ding great corroborees to sing these hurricanes up. One
of this tribe came to the station once and wanted to marry a girl
there. She would not consent, and told him to go home. He went,
threatening to send a storm to wreck the station. The storm came; the
house escaped, but stable, store, and cellar were unroofed. I told my
Black-but-Comelys to kindly avoid such vehemently revengeful lovers for
the future.

CHAPTER X

CHIEFLY AS TO FUNERALS AND MOURNING

I was awakened one morning on the station by distant wailing.

A wailing that came in waves of sound, beginning slowly and lowly, to
gain gradually in volume until it reached the full height or limit of
the human voice, when gradually, as it had risen, it fell again. No
shrieking, just a wailing inexpressibly saddening to hear.

I lay for some minutes not realising what the sound was, yet penetrated
by its sorrow. Then came consciousness. It was from the blacks' camp,
and must mean death. Beemunny, the oldest woman of the camp, who for
weeks had been ill, must now be dead.

Poor old Beemunny, who was blind and used to get her
great-granddaughter, little Buggaloo, to lead her up to the tree
outside my window, under whose shade she had spent so many hours,
telling me legends of the golden age when man, birds, beasts, trees,
and elements spoke a common language. But the day before I had been to
the camp to hear how she was. The old women were sitting round her; one
of the younger ones told me her end had nearly come.

The Boolees, or whirlwinds, with the Mullee Mullees of her enemies in,
had been playing round and through the camp for days, they said,
watching to seize her fleeting spirit--a sure sign the end was near.
That night surely would come Yowee, the skeleton spirit, with the big
head and fiery eyes, whose coming meant death.

Last night more than one of the blacks had dreamt of an emu, which
meant misfortune to one of that totem, which was Beemunny's.

As Yellen spoke in a hushed sad voice, suddenly, though no breath of
wind was stirring, sprang up on the edge of the camp a boolee, rearing
its head as if it were a living thing. Round it whirled, snatching the
dead leaves of the Coolabahs, swirling them with the dust it gathered
into a spiral column, which sped, as if indeed a spirit animated it,
straight to the camp of the dying woman. Round and round it eddied, a
dust-devil dancing a dance of death.

The watchers drew nearer to Beemunny, who w