# The Boy Travellers in Australasia/Chapter 15

CHAPTER XV.
A RELIC OF OLD COLONIAL TIMES.
Doctor Bronson and his nephews desired to make a study of "bush life," and an excellent opportunity was offered in an invitation to spend as long a time as they chose at an interior station in Queensland. Rising at an early hour one day, they took the train of the Southern & Western Railway at 5.40 a.m., and rode straight through to Roma, three hundred and seventeen miles, which they reached at ten o'clock at night. The railway continues to Morven, one hundred and ten miles distant, and from that point it will be extended in the near future—at least such is the promise—two or three hundred miles farther. The original scheme was to carry it to Point Parker, on the Gulf of Carpentaria, a distance of one thousand miles from Brisbane; but in consequence of the great expense of the undertaking, the completion of the line has been indefinitely postponed.
The railways of Queensland are on the special narrow-gauge principle, the rails being only three feet six inches apart. The gauge of New South Wales is four feet eight and a half inches, and that of Victoria five feet three inches. In South Australia the Port, North, and Southern lines, are of five feet three inches gauge, and other lines are three feet six inches or like the Queensland railways. For sparsely settled regions the narrow gauge has been found serviceable and economical, and thus far there has been no occasion for express trains at a high rate of speed. As on many of the smaller lines of the United States and other countries, the so-called "express" trains stop at all stations, and are not famous for their rapid progress.
The country through which our friends travelled was not unlike that between Newcastle and Brisbane, as already described. For some distance the railway lay along the valley of the Brisbane River, which contains some excellent farming country, with fine stretches of woodland and occasional swamps. The dividing range of mountains filled the western horizon, and the labored puffing of the locomotive at frequent intervals told that the grade was an ascending one. In the immediate vicinity of Brisbane the land is of poor quality, except in the neighborhood of the streams, and in the early days of the colony a great many settlers were ruined by attempting to establish farms where the soil was not suitable. But in spite of these early discouragements the ​capabilities of the region have been developed by the perseverance of the settlers; at present the visitor to the district around Brisbane will see prosperous farms, vineyards, orchards, and gardens, though he will still find a great deal of land that is practically unoccupied.
AMONG THE FOOT-HILLS.
"This is a wonderful region," said a gentleman who accompanied our friends, as the train moved on. "Probably there is no other place in the world where the products of the tropics and temperate zones grow so well together, and certainly there is none where they grow any better. Apples, peaches, pears, cherries, and other northern fruits are ​side by side with the lemon, orange, citron, pomegranate, fig, and guava. It took us a long while to find out exactly what was wanted, and during that time living was very dear in Brisbane. Now the city has a plentiful supply of fruit at very low prices, coming from the numerous gardens in its vicinity. Irrigate the soil abundantly, and it will produce almost anything in the world that you want. We send great numbers of pineapples and bananas to Sydney and Melbourne, and also to the higher country west of us.
PICKING FIGS.
"You already know," he continued, "that Australia is a land of contradictions, when considered from the stand-point of England or the United States. In your country the land with the heaviest timber is the best for agriculture after the wood is cleared away, but here it is often just the reverse. The largest trees which cost most money to ​remove are quite likely found on soil that refuses to produce grass when the land has been cleared, or if it produces grass or grain at all it is not enough to pay the cost of clearing. It is in this particular that so many of the earlier settlers ruined themselves, by expending time and money in clearing up ground that afterwards proved worthless."
A CLEARING IN THE SCRUB.
"Scrub land," replied the gentleman, "is distinct from forest land in several features, but particularly in that of undergrowth. Scrub in Queensland means the low land on the banks of the rivers; it is covered with a dense growth of trees intermingled with a denser growth of vines and creepers, which in many places render it impossible to proceed without cutting one's way through with a tomahawk or large knife. The vines run to the tops of the highest trees, and frequently cross from tree to tree, so that the whole area seems bound together with festoons of green cordage.
​"There is a genuine bit of Queensland scrub," said he, pointing to what seemed an almost solid mass of verdure several acres in extent. "It contains cabbage and other palms, fig-trees which tower above most of their fellows, but are overtopped by the bunya, pine, and red cedar, though the latter are not very numerous. An agile sailor might climb from one side to the other of that scrub without once going to the ground; and as for a group of monkeys or squirrels, it would be no effort at all for them to make the journey.
SUBURBAN RESIDENCE ON THE RIVER'S BANK.
