Oxley- a short story. Brisbane, Australia.

"Finnegan's Luck" - A short story about discovering the Brisbane River

This is a work of complete fiction.

It's about the river and the land and a strange passage in their relationship over a period of three days from the 2nd of December, 1823, to the 4th.

On the river, the story has tried to reconstruct what happened in the whale boat and on its journey and has stuck closely to the historical facts.

On the land, it's an impossible tale of heroism and military genius. And there are no inconvenient written records that can douse an imagination caught afire with what might have been.

Brisbane River Historical Map

Finnegan's Luck

is a story, an historical fiction,
about John Oxley's discovery of the Brisbane river. Quotes are single for excerpts from the literature and double for imagined conversations.

The 26-foot whale boat glided rhythmically on the still waters of what seemed like a large lagoon. It was in fact an elbow of a new river, to be for Europeans the 'Brisbane River'. "60 chains wide at this point", Oxley said to himself, writing down the equivalent 3/4 mile in his field diary. It was about 11 a.m. on Tuesday the 2nd of December, 1823. The day was 'calm and fine'. Cool little breezes fanned the brows of the four rowers and at that fresh stage they'd have felt in a pleased way to be the manly engine of the enterprise. The party had come to a rocky point on starboard, at a large creek mouth. The light was preternaturally bright and if there had been white buildings along the far bank downstream the river could have been one of the sea-reaches of a great city like Venice. Oxley caught a feeling of sea in the air and named it 'Sea Reach'. A few Aborigines were around and they beckoned, running and shouting. "They seem of a most friendly disposition", said Oxley in a murmur to his surveying companion, Lieutenant Stirling. John Finnegan, a castaway Oxley had picked up the day before, strained to see if he could recognise any of the running figures. He had been looked after by many dark friends for months since a boat-wreck on Moreton Island. He had actually already travelled a fair distance up this river with companions, Thomas Pamphlett and Richard Parsons, and was taken along by Oxley as a guide.

John Oxley, Surveyor-General of Lands in the new colony of New South Wales, had arrived in the Moreton Bay area only a couple days before with a brief from Governor Brisbane to discover a suitable spot for the relocation of the worst convicts in the Sydney settlement. In short order, to his amazement, he found Finnegan and Pamphlett and was told Parsons had struck north to try to walk to Sydney. If it hadn't been so wearing on these men, the idea of walking north to Sydney would have been comical. Oxley kept this reflection to himself. He had arrived in H.M. Cutter 'Mermaid', anchored now a good ten miles away seaward and in the capable command of Capt. Penson and John Uniacke. Ahead, lay a few days of exploration of a large river trending westerly and already turning fresh. Oxley determined to push this enterprise to the limits of his strength and supplies. With no presence of an imminent mountain chain ahead, he had already the dawning realisation that he was in the process of discovering the longest and most majestic river in the whole Colony.

Not all the natives on that shore were of a friendly disposition. One tall, athletic fellow, watching from behind a tree at Garran-binbilla (Newstead Point) was curious and not pleased. When the whale boat moved off in the direction of Bulimba, a shore then thick with the plants of a rain-forest and topped with magnificent hoop pine, this man ran to his family on the Hamilton side of Yowoggera (Breakfast Creek). He bade them farewell. He kissed his young daughter goodbye tenderly. She had thin legs, a perfect curve for a forehead, long, long eyelashes and cascading ringlets of rich brown-black hair. The man did not like this white intrusion into what had been forever a hidden, virginal river; it felt like a violation. He had to see them round the Binkin-ba (New Farm) bend so as to know whether they were going further or had turned back. Speed was of the essence as he ran along the trail in Breakfast Creek Road towards the Valley. He headed towards Bowen Terrace through the open forest of iron-bark and blue gum and the day was still young and cooler than usual. Crossing James Street, he put a spurt on up the hill in a sudden anxiety that he would see nothing and then just have to wait perhaps days to see them return, sated, unassailable in these wider reaches of the river.

