Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone), 1792-1855
While the men were pitching the tents at this place I rode with the
natives, at their request, towards some ponds lower down. There, by their
cooeys and their looks, they seemed to be very anxious about somebody in
the bush beyond the Bogan. I expected to see their chief; at all events
from these silent woods something was to emerge in which my guides were
evidently much interested, as they kept me waiting nearly an hour for
The unseen genius of the wood.
At length a man of mild but pensive countenance, athletic form, and
apparently about fifty years of age, came forth, leading a very fine boy,
so dressed with green boughs that only his head and legs remained
uncovered; a few emu-feathers being mixed with the wild locks of his
hair. I received him in this appropriate costume, as a personification of
the green bough, or emblem of peace.*
(*Footnote. The Grecians used to supplicate with green boughs in their
hands, and crowns upon their heads, chiefly of olive or laurel, whence
Statius says:
Mite nemus circa ----
Vittatae laurus, et supplicis arbor olivae.)
One large feather decked the brow of the chief; which with his nose, was
tinged with yellow ochre. Having presented the boy to me, he next
advanced with much formality towards the camp, having Tackijally on his
right, the boy walking between, and rather in advance of both, each
having a hand on his shoulder.
The boy's face had a holiday look of gladness, but the chief remained so
silent and serious, without however any symptoms of alarm, that my
recollections of him then, and as he appeared next day, when better
acquainted, are as of two distinct persons.
To this personage all the others paid the greatest deference, and it is
worthy of remark that they always refused to tell his name, or that of
several others, while those of some of the tribe were familiar in our
mouths as household words. The boy, who was called Talambe Nadoo, was not
his son; but he took particular care of him. This tribe gloried in the
name of Myall, which the natives nearer to the colony apply in terror and
abhorrence to the wild blackfellows, to whom they usually attribute the
most savage propensities.
Not a word could this chief of the Myalls speak besides his own language;
and his slow and formal approach indicated that it was undoubtedly the
first occasion on which he had seen white men. It was evident at once
that he was not the man to wander to stock-stations; and that, whatever
others of his race might do, he preferred an undisputed sway:
Far from the cheerful haunt of men and herds.
Numbers of the tribe came about us, but they retired at the chief's
bidding. Not one however except those first met with in the Bogan, could
speak any of the jargon by which the natives usually communicate with the
stockmen.
MUIRHEAD AND WHITING SENT TO EXAMINE THE DRY CHANNEL OF THE RIVER.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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