Chapter V: Part 5

But the wheels spin again, yet slowly; for the change may come at any moment, and I dawdled to stretch the sweetness out.

* * * *

Bluegrass and open space appeared too soon. But the fit of depression was a thing of a moment; for around the little flat were large box-trees thickly clustered; and, on the further side, majestic leafy coolabahs fringed a reservoir carved by the hand of nature in the rock and clay, and capable of holding three or four million gallons of water; fairly open on the side from which I approached, but on the other sides walled in by a tangled growth of well-nigh impenetrable scrub and brush and forest tree.

The coolabahs threw deep shadows on the carpet of soft grass spread upon the open side; and in this romantic spot--were six or eight confounded Chinamen!

* * * *

Occasional parties of celestials, equipped with guns, horses, and provisions, make across from about here to Queensland, to evade the poll tax. Along by many cattle stations to Camooweal, a border-town, is the favored route. As Camooweal is far away from anywhere else, the expense of carting the Chinamen back to whence they came would be too great; and if imprisoned for a short term, when they first arrive--well, they have arrived anyhow.

A party of Chinamen are considered to have done well if half of those who set out for Camooweal ever see it. The blacks knock over a lot; several always drop by the way, and nobody troubles much about them or their misfortunes.

The present gathering had with them three horses.

These they did not ride, but loaded them with provisions and necessaries, and, walking beside them, led them along.

Deciding to camp at Frew's Ironstone Ponds (the reservoir is 36 miles from Newcastle), I chose a place among the coolabahs, and walked over to the Chinamen.

"Good day." It was a feeler.

"No savee."

Taking out a florin (the only silver coin I had), I said to him, whose smile was blandest, "You got it flour?" pointing to a small bag of it. "You bake it Johnny cake, so big," I drew a small circle on the ground and laid the two-shilling-piece within the circle.

The yellow man's smile broadened at sight of the white money. He knew something of English. He said, "Welly goo."

So, happy in the certainty of having fresh baked bread for supper, I, leaving them, proceeded to make my primitive wash-basin preparations, and had a bath.

Before sundown, the Chinamen had shot a great number of the ducks with which the surface of the waterhole (in common with most of the others along the track, by the way) was swarming. And one of them, at supper time, came over and presented me with an only three-parts empty tin of jam--a small tin. May he have escaped both niggers and imprisonment?

* * * *

Often o' nights, as here at this romantic camping place, there came to me the clear realization of what would be the consequence of a disabling accident.

There were no means that I could see of getting out from places in this country for months if my machine smashed up. I was a nobody--had neither wealth nor influence at my back, and would be powerless to do anything or get people to do anything for me.

And suppose I did get to a telegraph or other station. Is it a couple of riding and pack horses, with saddles, packs, and provisions all on, and a black boy, you would throw at the head of a stranger cyclist who had been warned against coming your way, yet who arrives--only to break down at your door?

I would be a nuisance to myself and everyone else around the place I reached, and to all who had associated their names in any way with mine. Ugh? The situation would be unbearably horrible. And the prospect! When the time came, and I was given the chance to go north or south, what a prospect loomed either way before me!

If the bike broke down, I would have made but very little exertion indeed to get out into the world at either end. Why should I, even if an opportunity of doing so soon presented itself--out into where the crooked finger of derisive "I told him so" would evermore be mockingly bent towards me? Why should I, when I could lie down and remain, quite comfortably, and in peace, at the side of the first waterhole I should come upon!

When a fellow gets into the habit of lying awake o' nights out in the open, gazing upwards at the starlit sky, and thinking dreamily of what lies beyond, he is--at least some of him are--liable to become more or less desirous of satisfying the curiosity such ruminations excites. The stars twinkle as if they were all quite happy. If one could only be quite sure.--But I'd rather chance that than face the other certainty. I would cut no telegraph wire; would trouble no station people or anyone else. And so I comforted myself, and slept well.

* * * *

On leaving Frew's beautiful pond early in the morning, the road leading to Daly Waters (55 miles) was assured by the Chinamen's tracks. Remarkable tracks these--left by flat oblong pieces of wood with which each traveller was sandal-shod.

The road from the pond, still strewn with ironstone-gravel, immediately entered the forest, where of the sky little was to be seen except a narrow strip overhead. A short strip this, too, for the road wound now to the west, now away to the east, or, again, ran northwards.

And so light-heartedly I wheeled through the morning's shadows, between two walls of forest trees, and over or around logs and branches of fallen ones, for 17 miles. Then came three miles of dangerous "Bay of Biscay" ground; then five miles of still treacherous track, on which were many patches of "Biscay holes" and lengths of fallen timber; and then again the jungle, and so to Daly Waters.

Besides the higher trees, a heavy undergrowth, and many kinds of grass flanked either side. The trees were in great variety--bloodwood, ironwood, lancewood, coolabah, bauhinia, hedgewood, whipcord tree and quinine tree. Added to these, a bush known as the water wattle, a native orange, and a turpentine bush; and, for aught I know, a dozen others.

I passed through an extensive belt of tall, and remarkably straight trees, growing very close together. The trunks were branchless for a long way up, 25 feet of clear stem being not uncommon. To this very respectable forest tree there had been given the name of mulga, a misnomer truly, judged by the standards of the south.

