A LAND OF CONTRADICTIONS--TRANSPORTATION TO AUSTRALIA.
"How long is it since Mr. Eyre made this journey?" Harry asked.
"It was a good while ago," the gentleman answered, "in the years 1839
and 1840. Mr. Eyre had explored a portion of the western shore of
Spencer Gulf, and while doing so, determined to make the attempt to
travel along the shore of the Great Australian Bight. One of the first
difficulties that opposed him was the scarcity of fresh water. There
were numerous gullies, showing that in times of rain there was plenty of
water, but no rain had fallen for a long time and all these gullies were
dry. A few springs were found, but these were generally brackish and the
water was hardly drinkable.
"Mr. Eyre tried the experiment of sinking a cask in the ground, near the
edge of the sea, in the hope of obtaining fresh water, but his
experiments in this direction were not successful. By the time he had
advanced two hundred miles, he had lost four of his horses. The
reduction in the number of his pack animals made it impossible for him
to carry sufficient provisions for his party, and he therefore sent back
his only white companion and three of his men. Then he continued his
journey with his overseer and three natives, one of the latter being his
personal servant.
"In order to be sure of water, Mr. Eyre explored in advance of the
party, and sometimes was gone four or five days before finding any. One
by one the horses died of thirst, and the only way the men could keep
alive was by gathering the dew, which fell at night, by means of sponges
and rags.
"The natives complained at their hardships, and one night the two men
took possession of the guns, killed the overseer, and ran away, leaving
Mr. Eyre with only his native servant and a very small stock of
provisions. They were then about midway on the journey; that is, they
had still six hundred miles to travel to reach the settled parts of West
Australia. The entire supply of provisions that they had was four
gallons of water, forty pounds of flour, and a portion of a dead horse.
They had to go nearly two hundred miles before finding any more water,
and lived on horse-flesh, with occasional game and fish, and a little
flour paste. Just as they were about to lie down and die in the desert
they saw a sail in the distance.
"They built a fire on the beach as a signal, and, luckily for them, it
was observed. The vessel came in quite near the land and sent a boat to
their assistance. The ship proved to be an American whaler that was
cruising about the Australian Bight in pursuit of whales, and the
captain invited them to stay on board as long as they liked. They
remained there two weeks, and were then put ashore at the same spot
whence they had gone on board. The captain supplied them with all the
provisions and water they could carry. Mr. Eyre was determined to
complete his journey, if possible, and his faithful servant consented to
remain with him. They struggled on for two or three weeks longer, when
they reached the first of the settlements on King George's Sound."
"Has anybody else ever tried to make the same journey?" Harry asked.
"Not under the same circumstances," was the reply. "I believe that a
well-equipped exploring party was sent out some twelve or fifteen years
ago, to travel along the coast and look for gold. Water and provisions
were supplied every few days by a small steamer that kept near the shore
and went in when signaled by the travelers. In this way, suffering from
hunger and thirst was avoided and the animals of the expedition were
well supplied with forage. The enterprise was not a successful one so
far as the finding of gold was concerned, but I have little doubt that
one of these days gold will be discovered there; and if it should be,
some way will be found for softening the asperities of this desolate
coast."
"I have heard," said Harry, "that a great part of Australia is destitute
of water. Is that really the case?"
"Yes," the gentleman answered; "you have been correctly informed.
Australia, is a waterless country, or, at any rate, that is the case
with a great part of it. The interior has never been fully explored for
this reason, and there are thousands, I might say millions, of square
miles of Australian country where no human foot has ever trod. Many
attempts have been made to penetrate this desolate region, but all have
resulted in failure.
"Water, as you know, is an absolute necessity for man and animals, and
there is a limit to the amount which an expedition can carry, just as
there is a limit to the food that one may take on a journey. There are
parts of Australia where rain seems never to fall, or, if it does, the
intervals are so rare and irregular that no reliance can be placed on
them. Explorers cannot stop to dig wells hundreds of feet in depth, and
it is certain that no ordinary amount of digging will procure water. The
atmosphere is dry, terribly dry, as all who have attempted to penetrate
into the interior will tell you.
