Jerome J. Murif

“ The track winds its toilsome way over the lowest rises and through gullies squeezed between the higher of the rough granite and sandstone hills. Much bigger ones—each duly catalogued and named by somebody at sometime, I have no doubt—loomed up in every direction. Many of the gullies are well grassed. Saltbush and mulga are met with occasionally; and everywhere spring up low bushes of the kinds that are fattening and well-beloved of flocks and herds. Rideable stretches of a mile or so may be passed over as hardly worth noticing. ”

“ Where the ground is hard the cyclist may not heed these footprints much; but in the slowing sand one feels so very powerless to "manœuvre," that, for a little while at least, the sense of being alone is rather agreeable.
Near a turn in the track a black head and shoulder disappeared behind a bush. Surely, I thought, the time for an adventure has come; so, dismounting, I walked back to the turning point and, completely hidden, peeped along the track. ”

“ But after the first day out from the ranges these feelings in part gave place to intermittently-recurring [Pg 83] sensations of a kind entirely new to me. The high hills behind had, as it seemed, shut me off from the whole world of animation. Up to the MacDonnell, if one doesn't get bushed, one expects to meet with people every other day or so; but here, amid the myriads of ant hills and the thick, impenetrable scrub, it is as if one had strayed into a wonderland whose every inhabitant had died and had had erected to him or her a lasting monument. ”

“ The Tea-tree Well is about 50 yards away from the bank of a pretty wide but not deep creek, on the bank of which flourish the inevitable giant gum-trees. Out from that side of the watercourse farthest from the well, and into the bed of it, grows the bushy nigger-harboring scrub from which the well derives its name. Blacks might be in there by the dozen, and a person camping near this well be never a whit the wiser. The general aspect of the place and its surrounding are wild and likely-looking enough for anything in the way of adventure. ”

“ I had eaten breakfast at Kelly's well; but one meal, or a second does not long suffice, for a man who has been for days hungry. Tissues get eaten away, and it takes days—nay, perhaps weeks—of substantial feeding before the loss can be made up and the used tissues replaced or replenished. At Tennant's Creek, during the many days I remained at the telegraph station, I could eat almost continuously. My happiest thoughts were centered around the dinner table, and there was a savage delight in the partaking of every meal. ”

“ Through a jutting rocky point, a railway cutting runs at the base of a steep and rugged hill, and at the cutting's end a lofty iron bridge of many spans runs out across a wide and very stony creek, through whose bed for a mile or so the track winds sinuously; then climbs the northern bank, and so on to country far from good for cycling over.
Saw the first mob of kangaroos—a small one.
Much creek-crossing; also much walking—tiring and very slow. Still, I was in such good condition that I frequently caught myself going at a "Chinaman's trot" where I could not do any riding.
In flat country now. ”

“ These drift sand-hills—red, loose, and sometimes very steep indeed—make travelling, no matter how one may creep, very wearisome and laborious. When you have struggled to the summit of one of them you take a view of the surroundings. As far as the eye can see (and, alas! very much further) an unbroken stretch of the same formation. You wade ankle deep on descending; and when pushing a bicycle up you have to "tack," planting each foot sideways in the sand to get the necessary grip. ”

“ Nevertheless I will not take upon myself the responsibility of advising anyone to bother about having a try at the "record-smashing" business unless it be well worth his while to do so.
To be prepared counts for very much. The cyclist who is sure of his road can never imagine the weakening effect which uncertainties on that most vital point can produce. Such doubts evolve sickening, depressing, unhappy sensations which make themselves felt more acutely than do the mere bodily disablements associated with hunger and thirst. ”

“ The proprietor's invitation to dinner was accepted; for wherefore had I come to Anna Creek? I was ravenous. And the tea! Strong, rich, milk-toned tea! A feast, a feast for the gods!
Such cups I had never seen. Cups which, once having been drunk from by a famishing cyclist, would ever after figure in his happiest dreams. "Not so very large," protested my liberal host, deprecatingly; "they each hold only a quart." Yet I remember being asked "Try a little more tea?" as the meal progressed, and—fancy having answered "Ah, thanks!" ”