But of them all the most to be admired had a stem, straight and slender, 30 feet or more in height, leafless; but bearing on every branch large numbers of a bright red flower, in shape, resembling very much the fuchsia!

And of flowers there are not many on the Overland. From the MacDonnell Ranges, right up to Powell's Creek, my only "button hole," was a large bell-shaped, blue flower, growing on a bush about 3 feet in height; but, Diamond, I bedecked with yellow wattle blossom wherever it could be got. Beyond Daly Waters, a little round flower, like a "billy-button"--white, blood-red or variegated--replaced the larger, and more quickly, withering blue-bell.

* * * *

This day, like every other day up there, was "blazing" hot. Parts of the road, too, were unsafe; and my waterbag, from being knocked about, and worn thin in places, allowed the water to evaporate quickly (truth to tell, I had soon drunk it all rather than have this occur), and a stretch of 35 miles had to be cycled over before more was got. Yet, notwithstanding these things, the ride from Frew's to Daly Waters, all through dense forest, lingers in my memory as making one of the most enjoyable day's cycling I ever had.

* * * *

The feeling of loneliness had to a great extent worn off. I had, it may be, become inured to it. Still, the change of scene and country was so marked and impressive that often throughout the ride, in the lasting gloom and shadow of countless solemn giant trees, encompassed by a penetrating solitude, I experienced again those indescribable sensations to which I had not been for many a day susceptible--mystic sensations of a hushed expectant awe as in the presence of a something living, breathing, but unseen, intangible. As I passed by I glanced into an opening, or looked far back between the trunks where trees were scattered--and it seemed to me so very strange that nothing should be moving there!

Yet this sense of being alone with throbbing nature--the hidden influence--was not by any means unhappy. It was a restful feeling--a feeling of peacefulness, as though one had awakened from a long, long sleep, to find oneself in a calm and weird existence somewhere beyond the state of life: a borderland arrived at after death.

And the toil and turmoil of existence in the world which had been left behind, viewed from the distance, appeared now to be so very purposeless; its work-a-day prosaic rounds and its confinement so very galling; its dead-sea-apple pleasures so few and short-lived; its miseries, so many and enduring; the worth of it all so very little that the consciousness of having to again return to it was as a jarring note.

And in the vast immensity of towering forest the thought of quiet Death was no unwelcome one. I realised so clearly what an insignificant atom this was which moved through it, as an ant might--so insignificant that, had the certain prospect of the atom's end appeared, for anyone to fuss or mourn over such a trivial incident as that death would be, seemed extravagant, as absurd as to mourn the withering of a blade of grass or the falling of a leaf.

In this land of forest, and quiet, and vastness, the silence, if it be given a thought, is so profound, so unnatural, that memories of some night in childhood come back to mind--some dark, still night through whose long hours the child waited alone in a roomy house, hushed with bated breath, and "fancied things."

* * * *

About mid-day I arrived at water--probably The Burt; a shallow, clayey creek. After drinking, and whilst the quart-pot boiled, I put in the time carving my name on the trunk of a gum-tree overhanging the waterhole. I was not sure about the date, but cut one in. High grass grew on that bank of the creek on which I stopped--grass high enough to cover and shade the bicycle which, when I pushed it in, stood nearly upright against the finger-thick blades.

A smoke was rising down the creek; and when my opposition cloud was raised an inquisitive black female hove in sight. When first observed, she was on the far side of the watercourse, peeping from behind some bushes; but a minute afterwards she came out into full view. My first impulse was to call her over. Then I wondered how she would act if I remained silent. So I pretended not to be aware of her presence, and went on with the letter-forming.

The lubra stood still for a moment, irresolute; then she advanced slowly, keeping a little way out from the creek, and passed me before she crossed. To keep her in sight I had need to turn but very slightly. On seeing her step down into the creek's bed I took pains to keep my back to her. Presumably she was unable to satisfactorily explain away the mien of deep preoccupation so ostentatiously displayed. At any rate she came very close, looked on from behind as I worked, and once coughed, or "hem'd" aboriginally. And still I obstinately continued deaf. She had a becomingly dirty bone stuck horizontally through her broad nose, and for the rest was fashionably dressed in a dog's-tooth necklace.

At last she touched me on the shoulder. At this I faced sharply around and stared with a look intended to convey blank astonishment. She giggled; but there was a tinge of uneasiness or uncertainty about the giggle; then said "which way nanto?"

Having gone so far with no idea of saying or doing anything in particular to the young woman, I now acted on the prompting of the moment--rushed from her suddenly into the long grass, collared the nanto, and rushed out with it. She screamed at my reappearance--or rather at the appearance of the prancing bicycle. Then turned and ran; and I ran the nanto after her.

But shoving the bicycle handicapped me, and she out-distanced us easily. I stopped and called out to her to come back, but she wouldn't. I cried almost tearfully, "Angelina," but 'twas no use.

I reckoned women were a class of people no fellow could understand, and walked sadly back to my lonely dinner--hour--for dinner I had little.

From this waterhole I felt not the slightest of inclinations to go on. Had I brought with me from Newcastle sufficient food to last me out I might have camped there for a week. Finishing off my name plate leisurely (this was the only place at which I had so occupied myself), I ate what I had to eat, and smoked.

