The Land of the Hibiscus Blossom
James Hume Nisbet (1888)
Country of origin: Australia
Available texts by the same author here
XXXVIII. Hibiscus Blossoms.
"WALL, you see," said the Greek, settling himself down for a tall yarn, "this is how it all happened, as nearly as I can spin it," and then he paused for some time to collect his thoughts.They had consigned the Professor to his last home before supper, the natives digging the grave for him on the river-bank; the grave-stone was a slab of wood, at present painted white by Collins, and on which he intended to write the dead man's last wishes after the present coat of paint had dried. It was lying up against the boiler.
Supper was over, and they were all on deck, with their glasses placed handy, and a lantern swung aloft to let them see the way to their mouths; the Singalese steward was in attendance, as John had gone ashore to stay with some of his newly-gained and admiring friends. Hector had his own special attendant, who took care never to let his glass remain long empty, so that already he began to feel as if the comforts of married life were dawning upon him.
Jenny filled his pipe--she had learned the English way of doing it--and kept his glass well replenished, in spite of the coarse jests of the others. Jenny acted as young ladies will do in the days of courting and very early honeymoon, while Hector leaned back, contented and satisfied with himself (as the male animal always is under such circumstances), thinking that this was the sort of life that ought to last for ever. It is so gratifying to be an autocrat, and have at least one faithful slave at your elbow.
"I don't want to abuse any one who is dead and gone," said Nig, "so I'll jist say that the party as has just been stowed alow ground and myself had a bit o' a racket, about what is of no consequence to any one not concarned. We froze on to one another, and raised creation, all in the dark; for, as you will obsarve, our mill took place in a cave arter our torches were kicked out."
"Wherever were you, Nig?" inquired Danby.
"Wall, you see, as they will tell you, the party as is gone and I went out on an exploring expedition, and, after going up a gully, we came to a cave, where all was black as Captain Kid's flag, barring the skull and cross-bones.
"A mighty snake warned us not to go in, but the party as was with me would do it, so I blowed the head of that ere reptile and pushed on.
"By-and-by we both fell on our noses, knocking the light out, and that I reckon raised our bile, for afore long we had holt o' one another, wrestling and kicking up the clay all round. I guess I was as much to blame as he, an' he was as much to blame as me, and that's the best I can say about it.
"Wall, as you can see, we were fighting away, not knowing whur we were putting our feet, whan all at once I felt the ground give way under me, an' I was falling, the Lord only knows whar.
"I made a wild clutch forward, and at that moment got catch of a bit of ledge, to which I clung on like grim death, with my feet dangling down, and the devil's own darkness all about me.
"I reckon that I am a pretty fair holder-on if I once get a grip, but I held on to that rock as I never thought any man could.
"It might ha' been moments, and it might ha' been hours, that I hung on to that rock, as you might do to a trapeze, with nothing below me to touch with my feet, an' a most awful sound below, like as if it was two miles of a drop into boiling water, and all my weight upon my two arms like to tear them out of their sockets.
"I can't tell you what it was like,--like something I once read of in the 'Spanish Inquisition;' I darn't let go with that sound below me, an' I felt I must give way some time.
"An' all the time my hands and arms ached; it felt as if raining upwards, a drizzly ice-cold rain that froze and cramped me all over.
"At last I began to see things dancing afore my eyes, bloody spots and rings of yellow with blue insides, that grew from little to big, and down again to wriggling worms, and the cramp got into my aching fingers, and I felt that I must let go.
"Wall, you see, it's nothing-like to tell about it; but, Lord above, it wor something to feel.
"When would I stop dropping when I fell, and into what would I drop; would I hit anything on the road and hurt much, afore the last landing--place? My fingers were slipping, spite of me digging my nails in till they were torn off, as you ken see; then I gave way."
"You did not fall into that infernal gulf, surely," cried Hector, excited over the remembrance of the Professor's account of the place.
"Wall, no, I didn't quite fall, for it had been a ghastly sell all the time. I warn't three inches from my landing-place, yet I thought my heart had burst as I came down on my back, for as I touched the solid everything went from me, so that I knew no more for that time.
"I guess I must ha' fainted, for when I came to I found myself lying on the side of the mountain not far from the edge of a great deep hole, into which a big waterfall plunged from a high cliff over my head.
"I could see the water rushing over the rocks black and swift, like a mill-race, without a sound of water, so that it gave me the creeps to see it fall so deathly quiet."
"None of your lies, Nig; tell us how you got up?"
"That, mates, I can tell you no more about than the man o' the moon. There I was, and that's all I can say about it--it might ha' been an angel that flew up with me, or else--"
"The devil, more like!"
"I won't be positive either way, for as I got up I saw two or three black--looking critters, not unlike the devil, skurrying up the trees, with long tails behind them."
"Had you been drinking much, before you went out on that spree?" inquired Danby, gravely.
"Not enough for what you mean, Mr. Danby," said Nig, lighting his pipe, and sucking energetically for two or three seconds.
"Well, go on," said Bowman. "How did you get down?"
"Wot's the good of telling a yarn if it's not believed?"
