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Crown Svo HIGGINS: A MAN'S CHRISTIAN. Frontinpipce. I6mo GOING DOWN FROM JERl'SALEM. Illustrated. Crown Svo THE CRriSE OF THE SIIINhNG LIGHT. Post Svo EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF. Illustrated. Post Svo FINDING HIS SOUL. Illustrated. 16mo. Cloth. Leather HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK ^ Urjwn ^> litattt Harititii A CAMP IN THE UESEHT 1^1 R \nAN \\ A AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS THE NARRATIVE OF A SENTIMENTAL TRAVELER BY NORMAN DUNCAN AUTHOR OF Going Doain From Jerusalem Finding His Soul, etc. ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE HARDING HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK & LONDON 25C771 /;^ l)U^lC/^|^ Al'STtA'.IAN !■ -^ Ciniyriuhl, mn, liy UrolhfU Printed in the t'riitrd StiiKi ■>( America Publitbcd Srptrmbcr. I9>S F-P CONTENTS I. All the Way to Freehantle i II. The Man with Three Mu.lions 6 III. Bowling Along 13 IV. The Revenge of the Big Australian ... 19 V. To the Jarrah Bush 27 VI. "Town Hall To-night!" 32 VII. A Billy of Tea 39 VIII. The Romance of Ol' Dan Dougherty ... 47 IX. Coolgaroie Forsaken 52 X. Neighbors of the Golden Mile 60 XI. The Eternal Flaue 65 XII. "Drink and the DEva" 71 XIII. A Day or Two in the Drylands .... 76 XIV. The Swagman's Story 85 XV. Outcast 88 XVI. A Wayside Inn 92 XVII. Water! 97 XVIII. A Parable of Two Camels 102 XIX. A Night in the Open 109 XX. Black Trackers 113 XXI. Lore of the Desert Places 120 XXII. Sydnev to Queensland 129 XXIII. Booked Through 132 XXIV. The King's Highway 138 CONTENTS CRAP. *•*■ XXV. "Smoke It Up!" I47 XXVI. A Butcher's Philosophy 150 XXVII. A Skeleton Bush 156 XXVIII. Forty Mile Inn 161 XXIX. The Scowling Man 165 XXX. The Sentimental Smithy 169 XXXI. The Musical Stockman i75 XXXII. The Melancholy Landlady 178 XXXIII. A Queensland Shower 183 XXXIV. Troopers of the Outlands 188 XXXV. License to Ku-l I95 XXXVI. In the King's Name i99 XXXVII. A Nigger in a Hurricane 207 XXXVIII. Across the Coral Sea 212 XXXIX. Mr. Todd 2i7 XL. Quest of Romance 222 XLI. Papua 230 XLII. Casual Murder 236 XLIII. The Corpse and the Constable 241 XLIV. Cannibal Country 247 XLV. Sorcerers' Work 254 XLVI. The Invisible Snake 257 XLVII. A Spiritualist of Ferguson Island .... 262 XLVIII. Incantation 269 XLIX. Thursday Island 276 L. Tiger-shark 282 LI. Pearl-shell and Piracy 288 ILLUSTRATIONS A Camp in the Desert Frontutieu Australia's Wooded Ranges Are New to the Ax Fadnt p. 32 The Noon-day Rest " ^o Some Set Out with Wheelbarrows— a Hundred Miles to Coolgardie " 5^ Once the Streets were Filled with Swagger and Riot " -g The First Adventurers " 64 "Raising a Bit of Color" " 72 On the Edge of the Drylands " 98 The Best Trackers are Brought Straight from the Bush " ng The Royal Mail Crossing a Ford " 140 Our Departure from Forty Mile Inn .... " 178 A Friday-night Concert on the Beach .... " 184 Native Boats Gather About, Eager to Barter . " 208 Gaudy Head - dresses and Wild - beating Drums Mark the Ceremonial Dance " 238 An Attack upon Native Tree-dwellers .... " 242 A Resident Magistrate " 272 Hauling a Pearl-diver Aboard " 284 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ■■1 r AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ALL THE WAY TO FREEMANTLE BOUND out to the Australian byways, with a first landing at Freemantle, of Western Aus- tralia, our way leading immediately thence to the gold-fields, the jarrah bush, the drylands, we came at last to Aden, at the extremity of the Red Sea, and there dropped anchor. This was a London-Sydney packet of fashionable consequence — London, Gibral- tar, Marseilles, Port Said, Aden, Colombo, Freeman- tie, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney; and Aden was a point of departure for the India-bound passengers, who must there be transferred to a waiting boat of the line, for passage of the Arabian Sea, to Bombay, and for the American tourists, too, who had deter- mined to omit Ceylon and the Australian detour from their long, round-the-world itinerary. It was late, then, of a hot, black December night. The lamps were out ashore. Warning points of red and green and yellow punctured the black: no more than that; and in the windy shadows between, cleaving the mystery, yet revealing nothing more than AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS swarthy glimpses, the little lights of the sampans twinkled and bobbed. Into this moving darkness — whence the voices of the boatmen, inimical to the imagination, baldly suggestive of the murderous savagery of that flaring Arabian coast we had come down — into this moist, moving darkness the India- bound folk, familiars of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, followed their own paths and were never seen again. Each to his own mystery : they passed — and no curiosity could follow on into the shadows to its satisfaction. Some had not been Out before — wretched targets, these, for any shafts of contemptu- ous wit : but most were leave-expired persons, going back, wise and lofty; and a sorry company all these fellows had been, beneath the laughter and twaddle, with the taste of Home still in their mouths — melan- choly and out of temper. There were captains, there were majors, there were pink subalterns, the like of that, returning to their regiments and ponies and to the merciless social warfare; there were civil-servants — glum, subdued, well whipped into reconciliation with their compara- tive inferiority; there were young men in a business way — of a cocky habit — agoing Out in bondage to the future, which might yield them, after fifteen years of servitude (said they), a decent competency at Home. There were individuals more and truly superior: there were some even less considerable. An outlandish crew, truly — repugnant to the large, free ways of all frontier places: they had no Colonial attitude; they had no Western flavor at all. Off they went, that night, from the glow and litter and warm farewells of our decks — bag, baggage, and women folk; and with them went some of the divert- ALL THE WAY TO FREEMANTLE ing aspects of the voyage. Here, truly, had been a great deck-load of divertingly keen and practised brutality — brutality without malice. Differences — doubtless of some important social sort not specifi- cally manifest — had in these past weeks been accentu- ated among them with cold good manners and amaz- ing impudence by folk of kindliest ways with their own familiars. "Wouldn't speak to me!" the Malay States Man of Business raged, a baleful eye on a stocky figure, departing, in comical little lurches, toward the gang- way. "Shared the same room with him all the way from Marseilles," he gulped, "and he wouldn't speak to me! Wouldn't even say good-morningr' "Who— the Majorman?" "The damned cad!" By and by the young Cable Or Tator went over the side for shore. Aden was his ^stination. He had come in the accustomed way uf his duty from God Knows Where — some island out-station — to this blistering desolation for God Only Knew How Long (said he); and though he was only a boy — and though he had chosen this occupation for the sake of the great adventure of seeing the world — he had now no gaiety. He was, indeed, deeply disconsolate; and it seemed to me, then, regarding him — and often in remoter places — that Romance wears no pretty face under her shimmering veil. Here at Aden the Hook-nosed Nobleman departed — going on a visit to some Indian Prince. He was a dark hawk; and so darkly had he hovered — and so obscure were his designs — and so sinister and sud- den were his swoops — and so black were his manners 3 m t! !1 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS —and so churlishly had he dealt with his beautiful young wife, with such cold, niggard courtesy (if any at all) — that he inspired no friendly feeling. Trucu- lent young men sought occasion of quarrel with him, on this account, and elbowed him out of the way, and scoffed in his hearing, and generally frustrated him, but with no happier issue than to elicit a frigid indifference toward their saucy behavior; and all the women scorned him — almost all the women — with such fine delicacy, however, in his presence, that he was fortunately not made aware of the true regard of many. Hence in the wake of the Hook- nosed Nobleman the Bibulous Relict went his per- ilous and unhappy way: he had lost his wife, poor fellow, not long before, and he was now desper- ately engaged in easing his sorrow with cocktails (before breakfast), whisky-and-soda (morning), gin (afternoon), champagne (dinner), starboard lights (coffee), and whatever sort of liquor or variety of concoction he chanced to think of (before turning in). It is a poor stop-sorrow — and somewhat out of fashion; and in the case of the Bibulous Relict it seemed once more to fail. "You shouldn't be on the drink, old chap," he would mutter, in sage and pious rebuke of his own conduct. Here the American girls chattered good-by — bound hence to the sight-seeing paths of India. Wholesome, pretty, merr>' creatures, these — their social cxiK'rience disconcertingly adequate, their graces blooming unconstrained. Their cup of popu- larity had overflowed: none more fair — none more winsome (said the knowing young subalterns in 4 I 3 s I ALL THE WAY TO FREEMANTLE their own vernacular) — than these awfully ravish- ing American girls. "And are all American orirls —such a jolly sort? Really? I had no idei..'— genuine amazement, naive condescension. Here, too, the Young Rajah disappeared, returning from Eton — a brown, flatulent, ill-conditioned youngster, inconsequential in European dress, but stalking conspicuous and with some new dignity, it seemed, when, east of Suez, according to the custom, he had put on his robes and turban. With the Rajah went the Dominie, of course — the preceptor of that young man. He was a favorite chap: he could at a mo- ment's notice draw a lightsome Yankee rag-time from the piano — most agreeably aggravating to the feet — for the boat-deck dances; and though grave enough in the cloth, and a proper Dominie in every respect, he had won the spurs of secular good-fellow- ship by turning up, joyously ridiculous, as an in- toxicated Highlander, kilt, bonnet, crimson pro- boscis, and all, at the masquerade imder the big yellow moon of the Red Sea. "Good-by!" "Good luck!" "Awfully jolly voyage!" "Good-by!" They went over the side. THE n MAN WITH THREE MILLIONS refreshment from the yeiiow py refreshment, stillness of the Red Se^". ^^ JX^l-^nd blew free It was still sunht ^"^ hot but^^ ^ and the days «f ^^le^' .^"j ^Stt hZ ran lifting crawled Uke ^ J^^gf^f w^a g^'^-^-g °^ ^^T"" to ^^^^^^"^,.^!L' ace' And somewhat more than into atry. '^^er ^^^^, ^e came close to the good n,,dwcy ^^^^ P^fet^ in the way lay Mimcoy creen earth agam. n^ii^ „, •_„ «^fc waters of ?lwhite beaches, curved, b'^^^^"^ reef^J^a ^^^ beryl and ^r^'.'^J^^^iht^Tsont^S.. flash and ghnt f ^.^^^."Xled far-away islands of island. After the d^"- ^^°^^f 'j;;' ^^^ sands of the Mediterranean-af ter th^ 10^' J^ r.^ the Suez Canal ^"^^^^ ^^^^J^^^^en and glo- ^^-^^mThe^T^l w:^no du^Ty shor^nor nous from tne sea. « .„_._„ mast— nor island haze of distant ^^-"^[.^^S^ne fertile familiar in a mist of ^^^r^"\t\trchor snug between earth. A kittle schooner lay at ^chorsn B ^^^^^^^ r.^;:d-^^= ^^ - ''- -' green of the world. ^ MAN WITH THREE MILLIONS To us passing by-going in good companionship from a world to a world-the situation of the hght- keepers presently appeared in the appalhng reality of its isolation. . , , ^ a ^ "A man who lives alone." said the Gray Austra- lian Manager of a Sheep Station, "lives m smgular danger." , • _ We inquired concerning this aphonsm. "Once on an island off the coast of Victona, the Gray Manager explained. "I fell in with the son of a hght-keeper who had trained his hair to he m the form of a bird's-ncst." There was some laughter. "It is perhaps som'-^hing to laugh at,' the C^ray Manager agreed, "bu. I assure you I did not laugh at the time. 'Young fellow, my lad,' said 1, why don't you cut your hair?' "'Why should I?' said he. ^ '"Well, for one thing.' said I, 'it's peculiar, isn t * ""'Not too peculiar,' said he. 'It's my own busi- ness, anyhow.' ^ • i t -k . t '"It may be your own business, saul 1. nui i assure you. 'pon my honor, that I never before knew a young man to tempt the birds to nest on his own head.' "By Heaven, that pleased him! '"Don't you think,' said I. 'that it makes you rather ridiculous?* ,..,., i ^ "Well." the Gray Manager declared, he thought it made him interesting! And do you know '•- the Gray Manager's eyes now being wide with the wonder and hornir of the thing- "I cou. hi t per- suade the chap that it was at all out of the way tor 2 7 IV I i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS a young Anglo-Saxon to wear his hair in the fashion of a bird's-nest? The more I jeered— and the harder I scolded — the better pleased he was with his inven- tion. He had never been on the main-shore. There was no bit or rein on his notions: life at the light- house had given him no standards — nothing to con- form to. I fancied, you know, that he was a bit off. I wronged him. He was quite normal. That lad went away to school a pitiable ass, his bird's-nest a perfectly sleek arrangement — but came back clipped like a sheep. And that's the point of it, and the pity of it: the crazy directions a healthy man's ideas will take when he lives too much alone. It's lonely on the sheep-stations of the Australian back- blocks, too," the Gray Manager went on, scowling. "A mob of human oddities there! Why, my God!" — the Manager's voice rose to a queer pitch of ner- vous alarm — "anything may happen to the man who lives too much alone. I used to think— back in the early days — sometimes, you know — that I was going a bit off myself. It frightened me. And I get in a blue funk still— when I recall those days." There had come aboard at Marseilles, privately conducted by a weary little man, a tourist of gross looks but of amiable disposition and iinpeccable dietary hal)its. He was a foreign-American— a bulk'>', soiled, florid fellow, having a great neck, which rose sheer as a cliff from his fat back to his crown, and a slanting, narrow, comtgated forehead, and pale eyes, set very near, over high iheek-bones. It turned out that he mystified us all, until, nearing Colombo, his revelations relieved us. There were odds that he was a brewer; there were odds that he was a meat- 8 MAN WITH THREE MILLIONS packer (this occurring to the English mind) ; yet he was neither the one nor the other. Out of Marseilles — doubtless to be of consequence among persons of consequence— he had made this boast: that though beginning life stark naked, in a mean neighborhood, without a dollar, he was at that very moment— sitting there in the Mediterranean sunlight of that very deck— possessed of no less than Three Millions. "I worked hard," says he, "and now I take my pleas- ure. No more business for me. McinGott! Whew!" he groaned, in such vital agony as to make one wonder. "Business?— it's awful!" And upon many of these Englishmen— the East-going Englishman not being used to Americans and the Atlantic passage— the announcement of this astonishing feat of accumula- 1 ■ '. had precisely the effect the American Millionaire iii'cndcd. It drew a quick, appraising— even momentarily re- spectful—glance to his very gross person; and it re- sulted—momentarily— in a mure moderate tone. "Pretty fair, eh?" the American Millionaire would inquire, with a smack of the lips, indicating ingenuous self-satisfaction. "Three millions?" Rather! "Eh?" he demanded, his head cocked, his round face radiant. "That's all right, ain't it— for a man like me? Gee-— it certainly is all right!" It measured little less than a miracle. "We go 'round the world, my wife and mc," said he. He laughed; he jwkod his audit(jr familiarly in the ribs. "She sees the cathedrals," he chuckled "and I sit in the cabs!" On this long voyage ciiriositv indulges in (|ueer employments. How had this llabby fellow managed y 1 1", », 111 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS to accumulate the Three Millions ? Straight business ? — he was far too stupid. Speculation? — he was in- finitely too timid. It was an aggravating mystery. He had, perhaps, a merciless cimning; yet he was a coward — the sort of coward, it might be, who strikes on the sly, deeply, desperately, and runs away. All being said, however, here was a fellow with genial aspects, after all. His eyes twinkled: a nudge in the ribs made him spill laughter. There he would sit, bulk overflowing and protruding, fat legs crossed, cigar in hand, his large countenance beaming enjoy- ment of the scene and sympathy with its brilliant lit- tle diversions. But let one speak intimately of money — of the ways of gathering and the means of holding fast — and his face would screw up, his eyes waver, his great body grow restless; and sometimes, indeed — if one suggested panics and loss — he would drip with sudden sweat, the while protesting, excitedly: "I got mine safe! Nobody's going to rob me of nothing! No more business for me. Mein Gott! Whew! It's awful — awful !" All this mystified the inquiring mind and piqued its curiosity. "I tell you," said he, of his own notion, this last night of the passage to Colombo, beginning the tale of the low cunning of his success, "I made my money in real-estate deals. I used to be a Police Captain in New York. . . ." And then we thought we knew the beginnings of that fortune. Hitherto \vc had followed a main-traveled road. London to the East: it is a highway thronged with merchantmen and mail-boats — the motley and aris- tocracy of the sea, surging west and cast: tramps, lO MAN WITH THREE MILLIONS pUgrim-ships, liners, old wind-jammers, lateen rigs, men-o'-war. Now we entered a long by-path, like a wilderness trail; and we traveled without com- pany, meeting none. Colombo to Frcemantle of West Australia : it is nine days' sailing — a blue, breezy way over the Line and across the Trades. Few follow it; many will. Australia is a vast, inviting p'ace: it measures four hundred and twenty-two miles more in area than the United States of America proper, it is more than one-fourth the area of the British Em- pire, it equals nearly three-fourths the area of Europe; and in these early days it has something less than one and one-half inhabitants to the square mile. And so wide is the land four Australians maintained) — and so fertile are the possibilities of much of it — and so profit- ably does it stretch into the abundant tropics — and so free and beneficent is the disposition of the govern- ment — and so just are all the laws — and so large is the aspiration and power of the people — and so deter- mined are they to conceive and maintain liberty as between the rich and the poor — that the overflow of humanity will presently set toward the Southern Cross and occupy all these waiting acres. It is a singular thing that no Englishman will on this voyage be mistaken for an Australian if he can help it. *'I suspect that Cockney," said one. "Of murder?" "No," the Englishman replied, gravely concerned, as though it mattered greatly; "of being an Aus- tralian." "But he says he's an Englishman!" "Ah, well," he rejoined, cunningly, "they often do that, you know!" h AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS Travelers bound for Singapore and Hong-Kong went ashore with the tea- planters of Ceylon. Our company dwindled. Beyond the color and soft movement and mellifluous voices of Colombo — its shady highways, its temples, its barefoot Eastern throng, its busy harbor — we numbered not more than fifty. Most were Australians, in good quality, like the people of our West, with some surface dif- ferences, but none of very great account. They were going home from Home — as they put it. I recall that the Gray Station-Manager said this: that, hav- ing a son to settle, he had been gone on a visit to all the other stock-lands — South Africa, the Argentine, the American West — but had spied out nothing in the world to compare in sound ojiport unity with the Australian acres, upon which he would surely establish the boy (said he) for his venture. I recall, too, a stolid Englishman, traveling with all the less conspicuous appearances of great wealth, mixed with astonishing originality of attire, such as tiousers creased in re- verse of the ic hion (to port and starboard) — an odd fish, truly, whose vast fortune had of itself evolved (they explained) from a game of euchre, played in some lonely camp of the early days, for a fifth interest in what is now become the Amazing Mine. It is a horsy people. "There's my beauty i" said the Australian Stock- Brokcr, displaying the photograph of a stturdy little boy astride a slim horse. "Fine boy," I agreed. "Oh," said he, •'that's my son!" "Fine horse," said I, quickly. Ill BOWLING ALONG ^1 A SERIOUS-MINDED Sports Committee, chosen with serious and exact observance of the cus- toms estabUshed, held serious meetings under the smoking-room clock, and talked a great deal with serious countenances, in seriously modulated tones, and seriously consumed ginger ale, lemon squash, and whisky-and-soda, and at last, much to the sur- prise of everybody, announced, with jolly faces, a tournament of games and jousting of the most de- lightfully lively and frivolous description. Nor was it in meager measure : the Atlantic passage sometimes provides a beggarly afternoon of these pleasures; but the Australian voyage prescribes and invariably ac- complishes whole days of them, all governed by the traditions, so that the suggestion of an innovation is dismissed with "It's never been done before, you know!" and an objection is disposed of with "But it's always been done that way, you know!" And so there were qaoits and shuffle-board, singles, doubles, and ladies; and there were potato races, thread- the- needle races, three-legg.d races, and sack races; and there was cock-fighting in a circle, pillow-fighting on a spar; and there was a preposterous contest in which tlie wretched competitor was suspended by 13 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS the heels from an overhead stanchion and invited to make a chalk mark on the deck as far away from his perpendicular as he could manage to stretch him- self. These were lively days, indeed, lived rolling through the breezy sunshine; and for all the good feeling and all the laughter of them, according to the custom, the haggard Sports Committee was voted the thanks of all the company, in a warm little speech after dinner, and then most heartily toasted. "Your health, gentlemen!" "Hear, hear!" "If I may be permitted." the Chairman of the Sports Committee began, "to say a mere word or two in response to — " "Oh, don't do it!" groaned the Tired Old Globe- Trotter, much more lustily than he knew. "Ha, ha! Haw, haw!" "Shame!" "Hush!" The Chairman of the Sports Committee was not to be deterred, you may be sure, by the distress of the Tired Old Globe-Trotter. Deck cricket— for which the leeward boat-deck was inclosed with a net— was a regular employment of the afternoon; not the least astonishing thing about it being this: that the players turned out to the exercise in flannels and blazers, in every respect the correct attire for chaps at cricket ashore. And m the course of the voyage Second Class challenged First Class. First Class accepted the challenge; and First Class desired to know: Where did Second Class prefer to play? Second Class communicated 14 BOWLING ALONG a reply to the effect that Second Class preferred to play on the second-class deck. vSecond Class, it was pointed out, had challenged First Class to come over and play— thQ.t being, it would be recalled, the exact form of the challenge. Just so; but First Class was quite sure that the first-class deck would turn out to be a more spacious and altogether agreeable field, and accompanied this communication with an invi- tation to Second Class to come over and have it out. Second Class accepted the kind invitation of First Class for the following afternoon at 2.30 o'clock — provided, however, that First Class would indulge Second Class with the compliment of a return match on the second-class deck, and after^vard drink tea with Second Class in the second-class saloon. All this turning out to be agreealile to both sides, First Class appointed a Committee, the same being a Committee of the Whole Team, to entertain Second Class after the match, and thereafter placidly awaited the coming of Second Class, confident, now, that nothing could go amiss. Nothing did go amiss. Both games were played with the utmost good feeling on both sides: where- after there was no further communication of First Class with Second Class, nor of Second Class with First Class. "vSome jolly chaps in Second," yawned First. Not too bad! "Some decent blokes in First," yawned Second. It was not the way of Second Class to skulk and env>' and feel ashamed. Second Class respectfully respected itr.elf— and immc. .oly enjoyed itself. Second Class had a ma.squcrade — occasional dances, too— and indulged in Calcutta Sweeps. And the IS ii il if AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS upper crust of Second Class dressed every night for dinner. East of Suez came the Calcutta Sweeps. Here is a traditional diversion of these seas — a great pool on the day's nin ; and it was managed in this wise : As many chances were sold, at a shilling each, as the Calcutta Committee for the day could manage without straining, one to the timid or pious, as the case might be, and twenty or thirty to all tnie specu- lators. The Cai)tain declared a number as being the best probability. It was 380. Twenty numbers were taken above this, and twenty below, with a high field (above the highest number) and a low field (below the lowest) ; and there was a first prize, the winning number, ten per cent, deducted for the day's charities; aud there were two second prizes, ten above the winning number and ten below it, ten per cent, deducted for charity. Eventually there was a drawing, conducted with great ceremony by the Calcutta Committee, to determine the holders of the forty-one numbers and the high and the low fields; but these fortunate folk did not possess final title to the numbers they had drawn ; all the numbers were put up at auction, the proceeds going into the pool, and the holders were entitled either to accept one-half the amount bid and yield all interest to the bidder, or to pay half the amount bid and retain a half interest in the outcome. And so syndicates were formed, and shares were bought and sold, and the current was estimated, and the Chief Engineer was subtly sounded, and the revolutions of the screw were counted by old gentle- men with their ears cocked and watches in their hands. 16 BOWLING ALONG As for the ultimate value of the pool, that de- pended on the biddinj^, and the spirit of the bidding depended larj^cly on — "A beggarly CSo in the pool !" cried the auctioneer. "Fie, gentlemen! One might think you had not dined." Shortly after dinner, or sometimes late of a warm afternoon, a bell was rung, like a general alarm, by some muscular, earnest steward — clanging a stirring summons along the decks and through the corridors — to announce the auction. And the deck chairs were abandoned, and all the shadowy corners were deserted, and the staterooms were vacated, and Cocktail Alley was emptied of cigarettes and li- queurs, and there was something nearly resembling a stampede to the smoking-room, where the auc- tioneer and his clerks were waiting. The smoking- room overflowed with the ladies and gentlemen, all flashing and glistening and buzzing, and the doors were jammed with perpendicular black and white, both lean and portly, and heads were thrust through the port-holes (bids being accepted from any van- tage). And presently the auctioneer perched a rusty top-hat over his right ear, noisily employed his gavel, made a speech, appealing to the beneficence of the ladies and gentlemen in behalf of the widows and oq:)hans of 'lU sailors, and thereafter proceeded to dispose of the numbers to the highest bidders, bowling along so vivaciously, indeed, with a patter so lifelike and witty, beseeching the ladies to bid up the numbers of the popular gentlemen, whom he named, and entreating the gentlemen to the gallantry of bidding up the numbers of the most po])ular ladies, whom he did not name — all so cunningly that he 17 i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS was voted the very most amusing auctioneer, as well as the most successful, who ever sold Calcutta num- bers (to which even the Tired Old Globe-Trotter agreed). In the course of the graceless business of hawking Calcutta shilling-chances, one morning, the Polite Australian encountered the Member of the Best London Clubs. "Calcutta, sir?" he invited, pencil poised. A stare was the best he gained. "I beg your pardon, sir, really," he stammered, flushing, "but unfortunately I — " "Can't you see," the Member of the Best London Clubs scolded, petulantly, indicating a man with whom he was passing the time of day, "that I am talking with a gentleman?" "I thought / was," murmured the Polite Aus- tralian. I IT was not incongruously splendid; it was not a floating hotel — the Atlantic boast. Here was an airy, adequate, austerely simple ship — a disciplined vessel in every respect. There was nothing tawdr>' : the very decorations lifted their eyebrows and re- marked in a superior fashion, "Obser/e that there is nothing vulgar about us, and permit us to hope that there is nothing vulgar about yon!" Breakfast was of small consequence in a .social way. A me- chanical "Good morning" jjassed muster. Custom seemed to allow some latitude of behavior at lunch- con, too — a dilatory arrival, a departure out of sea- son; but dinner was conducted with great pro- priety, as on shore — that decorum which celebrates the Line above all other lines. And this was en- gagingly remarkable in contrast with the confusion and easy manners of the Atlantic passage. There were no tdtc-d,-titc tables — there was no mixture of tweeds and broadcloth, of shirt-waists and decollete gowns — there were no bewildered stewards— there was no clatter of dishes — there was no balx-'l or im- propriety of any sort whatsoever. It was an order- ly procedure, timed and directed by a grave upper- steward with a gong, course upon course, until, in 19 ii, IV THE REVENGE OF THE B.' \USTr<.\LI..N AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS due time, the ladies graciously moved, and the amiable, flowing hour-and-a-half came to an end, to be somewhat prolonged with liqueurs and ciga- rettes in Cocktail Alley and the smoking-room, be- fore the languorous night drew its own followers to the boat-deck and to a sentimental worship of the stars. It was at dinner that the Big Australian trapped and confounded the Chief Officer who had given him off'ense : the simple passage being remembered thereafter as The Revenge of the Big Australian. "I say. Chief," said he, with wily humility, "would you be good enough to help us with a little problem in navigation?" To be sure! "Quite so," said the Big Australian, his gray eyes glittering. "Suppose, then, that you were at the North Pole—" "I never was, you know!" "Of course not! But suppose you were. And su[)pose you sailed directly south—" "It couldn't be done!" "Oh, pshaw, Chief! Of coity.sc il ouldn't be done. But if i)ossiI)le, suppose it ccnild. Supi)ose you were at the North Pole— and suppose you sailed directly south om- hundred and sixty miles- and suppose you sailed directly east two hundred and sixlv miles—" ^ "Pencil? Thank you. Carry on." "What course." the Big Australian gravely pro- pounded, "would you stcvr to get back to your starting-point ?" "I am at the North Pok-," the Chief Onicer re- hearsed. "Du I take you? Quite so. I sail south 30 REVENGE OF THE AUSTRALIAN one hundred and sixty miles — I sail cast two hundred and sixty miles, (j lite so. What course, then, shall I sail to get back to my starting-point? Is there an argument? Quite so. Let mc sec if I can't solve this for you. . . . Hm-m. . . . Quite so. . . ." It was pitiful: the Chief Officer — and an excellent officer he was — had fairly gulped the Big Austra- lian's obvious hook. And the simple fellow turned over his menu card, and gazed ponderously at its blank surface, and put his head on one side, and wrinkled his brow, and pursed his lips, and drew a triangle, and described an arc, and began to calcu- late like lightning — indulging in addition, sul)trac- tion, multiplication, and division, with flights into those higher mathematics, doubtless, which have to do with the mysteries of navigation. Time ])asscd all too delightfully: the rose and blue faded beyond the rolling port-holes — and the yellow light of the saloon asserted itself above the failing glow of eve- ning — and the merriment all roundabout seemed loud in contrast with our silence — and the brown stewards l)assed in horror of this interruption — and the Big Australian twinkled a naughty and merciless enjoy- ment — and we all of us, a breathless company, in heathenish amusement, continued deeply intent upon the Chief Officer's engagement with his ]irob- lem, half dreading the effect of the disclosure upon his pride and remarkable dignity. "In general terms," the Big Australian softly in- sinuated. "Course in general terms?" "Quite so." It was exi)Ucit: the Chief Officer could not now take sanctuary in the Magnetic lV)le and the dcviu- 21 1^ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS tions of the Magnetic Needle. "A difficult matter " he complained, scowling, "to work this out offhand'" 'Oh no!" scoffed the Big Australian. "But I say it is.'" the Chief Officer snapped "In general terms?" the Big Australian mocked iNothmg simpler, my dear chap!" "M> dear chap," the Chief Officer demanded, angrily, what course, in general temis. would a la}idsman sail to get back to the North Pole?" "North," said the Big Australian." The Chief Officer was very much annoyed. We crossed the Line. There ^^ore no ceremonies- some aaidi>nt-occurring on a long-previ.ms voy- age-^-had issued in ihe disc-hargc of Father Neptune from h.s ancient activities. It was hot weather to be sure-blazing days, spent in shade and sleep, and moist nights, pa.sscd in the wind on deck; and little gusts of lukewarm rain, seeming to gather under the b uc sky n ar by, swc-pt the decks like steam, drv-ing almost instantly in the sun and hot brecve And now the English Officer ,.f Militia, doubtless ag- gravated by the heal, stumbled into the center of the spectacle. He was a gray, crisp Englishman, creased ami combed and wa.xc.l. carrying himself with precision, in a hothouse nrlilarv wav but turning a bit portly und and his diamonds flashed fire and his spreading skirts nistled their indignation; and the Ofticer of Militia came near bursting his red coat with exi)losivc ])omj)osity. "You equivocate, sir!" declared the Masf'x of the Fox Hounds. ^^ "Kciuivocate, sir?" cried the Lady of the Ballet. "Do you mean to insinuate, sir, that I lie.?" "I say you equivocate, sir." "If you accuse me of etiuivocation again, sir," roared the Lady of the Ballet, thrusting his powdered 25 . I :l AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS face, his rouged cheeks, lAs penciled eyebrows close to the flushes of the Master of the Fox' Hounds, and shaking his bejeweled fist under that indignant sportsman's very- nose, "I'll knock your block off!" And the Officer of Militia chose the better part of valor — a chilling disdain. TO THE JARRAII BUSH AA7E left the ship at Freemantlc, the chief port of ▼ ▼ Western Austrah'a, going thence twelve miles tip the Swan River, in a little boat, like a ferry, to Perth, the capital of tlie state, a comfortable city of approximately forty thousand, foimdcd in 1S29 It was January weather— the blazing heat of an Australian midsummer. It was not our pur])ose to Imger at Perth: nor in that busy, pretty city was there anything to engage our interest, above the bush and gold-fields and drylands to which we were bound. It was like a Canadian town set in a Cahfomian climate, its colloquial speech flavored with Cockney: a busy city, given agreeably to half- holiday pleasures — cricket and the race-track Traveling south, by rail, next day, toward the heart of the jarrah bush, in the southwestern comer of the contment, we fell in, at a uull wayside station, with a bnsk. bnsthng, tense young man of the country- a perfervid young fellow whose convictions were mightily assured in respect to the rights of the i)eo- ple (said he) to the resources of their own domain Opposition wilted in the red heat of his convictions- they flamed like a consuming fire. Contradiction was sucked into a roaring furnace of scornful argu- 27 h- i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS mcnt, vanished forthwith in thin smoke, left nothing behind but a pitiful residue of ashes, upon which the young man's unhappy opponent was left at leisure to gaze in shamefaced and stupefied wonder. Jarrah, said he, was at once a disgraceful and ex- quisitely humorous example of the greed of private enterimse and the astounding futility of the tradi- tional forms of administering the crow i lands of the colony. In this he was no mere saucy parti- san; he was a furious evangelist. And his eyes blazed with zeal, and his face was flushed with in- dignation, and he was in a hot sweat of energy to Ijc about the business of reform; and the sharp slap of red fist into calloused palm, with which he pointed his declarations, disclosed the ruthless quality of his will to tear the world down and rebuild it in a flash according to the very newest Australian notions of what constitutes an efficient and agreeable world to live in. Presently, said ht , the state would be cutting jar- rah and karri on its own account. And thank God for that! It was preposterous that the state had not long ago set up a mill in the jarrah bush — pre- posterously conservative, preposterously indulgent, prci)osterously wasteful, preposterously slavish and cowardly and wicked. What was the state for? Be hanged to private enterprise ! Were we living in the last century? Were there no new ideas abroad? Had the people not awakened? Private enterprise, sir, had been exposed. Private enterprise had ex- ported millions of pounds sterling worth of jarrah. Private enterprise had smugly pocketed the profits. And whom should the jarrah forests properly en- rich? Private cnteq)rise? Bosh! Was it for a mo- 28 TO THE JARRAH BUSH ment to be maintained that the people had enjoyed a fair share of all this wealth ? "Royalties?" I ventured. "Royalties!" he seoffed. "Ha, ha!" My suggestion was a vanishing puff of smoke. A snort of laughter had consumed the substance of it "Wages?" said I. "Wages!" he roared. My contention was ashes. "Please God," the young zealot declared, gravely, "we'll wii)e private enterprise oft" the map of Western Austraha!" "But—" I began. "Man alive, there isn't any But! They're intol- erable to social entcq:>risc — these damned hamper- ing Buts and Whys." "But—" I tried again. "My friend," said the young man, looking me straight in the eye with disconcerting curiosity, as though I belonged to an antediluvian generation, and should be heartily ashamed to cumber the heritage of my aspiring descendants, "what we de- mand out here in Western Australia is Progress," I capitulated to his suspicion. "Out here in Western Australia," he went on, now putting his hand on my shoulder in the intimately benevolent fashion of a young country preacher, "we are engaged in a social experiment that will astound the world." He paused. "Give us fifteen years," said he, exalted, like a prophet— "give us just fifteen years, my friend, and we'll show this generation how good a place this little old world can be made to live in." Again he paused. "My friend," he con- cluded, with a flash of the eye so good to see that it 29 • ,• ( III AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS warmed our respect, "it's good to be alive; it's good, good to be alive, m these days — away out here in Western Australia! Australia," said he, "is the place where the big battle is." We liked his breed. Now, presently after that, in a compartment of the train, we encountered an old codger with an Aus- tralian "bung" (fly-bitten) eye and a marvelously surly disposition for a man of any age or condition. He was hunched in a comer, scowling and morose and .scornful, .sucking his pipe in a temper which seemed to be habitual, and biting the stem as though he had nothing better than that poor thing to punish in solace of his mood — a sour old dog with a great bush of indignant iron-gray whiskers. He had no prosix'rity; he was seedy and gray and malcontent; and as it turned out he was in boiling dis atisfaction with the government— the damned meddling gov- ernment, said he. Too much law in the country, said he; and they were making new laws in Perth, for ever making more laws— pages of law, books of law, tons of law, miles and miles of law! It was no country for a man of spirit. It was a law- ridden countr>'. There was no free play. A man couldn't follow his fancy. A man was regulated: his sitting down must be accomplished accord- ing to law; his rising up and going forth. What hai->pened to a man of .sjjirit— a man with the fire and ingenuity to strike out for himself and begin to get along in the world? Was he encouraged? Was he let alone? No. sir! The government straightway devised a law to deal with his enter- prise. It was meddle, meddle, meddle! The gov- 3° TO THE JARRAFI BUSH emmcnt meddled more men into the poorhousc U^an it helped to keep out. "Do you reel :)n," ^^ demanded, "that a bloke can own a cow in this eouiilry?" We reekoned that a bloke could. "Naw," said he. "Suppose," we projiosed, "that a bloke bought and paid for a cow?" "It wouldn't be his cow." "To whom," we inquired, "would that cow be- long?" "Gov'ment." "But—" "Taxes," he elucidated. It was still obscure. "If I buy and pay for a cow," the old fellow went on, "I have a right to think that that cow is mine. And she ought to be mine. That's argument. You can't dodge it. But if I have to pay a license to the gov'ment every year for the privilege of keeping that cow, she isn't mine at all. Is she mine when she's two years old? Is she mine when she's ten years old? No, sir; she's never mine. That cow belongs to the gov'ment. I only rent her. I couldn't pay for her and own her if we both lived to be a thousand years old. I could milk that cow, and sell that cow, and kill that cow; but that cow could never, never be mine. I'd be paying for that cow to the day of her death. And that's why," he added, cunningly, "you don't catch mc owning no bloody cow in this bloody country!" i! VI TOWN HALL TO-NIGHT !" AA/HEREVER there is desperately rough work for " V timber to do, wherever there is a vast burden to be borne with dogged patience, wherever strain presses through a critical moment and goes past to return again, wherever the insidious onslaughts of marine-borers and white ants are to be resisted, wherever the sun warps and water rots, wherevci skeptical engineers demand surely dependable ser- vice in sand, and swamp, and harbor water, through long periods, there is a great cr>- for Australian jar- rah and karri. Vast and raw as Australia is— its wooded ranges wide-spread and new to the ax, its bush rich and singular with sandalwood, rosewood, red bean, blackbutt, stringy-bark, tulipwood, satin box, silky oak, tallowwood, gum, ironbark, and pine, it is with the arid interior wastes to account for a most meagcriy forested land. An area of three mil- lion miles; a forest area of one hundred and sixty thousand miles. Algeria is not one-half more im- poverished in proiwrtion. In the rolling, copiously watered country of the Australian southwest, how- ever, into which the settlers are now ix-netrating, felling and i)lowing and planting as they advance,' the forests arc abundant with karri and jarrah, a 3a i Ai stralia's \V(K)Ded ranges are new to the ax 111 Il ' "TOWN HALL TO-NIGHT!' great seacoast patch of the one, a wide, rich strip of the other. And these are timbers of consequence — sturdy, shagg\% gray-tninked old eucalypts, blood- red when sawn, heavier than water, tough in the grain, elastic and enduring. We were landed deep in the bush, near dusk, from a preposterously diminutive coach, no larger than a stage-coach of the early days, appended as an after- thought to a jaunty little logging-train, which had tooted and squeaked and rather dreadfully plunged all this way as if on an hilarious wager to go as fast as it bally well pleased, clear through to the end of the road without once jumping the rails or damaging more than the composure of the passengers — alight- ing with three others, who tumbled out of third class, much to our suq^rise, with luggage enough, it seemed to the eye, to make a tidy fit for that small compart- ment of its own shabby bulk: a long man in rusty black, with melancholy eyes, blue checks, and a bot- tle nose, in company with a stout, bleached lady, peevishly managing a scrawny little girl with limp, Haxen hair, a s[)oiled and petulant child. We could by no means fathom the business of these singular persons. They had the look of old-fashioned stroll- ing players. The man was a dank and grotesquely dignified personage of the old school of strollers, as our fant'v has been taught to i)iotiire those characters, and the child was pitifully lean and pallid. A lr(K)ji of fine brown children followed them off — all the while bashfully eying the piilhd little giri. Here, remote from all towns and farms, was a community of jarrah cottages, weathered gray, hud- 33 ,:, i \\\ n AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS died in a deep hollow by the mill, surrounded by a lusty bush v.'hich persistently encroached, like a rebellious jungle, for ever threatening to overrun and repossess the clearing on the sly, and must periodically be slashed back to its own quarters. It was a haphazard arrangement of little cottages, vine-clad and flowering, with winding lanes between, the whole inclosing a dry, irregular common, which they used for half -holiday cricket, some such pro- vision being happily essential to the life of every community in Australia. And every cozy cottage of them all, we were amused to observe, was fur- nished with a monstrous wooden chimney, which had either been afire, being charred and eaten through, or was waiting to catch afire, to gratify a mischievous ambition, and was only deterred from doing so the very next instant by the presence near by of a long ladder and a bucket of water. Having supped with satisfaction at the boarding-house — a jirivate parlor, even here, to be sure, in the English way, for guests of our obvious quality — we walked out into the moonlight and found our hands gripped and painfully wrung before they were fairly out of our pockets. The author of this hospitable onslaught was a rosy young man in a bowler and decent tweed, now all out of breath with haste and lively emotion. "Twas your name that drew me to you," he gasped. "Man, man." he declared, deeply affected, "'tis a grand Scotch name! What part are you from?