And, smoking, I pondered deeply over the notion of making for the blacks' camp and trying to strike a bargain with the chief or elders of the tribe--that they should keep me well supplied with tucker for a week or so, and show me the lions in return for which I'd teach 'em to ride the bicycle at, say, two snakes a lesson, lubras half price.

But I had been learning to ride myself one time and knew how strangely learner's legs get tangled up in spokes and other parts, a cyclist cannot cycle without. So I decided to go on. Having so decided, I yawned, called out despairingly for Angelina to come forth and see me off, waved my hand in the direction she would most likely be observing from, and made wheel tracks for Daly waters.

* * * *

Those tracks were formed but very slowly; for it had entered my mind that the end of my journey was approaching, and I knew not whether to be glad or sorry. I almost concluded to my own satisfaction that life would be almost worth living if at the end of it a fellow having arrived all alone at a weird undesecrated old forest like this should then mysteriously disappear. If he were to get away far back, and tread lightly in going, people might search for months and never find him; and there would be no ghosts of ghoulish undertakers or neighboring unsympathetic corpses to trouble his last sleep.

But for myself I had no justifiable excuse for doing anything of that sort--so long as the bicycle didn't break down.

Meditating thus, I came to still another large waterhole, surrounded on all sides by massive boulders of the now common brown and friable iron ore. A pretty spot indeed. Forest trees grew thickly around, except at one side, and there they were more scattered, and high grass and bushes lined that bank.

The follow-on track was most uncertain, and half an hour was occupied in making sure of it.

Having at length traced out the right pad, which went off again from the waterhole at a sharp angle, I strolled down to the water's edge and had a drink; then cracked up several pieces of the iron ore, but as they didn't look "kindly," gave up prospecting; next cooeed to try if there was an echo, but found there wasn't; had another drink, stretched myself out in a shady place, and, without having the slightest intention of doing so, fell asleep.

On waking I looked at my watch. "The deuce!" I darted for the bicycle. Now where was the bicycle? The soil was hard white clay, yielding no foot-prints for a guide. Think fixedly as I might, I could not bring to mind where I had "planted" it. True, I could not think very fixedly. Too many disagreeable thoughts came crowding up.

What a pretty ending to my journey this! My bicycle, it would almost seem, had carried into execution the little poetical thing in the way of existence-endings I had contemplated vaguely a while back--had wheeled itself out into the undesecrated old forest, and vanished from mortal ken.

I found it--of course somewhere, and within half an hour.

* * * *

The watercourse this hole or pond was in, came into view occasionally until Daly Waters telegraph station was reached. _Ergo_ it must have been the Daly Creek. It, like all the watercourses beyond the Burt, has its fall towards the north to join the coastal rivers. _Ergo_, again, the country running northward from the Burt must have its fall towards the coast.

The buildings at Daly Waters are on the south bank of the winding creek, and, being erected on piles, stand two feet or more above the ground--not, because of floods, though, for this bank is well above the plains but to mitigate the white ant evil.

All the way up from the MacDonnell Ranges, ant-hills had ever figured more or less prominently. Oftentimes fantastically-shaped groupings of them had been mistaken for men or animals. They had been gradually increasing in average size, until here at Daly Waters, or a few miles on, they rose as high as the sag in the telegraph wire.

It had already been told me that between Pine Creek (258 miles from Daly Waters) and Palmerston (146 miles still further on) the railway line in many places deviated to save the cost and labour of cutting through the ant-hills, so large and of such very tough material were they fashioned there. I was always very grateful for scraps of information like this.

Daly Waters seemed nearly as good as the end of the journey; for at the Katherine River (only 190 miles on) there was a hotel, and this meant civilization and perhaps a township. At the telegraph station two or three days were spent. Residing there, besides the stationmaster, were an assistant, and a Chinaman cook. Many natives were camped in the neighborhood, and they, or occasionally a handy Chinaman, got the "odd jobs" of the station to do.

Here, as at every other place of call, the tinkling of the meal bell fell on my ears sweetly as heavenly music. Music with words, too, learned from a blackfellow, who thus pithily interpreted the ringing--"Chow-chow, quick fella, come on now."

* * * *

The natives, of whom some were about the station have a faith in the professing medicine man, which, unless a limb be missing, often goes far towards making the patient whole. The "doctor" of a tribe will examine the afflicted one, diagnose the case, and find out where the pain is. There's bound to be something of a pain somewhere. Having made his arrangements preparatory to operating, he applies his mouth to the part--swelling or wound, or whatever it may be--makes a big show of sucking, tangles himself up somewhat in the practice of his profession--and draws out a lump of wood, or a stone, thus exhibiting tangible proof of the efficacy of his method of treatment.

They put a little fire (live coals and a few pieces of dry wood, with the fired end towards the wind) at their heads of nights, so fearful are they of an evil spirit--a bogey man, of whom their grandmothers warned them when they were children.

* * * *

A native at one of the telegraph stations kindly pointed out to me two remarkable constellations, hitherto, doubtless, unheard of by our own astronomers. He interpreted them to be, one, a representation of the emu, the other, of course, of the kangaroo.

