The Land of the Kangaroo Part 8

"The interpreter explained to us that the return-boomerang was more of a toy than a weapon, as the regular boomerang cannot return when it has. .h.i.t something in its course. Wonderful stories have been told of the use of this weapon in war,--how the black fellow will launch it two or three hundred yards, and have it kill one or more of his enemies, and then come back to his feet. A moment's thought will convince any one that the two things together are impossible. In order to return to the place whence it started, the boomerang must not encounter or even touch anything in its way. When it is used for killing men, or wild animals, it does not come back to the ground of its thrower.

"From all accounts that I am able to obtain, the boomerang as a weapon in the hands of a good thrower is very dangerous. It can be made to hit a man concealed behind a tree, rock, or house, where a gun or a spear could not possibly reach him. As a hunting weapon it is of great utility, and many a kangaroo has fallen before it. The skillful thrower, within reaching distance of a kangaroo or an emu, is as sure of his prey as a white man would be with a Winchester rifle."

Ned and Harry tried to learn from the performer when and by whom the boomerang was invented, and all they could get from him was, "Long time ago; who knows?" He threw a little light upon the subject by picking up a leaf of the gum tree, holding it at arm's length, and then letting it fall to the ground. It gyrated and changed its course as it descended.

Then he picked it up and threw it straight from him, when it gyrated again and returned towards him. It is probable that the idea of the boomerang may have been taken from the motions of a falling leaf, and especially a leaf of the gum tree. As the weapon is known through all the tribes of Australian blacks, it is not likely to have been a recent invention.

"I have read somewhere," said Harry, "that a weapon similar to the boomerang was known to the ancient Egyptians, and that there is also something of the same sort in use among a tribe of Indians in Arizona.

If it is true that the Egyptians of old times had this weapon, we may well repeat the oft-quoted saying, 'There is nothing new under the sun,'

but it seems, at any rate, that the Australian boomerang is greatly superior to the Arizona one, as it can be projected very much further and with far more deadly effect."

The performer with the boomerang was evidently very well satisfied with his morning's work, and he was certainly very liberally paid for his performances. He invited our friends to take dinner with him, at least, so the interpreter said, though the youths were suspicious that the invitation was all a joke. Anyhow, they did not accept it, as they thought that the meal, with the surroundings which were visible, would have no temptation either for the eye or the appet.i.te.

Harry heard the following story, which he duly entered in his notebook:--

"Once a lawyer undertook the defense of a black fellow who had been arrested for stealing a gold watch. The evidence was wholly circ.u.mstantial, as the stolen property had not been found, and the lawyer handled the case so well that the alleged thief was acquitted. A few hours after the trial, the lawyer was seated on the verandah of the princ.i.p.al hotel in the place, engaged in conversation with the magistrate before whom the case was tried, when along came the black fellow.

"'Can I wear the watch now?' said the black, at the same time drawing it forth from an inner pocket.

"The magistrate burst into a loud and hearty laugh. The lawyer laughed, too, but his laughter had a very hollow sound, and then he shouted an emphatic 'No!' to the confiding aboriginal."

Quite a little town had sprung up at the terminus of the railway, and Dr. Whitney said it reminded him of the towns along the Pacific railways of the United States during the course of their construction.

The comparison, he said, was favorable to the Australian town, as the inhabitants seemed far more orderly than did those of the transitory American settlements. During the time of their stay there was not a single fight, and the coroner was not called upon to perform his usual official duties.

The terminus of the railway was in a valley which was dignified with the name of a creek, but no creek was visible. Water was supplied by an artesian well, driven to a depth of eight hundred feet. The water was slightly brackish but quite drinkable, and when it was made into tea or coffee the brackish flavor disappeared.

Our friends returned to Adelaide by the way they had gone from it, and after a day or two more in the capital of South Australia, they took the train for Melbourne. Ned made note of the fact that had been mentioned to him, that of all the money raised by taxation in South Australia, one fifth of it is used for educational purposes. He further added that the same was the case in all the colonies, and he thought it greatly to their credit. Harry said he did not believe there was a State or city in the whole American Union where such a large proportion of the public money was spent for educational matters.

The youths learned, in addition, that the schools throughout the colonies are, generally speaking, of excellent quality and the opportunities for higher education in academies, colleges, universities, medical and scientific inst.i.tutions, and similar seats of learning, are of the best cla.s.s. Ned made the following summary from the Education Act of South Australia:--

"Schools will be established where there is a certain number of children of school age, who will pay a moderate fee to the teachers; four pence for children under seven, and six pence for older children, per child, per week. In addition to the fees, the teachers will be paid by the government from seventy-five pounds to two hundred pounds per annum.

