The Explorers (42 page)

After this, they were much kinder to me than before, and I always told them that the white men would be here before two moons; and in the evening when they came with nardoo and fish they used to talk about the ‘whitefellows' coming, at the same time pointing to the moon. I also told them they would receive many presents, and they constantly asked me for tomahawks, called by them
bomay ko
. From this time to when the relief party arrived, a period of about a month, they treated me with uniform kindness, and looked upon me as one of themselves.

† Sir William Stawell: chairman of the Exploration Fund Committee.

A
LFRED
H
OWITT

Our Black Friends, 1861

It was a search party led by Alfred Howitt, explorer, magistrate, geologist and ethnographer, which finally located John King. Howitt enjoyed the company of Aborigines and was intrigued by their culture. They in turn esteemed and trusted him. If Howitt had led the great expedition in place of the bellicose Burke, how different would have been the outcome.

September 15th—…I crossed at a neck of sand, and at a little distance again came on the track of a camel going up the creek; at the same time I found a native, who began to gesticulate in a very excited manner, and to point down the creek, bawling out, ‘
Gow, gow!
' as loud as he could. When I went towards him he ran away, and finding it impossible to get him to come to me I turned back to follow a camel track, and to look after my party. The track was visible in sandy places, and was evidently the same I had seen for the last two days. I also found horse traces in places, but very old.

Crossing the creek, I cut our track and rode after the party. In doing so I came upon three pounds of tobacco, which had lain where I saw it for some time. This, together with a knife-handle, fresh horse tracks and the camel track going eastward, puzzled me extremely, and led me into a hundred conjectures. At the lower end of the large reach of water before mentioned, I met Sandy and Frank looking for me, with the intelligence that King, the only survivor of Mr Burke's party, had been found.

A little further on I found the party halted, and immediately went across to the blacks' wurleys, where I found King sitting in a hut which the natives had made for him. He presented a melancholy appearance—wasted to a shadow, and hardly to be distinguished as a civilised being but by the remnants of clothes upon him. He seemed exceedingly weak, and I found it occasionally difficult to follow what he said. The natives were all gathered round, seated on the ground, looking with a most gratified and delighted expression…

September 18th—Left camp this morning with Messrs Brahe, Welsh, Wheeler and King to perform a melancholy duty, which has weighed on my mind ever since we have encamped here, and which I have only put off until King should be well enough to accompany us. We proceeded down the creek for seven miles, crossing a branch running to the southward, and followed a native track leading to that part of the creek where Mr Burke, Mr Wills and King encamped after their unsuccessful attempt to reach Mount Hopeless and the northern settlements of South Australia, and where poor Wills died.

We found the two gunyahs situated on a sandbank between two waterholes and about a mile from the flat where they procured nardoo seed, on which they managed to exist so long. Poor Wills's remains we found lying in the wurley in which he died, and where King, after his return from seeking for the natives, had buried him with sand and rushes. We carefully collected the remains and interred them where they lay; and, not having a prayer-book, I read chap, xv of 1 Cor., that we might at least feel a melancholy satisfaction in having shown the last respect to his remains. We heaped sand over the grave, and laid branches upon it, that the natives might understand by their own tokens not to disturb the last repose of a fellow-being. I cut the following inscription on a tree close by, to mark the spot:

The fieldbooks, a notebook belonging to Mr Burke, various small articles lying about, of no value in themselves but now invested with a deep interest from the circumstances connected with them, and some of the nardoo seed on which they had subsisted, with the small wooden trough in which it had been cleaned, I have now in my possession…

September 21st—binding that it would not be prudent for King to go out for two or three days, I could no longer defer making a search for the spot where Mr Burke died, and with such directions as King could give I went up to the creek this morning with Messrs Brahe, Welsh, Wheeler and Aitkin. We searched the creek upwards for eight miles, and at length, strange to say, found the remains of Mr Burke lying among tall plants under a clump of box-trees, within two hundred yards of our last camp, and not thirty paces from our track. It was still more extraordinary that three or four of the party and the two black boys had been close to the spot without noticing it.

The bones were entire, with the exception of the hands and feet; and the body had been removed from the spot where it first lay, and where the natives had placed branches over it, to about five paces' distance. I found the revolver which Mr Burke held in his hand when he expired partly covered with leaves and earth, and corroded with rust. It was loaded and capped. We dug a grave close to the spot, and interred the remains wrapped in the Union Jack—the most fitting covering in which the bones of a brave but unfortunate man could take their last rest. On a box-tree, at the head of the grave, the following inscription is cut in a similar manner to the above:

September 23rd—Went down the creek today in search of the natives…I could not think of leaving without showing them that we could appreciate and reward the kindness they had shown to Burke's party and particularly to King…Passed the first feeder of Strzelecki's Creek, going to the southward, and at a large reach of water below found the natives camped.

They made a great commotion when we rode up, but seemed very friendly. I unpacked my blanket, and took out specimens of the things I intended giving them—a tomahawk, a knife, beads, a looking-glass, comb and flour and sugar. The tomahawk was the great object of attraction, after that the knife, but I think the looking-glass surprised them most. On seeing their faces reflected, some seemed dazzled, others opened their eyes like saucers and made a rattling noise with their tongues expressive of wonder. We had quite a friendly palaver, and my watch amused them immensely. I made them understand that they were to bring the whole tribe up next morning to our camp to receive their presents, and we parted the best of friends.

