COLONIAL FACTS AND FICTIONS.

COLONIAL
FACTS AND FICTIONS

Humorous Sketches

By MARK KERSHAW

London

CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1886

[The right of translation is reserved]

CONTENTS.

Colonial Facts and Fictions.

NORTH AUSTRALIA.

Residents in foreign lands often think that it is an impertinence if a passing stranger write about them. Those who have been for a long time resident in a country seldom write a description of their experiences. About many things they seem to have learnt how little they really know, whilst to things of every-day occurrence they have become so accustomed, that they do not think them worthy of description. The persons who do write, and who delight to write about a place, are the birds of passage. These persons know very little about their subject. The very fact of only knowing a little about a place adds a charm to an attempt at its description. If you know everything about it you are inclined to write a series of facts, while if you only know a little, there is room for the exercise of the imagination, and the production becomes a combination of truths and untruths.

Reading a book of facts is like reading a dictionary. To make facts palatable they must be diluted as you dilute whisky. Never having been blessed with a capacity for gleaning facts, I have gradually come to dislike them. Now and again facts have been unpleasantly thrust upon my attention. Some facts come out of two bottles. You take an inch of one and dilute it with two inches of the other. In many respects these facts may be compared to the high and low pressure cylinders of a marine engine. Other facts come out of tall, gilt-necked bottles. First they pop, and then they fizzle. When you have imbibed a lot of these facts, at first you feel jolly. Afterwards you feel unwell. The facts I picked up at Port Darwin gave me a headache. When I came to P.D. (it is an Australian custom to abbreviate), I did not know the difference between a kangaroo’s tail and a gum tree. I do not think that I knew very much more when I left.

The first thing that happened when we dropped anchor, was that the anchor made a great splash in the water. This was followed by the rattling of the chain, and a great deal of vibration. We had many Chinamen on board, and as Australians dislike Chinamen, they do what they can to keep them out of their country. At every port, wherever we went, no matter whether the Chinamen were to land or not, they had to pass a medical inspection. At some of the ports the doctors also inspected the Europeans. ‘Let me look at your forehead, now your chest—Um, no spots. That will do.’

The doctors hold their appointments from the Government; the Government holds its appointment from the working man. The working man, the horny-handed son of toil, bosses Australia. It is the ‘navy’ to whom we must look for the stringency of the quarantine regulations of Australia. At the present time it is reported in Australia that there is cholera in China. That a ship has a clean bill of health, although it may have come from a non-infected port, although China is as big as Europe, although the ship has been nearly a month at sea, on arriving at Sydney she must go in quarantine. You come from China, you have Chinamen on board; we don’t want you, and therefore in the face of reason and justice, we will do what we can to throw difficulties in your way. But more of this by-and-bye. I am in a hurry to get past the facts.

The water at Port Darwin is dirty green, and it is full of sharks. When people bathe they do so in a big thing like a bird-cage, and the whales and the sharks have to snuffle about outside. These animals are said to regard this treatment as unusually rough. The town at Port Darwin is called Palmerston, but the two names are pretty well synonymous. The place is located on the level table-land like ground above the low cliffs which fringe the bay. Some of the houses, including the Residency, the Government offices, and a town-hall, are built of stone. Nearly all the other houses are built of corrugated iron. The internal arrangement of these latter buildings, which are lofty and gable ended, is quite ecclesiastical. The streets are wide and at right angles. The houses occur at intervals along the sides of these streets. Some of the streets have lots of grass in them. I heard that it was suggested to run up a tall tower in the town to see the Russian fleet approaching. The Russophobia has run throughout the colonies, and I shall have to refer to it very often. There are about two hundred whites in Palmerston, six or eight hundred yellow Chinamen, and a few aboriginal ‘blacks.’ The ‘whites’ have in addition to the town-hall, several hotels, a public library, a race-course, a cricket ground, two or three tennis-courts, rifle butts, and a dramatic corps. There are some wells in the place, but a lot of water is collected in corrugated iron water-tanks. Many of the residents have an idea that the water is not good, and in order to keep down the comma bacillus and other microscopic organisms, it is advisable to dilute it with liquors imported from Europe. The place is called Port Darwin, because it was evolved out of nothing. The town was called Palmerston because many of the early inhabitants had a habit of carrying a twig in their mouth.

One of the first things we did on landing was to make a pilgrimage to the various hotels. Our object was to see the town, and to read the latest papers. Many of these establishments would be creditable to any town. All of them have mahogany bars, garnished with long white handles to pump up beer. These handles made a great impression upon me—in fact they were indirectly the cause of my suffering from nightmare. That night I had a dream that my head rested on a mahogany counter, and while in this uncomfortable position a young lady, who had got me by the back hair, gave me a series of vigorous pulls. While this was going on, my tormentor smiled and inquired whether I preferred stout or bitter? I should have remonstrated, but my nose was too close to the counter for me to speak. Do what I would, backwards and forwards went my face across the slippery board, and the musical ‘stout or bitter, sir,’ kept ringing in my ears. At length the movement changed, and instead of having my nose burnished, it was being bumped. This I was told was because I had not replied to the fair persecutor, who, as her anger increased at my reticence, appeared to expand like a concertina. As she grew bigger and bigger, I grew less and less. Suddenly there was a fearful crash, and I awoke to find that Peter’s hat-box had fallen from a rack upon my head. My head with the rolling of the ship had been sliding up and down against the side of my berth, and I imagine that the ‘bob-e-te-bob’ of the screw had been the ‘stout or bitter, sir.’ The blue-ribbon faction in Australia are at present trying to introduce a bill for the abolition of barmaids in Australia. After my dream I felt inclined to offer them my support.

While at the hotel, Peter and I were introduced to an aboriginal. He was black in colour, tall in stature, and had a curly hair. They called him Charlie. I was told that he had been caught wild at a place in the bush about one hundred miles back. When he was first caught the landlord said he was a perfect terror. If you only looked at him, he would snap his jaws, and grind his teeth together like a couple of millstones, and when his passion reached a climax, he would swivel his eyes round and round in circles, snort like a bull, and jump up and down vertically. Charlie was now quite tame, and if we would give him a bob he would take us to an encampment. The opportunity was too good to be lost, for we might now obtain some authentic information about the aborigines. Before starting, Charlie asked for the shilling, remarking that it should not be squandered in the pot-house, but be kept in remembrance of this visit. We recommended him to forward it to some jeweller in Melbourne, who would mount the coin as a brooch for his wife. Charlie thanked us for the suggestion, and said that he would consult with his family on the subject, and let us know their decision in the evening. The road to the encampment led by the side of the cricket ground, after which there was a sharp descent to the beach. Not having the agility of the antelope, the latter part of the journey was very trying. As Charlie bounded from crag to crag, I observed that the cartilaginous divisional membrane between his nostrils had been perforated. Peter, whose attention I had called to this unnatural aperture, was quite shocked, and remarked that the attention of the Government ought to be drawn to this custom.

The dwellings of the natives were made of a few bent sticks covered with scraps of old bags, bits of bark, and butter tins. The average height of one of these houses was about three feet. You had to enter on all fours, and, when inside, you could enjoy a capital view of the stars, or of the surrounding scenery, through the cracks and rents in the roof and wall. As there was no room to turn round, you came out backwards. The only inmate of the camp was Charlie’s wife—Mary—the remainder of the tribe were away on a fishing excursion. At the time of our arrival Mary was sitting in a hole she had scraped in the sand, playing with a small fox terrier and six small pups.

As we approached, Mary rose. She was dressed in a black skirt with six flounces, and had on her feet a pair of French boots. Her back, like the backs of all the native beauties in these parts, was done in ridges. These ridges are produced by making cuts with a piece of flint or glass, and then rubbing in a quantity of sand or gritty earth. The custom originated by an endeavour to imitate the corrugated iron buildings of the Europeans. Charlie said that his wife derived considerable comfort from the ridges. A rigid surface freed itself from water better than a smooth one; also, as Mary often slept outside, the ridges raised her from the damp earth. He had heard that this custom had been highly approved of at the Healtheries.

‘Mary,’ said Charlie, addressing his wife, ‘allow me to introduce to you a sample of the distinguished strangers from the Leviathan now anchored in our bay.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said he turning to us, ‘allow me to have the pleasure of introducing you to my spouse.’ Mary gracefully inclined her head, and blushed a whitish-grey. We bowed.

‘Be seated, gentlemen, be seated. Make yourselves at home,’ said Charlie, pointing to the sand, and then, turning to his blushing wife, suggested that refreshments would be acceptable.

While Mary was engaged at a decayed stump searching for the delicate and creamy grub known to scientists as the Vermiculites filiformis on which to regale her guests, Charles told us the following touching story of her capture.

‘Well, it came about in this way,’ said Charlie, clearing his throat and expectorating on the sand. ‘Mary and I had been married a month or so when we thought we would take a run down to the seaside as a wind-up for our honeymoon. For a week or so it was a blaze of sunshine, which, gentlemen, is not unusual in these parts. All day long we wandered up and down the beach, chasing little crabs and gathering up shells. At night, tired with paddling in the water, we scratched a hole in the sand, and slumbered. One morning I awoke and I found I was alone. I didn’t think much of it at the time, for Mary had a habit of rising early to catch a particular kind of worm for which she knew I had a partiality. As time passed, I felt a little anxious, and looked about me to see if it was possible to discover the direction which Mary had followed. I tracked her to the beach, and then down to the edge of the water, but as the tide had risen beyond this, her footsteps had been obliterated. “Mary, Mary, my love, where are you?” I cried. But no response beyond the lapping of the waves. That day I must have travelled nigh on twenty miles to the Eastward, in the hopes of discovering some sign of Mary’s whereabouts. At one time I thought she had deceived me, and had fled with an unknown lover. I vowed vengeance. That night I had to sleep in a hole by myself. Next day I travelled well on forty miles to the Westward, when just as the sun was going down, I came on tracks as thick as if there had been a mob of cattle passing. The few minutes of daylight that remained, for you know, sir, in these parts when the sun goes down, the light disappears as quickly as when you blow out a lamp, I spent in examining the tracks to see if I could find one corresponding to the hoof of my Mary. Just before the light went out, I found the print of a toe which I thought might have been hers. Beyond this there was another little round hole, then a third one, and then a fourth one—one following the other in a crooked line. After I had seen the series there was no doubt in my mind but that I was on Mary’s track. But why was Mary travelling on one toe, and in crooked lines? Had she been waltzing? Was she intoxicated? Had some heathen lopped off her other toes? Who were her companions? While I was thinking over this and a hundred other questions, it became quite dark, and I sat down at the foot of a tree to wait for dawn. I had hardly been there a couple of hours, when a low wailing sound came on the breeze, which had just set in down a neighbouring gully. It was Mary’s voice, and I was off in an instant. In twenty minutes or so I had reached the side of my dusky bride, who, to my horror, I found lashed to a tree. I quickly untied the bonds, and we wept upon each other’s necks. Mary then told me how, when she had risen to capture the early worm, she had suddenly been captured herself by a party of “whites,” who, after putting a gag in her mouth, had carried her off to the place where I had found her. As she was borne alone, she kept putting her foot down to the sand, and thus the toe marks. Her captors were close in the neighbourhood, and had gone in search of me. We must get off at once. Our first move was to hurry towards the beach, where we should be able to travel quickly. Arriving on the shore we almost immediately ran upon a number of tracks similar to those I had seen yesterday. They came from the bush down to the edge of the water, and then appeared to branch off in both directions along the shore line. Now this is what I want you to mark,’ said Charlie, tapping the ashes out of his pipe on the toe of his boot: ‘the tracks came down from the bush. Not up to the bush. “It is impossible to travel on the shore,” said Mary to me; “we had better take the opposite direction, and enter the bush where the strangers came out.” Little thinking what was about to happen, hand in hand we entered the bush. We had hardly passed the first thicket, than there was a dreadful yell, and Mary and I found ourselves enveloped in a net. The rest of the story was short: we were bound, brought into Palmerston, exhibited for a week in a show, and finally tamed.’

‘But how was it,’ said Peter, ‘that you made such a blunder as to think you were going in the opposite direction to those who caught you?’

‘Well, it was just this way,’ replied Charlie: ‘those whites didn’t act square, knowing if I came along the beach looking for Mary I was not going to run into their arms; they just walked backwards from the shore up to where they had set their darned net. The blacks are up to this backward trick now, so the new dodge is to catch their wives first, and tie them up to a tree as bait to catch their husbands. That is why they call the black women “gins.”’

When we returned to the hotel, we asked the landlord if he had ever heard the story of Charlie’s capture. He looked at us for a minute, and then went off in roars. ‘Why,’ said he, ‘Charlie tells that same old lie to everyone as comes. How much did you give him for the entertainment?’

That night Peter and I accepted an invitation to dine at a house where there was a collection of pet animals very closely resembling a happy family. I can only describe those which made some impression on me. One animal was a great slate-coloured bird like a stork. Usually it contented itself with standing stock still, posing as a bronze image. When you advanced to admire the beautiful workmanship, it would give a little ‘sold again’ sort of wink, and walk away. Another remarkable creation was a parrot who was always edging along sideways towards you, as if desirous of seeing how near you would allow it to put its eye to yours. I suggested that it should be provided with a cage. The most remarkable animal of all was a male sheep. This had once been a little lamb skipping about with a blue ribbon round its neck. Since its early days it had grown to the size of a young ox, and therefore, instead of wandering about the house, it had been placed together with other sheep in a paddock inside. In going home that night we had to cross this paddock. As it was close on midnight my companions said that danger need not be apprehended, the sheep would certainly be sleeping. I once thought of turning my attention to sheep-farming, but after my experiences on that memorable evening I think that all sheep ought to be kept in cages, or at least wear muzzles. In was 12 p.m. on the 4th of July. When in future years Americans see me rejoicing on the glorious 4th, they need not embrace me as a faithful citizen. My thanksgivings will be to commemorate deliverance from the jaws of a ferocious sheep. The name of this sheep is Billy. I first saw Billy standing in the moonlight. The moment my companions saw him, there was a general stampede. I am thankful to state that I kept well in the van. As to what occurred during the next ten minutes I can only speak from memory. There was no time allowed for taking notes. For two or three minutes or so, I am told that I was seen passing very rapidly backwards and forwards over and through some wire fencing. During this time I can remember a snorting and rustling going on at the distance of about two feet from my coat-tails. Each time that I slipped between the wires I could feel the warm breath of my pursuer near my body. Once or twice I heard some vicious, blood-curdling snaps. At last there was a pause. I was on one side of the railings and Billy was on the other. About two feet away from us was an open gate, which at once explained the continued proximity of Billy’s nose to my coat-tails. After grinding his jaws, he snuffed defiantly, threw his head in the air, and marched away. Billy had certainly cleared the field. It took us fully ten minutes to collect together, and then ten minutes more to clear our pockets and shoes of dirt and gravel. The whole thing had been like a thunderstorm. So much for the innocence and docility of sheep. I shall say more about Australian sheep in another chapter.

Next day a nice-looking fellow, called Pater, invited us to join a shooting-party. This would give me an opportunity of seeing something of the bush, so I embraced the offer. As Billy occupied the paddock, it was necessary to make a detour, and we were in consequence rather late for breakfast. We started in a buggy. The euphonious word ‘buggy’ is applied to a vehicle not unlike a waggonette. The place we went to was called ‘The Lagoons.’ I believe they were the lagoons of some particular person, but I forget his name. It was a long drive of perhaps ten or twelve miles, through tolerably open woods, made up of gum trees and screw palms. The gum trees grew anywhere and anyhow, but the screw palms grew with a corkscrew-like arrangement of their leaves, and only in places where there is water. If everything could arrive at a helical condition by imbibing water, what a time the sailors would have! Our road lay along a proposed railway track, and near an existing telegraph line. The railway line will lead to the mining districts, about 150 miles away. The telegraph line leads to Adelaide, nearly 2,000 miles distant. In position it is something like a line of longitude. We thought of following the line of telegraph to Adelaide, but as we heard that the journey usually took two years, our friends persuaded us to give up the notion.

Here and there we saw a lot of ant-hills. These ants have white bodies and look like little grubs. I forget the colour of their heads. Most ants are very active, and appear to be continually dodging about in a variety of directions. These ants are very slow in their movements. If you had not been told that they were ants, you would be inclined to call them cheese-maggots. To all appearance they are without any particular points, and as ants they are certainly below the average.

The only thing which makes North Australian ants conspicuous is their work. In the woods their business appears to be carting dirt. Five or six ants club together, and having selected a site, they commence to cart dirt, and they continue carting dirt until they die. Then their children cart dirt. Finally the grandchildren cart dirt. And so carting dirt is continued from generation to generation, until at last carting dirt has become a family mania. All this dirt is piled up to make a mound like a small volcano or a meat-cover. The meat-covers that I saw would hold two or three fair-sized oxen. Of how long it takes to make a meat-cover I am unable to give any exact information, but if I had resided at Port Darwin for a few thousand years I might possibly have obtained some exact date. For argument’s sake, if we suppose that twenty ants, and I never saw more than twenty together in one volcano, carry a pound of dirt per annum, and a given monument weighs two tons, then to build this particular monument it must have taken at least 4,480 years. If, however, just for variety we assume, that a particular meat-cover weighed forty tons, then, with the other assumptions, a meat-cover must have taken 90,000 years to build. Look at the question as we will, the Port Darwin ants possess a history that will vie with that of ancient Egypt.

In one or two places the ants had given a character to the scenery. Some of them, instead of following the meat-cover plan of construction, have built slab-like structures. A group of these erections looked like a graveyard, where the form and position of the monuments had been regulated by legislation. These ants were evidently of a melancholic turn of mind. From careful meteorological observations, carried on during a long series of years, it would appear that they had determined the direction of the prevailing winds, and had placed these slabs end on to this direction. These were magnetical ants, and might possibly be able to correct a compass.

What all these ants had in their heads when they first started these structures, no one has yet discovered. Perhaps, having travelled over the whole of the Australian continent, they had become disgusted at its flatness, and therefore had endeavoured to alleviate the monotony by building up towns. Maybe they feared a flood.

These are the country ants. The town ants, having during the last few years discovered that their structures form a good cement for tennis-courts and other purposes, have adopted different tactics. Instead of having their houses bored into, their great delight is to bore into the houses of other people. They approach a house by subterranean covered ways. Reaching a post, they bore up it from the bottom to the top, only finishing when they have left a shell of paint. Then they take a second post. Next they may attack a door. This they eat out until it is as hollow as a drum. After this they attack the stationary furniture, approaching everything by covered passages. Somehow they manage to come through the floor just beneath the centre of the leg of the table, or whatever it is they intend to devour. A sheet of lead is no obstruction. I have seen sheets of lead eaten away as if they had been so many pieces of woollen cloth. They began with dirt, next they took to wood, and now they eat metal. They are herbiferous, carniverous, metaliverous, dirtiferous, and all the other ‘iverouses’ that have yet been discovered.

Not long ago a bank manager had to write to his directors that he regretted to inform them that there was a deficiency in his treasury. A large quantity of bullion had been devoured by white ants. The reply came by wire, ‘File their teeth.’

The first bird that was shot was a great big white cockatoo. All the other cockatoos, that were with the one we shot, fled away. This happened at a small shanty standing near the edge of a lagoon. I should have shot the cockatoo myself, but it looked too much like slaughtering a domestic fowl. Cockatoos were good to eat, they make excellent pies, and I must shoot every one I saw; but—and here my companions were very impressive—be careful and not get ‘bushed.’

