look at, you would think he was made of good-nature and solid facts.
He has a lot of fun in him, however--not common fun, but deep fun. The
jokes he made you had to crack for yourself--about a week afterwards.
When he showed me the works I can honestly say that I saw nothing
even with a veneer of fun upon it. I felt I was getting solid facts,
and it was only about two months afterwards that I discovered that
I had really been looking on and listening to something which was
exceedingly funny. He showed me a chimney at the end of a furnace with
a little hole at the bottom of it. ‘Draw out the plug, Jim,’ said he
to a workman, ‘and let the gentleman look at the flames and feel the
draught.’ One by one we peered into the little hole and looked at the
dazzling white flame, and felt the inrush of the air. ‘Be careful,
be careful,’ said the old gentleman; ‘that draught is something
tremendous. Once a man put his hand to the hole and it was stuck fast
like a sucker on a stone. Before we could get him loose we had to draw
the charge and extinguish the fire. This made us very careful. When
we first started smelting we had the chimney forty feet higher, and
then there _was_ a draught. My eye, how it roared! The first charge
of ore we put in the furnace disappeared right up the chimney. The
directors told us it wouldn’t do, and the shareholders said that
letting all their ore fly up the chimney was bad management, so we
cut it down twenty feet. After this the furnace worked all right, but
the things that happened round about it were quite mysterious. Things
took to disappearing. First a lot of coal was lost, next the workmen
lost their tools, after that there were several complaints made to
the office that clothes had been stolen. Finally, visitors to the
works began to complain, and some of them sent in polite notes saying
that they had accidentally left some of their belongings behind them,
and asked us to be kind enough to send them back. One had lost his
umbrella, another a dog, a third his watch-chain.
‘It was clear that robbery was going on, but how to catch the culprits
was the difficulty. One suggestion was to mark a lot of things, and lay
them about the works. The expense that followed the suggestion nearly
broke us. First we marked a few bank-notes, but these went so quickly
that we took to marking clothes. After that we marked walking sticks,
and finally some pigs of iron. But the whole lot went, and where they
went to nobody could tell.
‘The end of it all was that the directors called in the police to watch
the place. Next morning, for it was only at night we run the furnace,
you know, down came the police to the office, saying that if they
stayed at our works they would soon be bankrupt; several of them had
lost their truncheons, one his pocket-handkerchief, and another his
coat-tails.’
‘And how did it all finish?’ I asked.
‘Well, it finished by a detective coming down.’
‘And did you lose the detective?’ I inquired.
‘No, we didn’t lose the detective; but if that hole’--and he pointed
with his stick at the hole through which we had been peering--‘had been
three inches bigger we might have had to have advertised for him. When
we saw him stuck to that wall like a sucker to a stone, we knew where
all the lost property had gone.’
‘Of course you had to draw the charge and extinguish the fire before
you got him loose,’ I remarked.
‘Take a drink,’ said the narrator. ‘One fact that proves the truth of
history is that it repeats itself. This story has repeated itself, and
therefore it must be true also. D’ye see?’
Having seen these works, I felt that I should like to see Mount
Bischoff, by making the journey to which I might see as much of
Tasmania as by making a journey in any other direction. In consequence
of delays and accidents the trip to Bischoff and back took me seven
days.
I left Launceston next afternoon by train to Latrobe. The first part
of the line is the same as that which takes the traveller to Hobart,
distant 133 miles. The country is undulating. In a few places you see
bush or forest, but the greater portion of the land is laid out in
farms, and is dotted over with country-houses and clumps of furze,
which, at the time of my visit, were in full bloom. In many districts
I was told that rabbits had become so numerous as to be a pest, and it
was necessary to legislate for their destruction. The furze-bushes,
although so pretty and English in appearance, from the rapidity with
which they spread, had also become a pest. What is more, they sheltered
the rabbits. Thus it has happened that legislation is required for the
extermination of the homely furze. To get rid of it, first it is burned
and then grubbed up by the roots. Rabbits are got rid of by shooting,
trapping, but what is more destructive, by the use of phosphorized
oats. I shall say more about the rabbit plague when I come to New
Zealand.
