in this part of the world. There is still a little mining going on.
The tin occurs in grains and pebbles distributed through alluvium.
The earth is thrown into boxes or sluices through which water is
flowing. The light materials are washed away and the heavy tin remains
behind. At one place I was shown a band of granitic rock, through
which grains of tin were disseminated. It is probable that it was by
the decomposition of rock like this, that the alluvium deposits have
been formed. On my way out to this we passed the house of a gold miner
who had at one time been so elated with his success, that he made
horseshoes out of gold, with which he shod his horse. After a five-mile
ride, I believe the shoes were carefully removed.
During the night I found it bitterly cold. Next morning everything
was white with frost, the ground was steaming in the rising sun, and
there was ice half an inch thick in the pails. This was tropical
Queensland. The streets were quiet, and with the exception of one man,
who was drunk and holding a maudlin conversation with a post, they were
deserted. This was the first time that I had heard a man talking to a
post, and I was quite interested to know what they had to say to each
other. People do sometimes talk to inanimate objects. I once heard of
a certain Mr. Smith who, when returning home late at night, had a
conversation with a pump. ‘Hillo, Tompkins, old chap! Hie! you’re out
late to-night.’ Tompkins was the pump. ‘Why don’t you walk about? Hie!
Very ridiculous standing there. You’ll catch cold, and what’ll your
wife say?’ Here Smith made a long pause, wondering why his friend was
so silent. ‘Can’t you talk? Suppose its beastly pride. I’m not proud.
Gimme your hand, and let’s help you home, old chappie.’ And rolling up
to the pump he took hold of the handle.
‘Oh! ’ow cold your ’ands is; you gimme the shivers. You’re like an
iceberg, Tompkins!’ Just then the pump-handle, under the weight of
Smith, slightly moved and squeaked. ‘Hillo, you’re wheasy, old man.
Let’s go and get six pennoth ’ot. Your wife’ll blow me up if I bring
you home cold.’ Leaning a little more on the pump, the handle suddenly
sank, and Smith tumbled forwards just in time to receive a deluge of
water from the spout. ‘So you’re sick; are you, you beast? No need to
treat a fellow like that. Shan’t stay here any more. May take yourself
home, Mr. Tompkins.’ And away Smith rolled, muttering something about
‘beastly behaviour’ and the ‘evil effects of drink.’
My man was not so bad as Smith. He had got his arm round the post of a
veranda. At one time he looked like the picture of Samson carrying off
the gates of Gaza. At another time he was like a revolving hobby horse.
His conversation was too inarticulate to be noted.
I spent a Sunday in Stanthorpe. A gentleman at the hotel took me out
for a drive. As we went along he carefully pointed out the devastation
left by the Chinese. ‘They come here,’ he said, ‘bring nothing but a
blue blouse, eat nothing but what they import themselves, work out the
ground that ought to be worked by white men, and then they go carrying
away gold, and only leaving those heaps of gravel’ (here he pointed
with his whip) ‘where they have been fossicking. They are usurpers of
a white man’s country. The white man is starving, and his wife and
daughters are thrown on charity, and all this because our Government is
wicked enough to let Chinamen come in the country.’
As we came back I saw a small Australian bear lying dead at the
foot of a tree. It looked to me like a sloth. It is a feeble, timid
creature, but has certain peculiarities which renders it worthy of a
passing note. When up a tree which is being felled, it has been known
to sob and cry with so much pathos, that the woodman has often ceased
his work, and gone beneath the branch on which he hung to seek for
falling tears. Many bushmen have sobbed themselves, and no one, I
have been told, can fell trees in Southern Queensland without several
pocket-handkerchiefs. A tender-hearted man can never earn a livelihood
by felling trees. The child-like grief of this little bear has been
known to overcome the stoutest hearts. Even the bloodthirsty bushranger
has had his heart softened by its weeping, and chronic sorrow is not
uncommon in districts where this animal abounds.
From Stanthorpe I travelled by coach to Glen Innis. It was a long
journey through the bush. I started at 8 a.m., and got to the end of
my journey at 6 a.m. next morning. I thought I was going to die in
this journey, so I am not likely to forget it. I had a box-seat all
the way, and a box-seat in a gale of wind, with the thermometer below
zero and wearing ordinary summer clothes, is not an enviable position.
