Songs of the Murray Mallee.

Chapt’ 4..part #3..

The passing of Wagga.
It had been a cold winter, a cold but dry winter, so the cold bit right into the bone. Wagga suffered in this now old age from the long-term consequences of his living quarters and lifestyle. His long time companion cat, Satan, had died some three months previous and Wagga buried him nearby on the sloping bank of the river. Wagga placed a large rock over the site as both memorial stone and to protect the site from disturbance.
This night, Wagga slipped into a soft, gentle coma, from which he would not wake. In his depth of unconsciousness, he started to dream…
“Come, Satan” he called “We have work to do.”
Wagga dreamed he launched his old skiff, which in reality was in no condition any longer to be used as a flotation boat, being partially submerged on the edge of the river until only its once brave name showed above the waterline..
The “Buona Fortuna”, lay dormant for the best part of two years in that same place.
“Come Satan, we will take the boat for we have to collect some passengers downstream.” And Wagga placed the oars along with drinking water and some blankets into the boat and letting Satan leap onto the prow, edged the Buona Fortuna into the course of the Murray River for one last journey.
They cruised slowly toward the cliffs of Swan reach, where they pulled into the shore to pick up a solitary man standing, waiting on a spit of sand.
“Hello, Mr Evans”. Wagga called “Come on board”. And the man stepped into the skiff and in his hand he held out a penny, “Oh no, Mr Evans, your fare has already been paid”, the man dropped his arm and settled onto the rear seat as Wagga again pulled out into the surge of the river. After some time gently being carried by the current downstream, Wagga again pulled over to the river bank where two young children stood waiting.
“Hello Anthony, Hello Vera” Wagga called to them..The children silently waved and when Wagga held the boat secure, only the boy, Anthony climbed into the boat. The little girl held out a penny in her extended arm, which Wagga let her drop into a lidded tin with a slot in it.”Thank you, Vera.” Wagga said, then started to pole the boat away from the shore. “Well, cheerio, Vera, I’m sorry, it’s not your turn yet, we will have to see you some other time.” And Wagga again eased the boat into the river.
In this manner, Wagga picked up another passenger, Artini, the Italian..who climbed into the boat in silence, dropped his penny into the held out tin, and settled next to Mr Evans on the rear seat.That left only one more passenger to pick up and this one was the one Wagga treasured the most and it wasn’t long before he saw her standing, in her long, white cotton dress on the bank of the river. Wagga pulled over alongside the woman who smiled at him and he offered his hand to steady her alighting into the boat. She placed one hand on his shoulder and held her broad-brimmed hat in the other. Wagga settled her onto her seat and then held the collection tin out to her..into this tin she too dropped in one shiny penny. The Lady of the River sat next to Wagga and there, in that sturdy craft, the two of them took an oar each and facing to the front of the boat they eased that craft pointing toward the destination of the lower lakes Alexandrina and Albert..their final destination.
Wagga then rowed this cargo of souls past the cliffs of Nildottie, past Greenways Landing, past the long sweeping bends of Purnong, Bow Hill and Younghusband, past the Carlet Lakes and Teal Flats, down, down the river in soft but swift carriage did those souls travel, silently sweeping past The Mannum and the lower reaches of the swamplands and floodplains of the Murray, past The Mypolonga, Murray Bridge, the Jervois Flats and the Tailem Bend..The Murray-Moorundi, that had re-formed into the now River Styx .. The small craft no lounger so small, but now as big as an Ark, full of the treasures of history, the passengers no longer just individuals, but representatives of the people of history..The Wends and Sorbs become the Venerdi and Suebi that fought the Romans to a standstill on the Vistula and Danube rivers, Bodecia and Calgacus who fought for their freedom on the isle of Britain, Artini, the Italian renewed as the "Garibaldi one thousand" who fought for the liberation of the Italian Peninsula..Onward and onward, sometimes on the Murray River waters themselves, sometimes in the sky, Moorundi gave them  swift passage, they were played toward their destination by the music of Wagner, sometimes, Puccini, sometimes with the hum of an oboe, many times with the sharp clacks of indigenous music sticks and the soft growl of a didgeridoo..The God, Odin gave them courage, Apollo gave them wisdom while Aphrodite and Zeus gave them power. They were serenaded with the poems and songs of Henry Lawson, Banjo Patterson and Adam Lindsay Gordon, told stories from the books of great writers and philosophers, dreamed the dreams of wonderous people ; the heroic dreams of Julius Caesar and Cleopatra, the troubled dreams of Raskolnikov, the wild Oscar Wilde and Therese Raquin…the dreams of Tess, the dark-eyed indigenous girl that inadvertently lured Artini to his death, the Lady of the River, Satan the cat, Tess of D’Urberville, Finnigan of the wakes, Penelope of the Bloom’s wife, Joseph the carpenter. Many dreams trailed with the travellers as they sped to their final destiny, and while there were only the six passengers in the Buona Fortuna, there was accompanying them in this Ark the legions of humanity gone before them into the world of light and darkness. They themselves making a slim, blinding streak of fading light across the sky as they sped to their final goal, their final home out through the rushes and reed beds of Wellington, out through the lower waters of the river into the vast, open waters of the Lake Alexandria- Yarluwar-Ruwe, bursting onto those lakes like a rush of wild wind, where a fog of low cloud on such a winter’s day swallowed them and their spirits into the deeper, darker world of soft eternity.
Wagga, with his black cat, Satan, and his cargo of passengers on his trusty craft, The Buona Fortuna, had silently passed from this world into the world of Dreaming time.

As the sunset upon the evening,
So a sunset closely drawing,
Upon The Mallee softly glowing,
We hear crow announce its going,
Calling, crying, lowing crrrarking!
Carrakkkk, carrrarking treetop calling,
The crow call to its family waning.
No more hear the butcher bird chortle,
No longer hear the honeyeater sparkle,
The magpie with the wagtail squabble,
Galahs and the cockatoos chatting,
The kangaroo with joey in the stubble.
Wombat and possum trumble.
We hear the wanton, woeful die ,
Of the bush curlew’s evening cry.
So we will leave our story telling,
Our story of our ancestors telling
That came from afar seas a-sailing,
Their story is done telling,
As are their lives done living,
Only the shadows now remaining.
Now, I have told you of their stories,
Now is the time for our passing.

The End.