Confessions of a Beachcomber - Edmund James Banfield (suggested reading txt) 📗

of a new dress, and with the smoke curling from her ornamented pipe, beneath a hat which, in variety of tints, shames the sunset sky.

Students of ethnology who may scan these lines may find food for reflection in the fact that Tom and Nelly offer exceptions to the rules that the totems of Australian blacks generally refer to food, and that those whose totems are alike do not marry. Tom's totemic title, "Kitalbarra," is derived from a splinter of a rock off an islet to the southeast of Dunk Island. "Oongle-bi," Nelly's affinity, is a rock on the summit of a hill on the mainland, not far from her birthplace. The plea of the rocks was not raised as any just cause or impediment to the match when Tom by force of arms espoused Nelly. "Jimmy," Tom and Nelly's son, born in civilisation, bears a second name, that of a deceased uncle, "Toola-un-guy," the totemic rendering of which is now unknown. Another "Jimmy," a native of Hinchinbrook, is differentiated by "Yaeki-muggie," the title of the sandspit of one of the Brook Islands.

The confusion of tongues between Tom and Nelly may be briefly illustrated--

TOM ("Kitalbarra"). NELLY ("Oongle-bi").

Sun. Wee-yee. Car-rie.
Moon. Yil-can. Car-cal-oon.
Sky. Aln-pun. Moogah-car-boon.
Mainland. Yungl-man. Mung-un.
Island. Cul-qua-yah. Moan-mitte.
Sea. Mutta. Yoo-moo.
Fire. Wam-pui. Poon-nee.
Water. Cam-moo. Pan-nahr.
Rain. Yukan. Yukan.
Man. Mah-al. Yer-rah.
Woman. Rit-tee. Ee-bee.
Baby. Eee-bee. Koo-jal.
Head. Poo-you. Oom-poo.
Foot. Pin-kin. Chin-nah.
Leg. Waka. Too-joo.
Hand. Man-dee. Mul-lah.
Fish. Tar-boo. Kooyah.
Bird. Poong-an. Toon-doo.

The big-eyed walking fish of the mangroves, which the learned have named PERIOPHTHALMUS KOELREUTERI, Tom knows as "manning-tsang," and Nelly as "mourn!"

During one of his bachelordom interludes a smart young gin known as "Dolly" attracted Tom's fancy. He had just "signed on" for a six months' cruise with the master of a beche-de-mer schooner. Dolly smiled so sweetly upon Tom that Charley, her boy, raged furiously. Tom--never demonstrative, always cool and deep--obtaining an advance from his captain, bought, among a few other attractive trifles, an extremely gaudy dress, and having artlessly displayed the finery, took it all on board the schooner, which was to sail the following morning at daylight.

During the evening Dolly strolled casually from the camp and the society of the fuming Charley, and disappeared. Tom had quite a trousseau, new and bright, for his sweetheart, when she clambered on board, naked, wet, and with shining eyes. Next morning Charley tracked her along the beach. An old and soiled dress--his gift--on a little promontory of rocks about a mile from the anchorage of the schooner completed the love-story.

This intrigue took place many years ago, but Charley was so deeply mortified that he hates Tom to this day, and Tom is an uncomfortable fellow for anyone disposed to resentfulness.

We know, because he says so, that Tom fought for her, and that Nelly gladly accepted the protection of the staunchest man of the district. Tom, in his surly moments, is exquisitely cruel; but Nelly's devotion is unaffected. Her vanity led her to flaunt her gaudy hat in the hut. Tom reproved such flashness--he invariably selects the gayest shirts himself--by burning the hat and all the newly-acquired finery. Nelly struck back, and Tom, as her eyes were big and ablaze with fury, threw--at the cost of burnt fingers--a handful of hot sand and ashes into her face. From Tom's point of view it was a splendid feat--one of those bold and effective master-strokes that only a ready and determined sportsman could conceive and on the instant carry into effect. Nelly's eyes were closed for weeks--well-nigh for ever--and the skin peeled off her face; but she consented to the cruel punishment without a murmur after the first shriek of agony, and won Tom to good temper and tolerance of her vanity by all sorts of happy concessions.

How many such tiffs--tough and smart--has poor Nelly borne? Her grief has been so sore that she has torn her hair out by the roots in frenzy and stamped upon it; but Tom, surly and impassive Tom, is her lord as well as her most exacting master, and in their own way they are devoted to one another.

