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The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom




(1888)
Country of origin: Australia Australia
Available texts by the same author here Dokument


XXXIII. A New River.

   Discovered by Mr. Tendin Beven, 1887.
   The Nora, Professor Killmann's little steam yacht, lies at anchor, close to a shore where the banks are vast precipices towering fifteen hundred feet over her masts and funnel, with vast forests of gigantic trees growing on the tops.
   The river is deep, wide, and rapidly flowing, so that where they anchor they require strong chains to hold her stationary.
   They have anchored early that afternoon because daylight is quickly lost in these gloomy gorges, and they are ascending a river never penetrated before by white people, so that they have to go cautiously and feel their way as they go.
   Professor Killmann is busy to-night amongst his specimens, with his spirit-bottles ranged out on one side and his diary on the other, in which he makes his entries from time to time when he has any fresh remarks to make upon the natural specimens which he is preserving.
   At present he is engaged upon the skinning of a rare bird and has his arsenic paste ready to his hand. A dirty job it is which has made him take off his alpaca coat and roll up his shirt-sleeves.
   On the couch near at hand are sitting Hector and Collins, engaged in polishing up the steel work of their rifles and revolvers; they are greatly recovered since leaving Ellangowan, and can both walk about with only a slight limp. Niggeree is on deck taking charge of the first watch and looking out for enemies.
   "My friends, this new river is of much more importance than the Fly, and I should not be astonished if it leads us right into the centre of the country. Already we must be over a hundred miles from the sea, and there seems no diminishing."
   "How far up do you intend to go, Professor?" inquires Hector.
   "Until the Nora can draw no more water."
   "But our provisions are getting low."
   "Then we must all have a day or two of hunting to replenish the larder and increase my stock of specimens. What a blessing that the natives, when in possession, left my bottles alone; they must have thought them to be exploding machines."
   "What do you think of the specimen which I showed you yesterday, have you tried it yet?"
   "Ah, yes, but it is not good. There is a little gold in it, but iron is the principal ingredient, yet we will mark on my map the latitude and longitude of your route after you left the river, as I may visit the place some time; meantime I shall put your stone amongst my specimens of minerals."
   "No, Professor, with your leave, I'll stick to my bit of quartz, it will do to remind me of our suffering."
   "As you will, friend; I will let you have it when you like."
   "Any time will do for that before we separate."
   "You will have it--when we separate, my young friend."
   Hector and Collins shortly after join their friend, Niggeree, leaving the Professor to his preparing and classifying.
   He makes some curious contortions of his face as he bends over his bird, while the lamp lights it up, handling his knife with the apparent delight of a vivisector, giving some demoniacal side-glares now at his spirit bottles and now at his diary, while he mutters to himself as he works,--
   "Gold! yes, I would think the fool ought to have known it without asking any one, but I must not let him tell any one else about his discovery. Ah, I shall go over that swamp myself when I am rid of them all."
   He has finished his bird-curing, and now directs his attention to some insects caught that day. They have been long enough immersed in the spirits, and he now goes to work with his fine pins fixing them to the empty frame. He stabs at them as they lie before him with a grin of delight, which fairly twists his mouth under his long black and silky beard.
   A handsome man is the Professor, in spite of his sickly pallor, with dark curly hair growing bare about the temples, full dark and soft beard and moustache, a fine aquiline nose, and rich brown eyes.
   But he has a manner of moving his mouth and puckering his eyes when he is interested in his task which is apt to make an onlooker shudder.
   "The explorer is a fool who would allow any white man to return with him and share the honour of his discoveries. I shall have discovered this river and found the gold when I reach civilization, and these three friends of mine will have to stay behind, but at present they are all useful. Well, Niggeree, how goes the night?"
   "All quiet," said Niggeree, as he entered. "We have not had the trouble on this river as yet that we had on the Fly."
   "Not as yet."
   "It's a bit tame, don't you think, sailing up, day after day, without a change?"
   "Change, Niggeree! What more would you have? We have discovered a river never known to have had existence by white men; we have fathomed the Aird, supposed to be a river hitherto, and have proved it to be only one of many mouths of this grand fresh-water passage hitherto unsuspected; but what of the Fly now when we look on this, and think upon the scenery which we have already witnessed, besides what may be in front--the splendid country we have passed through, rich in soil, the sport we have had with our guns, the gigantic forests, and the capital health we have all enjoyed since entering upon this earthly paradise?"
   "All that is good enough, but we have not seen a native yet, and my Winchester is growing rusty."
   "Ah! Niggeree, still the love of the big game. But surely you had enough up the Fly this time. How you made them hop about at Snake Point! I wager they have not often seen such an illumination about that part as the night we got back our Nora. They will not forget us this next monsoon."
   "There ain't much left to remember us about that part of the Alice."
   "Enough to warn the rest for forty miles up the river to give us a wide berth; but, Niggeree, you want some more excitement?"
   "Yes, Professor, I'd like something of a change."
   "So you shall, my friend. To-morrow, at the next gully we come to, or cleft inland of this wall, I intend to land and explore it a bit, but I want you and I to go alone."
   "Why you and I?" asked Niggeree, in a suspicious tone--he had not too much faith in his friend.
   "Why? Look at this, my friend, first."
   The Professor went over to his small chest of drawers which stood in a corner, where he kept his chemicals and medicines, and returning with the specimen of quartz which Hector had given him to test, placed it in Niggeree's hand, watching him while he examined it by the lamp-light.
   "Three parts gold, by the great Harry! This was not found in New Guinea?"