"Instruments, and cases made of the best seasoned wood--wood that has
been dried for years and years--crack and split and go to pieces in the
dry atmosphere of the interior of Australia. Leather becomes brittle,
and cracks and breaks when the slightest pressure is put upon it. One
exploring expedition was obliged to turn back in consequence of the
drying up and cracking of the wood contained in its instruments and
their cases. The evaporation from one's skin is very rapid under such
circumstances, and produces an agonizing thirst, which is no doubt
intensified by the knowledge of the scarcity of water and the necessity
of using the supply on hand with great care."
"I have heard," said Ned, "that Australia is a land of contradictions as
compared with England and the United States. I read in a book somewhere
that nearly everything in nature was the reverse of what it was in the
countries I mentioned."
"That is true," said the gentleman with whom they were conversing, "and
I will tell you several things to demonstrate the correctness of what
you say. In the first place Australia is on the other side of the world
from England and the United States, and that circumstance ought to
prepare you for the other peculiarities. Most countries are fertile in
their interior; but, as I have told you, the interior of Australia is a
land of desolation, where neither man nor beast can live. I have been
told that birds never fly in the interior of Australia; and certainly if
I were a bird, I would not fly there nor anywhere near it.
"We have very few rivers, and none of them come from far in the
interior. Most of them are low in summer or altogether dried up. There
is only one river, the Murray, that can be relied upon to have any
reasonable depth of water in it throughout the entire year. The other
rivers dwindle almost to nothing, and, as I have said, entirely
disappear. The greater part of the country is absolutely without trees,
and the dense forests which you have in America are practically unknown.
We have summer when you have winter, and we have night when you have
day. When you are in your own country, and I am here, our feet are
nearer together than our heads; that is to say, our feet are pressing
the ground on opposite sides of the earth, and so we may be said to be
standing upon each other."
"That is so," remarked Harry; "I was thinking of that this morning. I
noticed also that the ship's compass pointed to the south, and that the
sun was traveling along the northern heavens. I observed, too, that the
south wind was cold, and the north wind hot."
"You are quite right," said the gentleman; "and if you have been
studying the barometer, you have found that it falls with the northerly
wind and rises with the southerly one. When you travel over the country,
you will find that the valleys are cool and the mountain tops warm. The
bees have no sting, and many of the beautiful flowers have no smell. The
leaves of the trees are nearly always perpendicular instead of
horizontal, as in your country, and consequently one gets very little
shade under an Australian tree."
"I have heard," said Ned, "that the trees shed their bark instead of
their leaves. Is that really so?"
"It is so with most of the trees," was the reply; "in fact, with nearly
all of them. A few shed their leaves every year, and on many of the
trees the leaves remain unchanged, while the bark is thrown off. One
tree is called the stringy bark, on account of the ragged appearance of
its covering at the time it is shed.
"In your part of the world," the gentleman continued, "cherries grow
with the stones inside; but here in Australia we have cherries with the
stones on the outside. We have birds of beautiful plumage and very
little song; the owls are quiet at night, and screech and hoot in the
daytime, which certainly is not a characteristic of the English or
American owl. The geological formation of the country is also peculiar,
and the scientific men who have come here from England and America are a
good deal puzzled at the state of affairs they find in Australia. Would
it not surprise you to learn that we have coal in this country as white
as chalk?"
"That is, indeed, a surprise," one of the youths remarked. "I wonder if
the conditions are continued so that your chalk is black."
"The contrasts do not go quite so far as that," said the gentleman, with
a laugh, "as the chalk of Australia is as white as that of England. I
don't mean to say that all our coal is white, but only the coal of
certain localities. It generally takes the stranger by surprise to see a
grateful of white coal burning brightly, and throwing out smoke at the
same time. I must tell you that this coal is bituminous, and not
anthracite."
"I hope," said Ned, "that men's heads do not grow out of their sides, or
from their breasts, and that they do not walk topsy-turvy, with their
feet in the air."
"No, they are not as bad as that," was the reply; "but you will see some
queer things before you are through with Australia. Bear in mind that
the country contains no antiquities of any kind; it is a new land in
every sense, as it was first settled in 1788, and all these cities are
of modern foundation and growth."
Our young friends thanked the gentleman for the information he had given
them, and said they would specially bear in mind the comparisons and
contrasts which he had indicated in their brief conversation.
The first stopping place of the ship was at Adelaide, in South
Australia, from which place she proceeded around the coast to Melbourne.
Our friends decided to land at Adelaide, and go overland through that
city wherever the railway would take them. They thought that by so doing
they would be able to see a great deal more on their way to Melbourne
than if they continued aboard the ship.
