CHAPTER XI
Easier travel--The girls improve--How the blacks received them--A largehut--A dainty dish--What might have been--The girls decorate theirhome--Bruno as a performer--"A teacher of swimming"--How we foughtdepression--Castles in the air--A strange concert--Trapping wild-cats--Thegirls' terror of solitude--Fervent prayer--A goose-skin football--How Imade drums.
At length we came to a stately stream that flowed in a NNE. direction toCambridge Gulf. This, I believe, is the Ord River. Here we constructeda catamaran, and were able to travel easily and luxuriously upon it,always spending the night ashore. This catamaran was exceptionallylarge, and long enough to admit of our standing upright on it withperfect safety. After crossing the King Leopold Ranges we struck a levelcountry, covered with rich, tall grass, and well though not thicklywooded. The rough granite ranges, by the way, we found rich in alluvialand reef tin. Gradually the girls grew stronger and brighter. At thistime they were, as you know, clad in their strange "sack" garments ofbird-skins; but even before we reached the Ord River these began toshrink to such an extent that the wearers were eventually wrapped as in avice, and were scarcely able to walk. Yamba then made some make-shiftgarments out of opossum skins.
As the girls' spirits rose higher and higher I was assailed by othermisgivings. I do not know quite how the idea arose, but somehow theyimagined that their protector's home was a more or less civilisedsettlement, with regular houses, furnished with pianos and otherappurtenances of civilised life! So great was their exuberance that Icould not find it in my heart to tell them that they were merely goingamong my own friendly natives, whose admiration and affection for myselfonly differentiated them from the other cannibal blacks of unknownAustralia.
When first I saw these poor girls, in the glow of the firelight, and intheir rude shelter of boughs, they looked like old women, so haggard andemaciated were they; but now, as the spacious catamaran glided down thestately Ord, they gradually resumed their youthful looks, and were verycomely indeed. The awful look of intolerable anguish that haunted theirfaces had gone, and they laughed and chatted with perfect freedom. Theywere like birds just set at liberty. They loved Bruno from the veryfirst; and he loved them. He showed his love, too, in a very practicalmanner, by going hunting on his own account and bringing home littleducks to his new mistresses. Quite of his own accord, also, he would gothrough his whole repertoire of tumbling tricks; and whenever the girlsreturned to camp from their little wanderings, with bare legs bleedingfrom the prickles, Bruno would lick their wounds and manifest every tokenof sympathy and affection.
Of course, after leaving the native encampment, it was several weeksbefore we made the Ord River, and then we glided down that fine streamfor many days, spearing fish in the little creeks, and generally amusingourselves, time being no object. I have, by the way, seen enormousshoals of fish in this river--mainly mullet--which can only be comparedto the vast swarms of salmon seen in the rivers of British Columbia.
We came across many isolated hills on our way to the river, and thesedelayed us very considerably, because we had to go round them. Here,again, there was an abundance of food, but the girls did not take verykindly to the various meats, greatly preferring the roots which Yambacollected. We came upon fields of wild rice, which, apart from any otherconsideration, lent great beauty to the landscape, covering the countrywith a pinkish-white blossom. We forced ourselves to get used to therice, although it was very insipid without either salt or sugar.
Sometimes, during our down-river journey, we were obliged to camp fordays and nights without making any progress. This, however, was onlyafter the river became tidal and swept up against us.
When at length we would put off again in a homeward direction, I sangmany little _chansons_ to my fair companions. The one that pleased themmost, having regard to our position, commenced--
"Filez, filez, mon beau navire, Car la bonheur m'attend la bas."
Whenever the girls appeared to be brooding over the terrible misfortunesthey had undergone, I would tell them my own story, which deeply affectedthem. They would often weep with tender sympathy over the series ofcatastrophes that had befallen me. They sang to me, too--chiefly hymns,however--such as "Rock of Ages," "Nearer, my God, to Thee," "There is aHappy Land," and many others. We were constantly meeting new tribes ofnatives, and for the most part were very well received. Bruno, however,always evinced an unconquerable aversion for the blacks. He was everkind to the children, though mostly in disgrace with the men--until theyknew him.
When at length we reached my own home in Cambridge Gulf, the natives gaveus a welcome so warm that in some measure at least it mitigated thegirls' disappointment at the absence of civilisation.