*" I confessed to a Canadian origin. "Colonial Scotch!" said the young dog, disgusted. "Ah, well," more heartily, "you can't help it. I'm 34 ••TOWN HALL TO-NIGHT!" from Dumfriesshire myself. Was you expecting me?" We had not been led to look for him. "I'm thinking," said he, blankly, "that you've never heard of me." "Well, you see — " we began. "Losh! that's strange," he broke in, brooding. With this we agreed. "Did you not know I was here?" cried he, then, amazed. "Did nobody tell you? Man," says he, "that's incredible! Do you not know who I am?" "Ah yes," said I, confidently; "you're the min- ister." "Losh! that's stupid," says he. "Where's my white tie? Man, I'm the Scotch schoolmaster!" We could wot ease his pride; nor could we raise his spirits, which had fallen heavily; he was humil- iated and homesick — wretchedly humiliated. Wc praised his temerity in venturing so far from home in pursuit of a future of consequence; we praised his employment — his prospects, too; and with every word of all this heartening approbation, seeming first to weigh it delicately, to discover its reason- ableness, as a serious young man should lest he be misled by flattery, he agreed in short nods of the head, as though he had long ago reached these in- spiring conclusions for himself, and was not to be surprised by anything of the sort. But he was nc comforted. He had been for three months in the colonies — and was not yet conspicuous ! Where was his energy to advance himself What had over- taken his visions? For a time he ran on, his most inconsequential sentences wearing an air of des- perate importance, in praise of bush life and the 35 k^ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS Australian opportunity — opportunity, he was care- ful to append, with emphasis, for young men of parts; but by and by, his mood gone dry of cheer- fulness, he rose abruptly to take his leave. This he accomplished in the most gloomy fashion : he shook our hands, with much modified warmth, expressed his delight with our acquaintance, with an elderly air of indulgence, and moved solemnly down the path, head bent, pausing to brood at the gate, how- ever, through a melodramatic interval which kept us expectantly waiting. All at once he stiffened and flashed about on us with some show of passion. "There's many a Scotch schoolmaster risen to fame from more unlikely places," said he, grimly. "You'll hear tell of me yet." He stalked off. Upon the surprise occasioned by the Scotch school- master's ecstatic prophecy came the loud, tumultu- ous clang of a bell. It was no grave call to worship. No fear! It was a wild alarm — an agitated, urgent summons, flung far and wide over village and bush in appeal to all true men. There was warning in it. There was fright in it. It .split the still night in a way to make one's heart jump and ])ound. It roused to action. Fire! — it could mean nothing less. Making what haste we could over the unfamiliar liaths in the direction of the frantic clamor, stum- bling rmd i)anting, we came breathless to the church- yard by the moonlit coniinon; and there — clinging like a monkey to the toj) of a tall ])()le (which he had .shinned) - we found a very small boy beating the great bell with the clapiKT by means of a short rope. 36 TOWN HALL TO-NIGHT!" Such was his energy, so precarious was his situation, such a mighty tumult was he raising, that we could not ask him what threatened; but we were almost immediately enlightened in another way: a second very small boy, rin[;ing a hand-bell with all his feverish strength, came tumbling across the common at the top of his speed. "Show's in town!" he bawled as he ran. "What show? Where?" "Melbourne Comedy Three! Town Hall to- night!" And show there was, which promised beforehand, in the bold type of the handbills, to tickle the risi- bilities, to draw tears, to arouse roars of laughter, all without in the least degree offending the most deli- cate sensibilities — a refined comedy-concert, in short, perfonncd behind kerosene footlights by the melan- choly man in rusty black and the bleached lady and the scrawny little girl with the lim]), flaxen hair. But the long man in black, though seeming longer and leaner than ever, was no longer melancholy, nor was he in black, fresh or rusty; and the little girl was no longer petulant, nor was she i)allid, but rosy and smiling, and as for her limp, flaxen hair, it was cunningly become a tangle of dear, roguish curls. And the titters and tears and guffaws came from an audience sclf-'-espectingly clad in its best: ladies in pretty white gowns and gloves, sun-browned little girls in starched dresses, little boys in tweed and Eton collars (hands washed and hair plastered flat). and men with their workaday dungaree exchanged for respectable Sabbath habiliments- -an astonish- ingly agreeable and ])(>lite and happy and ])r()spcr- ous company, altogether of a (juality rare to see. 37 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS And when the last tear was dried, when the last roar of laughter had subsided, the floor was cleared, as by a whirlwind kept in waiting, and there was a jolly, decent dance, tripped by young and old, all flushed and joyous, to the good music of an aspiring village orchestra. VII A BILLY OF TEA BEFORE dawn of the next day, being then bound to the works, twenty miles deeper into the bush, our teeth chattering more wilfully than they had ever chattered before, we were crouched aboard a flat-car, wretched and near numb with cold, yet moved to be alert in a shower of sparks from a devil- may-care little locomotive, which ate jarrah-wood for breakfast and breathed black smoke and flaming cinders in fine disregard of the consequences to the dry midsummer bush through which it went roaring. That we were not consumed was due to the cunning with which we sniff'ed and kept watch, and the agil- ity and determination with which we extinguished one another; and that we did not leave the rich forest ablaze in a hundred likely places in our wake was one of the most incredible exiK^riences of our Australian journey. The valleys were still deep with night and clammy mist; but the ridges, high and shagg>', were beginning to glow, and through the gnarled trees which crested them the new day dropped shafts of gray light into the somber shadows below— like the glor>' of heaven, stream- ing into the dark and terrible places of the world, in the old engravings called "The Voyage of Life." 4 39 ri AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS An outlandish gray shape shot through a patch of Hght ; and lesser gray shapes, leaping from shadow- to shadow. "Kangaroo!'" ^ "The first was a boomer— a big fellow. You II see a dozen more"— which turned out to be true. A group of tents, pitched for shade, and open stables, mere paddocks, was camp enough for this benevolent climate. There were no low log cabins banked and calked against cold weather, as in the American woods; and the camp differed more con- spicuously still in this. th:it the lumberjacks kept their wives and children with them, a school being I)rovided even here ior the brown little "scnibbcrs" bv a solicitous government. The horses were mov- ing out in a cloud of .sunlit dust; and there were clSdren about, in easy rags, and industrious poul- try, scratching for their chicks, and a cloud and very plague of house-ilies, and many great, lean kangaroo dogs. Ijcyond all this, in an open, ragged old bush, with dust and harsh grasses underfoot, with parrots and cockatoos .scrcamir.g ;nid sijuawking in the branches, and flitting brilliantly, too, through the blue sunlight, the sawyers and teamsters were at work, felling, hauling, loading, the heavy opera- tion proceeding, now that the morning was well ad- vanced, in a heat of one hundred and one degrees in the shade, yet drawing hardly more than a dew of persjjiration from these seasoned laboriTs, as we whom the sun was bitterly punishing could hardly credit. "Snakes hereabouts?" I chanced to inquire. "Thaousands," said the sawyer. "Deadly?" 40 V. X H A BILLY OF TEA "They tell mc, and I believe it," he replied weighing his words, "that the death-adder and tiger- snake kill in half an hour. I'm told," he drawled on, in harmony with the droning weather, "that a dog won't last no more than twenty minutes. The death-adder, now, he's a slow, stupid beast, and won't move along. The tiger-snake comes at you; but the death-adder, he's a slow, stupid beast— lies still and bites when you tread on him. There's the black snake, too, and the brown snake— they're deadly; and a few others, like the tree snakes, and maybe some more." "Mortality high?" "What say? (Jh! Well, I'll tell you, if you go huntmg for snakes you're likely to be kept real busy; but if you mind your own business, and give the snakes a chance to mind their own business, and if you look out for them slow, stupid death-adders you're likely to be let off. I heard tell of a kiddie bemg bit once. He put his hand in a rabbit- hole." "Did the child die?" "Ah, well, no; he took an anecdote." It had been a mild abrasion: for these snakes— the black snake and tiger-snake and death-adder in particular— are more virulently poisonous than the rattlesnake or cobra. Yet death from snake-bite is by no means common in Australia. To this pleasant, drowsy old bush— with its dron- ing and sunshine and deep shade of jarrah and black- butt and she-oak, its swift, flashing color, its sleepy twitter and shrewish screaming— a host of fantastic grass-trees, ever>'where lurking, gave a highly hu- 41 ■(I I* H 1 Ill AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS morous aspect. Blackboys, they were colloquially called; and truly they were comical fellows, dis- tinguishing the Australian bush with the astonished laughter they could not fail to stimulate. They were thick as a tnan, tidl as a boy or a man, naked as a cannibal, all growing in the infinitely diverse attitudes of men; and from the heads of the bare, black trunks, completing and pointing the remark- able resemblance, sprang thick tufts of grass, like the wild hair of savages, from which a long spike protruded in precise suggestion t)f a half-concealed si)car. It seemed, too, that every shock-headed blackboy of the bush, in a paralysis of rage, suspi- cion, or amazement, was staring at us who traversed it: dwarf 1)lackboys, absurdly corjmlcnt blackboys, lean blackboys, giant blackboys, decrepit blackboys, blackboys pompous and timid and pious; toddlers, and saucy youngsters, and terrible warriors: ]K'er- ing with hostile intent, hiding behind trees, doubled up in some agony of horror, stooping to cscai)e ob- servation, heads thrown back in arrested convul- sions of mcrriment--a human variety of emotion and lx>havior in the emergency of our invasion of their secluded country. "There," the Artist declared, jwinting in horror, "are two disgracefully drunken blacklM)ys!" It was sadly tnic: those shameless blackboys had their long-haired heads close together, in the manner of young college men nuisically celebrating a victory in the privacy of some great city; and all their joints were loose, and their hair was fallen over their eves, and their legs were conspicuously weak, and they were all tix) plainly deriving much-needed support the one from the other. 43 A BILLY OF TEA At noon wc rested and refreshed ourselves from a billy of tea with the crew in the shade of a great blackbutt by the landing. They were British or Australian bom, every jack of them; there was not an Italian in the company, not even a Swede. The Australian immigration is British — the Austra]i;m population ninety-six per cent. British or Australian bom, or of one descent or the other. Though the peasant of southem Euroiie is warmly encouraged to adventure upon the land, he is regarded with that wary suspicion which attaches to dark strangers and is by n(^ means indulged in the questionable I)raclicos of his own land. "We'll teach you," said the Perth magistrate, passing merciless sentence upon an Italian who had lightly employed a stiletto in some small altercation with a countr>'man, "that you're in our country now!" These m<«n with whom we rcsted were like Inmberjacks the world over — physically fine, heart, cllows, but hard rogues and wastrels. Their diversion was a furious debauch, from which, having "knocked aown" their checks in the first public-house, they crawled back to long jieriods of healthful lalxir. It being now shortly after Christmas, the talk had something to do with the long Christmas absence. "Pined me a p<^'>"wilder. Casting about for an unmistakable landmark — a landmark so ])laced and obvious that even a new chum could not fail to recognize and remember it — Scotty's eye fell by happy chance on a cow, placidly chewing her cud on the crest of a ridge in the right direction. "See that cow?" says Sc-otty. "I do," says the new chum, iK)sitively. "Go to that cow," says Scotty. "When you come to that cow, turn to the right. You can't miss the road; it's within fifty yards of that cow." "I go to the cow," the new chum n'lX'ated, pro- viding against the chance of error, "and turn to the right?" "Kight-o!" says Sc»)tty. "CkkkI luck!" That night Scotty was astounded to find the new chum oncx' more in the jarnih camp. 44 A BILLY OF TEA "Why, what's up with you?" says he. "Bad directions." "Did you s<^ to the cow and turn to the right?" "I couldn't catch up with the cow!" Kangaroo arc hereabouts hunted for sport — for the hide, too, and for the somewhat unsavory deh- cacy of the tail, boiled in a pot to make soup and a jelly. It is not an heroic s]Kirt. It is exhilarating, ])erhai)s— a gallop through tb bush, taking the wind- falls in full career, on the lu-ci of a pack of kangaroo dogs, swift as greyhounds, ]> verful and ferocious as bloodhounds; and the kill -the (luarry being a "boomer," a savage and desperate "old-man" kangaroo- ])roviiles the dogs v>ith some entertain- ing moments. A kangaroo takes instinctively to water, where, at bay in dei)th enough, he drowns a dog in short order. At bay in the bush, upright on one hind-leg and the thick curve of his tail, his back against a tree, he is at a disadvantage. But he is not defenseless. The long hoof of his free hind-leg is his wea])on; and with this— having by good for- tune tni,ipcil an unwary antagonist to his breast with his shan>-t'l:iwc(l fore-legs — he deals a terrible fashion of death. In flight, however, a kanganx) is easy i>rey: a knowing dog catches him by the tail, overlums him with a cunning wrench, and takes his throat from a saft> angle before he can recover. Notwithstanding the kangaroo's ijojuilar reimta- tion for speed, h'" is easily overtaken in the bush by a g(K)d horse (they say) within half a mile. A ea- ])able kangaroo dog a It an, swift beast, a cross be- tween a greyhotnid anstod in the shade of the blackbult showed us the scars of an encounter. lie had ridden Ine kangaroo down, said he; and, being in haste to make an end of the sport, he had caught up the first likely stick his eye could discover, and he had stepj)ed cjuickly and confidently in, and he had stnu-k hard and accurately. And the next instant, caught o(T the gnnmd. he was stniggling breast to breast, in the hug of the creature, fright- fitlly aware that he must <>scape before the deadly hind-foot had devastated Iii'n. "My club broke," he explained, "and the boomer got nic." There were long scars on his back and shoulders, ♦ he which wc were not very sorr\- to u\\ for we could not make out why any man should wish to kill a kangaroo for sport. 'U VIII THE ROMANCE OF Ol' DAN DOUGHERTY OF all the broken pentlemcn that ever I met in my travels, of all the scamps and queer fish and gray reprobates. Dan Douj:;herty of the jarrah bush was the most bewilderinj^ and most poignantly appealing. He was a stableman, a stocky, grim, gray old fellow, clad like any bushman, in dungaree and wool — an old fellow of eccentric habit, which sprang, after all, for all I know, rather from a high and reasonable determination than a churlish dis- position or any departure from good health. Whether Dan Dougherty was rake or hero, rogue or gentle- man, no man could tell. He had no intimates; he would not so much as give a mate a nod or good- day, but li\'ed the years through in a silence of his own making, a recluse in his bachelor tent by a she- oak near the stables. He had never battlcower to damage them. 47 ( , I 1 m I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS And there was more — an uncanny thing; and by this Dan Dougliorty's bushniates were thrilled to the marrow while they lay listening and peering and shivering in the darkness by Dan Dougherty's tent. Upon occasion Dan Dougherty would sweep his quarters and put his dooryard in order; and having disposed of the horses, which came in from the bush, limp with labor, in a cloud of yellow dust, he would cleanse and comb himself and dress uj) in his best, taking vast pains to accomplish a gfKxl appearance, as if in solicitous ex])ectation of company. But no visitor hail ever come— no visitor at all — no visitor in the flesh. Vet upon cver>' occasion Dan Dough- erty would clear his table, set out a candle, a bottle and two glasses, and i)lace two chairs; and, having survi-yed his (|uartcrs in .search of some di.sorder (which he never could find), he would sit himself down to brood av.ay the interval of waiting for his strange guest. But not for long. Presently he woukl start, iis if there had come a knock; and he would listen, jumj) to his feet, sun", now, that there had come a knock indeed, and make haste to throw back the flap ruid j)eer out in welcome. There was never anybody to welcome — never a soul in the darkness. Yet Dan Dougherty would behave precisely as though an old friend had dropi)ed in for a go.ssij). "(if)od evenin'. Mister Dougherty!" "Ciood evenin', Dan!" "I hope I sec you well, Mister Dougherty!" "Vou do that, Dan. Bless (lod, I'm prime!" This hearty dialogue was all the doing of Dan Dougherty. In tlu' ])crson of Mister Dougherty (the visitor) his voice was njuiided and agreeably haughty 48 m ROMANCE OF DAN DOUGHERTY —a touch of condescension; and in the jxrson of old Dan Dougherty it was decently humble, in the way of a self-respecting inferior addressing a natural and kindly superior. "Will you come in, Mister Dougherty?" "I will, Dan; I will that. You're good company, Dan, my boy." "Tnie for you. Mister Dougherty. I'm damned good company." "You always was, Dan." "Ah, well, Mister Dougherty, I've had all these years in the bush to make .sure of it." Then i:)roceeding to the table, Dan Dougherty would with a pretty .show of hosi)itality draw the chair for his ghostly visitor and himself be seated opposite. "Will you have a glass of stout. Mister Dough- erty?" "I will, Dan - and thank you." Very gravely Dan Doughertj- would i)our the two glasses full. "Your health. Mister Dougherty!" "Your health. Dan!" Whereu]xin Dan Dougherty would drink off both glas.ses and resume the conversation. It seemed always to be an imjx'rsonal exchange. The listen- ers learned nothing. Mister Dougherty talked with dignity and reserve. Dan Dougherty matchetl him in both. They aj^peared to be a com{)anionable jiair; there was no (|uarrel recordefl; but there was this myster>' about it : that they talked as two friend- ly sfuils might talk who were l)oth sadly aware of the disgrace of the one, but detennined to preserve an ancient friendship at any cost — i-onfining themselves 4y ll'l M AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS to innocent topics and taking such poor solace as thoy could in mere proximity. ' ' Your health, Mister Dougherty!" "Your health. Dan!" But the pro- ceeding was usually temixirate enough. It might be that a second bottle was fj^x-ned. It might be that even a third cork would pop. And it might be — the occasions being rare — that in quaflfing for both Dan Dougherty would drink too much for his com- posure. At such times he would fall into a state of abject melancholy, his arms straight out on the table, his face buried between them, but not before there had been a last mysterious exchange between the wraith and himself, taking invariably the one form. "And have you had letters from home, Dan?" "I have not. Mister Dougherty." "Ah, well, Dan, yfm'll be takin' a run over to the old country soon, no doubt?" "I'm never goin* home at all. Mister Dougherty, God help me! The old country's \.ell rid of me and the bush is no worse of my company!" It was late when we were landed once more in the little hollow by the mill. There was an amazing sunset. For a space we stood stock-still and as- tounded. Dusk was near come. In the deeiX-T I)laces of the hollow it was already dark. The jxt- pelual fires of red jarrah waste smoldered there, a living scarlet, and burst, intermittently, into ver- milion flame, by which the slow, thick smoke was changed to rolling crimson clouds. And high past the deep color of these hres— beyond the black shad- ows-glowed the weird sunset light. Once on the north Atlantic coast a change of the wind suddenly .so ROMANCE OF DAN DOUGHERTY interposed a cloud of fog between our small craft and the flaring western sky; and every drop of this thin mist, catching its measure of crimson color, shone like the dust of rubies; so that with red hands we sailed a red craft in a world of red cloud and water. But here was a green sunset: a flat, green sk-y, all aglow— the light of emerald fires beyond the shaggy black trees on the crest of the hill; and our world Wc')s a world of shadows and red fires and the failing glow of green. '•'III I'M '}.^ i I 'I'll i IX COOLGARDIK I-ORSAKEN COME all too optimistic Australians from Sydney <^ Side, who liuve never traveled the bitter gold- fields country of Western Australia, say of all the farther reaches of that vast waste— declare, indeed, with a smack of the lips, an ingenuous design to as- tound: "D'ye know, they tell mc that the old ex- plorers were mistaken?— that the country out there is first-class pastoral land?" The old explorers had reported deserts to lie thereabouts. They had thirsted, they had hungeretl, they had gasped a course of many perilous months, reaching at last an emaciated, leathery, half-mad return. Sydney Side Australians of the unknowing and sanguine tyjx; have no more definite knowledge of the aspects of their own far west than the Kuropc-going New- Englander w lio has never been west of Niagara Falls knows of the intimacies of existence and landscape in uttemiost Arizona. The low comedian of Her Majesty's Theater at Melbourne, lugubriously de- scribing his own inheritance, hit the nail on the head and almost drove it home. Said he: "Some of it's arable— most of it's 'orrible!" He missed the truth by this much: that none of it appears to the tran- sient observer at this i)resent tu be highly arable. COOLGARDIE FORSAKEN Generally speaking, the gold-field . country, of which the Golden Mile is the source of life, is in summer a red desert i)lace, week after week blistering under brazen sun, swept by whirling dust-winds, hot some- times to the degree of more than one hundred and twenty in the shade, so dr>- that the water for its sufficient refreshment must be pumped three hun- dred and fifty miles from the great weir at Mun- daring: yet to the edge of the s It lakes it is vividly green, in stretches, with an oi)en growth of salmon- gum and needle-wo<^d and gimlet trees and broom- bush — a mirage of fertility, lying in the distance, but disclosing, every step of the way, its false and arid character. They st " the land flourishes after rain; and no doubt the grasses do spring green and succulent, since it seems no length of dnjught can kill them utterly in Australia — but the rains are shy and niggardly. A chance remark in pas>ing to a desiccated native with agricultural aspirations: "Dry country you got here." "Ah, well," he explained, "you see, this is an exceptionally dry season." "How long is it," the curious traveler inquired, looking around ab»jut upon the scorched world, "since you had anything /•/// an exceptionally dry season?" "Ah, well — about sixteen year!" m Having returned from the jarrah bush to Perth, we set out, iiresently, for the gold-fields c(nmtr>', which lies a night's journey to the east. Late in the afternoon of a hot, dry day— the thennomcter de- claring a temix'rature of one hundred and ten in the 53 iH :v AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS shade at sca-lcvcl, as though it were quite used to the feat— the Gold-fields Express screeched out of the station, rattled importantly through the yards, and puffed off and away from the bustle and broiling asphalt streets of Perth on the four-hundred-mile run northeast to Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie. It was a slovenly little train— a diminutive English con- traption, gone shabby with hard service, filled to the doors with a free-and-easy western company, in khaki and leather, in tweeds, in black coats, in wool- en shirts and broad-brimmed felt hats— a company tanned and hairy and adorned with diamonds and virgin nuggets. Presently, in the light of a great red sunset, it was swaying recklessly through raw, rolling eucalyptus country, which the ])ioneers were stripping to expose the fertile soil, and on into the dark of a murky night. A thirsty journey, for the relief of which water was provided in the Australian way — long canvas sacks of water, with wooden spigots, suspended on the platforms, dripping from cvory pore to cool the contents by evaix)ration. It was dcsi)crately hot weather, and by this time in- credibly dry. A hot wind, blowing from the central deserts, rioting in at the opc»^ windows, came with clouds of gritty dust, which it deposited in inch- deep drifts in the corridors and shabby compart- ments. In this parching heat and dust, when the night had fallen deep, men wandered about in pa- jamas, women in desperate dishabille, wliimpering children in their scanty night-clothes; and in the little dining-car, where they sat late over cards and drink— jammed with prospectors, miners, immi- grants, engineers, commercial travelers, and the worn-out women and children of the drylands be- 54 'f'^^'W^M '^'0*ni fii i.t 1i ![1 'it I MIMIC -.Hi (iiT WITH WHEKLHARROWS — A HLNURILD MILES TO < (lOLi.ARDIE COOLGARDIE FORSAKEN yond — the bar was rushed by a clamoring crowd from the coaches in the rear. "She hunii)S along," an old prospector remarked, in hearty satisfaction with his state's achievement in the matter of long-distance railroad travel. "Not too bad, eh?" 1 laughed a little. "Ah. well," said he, laughing, t(x>; "you're a bit unfair, aren't you? We've altogether differ- ent standards. You're thinking of transcontinental liniiteds and a hundrcil million iK-ople; atid I'm thinking of the early days in a ('i' — 'way back in 'ninety-two, when Bagley nnle into Southern Cross from the desert at C(h)1- gardie, like a madman, with two th(ni.sand inmnds in nuggets aticl dust. ])icked uj) in two days." And having diseril>e<>lgardic field, I reckon — sand and senib and stony j^roimd, dry country; and at first nobody knew the water-soaks. We footed every mile of it in the early days with our tongues swollen and our lij^s hlaek — in a week, two weeks, three weeks. Thirst? My word! And that's why it occurred to me that this little Gold-fields Express was humpin' along." "Of course, now — " "Oh, »t>7i'," tlie i)rosi)ector interrupted, contemp- tuously, "all a man has to do is to u'tiAv up in Cool- gardie." "And-" "Water? Win', young fellow," he swore, his eyes twinkling, "they tiv/.s/t- it I 'J'luy hdllw in it a shilling a go at Kalgoorliel" We swayed along bumping, jirking. sfjueaking, rattling. It seeme ample in the measure of them, and so gnitiful in opjKirtunity, that the horde of ]i;isscngers alightid, in whatsulcncy of some pajama-clad gentleman returning from the flowing bar with a bottle of beer in each hand. And thereafter there was a long, black night, sjkmU in a stonn of dust and cinders — and then the immensity of the dawn, so red and bold that the window was a lurid square, solid wi*h color, with the whole outdoor world a thick, awesome glow of brightening glory- and then the yellow blaze of the gold-fields waste of green scnib and red ear'h — and at last the wide, vacant streets of Kalgoorlie, prostrate and blind and ghastly white in the dreadful mid-morning sunlight. Ballarat and Bendigo — all the cvlclirated fields of Victoria and New South Wales— saw their scH?thing f)ros]K*rity in the failing years of the California scramble and tunnih. Their fortunes and crimes, their bushrangers and gentlemen-diggers and ticket- of-leave men, had 1)cconie the texture of old men's tales before, in the unexplored tropica! north of West Australia, six thousatid miles away as the crow Hies, the first discovery of gold precipitated the rush lo Kimberley. Kimberley was a failure; men lan- guished on the scorched, bewildering trail, died of fever and disillusionnunl (jU the fields, iH'rished of hunger and thirst and uttermost exhaust'';n on the dis])irited way back. But presently there were mild discoveries to the south -taimting promises of the greater thing; and .some ten years later Bagley 57 !■' AUSTRALIAN FiYWAVS stumbled (in the riches of a fain,- talc in a dry deso- lation ealled by the aborif:;inals C^>f)lKardie. Cool- gardie was overrun by a wild motley from the several Australian colonies and the far four quarters of the earth. Within the year Pat Ilannan scralthed the earth at Kal^cxirlie and disclosed in one delirious day square miles of wealth in alluvial jjold. 1 )reams came true- the maddest visions of the leanest ohl },'ravbeard who had i>rosi)ected that parched and fiery waste through years of dogged expectation. Came, then, the rush to Siberia— to Hulong antl White Feather and Jilack Flag and Hroad Arrow. A nuggit of lour lun.dred and sixty-tliree ounces was uncart lied; and subsetjuently the Hobby Dazzlcr — four hundred and eighty-seven yellow ounces in a lum]) enriched a digger of Shark's Ciully. Cajiital came leaping in to absorb the reefs: there was buy- ing and selling; there were syiKhcates, certifi«ates of stock, a tnarket for shares; tlu-re was sudden for- timc, ruination overniglit. merry tlitting to L<»ndoti, suicide, building of churches and scIhxjIs, deliriiun tremens. i'rivate organization now gravely jm-sides over these resources; Init a little spark of m-ws. tirifting in with the hot wind from U-yond the salt lakes to touch the enduritig hope, would still ixphKlc a loud and blazing nish to the farthest deserts, '"rhe gold was here." they reason. "Why uuly here? It's a big country. There arc hundreds of thous;intls ol s<|uare miles to explore and ])rospcct. Tin ri'U be ,i luw CtK)lgardie some day, no fear another Kab goorliel" And so still they go al>oui with an car op* n to faint sounds, with an eye peeled to descry mvslcrioub doings and dcjiartures, with lips occui)icd 5ii 1 V. S n COOLGARDIE FORSAKEN with low whispers out of hoarinp;, with a persistent- ly inquisitive attitude toward strangers. But old Cool^ardic — where onoc the streets wore filled with swagger and prodigal riot, where fortunes slipped through the elaws of old men gone imbeeile with good luck and vanished overnight from the blistered hands of ycnmg wastrels, where once the homeliest barmaid washed her hair with ehami)agne- is now by contrast deserted and destitute. In its heyday of a fi'w whirling years and through the times of its quick degeneration the (>)oIgardie field })roduced nearly six million pounds in new gtild. Yet not long ago, at three o'clock of a midsunmier aftemoon, I waited, watch in hand, in the main street of the town, for sotne sign of life— some companionable sound or movement ; and for more than seven minutes, until a child whimiKTcd distress in the heat near by, I stared at a row cjf vacant shoj)s, at drifting Just- clouds, at the burnished jirospect beyond, and at the otK-n d(X)rs of eleven public-house- bars, six on one side of the street and five on the other. The imblic-houscs implied inhabitants; and a shriveled l)oster, in a shoj) window, announeiiig the appear- ance of Rob HaqxT's I'hysical Culture (}irls at Koyal Hall, implied a place of amusement and a ])opulation dc-speratcly eager for distraction. Miilway between C'(Hjlgardic and Kalg(M)rlie there is a gathering of shanties. It is called Kurrawanc "What do the people do herer" I imiuired of a native. "Oh," said he, "several things." "No doubt," I iKTsislfd; "but u'luilf" "Damned if I know," he eonfesse.I. "I never incjuired " I i t m NEIGHBORS OF TUE GOLDEN MILE KALGOORLIE and Boulder, considerable cities which adjoin near where Pat Hannan scratched out his nuggets in the early days, arc noisy with life and ambition; and as long as the Golden Mile flourishes to sustain them they will continue to thrive and aspire in spite of the immensity and horrible character of the desert land which isolates them from rivers and fertile i)laces and the bounty of a kindly soil. They run with the times: they provide them- selves with comforts; they amuse themselves; they are adorned ; they regard their duty to the state and consider the future of their children's children. The Golden Mile lies within sight of Hannan's old claim — the smoke and dust and black suix'rstnictures of a thin line of deep and vastly rich mines. One of the group — nf)t the pride of them all — must pnxluce LV)oo a day to kiep the stockholders in good humor with its Ix'havior; and the affection of the directors would Ix- largely increased— it was intimated— if a responsive gcxnl conduit should increase even this gratifying yield to L'l ,000 a day. Roughly sjK'uking, the Golden Mile and its les.Her neighbors of Kalg(x)rlie the big shows, as distinguished from the individ- ual enterprises scattered broadcast over the country, 60 NEIGHBORS OF GOLDEN MILE I-: which arc calU-d httlc shows— employ five thousand men and pnnkice I'.^.ooc.ooo a year; and the whole field in which the ( ".olden Mile is situated ha:; from the first days of the Kaljj(K)rlie ntsh, twenty years ago, prfxhuctl almost l'56,ooo,ooo, which, stated more imjjressively in dollars, amounts to trt-o hun- dred and eij,'hty millifms. It was pointed out by a furious younji mcml)er of the Labor i)arty of West- em Australia that the wealth Uikvn from these few miles of wilderness whiih once were public domain e(|ualcd nearly LV)oo per cai)ita of the maximum jKJimlation of the district. And cons<.>ciucnlly - "Who K'cts it all?" he demanded. I coiild not I'lilij^hten him. "St(M-khold(TS in London," he snapped, "who never saw the j^'old-ficlds!" Tiiis sort of tiling' concerns ihcm feverishly in Australia— not by any means generally in a fashion .so raw. li Quite aside from the marvel f)f all this wealth and the achievement of winning it by means of those as- tonishing modern ])r()ccsscs which are the i)retty boast of the state, a conniumily of old men. tieigh- bors of the (ioldeii Mile, stationary near by in a tnurky baikwater of the gold-seeking stream, pro- vides a s])ectacle of iK'ciili.ir i)athos and i)resently becomes a i)oigiiant stimulus to refiection. Within hundreds of desiecated miles of the old alluvial fiilds then- was no (lowing water, (lold was dry-blown in the limis of the great rush. That is to say; they spaded the soil fnmi shallow treiuhes; they sifted it hurriedly fur the lar-er s|K'eimens; tlie\ threw I i t AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS the residue into the wind; they deftly caught it again in iron dishes; once more and yet again and again they tossed it up to cleanse it of the lighter waste; and at last they clawed it over for little nuggets a J specks. In the roaring early days a cloud of n 1 dust hid the crowded and feverish activities of thf camps. New-comers could see it rising from tlu- desert like some poisonous smoke; and approaching — they relate — they could hear from the misty depths of it the astounding roar of the gravel in the pans and the laughter and disputation of the day's frantic wfirk. I'hey remember the cloud well encmgh— the hell-cloud (as they say)— and the in- credibly thirsty and blinding (juality of it; but the great commotion of the gravel raining in uninter- rupted down^KJur into thousands of iron pans, sounding in torrential vfilimie from the dust and howling pit which hid its character, so bewildered them that, looking back from these days of drear (juiet, they are at a loss to describe its singularly disc]uieting effect. The first adventurers — an amazing company of broken gentlemen, of younger sons and thieves anil red old prosjjcctors and honest fellows of everj' de- gree, mixed from the slums and gloomy oflices of British cities, from the English colleges and staid countrysides, from the American West and the north- ern wastes and the old diggings of Victoria and New South Wales- pawed out the obvious gold in haste and returned to their ])revious occui)ations or de- parted with their parasites of the bars and dancv- halls in a new delirium to the virgin fields of South Africa and Alaska. They had come in a vast, tumultuous horde, to witi or waste; and off they 62 NEIGHBORS OF GOLDEN MILE stamijeded to new worlds, the boldest of them, when the news of richer places came shouting over the desert from the sea — jumix'd from the January heat and blistering light of the Coolgardic dry- lands to the January cold and long night of the Yukon. Presently all that was left behind was the human wreckage of the camps — men held prisoners by a^c and ill health and empty pockets and the atrophy of courage to adventure any more. These stolidly remained in the last fields thej- might ever search — never advancing beyond the old customs, hardly altering the old, serviceable costume, living to themselves, "batching it" in precisely the old circumstances of gold-fields existence, apart from the generation and cut off from the new thrift and prosy method of the times, doubtless dwelling with glori- fied memories of old events and the ghosts of old companions; and there to this day, a dwindling community, neighbors of the opulent Golden Mile, forgotten, they continue to exhaust their days. In these lean years — in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are Jew, and those that look out of the windows be darkened . . . or ci'er the silver cord be loosed or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern— in these lean years the old codgers must burrow deeper than their fellows burrowed in the prodigal days of twenty years ago, and must sift again and again the imi)over- ished tailings of the forsaken camps, watching with glazed and blistered eyes for the yellow glitter in the bottom of the pans, more alertly, now, in their age and need. Nobody knows them ; they have no liabi- 63 MICROCOfV RESMUTION TEST CHART (ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No 2) |36 ■ 40 2^ 2.2 12.0 1.8 /APPLIED \MA3E Inc '65! Eas! Mail SlrMl Rochesle'. N»w I'o't- U609 USA (716) *ej - OJOO Phon, (716) J88 - 5989 - fa. AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS tations except disjointed and grotesque contraptions of corrugated iron and rotting canvas; they have no kin except the faces that people visions; they have no attachments of friendship except among themselves; they have no names known generally even to one another except the crisp sobriquets of the old camps. By day, on the edge of town, isolated little pufTs of dust drift off from their labor with the hot wind and declare their trembling activity; and by night, where once in the flare of the diggings the worid swarmed with noisy mates, their meager camp-fires- points of light in the shadows of the wide, aban- doned fields -illumine a background of some fan- tastic shanty and disclose the last gatherings of these gray wraiths and rapscallions yarning heartily to- gether like the veterans of some old war. No odds are asked of life. These neighbors cherish a ragged independence. Cheery old fellows, diggers of the old school, they followed their will to this place and extremity and they follow their fancy still. "Us old blokes," it was with a flash of spirit ex- plained, "won't work for no 'ii-a^cs!" It seems the scornful implication was that the new and contemptible gold-fields generation had no man- hood sufTuient to keep its neck from the yoke of the masters of the (lolden Mile. XI THE ETERNAL FLAME rt It; IT was so very hot in Kalgoorlie — a thin, dry, blazing heat, widely distinguished from the thick oppression of a humid hot wave — that a swift shock of surprise and concern accompanied a first plunge into the white sunlight ; nor was a venture from the shady side of the broad street thereafter to be under- taken — at least by any stranger — without a mo- mentary pause of speculation as to the outcome of the foolhardiness of it. It was amazing to discover that the sun could strike so straight and keen and deep, that it could blind and daze a man. Un- officially it was said to be one hundred and sixteen in the shade. It is quite beyond my temerity — this estimate being taken for accurate within a range of six or seven degrees — to compute the sun tempera- ture of that mid-morning. It would storm, they said. Rain? Oh no! It wouldn't ra/«.' It hadn't really raiticd — not rained in any quantity to make the gold-fields proud — for more than three years. Nobody expected rain. But it would blow a gale — a dust -wind; and when the sand had settled the tet"- perature would surely fall to a point which would at least relieve a timid traveler of the expectation of being roasted in his habiliments before he could escape 65 H>f » 'I i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS the countr>^ Beyond town, where the old dry-blowers work, there was no breeze; the flat, red land— descr without end and all stripped and scarred and soikv. —was almost intolerable. The heat struck down and rebounded with hardly diminished fervor; no breath of wind stirred in the dry world and there was no gauze of cloud or impalpable contents of the air to mitigate the scorching quality of the light. By and by I sat down on some old mound of waste earth to rest a little from the toil of wandering these famed acres in that disheartening weather. Near by, at the edge of a deep trench, an old man— an old, old man— was with dull patience shaking his dig- gings through an antiquated invention for sifting. He was the oldest man I ever saw at labor — a ragged, bent, knee-spnmg agglomeration of bones and dried- out muscle and disreputable gray hair; and he was lean and wrinkled beyond belief, and burned a leathery red, tanned, indeed, to the depth of a hide from the vat, as though through skin and flesh to the marrow of his crazy skeleton. I gave him good- day and begged the favor of permission to watch his work. He would not look at me; but he shifted his glance, uneasy, troubled by shyness as by a stab of phj'sical pain, and was momentarily conscious of a Litrange presence, I am .sure. I should have gone away, disconcerted, ashamed of this intrusion, had I not i)erceived that the next instant he had for- gotten me, that the plain was blank again in so far as he was in any way aware. Presently, with a gesture and angry mutter of disgust, he gave up a futile search of the sieves and sat to rest in a vacant way; and then, all at once, grimly renewing a de- termination which must in its prime have been of 66 THE ETERNAL FLAME gigantically dynamic proportions, he gathered some siftings in his jjan and tossed them up and caught them back. There was no wind ; no dust drifted ofT ; and so he must employ his old lungs for bellows, and blow and wheeze and gasp until he fairly jjanted for breath sufficient to his own need. As the ghastly operation drew to its close I ob- served that he was agitated with expectation. His legs trembled, the pan shook in his hands; the old fever of the gold-search began to burn again— to stimulate his hope. But nothing came of it — noth- ing — not a speck to reward the labor of his moniing. His interest collapsed. The pan fell at his feet. And he sat down again, and fanned the flies from the grimy sweat of his lean, red face, and discon- solately smoothed his dusty white beard, and sighed — all as though fortune had dealt him a foul blow. "I can't rise no color," he muttered. Conceiving this observation to have been ad- dressed to me, I inquired: "Why, then, do you dig in this place?" "I can't rise no color," he repeated. "Since when," said I, "have you had any luck?" "Jus' — can't — rise — no — color!" He was still si)asmodically fanning off the ghoulish flics, still occasionally lugging in bewilderment at his old gray beard, still sighing, still staring, dis- consolate, into the vacancy of his world. I ikt- ceived that he had not spoken to me, that his con- sciousness did not stray beyond the boundaries of his disappointment, that the plain was still blank of any jjrescnce save his own. "And I'm a patient man," he sighed, despairing. I'm — a — very — pat ient — man . ' ' 67 1' ' i ' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS Beyond this demented man I fell in with a com- municative old fellow who seemed with unexampled and most exemplary courage to have preserved a joyous delight with life through all his years of gold- fields luck and failure. He apologized at once for the unsocial habit of digging alone. His mate (said he) — this in the Australian vernacular being the equivalent of the American "pardner" — with whom he had shared fortunes for twenty-seven years, the fat and lean of them all, had died and been s'owed away two years before. He had himself been landed in Melbourne in 1859, to win quick riches and live a gentleman all the rest of his days — fifty-four years ago; and he had been no raw youngster (said he) even in those historic years. "Aged eighty -one, sir, this summer. You wouldn't credit it, would ye, sir, in a old bloke o' my power?" In outward aspect he was not by so much as a blackfellow's wash (which is no wash at all) improved above his wretched neigh- bor; his state was in every way quite as deplorable, his rags as inadequate, his layer of wet, red dust as deep and as wide-spread and as permanent. But vicissitude had not daunted him : he was still vastly confident of turning the tables on Fate ; and he lived well enough, for a hard dd digger like him (said he), on his takings and the old-age pension of seven shil- lings a week. Moreover — if one could believe the sly admission — he knew the secrets of these fields. Ah, there were many, many secrets! — abandoned claims which had fabulously yielded in the early days. This very spot — the very hole he was dig- ging over — had given a fortune to a Frenchman in •q8. "What luck this morning?" I asked. 