A HONEYMOON IN THE BUSH
It is to one of the most highly esteemed citizens of Melbourne that I
owe the following thrilling narrative. He is a gentleman whose personal
service, influence, and money have for many years been freely used for
philanthropic, evangelistic, and general Church work. He is one of my
own personal friends. It is necessary to say this at the outset as a
guarantee of the truthfulness of the story which I am about to relate.
Otherwise the reader might be excused for believing that a parson,
hitherto without stain upon his character for veracity, had suddenly
turned romancer, or that his former shrewdness had deserted him,
leaving him the victim of a picturesque story-teller.
I have heard this particular story at least half a dozen times. It has
always held me fascinated, and stirred in me what is left of the old
Spanish blood--that thirst of adventure which belongs to men of the
Peninsula.
The hero is now past 70. He will not be here during many more years to
tell by word of mouth to a new generation the astonishing tale of the
great adventure forty-three years ago. It is somewhat unfortunate that
the date of the occurrence was the first of April, but there is nothing
of the _poisson d’Avril_ in the narrative.
Figure to yourself, then, a tall, well-built Englishman, thirty years
of age, out in Australia for the second time--recently married and out
upon a honeymoon which combined the romance of love with the quest for
a home in the Queensland bush. The young husband and wife had with them
for companion the brother of the bridegroom, and they were journeying
north to take possession of a sheep station in North Queensland. From
Melbourne to Rockhampton they travelled by steamer. There civilisation
ended. The distance between Rockhampton and Oakey Creek--their
destination--was 170 miles. The roads were simply bush tracks; the
rivers were unbridged. The unsubdued country provided excellent cover
for the lawless bushrangers, who spared neither life nor property.
Three horses were purchased, two of which were harnessed to an American
express wagon. The third horse was saddled for riding. It was a modest
caravan that left Rockhampton, comprising tent, baggage, food, gun,
axe, and sundries. The young bride, already tasting the joys and
romance of wedded love, set out for a new romance, which, had she been
able to forecast it, would never have been adventured. The rainy season
was drawing to a close; the weather was dry and the roads good. There
was no appearance of floods. In the tropics the atmospheric changes are
often startling. It was not long before a deluge of rain descended,
rendering locomotion exceedingly difficult on account of the softening
black soil. The first great creek, generally easy to cross, presented
a difficult problem on account of the steep and slippery wet banks,
up which the team could scarcely climb. When the plateau was gained,
the travellers determined to unyoke for the night. The married pair
slept as best they could in the wagon, while the odd person, clad in a
blanket, reposed under the wagon.
The next day a fourth horse was secured, in order that the wagon
might be moved, the task being impossible for three horses on account
of the heavy roads. Still the rain descended, causing rivers and
creeks to rise in flood. The river at Yaamba, twenty-five miles from
Rockhampton, was only just passable. The wagon had to be unloaded, and
the impedimenta all packed on the backs of the horses. After several
days’ marching at a distressingly slow rate, the travellers reached the
Mackenzie River, which was in full flood. Oakey Creek, the future home
of the newly married couple, lay only forty miles away. But between
them and safety lay the formidable water, and, what was worse, possible
starvation, for all the rations were exhausted, and the obtaining of
further supplies seemed out of the question. They were in the heart
of a country practically uninhabited. The cattle stations sometimes
lay at a distance of forty miles from each other. The trio passed
just one family of kind-hearted Scotch folk, who could not, however,
replenish the exhausted larder, since they were cut off from their
own supplies by the dangerous floods. The only thing to be done was
to attempt to cross the river in the native manner. This consisted in
stripping large sheets of bark from the gum trees, fastening them at
the ends, and making them watertight with stiff clay. A rude canoe
was thus formed. The canoes were made, but the horses refused to swim
across the seething waters; so the canoes were abandoned. It was then
decided to leave the horses, wagon, and baggage on the bank of the
river while the three travellers crossed to the other side in a frail
canoe. The brothers went first to test the strength of this primitive
boat. The bridegroom then returned for his bride. And now came a
misfortune. In crossing the river the second time the single improvised
paddle was jerked from the hand of the rower by a snag. In a moment
the little barque, with its two occupants, was at the mercy of the
swirling waters. Round and round they whirled in the centre of the
stream, driven and drawn by the force of the current. The brother on
the opposite bank was helpless. For the length of a mile the canoe was
dragged by the stream, until at last it dashed against a tree and began
to sink.
