by Mary Durack
Perth, set on the dreaming blue waters of the Swan River, was patterned on an English country town. There seemed less here of what had come to be known as ‘the Australian twang’, nothing of the hurly-burly of Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, those vigorous, jostling cities of opulence and poverty. Secure behind her desert barrier, pretty little Perth, like a staid Victorian damsel, sighed for the progress she at once envied and despised.
People looked curiously at the two bearded Irishmen in their stout moleskins and broad-brimmed hats but were not, on introduction, slow to extend the warmest hospitality.
Alexander Forrest, continuing in the comfort of his own home discussions begun in his office, enlarged on the conservative outline of his official report. Kimberley was, he declared, without doubt the coming pastoral land of the continent.
‘I can hardly describe,’ he said, tracing on an outspread map the route he had taken from Beagle Bay on the west coast, ‘the grandeur of that northern scenery—vast open plains heavy with pasture, cut across by creeks and rivers, girded by ranges of unbelievable colouring.
‘This Fitzroy country should prove an extremely rich pastoral area, suitable for all kinds of stock, but it is clearly subject to inundation in certain seasons. Farther over here to the east would be, I should say, a cattleman’s paradise with vast plains of splendid pasture, much of it well watered and not subject to flooding since the land is higher and the rivers contained between deep banks. This river, which I have named the Ord in honour of our Governor, may yet prove to be the Queen of Australian rivers and is probably the same observed by Phillip King to enter Cambridge Gulf a little to the western side of its head. I have sketched here its most probable course since sickness and shortage of rations prevented our following it farther.’
The Queenslanders were already acquainted with many details of that expedition, the sufferings of some members of the party from fever, sunstroke, and sore eyes, of how with dwindling rations they were reduced to killing some of their precious horses for meat, of how grateful they had been for an occasional meal of snake or kangaroo, and how when Forrest and one companion had forged ahead of the rest on a thirsty trek to the Overland Telegraph they had shot a hawk for its blood with their last ammunition.
The visitors enquired how Forrest’s companions had fared since their return.
‘My brother Matthew and James Carey quite recovered,’ they were told, ‘but poor Tommy Pierre, the faithful aboriginal, whom we were forced to tie to his horse in his delirium, lived only long enough to die back here in his country and among friends.’
Forrest did not think the Kimberley natives would prove hostile to settlers, although no doubt they would have to learn that sheep and cattle were not to be regarded as the huntsman’s quarry. Those encountered by his party had been surprisingly friendly, except a few so frightened and surprised as to be deprived of their power of speech.
‘I should think them decidedly less warlike, probably more backward, than the Queenslanders,’ he said.
He was enthusiastic about the suggestion that a private expedition be organised to trace the course of the Ord southward from Cambridge Gulf and carry out more detailed exploration of the country than had been possible in his hurried cross-country trek. Meanwhile, it was wise, he agreed, to secure tentative holdings on the map as others were already doing. Some of the Fitzroy country had already been selected, while two speculators, O’Neill and O’Connor, had marked themselves off about a million acres each along the supposed course of the Ord on the understanding that when the river was eventually mapped the same areas would be transferred as accurately as possible to the true course.
In the name of Durack, Emanuel and one or two other interested associates, including Tom Kilfoyle they reserved, therefore, eight adjoining 50,000-acre blocks along the conjectured banks of the Ord, 150,000 acres around the Negri Junction, further blocks along the upper Ord, on the Nicholson Plains and Margaret River, and large chunks on either side of the Fitzroy. Some of these blocks adjoined those of the Kimberley Pastoral Company and other interests to remain closely associated with the development of the district, and those of various outside speculators, including the Duke of Manchester, whose names would fade from the map with their dreams of quickly flourishing pastoral empires. In all, the tentative Durack-Emanuel selections covered about two and a half million acres, a comparatively small area to that over which their respective interests would extend in the years to come.
