# Scented Isles and Coral Gardens: Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies/Torres Straits

I
TORRES STRAITS
Thursday Island, Torres Straits, 1885.
I had returned to Rockhampton, in Queensland, from a visit to Raglan, a cattle station near there, and it suddenly came into my mind that here was an opportunity to carry out a long-wished-for project of visiting Torres Straits and, if possible, New Guinea. No one in Rockhampton could give me any definite information about either place. To make up my mind whether to go or not, I did what was there regarded as an extraordinary thing to do at any time, but especially in such heat—I went for a walk! No one dreams of walking there, you ride or drive always. Nevertheless I went for a walk out to Lake's Creek on the Fitzroy River, where there is a huge “boiling-down” and meat-preserving factory, and also a most excellent vegetable garden kept by Chinese.
On my way back I passed a roadside hostelry where I thought I would try to get some lunch. Its doors opened directly on the road, and on entering and exploring it I could find no one. Even the bar-room was taking care of itself, and I or any one might have helped himself to free ​drinks. After a time I heard the sound of voices and approaching footsteps at the back.
Suddenly in rushed a dog and stopped in petrified surprise, to be followed by several children, who all also struck the same attitude and gazed at me in astonishment.
“Is this an hotel, or what is it?” I asked of the dog, who seemed to be the most intelligent looking. “I want something to eat and drink.” The dog turned tail and fled, followed by the children.
In a few minutes they returned accompanied by the landlord and his wife—Ould Oireland written all over them. Of course I could have lunch; and the whole family, dog and all, set-to at once to prepare; and to say they were cordial is to put it lightly, why such excitement I could not think.
The luncheon put before me was cold salmon, some of the Lake Creek corned beef, with a dish of vegetables and a bowl of potatoes that would have done for a regiment, a huge apple tart with cream, and a quart bottle of Bass’s Ale. No danger of starving, anyway. Friendly and attentive was no word for the family and the dog, and their brogue—for I am sure the dog had a brogue too—was as bountiful as their fare. When finished, I asked what I had to pay. After consulting the dog and the children and long debating it, they said they had no idea what to charge me, but did I think 1s. 6d. would be too much?
“But,” I said, “that must be the price of the beer alone,” a quart bottle of Bass is not got for nothing in Queensland.
“Sure, now, but ye’ve niver drunk it all at all!”
“That makes no difference,” I said, “no one else can drink it.”
​Explanations then ensued. They were newly arrived Irish immigrants—that was patent enough; had just started this hotel, and I was the first customer! We became bosom friends on the spot. They all, including the dog, sat down and regaled me with their whole history and impressions of Queensland. Would I had a pen that could record it! Then I gave them a long lecture, pointing out that they must look well after their interests; they were among no simple, guileless people by any means. They would be cheated right and left, and done out of everything if they were not smart and careful. They thought it all bate Bannagher, and Bannagher bate the devil. Then we inspected the whole establishment, discussing matters, and I advising on subjects I knew nothing about, and they were genuinely put out I had to go. The result of all this was that they were quite hurt that I should want to pay.
“Sure ’twas the grand luck I was bringing them,”—their first customer—“a rale gintleman and a friend, and was it the dirthy money they would be afther taking from me at all! It was good luck that was coming to them,” they were sure. Another lecture from me—this time with the dog and one sticky child on my lap—and then I insisted on settling the bill according to what I thought right and proper under the circumstances, and drank with them to the success of their enterprise. Till I could see them no longer, they were standing at the door waving adieux and screaming Irish blessings and wishes for good luck after me. Poor unsophisticated folk, they would soon learn what sort of people they had to deal with, and would have to look sharply after their affairs. I hope their first customer did bring them good luck.
At seven in the evening (26th August) I left ​Rockhampton by the steam tender Dolphin, and for four hours we steamed down the Fitzroy River, which looked quite beautiful in the brilliant moonlight. Such nights in Australia are lovely. We anchored in Keppel Bay opposite to the Golden Shore Hotel on Curtis Island. At 4 a.m. the A.S.N. Co.’s s.s. Quirang arrived in the bay, and I at once boarded her and went to bed. She left at 6 a.m. When I emerged from my cabin I found it was blowing rather stiffly, and we were steaming close to the coast amidst picturesque rocky islands and islets. Captain M‘Lean was a pleasant, cheery, kind old man, but he and the passengers expressed the greatest wonder that I should be bound for Thursday Island, and evidently thought me “a freak” to want to go to such a place for pleasure.
We stopped at Flat Top Island about midday, it being only a small isle with a lighthouse. We arrived in Cleveland Bay and anchored off Townsville about 11 p.m. A steam tender took passengers and baggage ashore. A bar keeps large vessels from going to the wharf, and even the tender could only enter at high tide, so we steamed very slowly up the Ross Creek, and on arrival at the wharf a sailor carried my things to the Queen’s Hotel. The islands we had passed all the way up were beautiful, some very green and wooded with fir trees scattered about. The Whitsunday Group and Hook Island seemed desirable places. They are, however, just now useless for sheep, there being some plant that poisons them, so they are unoccupied save for some blacks.
I found the hotel very clean, and the meals both good and abundant. There is never anything niggardly in Australia about such matters. With a population of 9000, Townsville seemed a ​pleasant, prosperous place. A granite hill and cliffs rise in the centre of the town, and are dotted over with picturesque ramshackle houses, palm trees, cacti, children all trying to break their necks down the banks, goats, empty bottles and tin cans—giving quite a careless, homely aspect to it all. Numbers of blacks were camped around; there were Chinese store-keepers; wagonette cabs and hansoms were dashing about, and a tramway was in process of building.
Just at this time there is talk of dividing Queensland into two colonies, and Townsville has made up her mind she is to be the capital of the new colony of “Alberta,” and has even fixed a site for the Government House, so bent are they on separating from Southern Queensland. There are two newspapers, and the advertisements of the land sales are very high-flown, as for instance:
“The scenery in the neighbourhood is of the grandest description. Glorious nature (in her varied form of imposing mountain grandeur, limitless plain, majestic cataracts, and maritime scenery) is viewed from St. Kilda as the eye of the denizen wanders to each point of the compass. Lofty Mount Louisa rears its noble crest and shelters St. Kilda from the keen and cutting southerly blasts of winter, and its cloud-capped summit causes copious and seasonable showers to descend upon and refresh this much favoured and naturally beautiful suburb.”
This is still better:—
“From the time of the advent into the world of Adam and Eve
“Great changes have occurred.” “New Kingdoms have been founded.” “Mighty Empires have been swept away.” “New Cities have been formed.”
“The Rise and Progress of the Great Empire of Britain, With its immense Dependencies; Its vast Colonies; Its Huge Centres of Commerce, Amongst which can be numbered those Great Emporiums of Trade, viz., London on the Thames and Townsville on the Ross.”
I liked this town and its go-ahead spirit; and could see fine possibilities before it. They have had the bad taste to allow the rocks and cliffs to be covered with huge painted advertisements of somebody’s sewing machines and the like.
I sat down on the rocks under an umbrella sketching, surrounding by goats, children, dogs, flies, and the empty tins and bottles. The dogs, flies, children, and goats were deeply interested in my work and gave me no peace; the empty tins and bottles were done with the vanities of life and had no interest in Art. Now and again goats and children fell over rocks for my benefit, and then came to see if it was made historical in the picture, and were quite put out that their artistic efforts had been in vain. The goats butted me behind, and the children said I must “Go a-wy, or else they would put me in the By,” which was quite poetical of them. (These sketches of Townsville—as the proposed capital of the new colony—were published in The Graphic, but neither colony nor capital has come into existence. When The Graphic returned me these sketches, after using them, accompanied by a nice cheque, they addressed the letter to “Victoria, New South Wales. Australia.” Victoria and New South ​ Wales being at that time bitterly jealous rivals, in the Sydney Post Office underlined the “Victoria” with blue; and wrote under it, “Not known in New South Wales” These sketches, and others I sent to The Graphic, I have some seen in many places since, helping to paper bedroom walls and so on for where does not The Graphic go?)
Mount Cudtheringa (Castle Hill) rises over the town, and away at the end of a long stretch of sandy beach is Cape Pallaranda (Many Peaks).
On the 31st I boarded the A.S.N. Co.s City of Melbourne, and we left at midday. I had Captain Thompson's right hand at table; and we were soon good friends. He at once made me free of his deck cabin, which was most artistic and pretty, with flowering plants and pale green creepers trained over its white walls and ceiling.
Amongst our few passengers was Mr.H———;the travelling representative of an Assurance Company, with his confrerè, a young doctor all airs and graces, bound for Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria. An old sea-captain going as sailing master of a dredger at Cooktown, yarned away to me all day, giving me much information as to the islands and coast where he has traded for long, as did also a Mr. Macroarty, a Police Magistrate and Collector of Customs at Normanton, and quite a quiet man, despite his name. They all know who I am, and feel sure I have designs in the way of land purchase or some investment, and that my extraordinary of quest for pleasure is but a blind. I was not long on board ere I found the City of Melbourne had adopted me, and was bent on making me quite at home, in which they entirely succeeded.
The Great Barrier Reef, which lies along this coast “by the long wash of Australian seas,” is most interesting, though very intricate and dangerous ​navigation. The islands and rocks are countless, corals and fish of the most varied and curious character. We steamed inside it all the way.
It is a great haunt of the bêche-de-mer fishers. This disagreeable looking thing is a sea-slug from six to eight inches long and five inches in circumference, but one variety is some feet long.They are found frequently about coral reefs and shallow, but also in deeper waters. Some of them discharge long white filaments when touched, and these blister the skin. As soon as caught they are split open, cleaned, the body distended by sticks, then smoked over a wood fire, when they shrivel up and look like dry indiarubber. After being left to dry in the sun for a time they are packed in sacks and sold to the Chinese, who pay from 50 to 150 a ton for them, and make soup of them. They may be obtained, as a delicacy, at Fortnum & Mason’s in London, by those who like such nasty things. Tortoise-shell is also a Barrier product.
Shortly after leaving Townsville we passed the Palm Islands, the largest of which is said to be one of the best islands on the coast. It is inhabited cannibal blacks and by a white missionary. The old sea-captain says the latter is “cranky,” and that is why the blacks do not eat him. My sympathy is with the blacks, as “cranky missionary served up with sea-slugs” does not sound inviting. It is a large, thickly wooded,and pretty island, with numerous adjacent smaller isles. The Queensland Government, which has gone in for Henry George's theory that the land belongs to the people, will neither lease nor sell any of these islands. [They do now (1909), I think, lease them.]