68 THE ETERNAL FLAME "Ah, well," said he, "I reckon I'll strike a bit o' color this afternoon." It would be hard luck, I agreed, if the day should fail him. "Ah, well," said he, "I reckon I'll strike it to- morrow, anyhow. Thai," said he, positively, "I'm sure of." In the mean time I had in an absent way been whirling some sif tings about in the old man's pan — sometimes throwing up the dirt, for sport, and awk- wardly recapturing it, and once in a while blowing off the confusing dust. There had in the beginning been no motive in this play; but by this time, curi- ously, I was possessed of a lively wish to discover whether or not some grains of gold would lie disclosed in the heavy residue when I had blown the pan out. I began to toss the dirt in earnest, and to blow with determined intention to see the little adventure through to the end. And observing this genuine absorption, the old man kept watch with me for the color of gold. And— "Ha!" he cried, pouncing with delicate touch upon a pitiful little yellow speck. And— "Ha!" I cried, too. "This isn't too bad! I reckon I'll blow another pan!" Upon this the old man looked me straight in the eye and chuckled in a way to indicate that the joke was on me. Presently he was laughing so heartily that he held his old sides to case the sjjasm. A fancy that he would soon shake himself to pieces, that in another instant he would lie in tatters and fragments before my very eyes, had a more excellent inspiration 6y i ( • m AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS than many a laughable exaggeration I have en- countered in books. I had felt a touch of the fever, he declared, when he could command himself; and this was true enough, to be sure, and excuse enough — attacking me on these depleted old diggings — for any man's laughter. But now, when this hearty explosion of his humor had crackled off in little chuckles and gasps and had at last vanished in grins, and when I had been shown a glass vial which con- tained a few grains of gold, and when I had hemmed and hawed and doubtfully ventured to propose an exchange of ten shillings for the receptacle and its contents, a frightful change came upon the old man. He began to weep, to pray in the midst of his sobs that God Almighty Himself would shower me with blessings for this manifestation of generosity. And I stood astonished, for I had thought him not im- poverished beyond the ample satisfaction of his need. This disclosure — the brave and merry demeanor of the old fellow which now in collapse seemed almost to have been a resplendent achievement of char- acter — would shock any man to search his own soul for some quality to equal that splendid independ- ence. Aged eighty-one — and a prodigal! And it turned out that he had not dug the worth of five shillings in a mciith! •' i XII "drink and the devil" T CALLED at the shack of the EngHsh Lord, but ^ found him gone to a public-house with the Old Professor; and I have no means of knowing that he did not thrash the jockey, that he was not guilty of shady race-track practices under the very nose of the Prince of Wales, that he had not declined to marry the lady of his father's choice, that the Duke had not forbidden him the estates and heartlessly disinherited him, that he was not a gentleman of education and breeding and of a charming conver- sational capacity in his cups, nor can I controvert the assertion that he would, and could, with aristocrat- ic grace borrow a blind beggar-woman's last j^cnny. I discreetly avoided ihe political Irishman, being warned that the latest news of the progress of Home Rule in the British Parliament — his departure from home must have dated from the days of Clladstonc- had so enraged him that he had threatened the lives of all the cronies he possessed were he so much as addressed on any topic under the sun. He dug and sifted and blew dust in a fury with the far-away members of Parliament; and, under the stars, he mouthed his indignation all alone. I fell in with the Miser — a disgusting ancient of the Coolgardie 6 71 I'll i '''I ,' h It; fi AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS diggings. He was rich, he was surly, he was dirty, he was ragged, he was too busy to tolerate an inter- ruption; he had found gold in the early days, he was known to the bankers of Kalgoorlie — ten thousand pounds sterling would not measure his fortune (they said) ; yet he could find no happier oc- cupation than grubbing for an added store of gold. I went from graybeard to graybeard, from foul hulk to foul hulk, from hovel to hovel, going across and around the rcl-hot fields in a rising sandy wind; and I found no young men, but only the wrecks of the old days — a hundred broken victims of the gold- search. "I'll raise the color this afternoon! I'll strike it to-morrow! That I'm sure oil" They were settled '.ere, they lived in shanties out of the dead town of Coolgardie, they burrowed the deserts for miles in every direction, they prospected with spirit as far as their lean old legs would carry them. "I'll raise the color this afternoon! I'll strike it to- morrow! That I'm stirc of!" After all, whatever was to be deplored, they were not greatly to be pitied, but rather, with discrimination, to be regarded with a good measure of astounded approbation. "I'll raise the color this afternoon! I'll strike it to- morrow! That I'm sure of!" They burdened no- body; they had not come to the bitter pass — the helpless, whimpering, useless hours — of other aged failures. "I'll raise the color this afternoon! I'll strike it to-morrow! That Vm sure oil" They were old — very, very old. And they were dirty — vor}', very dirty — and reprobate as well. But the days did not drag, and life was not exhausted, and hope flamed undiminished, and e.xpectalion of good for- time came fresh and inspiring with every sunrise. 72 I m kAISIMi A HIT OK COl.OK u* I!' ?! "DRINK AND THE DEVIL" "I'll raise the color this afternoon! I'll strike it to-morrow! That I'm sure of!" Presently the wind drove me away from the enchantment of these old diggings, from the wreckage left to wither within sight of the London stockholders' Golden Mile. Where the road turns to the first public-houses of the town, I encountered a red little Irishman sham- bling out to some burrow and patch of canvas that was his home — in haste too eager for his strength, it seemed, to escape the dust-storm. Never had I beheld an cjject so forlorn. His faded dungaree trousers, turned up near to the original knees, yet slouching over his shoes, his long black coat, cut in the eighties, I am sure, for a man twice the weight of this little Irish manikin, flapped about his bones like the garments of a scarecrow. Had some scare- crow of the fields come to life and shuffled out of a public-house much the worse of his stay, I should not have been shaken with more suq)rise and re- proachful amusement. Nor can I imagiiie a more wasted little man, nor a more gargoylish counte- nance, nor a limpcr and more perforated and tat- tered bush hat, nor a more gigantic head topping a more diminutive body, nor a greater wastrel and more obvious outcast with a more ])ositivcly philo- sophical cast and expanse of brow, nor decjwr drifts and smears of damp gold - fields dust. He must once have been brown; the .sun must sure- ly have tanned him deej) — and did tan him deep, I'll be bound; but the jjroccss had been continued until the little man was now eventually bleached a ghastly white except where a multitude of freckles lay in shocking contrast with his pallor and emacia- tion. And I stopped to look him over. And he 73 ii i ■■ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS stopped to look mc over. Surely one gentleman may without offense pause on the road to appraise the quality and condition of another! And so we eyed each other, his glance a frigid regard. "Good day, sir," said I. "Good day t' yon!" he retorted. "You — work over yonder?" "Idothot." No resentment was implied. I gained courage to continue more intimately. "Here in the early days?" I inquired. "I was thot." "It seems," I ventured, "that you— that you— were not visited by good fortune." "I was not." "Too bad!" said I. "It is not. I'm glad of ut." "You are glad—" "I am." "But—" I began. "Them that struck it rich," said he, "is all dead o' drink. Years ago," he chuckled. "I^ng ago!" What fortune the old man had and prized— for- tune above the wasted wealth of dead men — was the breath of life in his withered body. He was alive —alive ! A dust-storm came down— a cloud of driving hot sand from the encircling dry waste. It darkened the day, it swept the diggings and choked the shanties, it envclopc-d the Golden Mile in a mist more terrible than the smoke of its prosperity, it ran swishing through the streets of the town. It blew like a black blizzard. Bang went the windows; 74 "DRINK AND THE DEVIL" bang went the doors! All the decrepit old neighbors of the lusty Golden Mile took to the shelter of their hovels— until, when the gale failed and the stars shone out, their camp-fires began to glimmer in the shadows and blessed cool of evening. I' \ XIII A DAY OR TWO IN THE DRYLANDS III |j (j RIDING out from Kalgoorlie, eastward, to the edge of the habitable places, and somewhat beyond, we came at last to a rocky elevation from which the land fell sharply to a flat alkaline wilder- ness. From this desolate hill, for the moment ap- palled by what we saw, wc looked off in the long, dry direction of the center of the continent — those many of miles of still disreputable country, con- cerning which many confusing tales are told, these having variously to do with grass-lands and stony deserts, with wide, hopeless wastes of scrub and dust, with new domains of pastoral land awaiting settlement, and with good-pastured stock-routes and waterless tracts of sand and spinnifex. Whatever quality these lands may at last turn out to have here, at any rate, four hundred miles from the fer- tile coastal reaches and well past the remotest desert mine, was the end of the Western Australian world. There were no habitations beyond : no path led on to the east. From the crest of the hill we had a glimpse of the very sorriest habitable Australian country. We faced a flaming wilderness — a red prospect, splashed with the green of hardy scrub, its distances, 76 1 1 IN THE DRYLANDS where a sullen wind was stirring, lying in a haze of heat and crimson dust, out of which the sky rose pallid, vaulting overhead high and hot and deepest blue. Behind us the lean trees — the quick and the dead — ran diminishing to the north, and there vanished, discouraged. From the salt-land to the south they seemed to shrink aghast — to huddle back upon themselves and deviate over the horizon in fright and haste. There was a vast salt-pan be- low, somewhat forward into the waste, stretching an ugly length farther than sight could carry from the crest of the hill, with straits, bays, bluff shores, meadows of white slime — a chain of dry, incrusted lakes, most treacherous to cross, being in wide spaces coated thin above quagmires of salty mud, the shores a quicksand, the surface foul and deadly (they said) with a low-lying, poisonous vapor. I' Presently it will be possible to land at Freemantle of Western Australia and ]Dass by railroad to Sydney much as one might go from San Francisco to New York by way of New Orleans. But there is no over- land trail going east and west through the central drylands; nor ever was — nor ever can be. These inimical lands, which now glowed red-hot beyond us, are a wide, effectual barrier, stretching from the middle southern shores, which are uninhabitable, far up toward the abundant tropical country in the north, which is hardly inhabited. No mild traveler could adventure far to the east of where we stood and for long endure the miseries of his journey. An expediiion of proportions, outfitted with ex- perienced precaution — a sea '^d leader with his camels and bushmcn and bi. I'ellows — could not 77 ' ) ! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS '} » advance tlirough the center from Kalgoorlie and come safely to the nearest settlements of Sydney Side except by grace of those fortuitous chances which men in the extremity of distress call the good- ness of Providence. Returning afoot from this depressing prospect to a new point of departure, we came soon to a shallow gully, which I fancied we had not penetrated on our devious course to the crest of the hill. And here our bushman — himself regarding the feat as a meanest commonplace of the bush — displayed a certain as- tonishing aptitude. Truly he was a very dirty white man— a monstrously lazy fellow! Yet in a way most highly to commend him he was given to industrious reflection ujwn all the faint little traces of desert life he encountered as we went along. These absorbed him, occasionally, much as an in- terval of deep thinking sometimes abstracts a scholar from his company. He would interrupt himself to stare at some small space of earth; and at the end of the pause, having achieved an inference to his satisfaction, he would abruptly resume his way and conversation. As I look back upon him — listening again to his slow revelations — it seems to me that he coveted bush lore more than a man should wish for anything and seek it at a i)rice. "We did not come this way," I maintained. "Ah, yes," he yawned. I insisted that this was not so. "Ah, well," he drawled, e^'ing me with amuse- ment, "I sec the tracks, right enough." Now the ground hereabouts was of red earth mixed with gravel and outcro])pings of ironstone, which nearh' matched its color. It was baked so 78 IN THE DRYLANDS hard that the press of a heel left no trace that I could descry; and it gripped the stones so fast that to be dislodged they must be kicked out. It seemed that a man would have no trace whatsoever of his passing. I returned a little upon our immediate tracks, looking for some sign of our ])assage of this path which I knew we had followed; but, though the search was both deliberate and diligent, it did not reveal to me the slightest mdication that the ground had in any way been disturbed. Altogether baffled — somewhat incredulous, too — I demanded to be shown the tracks which the bushman had observed. And he pointed forward a matter of si.x paces. Yet after a period of painstaking observation I could dis- tinguish nothing; nor could I find the sign until the bushman advanced in impatient disgust with my incapacity and put his finger on it. It was a dislodged pebble, no larger than a peach- stone, the measure of its disturbance in its mold being not more, I am sure, than an eighth of an inch. "Why, dod-blime me," the bu.shman exploded, "I could follow this track on a galloji!" Off he went, on a sort of slow run, to make good this gigantic boast; and make it good he did, sure enough — coming now and again to a shar]) standstill to indicate the whereabouts of an overturned stone or a broken twig of dead brusiiv»v.jd. The display of this sharp, sure sight, swiftly engaging its object, was a more amazing pcrfonnance of the sort than I had ever hojx'd to behold. I^resently he stopi)ed to declare that half a dozen ])aces beyond I had on our outward course halted to make a cigarette. When he pointed out the fresh-charred stub of a match it was, of course, obvious that one of our party had 79 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ii i II' ''(i I"' 1 ! in that place begun to smoke. But why I? A few flakes of my peculiar tobacco, which I had not ob- served — nor had I observed the stub of the match — sufficiently disclosed my identity. It was evidence enough to hang a man. Yet it was not a difficult inference. The bushman's feat was this: that as he ran he had caught sight of the stub of the match and the flakes of tobacco. After that he paused once more to say that I had at that point "made a note in the little book." I did not recall the circumstance. It was, at any rate, my custom to make jottings secretly. And, moreover, I had not walked with the bushman to the crest of the hill. He had been far ahead. How then should he be aware that I had at any time "made a note in the little book"? My eyes could discover no indication of the fact. But it was no great myster>'. Some scattered chips of cedar, which I had failed to detect, disclosed that a pencil had there been pointed. That the pencil had been employed was an inevitable inference. It was all so very obvious, indeed, that the presence of the cedar chips thereabouts should in the first instance have been instantly inferred from the bushman's remark. In all this, it will be noted, the inferences were easily drawn. Yet to infer immediately was something of an achievement. And to pick up these obscure indications in swiftly passing was an ex- traordinary triumph of observation. "These 'ere tracks," said the bushman, as we re- sumed our way, "is all my tracks." Among the evidences this man was following, the mark of a heel or toe would have been eloquent — to say nothirig of its prolixity — as compared with what 80 IN TUZ DRYLANDS confronted him. But there were no imprints. There was nothing whatsoever cxce{)t here and there a dis- lodged stone and here and there a broken twig. It is obvious that a freshly disturbed stone indicates surely enough the track of a man in a land in which no considerable beasts can be imagined to have trav- ersed. That it should disclose the identity of. the passenger is quite as obviously out of the question. I was not aware that I was in the habit of disturbing the earth in a peculiar way. Nor could I conceive that the Artist was accustomed to set his foot on a twig in a fashion to betray him as the author of the fracture. Nor could I observe that in his progress the bushman himself dislodged the stones in a man- ner so singular that he could confidently recognize the work of his toe as his own. It was a mystery' of the Australian bush. I made haste to solve it. "How do you know?" I demanded. "I made 'cm!" he scoffed. "Thiuk I aren't got sense enough to know my c on tracks?" In a baffled attempt to reach the center of the continent, one of the first explorers, being forced long ago to summer in this selfsame latitude — much as an Arctic explorer winters on his ground — found far to the cast of where we journeyed a shade tem- perature of 132°, which rose in the sun to 157**. The mean temperature for January, in that situa- tion and exceptional season, was 104° in the shade. "The ground was thoroughly heated to a depth of three or four feet," he records; "and the tremen- dous heat had parched all vegetation. Under its effects every screw in our boxes had been drawn. 8i if '" to the north, he had fallen in with a roving band of gins (blackwomen), with whom he had enjoyed an astonishment which still kept him laughing. What these savage women were about, wandering the country without men, far from their tribe, he could not discover; but as they were daubed with clay he concluded that they were mou ning some death. What amused him was this: that as he rode near he was to his dumfounded amazement addressed in lackadaisical English by a young woman (he vowed) who was not only the dir- tiest, but quite the nudest and most primitively unconcerneil of all the chocolate "mob." "Really," .she drawknl, "don't you find the weather rather oi)i)re.ssive"f" At this the swagman blasjjhemed his surprise. "If you were to address me in French," said the 86 THE SWAGMAN'S STORY young woman, with sweeping dignity, "I should have no difficulty in comprehending you." It turned out that this aboriginal maiden had, ac- cording to her story, been reared from childhood by a lady of Adelaide — that she had reverted to the bush and was then with her tribe. Whether for good and all she did not know: she might return to the lady some day — to play the piano. And she tittered like a school-girl (said the swagman); and she chaffed and giggled and chattered in the most flirtatious manner of the settlements, not in the least perturbed, moreover, being now in the bush, by the shocking fact that she was in the garb of the bush. Now this was the swagman's tale. It is not mine. But there is no great reason to doubt it. It seems that aboriginals of both se.xcs, employed in the towns — the employment of aboriginal women is rigorously restricted by the government — must jxTiodically return to the bu.sh. They remain content for a time, sufficient servants, in some cases, if lazy. And then the inevitable interval: off they scamper, with- out warning; and they strip themselves of the last clogging connection with civilization, and cache their garments against the time of return, and nni wild to their .satisfaction, returning, by and by, as if they had not been absent at all. Ever>'where on the edge of the wild lands tales are told like the swagman's stor>' of the tittering ward of the good lady of Adelaide — told with scorn of this jihilan- thropic endeavor. "Just beasts," .said the .swagman. And he abandoned our slow course, being in mad haste, as he confessed, to ease his pitiable state in the first pubUc-house he could manage to discover. 7 ''! II I XV OUTCAST ONE day \vc rode into a wide reach of primeval bush which not even the wretched gatherers of sandahvood had combed for the dead branches of their meager hving. From a rise of t're land — slowly- down and far away — it was like a rnc. t jungle, a low, impenetrable tangle; but it thinned, as we entered, into an open growth of slender, delicately lovely and diminutive trees, springing in blithe health from the sandy earth, many of them peculiar in the Australian world, like the kangaroo— she-oaks (said the bush- man) and gimlet-trees, salmon gum, mulga, tea- trees, thorny spinnifcx, and succulent sage-bush. A stretch of dry, blazing days, intolerable to an Ameri- can forest, had not in the least diminished the spirit of this hardy bush. Not a leaf was wilted, that we could see, nor did any branch droop. These pretty midgets were as fresh and clean and fat with their small nourishment as from the rain of an abun- dant yesterday. We saw no ailing tree, but only the green shades of good health — a curious variety of color, against the red and blue of the world, deepen- ing from a tinge of gray to the darkest shade of green. Yet there were many gaunt dead mingled with the quick, which seemed to have died of sheer 88 OUTCAST old age — curly, gnarled dwarfs, bleached white, so old that we ached to contemplate their length of days, striving in this mean desert land. In the thin shade of a salmon-gum we rested for an hour with a bushman who had a hut in the scrub on the edge of the salt-lands and was then trudging to a broken mining town of the neighborhood for a sack of flour. He lived with the blacks (said he) — a condition so degraded in Australia that few men challenge its obloquy — and was even married with them according to their customs and his own. A red-bearded, vacant fellow in filthy tweed, he was a disgusting creature, without sensibility — thus fallen too low for pity. He was outcast. What future he had lay with the bestial savages in the in- ferno of sun and sand beyond the frontier. And these savage brothers — there had been some bloody heathen ceremony of initiation to tribe and family — he now c"rstu tor mistmsting him. Brothers? Ha, ha! Brothci were they? No fear! They would tell a white man precious little (he sneered) of their mysteries. How much would a blackfcllow tell a white man about magic? Huh? Haw, haw! And how about message-sticks? How much would a blackfcllow tell a white man about message-sticks? They'd he — oh yes, they'd lie! And from all this we made out that our outcast was newly re- turned from a protracted visitation with his sav- ages and was in the worst of humor with his wel- come. "Out back," he conii)laincd, sullenly, indicating the desolation to the east with a petulant sweep, "thev got everything fixed." "Who?" 89 m li AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS >' "Who?" men!" he echoed. "Why, the dashed old Specifically what? "It's all fixed to keep the old men comfortable," said he. "What's right and what's wrong, I mean. It's mostly religion— magic. I reckon their religion was made by old men. If I was an old man I'd make one just like it if I could. Don't you reckon that what's right and what's wrong depends on who has the power to say so? I do. I'm a Socialist. Take grub. Grub's a good example. Grub's scarce with the blackfcUows, isn't it? Well, the old men get the best of the grub. That's law— that 's religion . It's one of the Ten Commandments. A young fel- low can't cat a nice big snake. It wouldn't be re- ligious. He's got to t."i'c that snake to his father- in-law. Why? Becau.v; a snake's f^ood. And there's a whole lot of ot'icr good things that a young fellow can't cat. He can't eat anything at all that's nourishing and real fat and juicy. He can't cat a lizard. If he ate a lizard it would be just the same as crime— and that's the same as sin, isn't it? May- be he 'vouldn't go to hell for it; but he'd ^v/ hell fast enough, if they caught him at it. If they didn't catch him? Oh, they've got that fixed! They teach the little shavers that if they eat lizards they'll swell up and bust. And it works, loo — just about as well as the same sort of thing works with us. You see, they've got their own notions of right and wrong. But their notions of right and wrong are not the same as our notions of right and wrong. And that's queer. Why shouldn't they be?" There was an interval through which the outcast bushman heavily pondered. 90 r OUTCAST "I wonder what is right," said he, perplexed, "and what is wrong.' We left him in the thin shade of the salmon-gum — doubtless eontinuing to contemplate this grave problem. And we inferred that he had been pious- ly reared. \ I'M I i ! ' XVI A WAYSIDE INN IN the heat of a mid-aftcmoon we came to a broken mining town. In its brief day of promise it had made a great noise in the Western Australian world. They had planned it large, with quick, leaping en- thusiasm, in the Western Australian way; and, though it was here set far back into the desert, they would surely have made it large, with Australian vigor and determination to thrive big and powerful, had the earth yielded a good measure of its first en- couragement. Its one street, up the broiling, deserted vista of which the bitter red dust was blowing, was wide enough for the traffic of any metropolis; and the disintegrating skeleton of a magnificent boule- vard, concerned with high courage in these dry- lands, implied a splendid vision of that lovely ma- turity to which the town had never attained. The town had lived fast and failed. It was now as piti- able as the wreck of any aspiration — as any young promise which has broken in the test and at last got past the time when faith can endure to contem- plate it. The people had vanished, taking their habitations with them, in the gold-fields manner, to new fields of promise. They had not left much to mark the site of their brave ambition. A hot, list- 92 » A WAYSIDE INN less group of corrugated-iron dwellings remained — a public-house, too, and a spick-and-span police-station and a sad little graveyard. A fat landlady, performing the office of barmaid, resolutely interrupted our way to the public bar and bade us into the parlor, which was better suited (she said) to our quality. In this her concern was most anxious. It was apparent from her air of indulgent consideration that, ])erceiving us to be strangers, she had with great good nature made haste to rescue us from a breach of gentle behavior. It seems that, remote as this far country' is from the usages of Home, one is still expected to choose one's pot- house company with self-respect and decent pre- cision. And a variety of opportunity is frequently afforded — bars outer, middle, inner and parlor. No thirsty man need stray from his established station: should he drop into company beneath him, he may blame himself; and should he intrude among his betters, let him take the scowling consequences! The parlor is, of course, the resort of unquestioned gentility; but precisely what distinctions admit a patron to the qualified respectability of the inner bar, and what lack of quality banishes him to the outer, I could not by any means make out. The moral of it all, though it be derived from nothing better than a pot-house arrangement and the solici- tude of a mining-town landlady, is broad : the Aus- tralians still live astonishingly close to the caste traditions of Home. Our landlady was a rippling, genial body, flushed and smiling with intimate and honest hospitality, and did what she could to refresh us according to our temperate humor. This was not much. She 93 - 1 t "A • M ':i I ' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS had no ice: no ice could survive the red-hot jour- ney to that town; and as for the beverages of dis- cretion—she laughed long to shame us from such callow and injurious habits. Her parlor was dark- ened—a grateful relief from the blistering agony of the white light of day; and it was happily separated from the public-room by nothing more than a stretch of bar and the small difference between a sixpence and shilling per glass of tipple— drawn from the same cask. Here we fell in amiable conversation with a casual miner who had dropped in from some desperate little show (mine) of his for the refresh- ment of a glass of lukewarm ale. He was not a I^arlor patron— in appearance not at all of parlor quality— being frowsy, plastered, and speckled with dried mud, a little the worse of life. From the public- room he talked across to the shadows where we sat in rather embarrassed superiority, — not used to these accepted distinctions; and he ran on in a free, lively fashion, his accent and vernacular more near- ly resembling those of an Englishman, it seemed, than they approached the Cockney speech of the Australian I ack-blocks. "It i$ remarkable," he agreed, at last. "I can't account for it." Our mystification had to do with the men who perish of thirst. They strip themselves, poor wretches, in their desperate wanderings; ar " stripped to the skin the trackers find them— stark naked.their hands bloody with digging, their eyes wide open and white, their tongues swollen clean out of their mouths. Nor are these deaths occasional. They are frequent. It is a dry land— all these wilderness miles. No rivers water it. There are no oases. A rainfall 94 '1 i ;i A WAYSIDE INN vanishes like an illusion. Travelers beyond the tanks venture recklessly. They must chance the rainfall ; and failing the rare rains, they must find water in soaks and gnamma-holes or perish in their tracks— the soak being a basin scooped in the sand at the base of a granite rock, and the gnamma-hole a great cavicy in the granite, from which the last rain has not evaporated. And all the water is il- lusive: it fails or changes place— being here and there or not at all— as the seasons run. A punctured water-bag is sentence of death. Many a man, lost alone, has died alone, cursing a thom— convicts of the old days, escaping without hope over the desert to the settlements of South Australia, and prospectors of the days of the ntsh, pushing the search beyond the boundaries of caut ion . Travelers return in .? from the deserts— the prospectors of these better-informed days- casually report the skeletons. It is all true of the country we rode— these worst Australian lands. "A chap got lost out here in the early days," the miner went on. "Came out from Home, you know, and struck an everlasting fortune at Kalgoorlie. Wild times— those days. My word! I saw the Hand-to-Mouth squandered. They sold that show to an English syndicate for £30,000 and dissipated every bally shilling before they quit. Everything free to everybody- and ever>' barmaid a harj)y and ever\' publican a leech. It didn't take long. And the Australia. They were so hot to get rid of that mine that they paid £1,200 for cablegrams- expert reports and all that— before the deal was losed in London; and there wasn't anything too good for the gold-fields while the £24,000 held out. 95 If! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS But what should this chap I'm teUing you about do but buy a musical barmaid. Fell madly in love with her, you know. Took her to London, too. Well, what should she do, when he'd knocked down his cash, but raise the fan-tans and throw him over. And back he came to the gold-fields to get another fortune. No chance. What should he do then but take to the bush? Prospecting, you see. We waited a decent bit and tracked him. First thing they do, when they go mad, you know, is take off their boots. But we couldn't find this chap's boots. We found his hat, his jacket, trousers, shirt. \vTien we found him he was stripped — feet all cut to shreds and his boots in his hand." "Dead?" "No fear! But there was an inch of big black tongue sticking out of his mouth, poor old chap!" '\ l>. f !! - r •' XVII water! THESE western drylands no man should pene- trate distantly and alone who has not mastered the last subtleties of Australian bushcraft. A Ca- nadian woodsman would find nothing in his ex- perience to enlighten him. A Nort?i American In- dian would x>erish of ignorance. A Bedouin of the sandy Arabian deserts would in any dire extremity die helpless. Australian bushcraft is a craft pe- culiar to the Australian bush. It concerns itself less with killing the crawling desert -life for food — and schooling a disgusted stomach to entertain it — than with divining the whereabouts of water in a land which is to the alien vision as dry as a brick in the sun. A black tracker (said our bushman) once turned in contempt from the corpse of a man who had died of thirst. He had no pity: he spat his ab- horrence of the stupidity of this dead wretch. The man had died within arm's-length of water — the moist roots of some small desert tree. In the deserts to the northeast of us, mid-continent, when sun and dry winds suck the moisture from deep in the ground and all the world runs dry — the soaks and gnamma- holes and most secret crevices of the trees and rocks — the aboriginals draw water from these roots by 97 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ciitlinji; them into short lengths and lettins:; thorn dniin drop by drop into a wooden bowl. Hut the worst may come to the worst: there may be no "water trees"— or the roots may shrivel and dry up. What then? "Ah, well," said the bushman, "they do with what thev have." "What'/;aer they?" "Ah oil, they lick the dew from the leaves and I / Failing the rains, failing soaks and gnamma-holes, failing roots and the morning's dew, the aboriginal of the central drylands has a last occasional soune of supply. It indicates the desperate hard.shi]) of his life and discloses the cjualily of his cunning. It is related by a celebrated Australian traveler and anthropologist, Baldwin Spencer, that, having come in a dry season to a dry clay-pan, bordered with withered shrubs, his comjjany was amazed by an exhi- bit ion of aboriginal craft which seems to have been beyond compare in any savage land. There was no water — there was no moisture — within miles; and the clay w. s baked so hard that to be penetrated at all it must be broken with a hatchet. A keen nat ive guitlc presently discerned little tracks on the ground — faintest indications of life, a]:)parently, like obscure fossil tracers— and, having hacked into the clay to the depth of a foot, unearthed "a spherical little chamber, about three inclies in diameter, in whit-h lay a dirty yellow frog." It was a water-holding frog; and it was distended with its supi)ly — a store sufficient, perhaps, to enable it to survive a drought of a vear and a half. And the water (says the an- 98 li I ' i !i UN Till-; KlK.h Ol Till-; l)R\l.V\U> i / WATER! thrnpologist) was quite pure and fresh. Reing hearti- ly sciucezed, these frogs may yield a saving drought to lost and ])erishing travelers. "Find a nigger," said our bushinan, when, as we nxle, we told him this tale, "and you'll get water." What if the aboriginal were olxlurate? "Ah, well, if the nigger icon't tell," the bushman exi)lainetl, "you ro])e him by the neek t(j your sad- dle. When he gets thirsty he'll go to water right enough!" In the baek-bloiks of central Western Australia, to the east of the few discouraged lillle goviTninent tanks of the goM-lidds country, and, indeed, iti the drylands to the north and south of this, there are no fixed, fresh wtlls, genera11\' deiu-ndable, as in the African and Arabian deserts; and conscciucntly there are no (U"tenniiie(l routt's -if travel, like the earavan-routcs of the Sahara— no main-travi'led ro:ids from ])% baffled by the perilous and dry monotony of the land, thv y seem long ago to have stopjxid dismayed and never to have taken heart again. We rode a litlli with a nondescript traveler, "Bothersome chaps — the blackfcllows," said he. "You can't shoot 'em down offhand any more, you know." "Was there ever — an open season?" "Ah, yes," he laughed. "Good hunting?" He ignored this ghastly pleasantry. "You've got to have evidence to convict a blackfcllow," said he. "And, damn 'cm," he exploded, wrathfully, "they know it!" It is a vacant land — the whole raw, wide state. Within a radius of fifteen miles from the capital city of Perth, in the fertile and established southwestern country', the i)opu'ation approaches one hundred thousand, and the population of the East Coolgar- die gold-fields, of which the good city of Kalgoorlic is the center, approaches one hundred thousand: .so that what remains of the total poinilation of three hundred thousand, subtracting the imijulu- tion of the old town of Albany on the south coast and the population of the thriving Gearldton dis- trict on the middle west coast — roughly a remain- der of eighty-five thousand — i)eoples what is left of the million square miles of territory'. The little towns are scattered remotely — Wyndham, in the north, for cxami)le, with a poi)ulation of one hundred and five, two thousand miles away, as one travels by camel and coach and sea, and Hall's Creek, where lOO WATER! sixty-three whites are exiled in twenty-five hundred miles of distance and many weeks of time, happily and prosperously, no doubt, and in the good health of the open. Consequently land is cheap to the settler — cheap and wide. In the Kimberlcy and northwest divisions pastoral leases may be had of the government in blocks of not less than twenty thousand acres at a rental of icn shillings a thousand acres a year — and in the central division, too, where we rode. "What's the cheapest land in the state?" we in- quired of an old prospector. "Thee shillings," said he. "down in Eucla." "An acre?" "O Lord, no! A thousand acres!" "Any good?" "Not to nic," he lau^^hcd. "I'm a miner." I' XVIII ( / >'! A PARM'.I.E (H- TWO CAMI-LS WIIKN WO rode out imm Cool^ardic with Jem- and the Aiist raliaii, my own camel was nn aj^ed, f,'i-ave eamel, a camel of discretion. ])lcddin^' recon- ciled and almost content, havinj^ lonj; a^o learned the sorr>- lesson— like a n^.an '^i>l past his prime, it seemed— that it docs not jirofit a beast of burden to rebel: that it is expedient rather to yield with an appearance of j;ood lumior to the inevitable mastery than to be switched for disol)edience and in the end be ob1i;^ed sullenly to endure an addition of bruises to the various miseries of fate. And for this reason- able and placid si rvice of his master's ctMnfort my camel was rewartU'd, ai-cordini.^ to the custom, with words of ai)probatif)n. Australian bred thou^'h he was. and of descent from the camels of India, a strain which the Hedouins despise, he was the best camel (said I) that ever I rode. Of ati obsctiuious habit, perhaps, yielding to command with disciuiet- ing little shivers of ai)])rehension, and c-autiously husbanding his spci^d (for exercise in seasons of need, no doubt), his acciuiesccnce and the ease of his gait were not to be shamed even by the fabulous accom- plishments of the camels of the stony wastes to the east of Damascus and of the sandy Arabian deserts. I03 A PARABLE OF TWO CAMELS And so warm was his reward of praise that, liad he been a human servant of the pleasures of the day he would have touched his cap with a "Thank you, sir!" and grinned his satisfaction with the distin- guished patronage. Life had not taught the Artist's half-broken young beast any salutary wisdom. His complaints wearied us of the road. That he made haste when he was desired to be slack, loitering only when there was need of expedition, amused our first hilarious humor. We were not gravely annoyed, indeed, when he be- gan with frequency to bolt— though we were some- what concerned, it is true, for the bones oi his de- lighted rider; nor were we in the least dismayed when he practised the device of limply flopping to his knees in an explosion of bitter protest against the labor of his day. We were considerate, truly. Had this young beast bolted with spirited determina- tion, dismounting the Artist unhurt, and triumph- antly vanishing to the freedom of the scrub in the dust of his speed and rebellion, we should have ad- mired his cnten)rise and resolution; and had he stayed flat on his belly until we had beaten him to death, a martyr to his convictions, we sliouKI luive buried him with respect and remetnbered liim for ever. But a harrowing tumult of complaint meas- ured his courage; he submitted to the first touch of the whip, roaring like a beast with a treacherous death-wound, atul he yielded with a stent and a .squeal of friglit to tliat pinch of the nostrils, shaq) enough, no doubt, which, in the Australian way of riding a camel, can be accompHsheil with a twitch of the reins. It should have been good riding for all of us. Our 8 103 t ' .|! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS journey was not many miles through the sandy bush that day. Road and weather were amiable. The world we traveled was a far-away, sinj^ular world, all of a delieate beauty, too— the wind and scrub and brilliant color and wide dr>- spaces. Truly the many engaginj? aspects of the sunlit Australian wil- derness, notwithstanding the heat and drought and blistering white light of it, were in the way to charm our interest. Yet the Artist's young camel ^polled the fresh delights of that appealing road by steadily communicating his childish grief and occasionally exasperating us to crude outbursts of wrath. On he lumbered, groaning, whimpering, l)ellowing, sob- bing, every dreary step of the way, thus establishhig our reputation for savage cruelty, if such a thing could be, with all the birds and beasts of the bush for miles in every direction. And we must helplessly tolerate his misbehavior. There was no mastering him; he was like a child in a temper— bawling so wantonly, with such obstinate uproar, that at times wc fancied a buckle must be prodding him some- where, and comi)assionately searched to see. In the way of a wilful child he did all that he could to make us wretched— short of holding his breath and turning black in the face. When it came time to dismount for the day wc were glad to relieve this camel of the burden that so mightily injured his liberty— and gratefully will- ing to leave him to sulk in a miserable silence. "I predict for that camel," said I, standing off to regard him, "a future of great n)iser>'." "Which?" said Jerr>', whose camels these were. "That camel? No fear!" "Truly, he pities himself!" 104 J A PARABLE OF TWO CAMELS Jerry chuckled. "Himself alone," I added. "G'wan!" says Jerry, sobering. "That's a first- cla.ss young camel." "He is your camel," I replied, "and doubtless you love him." "He'll do his n-ork, right enough, when he grows into it." "Never a cheerful day of it!" "Ah, well, he'll Joii.." "It may be true," I answered, "that he will do as much of his work as he must for those who will brutally command him. Now I know about young camels. And this young camel has certain signifi- cant defects. He cherishes his own way above the respect of others and his own pride in himself; but he has neither the courage to take his own way, whatever the cost, nor the wisdom to yield to his master, gathering what measure of happiness he can from the work that he must do and the leisure it allows him. Observe that he sulks. Always he will sulk. No sooner will he have recovered from sulking because he has had to do the work of to-day than he will begin to sulk again because he must do the work of to-morrow. And that is not the worst. Did you not remark on the road that when his cow- ardly rage did not move us he whimpered in a shame- lessly loud and obstinate way whilst yet he per- formed his task? What pride had he? What consideration? And what was his best measure against obedience? This young camel appeals to the compassion of a world which has only contcmj)t for that weakness in a camel. To gain his own way he will even practise with wicked cunning upon his los 1/ ;f ;r! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS own master's pity. It is a mortal defect in a young camel. He has had a wretched day of it. I am confident that a future of great misery awaits him. Your young camel is a most unfortunate and con- temptible young ca: lel." At the end of this long rigmarole poor Jerry was staring. He had found no parable in it. "He's only a camel!" he protested. "If I owned that camel, and loved him," said I, "I would shoot him for his own sake." It is not to be understood that camels arc com- monly used in all parts of Australia. A camel in the streets of Melbourne or Sydney would doubtless create as much astonished amusement as an Alaskan reindeer on Broadway. In 1866 camels were first imported for general service from India. It was a happy experiment. A herd of more than six hun- dred arrived with their Afghan masters in 1884. They thrived. Indeed, they made a distinguished success of life in the colonies. It was to be expected. Aliens in Australia seem never to fail of good health and increase. It is estimated that there are now ten thousand camels at labor in the Commonwealth. This is in the far-away dr>' back-blocks. An Aus- tralian loves a horse and respects the sturdy worth of a bullock; he regards a camel, however, with a tolerant sort of approbation, and will not t. iploy so outlandish and i)erverse a beast except to the great advantage of his needs. The Australian camel is immensely serviceable in his limited sphere. A hearty bull will carr>^ a load of eight hundred pounds through long marches, thriving meanwhile where a horse would perish; and it is recorded that a train 106 A PARABLE OF TWO CAMELS of Australian-bred camels went a march of twenty- four days without water. They serve the pros- pectors, the explorers, some departments of the government, the remoter settlers, and the police of the drylands. The Afghan camel-man — though he is still often encountered, and was in the beginning the haughty custodian of all the camel lore of the colony — is no longer necessary to the advantageous breeding and employment of camels. "We used to think," Jerry chuckled, "that we couldn't get along without the 'Ghans." "Surely they knew about camels?" "No fear!" Jerry scoffed. "They had a lot of superstitions — like curing a camel with a necklace of blue beads. And that's about all. The govern- ment breeds better camels now. That's only natural. We're white. I don't mean to say, though, that we've bred the devil out of our camels. My busi- ness is camels," he went on, "and I'm not ashamed of it. But sometimes I lose patience with the brutes. A couple of years ago I was traveling to the north of this with a train of four pack-camels. One morning, when the camels were packed I found that I had forgotten to stow away a billy-can [bushman's tea-kettle]. When I picked that little billy-can up, and made for the nearest camel, mean- ing to hang it on his pack, he began to bubble and groan, as if it wasn't his billy-can, and he'd be danmed if he'd carry' more than his share, and what did I mean, anyhow, by proi)osing to overload a lX)or camel that way? So to make things easy I switched off to the next camel. And he began to groan. They all groaned. The ver>' .sight of that little billy-can made them rage. Not one of them 107 ?:i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS would have it on his back. Well, I was disgusted. Instead of hanging it on a pack, I mounted my riding-camel, with the billy-can in my hands. He was horrified. Lord! how he bawled! When he got up he was bawling still. Wouldn't move a step. And then I leaned forward and shook that billy- can in his face. And that satisfied him. He quit. Off he went. Not a murmur. Why? I reckon he thought / was carrying that billy-can." (' .i XIX A NIGHT IN THE OPEN PRESENTLY Jerry gathered his two hands full of slender bnishwood for the fire. Little sticks these were — the thickness of a pencil. It was a mere matter of stooping in the neighborhood of an aged bush and sweeping his hands over the dry earth. A Canadian woodsman would have taken an ax — however warm the weather — and made a fire of such proportions that it would ver>' near have blis- tered him to approach it; and he would have had the long trouble, moreover, of fashioning a means of hanging his kettle in the blaze, and would eventu- ally have been put to the bother of extinguishing his great fire. Jerry's twigs were so dry that they flamed when he touched a match to them. In a moment they were all ablaze — a crackling, crimson, lusty little fire, giving off a thin, fragrant smoke, which we breathed with delight. Nothing per- suaded us of our remoteness from the forests we knew so much as this strange fragrance: it was like the incense of a temple — a mystery to our experience. Having been filled from the canvas water-bags we carried, the billy-can was set in the midst of the fire. It was no trouble at all to do it. And so nicely had Jerry adjusted the number of little sticks to the 109 it AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ! } >.J need of licat, that when the billy was boiling the fire was burned down to a little heap of whitening coals. It was an improving example of the economy of the Australian bushman's measur. in the bush. When we had disposed of the tea, with the bread and cold meat of our fare, we walked into the bush near by — an open growth of scrub, and of bushes and tussocks of thorny spinnifex, with some dwarfed trees. It was the time of the midsummer drought. The earth was dry and barren and baked. There was no living grass — no dead grass, prostrate and brown. All tender growth had burned up and van- ished away. But this was not yet the desert to which we were bound. It is green and nourishing after the rain (they said). And at any rate the drought and hc\c and isolation of this small part do not characterize the vast and varied whole of the wonderful Australian world. The traveler is as- tonished, ui)on his return, to be told that Australia has been written down by some an arid waste. It is an unjust and injuriotis fiction. Australia is pre- ponderantly fertile and rich, a pleasant coimtry, with abundantly generous rewards, growing all the while more populous and rich; and the dry interior neither discomforts nor beggars the asjjiring and l^rosperous pco])le who dwell in the many favorable lands more than it troubles the happiness of the in- habitants of any other continent. The Australian dr\-lands, which narrow, year by year, as they are better known, have been c-elebrated above the wealthy places for the sensation they atlord— the hot winds, the burning days, the stony deserts and waterless sandy tracts. Some as])ects of the central interior are sensational no A NIGHT IN THE OPEN enouj^h and not easily to be forgotten. It is rclatecl by one of the early explorers that, so great was the heat of the day, the stirrup-irons st-orchcd the leather soles of his party. Matches ignited when they fell on the ground. A thermometer graduated to 127° burst its bulb in the middle of the day. A hot wind blew, filling the air with impalpable dust, through which the sun looked blood-red. The horses stood with their backs to the wind and their noses to the ground, without the muscular strength to raise their heads. The birds were mute. In that withering wind the leaves of the sintb fell around like a snow-shower. All green vegetation seemed to wilt and die in the heat. Where ten months before the cereal grasses had been in seed and the shrubs bore rijx.' fruit, there was neither herb nor bud visible. "I wondered," the explorer records in his diar>% "that the very grass did not take fire." Yet Australia is no more completely arid and withered than Canada is eomi)lctely frozen up — an extraordinary impression of Canada, by the way, which .seems to be wide-spread in Australia. It is no more reasonable to infer a d"scription of the Australian continent from the adventures of the first travelers to the interior than to draw an im- pression of the Canadian wheat-lands from the records of the Arctic ex])lorers. In the jarrah bush we met a young Englishman who had first emigrated to Canada. It was midwinter when he arrived at Halifax. A blizzard was blowing. "TTgh!" said he. "Cold? My word! I went bad; on the same shi])." "Cold, of course," we protested, laughing at him for this folly; "but don't you sec — " III fV 1/ • I ,i .' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS "Oh, I know all about Canada," he broke in, with a very knov/inti grin. "I've been to Canada." When we returned to the camp the sun had got below the dwarfed trees. It was a shy, quiet set- ting — a flush and pale afterglow. And the dusk followed quickly. In this beneficent weather our arrangements for the open were of the simplest de- scription. It is the Australian way. The bush- men travel amazingly light. A billy-can and a blanket— the "swag" of the bush— are equipment enough for any frugal man in places within reach; and the addition of a sound horse to this opens the whole reasonably traversable Australian world to a bushman of resource, and comes near to establish- ing his independence. We spread a great square of canvas on the sand, to frustrate the ants, and threw the blankets within reach, for comfort in the etyier- gency of a rising wind, and were ready for the night and the intimate tales which precede sleep in the open. Jerry yarned of camels and the Kimberley and the eariy gold-fields days — of water at three shillings a gallon, and of £15 to refresh the camels, and of heartily shooting an Afghan who had washed his hands in a well; and the Australian, who had with great good nature come this far with us, yarned of the customs of blackfcllows and the adroitness of black trackers; and in exchange for these stories we rattled away about American speed and sky- scrapers and millionaires and the dark ways of politics— which seemed here to be of more curious interest than our tales of the pine forests and abun- dant running rivers of the wildernesses of our own land. [ XX BLACK TRACKERS A CELEBRATED Australian traveler, Baldwin Spencer, himself an experienced and cunning bushman, relates that in the desert region of Lake Amadeus, near the center of the continent, the bushcraft of the natives, their bewildering in- timacy with the traces of desert-life, and their swift power to follow, once left him in a state of consider- able astonishment, seasoned as he was. It was in the scnib of that baked land. The ground was dry and hard. Doubtless it would not readily take the impression of a heel. At any rate, when the natives stopped short to scrutinize the ground, the traveler, though obviously tracks of some sort were plain to his blackfellows, could descry nothing with his own keen eyes to enlighten him. Presently he was in- formed, however, that an emu was near by with her young. And upon this the natives set off in chase, moving so fast in pursuit of these faint indications, which were altogether invisible to the traveler, that the traveler, somewhat encumbered by collecting apparatus, though apparently not heavily so, found it difficult to keep up with them. At the end of a chase of two miles an emu was found in an open patch with her six young. Reflection upon this 113 I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS I' l| ,i ;i! bald achievement discloses the remarkable quality of it. The blackfellows had not only espied and identified these traces, which were so obscure that a white bushman, himself experienced, could not even see them, looking at leisure, but had correctly measured the age of them and the approximate dis- tance which the authors had wandered. "I am not surprised," said the Australian, when we had told him this story. "Did you ever hear the tale of the black tracker and the British officers?" We had not heard this tale. "It is a familiar stor>'," said the Austrahan. "I wonder that you have not heard it. It is told cver>'- where. And it illustrates perfectly the easy accu- racy with which these truly extraordinary fellows are able to observe and deduce in the exercise of their peculiar aptitude. During the South African war," the Australian went on, proceeding to the tale of the black tracker and the five skeptical British officers, "an officer of the Australian con- tinent, then held in reserve, I fancy, boasted of the cunning of his black tracker, who was no great master of the craft, after all. until, greatly to his sur]>rise and indignation, he found that he had ex- hausted the credulity of the British officers u-ith whom he was mossing. So ma.r\y remarkable tales had he told, each seeming to surpass the last in im- probability, that he was challenged to a trial of the blackfellow's cunning, a sporting enteqirise in which, of course, he was delighted to indulge. And the conditions of the trial were these: that the five skeptical British officers, two afoot, three mounted, shouUl start, at various intervals, in whatsoever directions they might elect, proceeding thereafter, 114 H. if BLACK TRACKERS each according to his fancy, for a period agreed upon ; and that the black tracker, knowing only the color of the horse that each mounted man rode, and hav- ing seen only the print of the shoes which each foot- man wore, should trace them all, within a stipu- lated time, subsequently reporting the movements of each with reasonable accuracy. '"Is it agreed,' said one of the officers, 'that we may obscure our tracks?' "'It is so agreed.' "'Must we keep to soft ground?' "'Oh, my word, no!' the Australian laughed. 'No, no, no! I have no wish to take advantage of you. Go where you like.' "'May wc take off our shoes?* '"Yes, yes! Of course!' "'I say, though, that '11 make it rather awkward fc" the tracker, won't it?' "'O Lord!' the Australian groaned. 'That's what you jolly well want to do, isn't it? Don't spare the tracker. He'll be right enough. And I warn you that your efforts to confuse him will j)rob- ably furnish him with a good deal of amusement.' "It tumcd out as the Australian had predicted. The tracker had an entertaining day of it. He re- turned contemptuous of the bushcraft of the five skeptical British officers. But he had not been spared. The five skeptical officers had taken to stony ground and sought in every way to bewilder him. He had followed the tracks of the mounted men, however, on a run, identifying and distinguish- ing the movements of each by the colors of the horses, dark-brown hairs, light-brown hairs, gray hairs, samples of which he produced ; and in addition "5 \l AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS to this he described, more or less intimately, the in- cidents of the ride of each: the first horseman, for example, had dismounted and lighted his pipe; the second had been thrown when riding at a canter; the third had dismounted, rested in the shade, climbed a tree for a view of the country — for a view, presumably, because there was no other reason why he should have climbed the tree — no 'possum, no sugar-bag. And the movements of the footmen, also, were correctly described. One had tramped his course without pause or incident ; but the other, having taken off his shoes, according to the evidence of a wi'^p or two of wool from his socks, had cut his foot and gone lame the rest of the way, as a stone with a speck of blood disclosed. When the tracker concluded his revelations, i was agreed by the five British officers, now convinced of his skill, that his report was ample, that he had not made a single mistake, and that he had fulfilled all the conditions of the trial in a way to astound them." !l J Black trackers are regularly attached to the police- stations of the outlands. They are the bloodhounds of the cori)s. And though many of the police are themselves bushmen of consequence, it is largely on account of the black trackers that the fear of the law remains alive in the remoter bush and deserts. The best trackers arc brought straight from the bush — from the half-savage tribes on the other side of the frontiers — arriving young, fresh, eager, proud of the distinction. A rcscrvation-bom blackfellow is of small account in this respect; and a servant of the towns — a wretched hanger-on of civilization — is of no vcr>' considerable account at all. It is a lit V THE IltST TR.\CKI:KS ARU UROIGHT SlKAUilll 1 KUM I III: 111 ^11 n • I .' :!' ;i BLACK TRACKERS curious fact that a few years of the provender and idleness of the missions (reservations) dull a black- fellow's singular faculties beyond effective employ- ment. Perceptions so delicate speedily fail in dis- use and are not easily brought again to their first efficiency. They demand continuous employment, they must be cherished and exercised— like the mastery of some artistic technique— if their ca- pacity for the most subtle accomplishments is to be preserved. It is even said that the edge is taken off a blackfellovv's cunning by protracted police- station life. To be kept keen and fit he is best maintained with his tribe in the bush and fetched out only when occasion requires his services. Nothing could more significantly indicate the sensitive quality of the tracker's genius. Back of a capable black tracker's cunning is a savage delight in the man-hunt— a bestial lireless- ness, too, which must ajipall the wretched fugitive who is aware of the fateful manner of the pursuit. A tracker of the Kimbericy, for example, led his troop- er a remarkable chase after a horse-stcalcr, escajjed from jail in New South Wales to the northwestern wilds. "There was absolutely no real rest," sajs the trooper, "night or day." It was bad country— the ranges and their neighborhood: a deal of wild and stony ground, which takes meager imprcssioP:; of the passage of a traveler. And confusing rains fell. Occasionally the tracker was almost on the heels of the fugitive. At times, baffled, he lagged a week and more beliind. For days on end in the ranges the ground was so difficult for the tracker that progress was at the rale of less than a mile an hour. When the tracks were lost the blackfcllow "7 1- II ) I'l iHi I IP I I I' .it AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ran the country like a bloodhound until he had picked them up. Once the fugitive himself came to desperate straits for water: the tracker made out that he was lost and exhausted— that he had stum- bled, fallen, scraped moist mud from a dned-out "soak" with which to rub himself and cool his skin in that extremity of thirst and weariness. The fugi- tive was taken at the end of a chase of fijty-stx days, during which time, according to the report of the trooper, the blackfellow had "tracked this man every yard of the way" he went. "For God's sake," said the exhausted wretch, "don't put more chains on me than you can help!" A blackfellow will readily identify the tracks of an acquaintance— a slight acquaintance, it may be— white or black, whom he has encountered, perhaps, no more than at occasional intervals. It seems that his memory is as a matter of course accustomed to catch and retain impressions of footprints as well as of features. The imprint of a man's foot is as considerably a feature of his identity as the shape of his nose. Reasoning from a stranger's tracks, a rarely clever blackfellow will in a surprising meas- ure be able to describe the physical characteristics of the man— weight, height, ixjculiarities of gait, deformities of the legs, like bow-legs and knock- knees. He will know, perhaps, his physical con- dition. Was he hungry? Was he thirsty? Was he weakening? Was he going strong? And more than that: it may be that the tracker will be able to infer the mood of the man— whether downcast or blithe— and whether his progress was confident or furtive. And what is the character of the fugitive? Is he a determined fellow? Is he a coward? Upon ii8 BLACK TRACKERS reflection it will appear that all these details of physique, mood, character, and physical condition, however slight the indications may be, do inevitably communicate themselves to a man's footprints; and it is reasonably conceivable that they will disclose themselves to a savage genius who has from his earliest years specialized in this subtle learning of the open. In the criminal courts of the back-blocks, a native witness's identification of the tracks of the accused, generally speaking, has much the same credibility as the evidence of an eye-witness. "You savvy this fellow?" "I savvy this fellow all right." "You savvy tracks makc-um by this fellow?" "I savvy tracks him bin make, all right." It is conclusive. 9 i' XXI LORE OF THE DESERT PLACES "T RECALL," said the Australian, "a typically 1 obscure trace : a few grains of sand, fallen from a fugitive's bare foot on a flat stone of a stretch of stony country. Nobody in the world but a black- fellow would have observed them. And had a white bushman done so he would not have caught the significance of them— would not have had the wit to comprehend that those grains of sand were out of place and could mean only one thing. And that's the secret of the craft— the significance of things that are out of place. You see, the tracker went straight ahead— swiftly, too — on the trail of that displaced dust. It was quite enough. I recall another rather remarkable instance. I saw a blackfcUow track a chap through the timber-bush at a canter by means of the color of the leaves— the difference in Hght and shadow. It was like a path through the snow on a winter's afternoon at Home. But / couldn't see anything. And I recall another bit of good work. A tracker I know, pursuing two men, only one of whom was wanted, came at last to a point where the two rogues had separated. It was a clever dodge. The tracker could find no fair impression of a foot on that hard ground. A bushman would I20 ;i' fi LORE OF THE DESERT PLACES have been balked for a bit — would have scrambled about and lost time. But the nigger followed the right man. How? By identifying the ashes of his first camp-fire. He happened to know how that particular chap made a fire." "Small hope for the outlaw!" "Dogs on the scent. And a devilish willing pack. Yet there is no mystery. The exploits of the trackers proceed from the keenest sort of observation and a shocking cunning in inference. When the nigger points out the little disturbances of earth and stones and leaves— when he fairly puts his finger on them — all the magic goes out of the performance." "Plain as day," said Jerry. "Ah, yes. You jolly well want to kick yourself, you know, for being mystified at all." "If you make a study of footprints," said Jerry, "you find that they're all different — like finger- prints. I reckon there never were two men's tracks anywhere near exactly alike. But take a hcof-mark. That's a bit more puzzling. Yet a good black track- er can look at the track of a horse — the depth, you know, and the length of stride— and tell you just about how much he weighs, and how many hands high he is, and where he was shod. If he knows a horse he can easily pick the track from the trampled ground around a water-hole. Once," he went on, proceeding to the tale of the black tracker and the distant trooper, "two troopers, out on patrol with their trackers, met in the bush and traveled a day together. Next morning they parted. One went due east and the other a little to the east of south. It was a big angle. Well, now, when the first trooper had ridden five days from that point, 121 , f i I ; ' •' i tl ,1 ;i' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS his tracker told him, all at once, that the second trooper was at the station to which they were them- selves bound. The trooper laughed at him. You see, that couldn't be so. It was preposterous. The men had been riding almost at right angles for five days. The tracker must be a fool— a silly boaster. But the tracker was right. For some reason or other the second trooper had changed his course, and the blackfellow had picked up the track. And here's the point: he had seen that trooper's horse only once before in his life, and he wasn't balked by the fact that the trooper ought to have been a good many miles away." "These most entertaining talcs," said I, "have chiefly to do with the tracking of white men by blackfellows. Are the native blacks able to elude the trackers?" "No fear!" Jerry laughed. "Doubtless they oppose cvmning with cunning?" "Ah, yes," replied the Australian. "But set a thief to catch a thief, you know. I recall an in- stance of the sort. In the McDonnell Ranges, north of Oodnadatta, a miner returning to his camp, one night, found that he had been robbed of his supplies. His only clue was this: that on the previous evening a lubra [blackwoman] had asked for tobacco, and that, later, when the miner was going toward the bush for firewood, he had caught sight of a spear in the scrub, followed, presently, by the merest glimpse of a vanishing naked black. He could not blame the theft to the woman. Nor could he iden- tify the blackfellow with the spear. Moreover, the thieves had swept the camp with boughs, to obliter- ate their tracks, with blackfellow's cimning, and had 122 LORE OF TFIE DESERT PLACES dragged the boughs after them when they departed. As there were hundreds of blacks in the neighborhood, seemed to be a hopeless case. The trail of the ■' ih was plain. It led to a point where the ground was all tracked up by blacks. And that was the end of it. Two trackers from the nearest police-station, however, went over the ground, discovering at last the fair print of a great toe. 'Geera!' they said. And they took up Oeera's trail from the meeting- place. It led into the bush, where it was joined by the tracks of a woman, which the trackers instantly identified as the tracks of Nangeena, Oeera's lubra. Eventually the two were taken together in the ranges. Oeera confessed — and blamed the woman." "It is quite true," Jerry observed, "that a first- class tracker, back in the bush, will know the foot- prints of every man and woman in his district. That's his business." "A rogue's gallery in his memory." "Oh, rogues and all!" "In this case," said the Australian, "the trackers were intimately acquainted with the conformation of Oeera's great toe. There is some mystery in all this business," he went on, presently. "A white man cannot always comprehend the whole course of the tracker's deductions from the traces he observes. And there are times when the tracker himself can- not explain them. You have seen a dog come to the end of the scent? — stop, lift his nozzle, circle bewildered, whimper, and at last dash away with certainty. I do not maintain, of course, that a tracker has a hound's sense of smell, which would be highly absurd; but his behavior occasionally suggests a hound — even resembling the inspiration 123 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ! i i :■ I I ,1 .1 of what is called instinct. And I will give you an extraordinary case. There are many cases. This one will try your credulity. Briefly, then, a black tracker, on the trail of a lost child, came to a point where he was baffled. Presently he picked up the track again. It was plain. It led, let us say, to the right. But the tracker would not follow it. In- stead, he pointed to a clump of bush, almost sharply to the left, and said that the child would be found there. And there the kiddie was, sure enough — tuckered out and sound asleep. I don't know how the tracker divined it. Possibly he could not him- self explain. There was reason in the process, of course. But by what steps — reasoning from point to point — did the tracker arrive at the deduction?" "There is nothing for it," I commented, "but to swallow that story whole." "Nothing whatsoever." "It does not admit," said I, "of elucidat .." "There are many mysteries," said the Australian. "It would be a dull world if there were not. I may add," said he, "that a tracker is at his best when he follows a lost child. There is desperate need of haste. It inspires him. And perhaps he leaps to his deductions without being conscious of any in- termediate reasoning." There were other tales — thrilling, mystifying tales. And the moon rose, swollen and red, out of a lake and mist of its own light. "If you think of the way these trackers are bred, away out there in the deserts and bush," said Jerry, "you will begin to under- stand why they are so astonishingly crafty. I reckon they learn their cunning in the hunt for food. A "4 li' LORE OF THE DESERT PLACES little black kiddie fends for himself. Tracks are what concern him. He plays tracks. He's taught tracks. Tracks are his Three R's. He wants food for him- self—food for his elders, too. What food he gets he must track. It is scarce. He must be cunning and diligent. And the desert animals are small— rats, snakes, frogs, bugs, bandicoot, caterpillars, grubs, lizards. Even the wallaby arc not large. A little black kiddie lives with the women for a while. And then he goes to the men. The more food he can find, of course, the more praise he deserves, and the better man he is. It isn't surimsing, after all, that a tracker can distinguish one fcwtprint from another and follow a human track. A blackfellow who must be able to track a rat over hard ground or starve — who can see the track of a bush mouse and know at a glance whether it is fresh enough to follow or not— ought to be able to track a man. Why, when you come to think of it, a human footprint is the biggest track that comes within his experience. It's like big type. He ought to be able to read it. It isn't that sort of thing that puzzles mc." It was left to us to infer that something of a dark and mysterious character did very much bewilder him. "What docs puzzle you?" I inquired, curiosity in- flamed. "Out in the bush," .said Jerr>', "you come across a good many half-caste children." It was surely no mystery! "Jolly little shavers, too," he added, smiling, "blue-evcd and as fat as butter." "What of that?" "Well," Jerry replied, "nobody ever saw a half- «2S I'l fill I-: 'I i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ,i caste adult with a tribe in the bush. Now — what bixomcs of all those jolly little blue-eyed shavers?" It was broad moonhght. The world was like a warm, dry room. No night-wind troubled us. And there was no sound — neither twitter nor buzz of life. Presently Jerry began a low singsong recitative from the verse of that Henry Lawson whom the bushmen understand and love : I've humped my swag to Bawley plain, and further out and on I've l)oile'lands riding. It was a waste place — wide, parched, empty — yet it charmed us, with its color and isolation, and many singu- lar aspects, as any desert will, and we wished we were riding east into the midst of it, where the savage life of the land is. rather than turning tamely to the dead town of Coolgardie. It was hot. It was still. Yet a hot wind blew in rare, bewildering gusts. The touch of dust bunicd like sparks of fire. We trav- eled an oven of the world. There was a copjx'ry haze, as though the impalpable particles of the air were incandescent and visible; and sky and scrub and earth were all aglow — molten blue and green and red. In contact with the hot sand the air went mad. It seemed to be streaked and honeycombed. We fancied that we rode from areas of relief into stream- ing ctirrcnts and still |xx?kets of heat. Those ex- traordinary atmospheric conditions whicli break in cyclones were here ofwrating multitudinously and in miniature to raise a host of little whirlwinds. It was an astounding s|x?ctacle, that blazing red expanse and its thousand little dusty tcmijcsts circling and 127 II m f'ti L! M f ' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS darting far and near. They went whirling past, enveloping us, screaming under the feet of our dis- couraged beasts ; and far away, swirling and swelling in the last places we could see, they raised a dust like the smoke of a forest fire. »r ■ ft XXII M SYDNEY TO QUEENSLAND T N Perth, once more, we took passage for Ade- * laide, of South Australia, meaning to go thence by rail to Melbourne and Sydney. No railroad con- nected the west with the east. The Transcon- tinental was then building across the dr>'lands from Adelaide to Kalgoorlie. To pass from Western Australia to Sydney Side, we took ship at Free- mantle, roimded Cape Leeuwin, crossed the tur- bulent Australian Bight, and ran up St. Vincent Gulf to Adelaide. Melbourne and Sydney are not for description in this narrative of our mild progress of the Australian byways. Our wishes lay beyond; and presently— we had meantime fallen in with the verses of that Australian poet of the outlands whom Jerry had quoted — they fixed themselves imperatively upon the coach-roads of Queensland. Sydney was hot, and lacked the compensations of the open— intolerable even to the patient travelers that we were. We who had with genuine delight been blistered in the dusty willy-willies of the Western Australian drylands now heartily wished ourselves an escape from the glistening walls and pavements: nor— so aggressive and terrible was the punishment of the time— could we endure to contemplate an- ia9 ii'l AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ,. I 1 I ll If other day of dispirited behavior or challenge again the heat and exasperating white sunlight. A lovely, enlivening town, truly — given greatly to pleasure, too, in the favorable seasons, and more amply pro- vided with fields and beaches and sheltered salt water than any city that I know of: yet now dull and wretched in a suflfocating midsummer weather, the people indoors, languishing without heart. A hot wind blew from the west. It came from the way of the dr>'lands. It stifled the town — an oc- casional midsummer visitation of distress. It would presently switch to the south (said they). A south- erly buster would blow — a Sydney brickfielder; and then we should know a rare thing, worth coming all these miles to see (said they), and worth telling about, too, when winds of consequence blew elsewhere in the world: a swiftly falling temjDcrature, a change of thirty degrees, perhaps, with a great blast of weather and a cloud and swirl of fine dust to amaze us beyond the sand-storm of the African deserts. Quite so: but all at once, then, a shilling copy of the Popular Verses of Henry Lawson, that poet of the Australian bush, caught us off our feet. We read "The Ballad of the Rouseabout." We read "The Boss Over the Board." Wc read "The Song of the Old Bullock-Driver." And we read "The Lights of Cobb and Co." And we strapped our luggage, in haste to be gone upon this new business; and we called for the bill, and we harried the porters, and we were presently thanking God for the pleasure of exercising our irresp>onsibility, the while wc rattled out of Sydney station, bound north to the bush and long roads of mid-Queensland — the wool-track and the irresistible outlands, the wind J 30 SYDNEY TO QUEENSLAND and odors and small adventures of the far-away open places. Fire lighted — on the table a meal for sleepy men — A lantern in the stable — a jingle now and then — The mail-coach looming darkly by light of moon and star — The growl of sleepy voices — a candle in the bar — A stumble in the passage, of folk with wits abroad — A swear-word from a bedroom — the shout of "All aboard!" "Tchk-tchk! Git up!" "Hold fast, there!" and down the range we go! Five hundred miles of scattered camps will watvh for Cobb and Co. Old coaching-towns already decaying for their sins; Uncounted Half -Way Houses and scores of Ten-Mile Inns; The riders from the stations by lonely granite peaks; The blackboy, for the shepherds on sheep and cattle creeks; The roaring camps of Gulong and many a Diggers' Rest; The diggers on the Lachlan; the huts of Furthest West: Some twenty thousand exiles, who sailed for weal or woe, The bravest hearts of twenty lands, will wait for Cobb and Co. The roads arc rare to travel, and life seems all complete: The grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses' feet — The trot, trot, trot, and cantor, as down the spur we go — The green sweeps to horizons blue that call for Cobb and Co. '4 h! i' XXIII BOOKED THROUGH i'} 'I I I' AT half past three of a raw Queensland morning ^ the 'ostler of the inn knocked us up for the Royal Mail. A tap on the door, and a surly whisper, breathing through the keyhole, with reluctant dis- cretion, "Coach below, sir!" The warning ran into the "Aouw!" of a creaky yawn. Tap-tap next door. A snort in surprisingly prompt response. Tap-tap across the hall. A grumble. It was enough for the 'ostler. He tiptoed down the corridor upon his yawning business. Tap-tap down the corridor. No answer. Tap-tap-tap-tap-/a/7 — peremptorily — down the corridor. A growl and a wicked sputter of rage. "I s'y, sir!" the 'ostler complained, deeply injured, expressing his resentment with colonial candor, "coach below, sir, gor blime me, sir! W'yke up, sir — gor blime it!" A muffled outburst of anathema indicated that the prospective passenger had heard and would attend. No more tapping. Four of us, obviously, were for the road that day. Yawns, then, next door. Yawns and sighs across the hall. Yawns and a smothered rumble of growling down the corridor. When, presently, we tiptoed past the gentleman - jackaroo's door, the breathings of that young English exquisite's slumber 132 m BOOKED THROUGH disclosed that he, at any rate, was not bound on to the 'prentice labor of his station. Snores resound- ed from the comer room — snores of such a down- right and abandoned character that they could pro- ceed from nobody but the drunken horse-breaker. And they came like the music of good news: the drunken horse-breaker, too, was remaining, and his luggage of contentious conversation. The trooper was ahorse, the shearer was awheel, the swagmen — two weathered old mates — were afoot; and in the sleepy dawn we recalled nobody else — except the young lady who had until midnight executed "The Robin's Return" on the inn piano with exact pre- cision. Departure was appointed for four o'clock. It lacked twenty minutes of the hour. In the yard below, the coach, a great rattletrap, already bulky with the mail, was drawn up and drearily waiting. "'Ave yer tucker, sir," the 'ostler whispered, making a mystery of the thing, like a tip on a horse-race, "an* 'ave it in a 'urry." "Our— tucker?" "Breakfus', sir. 'E don't del'y, sir, w'en 'e's goin' through." A black night pressed in upon the pallid light of an overhead lantern which projected into the yard from the lintel of the public-room door. A yawning coach- man, wrapped to the ears against the foggy weather, stood under the lamp, whip in hand, his fat legs spread wide, as if cunningly prepared against the accident of his falling asleep, where he stood, and toppling over. And the coach, too, which was tilted a bit, having fallen into that posture, appar- ently, in a cat-nap, seemed to have kept late hours 133 il IT !] M 1 1 / I l» ,1 •l M-' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS and to have been turned out of quarters, a disrepu- table slumber cut short, without time to wash its face. The horses were dejected and sleepy A sleepy coach-boy held th^ heads of the drooping leaders. He was sound asleep, indeed, with his face agamst the shoulder of the near horse, and his bare legs, stiffened like the legs of a tripod, of which the horse may be supposed to have formed the third, inclined in a wiy to hold him upright. Observing the wretched state of men and beasts, we yawned, and rubbed our eyes, and yawned and yawned again. And the 'ostler yawned, and the coachman yawned, and the horses seemed imminently about to yawn, and the coach-boy, awakened by this disturbance of yawning, yawned, too, and so capaciously, for one of his age and stature, that we fancied his little jaws would stick fast at the extremity of their width and require the immediate services of a physician to restore them. But nothing of the sort happened : the coach-boy was doubtless accustomed to manag- ing his sturdy little jaws at that early hour of the morning; and having stretched them to their amaz- ing capacity, and having maintained them in that situation until his satisfaction was complete, he snapped them shut, without any difficulty whatso- ever, and put his face down again, and once more feU sound asleep. In the cofifee-room, in a meager, smoky lamp- light, we found a stout, florid man nodding over ham and eggs, while he breakfasted in company with a rusty old fellow with a long gray beard. "Booked through?" says the florid man, waking up. "Booked through." 134 BOOKED THROUGH "Humph!" growled the other. It seemed they were surly fellows. And we were surly, too. A hundred miles of the hospitality of the coach was a shocking prospect at that dispiriting hour. These were to be our fellow-passengers of the long road of that day: the drowsy florid man and the rusty old fellow with the gray beard ; and promising folk they were, indeed, to travel intimately with, though now melancholy and selfish with the need of being abroad from warm beds before dawn. The rusty old fellow, a limp, broad-brimmed black hat drawn to his cars, was lean and of a cadaverous pal- lor, clad in a threadbare black greatcoat, buttoned under his beard, collar turned up, his neck incredi- bly long and scrawny and limber, so that when he moved his head it was like the grotcsciue nodding of a toy manikin. He attended to his porridge with that selfsame energy and anxious economy of time whi 'h (we learned before the day was out) had made him rich in lands and sheep and cattle; and when he had smacked his gray lips for the last time, he was not only comfortably furnished for the jour- ney, but impatient with the little leisure that re- mained, which he could not by any means turn to remunerative account. The florid man was in a pitiably sleei)y way. He could not rouse himself — try as he would, with all the flabby will that he had. He nodded and started and blinked and shook him- self, and he .ighed and yawned, and coughed in a sudden, loud, determined way, as though now, at last, he was wide awake and master of his faculties; but he could not for the life of him command an 135 10 Hi y \ ii ' i I, I i. I ll It? M ^1 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS interval of unblinking attention to the ham and CECS an interval sufficient to make his heroic effort to devour them in the least worth while. Indeed, wo saw him fall asleep with his fork midway from the plate-and start awake, then, before he had nodded twice, and stare at the morsel, and slowly recognize it as something with which he had once been im- portantly concerned, and swiftly dispose of it in a snap and a gulp, and nod helplessly off to sleep again. He was sound asleep, the delectable platter close to his florid countenance, poor chap— caughr. unready and sheepish— when the 'ostler came t. wam us to the coach. ^ A spare, jockey-like little man, this ostler: smell of the stable enveloped him, to be sure he had the secretive, obsequious habit of tho dock tout. Every word that he uttered, in th • pany of his betters, was let drop, in seclusion, hkc information of consequence, not to be spread abroad among the clods and the fools of the neighborlxood, who would surelv damage the issue, but to be kept close, with proper cunning, for employment to ad- vantage the knowing. Late of the night before, on the quiet, withdrawn from the loquacious presence of the shearer and the drunken horse-breaker, we had been informed that five points of rain had fallen to the west of us. We must bend our ears to catch this; and though, at first, five points of rain to the west of us seemed to be a matter of no grave mo- ment, when we had received the 'ostler's glance, and been subjected to his gradual wink, we were on the point of exclaiming, "You don't mean to say so!" and conceiving ourselves put in possession of information which with a little capital might father a most prof- 136 •.l-c .1:. ■ Nld- BOOKED THROUGH itable speculation. A vastly entertaining fellow: I would not forget him— an amiable rascal, no doubt. And now he whispered the news that it was four o'clock— breathed it -." . a wink so sly, so still, .so subtly insinuating the imi^rtance of the communi- cation, that had we been bushrangers of the old days, challenging capture in town, for mere sport of the hazard, and had the 'ostler been the bush- telegraph, and had the police been upon us, and had the locality been infinitely perilous, we could not have been more surely convinced of the wisdom of escaping to the night and the open road by way of the coflfee-room door. Move we did, in response to the 'ostler's dark suggestion, somewhat in advance of the florid man and the rusty old fellow with the long gray beard; and our expedition gave us some small advantage, after all, as the 'ostler had intended: we tumbled into the black interior of the rattletrap coach and were in time to seize the most comfortable places. "Right-o?" called the fat coachman from the box. "Right-o!" yawned the florid man. "Right-o!" snapped the rusty old fellow. "Right-o!" agreed we. "Right-o, sonny!" said the coachman to the coach-boy. And we were instantly on the jump It was thrill- ing. Expectation delighted us. XXIV THE king's highway !' .1 WELL, now, the coach-boy. all awake and lively, dropp'-d the heads of the leaders. Icai^ed to the sadillo c;f his hack, and galloped off into the dark, bound on. in smart haste, as a diminishing clatter of hoofs indicated, to the first post-change, there to routul up fresh horses for the stage bt^yond. And the coach-horses, having shaken themselves awake in answer to the fat oiachman's soft "(iid-ap, you beauties!" drew away from the circle of misty lan- tern-light, tumed out of the inn-yard, and broke into a galU)p on the black road. It was thick dark. There were no stars: there were no lighted windows. The little town was sound aslet^). We turned a comer. jutuikhI a ditch, carcened down a hill, rattled over a bridge, rolleil into the bush, and siK>d along, swaying and jolting; and all this while (until our searchitig fingers found something to grasp)— though the fat coachman was merrily caroling "I Married Her on the Downs " to what must have been the first faint Hush of dawn— all this while we were tumbled about in the dark, in a fashion to pain and irritate us. and had no he^rt, not one of our tumultuous company, to make a joke of our miser>', but were all melancholy and grim. The expecta- 138 THE KING'S HIGHWAY tion of Pickwickian adveRture vanished. A f;ravc situation all at once confronted its. It could not be made light of: there was no laughing it away — no transforming it, with a touch of the imagination, into an experience of novelty and delight, in the way of jocular travelers who have learned how to deal with the various discomforts of the road. It was to be faced with what measure of courage wc could command; and — in literal terms— it was a terrifying prosjx'ct. There was no turning back: a hundred miles of that braising road lay ahead in the empty bushlands and all the slow hours of the inimical day we had begun, dark of dawn tt) dark f)f night — with other days of the back-block coaching- roads immediately imi)ending; and the Royal Mail, under contract to iKTform the incredible feat, would accomplish its hundred miles, weather permitting, no matter to what desix'rate state of black-and-blue exhaustion the boundcn duty of transferring His Majesty's mail from plaie to i)lace without inter- ruption might reduce idle travi-lcrs from overseas. Now the 'ostler's warning his wink and whisjK*r — seemed no burlesc|ue of significance. •"Iv don't dd'y, sir," .says the 'ostler, "wen 'e's goin' through." New Australian railroads are btiilding and pro- jected -government lunlcrtakings: then* is a lusty boasting n( sjuirs and connecting lines and tnms- continentals, all about to U-, and sttrc lo be, indeed, in fulfilment o( the fine Australian ambition to be progressive and ultitnateiy wealtliy and great; but in these raw times, with a new wave of pionet^ring gathering impulse imd a wide swcvj), eighteen thou- sand miles of railroad in:ide(iuately serve a populous 1: n n AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS n little Southeast (which is provided out of i)roportion) and an amazingly vast territory of settled out- lands. Whom the saucy Sydney lUdkiiu calls the squatocraey of the land, being bound from great comfortable estates to the markets and fashionable pleasures of Sydney and Melbourne, in the seasons for town, may travel the intervals of highway in equipages of distinction, alone and alotif; but the selector and small fanner take the Royal Mail as a matter of course, with the commercial traveler, the wool-buyer, the horse-trader, and the school- marm, or book ])laccs with a rival, the "Democrat." the " Lively Billy." or the "TI underbolt." A dash- ing fellow, in the co.aching way, has his privileges in the coaching ountry'. as of old: he may strut the inn-yards, hohnob with consequential passengers over the bars, chtick the mai\ VI \l\ll. I Hll-.^1S(. A Klkll I> ! THE KING'S HIGHWAY U .as tolerable, present^ - -^:r;?:i to the emergency and ^s^^^^^^^ ^^^ „„, dip of the rmd. ami a shione ^^^^^ ^^^.^^ with the other, and ^^^^^f' ^^ ^^^ ^-erc far against the jolt and «^^;'^g "^ ^^^ J^f ', ,,iight with too clever to nse ^'f '° [^"^ISk • and the four violence. It was «^^" ^^;f;Vf;;\4 gallop, and horses were still at ^ ,f^\^ "^^^^^^^ with the the f-\--^!l"^tuilvn^' I Married Her on the sacks o mad. ^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ,vas asleep-hmp Downs." The stout, nn ^.^ ^^^^^^^ and soft and ^cavy • so U^at. a ^^ ^^^^.^^^ worked both ways bemR J^f '^^st and the rusty but a comfortable bulk to fall aganst ^^^ ^^.^^ old fellow with the gra beard ^ ,^^, and angular (he was real ^'^^hc'' ^" ^^.^ ^^eerns. with his elbows). l''--^'f "^^i^J^a splash of rosy silent in the shado..^ ^^^.^i black shapes and light, far ^'^^y^J^V'^^/u" rtcn^ tufted tops of t^-b;^^'^^;;^' "^;,e radiant-erimson i,e of dawn. ^^^^^^'^^ ^^^ ^'S^' ^f '", color, yellowmg fast , ^P*^^^"' ^ j ^^^,, Queensland n.ined.at last, in ^^e cleep Uu ^^^^^^^ V^ ^^^ ^^j, day. Alaughing-pckass3ec -I a^^^ ,^,i, of a bottle-tree ^^"^ ^^^^^/^^^r^olded. as though indignation, and ^^^^^,^ ,.,^ a nuisance the disturbance . r I''^^*^^ ^^^ <.|^,nk into the the law should put ;^oun ana -^^ « backward depths of the »n«aU- s^^^^^ ^^^ ^,.p,, ,,ve us glances, and two v^ aUab> . m ^ y the road, and ^^.