“ Arriving at a lovely waterhole overhung with gum trees on the Burt Creek (a pad branching from the main track leads to it) , I stopped to have a bath and enjoy the cool of the heavy shadow.
It is a law of the overland that a waterhole, unless it be very large or there be others close by, must not be used for soapy-washing. One dips up water with a billycan or pannikin, and, stepping back, should he not have a wash-dish, he washes with one hand. It isn't satisfying, but it has to do. ”

“ A gap in this mighty wall of rock becomes clearly defined by the time one reaches the bank of a wide creek, with a bed of white sand, which takes its course in the heart of the ranges, and is well known as The Todd. ”

“ Men who knew the country led me in fancy into the centre of the continent, broke my machine upon any one of the thousand unexpected dangers of the open, trackless desert—and asked me to consider my helplessness. ”

“ And, smoking, I pondered deeply over the notion of making for the blacks' camp and trying to strike a bargain with the chief or elders of the tribe—that they should keep me well supplied with tucker for a week or so, and show me the lions in return for which I'd teach 'em to ride the bicycle at, say, two snakes a lesson, lubras half price.
But I had been learning to ride myself one time and knew how strangely learner's legs get tangled up in spokes and other parts, a cyclist cannot cycle without. ”

“ The long, rank, useless grass, being an impediment to the progress of man and beast, is, as it dries, fired by passing travellers, and the second growth which then springs up, is short and sweet. The natives, too, set fire to it, as when it grows, they [Pg 169] cannot see or track the game or animals they hunt for. Many patches had already been burned off, and the minute particles of black ash which overspread the ground, rose at the slightest touch, floated in the air, and begrimed the passer-by.
Two very extensive fires faced me after parting from the natives at Esther Well. ”

“ By the generality of those white men with whom I conversed on such matters before reaching Alice Springs, it is—or was—an accepted belief that, from that place onward, natives are nearly always about at watering places along the overland track, although the traveller may not catch sight of even one. They are ever so much more sharp of sight and hearing than the whites, and, being treacherous themselves, they are very suspicious of strangers, and so they hide if they do not clear out on learning of a strangers coming. ”

“ Give a nigger a rifle or revolver and he will shoot his fellow niggers—go out hunting after them if permitted—with the greatest of glee, readiness, and cheerful animosity.
"You see wild blackfellow along track," more than one "civilised" philanthropist asked me. "Sometimes, I think," I have answered. At once has come an expectant, pleased expression to the questioner's face. "You shoot him all right?" has been asked in amusingly hopeful tone. ”

“ One who comes upon this mountain wall from the long plains of the south cannot with a single sweep of the eye take in its mightiness. To right and left it holds its course until its purple outlines are bathed in haze, become a mere faint streak, and finally are blotted out. But far behind that gaudily-tinted curtain of sky, which forms the strange horizon of these inlands, this range extends, a steep, austere wall of [Pg 69] rock, rising almost perpendicularly from the plain four hundred miles from east to west. ”

“ The hole is formed in an extremely rocky gorge of the range. Huge boulders heaped up in strange fantastic shapes, the counterpart in miniature of castles, fortresses, and towers, stand gaunt and frowning, or threatening to fall precipitately, above, below, and on the more open side. The hole itself is almost a circle; it is probably 20 feet in depth and 25 feet across. Above it, at the back, always in deepest shadow, are several small caves, wherein are native drawings—rude as the scribblings of a schoolboy in his snatched moments—of snakes and hands and things beyond this pen's power to name. ”

“ Where it is met with, the country is flat and subject to heavy floodings; and so it follows that in the rainy seasons [Pg 142] those Bay of Biscay plains are converted into shallow, muddy lagoons or impassable lakes.
After the water has evaporated or drained off, and until a pad has been worn through, the journeying over these wretched tracts is so unavoidably jolting and chin-choppy that (so 'tis said) horsemen dismount or stop and loll in their saddles, every hundred yards or so, to rest until their aching jaws and bones re-set and the kinks straighten out of their spinal columns. ”

