第87章

In the interior the natives never seemed to grow very plump, but had a more or less spare, not to say emaciated, appearance compared with the tribes near the coast.For one thing, food is not so easily obtainable, nor is it so nourishing.Moreover, the natives had to go very long distances to procure it.

Besides the low, receding forehead and protruding chin I have already hinted at as characteristic of the inland tribes, I also noticed that these people had abnormally large feet.Also, the beards of the men were not nearly so full or luxuriant as those of the blacks at Cambridge Gulf.The average height of the lagoon tribe was little more than five feet.For myself, I am about five feet seven and a half inches in height, and therefore I stalked about among them like a giant.

Now that Gibson was dead I decided to move my home farther north, and eventually settled down with my family (two children--a boy and a girl--had been born to me during my residence on the shores of the lagoon) in a beautiful mountainous and tropical region 200 or 300 miles to the north.It was my intention only to have made a temporary stay here, but other ties came, and my little ones were by no means strong enough to undertake any such formidable journey as I had in contemplation.I also made the fatal mistake of trying to bring my offspring up differently from the other savage children.But I must relate here an incident that happened on our journey north.Yamba came to me one day positively quivering with excitement and terror, and said she had found some strange tracks, apparently of some enormous beast--a monster so fearful as to be quite beyond her knowledge.

She took me to the spot and pointed out the mysterious tracks, which I saw at once were those of camels.I do not know why Idecided to follow them, because they must have been some months old.Probably, I reflected, I might be able to pick up something on the tracks which would be of use to me.At any rate, we did follow the tracks for several days--perhaps a fortnight--and found on the way many old meat-tins, which afterwards came in useful as water vessels.One day, however, I pounced upon an illustrated newspaper--a copy of the Sydney TOWN AND COUNTRY JOURNAL, bearing some date, I think in 1875 or 1876.It was a complete copy with the outer cover.I remember it contained some pictures of horse-racing--I believe at Paramatta; but the "Long Lost Relative" column interested me most, for the very moment I found the paper I sat down in the bush and began to read this part with great eagerness.

I could read English fairly well by this time, and as Yamba was also tolerably familiar with the language, I read the paper aloud to her.I cannot say she altogether understood what she heard, but she saw that I was intensely interested and delighted, and so she was quite content to stay there and listen.You will observe that in all cases, the very fact that I was pleased was enough for Yamba, who never once wavered in her fidelity and affection.

Altogether we spent some weeks following up these tracks, but, of course, never came up with the caravan of camels, which must have been some months ahead of us.Yamba at length appeared to be a good deal wearied at my persistency in following up the tracks in this way; but after all, was it not merely killing time?--a mild sort of sensation which served to break the eternal monotony that sometimes threatened to crush me.

How I treasured that soiled copy of the Town and Country--as it is familiarly called in Sydney! I read and re-read it, and then read it all over again until I think I could have repeated every line of it by heart, even to the advertisements.Among the latter, by the way, was one inserted apparently by an anxious mother seeking information concerning a long-lost son; and this pathetic paragraph set me wondering about my own mother."Well," I thought, "she at least has no need to advertise, and I have the satisfaction of knowing that she must by this time be quite reconciled to my loss, and have given me up as dead long ago." Strangely enough, this thought quite reconciled me to my exile.In fact, I thanked Providence that my disappearance had been so complete and so prolonged as to leave not the slightest cause for doubt or hope on the part of any of my relatives.Had I for a moment imagined that my mother was still cherishing hopes of seeing me again some day, and that she was undergoing agonies of mental suspense and worry on my behalf, I think I would have risked everything to reach her.

But I knew quite well that she must have heard of the loss of the Veielland, and long ago resigned herself to the certainty of my death.I can never hope to describe the curious delight with which I perused my precious newspaper.I showed the pictures in it to my children and the natives, and they were more than delighted,--especially with the pictures of horses in the race at Paramatta.

In the course of time the sheets of paper began to get torn, and then I made a pretty durable cover out of kangaroo hide.Thus the whole of my library consisted of my Anglo-French Testament, and the copy of the Town and Country Journal.