Though one perspires freely in this climate, still the moisture evaporates so rapidly that one keeps perfectly dry while riding beneath the perpendicular rays of the sun.
About a month after my departure from Minnie Downs I reached Windex station, 650 miles from Rockhampton, where I found the same hospitable reception always accorded a stranger in the Australian bush. I was invited to remain for a while to explore the vicinity. The owner was himself interested in zoology, and he believed it would pay me to stop; he was right, for the animal life was interesting even if it were not rich in species. I here added to my collection Australia’s smallest marsupial animal, the beautiful Phascologale minutissima. A cat playing with something that looked like a mouse led to the capture of this specimen, for on closer examination it appeared that it was not an animal of the mouse family, but this little marsupial. It had no less than nine young in the pouch. From Windex I made an excursion for a few days to a mountain region about thirty miles distant. Here I shot the beautiful white species of kite (Elanus axillaris), and a couple of specimens of the charming Diamantina-pigeon. These beautiful little birds are very numerous here, and so tame that the stock-men can easily kill them with their whips.
On the broad sandy heights in the vicinity the so-called spinifex is found in great abundance. This grass (Triodia irritans) is the traveller’s torment, and makes the plains, which it sometimes covers for hundreds of miles, almost impassable. Its blades, which have points as sharp as needles, often prick the horses’ legs till they bleed, and it is generally regarded simply as a nocuous grass; still, the horses will eat the tender blades of the young plant.
The district in which I now found myself had a year before been visited by a plague of rats. They came from the north-west and proceeded, viâ Winton, on their wanderings towards the east. A man in Ayrshire Downs told me that they appeared in countless numbers—during the day they kept concealed, but in the evening the ground seemed to be alive with them, so numerous were they. One night for amusement he laid a piece of meat on his threshold, and killed with a stick 400 of these animals which came up to eat the meat. An occasional straggler was left behind, but the main body disappeared in a short time. Afterwards I learned that an army of rats had also passed Westwood, doubtless the same clan, but greatly reduced in number, and probably but few of them reached the coast. I have been informed that the small marsupials (Phascologale minutissima) before mentioned make similar periodical migrations.
From Ayrshire Downs I proceeded south to Elderslie, a station in process of construction. It was so difficult to get building timber in the vicinity that it had been found expedient to use stone for building. The station lies near the confluence of the Diamantina and Western rivers. I here met two men who were looking for opals in the mountains east of the Diamantina river. Not far north of Elderslie lies a very rich copper-bearing district called Cloncurry, which is said to surpass even the celebrated Lake Superior mines in North America. Moreover, gold and actual mountains of pure iron ore abound here, but on account of the difficulty of transportation this enormous wealth is not yet available. Queensland will, it is said, become a centre for the production of precious metals. Besides great wealth of gold, silver, tin, and other metals, the land, according to recent investigations, has so vast an amount of coal that its coast is destined in time to become the most important emporium of coal on the southern hemisphere.
The natives near Diamantina river astonished me by their bodily structure; neither before nor since have I seen them so tall and upon the whole so well nourished as in the tribe near Elderslie. Some of the women were even monstrously large; their hair was generally straight. Their food consisted chiefly of fish, snakes, rats, and clams.
A conspicuous trait in the character of the Australian native is treachery, and the colonists are wont to give the stranger the warning, “Never have a black-fellow behind you.” Nor should one, as a rule, rely on them. How difficult it is for them to lay aside their uncivilised habits may be seen from the following incident, which happened at Dawson river. A squatter was walking in the bush in company with his black boy, hunting brush-turkey (Talegalla). As they sauntered forth, the black boy touched him on the shoulder from behind and said, “Let me go ahead.” When the squatter asked why he wished to go before him, the boy answered, “I feel such an inclination to kill you.” The black boy had been on the station for several years, where he had served as shepherd and had proved himself very capable.
I observed an interesting fact among the natives of this locality. In cases of murder they administer justice in a peculiar manner, as the following instance will illustrate. A black boy at Connemara station was sent on an errand to Diamantina gates. On his way home he fell in with an old man and his two wives, all of whom belonged to the same tribe as the boy. In the course of the journey the boy killed the old man and took possession of the two young wives. Meanwhile, one of them escaped and reported what had happened to the tribe, which caused universal indignation. Fourteen men with spears and other weapons then proceeded to Connemara to punish the murderer. The boy concealed himself, and the white people on the station would not surrender him, for he was a good servant. They even fired one or two shots at the blacks in order to frighten them away. Three or four days passed, and the boy believed that all danger was over. As he went out one morning to take in a horse, he was killed by his tribal kinsmen only half a mile from the station.
From Peak Downs I have heard similar stories. A black man who was to be punished, probably for murder, was pursued to the very station. When the white folk got sight of him he was so covered with spears that he looked like a porcupine.
In the new main building at Elderslie station the fleas had already made their appearance. They usually live in the ground, and as soon as you step on the soil they creep by the dozen up your legs. In Europe I have never felt a bite of these insects, but the Australian representatives were genuine blood-suckers. As I could not abstain from scratching, I broke my skin, and thus produced a series of bad and irritable sores which would not heal. At last I felt so uncomfortable when I moved, that to my great annoyance I was obliged to keep still for a week. When the week was over, this sitting still became unbearable. Besides, I had received an invitation to take part in an expedition down the Diamantina river.