第83章

On returning to my friends on the other side of the lagoon Ilearned for the first time that there was a half-caste girl living among them; and subsequent inquiries went to prove that her father was a white man who had penetrated into these regions and lived for some little time at least among the blacks--much as I myself was doing.My interest in the matter was first of all roused by the accidental discovery of a cairn five feet or six feet high, made of loose flat stones.My experience was such by this time that I saw at a glance this cairn was not the work of a native.Drawings and figures, and a variety of curious characters, were faintly discernible on some of the stones, but were not distinct enough to be legible.

On one, however, I distinctly traced the initials "L.L.," which had withstood the ravages of time because the stone containing them was in a protected place.

Naturally the existence of this structure set me inquiring among the older natives as to whether they ever remembered seeing a white man before; and then I learned that perhaps twenty years previously a man like myself HAD made his appearance in those regions, and had died a few months afterwards, before the wife who, according to custom, was allotted to him had given birth to the half-caste baby girl, who was now a woman before me.They never knew the white stranger's name, nor where he had come from.The girl, by the way, was by no means good-looking, and her skin was decidedly more black than white; I could tell by her hand, however, that she was a half-caste.

On the strength of our supposed affinity, she was offered to me as a wife, and I accepted her, more as a help for Yamba than anything else; she was called Luigi.Yamba, by the way, was anxious that Ishould possess at least half-a-dozen wives, partly because this circumstance would be more in keeping with my rank; but I did not fall in with the idea.I had quite enough to do already to maintain my authority among the tribe at large, and did not care to have to rule in addition half-a-dozen women in my own establishment.This tribe always lingers in my memory, on account of the half-caste girl, whom I now believe to have been the daughter of Ludwig Leichhardt, the lost Australian explorer.Mr.

Giles says: "Ludwig Leichhardt was a surgeon and botanist, who successfully conducted an expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, on the northern coast.A military and penal settlement had been established at Port Essington by the Government of New South Wales, to which colony the whole territory then belonged.At this settlement--the only point of relief after eighteen months'

travel--Leichhardt and his exhausted party arrived.

"Of Leichhardt's sad fate, in the interior of Australia, no certain tidings have ever been heard.I, who have wandered into and returned alive from the curious regions he attempted and died to explore, have unfortunately never come across a single record, nor any remains or traces of the party."Leichhardt started on his last sad venture with a party of eight, including one or two native black-boys.They had with them about twenty head of bullocks broken in to carry pack loads."My first and second expeditions," says Giles, "were conducted entirely with horses, but in all subsequent journeys I was accompanied by camels." His object, like that of Leichhardt, was to force his way across the thousand miles of country that lay untrodden and unknown between the Australian telegraph line and the settlements upon the Swan River.And Giles remarks that the exploration of 1000 miles in Australia is equal to at least 10,000 miles on any other part of the earth's surface--always excepting the Poles.

I continued residing on the shores of the lagoon in the hope that my patient would eventually get better, when I proposed continuing my journey north.I was still quite unable to understand his babblings, although he was for ever mentioning the names of persons and places unknown to me; and he constantly spoke about some exploring party.He never asked me questions, nor did he get into serious trouble with the natives, being privileged.He never developed any dangerous vices, but was simply childlike and imbecile.

Gradually I had noticed that, instead of becoming stronger, he was fading away.He was constantly troubled with a most distressing complaint, and in addition to this he would be seized with fits of depression, when he would remain in his hut for days at a time without venturing out.I always knew what was the matter with him when he was not to be seen.Sometimes I would go in to try and cheer him up, but usually it was a hopeless effort on my part.

Of course he had a wife given him, and this young person seemed to consider him quite an ordinary specimen of the white man.Indeed, she was vastly flattered, rather than otherwise, by the attentions lavished upon her husband by her people.One reason for this treatment was that she was considered a privileged person to be related in any way to one whom the natives regarded as almost a demi-god.She looked after him too, and kept his hut as clean as possible.One morning something happened.The girl came running for me to go to her hut, and there lay the mysterious stranger apparently stretched out for dead.I soon realised that he was in a fit of some kind.