Australian Search PartyEden, Charles H. (Charles Henry)
History
Australian Search Party
Eden, Charles H. (Charles Henry)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration
and commenced an attack on poor Dunmore, as she knew him best. To
transcribe her words would be impossible, for she put in a native
sentence whenever she found herself at a loss for an English one, but
the burden of her plaint was this:--
"Plenty d--d fooly fellow, white fellow"--a string of Hinchinbrook
vernacular--"Baal you been shoot 'em like 'it dingo"--more
Hinchinbrook, but evidently, from the accompanying gestures, indicative
of intense disgust--"Baal mine take any more along of black fellow
camp"--half sobs--"Baal mine care suppose you fellow all go like 'it--"
And she summarily consigned us to the bottomless pit, as the only place
at all suited for such stupid idiots who could refrain from shooting
blacks when so grand an opportunity presented itself. Her eyes flashed
fire as she delivered herself of her woes, and at the concluding
sentence she stamped her little foot, and flinging a short waddy she
held, with remarkable dexterity and no mean force, into the midst of
the sable mass, she turned round to depart with the dignity of a
tragedy queen, when Dunmore jumped up, caught her, and holding her
wrist, walked off a little way from us.
"You like 'it one fine fellow red shirt, Lizzie? Mine give you one
with 'plenty long tail'. Baal any other gin along of camp have shirt
like 'it you; and when piccaninny sit down" (for there was a prospect
of her presenting Ferdinand with a little pledge of affection), "mine
give that fellow two budgeree flour-bag shirts, suppose only you good
fellow girl Lizzie."
Evidently, Dunmore knew the way to the young lady's heart--we nicknamed
him "Faust" afterwards--for at the mention of the red shirt, with the
lengthy tails, her eyes lost their fierceness, and the allusion to the
piccaninny completed his victory, and changing at once from one extreme
to the other, as only a black or a child can, Miss Lizzie took her seat
in the circle, lighted her pipe, commenced nodding to, and chatting
most affably with, her relatives, and looking so kind, that it seemed
impossible to believe that an intense longing for bloodshed and cruelty
had so shortly before lurked in the breast of the pretty, smiling
little savage who was now beside us.
During the task of pacifying Lizzie, the "heap" had again sunk into
comparative silence, and only a confused murmur was audible from its
depths. Allowing no time to be lost, Dunmore said to Lizzie--who was
puffing out huge mouthfuls of smoke, greatly to the astonishment of the
other gins, who looked as if they expected to see her suddenly blaze
up--
"Lizzie, you ask, suppose they been see any white fellow on island?
White fellow in plenty big canoe. That fellow canoe been come like 'it
shore. You tell them, 'Baal white fellow hurt you, suppose you been
show, where brother belonging to him sit down.' You tell them that,
Lizzie."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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