You see my people were delighted when they saw me bringing home, as theythought, two white wives; "for now," they said, "the great white chiefwill certainly remain among us for ever." There were no wars going onjust then, and so the whole tribe gave themselves up to festivities.
The blacks were also delighted to see the girls, though of course theydid not condescend to greet them, they being mere women, and thereforebeneath direct notice.
I ought to mention here, that long before we reached my home we wereconstantly provided with escorts of natives from the various tribes wemet. These people walked along the high banks or disported themselves inthe water like amphibians, greatly to the delight of the girls. We foundthe banks of the Ord very thickly populated, and frequently camped atnight with different parties of natives. Among these we actually cameacross some I had fought against many months previously.
As we neared my home, some of our escort sent up smoke-signals toannounce our approach--the old and wonderful "Morse code" of long puffs,short puffs, spiral puffs, and the rest; the variations being produced bydamping down the fire or fires with green boughs. Yamba also sent upsignals. The result was that crowds of my own people came out in theircatamarans to meet us. My reception, in fact, was like that accorded asuccessful Roman General. Needless to say, there was a series of huge_corroborees_ held in our honour. The first thing I was told was that myhut had been burnt down in my absence (fires are of quite commonoccurrence); and so, for the first few days after our arrival, the girlswere housed in a temporary grass shelter, pending the construction of asubstantial hut built of logs. Now, as logs were very unusual buildingmaterial, a word of explanation is necessary.
The girls never conquered their fear of the blacks--even _my_ blacks; andtherefore, in order that they might feel secure from night attack (apurely fanciful idea, of course), I resolved to build a hut which shouldbe thoroughly spear-proof. Bark was also used extensively, and there wasa thatch of grass. When finished, our new residence consisted of threefair-sized rooms--one for the girls to sleep in, one for Yamba andmyself, and a third as a general "living room,"--though, of course, welived mainly _en plain air_. I also arranged a kind of veranda in frontof the door, and here we frequently sat in the evening, singing, chattingabout distant friends; the times that were, and the times that were tobe.
Let the truth be told. When these poor young ladies came to my hut theirfaces expressed their bitter disappointment, and we all wept together thegreater part of the night. Afterwards they said how sorry they were thusto have given way; and they begged me not to think them ungrateful.However, they soon resigned themselves to the inevitable, buoyed up bythe inexhaustible optimism of youth; and they settled down to live ascomfortably as possible among the blacks until some fortuitous occurrenceshould enable us all to leave these weird and remote regions. The girlswere in constant terror of being left alone--of being stolen, in fact.They had been told how the natives got wives by stealing them; and theywould wake up in the dead of the night screaming in the mostheart-rending manner, with a vague, nameless terror. Knowing that theordinary food must be repulsive to my new and delightful companions, Iwent back to a certain island, where, during my journey from the littlesand-spit to the main, I had hidden a quantity of corn beneath a cairn
.
This corn I now brought back to my Gulf home, and planted for the use ofthe girls. They always ate the corn green in the cob, with a kind ofvegetable "milk" that exudes from one of the palm-trees. When theybecame a little more reconciled to their new surroundings, they took agreat interest in their home, and would watch me for hours as I tried tofashion rude tables and chairs and other articles of furniture. Yambaacted as cook and waitress, but after a time the work was more than shecould cope with unaided. You see, she had to _find_ the food as well ascook it. The girls, who were, of course, looked upon as my wives by thetribe (this was their greatest protection), knew nothing aboutroot-hunting, and therefore they did not attempt to accompany Yamba onher daily expeditions. I was in something of a dilemma. If I engagedother native women to help Yamba, they also would be recognised as mywives. Finally, I decided there was nothing left for me but to acquirefive more helpmates, who were of the greatest assistance to Yamba.
Of course, the constant topic of conversation was our ultimate escapeoverland; and to this end we made little expeditions to test the girls'powers of endurance. I suggested, during one of our conversations, thatwe should either make for Port Essington, or else go overland in searchof Port Darwin; but the girls were averse to this, owing to their terrorof the natives.
Little did I dream, however, that at a place called Cossack, on the coastof the North-West Division of Western Australia, there was a settlementof pearl-fishers; so that, had I only known it, civilisation--more orless--was comparatively near. Cossack, it appears, was the pearlingrendezvous on the western side of the continent, much as Somerset was onthe north-east, at the extremity of the Cape York Peninsula.
