The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1893-04-01

the natives credit for a well-nigh mi
raculous skill in using it. In both
cases the facts are--well, exaggerated
do not assert that the boomerang
is incapable of inflicting serioss injury
If made when in full flight to strike
an opposing body, but that the Aus
tralian blacks habitually employ it as
an efectire means of offense / do not be.
lieve.
For several years lived in the bush
and on the gold fields of tina. country.
During that time / came iEto almost
daily contact with members of various
tribes, and in no one instance did l
ever see the boomerang used otherwise
than as plaything. Its form, ma
terial, light weight and bluntness unfit
it, l think, for deadly execution, and.
however skillfully manipulated, it is
next to impossible for its thrower to
hit with it an aimed at, even motion
less object, much less an active human
enemy or moving beast or bird.
Possibly some of the far interior
blacks may use a mof60heavily-con-
structed boomerang in war and for the
chase, but / have seen q good deal of
the belligerent tribes of the Murray
river and its tributaries, the Darling
and Murrumbidgee, and never noticed
any OF them carrying other than the
light weapon.
1t is only fair to add, however, that
almost everywhere, among the early
white settlers-shepherds and the like
Il was met by more or less startling
stories of the fearful execution wrought
by the boomerang in battle, but the
narrator had always heard the story
from some one else.
profess to give only what my own
eyes have seen. / do not pretend that |
my few years wanderings in Australia |
have given me an extensive knowledge |
OF that vast island continent and its |
original inhabitants.
The blackfellow, with infinite toll
and patience and by the aid of fire and
such rude cutting tools as he possesses,
makes his womera, or kylee, out of any
suitable hard wood, usually from a
naturally bent limb of the karraway,
she oak or box tree; and sometimes.
perhaps, from the body of an ironbark
sapling, If crooked one can be found
When finished, the missile is any
where from two to three feet long, is
approximately parabolic in form, has
q width of two and one quarter to three
inches and thickness of about FIVE
Fights OF an inch. Its ends are rounded;
It's concave face worked fiat and its
convex side is brought to a dull edge.
In hurting it the black grasps it firmly
by one end. convex side outward and
Hat side up, and then, with quick mo-
hon. as If bent on striking an object I
some way in advance, projects it vio- 8
emily forward, at the same instant I
his hand, and the imple-
nent hY IS through the air with a rotary \
notion, lasccnds to some height, Turns | Z
lbout, ind finally falls to the ground Z
behind. in front of, or at one side of the
hrowers
In the'month of December, 1852, a I
lumber of us, all shipmates, who had a
ONE out in the sailing ship Revenue. =
apt. Seth Crowell. which left the port 5,
4 New York July Sd of that year, S,
we're encamped on the river Lodden, in n
ne colony of Victoria. Among us ~
here was fine, handsome fellow of I,
wenty-six, lawyer by profession.
AIMED Richard O'Brien. He hailed IL
rom Brooklyn, L. l., had been only n
wo years married and had left his 70
Dung wife in the city of churches M
lille he came to seek his fortune on W.
le Australian gold fields. ~
Dick, as we called him, was subject so
to good deal of pleasant banter a
I'd. probably, some secret envy, be- w,
use he always wore on the little En- tn
r OF his right hand a heavy, plain WI
I'D ring, his wife's parting gift. On Nc
G inside OF the hoop of this ring was ha
graved loving woman's PRAYER in
simple words: God keep my hus- SUI
nd and verify believe that not all pa
wealth of the mines would have we
npted Dick to part with it. Bu
The word was not then in nse cleo WI
lsrien would undoubtedly have said she
at the precious trinket was his mas wo
, Tor, so far. his luck had been ex. list
ptionally good. for
A dozen times a day, when he \
ought himself unobserved, he would pri
&c on the ring, look yearningly at to
inscription and then fall to work hat
AIN with increased energy, as if to /"
stem the day of his return TO its fair sit
nor.
We We're all young men under twep- S
eight, and, however we might ~. lv
I to laugh at their display, we fully tha
npa'niAea with Dicks feelings, for and
- ~. VI Us was beginning to suf- har
- 80. .n"s 'errioie nome sickness, low
I,,rss % ., winch is, perhaps, ting
oy .nose wno' as we then the
palaoeo from kindred and quit
ntry by thousands of miles of track wer
-, lool
ne morning-it was Sunday, and we wre
e not working-a swarm of black -,
'"s came about our tents. begging excl
signs for damper (unleavencd All
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