We next passed Hinchinbrook Island, the largest up here, very high and with a bold pictureesque outline. The Rockingham Channel lies between it and the mainland. ​Captain Thompson entertained me with many yarns. I am fond of yarns, and believe everything that is told me: it saves worry. He was for some years in the South Sea Island trade, and on board the Carl brig of such infamous notoriety, and knew Dr. Murray, who was such an unmitigated ruffian. The actual details of the atrocious massacre which brought the doings of Dr. Murray and the Carl to a climax, I forget. They used to kidnap the natives in order to sell them—which was what it amounted to—as indentured slaves in Australia. On one occasion the natives, having risen, were all driven down into the hold, where Murray and his men fired down on them, killing and wounding the helpless wretches. Seeing one of H.M.’s ships bearing down on them and knowing they would be overhauled, they threw the dead and dying natives overboard, and quickl whitewashed the floor and walls of the hold to hide the blood stains. All was, however, discovered, and these miscreants met with their just punishment.
Captain Thompson related an amusing story about Bishop Selwyn. Some man went to one of the islands, and being attacked by the natives put on a white robe and announcing that he was Bishop Selwyn, whose fame had reached them, commenced reading to them out of the Nautical Almanac, not having a Bible handy. When the real bishop turned up afterwards they would not listen to him, regarding him as an impostor. The Captain said that in those days in the islands he never carried a revolver or any arms with him, and was never molested, and his opinion was that if you left their women alone, adopted none of their vices or customs, but treated them in a friendly manner, that ‘they would never harm you. ​After Hinchinbrook Island came Gould Island. It was continually very warm and close, and everything had a damp feeling.
We arrived at Cooktown on 1st September. The ship lay a long way out, and the town was not visible, as it lay behind Grassy Hill on the Endeavour River. Mount Cook, 1500 feet high, and a “great mountain” here, is near. Captain Cook discovered the river in his ship the Endeavour, hence its name. It was in 1770 that Captain Cook beached the Endeavour on the opposite side of the harbour to where is now the town. This celebrated explorer, whose father was a farm servant at Marton in Cleveland, a village a few miles from Great Ayton in Yorkshire, was born there the 27th October 1728.
It was on the 6th May 1770 that he left Botany Bay in New South Wales, afterwards called Port Jackson,and after spending the evening in Broken Bay named a high point Cape Byron, as he sailed north. On the 27th he named Cape Manifold, between which cape and the shore is Keppel Bay and the island that then bore that name also. They were greatly struck at this part with the clouds of white butterflies which covered the trees like snow, and the nests of the white ants “as big as a bushel” hanging on the branches of the gum trees.
On Trinity Sunday, after passing Cape Clevethey visited various islands and named Trinity Bay—then Cape Tribulation, as they ran on a rock and were nearly wrecked, so had to seek refuge for repairs in a harbour into which flowed the river they named the Endeavour. When aground on this reef near Cape Tribulation in lat. 15° 45′ S., six or seven leagues from the mainland, land, six guns were thrown overboard, and yet— ​probably encrusted with coral—await rediscovery. All attempts, so far, with the aid of divers, have been unsuccessful.
Of course it was all new and wonderful to them, and as there was no one to contradict them, they saw many strange things. One of them saw the devil, “‘as large as a 1-gallon keg and very like it; he had horns and wings; yet he crept so slowly through the grass that if I had not been affeared I might have touched him." One does not feel much surprised at the reference to a gallon keg, as it probably accounted for the vision —the devil appears to have been a bat “as large as a partridge.” They were all seeing things: a midshipman saw “a wolf”—probably a dingo —and someone else “‘ two straw-coloured animals of the size of a hare, but shaped like a dog”’; also other “‘ mouse coloured animals,” and we hear about a cockle which was large enough for two men. They also saw the nude natives, and felt much shocked at them; so Captain Cook gave one a shirt, which he wore on his head as a turban, and no doubt he meant to pay them honour in doing so. The natives had tame dogs, and they saw also “goats, wolves, and polecats,” so it is evident some one had been there before and introduced these animals. In fact, it is evident that Australia was a quite civilised place before Captain Cook discovered it, and knew what was the “correct thing,” for he tells us they saw a kangaroo, and “it was dressed for dinner,” so evidently it expected to dine on the Endeavour, instead of the Endeavour dining on it; and one can imagine it coming forward with a polite society smile, its hand in its pouch, its best white waistcoat on, and the worry it had in the heat to tie its white evening tie properly, and welcoming the strangers with a “Captain Cook, I presume?” ​ It seems to me it was Captain Cook who presumed, for he shot that high-toned kangaroo, and that is how it went to dinner on the Endeavour. Then they left, and I don't wonder at it. They kept along the coast so as to find the straits between Australia and New Guinea, then passed through Providence Channel, naming Weymouth Cape and Bay—where the cockles were so large it took two men to lift them. This, however, is no exxageration as it probably refers to the Giant Clam (Tridacna gigas), some of which are from four to ten feet long and weigh a ton. Someof the old shells are so covered with coral and other growths as to be not easily discernible, and it is said that some of the native běche-de-mer fishermen, having trodden in these, their feet have been seized by the clam with such force as to hold them prisoners until the rising tide overwhelmed and drowned them. The smaller or Frilled Clams are ten to twelve inches in size and are varied in colour, some having many markings and others turquoise, blue, or green. On the 21st August they discovered and named York Island, proclaiming the country New South Wales, and hoisting the flag for the king. Then they passed through what are now Endeavour Straits to the Prince of Wales Island, and on for days till they passed the islands of Rotti and Seman, viewing the Aurora Borealis, and found themselves at an island, Savu, where they must have been surprised to see houses, flocks of sheep, and palms, and from the ship beheld horsemen, one of whom wore a gold-laced cocked hat, and coat and waistcoat of the fashion of Europe. On landing they found the inhabitants with chains of gold round their neck and “dressed in fine linen.” The Rajah and Lange, Dutchman, the only white on the island, received them. They saw ​sheep, buffaloes, and ponies, and the natives then as now wore the sarong. On the 21st they left for Java, meeting “the Dutch packet-boat” on their way, which sounds up-to-date, and on the 16th October we find them at Batavia, going out to dinner with a Scotsman, Mr. Leith, the only Briton in Java. As they did not shoot him he “dressed for dinner,” indeed, was probably not more likely to be undressed, to judge from the way they live there now. Even then Batavia had its beautiful houses extending for miles into the country, and Captain Cook remarks that the lawyers or judges are very partial in dealing out justice, and you get in that line what you pay for. I remember a charming Dutch lady, daughter Batavian judge, when visiting my Scottish home, asking quite innocently how much we paid the judge when we wanted to win a case, and she evidently thought it a foolish arrangement that our judges could not be bribed. Captain Cook was disturbed about the Mohawks, those Malays who ran “amuck” when they were drunk with opium, killing every one they met—quite a usual thing. He tells us too, that the people believed that when a woman gave birth to a child she also gave birth to a crocodile, which was put in the river, but its twin brother or sister had throughout life to go daily and feed it. The sudaras, as they called these crocodiles were different from others and had golden rings on their toes and rings in their nose, and even on their ears, though they haven't got any.There are still sudaras. Things don't change much in the East Indies, and Captain Cook would be quite at home there yet, if all tales are true.
At Cooktown there was such a gale blowing and such a heavy sea on that there was no going ashore. The officer in command of the boat ​which went to fetch the pilot wanted me to go with him, but the Captain absolutely refused to allow my precious life to be risked. They always take a pilot here to get through Torres Straits. They get £25 each way, that is £50 for the short trip. The one we shipped is a well-known character,Captain B———, a tall, good-looking man, not at al the usual pilot type.
Of the new passengers we embarked at Cooktown,“one was a Professor Payne, an American, and champion shot of the world.” He gives performances, and had with him on tour a palefaced, seedy youth, off whose head he shoots glass balls. The Professor was an interesting and quaint character, and I found such favour in his sight that he offered to shoot glass balls off my head, assuring me there was not the slightest danger. I was sure there was not, and thought it most kind of him, but didn't want to bore him when he was having a holiday, so I declined!
[Photo, Kerry, Sydney.
AUSTRALIAN NATIVE, TORRES STRAITS.
To face page 14.
When their remains were found, with them was a diary kept by Mrs. Watson, written with her blood, and in which she records from day to day their horrible sufferings in the burning heat on how her milk goes dry and that unsheltered rock her baby perishes, and how the Chinaman went mad and died of starvation—the record of most terrible sufferings, so nobly borne, set down in short words. When the diary was found and published, a wave of pity and grief, wonder and admiration, swept through all Australia. To see the spot made one shudder, but afraid to try and realise it all. A monument to this brave woman has been erected at Cooktown.
The blacks along that coast on the mainland, the unexplored Cape York Peninsula, are very dangerous and troublesome, and are reputed cannibals. So little is known of this part that the Captain told me that one day four sailors suddenly appeared at the Palmer Gold Fields, and being questioned as to where they had come from, amazed every one by saying they had been cast adrift at sea and their boat washed ashore at the mouth of a fine river, up which they sailed with the tide, landing at a short distance from the goldfields, though no one there had any idea of the existence of this river, and little dreamt there was such easy communication with the sea. It was, I think, the Kennedy River.
Off Cape Bathurst we passed close to the Channel Rock Lightship. We had a quantity of stores for her, but she refused to send her boat for them, there being too heavy a sea on. It must ​be a very lonely, dull life on these lightships. Not long ago this one was attacked by the blacks from the mainland, who were only repelled with difficulty.
We also put stores on board the Clement Isle Lightship. On it lived the master, his wife, and three other men. They sent some fresh fish on board, gorgeously coloured red-scaled things which some one called Red Brim. We had to anchor there all night, it is such dangerous navigation inside the Barrier Reef. Many of the dangerous reefs are covered all the year round, and some others are only visible at abnormally low spring tides. However, all this intricate coast-line has been admirably charted and lighted with beacons and lightships.
That night every one set to work to relate marvellous tales of mysterious disappearances. The Captain said that once the British Government, before the days of steamboats, built four or five brigs of war. They all sailed from England on the same day for different parts of the world, and not one was ever heard of again, and no trace of their fate was ever discovered. In the Red River Campaign in Canada the Gordon Highlanders lost a whole company of men, who disappearad entirely, not a rifle, a sword, or trace of them of any sort being ever discovered, nor could the wildest theories account for it. Is this a mere yarn, or is it true? I wish some one would tell me.
