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diff --git a/58206-0.txt b/58206-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6b2ad41 --- /dev/null +++ b/58206-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5685 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58206 *** + + + + + + + + + ++-------------------------------------------------+ +|Transcriber's note: | +| | +|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | +| | ++-------------------------------------------------+ + + +George Robertson & Co. + +BOOKSELLERS, + +Publishers, and Commercial Stationers. + +[Illustration: Decoration] + +ACCOUNT BOOK MANUFACTURERS. + +[Illustration: Decoration] + +_Bookbinders_ _Letterpress Printers._ +_Paper Rulers_ _Engravers_ +_Lithographers_ _Die Sinkers_ + _Embossers._ + +[Illustration: Decoration] + +MELBOURNE-- + +384-390 Little Collins Street. + +SYDNEY-- + +361-363 George Street. + +ADELAIDE-- + +Freeman Street. + +BRISBANE-- + +Elizabeth Street. + +AND + +LONDON-- + +17 Warwick Square. Paternoster Row, E.C. + + +[Illustration: Dunlop Tyres] + +and + +DUNLOP-WELCH RIMS + +[Illustration: Decoration] + +Were used by +MURIF +on his + +_Transcontinental Ride from Adelaide to +Port Darwin_. + +MURIF KNEW + +Only too well that he must have Tyres and +Rims that would prove SPEEDY AND +RELIABLE if he was to accomplish his +pioneer undertaking--HENCE HIS CHOICE. +And the result showed that his confidence +was not misplaced--as his Tyres and Rims +came through the ordeal splendidly. + +The DUNLOP PNEUMATIC TYRE CO., Ltd., + +247 SWANSTON STREET, MELBOURNE. + +Also at . . . + +Kent Street, Sydney. Franklin St., Adelaide. +King Street, Perth. And Christchurch, N.Z. + + + + +FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN + +ACROSS A CONTINENT ON +A BICYCLE. + +AN ACCOUNT OF A SOLITARY RIDE FROM ADELAIDE +TO PORT DARWIN + +BY +JEROME J. MURIF. + +George Robertson & Co., +MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, ADELAIDE, BRISBANE +AND LONDON. +1897. + + +GEORGE ROBERTSON AND CO. +PRINTERS +MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, ADELAIDE, BRISBANE +AND LONDON + + + + +FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN. + + +A vague longing to do _something_ first flattered, then irritated, then +oppressed me. In vain I tried to argumentatively brush it aside, to +pooh-pooh it, to laugh it out of countenance. My arsenal of trite +well-worn sayings (so commonly the accompaniment of a weak argument) was +ransacked for ammunition to once and for all lay out this absurd +restlessness. For instance, I resolutely endeavored to persuade myself +that of course the maxim was true that "There is nothing new under the +sun." I argued that that was as absolutely convincing in my case as a +Maxim is in some others. Then I went to sleep, dreamily reflecting that +_that_ was settled, anyway. In the morning, I was witness that one +saying, at any rate, was true: I had convinced myself against my will, +and was in reality still longing for that formless _something_. + +So I made a bargain with myself to strive to give my longing a local +habitation and a name--to set about discovering something to be done +that no man had yet even dared. + +In my quest of a world to conquer, I bought a book of "Human Records" +(which is not to be confounded with "A Human Document") so I might know +what spheres had been already vanquished. There inscribed were the +names of the heroes who had sucked the most eggs, eaten the most +dumplings, drunk the most liquor, chopped the biggest tree, drawn the +most teeth, vaulted the most horses. + +I passed these dizzy heights with a sigh. They were far above me. +Besides, _cui bono_? + +And then, my mind revolving many things, speeding from one to the other, +passing as the bicycle-scorcher passes the mile posts on the road-side-- + +Of course! Why, what else could it be? + +To cross Australia on a bicycle, piercing the very heart of a continent, +facing dangers, some known and more unknown--it was the very thing. + +Now, looking back upon the task accomplished, I confess, with becoming +humility, that it was not from a splendid devotion to Science; it was +neither to observe an eclipse of the sun or the moon nor to scour +unknown country for the elusive diprotodon; not even in the interests of +British Commerce (as represented by Jones's factory or Brown's +warehouse), but simply to gratify this craving to do _something_ before +considerate people dropped me out of sight and out of mind--it was +simply for this that I resolved there and then to pedal from Ocean to +Ocean on a bicycle. + +And when, a month after my task was completed, the Jubilee honors were +announced I did not search the list in the expectation of finding myself +down for even a peerage. + + * * * * + +The _something_ had at any rate taken shape at last; in the first blush +of delight the accomplishment seemed a trifling matter of detail. To do, +and to be the first to attempt the doing of it, was my object. If that +object was to be attained easily, all well. If, on the other hand, there +were many dangers and they were safely overcome, then better still. + +All I now lay claim to having done was the little all I had the desire +to do: to travel a bicycle over every inch of the ground between +Glenelg, on a gulf of the Southern Ocean, and Port Darwin, on the +Arafura sea, a portion of the Indian Ocean--and to be the first to do +it. In no sense of the word has my machine been conveyed for me; neither +has any conveyance other than the bicycle with which I set out borne me +at any time over any part of the journey. + +Nevertheless in the fulfilment of my purpose I availed myself of +whatever other aids offered. Thus I took full advantage of the hotels +_en route_; and when, later on, the region of hotels being passed--and +these benevolent institutions are pitched marvellously far out--I did +not ride off into the scrub whenever I suspected that people were ahead +of me on the track. Not even the thought that those persons might invite +me to a meal daunted me. The proffer of a blanket at night had no +terrors for me. And if in the morning my new-made friends could give me +some fresh directions, checking my own and serving as a safeguard, I +thought none the worse of them. + +But we are not on the track yet. Not even in the dressing-room. + + * * * * + +As the first few to whom I in part confided my intention pooh-poohed the +notion, I consulted further with no one; and as I was not in a position +to pick up much information concerning the country to be traversed +without disclosing plans which were never mentioned but to be laughed at +or declared impracticable, I decided to go quietly at the first +opportunity, and to be my own "guide, philosopher, and friend." + +Still, I was not angry with those who chided me. In common, I fancy, +with the majority of Australians, I knew but little of the northern part +of the continent; and I honestly believed that the journey was one which +it would be difficult to complete. They said impossible, I said +difficult--that was all the difference. + +Men who knew the country led me in fancy into the centre of the +continent, broke my machine upon any one of the thousand unexpected +dangers of the open, trackless desert--and asked me to consider my +helplessness. + +Yes; the journey was formidable. It had no attractions for me if it was +otherwise. I thanked my friends, began earnestly to regard the excursion +in a serious light, and held my tongue. + +I smile benevolently now as I look back upon myself of those days. The +thing is done, it then remained to be done. + + * * * * + +Before this time, I had thought of securing a companion to share the +venture; and I wasted a good deal of time and money seeking such a one. + +The number of people who had the expedition in mind surprised me--I met +them constantly. + +"Ah, yes, great idea! D'ye know I've been thinking about tackling it for +some time?" + +"Well, co'on." + +Then there was an awkward pause. + +Generally I had to see them about it in the morning. In the +morning--"Sorry, old fellow, awfully sorry, but can't manage to get away +just now. Great idea, though, isn't it?" + +One whom I came to know intimately (we were, and continue, excellent +friends) was at first all eagerness to join. But he too gradually cooled +off and reluctantly and half abashed, but finally, backed out. + +And in his case, why? + +Not because of the expense, nor through reading or hearing of +treacherous blacks, of venomous snakes, of alligators and other +interesting things we had so eagerly looked forward to throwing stones +at. Not because of the certain hardships and probable perils to be +encountered; the likelihood of being stricken with fever; the danger of +getting bushed, and experiencing the terrors of thirst as well as the +horrors of hunger (for we knew we could carry precious little of either +water or food). + +No; just this, half apologetically said, and then only with an effort +that did him credit--"The general impression seems to be that the thing, +you know, isn't to be done. When they hear of our starting out to try +it, what will the fellows say?" + +And what talks we had had about our adventures in prospective! A rousing +change, too, was admittedly just the very thing he stood in need of. He +could well afford both the time and the money. An "adventure" he was the +one to thoroughly enjoy. But--the smile of the fellows left behind, +their laugh and jest in case of failure; it was more than a sensitive +man could bear to think of. And so he stayed at home. + +Two could travel in safety where one might perish. If one machine broke +down, the other at least might bear food and water to the derelict +rider. But if the derelict rider were alone, stricken ill, fallen a +victim to accident far from any settlement-- + +Not a pleasant track--let us seek another. + +There was the continent. No bicycle had crossed it. That was my +_something_, resolved upon long ago. And if it had to be done alone--it +might be misfortune. Who knows--it might also be the other thing! + + * * * * + +It was, then, to be a solitary ride. But that the _bona fides_ of it +could not very well be disputed, I had printed a many-paged book, ruled +vertically. The headings to the spaces were:--"Distance," "Date," +"Time," "Presence vouched for at," "By," "Address," "Departure," with a +blank page opposite for "Mems _re_ road." + +Being well aware that many people would certainly be averse to hurriedly +entering their names in the book of an entire stranger--a stranger, too, +who must resolutely decline to state his business, his object, or his +destination--I determined to call on and make known my intention to two +or three "leading men," foreseeing that, could I but obtain their +signatures to begin with, others would be only too pleased, or at least +would not refuse, to add theirs to the list. + +Luckily the first of the notabilities I waited on took kindly to the +idea, and at once very courteously obliged me. To him my thanks are once +more repeated; and neither of the other two gentlemen next seen +demurred. + +Yet even this task was not accomplished without the customary +kindly-intentioned warnings. Thus one of the three said:--"Do you know +you face Death in seriously attempting to do this journey?" What answer +could be more common-place than mine--"One has to die _some_ time, sir?" + +"Death"!--the word, spoken generally with much unction, and I were grown +familiar. + +Had the gentleman said--"Pooh! It's easy. You ought to do it without +hurting yourself, in so many weeks time,"--had he said that, I should +have been sadly disheartened. + + * * * * + +When in Adelaide previously I had sounded a cycle-agent as to the reward +he would be prepared to offer a man for undertaking the trip. + +Like the others he ridiculed the notion--termed it preposterous, spoke +of crocodiles, and of the rider having to carry a spare set of tyres, +bags of flour, tanks of water, perhaps an extra machine. Nevertheless he +proposed that the hare-brained unknown one be got to purchase a bicycle +(on the sale of which I, of course, would be allowed a small +commission), "and should he get through," remarked the agent, with a +wink, "I would not mind returning him the purchase money." + +"But, stay," he added, as an afterthought, climbing down yet lower, +"it's bound to be a failure, and failure does nobody any good, you know; +so I'd rather not have my name or one of my machines mixed up with the +thing at all." + +As this might be the prevailing feeling among cycle-agents (and I have +good reasons now for believing that it was) I determined on acting +independently of them also. Than this resolution nothing in connection +with the undertaking has since given me greater satisfaction; nor was +anything more comforting during the ride than the feeling of complete +independence which flowed from it. + + * * * * + +I knew a little about bicycles, and did not pick one at random in the +first, second, or any other agency I entered. Besides being on the +look-out for a good mount, I was also seeking a firm which I could, if +occasion arose, recommend others to deal with. + +At last my choice was made. I paid the money, said nothing of my plans, +and no embarrassing questions were asked. + +Being now resolved to take upon my own shoulders all the consequences of +failure--if I should fail--I erased the maker's name and substituted my +own favorite word "Diamond" in its place. + +If I broke down--well, a moral might be pointed on the evil results of +riding an unknown make of bicycle. If there came success--well, again, I +should have no objection to making my acknowledgment to civil people. + + * * * * + +The machine I chose and purchased came nearly up to my ideal for this +present purpose. Let us look at it. + +A roadster; two 28 in. wheels; weight, 29lbs; gear, 62½; handy +interlocking arrangement; dust-proof caps over pedal bearings; bearings +not of complicated construction; tangent spokes; the sprocket and back +gear-wheels well set on their shafts. + +I could not find fault with any part of the machine. Its general +appearance pleased me. + +The new saddle came off, and an old and comfortable one, with an +appropriate tool bag, took its place. This tool bag was circular, and my +drinking vessel (a "pannikin," not to put too fine a point upon it) +fitted closely over its end. An old, tried, and trusty inflator was +added to this part of the equipment. + +Then I ordered a more than ordinarily thick tandem tyre to be fitted on +the hind wheel in place of the one of the regular roadster pattern, and +an endless rubber strip to be solutioned on over the tread of the front +wheel. + +As for the rest I did not look for gear case or cyclometer. If the +country to be traversed came up to expectations in point of roughness, +the former would be torn away--an objection which applied also to the +cyclometer, as the only reliable make I knew of when in use protruded +from the outside of one of the front forks. Neither was missed; and I +was glad I did not burden myself with them. + +The brake was allowed to remain, and a bell was added. Both of these I +intended to throw away when the beaten roads were left behind. + +The equipment was completed with a spare air tube, chain-link and +rivets, copper wire, file, spanners and plyers, solution and patching +rubber, a long length of strong cord, tooth brush, compass, and small +bottle of matches. + +A pair of luggage-carriers were fitted to the handle bars; on these was +strapped a roll of light waterproof sheeting, 6½ feet by 4 feet, +containing a change of linen, pair of socks, handkerchief, soap, towel, +a small mirror--my extravagance!--a comb, and three small waterproof +bags in which to stow papers, etc., in the event of heavy rain falling. +A leather satchel slung over one shoulder, and so fastened that it could +not slip down, proved a handy receptacle for odds and ends. A rug and +other things of which I may have occasion to make mention later on were +forwarded to Hergott. + +I had intended carrying front and back wheel duplicate shafts, but did +not. + +A tin to hold one quart of water was strapped against the stays, between +the top of the rear wheel and the saddle. + +A day was spent in riding through the hills near Adelaide with the +object of testing the new machine, and that I might adjust its chain and +bearings to my liking, learning the while what I could of its +peculiarities, if it had any disagreeable ones--in fact, to break it in. + + * * * * + +On the evening of my fourth day in Adelaide, my very few arrangements +being nearly complete, I rode down to Glenelg, obtained the local +post-master's promise of a signature, and spent the night at the Pier +Hotel. Next morning the P.M. walked down with me and stood on the +pier--smiling, I observed--while I cycled down the firm sandy beach into +the ocean; then, having turned about, found myself dramatically waving +my hat to the water. + +That was the baptism of Diamond in the Southern Ocean. + +The obliging officer entered a short statement in my voucher book to +the effect that he had been witness to the incomprehensible ceremony. +(The statement served as a preface, and so was written on the first +blank page inside the cover.) + +And now northwards through a continent. + + * * * * + +Still having a little private business to transact in Adelaide, I +remained there for another night and well into the following forenoon. +Then the bicycle, loaded now for the expedition, was lifted downstairs; +I shook hands with the landlady (who "couldn't make me out nohow," I +dare say, good soul), told her I might not be back for tea and not to +keep it waiting, and quietly pedalled away on my glistening Diamond, +without a single person being by to see me off or wish me luck. + +But there was the glorious sense of having resolutely acted an +independent part. A glad feeling of being alive, untrammelled, free. And +so we gaily sped along. It was a very dance on wheels. + +We are on the track at last! + + * * * * + +Kapunda, 50 miles from Adelaide, gives us shelter for the night. To +Gawler is half the distance. The road is good only to four miles from +Adelaide, thence bumpy macadam, with clay stretches, to within five +miles of Gawler. To the right, the Flinders Ranges; flat country showing +to the left. Agriculture everywhere. + +Beyond Gawler, I was advised to take the middle one of three roads, +known as the Freeling; but after trying it, cut off to the right and got +on to the Greenock road. Here was splendid running--down grades, too. +Metalled with ironstone--some grand patches. So good that I passed the +words "Post Office" at She-oak Log without dismounting to ask someone to +sign for me. + +About and after She-oak Log was undulating country, with the ranges +showing now and again to the right. At a little place named Daveyston, I +halted to pick up a signature and a long drink. A resident put down the +one, I the other. + +Arrived at Greenock. Visited madam the gracious post-mistress, and +obtained her signature. Prized, because it is the first in a lady's hand +in the book. Then on to Kapunda. Undulating country, with good riding +all the way. Arrived about 6 o'clock--hungry. + + * * * * + +This afternoon I met a cyclist seated in a spring dray, steadying his +machine with one hand and himself with the other. They were noisily +approaching at a jig-jog. We stopped. + +"Good-day!" + +"Good-day!" + +"Accident?" I asked. + +"No--only this is less like graft. And where are you bound for?" + +"Head of the line if all goes well!" + +"Oodnadatta?" + +"Um." + +"Mean it--on business?" + +"Oh no, merely out for a ride." + +But my new mount had betrayed me to this wheeling Sherlock Holmes. + +"Ah, you'll get over that sort of thing by-an'-bye. Just after I'd +learned to stick on, I was like you-- + + + The stiffest breeze was never too stiff, + Nor the highest hill too high. + + +Ha, ha! Not bad, is it? But as I was saying, I got over it. The bloom is +off the rye'-din. Ha, ha!" + +"Oh, come now," I expostulated meekly. + +"Never mind, no 'fence, you know. Bye-bye." Then to the driver--"S'pose +we see if we can't knock a sprint out of the old quad., eh? Ha, ha!" + +And he laughed along the Greenock road. + + * * * * + +From Kapunda next morning. The road excellent, built up of ironstone, +broken small. Gentle inclines, and longish down-grades. Undulating +country, fertile and farmed. Before one quite reaches Waterloo, a +cemetery is seen away to the left, remindful of a battle field. + +The track continues hilly and ironstony to Black Springs; soon after +that, at Stony Hut, a rivulet of brackish water crosses the road. Then +one gets amongst the highest rises yet encountered. Through these, known +as the Black Hills, winds the road, keeping fairly level for eight or +nine miles, and so into the Burra. Rather a pleasant ride those last few +miles, gums and peppermint or box trees picturesquely dotting the +landscape, until at the Burra the ruins of once famous copper-mining +works displease the eye. + +From the Burra to Mount Bryan an excellent level metalled road keeps +close beside the railway line; but a couple of miles beyond Hallett, the +cyclist will come on unmade roads, so that he will have only fair riding +to Yarcowie and Terowie. + +Tyre troubles cause a delay between Yarcowie and Terowie. Ahead are +cross-roads innumerable, and it being already sundown I reluctantly +decide to stay at Terowie the night. 145 miles from Adelaide. + + * * * * + +A drought lay heavily upon the land, giving the township in the eyes of +the skurrying passer-by an atmosphere of even greater somnolence than +usual. A church, a store (often also the post-office), a blacksmith's +shop, a hotel, a school-house, with half-a-dozen suburban tenements, +constitute a township. It is affirmed that there are inhabitants, that +on Sundays they go to church punctiliously, and that on one other given +day in the week the farmers come in from round about with their butter +and their eggs to the store, and then the township is "busy." Of the +other five days there is no record. + + * * * * + +An early start was made from Terowie on an absurdly round-about road to +Petersburg--unmade, too, but level, yet only middling for travelling on +Head winds, besides. + +Breakfasted, and steered for Orroroo; this township appearing to be +right in the path of anyone making northwards. Much crossing and +re-crossing of the railway. At half-way, Blackrock is passed. A hard, +smooth road, running through the fertile Blackrock plains, now withered +and parched; high ranges showing afar off on either hand--and so to +Orroroo. Thence it is only a few miles to Walloway, where another +rivulet is come upon. To Eurelia the road is not good, but it improves +as one journeys towards Carrieton. + + * * * * + +In a blinding dust-storm blowing against us, a spring cart passed, whose +driver invited Diamond and me on board. This was the first offer of the +kind we had received, and it was thankfully declined. + +My voucher-book was being signed readily. Only twice so far had it been +presented without result. One poor human agricultural implement looked +cunningly at me. A book canvasser had "had" him once, he said, and added +"I ain't a fool." + +Disaster is a merciless mocker; it deceives its victims into believing +that it has sharpened their wits, whereas in general it has sadly dulled +them. Here was a case in point. + +In the other case a pot boy, the only "inhabitant" on hand, was so +impertinently inquisitive that I did without his help. Perhaps another +case. + + * * * * + +The evening at Carrieton was more or less profitably occupied in +listening to a tap-room discussion of social, political and domestic +economy as represented by seed-wheat. No matter into what by-ways the +debate drifted, it came back inevitably to seed-wheat. There was +infinite pathos in the tales of helplessness of these drought-harried +men. + + * * * * + +There are abundant proofs as we steer out of Carrieton towards Cradock +that we are already on the outskirts of the kingdom of the bicycle. The +horses--bony apparitions mostly--have for the machine none of that +contempt which tells of its familiarity to the city horse. So the bell +is handy. Not so much to warn the equestrian as to soothe the +bicyclist's conscience. You ring your bell and by that simple act throw +on to other shoulders the full responsibility for all the frightened +horse may do. + + * * * * + +To Cradock from Carrieton next forenoon. Thirty miles. Strong head +winds. Near Yangarrie, cross a gum-lined creek of shallow running water. +Travelling stock and mail route all the way. + + * * * * + +And on this stage a slight mishap, and an incident. Before creeping +into a dam for a drink, I hung my satchel upon the fence. Having drunk, +a horse took my notice: it stood listlessly against the fence, on the +outside, in a paddock entirely destitute of feed--a sun-baked waste. But +for the support of the fence it must have fallen. + +I remembered having somewhere seen such another animal described as a +barrel-hooped skeleton, held together by raw-hide. + +In vain I tried to shift it. It quite frivolously whisked its tail--its +only token of animation. No persuasions, no beguilements could move it. +I was interested--in the cause of science, and of sport. I had inflated +my tyres a little, and now desired to ascertain whether a strong blast +from the air-pump would throw it _hors de combat_. Visions rose before +me. I should, if I could but succeed, tell a breathless people, ever +intent upon the amiable pursuit of killing one another and other more +harmless things, that when in the desert I had slaughtered every one of +a mob of horses with the help of a new and deadly air-gun. + +To discover something so deadly--here was a Companionship of the Bath at +the least! + +Thus murderously inclined, I approached with the weapon. The animal +raised its head, cast upon me a look of mingled sorrow and reproach, +lazily lifted its upper lip on seeing the threatening inflator, +and--tried to eat it! + +Of such stuff are the dreams of the bush. + +Thus moralising I rode off without my satchel. Had to race back four +miles. And there still leaning against the fence, apparently unmoved in +so much as a limb, stood the animal, a pitiful monument to the appalling +severity of the drought of '96-7. + + * * * * + +After you leave Cradock the ranges appear to be closing in in front. But +they are escaped somehow; and Hawker, 17 miles from the last township, +is reached. Of Hawker I have two memories: one of a barber; the other of +a "specially prepared" (_i.e._ warmed-up) dinner. Neither, I suspect, of +absorbing public interest. + +In the evening, a strong head-wind having calmed down, rode to Hookina +(9 miles); thence, being disappointed there in the matter of +"accommodation," to a place known as "The White Well," seven miles +ahead. + +Was it to be the first camp out? Darkness had fallen, and lone +travellers who can give no rational account of themselves must ever +labor under dark suspicion also. But, at a roadside cottage, the rare +bicycle served me as a talisman, and secured me a supper, bed, and +breakfast. For the day, 64 miles. + + * * * * + +The road to Hookina goes through the ranges, and for four miles there +are rough and very stony hills to traverse. I took to the railway-line +and rode alongside the rails; but the "metal" was destructively +sharp-cornered, and the riding unsafe, because of the steep embankments +and the frequency of culverts. There was also a tyre-tearing +levelling-peg protruding at every chain or so between the lines. + +From Hookina the track winds through soft but fair riding and level +ground, with the high Arkaby ranges keeping well away to the east. Mount +Alice shows up most prominently. + + * * * * + +On examining Diamond by lamp-light--I made a practice of looking it over +every night--I was unpleasantly surprised to observe innumerable burrs +sticking in both tyres. The back one, being of more than ordinary +thickness, had successfully resisted their endeavors to get through into +the air tube, and the strip on the front tyre, being new, had also +dissuaded the attacking thorns from intruding too far. + +These burrs, common to many of the agricultural districts of South +Australia, and especially prolific where the ground is sandy, are known +as "three cornered jacks." No matter how they lie upon the ground, one +hard and sharp spear points upwards. They are very plentiful in their +season from Hookina up so far as Parachilna. + + * * * * + +The breeze next morning, though light, was favorable. But the day was +Sunday. I debated with myself, in bed, which would be the greater +sin--to not avail oneself of an inviting breeze, or to continue +cycle-touring on the Sabbath. Being unable to answer the question quite +satisfactorily, I compromised, and made a late start. + +To Parachilna (40 odd miles): Bad, bumpy road, stony and soft, or hard +and guttery. Dined here. + +To Beltana (24 miles): Alongside the railway line--on which trains +travel occasionally, and even then for the most part only to Hergott. +Some stretches of good track, but most of it heavy travelling. Much +walking. Some very stony miles traversed over; country broken into low +hills. + +By way of change, there was fresh-looking high saltbush in the vicinity +of Blackfellow's Creek--and also numbers of diamond sparrows. +Blackfellow's Creek, a wider stream than had been expected. + + * * * * + +I met the first aborigines when close to Beltana. There were four of +them, all females, fully dressed. They were walking towards me; and by +way of entertaining them I rang my bell and cavalierly doffed my cap. +For my entertainment doubtless they smiled, as only one of their kind +can, and made grimaces. So we parted the best of friends. "It may not +always be so," I thought; "the painful necessity may arise presently to +shoot some of your male distant relations." + +Bush country is here fairly entered upon; the wheat-producing areas +ending about Hawker. The rainfall is too certainly uncertain further +north. To the south it certainly is uncertain also. + +The everlasting hills yet last, to east and west. + +The night at Beltana; 64 miles for the day; 354 miles from Adelaide. In +good fettle and with a healthy appetite. + +The rough track had been very trying to my Diamond. But all was well. +Sunday cycling, too; yet no accidents! Resolved to cycle on the Sabbath +in future. + + * * * * + +From Beltana Monday morning. Hilly to Puttapa Pass. The latter the most +picturesque spot yet passed. Through a jutting rocky point, a railway +cutting runs at the base of a steep and rugged hill, and at the +cutting's end a lofty iron bridge of many spans runs out across a wide +and very stony creek, through whose bed for a mile or so the track winds +sinuously; then climbs the northern bank, and so on to country far from +good for cycling over. + +Saw the first mob of kangaroos--a small one. + +Much creek-crossing; also much walking--tiring and very slow. Still, I +was in such good