Читать книгу Newspaper Articles - Edward Sylvester Sorenson - Страница 4
ОглавлениеThe Town and Country Journal
Saturday 8 February 1902
Around the little far-back town of Tibooburra (N.S.W.), and at several other places in the Mount Brown district (where M’Douall Stuart, Captain Sturt, Poole, and others met (with such hardships years ago), are hundreds of natural pyramids—huge piles of rocks and gibbers—the facsimile of the kopjes of South Africa. Among these are to be found, perhaps, the prettiest wallabies in Australia, a shy and nimble little creature with a white stripe down the back, and a white-ringed tail. Some are striped like a zebra. A kindred variety is found in Westralia, and is known as the Banded Wallaby. Perched on the rock-cones and potting them as they hop from cover to feed about the little flats and gullies, is a profitable pastime, if one be after skins and scalps; but as sport it is no more exciting than shooting the “Boongarry,” or Tree Kangaroo of Northern Queensland and New Guinea A peculiarity, of the latter is that, though a natural climber, like the monkeys its tail is not prehensile. It has, however, a cat-characteristic in that, no matter in what position it may fall from a limb, it always alights on its feet. The shy, black wallaroos, of the New England Ranges and north coastal scrubs of N.S.W. afford, perhaps, the liveliest sport; though flying shots, at Rat Kangaroos, Potoroos, and Bettongs is “good fun.” The latter is a pretty little animal, and is notable for the fact that, when making its cosy nest, it carries the grass in little bundles with its tail.
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Macropods of all descriptions are hunted in places expressly for the tail, which, though seldom touched by a bushman, is relished by a great many townspeople. An Englishman, who spent some time in Australia, on returning to the “old dart,” wrote: “Many give such glowing descriptions of the high esteem in which kangaroo-tail soup is held in the colonies, that one is somewhat surprised to find the orthodox ‘ox-tail’ figuring in the club menu, while the vaunted native article is regarded as a pis aller, even in the back blocks.” Well, kangaroo-tails have been very largely exported into England, and are considered a luxury by those “down under.” In Australia, when other meat is scarce and recourse has to be made to native animals, the rat kangaroo and wallabies are preferred even to the caudal appendage of the larger animal. Old bushmen will not look at any of the species if there is a ‘possum or a koala to be had. Marsupials are being rapidly exterminated, and in a few years Australia’s pride, the kangaroo, will have joined the great Moa of the Maori. They are classed as noxious animals in most settled districts, and large sums are paid yearly by stock-protection boards for scalps. In Dubbo district alone last year nearly 14,000 rat kangaroos, and 224,000 wallabies were slaughtered. Excepting where transport facilities give a marketable value to the skins, the big drives that were a feature of the pioneering days are rarely heard of now. Scalpers and farmers in new scrub country—where wallabies are numerous and a pest to growing crops—are, perhaps, the only people who hunt the wallaby to any extent.
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The first farmers on the Richmond, when the banks were lined with dense scrub, had much trouble to contend with through the ravages of these animals. Those living within a certain radius banded together to exterminate them, meeting at one farm the first Sunday, and at another farm the next. Most of them came on horseback. Those who brought their families came in carts or slides. The nearest neighbors walked, the “old man” and the “missus” carrying the baby in turns, the boys and girls bird-nesting or gathering wild flowers en route. The little farmhouse and the hostess would be taxed to their utmost resources to provide for all at dinner time. Dishes and saucepan lids were utilised for plates; for drinking vessels there were jugs and basins, and at times the dipper and the quart pot were conspicuous among the cups and, pannikins. When table knives ran short, men used the clasp ones they usually cut their tobacco with; and spoons were passed round from one to another. For sitting accommodation the sofa was placed at one side of the table and the long stool at the other, while blocks, oil-drums, and boxes were dumped down at the ends.
After dinner the men adjourned to the verandah, or to the shade of a big gum tree, to smoke and yarn. The women gossipped inside. The “old couple” exchanged “news” at night, and in this way everybody got to know everything going on in the neighborhood. About 2 o’clock the men went in a body “down the farm,” shouting to their dogs to “come behind” or “go and lay down,” most of the way. At the point of the scrub they divided, one lot going along on the outside, the other between the corn and the fringe of scrub on the bank. The dogs were sent afield between them to hunt out the game. Shotguns were mostly used, and some of these farmers were crack shots. Each animal shot was slung across a stump and left to rot. Sometimes they would skin one or two if they were short of boot laces—the only use they had for the skin, unless it was for a foot-mat in the bedroom. The whitened bones of the slaughtered animals lay as monuments on the charred stumps for months afterwards.
