A Single Tree
Page 27
The Story of the Mallee, A.S. Kenyon, Melbourne, 1929 (Reprinted from the Victorian
Historical Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 2, Dec. 1914)
John Shaw Neilson
1927
The Poor, Poor Country
Oh ’twas a poor country, in Autumn it was bare,
The only green was the cutting grass and the sheep found little there.
Oh, the thin wheat and the brown oats were never two foot high,
But down in the poor country no pauper was I.
My wealth it was the glow that lives forever in the young,
’ Twas on the brown water, in the green leaves it hung.
The blue cranes fed their young all day – how far in a tall tree!
And the poor, poor country made no pauper of me.
I waded out to the swan’s nest – at night I heard them sing,
I stood amazed at the Pelican, and crowned him for a king;
I saw the black duck in the reeds, and the spoonbill on the sky,
And in that poor country no pauper was I.
The mountain-ducks down in the dark made many a hollow sound,
I saw in sleep the Bunyip creep from the waters underground.
I found the plovers’ island home, and they fought right valiantly,
Poor was the country, but it made no pauper of me.
My riches all went into dreams that never yet came home,
They touched upon the wild cherries and the slabs of honeycomb,
They were not of the desolate brood that men can sell or buy,
Down in that poor country no pauper was I.
Collected Verse of John Shaw Nielson, Margaret Roberts (ed.),
UWA Publishing, Perth, 2012
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
1964
We Are Going
They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent,
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: ‘Rubbish May Be Tipped Here’.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
They sit and are confused, they cannot say their thoughts:
‘We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the sacred old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.
We are the lightning bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunder after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.’
We Are Going: Poems, Jacaranda, Brisbane, 1964
John Oxley
1817
June 30 The first two or three miles were somewhat harder travelling than the greater part of yesterday. Immense plains extended to the westward, as far as the eye could reach. These plains were entirely barren, being evidently in times of rain altogether under water, when they doubtless form one vast lake: they extended in places from three to six miles from the margin of the stream, which on its immediate borders was a wet bog, full of small water holes, and the surface covered with marsh plants, with a few straggling dwarf box-trees. It was only on the very edge of the bank, and in the bottoms of the bights, that any eucalypti grew; the plains were covered with nothing but gnaphalium: the soil various, in some places red tenacious clay, in others a dark hazel-coloured loam, so rotten and full of holes that it was with difficulty the horses could travel over them. Although those plains were bounded only by the horizon, not a semblance of a hill appeared in the distance; we seemed indeed to have taken a long farewell of every thing like an elevation, whence the surrounding country could be observed. To the southward, bounding those plains in that direction, barren scrubs and dwarf box-trees, with numberless holes of stagnant water, too clearly proclaimed the nature of the country in that quarter. We could see through the openings of the trees on the river that plains of similar extent occupied the other side, which has all along appeared to us to be (if any thing) the lower ground. We travelled in the centre of the plains, our medium distance from the river being from one to two miles; and although we did not go above thirteen miles, some of the horses were excessively distressed from the nature of the ground.
There was not the least appearance of natives; nor was bird or animal of any description seen during the day, except a solitary native dog. Nothing can be more melancholy and irksome than travelling over wilds, which nature seems to have condemned to perpetual loneliness and desolation. We seemed indeed the sole living creatures in those vast deserts.
The plains last travelled over were named Molle’s Plains, after the late lieutenant-governor of the territory; and those on the opposite side, Baird’s Plains, after the general to whom he once acted as aide-de-camp, and whose glory he shared. The naming of places was often the only pleasure within our reach; but it was some relief from the desolation of these plains and hills to throw over them the associations of names dear to friendship, or sacred to genius. In the evening three or four small fish were caught.
