Rottnest Island,
_30th January 1884_.
Here we are comfortably established in our charming summer home, and
I must tell you all about it, from the very beginning! First of all
you must know Rottnest is a little island about a dozen miles long,
and 3 miles wide, some 12 or 14 miles from the mainland, right in the
track of the cool sea-breezes. There was a time when I actually thought
the name—meaning “rat’s nest,” and given by the Dutch discoverers
long, long ago—ugly, but now I like it, and would not change it on
any account. High hills run down the middle of the island, and on the
highest peak stands a lighthouse. There is a nice little Government
Cottage which stands on a green rising ground in a lovely situation,
with the most delicious beach and bathing-place imaginable just below
it, only a few yards off. The house holds lots of small bedrooms which
is exactly what is wanted over here, and everything seems capitally
planned and arranged for our summer picnic life. The cottage stands in
a sort of enclosure neatly walled in, with grass all round, and green
as any emerald when I first saw it last September; now, alas, all the
herbage everywhere has turned into a sort of coarse yellow straw.
Our little island still remains green, however, because of the thick
wattle-scrub, with which it is entirely covered, and through which
roads and paths have been cut in every direction. These wattle-bushes
were a mass of vivid golden blossom in the early spring, but only an
occasional stray yellow patch is to be found in summer.
Then there is also, about half a mile from the house, but entirely
hidden by trees, a large prison for natives. Native prisoners have to
be kept over here, because they can enjoy much more of the liberty
which is necessary to their lives and health, on an island, than on
the mainland, where, unless they worked in chains, escape would be
easy. As one sails across from Fremantle, the Cottage gleams white and
pretty from its green setting, and, higher up the curved coast-line of
the little island, you see the Superintendent’s house, the warders’
cottages, the pilot-station, etc., peeping out, small as toy houses,
in front of the trees which conceal the larger prison buildings. There
are no other dwellings of any sort on the island, except the salt
manufactory, farther inland, which is worked by prison labour, and no
one is even permitted to land on Rottnest without a special order.
This is your father’s third visit to it. The first time he came, only
a few weeks after our arrival, having heard that a severe epidemic of
influenza had broken out among the native prisoners, and that some of
them had died. It was then wild and wintry weather, with constant gales
blowing; and the only way of getting across to the island was in an
open boat, safe enough, but sure to be a voyage of wet and discomfort.
There seemed to be difficulties in the way of taking a doctor over, nor
did Pater feel sure the natives had everything possible to save their
lives or to cure them. At all events he thought he ought to go and see
for himself how they were being taken care of; so one wild and gusty
morning, in spite of warnings of a bad passage, father and his private
secretary (who, I may mention, was not at all ill, and enjoyed the
tempestuous sail across immensely, just as you would have done!), and
a doctor with lots of medical stores and comforts, set sail in an open
boat, and a fine wetting they had for some five or six hours, tossing
about in the teeth of a wintry gale, over a rough bit of sea. I must
say I was very glad when a telegram arrived from the harbour-master
at Fremantle to say the boat had reached Rottnest in safety; for the
previous message, saying it had started, had added a prophecy of a bad
passage.
However, they arrived safely, cold and wet, sick and hungry, but all
these disagreeables soon righted themselves, and then they set off to
the prison, where most of the daylight hours of their three days’ stay
were spent, arranging a hospital, nursing and doctoring the poor sick
natives, and doing everything possible to save their lives. The chief
difficulty lay in getting them to take nourishing food. The influenza
took away their appetites, and they would not touch the strong
mutton-broth, or beef-tea, or wine, or anything provided for them. What
the sick men probably pined for was a bit of fried snake, or a nice
tender iguana, or some bush delicacy of that sort. At last some one
thought of trying porridge or rice, boiled in preserved milk (there are
neither cows nor goats on the island, for they cannot live there), and
the patients liked that very much, and ate it, and many of them began
to get better.
As soon as the gale moderated the gentlemen all came back, and another
doctor went over, and we had nothing but good news of recovery
after that. Then, in September, just before the Council closed (the
Legislative Council is our Parliament, you must know), the _Meda_,
H.M.’s surveying ship of the station, came back from her long cruise on
the northwest coast; and before she went into dock, the captain kindly
offered to take me over for a peep at Rottnest. So we made up a little
picnic party of about eight people, and had a delicious sail of less
than two hours across, on an exquisite spring morning; and then the
dear little _Meda_ sailed herself back again to Fremantle, returning
a couple of days later, to fetch us home, in an equally swift and
pleasant manner. How you would have enjoyed it all! I fell tremendously
in love with the charming little island, and we made excursions in
every direction, for it was then cold enough to take long walks. Ever
since that visit I have been raving of the delightfulness of Rottnest,
and looking forward with great eagerness to coming over for the summer,
and here we are at last, bag and baggage.
