Part 9
About four o’clock every afternoon great preparations for the tramp after snipe begin. Strong boots are needed, for the shores of the lakes seem strewn with extremely rough and sharp little stones, and the rocks are cruelly pointed. Breakwinds or shelters of brushwood have been built on most of the little spits of shingle, which here and there jut out into the lakes, and a sportsman can thus creep up behind them to a favourite feeding-place. For after a week or two the snipe become exceedingly wild and shy, and it would be difficult to get near them. They generally feed in the middle of the lakes far out of shot, and even when they are closer into the shore, no one without the help of these breakwinds could get near them with a gun. There appears always to be a friendly little gull or two feeding close by, whose sharp eyes give the alarm directly; and after you have cautiously and carefully stalked a feeding flock nearly to within range, up gets the screaming gull, alarms the snipe, then comes a whirr and wheeling rise of slender bird-forms from the blue water, and away they all sweep over the low hills, or across the stony shores, to settle down again a couple of miles farther off. It is very tantalising, and all the guns, generally three or four every evening, seldom succeed in bringing me in more than I absolutely need for next day’s larder.
Some hares are still to be seen on the island, and I have constantly caught a glimpse of them feeding at sunset on the open glades. But they have been shot down so much in former years that it is necessary to give them two or three years’ protection, so no one shoots them now. I have turned out several pairs of guinea-fowl, remembering what good sport they gave at Rodrigues, but I fear the numerous hawks and wild-cats will prevent much increase.
The wild ducks come down to the water-holes in the early morning and late at night, and sometimes allow the sportsmen to get a shot at them; but they require very careful stalking, for they are even more wild and shy than the snipe, and still more on the alert. I am always glad when the shooters bring me in a duck, but it is rather a rare occurrence. Pater does so oftener than any one else, for he has learned by constantly going after them how best to get near; but I confess I don’t think any duck can be worth the trouble he and the other gentlemen take. Such crawling, almost on their faces, through grass and low bushes, dragging their guns after them, such patient watching, such early rising, and such late long tramps home at dark, after what has literally been a “wild _duck_ chase.”
Sometimes the snipe or ducks fall, when shot, in the very middle of the lake, so the gentlemen always take a couple of native prisoners with them to act as retrievers. The men delight in the excursion, and it is always made a reward for good behaviour. They are keen sportsmen and keep a sharp look-out for what they call “big fellow” (that is, ducks), and also for “’nipe.” Their delight and astonishment at a successful shot is great, and they are always eager to wade or swim out to bring the birds in. After they come back, a stick or two of tobacco sends them home blissfully happy. I have not time this mail to tell you about the natives, but you shall have a letter about them next month. I must finish about the shooting this time.
It would amuse you to watch, as I do, a hawk who comes out every evening. I am sure he watches us at tea in the verandah and sees the gentlemen collecting their cartridges and looking at their guns, and generally getting themselves ready. The moment we (the puppy and I generally walk with the least ardent of the sportsmen, who are not likely to want to go too far!) get clear of the house and paddock, and set our faces towards the lake, the hawk appears, circling round and round us all the time, getting as his reward, now and then, a snipe which falls too far out in the lake, and which he can pick up and bear off in triumph, long before the native can swim out to it. If ever a wounded snipe flutters down on the shore, even close by, the hawk, with a savage cry swoops down on it directly, and the chances are he has begun his supper before we can drive him off. When I think it is getting dark, and consequently time to turn our faces homeward, my favourite argument is, “The hawk has gone home.”
There is capital fishing, but it is difficult to go either fishing or sailing, because the only boats on the island belong to the Pilot Station, and they and their crews are constantly wanted to go out and bring some ship in through the rather difficult passage made by all these little islands, which look as if they had once upon a time been broken off from the big mainland. Rottnest is the largest, and has a lighthouse as I have told you, but there are several others. One is famous for snakes, another is supposed to support lots of rabbits, though, as all the islands except Rottnest are quite barren, I can’t make out what the poor bunnies live upon. _Our_ dear little island has nothing ugly about it, except its old Dutch name, and even that is a libel, for I don’t believe there is anything larger than a mouse—there are lots of those—to be found on it.