My tongue or pen can never tell what those young ladies were to me in myterrible exile. They would recite passages from Sir Walter Scott'sworks--the "Tales of a Grandfather" I remember in particular; and soexcellent was their memory that they were also able to give me manybeautiful passages from Byron and Shakespeare. I had always had a greatadmiration for Shakespeare, and the girls and myself would frequently actlittle scenes from "The Tempest," as being the most appropriate to ourcircumstances. The girls' favourite play, however, was Pericles, "Princeof Tyre." I took the part of the King, and when I called for my robesYamba would bring some indescribable garments of emu skin, with a gravitythat was comical in the extreme. I, on my part, recited passages fromthe French classics--particularly the Fables of La Fontaine, in French;which language the girls knew fairly well.
And we had other amusements. I made some fiddles out of that peculiarAustralian wood which splits into thin strips. The strings of the bow wemade out of my own hair; whilst those for the instrument itself wereobtained from the dried intestines of the native wild-cat.
We lined the hut with the bark of the paper-tree, which had theappearance of a reddish-brown drapery.
The native women made us mats out of the wild flax; and the girlsthemselves decorated their room daily with beautiful flowers, chieflylilies. They also busied themselves in making garments of various kindsfrom opossum skins. They even made some sort of costume for me, but Icould not wear it on account of the irritation it caused.
The natives would go miles to get fruit for the girls--wild figs, and akind of nut about the size of a walnut, which, when ripe, was filled witha delicious substance looking and tasting like raspberry jam. There wasalso a queer kind of apple which grew upon creepers in the sand, and ofwhich we ate only the outer part raw, cooking the large kernel which isfound inside. I do not know the scientific name of any of these things.
I often asked the girls whether they had altogether despaired in theclutches of the cannibal chief; and they told me that although they oftenattempted to take their own lives, yet they had intervals of brighthope--so strong is the optimism of youth. My apparition, they told me,seemed like a dream to them.
The natives, of course, were constantly moving their camp from place toplace, leaving us alone for weeks at a time; but we kept prettystationary, and were visited by other friendly tribes, whom weentertained (in accordance with my consistent policy) with songs, plays,recitations, and acrobatic performances.
In these latter Bruno took a great part, and nothing delighted the blacksmore than to see him put his nose on the ground and go head over heelstime after time with great gravity and persistency. But the effect ofBruno's many tricks faded into the veriest insignificance beside thatproduced by his bark. You must understand that the native dogs do notbark at all, but simply give vent to a melancholy howl, not unlike thatof the hyena, I believe. Bruno's bark, be it said, has even turned thetide of battle, for he was always in the wars in the most literal senseof the phrase. These things, combined with his great abilities as ahunter, often prompted the blacks to put in a demand that Bruno should bemade over to them altogether. Now, this request was both awkward andinconvenient to answer; but I got out of it by telling them--since theybelieved in a curious kind of metempsychosis--that Bruno was _mybrother_, whose soul and being he possessed! His bark, I pretended, wasa perfectly intelligible language, and this they believed the morereadily when they saw me speak to the dog and ask him to do variousthings, such as fetching and carrying; tumbling, walking on hishind-legs, &c. &c. But even this argument did not suffice to overcomethe covetousness of some tribes, and I was then obliged to assure themconfidentially that he was a relative of the Sun, and therefore if Iparted with him he would bring all manner of most dreadful curses downupon his new owner or owners. Whenever we went rambling I had to keepBruno as near me as possible, because we sometimes came across nativeswhose first impulse, not knowing that he was a dog, was to spear him.Without doubt the many cross-breeds between Bruno and the native dogswill yet be found by Australian explorers.
Our hut was about three-quarters of a mile away from the sea, and in themorning the very first thing the girls and I did was to go down to thebeach arm-in-arm and have a delicious swim.
They very soon became expert swimmers, by the way, under my tuition.Frequently I would go out spearing and netting fish, my principalcaptures being mullet. We nearly always had fish of some sort forbreakfast, including shell-fish; and we would send the women longdistances for wild honey. Water was the only liquid we drank atbreakfast, and with it Yamba served a very appetising dish of lily-budsand roots. We used to steam the wild rice--which I found growing almosteverywhere, but never more than two feet high--in primitive ovens, whichwere merely adapted ants' nests. The material that formed these nests,we utilised as flooring for our house. We occasionally receivedquantities of wild figs from the inland natives in exchange for shell andother ornaments which they did not possess. I also discovered a cerealvery like barley, which I ground up and made into cakes. The girls neverattempted to cook anything, there being no civilised appliances of anykind. Food was never boiled.
