Читать книгу On the Wallaby, The Diary of a Queensland Swagman - Edward S Sorenson - Страница 7

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The first night camping out is often the longest remembered by those who go on the wallaby. Some are jolly and eager for the morrow, speculating where that morrow will land them, and what fortune it will bring; others are miserable, and squat like moody aborigines, staring at the glaring coals and weighing the prospects carefully; and there is in both a certain sense of loneliness engendered more by the altered conditions than by the new environment. The novice who has been used to a soft bed discovers as soon as he stretches himself on solid ground what an awkward thing his hip is. He fidgets from side to side, trying to get it into a comfortable position, and that point seems to be more prominent than he ever dreamed of before. Many travellers never get over the hip trouble, for which reason they make an excavation to accommodate the protuberance, or they carry a hipper—a piece of woolly sheepskin, a horsehair pad, or a small bag of feathers. A good many gather leaves or grass to form a mattress. Everything being strange, too, one lies for a long while looking at the stars, gazing into the great, aching silence of space, listening to the myriad sounds on his own dark plane, and thinking of home. He thinks of other things; many scenes of his past life are reviewed, his lost opportunities regretted, just as they are by the man going into exile in a distant land; knowing by the experience of hundreds before him that he may never again know a place that he can call his home.

It was a pleasant place, quiet, with nothing lonely about it; where I spent my first night on the track. Behind me was a sheltering clump of tee-trees, and a little way off in front was the northern road, running as straight as a dart across a green flat to low, wooded hills beyond. My bluey was spread on the grass and cheerfully blazing beside it my little camp-fire gave light enough to read by. I had a late copy of the "Queenslander," but I did not read much. My mind was wandering out west, where I knew a thousand other camp-fires burned to-night, and where I would light many another, marking my stages across the State. There is poetry and tragedy in the traveller's fire, in the early days, when the blacks were bad, diggers and others, striking across country to new fields and new runs, left their fires at sundown and went on for two or three miles before camping for the night. The blacks, attracted by the blaze, would often gather round the abandoned fires, and, perhaps, throw in a shower of spears.

The swagman makes at least two fires a day—one at noon and one at sundown. The first, the billy fire, is a midget, to boil water for tea. Even this is methodically built. He places a stick the thickness of his forearm on the ground, leans two lighter pieces on it the width of the billy apart; then, between and against the back piece, he places a handful of dry leaves, ferns, grass, or shredded bark, with twigs and sticks on top. The billy is stood close to it on two sticks, and the fire fed with light wood until the water boils. The johnny-cake fire requires a good armful of picked wood—ironbark, box, mulga, or gidgee for preference—which is burning while the dough is being worked up. The unburnt sticks are then put aside, the coals levelled by stamping them lightly, and the johnnies dropped on. A blaze of good red coals is kept going at one side, where the johnnies, as they stiffen, are stood to toast. The damper fire should burn all night, so as to leave a heap of clean hot ashes, not coals. A few coals are raked over the top to keep the heat in, but there must be enough ashes between to keep them from burning the damper. In a working camp a round excavation is made for the oven, to concentrate the heat and shield it from the wind. Game is roasted by travellers in these holes without an oven. A bird is placed on a piece of doubled wire a few inches above the coals, and a fire is made on a sheet of tin laid over the top. Another way is to wrap the dressed bird in a sheet of greased brown paper and roast it in the ashes. Cakes, eggs, chops, steak, &c., can be satisfactorily cooked in this camp-oven.

At sundown the bushman's camp-fire is lit—the most important of all, the fire that denotes home. For this he has a large back log, and sees that there is sufficient big wood on hand for the night. In summer he will be satisfied if the log keeps alight and makes coals for morning. To keep a fire in overnight, it is covered with ashes. Glowing red coals will be found under them in the morning, and it is only necessary to throw on a few dry sticks to set the fire going. The best woods for fire purposes are box, coolabah, grey gum, mulga, gidgee, forest oak, cypress pine, ironbark, sandalwood and blackbutt. On a summer's night mosquito fires are necessary adjuncts. They are lit at intervals with cowdung, corkwood, green bark and leaves.

In winter-time the single fire is not a luxury. Lying beside it you get uncomfortably hot on one side, while the other side is freezing—your body experiencing the rigours of summer and winter simultaneously. A fire at each side is better. Those who are troubled with cold feet light a third to keep them warm. Under such circumstances it does not do to be fidgety in one's sleep. Many a one has been wakened by a blaze among his blankets, and I saw a man kick one night till he got right down into his foot fire, and but for a timely billy of cold tea would have been incapacitated from walking for a week or two. A man should know his sleeping character before trusting himself among three fires. An ex-horse trainer, tramping out-back, was addicted to steeplechase riding in his sleep. The nights were cold, and he had to supplement his foot-fire with side warmers. At first he put two stakes at each side of him to keep himself in; but he rode his dream-horses over these and came a cropper in the fire. So he had to be content with one warmer, and to keep out of that he tethered himself to a tree on the opposite side. He always travelled alone. Any mate he picked up, as soon as bed-time came, would pack up hastily and leave with the observation that: "A fellow who ties himself up at night must be a bit crook in the upper storey."

