WHERE
LEICHHARDT DIED
SOLVING THE
MYSTERY OF HIS FATE
The fate of
Leichhardt has lain hidden under the dark canopy of seventy
four vanished years. In this article, I am raising that canopy
for the first time, and revealing a secret held by me since
the year 1878. And among other reasons for recording it here
is my knowledge of the fact that it will reach a wider circle
of readers than if published in any other paper in Australia.
Of that fact, I have no doubt whatever.
The present very deservedly popular Governor of New
South Wales has kindly written to me that he “reads my
articles in ‘The World’s News’ with avidity,” a compliment
highly appreciated, and I gladly hope this article on Lost
Leichhardt will not interest Sir Walter Davidson and all the
other usually appreciative readers of “The World’s News” with
any smaller interest.
Why was this secret not given by me to the world before
today? It is a natural question, and the answer requires that
I shall go back to that year of 1878, when two Warrego River
aboriginals were brought in by a Warrego squatter to Ipswich,
a town 24 miles from Brisbane.
In that year, I was editing the old “Ipswich Observer,”
now the “Daily Observer,” issued from the “Brisbane Courier”
office, and had a general knowledge of two aboriginal
dialects, the “Yucumbilla” of the coast and the “Kamilroi” of
the Namoi, a dialect understood over a wider area than any
other in Australia. The squatter brought the two blacks over
to my office, and it was a remarkable interview. Their dialect
was quite unknown to me, and the Yucumbilla dialect was
equally unknown to them, but we reached a neutral zone when I
asked them, “Yamma guinda Kamilroi?” (Speak you Kamilroi?).
The Namoi blacks pronounced it “Kammil-rye.” To shorten a long
story, a three days interview with those two blacks satisfied
me that a party of white men had been annihilated in a night
attack by the blacks on the Upper Warrego, on a creek they
called “Boonderra-bahla.” They gave me a most circumstantial
account of the whole tragedy. And yet the squatter told me the
object had never been mentioned by the blacks to himself or
any other white men on the Warrego.
I told him the two blacks belonged to the same class as
myself, the “Bunburri” of the West, and the “Barrang” of the
coast, that we were brothers in the third Bora degree, and
that they would hide nothing from me or tell me an untruth.
Not long afterwards, I read all that was known of
Leichhardt, including his letters and journals, and also the
journals of Hovenden Hely, who went in search of the lost
explorer in 1852.
Picture my intense interest in Leichhardt, on finding
that the blacks told Hely that the explorer and all his party
were killed on a creek called “Bunderabala,” at once
recognised by me as evidently the “Boonderra-bahla” of the two
Warrego blacks interviewed by me in Ipswich three months
before. Being thus once on the track of Leichhardt, it became
a fascinating study, as I sifted the whole subject down to the
bedrock, and waited impatiently for a chance to go west to the
Warrego, locate the fatal creek, and hear the whole story over
again, extended and completed by the old Warrego blacks.
When Gresley Lukin was editing the Brisbane
“Boomerang,” a very smart weekly long since extinct, I
contributed a number of articles which attracted a lot of
personal correspondence, among the letters being one from W.
H. Kent, a fine type of man once well known in Brisbane.
It was the most interesting letter I had ever received,
and the most astonishing. Kent told me in that letter how he
was lost on a certain range, at the head of a certain river,
and when threading his way through a thick scrub, with tree
ferns and palms, beautiful springs, small rivulets, and tiny
waterfalls, he saw the entrance to a large cave with a small
opening, and he entered, to find only black darkness before
him, until he went out and made a torch of some dry wood, and
was then astounded at what he saw around him.
A cave of unknown size, with small alcoves and natural
stone benches of black basalt, with human skeletons
everywhere, some lying on the floor, some extended on the
stone benches, others apparently standing against the walls of
the cave; skeletons in all attitudes, a “truly weird, amazing,
and uncanny scene,” such as I certainly never saw in all my
own experience, and no such scene has been recorded from any
other part of Australia.
Kent’s letter has no suggestion that any of the
skeletons were those of white men, and he does not even allude
to them as those of aboriginals. We may easily assume that a
lost man, in strange country, not knowing if he would come out
of it alive or dead, was not likely to be interested in the
scenic effects, the romance, or scientific interest of that
cave. He says in his letter:-
“The whole
scene, under the circumstances, gave me a feeling of
unspeakable horror, and I came out into the daylight with a
feeling of intense relief.”
But in the few minutes in that mysterious cave, Kent
saw, on one of the black basalt benches, some apparently brass
instruments, like those of a surveyor, possibly compasses,
aneroids, artificial horizons, such as an explorer would use,
and kent suggested they might be some relics of Leichhardt.
He was in no mood to carry any of them away, or even
touch them, so they were left undisturbed, the end of his
letter being an earnest appeal for me to go and try to fathom
the mystery of that cave at the earliest opportunity. Two
years afterwards I was away on the Warrego, went out on the
Langlo, and the blacks took me to “Boonderra-bahla” Creek,
showed me where Leichhardt’s last expedition ended, and
related the whole story.
Years afterwards, that story was very clearly endorsed
in all detail by old blacks I met on the heads of the Warrego,
Maranoa, and Mackenzie; also old men from the Paroo and the
Thompson.
Even during the nine years I was Government Protector
of Aboriginals in Queensland, 1895 to 1904, I met old Western
blacks with a very clear recollection of the tragedy of
Leichhardt.
The year 1895 was only 47 years away from 1848, and
blacks were then living from 20 to 30 years of age when
Leichhardt’s party were killed, and I met at least three who
were actually present at the tragedy – “Coothalla” (the
eagle-hawk), “Coobardoo” (gidya), and “Cambool” (the
bloodwood).
There were others whose names I cannot remember, and my
manuscript is in Brisbane. On the Nogoa River, I met two old
blacks who gave me minute details of that scene on
Boonderra-bahla Creek, and all the tales told to me by blacks,
some 200 miles apart, were perfectly consistent and unanimous.
Of their truth I never had any doubt whatever.
When Leichhardt got to the Langlo, he was clearly
turning north to reach the Gulf watershed, but undecided
whether to go north or west, so he formed a camp at a big
waterhole in the creek, had yards erected, and everything
arranged for his people to stay there, while he took one white
man and one of his two blacks either Womai or Billy, and made
a flying trip away north towards the Thompson.
He went north about 80 miles, decided to return, marked
a tree at that spot, the solitary “L” tree seen by Gregory in
1858, and then went back to join his party on Boonderra-bahla
Creek.
In the meantime, the blacks had apparently been
friendly, and old men and old women, and keen-eyed boys, came
to the camp day after day, bringing fish or eggs or honey,
while carefully observing the daily life of the camp, the
place where everybody slept, and the exact position of the
whole equipment, all being daily reported to the warriors of
the tribe.
Couriers had been sent far and wide to summon the men
of all tribes friendly to the Langlo River tribe, the
intention being to make a concerted surprise night attack on
the explorer’s camp, the white men being off their guard,
suspicion disarmed by the continued friendly attitude of the
blacks.
The white men knew nothing of the “gathering of the
clans,” or the fact that hundreds of armed blacks were within
two or three hours’ march of the camp.
Leichhardt, with his one white man and blackboy,
returned from his flying trip to the north, Leichhardt so ill
that he had to be lifted off his horse, and he evidently died
on the same night or next day, for he was dead on the
following night, when a big mob of armed blacks surprised the
camp and killed the rest except one white man. The Warrego
blacks called Leichhardt “Goorigann,” the “tall man,” he was 6
feet 2 inches; and the Nogoa blacks called him
“Jirra-bnegalli,” “spine log.”
The Warrego blacks told me that “Goori-gann” must have
been dead (“goonteela”) during the tragedy, as he was found
next day without a mark on him, the others being all speared
or brained by nullas. The white man who was spared had red
hair, and was regarded as a friend (“noolah”).
The aboriginal Creator, “Biamee” (“Mirri-arahl”) has
red hair, and no white man with red hair was ever killed by
the blacks.
Now, Classen was a red-haired German, and he may have
been taken away west by the blacks, from tribe to tribe, far
beyond the Cooper, and Hume’s story may have been strictly
true.
The half-caste boy seen by Stuart on Sturt’s Desert in
1862 may have been Classen’s son, as the 14 years that elapsed
from 1848, and the boy’s age, would correspond exactly.
The old blacks who were present at the tragedy, as
young men, had not forgotten Classen’s red hair, or the fact
that two of the whites, presumably Hentig and Classen, spoke a
language different from the others. Leichhardt would also
speak German to his two countrymen. The blacks also told me of
Hely’s expedition of 1852, and of his coast blackboys
deserting him because they were frightened to go to the place
where the whites were killed.
They also remembered the long ears of the mules.
So far I have not written this account of the fate of
Leichhardt, as I believed, and still believe, that some of his
relics are in the cave discovered by Kent, and it was my
intention to go there and see if they could be found as a
final proof of the truth of the tale told by the blacks, but
for various reasons, from time to time, the visit was
postponed, really one of those cases of that extraordinary
procrastination for which we can never give a coherent account
to ourselves; but I hope to be in that cave in next November
or December.
So Leichhardt fulfilled his intention he expressed in a
letter from the Peak Downs, of “dying in Australia, for
Australia,” and fate ordained that he was never again to see
his beloved Lucy Nicholson. The blacks left all the bodies
where they were killed, and Leichhardt where he died, and the
horses, mules, and bullocks, were all speared from time to
time and eaten.