There was every indication, Forrest said, that occupation of west Kimberley had already begun. The King Sound Pastoral Company had not long before sent a man to inspect their blocks on the Lennard River, while rumour had it that young George Julius Brockman had already taken sheep by lugger from the north-west to a landing point used by the pearlers at Beagle Bay.
‘So your expedition may find a station or two by the time it gets to the lower Fitzroy,’ Forrest predicted. ‘Many of these whose names you see here, however, will be unable to stock their country within the required time, so that soon you should have the chance of selecting from their land as well. City investors in the eastern colonies are finding it almost impossible to obtain experienced drovers for such a trek, whereas you are fortunate in numbering many competent to undertake it in your own family.’
Grandfather agreed.
‘But my brother and I have given enough of our lives to pioneering. We can organise and finance, but the conquest of this new country is for the younger generation. They shall make a pastoral empire of their own.’
20
TO FIND A RIVER
The years 1881 to 1882. Organising for the expedition to inspect the Kimberley district. Leavetaking of Stumpy Michael Durack and party from Brisbane. A disastrous beginning and a second start. Arrival at Port Darwin and hiring of the schooner Levuka to Cambridge Gulf. Rough passage. Arrival in a strange land. Letter from Cambridge Gulf. Hard travelling and hostile natives. Deep rivers and open plains.
It was agreed on the return of the travellers from the western State that the proposed journey of inspection called for a party of expert bushmen of proved toughness and resource, including at least one scientist, and that their horses must be the best procurable. A supply of rations and equipment must be selected with an eye to weight and with foresight to any possible emergency and arrangements made for the chartering of three vessels—one to take men, horses and gear from Brisbane to Port Darwin, another to convey them from there to Cambridge Gulf and a third to pick them up when they had battled through to the west coast. Distances and travelling times had to be nicely calculated, for once in the unknown wilds of Kimberley they would be cut off from all means of communication until their journey’s end. The estimated cost of the expedition was £4,000 which Grandfather and Emanuel agreed to share equally.
That Stumpy Michael was to be leader of the party was already a foregone conclusion since he combined all the necessary qualities of bushcraft, leadership and sure judgement of country with a reputation, amounting almost to a local superstition, of always ‘getting through’. There remained only the difficulty of breaking the news to his wife, who with their three children was then awaiting his return in Brisbane. Kate Durack had already said goodbye to the home at Thylungra and she and her husband had been inspecting small properties within reasonable distance of the coast when Grandfather had wired from Sydney suggesting the interview with Forrest: in Western Australia. Leaving his family comfortably enough accommodated at his brother’s recently acquired hotel in South Brisbane, Stumpy Michael had obeyed the call with his wife’s words ringing in his ears:
‘Go to Perth if you must, but remember, Michael, your pioneering days are over. We are settling down in a comfortable home as you promised, where the children can go to school and you can have a rest from all this travelling.’
Even with the support of his elder brother, Stumpy Michael found the interview with his wife one of the hardest hurdles to sumount.
‘It’s an imposition, Patsy!’ Kate gasp
ed when they broke the news. ‘Hasn’t it ever occurred to you that poor Michael has a right to live his own life?’
Grandfather was astonished.
‘But my dear sister, Michael has always led his own life!’
‘If I was your sister, Patsy, I would probably agree with you, but I am a McInnes and a Scot. We never lived each other’s lives like you Duracks. Besides, Michael hasn’t the strength any more. There’s that chest trouble of his and the doctor said…’
‘Nonsense!’ Grandfather scoffed, irritated as always by any suggestion of ill health in his family. ‘Anyone’d think he was an old man to hear ye and what is he?—thirty-five and never fitter in his life!’
‘Just this last time, Kate,’ her husband promised. ‘I’ll select the finest piece of country in Kimberley for young Ambrose and get someone to manage it until he’s old enough to take over.’
‘And by that time my boys and probably Uncle Darby’s too, will be there,’ Grandfather enthused, ‘all making their fortunes. What would your son be saying if he knew ye had spoiled his chances?’
Kate made a final bid to reason.
