Part 7
On coming opposite the bend, where the Taylor Creek is nearest on the track's eastern side, I rode across to refill the waterbag; but all the soakage water had dried up. Holes had been sunk in the gravel about two feet deep, but only a white gritty clay showed at the bottom of each one.
It was a weary search along that creek's bed; up and down I tramped anxiously, burrowing and scratching, but unavailingly; and after an hour spent in this way, it was a sadder man who returned to pursue an onward course.
Six miles is not far; but it counts for very much when a man has done twenty before it on a hot day, and that is topped up with an anxious search, a sandy road, and a disappointment. That six miles took me to a well sunk in the Taylor, at a point where the creek passes through a range. A bucketful of water was soon hauled up, and, pushing in one of the two stop-bolts which were provided at the sides for that purpose, thus leaving the bucket suspended on top of the well, I leaned over and had gulped down three or four mouthfuls before I made a shocking discovery.
The horrid stuff was almost salt!
I spat out what I could; but what I had swallowed had far from given me relief.
Yet how it glistened! Was it mockery? I laughed a little, and knew the laugh was forced. Yes, this was thirst.
Would the tantalising stuff be better boiled? I made the experiment; it failed.
I tried it with some meat extract (a few capsules of which I had); but--it was salter than ever.
With tea? Perhaps, but I had no tea.
A smoke for consolation--no, I dare not.
I bathed my face and hands, and was a little relieved. Then, filling the waterbag, on the off chance of later on feeling more disposed towards poisoning myself, made all the haste I could for the Wycliffe.
* * * *
An old turn-off track beyond the Taylor Well leads out in an easterly direction to the Frew River and El Kedra--both abandoned stations. The country about there had been stocked at one time, but the natives were uncontrollable and very troublesome, spearing and slaughtering many of the cattle; and the lessees deemed abandonment advisable. From those places, and from another lower down and to the west--Anna's Reservoir--the natives count upon having frightened away the white men, the would-be settlers, and are inclined to "fancy" themselves accordingly. In other words, they are said to be "bad" about those places, and, as somebody significantly expressed it, are "spoiling for a hidin'."
It was dreary "going"; and the thoughts associated with the country were not cheering. It was flounder, flounder through the heavy sand, with the lips parched and the throat dry--and growing drier and drier. I turn back now to my note-book and find the single entry--"This five-mile 'plug' is the killing gait."
Yet no creek showed itself. My legs were beginning to send up signals of distress--and all the time that water "flopped" in the bag and tormented me.
The night came on swiftly. Diamond, we must make a dash for it! On, on!
An ant-hill or a stump overlooked as I tried to make out the timbers of a creek in the far distance, now wrapped in the evening haze, and I was sprawling on the ground, and Diamond had been thrown heavily as well. I limped over, and tried to mount--tried again and again, but each time a numbed knee refused to answer to the call.
I sat down to ponder things. That knee-cap--the swelling startled me for a moment. I might crawl, no more--crawl, and leave Diamond behind. But whither? That could not be thought of.
No sleep that night. And water--!
The bag--! No; it were better not. I tried to sleep.
Yet, that water--was it so _very_ bad? I wasn't so thirsty back at the well; it would be palatable enough now.
I reached for it, and drank it greedily.
"Fool!" The reflection came instantly. "Now look out!"
How hot it was--stifling.
My brain was converted into a busy telephone exchange, and every subscriber was ringing up viciously.
"Hello? hello?"
That was from the leg; a cramp. I attended to it.
Again a vicious ring. The swollen knee called for sympathy--anything else I couldn't give it.
A violent call. The tongue this time. Poor member, poor badly-treated member. But be still. Yet somehow, try as it would, it couldn't get back to its proper place.
Then, in a quiet moment, the brain set to work on its own account. Diamond--was Diamond safe? What were the faithful one's injuries?
But another interrupting call: those muscles again.
A mosquito! Ha, sing away, fasten your sucker where you please--you are but a mere circumstance to-night!