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A good plan is for a party on horseback to round up a mob, and drive them along a fence to a corner or a gap, where two or three good marksmen are posted, who shoot them down as they pass. Kangaroo shooters, with Martini-Henry rifles or Winchesters, often make a coup in this fashion, shooting as many in an hour as they can skin in a day. Put these marksmen on horseback, and the order is reversed. Again, a crack mounted shot, who can kill nine times out of ten on a galloping horse, would miss nine times out of ten on foot. For all that, there are plenty of good “all-round shots,” whose aim is unerring, whether afoot or mounted, stationary or galloping. The wild cattle and brumby shooters of the far-out Queensland ranges are amongst the best all-round shots to be met with. When driven onto a fence, kangaroos will leap clean over it; but the wallaby generally makes a dive through, or turns and follows it. It is a pathetic sight to see one hung by the legs to the top of a wire fence. Apparently it has jumped at the second wire, and so struck the top one, which it had missed sight of. As the body topples over, the second wire is caught up by the foot and drawn to a loop over the other, which holds the leg like a vice. The struggling of the unfortunate brute only tends to tighten it; and there it is doomed to hang, head downwards, till death releases it from its sufferings. When hunting with dogs, the huntsman keeps close up, and as soon as the animal is thrown he jumps off and hamstrings it to prevent the dog from being ripped by that terrible “long toe.” A good greyhound or kangaroo dog lays hold of the tail, and, with a sudden twist, throws it, and then grips it by the head. I saw a splendid dog ripped from shoulder to quarter during a hunt in the Wyan Mountains, Richmond River, in 1886. Another, a half-bred greyhound, was killed by running on to the broken limb of a fallen tree. The limb, about 2in in diameter, entered at the chest, and pierced half its body. With wallabies, no precautions are needed. Any ordinary dog can kill a wallaby unassisted. Young dogs occasionally get torn, but they soon learn to take care of themselves.
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In a large tank on Whittabranah Run, Tibooburra, are still standing (1899) the four posts and stage of a shooting box that was used a few years ago by kangaroo shooters. Posted there, several yards out in the water, they shot the animals down as they came in to drink at dawn and dusk. In drinking, I might remark, the animal holds its mouth to the water like a cow or a sheep, but laps the water up with its tongue. The tongue shoots in and out very rapidly, and unless the observer be close, he would not notice that it drank differently from a sheep, as its nose remains stationary on the water. In the locality mentioned, in the summer of 1897, these marsupials were dying wholesale of starvation, as many as five and six lying together under one tree. The little water in the tanks was their only stand-by, and these were boggy. One morning I saw five bogged together in a tank close to the station. It would be hard to imagine anything more pathetic than those poor creatures clawing hopelessly at the soft mud with their hands, and their eyes expressing mute appeal for mercy. Though their preservation was harmful, I am glad to say they didn’t appeal in vain.
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Once I spent a week at a scalpers’ camp in Queensland. The main camp was pitched on the bank of a waterhole. It was a wild spot, being over a hundred miles down the river. The camp consisted of three tents, one being used for storing scalps and skins, a cooking galley, and three or four gunyahs. Here dwelt the proprietor of the plant, and boss of the scalpers, a tribe of blacks camped about four miles further out. Only four gins were at the head camp on my arrival, two of them in skirts without bodies, and two in short shirts. Their work was stringing scalps on wires, stretched from tree to tree to dry, and pegging out the skins. The blacks consumed £10 worth of opium per week, and the desire of this drug was their main object in hunting. Owing to some trouble with them the proprietor took me one evening to the out-camp. Here I found about thirty blackfellows and about twenty gins, besides a host of youngsters. All were naked. They closed round us, some squatting and some standing. The proprietor handed me a six chambered revolver, and I stood on guard outside the ring. They objected to the meagre dole of rations, and struck for more. A long parley ensued, which ended in their being ordered to the main camp. Here the dispute was settled; and operations were henceforth conducted from this camp. They camped on the opposite side of the waterhole, about two hundred yards away.
During my stay there I acted as cook, and caretaker of the camp. Often in the absence of the proprietor, the gins would come to me with tears trickling down their cheeks, begging for opium. This I could not give them, but I frequently gave them damper and tobacco. Night and morning, a kerosene tin of water was boiled, and in this was put a small handful of tea and a little less than a pannikin of sugar. A pint of this mixture and a few pipes of tobacco were portioned to each for breakfast, and a pint, and a smoke of opium, for supper. Some, according to their hunting successes, obtained a thin slice of damper, which was a luxury. Nothing was served at midday, all being absent with the exception of a few old gins. It was generally 9 a.m. when the tribe started for the wallaby grounds—patches of scrub, a few miles out. All were naked, not even a “tabby” being worn. Some buckled a strap round their waists, under which spare boomerangs were thrust. The scalping knives were carried by closing the blade on a tuft of hair on the head. A few were supplied with guns and rifles. The only other weapons used were spears and short nullas. The gins, youngsters, and a great many dogs, accompanied them. Their modus operandi was to surround a patch of scrub, some close in, and some out wide, the “gunners” mostly on the outside of all, who shot what the nullas and boomerangs failed to bring down. The dogs and some of the gins were sent into the scrub to beat out the game. The other gins did most of the skinning and carrying. They also quartered some of the animals, and roasted them. When the wallaby darts out, mostly pursued by pack of yelping dogs, the wooden weapons are hurled at it till knocked over. The man whose weapon brings it down claims the scalp and skin. Some stand behind trees within the scrub watching the track, and strike the wallaby with a nulla-nulla as it passes. All day long this goes on at different patches of scrub, the blacks dancing and running, and brandishing and hurling weapons, with much shouting and yelling and barking of dogs. The children take an active part, using miniature nullas and boomerangs. Towards sunset they beat back to camp, and one by one hand in their scalps and skins, which are punctured to prevent spoilation. With their doles they then go contentedly to their gunyahs.
