THE
MYSTERY OF LEICHHARDT
WHERE
AND HOW HE DIED
“World’s
News” readers
will remember two articles by me on Leichhardt some time ago,
describing his explorations
and the locality and manner of his disappearance.
Those
articles apparently excited far reaching interest, as
letters have been received by me from all parts of Australia,
New Zealand,
Hongkong, Newfoundland, America, London, South Africa, and
India, asking for
fuller details or the dates of the previous articles. When
those articles were
written, all my records were not available, but they are now
in my possession,
including and original and important letter written to
Hovenden Hely by Lance Skuthorpe
on August 22, 1865, a letter given to me 20 years ago by the
late Captain J. B.
Mann, who was a member of Leichhardt’s second expedition and
with him for eight
months. Readers are asked to consider that my researches into
the history and
fate of Leichhardt have extended over 40 years, with access to
all that has
been published by anybody who knew anything about the subject,
and the unique
advantage of careful and systematic inquiries among all
aboriginals in the
Leichhardt country, as far back as 1875. We have to remember
that in the
aboriginals alone we are solely indebted for any information
at all concerning
the fate of Leichhardt, and that not one of the search
expeditions threw the
faintest light on the question. A. C. Gregory, with whom the
subject was
afterwards often discussed with me in the eighties (1880s), in
his search
expedition of 1858 found nothing but a Moreton Bay ash marked
“L” at a point
which he reported as “80 miles beyond where Hely said the
whole party were
speared by the blacks.”
But
Gregory
overlooked the fact that Hely had not located that last camp
of
Leichhardt, and was a long way from it when he turned back.
The search
expeditions of Landsborough in 1861 and Walker in the same
year, discovered no
traces of Leichhardt. There was only one man who would have
settled the whole
problem if fate had not been against him. That man was
Roderick Mitchell, a
Crown Lands Commissioner on the Maranoa in 1851. The New South
Wales Government
asked him to lead a search expedition, but, most
unfortunately, he died before
the organisation was complete, so the leadership was offered
to Hovenden Hely,
in a letter from the Governor, on September 25, 1851. Hely
proposed that the
party consist of “six good, hardy men, frontier bushmen
preferred, and two
aboriginals, with 15 horses and 15 mules, the latter to come
from the A. A.
Company, and a very complete outfit of stores, firearms, and
ammunition.”
Mitchell
had
reckoned on a period of five months, in which eh would have
gone seven or
eight hundred miles beyond Mount Abundance, and back again.
Hely prepared for a
journey of nine months, perhaps 11, and at starting he had
Boyd Horsburgh,
Surgeon J. W. Drysdale, who had been out with Sir Thomas
Mitchell when he
discovered the Victoria (Cooper’s Creek), three other men, one
of whom was
replaced at Surat by Richard Walker, and a strong, active,
ticket-of-leave man
named Sandy Macarthur. Drysdale was to act as surgeon and also
collector of
specimens in botany and natural history. Hely’s official
instructions were to
go north, to the Peak Range, in expectation that Leichhardt
had gone that way
to recover a lot of stores he had buried in 1847, when he
turned back from the
Mackenzie. That was a wild goose expedition, which Hely wisely
decided on
discarding, after a conversation with Frederick Isaac, a
squatter at Gowrie
Station, on the Darling Downs. Isaac was the last white man
with whom
Leichhardt stayed on his way west, and he told Isaac that his
intention was to
go west to the “Victoria” of Mitchell (the Cooper), run it up
to the Alice, try
to find the Gulf watershed, and then go due west for the west
coast of
Australia. And that was exactly the course that Leichhardt
started on.
An
old
shepherd at Mount Abundance told Hely that he was with a flock
of sheep when
Leichhardt passed, and “went straight for the setting sun,” or
due west. Hely
sent his stores to Brisbane by sea, and went overland to the
Darling Downs with
the mules and horses.
After
leaving
the Downs he was first heard of on the lower Condamine, 70
miles from
Surat, and 110 miles from Mount Abundance, so he was that
distance away south
of Leichhardt’s track. What he went there for is not quite
apparent, except to
see a man named Walker, recently from Mount Abundance, who
told him that two
wild blacks came in to the station and said that the white men
and their horses
and mules were all killed by the blacks, ten days’ journey
west of Mount
Abundance, or about 200 miles. That story was strictly
correct, as all
subsequent evidence proved. Leichhardt and his party were
killed on the apex of
a pyramid, whose sides were 250 miles, the corners of the base
being Surat and
Taroom, 112 miles apart. And that apex is on Elizabeth Creek,
really the head
of the Langlo River, which runs into the Ward, and the Ward
into the Warrego, a
little below Charleville, all country familiar to me.
Hely
was
unfortunate in striking a year of drought and finding dry sand
beds and rushes,
where Sir Thomas Mitchell reported big waterholes in the
Maranoa full of fish.
He had two Maranoa blacks who spoke the “Cogih” dialect of the
Maranoa, and so
enabled him to communicate with the wild blacks so far as he
went.
Skuthorpe
spells
it “Coogi,” and Ridley spells it Cogai, the three pronouns, I,
thou, and
he, gnia, inda, and yerango, being found by me to be common
from the Balonne
and Maranoa to the Warrego. The reader is asked to give
special attention to
the following exact copy of Skuthorpe’s letter from the
original in my
possession:-
Stoney Creek,
August 22, 1865.
My dear
Hely- Yours of the
16th instrument., only reached me yesterday. I have
been often at a
loss why you never showed to the front when so many statements
were being made
respecting Leichhardt.
I
never see any Melbourne papers in this very isolated place,
so that Gideon Lang might have told the ladies that he found
Leichhardt and I
none the wiser. But, as you have questioned me, I can satisfy
you. Lang never
went in search of Leichhardt on the Maranoa. He and his man,
Walker, during
their sojourn at Surat, were solely employed in taking up
country for sir
Charles Nicholson. That was in poor Roderick Mitchell’s time,
and there was no
talk of Leichhardt until long after Mitchell’s death.
I was
the first who gleaned the information from the blacks,
as at that time, I could speak the “Coogi” dialect fairly
well, at least well
enough to understand the blacks. I repeated to Whitty and
Bagot what I heard
and I understood they wrote to you and that it caused you to
later your route.
It was then, and is still, my opinion that had the two blacks
guides we
provided you with proved faithful, and not deserted you at
such a critical
time, you would have found the remains of the lost party on
“Bunderaballa”
Creek.
What
makes me so confident is that, in all my yarns with the
blacks, they never deviated from the one story, not only as to
the time of day,
but even to the position of the men when attacked. My
informants were not only
the domesticated blacks at Surat, but others who had come in
lower down the
river. Walker never saw the Maranoa, except at the confluence
with the Balonne,
at Ogilvie’s, until he accompanied you there, and Lang’s
country was more to
the north and west, as the reputed drought at Mount Abundance
deterred any
run-seekers going in that direction.
When
Roderick Mitchell left Surat for Sydney to undertake a
search for Leichhardt, neither he nor I had heard of
“Bunderaballa,” and that
was long subsequent to Gideon Lang being there.
Believe
me, my dear Hely,
Yours
faithfully,
L. H.
Skuthorpe (Lance
Skuthorpe).
Hely
met blacks who told him through his interpreter that all
Leichhardt’s movements had been watched all through his
journey, just as all
the other explorers were watched, and they gave him an exact
description of
Leichhardt and all his party, including his two blacks,
“Billy” and “Womai,”
one with a long beard and the other barefaced, being only a
youth. Hely saw the
tracks of several very large bullocks, and the blacks told him
they were some
of Leichhardt’s cattle, which were all picked specimens.
He had
50 bullocks, 20 mules, and six horses, when leaving
the Downs in February, 1848. The first mention of
“Bunderaballa” as the scene
of the tragedy was made to Hely by a ten year old blackboy,
and then they met a
woman with a piccaninny, and she pointed northwest and said
the whites were
killed seven days’ journey, about 150 miles, and she pointed
to Hely’s guns and
saddles, as the same she had seen at the fatal camp. On or
near the Warrego, he
got another woman who said they were four days’ journey from
the spot, and then
an old woman gave more particulars, and guided Hely by a short
cut to what she
said was the scene of the murder, and said that all the relics
had been washed
away by a flood. She said she had not seen any of the guns and
saddles, as the
men would not allow the women to go near the place. She also
told Hely where
two of Leichhardt’s camps were situated, and he actually found
both just as she
directed , and at each was a tree marked “L” with “XVA”
inside. Hely took this
to mean the 15th of April, but it was actually
Leichhardt’s 15th
camp from Mount Abundance, which he had left on April 5, and
in those 11 days
he had gone about 160 miles. Hely was then within 50 miles of
the actual scene
of the tragedy, but he never reached there as the blacks
deserted him, and he
turned back. At each of Leichhardt’s two camps, Hely saw heavy
saplings, on
which the packs had been placed to keep them off the wet
ground, the tent poles
and forks, and even the forked sticks and cross-piece in front
of the fire,
many bullocks droppings, but no signs of any tracks, which had
been washed out
by the heavy rains.
