Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876Giles, Ernest
History
Australia Twice Traversed: The Romance of Exploration, Being a Narrative Compiled from the Journals of Five Exploring Expeditions into and Through Central South Australia and Western Australia, from 1872 to 1876
Giles, Ernest
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
(ILLUSTRATION: JIMMY AT FORT MCKELLAR.)
When we arrived again at the fort, on Monday, I knew something had
happened, for Jimmy was most profuse in his delight at seeing us
again. It appeared that while we were preparing to start on Saturday,
a whole army of natives were hidden behind the rocks, immediately
above the camp, waiting and watching until we departed, and no sooner
were we well out of sight and sound, than they began an attack upon
poor Jim. According to him, it was only by the continued use of rifle
bullets, of which, fortunately, I had a good supply--and, goodness
knows, the ground in and around the fort was strewn with enough
discharged cartridges--that he could keep them at bay at all. If he
had killed ten per cent, for all the cartridges he fired away, I
should think he would have destroyed the whole tribe; but he appeared
to have been too flurried to have hit many of them. They threw several
spears and great quantities of stones down from the rocks; it was
fortunate he had a palisade to get inside of. Towards night he seems
to have driven them off, and he and the little dog watched all night.
It must indeed have been something terrible that would keep Jimmy
awake all night. Before daylight on Sunday the natives came to attack
him again; he had probably improved in his aim by his previous day's
practice, for at length he was able to drive them away screeching and
yelling, the wounded being carried in the arms of the others. One
fellow, Jimmy said, came rushing up to give him his quietus, and began
dancing about the camp and pulling over all the things, when Jimmy
suddenly caught up a shot gun loaded with heavy long-shot cartridges,
of which I had about a dozen left for defence, and before the fellow
could get away, he received the full charge in his body. Jimmy said he
bounded up in the air, held up his arms, shrieked, and screamed, but
finally ran off with all the others, and they had not troubled him
since. I gave the lad great praise for his action. He had had a most
fortunate escape from most probably a cruel death, if indeed these
animals would not have actually eaten him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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