took the keenest interest in Master Bill’s capture, and the local
papers were full of his hairbreadth escapes. I remember a paragraph
which interested me very much stated that once, when, “from information
received,” the police had drawn quite a _cordon_ round his lair and
were creeping stealthily towards it, a bird suddenly uttered a piercing
shrill note; and one of the trackers, learned in bush-lore, remarked
that their chance of catching him then was gone, for that bird would
have warned him, as it never uttered its cry except when it saw a
stranger suddenly. I may mention here that I never rested until I heard
that bird’s note myself, and I spent the next summer in organising
bush picnics, and then wandering away as far as I dared in order to
alarm the bird by a sudden appearance. At last one day, when I had very
nearly succeeded in losing myself in the bush, a sudden shrill note
terrified me out of my life. If the bird was frightened so was I, for
it was a most piercing cry.
At last the end came; at earliest dawn one morning Bill, resting on
a log in the bush without even a fire to betray him, opened his eyes
to the sound of a command to “put up his hands,” and saw half-a-dozen
carbines levelled straight at him a few yards off. He showed fight to
the last, and managed before holding up his hands to fire a shot at the
approaching constables, wounding one of them in the leg. The men rushed
in, however, and he was soon overcome and handcuffed and brought into
Perth. But the most curious part of the story lies in the universal
sympathy and, indeed, admiration immediately shown by the whole of our
very peaceable and orderly little community for this youth. Of course,
the officials did not share this strange sentimentality, for they
regarded Master Bill and his exploits from a very different point of
view, and I used really to feel quite angry, especially with my female
friends, who often asked me if I was not “very sorry” for the culprit?
My sympathies, I confessed, were more with the families of his victims,
especially the poor policeman with his mangled throat, whom I had often
seen in my weekly visits to the hospital. When I expressed surprise
at the interest all the girls in the place took in the young ruffian,
the answer always was: “Oh, but he is so brave.” It appeared to me the
bravery lay with his captors!
He was duly tried, but the jury did not convict him of premeditated
murder, and in face of the verdict he could only be sentenced to
imprisonment for some years. Master Bill’s captivity did not last very
long on that occasion, for he watched his opportunity, sprang upon
the warder one day knocking him senseless, scrambled over the wall of
the exercise ground, near which chanced to be a pile of stones for
breaking, and so got away. Then the pendulum of Public Opinion—that
strange and unreliable factor in human affairs—swung to the other side,
and a violent outcry arose, and Bill’s immediate death was the least of
its demands. He was caught without much difficulty that time, however,
and it was curious to find no one taking the least interest in his
second trial, which resulted in a lengthy and rigorous imprisonment.
Poor wretch! I believe even I ended by being “sorry” for him and his
wasted life, with all its splendid possibilities.
Another tragedy was enacted in the North-west not long after Bill’s
adventures had ended; and yet, terrible as this incident was, one could
hardly help an ill-regulated smile.
I wonder how many people realise that Western Australia holds a million
square miles within its borders. True, most of it is, as Anthony
Trollope said, only fit to run through an hour-glass, being of the
sandiest sort of sand. But then, again, all that that sand requires
to make it “blossom like a rose” is water. Given an abundant supply
of water, and all those miles of desert will grow anything. You have
only got to see the sand-plains as they are called, _before_ the winter
rains and _after_ them. These sand-plains are just a sort of tongue or
strip of the great Sahara in the middle of the Island Continent which
runs down—some seventy miles wide—towards the sea-shore three or four
hundred miles to the north-west of Perth.