Amongst other importations made by our colonial cousins which have in
places thriven until they have become a nuisance, may be mentioned
Scotch thistles, briar-bushes, sparrows, and brown trout. Sparrows in
the neighbourhood of Melbourne have at times played sad havoc with the
fruit gardens. The brown trout of Tasmania, which runs up to nine or
ten pounds in weight, although being in itself a fish which is good
for the rod and for the table, is accused of devouring all the other
river fish. As we went along I saw many rapid-running rivers, which
would undoubtedly yield good sport to the angler. Near to Perth we
left the main line, and branched off to the westward. In the distance
to the left were the snow-capped hills of Westmoreland. Many of the
counties in Tasmania are named after those in the old country. For
example, you find a Dorset, a Devon, a Cornwall, and a Pembroke. Some
of the stations on the line were so small that they contrived to exist
without any local officials. At Little Hampton, for instance, the only
persons to be seen were those who got out of our train. Their tickets
were collected by the guard. At Longford and Deloraine I saw nice
towns. After this it became dark, and all that I could make out was
that we were passing through a country where there was a great deal
of bush. The last people I saw were two young ladies walking along
a road running parallel with the railway line. The train was moving
very slowly, and I had my head out of the window. The young ladies
curtseyed, kissed their hands, waved their handkerchiefs at me, and
then exploded in a fit of giggles. I wonder what would have happened
had the train stopped!
At Latrobe I found that I had to go on one station farther to Fornby,
to catch a mail-coach which would take me to Emu Bay. The ride to Emu
Bay reminded me of my experiences in New England. It was nine p.m. and
dark at the starting, and I had an outside place on the box. Now and
then I could see tall, white-stemmed trees, standing like ghosts in
the midst of paddocks. These are the trees which had been ring-barked
in order to kill them. The road was hilly, and in many places our four
horses seemed to be charging down into a black abyss. At the bottom
of these valleys we usually crossed a river. One of them, I remember,
was called the Forth, and another one the Leven. A great portion of
the road was along the coast, which, as I found out on my return, was
exceedingly pretty.
It was two a.m. when we reached Emu Bay, and I was benumbed with cold.
The coachman opened a back-door in the hotel, and conducted me to a
box-like bedroom, one bed in which was occupied by a young gentleman,
who woke up and had a conversation with me on the difficulties of
travel. I was too cold to sleep. About five a.m. my companion lighted
a candle, and after spending a considerable time in covering his head
with pomatum, completed his toilet and left me. Shortly after this I
had to rise to catch the train going from Emu Bay up to Waratah, which
is the name of the settlement at Mount Bischoff. The line is a private
one, and is owned by the Tasmanian Land Company, who have bought up
all the land in this part of the colony. There is one train of two
carriages, and perhaps a truck, once a day each way. The general
direction of the line is from the North Coast towards the South,
running right into the heart of the country. Here and there are steep
gradients of about one in forty. The scenery of the bush and valley is
remarkably fine. The bush is much thicker than in Australia. In places
it appeared like a solid wall of green. On all sides as you climb up
you see huge tree-ferns, many of which are twenty to thirty feet in
height. Above these are tall gum trees, whilst beneath them are beds of
common bracken.
All was white with frost, and the fronds of the ferns in many places
sheltered small pools and ponds of water which were covered with a
thick cake of ice. Tree-ferns helped in carboniferous times to make
the coal. In those times we are told that the climate was warm and
damp, and we are asked to picture to ourselves something like a swamp
in Florida. After what I saw and felt in Tasmania I should say that
it was cold and dry. The probable reason why stems of tree-fern-like
plants are so common in the coal measures as compared with the stems
and branches of ordinary phanerogams, is that the stems of tree-ferns
resist decomposition so remarkably well.
Some of the gum trees were very large. One stump was pointed out
to me which I was told was twenty-one feet in diameter. The place
for big trees is in Gipps’ Land, in Victoria. Here there are gum
trees 400 feet in height. One tree was measured as being 480 feet in
height; that is to say, it was fourteen feet higher than the spire of
Strasburg Cathedral. I always regretted that I had not time to go up
to the Dandenong ranges where these big trees are growing. As it is, I
was compelled to take all that I have heard about 400-feet trees as
hearsay.