Allan Cunningham
1817
June 30 Advancing over the plain westerly, on the edge of which we had encamped last night, we continued that course about 7 miles; bushy country affording me nothing interesting; the plants being the same as those of which so very frequent mention has been made. We made the angle of a large lagoon of considerable depth, thickly clothed with trees that had marks of inundation about 4 feet above the present level of its waters, and a few inches above the general flatness of the plain. I here gathered specimens of a species of Eucalyptus having a submucronated hemispherical operculum, and flowers of two colours, red and white, in terminal panicles, a tree about 30 feet high. I observed a little cryptogamous plant, called Azolla pinnata, floating on the surface of these waters in considerable abundance. Near our 8th mile Harrington Plains are in some measure terminated by a few scattered trees of Eucalypti stretching themselves across to the opposite brush in an irregular manner. Its continuance, open and extensive, evidently descending at its south western extremity, from the circumstance of our being able to distinguish the heads of trees and not their stems. Mr. Oxley has called them Molle’s Plains, in honour of the late Lieut.-Governor, Colonel Molle. Passing through a small tract of the burnt scrub called Polygonum junceum [Muehlenbeckia Cunninghami] we continued our journey about a mile and a half, when we considered that our horses, which were far behind, would scarcely be able to come up with us, in consequence of the bogginess and decayed nature of these plains. We passed through a thick brush of the rushy Polygonum and came upon the bank of the river, intending to halt for the night. On these plains I gathered seeds and specimens of a shrub with fleecy, sulcate crowded leaves. These leaves are like the succulent Salsola. Also another shrub entirely clothed with wool, having an echinated nut, many seeded. I observed a singular grass, dead, with long beards [stigmas] as in Zea; and the little recumbent Zygophyllum, which is sometimes very common, and in some instances appears to differ in habit, which may be caused by the shade or being smaller in all its parts, or which may be effected by increased sterility. The appearance of these plains is that of a gloomy desert with stunted trees and dry wiry tufts of grass.
But if anything tends to enliven the scene or relieve the eye it is the bright golden flowers of a Senecio, with pinnately laciniated leaves. I gathered seeds of a shrub of Anredera sp., producing a bladdered capsule, 2-winged, containing a single seed in the centre. The river is as broad as ever! With little alteration, current slow, but the banks appear not so high as where we left it in the morning, and are muddy. We started two native dogs on the plains before us. We observed the marks of the natives on the trees, and the old impressions of their feet on the soft clayey soil. We likewise passed an old native bark hut. The general inclination of the river is south-westerly. Its banks are furnished with tolerable Blue Gums and Acacia stenophylla. One of our party caught a species of lizard on the plains, having on the back very rough scales, which are not imbricated but distinct from each other. It has no tail. Its body being terminated in a wedge-shaped stump.
John Oxley
1817
July 29 Almost directly under the hill near our halting-place, we saw a tumulus, which was apparently of recent construction (within a year at most). It would seem that some person of consideration among the natives had been buried in it, from the exterior marks of a form which had certainly been observed in the construction of the tomb and surrounding seats. The form of the whole was semicircular. Three rows of seats occupied one half, the grave and an outer row of seats the other; the seats formed segments of circles of fifty, forty-five, and forty feet each, and were formed by the soil being trenched up from between them. The centre part of the grave was about five feet high, and about nine long, forming an oblong pointed cone.
I hope I shall not be considered as either wantonly disturbing the remains of the dead, or needlessly violating the religious rites of an harmless people, in having caused the tomb to be opened, that we might examine its interior construction. The whole outward form and appearance of the place was so totally different from that of any custom or ceremony in use by the natives on the eastern coast, where the body is merely covered with a piece of bark and buried in a grave about four feet deep, that we were induced to think that the manner of interring the body might also be different. On removing the soil from one end of the tumulus, and about two feet beneath the solid surface of the ground, we came to three or four layers of wood, lying across the grave, serving as an arch to bear the weight of the earthy cone or tomb above. On removing one end of those layers, sheet after sheet of dry bark was taken out, then dry grass and leaves in a perfect state of preservation, the wet or damp having apparently never penetrated even to the first covering of wood. We were obliged to suspend our operation for the night, as the corpse became extremely offensive to the smell, resolving to remove on the morrow all the earth from the top of the grave, and expose it for some time to the external air before we searched farther.
