The collected writings of "Yacko" (2)

"Yacko" - alias Gladys Annie HUGHES, a collection of newspaper articles of the 1920's and 1930's.

This page sets out her writings that do not specifically refer to Kangaroo Island. See also the companion page The Collected Writings of "Yacko" - Kangaroo Island History.

The reader is reminded that, although her writings are eminently readable and appear remarkably authoritative, no sources have been quoted. And, of course, much might have been disproved (or proved) since the 1930's. - Ed.

The Homing Instinct

Miss Newell's 'homing' horse

is in no way remarkable. At the auction of the first overland cattle in April, 1838 J. W. Bull purchased a beast and left it at his property at Bull's Creek. Shortly afterwards the bullock was missing. Next year it was included in another draft of cattle from the River Goulburn (New South Wales), and thence passed on to the butcher. The animal, on its lonely trail to familiar pastures, had travelled hundreds of miles and swam innumerable rivers. Captain Sturt, too, owned a cat with a highly developed bump of locality. Evelyn Sturt, visiting at the Grange, took such a fancy to the big black tom cat that he persuaded his brother to give him the animal. Puss was taken per boat to his new owner's home near Mount Gambler. Six months later Tom had arrived at his favorite spot on a particularly sunny window sill of the 'Grange.' The medium of his return remained a mystery. Here is an instance of animal sagacity of more recent days. The Croziers, of Rapid Bay, took up land in the Victorian mallee. Their horses were driven overland. One old nag, not receiving much attention, left his new domicile. A few months later he was found contentedly cropping grass at the old home at Rapid Bay.

— 'Jacko,' Point Morrison

Real Life Stories Of South Australia

A WATER DIFFICULTY

£100 For 20 tons

Among the difficulties experienced in the early days of the settlement of South Australia was the problem of supplying fresh water to shipping at Glenelg and Port Adelaide.

Supplying Water To Adelaide's Shipping.— In the very early days of the State considerable difficulty was experienced in supplying Adelaide's shipping with sufficient quantities of fresh water. The Surveyor-General, William Light, suggested that water could be carried to the vessels from Adelaide by waggons which could return laden with merchandise. This plan, however, proved a failure owing to the expense of returning the empty water butts to Adelaide. In the year 1837 it cost H.M.S. Buffalo more than £100 for 20 tons of water sent from Adelaide to Glenelg, and practically one-half of the expense incurred was due to the cost of returning the empty water casks. Conveying water from Adelaide by means of pipes was suggested, but considered to be impracticable, because of the intervening distance. At that time a controversy was raging as to which site was most suitable, as the principal harbor for Adelaide's shipping. Many contended that Glenelg had more to commend it than Port Adelaide, and much verbal warfare was involved. The supporters of Glenelg pointed out that excellent water was procurable from several lagoons near Glenelg during nine months of the year. It was proposed that these should be cleaned out and banked, after which it was considered that they would supply sufficient water all the year round. In defence, the supporters of Port Adelaide argued that the chain of fresh water pools, which formed the Torrens, at times became a mighty torrent which discharged its waters through a morass into a creek which emptied into the harbor at Port Adelaide. Unfortunately, during the summer months when the supply was most required it was not available, but it was thought possible that a means might be devised for storing up sufficient of this water to last through the months when the creek was not flowing. As is frequently the case, the method that was considered to be impracticable eventually solved the difficulty. Today the water supply is conveyed per medium of pipes to both Port Adelaide and Glenelg, which in those distant days were rivals for the distinction of being Adelaide's chief shipping centre.

Exploring The Murray.

— The upper reaches of the Murray were discovered, named, and crossed by the exployers Andrew Hamilton Hume and Captain W. H. Hovell on November 20, 1824, when making their way from Lake George, N.S.W., to Port Phillip, Victoria. The stream they labelled the Hume, though nowadays better known as the Murray, was forded where the town of Albury has grown into existance. The lower reaches of the river were first sighted in 1830, when Captain Sturt and his whaleboat crew were whirled out of the Murrambidgee, to a noble stream he called the Murray, thence to Lake Alexandrina. Unknown to the explorers, sealers from Kangaroo Island had discovered, though not named, the lake the previous year. Between the discoverey, and the advent of steam, navigation by the Mary Ann, and contemporaneously by the Lady Augusta in 1853, there have been several boat excursions which, though of minor importance, are interesting. In whaleboats rowed by aborigines Governor Young, his wife, babe and several friends with an idea of judging the feasibility of exploiting the Murray for water traffic, made the journey from Wellington to the confluence of the Darling, and the return to Goolwa, a matter of nearly 1,400 miles, during September or October, 1850.

