AFTER THE DROUGHT

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1930, Page 11

AFTER THE DROUGHT

FLOODS IN AUSTRALIA. . TRAVELLER’S PRIVATIONS. A letter describing the condition of parts of Central Australia, following the flood rains, has been received from Mr» Francis Birtles, tho well-known overt land traveller. Writing from . the. Pine Creek district, Mr. Birtles stated: “For six months the blight of hunger has been over all. Parched land stretched on all sides, bar* ren of vegetation and all forms of life —then rain, rain, rain, for weeks, foi( months. All the natural foods wept rot* ten; game ■ and aborigines lived in ft semi-starved stale; the old blacks perished; roads for hundreds of • miles were a series of bogs. Now that the' country is drying up game has come back, and with the game the aborigines. ; “With all roads flooded, my stock 'of rations was rapidly depleted, what wa-S not used rotted with the moisture. Damper, began to take on the consistency of plaster of Paris, and salt became a first-class imitation: of Pharoah’s mummy in the museum, with tie added spice of innumerable beetles aid weavils. However, an appetising- dieh from the local sand palms made up for other deficiencies, the fruit, when cooked, tasting like asparagus. So great wpa the quantity of fresh water about that, on more than one occasion,'it was possible to get a meal of fresh water mussels. Unfortunately, they proved indigestible. My dog, ‘Yowie/ in the meantime, was forced to subsist on frogs, lizards and insects.” . . Mr. Birtles had been separated frorq his car for five months at the time of writing. Heavy storms and rain for six weeks had isolated it. He left his car on the bank of a creek with the tyres and wheels stacked in a heap of boulders alongside. In consequence of the floods, he said, there was every likelihood of their being carried away to ft swamp some miles distant, where they would be hard to find, as the grass was from 10ft. to 15ft. high. !