July 30 Employed in preparing dead cypress-trees for the timber of the raft. The rain continued throughout the day without intermission. and prevented us from making much progress with it. This morning we removed all the earth from the tomb and grave, and found the body deposited about four feet deep in an oval grave, four feet long and from eighteen inches to two feet wide. The feet were bent quite up to the head, the arms having been placed between the thighs. The face was downwards, the body being placed east and west, the head to the east.
It had been very carefully wrapped in a great number of oppossum skins, the head bound round with the net usually worn by the natives, and also the girdle: it appeared after being enclosed in those skins to have been placed in a larger net, and then deposited in the manner before mentioned. The bones and head showed that they were the remains of a powerful tall man. The hair on the head was perfect, being long and black; the under part of the body was not totally decayed, giving us reason to think that he could not have been interred above six or eight months. Judging from his hair and teeth, he might have been between thirty and forty years of age: to the west and north of the grave were two cypress-trees distant between fifty and sixty feet; the sides towards the tomb were barked, and curious characters deeply cut upon them, in a manner which, considering the tools they possess, must have been a work of great labour and time. Having satisfied our curiosity, the whole was carefully re-interred, and restored as near as possible to the station in which it was found. The river fell in the course of the day near two feet.
Allan Cunningham
1817
July 30 As Mr. Oxley is instructed to collect all the information possible respecting the government, customs and habits of the aborigines of the country over which we might pass – points on account of the sparse thin population of Western Australia, with which we had no opportunity to furnish ourselves – he intends to open the grave in order to ascertain its internal appearance. Removing the whole of the mound, we found it vaulted with pieces of wood and layers of bark and came to the body about 3½ feet below the surface of the ground, compressed in a grave 2 feet by 4, formed in long ovate figure sufficient to contain that part of a person from head to hip – the legs and feet having been forced over the shoulders. The body was placed on its right side, and the face looking towards the East or rising sun. His head was ornamented with the usual netting, and his opossum hatchet-girdle was placed behind him. From the size of his bones he appears to have been a man of 6 feet, and might have been 40 years of age, and apparently had not been dead six months. Our people took up his skull, which had the hair very fresh upon it. It’s upper jaw wanted one of the front teeth, which loss may be occasioned by the same custom prevailing here as is adopted on the Eastern coast. The skull Mr. Oxley intends to take with us, as a subject for study by craniologists.
Journal of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales,
undertaken by order of the British government in the years 1817–1818,
John Oxley, University of Adelaide Library, 2003
Diary of Allan Cunningham, botanist, from March 1, 1817–November 19, 1818,
Ida Lee, National Library of Australia, n.d.
Banjo Paterson
1889
1
Clancy of the Overflow
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows: ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written in a thumbnail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
‘Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.’
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’ where the western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wondrous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all.
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
&
nbsp; With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cashbook and the journal —
But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow’.
2
Effects of bore water on the national song
I don’t know that I have properly conveyed the feeling of excitability which possessed everybody in the early days of the bore water: people seemed to be looking out on to limitless horizons and except (very occasionally) in a mining camp I can remember nothing like it. The shearers staged a strike by way of expressing themselves, and MacPherson’s woolshed at Dagworth was burnt down and a man was picked up dead. This engendered no malice and I have seen the MacPhersons handing out champagne through a pub window to these very shearers. And here a personal reminiscence may be worth recording. While resting for lunch, or while changing horses on our four-in-hand journeys, Miss Macpherson . . . used to play a little Scottish tune on a zither and I put words to the tune and called it “Waltzing Matilda”. Not a very great literary achievement, perhaps, but it has been sung in many parts of the world. It was the effect of the bore water.
Song of the Pen: Complete Works, Vol. 2, 1901–1941,
Lansdowne Publishing, Melbourne, 1983
Brian Penton
1934
Cabell strolled back to the dray. The air was oppressive and threatening. If it had not been for that broken felloe and the camelweed, he reflected, irritable and tired all at once, he would have been well down the coast country by now and on some kind of a road. He pressed his bullocks in the hope of getting to the shanty and refilling his tuckerbags. For some days he had had no damper, nothing, in fact, but what he shot at the waterholes.