September 24th—This morning, about ten o'clock, our black friends appeared in a long procession, men, women and children or, as they here also call them, piccaninnies; and at a mile distance they commenced bawling at the top of their voices as usual. When collected all together on a little flat, just below our camp, they must have numbered between thirty and forty, and the uproar was deafening. With the aid of King, I at last got them all seated before me and distributed the presents—tomahawks, knives, necklaces, looking-glasses, combs—amongst them. I think no people were ever so happy before, and it was very interesting to see how they pointed out one or another whom they thought might be overlooked. The piccaninnies were brought forward by their parents to have red ribbon tied round their dirty little heads. An old woman, Carrawaw, who had been particularly kind to King, was loaded with things.

I then divided fifty pounds of sugar between them, each one taking his share in a Union-Jack pocket-handkerchief, which they were very proud of. The sugar soon found its way into their mouths; the flour, fifty pounds of which I gave them, they at once called ‘whitefellow nardoo', and explained that they understood that these things were given to them for having fed King. Some old clothes were then put on some of the men and women, and the affair ended in several of our party and several of the blackfellows having an impromptu ‘corroboree', to the intense delight of the natives, and I must say, very much to our amusement.

They left, making signs expressive of friendship, carrying their presents with them. The men all wore a net girdle; and of the women some wore one of leaves, others of feathers. I feel confident that we have left the best impression behind us, and that the ‘whitefellows', as they have already learned to call us, will be looked on henceforth as friends, and that, in case of emergency, anyone will receive the kindest treatment at their hands.

W. P. A
ULD

Where Are You Going?, 1862

Although Burke and Wills had beaten him to the Gulf, Stuart remained determined to make the trek for himself. Pat Auld was twenty-one, working in the South Australian survey office, when he joined Sturt's expedition on 24 October 1861. He recalled that:

At about four o'clock Stephen King called on me at the office to say goodbye.

‘Where are you going?' I enquired.

‘Out with Stuart.'

‘Stuart! Where's he going?'

‘To the Victoria River.'

‘Oh, I'll go too.'

‘I wish you could, old boy; but we start tomorrow, everything is fixed up.'

‘Oh, I'll go.'

And so Auld set out to cross the continent from south to north. Here we find him, thirty years later, recalling his golden days. His reminiscences have the flavour of the beery hotels, salons and dining rooms of colonial Adelaide, but they still sparkle with a freshness that dust, starvation and sheer exhaustion sometimes stripped from accounts written on the spot.

On 25 June we struck the Roper, a splendid navigable river. The difficulty now was not too little water, but too much. How were we to get over? Several natives were seen on the banks, and we rode steadily up to them. We tried our best to make them understand that we wanted to get to the other side of the river, and for them to tell us how best to do it. They could not understand us. I know not what they thought of us, for we made all sorts of gestures. We had some fun over the matter, though, with the natives, for one member of the party fancied he could make them understand, and so said, ‘Hold on a minute: let
me
talk to them…Look here, old man; how can we get over there?'

The native immediately replied in the same manner, pointing: ‘Look here, old man, how can we get over there?'

‘You old fool, don't repeat what I say, but show us where we can get across.'

The moment he stopped speaking our listener in fair imitation said, ‘You-old-fool-don't-repeat-what-I-say-but-show-us-where-we-can-get-across.'

The natives are wonderful mimics.

They were astonished at our horses, and when one of the party dismounted they appeared thunderstruck. We could not get them to go near the heads of the horses. They pointed to the teeth, but they would go quite close to the heels. Stuart finding that no information could be got from the blacks filled his pipe and struck a match. The moment the lucifer struck the blacks gave a yell and cleared out. We found the banks of the river lined with cabbage trees, bamboos and shrubs. We were in latitude 14° 5′ Next day we returned to the last camp.

On 27 June we succeeded in crossing the river by a ford. The country here is really splendid. One of the horses got into the river and we tried to get him out, but the rope broke and the horse was seen to be drowned. It being dark we cut his throat to save his life, and left him till morning. Next day we cut up the horse and dried the meat. This food supply made all hands happy, for we had three meals that day—meals, too, of freshly killed meat with native cucumbers as a relish. We thought that horse meat surpassed anything we had ever eaten.

The country we now passed over was splendid soil, well grassed, though with some rough stony hills. Frew picked up a small turtle alive, and this greatly improved the flavour of our breakfast soup. We ascended some very rough stony hills, and got on to the top of sandy tableland, thick with stringybark pines and the fan palm. Some of these were over fifteen feet high. There was also grass—very coarse, mixed with spinifex. When we had gone about twelve or thirteen miles on the tableland we were suddenly stopped. We found ourselves on the edge of a precipice two or three hundred feet. The scenery was simply grand. Underneath us was a creek thickly wooded with palm trees, which were as straight as an arrow and fifty feet high. Then there was stringybark with dense foliage and a range of hills lay to the north-west. We had much difficulty in finding a place to descend, but at last we succeeded.