Schoolhouses will be provided, and all the necessary educational material. Four and one half hours const.i.tute the school day. All children of school age are required to be under instruction until a certain standard is reached."

Provision is made for the free instruction of children whose parents can show that they are unable to pay for it, but fees can be enforced in all cases where inability to pay them has not been proved. Large grants have been made by the legislature for school buildings, teachers' salaries, etc., in order to efficiently aid in the development of a thorough and comprehensive system of education for the young.

South Australia has a goodly number of schools for higher education, and it also has a university which is well attended. The majority of those who can afford it send their children to private schools rather than to the government ones, believing, and no doubt correctly, that the educational facilities are greater in the private inst.i.tutions than in the public ones.

CHAPTER VII.

ADELAIDE TO MELBOURNE--THE RABBIT PEST--DANGEROUS EXOTICS.

The distance from Adelaide to Melbourne is about six hundred miles. Our friends found that the journey was made very leisurely, the trains averaging not more then eighteen or twenty miles an hour. For quite a distance out of Adelaide the train ascends an incline as far as Mount Lofty station, where the hill or mountain of that name is situated. On the way up the last of the incline our friends watched with a great deal of interest the plains stretching out below them, and the city which they had just left lying at their feet like a section of carpet laid off into ornamental squares. Beyond Mount Lofty station the route descended into the valley of the Murray River, whose waters could be seen winding like a thread through the yellow soil.

"This is the longest river in Australia, is it not?" queried Ned.

"Yes," replied the doctor, "it is the longest and largest river, and, as you have already learned, it is the only one that remains a real river throughout the year. Its mouth is not many miles from Adelaide, and a considerable part of its course is through South Australia."

"I wonder they didn't establish the capital city at the mouth of the Murray," remarked Harry; "they would have had the advantage of a navigable stream, which they have not in the present location."

"Yes, that is quite true," Dr. Whitney replied; "and they would have ill.u.s.trated the saying of a philosopher, that great rivers nearly always run past large cities, but there was a practical difficulty in the way, of which you are not aware."

"What is it?"

"The Murray at its mouth has a bar that is very difficult and dangerous to cross, and a large area at its entrance consists of shallow water.

The mouth of the river, furthermore, is swept by southerly winds, which bring in great waves that have their origin in the neighborhood of the South Pole. Consequently it was concluded that the location of the city at the place with the largest entrance into the sea would not be advantageous, and a location on Spencer's Gulf was considered preferable."

"Very good reasons," said Ned, "and I have no doubt that the founders of Adelaide acted wisely. They certainly have a very prosperous city where they are, although their seaport is several miles away."

The train increased its speed as it descended the incline, and the youths found plenty of occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt in studying the scenery on each side of them, and noting the handsome residences of the merchants and other well-to-do inhabitants of Adelaide. The river was crossed by means of an iron bridge, a substantial structure which was evidently built to last. After crossing the Murray, the railway proceeded for awhile along its valley, and gradually left it to enter a region of long-continued monotony.

"For hours in succession," said Harry in his journal, "we had little else but scrub. I imagine that when the surveyors laid out the railway line, they took their bearings by observation of the moon and stars, and laid it directly across from one side of the scrub country to the other.

Scrub land is land covered with bushes. There are not many varieties of bushes, and this fact helps along the monotony. There is one bush that looks like an umbrella turned bottom upwards, and another that resembles an umbrella standing upright, as one holds it to keep off the rain. Then there are bushes and trees, some of them shaped like bottles, others like sugar loaves, and some like nothing else that I can think of at this moment. They vary from three or four feet in height up to fifteen and twenty feet, and sometimes we found them of a height of thirty feet or more.

"Mile after mile it is the same. I have heard what a terrible thing it is to be lost in the scrub. I can well understand that it is terrible, and can also understand how easily such a calamity could be brought about. One mile of scrub is exactly like another mile, or so very nearly like it that it is next to impossible to tell the difference. I have heard that people who stepped only a few yards from the side of the road have wandered for days before finding their way again, or have been sought for by many people before they were found. Many a man has lost his way in the scrub and never been heard of again, or perhaps years after his bones were discovered bleaching at the foot of a tree, where he had sat or lain down for his last rest when he could go no further."

A portion of the road from Adelaide to Sydney is called "the ninety-mile desert," in distinction from the rest of the scrub region.

It was a great relief to any one to get out of this desert country, and reach the region of farms, and fences, cattle or sheep pastures, and cultivated fields. In some of the districts through which our travelers pa.s.sed they saw great numbers of rabbits, and on calling attention to them, a gentleman who was in the railway carriage told them something about the rabbit pest from which the Australian colonies are suffering.

