Volume I Part 12 (2/2)
LAWS OF PUNISHMENT AND REVENGE.
In ill.u.s.tration of their laws relative to punishments, and to show their ident.i.ty with those of other Australian tribes, I may mention a circ.u.mstance which came under my own knowledge. One night about ten o'clock, hearing an uproar at a native encampment near the hospital, I ran out and found that a young man, named Munjerrijo, having excited the jealousy of another, of the name of Yungun, on account of some improper conduct towards the wife of the latter, had been severely wounded, his arm being broken with a club, and his head laid open with an iron-headed fis.h.i.+ng spear. As the punishment was considered too severe for the offence, it was finally determined, that, upon Munjerrijo's recovery, the two natives who had wounded him should offer their heads to him to be struck with a club, the usual way, it would appear, of settling such matters.
Like the other Australian tribes, those of Port Essington are frequently at feud with their neighbours, and quarrels sometimes last for years, or, if settled, are apt to break out afresh. In these cases the lex talionis is the only recognised one. I may give an example.
ACCOUNT OF NEINMAL, AN ABORIGINAL OF PORT ESSINGTON.
A Mon.o.bar native (inhabitant of the country to the westward of the isthmus) was shot by a marine in the execution of his duty, for attempting to escape while in custody, charged with robbery. When his tribe heard of it, as they could not lay their hands upon a white man, they enticed into their territory a Bijenelumbo man, called Neinmal, who was a friend of the whites, having lived with them for years, and on that account he was selected as a victim and killed. When the news of Neinmal's death reached the settlement, some other Bijenelumbo people took revenge by killing a Mon.o.bar native within a few hundred yards of the houses. Thus the matter rests at present, but more deaths will probably follow before the feud is ended. Both these murders were committed under circ.u.mstances of the utmost atrocity, the victims being surprised asleep unconscious of danger and perfectly defenceless, then aroused to find themselves treacherously attacked by numbers, who, after spearing them in many places, fearfully mangled the bodies with clubs.
In some of the settled districts of Australia missionaries have been established for many years back, still it must be confessed that the results of their labours are far from being encouraging. Indeed no less an authority than Mr. Eyre, writing in 1848, unhesitatingly states as follows: ”Nor is it in my recollection,” says he, ”that throughout the whole length and breadth of New Holland, a single real and permanent convert to Christianity has yet been made amongst them.”* From what I myself have seen or heard, in the colony of New South Wales, I have reason to believe the missionary efforts there, while proving a complete failure so far as regards the Christianising of the blacks, have yet been productive of much good in rendering them less dangerous and more useful to their white neighbours, without however permanently reclaiming more than a few from their former wandering and savage mode of life, and enabling them and their families to live contentedly on the produce of their own labour. I am not one of those who consider that the Australian is not susceptible of anything like such permanent improvement as may be termed civilisation, although it appears to have been sufficiently proved that his intellectual capacity is of a very low order.
(*Footnote. Journals of Expeditions of Discovery into Central Australia etc. by E.J. Eyre volume 2 page 420.)
