We reached Wiluna, the township of Lake Way, next day, and found it a very nice little place. There are three hotels and stores, and I was surprised to find everything so nice away up in the wilds of the West. There is plenty of fresh water in this district and several nice gardens. Watermelons grow splendidly, and, with the thermometer at 114°, are very welcome. Tomatoes also grow in profusion, and several people are growing fruit and vegetables as a business, so that Lake Way is not a bad place in which to find oneself. There are many good mines, turning out handsome yields, and companies have recently been floated in London to take over several properties here. The chief characteristics of the reefs are evenness of quality, great wealth, and permanency. A very nice cake of gold, weighing 145 ounces, from one of the claims was shown me; it came from a claim called The Brothers.
The people about Wiluna are, in spite of the heat of the climate, very fond of dancing. It really is almost their only amusement. The evening of our arrival a ball was held; it might truly be termed a Bachelors’ Ball, for so few of the opposite sex are in the district; however, the boys, as they are termed, arrived in great force, their dancing costumes being riding breeches and coloured shirts, with turned down collars and broad hats, real “back blocks” costume. As it was a very hot and bright moonlight night, they danced on the open plain, and seemed to enjoy themselves thoroughly. At about 9 o’clock a terrific shouting and native yabber, yabber (talk) from a part of the Bush, where a tribe of aborigines were encamped, gave token of rival amusement. The natives were holding a Corroboree. They had camped at Wiluna, but were travelling to some particular part of the country, where a favourite large grub, which they used for food, was to be found in quantities. Natives always travel from place to place in search of food, and they know the parts in which the different kinds will be plentiful or in season.
KANGAROO
Copyright—Gambier Bolton
Wishing to see a Corroboree dance, I, with some of the onlookers of the Bachelors’ Ball, migrated to the camp. The black fellows, who had ornamented their heads and kangaroo-skin garment with what feathers and tufts of grass they could obtain and coloured their faces and bodies with wilgey, were leaping up in the air, with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other, and contorting their bodies in most grotesque fashion to the accompaniment of native music supplied by some of the men of the tribe, who squatted on the ground chanting strange sounds and beating sticks, while the lubras (wives), gins (girls), and pickaninnies (children) sat or lay around, making a fearful noise and clapping their hands vigorously. In the light of the camp fire it was a novel and weird sight, but a little of it sufficed me. Before leaving, the head man of the tribe threw the boomerang, which is a native weapon shaped like a quarter-moon, and so constructed that it assumes a return motion at the will of the native who throws it. It really was wonderful to hear it whirr as it started through the air to a great distance and height, and then come back to exactly the same place it started from. The boomerang is not so unique as many people think; a weapon almost the same was used by the Abyssinians hundreds of years ago, and still earlier by the people of ancient Egypt.
The journey from Lake Way to Nannine, over 120 miles of rather barren country, was one to be remembered. No coach having yet been started on this route, I was fortunate in being able to join a party of people, including two ladies, who were going there in their own conveyances; they had been in the “back-blocks” for four years, and thought it time to take a holiday, especially as their husbands had made over £6000 each from their mines, and had given them £500 each to go to Victoria, see their friends, and have a good time, as I have no doubt they did. We camped out for four nights, but the weather was fine, and it was very pleasant to be under a canopy of stars, although towards morning it got pretty cold. The two ladies took it in turn to do the cooking, and would not hear of my doing anything, saying it would be a pity to roughen my hands, which, by the way, were becoming almost as brown as theirs. I quite enjoyed the bush-cooking. Johnny cake or “damper,” as it is called here, cooked in the wood-ashes, is very nice, especially with good butter, which we had in tins. Then there were plenty of wild turkeys about, some of which were shot for us. My companions had brought some tinned asparagus also, so, taking it altogether, our manna in the desert was not to be despised. We met a few aborigines during our journey, but they were generally very quiet and only asked for bacca and food. The lubras were carrying their pickaninnies in a coota (bag) on their backs (this is their usual custom except in the colder parts of the colony, where they are supplied with blankets and also with rations); they were also carrying sticks and some freshly killed birds. The women always have to carry all the burdens, their lords and masters stalking on ahead with their spears, no doubt on the look-out for game.
