第62章

Easier travel--The girls improve--How the blacks received them--Alarge hut--A dainty dish--What might have been--The girls decorate their home--Bruno as a performer--"A teacher of swimming"--How we fought depression--Castles in the air--A strange concert--Trapping wild-cats--The girls' terror of solitude--Fervent prayer--A goose-skin football--How I made drums.

At length we came to a stately stream that flowed in a NNE.

direction to Cambridge Gulf.This, I believe, is the Ord River.

Here we constructed a catamaran, and were able to travel easily and luxuriously upon it, always spending the night ashore.This catamaran was exceptionally large, and long enough to admit of our standing upright on it with perfect safety.After crossing the King Leopold Ranges we struck a level country, covered with rich, tall grass, and well though not thickly wooded.The rough granite ranges, by the way, we found rich in alluvial and reef tin.

Gradually the girls grew stronger and brighter.At this time they were, as you know, clad in their strange "sack" garments of bird-skins; but even before we reached the Ord River these began to shrink to such an extent that the wearers were eventually wrapped as in a vice, and were scarcely able to walk.Yamba then made some make-shift garments out of opossum skins.

As the girls' spirits rose higher and higher I was assailed by other misgivings.I do not know quite how the idea arose, but somehow they imagined that their protector's home was a more or less civilised settlement, with regular houses, furnished with pianos and other appurtenances of civilised life! So great was their exuberance that I could not find it in my heart to tell them that they were merely going among my own friendly natives, whose admiration and affection for myself only differentiated them from the other cannibal blacks of unknown Australia.

When first I saw these poor girls, in the glow of the firelight, and in their rude shelter of boughs, they looked like old women, so haggard and emaciated were they; but now, as the spacious catamaran glided down the stately Ord, they gradually resumed their youthful looks, and were very comely indeed.The awful look of intolerable anguish that haunted their faces had gone, and they laughed and chatted with perfect freedom.They were like birds just set at liberty.They loved Bruno from the very first; and he loved them.

He showed his love, too, in a very practical manner, by going hunting on his own account and bringing home little ducks to his new mistresses.Quite of his own accord, also, he would go through his whole repertoire of tumbling tricks; and whenever the girls returned to camp from their little wanderings, with bare legs bleeding from the prickles, Bruno would lick their wounds and manifest every token of sympathy and affection.

Of course, after leaving the native encampment, it was several weeks before we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine stream for many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusing ourselves, time being no object.I have, by the way, seen enormous shoals of fish in this river--mainly mullet--which can only be compared to the vast swarms of salmon seen in the rivers of British Columbia.

We came across many isolated hills on our way to the river, and these delayed us very considerably, because we had to go round them.Here, again, there was an abundance of food, but the girls did not take very kindly to the various meats, greatly preferring the roots which Yamba collected.We came upon fields of wild rice, which, apart from any other consideration, lent great beauty to the landscape, covering the country with a pinkish-white blossom.We forced ourselves to get used to the rice, although it was very insipid without either salt or sugar.

Sometimes, during our down-river journey, we were obliged to camp for days and nights without making any progress.This, however, was only after the river became tidal and swept up against us.

When at length we would put off again in a homeward direction, Isang many little chansons to my fair companions.The one that pleased them most, having regard to our position, commenced -"Filez, filez, mon beau navire, Car la bonheur m'attend la bas."Whenever the girls appeared to be brooding over the terrible misfortunes they had undergone, I would tell them my own story, which deeply affected them.They would often weep with tender sympathy over the series of catastrophes that had befallen me.

They sang to me, too--chiefly hymns, however--such as "Rock of Ages," "Nearer, my God, to Thee," "There is a Happy Land," and many others.We were constantly meeting new tribes of natives, and for the most part were very well received.Bruno, however, always evinced an unconquerable aversion for the blacks.He was ever kind to the children, though mostly in disgrace with the men--until they knew him.

When at length we reached my own home in Cambridge Gulf, the natives gave us a welcome so warm that in some measure at least it mitigated the girls' disappointment at the absence of civilisation.

You see my people were delighted when they saw me bringing home, as they thought, two white wives; "for now," they said, "the great white chief will certainly remain among us for ever." There were no wars going on just then, and so the whole tribe gave themselves up to festivities.

The blacks were also delighted to see the girls, though of course they did not condescend to greet them, they being mere women, and therefore beneath direct notice.