“They believe in dragons, great serpents, and other wonders, and if you are inclined to laugh at them for their beliefs, you must remember that all the rest of the world shared in them two or three hundred years ago. The creature in which they have the greatest faith is the bun-yip, which is supposed to haunt rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water, and possesses remarkable powers. According to their description, he is like a dragon; he devours black and white people indiscriminately, and can cause all sorts of misfortune. Many natives, and also quite a number of white men, claim to have seen him, and they certainly give some very graphic accounts of his appearance and actions. Not long ago an account appeared in one of the Australian newspapers, written by a white man and certified to by another white man, who claim to have actually seen the bun-yip in a small lake, and described him very minutely.”
“And was the story really true?” Harry asked.
“Well, yes, I suppose it was. That is to say, I believe, as do many others, that there is an amphibious animal living in some of the Australian lakes and rivers of which no specimen has yet been taken. The description of the bun-yip by those who claim to have seen him, and are not carried away by their imaginations, is very much like that of a Newfoundland dog or a seal. The seal exists in Australian waters, and I think that is what the bun-yip will turn out to be if one ever allows himself to be taken.”
At the station at the end of the line of railway there was an encampment of blacks, about half a mile away, and our young friends were quite curious to see it.
Their curiosity was soon satisfied, as there was nothing particularly attractive about the spot. The blacks were civilized enough to live in tents, or, rather, they accepted the bounty of the government which supplied them with tents, though it was evident that they did not intend to give up their old way of living, inasmuch as they had two or three bark shelters of the old-fashioned sort, in addition to the canvas house supplied by the government. And we may remark here that the various colonial governments provide for the support of all the aboriginals living within their territory. Government officials take care of them, supply them with food, clothing, and medical comforts, and assign reservations of land to them, just as the Indian Department of the United States assigns reservations to the red men. But with all the care they receive, their number is steadily diminishing, and the day is not far distant when the last of them will cease to exist.
A man who could speak the language of the aboriginals accompanied our young friends in their visit to the encampment. At Harry’s request, he arranged with the men to give an exhibition of their skill in throwing the spear, and after that was over he asked them to throw the boomerang. While they were getting ready for their performance the interpreter explained that the boomerang was a great deal of a mystery. He said that no white man, even after years of practise, had ever been able to throw this weapon with any degree of accuracy, and that no Australian black could explain how the weapon was handled. If you ask one of them to explain about throwing the boomerang, he usually says, “You throw him, that all”; and that seems to be all there is to it.
Ned and Harry watched the performance with the greatest care, and they afterwards said that they knew as much about it before they witnessed it as they did afterwards, with the exception that they had seen with their own eyes what could be done.
“First, you must understand,” said Ned afterwards, “that there are several kinds of boomerangs, the difference being in size, weight, and shape. The variations in shape are so slight that they are not readily perceived by the stranger, though a black would have no difficulty in determining them. The lightest of the boomerangs weigh from four to five ounces, while the heaviest are double that weight. Harry happened to have his spring letter-balance in his pocket, and we weighed one of the boomerangs that we saw used. Its weight was about six ounces and our interpreter said that he considered it rather a light one.”
“The heaviest boomerangs are used for fighting purposes and for killing kangaroos, emus, and other large game.
“The boomerang is a queerly shaped weapon. It is made of hard wood and curved like a bow, the curve from point to point being about a quarter of a circle. The piece of wood that forms the boomerang is about half an inch thick, and in the middle it is two and one half inches wide, narrowing steadily towards the end. I took it in my hand and made a motion as if to throw it, whereupon the owner laughed, and indicated by signs that I had seized it by the wrong end.