Hely
went some distance beyond where he saw Leichhardt’s last
camp, but saw no more marked trees. His blackboys told him,
before they
deserted, that the blacks would not show him where the murder
was committed or
the bones, saddles, and guns, as they were sure Hely would
shoot them and their
friends, as an act of vengeance. Fear of that also caused his
own blacks to
desert. Hely heard the story from a number of independent
blacks, chiefly
women, who were more reliable than the men, as they had
nothing to fear, and
they all told exactly the same consistent story. Hely
concluded that “of the
truth of the reports I have not now the slightest doubt. The
manner and cause of
the murder has been told, and corroborated in every particular
by so many, that
there can now be but one opinion on the matter.”
That
was also the emphatic opinion of Skuthorpe, as shown by
his letter. Twenty eight years after Leichhardt’s death, the
Warrego blacks
told me exactly the same reports they gave to Hey and
Skuthorpe, and they gave
the same to the pioneer bushmen and squatters on the Warrego
and tributaries.
The “L” tree seen by Gregory in 1858 was marked by Leichhardt
where he turned
back from a flying trip to the north, looking for the Gulf
watershed. The
blacks told me he took only one white man and a blackboy. The
murder was on the
night he returned to the base camp. The blacks had been
following the party for
six or seven days and, mustering in hundreds, they formed a
big circle round
the camp, and closed in and rushed it at the first streak of
daylight. Only one
shot was fired and one black killed. The mules and horses were
all in hobbles,
and easily killed. The bullocks were afterwards killed in
detail, from time to
time. That is the sum total of all available evidence from
then to the present
time. To myself, it is a certainty that Leichhardt and his
party were killed at
that camp on what the blacks called “Boonderrabahla” Creek, a
tributary of the
Langlo.
THE
OLD PIONEER- A BLAZER OF TRACKS
Vanished forever in the mists of
Time, rackless into
blue intensity,” like Carrie’s La Perouse, are the lives of
hundreds of the
splendid men who blazed the tracks through the unknown
Australia of the early
years. The men who, in Essex Evans splendid poem on the
Pioneers, went their
lonely ways alone, and died unknown. They died, so many of
them, in vast
solitudes, in the silence of the great plains, or the dark
shadows of the dense
jungles, requiemed by the howl of the mournful dingo or the
wail of the stone
plover; and they lie there, where no grave was dug, and there
were no funeral
obsequities, and no mourners, silent, unknown, and unrecorded,
where the dead
men lie, the great debt we owe them to remain forever unpaid
even by gratitude
or remembrance.
But a
few of these old warriors still remain, still standing, like
venerable giant
trees, with some yet green boughs, silhouetted on the sky-line
of History,
where so tremendous an area has been swept bare by the fire of
Time. Some were
men who, like Gfirabeau, “climbed and climbed, gluing their
footsteps in their
blood,” but stood at last on the summit of success, shaking
their glittering shafts
of war in triumph. Others slipped on the precipices, or fell
by the way, but
they were brave men, who did brave deeds, and too true is it
that the race is
not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong.
Among
the old living pioneers yet known to me is John Norman
Brennan, now living
retired in a cosy cottage in Bundaberg, Queensland. His life,
like that of so
many of the pioneers, would read like some wild romance.
The
types of men are changing with the ever changing environment
and the advance of
settlement. The squatter, shepherd, shearer, fencer, shingler,
timber-getter,
and bullock-driver of the settled districts of today are
different types from
those of the men, even in my early days, over 50 years ago. It
is difficult to
give people of the present time any definite picture of the
men of the past, or
avoid taxing their credulity by narrating incidents in the
general life of that
Australian Heroic Age, especially in the life of the pioneers.
Froude
said Carlyle’s “French revolution” was photography by
lightning flashes.
Pictures of the pioneers cane be little more than glanced at
during flashes of
lightning, or as something just seen through a glass darkly.
Brennan
was born in Singleton, New South Wales, of Irish parents. When
5 years of age,
his father died, and his mother, when he was 15.
When 9
years of age, he was sent out as useful boy to a man named
Samuel Cohen, a
wheat grower and carrier near Scone.
If
Cohen was a Jew, he was the only Jewish farmer and
bullock-driver on record in
Australia. The Semitic gentleman usually shie, with great
agility, away from
ploughs and drays, and hoes, and long handled shovels. They
ruin his health and
happiness.
After a
year on “Kosher” wallabies, Brennan went to a man named Tom
Parker, at Wee Waa,
Liverpool Plains, and with him made two trips with mobs of Tom
Cook’s cattle to
Turonville, and one mob to Maitland. He then went with a man
named Sutcliffe,
to a station on the Cox River, named Gunindaddy, owned by
Lloyd, of Sydney, and
managed by Dobbin, and took a mob of 2000 sheep to Homebush,
Brennan being then
only 11 years of age, their only companion being a Scottish
collie dog, named
“Smut,” an animal with more intelligence than the average
present day
politician.
The
sheep were fat and travelled slowly. They had to swim the
Kholo, but there was
a punt at the Nepean. Sutcliffe and Brennan carried their
swags and tucker,
replenishing the last from time to time on the journey. They
had no tent, and
on wet nights slept under a blanket stretched on three sticks
in form of a
tripod. They headed the Parramatta River, passing Blacktown,
where Rev. Samuel
Marsden started a farm and school for the blacks in 1795.
Brennan’s
clearest recollection of Sydney is that of a large number of
red-coated
soldiers who could have been the 39th Regiment.
They then went back
to Newcastle, and by horseback to Burburgate station, near
Gunnedah, where the
Superintendent was Oscar de Satge, who in after years was the
owner of Wolgang
station, on the Peak Downs, and M.L.A. for Clermont, in the
Queensland
Parliament, the one before my own appearance there as member
for Rosewood.
Sutcliffe
and Brennan took another mob of 2300 fat sheep to Homebush, on
horseback on
that occasion to the Kholo River, where the horses were left
until the return.
Sutcliffe went back by sea, leaving young Brennan to find his
way, at 12 years
of age, back overland, picking up the three horses at the
Kholo River, and
thence alone across the Bulga Range, with the horses and the
collie dog.
A
drover named Jack Timmins, aided only by two dogs, took mobs
of fat cattle to
Maitland and Homebush, travelling on foot, crossing on the
latter journey the
rough Bulga Range, where at one spot only a single bullock
could pass a steep
rock at a time, taking two days in the ascent, water very
scarce in the dry
season, men occasionally dying of thirst with water only a
hundred yards away.
Picture
the 12 year old boy by himself on that long track, in charge
of two horses, the
lonely camps at night, his dog lying close beside him in fear
of the dingoes,
which were howling in all directions, the weird solitude of
the bush, and
overhead the awful silences and the eternal stars!
On
arrival at home he was sent out to search for some of his
mother’s horses,
which were lost, and he was away for five days, camped out
alone. He found the
horses, took them home, and had just put up the rails of the
paddock, when he
saw a funeral party returning. Seeing his nine year old little
brother among
them, he asked him where he had been, and the child simply
answered, “We went
to bury mother!”
His
mother had died while he was away for her horses, leaving an
orphan with a
stepfather named Sutcliffe, with whom he had made the two
trips with sheep to
Homebush. This man wanted to bind him for five years to Dick
Everingham, who
kept a public-house in Gunnedah, then a town of half a dozen
houses. Brennan
was to look after the horses, and be generally useful. But he
had a very
decided will of his own, and while Sutcliffe and Everingham
were inside preparing
the agreement, Brennan took off his coat, swam the Namoi, and
started a walk to
New England, to find an older brother, somewhere near
Armidale, the brother who
in after years was taken by a crocodile in the Cloncurry
River, in North
Queensland. He had only a shilling – but no one would charge
the boy, then
barely 15 years of age, for rations or a place to sleep – till
he reached
Bobbygulyan station, on the Peel, where a buckjumper was
throwing all hands.
Brennan
said to a youth beside him, “I could ride that horse!’ The
youth called to a
man named Baker, “Hey, mister, this cove said he can ride that
horse!”
Baker
said the “cove” would have him as a present if he could stay
on his back. Young
Brennan promptly mounted, being a very artistic youth in the
saddle and a born
horseman, and, though the four legged warrigal performed in
great style all
round a big yard, and was then let through the gate to do
another star
performance outside, Brennan remained in the saddle, and
received an ovation
from the spectators.
