In Search of the Castaways; or the Children of Captain Grant

CHAPTER XIV WEALTH IN THE WILDERNESS

ON Jan­uary 6, at 7 A. M., af­ter a tran­quil night passed in lon­gi­tude 146 de­grees 15″, the trav­el­ers con­tin­ued their jour­ney across the vast dis­trict. They di­rect­ed their course steadi­ly to­ward the ris­ing sun, and made a straight line across the plain. Twice over they came up­on the traces of squat­ters go­ing to­ward the north, and their dif­fer­ent foot­prints be­came con­fused, and Gle­nar­van’s horse no longer left on the dust the Black­point mark, rec­og­niz­able by its dou­ble sham­rock.

The plain was fur­rowed in some places by fan­tas­tic wind­ing creeks sur­round­ed by box, and whose wa­ters were rather tem­po­rary than per­ma­nent. They orig­inat­ed in the slopes of the Buf­fa­lo Ranges, a chain of moun­tains of mod­er­ate height, the un­du­lat­ing line of which was vis­ible on the hori­zon. It was re­solved to camp there the same night. Ayr­ton goad­ed on his team, and af­ter a jour­ney of thir­ty-​five miles, the bul­locks ar­rived, some­what fa­tigued. The tent was pitched be­neath the great trees, and as night had drawn on sup­per was served as quick­ly as pos­si­ble, for all the par­ty cared more for sleep­ing than eat­ing, af­ter such a day’s march.

Pa­ganel who had the first watch did not lie down, but shoul­dered his ri­fle and walked up and down be­fore the camp, to keep him­self from go­ing to sleep. In spite of the ab­sence of the moon, the night was al­most lu­mi­nous with the light of the south­ern con­stel­la­tions. The SA­VANT amused him­self with read­ing the great book of the fir­ma­ment, a book which is al­ways open, and full of in­ter­est to those who can read it. The pro­found si­lence of sleep­ing na­ture was on­ly in­ter­rupt­ed by the clank­ing of the hob­bles on the hors­es’ feet.

Pa­ganel was en­grossed in his as­tro­nom­ical med­ita­tions, and think­ing more about the ce­les­tial than the ter­res­tri­al world, when a dis­tant sound aroused him from his rever­ie. He lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly, and to his great amaze, fan­cied he heard the sounds of a pi­ano. He could not be mis­tak­en, for he dis­tinct­ly heard chords struck.

“A pi­ano in the wilds!” said Pa­ganel to him­self. “I can nev­er be­lieve it is that.”

It cer­tain­ly was very sur­pris­ing, but Pa­ganel found it eas­ier to be­lieve it was some Aus­tralian bird im­itat­ing the sounds of a Pleyel or Er­ard, as oth­ers do the sounds of a clock or mill. But at this very mo­ment, the notes of a clear ring­ing voice rose on the air. The PI­ANIST was ac­com­pa­nied by singing. Still Pa­ganel was un­will­ing to be con­vinced. How­ev­er, next minute he was forced to ad­mit the fact, for there fell on his ear the sub­lime strains of Mozart’s “Il mio tesoro tan­to” from Don Juan.

“Well, now,” said the ge­og­ra­pher to him­self, “let the Aus­tralian birds be as queer as they may, and even grant­ing the paro­quets are the most mu­si­cal in the world, they can’t sing Mozart!”

He lis­tened to the sub­lime in­spi­ra­tion of the great mas­ter to the end. The ef­fect of this soft melody on the still clear night was in­de­scrib­able. Pa­ganel re­mained as if spell­bound for a time; the voice ceased and all was si­lence. When Wil­son came to re­lieve the watch, he found the ge­og­ra­pher plunged in­to a deep rever­ie. Pa­ganel made no re­mark, how­ev­er, to the sailor, but re­served his in­for­ma­tion for Gle­nar­van in the morn­ing, and went in­to the tent to bed.

Next day, they were all aroused from sleep by the sud­den loud bark­ing of dogs, Gle­nar­van got up forth­with. Two mag­nif­icent point­ers, ad­mirable spec­imens of En­glish hunt­ing dogs, were bound­ing in front of the lit­tle wood, in­to which they had re­treat­ed at the ap­proach of the trav­el­ers, re­dou­bling their clam­or.