Hot Moisture! on my forehead! Now, what mysterious well within me held yet a drop of water? (Was that a rustle? Niggers, perhaps. Ah, well--)
Ants? Very well; what matter? But--but keep off that knee!
And, oh, for one long deep drink of water!
Dives, has that monster Lazarus relented and begged for you a drop of water yet?
* * * *
It is wearisome to write how _I_ felt and what _I_ said and did--more wearisome perhaps than it is to read. But these unpleasant incidents seem to be regarded as the "most prominent features" of the journey; and they are here set out, not because there is any gratification to be got from the operation, but because by pointing out the pitfalls, they may serve to make easier the path of those who shall follow me.
* * * *
The dawn, if it brought no assuagement of the thirst, brought at any rate more hope; and still stiff and sore and aching, I limped, leading Diamond, towards the Wycliffe, which I knew could not be far away. It was an hour's drag through sand and scrub before the turn-off pad was reached; then a mile down the pad, the waterhole itself.
The Wycliffe is a wide watercourse which, after rain, stretches out unrestrained at many places in its course into a series of shallow swamps and clay-banked waterholes. One of these was filled to overflowing with "the nectar of the gods;" and, literally, rushing to its edge, I drank with rapturous delight.
The cravings of an abnormal thirst having been satisfied, I placed the polluted water-bag to soak, made a pot of tea, further refreshed myself with a wash, and had hardly touched the earth when I fell asleep.
* * * *
It may have been reality, or it may have been fancy; certainly I heard a rustle, and sat up quickly.
Three blackfellows were walking towards where I lay. At the instant of seeing them they were scarcely half a dozen yards off. I did not move--where was I to move, and why?
"What name you wantem?" I asked.
As none of them had on anything more than what looked like a piece of old clothes line with the frayed ends knotted together in front, with boomerangs thrust through it at the sides, and as each carried a woomera, or throwing stick, and a spear, they appeared to be quite respectable wild savages.
It is at such moments that a self-respecting person should, in a twinkling, live his life over again--he should look down through the corridors of his years, and renounce all his wickednesses.
Also the armed and treacherous natives; these denizens of the wildest tract of the Australian continent, descendants of those (or maybe the men themselves) who have murdered settler and traveller in cold blood--these formidable fellows, I say, should have raised a whoop, and casting their spears at my prostrate form, should then have robbed me of the few trinkets I possessed, and my revolver, and have left another carcase to tell silently of the infamy of the black people.
But things go wrong. For my own part, instead of looking back through any corridors, I observed that the feet of my visitors were much larger than were those of the natives south of the Alice. And, instead of a war-whoop and a deadly lunge, one of the three stretched out a hand and whined the single word "Baccy?"
And this is the romance of our Dark Continent!
These undraped fellows, carrying spears and boomerangs, roaming about an unfenced wilderness, romantic enough in contour and general setting, capable enough, one would judge, of eating uncooked rattlesnakes for choice--whining "Baccy?"
It was exasperating. Besides, I wasn't going through the country loaded up with tobacco for free distribution among blackfellow-strangers.
It, at the instant, occurred to me that those three strapping fellows might, if they chose, possess themselves of all the tobacco I had, and the bicycle into the bargain, I was certainly too weak to--
Then it flashed through my mind--"What would the fearless fellow back at the Stirling do?" I made up my mind for him at once.
"You fellows, get!"
Then I turned over, as if dead certain they would "get!"
And after "yabbering" to or about the bicycle they disappeared--whither I did not know.
By the generality of those white men with whom I conversed on such matters before reaching Alice Springs, it is--or was--an accepted belief that, from that place onward, natives are nearly always about at watering places along the overland track, although the traveller may not catch sight of even one. They are ever so much more sharp of sight and hearing than the whites, and, being treacherous themselves, they are very suspicious of strangers, and so they hide if they do not clear out on learning of a strangers coming.
