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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Dog Guard: An Australian Story</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There are lonesome places upon the earth <br>That have never re-echoed a sound of mirth, <br>Where the spirits abide that feast and quaff <br>On the shuddering soul of a murdered laugh, <br>And take grim delight in the fearful start, <br>As their unseen fingers clutch the heart, <br>And the blood flies out from the griping pain, <br>To carry the chill through every vein; <br>And the staring eyes and the whitened faces <br>Are a joy to these ghosts of the lonesome places.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But of all the spots on this earthly sphere <br>Where these dismal spirits are strong and near, <br>There is one more dreary than all the rest,— <br>'Tis the barren island of Rottenest. <br>On Australia's western coast, you may— <br>On a seaman's chart of Fremantle Bay— <br>Find a tiny speck, some ten miles from shore: <br>If the chart be good, there is something more,— <br>For a shoal runs in on the landward side, <br>With five fathoms marked for the highest tide. <br>You have nought but my word for all the rest, <br>But that speck is the island of Rottenest. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Tis a white sand-heap, about two miles long,<br>And say half as wide; but the deeds of wrong<br>Between man and his brother that there took place<br>Are sufficient to sully a continent's face.<br>Ah, cruel tales! were they told as a whole,<br>They would scare your polished humanity's soul;<br>They would blanch the cheeks in your carpeted room,<br>With a terrible thought of the merited doom<br>For the crimes committed, still unredrest,<br>On that white sand-heap called Rottenest.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Of late years the island is not so bare<br>As it was when I saw it first; for there<br>On the outer headland some buildings stand,<br>And a flag, red-crossed, says the patch of sand<br>Is a recognized part of the wide domain<br>That is blessed with the peace of Victoria's reign.<br>But behind the lighthouse the land's the same,<br>And it bears grim proof of the white man's shame;<br>For the miniature vales that the island owns<br>Have a horrible harvest of human bones!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And how did they come there? that's the word; <br>And I'll answer it now with a tale I heard <br>From the lips of a man who was there, and saw <br>The bad end of man's greed and of colony law. <br>Many years ago, when the white man first<br>Set his foot on the coast, and was hated and cursed<br>By the native, who had not yet learned to fear<br>The dark wrath of the stranger, but drove his spear<br>With a freeman's force and a bushman's yell<br>At the white invader, it then befell<br>That so many were killed and cooked and eaten,<br>There was risk of the whites in the end being beaten;<br>So a plan was proposed,—'twas deemed safest and best<br>To imprison the natives in Rottenest.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And so every time there was white blood spilled, <br>There were black men captured; and those not killed <br>In the rage of vengeance were sent away <br>To this bleak sand isle in Fremantle Bay; <br>And it soon came round that a thousand men <br>Were together there, like wild beasts in a pen. <br>There was not a shrub or grass-blade in the sand, <br>Nor a piece of timber as large as your hand; <br>But a government boat went out each day <br>To fling meat ashore—and then sailed away.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For a year or so was this course pursued,<br>Till 'twas noticed that fewer came down for food<br>When the boat appeared; then a guard lay round<br>The island one night, and the white men found<br>That the savages swam at the lowest tide<br>To the shoal that lay on the landward side,—<br>'Twas a mile from the beach,—and then waded ashore;<br>So the settlers met in grave council once more.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">That a guard was needed was plain to all; <br>But nobody answered the Governor's call <br>For a volunteer watch. They were only a few, <br>And their wild young farms gave plenty to do; <br>And the council of settlers was breaking up, <br>With a dread of the sorrow they'd have to sup <br>When the savage, unawed, and for vengeance wild <br>Lay await in the wood for the mother and child. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And with doleful countenance each to his neighbor<br>Told a dreary tale of the world of labor<br>He had, and said, ' Let him watch who can,<br>I can't;' when there stepped to the front a man<br>With a hard brown face and a burglar's brow,<br>Who had learned the secret he uttered now<br>When he served in the chain-gang in New South Wales.