Her dog-like fidelity to me never wavered, and I know she would have laid down her life for me at any time.
Often I told her of my own home beyond the seas, and when I asked her whether she would come with me, she would reply, "Your people are my people, and your God (spirit) my God.I will go with you wherever you take me."At length everything was ready, and I paid a final farewell, as Ithought, to my black friends in Cambridge Gulf, after a little over eighteen months' residence among them.They knew I was venturing on a long journey overland to another part of the country many moons distant, in the hope of being able to get into touch with my own people; and though they realised they should never see me again, they thought my departure a very natural thing.The night before we left, a great corroboree was held in my honour.We had a very affectionate leave-taking, and a body of the natives escorted us for the first 100 miles or so of our trip.At last, however, Yamba, myself, and the faithful dog were left to continue our wanderings alone.The reliance I placed upon this woman by the way was absolute and unquestioning.I knew that alone I could not live a day in the awful wilderness through which we were to pass; nor could any solitary white man.By this time, however, I had had innumerable demonstrations of Yamba's almost miraculous powers in the way of providing food and water when, to the ordinary eye, neither was forthcoming.I should have mentioned that before leaving my black people I had provided myself with what I may term a native passport--a kind of Masonic mystic stick, inscribed with certain cabalistic characters.Every chief carried one of these sticks.I carried mine in my long, luxuriant hair, which I wore "bun" fashion, held in a net of opossum hair.This passport stick proved invaluable as a means of putting us on good terms with the different tribes we encountered.The chiefs of the blacks never ventured out of their own country without one of these mysterious sticks, neither did the native message-bearers.I am sure I should not have been able to travel far without mine.
Whenever I encountered a strange tribe I always asked to be taken before the chief, and when in his presence I presented my little stick, he would at once manifest the greatest friendliness, and offer us food and drink.Then, before I took my departure, he also would inscribe his sign upon the message stick, handing it back to me and probably sending me on to another tribe with an escort.It often happened, however, that I was personally introduced to another tribe whose "frontier" joined that of my late hosts, and in such cases my passport was unnecessary.