The
riding so impressed Baker that he at once presented him with
the horse, and
engaged him to go overland with him to Rockhampton with a mob
of horses – a
long and risky and rough journey in those days- travelling via
the Moonie and
the Balonne, past Mount Abundance station, taken up by
Macpherson in 1847, the
place where Leichhardt wrote his last letter on the 4th
of April,
1848, near the site of the present Roma, and thence northward
to the Mackenzie,
crossing at a spot near where Griffin murdered Cahill, a crime
for which he was
most justly hanged, and he went to the gallows wearing a dress
suit. Fate
allowed me, in after years, to hold his skull in my hands and
examine it
carefully. Phrenologically, it was an unusually bad skull. It
was then in
possession of a well-known Rockhampton doctor.
From
the Mackenzie, Baker and Brennan went to Roderick McLennan’s
station, Apis
Creek, and Baker sold 15 horses to McLennan. Not more than a
mile from the head
station, two men named Christie and Craig kept a store, a
public house and
butchers shop.
Christie
was Frank Gardiner, the notorious bushranger, and he and Mrs.
Christie, the
Mrs. Brown of his earlier years, lived in a slab and bark
cottage away from the
pub and the store. Craig
and his wife
lived in the pub. All the buildings were built of slabs, with
roofs of bark,
from white and gum topped box and iron bark, all stripped by
the blacks. All
drinks at the pub were a shilling. Craig and his wife were in
charge of the
pub, and Gardiner attended to the store and butcher’s shop.
Brennan says he
remembers him as a man about five foot eight inches, 11 stone
in weight, with a
long beard and whiskers which concealed most of his face. He
was very courteous
and obliging, and a general favourite with everybody.
He had
a handsome black horse which excited young Brennan’s
imagination. That was the
famous “Darkie” which Gardiner had ridden when a bushranger,
and taken with him
to Queensland. It is incredible that Gardiner deliberately
took three such very
probable chances of discovery as himself, Mrs. Brown, and
darkie, on a road to
and from a diggings traversed by all classes of men, from all
parts of
Australia.
Brennan
says the first discovery was made by two Melbourne Jews, who
recognised Mrs.
Brown, and they promptly divined that where she was located,
Gardiner was not
far away. This clue onve given, another man recognised
“Darkie,” and finally
knew Christie to be the famous bushranger. That was the man
who went to Sydney,
to inform the police and get the reward, and Detective McGlone
was sent up to
effect the arrest.
The
next time Brennan saw “Darkie” was at the place where he and
Baker were camped,
11 miles out of Rockhampton, and the police stopped there to
have dinner,
having “Darkie” and Gardiner in charge. The arrest of Gardiner
was a painful
shock to all who knew him, especially to the diggers of the
Peak Downs. It is
quite certain that Craig, who was Gardiner’s partner, never
had the least
suspicion that he was the ex-bushranger. Craig died three
years after of brain
fever, while erecting a new public house 8 miles from the old
Apis Creek pub.
Brennan
saw Mrs. Brown many years after, as cook and housekeeper at
Bambandle station,
then owned by Fox, on the Isaacs River, next Leichhardt Downs.
When Gardiner
was liberated, he went to San Francisco, and started a liquor
saloon. Finally,
in a saloon row, he shot some fellow through the wrist. This
man returned and
shot Gardiner dead. Mrs. Brown had died in New Zealand years
before. Detective
McGlone, who arrested Gardiner, died in san Francisco. He once
kept an hotel in
Sydney at the corner of Pitt and market Streets, and married
the widow of John
Gibbons, once partner with Randall in a well-known firm of
railway contractors,
Randall and Gibbons.
Randall’s
Terrace, at Newtown, Sydney, was built by Randall.
Gibbons
camp, on the Darling Downs, was named for John Gibbons, when
he was engineer
for Peto, Brassey, and Betts, who built the first railway for
Queensland,
Ipswich to the Little Liverpool Range, costing £110,500 per
mile. The first
railway in New South Wales cost £40,000 per mile, the first
Victorian £38,000,
and South Australia £28,000.
Baker
and Brennan left Rockhampton to look for new country on the
Barcoo, in 1862,
went out across the Dawson and Nogoa, crossed the Main Range,
and went west to
Barcoo waters, returning down the Ward to the Warrego, and on
to Cunnamulla
which at the time had one house, a public house.
Mr. A.
Meston writes as follows:
Sir,- Your correspondent J. T. L.
Bird knows exactly
what he is writing about, and is not at all likely to be
mistaken. The doctor
and the mariner to whom he refers, knew Griffin intimately,
and were hardly
likely to mistake the head of a Chinamen with a bare poll and a pigtail for that of a
white man with a thick head
of hair and a long fair beard.
On one
of my visits to Rockhampton, probably 1889, I was staying at
the Leichhardt
Hotel with Dr. Spiridion Candiottis, the Greek medico from
Clermont, and Captain
Townley, who was then Sheriff of Queensland.
On the
previous night, Captain Townley invited the doctor and myself
to go and see a
man hanged in the morning, and we went to the execution of the
man who had
murdered his wife.
Mr.
Bird will remember the case. It was a gruesome scene, as the
victim was wearing
a white jacket, and the rope severed the jugular vein, with
such results as the
reader may imagine!
On that
evening the doctor who owned Griffin’s skull invited Townley
and Candiottis and
myself to come over and see him, and he produced Griffin’s
skull, and told us
the whole story, of which I made notes, and which was
identical with that told
in yesterday’s “Courier” by Mr. Bird.
I have
written the story of Griffin’s crime on two occasions, the
last being for Mr.
W. L. O Hill’s book “Forth Years in North Queensland,” and I
gave Mr. Hill a
photograph of Griffin for illustration. Griffin was the chief
character in the
book “Lost for Gold,” written by an Irish lady, Miss King,
sister of the Hon. H.
C. King, one of the Speakers in the Queensland Assembly when I
had the honour
to be member for Rosewood.
What
promises to be the most comprehensive work yet written on the
Australian
aborigines is a book which Mr. A. Meston has been engaged in
for the past
twenty years, and which he hopes to complete within the next
two years, the
publication being undertaken by a firm of London publishers.
This book is
likely to have an interest, beyond the philologist and the
ethnologist, and
include all the reading public who take an interest in any
phase of the history
and description of the aboriginal races of Australia.
A brief
outline of the design will afford some idea of what the work
is likely to be
included in the book (which is to be profusely illustrated)
will be an
ethnological map of Australia, the first ever attempted,
showing, as far as
possible, the distribution of the tribes, the dialects, the
customs, and the
weapons.
There
will also be, for the first time, a history of the evolution
of the boomerang
through all stages, showing the locality in which it began as
a two-handled
round club, onwards through various transition across a wide
area to where it
finally culminated as the light return boomerang of the east
coast of
Australia.
The
evolution of the woomera and woomera spear will also be
described, and the
localities in which all the various weapons were used. It
appears Mr. Meston
holds the belief that aboriginals are just as distinctively
Australian as the
flora and fauna of our island continent, and that it is
useless looking to the
weapons, the customs, or the language, for any affinity with
other existing
races of mankind.
He
ridicules those philologists who base misleading hypotheses on
the similarity
of isolated words, as that would connect the aboriginal
language, with nearly
all the languages of mankind.
He
holds that all modern languages have brought down primitive
words from remote
antiquity, and that all primitive languages, however widely
separated,
originated under practically identical conditions, were
begotten of the same
emotions, in the same association of ideas, and therefore had
many words in
common with each other. He finds aboriginal words equivalent
to others in
Greek, Hebrew, Indian, Latin, Italian etc.
Mr.
Meston says that the meanings of some aboriginal words are
lost in extinct
dialects, others are so misspelled as not to be recognizable,
and some names in
each State were brought from far distant localities, and there
is great
difficulty in tracing their origin.
Some cannot be traced at all. He thinks there should be a
public register book
of all names of rivers, towns, railway stations, mountains etc
and that the
meaning should follow the name on maps and in postal and
railway guides and
gazetteers.
Fire
making and method of cookery are included in the chapter on
vegetables and
animal foods. The superstitions of the blacks and their
pastimes, methods of
fighting, systems of healing, curative plants and gums,
physical training, social
customs, riddles, songs, corrobborees, love of children,
kindness to the aged,
are in one section, which includes a complete description of a
bora ceremony in
three different parts of Australia. The book will also include
a grammar and
vocabulary of one dialect.
All
this is but a vague outline of a book which in some respects
will doubtless be
the most interesting and comprehensive yet published on the
subject, as the
author’s experience of forty-two years among all types of
aboriginals, wild and
tame, his knowledge of their language, his familiarity with
the use of their
weapons, complete knowledge of their character, and extensive
experience over a
wide area, enable him to write with authority on every branch
of Australian
ethnology.