“ I was right, the bike was right, so all was right as right could be.
Leaving the station, the creek must be re-crossed to get to the track which runs northwards to Daly Waters (82 miles) . To this track the thoughtful Chinaman ordered the station blackfellow to lead me—thoughtful, because the maze of tracks and pads was slightly bewildering. Here for once was the yellow man superior over the black. But, ordinarily, there is no love lost between them. Each views the other with a magnificent contempt. ”

“ From the Woodforde to the Tea-tree Well the track was fair—a light loam. The mulga scrub in places is extraordinarily dense. A matter of wonderment to me was how the explorers could have forced a passage for themselves and their animals through those miles upon miles of closely packed trees and undergrowth. One ceases to marvel at the creeping progress they made. ”

“ There is a law of the Overland—an unwritten law, of course—regarding the camping of blacks at wells by which white men are gathered. At sundown one of the whites says to the blacks, "clear out, go to your camp," and indicates a locality for them to "clear out" to. Or one of them comes up and asks, "which way we camp to-night?" If they venture to put in an appearance again before sunrise—well, then, it is understood they can be up to no good, and, as trespassers, are duly "dealt with." ”

“ There was infinite pathos in the tales of helplessness of these drought-harried men.
* * * *
There are abundant proofs as we steer out of Carrieton towards Cradock that we are already on the outskirts of the kingdom of the bicycle. The horses—bony apparitions mostly—have for the machine none of that contempt which tells of its familiarity to the city horse. So the bell is handy. Not so much to warn the equestrian as to soothe the bicyclist's conscience. You ring your bell and by that simple act throw on to other shoulders the full responsibility for all the frightened horse may do. ”

“ The natives now-a-days along the overland track are not, in his view, quite so black as they are painted in the imagination of some residing south of Alice Springs. Articles might be pilfered from a camp left without anyone in charge, but otherwise the natives near the wells and on the road might generally be looked upon by the passer-by as harmless, if properly handled. To east and west, however, are several places in which the natives are "cheeky." "And," added my host, "some 'bad' fellows now and again find their way into the Bonney"—a fresh water well to which I had not yet come. ”

“ The "going" is good to Charlotte Waters; thence along the telegraph line for 14 miles through heavy sand, next 6 miles of stony hills, followed by 6 [Pg 49] miles of good track over Boggy Flat, and, lastly, 4 miles of small sand-hills. There is a better road to the west from the Charlotte, they say.
The Adminga is reached half-way between Blood's Creek and Charlotte Waters. Hard by the crossing there is a beautiful little pond of clear, cool rain-water—a deep, round hole sunk in the solid rock, with one large leafy tree leaning out over it, and sheltering it from lapping winds and sun alike. ”

“ Stony table lands, wide expanses of level country, support Lake Eyre on either side. Sand, stones, mirage, and sun—these are the "dominant notes" here.
I had been told some stories of the cattle of the region: how, for instance, an odd one had been known to chase a railway tricyclist along the line for miles. Hunting after swagmen, so it was said, was a pastime in which at every opportunity they freely indulged. I was now to have personal experiences.
When a traveller comes within near sight of a quietly grazing mob, the scattered units mass together ”

“ Others, again, expect a fellow to perform mental gymnastics. One will clear and level a small space upon the ground to serve as a blackboard. He begins, "Now, we'll put it, here's North—" and draws a line pointing due South.
* * * *
Mount Breadin Dam is another 20 miles from Francis Well. The track is fair for cycling over. Camped somewhere in the scrub. Dry sand makes a fairly comfortable blanket.
Desert oaks had for the last few days been frequently met with, growing singly or in groves. The wind soughs through the foliage—like the music of rushing, seething water in some distant creek. ”