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Updated: April 30, 2025
The flat was fairly clear when I came to the selection save for a few logs that had been washed up there in some big 'old man' flood, way back in black-fellows' times; and one day, when I had a spell at home, I got the horses and trace-chains and dragged the logs together those that wouldn't split for fencing timber and burnt them off.
At such times the rats and lizards rush out into the open, and the hawks reap a fine harvest. My natives are referred to as "blacks," or "black-fellows," but they are not really black, their hue being rather a brown, ranging from a very dark brown, indeed, to almost the lightness of a Malay. I found the coast tribes lightest in hue, while the inland natives were very much darker.
It seemed to be Yamba's sole anxiety that I should be well equipped for the journey back to civilisation. She would rehearse with me for hours the various methods adopted by the black-fellows to find water; and she reminded me that my course at first was to be in a southerly direction until I came to a region where the trees were blazed, and then I was to follow the track that led westward.
Thus, amongst the Australian black-fellows we find myths about gods who now receive no worship.
With the fruits of this, commonly called cotton-pods, the black-fellows vary their diet of grubs and the very rare emu or kangaroo. The skin, the edible part, is soft, thick, and juicy, and has quite a nice sweet taste. The blacks eat them raw or roasted in wood-ashes. The seeds are of a golden yellow, and are joined on to a silky fibrous core. When bruised the pod exudes a white, milky juice.
A streak of flame, the echo of the shot, and the death-shriek of one of the black-fellows were almost simultaneous. To the wounded white men the sound of the shot was a signal of hope; to the unwounded blacks it was a terror and dismay, and without more than a glance at their comrade where he lay, they turned and fled into the shadows of the bush.
The hope, fostered on legend and ceremony, grew at length into a creed, and from a creed into a faith, and the time was looked forward to when the wandering black-fellows, grown white in the journey, should come back; for then it would be no longer necessary to climb through the black patch, nor to fear the falling rope.
We found the spot a very suitable one for camping; in fact, there were indications on all sides that the place was frequently used by the natives as a camping-ground. A considerable quantity of bark lay strewn about the ground in sheets, which material my wife told me was used by the natives as bedding. This was the first time I had known the black-fellows to use any material in this way.
I at once removed this with the saw; and having made as presentable a stump of it as I could, covered the amputated end of the bone with a surrounding of muscle, and kept the patient a few days under my care to allow the wound to heal. On inquiring, the native told me that in a fight with other black-fellows a spear had struck his leg and penetrated the bone below the knee.
Shortly after leaving the hills we came again on to sandhills. About midday my hopes were high, as I cut the fresh tracks of two black-fellows. Warri, after a short examination, said, "Yesterday track water that way," pointing in the direction in which they were travelling; not that he could possibly tell which way the water lay, and for all we knew they might have just left it.
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