Western Mail 29 August 1940, page 9
A Hot Ride to Darlot
The summer of 1895 stands out in my memory as a very hot one. We had sold our claim at Darlot, and our party of five were splitting up. Two had gone to the coast for a holiday. Bill and I had bought camels and were going out prospecting again. The fifth member of our party had been left behind to look after things until the company sent along a manager.
All that remained to be done was for me to take the company’s manager to Darlot and bring our other mate back to Coolgardie. The company’s manager or captain was an elderly Cornishman. He had only been in the country a few weeks. He was short and stout, with a schoolgirl complexion. I doubt if he had ever seen, a camel until he came to Coolgardie. And I am quite sure he had never ridden one. So, you can guess what the poor old chap was like after a few days in or rather on the saddle in extremely hot weather.
The company had bought him a camel, which was supposed to be a good riding camel. It was the tallest and most awkward brute I ever saw. When it walked the old chap would slide fore and aft like a bale of goods, and when it jogged, one could see daylight under him at every stride. Large blisters formed on his hands and face, and he soon became so saddle sore and stiff that I had to help him on and off his mount, but the old boy was one of the bulldog breed all right. Although I often heard him groaning at night, he never once complained. However, I am sure the;
“Thank God we are here at last” he uttered when we reached Darlot
came from the very bottom of his heart. After a day’s rest, the other member of our party and I left for Coolgardie and arrived there on December 20. The same day I loaded up with stores. I also put in a few tins of butter that Bill had asked me to bring along. Early the following morning I left again for Dingo Soak, where Bill was waiting for me with the rest of our outfit.
The third evening after leaving, I camped to the east of Menzies. The weather was still very hot, and my riding camel was limping badly. The outside pads on her hind feet were worn through. I hoped that by keeping to the soft country as much as possible, I could get through before Christmas. Christmas Eve was a blazing holiday. About midday, I got into stony country, and my riding camel lay down and refused to get up. When I looked at her feet, I saw two patches of raw flesh as large as a penny. It must have been sheer agony for her to travel on the hot ground.
The only thing to do was to make a pair of boots for her. I had shod many horses, but to put boots on a camel’s hind feet was a different proposition. Anyhow, I had a go at it. I cut the flap off one of my pack bags for the soles. The next thing was to get something for uppers. I had very little gear with me. An old waterbag would have been all right, but I only had one waterbag, and that was about half full of water, with no chance of getting any more until I reached Dingo Soak, about fifteen miles distant.
After looking through my things, I decided to cut about a foot off the legs of a new pair of moleskin pants. With the aid of a pocketknife and some twine, I sewed the moleskin onto the leather. I then split the leg, and after a lot of trouble, I got the boots tied on. It was not a very elegant-looking job, but I thought it would serve the purpose until I got to the soak. But the camel thought otherwise. As soon as I started off, she would start to kick. Several times I had to re-sew the moleskin on again, and twice I had to put on new cloth. My new pants were completely ruined. They would have been too short for anything, even a woman tennis player.
Night was coming on, and I was still about twelve miles from the soak. I had enough water for tea, so I decided to camp. I left the boots on the lame camel and tied her up. I was up early the next morning. I decided to leave the lame camel and ride the other one to the soak. Then I thought I would try her with the pack. I don’t know whether she had got used to the boots, or whether she was afraid to be left behind, but she followed behind like a lamb, and we arrived at Dingo Creek in plenty of time for Christmas dinner. After Bill had asked me a lot of questions about my trip and criticised the camel’s boots, he said: “Did you bring the butter?” Until the camel caved in, I had kept the butter, well covered with wet bagging, but after that, it had slipped my memory. I could not have spared the water, anyhow. When we opened a tin, we found it was just oil on top, and a white creamy sediment at the bottom.
I could see Bill was very disappointed about the butter, so I brought out one of the couple of bottles of whisky I had brought along. After a couple of nips, Bill brightened up. Then he remembered that someone had told him that butter that had melted could be made as good as new by heating it until it boiled, then well stirred and placed in a cool place to harden. Bill followed these instructions and then buried the tin in the cold sand near the soak.
After dinner, we were about to have another nip, and then an afternoon siesta when some visitors arrived. They were Harry Blevins, Jim Connelly, Yank, the mining expert, and Garry Heavens. They had come from Blevins’s claim not far away. It’s wonderful how these old-timers can tell when there’s a drop of the ‘stuff that cheers’ about. By the time the two bottles were finished, all hands were feeling a bit peckish, so we decided to have afternoon tea.
While I was boiling the billy, Bill went to the soak to retrieve his butter. When he returned without it and said it had disappeared, all hands went to the soak to investigate. We could not find any butter or any tracks about the soak. In fact, the soak was within plain view of the camp, and it would be very difficult for anyone to come near it without being seen. Anyhow, we had our afternoon tea, and those who had butter had to spread it on with a spoon. When I was clearing up after tea, I noticed a tall, thin native woman approaching. When she got near, I could see that her body had been well oiled, and what I took to be grey hair was the cream from Bill’s butter on top of her head. She had poured it over her head and rubbed it well in. Bill and the others were having a snooze, but when I called to Bill and told him I had found his butter, they were all out quick and lively.
Bill only needed one glance to tell him what had happened. He grabbed a stick from one of the camel saddles and chased her. But before he reached her, she was in top speed. The further they went, the further Bill fell behind. She took the wide creek in two strides. Bill stopped and threw the stick at her, but it was no good-she was going faster than the stick. Thus ended Bill’s experiment with melted butter, and Christmas, 1895.
J.E.T. – Nedland
Moya Sharp
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