Part 9 (2/2)

We came across many isolated hills on our way to the river, and these delayed us very considerably, because we had to go round theirls did not take very kindly to the variousthe roots which Yamba collected We came upon fields of wild rice, which, apart froreat beauty to the landscape, covering the country with a pinkish-white blossoh it was very insipid without either salt or sugar

Soed to caress This, however, was only after the river becath ould put off again in a ho many little _chansons_ to ard to our position, commenced--

”Filez, filez, mon beau navire, Car la bonheur irls appeared to be brooding over the terrible one, I would tell them my own story, which deeply affected them They would often ith tender sympathy over the series of catastrophes that had befallento es,” ”Nearer, my God, to Thee,” ”There is a Happy Land,” andnew tribes of natives, and for the most part were very well received Bruno, however, always evinced an unconquerable aversion for the blacks He was ever kind to the children, though race with the th we reached ave us a welcoirls' disappointment at the absence of civilisation

You seehoht, thite wives; ”for now,” they said, ”the great white chief will certainly re on just then, and so the whole tribe gave thehted to see the girls, though of course they did not condescend to greet the ht tobefore we reached my home ere constantly provided with escorts of natives froh banks or disported theht of the girls We found the banks of the Ord very thickly populated, and frequently ca these we actually caainst many months previously

As we neared nals to announce our approach--the old and wonderful ”Morse code” of long puffs, short puffs, spiral puffs, and the rest; the variations being produced by dahs Yanals The result was that crowds of my own people came out in their catamarans to meet us My reception, in fact, was like that accorded a successful Roe _corroborees_ held in our honour The first thing I was told was that my hut had been burnt down in my absence (fires are of quite common occurrence); and so, for the first few days after our arrival, the girls were housed in a te the construction of a substantial hut built of logs Now, as logs were very unusual building irls never conquered their fear of the blacks--even _ht feel secure froht attack (a purely fanciful idea, of course), I resolved to build a hut which should be thoroughly spear-proof Bark was also used extensively, and there was a thatch of grass When finished, our new residence consisted of three fair-sized rooirls to sleep in, one for Yah, of course, we lived ed a kind of veranda in front of the door, and here we frequently sat in the evening, singing, chatting about distant friends; the times that were, and the times that were to be

Let the truth be told When these poor young ladies came to my hut their faces expressed their bitter disappointht Afterwards they said how sorry they were thus to have given way; and they begged rateful

However, they soon resigned themselves to the inevitable, buoyed up by the inexhaustible optimism of youth; and they settled down to live as co the blacks until some fortuitous occurrence should enable us all to leave these weird and re left alone--of being stolen, in fact

They had been told how the natives got wives by stealing the in the ue, na that the ordinary food htful co my journey from the little sand-spit to the main, I had hidden a quantity of corn beneath a cairn

This corn I now brought back to irls They always ate the corn green in the cob, with a kind of vegetable ”milk” that exudes from one of the palm-trees When they becas, they took a great interest in their home, and would watch me for hours as I tried to fashi+on rude tables and chairs and other articles of furniture Yamba acted as cook and waitress, but after a time the as more than she could cope with unaided You see, she had to _find_ the food as well as cook it The girls, ere, of course, looked upon as reatest protection), knew nothing about root-hunting, and therefore they did not attempt to acco of a dileed other native wonised asleft for reatest assistance to Yamba

Of course, the constant topic of conversation was our ultimate escape overland; and to this end we irls'

powers of endurance I suggested, during one of our conversations, that we should either o overland in search of Port Darwin; but the girls were averse to this, owing to their terror of the natives

Little did I dream, however, that at a place called Cossack, on the coast of the North-West Division of Western Australia, there was a settlement of pearl-fishers; so that, had I only known it, civilisation--more or less--was co rendezvous on the western side of the continent, much as Somerset was on the north-east, at the extreue or pen can never tell what those young ladies were to es from Sir Walter Scott's works--the ”Tales of a Grandfather” I remember in particular; and so excellent was their ive es froreat adirls and myself would frequently act little scenes fro the irls' favourite play, however, was Pericles, ”Prince of Tyre” I took the part of the King, and when I called for arravity that was coes from the French classics--particularly the Fables of La Fontaine, in French; which language the girls knew fairly well

And we had other amusements I made some fiddles out of that peculiar Australian hich splits into thin strips The strings of the boe made out of my own hair; whilst those for the instrument itself were obtained from the dried intestines of the native wild-cat

We lined the hut with the bark of the paper-tree, which had the appearance of a reddish-brown drapery

The native woirls themselves decorated their room daily with beautiful flowers, chiefly lilies They also busied thearments of various kinds from opossum skins They even made some sort of costume for me, but I could not wear it on account of the irritation it caused

The natives would go s, and a kind of nut about the size of a walnut, which, when ripe, was filled with a delicious substance looking and tasting like raspberry jarew upon creepers in the sand, and of which we ate only the outer part raw, cooking the large kernel which is found inside I do not know the scientific nairls whether they had altogether despaired in the clutches of the cannibal chief; and they told h they often atteht hope--so strong is the optimism of youth My apparition, they told me, seemed like a dream to the their ca us alone for weeks at a time; but we kept pretty stationary, and were visited by other friendly tribes, e entertained (in accordance with s, plays, recitations, and acrobatic perforreat part, and nothing delighted the blacks o head over heels tiravity and persistency But the effect of Bruno's nificance beside that produced by his bark You s do not bark at all, but siive vent to a melancholy howl, not unlike that of the hyena, I believe Bruno's bark, be it said, has even turned the tide of battle, for he was always in the wars in the s, coreat abilities as a hunter, often prompted the blacks to put in a deether Now, this request was both aard and inconvenient to answer; but I got out of it by telling them--since they believed in a curious kind of mete he possessed! His bark, I pretended, was a perfectly intelligible language, and this they believed theand ask hi; tuument did not suffice to overcoed to assure them confidentially that he was a relative of the Sun, and therefore if I parted with hi all manner of most dreadful curses down upon his nener or owners Whenever ent ra I had to keep Bruno as near me as possible, because we so that he was a dog, was to spear him

Without doubt the s will yet be found by Australian explorers