condition that I frequently caught myself going at a +"Chinaman's trot" where I could not do any riding. + +In flat country now. The track (over marshy alkaline-strewn ground) +faces towards several low flat-topped hillocks, and passes close to some +remarkable metalliferous-seeming ironstone mounds. Then to Leigh's +Creek, at about 25 miles. Here are a railway siding and a coal mine, +Adelaide owned, but the prospects are not bright. + + * * * * + +In front of a cottage somewhere about here I caught sight of--my first +snake. A small one, brown, about 3 feet long. A frocked child was +standing in the doorway keeping tight hold of a cotton-reel. To the +unrolled length of cotton was attached a crooked pin, baited with a +piece of bread. This precocious infant was fishing--when I chanced to +come along and frighten away his eel. + +On my thoughtlessly telling the mother (who, it transpired, had been +having forty winks in a back room) she exclaimed, "Drat the boy!" +Informed me that "the kid was always getting 'imself into some +mischief--could never let things be," boxed the innocent little +fisherman's ears, and took from him his tackle. "I wondered what he was +awanting the bread for," she remarked by and bye; and when the child, +who had gone to a corner to have his cry out, walked over to bury his +face in her lap--"Lord bless his dirty little angel face," she said, as, +spitting on one corner of her apron, she wiped the little angel face +clean. + + * * * * + +From Leigh's Creek to Lyndhurst is very heavy road--now soft, now very +stony, so travelling is hard work. Thus it was right through to Farina, +60 miles from Beltana, where Diamond and I pulled up about 4 o'clock in +the afternoon. + +An enthusiastic and almost intemperately hospitable wheelman, the only +one in the place, made me welcome; advised me of an excellent stretch of +road up to Hergott, 30 miles on; closed and locked his store door to +mark the occasion of a stranger-cyclist's arrival, and accompanied me +for two or three miles along the track. + +Presently some railway-workmen's cottages are reached, and here kind +people provided an evening meal. And as I started somebody +remarked--"Look out for a bit of a rut when you get about 4 miles on." + +One rut in four miles! Yet, _mirabile dictu_, the road to Hergott came +right up to expectations. + + * * * * + +Railway workmen up here console themselves for their miserable portion +by giving their residences high-sounding titles. + +Somewhere up from Hawker, a row of tents occupy the site of an old camp. +A square tent standing at the top corner of the row is dubbed "No. 1, +Transcontinental Terrace." A round one further along, "Euchre-ville." +Here as everywhere is also a "Belle Vue House;" and likewise "The +Shamrock"--_in memoriam_ doubtless. + +One with the name large-written over the entrance in painfully sprawling +capitals is "Marine View Cottage!" A strapping workman was at the door. + +"Which way lies the marine scenery, mister?" + +"Eh?" he questioned in return, not comprehending for a moment. + +I pointed to the sign and repeated the question. + +"Where's the marine scenery, is it!" + +"If you please." + +"Oh, everywhere within a rajus," sweeping his arm across the +refuse-littered waste. "Marines for yez, but"--with infinite +sadness--"all dead." + + * * * * + +At Hergott, 441 miles from Adelaide. Bleak and uninviting. Treeless, +save for some Government date palms; healthy looking plants, fringing an +artesian bore. The hotel people kindness personified. "Spelled" the +greater part of next day and overhauled the machine; cleaned the chain, +and located one or two puncturettes. + +Found awaiting me here some wearables, a rug and other +likely-to-be-useful articles; but hearing of depots still ahead, I +re-addressed the parcel, minus the wearables, back to whence it came. +Although the nights were likely to be cold, the days are very warm; and +the bulk of the rug made it "impossible" in bad country. At night time, +for a while at any rate, when camping out I would try how sleeping +between two or half-a-dozen fires suits me. + + * * * * + +Oil was to be had at the telegraph stations. (Neatsfoot--I fancy for +this hot climate an oil of about the right consistency; sperm oil, such +as is used for sewing-machines, being to my mind too thin altogether, +while castor is, on the other hand, of course too thick.) As I had so +far used hardly a single feeder-full, I merely replenished my oil-feeder +and left the "reserve tin" behind. I had oiled each morning regularly, +perhaps using another drop or two on the main bearings during the day, +and had dropped a little on the chain after roughly cleaning it +occasionally. Some machines call for frequent re-oiling; others do well +with very little. Diamond luckily was among the latter. + + * * * * + +The consensus of opinion at Hergott was adverse to the success of my +project--for my intentions could no longer be completely hidden. So, +rather than endure possibly irritating remarks on the subject, I moved +on in the afternoon. + +Several people southwards had told me of a cyclist who was coming +presently with the object of attempting to ride right through. (It had +got into the newspapers somehow--how I do not to this day know.) I was +so lightly loaded that few, if any, of them suspected that I was the +individual, "misguided," "rash" and many other things. Wherefore to me +they laughed more derisively about the coming visitor than they might +otherwise have done. + +At one place, after obliging with his signature, a postmaster opened his +heart to me. (That "somewhere about the terminus of the railway" was my +destination I had permitted him to infer.) I ought to wait, he said, +till the expectantly-looked-for other fellow turned up. "He is bound to +come along this way," remarked the P.M., "and--unless you'd rather not, +of course--it would be company for both of you." + +This officer added, cheering me on my way, that he knew the country +northwards well, and he ridiculed the idea of a bicycle being ridden +through it. + +Ah! well, we shall see whether one cannot be pushed through in that +case, I thought; and so moved on. + + * * * * + +The road from Hergott was far from pleasant and there raged that +disheartening drawback to cycling, a head wind. All flat country; soft, +sandy loam, covered with loose stones of varying sizes, known as +"gibbers." We shall know them better presently. + +Travelled only 21 miles, and camped at Canterbury waterhole. Here was a +Callanna sheep-station boundary rider's tent--a temporary shelter until +the water evaporated; and I was made welcome to tea, salt mutton and--my +first damper. + +Before arriving at this waterhole I had to walk through a very soft, +marshy salt-lake; sometimes having to shoulder the bicycle, and +frequently sinking almost knee-deep into the mire. The subsequent sleep +beside that camp fire was a re-creation to remember. + + * * * * + +At a deserted hut a dozen or so miles from Hergott I met a "hard case" +of the bush who had been camped there for three days, and intended +remaining there for four or five more. He was "spelling," he told me. I +suggested that it was a strange place to recuperate. + +"Well, 's this way," he said, in an access of confidence. "I heard ole +so-an'-so had sold 'is mine to a swindicate and was goin' to stand a +blow-out at the pub at Hergit. I might's well be in thet, I ses; but I +found I was a week ahead of it, and now I'm just waitin' here for +that----drunk. My oath, it _wus_ hard when I larnt I was to be a----week +out en them drinks; my throat's peelin'. You don't happen to have----" + +I cut in that I didn't happen to have---- + +"Then d'ye happen to have a squib?"--(squib=revolver). + +I looked at my friend. He observed the glance. + +"Now, now, nuthin' like that about _me_," he said. "Fact is"--in another +burst of confidence--"I'm perishin' fer a bit of meat. There ain't no +harm in _thet_, I hope." + +We chatted (confidentially still) about this strange life of his. + +"And how do you get meat?" I asked in my simplicity. + +"Why, y' know," he answered with a wink, "if we see a sheep we can't +stand quiet and let it bite us, now, can we? It wouldn't be human +natur'." And he chuckled at his joke. + + * * * * + +A late start was made the following morning. An entry presently made in +my note book has it thus: "Plugging away, barely moving, against a +viciously strong wind, over bleak, soft, treeless, and nearly flat +country, strewed with loose stones, and with a sand-hill now and again +by way of change, or the marshy bed of a salt lagoon to wade +through"--an experience to be forgotten as soon as possible. + +Again: "There is no avoiding the badnesses. The railway line is near at +hand. Tried riding alongside the rails--useless, too soft. Between the +rails--too rough." + +As the wind beat wildly into my face I heard it warningly cry "Go back! +Go back!" and in the lulls it droned and muttered chidingly--I knew not +why--"Obstinate, foolish fellow." Whereupon, as I wasn't taking any +warnings, I stooped, and in a short-lived sprint exerted all the +strength I had to bore a hole through the blast. + +This sort of thing lasted to Bopuchie, where are some workmen's huts. +Here I was treated to bread and butter and tea by a couple of +kindly-dispositioned expatriated women, whose husbands were working +further up the line. I was also generously presented with a good clean +handkerchief, as I had been heard to deeply mourn the recent loss of my +own: the wind had whisked it out of my pocket. The same night Diamond +and I reached Lake Eyre cottages, where were the husbands and others, a +"flying-gang" of navvies on the (some-day-to-be) Transcontinental line. +Only 54 miles from Hergott. Heartbreaking work. Yet fed ravenously. + + * * * * + +After leaving Bopuchie, caught myself doing a cautious "Look out for +the Train," glancing warily up and down the line. Then I recollected +that a train came along only once in three weeks, and was reassured. + + * * * * + +Did you ever, travelling alone, make unexpected acquaintance with a bush +grave? The lonely land has been clothed as usual in "weird melancholy." +You are weary, and, perhaps, a little dispirited. And then, just behind +a mulga tree, you come upon a mound--and it is the length of a man. If +you are very weary you will sit upon it, and take off your hat, and +think; perhaps in a minute or two shudder a little. Whereupon you will +rub your eyes to try and satisfy yourself that you have been foolishly +dreaming. But you will not sit again; you will move on, faster than you +have been doing. + +Between Hergott and Oodnadatta there are several rows of mounds. They +are the vouchers for part of the cost of the at present useless railway +line. For typhoid and dysentery played sad havoc in the navvies' camps. + + * * * * + +Leaving Lake Eyre cottages the track passes very close to the +southernmost end of the lake itself: within, say, half a mile. The bed +is 25 feet below sea level, and occupies an area of over 5000 square +miles. I would certainly have ridden across and cycled on it had I not +been told by the cottagers that the glaring, eye-paining, glistening +sheet of salt, stretching away to the horizon north and east, was merely +a frosted-over bog--all around near its barren, low, and stony banks, at +any rate. But when the creeks have ceased to flow it soon becomes dry, +firm under foot, and smooth--solid and ice-like in many respects. What a +skating-rink 'twould make! + + * * * * + +Stony table lands, wide expanses of level country, support Lake Eyre on +either side. Sand, stones, mirage, and sun--these are the "dominant +notes" here. + +I had been told some stories of the cattle of the region: how, for +instance, an odd one had been known to chase a railway tricyclist along +the line for miles. Hunting after swagmen, so it was said, was a pastime +in which at every opportunity they freely indulged. I was now to have +personal experiences. + +When a traveller comes within near sight of a quietly grazing mob, the +scattered units mass together; then nine times out of ten the amazed +animals race towards him in order to get out of his way. About this +proportion of times they decided to cross in front of my bicycle; and +the more I endeavored to prevent them doing so, by quickening pace, the +more wildly they rushed to succeed. + +The ringing of the bell had a more startling and discomfiting effect on +them than the firing of a revolver shot. + +Not far from Stuart's Creek I came upon a bull lying dead, with his +horns deeply imbedded in a mound which his shoulders also nearly +touched, his head being underneath between his front legs. I had been on +the look-out for this interesting spectacle, of which an explanation had +already been tendered. + +A "sundowner" was tramping along one afternoon when the bull sighted him +and gave chase. The country was level almost as a billiard table, with +the single exception of this couple-of-feet-high mound. Towards this the +pair hurried. The chase was exciting. The bull gained rapidly, and was +within a few yards of the swagman by the time he reached the mound. Then +were some moments of supreme anxiety, till with an extra effort the man +stumbled over just as, head down, the bull came charging along, on +elevating thoughts intent. But not being in the habit of calculating +upon the occurrence of hills, the bull collided with the mound, and +broke his neck! + +Each district has its own pet class of perjury. In the richer of +agricultural districts they lie about the size of pumpkins; in the +poorer ditto, about snakes; in the sheep country, about rabbits; here +the best liars devote themselves to wild cattle. They all do pretty +well. + + * * * * + +Occupied an hour as I rode along working out the (? musical) note educed +by a tyre flicking aside loose stones. Found it to be high D. ("Pung" in +cycling notation.) + +When the stone is not flicked aside, but the machine passes over it, a +low D is emitted--by the rider. + + * * * * + +Road middling to the Blanche Cup and cluster of mound springs. These +remarkable features lie about two miles off the main track, to the left. +I cycled over--not cutting across at right angles, but gradually edging +away from the track on sighting them. + +There are eight or ten of the cone-shaped, flat-topped rises, all within +a radius of half a mile. Roughly, I should say their average vertical +height is twenty feet. The summits of most of them are merely small +swamps decorated with rushes and bogged cattle in various stages of +decomposition. Little driblets of water trickle down the sides. + +Two of them are well worth journeying far to see. + +The Blanche itself is an elevated circular pond of good drinkable water. +On one side a lip has been worn through the impounding rock, and by this +passage the cup gently overflows. The water so escaping streams down the +sloping side, and forms into a shallow swampy creek. + +The other is locally known as the Boiling Spring. Flowing much stronger +than the Blanche, it boils or bubbles at the centre, not from heat, but +because of the force with which the water is driven to the surface. The +temperature of the water is about 100° Fahrenheit. A circle of +sedimentary sand, three feet in diameter, is kept in constant motion +around the bubbling centre, and around this again spreads a wide circle +of perfectly clear water. Rushes fringe the water's edge, and the whole +is surrounded by a rim of whitish rock three feet wide. About once in +every half-hour the quickly settling sand so accumulates at the centre +as to choke back the ascending stream. Then to the observer a big thing +in bubbles heaves in sight; a low rumble is heard; a periodical +clearance has been effected, and the boiling spring boils bubblingly as +before. + +The surrounding country is bleak and desolate--dreary in the extreme. +The average annual rainfall is about 7in. per annum. + + * * * * + +If one is not on the look-out, these mounds, in general appearance so +much alike, are apt to tantalise one. For my own part, moralising upon +nature's marvellous scheme of compensation, I found myself adrift. Yet, +pshaw! Bushed so soon--and a rail-track within three miles at most? It +was monstrous. Refused to consult my compass; and paid for my folly by +some few hours of hard labor. + +A boggy little lake of salt water, its supply kept constant by one of +the mound springs, first intruded itself; and on rounding its northern +end I was amongst sandy undulations past which I could not see. Then a +wide but not gum-lined creek, the nearer bank low, and one point +occupied by half-a-dozen blacks' wurlies, like so many boats on end. +The further bank was high and steep; and climbing over this I marked a +course, which I judged would be due east, towards some bush-like objects +in the distance. But these objects proved to be a small mob of +wild-mannered cattle, which soon, racing towards me, pranced gaily +around with uplifted tails. It is not fair to ask a man to persist in a +due east course in such circumstances. + +I grew fretful; looked at the time, the sun, and the shadows, but could +only make a guess at the east. The guess, however, happened to be +correct, and by evening I was in Coward, a township which consists +chiefly of a public-house and--an anomaly indeed!--an interesting bore. + +The bore at the Coward is situated in the heart of the little township, +between the railway fences. The water wells up to the height of a dozen +or more feet above the surface, and, wide-spreading over the end of a +six-inch conducting pipe, feeds a tiny sparkling rivulet. This stream +runs for several chains, and finally gives back the water to the desert +ground. + + * * * * + +All these artesian waters are drinkable, but more or less brackish. +There, as at most of the other bores, blind fish come up out of the +artesian reservoirs--fish beyond a doubt, two or three inches long, but +exhibiting not even rudimentary eyes. + +This total absence of eyes is a curious fact in natural history; in the +great dark caves of America the crayfish have eyes, though they are +sightless. So also elsewhere. But "eyes would be no use to them in the +blackness down under," the local cicerone says. Yet wherefore? Should +they not rather be provided with unusually good eyes? + +(Happy thought: when all else fails I will come hither and inaugurate +the great Centralian Sardine industry.) + +To the Blanche Springs and the Coward (a trifle over 500 miles) should +be an interesting holiday cycle-journey for Adelaideans. They could time +themselves to rail it back. + + * * * * + +Procured a fly-veil here. Should have had one before this; my eyes are +already sore from the persistent attentions of swarming, irritating +flies. Dinner; and then still northwards. + +The Coward track, speaking generally, proved bad. Sand, loose stones; +very rough, and ill defined. Terribly trying on the bicycle; but Diamond +is staunch. We are fast friends already; and in the oppressive silence I +find myself familiarly addressing the steel-ribbed skeleton with words +of comfort and encouragement. + +By the time I arrived at some cottages (The Beresford or Strangways +Springs) it wanted only a couple of hours or so to sundown. Beyond +loomed up sandhills, continuing, according to local accounts, in "an +unbroken chain for fully five miles." As William Creek was my proposed +destination for the day--or, rather, night--I went on, after having +enjoyed the proverbial hospitality of another "travelling gang" of +navvies. + +When the railway cuttings were being put through these rolling hills, it +was prophesied that in a very short time the loose sand would blow in +again, and that its removal would be a constant source of expense. But +by fencing off three chains or so on either side, cattle and horses were +prevented from cutting up the surface; herbage grew, and the sand now +shifts but little. + + * * * * + +Here snakes breed unmolested. I saw several as I dragged myself and +Diamond along. On coming to a particularly steep hill, I resolved to +keep on the railway metal, rather than go up. To my pleased surprise the +ballast was of the gravelly sort for a few hundred yards, and I was able +to mount and ride through the cutting between the rails. + +Outside the cutting began a steep embankment, with a culvert so close to +me that I was just about to dismount and lead the machine across, when a +dark streak, stretching at right angles to the front wheel, filled my +eye. + +It seemed to me in the shadow (the sun was low down in the horizon, and +out of sight behind the sandhills) that a rabbit had from the centre +kicked the loose pebbly material over the rails on either side; and not +till I was within a foot of the thing did I make it out to be what it +really was--a long snake. + +I was too close to sprint. Of course I dared not stop. I had time only +to mechanically lift on high both feet before I was on and over it. The +next moment Diamond's front wheel struck one of the rails, and I was +toppling down the embankment. + +I was scratched and bruised, my clothes were torn, and I felt (as no +doubt I was) pale. But on raising myself my first thought was for the +bicycle. It had remained behind. There it was, lying contentedly on the +side, with only the saddle and handle-bars showing over the embankment. +Another yard further, and we should both have been precipitated over the +culvert. + +With what anxiety, with what eagerness, did I examine my companion! And +what blessings were poured upon it when it proved staunch still--save +that the handle-bars had turned a little in the socket. Not until I had +taken all this in did it occur to me that I could only limp myself. + +Pitch dark now, and no hope of moving on. A little faint, too; yet with +no drop to drink. The need to camp; yet no shelter. + +But I was callously weary, and without difficulty persuaded myself that +I really didn't much care: the morrow would see me somewhere else. + +At present I judged we were somewhere about Irrappatana. + + * * * * + +We moved on at daybreak and reached William Creek before that depot was +astir. Depot! Alas, there was no bread here and no flour, and no corn in +William Creek! But at the "accommodation house" some dough was standing +to rise; it would not be baked, though, till mid-day. My supplications +prevailed, however; some of the dough was mixed up into an inedible +batter, and cooked with some chops. + +Without delay we detoured to Anna Creek, a sheep station, which was +reached before noon. The proprietor's invitation to dinner was accepted; +for wherefore had I come to Anna Creek? I was ravenous. And the tea! +Strong, rich, milk-toned tea! A feast, a feast for the gods! + +Such cups I had never seen. Cups which, once having been drunk from by a +famishing cyclist, would ever after figure in his happiest dreams. "Not +so very large," protested my liberal host, deprecatingly; "they each +hold only a quart." Yet I remember being asked "Try a little more tea?" +as the meal progressed, and--fancy having answered "Ah, thanks!" + + * * * * + +At the Anna Creek homestead interesting experiments in irrigation are +being carried out. Water is pumped by a windmill into tanks fixed on an +elevated platform over a well, and thence circulated through convenient +iron piping all round the dwelling house, and into the garden. Fruit +trees, grapes, melons, &c., are grown luxuriantly. An oasis in the +desert. A fore-runner, it may be, of great things. + +The track was fairly good for a few miles, as it had also been on the +other side of Warrina; but soon it became bad again, and so continued +all the way to Mount Dutton. The wind, as usual, was also unfavorable. + + * * * * + +Towards Warrina (615 miles from Adelaide) there are some picturesque +spots along the creek, going northwards. Then the track again becomes +terribly stony--so demoniacally vile that, although I riskingly +"cantered" over much of it, saying fervently in my bitterness "Get thee +behind me," I nevertheless failed to reach Warrina that night. + +Diamond was now little less than animate, and there really seemed need +of excuses to it for my rough manner of proceeding. It might be best for +both of us, in the long run, if it was severely tested before we left +the vicinity of our cheery friends, the iron rails, I remarked +propitiatingly; then fondly fed its bearings (of me and my fortunes +also, I reflected) with an extra drop of soothing neatsfoot oil. + +We camped at some deserted huts, foodless, yet contented--thanks to Anna +Creek. And at 9.30 next morning the voucher book was signed at Warrina. + +After leaving Warrina the track keeps close by the railway line; and a +ganger, who was starting out on his tricycle, obligingly offered to give +the bicycle and me a lift for a mile or two. This was my second and last +chance to avail myself of such a suggestion. Of course, in view of my +fixed determination, I again gratefully declined to act upon it. + +At Algebuckina I said good-bye to the last of the "travelling gangs"; +and a quarter of a mile on led Diamond over the high and otherwise +remarkable bridge which spans Neale's River--a bridge said to be the +longest in South Australia. Built of iron, 1900 ft. from end to end, in +nineteen spans of one hundred feet each. + +Please don't write to say that the Murray Bridge is longer: it may be. + +At Mount Dutton railway siding is a most excellently-finished ground +tank of fresh water. The road also from here to Wondellina is excellent. +(To this latter homestead I had been advised to now shape a course.) +Here at Wondellina are several natural springs of water, fresh as the +memory of the station manager's welcome; bountiful as his splendid +hospitality. + +My intentions were well known now; and in view of that, and because of +the handsome treatment which I had latterly received on the strength of +the enterprise in which I was engaged, I felt that, no matter what +happened, I could not turn back now. So reflecting I rode to Oodnadatta, +tormented by the flies that by this time had almost blinded me. So it +was "Spell-oh!" for four or five days to court recovery. + + * * * * + +Oodnadatta, the (some-day-to-be) Transcontinental Railway Terminus, is +distant 688 miles from Adelaide. The township becomes visible, as a +speck on a vast plain, long before the traveller arrives at it. It +contains, besides a few dwelling houses, a fairly commodious hotel, two +general stores, a smithy, and a butcher's shop. The water from the +artesian bore, about half a mile out, is quite drinkable, and is said to +possess curative properties. A small creek is formed by the overflow, +wherein, as the water reaches the surface at a very high temperature, a +resident or visitor may indulge in a hot, tepid or cold bath at his +pleasure. + +Some people have termed Oodnadatta "a howling wilderness." But to-day +the wilderness is hidden beneath a carpet of upspringing green. + +Camels and Afghans are amongst its distinguishing features. Most of the +whites are horsey or camely men. I heard some swearing. + +Blackfellows are numerous; some of them are employed to perform menial +duties at the houses in the township. Lubras make at the most two +garments (one covering the upper, the other the lower parts of the body) +suffice for a complete costume. There are always several wurlies and +camps of blacks in the vicinity. The employed blacks share their wages, +tobacco, old clothes, and tucker with the unemployed; the latter also +providing further for themselves as best they can. + + * * * * + +Caterpillars were plentiful. The blacks gather up tins full, and, +roasting them, evolve a very succulent dish. A small nut-like root, +found wherever grass was growing, was also greatly sought after. As +they walk along the lubras are continually stooping, or darting ahead or +aside to pick up something--lizards, caterpillars, seeds, roots, +eatables of various kinds, which they secrete or stow away in pouches, +pockets, or tin cans. The male nigger prefers to stay at home and keep +the fire alight. + +From Oodnadatta northwards niggers are to be seen wherever white men +are, as well as at intermediate places. + +The clothes worn by them become fewer by degrees if not beautifully less +the farther inland one proceeds. + +I am told that the subject of their conversation, and that which causes +most of the laughter so common among them, is generally of a filthy +character and with an immoral tendency. One would fancy the poor animals +could find but little to laugh about in their miserable nomadic lives; +but they are so easily made to giggle that one is driven to the +conclusion that their natural humour is of the most elementary type. + + * * * * + +A council of the dusky ones called here to adjudicate upon my chances of +getting through to Darwin arrived at the following decision:--"Wild +blackfellow big one frightened. Him think it debble-debble an' run away +all right. One time 'nother one think it (the bicycle) debble-debble, +and throw it spear." + +I had a look at some spears later on, and perceived how easily one of +them might be so driven in as to puncture a fellow's tyre. + + * * * * + +Most of the inhabitants seemed to rather pity my case. They were of +opinion I might, if determined succeed in reaching Alice Springs, in the +MacDonnell ranges--and there find myself cornered. The district doctor +(a gentleman well spoken of and respected by all) rather seriously +advised me: "Be careful. Think well before you venture beyond 'The +Alice.'" + +But the time for thinking had passed; and I left Oodnadatta, though not +in the best of spirits, with my eyes still weak, and with very hazy +notions indeed of what there might be awaiting me in the country beyond. + + * * * * + +To Macumba the track, with the exception of a few miles of sand to +finish up with, is fair for cycling on--low stony tablelands and a few +small hills. The channel of the Alberga River is wide, sandy, and lined +with healthy-looking gum trees. Water is generally to be found in the +Stevenson River--another large gum-lined creek, on the northernmost bank +of which Macumba store is situated. + +This place is only 38 miles from Oodnadatta, but I remained here an +afternoon and night, as there was prospect of gathering information as +to the route. An obliging teamster who knew the country well worked out +and presented me with a very useful map. + +From here up everyone knows everybody else for hundreds of miles +around; and no one has a large circle of acquaintance, even then. + + * * * * + +In the neighbourhood of Macumba snakes and snake-tracks are much in +evidence. Between the Strangways sandhills and Alice Springs I rode over +at the very least half a dozen reptiles. Each one acted in a way +peculiar to its species or its mood, so that the traveller, not knowing +in any case what may happen next, has the spice of excitement added to +his journeyings. Yet no doubt one might pass through, and see no snakes +at all. For many months of the year they are in hiding. The weather and +the season must be propitious else they do not