And, why not? The natives should have their familiar animal groups of stars just as properly as had the ancients on other continents their Bears and Fishes. And both of those to which I have referred are "all there," safe enough--up in the heavens somewhere.

* * * *

This astronomer had been working steadily about the station for a matter of three or four months at a stretch, during which period he had shifted his residence a few dozen times, and had now taken it into his head that he would be all the better for a bit of holiday-making (from which, by the way, the natives generally return in a very lanky condition) away out among the smokes. He counted on being absent until the middle of the next following month, and informed the station master of that fact in these terms:--"This one moon tumble down. By-'n'-bye new pella moon jump up. Fust time picaninny. Lee-tle bit ole man--then come back."

The expert understands this "yabber" instantly.

* * * *

There is a law of the Overland--an unwritten law, of course--regarding the camping of blacks at wells by which white men are gathered. At sundown one of the whites says to the blacks, "clear out, go to your camp," and indicates a locality for them to "clear out" to. Or one of them comes up and asks, "which way we camp to-night?" If they venture to put in an appearance again before sunrise--well, then, it is understood they can be up to no good, and, as trespassers, are duly "dealt with."

* * * *

The officer in charge at Daly Waters showed me many kindnesses; and as his business took him up the track I rode on and camped with him at some iron tanks near a dried-up waterhole known as The Ironstone, about 33 miles beyond the station. Between those tanks and the Elsey cattle station--77 miles--there are on the road two wells (from one of which, by the way, a man walked out to look up some horses about a year ago and has never been heard of since); and as the cattle station is approached several billy-bongs in or near the Elsey creek are met with.

The country from the Daly to Elsey Station is nearly all low-lying and subjected to annual heavy floodings. The dangerous "Bay of Biscay" is come upon within a mile or two of the telegraph station, and extends northwards through Stewart's Swamp for about 30 miles. Thence the riding varies. There is a good deal of sand, with many long and short stretches of harder "crab-hole" ground, "gilguy," and "devil-devil."

This last name is applied to clay, pure and simple, or silty soil similar to "Biscay," but with this difference, that in contracting after rains, in the quick-drying rays of fierce tropical suns it cracks, while the "Biscay" becomes distressingly bumpy. These cracks are as so many ever-set traps lying in wait for wheeled vehicles. The jaws of many of them would easily admit a waggon wheel. They run in all directions across the track and with it. To go slow is the cyclist's sure way of getting through without accident.

"Gilguy" denotes small patches of mixed "Biscay" and "devil-devil" ground--possibly dried up clay pans. And "crab-holes" are roundish openings, like rabbit barrows, but going straight down in the soil. These "crab-holes" are the more dangerous ones for horsemen. Here and there one is warned to sheer off the pad by an uprising roughly-trimmed branch of tree or length of dry wood which some traveller has shoved in to mark a bad spot.

The vegetation along the track is distinctly tropical. So also is the climate. And so both continue all the way to Palmerston.

But I confess to disappointment with the arrangements in the forestry department. From Elsey upwards there were altogether too many trees of the Eucalyptus family.

From Daly Waters to the Katherine (190 miles) are many and fine specimens of Ironwood, Ebony, Bloodwood and Currajong; but the prevailing tree--the one, at least, which from the track the passer-by will see most of--is the familiar Gum.

* * * *

The homestead buildings at Elsey Cattle Station (100 miles from Daly Waters) were, I thought, the most prettily situated group I had seen anywhere since--oh, years ago. The Elsey river winds its billabonged way in front and between the homestead. This is a garden in which anything that might be planted should be proud to grow.

A beautiful reach of fresh water is a permanency in the river at this point, with the sweetly scented flowers of many water lilies ever floating gracefully upon its surface--a surface ruffled, as I at calm evening time gazed with admiration on the fair picture, by sharp splash and undulating widening circle, as a fish jumped now close to one bank now over at the other; or, again, where one had risen high up to a fly, or for amusement, in the centre.

Little forests of pandannus palms overtopped by stately paperbarks or gum trees line the sides; and massive climber-laden trunks, or towering branches of giant tree growths, meet the eye wherever it be turned.

Here also, along the chain of ponds and billabongs up and down the Elsey, is some of the most delightful scenery one could desire to look upon. Here, too, cotton grows naturally, making a brave show--bunches of pure white dotting the landscape, and touching off the vivid green of tropic bush, or thickly grouping in some wide space by themselves.

The Paper-bark at once attracts the eye. A very large tree this. On the wettest day one has but to prize off a piece of the trunk's soft outer covering, and there is to his hand compressed--laminated, as mica--a hundred sheets of dry and easily-lighted coarse straw paper.

The mimosa tree and the cabbage tree, as well as many other palms, likewise flourish in the favoured neighbourhood of the Elsey. In fact, Elsey, as it appeared to me, was a vast botanical garden; and at supper time, such a feast of sweet potatoes and other dainties were spread that sleep but tardily drove out the thoughts of them.

A Chinaman cook had been speared here, in the manager's absence, about a fortnight before, and I thought the Chinaman who had replaced him, and who was now in charge (the manager being again absent) must be a fairly lucky man--for a Chinaman. And, above all, he cooked the sweet potatoes deliciously, and baked--oh! lovely cake.