He was lucky.He heard voices and crept forward. From an angle, he could see the moored boat and figures eating. Others, a couple in hats, had climbed up. For Oxley, this stop was a welcome break for food and a delightful, leg-stretching opportunity to climb to a prominence and survey the surrounding country. Trees and hills combined in their inconvenience to deny him much view of anything. He found the running survey of the river that was required by his discipline as explorer tedious and tiring. Theoretically, he envied the boatmen who just had to row mechanically and could chat or chaff each other in any idle holiday manner. For Oxley and Stirling, from station to station along the river: the north compass bearing to the next had to be recorded; the distance; the forward nature of the country; the width of the river in chains or miles; the on-going depth in fathoms; its freshness; the nature of the country this side; the other side; seeing natives or special plants like the hoop pine, the apple tree and hibiscus. All to be written down in field notes. Stirling's job was also to map the river, pen in fathoms and append descriptions of the country seen beyond. Finnegan was not expected to do much beyond sounding. He was in a weakened state, to be sure, with the privations of months. Oxley had had good first impressions but it hadn't take long to understand Finnegan as a dependent personality of doubtful competence.

The Aborigine, named Nioka after the Green hills of Mount Ommaney that were the patrimony of his extended family, slipped off unseen. He guessed they were continuing. He wanted to catch them again at the William Jolley Bridge and judged he had time to lope easily along the Turbot Street trail. Trails were everywhere. 'Numerous were the beaten paths of the wild Aborigine.' wrote Allan Cunningham, King's Botanist, not a year later. Nioka had a special position in both the Turrbal group and Yuggera language groups of the Bay and River north and south for he had an extraordinary skill and style in the art of scarification, a deep cutting of the body for adornment. It was a hereditary position. He had learned the trade from his father, still in practice, and also the kindest way to pierce noses and amputate female little fingers. He had a mutual acquaintance with all the clans around about, from the Bribie to the Ningy, Coorparoo and Yerongpan. He knew their ways and their trails and of all people in Brisbane he had the sharpest picture of the mighty river and its serpentine ways. Arriving at the junction of Turbot Street and the river, he walked upstream to a large blue gum close to the bank. He peered towards Meannjin (The Domain) waiting for that little sudden bulge in the forest edge that would grow into the whale boat. As he gazed, he thought of many boats coming, full of white men, seizing hands, stony faces, the firing of guns. (Nioka had once seen a gun fell a pelican). "Many men must not come". He knew that.

Oxley and party set off easefully in the flood tide to a station near the Custom House and from there to under the larboard cliffs. Starboard was a low rainforest scrub with a few 'cypress' as Oxley took the hoop pine to be. He noted with a deepening satisfaction that the river showed no diminution at all in width and depth. Admiring the cliffs, paying scant attention to the Domain, he had all eyes on the open forest and grasses of South Brisbane. "Rich flats, fine timber!", he exclaimed loudly to Stirling above the general conversation of the boat. Stirling agreed, In fact he couldn't think of a better description and wrote it down verbatim on his mud map. As they passed a low, sharp triangle of land (Montague Street), no one noticed the nets in place to catch the game driven into this natural trap. They made for Nioka's tree, quitted by him not ten minutes before, and marked it as Station 10 in the field notes. To larboard, as they proceeded, was a long and luxuriant tract of rain-forest smothered in vines. "Remark the vines!", said Oxley, "Volubilous and scandent.", assuming the manner of a pedantic botanist. He moved an imaginary spy-glass in and out of an imaginary focus. Stirling laughed. One of the boatmen had a surprised twinkle in his eye.

Nioka had become one of the shadows in the screen of trees along Coronation Drive. He could keep an eye on the nautical progress up the fine crescent reach to Baneraba (Toowong). Not able to distinguish individuals, he wondered if the party was a return of John Bingle who had anchored in Pumicestone Channel about two years before. He had since met the lost and wretched cedar-cutters of the Moreton boat wreck. They called him 'Doctor' because of his trade. He had felt sorry for them and liked them and on occasion shared fish and fern root. But this had all been many months before and now he could hardly remember their faces. One thing was for sure: there was nothing at all wretched about that boat. It had the air of a superior being that had stepped into a primitive world and was without a by-your-leave measuring the strange beast that lay at its feet. The unbrookable authority of it made Nioka fearful; the arrogance made him angry. "Boats are just wood, these white men can be speared", he thought.