The scenery was certainly lovely. Outside Stanthorpe we crossed the
track of a new railway line, which in time will be the connecting
link between the lines of Queensland and New South Wales. Near here
we crossed the border between these two colonies. After that our road
was over hills and valleys through interminable bush. Once or twice we
saw a kangaroo, and now and then a wallaby. Some of the old kangaroos,
which are known as old men kangaroos, will often sit up and stare at
you before they jump away. ‘No papers this morning, Jim?’ said a driver
to one of those old men sitting near the road, and the old man jumped
away. ‘Dear me,’ said a new chum, sitting next the driver. ‘I didn’t
know that kangaroos were so civilized.’ When the driver told this story
all the passengers in the coach laughed immoderately, and, not to be
conspicuous, I joined them.
At one of the stations where we changed horses, I was very much amused
by watching two frisky lambs chasing a flock of geese. The geese
were terrified and flapped away from their pursuers. Presently a dog
appeared about half a mile away, and the frisky lambs bolted in the
opposite direction. At the next station to this there were only young
girls living. They groomed the horses, and gave us our dinner. At all
of these places we had glorious wood fires and open chimneys, at which
we could toast our frozen feet. As we jogged along, the driver tried
to instruct me about gum trees, and to illustrate his lessons as we
passed along, he grabbed bunches of leaves from overhanging trees,
which he gave me sometimes to smell and sometimes to taste. Some of
them were not unpleasant to the nose, others were frightful. ‘Some you
might live on,’--at least that is what he said.
Notwithstanding all that I was taught, gum trees are to me all alike--a
scraggy variety of the vegetable kingdom. Tenterfield, which we reached
in the afternoon, is a nice little town with modern buildings, some
of which are three stories high. It is situated on an open undulating
country laid out in blocks for farming purposes. Many of the gentlemen
in the streets wore tall hats--many the ladies wore brilliant and shiny
black satin. By this time the box-seat had begun to tell on me, and
I was more than wheezy. Notwithstanding something hot and a bag of
‘lollies,’ by the time I reached the next station, which was a solitary
house in the bush called Bolivia, I could only whisper. This was at 9
p.m., and it was a question whether I should stay and die at Bolivia,
or get in the coach to be hauled along to die at or about Glen Innis.
At Glen Innis I might get a decent burial. In the bush there would not
be much ceremony. This latter ride, through dark bush, on rough roads,
up hill and down dale, with your marrow frozen, is not to be forgotten.
The cold I got remained with me for three months. All this is extremely
personal, but as it may possibly be the means of preventing some other
innocent wanderer from anticipating death, I put it in. When I am
next seen coaching in a tropical country, I hope to be wearing a fur
coat and a blanket. All that I can say about Glen Innis is that it is
a good-looking town with several fairly good hotels, situated about
3,500 feet above sea level.
From Glen Innis to Newcastle there is a regular English narrow-gauge
railroad. The carriages were, so far as my unprofessional eye could
tell, a senseless copy of what there is in the old country. In winter
they were bearable, but in summer the carriage I was in must be
stifling. It had neither curtains nor sunshades. The Brisbane line was
American, narrow gauge and with long carriages on bogie trucks. At one
place we passed over a height of 4,500 feet. This was on the side of a
mountain called Ben Lomond. All the way down to Newcastle through New
England there was much cultivated country, and many prettily situated
towns. The journey took fourteen and a half hours.
At Newcastle I took quarters in an hotel, which was not the best one in
the place. A fellow-traveller on the train recommended it to me as the
best house in Newcastle. You entered at a bar where there was a stream
of visitors passing in to drink, and then passing out rubbing their
mouths with their coat-sleeves.
A Newcastle Legend; or, the Story of the Dark Room.
My bedroom was like a cellar taken upstairs. But for a glimmer that
came in over a door leading into a drawing-room, I was in utter
darkness. It was even necessary to light a candle to dress by. When
next morning I interviewed the landlord I inquired as to the nature of
his contract with the neighbouring barber, for no one could possibly
see to shave in his establishment.
“What, were you in number sixteen?” asked the landlord. “I gave strict
orders that no guests were to be put in that room. The trouble that
I experienced about that room nearly killed me once. If you want me
to pay your barber’s account I’ll do it with pleasure, but anyhow you
might take a drink before you leave just to show that you don’t owe
me any ill feeling on account of having slept in number sixteen.”