appear. + +On leaving Macumba, continuing along by the Stevenson, sandy flats and +low sandhills were encountered as far as the Government well (The +Willow), 14 miles on. So also to the next well, Oolaballana (16 miles). +Then very rough stony tablelands again. + + * * * * + +After getting out of the sand at a point where a branch track turns off +to Dalhousie, I came upon one of that station's horse-teams. A midday +meal was being prepared. There were two strapping blackfellows and a +white boy whom I took to be 13 or 14 years of age. A wheat sack had been +laid upon the ground, and on it had been placed a damper, corned beef, +jam, knife and fork, and a pannikin. Saying "good-day" to the juvenile, +I sat myself beside him. The niggers, gaping open-mouthed at the +machine, were squatting in the shade of an adjacent tree. Three quart +pots were standing pressed in against the burning wood of a newly +lighted fire. + +"Where's the boss?" I inquired after a few words. + +The youth smiled. "I am the boss," he said, reaching an arm out towards +a small linen tea bag, then standing up to throw half a handful into +each quart pot. Cutting off a few slices from the damper, and sorting +out "black's favorite" pieces of meat, he gave a low short whistle--and +up marched the two sable attendants. To these he handed each his dole of +"tucker"; they received it in sober silence. + +"You wantem more, you sing out," he added as, taking with them two of +the quart pots, they returned to their proper distance. + +This custom of handing the blacks their allowance of food, or laying it +on the ground and whistling for them to come and take it, prevails all +through the country. + +I admired this manly child's way exceedingly. In "bossing" them he spoke +very civilly to the niggers, in a quiet, cool, masterful manner. He +offered to load me up with bread and meat, but as I had resolved to +break myself in to going on short commons I would accept nothing more +than a couple of apples. The dray, I believe, had been down to +Oodnadatta. + + * * * * + +"It's rough to Blood's Creek. I don't think you'll get there to-night," +were the youth's parting words. + +And he was right. It was a sweltering hot afternoon. Progress was slow; +and at about 20 miles having to hurriedly dismount (for the hundredth +time), my left foot came on one of the large loose stones, and turned +under me. The jar so nearly put out the ankle joint that I was compelled +to camp right where the mishap occurred. + +Stretching out my sheet of waterproofing I made myself as comfortable as +possible under the circumstances. Millions of flies; myriads of venomous +mosquitoes. Hungry as usual, and feeling that if I had only one good +long drink of water, hot, cold or lukewarm, I could die joyfully. + +Waterproof sheeting is not conducive to good health especially if the +night be cold. Because of the heat from one's body condensation sets in, +with the result that the under side of the sheeting becomes a sheet of +water. This discovery I made for myself on arising next morning; turning +the waterproof over quickly, I greedily licked up, cat-like, all I could +of the precious dew. + + * * * * + +To Blood's Creek Government Bore (38 miles from last camping place), +sand ridges and very rough "gibber" country has to be cycled or walked +over; but on nearing the creek the track greatly improves. + +Thus far, gidea and mulga have been the trees most often met with, +though the creeks have almost invariably been thickly lined with box and +gum. + + * * * * + +Camped with the contractors for the bore, and overhauled the bicycle, +though all the overhauling called for was the cleaning of the bearings. +This I did by squirting kerosene through the lubricating holes, tilting +the machine at a sharp angle, and revolving the wheels until the +searching fluid had completed its cleansing work. + +When the wheels are nicely adjusted, and the chain is at just the proper +tension, and everything is running smoothly, it is a mistake to undo the +parts. A good chain properly adjusted should ask for but very few +attentions. I used to not take mine off, and only washed it occasionally +with soap and warm water--leaning the bicycle well over so that the +grease should not fall on the tyres. It worked best after a little +greasy residue had collected around the sprocket. + +I tore apart and re-made the joint in the air tube of the tyre, as it +had started to leak slightly. Because of the hot sand and the heat +generally, the solution in the tube joints rots away, providing a source +of much annoyance, as such a leak is difficult to stop. + + * * * * + +It is 60 miles from Blood's Creek to Goyder's Well. The "going" is good +to Charlotte Waters; thence along the telegraph line for 14 miles +through heavy sand, next 6 miles of stony hills, followed by 6 miles of +good track over Boggy Flat, and, lastly, 4 miles of small sand-hills. +There is a better road to the west from the Charlotte, they say. + +The Adminga is reached half-way between Blood's Creek and Charlotte +Waters. Hard by the crossing there is a beautiful little pond of clear, +cool rain-water--a deep, round hole sunk in the solid rock, with one +large leafy tree leaning out over it, and sheltering it from lapping +winds and sun alike. + + * * * * + +We are into the Northern Territory at last. + +The Charlotte Waters telegraph station on the Transcontinental line (a +large galvanized iron structure, close by which stand many small sheds +and outhouses) is situated six miles across the border, on a slight +elevation on the north boundary of the stony tablelands. From there +horsemen coming from the south can be seen, with the aid of a telescope, +while yet they are at a distance of seven miles. + +It is no uncommon thing here for the thermometer to register as high as +124deg. in the shade for several days together. The annual rainfall +averages about five inches. Many iron tanks, connected and standing at +one end of the building, are filled from the waterholes of an adjacent +creek in the rare times of plenty. + +The voucher book was signed, and at once a start was made. + +And then a rather unpleasant experience befel. I intended making for +Goyder Waters; a track, it had been said, could be easily followed, and +so I made but few inquiries. There was a cattle station 20 miles beyond +the Goyder--perhaps I could reach even that. It was a mistake, though, +to keep alongside the telegraph line--a sad mistake. For five or six +miles I struggled with my burden over loose sand-hills. Surely this was +not the passable track travellers had spoken of! The Macumba teamster's +sketch was consulted--why, I had not been on the track at any time since +leaving Charlotte Waters! + +How far the sand stretched I did not know--as far as could be seen, at +any rate. A fierce sun tormented me from above and blistering sand from +beneath. The track must be found. I fought through the yielding sand, +now pushing and again shouldering and here and there riding my bicycle, +in a grim earnestness rarely experienced before. In those first +half-dozen miles I had been prodigal of a precious quart of water. Now I +was becoming parched beyond endurance. + +Fourteen miles had been struggled over. The telegraph line had been long +since lost. Was even this the track? + +And Goyder Waters! What did I know of Goyder Waters? It dawned upon me +now that I did not know whether to look for a rock-hole, a soakage, or a +creek. + +Now rough, hilly country interposes. It is still hard work, and the +night is nearing. My thighs ache, and my tongue cleaves to my mouth. Yet +on, doggedly on--it is the only hope. + +A well! How we race towards it. No--a maddening mockery; it is a +fenced-in grave! + +Did he die?-- + +But it is dangerous to think. On, on! + +At length, in the deepening haze of the twilight, the real well is seen. + +At such a moment one forgets the teachings of experience. I threw myself +down, and drank, and drank. + + * * * * + +And so, though saved, made another stinging lash for my aching back. For +I drank and drank until I found myself seized with the most dreadful +cramps I have ever had the satisfaction of getting the better of. On +trying to rise I was, somewhat to my amusement, unable to do so, as +during the tussle one of my bootlaces had become entangled with the +hooks of the other, and the recurring cramps would not allow me to reach +down to undo it. So I had willy-nilly to lay quiet where I had fallen, +ignominiously hobbled and _hors de combat_. + +It would not be particularly difficult for one who does not know the +country to perish hereabouts. Just take the wrong turning, or meet with +a disabling accident, or lose the indistinct track, and in one single +hot day the business may be done. Solitary graves are plentiful. When a +man gets the bad taste in his mouth, and fancies he hears water flowing +ripplingly over gravelly beds, he realizes how very simple a matter the +perishing may be. + +Towards the end a cyclist would leave his bicycle (now become a burden +to him) while he staggered over to search what, from the distance, +seemed a likely-looking place for water; and on coming back he would be +lucky indeed if he could find again his silent steed. This second search +would not be prosecuted coolly: madness would then quickly overtake the +distracted seeker; he might drink from and bathe in imaginary streams, +throw off his clothes to let the surging waters touch and cool his +parched skin, but ever uppermost in his distorted fancies would be some +form of his elusive bicycle. + + * * * * + +Crown Point, 20 miles from The Goyder; much sand, but a well-defined +track. The last five miles fair for cycling on; but for nearly a mile +along the bed of the Finke River (approaching Crown Point cattle +station) is a terribly heavy white sand bed. + +After my previous day's experiences in the sand I succeeded in crawling +thus far before the next sundown, and remained for the whole of another +day before proceeding onwards. At the Crown Point station I fed, I fear, +like a wolf. + +How soon the drooping spirits revive! I set out for Horseshoe Bend +hopefully, even gaily. + +Crown Point station is so named because of its propinquity to a hill +about 350 feet high, of sugar-loaf shape, surmounted by something not +unlike a crown. + +West of this crowned point is a long, low, stony and unused saddle; then +again a hill of about the same height as the Crown and of similar +strata--white and brown desert sandstone. Apparently the formations were +one in times long past. + +The Finke channel passes to the east of both Crown Hill and station. The +river here is thickly fringed with giant gums, which grow for some +hundreds of feet in from the bank proper. Swamp gums, box trees, and +acacias are plentiful also further out. In width it varies from a +quarter to three-quarters of a mile. In times of drought famished horses +have been known to paw down and down into the loose sand in the bed, +searching for soakage water, until they have made graves for themselves. + +Around Crown Point the cyclist need not look for thorns. He will find +them without a search. + +A marsupial mole (which some of the blacks named for me "el-comita," +others "qu-monpita") may also be found here. The species is unique. It +puts in an appearance after rain; at other times it burrows in the sand, +and vanishes. + + * * * * + +Down from the cattle ranche by the river's bed, there are generally +gathered a large number of natives, of the Larapinta or Arunto tribe. In +the main camp many small tires burn, around which humble hearths the +various families find already fashioned their unostentatious and +separate homes. They sleep huddled up with the family dogs, close by the +fires, but without a vestige of covering or shelter except their scanty +every-day attire. + +They appear to be quite happy, and are presented with cancerous +bullocks now and then from travelling mobs, and others. + +Nightly one hears the sound of their laughter, mingled with weird cries, +monotonous chantings, and beating of tom-toms, or sticks upon the +ground. They think themselves very clever if they succeed in working up +an echo. When ferreted out, the discoverer claims it as his very own, +and the others listen in admiring silence whilst he works the "wondrous +vocal gift" for much more than 'tis worth. + +I was surprised to notice that the niggers' hands and feet were not +particularly large. The heels, though, are roughened, hardened, and +split like battered and blackened pieces of corrugated iron. The soles +are apparently made out of rhinoceros hide. "Three cornered jacks" only +tickle them--even when they happen to sit down on the spiky +abominations. + + * * * * + +One black, an "old hand" at the station, but transported from somewhere +afar off, inveighed in good, angular Whitechapel English, pidgin-ised, +against the fool blackfeller who sit down alonga here! + +Wherefore was it, if he had such a very poor opinion of them, that he +remained among them? + +He withered me with the contempt that was in his answer. + +"No can make it rain!" + +In his country--a majestic wave of the hand indicated where that was--if +the porter at Heaven's flood-gates went to sleep or forgot to open them +within a reasonable time, certain old men jumped up and walked alonga +blackfellows' camp, where they called in the aid of eagle-hawk's +feathers, paint stripes, many fires and a good deal of fuss. And then--a +big thing in corroborees: big one, plenty shout out. After the +corroboree the "old men" and the other participators in it shifted their +spears and boomerangs to high ground, built mia-mias, and waited. And +when they had waited long enough the rain fell. "Sometimes piccaninny +rain--one night corroboree. Big fellow corroboree? My word! B-i-g +pfeller rain." + +Should no rain fall the explanation was not far to seek. "Nudder" +(opposition shop) "blackfeller hold it corroboree. Too much big pfeller +noise make it, and frighten _him_ away." + +What wouldn't some perturbed whitefellers give for so simple a +philosophy! + + * * * * + +Horseshoe Bend, 28 miles from Crown Point. Mostly sand; very little +riding. Here is a depôt and accommodation (meal-providing) house. + +The depôt is picturesquely situated in a sharp bend of the Finke River. +Rugged hills show up on all sides. In front, by the river's side, a +well; and in the sandy bed itself, many nearly permanent soakages +delight the casual traveller. + + * * * * + +Here it was that one of the encamped blacks on spying me rushed +helter-skelter to the storekeeper to breathlessly inform him that +whitefellow come along ridin' big one mosquito. + +Previously blackfellows had described the bicycle as a "piccaninny +engine." "Big pfeller engine come alonga bime-bye, I suppose?" +questioned the blackfellow, having in mind a Transcontinental railway +doubtless. "One-side buggy" had also been a native's not inapt +description of the novel vehicle. + + * * * * + +The blacks (always camped near-by wherever white men linger) are of +great help to the whites in dealing with horses and cattle. Their +cleverness at tracking is well known. An illustration, out of the way. + +At one of the very few houses between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs the +proprietor brought three cats--three of about a like size--into the back +room; told me the various names by which they were called to breakfast, +and then requested me to drop one of them--any one of them I +chose--through the window. I did so to humour him, and off scampered +pussy to a brush-shed over the way. Going outside, after shutting the +window and locking the room door, the "boss" called loudly for "Billy." +From the further side of the stock-yard's fence came a blackfellow. + +"What name that fellow cat make it tracks?" the "boss" said, pointing to +the very faintest marks. + +A moment's scrutiny, and the blackfellow replied "That one Nelly me +think it." And he was right. + + * * * * + +At the Horseshoe Bend depôt I purchased a water-bag (and a good one it +was--lasted me all the way through) and a small billy-can, which served +my purposes until I reached Alice Springs. + +So far the sparse, low scrub on the sand flats and rises was chiefly +acacia, of many varieties, while clumps of mulga marked the firmer soil. +Spinifex (not of such coarse growth. I fancy, as what in other places is +known as "porcupine") was everywhere. The track through the sand gets so +badly cut up that when walking one keeps well in to where a thin crust +may be left, and finds oneself steering a very erratic course. Beyond +the Bend we reach the first desert oak--a very good shade tree, with +from 10 to 15 feet of straight stem. The wood is very hard and heavy; +one can hardly drive a nail into it. + +At Oodnadatta we left the regularly fenced country. Apparently one may +here take up for grazing purposes a hundred acres, and use a hundred +thousand. + +No sheep beyond Oodnadatta either. Beef and goat's flesh is the vogue. +The goat's flesh is called "mutton." + + * * * * + +To Depot Well, 15 miles from Horseshoe Bend; no riding--heavy sandhills. +Stopped at a camel camp. Fifteen miles is not much of a distance +certainly; but on a hot day (as all days up in this part appear to be) +to not lead, but get behind and push, the bicycle through, with the +surety of more to-morrow, and for days to come--Diamond and I agreed +that it was a "fair thing." + +These drift sand-hills--red, loose, and sometimes very steep +indeed--make travelling, no matter how one may creep, very wearisome and +laborious. When you have struggled to the summit of one of them you take +a view of the surroundings. As far as the eye can see (and, alas! very +much further) an unbroken stretch of the same formation. You wade ankle +deep on descending; and when pushing a bicycle up you have to "tack," +planting each foot sideways in the sand to get the necessary grip. I was +glad I had provided myself with boots instead of shoes. + +Broom-brush, spinifex, and desert oaks (these at long intervals) alone +break the burdensome monotony. + + * * * * + +Only soon after a heavy rainfall could much riding be done in those +sandy districts. Two-inch tyres should be used; inch and three-quarters +are too narrow. Mine, as well as being one and three-quarter inches +only, were "tandem"--altogether too heavy (or "dead") for cycling over +sand. I deflated them slightly, so that a wider surface might be availed +of. + + * * * * + +Picked up a bush culinary wrinkle here. An Afghan, whom I watched +kneading up flour preparatory to shaping out a camp-oven damper, made a +sodden centre, the curse of many a "bush cake," impossible by the simple +expedient of pressing the middle part down until scarcely any centre +remained--nothing more than a thin layer, which must necessarily result +in a central crust. + + * * * * + +It is a twenty mile stage from the Depot Well to Alice Well, through +much sand. The Hugh River crosses the track in half-a-dozen places. + +In the afternoon, when within a few miles of this Well, I came +unexpectedly upon a loaded waggon stuck in one of the last crossings of +the Hugh. A very steep bank rose at the farther side, up which the +horses had been unable to pull their load. The harness was lying on the +ground, piled up; but there was no sign, except tracks, of the horses or +their drivers. I coo-eed and mounted on top of the load to look +around--and then, in the midst of this desert, from the interior of a +coverless box, embedded between two flour bags, smiled up at me +seductively a dozen or more beautiful, although quite rotten and +shrivelled, apples! I lifted one out, and to ease my conscience, +remembering having heard that there was a blacks' mission station to the +east, stood, and, naturally assuming that the loading was missionaries' +property, put down a shilling in the apple's place. But tasting one only +was worse than not having any at all; so, coward-like, I sprang from the +waggon, mounted Diamond, and hurried away before the temptation to +appropriate a down-south shilling's-worth of the luscious (because so +rotten) fruit became irresistible. + +At the Alice is another "accommodation house," which, however, I did +not need to visit; for the horse drivers, from whose waggon I had been +tempted to take the shilling's-worth of apples, were here giving the +horses a "spell." They fed me liberally; but I said nothing to them +about the apple. + +The Hugh is a very large, sandy-bedded creek. The banks are heavily +timbered with massive gum trees. Good camel and horse feed grows in this +part of the country--a species of acacia, and a succulent sage-bush-like +herb. + + * * * * + +To Francis Well, the next 20 miles, is mostly through sand. Here are +some niggers who keep the troughs full of water on the chance of passing +teamsters supplying them with tobacco or small lots of flour. The mail +passes every three weeks, once going down to Oodnadatta, the next time +returning to Alice Springs; and the mail horses for the change are +running here. + +The well, sunk at the junction of the Francis Creek and the Hugh, +contains beautiful fresh water. Black cockatoos flutter among the +branches of giant gums which mark the meeting of the waters--flutter and +squawk incessantly. And now and again, too, one catches sight of the +gaudier galah or the gay ring-necked parrot. + +At one of these wells the bucket was too heavy for me to land unaided +from the deep bottom. Here was another annoyance, if nothing worse. I +was desperately thirsty. The water glittered tantalizingly in sight. +Ha! An empty bucket at the surface. I half-filled it with stones, and it +obligingly went down and gave me all the assistance I wanted in weighing +its companion up. Afterwards, at shallower wells, I tied the cord I +carried to my billy-can, and so supplied my modest wants. + + * * * * + +By climbing the higher of the hills which are to be seen after you pass +Francis Well, the remarkable column known as Chambers' Pillar rises afar +off in the midst of sandhills to the west. It looks like a mighty +furnace-stack built upon a hill top: the hill about 100 feet high, the +Pillar another hundred. But the soft desert sandstone of which it is +composed is fast wearing away. This still majestic landmark, a solitary +sentinel guarding the heart of a continent--its days are numbered in the +book of Time. + + * * * * + +Camels do nearly all the carrying in this country; and at Francis Well a +caravan was camped. A white man was in charge. I do not know how the +stranger fares at the hands of an Afghan, but the few white men I met +along the road at halting places between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs +were without exception most generously hospitable and most +kindly-dispositioned. All did what they could--by more or less clear +directions anent the route; by supplying me with food and inviting me to +"spell" with them if they were "spelling"--to make my journey a partly +enjoyable as well as a successful one. I gratefully admit how largely I +am indebted to one and all of them. + +From Hergott to Alice Springs the population is grouped under three +generic headings--"Whites," "Afghans," and "Blackfellows." The loftier +Afghan sometimes scornfully denies that he is of our color. I have heard +it asked of a Jemadar--"What name fellow drive so-and-so's camels along +to Birdsville? Whitefellow?" and I have heard him answer: "No, _not +whitefellow_. Afghan-man _boss_ go las' time." Beyond the MacDonnell +Ranges the Afghan and his camel disappear, and are neither seen nor +heard of more. There is a no-man's land; then, further northward, the +vacant place is filled by Chinamen. + +It is both interesting and amusing to listen while Afghans and blacks or +blackfellows and Chinamen converse. Not that they make a practice of so +indulging; there are entirely too many vernacular difficulties in their +way. + +One such attempt at conversation was suggestive to me of two blind men +who, getting drunk together, led one another up wrong turnings, until, +after a final and protracted endeavour to get back to anywhere near the +starting point, they found themselves both hopelessly lost. + +Each has a way peculiar to his class of directing that luckless +traveller who may be so ignorant as to make enquiries of him. + +You ask an Afghan how many miles it is to a certain place. He slyly +leads you on to make a guess for yourself--and at once cheerfully +agrees. "Yes, ten mile," or whatever it may be the other has suggested. + +The blackfellow tells you vaguely that the certain place is "L-aw-ong +way," "Ova that a way," or "Byen bye you catch 'em all right." + +The Chinaman listens very politely to all the questions you put to him, +and then remarks with his most guileless smile, "No savee." + +Still some white men's directions are not very lucid. One, for example, +will say, "When you come to there look out for a small stony hill _to +the right_," waving, as he says, the left hand from him. Also East is +spoken of when West is similarly indicated. Others, again, expect a +fellow to perform mental gymnastics. One will clear and level a small +space upon the ground to serve as a blackboard. He begins, "Now, we'll +put it, here's North--" and draws a line pointing due South. + + * * * * + +Mount Breadin Dam is another 20 miles from Francis Well. The track is +fair for cycling over. Camped somewhere in the scrub. Dry sand makes a +fairly comfortable blanket. + +Desert oaks had for the last few days been frequently met with, growing +singly or in groves. The wind soughs through the foliage--like the music +of rushing, seething water in some distant creek. + +Water, always water! Thitherward one's thoughts here ever fly; upon +memories of it one lingers with the utmost fondness. + +As I struggle on and on, deeper and deeper into the toils of the desert, +there grows upon me a morbid dread of running short of water. To have it +was my greatest craving; to have plenty of it my chief aim. + +The wind is mostly in my teeth, but that is of small consequence now +that I am content to creep over these interminable wastes. + + * * * * + +Everybody carries a bottle of eye-water. Sore eyes are very prevalent in +this sandy country. The flies had it pretty well all their own way with +me down by the Goyder; so now I also have had to procure a small bottle. +A depôt would not be a depôt without a stock of it. + + * * * * + +By noon Diamond had borne me to the Deep Well and its "accommodation +house." Having obtained some provisions, we pushed on and camped that +night some 15 miles ahead. Deep Well is in flat sandy country, in a +valley of the James Range. As it is about 200 feet deep, the water is +drawn by bullocks attached to a "whip." The surrounding country is +lightly stocked with cattle and goats. The well itself is rented from +the Government, and a small charge is made for the water. + +Between here and Alice Springs another well is badly wanted. Another +well--or, better, two. This absence of, or long distance between, waters +is a well-founded matter for complaint with the teamsters or team +owners, and must impose great hardships on anyone whom business--or +"eccentricity"--may prevail on to travel hither. + +At the very best the life of the teamsters on these far-inland tracks +is full of misery and hardship. That anyone should voluntarily go +overlanding they cannot comprehend. Here I am asked in astonished +curiosity what I am going through the continent for. It must be for a +bet! I can only answer that I am going with much the same object in view +as a hen is said to have when she walks across a road--just to reach the +other side. + + * * * * + +The flies refrained from tackling a couple of very highly-greased +aboriginals whom I spoke to at the Deep Well. They had burnished +themselves with a thick oil, derived from animal fat, no doubt. Each +on-coming fly, when within six inches of the glossy surface, shot off at +a right angle, as though it had run its head into an invisible stone +wall. Now and again one could be seen to drop slightly, as if stunned. I +do not think the oil-skin they wore was of good quality. + +This couple were disposed to approach too unpleasantly close whilst I +was re-inflating one of the tyres. Suddenly undoing the pump, I +vigorously squirted fresh air at them. The blast pierced the special +atmosphere in which they had so long moved; the fresh air came as a +shock to them, and they were careful not to venture within range of so +deadly a weapon any more. + +The flies, I think, trouble the blackfellows more than the whites. A +blackfellow's hand is constantly passing across his face to drive the +pestering things away; or they protect themselves by starting a small +fire and sitting at the smoky side of it. + + * * * * + +From the Deep Well, sandhills and sandflats extend northwards for about +20 miles. Then a large range is encountered, through which the cyclist +may ride until he reaches a steep incline well known as The Pinch. Here +the track goes over a high ridge by way of a narrow cutting through the +rock. + +Granite hills now hem us in, but soon we enter a narrow pass between two +long and wall-like rock formations. This is Hell's Gate. We hurry +through. The track now passes over well-grassed sandy flats, which make +good riding. At about eight miles a big hill rises to the right. +Opposite a pad branches off to the left. + +A welcome break, guiding the thirsty or curious follower to the +rockhole, the Ooriminna. Right into the heart of a range this pad takes +one. Very soon the cyclist will find either leading or pushing his +machine to be out of the question. However others may manage (for the +bicycle will be everywhere in time), I stooped and shouldered mine. And +how its bright parts sparkled with ill-contained inward joy, I persuaded +myself, whenever it was thus borne along the tedious way! Now, with it +held aloft, I walked or scrambled and climbed over the last and rougher +part of the two miles to the water. + + * * * * + +Very weird is this Ooriminna. It is a citadel of Desolation strongly +guarded; and how the hole was first discovered must for ever be to us a +mystery. Judging from the surroundings, horses or men could hardly have +thought to find water here. And but for water what man or beast would +pierce these solitudes? + +The hole is formed in an extremely rocky gorge of the range. Huge +boulders heaped up in strange fantastic shapes, the counterpart in +miniature of castles, fortresses, and towers, stand gaunt and frowning, +or threatening to fall precipitately, above, below, and on the more open +side. The hole itself is almost a circle; it is probably 20 feet in +depth and 25 feet across. Above it, at the back, always in deepest +shadow, are several small caves, wherein are native drawings--rude as +the scribblings of a schoolboy in his snatched moments--of snakes and +hands and things beyond this pen's power to name. From over these caves +the water falls when the rains come. + +The rocks are an unkindly-looking grey, spotted mixtures of granite, +quartz, and sandstone. + +Still higher up the