LIFE AMONG THE BLACKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15501, 7 January 1914, Page 11

LIFE AMONG THE BLACKS.

WILD WHITE MEN. EPISODES IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY [fbom ottr own cobbespontent.] Sydney, December 31. Thkrb liaro been numerous instances of white men who, in tho early days of settlement, disappeared into the' bush and sojourned (or years among Clio aboriginals. Many people know the story of Buckley, tho " wild white man," who lived for 20 years with a native tribe in Victoria. Most have heard of Do Rougemonfc, but bis experiences belong mostly, if not altogether, to the realm of fiction. A number of instances of episodes of this character havo just been published by Mr. A. Meston, the Queensland Government agent in Sydney, and they furnish interesting reading. He relates that in 1842 a barque called the Peruvian, bound from Sydney to China with a cargo of timber, was wrecked far east of Cape Cleveland. Dreadful indeed is the narrative given to the world, for the first time, 17 years afterwards, by the one solitary survivor. The captain's brother perished next morning, and the others were washed away from the wrecked vessel on a raft, which carried three ladies, two children, two male passengers, the captain, sailmaker, cook, four able seamen, four apprentices, and two black men— 2l in all. Their food and water rapidly diminished. They caught a few birds, drank their blood and ate the flesh. Horriblo Shark Bait. Then James Quarry and his child died, to be thrown off the raft and immediately devoured by sharks. Two of the children and Mrs. Wilmot died, and, one by one, followed them to the monsters of the deep. The survivors cut the leg off a corpse, arid tying it to the end of an oar, captured a shark, which they devoured raw, It was a scene worthy of Dante, the gloomy Florentine, who pictured and peopled the inferno with the ghastly creations of his own morbid imagination. After 42 days on that awful raft, through horrors that cannot be described, seven miserable survivors landed on the southern point of Cape Cleveland. These included the captain and his wife, George Wilmot, James Gooley, Jack Millar, James Murrells, and one of the' boys. Wilmot and Qooley died a few days after landing, and Millar went away in a black's canoe,-and perished of starvation on Cape Upstart. After 14 days the blacks found the others, gave them food, and treated them kindly. These poor shipwrecked people were tho first whites they had ever seen. They divided the party, the captain and his wife being claimed by the. Cape Cleveland blacks, while Murrells-and the boy went with the tribe around Mount Elliott, whose towering- peak '■' stands outlined against the sky to the>south..; of Townsville. Two years afterwards the boy, the captain, and his wife died within a few weeks of each' other, and s Murrells was left alone. He remained,,with,the'blacks; for 17 years, living as thoy ; lived, learning their language, and ,> forgetting his own. On' January.; 25, 1863, Murrells talked tip to/the newly-formed station on the Burdekin, and was nearly shot before the men recognised him as a white man.'i' : Vf'A ".- Fourteen ' Tears In ;■ the ;; Bush.' fv

iln 1828 Va ;• convict escaped f from the Moreton Bay":penal settlement, land^ was passed'on by the blacks northwards to the Mary , River, where •he was! adopted by ' a blackfellow named ; " Pamble-pamble," who regarded' him asla ', long-lost , tori J returned from the dead, with' the -. white skin ( which a dead body, displayed whenthe black surface was burned off at the cannibal feasts. This convict's name was James Davies, son of .a Broomielaw -> (Glasgow) blacksmith. He was only 16 years of age when sent out with , the somewhat severe sentence of 10 .years for larceny. He escaped in Captain Logan's time, when the merciless use of, the lash arid rigorous penalities .-made life intolerable, and many preferred ■tourist their fate among savages, .or death in; any shape, rather than remain subject to the horrors of the convict prison.,"-■.;'.■-','<.:,«|.|, • Davies remained 14 years with the Mary River blacks, chiefly in the vicinity of Mount Bopple, arid was brought in by Andrew Betrie in 1812. Among tho < Cabbee blacks he bore the name of Thurrimble (the kangaroo rat), and'Durrftmbol, in the Ooridoo dialect, the word for little. Among tho blacks 'of' that date-he was only a small man. In the 14 years ho had become wild as..'the wildest savage, could climb a tree, throw a spear or boomerang, or use the shield and nulla effectively in peace or war. His back bore scars of many cuts from the stone knives; ft spear had been driven through his thigh, and he had a boomerang cut on the knee. , He spoke the Cabbee dialect fluently. After returning to Brisbane he adopted his father's trade of blacksmith, finally started a crockery shop in Qeorgo Street, and died there in May, 1889, leaving property valued at £10,000, nearly the whole being bequeathed in his will to a maiden lady, a native of Brisbane. -,_<■'■

"Very Wild." In 1882 a convict named Bracefell also escaped from the penal settlement, and was adopted by the Wide Bay blacks, who named him "Wandi," a word meaning "very wild," and used for the dingo. After 10 years' life among the blacks he was also rescued, at the same time as Thurrimble, and brought in by Petrio in 1842. He was equally proficient in the language and the use of weapons, Ho arid Davies spoke tho same dialects—Cabbed. Bracefell was killed at Goo3na by a falling 'tree. In the year 1838 a convict named John Fahey came out in the ship Clyde under a sentence of life. Ho absconded from a road party in 1842, and remained with the Bunya Mountain tribes for 12 years, until brought into Brisbane in December, 1854, by Lieutenant Blight, of tho nativo police. Ho was taken to Sydney, identified by the superintendent of convicts, and actually sentenced to 12 months' hard labour for absconding in 1842. When found he had nearly forgotten his own language, and required some time to recover a fluent expression in English. He spoko the Wacca dialect of the Darling Downs, and his body was all ornamented with the raised " moolgarra " scars of the triho by whom lie was ! adopted. His native name was "Gilbur- ; rie." There is a curious coincidence in the fact that Gilburrie was adopted by the blacks in the year in which " Wandi" and " Durramboi" were brought back to civilisation. Within another year those three wild white men might have met at tho great triennial festival on the Bunya Mountains.