The scrubs are very still in winter, and it is this stillness that gives the season its peculiar character. While the mammals and birds have donned their most beautiful and warmest furs and plumage, the natives go about as naked as in the summer. Not even in the night do they wear clothes, but warm themselves by the camp fires. Yet it is easy to procure subsistence during this season of the year. Fruits are not so abundant, but, on the other hand, animal food is easily obtained. During this season the natives are much occupied in hunting snakes, which during the winter are very sluggish, and can be slain in great numbers. The blacks are particularly fond of eating snakes, but they do not, like many of the southern tribes, eat poisonous serpents.
One of the snakes most commonly eaten is the Australian python (Morelia variegata), the largest snake found in Australia, which here in Northern Queensland may even attain a length of more than twenty feet. During winter it seems to prefer staying in the large clusters of ferns found on the trunks of trees. At night it seeks shelter from the cold among the leaves, but during the daytime it likes to bask in the sunshine, which enables the natives to discover and kill it with their clubs. If attacked it may bite with its many and sharp teeth, but the wound produced is not dangerous. These ferns grow in wreaths round the large trunks of trees, and look like the topsails of a ship, but they are far more numerous, and like the orchids, which grow pretty much in the same manner, are constant objects of interest to the natives, for in them they find not only snakes, but also rats and other small mammals, Uromys, Sminthopsis, Phascologale, etc. They therefore, as a rule, take the trouble to climb the trees to make the necessary search. They discover the snakes at a great distance, though the wreath may be fifty to sixty yards above the ground.
We were at one time travelling along one of the mountain streams, while the blacks as usual kept a sharp look-out and examined the numerous clusters of fern in the scrub. Suddenly they discovered something lying on the edge of one of these fern clusters, but very high in the air. Notwithstanding their keen eyesight, they were unable to make out whether it was a serpent or a broken branch, so a young boy, whom I usually called Willy, climbed up in a neighbouring tree to investigate the matter. Ere long he called down to us, Vindcheh! vindcheh!—that is, Snake! snake! I was very much surprised, for the object looked to me like an old leafless limb of a tree. Willy came down at once, and lost no time in ascending the tree where the serpent was lying.
When he had obtained a foothold near the fern wreath, he broke off a large branch and began striking the serpent, which now showed signs of life. The lazy snake soon received so many blows on the head that it fell down, and proved to be more than ten feet long. While we were taking a look at it we heard Willy, whom it was almost impossible to discover so high up in the tree, call down that he had found another snake, and this made the blacks jubilant.
It seemed, however, to be more difficult for Willy to get this snake down, for it was protected among the leaves, and he was obliged to use his stick with all his might in order to drive it out. At last it tried to make its escape, and crept out over the edge of the wreath of ferns in order to lay hold of the tree-trunk, but the distance was too great, and it slipped. It could not get back, for Willy stood there striking it, and so this serpent, which was more than sixteen feet long, fell off; in coming down it struck the crown of a palm-tree, which broke its fall, and quick as lightning, it coiled itself round the trunk of the tree like a corkscrew. Willy did not give up. He came down, and immediately climbed up in the palm-tree to his victim, which was, however, so tenacious of life that it did not let go its hold until its head was crushed.
When we came to look for the former serpent we were astonished to find it gone. We all searched carefully everywhere among the stones on the bank of the river, but it was not to be found, and we had given up the search when Willy, to our surprise, came dragging it behind him. He had found it at the bottom of a hole in the river, and had dived after it.
These serpents are wonderfully tenacious of life. The one in question was apparently dead and motionless when we left it, still it had been able to crawl twenty paces, and keep itself hidden at the bottom of a hole in the river-bed.
The natives, being anxious to secure themselves against other mishaps of this sort, decided to roast the serpents at once. But, as we had not time for this, they procured a withy band from a lawyer-palm, tied the two together until we returned in the evening, and made them fast to a tree, round the trunk of which the serpents coiled themselves. When we passed the place in the afternoon there was still life in them, but they were soon despatched, put together in bundles, and carried to the camp to be roasted for supper.
As quickly as possible the camp fire was made and stones were heated; for snakes are one of those delicacies which are prepared in the most recherché manner. The snakes were first laid carefully in circular form, in order that they might occupy as small a space as possible; each forming a disc fastened together with a reed, they looked like the rope-coils made by sailors on the deck of a ship. Large serpents, and the flesh of fish, cattle, and men, are all prepared in the following interesting manner. First a hole is made in the ground about a foot deep, and in it a great fire is built. Over the fire a few stones about twice the size of a man’s fist are placed. When the stones have become red-hot, they are laid aside and the rest of the fire is cleared away. Then a number of the stones are put down into the hole, and over them are laid fresh green leaves, especially of the so-called native ginger (Alpinia cærulea). Upon these the meat is placed, and is covered with leaves and with the rest of the hot stones; the dug-out earth is then spread over the whole, which has the appearance of an ant-hill. If an opening is discovered letting out steam, it is immediately covered so as to keep the heat within the hill.
Now the baking is permitted to go on undisturbed. The natives know precisely when the meat is done, and they never make a mistake. The hot stones have developed an intense heat, which gradually bakes or roasts the food thoroughly and preserves all its flavour.