Pens I had in thousands from the quills of the wild swan and goose;and I made ink from the juice of a certain dark-coloured berry, mixed with soot, which I collected on the bottom of my gold cooking-kettle.I also thought it advisable to make myself plates from which to eat my food--not because of any fastidiousness on my part, but from that ever-present desire to impress the blacks, which was now my strongest instinct.In the course of my ramblings in the northern regions I came across quantities of silver-lead, which I smelted with the object of obtaining lead to beat out into plates.I also went some hundreds of miles for the sake of getting copper, and found great quantities of ores of different kinds in the Kimberley district.
A very strange experience befell Yamba not long after I had settled down among the blacks in my mountain home; and it serves to illustrate the strictness with which the laws against poaching are observed.The incident I am about to relate concerned me very nearly, and might have cost me my life as well as my wife.Well, it happened that Yamba and I were one day returning from one of the many "walkabouts" which we were constantly undertaking alone and with natives, and which sometimes extended over several weeks and even months.We had pitched our camp for the afternoon, and Yamba went off, as usual, in search of roots and game for the evening meal.She had been gone some little time when I suddenly heard her well-known "coo-eey" and knowing that she must be in trouble of some kind, I immediately grasped my weapons and went off to her rescue, guiding myself by her tracks.
A quarter of a mile away I came upon a scene that filled me with amazement.There was Yamba--surely the most devoted wife a man, civilised or savage, ever had--struggling in the midst of quite a crowd of blacks, who were yelling and trying forcibly to drag her away.At once I saw what had happened.Yamba had been hunting for roots over the boundary of territory belonging to a tribe with whom we had not yet made friends; and as she had plainly been guilty of the great crime of trespass, she was, according to inviolable native law, confiscated by those who had detected her.I rushed up to the blacks and began to remonstrate with them in their own tongue, but they were both truculent and obstinate, and refused to release my now weeping and terrified Yamba.At last we effected a compromise,--I agreeing to accompany the party, with their captive, back to their encampment, and there have the matter settled by the chief.Fortunately we had not many miles to march, but, as Ianticipated, the chief took the side of his own warriors, and promptly declared that he would appropriate Yamba for himself.Iexplained to him, but in vain, that my wife's trespass was committed all unknowingly, and that had I known his tribe were encamped in the district, I would have come immediately and stayed with them a few nights.
As showing what a remarkable person I was, I went through part of my acrobatic repertoire; and even my poor eager Bruno, who evidently scented trouble, began on his own account to give a hurried and imperfect show.He stood on his head and tumbled backwards and forwards in a lamentably loose and unscientific manner, barking and yelling all the time.