Oxley and Nioka arrived at the Regatta Hotel at about the same time. It was a bora ground. A few men were wandering around and Nioka met up with a young kinsman, Dalpie. The whale boat made as if to land. Nioka clutched his spears and considered the advisability of a sudden, overwhelming spear rush after the boatmen had stepped ashore. He could have got the men around to do this, in quick time. You might say Nioka was born to command. With a bottomless well of confidence and a visionary grasp of military tactics, Nioka had bent large groups of men to his will before in many battle situations. "Better wait", he thought. He and Dalpie followed the boat around the curve to a point where they could see it leave Sandford Street and head in the direction of Kurilpa (West End). Nioka had become familiar with its rhythm. It seemed to stop many times in mid-stream where a man would then hang something over the side. It always stopped longest close to the shore. Another man, in a wide, yellow hat, would then stand up and peer down at his hands for a seeming age. Then, on that man sitting down, the boat would again get under way. It was all very mysterious. "Wait till they move again and go around the bend", he told Dalpie. They did. He told Dalpie what was happening. "We'll go to Milbarpa (Indooroopilly), wait for them there". Dalpie, like many, was one of those men who had become an unquestioning instrument of Nioka's will; like a third arm.

The explorers continued dutifully. They were getting tired. From 1.30 p.m. they had been rowing against a current strengthened by an ebb tide. They stopped at Highgate Hill and Dutton Park stations. This larboard land was high and rocky and opposite ran the familiar, vine-covered rain-forest scrub. Oxley was a bit concerned by the sudden narrowing of the river to ten chains and wondered whether his vision of another twenty miles of pre-eminent navigability might soon founder in some small lake or worse and more likely in some big swamp. But he rounded the bend at Cemetery Reach and his spirits rose. The wide, gleaming reach of Long Pocket lay before. The sun was setting and threw to larboard the shadows of the boat, the men, the trees and a rock they came upon midway in the river. It was time to camp. On a sudden, Oxley abandoned his projected Station 15. Stirling concurred with a concealed relief. They pulled over to starboard and clambered up a forested and bushy bank to a clear, grassy swath. Oxley said about that night: 'We passed a miserable night, mosquitoes and sandflies almost devoured us.'.It was no wonder they were up on their journey as early as 5.30 a.m. on the Wednesday the 3rd of December.

It would have been about 4 p.m. that Nioka and Dalpie started at an easy pace for Indooroopilly. From his new experience of the boat's speed, Nioka knew he had plenty of time. "It will be dark when they pass. We must stay awake and watch.", he thought. Following a trail from the river, roughly along Aston Street, they crossed Burns Road and started to climb up the stony hill that led to the high ridge of Swann Road. They came upon Clarence Road at an angle and descended the precipitous bank to a point in the river from where they could command a view of the whole Indooroopilly Reach and a bit of Canoe Reach before it disappeared around the Tuwong forest (Long Pocket). Later, Nioka wondered why he had not camped higher up with an even better view. On their way, Nioka and Dalpie had fallen in with another kinsman, Darel, fossicking around with others just where Sandy Creek flowed into a swamp at the lowest point of Clarence Road. "Join us", Nioka suggested. He could; he did, bidding his wife farewell and grabbing a couple of fire-sticks. Nioka and party spent a far more comfortable night than Oxley and party as they had gone to the trouble of building a gunyah that kept out the mosquitoes. They had to keep awake long past bedtime peering into the darkness, straining their ears for the sound of oars. They gave it up at about 9 p.m. deciding the boat must have stopped for the night.

