Chapter X: The Blacks

If you ask what sort of a race the Blacks of Australia are, nine people out of ten will immediately answer your question with that prompt assurance which no one ever ventures to bring to bear on any subject, except one about which he knows nothing and has thought less, and will tell you that they are physically and intellectually the most degraded race in the world.

There being no fixed standard to apply to the different races of the world for the purpose of gauging their physical and intellectual merits, we can only do so by comparing them with each other. When compared with those nations of the Old World who are universally admitted to have reached the highest point of civilisation as yet known, the Australian Black is, of course, a very low specimen of the human race indeed. But compared with the Digger Indians, the Bushmen of South Africa, and the inhabitants of not a few of the islands of the Pacific Ocean, he at once assumes a different aspect. I had thought of comparing him to some of those savages by no means extinct in the Old Country at the present day; but the comparison seems more than usually odious, and I will pass on.

From a physical point of view, many of the Australian Blacks are exceedingly fine specimens of humanity, and possess great muscular strength. In swimming, diving, climbing, picking up and following a trail, they are a match for any race under the sun; and in running and jumping many of them would give a good deal of trouble to a professional athlete. The extraordinary art of throwing a boomerang is peculiar to them, and with a spear they are not to be surpassed.

It will be objected that these are a very low class of accomplishments, displaying, with the exception of the boomerang, no inventive genius whatever. This is quite true, but it is equally true that they answer the end in view, which is more than can be said of many more elaborate contrivances; and, as a rule, the simplest means of obtaining an object are the best. Now the object of an Australian Black, in common with most of his fellow-creatures, is to provide himself with food; and it has been frequently brought forward as a proof of great want of intelligence, that he has never invented a bow and arrow for this purpose. But necessity, we all know, is the mother of invention, and so long as a Black can with perfect ease kill as many birds and beasts as he wants with sticks and spears, it is hardly fair to accuse him of want of intelligence for not employing the more complicated appliances which are necessary in countries where food is less plentiful and less easily obtained. We might with equal justice and discernment abuse the inhabitants of Upper Egypt, where it rains once in five years, for not having invented umbrellas; or the Esquimaux for not using refrigerators to preserve their meat. That the Blacks are by no means deficient in natural ingenuity is proved by the stone-headed tomahawks, heavy wooden swords, and bone-tipped spears which are in use amongst the wildest of the tribes. No doubt, when game becomes too wild or too scarce to be easily killed with sticks and stones, they will invent some more ingenious way of procuring it.

The countenances of these niggers, often very pleasing, are seldom devoid of a good deal of intelligence, and after a short intercourse with civilisation are highly susceptible of that expression of finished rascality which is usually supposed to be a peculiarity of the white man. Their sense of humour and perception of the ridiculous is exquisitely keen. A cow tumbling head over heels across a log in the long grass, a man looking for a pipe which he has got in his mouth, or a dog in search of food upsetting something on to its own head, and running away like the deuce, with nothing after it, will make a black fellow laugh for a week afterwards whenever he thinks of it. Nothing with the ghost of a joke in it escapes him, and finer shades of humour that are entirely lost upon many well-educated whites will be instantly and thoroughly appreciated by him.

We had a black fellow on the station, by name Wakarra, who was as pleasant a companion for a day’s ride as could be wished. It is not too much to say his manners were those of a perfect gentleman. No amount of hurry ever made him forget himself for an instant, no scolding made him sulky, and no kindness made him disrespectful. The graceful ease with which he used to remove his battered hat to any ladies that happened to be staying on the station, was a sight that might have moved an Old Country swell to tears of admiration. He learned to read with ease, and had a most surprising faculty for asking questions. One day he wanted to know how the sun set and rose. I explained to him that the earth went round, which he understood perfectly; but when I told him how fast it went, he thought for a bit, and asked why the trees and houses and things did not all fall off? I told him that they were stuck on with a kind of invisible glue, which only partially allayed his thirst for information. He is certainly rather an extraordinary Black, and perhaps hardly a fair specimen of his race. But I never saw one upon whose education so much pains had been bestowed; and most likely here, as elsewhere, there are just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.