From all this you would gather that we were as happy as civilised beingscould possibly be under the circumstances. Nevertheless--and my heartaches as I recall those times--we had periodical fits of despondency,which filled us with acute and intolerable agony.
These periods came with curious regularity almost once a week. At suchtimes I at once instituted sports, such as swimming matches, races on thebeach, swings, and acrobatic performances on the horizontal bars. AlsoShakespearian plays, songs (the girls taught me most of Moore'smelodies), and recitations both grave and gay. The fits of despondencywere usually most severe when we had been watching the everlasting seafor hours, and had perhaps at last caught sight of a distant sail withoutbeing able to attract the attention of those on board. The girls, too,suffered from fits of nervous apprehension lest I should go away fromthem for any length of time. They never had complete confidence even inmy friendly natives. Naturally we were inseparable, we three. We wentfor long rambles together, and daily inspected our quaint little corn-garden. At first my charming companions evinced the most embarrassinggratitude for what I had done, but I earnestly begged of them never evento mention the word to me. The lit
tle I had done, I told them, was mybare and obvious duty, and was no more than any other man worthy of thename, would have done.
In our more hopeful moments we would speak of the future, and these poorgirls would dwell upon the thrill of excitement that would go all throughthe civilised world, when their story and mine should first be made knownto the public.
For they felt certain their adventures were quite unique in the annals ofcivilisation, and they loved to think they would have an opportunity of"lionising" me when we should return to Europe. They would not hear mewhen I protested that such a course would, from my point of view, beextremely unpleasant and undignified--even painful.
Every day we kept a good look-out for passing ships; and from twenty toforty catamarans were always stationed on the beach in readiness to takeus out to sea should there be any hope of a rescue. As my knowledge ofEnglish was at this time not very perfect, the girls took it uponthemselves to improve me, and I made rapid progress under their vivacioustuition. They would promptly correct me in the pronunciation of certainvowels when I read aloud from the only book I possessed--the Anglo-FrenchTestament I have already mentioned. They were, by the way, exceedinglyinterested in the records of my daily life, sensations, &c., which I hadwritten in _blood_ in the margins of my little Bible whilst on the islandin Timor Sea. About this time I tried to make some ink, having quillpens in plenty from the bodies of the wild geese; but the experiment wasa failure.
Both girls, as I have already hinted, had wonderful memories, and couldrecite numberless passages which they had learnt at school. Blanche, theelder girl, would give her sister and myself lessons in elocution; and Ishould like to say a word to teachers and children on the enormousutility of _committing something to memory_--whether poems, songs, orpassages from historical or classical works. It is, of course, veryunlikely that any one who reads these lines will be cast away as we were,but still one never knows what the future has in store; and I have knownpioneers and prospectors who have ventured into the remoter wilds, andemerged therefrom years after, to give striking testimony as to theusefulness of being able to sing or recite in a loud voice.
Sometimes we would have an improvised concert, each of us singingwhatever best suited the voice; or we would all join together in arollicking glee. One day, I remember, I started off with--
"A notre heureux sejour,"
but almost immediately I realised how ridiculously inappropriate thewords were. Still, I struggled on through the first verse, but to myamazement, before I could start the second, the girls joined in with "GodSave the Queen," which has exactly the same air. The incident is onethat should appeal to all British people, including even her MostGracious Majesty herself. As the girls' voices rose, half sobbingly, inthe old familiar air, beloved of every English-speaking person, tearsfairly ran down their fair but sad young faces, and I could not helpbeing struck with the pathos of the scene.
But all things considered, these were really happy days for all of us, atany rate in comparison with those we had previously experienced. We hadby this time quite an orchestra of reed flutes and the fiddles aforesaid,whose strings were of gut procured from the native wild-cat--a verylittle fellow, by the way, about the size of a fair-sized rat; I foundhim everywhere. These cats were great thieves, and only roamed about atnight. I trapped them in great numbers by means of an ingenious nativearrangement of pointed sticks of wood, which, while providing an easyentrance, yet confronted the outgoing cat with a formidable _chevaux-de-frise_. The bait I used was meat in an almost putrid condition.