‘Tell me, Michael, do you really want to go?’
Stumpy Michael hesitated. How explain to a loving and commonsense woman the lure of new country, good, bad or indifferent? How find words to say that for all his passionate devotion to his family the thought of leading this expedition to find the course of a mysterious river was the breath of life to him?
‘Yes, Kate. Yes, my dear. In a sense, I do want to go.’
The intended leisurely inspection of ‘likely little properties’ went by the board. A 14,000-acre estate near Darra, a few miles out of Brisbane, of which Kate and her husband had been doubtful on first sight, suddenly appeared to Stumpy Michael as having endless possibilities and on June 6 he purchased Archerfield from one Mary Elizabeth Murphy for £15,000.
Grandfather, assessing his brother’s new acquisition, inspected the stock and scratched about for mineral possibilities.
‘Some fine horses there all right, Michael. The land’s not up to much but ye might find ye’ve got a coal mine here.’
‘I’ll put down a drill when I get back,’ his brother said.
While Kate moved in with the family, her husband’s attention was fully occupied organising the Kimberley expedition. There had been no need to advertise for men. Emanuel had enlisted the services of one John Pentacost, surveyor and geologist who had been for some time tutor to his boys, and had asked that his eldest son, Sydney, be another member of the party. The remaining three, Tom Kilfoyle (Darby Durack’s brother-in-law), James Josey and Tom Horan, all tried and experienced men, had been contacted by wire in various parts of Queensland:
WILL YOU JOIN EXPEDITION KIMBERLEY DISTRICT W A STOP AWAY ABOUT FOUR MONTHS STOP WIRE IMMEDIATELY IF INTERESTED AND MEET US BRISBANE EARLIEST DURACK
In a week all three had materialised at Grandfather’s Bowen Hotel.
‘How soon do you want to start?’
‘Two or three weeks from now. Time to see your folks and cancel your commitments for a few months.’
‘We’re on!’
‘You haven’t asked about the pay.’
‘I thought we might be paying you to let us come,’ Horan said.
Kilfoyle, bluff and down to earth, dismissed this suggestion, though he too had probably not given much thought to the financial side of it before. ‘And them with all the money in the world! Not on yer life!’
‘It’ll be a hard trip,’ Grandfather said, ‘and we’re prepared to pay handsome for the best men. What do you say to three pound a week—all found?’
‘Three pound ten,’ Kilfoyle said.
‘It’s a deal!’
Twenty-three tried and well-bred horses were purchased for an average of £30 a head from breeders around Brisbane, while Emanuel busied himself with the selection of fifteen hundredweight of rations and equipment from Sydney stores. The items ran as follows:
800 lbs flour (16 bags.)
30 lbs tea
140 lbs sugar
10 lbs rice
250 lbs salt meat
10 lbs currants
15 lbs tobacco
50 lbs salt
20 lbs soap
1 box caps
6 pint pots
6 each knives, forks, spoons
6 tin plates
1 camp oven
1 gun
2 cwt horse shoes
1 axe, and sundry tools
2 billies
6 tins pepper
4 tins mustartd
6 tins curry powder
12 tins jam
5 lbs shot
1 can gunpowder
60 doz. matches
14 lbs horse nails
Saddler’s tools
12 blankets
10 pack saddles
6 riding saddles
The list, by reason of its rigorous simplicity, makes interesting comparison with the cumbersome equipment of other exploring parties that set forth with waggons, drays and herds of sheep for killing on the way. Stumpy Michael, like Nat Buchanan and John Costello, had a simple formula for such expeditions: ‘Travel light and ride good horses.’
