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Stern slept but little that night, in his anxiety to keep the fire fed; and morning found him eager to be at his work with throwing-sticks among the vistas of the wilderness. Together they hunted that day. She carried what his skilful aim brought down from the tangled greenery above. Birds, squirrels, chipmunks, all were welcome.
They were now closing round us in all directions, many of them with their spears in their throwing-sticks, ready for use pointing them to their own necks and sides, and showing us by their postures how we should writhe with pain when they struck us. Then they would change their tactics and again endeavour to persuade us that they meant us no harm, but they would not lay down their spears.
From my point of vantage some three hundred feet above them, I could watch them, myself unseen. Each carried a sheaf of spears, woommera, and shield, and in their girdle of string a number of short throwing-sticks.
For polishing their throwing-sticks, and the points of their lances, they use the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, which bites upon wood almost as keenly as the shave-grass of Europe, which is used by our joiners: With such tools, the making even such a canoe as I have described, must be a most difficult and tedious labour: To those who have been accustomed to the use of metal, it appears altogether impracticable; but there are few difficulties that will not yield to patient perseverance, and he who does all he can, will certainly produce effects that greatly exceed his apparent power.
A few minutes before this affair happened, nineteen of the natives had been counted round our party, and the position they took showed their judgment: on the ground where Bannelong and Colebe joined them, the trees stood at the distance of forty or fifty feet from each other, and, had the natives kept together, shelter might have been found from their spears behind a tree; but whilst four of them remained in front, at the distance of forty yards, four or five others placed themselves on the right, and the same number on the left, at about the same distance; others again were planted between them and the beach, at the distance of ten or fifteen yards, which rendered it impossible either to carry off their companions or to gain shelter from their spears, if hostilities commenced; and though these people do not always keep their spears in their hands, they are seldom without their throwing-sticks, and generally have a spear lying near them in the grass, which they move with their feet as they change their ground: however, it is not likely that this disposition was made with any bad intention, but merely as a security for Bannelong and Colebe; indeed, these men directed the manoeuvre and waited till it was made, before they came near enough to shake hands.
My rifle can carry farther than their throwing-sticks, a fact of which they are well aware." We soon lost sight of the blacks, and after riding on several miles further, our friend told us that he must bid us farewell, promising, however, to ride over to Mr Strong's station, should he find he could leave home, to see how we were getting on.
"I have always heard that the fowlers on these lakes were very skilled with these throwing-sticks of theirs, but I could not have believed it possible that two men should in so short a space have effected such a slaughter; but then I had no idea of the enormous quantities of birds on these lakes." Jethro was examining the sticks which, as well as the ducks, had been retrieved by the cats.
And these people knew not the wisdom of my people, in that they snared and pitted their meat and in battle used clubs and stone throwing-sticks and were unaware of the virtues of arrows swift-flying, notched on the end to fit the thong of deer-sinew, well-twisted, that sprang into straightness when released to the spring of the ask-stick bent in the middle.
They wear no clothes, and their bodies are marked by scars and wales. They seem to have no regular mode of dressing their hair, this appearing to depend entirely on individual taste or caprice. "Their arms consist of stone-headed spears, of throwing-sticks, of boomerangs or kileys, clubs, and stone hatchets.
We cut ourselves each a half-dozen of short, heavy throwing-sticks of green wood, and set out for the rookery, and within an hour had killed thirty or forty of the poor birds, some of which we at once picked, cleaned, and roasted.
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