his gun and fired it into the air, but they paid little heed to that exhibition. They were determined to see us off. So we withdrew towards the south and then started crossing a dry red sandy country where Mr H.’s spyglass confirmed what was perfectly obvious, that there was no grass and very little probability of water.

  Yet we were wrong, for we did come to some water, in a large shallow lake which drained all the country around. When we sampled it, however, it proved very salt, at which we all pulled wry faces. For once Mr H. allowed himself an uncharacteristic joke, in recommending that the lake should be named after me. I shall have to reform my character and try for more sweetness and less light.

  We could not well tell which way to proceed at this point; but the decision was taken from us. Charnock, seeing an unusual bird out a little way on the lake, drew our attention to it. Mr H., nothing if not decisive, and often impatient to move on whenever I sat down to sketch, determined to shoot it. I would be able to make a sketch of it once he had retrieved it, indeed I could take it with me. We had some hunting dogs with us, including Gyp, but not including Darkie, who had been left behind at the homestead. We had no confidence that they would bring back the kill, as they had disgraced themselves in this way on several occasions thus far in our expedition, so I held them on a leash while Mr H. turned to charge his gun.

  And at that point everything went awry. Goliath, who had been br
ought to kneel down while our leader took his gun out of its case, began of his own stubborn cranky independent disposition to rise to his legs. Some part of the lurching load caught on Mr H.’s gun, just as he was tamping down the charge. It fired, the camel bellowed, Mr H. screamed, fell back and clutched his face, and all was at sixes and sevens. The dogs dashed off, Goliath crashed away through the undergrowth and Charnock after him, while I ran to Mr H.’s assistance. Two middle fingers of his right hand had been badly damaged, one just hanging by a flap of skin. Much worse, though, was his face, for the ramrod had pierced his jaw and shattered a row of teeth, though we did not know that at first, for all was blood and gore, and my immediate concern was to staunch the copious bleeding with my handkerchief.

  When Charnock returned with the still fidgety camel and hobbled him, we hastened to put up a tent for Mr H. to rest in, for he was completely dazed and in great pain. Besides, by this time the shadows were beginning to lengthen and the temperature was starting to drop, and the late afternoon breeze was up and about as usual. The low sunset was an insipid yellowy pink, like the last of an old bruise. We spent an anxious night sitting by the victim, taking turns to watch over him.

  By the next morning, we were better able to see the extent of Mr H.’s injuries. We removed the useless finger and kept a tight bandage on what remained of the other, once we had washed and cleaned the stump. The damage to our leader’s face was ghastly. I kept a can of water warming on our sad little fire, you may be sure. When from time to time he came to his senses, Mr H. was not able to take any sustenance other than to sip from the corner of a piece of cloth. We were all shocked by this sad accident. But dreadful as it had been, and notwithstanding our unvoiced fears, the ridiculous thought would not leave me that this must be the first time an explorer had been shot by his camel.

  And of course the bird had flown.

  There was nothing for it but for Charnock to make his way as fast as he could back to Depot Creek, about seventy miles away, and bring up some horses. Meanwhile I ministered to the patient. He dozed and slept fitfully, and when he could he took a little tea; and I was pleased when he tried to speak to me as it showed his brain had not been damaged in the accident. His mouth was so swollen though, that he could do little more than groan. Yet with each day he seemed a little more recovered. On the third day he managed to ask me to help him from his tent so that he could walk about a little. I shudder to think what lesson my father may have read into that.

  While the poor man, Mr H. I mean, poor in spite of all his wealth, was resting inside his tent, I had more than enough time to make my sketches. For the previous day or two there had been a uniform covering of thin cloud, which subdued the light in any case, but I was fascinated by how the great expanse of white salt crust ate up whatever light there was. In one direction I could see the dancing shapes of mirages, those shadows of silhouettes. After looking at them carefully I decided they were of no colour at all, and that this was another example of that strange feature out there, of light consuming itself. There was nothing in that scene to catch my eye. In the foreground, though, Goliath, with his long eyelashes lowered and oblivious to everything, was calmly cropping small silvery blue-grey saltbush, the very picture of innocent pastoral contentment, calm of mind, all passion spent. Thou shalt not bear false witness said I, but whether that was directed to myself or to Goliath I cannot at this time rightly say.

  Here the world was all before us. It was all endless horizon, fully around us in every direction. As far as I recall, you get no such horizon in England, no horizon at all. You are always enclosed by a valley, or a forest or a fold of hills or something. That makes for a limited field of vision, comfortable for us to strut our brief hour in, no doubt. Out in the Australian inland—an apt incongruity of expression—the world is a very much larger space, so big as to pay no attention to us at all, no more attention than Goliath occupying the lower right-hand corner of the view. I had a possible tragedy unfolding in front of me, yet it amounted to no more than a low tent strung between some bushes. I was not in the least tempted to make a sketch of the more distressing scene inside, where I attended the innocent victim whenever he moaned. It would have been most improper as well as unfeeling to make a public spectacle of that.