"If you want to make a fortune," said the gentleman, "find some way for destroying the rabbits in Australia. There is a standing reward of twenty-five thousand pounds (one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars of your money) for any method that proves successful. The reward is offered by the colony of New South Wales, and the other colonies will pay as much more."

"Were there rabbits in this country when it was first discovered?" Harry asked.

"There were no rabbits here," was the reply; "nor any animals like them.

In 1851, a gentleman living near Dunedin, New Zealand, was on a visit to the old country, and it occurred to him that it would be a nice thing to have rabbits in New Zealand, so that they could amuse themselves by chasing the little creatures with dogs. On his return from England he brought seven rabbits, and they were the progenitors of all the rabbits in New Zealand, Australia, and Tasmania. For a few years, as fast as rabbits were obtainable they were distributed throughout the colonies, but it was not long before the distributors found out their mistake.

"The rabbits increased and multiplied at a terrific rate. How many there are now in the colonies, n.o.body can tell, as it is impossible to take a census of them, but they certainly amount to many millions. They have destroyed millions of acres of sheep pasturage, so that many farms which once supported great numbers of sheep have been deserted in consequence of the rabbits. Let me give you an ill.u.s.tration that I know about, as I was one of the sufferers by these vermin. Fifteen years ago, I owned an interest in a sheep run on the bank of the Murray River in the colony of Victoria. Our holding extended back into the dry and comparatively worthless country.

"The rabbits got in there, and gradually the sheep were starved out.

Year by year the number diminished, and five years ago I sold my interest in the run for a very small sum. From two hundred thousand sheep, the number had diminished to twenty-five hundred, and these were dying in the paddock for want of food. The rabbits were the cause of the whole destruction. They had eaten up all the gra.s.s and edible bushes, and it was some consolation to know that they were themselves being starved out, and were dying by the hundreds daily. When the rabbits there are all dead the place can be fenced in, so that no new ones can get there, and it is possible that the gra.s.s will grow again, and the run once more become a place of value.

"The story I have just told you," the gentleman continued, "is the story of a great many sheep and cattle runs all over Australia and New Zealand. All sorts of means have been resorted to to get rid of the pest, and while some have been partially successful, none have been wholly so. The best plan is the old one, to lock the stable before the horse is stolen; that is, enclose the place with rabbit-proof fences before any rabbits have been introduced. The Australian rabbit is a burrowing animal, and unless the fence is set well into the ground, he is very apt to dig under it. Thus it has happened that many an estate has become infested, even though the owners had gone to the expense of enclosing it.

"Most of the cities of Australia and New Zealand have a rabbit-skin exchange, just as you have a cotton exchange in New York. At these exchanges ten or fifteen millions of rabbit skins are sold every year, or an aggregate perhaps of fifty or sixty millions, and yet the number does not decrease perceptibly. Factories have been established for preserving the meat of the rabbits in tin cans, and sending it to market as an article of food. It was thought that this would certainly reduce the number of rabbits, but it has not yet succeeded in doing so.

"Various kinds of apparatus have been devised for filling the dens of the rabbits with noxious gases that kill them, but the process is too expensive for general introduction; and, besides, it does not work well in rocky ground. Rewards are given both by the government and by the owners of land for the destruction of rabbits, and these rewards have stimulated men, who go about the country with packs of dogs to hunt down the rabbits for the sake of the bounty. Sometimes the whole population turns out in a grand rabbit hunt and thousands of rabbits are killed.

Pasteur, the celebrated French chemist, proposed to destroy the rabbit population by introducing chicken cholera among them; he thought that by inoculating a few with the disease he could spread it among the others, so that they would all be killed off. He admitted that the chicken population would be killed at the same time, but none of us would object to that if we could get rid of the rabbits, as we could easily reintroduce domestic fowls."

Ned said that he wondered why the rabbits increased so rapidly in the Australian colonies and not in the United States or England.

"Here is the reason of it," said the gentleman. "In America there are plenty of wild animals, like wolves, weasels, foxes, ferrets, and the like, to keep down the rabbit population, but here there is not a single animal to interfere with them. They have no natural enemies whatever, and consequently have things entirely their own way. They breed several times a year and begin to breed very young, so that a pair of rabbits let loose in a given locality will in a few years amount to thousands or even to millions. There, look at that piece of ground and see what you think of it."

The boys looked where the gentleman indicated, and saw what seemed to be a field of tall gra.s.s or grain waving in the wind. A nearer inspection showed that the ground was covered with rabbits, and it was the movements of the animals that caused the illusion just described.

"Rabbits are not the only pests from which the colonies have suffered,"

the gentleman continued; "I will tell you about more of them.