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Updated: June 7, 2025
The camels and horses became good chums very soon, and played about together without any signs of fear or surprise on the part of the horses, although they had never seen camels before a different state of affairs from that in Coolgardie, where horses as a rule snort and plunge with terror on first acquaintance with an "emu-brother," as the black-fellow calls the camel.
"You wouldn't expect 'em to take it into town an' bank it, would you?" said one of the other men, with a grin. "Hurry on, Jacky!" This to the black-fellow "What time he make dem tracks, eh? He's fresh, you think?" The black-fellow snorted contemptuously, as he explained over one shoulder that the tracks were of the previous day's making. "Still," said the rider; "he may not have got far.
This relieved Mick's mind greatly, and he set off at once, guided by Yarloo, to the bough-shelter where Sax and Vaughan were sitting. It was a very happy reunion. The boys were still weak, but the thirst, which would have killed them if the stranger black-fellow had not put that sprig of needle-bush in the quart-pot, was quite gone. They were very hungry.
He took it up and looked at it with huge satisfaction. The stem was woody and each leaf was grey, narrow, and not more than half an inch long. The peculiarity about them was, however, that each little leaf ended in a spike. The black-fellow felt the spikes and grinned to feel the pricks of pain, for the leaves had only recently been pulled from the tree.
No doubt a little moisture can be coaxed from the roots of certain gums, but it would seem that it needs the stomach of a black-fellow to derive any benefit from it. Though I cannot say that I studied the manners and customs of the aboriginals at that time, the description, none the worse for being old, given to savages of another land would fit them admirably "Manners none, customs beastly."
He told me about a gun you have with a great many notches on the barrel of it, and he said that each notch represented a black-fellow that you had killed. 'I never killed a black-fellow except in fair fight, or under lawful provocation. Many a time one of them has sneaked a spear at me from behind a gum tree; and I'd have been done for if I hadn't been keeping a sharp look-out.
He explained, a moment later, that he could hear howling, such as a "blurry big warrigal" might produce. The party pushed on, and two or three minutes later they were all able to make out the sound the black-fellow had heard. But the black-fellow shook his head now, and informed them that no warrigal ever made a howl like that; that that must be "white feller dog."
"You kill that black-fellow mother belonging to you?" "Yes, master." "Yes," Drysdale continued, "Bimbi went out with a police expedition against his own tribe, and himself cut his own mother's head off. As a race, as a family, the blacks have no loyalty. They will track their own brothers down for the whites as ruthlessly as they track down the whites.
A famished "black-fellow" after a heavy meal used to remind me of pictures of the boa-constrictor who has swallowed an ox, and is resting in satisfied peace to gorge. In appreciation no doubt of the kindness shown them, some of the tribe volunteered to find "gabbi" for the white-fellow in the roots of a certain gum-tree.
He saw us now and fled, so, shouting to Breaden to stay with the camels, and to Charlie, who was mounted, to cut him off in front, I put my best leg foremost. A hummock of spinifex brought me down, and, exhausted from short rations, I lay, unable to run further. Not so Godfrey, who held on manfully for another fifty yards and grabbed the black-fellow as he turned to avoid Charlie on the camel.
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