Many of the Port Essington natives have shown a remarkable degree of intelligence, far above the average Europeans, uneducated, and living in remote districts--among others I may mention the name of Neinmal (the same alluded to in the preceding paragraph) of whose character I had good opportunities of judging, for he lived with me for ten months. During my stay at Port Essington, he became much attached to me, and latterly accompanied me in all my wanderings in the bush, while investigating the natural history of the district, following up the researches of my late and much lamented friend Gilbert.* One day, while detained by rainy weather at my camp, I was busy in skinning a fish--Neinmal watched me attentively for some time and then withdrew, but returned in half an hour afterwards, with the skin of another fish in his hand prepared by himself, and so well done too, that it was added to the collection. I could give many other instances of his sagacity, his docility, and even his acute perception of character--latterly, he seemed even to read my very thoughts. He accompanied me in the Fly to Torres Strait and New Guinea, and on our return to Port Essington begged so hard to continue with me that I could not refuse him. He went with us to Singapore, Java, and Sydney, and from his great good humour became a favourite with all on board, picking up the English language with facility, and readily conforming himself to our habits, and the discipline of the s.h.i.+p. He was very cleanly in his personal habits, and paid much attention to his dress, which was always kept neat and tidy. I was often much amused and surprised by the oddity and justness of his remarks upon the many strange sights which a voyage of this kind brought before him. The Nemesis steamer under weigh puzzled him at first--he then thought it was ”all same big cart, only got him s.h.i.+ngles** on wheels!” He always expressed great contempt for the dullness of comprehension of his countrymen, ”big fools they,” he used often to say, ”blackfellow no good.” Even Malays, Chinamen, and the natives of India, he counted as nothing in his increasing admiration of Europeans, until he saw some sepoys, when he altered his opinion a little, and thought that he too, if only big enough, would like to be a soldier. The poor fellow suffered much from cold during the pa.s.sage round Cape Leeuwin and was ill when landed at Sydney, but soon recovered. Although his thoughts were always centred in his native home, and a girl to whom he was much attached, he yet volunteered to accompany me to England, when the Fly was about to sail, but as I had then no immediate prospect of returning to Australia, I could not undertake the responsibility of having to provide for him for the future. I was glad then when Lieutenant Yule, who was about to revisit Port Essington, generously offered to take him there--while in the Bramble he made himself useful in a.s.sisting the steward, and, under the tuition of Dr. MacClatchie, made some proficiency in acquiring the rudiments of reading and writing. At Port Essington, the older members of his family evinced much jealousy on account of the attention shown him, and his determination to remain with Mr. Tilston, the a.s.sistant-surgeon, then in charge, and endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose. While upon a visit to his tribe he met his death in the manner already recorded. His natural courage and presence of mind did not desert him even at the last extremity, when he was roused from sleep to find himself surrounded by a host of savages thirsting for his blood. They told him to rise, but he merely raised himself upon his elbow, and said: ”If you want to kill me do so where I am, I won't get up--give me a spear and club, and I'll fight you all one by one!” He had scarcely spoken when a man named Alerk speared him from behind, spear after spear followed, and as he lay writhing on the ground his savage murderers literally dashed him to pieces with their clubs. The account of the manner in which Neinmal met his death was given me by a very intelligent native who had it from an eyewitness, and I have every reason to believe it true, corroborated as it was by the testimony of others.
(*Footnote. See Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia etc. by Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt page 309 for an account of his death.)
(**Footnote. Wooden tiles generally used for covering the roofs of houses in Australia.)
FATHER ANJELLO AND HIS LABOURS.
Even Port Essington was destined to become the scene of missionary labours. A party of three persons, sent out by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, one an Italian Roman Catholic priest, the others lay brothers of his order, embarked at Sydney, some time in 1847.
The vessel conveying them unfortunately struck on a reef near the Northumberland Isles during the night, and Father Anjello was the only one of his party saved, and reached Port Essington in a most dest.i.tute condition. Nothing daunted, however, he commenced his labours among the blacks, by first acquiring the native language,* in which he ultimately became so proficient as to understand it thoroughly. A hut was built for him at a place called Black Rock, near the entrance of the harbour, at the distance of 14 miles from the settlement. Here he collected together as many of the children of the Limbakarajia tribe as he could induce to remain in the neighbourhood. He endeavoured to instruct them in the elements of his religion, and taught them to repeat prayers in Latin, and follow him in some of the ceremonious observances of the Roman Catholic Church. Like other children this amused them, and so long as they were well fed and supplied with tobacco, everything went on as he could desire. Meanwhile he was supported chiefly by the contributions of the officers of the garrison, themselves not well able to spare much. While leading this lonely life he seems gradually to have given way to gloomy despondency. I recollect one pa.s.sage in his diary (which I once saw for an hour) where he expresses himself thus: ”Another year has gone by, and with it all signs of the promised vessel. Oh! G.o.d, even hope seems to have deserted me.” At length a vessel from Sydney arrived, bringing a large supply of stores of every kind for the mission, but it was too late, for Father Anjello and his sorrows were alike resting in the tomb.