As the train jogged along, once or twice I noticed a paper parcel fly
past my window. ‘Some fellow having sandwiches for breakfast,’ I said
to myself. At last one huge parcel flew out, struck the bank, and out
of it there rolled a leg of mutton. Then I knew that this was the
method of delivering parcels to the residents up the line.
We stayed a short time at a place called Hampshire Hill. The township
consisted of two rickety-looking houses. The only inhabitants who made
themselves visible were two fat pigs. All the way up the line the soil
seemed thin and poor. It may perhaps have been very good soil, but I
do not understand such matters. Waratah is a village situated on the
edge of a steep valley at the foot of Mount Bischoff. It is about 2,000
feet above sea level, and is therefore always cool. The great trouble
is rain. Sometimes it will rain for twenty or thirty days without
ceasing. Possibly Mount Bischoff may have been the scene of some of
Noah’s adventures. At times I was told that the air appeared to become
so rarefied that it was difficult to smoke when going up the mountain.
On my arrival it was fine, and I was told I was lucky in finding it
so. There are two very small hotels. The one I went to was like a
cottage; the bedrooms or sleeping-boxes being up amongst the rafters.
It was impossible to stand upright in my room, excepting in the centre.
There were no mirrors, shiny sideboards and blue vases, as at Emu Bay,
but there were comfortable beds. The bedsteads were of the smallest
description, which is necessary in most parts of the colonies, on
account of the size of the rooms. As a rule I don’t like feather-beds,
but in spite of my prejudices against such old luxuries, when I heard
the rain and sleet beating on the window-panes and roof above me, after
turning in that night, the feather-bed felt comfortable. It seemed to
fit my shape better than a mattress.
Although the weather at Waratah was considered to be unusually good,
it seemed to me chilly and damp, and I found the open grate and log
fire in the little parlour down below quite acceptable. Here I made the
acquaintance of my host, his family, the domestics, and several of the
residents in Waratah. Everything was extremely homely, and rather than
being a guest at an hotel, you felt that you had been admitted to the
bosom of a family. At meal-time the visitors and the family sit down
together, the maid-servant was called ‘my dear,’ and we all talked with
prismy pruny puckered-up lips. Everything was very old-fashioned and
very nice.
I spent several days at and about Waratah. One day was filled up with
a stroll over Mount Bischoff. This is a hill about half a mile away
from Waratah, which, so far as examinations have yet gone, appears to
be made up of yellow and red earth, through which blocks and grains
of tin are disseminated. The mine is simply a huge yellow-coloured,
quarry-like excavation in the side of this hill. Running through the
hill there are one or two lodes. To test these lodes, but more with the
object of testing the nature of the hill, shafts have been sunk and
levels have been driven.
In many places hundreds of tons of pure tin-stone may be picked out.
The bulk of the earthy material which goes to the dressing-floors
contains about two or three per cent. of the ore. At the dressing-works
this is stamped and washed, until it contains from seventy-two to
seventy-five per cent. of the ore, when it is put up in bags and sent
to Launceston to be smelted.
At the dressing-floors the warm material is stamped, and then
classified according to size. The fine materials and the coarse
materials are then treated separately upon machines called jiggers,
when the rich ore is separated from the poor material. The poor
material then passes through buddles and over revolving tables, where
it undergoes concentration, and more rich material is obtained. To
describe the different machines, and the order in which the material
passes over them, would require the assistance of Mr. Kaiser, the
talented director of these works, who constructed them. To me they
appeared to be the most perfect dressing-works I saw in the colonies.
The last evening that I spent at Waratah, my hostess, who was
entertaining a few visitors, insisted on my learning the game of
euchre. Euchre, nap and cribbage are the games of the colonies. I was
very stupid at learning, but when it came to me to deal I accidentally
obtained for myself Ace, King, the right and left Bower, and the Joker.
For the rest of the evening I felt that I was regarded as a doubtful
character.
On my way back to Emu Bay, I had the company of a reverend Catholic
Father. I found him a good-natured, amusing gentleman.
‘Do you object to smoking, sir?’ said I, shortly after I was seated.
‘Do I object to smoking? faith, give me one of your cigarettes and I’ll
show you how much I object,’ was the reply.