* * * *

From the Elsey a stretch of 18 miles of sand (the timber is mostly gum trees) runs northwards; but this is to be avoided by taking the "new road," which bears in a more easterly direction. The track for part of the way to the Katherine was freshly marked, as a party of black trackers and a police trooper, having in charge two or three prisoners--natives, who had speared the Chinaman--had left the vicinity of the station only the day before my arrival there.

From the excellent road-plan made out for me by the courteous officer at Daly Waters (he had, I think, every inch of the road in his mind's eye) I was able to make unhesitatingly into the various watering places. Nevertheless, there are one or two places on the Roper River and at the Esther Well which might puzzle one not so blest as I was.

I overtook the police party after I had camped one night on the Stirling, at a waterhole in one of that creek's bends, about 40 miles from the Elsey; but after a very brief stoppage, proceeded on towards the Katherine.

Of the prisoners I know nothing, and never heard of them again; but I was told they would be imprisoned, then quickly released, enrolled among the native police, and for evermore hold their heads high. "There is always an opening for men of spirit in the native police force," said one who ought to know.

Give a nigger a rifle or revolver and he will shoot his fellow niggers--go out hunting after them if permitted--with the greatest of glee, readiness, and cheerful animosity.

"You see wild blackfellow along track," more than one "civilised" philanthropist asked me. "Sometimes, I think," I have answered. At once has come an expectant, pleased expression to the questioner's face. "You shoot him all right?" has been asked in amusingly hopeful tone.

* * * *

The presence of a trooper with black trackers probably accounted for the scarcity of blackfellows along the road, but just after leaving the Esther Well, which is only 24 miles from the Katherine, I ran across two. They seemed though rather inclined to clear among the trees.

Dismounting, I endeavoured to get some information from them about a turn off of which I was still doubtful; but they were too much interested in the bicycle to make what they would tell me very clear.

Each carried a spear. One was headed with three wires--No. 6 gauge--fastened close together, and looked quite bad or good enough to permanently damage a Chinaman with. The effective end of the other one, a long bamboo, was fashioned out of one side of a square gin bottle. (Gin, by the way, is a favorite N.T. drink.) A very business-like weapon this was too. A slight scratch from it should be capable of inducing _delirium tremens_ in the veins of the staunchest teetotaler.

* * * *

From Daly waters, and at many places still farther south, the grass was for miles at a stretch so high that, mounted on the bicycle, I often could not see over the top of it. In front, at such times, was only a faint streak or hollow, where the top of the bending grass at either side of the narrow pad met. The pad itself, the ground on which I cycled, was not at such times visible--except when I dismounted and crept down into the strange narrow tunnel to have a reassuring look for or at it. When riding, a passage through was forced, or as it were, was ploughed open, which when the machine had passed closed up again as water would. It felt like being engulphed in ocean. I often fancied I was on the point of drowning, and sat bolt upright to take in a breath of the upper air. That was fancy; what I now say is not.

At every few hundred yards, the thinner, shorter, wiry undergrowth of "blades" wound round and round the rear hub, until the roll becoming wide and high and tightly coiled, it acted as a brake twixt wheel and forks. They became entwined among the chain's links, and fastened themselves between the teeth on both the sprocket wheels, and so frequent stoppages were a necessity.

This state of things lasts only to the end of May or June. The long, rank, useless grass, being an impediment to the progress of man and beast, is, as it dries, fired by passing travellers, and the second growth which then springs up, is short and sweet. The natives, too, set fire to it, as when it grows, they cannot see or track the game or animals they hunt for. Many patches had already been burned off, and the minute particles of black ash which overspread the ground, rose at the slightest touch, floated in the air, and begrimed the passer-by.

Two very extensive fires faced me after parting from the natives at Esther Well. I had grown used to riding among smouldering embers, and with the grass or dry trees burning right and left; but the second of these fires was the biggest thing I had witnessed. After passing out of the first, and leaving one black, sky-obscuring wall behind, a mile or two's stretch of untouched grass and tropic bush and stunted gums was ridden on to. At the end of this arose a mighty pall of jet-black smoke, stretched out I knew not how far, with flame-jets glancing through. The whole country seemed ablaze. The land was overcast, the sky shrouded as if a fearful thunder storm was imminent. The smoke ascended and remained suspended, as might dark, heavy, threatening banks of cloud, and the fire at intervals leaped up and gleamed on this side or on that--a passable equivalent for lightning.

It was a grandly impressive spectacle. But there were other considerations than the spectacular. I looked, a little uneasily, for an unlighted opening along the fast advancing line; and seeing such a gap between two trees where there was little else but sand, I hurried over--walking--and so passed through.

A dozen steps in I stopped to look behind. The flames had already closed in!

In front, far on as I could see, the stems or branches of dry standing trees were burning; and on the ink-black ground were smouldering heaps of tindery bush, or still-blazing fallen limbs. Thick strewn everywhere were the hot, and quickly blackening ashes of that tall grass which had been waving majestically in each breath of wind a few short moments since.

Shouldering the bicycle I walked cautiously to where the pad showed still a narrow streak, yet offering a clear, narrow running space. As I walked--I speak without exaggeration--I now and again heard sweat drops, hiss and fizzle, as they fell on a burning log or some little grass-root heap.

