"FIVE-HEAD" CREEK; and FISH DRUGGING IN THE PACIFIC By Louis Becke T. Fisher Unwin, 1901 "FIVE-HEAD" CREEK I I had ridden all day through an endless vista ot ghostly grey gums andironbarks, when I came in sight of the long wavering line of vividgreen foliage which showed me that I had reached my destination--aroughly-built slab hut with a roof of corrugated iron. This place wasto be my home for six months, and stood on the bank of Five-HeadCreek, twenty-five miles from the rising city of Townsville in NorthQueensland. Riding up to the building, I got off my wearied, sweating horse, and, removing the saddle and my blanket and other impediments, led him tothe creek to drink, and then hobbled and turned him loose to feed on thesoft lush grass and reeds growing along the margin of the water. ThenI entered the empty house, made a brief examination of it, and wonderedhow my mate would like living in such an apparently comfortless abode. I must mention that I had come from Townsville to take charge ofFive-Head Creek cattle run, which had suffered so severely from aterrible drought that it had been temporarily abandoned. We were tolook after and repair the fencing, many miles' length of which had beendestroyed by fire or succumbed to white ants, to search for and collectthe remnant of the cattle that had not perished in the drought, and seeafter the place generally. My mate was to follow me out in a few dayswith a dray-load of stores. I lit a fire, boiled a billy of tea, and ate some cold beef and damper. Then, as the sun dipped below a range of low hills to the westward, Ifilled my pipe, and, walking down to the bank of the creek, surveyed myenvirons. "What a God-forsaken-looking country!" I thought as I gazed around me;and, indeed, the prospect was anything but inviting. On both sides ofthe creek the soil showed evidences of the severity of the past drought. Great gaping fissures--usun cracks we called them--traversed andzig-zagged the hot, parching ground, on which not a blade of grass wasto be seen. Here and there, amid the grey-barked ghostly gums, wereoases of green--thickets of stunted sandalwood whose evergreen leavesdefied alike the torrid summer heat and the black frosts of wintermonths; but underneath them lay the shrivelled carcasses and whiteningbones of hundreds of cattle which had perished of starvation--too weakeven to totter down to die, bogged in the banks of the creek. As Isat and smoked a strong feeling of depression took possession of me; Ialready began to hate the place, and regretted I could not withdraw frommy engagement. Yet in less than a week I began to like it, and when I left it I did sowith some regret, for I had made friends with sweet Mother Nature, whoseloving-kindness is with us always in wild places, though we may not knowit at first, and take no heed of her many calls and silent beckonings tous to come and love, and rest and dream, and be content upon her tender, mighty bosom. My horse, cropping eagerly at the soft grass and salty pigweed, suddenlyraised his head and pricked up his ears. He had heard something and waslistening, and looking across to the opposite bank I saw a sight thatlifted me out of my sudden fit of depression and then filled me withdelight. Two stately emus were walking along in single file, the male birdleading, holding his head erect, and marching like the drum-major of aregiment of Guards. On the margin of the bank they halted and looked atthe horse, which now stood facing them; a minute's scrutiny satisfiedboth parties that there was nothing to fear from each other, and thenthe great birds walked down the bank to a broad dry patch of brightyellow sand, which stretched halfway across the bed of the creek. Herethe male began to scratch, sending up a shower of coarse sand, andquickly swallowing such large pebbles as were revealed, whilst thefemale squatted beside him and watched his labours with an air ofindifference. Her digestive apparatus was, I suppose, in good order, andshe did not need three or four pounds' weight of stones in her gizzard, but she did require a sand bath, for presently she too began to scrapeand sway from side to side as she worked a deep hole beneath her body, just as a common hen scrapes and sways and ruffles her feathers in thedry dust of the farmyard. In less than five minutes the huge bird wasencompassed in a cloud of flying sand, and working her long neck, greatthick legs, and outspread toes exactly as an ordinary fowl. Then, havingthoroughly covered herself with sand from beak to tail, she rose, shook herself violently, and stalked away up the bank again, where hercompanion soon followed her, and I lost sight of the pair as they strodethrough the thick green of the she-oak trees. As darkness fell I built up a larger fire and spread my blanket besideit to sleep under the open sky instead of in the deserted house, forthe night was soft, warm, and windless. Overhead was a firmament ofcloudless blue, with here and there a shining star beginning toshow; but away to the south-west a dark line of cloud was rising andspreading, and I felt cheered at the sight, for it was a sign of rain. As I watched it steadily increasing the first voices of the night beganto call--a 'possum squealed from the branches of a blue gum in thecreek, and was answered by another somewhere near; and then the long, long mournful wail of a curlew cried out from the sunbaked plain beyond. Oh, the unutterable sense of loneliness that at times the long-drawn, penetrating cry of the curlew, resounding through the silence of thenight amid the solitude of vast Australian plains, causes the solitarybushman or traveller to feel! I well remember on one occasion campingon the banks of the Lower Burdekin River, and having my brokenslumbers--for I was ill with fever--disturbed by a brace of curlews, which were uttering their depressing cries within a few hundred yardsof me, and how I at last became so wrought up and almost frenzied bythe persistency of their doleful notes, that I followed them up with aWinchester rifle, mile after mile, wasting my cartridges and exhaustingmind and body in the vain attempt to shoot them in the dark. There is tomy knowledge nothing so mournful as the call of the curlew, unless itbe the moaning cry of a penguin out upon the ocean, when a sea-fogencompasses the ship that lies becalmed. There is something so intenselyhuman about it--as