At our Emu Tank all the outside surface water was gone, the tank only holding some. Our three horses greatly reduced its volume, and, fearing it would all evaporate before we could return, we cut a quantity of bushes and sticks to protect it from the sun. Remounting, we now made for the native clay-hole that we had avoided in going out. The outside water was now all but gone, but the hole still contained some, though not sufficient for all the horses; we set to work and chopped out another hole with a tomahawk, and drained all the thick water off the clay-pan into it. Then we cut boughs, bushes, and sticks to cover them, and proceeded homewards. On reaching the ten-mile or kangaroo tank, we found to our disgust that the water was nearly all gone, and our original tank not large enough, so we chopped out another and drained all the surplus water into it. Then the boughs and bushes and sticks for a roof must be got, and by the time this was finished we were pretty well sick of tank making. Our hands were blistered, our arms were stiff, and our whole bodies bathed in streams of perspiration, though it was a comparatively cool day. We reached home very late on the 13th, having left the range on the 10th. I was glad to hear that the natives had not troubled the camp in my absence. Another circumstance gratified us also, and that was, Gibson had shot a large wallaby; we had not tasted meat since we left on the 7th.
[ILLUSTRATION 19]
ATTACK AT FORT MUELLER.
To-day, 14th, we were getting all our packs and things ready for a start into the new and northern regions, when at eleven a.m. Mr. Tietkens gave the alarm that all the rocks overhead were lined with natives, who began to utter the most direful yells so soon as they found themselves discovered. Their numbers were much larger than before, and they were in communication with others in the tea-tree on the opposite side of the creek, whose loud and inharmonious cries made even the heavens to echo with their sounds. They began operations by poising their spears and waving us away. We waited for some little time, watching their movements, with our rifles in our hands. A flight of spears came crashing through the flimsy sides of our house, the roof and west gable being the only parts thickly covered, and they could see us jumping about inside to avoid their spears. Then a flight of spears came from the concealed enemy in the tea-tree. Mr. Tietkens and I rushed out, and fired right into the middle of the crowd. From the rocks behind which they hid, they sent another flight of spears; how we escaped them I can't imagine. In the meantime Gibson and Jimmy were firing through the boughs, and I decided that it was for us to take the aggressive. We rushed up the rocks after the enemy, when they seemed to drop like caterpillars, as instantaneously, they were all down underneath us right at the camp. I was afraid they would set fire to it; we however finally drove them from our stronghold, inducing them to decamp more or less the worse, and leave behind them a considerable quantity of military stores, in the shape of spears, wommerahs, waddies, wallabies' skins, owls, fly-flappers, red ochre, and numerous other minor valuables. These we brought in triumph to the camp. It always distressed me to have to fire at these savages, and it was only when our lives were in most imminent danger that we did so, for, as Iago says, though in the trade of war I have slain men, yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience to do no contrived murder. I lack iniquity, sometimes, to do me service. We then went on with our work, though expecting our foes to return, but we were not again molested, as they now probably thought we were vipers that would not stand too much crowding.
Three horses were missing, therefore we could not leave that day, and when they were found on the next, it was too late to start. I tied one of these wretches up all night, so as to get the mob early to-morrow. I was very uneasy about the water in our tanks, as every hour's delay was of the greatest consequence. I had no very great regret at leaving this depot, except that I had not been able to push out more than 150 miles to the west from it. I now thought by going to the new northern range, that my progress thence might be easier. We may perhaps have paid the passing tribute of a sigh at leaving our little gardens, for the seeds planted in most of them had grown remarkably well. The plants that throve best here were Indian gram, maize, peas, spinach, pumpkins, beans, and cucumbers; melons also grew pretty well, with turnips and mustard. Only two wattles out of many dozens sown here came up, and no eucalypts have appeared, although the seeds of many different kinds were set. Gibson had been most indefatigable in keeping the little gardens in order, and I believe was really grieved to leave them, but the inexorable mandates of circumstance and duty forced us from our pleasant places, to wander into ampler realms and spaces, where no foot has left its traces. Departing, still we left behind us some lasting memorials of our visit to this peculiar place, which, though a city of refuge to us, was yet a dangerous and a dreadful home. The water supply was now better than when we arrived.
“Our fount disappearing,
From the rain-drop did borrow,
To me comes great cheering,
I leave it to-morrow.”
There were a number of opossums here which often damaged the garden produce in the night. There were various dull-plumaged small birds, with hawks, crows, and occasionally ducks, and one abominable croaking creature at night used to annoy me exceedingly, and though I often walked up the glen I could never discover what sort of bird it was. It might have been a raven; yes, a raven never flitting may be sitting, may be sitting, on those shattered rocks of wretchedness—on that Troglodytes' shore, where in spirit I may wander, o'er those arid regions yonder; but where I wish to squander, time and energies no more. Though a most romantic region, its toils and dangers legion, my memory oft besieging, what time cannot restore; again I hear the shocks of the shattering of the rocks, see the wallabies in flocks, all trembling at the roar, of the volcanic reverberations, or seismatic detonations, which peculiar sensations I wish to know no more. The horses were mustered at last, and at length we were about to depart, not certainly in the direction I should have wished to go, but still to something new.
Fort Mueller, of course, was named after my kind friend the Baron*, who was a personal contributor to the fund for this expedition. It was really the most astonishing place it has ever been my fortune to visit. Occasionally one would hear the metallic sounding clang, of some falling rock, smashing into the glen below, toppled from its eminence by some subterranean tremour or earthquake shock, and the vibrations of the seismatic waves would precipitate the rocks into different groups and shapes than they formerly possessed. I had many strange, almost superstitious feelings with regard to this singular spot, for there was always a strange depression upon my spirits whilst here, arising partly perhaps from the constant dread of attacks from the hostile natives, and partly from the physical peculiarities of the region itself.
“On all there hung a shadow and a fear,
A sense of mystery, the spirit daunted,
And said, as plain as whisper in the ear,
This region's haunted.”