Page:Tom Petrie's reminiscences of early Queensland.djvu/38

 14 TOM PETRIE'S REMINISCENCES dog ran through between the legs of a blackfellow, and the man stood stock still and called the dog back, making it return through his legs. When asked why, he said they would both die otherwise. Then, again, they travelled along a footpath, which ran up a ridge, where there was but room to walk one by one, and the white boy noticed a half- fallen tree leaning across the way. Coming to the tree, the first blackfellow paused and puUed a bush from the road- side, and, throwing it down on the path, quietly walked round the tree, the rest following him. Father asked the reason, and the man said that if any one walked under that tree his body would swell, and he would die; he also said that he threw the bush down as a warning to the others. My father, of course, boy-like, wished to show there was nothing in all this, and walked assuredly under the tree, drawing attention to the fact that he didn't die. " Oh, but you are white," they said. It was the same thing always with regard to a fence; the aboriginals would never climb through or under a fence, but always over, thinking here too that their body would swell and they would die. In the same way a blackfellow would rather you knocked him down than have you step over him or any of his belongings, because to him it meant death. Supposing a gin stepped over one of them — ^naughty woman! — she would be killed instantly. Father has lain on the ground, and offered to let men, women, and children all step over his body, and if he died they were right in their belief; but, if not, they were wrong. He offered blankets, flour, a tomahawk ; but no, nothing would induce them, for they said they did not wish to see him die. As he survived the great ordeal of walking under a tree, because of being a white man, one would think they would risk the other, especially with a promised reward in view. But not they. Of course, we are speaking of the past; the blacks one sees of late years will go through a fence or under a tree, or any-thing; just as they will smoke or drink spirits. They used to be fine, athletic men, remarkably free from disease, tall, well-made and graceful, with wonderful powers of enjoyment;