The next adventurer to brave the Murray was a German traveller (P. Gerstacker), who in April, 1851, fashioned himself a canoe from a felled gum tree, and with a companion started from Albury. They had paddled 80 miles down stream when their ship sank beneath them, and perforce the rest of the journey to Adelaide was made on foot.

The following winter Captain Francis Cadell launched a canvas boat at Swan Hill, and with four gold diggers aboard sailed to Goolwa, calling en route at the stations, soliciting freight for the steamer he proposed launching in 1853.

— 'Yacko.'

ARE the aboriginals superstitions?

In 1846, the ship Peruvian, outward bound from Sydney, was wrecked, and of her crew seven wretched souls drifted on a raft for some hundreds of miles into Cleveland Bay, Queensland. Here they were found by the natives, who, in their own way, cared for them. Seventeen years afterwards, when civilisation had spread to the neighborhood of their landing place, James Morrill, the sole survivor, made himself known to a stockman, and went back to his own kin. The blacks, when questioned as to the rescue, said they saw in the heavens a constant stream of stars falling in the one direction, which to them foretold the existence of an enemy in their country; and, travelling in the way shown for their guidance, they found the shipwrecked whites.

-Yacko

EARLY NAVIGATORS.

From 'YACKO':

— Mrs. Fairweather, in her interesting article on early navigators, [Observer (Adelaide, SA : 1905 - 1931) Saturday 22 May 1926 p 60 ] makes one or two obvious slips. She states that the pewter dish which the Dutch skipper (Dirck Hartog) left at Dirck Hartog Island, Shark Bay, recording his visit in 1616, was found there a few years ago, after braving the elements for 300 years. The 6-in. diameter flattened pewter dish— Hartog'a visiting card so to speak —was recovered by Wilhelm Vlamingh commander of the Geelvink, in 1697; he engraved details of his own and Hartog's visit on another pewter dish, and for- warded Hartog's to Holland. In 1899 a Dutch journalist named Verster, traced the relic to the States Museum at Amsterdam. Vlamingh's plate was found by Capt. Hamblin, of Baudin's expedition, in 1801 who, deeming it a sacrilege to retain the historic dish, copied the inscription and renailed it to an oaken post, with a record of his own visit at another site. In 1817 the French navigator, Freycinet, not so scrupulous as his late commander and fellow countryman, seized Vlamingh's pewter memorial, and sent it to the French Institute.

SEA PRIZES.

AUSTRALIA'S seamen, early in the 19th century, did a certain amount of illicit trading and raiding. Dr. George Bass, companion of the immortal Flinders in many exploring ventures, while running contraband goods in his brig, the Venus, was captured in Peruvian waters by the Spaniards, and, with his mate, Scott, is supposed to have perished in the silver mines. The master (Campbell) of the brig Harrington brought tbe news to Sydney. The Harrington, which was herself engaged in similar exploits, captured the Spanish schooner Estramina, but as she had no letters of marque, the privilege of retaining her prize was denied her, and the Estramtina became the property of the Australian Government. Along the same coast, the whaler Betsy captured a Spanish brig, which was brought to Sydney and sold to Mr. Simeon Lord. She was re-named the Anna Josepha, in honor of Mrs. King. the Governor's wife, and was among the first vessels to be used in the coal trade. The distinction of being first rests with the schooner Francis. She lifted 40 tons at Coal River (Hunter), in 1801, which had been gathered by one miner in eleven days.

-Yacko.

AN ADELAIDE REMINISCENCE.

