unlike a miniature San Francisco. The streets are, however, much
wider in Brisbane. There are some very fine shops, hansoms, busses,
barrel-organs, and itinerant musicians with harps and violins. Of
course the banks are the notable buildings. Australia is a country of
banks. If ever you see an unusually large building, you may conclude it
is a bank. Russians have a weakness for big churches. An Australian’s
hobby is to build big banks. The Houses of Parliament and the Law
Courts were also striking buildings. In the afternoon I saw a lot of
grand carriages. Inside them were handsomely dressed ladies. On the box
or behind were cockaded footmen. Many of the girls were good-looking.
They were, however, chaperoned by their mammas, and you saw what the
sweet girls might look like in the sweet by-and-bye. It is a great
mistake for a good-looking girl to walk out with an ugly mother. A
young man gets frightened. If he didn’t get frightened, then he is not
a philosopher. The girls had better refuse such men.
Many of the men wore tall hats. Tall hats are almost unknown in the
tropics. Taking Brisbane as the northern limit, they extend as far
south as Dunedin, that is to say, over nineteen degrees of latitude.
They have a similar geographical range in the northern hemisphere.
There are, therefore, two belts round the globe, each about 1,200 miles
in width, in which we may study chimney-pots.
Judging from the brogue I heard in the streets and in the hotels, I
should fancy that English, Scotch, and Irish are mixed up in Brisbane
in about equal proportions. This may not agree with statistics.
Statistics consider people who were born in Ireland as Irishmen. In my
estimate I only reckon as Irishmen those who talk with a good brogue,
make bulls, and tell every girl they see that she is the prettiest
in the town. I spent my first evening with a very jovial Irishman.
One thing which he taught me was, that the whisky of the southern
hemisphere resembles, in all its properties, that which is made in
other parts of the world.
* * * * *
One morning I spent in visiting the Brisbane museum. It is a large
building, and is apparently omnivorous in the curiosities it receives.
There were lots of minerals to be seen, including a number of very
good specimens of opal. Upstairs there was a large collection of
oil-paintings illustrating Australian scenery. Downstairs I saw many
fossil bones, including those of the extinct gigantic kangaroo-like
animal called the diprotodon. The Major was anxious to get some
diprotodon shooting, but when we told him that the animal was 55 feet
from the tip of his tail to the tip of his snout, and 55 feet from the
tip of his snout to the tip of his tail, making in all 110 feet, that
his skin was impenetrable to the bullet of the European, etc., etc.,
the Major was not so anxious. He saw we were joking, bit his lips, and
got quite cross.
From the museum I was directed to the public gardens at the end of the
street--‘The gate right ahead of you,’ said my informant. I walked in,
entered between two rather fine gate-posts into a garden-like avenue.
‘Odd sort of botanical garden,’ I thought. ‘Trees ought to be labelled.
Don’t want to over-educate the people of Brisbane, I suppose. Might be
dangerous if they knew a lot of Latin names for trees.’ So I walked on
until I came to a big house with a carriage at the door. ‘Good place
for a curator,’ I thought. ‘Ought to have started life as a botanist,
and I might have had a house like that.’ While looking at the house,
and wondering whether a re-education would enable me to start in the
plant line, a policeman broke into my reveries by inquiring whether I
wanted to see the Governor? ‘No,’ said I; ‘I want to see the botanical
gardens.’ ‘You have taken the wrong entrance,’ he replied. ‘You will
find the entrance next to the one you came in by.’ So I had to retrace
my steps to the entrance next to the one I came in by. This was one
of those iron-gate sort of things, like a big squirrel-cage. It had a
cast-iron label on, to the effect that these gardens were the invention
of Sir George Bowen. After entering the squirrel-cage turnstile,
swing the gate and then pass on. Do not pause when once inside the
squirrel-cage, or another person may come, and, by swinging the gate
at the wrong moment, crack you like a nut between nut-crackers. Here I
found labels and Latin names, nursemaids, perambulators, grassy slopes,
and children to my heart’s content. Sir George Bowen’s invention is
very pretty, and well repays a visit. I forgot to say that at the
museum there are the apartments of the Royal Society of Queensland.
They began by calling themselves ‘Royal,’ in the same way that a
public-house may call itself the Royal Bull. Subsequently they prayed
the Government to petition the Queen for the use of the word ‘Royal.’