Another case was that of a surveyor and party of men who landed at some place in New South Wales and have never been heard of since. Their boat was found drawn up on the beach all right, left just as if they were to return to it, and in it was found a bullet, but though every search was made nothing could be found to account for ​their disappearance. There were no natives about, and at the time it was considered a most extraordinary thing, and yet remains an unsolved mystery. There is the mysterious fate, too, of Leichardt, the explorer, no trace of whom has ever been discovered. It is one of the great aims of Baron von Mueller to send forth exploring parties to search for traces of that expedition, and many a time have I endeavoured to aid him by trying to induce people to support the project financially. The Baron always hopes that the remains of his friend and comrade may yet be found, and with them some record of his work. Then, too, there is the disappearance of Gibson, a member of Ernest Giles’ expedition in the interior of Australia. This happened quite near a place named Fort Mackellar, after my father, who had been one of the chief supporters of this expedition. It is strange that no trace of his remains has ever been found. I have heard Ernest Giles describe it all when dining with my family, and how he himself was so near starvation and so ravenous that seeing a young kangaroo dropped from its mother’s pouch he fell upon it there and then, and ate it up alive, fur and all! I can hear yet the clatter of falling knives and forks occasioned by this anecdote!
The coast became more barren and uninviting as we progressed, and the natives are said to be most fierce and treacherous; but towards the north of this Cape York district there are a few white settlers. We stopped at the Piper Bank Lightship to provision it, but the old man in charge was, for some reason, in such a towering rage that he would scarcely wait with his boat to get his stores. It was a ludicrous scene, and no one understood what ailed him. There was a small sailing boat tied on to the lightship, and it seems ​that two white bĕche-de-mer fishermen, with some Kanakas, had landed on an island to get water and were attacked by the blacks:one man was killed and the other, badly wounded by a spear, was on board the lightship. (He also died later.) We generally had to anchor at night, the strong currents and countless reefs being most troublesome.
On the morning of the 4th, as I was dressing, what was my surprise to see suddenly framed in the porthole a beautiful picture of a large house on an eminence with a flag flying, and below a beautiful little cove with boats at anchor! After days journeying up the barren wild coast, inhabited only by savages, this came as a surprise, and I rushed on deck at once. We were passing through the narrow straits between Albany and the mainland. This was Mr. Jardine's house and cattle station at the extremity of Cape York Peninsula. His father had been the resident at the settlement of Somerset here, and when it was abandoned and removed to Thursday Island the Jar dine family continued to live at this place. It is quite a large two-storied house, surrounded by verandahs and balconies a beautifully situated place. There are said to be no men about it, and only black gins (women) employed in the station work, and some of these ladies we saw galloping about on horseback—and I assure you a black gin galloping astride on a barebacked horse is a sight to see. What a freak the man must be to have nothing but women's tongues around him! Mr. Frank Jardine rendered most hospitable service to many of the wrecked survivors of the ill-fated Quetta. This vessel, a mailboat of the A.S.N. Co., of 3480 tons, on 28th February 1890 struck an uncharted submerged coral reef between Albany and Adolphus Island, and sank in three minutes. Of the ​282 persons on board, 120 were drowned and 162 escaped. Miss Lacy, a girl of sixteen years of age, swam and floated for thirty-five hours until rescued by a boat.
The Barrier Reef has claimed, one way or the other, many victims, and many a good ship's ribs lie coral-encrusted in its beautiful waters. Danger lies there, but also mystery and even romance.
All along the land visible rose the great pyramid of earth—ant–heaps— which have such a peculiar aspect amongst the palms and other foliage. it was all very beautiful as we came through the narrow straits and entered the waters of Torres Straits, which separate New Guinea from Australia, and which straits are about eighty miles wide.
The Police Magistrate from Normanton who is on board told me a tale which is not very pleasant. You must understand that the natives are carefully protected by the Government; that is, if any one wrongs a native he is punished as severely as if it had been a white man. But if people often live beyond the reach of the law, and are, and have to be, a law unto themselves. They treat the natives as they please, and say nothing about it. There is, of course, but a small scattered community in the north of Australia at all, settled on or near the coast, with a hinterland of unexplored savage-peopled land.
This Police Magistrate was once riding, I presume somewhere in the neighbourhood of Normanton, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and a man, known to him, joining him, they rode on together. After a time the Magistrate, looking down, was horrified to see a pair of bleeding human hands tied to his companion's stirrup.
“Oh,” said the man coolly, “it was a black ​gin I captured and was bringing along. i tied her hands to my stirrup, but she howled and made herself such a nuisance that I just took my tomakawk and chopped off her hands at the wrists to get rid of her!”
He had been actually too lazy to untie her hands, and had of course left the wretched woman to bleed to death in the Bush! The cool callousness of it takes away one's breath.
Of course he was arrested and punished, but I do not know what punishment he got.
I said the City of Melbourne adopted me: it seems like it, for every soul on board, including sailors, stokers, and the like, loaded me with kindness, and all went out of their way to make me feel at home, as I did. You do not know how frank, open, and unreserved these people out here are: there is no nonsense about them. They are genuine; and have no idea that it is necessary to hide anything. With their free, frank independence, always combined with good-humoured manners, they appeal to me strongly. Independence, you know, is not bad manners as it often is at home. There are no people like these in Great Britain, so you will scarcely know what I mean. They are no pattern saints or plaster images, or anything like that—far from it—but most of them have a good-comradeship feeling about them. Every one on that ship came to me as a matter of course with a cheerful “Well, Mister,” and entertained me—cabin-boys, stokers, and all. Without the slightest mauvaise honte they begintelling you all about themselves in their free, independent, but perfectly polite way, paying you the great compliment of being sure that they may doso. Australians are often boastful—absurdly so at times—and they think no place equals their own and; and of course this land holds much of ​the riff-raff of the world, the gone-under ones, the adventurous ones, and the many whose past is a mystery. Here, indeed, in the Gulf of Carpentaria is a place they call Dead Man's Land, where many men who died, and some who were even buried, are living—I have heard many strange tales.
But also Australia holds many of the fittest some born here, others who rose above their crippling surroundings at home and escaped into an atmosphere where they can breathe and where there is space to move, and scope for the energies and enterprise dormant at home.
These people on the ship meant only to be friendly and kind, and were pleased when anything interested or amused me. I am not likely to forget it.
All is rather primitive up here, and people who do not live amidst crowds or others are much more natural and kindly, and are devoid of all airs and affectations.
A great future probably awaits Port Darwin in the Northern Territory, and all that Australian coast. The harbour is a fine one, which large ships may enter at any state of the tide. Palmerston, the town, has large Government buildings, and behind it lie great tracts of fine land. I wonder how many people realise that the Northern Territory of South Australia is equal in size to Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and Italy combined, and that it contains 335,116,800 acres, and has but a very small population. Yet land is obtained on very easy terms. It was annexed by South Australia in 1863. Nor is this part of North Australia without its history, there being evidence that the coast was known as early as 1512 to the Portuguese, and it is claimed by some that it was discovered by De Gonneville, who ​sailed from Honfleur in 1503. A copy of an old map in the British Museum would show that the Portuguese Manoel Godinho Eredia was there in 1601. Torres and Tasman were later than that. Charles II’s Ambassador at the Hague, Sir William Temple, reports that the Dutch East India Company had long known of the continent, though not its extent, but concealed all knowledge, having sufficient trade and not being desirous of other nations going there; and for centuries it would appear that the Malays from Macassar and elsewhere had been in the habit of going there for trepang, pearls, pearl shell, etc. Captain Flinders, on his voyage there in 1803, found many Malay phraus, and was informed there were sometimes sixty of them, armed with brass cannon and muskets. These Malays had not seen a ship therebefore, nor had they heard of Port Jackson (Sydney). Military posts were established in 1824 at Fort Dundas and Raffles Bay in Melville Island, and some time later at Port Essington in Arnheim's Land, the last of them being deserted, I think, about 1849. The cattle and horses left on the islands and mainland bred and multiplied rapidly. The ruins of forts and entrenchments still remain. With the troops, a certain number
Thursday Island, Torres Straits, 1885.
I arrived here on the 4th September, and a quaint place it is! The wooded island looked very pretty from the sea.
The Captain came ashore with me to see that I was properly launched in local society, and first installed me at the hotel which is kept by an Irishwoman, Mrs. M‘Nulty. There was much “shouting” at the hotel bar, as every one asks every one else to have drinks. The sailors who carried my belongings to the hotel of course came in for their share. I was then taken along and introduced to the Collector or Sub-Collector of Customs. The young airified doctor who came up with me in the City of Melbourne is applying for the post of Health Officer, a billet worth £800 a year, outside of any private practice, as a hospital and a quarantine station are to be established. Great things are expected of Thursday Island; they want it to be made a naval station, and to be fortified, as then it would command the whole Straits. (Something of this has since been done, and a garrison is maintained there.)
Professor Payne rushed about distributing his advertisement bills as “Champion Shot of the World,” and I suppose means to perform here when he returns from Normanton. The Captain gave Mrs. M‘Nulty the strictest injunctions to look after me well, and to see that this and that person was introduced to me, and was more than kind.
The ship then left for Normanton in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and will be back here in a week, when I rejoin her. They all said good-bye to me as if they were leaving me on a desert isle, though it is anything but that. ​The town is not laid out with any regularity; the modern bungalows, surrounded by balconies and verandahs, and all built on piles, are just dotted down anywhere in the sand and inland from it, a good many being drinking shanties and billiard saloons. At the back rises a wooded hill. This hotel is quite roomy and comfortable, two-storied, and with broad verandah and balcony. It too is planted on the sand near the sea and pier. It is distinctly an Irish establishment. There is no doubt about the nationality of Mrs. M‘Nulty, and still less about that of Bridget, her handmaiden. The big dining-room has a piano, pictures of Emmet, Daniel O'Connell, od many other patriots, and the bookcases contain Sir Charles Gavan Duffy’s works and those of numerous other Irish writers. In the days when I knew Sir Charles Gavan Duffy; I could not imagine how he could inspire any one with enthusiasm, clever and cultured though he was, for he could scarcely be described as a sympathetic character.
Such of the houses as are not built of wood are of corrugated iron. The house of the Government Resident, the Hon. John Douglas, is at a point, with a prominent flagstaff. He is away just now; so I cannot see him. There is another hotel; the Torres Straits, and as well I see near here a boarding-house, kept by “Tommy Japan.”
There are about two hundred white people on this and other islands scattered throughout the Straits, and about two thousand people in all, counting the mixed races of whites, Kanakas, Australian aborigines, Malays, Japanese, Chinese, and half-caste Manila men. There is a Queensland National Bank, not so big as its name, and prominent is the general store of Burns, Philp & Co., a well-known firm.
