ABORIGINAL SMOKE SIGNALS. 499 



consideration, realise that what may at first sight seem incredible 

 and impossible is after all of quite common occm-rence in all bush 

 fires : that effects seen in uncontrolled power and beauty accom- 

 panying such fires quite possibl)^ ^^'^^J h^ and, as a matter of fact, 

 are systematically and methodically employed and controlled by 

 our despised but intelligent natives. 



The use of beacon fires and signal smoke can be traced back to 

 the infancy of nations. The mountain peaks of Persia bore aloft 

 her warning signals in the remote past. In the Agamemnon of 

 JEschylus, the Greek commander is represented as communicating 

 the intelligence of the fall of Troy to his Queen, Clytemnestra, at 

 Mycense, in the I'eloponnesus.* In Palestine the southern hills 

 showed similar signals. f Hannibal employed signal smokes to out- 

 wit the Gauls at the Rhodanus (b.c. 218). In England and Scot- 

 land such signals were m constant use.;|: The Indians of California, 

 the Apache warriors, and the ('omanche Indians were and are pro- 

 ficient in the use of smoke signals. Speaking of the last, Mr. Ban- 

 croft says " there is used everywhere on the prairies a system of 

 telegraphy which perhaps is only excelled by the wires them- 

 selves."! 



So, too, the Australian aborigine is found to be in possession of 

 a marvellously efficient system of smoke signals. Indeed, it was 

 from seeing these smokes thac Captain Cook first learned that 

 Australia Avas inhabited. || On the afternoon of Friday, the 20th 

 day of April, 1770, the smoke signals, as they were sent whirling 

 up into the soft cool air, were taken as proof, by the lion-hearted 

 Cook, that the land (Australia) he had discovered but yesterday 

 was the home of a new race of humanity ; and the same smokes 

 spoke to the ever-wary eyes of these nomads of the wilds of the 

 presence upon their southern seas of a strange big "canoe" with 

 white bird wings spread out to the southern breeze, and the 

 warning sped on from point to point along the coast. From 

 Cape Howe to Vlaming Head, from the York to the Leeuwin, 

 through and across all Australia, adventurous voyagers and ex- 

 plorers have been ever greeted by the smoke -flags of the watchful 

 native. 



Flinders, a.d. 1823, when exploring Spencer's Gulf, judged, by 

 the signal smokes to the north-eastward, that the natives there 

 were numerous, and dwelt in a land of plenty. Sir George Grey, 

 A.D. 1830; Eyre, 1840; Mitchell, 1832, on the Darling; Sturt, 

 1845 ; Stuart, 1862 — explorers all — were greeted with these signals 

 as they traversed the hitherto uninvaded territory of the Australian 

 blacks. 



* Chambers's Eneyclop., vol i., p. 813. t Jeremiah, chap, vi., v. i. 



t Chambers' Eneyclop., vol i., p. 813. 



1 H. B. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, pp. ^80, 497, 519-21), 



vol. I. 



II Lieutenant Cook's Voyage Round the World. First voyage, vol. in. pp. 485, 510. 



