Part 23 (2/2)

As they grow up, brothers assume towards their sisters an attitude of reserve al the sister has cooked, nor knowingly touch anything she has handled Thetowards her the more proper it is Nelly's brother paid a visit to the island, and she cooked a huge damper at the kitchen stove When it was taken to the carant, ”Billy” at once inquired who had cooked it Nelly, wishi+ng that her brother should not deprive himself of his share, told a white lie in the one word, ”Missis!” Billy ate heartily and was none the worse, while Nelly, who is fond of Billy, notwithstanding his official detestation of her, chuckled at the successful deception

THE RAINBOW

One of childhood'sfables was, that at the places where the rainbow touched the earth would be found a bag of gold and glittering ge some North Queensland blacks almost exactly the same fairy tale is current ”Muhr-a to a rainbohich seeood Hot, burning Alonga o down Subposespear, run away and plant Bi'mby come back, find plenty red stone, yalla stone Fill 'e Muhr-aht!”

SWIMMING FEATS

In their endurance as long-distance swimmers, and in the ease hich they perform various incompatible operations in the water, there are few to equal the coastal blacks of North Queensland For a trifling consideration they will successfully undertake feats which prove that they are almost as much at home in deep water as upon land, and when put to the test their strength and hardihood are extraordinary Boys employed on beche-de-mer boats become almost amphibious Some, as they swim and dive, collect the fish into a heap on the botto taken to the attendant dinghy, alongside which they will coular wriggle of the shoulders What would be an extremely aard burden for a white man on shore, the expert black boy carries as he sith case, in the course of his daily round and co the Princess Charlotte Bay cyclone one of the survivors, after an absence of nearly twenty-four hours, came ashore He explained that the boat of which he had been one of the creas ”drowned finish,” and that the sea had taken hi tiot tired and went to sleep, and for the best part of that frantic night he slept as he swa very little the worse Others, on the same occasion, swam for fifteen and twenty hours; but ”dick” was the only one ent far out to sea, had a night's rest, landed fairly fresh, and seeain, three boys and a gin--Charley, Belle Vue, Toy, when they sighted a turtle basking on the surface Charley and Belle Vue jumped overboard and seized the turtle It was athat they called for help, and To alone in the boat, also sprang overboard, taking her blanket with her, and the boat speedily sailed and drifted beyond reach Charley and Belle Vue at once swaed reef about a ht in the current, were swept past the only available resting-place They were 8 an to flounder, but Mary, keeping her heart and her precious blanket, cheered hi her course, took a ”fair wind down,” as she afterwards said, towards a distant point of the iant despair fro hi all the time to the only piece of personal property she possessed, Mary eventually landed in a quiet bay To hi made him comfortable with her safe but sodden blanket, she hurried into town to report the circumstances to the police A boat was sent to the rescue of Charley and Belle Vue, still clinging to the beacon, and the derelict dinghy was picked up Nothing was lost but the turtle

SMOKE SIGNALS

It is many years since a black boy at Port Darwin remarked casually to his master, a Government official there, ”Steaan to li ay; but ”blackfella he make 'em smoke; blackfella bin tell 'em”

Four days after the steamer GUTHRIE slowly entered the port with her machinery badly disabled

THUNDER FACTORY

A boy who had visited towns, listening intently to a reverberating peal of thunder asked--”Howblacks have ho no experience of the rumble and rattle of traffic they ascribe to thunder a h with reserve, the very place where it is made The swirl of a creek in the mainland has excavated a circular water hole in a soft rock, brick red in colour This hole is the local thunder factory, and the blacks ont to hang fish hooks across it fro thunder before it had the chance of beco and formidable

THE ORACLE

Divination by means of the intestines of animals is practised by the blacks in soin died suddenly on the lower Johnstone River I, bringing back a wallaby The entrails were removed, and an old woers in half-yard lengths, si the title of a tribe in the district The tribe, the naut parted, was denounced as the source of the witchcraft which had occasioned the untieance followed as ain the Russell River scrub, spoke thus to his ht along me four days”

”How you know, Sam?” asked the boss

”dick, he binup a palm leaf from which all the leaflets save seven, had been torn Three of the seven had been turned down at the terminal point, and Sam continued his explanation ”He no come Monday, he no come Tuesday, he no coht leaflet

Sa quarrel with dick and had expected the challenge conveyed by the letter he had picked up on the track that

When Thursday came dick appeared well ar coood friends

A BLACK DEGENERATE

A remarkable case is in the early records of the Lower Murray (between New South Wales and Victoria), and was quoted long since A nu convulsions Some thirty had succumbed, before a dear old German doctor, andered up and down the river, a loved and welcoin was stricken He diagnosed strychnine poisoning The greatest mystery surrounded the affair, and some of the whites undertook to watch the camp A clue was furnished by the old doctor, hen attending to the dying gin, noticed that one of the hed, wandered away, and returned ti to himself before each outburst--”My word, plenty kick it, that fella!” Somebody remembered that this black, who rejoiced in the name of Tom dying at the station from strychnine He atched, and some of the powder he had stolen from a bottle in the store discovered in a piece of opossum skin inside a very dilapidated old hat Taxed with the criuilt, but was apparently incapable of realising that he had done any wrong It see was that he wanted to have the fun all to himself The other blacks were very differently impressed; they surrounded Tommy Simpson and speared hi frame of mind was surprise, and he went to his death quite unable to understand why his fellows should have made such a fuss about his little joke

JUMPED AT A CONCLUSION