CHAPTER XII—(Continued.)

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1604, 14 October 1882, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER Xll—(Continued.)

Our destination that day was a place called Picture Gully. It lay about twenty miles from Yaramboona, in the direction of the mountains, and was in fact a deep rift or gap in one of the northern spurs of the range. The name, Walter told me, was derived from some curious aboriginal drawings which ornamented the sides of a cave in the rock, and it was to examine these that our oxcursion had been planned; Billy Bacca, now invested in trousers and armed with a gun instead of his waddy, accompanying us in the capacity of guide. It was rumored that some of the Mirra-Mirra natives had been seen not long before in the neighborhood of Picture Gully, but, as we were all well mounted, and Walter carried a breech-loading rifle, while I had a shot-gun and a revolver, we considered ourselves a match for any blacks we might fall in with. The day was cool, and, pushing along at a smart trot, we found ourselves, in a couple of hours, approaching our destination. "Be prepared for a beautiful sight 1" said Walter to me, as we rounded the overhanging mass of rock which terminated one side of the ravine. Then wo drew rein, and sat silently gazing upon what was, indeed, a beautiful sight. * The nearly vertical sun shone straight down into a narrow, sharply-cut valley; its bottom completely filled with a golden-green glory of gigantic ferns, contrasting brilliantly with the rich redjbrown of the rocky sides, while these again passed into cool grey shadow beneath the overhanging branches of the timber that k grew dense and heavy to the very edge of the B cliffs. Narrower and narrower the valley grew, ■ until, about half-a-mile from its mouth, where Hi/he sides had almost touched each other, it was by a perpendicular face of darker-coloied Beyond this cliff, in far perspective, the and silent hills faded away from green, grey, to faint and tender blue; down a silver ribbon, flashed a stream of water; and on its verge —born of and the sun —a dazzling point of like a diamond on the brow of a beauty. A magpie's mellow whistle in ; a hawk sailing slow circles far ; and, over all, the translucent azure of Austral sky. Well," said Walter softly, after a time — do you think of it ?" know no word," I answered, "which do justice to the peculiar charm of that Wscenc. It is the nearest approach I have ever W seen in nature to one of those ineffable landf scapes of which most of us have dreamt, under the influence of the fairy tales of childhood." " You have expressed my idea of the spot exactly," said Walter. "It is — 1 Lit with the light that only gleams When the ships of our souls, over seas of slumber, Go forth in the night to the lblcs of dreams — When the veil is rent that —'" " You think urn time for tucker, Missa Walta ? Billy Bacca hungry —dam hungry!" Walter tried to keep his countenance, but it .ijffls too absurd, and we laughed till the rocks t echoed —the cause of our amusement staring at us the while with a look of the blankest astonishment. 11 You must wait a bit, Billy," said Walter as he dismounted. "You can light the fire while we go to the cave —and be sure you look after the horses! Now then, Raymond, follow mel" Threading our way with some difficulty through the luxuriant ferns in the bottom of the rift, we soon lo&t sight of Billy and the horses, but before we had gone a hundred yards Walter stopped short. " Look here!" he said —" I don't think it's wise to go up there unarmed. There may not be much danger, but it's best to be on the safe side." "I have my revolver," I said. "So you have ! Well, just wait here while I go back for the rifle." In a few minutes he rejoined me, and we pushed on up the valley until, when we had gone about a quarter of a mile, we came to a detached mass of stone that had apparently fallen from above at some long previous period. Scrambling with some difficulty to the top of this, we found ourselves within about six feet of a nearly circular opening in the face of the cliff. The hole was about twelve feet in diameter, and when we had scrambled up we found ourselves in a cave of about the same height. Lighting the candle which he had brought with him for the purpose, Walter pointed out to me various representations of the human figure, the emu, the kangaroo, the dingo, and several kinds of fishes, drawn with some white substance upon the smooth walls of the cave. " The sketches are very, ancient," he said. " or at least the similar drawings which have been examined by savants have been so pronounced. Certain it is that the work is altogether beyond the skill of the natives now existing. The figures, you can see, are tolerably true to nature, and are drawn with a good deal of rough spirit. Here is the picture of a man, see ; and a very good one it would have been, if his arms had "not been twice as long as Jbis legs and his nose had been in the middle of his face. "As far as that goes," said I, laughing, " I have known much more pretentious artists who had some difficulty upon the latter score. What was the drawing-material used, do you know.?" " I do not," said Walter, as he put out the candle. •' It vis not the white pigment used by the modern aboriginals to decorate their carcases when going to fight.".. " Oh 1 they" use something in the way of war . paint, do they ?" " Yes ;. jthey cover their bodies with a trans««rse marking of-White,, which, coming out •ufoong on the nlaok hide, gives them a horrible, kind of effect." , ,", • As Walter spoke, I Happened to be standing '. -with any>f.ac6 towards the month* of the cave", • .iijdcpul^^cejyjelilm^yleyes when/as, ' ...ato'ljlluitfftte a jhftstMgure,', ' \ie^xk^^exiat\y^^lp^ aescwb'ea^!^ \ 1 <''i^ttfc(^cl tif(t(ade^ily**'Upoftivl'lie |'VeJlBB Jof ,*wMJiOpv

(ii.ispiug my companion's arm, I told him in :i hurried whisper what I had seen, and at the same moment the sullen report of a gun came echoing up the valley.