GATHERING THE GRAPES.
Fred was about to ask concerning the snakes of Australia, but their loquacious friend did not give him a chance to do so. He pointed to the opposite side of the train, and told the youths to observe what was there visible.
"That shows you the difference between scrub and forest," said he; "the forest land has heavier timber, but no underbrush; you can ride on horseback through it, while you cannot get along on foot in the scrub without a hatchet. I'm speaking now of the vine scrub along the coast," he continued; "in the interior we have myall, brigelow, ​mallee, and other scrubs of a totally different character. The forest land is monotonous; you may travel hundreds of miles through it, and find every mile so nearly like every other one that it is very hard to see any change. An experienced bushman knows the difference, but to a novice it is all the same."
The train ascended the slopes of the hills leading to the Dividing Range, having left the river at Ipswich, the head of navigation, and twenty-three miles from Brisbane. The Dividing Range presents a precipitous front, and great engineering skill was required to carry the road over it, the chain being passed at an elevation of two thousand six hundred feet. The scenery, as the range is mounted, is magnificent. The line vies with the Union Pacific Railroad in the United States in tall, spider-like bridges spanning fearful gorges, and in tracks passing round the precipitous spurs of the mountains. Cuttings and tunnelling are met with from the moment the ascent commences. The steepest gradient is one in fifty. Notwithstanding the apparent danger attending a journey on this portion of the line, no accident involving loss of life or serious injury to rolling stock has occurred here since the first engine ran on it.
Ipswich is in a mining and agricultural district, several rich seams of coal having been opened in its neighborhood, and the country around it being well adapted to farms. At Toowoomba, one hundred miles from Brisbane, their guide told the youths they were at the principal town of the rich pastoral district called the Darling Downs; the region was discovered and settled in 1827, and named after Sir Ralph Darling, who was then governor. Agriculture and the raising of cattle and sheep are the principal industries, and the town bears every evidence of prosperity.
"There are many Germans settled in this neighborhood," said Mr. Watson, the gentleman who accompanied our friends, "and they are largely interested in grape-growing and the manufacture of wines. Many thousand gallons of wine are made here every year; the grapes are ripe in January, and I have seen single bunches weighing fifteen pounds and over."
Frank asked how the wines of Queensland and Australia in general compared with those of other countries.
"Of course our wine-making is in its infancy," was the reply; "and thus far our products will hardly bear favorable comparison with the wines of Europe, where the industry has been prosecuted for centuries; but we think they are fully equal to the wines of the United States, ​where the business is only a little older than it is with us. All the colonies are giving much attention to grape-growing; the yield is very large; but in the last few years the vines have suffered considerably from phylloxera, though fortunately all parts of the colonies have not been affected by it.
CELLARS FOR STORING WINE.
"Competent and conscientious judges say that the ordinary Australian wines are better than the same grades sold in Paris and other French cities. They are the pure juice of the grape, the juice being so abundant and cheap that it does not pay to adulterate it. In Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and Brisbane a man can buy for threepence a glass of as fine an ordinary wine as was ever made; it is nutritious and wholesome, but unfortunately the great majority of the laboring classes prefer to swallow the vile decoctions that are sold under the names of spirits. Our capabilities in wine-making are absolutely unlimited; we are shipping some of our products to Europe, where they take the place of the ordinary wines of France and Spain, and quite possibly you get many casks of them in New York and other American cities, where they are sold as Bordeaux wines."
​"There's a great deal in a name," said Doctor Bronson, "especially when wines are to be considered. No doubt we have your Australian common wines in America under the name of Bordeaux or Burgundy, just as we have our own products. Thousands of casks of California wines are sold every year on the Atlantic seaboard, but not under their own name. Offered as California wines they would not find a market, but as Bordeaux wines they have a ready sale."
"And I have been told," said Mr. Watson, "that the Californian, although very enthusiastic about his own State, will not drink its wine. Am I right?"
CHINESE LABORERS IN A VINEYARD.
"Well, it is pretty much the same in Australia," said Mr. Watson. "We are proud of our country and what it produces, but we prefer French champagne to our own sparkling wines, and Spanish sherry to what comes from our vineyards and wine cellars. And not altogether ​without reason, I must confess, as we have not yet reached perfection with our fine wines."