if some lost soul were wailing for mercy andforgiveness. But on this night the cry of the curlew was pleasing to my ear, for asI lay and watched the rising bank of cloud, I heard others calling fromthe opposite bank of the creek, and then a parrot screamed shrilly--andI knew that rain was certain. I jumped up, carried my blanket, saddle, and gun into the house, and then went out to collect firewood. My horse, as he heard my footsteps, bounded up, hobbled as he was, from the bedof the creek, and neighed to me in the darkness. He too smelt the comingrain, and was speaking to me out of his gladness of heart. I called backto him, and then set to work and soon collected a number of dry logs, which I carried in to the hut and threw down on the hard earthen floormade of pulverised ant heaps, just as the welcome thunder muttered awayoff in the distance. I brought a burning brand from the fire, threw it inside, and thencalled to my horse. Taking off his hobbles, I slipped the bridle overhis head, and brought him in under shelter of the verandah, where hestood quietly, with a full stomach and contented mind, watching thecoming storm. Half an hour later the iron roof of the house was singing a sweet, delightful tune to the heavy down-pouring rain, which, till long pastmidnight, fell in generous volume, the dry, thirsty soil drinking itin with gladness as it closed up the gaping fissures, and gave hope andvigour and promise of life to the parched and perishing vegetation ofthe wide plains around. With supreme satisfaction I sat at the open door, and smoked andwatched, with my fire blazing merrily away; then, before it was toolate, I stripped off, and went out and let the rain wash off the dustand dirt of a day's journey under a fierce, baking sun. How cool, delightful, and invigorating it felt! I dried myself with a spare shirt, and then lay down on my blanketbeside the fire to listen contentedly to the clamour of the rain uponthe roof. About two in the morning the downpour ceased, the sky cleared, and a fair half-moon of silvery brightness shone out above the tops ofthe white gum forest. Fifty yards or so away, in front of the door, ashallow pool had formed in a depression of the hard, sun-baked soil, andas the soft light of the moon fell upon it there came a whirr of wingsas a flock of night-roving, spur-winged plover lit upon its margin. Icould have shot half a dozen of them from where I sat, but felt that Icould not lift gun to shoulder and slaughter when there was no need, and their shrill cries, as they ran to and fro, afforded me an infinitepleasure. I took off my horse's bridle, put his hobbles on again, rubbed my cheekagainst his warm, moist nose, and left him. An hour before daylighthe stepped quietly inside and stood near the fire--the mosquitoes wereannoying him, and he had come in to get the benefit of what little smokewas arising from the burning logs. At dawn, as I lay half-awake, I heard a sound that made me jump to mygun--the soft quacking of wild duck in the creek. Stealing cautiouslydown through the fringe of she-oaks, I came to a fine broad pool, in thecentre of which was a small sandbank, whereon stood a black duck witha brood of seven half-fledged ducklings around her, dabbling merrilyamongst the weed and _débris_ of the margin. Of course, no one who_thinks_, unless impelled by sheer hunger, would shoot either anincubating or "just familied" duck, and I laid down my gun with anexclamation of disappointment. But I was soon to be rewarded, fora minute or two later five beautiful black and white Burdekin ducksflashed down through the vista of she-oaks, and settled on the waterless than thirty yards away from me. They lit so closely together thatmy first barrel killed two, and my second dropped one of the others asthey rose. I waded in and brought them ashore. * * The name "Burdekin" hat been given to these ducks became they are to common on the river of that name. Their wings are pure white and black. I wonder how many people know how to cook and eat wild duck as theyshould be cooked and eaten--when they are plentiful, and when the manwho shoots them is, in his way, a gourmet, and is yet living away fromcivilisation and restaurants? This is _the_ way. Pluck the feathersoff the breast and body, then cut the breast part out, sprinkle itwith salt, impale it upon a stick--if you have a stick or branch ofany kind--and hold it over a fire of glowing wood coals. If you haveno skewer, then lay the red, luscious-looking flesh upon the coalsthemselves, and listen to it singing and fizzing, as if it wereimpatiently crying out to you to take it up and eat it! When I returned, the sunrays were piercing through the gum-trees anddissipating a thin mist which hung about the green, winding fringe ofshe-oaks bordering the creek. From the ground, which now felt soft, warm, and springy to my naked foot, there came that sweet earthy smellthat arises when the land has lain for long, long months under a sky ofbrass, and all green things have struggled hard to live. As I drew nearthe hut I saw that the flock of spur-winged plover were still standingor running about the margin of the newly-formed pool. They took not theslightest notice of my approach, and I was careful not to alarm them, knowing that as long as the water remained they would continue to hauntthe vicinity of the pool, and, besides that, I already had three plumpducks, which would last me at least till the following morning. After breakfast I set out to make a detailed examination of the creekfor a distance of three or four miles towards its source. I was glad tofind some very extensive water-holes at intervals of a few hundred yards, then would come a stretch of sand from bank to bank, for owing to thewant of rain the water had fallen very low, though it was still flowingby percolation through the sand. Yet, in time of flood, the whole of theflat country was submerged, and some of the large gum-trees growing onthe banks held in their forks, thirty-five feet from the ground, greatpiles of dead wood and tangled debris that had been deposited there in agreat flood of two years before. I was not long in making a very pleasing discovery--all the poolscontained fish, some of which were of good size, for the water was soclear that I could see them swimming about, and I remembered now withsatisfaction that among the stores coming on in the dray was a bundle