In acquiring the rudiments of civilisation, such as drinking, lying, thieving, and twisting red handkerchiefs round their heads, the Blacks show themselves to be very apt pupils. But in all the higher branches of social science they are very backward. For instance, when their relations become incapacitated by age or disease from following the wanderings of the tribe, they have a nasty low habit of beating in their heads with a club, instead of gently assisting the course of nature by giving them little or nothing to eat, a method which I have occasionally seen pursued with the greatest success by the inhabitants of more civilised countries. Then, again, they are extremely particular about their wives, and resent any interference with them on the part of the rest of the tribe, with a violence which civilised society of modern times has branded as being in the worst possible taste.

It has often been said that it is impossible to teach any sort of religion to the Australian Blacks. I never heard of any great exertions being made in this direction; but undoubtedly the great obstacle to success would be not so much a black fellow’s want of intelligence, as his unrestrained sense of the ridiculous. One of our poets has declared that

“Life is a jest, and all things show it”;

and seeing that it is impossible at the outset to impress a nigger with the solemnity of religion, there is great likelihood that he will fall in with the views of the poet, and laugh at it immoderately.

I remember once trying to give a fairly intelligent Black some idea of a future state. In the course of conversation he pointed up to the sky, and said:

“Big one Master stop up there? Where you been see Him that One?”

“Yowi” (yes), I replied, “you better believe it. By and by you see Him that One too.”

After a pause he again inquired, “That One got a store up there?”

Now the possession of a store implies unlimited power to a black fellow, so I promptly replied:

“My word! altogether big one store up there. Plenty flour, plenty tobacco; supposin’ you good one nigger, by and by you get plenty up there.”

His next remark was, “I say! you go along o’ that One by and by?”

“Yowi,” said I, “mine think it. By and by go along o’ that One, get wings, fly about close up like a bird.”

This appeared to interest him immensely, without striking him as the least odd. But when I told him that if he behaved well he would go there too, he had barely time to say “Gammon!” with an amount of expression that no one but a nigger can put into that one word, before rolling on to the ground in perfect convulsions of laughter. That a white man should go to heaven seemed perfectly natural to him; but the idea of a black fellow by any possibility getting there too, struck him as so utterly funny that he went on laughing for a week after whenever he saw me.

The Blacks that have received any religious instruction generally sneak up to you in the towns and offer to parade their knowledge for a consideration. “I say! you give it me one fellow sixpence, plenty mine yabber-yabber--belief! I say! Glass of whiskey--Our Father,” and so on.

The most notable instance of anything like success attending the attempt to proselytise a Black, was that of an old nigger who once observed, in answer to some inquiry as to his views of a future state, that, “supposin’ he was a bad nigger, altogether debbil-debbil come and take him off.”

Their ordinary creed is very simple. “Directly me bung (die) me jump up white feller,” and this seems to be the height of their ambition.

They have some sort of religion or superstition of their own. When a warrior of celebrity dies, or succumbs to a blow on the head from a nullah, they skin him with the greatest care, and, after eating as much of him as they feel inclined for, they pick his bones beautifully clean and wrap them up in his skin. Instances have been known where Blacks have carried these relics about with them in all the wanderings of their tribe for many years. Sometimes they embalm their chiefs, but very rarely one would suppose, as up to the present time very few of these mummies have ever fallen into the hands of white men. One of them is now in the Queensland Museum at Brisbane, and, according to the account of the tribe from which it came, it is over 200 years old.

Whether it would be possible to teach Christianity to the Australian Blacks, or not, I do not pretend to say; but I am very certain that it would be far better to begin by teaching them to behave as respectable members of the community. By the time that they have learned to refrain from smashing the skulls of decrepit relations, from killing a man simply because he has some article about him which they wish for, and from eating him afterwards if they are hungry, it will be quite time enough to direct their attention to a future existence. The task of persuading an average nigger that punishment follows crime, and prosperity is the reward of virtue, will be found quite arduous enough to satisfy the most zealous of missionaries, even though it be the business of these admirable men to “turn black into white,” after a fashion. Having, at any rate, got him to comprehend that there are certain rules that he cannot transgress with impunity, and certain enjoyments that he can only obtain by exertion, he will be more fit to be initiated into the mysteries of Christianity than when he had no idea of right and wrong.