​Mr. S——— told me that the Customs Revenuereturns from Thursday Island were last year over £11,000. Visible from here are many islands—Hammond, Prince of Wales, Friday, Wednesday, Sunday Isles, and others, all hilly, well wooded, and extremely pretty. It is; in fact; a beautiful scene, and I am delighted with it all.
We dine at one o'clock, Mrs. M‘Nulty and Bridget not only waiting on us, but entertaining us and entering fully into the conversation. Both are most important ladies here, and Bridget is the only respectable unattached white woman in the community, and so has many admirers and friends. The company comprises two pilots, Captains H———and L——;a youth, C—— who is postmaster, I think; a young Irishman, the banker here and a miserable, fever-stricken, drink-soddened man, and myself.
Then at supper in the evening were various others—all most friendly and kind, full of wonder at what I can be doing here, and perfectly certain that I mean to invest money in some scheme. The sea beach in front is a fine stretch of firm sand; and near there is a graceful group of palms with a shady seat under them. The different natives look quite picturesque going about, and some of the Malays and Kanakas are fine-looking men. Some of the Kanaka divers have white women and living with them.
As I strolled along exploring, I saw a golden-haired lady in a pink silk tea-gown lying in a hammock on a verandah, and being surprised at such an apparition here, I suppose ‘I stared somewhat for up the lady, said jumped the, "D—n your eyes!" and flounced indoors. She belonged to one of the Kanaka pearl-divers.
As soon as I went to stroll along the sands a dog flew after me, appeared delighted, and has ​never left me since. Whose dog it is I know not, but it has simply adopted me right away, and is my friend for the time being. Then down came a tame cassowary, and after stalking all round me once or twice, also joined in the walk. Then I saw a boy run to a tree, climb it hastily, and come to meet me with some of its fruit—another friend! So am I not in clover—a nice, cheery, kind boy, a dog, and a cassowary, all determined to be my friends? Besides this, at the hotel are two tame pelicans and various other birds and animals, all equally friendly, so there is not the slightest danger of my being dull.
I ascended the hill behind the town, and amidst some “scrub,” as they call a tropical jungle in Australia, came on some blacks camping and having a sort of corroboree. From the hill are perfectly lovely views of the green wooded islands and coral reefs all round, with here and there a glimpse of white houses, pearl-fishing stations, and between the islands always lovely stretches of sea of the most exquisite turquoise blue, pale green and yellow in the shallows, and amethyst purple where the shadows rest. At each island “station” lies a group of sailing-boats, and small white-sailed schooners are plying everywhere. Why, it is quite a lovely place, and the more I have seen of it the more I have admired it. I know no prettier spot anywhere about Australia. Sky, sea, and land, it is all beautiful. They are astonished at my admiration, and I see them cast surprised looks round.
“Scenery!—what's the good of scenery? There is nothing to be got out of that.” That I could be such a born idiot as to come here merely to look at the scenery, they cannot, will not believe.
One day all these islands in the Straits are to be the Sanatoria of Northern Australia and New ​Guinea, as they are fever free and there is always a cool breeze blowing; are to be thickly populated, and the whole Straits of the greatest importance. But I am glad to see it as it is now. I have wandered all over this island exploring it, studying its interesting vegetation and its queer pinnacles of clay. These high structures which are so striking are ant-hills, and some are of very large size and height; but, strange to say, I have not discovered an ant in one of them. They and the pandanus trees are most picturesque objects.
I have gathered many of those large beans out of which matchboxes mounted with silver are so often made. The huge pod holding many of these dark-brown polished beans, grows on a gigantic vine, and is of very great size. There are most beautiful trees, beautiful as to their high straight stems, and as to their crown of foliage blazing with pink or scarlet blossom. I can tell you nothing of what they are, as they are new to me, and no one here knows or cares. There are pandanus, banyan, and pawpaw trees. There are quantities of ferns, palms, and beautiful orchids. I wander about through all this quite happy, my dog as content as I am. I think Captain Thompson must have spoken to the dog ere he left, and bid it take care of me, as I find that he left messages for every one directing them to see after me.
Once when I was sketching on top of the hill a cassowary suddenly appeared. At first I thought it was my friend from below, and that it had actually followed me up all the way; but I soon saw it was not the same, but a wild one, if you can call such a bird “wild.” They are the quaintest of birds. Have you ever seen them dance at the Zoo in London? If not, go at once and try to see it; it is too comical for words. Well, this one stalked all round me, put its head over my ​shoulder to look at the sketch, then walked round in front and put its head over from that side, without the slightest doubt deeply interested in the sketch, or curious as to what it was all about. They are always full of curiosity; but I never met one of this sort out in the scrub before. At first I was greatly amused and tried hard to sketch it, but at last I became quite frightened of the thing. It seemed too human, too knowing, too uncanny. I cannot describe it exactly, but somehow I suddenly got a sort of disagreeable panic, absurd as it seems, and looked round me as if there was some sort of influence about, something almost supernatural, and I was quite glad to get away! The tame one at the hotel is different, and so absurdly tame that one is not surprised at its queerness, but that a wild one out in the scrub should behave in this queer, familiar, uncanny way does not seem natural. It brings to mind the beautiful poem—
“I would I were a Cassowary On the plains of Timbuctoo; I would eat a missionary, Skin and bones and hymn-book too!”
I promised Baron von Mueller, the Government Botanist of Victoria, and, as you know, one of the most famous botanists in the world, that I would collect plants for him when I was in any out-of-the-way spot, and this I have been trying to do, though without knowledge. It is very interesting, and one discovers all sorts of tiny curious weeds one would never be aware of till one searched like this. I get them with their fruit or seed, stalk and leaf, dry them, and write down the place I find them, so that he can judge of their distribution. He tried to bribe me by saying that I may find some new one, and that it will bear my name in a Latin ​form; but I regret to say that I always mean to write down the place, but don’t always do it, so that already I have confused them, and that is of no use. The Baron is a very old family friend, and I feel ashamed at my lazy method of trying to oblige him, and always mean to do better “in tyme coming.”
There are many stunted eucalyptus trees, and the ground everywhere, save in the scrub, is strewn with granite rocks and stones. There are both sheep and goats on the island.
For two or three days I noticed a man amongst the trees continually throwing stones at nothing, until he had made a heap; then he went to that heap and threw them back again, until he had formed another heap—it seemed the occupation of a lunatic. Curiosity got the better of me, and I asked him what he was doing. He told me he was a digger detained a week in Thursday Island waiting for the boat to go south, and he found it the dullest, dreariest hole he had ever been in (he used quite other words to these, but a long line of blanks looks foolish), and so he was just killing time, and he went on doing this for that whole week! I remonstrated with him at last, and asked why he did not "go on the spree,"and get dead drunk for the rest of the time? He yawned, and said he had done that so often it bored him also. I pointed all round, and said it was a pleasure to be alive and see all that, to wonder at it and revel in it. He surveyed me with unbounded astonishment.
“Well, I'm blanked” he gasped.
“You irritate me,” I said. “You are big and strong, God made you so you may pass for a man, but what are you passing on to? Do you suppose you will be of any use to yourself or any one ​where, above or below, when you have ‘passed the time’? What’s the good of you, anyhow?”
“Well, I’m blanked!”
“You are a stick, a stone, a stupid animal, a mere apology for a man. Can’t you live? Can’t you go and fight some one, or do something to amuse some one? You go on like a cranky Chinaman—I suppose the other diggers kicked you out from where you were; you must have bored them to death. Go and get an island of your own, where no one can see you, and be blanked to you!”
He scratched his head, surveyed me up and down, and then burst out laughing.
“They don’t grow your sort up here, Mister. I’ll be blanked if they do. Now what would you have me do? Just name it, and I’m your man, and I’ll not chuck another of them blanked stones, I’ll be blanked if I do!”
“Stop blanking for one thing, you are withering up these already half-withered stunted trees. Do as you please, only drop this silly nonsense of chucking stones about. Why, look at me. I grudge each minute of time that passes, and am so ashamed that I did not get something out of each of those lost minutes. They are gone, absolutely gone, and can never come back. There is not time to think, they go so quickly, and whilst one debates what to do with them they are gone; and yet one can live in each of them, have life, love, joy, laughter, what you will. I am never dull, I have no time for it; I want to do a hundred things in each minute—and you only want to kill those minutes—they are dying, dead as we speak!”
“Well—I’m—blanked!” he said in a dazed manner, as he by force of habit threw another stone. ​“You are blanked!” I said, and strode away—and the wretch is at it still. Once I was strolling up the hill and I saw him stop and come striding towards me, but I waved him away scornfully, and he stopped as if he had been shot; and though I did not hear him, I know well he was blanked again. It seems he came to the hotel and asked about me, and when told who I was and that I had come for a week “to amuse myself,” merely to see the place, he was “struck of a heap,” and said he had never heard the like before, but “that's the one for me,” which I certainly was not and am not; the sight of the idiot sets my nerves on edge . How can any one rouse such a being? Yet he is a big, strong, healthy-looking man, and does not even look stupid.
“If he would only make love to you, Bridget,” I said,“you would liven him up!” “Is it me? Bad cess to ye! Is it after me ye'd be having him? Sure ’tis niver a crathur like that I'll be wanting.” In the hotel is living a man who is terribly ill with the coast fever; came here, where there is none, to recruit, and has delirium tremens all the time the—wreck, the miserable wretch, is awful to see. All day and night he calls without ceasing on Mrs. M‘Nulty or Bridget for drink, and they are angels of goodness and patience with him, for he is a terrific nuisance. I have heard Mrs. M‘Nulty rise up in the night, go to him and reason with and chide him as if he were a child. She is adamant in refusing him more, so now he sometimes comes to me on the verandah, goes down on his knees praying, crying, and entreating that I will order a drink—whisky or brandy, of course—for myself and give it to him. My heart bleeds with pity for him, but of course I cannot do it, and Mrs. M‘Nulty is quite worried at the time I am ​having through this poor lost man. Every one is full of pity—but what can one do? They are so cunning, such people. He manages to get drink somewhere, somehow—no one can guess how.
I have an extraordinary housemaid attending to my room. He—for such servants are always he’s here—is a Kanaka, a new arrival. On being engaged he was furnished with a whole new rigout: a suit of thick blue pilot cloth, flannel shirt, boots and socks, felt hat, and woollen muffler. It is very hot, but all these he wears all day and always. He has had, I suppose, his instructions about sweeping out my room, and adheres rigidly to them. When I am dressing, in he comes, ignores me absolutely, sweeps out the room, often bringing the broom over my toes, and continually sweeping out socks, shoes, and anything which for a moment lies on the ground. He pays no attention to my remonstrances, not understanding a word of English, and I am often to be seen darting out in scanty attire to rescue something he has swept out ere the cassowary and the pelicans eat it, and one day found these creatures sampling a pair of braces he had swept out. Luckily the pelicans were at one end and the cassowary at the other, so I was able to defeat both.
