E-text prepared by Nick Wall and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
Internet Archive/American Libraries
(http://www.archive.org/details/americana)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 36340-h.htm or 36340-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/36340/pg36340-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36340/36340-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive/American Libraries. See
http://www.archive.org/details/fromcharthouseto00bryd
[Illustration: The Dreary Monotony of Grey Sea and Greyer Sky.]
FROM CHART HOUSE TO BUSH HUT
Being the Record of a Sailor's 7 years in the Queensland Bush
by
C. W. BRYDE
H. H. Champion
Australasian Authors' Agency
Melbourne
_DEDICATION._
_To those sturdy battlers, among whom I have lived for seven years, I
doff my hat in respect; and dedicate My Book_
PREFACE.
The idea in mind is to present, as far as possible, a true picture of
life in the Scrub, as I had experienced it. With this end in view, I
have neither glossed over the difficulties and disabilities, nor
enlarged on the advantages, of selection life in the Scrublands. I have
tried to make the book a fairly reliable and interesting guide to anyone
thinking of tackling the life. With what success I leave the reader to
determine.
THE AUTHOR.
"Up North."
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Dreary Monotony of Grey Sea and Greyer Sky Frontispiece
I went with them to where they were chopping 49
I had some 20 acres brushed, and two or three felled 66
We had a really decent comfortable little house up 143
CONTENTS.
Chapter. Page.
I.--Newcastle (N.S.W.)-Chile Coal Run 9
II.--One night in Port Jackson 15
III.--Good-bye to the Sea 20
IV.--I Become a Land-lubber 26
V.--Northward Ho! 33
VI.--The Promised Land 38
VII.--My Selection 44
VIII.--I start as a Land-holder 55
IX.--Camp Life 61
X.--Colonial Experience 68
XI.--Home Again! 75
XII.--Scrub Life 79
XIII.--The Cyclone 86
XIV.--Effecting Improvements 92
XV.--More Improvements--Bullockies 101
XVI.--An Accident 108
XVII.--Social Amenities 113
XVIII.--Burning Off 119
XIX.--Wardsman and Deckhand 125
XX.--Married 134
XXI.--Starting Housekeeping 138
XXII.--Struggling Along 142
XXIII.--Joyful Experiences of Cow-Cockying 149
L'Envoi 156
From Chart House to Bush Hut
CHAPTER I.
THE NEWCASTLE (N.S.W.)-CHILE COAL RUN.
The trans-Pacific run is the most god-forsaken, monotonous trade in the
world, I think. Our steamer was fairly fast for a tramp, and we were
twenty-four days on the Eastbound trip and twenty-seven back to
Newcastle--coal one way and ballast back. Not a solitary sail nor point
of land to break the dreary monotony of grey sea and greyer sky, clear
across to Valparaiso--5000 miles. Following the Great Circle track, you
get down to 53 degrees or 54 degrees south latitude. In winter it's
cold--blowing a gale pretty well all the time--and your ship's like a
half-tide rock. In summer pretty much the same conditions prevail, with
fog added. Occasionally there is a day when it's not blowing--then it
rains. And there's ice to be looked out for at this time of the year,
too, which is an added pleasantry.
Sweeping up on the Great Circle for Valparaiso, you close in gradually
with the Chilean coast, the first land sighted being usually the rocky
highlands round Curramilla Point, the high sierras of the Andes being
obscured by mist most times. Occasionally one gets a glimpse of noble
Aconcagua, the mighty 26,000 ft. Andean giant. I shall never forget my
first sight of it. It was about six p.m., and we were then about 260
miles from the mountain. The sun was setting. All at once there appeared
on the starboard bow a huge irregular truncated cone in the heavens,
enlarged by refraction to an incredible size. It was a deep rose red,
and every crevasse, ledge and spur was pencilled with distinctness. Talk
about awe-inspiring grandeur and beauty! Every man-jack in the ship
turned out to gaze and gaze while it slowly faded; and then, suddenly,
puff! like a candle blown out, it was gone.
On arriving at Valparaiso you moor to buoys, in about thirty fathoms of
water. Instantly a horde of coaley pirates, who look (and smell) as if
they never washed, swarms aboard and starts to cast adrift all your
carefully prepared cargo gear, and alter it to suit themselves. You try
and explain that "thisee ropee no boyno' ere," and are thereupon
informed "Usted no sabe nada, pilote," or something like that, so you
give way. Big lighters bump all the paint off alongside. Work goes on
night and day, and in less than a week the coal is all out, and away you
wallow to sea again. No chance of going ashore. Officers and engineers
have to be here, there, and everywhere, for the lumpers pinch worse
than--well! worse than the mate of a ship moored near a Government
dockyard, and _that's_ saying something. They make a trade, too, out
of bringing aboard bottles of the awful muck the lower class Chileno
delights in, such as casash, potato cana, etc., one glass of which makes
a man see snakes for a week. I really think some sailors would guzzle
kerosene out of a whisky bottle. Anyhow, you're glad to get to sea for a
rest.