A more lamentable example of misdirected zeal than is afforded by the South Sea Islanders cannot be imagined. If we may take as examples the large number of Kanakas who come over to Australia every year, we are obliged to conclude that any teaching that they get from the missionaries does them infinitely more harm than good. No one will have anything to do with a “missionary boy,” if he can by any means get another one. We cannot for a moment allow the blame of this to rest on the religion taught, and we should be sorry to think that it was entirely the fault of those who teach it. Experience proves that it has nothing whatever to do with the Kanakas themselves; for, until they are persuaded to become Christians, they are an orderly, contented, and industrious race. The fault, then, must lie in the manner of teaching.

Religion, someone says, makes an excellent roof, but a very bad floor; and it is the height of folly to try and teach Christianity to a savage before he has any idea of those fundamental laws which, quite independent of any revealed religion, govern the welfare of a community. It is not only teaching him to run before he can walk, but expecting him to jump over obstacles at every other step which, from the earliest ages, have brought the most eminent divines to grief. More than this, it is putting an exceedingly dangerous weapon into the hands of an inexperienced and mischievous child.

For example, suppose that you make a savage understand that the God whom you are teaching him to serve has bade all the rich in this world to sell all that they have, and give it to the poor. What will be the effect upon his mind? An earthly paradise of rum, blankets, and tobacco is at once opened up before him; and having most probably gone to sleep the night before without even one of these luxuries, he must inevitably arrive at one of two conclusions, either that you are telling him a lie, or that there are a number of rich people around him sadly ignorant of their duties.

Most probably the latter is the view to which he will incline, and, fully persuaded that he is only promoting the gospel of peace on earth and goodwill towards men, he will set off to the nearest plantation, and give the owner of it a lesson in practical Christianity by removing as many articles of value as he can, and retiring to distribute them amongst his friends. Be this as it may, one broad truth remains, that in attempting to convert a South Sea Islander into a Christian, the missionaries rarely fail to convert an innocent and industrious savage into an idle and worthless scoundrel.

Nearly every station in Queensland has one or two black boys employed on it as stock-riders, in which capacity they are very useful, as they soon learn to ride well, and are invaluable in tracking lost cattle and sheep. As a rule, however, they are not much use after they get about twenty years old. By that time they have begun to find out that they are useful; and as their idea of the value of their services seldom corresponds with that of their employer, they generally get sent away. Having once been employed by white men, they would instantly be killed if they tried to rejoin their tribe; so they generally take to loafing about the nearest town, and sooner or later die of drink.

There is a school now, down in Mackay, to teach Blacks to read and write, and get their living by some sort of work. It has hardly been started long enough to see how it will work. At present the only place where Blacks are employed in any numbers is upon the Mackay tobacco-plantations, and their being so is a most unqualified nuisance to the district. Of course any effort to induce the Blacks to work for their living, instead of spearing other people’s cattle and picnicking on their own relations, deserves the highest praise. But we solemnly protest against their being turned loose on society before their education is completed; and we infinitely prefer having to deal with an entirely wild Black than with one who has imbibed a great deal of mischief, and very little good, from a temporary residence amongst white men. The services of these Blacks are only required for a few months during the year on the plantations, and they are then allowed to wander off into the Bush, and amuse themselves until the busy season comes round again. Familiarity having, of course, bred contempt, and cunning taken the place of timidity, they no longer scruple to turn the hitherto sacred runs into their Happy Hunting-grounds. Picnics on the cattle camps, and wild chases amongst if not after the cattle, form the principal amusements of these emancipated scholars. The results are appalling. We have all heard of swine urged by devils running violently down a steep place and being lost to their owners in the sea. Here in the Antipodes we observe that our cattle, under similar circumstances, pursue an opposite but equally disastrous course, and are lost to us in the mountain ranges.

