In Quest of Gold; Or, Under the Whanga Falls

by Alfred St. Johnston

Taking the horses some little way down the stream, where there seemed to be more and better food for them than close to the waterfall, the boys and Murri unloaded them, and hobbling them, as usual, turned them loose. Alec suggested that if they were going to stay one night in the gully—"And the rest," thought George—they had better pitch their camp somewhere thereabouts, as they would be near the fall and yet out of reach of its deafening noise. So they arranged their goods and chattels close to one side of the gully where the steep cliff cast a grateful shade.

When this little business was satisfactorily settled—it took but a very few minutes to arrange matters—Murri, who as usual was dreaming of something to eat, and thought this an opportunity not to be neglected, asked if he might go down the valley and try to catch something. It did not matter what, for all is fish that comes to an Australian aboriginal's net. The boys did not want him for anything, so he started off with his boomerang and spears and throwing stick towards the clump of tall quandang trees they had passed when coming up the valley.

Directly that George saw Alec engaged upon making some alteration in the stuffing of one of the pack saddles, which had begun to chafe the back of the horse that carried it, he started off by himself to make a more careful survey of the pool and the waterfall. He wished to go alone, so he walked off without saying anything to his brother. Alec, although he had said that he should be quite cheerful if he knew the worst, seemed very much depressed at the failure of all his hopes, and sat rather gloomily over his work. He was paying close attention to what he was doing, for he hated careless work of any kind, and did not see Geordie leave the camp.

The place certainly did not present a very hopeful appearance when George came to examine it. The waterfall poured in one straight column from the top of the perpendicular cliff, and dashed itself into the pool beneath, which again overflowed to the stream below in a little cascade, from the narrow lip of rock which formed the front edge of the basin. George thought that the scene was a very beautiful and grand one now that he could look at it with calmer eyes. The ravine, at the far end of which the cascade fell, was very narrow, so that the lofty cliffs on either side shut out the direct sunshine, except at mid-day, when the sun was just overhead. The whole place was dim and full of shadow, and the sound of the falling water and the coolness of the air, moistened by the drifting showers of misty spray, made it a pleasant retreat from the glare and tropical heat of the ardent day beyond its limits. The rocks for the most part were bare of vegetation, but in one or two places near the fall itself masses of tall grasses and ferns grew with luxuriant greenness, and along the top of the cliff from which the cascade fell a line of bushes grew, and creeping plants, which hung far down the rock, swayed by the current of air made by the great mass of falling water.

The water looked cool and inviting, and George thought he would have a dip into it before he began his exploration. He thought that by so doing he might discover how deep the pool was. The basin into which the waterfall plunged was some five or six feet above the level of the stream, into which the water flowed by a second and much smaller cascade. Undressing—a work that did not take him very long—on the bank of the stream, George scrambled up by the side of the little waterfall, and stood on the narrow wall of rock that confined the waters of the basin, his well-made muscular body and legs looking strangely fair when compared with his red and sun-browned face and neck and arms. He stood for one moment with one foot in the water—how hot the sun was on his naked body—and then plunged into the pool.

He found that he could just touch bottom near the place where the water flowed out, but that nearer the middle of the pool it was beyond his depth. He did not go under the fall, though he went close to it, for the volume of water was so great and fell in so heavy a stream. Standing, a few minutes afterwards, in the sunshine to dry himself before he dressed again, he made a rough mental calculation, and found that the parts of the pool he had been able to bottom were about on a level with the stream. With a pleased little nod he sprang lightly down the rocks, which were hot to his naked feet, and scrambled into his clothes.

As soon as he was dressed he walked to the face of the great cliff over which the water plunged, and began to examine it to find a place where he might climb up. The rock near the fall was quite too steep for any one to ascend, but a little way from it, where the ravine curved, George found a place up which he thought he could manage to scramble. As he was strong and a quite fearless rock climber, he was often able to conquer difficulties that most people would have found insuperable. Jamming tightly on to his head the cap he had extemporised the night after he lost his felt hat at the precipice, two days before, George began to climb. It was a work for arms as well as legs, for the cliff was so steep in places that he had actually to haul himself up by his hands; but Geordie was at home in this sort of climbing, and nimbly scaled up places that from below looked absolutely perpendicular.

It took even Geordie some time to get to the top, for the cliff was higher than it appeared to be from the ravine, but at last he was able to grasp the stout stem of a ti-bush that grew on the edge of the crag, and holding this and throwing his chest on to the flat ground at the top he was able to haul himself up. He sprang to his feet at once, for he was in such perfect condition that even the violent exertion he had just made had not put him out of breath. He found himself on a little piece of comparatively level ground which rose, at first gradually, and then by a steeper incline, till it joined the great bulk of Tooingoora, which towered, majestic and grim, before him. The ground, just where he was, was covered with a thick and tangled growth of scrub, through which he could hear the sound of the swiftly running stream, which poured itself with a roar over the edge of the height.

George made his way between the bushes with some little difficulty, for they were so matted together with a strong wiry sort of creeper, and in a moment or two he reached the edge of the stream. He found that it was flowing very rapidly, as though preparing for the leap it was about to make, along a rocky watercourse, which at present was a great deal too wide for its requirements, but the whole of which in flood times it would probably occupy.

George examined the bed of the stream very carefully, walking up it some little way and then back again to the place where the water plunged over the edge of the rock in one great smooth sweep. He seemed to observe one part more than any; it was where a dried-up arm of the watercourse branched out from the side of the running stream; it would evidently be converted into a stream itself if only a very little more water came down from the mountain, for its sandy bed was only just above the level of the one that was then flowing. After examining the nature of the ground just there, George gave a little satisfied laugh, and said, in a deeply mysterious manner—