This was naturally granted. They have a fine library, and are doing
much good work.
_ADVENTURES WITH A BOOMERANG._
I had a boomerang given to me when in Brisbane. I have got it yet.
If the troubles it has caused me, and the troubles it has in store
for me, do not bring me to an early grave, I have the intention of
passing this specimen of aboriginal workmanship on to some fellow I
don’t like. By the same messenger I intend to send him the address of
a respectable undertaker. If you have a deadly hatred for a man--if
there is a man who has insulted you, called you a liar and a thief,
converted you and your family into paupers, blasted your hopes for
this world and the future--just ask him, when he goes to Australia,
to bring you a boomerang. Tell him you would like a good big one--a
fighting boomerang. He will either be dead or imprisoned before he
gets back. My boomerang is a fighting boomerang. It is made out of
very hard wood. At both ends it is pointed. The edge of it is like
that of a sword, and it is shaped like a young moon. My troubles with
this thing began in the streets of Brisbane. It would not go in any of
my portmanteaus, so I tied it on the outside of my bag. The bag then
became like a double-ended ram pointed at both ends. The first notice I
received about my double-ended ram was from an old gentleman against
whom my bag happened to bump. ‘D--n it, sir, what’s that? You’ve torn
my trousers,’ said he. I apologized, and felt very mean. I shall never
forget the way in which that old man glared through his spectacles,
first at me, then at his trousers, and then at the double-ender. The
last look decided the course I should take. I might charge him. After
this I tried to be more careful, and got on pretty well until I reached
the station.
At the ticket-office I found myself in a crowd, and, the persons
behind pushing me, drove the double-ender into the legs and hinder
parts of those in front. The way in which they jumped and squirmed
was quite ridiculous. ‘Please excuse me; it’s only a boomerang,’
I said. ‘Boomerang be hanged!’ said one man. ‘What do you mean by
bringing a thing like that for in here?’ By-and-by it got generally
known that there was a man with a boomerang in a bag coming through
the crowd, and they made a passage for us. The amount of apologies
that I made for my boomerang during the next six or seven days nearly
killed me. Every time I made a move into a railway-carriage, out of a
railway-carriage, near to a group of people where there was not much
room, I had always to herald myself by, ‘Ah! please excuse me--ahem!
I’ve got a boomerang.’ Once the bag got a side-blow, and swung round to
catch me across the calf of the leg; the result of which was that for
decency’s sake I had to borrow some pins to fasten up the rent. It is
useless to say that the trousers and my leg were both spoiled. My leg
got better, but the trousers didn’t. It cost me twenty-six shillings
for a new pair. Once or twice I thought of throwing the thing away;
but as I heard that boomerangs come circling back towards the thrower,
my courage failed me. To have a thing weighing forty pounds, with the
shape and edge of a scimitar, cavotting about your head, was not to be
risked. If I had paid a man to throw it away for me, I might have been
indicted for manslaughter. I would sooner be mated to a tinted Venus or
a Frankenstein than to a good-sized boomerang.
Since the above experience I have tried the thing, and thus far it
has not exhibited a trace of the movement attributed to Noah’s dove.
At first I only threw it two or three feet; but as I gained courage I
threw it farther--first edgeways, then sideways, flatways, pointways,
straightways, upwards, downwards, obliquely forwards, backwards,
upwards, outwards, and in some fifty or sixty other manners and
directions, but invariably with the result that I had to walk after the
confounded thing and bring it back. I was afraid to leave the weapon
behind--it might kill somebody. I believe I have walked one thousand
seven hundred miles after that boomerang. The only way in which I have
been successful in inducing a boomerang to return to me has been either
by paying a man to fetch it, or else by tying a long string to it.
After this it is needless to say that the return of the boomerang is a
myth, and as a myth let us relegate it to the land of the unicorn and
the deadly upas.
Note.--Since writing the above I met with a gentleman who
declares that boomerangs are capable of returning, not simply once,
but repeatedly. The difficulty, in his mind, was how to prevent them
from returning. ‘There were tame boomerangs and frisky boomerangs,’ he
remarked. My boomerang was probably a tame one. If his boomerang had
not knocked over two policemen and dispersed a crowd, he would at this
moment have been the inmate of a gaol. It came about in this way. ‘Do
you see,’ said he, ‘Christmas was drawing nigh, and I thought I would
buy something to amuse the kids. Well, I went into a big toy-shop at
the corner of Market Street, and, after looking at a lot of mechanical
dolls, rocking-horses, and what not, I decided on taking a boomerang.