It is annoying to go and muster a camp where a few days before you had been gloating over thirty or forty fat bullocks, and to find that the Blacks have been scouring the whole country around, and frightening the cattle into fits; so that instead of thirty fat bullocks you probably only find half-a-dozen wretched crow-baits, with staring coats and protruding ribs, and altogether such a played-out appearance, you can hardly believe they are the same animals that a few days before you watched swaggering up to camp, with that satisfied, well-to-do air that so endears a fat bullock to the eye of his owner. In the more settled districts along the coast of Southern Queensland, and in New South Wales and Victoria, the Blacks have given up spearing cattle, and, beyond frightening them occasionally, do not do much harm. But in the north and interior of Queensland they are still very troublesome, and never lose a chance of killing cattle and horses, and spearing any unfortunate shepherd or traveller if they get a chance. They will follow a man for days, just keeping out of his sight, until they get an opportunity for killing him. Sometimes, when they feel more than usually cheerful, even the half-tame Blacks in the settled districts cannot resist the temptation of spearing a traveller. It is not long since they killed two South Sea Islanders on the range about fifteen miles from our head station. For the purpose of repressing this kind of joviality, there are native police-stations, at tolerably wide intervals, all over the country. At each of these are stationed a few black troopers, under the charge of a white man. These troopers become perfect devils for hunting down and killing the wild tribes from which they have themselves been taken when young. The duty of the white man who commands them is a very unpleasant one. Whenever the wild Blacks in the neighbourhood become troublesome, and take to spearing cattle, or otherwise misbehave themselves, it is his business to sally out with his mounted troopers, and “disperse” them, the meaning of which word is well known all through the colony. If it can be proved that in “dispersing” a mob of Blacks he has killed a single one except in self-defence, he is liable by the laws of the country to be hanged. On the other hand, he knows perfectly well that unless he manages to shoot down a decent number of them before they can escape, his services will soon be dispensed with. The Government will then replace him by a man who is better able to understand the peculiar form of justice which hangs a man for being detected in carrying out his recognised duty. It is very difficult to know what to do with the Blacks. It seems unjust to drive them out of a country to which they have at least as good a right as we have. On the other hand, we know that if they are allowed to remain, they take every opportunity of killing us and our cattle. It is impossible to tame them unless they are caught very young, and even then they are not always to be relied on. Whether the Blacks deserve any mercy at the hands of the pioneering squatters is an open question, but that they get none is certain. They are a doomed race, and before many years they will be completely wiped out of the land.

A gentleman who shall be nameless, but who once resided at a place well known as the Long Lagoon, in the interior of Queensland, is still famous for the tremendous “haul” of Blacks which he made in one day. They had been giving him a great deal of trouble, and had lately killed four of his shepherds in succession. This was past a joke, and he decided that the niggers required something really startling to keep them quiet, and he hit upon the following device, which everyone must admit was sufficiently startling. One day, when he knew that a large mob of Blacks were watching his movements, he packed a large dray with rations, and set off with it from the head station, as if he was going the rounds of the shepherds’ huts. When he got opposite to the Long Lagoon, one of the wheels came off the dray, and down it went with a crash. This appeared to annoy him considerably; but after looking pensively at it for some time, he seemed to conclude that there was nothing to be done, so he unhitched the horses and led them back to the station. No sooner had he disappeared than, of course, all the Blacks came up to the dray to see what was in it. To their great delight, it contained a vast supply of flour, beef, and sugar. With appetites sharpened by a prolonged abstinence from such delicacies, they lost no time in carrying the rations down to the waterside, and forthwith devoured them as only a Black-fellow can.

Alas for the greediness of the savage! alas for the cruelty of his white brother! The rations contained about as much strychnine as anything else, and not one of the mob escaped. When they awoke in the morning they were all dead corpses. More than a hundred Blacks were stretched out by this ruse of the owner of the Long Lagoon. In a dry season, when the water sinks low, their skulls are occasionally to be found half buried in the mud.

