last the Coroner (Mr A. Lard-ner) and a jury of twelve held an inquiry at the Post Office Hotel, Ulmarra, into the cause of the death of Michael Browne (who, as reported in our last issue, had been struck by lightning on the previous day). Thomas Browne, farmer, brother of the deceased, deposed that on the previous afternoon deceased was ploughing with a pair of horses, and he (witness) was planting; about 3 oâclock a thunderstorm, which had been threatening all the afternoon, came so close that we determined to go home; I unyoked my team, and let them go on the headland; on proceeding through the high corn towards the deceased, and when about 70 yards from him, I received a shock of electricity which knocked me down; on recovering I tried to make homewards, but perceiving the two horses lying insensible, I called for my brother to assist me with them; on getting close to the horses found my brother lying insensible, with his legs under the off horse; all his clothes were torn off him, except part of his shirt and his boots off his feet; he appeared to be quite dead; one of the horses was also dead; I called for assistance, but owing to the storm no one heard me; I then carried the body to the house; have examined the body very carefully; the only injuries to be seen is a mark on the left forehead about as large as a threepenny bit, and a discolouration on the left side of the chest and neck; there is a small hole in the brim of his hat in a position corresponding with the mark on the forehead; his right boot is ripped up; the left boot cannot be found; deceased was in his 33rd year, and was always healthy. Constable Edwards deposed to examining the body, and his evidence was corroborative as to the appearance of the injuries on deceased. The jury returned a verdict in accordance with the evidence.
I try to imagine the town of Ulmarra in 1880. Henry Kendall described it as it was in the 1870s: the dark swell of the Clarence River three-quarters of a mile wide; the paddlewheel steamers battling against the rush of the water, beating their way into the wharf to load their sugar and maize, the self-important little town behind the levee bank. This is the Big River of the Aborigines, and it drains an area nearly equal to the whole of England. Kendall likens it to the Mississippi; without the negroes, he says, but with the same over-lush and decaying vegetation, the same stench of flood mud. Behind the town the flood plain stretches back some four miles to Tucabia and Glenugie Peak, interrupted only by the rise on which the cemetery sits and where Michael Browne is hastily buried, for it is November and the corpse wonât keep. The debris of the last flood rots into the earth and enriches it with vegetable corruption. The swamps and marshland are purple with water-hyacinth and thronged with waterbirds. Every possible inch is ploughed and planted with maize (corn), for this is undoubtedly the richest soil in Australia, so rich according to Kendall that a man may dig through seventeen feet of black soil before he comes to clay; and it is a very rare occurrence to find a stone above that point .
I can imagine the young ploughman guiding the heavy mould-board plough through the dark soil, proud of his strength and the straightness of his furrows. The heat beats down on him and stains the backs of the sweating horses. The heavy silken earth curls behind the plough and all manner of birds from ibis to seagulls wheel and swoop for the pickings. The thunder circles and rumbles like distant gunfire, the air is electric, and the first heavy drops fall. The decision to give up is reluctantly taken. The season is late, the early corn already seven foot high; its rusty tassels split the green sheath around each cob and spill out into the hot air. If the storm brings rain the ground will be unworkable. There is a blinding flash. A hundred million volts tear a path from earth to sky and back. For a fraction of a second the ploughman is
I try to imagine the town of Ulmarra in 1880. Henry Kendall described it as it was in the 1870s: the dark swell of the Clarence River three-quarters of a mile wide; the paddlewheel steamers battling against the rush of the water, beating their way into the wharf to load their sugar and maize, the self-important little town behind the levee bank. This is the Big River of the Aborigines, and it drains an area nearly equal to the whole of England. Kendall likens it to the Mississippi; without the negroes, he says, but with the same over-lush and decaying vegetation, the same stench of flood mud. Behind the town the flood plain stretches back some four miles to Tucabia and Glenugie Peak, interrupted only by the rise on which the cemetery sits and where Michael Browne is hastily buried, for it is November and the corpse wonât keep. The debris of the last flood rots into the earth and enriches it with vegetable corruption. The swamps and marshland are purple with water-hyacinth and thronged with waterbirds. Every possible inch is ploughed and planted with maize (corn), for this is undoubtedly the richest soil in Australia, so rich according to Kendall that a man may dig through seventeen feet of black soil before he comes to clay; and it is a very rare occurrence to find a stone above that point .
I can imagine the young ploughman guiding the heavy mould-board plough through the dark soil, proud of his strength and the straightness of his furrows. The heat beats down on him and stains the backs of the sweating horses. The heavy silken earth curls behind the plough and all manner of birds from ibis to seagulls wheel and swoop for the pickings. The thunder circles and rumbles like distant gunfire, the air is electric, and the first heavy drops fall. The decision to give up is reluctantly taken. The season is late, the early corn already seven foot high; its rusty tassels split the green sheath around each cob and spill out into the hot air. If the storm brings rain the ground will be unworkable. There is a blinding flash. A hundred million volts tear a path from earth to sky and back. For a fraction of a second the ploughman is
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