One
chapter deals with the ancient fauna of Australia, the
probable changes
undergone since the Paleozoic period, the physical
peculiarities of the
Australian continent, and the relationship to the adjoining
islands of New
Guinea, New Zealand, Tasmania and Norfolk Island.
NATIVE
NAME FOR THE BRISBANE
RIVER.
Mr. A. Meston, Protector of Aboriginals,
writes the following interesting communication in response to
your inquiry
concerning the aboriginal name of the Brisbane River.
The
Moreton Bay blacks had no generic name for river. They gave a
name to every
reach and bend, and every spot with which any remarkable
incident was
associated.
The
Ipswich blacks, “Cateebil,” tribe, speaking a dialect called
“Yuggara,” – from
“Yuggarr,” the negative- called all running creeks by the name
of “Warrill.”
The
Brisbane River, Moreton Bay and Bribie Island blacks called
Brisbane
“Maginnchin” and “Gneen yanman Maginnchin?’ (Are you going to
Brisbane?) would
be understood by the old blacks from Nerang Creek to the Mary
River as
indicating a visit to Brisbane only, the name being restricted
to that
locality.
When on
a visit to Brisbane, as a youth, in 1870, the old blacks gave
two different
pronunciations of the word. The mainland blacks called it
Maginnchin, and the
Stradbroke people “Meeannjin.”
Unless
Mr. Thomas Petrie, now the oldest living Queensland settler,
and the best
living authority for fifty years on the Brisbane dialect can
tell us the
meaning of “Maginnchin,” then the origin is lost beyond
recall.
In my
book on the aboriginals, I shall save many of the old
aboriginal names, as many
as possible, and fortunately I have kept a record for
twenty-five years.
A few
of those around Brisbane will interest many of your readers.
The
scrub where the Botanic Gardens are situated was called
“Binbilla,” and the
point at Breakfast Creek, so long the home of Mrs. George
Harris, was known as
“Garran-binbilla,” both names referring to the interlacing
vine used in
building camps.
Breakfast
Creek was called “Euoggera,” and when this name was sent to
Sydney Lands
Office, the u was unfortunately taken for an n, and our
waterworks have been
erroneously called “Enoggera” to the present day.
The
present Bulimba was “Toogoolawa, and the name “Boolimbah’ was
applied to the
small hill between Bulimba and White’s Hill, which was known
as “Numcarran.
Mount
Gravatt was called “Caggara-mahbill,” from “caggara,” the
porcupine.
The
word Woolloongabba should be “Wooloon-cappemm,” from Wooloon
(whirling), and
Capemm, (water), literally whirling water. The word “wooloon,”
in the Ipswich
dialect, became “woogaroo,” a whirlpool or whirlwind.
The
word “Booroodabin” should be “Booroothabbin,” which Mr. Tom
Petrie informs me
was the Brisbane blacks’ name of the forest oak. Nundah was
the mouth, and Namboor
was the tea-tree. Tingalpa should be “Ting-al-tah,” with
accent on first and
last syllables. “Ting-al” was fat, and bah was the adverb
there, indicating the
place of fat. The Brisbane tribe, ranging from Brisbane to the
Caboolture
River, was named “Boobbera,” and that on the south side was
“Coorpooroo-jaggin,” from whence the name Coorparoo, which
should be
Coorpooroo, with accent on the poo.
The
tribes in North and South Brisbane spoke two distinct
dialects.
Some of
the old aboriginal names of places around Brisbane are very
euphonious.
I may
return to this subject on a future occasion.
**
To the Editor,
Sir, - In reply to your
correspondent in this
morning’s “Courier,” regarding the native name of the Brisbane
River, it is
rather surprising that no one on board the Lucinda on Saturday
was in a
position to furnish the information. The Brisbane river was
known to the tribes
along its banks as “Magenjie,” or the “Big Flowing Water.”
Brisbane, the site
of the Moreton Bay Penal Settlement, was known to the tribes
of the Mary River
(Mononcoola) among whom Durramboi spent so many years, as
“Magenchen,” the
place where the white men – ghosts- the “Makrommi sit down.”
This is but
another instance which should emphasize our regret in not
having adhered more generally
to the aboriginal names of places.
I am, Sir, etc.
C. Moynihan.
Brisbane. 6 August.
Sir,- In answer to the question put
by a
correspondent of yours as to what was the name of the Brisbane
River before
Oxley discovered it, it appears that in 1823 Oxley named the
river in question,
and two years later Major Lockyer traversed it as far as Mount
Brisbane, and
his records, dating seventy six years back, give the names of
the creeks as we
know them now – namely, Norman’s, Breakfast, Oxley’s, and
Bremer’s. It is
doubtful whether natives have ever given distinctive names to
rivers, for the
simple reason that each tribe knows little of the river’s
course beyond their
own territory, and each tribe would use a different sound, or
word, to describe
the same river, as witness Mr. Stanley’s experience in his
journey up the
Congo, in Africa, where the natives are far ahead of our
Queensland aboriginal
both in language and arts. It is noticeable that G. C.
Stapylton, the surveyor,
when surveying the road from Brisbane to Limestone (Ipswich)
calls Oxley’s
Creek “Canoe” Creek, and this some fourteen years after
Lockyer’s survey. It is
also peculiar that neither Lockyer nor Stapylton have recorded
the presence of
the “Seven-mile Rocks” in their surveys. After all it is,
perhaps, scarcely
correct to say that Oxley discovered the Brisbane River at
all, because it was
the unfortunate man, Pamphlet, who met Oxley at Toorbul Point,
who told him of
the river, and, but for that meeting, its presence might have
remained undiscovered
for some considerable time, for Oxley’s being at Toorbul Point
points to a
probability that he was intent upon exploring Cook’s “Pumice
Stone River,” as
that passage was charted.
I am, Sir, etc.
G. W. M. H.
Toowong. 6th August.
From Alice Hope Watkins, Killarney:
I see that “Ballandean” is said to
have been called
after two settlers, Ball and Dean.
This is wrong! Ballandean was
called after a place
in Scotland by a Scotchman, Henry Nicol, who was a pioneer
squatter there in
1852. My mother, Miss Meston, was visiting there in 1855, when
she met my
father, A. K. Cullen, who was then gaining “colonial
experience” there. They
were married in 1857, and I can just remember being carried on
horseback from
our station, Boonoo Boonoo, to visit Miss Hope Nicol, my
godmother, at
Ballandean. The derivation from “Ball and Dean” doesn’t even
sound right. The
first symbol is “Bal.”
[The
“Times” Gazetteer has no reference to any Ballandean in
Scotland. Ed.]
From T. J. Watson, Toowong-
Perhaps the origin of a few
aboriginal place names
have been more discussed than that of Baramba. Regarding its
meaning as given
in The Courier Mail, I may mention that according to John
Matthews, author of
“Two Representative Tribes,” who received his information in
the vicinity of
Baramba some 70 years ago, the native name of sarsaparilla is
boraboranbin
(accent on the first and third syllables). The name may be a
contraction of
that word. The word buran, to my personal knowledge, means
boomerang, and the
same word, slightly differently accented, means wind. I may
mention that the
gentleman who first had charge of the Baramba aboriginal
station after the
removal of the natives from Deening Creek to that place,
informed me that the
blacks said that the name was “Buranda,” meaning “place of
wind.”
Regarding
the meaning of “Toowong,” the name is not derived from the
call of a bush
pigeon, as asserted in a recent issue, but from the call of
the Koel cuckoo.
This bird is still a fairly frequent visitor to this locality
(West Toowong),
and its peculiar call could recently be heard by day, and
occasionally by
night.
**
BARCOO- A river (310 miles) in Western
Queensland, flows
into Cooper’s Creek, which empties into Lake Eyre. On October
1, 1846, Sir
Thomas Mitchell called it the ‘Victoria,” because “the river
seems to me
typical of God’s providence in carrying living waters into a
dry parched
land…With deep sentiments of loyalty I have given to this
noble river the name
of my most gracious sovereign, Queen Victoria.” Captain
Wickham R.N.,
(afterwards first Police Magistrate in Brisbane) had already
bestowed the name
Victoria on a river in the Northern Territory, so, on the
recommendation of Mr.
E. K. Kennedy, (second in command of Sir Thomas Mitchell’s
expedition), the
native name of Barcoo was retained.
ABARCCORAH- A lake and pastoral holding in the
Shire of Aramac,
a native name meaning “hunting ground for wild fowl.”
BARKE- A railway station near Mount
Morgan; native word
meaning “crooked creek.”
BEECH MOUNTAIN- A spur of the Coomera
Ranges, and a mountain
holiday resort (Beechmont, 15 miles from Nerang) between the
Coomera and Nerang
Rivers; named in the timber getting days after its beech
trees.
BEENLEIGH- A prosperous dairying town on the
South Coast
line, 24 miles from Brisbane; it was one of the early sugar
growing districts.