"Oh! I believe it," said Bowman.
"Like Gospel," added Danby.
"Come, finish it off," they all cried.
"The getting down warn't at all difficult. It got on dark not long after I started, so I lay down in the bush and had a sleep till daylight this morning, and then I got down to the gully we started from, to find the Nora gone."
"Did you see any natives?" asked Collins.
"Plenty lying about without their heads, but not one alive; so I thought, maybe, ye had had a bit of a scrimmage, and might come back to look after me, and I sat down to wait."
"Yes, we--yes, we saw him sitting without a stitch on the shore as we passed, and picked him up in the passing," observed Bowman, "and brought him on."
"That's all my yarn, mates," said the Greek. "I went into that cave with my togs on, my Winchester, colts, and cutlass around me, and summut in my pockets, and found myself on the hill-top same as if I had been born again, an' I don't ask you to believe it; I guess I wouldn't either, if any one else told it to me."
Niggeree took up his glass and drained it, and then returned to his pipe.
"What do you think the animals were that you saw?" asked Hector, from his seat.
"Monkeys--or baboons, I dunno which."
"Monkeys in New Guinea?" exclaimed Hector.
"I can't think of anything else," replied Nig, "and I don't want to bother my brains any more about it. I was down that hole, and now I am sitting here, and that is all I know about it. It is uncommon strange!"
This they all admitted, and then turned to hear the other adventures.
"What do you think of the scenery about this part of the country, captain?" asked Collins, of MacAndrews, as they hob-nobbed together.
"Grand, sublime, just like a drop-scene which I saw in Sydney, when they were acting Micky Dhue."
The worthy old skipper meant the "Mikado."
"Yes, the Albert River beats the Fly all to fits," returned Collins, in the gratified tone which a man uses when he hears something belonging to him praised.
"Collins, old man," said Brown, at this point, "you may call it the Albert River, if you like, out of respect for the departed, when amongst your and his friends, and write the name on that slab also, as it was a dying promise; but it must be written differently on the charts, as it had been christened before ever you saw it--say, how many days is it since you sighted it?"
"This makes the sixth day--two days going down the Fly, four days back and forward from the 'Collins'--that makes six, and the other six we've been on this water, from sea-entrance to here," replied Collins.
"Ah! that just gives the Thunder two days' clear start of the Nora, which I will demonstrate to you beyond a doubt," said Brown. "Eight days ago we penetrated the Aird River, to find out as you did, but before you did by two days, that it was only one of many mouths of the present river, which we christened 'The Douglas,' and the Douglas it has to be from this time henceforth."
"Have you also christened the Collins River?" inquired Hector, quietly getting up from his chair, and coming forward towards Brown.
"No, Captain Hector; I yield to you and your friend the right to that discovery," responded Brown, frankly.
"Thank you, Mr. Brown, I only asked for information," and Hector went back once more to his shadow.
"If I had been there I would have proved it to your satisfaction, as I hope to do this. Steward, fetch my charts and diary," said Brown.
The Singalese glided off and returned with the articles required, placing them at the feet of the explorer, and while stooping whispered something in his ear.
"Oh! hang your slips of paper," said the explorer, "mark all the drinks down to me to-night."
"Thank you, sah," and the steward slid back once more to his place behind the circle.
"There you are, boys, and something more than you know already, which you can look at as I read my notes," said he, spreading open his rough chart and showing it to them. Collins and Hector both came forward and knelt down over it, while Mr. Brown read; Niggeree, as if taking no interest in the matter, sat where he was.
"This is the 29th, isn't it?" asked Brown.
"Yes," responded the others.
"All right, now listen: 1 21st.--Arrived at the mouth of the Aird River, where we found a broad channel carrying three to sveen fathoms of water right into the river. After following up the Aird, we found that it was only one of many mouths of a great freshwater river coming from mountain ranges. After trying several channels we got into the main river, which we followed up for several miles in a direct line from coast, carrying good water all the way into mountain ranges."
"Right you are," say the others.
"We determined to call it the Douglas River, and returning down, as we had to go to Motu-motu, struck a fresh branch and came out in Deception Bay."
"Ah! you did, did you?" said Collins.
"We did. After finishing our business at Motu-motu, we returned, searching the coast, and discovered a magnificent new river with an entrance over three miles wide, close to Bald Head. We proceeded up this river 110 miles, passing through ranges and gorges, in places 1500 feet high, its principal trend being easterly and north easterly, and unusually serpentine. This river we called the Jubilee, while the ranges we have called what you want the river to be, viz. the Albert Ranges. There, are you satisfied, boys?"
Mr. Brown closed his diary, and clasped it as he spoke.
"Quite satisfied, Mr. Brown, and I ask your pardon," said Hector, going up with his hand outstretched.
"Don't mention it, old man," said Brown, cordially taking the other's hand. "I wish, for your sake, I could have obliged you by being last on the ground"--and he laughed heartily--"but can't afford it, you know--have to report dates, &c., to headquarters."
