BY R. HAMLYN-HARRIS. 27 



Left to themselves it is astonishing the terrible ordeals 

 Avhich natives can pass through, ordeals under the influence 

 of which whites would probably succumb. It would appear 

 from reliable sources, principally l)lacks of 6(> to 70 years 

 of age, now long since dead, that syphiUs existed amongst 

 the blacks long before the advent of the white man. 



In the 1883 drought, which was a very severe one 

 out west, Mr. W. H. Watson \\as living at Currawilla 

 Station at the time, and has informed me since, that sj^philis 

 was very bad amongst the blacks, so much so, that the 

 king ordered all the Avorst cases out of the main bush camp, 

 to a sandhill that was about three quarters of a mile away. 

 Air. Watson went into that camp one day with one of his 

 blacks, who was much more intelligent than most 

 Aboriginals : some of the patients both male and female 

 were a mass of corruption. He asked his blackboy if these 

 bad cases would recover I His reply was : — " iSupposin' 

 rain come up and plenty of pig weed jump up, that one all 

 right." Well, rain did come in March, 1884. and there was 

 any quantity of picweed. which the blacks were very fond 

 of, and used to eat raw as \\ell as baked under the ashes, 

 ajid most of the diseased blacks were healed and «ere able 

 to hunt fish as well as ever. 



The presence of white men amongst blacks for some 

 <jonsiderable time, often leads on their liberation to con- 

 jsiderable information being obtained, but as regards 

 <^,ueensland, we have not been particularly fortunate. 



Miss Petrie in her father's ' Reminiscences of Early 

 ijueensland " (103) gives two instances, the most notable 

 amongst which was the return to civilization of James 

 Davies, known as "' Duramboi," through the instrument- 

 a.Iity of Mr. Andrew Petrie in 1842. 



'" Duramboi " lived with the blacks for 14 years, 

 and it is a most regrettalile fact that no records exist of the 

 life he led amongst them. Nothing would induce him to 

 say anything about the blacks except to adxnse those 

 desirous of information to take their clothes off and go 

 .and live amongst them as he had done. It would be in 

 teresting to know what was exactly in '" Duramboi's " 

 mind and the reason of his mental attitude. 