The _Meda_ brought us over this time also, having spent the intervening
three months in making herself new and smart and trim; so I need hardly
tell you that we had a quick and delightful voyage. She just glided
across the bay and dropped her anchor to lee of a tiny island, close
to Rottnest, for the water then became too shallow for her. We all
got into various boats with as little delay as possible, and rowed
swiftly across the half mile of smooth water to the little pier. What
a ridiculous party we must have looked as we landed, for the _Meda_
had turned herself into a perfect Noah’s ark for that voyage. The
riding-horses, and the two cows, with tons of hay and all the biggest
boxes, the large cage for the canaries, etc., had all gone over in
luggers the day before—when the private secretary had received an
agonised telegram to say that one of the cows had “taken charge” of
the Fremantle jetty, and no one could go near her. I am afraid we all
laughed very much at the picture this message conjured up before us;
however, Mrs. Cow was lassoed at last, and put on board her lugger,
with a lot of dry seaweed to lie on, and taken across to her summer
home, where there is nothing whatever for her to eat, except what is
brought from the mainland.
However, to return to our landing this time. The servants came first,
all very limp and pale and sea-sick, and laden with hat-boxes and
brown-paper parcels of their own, staggering up the little wooden
pier, which has a bathing-house at the end of it. Louis followed, very
white and wan, and more limp than any one, but carrying a basket with
a white kitten in it. Monsieur Puppy soon leaped on shore, and took
possession of his new home, with a perfect fury of barking. Then one
small cage after another was handed out of the boats, full of cockatoos
and parrots and paroquets and canaries. Next came barred wooden boxes
with ducks, turkeys, guinea-fowls, and chickens; hampers of flowers; a
large box of ice (that is our great comfort this weather—we have very
good ice, plentiful and cheap, artificially made, from 1st November to
1st March). Our first meal was like a picnic; for everything had been
brought over ready cooked, and I was impatient to get luncheon finished
that I might see to the comfort of my birds. The canaries’ large cage
stood all ready for them in a sheltered corner of the verandah, where
they will not be blown away by the strong winds which sweep over our
little island; and it was pretty to see the delight with which the
birds once more found themselves in it, with lots of space and baths,
and a heap of green. Even the fluffy, baby-canaries, who have made the
voyage in a basket, seemed to enjoy having plenty of room in which to
flounder about with wide open beaks, after their parents.
The parrots were, perhaps, most glad of all to be set free in a large
room (more than a cage), with wire-netting walls, and a zinc roof, and
with plenty of shrubs growing in it, which stands about 30 yards behind
the house among the trees. They had been diligently gnawing away at
their cages, and would soon have got through the bars, especially the
Albany cockatoo, with its huge strong beak. And the poultry were very
glad to be turned loose at the back of the paddock. The stables are
some way off, near the prison, so we did not see the horses; but the
cows looked sulkily tranquil, lying in the shade, each with a bundle of
hay before her. They miss the long, cool, couch-grass in their paddock
at Perth—grass which keeps green till the very end of summer. However,
all possible arrangements have been made for their comfort, and they
are to have the tops of young bamboo-grass, pig-melons (which they
love), and pears(!), sent over in quantities for them twice a week.
You must know that water is our great treasure here. An enormous tank,
covered in and locked up, has been built in former years for the use of
the house, and it collects all the rainfall of the long wet winters. I
am afraid to say how many thousand gallons it holds; but then we use a
good deal for cooking and drinking, and the cows are obliged to drink
it too, as the well-water, which is strongly tinctured with magnesia,
makes them ill. There are wells or water-holes in different places, but
they all taste more or less strongly of magnesia.
After the pets had been attended to, I found plenty to do in arranging
the pretty little house. When I had seen it in September I had been
obliged to acknowledge that the furniture was woefully shabby and
dirty; and no wonder, for it had been in use for ages. But, thanks
to the liberality of the Legislative Council, sufficient money was
forthcoming to make it fresh and clean and bright as heart could wish.
Everything in a little place like this is, of course, extremely simple,
but none the less pretty and comfortable, and I am delighted with it
all, and as for Louis and the puppy, they are quite wild with joy.
I cannot make up my mind whether the view is more charming from the
verandah at the back of the house, or from the balcony upstairs in
front, overlooking the sea. Behind the house, looking across a green
copse or thicket of wattles, you see a chain of salt lakes lying at the
foot of the little range of hills I have mentioned, and many more are
hidden away among the hills. These lakes are astonishingly blue, with
the crystallised salt lying on their shores like snow, or sometimes
blown lightly about in pure white flakes and bubbles. The sharp
contrast between the dazzling white and brilliant blue, and the vivid
pale green of the trees, is most curious and beautiful; and there seems
always to be a crisp cool breeze blowing across the lakes. I never look
out without seeing myriads of snipe feeding on the water, and it is
difficult, when the sun shines on their white wing-tips, to distinguish
them from the flying flakes of salt.