The rumours of gold which had begun to fill the air during our day,
necessitated first, telegraph stations, and then the establishment of
outlying posts of civilisation; the nucleus of what are already turned
or turning into flourishing towns. I have always declared that when
there were three white men in any of these distant spots, the first
thing they started was a race-meeting, with a Governor’s Cup or Purse
(value about £5), and then next would come a Rifle Association, with a
Literary Institute to follow, to all of which H.E. would be invited to
subscribe. However, the outlying settlement I speak of had not attained
to these luxuries, for it consisted of only one white man. He combined
the offices of Warden and Magistrate and Doctor, and several other
duties as well; but he must have led a truly Robinson Crusoe sort of
life, poor man. I should mention that these settlements had always to
be close to the sea-shore in order to keep in touch, by means of the
little coasting steamers, with a base of supply. This gentleman—for
he was a man of unblemished character as well as of education and
refinement—had not a creature to speak to beyond a few half-tamed
natives, except when the steamer touched—once a month, I believe—at
his little port. He was a splendid shot and a keen sportsman, but there
was not much scope for his “gunning” talents, and seagull shooting
formed one of his few amusements.
One fine evening he was lazily floating in a light canoe about the
bay, with a native to paddle, whilst he looked out for a difficult
shot, when the man suddenly pointed to an object on a rock some fifty
yards from the shore which he announced was a “big-fellow” gull. It
did look rather large for a gull, but the sportsman thought it might
be some other sort of strange sea-bird, and, after carefully adjusting
the sight of the rifle and taking most accurate aim, he fired. To his
horror the crouching object gave a sort of upward leap and then fell
flat. Poor Mr. —— seized the oar and paddled with all speed to the
spot, to find a white man lying dead with his bullet through his heart.
One can hardly realise the dismay of the involuntary murderer, for
anything so unexpected as the presence of any human being in that
lonely spot with darkness coming on, and a difficult path, from rock
to rock, to be retraced to the shore, cannot be imagined. There was
nothing for it but to take the body into the boat and return home.
The most careful inquiries carried on for months failed to elicit the
slightest information as to that lonely victim’s identity. He had not
a mark of any sort on his clothing, nor a scrap of paper about him,
which could throw the least light on his name or history. No one knew
that another white man was in the district at all. If he had dropped
from the sky on to that rock he could not have been more untraceable.
It was all tragic enough, but what made me smile in the midst of my
horror at the details of the story—of which I first saw the outline
in a local newspaper—was to hear that Mr. —— had sat as coroner on
the body, also fulfilled the duties of the jury, then became police
magistrate, and finally brought himself down to Perth as the author of
the “misadventure.” Of course, there was no question of a trial, for it
was the purest and most unlucky accident, regretted by Mr. —— more than
by any one else. No advertisements or amount of publicity given to the
story ever threw the least light on the poor man’s name or antecedents.
Of course, here and there letters came from individuals who thought
they saw their way to _exploiter_ the Government and extract some sort
of money compensation for the death of their hastily adopted relative,
but as their story invariably broke down at the very outset—in which
case they generally lowered their demands by next post from £1000 to
10s.—no ray of light was ever thrown on the mystery of how that white
man came to be sitting quietly on those rocks at sunset that evening.
I fear these two stories have been rather of what an Irish servant of
mine once called “a blood-curling” nature, so I must end with a less
tragic note.
During one of the many war scares in which we have indulged any time
these twenty years, a couple of her Majesty’s gunboats were watching
the Australian coast, or rather watching any suspicious craft in
those waters. As is often the case along that coast, they had met
with dreadful weather, and had been buffeted about and their progress
greatly delayed, so by the date the harbour I speak of was reached
ample time had elapsed for war to be declared, and it had seemed
imminent enough a week before, when the ships had left their last port
of call. Now this great bay held a sort of inner harbour which would
have been very convenient to an enemy for coaling, and where in fact
large stores of coal were kept on board hulks. So it was quite on the
cards that if war had broken out during those few blank days, the enemy
might have made a pounce for the coal, more especially as in those days
the harbour was absolutely undefended. Now, I am told, it bristles with
big guns!