I could not handle the prisoners in the morning, because they scratchedand bit quite savagely; I therefore forked them out with a spear. Asregards their own prey, they waged perpetual warfare against the nativerats. The skin of these cats was beautifully soft, and altogether theywere quite leopards in miniature. Best of all, they made excellenteating, the more so in that their flesh was almost the only meat dishthat had not the eternal flavour of the eucalyptus leaf, which all ourother "joints" possessed. The girls never knew that they were eatingcats, to say nothing about rats. In order to save their feelings, I toldthem that both "dishes" were squirrels!
My hair at this time was even longer than the girls' own, so it is nowonder that it provided bows for the fiddles. My companions took greatdelight in dressing my absurdly long tresses, using combs which I hadmade out of porcupines' quills.
Our contentment was a great source of joy to Yamba, who was now fullyconvinced that I would settle down among her people for ever.
The blacks were strangely affected by our singing. Any kind of civilisedmusic or singing was to them anathema. What they liked best was theharsh uproar made by pieces of wood beaten together, or the weirdjabbering and chanting that accompanied a big feast. Our singing theylikened to the howling of the dingoes! They were sincere, hardlycomplimentary.
Elsewhere I have alluded to the horror the girls had of being left alone.Whenever I went off with the men on a hunting expedition I left them incharge of my other women-folk, who were thoroughly capable of lookingafter them. I also persuaded the natives to keep some distance away fromour dwelling, particularly when they were about to hold a cannibal feast,so that the girls were never shocked by such a fearful sight. Certainlythey had known of cannibalism in their old camp, but I told them that myown people were a superior race of natives, who were not addicted to thisloathsome practice.
Although we had long since lost count of the days, we always set asideone day in every seven and recognised it as Sunday, when we held a kindof service in our spacious hut. Besides the girls, Yamba, and myself,only our own women-folk were admitted, because I was careful never toattempt to proselytise any of the natives, or wean them from theirancient beliefs. The girls were religious in the very best sense of theterm, and they knew the Old and New Testaments almost by heart. Theyread the Lessons, and I confess they taught me a good deal about religionwhich I had not known previously. Blanche would read aloud the mosttouching and beautiful passages from the Bible; and even as I write I canrecall her pale, earnest face, with its pathetic expression and her low,musical voice, as she dwelt upon passages likely to console andstrengthen us in our terrible position. The quiet little discussions wehad together on theological subjects settled, once and for all, manyquestions that had previously vexed me a great deal.
Both girls were devoted adherents of the Church of England, and couldrepeat most of the Church services entirely from memory. They wanted todo a little missionary work among the blacks, but I gently told them Ithought this inadvisable, as any rupture in our friendly relations withthe natives would have been quite fatal--if not to our lives, at least toour chances of reaching civilisation. Moreover, my people were not byany means without a kind of religion of their own. They believed in theomnipotence of a Great Spirit in whose hands their destinies rested; andhim they worshipped with much the same adoration which Christians give toGod. The fundamental difference was that the sentiment animating themwas not _love_, but _fear_: propitiation rather than adoration.
We sang the usual old hymns at our Sunday services, and I soon learned tosing them myself. On my part, I taught the girls such simple hymns asthe one commencing "_Une nacelle en silence_," which I had learnt atSunday-school in Switzerland. It is interesting to note that this wasBruno's favourite air. Poor Bruno! he took more or less kindly to allsongs--except the Swiss _jodellings_, which he simply detested. When Istarted one of these plaintive ditties Bruno would first protest bybarking his loudest, and if I persisted, he would simply go away indisgust to some place where he could not hear the hated sounds. OnSunday evening we generally held a prayer-service in the hut, and at suchtimes offered up most fervent supplications for delivery.
Often I have seen these poor girls lifting up their whole souls inprayer, quite oblivious for the moment of their surroundings, untilrecalled to a sense of their awful positions by the crash of an unusuallylarge wave on the rocks.
The girls knew no more of Austr
alian geography than I did; and when Imention that I merely had a vague idea that the great cities of thecontinent--Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne--all lay in a southerlydirection, you may imagine how dense was my ignorance of the greatisland. I am now the strongest possible advocate of a sound geographicaltraining in schools.