Recent mention in your columns of Theberton Hall Estate, Suffolk (which the widow of the late Colonel Doughty Wylie, V.C.. is selling in order to finance the erection of a memorial at Sudd-el-Bahr to husband and other men who died at Gallipolli), is of special interest to South Australians. One of the oldest suburbs of Adelaide was named after this estate, though in these days the spelling has been changed to Thebarton. Colonel Light, Adelaide's first Surveyor-General, and founder of the city, was born about 1792, at Penang, Malay States. His father, Captain Francis Light, the founder and first Governor of the island now known as Prince of Wales Island, reputedly married a Princess, daughter of the King of Quedah. When six years of age, young Light was sent to England to the care of his father's old friends. Mr. and Mrs. Doughty, of Theberton Hall. In remembrance of the goodness of these people to him, Light named the vicinity of his home in South Australia after the home of his early childhood.

--Yacko.

Notable Small Boat Voyages. What Some Early Navigators Faced.

(By "Yacko").

THERE have been many notable boat voyages in the vicinity of Australian waters. Pelsart, in 1628, after the wreck of his vessel, the Batavia, on one of the reefs off Houtman's Archipelago, W.A., sailed away in a small boat to seek help from the Dutch settlement of Batavia. which he obtained successfully.

Bligh's famous voyage of 3618 miles, after the mutiny on his vessel, the Bounty, in a six-oared boat, whose dimensions were only 23ft. long by 6ft. 9in. broad and 2ft. 9in. deep, ended in Timor, in 1787. The Pandora, commanded by Edward Edwards, went in pursuit of the mutineers, but likewise suffered disaster-shipwreck, and a boat voyage to Timor, where, on their arrival, Timotheus Wanjon, Governor of the Dutch settlement, delivered to the captain's custody the convicts who had had a most remarkable boat voyage of their own from Sydney to Timor, which had taken ten weeks to accomplish, in a small craft purchased from the captain of a Dutch schooner lying in Sydney Harbor.

Eight convicts, the wife of the leader. William Bryant, and two babies of 1 and 3 years, in dread of starvation, escaped the vigilance of their gaolers, and made Timor without mishap; but before they reached England the babies had died, and four of the men.

Flinders also commanded a shipwrecked crew. In 1803, when bound as a passenger to England (Lieutenant Fowler was captain) in the Porpoise, disaster was met at the Barrier Reef, on which the Porpoise and one of the vessels accompanying her, the Cato, came to grief. Flinders, with Captain Park, of the Cato, as second in command, and a crew of 13 men, sailed about 800 miles back to Sydney for help.

In 1865 a voluntary boat journey of 1600 miles was undertaken by seven men from Adam Bay, N.T., to Champion Bay, W.A. Not satisfied with the way things were being managed by the Government resident (B. Finiss), they bought a small craft from the captain of the Bengal, then lying in the harbor, and, taking leave of their friends, sailed away. After much battling with bad weather, they even- tually reached civilisation safely.

A most unusual voyage was that under taken by the explorer M'Kinlay, in Northern Territory. He started on an expedition from the first settlement, then at Escape Cliffs, before the wet season commenced. When it did rain. M'Kinlay found his party cut off from headquarters by swamps, so, killing what horses remained, and stretching the hides over a framework of boughs, the explorer paddled down the East Alligator River, and across the intervening sea to Escape Cliffs, closely fol- lowed by sharks, and always the likelihood of alligators, more especially attracted by the smell of decaying hides.

South Australian Memories.

(By "YACKO.")

Mention in a recent issue of the late Alexander Tolmer, ex-commissioner of Adelaide's police, recalls interesting extracts in his "Reminiscences of an Adventurous and Chequered Career." Adam Lindsay Gordon, on his arrival from India, sought the position of Inspector of Mounted Police, but, failing to get it, and nothing better offering, he, on the advice of Tolmer, entered the force as trooper. Shortly after, taking a fancy to his chief's charger—a splendid animal—he asked to be groom; and every morning, unknown to Tolmer, the horse, "Saunders." was trained over the post and rail fences of the neighborhood.

Another favorite horse of Tolmer's was Bucksfoot, which came over from New South Wales with the first of the overlanders, Hawdon and Bonney, in April, 1838. At the opening of the Port of Adelaide, October 14, 1840, one of the sub-inspectors, acting as escort to Governor Gawler, was mounted on Bucksfoot, when, the pace being changed from a trot to a canter, the animal took fright and bolted, and not till the River Little Para was reached, roughly twenty miles distant, was be once more under control.

Another instance of Bucksfoot's endurance was when Tolmer, learning he was to be most unjustly accused of cowardice, sought to reach his chief before the tale-bearer, and, in the day, rode his steed 120 miles. Bucksfoot had so small a muzzle that he could drink out of a pannikin.