quickly-rising gorge is a second rockhole, a smaller +one. Approaching from the southern entrance I first came on this +one--inaccessible to horses and camels--and only saw the larger rockhole +as I descended, with bicycle still shouldered, trudging on to strike the +road which leads to Alice Springs, from which this Ooriminna pad loops +out and back again. + + * * * * + +After getting clear of the Ooriminna rocks there are four or five miles +of sand, low lying between the ranges; and now, at last, the cyclist +finds awaiting him a splendidly smooth and hard clay flat, stretching +right away for over 20 miles to the already faintly outlined MacDonnell +ranges. + +The track soon enters and winds through densely packed and +tropically-foliaged scrub, with here and there a small clear space +suddenly opening out in front. At the moment of entering each of these +recurring spaces one may discern the fast uprising and darkening blue of +distant mountains--and again the obscuring scrub envelopes bicycle and +rider. + +After the stories he will have been told, the cyclist, should he be a +stranger and alone, will surely throw a glance to one side and to the +other--ahead, too, as he turns each of the numerous sharp angles--in +half-timid and half-hopeful expectation of seeing start out or up to +intercept him a score or two of spear-brandishing and yelling bogie men. +And he will almost certainly be disappointed. + + * * * * + +One who comes upon this mountain wall from the long plains of the south +cannot with a single sweep of the eye take in its mightiness. To right +and left it holds its course until its purple outlines are bathed in +haze, become a mere faint streak, and finally are blotted out. But far +behind that gaudily-tinted curtain of sky, which forms the strange +horizon of these inlands, this range extends, a steep, austere wall of +rock, rising almost perpendicularly from the plain four hundred miles +from east to west. + +A gap in this mighty wall of rock becomes clearly defined by the time +one reaches the bank of a wide creek, with a bed of white sand, which +takes its course in the heart of the ranges, and is well known as The +Todd. Following up this watercourse for a few miles, the gap through +which it comes, the Heavitree, is reached. + +The distance through the Heavitree is about 200 yards. The creek's +sand-bed spreads right across between the high, bare, sharply-cut +mountain sides. The road crosses the Todd at the same time as both pass +through the Heavitree Gap; then runs along by its eastern flat bank +among the ranges, until three miles onward the buildings at Alice +Springs township come into view. + + * * * * + +A sheltered, peaceful, cosy-looking place, this isolated Alice Springs. +On a flat, with large gums scattered through and all around it, and +mountains towering up a very little distance off on every side. There +are two clusters of houses. One comprises the hotel-cum-brewery, a +smithy, and a general store; the other can boast of two stores, a +harness-maker's, an often-vacant butcher's shop, and a private +dwelling-house. Both clusters are snugly ensconced, hidden among the +very numerous gum trees with which the whole flat is dotted; between +them some particularly high and shady trees give shelter to the +township stock. Cattle are ever to be seen reposefully cud-chewing +during the hotter portions of the semi-tropical days. + +All shade and silence and tranquility! It seemed as I came upon it to be +the veritable "Sleepy Hollow" of romance, with appropriate Catskill-y +surroundings, too. + +The supplies for Arltunga goldfields, the mica fields, neighboring +horse-station and cattle ranches, and the telegraph stations up north, +all pass through here. + +It is a terminus of townships; beyond it lies the undeveloped. + + * * * * + +Arltunga is only in its earliest infancy, and is sadly handicapped. But +then one is assured "There's any Scotch quantity of reefs about," and +"The country hasn't been half prospected yet." Country, by the way, +never is, it seems. + +The mica field, on the other hand, arrived some time back at a working +age. It has, as it were, bought its shovel and done a little towards +paying for it. Some mica of good quality, and in exceptionally large +sheets, too, is to be had. + +I know little or nothing about the value of a mica claim; do not even +know whither when raised the shiny transparency goes. Much is, I know, +used for insulating purposes on electrical machines, but in such cases +only small washers are required as a rule. As to the larger blocks, so +attractive to the eye when prepared for exhibition, ignorance possesses +me. + +If one has the inclination one may, however, learn a great deal about +it, if one likes to run up to Alice Springs. In search of information +(and no policeman being handy), I approached a prospector. He was an +encylopædia on the subject. Within five minutes I knew that lawyers +now-a-days wrote out their wills and other people's on mica because it +will not burn, and that lanterns for enclosing electric arc lights are +fitted with the same material in place of glass, the heat (sometimes +reaching as high as 10 or 12 horse-power) emanating from the electric +light being altogether too fierce for combustible glass to withstand! If +I had stayed another day in Alice Springs, I should have written a +treatise on "Mica and its Uses." + + * * * * + +The telegraph station is a mile and a half beyond the Alice township, +and with its substantial roomy stone buildings and outhouses makes up +another little township of itself. Near the station there is in the Todd +a very large waterhole, which contains a sufficient permanent and +unlimited supply of fresh water to deserve the name of spring. There are +also a couple of wells on a bank of the creek; the water of one of them +is used for gardening purposes, the other's, I was told, is almost salt. + +The flat around the station is, like nearly all the flats within the +ranges, covered with saltbush and other stock-fattening growth. Grasses +of many valuable kinds flourish thickly in the hills and gullies--in +fact, no better limited tracts of pastoral country could one wish to see +than are to be found within and in the neighborhood of these MacDonnell +Ranges. + +The climate, too, is nearly all that could be desired throughout the +greater part of each year. The days are warm, the nights cool--a little +too much warmth sometimes, at others a little too much cold. + +White people seem to live there as much for the purpose of making +strangers welcome as to amass money in a leisurely fashion, and black +people are more plentiful than gooseberries. Physically the natives to +be seen about are very good samples of aboriginalty. As at Oodnadatta, +the female blacks do most of the washing and general domestic work for +the townspeople, and of course the male blackfellows are invaluable to +those of the score of settlers who do much dealing in horses or cattle. + +In this quaint spot, and amongst this hospitable community, I remained +for several days. There were many "gaps," sheltered waterholes, and +other interesting spots to be visited, and every man in the place came +forward with hearty offers to be my cicerone. Having been so long unused +to opportunities for gormandizing--unused, too, to sleeping between +sheets on flock mattresses--the hotel and those good things which it +contained exercised strong magnetic attractions. + +Inquiries about the road ahead were pursued diligently, and an operator +at the telegraph station (obliging and considerate, as they all were) +sketched out for me an artistic and lucid plan of the route so far as +Barrow Creek. Armed with this plan, and loaded with provisions, the +"condition" I had put on during my few days' stay, a water-bag, a quart +pot, tools, and various other things, including a light parcel of meat +extract, Diamond and I one fine forenoon started out over the mountains, +thence on to the exterior desert, with the enticing prospect of +I-didn't-know-what before me. + +Having come so far without hurt worth speaking of, and with the kindest +words of encouragement from the people here, I felt sanguine of being +able to make a fair show at the business thus far only half transacted. + + * * * * + +The township was out to say good-bye! Of the number was the telegraph +master, a genial officer who, in addition to controlling this most +important repeating station on that Transcontinental line which links +Australia and Europe, has acquired during a long residence a profound +knowledge of the aborigines of Central Australia, their languages, their +customs, and their folk-lore. He had with him his camera; and later on, +when (myself all unconscious of it) "Murif's Ride Across Australia" +headed many a paragraph and sketch, there appeared in one of the +Adelaide papers, beneath a drawing, this brief account, reproduced here +as showing how others on the scene viewed the enterprise at this stage, +after the capabilities of the machine had been in part demonstrated. It +is described as the expression of "Our Alice Springs correspondent":-- + +"The above snapshot was taken on Monday morning, April 13, just as Murif +was about to begin the second half of his great undertaking. Up to that +date he had travelled over 1,130 miles, the latter part of the journey +being anything but pleasant from a cyclist's point of view. There were +many obstacles to overcome in the shape of miles of rough stony road, +especially the 'gibbers,' near Charlotte Waters. Three-cornered Jacks +are another enemy to the cyclist; also miles of sand, which affords +splendid exercise and gave Murif a chance to develop the muscles of his +arms by pushing his machine, it being impossible to pedal over the sand. + +"Murif's greatest piece of luck was noticed by me whilst out riding some +forty miles from here. I was looking down at Murif's track, and saw +where he had left the road to escape a stump and ran across a piece of +brandy case with three large nails standing point upwards. His tyre +missed these by half an inch. After passing an obstacle of that +description, his luck must carry him over the remaining thousand odd +miles safely. + +"There are still many dangers he will have to steer clear of whilst +travelling north of here. Stumps overgrown by grass will be one of his +greatest enemies. A hard collision with one of these would mean serious +damage to his machine, and the distance between the telegraph +stations--the only place where he could repair a bad break--being some +200 miles, a mishap would prove serious to him. In places above Barrow's +Creek, and _en route_, he will find the spear-grass very troublesome, +and a cuirass would prove very beneficial to him while travelling +through it to keep the seeds, which are long and very sharp, from +penetrating his body. + +"Both Murif and his machine were looking in the best of trim. On leaving +here he was carrying a fair amount of dunnage, including waterbag, &c. +The quartpot strapped underneath the saddle whilst travelling does duty +as a storage-room for his tea and sugar. On his back he carries a small +knapsack full of provisions. On his belt he has a small pouch for pipe, +tobacco, and matches. He smokes very little during the day, and when +short of water dispenses with the pipe until such times as he can afford +to indulge freely. He converts his lampstand into a rack for his +revolver, which article all travellers north of here carry, although it +is some years since the natives attacked a white man on the road. +However, prevention is better than cure. + +"Murif, unlike most cyclists, prefers to travel in loose pyjamas, using +clips, rather than the knickers, the former being cool and comfortable +for this semi-tropical climate." + + * * * * + +Myself, writing from Alice Springs, begged for assistance "to give +expression to my deep feeling of gratification for the many kindnesses I +had been the recipient of on the road. They are thorough white men up +this way--the most generous-hearted, the kindliest, the bravest I +believe any country in the world could produce. Knowing them, one +realises of what noble stuff our pioneers are made." + +Now I call at the telegraph station to try and express my thanks to the +last of the men--the men out back who know and show what brotherhood is; +wheel thoughtfully through the ranges 14 miles, and---- + + * * * * + +As Diamond and I passed into the heart of the land we picked up a great +deal of information regarding the most suitable equipment for the +journey. Pretty well everyone had something to suggest. + +"Ha! yes," said one, "the thing is to keep up your strength, and for +that there's nothing like good sleep." So I should have carried an +inflatable mattress and pillow--a simple affair, planned on the +pneumatic principle, to be pumped in every night at bedtime. + +A shot gun or a rifle--"never can tell, you know." + +A kodak--"That would have kept your mind occupied." + +A tent--"Something light, of course, and easily rigged." + +A sextant, quadrant, or theodolite--the suggestors weren't quite sure of +the differences between these things; all sounded impressive enough. + +A pocket telegraph instrument. + +Cyclist's cape and riding suit, with long woollen stockings--for +grass-seeds to hold on to, no doubt. + +Aluminium water canteen, flint and steel and touch-paper, a medicine +chest (the larger the better), snake poison antidotes and brandy +(doubtless to make me see 'em), the Bible or a few works of my favorite +author, a small "handy" spirit-lamp, a field-glass, much woollen +underclothing, rice, oatmeal, cream of tartar, dried this and pressed +that; stock, taps and small die-plate; bombs for scattering obnoxious +niggers, a recently-invented apparatus for extracting water from damp +earth by evaporation and condensation, sponge for gathering up the dew +from the tree leaves, a hammock, mosquito curtain. + +And many other articles which I cannot bring to mind just now. The +reader is entitled to suggest as many more as he pleases. + +But it was too late to start collecting _all_ these things at Alice +Springs, so I considered, and contented myself with the purchase of--an +ounce of quinine, a box of Cockle's pills, and a quart pot. + + * * * * + +During the time I remained at Alice Springs I bothered my head very +little indeed about what there might be in store for me in the country +beyond. I had previously been led to cogitate over so very many evil +possibilities that I had long resolved not to lay myself out +particularly to guard against any at all. Had I devoted my thoughts and +actions to making certain of all being safe to the end, then very +plainly my wisest plan would have been to turn and cycle back. When +advised to arrange against this or that misfortune I returned grateful +thanks for the advice, but all the same trusted rather to precautionary +measures inventing themselves, or being invented by other than such a +powerless atom as myself. + +I placed implicit trust on three things--good health, good luck, and a +good bicycle. If any of these went wrong, no preparation which I was in +a position to make would go far towards the prevention of very nasty +happenings. + + * * * * + +On resuming, after the welcome interval at Alice Springs, a 14-mile +cycle walk through the MacDonnell ranges was the first act billed on the +day's programme. + +The track winds its toilsome way over the lowest rises and through +gullies squeezed between the higher of the rough granite and sandstone +hills. Much bigger ones--each duly catalogued and named by somebody at +sometime, I have no doubt--loomed up in every direction. Many of the +gullies are well grassed. Saltbush and mulga are met with occasionally; +and everywhere spring up low bushes of the kinds that are fattening and +well-beloved of flocks and herds. Rideable stretches of a mile or so may +be passed over as hardly worth noticing. + +The hills end rather abruptly; and a thickly timbered plain outstretches +itself, extending as far eye can reach. Riding on to it one finds +everywhere abundance of grass as well as salt and blue bush. There are +some open places, but for the greater part of the way to Burt Well (21 +miles from the range) the traveller advances within avenues cut through +densely-packed and far-extending mulga scrub. + +The riding is very fair--a light loamy soil--but a sharp look-out has to +be kept for stumps on the roughly-cleared chain-wide track along the +telegraph line. + +Innumerable small spire-like formations and mounds, the hills of white +ants, dot the track, and cumber its sides. None, curiously enough, are +known to exist south of the MacDonnell ranges. + +Yet what impressed me most during the day's ride was that instead of +having entered a desert, I was pursuing a course through country of the +best description for stock--only lacking in water. + + * * * * + +Arriving at a lovely waterhole overhung with gum trees on the Burt Creek +(a pad branching from the main track leads to it), I stopped to have a +bath and enjoy the cool of the heavy shadow. + +It is a law of the overland that a waterhole, unless it be very large or +there be others close by, must not be used for soapy-washing. One dips +up water with a billycan or pannikin, and, stepping back, should he not +have a wash-dish, he washes with one hand. It isn't satisfying, but it +has to do. + +My waterproof served as a basin. A hole, begun with the boot-heel and +finished off by hand, was scooped out in the easily-shifted soil, the +waterproof spread out over and then pressed down into it, and--there it +was. + +By the time I had had my refresher and a smoke I found it very easy to +persuade myself that the place was quite secluded and comfortable enough +to remain the night at, and I acted accordingly; stocked a supply of +firewood in reserve against the chilliness of coming wee small hours; +pulled up by their roots (which I then shook free of earth) a quantity +of the plentiful 18in.-high dry grass, and arranged my (low-) downy +couch in systematic 4 x 6 and side-banked fashion in the lee of the +sheltering bush to which I had close-tethered Diamond. + +I hung up the lining of my wash basin to dry, lit a fire and brewed a +quartpot of tea; but not being very hungry did not broach my precious +cargo of bush bread and goat's mutton. I had with me a piece of old +newspaper, and I read it. There was a little writing to be done, and I +did it. A torn garment called, through the rent, for thread, and I gave +it some. Then I overhauled the bicycle, and, finding everything as it +should be, broke short a piece of stick and discordantly accompanied +myself in an "impromptu"--"Across the Continent in Pyjamas"--by +thrumming on the front wheel spokes. Smoked. Stood up and looked around +at the scrub; sat down and scribbled a little more--and felt lonely as I +could wish till bed time. + + * * * * + +Before sundown I had watched awhile the diamond sparrows flocking for +their evening drink in clustering clouds of dear little twittering +atoms. And note, I had begun to tell myself in meditative strain--note +how considerate Nature provides for these, even these smallest of her +trusting creatures. But a couple of hawks came along, and, swooping low +down, pounced greedily upon the thirsting little creatures. I saw no +good reason why I should interfere. I gave Nature credit for knowing its +business, and guessed the hawks were peckish. Yet, against my reasoning +instincts, I threw a lump of wood at one of the murderous, darting birds +of prey. The whizzing missile frightened him away alright--and killed +about a dozen sparrows. + +How very like many great human schemes and systems! + + * * * * + +But now bedtime. The sun was down, and the stillness was intense. A dim +sense of unreality pervaded everything, including even +thought-consciousness, the _Ego_. Perhaps it was only through sharp +contrast with the past few nights spent talkatively with new +acquaintances in Alice Springs; but the solitude made itself felt more +oppressively than I can recall it ever to have done o' nights the other +side of that reposeful _ultima thule_. + +All which trifling details of how I spent one afternoon and fixed my +camp I give now, to save, to some extent, vain repetition later on. + +So far as "tucker" was concerned, before my own good stock had quite +run out I was so lucky as to come upon a traveller (whose business was +his own), with his two black-boys, somewhere between the Burt and +Tea-tree well. He re-loaded me with all the eatables I desired, and made +me welcome to them with the magnificent generosity of the bush. + + * * * * + +Flat, almost level country extends to a Government well--Connor's--about +23 miles northward from the Burt watercourse. Covering this well, as +also those others to be seen still further north, very fine-meshed +nettings are hinged to one side, preventing wild dogs, iguanas, and +birds from falling in. It is, as all the others are, walled round +substantially with upright hardwood posts, sunk touching one another; +and it is of course, equipped with windlass, buckets, and a line of +troughs. The water is as good as anybody could desire. + + * * * * + +The feelings of surprise engendered by the sight of such good grazing +country, the interest and curiosity excited by the ever-present +countless ant-hills, the mild astonishment as I looked through the +straight and level avenues lined sharply through the mulga (avenues +extending so far that their turning points were lost in the haze of +distance)--these were the deeper impressions. + +But after the first day out from the ranges these feelings in part gave +place to intermittently-recurring sensations of a kind entirely new to +me. The high hills behind had, as it seemed, shut me off from the whole +world of animation. Up to the MacDonnell, if one doesn't get bushed, one +expects to meet with people every other day or so; but here, amid the +myriads of ant hills and the thick, impenetrable scrub, it is as if one +had strayed into a wonderland whose every inhabitant had died and had +had erected to him or her a lasting monument. + +And I was cycling through the silent burial-ground! + +A ghostly suggestiveness, a little creeping of the flesh, an uneasy +expectation of meeting with--one seldom questions at such moments +what--urged me quickly on a little way, or, again, would prompt me +suddenly to stop, dismount, lean over on the bicycle, and with craned +neck peer into the gloomy scrub and rather hoarsely invite what might be +therein to "come out." Then, recollecting it to be rather early for that +sort of "business" yet awhile, I'd laugh shamefacedly, then philosophise +a little, as, sitting beneath a shady bush or mulga tree, if not short +of water, I'd smoke a quiet pipe. For I was in no hurry, and by no means +did I dislike these new sensations. + + * * * * + +Hann's Range is 15 miles from Connor's Well. Soon after leaving the well +dreary open country is met with--nothing to be seen for many miles but +spinifex. Bad riding ground; for where there is much spinifex there +almost always will be found very loose or sandy soil or ranges. I look +longingly for signs of a mulga thicket, as there I knew the ground will +be much firmer. + +As it approaches Hann's Range the road improves to very good, and once +again the mulga scrub shows up. The range is but a very low one, and is +soon left behind. After a run of 7 miles, over fair quartz-pebbly track, +another well (Ryan's). After Ryan's another fair stretch of 14 miles, +leading into a gap known as Prowse's, where it passes through a low hill +of granite--Mount Boothby. The sand thence becomes heavier, and so lasts +to a watercourse--the Woodforde. Here are camping places--soakages and +waterholes--and at one of these (a crossing of the creek) I spend a +night. + +A very large burr has put in an appearance; and after it come burrs of +all sizes and of several different varieties. + + * * * * + +Much of the cycling hereabout is equivalent to cross-country riding. +Wherever the ground is soft the loose sand blows in and fills up the two +narrow parallel riding spaces which are sole indications of wheeled +vehicles having travelled this way at some time long gone by. + +Between these clearly defined pads a ridge is formed on which grows +spinifex or a tussocky grass; so no choice is left to the cyclist but to +sheer off to the side. As spare horses are brought along when once a +year supplies are carted up to the telegraph stations on the +Transcontinental, the sides for some distance out from the track are +very badly cut about. One then perforce must ride as best he may, or +walk, through scrub and spinifex and over fallen timber. + +From time to time, since leaving Connor's Well, many kangaroos had been +seen in the occasional open spaces. + +At Ryan's Well, and from there northwards, there grows a small +pale-green leaved plant, bearing a ripe and tasty berry, in appearance +not unlike the gooseberries of down south gardens. I tested one, and +liked its flavour well. Then I experimented with a couple, then four; +and as there were no signs of ill effects, I fell upon them tooth and +nail. Their taste recalled rock-melons. The more I ate of them the more +I relished their peculiar "twang." + + * * * * + +Beyond Hann's Range tracks of naked feet had frequently been observed. +Where the ground is hard the cyclist may not heed these footprints much; +but in the slowing sand one feels so very powerless to "manoeuvre," +that, for a little while at least, the sense of being alone is rather +agreeable. + +Near a turn in the track a black head and shoulder disappeared behind a +bush. Surely, I thought, the time for an adventure has come; so, +dismounting, I walked back to the turning point and, completely hidden, +peeped along the track. + +There was a curious sight. Half-a-dozen natives, now in full view, were +making a minute examination of the wheel marks. All were gesticulating +wildly. No "animal" like this had they ever seen before. I would have +given--what _could_ I have given them?--for their thoughts. Again and +again they ran along the track for a few yards--they who had been +tracking all manner of walking and crawling things all their lives. Next +they appeared to be comparing notes of the strange "beast" itself--so I +judged from the movements of their arms and bodies. + +And thus they were still engaged when I turned Diamond once again, and +wheeled northward. + + * * * * + +From the Woodforde to the Tea-tree Well the track was fair--a light +loam. The mulga scrub in places is extraordinarily dense. A matter of +wonderment to me was how the explorers could have forced a passage for +themselves and their animals through those miles upon miles of closely +packed trees and undergrowth. One ceases to marvel at the creeping +progress they made. You need to be in some such place as this (about the +Tea-tree Well) before you realise how brave and venturesome and +determined the first explorers were--how terribly hard and dangerous +their work. + +Now the track is plain enough to Barrow's Creek; anyone may follow it--a +fact with which, needless to say, I was not acquainted until I had +passed over it. But as the stumps have never been grubbed, and as the +ants' dwelling-places, if ever interfered with, have been rebuilt or are +in various stages of re-construction--what with one threatening +wheel-smasher and the other--the visiting cyclist may easily fancy +himself touring in a skittle alley studded with ninety-nine thousand +pins. + + * * * * + +The ant hills, ever prominent features in the landscape right through +Palmerston, are formed of hard dry clay, or of sand mixed with a +cementing solution secreted by the insect. It calls for a very forcible +kick to knock the top off even a small one. When broken into, the +structure is seen to be cellular, and the dirty-white inhabitants are +discovered moving hurriedly over the particles of dry grass or wood +which every cell contains. + +The cyclist must exercise much caution amongst those pinnacled hillocks +and mulga remnants; but on good patches the sensation of sweeping around +and in and out through the many obstacles is rather enjoyable. You have +some of the delights of cycling and of skating into the bargain. + + * * * * + +The Tea-tree Well is about 50 yards away from the bank of a pretty wide +but not deep creek, on the bank of which flourish the inevitable giant +gum-trees. Out from that side of the watercourse farthest from the well, +and into the bed of it, grows the bushy nigger-harboring scrub from +which the well derives its name. Blacks might be in there by the dozen, +and a person camping near this well be never a whit the wiser. The +general aspect of the place and its surrounding are wild and +likely-looking enough for anything in the way of adventure. + +Although it was early in the afternoon I felt drowsy, and planned a +sleep at this celebrated spot. First a reconnoitre: tracks of naked feet +in plenty; but, then, you can find them almost anywhere. So I comforted +myself, and (to my disgust afterwards, of course) argued with myself +that there was need of courage; then drew a bucket of the excellent +water from the well, and made my "camp." + + * * * * + +The burrs had, for the last two days, been very troublesome; wherefore I +improvised a burr-dissuader, which proved a very successful affair. +Finding an old tin matchbox near the well, I prized off the top and +bottom pieces, and, with a pair of small folding scissors, shaped one +end of each to correspond with the convex outside of the tyres. These +pieces of tin I fastened on the bicycle between the forks with the small +studs which at one time had held in place the front and back wheel +mud-guards. Each piece was so adjusted as to nearly touch the tyre. A +cover with central bead would need a corresponding cut in the tin. + +A prickle seldom punctures at once; a few revolutions of the wheel must +be made before the thorn gets through into the air tube. The object, +then, was to remove the thing before those revolutions were made. + +When experimenting with the puncture preventative I found that the part +of the tyre immediately over the valve bulged out further from the rim +than any other portion of it, and so touched the tin. This was remedied +by deflating the air tube, loosening the valve and shoving it well in +and back from the rim; then properly bedding the outer cover and +inflating slightly before again screwing the valve up. A final +tightening was given when the tyre had been fully inflated, and I had +the cover an equal distance all around from the thenceforward ever-ready +and effective appliance. + +Then, having tested it on the burrs about the "camp," I debated whether +it was an ejector or a dissuader, an interceptor or an arrester, a +burr-catcher or a burr-guard--and, so debating, to sleep. + + * * * * + +But not for long--soon I had company. Dingoes--the howling nuisances of +the bush--began their unearthly wailings in the scrub. A revolver-shot +scatters or quietens them for a while; but soon they collect again, and +emphasize their piteous, dismal