Harry had obtained a map of Australia on the day before their arrival
at Adelaide. He was busily engaged in studying it.
"Just look a moment," said Harry to Ned, as he spread the map out on one
of the tables in the saloon; "here is another contradiction that our
friend didn't include. Look at it."
"Well, what of it?" said Ned. "It is a map of Australia, is it not?"
"Yes, it is, and just look at the provinces or colonies of Australia.
Here is West Australia, as its name indicates, at the western end of the
great island or continent. Here are Queensland, New South Wales, and
Victoria, and here is South Australia, where we are going to land.
Adelaide is its capital."
"Well, what of it?" queried Ned, with an expression of curiosity on his
face.
"Why, don't you see," said Harry, in a tone of impatience, "that South
Australia is not South Australia at all. Here is Victoria, which runs
further south than this colony, and then you see South Australia runs
clear across the continent to the northern side, and almost as far north
as the extreme point of Queensland. They ought to change the name of it,
or else divide it into two colonies, calling this one by its present
name, and the other North Australia."
Ned admitted the force of the argument, and then joined his cousin in
studying the map. Strange to say, the middle section or unexplored
region had a singular fascination for both the youths, and each confided
to the other that he would like to undertake the exploration of that
part of the continent. They wondered whether Dr. Whitney would entertain
their proposal to do so, but finally concluded that the hardships would
be too great, and they would say nothing about their aspirations.
[Illustration: "HARRY HAD OBTAINED A MAP OF AUSTRALIA."]
In due time the steamer came to anchor at Port Adelaide. The harbor of
the capital city is not on the sea, but seven miles away from it, on the
banks of the small river Torrens. The railway connects the port with the
city, and shortly after getting ashore our friends were seated in a
train, which carried them quickly to the capital. One of the passengers
told Ned that the port was formerly quite shallow and difficult to
enter. The entrance at present is between two large shoals of sand,
which are marked by lighthouses. A great deal of money has been expended
in deepening and widening the harbor, so that it is now accessible for
large ships.
A long pier extends into St. Vincent's Gulf, the body of water on which
the port stands, and this pier is quite popular as a promenade for the
people living at the port, and also for those who come down from the
city.
Harry observed that the dock and pier accommodations were excellent.
There were immense sheds, and warehouses for the storage of grain, wool,
and other products of the country while awaiting shipment, and equally
extensive shelters for merchandise arriving at the port on its way to
the city and to other parts of the colony. There were dry docks and
repairing yards, and there were hospitals for sick sailors and others,
together with the usual public buildings of a prosperous seaport.
Immense quantities of wool and frozen meat are shipped from this port
to England, and the trade of the colony with the mother country is said
to be increasing every year.
It was about the middle of the afternoon when our friends landed, and in
less than half an hour after landing they were in the city. One of their
steamer acquaintances had directed them to a hotel, and, in fact,
accompanied them to it, so that they had the advantage of his personal
guidance and introduction. Harry made a memorandum in his notebook that
they found the hotel quite a good one, certainly much better than the
hotel where they stopped at Cape Town.
After settling themselves in the hotel the party went out for a stroll,
but, in consequence of the heat, they were not long in turning their
stroll into a drive. Here is what Ned says of their first day in
Adelaide:--
"This city recalls Chicago more than any other place I can think of. It
is on a level plain, with the exception of the portion to the north
where the ground rises a little, and the streets are laid out at right
angles, as though a chess-board had been taken as a model for the place.
We have wondered why it was called Adelaide instead of Mary Ann, Betsy,
or some other feminine name; Dr. Whitney has just told us that the city
was laid out in 1837 and named in honor of the queen of King William
IV., who was then the ruler of England.
"Having named the place in honor of the queen, the founders of the city
felt that the next thing to do was to call the principal street after
the king. Thus it happens that the great street, the one most built
upon, and where the majority of the shops are concentrated, is King
William Street. It is a broad avenue running from south to north, and
divides the city almost equally. It is certainly a very handsome avenue,
and we greatly enjoyed our drive upon it. Most of the public buildings,
the town hall, post-office, government offices, and the like, are on
King William Street, and they are very handsome structures.
