Trade and Travel in the Far East / or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, / Singapore, Australia and China.

by G. F. Davidson

Those parts of the Colony most distant from the capital, are, naturally, most annoyed by bad characters of all description; and many of the settlers trust to their own strength, more than to the police, to defend their property. A friend of mine residing in Wellington Valley, three hundred and fifty miles west of Sidney, used to arm himself and his groom, and sally out in search of any desperate character he might have heard of as being in the neighbourhood: he was more than once successful, and became quite a noted man among the Bush-ranging fraternity, who took good care to keep at a respectable distance from him. Were some other settlers blessed with as much nerve and courage as the gentleman I allude to, Bush-rangers would soon become less numerous.

A settler's life in an agricultural district, is pleasant enough, but it has its drawbacks. A season of drought makes sad work in his fields, and among his flocks. In the season of 1838-39, water became so scarce, that many of the best pasture-lands in our neighbourhood were of necessity abandoned, and the sheep as well as cattle were kept down on the banks of the river, then reduced to a mere chain of pools, the intervening channel being quite dry. The herbage was completely eaten up, and the trees in many parts were cut down, in order that the hungry animals might eat the leaves. One of my neighbours, to save his flocks, turned them on his half-grown crop of wheat, by which means he saved some thousands of sheep, but lost his wheat. Tens of thousands of sheep and cattle, all over the country, died during this season; and grain crops failed everywhere, except on the banks of my three favourite rivers; namely, the Hunter, the Paterson, and the Allyn. There was scarcely a settler on either of these rivers, that had not a little to spare; while, in less favoured parts of the Colony, the farmer had to pay enormous prices for flour to feed his men; and the cart-hire came to nearly as much as the cost of the flour. I knew one gentleman who despatched from Sydney four drays loaded with stores for his stations near Bathurst, each dray drawn by seven oxen; and so great was the scarcity of water and fodder on the road, that only four of the poor animals reached their journey's end, the others having died on the road from sheer starvation. Flour rose during this season to 60l. per ton, and the quartern loaf in Sydney was sold at 3s. 4d.

One of the greatest discomforts attendant upon a summer's residence in the bush of Australia, arises from the swarms of flies, large and small, that infest the house. The large blow-fly is a serious nuisance: many a good joint of meat they spoil, in spite of every precaution. These insects find their way everywhere, and destroy whatever they come near. In the dairy, the greatest care is necessary to prevent these pests from reaching the milk and butter, which they will taint in a second. Scarcely less of a plague than the swarms of flies, are the myriads of fleas which torment the tired farmer, and cheat him out of many an hour's sleep: these noisome disturbers are in the soil, and not all the care the best housewife can bestow, can diminish the number.

While on the subject of the settler's troubles, I may mention, that the cockatoos annoy the farmer in Australia, as much as the crows do in England: they attack his wheat and maize when the grain is ripening, by hundreds; indeed, I may say, by thousands; and it requires a very active watchman to keep them from doing serious injury to the crop, not so much from the quantity they eat, as from what they destroy and scatter. These birds, which, by the bye, furnish an excellent dish that occasionally formed part of our dinner, are remarkably cunning: while the flock are busily feeding on the farmer's wheat, two of their number are left on some neighbouring trees to keep watch; these, on the approach of danger, give a loud, shrill scream, which at once puts the thieves to flight, and renders it very difficult for the sportsman to get a shot at one of them. Besides the common white red-crested cockatoo, the woods are the home of the black species; a rare bird, that I have never seen elsewhere. Those brought to Singapore by the Celebes traders, are a bastard species. On what they feed, I am not aware, never having seen them in the wheat or maize fields. During the winter months, neither white nor black cockatoos are to be seen; nor have I ever heard to what place they migrate. The bird-fancier might here make as beautiful a collection as I have ever seen. The different varieties of the parrot tribe are countless, and extremely pretty: the king-parrot, the lowrie, and the mountain parrot, are, perhaps, the most beautiful. Then, there is the pretty little diamond sparrow, so called from its size, its habits, resembling those of the common sparrow, and its plumage, which exhibits a diamond pattern of black, white, and blue. Of the hawk tribe, the varieties are numerous: the largest is the eagle-hawk, which now and then carries off a lamb from the flocks of careless shepherds. Were I an ornithologist, I might write a goodly volume on the birds of this country; but I must content myself with these few notices; not forgetting, however, to mention the stately black swan, a bird becoming every year more rare.