Another horse of which Tolmer was very proud was his own thoroughbred mare, Norah, whom, because she was so ferocious, Mr. Heaty, of Portland, parted with for £30, otherwise he would not have considered anything under £500 her value. Up to the year 1845, Norah was the fastest trotter known. In very inclement weather, seventeen miles in fifty-five minutes two seconds stand to her credit.

MYSTERIOUS WHITE RACES

Most historians do not give credence to the story of the French navigator de Gouville's visit to Australia in 1500. Likewise, the theory that the figures and characters found in the caves of the Glenelg River, W.A., were the workmanship of Japanese political fugitives, banished from China about 1150, is wrapped in obscurity, and one can only surmise. An old French chart of 1530 to 1536 date marks the east coast of New Holland, a little north of Botany Bay, Cote des Herbiages — coast of plants; Cook always spoke of Botany Bay as Stingray Bay, so probably his publisher, Harmsworth, Anglicised the French wording; but how came the French to know about the east coast then?

We credit Cook as the discoverer of it in 1770. But the first authentic record of white men's visitation to Australia was that of the Dutch vessel Duyfhen's passage down the west coast of New Guinea to the Gulf of Carpentaria in 1606, which the commander imagined was a continuation of New Guinea.

The seventeenth century saw numerous Dutch vessels touching the west coast of Australia on their way to their possessions in the East Indies. In 1611 the Dutch navigator Henrick Bronver found, by steering east for about 3,000 miles from the Cape of Good Hope, and from thence to Java, he had better winds and avoided most of the tropical calms, thereby shortening the voyage from Holland by several months. The directors of the Dutch East India Co, ordered their boats to follow this route, and sighting Terra Australis gave them a clue as to their whereabouts.

The first attempt at colonising Australia occurred in 1628, when Francis Pelsart, as commander of a fleet of 11 vessels, left Holland, with men, women and children, farm implements, and all things necessary for founding a settlement in northern Australia, or, as the continent was called then, New Holland. In rounding the Cape of Good Hope in a terrific storm, all the vessels, excepting Pelsart's, — the Batavia— foundered. But the Batavia met disaster on Houtman's Abrolhos, W.A. and, while Pelsart and a few of the crew were away looking for water (they ultimately made Java, and thence Batavia, in a small boat), mutiny and bloodshed, instigated by the second in command, Jerome Cornellis, broke out among the settlers. After a lapse of a few weeks, Pelsart returned in the vessel Saardem, and, once more taking charge, sailed back to Holland, with what remained of his followers, after the gallows had done its work among the mutineers.

— Yacko, in the 'World's News’

PURUY

AN interesting theory with regard to the early settlement of South Australia, then known as New Holland (according to the annual address of Hon. J. Lewis, president of the Royal Geographical Society, South Australia), is gleaned from a pamphlet published in 1718, at Neufchatel, by M. Jeans Pierre Puruy, a Swiss. The southern part of Australia was discovered by the Dutch navigator, Pieter Nuyts, in 1627, after whom the land at the back of the Bight is named. The theory is that while the navigators were looking for the "Islands of Gold," the natives along the Coast probably made known to them where the precious metal was to be found. In our days the goldfields of Kalgoorlie, Coolgardie, and other localities of Nuyts' Land give color to the supposition. Puruy planned to colonise Australia, but could gain no hearing or satisfaction from either the Governor of Netherland Indies, whom he first approached, or in England or France. Finally he went colonising himself, in Georgia, U.S.A., and died there.

-Yacko.

STUART'S PLUCK.

The pathos of the Burke and Wills tragedy evidently appeals to some writers, but Australia has had explorers who discovered as much and more, and their sacrifices are nowadays practically forgotten. John M'Douall Stuart's tenacity finally won for him the £2000 offered by the South Australian Government to the first man to cross Australia from south to north. Strictly speaking, Burke and Wills were entitled to the claim, but Stuart had already made two attempts at the goal, when, with a flare of trumpets, Victoria, at a cost of £12,000, equipped an expedition to compete. Stuart, with two men and thirteen horses, had on his first attempt reached Attack Creek on June 27, 1860, when trouble with the natives deterred the small party from penetrating further into the unknown.

