THE AFGHANS

Most of the Afghans had arrived from Port Pirie in South Australia; they were tough, fiercely independent people but caused little trouble. They wore woollen shirts with tails outside the trousers, and dungarees wide and baggy, tied at the ankles with distinguishing turbans worn throughout their lives. Even though they were called Afghans, they came, not only from Afghanistan, but various parts of Asia including Baluchistan, Sind, Kashmir, Punjab and India.

Afghans and camels were very valuable and reliable in opening up the Australian outback. They originally worked on the Overland Telegraph carrying wire, telegraph poles, insulators etc also the Transcontinental Railway carrying sleepers and rails as well as the border and rabbit-proof fences.

They were not eligible for citizenship because they were Asian. White teamsters objected to camels because they could travel country inaccessible to horses or bullocks and they could eat harsher plants than horses and goats. They could go without water for 4 or 5 days and only need 13 litres of water a day, they can even drink foul or brackish water. In the wet seasons they could travel over soft ground thus able to travel in less time and cheaper. Even the Afghans were a hardy lot eating only twice a day surviving hasher conditions. Due to religious beliefs, they were preferred for carrying whiskey and other strong spirits, because they were forbidden to drink alcohol.

In 1890, the Mayor of Hughenden tried to have them prohibited from entering the town. Teamsters went on strike and sent a petition to the Queensland Government, but nothing was done.

There were various Ghan towns at Cloncurry, Duchess, Rosebud, Urquhart Siding, Butru, Dajarra, Burketown and Normanton. In the early days in the Cloncurry area, there were 200 Afghan cameleers and about 2000 camels. They carried tools, machinery, provisions, water in 25-gallon tanks to the various outlying mines and bags of ore on the return journey. There were 20 to 30 strung out joined together with a nose peg and rope tied to the saddle in front.

One of the Afghans was Faisal Ahmed (Fuzzly Ahmed) and he eked out a living gouging copper at Afghan Gardens (Rosebud Station). He had two camels and he also shot dingoes for the bounty money. One day in 1928, he returned to find 36 bags of ore missing. He threatened to shoot anyone he found near his camp. A short time later a friend of his, Edward Miller and another Afghan gouger, Del Khan, known as "Old Soldier", were found murdered and their bodies partly burnt. Ahmed was charged with the murders and found guilty of Millers murder but not guilty of Del Khan's, which remains unsolved. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at Stuart Gaol in Townsville and served 28 years. He was 78 years old when he was released and then briefly returned to Cloncurry and died in 1960 in Adelaide aged 82 years.

Mahomet Allum, born in 1857 at Kandahar, which was the old capital of Afghanistan, had a drapery store in Cloncurry around 1905. He died on March 12th 1964 in Adelaide aged 107. He fathered a child at 83 years of age. He also had stores at Lismore and Wilcannia and was a herbalist and miner at Broken Hill.

Goolim Rasool (Gulam Rasul) became a hawker and trade was real good, but ended up in court owing a storekeeper at Ballara £172. Others were Basha Ghoul, his son Fatah Mohomet (Paddy) Khan and Mahomet Bax. At Dobbyn, Arsala Khan had a store where he sold groceries, men's shirts and trousers. One Afghan, on his way to Mt Oxide, found he had a side of bacon in the stores he carried and promptly threw it in Gunpowder Creek. They were not impressed with him when he got to Mount Oxide.

At Cloncurry, their town was situated on the western side of Cloncurry, south of the present Mount Isa road close to the junction of the Anabranch and Coppermine Creek. The centre, of their town, was the Mosque. Ezra Khan had a shop in Cloncurry.

In the 1930's, with the introduction of motorised vehicles, the camel era came to an end and many returned home. Others became hawkers, railway workers, miners, labourers or bought small properties. One of the last hawkers was Said Ali who became a truck driver in 1940.

The last two Afghans in Cloncurry were Musloom Shar and Mahomet Drim. Musloom Shar was a large man with a bushy beard who kept horses and at the age of 80, slipped and fell into his fire receiving third degree burns. When he was found, he was taken to hospital where Toxaemia developed and he soon died. Mahomet Drim was a tiny 4 feet, thin, clean shaven man who lived in a hut on Coppermine Creek. He had worked between Dobbyn and Mount Oxide and because of an emergency, in 1 day, he rode from Dobbyn to Kuridala a distance of 96 miles. Although he grew and sold vegetables, he died of starvation and senility in 1947 aged 80 years, 2 years after Musloom Shar.

The roads were rough and a 3 ton truck would last about six months. In 1931, 12 Afghans and about 100 camels brought ore to the railhead mainly from Mount Oxide, a distance of 100kms. By 1932, 5 trucks and 350 camels were on the road between Mt Oxide and Dobbyn. A camel carried six to eight bags of ore with each bag weighing 51 kilograms. A trip by camel took 10 to 12 days whereas a truck could do it in 2 or 3 days. The cartage rate was the same for a truck or camel, £3 per ton. The camels also carried stores out to Mount Oxide. After reaching Dobbyn, the ore was railed to the state smelters at Chillagoe, in Far North Queensland, after treatment, was bringing less than £40 per ton for the refined copper.

Courtesy of Greg Humphrey and the Mount Isa Family History Society.

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