offishing-tackle which I had bought in Townsville. Bird life all along thecreek was plentiful; but this was to be expected, as the long droughthad naturally driven game of all sort towards the water. I saw two orthree small kangaroos, and everywhere along the margin were bandicootholes, where the little pig-like creatures had been digging for roots. Two miles from the hut I came across a well-constructed nativefish-weir, and near by found the site of a camp; evidently a party ofblacks had been enjoying themselves quite recently, fishing and cattlekilling, for under some scrub I found the head and foreleg of a youngsteer. As I walked my horse slowly over the sand under the fringing oaks, Imade the unpleasant discovery that snakes were very plentiful--not onlythe harmless carpet snake, but the deadly brown and black-necked tigervariety; though against this were a corresponding number of iguanas, both of the tree-climbing and water-haunting species. The latter, towhich I shall again allude, is a particularly shuddersome reptile. I hadnever before seen these repulsive creatures, and, indeed, had neverheard of them. I returned to the hut at noon, and to my surprise found a party ofthirty or more blacks camped under some Leichhardt trees. They seemed afairly healthy lot of savages, and were not alarmed when they saw I wascarrying a gun. I rode quietly up to them, and shook hands with two orthree of the bucks, who spoke a little English. They were, they told me, from the Ravenswood district, which they had left some weeks ago, andwere now travelling towards the Burdekin, hunting as they went. Some of them came to the hut with me, and I saw at once that they hadnot taken anything of mine, though among other articles I had left on awooden seat outside were several plugs of tobacco. I gave them a plug todivide, and then asked the most voluble of them how many cattle they hadspeared. "Baal blackfellow spear him cattle, " he answered. * "What about thatyoung fellow bullock you been eat longa creek?" I inquired. * Lit. , "We blacks did not spear any cattle. " They assured me that they had not speared the animal, which they hadfound lying at the bottom of a deep gully with a broken leg. Thenknowing it could not live, they had killed and eaten it. I was pleasedto hear this, and have no doubt the poor creatures told the truth. They remained with myself and mate for a month, and proved of greatassistance to us in fencing and other work, and I learnt much valuablebush-craft from these wandering savages, especially of their methods ofhunting and fishing. I shall now give the reader an account of some ofthe happy days my mate and myself spent in this lonely spot. II A few days later my mate arrived with the dray, which we at onceunloaded, and then turned the horses out to feed and have a spell beforeworking them again. Every night since I had arrived a thunderstorm hadoccurred, much to my delight, and already the once cracked and bakingflats were beginning to put on a carpet of grass; and indeed, in threeweeks it was eighteen inches high, and made a glorious sight, thefew remaining cattle eating it so hungrily that when night fell thecreatures were scarcely able to move, so distended were their stomachs. Having started our aboriginal friends to cut down ironbark saplingsto repair the fencing, we first of all paid a visit to our nearestneighbour, a settler named Dick Bullen, who lived ten miles away. Hereceived us most hospitably, like all good bushmen, and offered toassist us in looking for lost cattle. He was a splendid type of thenative-born Australian bushman, over six feet two in height, and simpleand unaffected in his manner. I shall remember this man for one thing. He had two of the finest teams of working bullocks I have ever seen, andhandled them in a way that commanded our admiration. Never once did heuse his whip for any other purpose than to crack it occasionally, and itdid one good to hear his cheery call to the fourteen labouring beasts asthey toiled up the steep side of a creek or gully with a heavy load oftimber, straining every nerve in their great bodies, while the sweatpoured off their coats in streams. He was like one of his own bullocks, patient, cheerful, and strong, and an exclamation of anger seldom passedhis lips--an oath never. He took a great pride in the appearance of histeams, and especially of the fact that no one of them showed the marksof a whip. We spent a pleasant hour with this man, and returned home by a differentroute, in the hope of getting a "plain" turkey--an altogether differentbird from the "scrub" turkey. Hansen (my mate) was an excellent shot, especially with a rifle, and indeed when shooting turkeys preferred touse a 44 Winchester rifle. We managed to get one bird--a cock--but soold and poor that we gave it to the black contingent to eat. Nothing inthe shape of food came amiss to these people, and their appetites wereastounding. One day Hansen and I were following down a creek whichjunctioned with the Reid River, when we saw smoke ascending from a drygully. Riding up we came across a very old and shrivelled gin and a boyand girl of about eight years of age. They were busily engaged in eatingemu eggs, and out of thirteen had already devoured eleven, togetherwith four or five hundred of fresh-water cockles! Such a meal wouldhave satisfied half a dozen hungry white men. Their over-loaded stomachspresented a disgusting appearance, and they were scarcely able toarticulate. A week after our arrival the blacks told us that there were indicationsthat the rainy season would come on earlier than usual, and that game, except duck and spur-winged plover, would be very scarce; also that ifthe creek came down in flood, it would carry away most of the fish. Thiswas bad news for such ardent sportsmen as Hansen and myself, for we werelooking forward to plenty of fishing and shooting, not alone for itspleasures, but also because we were charged heavily for anything butthe ordinary salt beef, tea, sugar and flour. Sardines and tinned salmonwere luxuries we could not afford, but fresh fish and game were better, and, even when salted, were preferrable to a continuous diet of beef. We had among our stores a 250 lb. Bag of coarse salt--we had to kill ourown meat and salt it down--and I proposed that we should at once set towork whilst the weather was fine and spend a week shooting and