9 January 1936

EXPENSIVE SNAKE-BITE TREATMENT

Old Time Cure That Cost £80

Some years ago when I was managing a small property in Western Queensland I had an old chap doing some fence repairing. One afternoon while riding home my attention was drawn to a series of loud calls coming from the direction in which I knew the old fellow to be working. The scrub obscured the caller from view, but he had evidently seen me riding across the plain. In a few minutes I had cantered over, and I received quite a shock when the old chap told me that he had been bitten by a big tiger snake.

As proof he showed me his thumb, and while I was looking at it, a small, puffy, blue-colored blister seemed to rise and almost instantly subside again. I had never had any previous experience with snake-bites, but gave what I thought to be the most advisable treatment, namely, by scarring the spot with a knife, dabbing some nicotine on it from my pipe, and tying a ligature around the old chap's wrist.

The homestead was less than a mile away, and while we were walking across I was informed that on climbing out of a creek where he had been fixing a flood gate, the old chap had put his hand on the snake. Too late to kill it, he had seen the snake, a 'six-footer,' wriggle off into some thick scrub. How it had happened did not interest me very much, for what worried me was how I could get the old fellow into the hospital, thirty-five miles away, as he had never been on a horse in his life. There were no cars, of course, they being unknown in Queensland at that time, and all the buggy horses were out in the spell horse paddock.

Immediately on arrival at the house I rang up the matron at the township hospital, and asked her what to do, incidentally telling her what I had already done I carried out the instructions she gave me, namely, to suck the wound, rub in strong Condy's fluid, and then apply a tight ligature; but I forgot to mention that I had a bottle of whisky in the house. However, the old chap solved that problem himself by intimating that he felt sleepy, and suggesting that spirits were usually given in cases of snake-bite. After giving him a big nip I told him to keep himself awake if possible while I rode out for the buggy horses. Luck was with me. for I found them early, and soon we were on our way to town. I must admit that I was rather scared, and at each gate I would ask the old fellow how he felt.

The answer was always the same; he felt sleepy, so, of course, I gave him another nip. There were plenty of gates en route, and long before we got within sight of the town the whisky bottle was a dead marine. It was a worried driver, a pair of almost knocked-up horses, but a patient still alive that shortly before 8 o'clock that evening turned the corner of the township's only street.

As we neared the hotel the old fellow, now surprisingly bright in his manner, asked me to pull up for a minute, stating that he wanted to get a packet of cigarettes. Acting on a weak impulse, I did so, and within a few minutes I heard a loud voice hailing the old fellow in the bar and inviting him to have a drink. As I was anxious to get him to hospital as soon as possible I jumped, out of the buggy and hurried into the bar, to find our snake-bitten friend quite jovial, and at the moment of my entry inviting half a dozen or more to have another drink. I pleaded with him at first, and then became abusive, but it was of no avail. The old fellow refused point blank to go on to the hospital. Ultimately, after I had explained matters to those present, force was used, and a struggling, cursing old man was dragged before the matron at the hospital.

We stayed while the matron attended to him, and then assisted to put the patient to bed, leaving him with a hefty wards-man in charge of him. In a conversation with the matron I was told that there was no danger, so shortly after getting back to the hotel I went to bed.

About midnight I was awakened by the sound of hilarious voices coming from the bar, and hearing the old fellow's loud voice, I got out of bed and went to investigate. He was hopelessly drunk, and was telling everyone what a great cure whisky was for snake bite. Feeling disgusted, I left him at it, and in the morning I learned how he had left the hospital. His courage primed by the whisky he had taken on the way in and at the hotel, the old fellow had told the matron that he had not been bitten at all, intimating that he had inflicted the wound on himself. I must admit that I did not see the snake bite the old chap, but I did at least see what certainly seemed like the marks of the reptile's fangs. That snake bite cost the old fellow the best part of £80. as he remained at the hotel drinking until the cheque I sent in for the work he had done was exhausted.

Later a very sick and sorry man came back to his fencing job, and feeling annoyed at the way things had turned out, I put it to him straight about fooling me. 'A snake bit me all right,' he said, 'but I think it must have been a carpet instead of a tiger.' When sober the old chap spoke nothing but the truth, and I accepted the fresh version of the incident, but it was a fairly expensive one for him.— 'Old Timer.'

Bush Telegraphy

I had always been rather sceptical about the tales told of aboriginal bush telegraphy but an incident that happened whilst en route with bullocks from the Territory into Queensland caused scepticism to give way to wonder.

One morning I heard Tiger and Daylight, the two blackboys, talking in scared whispers, and wondering what was the matter, I walked over. 'Here, what for yabber like frightened gins?' I asked, thinking at the time that one of the men in the camp, not favorably inclined towards blacks, had been abusing them. 'Paddy Lenny die altogether last night,' mumbled Tiger, who at one time or another had been in Lenny's camp.