To get ‘bushed’ means to get lost. A direction was pointed out to me where I might meet with some geese. Being in a strange land, surrounded with strange sights, in the midst of woods which, for aught I know, might be tenanted by blacks and bushrangers, I was a little nervous. This was heightened by the caution I had received about getting ‘bushed.’ It wouldn’t do to show the white feather, so waving an adieu to my companions, I put my gun on my shoulder, and started into a cane brake which skirted the side of the lagoon. It was simply horrible; you could not see where you were going to, or where you had come from. At every step your feet plopped into water; now and then you received a slap across the face from an unusually elastic reed that had slipped past your gun barrel. Here and there the bottom became so swampy that I felt I might be bogged. This led to rushing and jumping between bits of hard ground and tussocks of grass. Once or twice I found that I had become impaled by the nostril on a cane that had been sticking out horizontally. To unthread myself I had to walk backwards. Perhaps this is the way in which the blacks get their noses bored. After ten minutes or so of earthly purgatory, I had advanced perhaps fifty yards. Not having any intention of training for a bushranger, not even if I could have shot all the cockatoos and geese in Australia, I picked out a dry looking spot, and sat down upon a bundle of reeds. While mopping the perspiration off my face, looking at my bird-cage like surrounding, and, I may add, reflecting on my folly, I heard a loud crackling in the canes. It was evident that some big brute was approaching. There are alligators in North Australia, and perhaps this was one of them on his way to get a drink. I would have shouted to my companions, but by this time I knew that they were far away. Then my tongue seemed to be paralyzed and my hair was bristling. Suddenly the noise ceased. The brute had stopped, and I pictured it with its nose upon the ground snuffing at my tracks. At that moment I would have given the whole of Far Cathay, had it been mine, for a moderate-sized tree. The only trees were in the direction from which my pursuer was approaching. Suddenly the crashing recommenced. The animal had snuffed me out, and was coming on in bounds. Another crash, and the monarch of the swamp stood before me. It wasn’t an alligator, but a hairy, snipe-faced animal with long thin legs and an elegant waist. It might have been a dingo or a kangaroo. Anyhow, as it did not look very ferocious, I would try and capture it alive. For some minutes we looked at each other. As it was clear that it did not intend to open the conversation, and there was no one near to give us a proper introduction, I put on an idiotic smile, and holding out my hand said, ‘Poor doggy—poor ’ittle doggy’—‘poor ’ittle doggy woggy.’ The last phrase seemed to fetch it, for it waggled its tail, but when I rose to make an advance it put its nose in the air, gave a sniff, turned round, and bounded off. Later on, I found that the animal was a Scotch deer-hound, belonging to a party who had come out to the shanty for a picnic, arriving just after I had entered the cane brake.

When I got out of the cane brake I registered a vow never to enter another cane brake while in Australia. The next place where I found myself was in some tolerably open woods. Here I could see what was coming, and if anything large appeared there were lots of friendly trees. The first thing I fell in with were a lot of parrots. These were of all sizes, shapes, and colours. From the manner in which they were guffawing and screeching at each other, they appeared to have assembled for an important debate. If each of them had been provided with a little tin pot and a chain, the resemblance of my surroundings would have been very like the parrot-house in the Zoo. Having been told that cockatoos were game, I picked out what looked like a good-looking bird of the cockatoo order, and dropped him as dead as a door nail. When I picked it up, instead of being a cockatoo, to my great astonishment, it turned out to be some kind of pink parrot. The parrots that had not been shot, instead of flying away as the cockatoos had done, surrounded me and my prize, and commenced a pandemonium of screeches that it will take long to forget. Most of them sat in the trees, but others flew over my head. What they said I could not well make out, but a lot of it sounded like ‘Oh! you blackguard,’ ‘you blackguard.’ ‘Who shot poor Polly?’ The confusion was only paralleled by that which overwhelmed Baalam. But not being in a mood to be bullied by a parcel of parrots, I picked up my game and marched towards the camp. All the way I was accompanied by a flock of flapping pollies. Some went in front, some came along on my flanks, while some were behind me bringing up the rear—they were like mosquitoes. Every one of them was yelling and squalling fit to break their throats. A pretty lot of companions. Now and then, one bolder than the rest, would almost touch my head. At one time I felt inclined to bury my game. The next moment I thought I would shoot a few of the tormentors. This, however, might only lead to greater trouble. It was certain I could not go into camp with a troop of yelling parrots after me, but how was I to get rid of them? As we went on they appeared to increase in numbers, and their yelling became louder and louder. I now began to regret that I had shot a pink parrot. When within a hundred yards or so of the shanty, I saw an old gentleman with a lady and two or three youngsters seated round a table-cloth. To complete the party there was my snipe-nosed friend of the cane brake, looking out for the tail ends of ham sandwiches. Here a bright thought struck me. If I were to drop my game near to the picnickers, my infuriated companions might perhaps get mixed, as to who had been the murderer. It worked beautifully. Holding the parrot behind my back, I walked up to within ten or twelve yards of the unsuspecting pleasure party, and, without stopping, dropped Polly and walked along. What happened after my absence I did not stop to see; all that I knew is that when I returned the picnickers had departed. The pink parrot had also gone. Shortly after this I blundered on a second lagoon, which was fringed with tall grass. Before me there was a flock of geese. On the opposite side of the lagoon, and evidently stalking the geese, there were two of my companions up to their arm-pits in water. I felt extremely sorry for my companions, for the geese, on seeing me, immediately rose, and I shot one of them. From the gesticulations of my companions I could see that they were annoyed, so I quickly retreated, congratulating myself at being out of gun-shot. After this I met with a multitude of adventures. The greatest surprise, however, was on my way back to the shanty, where we were to meet for lunch. That I met with a wild beast, there is no doubt. It passed in front of me at a distance of about six feet when I first saw it; its head was in the bushes, and it appeared to be about as long as my gun. It was like a log of wood moving end on. There was no crackling this time. It simply slid along like a panorama, passing out of sight into a clump of screw pines. For a moment I was rooted to the spot; my heart palpitated, and my hair bristled. What was the phenomenon? Could it be anything less than an alligator? If it was a baby alligator, where were papa and mamma? Should I go on, or should I turn round and run? The way I did go was backwards and sideways, the whole time pointing my gun at the clump of screw pines. Each time that a leaf rustled or I saw a crooked stump, I prepared for the final struggle. When I got back my companions told me it was only an iguana, and I ought to have shot it. They made first-rate curry. I spent the afternoon in keeping camp, watering the horses, and washing up the plates. While doing this, I saw Pater stalking some geese up to his neck in water, at the opposite side of the lagoon to where we were encamped. He shot one of them, and then putting his gun ashore swam about a quarter of a mile out amongst a lot of water-lilies to retrieve the game. Until I saw him safe ashore I was quite concerned about his safety. To be a successful sportsman about Port Darwin you ought to be about eight or nine feet long, and not mind wading.

Everything having been nicely arranged about the camp, I took the cushions out of the buggy, and prepared myself for a siesta. Then I dozed. Just as I had reached the middle of an interesting dream, I was awakened by crackling and a cloud of smoke. Here was a pretty go. The bush was on fire, and within half a mile wild flames were leaping up higher than church steeples. This was worse than alligators. The horses might be saved by turning them free, but the buggy,—well, the buggy might be saved if it was of cast-iron. To get a better view of the conflagration, I climbed on the roof of the shanty. The wind was blowing straight at me, and, at every gust, the flames would seethe along fifty yards nearer. Nearer and nearer came the flames. Hotter and hotter grew the gusts of air, thicker and thicker came the clouds of smoke and smut, louder and louder grew the roaring. Oh! what an ass I had been to venture into the Australian bush! Just as I was setting the horses free, Pater turned up and asked me what I was about. ‘The fire,’ said I. And then he laughed. ‘Why, we set it going ourselves. It can’t possibly cross that patch of green stuff.’

This was the end of my first experience in the bush. We were all of us awfully tired when we got back, and slept like tops.

Port Darwin is by no means a bad place. For many years North Australia was a white-elephant country, but now it is a land of promise. It is a sort of colony within a colony, being attached to South Australia by the same sort of bonds that South Australia is attached to England. At present Port Darwin is the terminus of the cables from Europe, and the land lines are the Australian colonies. Before a great many years it hopes, by being the terminus of a transcontinental railway, to become a San Francisco or New York. When this is made, the journey to and from the colonies will be considerably shortened; six hundred miles of line now run northwards from Adelaide, and very shortly there will be 150 miles of line southwards from Port Darwin. This latter line will open up a number of valuable mining districts, where gold, copper and tin are already being worked. In addition to mining industries, North Australia offers a good field for the squatter and planter. The squatters, with herds of horned cattle, have already been successful. The planters have, however, thus far failed. When they had good land they wanted capital, and, where they had capital, they were unfortunate in their selection of land. On the coast there are the pearl shell fisheries.

By-and-bye we shall hear that Port Darwin has become as famous as the distinguished savant who gave to it its name. Port Darwin, Good luck! and good-bye.

QUEENSLAND.

In my last letter I told you about our experiences at Port Darwin. It took us exactly three days to get over those experiences. Those who didn’t sleep, sat on cane chairs gazing at the Gulf of Carpentaria, thinking of their past folly, and speculating when the next flying fish would rise. There is not much excitement in tropical seas. You seldom if ever see a ship, and birds, if there are any, are too languid to take exercise. All is dead save the movement of the waters, and the fluttering of flying fish. We had related all our stories, and it was too hot to invent new ones. After about two hours of silence in the afternoon of the second day, the lively Peter said he would bet a new hat that we could not find in Dod’s atlas, islands corresponding to all the days of the week. I forgot to tell you that one of Dod’s chief amusements was to mark out his route in a big atlas which he had brought with him. Peter’s proposal was accepted, and I am sorry to record the fact that I lost the hat. I am sure that I didn’t lose because the islands do not exist, but because Dod’s atlas was not big enough. It did not even mark the great Thursday Island, which we were approaching. If there had only been a detailed map of the north end of Australia, I think I should have won. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday Islands exist near Thursday Island, and the only island about which I should have been doubtful, would have been a Sunday island. I don’t think the people who live near the land’s end of the Australian continent could harmonize with an island named after the seventh day. I wonder if Peter looked at the atlas before he made the bet?

Thursday Island is one out of a set of hilly islands forming outliers off the end of Cape York. From a balloon they ought to look like the commencement of a series of stepping stones, reaching from Australia towards New Guinea. If the series were ever complete, the greater part of it has been washed away, and all that remains is the southern end of the line. As we steamed in between these islands, we passed at the distance of about one hundred yards, a steamer coming out. The waving of handkerchiefs was immense. A lady passenger not only waved her handkerchief, but she fairly jumped with excitement, and beckoned to us as if she wanted us all to jump overboard, and swim after her. It was clear she recognised somebody, but, who that somebody was we never discovered. For the next week we used to address our skipper as ‘the sly dawg who flirted with the lady on the Greyhound.’ It has often astonished me how bold ladies become, and gentlemen also, when there is some sort of a barrier between them. When a train is leaving a platform, respectable ladies can sometimes hardly repress a smile at respectable gentlemen, but, while the train is standing at the station, both the ladies and the gentlemen are as solemn as petrifactions.

The handful of people at Thursday Island had, like the inhabitants of all the other ports on the Australian coast, made preparations against sudden invasion. Practice was going on at a rifle butt, the lights which guide the ships had been extinguished for many nights, and the hulks holding coals and other stores by withdrawing certain plugs could at a moment’s notice be scuttled. One old lady fearing that on the approach of the Russians, she might have to take refuge in the bush, kept her pockets filled with fishing lines and hooks. At least she would have the means of supplying the camp with fish.

On my second visit to Thursday Island, which was in company with Captain Green, a skipper who is as lively, energetic, and entertaining as any skipper I ever travelled with, I visited a number of the neighbouring islands where we climbed trees to obtain enormous bean pods, gathered orchids, and visited shelling stations.

The bays and islets of Thursday Island and its neighbourhood certainly form pictures above the average of Australian scenery. Near the beach are groves of mangrove, while miles up there are rocky cliffs and patches of withered herbage. It is said that nothing of any value can be induced to grow on Thursday Island, while on the volcanic islands, twenty miles or so to the northward, yams and other vegetables thrive magnificently. One great difficulty which has to be contended with is the want of water, the supply necessary for household purposes being chiefly dependent on what is caught from the roofs. As the quantity of rain which falls is but little more than that which falls in the great Sahara, the price of washing may be imagined. After three days in Thursday Island you feel that you have lived long enough to start upon your autobiography. After a week you feel that you haven’t the energy for such an undertaking, and you leave the task for posterity.

From sidewalks which are over the tops of naturally formed sand dunes, it may be inferred that there is no Department of Public Works in Thursday Island. There is a nice sandy walk in any direction you like to take. Now and then you may be stopped by a small mountain of old bottles and meat tins.

The persons who live here are of various nationalities. I saw British, Blacks, Cingalese, Japanese, and Kanakas. There were also a few residents from Damascus, and a Polish emigrant from Siberia. The chief occupation is diving for pearl shells. This is done from small boats with diving dresses. The divers hold a monopoly of their business. They get from £3 to £3 10s. for 100 shells, and it takes 8 to 900 shells to make a ton, which is worth from £130 to £150. White men provide the capital for this business, but it is the dark-skinned people who do the actual diving. If a white man insists on diving, the probability is that an accident occurs. The poor fellow’s signals were not understood, and he dies for want of air. The divers take as their perquisite all the pearls they find, which they trade off to jewellers or at grog shops. The pearls ought properly to go to the owners of the boats. At the end of a year a diver, after having received all his food which he insists shall be of the best description, and accompanied with the necessary sauces, finds that he has from £300 to £500. Then comes the ‘knocking down’ and a general debauch, at which time those persons not desirous of being converted into lead mines or sieves, retire to their dwelling.

Now there is a small church at Thursday Island, and the manners of the cosmopolitans it is hoped may be softened. How they will get on at their christenings without water, is a problem yet to be solved.

Thursday Island is a young place, but still it has its stories. The stories chiefly relate to enormous pearls and the adventures of divers. I was particularly struck with one story I heard, partly because I had reason to believe it to be true, and partly because the scenes referred to were indicated by the narrator as the story went on. It was called:

Ah Foo, the Gardener of Thursday Island.

Pearls and pearl shells are now getting scarce at and about Thursday Island, began the narrator. In early days pearls were common enough to be had for the asking. There are some of my mates here that have had pearls given to them by the handful. They would get a few set in rings for their sweethearts, the balance they would pass on to their friends. The first who discovered this El Dorado was an Israelite from Vienna. He came and bought up all he could, and then he went, and we have never heard of him since. After the first Oriental there came a second Oriental. This was a Chinaman. He called himself Ah Foo, and told us that his home was in Shantung or Shanshi. I forget which. In big colonial towns Chinamen are usually washermen. In the suburbs, and in the country, they are gardeners. About half Australia depends upon Chinamen for their vegetable diet. As Chinamen supply it, the profession of a gardener has come to be regarded as an occupation by no means comparable with true manhood.

You point to the only fertile spot in a barren burnt up township, and before you can ask what it is, you are told that it is one of those gardens made by Chinamen. They are always making gardens. With the manure they use they will poison some of us yet. Would you believe it, they only use night soil. They are such a dirty lot.

This is all the thanks a Chinaman gets for making a pleasant little green oasis and feeding the whites on cabbages and peas. To be a gardener is looked upon as a Chinaman’s profession. In fact pottering about with a watering pot, and hawking vegetables, is the greatest height to which a Chinaman’s soul is supposed to rise.

Ah Foo, when he came to Thursday Island, started a garden. How things were to be induced to grow, nobody could conceive. That was the Chinaman’s business. If there is a second Aden in the world, it must be remembered that it is well represented by Thursday Island. It seldom rains at Thursday Island, but yet Ah Foo kept digging away at his ground, expecting that some day or other it might produce a crop, and the harvest he would get, for cabbages were worth five shillings each, would well repay him for his labours. But weeks passed, and no rain came, and the Chinaman for a month or so paused in his labours. From time to time during this period of melancholy, he would descend from his hut up the gully, and take a seat upon a bench within the little Public.

‘Well, John, and how’s the garden?’ the landlord would ask.

‘Me loose plenty money. No catchee lain, water melons and cabbages no makee glow,’ replied John;—and he looked sad enough for the first mourner at a funeral. Several of the residents on Thursday Island, who had travelled, knew that Chinamen succeeded in growing vegetables in places where even a Mormon would fail.

‘Just let John alone, we’ll have our cabbages yet. Why Chinamen can raise peas out of a bed of salt in a baker’s oven.’ So John was encouraged by a smile and toleration. Many of the older hands on the island hadn’t tasted fresh vegetable for three years, and they regarded John’s efforts with great interest. Now and then a resident who had taken an evening stroll past Ah Foo’s patch, would, whilst taking his tot of square face, casually refer to what he had observed. ‘That garden up there ain’t doing much,’ one would remark. ‘Exactly as I was saying to Smith, here,’ was the reply. ‘Plenty of stones and dirt; I reckon he’s waiting for the rain.’ By-and-bye John’s garden became a joke—in fact a sort of bye word for a bad spec. Still John pegged along. Now and then he could be seen toiling up the hill with two baskets filled with sea weed suspended at the end of a stick. This was manure for the garden.

Six months passed and still there had not been a sprinkle, and John had never produced a single vegetable. Thursday Island was as brown as a baked apple. ‘Curious folks these Chinee,’ said the old resident, ‘always industrious. Why if we had their perseverance we’d been millionaires by this time.’

People next began to speculate as to what would be the price of John’s cabbages when they did grow.

‘I wonder how he lives? Why it’s half a year since Ah Foo came, and he hasn’t sold a copper’s worth of stuff as yet. I suppose the other Chinamen help him along.’ We heard that they are terribly clannish in their country. In the midst of all the speculations as to the source of Ah Foo’s income, there was a clap of thunder, and the rain fell in buckets’ full. Everybody looked up towards the Chinaman’s cabin as if they expected to see cabbages rising like the magic mango.

A week or so after this down came Ah Foo from his patch boiling over with tribulation. He said, the birds had taken his seeds, and, while all Thursday Island was putting in a coat of green, Ah Foo’s patch remained as brown as a saddle. ‘No makee garden up that side any more, more better look see nother place. My flend talkee that island overside can catchee number one land. I make look see.’ For two months after Ah Foo was heard of cruising round about the islands. And as there were a good lot of shelters knocking about it was surmised that John got his tucker free. At last he returned still looking fat and healthy let it be remarked, with but an expression more woebegone than ever. More better my go away. Spose flend pay my money I go China side. No catchee chancee this side. The rumour that Ah Foo was busted, quickly spread, and a good deal of sympathy prevailed. Hadn’t he tried to benefit them, and, in the endeavour, been ruined. The argument appealed to the feelings of Ah Foo’s sensitive sympathizers, and as most of the residents on Thursday Island are generous and tender hearted, a subscription was raised to send Ah Foo back to his fatherland. And he left us.

Two months afterwards what do you think we discovered. Why we discovered that Ah Foo had never had a garden at all, and he never intended to have one. All the time he was here he was buying up pearls from the black divers which ought to have come to us. If Ah Foo took a penny out of Thursday Island he took at least £30,000, and we raised a subscription to get him carried off.

When I turned out next morning, I found that we were steaming along past a place called Somerset. So far as I could see Somerset consists of one house. Many years ago it was intended that Somerset should be the capital of this part of the world. Experience, however, showed that a better location might be had on Thursday Island, and thus Somerset was deserted, and Thursday Island adopted. The solitary house which now remains at Somerset was originally the habitation of the Resident. How deceptive atlases often are! The owner of Somerset ought to pay Keith Johnston pretty handsomely for making the world believe that his bungalow is of equal importance with New York or London. What the Russians pay for having the Urals represented as a great big black caterpillar equal to, if not bigger, than the smudge which represents the Alps, I can’t say, but they ought to pay at least as much as the owner of Somerset. I heard that Somerset was a good place to stay at, and get sport amongst the blacks. Usually you can rely on getting two or three brace per day. The great thing to attend to is to see that they don’t get you. After a careful inquiry as to the population of Somerset, I could only hear of one white man. His isolation has made him famous, and the name of Jardine is known throughout Australia. As we went south, the coast got lower and lower, until it finished as a country of white sand hills. The Queensland Government regard these hills as a future source of revenue. It is here, when trade becomes more localized, that the glass works of the universe are to be erected.

Beyond the sand hills we came to some rocky capes. One of them called Cape Melville was made of boulders, each of which was from the size of a college to a cathedral. It is one of the best bits in the world of rockery work.

All the way down this coast we had smooth water, in fact I believe that everybody has smooth water. The reason for this is, that between us and the open ocean, there is a range of coral reefs running parallel with the land, so that we were sailing down what was equivalent to a huge canal. The length of this canal is about 1,200 miles, and its width from 10 to about 60 miles. If you get into one end of the canal there is but little chance of getting out of it, unless by sailing straight ahead or by turning back. There are certainly one or two openings leading to the ocean, but, those who try to find them, usually find themselves landed in a maze of channels formed by the parallel lines of reef, which together build up the one great reef, which is marked on maps as the Barrier Reef. An old gentleman on board, whom we picked up at Port Darwin, gave us a thrilling account of his adventures in the barque Mary Ann, which was wrecked on the outside of the great reef in 1864. After the vessel had become a total wreck, he and his companions were fifty-five days in a boat, sailing from reef to reef. At first they subsisted on the few provisions saved from the wreck. These being exhausted, death from starvation seemed to look them in the face. From time to time they obtained a little moisture by licking the dew which during the night was precipitated on their sails. Having eaten their last boot, they felt their end was close at hand, and each one, hoping that their remains would be discovered, scratched a tender farewell to his nearest relatives on his pannikin. They were then encamped upon a rocky reef.