The name was given first to a sugar farm on the Albert River,
by John Davey,
“in memory of my native village in England.” Floods in the
Albert River, and
later the needs of the railway, caused the site of the early
township to be
changed twice, but each time it retained its name Beenleigh.
BEERBURRUM- One of Cook’s “Glass Houses,”
also a township, 40
miles from Brisbane, on the Gympie line, a native name meaning
“parrot.”
BEERWAH- Another of Cook’s “Glass Houses”;
also a township,
47 miles from Brisbane; the native name “Birwa,” means “way up
in the sky.” The
mountain is 1780ft.
ARMYTAGE CREEK- In the Tamborine Shire,
named after an
early settler on the creek.
ARVONBETA- Area in the Chillagoe and
Woothakala shire (North
Queensland) named by Atherton Bros in 1887 from the native
name of the locality
“Arvon,” and “beta” meaning granite. There is a Bocumbeta –
granite hill in the
same locality.
ARTHUR’S SEAT- Peak, 1200 ft high, in the
Herberton Shire; named
after Arthur Woodward, who showed the country to Franklin
Lawrence, of
Woodleigh.
ASCOT- Suburb of Brisbane, also railway
station and
racecourse; named after the famous racecourse in Berkshire,
England. In England
the name is pronounced As-k’t; in Queensland it is pronounced
As-kot.
ASHWELL- State school and settlement near
Rosewood, named
by Mr. E. Ludlow, a local resident, after Ashwell, in
Hertfordshire, England.
BELLISSIMA- The old home of the Lahey Bros,
at Canungra, 548
miles from Brisbane, named by the late Francis Lahey about
1860, after the
“Bellissima,” one of the old Black Ball line vessels; a Latin
word meaning
“Very Beautiful.”
BELYANDO- A river (205 miles) tributary of
the Sutlor; also
the name of a local authority. Sir Thomas Mitchell discovered
the river on
August 10, 1846, and gave it the native name.
BENARCIE- A range of peculiar formation
between Tiaro and
Glenbar. The native name was Boonar-gie; then the tail off the
“g” was dropped
and the “g” became a “c”.
BENARKIN- A town on the Yarraman Creek
railway, 112 miles
from Brisbane; it was the native word for a blackbutt tree.
**
Sir,-
Regarding “Curious Scholar’s” query (Courier Mail 28 September
1935) as to the
place name Tiaro, its etymology and history, the following may
be of interest.
On a map of Queensland of early issue, the name was spelt
“Tyro.” The name is a
corruption of the native (Kob-bi) word “dhau-wa” or “tau-wa,”
which is an
adjective means withered, and in this instance as a noun means
“dead trees.”
At the time of the first settlement by
whites, it was the locality of a community of Kobi blacks
known as the
“Dau-wa-burra” which, being liberally translated, means “dead
tree people.” The
place is historical in that it was the head of navigation for
the boat by means
of which Petrie, Russell, Joliffe, and Wrottesley, discovered
and explored the
Mary River in 1849; it was where the same party reclaimed from
the blacks the
“wild white man” James Davis, who was known as Duramboi, and
it was the site of
the first white settlement – Eales’ sheep station – in the
Wide Bay district.
I
am, Sir, etc.,
F.
J. Watson,
Toowong.
**
MESTON’S
WILD AUSTRALIA
The
performance by Mr. Meston’s aboriginals yesterday afternoon at
the Breakfast Creek
Sports Ground attracted a numerous gathering of people. The
intense heat
rendered the position of the spectators a somewhat
uncomfortable one, and
apparently the performers found it more than sufficiently
warm. Both, however,
met on a new footing.
The aboriginals appeared in the open,
and the spectators therefore had an opportunity of seeing them
under more
natural circumstances than when they appeared on the stage of
a theatre.
Despite the hat, the change of the scene of action was an
advantage.
The dances, spear throwing etc., of
Meston’s blacks fitted in more harmoniously with the open air
than the confined
limits of a theatre. The programme which they went through
yesterday was a
decidedly interesting one, and had the events been marshalled
more closely
together, would have merited warm praise. The different items
were watched with
an interest which at times became very keen. As the performers
were arranged in
different parts of the ground for various events, the
spectators found it
necessary to follow them. There was accordingly a continual
shifting of the
populace. At one time there was a stampede towards the racing
track; at
another, men, women, and children, ran helter skelter to the
shores of the
lagoon on the opposite side; and at other times they
congregated in a wide
sweeping ring in the centre of the oval. The continual
movement of the people
added to the liveliness of the scene, which for the most part
was very
animated. As the comparative handful of natives moved from one
part of the ground,
they were followed by a long train of people, who ran in
pursuit with all the
eagerness of blacks themselves following an unfriendly tribe.
The programme consisted chiefly of
corrobborees, boomerang throwing, spear throwing, racing, and
swimming and diving
in the lagoon. The spear throwing was excellent, and so
closely did the
spectators crowd around the performers that they were often in
want of space to
throw their weapons safely. While the contest was limited to
the piercing of a
mattress which had been set up as a target, there was no
danger, and the
natives fairly riddled it with perfect freedom. Impelled with
the great force
of muscular arms and woomeras, the spears pierced the thick
space of the
mattress almost as if it had been a sheet of paper. The
boomerang throwing was
an event which could have ill been spared from the programme.
Some of the
performers hurled this bird like missile to a great height.
Unfortunately the
track of the boomerang was not always as securely gauged, and
unwise spectators
who crowded too near narrowly escaped making a practical
acquaintance with its
effects. One young man was struck on the head by a truant
weapon, and received
a nasty scalp wound. This was apparently the only casualty.
While the swimming
events were in progress, the banks of the lagoon were lined
with people who
followed the dexterous feats of the blacks with a very lively
interest. The
performance, which on the whole was a very interesting one,
closed at a
suitable hour.
**
THE
QUEENSLAND ABORIGINALS
The
Worker has received a copy of Mr. Archibald Meston’s open
letter to Mr. Horace
Tozer on the question of the preservation and improvement of
the Queensland
aboriginals. The letter takes the form of a pamphlet, and
contains much
information. The most eloquent and telling paragraph in the
letter is the
following: “It seems well to consider here our ‘debtor’
account with the
aboriginals. Queensland has so far, alienated about 10,000,000
acres of
freehold land, and leased about 300,000,000 acres for pastoral
occupation. For
the first we have received about£6,250,000 in cash, and for
the leased land we
receive £332,800 annual rental. Since the year of separation,
1859, or ever
since 1842, we have not expended £50,000 for the benefit of
the aboriginals,
and have never since then, or before, paid them a single
shilling in cash,
clothes, or food, for even one acre of land. And why? Because
they are too weak
to compel justice, and we are too unjust to accord it without
compulsion.
BOOKS FOR
THE PEOPLE
Meston’s
“Geographic History
of Queensland”
Some
books are organic. You feel that if you divide them in two
they would bleed.
Other books are a mechanical conglomeration of inorganic
elements. If divided
into a hundred parts, each part would remain intact and
unimpaired.
The “Geographic History of Queensland”
belongs to the latter category. This work is neither a history
nor a geography.
It is neither a text book nor a book of reference. In some
respects it is
everything; in other respects it is nothing. It is everything
in so far as it
contains an enormous amount of facts relating to Queensland;
it is nothing
inasmuch as the facts are presented without any sense of
proportion, and
without any attempt to organise them into a living and organic
whole. Professor
Clifford once defined science as organised knowledge. If the
definition is a
correct one, Mr. Meston’s book is one of the most unscientific
ever published.
But despite its unscientific character,
the book is inmany respects a valuable one. It contains a
large amount of
information which perhaps nobody could have collected but
Archibald Meston. Who
but Archibald Meston would place on deathless record the fact
that an
aboriginal threw a cricket ball at Clermont 146 yards on the 2nd
of
January, 1872?
With loving care, Mr. Meston has
collected thousands of curious facts which but for him, might
have remained
forever in the silent depths of oblivion. He is more an
antiquarian than a
scientist or a historian. He is the Captain Grose of
Queensland. One might
almost say of him what Burns said of Grose:
Of
Eve’s first fire he was a cinder,
Auld
Tubal Cain’s fire-shool and fender
That
which distinguished the gender
O’
Balsam’s ass;
The
broomstick o’ the Witch of Kodor
Weel
shod wi’ brass.
Mr.
Meston has the defects of his qualities, but in his own
special line he stands
supreme.
The book is a strange mixture of dry
facts and eloquence. Sometimes we have pages of dry scientific
nomenclature
without any attempt to explain them to the general reader, and
sometimes we
have pages of the most flowery eloquence ever written by the
pen of man. After
a page or two, dealing in a jointy manner with the Psephotos
pulcherrimus, the
Pitta strypilaus, the Aquila audax and other things, we come
upon a passage
like the following:
“Eternity
is throned on these dark rocks among the wild whirlwind of
waters, and speaks
to you in solemn tones of the Past and the Present and the
Evermore.”