^''^'^ jV>Pping to sen. The space, went ^^^^-^^'^"^^^ skvp out of his ,ii » I t AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS I' smilinK like a red Aujs^iist moon; and the msty old fellow, without wrinkling his pallid face, or twink- ling his deep-set, bleared little eyes, or unbending his attitude, managed to convey to us, when he re- marked that it would be a fair day, that his disposi- tion was amiable and his inclination toward com- panionable behavior of the best. It was broad day when we approached the first post -change. Warm, yellow sunlight, a fine abun- dance of it, flooded the dusty read and flecked the open reaches of the bush. At that moment there was a stirring on the floor of the coach — the stirring of a small, living body, to be sure, earnestly endeav- oring to emerge from under the rear scat, and in somewhat wrathful im])aticnoe with a tangled bar- rier of feet and legs. Was it profanity we heard? — or a more or less innocent wheeze of angry breath? I recalled then that a rumpled horse-blanket had occupied the rear seat, in the dark of our departure from the inn, which seemed to enfold a great leg of mutton or a small shoulder of beef; and as the rear seat was no place at all for either a shoulder of beef or a leg of mutton, we had tumbled it to the n(M)r, blanket and all, and kicked it out of the way. With the jouncing of the eoaeh it had persistently returned to trouble our comfort; and we had as ])ersislently heeled it back (with the violence of aggravation) —and the florid man and the rusty fel- low had t(K'd it back (so that at times we were en- gaged in a concerted assault and battery uix)n it) — to make room for our feet in the sj)aee which our feet had hiwful title to oeeu])y. And now it turned out to be neither a large leg of mutton nor a small shoulder of beef, but a sullen little half-caste boy, 142 THE KING'S HIGHWAY as sullen as ever I knew, who said that he was the spare-boy, and demanded opportunity for instant exit, else how (says he) could he get into action when the coach drew up at the post-change, now less than a hundred yards ahead? How in the world he had kept asleep through the jolting of the coach and the brutal treatment of our exasperation was not to be explained by any wit that we had; but the mystery of this — which sufficiently entertained us — was fair- ly dwarfed by the myster>' of how he had, in that blind comer, managed to wake up to his duty precisely without another instant to spare. "Blackfellow blood," the rusty old fellow ex- plained. "Knows ever>- hump and bumji of the road," de- clared the florid man. "A touch of color, sir." We went galloping helter-skelter down a long, slow hill. The coach rolled like a ship in a sea- way. Here was the last little stretch of the first .stage. There was no sparing the beasts. It was a .sjuirt. "(jid-ap!" yelled the fut coachman. "(Vlong, you beauties!" And he flourished and cracked his whi]), like a man with a rare to win, in a desperate finish, and halooed, and clucked, and stamped his feet, and sh(X)k his ribbons; and the horses, heads down, ears flat, all on the jimi]), exi)ended the last breath th(>y had to oblige his urgc'nt humor. All at once we drew iij) short and gasping beside a great bush-i)addock, into one comer of wliich. fencx^d high and furnished with step-rails, the coach-boy, who had ri(l(kn ahead, had already rounded u]) the re- lay. There was a fine da.sh in the thing- in the nish and dust and rearing halt : yet there was tkj- body to applaud our si)irited arrival (the post- '43 % T ■ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS h 1 :c change was deep in the bush)— except the little willy-wagtails ami a flock of stupid parrots. A laughing-jackass passed a word or two of comment; but this was in the way of contemptuous criticism— as though we might have done more brilliantly. Smart work, now, you may believe: coachman and coach-boy and half-caste fell upon the horses in a fury of haste, and stripped them and slapped them steaming into the paddock; and the fresh relay was led out and strapped and buckled to the coach- all in a disciplined way, without a waste of seconds. The half-caste boy caught the heads of the leaders; the coachman clambered to the box and gathered up the reins; the coach-boy grasped the mane of his riding-hack, and was away, in puffs of dust, with one foot in the stirrup and a bare leg in the air. "Right-o, sonny!" says the coachman. The half- caste boy droi)i)cd the heads of the leaders and came scurrying back. And the whip cracked. "Gid-a])! Wheet, wheet! G'long, you beauties!" The leaders reared; the steady wheel-pair buckled to the labor; and we moved off with a jerk and swung at a gallop into the bush road. We were the Royal Mail; and the Royal Mail- in the remotest places of all the wide world— moves importantly and with expedition. "Smart work." says the fat coachman. "We'll go through on time." In the nick of time we had caught the hapless little half-caste by the scruff of the neck— he was clinging like a monkey between the wheels- and hauled him inboard. Clear the road for the Royal Mail! The Royal 144 '(•i : THE KINGS HIGHWAY Mail is for over in haste. It miisl j^o throuRh. And here is a sinj^ular (U-votinn: it takes no aeeount of hardship, small thought of i>eril, but considers duty. Wherever the Royal Mail i)enctrates — desert, forest, jungle, ice-field, wild autumn seas — and however transported — dog-team, whaleboat, eamcl-train, the backs of savages — it goes with its own dignity; and thought of the round world, flashing over the British outlands, in a swift vision, discovers it for ever moving, indomitably, securely, urgently — going through, and doing its level best, with cunning, courage, and prodigal energ>', to go through on time. Here were we, in the coaching country of the Aus- tralian back-blocks, remote from observation; but smart work was the word for the rattletrap Royal Mail — smart work ani a her^rty pride in smart work: so that what would have been a dull journey, accom- plished with groaning and sighs, had speed been of no consequence, and a moving clock no master, seemed now, so exhilarating was the behavior of the coach, as we galloi)ed into the green lowlands, to promise an acceptable adventure, in the complex nature of a i)atriotic achievement and a race against time. Subseciuently, going north, in these parts, we traveled by other coaches — private enterprises, these, to catch pounds and iK.mce where the Mail was booked up; and our coaches were slovenly, our beasts of poor quality, our passage not hailed and respected, our way a lazy going, with leisure to pause for gossip in the encounters of the road, time to stretch and smoke and talk horseflesh at the post- changes. Invariably, however, the Royal Mail was taken seriously by the folk of the highways and inns — by all creatures, indeed, except the laughing- Q i "'^n .ii ■■■■\ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS jackasses, which, wretched birds, being constitu- tionally incapable of anything better than jeering cachination, made game of us, and would have ridiculed even the Person of Royalty, traveling the king's own highway! il ll f, I r' i f\ i : XXV "smoke it up!" FRESH and eager, the new relay took the road with spirit, to the delight of the fat coachman, who flecked their flanks and ears, to indicate his interest, and whistled encouragement, and chirruped affectionate praise. And in response to these stimu- lating communications the four snorted and jingled and added something of vigor to what appeared to be a determined endeavor to shake the rattletrap Royal Mail to fragments and scatter the passengers in the dust. "Smoke it up, you Ijcauties!" says the fat coachman ; and smoke that road his beauties did — a rolling yellow cloud behind. It seemed we were flying: there was the illusion of breakneck speed, due, no doubt, to the swaying of the coach, which threatened instant disaster, and to the crack of the whip, and to the fat coachman's "Gid-ap!" and to the commotion of hoof -beats; but of course the most decrepit of motor-cars, ex])cnding the same measure of effort, would have made a snail of our pretensions. And so galloping, it coming near nine o'clock, we cantered, at last, into a sunlit open. A long lift of road lay ahead, reaching slowly to the crest of a ridge; and there a small figure popjx'd into view, waved a hat against the blue sky beyond, 147 i III li MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TEST CHART (ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No 2) 1^ 1^ |X6 1^ 140 III 2.0 /APPLIED IIVHGE Inc ■* '■' i js' Mot. '■■-^.^I ~-,h»iSt»r So* T,-.P|, -AtiOy ubA ■'61 •a; ofloo Phon# ■'6) ^88 *i989 fa. \l AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS and vanished over the hill, leaving a spurt of dust to describe the speed of his errand. In consequence of the alertness of this little lookout, when we drew up at the Range House — a bit of shanty, a touch of green paint, and a brilliant flowering vine, alone at the roadside near the edge of the ridge — a breakfast of steak and onions, witli fried potatoes and coffee, and with marmalade and toast, was already laid out— the most savory- brealvfast to be imagined: upon which we fell at once, you may believe, the florid man with exceeding voracity, being now wide awake and capable of exercising his obvious quality as a trencher-man, while the coachman and the coach-boy and the sullen little half-caste took out the exhausted horses and went to breakfast in the kitchen. "All aboard, gentlemen!" says the coach-boy. "My word!" puffed the florid man. We were at a canter in the bush beyond before the florid man had fairly wiped his lips and com- manded his indignation; and the fat coachman, his weather eye jjlcased with the prospect, was singing again— "Flash Jack from Gundagai" and "The Old Bullock Dray." Long after noon, having by this time changed three times more, twice at lonely pad- docks in the bush. Twenty Mile Gully and Bottle Tree Creek (there was neither gully nor creek to be seen), and once near the slip-rails and dipping-pen of some wealthy cattle-station, and always with the precision of a drill — the day being now blue and dry ami hot and all the bush drowsy in the summer weather — we had leisure to dine at a coaching-inn. It was a mean place, ])erhaps, but the chief public- house of the day's stage of that highwav, and a 148 "SMOKE IT UP!" proud one: a little yard of gravel and brown grass, a low, long house, with a hot iron roof, a projecting lantern, a post and blistered sign, a deal bar, a talka- tive landlady, stablemen, and a swarm of house-flies. A stockman, knocking down his check — expending his wages, that is, over the deal bar — and now near the end of his cash and welcome — slightly inter- rupted the somnolence of the time and locality. The dull ebullitions of his orgie evoked no genuine interest (he was a slow-wit in his cups); and the landlady — who might at least have had the grace to contribute a smile to the joy of his holiday — served him listlessly, wishing haste to his spending, it seemed, and himself gone back to the labor of his station. A blacksmith's forge, and a second habita- tion, with beggarly outbuildings, made a town of the place. And town it was, truly, with a cherished pastime, in the way of all Australian towns, as we confirmed — with another lost hamlet within sport- ing distance, half -day's reach of a riding-hack: for a manuscript notice, posted in the bar, announced a cricket-match, presently to be ])layed against Dry Creek, and "earnestly requested" all the town "to roll up, for the honor of the town, and team will be picked from the field." ii i^- I- 1 !■* XXVI A BUTCHER S PHILOSOPHY \l ll ■(-■ A LL afternoon the road flowed under our reckless ■*»• wheels. We sped. A gray-green, ragged bush — always a gray -green, ragged bush — swung to the rear and vanished in the dust of our passage. There was the bush poet's blithe "grind of wheels on gravel, the trot of horses' feet— the trot, trot, trot, and canter." It was no fenced, kept highway, but a winding course through the bush — hill, gully, dry watercourse, and flatland — sand, gravel, and black loam; and the bush grew close — an open, grassy, sunlit bush, of box-trees, oak, blackbutt, spotted-gum, string>'-bark, bottle-trees, ^mih patches of thick scrub, which were tangled and dark as a jungle. Our journey was in eight stages, twelve miles to a stage — a matter of ninety-six miles of variable highroad; and as we traveled a coach and four, thirty-two horses, with the coach-boy's four riding-hacks— thirty-six horses in all— drew the Royal Mail that day. Wheelers and leaders came exhausted to the post-changes and were turned out to browse themselves into condition again; they went to their brief labor with a leap, when the fat coachman first cracked his whip, and sweated and snorted and pawed, like race-horses, at the end of ll' A BUTCHER'S PHILOSOPHY the last dash. Grass-fed beasts (said the fat coach- man): they fended for themselves in the paddocks; and they were soft, good for one stage at least— for two stages, most of them— a week. Not that they were beasts of poor quality! My word! we were not to think so ! They were beasts of most excellent quality — we could see for ourselves (said the fat coachman); and the standard of that excellence was maintained by occasional purchase and fre- quent clever trading. As the Mail made three round trips a week, with the best of luck, in the very best weather, the mail contractor, whom the fat coachman served, kept one hundred and six- teen horses in his paddocks and stables, meaning to "get through" with that degree of expedition and regularity which should assure him the good- will of the countryside and a continuance of the government's favor. It was an exhilarating thing, now that we had set- tled to the nimble and jolt of it— thus to travel in the ancient mode, and to catch, here unspoiled and inevitable, the flavor of the long highway. The sky was blue over the road, blue beyond the shaggy tree-tops; and the clatter of hoofs, and the rattle of wheels, and the fat coachman's "Gid-ap, you beauties!" were pleasant sounds to hear, and we made a breeze of our noisy speed and left our dust to trouble others. Post-riders, waiting by the road- side, here and there, mounted when we came canter- ing into view; and having exchanged a word of the news with the fat coachman, and having taken their small sacks from the little half-caste, they spurred away on their far routes, vanishing in the bush. We p issed a selector's primitive home, and got a u 151 ) it I I \ M il c- .1 ♦I 'A AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS stare from his worn wife-hapless woman-and a wave and a shrill cheer from his forlorn little family, and after that we glimpsed the low roof and wide white porehes of a cattle-station, established in the midst of its many thousands of green acres oi succu- lent bush, and presently drew up to pass the time of day with the gray, strapping owner, a man ot land and social importance, now in condescending company with a swagman. and with the dnver of a wool-team, whose many spans of horses were rest- ing at the foot of the hill. At the next post-change we found a bullock team, in charge of a deaf old grandfather and the leanest little grandson that ever wore leggings and spurs-some tons of wool and twenty-four bullocks— the outfit gone into camp for the night, the biUv-can boiling, the damper (a scone of flour and water baked in hot ashes) in preparation, the bullocks being unspanned to graze their owri fodder; and now, indeed, we could better apprehend the pomp and speed of the Royal Mail: for the bul- lock team (said the fat coachman) had these nine days past been on the way through the twenty miles that remained of our day's run. ,. , , "Gran'fer's so slow," growled the lean httle boy, "that I cawn't m'yke out whether 'e's goin or comin'." All this time the florid man, a reticent companion, from shyness. I think-he was a Brisbane butcher (said he) and bound out to buy cattle for his stalls- had agreed with whatever was said. "Quite so! says he It was a pleasant thing, in the beginning, to find him not too disputatious ; but as the day wore along, so intimate was our situation, and so m need 152 A BUTCHER'S PHILOSOPHY of distracting conversation were we to cut short the rough length of these last hours, we fancied his com- pany would have b^en more agreeable had he been disposed to contriL...e a contrary notion or two to feed the languishing discussions. Not once was his caution entrapped. "Quite so!" says he. And, "Quite so!" — with an owlish appearance of wisdom, assumed to indulge us, wc complained, his wits be- ing elsewhere, gathering wool of some precious sort, which he would not share with us. It was not that he seemed to have no mind to employ; he seemed rather to have better occupation for his mind than we could provide — price of beef on the hoof, rise and fall of cold-storage mutton, Argentine com- petition in the British market, the invasion of American refrigerating plants, the establishment of great Queensland tanneries with American capital, and such important matter — and to be engaging his thought so busily that he could not spare the small- est moment of it for the trivial exchanges of the road. "Quite so!" says he. And, "Quite so!"— returning abruptly to distant fields of reflection. We should have thought him churlish had not this queer habit of agreement entertained us with its own perfection— with the hopeful expectation, too, that it would at any moment break in a lusty con- tention. And at last, moved by the rusty old fel- low, the florid man dropped an original comment. In the course of years, a man's business will teach him at least a little of philosophical truth— a little of truth, obtruding again and again, perceived often, confirmed a thousand times, and at last establish- ing itself, like a fact of the physical universe; and dealing with death, as the Brisbane butcher did, he 153 t 1 1 !^ i'l I' If I' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS had learned something true concerning it, in a gen- eral way. , „. We passed a small mob of sheep, dawdlmg con- tent through the dust, on the way to the mutton- market. . "For slaughter," said the flond man. We all of us— the rusty old fellow observed, with a sanctimonious wag, and a doleful sigh, too— are like sheep driven to the slaughter. , "I reckon," the florid man drawled, that it don t matter very much to the sheep." Taken deeply, it was profoundest wisdom— the wisdom of the stars. Surely a man will not discover in his own death a complete disaster to himself. It will not matter very much. It was late in the afternoon when we completed the last stage of the day and cantered with our dust into the little town of our destination. The sun was low, then, and first beginning to swell and flush- the shadows remaining still long and black. Ml the little scrubbers— the sun-browned, rosy, hearty chil- dren of the place-were at play on the green common after supper, and calling cows in the pastures, and stripped naked and dripping in the swimming-holc a black pool below the bridge. It was a pastoral village, communicating with the worid by coach, far away from any railroad— a gathering of cottages, with picket fences and pretty dooryards, some near covercd with a luxuriant flowering vme, and all drawn near the four corners where the general store was, and the saddler's shop, and the blacksmiths forge, and the wheelwright's shed, and the inn and the public-house, and the police-station and the post- 154 A BUTCHER'S PHILOSOPHY oflficc, with something in the way of a town hall, no doubt, which I have forgotten. Our dash was not diminished, but enlivened with larger importance and new fire, here at the end of the run, where the fat coachman lived. We swung from the highroad at full gallop, the coach on two wheels, the horses sweating and straining — a spirited spectacle for the waiting villagers. And we were boarded in a rush from the common. There were cries of, "Whip be- hind!" But the fat coachman had more urgent use for his whip th. i to fleck half a dozen little shavers from the springs and luggage-rack with it: he was cracking it over the heads of the leaders as we rolled into the yard of the inn — but whether to agitate their speed or to restrain their devilish behavior was a mystery for his own enjoyment. And here we drew up, with a last amazing jolt, before a com- fortable inn, with spacious porches, all the odors of a waiting table emerging to i>ase our weariness and entice a good humor to the arrival. Down came the fat coachman from the box. "Pleasant trip," said I. "Not too bad," said he. "I've been as much as ten days coming through." "In the rains?" said I. "In a spell of dry weather, once," said he, lightly, "I came through in six hours and forty minutes." And the coach -boy winked at the half-castt — and the half-caste put his tongue in his cheek. I XXVII A SKELETON BUSH NEXT day we coached along — not now aboard the Royal Mail, but in a shabby democrat wagon, a privately operated coach, known as the "Billy Bullet." Near dusk it began to ram A Queensland shower, this-a swift drenching of the bushlands. Night was now do^\'n. It was black dark in the coach. The horses were exhausted to a dispirited trot. And we four passengers were limp. A highroad rough with ruts and stones pounced and shook us. A black wind blew in-chiU and wet And the coach leaked pertinacious little tnckles ot black rain: so that-here cowering helpless m the like of a dark shower-bath— we had no dry thmg uoon us. "Gid-ap!" says the coachman. And "Gid-ap'" And, "Gid-ap!" And nothing came of if nor had the coachman the least expectation that anything would come of it. But, "Gid-ap! says he And. "Gid-ap!" And in this way we rattled and splashed and jolted along toward the refuge of an expected inn. No wise traveler woula yield his spirit to these incidents of discomfort, but would employ his imagination-without an abundant meas- ure of which no traveler of any sort should essay a passage of the byways of the worid-to withdraw 156 '!. .! A SKELETON BUSH him from the ills of the time. He would contem- plate, to be sure, not the rainy night, not the pains of the road, but the lights and company of the ex- pected inn, and the good green bounty to come to the bushlands of all this dripping misery. And thus we — surveying the grassy, sunlit future of the paddocks: until, ahead in the dark of the road, a point of light, flaring in the midst of a glowing little globe of rain, indicated that Forty Mile Inn was at last within hail. And at Forty Mile Inn, being now cramped and bruised and sodden, we alighted, de- siring a share of that refreshment for man and beast, to be had within, which the sign of the place prom- ised belated travelers. A landlady of uncomely aspect somewhat discour- aged our anticipation. "Coffee-room?" says the, listlessly. "Coffee-room!" We had not ordered supper: we had required the superior hospitality of the inn. In the morning of that day we had come trotting at easy leisure through as drear a stretch of bush as could any^\'here be found. All open, like a kept park, this bush was upstanding, perfect in trunk and branch, the grasses fresh and flourishing knee-high, and no scar of fire to be descried; but every tree was dead — as dead as dry bones, and clean and bleached white, like an articulated skeleton. It was a ghastly spectacle. A night passage, in the white light of the moon, would surely make a man's flesh creer) — a stark, gray forest, and the rattle and creak of its dry limbs, and the wind wandering past, moaning and whispering and whimpering, as the 157 / r. f II • ( I .1 1 I r AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS wind will, given half a chance to frighten timid folk. It was nothing at all to fancy that a gigantic natu- ralist had here expressed some eccentric notion- had designed to exhibit to the passengers of that highroad the anatomy of the Queensland bush. We wondered why any settler should work such wide destruction— what wisdom lay in killing all this mighty timber; and we learned, then, from the amiable coachman, that the death of these great trees had been dealt to give the grasses more life— the vitality of all the rain. It was a ring-barked bush (said he). They had cut a broad band of bark from every trunk, near the root, in the AustraUan way of improving the land ; and the leaves had fallen, and the bark had gone to shreds and been blown j^^vay_and the trees, like dead men, who ask noth- ing of the world's bounty, drew no moisture from the ground, needing none, but left it to sustain the grasses for the cattle. These were not the surely watered and fertile Queensland miles— the comparatively inconsequen- tial fruit -acres and sugar -lands. It was cattle country, and sheep country, too; but hereabouts it was mean land— a perishing land. The good pas- tures, new and near free, where the stock grows into money (said they), and any young man, with the heart and patience of the fathers, can be wealthy at middle age. like the grayheads of these days— these good places lay deeper north and west, where the frontiers are, with the world lapping out to them, like a tide. Nor near by where then we coached was there any very vast station, but humbler ones, not of the maj^nitude of the incredible, established estates of the Darling " River country, the New I.S8 1 ii A SKELETON BUSH a fe? South Wales back-blocks, to which the third gen- eration returns, nowadays, from the English schools and universities, with the natural habit of leisure, and with affectations of a sort to startle the patri- archs — ^not the million -acre runs, hereabouts, and the ten-mile paddoi ks, and the three hundred thou- sand head of stock, and the swarm of herders and boundary-riders and managers and jackaroos, and the racing-stables and jockeys and hunters, imd the tutors and music-mnsters and retainers-in-general. It may be that in the end these amazing holdings will be the material of romance: for the govern- ment docs not hesitate to seize them and throw them open for what is called closer settlement. At any rate, here was none. The land was for the small selector — blocks of twentv-five hundred acres, which he might have for a shilling an acre, pcrhajis, or for nothing at all, with the government's blessing to boot. Prickly-pear troubled the country. It was spread- ing with the speed and blighting effect of a plague — doubling the area of actual occupation every two years, when thriving unchecked. It had spoiled ten thousand miles (said they); and it had infected twenty million acres — this estimate from a Queens- land ranger, whose busines.^ had somewhat to do with the pest and who was far too serious a fellow, it seemed, to take a rise out of credulous travelers. "As for m.ere infection," said he, then, "I reckon eighty million acres would be nearer the truth." I I am unable to swallow such a mouthful of ciphers: the reader may suit his taste and capacity — drop- ping ciphers when surfeited; but this much is sure, and significant of an appaUing arithmetical result: 159 fIR AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS that in igio applications for new prickly-pear se- lections were accepted by the Queensland govern- ment to the extent of 1,308,170 acres. The coach- man had a pretty tale to account for the presence of the pear in this alien land. It was imported (said he) by the good lady of a station who was fond of curious plants; and it was kept in a veranda pot, and was nourished and greatly admired, and was transplanted to the yard, and there fenced with care, to keep it safe from the stock. And then it ran away — over the station premises and into the bush. 'T like this country," said that prickly-pear, according to the coachman's stor>'; "and I reckon I'll settle here— and stay." And now they curse it, and slash it, and bum it, and poison it with arsenic and soda; but it thrives, in spite of them, and de- lights in its adopted country. "Just been a Yankee over here to poison the pear," said the coachman, "by flowing a heavy gas through the bush." "Did the gas kill the pear?" "Ah, yes, and everything else," said the coach- man. "Wheet, wheet! G'long, you!" i XXVIII FORTY MILE INN WE had picked up a jackaroo, bound out from his station to the pleasures of Sydney and Me- bourne — for a whack at Hfe (said he), and a jolly smart whack, too! We had taken in a drover's boy, returning homesick to his mother. We had visited a blackfellow's mission (reservation) and run a losing race against the rain. And now we had fallen into disreputable lodgings, as, in the coaching coun- try, travelers will. It is all as it used to be. No man can say that he will be refreshed in the parlor of one inn and lie the night in No. 4 of an- other: nor is any journey come safely to its end, indeed, until the horses are drawn up in the lighted yard of the last inn of all. A mishap in the dark — a broken horse, a mired wheel, the accident of rain — and let travelers look out for obscure wayside taverns and queer lodgings. A glimpse of the bar of this low jniblic-house — the smoky lamplight and drear board walls and shelves — disheartened us in respect to the quality of its entertainment. At the moment of our arrival three stockmen were in the last rumble of a roar of laughter; and a barmaid, with her head furiously back, was shrilling a ver>' naughty complaint of some indelicacy they had 161 t I) AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS dropped — a word or two, perhaps, beyond the usual license. By this the stockmen were silenced and abashed, like mischievous children, even before a bleared little stable-boy had time to gather up our dripping luggage, or the landlady had bidden us fol- low to the parlor: whereupon the flash barmaid's anger, at once appeased by the blushes and stricken behavior of the three stockmen, ran into a scream of merriment more terrible than her rage. And here, then, it was plain, was no good Queensland inn, to put up coaching-folk, but a naked back-block pot-house, kept to serve the like of stockmen and shearers, in the season of spending (which was not now), who must find pleasure in their cups, or have no pleasure, at all to their liking, to reward their labor. We followed the landlady, with the bleared little stable-boy at our heels, to a musty parlor, where she lighted candles for us, and opened the door to an adjoining dormitory chamber furnished with several beds — shabby, suspicious characters, every one of them. A board partition, with cracks and gaps and knot-holes, was designed to separate our repose from the hilarity of the bar. There was a bed for each of us, however; and a bed for the young jackaroo, who was belated with us; and a bed for the diminutive drover, whom we had picked up in the happier hours of that day; and there was a last bed, leaning in a comer, on doubtful legs, for the next wretched traveler whom the rainy night should blow in. He had already blown in, it seemed: we heard him, then, in the bar, demanding lodgings, and demanding supper, and demanding an 'ostler to stable his horse; and we fancied him a harsh fellow — a man in pugnacious ill humor with being caught 163 FORTY MILE INN houseless on the deep black road. Had there been less to complain of, we should have been bitter with it all; but so forlorn was our state and expectation, in this mean pot-house, that when the young jack- aroo grinned, and th^:- little drover chuckled, we must break into laughter with them. Some phrases of drunken melody followed upon our mirth. They flowed easily in from the bar by way of the cracks and knot-holes. And the jackaroo explained that these snatches of song described Flash Jack from Gundagai as 'avin' shore at big WillanJra, au' shore at Tilbcroo, an' once V drew 'is blades, mc boys, upon the famed Barco — wliich was something more to laugh at, and promised a considerable amusement for the later hours. All dr>% at last, and a supper of hot mutton-pie being by this lime laid in the parlor, we found some- thing to cheer us, but not in the acquaintance of the new guest, who was a long, scowling, hairy man, and gobbled up his pie, and gulped down his tea, with- out saying a gracious word, and forthwith disap- peared to the veranda. Our landlady attended. She had no car for our chatter: nor was she inter- ested in our performance upon the hot mutton-pie — neither to save her victuals from an unusual vorac- ity, in the way of mean landladies, nor to urge us on to a still more remarkable feat, in the way of those ix)rtly landladies wliose good humor and motherly inclinations celebrate the hospitality of the best inns of the coach-roads. All the while she waited, she sat gloomy at the black window, with her elbow on the sill and her chin in her i)alm — staring out, her uncomely visage fixed and blank. It was hard to rouse her from this melancholy brood- 163 ; 1 i i> I i ti AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS ing Once, I recall, she moved abruptly, and made as if to dust the furniture with the hem of her apron, but seemed to reconsider and abandon the under- taking, whatever it was, and returned to the chair at the window and to the dreary prospect of the night A poor creature, she !— a lean, elderly woman, in a calico gown, with her meager gray hair m a listless knot; and she was somewhat of a slattern, too-- cal northern lands: these being coveted by the Little Brown Briber, who must thrive in a wider tem- for^l sphere «; perish. And wherever we fo lowed rlutkn bVways we came ^^^^ living fear of Japan-no peaceful "^f^l^^^^ion oy immigration (the Japanese are excluded), a ^^ar and mercilessly grasping invasion in ^^^ ^J^^ ^ Pvhibited itself in the cities, as well— m ne%vspaper editorials and in wrathy letters to the newspapers And ever>'^^^^ was a steady preparation agamst an event of this nature-not expressly, however a an t-vtuL KJi ^^ \„ctrnlinns are a peaceful Japanese ."vaMon '^^^ o, Defense, ad- bnsmess people, sa^ '^M™ ^^^^ „, ,„ „,,itrate dressing cadets. ma arc \\l i^ i ,<■ .t.„„ „.^. on 1 White Australia? Of course not! If then ^\c re not pR>pared to ari.itrate. the only logical alter- i^ive i to be prepared for war." in response to "^U., the.e^!nAustndia a ';univc^a tinning in the naval or militar>' forces. And no%\ me fco^'i^g man-who seemed to j^- -^ ^Xd tion with the military service o ^"^f ^^7^^^^^^^^ his bitterness with the opponents of this healtmui 166 'J. ( i <» THE SCOWLING MAN system: with fathers who complained that miHtary training would demoralize the ideals of their sons; and with mothers who feared for the manners and morals of their little darlings (said he) in the pro- miscuous association of the parade-ground; and with all wowsers— wowsers being overly pious folk, whose degree of piety, in this instance, would forbid a re- sort to arms in any circumstances to be conceived of. Australian lads of twelve years begin a more or less voluntary form of military training. It is an indulgent, happy-go-lucky sort of thing, designed primarily to be of physical advantage. When the lads are foiirteen years old, a limited military ser- vice^ is severely compulsory, with penalties for evasion, and fines laid upon employers and parents who interfere, and thus continues, with physical exercises, drill, parades, and rifle practice, for four years, whereupon these cadets are passed into the citizen forces. Four whole-day drills are required each year, and twelve half-day drills, and twenty- four night drills. A perfunctory attendance upon these grave obligations— inapt, sullen, frivolous be- havior—counts for nothing at all. If the cadet fails to be marked efficient by his battalion officers he must perform his service all over again. In Kal- goorlie of Western Australia— a great dust-storm blowing that night— we watched a column of these "Httle conscripts" (said a scoffer) march past with rifles and bugles and drums; and they were smart to see — brown uniforms, with tricks of green, and wide-brimmed Australian hats caught up at the side in the Australian way. It is no farcical affair. When we were in Brisbane of Queensland a score of truant youngsters were packed off to the military 13 167 I' AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS barracks for ten days of close confinement and drill; and away they went, in a big Cape wagon, in charge of a sergeant-major and under escort of some brill- iant artillerymen-a melancholy little crew, these truants, then, facing ten days of absence irom home, with six hours of drill on the hot parade-ground, under a sergeant-major who doubtless knew how to improve the patriotism of small culprits, and would do it with a switch. What consternation — what lamentations — in a score of Brisbane homes that night ! "Do 'em all good!" growled the scowling man, delighted with our story. And he went in better heart to bed. He must take the road (said he) right cariy in the morning. tl 'r XXX THE SENTIMENTAL SMITHY WE had sniffed no gasoline that day. We had heard no blaring, scaresomc demand to yield the road to our betters. Nor had we swallowed a haughty dust. Amble, jog-trot, and canter: these had been the three speeds forward. All travelers were ahorse ; and every horseman appraised the beast of the other — absorbed, like an old beau (we fancied), in his survey of those points of beauty and advan- tage which chiefly engage the cultivated interest of his years. This was true all Australia over. Inter- est in horseflesh ever>-where obtruded itself. What- ever considerable Australian city we visited had its too-considerable race-courses. In Kalgoorlie — that red desert land, scorched to the roots, dust-blown and aglare — the race-track lawns were green and smooth with anxious tending, and the great flowers bloomed, favored for the spectacle, watered without measure, to delight the eye in the occasional seasons of sport. All the bush towns, to the least of them— even the midst of Tasmania, the hill country, where was no town at all, but a pitiably scattered com- munity of shepherds — cherished a course for racing or kept the space of some paddock marked off with stakes. In Perth, and in Melbourne and Sydney, at i6(; If AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS the time of our passage, they were racing at the lesser courses, though it was the inimical month o the heat and dry winds: the bugles blowmg without heart, the flags limp, the jockeys' parti-colorcd jack- ets soiled, the horses straining in the stretch; small bookmakers, with satchels, er>'ing the odds; little boys wagering sixpences, gaming women placing I>ounds and odd shillings: sodden gathermgs, these, of incorrigible addicts. Now the young jackaroo— bound out lor a whack at life— described the Melbourne Cup. Ah, my word (said he)— but the Melbourne Cup! In the fall of the year, -when the winds blow better, and the crisp weather gives a daredevil thnll to the spirit, and the sky is blue, and the sun unfailing —it is then, young fellow, m' lad, that they run the Melbourne Cup! And it is one of the wide world s great spectacles of pleasure. The fashion of the town emerges to exhibit the quality and Enghsh flavor of its fashionable behavior; and the fashion of the great estates swarms in from the wealthy back country to town-the prettiest, liveliest girls in the worid (said the young jackaroo), and the loveliest mothers, and the very youngest grand- mothers, and young chaps with a sporting dash to •cm and grandfathers who know a horse and a whiskT-and-soda when they see 'em, and occasion- ally, ix;rhaps, can hardly distinguish the one from the other. It is all true (the young jackaroo de- clared) : the bright eves and pretty blushes, and the gowns from London and Paris, and the responsive gallantry of the young chaps with a sporting dash to 'em, and the jovial old grayheads— and the fash- ionable occasions, as well, and the magnitude of the 170 '1. THE SENTIMENTAL SMITHY spectacle, and the smothering suspense of the race. All Australia wagers, and waits, and wagers again, and shakes with apprehension, and lays a pound or two more, and sputters, at last, like a thousand trails of powder, from Melbourne to the remotest paddocks and deserts, when the ultimate news is loose. "Why, my dear fellow," the young jackaroo de- clared, to prove the importance of the occasion, "bookmakers come all the way from London— for the Melbourne Cup!" He was very much like a young American de- scribing the delights of baseball. Presently the blacksmith came shyly out of the drip of warm rain to join our company in the genteel inclosure of the veranda. He was a big, gray, rosy man; and he was now near laughably overflowing a suit of decent black, word having reached him (said he) that uncommon travelers were weather- bound at the inn— his Sabbath wear, no doubt, put on, in Scotch pride, to show his quality, as no low bush roisterer. A sentimental fellow, this rosy smithy turned out to be: he told us— near right ji^-ay- that he was a failure in life; and said this in wistful expectation of our amazement and sym- pathy, the thing being, in his lonely life, of such large, constant interest to himself, I am sure, that he could not think of it as news of inconsequence to anybody. He was the elder of two Scotch sons (said he) ; and he had labored at the forge, in some lowland Scotch village, and had scrimped his life, it was plain, and had spoiled his future, too, to im- prove the fortunes of his brother, who must be sent to the university. The brother was become a dis- 171 ;v if -I ill ,.: ( AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS tinguishcd divine. A grand theologian, man — a minister of power and grace! We had heard of him — doubtless? No? Ah, well, then we were not well acquaint' with Edinboro! That was true: and the truth of it — conveyed in haste and with solicit- ous emphasis — would have restored the good smithy's pride in his brother's fame (which needed no restora- tion) had it wavered. And, well, now, the younger son having taken a degree, and having been called, in season, and having been firmly inducted, the smithy had come to the colonies, twenty years ago, to build himself a larger future than he faced; and here was he to this day, poor chap! — a crossroads smithy, outstripped and discouraged in a land of opportunity. "Too old," says he, "when I landed." It was not that, I thought: it was more that he had habituated himself to the unprofitable virtue of self-sacrifice. "Ay," he insisted, "I was too old." Our smithy began, by and by, to discnurse — shrewdly, perhaps — of the philosophy of Thomas Carlyle: it being too pitilessly charged with ill temixT and scorn and brutal severity (said he) to improve the happiness of many; and after that he described the oratory of Gladstone and John Bright, and other great parliamentarians, and some great preachers of their generation, his eyes glowing the while, and his lips fairly smacking his delight — and recited for our pleasure some phrases of the elo- quence of those years : yet he would barter all these stimulating recollections (said he) to have heard Abraham Lincoln utter even the first sentence of the Gettysburg Address. Were we by any chance 172 It,t J )1 THE SENTIMENTAL SMITHY readers— he went on— of the novels of Charles Dickens? And he laughed: so that all at once we discovered the solace of his leisure— but were not astonished, at all: for in other comers of the world, where men are lost from each other, vc had fallen upon the same good disclosure, time and again. Here the smithy spoke of Mr. Turveydrop, and Mrs Gamp and poor Steerforth, and Dick Swiveller, and Mr. Veneering, and little David Copperfield, as of familiar friends— old intimates of his own. Why, man, it seemed, to hear him talk of ihem all, that they were still living their lives— or that, being dead, they were still mourned: Little Nell, and Paul Dombey, and Dora! And it was good to hear him: it was good to learn once more that this great legacy of laughter and friendship was not yet expended- that it still returned its splendid profit to the com- mon folk of the world. It seemed, for a flash, m- deed, being newly out fx^. Home, that we must have news of that cherishec jircle for the smithy. ^^ "And what, now, is to be the forthcoming work," he might have inquired, "of the celebrated Mr. Cop- perfield?" Our sentimental smithy did nothing of the sort, of course; but had he done so— had he so much as ventured to approach an inquiry of that description — our imagination, too, would have taken its high and joyous flight. We should have demanded to be informed, and that instantly, you may be sure, of the whereabouts of Mr. Micawber. Mr. Micawber was somewhere in the colonies: we knew that— we had read the newspaper account, indeed, of a certain convivial occasion, designed to recognize and distm- guish Mr. Micawber's activities in a sphere com- 173 'I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS pletely suited to those eminent talents which had hith- erto been obscured in dismal and utterly incompre- hensible misfortune. And we wanted to know where Mr. Micawber lived. We wanted Mr. Micawber to brew us a delectable brew, and, having submitted to the exhilaration of his performance, we wanted to shake hands with Mr. Micawber, a good many more times than once, being sure that sentiments of admiration might be expressed to Mr. Micawber, in these days of Mr. Micawber's prosperity, without the least pecuniary danger whatsoever. And we wanted to hear the dulcet young Wilkcns lift up his voice, and we wanted to be amazed by the growth and extraordinary loveliness of the twins, and we wanted to felicitate the faithful and perspicacious Mrs. Micawber, in the most carefully chosen forms of fashion and refinement. And we wanted more: wanted— if such a thing could be without dealing pj^jn—to tell our admiration and affection to those homely unfortunates who had sailed with Mr. Micawber to refashion their lives of the poor frag- ments of hope that a great catastrophe had left them to build with. Hut the sentimental smithy did not lead us so far away from the realities. "Ye'll hear me at the forge." said he, ri.-lng at l.mt, to leave us, "when ye're olT in the niornin'." We promised to listen for the tinkle and clang of till- forge. "I'm nothin' but a failure," said he. Ah. well! "Ye'll hear me singin' at the forge, just the same." said he. He jjaused. And added: "JJest of all I love the plaintive songs." 1 » XXXI THE MUSICAL STOCKMAN \l 4 AT that very moment there was an astonishing k. quantity of music in the air. It began in roar; and it continued at the pitch of a roar— scorning dimimiauio and crescendo, or carelessly incapable of cither, I am not sure which. At any rate, the neigh- borhood vibrated with melody. It originated in the bar. And at a word from the young jackaroo, it emerged from the bar, and stumbled into the railed inclosurc, and sat down beside us. continuing for- tissimo: the instrument of its production being, as you may know, one of the three drunken stockmen. Having run his ballad to the end, the stockman yielded to the quiet of the night and far-away place and turned out. at once, to be most amiably inclined in the matter of communicating his song. Not only did he communicate it, in a speaking voice, to be written down, but repeated the lines, in the interest of precision, and even assisted with the spelling, all with the air of a man who had at last found his call- ing and was perfectly aware of the gravity of its responsibilities. And then (said he) we must master the tune: this being particularly inii)ortant to a perfect exposition of the whole com])osition. He sang again, thercfure, ociasionally interrupting hini- »7S ''1 Ht if- AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS self to inquire whether or not we had "caught" the melody, and beseeching us to join with him— voafer- ating with such fervor, his eyes blazing, his face working, and his forefinger beating the time, and leaning so close, and radiant of such gleeful absorb- tion with his occupation, that we could not follow the melody at all. but must give a fascinated atten- tion to the bristling visage and enrapt manner of the good fellow. Here, then, I transcribe the song of the drunken stockman, called "Flash Jack from Gundagai": I've shore at nurraboKic, an' I've shore at Toganmain, I've shore at Hi},' WiUandra, an' upon the Coleraine, n.it l)ofon- Ih" shearin' was over. I've wished mesclf back aRain, Shearin' t.-r ol' Tom Patterson on ' .ne Tree Plain. All amonR th' wool, hoys! Keep yer wide blades full, boys! ^ I kin do a respeilablc tally meself w'enever I likes t try, But they know mc 'round th' back-bloeks as Flash Jack from Gundajjai. I've shore at ISi},' WiUandra, an' I've shore at TiUoeroo An' once I f-^-tLfJe^rnultitude twin- ncquamtanee of I^c mnutne ^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^, kled down "P"^P"''y ;;thc old friends of the other heartening good humor of the^^dr^ ^^^ '^^'"^^^r%nS tl etidc°:U of it. and rcmem- these stars, and sec the ^^lu ^, ^^^, ^ra- berthebeginnmg.andhavc ^at lua ^^^^ tions aspire and ^-^g^n^ze and he a ^^^^^ n^oaning of our poor ^ 'J^'^^' ;'^;^ J^^ ,rire. even to very wise, in every ^vay.