From wine-culture the conversation naturally turned to the labor question, which Mr. Watson said was one of the perplexities of Queensland. The climate is too hot to permit the white man to work in the ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIAN.fields and other places where severe manual exertion is required, with the exception of the elevated regions of the Darling Downs and some other comparatively cool places. Consequently there has been a necessity for imported labor, and in endeavoring to secure it Queensland has had a great deal of trouble.
In previous chapters we have alluded to the Polynesian labor-trade, much of which was carried on in the interest of the sugar-planters of Queensland. There were many abuses in its early days, but at present the trade is under so many restrictions that the laborers have little cause for complaint. The natives are brought to the colony for three years; the master is bound to give them food and lodging, thirty dollars a year wages, and then pay their passage home in addition to the outward passage which he has paid to the ship-master who brings the laborers from their islands.
By the last census there were about six thousand Polynesians in Queensland, ten thousand five hundred Chinese, and about two thousand inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago. The Chinese, like the Polynesians, are mostly employed in out-door work, though a considerable number of them are utilized as house-servants, and in other domestic employments. They go to Australia to earn a certain amount of money, and then return home, just as they come to the United States. Of more than ten thousand Chinese in Queensland, all but forty-nine were men; and no matter how prosperous a Chinese may be in Australia, he rarely thinks of taking his family there.
Frank asked what was the total population of the colony.
"Not far from three hundred and fifty thousand," was the reply. ​"There is an excess of males in the population, as is always the case in a new country, the proportions of men to women being about three to two. About one-half the population were born in the Australian colonies, and of the remainder fully three-fourths came from Great Britain. The colony encourages immigration by means of assisted or free passage, grants of land, and other inducements, and maintains constantly an agent in London who forwards the interests of Queensland in every way in his power."
"How many natives are there in the colony?" queried Fred.
"I am afraid if I answered your question without an explanation," said Mr. Watson, with a smile, "I should give you a wrong impression. By natives I suppose you mean the aboriginal inhabitants of the country?"
"Certainly," replied Fred.
"In Australia, when we speak of natives," Mr. Watson answered, "we mean white people who were born in the country, in contrast to those who have migrated WEST COAST AUSTRALIANS.from England and other lands. When referring to the aborigines we call them so, and we also call them 'blacks' or 'blackfellows.' At the last census there were 148,162 natives, or whites, born in the colonies, living in Queensland, and about 20,000 aborigines. The latter number is an estimate only, as it is impossible to take the census of the black population."
"If you want to see the difference between a native and an aboriginal," said the gentleman, "look where I am pointing."
The youths followed with their eyes the direction of his finger, and saw a white man and a black one standing near each other, close to the little station where the train was halted, some miles beyond Toowoomba. The black man was in civilized garb and had a muscular ​frame, quite like that of an able-bodied negro in the southern part of the United States. His garments were coarse and rough, his hair was black and bushy, and his chin was covered with a beard that seemed to more than rival his hair in its swarthiness.
"The white man is probably a sheep or cattle raiser," said Mr. Watson, "and the black is one of his assistants."
"From that I suppose the blacks are employed about the farms and pastoral stations," Fred remarked.
"Certainly," responded Mr. Watson. "Nearly every station in Queensland has one or two blackfellows employed on it as stock-riders, a capacity in which they are very useful. They are good riders, and quite equal to your American Indians in following a trail. They will track lost cattle and sheep when a white man would be utterly unable to do so; and we have a police force of blacks, commanded by Europeans, who perform excellent service in hunting down highwaymen and other rascals who have taken to the bush."
Frank asked what was the reputation of the blacks for honesty and in other ways.
"I'm sorry to say it is not of the best," was the reply. "Like most savages, they show great readiness for acquiring the vices of civilization, but great reluctance for adopting its virtues. They are adepts at lying and stealing, though they are generally faithful to those who employ them as long as they are employed. They are like all other savages in their fondness for intoxicating liquors, and rarely miss an opportunity for drinking. Most of those employed about the cattle and sheep stations do not remain there long. As soon as they become fairly useful they demand higher wages, and in a little while their demands are so exorbitant that they must be sent away.
"When they are out of work they take to stealing cattle, and generally from the station where they were formerly engaged, and with which they are familiar. Many of them loaf around the towns, doing small jobs of work, and generally dying of drink."
"Why don't they return to their tribes?" one of the youths inquired.
"For the very simple reason that they would be put to death by their own people. A black who has been employed by a white man is forever after an outcast from his own tribe; at least such is the case with nearly all the tribes I ever heard of."