cries. + +An early start from the Tea-tree; and soon Central Mount Stuart is +sighted, rising slowly into distinctness, until, at about 20 miles on, +the track is within about 3 miles of it. + +A gum creek, the Hanson, runs between the track and the mountain, and +between the creek and the track is a belt of mulga. + +The mount itself rises out of the heart of a vast stretch of level +country. + +For myself, with memories of printed and spoken descriptions, I expected +to see a solitary peak; instead there is a short range, consisting of +three or four hills, the highest of which--this Central Mount +Stuart--rises 2500ft. above sea level. Its formation is among its +peculiarities, but its layers of red and bluish rock give little +foothold for vegetation. And, above all, it is affirmed that it is only +2½ miles out from the exact centre of the continent of Australia. But on +this point there is room for doubt. + +Central Mount _Stuart_, too? Yet I remember to have read in one of +Stuart's diaries:-- + +"There is a high mount about two miles and a half, which I hoped would +have been in the centre; but on it to-morrow I will raise a cairn of +stones and plant the flag there, and will name it Mount Sturt, after my +excellent and esteemed commander of the expedition in 1844 and '45, +Captain Sturt, as a mark of gratitude for the great kindness I received +from him during that journey." + +The hill must always be an object of surpassing interest to each fresh +observer. One cannot but feel saddened by the crowding thoughts of +hardships undergone by those intrepid ones who first penetrated here. + + * * * * + +But it was an exceedingly warm forenoon; and, although Mount Stuart is a +sight well worth travelling many a mile to see, I notice the short +Philistinish sentence in my note book--"Would have preferred a brewery." + +Some day there may be a Central Mount Stuart Hotel. + + * * * * + +The road from the Tea-tree had been fair and level, and so it continued +to the Hanson Well--a total of 33 miles. + +At the Hanson a blackfellow was bending over and drinking from the +troughs. He was somewhat startled on turning and seeing me dismount; +but, though he had with him a few implements of the chase and an iguana, +he did not look particularly wild. + +My waterbag was empty. Leaning the bicycle against something, I stepped +over towards the well and began--"Here, 'Hanson,' lend a hand to----" + +But he had very civilly started walking after me to lend the hand before +I had asked it of him. + +The bucket was soon landed, and not another word was spoken until I had +drunk deeply of the sparkling liquor. Then I found that the naked one +was capable of "yabbering" fairly well. + +"'Nother white pfella walk longa track?" he said, inquisitively. + +"No more--which way blackpfella sit down?" + +"By and bye more blackfellow come." + +Then, indicating a direction by a hand-wave he added vaguely--"Longa +scrub." + +Then I went to the machine. Lighting my pipe, I overhauled the parts, +spinning wheels and performing other simple operations. + +"Hanson" had approached cautiously; but at length his curiosity got the +better of him, and he came near. He sat down on his haunches and eyed it +quizzically, and for several minutes in silence. At length-- + +"My word, good pfella nanto that one!" ("Nanto"=horse.) + +I jumped into the saddle and exhibited my nanto's paces. Then laid it +down. + +He quizzed it again. + +"Him no wantit feed? No walk-about?" + +"Ah, wait," I said; and took out the air pump, and set to work. + +"Hanson" rose from his haunches and bent over the inflating tube. + +"My word," he cried, slapping his legs in prodigious glee--"My word, him +grow fat all right, _my_ word!" + +I gave him half a stick of tobacco. Never yet have I heard a blackfellow +say "Thank you." "Hanson" received the tobacco in silence, and just as +if he didn't know he was on the point of asking for it. Yet he may have +been thinking of something else because, as I handed it to him, he +said-- + +"White pfella him big one clevah. What him think, him do?" + +I thought I had heard the same thing somewhere before. + +"Yes," I coincided, and felt for the moment that it devolved upon me to +say or do something towards proving myself worthy of a share in the +flattering opinion. "Awfully clevah. I-er have known--" + +I was about to speak of a scientific American's flying machine; but the +bicycle was quite far enough in that direction. + +"Have known-er eccentric bodies of them stand bolt upright on their +heads. Say 'Nansen'--I mean 'Hanson'--" as the thought struck me--"did +_you_ ever have a try at standing on your head?" + +But "Hanson" didn't savee. He giggled; repeated to himself vacantly a +few times "Head? Head?" and finally put a poser to me. + +"Which way?" + +It was but a Christian duty that I should instruct and edify the poor +benighted heathen. No one besides us two were near to witness the good +deed; so as he sat on his haunches and continued gazing up into my face +expectantly, I slung my satchel on the handle-bars, emptied into it a +few things from my pockets, levelled off a little sandy space on the +ground, and showed "Hanson" by a single object lesson how the "clevah" +thing was done. + +The benighted one took very kindly to my humble Christian endeavour. + +"Well, 'Hanson,'" said I, taking up my satchel and replacing the +articles, "do you think you could manage it? Tell you what; suppose you +stand alonga upside down, then this other fat--one stick of tobacco I +give it. Savee?" + +"Hanson" saveed. + +"Me do it all right, I think," he said, scrambling from his squat, and +valorously stepping over to the small clear space. + +There he went down on all fours, and jambing his head on the ground +sought to invert himself. He was far from succeeding the first time he +tried, or the second, but needed not the slightest word of encouragement +from me to try and try and try again. + +"Here 'Hanson,'" said I at last, compassionately, "knock off. You'll be +suffocating yourself. Besides, I want to ask you which way track go." + +But he had taken it very much to heart, this feat of standing on his +head, and was bent on its achievement. + +"Which way track go?" I said again. + +"Me do it this time all right, I think;" and was "this time" just as +near success as before. + +"Don't you hear?" I called out. "I want to ask you about the road." But +_he_ only wanted to stand on his confounded head. + +I rather regretted having put him up to the wrinkle; the track from the +well might be in any direction. + +"Me give it you that fellow stick of tobacco all the same you stand up," +I said. + +Again he only muttered a choking "Me do it all right," and again another +try. + +But it was all of no avail. He couldn't stand on his head and I couldn't +stop him from trying. His face might long since have grown purple; but I +was unable to see. His ulster would hang downwards and get in the way. + +"What infernal nonsense," I said impatiently to myself. Here was I, in +the heart of a continent, miles from any other white man, my sole +companion an unknown black, myself ignorant of the track, and paying +for the freak of a moment in this absurd way. + +"Hanson" was still struggling. I gave him up as hopeless, got into the +saddle, and wheeled away. + +I wonder if "Hanson" has done it yet, and if upon the strength of it +he's been raised in rank in his tribe! + + * * * * + +Those aborigines are a perverse lot. Bushmen and those who have long +lived at the telegraph stations or at Port Darwin agree that you can +never rely upon astonishing them. Take a tribesman from the inlands, as +the native police have sometimes had occasion to do, show him the +"mighty ocean," and he regards it stolidly; and so with many of the +marvels of civilisation. But do some fantastic trick or show him some +simple, gaudy thing, and he is transported. + +But their laughter is mostly a giggle, especially in the presence of +white men. I never heard from any of them a boisterous outburst, nor +ever heard one with a bass voice--unless he also had a bad cold. + +My "Hanson" was not wholly uncivilised. He wore, as I said, an "ulster." +Now, a blackfellow's full dress away from settlements consists of an +"ulster"--not universally so called--and a waist band, which are worn +low down in front. The "ulster" measures about 10 inches by 6, and is +suspended from the band. Of course where white men are stationed and the +blacks are permitted to congregate, the "nager," or clothes-line, is +drawn lower down and higher up on the part of the females, and those of +the males who can procure them wear bifurcated garments. + + * * * * + +Eight miles from the Hanson Well, and we are at the Stirling +horse-breeding station. Fair road for most of the spin, though there are +three sandhills near the end of it. And in the short spin, too, we say +good-bye to that salt bush--here a strongly-growing patch--which has +been for so many miles, so many hundred miles, our sole companion. + +A wide, fertile and picturesque creek-flat, studded with gums, was +ridden over before the Stirling Creek itself, and afterwards the +station, came into view. Following up the watercourse I had arrived +within a couple of hundred yards of a not imposing little row of +buildings (for all that, there was a pleasure in sighting them) without +being able to detect a soul, when suddenly out of the creek started up, +as if by magic, about fifty of the best specimens of Australia's hirsute +savages I have ever had the opportunity of picking up broken pieces of +volapuk from--a handsome, murderous-looking set of able-bodied +cut-throats, who came racing towards me. + +"Hello, my beauties," I said, and pressed as quickly as convenient to an +open door. + +Resting the bicycle against a verandah post, I looked inside and asked +hungrily "Anybody home?" but there came no reply. + +Wheeling sharply and addressing the crowd of sable ungarmented savages, +now volubly "yabbering" and deeply interested in a discussion of the +bicycle--"Which way boss walk, sit, run, tumble down, or jump up?" I +enquired anxiously. + +One only, so far as I could make out, laid claim to be a linguist. + +"Him go after bullock. Not long him come back. You wait?" + +This was a re-assuring start, anyhow. + +Wait? Rather! Though I badly wanted to push on to Barrow's Creek I would +have waited a week, could it have been so arranged, to see this man--for +the bare sake of having one good look at him, for the possibility of a +hand shake from him. + +For I had heard of him, though never previous to my passing Oodnadatta. +And I had heard of his lion courage from those who must themselves be +brave men. I knew of the spear marks he bore, and how it was he came to +bear them; yet fearlessly as ever remaining here by himself for months +at a stretch, a kindly master to a horde of athletic treacherous +savages, with not the slightest chance of anybody coming to his +assistance should he ever be in need of aid! + +When, after a couple of hours "wait," I saw him riding up, I felt no +pang of disappointment; he looked in full the hero I had pictured him. I +managed an indifferent-sounding "Good day--a bit hot?" and looked away +over to where stood his horse; but I watched him with a leaping, boyish +happiness through the corners of my eyes, and there came again and +again to my mind the expressive deliberate words of more than one +quiet-spoken old bushman--"Ah! But it is _he_ who is the grand man!" + +There was no doubt that I was outside the pale of civilization now; he +had heard nothing of a cyclist being on the road. + +There was no occasion to tell him I was hungry. A welcome feast was soon +prepared, and I ate--no, I fear, I gorged. + +And what a mine of information is this man himself! What would he not be +worth to the interviewer? But he talks with more than the modesty of the +bushman, and that is saying much. + +The natives now-a-days along the overland track are not, in his view, +quite so black as they are painted in the imagination of some residing +south of Alice Springs. Articles might be pilfered from a camp left +without anyone in charge, but otherwise the natives near the wells and +on the road might generally be looked upon by the passer-by as harmless, +if properly handled. To east and west, however, are several places in +which the natives are "cheeky." "And," added my host, "some 'bad' +fellows now and again find their way into the Bonney"--a fresh water +well to which I had not yet come. + + * * * * + +From Stirling to Barrow's Creek is 22 miles. The first eight or nine of +these takes the traveller along the Stirling Valley, over well grassed +and timbered reek flat sand plains. + +Here are many healthy specimens of the celebrated Stuart's Bean tree. +This is one of the most beautiful of shade trees. The few I had noted +particularly had grown to a height of from 35ft. to 40ft. The pods when +ripe split open, and, the bright scarlet beans within being exposed, a +very pretty picture indeed is presented. The beans are very hard, and +about three-eighths of an inch long. Dusky damsels gather them, bore a +hole through each one, and string them into necklaces. Even lying about +on the ground those bright-coloured little ornaments served to add +another charm to the romantic scenery of Stirling Vale. + +Although not given to collecting curios, I took one with me over the +Foster range (five miles of barren mountain-top and very stony track, +the descent on the north side being particularly steep) and along the +further eight miles of stony creeks, cutting through flats between other +ranges, which led to Barrow's Creek. + + * * * * + +At the crossing the creek is wide, and heavily timbered with gums. The +telegraph station lies the other side, and is very prettily situated at +the foot of a steep hill which marks one side of a gorge in a range +bearing away to the east. The buildings are of stone, and everything +about the place bears evidence of a very attentive supervision. The +whites "in camp" at the time were the station master, two or three +assistants a cook and a police trooper. A well-kept and prolific garden +is close by, and a low stone wall and headstone mark the burial place of +those who were killed when the natives made their oft-told-of attack. + +That was in '73, when as yet the natives were unaccustomed to the new +institution of the Overland, and when their favorite recreation was the +cutting of the wire. They watched a line repairing party file out, +northward; and having waited, with their native cunning, until those men +were beyond the possibility of recall, on a Sunday evening, when the +eight inhabitants of the station were talking together outside the stone +wall, they suddenly sprang from ambush and poured in a shower of spears. +And yonder are the graves of the station-master and a linesman, who paid +for the natives' treachery with their lives, while others paid for it +with months of agony from spear wounds and thrusts. + + * * * * + +There is no place of call in the 160 miles between Barrow's and +Tennant's Creeks, and it was certain I would be very hungry before that +distance had been travelled, however short a time it might occupy. + +Here was a stage in which a sporting rifle or a shot gun would very +probably come in handy. But then a gun is of no avail without powder and +shot, and the carrying of these, to say nothing of a kangaroo leg or +turkey (buzzard), loomed up an altogether swamping difficulty. + +Still I knew I could do comfortably for a fair time without food, +provided I had plenty of water This latter was promised me in the +several wells ahead. The "going" was said to be fair; so, after looking +into the matter, I saw no reason why the distance could not be covered +without weighting myself with bulky provisions; and I finally resolved +on trying to make the run with water only by me. + +So before breakfast time on the morning fixed for the departure I gave +notice of my intention not to take anything; and, happening to have in +my hand at the moment the only article in my possession which I could +very well do without--the 3dwt. bean--I handed it over to the resident +trooper, who had made out a road plan for me. + +"Why not keep it? You know there are thousands to be got about here?" +the officer asked wonderingly. + +"Then throw it away," I answered; "it's altogether too much of an +unnecessary weight for me." + +"Three pennyweights!" The trooper ejaculated in his surprise. + +But I was not allowed to keep intact my resolution; and out of the +multitude of good things pressed upon me. I chose a small piece of cake, +rolled it in paper, and hung it to the lamp bracket. + + * * * * + +Within the first half-mile I overtook a small mob of sheep, with two or +three black boys in charge; and, rather than scatter the little flock, +rode to one side, in through the scrub, until they had been left behind. + +Before another mile had been covered, I noticed that my cake had +disappeared. It could not have been long gone; and, as the thought had +just entered my mind to eat it up and so be finished with it, I stopped, +leaned the bicycle carelessly against a bush, and walked back; but the +tracking through the scrub was slow, whereupon I gave up the search and +returned. + +The bicycle had been blown over by a gust of wind, and was lying on the +ground. Worse still a thousand times, the stopper had been jerked out of +the neck of the waterbag, and the precious water had drained out. +However, it was only 20 miles to a soakage; my spirits were high after +my recent good living: so, with a few cursory remarks to the wind and to +Diamond, I remounted and rode on. + + * * * * + +Before many miles had been covered, against a head wind and under a +sweltering sun, a sharp thirst reminded me that I had eaten a salt-meat +breakfast; and that thirst became sharper still before Taylor Creek was +reached. The track, too, was a bit heavy--over flats of light loamy soil +and sandy plains for the greater part of the 20 miles. + +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. + +Nor are flies less universal than ants. They are always, everywhere. +They attack one's eyes shamefully; but the slightest scratch anywhere +calls for immediate protection against their poisoning attentions. + +A plaster of wetted clay is not a particularly cleanly covering; but it +acts very well for protective purposes, and I believe it also possesses +curative properties. + +At meal times a piece of meat lifted from hand or ground to the mouth +becomes so thickly covered with the pests that the diner finds it +imperative to flourish it around him and cry "Shoo!" blow hard upon it, +or make one or two feints at biting before taking the stuff in. + +But they are philosophers, these men of the bush, and so declare that +the flies purify the atmosphere, demolish poisonous matters in the air, +prevent the spread of devastating disease--and so on. Some people, tho', +if snakes were so numerous that folks couldn't travel the country +without wearing a snake-proof suit, would certainly discover how very +essential the reptiles were to--perhaps the armour-maker's existence. + + * * * * + +Up North--or was it down South--a talkative gentleman with a glass eye +(named--the man's I mean--Blank), keeps a store. One day, _ipse dixit_, +he was shoeing a restive horse. The flies were very bad. His glass eye +suddenly pained him; and when he made effort to take it out of its +socket, to his horror, he found he couldn't. The flies had bunged it! + +That is the man's story, not mine. I can only vouch for their infinite +capacity to bung eyes not made of glass--and to imperil souls. + + * * * * + +None of the eye-protecting fixings seem to be satisfactory for use by a +cyclist in country where careful steering is called for. Those which +will keep out the flies are objectionable, for various reasons. The +principal being that they also obscure the vision. + +At Oodnadatta, a fly-guard made of very fine meshed wire was given to +me, and I carried it right through to Palmerston. It was made as a very +large pair of spectacles, and when folded occupied but very little +space. Because of a few faults, I did not often wear it. It darkened the +ground, got uncomfortably hot at times, and when a fly did get +underneath, the little wretch invariably wagged its tail with joy at +having a whole eye to itself, and "wired in" so avariciously, that +hunting it out became an instant necessity. And then outsiders, dozens +of them, would hang on to the wires and search for a wide opening, +shoving their stings through now and again in the hope of reaching +something. Nevertheless, if one of these wire-meshed guards could be had +to fit close all round the eyes, it would be as good as, if not better, +than most of the others. Goggles with colourless glass were not to be +had. The netting of the ordinary hat-veil is too open; a cyclist when +riding does not shake his head about so the flies soon enter through. +Cheese or mosquito nettings are hot, sticky and uncomfortable; and +dangling corks are too ornamental. + + * * * * + +There were several of the ant-repulsing citadels at Kelly's Well, and in +one of them, close by a bush to which I could fasten Diamond, I spread +my sheet of waterproof. But my camp companions pressed upon me some of +their own blankets--generosity of a prince was that encountered from +first to last. + +Well-fed, and kicking about under warm blanketing, with a sense of +safety, and with food and water at one's hands--yes, certainly these +things have their advantages. + + * * * * + +The dingoes gathered round and howled; but to their noises I paid little +heed--until someone moved. Then, looking out, I saw one of my hosts +kneeling on his bed clothes, and in the act of pointing a rifle towards +where a loud-voiced member of the serenading party sat. + +The blackboys' sleeping quarters were near the fireplace; and just after +I had become fully conscious of what was going on and expected to hear a +shot fired, one of the "boys," rising on his elbow, suddenly exclaimed +pleadingly, "No shoot that one dingo, mitta! Him my fadder, I thinkit." + +At which interruption the one spoken to muttered--was that a curse?--I +laughed, and the dingo vanished. + +It was not the first time that thus the white man had been robbed of his +prey. For to hold the hand in such circumstances is only prudent. + +In the morning the hat of the aboriginal who had saved his father's +second-life was missing; but after a short search it was recovered some +little distance from the camp--or its remains were discovered, in two +parts. The brim was torn from the crown, and a strip of about an inch +between them had been bitten out all round. + +I reckoned nothing would come amiss to that species of wild animal which +would chew up a nigger's hat-band, and for ever after was at night time +more or less uneasy about my bicycle's tyres. + +The natives of these parts hold pretty generally to this doctrine of +metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls: your father, dying, may +"jump up whitefellow," or be changed into a kangaroo, an emu, an eagle, +or a dingo--mayhap even an ant. + +One of the natives was named the equivalent for kangaroo, with something +tacked to it. Wherefore he must never taste kangaroo flesh. + +It has been written somewhere:--"Australian natives are treacherous. You +should never in the bush let one walk behind you. Keep him always in +front." A bushman told me that was altogether wrong advice. "If you have +any cause to be suspicious of a nigger's intentions," he said, "keep him +behind you, and well out of sight at that--even if you have to hit him +on the head with a waddy to make him stay there." + +This authority was rather violently disposed towards the natives, whom, +_inter alia_, he charged with the atrocious crime of having once +kidnapped a dog of his. "If anyone of them starts giving you back +answers," said he, "to shoot is about the only way to make quite sure +about that one. It's fine," and he laughed, "to see the beggar's jump." +He assured me he had, on occasion, known 'em to jump as high as seven +feet. + + * * * * + +From Kelly's Well the 32 miles to Tennant's Creek provided the best +stretch of cycling ground for many a day. The soil was of a firm loamy +nature, covered in places with gravelly quartz and ironstone. + +The first part was over level ground timbered with mulga and box, and +with not a hill in sight anywhere to east or west; but at about 20 miles +some low flat-topped scattered rises appear, and then, at 26 miles, the +McDonnell Ranges. Here ironstone and quartz veins outcrop, and colors of +gold are found in many of the gullies. + +An excellent track continues on and over the range (which is not a high +one) and then level country again spreads out. + + * * * * + +I had eaten breakfast at Kelly's well; but one meal, or a second does +not long suffice, for a man who has been for days hungry. Tissues get +eaten away, and it takes days--nay, perhaps weeks--of substantial +feeding before the loss can be made up and the used tissues replaced or +replenished. At Tennant's Creek, during the many days I remained at the +telegraph station, I could eat almost continuously. My happiest thoughts +were centered around the dinner table, and there was a savage delight in +the partaking of every meal. + +At many of those stations I was ashamed of my appetite. Everywhere I +was apologising (needlessly of course) because of this unnatural-seeming +craving for food which for days possessed me. And it appeared so +extraordinary to see people sit down to a viand-loaded table and eat +only a little. And that, too, without much apparent enjoyment! When a +fellow finds he has eaten much more than two others together, at the +same table, he is apt to be backward in asking for more; and, perhaps, +therefore it was that often when the time had arrived to get up from a +meal I felt reluctant to leave without taking what remained of the joint +with me. + + * * * * + +The telegraph station at Tennant's Creek is, in outward appearance, like +a substantial stone farmhouse, and is situated out on the plains 3 or 4 +miles past the foot of the McDonnell Range. There is a main building, +three-roomed. One of these is used as a harness room; there are several +small cottages and sheds; and a large stockyard is at no great distance +away. + +In the Creek, about a quarter of a mile from the station there are some +nearly permanent waterholes, and a freshwater well is sunk on its nearer +bank. Close by this well is a bath-house, and a vegetable +garden--adjuncts, these latter, of all the telegraph stations. As at the +other stations also, cattle and sheep, horses and milch cows are kept +and attended to or shepherded by blackfellows. + +Located here was, in addition to the officer in charge (whom I had +often heard spoken of, always in terms of high praise and respect, down +Alice Springs way), an assistant (operator), a white man cook, and one +other white employee, this last generally useful hand. + + * * * * + +As I have already stated, I had very often straightened out the rat-trap +pedal cross-bars of the bicycle. The unavoidable stumps, small ant-hills +and prostrate telegraph-pole ends, _et hoc_, had bent them inwards +frequently; and as one of the four exhibited signs of the very rough +usage to which it had by this time been subjected, the handy man obliged +me by taking it out altogether and replacing it with an exact +counterpart of one of the less marked ones--a substitution effected as +neatly as if one of the most expert of cycle-repairing shop hands had +been the craftsman. + +Of this trifling alteration, which was in no way necessary, I have +paused to write, for the triple purpose of giving acknowledgment to the +ability of the workman, and of remarking that after all the rough usage +to which it had been subjected, the bicycle still continued to look +almost as if just from the shop window (in reality it was better than +new, since it had been tested and proven), and, thirdly, of making for +myself opportunity to say that, notwithstanding the many haul knocks it +received after leaving Tennant's Creek, it yet kept in that excellent +condition which was my pride to the very last moment I had use for it. + + * * * * + +Having no wish for a recurrence of those hungering qualms which had been +felt before arriving there, I departed from Tennant's Creek loaded up +with all the provisions I could conveniently or otherwise stow away +inside and out, and proceeded for 33 miles over ground which in places +was fair, but which for its greater part was rather sandy for cycling +over, to water and a camp, at one of the Hayward Creek branches, of +which there were three to be crossed. The route was waterless between +Tennant's and this creek, although Phillip's Creek was met with at 21 +miles, and the Gibson at 27; also several low hill-ranges were passed +through. + +An excellent sketch plan of the route had been made out for me at the +telegraph station by the exceedingly obliging officer in charge there +and his assistant; nevertheless, there were so many creeks to be crossed +and, as it seemed to me re-crossed, that almost before the first day was +over I continually doubted which of them was the particular one I was +next coming to or had last left behind. + +This doubt, however, did not exist on arriving the following day at +Attack Creek, some 12 miles on from the Hayward, because of the +beautiful sheet of clear fresh water which existed in it. This Attack +Creek is deep, and its sides are fringed with giant gum trees. It is +not wide; but the nearly permanent sheet of water when I passed there, +was fully a quarter of a mile in length between the banks. + +There is a solitary grave away up from the crossing; and, again, after +passing the Morphett (10 miles on), is the last resting place of a +traveller who, a couple of years back, when dying of thirst, attempted +unsuccessfully to so damage the telegraph line as to attract to the spot +a repairing party. + +Not every man can climb a telegraph pole; and one cannot cut or undo +stout and firmly fastened wires with one's teeth. + +Near the Morphett Creek a narrow pad branches off to the west of the +telegraph line, loops out to the headquarters of a very seldom heard of +cattle station, and proceeding thence, rejoins the line track at about +35 miles south of Powell's Creek. + +One may keep nearer to the telegraph line and travel _via_ Kuerschner +Ponds; but against going that way I had been advised. The track was said +to be very rough. Nevertheless the straight-ahead road might be the +better for cycling. The good people of these parts do not regard tracks +or the cyclist's eyes. It has often been recommended to me to turn off +at certain places from "hard gritty rises" on to where the track runs +over "nice soft flats." Of course the flats were found in such places to +be well grassed and suitable for travelling mobs of cattle, whereas the +gritty rises (some, good cycling) invariably were barren or +spinifex-covered. + +Right up almost from Tennant's Creek to the re-junction spoken