‘Before lying down to die,’ said the narrator, ‘as a last hope I dragged myself to the top of the rocky peak at the foot of which my companions were lying. The sight I saw was one never to be forgotten. We were saved—saved! and I beckoned to my companions to join me. It wasn’t a ship, gentlemen; it was a turtle.’ He called them ‘tuttles.’ ‘Tuttles are plentiful in those seas, but, like blockheads as we were, we had never thought of looking for them. Up came my companions, and there we lay flat on our stomachs peering over a rock, watching the tuttle as it crawled along the beach. How our eyes followed the animal! It was no good trying rushing straight at him, for the darned beast would have rolled into the water. As for surrounding him, there was no chance unless the tuttle went asleep. It was too flat for manœuvres of that description. To make an attempt, and then to lose him, meant starvation. So we had a discussion, everybody whispering his ideas to his neighbours. If anybody only knew how fast a tuttle could run, we might let him wander far enough back until we could outrace him before he reached the sea. Sam, the cook, said that he had been told that some tuttles had a very good record. In the West Indies they used to race them for bottles of rum. The general opinion, however, was that we had better not try the racing dodge; the tuttle might win. So we all took in another reef of our belts, determined to hold on for half an hour more. By this time, gentlemen, starvation had made us as elegant about the waists as Italian greyhounds. When thus speculating as to the best course to be pursued, Ah Sing, who was cabin-boy aboard, looks up and says, “That tuttle makee new pigen.” We all looked, and we saw that the black-looking rock which had been progressing slowly across the white sand had come to a halt. Presently we saw it going in circles, for all the world like a dog going to sit down. Then it snuffed the sand, and began to scratch with its black legs, throwing up a shower of dirt in all directions. At times the showers of dirt were so thick that the motive power was invisible. “Tuttle’s gone mad,” said one. “By and by he makee hole all same as rabbit,” said Ah Sing. Sam suggested that he was going to lay eggs. Sam, I forgot to say, was an Irishman, and Sam was right. For a moment we forgot our hunger, and just watched. When he had made a hole about as big as a good-sized fish-pond, the turtle squatted down, gave a duck of his head, and laid an egg. Presently he gave another duck, and laid a second egg. Then a third, a fourth, and so on, until in about twenty-five minutes she had laid seventy-two great white eggs. This finished, she came out of the hole, or what was left of it (for it was nearly full of eggs), scratched some sand over her production, and, exhausted, fell on her back and dozed. We caught the turtle, and also got the seventy-two eggs. It was this as saved our lives.’ After this he told us how they reached the mainland, where they had a narrow escape of falling into the hands of cannibals. Finally they were rescued by a whaler. The story was filled with the most circumstantial detail, and the telling of it took fully an hour. When it was ended, the old gentleman, who looked like a colonel who had seen service in the Indian Mutiny, remarked that he would go on deck and have a smoke. ‘Well,’ said the skipper, when he had gone, ‘I was first mate of the “Mary Ann” from ’62 to ’64, and we never seed no coral reefs. Folks at Port Darwin cultivates their imagination, I suppose, I’d recommend ’im to be a poet.’

After three days’ steaming and three nights’ lying at anchor—for our skipper was a cautious old man, and preferred camping at sundown to waking up hard and fast on a coral reef—we reached Cooktown. We dropped our kedge about six miles off the shore, and there we waited lollopping about on a swell until we had been boarded by the local doctor, who came to see if we had imported any disease. All that we could see was Mount Cook, named after the famous captain, and the beach on to which he had run his ship, the Endeavour, after jumping her over several coral ranges when approaching the Australian coast. Mount Cook is about 1,000 feet high. The beach is flat, and on the edge of the water. After hearing about the famous navigator, we began to think that after all there might be some historical associations connected with Australia. Possibly behind Mount Cook there might be the relics of a baronial hall, a drawbridge, a Roman aqueduct, a moat, or even an ancient suit of armour.

The medical inspection, so far as I could see, consisted in a lot of frowsy men—who seemed, from their general unkempt appearance, to require more inspection than anyone on board our boat—going into the captain’s cabin. I suppose they went to look at the ship’s papers. Anyhow, when they came out they were wiping their mouths. I subsequently learnt that these people whom I have called ‘frowsy’ were really very good fellows; and if we met them on shore shortly afterwards, we might be wiping our own mouths. I regret not having met them. After this, one by one we descended by a ladder of ropes into a boat I’ll call a cutter. I don’t know much about ships, and it may have been a brig. One thing I remember was that it had a thing called a centre-board. Peter said that this was a substitute for the keel, which had been left ashore by accident. No sooner was this centre-board lowered and the sail hoisted, than the boat turned over on her side, and off she set. I thought she was going to upset. Never shall I forget that journey. Before us were waves ranged in tiers like the Sierras of North America. Now and then a larger range, not unlike the Rocky Mountains, would rise. All of these ranges were in motion, and, like regiments of cavalry, came bearing down upon us. Whenever a particularly big range of mountains approached, the man at the helm smiled. We simply looked from the bottom of the valley, up the watery slope at the fleecy heights looking down into our boat, with horror. Then there was a rise, a crash, a deluge of water, and we sank, wet through, down into the next valley. I never crossed so many ranges of mountains in two hours before. All the time we were holding on like a parcel of cats weathering a gale on a church spire. ‘It’s all right,’ said the man at the helm; ‘we’ll beat the Fanny yet.’ The Fanny was another small brig. ‘Just haul that jib-sheet in a bit, Jim, and I’ll keep her to it. Sorry I didn’t bring some oilskins, gentlemen. A walk ashore, and you’ll be dry in ten minutes.’ Then came another drencher. To continually look at a series of colossal waves coming along tier after tier, every one threatening to overwhelm you, was perfectly appalling. It’s all very well for sailors to imitate the penguin, but landsmen don’t like it. Just before we landed, the ruffian at the tiller said, ‘Fares, please, gentlemen—six shillings.’ Six shillings for having jeopardized your life and shortened your existence by nervous excitement! There was no arguing the point. I always felt helpless when the watchmaker, after looking through a magnifier at your watch, said, ‘Wants cleaning; afraid the mainspring is broken; the chain is off the barrel; two pivot-holes want renewing,’ etc., etc. I have also felt helpless when the doctor, after feeling your pulse, and choking you with a spoon whilst examining your tongue, remarks that ‘Your liver’s a little out of order; am afraid there is a little tuberculosis and spasmodic irritation of the diaphragm. Dear me! cerebro-spinal meningitis. I’ll send you up some medicine to-morrow. Next week you had better go to the south of France. In the meanwhile be careful and only take gruel and a little beef-tea.’

I was, however, never so helpless as I was with the charms of Cooktown.

What a mess we were in when we did land! I looked at the Major, the Major looked at Peter, and Peter looked at Dodd. Then we mopped ourselves with our pocket-handkerchiefs. Peter suggested borrowing a clothes-line and paying a housemaid to hang us out to dry for an hour. When I looked at the ladies we met in Cooktown during the afternoon, I almost wept at the thought of the miserable wet blotting-papery figure they must have cut when they first came ashore. Since that event, however, their feathers had been dried, and some of them looked quite stylish.

The principal part of Cooktown consists of one long straight street, about a mile in length, lined with a lot of wooden houses and shanties of all sizes and shapes. Usually they are one story high. Here you find confectioners, bootmakers, stationers, general stores, photographers, a whole lot of public-houses, or, as Australians prefer to call them, hotels, and six or seven chapels and schools. The greater number of the latter were a short distance out of the main street, upon some rising ground to the left. The juxtaposition of these two civilizers is very marked in this part of the world. We visited one of the hotels, and endeavoured to get some information about the place from one of the barmaids, who told us she came from London. The Major was very desirous of obtaining information about the aboriginals. He had heard of a curious contrivance called a boomerang. They used it to catch fish, and he was anxious to obtain one.

On the wall we read a notice that a certain John Smith, being in the habit of making himself objectionable to his neighbours by taking too much stimulant, it was hereby officially notified that it was forbidden to supply the said John Smith with any more liquor.

A similar notice was to be seen, we were told, in every hotel. John Smith had moved to the next town.

While here, a funeral passed. Nearly all the people were on horseback, and, as an indication of respect to the deceased, wore a white band on their hats. Some had it on their arm.

From Cooktown there is a railway now in progress, which is intended to put the Palmer Diggings in communication with the coast. In many respects it appeared to be similar to an American line. It is to the mines and a few squatters that Cooktown owes its existence.

It took two days’ steaming, and camping amongst the coral reefs, to reach Townsville. The coast was hilly, and the weather rough. The morning tub began to feel cool once more. The place we anchored at was called ‘Magnetic Island,’ and ‘Townsville is out there,’ said the skipper, pointing at the horizon. After about two hours’ waiting, a custom-house officer came off to give us permission to go ashore, and to examine the Chinamen whom we had brought. In Queensland they charge £30 per head on every Chinaman who lands. In all the other colonies, excepting South Australia, where John is admitted without duty, the tax is, I believe, £10 per head. The labouring man of Australia does not believe in cheap labour, and as he returns the members of the august Assemblies that rule the Colonies, he takes good care to see that restrictions are put upon its introduction. He doesn’t mind buying his provisions from a Chinaman’s store; in fact, in many places he buys all his provisions from the Chinaman. This is because they are cheaper than those bought from his own countrymen. He doesn’t recognise that when a Chinaman builds a railway in the country, he leaves behind him a cheap article. Had European labour built it, the first cost would have been more, and to pay this, railway fares, taxation, or something must increase, which would directly or indirectly fall on his shoulders. The only thing he sees is the Chinaman as a supplanter, taking labour which ought to have been his, but at a higher price. Then the Chinaman leaves the country, taking nearly all his earnings with him. Where a Chinaman fossicks about for gold or tin, and only leaves behind him heaps of débris, the colonist may rightly object; but when the Chinaman leaves behind him roads and important public works, when he feeds and clothes the colonist, and does all this at a rate cheaper than the colonist can do it himself, it is difficult to understand where the objection to John arises.

Many people that I met had prejudices against Chinamen without reason. The steamers coming from China have Chinese stewards and a Chinese crew. Everyone who has travelled on the best of these boats, and also in the best of the Australian coasters, knows that there is greater cleanliness and comforts to be obtained in the boats from China. On the Australian boats, on account of the number of passengers, the difficulties in the way of cleanliness are undoubtedly the greater. This, however, does not apply to hotels. That Eastern hotels with Chinese waiters are infinitely more comfortable than Colonial hotels, there can be but little doubt. For one who has ever been waited upon by Chinese dressed in spotless white and gliding about without noise, to be transported to the clatter of plates, the squeaking and stamping of boots, and general flurry of a large colonial hotel, the contrast is very marked. One lady I met who had travelled in a China boat, remarked that she wouldn’t travel in those boats any more. Too many ‘Chinkies’ (her name for Chinamen) on board. They smelt.

‘How do Chinamen behave in a gale?’ said a gentleman who was present, addressing the captain of a Chinese steamer. ‘Are they ever intoxicated?’ ‘Well,’ replied the captain, ‘I have sailed with Chinamen for many years, and I have found them good men in bad weather; and what is more, they are never drunk. British sailors are usually intoxicated when they come on board, and for twenty-four hours after leaving it often happens that there is hardly a man who could row a boat. For a passenger-boat to go to sea with a crew like this is almost criminal. As compared with the ordinary merchant sailor, the Chinamen on board my ship are clean.’ This is what the captain said.

So far as I could learn, the working man, ‘the horny-handed son of toil,’ is boss of Australia. He usually belongs to a Union. Union men are subject to heavy penalties should they ever be found working with a man who does not belong to a Union. They hold shipping companies in check, and they regulate the working of coal-mines.

None of the Australian shipping companies are allowed to carry any but white men as portions of their crew. If boats from other countries run upon their coasts, they are not allowed to carry passengers to ports between Cape York and St. George’s Sound. If they insist on carrying passengers, the difficulties which are thrown in their way become so great that hitherto the attempts to fight against them have failed.

To give an idea of what some of the rulers of the Colonies are like, I repeat as well as I am able, two short conversations I overheard.

First Conversation.

‘Going to work to-day, Bill?’ said a strong-looking ruffian to another who was leaning against a shed smoking. ‘Well, don’t know,’ was the reply. Then after a pause and a spit, ‘Maybe I’ll turn to at two o’clock.’ Then he shifted one of his feet as it was getting uncomfortable, and remarked, ‘Was working all day yesterday. Didn’t knock off until six o’clock.’

Second Conversation.

‘Just cast off that rope,’ said a mate of a vessel that was leaving a wharf to a group of three untidy, dirty-looking men smoking on the wharf. ‘You be——, cast it off yourself; we ain’t paid to work for you.’ They continued smoking, and a man had to go from the ship to cast the rope off.

While I was in Australia, a large vessel of some 4,000 tons came from Europe bringing heavy machinery. To discharge the machinery without running any risk of accident, one of the crew was employed as a winchman. This was too much for the other labourers, who insisted that one of their number should be employed as a winchman, whether the machinery were broken or not. The captain was defeated, and had to take the responsibility of accidents occurring through mismanagement.

At present the working man is boss, and until the Australian population has increased he will remain as boss, and exercise a rude tyranny over all who have to deal with him.

Many of the members he returns to represent him are not unlike himself, and I have heard respectable people affirm that the majority of the more educated Colonials would refuse a seat in the Houses of Parliament, even if it were offered to them without contention. I am not quite certain that I believed them, and fancy that they only wished me to understand that certain representatives of the working man occasionally indulged in unparliamentary language.

Although I have said much that is anything but flattering about the ruler of Australia, if I were in his shoes I expect that I should behave like him.

To see a batch of Chinamen come into a district and take up contracts, which I was unable to accept, would be exceedingly annoying if I and my family were driven from the district in consequence of such an invasion. I am certain that I should cast aside all views respecting the general welfare of the colony, and be violent in what I should call self-defence. Australia is for those who made it, and to be supplanted by an alien would make me very angry. I should also be angry if I found that I was bound to curtail my exertions by the rules of a Union to which, if I did not belong, I might not be able to earn a living. Unions may be used by the lazy to defend them against the industrious.

Here I have chiefly spoken about the lazy, loafing working man of the Colonies; farther on I shall refer to the sober, industrious labourer.

The getting ashore at Townsville was attended with as much discomfort as the getting ashore at Cooktown. The difference between the two was, that here I got nearly roasted; while at Cooktown I was nearly drowned. I started in a thing shaped like half a walnut-shell. It had no seats and was black with coal. In the middle of it there was a boiler fuming and steaming with 55 lb. of pressure. In front of this there were two little cylinders like a couple of jam-pots. This contrivance was called a steam-launch. It took us nearly three hours to reach the shore. All the time there was a blazing sun which cooked our heads, a radiation from the boiler which cooked our middles, and a smell of oil and bilge which upset our stomachs. The last part of the trip was up a narrow river. On landing, the first thing which struck me was a hansom. I promptly engaged it, and drove to an hotel. The next thing which struck me was a confectioner’s shop filled with penny buns. I hadn’t seen penny buns for some years, so I went in and bought one. To my astonishment they cost a penny each. I thought that in this part of the world a penny bun would at least have cost sixpence. It was just like the penny buns you get in Europe—brown in colour, shiny and sticky on the outside, sweet, soft, very palatable, and I may add, very filling. I also purchased half a pound of sweets. On my return to the hotel I generously offered a young lady who had in exchange for sixpence assisted one in washing down the bun, to take some sweets: ‘Oh, sweets,’ said she, ‘you’re a new chum, I suppose.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘only the preface to a new chum, madame. When I have been in the Colonies forty-eight hours I may aspire to the title.’ ‘I thought that you had not been long amongst the kangaroos,’ was the reply; ‘we call them “lollies” here.’ After that I was often struck with seeing or hearing that euphonious word. Sometimes I saw it in large letters over a shop, ‘Lollies for sale,’ or ‘Lolly shop.’ Then at a railway station I have heard an old man with white hair, who was wandering along with a basket on his arms, droning out, ‘Nuts, oranges, apples, and nice lollies.’

At Townsville I was nearly stranded for want of money. I had with me a letter of introduction and circular notes. I had tried to obtain money in Cooktown, but unfortunately walked into the bank at two minutes past three. ‘Very sorry, sir,’ said a nicely dressed young man, ‘but it is after three.’ ‘But I leave to-night.’ ‘Very sorry, sir,’ said the nice young man. Although I did not see anyone in the bank, I concluded that the young men had been very busy and required rest. It is a great mistake to overtax one’s system, and I was delighted to find a set of young men who respect their constitutions. In Townsville the story was quite different. The trouble with the young men at Townsville was, that they did not care about the identification of a stranger by his signature. After trying four banks, I crossed the street to a furniture shop, and had a look at myself in a large mirror. My face seemed pretty much as usual, excepting perhaps a trifle anxious as to the prospect of having to sleep in the streets that night. Anyhow, there was nothing suspicious, so I went back to the Number One Bank to have another try. ‘We have not been advised,’ said they. ‘Great heavens,’ said I, ‘we haven’t stamps enough in the country I come from to write letters of advice to all the places printed on this letter. They would cost more than the value of the draft.’ This seemed to strike him, and after discussing the matter in another room, he said, ‘Well, if you will bring some one here to identify you, we will let you have some money.’

In desperation I went to the captain of the steam-launch, who had brought me ashore, who very kindly came to the bank, and, by signing certain documents, made himself responsible. Not only did the young men of Townsville make one feel both mean and mad, but they charged me a heavy commission. Subsequently in my travels my notes were cashed without questions, and without commissions. When the young men of the smaller colonial banks know more about circular notes and banking operations, they also will, perhaps, cash circular notes without commissions and delays. It is hard on their employers that they should send money from their doors. My mind being relieved by having twenty sovereigns in my pocket, I strolled about the town. The street—for there is only one main street in Townsville—contains several good shops. Outside the town I heard that there were some public gardens, but I had not time to reach them. In the distance, in all directions, excepting towards the sea, there are some tolerably high hills, which in one direction reach quite up to and overlook the town.

I stayed at the Imperial Hotel, a tolerably good sort of place, but with little box-like bedrooms. The average Australian has no idea of the comforts of what a European would call an ordinary hotel. Give him beef, mutton, a solid pudding, and a room like a good-sized packing case to sleep in, and he is contented,—anyhow he puts up with it.

That evening, while strolling in the streets, I was attracted by the sound of revelry in an hotel. As the windows leading on to a veranda were open, I walked in, took a seat, and acquiesced in the wishes of a gentleman who commanded me to help myself. I make it a point never to differ with gentlemen who are imperative on such points. If he had told me to drink it out of a tin mug, and to like it, I do not think that I should have opposed his wishes. At the piano there was a universal genius who could play anything and everything that was called for. A short conversation with my neighbour revealed the fact that we had both been educated at the same school. This led to other acquaintances, and by 12 p.m. I knew fifty (I here speak poetically) people who were willing to identify me. After hearing a lot of music, many songs, violent discussions as to how a Russian invasion was to be met, and finally joining hands to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ I got to bed about 2 a.m.

