by Louis Becke
that evening we were employed in cleaning andsalting the fish and birds, except some for immediate use.
We had many such days. Fish were to be had all throughout the course ofthe creek, and had we possessed a net like those the blacks sometimesused, we could have taken a hogsheadful in half an hour.
Then, as the rainy season began, I ceased fishing and took to the gun,for now three or four kinds of duck made their appearance, and onemoonlight night an immense number alighted in the creek just below thehut, and kept up an incessant gabble and quacking till sunrise.
In less than ten days we had enough salted game and dried and smokedfish to last us three months, even had we eaten nothing else. Our blackfriends--with the exception of one lad who desired to remain--left usone morning at sunrise, and we saw them no more. I am afraid they weredeeply hurt by our poisoning half a dozen of their mangy dogs, whichwere, with the rest of the pack, a continual source of annoyance to usby their expert thieving.
One dull, rainy day, as we sat indoors mending our clothes, and yarningand smoking, we heard the scream of parrots, and, going to the door, sawsome twenty or thirty of them, large, fine, green and scarlet plumagedbirds, hanging on to and crawling in and out among the branches of somelow trees growing between the stockyard and the creek. These treeswere a species of wattle, and were just opening out their yellow,sweet-smelling, downy flowers, which the beautiful birds were devouringeagerly. We did not disturb them, and they did not appear to be alarmedwhen we walked up to within a few yards of the trees, merely screamingdefiance, and flying up to the higher branches, or to other trees nearby. These birds the local settlers called "king-parrots"; they werelarger than those of the same species in New South Wales, and later inthe season we shot a few of them for soup. This particular flock visitedus for many days in succession, forming a pretty picture as they hungon the branches, chattering loudly the while, and flashing theirgaily-coloured plumage in the bright sunshine. Like the spur-wingedplover, they were very inquisitive birds; if one of their number wasshot, and fell wounded, the rest of the flock would fly round and roundthe poor creature, watching its movements and listening to its cries,not out of pity, but of sheer curiosity, and each could be shot insuccession, or sometimes knocked down with a stick. I was told by astockman on Fanning Downs station that on several occasions when hehad wounded birds of this variety of the parrot tribe, their companionsdescended upon them with fury, tore out their feathers, and bit andlacerated them savagely.
Now and again a few wandering emus would cross the grey gum plainsaround us, and then, as they caught sight of our figures, shamblequickly off again. In former years they had been plentiful in thedistrict, and provided good food for the aborigines when the latterorganised their big hunting parties. But as the country was taken up ascattle runs, hundreds of the great birds were wantonly shot by whitemen for the mere pleasure of killing, and all the months we lived in thedistrict we did not see more than twenty.
I have before spoken of the number of snakes that were everywhere to beseen in the vicinity of the water, particularly about pools with a reedymargin. Scarcely a week passed without our killing three or four, andwe were always careful in bathing to do so in very shallow water, wherethere was a clear sandy bottom. There were three kinds of water-snakes,one of which was of a dull blue colour, and these the blacks said were"bad fellow," _i.e._, venomous. They seldom grew over two feet anda half in length, and on a bright day one might see several of thesereptiles swimming across from one bank to the other. Of the common brownsnake--the kind we most dreaded--and the black-necked tiger snake, wekilled numbers with our guns and with sticks, and one day, when crossingsome red ironstone ridges on the Ravenswood road, we despatched twodeath-adders which were lying asleep on the bare, hot road. They wereof a dull reddish brown, the same hue as the ground in the ironstonecountry, just as they are a yellowish brown in a sandstone region.
One great pest to us when fishing were the number of mud turtles, greedylittle creatures which persistently swallowed our hooks, which couldonly be recovered by placing one's foot on their backs, drawing outtheir long snaky necks to the utmost tension, and cutting off theirheads; the other pests were the hideous flabby water iguanas (I do notknow their proper name), which, although they never interfered with ourlines, sickened us even to look at them. They were always to be seenlying on a log or snag in the water. As you approached they eithercrawled down like an octopus, or dropped, in a boneless, inert mass,without a splash. Their slimy, scaleless skins were a muddy yellow, andin general they resembled an eel with legs. Even the blacks looked onthem with disgust, though they are particularly fond of the ordinaryiguana.
The time passed somewhat wearily to us when heavy rains and floodedcountry kept us indoors for days together. Then one night afterthe weather had begun to get cooler and clearer, we heard, far, faroverhead, the _honk, honk_ of the wild geese, flying southwards todistant lagoons, and Hansen reminded me that in another week our term ofservice came to an end.
"What made you think of it?" I asked.
"The cry of the wild geese going South."
For we, too, longed for the South again.