It was late of a full-moon night when these vessels crept quietly into
the outer harbour. All looked peaceful enough, and the lamp in the
lighthouse shone out as usual. It did not take long to decide that a
small armed party had better pay a surprise visit to that lighthouse
and learn what had taken place during the last week or so in its
neighbourhood. The young officer who told me the story described most
amusingly the precautions taken to avoid any noise, and to surround
the lighthouse whilst he and some others went in to see what was to
be found inside. Only one solitary man met them, however, who stood
up and saluted stolidly, but offered no shadow of resistance, and all
seemed _en règle_. The next thing, naturally, was to question this
lighthouse-keeper, but to every demand he only shook his head. The
stock of foreign languages which had accompanied that expedition was
but small, however, and a shake of the head was the only answer to the
same questions repeated in French and German. It was therefore decided
to take the silent man back to the gunboat (leaving a couple of men in
charge of the light), and see whether, as my informant said, they could
“raise any other lingo” on board. But by the time the ship was reached
the doctor and not the schoolmaster was required, for the poor man was
found to be in an epileptic fit. Daylight brought a little shore-boat
alongside with his wife in it, who gave them all a very disagreeable
quarter of an hour, for the lighthouse-keeper was deaf and dumb, and
could not imagine what crime he had committed to be taken prisoner in
that summary fashion. He knew nothing of wars or rumours of wars, but
tended his lamps carefully, and his wife had been allowed, under the
circumstances, to share his solitude. She had only left him for a few
hours, and when she returned at earliest dawn, and found her husband
gone and a couple of sailors in charge of the lighthouse, it did not
take her long to rush down the hill, get into her boat, and so on board
H.M.S. ——. I believe she expected to find her spouse loaded with irons,
and on the eve of execution, instead of being comfortably asleep in a
bunk, with a good breakfast awaiting him.
When the story was finished I remarked to the teller: “Quite an
illustration of Talleyrand’s ‘Surtout, point de zèle,’ isn’t it?” And
the young officer shook his head sadly, as much as to say that it was
indeed a wicked world. I fancy that “wiggings” had followed.
X
THE ENROLLED GUARD
The wheel of Time brought round many changes during our eight years
stay in Western Australia, all making for progress and improvement.
Under the latter head the disbandment of the old Enrolled Guard must be
classed; but it was really a sad day for the poor old veterans, and the
Governor determined to try and make the parting as little painful as
possible. So, on the thirty-first anniversary of the battle of Alma, he
invited all the non-commissioned officers and men to a mid-day dinner
at Government House in Perth. Our best efforts could only collect
fifty-three, and many of these were very decrepit, poor old dears. They
were nearly all that were left of the soldiers who had been brought out
to guard the convicts fifty years before, and who, when convicts were
no longer sent out to Western Australia, were induced to remain, in
what was then a very distant and unknown colony, by gifts of land and a
small pension. Some were enrolled as a Guard for Government House and
other public buildings, and it was the remains of this little force,
gradually grown too infirm and decrepit for even their light duties,
who had, on that bright spring morning, to give way to the smart
up-to-date young policemen.
The step had been contemplated for some little time, and we had just
returned in 1885 from a short visit to England, during which there
had been an opportunity for my husband to mention the subject to his
Royal Highness the late Duke of Cambridge, then Commander-in-Chief. It
will not surprise those who remember the deep interest in the British
soldier always shown by H.R.H. to hear that the Duke listened with
great attention to all that was told him, asked many questions, and
ended by saying, “Well, give them all my best wishes, and tell them how
glad I was to hear about them.” It is needless to say that these kind
and gracious words formed the text as it were of the little parting
address made by the Governor after the parade which preceded the
dinner, and it was touching to see how gratified the veterans were. In
spite of the old habits of discipline which they were all doing their
very best to remember and act upon, there was a movement and a murmur
all down the ranks, and I strongly suspect there was something very
like a tear.
It was, indeed, a pathetic sight, as all _last_ things must always be,
to see these old men in their quaint, antiquated uniforms, shouldering
their obsolete rifles, and to realise this was the very last time they
would ever stand in rank as soldiers. On every breast gleamed medals,
and there were two Victoria Crosses. Men stood there who had fought
both in the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny, as well as in China, Burmah
and New Zealand, and now it was all over and done with, and they would
never step out to the dear old familiar tunes any more.
