From Ocean to Ocean by Jerome J. Murif

Author:Jerome J. Murif [Murif, Jerome J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781542719926
Google: 8VwntAEACAAJ
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 2017-04-28T00:44:16+00:00

Here are many healthy specimens of the celebrated Stuart's Bean tree. This is one of the most beautiful of shade trees. The few I had noted particularly had grown to a height of from 35ft. to 40ft. The pods when ripe split open, and, the bright scarlet beans within being exposed, a very pretty picture indeed is presented. The beans are very hard, and about three-eighths of an inch long. Dusky damsels gather them, bore a hole through each one, and string them into necklaces. Even lying about on the ground those bright-coloured little ornaments served to add another charm to the romantic scenery of Stirling Vale.

Although not given to collecting curios, I took one with me over the Foster range (five miles of barren mountain-top and very stony track, the descent on the north side being particularly steep) and along the further eight miles of stony creeks, cutting through flats between other ranges, which led to Barrow's Creek.

* * * *

At the crossing the creek is wide, and heavily timbered with gums. The telegraph station lies the other side, and is very prettily situated at the foot of a steep hill which marks one side of a gorge in a range bearing away to the east. The buildings are of stone, and everything about the place bears evidence of a very attentive supervision. The whites "in camp" at the time were the station master, two or three assistants a cook and a police trooper. A well-kept and prolific garden is close by, and a low stone wall and headstone mark the burial place of those who were killed when the natives made their oft-told-of attack.

That was in '73, when as yet the natives were unaccustomed to the new institution of the Overland, and when their favorite recreation was the cutting of the wire. They watched a line repairing party file out, northward; and having waited, with their native cunning, until those men were beyond the possibility of recall, on a Sunday evening, when the eight inhabitants of the station were talking together outside the stone wall, they suddenly sprang from ambush and poured in a shower of spears. And yonder are the graves of the station-master and a linesman, who paid for the natives' treachery with their lives, while others paid for it with months of agony from spear wounds and thrusts.

* * * *

There is no place of call in the 160 miles between Barrow's and Tennant's Creeks, and it was certain I would be very hungry before that distance had been travelled, however short a time it might occupy.

Here was a stage in which a sporting rifle or a shot gun would very probably come in handy. But then a gun is of no avail without powder and shot, and the carrying of these, to say nothing of a kangaroo leg or turkey (buzzard), loomed up an altogether swamping difficulty.

Still I knew I could do comfortably for a fair time without food, provided I had plenty of water This latter was promised me in the several wells ahead.

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