For some reason, even though they had embarked at the crack of dawn, it took over an hour for the whale boat to clear the first station at the western end of The Esplanade, St. Lucia. Shortly after, Oxley recorded the turn of the tide at 6.40 a.m. Although no mention was made of it in the field book, all admired the sandy beaches of Yeronga and the clear, greenish view down to the bottom at two fathoms where they had stopped for the station. "What a delightful place to swim", Stirling ventured, who would have dived in at the drop of a hat. Oxley nodded appreciatively without indicating any sort of permission. They moved on to Station 4 and here they landed. At this point, just downstream of Tennyson power house, the river was very wide and very muddy. Oxley spent an hour at Station 4. He took tree and soil samples at all levels above the river up to thirty feet. He made the discovery that his cypress was really a type of pine. Estimating the height of the tallest hoop pine at 140 feet high, he said to the men with some warmth that the trees were 'of a scantling fit for top-masts'. He addressed the seamen particularly, thinking they would know the requirement. None did, but all nodded in a considered sort of way. They moved on to Oxley Creek. Oxley, in his rather facile way when it came to naming things, called it 'Canoe River'. Not considering Finnegan a worthy discoverer, he attributed the discovery to 'Parsons and his companions'. Ahead lay the Taylor Range including Mount Coot-tha; forest land rising up from the distant banks of a noble and wide reach of river. It was a good start to the day and a promise of a truly wonderful river that seemed to widen rather than narrow. "Of course, it's getting shallower", said Oxley to himself, correcting an upside-down world where rivers grew towards their source. They took a Station 6 near Clarence Road at about 10 a.m. having hurried along Indooroopilly Reach and there they saw three yelling and painted natives on the heights. They made such a hullaballoo and danced around in such a regular way that Oxley thought they were 'evidently strangers to white people'. Just at that moment that they moved from Station 6 to Kinloch Street on the same starboard side and under the future Indooroopilly bridges, the natives instantly stopped their noise. "Hullo,", thought Ruddock, one of the rowers, "what are they up to?".

At about 2 a.m., Nioka had a revelation about this chasing game that had been going on for only a day. He'd had time to sleep on it. It became clear. They must not get further and think then they'd conquered the land and owned it. They are to be stopped here at Milbarpa and the way to do it was to call upon one of the most sacred and minatory war-dances in the repertoire of the Turrbal group. "We will prepare ourselves and then dance the words of the Magil (water dragon). They will stop and turn back under this power or ignore it and we will skewer them with spears.", he said to himself. The word skewer reminded him of food and he wondered if they would be good to eat. At that, he fell asleep again, contented. They struck camp at about 6 a.m. and made for a higher vantage-point. They prepared themselves with red and white paint, the red obtained from crushing a form of jasper and the white from the finest ash of the fireplace. They were beginning to think the boat had turned back when they saw its ineluctable and threatening shape in deliberation around the mouth of Oxley Creek. They started the dance and it was in a full emotional flood when the boat made a station directly under the dance platform. It did not turn back. It seemed to have received the message but then seemed to ignore it. "Do they know?", Nioka wondered as he watched the departing boat, "Or do they care?". The die was cast. They were now to die. Nioka had tried all he could to save them. He knew instinctively that the longer the deaths could be delayed the better because it would be that much harder for any investigators to find any trace. And there would be no trace. The wonderful boat would have to be burnt, the bodies buried or otherwise used (if they tasted good).

Oxley's crew swept on apace with the gathering flood tide and around the generous curve leading into Chelmer Reach. Approaching Lone Pine Sanctuary on the starboard along diminished reaches, the larboard shore showed up muddied rock banks with seeming rich land beyond while the starboard kept up its tracts of a rich rain-forest scrub and hoop pines. Oxley and Stirling admired the high, cliff-like banks of the larboard shore lit up with the flashing white of the hibiscus heterophyllus. At Station 12, just below Sinnamon Park, Oxley made a bearing for a point one mile distant on the same side. Like Station 15 the previous evening, it was a station never to be. They encountered a thirty-yard reef of rocks over which the full tide flowed with impelling force. With some difficulty, they sounded two fathoms and then made for a starboard station. Oxley did not think these rocks were a permanent impediment. "They could be blasted if necessary", he muttered to himself, predicting innocently what did in fact happen a century later. At Station 13 on the starboard, the 'brush' as Oxley called it (rain-forest scrub) that covered the land and banks of Fig Tree Pocket had given out. It was open, hilly forest country as they moved to Station 14 at Centenary Bridge. And just downstream and at that very moment, Nioka and his companions arrived from Indooroopilly.