“There is some sta­tion in this desert, then,” said Gle­nar­van, “and hunters too, for these are reg­ular set­ters.”

Pa­ganel was just about to re­count his noc­tur­nal ex­pe­ri­ences, when two young men ap­peared, mount­ed on hors­es of the most per­fect breed, true “hunters.”

The two gen­tle­men dressed in el­egant hunt­ing cos­tume, stopped at the sight of the lit­tle group camp­ing in gip­sy fash­ion. They looked as if they won­dered what could bring an armed par­ty there, but when they saw the ladies get out of the wag­on, they dis­mount­ed in­stant­ly, and went to­ward them hat in hand. Lord Gle­nar­van came to meet them, and, as a stranger, an­nounced his name and rank.

The gen­tle­men bowed, and the el­der of them said, “My Lord, will not these ladies and your­self and friends hon­or us by rest­ing a lit­tle be­neath our roof?”

“Mr.–,” be­gan Gle­nar­van.

“Michael and Sandy Pat­ter­son are our names, pro­pri­etors of Hot­tam Sta­tion. Our house is scarce­ly a quar­ter of a mile dis­tant.”

“Gen­tle­men,” replied Gle­nar­van, “I should not like to abuse such kind­ly-​of­fered hos­pi­tal­ity.”

“My Lord,” re­turned Michael Pat­ter­son, “by ac­cept­ing it you will con­fer a fa­vor on poor ex­iles, who will be on­ly too hap­py to do the hon­ors of the wilds.”

Gle­nar­van bowed in to­ken of ac­qui­es­cence.

“Sir,” said Pa­ganel, ad­dress­ing Michael Pat­ter­son, “if it is not an im­pu­dent ques­tion, may I ask whether it was you that sung an air from the di­vine Mozart last night?”

“It was, sir,” replied the stranger, “and my cousin Sandy ac­com­pa­nied me.”

“Well, sir,” replied Pa­ganel, hold­ing out his hand to the young man, “re­ceive the sin­cere com­pli­ments of a French­man, who is a pas­sion­ate ad­mir­er of this mu­sic.”

Michael grasped his hand cor­dial­ly, and then point­ing out the road to take, set off, ac­com­pa­nied by the ladies and Lord Gle­nar­van and his friends, for the sta­tion. The hors­es and the camp were left to the care of Ayr­ton and the sailors.

Hot­tam Sta­tion was tru­ly a mag­nif­icent es­tab­lish­ment, kept as scrupu­lous­ly in or­der as an En­glish park. Im­mense mead­ows, en­closed in gray fences, stretched away out of sight. In these, thou­sands of bul­locks and mil­lions of sheep were graz­ing, tend­ed by nu­mer­ous shep­herds, and still more nu­mer­ous dogs. The crack of the stock-​whip min­gled con­tin­ual­ly with the bark­ing of the “col­lies” and the bel­low­ing and bleat­ing of the cat­tle and sheep.

To­ward the east there was a bound­ary of myalls and gum-​trees, be­yond which rose Mount Hot­tam, its im­pos­ing peak tow­er­ing 7,500 feet high. Long av­enues of green trees were vis­ible on all sides. Here and there was a thick clump of “grass trees,” tall bush­es ten feet high, like the dwarf palm, quite lost in their crown of long nar­row leaves. The air was balmy and odor­ous with the per­fume of scent­ed lau­rels, whose white blos­soms, now in full bloom, dis­tilled on the breeze the finest aro­mat­ic per­fume.

To these charm­ing groups of na­tive trees were added trans­plan­ta­tions from Eu­ro­pean cli­mates. The peach, pear, and ap­ple trees were there, the fig, the or­ange, and even the oak, to the rap­tur­ous de­light of the trav­el­ers, who greet­ed them with loud hur­rahs! But as­ton­ished as the trav­el­ers were to find them­selves walk­ing be­neath the shad­ow of the trees of their own na­tive land, they were still more so at the sight of the birds that flew about in the branch­es– the “satin bird,” with its silky plumage, and the “king-​hon­ey­suck­ers,” with their plumage of gold and black vel­vet.

For the first time, too, they saw here the “Lyre” bird, the tail of which re­sem­bles in form the grace­ful in­stru­ment of Or­pheus. It flew about among the tree ferns, and when its tail struck the branch­es, they were al­most sur­prised not to hear the har­mo­nious strains that in­spired Am­phion to re­build the walls of Thebes. Pa­ganel had a great de­sire to play on it.

