We were going to have fowls for dinner, which always meant great fun for the blacks. The whole camp generally appeared with sticks and stones, and when the cook had pointed out which fowls were to be caught, a most exciting chase took place. Off the birds went at the first alarm, followed by a shrieking, yelling crowd, flying over and under everything, and dodging round corners, till they were at last run down. I tried often to prevent it, but no matter how carefully the birds were shut up over night, they always managed to get out. The blacks enjoyed the chase so thoroughly that I suspect the fowls were assisted in their escape. Bett-Bett and Sue were of course in the worst of it this day, and by some mishap a stone, meant for one of the fowls, struck Sue on the front legs. She ran yelping and limping to Bett-Bett, and then I heard shrieks of—
“Missus! Missus! Sue bin break him arm. Stone bin kill him,” and they both appeared at the door. I took the poor little dog, and found it was only too true; one of her arms—as the blacks insist on calling the front legs—was hanging limp and broken. I bound it up as well as I could, and Bett-Bett cried piteously because I hurt the little creature.
When everything was made quite comfortable, she took Sue and sat nursing and crooning over her all the morning.
In the afternoon the Maluka and I were starting out for a ride, when Bett-Bett appeared with the lubras.
They were going to travel “per boot” or on foot. Slung across Bett-Bett’s back was a most ingenious sack-like affair, and from it peeped Sue’s comical little face; for Bett-Bett could not bear either to leave her at home, or to see her limping about.
We were only going about three miles, and as it was too rough and too hot to travel quickly, the lubras kept up with us easily. I noticed that Murraweedbee was with them, and was still dragging her branch. I asked her if she had seen anything of her husband, and she said— “You eye. Him Monkey longa Willeroo.”
Then I was told that Murraweedbee was really our Big Jack’s lubra, but that Monkey had carried her off, the day that we had found Bett-Bett. Monkey had been very cruel to her, and so she had watched her chance and run back to Jack. It was a most interesting love-story, and the exciting part was that Monkey was supposed to be somewhere rather near. Suspicious tracks had been seen. When we arrived at the Warlock Ponds—our destination—we found that some of the homestead blacks were there—all lubras, gathering lily-roots for their husbands’ supper.
When lubras go “looking out lily-root,” as they call it, they take with them tiny little wooden canoes, about two feet long, called coolamuns. They leave these floating about on the top of the water, while they themselves drop down to the bottom for the bulbs. As soon as their hands are full, they come up again, and putting the roots into the little vessels, disappear for more.
The Warlocks are always very beautiful ponds, all fringed round with pandanus palms, and dotted everywhere with magnificent purple waterlilies, but this day they looked like a peep into fairyland. As I sat on my horse looking at it, I thought I had never seen anything prettier than the little, dainty, rocking canoes, sailing among the blossoms, as the bobbing, curly, black heads of the lubras appeared and disappeared.