* * * *

For five miles at a stretch this fresh-burnt ground continued. Tress stood out like torches all the way; and on the pad were many live coals of fallen timber. I dare not hurry, and often had to dismount and lift the bicycle over, because if my tyres blazed up I hadn't water to spare with which to put the Ixionic fire out. Nevertheless I did that five miles scorching.

* * * *

Out of the fire and into a frying-pan of hot sand ten miles long and unridable. Towards the end of the ten miles so many large boulders and long flat slabs of granite cropped up in the track that there was a danger of getting dizzy from rounding them; and these senseless outcroppings at the last became so numerous that a bye-track made a seven mile detour towards the Katherine. At that beautiful river I arrived, after a hard days "graft" at sundown. 214 miles from Palmerston.

A hotel at last. Those "terrors" of the Overland which were to bring certain destruction had been left behind.

The buildings consist of the hotel and store, telegraph and police stations. They are on the south side of the river, which to the westward joins the Daly.

The sloping banks of the Katherine rise 80 or more feet from the gravelly bed, and are thickly timbered with giant trees of many varieties. Here and in the country round about are, as well as thickets, jungles and beauty spots innumerable, the stately paperbark and Leichhardt pine, Pandanus palms, white cedar, woollybutt, bloodwood, ironwood, banyan, and other trees; and splendid couch and buffalo grasses.

When in flood the stream is about a quarter of a mile wide. Boats are kept at both the hotel and the telegraph station. Alligators are known to exist in several places, in deep holes and long reaches, but only a small species of crocodile is often seen about the crossing place. A fine specimen of one of these latter was on view at the hotel.

* * * *

It was at this telegraph station that I received a message from a fabulously wealthy company of cycle-part makers. My journey, as I have said, was practically at an end. Those "perils" that were so great that failure was, I was told, certain, had been surmounted. Yet, only now, seated at a hotel, I read a curt and, as it seemed to me, impertinent and "catchy" telegram, endeavoring, as I took it, to ferret out of me--unwealthy me--a most valuable advertisement _gratis_. Up to this moment, when success had been practically achieved, nothing had been heard from that quarter. I regarded it as mean, and answered accordingly.

The company took further action then; but, in view of later developments, it would be meanness on my part now to speak further of a matter which would not deserve mention at all but that it has been made to some extent public property. Only this further: _my answer to the telegram has never yet been published_!

Without any promise of recompense I gladly did all I could for another firm whose manager had treated me civilly, and who did not wait until danger had been passed before identifying itself with the fortunes of the trip.

* * * *

At the Katherine, where only one night was spent, I refitted myself with wearables from the stock of the widely known hotel and storekeeper; had a swim in the river; then tied boots and other things on Diamond, shouldered the lot and walked across.

The country is flat for ten or twelve miles. Travelling only middling--rather soft. But before the morning was far gone, rough hills were entered and they continued most of the way to Pine Creek (68 miles).

* * * *

It was hazardous to hurry the bicycle over those rocky hills, but Diamond stood the rough experience more than manfully, and jumped the miniature precipices encountered on the down-hill sides without ever loosening a spoke.

At one time, in the very early part of the journey, I favored the notion of entering Palmerston, with the bicycle in a fearfully battered condition--a revolving bundle of splints and copper wires. But how could I? And I found myself proudly exhibiting it everywhere, and finally in a Palmerston shop window as being "better than new."

In my mind, now, was the fixed idea that nothing could break that machine. I knew I couldn't. And it had been called on to undergo some rough usage. Towards the end, such confidence had I come to repose in its excellence, in its unbreakableness, that on hearing sticks and things rattle among the spokes I used only to laugh, say "Sool it, Diamond!" and let them fight the battle out.

* * * *

The hilly country alternates with stretches of sand, blue-grass, swamps, and rough patches of white clay or pug, with here and there a stunted gum. I find at this stage this memorandum written for myself--"Horrid, swampy, inexpressibly bleak and unattractive, miserably stunted timber--a result, p'raps, of centuries of bush fires. A 68 mile-span unfit for anything--except those strips close by the creeks and watercourses." These latter were the redeeming features. The water in some was deep, notably in the Driffield, Fergusson, Edith and Cullen Creeks, which are rivers for a month or two in the rainy season.

In one of them--the Edith, I think--a little way down from one, nearly waist-deep crossing, was an inviting reach of calm, deep water, with many picturesque pandanus palms and woolly butts caressing it; and as a family of aboriginals--two old men, many picaninnies and some females--were bathing by the roadway. To this I wheeled the bicycle.

The bottom was gravelly, and in the deepest place there was only four feet or so of water. The stream, or rather hole, was narrow; and while paddling about in it the thought struck me that it would be just as well to cross now and here as to cross at any other time and place. And, besides, an opportunity for experimenting presented itself.

To bundle up the clothes and the few odds and ends I had with me was the work of but a couple of minutes; those things I was able to walk across with. On returning I laid the bicycle on its side close by the water's edge, made fast the interlocking gear, and fastened securely to its handlebars one end of the strong string I always had carried. To the free end of the string I attached a stone. This I threw to the opposite bank and swam over after it.

I would have swam that stream though my knees had got the gravelrash in the transaction!

