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Updated: June 3, 2025
Quietly sliding down my tree, I made my way to where Yamba was still holding the attention of the bull a fiery brute who was pawing the ground with rage at the foot of her tree. I had fitted an arrow to my bow, and was preparing to shoot, when, unfortunately, the bull detected the noise of my approach, and rushed straight at me.
We had a very affectionate leave- taking, and a body of the natives escorted us for the first 100 miles or so of our trip. At last, however, Yamba, myself, and the faithful dog were left to continue our wanderings alone. The reliance I placed upon this woman by the way was absolute and unquestioning.
This suggestion he received with a kind of subdued satisfaction, or holy joy, and very few further negotiations were needed to make the transaction complete; and, be it said, it was an every-day transaction, perfectly legal and recognised by all the clans. Yamba was full of vigour and resource, while the only phrase that fitly describes her bush lore is absolutely miraculous.
We had pitched our camp for the afternoon, and Yamba went off, as usual, in search of roots and game for the evening meal. She had been gone some little time when I suddenly heard her well-known "coo-eey" and knowing that she must be in trouble of some kind, I immediately grasped my weapons and went off to her rescue, guiding myself by her tracks.
No sooner had we done this than the invisible monster charged down upon us, making a tremendous commotion in the water. Neither Yamba nor I waited for the coming impact, but threw ourselves overboard just as the creature's white sawlike weapon showed itself close to the surface only a few yards away.
I only found the nuggets, big and little, near the creeks during and after heavy rains; and I might mention that having with some difficulty interested Yamba in the subject, she was always on the look- out for the tell-tale specks and gleams.
At this time we had a welcome addition to our food in the form of cabbage-palms and wild honey. We also started building a catamaran, with which to navigate the river when the floods had subsided. Yamba procured a few trunks of very light timber, and these we fastened together with long pins of hardwood, and then bound them still more firmly together with strips of kangaroo hide.
In an instant the old desire to return to civilisation, which I had thought buried long ago, reasserted itself, and I dashed forward at full speed yelling back to Yamba, "Sheep, sheep where sheep are, men are. Civilisation at last!"
Greater love than hers no creature ever knew, and not once but a thousand times did she save my wretched life at the risk of her own. Well, Yamba, I say, came up and whispered to me. She had been studying my face quietly and eagerly, and had gradually come to see what was passing in my mind.
At one place probably near the Warburton Ranges in Western Australia I picked up an immense piece of quartz, which was so rich that it appeared to be one mass of virgin gold; and when on showing it to Yamba I told her that in my country men were prepared to go to any part of the world, and undergo many terrible hardships to obtain it, she thought at first I was joking.
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