Читать книгу Newspaper Articles - Edward Sylvester Sorenson - Страница 9
ОглавлениеThe Bulletin
Saturday 25 October 1902
Very few people believe it possible to produce fire by the friction of two sticks; yet fires were burning in thousands of aboriginal camps when the first white man landed in Australia. How were they lighted? The method, as described to me by an old blackfellow, consisted in twirling a hard pointed stick in a shallow hole in a particular wood, the hole being filled with dry powdered bark. The stick was held upright between the palms, and twirled rapidly by rubbing the palms together. A gin knelt before the operator and blew gently on the powdered stuff the moment it began to smoke. It sometimes tired out a dozen male operators before the fire came, but the one gin waited to blow all the time.
A waggon wheel, turning on a dry axle, will set it ablaze, and even weld the axle to the box. It takes a tremendous heat to do that, and such heat has been generated by friction. However, fire making by friction is a forgotten art, and had probably been disused long ere the landing of Captain Cook, for the blacks never travelled without firesticks. Even to-day the fire-stick is carried, swung gently in the hand to keep it alight. Nor is the custom confined to the aborigines. Many a hunter is 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.
In the early days, when the blacks were bad, diggers and others, striking across country to new fields, 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 throw in a shower of spears.
The tramp makes at least two fires a day—one at noon and one at sundown. The first—the "billy fire"—is a midget, to boil a drop of water for tea. Even this is methodically built. He places a stick the thickness of the forearm on the ground, leans a few 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 to light it. The billy is planted against it, and the fire fed with light wood until the water boils. The "johnny-cake fire" requires a good armful of picked wood—iron-bark, box, or gidgea 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 in these holes by travellers 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 in the ashes. Cakes, eggs, chops, steaks, &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's sufficient "big wood " on hand for the night. In summer, he'll be satisfied if the log "keeps in," and makes coals for morning. To keep a fire in over-night, 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, gidgea, forest oak, cypress pine, ironbark 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 half-roasted on one side, while the other side is freezing. 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 fidgetty 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 "feet-fire" with side-warmers. At first he put two stakes at each side of him to keep himself in; but he rode his dream-nags 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 and leave hurriedly, with the observation that, "A feller wot ties himself up at night must be a bit cronk 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. By'n'bye fire go down an white man catch um cold. No sense 'bout dat."
Many travellers have a fatal habit of lighting fires against the butt of a tree. No one can judge how long a tree will take 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 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, averring that no ant would cross it.
Bushmen are generally careful with fires; out there are many 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 the dry grass, and the result is a disastrous bush fire. The culprit is frequently a new-chum, or an immigrant from the Paroo country, where bush fires are unknown. There is seldom any 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 stared many a bushfire for which innocent swagmen have been blamed. Note that bushfires are always plentiful on very hot days.
South Australians are the most careful people in this respect—perhaps because the law is more rigorous there than elsewhere. There, the wax match is tabooed, and anybody seen carrying a firestick would be chased as a lunatic, or arrested by the nearest policeman for imperilling life and property. Nearly everybody uses safety matches—made in Germany—and no one is allowed to smoke an uncovered pipe in the august presence of a wheatfield.
Anyone who has crossed the 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 a 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 iron-bark trees, blackbutts, or woollybutts about, the task will be easy. Under the wet exterior there are layers of dry, crumpled, highly-combustible bark. 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 the bagging with which your coat or vest is padded. Splintered pine and mulga twigs are the quickest fire-lighters m the bush.
A small fire in the tent, alongside the flap, is cosy on a cold or wet night. A heap of short sticks close by, a slush-lamp or a penny candle at your head, two or three late papers 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 intermissions; or else a whiff springs up just as you strike. Then it may only fizz and smoulder away, or the head will fly off. All creation seems to be against that one match. When you have a box full you can strike them as off-handedly as you like, even in a strong wind, and you have to blow hard in addition to put the match out. But what a little puff puts the last one out! It snuffs out for no 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 10 to 1 you'll 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.
