WILD BLACK TRIBES.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1921, Page 11

WILD BLACK TRIBES.

GULF OF CARPENTARIA. PERILS OF PIONEERING. Sydney, Oct. 25. The country in the extreme north of Australia round the gulf of Carpentaria is still peopled with black tribes of a wild and ferocious character, and to the hardships of pioneering are added the menace of attack. Mr. J. T. Beckett, who, with Ins wife, has just arrived at Darwin from Vanderlin Island, just off the coast, related that the natives from the mainland frequently make raids on the islands, knowing that the police cannot hear ot them for a long time, and cannot get after them when they do. When Mrs. Beckett was alone on Vanderlin Island a plot was formed by natives to kill her and her son, when he returned from another island, and then loot their store. This was frustrated by a faithful lubra, who was brutally murdered for telliiig. Mrs. Beckett saved her own life by holding the murderer off with a pistol. The murderer escaped to the mainland. Encouraged, apparently, by this, another native hacked his Inbra’s head nearly off within a few chains of the police station at Borroloola. He and other law-breaking natives, including tile celebrated ‘-Murdering Tommy, who has escaped from gaol several times and travelled hundreds of miles back to his country, were brought to Darwin in the same boat us Mr. Beckett.