That morning I started at 8 a.m. by train to visit the mining district and town of Charters Towers. The distance is between 80 and 90 miles. The first thing I noticed was the dust. In fact the dust insisted on being noticed. It went into your eyes, your ears, your nostrils, your mouth, your pockets and your boots, as if you were to be buried. Some of the trees in the gardens near the railway station were so earthy, that they looked as if they had been planted root upwards. Outside the town the country had an open park-like appearance. The trees were the same old type which I saw at Port Darwin—scraggy gum trees with white stems. There were also a few screw palms. Here and there, there were plains covered with tombstone-like ant-hills. Along the line there were posts marking every quarter mile. By observing these I found that we were running a mile in from seventy to eighty seconds. All the gradients were also marked. It did not take long before I found that I was on a railway line, the engineer for which had some originality. Part of the way I rode in a coupé at the end of the train and I could see what I left behind me. Sometimes I was looking down a slope and sometimes up one. ‘Grand line this,’ said a fellow-passenger. ‘Compensating grades they call them. Wait a bit, and you’ll see some fun presently.’ It wasn’t very long that I waited. The fun began at Reid’s River, where there was a slope of 1 in 25, down to a bridge which was purposely made low in the centre, so that the train could swoop down upon it and then by its impetus climb up the other side. This sort of arrangement saved viaducts. There is another good rush made at the Buredkin River. Here the bridge is said to be too flat, and the train comes down upon it very like a thunderbolt. It makes passengers quite nervous. When we commenced to lower ourselves gently down the first of these slopes, which I could easily see by craning my neck out of the window, I felt troubled. Very quietly the speed became greater, and I felt my heart palpitating. Then the train seemed to control the engine, and away we went with a lighting-like rush down towards the bridge. At this point I drew in my head, and prayed that the bridge was strong. It was just a rattle and a ‘whish’ and we were climbing the other side. We reached the top, panting and puffing like a broken-winded horse. When the floods are on, the train apparently charges down into the river,—the waters of which may have run above the metals. There was a lot of this, so-called fun, on the road. At the end of it, I felt that my days had been shortened by nervous excitement. The great thing was to know how I was to get back. I have travelled in America over high trestle work, when the engine has crossed with the delicacy of a cat,—feeling every timber as it went along,—not unlike Blondin on a tight rope. In Queensland you felt like a shooting star passing through space. I think I prefer listening to the squeaking of a rickety framework in America to the railway fun in Queensland. At one place we were dragged by two engines, up a series of steep inclines, called the ranges. At the time the line was being made an old lady took a passage down the ranges in a trolly in company with one of the engineers. The trolly got under weigh and took possession of its two passengers, who had to lie down flat and hold on. ‘The trees,’ referring to the bush on either hand, said the old lady when relating her adventures, ‘looked like one tree. Never had such a journey in my life. Why, it didn’t stop until we were four miles past my house. Further off home than when I started. Never catch me on them trollies any more.’

The man who called this kind of travelling ‘fun’ was an insurance agent. After some conversation he found out where I lived, and how many years I had been there. Then he wanted to insure my life. He informed me that he often got ‘cases’ in the train. With him a ‘case’ was the technical term for a man who is induced to pay a certain sum of money to an Insurance Company. Another technicality with a similar meaning was, I found, ‘a subject.’ ‘I live in an unhealthy climate,’ I remarked. ‘Well, you say you have been there ten years, and taking you as a sample I don’t mind insuring the whole of the inhabitants in that part of the world.’

‘Look here, there is the doctor,’ and he pointed to a little old man in the corner. The little old man said, ‘Yes; I’m the doctor, and examine free.’ I felt I was being cornered. It was no good talking about fevers, earthquakes, the difficulties of collecting his fees, all that he wanted was the first fee. As a last refuge I asked for a prospectus, and told him I would consider the matter.

My having volunteered to consider the matter enabled him, by pointing to me as a semi-convert, to introduce the subject of insurance to the remaining passengers in the carriage, all of whom he would insure at cheaper rates than any other company. By-and-bye a priest got into the carriage. Old Insurance immediately wished him good-morning, and after introducing him to each individual in the train as if he had known them and all of us for years, entered into conversation on the advantages of life insurance. In Charters Towers we stayed at the same hotel. He often took a seat next to mine. When he sat down to lunch the conversation usually commenced by, ‘Well, have you considered the matter? You’ll never get such a chance again. Just got six new “subjects” this morning, and expect to get four or five more this afternoon. The doctor has been as busy as a bee; haven’t you, doctor?’ The poor little doctor gave a sickly little smile, and assented. Every day that I met Insurance, I felt that I was breaking down. Had I remained in Charters Towers another week I must either have allowed myself to be insured, or else have died from worry. The doctor has probably succumbed. I never saw a man better cut out to be led round and do as he was bidden. If Old Insurance had said to his companion—‘Now dance, doctor—jump, doctor—say yes, doctor—stand on your head, doctor,’ I believe the poor little man would have done his best to comply with the orders. My pity for the doctor was very great.

It seems to be a common thing in Australia for insurance agents with their doctors to be travelling in search of subjects. I subsequently met one or two other sets of subject-hunters, but I never met with one so determined either to kill or else insure you as my Charters Towers acquaintance. The directors of his company ought to raise his pay. The public ought to get him transported.

At Ravenswood Junction there are some experimental works for extracting gold from its ores by chlorinization. From this point we might have branched off to see some silver mines where ore is being smelted in one of La Monte’s water jacket furnaces. It was nearly one o’clock when we reached our journey’s end. Here the country was open and undulating. There was a little brown grass to be seen, but no trees—at least, near the town. The only thing to break the view were groups of houses, huts, piles of white débris (mullock), and tall poppet-heads. The roads were white and dusty. In places the dust was six inches to a foot in thickness, and so soft that you sank in it like mud. When a cart passed, the cloud it raised rendered it invisible. In the house we found preparations for races in progress. There were many book-makers on the spot, and a lot of jockeys. Sometimes they used bad language and hit each other. Mining first commenced as alluvium work. This was about ten years ago. Now the work is all quartz-crushing. Everybody talks about mining, morning, noon, and night, ‘The Day Dawn is running 14 ounces,’ says one man. ‘Fine body of ore in number two Queens,’ says another. ‘Seen the new heads at the Defiance, Jimmey?’ says a third; and so it goes on until the uninitiated gets sick of mining. When I was returning from Charters Towers I had to get in the train at 6 a.m. As it wasn’t light until about 7 a.m., I could only judge of my fellow-companions by their conversation. In front of me there was a most earnest discussion going on about particular claims. ‘One reef would run four or five to the ton. After they got finished with their new poppet-heads and got down a little deeper, things would be better, etc.,’ etc. When daylight came, I found that all these technicalities were being fired off by two small school-boys, respectively aged about ten and twelve. The children at Charters Towers must be born with a mania for quartz.

The majority of people can only talk about their own speciality, and they quite ignore the feelings of outsiders who are compelled to listen to their conversation. In Newfoundland everybody talks about codfish, excepting for a month or so in spring, when they talk about seals. The worst old talkers I have ever met have been antiquated skippers. Once when crossing the Atlantic, the smoking-room was monopolized by three old shell-backs who discussed reefing topsails, the qualifications of the barques Sarah Jane and Mary Ann, and other nautical matters, so continually, that in less than two days no other passenger could remain with them.

The gold at Charters Towers occurs in quartz veins or reefs. These, instead of running through the slates in which it was once supposed was the only proper place to expect gold, run through a kind of granite. Of late years gold has been found in most unexpected quarters. Since being in the Colonies I have seen it in calcite, and serpentine. The great gold deposit of Mount Morgan is a mountain of siliceous iron-stone, probably deposited by a geyser. At first it was thought that the whole mountain was a solid mass of gold-bearing rock. Now, however, a tunnel seems to have shown that it is only a skin or covering on the outside of the hill where gold occurs. The ground originally belonged to a young squatter named Donald Gordon. Donald suspected it might contain minerals, and asked the opinion of a scientific professor. The Professor said, ‘It is only iron-stone. Donald.’ Finally Donald sold his mountain for £640. The people who bought it estimate its value at £9,000,000. Poor Donald!

After getting the blocks of quartz, in which, as a rule, you can’t see a speck of the precious metal, up to the surface, they are broken in pieces with sledgehammers. They would use rock-breakers to do the work, but as rock-breakers, like Chinamen, do away with European labour, I imagine that they must have been tabooed—anyhow, I did not see a rock-breaker. The broken quartz is next thrown into the iron mortars, where heavy iron stampers are at work. When the quartz is sufficiently fine, it escapes like so much muddy water through screens in the front of the mortars, to flow over the surfaces of a series of copper plates covered with mercury. Here a quantity of the gold sticks to the mercury and amalgamates with it. From time to time these plates are scraped, and the amalgam thus obtained is subsequently distilled. Much gold, however, runs over the plates, and it is a great problem as to how it is to be caught. At some mines it is caught on rough blankets, which are stretched over an inclined plane forming a continuation of the copper plates. Still, there is a certain quantity of gold running away mixed with the water and the sand. This material is usually concentrated, that is, it is caused to pass over some machine where the light sand is washed away, and the gold, mixed with iron pyrites and other materials, remains behind. This pyrites material is then roasted and amalgamated in specially contrived amalgamators. Sometimes it is treated chemically. The more rapidly these operations are carried on, and the greater the flood of water employed to wash the sand along, the more the fine gold escapes. All the escaping water deposits its sediment in pits called slime pits, the contents of which constitute tailings. At all quartz-crushing establishments, you see mountain-like heaps of these tailings. They look like hills of fine white sand. Some of them are sufficiently valuable to be sent to Germany, where the gold, which the Australian miner has allowed to run to waste, is extracted at a profit. Every mill you visit you are told is the best mill in the Colonies, with the best methods and the best machinery. When I looked at the enormous stamps, one could not but think that it was like using Nasmyth’s hammers to crack walnuts. When you saw the general want of automatic apparatus to break and feed materials, you felt that mine proprietors were kind to workmen—who, by-the-bye, usually get about ten shillings a day. When you saw the floods of water tearing over the tables, and through the various machines, you felt that those who sent their ore to the mills were easily contented. I suppose there are reasons for all this, but they were not explained. Notwithstanding all the gold which is washed away, things are brisk. One gentleman was pointing out to me, who, at the time of my visit, was making £1,000 a week. There were a theatre and a circus in the town, and along half a mile of the main street I counted twenty-two public-houses. Altogether there are about two thousand or three thousand people in Charters Towers. On Sunday night I think I saw nearly all of them. They spent the evening in parading up and down the street in a very quiet and orderly manner.

At the hotel where I stayed, I had abundance to eat and drink. My bedroom was only nine to ten feet square, and I had to share it with another traveller.

I returned to Townsville the same way as I went. As I did not put my head out at the valleys and bridges, I did not incur the same feelings of insecurity from which I had suffered when going up. At Ravenswood Junction we had a scramble for breakfast, that is to say for a cup of coffee and a slab of steaming meat. Australians are fearfully carnivorous. Each of them eats, at least, an acre of beefsteak every year. This helps to make them big and strong. When I was in Melbourne, some prisoners had been making public a complaint that they did not get meat three times a day. They excited considerable sympathy. Just as I was about to pay for my feed, a rough-looking miner gave me a push, saying, ‘Shove that in your pocket.’ At the same time he threw down four shillings on the table to settle for two. I did not argue the matter with the gentleman.

At Townsville I found a launch waiting to carry me and sixty-one other passengers off to the steamship Warrego. On board we found a number more. It was an awful crush. The steamer was expensively fitted. If they had spent the money in making her a few feet longer, instead of spending it in fittings, we should have been more comfortable. All the saloon and other rooms were lined with slabs of marble. It was rather pretty, but too much like a bath-room. Here I heard very much about mining, and a little about separation and Government jobbery. At present Brisbane, at the extreme south of Queensland, is the capital. Those who live in the north complain that they pay for railways and other public works which they never see. There is too much centralization in the south. What Northern Queensland requires is separation and a capital at Townsville, then the money collected in the north would be spent in the north. People at Charters Towers say that Townsville is a fraud. It can never be made into a harbour, and their railway ought to have terminated at Bowen, where there is a harbour. The Townsville representatives have been too powerful, and they were not going to lose the trade, which Charters Towers and other places farther inland might bring them. Everybody who sends goods into the interior, or brings them from the interior, can be beautifully squeezed at Townsville. First, the Townsvillians collect dues for cartage from the station to the end of the pier. They are too wise to let their railway be carried to a place convenient for shipping. Next are the dues for lighters out to the ships; and so it continues.

The people at Townsville are clever, and Townsville is rapidly improving. About midnight we stopped at Bowen, but as it was dark I kept in my berth. The next stoppage was at Mackay, where we discharged a lot of passengers, and took in a batch to fill their places. The coast was rocky, with islands and clumps of trees. Speaking generally of our passengers, they were a rough lot. Nine out of ten of them wore soft felt-hats, the brims of which they turned down. Most of them smoked, expectorated on the deck, and jerked the ends of wax matches and tobacco ash in all directions. The captain said that this was the result of competition. It enabled third-class passengers to take a saloon passage.

Australia is a land of wax matches. Everybody carries a box. There are apparently certain points of etiquette to be observed in their use. If you are lighting a pipe, and a gentleman asks for a light to his cigarette, don’t give him the match which is burning, but dip your finger in your pocket and let him strike a light of his own. It would be more convenient to you and also to him to receive the light which is burning, but that does not matter. When asked for a light, do not offer your pipe or cigar, but offer a match. In South Australia I heard that they were not considered safe, and only safety matches were allowed. My experience is that they are equally dangerous—both may and do explode on the slightest aggravation. An interesting series of stories might be written on adventures with matches.

Next morning, at about half-past five, we reached Capel Bay, where the passengers for Rockhampton disembarked. All the places down this coast appear to be inaccessible to large steamers. They are situated up rivers, and the rivers have bars. From this point the coast got flatter. During the afternoon there was a little excitement by one of the passengers having a fit; on his recovery I gave him, at his own request, a glass of water and a Cockle’s pill. That night, at about one a.m., there was a cry of ‘Fire! fire!’ shrieked through the saloon. We all turned out, perhaps one hundred in all, men, women, and children—in night dresses. The officers and, finally, the captain appeared on the scene, and we found that it was the sick man wandering about in a state of mental aberration. The captain ordered two stewards to watch him. Shortly afterwards he went up the companion and out on the port side. The stewards followed up the companion and out on the starboard side. They expected to meet their charge on the deck. He, however, was never found. We suppose he jumped overboard.

Early next morning we were at the mouth of the Brisbane River. On our starboard bow we could see some remarkable-looking mountains called the Glass Houses. One of them, which was called Mount Beerah, is 1,760 feet high. It looks like a very sharp regularly formed pyramid. From its shape, and from the fact that round about it, places have names alluding to volcanic materials it is probably of volcanic origin. It is certainly a very remarkable natural needle. The river is at the entrance very broad, and the land on the banks very flat. Here and there are swamps and fringes of mangrove. As we get higher up we see patches of sugar-cane and a few bananas. The river is muddy and full of shoals. On the banks, the shoals, and floating on the water, there are hundreds, and possibly thousands, of beacons and buoys. They help to make up the scenery. As the channels are ever shifting, these indices for navigators are shifted or multiplied. When an invader approaches, the ordinary plan will be to remove or alter the position of the guiding marks. At Brisbane it would be well to let everything remain in statu quo, and if the enemy did not get wrecked, it might be counted as a miracle. At one point there are earthworks forming a fort. Here the river is closed by a boom of timbers. A portion in the centre is left open for the passage of vessels. All these military preparations are due to the expectation of a war with Russia. Even the smallest place in Queensland has done something to beat off the expected cruiser. In Port Darwin the volunteers were busily engaged in practising at targets. Similar amusements were going on at Thursday Island and in Townsville. At some towns places had been looked for to which bank treasure might be removed.

Now, however, every town, from the snowy uplands of Southern New Zealand to the sandy shores of tropical Queensland, has completed its preparations. At many harbours it would be an unfortunate thing if a belligerent found his way inside. He would most certainly never go out. The war scare has done good. It has placed the Colonies on a war footing.

I found Brisbane a splendid place, in some respects it was not unlike a miniature San Francisco. The streets are, however, much wider in Brisbane. There are some very fine shops, hansoms, busses, barrel-organs, and itinerant musicians with harps and violins. Of course the banks are the notable buildings. Australia is a country of banks. If ever you see an unusually large building, you may conclude it is a bank. Russians have a weakness for big churches. An Australian’s hobby is to build big banks. The Houses of Parliament and the Law Courts were also striking buildings. In the afternoon I saw a lot of grand carriages. Inside them were handsomely dressed ladies. On the box or behind were cockaded footmen. Many of the girls were good-looking. They were, however, chaperoned by their mammas, and you saw what the sweet girls might look like in the sweet by-and-bye. It is a great mistake for a good-looking girl to walk out with an ugly mother. A young man gets frightened. If he didn’t get frightened, then he is not a philosopher. The girls had better refuse such men.

Many of the men wore tall hats. Tall hats are almost unknown in the tropics. Taking Brisbane as the northern limit, they extend as far south as Dunedin, that is to say, over nineteen degrees of latitude. They have a similar geographical range in the northern hemisphere. There are, therefore, two belts round the globe, each about 1,200 miles in width, in which we may study chimney-pots.

Judging from the brogue I heard in the streets and in the hotels, I should fancy that English, Scotch, and Irish are mixed up in Brisbane in about equal proportions. This may not agree with statistics. Statistics consider people who were born in Ireland as Irishmen. In my estimate I only reckon as Irishmen those who talk with a good brogue, make bulls, and tell every girl they see that she is the prettiest in the town. I spent my first evening with a very jovial Irishman. One thing which he taught me was, that the whisky of the southern hemisphere resembles, in all its properties, that which is made in other parts of the world.

One morning I spent in visiting the Brisbane museum. It is a large building, and is apparently omnivorous in the curiosities it receives. There were lots of minerals to be seen, including a number of very good specimens of opal. Upstairs there was a large collection of oil-paintings illustrating Australian scenery. Downstairs I saw many fossil bones, including those of the extinct gigantic kangaroo-like animal called the diprotodon. The Major was anxious to get some diprotodon shooting, but when we told him that the animal was 55 feet from the tip of his tail to the tip of his snout, and 55 feet from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail, making in all 110 feet, that his skin was impenetrable to the bullet of the European, etc., etc., the Major was not so anxious. He saw we were joking, bit his lips, and got quite cross.

From the museum I was directed to the public gardens at the end of the street—‘The gate right ahead of you,’ said my informant. I walked in, entered between two rather fine gate-posts into a garden-like avenue. ‘Odd sort of botanical garden,’ I thought. ‘Trees ought to be labelled. Don’t want to over-educate the people of Brisbane, I suppose. Might be dangerous if they knew a lot of Latin names for trees.’ So I walked on until I came to a big house with a carriage at the door. ‘Good place for a curator,’ I thought. ‘Ought to have started life as a botanist, and I might have had a house like that.’ While looking at the house, and wondering whether a re-education would enable me to start in the plant line, a policeman broke into my reveries by inquiring whether I wanted to see the Governor? ‘No,’ said I; ‘I want to see the botanical gardens.’ ‘You have taken the wrong entrance,’ he replied. ‘You will find the entrance next to the one you came in by.’ So I had to retrace my steps to the entrance next to the one I came in by. This was one of those iron-gate sort of things, like a big squirrel-cage. It had a cast-iron label on, to the effect that these gardens were the invention of Sir George Bowen. After entering the squirrel-cage turnstile, swing the gate and then pass on. Do not pause when once inside the squirrel-cage, or another person may come, and, by swinging the gate at the wrong moment, crack you like a nut between nut-crackers. Here I found labels and Latin names, nursemaids, perambulators, grassy slopes, and children to my heart’s content. Sir George Bowen’s invention is very pretty, and well repays a visit. I forgot to say that at the museum there are the apartments of the Royal Society of Queensland. They began by calling themselves ‘Royal,’ in the same way that a public-house may call itself the Royal Bull. Subsequently they prayed the Government to petition the Queen for the use of the word ‘Royal.’ This was naturally granted. They have a fine library, and are doing much good work.

ADVENTURES WITH A BOOMERANG.

I had a boomerang given to me when in Brisbane. I have got it yet. If the troubles it has caused me, and the troubles it has in store for me, do not bring me to an early grave, I have the intention of passing this specimen of aboriginal workmanship on to some fellow I don’t like. By the same messenger I intend to send him the address of a respectable undertaker. If you have a deadly hatred for a man—if there is a man who has insulted you, called you a liar and a thief, converted you and your family into paupers, blasted your hopes for this world and the future—just ask him, when he goes to Australia, to bring you a boomerang. Tell him you would like a good big one—a fighting boomerang. He will either be dead or imprisoned before he gets back. My boomerang is a fighting boomerang. It is made out of very hard wood. At both ends it is pointed. The edge of it is like that of a sword, and it is shaped like a young moon. My troubles with this thing began in the streets of Brisbane. It would not go in any of my portmanteaus, so I tied it on the outside of my bag. The bag then became like a double-ended ram pointed at both ends. The first notice I received about my double-ended ram was from an old gentleman against whom my bag happened to bump. ‘D—n it, sir, what’s that? You’ve torn my trousers,’ said he. I apologized, and felt very mean. I shall never forget the way in which that old man glared through his spectacles, first at me, then at his trousers, and then at the double-ender. The last look decided the course I should take. I might charge him. After this I tried to be more careful, and got on pretty well until I reached the station.