Frank asked Mr. Watson if he had been among the blacks and seen them at home. The gentleman replied in the affirmative, and then ​both the youths asked him to tell more about them and their ways of living. Mr. Watson kindly assented, and at once began his story.
"At starting let me say," he remarked, "that the aborigines of Australia are about the lowest type of the human race that can be found, with the possible exception of the natives of Terra del Fuego. They belong distinctively to the black race, though their hair while curly has not the woolly crispness of that of the African negro. In the interior, away from settlements, they go entirely naked, and when white men first came to Australia the natives had no knowledge of the uses of clothing. Around the settlements they have adopted civilized customs in the matter of dress, but only upon compulsion. I have known the blacks who were employed at a sheep-station to go naked when away from the dwelling of their employer, and only resume their clothing on returning to the house."
CIVILIZED ABORIGINES.
"They had not learned to build houses until the Europeans instructed them," was the reply, "and the wild tribes of the interior still continue to live as they did of yore. They occasionally build rude huts of bark by inclining two or three strips against each other in the form of a cone, but more frequently their only protection against the weather is a single strip of bark, or a large bough of a tree, inclined towards the wind, and held in place by an upright stick.
​"In my younger days I owned a station in a region where the blacks were numerous, and though they occasionally stole some of my sheep and cattle, and committed other depredations, our relations were, on the whole, of a friendly character. I allowed them to visit my house, but only on condition that they were properly dressed, the dress consisting of a skin or piece of cloth around the waist. As a single garment ABORIGINAL METHOD OF MAKING FIRE.lasted them a long time, it was evident that they wore it only when coming to my house, laying it aside as soon as they were out of sight. When going into battle they paint their bodies with red earth, to give them a hideous appearance, and if they can obtain European paints of different colors they are especially happy; they imagine that the more hideously they are decorated the more likely are they to be victorious in fights with other tribes.
"Like most other savage people, they obtain fire by rubbing two sticks together; but the operation requires so much exertion that they take great care to preserve fire when once they have obtained it. A tribe will wander about for days and weeks carrying fire in coals carefully protected by strips of bark; some of the old women are designated as fire-carriers, and are generally exempt from other work. When they build fires at night they surround them with shields of bark, so that their locality will not be revealed by the glare of light.
"They use columns of smoke by day, and fires by night, for conveying intelligence. They have a very good telegraphic code by columns of smoke, which can be made to indicate warnings, the position of game, ships or whales in sight along the coast, and various other things. They can make smoke signals that will be understood by their own or friendly tribes, but be unintelligible to hostile ones. In former times they used this smoke signal occasionally to the injury of the white settlers, who had at first no idea that the thin column of smoke rising through the trees was a signal for the warriors to make a simultaneous attack upon half a dozen places at once."
​Fred asked what kind of weapons they used in fighting with one another or attacking the Europeans.
"Their principal weapon for close work," said Mr. Watson, "is the waddy, or club. It is a heavy club made of hard-wood, and has a knob at the end of the handle for greater security of grasp. Etiquette requires that blows with the waddy should be aimed only at the head; to strike any other part of the body with it would not be fair. The form of the weapon differs with different tribes, so that it is possible sometimes to learn to what tribe a party belongs by looking at their clubs. Some tribes have wooden swords about three feet long, which they handle very skilfully.
AUSTRALIAN WARRIORS WATCHING A BOAT.
BATTLE BETWEEN HOSTILE TRIBES OF AUSTRALIANS.
"'When you walk in bush along a blackfellow, you make him blackfellow walk first time (in front).'
"When I asked what for, he replied, 'I den know. I believe debil debil jump up; want him blackfellow spear whitefellow.' You can be sure I took the hint, and ever afterwards allowed the blacks to take the lead. Several times since then friendly natives have told me that when a white man is walking in front of them there is an almost irresistible inclination to spear him.
"They have a superstition which they express in these words: 'Blackfellow die, jump up whitefellow;' which means that when a black man dies he reappears as a white one. In the early days of the settlement at Sydney, the convicts who ran away into the bush were almost certain to be killed by the blacks if they escaped death by ​starvation before the blacks found them. One convict who thus escaped wandered about for several days, and finally became so weak that he could hardly stand. In this dilemma he took a staff which he found sticking in a mound of earth, and used it as a support. A few hours afterwards he fell in with a party of natives, who treated him with the greatest respect. They fed him bountifully, and nursed him as well as their limited means permitted, and in course of time restored him to health and strength. Every man indicated a desire to obey him. He remained for years with the tribe, and as soon as he had acquired enough of their language to communicate with them, they made him understand that he was their chief.
ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIANS AND THEIR HUTS.
Fred asked what were their burial customs, and if they had any belief in a future existence.
"The dead are buried in the spots where they die, and these places are never inhabited again by members of the dead man's tribe, nor are they even visited except on rare occasions or from necessity. The names of the dead are never pronounced, and those having the same names are obliged to change them. My partner at the sheep-station died of fever; he had been kind to the blacks, and was evidently liked by them, but I could never get them to listen to any reference to him after his death, and they did not like to look at his photograph, which hung in the house.
"They have very crude ideas on religious matters. They believe in good and bad spirits; and some tribes have a belief in a supreme being, while others have none. They have many myths and superstitions, and some of these myths display a vivid imagination on the part of those who invented them. Shall I tell you some of them?"
The youths said they would greatly like to hear some of the Australian myths, whereupon Mr. Watson continued:
"The aboriginal theory about the creation is that Pund-jel, or Bun-jil, created two men out of the clay of the earth, but he did not create women. That honor was reserved for Pal-ly-yan, the son of Pund-jel, who made a woman for each of the men. Pund-jel gave each man a spear, and told him to kill the kangaroo with it; and to the women he gave a digging-stick for digging roots from the ground. The men and women were ordered to live together, and thus the world was peopled. By-and-by people became very numerous, and then Pund-jel caused storms to arise, and winds to blow so severely as to scatter the people over the earth, and thus the human race was dispersed.
"The first man and woman were told not to go near a certain tree in which a bat lived, as he was not to be disturbed. One day the woman, in gathering firewood, went near the tree; the bat flew away, and after that came death."
"How closely it resembles the Biblical account of the fall of man!" Fred remarked.
"The resemblance has been noticed by writers on the subject," said Mr. Watson, "and some believe that the tradition is not genuine. Mr. Brough Smyth, author of an exhaustive work on the Aborigines of Victoria, accepts it as genuine, and so do other prominent writers. I have ​given some thought to the subject, and notwithstanding the similarity, I agree with them.
"The blacks say there is a very wicked man who has a very long tail living under the ground. He has many wives and children, and laughs at the blacks because they have no tails. They have another tradition that at one time there was no water anywhere on the earth, all the waters being contained in the body of a huge frog, where men and women could not get it. There was a grand council on the subject, and it was ascertained that if the frog could be made to laugh, the waters would run out of his mouth and the drought would be ended.
ABORIGINAL CHILDREN PLAYING IN THE WATER.
"Several animals danced and capered before the frog to induce him to laugh, but without success. Then the eel began to wriggle, and at that the frog laughed outright; the waters ran from his mouth, and there was a great flood, in which many people were drowned. The pelican took it upon himself to save the black people. He cut an immense canoe, and went with it among the islands which appeared here and there above the waters, and with this canoe he saved a great many men and women."
"A distinct tradition of the flood," remarked Fred to Frank, as Mr. Watson paused a few moments to consider what he would next say.
​"There is a myth about the sun that is quite interesting," Mr. Watson continued. "They say that because the sun gives heat it needs fuel, and when it descends below the horizon it goes down to a great depth, where it is supplied with fuel. They have some knowledge of astronomy, and have names for and traditions concerning the principal planets and fixed stars. They have mythical snakes and other animals possessing supernatural powers, and can tell you stories upon stories of the wonderful things these creatures have done. The monster most widely believed in is the bun-yip; he is of dreadful aspect, devours great numbers of human beings, and altogether bears a close resemblance to the dragons which were believed in in other parts of the world at different times since the history of man began. He can cause death, illness, disease, and other misfortunes, and is supposed to haunt lakes, rivers, and water-holes all over the continent. Many natives claim to have seen him, and a considerable number of white men confirm their accounts of the creature."
THE HAUNT OF THE BUN-YIP.
"Of course not with the attributes the blacks give him," was the reply, "but it is quite possible that Australia possesses an amphibious animal which we have not yet been able to examine. As described by those who claim to have seen the bun-yip, he resembles a seal or large water-dog. The seal abounds in Australian waters; I presume that he is the bun-yip of the natives, and that their imaginations have supplied his wonderful powers."