“On a delightful spring day in August,1864, Mrs John Duff was alone with her three children Jane Cooper, aged 7 years, Isaac Cooper, 9, and their step-brother, Frank Duff, 4, in their cosy little shepherd’s home of bulloak slabs with its gumbark roof and floor of red clay set hard as cement.
Source: SLV
It was a typical Australian boundary-rider’s two-roomed hut on Mr Duncan Smith’s Spring Hill sheep run, in the southern Wimmera. Away to the east rose the serrated ridges of the majestic Grampians Range, and nearer towered Mount Arapiles an isolated peak. Open plains, dotted with eucalypts and sheoaks, stretched away to the South Australian border. To the south lay the celebrated Western District grazing territory. It is the northern area of dense Mallee belts, which was the setting of the story of the Australian Babes in the Woods … On that eventful spring morning Mrs Duff said to the children after breakfast, “Go out to the scrub, children, and gather me some broom-bush to make a new broom.” The children had frequently gone into the adjoining scrub chasing the swiftly dodging paddymelons with the dogs and had previously gathered broom-bush for their mother, so she had no misgivings about their finding their way home.
The children made their way through the shimmering grasses, picking a flower here and there, chasing wild bees and butterflies … They were wandering in a great natural park. At every yard the children found something to interest and fascinate them, with the result that the flight of time passed unnoticed. Suddenly they thought of their mother’s directions to gather broom-bush, then each child picked an armful. The sun was slowly sinking in the west … But the dense belts of Mallee confused their sense of direction, and … they encountered new and unfamiliar scenes.
The lustrous blackness of the soft Australian night encompassed the forests. The children, by direction of Isaac, decided to camp at the butt of a eucalypt tree, which towered above the other giants of the forest … They coo-ed but the only answer was a startling cascade of hilarious laughter which stilled all other bush sounds and made the forest ring. The children knew that laughter well – it was the Kookaburras’ farewell song to the sun.
As the moon rose in the east … a weird thin quivering wail, which developed into a fierce mournful dirge, rose and fell far away towards the Grampians range. The children were afraid, they knew it was a pack of dingoes sitting on their haunches, noses pointed straight up to the stars howling in chorus at moon-rise … Jane took off her skirt and wrapped it around her little brother Frank, who began to whimper as the air became colder. Then the three children, who had made a light cushion of freshly picked eucalyptus leaves, fell asleep. At dawn the children were awakened by the ringing chorus of the Melbas (black and white “magpies”) and the kookaburras – the “settler’s clocks,” who heralded the crimson dawning of the day.
Isaac’s bushcraft stood the children in good stead. Under his direction they gathered the broad eucalyptus leaves, which held pure sparkling diamond dew drops, and quenched their thirst by licking off the moisture. They dug up native yams, gathered cranberries and wild berries and ate them. …
Day after day for eight days they roamed the forest weak and hungry, but they never abandoned hope of finding their way home. Isaac and Jane knew their father would be searching for them. Isaac and Jane took turns at carrying the weary, footsore little Frank, although they too, were weak and exhausted … On one occasion they crossed the dry bed of a creek which, if they had followed it in the right direction, would have taken them to the Wimmera River and civilisation.
When the children did not return home, Mrs Duff became alarmed and walked to Spring Hill Station and informed her husband. A search party was organised by the station people, but as they failed to discover the children on the fifth day, at nightfall Peter McCartney, of Nurcoung, rode north in the night through the bush 60 miles to Mount Elgin Station to fetch DICK-A-DICK, the native tracker. The Australian natives are the world’s cleverest trackers. DICK-A-DICK brought two other natives, TONY and RED CAP, with him to assist in the search.
At Duff’s hut the natives circled but were some time picking up the tracks of the children, as they had been criss-crossed by the white searchers. Once they discovered the trail the pursuit was on and gradually the pace quickened, DICK-A-DICK leading. It was then ascertained that the children had taken a northerly direction leading into the dense mallee scrub …
Sometimes DICK-A-DICK proceeded quickly, almost “galloping” on his hands and feet, occasionally stopping to carefully scrutinise the ground, the grass, leaves and bushes, and then intently to examine the surrounding bush. He pointed out to McCartney where the children had occasionally fallen, rested and slept. “Ah — two fella.” He held up two fingers and appeared to be temporarily puzzled. Then he shouted, “Ah, big fella carry little fella,” and the pursuit proceeded. “Them fella bin sit down.” Three fella walk about. Ah! Him bin thinkit bin close up mia-mia (home). Him bin pickem bush for sweephim broom.” This was the place which the children thought they recognised as being near their home, and where they had picked a fresh lot of broom-bush.
Early in the morning of the ninth day DICK-A-DICK indicated that the children were becoming very weak, and, possibly, they might be found dead. They had ceased to look for berries and yams, he said. “Him bin close up now!” DICK-A-DICK motioned to the two following natives, who were continually glancing over their shoulders to the right and left, as is their habit, and they froze. He then cautiously moved on alone and entered a small open enclosure, with a belt of banksia on the south-side. Then he too froze and pointed ahead and then silently motioned to Duff and McCartney to proceed. DICK-A-DICK‘s job was accomplished – there lay the three children beside a banksia tree, straight ahead.
Duff was overjoyed when he discovered the children were alive. “Daddy, it’s cold— cold. We knew you would come to us,” was all that Isaac and Jane could murmur.
Several years ago, a memorial was erected at a site at Nurcoung near the old home of the Cooper-Duff family, in memory of the heroism displayed by the children.”
Source: The Herald (Melbourne, Vic: 1861-1954) Thu 2 Jan 1938 page 37
Jane Duff Memorial
As a reward, YANGGENDYINANYUK received 15 pounds and was dubbed ‘King Richard’. The miraculous rescue captured headlines and inspired paintings and children’s books across Australia and England. Generations of Victorian school students came to know of ‘King Richard’ and his tracking prowess as they read the ‘Lost in the Bush’ story in compulsory schoolbooks from 1896 to the 1950s. The Wutyubaluk warrior’s “walking feet” have left enduring tracks.
The Australian Babes in the Wood a poem from the Australian School Reader
Source: Digital Collection State Library of South Australia
Source: https://meanjin.com.au/
Contributed by: Dianne Wheeler PPPG Member No.1505