At the ticket-office I found myself in a crowd, and, the persons behind pushing me, drove the double-ender into the legs and hinder parts of those in front. The way in which they jumped and squirmed was quite ridiculous. ‘Please excuse me; it’s only a boomerang,’ I said. ‘Boomerang be hanged!’ said one man. ‘What do you mean by bringing a thing like that for in here?’ By-and-by it got generally known that there was a man with a boomerang in a bag coming through the crowd, and they made a passage for us. The amount of apologies that I made for my boomerang during the next six or seven days nearly killed me. Every time I made a move into a railway-carriage, out of a railway-carriage, near to a group of people where there was not much room, I had always to herald myself by, ‘Ah! please excuse me—ahem! I’ve got a boomerang.’ Once the bag got a side-blow, and swung round to catch me across the calf of the leg; the result of which was that for decency’s sake I had to borrow some pins to fasten up the rent. It is useless to say that the trousers and my leg were both spoiled. My leg got better, but the trousers didn’t. It cost me twenty-six shillings for a new pair. Once or twice I thought of throwing the thing away; but as I heard that boomerangs come circling back towards the thrower, my courage failed me. To have a thing weighing forty pounds, with the shape and edge of a scimitar, cavotting about your head, was not to be risked. If I had paid a man to throw it away for me, I might have been indicted for manslaughter. I would sooner be mated to a tinted Venus or a Frankenstein than to a good-sized boomerang.

Since the above experience I have tried the thing, and thus far it has not exhibited a trace of the movement attributed to Noah’s dove. At first I only threw it two or three feet; but as I gained courage I threw it farther—first edgeways, then sideways, flatways, pointways, straightways, upwards, downwards, obliquely forwards, backwards, upwards, outwards, and in some fifty or sixty other manners and directions, but invariably with the result that I had to walk after the confounded thing and bring it back. I was afraid to leave the weapon behind—it might kill somebody. I believe I have walked one thousand seven hundred miles after that boomerang. The only way in which I have been successful in inducing a boomerang to return to me has been either by paying a man to fetch it, or else by tying a long string to it. After this it is needless to say that the return of the boomerang is a myth, and as a myth let us relegate it to the land of the unicorn and the deadly upas.

Note.—Since writing the above I met with a gentleman who declares that boomerangs are capable of returning, not simply once, but repeatedly. The difficulty, in his mind, was how to prevent them from returning. ‘There were tame boomerangs and frisky boomerangs,’ he remarked. My boomerang was probably a tame one. If his boomerang had not knocked over two policemen and dispersed a crowd, he would at this moment have been the inmate of a gaol. It came about in this way. ‘Do you see,’ said he, ‘Christmas was drawing nigh, and I thought I would buy something to amuse the kids. Well, I went into a big toy-shop at the corner of Market Street, and, after looking at a lot of mechanical dolls, rocking-horses, and what not, I decided on taking a boomerang. The young lady, who wrapped it up in a sheet of stiff brown paper, remarked that I had selected one that was rather lively. It was just getting dark when I got in the ’bus, and I put the parcel containing the boomerang on my knee. Once or twice I observed that the thing began to edge along sideways towards the lap of an old lady, who was my neighbour. “That parcel of yours seems to be fidgetty,” said she. At that moment it gave a jump. “O lor’!” said the old lady; “why, it’s alive!” “Don’t be alarmed, mum,” said I; “it’s quite harmless;” and I put both hands over my purchase to keep it quiet. “It’s only a boomerang that I bought to amuse the children.” At the word “boomerang” everybody looked as if they had received an electric shock. One young man put up his eyeglass, an old gentleman looked over his spectacles, the old lady shot open her umbrella, and everybody edged away. If I had said it was an infernal machine the consternation could not have been greater. “Oh, you wicked young man!” said the old lady, still keeping up her umbrella as a shield; but just then the ’bus stopped at the corner of my street, so, wishing my companions good-night, I got out, feeling, as you may suppose, much relieved.

‘My wife opened the door for me. “Maria,” says I, “I’ve brought a boomerang just to amuse you and the children.” “Oh, you darling!” and she threw her arms round my neck. What she thought a boomerang was I don’t know; but while she was dangling on my neck, the parcel slipped from beneath my arm and dropped on the floor.

‘As to the exact sequence of events which followed this unfortunate accident, I have but a hazy recollection. For a moment or two the parcel bobbed up and down on the floor, until the top of the boomerang stuck through the paper, when off it went with a whizz, gyrating, waltzing, twisting, and turning in all directions, round and round the room. Maria was stretched flat; I got two bangs on the head, but managed to crawl beneath the sofa; the cat was killed, the chandelier was smashed, every ornament was cleared from the shelves. Then it paused, balancing itself on one of its tops on the corner of the sideboard. All of a sudden an idea seemed to strike it, and off it set upstairs. For the next ten minutes I had the pleasure of listening to my Christmas present smashing and banging round every room from the first floor up to the attics. The servant-maids and the children had luckily escaped to the cellar. Suddenly the noise stopped, and Maria, who had found me beneath the sofa, suggested that the Christmas present was taking breath. “This ain’t particular paradise, Maria,” said I. “Oh, Tom, let us run into the street and call assistance.” Just as we had got from beneath the sofa, we heard a hop-hop-hop on the top story. The boomerang was evidently coming downstairs. “Shut the door!” said Maria; and I did, but only just in time. When I looked through the keyhole I could see Boomey with a bit of string and a streamer or two of brown paper round its neck, sitting on the bottom stair. At that moment there was a fearful knocking at the front door, and the boomerang raised itself on end and hopped off along the passage, as if it expected more sport. Maria ran to the window, and said, “Good gracious, Tom, there’s two policemen!” “Throw them my latch-key,” said I, “and tell them to come in.” I was too busy watching my friend in the passage to do any interviewing myself. By the time Maria had got the window opened a crowd had collected, who, when they saw Maria’s black eyes and tangled hair, guffawed and made some remarks about the old gal getting clawed by her husband. “Excuse me, marm,” said the bobby, touching his hat, “but we’re come to arrest a gentleman a-living in this house for having travelled in the streets with a boomerang.” “Yes, policeman, this is the house he went into; I had him watched,” said an old lady in the crowd. I recognised the voice as that of my neighbour in the coach who had called me a wicked young man. “But,” says Maria, in a state of terror at the thought of legal troubles. “But be hanged!” I whispered to Maria. “Just tell them it’s all right—the gentleman’s inside—and throw them the key. Boomey’ll get ’em!” Just then I could see Boomey dancing up and down, and waltzing about in the passage, as if he had understood the conversation.

‘To see Boomey when the bobby opened that door was particularly fine. He commenced with a gentle kind of tattoo, bouncing round from head to head like the banjo of a Plymouth brother. He evidently just wanted to get the crowd started, so that he could have some fun a-chasing of ’em. When they did start, the stampede was immense. “Go it, granny!” shouted an urchin from an upstairs window to the old woman who was my accuser; “Boomey’s a-following!” The basketful of rags that lay in front of the door before the crowd got clear would have run a paper-mill for a month. For a week or two the house was in a state of siege. No one dare venture outside the door without first looking up and down the street. At last we got into the way of travelling by going from house to house. By pre-arranged signals an open door would be ready for us. If all was clear, we’d make a rush. If Boomey was following, we’d just snap the door to, and wait until he’d gone. One or two tried shot-guns on him, but it wasn’t a bit of good—it only seemed to make him more vicious.

‘After clearing the town of cats and dogs, Boomey suddenly disappeared. When I was last in Clarenceville I heard that he was raging round a sheep station up in New England, and the contingent had gone up to try their hand on him.

‘After my experiences, sir, you needn’t tell me that boomerangs won’t return; the difficulty is to keep ’em away.’

P.S.—The information for the middle piece of this last story I cribbed from a fellow-passenger. I suspect that he cribbed it from a book. When I and the fellow-passenger meet the original author, we sincerely hope that he will be prepared to reward us for the trouble we have taken in making his remarkable story public.

DARLING DOWNS AND NEW ENGLAND.

The Darling Downs were the last I saw of Queensland. From Brisbane you go to them by train. One of the waiters at the hotel told me that I had better take my luggage to the station on the evening before starting. If I took them before 8 p.m. I paid a shilling for a cab. If I took them between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. I should pay ten shillings. I shall have more to say about Australian cabs and carts by-and-bye. Independently of the cost of a conveyance, I was glad to take my bag and boomerang to the station in daylight. The latter might have been dangerous in the dark. The train left at 5.50 a.m. It was quite dark, and I did not see much of the country or fellow-passengers until about 7 a.m., when we reached a pretty big town called Ipswich. Here we had a scramble for a very bad breakfast, after which we got into the train almost as cold as when we came out of it. At Ipswich I saw several factories. Up to this point the country was undulating. Farther on I saw a number of post and rail fences, a few small houses, and a great lot of gum trees forming open woods. After a climb up a range of yellow sandstone hills, we entered a park-like country. Here and there were a lot of palms with heads on them like tufts of grass. These were grass trees I suppose. Now and then there was a creek, consisting of a series of pools of stagnant water. These I put down as an example of the so-called water-holes we read so much about in books on Australia. Near the water there were some trees which looked like pines. These I learnt were river oaks. Some big trees were called honeysuckles. There are a lot of things in Australia which are not what they look like. Sometimes we rushed past a ploughed clearing. It may have been planted with wheat. In a few hours more we were again amongst hills, and as we wound in and out, gradually climbing upwards, I had glimpses of many pretty scenes. At mid-day we reached Toowoomba—the capital of the Darling Downs. I don’t know whether I have spelt Toowoomba right, but it is a very good example of the Hoos and Woos and Moos and Boos they are so fond of in Australia. The letter O is a great favourite. In Sydney I saw a word, in fact, I saw it every day, with eight O’s in it. It was usually on an omnibus. At first I couldn’t read it for astonishment. The next time I saw it I got as far as Woo, but as I ran my eye along the length of the wonderful word, it got confused. It is easy to lose your way in a good long word, especially if it is stuck on a bus and the bus is moving. Once I chased a bus along a street, but I never got past Wooloo. After that my sight was dazed, and I was in a jumble. On returning to a hotel in the evening, I described my troubles to the waiter, who wrote the mysterious word for me, and after ticking slowly off the letters I found it was Wooloomooloo. I was told that Woo-loo-moo-loo was the war cry of the aborigines, who resisted the landing of the early settlers. Wooloomooloo, it may be observed, rhymes with Timbuctoo.

The latter part of the climb up to Toowomba (I spell the name differently in different places because I hope that I may get it right sometimes), which is situated on the very edge of the downs, was steep enough to require two engines. If our engine had not been so leaky, it might possibly have done the work alone. I never before saw an engine that could afford to lose so much steam through its cylinder covers outside a workshop. I am glad I went up to Toowomba, if it was only to see this engine. The view looking back down the incline, over the heads of the trees which filled the valley up which we had come, was beautiful and extensive. Gum trees, in quantity, do very well for general effect; when you get close to them, then you see too many spaces. A forest of gum trees would look all right if viewed from above, say from a balloon about ten miles high. Turning round and looking ahead the scene was altered. Before us were the undulating open Darling Downs, brown, flat, and anything but inviting. In spring time, when they are green, they may perhaps be prairie-like, and beautiful to the eye of the farmer, but as I saw them with their miles of wire fencing, they were not so interesting as the desert of Arabia. I was always going to places at the wrong season. They are of basaltic formation, which probably overlies the sandstone which I had seen below. Perhaps the basalt welled up through great fissures; perhaps it came from some of the small conical hills which I saw farther along the line. All the water from the basalt contains magnesia. New-comers don’t like it. It produces peculiar effects. Now and then I saw flocks of sheep. They did not seem to be eating. If they liked dry stubble, clay, or bits of basalt, they might do very well. They were usually standing still, with their noses all pointing one way. Why sheep should keep parallel, and cows point about in all azimuths, I couldn’t make out. I thought I should never get across the downs. Late in the afternoon the basalt was replaced by sandstone, and we reached the thriving township of Warwick. Here I saw a race-course. Every town in Australia has a race-course, I fancy. Some of them have two or three racecourses. Racing is an Australian mania. Australians like cricket, football, rowing, and athletic sports generally.

At Warwick there were a lot of Toowoomba football boys waiting to go home. They must like football very much to cross the Darling Downs for a game. I would as soon cross the Sahara. From Warwick we again commenced to climb up hills. On either side we had open forests of gum trees. Now and then we saw a wallaby or a kangaroo. Wallabys and kangaroos are like gigantic crickets covered with hair. They have long tails. Their great forte is jumping. From what I saw, I fancy they would win the long jump at any athletic sports. Unless closely pursued by the hunter, they do not care about jumping over wire fences. They get past obstacles like these by lying down and rolling through between the wires. Like donkeys, kangaroos carry their battery in their back legs. When cornered by a pack of hounds, the kangaroo pivots and places his back to the aggressors, and astonishes them with lightning-like jerkings of his battery. Dogs are often disembowelled by kangaroos. Some kangaroos have pouches in which they carry provisions. If one kangaroo picks the pocket of another kangaroo the fight which succeeds is terrific. At Thulimba, where we passed some clay slates and granite, we were at an elevation of 3,004 feet, so said the railway guide. It was cold enough for 10,000 feet. When we reached Stanthorpe, which was the end of the line, it was bright moonlight and freezing hard. Half an hour’s walk took us to Farley’s Hotel. Stanthorpe is a funny little place. It consists of a few low, one-storied houses along the sides of wide roads, I can’t call them streets. They have too much grass on them to be streets. I hardly know why, but I shall remember Stanthorpe, the last town I visited in Queensland, for very many years. Perhaps the difficulty I had in getting there makes me remember Stanthorpe. After a long journey at sea, any rock may be hailed as a paradise. The hotel was like a little old-fashioned English hostelry. There was the white-capped maid-servant, and there was the open hearth with its huge log fire. When I looked at these logs fizzing and crackling and throwing out a generous warmth, I thought well of scrubby gum trees. The best thing, however, was the steaming fragrant half an acre of beefsteak. ‘Will you try a little more beefsteak, sir?’ said Mary; and I tried another perch or so. ‘Will you try a little pie—will you try a little salt—will you try a little bread?’ Everything, it did not matter whether it was flesh, fish, fowl, vegetable or mineral, Mary always inquired if you would try a little of it. In this respect I may remark that Mary was like nearly every waiter I met in the Colonies. They all wanted you to try a little. The usual reply is to say, ‘Yes, please, I will try a small piece more.’ If it is steak, a small piece means the usual slab.

Stanthorpe was at one time one of the principal tin mining centres in this part of the world. There is still a little mining going on. The tin occurs in grains and pebbles distributed through alluvium. The earth is thrown into boxes or sluices through which water is flowing. The light materials are washed away and the heavy tin remains behind. At one place I was shown a band of granitic rock, through which grains of tin were disseminated. It is probable that it was by the decomposition of rock like this, that the alluvium deposits have been formed. On my way out to this we passed the house of a gold miner who had at one time been so elated with his success, that he made horseshoes out of gold, with which he shod his horse. After a five-mile ride, I believe the shoes were carefully removed.

During the night I found it bitterly cold. Next morning everything was white with frost, the ground was steaming in the rising sun, and there was ice half an inch thick in the pails. This was tropical Queensland. The streets were quiet, and with the exception of one man, who was drunk and holding a maudlin conversation with a post, they were deserted. This was the first time that I had heard a man talking to a post, and I was quite interested to know what they had to say to each other. People do sometimes talk to inanimate objects. I once heard of a certain Mr. Smith who, when returning home late at night, had a conversation with a pump. ‘Hillo, Tompkins, old chap! Hie! you’re out late to-night.’ Tompkins was the pump. ‘Why don’t you walk about? Hie! Very ridiculous standing there. You’ll catch cold, and what’ll your wife say?’ Here Smith made a long pause, wondering why his friend was so silent. ‘Can’t you talk? Suppose its beastly pride. I’m not proud. Gimme your hand, and let’s help you home, old chappie.’ And rolling up to the pump he took hold of the handle.

‘Oh! ’ow cold your ’ands is; you gimme the shivers. You’re like an iceberg, Tompkins!’ Just then the pump-handle, under the weight of Smith, slightly moved and squeaked. ‘Hillo, you’re wheasy, old man. Let’s go and get six pennoth ’ot. Your wife’ll blow me up if I bring you home cold.’ Leaning a little more on the pump, the handle suddenly sank, and Smith tumbled forwards just in time to receive a deluge of water from the spout. ‘So you’re sick; are you, you beast? No need to treat a fellow like that. Shan’t stay here any more. May take yourself home, Mr. Tompkins.’ And away Smith rolled, muttering something about ‘beastly behaviour’ and the ‘evil effects of drink.’

My man was not so bad as Smith. He had got his arm round the post of a veranda. At one time he looked like the picture of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza. At another time he was like a revolving hobby horse. His conversation was too inarticulate to be noted.

I spent a Sunday in Stanthorpe. A gentleman at the hotel took me out for a drive. As we went along he carefully pointed out the devastation left by the Chinese. ‘They come here,’ he said, ‘bring nothing but a blue blouse, eat nothing but what they import themselves, work out the ground that ought to be worked by white men, and then they go carrying away gold, and only leaving those heaps of gravel’ (here he pointed with his whip) ‘where they have been fossicking. They are usurpers of a white man’s country. The white man is starving, and his wife and daughters are thrown on charity, and all this because our Government is wicked enough to let Chinamen come in the country.’

As we came back I saw a small Australian bear lying dead at the foot of a tree. It looked to me like a sloth. It is a feeble, timid creature, but has certain peculiarities which renders it worthy of a passing note. When up a tree which is being felled, it has been known to sob and cry with so much pathos, that the woodman has often ceased his work, and gone beneath the branch on which he hung to seek for falling tears. Many bushmen have sobbed themselves, and no one, I have been told, can fell trees in Southern Queensland without several pocket-handkerchiefs. A tender-hearted man can never earn a livelihood by felling trees. The child-like grief of this little bear has been known to overcome the stoutest hearts. Even the bloodthirsty bushranger has had his heart softened by its weeping, and chronic sorrow is not uncommon in districts where this animal abounds.

From Stanthorpe I travelled by coach to Glen Innis. It was a long journey through the bush. I started at 8 a.m., and got to the end of my journey at 6 a.m. next morning. I thought I was going to die in this journey, so I am not likely to forget it. I had a box-seat all the way, and a box-seat in a gale of wind, with the thermometer below zero and wearing ordinary summer clothes, is not an enviable position. The scenery was certainly lovely. Outside Stanthorpe we crossed the track of a new railway line, which in time will be the connecting link between the lines of Queensland and New South Wales. Near here we crossed the border between these two colonies. After that our road was over hills and valleys through interminable bush. Once or twice we saw a kangaroo, and now and then a wallaby. Some of the old kangaroos, which are known as old men kangaroos, will often sit up and stare at you before they jump away. ‘No papers this morning, Jim?’ said a driver to one of those old men sitting near the road, and the old man jumped away. ‘Dear me,’ said a new chum, sitting next the driver. ‘I didn’t know that kangaroos were so civilized.’ When the driver told this story all the passengers in the coach laughed immoderately, and, not to be conspicuous, I joined them.

At one of the stations where we changed horses, I was very much amused by watching two frisky lambs chasing a flock of geese. The geese were terrified and flapped away from their pursuers. Presently a dog appeared about half a mile away, and the frisky lambs bolted in the opposite direction. At the next station to this there were only young girls living. They groomed the horses, and gave us our dinner. At all of these places we had glorious wood fires and open chimneys, at which we could toast our frozen feet. As we jogged along, the driver tried to instruct me about gum trees, and to illustrate his lessons as we passed along, he grabbed bunches of leaves from overhanging trees, which he gave me sometimes to smell and sometimes to taste. Some of them were not unpleasant to the nose, others were frightful. ‘Some you might live on,’—at least that is what he said.

