BATHING OFF JETTY AT YARRABAH
After dinner comes play-time for a while in which all are free to amuse themselves in any way they like. Then work again till service time at 7. Then follows supper, then night prayers in their homes, then bed. The life at Yarrabah might well be described as a life of honourable work, and innocent recreation hallowed by Christian worship. What a wonderful contrast it all is to the wild undisciplined life of the aboriginals in the bush. The contrast almost reminds us of that wonderful story in the Gospels which tells of the poor wild maniac of Gergesa whose savage yells were the terror of the whole surrounding neighbourhood. People were afraid to go near him, and "no man could tame him." He wore no clothes, he had no fixed dwelling-place, and often cut himself with stones. But One came where He was and had compassion on him and commanded the evil spirits to leave him. The Voice was a Voice of Power, and when next we see him he is "sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind." Is not this just exactly what has happened at Yarrabah where the Lord Jesus has indeed worked a wonderful miracle, delivering those poor wild aborigines from the bondage of evil spirits and causing them to sit in love and wonder as changed men "at His feet"?
CHAPTER XV TRUBANAMAN CREEK
We step on to our magic carpet once again and after bidding an affectionate farewell to Yarrabah are soon flying through the air across some beautiful tropical forests till we come to land almost on the eastern shores of the great gulf of Carpentaria, eleven miles south of the Mitchell River, at a spot called Trubanaman Creek, where another mission was established just eight years ago. It is four hundred miles from Yarrabah, and there is no mission in between.
There are six tribes of fierce natives within reach of the mission. The men are strong stalwart fellows who have come very little into contact with white men. Some of them carry knives of sharks' teeth which they use chiefly for the purpose of making the women do their will. There are numbers of children, and it is these children whom the missionaries are specially trying to induce to come and live with them to be taught.
When the missionaries went to live there nothing but the wild bush was around them. As Mr Matthews, the Head of the Mission has said, "the hoot of the kookaburra (laughing-jackass), the howl of the dingo (wild dog), or the shout of the wild man were the only early morning noises." A few buildings were put up and after a time a few men and boys came in. Some of these were sick or suffering from wounds, and their wounds were carefully attended to and dressed. They went back to their tribe and told what had been done for them and of the good and regular food they had received from the white men down at the creek. The news spread, others came in, the sick for treatment, the whole for food. Many ran away again unable to endure the monotony of a settled and ordered life, but some remained. To-day there are about a hundred residents.
The most conspicuous and the central building on the settlement is the church, which like that at Yarrabah is of wood and has been built by the people themselves. Some trees were cut down, sawn into planks at the mission's own steam saw-mill, which the men work themselves, and so the material was prepared. The furniture and fittings, too, are all of aboriginal workmanship. The services are very similar to those at Yarrabah and every day begins and ends with public worship.