UNKNOWN AUSTRALIA

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 185, 3 February 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

UNKNOWN AUSTRALIA

AMOSG THE DESERTS AND BLACKS,

Just back from an exploring expedition through country in West Australia where a white man lias never trodden before, Mr. John R. Chaffey, a tall, commanding, bearded man, who owns to 69 years, though he would easily pass for 50, is at present in Sydney enjoying the "luxury of sleeping in a feather hed," as he 'puts it, after roughing it with a camel train in the desert for over six months. •' ■

■ Mr. Chaffev left Nannine at the end of July last, traversed 1800 miles of country ' with camels, and went along Canning's track to a point over 350 miles north-east of Wiluna, which lies 750 miles from Perth, and is the farthest back settlement'in the western State. There he branched off and went over entirely new country. . / OBJECT OP THE EXPEDITION.

"There were four of us," he said, in narrating his story to an interviewer, "myself, who am'a geologist, surveyor, and engineer; Mr. Bruce, who is a mraing engineer and metallurgist; Mr. John McKane, who is a practical grazier; and Mr. Joseph McKane, his son, a practical miner. Add a couple of Afghans and a dozen fine camels, and there you have our part. Our business ? Well, we went into the back country, where men had not travelled before, and looked for minerals, and kept our eyes op'en for pastoral country might be worth acquiring. Principally, however, we looked for minerals, hoping always that it would be gold that we would came across." "The climae is good, and no doubt the soil would be all right if there were rain. But you can always get water there by sinking. Minerals will very likely be found. On the sandhills grows the spinifex, a strong, useless sort of tussock. In the depressions you get *mulga,-trie quandorig and desert acacia—which makes good food for the camels—and occasionally saltbush. The worst trouble we had was not the ( lack of water — because, as I have said, that was generally to be got by sinking—but the terrible quantity of poisoned scrub. If a camel gets a mouthful of it it will be dead next morning. So, after a hard day's work we had always to tether our camels and cut mulga for them. We didn't lose any of our animals, but this poisoned scrug i» the cause of most of the out-back disasters. Once you lose your camels in that country you lose your life. ,

NO TROUBLE WITH NATIVES. "We liad no trouble with the natives. Treat them kindly, keep them at a dig' tance, and don't encourage their womenfolk to come round your camp, and you'll not have much trouble with the blacks—with the absolutely wild ones, anyhow. When th'e're half civilised, and have acquired a taste for the white man's food, they will often kill a party foi the sake of their provisions. They don't regard the taking of life as we do. They don't, as a rule, kill from any murderous instinct. They are not cannibals. Sometimes, as I say, they kill a white man for the sake of the food he has got; Sometimes from revenge. Many of the murders, of course, are committed because white men have not discouraged the visits of the gins to the camps. When we started on this expedition I impressed on our party that our safety depended on our conduct towards, the natives. I even went so far as to threaten the most extreme measures if. the ■' li-ves of the whole party were imperilled by any misconduct. I was- not'going to run &ny risk of the whole lot of us being massacred. Once you give offence to a ntitive he'll have you, ii you stay lqng enough in his country. He will crawl through the bush, he will follow you for days, and he'll put a spear through you right enough. v

A SIGN OP MANLINESS. "The men are well-made, fine-looking fellows, and the women not at all badlooking in those places, where there is plenty of game. • They have a high code of morals in their wild state, but when they become contaminated by contact with low-class whites their morals become low. At "VViluna the police do their best to keep them away from the town, and sometimes, to do this, have to burn down their mia-mias,' and drive thero away with horsewhips. And than people write to the papers, and denounce them for their cruelty. But they are only cruel in order to be kind to them.

"Australians generally have the idea that the blackfellow is cruel to his gins. My experience—and I have had to do with blacks, for very many years—is that that is all wrong. The "gins have all the carrying to do, but shc hunting, which is the men's occupation, isn't child's play. I. have never seen any cruelty, and my belief is that in thenown way they are just as fond, of their wives as most white men are of their own wives. And they are more intellectual, too, than most people give them credit for being. As you go north the more intellectual' they get, which is probably due to Malay admixture.

/'MARY," "As I have said, the blacks never once attacked us. Possibly they might' have done so had it not been for a sturdy little guardian "in an Irish terrier—that we called Mary. I don't know to whom she belonged originally, but she's mine now, and I wouldn't part with her for a heap of money. She followed us out from Nannine, and she wasn't very welcome company at first, because, being bound for desert country, evpry drop of water count*. But, my word, weren't we glad, when we found out what a little trump she was, that she came! A better watchdog no man ever had. She used to see that the camels' didn't stray too far, and if one were missing she wouldtknow, and scEfmper off and bring it in. , She could smell a blackfellow.at a couple of hurtdred yards, and a.* most terrible "down" she had on them! When we lay down to sleep she would walk round us like a sentry, and had any blackfellow come prowling around little Mary" would have let us know all about it. GAME PLENTIFUL. There is plenty of game where water is—kangaross, emus, and so forth—and where there's game there are' blacks. But, away from those places there is practically no life at all—nothing but lizards and myriads of ants and Hies. One great thing is that there are no mosquitoes, because there is no water. 1 saw only two snakes—a little creamcolored one and a brown one."