Then the long dreary run of 7000 miles back "along the parallel" starts!
nothing to see, nothing to break the awful monotony, till you strike the
Australian coast again--Newcastle, for more coal.
You arrive on Wednesday night. "Sure of a Sunday this time!" you think.
Vain hope! A boat comes alongside about 11 p.m. (Ship at anchor in the
stream.)
"Ready for fumigation, mister?"
"Oh! ----," you think, but don't say, for the officials can make things
extremely unpleasant for you if they like. So its "Turn out, men, and
get the stuff aboard." Five barrels of sulphur, and about four hundred
little tin dishes to put it in. Ladle the sulphur in, each dish
half-full, and pass it below. A lick of methylated spirits in each, a
match, and the choking blue reek rises. On hatches! and batten well
down; plug the ventilators--and then damn well go and camp on a stage
slung over the bows, for nowhere else will you escape the caustic fumes.
Sleep? I like to hear you! We've been getting cargo gear ready at sea
this day, and we'll be all day to-morrow again, and no sleep this
blessed night. Can you wonder at the men going on the drunk? My personal
sympathy is with them, but I daren't show it, or I'd lose my job, get no
reference from the skipper likely, and be ruined.
We spend the night coughing, choking and cursing, and about 8 a.m.
(Thursday) orders come to go alongside in the Basin. We go--and it's
pandemonium let loose. The muffled roar of coal dropping in tons, clang
of trimmers' shovels, hoarse shouts, stamping and crashings, with an
occasional spasmodic clattering winch by way of variety.
All hands are on the beer ashore, and won't show up till Saturday at
earliest. That leaves three officers and two apprentice boys to handle
the ship, shift back and forth every half-hour or so, take stores
aboard, put on 'tweendeck beams and hatches as required, and attend to
the multifarious jobs connected with being in port. There isn't an
earthly chance of going ashore further than the fruit shop over the way,
especially for the mate, who has to be there all the time.
Finally the truth slowly comes home to you that you will be finished on
Saturday night--8000 tons of cargo and bunkers in three days. At 7 p.m.
on Saturday down comes the Navigation Department's inspector, with his
hydrometer, to watch you finish. 8.30, and she's nearly down. You watch
the marks closely, the inspector, grimly impassive, giving you no
assistance.
"Can I put another truck in, sir?" I ask.
"You're loading her, mister, not me," is his discouraging reply.
You test the water with your hydrometer. Ah! Brackish. She'll stand it.
So. Another? H'm! Something in the inspector's eye warns you, so you say
"No" reluctantly to the impatient head-stevedore, for you're due for a
wigging if this cargo's a waggon short of last voyage's.
"Um!" says Mr. Inspector musingly. "If you'd put that aboard, mister,
I'd have made you dig it out again." Helpful!
I had that sort of thing to put up with from the same man seven voyages
running. I used to pass watches at sea comforting myself with dreams of
punching his head, and trying to think of some way of upsetting him. No
go! All the annoying power possible was his.
At 9.30 the head stevedore reports the cargo all trimmed down. Tide's at
11.0. Right! You go to turn out all hands and find them dead-oh. After
much shaking, you manage to get four more or less fit for duty, albeit
soreheaded and groggy on their pins, so you make a start getting
hatch-beams on. Fore and main hatch iron-work is in place, when the
skipper and pilot hurry aboard.
"Single up, Mr. Senex."
"Ay, ay, sir!" (Sotto voce: "God's curse to this infernal life.") Then,
with a roar, "Break off there, and stand-by fore and aft."
Just singled up, when a sound like a mill wheel is heard, and Brown's
old "Bungaree" comes alongside and makes fast.
"Let go fore and aft!" and away we go with a dismal shriek from the
steam whistle, which, with water in the pipe, makes a snarling sound
aptly expressive of our own feelings.
There's a lop of a sea outside the breakwaters, and the five derricks we
still have up sway dangerously--to say nothing of the funnel, the guys
of which are yet adrift. However, we drop anchor outside and all hands
spend the night very pleasantly till nearly daybreak, securing gear,
sorting out hatch covers and getting them on, setting up back stays, and
so on.
A short spell of broken sleep, then, at 8.30 a.m. on this restful Sunday
we finish clearing up the decks and wash down. Skipper comes aboard at
noon, with all his papers in order. A hurried lunch, last letters handed
to the agents' clerk; farewell! Up anchor, and so away again to sea--for
a rest!
Thus it goes on, voyage after voyage the same. I had nine trips to
Valparaiso and back, and it nearly broke both health and heart before I
managed to cut the bonds and free myself from such slavery. The owners
gave me L10 a month as mate and no overtime for any of us, till we
kicked like hell and threatened to go on strike; then we got 1/- an
hour! and were looked on as mutinous.
A nightmare of a life. And though things are better now, I believe, than
they were in my day, still it's past and done with for me, thank God!