How­ev­er, Lord Gle­nar­van was not sat­is­fied with ad­mir­ing the fairy-​like won­ders of this oa­sis, im­pro­vised in the Aus­tralian desert. He was lis­ten­ing to the his­to­ry of the young gen­tle­men. In Eng­land, in the midst of civ­ilized coun­tries, the new com­er ac­quaints his host whence he comes and whith­er he is go­ing; but here, by a re­fine­ment of del­ica­cy, Michael and Sandy Pat­ter­son thought it a du­ty to make them­selves known to the strangers who were about to re­ceive their hos­pi­tal­ity.

Michael and Sandy Pat­ter­son were the sons of Lon­don bankers. When they were twen­ty years of age, the head of their fam­ily said, “Here are some thou­sands, young men. Go to a dis­tant colony; and start some use­ful set­tle­ment there. Learn to know life by la­bor. If you suc­ceed, so much the bet­ter. If you fail, it won’t mat­ter much. We shall not re­gret the mon­ey which makes you men.”

The two young men obeyed. They chose the colony of Vic­to­ria in Aus­tralia, as the field for sow­ing the pa­ter­nal bank-​notes, and had no rea­son to re­pent the se­lec­tion. At the end of three years the es­tab­lish­ment was flour­ish­ing. In Vic­to­ria, New South Wales, and South­ern Aus­tralia, there are more than three thou­sand sta­tions, some be­long­ing to squat­ters who rear cat­tle, and oth­ers to set­tlers who farm the ground. Till the ar­rival of the two Pat­ter­sons, the largest es­tab­lish­ment of this sort was that of Mr. Jamieson, which cov­ered an area of sev­en­ty-​five miles, with a frontage of about eight miles along the Per­on, one of the af­flu­ents of the Dar­ling.

Now Hot­tam Sta­tion bore the palm for busi­ness and ex­tent. The young men were both squat­ters and set­tlers. They man­aged their im­mense prop­er­ty with rare abil­ity and un­com­mon en­er­gy.

The sta­tion was far re­moved from the chief towns in the

V. IV Verne midst of the un­fre­quent­ed dis­tricts of the Mur­ray. It oc­cu­pied a long wide space of five leagues in ex­tent, ly­ing be­tween the Buf­fa­lo Ranges and Mount Hot­tam. At the two an­gles north of this vast quadri­lat­er­al, Mount Ab­erdeen rose on the left, and the peaks of High Bar­ven on the right. Wind­ing, beau­ti­ful streams were not want­ing, thanks to the creeks and af­flu­ents of the Oven’s Riv­er, which throws it­self at the north in­to the bed of the Mur­ray. Con­se­quent­ly they were equal­ly suc­cess­ful in cat­tle breed­ing and farm­ing. Ten thou­sand acres of ground, ad­mirably cul­ti­vat­ed, pro­duced har­vests of na­tive pro­duc­tions and ex­otics, and sev­er­al mil­lions of an­imals fat­tened in the fer­tile pas­tures. The prod­ucts of Hot­tam Sta­tion fetched the very high­est price in the mar­kets of Castle­maine and Mel­bourne.

Michael and Sandy Pat­ter­son had just con­clud­ed these de­tails of their busy life, when their dwelling came in sight, at the ex­trem­ity of the av­enue of the oaks.

It was a charm­ing house, built of wood and brick, hid­den in groves of emerophilis. Noth­ing at all, how­ev­er, be­long­ing to a sta­tion was vis­ible–nei­ther sheds, nor sta­bles, nor cart-​hous­es. All these out-​build­ings, a per­fect vil­lage, com­pris­ing more than twen­ty huts and hous­es, were about a quar­ter of a mile off in the heart of a lit­tle val­ley. Elec­tric com­mu­ni­ca­tion was es­tab­lished be­tween this vil­lage and the mas­ter’s house, which, far re­moved from all noise, seemed buried in a for­est of ex­ot­ic trees.

At Sandy Pat­ter­son’s bid­ding, a sump­tu­ous break­fast was served in less than a quar­ter of an hour. The wines and viands were of the finest qual­ity; but what pleased the guests most of all in the midst of these re­fine­ments of op­ulence, was the joy of the young squat­ters in of­fer­ing them this splen­did hos­pi­tal­ity.

