Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1909-01-07
...WILD WHITES OF AUSTRALIA
CONvICTS WHO LOST IDENTITY AND
LANGUAGE - - =. -
Escaping Into the Bush They Lived the Life Of Savages Forgetting
the Ways of Civilization Those Who Returned Were
Broken in Body and Mind.

faithless, and Ito his grim delight)
was speared, with her lover, by the
tribe. He married second time, but
had no children by either wife. Twice
or thrice at the most did the oppor-
tunity Of escape present itself when
ships touched at the bay, but each
time he was bafIled.
Thirty-two Years a Savage.
Nearly thirty-two years had rolled
away when Buckley learned that a
party of whites, who had landed on
the coast, was about to be attacked.
He made two days journey to warn
them. When Governor Arthur soon
after granted him free pardon, the
shock was so great as for some time
to paralyze his atrophied faculties.
At length he took service with an
officer of the regiment he had once
belonged to, which had been sent to
Australia. This he tired of, and he
passed over to Tasmania, where Sir
John Franklin found him something
to do. On the strength of pension
of G12, given him by the Government
of Tasmania, and another of &10
given him by the Government of Vic
toria, he married a third time-a
(white) widow, with daughter. He
was to be seen in Hobart pacing
along the middle Of the road with his
eyes vacantly fixed upon some OBJ
ject before him, never once turning
his head to either side or saluting
passerby and seeming as one not
belonging to the world" Little in
formation about his past or the saw
ages he had lived with could be
cleaned from him. His faculties had
been hopelessly clouded by his long
seuuestration from civilized life. "A
mindless lump of matter" was the ac-
count given of him. He died of an
accident in 1856
Other Runaways.
Wild whites were usually convicts.
In 1925 the head of the convict set
tlement at Moreton Bay (now Bris-
bane, Queensland) was a stern old
Peninsular officer, Captain Logan,
who governed it as it would have
been dangerous to govern herd Of
placid animals. Many of the mad.
dened convcts escaped, finding the
horrors of life among the blacks less
terrible than Logan's merciless rule.
In 1859 it was decided to try to re-
cover some of these absconders. An.
drew Petrie, one of the many Scottish
explorers of Queensland, was sent to
the north on joint mission of dis.
covery and recovery.
Bracebridge was used as a decoy
to recover another man residing with
a tribe at Wide Bay. When they ar
rived at the spot, Bracebridge was
sent forward to meet the other,
Davis. or Durrambci Apparently in
the native language, he explained to
Davis that the station was abolished,
and that Petrie had come to take
them back to Brisbane. Instantly
Davis suspicious were aroused. He
passionately accused Bracebridge of
concocting a falsehood that he might
| entrap him. In moment Brace
bridge was again transformed into
the black fellow, and angrily sang a
challenge to Davis. The two stood
there for a while, each the sport of
| contending natures in him-those of
the black and of the white man-per-
haps as striking concrete example
| of the conflict between the good and
evil principles as has been witnessed.
| In poetry and in fiction-in Tennyson
and Kingsley, Ahriman vanquishes
| Ormuzd. 1t is not always so In real
ity; happily, it was so now. The
white man conquered first in Davis,
the last reclaimed, and he ran off to
| Petrie's party, soon followed by
| Bracebridge. Petrie's words are too
vivid to be weakened by substitution
or paraphrase:
IL shall never forget his GDavis' ]
appearance when he arrived at our
camp-a white man in state OF
nudity, and actually wild man OF
thu woods; his eyes wild and unable
| to rest moment on any one object.
He had quite the same manners and
| gestures that the widest blacks have
got. He could not speak his 'mither's g
tongue as he called 1t 1.-THE Scottish
/ dialectl. He could not even pro.
nounce English for some time, and
| when he did attempt it, all he could
say was a few words, and these often
| ;oo inI II n off IN, tho midi la
OF a sentence with the black gibber.
ish, which he spoke very fiuently.
| During the whole of our converse.
tion his eyes and manner were com.
pletely wild, looking at us as If he
had never seen white man before,
In fact, he told us he had nearly for.
gotten all about the society of white
men, and had forgotten ali about his
friends and relations for years past,
and had | or some one else not
brought him from among these saw
ages, he would never have left them. y
Fifteen or twenty years ago Davis,
who was the son Of blacksmith In
| Glasgow, was still living in Brisbane,
where he kept a small crockery shop.
His strength had been broken by the
hardships of his life among the
blacks, so that he looked ten years
older than he actually was. His re.
serve about his past was invincible.
A tragical case was that of a pro-
| fessor of classics from Columbia Col
lege, New York, who lived in savage
isolation in Northern Queensland.
There, twenty-five years ago, he was
speared by the blacks. Few coun'
tries have witnessed such awful man.
wrecks as Australia. Sydney (Aus-
tralia) Correspondence of the New