As a rule, however, few people are ambitious of indulging in such wholesale slaughter, and, when the Blacks are troublesome, it is generally considered sufficient punishment to go out and shoot one or two. They are easily discouraged in their wild state, especially by anything that they cannot understand. Not very long after this station was first taken up, while the wild Blacks were still very bad round about, my partner Rice was digging one day in the garden. Suddenly he became aware that half-a-dozen of these “Myalls,” as they are called, were creeping towards him through the long grass. Armed with spears and boomerangs, they were evidently on anything but hospitable thoughts intent. Rice waited until they got about fifty yards off, and then, as they stood up ready to sling their spears at him, he suddenly pointed his spade at them like a gun. Two warriors fell flat down on the spot from sheer fright, upsetting a third one who was just about starting to flee. Two of the remaining three tried to run away so fast that they hardly made any progress at all, and the last one, while scattering a Parthian glance at the object of terror in his rear, ran with awful violence against a gigantic gum-tree. The prevailing idea of all six of them seemed to be a wish for seclusion, and in an incredibly short space of time they had all picked themselves up and disappeared over the horizon in a cloud of dust.

Some of the northern Blacks, however, are not so easily frightened. They are a much finer race than those in the interior and the south, and will stand up and fight like anything.

There seems to be an inherent dislike in all Blacks to anything like regular work. They will hit out like Trojans for about a week, and then they cave in, and declare they are sick. A few days’ spell and the diversion of a kangaroo-hunt will sometimes induce them to try another term of treadmill; but, as a rule, they never stick long to any heavy work. Sometimes, when they see any work going on in the Bush, the half-tame ones come up and offer to help, and are quite content with half a stick of tobacco and a good feed for a day’s work. Sometimes they content themselves with criticising, without offering to assist.

There was a party (I use the word in its plural sense) putting up a telegraph-line not far from here. One day a Black-fellow sauntered up to them with the easy air of an owner of the soil, the freedom of his movements being unhampered by anything but a red cotton handkerchief twisted round his head. Securing the loan of an atom of tobacco from the superintendent, he put it in his mouth and sat down on a log. Presently he glanced contemptuously at the telegraph-wire high overhead, and remarked:

“Altogether----fool mine think it white feller.”

This did not look promising for an extended conversation. The superintendent, however, had the curiosity to ask why; whereupon the child of Nature pointed to the telegraph-posts and wires and said:

“You think it bullock stop along o’ that one paddock? My word! you plenty stoopid!”

And then, without listening to the infuriated official’s explanation that it was not a paddock that he was putting up at all, the Black-man sauntered off again into the Bush.

They are incurable nomads, these Blacks, and never stay long in one place. They wander about the country in mobs, invariably accompanied by a vast army of the most wretched-looking, mange-stricken dogs. They camp for a while where there is a good supply of food, and when that is done they move on. A couple of hours after they have camped they have completed as good a house as a Black-fellow ever wants, by stripping a few sheets of bark off the nearest trees and propping them up with saplings.

They are passionately fond of tobacco, and the children begin to smoke, when tobacco is plentiful, literally before they can walk. I have often seen a little object, not many months old, slung over its mother’s shoulder, puffing away at a short pipe stuck in its mouth.

Away in the far north, round about the Herbert and the Cooktown district, numbers of white men are “put down” by the Blacks every year. A few months ago the manager of Rocklands, a station on the Herbert water adjoining ours, was killed; and many a solitary traveller who disappears in the lonely wilds of the Bush of Northern Queensland doubtless owes his death to these black devils, who are always lurking in his tracks, waiting for a favourable chance to kill him. The traveller in the north carries his life in his hand. Any day he is liable to be attacked by the Blacks; and at night when he lies down, he can never be sure that his awakening may not be a spear through his ribs or a blow on the head from a tomahawk.

It is very seldom that the Blacks will attack a man on horseback. They will sooner follow him for days, until, perhaps, they get a chance at him when he is off his horse, stooping down to drink at a water-hole. Upon one occasion a traveller was riding quickly round the corner of a scrub, when he came suddenly on to a camp of wild Blacks. His horse propped short, and sent him flying over its head right into the middle of them. If he had displayed the slightest signs of alarm he would most certainly have been instantly killed; instead of which he burst into wild shrieks of laughter, as if he had done it for a joke, which so delighted the Blacks that they all began to laugh too, and let him go unmolested, after helping him to catch his horse.