Now,
I humbly confess that that passage is too much for me. I
cannot represent, in
imagination, Eternity with a capital E, throned on dark rocks,
or on rocks of
any kind! I cannot imagine Eternity speaking in solemn tones
of the East, the
Present and the Evermore, all with capital letters by the way.
Eternity and
Evermore are synonymous terms. If, therefore, Eternity is in
the habit of
talking about the Evermore, Eternity is exceedingly egotistic
and ought to be
ashamed of itself. In his description of Queensland scenery,
Mr. Meston is
frequently sublime. But he evidently forgets that there is
only a step from the
sublime to the ridiculous, and he sometimes takes the step.
In spite, however, of its undoubted
defects, the book has much to recommend it. It is a perfect
mine of
information. No doubt, as the author admits, the information
is “largely
scattered, like gold in an alluvial field.” But it is there,
and it exists
inlarger quantity than in any other book on the subject. The
history of
Queensland has yet to be written; indeed, it has yet to be
made. But the future
historians of this young nation will owe a debt of gratitude
to the brilliant,
and in some respects, unique, author of the Geographic History
of Queensland.
The following passage is a fair sample
of Mr. Meston’s eloquence at its best:
“Scene
from the Summit of Bartle Frere
Human
voice or pen can give but a faint idea of the abysmal gloom of
that tremendous
solitude. We were surrounded by a world of clouds, even the
rocks within a
hundred yards above and below us but faintly seem like
tombstones in the
morning mists. Never before did I experience the same
sensations. Rising over
all was man’s senses of his own unspeakable insignificance. It
seemed as if I
had been suddenly ushered, like Ulysses, into the realms of
death,
Where
side by side along the dreary coast,
Advanced
Achilles’ and Petroclus’ ghost.
In
fancy the spectral clouds assumed the shape of some Tiresias
rising from the
awful shades. The lighter mists were driven by the winds
swiftly along dismal
avenues of enormous vapours, moving slowly onward, black as
night and silent as
the voiceless grave. Imagination pictured the solemn phantoms
of departed ages
stalking gloomily along through colonnades of majestic clouds.
The pale
kingdoms marshalled their mournful ghosts. Once only, and for
a few brief
seconds, did we behold the dark form of Wooroonooran, through
a wind divided
chasm of rolling clouds, apparently far above us, a vast black
shape revealing
itself, and disappearing again in the realms of gloom. And
once only did the
clouds lift like a mighty curtain from the mountains to the
north, displaying
gigantic shadows resting in the umbrage of the peaks, and
myriad columns of
snow white vapours shooting upwards from the ravines below, as
if we stood over
the abode of Lucifer, and in the nether depths
All
hell unloosed
Its
mounded oceans of tempestuous fire
And
when the sunlight came with all the varied glories of the
dawn, and clouds
became “red, yellow, or ethereally pale,” and radiant rainbows
spanned with
their curving splendours the many hued abyss; and, for a few
moments we stood
the centre of a hundred sunsets, lost in the magnificence of
all the splendid
shapes and colours of the wondrous God created dome which
overarches this
mysterious earth.”
The book is well-printed, well bound,
contains upwards of 200 pages, and is to be sold at 3s 6d. All
who are
interested in the genesis of Queensland, in its geological
formations, its
geographical divisions, its plants and animals; in the strange
manner and
customs of its aborigines; in the origin and development of
the pastoral industry;
in the discovery and extension of our gold fields; and indeed,
in everything
that a patriotic Queenslander ought to know, will find the
Geographic History
of Queensland a veritable encyclopedia.
Prometheus.
**
ABORIGINAL
LORE
Sir,-
Your correspondent, “Bobsiv,” was apparently in a facetious
mood when he wrote
to you on the subject of aboriginal names of Queensland fauna.
His contribution certainly added to our
levity. The word Budgerygah, which he says is the common name
of the beautiful
ground parrot or “love bird,” is a mutilated version of the
Kamilroi word
geejoriga or gijerriga, the syllable ga meaning “head.” It was
applied to
“small green parrots” and to two stars across the Milky Way
near Scorpio.
Boodjerree-ga is a Sydney blacks’ word that was used for
drawing attention to
something good. The meaning “Shake tree” given by “Bobsiv” for
Koo-ka-burra has
no connection with this word than “Bobsiv” has with the
present revolution in
Manchuria.
The notes of this bird are mostly ka and
koo, and from these it takes its name in most dialects. There
are variants such
as ka-ka-burra, koo-koo-ra-ka, and wa-koo-ka.
Burra means tribe or people, and
koo-ka-burra means the koo-ka tribe or people.
I do not know why “Bobsiv” should
be pleased because
the word dingo has displaced the word warrigal. Dingo is the
Sydney blacks’
word for the native dog. Warrigal is the word for the dingo in
a number of New
South Wales dialects, and it even extended to Queensland. It
was used by the
whites for anything wild.
Penang-galoom, or, as it should
read,
Penoong-barloon, the first syllable meaning “ear” and the
second “dead,” is,
according to “Bobsiv,” a word for death adder. The components
of it are from
different dialects, and the word itself is probably part of
the mixed
word-coinage of Baramba. It does not appear as a word for
death-adder in any of
the dialects recorded in standard publications.
“Bobsiv” made the good suggestion
that the Boy
Scouts and Girl Guides should be taught the aboriginal names
for birds, animals,
and reptiles. I would also acquaint them with the aboriginal
astronomy and
their quest for water in country that is waterless to white
men. Trees, plants,
animals, birds, insects, and the Diamantina frog yielded their
secrets of water
supply to the aboriginals. Many a white man has died of thirst
near or in the
shade of a water tree and in the presence of birds that are
good indicators of
water. But beware of the kangaroo, wallaby, dingo, emu, crow,
or kooka-burra as
indicators – they may be miles from water. Place your trust in
the friendly
diamond birds, zebra finches, pigeons, galahs, and cockatoos,
and they will
show you the way to water that is near by. Geese flying low
are also good
indicators. Follow the flight of the birds at sundown, because
then it is
almost invariably towards water.
I am, Sir, etc.
L. A. Meston.
Bardon, December 12.
FRASER
ISLAND BLACKS
RAID ON
WHISKY
CAUSE OF
THE RECENT TROUBLE
The
Maryborough Chronicle of October 6 gives some details of the
trouble at Fraser
Island aboriginal settlement, in addition to those already
published in the
Telegraph. It appears that Mr. Purvis, having made
preparations for a grand
corroboree to honour Lord and Lady Brassey’s visit, went off
to the Sunbeam on
Sunday evening and at 8 o’clock the party started for the
shores in two boats.
There were in the boats, Lord and Lady Brassey, Earl of
Shaftesbury, Mr. du
Burgh Persse, Mr. H. J. Hill, Mr. Albert Brassey, M.P.,
Captain Boult, and
several officers of the Sunbeam.
As the boat approached the shore, it
became apparent that matters were not proceeding in the manner
arranged, and as
it was found that many of the aborigines were drunk, Lord and
Lady Brassey and
their guests returned to the Sunbeam. The Chronicle,
continuing the story,
says:
After the party had left in the boats,
Mr. Purvis went up to the camp, and proceeded to enquire into
the cause of the
extraordinary turn of events. Some of the drunken boys adopted
a menacing
attitude towards him, but supported by the well-known Paddy
Brown and a few
other sober boys, he was able to suppress any attempt at open
violence. He soon
discovered that immediately after leaving for the Sunbeam in
the afternoon,
Percy, a half-caste, in whom he had implied confidence, backed
up by a few
others, had broken into his (Mr. Purvis’s) cottage, and,
securing two gallons
of whisky, his private property, had drunk it and served it
out to the other
blacks until it was all gone. As they had not had a taste of
alcoholic liquor
for seven or eight months, a little went a long way with them,
and the camp
soon became a pandemonium. Mr. Purvis found his cottage filled
with drunken
blacks, who had smashed his clock and some crockery, and done
other damage. On
entering, Percy, the half caste, who had served out the drink,
made a rush at
Mr. Purvis to strike him, but was prevented by Paddy Brown and
others from
doing so. After a while the blacks were cleared out of the
house, and Mr.
Purvis then locked up his things.
At about 1 o’clock on Monday morning, in
fulfillment of his promise to Lord Brassey to report himself,
Mr. Purvis, with
the assistance of 12 of the boys, who had become more sober,
launched the
whaleboat over the sands, and started for the Sunbeam, and on
the way met
Captain Boult and a boat’s crew coming for him. It appears
that Lord and Lady
Brassey and others were very anxious about the safety of Mr.
