The Call Of The South by George Lewis Becke (i read book .TXT) 📕

break for a few seconds, then again, sometimes sounding loud and near, at others faintly and far away.

"Sounds like a thousand people knockin' their finger nails on tables. Why, it must be rainin' somewhere close to on the river."

"No, it's the pattering of mullet, heading up the river--thousands, tens of thousands, aye hundreds of thousands. It is a sure sign of heavy rain. We'll see them presently when they come abreast of us. That queer _lip, lap, lip, lap_ you hear is made by their tails. They sail along with heads well up out of the water--the blacks tell me that they smell the coming rain--then swim on an even keel for perhaps twenty yards or so, and the upper lobe of their tails keeps a constant flapping on the water. You know how clearly you can hear the flip of a single fish's tail in a pond on a quiet night? Well, to-night you'll hear the sound of fifty thousand. Once, when I was prospecting in the Shoalhaven River district I camped with some net fishermen near the Heads. It was a calm, quiet night like this, and something awakened me It sounded like heavy rain falling on big leaves. 'Is it raining, mate?' I said to one of the fishermen. 'No,' he replied, 'but there's a heavy thunderstorm gathering; and that noise you hear is mullet coming up from the Heads, three miles away.' That was the first time I ever saw fish packed so closely together--it was a wonderful sight, and when they began to pass us they stretched in a solid line almost across the river and the noise they made was deafening. But we must hurry up, lad, shift our traps a bit back into the scrub and up with the tent. Then we'll come back and have a look at the fish, and get some for breakfast."

The two hardy prospectors (for such they were) were old and experienced bushmen, and soon had their tent up, and their saddles, blankets and guns and provisions under its shelter, just as the first low muttering of thunder hushed the squealing opossums overhead into silence. But, as it died away, the noise of the myriad mullet sounded nearer and nearer as they swam steadily onward up the river.

Ten minutes passed, and then a heavy thunder-clap shook the mighty trees and echoed and re-echoed among the spurs and gullies of the coastal range twenty miles away; another and another, and from the now leaden sky the rain fell in torrents and continued to pour unceasingly for an hour. Inside the tent the men sat and smoked and waited Then the downfall ceased with a "snap," the sky cleared as if by magic, revealing the stars now paling before the coming dawn, and the cries of birds resounded through the dripping bush.

Picking up a prospecting dish the elder man told his "mate" that it was time to start. Louder than ever now sounded the noise made by the densely packed masses of fish, and as the rays of the rising sun, aided by a gentle air, dispelled the river mist, the younger man gave a gasp of astonishment when they reached the bank and he looked down--from shore to shore the water was agitated and churned into foam showing a broad sheet of flapping fins and tails and silvery scales. So close were the fish to the bank and so overcrowded that hundreds stranded upon the sand.

The big man stepped down, picked up a dozen and put them into the dish; then he and his companion sat on the bank and watched the passage of the thousands till the last of them had rounded a bend of the river and the waters flowed silently once more.
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Publication Date: 08-10-2010

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