Some of them believe or pretend to believe the whites have robbed them of their choicest hunting grounds, and, naturally, these work themselves up into revengeful passions when dwelling on their wrongs.
It is always best, or so I heard, when the traveller is alone, or there are only two together, to keep moving--not to linger long at one spot. And I must say that I have noted a spicy and suggestive _soupçon_ of restlessness at night-time in the manners of those few travellers with whom I camped beyond the Alice. The revolver was invariably seen to before turning in.
And, on principle, a revolver should be carried. If whites ceased to carry the weapon, then the natives, observing its absence would grow braggishly bold and presuming.
* * * *
Seventeen miles of bad travelling ground--red loam and sand plains--brings the traveller to the Devonport Ranges. A couple of miles before passing through them, a creek, the Sutherland, was crossed. The white sand in the channel was piled up in strange formations. How terrific and eddying the current of water must be which at wide intervals comes tearing down! As it stood, the bed suggested a reproduction, in the solid, of a narrow strip of wild-surging tempestuous ocean--a series of waves and billows, small mountains high.
Through the range though, it is good riding.
A mile or two beyond the Sutherland, on a flat among the low hills, huge, smooth boulder-like masses of granite threaten to block the way; but the track winds in among them, and out again.
The boulders lie thickly around in every direction, singly or piled one upon another. They are of all shapes--round and oval predominating--and run from scores to hundreds of tons in weight. Some are so perched as almost to tempt the passer-by to bring a crowbar with him next time he comes and tip them over.
These are "The Devil's Marbles," and a very novel and rather fantastic appearance they present. The solitary traveller may easily conjure up images of giant hobgoblins coming along in play hours to practice the game of "Catch"--surely, by the way, the devil's own favorite game.
I was about to sit in the shade of a large boulder, when from the further side of it came out an animal uncanny and weird as its surroundings. In form it resembled an iguana, but was five or six times larger than any one of that species I could remember to have seen, and, while I stood and looked in mild astonishment, it rose on its two long hind feet, and so walked a short distance; then as suddenly "flopped" down again, and disappeared.
The 36 miles from the Wycliffe to the Bonney Creek is nearly all bad country for cycling over. I was riding at the moment of first sighting the Creek, and a little while afterwards was able to discern the well away out from the farther bank. To the left of the crossing and not far from it, a small column of smoke was rising; and by the fire--two standing, the others sitting or lying down--were half-a-dozen bandicoot-hunters.
I had reached the Creek's bank before observing the blackfellows, and had been on the point of dismounting; but their unexpected presence (I had noticed no fresh tracks), induced me to keep going, and I spurred Diamond cruelly on to make him cross the pebbly bed, past which there promised to be a stretch of good hard level road on which I could--well, manoeuvre, should the occasion for doing so arise; although it would have taken much forcible persuasion to induce me leave the water once I reached it.
But Diamond was very weakly and out of condition that afternoon and stuck its rider up right in the middle of the gravelly passage. I came off with a right-pedal dismount and faced over the skeleton barricade only just in time to see the backs of two fast-running niggers before they disappeared into the scrub.
I pushed Diamond up the Bonney's bank and over to the well.
One hesitates to perpetrate an obvious joke about this Bonney water. But I had eaten nothing, with the exception of the "gooseberries" already mentioned, since leaving Barrow's Creek, so now made the quart-pot full of thick soup, and devoured it, before carting in a stock of firewood, for we must camp this night at Bonney Well, notwithstanding its rather evil reputation.
Firewood was scarce, and the coming night gave promise of being chilly; but, a sufficient stock collected, I strolled down to the blackfellows' camping ground. They had left no weapons, but had generously allowed to remain for my inspection (or it was hospitably intended?), one iguana (on the still smouldering embers, and over-done now), six inches intact, and several small pieces of frizzled snake, and one half-picked bone--which last may have been part of a picaninny's arm, so evil did it smell. The flies had taken possession of everything eatable, and there appeared no good and sufficient reason for disturbing them.