However hot I may be—and the mid-day sun is very roasting—I only have
to turn the corner of that upstair verandah to find a deliciously cool
air blowing. But, perhaps, I like to do whatever loitering I can find
time for in front, where the look-out is over the stretch of blue water
between us and the low shores opposite. There is a heliograph station
at Fremantle, the nearest point of land, and I can easily make out the
flashes by which we talk, from our station here, to the people on the
mainland. I like best, however, to sit down in an armchair and look
straight across the bay, with its wonderful lights and shadows, and
dark blue and light blue breadths of water. Even Louis, restless as he
is, will stand for what he calls “a tiny while” by my side, silently
gazing at the beautiful sparkling ocean. It is the thick patches of
wrack and other seaweed, and the shoal-water, streaking the “deep blue
sea,” which make so much variety; you can scarcely imagine from any
words I can find how brilliant and beautiful this same seaweed is when
it is washed up on the shore.
Then there are ridges of reef close by, where—even at the stillest
dawn, long after the rough west wind has died away, and before the
sea-breeze has woke up to come gently, gently creeping over the
mirror-like water—you can see long white lines of foam heaving up
against the sunken rocks. Amid these breakers still stick up the tall
masts of a fine steamer, which went ashore there, a year or two ago,
and sank almost immediately. Her davits are above water now, and it
is the dream of Louis’s life to get out to the wreck. The moment the
breeze springs up this peaceable-looking quiet wash of water will show
itself in its true colours, as a barrier of fierce breakers thundering
their threats in our ears.
I can only long and wish for you to see it all with your own eyes, for
nothing I can write, nor any picture I could make, gives you the least
idea of how delicious it is. Seven o’clock in the morning is perhaps
the most enchanting time, and it is then I go down with Louis to
bathe from the little wooden hut at the end of the pier. It is really
larger than it looks, and is divided into a couple of comfortable
dressing-rooms, and inside its shelter a flight of steps, the lower
ones very slippery with seaweed and long sea-grasses, takes us down
into the sea just beneath the pier. From there we can easily get into
the deeper part of the lovely blue water by walking along a firm white
sand-floor. No rocks or sharp-pointed stones are there to wound one’s
feet; it is indeed a perfect bathing-place, and is kept entirely for
us ladies, a brushwood hut and sheltering breakwind being built every
summer, a little farther down the shore in deeper water, for the
gentlemen.
I always look carefully over the edge of the pier, before going into
the bathing-house, lest a basking shark should be asleep too near; for
there are plenty of legends about sharks seen close by. However, as
ladies and children have bathed here for the last twenty years without
accident or adventure, I suppose we are pretty safe. At all events the
water is much too tempting, specially to Louis, not to be worth running
even a risk for; I only go through the preliminary scouting because I
promised Pater to do so. We never venture out very far, as no one but
Louis likes to take more than one foot at a time off the delicious firm
sand. He flounders and gasps and sinks, and splutters up again, and
declares he is swimming. I don’t know what name you would give to his
performances, but they seem very rash to me, whose fault is certainly
not a want of caution in the water.
It is all very delicious, and if the day is excusably hot we come
down again, just before luncheon, for another dip. Louis would spend
his whole time in the water if I allowed him, and indeed it requires
a sharp look-out to prevent him. He is a little cured, just for the
moment, of his mania for going in the sea at all hours and places;
for the other day he got into trouble by it. Directly after his early
dinner he slipped away, of course without leave, and went with some
of the warders’ children to bathe much higher up the coast. The boys
began ducking each other, and whilst Louis’s head was under water,
a “cobbler” caught him a sharp slap on the side of the face. This
creature is like a small octopus, and at the moment it gives its slap
it squirts out a horrid acrid juice. By the time Louis could huddle on
his clothes and run home, you never saw such a state as his face was
in. One eye was entirely closed (fortunately the sight is not injured),
a thick rash had come out all over his face, and the marks of the blow
could plainly be seen, looking as if five _very_ long thin fingers
had given him a box on the ear. The pain was very severe—a tingling,
smarting sensation. It was quite curious the size to which his head
swelled, and it altered Louis’s little face so much for a couple of
days that I am sure you would not have known him. There was nothing to
be done except bathe his face in warm milk and water, and induce him to
lie down in a cool room. I think he is cured of clandestine bathing for
the present.