fishing. Such game as plain turkeys (the bustard), scrub turkeys, cockatoos, ducks, &c. , we could put in brine, whilst the fish could be drysaltedand then put in the sun to dry. Hansen quite approved the idea, andwe at once set to work. I was to be fisherman, and he the gunner;for, curiously enough, my mate was the most helpless creatures with afishing-line or rod that I ever saw. In five minutes he would eitherhave his line hopelessly tangled, his rod broken, or his hook caught inhis hand; and yet he never lost his temper. Taking with me two sturdy black boys as porters, and also bringing mygun and ammunition in case of meeting duck, I set out on foot, Hansenriding off, accompanied by a blackfellow, to a chain of shallow lagoonsfive miles away. Within a quarter of a mile from the house was a fine deep water-holeformed by the creek being here confined between high banks. At oneend, however, an exposed bar of small, coarse round pebbles ran almostacross, and here I decided to begin, instead of from the bank, for notonly were snakes difficult to see in the undergrowth, but plants ofthe dreaded stinging-tree were also growing around and between themagnificent gums and the Leichhardts. These latter trees, named afterthe ill-fated Dr. Leichhardt, are, I think, the most strikingly handsomeof all large trees in the north of Queensland. They love to grow nearor even in the water, and their broad, beautiful leaves give a welcomeshade. But before I descended to the bank I had to remain for some minutes togaze on the beauty of the scene. The water at one end of the pool was ofthe deepest blue, towards the pebbly bar it gradually shallowed, andfor the next eight or ten feet from the margin was as clear as crystal. Close in under the banks the broad leaves of blue flowering water-liliescovered the surface with a carpet of many shades of green and pink;hovering above the lily leaves were hundreds of small whitebutterflies, with here and there a black and yellow-banded dragon-fly--"horse-stingers" the Australian youth call them. Not a sound broke thesilence, except now and then the rippling splash of a fish rising tothe surface, or the peculiar _click, click_ made by a crayfish burrowingunder a stone. I leant over the bank and looked down, and then gave a start ofpleasure, for right beneath me were three fish floating motionless onthe surface--fish that, until then, I never knew lived in fresh water. They were in shape, colour, and appearance exactly like the toothed garso common on the sea coast--a long slender body with back of dark blue, sides of silvery white, and fins and tail of blue tipped with yellow. Iwas so excited that I was about to shoot them, but remembered that at soshort a distance I should have only blown them to pieces, especially asthey were directly beneath me. I motioned to the blackboys to come andlook; they did so, and I learnt that these fish, when the creek waslow, were sometimes plentiful, and would take almost any floating bait, especially if it were alive. Eager to begin, I told the boys to collect some crayfish for bait, butthey said that it would take too long, and small fish were better, andrunning to some small lily-covered pools about two feet in diameter, andvery shallow, they jumped in and stirred up the sand and muddy sedimentat the bottom. In a few minutes some scores of very pretty red andsilvery-hued minnows were thrown out on the sand. I quickly baited myline, and threw it, with the sinker attached, into the centre of thepool; before it could sink the bait was taken by a fine bream of 2lbs. , which I landed safely, and tossed to the boys. It was the firstfresh-water bream I had caught in Queensland, and I felt elated. Finding that the pool was clear of snags, I bent on three extra hooks, baiting each one with the whole of a tiny fish. Again the baits wereseized before they reached the bottom; I hauled in two more bream, andas they came struggling and splashing into the shallow water I saw theywere being followed by literally hundreds of the same species, and alsoby fish much like an English grayling--the pool seemed to be alive!The presence of such large numbers in so circumscribed a space could, however, be easily accounted for by the absence of rain for so manymonths, the drying up of many minor pools and stretches, and thediminution of the water generally throughout the creek and itstributaries driving the fish to congregate in the deeper and largerpools. By noon I had caught as many fish as the boys could carry. None, it istrue, were very large, 2 1/2 lbs. Being the heaviest; but I was pleasedto learn that there were places farther down the creek where the blacksfrequently caught some very large cat-fish; when the water wasmuddy from heavy rain. These cat-fish, or, as some people call them, "jew-fish, " are the heaviest and best of all the Queensland river fishI have ever tasted, except those which, for want of their true name, Icalled grayling, and Hansen asserted were trout. Sending the black boys off with the fish, I cut a rod from a she-oak andquickly rigged a line; for a float I used a small piece of dead wood, and baited with the largest minnow I could find. Then, clambering upthe bank, I found a suitable open place to stand at the butt of aLeichhardt, from where I had a good view. I could not, however, see anyof the gars, one at least of which I was so anxious to get, but made acast into the centre--and almost instantly one darted out from under thelily leaves and hooked himself beautifully, but in swinging him out myline fouled a thorny bush, and for a minute I was in despair; there wasthe shining beauty suspended over the water, and almost making a circleof his body in his struggle to escape. At last, however, I cleared myline, and swung my prize high up on the bank. Determined to get a betterrod, and return after dinner, I picked up gun and fish and followed theboys. By sunset I had a catch of fish that fairly astonished Hansen when hereturned at dusk with but half a dozen black duck, two or three teal, and two turkeys. All that evening we were employed in cleaning andsalting the fish and birds, except some for immediate use. We had many such days. Fish were to be had all throughout the course ofthe creek, and had we possessed a net like those the blacks sometimesused, we could have taken a hogsheadful in half an hour. Then, as the rainy season began, I ceased