"The people are very proud of these edifices, and well they may be, as
they would be ornaments to any city ten times as old and large as
Adelaide. The principal banks, newspaper offices, and business
structures generally are also on King William Street, and to judge by
the crowds of people that throng the sidewalks, one might conclude that
the population was a busy one. One thing that attracted our attention
was the great number of churches, which certainly gave us the impression
that the population of Adelaide is decidedly religious, and also that
its zeal in religion had led it to contribute freely to the erection of
places of worship. Our driver pointed out the various churches and told
us their denomination. Of course the Church of England was ahead of the
others, as is expected to be the case in a British colony."
"I learned afterwards," said Ned, "that there were nearly one thousand
churches and chapels in the colony of South Australia, together with
nearly five hundred other buildings that are occasionally used for
religious worship. All the churches are supported by voluntary
contributions, there being no State aid to any of them. At the last
census of the colony there were 76,000 adherents of the Church of
England, 43,000 Roman Catholics, and 42,000 Methodists. Then came the
Lutherans, with 20,000; Presbyterians, with 18,000; Baptists, with
14,000; and about 10,000 each of primitive Methodists, Congregationalists,
and Bible Christians. There were several other denominations, but their
numbers were insignificant. We looked for pagodas while driving along
the street, but none of them were to be found, and we learned on inquiry
that the number of Chinese and Moslems in South Australia was hardly
worth mentioning. The colony has never been attractive to the Chinese,
and few of them have endeavored to find homes there.
"We drove to the resident portion of the city and saw a goodly number of
private houses of the better sort. A great deal of taste has been
displayed in the construction of these houses, and we derived the
impression that Adelaide was a decidedly prosperous city. The
wheat-growing industry of South Australia is a very large one. Many of
the great farmers have their residences in Adelaide and spend only a
small portion of their time on their farms, leaving all details to their
managers. A considerable amount of American farming machinery finds its
way to South Australia, where it has attained a well-deserved
popularity."
While our friends were at breakfast the next morning, Harry suggested
that if the others were willing, he would like to see one of the
Australian prisons containing convicts that had been transported from
England.
The doctor smiled,--just a faint smile,--while Ned laughed.
"Oh, you are all wrong, Harry," said Ned. "They gave up that business
long ago. I was under the same impression that you are, but learned
better from one of our fellow-passengers. I meant to tell you about it."
"Well, I will acknowledge my mistake," said Harry. "We are all liable to
make blunders, and that is one of them."
"Quite true," Dr. Whitney remarked. "Every visitor to a country that is
strange to him makes a great many mistakes, and the frank thing is to
acknowledge it."
"The gentleman who corrected my blunder," said Ned, "told me that an
American visitor who was very fond of hunting landed once in Sydney,
fresh from the United States. The hunting fever was strong in him, and
before he was an hour on shore he asked the clerk of the hotel where he
could go to shoot Sydney ducks. He had heard of them, and would like to
bag a few brace."
"What is the point of the joke?" said Harry; "I confess I cannot see
it."
"That is exactly what I said to my informant," replied Ned, "and then he
went on and told me that in former times Australian convicts were spoken
of as Sydney ducks."
"Oh! I see," said Harry, "that is a very good joke when you come to know
all about it. What did the clerk of the hotel say to the inquiring
stranger?"
"I don't know," replied Ned, "but I presume he told him that Sydney
ducks had gone out of fashion, and were not being shot any more.
Probably he let the man down as gently as possible."
"How did the convicts come to have the name of Sydney ducks?" Harry
asked.
"I can't tell you, I am sure," said Ned, "you will have to ask the
doctor about it."
"The name came, no doubt," said Dr. Whitney, "from the circumstance that
the first convicts who were brought to Australia were landed at Sydney,
and for a good many years Sydney was the principal depot of these
involuntary emigrants. The adoption of Australia as the place for
convict settlement was brought about by events in America, a statement
which may surprise you."
"It certainly is surprising," Harry remarked. "How did it happen?"
"It came about in this way," the doctor continued; "when America was
subject to England, offenders of various kinds, whether political or
criminal, were sent to the American colonies, principally to the
Southern States and the West Indies, where they were chiefly employed in
the cultivation of tobacco. The consumption of tobacco in England was
very large, and the revenue derived from it was considerable.
Consequently England was able to kill two birds with one stone; she got
rid of her criminals, at the same time, and made a large profit on their
work.