^>ovi ma> M H'! \l .1 '' THE MELANCHOLY LANDLADY a master>' of the ultimate philosophy, which must apprehend, of course, the measure of the infinitely large, and the measure of the infinitely little, too, in time and timelcssness, death, life, grief, ecstasy; and you may easily fancy, if you have a turn for pretty imaginings, that the mysteries which terribly concern us for a little while are all known to the stars and of small consequence in their sight — that the serenity of their regard of the world conveys the assurance of some amusing surprise awaiting revela- tion to us every one. It was time, now, to turn in. The amiable coach- man of the "Billy Bullet" — whose glad passengers we were — came from the kitchen to warn us off to bed. Forty miles of the road to-morrow (said he) ; and it would be a fair day for travel, but slow- wheels, with no wind to dry that wet going. In the musty ])arlor of the inn, where we had supped, the melancholy landlady was waiting to light candles for us. She did not speak to us. She got up from her chair by the black window, in listless patience, neither wakeful nor worn, her uncomely counte- nance as blank as before, and touched a flame to the wick of one candle, but left the other cold. The match flamed high — was V)lown out. I fancied she had forgotten us in a sudden abstraction of thought. She made no move to light the second candle. It was a task not yet completed: we must wait upon her mood — wait there, wondering, with astonish- ment, why she had let the flame of her match go out, why she paused now, staring at the black wick, in a frowning dream, as though pondering some dark matter, of which she would six;ak, in a moment, when she had arranged her mind and gathered spirit 179 Id M II i t T AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS to utter it. What, indeed, was in her mind — what drear confidence she might have been encouraged to give us — I do not know. She did not tell us what was in her mind. Her fro\\'n broke, then, but not yet in a smile, and she touched another flame to the second candle, now with a flash of interest; and she took up the candlestick, with a show of determined purpose, and went to the wall, and there dusted the frame and glass of a picture — which needed no dust- ing, I am sure — with the hem of her apron, and held the candle high for us to see. "Cunnin", aren't 'e?" she whispered, smiling at last. It was the photograph of a baby lying in its coffin — a faded photograph. \i When the candles were blown out, the little drover was sound asleep, stowed away for the night, as deep and cozy in sleep, indeed, as he could very well be in his own bed in the home to which he was returning; but the young jackaroo was wak^^ful, and the long, scowling man was growling under his breath Light came in from the bar — streams and beams of lamplight, boldly entering by way of every crack, and by way of every knot-hole, in that flimsy partition which was designed to separate our repose from the conviviality beyond. And noise came in — a melody, in stentorian proportions, expressing sentiments, uncommon to hear with that loud free- dom, which were bound to anger ears composed for sleep. The scowling man got up, and put his lips to a knot-hole (I surmise); and he cxjjloded his beloved little part of speech into the bar, like a shower of bombs, with such rapidity, and with de- tonations so startling, though he managed somehow 1 80 , I i'l *! I a THE MELANCHOLY LANDLADY to muffle them from us, that the drunken stockman's song fell away, and honest silence came, following a terrified confabulation in whispers. And then, all at once— it seemed no time at all— the cockatoos were calling us up and scolding us for lazy fellows, the laziest lie-abeds that ever traveled that high- road, the laziest, at any rate, within the memory of the very oldest cockatoo of the scandalized flock. I fancy that a laughing-jackass had a part in the tree-top conversation. I am not sure, of course; but if a laughing-jackass did not chance to be at that mo- ment casting bursts of scornful laughter into the midst of the naughty confusion I am very much mistaken. A cockatoo can scold; but a cockatoo cannot express its contempt in disgusting peals of laughter. Long before this the scowling man had taken the road. And now the little drover was up, and out in the sunshine, too, and the jackaroo was splash- ing and blowing in the basin, and breakfast was waiting (if a man could believe his own nose). And presently— being breakfasted, now, and wailing, m the blue, fresh morning, for the amial)le coachman to put the horses in the "Billy Bullet," with the help of the bleared little stable-boy— awaiting in the sun- shine, we heard the tinkle and c:lang and clink of the gray blacksmith's forge. And he was singing, too, as blithely as he had said he would sing -a sure, hearty voice, ringing above the tinkle and clink and clang, .s clean as that good morning— a failure m life, here at his famiUar labor, and joyous— Her brrw was like the snow-drift, Her neck was like the swan. And her face it was the fairest That e'er the sun— i8i •M II, \H i) AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS — clear through to the end of the tender ballad. And "The Land o' the Leal," then— and presently "Auld Robin Gray." The plaintive songs for him! Yet I would not shame the good gray smithy by hinting that the plaintive cx)lor of his music ex- pressed regret— that he wished he had withheld some part of what his youth had dutifully given. He was singing still— and the forge was clinking and clanging to the blows of his lusty labor— when the "Billy Bullet" took the road and went galloping past. We heard him singing until the swift hoof-beats of the four vanquished his melodious voice and left us to listen to the patter and rattle cf the road; and you will know all about it, if you sing with him, while his voice follows — and if you vision for your- self the sunshine and breeze and blue sky of the world through which we sped along — Her brow was like the snow-drift, Her neck wns like the swan. And her face it was the fairest That e'er the sun — ' » XXXIII A QUEENSLAND SHOWER WE abandoned the coach at the railroad and there took train for Rockhampton. Late one night we boarded a comfortable coastal boat for Cairns of North Queensland — there to wait for the New Guinea packet. At this time of the year the Queensland tropical coast was flourishing under the last of the rains. Here far in the north it is shel- tered well from the worst gales of the South Pacific and the Coral Sea by the Great Barrier Reef. It is a rich and lovely coast, indeed. There arc many islands, all of tender color, green and yellow and gray, in the vagrant, showery rains and cloudy sun- sets; and there are a thousand placid azure channels, sunlit and warm and languid, and good harbors, as well, and brown, deep perpetual rivers. And there are pastured hills, and abundant fruit and sugar lands, with towns of promise, shaded with palm and banyan and pepper-tree; and beyond, over the ranges, lie wide grassy highlands, the unsettled bush awaiting its inevitable occupation still more remote in the west. These were autumn showers: March show- ers — clearing showers. Some fine day, and that soon, too, a lively brco would sweep the sky clean of its last cloud, its last shred of mist, and the dry, 13 183 boy! Ten Rain in Queensland! Rain in inches at my station already! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS blue weather of winter would set in. mellow and dependable. Dry weather impended— a stretch of sparkling winter months: what rains would fall were near all down, determining the season. Out of Colombo, where, late in the spring before this, on the voyage to Sydney, the Australian mails were put aboard, the returning Queenslander had come uproariously into the smoking-room, waving the latest Melbourne newspaper, his amiable big face alive and alight and warmly flushed with relief. "I've got mine!" he shouted. What was this? "Rain!" Rain? "Rain, m' Queensland ! My word!" As a matter of course, fall now approaching, the Queensland coast, to which we had come these many miles from Colombo, was by this time drenched. But the back-blocks? What about the Queens land back-blocks?— Cunnamulla and Muttaburra and Camoowcal and Bungcworgoai. Well, there would be no drought in the back-blocks. The thi'ng was determined. It was all over with: the raius were down in the back-blocks. Copious rains, too— thirty inches, sixty inches, eighty inches! All the Queensland streams were in flood, the water-holes overflowed, the downs were springing, the farthest bush was in good green health. Grass was assured in Queensland— grass in abundance for the twenty millions of Queensland sheep, knee-high grass for the five million^ head of Queensland cattle, fattening wayside grass for the long, slow droving over the 184 I ¥i 1.1^ ', i't A IRIDAV-NK.HT CONCEKT ON THE BEACH I I'il I /i A QUEENSLAND SHOWER stock-routes to the markets at tidewater. There was no shadow of disaster. Station-owners, planters, selectors: they would flourish — ever>' one. It was to be a season of plenty, coast and bush and grass- lands: maize and tobacco and sugar-cane, bananas and matchless pineapples. •""' every luscious tropic- al fruit — fat beef, tor •.md t-.uttcr and toothsome mutton and much goc .1 wc^ol. A moment before, here cl ^r-iinis, the stars had been out— the Southern Cross winking its brilliant eyes— in a friendly regard of that merrymaking lit- tle Queensland town. The showt-r had crept over- head in the dark. With the first heavy drops, spat- tering hot and smartly in the circle of torchlight, the brass band, i)laying a Friday-night concert on the grassy beginnings of the beach, midway of the street in front of the hotel, made ready for flight by hastily executing some perfunctory chords of "God Save the King," once more to declare an ample and un- faltering patriotism. It seemed to be an obligation of heroic im[)ortance. But leaving blown these fer- vid blasts and wheezes, in defiance of the deluge, and having broken down in a confusion of piccolo toots and bass-hom snorts, the bandsmen doused their torches and took to their heels. There was a pelting shower to urge them— a first volley of great tepid drops. And it was a rout. OR' they tumbled to shelter, in shameless disorder, after a scurrying au- dience of tanned Australians, white-clad and su- perior, and of ragged blackfellows, of mincing, squealing Chinamen and of jolly Japanese. "Fifteen feet of rain a year," the Inspector of Mounted Police repeated. "Think of it!" i8s fi! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS We reflected and were astonished. "Sometimes twenty," says he. It was amazing. "Why," he went on, dehghtcd to complete our surprise, "I've known it to rain an inch an hour— and keep on raining all day, too. In New South Wales I've known it to rain sciicn inches in two hours. Flood? Quite so! At Mooloolah, here in Oueensland, they once had a fall of thirty inches at a pour. And back on the Blackall Range, on the second of February, eighteen hundred and ninety- three," he concluded, delivering the circumstantial thrust with a triumphant smile, "it rained no less than thirty-si.x inches." He paused. "Do you take it?" he incjuircd, anxiously. Well, indeed, we were none too sure that we had taken it. "Three feet of water?" "One yard." It was hard to adjust this prodigious spectacle for comparison. "Quite so," says he. "What's the rainfall in New York?" This was altogether beyond us. "Quite so," he agreed, briskly. "I'll find out." He dodged into his own quarters— all the sleeping- rooms of that airy tropical hotel opened on the up- per veranda— and presently returned, thumbing a great book in which the useful knowledge was con- tained. "Here we have it. New York: forty-two inches- the average. That is to say, to wit: that in the little place I'm telling you about, here in Oueensland, almost as much rain fell in a day and lit) < I A QUEENSLAND SHOWER a night, let us say, as falls in New York in the course of a whole year." He looked over his spectacles to catch our sui )rise. There was a good deal of sur- prise on the wing. He was gratified. "Do you know Singapore?" he inquired. We knew something of Singapore — its dismal reputation in this respect. In Singapore it showers every day — or twice as much the next day. "Quite so," said he. "Then let me tell you this: it rains three times as much in Singapore as it does in New York, and four times as much as it rains in London ; and here on the north- cast coast of Queensland" — he slapped the book shut for emphasis — "it rains twice as much as it does in Singapore." "Some rain," I remarked. "Some?" he protested, not used to the American twist. "Not too little!" "Not too Httle?" "I mean a jolly good lot." "And L" It was an understanding. ( XXXIV TROOPERS OF THE OUTLANDS DOWN came the rain, then — a mighty dousing of the town! It cleared the walks, obscured the shop windows, extinguished the green and red of the harbor lights, drenched the banyans, flooded the streets, and pervaded ever>' shelter with warm moisture; and it beat a furious tiproar on the iron roof of the upper veranda of the hotel, threatening to demolish it flat forthwith, and continued the tu- mult, without lessening the pitch for an instant, as I mischievously determined, this season, at last, to complete its perennial endeavor to dissolve the trim town cluster and wash it into the harbor by way of its own gutters. And the patter and gurgle and splash of it — and the thick night and the sudden torrent in the street — gave point to the Inspector's happy contention that service with the Queensland Mounted Police was, in the rainy season, a devilish rigorous employment. We were to understand that the service demanded men — men with a smart liking for adventure, and with body and heart enough, too, to further the inclination on its way to the last frontiers of romance. We were to under- stand, in short, that it demanded blooded men — thoroughbreds. i88 ', TROOPERS OF THE OUTLANDS 'Reckless as a bushranger," the Inspector de- clared, "and as cunning as a bubonic rat." The Inspector had himself come through the rough and tumble of the service, years of remote j)atrol and the bloody business of pursuit, with cattle- thieves, outlaws, and red-handed savages to fetch in from the bush, dead or alive — the long riding, in flood and blistering drought, and the tracking, the chase, the shooting, the capture; and he was now at last become an officer of conspicuous rank in a distinguished, wide-riding organization of a military sort, as delicately jealous of its efficiency and honor as any British regiment of the regular line. He was no mere superior of city bobbies, snaring timid small game in the streets, with a tap on the shoulder for sufficient weapon and authority : he was a veteran of the big man-hunt — a sentimentalist under the skin, withal, and seasoned with Irish tenderness. Wc gathered presently that for many years he had lived in close and affectionate comjjanionship with an ideal of daily behavior which he called My Duty. It was a complete expression. And plainly it had been philosophy enough. A simple performance, truly: yet it had fashioned a man who was still unable to contemplate fear and shame and all man- ner of dishonor in men with anything short of amazement. "I say," said he, his voice lowered, his attitude inviting confidence, as though the thing should be spoken of under cover, "what about that New York murder?" "Wliich New York murder?" "The one they have on their hands." "Which one?" 1S9 ' as an ape. Indeed, he was so debased in fea- ture and demeanor that it stirred the wrath to find him fashioned indubitably in the likeness of a man. Beholding him, I was almost enabled to credit the 196 '! • LICENSE TO KILL preposterous tale that it was at one time thought to be no grave breach of Christian moraUtj .o feed the aborigines to the dogs. Near by this town, long ago, this man's tribe had murdered a family of settlers in the night, save one lad, who escaiied death by opportunely tumbling to the floor between the bed and the wall, himself wounded, unconscious and loft for dead. What the provocation was nobody knows. It is probable that there was no specific provocation. It had doubtless been a wanton thing— a childish mischief- undertaken upon savage impulse and accomplished for nothing more than the momentary pleasure of dealing death to some living creature. This was the inspiration of many similar deeds — neither ven- geance nor spoil, but the swift, bestial, wanton blood-lust, indulged, celebrated, laughed over, and for the time forgotten; and therein lies a sufliicient explanation of the terrible character of the retalia- tion. Whatever the case, the boy, having thus nar- rowly survived, made his way to Brisbane, where he related his story to the authorities, and to such good purpose, as it turned out, that he was given a rifle and free leave to return to his district and shoot as many blackfellows as he could manage, being heartily assured that the law would not molest him. "You see," said our fellow-traveler, "he was regularly licensed." "By the Department of Game and Fisheries?" I scoffed. "Ah, come now!" he replied. "I am not jokinp. I do not mean to say," he went on, "that the authorities gave this boy an engrossed license, suit- 197 'I 1' i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS able for framing, but I do assert that they com- raissioned him to kill blackfellows, and that his commission was not altogether singular, but one of a good many. And hv did kill blackfellows— hun- dreds of them, possibly. lie killed them where he could find them, running the bush or employed on the stations, not even hesitating in the presence of their white masters. And by and by the thing be- came a nuisance. It was awkward for the station- owners to have their blackboys disposed of in this way. There were complaints. I recall that one station-owner had his best black servant shot from the saddle on the road. He was very angry; but the boy flourished his commission, and the station- owner could do nothing about it. The end of it was that the boy was summoned to Brisbane and bought off. The old blackfellow whom we passed a few moments ago boasts that he was on- pursued by this industrious youngster. And he had a nar- row escape. He says that he took to the river, and that he submerged himself, breathing meanwhile through a reed, until the hunt was given up." XXXVI IN THE king's name IN these secure and enlightened days the Queens- land blacks are cherished by the state with anx- ious solicitude — encouraged with rations, blankets, school-teachers, and religious instruction. A Chief Protector of Aborigines, his deputies and the police arc charged with the business. "All wc can do," said a Queenslander of con-secjucnce, with rhetorical pathos, "is ease the last moments of this dying race." But there arc the outlands. Australia is most populous on the coast. There is a rapid de- crease a-; the country' approaches the wild interior. Railroads stoj) far short of it. Civilization thins out. The towns diminish and scatter and the stock- stations grow to vast and vaguely bounded estates. In the remotest back-blocks the stations merge with the wild lands; and lx>yond— towanl the center of the continent — lie the deserts and unmai)ped bush- lands and the lusty savage life of them. In the Never-Nevcr (as the outermost places are called) the trooper's duty concerns itself largely with the capture of offending blacks who escape to the dry- lands and barren ranges. Still on the frontier the blacks sjx^ar cattle and occasionally munkr settlers and unwary travelers; and they must surely be 1 4 !<)') *< I U^ t AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS taken and punished if security is to be established in the rich lands of the Never-Never. It is a service which sometimes demands the exer- cise of an amazing ingenuity and daring. "All the cunning," the Inspector declared again, "of a bubonic rat!" Once the Inspector — the Inspector with whom wc sat on the broad upper veranda of the hotel — was caught on the wrong side of a river of the outlands with a problematical black tracker and two vicious and mighty prisoners. It was far "out back" — the empty wilderness. And it was the beginning of the rainy season. A drenching rain was falling when they came to the bank. It went whipping past with half a gale of wind. The river, in flood, was a wide, brown, swirling torrent, carrying a swift and threat- ening freight of trees and dead underbrush. It was not a heartening prospect, rufned by the wind, con- tcmjilated through a mist of driving rain: there were currents, shallows, whirlpools— a deep rush of water. The Insix?ctor's prisoners were not repentant cul- prits. They were naked, savage, terrified by cap- ture and restraint; and their irons had fretted them near to madness. In short (.said he) ihey were like wild beasts, lately taken in a jungle, being conveyed to captivity. And the black tracker, tcK), was a source of grave per])le.\ity. He was not to be trusted: he was himself fresh from the bush, half tamed, not proven; and it was the i)art of caution to assume that he had rather join forces with the InsiKvtor's prisoners than ser\'e the Insix.>ctor. It will be recalled that the Insjxictor could not !;wim. "Not a stroke, mind you!" said he. 300 IN THE KING'S NAME It was a predicament, indeed. With what shrewd resource the Inspector solved the many and perilous difficulties of the situation could not be fathomed by the most cunning bushman — nor invented by the most reckless teller of tales. There was the river: it was hardly passable at best, and here in the wil- derness there was no craft for crossing it. To attempt to swim the horses through a flood so wide and vio- lent would be to invite the treachery of the black tracker and the escape of the prisoners. There would be confusion; and the issue of that confusion would be the Inspector's death or dishonor. It was not to be chanced. The ])risoners must be kept close; they must be unsliackled, at last, antl driven into the water, but tliey must surely be kept within range and reasonably i)laci(l aim. They could not be shepherded to the other side from the back of a frenzied horse. The black tracker, too, always a menace in a predicament, must be restrained, if by nothing more ;;a1utary than a cold glance, occasional- ly east in his direction, carrying the threat of (juiek death. "You mustn't let your tracker get behind your back," the Insjjeetor paused to explain. "No, no! My word, no!" Invariably not? "A raw one, especially," he replied, "if you're in trouble. They're treacherous bnites." First of all the Inspector lashed two V-shaiK>d pack-.saddles end to end. And licre, then, was the framework of a sm.all craft. He turned them u])- side down. It was a good beginning. Of the oil- cloth cover of his swag (blankets) he fashiniu'd .m outer skin. This he tucked in and kept (irmly in 201 I I ' '; I,! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS J i place by means of some sapling branches. The craft was finished. He launched it. It floated — ■ floated dr>'; and so low was its center of gravity when he sat in it (like a man in a bath-tub) that it seemed to be amply seaworthy, notwithstanding the turbulence of the current it must weather. How, then, to propel it across? Well, the In.sj:)ector's in- genuity did not fail him. His inspiration had in- cluded the means. I hiving disarmed his black tracker and despatched him in advance with the horses, the intrepid In.spector, stark naked and rueful, hanic.s.sed his two ])risoners to the bow of his craft and set out on his voyage, his heart in his mouth with fear of drowning, his stout jK-rson rigidiy upright and stationary, his revolver covering the astonished creatures whom in this remarkable way he comix'lled to swim with him in safety to the other side, where, devoutly thankful, he resumed his journey. "It is quite the most cxtraordinar>' exploit of the sort," I protested, "that ever I heard of!" "Quite so," said he, mildly. After all, the blackfellows of the outlands are no warriors. They are given to bloody mischief — to fooli.sh, wanton murder, accomplished from ambush or in the dark. In packs they are truly to be feared by a helplessly inferior force. But they do not make war. As comjjared with the North American Indian of pioneering days, for example, they are no worse than exasjK'rating. Speaking in the loose fashion of the layman, they are of a low order: they have no useful domestic animals, they do not prac- tise agriculture even of a most primitive descrip- tion, the}' have no fixed habitations, but only the 203 •i ♦ IN THE KING'S NAME mia-mia, a temporary canopy or wind-break, of brush. Thus from season to season they subsist and wander like the beasts of the field. And they are not in a largely more intelligent way capable of concerted action. They have no hereditary chiefs— no chiefs, properly speaking, at all, except old men of more or less influence. Consequently an attack by any tribe in full force and under powerful leadership is not to be expected; and an alliance, tribe with trilx', for sustained and directed war, could never occur. Wary travelers are safe enough in their progress through the land, and the outermost settlers of the Never-Ncvcr, so long as they do not neglect the accepted, simple precautions, are reasonably secure. Australia is rid of the bushrangers who long ago ct!' brated the roads of the colony with their pic- turcscjuc villainies. It is a curious circumstance that the last band of consequence to be dispersed by the police followed their adventures incased in visored helmets and a sort of medieval armor. Bushranging vanished with the gold fever of Victoria and New South Wales. In the Kalgoorlie days there was no highwayman of conspicuous achievement. Nor was there lawlessness of a capital degree: the small of- fenders—thieves and claim-jumpers— were merely dntmmcd out of camj) and forbidden the fields. But there are half-caste and white rogues to be dealt with by the constabulary in the bacK ' 'ocks. In some small town of the Oueensland bu. a we en- countered the annou'.icement that His Excellency the Oovemor had been ;)U\'isi'd to direct the offer of £500 in reward for the capture of a yotmg horse- breaker whose mother w;is a half-caste Chinese and 203 jl ii I f I > ' f ; AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS whose father was a Kanaka. It was an enterprising crime : between Turkey Station and Bustard Head, the refugee had shot dowTi the swain of a young woman of whom he was himself enamoured, and had thereupon carried her off with him on the oack of his horse, leaving no trace. Shearers and drovers are a wild company to keep in hand when the checks are distributed and the liquor begins to flow in the back-block public-houses. "Ah, yes, but they don't draw knives," said the Inspector, "and they don't shoot from their coat pockets." In short, their customs were British. "They settle their differences with their fists, the Inspector declared, warmly, "like men!" Once the Inspector cut out his quarry from a "mob" of rogues in a shanty-saloon of the Queens- land frontier. It was a remote and dangerous way- side inn— a rendezvous, after a sort, of cattlc-dufTers (thieves) and outlaws, and suspects of every Aus- tralian description. To enter single-handed and de- mand a man in the king's name was a feat of cold temerity; but the Inspector accomplished it with- out agitation— a casual arrest, as it were, an affair of no general consequence — and rode away with his captive. It was a hanging charge. The prisoner had nothing more to lose. He would kill the In- spector if he could. And the Inspector had no il- lusions. But the two rode amiably together until the day's riding was done. They made camp in the bush. The billy was boiled. There was a com- panionable smoke, more amiable and diverting con- versation. It turned out that the prisoner was a clever, agreeable fellow. The Inspector rather 304 ;p. if I IN THE KING'S NAME fancied him. But at last, night having fallen, and the talk languishing with the fire in the bowls of the pipes, and a journey of many days lying ahead, and the Inspector being desperately skv-py, it was time to turn in. How about a guard? The In- spector did not by any means propose to lose a night's sleep. It was a simple arrangement, after all: the In- spector handcuffed his prisoner to his own wrist, threw his revolver out of reach, and lay down to sleep. "Why dispose of the weapon?" I inquired. "I had no wish to kill my prisoner." "Very true; but your prisoner — " "A tussel? Ah, well, I looked him over, and I thought I was as good a man as he was." "But he might—" "Pish!" the Inspector scoffed. "I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking I was afraid of him." Well, now, it was still raining. A wet night, truly — a drenching, splashing, gurgling night. Rain drummed on the roof and overflowed the eaves. The air was thick with a tepid moisture. It was dark in the flooded streets. The town had gone to bed. Another dripping trooper came clicking down the broad veranda and interrupted the Inspector with a punctilious salute and a telegram; and having bcc dismissed, like the first, and having executed the maximum number of salutes allowed by the regulations, he clicked off to the rainy night, leaving the Inspector in the mind to pursue his quest of reliable information relating to the alleged incredible conduct of the police o{ New York. This he did 20S n ij • t !'■ J • r . I I Ij, AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS with the most poHte consideration. Our pride was not to be damaged in the least. The Inspector (said he) was asking for information; he intended no reflection upon the quality of our constabulary — no indelicate insinuation whatsoever. We were to understand that. And, moreover, he was not dis- posed to discuss an affair so questionable in the open. As it chanced, our situation was secluded. Except for ourselves the broad veranda was deserted. Yet the Inspector sat up in his steamer-chair and peered cunningly around to make sure that our privacy was not a thing of appearance only. "I say," he whispered, leaning confidentially near, "what about that New York Inspector of Police?" "He is in custody." "In custody! Think of it! Well, now, I say, between ourselves, you know— you won't take this amiss, I'm sure — the despatches seem to hint at what they call 'an alliance between the police and crime.' Really, now, what do they mean by such extraordinary talk as that?" "That there is an 'alliance.'" "You don't mean to say that it is openly charged?" "O Lord, yes!" "i.iy word!" the Inspector gasped. Really, he was greatly shocked. I" >. XXXVII I A NIGGER IN A HURRICANE NEW GUINEA bound, we had come north to Caims from Sydney, by way of the Queensland coach-roads and ship from Rockhampton, design- ing at Caims to take the New Guinea packet for Port Moresby. A long by-path of travel, however, touching the North Queensland ports and New Guinea, leads from Sydney to Singapore. In the mellow charm of sailing new seas, and in the lively little surjorises, too, it is the more remunerative half of the wide x\ustralian detour from Colombo. Aus- tralian travelers, not gravely concerned with time, wisely followed it from Sydney into the world again. There are many days ashore, in alien, savage little ports, never heard of before— all amazingly far away from the completest and most talkative learning in elementary geography; and there is much slow landing and shipping of spicy cargo— lying in the offing, now, on a flat, green sea, a breeze blowing past with the tropical odors of shore, and lighters clustered about the sun-soaked, drowsy shij), swarm- ing with noisy native labor, naked and grinning and altogether outlandish. It is like a voyage accom- plished at leisure, with many jjorts of call, truly out of the way and engaging— a month or more, splash- 207 'f \: AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS inj; softly north to the tropics, and rolling west a bit below the Line, with a singular mixture of ship- mates to be intimate with; and all the while it is a warm, sleepy, breezy passage, sparkling with the spray of the blue trade-winds, and brilliant with sunlit, incredible color, at sea and ashore. The craft that ply that way are well-found, comfortable, jovial; they dawdle up the Australian east coast— a course in the shelter of the Great Barrier Reef— and from the northernmost Queensland ports splash blithely across the Coral wSca to the cannibal land of New Guinea, whence they return through Torres Strait, with gingerly caution, to Thursday Island, steaming, then, by way of Port Darwin, of the un- settled Northern Territory, to the wild islands of the Arafura and Banda Seas, and to Surabaya, Samarang and Batavia, colorful cities of Java. Singapore lies beyond, across an oily, misty stretch of dead, gray water (at the time of our passage); and at Singapore all the main-traveled roads of the sea, going cast and west, come together in the heat and tepid rain, and any one may be taken. While we waited at Cairns for the New Guinea packet to be under way across the Coral vSea we got ear of a Cape York aborigine who had some years before astounded the Australian world by saving his life from the sea in the midst of a great hurricane. The wind had fallen down so swiftly— and with such furious white violence (said they)- that of the five hundred luggers of the pearling fleet which it cast away some were blown to the bottom within a few fathoms of shore with the loss of all hands. It was a rare tale: we doubted it— in the manner of all 208 NATIVK HOATi (lATHER AHOIT, KAt.l.R To IIAKTKR ) ■A » 'i 1 i' V A NIGGER IN A HURRICANE travelers of cnck-snrc caution in a new country'. So greatly was our interest enlisted, however, that we put off in a sloop to clap eyes on the hero of the incredible adventure, and to have his own recit- ' And having sailed some fifteen miles to the fi coral islands of the Great Barrier Reef in brisk weather — the warm, misty rain, great clouds, gusty wind, steaming sunshine, of the changing season — we dropped anchor in the bcr>i lee of a low little island, brilliantly green, with a blinding white beach. It was a fruitful, drowsy island, the trade- wind fanning it, now, of its heat. Here lived the aborigine, a fisher of schnapper and baramundi, with his wife and swarming family, his thatched habitation secluded in a shady thicket of palm and jungle-growth; and here was he, this day, a stal- wart, hairy fellow, disporting hitnself , with his glisten- ing chocolate children, and his wife, too, in the warm green water, his humor not for fishing, the wind blowing too smartly for his boat to be lazily abroad. In the season of the Great Hurricane this aborigine was shipped aboard a lugger of eighteen tons to fish the Great Barrier Reef off the Cape York coast for shell and beche-de-mer. When the big wind came down (said he) it lifted the little lugger clean out of the water — like a leaf in a gale (said he) — and flung her back, capsized and cast away. And so swift was this, and wanton, and complete, and care- less, and easy, that the aborigine was greatly aston- ished: for he had not thought that any wind could accomplish it. It was then near six o'clock of a Saturday evening. And all at once it was dark. The wreck of the lugger vanished in the surprising night and a smother of broken water. What a tur- 209 1^ ii AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS I i I r moil there was — how the wind tore ofT the crests of the magical waves and drenched the air with a stifling mist of spray — and what a confusion of noise and movement, and how black, and how white, the rush of the night — the aborigine could not with any art relate: but said, with his eyes popped out, in recollection of the magical performance of that jinkie-jinkie gale, "My word, one big-fellow sea!" He was tossed and driven like a chip of driftwood, all that night (said he): his head was up, his heels were up, he was rolled over and over, he was beaten deep under water, the breath was blown back in his mouth; and he fancied, sometimes, that the wind picked him up with its hands (said he) and cast him through the air, from crest to crest, dear of the sea — which was doubtless tnie: for the wind was magicall}' strong, and in magical wrath, and magical- ly as sticky as gum. In the momin;4 the aborigine fell in with his hibra (wife); and the lubra stood by to help him, being a stronger swimmer than he, and a more cunning diver after shell and b{^ehe-de-mer, and more daring and elusive in sharl: water: so that her value was knf)wn to all the masters of luggers out of Thursday Island, and known quite as well, you may Iw sure, to the al)origine. By and by — dawn long ago come, and nomsclves, they set out heartily, in about their fourteenth hour in the water, to win the shore. In the aftemrx)n the aborigine In'gan to fail. The thing was tcx) miuh fur him. He lost heart (said he): he was worn out, 2IO A NIGGER IN A HURRICANE and needed fotjd— sleepy, too. with weakness. His anxious little lubra must rest hitn, now and again- support him while he lay still, and onec, indeed, while he nodded off to sleep, and in this way refreshed his strength and spirit. And so they swam together, and paused to rest, and swam on— the woman having no rest at all, Init lending strength to the 'nan, at shortening iieriods, all the while. In the end they erawled u]) the beaeh and fell down and slejjt for a long time. It was then eight o'clock of a Sunday night: they had been in hurricane water a matter of twenty-six hours; and the man would surely have gone down had it not been for the faithful little lubra. And they did not wake up (said the abo- rigine) until dawn of Monday. All this while the woman had carried the baby. It was dead, of course— must have died soon in the smother. "Wouldn't drop it," said the shipper of our sUxip. We watched . aborigine and his lubra leave the warm, green water. "That Httle woman?" ..id I. "Oh, my word, not at all!" the skipiwr exclaimed. "The woman went crazy when she woke up in the mf»ming and found her baby dead. And the black- fellow deserted her. This one's a new one!" XXXVIII ACROSS THE CORAL SEA YX/E went out from Cairns, Papua bound, across V V tlic Coral Sea, in the starlit dark of (wo o'clock in the morning; and so laden was our little packet, by this time, with ear^'o in the hold and ponies in the stables belwcendecks, and a vast overllow of logs, stowed forward, that the i)limsol mark was deep underwater. In gray weather we htei)i)ed with care through the Grafton Passage of the Great Car- rier Reef -ugly patches of brown water, reaches of I>erilous green, wide spaces of free blue; and when the gray was blown out of the sky, and the sun was hot upon our decks, the coral was all behind, for the time, and the sea flowing deep and blue, 'i'his was the season of the favorable trades: the witid blew fresh, but neither faort, and rolled to starlxKird, and rolled to port again, and rolled to starboard once more, all with the regularity and drowsy result of a mother's rocking. And there 21.1 I !^l AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS were disks of blue sky beyond the open port-holes, on the starboard roll, and disks of blue sea, splashed with white water, on the i)ort roll; and great round beams of sunshine came in, and were like yellow searchlights, slowly moving, never still — and the disks of sea were black, at night, and the disks of sky, too, thoir dust of stars being lost beyond the bright light we sat in. Our shij) fairly sw rmed with barefoot Javanese boys in bright sarongs- old boys and young ones: from the shriyelcd (|uarlcrmaster to the captain's midget. And they kept tiie ship; and the ship was white and shining and sweet — board and brass of it — every expanse and ever>' nook our eyes chanced to search. And they served the long, shady lower deck, which was amidshijis an(^ roofed witli. awnings, and they served ihi sunny u])per deck; and without any telling whatsoever, and before a notion of the wish had broken upon our drowsy intelligence, they iioved chairs into the sun, and moved chairs out of the sun, and t(X)k down awnings to give way to the sun, and put \\p awnings against the sun, aiid took 'em down again to let the breeze blow through the shady places. And so softly did they accomplish these affairs, which were awkward enough for the deftest hands that ever you saw at work, that no nod t)r wink of sleep was interrupted, nor the lightest slumlwr needlessly disturlx.>d; and such was the deference of their behavior, in gctieral, and so nearly did their apprehension of our needs resemble a magical i)erformatice, in the service of the comfort of us all, that we must every one yield to the delight of it and finu something to praise in this keep- ing of a dark-skinned i>eople in a sort of subjection. 214 ACROSS THE CORAL SEA And all this while they were content, not sullen, like some natives: being squatted asleep, in out-of- the-way comers, when off watch — so that, piying about, one must not tread on them— or at play on the forward deck, whence their laughter drifted back to us. A sUpshod Chinese boy, however, served the smoking-room: the matter of money being in- trusted to the Chinese, in all these parts, it seems— who love money more than any others do. The captain was a young Dutchman, and the chief was a younger Dutchman, and the first officer was a younger Dutchman still; and all the juniors, whether of the bridge or the engine-room, were such very young Dutchmen, indeed, that we wondered how long they had been out of knickerbockers of a volumi- nous Dutch description, and whence their strut and air of authority, which were surely not derived from their years, and where they had learned the will to challenge responsibility and the manner of seeming able to vanquish every difficulty the sea could present. Not one of them (we thought) but would say, "Pooh!" to a hurricane. The purser, who was the chief steward as well, was a gray Englishman of a threadbare heartiness, which he had worn out, no doubt, in a too-long service in the trades of the East Indies— a great reader of the Greek when he had time (said he) ; and I fancy that he cased his loneliness, which compelled him to melan- choly, poor chap! in a shaq' keeping of the ship as clean as a Dutch kitchen. The captain's canaries— a melodious crew in Dutch cages— sang in a lan- guage intelligible to anybody, and were in happy for- tune all the while, if chin)s and trills and flights of song meant anything at all; but the captain's par- 15 "S i ^- '■i: AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS rot was a stupid, loud, illiterate bird, having no com- mand of language, blithering without meaning and at a shocking rate, so that wc detested the unaccom- plished creature — until the captain told us that the bird spoke excellent Dutch and had mastered a good deal more than the mere matter of profane swearing : whereupon we learned respect for the captain's par- rot, and were heartily ashamed of ourselves, resolv- ing never again to be caught in a pitiable lapse like that. i I'il^ I XXXIX MR. TODD WE were of one class, which was first-class, to be sure; and this was a jolly good thing — mak- ing for a promiscuously jovial behavior, as comfort- able to the passage as the drowsy weather was. A busy little two-thousand-ton packet, in a remote trade, like this, with cargo to treat with scrupulous respect, must ignore the proprieties, in respect to the contact of the mighty with the meek, and has neither the time nor the temper nor the room to spare, to exalt the one and cast down the other, in the way of the glittering great world of the P. and O. If she manages a dividing-line — and keeps it drawn and impassable — which favors all white folk with the run of the ship, and confines the inconsiderable black and chocolate and tan and yellow, with the various colors of their admixture, to the invisible seclusion of deck - passage, she docs well enough and may honestly advertise the excellence of her accommo- dations. We were miners, missionaries, planters, adventurers, commercial travelers, civil-service per- sonages, and birds-of-passage ; and we were the wives and children of birds-of-passagc, civil-service ]>crsonages, planters, missionaries or miners — the ad- venturers and commercial travelers among us having 217 i it. AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS none. There was but one Silver-Tail aboard; and she. the good lady, was so serenely perched, alone in her social altitude, which nobody had the temerity to challenge, and so amiably inclined altogether, in the sleepy heat of the voyage, that we should not have recognized her species, at all, had it not been for the lift of her chin, and the set of her counte- nance, and the variety and depth of her gowns, when she swept into dinner, a bit late, with a rubicund old father in attendance, and a chip of a son in the wake of both.' Nobody could account for Mr. Todd. The cap- tain was in the dark: the purser was in the dark. Nobodv knew where he came from— nobody knew where he was bound for— and had Mr. Todd had his way, I am sure, nobody would have known even so much about him as the inconsequential little fact of his existence. Mr. Todd was a very small, very thin, very carelessly fashioned, pinch-featured bit of a man, with a ragged red mustache, and with thin, pale hair, parted with precision, and compelled with oil to maintain that painful position upon a scalp which was never once wrinkled to relieve it. Mr. Todd had head and heels, of course, and hands, cars, nose, chin, and the like of that: but whether Mr. Todd had eyes or not, nobody knew, except from inference, for you might look at Mr. Todd as often as you liked, and as long as he would let you, and from any angle you chose, or could obcain, but you could never discover any eyes in his head, how- ever patiently, however alertly, you might stalk him >In the Australian littsh a Silvtt-T, '. ^ an inionK'niunsly fcalli- tri'il imlivi'hial <>f an imonKriKiusly aristccralic liabil of behavior and utterance — a human individual, of course. 218 MR. TODD to see; and whether Mr. Todd had a tongue or not, with which he could say more than a startled "Good morning!" — whether he possessed a tongue he could use for more than a moment without completely ex- hausting it — nobody coultl find out, though ever>-- body trcd. Mr. Todd dressed for these tropics in hot blvie serge, and hot black shoes, and hot black-silk shirts, and a hot high celluloid collar (which had sinister designs on his throat), and a hot black cravat, and a hot blue caj); and withal he was clad so heavily, and carried such a weight of watch- chain, that it made one perspire to see him pace the deck. It v.-as Mr. Todd's custom to pace the deck with an antiquated telescope under his arm and the air of having a moment ago shouldered all the duties of this ticklish navigation; but when Mr. Todd de- sired to observe what passed — or even to search the empty .sea for incident— he would importantly retire to a comer of the smoking-room, seat himself at ease, extend the sections of his telescope to the limit of its enormous length, and take his observation through the opposite port -hole. Mr. Todd occasion- ally had something of everything at dinner, in a way to fluster the barefoot Javanese boys and amaze all the spectators of his gastronomical achievement; he would begin precisely at the beginning, with no visible evidence of trepidation, but quite the con- trar>% and go clean through to the end, omitting not an item by the way, and with nothing better to assist him than two bottles of port wine. It was not often that little Mr. Todd settled himself to the performance of this large feat; but when he did — when the undertaking was once under way — he 219 1 1 1' '\ i I l' I J. t' ii' I, i 1 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS would carry it off with dignity and retire to his repose. Mr. Todd's repose, moreover, was a mys- tery of the ship— how he managed to achieve re- pose in the heat of these nights (without the help of the occasional port wine) : for the old fellow in the bright sarong, whose duties positively informed him of the bewildering truth, reported to the steward, who divulged his surprise to the passengers, that it was Mr. Todd's custom to close and screw up his port-hole, upon retiring, and to lock his door, and to stuff the ventilator with a pillow. It was no mystery, after all, perhaps: Mr. Todd stifled him- self into a comatose state and survived by being able to come out of it in the nick of time to save his life. Mr. Todd left us unexpectedly in a port of Java- far away from the Coral Sea. "Gone!" says the captain, portentously. "Gone? Mister Todd!" "Mm-m!" All this, you will presently know, is not m ndicule of Mr. Todd. We were warmly attached to the queer, timid little man, however mean his station, however slender his purse; and we should have heartened his courage— even conspiring cunningly together to this end— had he not started away from us in a fright that was painful to behold. I would not ridicule Mr. Todd. I present him: that is all. And you will find your own Mr. Todd if ever you travel these seas. They are the seas of romance— the windy, blue seas, sunlit and hot, with coral shores and cocoanut islands: so that a man, when his thoughts nm away to them, truant from the inimical pressure of his duties, or in disgust with the dull repetitions 220 MR. TODD of his life, or broken by the fever of it, or desperate with the constraint of it — so that a man says in his heart, "Ah, if I could go there, how quickly I should be healed!" Not one of us but pitied the invalidism of poor little Mr. Todd and heartily wished him the restoration he was searching for in this travel of the tropical Eastern seas. Nor was there any escape from dwelling upon his perilous situation in that strange city — his protracted battle with those odds of nervous fear which must over- master him In the end. Yet we must admire his spirit: he is surely a good warrior who fights his fight alone in strange places. I II I il. t I XL QUEST OF ROMAN'CE WE who were in no bad way found this voyage of the Coral Sea to our taste. A little packet, this: we were low in the splash and blue roll, close to the sea. which tumbled and broke on a level with us, in a sportive fashion, and in a friendly contact with us, too, touching us sometimes with a jovial fhower of s])ray, and for ever swishing near, like a gossipy fellow of our own company, who might play us a prank the ver>- next moment and break into laughter with us. After breakfast, the morning wind blowing fresh, and the decks cool with washing, the ship was wide awake— all awake, sir, and wide awake, and dctem lined to stay awake. Brisk pac- ing, now— and shining faces and lusty tones. Mid- morning coming on, this fi:,,ht of energy suffered its inevitable collapse. The ship sat down— reclined, presently— read a little — nodded a little — was a bit shamefaced to be caught nodding at that hour — but dozed a little, just the same— and at last helplessly succumbed to the languor of the day. It was not until the tea hour was imminent that the ship came again to its waking senses: and then there was a great yawning and stretching, and chatter and stirring about, and many a "Well, well, well!" of amazement 222 •i'. seas r-n ,Y l.