We used frequently to be visited by tribes of the aboriginal inhabitants of this vast continent. They are, without exception, the most complete savages I have ever come across. They have no homes, no occupation beyond procuring food for the day, and think nothing of to-morrow, which they literally leave to take care of itself. They resist almost every attempt to induce them to labour, and, if clothed to-day by some good Samaritan, will, in all probability, appear naked at his door to-morrow, having given away their clothes to some convict, in exchange for a pound of flour or an ounce of tobacco. In their habits, they are literally wanderers on the face of the earth, shifting their camp from place to place as game grows scarce. In rainy weather, the only precaution I ever saw them take, with a view to protect themselves from wet, was the building a small hut, not much larger than a bee-hive, constructed of the boughs of trees, with a small aperture on one side, into which the "black-fellow"[17] thrusts his head and shoulders, and sleeps as sound as a top, his legs and the lower half of his body being exposed to wind and rain. In winter, they may be seen encamped round a fire after their day's hunting, all naked, and stretched on the ground, with their feet towards the fire; the men smoking, if they have any thing to smoke, and the wretched-looking women composing themselves to sleep in the same natural state as their lords and masters.[18] They suffer much, occasionally, from hunger, and may then be induced to do a day's work about the farm, for which they will consider themselves well paid by a pound of flour and an ounce of tobacco each. This reward must not be given them, however, till their work is done: give it beforehand, and not a hand's turn will they do, but decamp at once to enjoy their dinner. As soon as they have eaten their bread, they light the pipes, and never cease smoking till their tobacco is finished. Some of the men are remarkably well made, and strong, able-bodied fellows. One who spent a week now and then in my kitchen, doing any thing the cook told him, for the promise of a supper, was a tall, good-looking fellow, named Jamie. They are one and all christened in the bush by any European they may ask for a name. A father applied to me one day for a name for his little boy, and I forthwith called him "Donald;" at which the old man and the rest of the tribe laughed heartily, saying, "All same your horse." I had then a pony called Donald. To resume: Jamie was frequently clothed by me, and was asked to sleep in the kitchen, or in one of the out-offices, but all to no purpose: his clothes, he never kept a week, and he invariably took his departure at sun-set to sleep in the open air. In our district, I believe, the blacks were harmless people; but, on the Upper Hunter, on Liverpool Plains, they have been not only very troublesome, but even dangerous neighbours. Many settlers have suffered severely from their depredations; and several shepherds and stock-keepers have been murdered by them. Would they content themselves with killing a single bullock or two or three sheep, when suffering from hunger, one might excuse them; but I have known twenty-five cows killed by a single tribe in one night, the fat and kidneys taken away, and the carcases left on the ground. This, to say the least of it, was a mischievous waste of property; and such proceedings naturally led the settlers to retaliate. The consequences were serious, and led to extreme measures, ending, in more than one instance, in bloodshed. There seems to be no room for doubt, that many of these poor creatures have been murdered by stock-keepers on the mere suspicion of being concerned in such crimes. This fact, however, does not justify the Government in offering a hundred pounds reward for the discovery of the offender, when a black happens to be murdered by a white, and only twenty-five pounds reward, when the murderer is black, and the victim white.