   "Hector says be found it in the hill where the Malays left him and Collins."
   "Loose?"
   "Yes, and only one piece of many."
   "Then what the devil are we doing here when the gold lies over there?"
   "Gently, my friend; we know where to find it when we want it over there--you and I--but we need not bring all Queensland upon our trail."
   "Ah! you want to get rid of them first?"
   "That is it, and you will help me. Besides, if it has been found there, may it not be also here--this here is a likely country."
   "The same thought has struck me once or twice to day; the rocks do look gold-bearing."
   "It is in the gullies we must look, friend; but say nothing. We will go on our collecting expedition together, and leave them behind on guard."
   As Niggeree left the cabin he said to himself, "Yes, my smooth--tongued chum, and I'll take good care not to let you get behind me when we are on that ere expedition."
   Professor Killmann looked after him with an indulgent smile, and muttered softly, "He is going upstairs to find out all that he can about the locality of that mountain from Hector, so that he may go alone after that gold. Ah! well, he is welcome to all the knowledge he is able to glean to--night, but he is very innocent for a native of the sunny isles of Greece."
   This is the twelfth day since the Nora picked up Hector and Collins at Ellengowan.
   They had only stayed long enough to assist the poor missionaries to erect a shelter for their families, which, with the help of the natives, they were not long in doing; then they gave them what they could spare in the shape of provisions--a couple of bags of flour, one bag of rice, some tins of preserved beef, tea and sugar, over which they made loud demonstrations of gratitude.
   Collins and Hector promised to send them more when they got their vessel to Sabai, if they found it had not been molested meantime by unfriendly visitors.
   "Poor fellows!" he said, as they sailed away. "Their ideas of religion may be right or wrong, but there is no question about the sacrifices they make. They are allowed twenty pounds a year, and have no notion of the value of money, so that they order all sorts of rubbish and spend it in a month or so, and often would starve if it was not for the kindness and charity of their countrymen, the divers of Torres Straits--reckless devils they are, these Kanaka divers: but I know of more than one of my own lads who have handed me over forty pounds at a time out of their wages to send over to their starving missionary brothers in New Guinea; damn fools, they call them, to go over there to die on starvation wages. But they come here to die, and seem to glory in it, for they have always fresh recruits eager to fill the places of the murdered men from the South Seas."
   They passed down the river with the ordinary incidents--hostile natives showing up and being frightened away, a little relaxation ashore with the gun getting game, sultry days and watchful nights.
   At Kiwai Island Niggeree left the Sunflower, in care of one or two of his boys, with orders to take it on to Moresby and wait his coming when the monsoon changed to the west.
   Then they went in the Nora to the mouth of the river named after Collins, and, luckily, found the Coral Seas as they had left her. The Professor made a chart of the river from their directions, after which they towed her back to Kiwai, where the lads were left to patch up her helm, and take her also back to Moresby with the Sunflower.
   "I'll try the mouth of the Collins for shells by-and-by," observed the master of the Coral Seas.
   "I'll join you in that," said Niggeree.
   They coasted round from Mibu, keeping close to the shore, until they got to the mouth of the Aird River, as marked in the chart.
   "There's a good broad channel here," observed Killmann. "What say you, friends, if we try it up a little?"
   All on board agreed, time being of little object to any of them, so they put in without pausing.
   They lost about three days dodging backward and forward, trying different channels and finding no apparent passage inland, or getting grounded on mud-banks.
   At last, when they were about to despair of being able to penetrate it, they almost accidentally struck the right mouth of the main river, and found it a most magnificent stream, over half a mile broad, with a steady tide and plenty of bottom, up which they boldly steamed straight on to the mountain ranges.
   They passed banks such as they had never witnessed before for fertility and richness of soil, without meeting either natives or mosquitoes. It was a wholesome and dry land, and seemed specially adapted for future colonists, so that their health improved almost every hour; the water was fresh and pure, and the place seemed unoccupied by man, for the game were very plentiful and tame, proving that they had not been much hunted.
   Then, after the fallow agriculatural flats, they came to mountain ranges, a most magnificent vista of highlands densely covered with forests of mighty cedar and other trees--in the far distance great peaks towering up, blue and picturesque, towards which they steamed swiftly with many a twist and curve, yet still going easterly and northward.
   Then they got into the mountain chain, the river still cleaving its way, smooth and rapid, between vast chasms; a constant changing of earth's features as the mighty panorama grew vaster about them and grander. They passed beetling cliffs with great rifts and gullies, down which the roaring waters rushed to feed this river, gleaming white and tumultuous as the sunshafts slid down the mountain sides and struck upon them.
   They could see great distances away, when the landscape at times opened up, showing lofty peaks, towering above the dense forests all blue against the ambient sky; they beheld the fresh-green tints of the nearer ranges, and got glimpses of fairy-like valleys, plentifully watered, and which served as sheltered homes for countless herds of kangaroos and cassowaries, as the forests were the thronged mansions of the birds.
   Not a shower had yet fallen over this land of unused plenty, yet the torrents flowed ceaselessly over the crags and past the roots of clustering parasites and gigantic tree roots: these waters, with the rivers, made the air cool even in the fierce mid-day heat, while at times they passed through an unbroken twilight of balmy shadow, where the walls of rocks rose hundreds of feet above their heads, with the great branches and umbrella-like leaves spreading far beyond the tops and highest of all ran narrow lanes of deep blue sky.
   It was a region of delicious surprises.
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