The young lady, who wrapped it up in a sheet of stiff brown paper,
remarked that I had selected one that was rather lively. It was just
getting dark when I got in the ’bus, and I put the parcel containing
the boomerang on my knee. Once or twice I observed that the thing
began to edge along sideways towards the lap of an old lady, who was
my neighbour. “That parcel of yours seems to be fidgetty,” said she.
At that moment it gave a jump. “O lor’!” said the old lady; “why,
it’s alive!” “Don’t be alarmed, mum,” said I; “it’s quite harmless;”
and I put both hands over my purchase to keep it quiet. “It’s only a
boomerang that I bought to amuse the children.” At the word “boomerang”
everybody looked as if they had received an electric shock. One young
man put up his eyeglass, an old gentleman looked over his spectacles,
the old lady shot open her umbrella, and everybody edged away. If I had
said it was an infernal machine the consternation could not have been
greater. “Oh, you wicked young man!” said the old lady, still keeping
up her umbrella as a shield; but just then the ’bus stopped at the
corner of my street, so, wishing my companions good-night, I got out,
feeling, as you may suppose, much relieved.
‘My wife opened the door for me. “Maria,” says I, “I’ve brought a
boomerang just to amuse you and the children.” “Oh, you darling!” and
she threw her arms round my neck. What she thought a boomerang was I
don’t know; but while she was dangling on my neck, the parcel slipped
from beneath my arm and dropped on the floor.
‘As to the exact sequence of events which followed this unfortunate
accident, I have but a hazy recollection. For a moment or two the
parcel bobbed up and down on the floor, until the top of the boomerang
stuck through the paper, when off it went with a whizz, gyrating,
waltzing, twisting, and turning in all directions, round and round
the room. Maria was stretched flat; I got two bangs on the head, but
managed to crawl beneath the sofa; the cat was killed, the chandelier
was smashed, every ornament was cleared from the shelves. Then it
paused, balancing itself on one of its tops on the corner of the
sideboard. All of a sudden an idea seemed to strike it, and off it set
upstairs. For the next ten minutes I had the pleasure of listening to
my Christmas present smashing and banging round every room from the
first floor up to the attics. The servant-maids and the children had
luckily escaped to the cellar. Suddenly the noise stopped, and Maria,
who had found me beneath the sofa, suggested that the Christmas present
was taking breath. “This ain’t particular paradise, Maria,” said I.
“Oh, Tom, let us run into the street and call assistance.” Just as
we had got from beneath the sofa, we heard a hop-hop-hop on the top
story. The boomerang was evidently coming downstairs. “Shut the door!”
said Maria; and I did, but only just in time. When I looked through
the keyhole I could see Boomey with a bit of string and a streamer or
two of brown paper round its neck, sitting on the bottom stair. At
that moment there was a fearful knocking at the front door, and the
boomerang raised itself on end and hopped off along the passage, as
if it expected more sport. Maria ran to the window, and said, “Good
gracious, Tom, there’s two policemen!” “Throw them my latch-key,” said
I, “and tell them to come in.” I was too busy watching my friend in the
passage to do any interviewing myself. By the time Maria had got the
window opened a crowd had collected, who, when they saw Maria’s black
eyes and tangled hair, guffawed and made some remarks about the old
gal getting clawed by her husband. “Excuse me, marm,” said the bobby,
touching his hat, “but we’re come to arrest a gentleman a-living in
this house for having travelled in the streets with a boomerang.” “Yes,
policeman, this is the house he went into; I had him watched,” said an
old lady in the crowd. I recognised the voice as that of my neighbour
in the coach who had called me a wicked young man. “But,” says Maria,
in a state of terror at the thought of legal troubles. “But be hanged!”
I whispered to Maria. “Just tell them it’s all right--the gentleman’s
inside--and throw them the key. Boomey’ll get ’em!” Just then I could
see Boomey dancing up and down, and waltzing about in the passage, as
if he had understood the conversation.
‘To see Boomey when the bobby opened that door was particularly fine.