On ordinary days we indulged in a variety of games, the principal onebeing a form of "rounders." I made a ball out of opossum skin, stuffedwith the light soft bark of the paper-tree, and stitched with gut. Weused a yam-stick to strike it with. My native women attendants oftenjoined in the fun, and our antics provided a vast amount of amusement forthe rest of the tribe. The girls taught me cricket, and in due time Itried to induce the blacks to play the British national game, but withlittle success. We made the necessary bats and stumps out of hardacacia, which I cut down with my tomahawk. The natives themselves,however, made bats much better than mine, simply by whittling flat theirwaddies; and they soon became expert batsmen. But unfortunately theyfailed to see why they should run after the ball, especially when theyhad knocked it a very great distance away. Running about in this manner,they said, was only fit work for women, and was quite beneath theirdignity. Yamba and I fielded, but soon found ourselves unequal to thetask, owing to the enormous distances we had to travel in search of theball. Therefore we soon abandoned the cricket, and took up football,which was very much more successful.
We had a nice large football made of soft goose-skin stuffed with thepaper bark; and in considering our game you must always bear in mind thatboots or footgear of any kind were quite unknown. The great drawback offootball, from the native point of view, was that it entailed so muchexertion, which could be otherwise expended in a far more profitable andpractical manner. They argued that if they put the exertion requisitefor a game of football into a hunt for food, they would have enough meatto last them for many days. It was, of course, utterly impossible tobring them round to my view of sports and games. With regard to theabandoned cricket, they delighted in hitting the ball and in catchingit--oh! they were wonderfully expert at this--but as to running after theball, this was quite impossible.
About this time the girls showed me the steps of an Irish jig, which Iquickly picked up and soon became quite an adept, much to the delight ofthe natives, who never tired of watching my gyrations. I kept them in aconstant state of wonderment, so that even my very hair--now about threefeet long--commanded their respect and admiration!
Sometimes I would waltz with the younger girl, whilst her sister whistledan old familiar air. When I danced, the blacks would squat in a hugecircle around me; those in the front rank keeping time by beating drumsthat I had made and presented to them. The bodies of the drums were madefrom sections of trees which I found already hollowed out by the ants.These wonderful little insects would bore through and through the core ofthe trunk, leaving only the outer shell, which soon became light and dry.I then scraped out with my tomahawk any of the rough inner part thatremained, and stretched over the ends of each section a pair of thethinnest wallaby skins I could find; these skins were held taut by sinewsfrom the tail of a kangaroo. I tried emu-skins for the drum-heads, butfound they were no good, as they soon became perforated when I scrapedthem.
Never a day passed but we eagerly scanned the glistening sea in the hopeof sighting a passing sail. One vessel actually came right into our bayfrom the north, but she suddenly turned right back on the course she hadcome. She was a cutter-rigged vessel, painted a greyish-white, and ofabout fifty tons burden. She was probably a Government vessel--possiblythe _Claud Hamilton_, a South Australian revenue boat stationed at PortDarwin--as she flew the British ensign at the mast-head; whereas apearler would have flown it at the peak. The moment we caught sight ofthat ship I am afraid we lost our heads. We screamed aloud withexcitement, and ran like mad people up and down the beach, wavingbranches and yelling like maniacs. I even waved wildly my long,luxuriant hair. Unfortunately, the wind was against us, blowing from theWSW. We were assisted in our frantic demonstration by quite a crowd ofnatives with branches; and I think it possible that, even if we had beenseen, the people on the ship would have mistaken our efforts for a morehostile demonstration.
When it was too late, and the ship almost out of sight, I suddenlyrealised that I had made another fatal mistake in having the blacks withme. Had I and the two girls been alone on the beach I feel sure theofficers of the ship would have detected our white skins through theirglasses. But, indeed, we may well have escaped notice altogether.
There was a terrible scene when the supposed Government vessel turnedback on her course and passed swiftly out of sight. The girls threwthemselves face downwards on the beach, and wept wildly and hystericallyin the very depths of violent despair. I can never hope to tell you whata bitter and agonising experience it was--the abrupt change fromdelirious excitement at seeing a ship steering right into our bay, to thedespairing shock of beholding it turn away from us even quicker than itcame.