of, the +88 miles stretch of country is of a very unkindly nature, for the +stranger, anyway. The supplies which are annually sent to the various +telegraph stations are forwarded only as far as Tennant's Creek from the +south; down as far as Powell's, they come from Palmerston. The +intervening distance (from Tennant's to Powell's, 123 miles), does not +therefore bear those evidences of traffic which are distinguishable +between most of the other stations. + + * * * * + +This lack of clear guiding marks is most troublesome about the stony +creeks, whether there be water in them or not. When a waterhole has been +reached it is not always easy to pick up the track on the other side. In +many cases there is no pad at all visible to the unaccustomed eye, as +cattle and horses spread out on approaching water, wander aimlessly +awhile after drinking, and destroy all traces of a particularly beaten +path, as not until long after leaving do they "string" again. + +At waterholes, too, (and these remarks apply to many watering places +higher up the road) the track is so "freaky." From one hole full or dry, +you must pass straight on; from another, the track may take a sudden +bend to the east or the west; at still another, the pad does not pass +the water, but, after leading to it, forms with the pad going out, more +or less of a V; while at a fourth, you have to double back for some +distance on the pad by which you entered. When the grass is high and +the track not clear, or where many paths lead out from, where one finds +oneself, as it were, "cornered," and when one does not know whether the +follow-on section of his road runs northerly, easterly, or westerly, one +is liable to feel--well, uncomfortable. + +As cattle had been lately running in some parts of the country in this +stage, between Tennant's and Powell's Creeks, the main pad, if there be +one at all, was cut into in places by better beaten ones, and in other +places there were such puzzling branches that the non-bushman traveller +might be just as likely to follow up the wrong one as the right. How it +may be with the expert bushman, I do not know. + +Before reaching the cattle station (known as Bankabanka, I believe; +there was no one at home except a few blackfellows and lubras, who +greatly enjoyed the sight of a so ragged a whitefeller and the bicycle, +but who were a very inoffensive lot of people), I was so fortunate as to +come upon a couple of horsemen; and in their company I was glad to +"spell" awhile. Valuable directions also were obtained about those pads +ahead which led out and in again to the telegraph line, and I had word, +too, of a mob of sheep in charge of a white man, who, by this time, was +expected to be camped somewhere between the station and the line. + +After a day's travelling away from the cattle station, first over an +expansive, luxuriantly-grassed plain on which not a tree was to be seen +for many miles, and then into and through rough, rugged ranges, I +reached the waterhole on which the sheep were camped, and spent there a +happy night, eating and thinking of the fresh mutton, cake, and other +acceptable novelties with which the gentlemanly drover-boss plied and +supplied me. + +Referring to my note-book, I make out the following random +jottings:--"The mulga has disappeared. The prevailing trees appear to me +to be dwarfed, stunted gums; whether in truth they are properly gums or +box, or peppermint, or what--I cannot tell; but they are clearly of the +Eucalyptus family. Nearly all white-stemmed, and averaging from 20 to 30 +feet in height. The yellow blossoms of a wattle bush relieve the lower +but never thickly growing scrub. Extensive belts of spinifex; and, on +less sandy soil, and about the creeks, many flats covered with long +spear grass. This grass is over six feet high--a continual source of +annoyance, as now is the time to catch the falling seeds; sharp pointed +things these, which wriggle and twist about in one's clothes, until they +enter so far that a fellow has to stop and pull them out of the various +parts of him. Further north, the people tell me, this spear grass grows +to a height of 12 feet (and over that; but 12 feet is tall enough for +me), with worrying seeds of proportionate size. Have torn my +handkerchief in two and wrapped a half around the extremity of each +pyjama leg to prevent the obnoxious things accumulating around my +ankles. + +"Much walking--sand. Riding northerly; the cross shadows before and +after midday add to the already many risks. And the pads are so narrow; +branches of trees and bushes hit the face; often an eye-lash from an +eye. Find myself at morning time or evening dismounting hurriedly to +lead the bicycle over the shadow of a branch which I mistook for +substance, and a minute after, running full tilt into a log which I had +mistaken for a harmless shadow." + +"Stony hills, small creeks, and grassed flats" was the order of the day +on which I again struck the telegraph line; and along by that the track +was both distinct and fair "going" passing between low hills to Renner +Springs. Glazed pebbles and agates (of no value except as curios) were +thickly scattered on the hill-tops and at the foot of the various rises +for some distance. + + * * * * + +Where the pad led on to the line-track two natives were walking on +ahead. On turning and seeing me they only backed a little from the +twelve inches of highway, and looked astonished. I pulled up to +interview them--or it may be I trembled so much with terror that I was +unable to continue riding. Two very good specimens, these. Well set up +and picturesquely ornamented with many cicatrices rising across the +breasts and arms. One was able to speak comprehensibly; the other wore +feathers in his hair, and looked from head to foot an unsophisticated +savage, reminiscent of a Fenimore Cooper's Injun fresh starting on the +war trail and bent fixedly on acquiring somebody's "skelp" for his +wigwam. As it was, I daresay he was out on a hunt after bandicoots for +his dinner. + +After inquiring the distance to Renner Springs--which I knew to be about +15 miles--and getting the usually precise information "long way," from +the one, I asked politely of the other what his name might perchance be. +But he did not answer; and the spokesman, in explanation of this +silence, probably, told me, "Him German blackfellow." + +Ha! here was a discovery. The "Made in Germany" grievance had invaded +the north-central Australian tribes! + +"Sprecken sie Deutch, herr blackfellow?" He condescended to give me the +disrespectful-sounding monosyllable "Yah!" + +Now this was a serious quandary. I had used up all my German that seemed +suitable for the occasion. + +I struggled with memory for a few moments. + +Ah, yes! "Hast die das Schloss?" + +He shook his head, and said, "Er," in disgust. + +Beyond this I could not go. It was, perhaps, just as well. Later on I +knew what "German blackfellow" meant. When a white man can't make +himself understood the 'bout camp black (who knows _he_ speaks pure +English) says, disdainfully:--"What 'im pfeller talk? 'Im German, me +tink it." + +So it comes about that the "German blackfellow," is the blackfellow who +no speak it Inglis--the "myall," the wild-fellow. + + * * * * + +Having cycled what I counted on as being the 15 miles, and while yet +looking ahead expecting at any moment to catch sight of the Renner +Springs station buildings, I was surprised to hear much shouting and +many strange cries. A ridge chain ran parallel with the track, a quarter +of a mile off, on my left-hand side; and in the bushes a little way out +from this a dozen or more wurlies had been erected. From the vicinity of +these wurlies scores of natives were now pouring, laughing, screaming, +and yelling to each other to hurry up and see the circus. They had +observed me before I had sighted them and were running towards a bend in +the road ahead of me. + +I slowed down; and as they were so considerate as to hoot back their +yelping dogs, and as the pedalling operation appeared to divert them +hugely (I believe they had never witnessed anything half so funny in +their lives before), I stopped when part way along the line they formed +to give them a better chance of satisfying to its full their very patent +curiosity. + +Those who had collected were of all sizes and ages, and most of them had +left home so very hurriedly that they had quite forgotten to put on +their "ulsters." But there were no females in the assembly. Here (and +likewise back at the Stirling) I notice the lubras come but a very short +distance from their wurlies, near which they remained +standing--screaming during the first few minutes of the excitement with +delight, and, I think, calling the dogs back. + +Not from anyone of the crowd, for whose edification I spun the wheels +round, could I get a word of white-fellow lingo; and all I have by which +to remember my futile attempts at a conversation is a note written on +the spot to the effect that they, in common with other of the natives +whom I had met "laughed in fairly good English." + + * * * * + +The first beholding of adult blackfellows and blackfellowesses naked, +may be slightly shocking to sensitive nerves. An uncomfortable, uneasy +feeling will probably be induced. But this creepiness soon passes, and +one comes to either look upon or pass unnoticed the ungarbed blackfellow +(and later on the average lubra), as he might the apes and monkeys in a +zoological gardens. + +Some of the habits of those animals are theirs, too; when collected and +watched awhile it will for evermore "go without saying" to the observer +that they are natural-born hunters. + +They have no thought for the things of the morrow, but they consider the +birds of the air and how they shall catch them. The youths are adepts in +the art of stone throwing; lubras, though, are by far the better hands. +They ask not for money as wages--only "tucka," "toombacca," or "bacca," +and "ole clo." + +One of them in a quiet confidential chat gave it as his opinion--"White +fella big one fool; him _work_ all the time!" + +I explained how it might be: the whitefellow worked to save up money +with which to purchase leisure in his old age--"all the same sleep all +day _then_," I explained. + +After ruminating--"Why not him sleep all day along-a _now_?" he asked +puzzled. And so puzzled me. + + * * * * + +Sometimes there is a charm in the simplicity of their "English." + +"That one big fool hoss," remarked a blackboy, referring to an animal +which, instead of remaining near and feeding, had a tiresome habit of +travelling afar off when hobbled out of an evening--"every day him walk +about all night." + +This boy had seen a kangaroo close by the camp, and made an observation +to that effect to his employer,--thinking probably the latter would like +to have a shot at it. + +"What sort of kangaroo; Big fellow?" + +"N-o," came the answer slowly, "not big pella." + +"Little fellow, then?" by way of suggestion. + +"N-o," still the reply, "not little pella." + +"Well what size was it?" impatiently. + +"Lee-tle bit big pella." + +It is fellow, fella, pfellow, pfeller, pfella, pella according to the +pliancy of the talker's tongue. + +Renner Springs is the name of a cattle station situated on the edge of a +wide belt of table lands (and downs country as it is called), which +stretches away eastward with hardly a break to Queensland. It is about +20 miles south of Powell's Creek. One white man only resided there. A +chinaman cook is employed, and blacks do all the station work. Although +not good for cycling over, most of the land between Tennants Creek and +here seemed to me to be well suited for pastoral purposes. + +Near the small homestead are several springs--circular ponds of clear +drinkable water, occurring out on the flat; but along the line of an +adjacent quartzite and--sandstone ridge, one overflows, is fenced in, +and serves to irrigate a garden by means of the trenches in which the +water is continually running. On leaving the garden what remains +unabsorbed of the water (which on coming to the surface has a +temperature of 95°), is soon lost again in the sand. + +At Renner's there was the usual cordial invitation to eat, and the +equally usual "Thanks--many thanks, yes." The blacks, the manager said, +had during the past few days been gathering from all quarters for the +purpose of holding a big corroboree, and the number in camp was being +added to hourly. + +The first part of the twenty miles or thereabouts to Powell's Creek +consisted of sandy flats between the usual low hills; and for the rest +the track kept on fairly hard ground between and over the hills of +various small ranges. + +Natives must have been about in great numbers, yet I saw none for some +time after leaving Renner Springs. Stopping to make a note of something, +and looking back, I was surprised to see a thin column of smoke +ascending from a hillock which I had passed within the last quarter of a +mile. Stopping again, further on, I observed the same thing had "again" +occurred, and wondered if there was any truth in the smoke-signalling +theory, and, if so, what did these present signals convey. + +I missed a turn-off track at about 15 miles from Renner Springs, and, +keeping close to the telegraph line, did some very rough hill-climbing. +An hour or two's slow travelling, however, brought me first to Powell's +Creek itself, and then, all safe but more clothes-torn, out through a +gap in the ranges, immediately behind the telegraph station. + + * * * * + +The main buildings at Powell's Creek are of stone, with galvanized iron +roofing; and, when taken together, form two sides of a square. The +operating room, with two other rooms (officer's dwelling) are under the +one roof; a wide verandah, bedecked with potted flowering-shrubs and +faced with lattice-work, overgrown with evergreen climbing plants, runs +along the front and at each end. At a right-angle, but separated from +the more imposing structure by a distance of about one chain is a row of +stone-walled cottages--stores and sleeping apartments, and other +necessary offices; and a vegetable garden. + +With the exception of the gums which grow thickly in the rich ground on +the banks of the creek, there are no neighbouring trees of any great +height. The telegraph station itself is in a fork of the creek. + +In the stone walls of one of the cottages are several +portholes--reminders of other days, when the natives were troublesome. +To-day the blacks would be almost as likely to wage war on the citizens +of Adelaide as to attack the inmates of one of those telegraph stations. + +An enthusiastic cyclist (but minus a bicycle) was stationed, as +assistant, at Powell's Creek. An amateur photographer also in same +person, equipped, too with a camera; and during the several days I +remained, several excellent photos of the bicycle were taken--some with +a lubra or a blackboy "up." + +My boots were mended with copper wire; and my cleaner pair of pyjamas +(kept in reserve and put on in any sheltering clump of bushes or behind +a hid-tree, immediately on sighting telegraph or other station +buildings) were minus half a leg. Further, I gave them here, as I did +people everywhere, to understand I was a nobody--one of whom they +probably never again would hear anything more. Yet I was received as +courteously, and welcomed as cordially, as if I had been an influential +politician or a titled governor's son. + + * * * * + +From Powell's Creek it is but 54 miles to Newcastle Waters homestead. +The road from the telegraph station to Lawson's Creek (26 miles) runs +mostly either alongside or over low spurs and branches of the Ashburton +Range, with occasional stretches of sand and clay flats. + +When cycling through range country I have nearly always found the +track, where track there was, fair for riding on; and there is ever a +bright novelty in the panoramic changes. Any sort of surface, in fact, +in preference to sand. + + * * * * + +Before reaching the Lawson (where I camped for a night) I obtained a +splendid view of an extensive sheet of water, lying away from the track, +about three miles to the west. So very small was my knowledge of the +country that I had not the remotest idea of this vast reservoir's +existence. + +Yet Lake Woods is a permanent fresh-water lake, with a circumference of +between 80 and 90 miles. It is fed from the north by the Newcastle +River, and by the annually-flooded flats which drain into that, at +times, noble stream. + +The lake is bordered to the water's edge with heavy timber, and the +country everywhere in its vicinity grows abundance of the best stock +grasses--Mitchell and Flinders chiefly. The timber is mostly box; but +among the lower trees are a pea-bearing plant and other bushes which +cattle dearly love. + +Native companions, ducks and wild fowl of many varieties gather, too, in +uncountable numbers in the bays and long-reaching arms of this +magnificent lake. + + * * * * + +From Lawson's Creek up to Newcastle Waters station (28 miles) and thence +for 15 miles beyond, is some grand grazing country, carrying mobs of +the sleek and most healthy-looking cattle that ever delighted an +owner's eyes. But I cannot speak in like terms of praise about the +roads. + +Here is a note from my directions for this stage: "From the Lawson to +Sandy Creek is 6 miles. Mostly rough. Rough also to the bend in the line +about three miles on. Kept along the line from Lawson's to the bend. +About a mile north of Sandy Creek water can be had by going across to +the Newcastle Creek (running north and south)--about ¾ or 1 mile +westward. The bend to Pole Camp Shackle, about 8 miles. Water might be +to the left, perhaps a mile; follow pad or tracks into it. The Shackle +to Newcastle Station 12 miles." + + * * * * + +In this stretch (28 miles), I had the first experience worth noticing, +of that "Bay of Biscay" formation of which much had been heard. And what +there was of it was rough on bike and rider. Undeniably so. + +Where "Bay of Biscay" ground occurs, the soil is generally a blue-black +clay--a pug-mixture of silt and decomposed vegetable matter--which the +roots of a thick and wiry blue-grass hold firmly lumped together. + +Either that, or the loose stuff between lumps of stone-hard pug is +periodically washed away, and in the process holes are formed of varying +depths. Anyway, the surface is rough as the Bay of Biscay--which is the +explanation of the term, I suppose. Where it is met with, the country is +flat and subject to heavy floodings; and so it follows that in the rainy +seasons those Bay of Biscay plains are converted into shallow, muddy +lagoons or impassable lakes. + +After the water has evaporated or drained off, and until a pad has been +worn through, the journeying over these wretched tracts is so +unavoidably jolting and chin-choppy that (so 'tis said) horsemen +dismount or stop and loll in their saddles, every hundred yards or so, +to rest until their aching jaws and bones re-set and the kinks +straighten out of their spinal columns. Walking or cycling over it is as +pleasant as walking or cycling up and down a stairway, with the stairs +of unequal height and width, blindfolded or in the dark. + + * * * * + +The Lawson Creek rises in the ranges east of the track, and, cutting the +road at right angles, flows into Lake Woods just below the mouth of the +Newcastle. This latter creek then, coming from the north, is seen at +intervals away to the west; and--a strongly running river for months in +some rainy seasons--contained, when I passed along, a chain of wide +lagoons and lengthy waterholes between its thickly timbered banks. + +The water is quite white; not thick, but milky in appearance, a minute +quantity of clay or silt being held in suspension. Nevertheless one +could hardly wish for more palatable drinking water. But with its +peculiar color it is wasted here. A dairyman, now, would go into +raptures over it. Indeed, the country about here, what with the +excellent pasturage and the abundance of water, was strongly suggestive +of overflowing milk pails. + +The road crosses the Newcastle Creek before the cattle station, a +couple of chains up from the north-westerly bank, is reached; and a very +large waterhole (from which, with a well to fall back upon, the station +gets its supply) is close by the crossing place. + +I had seen many smokes since leaving Powell's Creek, but had not caught +sight of any of the natives. To this waterhole, however, had just come +in some ten or a dozen weedy ones; but interest in their kind was on the +wane, and I gave them scant attention. + + * * * * + +A Chinaman--for we are entering the land of the Chinaman now--was in +charge at the Newcastle. A "colonial experience" gentleman was there, +but he was on the sick list. Three or four valuable dogs were chained to +box kennels around the homestead. In case the blacks showed signs of +becoming troublesome, all the person in charge had to do was to unloose +one of those dogs, and no blackfellow could come within two miles of the +place. Possibly no other fellow either. + +The two managers, brothers, were absent; but I had had full permission +to "make myself at home at Newcastle waters" from one of them--I had met +him travelling southwards between Tennant's and Powell's Creeks, and, as +I said, had been generously treated by him. + +The buildings, of which there are perhaps half-a-dozen--store, kitchen, +men's sleeping room, manager's dwelling and others, as well as +sheds--had all been designed and erected with an eye to use rather than +to ornament. A garden close by is tendered to by a very civil Chinaman, +I noticed only one blackfellow about the place. + +Here I spent two happy days, eating, sleeping, writing and reading; +taking no account of the time, absolutely unconscious of day or date, +nor troubling about such inconsequential matters; I was right, the bike +was right, so all was right as right could be. + +Leaving the station, the creek must be re-crossed to get to the track +which runs northwards to Daly Waters (82 miles). To this track the +thoughtful Chinaman ordered the station blackfellow to lead +me--thoughtful, because the maze of tracks and pads _was_ slightly +bewildering. Here for once was the yellow man superior over the black. +But, ordinarily, there is no love lost between them. Each views the +other with a magnificent contempt. + +To one of the blackboys in the service of a traveller, I said at +nighttime, pointing to a place where someone, camping, had made a +comfortable bed of dry grass, (the blackboy was peering around for a +sleeping place.) + +"Why you not sleep over there Johnny?" + +"No fea," he replied; "Him Chinaman make it that one." + +Or he may have only meant that it was too luxurious. + + * * * * + +From Newcastle to Newcastle North (a waterhole in the "river,") is 8 or +9 miles; a very good and level road. From the waterhole the road +continues for six miles through scrub, swamp, and box trees; and this +was chiefly a stretch of silky clay, kneaded, when wet, by travelling +cattle, and ruined for the cyclist's purpose. + +Bright green-leaved guttapercha trees are numerous along this portion of +the route. The tree, or more properly bush, grows to a height of 15 or +20 feet; when a branch is broken, a thick milky substance exudes. +Scratches made on one's hands or face by its thorny projections become +very painful and take a long time to heal. + + * * * * + +At the end of the 15 miles from Newcastle station one suddenly finds +oneself clear of the scrub, and, as it were, precipitated into Sturt's +Bay of Biscay Plains. This arm of plain is 15 miles across; enough to +make a cyclist feel sea-sick before getting half-way through. + +Towards the middle of the dry season a fairly level pad is beaten; and +then the ride across could be done expeditiously and without much risk +to man or mount. But that pad, although traceable, had not as yet been +fashioned when I chanced to get there, and as much careful navigation +was called for as is needed to steer a ship through the Bay of Biscay +itself when in its most cantankerous mood. + +Having launched this frail barque upon this tempestuous sea (this is +merely by way of variation), the voyager loses sight of land. Billows +and blue grass everywhere, and not a drop to drink. One false step, and +a broken neck or leg might follow. The look-out must be kept alert. + +To save the barque--or perhaps we had better come back to the continent +and call it a bike--I had been doing a good deal of walking; and when 7 +or 8 miles had been covered I sat down to rest and make a short note of +the fact that neither a tree or a shrub was within range of vision, +"although afar off, to the east, what is either a low range of hills +(the Ashburton?) or a line of dense scrub can be traced." The note +lengthened out, and it rambles on:--"I feel it more than ever to be +almost an indictable offence (against its maker) to press a respectable +bicycle into negotiating such an outrageous track. Where's the telegraph +line? As usual, I dunno. But no matter. This is the road right enough. +Cut the telegraph wire? As soon think of cutting---- + +"What a sheet of water must be here when this plain is covered! Besides +being 'Biscay'--lumped clay--this ground is fissured--long slits and +crevices, from an inch to four or five inches wide.... Sky overcast.... + +"Been thinking what a mess I'd be in if a downpour of rain comes on +before I could get out of this. In a few minutes all the ground would be +impassable--20 miles or so of black stickphast. Bad for D (Diamond); bad +for me." + +The note was unfinished. I stowed the book, picked up my ever-sparkling +Diamond (for I had spent many a half hour in brightening it), and +vaulted into the saddle as the hind wheel was going to bump. There was a +moment's strain and doubt as to whether the bicycle could be upright as +the wheel endeavoured to climb out of the abyss, then we were off bump, +bump, bump, kangaroo-fashion. + +There was a reason for this unusual haste--a heavy black mass away back +on the southerly horizon. The clouds overhead, too, were moving up fast +from that direction; and as these ominous signs to me betokened the +quick occurrence of that dreaded rain-- + +On, Diamond, on! + + * * * * + +The clouds held back, and I was industriously persuading myself that +they were only smoke, when out of the treacherous 'Biscay' we passed +unharmed, Diamond and I, through a narrow opening in an apparently +never-ending and sharply-defined wall of thickly-packed tropical +vegetation, of glistening leafy trees and trailing plants, bright +flowers and rank undergrowth. + +Fifteen anxious miles of bumpy, desolate, barren wretchedness, and now, +all suddenly, a cyclist's paradise, dense foliage and deep shade, with a +winding track, hard and level and strewn with ironstone gravel. + +A fairy land; and fairy fingers pulled hard upon the wheels and stopped +them. Then, as in some delightful dream, I led Diamond to a hedgewood +tree, and stood stock still to drink in the melody--silent melody; for +there was no sound to woo the eyes from the feast of tropic beauty. + +And, drinking, I tingled with delight, and gloated on this prodigal +glory in form and color as a miser might in secret upon his piled-up +hoards of gold. + +O marvellous Nature, supreme master-artist, what human brain could +conceive so glorious a transformation scene--so swift, so entrancing, so +unexpected! + +But the wheels spin again, yet slowly; for the change may come at any +moment, and I dawdled to stretch the sweetness out. + + * * * * + +Bluegrass and open space appeared too soon. But the fit of depression +was a thing of a moment; for around the little flat were large box-trees +thickly clustered; and, on the further side, majestic leafy coolabahs +fringed a reservoir carved by the hand of nature in the rock and clay, +and capable of holding three or four million gallons of water; fairly +open on the side from which I approached, but on the other sides walled +in by a tangled growth of well-nigh impenetrable scrub and brush and +forest tree. + +The coolabahs threw deep shadows on the carpet of soft grass spread upon +the open side; and in this romantic spot--were six or eight confounded +Chinamen! + + * * * * + +Occasional parties of celestials, equipped with guns, horses, and +provisions, make across from about here to Queensland, to evade the +poll tax. Along by many cattle stations to Camooweal, a border-town, is +the favored route. As Camooweal is far away from anywhere else, the +expense of carting the Chinamen back to whence they came would be too +great; and if imprisoned for a short term, when they first arrive--well, +they have arrived anyhow. + +A party of Chinamen are considered to have done well if half of those +who set out for Camooweal ever see it. The blacks knock over a lot; +several always drop by the way, and nobody troubles much about them or +their misfortunes. + +The present gathering had with them three horses. + +These they did not ride, but loaded them with provisions and +necessaries, and, walking beside them, led them along. + +Deciding to camp at Frew's Ironstone Ponds (the reservoir is 36 miles +from Newcastle), I chose a place among the coolabahs, and walked over to +the Chinamen. + +"Good day." It was a feeler. + +"No savee." + +Taking out a florin (the only silver coin I had), I said to him, whose +smile was blandest, "You got it flour?" pointing to a small bag of it. +"You bake it Johnny cake, so big," I drew a small circle on the ground +and laid the two-shilling-piece within the circle. + +The yellow man's smile broadened at sight of the white money. He knew +something of English. He said, "Welly goo." + +So, happy in the certainty of having fresh baked bread for supper, I, +leaving them, proceeded to make my primitive wash-basin preparations, +and had a bath. + +Before sundown, the Chinamen had shot a great number of the ducks with +which the surface of the waterhole (in common with most of the others +along the track, by the way) was swarming. And one of them, at supper +time, came over and presented me with an only three-parts empty tin of +jam--a small tin. May he have escaped both niggers and imprisonment? + + * * * * + +Often o' nights, as here at this romantic camping place, there came to +me the clear realization of what would be the consequence of a disabling +accident. + +There were no means that I could see of getting out from places in this +country for months if my machine smashed up. I was a nobody--had neither +wealth nor influence at my back, and would be powerless to do anything +or get people to do anything for me. + +And suppose I did get to a telegraph or other station. Is it a couple of +riding and pack horses, with saddles, packs, and provisions all on, and +a black boy, you would throw at the head of a stranger cyclist who had +been warned against coming your way, yet who arrives--only to break down +at your door? + +I would be a nuisance to myself and everyone else around the place I +reached, and to all who had associated their names in any way with mine. +Ugh? The situation would be unbearably horrible. And the prospect! When +the time came, and I was given the chance to go north or south, what a +prospect loomed either way before me! + +If the bike broke down, I would have made but very little exertion +indeed to get out into the world at either end. Why should I, even if an +opportunity of doing so soon presented itself--out into where the +crooked finger of derisive "I told him so" would evermore be mockingly +bent towards me? Why should I, when I could lie down and remain, quite +comfortably, and in peace, at the side of the first waterhole I should +come upon! + +When a fellow gets into the habit of lying awake o' nights out in the +open, gazing upwards at the starlit sky, and thinking dreamily of what +lies beyond, he is--at least some of him are--liable to become more or +less desirous of satisfying the curiosity such ruminations excites. The +stars twinkle as if they were all quite happy. If one could only be +quite sure.