On July 6, 1882, friends and family farewelled the travellers on the chartered steamship Volmer. Kate Durack’s apprehensions for her husband’s safety increased to near frenzy when two days after the departure fierce storms lashed the Queensland coast. Several wrecks were reported during the next few days but no word of the Volmer until a wire came from Rockhampton, 350 miles north of Brisbane:
VOLMER AGROUND ALL ASHORE SAFE AND WELL RETURNING COACH BRISBANE IMMEDIATELY DURACK
Gathered again at Archerfield the travellers told their tale of seemingly miraculous escape from the fury of the hurricane. Half the precious horses had been battered to death in the hold, most of the provisions washed overboard or ruined by salt water. The remaining horses had been swum ashore and left at John Costello’s Rockhampton property, Cawarral, since it had seemed impractical to return them to Brisbane in their shocked condition to begin the voyage anew.
This misfortune increased the cost of the expedition by well over £1,000 but the organisers considered themselves fortunate in being able to charter another steamship almost immediately. A second start, with a fresh supply of provisions and horses, assembled with astonishing speed, was made by the 900-ton steamship Vortigen on July 19. Stumpy Michael, starting his diary from that day, commented blithely on
our colourful crew, skippered by Captain Brown, pilot Captain Dark, first mate Jack Green!…Passage between Brisbane and Townsville extremely rough. Spend most of my time in the hold with the horses, at one stage fearing another disaster…Smooth waters Townsville to Torres Strait. We have now named all the horses and selected our respective favourites for the journey. Mine, a piebald of the circus kind which I have named Doughboy. Thursday Island…One thousand, two hundred and thirty-five sea miles from our dear ones…
Another 730 miles of tropic calm and colour brought them around the tip of Arnhem Land to the little Territory port on the red cliff above the mangroves where everything upwards from the jetty, indicated at high tide by tins stuck up on sticks, bore the mark of makeshift and lassitude. Ramshackle tin sheds, Chinese huts and Malay shanties hugged the edges of the steaming mud alive with hermit crabs and scavenging seabirds.
A white-clad Customs official in tropical topee and sandals, waving a palm-leaf fan, enquired their business and directed them up the rough roadway to the straggling town on the jungle’s rim above. As the port of a new land boom, Darwin would hardly have inspired confidence, with her few Chinese stores and government offices, private houses built on stilts and straggling tumbledown shanties, all partly obscured by long rank grass and fighting a losing battle against white ants. The population was preponderantly Chinese with a sprinkling of European, Malay and Aboriginal. Blacks and Asiatics dozed in the shade of trees or lounged in narrow doorways, while white men in a state of
chronic ennui reclined in cane chairs on latticed verandahs, syphoning soda water into whisky, rum or ‘square face’ gin.
Sight of strangers in the port caused a stir of interest and the newcomers were pressed for confirmation of rumours that cattle were soon to start overland from Queensland into Kimberley. Armchair politicians under every verandah in the rambling streets propounded upon what should be done with the Territory, half a million square miles, then boasting hardly more than a thousand white inhabitants, four or five thousand Asiatics and a few thousand Aborigines. The Asiatics, encouraged to supply cheap labour for the seventies, had guickly graduated from work on the plantations or on the railway project between Darwin to Pine Creek and had either gone prospecting or set up as shopkeepers in the port.
The newcomers listened with some bewilderment to a variety of opinions. It seemed generally agreed that the land was rich and that rice, cotton, sugar, tobacco and tropical fruits could be grown in abundance. Some contended, however, that transport must come first, that a railway run up from Port Augusta along the route of the OT would transform Darwin from an obscure tropical port to ‘the Singapore of the southern hemisphere’. Some said the country’s first need was more white women, others more amenities, or a strong-minded Vermin Board to deal with dingoes, tick, buffalo fly and troublesome blacks. Some held that the natives should be gathered into compounds and trained for service, others that it was impossible to train or educate them for anything since as a race they were mentally backward and congenitally treacherous. Another faction held that success could only come from the organised development of mining, beginning with the immediate despatch of ‘the bloody Celestials’ at present engaged in systematically smuggling Territory gold to their home land. Others argued that this was primarily a pastoral country, that the cattle industry should be developed, with meat works in Darwin to ship away frozen and tinned beef to the world’s markets. ‘A great place for talking,’ Stumpy Michael wrote to his family, ‘but very little done.’