Purvis on shore
with the blacks, and as the night wore on they found the
feeling of suspense so
great that they dispatched the boat with instructions to Mr.
de Burgh Persse
J.P., who went with Captain Boult, to see that he was brought
off to the ship,
if he would not come of his own accord. Mr. Purvis, therefore,
spent the rest
of the night on the Llewellyn. After daylight he expressed a
desire to return
to the settlement, but was prevailed upon by Lord Brassey and
others not to do
so.
Lord Brassey put his views in writing,
and Mr. Purvis accordingly followed His Excellency’s advice,
subsequently
returning to Maryborough in the Government steamer Llewellyn.
Shortly after his
arrival in Maryborough on Tuesday, Mr. Purvis received the
following wire from
Mr. Meston: “Return at once to settlement with constable; stay
there until my
arrival. Coming tomorrow.” Mr. Purvis had made arrangements to
go to Pialba by
Tuesday afternoon’s train, and thence to Fraser Island, but
Mr. Meston arrived
by the mail train, accompanied by his son, Mr. Harold Meston,
from Durundur
Aboriginal settlement, and altered the arrangement. Mr. Purvis
subsequently
indorsed the Chronicle that Mr. Meston saw him, and suspended
him from all
duties pending a report from him, and a full inquiry into the
causes of his
leaving the settlement. Mr. Harold Meston will take charge of
the settlement in
the meantime, and with his father, went to Fraser Island, on
Wednesday
afternoon, via Pialba.
The Chronicle also learns from Mr. A.
Meston that on Tuesday, Paddy Brown and some other blacks
pulled over the Woody
Island, and sent him a telegram, stating that all was going
well at the camp.
MR.
MESTON’S MISSION
Mr.
A. Meston has returned from the Cairns district, where he has
been collecting
summer fruits and plants on the mountains. He was accompanied
by Mr. Harold
Newport, of the Kamerunga State Nursery, and the most
important part of the
mission was the search on the Bellenden Ker Range. Mr. Meston
comes back with
92 kinds of summer fruits, including the magosteen, samples of
which are 3¼in
in diameter. All the specimens are carefully preserved in
formalin. The native
nuts also had attention, and 297lb weight of nuts and seeds
have been brought
down. Among the nuts are two which form the sole food of the
Bellenden Ker
tribes during the wet season. Of the seeds there are 750 of
the mangosteen
ready for planting, exclusive of fifty taken and planted by
Mr. Newport at the
Kamerunga State Nursery. The collection was done from the foot
of the range to
the summit, a height of 5000 feet, and in addition to the
fruit and nuts, Mr.
Meston has returned with numerous specimens of herbs and
trees, many of them of
a curious nature. A collection was also made on the Malbon,
Thompson, and
Graham Ranges, on the former of which Mr. Meston secured a nut
unlike anything
he had seen before, and testing much like the Brazilian nut.
He also had some
samples of gum which is most plentiful, and which should be
useful in the
making of varnish. It burns readily when lighted and gives off
a pleasant
odour. It is proposed to distribute the seeds so gathered
among the public
gardens and leading horticulturalists and the specimens will
be placed before
the Colonial Botanist. During the seven weeks on the range,
heavy rain
continued for three weeks, and intermittent rain was
experienced at other
times, except for two weeks, which was the only fine spell
there was. Mr.
Meston regards the expedition as much more important that the
previous one in
which he was engaged.
TO THE
EDITOR
Sir,-
It is exceedingly gratifying to find that Mr. Meston intends
making another
excursion to that very interesting but almost unknown part of
Queensland, the
Bellenden Ker mountains. It says very little for the
enterprise of Queensland
that this important district should still remain so little
known. The
description of the hasty visit paid this wonderful district by
Mr. Meston with
Mr. Bailey (our veteran Government Botanist) and a few others
some years ago
was so full of interest that it is surprising that no further
exploration has
been attempted. A properly equipped party of qualified men
should at once be
formed to thoroughly examine this almost unknown part of
Australia, which is
only a few days distant from Brisbane. Mr. Meston, on his
cursory visit,
discovered the mangosteen, which Mr. Bailey named after him,
also other fruits;
but as they were collected at the wrong time of the year they
had lost their
vitality.
Mr. Bailey, during the short time he was
on Bellenden Ker, discovered upwards of 100 new plants; he
also observed a
variety of magnificent timber trees. From their glowing
description, one would
imagine they had discovered the garden of Queensland. Traces
of minerals,
including gold, were met with. No one call tell yet what
hidden treasures exist
in this unexplored land. On the top of one of the mountains,
known only to one
man, was found an enormous crater; in any other civilised
country, steps would
have been taken immediately to follow up this important
discovery, but nothing
was done. It is said that the Mount Morgan mine is the vent of
a volcano. What
if the great crater on Mount Alexander should prove another
Mount Morgan? There
may be craters on other mountains, and crater lakes like those
at Herberton.
A few years ago, a small army of
Australians hurried to South Africa to fight our enemies the
Boers, and it is
said that some are now eager to take service with the Japanese
to fight our friends
the Russians. Cannot some of these valiant and energetic
spirits engage in the
far more creditable work of Australian exploration? What is
wanted is the
formation of a strong and competent party, each man picked for
some special
excellence, enthusiastic, determined, and industrious, not
given to loafing,
drink, or any other vice, but who will work hard and
intelligently. The party
should include a botanist, a geologist and a naturalist. Now
comes the question
of cost. Probably there are in Queensland one or more rich and
patriotic men
who will, if appealed to, supply the necessary funds; if not,
there may be in
New South Wales or Victoria. The work is Australian, and need
not be confined
to Queensland. I may quote two instances illustrative of the
interest taken in
our colony on the other side of the world. Some few years ago,
the University
of Cambridge supplied funds to Mr. Colville, a graduate, to
enable him to visit
Queensland and study the life history of the ceratodus, and
subsequently sent
Mr. Graham Kerr, with an assistant, to South America to study
the life history
of that rare fish, Lepulosire. It took a year to accomplish
their work. Dr.
Paul von Ritter, a wealthy German, paid the expenses of
Professor Richard
Semon, of Jena University, to visit Queensland and perform
similar work to that
performed by Mr. Colville. Mr. Semon, finding one season
insufficient to
complete the study of the ceratodus, returned to the Burnett
district the
following year, spending the interval in visiting North
Queensland. Thursday
island, New Guinea, and Java. He described his travels in a
very interesting
book, “Life in the Australian Bush,” and several other works,
all of great
scientific value. The entertaining and energetic professor is
now travelling in
South America.
I
am, Sir, etc.
D.
O’Connor.
Oxley.
8th January.
THE DEATH
OF NELSON
A
SQUATTER’S REMINISCENCES
OF SIR
HUGH
An
old Queensland squatter, who knew the fate of Hugh Nelson for
45 years, has
supplied “Truth” with the following interesting reminiscences.
Nelson was born at Kilmarnock, in
Scotland, on December 31, 1835. He was 18 years of age when he
came to
Queensland, in 1853, with his father, the Rev. Dr. Nelson, who
went to Ipswich
as clergyman of the Presbyterian church. I remember when old
Griffith, Sam’s
father, preached the opening sermon in the first
Congregational church in
Ipswich, young Nelson was one of the audience. His first
intention was to
engage in mercantile work, and he started as a clerk in an
Ipswich firm.
I next met him on the Condamine about
1866, when he came to wind up the affairs of Binbian station
on Inglewood
Creek, six miles from the present Condamine township. Binbian
was in charge of
a man named Solomon Wiseman who was bailiff for the mortgages.
Nelson promptly
sacked Wiseman. Many years afterwards, when member for
Murilla, he was
returning by train from Sydney, and a fellow passenger said,
“Pardon me, is not
your name Mr. Nelson?” Nelson pleaded guilty. “Well, my name
is Solomon
Wiseman.” “You are not the Solomon Wiseman who is now the
Broken Hill
millionaire?” asked Nelson. Wiseman pleaded guilty. If Solomon
had not been
sacked from Binbian, he might have remained an overseer all
his life. This man
was the son of the Solomon Wiseman who gave his name to
Wiseman’s Ferry, on the
Hawkesbury River, and was a very well-known celebrity in the
early days. He is
mentioned in Judge Therry’s celebrated “Reminiscences.” Therry
called on
Wiseman in 1836, on his way to Maitland. Solomon had then been
five years
contracting to supply the convict road gang with rations and
making £3,000 to
£4,000 per annum. Therry says, page 121, “His coming to the
colony had
originally been caused by a difference of opinion with the
Customs House
officers in the Isle of Wight and as to the mode of landing
spirits and cigars-
his opinions being favourable to the night time as best suited
his purposes.”
However, Solomon turned out a fine
hospitable honest old chap, but could never overcome his
dislike to education.