One day news came that he was ill; a boat was sent immediately for him, and found him dying. He was removed to the settlement and next day he breathed his last--another, but not the last victim to the climate. His death-bed was described to me as having been a fearful scene. He exhibited the greatest horror of death, and in his last extremity blasphemously denied that there was a G.o.d!
(*Footnote. I regret that the arrangements for this work will not admit of my publis.h.i.+ng in the Appendix a Port Essington vocabulary, consisting of about 650 words, in four dialects, formed in 1844, and corrected and improved in 1848; the ma.n.u.scripts will be deposited in the library of the British Museum.)
In concluding the subject of the Aborigines, I may add that at present the natives of Port Essington have little to thank the white man for. The advantage of being provided with regular food and other comforts enjoyed by such as are in service are merely temporary, and, like the means of gratifying two new habits--the use of tobacco and spirits--to which they have become pa.s.sionately addicted, will cease when the settlement is abandoned. The last importation of the whites was syphilis, and by it they will probably be remembered for years to come.
STATION AT CORAL BAY.
During our stay at Port Essington, I made an excursion in the decked boat of the settlement (which Captain Macarthur kindly allowed me the use of) to Coral Bay, a station for invalids very pleasantly situated on the western side of the harbour, twelve miles from Victoria. We found there my old friend Mr. Tilston,* the a.s.sistant-surgeon, with some convalescents under his charge. This is a much cooler and pleasanter locality than the neighbourhood of the settlement, still the heat was at times very great. I had here pointed out to me a kind of tea-tree, or Melaleuca, which had a short time before been recognised by a Malay as that producing the valuable cajeput oil, and on trial, the oil procured from the leaves by distillation, was found to be scarcely inferior in pungency to that of the Melaleuca cajeputi of the Moluccas. Here, too, we saw some of the playhouses of the greater bowerbird (Chlamydera nuchalis) and had the pleasure of witnessing the male bird playing his strange antics as he flew up to the spot and alighted with a dead sh.e.l.l in his mouth, laid it down, ran through the bower, returned, picked up the sh.e.l.l, and rearranged the heap among which it was placed, flew off again and soon returned with another--and so on.
SAIL FROM PORT ESSINGTON.
On November 16th we got underweigh at daylight, but the wind died away in the afternoon, and we anch.o.r.ed halfway down the harbour. Next day we got out to sea on our voyage to Sydney. We were all glad to leave Port Essington--it was like escaping from an oven. During our stay the sky was generally overcast, with heavy c.u.muli, and distant lightning at night, but no rain fell, and the heat was excessive. These were indications of the approaching change of the monsoon--the rainy season, with a wind more or less westerly, usually commencing in December and continuing until March.
December 3rd.
Lat.i.tude 11 degrees 2 minutes South longitude 123 degrees 11 minutes East. Today we may be said to have cleared the land after a dead beat to the westward, between the Sahul Bank and the islands of Timor and Rottee.
It took us eleven days to make good less than 300 miles. The land was in sight during the greater portion of this time, and we had a good view of the n.o.ble mountain-range of Timor, also of Rottee and the Strait of Semao, which last we entered with the intention of pa.s.sing through, but the wind headed us and we had to pa.s.s to the southward of Rottee. For a few days after leaving Port Essington we experienced very light and variable winds, which gradually settled into south-westerly, with occasional gloomy blowing weather and frequent squalls at night.
RETURN TO SYDNEY.
At length on January 24th, 1849, a long and monotonous pa.s.sage of sixty-eight days brought us to Sydney, from which we had been absent for nine months.
CHAPTER 1.5.
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