The result of all this was that we smoked and talked until we reached
our journey’s end. He told me a great deal about the land, and the
difficulties which settlers had to contend against. All about here the
only animal which gives trouble is the tiger-cat. This is more foxy
in its face than feline. It has a trick of breaking through the sides
and roofs of buildings in search of hams and other provisions. After
this I heard a great deal about large gum trees, and the sassafras,
an infusion from the bark of which yields a valuable tonic, and other
things which I have now forgotten. When we parted, we did so with the
hope of again meeting, if not on earth, at least in heaven. This is how
my companion put it.
At Emu Bay I fell in with a young engineer who was superintending the
building of a pier, to accommodate the steamers and other boats which
occasionally ply between Emu Bay and Melbourne. Talking of steamers,
not long ago I had a conversation with an engineering friend who had
just started in his profession in London. Knowing how difficult it is
for an engineer to make headway in these days of competition, I asked
him how he was ‘getting on.’
‘Oh, splendidly, splendidly,’ said he; ‘working on a pier 200
feet long.’ This was a capital beginning I thought, and offered
congratulations on such a successful commencement in the great city.
‘Ah, yes,’ continued he, ‘I’m--well, I’m putting twenty feet on to the
end of it.’
I did not make further inquiries, for I might have been told that it
was a gangway or a plank that he was supplying to connect the end of
the 200 feet with the decks of steamers.
The Story of a Post-Box.
During the evening I heard an animated discussion between several of
the Emu Bay residents about the disgraceful manner in which they had
been treated by the postal authorities in that district. ‘You know,’
said one of them, ‘the behaviour of that old woman they’ve made into
post-mistress ought to be reported. The hardest work these post-masters
and post-mistresses have to do is when they get out of bed to draw
their pay. They don’t care for us not a bit. Why, they won’t do
anything on Sundays. When the “brake” comes along at night, why, the
driver has to stop his horses, and take a lamp and sort the mails for
himself.’ That this accusation had some truth in it I can vouch from my
own experience, for over and over again I have had to hold the reins of
the horses while the coachman was manipulating a heap of letter-bags,
which he found in a box outside the post-office. At night-time, when
it was freezing and blowing, I found this very trying. No doubt the
coachman found it more so.
Here a defender of the postal authorities gained a hearing by reference
to the poorness of their pay.
‘How can you expect anybody to do anything when they get nothing for
doing it?’ he remarked.
‘Ah, but remember that new post-box we had--that one down at the
corner. Why, it was perfectly scandalous. When it was put up I stuck a
letter in it for Tom Gadesden, down at the Leven, asking him about some
horses he had to sell. As Tom didn’t write back I sent another, which I
knew was posted because I put it in myself. Still there was no answer.
Three days afterwards Tom came up here, and I asked him if he was short
of ink and paper down at the Leven. “What do you mean?” says he. “Well,
I mean I made you an offer for them two colts you had,” says I. “Did
you?” says he; “the colts is sold, and I never seed any offer from
you.” That set me asking, and I found that there was a lot of people
who had been posting in that box and their letters had never arrived.
You remember, Bill,’ said the speaker, pointing to one of the company,
‘you lost a letter in that box?’
‘Quite true,’ says Bill, nodding his head.
‘So I went to ask the post-mistress how it was, that when we posted
letters at Emu Bay folks never got them--you ought to have heard the
pow-wow that went on in that office. She bristled up like a porcupine,
and said I had accused her of stealing people’s letters--she’d report
me to Launceston. “If ever I’d posted the letters they went in the bag
with the rest of the letters; and what did I mean going about trying to
take away a poor old woman’s character?” After that she called me all
the names she could lay her tongue to, and finished off by bursting out
crying. I can tell you I was sorry that I’d been to make inquiries. I
expected every minute she would have jumped at me and clawed my hair.
‘Well, after that I didn’t know what to do. It got noised round that
I’d been slandering the old woman down at the post-office, and people
were saying I ought to be ashamed of myself.
‘All that I could do was to prove I was right, and after me and six or
seven of my mates talking it over--it was in this very room--we agreed
to post a newspaper to one another, and then see if we got them. Well,
next night, after it had got nearly dark--for we didn’t want it to be
known what we were after--we all went each of us with eight papers
tied in a handkerchief up to the box. You know we were then quite sure
that the papers had been posted. That was sixty-four papers we put in,
do you see? The night after we all met, and what do you think?--Well,
there wasn’t a hanged one of us had ever received a paper.