The stop at Station 14 gave them time to catch their breath and Nioka crystallised the last bits of a plan he had been devising since their desperate dash from Indooroopilly. When the whale boat moved on from Kinloch Street, Nioka knew then for sure it was defying Magil. It was going to be a short boat journey to around the next bend. Nioka had to be in position to either watch the boat turn back or sail on in its conquering way past the homelands at Mount Ommaney and past a deadly trap that was yet to be constructed. "We have to run fast", he told his friends. They sped along the pleasant river path that was Radnor Street and then cut up the stony hills of Riverglenn and Jay Park. It was sultry day and their sweat ran freely. From their high ground, they could sometimes see the boat ahead. It seemed to have stopped at one stage as they were slightly ahead of it the next time. They descended in great strides, throwing up dust, to the thick rain-forest around Cubberla Creek and took water and some of the food they carried in a dilly bag. From there, there were more dusty hills with sharp stones and then a long stretch of open, grassy land leading to the river. They didn't have to break any new paths; trails were everywhere.

Oxley admired the fine crescent reach that lay behind and ahead and a name for it popped into his head. "What about Mermaid Reach?", he said to himself. He had just that moment been thinking of the cutter in the Bay, wondering about the distance they had gone and whether they'd be going back hungry. They rowed past Mosquito Island to starboard and Station 15 would have been a bit more upstream had they known the Moggill Creek debouched into the river only fifty yards further. At Station 15, Oxley had no trouble in fixing Station 16 at the 'base of sloping, clear hills on larboard shore'. Stirling called the highest of them 'Green Hill' and marked it on his map. It was Mount Ommaney. Oxley, Stirling and Finnegan had their backs to the downstream. Ruddock, the closest oarsman to them on the starboard was just fleetingly in a position to see a dark, curly head crossing the stream in a clumsy, waddling way with a long stick held up high above. "A spear!", thought Ruddock, and thought of pointing it out but by then it had vanished. He didn't bother mentioning it in the end as Oxley and Stirling were engaged in an animated discussion about whether a huge, interior lake was feeding this huge river that never seemed to be shoaling. They left Station 16 and saw many Aborigines in this populous area. They exchanged waves and shouts and continued around the sharp bend. A few two-tail duck were then startled from their cover on the bank and a couple of them shot down by one of the rowers.

Nioka waited until the boat had left the creek of the water dragon before he dashed into the water and manipulated himself across to the far bank with his two spears between his legs, hugged to his chest and pointing high above his head. Dalpie and Darel followed. It was a laggard Dalpie that Ruddock had spotted. Nioka planned to run along Mount Ommaney Drive and reach his homeland at the foot of the green hills, all the time keeping the boat in view. There was no time to be lost. He succeeded. He saw it disappear out of sight towards Station 17. He then heard the shots. "No pelican up here.", he said to himself puzzled. He then remembered that he had been through this calculation before: the gun could fire at other birds. It could fire at his own people. The power of the boat assumed a graver aspect. Nioka grew fearful but it was not fear that could undermine his resolve. It was a compassion, the pain of putting things to death with the cruel spear. He couldn't dwell on that now. He knitted his brows concentrating on the brilliant plan that would bring everything to that conclusion.

Apple tree and eucalypus were the arboreal masters on the starboard side of the 'Rich flats of Land' that Stirling wrote on his map. The river went through some tighter curves and then just past Pullen-Pullen Creek, the boat pulled in to shore. They ascended the bank. Oxley noted the level country and the rich, sandy loam. "Corn, wheat, sugar cane, the richest productions of the tropics, can just flow down to the sea", he said at large to the company. It was true. No-one could disagree. They continued around another bend and then made a gentle left turn into a reach that stretched for two miles. At this point it would have been about 1 p.m. As they approached Station 22 on Prior's Pocket, the view to the next station showed the river in all its beautiful shapes and colours: wild hibiscus; 'various climbing plants in full flower'; a towering bank on larboard and to starboard a point of land terminated with a shield of many tall gums. To crown the glory, a most mysterious island to the larboard, thick with brush.