"When the American colonies revolted in 1775, and gained their
independence eight years later, England found herself deprived of a
place to which she could send her convicts, and she looked around for
another. She tried the coast of Africa, and found it too unhealthy for
her purpose. Captain Cook had recently visited Australia and given a
glowing account of it, and the government officials thought that this
new country would be an excellent one for criminals. Orders were given
for sending out a fleet of ships for that purpose; and, accordingly,
eleven vessels, carrying more than one thousand people, sailed for
Portsmouth in the month of March, 1787, with orders to proceed to
Australia."
"If England had known what was to happen," said Harry, "she need not
have been at the trouble of sending her criminals so far away; she might
have kept on with America with only slight interruptions. She is sending
us her criminals and paupers at present, though she does not designate
them properly when she ships them, and most of the continental nations
are doing the same thing. We are trying to prevent it, but I don't
believe we succeed to a very great extent."
"Did they send a thousand convicts to Australia in this first batch?"
queried Ned.
"There were about one thousand people altogether," said Dr. Whitney,
"including 757 convicts, and among the convicts were 190 women and
eighteen children. They had 160 soldiers to guard the prisoners, with a
sufficient number of officers, and forty of the soldiers were
accompanied by their wives. They had on the ships a goodly quantity of
cattle, sheep, horses, pigs, and goats, and a large quantity of seeds
from various parts of the world was sent out. It was not expected that
the colony would be self-supporting for some time, and so it was
arranged that supply ships laden with flour and other provisions should
be sent from England at regular intervals. A year or two after the
colony was founded one of these ships was wrecked on its way to
Australia, and the colonists suffered greatly for want of food. Among
the supplies taken by each ship there was usually a fresh batch of
convicts, and quite regularly convict ships were despatched from England
to Australia."
Ned remarked that he thought a convict ship would not be a pleasant
craft to travel on. A good many people did not like crossing the
Atlantic on cattle ships, but he thought the cattle ship would be far
preferable to one laden with convicts.
"And so it is," replied the doctor. "According to all accounts, the life
on board a convict ship from England to Australia was terrible. Remember
that in those days prisoners were treated with great harshness; they
were not supposed to have any feelings and were never spoken to kindly,
and in many instances an order was usually accompanied by a kick or a
blow. During the voyage the prisoners were allowed on deck one hour or
possibly two hours of each day, care being taken that only a small
number would be there at any one time.
"For the rest of the twenty-four hours they were shut up in close,
stifling pens or cages, generally with nothing but a little straw to
sleep on, and they were fed with the coarsest and poorest food. Coffee
and tea with hard bread formed their breakfast; dinner was the same,
with sometimes the addition of a piece of heavily salted beef, so hard
that it was no easy matter to cut it into mouthfuls. Supper was the same
as breakfast, and this was kept up with hardly any variation.
"The slightest infraction of the rules was punished with the lash, but
this did not deter the criminals from making trouble. Constantly the
boatswain and his assistants were kept busy in performing the floggings
that were ordered, and sometimes the cat-o'-nine-tails was in steady use
from sunrise to sunset. The more severe his discipline, the more highly
an officer was regarded by his superiors, and if he occasionally hanged
a few men, it rather advanced than retarded his promotion. A good many
died on the voyage from England to Australia, partly in consequence of
their scanty fare and the great heat of the tropics; but, according to
tradition, a very large proportion of the mortality was the result of
brutal treatment and privations.
"The passengers on the convict ship," said Harry, "seem to have been
treated pretty much like those on slave ships."
"You are not far wrong there," the doctor replied; "the sufferings of
convicts on their way to Australia were not altogether unlike those of
the unhappy negroes that were formerly taken from the coast of Africa to
North and South America. The convicts were not crowded quite as densely
into the holds of the ships as the slaves were, and the mortality among
them was not as great; still they were packed very thickly together, and
were treated quite as cruelly as the slave dealers used to treat their
human property. Occasionally it happened that the convicts formed a
conspiracy and endeavored to take possession of the ship. In nearly
every instance they were betrayed by one of their number, and when the
time came for action they were so closely guarded that any resistance
was useless. Then the conspirators were seized, and after a brief trial
were condemned to be hung or shot, generally the former, as it saved
ammunition and did not soil the decks of the ship with blood. When there
was an actual mutiny the mutineers were shot down without mercy, and
those who escaped the bullets were speedily disposed of by hanging at
the yard-arms."
"Terrible times those must have been," remarked Ned; "the wonder is that
anybody survived."
"Yes, indeed," said Harry; "but man has a tough constitution and can
endure a great deal."