* * * *
"Better not light a fire," I had been warned, wherever unfriendly blacks are said to visit, especially when camping alone. But when the chilly early morning comes and the marrow in one's bones gets frozen, a fellow having insufficient covering is certain to start a thawing blaze, and take his chances with the waddying niggers. Last night had been warm, but this was a season of sharp changes--with the day time only there invariably came great heat.
As I lay stretched on my sheet of waterproof, I ruminated on many things--on the many narrow escapes from dire disaster of this and other days. How often had I straightened out those pedal cross-bars, which luckily ever seemed to receive, give to, and so dull the hidden timber's sharp upsetting blow! Fortunate to be sure was I in having chosen this priceless treasure of a bicycle frame. Again and again my eyes opened wide in astonishment, when, after some unavoidable stump's onslaught, a tumble, or other mishap, its every part was found to be perfect.
So with my head shoved into the widest part of a pair of pyjama mosquito-curtains, I made certain that my revolver was close at hand, and, being hungry enough to make me feel miserable, was yet quite happy and contented in the knowledge that I was to some extent experiencing the reality of those indefinite possibilities of which I had been forewarned.
* * * *
A mosquito-curtain is grateful and comforting; but after a hot day's toil one feels little inclined to erect a frame-work about one's couch, fix up the netting, and cut pegs to keep it down all around. For pegging would be necessary; if it were left anyway loose, the average able-bodied, athletic mosquito of these parts would just lift the thing up and get to work. Therefore I contented myself with shoving my head into whatever most bag-like spare wearable I happened to possess--pyjamas, for instance--thus lessening the effectiveness or length of the insects' sting by the thickness of the sheltering material.
It is further South that the story is told of the mosquitoes and the boiler-maker.
A man was engaged re-riveting a faulty boiler-plate. The mosquitoes were very troublesome; but, after showing fight awhile, this rivetter devised a plan of revenge, and resolutely worked on until the job in hand was finished. Then, smiling through his swollen lips and eyelids, he climbed in through the man-hole, clapped on the cover, and laughed in wild derision as those on the outside stamped on the plates, frantic and enraged at thus losing their prey. Then came a silence. Then a strange humming was heard; next a boring noise; and then, to the hidden one's dismay, an intruding sting appeared, and yet another, and still countless more, all feeling around to grip and fasten on to him. But the boiler-maker was a man of resource; and as the stings projected, or injected, with mighty blows he clinched them tight, chuckling the while, until those outside, making discovery of what was being done to them, took fright, and, spreading their wings flew upwards--and nothing whatever has been seen of that man or that boiler since.
* * * *
From the Bonney Well I started, after breakfasting on a pipe-full of tobacco, with the intention of making Tennant Creek (62 miles) that same night. But several unforeseen events altered those plans.
Gilbert Creek is 14 miles ahead. And here (I smile disdainfully now) I made myself uncomfortable. I picked up a pad that led into the creek; then having dined on meat extract and smoke, carelessly led the bicycle across the creek. But no pad in this direction was to be seen, and I heedlessly wandered on until what appeared to be another creek was crossed. Then a bend; this was crossed also--the bicycle having to be led much of the time. Now this was getting monotonous; still no pad leading onwards. There was nothing for it but to go back on my tracks. But my tracks--where were they? We had been passing lately over a hard gum flat, covered with leaves, and no mark showed to my inexperienced eye. I remember at this moment, that I paused, ran my finger through my hair, and felt as lonely as that other unfortunate man who lost his shadow.
I had come from the East; going by compass, I rode on--to a creek. This I followed back, pushing the machine over the uneven surface, and not at all sure, after all, whether this was the right creek. But--a furrow!
I put the water-bag to my lips, and, I think, almost drained it.
All was plain sailing back to the waterhole now, and there the existence of the several creeks was explained away--the water was in a billabong, or a short creek-arm, which had been mistaken by me for a separate watercourse. But the last hour or so had taken more out of me than a day's hard work could do.