All the while the landlord looked so anxiously at me, that I began
to think that he was astonished at seeing me alive. “Can’t visitors
sleep in number sixteen?” I asked. “Sleep indeed,” was the reply,
“the difficulty is to stop them sleeping. I had one man sleep in the
room for nearly a week without ever coming out of it.” “Well, what’s
the matter?” I inquired; “has there been a murder committed in number
sixteen, is it haunted or what?”
“It happened in this way,” said the landlord. “Just about this time
last year, we had a lot of visitors from up country making their way
southwards towards Melbourne, anxious, I suppose, to be in time to see
the Melbourne Cup. One cold drizzly afternoon an elderly man arrived
carrying in his hand a small yellow portmanteau tied up with a rope. He
said he had been sitting in the coach for the last three or four days,
and was very tired. From his dirty clothes and a curious limp that he
had got, we could quite believe that he had been knocking about for
some time.
“I asked my wife what we should do with the stranger, as all the rooms
were full. ‘Oh, put him in number sixteen, Joe,’ said my wife. ‘It’s
dark now, and maybe he’ll get up pretty early and never know that
there’s no window.’ At that time I may tell you that the door into the
drawing-room had not been made, so there was no window. The quantity
of steak and bread that the old man put away while having his supper
was something terrible. Matilda, who had been sitting in the back
parlour listening to the order which he gave, said ‘she thought he was
provisioning a fortress.’ At last he went to bed. On his way upstairs
he hoped that number sixteen was a quiet room, and that no one would
disturb him in the morning. He wanted to make up for the sleep he had
lost sitting in the coach. As I was going downstairs I heard him lock
and double-bolt his door, and then commence to hum a tune. This was
at 9 p.m. on June 30th. I don’t know whether you can believe me, but
that door was not opened until 12 o’clock on the 5th of July. Of course
we didn’t take much notice of him next morning. He wanted to sleep he
said, and perhaps might not turn out until 12 o’clock. When dinner
time came I had forgotten all about him. You know it is difficult for
us to keep the run of all our guests, and, besides, he might have been
outside attending to business in the town.
“That night, however, Susan, the chambermaid, told my wife that she
could not open number sixteen; whenever she knocked at the door there
was no answer. We thought it a bit odd, but as he said he was tired and
wanted to sleep we did not disturb him.
“Next morning, as he did not turn up to breakfast, my wife was a bit
anxious, and said to me, ‘You’d better go upstairs, Joe, and see if
number sixteen is going to get up.’ Well, after knocking at the door
two or three times, somebody inside said, ‘Hillo! what’s the matter?’
‘Ain’t you going to get up?’ says I. ‘All right,--presently,’ was the
answer, and I went downstairs and told my wife.
“Dinner time came and then tea time, but still number sixteen hadn’t
come down. ‘Better go and rap again, Joe,’ said my wife. Up I went,
and after thumping on the door till I heard somebody inside grumbling
about a noisy house and people not being allowed to sleep. ‘Are you
never going to get up?’ I said through the keyhole. ‘Will get up when
it’s daylight,’ was the answer. ‘He’ll get up when it’s daylight,’ said
I to myself. ‘Why, it’s nearly forty-eight hours since he went to bed,
and he talks of sleeping twelve hours more.’ When I told my wife what
number sixteen had said, she looked at me a moment, and then said,
‘Joe, this comes of putting a man into a dark room. It never will be
daylight in there.’ ‘Matilda, you’ve struck it, exactly,’ I said; ‘the
old fool thinks it is in the middle of the night.’ Then we discussed
what we should do. ‘Better let him alone to-night,’ was Maria’s
suggestion; ‘he has got to sleep somewhere you know. We can tell him
that it’s daylight to-morrow morning.’
“Next morning I was at the door of number sixteen pretty early.
“Rat-tat-tat went my knuckles on the panels. ‘Hillo!’ was the answer.
‘Going to get up to-day; it’s morning,’ says I. ‘Morning be hanged,’
was the answer. ‘If you don’t go away, I’ll call up the landlord and
have you removed. Don’t want to be disturbed by intoxicated visitors.
Telling me it’s morning when it’s pitch dark. You’re drunk.’
“Well, I was just flabbergasted to be called drunk. At this moment
Matilda, who was getting curious about the stranger, had joined me.
‘He calls you drunk, does he?’ says Matilda; ‘let me talk to him,’
and rat-tat-tat went Matilda’s knuckles on the door. ‘Hey, you inside
there, are you going to get up? You’ve been sleeping sixty hours,’ said
she.