The blackfellow's fire is the best. It is very small, permitting him to lie close to it all night, and to enjoy an even temperature. "White pfeller big fool," says Murri. "Him make um big fire—can't get close, bynbye fire go down an' white man catch um cold." When there are several members together, they make one big central fire, around which they squat, and one small fire at the back of each. The common method adopted by the aborigines to produce fire is by the friction of two sticks; though different styles obtain in different parts of the country. One method consists in twirling a hard-pointed stick in a shallow hole in a particular wood, the hole being filled with dry, powdered bark. The stick is held upright between the palms, and twirled rapidly by rubbing the palms together. A gin sometimes kneels before the operator and blows gently on the powdered stuff the moment it begins to smoke; at other times he works alone, and when the tinder begins to smoke he holds some finely-shredded bark on it and blows it gently, then swings the bark to and fro in his hand till it blazes. Another way of generating the required heat is by drawing a thin-edged piece of mulga, gidgee, or other hardwood rapidly backwards and forwards in a crack or splintered part of a dry log. Either means is not necessarily employed very often, for a firestick is commonly carried, swung gently in the hand to keep it alight. A sandalwood stick is the best for this purpose, for it will continue burning until the last bit is consumed. Many a white hunter is also seen on the track swinging his firestick from camp to camp. When he sits down for a spell he puts a few twigs on it to keep it burning.

Many travellers have a fatal habit of lighting fires at the butt of a tree. No one can judge how long it will take a tree to burn down. A small tree may burn for days, and a big one fall in a few hours. I once saw a burning tree rain streams of honey and melted wax. It was a small, dead ironbark, in a projecting limb of which there a was a bees' nest. As the fire roared up the hollow trunk and burnt into the limb, the bees were driven out and the honey began to pour down. We caught a lot in a billy, but it was so full of melted wax, bee bread and burnt bees as to be unusable. Another dangerous fire is the one built against a hollow log. Apart from the danger of setting the bush on fire, all manner of horrible things come crawling out as the fire eats its way into the hollows. A Barwon native, who dearly loved his log-fire, used to surround himself with newspaper pinned to the ground. Snakes, scorpions and centipedes make a great noise crawling over or under dry paper; and, being a light sleeper, he was always warned when danger approached. In ant country he made a little trench round his nap ground, asserting that no ant would cross it.

Bushmen are generally careful with fires; but there are some whose carelessness has caused enormous damage and loss of life. A few smouldering embers are left by the track side, a wind fans them up, carries a spark into dry grass, and the result is a disastrous bush fire. The culprit is frequently a newchum, or an immigrant from the Paroo country, where bush fires are unknown. There is seldom enough grass there to carry a fire, and a sojourn in such a place makes a man careless. Glass bottles, lying in dry grass with a hot sun shining upon them, have started many a bush fire for which innocent swagmen have been blamed. Note that bush fires are always plentiful on very hot days. South Australians are the most careful people in this respect. In their State the wax match is tapu, and anybody seen carrying a firestick there would be chased for a lunatic, or arrested by the nearest policeman for imperilling life and property. Nearly everybody uses safety matches, and no one is allowed to smoke an uncovered pipe in the august presence of a wheatfield.

Anyone who has crossed One-tree Plain, or travelled on the Darling Downs, knows what economical firing is. There he is fortunate if he has the posts of a wire fence from which to break splinters and little bits of bark. Failing this, he boils his billy with tufts of grass and the bones of dead sheep. There is generally a strong wind blowing; and the best way to light-up is to face the wind, holding the match low down, and striking it into the kindling material. Lighting a fire in wet weather, when the ground is soaked, and wood, leaves and everything else is sopping, is an art in itself. If there are any ironbark trees, blackbutts, or woolly-butts about, the task will be easy. Under the wet exterior there are layers of dry, crumpled, highly-combustible material. Dry bits of bark may be found on one side of gums and other trees; a few dry leaves and twigs in hollow logs; a bit of greased rag may be procurable, and, as a last resource, take a bit of bagging with which your coat or vest is padded. Splintered pine and mulga twigs are the quickest fire-lighters in the bush. A small fire in the tent is cosy on a cold or wet night. A heap of short sticks close by, a slush-lamp or a candle at your head, two or three late papers or a good novel to read, your dog coiled against the coals, your pipe in good going order—and not much is wanted to complete your happiness.

Lighting a fire with the last match is a serious task. No matter how careful you are, something is sure to go wrong. There is bound to be a strong breeze blowing without intermission, or else a whiff springs up just as you strike. Then it may only fiz and smoulder away, or the head will fly off. All creation seems to be against that one match. When you have a boxfull you can strike them as off-handedly as you like and nothing will go amiss. They will burn in a Townsville gale, especially when you are done with them. But what a little puff of wind puts the last one out! It snuffs out for no apparent reason whatever. You have your leaves, grass, bark and twigs all nicely and carefully nested; you get down on your knees, hold the bottom of the box close to the nest, grip the match close to the head with thumb and fingers, and strike gently off the box into the finest grass—and ten to one you will bump it against something and put it out. You can then sit down and meditate on the dullness and dreariness that broods over everything, and realise what a comforting friend and companion is the camp-fire.