<br>And he said to them: ' Friends, as all else fails,<br>These 'ere natives are safe as if locked and barred,<br>If you'll line that shoal with a mastiff guard!'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And the settlers looked at each other awhile, <br>Till the wonder toned to a well-pleased smile <br>When the brown ex-burglar said he knew, <br>And would show the whole of 'em what to do. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Some three weeks after, the guard was set;<br>And a native who swam to the shoal was met<br>By two half-starved dogs, when a mile from shore,—<br>And, somehow, that native was never seen more.<br>All the settlers were pleased with the capital plan,<br>And they voted their thanks to the hard-faced man.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">For a year, each day did the government boat <br>Take the meat to the isle and its guard afloat. <br>In a line, on the face of the shoal, the dogs <br>Had a dry house each, on some anchored logs; <br>And the neck-chain from each stretched just half way <br>To the next dog's house; right across the Bay <br>Ran a line that was hideous with horrid sounds <br>From the hungry throats of two hundred hounds. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So one more year passed, and the brutes on the logs <br>Had grown more like devils than common dogs. <br>There was such a hell-chorus by day and night <br>That the settlers ashore were chilled with fright <br>When they thought—if that legion should break away, <br>And come in with the tide some fatal day! </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But they ' scapod that chance; for a man came in <br>From the Bush, one day, with a 'possum's skin <br>To the throat filled up with large pearls he'd found <br>To the north, on the shore of the Shark's Bay Sound. <br>And the settlement blazed with a wild commotion <br>At sight of the gems from the wealthy ocean. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then the settlers all began to pack<br>Their tools and tents, and to ask the track<br>That the bushman followed to strike the spot,—<br>While the dogs and natives were all forgot.<br>In two days, from that camp on the River Swan,<br>To the Shark's Bay Sound had the settlers gone;<br>And no merciful feeling did one retard<br>For the helpless men and their terrible guard.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">It were vain to try, in my quiet room,<br>To write down the truth of the awful doom<br>That befell those savages prisoned there,<br>When the pangs of hunger and wild despair<br>Had nigh made them mad as the fiends outside:<br>'Tis enough that one night, through the low ebb tide,<br>Swam nine hundred savages, armed with stones<br>And with weapons made from their dead friends' bones.<br>Without ripple or sound, when the moon was gone,<br>Through the inky water they glided on;<br>Swimming deep, and scarce daring to draw a breath,<br>While the guards, if they saw, were as dumb as death.<br>'Twas a terrible picture! O God! that the night<br>Were so black as to cover the horrid sight<br>From the eyes of the Angel that notes man's ways<br>In the book that will ope on the Day of Days!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">There were screams when they met,—shrill screams of pain!<br>For each animal swam at the length of his chain, <br>And with parching throat and in furious mood <br>Lay awaiting, not men, but his coming food. <br>There were short, sharp cries, and a line of fleck <br>As the long fangs sank in the swimmer's neck; <br>There were gurgling growls mixed with human groans, <br>For the savages drave the sharpened bones <br>Through their enemies' ribs, and the bodies sank, <br>Each dog holding fast with a bone through his flank.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then those of the natives who 'scaped swam back; <br>But too late! for scores of the savage pack, <br>Driven mad by the yells and the sounds of fight, <br>Had broke loose and followed. On that dread night <br>Let the curtain fall: when the red sun rose <br>From the placid ocean, the joys and woes <br>Of a thousand men he had last eve seen <br>Were as things or thoughts that had never been. </a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=419046" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">When the settlers returned,—in a month or two,—<br>They bethought of the dogs and the prisoned crew.<br>And a boat went out on a tardy quest<br>Of whatever was living on Rottenest.<br>They searched all the isle, and sailed back again<br>With some specimen bones of the dogs and men.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=John+Boyle+O%27Reilly">John Boyle O'Reilly</a></strong></div>