I often drive up to the lighthouse, partly to look at the beautiful view, and feel the fresh cool breeze which always blows up there, and partly to take the keeper and his family some of our abundance of fruit and vegetables. It is far too windy for a garden, and only a few cabbages can be grown even in the sheltered parts near the prison, so grapes and melons are a treat, as well as the newspapers I always put at the bottom of the basket.
We have droll adventures sometimes in these drives. The island trap—for I really cannot call it a carriage—is the most absurdly high, and heavy, and solid affair you ever saw. It is of the nature of a dog-cart, but a very rudimentary dog-cart, and was built in the prison on the mainland, long ago in the old convict days, being then considered a triumph of the coach-building art. A huge royal crown in every colour of the rainbow is the much admired decoration of its massive panels. The difficulty of climbing into this conveyance is great, and even when you are in you feel that you are going to tumble out again directly; and I can’t make out now how it is that we don’t fall over the low rail when the horse, who seems much too small, and very much below us, begins to trot. But you are so jogged and jolted, even on the good smooth roads which have been made by prisoners all over the island, that you can’t remonstrate, and have to devote all your attention to keeping yourself on your perch.
There have been several small upsets all more or less of a ludicrous nature, and with no worse results than slight cuts and bruises. Once, when a couple of gentlemen were coming fast downhill (one of them was very heavy) the horse objected to the weight on his back, and suddenly flung up his heels, which caught in some of the complicated iron circles on which the body of the trap rests. Of course, the whole affair upset into the wattle bushes, and the horse’s leg was found to be so firmly fixed amid the ironwork, that the carriage had to be unscrewed and taken to pieces before he could be set free.
Another time a reckless driver insisted on careering fast over ground covered with tussocks, and after an alarming amount of swaying from side to side over the trap went. A good deal of sticking-plaster and arnica was needed after that mishap. I have never “assisted” at any of these adventures, for I always insist on great caution and circumspection. My favourite drive is across some rough country, lying between us and the other side of the island. The beach there is quite different, with different shells, and even strewn with more beautiful seaweed than on our bit of coast. I cannot get near it, however, in the dog-cart, and we have to get out some way off and cross the intervening sand-hills and cliffs on foot. The scramble, however, is very nice, and the breeze on that windward side delicious after a hot day; and then we discover such constant surprises in fairy coves and miniature bays, strewn with brilliant seaweed and strange and curious creatures, that Ethel—a girl-friend who often comes over for a little sea-bathing and general frolic—and I are always begging to go there, instead of being taken out snipe-shooting.
I wonder which you would like best? the shooting I suspect, as Louis does; but our scrambles are delicious too, specially when we can coax a couple of the gentlemen to bring the smallest and lightest boat round the point, and meet us, and row us home by moonlight. But we have no chance of their liking to do this unless the cartridges have run short until next boat-day, or else, for some reason or another, the snipe have not come down to the lakes, or the “big fellows” are keeping very close.
A sort of “natural jetty,” as it is called, runs out for about half a mile from the southern point of the island. It shelters our harbour beautifully, and breaks the force of the great rolling waves from seaward. Some of the gentlemen have walked along it, out to the very end on a calm day; but it is a dangerous performance at the best of times, for it is extremely slippery, and the water is always a-wash over it, making it difficult to keep any sort of foothold. There are generally quantities of screaming sea-gulls on it, and shags, and even wild duck often go there; and I have seen thousands of snipe feeding on the dry part which is sometimes above water. The sportsmen often try to get near enough for a shot, but have never been able to hit anything smaller than a gull. Large poles, with thick bushes lashed on them, stand boldly on this sort of causeway to warn vessels not to try, even at high water, to get across instead of going round it; and there is a very large bush, quite like a tree, tied securely to the furthest point, as a landmark. Every year a pair of hawks come down to this bleak exposed spot, and make a nest, and rear a brood in defiance of all attempts to dislodge them. The sea-gulls lay their eggs on the numerous little rocks close by, and it is easy in the season to get plenty of them.