Laying hold now of the string I pulled gently on the bicycle until it moved; then pulled it quickly whilst in the water; and so landed it where I was standing. Undoing the string I allowed my silently weeping comrade to remain out in the sun, where its doleful tears quick turned into smiling rainbows while I resumed my clothes. Then gave it five minutes attention.

This wetting, I might here remark, did no more harm to the bicycle than a smart shower of rain would have done, but at Palmerston, where I totally immersed it in the sea, I found the salt water quickly formed rust on the various nickeled parts around the nuts and where the spokes entered the rim and perhaps within the tubes themselves for aught I know, as there, alas! monetary considerations forced me to part with it.

* * * *

I caught some fish in the waterholes, along the track. They bite at dough or flesh of any sort; or the first one captured will do as bait for catching more with.

From the Hayward Creek up to Daly Waters (230 miles), the fish are small, averaging about 8 inches; but higher up, as at the Elsey, and in more lasting holes to east and west, much larger ones are to be had. Some will rise to a fly; others take meat. The best bait one can use is a section of widgery (or "witchery," a grub three or four inches in length, found at the roots of gum trees, and tasting, when slightly roasted, not unlike a hen's egg.)

A packing or any other needle, heated to take the temper out, and bent into shape, makes a sufficiently good hook. But I had been provided with the regulation pattern steel article by a trooper, at one of the telegraph stations.

* * * *

At the Little Cullen Creek, seven miles from the Palmerston railway terminus, a genuine diamond has been found within the last couple of years; and several small heaps of tailings near the crossing place were accounted for by a native who told me "whitefellow bin on track of nudder one; but no catch im."

On from the Cullen are groups of shallow holes, now half tilled in, where alluvial gold has been sought; and various reefing properties, notably the Cosmopolitan, came into view on nearing Pine Creek.

Pine Creek (where I spent but a night) is not itself a large place, but it is the centre of an extensive gold-mining district. On one side of the main street is the railway station yard; on the other a first-class hotel, a store, blacksmith's, wheelwright's, and butcher's shops, besides several more business and dwelling houses. Most of the Asiatics connected with the mines, occupy a portion of the town away back from the main street.

Owing to the surrounding wooded hills and neighbouring gum creek the general aspect of the place is prepossessing.

Of the Wandi goldfields, about 30 miles to the east, it is said that several valuable properties exist there. But the climate is trying, and properties in the district need to be very valuable indeed before Europeans will infuse energy into their developement.

* * * *

This line from Pine Creek to Palmerston is spoken of as "the northern section of the Transcontinental." I do not pose as one who can say with authority whether it is advisable or not to complete the railway through the continent. That is not my "line" at any rate. Nevertheless I have formed opinions. Without any concessions at all from a leave-granting government, with barely the permission given them to construct a railway, and with even a squaring donation to the exchequer of a million pounds or so, a band of reasonably, business-like, experienced, company-promoters, I'm very sure, could make large fortunes in English or French money out of the undertaking--for themselves.

* * * *

I had expected to find a well-beaten track, perhaps a macadamised road from Pine Creek to Palmerston. But--a road where there was already a railway! What for?

On to Union Town. There is a store here, kept by a welcoming European. So far 10 miles of good, although hilly road.

At the store I was advised to look out for tracks leading off to the Chinamen's mines, of which there were several, away back in the hills from the railway. This advice I conscientiously acted on--"looked out" and followed one for miles until I came to the mine and the Chinaman. But in among the hills there was only "no savee," and a noisy quartz crushing plant; so I retraced my wandering wheelmarks, kept close to the railway line, and arrived at Burrundie (124 miles from Palmerston) sometime in the afternoon.

Burrundie is the last--or first, whichever you please--of the overland telegraph stations. Here there was hospitable entertainment at the hands of the station master; then on to the Howley Cottages, 100 miles from Palmerston. As the unpremeditated visit into the regions of Chinese no-saveedom had interfered with the day's progress, at the Howley Cottages I was made comfortable for the night.

My voucher book was now again constantly in use. I had tried hard when in at the Chinamen's mine to possess myself of a celestial's signature, as a curio, but had not succeeded. Was it possible that the book-fiend had been there too?

Next day, from the Howley, I made fairly good time, passed the Adelaide River (the half-way refreshment-house on the railway, 77 miles from Palmerston), and Rum Jungle (58 miles from Palmerston) and got in as far as the 46 mile cottages, where on the warm invitation of the resident ganger, I camped until morning.

* * * *

From about Burrundie the cyclist is given the choice of occasional lengths of old pads (white clay soil mostly), alongside the railway line, and of the ballast or embankments, between or close by the rails. I chose a little of each.

Hilly country extends from Pine Creek to about the Adelaide River. The various rivers are thickly lined with screw palms and thickets of stout bamboos, and the country generally is substantially timbered.

The only white resident at Rum Jungle (a railway camp, on a small watercourse, tributary to the Finniss, where the jungle is remarkably dense; the prefix may be reminiscent of railway-construction days), said there was plenty of time yet to find alligators in the Darwin River, between the jungle and Palmerston, although the water was getting low. But why should I go hunting for them when I bore away hence as trophies, still preserved, two alligator teeth?

