Now this was a serious quandary. I had used up all my German that seemed suitable for the occasion.
I struggled with memory for a few moments.
Ah, yes! "Hast die das Schloss?"
He shook his head, and said, "Er," in disgust.
Beyond this I could not go. It was, perhaps, just as well. Later on I knew what "German blackfellow" meant. When a white man can't make himself understood the 'bout camp black (who knows he speaks pure English) says, disdainfully:—"What 'im pfeller talk? 'Im German, me tink it."
So it comes about that the "German blackfellow," is the blackfellow who no speak it Inglis—the "myall," the wild-fellow.
* * * *
Having cycled what I counted on as being the 15 miles, and while yet looking ahead expecting at any moment to catch sight of the Renner Springs station buildings, I was surprised to hear much shouting and many strange cries. A ridge chain ran parallel with the track, a quarter of a mile off, on my left-hand side; and in the bushes a little way out from this a dozen or more wurlies had been erected. From the vicinity of these wurlies scores of natives were now pouring, laughing, screaming, and yelling to each other to hurry up and see the circus. They had observed me before I had sighted them and were running towards a bend in the road ahead of me.
I slowed down; and as they were so considerate as to hoot back their yelping dogs, and as the pedalling operation appeared to divert them hugely (I believe they had never witnessed anything half so funny in their lives before), I stopped when part way along the line they formed to give them a better chance of satisfying to its full their very patent curiosity.