He commenced with a gentle kind of tattoo, bouncing round from head to
head like the banjo of a Plymouth brother. He evidently just wanted to
get the crowd started, so that he could have some fun a-chasing of ’em.
When they did start, the stampede was immense. “Go it, granny!” shouted
an urchin from an upstairs window to the old woman who was my accuser;
“Boomey’s a-following!” The basketful of rags that lay in front of
the door before the crowd got clear would have run a paper-mill for a
month. For a week or two the house was in a state of siege. No one dare
venture outside the door without first looking up and down the street.
At last we got into the way of travelling by going from house to house.
By pre-arranged signals an open door would be ready for us. If all was
clear, we’d make a rush. If Boomey was following, we’d just snap the
door to, and wait until he’d gone. One or two tried shot-guns on him,
but it wasn’t a bit of good--it only seemed to make him more vicious.
‘After clearing the town of cats and dogs, Boomey suddenly disappeared.
When I was last in Clarenceville I heard that he was raging round a
sheep station up in New England, and the contingent had gone up to try
their hand on him.
‘After my experiences, sir, you needn’t tell me that boomerangs won’t
return; the difficulty is to keep ’em away.’
* * * * *
P.S.--The information for the middle piece of this last story I cribbed
from a fellow-passenger. I suspect that he cribbed it from a book. When
I and the fellow-passenger meet the original author, we sincerely hope
that he will be prepared to reward us for the trouble we have taken in
making his remarkable story public.
_DARLING DOWNS AND NEW ENGLAND._
The Darling Downs were the last I saw of Queensland. From Brisbane you
go to them by train. One of the waiters at the hotel told me that I had
better take my luggage to the station on the evening before starting.
If I took them before 8 p.m. I paid a shilling for a cab. If I took
them between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. I should pay ten shillings.
I shall have more to say about Australian cabs and carts by-and-bye.
Independently of the cost of a conveyance, I was glad to take my bag
and boomerang to the station in daylight. The latter might have been
dangerous in the dark. The train left at 5.50 a.m. It was quite dark,
and I did not see much of the country or fellow-passengers until about
7 a.m., when we reached a pretty big town called Ipswich. Here we had
a scramble for a very bad breakfast, after which we got into the train
almost as cold as when we came out of it. At Ipswich I saw several
factories. Up to this point the country was undulating. Farther on I
saw a number of post and rail fences, a few small houses, and a great
lot of gum trees forming open woods. After a climb up a range of yellow
sandstone hills, we entered a park-like country. Here and there were a
lot of palms with heads on them like tufts of grass. These were grass
trees I suppose. Now and then there was a creek, consisting of a series
of pools of stagnant water. These I put down as an example of the
so-called _water-holes_ we read so much about in books on Australia.
Near the water there were some trees which looked like pines. These
I learnt were river oaks. Some big trees were called honeysuckles.
There are a lot of things in Australia which are not what they look
like. Sometimes we rushed past a ploughed clearing. It may have been
planted with wheat. In a few hours more we were again amongst hills,
and as we wound in and out, gradually climbing upwards, I had glimpses
of many pretty scenes. At mid-day we reached Toowoomba--the capital of
the Darling Downs. I don’t know whether I have spelt Toowoomba right,
but it is a very good example of the Hoos and Woos and Moos and Boos
they are so fond of in Australia. The letter O is a great favourite.
In Sydney I saw a word, in fact, I saw it every day, with eight O’s
in it. It was usually on an omnibus. At first I couldn’t read it for
astonishment. The next time I saw it I got as far as Woo, but as I ran
my eye along the length of the wonderful word, it got confused. It is
easy to lose your way in a good long word, especially if it is stuck on
a bus and the bus is moving. Once I chased a bus along a street, but I
never got past Wooloo. After that my sight was dazed, and I was in a
jumble. On returning to a hotel in the evening, I described my troubles
to the waiter, who wrote the mysterious word for me, and after ticking
slowly off the letters I found it was Wooloomooloo. I was told that
Woo-loo-moo-loo was the war cry of the aborigines, who resisted the
landing of the early settlers. Wooloomooloo, it may be observed, rhymes
with Timbuctoo.
