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Updated: September 7, 2025
I was not linguist enough to be able to translate all he said; but I am sure my free interpretation of the gist of his remarks is correct, for he undoubtedly stigmatised us as a vile and useless set of lazy, crawling, white-faced wretches, who came sitting on hideous brutes of hippogryphs, being too lazy to walk like black men, and took upon ourselves the right to occupy any country or waters we might chance to find; that we killed and ate any wallabies and other game we happened to see, thereby depriving him and his friends of their natural, lawful food, and that our conduct had so incensed himself and his noble friends, who were now in the shelter of the rocks near him, that he begged us to take warning that it was the unanimous determination of himself and his noble friends to destroy such vermin as he considered us, and our horses to be, and drive us from the face of the earth.
There can, indeed, be little to tempt them to wander thither; for there are neither kangaroos nor wallabies, and but few birds. Among the most curious of those belonging to the land, is a kind of finch, with a black head, yellow beak, a dark brown back, and dirty white belly; across the wings and arching over the back, at the stump of the tail, was a stripe of white.
Godfrey returned late that night with several wallabies, and many bruises and abrasions, for he had had a nasty fall in the dark down one of the many ravines. The next morning was a sad one, for it disclosed the death from poison-plant of poor old Shiddi, one of the best and noblest of camels a fine black, handsome old bull. I declare it was like losing an old friend, as indeed he was.
The feed was all parched up: the native carrot, which was so green when we passed Darling Downs, was here withered and in seed. Immense stretches of forest had been lately burned, and no trace of vegetation remained. Partridge-pigeons were very numerous, and the tracks of kangaroos and wallabies were like sheep-walks.
These we saw were feeding-grounds for kangaroos and wallabies. Turkey tracks were fairly numerous; of the latter we saw six, and shot one. They are very wary birds and not easily stalked. A very good plan for shooting them is for one man to hide in a bush or behind a tree whilst the other circles round a good way off, and very slowly advances, and so drives the turkey past the hidden sportsman.
These natives would not come to visit us. The small marsupial wallaby, which I mentioned just now, exists throughout the whole of these deserts; they live entirely without water, as do many small birds we occasionally see where there is a patch of timber. The wallabies hide during the day amongst the spinifex bushes, and feed, like other rodents, on their roots at night.
Native companions were also numerous, but these birds and the black cockatoos were the most wary of any that we met. Whilst travelling with our bullocks through the high grass, we started daily a great number of wallabies; two of which were taken by Charley and John Murphy, assisted by our kangaroo dog. Messrs.
"But don't you know that no one comes here? No young ladies in blue dresses and brown curls only wombats and wallabies, and ring-tailed 'possums and me. Not you me, but me me! How do you account for being here?" Norah laughed. She decided that she liked this very peculiar old man, whose eyes twinkled so brightly as he spoke. "But I don't think you know," she said.
Charley shot a rock wallabi of a different species from any we had previously seen: it was of a light grey colour; the tail was smooth, and its black tip was more bushy than in other species; there were two white spots on the shoulder; it was smaller than those of Ruined Castle Creek, and the red wallabies of the Mitchell and of the shores of the gulf.
The red wallabies were very numerous, particularly in the kind of jungle along the river. Sheldrakes and Ibises abounded at the water-holes. Charley shot two wallabies. Oct. 26. We enjoyed most gratefully our two wallabies, which were stewed, and to which I had added some green hide to render the broth more substantial.
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