Still we did our best to keep up their spirits, and not to allow the
occasion to become at all a mournful one. Both the Governor and their
own Commandant said kind and cheering words to them, and they were soon
marching off to the big ball-room which had been given as military a
character as possible.
If I had at all realised what the united ages of my guests would have
amounted to, I think I should have had all the roast beef and turkey
passed through a mincing-machine, for I soon foresaw difficulties in
that way. We, _i.e._ my large band of girl-friends and I, waited on
them, and the gentlemen carved. It was difficult to get the men to
choose what they wanted to eat, for the general answer to their young
waitresses was, “Bless your pretty heart, I’ll have just whatever you
likes, and thinks I can bite!”
Of course, the repast ended with the one toast of the “Health of her
Majesty the Queen,” with musical honours and equally, of course, it was
cheered and shouted at to the echo, and one felt it was by no means
a perfunctory and empty ceremony, for every man there had fought and
bled for her. Then we gave them each a pipe (they called it either a
“straw” or a “dhudeen” according to their nationality) and a stick of
tobacco, and left them in charge of our house steward, who gave a most
amusing account afterwards of how they had at once begun to fight their
battles over again, for many of them had been brought from other parts
of the Colony for this occasion and had not met for a long time. Their
reminiscences were somewhat grisly it seems, for Pat would relate how
he had “bayoneted a nagar” in Africa or New Zealand, capped by Mike’s
announcement that he “took the shilling fifty years ago, served in six
general engagements, was twice wounded, and three times nearly kilt.”
Whereas Dick would only regret that he had served twenty years, eleven
months and thirty days, and claimed sympathy on the ground that if
he had served “tin days more, bad luck to me if I wouldn’t have had
another pinny a day on me pintion.” But why he did not put in that ten
days extra service never seems to have come into the story.
I do not know whether, unlike his comrades, Mickey’s teeth were still
serviceable, but he boasted that, although he was sixty-six years old,
he “hadn’t a grey hair in me head, and I can run, jump or leap with
’ere a man in barracks! There boys, hurroo!” Paddy was only a soldier
for two years, but he had been badly wounded at Sebastopol and spent a
long time in hospital; an experience which he would not have missed for
the world however, for the Queen visited him there and gave him a silk
handkerchief hemmed by herself. “D’ye hear what I say, boys? The Queen
hemmed it with her own fingers and I’ve got it still, and it’s to be
buried with me, so it is.”
Then there were reminiscences of the dinner on the Alma day. “We had
raw pork served out with biscuit, and divil a stick of wood to cook
the meat with.” The V.C. man who had ridden in the Charge of the Light
Brigade could only remember a raw onion as having formed his rations on
that day, but he spoke fondly of it.
If I had felt any doubts as to whether the entertainment had been a
success they would have been dissipated by the question put to me
whenever I came across an old Enrolled Guardsman afterwards. No matter
what I spoke of he invariably brought the subject round to that dinner
and ended it with, “I suppose you’d hardly be thinking of giving us
another party like that, would you now, mum?” It rather went to my
heart to say I was afraid not, but I really believe it was the meeting
each other and talking over old times which they had so enjoyed. That
is all nearly twenty years ago, and I sadly fear there are but few
of our guests of that day still alive, and when I think of how many
dear ones who stood by my side that day, not old and decrepit like the
soldiers, but in the full flush of youth and health and strength, have,
like them, gone into the Silent Land, I wonder at my own courage in
writing at all of those happy days.