fishing and took to the gun, for now three or four kinds of duck made their appearance, and onemoonlight night an immense number alighted in the creek just below thehut, and kept up an incessant gabble and quacking till sunrise. In less than ten days we had enough salted game and dried and smokedfish to last us three months, even had we eaten nothing else. Our blackfriends--with the exception of one lad who desired to remain--left usone morning at sunrise, and we saw them no more. I am afraid they weredeeply hurt by our poisoning half a dozen of their mangy dogs, whichwere, with the rest of the pack, a continual source of annoyance to usby their expert thieving. One dull, rainy day, as we sat indoors mending our clothes, and yarningand smoking, we heard the scream of parrots, and, going to the door, sawsome twenty or thirty of them, large, fine, green and scarlet plumagedbirds, hanging on to and crawling in and out among the branches of somelow trees growing between the stockyard and the creek. These treeswere a species of wattle, and were just opening out their yellow, sweet-smelling, downy flowers, which the beautiful birds were devouringeagerly. We did not disturb them, and they did not appear to be alarmedwhen we walked up to within a few yards of the trees, merely screamingdefiance, and flying up to the higher branches, or to other trees nearby. These birds the local settlers called "king-parrots"; they werelarger than those of the same species in New South Wales, and later inthe season we shot a few of them for soup. This particular flock visitedus for many days in succession, forming a pretty picture as they hungon the branches, chattering loudly the while, and flashing theirgaily-coloured plumage in the bright sunshine. Like the spur-wingedplover, they were very inquisitive birds; if one of their number wasshot, and fell wounded, the rest of the flock would fly round and roundthe poor creature, watching its movements and listening to its cries, not out of pity, but of sheer curiosity, and each could be shot insuccession, or sometimes knocked down with a stick. I was told by astockman on Fanning Downs station that on several occasions when hehad wounded birds of this variety of the parrot tribe, their companionsdescended upon them with fury, tore out their feathers, and bit andlacerated them savagely. Now and again a few wandering emus would cross the grey gum plainsaround us, and then, as they caught sight of our figures, shamblequickly off again. In former years they had been plentiful in thedistrict, and provided good food for the aborigines when the latterorganised their big hunting parties. But as the country was taken up ascattle runs, hundreds of the great birds were wantonly shot by whitemen for the mere pleasure of killing, and all the months we lived in thedistrict we did not see more than twenty. I have before spoken of the number of snakes that were everywhere to beseen in the vicinity of the water, particularly about pools with a reedymargin. Scarcely a week passed without our killing three or four, andwe were always careful in bathing to do so in very shallow water, wherethere was a clear sandy bottom. There were three kinds of water-snakes, one of which was of a dull blue colour, and these the blacks said were"bad fellow, " _i. E. _, venomous. They seldom grew over two feet anda half in length, and on a bright day one might see several of thesereptiles swimming across from one bank to the other. Of the common brownsnake--the kind we most dreaded--and the black-necked tiger snake, wekilled numbers with our guns and with sticks, and one day, when crossingsome red ironstone ridges on the Ravenswood road, we despatched twodeath-adders which were lying asleep on the bare, hot road. They wereof a dull reddish brown, the same hue as the ground in the ironstonecountry, just as they are a yellowish brown in a sandstone region. One great pest to us when fishing were the number of mud turtles, greedylittle creatures which persistently swallowed our hooks, which couldonly be recovered by placing one's foot on their backs, drawing outtheir long snaky necks to the utmost tension, and cutting off theirheads; the other pests were the hideous flabby water iguanas (I do notknow their proper name), which, although they never interfered with ourlines, sickened us even to look at them. They were always to be seenlying on a log or snag in the water. As you approached they eithercrawled down like an octopus, or dropped, in a boneless, inert mass, without a splash. Their slimy, scaleless skins were a muddy yellow, andin general they resembled an eel with legs. Even the blacks looked onthem with disgust, though they are particularly fond of the ordinaryiguana. The time passed somewhat wearily to us when heavy rains and floodedcountry kept us indoors for days together. Then one night afterthe weather had begun to get cooler and clearer, we heard, far, faroverhead, the _honk, honk_ of the wild geese, flying southwards todistant lagoons, and Hansen reminded me that in another week our term ofservice came to an end. "What made you think of it?" I asked. "The cry of the wild geese going South. " For we, too, longed for the South again. FISH DRUGGING IN THE PACIFIC In an American magazine of a few months ago mention was made of the"discovery" of a method of capturing fish by impregnating the waters ofslowly running rivers or small lakes with a chemical which would producestupefaction, and cause the fish to rise helpless to the surface. TheAmerican discoverer no doubt thought he really had "discovered, " thoughI am sure many thousands of people in the civilised world have heardof, and some few hundreds very often seen, fish captured in a somewhatsimilar manner, the which is, I believe, practised not only in India, Africa and South America, but in the islands of the North and SouthPacific, and I have no doubt but that it was known thousands of yearsago--perhaps even "when the world was young. " Nearly all the Malayo-Polynesian people inhabiting the high, mountainousislands of the South Pacific and North Pacific Oceans can, and do, catch fish in the "novel" manner before mentioned, _i. E. _, by producingstupefaction, though no chemicals are used, while even the Australianaborigines--almost as low a type of savage as the Fuegians--use astill simpler method, which I will at once briefly describe as I saw