The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-01-13
...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 We're
Broken in Body and Mind.

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 a pension
of e12, given him by the Government
Of Tasmania, and another of s10
given him by the Government of Vic
toria, he married a third time-a
(white) widow, with a 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
a 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
sequestration 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 1926 the head of the convict set
Element at Moreton Bay (now Bris-
bane, Queensland) was a stern old
Peninsular officer, Captain Logan,
who governed it as 1t would have
been dangerous to govern a herd of
placid animals. Many of the mad
dened convicts 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 a joint. mission of dis
covery and recovery.
Getting into the neighborhood of
n of the fugitives between Brisbane
and Wide Bay, he sent a letter to him
by a friendly black. The simple de-
vice was successful. Bracebridge,
whose native name was Wandi, came
running eagerly toward them. He
was indistinguishable in appearance
from his native companions. For a
time he was unable to speak. Tears
rolled down his face. Then, remem-
bering the horrors he had escaped.
from, he asked whether punishment
awaited him at the convict station.
His JOY vas unbpunded when he was
told that transportation was at an
end. .-i
B~racebridge 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 Durramboi. 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
connecting a falsehood that he might
entrap him. In a 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 a concrete example
Of the conflict between the good and
evil principles as has been witnessed.
In poetry and in fction-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 raj off to
Petrie's party, soon followed by
B%racebridge. Petrie's words are too
vivid to be weakened by substitution
or paraphrase:
Il shall never forget his CDaVis'1
appearance when he arrived at our
camp-a white man. in a state of
nudity, and actually a wild man OF
the woods; his eyes wild and unable
to rest a 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
tongue as he called it 1.-THE Scottish
dialect. 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
misapplied, breaking off in the middle
Of a sentence with the black gibber.
ish, which he spoke very fuently:
During the whole of our converse.
ton his eyes and manner were com.
pletely wild, looking at US as if he
had never seen a white man before.
In fact, he told us he had nearly for.
gotten all about the society of white
men, and had forgotten all about his
friends and relations for years past,
and a I or ONE one else not
brought him from among these saw
ages, he would never have left them
Fifteen or twenty years ago Davis,
who was the son of a 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.