For the second attempt, the South Australian Government voted £2500 to better equip an expedition; and April 25, 1861, found the explorers again at Attack Creek. This time, they were allowed to proceed. A month later, Newcastle Waters was discovered. Here a dense scrub baulked all further efforts, and, provisions running short, they were forced to move homewards.

The third attempt was made within a month of reaching Adelaide, and on July 24, 1861, Stuart's perseverance was at last rewarded by the sight of the Indian Ocean, in proximity to the mouth of the Adelaide River. Adelaide, their home-town, was reached on the same day that Howlitt's mournful procession entered, enroute for Melbourne, with the bodies of Burke and Wills. No lives were lost, but Stuart suffered excruciatingly from scurvy and almost total blindness. He never regained his health, and passed away in England on July 16, 1869, within a month of the death of his old chief, Captain Sturt. In recognition of Stuart's work, Great Britain granted the annexation of the Northern Territory to South Australia in 1863. Practically following Stuart's route to the Indian Ocean, the overland telegraph line was completed in October 1872.—Yacko.

THE STRIPPER.

A recent correspondent credits A. Debbie as the inventor of the stripper. Dobbie had nothing to do with it. Y. W. Bull, of Bull's Creek, S.A. in 1843, submitted a model to a gathering of interested men; the model was constructed by T. Hudson-Beare but the first man to put the idea to practical use was John Ridley, a blacksmith. Probably Bull's machine was the second one used in South Australia, but my husband's grandfather, Louis Hanson, of Woodville, owned the third, and Whittle, who once worked the land now used as the Sewage Farm, possessed the fourth.

—Yacko. [declaring her gender! - Ed.]

LA PEROUSE RELICS.

Among the relics of La Perouse's expedition lodged in Paris is the sternpost of a vessel found near Mackay, Queensland. In 1861. Why the supposition that it is part of the boat La Perouse's people built out of the wreck on Vanikoro in 1788, I do not know. Incidentally, it was the frank eulogy of the abbe the naturalist of the expedition that caused Governor Philip to forward an exhibit of the aborigines' white war paint to England. Mr. Josiah Wedgwood made a medallion out of the sample, and voted it excellent clay for china pottery.

—Yacko.

THE LADY NELSON.

NOTHING definite is known of the tragic end of the Lady Nelson (recently inquired about), beyond the fact that the schooner Faith brought word of having seen her submerged hull, with name inscribed, in the harbor of Babi island. But probably her fate was similar to that which subsequently befell the Stedcombe. The 63-ton brig Lady Nelson, the first vessel to sail through Bass Straits from the west, was engaged carrying livestock, chiefly buffaloes, from the islands to the newly-founded settlement at Melville Island, in 1825. When not returning in reasonable time, the schooner Stedcombe (Captain Burns), was chartered by the commander of Melville Island (Captain Bremer) for a load of buffaloes, and with orders to search for the little brig; but the Stedcombe herself disappeared. Fourteen years later (1839), Captain Thomas Watson, of the schooner Essington, hearing rumors of a white captive man living with the natives of Timor Land, using diplomacy, and the assistance of a friendly chief, got possession of the wretched fellow, who proved to be Forbes, one of the two boys whose lives were spared when their vessel, the Stedcombe, had been captured by pirates end the rest of the crew murdered. Forbes eventually settled at Williamstown (Vic.), and earned his living as a fisherman. The second boy, John Edwards, had died about four years previous to his comrade's rescue.

-Yacko.

STURT'S RECORD.

Sturt's 850-mile voyage down the unknown rivers, Murrumbidgee and Murray, in 1830, broke all records in the annals of the Navy. The whaleboat and light skiff were launched fifteen miles above the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers. Practically for the whole distance, the eight men in turn pulled at the oars, rowing at the rate of about 21 miles a day, taking 32 days for the trip down, and 39 days, pulling against the current, returning. Their rations, after leaving Lake Alexandrina behind, consisted of ¾ lb. of flour per diem, and ¼lb. of tea per week. Fish they found unpalatable, and of game, a dearth. Five years later, Sturt was granted 4200 acres in recognition of past discoveries. George M'Cleay, second- in-command, was rewarded with 1250 acres. Of Harris, Hopkinson and Fraser, soldiers, not recorded: Clayton, Mulholland, and Macnamee, convicts, nor even emancipation. And so an appreciative Government gives thanks.