--But I'd rather chance that than face the other certainty. I +would cut no telegraph wire; would trouble no station people or anyone +else. And so I comforted myself, and slept well. + + * * * * + +On leaving Frew's beautiful pond early in the morning, the road leading +to Daly Waters (55 miles) was assured by the Chinamen's tracks. +Remarkable tracks these--left by flat oblong pieces of wood with which +each traveller was sandal-shod. + +The road from the pond, still strewn with ironstone-gravel, immediately +entered the forest, where of the sky little was to be seen except a +narrow strip overhead. A short strip this, too, for the road wound now +to the west, now away to the east, or, again, ran northwards. + +And so light-heartedly I wheeled through the morning's shadows, between +two walls of forest trees, and over or around logs and branches of +fallen ones, for 17 miles. Then came three miles of dangerous "Bay of +Biscay" ground; then five miles of still treacherous track, on which +were many patches of "Biscay holes" and lengths of fallen timber; and +then again the jungle, and so to Daly Waters. + +Besides the higher trees, a heavy undergrowth, and many kinds of grass +flanked either side. The trees were in great variety--bloodwood, +ironwood, lancewood, coolabah, bauhinia, hedgewood, whipcord tree and +quinine tree. Added to these, a bush known as the water wattle, a native +orange, and a turpentine bush; and, for aught I know, a dozen others. + +I passed through an extensive belt of tall, and remarkably straight +trees, growing very close together. The trunks were branchless for a +long way up, 25 feet of clear stem being not uncommon. To this very +respectable forest tree there had been given the name of mulga, a +misnomer truly, judged by the standards of the south. + +But of them all the most to be admired had a stem, straight and slender, +30 feet or more in height, leafless; but bearing on every branch large +numbers of a bright red flower, in shape, resembling very much the +fuchsia! + +And of flowers there are not many on the Overland. From the MacDonnell +Ranges, right up to Powell's Creek, my only "button hole," was a large +bell-shaped, blue flower, growing on a bush about 3 feet in height; but, +Diamond, I bedecked with yellow wattle blossom wherever it could be got. +Beyond Daly Waters, a little round flower, like a "billy-button"--white, +blood-red or variegated--replaced the larger, and more quickly, +withering blue-bell. + + * * * * + +This day, like every other day up there, was "blazing" hot. Parts of the +road, too, were unsafe; and my waterbag, from being knocked about, and +worn thin in places, allowed the water to evaporate quickly (truth to +tell, I had soon drunk it all rather than have this occur), and a +stretch of 35 miles had to be cycled over before more was got. Yet, +notwithstanding these things, the ride from Frew's to Daly Waters, all +through dense forest, lingers in my memory as making one of the most +enjoyable day's cycling I ever had. + + * * * * + +The feeling of loneliness had to a great extent worn off. I had, it may +be, become inured to it. Still, the change of scene and country was so +marked and impressive that often throughout the ride, in the lasting +gloom and shadow of countless solemn giant trees, encompassed by a +penetrating solitude, I experienced again those indescribable sensations +to which I had not been for many a day susceptible--mystic sensations of +a hushed expectant awe as in the presence of a something living, +breathing, but unseen, intangible. As I passed by I glanced into an +opening, or looked far back between the trunks where trees were +scattered--and it seemed to me so very strange that nothing should be +moving there! + +Yet this sense of being alone with throbbing nature--the hidden +influence--was not by any means unhappy. It was a restful feeling--a +feeling of peacefulness, as though one had awakened from a long, long +sleep, to find oneself in a calm and weird existence somewhere beyond +the state of life: a borderland arrived at after death. + +And the toil and turmoil of existence in the world which had been left +behind, viewed from the distance, appeared now to be so very +purposeless; its work-a-day prosaic rounds and its confinement so very +galling; its dead-sea-apple pleasures so few and short-lived; its +miseries, so many and enduring; the worth of it all so very little that +the consciousness of having to again return to it was as a jarring note. + +And in the vast immensity of towering forest the thought of quiet Death +was no unwelcome one. I realised so clearly what an insignificant atom +this was which moved through it, as an ant might--so insignificant that, +had the certain prospect of the atom's end appeared, for anyone to fuss +or mourn over such a trivial incident as that death would be, seemed +extravagant, as absurd as to mourn the withering of a blade of grass or +the falling of a leaf. + +In this land of forest, and quiet, and vastness, the silence, if it be +given a thought, is so profound, so unnatural, that memories of some +night in childhood come back to mind--some dark, still night through +whose long hours the child waited alone in a roomy house, hushed with +bated breath, and "fancied things." + + * * * * + +About mid-day I arrived at water--probably The Burt; a shallow, clayey +creek. After drinking, and whilst the quart-pot boiled, I put in the +time carving my name on the trunk of a gum-tree overhanging the +waterhole. I was not sure about the date, but cut one in. High grass +grew on that bank of the creek on which I stopped--grass high enough to +cover and shade the bicycle which, when I pushed it in, stood nearly +upright against the finger-thick blades. + +A smoke was rising down the creek; and when my opposition cloud was +raised an inquisitive black female hove in sight. When first observed, +she was on the far side of the watercourse, peeping from behind some +bushes; but a minute afterwards she came out into full view. My first +impulse was to call her over. Then I wondered how she would act if I +remained silent. So I pretended not to be aware of her presence, and +went on with the letter-forming. + +The lubra stood still for a moment, irresolute; then she advanced +slowly, keeping a little way out from the creek, and passed me before +she crossed. To keep her in sight I had need to turn but very slightly. +On seeing her step down into the creek's bed I took pains to keep my +back to her. Presumably she was unable to satisfactorily explain away +the mien of deep preoccupation so ostentatiously displayed. At any rate +she came very close, looked on from behind as I worked, and once +coughed, or "hem'd" aboriginally. And still I obstinately continued +deaf. She had a becomingly dirty bone stuck horizontally through her +broad nose, and for the rest was fashionably dressed in a dog's-tooth +necklace. + +At last she touched me on the shoulder. At this I faced sharply around +and stared with a look intended to convey blank astonishment. She +giggled; but there was a tinge of uneasiness or uncertainty about the +giggle; then said "which way nanto?" + +Having gone so far with no idea of saying or doing anything in +particular to the young woman, I now acted on the prompting of the +moment--rushed from her suddenly into the long grass, collared the +nanto, and rushed out with it. She screamed at my reappearance--or +rather at the appearance of the prancing bicycle. Then turned and ran; +and I ran the nanto after her. + +But shoving the bicycle handicapped me, and she out-distanced us easily. +I stopped and called out to her to come back, but she wouldn't. I cried +almost tearfully, "Angelina," but 'twas no use. + +I reckoned women were a class of people no fellow could understand, and +walked sadly back to my lonely dinner--hour--for dinner I had little. + +From this waterhole I felt not the slightest of inclinations to go on. +Had I brought with me from Newcastle sufficient food to last me out I +might have camped there for a week. Finishing off my name plate +leisurely (this was the only place at which I had so occupied myself), I +ate what I had to eat, and smoked. + +And, smoking, I pondered deeply over the notion of making for the +blacks' camp and trying to strike a bargain with the chief or elders of +the tribe--that they should keep me well supplied with tucker for a week +or so, and show me the lions in return for which I'd teach 'em to ride +the bicycle at, say, two snakes a lesson, lubras half price. + +But I had been learning to ride myself one time and knew how strangely +learner's legs get tangled up in spokes and other parts, a cyclist +cannot cycle without. So I decided to go on. Having so decided, I +yawned, called out despairingly for Angelina to come forth and see me +off, waved my hand in the direction she would most likely be observing +from, and made wheel tracks for Daly waters. + + * * * * + +Those tracks were formed but very slowly; for it had entered my mind +that the end of my journey was approaching, and I knew not whether to be +glad or sorry. I almost concluded to my own satisfaction that life +would be almost worth living if at the end of it a fellow having arrived +all alone at a weird undesecrated old forest like this should then +mysteriously disappear. If he were to get away far back, and tread +lightly in going, people might search for months and never find him; and +there would be no ghosts of ghoulish undertakers or neighboring +unsympathetic corpses to trouble his last sleep. + +But for myself I had no justifiable excuse for doing anything of that +sort--so long as the bicycle didn't break down. + +Meditating thus, I came to still another large waterhole, surrounded on +all sides by massive boulders of the now common brown and friable iron +ore. A pretty spot indeed. Forest trees grew thickly around, except at +one side, and there they were more scattered, and high grass and bushes +lined that bank. + +The follow-on track was most uncertain, and half an hour was occupied in +making sure of it. + +Having at length traced out the right pad, which went off again from the +waterhole at a sharp angle, I strolled down to the water's edge and had +a drink; then cracked up several pieces of the iron ore, but as they +didn't look "kindly," gave up prospecting; next cooeed to try if there +was an echo, but found there wasn't; had another drink, stretched myself +out in a shady place, and, without having the slightest intention of +doing so, fell asleep. + +On waking I looked at my watch. "The deuce!" I darted for the bicycle. +Now where was the bicycle? The soil was hard white clay, yielding no +foot-prints for a guide. Think fixedly as I might, I could not bring to +mind where I had "planted" it. True, I could not think very fixedly. Too +many disagreeable thoughts came crowding up. + +What a pretty ending to my journey this! My bicycle, it would almost +seem, had carried into execution the little poetical thing in the way of +existence-endings I had contemplated vaguely a while back--had wheeled +itself out into the undesecrated old forest, and vanished from mortal +ken. + +I found it--of course somewhere, and within half an hour. + + * * * * + +The watercourse this hole or pond was in, came into view occasionally +until Daly Waters telegraph station was reached. _Ergo_ it must have +been the Daly Creek. It, like all the watercourses beyond the Burt, has +its fall towards the north to join the coastal rivers. _Ergo_, again, +the country running northward from the Burt must have its fall towards +the coast. + +The buildings at Daly Waters are on the south bank of the winding creek, +and, being erected on piles, stand two feet or more above the +ground--not, because of floods, though, for this bank is well above the +plains but to mitigate the white ant evil. + +All the way up from the MacDonnell Ranges, ant-hills had ever figured +more or less prominently. Oftentimes fantastically-shaped groupings of +them had been mistaken for men or animals. They had been gradually +increasing in average size, until here at Daly Waters, or a few miles +on, they rose as high as the sag in the telegraph wire. + +It had already been told me that between Pine Creek (258 miles from Daly +Waters) and Palmerston (146 miles still further on) the railway line in +many places deviated to save the cost and labour of cutting through the +ant-hills, so large and of such very tough material were they fashioned +there. I was always very grateful for scraps of information like this. + +Daly Waters seemed nearly as good as the end of the journey; for at the +Katherine River (only 190 miles on) there was a hotel, and this meant +civilization and perhaps a township. At the telegraph station two or +three days were spent. Residing there, besides the stationmaster, were +an assistant, and a Chinaman cook. Many natives were camped in the +neighborhood, and they, or occasionally a handy Chinaman, got the "odd +jobs" of the station to do. + +Here, as at every other place of call, the tinkling of the meal bell +fell on my ears sweetly as heavenly music. Music with words, too, +learned from a blackfellow, who thus pithily interpreted the +ringing--"Chow-chow, quick fella, come on now." + + * * * * + +The natives, of whom some were about the station have a faith in the +professing medicine man, which, unless a limb be missing, often goes far +towards making the patient whole. The "doctor" of a tribe will examine +the afflicted one, diagnose the case, and find out where the pain is. +There's bound to be something of a pain somewhere. Having made his +arrangements preparatory to operating, he applies his mouth to the +part--swelling or wound, or whatever it may be--makes a big show of +sucking, tangles himself up somewhat in the practice of his +profession--and draws out a lump of wood, or a stone, thus exhibiting +tangible proof of the efficacy of his method of treatment. + +They put a little fire (live coals and a few pieces of dry wood, with +the fired end towards the wind) at their heads of nights, so fearful are +they of an evil spirit--a bogey man, of whom their grandmothers warned +them when they were children. + + * * * * + +A native at one of the telegraph stations kindly pointed out to me two +remarkable constellations, hitherto, doubtless, unheard of by our own +astronomers. He interpreted them to be, one, a representation of the +emu, the other, of course, of the kangaroo. + +And, why not? The natives should have their familiar animal groups of +stars just as properly as had the ancients on other continents their +Bears and Fishes. And both of those to which I have referred are "all +there," safe enough--up in the heavens somewhere. + + * * * * + +This astronomer had been working steadily about the station for a matter +of three or four months at a stretch, during which period he had shifted +his residence a few dozen times, and had now taken it into his head +that he would be all the better for a bit of holiday-making (from which, +by the way, the natives generally return in a very lanky condition) away +out among the smokes. He counted on being absent until the middle of the +next following month, and informed the station master of that fact in +these terms:--"This one moon tumble down. By-'n'-bye new pella moon jump +up. Fust time picaninny. Lee-tle bit ole man--then come back." + +The expert understands this "yabber" instantly. + + * * * * + +There is a law of the Overland--an unwritten law, of course--regarding +the camping of blacks at wells by which white men are gathered. At +sundown one of the whites says to the blacks, "clear out, go to your +camp," and indicates a locality for them to "clear out" to. Or one of +them comes up and asks, "which way we camp to-night?" If they venture to +put in an appearance again before sunrise--well, then, it is understood +they can be up to no good, and, as trespassers, are duly "dealt with." + + * * * * + +The officer in charge at Daly Waters showed me many kindnesses; and as +his business took him up the track I rode on and camped with him at some +iron tanks near a dried-up waterhole known as The Ironstone, about 33 +miles beyond the station. Between those tanks and the Elsey cattle +station--77 miles--there are on the road two wells (from one of which, +by the way, a man walked out to look up some horses about a year ago +and has never been heard of since); and as the cattle station is +approached several billy-bongs in or near the Elsey creek are met with. + +The country from the Daly to Elsey Station is nearly all low-lying and +subjected to annual heavy floodings. The dangerous "Bay of Biscay" is +come upon within a mile or two of the telegraph station, and extends +northwards through Stewart's Swamp for about 30 miles. Thence the riding +varies. There is a good deal of sand, with many long and short stretches +of harder "crab-hole" ground, "gilguy," and "devil-devil." + +This last name is applied to clay, pure and simple, or silty soil +similar to "Biscay," but with this difference, that in contracting after +rains, in the quick-drying rays of fierce tropical suns it cracks, while +the "Biscay" becomes distressingly bumpy. These cracks are as so many +ever-set traps lying in wait for wheeled vehicles. The jaws of many of +them would easily admit a waggon wheel. They run in all directions +across the track and with it. To go slow is the cyclist's sure way of +getting through without accident. + +"Gilguy" denotes small patches of mixed "Biscay" and "devil-devil" +ground--possibly dried up clay pans. And "crab-holes" are roundish +openings, like rabbit barrows, but going straight down in the soil. +These "crab-holes" are the more dangerous ones for horsemen. Here and +there one is warned to sheer off the pad by an uprising roughly-trimmed +branch of tree or length of dry wood which some traveller has shoved in +to mark a bad spot. + +The vegetation along the track is distinctly tropical. So also is the +climate. And so both continue all the way to Palmerston. + +But I confess to disappointment with the arrangements in the forestry +department. From Elsey upwards there were altogether too many trees of +the Eucalyptus family. + +From Daly Waters to the Katherine (190 miles) are many and fine +specimens of Ironwood, Ebony, Bloodwood and Currajong; but the +prevailing tree--the one, at least, which from the track the passer-by +will see most of--is the familiar Gum. + + * * * * + +The homestead buildings at Elsey Cattle Station (100 miles from Daly +Waters) were, I thought, the most prettily situated group I had seen +anywhere since--oh, years ago. The Elsey river winds its billabonged way +in front and between the homestead. This is a garden in which anything +that might be planted should be proud to grow. + +A beautiful reach of fresh water is a permanency in the river at this +point, with the sweetly scented flowers of many water lilies ever +floating gracefully upon its surface--a surface ruffled, as I at calm +evening time gazed with admiration on the fair picture, by sharp splash +and undulating widening circle, as a fish jumped now close to one bank +now over at the other; or, again, where one had risen high up to a fly, +or for amusement, in the centre. + +Little forests of pandannus palms overtopped by stately paperbarks or +gum trees line the sides; and massive climber-laden trunks, or towering +branches of giant tree growths, meet the eye wherever it be turned. + +Here also, along the chain of ponds and billabongs up and down the +Elsey, is some of the most delightful scenery one could desire to look +upon. Here, too, cotton grows naturally, making a brave show--bunches of +pure white dotting the landscape, and touching off the vivid green of +tropic bush, or thickly grouping in some wide space by themselves. + +The Paper-bark at once attracts the eye. A very large tree this. On the +wettest day one has but to prize off a piece of the trunk's soft outer +covering, and there is to his hand compressed--laminated, as mica--a +hundred sheets of dry and easily-lighted coarse straw paper. + +The mimosa tree and the cabbage tree, as well as many other palms, +likewise flourish in the favoured neighbourhood of the Elsey. In fact, +Elsey, as it appeared to me, was a vast botanical garden; and at supper +time, such a feast of sweet potatoes and other dainties were spread that +sleep but tardily drove out the thoughts of them. + +A Chinaman cook had been speared here, in the manager's absence, about a +fortnight before, and I thought the Chinaman who had replaced him, and +who was now in charge (the manager being again absent) must be a fairly +lucky man--for a Chinaman. And, above all, he cooked the sweet potatoes +deliciously, and baked--oh! lovely cake. + + * * * * + +From the Elsey a stretch of 18 miles of sand (the timber is mostly gum +trees) runs northwards; but this is to be avoided by taking the "new +road," which bears in a more easterly direction. The track for part of +the way to the Katherine was freshly marked, as a party of black +trackers and a police trooper, having in charge two or three +prisoners--natives, who had speared the Chinaman--had left the vicinity +of the station only the day before my arrival there. + +From the excellent road-plan made out for me by the courteous officer at +Daly Waters (he had, I think, every inch of the road in his mind's eye) +I was able to make unhesitatingly into the various watering places. +Nevertheless, there are one or two places on the Roper River and at the +Esther Well which might puzzle one not so blest as I was. + +I overtook the police party after I had camped one night on the +Stirling, at a waterhole in one of that creek's bends, about 40 miles +from the Elsey; but after a very brief stoppage, proceeded on towards +the Katherine. + +Of the prisoners I know nothing, and never heard of them again; but I +was told they would be imprisoned, then quickly released, enrolled among +the native police, and for evermore hold their heads high. "There is +always an opening for men of spirit in the native police force," said +one who ought to know. + +Give a nigger a rifle or revolver and he will shoot his fellow +niggers--go out hunting after them if permitted--with the greatest of +glee, readiness, and cheerful animosity. + +"You see wild blackfellow along track," more than one "civilised" +philanthropist asked me. "Sometimes, I think," I have answered. At once +has come an expectant, pleased expression to the questioner's face. "You +shoot him all right?" has been asked in amusingly hopeful tone. + + * * * * + +The presence of a trooper with black trackers probably accounted for the +scarcity of blackfellows along the road, but just after leaving the +Esther Well, which is only 24 miles from the Katherine, I ran across +two. They seemed though rather inclined to clear among the trees. + +Dismounting, I endeavoured to get some information from them about a +turn off of which I was still doubtful; but they were too much +interested in the bicycle to make what they would tell me very clear. + +Each carried a spear. One was headed with three wires--No. 6 +gauge--fastened close together, and looked quite bad or good enough to +permanently damage a Chinaman with. The effective end of the other one, +a long bamboo, was fashioned out of one side of a square gin bottle. +(Gin, by the way, is a favorite N.T. drink.) A very business-like weapon +this was too. A slight scratch from it should be capable of inducing +_delirium tremens_ in the veins of the staunchest teetotaler. + + * * * * + +From Daly waters, and at many places still farther south, the grass was +for miles at a stretch so high that, mounted on the bicycle, I often +could not see over the top of it. In front, at such times, was only a +faint streak or hollow, where the top of the bending grass at either +side of the narrow pad met. The pad itself, the ground on which I +cycled, was not at such times visible--except when I dismounted and +crept down into the strange narrow tunnel to have a reassuring look for +or at it. When riding, a passage through was forced, or as it were, was +ploughed open, which when the machine had passed closed up again as +water would. It felt like being engulphed in ocean. I often fancied I +was on the point of drowning, and sat bolt upright to take in a breath +of the upper air. That was fancy; what I now say is not. + +At every few hundred yards, the thinner, shorter, wiry undergrowth of +"blades" wound round and round the rear hub, until the roll becoming +wide and high and tightly coiled, it acted as a brake twixt wheel and +forks. They became entwined among the chain's links, and fastened +themselves between the teeth on both the sprocket wheels, and so +frequent stoppages were a necessity. + +This state of things lasts only to the end of May or June. The long, +rank, useless grass, being an impediment to the progress of man and +beast, is, as it dries, fired by passing travellers, and the second +growth which then springs up, is short and sweet. The natives, too, set +fire to it, as when it grows, they cannot see or track the game or +animals they hunt for. Many patches had already been burned off, and the +minute particles of black ash which overspread the ground, rose at the +slightest touch, floated in the air, and begrimed the passer-by. + +Two very extensive fires faced me after parting from the natives at +Esther Well. I had grown used to riding among smouldering embers, and +with the grass or dry trees burning right and left; but the second of +these fires was the biggest thing I had witnessed. After passing out of +the first, and leaving one black, sky-obscuring wall behind, a mile or +two's stretch of untouched grass and tropic bush and stunted gums was +ridden on to. At the end of this arose a mighty pall of jet-black smoke, +stretched out I knew not how far, with flame-jets glancing through. The +whole country seemed ablaze. The land was overcast, the sky shrouded as +if a fearful thunder storm was imminent. The smoke ascended and remained +suspended, as might dark, heavy, threatening banks of cloud, and the +fire at intervals leaped up and gleamed on this side or on that--a +passable equivalent for lightning. + +It was a grandly impressive spectacle. But there were other +considerations than the spectacular. I looked, a little uneasily, for an +unlighted opening along the fast advancing line; and seeing such a gap +between two trees where there was little else but sand, I hurried +over--walking--and so passed through. + +A dozen steps in I stopped to look behind. The flames had already +closed in! + +In front, far on as I could see, the stems or branches of dry standing +trees were burning; and on the ink-black ground were smouldering heaps +of tindery bush, or still-blazing fallen limbs. Thick strewn everywhere +were the hot, and quickly blackening ashes of that tall grass which had +been waving majestically in each breath of wind a few short moments +since. + +Shouldering the bicycle I walked cautiously to where the pad showed +still a narrow streak, yet offering a clear, narrow running space. As I +walked--I speak without exaggeration--I now and again heard sweat drops, +hiss and fizzle, as they fell on a burning log or some little grass-root +heap. + + * * * * + +For five miles at a stretch this fresh-burnt ground continued. Tress +stood out like torches all the way; and on the pad were many live coals +of fallen timber. I dare not hurry, and often had to dismount and lift +the bicycle over, because if my tyres blazed up I hadn't water to spare +with which to put the Ixionic fire out. Nevertheless I did that five +miles scorching. + + * * * * + +Out of the fire and into a frying-pan of hot sand ten miles long and +unridable. Towards the end of the ten miles so many large boulders and +long flat slabs of granite cropped up in the track that there was a +danger of getting dizzy from rounding them; and these senseless +outcroppings at the last became so numerous that a bye-track made a +seven mile detour towards the Katherine. At that beautiful river I +arrived, after a hard days "graft" at sundown. 