XI
TRINIDAD
Trinidad had nearly completed its first century of British rule when
we went there in 1891, for it was in February 1797 that the British
Fleet, eighteen vessels in all, under Admiral Harvey came through the
Bocas, carrying a land force of nearly 8000 men under General Sir
Ralph Abercromby. The Spanish Governor, Chacon, felt that no defence
was possible, for he only had at his command a small, passing squadron
of five ships and about 700 soldiers. So, with an amount of practical
common-sense and humanity which might be borne in mind with advantage
at the Hague Conference, he surrendered to the tremendous odds brought
against him. Not a single life was lost in this change of flags; but
the Spanish Admiral, Apodoca, burned his ships sooner than give them
up. Chacon seems to have been an excellent Governor, and to have done
much for his colony before he had to yield to _force majeure_. Indeed,
it always struck me in looking over the history of Trinidad that it had
been exceptionally fortunate in its Governors. Colonel Thomas Picton
was its first English proconsul, and though, as might be expected,
somewhat high-handed and hasty in his dealings, especially with the
natives, the colony made great progress under his rule; but it only
lasted six years, which was considered a short time to manage the
affairs of a colony in those days. It is a fact, however, that when Sir
Thomas Picton fell at Waterloo, he was practically under trial for the
alleged murder of two slaves in Trinidad. The case was only standing
over for further evidence. Certainly, things—justice among other
things—seem to have been done in a loose and free-and-easy way in the
early days of the last century!
The Governor _par excellence_ of Trinidad, however, is, and always
will be, Sir Ralph Woodford, although Lord Harris and Sir Arthur
Gordon run him very close in enduring popularity of the best sort. But
Sir Ralph was truly a born empire-maker. He was so young, too—only
twenty-nine—when he began (in 1813) his fifteen years of hard work in a
tropical climate. It must have been extremely difficult to change the
whole state of affairs, even the language—for it was not until his day
that English was used in the Law Courts and that the minutes of the
“Cabildo”—the precursor of our Legislative Council—were kept in the
new tongue. Poor Sir Ralph died at sea on his way to England in 1828,
and it is sad to think how completely his valuable life seems to have
been thus early sacrificed to the ignorance of the commonest rules of
health. But he would not leave his work in time, and so died in harness
very shortly after he had been persuaded to leave his beautiful and
beloved colony.
Lord Harris did not take up the reins of government until 1846, only
eight years after slavery had been abolished, so he had to deal with
as complex a state of affairs as Picton or Woodford. But he ruled
splendidly and successfully until 1854, and it was delightful to hear,
nearly half a century afterwards, how well the numerous reforms and
systems he had started still worked.
All this time the various Governors had dwelt in many and different
Government Houses, all more or less near the site of the present
one. Don José Maria Chacon, captain in the Spanish Navy, and his
predecessors seem to have lived on the side of a neighbouring hill,
but it is difficult to trace even the foundations of that house, for
when once “the jungle is let in” it soon covers up and does away with
bricks and mortar. Then came a strange and ugly little dwelling where
the pastures of the Government farm now spread, and that was succeeded
by a house of sorts (of which I could find no pictured record) in the
Botanical Gardens. That must have been near where the present beautiful
dwelling stands, for whenever I said what a pity it was that the
stables should be so near the house, I was always told that they were
a survival of a former Government House in the same spot. But the
jungle also seemed to have been let in on the minds of my informants,
for I never could elicit any accurate information about that house.
Sir Ralph Woodford lived in a large Government House in Port of Spain,
used as Government Offices and burned in the late riots, but the really
historical Government House in Trinidad will always be the Government
Cottage about a quarter of a mile away, still in the Botanical Gardens,
where Sir Arthur Gordon lived and Kingsley wrote his “At Last.” Nothing
now remains of what must have been a picturesque and romantically
pretty little dwelling but the swimming-bath and an outbuilding used
as a cottage for the house carpenter. But I often used to go and look
up the valley with “At Last” in my hand, and try to identify the trees
described. The ravine or dell immortalised by Kingsley has, however,
suffered many changes from the woodman’s axe and forest fires, for the
only tree I could ever recognise is the big Saman outside the ballroom
windows.