itpractised by a mob of myall (wild) blacks camped on the Kirk River, atributary of the great Burdekin River in North Queensland. At a spot where the stream was about a hundred feet wide, and the watervery shallow--not over six inches in depth--a rude but efficient dam wasexpeditiously constructed by thrusting branches of she-oak and _ti_-treeinto the sandy bottom, and then making it partially waterproof byquickly filling the interstices with earthen sods, _ti_-tree bark, reeds, leaves, and the other _débris_ found on the banks. In the centrea small opening was left, so as to relieve the pressure when thewater began to rise. Some few hundred yards further up were a chain ofwater-holes, some of which were deep, and in all of which, as I knewby experience, were plenty of fish--bream, perch, and a species ofgrayling. As soon as the dam was complete, the whole mob, except some"gins" and children, who were stationed to watch the opening beforementioned, sprang into the water, carrying with them great quantities ofa greasy greyish blue kind of clay, which rapidly dissolved and chargedthe clear water with its impurities. Then, too, at the same time thirtyor forty of their number (over a hundred) began loosening and tearingaway portions of the overhanging bank, and toppling them over intothe stream; this they accomplished very dexterously by means of heavy, pointed sticks. The work was carried out with an astounding clamour, those natives in the water diving to the bottom and breaking up thefallen earth still further till each pool became of the colour andsomething of the consistency of green pea-soup. Hundreds of fish soonrose gasping to the surface, and these were at once seized and thrownout upon the banks, where a number of young picaninnies darted upon themto save them being devoured by a swarm of mongrel dogs, which lentan added interest to the proceedings by their incessant yelping andsnapping. As the slowly running current carried the suffocating andhelpless fish down-stream the hideous noise increased, for the shallowstretch in front of the dam was soon covered with them--bream, and theso-called "grayling, " perch, eels, and some very large cat-fish. Thelatter, which I have mentioned on a previous page, is one of themost peculiar-looking but undoubtedly the best flavoured of all theQueensland fresh-water fishes; it is scaleless, tail-less, blue-greyin colour, and has a long dorsal spike, like the salt-water"leather-jacket. " (A scratch from this spike is always dangerous, asit produces intense pain, and often causes blood-poisoning. ) Altogetherover a thousand fish must have been taken, and I gazed at thedestruction with a feeling of anger, for these pools had afforded mymining mates and myself excellent sport, and a very welcome change ofdiet from the eternal beef and damper. But, a few days later, after ourblack friends had wandered off to other pastures, I was delighted tofind that there were still plenty of fish in the pools. * * * * * Early in the "seventies" I was shipwrecked with the once notoriousCaptain "Bully" Hayes, on Kusaie (Strong's Island), the eastern outlierof the Caroline Islands on the North Pacific, and lived there for twelvehappy months, and here I saw for the first time the method of fishstupefaction employed by the interesting and kindly-natured people ofthis beautiful spot. I had previously seen, in Eastern Polynesia, the natives drugging fishby using the pounded nuts of the _futu_ tree (_Barringtonia speciosa_), and one day as I was walking with a native friend along the beach nearthe village in which I lived, I picked up a _futu_ nut lying on thesand, and remarked that in the islands to the far south the people usedit to drug fish. Kusis laughed. "_Futu_ is good, but we of Kusaie do not use it--we have_oap_ which is stronger and better. Come, I will show you some _oap_growing, and to-morrow you shall see how good it is. " Turning off to our right, we passed through a grove of screw-pines, andthen came to the foot ot the high mountain range traversing the island, where vine and creeper and dense jungle undergrowth struggled for lightand sunshine under the dark shade of giant trees, whose thick leafybranches, a hundred feet above, were rustling to the wind. Here, growing in the rich, red soil, was a cluster of _oap_--a thin-stemmed, dark-green-leaved plant about three feet in height. Kusis pulled one bythe roots, and twisted it round and round his left hand; a thick, whiteand sticky juice exuded from the bark. "It 'sickens' the fish very quickly, " he said, "quicker than the _futu_nut. If much of it be bruised and thrown into the water, it kills thelargest fish very soon, and even turtles will 'sicken. ' It is verystrong. " I asked him how the people of Kusaie first became acquainted with theproperties of the plant. He shook his head. "I do not know. God made it to grow here in Kusaie in the days that weredark" (heathenism) "and when we were a young people. A wise man fromGermany was here ten years ago, and he told us that the people ofPonapé, far to the west, use the _oap_ even as we use it, but that inPonapé the plant grows larger and is more juicy than it is here. "* * The "wise man from Germany, " I ascertained a year or two afterwards, was the well-known J. S. Kubary, a gentleman who, although engaged in trading pursuits, yet enriched science by his writings on his discoveries in Micronesia. Early on the following morning, when the tide was falling, and thejagged pinnacles of coral rock began to show on the barrier reefopposite the village, the entire population--about sixty all told--wereawaiting Kusis and myself outside his house. The men carried small, unbarbed fish-spears, the women and children baskets and bundles of_oap_. From the village to the reef was a distance of two miles, which we sooncovered by smart paddling in a dozen or more canoes; for had we delayedwe should, through the falling tide, have been obliged to leave ourstranded crafts on the sand, half-way, and walk the remainder. I need not here attempt to describe the wondrous beauties of a South Seacoral reef at low tide--they have been fully and ably written about bymany distinguished travellers--but the barrier reef of Strong's Islandis so different in its formation from those of most other islands in thePacific, that I must, as relative illustration to this account of thefishing by _oap_ mention its