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The thunder-storm had passed, and the sun had set, when Brown, my blackfellow, suddenly threw back the blanket under which we sat, and pointed out to me a fine comet in a small clear spot of the western sky. I afterwards learned that this comet had been observed as early as the 1st December; but our constant travelling in level forest land had prevented us from seeing it before.
Last time I took it out, it was to give a poor, consumptive old blackfellow a treat, and now, you see, I tune, to please a peasant's ear, the harp a king had loved to bear." Bee-o-buoy-bee-o-buoy-bee-o-bee-o-bee-o-buoy "I'll give you a tune on the violin, if you like," exclaimed my companion, rising to his feet. "Thank-you, Alf."
Alice and Sam sat in chairs side by side, like Christians, but Jim lay on the floor, between the two, like a blackfellow; they talked in a low voice about the stranger. "I say," said Jim, "ain't he a handsome chap, and can't he ride? I dare say, he's a devil to fight too, hear him tell how they pounded away at those Indians in that battle.
On the first of May they came to a small gum creek, which Stuart called the Fisher, and in which the only water they could get was in a native well. Crossing this creek they got into a dead level country, covered with spinifex and stunted gum trees. Here they came across the track of a blackfellow which differed considerably from the ordinary mark made by the foot of a native:
They stand, in short, to the lions and tigers, the elephants and horses, the monkeys and squirrels, of Europe and America, as the Australian blackfellow stands to the Englishman or the Yankee.
When a white man murdered a few blacks it was not likely that he would put his neck into the hangman's noose by making a formal report of his exploit to Mr. Latrobe. All the surviving blackfellow could say was: "Quamby dead long time white-fellow plenty shoot 'em." He related in eight words the decline and fall of his race more truly than the white man could do it in eight volumes.
There was a blackfellow living for many years afterwards in the Colac district who was said to have killed and eaten the lost white man; the first settlers therefore call him Gellibrand, as they considered he had made out a good claim to the name by devouring the flesh. This blackfellow's face was made up of hollows and protuberances ugly beyond all aboriginal ugliness.
When an Australian blackfellow wishes to get rid of his wife, he cuts off a lock of her hair in her sleep, ties it to his spear-thrower, and goes with it to a neighbouring tribe, where he gives it to a friend. His friend sticks the spear-thrower up every night before the camp fire, and when it falls down it is a sign that the wife is dead. The way in which the charm operates was explained to Dr.
Furthermore, according to Billy, they reckoned the rainfall in the Territory by yards, not inches. He had seen blackfellows who could jump at least three inches higher than anyone else had ever seen a blackfellow jump, and every bushman has seen or personally known a blackfellow who could jump over six feet.
"But mamma, you know its quite true," said Sissy. "Didn't I show you de black man just now, Miss Sheppard, when he was going to de lake? I said dere's de blackfellow, and he's got papa's lowsers on, didn't I now?" The times seemed prosperous with us, but it was only a deceptive gleam of sunshine before the coming storm of adversity.
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