Bridget likes to come along and have a chat with me, as of course I am the interesting visitor to the island just now, and every one is curious about my real motive for being here. It cannot be pearl fishing; what can it be? They know I have to go soon, so that really they are making much of me here. But why Bridget likes to confide in me is that I am no resident here, and she can yarn away about all her admirers in safety. I often tell her she will be the death of me but she thinks there is no dying about me, and that I'll “kape.”
​“Sure” she says, it‘s jist afther tellin’ ye everything I’d be, a gintleman like ye as thravels for play—sure, jist as the rale gintry does in the ould counthry.” Bridget is neither young nor beautiful, but is a good soul with a very big heart in her, and unalloyed enjoyment in her many followers. She showed me a glass bottle of pearls, some quite good ones, given to her one by one, by her admirers. At all hours of the day I am being offered refreshment, in case I should be tired, or feeling the heat or something. Bridget pauses as she goes by and has a little chat; then I say something impudent and she goes away giggling, and saying the queerest Irish things to me that keep me tittering for long. It really is a delightful quality the Irish have, that of taking life cheerfully and ever being ready with a pointed repartee.
There is such a glare from the sand and the heat is so great that one is forced to the hardship of a chair in the shady verandah where the breeze reaches one. I watch the Kanakas and other natives; there are even negroes in this menagerie, and to see all these at play in the evening is a real entertainment. They are very fond of a skipping-rope, and to see the fat women skipping with babies in their arms is simply killing. I nearly expire with laughter, and they are in the same state themselves, and often roll on the ground shrieking with laughter. Imagine a great fat black woman dressed in one short garment or petticoat, or sometimes a long flowered calico one. She is probably coy at first, and has to be urged on by the others. Every time the rope comes round she makes the most frantic leaps, but yards away from it, till, emboldened by the encouragement of the others, she gradually goes nearer, and at last the rope does go over her, catches her on the back of the ankles or somewhere, and down she comes ​on the sand with a great display, amidst yells of delight from the others, in which she herself joins. What kills me is to see them leaping with frantic energy yards away from the rope.
Then a gorgeously dressed Kanaka — how gorgeously dressed you cannot imagine—comes to the hotel bar. As he is seen approaching, others rush out to meet him. They strike attitudes of astonished admiration, walk all round him just like the cassowary does round me, discuss each article of his attire, he beaming with flattered pride and consciousness. Then they look inside his purse—all just like children—link their arms in his, and lead him into the bar in triumph. This happens continually. They are merely happy, simple, amiable, attractive children. Attractive many of them are, for some are very good-looking, and have got very taking manners. When well treated they are happy people too.
It is curious, but all natives everywhere like a person like me who is amongst them doing nothing: I mean, that has no business or occupation with them, but is merely travelling and idling. What exactly it is that appeals to them I don’t know, but I imagine the idea of the thing to them is that you have attained what they consider must be an earthly paradise, and that you are some great rich chief above all need of work, or something of that sort. Here they say to me, “Oh, that man! He no good, he common man; he no gentleman like you”; or, “That man—he only ‘this or that’; he common man—no good.” They have their own ideas, and are very clever at seeing some things, though often very childish otherwise. One said to me about a well-known character on the island whom I did not see, Mrs. M‘Nulty not permitting it—
“That man—he no good. This what he do.”
​Here it is described to me. “I black man, he white man, but I think shame to do thing like that. You no speak, you no see that man. He speak black man, but no good for gentleman.” How tickled I was at this idea of even a native thinking about whom I should know and whom I should not, and their own idea that what was good enough for a black man was not good enough for a white one. They are all chaperoning me. I know only the ones Captain Thompson and Mrs. M‘Nulty decree I should know. She deplores the absence of the Resident, Mr. [afterwards Sir John] Douglas, and explains to me I am not seeing society properly in his absence. I am very good, and do just as they wish me.
All these mingled natives get rather rowdy at night time, and the one policeman of the island has his work cut out for him; and I must tell you about that policeman, who is another of my friends.
One night I was sitting out in the dark on the sand at the edge of the sea, in front of the hotel for the coolness. Some one came along in the dark and said, “Please, sir, may I speak to you?”
“Certainly,” I said; “what is it?”
It turned out to be the policeman. He told me he was so sad and lonely; that he never had any one to speak to, because he could not be friendly with them, as he had to look after them, keep his authority over them, and continually interfere with them when they got drunk or troublesome, which was very frequently. Hence he had to keep entirely to himself, and he did feel so solitary and lonely. But I was only a visitor, and going away soon, and he did want to come and speak to me.
“Sit down right away,” I said, “and tell me ​all about everything.” And so he did, and opened his heart and poured out all his grievances, wants, feelings, and everything. I encouraged him and let him talk on, knowing it was a real relief to the poor man to be able to just say out everything. I can quite understand it. If he is to keep any authority over these turbulent people of all sorts here, he has himself to be a very pattern of austerity and the power of the law personified. I feel quite sorry for him, and advised him to get married, so that he might have his wife to talk to; but there is no one here for him to marry. I all but offered to find him some one when I went south, and send her up, but recollected in time that however well-bred old maids' and old bachelors' children are, the old maids and old bachelors can scarcely be the ones to find husbands or wives for others when they have found none for themselves. He, however, brightens up now at the very sight of me, and I give him plenty of opportunities for a chat on the pier or the sands. I have faithful friends here: the policeman, the boy, the dog, and the cassowary, and I think Bridget too; but where all are so friendly it is needless to discriminate. And they thought I would find it dull here! My life has been a rich one these few days, and I enjoying every minute of it. Mrs. M'Nulty takes complete care of me, warns off those she deems undesirable, and tells me whom I am to know and whom not!
Sometimes when by myself in my chair on the verandah I laugh over it all, but I am sure I shall always have a warm place in my heart for this queer Thursday Island.
Mrs. M'Nulty brought in and introduced four men one night, a sort of deputation of the bachelors of the island. Two of them are in Burn Philp's store; another, Captain D——, is manager of a ​pearl-fishing station; and the fourth is the Second Officer of Customs. They came to tell me that they were going for a holiday cruise in a cutter to a lot of islands; that Captain B——, the pilot, is also going, he being here for a week as a guest of the bachelors of "Thirsty Island," as they call it, with reason, and they had come to invite me to go with them.
Mrs. M'Nulty, who stood behind them, nodded at me to say Yes, and I was delighted at the idea. Nothing could exceed their kindness, as they are eager for me to see everything and have a good time. Of course, I accepted, and was about to ask Mrs. M'Nulty to bring in drinks when Bridget appeared with them all ready, giving me a knowing secret wink as she plumped down the glasses, as much as to say, " You don't need to tell us what is necessary." If I am two minutes alone here, they are afraid I am dull, and seek some way of entertaining me.
Thursday Island, Torres Straits, 1885.
I am back from my cruise, and alive to tell the tale. On a lovely day, with a cool fresh breeze blowing, we started on this holiday jaunt We had a schooner yacht belonging to a pearl fishery, lent by Captain D—— for the occasion. Two men from the store, Captain B——, the pilot, I, and three blacks formed the pleasure party. One of the blacks, Jack, is a great character and a most intelligent man. We had a splendid sail, and went first to Prince of Wales' Isle, which I admired as much as did Captain Cook. Captain D—— came over with us from " Thirsty Island " in the boat, and we went first to his pearl-fishing station. This was a charming place, most picturesque, and lying at the bottom of a wooded hill; the numerous buildings, house, store, and men's quarters being ​painted white, so that they looked cool amidst the green cocoanut palms. All these stations consist of quite a settlement of white houses; and the groups of gaily dressed natives standing about, the white houses, green waving palms, yellow sand, and the turquoise blue of the sea in front, with the white-sailed boats lying at anchor, always form a quite perfect picture. My companions are amazed at my admiration, but glad I am pleased.
Everything about this house was most tasteful. The verandah had gay Chinese lanterns hanging up, and the walls of the drawing-room were lined with Japanese vases of the basket pattern, each vase having a single orchid in it, whilst lovely flowering orchids—plucked wild outside—were thrown on the top of the pictures, where they flourished without soil or water, long trails of exquisite blossom hanging down. The effect was to me quite novel and was most effective. Fancy having a dado of living orchids all round your room. The drawing-room was like that of any refined Englishwoman anywhere: full of pictures, books, flowers, and photographs, and as pretty and charming a room as you could see anywhere. Remember this is a place separated from modern civilisation by thousands of miles of unexplored land inhabited only by savages.
At each station is a store for the convenience of their Kanaka employees, to whom they sell anything they want, including clothes and eatables. Of course all the wages come back this way, as the natives are perfect children and give any price for anything that takes their fancy, and cannot resist buying. They are very fond of " music," or noise, if you like it better are not the two words often synonymous? They go in wholesale for gorgeous concertinas, accordions, ​and musical-boxes, mostly constructed of paper, it seemed to me, and not warranted to last. Any one who can rise to possessing a barrel-organ—which they call a mangle—is the envied and adored of all. Coloured handkerchiefs are another thing in great request.
We were all photographed on the verandah here. Native men and women were posed about in front, but every time the cap came off the camera they bolted, vanishing into the shrubs like streaks of lightning, and you saw grinning or frightened faces peering out in every direction. Then they would be posed again and assured no one was going to be shot but off they went again. We grew quite hysterical with laughter over this, and whenever I think of those bare legs and feet disappearing into the bushes in every direction it sets me off again.
We then walked to another station, where were no ladies, and where Captain D—— was our host. Here we remained for the night—and what a night! Other men were there, and they all went in for “a regular night of it.” The amount of liquor of every description consumed was great. I kept secretly upsetting my glass over the verandah edge, but it was always filled again. Captain D—— took me to see the native quarters and to get out into the fresh air and quiet for a time. They had large numbers of Kanakas and others, also Chinese. I looked into one house, and three Chinese were sitting on the floor, with a lamp beside them, playing cards and gambling and forming the queerest of pictures in the circle of light. They were so absorbed that they neither heard nor saw me, and even when I went in and stood beside them, watching, not one of them noticed me. I was thankful when it came at last to bedtime, and the drinking was over. We all ​camped anywhere—some on the verandah and several in a room, a bed being made up for me the floor in one room.
