Far Off; Or, Asia and Australia Described / With Anecdotes and Illustrations

by Favell Lee Mortimer

This black was as faithful, as he was affectionate. Once he was sent by a farmer on a message. It was this, "Take this letter to my brother, and he will give you sixpence, and then spend the sixpence in pipes for me." The black man took the letter, and went towards the place where the brother lived. He met him on horseback. The brother after reading the letter, rode away without giving the sixpence to the bearer. What was the poor black man to do? "Shall I go back," thought he, "without the pipes? No. I will try to get some money." He went to a house that he knew of, and offered to chop some wood for sixpence, and with that sixpence he bought the pipes. Was not this being a good servant? This was not eye-service; it was the service of the heart. But there are not many natives like this man. They are generally soon tired of working. For instance, a boy called Jackey, left a good master who would have provided for him, to live again wild in the woods, and went away with the blanket off his bed.

ANIMALS.—There are few of our animals in Australia, or of their animals in England. There is no hare, no rabbit, no nightingale, no thrush, in Australia. Once there were no horses, nor cows, nor sheep, nor pigs; but now there are a great many. Much terrified were the natives at the sight of the first horse which came from England; for they had never seen such a large animal before.

The largest beast in Australia is the Kangaroo, remarkable for its short fore-legs, and its great strong hind-legs, and for the pocket in which it shelters its little one. It is a gentle creature, and can be easily tamed. A pet kangaroo may often be seen walking about a settler's garden, cropping the grass upon the lawn. But though easily tamed, a wild kangaroo is not easily caught; for it makes immense springs in the air, far higher than a horse could leap, though it is not as big as a sheep. When hunted by dogs, it gets, when it can, into the water, and turning round, and standing still, dips the dogs, one by one, till it drowns them.

There is another beast, called the opossum, not much bigger than a large cat, and it also has a pocket for its young ones. But instead of cropping the grass, it eats the leaves of trees. It has a gentle face like a deer, and a long tail like a monkey. It hides itself, as the squirrel does, in the hollows of trees. Like the owl, it is never seen in the day, but at night it comes out to feed. The blacks are very cunning in finding out the holes where the opossums are hidden, and they know how to drag them out by their long tails, without getting bitten by their sharp teeth. With the skin of the opossum the natives make a cloak.

The wild dogs, or dingoes, are odious animals. They may be heard yelling at night to the terror of the shepherd, and the farmer. They are bold enough to rush into a yard, and to carry off a calf, or a pig; and when they have dragged it into the woods, they cruelly eat the legs first, and do not kill it for a long while.

These three—the kangaroo, the opossum, and the dingo,—are the principal beasts of Australia.

Among the birds, the emu is the most remarkable. It is nearly as tall as an ostrich, and has beautiful soft feathers, though not as beautiful as the ostrich's. But the most curious point in the emu is,—it has no tongue. You may suppose, therefore, that it is neither a singing bird, nor a talking bird; it only makes a little noise in its throat. But if it is silent, there are numbers of parrots, and cockatoos, to fill the air with their screams. In England, these birds are thought a great deal of, but in Australia, they are killed to make into pies, or into soup. Parrot-pie and cockatoo-soup, are common dishes there. However, many of the parrots and cockatoos, are caught by the blacks, and sold to the English, who send them to England in the ships.

There are not such singing birds in Australia, as there are here. Though there is a robin red-breast there, he does not sing as sweetly as he does here. But there are laughing birds in Australia. There is a bird called the "laughing jackass." He laughs very loud three times a day. He begins in the morning;—suddenly a hoarse loud laugh is heard,—then another, then another,—till a whole troop of birds seem laughing all together, and go on laughing for a few minutes;—and then they are all quiet again. Such a noise must awaken many a sleeper on his bed. At noon the laugh is heard again. At evening there is another general fit of laughter. These birds are not like children, who laugh at no particular hour, but often twenty times a day. The laughing jackass is almost as useful as a clock, and it is called, "the bushman's clock."