* * * *
Three parts of a mile up the pad, a dozen dingoes were scampering over a short patch of heavy sand through which I had walked when coming down. I stopped short to observe them. They were as confounded as those niggers were whom I had before watched examining the tracks of the machine. A man had passed over that patch; of that those dingoes certainly had no doubt. But whence had he come, and whither gone? They scented up and down on either side in vain. The trail of the bicycle they disregarded--that was no man's marks. And there they were excitedly scampering up and down when a revolver shot led them to slink into the scrub, each taking a way of his own.
* * * *
Nearly the whole of the 30 miles and the next mile (Kelly's) is bad red sand, unrideable in places, the pads being filled in with loose drift stuff; while tussocks of grass and porcupine, low scrub and fallen jagged timber, await one at the sides.
Riding over telegraph poles is a feat which the cyclist here is called on frequently to perform. In many places the track runs alongside the old line of wooden telegraph poles; in other places, again, the modern galvanised-iron rods stand just where stood those wooden poles of older days. In each case the old poles, in various stages of decomposition, lie often right across the track; and the rider cannot always see them until after he has felt the bump.
Against the continued use of the wooden poles there had been many grave objections. Four of the most pregnant sources of trouble were white ants, lightning, bush fires, and the rapidity with which that part of the wood below ground rotted away.
* * * *
Formerly line-repairers were nearly always at work. Now most of the repairing is done but once a year, before or after the line has had its annual end-to-end inspection.
In the changed circumstances the overland telegraph stations are no longer chiefly depots for the use of those whose chief business it is to keep the line in efficient working order, but are mainly for the occupation of those whose duty it is to re-transmit messages from one repeating station to another, up or down. From Palmerston a "wire" is sent to Daly waters, repeated there, and received at Alice Springs; thence on to Hergott, and so to Adelaide. Or it may be re-transmitted first at Powell's Creek, next at Barrow's Creek, then at Charlotte Waters, and so on to Adelaide. One sequence of repeating stations operate through the night, the other throughout the day. At some--Alice Springs, for instance, the work goes on continuously.
The working of the line from Palmerston down to Attack Creek (between Powell's and Tennant's Creeks) is superintended from the north; the lower part, from Alice Springs.
* * * *
Half way between the Gilbert and Kelly's Well the track runs as a main street through the heart of a thickly populated city of spires, known as Little Edinboro'--a multitudinous array of ant hills, stretching out east and west far beyond the range of vision, and extending also some miles along the track.
There were fresh horse tracks near the well; and at the well itself, two white men, with their two or three black-boys, were camped, "spelling." An offer of hospitality was at once extended to me; and, as I had been three days and two nights without eating "white man's tucker," there was no hesitancy about the acceptance.
And it did not require much persuasion to induce me to camp here; for he who eats not, neither shall he feel much inclined to work.
"You'll not think I'm a beast, will you?" I said apologetically. "The fact is, I've eaten nothing for three days." But there is no need to apologise on the Overland.
* * * *
An army of ants marched up and promenaded on the table-cloth; but provided one is reasonably cautious and brushes the insects off before taking into his mouth any of the pieces of meat to which some may have fastened themselves, their presence at one's dining table is of no great consequence when one is very hungry.
Ants are very numerous everywhere through the continent; and, in a journey through, one comes across communities of them, representing, I believe, every known kind and species.
The traveller is not much interfered with by the white ants found north of the MacDonnell Ranges--those favor a harder diet than that which man provides--but the ordinary meat, sugar and bread-devouring varieties, muster up in myriads wherever one camps.
At many of the camping grounds alongside wells, soakages and water-holes, are oblong 7 × 4 spaces enclosed by sloping, little banks or walls of scooped-up sand, six inches high or so. As the troublesome and evil-smelling insects climb up these walls, the loose sand gives way, and they topple back again. Within such ingeniously-fashioned ramparts the traveller is secure--from one pest, at any rate.