These spears at short ranges flew like arrows from a bow, many birds fell dead, more were struggling in the water; but other flocks were approaching, so down went the blacks again, and, rising up just as the fresh arrivals had discovered their mistake, and before they had settled, hurled their darts as before, until they had no spears left.
With the exception of a whispered sentence or two between the brothers, not a sound had escaped the lips of the hunters up to this; but now, with wild yells of triumph, they gave vent to their pent-up feelings, plunged into the lagoons and their reedy edges, and commenced to retrieve both game and spears.
The brothers were rushing in like the rest, when they were seized and implored by the natives, by signs, not to go into the water; however, they laughingly shook themselves free, and dived in off the bank, bringing geese to land, and returning for more. When the blacks saw how completely at home they were in the water they raised joyful exclamations, and afterwards explained that they thought the white men had been blown ashore at the time of the shipwreck on a piece of the vessel.
Subsequently our lads accompanied their friends on a similar expedition, but this time the birds they were after proved to be ducks—a large black duck, and another sort, brown and white in colour, which perched on trees. On this occasion the weapons used were boomerangs. Keeping a bundle of these under the left arm, the natives hurled them one after another into the midst of the scared fowl, as they rose from the water, bagging over forty birds before darkness terminated the sport.
The remarkable tameness of all the water-fowl struck our foresters, for unless when being actively pursued, both geese, ducks, and smaller water-birds would simply swim a few yards away from the bank on the approach of a human being, and this when the whole lake was thickly covered with them.
By dint of long practice the white men at last succeeded in using the boomerang effectively; the spear came to them much more readily; but the boomerang required far greater patience and practice to learn than they could have conceived possible. At length they could hurl it even to the satisfaction of the natives.
They had been told by men on board the Young Austral that a black fellow could so hurl a boomerang that it should cut off his enemy’s head, and then, after taking a little circular flight, presumably to examine the country, return obediently to the feet of its master. Their tribe soon exploded this absurd fable, for they showed them that when the weapon struck full, there it stayed; if it glanced off an object it might terminate its flight anywhere; if it met with no resistance they had to go after it and pick it up. But they also showed them one or two other boomerangs, which, owing to some unseen peculiarity in the cutting, did come back, in this way. A group of seven tall trees grew on the edge of a water-hole, which was situated on a plain close to the camp. An able-bodied black beckoned the brothers to follow him; then, taking his stand some thirty yards from the trees, he selected three boomerangs. Taking a short run, he cast one so as to shape its course to the right of the clump of timber, the weapon whirled gracefully upwards, higher and higher, turned completely round the topmost branches to the left, and descended with a heavy thud to the feet of the thrower. The second failed in its perfect flight by striking a small twig, whilst the third was as great a success as the first.
The worst wound a boomerang could make (our brothers were informed) was by either of the sharp points entering; each end terminating in one of these.
That which Mat and Tim had all along been most anxious to learn was the art of making fire, and an opportunity soon presented itself.
One of the natives, who was recognized as the chief, and named “Dromoora,” a man who with his jin had always proved most staunch and friendly to the white men, invited them one day to go ’possum-hunting in some high ranges, a considerable distance from the camp.