The roughest cross Nelly was called upon to bear was the presence of Tom's third wife--"Little Jinny"--the manner of whose wooing and home-coming is to be told.

News came from Lucinda Point to Clump Point--passed from one to another--that Tom's half-brother (a purely fictional relationship) had died, leaving a young widow. According to Tom's rendering of the matrimonial laws, he was the rightful heir. The widow was all that his half-brother had left that was of the slightest consequence.

Tom, telling the circumstances, asked for a holiday that he might personally lay claim to his inheritance. Reminded that he had one wife, he frankly declared in Nelly's presence, and she seemed to acquiesce, that she was no good; but that the other one was a "good fella" in every respect, even to washing plates and scrubbing floors.

His holiday was granted. He went away with money in his pockets, blankets, several changes of raiment--among them Nelly's best dress and hat, dilly-bags brightly coloured, and weapons--boomerang, two black palm spears, a great wooden sword, a shield decorated with a complicated pattern in red and white earth, and a flashing new tomahawk.

So he departed, with Nelly's best wishes, and full of hope and expectation, promising to return in two weeks.

Two months slipped past, and one evening a forlorn, ragged, lean scarecrow of a black boy--without a hat, unshaven, without a blanket, and even destitute of a pipe, clambered over the side of the steamer, and dropped into the boat without a word. It was Tom!

In shreds and patches the history of his experience was related. He had arrived at Lucinda, had charmed "Little Jinny" with his manly presence and spruceness and the amount of his personal property, supplemented by the display and free bestowal of Nelly's choicest finery, and had, as a matter of course, been compelled to fight for her. He had been beaten, terribly beaten. One ear had been viciously "marked," a triangular slice being missing (a subsequent combat removed all trace of this mark), and he showed the meritorious scar of a spear-wound on the arm.

Having failed in the stand-up fight, he had resorted to stratagem, had been foiled, and forced to flee, abandoning everything, even to that last vestige of independence--his pipe.

We knew that he had been hard pressed, for on going gaily away he had volunteered to bring a fat young pig from one of the wild herds of Hinchinbrook, and he came back empty-handed. He talks of the pig--how fat and very young it was--even to this day. He came with his life--that was all, and a threadbare sort of life it was at that.

Several months went by--a black boy recovers condition in a day or two as does a starved dog--and Tom had saved money. He never forgets, never swerves from a purpose. He is as determined as a dung-beetle.

Another leave of absence was granted. A second raid was made upon Nelly's wardrobe--two big bailer shells. Elated, freshly shaved and smiling, he was a different sort from the individual who had shamefacedly slipped over the side of the steamer, bereft of everything but life.

He said he would be back in two weeks, and to the day he appeared. His youthful third wife he handed down into the boat, and the boat was full of their luggage. Ah, that desolated camp at Lucinda! The young lady's trousseau was complete even to lingerie. He had won the fight, and the bride and the spoils were his.

Poor Nelly! She welcomed "Little Jinny" effusively, and "Little Jinny" gave her a dress and a second-best hat. Life for a couple of days at the camp was idyllic. Then they took back the gifts of clothing, and turned Nelly out of the hut. She built a separate establishment--a dome of dried grass on bent sticks, and in it she wept and upbraided, and fired up frequently under the torments of jealousy.

Shrill squabbles were of daily occurrence, until the great Peacemaker removed Tom's favourite wife. And who more sorely grieved than Nelly!

Will the title bear a few words as to Tom the hunter? Was ever a keener, a more patient, a more self-possessed, and consequently a more successful, sportsman? He it was who, from a cranky punt (no white man would venture out to sea in such a craft,) at three o'clock one windy afternoon, harpooned an immense bull-turtle, which towed him towards the Barrier Reef, into the track of the big steamers 4 miles to the east. He battled with the game all the afternoon and evening, overcame it at "the dead waste and middle of the night," and towed it back to the beach, landing after thirteen hours' continuous work. Tom accomplished the feat in a strong breeze and with a turtle diving and tugging, when he might have cut the line at any moment and paddled home comfortably.

He is as much at home on the top of a bloodwood tree, hanging round a swaying limb while cutting out a "bee nest," as in a frail bark canoe among the sharks on the skirts of a shoal of bonito.

As we neared the beach one day a big sea-mullet came into view. Without a moment's hesitation, and as it flashed past the boat, Tom, using the oar as a spear, hit the slippery fish with