On going in to breakfast in the morning it turned out that this bachelor establishment had run out of tea and coffee, and I was offered beer in a cup! I shudder yet when I think of it, for beer the first thing on a broiling hot morning is not in my line; but beer in a cup! This station was almost demolished ere we left it, that being the thing to do on such a holiday visit as this. It would take them a week to put it right again. However, it was expected, and no one seemed to mind. I adapted myself as best I could to the company and the ways.
We then went to a station on another island—a most lovely spot—called Wai Weer; here gin was offered and had to be accepted, as they are offended if you refuse. I was greatly taken with this island, and could I have done so would have purchased it on the spot. Then we embarked again and had another glorious sail to Goode Island, to S———'s station. Here we found Mr.S—— and Mrs. S——, a very nice-looking, refined lady—a new arrival in this part of the world also their children and a visitor. All we men tramping in were taken as a matter of course, and a good dinner was served at once. The house was entirely built of corrugated iron, but painted inside and out with many coats of white paint, which made it look quite nice; and they had many tasteful and pretty things about, and even some old family portraits on the walls. I would have liked to meet these pleasant people under other circumstances; the mixture of refinement, comfort, and primitiveness up here in the Straits is rather quaint.
We then went on to Friday Island—and I ​wondered if we were going to do the whole week—and first to Moggs’ station, where, much to my relief, no one was at home; so we walked on to another, Muggins’! Can you believe such a thing, Moggs and Muggins living on an island side by side! Mr. Muggins, or whoever we saw there, had no drink to offer and was roundly abused, he returning it in kind, but all, of course, in good humour.
I must say this sailing about in the broiling sun, and tramping through these tropical islands, made me as keen as any one for something “cool and wet.”
Then we came to F——’s station, where we were received by Mrs. F——, young and good-looking, and Mrs. Moggs, whose place we had been at. The ladies were very nice, evidently used to this inundation of men, taking it in a very matter-of-fact way; but I cannot say I liked this sort of thing. My companions, however, were bent on taking me everywhere, thought I must be delighted, and, of course, I did not show I was not. Naturally, in this small community of white people living up here in these remote parts every one knew every one else. In the evening we returned to Thursday Island, Jack on the boat declaring it was “a very dry picnic this,” though that is not what I would have called it. Sharks, venomous water-snakes, and, I suppose, alligators infest these waters, and I did not forget them! Back in the hotel, any amount of cool drinks were procurable. Every one came to ask me how I had enjoyed “the picnic,” and, of course, I said it had been delightful, as it certainly had been in a way.
I dined with the collector of customs one night. A young man, S——, lived with him and a Captain H——; Captains H—— and C—— were ​also there. Here, even, are “sets,” and these were amongst the “upper circles,” and though all meet and are friends they don't consider themselves all on the same level. What the difference is, or where the line is drawn, I know not. I discovered all this when I proposed to give a dinner—a regular “spread”—at the hotel to them all, in return for their hospitality, but found they did not all wish to be asked together, and on Mrs. M‘Nulty's advice left it alone. It would have been rather difficult to fit in the policeman, the boy, the cassowary, and the dog, and in my eyes they were the most desirable, for I was attached to them all.
The Irish banker was a pleasant man, always hanging about, and he sometimes came and sat on the verandah in the evenings. Every one seemed to have a desire to get me to himself and talk to me—I suppose a stranger was a sort of relief from the small circle where they all knew each other so well.
I used to play the piano for Bridget's benefit and to amuse the children, for Mrs. M'Nulty's children were as friendly and cordial as every one else. One night, stirred up by my Irish surroundings, I was playing the “Wearing of the Green” when the door opened and the Irish banker looked in and said most plaintively, “Oh, don’t—don't—play that, I cannot—I cannot stand it!”
[Photo, Kerry, Sydney.
KERAPUNA, BRITISH NEW GUINEA.
To face page 42.
I have been hankering after New Guinea and had vague ideas that I might be able from here to pay it a flying visit, but it is not possible. Sir Peter Scratchley is the High Commissioner; no one is allowed to enter New Guinea without his permission, and he is in New Guinea at this moment, [He died there after a few months.] Captain D—— says that if I return here and get permission to go, he will arrange it all and take me there in his schooner.
New Guinea, or Papua, is an island larger than Borneo, and next to Australia—which, however, cannot be called an island—is the largest island in the world. It has an area of 319,000 square miles; is about 1500 miles long by 450 miles wide at the broadest part. It was in 1883, two years ago, that Sir Thomas M‘Ilwraith, the Premier of Queensland, annexed all that part of the island which was not Dutch; but Lord Derby and the Home Government refused to sanction it. But last year, 1884, a Protectorate was established over 98,000 square miles of it, the Germans having 71,000 and the Dutch 150,000 square miles.
On the 6th November 1884 five British ships of war at Port Moresby saluted the flag as the Proclamation was made, and Captain James Elphinstone Erskine, commodore of the Australian Squadron, read out the declaration. Sir Peter Scratchley was then appointed Commissioner, and, as I said, is now in New Guinea, so I cannot go. [He was succeeded by Sir John Douglas, and owing to the discovery of gold it was declared no longer a Protectorate but a British possession, and on the 6th September 1888 an Administrator, Sir William Macgregor, was appointed.] This is the ​beginning almost of a new country up here, and I am glad to see it in its early days, for how different it will be thirty or forty years hence! The natives of New Guinea are Papuans, Polynesians, and Malays. You can trace a connection from Northern Australia right up to Japan, the races having had some commingling, no doubt, for centuries. These Straits are eighty miles wide and full of islands, therefore some of the natives must have found their way across.
In the early days of New Guinea much harm was done by the disgraceful traffic in the labour supply for Queensland. This was a scandal for known to every one. In 1883 there were 648 natives kidnapped and taken to Queensland. The most notorious ships engaged in this traffic were the Lizzie, Ceara, Hopeful, Sybil, Forest King, and Heath. They visited New Guinea coasts and islands, the Solomon Isles, and many South Sea Isles, enticed natives on board, detained them, pretended to engage them for three years—and the natives never understanding what it meant—and took them off to practically sell them to the Queenslanders who pretended to believe it was all right. The poor wretches coming on board these ships to trade were thrown under hatches, and those in the canoes threatened with death if they did not come on board. A Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into it at last. Two notorious fiends were M‘Neill and Williams, of the Hopeful. They seized natives everywhere and burnt their villages. Once M‘Neill having fired at and killed a native, others jumped into the sea and were pursued. Williams overtaking one in the water near the shore, got hold of him by the hair, bent back his head, and cut his throat. A boy being of no use to them, they tied a couple of cocoanuts under his arms, as floats, and threw ​him overboard. They watched him drown in the surf. They frequently flogged them, and shot them swimming in the water when they tried to escape. They were tried for murder and got penal servitude. Through the revelations made before the Royal Commission this labour traffic was brought to a close, and all the natives got presents and were returned to their homes—that is to say, they were landed somewhere, as they seldom knew anything but the native names of their village and not the new name of their island, and their fate often was to be killed and eaten by a strange tribe. This prohibition of native labour ruined the sugar planters, but some of them knew how their labourers were obtained.
The sugar plantations cannot be worked well by any but native labour, and had the Government acted properly from the first any amount of native labour could have been obtained in a fair and open way, to the good and profit of the natives themselves; but this disgraceful traffic was ignored and winked at till it became a great scandal. The wrongs they had suffered the natives naturally revenged on every white man who came near their islands. [By the Pacific Island Labourers Act, 1901, no Pacific Islanders were allowed to enter Australia after March 1904, or to remain there after 31st December 1906.]
Of late years much of British New Guinea has been explored. Sir William Macgregor ascended Mount Victoria, 13,200 feet high, the highest peak of the Owen Stanley Range; and British New Guinea is rapidly changing. At Kwato is now a fine mission-house and a stone church, and on Samarai or Dinner Island in the beautiful China Straits are also, good buildings. But there has never been any settled policy pursued, and British New Guinea will never have any ​chance until it is removed from the Australian Commonwealth jurisdiction. The Government refused to give land to a syndicate which introduced tobacco, and opposed all tobacco plantations—why, no one can understand—whilst now German New Guinea tobacco and cigars can be had all over Germany. This possession of ours is only four hundred miles by sea from Cooktown, in Queensland, but it yet remains half unexplored and without any definite aim in its government. Once it is entirely separated from Australian interference—if that can ever be now—it will progress as any other place does. May that day come soon.
At or near Triton Bay, on the west coast of Dutch New Guinea, are remains of stone houses and piers, said to have been an English settlement many years ago—in 1623 or so. Who these people could have been, and on what grounds it is supposed they were English, no one seems to have any idea.
The pearl shell—used for mother-o’-pearl articles—is the great industry here, not pearls, though they sometimes find good ones. A fleet of perhaps fifteen or twenty boats, mostly built in Sydney and from 5 to 12 tons, is sent away to the fishing-ground with only natives on board and the Kanaka divers, who get £20 a month and so much per ton. The divers now always use the diving-dress, though formerly they worked without it. They are paid by the results of the cruise, according to the amount of shells they bring back. They tell me that my desire to go away with the fleet for a week or so is impossible of attainment, as, with only natives, I would have a comfortless time; but all that could be arranged, and I know I would enjoy it. However, it cannot be now, as I must return south again when the City of Melbourne comes in.
​I am quite forlorn at the thought of parting with the policeman, the cassowary, and the dog—the latter does belong to the hotel, but evidently thinks now I am its master, as it is devoted to me, and, for the matter of that, I am to it. It really is a funny place here, and I have become so attached to it. have been here but a week, but feel as if I had been living here for years.
I can foresee a splendid future for Northern Australia—this island paradise in the Straits, and British New Guinea—it is far away, but it is to come one day. To me it is inexplicable how few people ever seem able to look beyond the present. The Barrier Reef and Torres Straits are mines of gold.
There are many Australian aborigines knocking about. The North Australian black is a much more intelligent and finer specimen than those of the south were—I have to say were, for they are no more. As from time immemorial the Malays from Macassar and elsewhere have visited Northern Australia in their phraus intent on pearl-fishing and trading for béche-de-mer, dugong, and other things, it is probable that the aborigines have benefited by an admixture of Malay blood, as well as Papuan. Nevertheless, their war-dances and such things I find very tedious, though curious to see. The wild ones who come amongst these islands behave themselves and are quite secondary to the Kanakas and other natives. There certainly is some Papuan blood in their veins—these Straits with their islands could not be bar enough to prevent it. One Australian black here—a chief—was quite striking in looks, a powerful, imposing person. But soon they will vanish as they did in the south. [All along the Australian coast, where there were so many, absolutely savage, when I first passed ​along it, are now very few indeed; and though they are “protected,” ere many years are gone there will be none. So great is the change that it is curious to think how, on this very trip I have written about, we were in danger from them when ascending Mount Cook. It seems to me but a short time ago—yet they are gone.]