It was not long be­fore they were told the his­to­ry of the ex­pe­di­tion, and had their liveli­est in­ter­est awak­ened for its suc­cess. They spoke hope­ful­ly to the young Grants, and Michael said: “Har­ry Grant has ev­ident­ly fall­en in­to the hands of na­tives, since he has not turned up at any of the set­tle­ments on the coast. He knows his po­si­tion ex­act­ly, as the doc­ument proves, and the rea­son he did not reach some En­glish colony is that he must have been tak­en pris­on­er by the sav­ages the mo­ment he land­ed!”

“That is pre­cise­ly what be­fell his quar­ter­mas­ter, Ayr­ton,” said John Man­gles.

“But you, gen­tle­men, then, have nev­er heard the catas­tro­phe of the BRI­TAN­NIA, men­tioned?” in­quired La­dy He­le­na.

“Nev­er, Madam,” replied Michael.

“And what treat­ment, in your opin­ion, has Cap­tain Grant met with among the na­tives?”

“The Aus­tralians are not cru­el, Madam,” replied the young squat­ter, “and Miss Grant may be easy on that score. There have been many in­stances of the gen­tle­ness of their na­ture, and some Eu­ro­peans have lived a long time among them with­out hav­ing the least cause to com­plain of their bru­tal­ity.”

“King, among oth­ers, the sole sur­vivor of the Burke ex­pe­di­tion,” put in Pa­ganel.

“And not on­ly that bold ex­plor­er,” re­turned Sandy, “but al­so an En­glish sol­dier named Buck­ley, who de­sert­ed at Port Philip in 1803, and who was wel­comed by the na­tives, and lived thir­ty-​three years among them.”

“And more re­cent­ly,” added Michael,” one of the last num­bers of the AUS­TRALA­SIA in­forms us that a cer­tain Mor­ril­li has just been re­stored to his coun­try­men af­ter six­teen years of slav­ery. His sto­ry is ex­act­ly sim­ilar to the cap­tain’s, for it was at the very time of his ship­wreck in the PRU­VI­ENNE, in 1846, that he was made pris­on­er by the na­tives, and dragged away in­to the in­te­ri­or of the con­ti­nent. I there­fore think you have rea­son to hope still.”

The young squat­ter’s words caused great joy to his au­di­tors. They com­plete­ly cor­rob­orat­ed the opin­ions of Pa­ganel and Ayr­ton.

The con­ver­sa­tion turned on the con­victs af­ter the ladies had left the ta­ble. The squat­ters had heard of the catas­tro­phe at Cam­den Bridge, but felt no un­easi­ness about the es­caped gang. It was not a sta­tion, with more than a hun­dred men on it, that they would dare to at­tack. Be­sides, they would nev­er go in­to the deserts of the Mur­ray, where they could find no booty, nor near the colonies of New South Wales, where the roads were too well watched. Ayr­ton had said this too.

Gle­nar­van could not refuse the re­quest of his ami­able hosts, to spend the whole day at the sta­tion. It was twelve hours’ de­lay, but al­so twelve hours’ rest, and both hors­es and bul­locks would be the bet­ter for the com­fort­able quar­ters they would find there. This was ac­cord­ing­ly agreed up­on, and the young squat­ters sketched out a pro­gramme of the day’s amuse­ments, which was adopt­ed ea­ger­ly.

At noon, sev­en vig­or­ous hunters were be­fore the door. An el­egant brake was in­tend­ed for the ladies, in which the coach­man could ex­hib­it his skill in driv­ing four-​in-​hand. The cav­al­cade set off pre­ced­ed by hunts­men, and armed with first-​rate ri­fles, fol­lowed by a pack of point­ers bark­ing joy­ous­ly as they bound­ed through the bush­es. For four hours the hunt­ing par­ty wan­dered through the paths and av­enues of the park, which was as large as a small Ger­man state. The Reuiss-​Schleitz, or Saxe-​Coburg Gotha, would have gone in­side it com­fort­ably. Few peo­ple were to be met in it cer­tain­ly, but sheep in abun­dance. As for game, there was a com­plete pre­serve await­ing the hunters. The noisy re­ports of guns were soon heard on all sides. Lit­tle Robert did won­ders in com­pa­ny with Ma­jor Mc­Nabbs. The dar­ing boy, in spite of his sis­ter’s in­junc­tions, was al­ways in front, and the first to fire. But John Man­gles promised to watch over him, and Mary felt less un­easy.