-Yacko.

NAMES are often deceptive; for instance, Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, is not named after the god of wine, as one should suppose; but after the first pioneer of the place - Captain William Henry Bacchus, who made his home in the neighborhood of what was once an old swamp, hence the name Marsh.

-Yacko.

FIRST COAL EXPORT

"Student," W.N.. 29/9/'23 errs in stating that the Anna Josephs was built in Australia. She was a Spanish prize, captured by the whaler Betsy, and subsequently bought by Simeon Lord, of Sydney, and re-christened the Anna Josephs, in honor of Governor King's wife. Illicit sea-raiding was rife in the early days. Captain Johnston, of the Cornwallis, in 1807, captured as many as fourteen Spanish vessels plying along the Peruvian coast. The Plumier, another vessel renamed the Hunter, the Pegasus, the Estramina were all Spanish prizes, the result of buccaneering exploits of whalers , sailing out of Sydney.—- Yacko.

KANGAROO

Captain Cook first made use of the word "kangaroo," as derived from the aborigines at Endeavour River; yet, when Lieutenant King (son or Governor King, who eventually reached the rank of Admiral, the first Australian to attain that position), in 1819 visited the neighborhood of Cooktown, the natives, with whom he held communication, could not understand the word as applied to the marsupial.

-Yacko.

MYSTERIOUS DRAWINGS.

"MALLAROO" must purely mean MacDonnell when he speaks of the mysterious drawings in the "Macdonald" Ranges. John MacDouall Stuart discovered the MacDonnell Range in 1860, when on his first attempt to cross the island continent, and named them after the then Governor of South Australia. But it is doubtful whether the alleged marooned sailors of Pelsart's ill-fated colonising expedition of 1628, which ended in shipwreck and mutiny, ever travelled so far inland as the MacDonnell Ranges. There is an interesting theory with regard to the origin of the drawings found by Captain Grey in 1838 - human figures of gigantic size draped to the ankles in a garment of red, the head surmounted by a halo of red, yellow, and white linings, inscribed with what is interpreted by an Oriental scholar as ancient Japanese lettering. He further suggests that sixty-two Japanese, possibly banished political offenders, landed or were cast away on the coast, about the beginning of the twelfth century. The face was a vivid white: the eyes black, encircled by red and yellow lines, and no mouth. Another interesting cave drawing was discovered at Memory Cove, South Australia, by Westall, in 1802, when he was the artist of Flinders' expedition—a procession of thirty-two men and women, most of them draped, following a kangaroo. One of the figures, larger than the rest, brandished a sword, another a long staff. Drawings innumerable are to be found, especially in the north of Australia.

—Yacko.

THE TASMANIAN TIGER.

Can any scientific reader give me a likely theory as to why the Thylacine, otherwise the Tasmanian tiger, has become extinct on the mainland? That it once existed in Australia is proved beyond doubt, by Mr. J. Willson in 1891, discovering an almost complete skeleton of the carnivorous marsupial in the Jersey Cave, Fish River. [between Rydall and Bathurst, NSW - Ed.] By the way, Fish River has further distinction, for Surveyor M'Brien, in 1823, reported finding in the sands particles of gold, the first found in the island continent, unless a Portuguese chart of the 16th century, with the north-west coast of Australia marked 'the gold coast,' is con-sidered to imply that the metal was found there.

-Yacko.

DIRK HARTOG RELIC

The oldest authentic relic of European visitation to Australia is a metal plate, new in the Academy of Inscriptions in Paris, sent there in 1817 by the French navigator Freycinet, who had taken it from its original position on Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island, W.A. The Dutchman Willem de Vlaming, in 1697, had replaced the plate for one Dirk Hartog had erected to commemorate his visit in 1616. The supposed support for the plate-a cypress pine post-is housed in the Perth Museum.

-Yacko.

HUON.

FERRETING out the origin of the nomenclature of our country is always interesting. For instance, Huon River, Tasmania, was named after Huon Kermadec, captain of the Esperance, one of the vessels of D'Entrecas- teaux's expedition of 1793, In search of the ill- fated La Perouse. As the naturalist of the expedition, Labillardiere, who wrote the ac-count of their voyagings, did a considerable amount of botanising on the island, is it not probable he named, too, that fine timber, Huon pine, after his comrade?