peculiarity. Instead of the small clefts, chasms, and pools which so frequentlyoccur on the barrier reefs of the mountainous islands of Polynesia andMelanesia, and which at low tide are untenanted except by the smallestvarieties of rock-fish, here were a series of deep, almost circular, miniature lakes, set in a solid wall of coral rock with an overlappingedge, which made the depth appear greater than it was, especially whenone stood on the edge and looked down to the bottom, four to six fathomsbelow. In all of these deep pools were great numbers or fish of many varieties, size, and colour; some swimming to and fro or resting upon the sandybottom, others moving upwards and then downwards in the clear water withlazy sweep of tail and fin. One variety of the leather-jacket tribewas very plentiful, and their great size was excelled only by theirremarkable ugliness; their ground colour was a sombre black, traversedby three broad bands of dull yellow. Some of the largest of these fishweighed quite up to 20 lbs. , and were valued by the natives for theirdelicacy of flavour. They would always take a hook, but the Strong'sIslanders seldom attempted to capture them in this manner, for theirenormous, hard, sharp, and human-like teeth played havoc with anordinary fish-hook, which, if smaller than a salmon-hook, they wouldsnap in pieces, and as their mouths are very small (in fact theleather-jacket's mouth is ridiculous when compared to its bulk), largerand stronger hooks could not be used. Another and smaller variety were of a brilliant light blue, with vividscarlet-tipped fins and tail, a perfectly defined circle of the samecolour round the eyes, and protruding teeth of a dull red. These weespecially detested for their villainous habit of calmly swimming up toa pendant line, and nipping it in twain, apparently out of sheer humour. Well have the Samoans named the leather-jacket _Isu'umu Moana_--thesea-rat. In one or two of the deeper pools were red, bream-shaped fish that I hadin vain tried to catch with a hook, using every possible kind of bait;but the natives assured me that I was only wasting my time, as they fedonly upon a long thread-like worm, which lived in the coral, and thata spear or the _oap_ was the only way of capturing them. So far I hadnever actually handled one, but on this occasion we secured some dozens. Here and there we caught sight of a young hawk-bill turtle darting outof sight under the ledge of the overhanging walls of coral, putting toflight thousands of small fish of a score of shapes and colours. We waited until the tide had fallen still lower and until the wholesurface of the great sweeping curve of reef stood out, bare andsteaming, under the bright tropic sun. Westward lay the ocean, blueand smooth as a mill pond, with only a gentle, heaving swell lavingthe outer wall of the coral barrier. Here and there upon its surfacecommunities of snowy white terns hovered and fluttered, feeding uponsmall fish, or examining floating weed for tiny red and black crabs nobigger than a pea. Eastward and across the now shallowed water of thelagoon was our village of Leassé, the russet-hued, saddle-backed housesof thatch peeping out from the coco-palms and breadfruit-trees; beyond, the broken, rugged outline of the towering mountain range, garmentedfrom base to summit with God's mantle of living green; overhead a sky otwondrous, un-specked blue. We were all sitting on the rocks, on the margin of the best and largestpool, smoking and chatting, when at a sign from Kusis, who was the headman (or local chief) of the village, the women took their bundles of_oap_ and laying the plants upon smooth portions of the reef began topound them with round, heavy stones, brought from the village for thepurpose. As each bundle was crushed and the sticky white juice exuded, it was rolled into a ball, used like a sponge to wipe up and absorb allthe liquid that had escaped, and then handed to the men and boys, wholeapt into the pool, and dived to the bottom, thrusting the balls of_oap_ underneath every lower ledge and crevice, and then rising quicklyto the surface and clambering out again. In less than five minutes theonce crystal water had changed to a pale milky white, thousands uponthousands of tiny fish, about half an inch in length, and of many hues, began to rise to the surface; then others of a larger size, which thewomen at once scooped up with small nets; then presently, with muchsplashing and floundering, two or three of the handsome red fish I havedescribed, with a great leather-jacket, came up, and, lying on theirsides, flapped helplessly on the surface. Other kinds, of the mulletspecies, came with them, trying to swim upright, but always fallingover on their sides, and yet endeavouring to lift their heads above thewater, as if gasping for air. Then more big leather-jackets, some ofwhich shot up from below as if they had been fired from a mortar, and, running head-on to the rocky wall of the pool, allowed themselves tobe lifted out without a struggle. It was most exciting and intenselyinteresting to witness. Presently up came a half-grown hawkbill turtle, his poor head erectand swaying from side to side; a boy leapt in and, seizing it by itsflippers, pushed it up to some women, who quickly carried the creatureto a small pool near by, where it was placed to recover from the effectsof the _oap_ and then be taken ashore to the village turtle-dock togrow and fatten for killing. (The "turtle-dock, " I must explain, was awalled-in enclosure--partly natural, partly artificial--situated in ashallow part of the lagoon, wherein the Leassé people confined thoseturtle that they could not at once eat; sometimes as many as thirty werethus imprisoned and fed daily. ) Out of this one pool--which I think was not more than fifteen yardsacross--we obtained many hundredweights of fish and three turtle. Allfish which were too small to be eaten were thrown into other pools torecover from the effects of the _oap_. The very smallest, however, didnot recover, and were left to float on the surface and become the preyof large fish when the incoming tide again covered the reef. I must here relate an incident that now occurred, and which will serveto illustrate the resourcefulness and surgical knowledge of a race ofpeople who, had they met them, Darwin, Huxley and Frank Buckland wouldhave delighted in and made known to the world. I