"It isn't for our sakes I wanted it," said Hector, "but for the poor professor, who has found a grave where he thought he had discovered a new river. He was late for the Fly, and now he is too late for this."
"It is hard lines," said Brown, "to be too late for everything, and to discover only what some one else justly claims; but it is a common destiny of mankind. At the most we can only travel along in this too-late century. The world, after New Guinea is laid open, will be used up, and ought, by the natural order of things, to burst. Still, boys, there's a lot to find out about here yet, and a deal to be made out of it, also; so let us drink, 'Success to the Land of the Hibiscus Blossom.'"
The glasses were drained to this toast, after which the explorer continued,--
"I can see it all coming about in the future--in my mind's eye, Horatio, of course--these splendid-looking savages, with their quick adaptability, blending in with us, the men of civilization, and rising in the ranks; towns rear where the villages now stand, and the acclimatized Queenslanders flocking over and growing rich when drivelling old England has lost her best blood, as she has already lost the best portion of this mighty island, through her own blind old-world stupidity."
"And the Germans will set us the example in their end," quoth Niggeree quietly. "No blank missionary there to spoil fair trade."
"I suppose you mean black traffic by fair trade, Nig," put in Danby.
"I mean what I mean," responded Nig. "The Germans will set us the example, as they always do when new ground has to be broken, when perseverance, patience, and hard labour are wanted. I don't blame them for taking what they had offered to them, though I, as a good colonist, grudge them their luck; but I do blame the man with the ass's ears and foxy tongue who, in the triumph of his blundering ignorance, gave away the birthright of Australia from his country's own daughter, because she was abroad, and not under his very nose to assert her rights."
"As for the missionaries," continued the explorer, "they are doing what they can, as they always do, to raise the races, and if they do try to keep the world as it was, or supposed to be, in the early days of Mother Eve, small blame to them, even although their work should be all in vain. As it has always been so will it be, the natural man must disappear, with his simple tastes and little wants, before the artificial man with his requirements. They may merge, but they must eventually disappear; it is all according to the law of evolution."
At this moment the Ching cook came back with a bevy of fair maidens following, and the outside of his solitary lock adorned with a wreath of hibiscus leaves and flowers, while clusters of the same ornamental shrub, intermixed with croton leaves, had been twisted about his slender form. He approached decked out like a Chinese god during high festival, surrounded by his devotees. Three of the damsels seemed to have taken him under their special charge, and now gathered forward, fondling his pig-tail tenderly, as if it was a charm against witchcraft.
"There is John, you see, setting the example in the merging question, if he can decide amongst so many."
"I hab decidedly, Messly Blown, to do my duty and not be gleedy. I am going to tuln a falmer, and only hab tlee."
"Three of them, John? Why, you are easily pleased. When is the marriage to take place?"
"In a monthly, if Skippel Negley will let me stay behindly."
"You can stay, John, till I return with the Sunflower, and I reckon by that time that you will have enough of matrimony on the large scale," graciously answered the Greek, whose frequent applications to the pannikin had made him more than ordinarily agreeable.
John thanked his master profusely, apparently thunderstruck with his unaccustomed generosity, and retired to the fore part of the vessel with his train, where the Malays were, and where shortly arose loud sounds of merriment.
"Do you intend coming back soon?" inquired Hector from his corner to Niggeree.
"Yes, I mean to explore that mountain again, and find out what lifted me up; also see if I cannot get back my Winchester again, as I prize it. You intend stopping, also, don't you?"
"Yes--I think so," returned Hector, in a hesitating tone.
"And I think you are wise, old boy," returned Brown. "If I hadn't left a Mrs. B., I might follow your example. I reckon the pair of you ought to make a fine breed for the future country, and there's a good few pots of money lying idle in these fat fields."
"I reckon there aint much gold about these fields," retorted Niggeree with undue haste.
"Not in the sense you mean, perhaps, although even about that I have my own thoughts; it is in a broader and much more profitable way that I refer to the man who can claim some of this land as a freehold to hand down to his offspring. I hope some day to be able to settle down here myself."
"Look out for a squaw for me against I get back, mate," cried out the Greek.
"Why, you old polygamous pirate, how many women do you want to claim before you are strung up?" asked Danby.
"You shut up, youngster."
"You can see that you are not born to be drowned, at any rate now, surely, after escaping that waterfall; so I don't see how else you can pass away except you are translated, you know," remarked Brown, with a laugh.
"Take my advice, and stick to the East End beauties which you have already won, Nig, down amongst the cannibals of Killerton, and leave these Western beauties alone. You would never make a good farmer."
"Talking about Killerton Island, they say that you had to hook it from there for eating two of your wives. Is that true?"
"No, it aint true, and I can go back to Killerton to-morrow if I liked," answered the badgered Greek in a surly tone.
"Then you must take me over there some time when you go," said Brown, quickly.
"When you like, mate; and I promise to bring you back safe, also, if you do come."
"All right; we'll arrange about it by-and-by. Good-night, boys; I must turn in, for we mean to be off again to-morrow. Time's about up, and we are due at Thursday Island next Saturday."
1 I quote here from Mr. Brown's diary, by permission.