They will destroy much of the beauty of these islands in getting rid of the “scrubs,” or tropical jungles, which are so beautiful, and probably many of the trees and plants will become extinct. Some are of great beauty.
BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, 1885.
When the City of Melbourne came in I had to bid quite a moving farewell to many. I eluded the dog, and I suppose he is still hunting for me and wondering where I am. The policeman and the Irish banker wrung my hand and said nothing—I think I regretted the policeman more than any one, but I am glad I was not “a ship that passeth in the night.”
I was received by the City of Melbourne as if I had been the Prodigal Son. They did not actually fall upon my neck, but I had to shake hands with every one on the ship and retail all my doings. The “blanked” man embarked, but I did not trouble about him.
A very large number of Chinese arrived, and learnt at Thursday Island that a new law had been passed in Australia, and that they could not land there without paying a certain sum and having a sort of passport with their photograph attached. Here was a dilemma. They would all have had the great expense of returning to Normanton, or perhaps China; but a man in ​the store who had a camera saw his chance and offered to do their portraits at £5 a head! They jumped at it, and he reaped a harvest. As his photographic work is of the poorest description, and as every Chinaman to our eyes—especially in a portrait—looks much like every other one, the results cannot be of much use, but it is complying with this ridiculous law. Some day China will come to her own, and revenge on the Australians the shameful treatment they have always meted out to the Chinese, who have always been simply invaluable there in many ways and are most peaceable, harmless people. It is only the pampered European labourers who have been against them, and but for the Chinese no labour of any sort could have been undertaken in many parts of Australia at all. I can remember, when in Melbourne and Sydney, seeing a wretched Chinaman pursued and ill-used for sport by a cowardly band of larrikins, and no one even thought of interfering. A Chinaman was not regarded as a human being.
There is only one other passenger on board, a young Queenslander, very tall, distinguished-looking, and handsome. Born in Queensland, he does it honour, to judge by his appearance. He is a Mr. Hungerford, has a station on the Mitchell River, flowing into the Gulf of Carpentaria, and, with his brothers, other properties in South Australia and New South Wales. He informed me that his people once owned Farley Castle, in England—where it was he did not know—but at one time there were six barons of the name at the same time. I fell greatly in his estimation because I did not know all about it; but I have since learnt that Farley Castle was indeed a famous place, and the Barons of Hungerford were all he painted them. They would have no need to blush for their Australian descendant.
​The Captain had a fine collection of orchids, which he was taking home, and I had collected what specimens of plants and seeds I could for Baron von Mueller, so we have compared notes. But I am densely ignorant on the subject, and have been even more careless than I thought I had been, and on overlooking them on the ship was ashamed. [The old Baron was greatly pleased with them and me, found amongst them an unknown plant, wrote me for full particulars as to where exactly I had found it, and so on—but alas! I could not say, and so it was useless! He must have been enraged at my stupidity.]
THE BARRIER REEF. QUEENSLAND.
(To face page 50.)
But wonderful are the coral gardens—coral of every shape and sort, great branches of it, big boulders of it, and the haunt of innumerable strange brilliantly coloured fish and other creatures. Sometimes when the tide goes out deep pools are left in these coral gardens, the water being clear as glass, revealing the most marvellously beautiful creatures of every sort. There are scores of fish of every shape, as brilliantly coloured as hummingbirds—so brilliant in colour as to be quite uncanny. The anemones and such denizens of the deep as inhabit these pools and adorn the rocks are of extraordinary beauty and colours, resembling gardens of flowers. The organ-piped coral, with expanded polyps, is astonishing in its variety and beauty, and one wonders if there really is a dividing line between such a thing and plant life. The giant sea-anemone is sometimes fifteen or eighteen feet in diameter, and it and other anemones are always accompanied by, and sometimes inhabited by, exquisitely beautiful little fish, so beautiful that one can only think with awe of the Great Designer and Creator of all this. ​Then those coral gardens! Here are islets all of one form and colour; here others, or great fields of variegated colours and forms—pale grey, brown, pink,red, blue, turquoise, green, and yellow! Sometimes the animal retreating into its home leaves the tips of its coral cell white; but all these living corals are something very different from the dead, white-bleached things we see in our museums.
Great fish are in these waters, too, and they are the haunt of the dugong (Halicore Australis), that creature which, though no relation, somewhat resembles a seal. They go in herds, are devoted to their mates and their young, and the mother tucks her babe to her breast with her fin. The dugong may be more porpoise-like than, seal-like as its skin smooth. Besides the fore-flippers it has atrophied hind ones—no dorsal fin. The head has a rounded muzzle, and the male has projecting tusks. The females are more numerous and raise their heads erect out of the water when nursing their babies, and have been taken for mermaids! They are from eight to ten or twelve feet a herd contains from half a dozen to thirty or forty. In prehistoric times there was a creature of this sort twenty-five feet long. The natives go out in their canoes on moonlight nights and catch them with a sort of harpoon dart at the end of a long spear. The bêche-de-mer is in abundance and is of all sizes, from six inches long to three or four feet long; here it sometimes fetches £150 a ton, or more. There is also the horrible Synanceia horrida, or stone fish, also called the sea-devil. It is an atrocious-looking thing, covered with wart-like protuberances, and a row of spikes along its spines. The spikes and its horrible grey lumps emit a fluid poison when it is touched, and this poison is said to produce death. The Chines, however, esteem it a delicacy for the table; ​but if ever a people like to eat nasty things it is the Chinese. The balloon fish (Tetraodon ocettalus) has flesh that is said to be poisonous also. There is as well on the islands a death-dealing tree, and the wild cherry, as it is called, is said to produce paralysis and blindness—so that there are serpents in this paradise. There are many sorts of sharks, great blue-spotted octopuses, water-snakes, turtles, tortoises, countless edible fishes, countless fish too gorgeous in colour to seem desirable, such as the parrot fish. There are wonderful sponges, pearl shells with their pearls, and the before-mentioned clams. The oysters are in huge quantities, and even cover thickly the branches of the mangrove trees which grow near or out of the water on islands or mainland. Some day perhaps a great revenue will be drawn from the canning of fish and oysters, and the exploiting of all the Barrier resources. Are there not millions of Chinese ready to devour dried fish, dugong, trepang, shark's fins, and other delicacies going to waste here?
And there is the sea-serpent—why not? Anyway, the Moha-Moha has been seen at closequarters by eight or nine people, and received the name Chelosauria Lovelli, after its discoverer Miss Lovell. It was a sort of cross between a turtle, a tortoise, and a sea-serpent. It has feet like an alligator, a smooth grey carapace five feet high, a forked tail, perhaps twelve feet long, and a neck to match, neck and tail being glossy and shining with scales, or markings, silver-grey shading to white. It raises its head or tail five or six feet out of the water. It was discovered on 8th June 1890, at Sandy Cape, and viewed at a few feet distance. There cannot be only one Moha-Moha, and I live in hopes of seeing it stuffed in a museum yet.
I spoke of the mystery and romance of this wonderful Barrier Reef. Once a boat, belonging ​to Mr. Jar dine of Somerset, in a cove of the reef came on an old anchor, removed it, and there lay a great heap of gold and silver Spanish dollars, in good preservation, but welded together in a mass, and worth several thousands of pounds. It took more than one boatload to remove it. Also fragments of coloured glass lay with it. What ancient Spanish galleon found her end here? Would that yet we could learn.
The curious coral presented to me I regret to say I left behind, as I did not know what to do with it. Huge branches and almost bushes of coral are cumbersome things, and in reality a nuisance unless one has a real aquarium in which to place them. I remember on another voyage being presented with sacks full of wonderful coral at Diego Garcia in the Chagos Archipelago—remote coral atolls lying away by themselves in the middle of the Pacific and very seldom visited, but very interesting—and how I got to hate that coral ere I could find people to accept it. It was a gift of gratitude from the only two Europeans then living in those solitary isles, and I appreciated the spirit of the gift, but had to pass it on.
FISH OF THE BARRIER REEF.
(To face page 54.)
As the City of Melbourne had to wait here for the arrival of the China mail-boat, Captain Thompson arranged on my behalf an expedition we had discussed. Some rare plants grew on the top of Mount Cook, and he and I were at one in a desire to secure a specimen for Baron von Mueller. He warned me that we might be in great danger from the natives, who were most troublesome—indeed, two days before this, two white men had been speared to death in sight of Cooktown—but I said I did not mind at all, and that we would risk it. Then it came on a perfect gale, but I begged that we should just go—never mind anything and chance all dangers.
So on the morning of the I5th we started early in a ship's boat, the Captain, Webster the first engineer, Warburton the third officer, two sailors, Norman and Mack, and I forming the party. We had a splendid sail seven or eight miles down the coast to the far side of Mount Cook. There was a terrific sea on, and I thought each huge wave would swamp us, and wondered sometimes if this was not something out of the usual. But no one said anything—couldn't have been heard if they had—and I, being only a land​lubber, supposed these seafaring folk must know more than I did, so I sat tight and held my tongue. It was ticklish work tacking, and as each huge wave rushed at us with apparent fury it seemed as if we must be overwhelmed. But the way a brave little boat battles against and overcomes a gale is splendid, and somehow a sort of elation rises in the blood. I love the fierceness of a gale and to feel the salt spray battering on one's face—it is old Norse blood, I am sure, for I number many old vikings, jarls, and kings of heroic days amongst my ancestors, and want to shout and sing (lucky for the other people I don't indulge in the latter!) and ride upon those beautiful white horses of the sea. We at last entered a sheltered bay, and came to anchor in smooth water at some distance from the shore.
Then Captain Thompson said, "Well, I never saw a landsman take things so coolly before; I never thought we should ever reach land again." I did not say I had thought the getting to land a doubtful thing also, but had kept it to myself. We anchored out in the bay on account of danger from the blacks, and a sailor was left in the boat. All the others took off their nether garments, got into the sea up to their armpits, and waded ashore; but they would not hear of my doing likewise, and Mack, the sailor, insisted I should get on his back, and in this undignified way I was carried ashore, in fits of laughter, nearly strangling Mack, as wet as any one else in reality, but of course pretending I was not. I was in white linen clothes and hat, and these dried up in a few minutes in the broiling sun. We at once "boiled the billy" and demolished the excellent luncheon provided by the Captain.