Here, then, but necessarily in a very condensed form,
is at least a distinguishable outline of the fate of Ludwig
Leichhardt, most interesting and picturesque of all Australian
explorers, and a reasonable clearance of the mystery that has
overshadowed the tragedy of that remarkable man for 74 years.
The dark recesses of Kent’s cavern may reveal further secrets,
but no more is needed to confirm necessary own implicit faith
in the tale told by the aboriginals whom “The World’s News”
readers may also accept as reliable narrators, with complete
confidence.
ORIGINAL
VERSES.
THE
VALKYRIE’S SUMMONS
On coal
black steeds with sable mane,
Ride
forth the “Choosers of the Slain.”
Weird
Sisters from the Spectral City.
With
steel grey eyes that know no pity.
They
seek some child divinely fair,
A
blue-eyed girl with golden hair!
A
mother’s agonizing fears,
A
father’s grief – too deep for tears!
No power
have these to turn, or flee,
The dark
Valkyrie’s stern decree!
A sudden
dreadful Shadow falls,
Across
the floor, along the walls!
And
awful as the Day of Doom,
The
silence of that fatal room!
The
mother kissed the dying child,
The fair
young face looked up and smiled.
She saw
the shadow on the wall,
She
heard the voice from Odin’s Hall!
Cold was
the black haired Sister’s breath,
The soft
blue eyes are closed in death.
The
slowly through the Asgard Gate,
Ride
back the Messengers of Fate.
And
radiant –twixt the leading pair,
A blue
eyed girl with golden hair!
And
elsewhere, in a darkened room,
A mother
sits in voiceless gloom!
Hot
tears are falling on the bed,
Her
heart is colder than the dead!
Then! By
a white recording stone,
Mother
and father stand alone.
And read
of one they buried there,
The blue
eyed girl with golden hair!
And both
in silence bow below,
A
parent’s first and bitter woe.
The
child they loved had gone before,
Where
pain and sorrow come no more.
And
Angel Spirits guard her well,
On
Asgard meads of Aspbodel.
But oft
the tears unchecked will flow,
From
those who loved her here below.
She
lives upon that burning scroll,
The
‘Younger Edda’ of the soul!
GONE WILD
SEVEN
AUSTRALIANS
LIFE
AMONG THE BLACKS
Daily Mail
30 July 1923
There have
been only six white men “gone wild” in all Australian history,
and only one “white lady.” Five of the men and the “lady” had
their experience in Queensland only, the sixth man leaving his
record in Victoria.
In the year 1780, a bricklayer named Buckley, at
Macclesfield, in Cheshire, became the father of a son, whom he
named William. At 20 years of age, that boy entered the
militia, and from there into the King’s Own Regiment, where he
became involved in some trouble, which ended in
transportation. When Collins went from Sydney to the present
site of Melbourne in 1803, with a party of soldiers and
convicts to start a settlement, Buckley was one of the
convicts, a tall six foot six man of splendid physique.
Collins only stayed three months at Port Phillip, and
then went on to the present site of Hobart Town, but during
his stay in Port Phillip, a number of convicts escaped, 12
altogether, including a party of Buckley and three others, who
either returned or were recaptured, and promptly regaled with
100 lashes. But Buckley wandered away into the bush until he
met a tribe of aboriginals, who either adopted him as the
re-embodied spirit of some dead aboriginal or as a curiosity
by reason of his immense stature, and impressive appearance.
The blacks found him very hungry and gave him roasted
opossum, which he declared to be the “sweetest thing he ever
ate,” but the average boardinghouse steak would doubtless have
received a flattering testimonial under the circumstances.
When Batman went to Port Phillip he returned on some
business to Tasmania, leaving his servants on Indented Head
until he came back. Batman’s servants were astonished to see a
very tall man, much lighter in colour than the blacks, walk up
to the local camp of aboriginals and squat down at the fire in
silence.
On asking him questions he was unable to reply, but
pointed to his arm, on which were the letters, W. B., and also
a mermaid, a sun, half-moon, seven stars, and a monkey. His
hair and beard and eyes were dark brown; he had a long beard,
and bushy eyebrows, a 45in chest, 18in calves, low forehead,
and walked erect with a military gait, really the ordinary
gait of the Australian wild black. His height was 6ft 6in.
Such a man, armed with woomera, spears, shields, and
boomerangs, and a kangaroo skin cloak over his shoulders, must
have been a remarkable personality.
He was merely a splendid animal, of a low grade of
intelligence, silent and morose, and no useful information was
ever obtained form him. His brain capacity was far below that
of the wild men with whom he had lived for 33 years. The only
words he could find for Bateman’s men were “William Buckley”
and “bread.” He was 53 years of age when found, and he finally
died in Hobart on February 2, 1856, aged 76. He married a
widow in Hobart, and the Government made him gatekeeper at the
female convict factory, and also gave him a pension of £52.
In the
year 1828 a convict named James Davis escaped from the penal
settlement at Moreton Bay, and was adopted by the aboriginals
among whom was one named Pambie Pambie, regarded as the
reincarnated spirit of a son killed in a tribal fight some
years before.
Davis was the son of a Scottish blacksmith in the
Broomiclaw, Glasgow, and must have been sent out as a youth of
about 16, transported for misappropriating a few shillings and
a parcel of sweets, the “sweeties” of the Scots.
It is not easy to understand how Davis came to be sent
to Moreton Bay, at so young an age, as that penal settlement
was supposed to be occupied by twice convicted men, second
only in badness to the convicts of Norfolk Island. However, we
was sent to Moreton Bay, duly escaped, and lived for over 15
years among the blacks. After escaping he met the first blacks
about where Sandgate is, and they passed him along to the
tribe at Toorbul Point, where he received the name of
Durramboi, pronounced “Dur-eumbye,” by the blacks, the name
for little in the dialect spoken by Tom Petrie, who called it
“Turrabul,” and Toorbul is only another spelling of the same
word.
When Davis was asked by me, in 1874, in the presence of
Tom Petrie, why they called him Duramboi, he replied, with as
much of a laugh as he was capable of, “Oh! I was only a little
fellow!” And certainly he only looked like a boy beside the
six foot two Tom Petrie, for Davis had never been more that
5ft 5in, and he was a very small man among the splendid types
of Moreton Bay aboriginals of those days. Their average height
was given at 5ft 10in by Dr. Lang in 1848, and at 6ft by
Leichhardt in 1845. An aboriginal is always bigger than he
looks.
As no one recognised him among the Toorbul blacks, he
was passed along the coast, finally to Wide Bay and the Mary
River, where the tribes spoke the Cabbee dialect, quite
different from the Waccah of Brisbane and Toorbul, though both
dialects were understood of each other, just as German and
French would be understood by the dwellers on both sides of
the Rhine.
The name of “Durrambye” was passed along with Davis,
and retained until he was recognised as the long dead son of
Pambie-Pambie, a man of the tribe of Thyeebalang, and then the
wild father who adopted him bestowed the name of the dead son,
and called him “Thurimmbie,” the name of the kangaroo rat, but
Davis had an aversion to that name, and always retained the
“Durrambye.”
Old blacks of the Mary and Fraser’s Island told me 40
years ago that he was called by one name as often as the
other, and that fact is mentioned by me on page 83 of my
“Geographic History of Queensland,” of 1895.
Several interviews were given to me by Durranbye, but
though he gave me his confidence, he was a most cantankerous
old fellow, and what little was obtainable had to be dragged
out of him by patience and diplomacy. He had some interviews
with Dr. Lang, but something went wrong, and before the
parliamentary Committee of 1861 he accused Dr. Lang of
“writing the falsest book that ever was written!”
It has been truly said that “all war is a
misunderstanding,” and there was certainly some serious
divergence between Davis and the grand old Scottish warrior,
whom nobody would ever suspect of willfully telling anything
unreliable, but when one reads Lang’s mention of Davis in his
“Cooksland,” the opinions of the ex-wild man become
intelligible.
When before the Committee in 1861, Davis said he had
been with the blacks for 15 years and three months; that he
had been with several different tribes; that the dialect of
each tribe varied; that in a radius of 200 miles, they could
clearly understand each other very well; and that he spoke
four or five dialects. Davis only spoke one dialect, the
Cabbee of the Mary River, extending from the Caboolture River
to midway between Maryborough and Bundaberg.
In the vocabulary given by Davis to Ridley in 1854, he
calls the dialect “Dippil,” as “spoken around the Glass House
Mountains.” That vocabulary shows conclusively that the
“Dippil” of Davis was pure Cabbee, which stopped at
Caboolture, and merged there into the Turrubul of Tom Petrie.
The word “Burrambye” of Turrubul, became very slightly changed
to “Durramye,” in the Cabbee spoken by Davis.
The reader
who requires proof will find it in the vocabulary given by
Davis, to Ridley in 1854, in Ridley’s “Kamilroi and other
Dialects,” and though Ridley spells the word for “little” as
“Duramoi,” the actual sound was “Durramye,” which is not very
far from Durrambye!
And yet foolish people, actuated by pure ignorance, or
the vanity of seeing their names or initials in print, some of
them not capable of knowing an aboriginal from a Hottentot,
rush in to show that they are the pure oracles, and Durramboi,
Tom Petrie, and myself, are bogus pretenders, on whom no
reliance is to be placed! Today there seems to be a law
against everything except fools.