214 miles from +Palmerston. + +A hotel at last. Those "terrors" of the Overland which were to bring +certain destruction had been left behind. + +The buildings consist of the hotel and store, telegraph and police +stations. They are on the south side of the river, which to the westward +joins the Daly. + +The sloping banks of the Katherine rise 80 or more feet from the +gravelly bed, and are thickly timbered with giant trees of many +varieties. Here and in the country round about are, as well as thickets, +jungles and beauty spots innumerable, the stately paperbark and +Leichhardt pine, Pandanus palms, white cedar, woollybutt, bloodwood, +ironwood, banyan, and other trees; and splendid couch and buffalo +grasses. + +When in flood the stream is about a quarter of a mile wide. Boats are +kept at both the hotel and the telegraph station. Alligators are known +to exist in several places, in deep holes and long reaches, but only a +small species of crocodile is often seen about the crossing place. A +fine specimen of one of these latter was on view at the hotel. + + * * * * + +It was at this telegraph station that I received a message from a +fabulously wealthy company of cycle-part makers. My journey, as I have +said, was practically at an end. Those "perils" that were so great that +failure was, I was told, certain, had been surmounted. Yet, only now, +seated at a hotel, I read a curt and, as it seemed to me, impertinent +and "catchy" telegram, endeavoring, as I took it, to ferret out of +me--unwealthy me--a most valuable advertisement _gratis_. Up to this +moment, when success had been practically achieved, nothing had been +heard from that quarter. I regarded it as mean, and answered +accordingly. + +The company took further action then; but, in view of later +developments, it would be meanness on my part now to speak further of a +matter which would not deserve mention at all but that it has been made +to some extent public property. Only this further: _my answer to the +telegram has never yet been published_! + +Without any promise of recompense I gladly did all I could for another +firm whose manager had treated me civilly, and who did not wait until +danger had been passed before identifying itself with the fortunes of +the trip. + + * * * * + +At the Katherine, where only one night was spent, I refitted myself with +wearables from the stock of the widely known hotel and storekeeper; had +a swim in the river; then tied boots and other things on Diamond, +shouldered the lot and walked across. + +The country is flat for ten or twelve miles. Travelling only +middling--rather soft. But before the morning was far gone, rough hills +were entered and they continued most of the way to Pine Creek (68 +miles). + + * * * * + +It was hazardous to hurry the bicycle over those rocky hills, but +Diamond stood the rough experience more than manfully, and jumped the +miniature precipices encountered on the down-hill sides without ever +loosening a spoke. + +At one time, in the very early part of the journey, I favored the notion +of entering Palmerston, with the bicycle in a fearfully battered +condition--a revolving bundle of splints and copper wires. But how could +I? And I found myself proudly exhibiting it everywhere, and finally in a +Palmerston shop window as being "better than new." + +In my mind, now, was the fixed idea that nothing could break that +machine. I knew I couldn't. And it had been called on to undergo some +rough usage. Towards the end, such confidence had I come to repose in +its excellence, in its unbreakableness, that on hearing sticks and +things rattle among the spokes I used only to laugh, say "Sool it, +Diamond!" and let them fight the battle out. + + * * * * + +The hilly country alternates with stretches of sand, blue-grass, swamps, +and rough patches of white clay or pug, with here and there a stunted +gum. I find at this stage this memorandum written for myself--"Horrid, +swampy, inexpressibly bleak and unattractive, miserably stunted +timber--a result, p'raps, of centuries of bush fires. A 68 mile-span +unfit for anything--except those strips close by the creeks and +watercourses." These latter were the redeeming features. The water in +some was deep, notably in the Driffield, Fergusson, Edith and Cullen +Creeks, which are rivers for a month or two in the rainy season. + +In one of them--the Edith, I think--a little way down from one, nearly +waist-deep crossing, was an inviting reach of calm, deep water, with +many picturesque pandanus palms and woolly butts caressing it; and as a +family of aboriginals--two old men, many picaninnies and some +females--were bathing by the roadway. To this I wheeled the bicycle. + +The bottom was gravelly, and in the deepest place there was only four +feet or so of water. The stream, or rather hole, was narrow; and while +paddling about in it the thought struck me that it would be just as well +to cross now and here as to cross at any other time and place. And, +besides, an opportunity for experimenting presented itself. + +To bundle up the clothes and the few odds and ends I had with me was the +work of but a couple of minutes; those things I was able to walk across +with. On returning I laid the bicycle on its side close by the water's +edge, made fast the interlocking gear, and fastened securely to its +handlebars one end of the strong string I always had carried. To the +free end of the string I attached a stone. This I threw to the opposite +bank and swam over after it. + +I would have swam that stream though my knees had got the gravelrash in +the transaction! + +Laying hold now of the string I pulled gently on the bicycle until it +moved; then pulled it quickly whilst in the water; and so landed it +where I was standing. Undoing the string I allowed my silently weeping +comrade to remain out in the sun, where its doleful tears quick turned +into smiling rainbows while I resumed my clothes. Then gave it five +minutes attention. + +This wetting, I might here remark, did no more harm to the bicycle than +a smart shower of rain would have done, but at Palmerston, where I +totally immersed it in the sea, I found the salt water quickly formed +rust on the various nickeled parts around the nuts and where the spokes +entered the rim and perhaps within the tubes themselves for aught I +know, as there, alas! monetary considerations forced me to part with it. + + * * * * + +I caught some fish in the waterholes, along the track. They bite at +dough or flesh of any sort; or the first one captured will do as bait +for catching more with. + +From the Hayward Creek up to Daly Waters (230 miles), the fish are +small, averaging about 8 inches; but higher up, as at the Elsey, and in +more lasting holes to east and west, much larger ones are to be had. +Some will rise to a fly; others take meat. The best bait one can use is +a section of widgery (or "witchery," a grub three or four inches in +length, found at the roots of gum trees, and tasting, when slightly +roasted, not unlike a hen's egg.) + +A packing or any other needle, heated to take the temper out, and bent +into shape, makes a sufficiently good hook. But I had been provided with +the regulation pattern steel article by a trooper, at one of the +telegraph stations. + + * * * * + +At the Little Cullen Creek, seven miles from the Palmerston railway +terminus, a genuine diamond has been found within the last couple of +years; and several small heaps of tailings near the crossing place were +accounted for by a native who told me "whitefellow bin on track of +nudder one; but no catch im." + +On from the Cullen are groups of shallow holes, now half tilled in, +where alluvial gold has been sought; and various reefing properties, +notably the Cosmopolitan, came into view on nearing Pine Creek. + +Pine Creek (where I spent but a night) is not itself a large place, but +it is the centre of an extensive gold-mining district. On one side of +the main street is the railway station yard; on the other a first-class +hotel, a store, blacksmith's, wheelwright's, and butcher's shops, +besides several more business and dwelling houses. Most of the Asiatics +connected with the mines, occupy a portion of the town away back from +the main street. + +Owing to the surrounding wooded hills and neighbouring gum creek the +general aspect of the place is prepossessing. + +Of the Wandi goldfields, about 30 miles to the east, it is said that +several valuable properties exist there. But the climate is trying, and +properties in the district need to be very valuable indeed before +Europeans will infuse energy into their developement. + + * * * * + +This line from Pine Creek to Palmerston is spoken of as "the northern +section of the Transcontinental." I do not pose as one who can say with +authority whether it is advisable or not to complete the railway through +the continent. That is not my "line" at any rate. Nevertheless I have +formed opinions. Without any concessions at all from a leave-granting +government, with barely the permission given them to construct a +railway, and with even a squaring donation to the exchequer of a million +pounds or so, a band of reasonably, business-like, experienced, +company-promoters, I'm very sure, could make large fortunes in English +or French money out of the undertaking--for themselves. + + * * * * + +I had expected to find a well-beaten track, perhaps a macadamised road +from Pine Creek to Palmerston. But--a road where there was already a +railway! What for? + +On to Union Town. There is a store here, kept by a welcoming European. +So far 10 miles of good, although hilly road. + +At the store I was advised to look out for tracks leading off to the +Chinamen's mines, of which there were several, away back in the hills +from the railway. This advice I conscientiously acted on--"looked out" +and followed one for miles until I came to the mine and the Chinaman. +But in among the hills there was only "no savee," and a noisy quartz +crushing plant; so I retraced my wandering wheelmarks, kept close to the +railway line, and arrived at Burrundie (124 miles from Palmerston) +sometime in the afternoon. + +Burrundie is the last--or first, whichever you please--of the overland +telegraph stations. Here there was hospitable entertainment at the hands +of the station master; then on to the Howley Cottages, 100 miles from +Palmerston. As the unpremeditated visit into the regions of Chinese +no-saveedom had interfered with the day's progress, at the Howley +Cottages I was made comfortable for the night. + +My voucher book was now again constantly in use. I had tried hard when +in at the Chinamen's mine to possess myself of a celestial's signature, +as a curio, but had not succeeded. Was it possible that the book-fiend +had been there too? + +Next day, from the Howley, I made fairly good time, passed the Adelaide +River (the half-way refreshment-house on the railway, 77 miles from +Palmerston), and Rum Jungle (58 miles from Palmerston) and got in as +far as the 46 mile cottages, where on the warm invitation of the +resident ganger, I camped until morning. + + * * * * + +From about Burrundie the cyclist is given the choice of occasional +lengths of old pads (white clay soil mostly), alongside the railway +line, and of the ballast or embankments, between or close by the rails. +I chose a little of each. + +Hilly country extends from Pine Creek to about the Adelaide River. The +various rivers are thickly lined with screw palms and thickets of stout +bamboos, and the country generally is substantially timbered. + +The only white resident at Rum Jungle (a railway camp, on a small +watercourse, tributary to the Finniss, where the jungle is remarkably +dense; the prefix may be reminiscent of railway-construction days), said +there was plenty of time yet to find alligators in the Darwin River, +between the jungle and Palmerston, although the water was getting low. +But why should I go hunting for them when I bore away hence as trophies, +still preserved, two alligator teeth? + +And, speaking of alligators, it has recently been printed--"there are no +snakes in the Northern Territory." There are, in their proper season. +You may see them even without drinking heavily. I cycled over two and +left them behind, on a narrow pad by the eastern side of the railway +line, within a few hours of leaving the Howley cottages. + +The size of one was larger than I would care to say. It remained quite +motionless after the bicycle had passed over it; so I dismounted and +threw a stick to ascertain whether the docile-seeming reptile was alive. +It was. First rising aloft its head swiftly to bite at the passing piece +of timber, it then immediately turned and commenced wriggling towards +myself. I never mounted a bicycle more quickly in my life, nor did a +quarter mile in faster time. + +The ganger at the 46 mile cottages and the guard of the passenger train +running between Palmerston and Pine Creek, as well as the writer, have +cause to know that in the matter of snakes, as of some few other things, +the Northern Territory isn't Ireland. + +From the 46th mile I kept entirely to the railway line (a blackfellow at +one of the cottages dubbed the bicycle "kangaroo engine") and before +midday I was within ten miles of Palmerston. + +There was a fairly-good road, its surface covered with fine brown +ironstone rubble, for the remainder of the distance. Very high trees and +a profuse wealth of tropical vegetation lined the track; but "cyclone" +was writ large and in unmistakable characters everywhere--in uprooted +trees and other features. + +At two and a half-miles from Palmerston are the railway workshops and +several suburban dwelling houses. + + * * * * + +On arriving opposite the first of these buildings I dismounted to take +off my hat and wipe a little of the dampness from my forehead; and a +sentence picked up somewhere came back to mind. I looked fondly upon the +bicycle which had served me so well, pressed gently one of its handles, +and whispered:-- + +"Thanks, Diamond, '_Es ist vollbracht._'" + +With a sigh of relief the pen is laid down and the scissors are picked +up. The few next following paragraphs are from _The Northern Territory +Times_:-- + +"Mr. Murif, the gentleman who undertook to ride across the continent on +a bicycle, arrived in Palmerston on Friday afternoon, accompanied by +several of the local cyclists, who picked him up at the 2½ mile. After +riding round the town the party proceeded to the point below Fort Hill, +where the overlander's bicycle was dipped in the sea, and the point +christened 'Bicycle Point' in commemoration of the event. + +"On Saturday evening Mr. Murif was entertained by the Athletic Club at a +smoke social in the Town Hall. The Government Resident presided over a +large gathering. Murif was heartily welcomed. + +"_He declared that he could have accomplished the trip in less time, but +if good time was made nobody would follow him._ He would like another +man to try the journey. + +"He was sorry, he said that he could not say as much as he would like in +thanking the residents of the Territory for the kindness they had shown +him since his arrival amongst them. He had also to thank the Athletic +Association, who were treating him in a right royal manner, and also +those gentlemen who had so kindly come out to meet him on Friday +afternoon. In fact, ever since he had started upon his trip, that one +word 'Thanks!' had ever been upon his tongue. He had had to say thanks +for kindnesses received at the very commencement of his journey; all +along the route he had had occasion to use the word, and now when his +task was completed and all his troubles over, all that he could say, in +return for the hearty welcome they had tendered him, was that one little +word--thanks. Down south he had always heard much of the hospitality of +Port Darwinites, but he had not the remotest idea of its munificence +until he came among them." + + * * * * + +Again:--"When seen by _The Advertiser_ correspondent on Saturday morning +Murif was busy cleaning his machine after the sea bath. On being +congratulated on his safe arrival he replied, 'Yes, both of us,' +pointing to the bicycle, 'are safe and strong as ever.' The cycle, +indeed, looked in perfect condition, the wheels running as true as when +they left the workshop. Murif was well and in the pink of condition." + +And among other things, in reply to an interviewer:--"I wish you would +do me a favor. I want to thank all those whom I met on the road for the +most hospitable manner in which they treated me. Never have I met a +better class of men. I was treated like a prince whilst _en route_, and +never once was I refused anything I asked. Information re the track +ahead was readily tendered, and it was with regret that I had to leave +my new friends who had been so kind to me. I had heard that the +Territorians were the essence of hospitality, and now I fully believe +it." + + * * * * + +These Palmerstonians, who treated me so handsomely, are a +laughter-loving and generously hospitable people. + +The European residents, being very largely civil servants are as such +prohibited from entering the field of politics. This disability hangs +heavily on them, and is ruinously enervating and mischievous in its +effects. Peacefully, contentedly, unprogressively as the calm and happy +dead are they. Earnest consideration and study of the wants and welfare +of the land in which they live are neglected and the action to which +such grave study ever prompts men is wanting. Their lives are rounds of +light gaieties and small pleasures. A picnic, dance, a sports day or a +concert is ever an absorbing topic. + +These are not right lives for white men, such as they are, to live; but +the embargo forces them to live it. Nothing so retards a country's +progress, nothing perhaps is so great a hindrance to the development of +its resources, as a non-political feeling among the inhabitants. Here +politics are taboo. The real business of life, the stirring cry of +"Advance Australia!" is awfully lacking. + +Remove the disability, take away the restraint, make an exception in +favour of those civil servants who live so far up north in South +Australia, unmuzzle those who have it in them to speak, and the people +of the Territory--the Territory itself--will soon be heard of. So long +as they are not heard from, so long must the Territory continue as a +heavy weight. + + * * * * + +Chinese, who are ready and willing to work night or day and seven days a +week, have ousted Europeans from many branches of trade. Hairdressing, +tailoring and bootmaking are all done by them or Japanese. + +Paper kite flying seems to be those people's most favoured form of +recreation. Of a breezy evening the main street of Chinatown, running +parallel with and distant but a couple of hundred yards from +Palmerston's principal street, is indicated by half a dozen or more +kites rising up into or stationary in mid-air. The ends of the retaining +strings are either fastened to shop verandah posts or proudly held by +their yellow owners. + +These kites, built on scientific principles, are made very large and of +fantastic shapes. Hollow "musical" reeds are attached; and when kite +flying is "on" the loud monotonous humming of these wind instruments +pervades every nook and cranny in Palmerston. + +Every visitor gets a crick in his neck from looking skywards. + + * * * * + +Many blacks hang about the town. The roads are unmetalled. The loose +soil is dark brown, and consists of sand mixed with particles of friable +ironstone. The three varieties of tracks which show prominently +everywhere are suggestive--a few of booted whites, many of sandalled +Chinamen, and over and under all those of unshod natives. + + * * * * + +The thermometer does not register very high. But here there is a stuffy, +suffocating, sweat-producing latent heat the whole year round, with very +few weeks' cool to brace the enervated up. + +One misses the heavenly blue of southern climes. The sky has ever in it +a hazy dull metallic grey. + +The town is on a table-land, and is well laid out. The drainage is good; +hence malarial fever, once pretty prevalent, is now less common. + + * * * * + +The chefs are invariably Chinamen; this applies to most of the Northern +Territory. Hence one hears the word "chow, chow" used commonly by the +whites to denote meals or meal time--"Chow's ready," "come to chow," +"There goes the Chow bell," and such like expressions. + +A nobbler is disposed of with one indefinite "Chin, chin." Freely +translated it means something between a _votre sante_ and "another +coffin nail." + +And, over and above all, is a splendid, almost prodigal hospitality. + + * * * * + +One last look back over the journey and the track. + +However it may have been with myself (whether I met with the adventures +I had been hopefully looking forward to and whether the exciting +episodes or interesting incidents and objects came up to expectations or +not) of this I still feel assured: For two or three good humoured +cyclists, with whom considerations of time would be of but secondary +importance who would start in the proper season (that is March or +April), and who would need not to be niggardly in their expenditure, no +more promising fields can there be in all the world for a cycle-trip, at +once interesting and sufficiently adventurous, than along this same +route--in the crossing of Australia from South to North. + +Although anyone undertaking to do the journey in fast time will be +called upon to endure privations and run grave risks of coming to grief, +yet a person who had been once overland, or one of the telegraph station +employees--a cyclist in short, who beforehand knew how the tracks ran +and where exactly the watering places lay--should find the task neither +very difficult nor demanding a great expenditure of days. + +Now that the country and what to expect has become a little better +known; now that it has been seen and spoken of from a cyclist's view, +now that the wheelman may therefore prepare himself, it remains open for +any down-town or up-country sprinter, with the three good things of +which I have made previous mention, viz., good health, good luck and a +good bicycle, to double up the writer's so called "feat" into very small +compass indeed, and incontinently knock it out of sight into the +obscuring depths of an oblivious cocked hat. + +It was one of my objects to leave it so open. Nevertheless I will not +take upon myself the responsibility of advising anyone to bother about +having a try at the "record-smashing" business unless it be well worth +his while to do so. + +To be prepared counts for very much. The cyclist who is sure of his road +can never imagine the weakening effect which uncertainties on that most +vital point can produce. Such doubts evolve sickening, depressing, +unhappy sensations which make themselves felt more acutely than do the +mere bodily disablements associated with hunger and thirst. + +I knew next to nothing of the country, and made it a point to make but +very few enquiries about it before I travelled up to have a look. I knew +nobody in it, and from the day of my leaving Adelaide to the day I +arrived at Sydney, I met no one with whom I had been in any way +previously acquainted. + + * * * * + +I have in no case named those with whom I had the pleasure of becoming +acquainted on the track for the reason that had those names been written +it would as frequently have devolved upon the writer to expatiate on +matters by right concerning only the men themselves, and besides I but +seldom indeed questioned anyone about his business. + +I have no material, therefore, out of which to "work up" on the weakness +of slight acquaintanceships, the usual traveller's series of +semi-biographical impertinences, even were I so minded. + +But the following-named gentlemen are well-known, and I feel especially +grateful to them for they all in one way or another befriended me:--Mr. +Mat Connor, Mr. Harry Gipp, Mr. James Cummins, the Messrs. Louis +Brothers, Mr. Coulthead, Mr. Gunter, Mr. Heilbraun, Mr. Wallis, Mr. +Campbell, and police officers Bennett and Kingston. + +From what I have already written it will go without further emphasizing +that to the ever-courteous and obliging assistants and officers in +charge at the various inland telegraph stations I have cause to be and +am grateful also. + + * * * * + +The only wheeled vehicles I knew, or now know of, as being in the +country, besides the bicycle, after leaving Alice Springs, were those +under cover at the Telegraph and Cattle Stations, and a buggy at the +sheep camp, between Tennant's and Powell's Creeks. + +There are no camels north of Alice Springs, except when a caravan +travels from the latter place to Barrow's or Tennant's Creek with the +yearly supplies. + + * * * * + +Yet, in this land where the bicycle is but imperfectly known one may +pick up some bright knowledgeable notions in "improved bike" building. +An "additional strengthener" suggestion came from a man who had been +inspecting my mount as it stood against a wall with the interlocking +gear closed, and thus of course kept perfectly straight. He said to +me--"See how strong the back part of the machine is compared with the +front," and his "notion," soon forthcoming, was that it would be an +improvement if two more tubes were added: These to run, one at each +side, from barrel bracket forward to the front fork extremities, back +stay style. + +As I had no desire to make enemies I admitted the +front-fork-to-crank-shaft-bracket stay would undoubtedly be, as the +inventive person remarked, "a strengthener." "But," said I hesitatingly, +"As the most agile brains in all the world have been at work for the +last ten years or so intent upon thinking out improvements in bicycle +construction, I fear there must be some and (although to us perhaps +unapparent) objection to the innovation." + +At another place I had casually remarked upon the fact of the bicycle's +handlebars having turned in the steering socket when I fell somewhere +(thus, by the way, saving other, more vital parts, the sharp shock.) +That this movement should have occurred appeared to a listener, as it +will to many people, to indicate a grave fault, if not danger. "Why," he +exclaimed suddenly, but after much cogitation, "to provide against that +happening would be the simplest thing in the world"--by drilling a hole +through the front tube where the maker's name and trade mark were (in my +case, where they were not, because I had scratched both off) and then +driving a strong pin in! I told him I didn't want the fault rectified. + +It surprised me to find how extraordinarily anxious people were about +punctures. It was "What would you do if you got a puncture?" until I +came to hate the word. Very few had much thought of the consequences of +a broken crank, fork, tube, shaft, or rim. But I believe nearly every +one who hasn't a bicycle lives in constant terror of that dreadful bogy +puncture. + +I was made re-acquainted with descriptions of many of those wonderful +leverage-chains, improved brakes, and puncture-proofing devices which +work so emphatically well in print. One invention very much in favor was +an inner-tubular arrangement--"quite a simple thing--made up of a +hundred or so sections or distinct chambers, like an endless string of +stumpy sausages." It was so obvious that when one sausage had lost all +of its stuffing and collapsed, the other ninety-nine would yet remain +for the utilisation of the wheelman! + +Of such were the humors of the trip. + +If the blacks I met with were not quite so wild-mannered as I could have +feared or hoped for, it was through no fault of mine. Neither was it for +me to rouse them up with a stick, or go hunting for some others less +mild-mannered. + +As I have said, if I heard of a white traveller anywhere, I did not try +to dodge him. If one will but consider how I spent time and money in +searching for a companion before starting (it was only because I was +forced to, that I started alone), one may perhaps find excuse for me +when I confess to feeling rather glad whenever I met or heard of there +being a white man on the track. + + * * * * + +And why was the journey made? As was said long ago, I wanted to do +_something_ before I was put out of sight and mind. Had I merely wanted +to dig out a few sovereigns for the pockets of cycle or cycle-part +makers I should have adopted other methods. But I sincerely desired to +do something for Australia, and it seemed to me that this would be the +most effective means in my power of making the inlands better known, and +of arousing some interest in our heritage in the north. Two or three +knew of the desire; and no sooner was the task accomplished than on a +day in June I wrote this letter to one of them:-- + +"SIR,--Now that the matter has passed very nearly out of my hands and +risen beyond me, I wish to formally assure you ("formally," for hitherto +I have spoken the words, as it may have appeared, but lightly) that +everything I have done in connection with my recent bicycle trip has +been mainly with a view to advertising the Northern Territory--a country +which it is my hope to see, in the near future, looked upon and referred +to no longer as a costly, cumbrous and unremunerative "White Elephant," +but rather as a strong and healthy, though over-sleepy youth, whom, on +awakening, something had aroused to manhood. + +"I have allowed to slip by opportunities of making fair money (of which, +sir, I thoroughly appreciate the value) which I might have earned by +accomplishing the journey in hard-to-be-improved on time; but I +preferred this rather than do aught to defeat the end I primarily had in +view. + +"A declaration in public to that effect in the past would, perhaps, have +savored of boastfulness or presumption; it may, indeed, perhaps so savor +now. So certainly also, a few months ago, would any announcement of my +intention to cycle alone across the continent. Hence my silence, lest my +own ambitious purpose should be frustrated. That purpose is now being +well worked out. + +"It will make the Territory known: that, sir, you know, was the ground +upon which I sought from you and the Hon. the ---- the favor of those +highly-prized signatures in my voucher book, which you both granted me. +And that, as it was the ground on which I approached you, was the main +prompting to do the thing I have done. + +"I thank you once more for having obliged me, and remain, sir, your most +obedient servant, + +"JEROME J. MURIF." + + + + +ADVERTISEMENT + + +It was an "ELECTRA" No. 6 (price £22 10s.) which carried Mr. Jerome J. +Murif successfully and without ANY SINGLE MISHAP OF ANY KIND through his +memorable trip from ADELAIDE TO PORT DARWIN. On arrival of Mr. Murif at +Port Darwin this bicycle was examined, and we append below the reports +furnished to Mr. Murif: + + + To Mr. MURIF. Port Darwin, 30th May, 1897. + + Sir--The general condition of your "Electra" from a mechanical + point of view is of such a nature that, as a practical man, I would + not credit the statement that it had been used for the purpose of + crossing the Australian Continent had it not been for the authentic + records which you carry with you. It is undoubtedly a HIGH-CLASS + MACHINE. + + THOS. N. MESSENGER, + Foreman Locomotive Works, Port Darwin. + + +CONDITION OF MR. J. MURIF'S BICYCLE, ELECTRA, No. 58,160. + + + Port Darwin, N.T., 25th May, 1897. + + + WHEELS.--Steering and Driving, both 28 in. "Dia." In true track and + line. Running central between forks (front and back) freely, and + without movement to either side when revolving. Coming to the full + stop only after many lessening pendulum-like vibrations. + + RIMS.--Undinged, and if re-enamelled, would appear as new. + + SPOKES.--Everyone taut, bright, and alike, NOT A BEND OR SIGN OF + STRAIN IN ANY. + + CRANKS.--At right angles to shaft in main bracket. No signs of ever + being bent, injured, tampered with, or disconnected since coming + from the shop. + + SHAFTS.--UNBENT, as indicated by TRUE running of wheels. + + FRONT FORKS.--Undinged as new. + + BACK FORKS & STAYS.--Same as front forks. + + FRAME.--RIGID. NOT A HAIR BREADTH OUT. Top, Bottom, Diagonal, and + Steering Socket Tubes being all in true lines. + + CHAIN & GEAR WHEELS.--Show LITTLE or NO SIGNS OF WEAR. All gearing + RUNNING WITHOUT JAR, and every bearing working as SMOOTHLY as could + be desired by the most fastidious critic. + + WEIGHT OF MACHINE.--Without mudguards, brake, or tools, 28 lbs. + + GEAR.--20 teeth on sprocket, 9 cogs at hub. + + +We, the undersigned, have made a CAREFUL INSPECTION of Mr. MURIF'S +BICYCLE, and we can vouch that above CERTIFICATE is QUITE CORRECT. + +HIS HONOR JUSTICE DASHWOOD, +Patron N.T. Athletic Association. + +W. V. BROWN, President. CHAS. E. HERBERT, Vice-Pres. +PERCY G. BRYANT, Hon. Sec. & Treas. + ++It was an "ELECTRA" likewise which Mr. B. JAMES used on his trip from +MT. MAGNET (Western Australia) to MELBOURNE; distance, 2,600 miles.+ + + +ELECTRA CYCLE DEPOT, +259 Collins Street, Melbourne. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of From Ocean to Ocean, by Jerome J. Murif + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 58206 *** |