Taking little heed of what he had said, I forgot all about the incident until three weeks latter, when, on going into Cammoweal, I heard that Lenny had died in Darwin, and, remarkable to relate, on the day previous to the morning on which Tiger had made the announcement. We must have been five hundred miles from Darwin at the time, and I am certain that neither of the two boys knew that Lenny was even ill, let alone that he had been taken to Darwin. Now, how did those two boys get the news? I questioned both Tiger and Daylight afterwards, but all the satisfaction I could get from either was, 'Me been hearum.' There was no such thing as wireless in those days, and to me that incident will ever remain one of the world's mysteries.— 'King's Cross.'

The Biter Bitten

In the early days, when Tinnenburra station, of James Tyson fame, ran many thousands of cattle, I was pretty young, but remember how a practical joker had the tables turned on him in a very realistic manner. Riding out mustering early one morning, and following like the proverbial Brown's cows on horses mostly just broken in, we who were riding behind took little notice when the colt ridden by the head stockman on ahead started to 'go his hardest.'

Not until the colt had finished its evolutions did we find out what had caused a rather quiet horse to perform as he had done. One of the stockmen riding in the lead had killed a snake and, putting it in a bag and thus keeping it out of sight, he had waited his chance, and then quite suddenly had ridden up alongside the head stockman and tossed the snake across the neck of the latter's horse. The head stockman, hard to annoy at any time, took the incident in good part, and as we separated shortly afterwards little more was said about the matter.

At daylight next morning, at the call from the cook we crawled out from under the blankets, to be shortly after wards greeted by a loud yell of alarm from the snake killer of the previous day. 'Quick, snake bit me,' he yelled, pointing to his right foot, his fear being reflected in a face as white as chalk. Naturally, as a means of rendering first aid, a couple of stockmen made ready to apply a ligature, preparatory to scarifying the presumed bite. The patient, whilst the ligature was being tightened, was bemoaning his fate, and if scared looks were any criterion, he was 99 per cent. a corpse.

Our rather sympathetic feelings for the unfortunate man were turned to yells of mirth when quite nonchalantly the head stockman walked over, put his hand in the right boot of the stockman presumably bitten, and withdrawing a headless snake said, 'First time I ever knew of anyone getting bitten by the tail of a snake, but it worked better than I thought. It might teach you a lesson not to play anymore snake jokes.'

We were then told what had happened. The head stockman, after we had separated the day previously, had ridden back, cut the head off the snake and brought it along with him. That night when the practical joker was asleep, the head stockman had placed the headless reptile in the right boot of the former. Socks were not worn much in those days by stockmen, and the effect of bare toes coming into contact with cold snake so early in the morning had achieved the effect hoped for by the victim of the joke the day previously. It did not do to mention snakes to that stockman after that; he was liable to get abusive, but it taught him a lesson. — A.N.M.

Lyndhurst Ghost

Many years ago there was a tradition amongst the blacks near Lyndhurst that a tribe of blackfellows had been smitten by fire from heaven, as a result of some carelessness in the observation of the various food taboos. The young men of the tribe had apparently developed a taste for 'possum, which should have been eaten only by the elders, and the old men used the story to frighten them off 'possum for the future.

At first the whites took no notice of the story, but later several stockmen became convinced that there was something in it. Late in the evening on the Frome could be heard a heavy rumbling, which grew to a crescendo, and then gradually died away. Several doubters visited the spot, and only on one occasion did the ghostly roar fail to materialise. That occasion was when a cattleman living twenty miles further up the river came down to see for himself. He thought things over and, with the aid of a neighbor, proved that the roar only occurred when his boys were bringing in the horses for the night. Evidently some freak of nature brought an echo of the horses' hoofs an immense distance down the Frome when ever they crossed it. It may possibly have been something in the nature of an underground passage, which was never discovered. At all events the boys afterwards made a practice of bringing the horses across at another point, and the thunder only rolled on mustering days after that.— C.M.

Seeing Things

A farmer's daughter in the Lower North one morning rushed into the dining-room and informed her mother and father that there was such a strange man at the back door. The farmer immediately went outside to investigate. When the stranger saw him he said, 'Oh, there they are. They have chased me all the way from Moonta with brooms and shovels. They are coming; they are coming!' and he started to make off. The farmer, after much difficulty, persuaded the man that there was no one to be seen, and that what he was looking at were some cows. He told the man that if he cared to wait till after breakfast the team would be going to the town, and that he could have a ride in. The man accepted the invitation.

After breakfast the team left for the town, the stranger accompanying it. All went well till they were two or three miles on the way, when quite suddenly the strange man said, 'Oh, there they are. They are coming! They are coming!' At the same time he jumped off the waggon and ran at top speed across a paddock, where he soon disappeared among the trees. Whether he was mentally affected or had only been on the spree and was seeing things, the farmer was never able to determine, for otherwise he seemed quite rational.— 'Hopeful.'

Real Life Stories Of South Australia (1936, January 9). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 14. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92339090