To Ridley, Davis gave the name of his dialect as
“Kabbi,” only Ridley’s way of spelling “Cabbee,” so the reader
will see that the subject is fairly familiar to me.
In the 15 years, Davis had become as wild as the blacks
themselves, could climb a tree with a vine, throw the spear
and boomerang, and use the shield and nulla effectively in
peace or war.
Stuart Russell, in his “Genesis of Queensland,” gives a
very graphic story, and highly dramatic description of the
scene when Durrambye was found among the wild blacks of the
Mary River. Davis was a pure savage, who not only had gone
back to all the habits and customs of the savage, but had
become addicted to cannibalism.
Of this there was very clear evidence given to me by
old Thyeebalang blacks, but one has only to read the evidence
of Davis himself, in his examination in 1861, to see how he
seems to gloat over the cannibal feasts, and the dainty
sucking pig character of those who were young and fat, to
readily realize that Pickwick’s “fat boy” would not quite safe
if Durrambye and a camp oven were anywhere in the vicinity,
and Durrambye was hungry!
On his return to civilization he adopted his father’s
trade of blacksmith, at which he was expert, and he had a shop
in George Street, where he remained until opening a crockery
shop next to the old Lands Office, the present location of the
Railway Commissioner and staff.
Another escaped convict- this man’s name was Baker, who
escaped from the penal settlement in 1832, or two years after
Captain Logan was killed by his own men between Ipswich and
Esk. The foolish story that Baker engineered the tragedy was
therefore glaringly fictitious. Baker was out seven years with
the Upper Brisbane blacks, when he was recovered, and he acted
as interpreter for the two blacks, “Meriddioh” and
“Noogamill,” tried in Sydney for the murder of Surveyor
Stapylton and his assistant Tuck, near Mount Lindsay, in May,
1840. Both blacks were brought back to Brisbane and hanged
from a spar projecting from the present Brisbane Observatory
on Spring Hill
OLD
MORETON BAY TRIBES
THEIR
LANGUAGES
On my first visit to Queensland, as a youth, in 1870,
or 53 years ago, I came form the Clarence in a centerboard
dish bottomed iron schooner, the West Hartley No 2, Captain
James Holden, who in after years kept the Commercial Hotel at
Ballina, then an hotel at Maitland, and, finally, died about
two years ago at Petersham, a Sydney suburb.
An all-round good man was “Jimmy Holden,” and a
thorough seaman. We came out of the Clarence Heads, by Iluka
and Yamba, and over that ugly bar in a thunderstorm, and we
had night, and storm, and darkness, and almost incessant
lightning, until we rounded Cape Moreton and anchored close to
shore. Some of the sailors started fishing, and caught a lot
of tailor and whiting, the “poonbah” and “boorenn” of the
blacks, and Holden woke the cook at midnight to give us a fish
supper.
The cook’s subsequent remarks set fire to the fat in
the frying pan.
After breakfast, we went ashore, and met about 20
blacks, big, athletic men, and fine specimens of women. At
that time I spoke the “Yoocum-Yoocum” dialect, which extended
from the Logan River south to midway between the Clarence and
Bellinger, and all New England from Armidale to near Warwick,
whence it was joined by the Wacca Wacca of the Darling Downs,
the dialect which came down the north side of the Brisbane
River to the sea and Toorbul Point, and down the Burnett to
the sea at Bundaberg. All the intermediate space was occupied
by the “Cabbie-Cabbie” of the Mary. In a number of dialects,
the negative was duplicated to describe the language, just as
English would be “No-no,” Scottish “Nah-nah,” French
“Non-non,” German “Nein-nein,” and Italian “Nou-nou.”
The Polynesian races call the French the “man o’ wee
wee,” from Johnny Crepand’s too frequent use of his
affirmative. On Moreton Island I was in a dialect new to me,
but there were two Yoocum men there on a visit from the
Talgiburra tribe of Nerang, and so we were all younger
brothers, “bannama,” at once, and, after a delightful
interview, or, in the perfervid eloquence of the immortal
social columnist, “we had almost enjoyable party,” a death
less sentence, renowned for its originality.
The shining hour was improved by recording about 150
words of the Gnoogee dialect of Gnoorgannpin, and that old
note book is now before me. In 1874, on my return to
Queensland, I added 200 words, and those 350 are all that
remain of an interesting dialect, now absolutely extinct with
those by whom it was spoken.
THE LOST
TRIBES OF MORETON BAY
ABORIGINAL
PLACE NAMES
Courier
25 August 1923
There were
seven dialects spoken by the Moreton Bat tribes- the Yoocum of
Nerang, extending to the Logan; the Cateebil, from the Logan
to Brisbane; the Waccah, from the Brisbane to the Caboolture;
the Cabbee, north of Caboolture; the Nhulla of Bribie; the
Coobennpil of Stradbroke; and the Gnoogee of Moreton Island.
What was called the Noonuccal of Amity was actually so
nearly allied to Coobennpil that it could hardly be called a
separate dialect, though it had its own negative and
affirmative.
There were three negatives on Fraser Island – Waccah,
Cabbee, and Warr – but it was all one dialect.
Stradbroke Island, as a whole, was known as
Cheranggaree, and the tribes Cheranggaree- Cabalchu. The south
end of the island was called Minjerribah, the name by which it
was known to the mainland blacks. Mud Island was Bung-umba,
Bird Island was Moppambilla, Peel Island Chercrooba, St.
Helena Noogoon, Green Island Tanggeera.
To the Stradbroke and mainland blacks, Moreton Island
was known as Gnoorgannpin.
In Coobennpil, the following were the names of the
fishes:- Groper, coojung; bream, gnoolan; pike, yoocoh;
dewfish, booigoom; blackfish, dang-alla; eel, chagine; silver
eel, choorooin; garfish, joonboroo; flathead, duggin; horse
mackerel, doolbie-doolbie; schnapper, bimba; crab, winyam;
kingfish, decambilla; mullet, andaccal; tailer fish, poonbah;
whiting, boorenn; pike, yooco; oyster, keenying-urra.
Those are a few of the names taken by me from
Coobennpil speaking blacks over 50 years ago, before the
dialects were mixed.
Brisbane was known to all the blacks at that time as
Maginnchin, but the Cateebil people, on the south side, called
it Meeannjin. That was the name of the spot now occupied by
the Botanic Gardens, and meant the tulip-wood, also
“guarrim-tenblerra,” of which there were so many splendid
trees in the dense scrub which once covered the side of the
Gardens.
The word
Woolloongabba was the name of the creek that ran along
parallel with the old Ipswich Road, and through Woolloongabba.
It was a series of circular, or partly circular, clay
holes, only connected in wet weather. Then the rain water
would run from one to the other, swirling around in each hole
before rushing into the next.
Woolloongabba meant swirling water, but the blacks
pronounced it Woolloon-capemm, from woolen the word for a
whirlpool or whirlwind, and capemm, one of the names of water.
Clement Wragge called his house, “Capemba,” meaning
water there, the affix ba, or bah, at the end of an aboriginal
word, being equivalent to our adverb of place there, so
Capemba meant water there, just as Toowoomba means toowoom
there, or the place where we get the toowoom.
Mount Cotton was called Boolimba, and Joong-gabbin, and
Bulimba was Toogoolawah. The hill near Bulimba, White’s Hill,
was Numcarran, and where the ferry is, was Jing-gee-limbin.
Mt. Gravatt was Caggara-mahbill, from Caggar, the
porcupine, and the Hamilton was Yerrool, the old sandbank in
front being Mooroo-mooroolbin, or “long nose,” from mooroo the
nose, and mooroolbin, long.
The blacks called Breakfast Creek at the mouth,
Yow-oggera, and Yuoogera, but the u was mistaken for an n in
the survey office, and it has remained Enoggera ever since.
The place we call Enoggera was Booloor-chambinn, the
name of the turpentine tree, and the tribe who lived there
were the “Boondoorburra.” The old and long since extinct
Brisbane tribe were called Boor-pooban-burra, the burra being
the generic word for the aboriginal race, like the “Murri” of
the Kamilroi.
The site of the present Enoggera saleyards was
Booiyooba. The point at Breakfast Creek, where the Harris
family lived, was Garran-binbilla, the name of the horizontal
vines used in lacing the supporting stays of a camp.
Toowong was called Gootcha, one of the names of honey,
and it also was a name of One Tree Hill. There were two native
bees, one a little larger than the other, one being gootcha,
and the other cubbye.
To the blacks, One Tree Hill was known as Gootcha and
Mappee, gootcha being honey, and mappee a word for the
posterior, actually meaning the posterior of the range which
ends in One Tree Hill, the aboriginal fancy picturing some
imaginary resemblance arising out of their ingenious doctrine
of correspondence. The hill got its unfortunate name of
Coot-tha in the following manner: a gentleman named Radford,
who was at the time acting as Assistant Clerk of Parliament,
went to old “King Sandy,” “Gairballie,” and asked him what the
blacks called One Tree Hill. Radford had been to Sandy several
times before, and on each occasion forgotten to give the old
fellow some reward, so, instead of giving Radford either
Gootcha or Mappee, he wilfully, of most wicked malice
aforethought, gave him a word, the use of which, if translated
into English, would be rewarded with a fine of anything up to
£5. Hence, the urgent need of removing it from the maps, and
substituting Gootcha, Mappee, or Cubbye. Mappee, on the
Russell River, was the name of the tree climbing kangaroo.
