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Updated: May 7, 2025
I had bought a little brumby from a man we met on the Plains, an excellent pony, and most handy in winding his way through the scrub. Luck rode Jenny and led the other two camels. Hereabouts we noticed a large number of old brush fences curiously I have never once seen a new one which the natives had set up for catching wallabies.
I was afraid they would set fire to it; we however finally drove them from our stronghold, inducing them to decamp more or less the worse, and leave behind them a considerable quantity of military stores, in the shape of spears, wommerahs, waddies, wallabies' skins, owls, fly-flappers, red ochre, and numerous other minor valuables. These we brought in triumph to the camp.
One of our most favoured spots was at Tacking Point, a curious steep-to bluff, clothed on its sides with a dense thicket scrub, the haunt of hundreds of black wallabies and wonga pigeons, and also a large variety, of brown and black snakes, with an occasional death adder.
Another way of getting some of these wallabies was by knocking them over, blackfellow fashion, with a short stick, when startled from their hiding-places. Tommy used to work very hard at this game, and we usually got one a day for food for our little dogs. They are exceedingly good eating, being very like rabbits in size and taste.
We soon came, however, to broad sands with deep impressions of the tracks of emus, wallabies, and natives; and to sandy depressions sloping towards narrow salt-water creeks densely fringed with Mangroves. A large river was no doubt before us.
We had water-bags made out of the skins of kangaroos and wallabies, and would camp wherever possible close to a native well, where we knew food was to be found in plenty. At this period I noticed that the more easterly I went, the more ranges I encountered; whilst the somewhat dreary and mostly waterless lowland lay to the west.
"Loads," said her father, nodding; "Latin, and French, and drawing, and geography, and how to talk grammar, and any number of things I never knew. Then you can teach the tutor things riding, and cooking, and knitting, and the care of tame wallabies, and any number of things he never dreamed of. He's a town young man, Norah, and horribly ignorant of all useful arts."
Still Mr Berrington could not believe that the water would come up higher. "Look there!" said the captain, pointing to the southward among the trees; "it is flooding the whole scrub. In a short time this place will be surrounded." As he spoke, two or three kangaroos and several wallabies were seen in the distance making their escape into the open.
The grass was plentiful, but old and dry. The lagoons were covered with ducks, geese, and pelicans; and native companions were strutting about on the patches of fresh burnt grass. Brown pursued two emus, and caught one of them. Wallabies were numerous; two bustards, and even a crocodile were seen. A small lizard or newt was observed on the mud between high and low water marks.
At last from a spur of the mountain she saw the sea "L-o-n-g way. Too far. Me close up sing out." Though she might cry, the sight of big salt water beside which all her life had been spent was a joy and a stimulant. Pushing and worming her way through the jungle, she encountered nothing but birds, wallabies, and snakes. Once she was startled by what seemed to be a worn narrow track.
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