The two managers, brothers, were absent; but I had had full permission to "make myself at home at Newcastle waters" from one of them—I had met him travelling southwards between Tennant's and Powell's Creeks, and, as I said, had been generously treated by him.
The buildings, of which there are perhaps half-a-dozen—store, kitchen, men's sleeping room, manager's dwelling and others, as well as sheds—had all been designed and erected with an eye to use rather than to ornament. A garden close by is tendered to by a very civil Chinaman, I noticed only one blackfellow about the place.
Here I spent two happy days, eating, sleeping, writing and reading; taking no account of the time, absolutely unconscious of day or date, nor troubling about such inconsequential matters; I was right, the bike was right, so all was right as right could be.
Leaving the station, the creek must be re-crossed to get to the track which runs northwards to Daly Waters (82 miles). To this track the thoughtful Chinaman ordered the station blackfellow to lead me—thoughtful, because the maze of tracks and pads was slightly bewildering. Here for once was the yellow man superior over the black. But, ordinarily, there is no love lost between them. Each views the other with a magnificent contempt.
To one of the blackboys in the service of a traveller, I said at nighttime, pointing to a place where someone, camping, had made a comfortable bed of dry grass, (the blackboy was peering around for a sleeping place.)
"Why you not sleep over there Johnny?"
"No fea," he replied; "Him Chinaman make it that one."
Or he may have only meant that it was too luxurious.
* * * *