“‘At it again, are you, old fool?’ was the answer. At the word ‘old
fool’ you ought to have seen Matilda’s face. I thought her eyes would
have come out of her head. ‘Old fool!’ she gasped, ‘me an old fool;
it’s the first time I’ve been called an old fool, and in my own house
too.’ For the next ten minutes Matilda kept on saying ‘old fool’ to
herself.
“Me an old fool and my husband drunk indeed! I’ll give it to you, you
wicked old ass,’ then, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she poured
into number sixteen’s ears such a shower of superlative adjectives as
he’ll never forget. I didn’t know she had it in her. ‘You dirty old
bear, do you think we’re going to have you hibernating all winter in
our bedroom. Get up, you old beast, and we’ll teach you some manners.
So you think Joe’s drunk, and I’m an old fool, do you? Out you get now,
quick, before I call in the policemen. You old villain, you, to think
you can insult people in their own house.’ Here she paused to get a
little breath. She was just putting her lips to the hole to continue,
when there was a fearful bang on the door, and something which sounded
like a boot dropped on the floor.
“‘Joe! Joe!’ said Matilda, ‘he’s thrown his boot at me,’ and with a
little scream she fell fainting in my arms. For the next few hours
number sixteen held quiet possession of his apartments while I was
plying Matilda with brandy and cold water.
“What was to be done nobody knew. ‘Starve him out’ was one suggestion.
‘At nine o’clock to-night he will have been in bed seventy-two hours,
and he must be getting pretty hungry.’
“By this time the other guests in the hotel had got wind of the fact
that there was something strange going on in number sixteen, and
several of them left us.
“Nine o’clock came, but yet there was no sign that the old man intended
to capitulate. All night long Matilda was so worked up about our guest
that she would not let me sleep. We couldn’t burst the door open,
because it was double-bolted. It would be easier to cut a hole through
the wall--the one on the drawing-room side was only plaster and wood.
“‘If we can’t starve him,’ said Matilda, ‘we can stop the old bear from
sleeping. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.’ Next morning we were up betimes,
and the business of keeping number sixteen from sleeping commenced. The
work we did that day was something terrible; we took it in turns, two
hours at a time, beating a frying-pan on the door-handle. At first the
visitors who had remained in the house thought it a joke, but towards
evening several of them thought it a nuisance, and moved with their
traps over to the Great Northern. Number sixteen never made a sound. At
eight o’clock that night, when Matilda came up to relieve me with the
frying-pan she said: ‘Suppose he is dead, Joe?’ He seemed to have heard
this. ‘So you are there again, you old fool, are you; it isn’t your
fault that I’m not dead. You have had your racket for the last twelve
hours, now I’m going to have mine;’ and then there commenced such a
row as you never heard. How he managed it I don’t know, he seemed to
have got all the fire-irons tied together and kept them bumping against
each other and the wooden wall. ‘Stop! for goodness’ sake, stop!’ I
shouted. ‘Oh, no,’ says he. ‘Why have you stopped? Please go on; the
two together will make a charming duet!’ and then he continued to bang
and clash as if he was going to bring down the house. By eleven p.m.
every visitor that had remained in the house had disappeared, and there
was I, Matilda, Susan, and Jo, the ostler, listening to the inferno
going in number sixteen. At midnight two neighbours came in saying they
couldn’t sleep, and if the row did not cease they would report the
house as disorderly, and have our licence cancelled. Of course nobody
slept that night. Matilda spent most of her time in weeping. ‘Let us
try quiet measures to-morrow,’ I suggested.
“Next morning we both went to the door, and told the gentleman that he
had been in bed for nearly five days, and if he would get up we should
be much obliged. We were sorry, we said, that there was no window in
the room; but if he would open the door, we would give him a light.
“Getting quite ‘perlite’ we heard him remark to himself, and then
speaking louder he said ‘he would do what he could to oblige us.’ Then
we heard him step on the floor. For a moment there was quietness; but
it was only for a moment, for immediately afterwards we heard a crash.
‘My looking-glass!’ said Matilda, and tears again began to run down
her face. Presently there was another crash. ‘There go the washing
utensils!’ I said; but, before I could tell him how to steer, we heard
some fearful abuse, and he told us he had got into bed again. He
couldn’t steer through a pot-shop in the dark.
“‘Never mind the things,’ sobbed Matilda; ‘do please try and find the
door.’