Spring Hill was known as Woomboong-goroo, as that was
the place where an aboriginal of tha name was killed by the
relatives of “Dundahli,” a black who was hanged in 1854 for
several murders of whites, hanged on the site of the present
G.P.O.; and his last words to the crowd of listening blacks on
Spring Hill conveyed an earnest wish for them to kill
Woomboong-goroo, whom he accused of having betrayed him. His
relatives and friends were careful to see that wish fulfilled,
and Woomboong-goroo duly died on Spring Hill from the
visitation of a nulla. Previous to that occasion, the old name
of the hill was Mahreel, one of the names of a step-mother.
In Vulture Street, South Brisbane, near the Dry Dock,
is the old home of the Stephens family, of whom the father, T.
B. Stephens, was at one time Minister for Lands. They called
the home Cumbookie-bah, from Cumbookie, the freshwater
crayfish, and bah, “there,” meaning the place where we get
“Cumbookie,” which were numerous in two of the waterholes near
Stephen’s house. Away out on the Ipswich Road was Stephen’s
tannery, called Ekibin, that and Yekkabin being names of reeds
which grew round the adjoining waterhole. The large flags of
which the celery like roots were roasted, and eaten by the
blacks, were called jinboora, allied with the Down’s blacks’
jimboor, whence came the name of Jimbour station, both words
in the Waccah dialect.
Cleveland was Nandeebie, Lytton was Gnaloongpin, and
Wellington Point was Cullen-Cullen. King Island was Yeroobin,
and Sandgate was called Moora, in Waccah, and Warrah by blacks
on Stradbroke. Can we not create titles and elevate that
genial old colonist, Jack Hayes, to the position of “Marquis
of Moora”? Verily, Sandgate has changed since that 3rd
of December, 1853, when Dowse and his son were badly speared
by the blacks on the site of the present modest castle of the
“Marquis of Moora.”
One unfortunate aboriginal word has suffered more than
usual, the word Tingalpa, pronounced Ting-al-bah by the
blacks, from tingal, the word for fat, and bah, “there,” as
usual, actually “the place where we got the fat,” originating
with an early settler, who had a fat cow killed by a falling
tree, and he presented her to the blacks, who had never seen
so much fat before in all their lives, and they never forgot
that cow. Now the fine euphonious aboriginal word is tortured
into Tin-gal-pa!
Another unfortunate word is Coorparoo, which the
aboriginal pronounced Coor-poo-roo, with the accent on the
poo; in the Cateebil dialect, the name of the old tribe of
South Brisbane, who were the “Coor-pooroo-jaggin,” when the
white man, with his choice collection of fellow scoundrels,
made his advent on the sylvan scene.
Indooroopilly was from indooroo, leeches, and pilly, a
creek; Yeerongpilly, from yeerong, rain in Cateebil; and
Jeebroopilly from jeebour, the flying squirrel.
We pass now to the word Caboolture, from cabbool, the
carpet snake, and cha, the name of the ground, actually the
carpet snake’s ground.
Old Sam Pootinngga, belonged to the Bo-obbera tribe, of
Caboolture, and was the last man speaking the Waccah dialect
of Brisbane. His country on the Caboolture was called Dow-oon.
Now we come to the “Dippil” people of Duramboi, and the
Glass-house Mountains. The Blackall scrub was known as
Thammaleerie, the word for black soil, though it is mostly
red. The Glasshouse Mountains had a variety of names in the
Waccah and Cabbee dialects. One of them puzzled me for a long
time, until it was explained by Alick Jardine, who named it
when surveying there. The word is a compound from the
Kamilroi, of New South Wales, and hence my surprise at finding
it in Cabbee country. Jardine called the mountain
Micatee-boomal-garri, from mickatee, the lightning, and
boomal, to strike, accent on al, literally the place where the
lightning struck. The mountain known today as Coonowrin was
the coonoong-warrang of the old Cabbee blacks, from coonoong,
the neck, and warrang, bad, hence the term “Crookneck”
frequently used for that peak.
Beerwah was from beearr, the Blue Mountain parrot,
meaning the place where he rests.
The two small hills, close to each other, were
Bitheer-boolaythu, actually “the two hills,” from bitheer, a
hill, and boolay, two.
The one now called Beerburrum from beearr, the parrot,
and burrum, the noise of his wings, was called
Jeeboroo-gaggalin by the old Cabbee blacks, from jeebour, the
squirrel, and gaggalin, nibbling, the “nibbling squirrel.” But
the names varied considerably in the two dialects,
Bitheerboolaythu in Cabbee became Toom-boomboolah in Wacca,
Coonoo-warrin replaced Coonoong-warrang, and Jeeboroo-gaggalin
became Teeborcaccin.
Other Glass House Mountain names taken down by me from
the blacks themselves, when they spoke their own language,
were Nuhroom, Yooan, Birriebah, Daiangdarrajin, Turrawandin,
but as no meanings are recorded, the blacks probably had
forgotten them, as often the case with very old names.
From the summit of Spring Hill, you can see in the
distance Flinders’ Peak Mountain, the Booroompa of the
Cateebil dialect, and his two cone-shaped satellites,
Muntannbin and Teenyeenpa, while far off on the sky line is
the great cliff faced front of Mt. Lindesay, the Chalgammbooin
of Cateebil, and the Changgam-bin of Yoocum.
The Ipswich tribe was known to other tribes as
Noonillburra, and the North Brisbane tribe, who spoke Tom
Petrie’s Turrabul, was known as Beepooban. The Bunya Mountains
tribes were grouped under Dallamburra, and the Downs tribes as
Gooneeburra, the “fire blacks.” The Logan people were
Warilleum, and the Albert River tribes were Boonoorajallie,
while the Coomera was occupied by the Balloonjallie, and
Nerang by the Talgiburra, and Chabbooburra. The Durundur
tribe, of whom so many were poisoned in the early days, were
the Giggaburra. Nerang Creek was named from Neerang, a shovel
nosed shark, which is more a ray than a shark, and Coomera was
a word for ground. In Maori, it is the name of the sweet
potato.
Some names of places in the Bay have been overlooked,
Macleay Island was Jencoomercha, Coochie Mudlo was
Goojingoojingpa, Dunwich was Goompee, and Moreton Island was
known to the other tribes as Cung-an-yung-an. St. Helena,
Noogoon, was occupied by a people from the Coon-ool-Cabalchu
tribe of Dunwich. The Gnoogee dialect of Moreton Island, gave
the name of the Creator as “Tooloong-coloo-manboo,” the Biamee
of the Kamilroi, a name bearing no resemblance to the
Creator’s name in any other known dialect. The names of the
boomerang in Moreton Bay dialects were barrann, bargann, and
barragan, the shield, goolmarring. Nundah was the mouth, and
Nambour was the tea-tree. The forest oak was buranda, and the
swamp oak billarr. Water was goong, tabbil, and capemm, and
fire was wy burra.
LAND OF THE
CROCODILE
FOR THE
BULLETIN
MAY 18,
1896
By the
centrifugal scattering forces at work in early colonization,
many of the people most interesting historically are projected
to the remotest fringe of settlement.
Hence we
find in Queensland, even far west and north, some of those who
form connecting links between the present and the early years
of the parent province. Yesterday I met an old lady who, in
her maiden days, as Miss Williams, was ladies companion to
Miss Burke, and dressed her on the morning of her marriage to
E. Deas-Thomson. Mrs. Thomson, by the way, was credited with
writing all her husband’s best speeches.
***
Here is an
authentic snake story, revealing remarkable presence of mind.
A Miss McEwen, now Mrs. Ellis, lived with her mother and
sisters on the Brisbane River in a locality notorious for
black snakes. The girls were so accustomed to these reptiles
the sudden presence of one inspired on fear whatever. The
dairy was the great attraction for the snakes, as they are
very fond of milk. Family seated at dinner. Kate McEwen called
to the servant to bring her a basin of milk. “The jug of milk
is on the table,” said her mother. “Bring me a basin of milk
and be quick about it,” said Kate, without moving a muscle.
The basin was handed to her and she quietly placed it on the
floor close to her feet. Then a black snake slowly uncoiled
himself from the calf of her legislation and glided over to
the milk. This is one of several instances of Miss McEwen’s
astonishing self possession. What would an ordinary man have
done in similar circumstances?
***
When our
Crown Ministers were out on a recent grand tour, to “make
ourselves acquainted, Mr. Speaker, with all the wants of this
great country,” one of them, in a moment of deplorable
weakness, unworthy of a modern statesman’s dignity, asked a
brother Minister “Are we fully justified in the expense of
this little festivity at the present time?” To which the other
replied, “That implies an abstruse problem in political ethics
which life is not long enough to solve! Charley, bring in
another half a dozen of champagne!” Which recalls (I have just
been reading American papers), the two Negroes in the
fowlhouse, “Ain’t it werry wrong to do this sort of thing?”
said the sometimes stricken partner. “Dat involves a great
moral question which we ain’t got time to discuss. Hand down
that big white rooster!”
***
The
champion humorist among Australian explorers was McDouall
Stuart. Referring to hoisting the Union Jack on Central Mt.
Stuart, he said: “We gave three cheers for the flag, the cause
of freedom and religious liberty, and may it be a step for the
natives that the dawn of liberty, civilization and
Christianity is about to break out upon this continent from the whole of
whose living aboriginal inhabitants, and the countless
indignant ghosts of those who were dead, there was even then
ascending to Heaven, one deep well founded Curse on the Day
when the “emblem of civil and religious liberty,” and those
who carried it, came into sight upon the Australian coast.