He had four sons, of whom Binbian Solomon was one. He gave
each a flock of
sheep and a herd of cattle, but they all failed. Finally
Solomon junior struck
a patch in Broken Hill and became renowned for wealth.
Tatka station on the Moonie was one of
the first stations held by Dr. Nelson, followed by Wanambilla,
Malara, and
Myra. The old doctor left Ipswich and went to Toowoomba about
1866, remaining
there until he died. The largest Nelson property, and Sir
Hugh’s oldest home,
was London, four miles from Dalby, with nearly 40,000 acres of
freehold. Nelson
married a daughter of Duncan McIntyre of Toowoomba. Duncan had
been the
Presbyterian parson whom Dr. Nelson succeeded. He had given up
preaching and
resigned his position to enter on worldly business. Nelson
only had one
between, who died in Ipswich about 35 years ago. Hugh was
always a very quiet,
inoffensive, unassuming man, calm, reflective, deliberate, and
methodic in all
his ways. Uniformly good tempered, he was very slow to anger,
but when once
thoroughly roused, his wrath was something to remember. I once
saw him in a
white rage, and had no desire to see it again. He was one of
the best wool and
sheep classers and judges in Queensland, and the wool of his
sheep always
commanded the highest price.
He was always a regular smoker,
preferring long stemmed pipes, of which he usually had a
sheath or two on the
premises. He was a most amiable man in social life, proud of
his home and
family, and dearly loving a joke.
One of his favorites was a story told of
two drunk Hielanmen, one of whom had fallen and was unable to
rise. The other
was too full to help him, so he said: “I canna lift ye up,
Donal, but I can lie
doon beside!” and he did.
When contesting on election, a tough old
Scotchman named Alexander, of Kogan, wrote to Nelson to say he
would “vote for
him if he would buy all his wethers at 7s 6d per head!” Nelson
promptly advised
him to take his wethers to blazes as he “wouldn’t give
tuppence for them under
the circumstances.”
Though partial to a glass of good
whisky, he was a temperate man, and free from all cant on that
or any other
subject. I admit that at one election he and I walked arm in
arm down the main
street of the Condamine township, and the street was barely
wide enough for the
occasion. With or without well-known=hisky he was always a
gentleman. He was a
man who did generous acts without the slightest desire for
mention in any
quarter. Many a man he helped quietly with a few sheep or
cattle, or a loan
when required, and he was a very lenient and generous
creditor. The opinions of
the people who knew him best were shown by returning him to
Parliament with
flying colors during his absence in Scotland. He was member
for Northern Downs
in 1888, just 30 years after he arrived in Queensland. On one
occasion the
people were collecting money to get a State school at
Condamine, and Nelson
gave £5. Finally, there was a deficit of £15 in the necessary
amount, and
schoolmaster Guppy wrote to ask Nelson what he was to do.
Nelson simply wrote
back and enclosed a cheque for £15. Nobody ever saw him in a
hurry. He went in
to do all his work with the cautious and dignified stride of
an old emu going
to water. When a Minister of the Crown or Premier, he was
equally calm and
deliberate, but his work was always done. Between him and the
fussy breed of
men there was the same difference as between the quiet hen who
lays her egg in
silence and the one who struts around the yard and cackles for
half an hour
without laying at all. He was not the kind of politician who
hungered for
newspaper paragraphs to advertise him. He was a true and loyal
friend. His
private and political career was unsullied, his death a
distinct loss to
Queensland.
A.
M.
ROCKS FOR
ROTH
A
BOOMERANG BANG
SPECIMENS
SOLD TO SYDNEY
THE
PROTECTOR PAID £450
The
cause of the row over Dr. Roth’s ethnological specimens is but
faintly
understood by the public, and is so far involved in more or
less confusion. As
the question is likely to arise again in Parliament it seems
well to give
sufficient, reliable information on which to form a definite
opinion. When Dr.
Roth was appointed Protector there was a clear understanding
between himself
and the Government that all curios, weapons, and aboriginal
specimens,
collected by him during his period of office, were to be the
property of the
State. That understanding was made secure by an agreement
which is still in
existence, and available when required. There was no ambiguity
in the business,
and it was referred to on, at least, two occasions by the
Minister when passing
the Estimates. It was also publicly acknowledged by Roth when
being examined
before the bar of the Legislative Council in 1901. In
“Hansard,” page 1137,
October 8 of that year, he said: “Another portion of my work
is to collect
ethnological specimens for the Government. My collections, of
course, are to be
considered the property of the nation.” In “Hansard,” page
777, October 16,
1903, Mr. Foxton stated: “An arrangement had been made between
the Government
and Dr. Roth, that a certain collection made by him of
aboriginal curios and
weapons were the property of the Government. A certain portion
of the
collection remained in Dr. Roth’s hands because it was
necessary for him to be
constantly referring to it in the course of his scientific
work. None has been
disposed of to my knowledge. They were kept in a separate
department in the
Museum.” On the same date in “Hansard,” Mr. Bell said: “Dr.
Roth informed me
that it was thoroughly understood departmentally that the
collection of the
curios was the property of the Government and also that he had
never sold a
single curio in his life.”
On page 7 of his own recent report to
the House , he states: “I deny ever having sold any
ethnological specimens that
were not my own property to sell, and when the present
Minister for Lands
informed the House that I had never sold a curio in my life,
he spoke the
absolute truth.”
But Dr. Roth disingenuously forgot to
mention that Bell had made that statement two years before,
when Roth had not
sold his collection. From all this, the public will doubtless
conclude that all
the collections made by Roth during his term of office were
the property of the
State, and that Dr. Roth never sold any of his collection.
That was also the
assurance given to the House by Minister Bell in the recent
debate. The public
are aware that Dr. Roth, in his defence report, took shelter
behind the mistake
made by Mr. Lesina in crediting the mistake to the Sydney
Curator, instead of
saying that the information came from the Curator, and the
telegram from Mr. Norton’s
Sydney manager, and left Parliament and public and press
clearly under the
belief that he had sold nothing to the Sydney Museum up to the
present time.
And Roth certainly created this
impression in face of the fact that the whole of a valuable
collection,
collected, according to even his own public statements, for
the Queensland
Government had
been sold to the Sydney
Museum, and was then in the possession of that institution.
The first telegram
from Sydney stated that Roth had sold over 2000 specimens to
the Museum, but
the Curator could not give any other information until after
the meeting of the
trustees on the 7th of the next month.
Since then, Mr. John Norton, M.L.A.,
proprietor of “Truth,” has made full inquiry at the Sydney
Museum. Not being at
all likely to leave any question in a state of doubt, he sent
the following
wire to this office from Sydney Parliament House last
Wednesday: “The Museum
Curator states that a collection comprising weapons,
implements, ornaments,
skulls, manuscript notes, to fully enumerate which would he a
formidable task,
was sold to the Sydney Museum, for £450, the collection stated
by Roth to be
his private property.”
This will be a shock to the public and
Parliament, and probably even a surprise to the Hon. J. T.
Bell. To prove that
this collection sold to the Sydney Museum for £450 was not
that which was
collected for this State in official time, may probably be the
heaviest
contract Roth will ever have to face. We are given to
understand that the
Brisbane Museum authorities clearly regarded Roth’s collection
as their
property, and that the Museum officers and trustees have been
for some time
aware of the sale, and hold very emphatic opinions on the
whole business. It is
also alleged that they hold a doc in Roth’s own writing, which
may show that
this particular collection was the property of the Museum,
and, likewise, there
is in the Police Department, records a still more decisive
agreement which is
said to prove that the collection sold to the Sydney Museum,
and all other
collections of Roth, were to be the property of the Queensland
Government.
It is somewhat remarkable that Mr.
Etheridge, the curator of the Sydney Museum, came to Brisbane,
and stayed with
Dr. Roth at his private residence for some time, not having
his visit mentioned
by the press, and not fraternizing, as might have been
expected, with any or
all of the Brisbane scientists, including such men as De Vis,
Bailey, and
Tryon, who were doubtless surprised at the mysterious secrecy
of Mr. Etheridge’s
movements. There is now reason the believe that Mr. Etheridge
came up here to
examine Dr. Roth’s collection, fix a valuation, and purchase
for the Sydney
Museum. Why all this secrecy, and why has Dr. Roth withheld
all information
from the press and his department? Why his extraordinary
avoidance of the whole
subject in his recent report to the House? Those, and all
other questions
concerning this remarkable business, can only be answered at a
full official
enquiry. The urgent need for such an enquiry on the earliest
date is clearly
established. Dr Roth’s report on himself, a laudation of his
own merits, and
attacks on members of Parliament and other people merely
asking for
information, is not sufficient in any sense. A much more
qualified and
impartial tribunal is required, and we shall be surprised if
that tribunal does
not procure some startling revelations.
**