They landed at the south-eastern end of Prior's Pocket, lunched and rested. They then crossed to Station 24 on the larboard side and landed. Ruddock, Finnegan, Oxley and Stirling climbed the small hill named 'Termination Hill' by Oxley and duly marked in on Stirling's map, a hill of about 150 feet in the grounds of Wolston Park Hospital. Looking out for mountainous country, Oxley immediately noted a tall peak at a distance of 25 to 30 miles and guessed (incorrectly) that it was Mt. Warning. He was pleased to see that the country all around seemed if anything to descend in elevation; this could only support his pet theory that some distant inland body of water supported the great length and depth of that river he had already decided to name after the Governor. After descending to the boat, Finnegan made a formal complaint to Oxley. He was weak from his months of privation; tired now; there was little food left; the rowers were exhausted under the vertical sun; the river was shoaling and this must be close to its end. Oxley took these points and the somewhat acquiescent looks on the faces of his tough rowers into account; and he reckoned in the day they would have to spend surveying and sounding the mouth of the river and also Gibson Island that he thought might be suitable as a 'primary place of settlement'. All he admitted was: "You wait here. Lieutenant Stirling and I will make a short trip on foot to the south-east. We'll be back soon and then we'll catch the ebb tide down river to our vessel.". Oxley and Stirling took a bit longer than promised to survey to the south-east. "They do not understand the importance of this moment", Oxley said to Stirling during their walk. Stirling thought privately that that was a somewhat insular view, considering only Oxley himself would ever be remembered as the Discoverer.

Finnegan's complaint was to some extent justified. Not one to volunteer for extra services and not having much interest in the countryside, he had probably climbed the hill in order to give himself a persuasive sheen of exhaustion. Oxley, on return, set the course for full speed downstream and, first luxuriating in the strong drift of the ebb tide and current, they decided then to land at a place Finnegan had spotted going up. It was fifty yards up from the base of those admired green hills on the starboard that they could barely see now that the evening had set in. It was a good camp ground, a plot of grey-green sward closed all around with trees and bushes.

Nioka greeted his father and a brother. Both had been among the people who had hurled greetings and exclamations at the passing boat, not spears or imprecations. But both agreed instantly with the compelling Nioka. Knowing all the minute details of his plan, he started now to issue the orders in their well-rehearsed sequence. "Follow the boat." he told some young runners. "Come back when it turns.". Twenty others were sent south-west to commandeer 50-foot long kangaroo nets. "Get ten". They were to be sewn together to span the river at a narrow point two hundred yards downstream. Nioka knew it well and the two facing trees that would be the stanchions. He got others to collect spears and stones at each stanchion. The nets came back and the sewers set to work. A finished section was then tied off with long ropes to the home tree and the men, women and children worked along the bank, haunches in the water.

In an amazing two hours, the loose end was ferried across and hitched to the far tree. The trap was set. Its springing was going to be intimately dependent on timing and luck. On a signal from Nioka who guessed the boat at twenty yards from the net, men would haul it four feet high, catch the whale boat, slacken off for a cosy embrace and then tie off. By then the home side would have launched their war canoes and the far side would be close behind. Throwers and slingers of stones, a bit downstream, would direct a stinging and lethal hail on the boatmen who would probably be trying to cut their way free. The stone men had the clear instruction to drown any man who jumped the net. That was the 'timing part' of the trap. The 'luck part' was a strong ebb tide. Nioka could well imagine a messy engagement if the white men could row back from the trap.

At the end of it all, there would be no trace left of the explorers. There would be great, great celebrations and the victory would go down in the oral annals forever and forever. Nioka ordered all the children to line up on the home bank when the time came to see the massacre and tell it to their grandchildren.