***
A
venerable pioneer, with a phenomenally clear memory, was
recently telling me that he was a youth of 16 in Bathurst in
1826, when Holloway kept the “Bathurst Classical and
Mercantile School,” and the “Bathurst Hunt” Club rode forth in
green jackets turned up with velvet, a dingo in gold on the
collar, and gilt buttons, with “Bathurst Hunt” on them. He
still owns two of the buttons. The men with the clearest
memories are those who never learned to read. A woman’s memory
is generally more reliable than a man.
***
An episode
in the life of a Brisbane society woman, who, after a long
interregnum, had a quire unexpected piccaninny. By way of
novelty she was seated on the bedroom floor washing the infant
in a large wash basin. It was her very first attempt, and she
was nervous. The plump little living “roley poley” slipped out
of her hands and vanished in the soapsuds. Mamma thereupon
went promptly off into hysterics, and when some woman heard
the awful uproar and rushed promptly into the room, she found
the infant sprawling on the floor in a pool of soapsuds and
mamma lying on her back beside the empty basin, which she had
fortunately kicked over in the first excitement.
***
You lately
printed C. R. “Daly” instead of “Haly,” late P.M. at Dalby,
and one of the squatting pioneers of Queensland. Charles
Robert Haly and R. R. Mackenzie, our fifth Premier, were
returned for the Burnett to our first Parliament in 1860. Haly
had a station on the Logan in 1845, and Dr. Lang stayed there,
on his way over from the Clarence, via Mt. Lindsay. Old Haly
was one of the whitest men in Queensland. He had to bear much
chaff in the House for his advocacy of the natural grasses,
especially the wild carrot, and the use of salt. A wiser
generation may have good reason, and the necessary sense, to
remember old Haly’s prophecy.
***
“Had the
horses no external indications of ownership?” said a pompous
Justice of the Peace to a bush witness in a North Queensland
police court. “Only the gripes a couple o’ times,” was the
reply. This fits in with the evidence of a Dutch witness
who, when asked if his pig had no ear marks, observed that
“Zee only ear marks he haf was two curls mit his tail!”
AUGUST 2,
1891.
The nose
of Queensland’s Colonial Secretary Horace Tozer, has been a
“prominent feature” in a recent Gympie press correspondence.
The true story of that nose shall now be related. Tozer’s
Roman proboscis was
aggravated by occasional visits of eczema, and Jack Hamilton,
M.L.A., recommended lubrication with a weak solution of
salicylic acid. Now when Kelland, the Gympie democrat, looked
in at the railway window and briefly remarked “Boo-hoo!” Tozer
was in the attitude of a Hielanman regaling himself with a
pinch of snuff, the thumb used for applying Hamilton’s
lubricant, and the rest of the hand extended at the usual
angle. Kelland somewhat naturally assumed that this was a
gesture of derision, intended as an affront to the local
democracy. Archelaus, the ancient philosopher, held to the
theory that goats breathe through their ears; Kelland is of
opinion that Tozer conducts satiric dialogues with his nose.
Alas! As old Carlyle observed, “All war is a
misunderstanding!” Tozer is not a man capable of an act of
vulgarity either to an individual or a crowd. I have met him
in joy and sorrow. Last week we were unusually seasick
together on a private open-sea fishing excursion. Tozer
slipped on a piece of bait and Saturday down unexpectedly on
deck, after throwing up a new Mining Bill, while Morgan the
Chairman of Committees, unwillingly accepted several violent
notices of motion.
**
No
reporter has yet discovered that Sir Thomas McIlwraith had a
recent narrow escape. The “Knight of Auchenflower” was down at
Stradbroke Island in the steamer Miner, and about to leave of
the return journey. The Miner was anchored off the shore, and
Thomas started out to her in a small boat rowed by one of the
crew. A heavy wave capsized the dingy, and the Colonial
Treasurer, the boatman, and a big dog were at once wrong end
to the zenith. With a violent effort, the boatman pushed Sir
Thomas into shallow water with a hazy idea that he was a
stranded whale (weight 18 stone), and the first question the
noble knight asked was “Where is the dog?” That faithful
collie had mysteriously disappeared. The boatman swam out,
turned over the boat, and the collie jumped out and swam to
shore as if nothing had happened! He had been safe in the air
imprisoned beneath. About 35 years ago, a schooner was washed
ashore on the beach at Tweed heads and old Tom Boyd and a mate
cut a hole in the bottom and rescued two French sailors, one
of whom is still alive. Sit Thomas swimming ashore with his
Budget speech reminds me of Caesar with his “Commentaries” and
Camoens with his “Luciad.”
**
The gaol
regulations at Thursday Island are based on the most advanced
principles of humanity. Some of the prisoners stroll about the
island, catch fish, collect botanical specimens, go to sleep,
or get drunk, with beautiful impartiality. Yet nobody ever
escapes, and no harm is ever done. If you meet anyone there
out for a walk, be careful to ascertain if he is a boarder
from the gaol or a wealthy pearl fisher. Thus the gaoler to
Tommy Abdalla: “Look here, Tommy, if you are not in by 10
o’clock, I’ll lock you out!”
“All right Massa,” said Tommy: “suppose I no drunk, I
come home all right!” Some on e owed Tommy a sum of £7 for
over a year, and, seeing no prospect of payment, Tommy forged
a cheque for £11 in the name of the debtor. Tommy’s defence
was: “One year this man he owe me £7, he no pay me. Now I woe
him £7, and no pay him for one year more!” The sublime humour
of this financial transaction was wasted on the local Justice
of the Peace who sent Tommy into retirement for six months,
but, during that time, he was so disgusted with the
accommodation of the local gaol that when he came out he went
away indignantly to try Croydon Bastille, and is probably
there at the present time.
**
When
Colonel Olcott was in Brisbane he spent a Sunday with me a few
miles out of town. At his special request I gave him an
exhibition of boomerang throwing, the first he had ever seen,
and he was greatly pleased. Personally he is a very genial old
gentleman and his persuasiveness is testified to eloquently by
the fact that he induced me to write a long article for the
Indian “Theosophist” on the “Habits and Superstitions of the
Queensland Blacks.” My reward for that article is to be
hereafter, or even later on, when “In Indian realms Elysian”
the genial Colonel and I are instructing the Mahatmas and the
avenging spirits who are to wipe out the capitalists, the
Mammon worshippers, the money lenders, the fat landlords, the
titled loafers and sundry other unspeakable human abominations
who encumber that beautiful planet we men inhabit.
**
FOR THE
BULLETIN
January
31, 1891.
When
Leichhardt was out on the Mackenzie River on the 27th
February 1845, he presented an innocent and inoffensive tribe
of myalls with a Queen Victoria coronation medal. There was
really no reason for this heartless outrage, as the tribe had
done no harm to Leichhardt, and it can only be accounted for
by the kindly supposition that the famous explorer was
guiltless of evil intent. The medal was fatal to the tribe,
and one by one each wearer of that Britannia medal symbol
assumed unwarrantable airs and an intolerably despotic
attitude, and the whole of the revenues of the tribe until
they rose up in wrath and laid him gently out with a nulla.
Finally there was but one man left, a grey haired old warrior
who walked moodily about the forest with the medal in one hand
and a stone tomahawk in the other, cursing the memory of
Leichhardt in seven distinct dialects, and wildly imploring
the spirits of his ancestors to pilot him to the “gin” who
formed the original of that bas relief, so that he might
exterminate her, and all her race, and perish peacefully among
the ruins.
**
A tale of
the times of old. About 20 years ago, the late Judge Blake and
McDevitt, a well-known lawyer and politician of “them days,”
were opposing counsel at Maryborough before the late Justice
Lutwyche. Blake had the curious habit of occasionally
thrusting his tongue out round his cheek, and McDevitt,
laughing aloud at this performance, had to explain to the
judge that he was unable to resist a loud smile at Blake’s
“hopeless efforts to lick his ear.” Tom Blake, in a voice of
thunder, “Your honour, no man more appreciates a good, healthy
laugh than I do, but that was not a laugh! It was only a
dirty, mane Irish shnivel!”
**
Once the
late Judge Pring, and the present Judge Harding, were opposing
counsel before Chief Justice Cockle. Cockle, by the way, is
closely related to Cockle’s pills, and is a genial old
gentleman in much request at the Savage Club, London. Harding
was continually rising to object to Pring’s course of
procedure, until Pring, in a choleric spasm, exclaimed: “Oh,
sit down, and be damned!” Then Harding ferociously observed
that he was not to be put down by a swell, a person of unknown
paternity, only he expressed it all in one word. Pring, in
wild rage, “You are a liar! And if you say that outside I’ll
knock ten
thousand blazes out of you!” But this was only one of the
legal amenities of “The days when our hearts were
volcanic.”
And Pring
and Harding became fast friends, and were both duly sorry for
the impromptu and unbounded observations of their early days.
**
And this
reminds me that when one of the Swanwicks was discovered in
the Supreme Court with a loaded revolver in his pocket,
presumably with the amiable intention of shooting Sir Samuel
Griffith, Harding at once intimate that he would probably
sentence the sportsman to forty years for contempt of court!
The punishment of a man who used Pring’s language to the
Harding of today would probably be imprisonment for eternity,
seated on a red hot gridiron. The unfortunate Swanwick, whose
revolver became a historical weapon, was found drowned two or
three years ago on the beach at Port Douglas.