The fishing is splendid, and the fish delicious. Close to the pier one gets shoals of a small fish like white bait, and there are lots of a large but delicate tasting cray fish. If you go farther out for a few miles to the good fishing banks, you are sure of capital sport. But, as I said before, one cannot always get the boat; and to enjoy this place thoroughly we ought to have a boat or two of our own. One day, when we were all out fishing on a bank called “Jerusalem” (all the fish caught there are known as “Jew fish”), a huge fish swallowed my hook; I was nearly pulled out of the boat by my struggling prize, and finally was only too glad to give over my line to the stalwart coxswain, and _he_ actually needed help before he could pull the fish into the boat.
LETTER XVI.
Rottnest, _3d March_.
Which shall I tell you about first, the natives or the pets? I think I remember promising to tell you about the natives, so I will begin with them.
There are about one hundred and fifty native prisoners over here, and it is rather curious to hear what their crimes have been. Sometimes they have committed the most causeless and senseless murders imaginable—murders so entirely without any reason that the judge has hesitated to hang them, because they appear to have acted on just a savage impulse. Last year a particularly brutal murder was committed, where the murderers _had_ a motive and were sufficiently civilised to understand what they were doing, so they had to be hung, alas! not merely as a punishment, but as a warning. But if there is any possible chance that the culprit may not have understood the wickedness of his act, then the criminal is sent over here, where he is kindly treated, and well taken care of, and where his punishment will be made into a means of civilisation for him. So that when it is over, and the man is sent back to his own tribe, it is hoped that he may be better, and not worse, for his stay at Rottnest.
Every Sunday the prisoners are allowed to roam about at perfect liberty all over the island to get their own food, so that they may not entirely forget how to provide for themselves. They have their breakfast before they go out and their supper after they come in; but they delight in finding dinner for themselves. First of all, they fashion small spears and fishing-lines, and go and fish, and they hunt for all the snakes in the island, and lizards, and every other native delicacy. Little fires are lighted—always in a safe place, where the bush cannot catch fire,—and the natives lie down and sleep by them, and all the time are as happy and merry as schoolboys, never doing the least mischief, or touching anything which does not belong to them. I never miss any of my fowls or ducks, nor do prisoners misbehave themselves in any way. At sunset you see them trooping in, jolly as possible, laughing and chatting to each other. No warder goes out with them on Sunday, and the only things carefully guarded are boats, lest they should escape to the mainland. It is out of the question to attempt to enforce the discipline of an ordinary convict prison with these people. The natives are just like children, more or less irresponsible, and whilst we try to control and teach them the rights of life and property, we have to do so kindly, patiently, and good-humouredly.
Even after they are shut up in their prison at night in cells, which are a thousand times more comfortable than their _Mia-mias_, or huts, the warders do not prevent their singing, and talking, and laughing; and if they keep up the noise too long, a good-humoured “Come, come, boys; too much noise make-um” from the superintendent is enough to restore quiet and peace directly.
The natives are seldom actually lazy, though they cannot be said to like hard work; but the light tasks to which they are put generally interest and amuse them, and they behave perfectly well. Your father goes out quite alone after his ducks of an evening, with a couple of murderers as retrievers, and it is very amusing to hear their conversations. One man, Peter by name, is going out of prison next month, and is very fond of telling us what he would “Give Guvna eat-um,” if he came to see him up in his own country. “Wild turkey give-um, fish, p’raps; very good lizard, plenty worms” (I forget the unpronounceable name he has for this delicacy), “show Guvna how kangaroo spear-um,” and so forth. Peter’s little mistake consisted in spearing a woman who was wrangling with his wife. He declares he only meant to spear her leg (a spear in the leg is considered the gentlest possible hint that your company is not desired just then); but “wife knock up hand, spear go so, hit woman throat; she very sick—die. Peter nothing bad fellow, woman bad fellow, come wife talk-um.” That is his idea of the affair; but I think he has learned over here not to be quite so ready with his spear.
Then some of them are in for sheep-stealing. They pretend they don’t know why a sheep should not be as fair game for a spear as a kangaroo; but it is not possible to accept this excuse, and the juries find it equally hard to believe that the native is as ignorant as he pretends to be, specially as he shows great ingenuity in hiding the remains of the mutton-feast.
