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.