What would my fair countrywomen say to the "black-fellow's" mode of taking unto himself a wife? On making up his mind as to the object of his choice, he proceeds by night to the camping-ground of the fair one's tribe; searches her out among the sleeping beauties; deals her a blow on the head with his club, (to which an Irishman's shillelah is a twig,) and carries off the stunned and senseless wretch to his own camp. This ceremony makes them man and wife, and no further notice is taken of the affair. The different tribes are constantly at war: but I have never heard of any very serious consequences arising from their feuds. The day of battle is generally spent in painting themselves red, dancing the war-dance in presence of their foes, and, probably, exchanging a few spears towards its close. Their arms consist of spears, clubs, and the boomerang. The latter is a very extraordinary weapon, which they throw to a great distance, making it return to the thrower when it has described its revolution, and probably hit some unfortunate wight on the head in its course through the air. This weapon is of hard wood, about three feet long, two inches broad, a quarter of an inch thick, and in the form of a crescent: it is thrown against the wind, and describes a circle in its course. The spear is of cane, hardened by fire at the end, and is thrown with great force and dexterity. No black who can by any means obtain a tomahawk, is ever without one, generally of English make: with this, they are very expert at felling trees, and, with its aid, will climb a tree which it would take two pair of arms to encircle. The "black-fellow" cuts a small notch about three feet from the ground; in this, he inserts the toe of one foot, holding on by one hand while he cuts another hole three feet further up to receive the other foot; and thus he proceeds till he reaches the top. The dead trees of Australia, which are all hollow, are a favourite resort of the opossum. In search of them, the black-fellow will ascend a tree in the manner just described; and there he will sit while his companions below dig under the roots, and light a fire, the smoke from which ascending the trunk of the tree, as a chimney, speedily dislodges the game. This is dexterously pounced upon by "blacky," the moment its head appears peeping from the aperture at the top of some of the branches. I have never known the tomahawk thrown by them, as it is by the Indian of America.

My family was once thrown into considerable alarm by an ill-looking tribe of blacks who formed their camp immediately in front of our cottage: they were strangers, and had no business there. On making inquiries about them, I found that they came from a neighbouring district, and were endeavouring to evade the police, who were in search of them for the murder of an unfortunate shepherd. Not at all liking such neighbours, I took advantage of their absence, one day, when they were gone kangaroo-hunting, and set fire to their bee-hive huts. On their return at sun-set, they took the hint, and we saw no more of them.

Among these tribes, it is a rule, that blood must be had for blood; and this leads them, when one of their number falls by the hand of a white man, to kill the first European they happen to meet, in retaliation. It would scarcely be reasonable to expect these ignorant savages to see the injustice of this proceeding; yet, it is hard, that an unoffending person like the shepherd above referred to should be slaughtered in revenge of the murder of a man he had never seen.

The number of dialects, or apparently different languages, spoken by the aborigines of Australia, is very remarkable. Those residing in and about Sydney cannot converse with those on the Hunter, who, in their turn, are ignorant of the dialect spoken on Liverpool Plains; and this is the case throughout the Colony. When Sir Edward Parry was manager of the Australian Agricultural Company's affairs, he made a tour of inspection through its estates, taking with him some few black followers as guides. They were not fifty miles from their home, when, to Sir Edward's astonishment, he heard them speaking English to their countrymen of the districts through which they were passing. On inquiring the reason, he was told, that the two parties were entirely ignorant of each other's language.

I never could make out the religious notions of these aboriginal tribes, further than that they believe in a future state. They do not appear to have much affection for their children, if one may judge from the way in which they treat them; yet, the mother bemoans the loss of one of her little ones very piteously, daubs her face and arms with lime in token of mourning, and spends many days in the neighbourhood of the grave. In common with all savage nations, the Australian blacks treat their women ill. These poor creatures get the worst of all their food, with the hardest of all their work; and are frequently very severely beaten by their hard and ruthless taskmasters. Degraded as are these aborigines generally, those in the immediate vicinity of Sydney are a more abject race than their more fortunate brethren who inhabit the distant parts of the Colony. This may be partly, if not wholly accounted for, by the facility with which at Sydney they can obtain ardent spirits, to procure which they will do almost any thing. I have never seen human beings elsewhere reduced to a state of such utter degradation and misery as these poor people exhibit. To shew how much they dislike any thing like labour, I may mention, that Government, on one occasion, set aside a piece of land for a tribe near Sydney, and had it cleared, tilled, and planted with maize for their use, exacting from them a promise that they would tend the growing corn, keep it clean, and gather the crop when ripe: they did neither the one nor the other, but, when called on to gather the grain that was to be their own, said, it was too much trouble. The result was, that the corn was plucked for them; and no further attempt was made to induce them to work.