‘That there was something wrong in the postal regulations at Emu Bay
was pretty certain. Jones suggested that the post-box might have a
hole in the bottom, and a tiger-cat or something had chawed the papers
up. But as the box was bran-new, most of us thought the old woman was
collaring the stamps, but none of us dare say so, and I am certain that
there was not one of us durst go and tell her so.
‘“Let’s try once again,” was a suggestion which met with general
approval. To be quite sure that all the papers were posted, we all
went again in a lump to the box. I’ll never forgot that night; it was
raining and blowing a bit. Six of us had shoved our papers in, and Bob
bad got two of his in, when he says, “Why, hang it, the blessed box
is full!” “Full?” says we. “Yes, full,” says he--and I’m blowed if it
wasn’t full. Do what we could, no more papers would go in. We could
take two or three out, but it was no good trying to get any more in--it
was just chock-a-block.
‘Suddenly Bill says, “I don’t think the box has ever been cleared.” And
that was just it. There was we posting and posting for three weeks, at
a box that was never cleared. When they opened it they found our 114
papers and about 200 letters and parcels.
‘We felt such fools about that box and our 114 papers that we daren’t
say much--but I think the old woman might have put up a notice that the
box wasn’t working.’
* * * * *
I returned from Emu Bay to Latrobe by the same road as that on which
I had come. The essential difference between the two journeys was,
that while one had been performed during the night, and without any
particular incidents, the return journey was performed during the day,
and was accompanied by an incident known to colonials as being ‘stuck
up.’
When I got up to start on this journey it was quite dark, and the
rain was pouring down in bucketfuls. Before we were under way day had
dawned, and the rain had changed to a cold drizzle. The coach was of
the ordinary type; that is to say, very like an old stagecoach or a
modern drag. I was the only passenger, and sat outside with the driver,
who had before him a spiked team--or in other words, a leader and two
pole-horses. The driver was a young man of some eighteen summers, and,
as I subsequently discovered, was learning his profession. For the
first eight miles or so, which we ran in an hour, everything went along
satisfactorily. The scenery was charming, the pace of the horses good,
and the only thing to complain about was the drizzle and the cold.
Shortly, however, the road became hilly, and the horses, which had
hitherto run remarkably well, suddenly became obstinate, and, in spite
of the thrashing administered to them by the driver, they refused to
move. In time, young Jehu’s arm became tired, and there was no help for
it but to descend and let me take the reins, while he encouraged them
and ran by their side. The result of this was that the horses started
off, leaving Jehu behind, and leaving me in charge of the coach. With
the help of the brake I eventually stopped them, but no sooner had Jehu
mounted on the box than they again refused to move. There was no help
for it but for him to descend once more and let me take control.
This method of intermittent progress was clearly unsatisfactory, and
something different must be attempted.
‘I’ll change a pole-horse for the leader,’ said Jehu.
After half an hour or so this was accomplished; but no sooner did Jehu
attempt to drive them, than such violent kicking and rearing took place
that we felt ourselves in danger either of rolling over a precipice, or
else having the coach kicked to pieces.
Jehu was fast getting exhausted. ‘The mails are on board, and what
shall I do?’ said he, wiping his forehead.
‘Turn the leader adrift, and let him run loose in front. Two horses can
surely drag us two and an empty coach,’ I suggested.
This was done, and away we went splendidly, the leader running about
fifty or a hundred yards ahead, and the two in the coach trying to
overtake him. At last we came to cottages on the outskirts of the
village of Penrhyn. The people seeing a horse running free, turned out
in force to stop him. This stopped the coach, and we had to explain our
troubles before the leader was turned loose and we could proceed. The
inhabitants of Penrhyn appeared to be highly amused at the device. Some
two or three miles farther on, the leader had gone ahead so far that
it was out of sight, and then to our horror the two horses refused to
move. Whip, coax, pull, lead--it was all in vain. There we were with
the bush on one side, a cliff and the sea on the other side, and no
house within miles--‘stuck up.’ I pitied poor Jehu. He almost wept.
‘It can’t be helped; we shall miss the train at Latrobe, and the mails
will be a day late.’