Notwithstanding all that I was taught, gum trees are to me all alike—a scraggy variety of the vegetable kingdom. Tenterfield, which we reached in the afternoon, is a nice little town with modern buildings, some of which are three stories high. It is situated on an open undulating country laid out in blocks for farming purposes. Many of the gentlemen in the streets wore tall hats—many the ladies wore brilliant and shiny black satin. By this time the box-seat had begun to tell on me, and I was more than wheezy. Notwithstanding something hot and a bag of ‘lollies,’ by the time I reached the next station, which was a solitary house in the bush called Bolivia, I could only whisper. This was at 9 p.m., and it was a question whether I should stay and die at Bolivia, or get in the coach to be hauled along to die at or about Glen Innis. At Glen Innis I might get a decent burial. In the bush there would not be much ceremony. This latter ride, through dark bush, on rough roads, up hill and down dale, with your marrow frozen, is not to be forgotten. The cold I got remained with me for three months. All this is extremely personal, but as it may possibly be the means of preventing some other innocent wanderer from anticipating death, I put it in. When I am next seen coaching in a tropical country, I hope to be wearing a fur coat and a blanket. All that I can say about Glen Innis is that it is a good-looking town with several fairly good hotels, situated about 3,500 feet above sea level.

From Glen Innis to Newcastle there is a regular English narrow-gauge railroad. The carriages were, so far as my unprofessional eye could tell, a senseless copy of what there is in the old country. In winter they were bearable, but in summer the carriage I was in must be stifling. It had neither curtains nor sunshades. The Brisbane line was American, narrow gauge and with long carriages on bogie trucks. At one place we passed over a height of 4,500 feet. This was on the side of a mountain called Ben Lomond. All the way down to Newcastle through New England there was much cultivated country, and many prettily situated towns. The journey took fourteen and a half hours.

At Newcastle I took quarters in an hotel, which was not the best one in the place. A fellow-traveller on the train recommended it to me as the best house in Newcastle. You entered at a bar where there was a stream of visitors passing in to drink, and then passing out rubbing their mouths with their coat-sleeves.

A NEWCASTLE LEGEND; OR, THE STORY OF THE DARK ROOM.

My bedroom was like a cellar taken upstairs. But for a glimmer that came in over a door leading into a drawing-room, I was in utter darkness. It was even necessary to light a candle to dress by. When next morning I interviewed the landlord I inquired as to the nature of his contract with the neighbouring barber, for no one could possibly see to shave in his establishment.

“What, were you in number sixteen?” asked the landlord. “I gave strict orders that no guests were to be put in that room. The trouble that I experienced about that room nearly killed me once. If you want me to pay your barber’s account I’ll do it with pleasure, but anyhow you might take a drink before you leave just to show that you don’t owe me any ill feeling on account of having slept in number sixteen.” All the while the landlord looked so anxiously at me, that I began to think that he was astonished at seeing me alive. “Can’t visitors sleep in number sixteen?” I asked. “Sleep indeed,” was the reply, “the difficulty is to stop them sleeping. I had one man sleep in the room for nearly a week without ever coming out of it.” “Well, what’s the matter?” I inquired; “has there been a murder committed in number sixteen, is it haunted or what?”

“It happened in this way,” said the landlord. “Just about this time last year, we had a lot of visitors from up country making their way southwards towards Melbourne, anxious, I suppose, to be in time to see the Melbourne Cup. One cold drizzly afternoon an elderly man arrived carrying in his hand a small yellow portmanteau tied up with a rope. He said he had been sitting in the coach for the last three or four days, and was very tired. From his dirty clothes and a curious limp that he had got, we could quite believe that he had been knocking about for some time.

“I asked my wife what we should do with the stranger, as all the rooms were full. ‘Oh, put him in number sixteen, Joe,’ said my wife. ‘It’s dark now, and maybe he’ll get up pretty early and never know that there’s no window.’ At that time I may tell you that the door into the drawing-room had not been made, so there was no window. The quantity of steak and bread that the old man put away while having his supper was something terrible. Matilda, who had been sitting in the back parlour listening to the order which he gave, said ‘she thought he was provisioning a fortress.’ At last he went to bed. On his way upstairs he hoped that number sixteen was a quiet room, and that no one would disturb him in the morning. He wanted to make up for the sleep he had lost sitting in the coach. As I was going downstairs I heard him lock and double-bolt his door, and then commence to hum a tune. This was at 9 p.m. on June 30th. I don’t know whether you can believe me, but that door was not opened until 12 o’clock on the 5th of July. Of course we didn’t take much notice of him next morning. He wanted to sleep he said, and perhaps might not turn out until 12 o’clock. When dinner time came I had forgotten all about him. You know it is difficult for us to keep the run of all our guests, and, besides, he might have been outside attending to business in the town.

“That night, however, Susan, the chambermaid, told my wife that she could not open number sixteen; whenever she knocked at the door there was no answer. We thought it a bit odd, but as he said he was tired and wanted to sleep we did not disturb him.

“Next morning, as he did not turn up to breakfast, my wife was a bit anxious, and said to me, ‘You’d better go upstairs, Joe, and see if number sixteen is going to get up.’ Well, after knocking at the door two or three times, somebody inside said, ‘Hillo! what’s the matter?’ ‘Ain’t you going to get up?’ says I. ‘All right,—presently,’ was the answer, and I went downstairs and told my wife.

“Dinner time came and then tea time, but still number sixteen hadn’t come down. ‘Better go and rap again, Joe,’ said my wife. Up I went, and after thumping on the door till I heard somebody inside grumbling about a noisy house and people not being allowed to sleep. ‘Are you never going to get up?’ I said through the keyhole. ‘Will get up when it’s daylight,’ was the answer. ‘He’ll get up when it’s daylight,’ said I to myself. ‘Why, it’s nearly forty-eight hours since he went to bed, and he talks of sleeping twelve hours more.’ When I told my wife what number sixteen had said, she looked at me a moment, and then said, ‘Joe, this comes of putting a man into a dark room. It never will be daylight in there.’ ‘Matilda, you’ve struck it, exactly,’ I said; ‘the old fool thinks it is in the middle of the night.’ Then we discussed what we should do. ‘Better let him alone to-night,’ was Maria’s suggestion; ‘he has got to sleep somewhere you know. We can tell him that it’s daylight to-morrow morning.’

“Next morning I was at the door of number sixteen pretty early.

“Rat-tat-tat went my knuckles on the panels. ‘Hillo!’ was the answer. ‘Going to get up to-day; it’s morning,’ says I. ‘Morning be hanged,’ was the answer. ‘If you don’t go away, I’ll call up the landlord and have you removed. Don’t want to be disturbed by intoxicated visitors. Telling me it’s morning when it’s pitch dark. You’re drunk.’

“Well, I was just flabbergasted to be called drunk. At this moment Matilda, who was getting curious about the stranger, had joined me. ‘He calls you drunk, does he?’ says Matilda; ‘let me talk to him,’ and rat-tat-tat went Matilda’s knuckles on the door. ‘Hey, you inside there, are you going to get up? You’ve been sleeping sixty hours,’ said she.

“‘At it again, are you, old fool?’ was the answer. At the word ‘old fool’ you ought to have seen Matilda’s face. I thought her eyes would have come out of her head. ‘Old fool!’ she gasped, ‘me an old fool; it’s the first time I’ve been called an old fool, and in my own house too.’ For the next ten minutes Matilda kept on saying ‘old fool’ to herself.

“Me an old fool and my husband drunk indeed! I’ll give it to you, you wicked old ass,’ then, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she poured into number sixteen’s ears such a shower of superlative adjectives as he’ll never forget. I didn’t know she had it in her. ‘You dirty old bear, do you think we’re going to have you hibernating all winter in our bedroom. Get up, you old beast, and we’ll teach you some manners. So you think Joe’s drunk, and I’m an old fool, do you? Out you get now, quick, before I call in the policemen. You old villain, you, to think you can insult people in their own house.’ Here she paused to get a little breath. She was just putting her lips to the hole to continue, when there was a fearful bang on the door, and something which sounded like a boot dropped on the floor.

“‘Joe! Joe!’ said Matilda, ‘he’s thrown his boot at me,’ and with a little scream she fell fainting in my arms. For the next few hours number sixteen held quiet possession of his apartments while I was plying Matilda with brandy and cold water.

“What was to be done nobody knew. ‘Starve him out’ was one suggestion. ‘At nine o’clock to-night he will have been in bed seventy-two hours, and he must be getting pretty hungry.’

“By this time the other guests in the hotel had got wind of the fact that there was something strange going on in number sixteen, and several of them left us.

“Nine o’clock came, but yet there was no sign that the old man intended to capitulate. All night long Matilda was so worked up about our guest that she would not let me sleep. We couldn’t burst the door open, because it was double-bolted. It would be easier to cut a hole through the wall—the one on the drawing-room side was only plaster and wood.

“‘If we can’t starve him,’ said Matilda, ‘we can stop the old bear from sleeping. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.’ Next morning we were up betimes, and the business of keeping number sixteen from sleeping commenced. The work we did that day was something terrible; we took it in turns, two hours at a time, beating a frying-pan on the door-handle. At first the visitors who had remained in the house thought it a joke, but towards evening several of them thought it a nuisance, and moved with their traps over to the Great Northern. Number sixteen never made a sound. At eight o’clock that night, when Matilda came up to relieve me with the frying-pan she said: ‘Suppose he is dead, Joe?’ He seemed to have heard this. ‘So you are there again, you old fool, are you; it isn’t your fault that I’m not dead. You have had your racket for the last twelve hours, now I’m going to have mine;’ and then there commenced such a row as you never heard. How he managed it I don’t know, he seemed to have got all the fire-irons tied together and kept them bumping against each other and the wooden wall. ‘Stop! for goodness’ sake, stop!’ I shouted. ‘Oh, no,’ says he. ‘Why have you stopped? Please go on; the two together will make a charming duet!’ and then he continued to bang and clash as if he was going to bring down the house. By eleven p.m. every visitor that had remained in the house had disappeared, and there was I, Matilda, Susan, and Jo, the ostler, listening to the inferno going in number sixteen. At midnight two neighbours came in saying they couldn’t sleep, and if the row did not cease they would report the house as disorderly, and have our licence cancelled. Of course nobody slept that night. Matilda spent most of her time in weeping. ‘Let us try quiet measures to-morrow,’ I suggested.

“Next morning we both went to the door, and told the gentleman that he had been in bed for nearly five days, and if he would get up we should be much obliged. We were sorry, we said, that there was no window in the room; but if he would open the door, we would give him a light.

“Getting quite ‘perlite’ we heard him remark to himself, and then speaking louder he said ‘he would do what he could to oblige us.’ Then we heard him step on the floor. For a moment there was quietness; but it was only for a moment, for immediately afterwards we heard a crash. ‘My looking-glass!’ said Matilda, and tears again began to run down her face. Presently there was another crash. ‘There go the washing utensils!’ I said; but, before I could tell him how to steer, we heard some fearful abuse, and he told us he had got into bed again. He couldn’t steer through a pot-shop in the dark.

“‘Never mind the things,’ sobbed Matilda; ‘do please try and find the door.’

“‘What will you give me to try?’ said he. ‘You have imprisoned me in a dark cell for five days, my feet have been cut with trying to get out, and I am nearly dead from starvation. I shall certainly prosecute you when I do get out. If you will push £5 through the keyhole, and send with it a bit of paper, saying that the money is on account of the five days’ pleasant company I have afforded, I’ll make a try and say no more about the business.’ There was no doubt but that we were cornered, so, after a consultation, we poked the five sovereigns and the bit of paper through the keyhole.

“After he heard the sovereigns fall, he asked us to shine a light through the hole; and, as you can guess, it wasn’t long before he found the door.

“When he was gone, and we went to clean up the room, we found the bedclothes full of the tailings of ham sandwiches and crumbs of bread. Underneath the bed there were several empty bottles. What the yellow portmanteau tied up with string had contained was clear; but why a healthy, strong man should come and camp in a bedroom for five days, it took us long to discover. We had all sorts of theories. Tilly had a notion that he was hiding to escape justice.

“Some time afterwards the mystery was solved by some strangers from Rockhampton laughing over a story that they had seen in one of their local papers. It was about a fellow who won a wager of £500 by staying at an hotel in Newcastle to which he was a perfect stranger, and being paid £5 for the pleasant company he had afforded.

“I never like strangers to sleep in number sixteen now, sir.”

The trade of Newcastle is indicated by its name. Although there are no collieries in the town, the town has nevertheless a very dingy aspect. It looked like a town where there ought to be coal—like a town where there was more business than pleasure. At breakfast the landlord officiated at the slabs of meat and mounds of steaming chops. It is a common thing in the Colonies for landlords and landladies to do the polite at the head of the table. To me they were like watchdogs, guarding the spoons and forks. When you go away they are usually very friendly, and shake hands. One landlord, after two hours’ acquaintance, began to slap me on the back, and commence his sentences with, “Now, Tom, old boy!” If landlords are jovial, this does not matter very much; but when they are of a retiring disposition, they make you feel that they are obliging you by giving you admission to their houses. One rule for a traveller in Australia is to remember that, in entering an hotel, he is not necessarily obliging the landlord. While breakfasting I looked over an old copy of the Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner’s Advocate, where, under the title of “Football on Sunday,” I read about an unfortunate little boy who had been summoned by the police for having played football on Sunday in the Royal Park. Oh, you goody, goody people! How particular you are not to be naughty on Sunday—that is to say, on the particular twenty-four hours you have set apart to represent Sunday! When you are roistering, your father and mother in Britain may be praying; and when your father and mother in Britain are roistering, you may be praying. You seem to recognise your vices, and you do what you can to prevent them. On Sunday you close your public-houses for the whole day, and on week-days you usually close them at night about ten o’clock. You would not even go to the limits of a Forbes-Mackenzie. On Sunday you stream to your churches, with the spires of which many of your towns are fairly bristling, and often listen to the wisdom of a young man. You look up to him, admire him, and discuss him. Even if his views are palpably wrong, you tolerate him and give him support. While travelling in the Colonies I talked on religious subjects with several persons, all of whom were wealthy—one was a member of Parliament—who inveighed against all forms of religion but their own, in a manner which reminded me of the fanaticism of the Middle Ages. One gentleman, and a high Government official took me round one Sunday evening to look through the windows of a Roman Catholic chapel, where we saw a priest swinging incense. “Look at the idolaters! They are the ruin of the country; they ought to be classed with savages, and swept off the face of the earth!” was what he expressed.

Religion of this sort is a religion of all who are partially educated. They regard themselves as the centre of the universe, and, regardless of what their own particular views would have been had they been reared in Mecca, they have the conceit to publicly express the measures they would adopt to reform the world. In the Colonies there are undoubtedly many of every denomination who have an education and ideas equally advanced with the leaders of similar denominations in other parts of the globe. About these we will say nothing—we only speak of the generality; and that generality, I must confess, was judged of by a small experience. One measure of the general uncouthness with regard to religious ideas is the enormous support the Salvationists have received in the Colonies. Where is the country in the whole world which has given a greater support (I reckon support by percentages of the whole population) to the Salvation Army than Australia? Ranting, raving, roaring processions of the lower classes may be seen in every town. A low, uneducated mind apparently finds comfort in a rough form of worship.

Look, again, at the followers of the Blue Ribbon. I have never yet been on a steamer where some of these gentlemen desirous of advertising their principles have not been present. Further, it has but rarely happened that they have not opened an argument about their views to a fellow-passenger, who in many cases was perhaps a better exponent of their doctrines than they themselves. To declare your principles may be heroic, but it is only the vulgar who make themselves objectionable when making their declarations. Nearly every Blue Ribbonite I met with was decidedly vulgar, and, like the Salvationists, bold but ignorant. When these middle lower classes of Australia are educated, there may be fewer examples of these primitive kinds of worship. The same may be said for other countries.

Notwithstanding all the religious parades which continually bumped against me, I observed that vices were about the same as in other countries. There was the usual gambling to be seen on steamers and in hotels, the usual betting and bookmaking, the usual drinking, the usual games at euchre, and, in short, the usual everything.

The traffic-manager of every railway tries to stop smoking, or at least to surround smoking with so many discomforts that it will stop itself. In New South Wales, for instance, you read at every station, “Any person found smoking on the railway premises is liable to a fine of £2.” Still you get a smoking-carriage. To call it a truck or van might be better.

On the suburban lines of Melbourne, between the hours of four and eight in the afternoon, you get a sort of smoking-box to sit in. It almost seems to have been intentional to make the smoking accommodation as filthy as possible. Nowhere in the world—and I have been round it and round it in many directions—did I ever meet with smoking-carriages in such a very dirty condition as those near Melbourne. If you got in quickly, you might possibly get a seat. If you were late, you had to stand in the middle of the van (for the conveyances are more like vans with seats round them than carriages). There is a mat, which I always saw in a state of sop: this was produced by saliva. To drop a parcel would be to leave it, for it would be too soiled to pick up.

If people are crammed together like pigs, a place has a tendency to become like a pigstye. Why Victorians are content with the smoking accommodation provided by the suburban lines at Melbourne is a mystery.

From Newcastle I made a trip to one of the coal-mines, distant perhaps ten miles. Part of the journey was accomplished on the ordinary railroad; the remainder of the journey, on a private line, was made in a locomotive kindly put at my disposal by the proprietors of one of the mines.

On the Newcastle line I was particularly struck by a large printed notice at the bookstall, which ran as follows: “Persons not requiring books at the stall are requested to leave the same alone.” This was in large type, and the not was underlined. Directions for the guidance of the public so courteous as this are worthy of record.

My companions in the railway-carriage are also worthy of a note. To see one lady that is stout and plain is not an unusual occurrence; but on the memorable day of July 30, 1885, I had no less than ten stout ladies to admire. Each of them looked cross, and, from the way in which they glared at me, they were evidently strong-minded. Perhaps I was in the compartment reserved for ladies; but as the train was in motion before this dawned upon me, my mistake could not be rectified until I reached the end of my journey. Once or twice I glanced upwards, just to see a battery of flashing eyes, a circle of fat red faces, and bale-like heaps of lace and spangles, each of which extended over the area usually occupied by two people. While breathing a close atmosphere of rich perfumery, I made the calculation that as the most fairy-like of my companions weighed at least 200 lb., the whole ten of them must have reached the enormous weight of 2000 lb., or nearly a ton. Fancy being cooped up with a whole ton of female beauty, each unit of the whole having a strong intellect, and being at the same time fearfully muscular. I often wondered whether they were on their way to some show. They looked domestic, and, assuming they were blessed with spouses, the spouses must have felt blessed too. From these remarks I do not wish it to be supposed that all Australian ladies are like the remarkable ten into whose company I unintentionally had forced myself. Australian ladies are as pretty and as enchanting as the ladies in other parts of the globe. Abnormalities occur in every country. I only remember seeing one other stout lady. She was jolly and agreeable, as stout people usually are. I travelled with her for perhaps two hundred miles. By the time the first hundred were over we were quite confidential. She was going to see Parker. Parker was her husband. Her name was Cleopatra, but her husband called her Cloppy for short. “When I left Parker three years ago,” said Cloppy, “I was slim as a lath.” At the end of the journey Parker was standing on the platform. He must have looked at Cloppy for at least two minutes before he opened his mouth. When he did open it, he smiled, then he grinned, until finally he couldn’t contain himself for laughing. We had to pat him on the back. “Why, Cloppy,” he said, and then he was off in convulsions again; “I hardly knew you. You are fat!” and he was off again in tears. “Well,” replied Cloppy, who was commencing to look a little bothered, “if I’d thought you was going to make a fool of yourself in this way, I’d never have come. There now, come along;” and she led Parker away with his sides shaking.

There are big men as well as big ladies in Australia. The tall men you see about the streets and in the hotels they are often quite noticeable.