^lii^.it,. 1 ' a QUEST OF ROMANCE to find the day so far spent— which was precisely what the ship exclaimed yesterday at precisely the same hour, and would exclaim to-morrow, with pre- cisely the same degree of astonishment. But one day of the seven— Cairns to Papua and back to Thursday Island— was lived wide awake: the day of the sports— the crew competing, and the passen- gers contributing nothing more to exhaust them in that heat than laughter and applause. At night— the dark of the moon- the long lower deck was a livelv, cozv little • ri. r .^f the big world. Light overflowed it. Big lu.. i- ^.eas r-n mto the yellow gl(iw, like children ' n'. chief, and broke all at o" • r and scampered away, ;; ".'>'. notion that they hc>>"i ; ' --• consternation. They n.ulr m night of the masque; > 1 ci. nights, like naughty bo\ ... ' • came inboard— a troupe of t! deck, and drenched the di... the piano, and put an end to iuc Jc^avuies before midnight. The young Dutch captain was indig- nant with this obstreperous behavior— and the young lOutch chief, too, and all the young juniors; and although the captain did not express the inten- tion, in so many words, his grim attitude might easily have led one to fancy that he would take the matter up in the moming, when he had commanded his ill- temper, and could administer correction with the best ])arental discretion. Whatever he did about it -which was possibly nothing at all— after the great occasion of the masquerade the sea did not once lapse from manners of the most charming desc > 223 '■.\—::<' 'inii ■n mis- wliite, h the : -.!^ . . .it of 1 . 'f^,, on the ; iiigi^t, of all 'cso' .e: they ilooded the JM ommoded 4 ^'l AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS tion. Evcr>' niKlit, on the lonj^ lower deck, the wicker chairs were grouiK'd, and tables were out for cards and dominoes and chess; and the lights j^lowed — the awninj^s flopi)ed— the ])iano tinkled— and the best wear of them all was displaj'cd — and there w^i a happy clatter and laughter until long past twelve o'clock. Through all these mild gaieties a faded little lady fluttered like a butterfly of impoverished attractions — sipping dro])s of wit and laughter and ])onderous conversation so avidly that it seemed she could never sip her full: being all the while so restless and eager that her opportunity for enjoyment was damaged by sheer fear that some drops of all that abundant honey would escape her. She had come by way of Sydney (said she) from an island of the South Seas, where she had lived many years with her husband, the manager of a plantation, and his two white heliKTs and their wives and children; and she was bound, now, in the high .sjjirits of a belter expecta- tion, to rejoin her husl)and in the midst of the East Indies, where he was newly become the manager of another plantation, near the Line — an island more remote and savage than she had left, and a life more lonely, since her husband was the only white man there and she was to be the only white woman. And now was the amazing interval — a brief flight through the crowd and merriment of the world, as through a patch of sunshine or a lighted room. It was to be observed that as the voyage progressed the faded little lady progressively yielded to the new customs. Mrs. Silver -Tail patronized her. lX>ubtless that good lady whisijcrcd, "My dear, a24 QUEST OF ROMANCE they do it ri'cryubcrc!" Presently, at any rate, the faded little lad\ hoj^an to repair the ravages of a tro])ical climate with innocent little touches of rouge. Indeed, she was a radiant little creature, and owed the rotige no thanks: her eyes were bright, her smile broke honestly, and her chatter was crisp with little trills of laughter. Our missionaries were going together to the Roper River district of Australia to teach the savage aborigines of that horrible country the elements of Christianity and the first princii)lcs of agriculture. The one was a dry, pale, grave man, coming elderlj' in age, with a slow, precise habit of sjx'cch, which frcrmcntly lai)sed into ungrammatical forms. He had been a haberdasher's shopman (said he); but was aow — having undergone a violent religious ex- perience some years before — most earnestly intent ujion communicating his philosophy to the bestial inhabitants of the Roper River wilderness. For this emi)loymcnt he had painstakingly fitted himself ac- cording to the retiuirements; and being here close up«)n his work, at last, he was a hai)py fellow, con- siderably subdued by a heavy sense of resf)onsibility. His companion was a lusty young minister, in a cleri- cal vest and collar — a great, heart >', laughing chap, loving a jest and a dinner, and not disinclinefl, you may be sure, toward the physical adventures of the life into which he was going. They knew little of savage customs, less of the country, and not a word of alK)riginal dialect ; but they were confidently IKTsuarlcd that time and industry would yield them knowledge, and that this hard task, to which they had addressed themselves with pleased courage, would issue in a sufficient triumph. A term of torn- 2iS AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS pletc isolation confronted them — I recall it as seven years; and we wondered concerning the inspiration of these men — that they should freely submit their lives to this prolonged hardship. Our adventurers were five young men. bound to Thursday Island, traveling as gentlemen, who had come all this way in search of i)rofit, which must ofler itself, however, as an addition to the delights of romantic adventure or be rejected. There was young Smith: he led — an American who had roughed it in Western Australia, in his time, having once (said he) iKuight a train of camels, from an individual with the dry-horrt)Ts, anended in trade and passage- money. A miscalculation — a misfortune — would cast them every one on the beach. And the (Icsiht- ate eharac-tcr of the thing was indicated by the habit and behavior of the young architect. He was a young architect no longer; iic was a full-grown desiH'rado- his sweater and scowl, and his expec- tation of offense and tricker>', and his swagger and ])olations. and his bulging hip-pocket. Already he had accumulrited a despised past--c-arly years of mild and sheltered lile. No gentleman's existence now. you may liclieve! A i)ucaneerish life in a world without law! I was agreeable to contem- plate the young archiuit, indeed: it was a jiretty child's play- he was young, and he was in earnest, and he was ai)proaching the frontiers f)f romance, it was he who directed the physical i)reparation of the l)arty for the Hearing adventure; and he was like .'i trainer of athletes an implacable fellow. Every aftem(X)n he fetched Ins crew to the deck for exer- cise; and he put them in a circle, and had them toss a medicine-ball, and bade them lie Hat on their l)acks and lift their heels in the air. and directed them to lie n.'it on their lollies and lift tiie.r weight with their hands and tois, and in other ways familiar to a gymnasium sought to acconi])lish their well-being— a violent measure in that heat. What came- of it all I do not know. WTien we 2JS mmmmm QUEST OF ROMANCE left Thurt;(lay Island the price of pcarling-luggers had mysteriously risen to precisely that amount of cash which the adventurers possessed. "Hard luck!" says we. "What you going to do?" "I'll wait," says Smith. A shrewd American! They waited. a 3 XIA PAPUA BY and by the little Dutch i^aokrl accomplished the passaj^e of the Coral Sea and was tied up at the wharf at Port Moresby. It is still eann.bal count r^--I^1pua: the British New Guinea ol recent times and unsavory memory. Aboard the packet, lvin« in the brilliant, colorful little hari>or of Port Motxisbv, ancn explored; and what remains (esccpt the patches of settled eountr>'. near the sea) is not so familiariy known that no mvster%- attaches to its physical characteristics atid ..'vaKc' customs. Tnie. the land is oiK-n to settle- rent a fertile, lovely tropical country, but a};- -rivatin^ to white l>led under the huuses, ujKin occasion, and softly, very softly, tied a knot in each dangling tail. It was his pleasure in this way to annoy the tailed men. In resjjonse to his outcry that an enemy approached, the tailed men would leap to their feet; and it was vastly amusing (said he) to observe their behavior when the knots brought them back to their haunches with a jerk. Tailed men? Of course there were tailed men! How in the world, it may be inciuired, could the captive have tied knots in the tails of the tailed men if the tailed men had no tails? It is a fair illustration of the fearsome regard in which the New Guinea native holds the unknown regions — a fair illustration, too, of the quality of the logic of the New Guinea native. Papua has long been known as a blou(l\- land. It is a bloody land still. But the blood of white men is rarely let; and the wanton slaughter of natives, the one by the other- at least in those fast widening regions which are within the sphere of the law — is fast diminishing. All this being so, in one year, nevertheless, when there were two hundred and fifteen i)risoners committed for trial, one himdrcd and eighteen of them were charged with murder, nine with manslaughter, and five with attcmjitcd murder. To the civilized mind, the motives to murder, .shocking enough, to Ije sure — nor wanting an aspect of gruesome hutnor — are upon vK-casion incredible. As they are matters of record, however, 233 f f\ ) I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS disclosed upon painstaking investigation, they are to be accepted, not as irresix)nsible tales, such as wander about the Eastern seas, but as substantial facts however singular and incomprehensible they may 'appear. It is a matter of court n ord for example, that certain natives of what is i \hd the Coast Range, being upon trial for the murdc; of two carriers whose throats they had cut, admilied the deed, without the least hesitation, and sought to jus- tify the ghastly business uix)n the ground that tho carriers had apix^ared to be "cold and hungry"— dejected fellows, far away from their village. The prisoners had not eaten the carriers. They had mere- ly—with the most considerate expedition— cut the throats of the carriers, who were strangers, at any rate, and therefore of no great consequence , and no ingenuity of cross-questioning could elicit a motive ulterior to the one so ingenuously advanced— that the carriers, appearing to be "cold and hungry, were, in the opinion of the gentlemen who had in- continently cut their throats, much better dead. A similar case of merciful extermination concerned a young native, employed to shoot game for a white planter, who encountered a sick man (Papuan) on the road, near by a river, and strangled him to death. Upon trial he explained that the sick man had created annoyance, and a considerable embarrass- ment, as well, by insistently requesting to be earned across the river to the other side, whence his way lay forw,'ard to his village. "Quite so," said the presiding officer. ^^ Why, then, didn't you carry him across the river?" "He was too heavy," replied the native.^^ "It would have put me to a great deal of trouble." 234 PAPUA "Why did you kill him?" "What else could I do? The man was sick." It was out of the question to endure the labor of carr>'ing the sick man across the river. It was equally out of the question to abandon the pitiable object. Therefore the bewildered fellow had stran- gled him — the most obvious way out of a dilemma which bade fair to distress his feelings. Ml< 3tOCOPY lESOlUTION TEST CHART lANSI and ISO TEST CHART No 2l 1.0 if "^ 1^5 Mi 11 t^ Urn |2.2 1.1 - ,^ — III ''^ 1.25 1 '-^ IJ^ i A /APPLIED ll\A^GE Inc A flr i^--.'^ fast Mo." '.,'-#*' ■^^ H,i,h»»it»r, N«« to'h Ub09 US* XLII CASUAL MURDER I TWO natives of a village near Ukaudi were charged before a magistrate with the murder of a man of Ukaudi. True, they had killed him. No: he had not offended them. Animosity had had noth- ing to do with the affair. As a matter of fact they had never seen the man before. They had killed him, said they, to oblige an amiable stranger, with whom they had pleasantly fallen in. and who, desiring this death for reasons of his own, which were doubtless sufficient, had entreated them to accomplish the little favor. A Northern native, ap- prehended for the murder of his aged father, con- fessed that he had killed him. Oh, yes— he had killed his father, all right! Why had he killed his father? "The old man," he replied, "wasn't much good" — and no other motive could be elicited. An- other native explained that his victim had "talked too much "—bored him altogether beyond endurance. "He talked and talked," said he, "until I couldn't stand it any longer. And so I killed him." It was a similar propensity that inspin ' a native to beat his wife nearly to death. "Her tongtie never ceased," he told the magistrate, "and as she trotibled me seriously, I beat her." Another native, upon trial 236 CASUAL MURDER for a murderous assault upon his wife, the death of the woman having V)ccn nearly accomplished, ex- plained: "I was in a hurr>' to go to school. My wife was slow in bringing my reading-book." A village constable, one Bantga of Baipa — the Territory is policed by native constables, after a fashion, and in a restricted way, under the close direction of the magistrates — was taken in custody, charged with leading a murderous raid against a near-by commu- nity, a crime of which he was clearly guilty. He had been for some years in the service : he was described "in the books" as "a good man." There was no reason why he should have organized this bloody expedition except that he had had nothing else to do — no other pleasure in prospect. And sheer ennui, indeed, is said to have been the cause of his lapse from grace. Dull days follow upon the advent of the law : the women do the work of the world ; a man of spirit must employ his energies — must entertain himself — somehow. "Sheer ennui," says the Administrator, "has been the motive in many similar instances." Sheer ennui, indeed, involves the Papuan in a great deal of difficulty. Invited all at once to give a new direction to his energies — the thing is doubt- less both incomprehensible and unattractive — he finds it difficult to adjust himself to the new condi- tions of enjoyment. After the sanguinary delights of the raid and the man-hunt, what joy can inden- ture to a planter afford, and how, in the .secure, dull villages, can time hang anything but heavily ? The Papuan must have distraction. It is not an amusing incident of administration: it is a grave problem. The Administrator once tried two natives from the 237 '' h AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS mountains back of Rigo for throwing spears at the poHce. It was a serious offense. The v'Aice must not be molested; and the Papuans knew it— knew that the diverting sport had gravely endangered them. Nevertheless, they pleaded guilty. The Ad- ministrator explained— through several interpreters, to make sure of driving the admonition home— that the Papuans must never again throw spears at the police. To his amazement the Papuans asked that they might be hanged. "But why?" inquired the Administrator. "Throwing spears at the police is the only pleasure wc have left," replied the Papuans, disconsolately. "You have said that we must not throw spears at the police any more. Let us be hanged. We do not want to live any longer." The constable who led the murderous raids for lack of other entertainment was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. Other lapses of the police have been punished less severely. I recall the case of Karara, sometime village constable, a man whose record was dark, who had led raids in the Delta, and who in search of acceptable excitement, had taken part' in a deal of tribal fighting. For his misdeeds (he was probably never caught red-handed) he "was deprived of his clothes"— a degradation of conse- quence and a brutal blow to his vanity. It was no light punishment. The Papuan is devoted to the wearing of clothes— so devoted to the new fashion, indeed, that the government goes to great lengths of alarm in discouragement of the vicious practice. Wearing clothes is emphatically discouraged by the administration. The fashion, indeed, is con- demned with temper. One magistrate goes the 23S I. AIDS 111- \ii-i>Ki»i^^ \M> wii D-m; \tim; drims mark tiik I i;ki;m<)M \i, 1)\n( ic 1 n : I ■ I H t I t t I W fi, ' « CASUAL MURDER length of declaring that "the curse of rags" shotdd forthwith be prohibited by law— that it should be made a criminal ofifense for a native to wear more than a loin-cloth and a woman to adorn herself with anything more voluminous and unsanitary than a brief grass skirt. I do not know what part the mis- sionaries have in encouraging the native population to clothe its perfectly inoffensive nakedness. In Port Moresby, I recall, a shocking contrast to the modest native attire of the women who were un- loading the packet while we lay at the wharf, was presented by a group of their idle sisters, who ap- peared each in a loose garment commonly known, i believe as a Mother Hubbard. It was something to laugh at, to be sure— the flirtatious vanity and grotesque appearance of these ample rnaidens. It was revolting, too. One might search the open world in vain for a more striking exhibition of im- modesty; and one jumped to the conclusion that the missionaries were in fault-that the benevolent folk at Home had sought to further missionary en- deavor in a cannibal country by contobutmg the civilizing influence of these discarded Mother Hub- bards Yet I fancy that the missionanes, who are far wiser than the comic supplements allow, were not in the least to blame-that the traders were at the bottom of this unhappy change in costume. Clothes are worn by the New Guinea native with no degree of circumspection. They are never taken off-ex- cept to be traded; and consequently, bemg counted articles of trade, they pass from hand to hand, from district to district, proceeding from the settlements to the far-away regions, leaving a trail of contamina- tion to mark their course. Where the natives take 239 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS to them "to an immoderate degree" (the reports declare), there is an alarming increase in "the lung disease." The object of a discerning administration seems to be a paradoxical attempt to civilize the native without interrupting his healthfully naked condition. ) M 11 • n. XLIII THE CORPSE AND THE CONSTABLE SOME of the New Guinea murders— to return to the matter of casual blood-letting— are done in mere childish explosions of temper. They indicate what manner of difficulty the administration encoun- ters in dealing with a fixed and traditional propen- sity to shed blood. How cheap life is— how incon- sequential its taking! And how amazingly insecure life v.^as before the occupation and fast - growing pacification of the land! And by what a slender thread it still hangs in the remoter, still savage parts! A mere momentary lapse from caution— and life is lost. "One man"— runs a report— "irritated be- cause a baby would not stop crying, killed, not the baby, but his own mother; and I remember a case in which a man split open the head of another be- cause he could not find his knife. So cases happen of accidental wounding, caused by the habit these people have of discharging arrows at random when they have a headache or feel otherwise out of sorts." On Rossel Island they punish a thief by killing the woman who cooks his food. In some cases the wife of the thief is killed. In Port Moresby they relate a plain tale of murder done with no other motive than to relieve the feelings. It illustrates, in a meas- 241 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS 1 «■ I.I II ..M ure.the inclination of a civilized man, being in a rage, to kick something — to "take it out of somebody." Two brothers, it seems, owned a most charming pig. And they loved that pig. And the pig fell sick and died. To assuage their grief they sallied forth and killed an unsuspecting member of a neighboring tribe. The victim had never seen the pig — had never even heard of the bereaved brothers. Had he been acquainted with the pig, and had he been acquainted with the brothers, and had he known that the brothers were approaching, and that the pig was dead, he would doubtless have taken to his heels with what expedition he could command. It was their custom, said the brothers, upon trial, to kill somebody, anybody, when a particularly beloved pig died. Had they killed this man ? To be sure ! — the pig had died, and it was the custom. The magis- trate remarks that they were "still sighing like fur- naces" over the loss of the beloved when they were led away to jail. All the common motives obtain in New Guinea as elsewhere. A man kills his enemy because he hates him — a blood feud, an altercation, a quarrel over a woman (or a pig). And there are a number of pe- culiar inspirations. In some districts, an assassina- tion, for example, privileges a young man to wear a certain feather, in others the beak of a horn-bill; and it is not to be wondered at that coveting this badge of valor — it is, of course, awe-inspiring and highly attractive to the maidens of the villages — brings many a yoimg fellow under the high dis- pleasure of the law. A prisoner who had killed a white man — a very rare occurrence — explained that "whenever he wanted tobacco he killed a white 242 AS ATTACK IPON NATIVE TREE-DWELLERS I »•]:! ,■ I n, CORPSE AND THE CONS FA BL man." In a swift punishment of this magical proc- ess the man was hanged. Certain inland natives, brought to trial before the Administrator for an at- tack upon a body of police, were greatly astonished to find themselves charged with a heinous offense. They had never seen a policeman before, they said; and they did not know what policemen were— nor particularly liked the looks of them. "If," said they, apologetically, "we had for a moment imag- ined that you attached any value to these persons, we should not have dreamed of hurting them. We did not think they were any good." A certain Ilariki. of the Port Moresby neighborhood, biiilt himself a new house, which he wished to paint with a mixture of red cla> and cocoanut-oil. As custom forbade him to employ this mixture, however, until he had killed a man, he set forth and murdered a white man. That he had no grudge against the vic- tim, who had admirably served his purpose, is ob- vious. He sought, indeed, by ever>' means in his power— he had some skill in incantation — to charm the dead man back to life, and succeeded, said he, with the legs, but, though he continued his incan- tations diligently, even until nightfall, he could make no impression above the mortal wound in the chest. What is the administration to do (it has been asked) with folk of such simpUcity ?— who regard the taking of life as a feat of valor, a necessity of custom, a tra- ditional distraction— u matter of no consequence whatsoever. A Resident Magistrate visited a mountain tribe in whose territory a number of cgxriers had mysteri- ously vanished. "You killed the men?" 243 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS 4 ir MM ' (11 Iv "Oh yes." "You must not do it any more, you know." "But, sir," the villagers protested, "the men were merely strangers." "In the sight of the government, it is quite as grave an offense to kill a stranger," the Magistrate admonished them, imparting a bit of shocking infor- mation, "as it is to kill anybody else." It is altogether probable that the newly enlight- ened villagers were thereafter guided by this per- fectly fresh information. That the natives are at least occasionally moved to live in respect of the law, when they are aware of its requirements, is shown, at any rate, in the case of the Kuni moun- taineers, who caine four days' journey to Kairuku to inquire of the magistrate if a widow might marry again, the village constable, a native, being in doubt. In the Sinaketa district, a village constable, reasoning from what meager knowledge he had of the bewilder- ing regulations of the guvemment, in respect to the ordinan^-- affairs of life — though, indeed, the poor fel- low must have been sorely puzzled by the extraordi- nary circumstances — saved the villapors from a slight error of behavior. The funeral of a middle-aged man was in progress. Near the grave the middle-aged man complained of discomfort. It was found, upon taking him back to the house, and unwrapping the mats with which he was swathed, that what he wanted was a banana. Having disposed of one banana, he demanded another; and having disposed of the second, he reclined, seeming now to be satis- fied and dead beyond doubt. Laid in his grave, however, he complained again. It was annoying. The middle-aged man was putting his relatives to 244 ^ CORPSE AND THE CONSTABLE "shame." It was the sentiment of the village that he should be buried, anyhow. With this the village constable (a native) heartilj' agreed, speaking as a man, but pointed out, speaking as a constable, that, humiliating as the situation of the family unqties- tionably was, the government would "make trouble" if the man were buried alive. The middle-aged man, being indulgently returned to his home, demanded, this time, a drink of water, and having drunk, once more reclined, as though beyond all mortal concerns. At the same time, in a neighboring house, the relatives, whom the m.ddle-aged man was scandalizing by his obstreperous behavior, consulted together. Event- ually it was proposed to i:)rocure the consent of the middle-aged man to the seemly progress of his own funeral by tightly winding a cord around his neck. "No," said the village constable. "It would an- noy the government." "But why?" the relatives demanded, like children. "I don't know," the constable replied. "Yet I am sure that the government would be annoyed if you prepare the man for burial by winding a cord around his neck." "Well, then," said the relatives, "what are we to do?" "Wait awhile," replied the cunning constable, "and see what happens." WTiat chiefly concerned the relatives of the middle- aged man was not the "shame" to which the middle- aged man was i)utting them by interTui)ting his own funeral. It was this: that the body of the middle- aged man was unduly restraining the spirit from its Uight. "He wishes to go," they said; "wc don't 34S n ■il .1 1 ' ^ ■ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS want to hold him back — we want to help him to go." Next day — all this from a report of the magis- terial investigation — the middle-aged man's spirit succeeded in loosing the bonds of the flesh and es- caping to its place of desire. < ; I * »■ I ♦ f I i(. XLIV CANNIBAL COUNTRY BLOODTHIRSTY as these natives are, and genuinely incapable of comprehending why life should not be taken, a discreet white man is safe in the land, so successful has the native policy of the administration proved in practice— a policy of the reasonable and patient dealing out of justice rather than of wholesale retaliation in the form of punitive expeditions. "It would probably be quite safe for a white man to travel unarmed from the Purari Delta to the German boundary," says the Adminis- trator— "far safer than to walk at night through parts of some of the cities of Euroix) and AustraHa." Not long ago, however, as time runs in new places, it was as much as a man's life was worth to land helpless on the coast. Traders and missionaries were slaughtered and eaten. The ill fame of New- Guinea was celebrated and well won. It was a feat of considerable daring to jjcnetrate the forest- even to lie carelessly at anchor off the coast. It is this New Guinea— now comparatively a land of peace and a measure of fertile jjromise— that remains alive in the popular imagination. A score of shocking tales, cijrrent in Port Moresby, might \)c told to illustrate the recent precariousness of life in a land where an 17 347 I 111 flt ,!i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS unarmed man may now walk as safe as in some slum quarters of an Australian city. As a matter of fact, the first traders led adventurous lives— gave and took death, always in a highly thrilling fashion, and some- times in a way almost humorously diverting to read about. A group of Chinamen, bcchc-dc-mcr fisher- men, for example, having brought themselves into peril of massacre, sought to impress the natives with the deadly efficacy of their firearms. To this end they set up a sheet-iron target and impressively peppered away at it. Unfortunately they missed it every time— at a distance of thirty yards. Per- ceiving this, the natives, to display a superior skill, cast spears at the target, and scored with unfailing accuracy; and having thus proved their own su- periority, upon trial of the weapons, they attacked the Chinamen, killed every man-jack of them, and ate them every one. Cannibalism is, of course, practised in New Guinea to this day. Some of the remoter tribes would doubtless be amazed to learn that it is re- garded with disfavor in any quarter of the wide world. A man consumes his victim. In some dis- tricts, however, he must not consume his own vic- tim; he may distribute his own victim— but must himself partake of the victim of a generously in- clined friend. The administration has put an end to the thing within the limited sphere of its influence —has put an end to the freedom of village raiding, moreover, and has pretty thoroughly discouraged the murder of one individual by another. Cases of cannibalism, however, still come before the court; and they are dealt with, I believe— it is said to be an exceedingly difiicult matter to deal with them at 248 ' I \ t CANNIBAL COUNTRY all— vinder that section of the criminal code which relates to body-snatching. The incidents are far too revolting for description — the boiling and broil- ing and barter of the victims. The time-worn joke about the missionary and the cannibal king is really in bad taste: the business is no laughing matter — not when one comes close to it. Some of the Pa- puan tribes are not cannibals; some protest a horri- fied loathing of the practice; and some, formerly accustomed, have now abandoned the custom, in response to the teaching of the missionaries, or in deference to the attitude of the administration. It may be said, in a general way, that the cannibal is a cannibal because he has a taste for that sort of thing. It is a food to which he inclines. Why wpsteit? he inquires. It may be that he consiunes some small part of a departed relative because he has dearly loved that relative and desires openly to demonstrate his duty and affection; and it may be that he partakes of a ceremonial feast because cus- tom indicates that to partake in such circtmistances is a matter of high privilege and imperative pro- priety. The opinion is, however, that cannibalism is not, generally speaking, a ceremonial affair, but a mere consumption of a certain sort of food with which the cannibal wishes to sustain life and tickle his palate. "I understand," a resident informed us, "that women are not particularly edible." We suggested that this was a singular thing. "They do all the work," the resident explained, "and are, corscqueutly, lean and tough." A more or less palatable cla > of New Guinea cannibalism describes the fate < J less than three 249 y . I i. • i ' I r ,< . t UM .1 1 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS hundred and twenty-six wretched Chinamen. It has been reasonably authenticated by a cursory in- vestigation of one of the Administrators of the Ter- ritor>'; and there is no good reason— it jumps pre- cisely with the habits of some of the savage natives— to question the truth of it. It seems that the three hundred and twenty-six Chinamen, having been cast away in the Louisdale Archipelago, and in this way marooned on a small island, were discovered in their helpless state by the natives of that region. One by one, as occasion lequired, they were taken off and eaten, until, as might be inferred, the natives were surfeited. Upon this the remaining Chinamen were hawked along the coast — exchanged, as might again be inferred, for more palatable food and for desirable articles of every description. One, how- ever, escaped; and this survivor, it is related in one of the Annual Reports, was picked up, four months after the wreck of his vessel, by a French steamer, and carried to Melbourne, whence he made his way to the gold-fields of Victoria, and was eventually arrested upon the charge of selling liquor without a license. It is not to be inferred from this incident that all Papuans are cannibals— that cannibalism flourishes as once it did. As a matter of fact, can- nibalism is all the while diminishing; it has been put down in the settled places, driven to close cover on the edge of civilization, and is practised in the free, ancient fashion, without reproach— as when the three hundred and twenty-five Chinamen were dis- posed of— only in those rather extensive regions to which the white influence has not authoritatively extended. One does not cxi)ect to rub elbows with a cannibal in the little capital of Port Moresby. 250 :l I : I r'' CANNIBAL COUNTRY One may, of course; but the cannibal will wear no i^ mark of liis degradation — flowers in his hair, rather, ' '' and armlets of gay blossoms, and a garland around his neck. To the infliction of pimishment as a measure of correction the childish simplicity of the New Guinea native is something of a barrier. Natives have been known to accuse themselves of murder I I and ask to be dealt with according to the law. "I I I have told you already," said an impatient magis- ' trate to a village (native) constable, who had brought in a self-accused murderer, "that there must be an eye-witness of the crime." "I told him so," the constable replied; "but he killed the man and ate him — and he says so." "Don't care ivhat he says," roared the magistrate; "he can't get justice in this j h court before he's able to prove it!" An experience ^ • of a magistrate on patrol in the Gwoira Range pre- cisely illustrates the difficulty which the perverse j I simplicity of the native attitude of mind toward rea- sonable information opposes to the administration of the law. In this instance, however, the law had nothing to do with the matter: it is a mere example of native incomprehension. It seems that the na- tives of the Gwoira Range had in some way per- suaded themselves that they could swallow the white man's bullets and thus escape dai. ., The magis- trate inquired if this were so. "It is perfectly true," replied one of the natives. "I can do it my- self." Upon this the magistrate loaded his rifle and explained to the native that if he should by any unhappy chance be unable to "cat" the bullet it would surely kill him. "Now, open your mouth," f he continued, "and I will shoot the bullet down your 251 m n .|1 y if It: h 3 (I i, 11 AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS throat." The native opened his ^o^^h-all un- concerned. To demonstrate the effect of a dis- chage the magistrate shot the bullet through ^ log and triumphantly indicated the devastation^ The native examined the aperture of entrance and the aperture of exit. Undoubtedly the bullet had gone clean through the log. The magistrate once more loaded his rifle. "Now, open yo^r mouth said he, ' ' and swallow the bullet if you dare. And the native opened his mouth. Naturally, the magis- trate, outraged and nonplussed by this '-"lazing per- versity, and appalled by its imphcations^ concludes hL story with the inquiry: What m the worid is one to make of such people-what is one to do with ^ Well what is one to do with a cannibal ? It would not be fair to hang him. Upon reflection, as a mat ter of fact, it would be an outrage. He is obedient to the immemorial custom -not consciously a break- er of any comprehensible law. And he is not hanged. He is imprisoned for -. spell. And what is one to do with a murderer in a land where murder is very much of a pastime and an exercise? A native who Sus a white man is hanged as a matter of course. There is nothing else to do. But no expedition is despatched-it is a remarkable thmg, come to think oHt-to slaughter the half of his tribe. A measure of that sort is held by the present beneficent adminis- tration to be the very extremity of injustice and un- wisdom. Native murderers of natives are sent to jail for terms varying from twelve months to seven years The fact that life has always been cheap m New Gninea-that to take life has not been in the native catalogue of capital crime, and that the 252 CANNIBAL COUNTRY mysteries of civilization are new and difficult — is mercifully taken into account. In some cases a term in jail is a severe punishment. In others, it seems, it is a form of relaxation. A few years in confinement, perhaps, is no great hardship — except that it deprives the prisoner of the company of his village; and it may be said, approximating a gen- eral truth, that the prisoners cherish the importance of their state — as on Rossel Island, for example, where the Resident Magistrate does not find it nec- essary to lock up his prisoners (incarcerated for minor offenses), but bids them remain in an open shed until he gives them word to go. At Daru, a native gave himself up to a magit.trate and desired to be sent to jail forthwith. "What have you done?" the magistrate inquired. The native replied : ' ' Noth- ing." "Why, then," said the magistrate, "should I send you to jail?" "The mosquitoes are so bad!" said the native. aS I .! h. i )*i- }'. f XLV h i ii; 1 1 sorcerers' work WE learned in Port Moresby that the practice of sorcery is proscribed in New Guinea. In the lower courts, there, which are regularly constituted British tribunals, having been arraigned upon the charge of exercising witchcraft, sorcerers are fre- quently convicted, upon the evidence presented, of ?his singular breach of the law. "You don't hang these men'" the native victim of the profession com- nlains And he expresses this natural astonish- ment- "If you were to hang all the sorcerers, there would be no sorcerers left to trouble either you or us Why don't you hang them? Are you afraid ot them?"-an awkward question. There would be more sorcery trials-many '^'O^^, ^°"J^^i!°"'',f' ^^ matter of course-if it were not for the difficulty of commanding clear evidence of guilt. I know hat the man is a sorcerer, and that he magically killed my friend's brother, and I can prove it too. and it I testify the man will be sent to jail, the astute native mind argues; "but if the man is conxncted and sent to jail upon my testimony, what devihsh spell will he put upon me when he gets out? -and discretion issues in silence. In the Delta country, not long since, there was a sorcerer of reputation so fearsome -he may still be at large and flounshmg- that the natives of the villages dared not speak hi. a 54 SORCERERS' WORK name above a whisper. It would be a rash adventure to undertake the conviction of this celebrated Bai-i of Vaimuru upon the evidence of the shivering wretches within his sphere of magical activity. Con- victions are sometimes procured, however, of less noted sorcerers, after fair trial, in an informal way; and upon occasion the testimony is of a sort to shock the ears even of a magistrate who has long got past being stirred by the usual Papuan surprises A sorcerer was brought to trial for the atrocious murder of a native of one of the inland villages. He would neither affirm nor deny that he was a sorcerer. Indeed, he regarded the whole proceeamg with super- cilious indifiercnce. ., T^ u o?" o «a "Did you see the prisoner stnke Dabura? a na- tive witness was asked, as a paraphrased transcnpt of the recorded testimony may run. "Dabura was struck with a club. The pnsoner did it." "Was it a heaw blow? "Dabura was. ^d." . j>m "How do you low that Dabura was dead? "Dabura fell. The prisoner struck him ag nnd again on the head with a club. Dabura coulu have been alive. He was dead." ^^ "Describe the effect of the blows. ' ' Thev killed Dabura. Dabura's head was broken open Dabura was covered with blood. The ground where he lay was soaked with blood. I know a dead man when I see one. Dabura was dead. "What did the prisoner do then? "He called two other sorcerers. The three ^ r- cerers together worked charms over Dabura. "What was the effect of these charms? 255 t ill .(,1 ,1 ! ! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS "Dabura came to life." "What!" "Dabura came to life and stood up. I know that he came to life and stood up. I saw him stand up." "With his skull crushed?" "Oh no! Dabura's skull was no longer crushed. It was perfectly healed. The sorcere. s had charmed it quite whole again." "Was Dabura weak from loss of blood?" "Oh, there was no loss of blood! There wos no blood on Dabura. There was none on the ground. The sorcerers had charmed all the blood back into Dabura's head." "What did Dabura do then?" "Dabura went home to his house. He walked all the way. I saw him do it myself." "Dabura was quite well?" "Oh yes! Dabura was quite well. We went to a dance in another village that night." "Did Dabura dance?" "Dabura danced until morning. I know that he did. I saw him do it. I walked home with him in the morning." "You know that Dabura is not alive now?" "Dabura died again next day." Meantime, says the magistrate who records the case, the accused sorcerer was vastly bored by the disclosure of his amazing skill. He sat "yawning listlessly." It is maintained that this testimony is not fairly to be regarded as a malicious perjury, but, rather, as a preposterous fabrication, flowing innocently from the lips of the witness — a tale told as children tell the too remarkable tales of adventure in their own world of imaginary happenings. 256 ^ ■ '1: XLVI THE INVISIBLE SNAKE TT is no very hard matter to set up as a sorcerer 1 in Papua. One says, "I am a sorcerer!"— and the thing is accompUshed. One may be a greater sorcerer, or a lesser sorcerer, to be sur.; but one is a sorcerer of some degree of evil merit, at east from the hour that one says, "I am a sorcerer! There- after the measure of success a practitioner may win depends upon his skill in advertising and the in- genuity of his magical methods. What is new and mysterious is everywhere mightily impressive; and in Papua, as elsewhere, what a man noisily reiterates about himself comes eventually to be accepted as at least an approach to the truth concerning him. A certain Tai-imi, for example, having settled in a village of the Gira River, said. "I am a sorcerer! —and he was forthwith a sorcerer. He said. ' ' I have an invisible snake with which to work my will — and his fame began. They said, "Where » 5 the snake ?" And he replied : ' ' Have I not said that the snake "is invisible ? How can I show you an invisible snake?"— and his fame grew. He said, then, 1 have many invisible snakes"— and his fame was es- tablished. And he added, "'Beware of me, if you please, for I am very easily offended, and my in^ 2S7 f I ! AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS visible snakes obey me." Finding, now, that he was inspiring terror indeed, Tai-imi created an estab- lishment to forward his consequence. Three menials were taken in to wait upon his wants at home ; and two quaUfied assistants were engaged to attend his dignity abroad. To the qualified assistants, in en- hancement of his own importance, Tai-imi gave in- visible snakes. "They, too, are sorcerers," said he, "and have invisible snakes." And added, with the large, easy air of every great professional: "But the invisible snakes of my assistants, of course, are small and rather stupid snakes. My snake is the snake to beware of." Ingenious Tai-imi might have lived long in jilenty had he not grown so intolerably extor- tionate in the matter of pigs that the administration got wind of his ways and made haste to confound his success. It was shown upon trial that Tai-imi had founded his enormously lucrative practice upon nothing bet- ter than a bald assertion. "I am a sorcerer," said he, "with an invisible snake." A man who can terrorize a community can exact gifts and live at ease all the days of his life. Tai- imi's rise to prosperity illustrates the simplicity of the method. Vet sorcery is not a pojjular i)rofession. It is too perilous for that. The Papuan sorcerer practises farZ-pHri— translated as "the power of making dead." Anil this brings him constantly under suspicion in a land where vengeance is a vir- tuous pursuit and a man's life is safe only in his own watchful keeping. In the jihilosophy of the ])rimi- tive Papuan native there is no such thing as death from natural causes. 