**
The
military tournament at Warwick on the 13th ultimo,
recalls March of 1860, when Sir George Bowen was met there by
a cavalcade of horsemen, with an address of welcome, and in
reply the champion hierarch of bunkum said: “There are only
two places in the world where I could be received by such a
splendid body of cavalry, who forthwith vanished on the edge
of the horizon in search of some unoccupied realms worthy of
their matchless prowess, and forgot to come back again.
Bowen’s speech was deadlier than a battle.
**
Sir, I am
afraid your correspondent “Scribbler” has got things a bit
mixed. He stated that he voted for Hudson and Lang. He must
mean A. Hodgson, the manager of the A. A. Company, one time
Colonial Secretary, and afterwards Sir A. Hodgson, who cut a
great swell in England in purchasing Bea Disraeli’s or Lord
Beaconsfield’s estate. He put up for the Downs and opposed Dr.
Lang.
Then
again, the St. Patrick’s Hotel was one allotment from Albert
Street, and joined Mayne’s butcher’s shop. In the Hollow was
our old friend Costigan. M. M. Sheehan built and ran St.
Patrick’s for years. He lent it to young Jones, the barber,
who built and ran what is now called the Glebe, in Margaret
Street. Young Jones had a gas works fitted up in the yard and
supplied himself with gas – the first gas works in Brisbane. A
culvert 9ft wide was then in Queen Street, to take the water
from Roma Street.
As late as
1838, the chain gang was working in Queen Street. The last
time I saw them was in 1838. They were then forming Queen
Street, between the St. Patrick Inn and the Surveyors Arms.
My first acquaintance with Jerry Scanlan was when he
was with Dr. Simpson, the travelling Magistrate. Paddy Neill,
the flogger, a man about 6ft 2in in height, always travelled
with them. On their arrival at a Downs station, after a good
feed, it was “Any complaints?” If there were, Paddy did his
work.
To come back to Dr. Lang. He did more for Australia,
and Queensland in particular, than any other man living or
dead. He stopped transportation, and lost a fortune bringing
out immigrants. He was promised grants of land for all the
immigrants he brought out. He brought out three shiploads to
Moreton Bay, but never got an acre of land. All the Downs
squatters had a down on Lang for stopping transportation,
which supplied them with cheap labour.
I was present when Dr. Land addressed a meeting on the
Downs and suffered considerable disturbance from the crowd.
“Turn around or I will speak to the reporters” said his
protagonist. The disturbance continued so Dr. Land turned
around to the reporters who were at the back of the hustings,
bent well forward to address them, with his back to the
audience, and his coattails over his arms. “Turn around you
blank, blank, blankety blank” yelled the angry crowd. Dr. Lang
turned around and said “What’s the point, when you won’t
listen!” After that, every time the disturbance commenced, he
repeated his performance until at last he obtained a good
hearing. He was returned by a big majority. It was said that
Jimmy Hughes and Billy Long and others paid the mob to break
up that meeting. I would fill your pages with reminiscences.
Yours,
etc.,
R. R. W.
Spring
Hill.
February
19, 1908.
**
Well-known
in North Queensland is Edwin Norris, the solicitor of
Townsville.
He is one
of the soundest lawyers in Queensland. He is also an ardent
student of astronomy, and possesses, probably, the finest
private telescope in Australia. In religion he leans lovingly
towards Pantheism, and has an opinion of creeds and dogmas not
to be expressed in all the languages of Elihu Burritt. One day
he was waited on by Police Magistrate Morey and Walter Hayes.
It had been decided that Townsville should become a cathedral
town, and so the orthodox and Bishop Staunton were out on the
warpath for cash to erect a gorgeous sacred gunyah to cost
£20,000. Morey and Hayes called for a sub. of £100 from
Norris. It may be mentioned that the legal astronomer is
slightly deaf.
On this
particular occasion his hearing was more than usually
defective. “We intend to erect a cathedral,” said Morey.
Norris heard this. “Ah! Very good, you have my full permission
to erect half a dozen!” “And, of course, a leading citizen
like you will give £100 towards it,” said Morey. Norris didn’t
hear that. “You will give us a hundred, won’t you?” said Morey
in a voice that was heard over on Magnetic Island.
The smile
that irradiated the features of Norris was like the flash of
sheet lightning in the bosom of the midnight cloud.
“Gentlemen! Astronomy is my religion, a noble, godlike
religion, the study of the Universe and the manifestation of
the Eternal – a study wide and deep as Eternity! How, then,
can you come to me for money to build your miserable religious
structures and assist in propagating one of the gigantic
ecclesiastical impostures that afflict humanity? But I will be
magnanimous with you! Give me £100 towards another and larger
telescope and I will give you £50 towards your cathedral!”
Then Morey
and Hayes crawled out and went round to the Queen’s in solemn
silence and buried their pale noses in a couple of tumblers.
**
I have to
report a case of glaring sacrilege at Cairns. The Church of
England clergyman there is a Mr. G. R. F. Nobbs. It is a
terrible autograph to be launched out with on the shoreless
universe, but he struggles nobly under the affliction. One
night he invited a few friends to spend the evening, and had
arranged a little surprise in the shape of an oyster supper.
The Chinese oysterman opened them at the back door, and stood
them on large plates at the kitchen table. There were 40
dozen. And when Nobbs thought the time had come to announce
the banquet – to call the visitors to the “feast of shells”-
he said “Dear brothers and sisters in Christ. As God gave you
an appetite for oysters, I have ordered 40 dozen to appease
that appetite; come with me and enjoy them, and we will return
thanks!”
But lo!
And behold! When Nobbs skipped cheerfully out for the oysters,
they were gone! It appears that three young men, prominent
citizens, I grieve to say, being temporarily possessed by
devils, and hearing of the contemplated feast, arrived on the
scene just as the Chinaman left, and feloniously and
diabolically annexed the whole 40 dozen. And shameful insult
was added to gross injury by sending 10 dozen to the Catholic
priest – a “jayall” son of the first “gim of the say,” who,
believing them to come from some devout son of the Church, ate
them with great relish, and went to sleep with pleasant
dreams. No painter could have caught the expression on the
face of Nobbs when he found that his oysters had emigrated:-
“In
voice and gesture savage nature spoke,
And from
his eye the gladiator broke.”
Christianity
was not equal to preserve serenity and award forgiveness for
such an outrage. In the first impulse of that terrible moment,
he breathed a fervent prayer that the miscreants who stole
those oysters should be carted straight off to Sheol without
dying. He reported the sacrilege to the police, and it is said
the unregenerate Hibernian sergeant sent up a mad shout of
laughter that burst the local welkin. And it causes me
grievous pain to have to admit that the smile was universal
among the population. Such is the effect of the Northern
climate on the godless and lawless Queensland democracy. The
act was, of course, indignantly denounced by the truly
religious members of the Church, but those that denounced it
the most earnestly of all were the three men who stole the
oysters.
**
When Miss
Van Tassel, the balloonist, took a fly round over Maryborough,
she descended in a
field belonging to a German farmer. This Teutonic
agriculturist was engaged at the same time chopping out a
stump with an American axe; his frau, clad in the simple
garments of the female peasant, was about a hundred yards away
gracefully digging sweet potatoes with her feet. Perceiving a
dark shadow sweeping over the scene the Teuton looked up to
see what unusual bird was soaring round the locality, and
there he beheld the beautiful Van Tassel (in tights) seated on
the cross bar of the parachute and gracefully descending from
the clouds. Believing this to be an angel sent down direct to
scoop him up, and feeling totally unprepared for the occasion,
Hans flung away his axe and started to break his previous
records in a race for home, at the same time yelling out,
several octaves above the yell of a lost new chum, “Ach, mein
Gott, not yet, not yet, dere vash mein frau over dere; you
gets away mit her!” And the fran, with one foot buried in a
hillock of potatoes, looked on with stolid indifference,
merely remarking “I wonder vat the tyvil dat vash, anyhow!”
**
One result
of the Redmond trial, in the Bowen Downs cattle stealing case,
was that the Government abolished the criminal jurisdiction of
the District Court at Roma, for Judge Blakeney averred that no
jury there would convict horse or cattle stealers. In order to
save the Civil sittings of the Court, the lawyers arranged a
dummy case, which was withdrawn when the Court opened. When
Judge Blakeney was leaving, the whole adult male population of
Roam turned out in black clothes with white handkerchiefs,
surrounded the Judge’s coach, and pretended to weep bitterly.
On that very day the criminal jurisdiction of the Court had
been restored by wire, but was withdrawn again when the
“weeping episode” was reported to the Government. One of the
funniest facts in this interesting drama was the trial of one
of the four accused, three years afterwards, for horse
stealing, before his former counsel, who in his judicial
capacity, gave his old client 18 months hard labour! This was
the unkindest cut of all!
**
One who
was present at the trial tells that “Redmond was one of the
best bushmen in Australia. He looked like a prosperous
Methodist parson, and came into the court with a long black
frockcoat, and a cotton umbrella, clean shaved, except a
little side-whisker, with a very demure and sanctified
expression. He looked about 40 years of age, and 5ft 6in in
height, and weighed about 13 stone. These are solid facts,
somewhat different to the picturesque narrative in “Robbery
Under Arms.” However, fiction has a big license.