  In all this vastness, it feels as though human significance is very quickly exhausted. This corner of the country offers absolutely nothing. Arid and desolate. Just fancy being saddled with it. Who would want to inherit that? So much for the blessings of inconsequence. And contrary to my father’s constant admonition, I have to confess the exhausting display of all this salt of the earth about me was in no way uplifting, no consolation for the poor or not that I could see. But perhaps my thoughts were running this way because of my isolation and my anxiety about Mr H., in spite of his brave rallying. My vigil at the invalid’s tent was, I realised when I came to think of it, just a version of my preferred position, of watching from one side.

  When after several days more Charnock and the overseer returned with horses, Mr H.’s spirits revived—for he had been growing despondent. He could only eat a little mashed biscuit from time to time, and then with great difficulty, but he felt confident that he could stay in the saddle as we wended our way back to the base camp, and where we hoped a doctor might have arrived if one of the men there had been successful in getting back to the settled areas to recruit him. So we broke camp and wrapped up Mr H. in his coat and with a muffler about his face, and took it in turns to lead him on his horse through the scrub and up and down the dunes, pressing on as fast as we could and only halting for brief rests. When we got to Depot Creek we were dismayed that no help had arrived. Mr H. was of course fatigued, as were we all, from our anxiety, and the horses were knocked up for having had no water and almost no feed. Goliath seemed not in the least perturbed.

  The weather grew worse as we approached the rocky range we had to recross, increasing our individual sense of misery. Mr. H began to complain of the stump of his finger, and of the smashed section of the one next to it even though we had fixed a little splint. We could see his pain was beginning to wear him down. He began to half swoon, and he was developing a fever. All that jolting, all that longing to come towards some outstation. My pony had developed a bad back so that I was obliged to tramping it once more, and strained my foot. O misery me. And by the time we had started the approach to home ground, our rising hopes were checked by the deterioration of Mr H.’s condition. We began to lose hope for him, and the long-awaited arrival of the doctor did nothing to reassure us either. For when he did appear, he too despaired of his patient’s survival. There would be no point in operating now, either on his jaw or his hand, both of them inflamed.

  So it fell out, that just three weeks after the original misadventure his wounds proved fatal. Mr H. was carried to a grave in the little section of land he had recently given to the Church of England, though the church he had intended there was not yet begun. The local villagers and those who had worked for him on his property, together with those of us from the exploring party, a mourning party of about forty of us all told, gathered about what was as yet nothing like a country churchyard. It had none of the poetic associations that Mr Grey wrote about.

  The humble sympathy displayed by the common people disturbed me, not just because of their decent grieving for a good man and a gallant leader, but because it was such an undeviating imitation of the old ways of England, comforting to those here assembled because of the familiarity of the ceremony, and yet we still had the underlings, as it were, paying their respects in the customary manner as though that is ordained as the way things have to be. We have come all this way and we have not yet progressed so very far after all.

  Goliath was in his turn shot, on Mr H.’s grave. Who can say what code of conduct that represents, in this country of equal opportunity? He went down fighting, or biting. The first shot not having the desired result, he snapped at poor Jacky, who was holding him at the end of his tether. A second volley finished
the unsavoury business.

  I did not come out of this experience very well. Neither, of course, had Mr H., nor for that matter Goliath. I had a portfolio of desert sketches, a bruised foot and strained ankle, and a pony with a bad back. Like the other more famous expedition into the centre of Australia, our much more modest course to the northwest had brought nothing but bad news for all concerned; there would be no public purse of commendation. It seemed crossed by ill luck. Nobody wanted to know about it. Which did not augur well for the sale of my sketches, as it proved.

  Back in Adelaide I worked up my drawings for some three months, preparing them for an exhibition and, as I hoped, sale. The exhibition not attracting anything like the patronage I had looked for, possibly because of those well-known and unhappy associations, and just as possibly because this was in January, in competition with the racing and in conflict with the heat—for all Adelaide was a sweat bath, as hot as Hades and just as wicked as the saying is. I was at a loss about what to do. My income was dwindling away to nothing. My landlord would not abate my rent for the time I had been out in the field, even though I had not for that duration used his premises. One way and another, nothing had been achieved. It was all an expense and for no return other than of ourselves.

  My friends at the Exchange Hotel made a useful suggestion, however, which was to orchestrate a much bigger exhibition, including other artists, and at that exhibition to raffle my watercolours, some thirty or more of them. And that is what we did. I advertised that I would welcome paintings and drawings from all South Australian artists at my rooms; my friends arranged permission for the exhibition to be held in the Council Rooms, and to make the comparison absolutely clear, we charged the same admission and catalogue price as Flute had done. He of course was safely back in England, which meant the point of the exercise could be carried home without any unpleasant confrontation. I was delighted when more than twenty artists brought selections of their work, and we were able to exhibit more than fifty paintings. Unlike the self-serving Mr Flute, we used the modest profit we made towards a fund for promoting art in the colony; we all made good friends with each other; and I got to sell my paintings. That felt more like the Adelaide I knew.