At about 5.45 p.m., a scout burst into the camp. "They're coming!". Nioka was elated. "The river is flowing strong to the net.". All was ready. As he'd done the day before (such a long time ago, it seemed), he watched for the prow of the whale boat around the bend. This time he heard the voices first. He sprinted to the stanchion on the right bank crowded with warriors and spectators. He was to spring the trap with a shout and a branch hurled into the water. Tossing the branch from hand to hand and watching the boat, he dropped it by accident. When he'd picked it up and looked again, the boat had disappeared. "It's gone to shore, my side.", he realised. This was a blow. Five tense minutes ensued. The light was fading. Nioka crept up to the boat and sure enough, as he had suspected, men were carrying up supplies. Nioka told everyone to go home. After dark, shadowy warriors of the left bank slipped across to join their clansmen. Oxley and Co. were around their fires and saw nothing.

During the night, Nioka decided that a flood tide would make the trap too risky. At daybreak, he chose thirty of his best spearmen. Like any good military strategist, he was a firm believer in numerical superiority when you can get it. They crept in quietly and populated the thick bushes around the camp ground. Men were preparing breakfast. One wood-gatherer came almost face to face with Nioka. It was Finnegan. He moved to open his mouth. In a flash, Nioka pounced and stopped any cry with his hand. He dragged Finnegan back with a scuffling noise that raised the head of another man some yards away. (As silence followed, he lost interest.) "Doctor!", said Finnegan with some simple joy when he was allowed to speak. 'Dr. Nioka', uncomplicated man, had tears. Many months ago, Finnegan and Pamphlett had cured him of a septic knee from a spear splinter from which he surely would have died. Nioka never forgot this kind attention, quite forgetting his own kindness and that of his people to the castaways. "Fingan!", said Nioka emotionally. "I come with you to meet your chief.". "Yes, come!" said Finnegan and led with his arm around Nioka's shoulder to the breakfast group. Nioka issued a loud command in the Turrbal language and waved his free right arm in a dismissing way. "Do not fight! Free the net!". Every white person there thought it was an extravagant greeting.

The two leaders met briefly. Oxley had been pacing up and down the bank with pen and paper occupied with a puzzle that had kept him awake half the night. "Was it really Mt. Warning that I saw yesterday or was it the high peak of Flinders?". In fact, it was neither. Later that morning, Oxley climbed Mount Ommaney to see if he could clear up the mystery. Suddenly this tall savage with a noble bearing was standing before him. Feelings of exhilaration at the success of his voyage, respect for the natives' lack of hostility and gratitude for the kind treatment of the castaways filled his breast. The tall man put a hand on his shoulder. It was impossible for Oxley to divine what was going on in that large, curly, bearded head. "Bring me a good hand-axe", he asked of Ruddock and presented it. It was a fortunate generosity. Beads and handkerchieves might have been a death warrant. Nioka retired.

Behind that group, the river flowed on, unminded, unmindful, at once gentle bearer of boats and accomplice to dark deeds. As Ruddock rowed past the trailing net later that morning, he wondered at its length and wide mesh and the sort of huge fish it would be catching. "Perhaps shark, big shark or some such predator", he decided, with no awareness of the irony. The river's relatively buggered now, 180 years after the whitefella first came. Yeronga means 'sandy place'. Where are those sandy beaches now that Stirling loved? Diminished, muddy.

The early population of the Turrbal group was estimated to be about 5000. Oxley described them as 'about the strongest and best-made muscular men I have seen in any country.'. His assistant, John Uniacke, mentioned that 'The women that I saw were far superior in personal beauty to the men, or indeed to any natives of this country whom I have yet seen.', and that Pamphlett, one of the castaways, had told him he 'never saw a woman struck or ill-treated except by one of her own sex'. Where are the Turrbal people now? Probably, very few remain. Drink, disease and sheer white pressure took such a fearful toll that they were virtually extinct by 1870.

Finnegan died in obscurity. It may have been that he was a lazy person, incompetent, manipulable. But he had one grace, a simple and engaging personality, that was the saving of the party. Oxley called him 'diverting'. He was not in himself a lucky person but it was certainly lucky to have him around. With lucky timing, his complaint persuaded Oxley to turn around. They were lucky with Finnegan's camp site. It was sheer luck that he'd been the wood man closest to Nioka. Luck again that he had previously met this man who adored his amiable disposition. Luck again that he had helped save Nioka's life. In fact, strange, true, trite, trivial as the observation may be, Brisbane's history would have been very different if it had not been for Finnegan's luck.