**
The once
Chief Justice and Premier Lilley of Queensland, married into a
family named Jeays. One day a Hibernian agriculturist came
into town to see Mr. Jeays, and while looking for that
gentleman, met the Rev. B. G. Wilson, the Baptist clergyman.
“Can yer riverance show me the way to Jeayses?” enquired the
artless child of Erin. The old clergyman solemnly pointed his
hand to the zenith, reverently raised his eyes in the same
direction, and replied, “Yes, my friend, there is the place
where He lives.” “Och, shure, that’s not the wan Oim lukkin’
for – Oi want Misther Lilley’s father-in-law.”
**
The first
South Sea Islanders were brought to New South Wales by the
Velocity, in 1847, for Mr. Ben Lloyd. There were 66 men and 1
women. The year 1890 is the period beyond which no labour
vessel shall bring any more kanakas to Queensland, and there
is not much prospect of that privelege being extended. Three
years more will terminate the engagements of the last “boys”
imported, and then must the sugar planters face the problems
of “white labour or collapse.”
**
The first
attempt to introduce coolies from India was in 1838, when G.
R. Mayo applied for a tract of country at Moreton Bay to start
a coffee and cotton plantation. He also asked for a grant of
Eagle Farm, six miles from Brisbane, then the female convict
settlement, and made a proposal to utilize the women as
labourers. In reply to the collie question Lord Normanby wrote
to Mayo, on March 12, 1839, to say that, “the introduction of
Indian labourers is in direct opposition to the policy of Her
Majesty’s Government.”
**
About 26
years ago a shepherd was found dead in a clump of myall
acacias on a station out on the Barcoo. Beside the body was an
empty rum bottle and a pannikin, on the bottom of which the
dying man had scratched the words, “An officer of the Light
Brigade.” And this was perfectly true. He had actually been an
officer in that brigade, and was deprived of his commission
for continued drunken ness. So perish the “military heroes” in
gaols and hospitals, poorhouses, and Barcoo outstations, the
“broken tools that tyrants cast away.”
**
In my
possession is a copy of Sir George Bowen’s “Ithica in 1850,”
printed in 1854 by James Ridgway, of Piccadilly, and dedicated
to Gladstone. He was then “George Ferguson Bowen, M.A., F. R.
G. S., Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford.” This book was
priced 2s., and reached a third edition. Bowen in 1850 was an
official resident of Corfu. He married a Greek wife named
“Roma Theamantina,” the latter freely Anglicized to
Diamantina. She gave her names to our western towns of Roam
and the Diamantina River. The book is gracefully written, and
contains a brief account of the splendidly heroic defence of
Missoloughi against the Turks under Mehemet and Ibrahim Pasha
– a defence worthy of the days of Salamis and Thermopylae.
**
The rum
drinking of the present day is only a feeble imitation of the
early times. When Flinders started for his second trip along
the east coast of Australia in 1802, he took 1483 gallons of
rum, purchased from an American vessel for 6/6 per gallon. The
old pioneer timbergetters on the coast rivers of New South
Wales bought rum in hogsheads, and drank it out of a bucket.
“What’s a gallon o’ rum among one of us?” was the indignant
query of one of these ancient warriors. And when I see a
modern bushman really drunk, after a pitiful half dozen nips
of colonial rum or imported whisky, I cannot refrain from
shedding tears over the degeneracy of this effeminate age and
the departure of the cast iron robustness of the past. In
justice to the present, however, we must remember that in the
early days there was no “very ld matured Jamaica,” made six
weeks before in Sydney, nor any “famous old Scotch whisky 10
years in bond,” manufactured from chemicals in a Brisbane
cellar; and that even in Flinders’ sailors and the cedar
getters of 1845 would be knocked out after a few days’ sojourn
of the average public house of 1891. We can therefore
congratulate the old hands in having died wisely in time, in
the company, and under the influence of good spirits.
**
Toowoomba’s
Name
I read
with interest in your issue of June 28 an article entitled
“How Toowoomba got its Name.” Your correspondent refers to my
father as “a citizen recognised as an expert who stated that
the name was derived from ‘Choowoom,’ a small melon the size
of a duck egg, which in the 1860s grew prolifically in the
district.
I remember
my father as being just an expert in the use of their weapons
as the aborigines them selves, besides being recognised as an
authority on their habits, customs, and language, having
devoted most of his lifetime to the study of the aboriginal
race now gradually but surely reaching the point of extinction
in Queensland.
The
question of the origin of the name “Toowoomba” seems to have
been settled years ago by my father, whose patience and care
in obtaining first hand information from the aborigines leave
little room for doubt.
It was
thought by some of the earlier settlers that the name
developed from the aboriginal pronunciation of “The Swamp” as
“Twamp” or “Twampa.” Another version given is that the name
comes from “Woomba Woomba,” two words of which I do not know
the meaning nor the dialect from which they come; but by
simple arithmetical calculation became two Woombas, and
combined, with slight variation, Toowoomba.
E. A.
Meston
The anecdotes told during the evening appeared
to meet with the hearty appreciation of this scion of a dying
race, who “wiggled” his shield about and laughed heartily
whenever anything was said that pleased him.
The appearance of the Hon. George Thorn, M.L.A., and
Mr. Meston on stage, was the signal for hearty acclamation.
Mr. Thorn said it gave him very great pleasure to be
present that night to preside for Mr. Meston. He was sure that
a great treat was in store for the audience, and that the
lecture would be highly interesting, entertaining, and also
truthful. Mr. Meston was a very old colonist, having come
here, he thought, about the same time as himself. He was well
known to most of them, and had been a considerable time in
Ipswich, besides representing one of the adjoining
electorates. As a journalist he was a contributor to one of
the metropolitan newspapers. Mr. Meston’s fame was not
confined to Queensland; he had made a name for himself in
other lands. He was quite sure that he would rivet the
attention of the audience during the whole of the time he was
on the platform. He then introduced the lecturer who was
received with applause.
Mr. Meston entered a mild protest against Mr. Thorn
adding thirteen years to his age, having introduced him to
Queensland thirteen years before he was born. (Laughter). On
that platform, seventeen years ago, he had made his first
speech to a public meeting on behalf of the gentleman who was
presiding that night. He had his (the speakers) esteem then;
and he had never lost it. He had always regarded him as a most
enthusiastic Queenslander, as a man of a most amiable
disposition, and as a man whom he had never heard say an
unkind word against any man or woman. (Applause). The lecturer
spoke of his partiality for Ipswich and its people, and then
began his lecture.
The lecture was couched in a well chosen language, and
the many outbursts of applause which were accorded left no
doubt that the speaker had secured the appreciation of his
audience. The convict period, the explorers, squatters,
tragedies and comedies of the early days of Queensland were
taken in turn; the exactitude of the dates, names etc., and
the number of incidents related were proof of the vast amount
of trouble and research necessitated in preparing the lecture.
First, the convict period; Britain, Mr. Meston said, wanted to
find people to settle in a new country, and many were sent out
for the most trivial offences. Some of the best colonists of
the early times came from the emancipated convicts. Some
stories under “the system” were related, the death of Captain
Logan, and an account of the horrible death by hanging in
chains. Coming to the explorers, such names as Allan
Cunningham, Leichhardt, Sir Thomas Mitchell, and Kennedy were
mentioned, and their wanderings detailed. Referring to the
blackfellow Jacky, who was instrumental in saving two of
Kennedy’s party, he said in the history of Australian
exploration there was no more heroic character than that of
the aboriginal named. The squatters next came under
consideration. He showed how the name was acquired, and gave a
brief outline of the history of the early squatters on this
and the other side of the range. He explained how the feud
between the whites and the blacks on this side of the range,
was caused and made some remarks on aboriginal etiquette. The
tragedies were related in feeling language. They were
narrations of fiendish murders by hand (in which both blacks
and whites might be to blame, but in which the innocent almost
invariably suffered) and shipwrecks by sea. Among others were
the murders of the Wills and Fraser families, the tragedy at
Simpson’s
****
I had the
real pleasure of knowing both brothers in 1874 and 1875, and
took down a lot of interesting information from William, who
then lived out near the present Rocklea.
Both men were with the Archers on Durundur, and saw
Leichhardt when he was staying there in 1844. In one of his
letters to Lieutenant Lynd, Leichhardt describes the Turrabool
and Bribie blacks as “a fine race of men, tall and well made,
and they and the groups they formed would have delighted the
eye of an artist.” He and David Archer came down to the coast
from Durundur in September 1843, and stayed a couple of days
with the Ning-ee Ning-ee (rock oysters) tribe camped beside
the swamp at the rear of Toorbul, and both lived on crabs and
oysters.
Bribie Island is comprised mostly of swamps. I
traversed it 30 years ago from Skirmish Point to the end near
Caloundra, and crossed it opposite Donnybrook and at a point
south of the “White Patch,” but I have never asked any friend
to follow my example! About three miles north of the south end
I saw one of the biggest kangaroos ever seen before by me, and
that is somewhat expressive. Kangaroos and wallabies were
numerous, and I saw their tracks everywhere, even right
through the worst part of the swamps, actually in incredible
places. They were probably the descendants of kangaroos and
wallabies that had swum across to Bribie from the mainland
when the blacks were gone from the island. The name of the old
man kangaroo was “goorooman,” a widely distributed word, and
the female was “eenmarr” and “cemarra.” There are wallabies
yet on Bribie. It once had a rather evil reputation for death
adders, though I have never seen one here in all my rambles.
