CHAPTER VIII

A DESERT TRIBE

The next morning we were up betimes and ready to start as soon as ever the tracks were visible; presently a smoke, their first hunting-smoke of the day, rose close to us.  Despatching Charlie on Satan, and Godfrey on foot, with instructions to catch a native if possible, I hastened along the tracks followed by the rest of the party.  We reached their camp just in time to see the late inmates disappear into a thicket of mulga close by.  Neither Charlie nor Godfrey was able to come up with the lighters of the fire unseen, and these, too, fled into the scrub, where chase was almost impossible.  Their camp deserves description, as it was the first (excepting travelling camps) we had seen of the desert black-fellow.

Facing the belt of mulga, was a low wall of uprooted tussocks of spinifex built in a half circle and some two feet high.  On the leeward side of this breakwind, inside the semi-circle, half a dozen little hollows were scraped out in the sand.  Between each of these nests lay a little heap of ashes, the remains of a fire which burns all night, replenished from time to time from a bundle of sticks kept handy for the purpose.  The nest in the sand is the bed, a double one, and not only double but treble, and more; for in it, coiled up snugly, may lie several of the tribe, higgledy-piggledy, like pups in a basket.  The fire takes the place of nightshirt, pyjamas, or blanket—­a poor substitute on a cold night!  Scattered about were several utensils, two wooden coolimans full of water and grass—­this showing that the owners contemplated a journey, for the grass floating on the surface is used to prevent the water from spilling.  Two more coolimans were filled with seed—­a fine yellow seed from a plant like groundsel.  Close by these were the flat stones (of granite, evidently traded from tribe to tribe) used for grinding the seed.  In the spinifex wall were stuck numerous spears, varying from eight to ten feet in length, straight, thin, and light, hardened by fire, fined down and scraped to a sharp point.  Near these was a gin’s yam-stick—­a stout stick with a sharp, flat point on one end and charred at the other, used for digging up roots, stirring the fire, or chastising a dog or child.  They serve, too, as a weapon of defence.  Quaintest of all these articles were the native “portmanteaus,” that is to say, bundles of treasures rolled up in bark, wound round and round with string—­string made from human hair or from that of dingoes and opossums.  In these “portmanteaus” are found carved sticks, pieces of quartz, red ochre, feathers, and a number of odds and ends.  Of several that were in this camp I took two—­my curiosity and desire to further knowledge of human beings, so unknown and so interesting, overcame my honesty, and since the owners had retired so rudely I could not barter with them.  Without doubt the meat-tins and odds and ends that we left behind us have more than repaid them.  One of these portmanteaus may be seen in the British Museum, the other I have still, unopened.