The coal-mines well repaid the visit. I was shown every courtesy that could be desired. There was no particular reason why I should have been shown any courtesy whatever. I visited the coke-ovens and works above ground, and afterwards walked some miles underground, where everything that was remarkable was carefully described. On the surface I was particularly struck with the size of a coal-box. Ordinary coal-boxes are portable; this coal-box had been made too large to admit of removal. It held, I was told, upwards of 3,000 tons of coal. If they had told me that it would have held half the coal in the universe I should have unhesitatingly accepted the statement, and noted it down as a fact to be publicly recorded. This box was built of wood. It stood on legs, so that locomotives and whole trains could run underneath it. Beneath this particular coal-box—for at other mines there are also coal-boxes—there were three lines of rails, so that three long trains could seek the shelter of its wings. These wings were sliding doors. Open the doors, when, presto! the trucks beneath were full, and three great trains could start away laden with a cargo of black diamonds sufficient to supply the British fleet. Unfortunately, the British fleet never came to be supplied. Newcastle folks have had a mania for coal loading. At Newcastle itself they have a wonderful arrangement of hydraulic cranes, which lift whole trucks, much as we would lift a spoonful of soup, and then tip it into any portion of a ship where the coals are wanted. In many cases I believe that the supply comes in more quickly than those in the ship can get it trimmed. It is a wonderful fact, but skippers say it is a fact, that, in consequence of this, the coolies of China and the boys and girls of Japan can load an ocean-going steamer as fast with coals as it can be done with the hydraulic cranes of Newcastle. At Nagasaki I have been told that the passing in and passing out of a cargo is a sight to be remembered. Women or boys stand shoulder to shoulder up the gangways from the lighter to the steamers. The baskets of coal fly along from hand to hand, and so rapidly, that no individual ever carries any weight; all that he does is to give the flying parcel an additional quantity of momentum. The empty baskets pass back in a similar manner. The general effect is that of a huge circle of revolving baskets. All this is accompanied by parrot-like chattering and giggling. The Easterns are a happy lot. When they have finished coaling they wash themselves.

Underground I was shown where a great fire had occurred. In places the coal was burnt to a cinder. As you receded you passed places where it was only coked. The shales that accompany the coal had been baked to a state of brick or porcelain. This fire had been put out by flooding the mine with water. This was accomplished by making a huge syphon out of a 6-inch pipe, and conducting water from a creek which, at the time of the fire, very luckily happened to be in a state of flood. The seam I saw was six feet thick. In places it was a bituminous coal; in other parts it had a stony look—this was splint coal. On one occasion this splint coal had been returned, the buyers thinking it was shale. As a matter of fact, it was a better coal than the bituminous variety. Buyers often grumble about it. One thing of interest was a contrivance for automatically greasing the wheels of the coal-trucks. Another striking arrangement was a bar of iron called a “bull,” which was to stop a truck from running away, supposing it got free when on an incline.

Sydney was the next great city which I visited. There is a daily, or rather nightly, steamer communication between Newcastle and Sydney. Before long there will be a railway connection, when the steamers will have to lower their prices, or to seek their freights in other ports. It was night when I left Newcastle. On my way to the wharf I asked a young man the way to the boat for Sydney. His reply could not even be put in Latin. In all countries which are leading factors in the world’s advancement, we find the over-civilized, the civilized, the semi-civilized. The gentleman to whom I spoke on the Newcastle wharf might out of courtesy be admitted to the last class. I suppose he belonged to that particular division of the human species known in Australia as the larrikin, in ’Frisco as the corner boy, and in London as the loafer. Sydney and Melbourne are the headquarters of the larrikin. They may, if it is an honour, claim the invention of this excrescence in Australian civilization. By some, the larrikin is regarded as a type of humanity which owes its peculiarity to a redundance of animal spirits. It includes shop-boys and young workmen, who shriek after couples in the act of spooning: “Heh! why don’t you marry the girl! I’ll tell your mother what you’ve done!” Young gentlemen who are impertinent and cheeky. Young men who are given to larks and larking. Thus their name. The larrikins I have seen have certainly the above qualification; but, in addition, not only do they make themselves conspicuous by their wits, but they live by them. During the day they are apparently idle. They stand at corners, where they smoke. The better class of them, or rather those whose “wits” are above the average, adopt black suits, velvet collars, and high-heeled boots. You see the larrikin in numbers on piers, especially on the arrival of a steamer. I say they live on their wits, because, like the policemen, I really do not know how they do live. “Go down Clarence Street at night with some money, and you will find out,” said a friend of mine. What he meant I do not know.

The larrikins are the town loafers of Australia. The country loafers are called sundowners. These are gentlemen who travel with their swag on their backs, and so arrange their movements that if possible they reach a station at sundown. Here they take advantage of the hospitality accorded to strangers, and practically demand shelter and food. To refuse them might be dangerous, for after their departure fences might be destroyed, fires might break out, or other little troubles might occur which would be objectionable and dangerous. The sundowner is a black mailer, and many of the squatters find his demands a serious item in their expenses.

An old gentleman whom we suspected as being a sundowner visited our ship while it was lying at the wharf in Newcastle. He was a tall old man with a long grey beard. His tattered clothes, his staff, and the bundle on his back, made him so much like the pictures of Rip Van Winkle that he attracted general attention. His worn shoes and dusty appearance indicated that he had travelled many miles. He told Captain Green, who did the interviewing, that he had walked across the Blue Mountains from Sydney to Brisbane, and was in search of work. He was an engineer, but wherever he went, there was always the same answer,—‘Old men are not employed.’ As he was evidently a man who had interesting experiences to relate, our Captain asked him on board. His foot was no sooner on the deck than he saw a Chinaman. “What!” exclaimed the old man, “you carry wretches like that,—heathens who have robbed me of honest employment,” and he seemed inclined to leave the ship. A little persuasion, however, brought him into the cabin, and when a heathen had given him a steak and a bottle of porter, his bitterness subsided.

It turned out that he had been educated at Bath, and when he heard that the captain had been in Bath, the old man’s eyes almost filled with tears. ‘You must know the old church, then?’ ‘Yes, yes; I shall never forget an inscription on one of the gravestones I read there; forty years ago now:

‘“Life is but a maze of crooked streets,

Death is the market-place where each man meets;

If life were merchandise which men could buy,

None but the rich would live, and only poor would die.”’

Had our captain been able to keep the old gentleman on board, his quotations, relating of incidents, and above all his mannerism, would have formed materials for an interesting biography.

Now for Sydney. I must say that when I had passed the barrier of larrikins, and reached one of the main streets, I was greatly astonished. The bustle, the omnibuses, the cabs, the people, and the general business-like flow of vehicles and people, reminded me of a street in the little village on the Thames. The first hotel I tried was the Royal. A notice in the smoking-room, which, by-the-bye, could only be reached by verandas and windows, to the effect that “Any person leaving cigar ash or ends about the room will be prosecuted as the law directs,” etc., etc., quite frightened me. Jokes like these are so near reality in the Colonies, that they ought not to be practised.

Everywhere you tumble on notices and articles inveighing against smoking, swearing, and other vices, so that a stranger gets nervous, lest by accident he should be caught tripping. I left that hotel, and shortly afterwards found myself located at another hostelry, situated on a hill in the midst of churches. Oh, those sweet church bells! Those evening chimes. Think of the thousands of sleepless nights you have caused. An organ-grinder may be ordered to move on by law. Why are you exempt? You jangle, jangle, jangle, all in discord and without meaning.

I spent some days in Sydney, and all day and every day I walked and rode about in all directions. One day I strolled through the Botanical Gardens, enjoying glimpses of Sydney’s beautiful harbour. ‘Oh, have you seen our harbour?’ is a question addressed to every stranger. How a stranger who visits Sydney is to avoid seeing the harbour is a great puzzle. Whichever way you walk you must come to the harbour—its ramifications extend in all directions. Although it has only one entrance, and is seldom more than a mile in breadth, often being much less, it is said to measure round its shore line more than seventeen hundred miles. Sydney people and Australians, when abroad, are for ever doing all they can to create a prejudice against this beautiful corner of creation. Morning, noon, and night the changes that are rung upon the words, Sydney Harbour and beautiful, at last become as wearying as the bells. Still, the harbour is beautiful. I went up the Paramatta to see it.

As you steam along the smooth waters, and gaze at vista after vista of islands, river-like expanses and rocky promontories, you might fancy yourself at rest, while acres upon acres of panoramic views were slowly drifting past you. All you require to complete the illusion is slow music, and on fête days I presume such a want is supplied in plenty. The rocks are yellowish-grey sandstone. As you get away from the town, which looks more like a gigantic watering-place than a city for business, the hills, instead of being capped with houses, are capped with scrub. Whales and other marine monsters which have entered Sydney Roads, must be quite bewildered by the twists and turns they are compelled to take. Probably many of them get lost. As we progress up the harbour, we see villas and cottages built on cliff-like slopes or islands. Many of these have gardens, which of necessity are filled with mounds and huge rocks. The Britisher residing on the shores of Sydney Harbour is compelled by nature to have a garden that is picturesque. His squares, and circles, and complications of geometrical figures, cut in dirt and marked out with bright flowers or tiles, in which his mechanical, unartistic soul delights, are here an impossibility. Here he must content himself with figures and effects carved out by nature—his own artificial regularities being an impossibility.

Where the harbour was narrow it was spanned by iron bridges. Those which I saw were perhaps half a mile in length, and of the Warren girder type. They carry an ordinary roadway. They might carry a double line of rails.

A young Chinaman who had been studying engineering in Europe was on board. He told me that he thought iron was cheap when these bridges were built. It might be cheap to pull them down, and then put up double the number of bridges with the same material. Of course the heathen student was wrong. I told him that each bridge should be strengthened, and should then be restricted to the use of foot passengers.

Another trip that I made was out to Coogee. This was in a steam-tram. Steam-trams are a great feature in Sydney. They run through the heart of the town. They consist of a locomotive and two or three carriages. To send an ordinary train steaming, chuffing, smoking, snorting, firing off ashes, steam, and dirty water through thickly populated streets, is more than many towns would tolerate. Sydneyites, however, send something more than all this through their town—not every hour, but in places two or three times every five minutes. They send carriages behind their locomotives as tall as ordinary houses. ‘Great goodness, what’s that?’ said the major, when he first saw the steam-tram. ‘The cathedral has escaped——no, it’s a row of houses got loose.’ It was some time before we ventured on board one of these moving buildings. We took an outside place, climbing up a ladder to what might correspond to the tiles of an ordinary two-storied dwelling. One striking notice was: “It is dangerous to sit on the rails.” We all laughed. We would as soon think of sitting on the rails used by a Sydney tram as sitting on the rails of an ordinary railroad. “Directors joking,” said Peter. “Why, they mean these things,” said Dodd, pointing to some thin rails corresponding to the tin water gutter on the edge of a roof.

Another prominent notice seen in nearly all the Australian towns is, “Walk over crossing.” This is usually pendent on a lamp-post. “Walk over crossing,” said I to myself. “They want us to be killed, I suppose. I shall run over crossings, if necessity requires it.” Afterwards I learnt it was a notice to the drivers of chariots.

As we went along we had splendid views into bedrooms, bath-rooms, store-rooms, top garrets, and generally the upper quarters of the houses which lined a street. Now and then a hand would suddenly snap down a blind. This was probably some lady who objected to our seeing her doing up her hair. Another kind of fun was to watch the private horses jump. They don’t understand a row of houses tearing along the street. Coming back, Peter made the major a bet that we should see at least ten horses not educated up to steam-trams. Peter won. If I lived in Sydney I should take a season ticket on the steam-trams. Perhaps I might hire a tram of my own.

Coogee was lovely. In fact, all the country round about Sydney seems to be lovely. Hill and dale in all directions. A lot of the ground is sandy. It is covered with bushes and tufts of grass, and in general appearance is like moorland. On our way out we first saw a big thing like Cleopatra’s Needle put up in honour of George Thornton, a former Mayor of Sydney. There are plenty of needles, statues and arrangements to commemorate great people about Sydney. Those who wish to have a chance of earthly immortality, let them try to live and die in Sydney,—only don’t let the candidates for effigies, and other eulogies in stone, be too numerous. Next we saw the University. We paid a visit to this place, and were shown a remarkably fine hall—perhaps the best hall out of Oxford. I am of course talking about halls belonging to English folks. Then there was a book, “My Journal in the Highlands,” bound in blue, and put on a monument under a glass case. How many of these works our gracious Majesty has been pleased to present to institutions and people in the Colonies I cannot say. I should guess a good-sized ship-load.

After this there was the race-course and the Zoo. At the Zoo we saw the usual elephant busily engaged in carrying round a load of children. There were also some very tame kangaroos. A great feature in Sydney, as in other Australian towns, are the cabs and carriages. In Sydney they are hansoms—in Melbourne they are cumbersome things like covered waggonettes. The most peculiar point connected with these conveyances is the system on which you are expected to pay for them. It took me a long time to discover what the system was, and it is more than likely that what I discovered only applies to visitors. After trying a number of chariots in various parts of the Colonies, it appears to me that if you pay one shilling for the first quarter of an hour, you pay two shillings for the second quarter, four shillings for the third quarter, and so on at a geometrically increasing rate. If you were to engage a cab for four hours your bill ought, at the above rate, to be £1,766 18s. 0d. I was, however, informed on good authority, that, with a little persuasion, the drivers might compromise with you for about ten bob. If a man took a cab for the whole day, say of twelve hours his bill would reach in round numbers the magnificent sum of one hundred and forty millions of millions of pounds, or in figures £140,000,000,000,000! A distinguished calculator was employed to make this estimate, and it may be relied on. I have omitted a few trillions of pounds some odd shillings and pence in this account, as too much detail leads to confusion. Is not this a revenue towards which the Government of New South Wales ought to direct its attention? They require a loan, why not ask the cabmen? It is true that not many men survive such an account. The man who had engaged the luxury of a cab for a day, was, I heard, serving his time in the debtor’s gaol, and as it would be some time before he had picked sufficient oakum to pay his score, I was unable to make the acquaintance of this colossal bankrupt.

It was Saturday when I went to Coogee. In the afternoon the preparation for Sunday commenced. Many shops were closed, verandas and doorsteps were washed, and door-handles polished. But for a theatre, where I sought refuge from the religious atmosphere which was closing over Sydney, I should have been extremely dull. There are two or three theatres in Sydney, all of which are well patronized. At a theatre where Boucicault was performing, it was necessary to buy a ticket several days ahead. I think I should have started for Melbourne on Saturday, had I not been told that before the train had come to the end of its journey it would be Sunday. As soon as it is Sunday the train stops, and as it might stop in the Bush, and I was nervous about bushrangers, I thought it better to remain in Sydney.

Of course everything is closed on the Sabbath. Should you ramble in the country, and there, wearied with walking and the sun’s rays, lie down exhausted on some mossy bank, still feeling that you might open your eyes to the light of another day, could you obtain one small glass of beer, do you think you would get it? Experience says No. If you were to use strong language at this state of affairs, or at any other state of affairs, do you think that a bobby would not run you into chokee? The newspapers say they would. Neither liking to risk a horrible death from thirst, nor the chance of offending the ears of some justice of the peace, I stayed at home on Sunday. For about an hour I listened to the jangling of some forty church bells. The enterprising proprietor of one church made his bells play a hymn tune. These were the sounds from outside. Inside I was edified by the jargon of forty semi-educated poll parrots. Each of these birds knew a sentence of English. One of them would fire off his particular string of words, when all his companions would guffaw and yell. They began at about three in the morning, waking me up with an impression that murder was being committed. I should have liked to have killed them. I felt miserable. The place seemed to be a mixture of piety, poll parrots, teetotalism, and bad grub.

In the afternoon I met a doctor who was acquainted with Sydney. He said he would show us some fun. Better go out to Botany Bay, and see Sir Joseph Banks’s Garden. The suggestion was hailed with joy, and after lunch, Peter, Dodd, and I were all safely seated on the roof of a tramcar on our way to Botany Bay. Going to Botany Bay! What room for reflection—at least that is what those in Britain think. Botany Bay is looked upon as a home appointed by our Government for murderers and vagabonds. They think wrongly. Botany Bay is a rural spot which has been much maligned. It was about nine miles’ ride. On the way we passed lots of little villas, all with gorgeous cast-iron balconies, and elaborate fringes of the same material round their eaves. It is seldom that one sees so much ornamentation in iron. Some of the designs were made up of so many twists and turns that they looked like lace. Such elaborate decorations were symphonies in metal; to me they were like the English geometrical gardens, the result of mechanical education. I do not like the poetry of foundries.

A very noticeable building in Sydney, which strikes attention partly on account of its magnitude and partly on account of the magnitude of its name, is a steam laundry. Notwithstanding the existence of this palatial wash-house, you pay six shillings a dozen for your washing.

At Botany Bay, we found a huge pavilion in an enclosure of trees and grass called a garden. The building, which would hold an audience of several thousands, was used for skating, dancing, and singing secular songs, on Sunday. At one end there was a stage, and artistes were singing. We sat down and listened. The songs we heard were “The Little Hero,” “Hark the Lark,” etc. The audience were remarkably quiet and well-behaved. Round the sides of the hall there were regulations and rules about skating and dancing. It was requested that “Gentlemen would not dance with gentlemen, nor ladies with ladies,” etc.

Many of the ladies were conspicuous from the variety and brilliancy of their colours. I refer to the colours of their dresses. May not this have been an example of unconscious imitation? There is a tendency in the animal kingdom to adopt the colour of its surroundings—Polar bears are white, insects on sand often have a sandy colour, many that live in trees imitate the colour of the branches or the leaves. Perhaps those who live in Australia have a tendency to imitate the gorgeous plumage of its parrots.

On the return journey, our engine had to drag three carriages, each containing about eighty people. The seats were occupied, the sitters’ knees were occupied, and the space between the knees of those who sat upon the sitters was used for standing. One man was very talkative, or, in plainer English, he was very drunk. This reminds me that at Botany Bay the hotel refused to sell refreshments.

It was, however, an easy matter to become a member of a club. In half an hour, or even less, you could pay your entrance fee and be elected. Being a member of the club you could then revive yourself and your exhausted acquaintances as often as you pleased. The arrangement was charming. It reminded me of Kimberly in South Africa, where, after the Government had put restrictions on ordinary hotels, hundreds of clubs sprung into existence. I suppose our friend of the trains had been to a club. After telling us, if we valued our constitution, to follow his advice and never take a drink between drinks, he gave us a most interesting lecture on his acquaintanceship with the interior of prisons. He told us about the broad arrow on his back and the marks upon his ankles. He invited us all to smash a window and join him. It was only distinguished personages who were entertained at Government expense. Amongst the lower classes, to refer to each other’s prison experiences or ankle marks appeared to be a form of taunting which was not uncommon.

That night we had tea. On week-days, the hotel being of a class that was supposed to set the fashion, we had dinner.

THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF HULLOOMALOO.

There are some very fine libraries in Australia, the one at Melbourne probably being the best. Talking about books to a Mr. John Smith, with whom I had once or twice the pleasure of dining at his residence in Hulloomaloo, I learnt something about the formation of libraries that may be interesting to record. Not seeing any books in Mr. Smith’s rooms, I ventured to ask him what he did for reading materials. Did he never give his mind a little relaxation? ‘Oh yes, I’ve got a library—keep it in that cupboard,’ said Smith, pointing to something looking like a sideboard. ‘The mental exercise it affords is sometimes quite wonderful. Perhaps you would like to see it?’ And before I had time to reply, Smith shouted out: ‘Eh, Janet, bring in a couple of tumblers; the gentleman wants to consult my library.’ I won’t say anything more about Mr. Smith’s collection of books, excepting that a night’s study of them might possibly result in a headache.

‘But come, Smith,’ said I, ‘now, honest injin, did you mean to say you haven’t got a book in the house?’ ‘Well, I can’t say that I have. Once I had a copy of the “Rise and Fall of the British Empire.” I used to keep it tied with a string to a nail in the wall. But some soul thirsting after literature absorbed it one evening. I’ve had a sickener of books.’ Here Smith took a drink and shook his head as if the thought of his past literary career was too serious for reference. ‘Did you never hear of the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo and its library?’ he at last inquired. ‘Got it all for nothing. Never paid a sixpence.’

‘That’s interesting,’ I remarked. ‘I should like to know how the business was managed.’

‘Just take another look at my literature,’ said Smith, passing the bottle, ‘and I’ll tell you:

‘Hulloomaloo was just becoming a place, and some of the influential residents thought it would be a good thing to have some books; but at the meeting they held nobody could tell where the money was to come from. All sorts of suggestions were made, but they were all objected to on the score that they involved subscriptions, and subscriptions nobody could afford. The more they talked the more they seemed to want to read, but they could not stand subscriptions. This was humbug, you know, for the people in Hulloomaloo were as rich then as they are now. The idea of having a library was just on the point of being abandoned, when up jumped a pale-faced little man, who was sitting near the door, and explained to the meeting that if they constituted themselves into a society, they might get books given to them for nothing. He told us his name was Joshua Jenkins, and that he had acted as librarian at one of the State libraries in America; but who he really was, beyond being a new-comer there, nobody could tell. A society ought to be constituted at once, and, if it were worked properly, he would guarantee that within a year the library of Hulloomaloo would be the wonder and envy of the Australian Colonies. The brilliancy of Jenkins’s proposition took everyone by storm, and he was voted to the chair to organize proceedings for the constitution of the new society.

