AUSTRALIA’S PIONEERS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4233, 19 January 1940, Page 6

AUSTRALIA’S PIONEERS

SAGA OF THE OUTBACK. ON THE WORLD’S LARGEST CATTLE STATION. (By J.A.8.) Fiction as well as fact supports the claim that Victoria River Downs, in Noi-th-west Australia, with an area of 16,000 square miles, is the largest cattle station in the world. The oldest station hand asserts that long ago a newly married couple were sent out to milk the cows, and that they wandered far, the milk being brought in eventually by their grandchildren! Fact, on the other hand, provides a picture of the homestead, beautifully situated on the Wickham River. Remote from towns, the station has a spendid general store, always well stocked; a saddler’s shop, a blacksmith’s shop, motor sheds, and all the usual outbuildings and quarters for the employees give the place the appearance of a small township. The garden is well kept, and flowers and fruit flourish. With Mr and Mrs Alfred Martin and family in residence, the visitor gets a true impression of how happy and interesting home life can be, even in the very far north of Australia. The young black girls who wait at the table are well trained in house work and very skilful. The house is comfortable and cool, and the garden a delightful place, with the river either running a banker when swollen by summer rains, or, even in the driest winter, containing vast reaches of standing water. A visitor interested in fauna may wander down to the river, and there become absorbed in what he finds. With the aid of a black boy he may seek out a crocodile basking on a sunlit log. The crocodiles of the north are of two kinds. One, capable of moving both jaws with freedom, grows to a length of about five or six feet. This reptile, though fierce in appearance, will not attack a human being. There is, too, a larger species, one which can move its top jaw only, for mastication. One of these was found to measure 28 feet long, with a girth in proportion.

The distinction which local people generally make are “crocks,” denoting the smaller species, and “gators,” indicating the larger ones. But there are no alligators in a wild state in Australia. The teeth of the Australian crocodiles are clumsy,- not unlike small human fingers (without any joint, of course), whereas alligators are distinguished by having teeth in the lower jaw, which lock through a groove in the upper one. These creatures are not at all particular in their search of food. And after they have captured and drowned their prey they generally keep the cadaver in cool storage at the bottom of the river, until it is tender enough to be eaten. '

In the Cambridge Gulf, near the meat works at Wyndham, they prowl in large numbers, for they are filth eaters. It is unpleasant to meet one near the water’s edge, for if he fails to secure his victim with the teeth he can often knock it down with a blow of his tail.

On a river in the Boorboloola district in one year several hundred cattle were accounted for by these vicious creatures, and many others were torn and lacerated. BOWER BIRD’S PLAYGROUND. A much more pleasant creature to watch is the bower bird. Within two miles of the Victoria River Downs homestead the playground of quite a number of bower birds is strewn not only with bones and shells, but nails, pieces of tin and other shining objects, and various highly-coloured berries. The bird is grey in colour and not unlike the wattle bird of the southern States. Its nest is built in trees, the playground is only its pleasure house. Generally it chooses to lay out its playground close to a conkleberry bush. This bush is a kind of thorny shrub, with leaves like the myrtle. Another bird that fascinates a visitor from the south is the night owl, which breaks the silence of evening by calling, “Too late, too late.” Melay was the local king. He was the proud possessor of quite a number of wives, and the most important child was Peggy—a truly black princess. Unfortunately, her parents pronounced “p” as “b,” and “e” as “a,” and so the little lady is called “Baggy.” Peggy played while her little half-brother, about five weeks old, slept placidly under a bullock skin dressed only in his birthdaysuit. King Melay had the reputation of telling the truth only when it suited him, and he had a regal way of appropriating anything left lying about as though it belonged to him. Thirty-five miles from Victoria River Downs, on the track to Pigeon Hole, is a queer rock formation which catches the eye. Measuring 30 feet from neck to the top of the head, this natural sphinx appears best when seen with the late afternoon sun showing up the eye, nose and chin. The unsmiling mouth is not visible from this angle, but the neck and chest are well proportioned. Pigeon Hole, incidentally, is on the overland track between Victoria River Downs and Wave Hill. The beautiful jackass of the north is smaller than its Victorian counterpart, and is more gaily coloured, but it never laughs. One local inhabitant explained this with the remark, “Say,

boss, the bally thing has nothing to laugh at up here.” FIZZER’S HEROISM. Seventeen miles on the east of the homestead is the spot where the Fizzer (of “We of the Never Never” fame) was drowned. Over his grave has been erected a lasting memorial. The inscription reads:— In loving memory of the Fizzer, Henry Ventilia Pickham. Born February 20th, 1872, Died April 17th, 1911. With God all things are possible. Accompanied by his black boy he had set out for the Katharine when the rivers were in flood. A woman patient at Victoria River Downs had told the Fizzer that she had written to the doctor at Darwin to come to her assistance. In crossing the swollen stream a pack horse struggling in midstream inadvertentlystruck the Fizzer. He sank, but came to the surface just as the black boyreached him. He told the boy he would be all right, and ordered him to save the mails. This the boy did, but the Fizzer was drowned. Some time later the letter reached its destination, and the doctor was about to respond to the urgent call, when news came through that the patient was beyond human aid. This was in the old days before the Australian Inland Mission had set up its nursing home at Victoria River Downs. For six or seven years the home was equipped with wireless, and in similar circumstances a message would have been tapped out to Darwin or Wyndham, and a doctor would have arrived by plane in less hours than it took days formerly to send a message through for help. The A.I.M. was asked to set up the nursing home here when Mr W. M. Hughes was Prime Minister. The Federal Government had been anxious to do something for the white population on Victoria River Downs. The death rate for several years was five or six out of a population of less than 60 people—actually 11% of the population. One justification for the home has been that seven years after its establishment fatal cases of malaria ceased to occur. The so-called good old days were undoubtedly good, but there were many tragedies. Modern methods make life much safer. In 1939 the Government decided that the development of the Flying Doctor service, with its handmaid, the wireless trans-ceivers, for which the Australian Aerial Medical Service is now responsible, was sufficient protection for the scattered population, and consequently the A.I.M. Nursing Home has been closed.