1 )eath is the result of either 25S THE INVISIBLE SNAKE violence or magic. Let a man be clubbed to death, and the native clearly comprehends the cause of the lamentable aflfair; but let a man die of pneumonia— a wicked machination is at the bottom of that death. Who is the sorcerer? And— w/icrc is the sorcerer? It is the dutiful obUgation of the bereaved to discover the author of the machination, and either himself avenge it or employ a sorcerer of superior power to perform his vengeance for him. In the simple prac- tice of medicine, moreover, which all sorcerers fol- low, as a matter of course, a sorcerer runs occa- sionally into the gravest sort of danger. It is easy for the native mind to assume that if the sorcerer has not cured his patient he has killed him; and as vengeance must be wreaked upon somebody- well, the sorcerer is probably guilty, and comes handy, anyhow. Not long since, in an inland village, a certain mother-in-law fell ill. A ptni-piiri man was fetched to her aid from a neighboring village. Could the imri-piiri man cure the mother-in-law? Oh yes, tlio puri-puri man could surely cure the mother-in- law. The piiri-puri man must have, however, as a fee for the cure, a dog and a pig. It was a bargain. The dog and the pig passed into the possession of the sorcerer and he set confidently to work. It was tcslilicd. in the course of the trial which presently came on. that the sorcerer, who was by this time the doccasetl in the case, had "made a few passes" over the mother-in-law and returned to his village. "Now. my good woman," said he, upon depart- ing, "you will get well." This was not so. "I calkd yim to attend my mother-in-law?" tle- nuuided the son-in-law, when next the sorcerer came. 259 ' 'I ,' I ,1, !l \ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS It was admitted. "I paid you a dog and a pig?" "You did." "My mother-in-law is dead." "Hum—" It is easy to imagine the consternation of the sorcerer. , "Very well, then," declared the son-m-law. As I paid you a dog and a pig to cure my mother-in- law, and as you did not cure her, I am going to kill ^ Thereupon the son-in-law went off with two friends in search of weapons. Witnesses of what followed told the magistrate before whom the case was tried that the sorcerer made no attempt to escape— that he calmly awaited the inevitab' event. Present y the avengers returned. The son-in-law grievously speared the sorcerer; and the friends-lending coun- tenance and aid-despatched him with their stone clubs Not one of these men— declares the magis- trate—could be persuaded that they had done any- thing out of the way. Had the sorcerer not been paid a dog and a pig for his medicine? And had not his cure failed? And was he not a sorcerer, anyhow? A reputation for skill in sorcery is not to be culti- vated with any degree of equanimity by the timid Many a man. saddled, against his will, with this evil repute, goes to frantic lengths of denial. A case or two which may be found in the records of the Papuan courts, as described by the Administrator, may be cited to illustrate the peril into which even reputation may bring a native. A woman. Maudcga, havm« visited at a neighboring village, set out uiwn her 360 THE INVISIBLE SNAKE return, in company with the daughter of Boiamai, a chief. Unhappily, the child of Boiamai was taken by a crocodile; and upon learning this Boiamai killed Maudega and certain others. "Yes, I killed Mau- dega," he admitted in the trial of the case; "but Maudega was a witch, you know, and had bewitched a crocodile to take my daughter." A Papuan, charged with the murder of an old woman, excused the crime in this way: that he had seen the old woman, who was unquestionably a witch, fly like a pigeon into his brother's house, where his brother lay ill, and tear open his brother's breast and gnaw at his liver; and in proof of the justice of what he had done, and in praise of his own presence of mind, no doubt, the Papuan maintained that as soon as he had killed the old woman his brother got quite well. Another case may be described : that of a native who saw two men of rather shady reputation put magical leaves in his father's path, in such a way, and with such wicked ])ower and intention, that, when the old man can to these magical obstacles, he fell— and presently died. The son took prompt ven- geance: he gathered his friends and killed the sup- posed sorcerers. "The elimination of the belief in sorcery," says the Administrator, in one of the re- ports, "would reduce serious crime in Papua to very small proportions; but such a complete reversal of ideas is too much to be hoped for at present, and the most that we can expect even the most civilized natives to realize is that sickness and death arc not invariably to be ascribed to that cause." I < i XLVII i| A SPIRITUALIST OF FERGUSON ISLAND MAGIC touches the life of the New Guinea na- tive in all its smallest eoncems. It accounts for the incidents of every day. Whether good luck or misfortune befall, magic has managed the affair. A happy event is achieved by means of a sorcerer s incantation: a confusion of evil is the issue of a sorcerer's wicked .hcU- The menace of unfnendly sorcerers implies '.he urgent need of personal and alertly well-disposed sorcerers. " I am a more power- ful sorcerer than the sorcerer of your enemy, says the wily magician, "and if you employ my skill your enemy's spells will be futile to annoy you In the Gulf country, where sorcery is what is called ram- pant, every family or group in a village fonning a ;.„./ has its own sorcerer. It is said that this is im- perative, so dangerous is the situation of the Gulf ncople- that the sorcerers of the bush people, livmg inland of the (^.ulf, who used to raid the coast are most cunning sorcerers-that they take the fonn and flight of pigeons and ravage the waterside with magical misfortune. All unusual happetungs and appearances are everywhere attributed to the sor- cerers A Resident Magistrate, visiting some of the Vailala River people for t:.e first time, to establish 262 A SPIRITUALIST .1 friendly relations, was accompanied to the coast villages by the head-man of one of the tribes. At lokea the head-man fell in with a horse for the first time in his life, and found the spectacle so entertain- ing that he laughed until the tears came. "You arc a mighty sorcerer, indeed," said he, gratefully, to the astonished Resident Magistrate, "and I thank you for having created this comical animal for my amusement." Every mishap, too, is of a pun-puri origin. A native came to the hospital at Saniarai with a two-months-old dislocation of the shoulder which he attributed to the exercise of some sorcerer in an enemy's behalf. That the malevolent influence was exerted at the very instant when he had chanced to sHp and tumble with his load did not impress him as being in the least significant. "A sorcerer did it," he maintained. The dislocation was reduced under chloroform— with the result that the native's respect for the practice of puri-puri in general was considerably increased. "This puri-puri,'' said he, "is obviously a more potent puri-puri than the other." It is a feat of some degree of skill, to be sure, but not beyond the power of the cleverest sorcerers, to establish a bereaved relative in communication with the spirit of his dead. A dreaded sorcerer, in the hills back of Begessi, on Ferguson Island, was com- monly used to accomplish this; and when the magis- trate of that district visited his ghostly dwelling to inquire into the matter a congregation of twenty natives— some of them had come from villages fifteen miles away— was found awaiting a connection with the other worid, as it were, in precisely the same fashion, and with the same eager, shuddering hope, IS -^«J .1 ■I ' . Si. ■4'' \i ''MM |! , . H li AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS no doubt, as a congregation of seekers at a spiritual- istic seance in our own times and cities. Nor did the sorcerer behave in an unfamiliar way: he de- campcd-a sudden pretense that he must himself be at a distance to obtain the best effect-and his ill-gotten gain in native goods was confiscated. Establishing communication with spirits, of course is one of the higher manifestations of the sorcerers magic. Sorcery does not. however, disdain to in- dulge in mere impish mischief-evoking the wrath of the wind: a. when six angry old women wrecked in a squall off the village of Borio, demanded of the nearest magistrate the arrest and impnsonment of all the villagers of Borio, who had conspired with their sorcerers to annoy strangers passing in peace, and demanded, moreover, instant compensation for the loss of their canoe and cooking-pots, borcery may stoop even lower-to small revenges: as when a native village constable complained to the magis- trate of his neighborhood that the bush pigs had been magically inspired to break into his garden and cat his taro in revenge upon him for assistmg the magistrate to convict two sorcerers of some slight distinction. The latter incident, as the magistrate recounts it. fairly iUustraU-s the native s attitude ot annoyance toward the ignorance and stupidity ot all those white men who do not believe in sorcery and its common employment. ^^ "You recall Andugai and Scrawabai, saiU uie constable to the magistrate, "the sorcerers whom you let out of jail a week ago?" . The magistrate easily recalled Andugai and bcra- "They have come to my village." the constable 364 A SPIRITUALIST complained, "and puri-puri the bush pigs to eat my taro." . "How do you know that Andugai and Serawabai puri'puri the bush pigs?" "When they came to my village, they said: 'This village policeman got us three months in jail. We must be revenged upon him. Let us damage his garden. Let us puri-puri the bush pigs to eat up his taro.' And they have done this very thing." "Did anybody hear them say that?" "Of course not! Andugai and Serawabai are not fools!" "How do you know that they did say it?" "Was I not the cause c* their imprisonment? What more reasonable thing could they say?" "You have no witnesses?" "No." "How long is it since you repaired your fence?" "About six months." "Go mend your fence." The point is this: that when the constable left the magistrate, in great ill temper with this judg- ment, the magistrate heard him remark to the inter- preter, in the manner of one hopelessly disgusted, "Why, that fellow doesn't know a thing about the customs of the country!" It is vain to argue. "You just don't know what you're talking about," sighs the native, wearied of the white man's skepticism: "we were born here, and htow about sorcery — it-c understand." A fixed con- viction of this sort was displayed by the Maisin people. There was an extraordinary number of deaths in the Maisin villages. Greatly perturbed 36s l!»^ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS by this mystery, for which they could account in only one way. the Maisin natives concluded ^ that their Kubiri neighbors were at the bottom of the trouble. "Look here, now, you have been making puri-puri against us," said they to the Kubiri neigh- bors; "and if you don't pay for the Uvcs your sor- cerer's have taken— wc7/ puri-puri you!" There was no threat of violence; it was merely a threat of magic— and the Kubiri people paid over the pigs m terrified haste. Everywhere the sorcerers are objects of detestation— of fear and hatred. A native who believes himself to be under a sorcerer's spell is well- nigh doomed. "It is almost impossible," says one of the magistrates, ' ' to save his life." Nor are cases of death infrequently noted. In illustration of this curious circumstance, the Administrator ("Papua") tells of an intelligent native of Rossel Island who was being slowly bewitched to death. The man was re- duced to skin and bones; he could neither eat nor sleep, but wandered aimlessly from village to vil- lage, dying. Assured that no sorcerer could have power aboard an official ship, the wretched native was talcen off on the Mcrric England, and presently recovered. "If he had not come along, he would have died," remarks the Administrator, "and, moral- ly, the sorcerer would have been guilty of his death, though through the medium of the man's own imagi- nation." A wcU-infonneci lative may protect him- self from these wicked channs, however, by taking care that no hair of his head, no parings of his fin- ger-nails, no bctcl-nut of his— and the like of such things— shall fall into a sorcerer's hands, to be laid upon a sorcerer's stone, causing illness and death. To make quite sure of immunity, he must, on Rossel 266 *l I 1 • A SPIRITUALIST Island, for example, cany away the scraps of his food from a stranger's table, and cast them into the sea. A sorcerer might get them! "If you should need to throw the husk of a cocoa- nut overboard from your canoe," a Rossel Island native explained, "first immerse it." And why? "It might float ashore, you see; a sorcerer might get hold of it." Circumspection so watchful and complete implies an abject fear. And the fear is truly abject. A celebrated sorcerer of the Main Range was charged by his community with the death of nine natives. It seems that the men had died of sheer fright. The sorcerer used no charms: he willed (said he) the death of his victims. "Burning within me," he confjsscd to the magistrate, "is a power as fierce as fire. ' • A certain Toulu— being of an aspect most evil, and blind in one eye, he was admirably equipped for the practice of sorcery — carried his inspiration of terror into the very jail where he was confined. A dozen fellow-prisoners lived flat on their bellies in this dreadful presence — crawling and squirming like worms. As this attitude of reverence was not at all suited to the efficient employment of crowbars in road-work, which is something the prisoners were laboriously attempting, when the magistrate came by, it was sternly forbidden; but when the magis- trate turned in his track to look back, he found the jailer bent double and every last man of that terrified prison gang flat on his belly again the while he pain- fully operated with his crowbar. It is upon fear of this quality that extortion easily practises. A Tro- 267 i 4\ ■ \ , ! 1 , '■ fT .rssam \X'A i/L r ■ AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS briand sorcerer, says one of the "^^gi^tr^tes ;^^^^^^ nered in the ear of a doomed native that an enemy had purchased his death. "However, he is a mean man? the sorcerer added, "and did not pay me so very much to kiU you." Of course the doomed native promptly paid more for his immumty than the Lemy had paid for his death. "This man has rewarded me largely to dispose of );o» " the sorcerer informed the enemy, "and I fear that I can accom- plish nothing to save your life.;' And the startled enemy said. "Ah. ha. but I will P^Y "^o^ej ^nd the doomed native said in his turn. Aa. ha. but I will pay even more than that!" And how long the transaction might have gone on nobody knows; for it was at this point that the extortionate sorcerer was taken into custody on the information of a cunmng friend of both his victims. i ft 1i I ^ XLVIII INCANTATION I PRECISELY how the extortionate sorcerer would have procured the decease of either of his dupes is not very clear. The processes of sorcery are dark mysteries. Poison is suspected i^s the active agent in many cases; but it is not by any means sure that the Papuan native has a sufficient knowledge of any virulent poison with which to assist his incantations. One sorcerer, standing trial for his life, described his method as follows: that he had put some bark in a bail-ban (bamboo pipe), mixed with shreds of cocoa- nut, and, having plugged the end, he dug a trench, buried the pipe, made a fire on the grave, removed the ban-ban, hid it in a hole in a tree, took it out at night, and poured the contents down his victim's throat while he slept. It is not a convincing tale. A case of divination, however, was noted by an ob- server in the government service on Rossel Island. It was designed to disclose the name of a murderer. The sorcerer collected some twenty-five leaves from the bush, worked them with water, rolled them into a little ball with the soles of his feet, and laid the ball in the sun to dry. A black ant was then taken alive and put in the ball : the head of a black slug, also — a slug which the natives fear for its ])ower to dis- 269 i! 1 i AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS charee a fluid (they say) which causes blindness All boing ready, now, the sorcerer took the magical ball in his left hand and required the People to ga her and question him. "Was it Kariba Oia killed Warari?" they asked. "Was it Buna? Was itObirami? Are you sure it was not Kanba? Are you sure it was not Buna?" In the mean time the sorcerer worked his fingers and the muscles of his anns; and by and by-the arm being at last grown sf and painful beyond endurance-he moaned and slowly opened his fingers. , . ,i i The unfortunate whose name chanced to be called at that moment was declared to be the guil^Y,"^^"; ' ' 1 low do you know, ' ' the observer inquired, that he is the guilty man?" "My ami," the sorcerer replied, "got hot and like "" ?Ms remarked bv this observer that the sorcerer seemed to believe in his singular power— that he was at least an honest man and no grasping charlatan. It is not uncommon, indeed, to come upon a sorcerer who appears to have the utmost faith in his mys- torics One celebrated feat of the sorcerers is the r. ,ioration of the dead to life. It is not maintained that the restoration is permanent- the mattc-r ot an hour or two, rather, a day or two at most; as in the case of the dead Dabnra who came to lite in response to the incantations of the yawning sor- cerer and danced all night. "Why should you doubt this thing >" a sorcerer demanded, in retort. lou, too have your sorcerers. With my own eyes I saw one of your great sorcerers kill a man by putting pitri-pnri ichloroform] to his face, then cut hnn open with a knife, and bring him to life again. The man 270 ' . ;{• INCANTATION was dead. There was plenty of blood. I saw it myself. Why should we not be able to do the same '" ' Sometimes a sorcerer will have the temerity to attempt a demonstration. Temerity, to be sure, it is— a curious sincerity, too. And this smcenty never fails to ir^.press the beholder. In one case a constable, who had been a noted sorcerer m his day, undertook, for the edification of a magistrate, to re- store a lizard which he had killed with a stick. ' I have been in the government service." said he. doubtfully, "and it may be that my power his de- parted " And so it turned out: no chami that he had— and he was fullv half an hour at the business —had the least effect. He was plainly discouraged; and moreover— it is related— he was genuinely as- tonished to find that his spells were impotent. It seemed that he could not for the life of him com- prehend this glaring failure of the usual charms. "Ah, well," said he, "I had no preparation; and, anyhow, I have been out of practice for a long time. And I have been in the government service, too. That's the real trouble." A story- is told of an old witch who professed this power very noisily, but, being entreated to display it, flatly declined; nor could she be moved from her decision. "No, no, no!" she protested. "I couldn't do it to-day." "Why not to-day?" "I've taken a bath." An oversight of the sorcerers is kept by the native constables- some two hundred and fifty raw Pa- puans, anned with carbines, uniformed in a blue serge jumper and sulu, and acting, with limiti-d au- thority, under the direction of the magistrates. 271 'I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS Minor operations arc ignored: selling love charms— the like of that. And the matter of rain-makmg is of no consequence, provided, of course, that wind and rain arc not provoked in malice to discomfit a legitimate undertaking. Let the rain-maker take his sorcerer's stone, wrap it in a leaf, put it m t.v shallows of a creek; the leaf will annoy the , .ne with its offensive odor, to be sure, and rair vu come of it; but no harm is worked, except th_ ag- gravation of the stone. It is extortion and tyranny and bloodshed that the constables must report. Many of the village policemen, however, are them- selves fast in the grip of the village sorcerers; and the force is in general so brielly removed from the s-ivage state that discipline sometimes yields to superstition in the test. It is related of two con- stables, returning by sea from an errand down the coast, that, being di-layed at P.Migani by a tedious stonii, they arrested the local rain-maker ancl put him in irons, charging him .specifically with inter- fering with the cxpcchtious transaction of the king s business. Presently they released him; for the storm did not abate, so contumacious was the rain- maker; and the ofiicers of the law were persuaded that it nt-v', in his book. l\ipmi. A constable of one of the northern villages, with a sorcerer in custody. 272 ^ i1 Kl.-llil M MM'l-'lltMl. u I I I I INCANTATION was proceeding up a river, bound to a magistrate's station; and the sorcerer took advantage of this last opportunity in a desperate endeavor to intim- idate his captor and thus procure his own escape. Having furnished himself with a string and a number of small sticks, the sorcerer inquired of the constable: "You remember your father?" "I do." "I killed him." A stick was cercmoniousl> tied to the sorcerer s long string— a disquieting performance. "You remember your mother?" "I do." "I killed her." A silence then— and a second stick was attached to the long string. "You remember your brother?" "I do." . ^ „. "I killed him too. You remember your sister r "I do." "Well, I kiUt ■ her." When the sore or had seventeen significant sticks attached to his long string the patience of the con- stable broke. With the help of his crew the con- stable seized '.le sorcerer and held his head under- water until li- was drowned. It is the Resident Magistrate who must deal with all the ills of sorcery— the restraint and cure of the bloody superstition; and most of them throw up their hands in despair, with the remark that the thing is of [K>stilential effect and jiroiiortions. Apart from the troubles the sorcerers make for him, the 273 I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS life of til n New Guinea Reside at Magistrate— if the descri' i is accurate— has enough of difTiculty to make 'i . unenviable. ' ' Aside from a working knowl- edge of the law as applied to Papuan affairs,' said a Resident Magistrate of the Northern Division, once, apparently greatly annoyed with the circum- stances of his life, "a Resident Magistrate must have a knowledge of bookkeeping, infantr>- drill, bone- setting and simple surgery, medicine, road-makmg, surveying, building, boat-sailing, and the Motuan langua-'c. He must learn the attitude of the vari- ous'" tribes toward the government and toward one another, and their peculiarities; ho nuist be physi- cally capable of resisting malaria and dysentery, and of keeping pace with the constabulary in long, rou;4h marches, also of maintaining discipline in the jails and station, as well as among two or three hundred crude savages employed as carriers or as labon-rs. He must also be prei)ared to spend weeks alone willi th.« natives, to spend most of his pay in living ex- penses, at the end of a few years to have his health shattered and to be useless for any other occupation, and to be the recipient of a constant stream of abuse both locally and in the public press, with the pros- pect that, tmless he is lucky enough to get killed or die before he is incapal)le of any longer d<.ing his work, he can starve in Australia or in New Cinnea at the end." It is not a happy life, perhaps- the life of the New C.uinca Resident Magistrate. Yet I fancy that not all of them would care very much to return from this land of sorcery and jungle and sav- age nativi' life to the com])aratively dull paths of Sydney and Mi-lbourne and the Australian outlands. In New (iuinea, they say, life has not yet been di- 374 INCANTATION vested of queer contaets with its primitive mysteries; Td this cinfusion of magic and aneient eustom w.th the modem facts of law and the promise of pros- perity is pleasant enough in some of its phases- a me^urc of reward, at any rate, to the adventurous soul. '!i ,! ; f XLIX I I THURSDAY ISLAND AFTER Port Moresby, the Singapore -bound L packet recrosses the Coral Sea to Torres Strait pausing, there, at Thursday Island. A P^f ^f ' pleasures of Thursday Island-and of the infinitely more dreary lack of them. And here, too. was a dreary hotel' A veranda overlooked the painted h;u-bor water, wh(-re some little luggers of the pearling fkrt lav at anchor, with the rolling, jungle shores of the islands half vanished in a mist of heat beyond- a prospect streaked and splashed with bcr>-l and cream and blue and violet and brown. The town lay up from the waterside, wilting in the sun: a brom street, with a scorched boulevard of grassy sand and a row of dead voung trees; dusty ^ho]^^ l;ept by 277 r [ qi •! i I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS tors; iron bhantics, ci , Ch mamen, Fill- population ^y^^^:^, Fiiians. Mah^s. pinos. ^-l°"r,/opeanr Aust^^^^^ Life was a ist- Abonginals, Europeans ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^.. less, sordid P^^'-^^^^.^^^.^^^^^Yn our neighborhood, at ly. What humor there .vas in our g ^^^^_ a'ny rate, eame only from t^-^^'^ X-house bath, lady and a --^^'^^'^''^^^^f'lrZ^.rncnU pretty The bath was ^^ /"|^^^^\hTL iLlated tropieal generally ^y^:;;^^^ a rope and tackle. rinrt^^-^--i^t^::.rg deluge of tepid rain-water. Thursday Island is a V^^:^j:Zr 'Z senuenee. ^^t Sll^Sic^^i^^^f teen hundred turtle, aeeoun for the r^^^^^ .^^ ^^^^ ^^^.^^, inhabitants blac.>dlo.^^^^^^^^^^^ a port of eall so broihng exile. It in n«^^ obscure quarters of familiar and triendly m ^^^y^^^^^^.te nickname, the world that 1 weas an a^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^ Gibraltar is C'lb to the . ,, ^^ ^^^^ j.^^^^ ranean; Thursday I^^^^"^ /^ ^ ^s A ' the rovinj- Indies and the nearer ^J^^-,,,,,^^ut in foi craft-the traders and -h'-U pr i^ ^^^^.^.^turer anc pleasure and ^^J^^^)^^ ' ,i;7Northern Territory anc abandoned ^reteh of '^^^J^^^ ^^^., ,•„, the scene o New Gmnea makes it a ^cir i prospect, i hi. occasional desperate ^^^ ^^^"^^ J,^^ ,own. lik appears to be a swarming, ^^M< »' I THURSDAY ISLAND the wicked old Port ^f.^'^:"^tZ'^o^"^^ „er-so ^r*'"8 ''"^ii'^XleTyMtlc place, with Queensland l^*'-'^/*"^" i"; „ hicl ly rcs|>cct- mthing more 'eprehensAle than a W^ly I .^^ %rZ:£^rl «a:c%;rnese, Chinese, "s:^;;ri^nLrs and Australian Abon^ ty Mlow the -'"JX^IX rained, the eroeo- Taking the truth of the taKs " *■ . f „„ ,i,c diles. which infest *"«- ,;"/,i'^J^™ ,.i,i,ors in north Australian coast, arc the l.vc town. Upon rare °?™^'"^ *?j"" ^i„^ from the ture boldly and w,th ""^.^Pf jf^ "^ tl""? I"="8 ;:r;°a*d\r;:atr^-d;'hi-;musuaiw Sr« and ™P"^able the re«nrenc -^ shudderinB busmess for f y 'I^f^/^to tn,vcrsc crocodile yams """'"S " J^'^^;;'; .,„ ,„humd the raided t---"^'<"7/" .f'^./'f;,, ^ a monstrous •'^' "diSCt on b forelhascd a l.ttle girl up r;tl andtnto fhe shelter of a pubhe-housc, fc^Xg close upon .■;,- 'ernfied hee s. A rVimiman was said to have vanisntu uu edge of to^-n within sight of the hotel veranda hflast they heard of the poor wretch wa. a shr,l JiSTr^Xt hi oSntmtr gtL. the ^^'^'^Ta^ds'^^rthrL^rrS^^ra." one of the islands, sai l tne ^^^^ ^^^ touching a match to his pipt. badly mauled. And the— Puff! 10 279 -!( .i ,1 Z >: AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS "—man hauled him up on the beach and came over to T. I. for help. And the—" Puff, puff! , . u y \^A "—mate wasn't there when he got back. And *f wc — Puff! "—reckon it was — " Puff, puff, P^\^ " — 'nother croc." u i • It is told of a surveyor thr.t he measured a basking crocodile bv means of his instrumcnts-takmg sights and angles from a reasonably short distancc-and that he worked out the length of the crocodile to be thirtv-five feet! This remarkable result is ascnbc^d to an error in the surveyor's calculations due to a pardonable trepidation. Crocodiles of twenty feet, however-^ven of twenty-eight feet, it is asserted- have been shot. Sly, powerful beasts they are, in- deed A horse, taken bv the shoulder, dragged a crocodile for forty yards before he could release him- self- and a full-grown buffalo, taken by the head while drinking, was carried off bodily and droxv-ncd. The story is told of a trooper, bathing m one of the rivers, who, tiring a little, swam for rest toward what seemed surely to be a floating log; the log turned out to be a crocodile, and the crocodile took the trooper by the head, within sight of his comrades, and carried liim off. It is said of the aborigines .hat, being taken, they thrust their fingers in the croco- dile's eyes and sometimes save themselves in this way and an incredible tale of escape is in common circulation-that an aborigine, carried away by the feet and deposited at the bottom of a pool m the river for future consumption, played possum all tne 280 :^\r THURSDAY ISLAND while and swam to shore when his captor left him. It will appear, thus, that the crocodile is to be reckoned with— that he is no bogie of the rivers and beaches, but a live, horrible peril. The abongmcs are well aware of the degree of this peril and cautious in the presence of it; and as for the Europeans, no seasoned white man of sound mind would put nim- sclf in the way of giving a crocodile the advantage of him When a considerable number of aborigines cross a crocodile-infested stream they beat the water with sticks and chant a great commotion— taVing the precaution, of course, to send their women first. V TIGER-SHARK A ] I DIVING for shell, and incidentally for the litt treasure of pearl-it has been estimated th; one shell in a thousand contains a pearl-is earn, on in deeper water off Thursday Island than an where else. Other productive beds he comparativ Iv shallov -the Persian Gulf, the Sulu Seas, the Gi of Manaar. The greatest depth at which a diver helmet and dress can perform any sort of usei labor is held to be one hundred and eighty-two fe^ At that depth a Spanish diver raised £9-000 in sm bars from a wreck off Finisterre At one hundr and fifty feet an English diver salved £50,000 fn a wreck off Leuconna Reef of the Chmese^ coa The maximum depth to which the sponge-fisncrs the Mediterranean successfully descend is one hi dred and fifty feet. In the Torres Strait, with depletion of the beds, the divers have moved fr the shallow water of from four to six fathoms depths of one hundred and twenty feet, where operation is a distressful and perilous one. A ternal law prohibits diving beyond a fpecihed de of safety; but as the courts have held that a di must be actually seen at that depth, if anybod; to be held amenable, and as the reefs are ren 2S2 .''«^Li^.;«i«ar-':'^■-»!l.- '^ the little ted that s carried dan any- parativc- the Gulf I diver in of useful -two feet. D in silver I hundred ,000 from 2SC coast, -fishers of one hun- , with the )ved from ithoms to where the le. A pa- fied depth at a diver mybody is ire remote TIGER-SHARK from any practical scheme of supervision, it is a law of small consequence, after all, and the perilously deep diving goes on, no doubt, much as before, with its occasional issue of sudden death. Subjected to a hazardous degree of atmospheric pressure — at one hundred feet it is sixty pounds to the square inch — the divers are attacked by various characteristic disturbances: pains in the muscles and joints, for example ("the bends"), and deafness, spells of faint- ing, and paralysis, otherwise known as "diver's palsy." The effects appear when the diver ascends too rapidly from deep water and the pressure is re- moved. It is then that the cases of sudden death occur — the diver found dead in his helmet or expir- ing on the deck when the helmet is removed. At Thursday Island the luggers — smart, sea- worthy little fellows of eighteen or twenty tons, bright with paint — are manned and outfitted. They are small for the big task of weathering the winds that blow over the reefs and shallows of that perilous water. It is sharp seamanship and a dependable weather-lore, for which the Japanese skippers are celebrated, that accomplish an escape from the sud- den, sweeping gales: such a gale, fcr example, as cleared the west-coast grounds of the fleet — a wind that picked some luggers out of the water and drop- ped them in the mangroves a hundred yards from the beach. In the Gulf of Manaar, the Ceylon beds, the divers go naked after the shell, for the most part — a plunge with a cord and sink-stone, and with a spike of irouwood to ward oH the sharks while the baskets are being filled ; and they continue diving thus time after time, remaining below for from fifty to eighty 283 11 i! t AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS seconds until exhausted. It is recorded that divers The oiif of Manaar have b-n ^--JX'Ts tinderwater for six minutes; but at Thursday is bnd where the bc\-hc-dc-mcr men dive naked, this is S Jd a for a preposterous tale. The longest time Tman can remain underwater (they say) is two mima^'s-not much more, at any rate; and should hrcontinue these interv^als. at -/-^t deP^^-Jj^ will presently bkn^d at the nose and mouth and will Eventually collapse on the deck of his lugger Jts maintained, moreover, that the coastal abongines are ^e ereates of all swimmers-that. being well oiled for fhe occlsSn, they can go as deep and swim as one as any man. A blackboy, fishing Mchc-de- ^^ wU search the bottom for these sea-slugs in T: course of one dive, and gather a 1;-P. ^^J-^^^f it in a convenient spot; and he will fill 1"^^""^' •hen he has collected their full burden, and at last wriggle swiftly to his dinghy, cmerg mg with a load Ihaf might tax the strength and incommode the nrot'rcss of a man on a highroad ashore, 'in these days there is very little naked divmg after heU out'J.f Thursday Island. The dwers are cHd in helmet and dress; and there is difficulty enough even so. The depth is great the ground may be treachcrous-a diver may fall rom a heij^n 7vl at the bottom of the sea-and the sharks are numerous and big and voracious. ^^r,:„„ One midday a score of little luggers came dnftmg into the harbor at Thursday Island with a hght wind. "Dead Jap." opined ^he customs official • ' No black flag.;; the barber objected. Where s your half-master?" ^^ "Boy bitten by a shark, then. 2S4 H.\(1.1M. A I'l AKI -MIVl K AIIOAKK fl i • f ' TIGER-SHARK "Oh, roiled water!" ^ "Quite an immunity from death of late, the cus- toms official casually observed. "Only five in six months." ^^ "A Tap and a Malay and three Papuans. "Seventy-nine," said the barber, "in the six months previous." As a matter of statistical fact, ten per cent, of the Torres Strait divers die everv' year from the im- mediate effects of their vocation. It is a short life (they say) and a bitter one, fit only for the yellow and brown men. the Japanese and Papuans and Manila men and Island boys -the Japanese, es- pecially, who are tough fellows, sullenly reckless of their days, and thinking of life only in terms ot hard labor and brief intervals of violent pleasure. Torres Strait swarms with tiger-sharks; and as th. tiger-shark grows to a length of twenty feet in these latitudes, and is a particularly voracious and pugnacious customer. an>'%vhere encountered, he is an enemy to beware of. A brownish-yellow bulk, ornamented with transverse bands or rounded spots, furnished with a gigantic blade-like tail, and having a length of twenty feet: measured off on the carpet of a man's quiet home-and. regarded with the vyc of the imagination, given hungry speed in the dusky ^.j,ter-it is enough to make a man shudder in his library chair! It was not roiled water that had brought the score of luggers into harbor at 1 hursday Island while we sat watching with the barber and the customs official. It was, as the customs official had suggested, a Jap boy bitten by a shark; and as the po»)r fellow was carried to the hospital, we uen 285 i n attacked he signals for more air and frightens his cowardly enemy away with a volley of bubbles Yet he may be taken in a momentary' lapse of caution. I recall the case of a diver whose life-line suddenly, mysteriousl parted; his mates dived to his rescue at once, but no trace ot the man was ever found, and there was but one reasonable way in which to account for his disappearance— a shark had undoubtedly taken him. It is said that the coastal aborigine is not greatly afraid of a shark -that he is a match for a shark in- deed in fair water, when not taken unaware. He mav lose a leg or an arm. or he may be earned off bodily but in any event the damage will be due rather 'to the cunning approach of the shark than to the limitations of the diver. Fairiy warned, he will dive to the bottom, roil the water, and thus elude the attack; and if he is pugnaciously disposed at the moment (thev say)-if the shark impolitely mter- rupts him at a critical or deeply interested moment -he will give fight. It is true, of course, that the naked divers are accustomed to escape by roiling the water: such instances arc common; but I have 286 TIGER-SHARK no stomach for the tale that any man will go out of his way to challenge combat with a twenty-foot tiger-shark— even when angered by an untimely m- terruption. I recall two stories of narrow escape. The one concerns a voung Japanese diver who was taking a crayfish to the surface, and all at once found himself in a furious engagement. It was incautious of the diver to have a crayfish in his possession: the sharks are inordinately fond of crayfish; and this indiscreet diver came out of the consequent encoun- ter with a lacerated thigh and one arm missing. The other story is hardly credible, related far from the scene: I cannot vouch for it, at any rate, having had no means of authenticating it; but as I have not hesitated to swallow it whole, and have been pleas- antly moved to shudder and thrill and exclaim aghast, I will tell it for what it is worth. It seems that a black bt'che-dc-mcr boy, swimming, naked and ab- stracted, close to the reef in search of slugs, awoke all at once to an amazing situation. It was not that the shark was near— not that it had turned and was darting; but that his head -a'a.s- actually in the shark's wiJc-o pat mouth. The black boy acted sharply : he withdrew his head in a flash, having at the same time "punched " the shark (as they put it) to distract attention from the matter in hand: and he rescued himself after a brisk tussle, and lived to prove the ad- venture with a scarred cheek. LI PEARL-SHELL AND PIRACY IT is not from the pearls that the fleet-owner de- 1 rives his profit. It is from the shell. Not long a«'o a great pearl from the Thursday Island grounds was exhibited in Melbourne -a perfect pearl of thirty-two and one-half grains, valued then at £i ooo It was a rare find. The quest of the pearl is so uncertain at best, however, and the honesty of the divers so doubtful, and their tricks of concealment so sly and cunning and many, that the pearhng own- er to put his undertaking on a dependable basis, yields the pearls to the crews in an arrangement for their labor, and takes a sure profit from the sale of the shell. Shell is cash at Thursday Island, as safe and potent as legal tender; it can surely be mar- keted, and fetches a hundred pounds a ton, more or less— having once soared to four hundred pounds a ton. In a recent year the value of the Australian export of shell was more th-n £300,000; in the same year the value of the pearls exported was not quite £ 1 00,000. Now that the quest of the pearl has been systemati7-ed to what is called a cold business propo- sition, the romance has gone out of it— a romance of a divertingly blood-curdling description; yet there is an occasional incident of a sort to raise the hair 288 PEARL-SHELL AND PIRACY of a man whose feet are used to pavements and whose heart beats quickly when the unusual confronts him. , Not many years ago a Malay proa was wrecked on the Australian coast and the crew of six fell into the hands of a band of aborigines. The blacks were not savages; they were half-civilized fellows— speak- ing pidgin English, some of them, and acquainted with the power and measure of the law. What fol- lowed was as cold and deliberate a piece of treachery as could be practised by shapes in a nightmare. The blacks undertook to lead the Malays to Bowen Strait, and to help with the burden of the goods they had saved from the wreck, but misled them to a swamp instead, and there went into camp with them for the night, apparently in the most amiable fash- ion. At that time, they protested subsequently when brought to trial, the blacks had not intended to kill the Malays. It seems they had misled the Malays to the swamp in order to despatch them conve- niently and in security if the inclination should irre- sistibly overtake them. The inclination mi^ht over- take them, to be sure. One never could tell what might happen; and if the inclination should overtake them— the swamp would be an admirable place for the operation. No doubt the blacks foresaw the issue well enough, yet waited to determine the deed --like a cowardly man tricking his conscience -until the propitious moment should arrive and the afiair could be undertaken and accomplished before there was time for reconsideration. At any rate, there was a frank discussion among the blacks in camp— the Malays and blacks sitting together, smiling together, on seeming friendly and 2S9 ( AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS faithful terms; and the subject of that discussion was the advisability of disposing of the Malays. The Malays heard every word that was spoken, but, having no knowledge of the blacks' language, could not understand a single fateful syllable, and were therefore neither warned nor perturbed, but doubt- less, if they attended at all, fancied that the con- versation had to do with the road to Bowen Strait, or some such matter as that. A man may here em- ploy his imagination at pleasure — construct for him- self an Australian tropical swamp, isolated from any chance of a saving interruption, and a little group of castaway Malays resting in the illusion of security, and a band of naked blackfellows, and an exchange of reassuring smiles and a casually proceeding dis- cussion, continued freely within hearing of the doomed wretches whom it concerned, but all un- known to them. As a matter of fact, the following discussion is not invented at all, but paraphrased in colloquial English from the testimony adduced at the trial, and fairly represents what occurred. "Let's kill 'em." "Oh no; we don't want to kill 'em." "Yes; let's kill 'em. It will be much easier to take their goods away from them." "Well, how'll we kill 'em?" "Let's cut some clubs and club 'cm." "If we kill 'em we'll get into trouble." "No, we won't. Nobody will ever know any- thing about it." "Oh, what's the use of killing 'em'" "Well, let's go in the bush and cut the clubs, any- how." "Might as well cut the clubs." 290 :M 1 ♦ PEARL-SHELL AND PIRACY "Come on, then!" — and once the clubs were cut from the bush the doom of the Malays was sealed. Not long ago, on the pearling-grounds of the west coast, there was an instance of old-fashioned piracy. It had all the elements a romancer could wish for — except the intervention of Providence and the es- cape of the hero. Captain Biddies and Captain Rid- dell, each of whom owned a pearling-fleet on the grounds off Cape Bossutt, met in Broome on the eve of a cruise of inspection. Captain Riddell wagered Captain Biddies that his schooner would reach the Cape Bossutt grounds first; and so it was arranged — a race of these crack schooners. There was a light wind next day. At sundown Captain Biddies observed that Captain Riddell's Ethel was mysteri- ously standing out to sea. He could not account for this erratic behavior. It troubled him when, next morning, the Ethel was not in sight; and upon re- turning to Broome he reported the singular disap- pearance of Captain Riddell and his pearling- schooner: whereupon the Malay Islands, Borneo, Singapore, and Penang were notified that something had gone amiss. The mystery of the Ethel was presently solved. The tale is that of the Chinese cook whose life was indiscreetly spared by the mutineers. A Malay named Pedro proposed a mutiny, and, a majority of the crew falling in with him, he initiated the execution of his design by tomahawking the man at the wheel, and tomahawk- ing another white man who chanced to be on deck, and treacherously stabbing Captain Riddell, who was in the cabin looking at the chart and was taken unaware. Pedro proceeded thereafter according to J91 A II .in .{I AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS the best traditions. He took command of the ship ; he had the dead men chained together and thrown over- board- he served Uquor to hearten the crew; he put on a sword and sash ; he killed an aborigine and threw him to the sharks; he cleansed the schooner of blood, put in at one of the Malay Islands, secreted the pearls and shell ashore, scuttled the schooner, and made for the Straits Settlements. It was a de- parture from the traditions-" dead men tell no tales "-that cost him dear m the end He had spared the life of the Chinese cook-and the cook informed. Bevond Thursday Is]and,'on the road to Singapore lies Port Darwin, of the Northern Territory-the last port of Australia-a far-away little tropical town on a windy bluff above a deep-blue harbor. It was in a glare of blistering white sunlight when we landed. Port Darwin is the chief settlement of this vast, vacant land-a total area of 523.630 square miles, which in acres measures 335.xi6.8oo. Th^ Euro- pean population of the whole, at the time of the last census, was 1,729. which is the same as saymg one European to every three hundred square miles. In addition there were 1,302 Chinese, 90 Japanese and 146 others. It may be mentioned, too. that the daily average number of the population m jail was 26- but this relatively remarkable number doubt- less included a goodly proportion of abongines. of whom it is estimated the Territory nourishes some 20 000 Port Darwin is connected with a distant world by means of the overland telegraph, a stretch of wire measuring 2,230 miles, which runs south through the dry interior, and it will by and by be 292 PEARL-SHELL AND PIRACY connected with the rest of the Australian world by a transcontinental railroad — perhaps Port Darwin to Adelaide of South Australia: which, by the way, would bring London within eighteen days of Mel- bourne. The Northern Territory is the Never- Never of Australia. It is in the first raw stage of the making, now — a slow and still doubtful develop- ment. There lies the land, at any rate, and for any man's taking — the last Australian wilderness — vast tropical spaces awaiting occupation — browsing herds and fields of cotton and paddy and tobacco. It waits, all vacant, still, as the New South Wales wilderness once waited, and the Queensland acres waited, conferring wealth at last on the pioneers who had the foresight and the hardihood to challenge fortune. On the road from Sydney to Singapore the swarm- ing brown cities of Java are the next ports of call. We called at Surabaya, Samarang, and liutavia; and then we crossed the Java Sea, and a patch of the China Sea — a passage in gray, misty weather — to Singapore, which was the end of the Australian detour from the main-traveled 'round-the-world road. It had been a slow, rolling passage from Port Darwin — a sleepy passage, loafing along the Line, in pleasant blue weather. We awoke, all at once, like men reluctant and yawning from a doze in spring sunshine, and went ashore. It was like waking from a dream; and there was that refreshment, presently — sleep having left the eyes — which follows upon good rest. We remember the shipmates of the long voyage as the people of a dream — familiar, unreal faces, drifting through an easy sleep; and all the 293 Ji^ I. AUSTRALIAN BYWAYS cradled way of that breezy blue passage is a separate experience, like a dreatn. its elements abrupt and surprising and acceptable, and its end a complete temiination and return to the usual happenings of life the interval of it having no continuity with any- thing before or since. And I defy any man to sad from Sydney to Singapore, touching New Gumca and the ports of Java, in the favorable season, and thereafter to possess this drowsy voyage as a dcli- nitc reality. What remains, at the end of it all. wil be a pleasant confusion of rocking and laughter, ol warmth and stars and sunlit color, and of the neigh- borhood of blue water. Like this: the ^un-soakcd ship lying in the offing, on a flat, green sea. with the tropiil odors of shore in the air-and coral shores and cocoanut islands and naked savages-and u fresh wind and flash and blue of the open-and the serene color of sea and sky-and mist of warm ram and falling dark-and a glow of light, and meny voices, and the clink of ice in glasses, and flapping awnings-and big black waves^ running in ike mis- chievous children to break with a swish and flash of white and scamper away-and the mornmg tnlls and chirps and flights of song of the Dutch capt^un s canaries, and the noisy c-hatter of the Dutch cap- tain's accomplished Dutch parrot. ^ I THE F.ND .rate and ^lete ;s of any- » sail inca, and dcfi- , will :r, of iei^!;1i- )akcd h the horcs ri the d the 1 rain Tierry pping 3 mis- ash of trills )tain's 1 cap-