shall describe it asbriefly and as clearly as possible. I had brought with me a knife--a heavy, broad-backed, keen-edged weapon, which the Chinese carpenter of our wrecked ship had fashioned out forme from a flat twelve-inch file of Sheffield steel, and Kusis had, lateron, made me a wooden sheath for it. In my excitement at seeing a largefish rise to the surface I used it as a spear, and then, the fishsecured, had thrown the knife carelessly down. It fell edge upwards in acleft of the coral rock, and Kinié, the pretty twelve-year-old daughterof Kusis, treading upon it, cut her left foot to the bone. Herfather and myself sprang to her aid, and whilst I was tying the onehandkerchief I possessed tightly round her leg below the knee so asto stay the terrible flow of blood, he rapidly skinned a large leatherjacket by the simple process of cutting through the skin around the headand shoulders and then dragging it off the body by holding the upperedge between his teeth and then with both hands pulling it downwardsto the tail. In less than five minutes the sheet of tough fish-skinwas deftly and tightly wrapped round the child's foot, the handkerchieftaken off and replaced by a coir fibre fishing-line, wound round andround below and above the knee. The agony this caused the poor childmade her faint, but her father knew what he was about when he orderedtwo of the women to carry her ashore, take off the covering offish-skin, cover the foot with wood-ashes, and bind it up again. Thiswas done, and when we returned to the village an hour or two laterI found the girl seated in her father's house with her injured footbandaged in a way that would have reflected credit on a M. R. C. S. After exploiting the large pool we turned our attention to some of thosewhich were wider, but comparatively shallow; and in these, the bottomsof which were sandy, we obtained some hundreds of mullet and gar-fish, which were quickly overpowered by the _oaf_ juice. In all I think thatwe carried back to the village quite five hundredweight of fish, someof which were very large: the weight of three of the large bandedleather-jackets I estimated at fifty pounds. In after years, in other islands of the Pacific, when I saw the fearfuland needless havoc created by traders and natives using vile dynamitecartridges and so destroying thousands of young fish by one explosion, Itried hard to get them to use either the _futu_ nut or the _oap_ plant, both of which under many names are known to the various peoples ofEastern Polynesia. But the use of dynamite has an attractive element of danger; it is moresudden and destructive in its effect; it makes a noise and churns upand agitates the water; its violent concussion breaks and smashes thesubmarine coral forest into which it is thrown; and its terrific shockkills and mutilates hundreds of fish, which, through their bladdersbursting, sink and are not recovered. Only a few years ago an old and valued American friend of mine--anex-ship captain settled in the Gilbert Islands in the NorthPacific--became annoyed at what he deemed to be the excessive prices thenatives charged for fish. The "excessive price, " I may mention, meantthat he was asked a half-dollar for a basket of fish weighing, say, fifty or sixty pounds. A half-a-dollar is equal to an English florin;but no coin was handed over--four sticks ot tobacco costing the traderabout ten cents, was the equivalent. So my friend decided to show thenatives that he could do without them as far as his fish supply went. He bought a box of dynamite, with fuse and caps, from a German tradingschooner, and at once set to work, blowing off his right hand withintwenty-four hours, through using too short a fuse. That wretched box of dynamite proved a curse to the island. The natives, despite my friend's accident, bought every cartridge from him, singly orin lots, and they then began to enjoy themselves. Every hour of theday for many weeks afterwards the sullen thud of the explosive could beheard from all parts of the lagoon, followed by applauding shouts. Vastnumbers of fish were blown to pieces, for no native would ever think ofdividing a cartridge into half a dozen portions and using only one at atime; the entire 6-oz. Cartridge was used, and sometimes so short werethe fuses, that explosions would take place on the surface, to thedelight of the children, who said, "it was as good to hear as thecannons of a man-of-war. " In the short space of eight weeks there werefive serious accidents, two of which ended fatally. I was thankful whenthe last charge had been exploded, and although the natives begged me toimport a fresh supply, I always declined--not on their account only, butbecause of the wanton destruction of fish involved. One day I decided to try and ascertain if _oap_ would affect fish bybeing swallowed. I prepared twenty or thirty small balls of the plant, wrapped each one up carefully in thin strips of fish flesh, so as tothoroughly conceal the contents, and took them out to the "turtle dock. "The dock, although it was a safe enclosure for turtle, yet had manysmall passages through the coral rock which permitted the ingress andexit of moderately-sized fish, particularly a variety of black andred-spotted rock-cod. Throwing in the balls, one by one, I watched. Three of them were at onceswallowed by a lively young hawk-bill turtle, and the remainder weresoon seized by some yellow eels and rock-cod, before the larger andslower-moving turtle (of which there were about twenty in the dock)discerned them. I waited about on the reef in the vicinity for quitethree hours or more, returning to the pool at intervals and examiningthe condition of its occupants. But, at the end of that time, the _oap_had apparently taken no effect, and, as night was near, I returned tothe village. On the following morning, I again went to the "dock, " lowered my line, and caught six rock-cod. In the stomachs of two I found the undigestedfibres of the _oap_ which, through expansion, they had been unable todislodge; but that it had not had any effect on them I was sure, forthese two fish were as strong and vigorous when hooked as were the fourothers in whose stomachs there was no sign of _oap_. The young hawkbill turtle, however, was floating on the surface, andseemed very sick. Here is a point for ichthyologists. Are the digestive arrangements of aturtle more delicate than those of a fish?