And now no more is heard in the “noon of night” of the
song of the old Joondooburri, or the clang of the resounding
boomerangs. No more are seen on the white sand beaches the
naked footprints of the Race of Murri, or the tracks of the
stone tomahawk on the trunks of the grey gums.
They have
gone forever, that ancient race, and the Ocean of Oblivion has
swallowed them all. We may say of them, as Von Martius said of
the American Indians, “It is a monstrous and tragical drama
such as no fiction of the poet ever yet presented for our
contemplation. A whole people are perishing before our eyes,
and no power of princes, philosophy, or Christianity can
arrest their proudly gloomy progress towards a certain and
utter destruction.”
I had the
real pleasure of knowing both brothers in 1874 and 1875, and
took down a lot of interesting information from William, who
then lived out near the present Rocklea.
Both men were with the Archers on Durundur, and saw
Leichhardt when he was staying there in 1844. In one of his
letters to Lieutenant Lynd, Leichhardt describes the Turrabool
and Bribie blacks as “a fine race of men, tall and well made,
and they and the groups they formed would have delighted the
eye of an artist.” He and David Archer came down to the coast
from Durundur in September 1843, and stayed a couple of days
with the Ning-ee Ning-ee (rock oysters) tribe camped beside
the swamp at the rear of Toorbul, and both lived on crabs and
oysters.
Bribie Island is comprised mostly of swamps. I
traversed it 30 years ago from Skirmish Point to the end near
Caloundra, and crossed it opposite Donnybrook and at a point
south of the “White Patch,” but I have never asked any friend
to follow my example! About three miles north of the south end
I saw one of the biggest kangaroos ever seen before by me, and
that is somewhat expressive. Kangaroos and wallabies were
numerous, and I saw their tracks everywhere, even right
through the worst part of the swamps, actually in incredible
places. They were probably the descendants of kangaroos and
wallabies that had swum across to Bribie from the mainland
when the blacks were gone from the island. The name of the old
man kangaroo was “goorooman,” a widely distributed word, and
the female was “eenmarr” and “cemarra.” There are wallabies
yet on Bribie. It once had a rather evil reputation for death
adders, though I have never seen one here in all my rambles.
And now no more is heard in the “noon of night” of the
song of the old Joondooburri, or the clang of the resounding
boomerangs. No more are seen on the white sand beaches the
naked footprints of the Race of Murri, or the tracks of the
stone tomahawk on the trunks of the grey gums.
They have
gone forever, that ancient race, and the Ocean of Oblivion has
swallowed them all. We may say of them, as Von Martius said of
the American Indians, “It is a monstrous and tragical drama
such as no fiction of the poet ever yet presented for our
contemplation. A whole people are perishing before our eyes,
and no power of princes, philosophy, or Christianity can
arrest their proudly gloomy progress towards a certain and
utter destruction.”
****
To the
left, on the way to Bribie, lies Humpybong and Redcliffe
Point. Humpybong should be “oompie,” a camp or house, and bong
is “boong,” the word for sick in the Lytton dialect
(Coobenpil). The words were used by the blacks for the “sick
houses,” or “dead houses,” left at Redcliffe Point when the
convicts left in 1825. The first convict settlement was
started at Redcliffe in 1824 but was soon abandoned in favour
of a site at Brisbane. In the convict records, I find that the
prevalence of fever and ague was given as the reason for
leaving Redcliffe, and the first hospital at Brisbane was
erected professedly for the “ague patients from Redcliffe.”
But an old convict diary in my possession says that the real
reason was the hostility of the blacks who killed two soldiers
and five convicts
The
following paper by Mr. John F. Small (Clarence River) with an
introductory note by Mr. A. Meston, was read before the
ethnological section of the recent Science Congress at
Brisbane.
The name of John Frederick Small is probably new to
Australian ethnology, though that of a man specially qualified
to furnish philological and anthropological information. He
and I were school mates, and at that time he spoke the great
“Yoocum Yoocum” dialect just as fluently as the aboriginals.
His father was one of the first squatters on the Clarence, and
the son was born there and reared among the aboriginals while
their laws and customs were unaffected by contact with white
man. His father was honourably distinguished by his friendship
with the aboriginals, and his life was twice saved in a
remarkable manner by grateful warriors at the risk of their
own. The dialect spoken by the son extended, with variations,
from the Clarence River to the Nerang Creek in Queensland, and
west to New England and the head of the Condamine, where it
joined the “Wacca Wacca” of the Darling Downs. All over that
area, representing many tribes, the negative word was
“Yoocum,” and the dialects “Yoocumban,” and “Yoocumbill.” Mr.
Small kindly accepted my suggestion to contribute something to
the Brisbane meeting of the Australasian Association, and he
has left us to regret the extreme brevity of information alike
reliable and original.
Archibald
Meston.
These tribes believe that they were originally placed
here by a Superior Being whom they called “Yooloo-tahna,” a
dweller among the stars. With their forefathers there came an
old man, named “Yooloorie,” a great doctor, who protected
their hunting grounds, cured the sick, healed the wounded in
battle, and decided all important questions affecting the
welfare of the tribe. He was really a great medicine man, high
priest, and judge combined. This office was always held by the
oldest man in the tribe. When he dies his eligible successor
leaves the tribe and goes away to the mountains, where the
spirit of his predecessor endows him with supernatural powers
and enables him to cause death without a wound or mark of any
kind, this death being inflicted on any one offending him or
refusing to obey his commands.
The Yooloorie was a source of terror to his own tribe
and others whom he visited. Next to him and under his control
was a chief whose duty was to train the young men in war and
hunting, and act as general in the day of battle. The chiefs
are polygamists, being allowed a number of wives, but all the
other men of the tribe must be content with one.
When a man dies, he is immediately tied, hands and
feet, slung to a pole and carried away to the chosen burial
place. On the way to the grave the “Yooloorie” walks beside
the corpse and instructs it how to act in the world of
spirits. This realm of disembodied souls was a standard
article of faith. To that mysterious Elysium the soul departed
after adjourning on the earth for three nights, assuming
various forms of birds and beasts, for the doctrine of
metempsychosis was also a portion of the aboriginal creed. On
arrival at the grave, the corpse is placed there in a sitting
position, covered with pieces of saplings and bushes, over
which the earth is piled and made perfectly smooth, the mould
being reduced to the condition of flour. Then the grave is
encircled by a string to prevent the soul from returning to
the camp. For three mornings the grave is visited and
carefully examined. The smallest crevice is filled so as to
imprison the
spirit while sojourning on the earth. During the ceremony and
for several days afterwards, the women engage in the most
dismal lamentations and inflict wounds on head and body until
covered with blood. If a woman dies there is no mourning, and
no nightly crying, for they believe that women have no souls
and for them there can be no resurrection. After the period of
mourning
***
Morton Bay
and the Cape were named by Cook after the Scottish Earl of
Morton, in whose name there is no “e.” He was President of the
Royal Society from 1764 to 1768.
We leave the Queen’s Wharf in front of where the
Government Printing Office stands, the site of the residence
of the Commandants at the penal settlement from 1826 to 1839,
leaving South Brisbane on the right, and pass round the point
occupied by the Botanic Gardens, first laid out in 1828 by
Charles Fraser, the Colonial Botanist, when he visited the
locality accompanied by Allan Cunningham, who came to examine
the pass he had discovered in the previous year when he saw it
from the hills of the Darling Downs.
The long point on the right is known as “Kangaroo
Point,” so called from the great number of kangaroos common
there in the early days.
On the left is Petrie’s Bight, named after Andrew
Petrie, foreman of works at the penal settlement from 1837 to 1839.
On this spot, the first convicts landed in 1825 after leaving
the temporary site first selected at Redcliffe Point on the
shores of Morton Bay.
Just around Kangaroo Point is one of the deepest parts
of the river, a depth of 72 feet, shallowing to 24 feet, until
we come to the deepest spot on the way down, a depth of 78
feet just below Galloway’s Hill.
From the Queen’s Wharf to the mouth of the river is a
distance of fourteen miles. The stream entering the river on
the left hand is Breakfast Creek, the “Ynoggera” of the
aboriginals.
On the right the locality now called “Bulimba” was
known as “Tuoolaba,” Brisbane itself was known to the
aboriginals as “Meeanjin,” and “Magiachin,” the old native
name of the point now occupied by the Botanic gardens and
Government House.
The North Brisbane tribe was called “Bo-obbera,”
speaking a dialect called “Churrabool.” The tribe on the south
side was called “Coorpooroo-jaggin.”
****
September
3, 1959
Coolangatta
– Mr. Patrick Joseph Fagan, a Coolangatta pioneer who gave
Greenmount Beach its name, died on Tuesday night, aged 96.
Mr. Fagan,
who came to Australia from Ireland in 1886, built the widely
known Greenmount guest house in 1903.
He named it
after his home village in Ireland, and the name, Greenmount,
gradually came to be used for the nearby beach, which is now
one of the most popular on the Gold Coast.
Mr. Fagan
had to cut a track through the scrub to the site before he
could begin building, and most of the timber had to be brought
from the Manning River.
In 1908, he
bought a motor buggy to convey his guests to and from Tweed
Heads railway station, and he was given a special permit to
open the border fence for his buggy, after he had entered into
a £1000 bond not to allow anyone else to use the crossing.
He
conducted the guest house for 40 years, and took an active
part in many bodies at Tweed Heads and Coolangatta. His wife
died in 1944. They had no children.