‘“It is proposed,” said Jenkins, “that this society be called the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo. Does anyone object to that proposition? Nobody objects—carried. Please make a note, Mr. Secretary.” Without drawing breath he continued: “The members of the society shall consist of ordinary members; honorary members, elected from the distinguished savants of the world; and co-operative members, consisting of scientific bodies whom the committee shall decide to elect. Does anybody object to that proposition? Nobody objects—carried.”

‘And so he went firing off rules, and saying: “Does anybody object to that proposition? Nobody objects—carried,” until he had fixed up a constitution before anyone had thought of objecting.

‘After this, he had a committee and a president elected, while he himself was put into the position of secretary and librarian. To finish up the meeting, he took down the names of all people in the room, and collected five shillings a head. This made the audience into members. After a few remarks, in which Jenkins complimented the residents of Hulloomaloo on the magnificence of their surroundings, and the unparalleled opportunities which Hulloomaloo offered for scientific research, the meeting adjourned. The whole business of making the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo, and collecting about £45, took, it was estimated, thirty-five minutes. Jenkins had the £45, and the audience had the honour of putting F.R.S. after their names. Of course they omitted the H.

‘As to the details of what happened during the next two years, nobody seemed to be very well informed, but they know now though.

‘First he began by making honorary and corporation members. He had a lot of elaborate forms and envelopes printed, looking as if they had come from Government quarters. Whenever the word Hulloomaloo appeared, it looked as if it was the capital of Australia. The letters he had for the savants ran as follows:

‘“The Royal Society of Hulloomaloo.

‘“Dear Sir,

‘“I have the honour of informing you that in consequence of your distinguished services in the department of” (and here came the particular ology of the man to whom he wrote) “the Committee of the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo have this day elected you an honorary member of their body.

‘“I have the honour to remain, Sir,
‘“Your obedient servant,
‘“Joshua Jenkins, Sec.”

‘He always accompanied his form with a note. When he wrote to Darwin, he said that the society had appointed several special committees; one was to examine the working of worms, another to investigate the fertilization of plants, a third to determine the exact relationship between the higher mammals and the Australian savages. The results of this work he hoped in the course of the year to have the pleasure of forwarding to his address. In the meanwhile, he was certain that if Mr. Darwin would send to the society a complete set of his works, they would be bound in morocco and highly appreciated.

‘He promised Lubbock a collection of ants. Richard Owen was to have a complete collection of fossil mammals. Spencer was to have an exhaustive series of manuscripts on the social status of the Aborigines. The result of all this was that in about three months we had the names of almost every living savant in the universe on our list, and what was better, we had their books in our library.

‘The way he got over the societies after making them into co-operative members was to promise them a complete set of the “Hulloomaloo Transactions.” He had letters printed for the kind of society to which he was writing. Here is an example of letters he sent to all the Geological Societies in the world,’ said Smith, handing me a document off the mantelpiece. It ran thus:

‘The Royal Society of Hulloomaloo.

‘Sydney, June 1st, 1881.

‘Sir,

‘I have the honour to send to your address a complete set of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo, “A Treatise on the Geology of Australia,” with an Atlas of Geological Maps.

‘As these volumes are sent through the Imperial Government, they may not reach you for some time after the reception of this letter. Please observe the enclosed receipt. By order of the Committee,

‘I have the honour to remain, Sir,

‘Your most obedient servant,

The enclosed receipt ran as follows:

‘(Neglect to return this receipt will be taken as an intimation that the Transactions of the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo are no longer desired.)

Date ______________ 188_.

‘To the President of the Royal Geological Society of
Hulloomaloo, Sydney.

‘Sir,

‘I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the under-mentioned works.

____________________
____________________

Yours truly,

Name____________________
Present address____________________
Past address____________________
Future address____________________
Permanent address____________________
Variable address____________________
City, Town, Village, Hemisphere, etc.

‘To wind up, there was a beautifully printed envelope in which to return the receipt. This was addressed to the Royal Society, Hulloomaloo, Sydney.

‘Sometimes he would call the society the Royal Astronomical Society of Hulloomaloo, next the Royal Linnæan Society of Hulloomaloo; then the Royal Sociological Society of Hulloomaloo, just according to the people to whom he was writing.

‘The result of all this was that the society received box after box of societies’ transactions in all the languages of the world.

‘After a year or so, some of the people to whom Jenkins had made his promises would write saying that they begged to inform him that the books he had forwarded never arrived. Jenkins would answer, that he regretted to hear that the parcel had been delayed, but he would communicate with the Imperial Government on the subject, and a week or two afterwards would send them another big envelope, saying that he had the honour to send to their address another big parcel. The expectation of sometime receiving something kept a lot of them quiet. To the few, who were too impatient, he would write that he had been instructed by the Imperial Government of Australia to inform them that the parcel to which they referred had been transmitted to their Imperial Governments, from whom, if they applied, they would undoubtedly receive the same.

‘While all this was going on, the books and presents to the society had so accumulated that the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo threatened to become a national institution. A meeting was held, and when the list of honorary members and societies was read, and the library he had collected had been inspected, Jenkins received a vote of thanks, and subsequently a purse containing 500 guineas. After this, he was made into a permanent secretary of the society, with a salary of £600 a year. At this time Jenkins said he would add a museum to the establishment. By dubbing a lot of prominent mine-managers F.R.S., he managed to get a wonderful collection of gold specimens together, and these he increased by promising to send to various parts of the world collections of Australian minerals, which, as he put it, the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo had instructed him to forward to their address.

‘By this time the letters that poured in upon Jenkins seemed to have warned him that he was getting to the end of his tether. He said he was sick, and would the Committee allow the library and museum to be closed for a month. He thought a run down to Melbourne, where he would get some of the society’s books rebound, might set him up. The petition was granted, and away went Jenkins with twenty-six large cases containing the books which were to be bound.’

‘And I suppose you never heard of him any more,’ I remarked.

‘Never hear of him, indeed; we thought we were never going to cease hearing about him. During the two months after his departure, the letters and official documents that poured into the rooms of the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo would have filled the museum by themselves. There was Darwin writing for the reports of the committees, Lubbock was asking for his ants, Spencer was crazy about the MSS. on the social status of Aborigines, Owen wanted his collection of fossil mammals, all the societies in Europe and America were wanting our Transactions. Diamond merchants and jewellers were asking to have the collections returned, that they had lent for exhibition at our last soirée. Foreign Offices throughout the world had written to our Government, inquiring about the status of the Royal Society of Hulloomaloo. Our Government instituted proceedings against us for having swindled creation.’

‘And what was the end of it all?’ I asked.

‘Why, one end was that we had to write five or six thousand letters of apology, to raise a fund to return the pamphlets and stuff that would not go into Jenkins’s twenty-six cases, and pay £25,000 damages for what had gone into them.’

‘And how about Mr. Joshua Jenkins?’

‘Oh, Literary Jos. Well, I don’t know, but I believe he is gone below, acting librarian at one of the State libraries. If you want to get up a cheap library in your part of the world, that is his address. He is charming company, you know.’

The streets of Sydney are above the average of streets we see in Europe. I expected to have found them narrow and crooked. Sydney is usually described as being old-fashioned, and having a cramped, crooked, and antiquated appearance. It is not American-like and modern, like Melbourne; Sydney is English. The streets might certainly be broader, but in all conscience, although not absolutely straight, they are straight enough. George Street, Pitt Street, and all the connecting streets between the two parallel main arteries, are usually overcrowded. The shops are good, and there are plenty of them. One shop, where you find everything, from millinery to leather bags, is extensive, and quite comparable with similar establishments in London. Here we have a number of excellent banks, and a post-office, which probably cannot find its equal in any other portion of the British Empire. Its tower will be a beacon for wanderers in all parts of the Colony. At the top of Pitt Street, there is a market filled with fruit, canaries, cockatoos, wallaby, and other Australian productions. Beyond this is the cathedral. Near here we have a waxwork show, where living likenesses of distinguished bushrangers may be seen. Amongst the other sights are the Museum, the Picture Gallery, where there is a large series of very good pictures, the Botanical Gardens, the Domain, Hyde Park, and the University.

In going to these places you are continually met by pretty glimpses of the harbour. Some of the smaller streets, however, are remarkable for the antiquated appearance of the houses and cottages you see in them.

Of course I fell in love when I was in Australia. It would not be complimentary to the ladies if I had not. It happened at the theatre. At the time a somewhat uninteresting farce was being played. This gave me time to look round. She sat in a box with a typical duenna. Perhaps she was sweet eighteen, perhaps she was lovely twenty. Her figure was willowy and elegant. Somehow or other your inner conscience tells you when you are in love, at least, mine does. My inner conscience, after looking at this earthly angel for about half an hour, remarked—‘Young man, you’re in love; your bachelorhood is being compromised.’ Then I had a short conversation with my conscience. It ended by my being convinced that my conscience was right, and that I was not simply in love, but was standing in the slops of an overflowing infatuation. When I looked at her, I thought she smiled. The duenna certainly frowned. At last the curtain dropped, and the Major, Peter and Dodd and I were hustled out upon the pavement. ‘Come on, old chappie. You’ll never recognise her with a cloak on. To-morrow you may find out where the charmer lives, and get an introduction to her parents.’ ‘I’ll help you,’ said the Major. ‘I’ll help you,’ said P. ‘I’ll help you,’ said D. Then they said, ‘We’ll all help you.’ Before I could thank them P. had taken hold of one of my arms, D. had taken hold of the other, and the Major was pushing behind. With their united assistance I quickly reached the hotel. That night sleep deserted me. Was it not possible that we might meet in the streets, in the park, in a ferry-boat, or on the Rialto? Many have met on the Rialto. At daybreak I would inquire for the Rialto. But again, many have met in crowds. Yes, in crowds, that meant the crowded theatre perhaps. At night I would again visit the theatre. During the day I would pace the Domain, the Park, and all the intricacies of great Sydney’s thoroughfares. Who was she? The box, the jewellery, the duenna indicated wealth. Perhaps a princess in disguise? She would be reclining in a chariot drawn by snow-white steeds. At last I dozed.

Next morning I rose with Aurora, and tramped the streets. During the day I flattened my nose against the windows of all the confectioners’ and millinery establishments that adorn the leading thoroughfares. I gazed into all the hansoms. I even raised my eyes at the damsels who reclined in open carriages. Many fair ones smiled—but mine, where was she?

That night I was the first to enter the theatre. What anxious moments passed as the dress-circle and the boxes filled! Suddenly P. nudged me, and whispered, ‘See over there.’ Oh, heavens! there she was. It was clear her bosom heaved with reciprocity, and had come to seek me out. During the day she had probably been chasing round the streets of Sydney behind my coat-tails. Why hadn’t I stood at a corner? I quickly hired a pair of opera-glasses, and, gazing through them, brought her nearer to me. She smiled. The duenna put on an expression of thunder, and drew behind the curtain. Then she looked through her opera-glasses. I looked through mine again. We were both near each other. I trembled with nervous excitement; my glasses trembled. I think they visibly waggled from side to side. She waggled hers. ‘Will you be best man, Major?’ I whispered. Then I rushed off to the box-keeper. I told him it was close and hot. ‘Yes, sir, it’s more than that; it’s dry, fearfully dry.’ I was quickly his bosom friend. ‘Who’s she—the gazelle in the second box?’ I asked. ‘’Um, what, her over there?’ said he, putting down his glass. ‘She’s the manager’s wife; sits up there every night.’

The Major, Peter and Dodd left for Melbourne next morning. I left with them.

The journey to Melbourne was not nice. We left at five p.m., and reached Spencer Street Station in Melbourne about noon next day. I took passage in a Pullman car. A genuine Yank sat near me, and we entered into conversation. I like Yanks, and if I were eligible I might put up to become a faithful citizen. After the ordinary preliminaries about the weather and the autumnal tints, he made some general remarks about the late President Grant.

‘As a general, Grant just whipped creation,’ I remarked.

‘Dair bet my bottom dollar his name shines like a brilliant constellation in the military history of this planet until it ceases to rotate. Saw him some years ago. Was smoking a big havana. His wife was along. Don’t think she hansoms worth a cent. Good woman though! The way she looked after her family was just remarkable. If every fellow got a wife like that, there’d be less hair flying around. You from Boston?’ he inquired.

‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘you have paid me a compliment never to be forgotten.’

At the next depôt my friend invited me to see the refreshment-room.

The little bit of country that was visible before sundown was so like the rest of the great continental island, that I will not attempt to describe it.

Somewhere about eight o’clock a conductor commenced the removal of the arm-chairs in which we had been sitting, and the erection of the berths in which we were to sleep. During this operation, which lasted one hour and a half (it sometimes lasts two hours), if you are lucky, you get one of the four or six seats in the smoking-room, otherwise you have to stand in a narrow passage. I had to stand.

The arrangement of rods and bars which were put together in building the berths had the complexity of a Chinese puzzle. If the railway company ever lose the services of the unfortunate man whose misery it is to erect these structures, where they will discover a second individual with a sufficiently retentive memory, and ingenuity to carry on the work, it is difficult to conceive. Whilst the operation is going on, the car jerks and swings like a boat upon a choppy sea. Several of the passengers complained of sea-sickness, and I myself certainly had a feeling of nausea. The only advice I can give to the directors of that line is to take their cars and burn them—at least, burn the particular one in which I had the misery to ride. From friends who followed me to Melbourne, I heard that there were several other cars which ought also to be burned.

At about five a.m. we were turned out at a place called Aubury, where we changed carriages and passed the Customs on the Victorian border. All the colonies collect duty from each other, and their mother country. New South Wales alone admires the policy of its alma mater, and adopts free trade. Not only are they at variance in their commercial regulations, but there exists between them the same feelings of jealousy that may be found between different nationalities, and each ‘colonial’ looks upon his own particular colony as superior to its neighbour. One question which you are often asked is, ‘Do you like Sydney or Melbourne best?’ Several Victorians spoke of their Melbourne and its people as being go ahead and smart—quite American you know. They refer to being American with an intonation of regret—it is sad and disgraceful to be like Americans; but, as it is true, we must confess it, and it cannot be helped. Now as Victorians were so fond of pointing out this particular character of themselves, I imagine that they are really rather proud of it, and the intonation of regret is little more than a form of modesty.

So far as I could see, farther than the fact that our Australian cousins have displayed energy in building up great cities in a short period of years, I did not observe a single instance of anything which was American. Australians seem to be intensely conservative and British. One characteristic of Americans is, to do things in new ways and invent. When in the Colonies I looked in all directions for something that was novel, but I must confess that I failed to find it. Perhaps using single tickets, which after the termination of a journey, on being snipped, act as return tickets, may be peculiarly Australian. The hoods to hansoms may be new. Asbestos gas-fires in hotels, the dispensing with conductors on the ’buses, and a few other rarities in English life, are common in America. Possibly in farming and stock-raising operations, Australians may have discovered methods of procedure unknown in other lands. In their mining operations—and I visited many mining districts—I cannot say that I saw much that was new. I certainly saw much that was old, and machines that ought to be relegated to museums were numerous.

In the morning it was cold enough for ulsters and opossum rugs to be acceptable. I saw a hilly country, lots of gum trees, some post and rail fences, one or two vineyards, and a few sheep and cattle. Australia is a capital place to study gum trees. The first of these trees were introduced to the country, so a fellow-passenger informed me, as seeds, in a letter, sent by an affectionate Scotch wife to her brother—it would remind him of his home at Greenock. I fancy that my informant had confused Scotch thistles and gum trees.

No wonder the aborigines of Australia were a poor lot. They have no scenery to stimulate their imagination, to create wonder, and to excite an inventive faculty. If we except a few hills upon the east coast, all is flat. Australia is like a pancake, turned up on one side and hollow in the middle. Rivers are usually represented by strings of stagnant pools. Some of them flow underground.

At last Melbourne hove in sight. It seemed to be below us. Its appearance was like that of all large towns when viewed from a distance—a confused mass of buildings, with here and there a spire, covered with a canopy of bluish gauze-like smoke. Near the centre a huge dun cupola formed a nucleus for the whole. It was large, very large. When we remembered that all before us had risen during forty years, we could not refrain from joining in the admiration of all Australians for their mighty and marvellous Melbourne.

A WONDERFUL BATH.

The first introduction that my friends gave me was to their clubs. If we except Botany Bay, nearly all Colonial clubs are exceedingly particular. A guest, until he is elected an honorary member, cannot pass beyond a guest-room, which is almost on the threshold. Even here he is not supposed to linger. At one club, the internal arrangements of which were quite palatial, I saw a bath which would excite the wonder of a Barnum. It ought to be exhibited. The performances that this wonderful piece of machinery could go through were perfectly astounding. If I were rich, I would have a bath of that description for the amusement of my friends. It was situated in a little room provided with sliding doors in the walls, and electric bells. Visitors were told that these doors were for attendants to pass in towels and cups of coffee. I heard privately that they were really for attendants to see that the bath did not get loose and damage strangers who were unacquainted with its mechanism. When I first saw this marvellous piece of mechanism, I thought it was a new form of organ, and that all the labelled handles were the stops. The music it played was, however, different from that of an ordinary organ. Pull one handle and you might be boiled. Pull another, and you might be annihilated with jets of water, which would simultaneously hit you in all directions, pounding you to pieces like a fragment of quartz beneath a battery. Pull a third handle, and you would be frizzled to a cinder with hot air. To avoid accidents, there were innumerable notices pasted on walls and on handles of the various taps. I only remember a few of them. One said ‘Be careful and see that the arrow points to the left.’ Another ran, ‘Three turns to the right will give you the douche.’ This was a thing that flattened you out on the bottom of the bath. A sort of aqueous thunderbolt. ‘Mind and turn off number three before entering the bath.’ ‘See that hot is off before turning right hand number two.’ ‘Turn on the aquatic gymnasium gently.’ This notice, applied to an innocent-looking silver knob, which, when moved, set free a jet of water, which carried the bather up towards the ceiling. Many visitors had been found clawing and reaching and swearing on the top of this jet, where they were being revolved, and tumbled about like a pithball on the fountains which some fishmongers exhibit. Two hours of this was said to be capital exercise for the muscles and lungs. There were a whole lot of other notices, but I forget them. A portion of the apparatus was like an ordinary bath; at the end of it, however, there was a thing like a second bath reared on end. The resemblance of this to a sarcophagus was quite appropriate. It was painted blue, and had aureoles and stars as decorations for its dome-like roof. Standing in this you might pose as a saint, or as one of the images so common in the niches of large cathedrals. This was also appropriate, for, after having met your death, you might remain standing as a martyr to cleanliness, and as a warning to future bathers.

I got my companion, who described the above, to turn on some of the fireworks while I looked through one of the holes for cups of coffee. First there was a hiss, as of escaping steam, then the sullen roar of a fall like great Niagara. Sometimes it was hot, at other times it was cold. Oh, conflagrations and volcanoes, where would you be beneath jets like this? Now and then I could catch a view of my companion through the clouds of spray and steam. At one moment he was like a deity surrounded by rainbows. At another moment he was like an imp of darkness working the machinery of the infernal regions. The thunder of the douche was appalling. I shrieked to him to retire. The roaring of the waters prevented his hearing my warning cries. Suddenly the deluge ceased. He had turned another tap and produced a gentle spray, like that which waters budding plants in spring. The exhibition was marvellous, and it made me change my opinion about Australians being non-inventive. My friend asked me, when all was over, to have a bath. I felt the satire, and did not answer. The volcanic energy pent up behind the silver taps of that establishment have produced too deep an impression ever to be forgotten. To have a bath which will wash your friends, stretch your muscles, give flexibility and tone to your larynx, extinguish volcanoes, put out fires, kill your enemies, create a nervous excitement sufficient to turn black hairs grey, alarm intruders, amuse the children, flood the streets, is a luxury denied to all but Victorians.

‘The Russians will never capture this establishment. The bath would kill them,’ I remarked.

‘They don’t wash,’ replied my friend.

I had forgotten that.

Now do not let it be supposed I have referred to this bath without an object. I and the maker have a contract, and when he has sold a lot of them, we are going to buy a castle apiece. I think the Rhine is a good situation.