Then the two officers with their guns went off in one direction, with strict injunctions from ​the Captain to make back for the boat at once if they saw blacks, as he wanted no trouble. The sailor in the boat was to fire a gun as a signal if he saw any signs of the smoke of the China mail. The Captain, Mack, and I, with pickaxes and the like, set off to ascend Mount Cook, and Mack carried a huge basket on his back to hold the gleanings. He was so careful of and attentive to me that I said I wondered he didn't put me in the basket.
We soon began to ascend, and found ourselves in a gully running down one side of the mountain—the most exquisitely beautiful spot one could imagine. Down the mountain-side in this gully came a beautiful, clear, crystal-like stream, splashing down over great granite boulders, forming waterfalls, or here and there a deep, clear pool as cold as ice. Above our heads the trees rose to a height of at least a hundred feet and completely shut out the sky. Underneath this great dome it was all a strange mystic green gloom, save where here and there a shaft of sunlight struggled through, flecking the foliage with gold and making a slanting lane of golden rays. The effect was extraordinary—almost unreal in its beauty. Under neath the dome of tree-tops and bathed in this iridescent pale green gloom was an intricate matted jungle of tree ferns, palms, shrubs of every sort, ropes of hanging creepers, and countless beautiful flowering orchids—a perfect riot of beauty. The cable-like creepers matting all this together, it was difficult going, and also very easy to lose one another. My white clothes made me, as the Captain said, a splendid target for a spear.
We had to push and cut our way, climbing up and scrambling through all this. I gathered orchid after orchid, only to throw them away as ​better came into view. I wondered all the time if some of the unseen things that coiled round my legs and held me were not snakes instead of rope-like creepers—for, of course, snakes swarm in such a place—but one had just to risk it. The beauty and silence of the place was almost unearthly, and there was something solemn about the great stately tree-boles lifting their foliage to the light and air high above us. It was simply a Paradise—a Garden of Eden. But not without its serpent either—many of them, indeed.
As we went climbing up like this the Captain signed to us to halt and listen, whispering, “The blacks!” and sure enough we heard the crack- ling of twigs near us, but it was too thick to see anything. Every time we went on they followed us, and stopped when we did. They always track like that.
“Beware of a spear,” whispered the Captain when we came to any more open space. was far more concerned about the snakes—of which I am terrified, alive or dead—and somehow a sort of fierce enjoyment of the situation possessed me. I liked the danger, actually delighted in it, and was surprised to find an ardent desire waking in me for a real fight. It was partly the intoxication of the wild riot of nature around us.
Suddenly I forgot all about blacks, for as we swung ourselves up by the aid of the creeper ropes over the great boulders, a difficult task, laden as we were with orchids and plants, I came right on the coils of a huge snake. The Captain was above, Mack between, and I lowest down.
“A snake!” I cried.
“Kill it,” called back the Captain. It was the last thing I thought of doing at the moment. The snake began at once to try to escape upwards over a huge boulder. ​“Don’t kill it, don’t touch it!” cried the Captain. “It is a splendid one, let us get it alive.”
Get it alive, indeed! How glad I was it was getting away! Every thought of the blacks had gone out of our heads.
The snake—it was over ten feet long and very thick—by this time had got up on top of a huge boulder over the stream, and from this little plateau rose another huge pinnacled boulder. A shaft of sunlight just struck this spot and brought out all the colours of the snake’s skin, and it certainly made a wonderful effect. Up we went after it and were soon on top of the boulder, which gave us a few flat feet of stone to stand on. Directly beneath was a deep, clear pool of the stream. It was simply an ideal spot and stood out conspicuously amidst the luxuriant vegetation. The snake had got round the pin- nacled boulder which rose above us, its head one side, its tail the other. We were all at such close quarters that it was quite exciting. The Captain made dashes at its head with the pick- axe.
“Hold it by the tail,” he cried excitedly, fearful lest it should get away. I hesitated— I am not surprised I did. Had any one told me that I should, under any circumstances, seize a ten-foot-long snake by the tail I should have said “Impossible,” so great is my fear and repul- sion for these brutes. Even a dead one gives me cold shivers. Mack pushed me aside and, grasping its tail, hauled lustily, and in the excitement I forgot everything and pulled away too. It had such a strong grip round the rock that, haul as we would, we could only drag it back inch by inch—the Captain meanwhile giving it blows on the head, not to injure it, but to make it ​relax its hold. This so infuriated it that it snapped like a mad dog, and the writhings and contortions of its body were so strong as to fling us about. Our orchids, borne on our heads, fell over our faces and almost entangled us. We only had a small space to stand on, and all the time in my mind was the thought of what we were to do if we did pull it round, or that if it let go suddenly we―that is, Mack, I, and the snake―would instantly go over the edge of the plateau into the pool, twenty feet below us, together! Bit by bit, weakened probably by the blows, we dragged it round, and as we got it clear of the stone, too bewildered, I expect, to realise the situation, the Captain dropped his pickaxe on its head and pressed it down.
“Hold this,” he said to me, so I let go its tail and, seizing the pickaxe, pressed its head well down. “Don't kill it,” he said, seeing I was being very energetic over it. Then he went and cut a long stout wand, and, returning, I let its head loose, but still kept its neck down with all my strength, avoiding the writhing coils as best I could, whilst Mack still hung on in the rear. The Captain then tied its neck firmly to the end of the long wand, and we had it!
“Well, I'm blessed!” said Mack, staring at me, for all this had taken place so unexpectedly, and our tussle at the end of its tail had been so unpremeditated, that we only realised the whole thing when it was over. As for me, I couldn't believe I had done such a thing―hung on to the tail of an infuriated snake! It was non-poisonous, a “carpet snake,” but there had been no time to think of that. Of course it could have crushed us in its folds had it had the chance.
Then Captain Thompson raised its head up at the end of the wand, whilst he allowed its body to ​coil twice round his waist and his legs. It was too weak and its neck too tightly tied to permit it to exercise its strength, or else it could have crushed him. As it was, he said it was a horrid sensation, and I can believe it. Neither Mack nor I offered to relieve him of it! He carried it like this the rest of the day. Once when the Captain lay down to drink out of a pool the snake at the end of the wand drank also! We gathered up our orchids again; I threw many round my hat, where they clung on, and had scores of beautiful blossoms trailing over my shoulders, as we needed our hands for climbing. I have never seen a more extraordinary picture than the Captain, with this brute coiled round him, standing on a pinnacle of rock and we orchid-laden people beside him.
Then our thoughts recurred to the blacks, as we could hear that many were quite near, following us though invisible! They must have witnessed this scene, and I wonder what they thought of it! What could we possibly be going to do with the snake alive? They would have killed and eaten it.
Mack, who had climbed up ahead, suddenly returned to say that there was a clearing, with their gunyahs (bark huts) and fires burning. So the Captain ordered an instant retreat, as he became suddenly awake to the danger. Had these been friendly blacks they would have been out assisting us; the mere fact of their remaining concealed and tracking us showed they were to be avoided. Also, just at this time they were most troublesome; about Mount Cook, and we were there, miles from any one, at their mercy.
As we got lower down, scrambling and falling through the mass of vegetation, I sometimes came on the Captain's back, and each time I touched the clammy folds of that snake I got a shock. I ​purposely got separated from the others, as I wanted to wait and conceal myself, to see how many blacks were tracking us but I suddenly emerged into a clear space with a circle of their gunyahs with the fires still there. Seeing no one I walked into it. I think that by suddenly turning back we had somehow eluded them for the time being.
I examined the whole place, looked into every gunyah, and in one I stuck conspicuously my visiting card, thinking it only polite!
I joined the others lower down, and we at last got back to the shore and saw the boat out at anchor, and just then the sailor fired and the Captain pointed out the far-away smoke of the China boat. We hurried down, plunged out through the water to the boat, which was brought nearer to meet us, and then began hallooing for the others. The wand and snake were thrown down in the bottom, and the basket and an enormous pile of orchids and other plants on top of it.
The Captain got impatient, for it was necessary that he should be back ere the China boat reached ours for the trans-shipment of mails, and he wanted to go and leave the two officers to find their way back overland to Cooktown, a long distance; but begged for delay, and luckily they soon appeared, and, grasping the situation, slipped off their boots and trousers and came out to us as quickly as they could. They scrambled into the boat, plump in amidst our heap of orchids, and as their bare feet and legs sunk through and came amidst the slimy, moving coils of the snake there were loud yells! This quite restored us all, and we enjoyed their consternation. They, too, had been tracked by blacks—they, however, were armed, we were not—and one of them had struck the black's encampment where I had been, and found my card, which he took, and long after this showed me carefully ​ preserved in his pocket-book as a souvenir of the day.
We had a magnificent sail back and arrived in good time, so all was well. Needless to say, the snake—which was christened “Captain Cook”—was the excitement of the ship. It was let loose on deck for a time, whilst a box was being made, and there measured. It was exactly ten feet long it its quiescent state, but, of course, stretched out to much more than that, and it was very thick. They are often much larger than this, but it was a particularly fine and powerful specimen. It appeared somewhat dazed, which is not surprising, as its experiences had been unusual. The stewards and sailors were most amusing about it. One steward insisted its “sting” was in the end of its tail! Then the ship's cat happened to come along, and instantly a scene began. The snake suddenly woke up and its eyes glittered, whilst its head kept turning to watch the cat. The latter approached gingerly, its back a magnificent arch, its tail as stiff as a ramrod and every hair on end. Then suddenly a sailor threw the cat right on the snake—it sprang a yard high in its fright! But it was fascinated and could not keep away. Again and again the sailors—who are such children at times―repeated this performance, which was really too funny, and the whole ship was yelling with laughter. The frantic leaps in the air of the cat were killing; it was so wary, but would come near, and it is long since I have seen such a comic scene. “Well, Mack,” I said, who would have thought that you and “I would hang on to that brute's tail as we did!” “Well, I'm blessed!” he said wonderingly, as he scratched his head. “Suppose it had let go and we had all gone over ​together into the pool,” I said. This was too much for Mack and he sat down and thought it all out. Then we all laughed together as we realised it all.
“Captain Cook” soon hard a long box ready for him, took things very calmly, and was the centre of attraction. [The Captain presented him to the Zoological Gardens in Sydney, where, for all I know, he still is, as they live for ages.]
Outside Bowen lies Gloucester Isle, where a short time ago a boat's crew were murdered by the blacks. There are many beautiful isles in the Whitsunday Group. At Rockhampton I waited a few days, quite sorry to bid “Good-bye” to all on the City of Melbourne, where really I had been overwhelmed with kindness; and, indeed, we were all sorry to part—I was not like a passenger at all, they said, and that was just what they had made me feel.
A little later I came on here to Brisbane, and have reviewed my little trip to Torres Straits with to much satisfaction.