Dur­ing this BATTUE they killed cer­tain an­imals pe­cu­liar to the coun­try, the very names of which were un­known to Pa­ganel; among oth­ers the “wom­bat” and the “bandi­coot.” The wom­bat is an her­biv­orous an­imal, which bur­rows in the ground like a bad­ger. It is as large as a sheep, and the flesh is ex­cel­lent.

The bandi­coot is a species of mar­su­pi­al an­imal which could out­wit the Eu­ro­pean fox, and give him lessons in pil­lag­ing poul­try yards. It was a re­pul­sive-​look­ing an­imal, a foot and a half long, but, as Pa­ganel chanced to kill it, of course he thought it charm­ing.

“An adorable crea­ture,” he called it.

But the most in­ter­est­ing event of the day, by far, was the kan­ga­roo hunt. About four o’clock, the dogs roused a troop of these cu­ri­ous mar­su­pi­als. The lit­tle ones re­treat­ed pre­cip­itate­ly in­to the ma­ter­nal pouch, and all the troop de­camped in file. Noth­ing could be more as­ton­ish­ing than the enor­mous bounds of the kan­ga­roo. The hind legs of the an­imal are twice as long as the front ones, and un­bend like a spring. At the head of the fly­ing troop was a male five feet high, a mag­nif­icent spec­imen of the _macro­pus gi­gan­teus_, an “old man,” as the bush­men say.

For four or five miles the chase was vig­or­ous­ly pur­sued. The kan­ga­roos showed no signs of weari­ness, and the dogs, who had rea­son enough to fear their strong paws and sharp nails, did not care to ap­proach them. But at last, worn out with the race, the troop stopped, and the “old man” leaned against the trunk of a tree, ready to de­fend him­self. One of the point­ers, car­ried away by ex­cite­ment, went up to him. Next minute the un­for­tu­nate beast leaped in­to the air, and fell down again com­plete­ly ripped up.

The whole pack, in­deed, would have had lit­tle chance with these pow­er­ful mar­su­pia. They had to dis­patch the fel­low with ri­fles. Noth­ing but balls could bring down the gi­gan­tic an­imal.

Just at this mo­ment, Robert was well nigh the vic­tim of his own im­pru­dence. To make sure of his aim, he had ap­proached too near the kan­ga­roo, and the an­imal leaped up­on him im­me­di­ate­ly. Robert gave a loud cry and fell. Mary Grant saw it all from the brake, and in an agony of ter­ror, speech­less and al­most un­able even to see, stretched out her arms to­ward her lit­tle broth­er. No one dared to fire, for fear of wound­ing the child.

But John Man­gles opened his hunt­ing knife, and at the risk of be­ing ripped up him­self, sprang at the an­imal, and plunged it in­to his heart. The beast dropped for­ward, and Robert rose un­hurt. Next minute he was in his sis­ter’s arms.

“Thank you, Mr. John, thank you!” she said, hold­ing out her hand to the young cap­tain.

“I had pledged my­self for his safe­ty,” was all John said, tak­ing her trem­bling fin­gers in­to his own.

This oc­cur­rence end­ed the sport. The band of mar­su­pia had dis­ap­peared af­ter the death of their lead­er. The hunt­ing par­ty re­turned home, bring­ing their game with them. It was then six o’clock. A mag­nif­icent din­ner was ready. Among oth­er things, there was one dish that was a great suc­cess. It was kan­ga­roo-​tail soup, pre­pared in the na­tive man­ner.

Next morn­ing very ear­ly, they took leave of the young squat­ters, with hearty thanks and a pos­itive promise from them of a vis­it to Mal­colm Cas­tle when they should re­turn to Eu­rope.

Then the wag­on be­gan to move away, round the foot of Mount Hot­tam, and soon the hos­pitable dwelling dis­ap­peared from the sight of the trav­el­ers like some brief vi­sion which had come and gone.

For five miles fur­ther, the hors­es were still tread­ing the sta­tion lands. It was not till nine o’clock that they had passed the last fence, and en­tered the al­most un­known dis­tricts of the province of Vic­to­ria.