“‘What will you give me to try?’ said he. ‘You have imprisoned me in a
dark cell for five days, my feet have been cut with trying to get out,
and I am nearly dead from starvation. I shall certainly prosecute you
when I do get out. If you will push £5 through the keyhole, and send
with it a bit of paper, saying that the money is on account of the five
days’ pleasant company I have afforded, I’ll make a try and say no more
about the business.’ There was no doubt but that we were cornered, so,
after a consultation, we poked the five sovereigns and the bit of paper
through the keyhole.
“After he heard the sovereigns fall, he asked us to shine a light
through the hole; and, as you can guess, it wasn’t long before he found
the door.
“When he was gone, and we went to clean up the room, we found the
bedclothes full of the tailings of ham sandwiches and crumbs of bread.
Underneath the bed there were several empty bottles. What the yellow
portmanteau tied up with string had contained was clear; but why a
healthy, strong man should come and camp in a bedroom for five days,
it took us long to discover. We had all sorts of theories. Tilly had a
notion that he was hiding to escape justice.
“Some time afterwards the mystery was solved by some strangers from
Rockhampton laughing over a story that they had seen in one of their
local papers. _It was about a fellow who won a wager of £500 by staying
at an hotel in Newcastle to which he was a perfect stranger, and being
paid £5 for the pleasant company he had afforded._
“I never like strangers to sleep in number sixteen now, sir.”
* * * * *
The trade of Newcastle is indicated by its name. Although there are
no collieries in the town, the town has nevertheless a very dingy
aspect. It looked like a town where there ought to be coal--like a
town where there was more business than pleasure. At breakfast the
landlord officiated at the slabs of meat and mounds of steaming chops.
It is a common thing in the Colonies for landlords and landladies to do
the polite at the head of the table. To me they were like watchdogs,
guarding the spoons and forks. When you go away they are usually very
friendly, and shake hands. One landlord, after two hours’ acquaintance,
began to slap me on the back, and commence his sentences with, “Now,
Tom, old boy!” If landlords are jovial, this does not matter very much;
but when they are of a retiring disposition, they make you feel that
they are obliging you by giving you admission to their houses. One
rule for a traveller in Australia is to remember that, in entering an
hotel, he is not necessarily obliging the landlord. While breakfasting
I looked over an old copy of the _Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner’s
Advocate_, where, under the title of “Football on Sunday,” I read about
an unfortunate little boy who had been summoned by the police for
having played football on Sunday in the Royal Park. Oh, you goody,
goody people! How particular you are not to be naughty on Sunday--that
is to say, on the particular twenty-four hours you have set apart to
represent Sunday! When you are roistering, your father and mother in
Britain may be praying; and when your father and mother in Britain
are roistering, you may be praying. You seem to recognise your vices,
and you do what you can to prevent them. On Sunday you close your
public-houses for the whole day, and on week-days you usually close
them at night about ten o’clock. You would not even go to the limits
of a Forbes-Mackenzie. On Sunday you stream to your churches, with the
spires of which many of your towns are fairly bristling, and often
listen to the wisdom of a young man. You look up to him, admire him,
and discuss him. Even if his views are palpably wrong, you tolerate
him and give him support. While travelling in the Colonies I talked on
religious subjects with several persons, all of whom were wealthy--one
was a member of Parliament--who inveighed against all forms of religion
but their own, in a manner which reminded me of the fanaticism of
the Middle Ages. One gentleman, and a high Government official took
me round one Sunday evening to look through the windows of a Roman
Catholic chapel, where we saw a priest swinging incense. “Look at the
idolaters! They are the ruin of the country; they ought to be classed
with savages, and swept off the face of the earth!” was what he
expressed.
Religion of this sort is a religion of all who are partially educated.
They regard themselves as the centre of the universe, and, regardless
of what their own particular views would have been had they been reared
in Mecca, they have the conceit to publicly express the measures they
would adopt to reform the world. In the Colonies there are undoubtedly
many of every denomination who have an education and ideas equally
advanced with the leaders of similar denominations in other parts
of the globe. About these we will say nothing--we only speak of the
generality; and that generality, I must confess, was judged of by a
small experience. One measure of the general uncouthness with regard to
religious ideas is the enormous support the Salvationists have received
in the Colonies. Where is the country in the whole world which has
given a greater support (I reckon support by percentages of the whole
population) to the Salvation Army than Australia? Ranting, raving,
roaring processions of the lower classes may be seen in every town.
A low, uneducated mind apparently finds comfort in a rough form of
worship.