Saturday 18 January 2014

"A Fearsome Story of Central Australia..."



In late 1889, The Bulletin published the reconstructed diary of an engineer working on the overland Telegraph from Adelaide to Port Darwin (now just Darwin). The diary contained information of an unprecedented nature, not only the approximate location of a gemstone quarry-site, but the existence of a sub-human subterranean species of hominids with references in the local tribal lore. The diary was reconstructed after being found on the mummified corpse of the engineer: it was badly damaged by exposure to the elements and much of it was lost. The provider of the information to The Bulletin (also the transliterator) claimed in his covering letter that he was himself about to embark upon an expedition to the seam of gemstones in the Northern Territory; however, it is not known whether his efforts amounted to anything.


The engineer in question has been identified as one Steven F. Crane. His employment by the Overland Telegraph Company is a matter of public record and his record contains no blemish or scandal. It is said by those who knew him that he was engaging, intelligent, and a loyal company man. The contents of the diary demonstrate that perhaps those who knew him were not completely able to read his character, as a strong ambition and desire for material wealth is evidenced within those pages. The events of the diary take place during a six-month period of leave from the company which he sought permission to take and, such was the regard in which he was held by his superiors, was not refused.


Crane organised horses and camping equipment and headed north from Adelaide in the company of another man to whom he refers only as “Jackson”. A “W. Jackson” is listed on the company books at the time with a notation that he was “Absent – Whereabouts Unknown” from a date almost a year previous to Crane’s departure from Adelaide in March 1888. It is assumed that Crane’s companion and this man are one and the same.


According to the diary, Crane discovered Jackson while out with a line repair crew: he had made his way to the line after being nursed back to health by a group of Aboriginals, the only survivor of a three-man team sent by the Company to survey new territory in the north of the state of South Australia. In aiding Jackson’s rehabilitation, Crane discovered that Jackson was privy to the whereabouts of a large seam of rubies somewhere in the McDonnell Ranges. Taking the linesman in hand, he decided to return to the seam and stake a claim upon it, making their fortunes in the process. He duly submitted his request to take six-month’s leave of absence.


Arriving at the location – somewhere eight day’s march northwest of Charlotte Waters on the Finke River – the pair found a narrow defile in the Ranges which they named ‘Ruby Gorge’. A day’s work there rewarded them with twenty rubies of fine quality, one described by Crane as “living fire”. As well, they located a series of low caves, several of which seemed, from the marks of old fires, to have been used as campsites. The duo explored one of these and discovered a strange monkey-like being, which startled them and disappeared with a splash into an underground stream. Jackson told Crane that he thought it to be a “jinkarra”, a species of spirit creature which the local tribespeople had informed him about.

Further probing into the cavernous depths revealed that a whole society of these creatures dwelt there, their territory kept secret by the presence of a subterranean river system. Crane and Jackson captured several of the inhabitants and inspected them closely:

“Never did I see such a repulsive wretch as our prisoner. Apparently he was a young man about two or three and twenty, only five feet high at the outside, lean, with thin legs and long arms. He was trembling all over, and the perspiration dripped from him. He had scarcely any forehead, and a shaggy mass of hair crowned his head, and grew a long way down his spine. His eyes were small, red and bloodshot...never did I smell anything so offensive as the rank smell emanating from this creature. Suddenly Jackson exclaimed: ‘Look! Look! He’s got a tail!’ I looked and nearly relaxed my grip of the brute in surprise. There was no doubt about it, this strange being had about three inches of a monkey-like tail.”

Further examination proved that the tail was no anomaly, but consistent throughout the gathering of creatures. Unfortunately, their investigations proved to be Jackson’s undoing: he apparently slid down a natural chimney in the rock – part of the subterranean water system – and was lost. According to Crane’s narrative, he became trapped in the caverns by a sudden flooding of the underground stream and spent sixty hours stuck in the pitch darkness, not knowing if he was going to be attacked by the strange jinkarras or not.


Emerging days later from his ordeal, Crane discovered that their horses had returned towards the line, leaving the camp abandoned. Packing himself a light pack, he set out towards the telegraph line himself, hoping to make it in a day or so. Sadly it was not to be: his body was discovered – mummified by the desert conditions – almost a year later by a line repair crew which stumbled across him.

*****


Several questions arise out of this tale. The transcriber of the diary contents mentions that no rubies were found on Crane’s corpse: it seems odd that Crane would not have tried to take at least one stone with him on his desperate strike back towards civilisation; his descriptions of these stones certainly indicate that he would have tried to recoup something from his disastrous expedition. Another mystery is the fate of Jackson: Crane seems to quickly assume that the linesman died in the dark cave without doing too much to ascertain otherwise. Certainly, from some of the diary’s comments regarding Jackson, Crane might well have jumped to a conclusion which suited him financially. It might be possible that Jackson will stagger once more out of the desert fastnesses...

Publication of the diary’s contents in The Bulletin doesn’t seem to have caused the sort of stampede that talk of Lasseter’s Reef has periodically sparked; reports of fantastic ruby strikes in the McDonnell Ranges have not made the press to date. There are several possibilities as to why this is the case. Firstly, the whole incident might be a hoax and gossip surrounding the report might well have made this fact abundantly clear; certainly The Bulletin was never known for its unbiased or un-larrikin-like reportage. Secondly, it may well be that the information in the article was deliberately falsified to throw other prospectors off the scent. Finally, apropos of nothing, the directors of the Overland Telegraph Company posted a notice in 1890, in several major Australian newspapers, underscoring the fact that geological discoveries made by persons in its employ all became property of the Company. Could the ruby strike have been hushed up by the Company’s board of directors?


Finally, of the jinkarras, no further report has been heard. Crane’s document credits this race with knowledge of fire-making and the manner of Jackson’s so-called death implies that tool and trap-making are also within their purview. Local Aboriginal legends among the Wangkangurru and Arabana peoples indicate that the jinkarras have sinister motivations in regard to the tribes’ children and people wandering solo after dark. Until further attempts to return and locate the “Haunt of the Jinkarras”, no more information will be forthcoming.

In the meantime, there is this interesting image taken from the archives of the Adelaide Public Library...

(Source: Ernest Favenc, “A Haunt of the Jinkarras”, 1890)



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