The latter part of the climb up to Toowomba (I spell the name
differently in different places because I hope that I may get it right
sometimes), which is situated on the very edge of the downs, was steep
enough to require two engines. If our engine had not been so leaky,
it might possibly have done the work alone. I never before saw an
engine that could afford to lose so much steam through its cylinder
covers outside a workshop. I am glad I went up to Toowomba, if it
was only to see this engine. The view looking back down the incline,
over the heads of the trees which filled the valley up which we had
come, was beautiful and extensive. Gum trees, in quantity, do very
well for general effect; when you get close to them, then you see too
many spaces. A forest of gum trees would look all right if viewed from
above, say from a balloon about ten miles high. Turning round and
looking ahead the scene was altered. Before us were the undulating open
Darling Downs, brown, flat, and anything but inviting. In spring time,
when they are green, they may perhaps be prairie-like, and beautiful
to the eye of the farmer, but as I saw them with their miles of wire
fencing, they were not so interesting as the desert of Arabia. I was
always going to places at the wrong season. They are of basaltic
formation, which probably overlies the sandstone which I had seen
below. Perhaps the basalt welled up through great fissures; perhaps it
came from some of the small conical hills which I saw farther along
the line. All the water from the basalt contains magnesia. New-comers
don’t like it. It produces peculiar effects. Now and then I saw flocks
of sheep. They did not seem to be eating. If they liked dry stubble,
clay, or bits of basalt, they might do very well. They were usually
standing still, with their noses all pointing one way. Why sheep
should keep parallel, and cows point about in all azimuths, I couldn’t
make out. I thought I should never get across the downs. Late in the
afternoon the basalt was replaced by sandstone, and we reached the
thriving township of Warwick. Here I saw a race-course. Every town in
Australia has a race-course, I fancy. Some of them have two or three
racecourses. Racing is an Australian mania. Australians like cricket,
football, rowing, and athletic sports generally.
At Warwick there were a lot of Toowoomba football boys waiting to go
home. They must like football very much to cross the Darling Downs
for a game. I would as soon cross the Sahara. From Warwick we again
commenced to climb up hills. On either side we had open forests of
gum trees. Now and then we saw a wallaby or a kangaroo. Wallabys and
kangaroos are like gigantic crickets covered with hair. They have
long tails. Their great forte is jumping. From what I saw, I fancy
they would win the long jump at any athletic sports. Unless closely
pursued by the hunter, they do not care about jumping over wire
fences. They get past obstacles like these by lying down and rolling
through between the wires. Like donkeys, kangaroos carry their battery
in their back legs. When cornered by a pack of hounds, the kangaroo
pivots and places his back to the aggressors, and astonishes them with
lightning-like jerkings of his battery. Dogs are often disembowelled by
kangaroos. Some kangaroos have pouches in which they carry provisions.
If one kangaroo picks the pocket of another kangaroo the fight which
succeeds is terrific. At Thulimba, where we passed some clay slates and
granite, we were at an elevation of 3,004 feet, so said the railway
guide. It was cold enough for 10,000 feet. When we reached Stanthorpe,
which was the end of the line, it was bright moonlight and freezing
hard. Half an hour’s walk took us to Farley’s Hotel. Stanthorpe is a
funny little place. It consists of a few low, one-storied houses along
the sides of wide roads, I can’t call them streets. They have too much
grass on them to be streets. I hardly know why, but I shall remember
Stanthorpe, the last town I visited in Queensland, for very many
years. Perhaps the difficulty I had in getting there makes me remember
Stanthorpe. After a long journey at sea, any rock may be hailed as a
paradise. The hotel was like a little old-fashioned English hostelry.
There was the white-capped maid-servant, and there was the open hearth
with its huge log fire. When I looked at these logs fizzing and
crackling and throwing out a generous warmth, I thought well of scrubby
gum trees. The best thing, however, was the steaming fragrant half an
acre of beefsteak. ‘Will you try a little more beefsteak, sir?’ said
Mary; and I tried another perch or so. ‘Will you try a little pie--will
you try a little salt--will you try a little bread?’ Everything, it did
not matter whether it was flesh, fish, fowl, vegetable or mineral, Mary
always inquired if you would try a little of it. In this respect I may
remark that Mary was like nearly every waiter I met in the Colonies.
They all wanted you to try a little. The usual reply is to say, ‘Yes,
please, I will try a small piece more.’ If it is steak, a small piece
means the usual slab.