Foreseeing the catastrophe, the bridegroom had flung off all his
clothes except a Crimean shirt, and at the moment of the impact, when
the canoe commenced to sink, he seized the rein of a bridle and flung
it over the projecting bough of a tree which itself was swaying in the
current. This refuge being insecure, and another tree being descried
a few yards away, the bridegroom seized in his teeth the neckerchief
of his bride, and, entering the water, swam with her to the tree. In
turn this tree was found to be insecure, and the pair, repeating the
experiment, swam to yet another tree. It was then six o’clock at night,
and darkness was rapidly coming on. On a lower bough the wife, and on
a higher bough the husband, spent that interminable night. There they
clung, the husband clad only in one garment, the wife with clothes wet
to her skin, and both suffering from hunger. It says much for British
pluck that they spent the night in singing all the hymns and songs
they could remember in order to keep awake. To make matters worse,
two or three heavy thunderstorms burst over them during the night.
The tropical lightning played around them, and the drenching rain
poured over their exposed bodies. Their pluck never failed them. The
bridegroom declares to this day that they seemed immune from all fear.
_He_ cannot give a reason for it--probably a psychologist could.
When dawn came--and never dawn came so slowly--the pair consulted as
to the next step to be taken. They elected to be strapped together,
and either to drift down stream together to a place of safety, or
else to perish together. The final struggle was before them, and, for
life or death, they would take it together. So into the water they
passed, and, lo! the water being warmer than the night air, a new
sense of vigour came to them. Several times the bride went under the
water, but at length they reached the bank. They landed in an unknown
country. Around them was a dense scrub, into which they plunged in
the hope of finding a track leading to some cattle station. The sun
was obscured, and they had no means of taking their bearings, so they
were compelled to return to the river, along the course of which they
walked. Hour after hour they trudged through the dense growth, until
at last they struck a bush track. Then it was that the strength of the
bride gave way, for a time at least. Picture to yourself this pair:
the man clad only in a Crimean shirt, bespattered with mud; the woman
hatless, nearly bootless, the leather having been worked up into a
pulp, and she also covered with mud and wet through. The wife was too
exhausted to proceed, so the husband went forward alone to explore.
Following the cattle track, he arrived in course of time at a mob of
working bullocks, and soon afterwards came to their owners. These rough
bush workers provided the one a pair of moleskin trousers, another a
sou’wester, and a third a pair of boots, which, however, could not be
worn, so swollen and cut were the man’s feet. Provisions even here were
at a discount, being reduced to one pancake on account of the flood;
but, with true bush generosity, this last article of food was handed
over to the starving man. Three men went in quest of the wife. When
they reached the spot where the husband had left her, she was not to
be found. She had fallen asleep, and, suddenly awaking in a delirium,
had wandered into the bush to hide from black stumps which her excited
fancy had mistaken for natives. The bushmen promptly conducted the pair
to their encampment, where a bed was made for them out of long grass.
For nine days they were compelled to wait while the river subsided.
During this time they lived chiefly on stewed parrots and maize.
After the subsidence of the swollen river, the first thing was to
search for the brother, who had completely dropped out of view. He was
found a few miles away. The rest of the story need not be told. Suffice
it to say that at length their bush station was reached and their home
established.
Months afterwards, when the river was at its lowest, the husband
and wife visited the scene of their peril, and found the tree upon
which they had spent that eventful night. They took a plank from the
tree, and of it made a casket, upon which a silver plate was affixed
containing the story of the great adventure.
* * * * *
That was forty-three years ago. The bride “passed over” a few years
ago; the aged bridegroom still survives to tell his grandchildren the
story of that wonderful night. Since that day the railway has come, and
the whole country has been opened up. The modern settler has an easy
time of it compared with the settler of those days. There are certain
parts of the country where life is still hard, and where it might be
nearly as difficult to cross a river as it was for that pair nearly
half a century ago. Episodes of this order, however, are becoming more
and more rare, and the day is rapidly approaching when Australia will
be as easy to traverse as is America, which in parts was once as wild
as the bush under the Southern Cross. When the age of ease and luxury
arrives, the children of that time should be told how difficult was
the task of the pioneers, and how great the dangers to which they were
exposed.