—Yacko.

I HAVE yet to see the snake and lizard settling their disagreement, but I have seen a lizard, with a large bone half way down its throat, run against a tree, push the obstacle further down, and repeat the process until the bone had quite disappeared from view.

— Yacko.

BUSH WARFARE 'World's News,' 7/2/20 — 'Yacko' mentions he has yet to see the snake and lizard settling their disagreement. From my boyhood days until my reaching the allotted span, there were only two battles that came under my notice during my wanderings in the bush lands. The first was on Burra Burra run in 1877 drought, while carrying the mail from Forbes to Dandaloo on horseback. Leaving the station at daylight I reached the main track at the Mallee ridge, where the present road crosses the watercourse which runs to the creek at the woolshed. The sun was rising and on the opposite side of the creek a small dust cloud came in view, crossing and recrossing the track. As it approached I noticed bright flashes at intervals showing in the dust cloud. My horse shied off from the circus and snorted at the acrobats; a fair-sized yellow and black tollay (abo. for gohanna) and a six foot carpet yappa (Lachlan dialect). The snake had a coil round the butt of the goh.'s tail and the goh. had his front claws fast in the neck of the snake some three inches from its head, and the goh. to all appearance intended to make a meal off the yappa, who seemed to be weak from loss of blood from the mauling he had got from the goh.'s teeth. For some five minutes I sat on the horse watching the battle. The tollay still kept an upright position, in spite of the snake's swaying body in an endeavor to free himself. In the struggle the combatants got onto a small dead mallee stump, and his meal, but like a flash the yappa was first on his feet, ready to finish in the fork of it - the yappa made fast, and tore himself from the tollay's claws, but still had his coil fast round the tail of his opponent. The tollay shot his head under the tollay's front arms and had two coils of his body round that of his opponent in an instant. The tollay opened his mouth and threw the seven when the snake put several more coils round his op- ponent's body, and seemed to throw all his muscular power into those coils, for the snake kept on stretch- ing out his head along the ground, until its body was only about as thick as one's finger from the coils round the tollay's body to the snake's head. After some minutes, there seemed no life in either of he combatants. But to make sure I dismounted and smashed the snake's head. The referee's decision a draw, as the yappa's neck showed the pipes severed.

Some years later while walking along a newly-netted fence to where the water and tucker bag had been hanging on a tree limb after the mid- day meal, I noticed a dust about the vicinity of the water bag. I hurried along and found it was caused by two large tollays in holts. They were in an upright position gripping one another with their front claws round the opponent's neck. Each tollay had his head bent round to his opponent's shoulder, and each was evidently intent on holding a post- mortem on the other, for they both had incisions made in their tough skins under their forearms, which showed the rib bones, and the blood which was flowing- freely. Standing within a few feet of the combatants, I watched them mauling each other for some few minutes. They broke from the clinch, but still on the defensive. Suddenly they spotted the audience, and both waddled very slowly away to a nearby hollow log and disappeared from view.

No title. (1920, February 12). The Bathurst Times (NSW : 1909 - 1925), p. 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111538260

MANLY

Governor Philip, while seeking a better harbor and locality than Botany Bay in which to start the first Australian settlement, happened on a party of natives busily fishing on a beach. In answer to the white men's smiles and gestures, the blacks advanced, and, in a very dignified manner, showed their spoil and nets, and then retired. The Governor, much impressed with the natives' behaviour, perpetuated his admiration for them by naming the beach Manly Beach.

-Yacko.

"CARTY MAC" (W.N., Nov. 29), writes that the first Asiatic invasion of Australia happened in 1874, when between 16,000 and 17,000 Chows rushed the Palmer goldflelds. Not so. At least twenty years earlier in 1863-4-5—26,000 Celestials from Canton and the Straits Settlement invaded the goldfields in the neighborhood of Ballarat. Even earlier, Australia was invaded by the colored races, skin deep and otherwise. George Fife Angas, chairman of the Board of Commissioners for South Australia, in 1837 was instrumental in bringing out some hundreds of Germans and settling them on the best of the land. In the early 'sixties, Hon. Louis Hope imported South Sea Islanders to work on his sugar plantation at Redland Bay, Queensland, being the first to do so.

-Yacko.