And, speaking of alligators, it has recently been printed--"there are no snakes in the Northern Territory." There are, in their proper season. You may see them even without drinking heavily. I cycled over two and left them behind, on a narrow pad by the eastern side of the railway line, within a few hours of leaving the Howley cottages.

The size of one was larger than I would care to say. It remained quite motionless after the bicycle had passed over it; so I dismounted and threw a stick to ascertain whether the docile-seeming reptile was alive. It was. First rising aloft its head swiftly to bite at the passing piece of timber, it then immediately turned and commenced wriggling towards myself. I never mounted a bicycle more quickly in my life, nor did a quarter mile in faster time.

The ganger at the 46 mile cottages and the guard of the passenger train running between Palmerston and Pine Creek, as well as the writer, have cause to know that in the matter of snakes, as of some few other things, the Northern Territory isn't Ireland.

From the 46th mile I kept entirely to the railway line (a blackfellow at one of the cottages dubbed the bicycle "kangaroo engine") and before midday I was within ten miles of Palmerston.

There was a fairly-good road, its surface covered with fine brown ironstone rubble, for the remainder of the distance. Very high trees and a profuse wealth of tropical vegetation lined the track; but "cyclone" was writ large and in unmistakable characters everywhere--in uprooted trees and other features.

At two and a half-miles from Palmerston are the railway workshops and several suburban dwelling houses.

* * * *

On arriving opposite the first of these buildings I dismounted to take off my hat and wipe a little of the dampness from my forehead; and a sentence picked up somewhere came back to mind. I looked fondly upon the bicycle which had served me so well, pressed gently one of its handles, and whispered:--

"Thanks, Diamond, '_Es ist vollbracht._'"

With a sigh of relief the pen is laid down and the scissors are picked up. The few next following paragraphs are from _The Northern Territory Times_:--

"Mr. Murif, the gentleman who undertook to ride across the continent on a bicycle, arrived in Palmerston on Friday afternoon, accompanied by several of the local cyclists, who picked him up at the 2½ mile. After riding round the town the party proceeded to the point below Fort Hill, where the overlander's bicycle was dipped in the sea, and the point christened 'Bicycle Point' in commemoration of the event.

"On Saturday evening Mr. Murif was entertained by the Athletic Club at a smoke social in the Town Hall. The Government Resident presided over a large gathering. Murif was heartily welcomed.

"_He declared that he could have accomplished the trip in less time, but if good time was made nobody would follow him._ He would like another man to try the journey.

"He was sorry, he said that he could not say as much as he would like in thanking the residents of the Territory for the kindness they had shown him since his arrival amongst them. He had also to thank the Athletic Association, who were treating him in a right royal manner, and also those gentlemen who had so kindly come out to meet him on Friday afternoon. In fact, ever since he had started upon his trip, that one word 'Thanks!' had ever been upon his tongue. He had had to say thanks for kindnesses received at the very commencement of his journey; all along the route he had had occasion to use the word, and now when his task was completed and all his troubles over, all that he could say, in return for the hearty welcome they had tendered him, was that one little word--thanks. Down south he had always heard much of the hospitality of Port Darwinites, but he had not the remotest idea of its munificence until he came among them."

* * * *

Again:--"When seen by _The Advertiser_ correspondent on Saturday morning Murif was busy cleaning his machine after the sea bath. On being congratulated on his safe arrival he replied, 'Yes, both of us,' pointing to the bicycle, 'are safe and strong as ever.' The cycle, indeed, looked in perfect condition, the wheels running as true as when they left the workshop. Murif was well and in the pink of condition."

And among other things, in reply to an interviewer:--"I wish you would do me a favor. I want to thank all those whom I met on the road for the most hospitable manner in which they treated me. Never have I met a better class of men. I was treated like a prince whilst _en route_, and never once was I refused anything I asked. Information re the track ahead was readily tendered, and it was with regret that I had to leave my new friends who had been so kind to me. I had heard that the Territorians were the essence of hospitality, and now I fully believe it."

* * * *

These Palmerstonians, who treated me so handsomely, are a laughter-loving and generously hospitable people.

The European residents, being very largely civil servants are as such prohibited from entering the field of politics. This disability hangs heavily on them, and is ruinously enervating and mischievous in its effects. Peacefully, contentedly, unprogressively as the calm and happy dead are they. Earnest consideration and study of the wants and welfare of the land in which they live are neglected and the action to which such grave study ever prompts men is wanting. Their lives are rounds of light gaieties and small pleasures. A picnic, dance, a sports day or a concert is ever an absorbing topic.

These are not right lives for white men, such as they are, to live; but the embargo forces them to live it. Nothing so retards a country's progress, nothing perhaps is so great a hindrance to the development of its resources, as a non-political feeling among the inhabitants. Here politics are taboo. The real business of life, the stirring cry of "Advance Australia!" is awfully lacking.

Remove the disability, take away the restraint, make an exception in favour of those civil servants who live so far up north in South Australia, unmuzzle those who have it in them to speak, and the people of the Territory--the Territory itself--will soon be heard of. So long as they are not heard from, so long must the Territory continue as a heavy weight.

* * * *

Chinese, who are ready and willing to work night or day and seven days a week, have ousted Europeans from many branches of trade. Hairdressing, tailoring and bootmaking are all done by them or Japanese.