Tribal murders are another difficulty in our path of civilisation. One man, a chief, perhaps, at all events a “prominent citizen,” dies from natural causes; the tribe at once draw lots who shall go and kill another man in another tribe, as nearly as possible the equal of the dead chief in size and age and tribal importance; and he, upon whom the lot fell, would be disgraced for ever, cast out from among his own people, and probably killed, if he made the faintest objection to the task. One gentle, inoffensive-looking young man was pointed out to me as a murderer. His mother had died lately, and the remedy proposed and insisted on by his relatives, as a cure for the unusual degree of grief her death caused the youth, was to go and murder a woman of the same age of another tribe. He did so, and was quite surprised that his own sorrow for his mother was not lessened. “Me just same cry-um.”
Then they get mischievous impulses to take a life, which they don’t know how to resist, specially if they have the chance to spear a white man. I heard a story the other day of a settler, far away in the interior, who was exceptionally kind to the natives round, and they, in their turn, were thoroughly devoted to him. He was one day walking in a thick bush, with a black servant following him, armed for the chase. The native presently came up and earnestly begged leave to walk first in the narrow path, because he did not know how long he would be able to resist the impulse to fling his spear at the back of the white man walking before him.
Their endurance of pain is something marvellous; we saw many little instances of it at Rottnest, and I was much amused at our friend Peter, who hurt his foot during one of the shooting excursions I have told you about. We felt much concern at the sight of the bleeding toe, and strict orders were given that Peter should not do any work, and that his foot should be properly attended to. Next evening, however, Peter appeared, ready to walk any number of miles, with a bit of rag round the wounded toe, and scoffing at the idea of not going out to look for “big fellow,” or “’nipe”!
But here is a story I have copied for you from a delightful book by Mr. Brough Smyth.[1] It is in one of two splendid big volumes full of pictures and stories which would delight you, and half of the second volume is taken up with an account of Western Australia which I read with much interest. Mr. Smyth says this story was told him by some one else, but it is doubtless perfectly true.
[1] _Aborigines of Victoria_, Trübner and Co.
“In the summer of 1852 I started on horseback from Albany, to pay a visit about 70 miles south-east, accompanied by a native on foot. We travelled about 40 miles the first day, and camped for the night in a clump of tea-tree scrub near a water-hole. After cooking and eating our supper I observed the native, who had said nothing to me on the subject, collect the hot embers of the fire together, and deliberately place his right foot in the glowing mass for a moment, and then suddenly withdraw it, stamping on the ground and uttering a long-drawn guttural sound of mingled pain and satisfaction. This he repeated several times. On my inquiring the meaning of his strange conduct he only said ‘Me carpenter make-um’ (that is, ‘I am mending my foot’), and then showed me his charred great toe, the nail of which had been torn off by a stump during the journey, and the pain of which he had borne with stoical composure. He proceeded on his journey next morning as if nothing had happened, his toe bound up in a piece of native tea-tree bark.”
When the English first began to settle in this part of Australia they found the natives fearfully burned and charred all over their bodies, from their habit of getting _into_ the fire at night for warmth. Now that the Government provide them with blankets, and the settlers and others often give them cast-off clothes, they do not roast themselves so much, though they still love a little bit of fire in the shade, on even the very hottest day.
One evening we went, a large merry party, up to the jail at dark to see a corrobberie. It was an evening of intense delight to “the boys,” as the prisoners are called, as great a pleasure as giving a very smart ball would be to us, and they had been busy all the afternoon painting themselves, and decorating their hair. The chief adornment consisted in a streak of some white clay between each rib, and similar daubs of white and a red pigment they find among the rocks inland, smeared all over their faces, in a pattern or design; while their heads were more like a crow’s nest than anything else I can think of. A couple of large brushwood fires were lighted in the centre of the big courtyard, and a few natives stood by to feed the flames. The dancers supplied the music themselves, and the most curious part of the performance was the way they all gave the grunt or “wuff” _exactly_ in unison. Every movement of the one hundred and twenty performers was made absolutely and entirely together, like one man, and the grunts which guided them were equally exact in time. It was a weird and striking scene; but we became weary of watching it long before the dancers grew tired. However, at one good-humoured word of dismissal, the performance instantly broke up, and “the boys” trooped off, laughing and gay, to their cells, happy in the promise of a half-holiday and a stick of tobacco apiece, as a reward for their exertions.