Chapter III: Part 3

I found Brisbane a splendid place, in some respects it was not unlike a miniature San Francisco. The streets are, however, much wider in Brisbane. There are some very fine shops, hansoms, busses, barrel-organs, and itinerant musicians with harps and violins. Of course the banks are the notable buildings. Australia is a country of banks. If ever you see an unusually large building, you may conclude it is a bank. Russians have a weakness for big churches. An Australian’s hobby is to build big banks. The Houses of Parliament and the Law Courts were also striking buildings. In the afternoon I saw a lot of grand carriages. Inside them were handsomely dressed ladies. On the box or behind were cockaded footmen. Many of the girls were good-looking. They were, however, chaperoned by their mammas, and you saw what the sweet girls might look like in the sweet by-and-bye. It is a great mistake for a good-looking girl to walk out with an ugly mother. A young man gets frightened. If he didn’t get frightened, then he is not a philosopher. The girls had better refuse such men.

Many of the men wore tall hats. Tall hats are almost unknown in the tropics. Taking Brisbane as the northern limit, they extend as far south as Dunedin, that is to say, over nineteen degrees of latitude. They have a similar geographical range in the northern hemisphere. There are, therefore, two belts round the globe, each about 1,200 miles in width, in which we may study chimney-pots.

Judging from the brogue I heard in the streets and in the hotels, I should fancy that English, Scotch, and Irish are mixed up in Brisbane in about equal proportions. This may not agree with statistics. Statistics consider people who were born in Ireland as Irishmen. In my estimate I only reckon as Irishmen those who talk with a good brogue, make bulls, and tell every girl they see that she is the prettiest in the town. I spent my first evening with a very jovial Irishman. One thing which he taught me was, that the whisky of the southern hemisphere resembles, in all its properties, that which is made in other parts of the world.

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One morning I spent in visiting the Brisbane museum. It is a large building, and is apparently omnivorous in the curiosities it receives. There were lots of minerals to be seen, including a number of very good specimens of opal. Upstairs there was a large collection of oil-paintings illustrating Australian scenery. Downstairs I saw many fossil bones, including those of the extinct gigantic kangaroo-like animal called the diprotodon. The Major was anxious to get some diprotodon shooting, but when we told him that the animal was 55 feet from the tip of his tail to the tip of his snout, and 55 feet from the tip of his snout to the tip of his tail, making in all 110 feet, that his skin was impenetrable to the bullet of the European, etc., etc., the Major was not so anxious. He saw we were joking, bit his lips, and got quite cross.

From the museum I was directed to the public gardens at the end of the street--‘The gate right ahead of you,’ said my informant. I walked in, entered between two rather fine gate-posts into a garden-like avenue. ‘Odd sort of botanical garden,’ I thought. ‘Trees ought to be labelled. Don’t want to over-educate the people of Brisbane, I suppose. Might be dangerous if they knew a lot of Latin names for trees.’ So I walked on until I came to a big house with a carriage at the door. ‘Good place for a curator,’ I thought. ‘Ought to have started life as a botanist, and I might have had a house like that.’ While looking at the house, and wondering whether a re-education would enable me to start in the plant line, a policeman broke into my reveries by inquiring whether I wanted to see the Governor? ‘No,’ said I; ‘I want to see the botanical gardens.’ ‘You have taken the wrong entrance,’ he replied. ‘You will find the entrance next to the one you came in by.’ So I had to retrace my steps to the entrance next to the one I came in by. This was one of those iron-gate sort of things, like a big squirrel-cage. It had a cast-iron label on, to the effect that these gardens were the invention of Sir George Bowen. After entering the squirrel-cage turnstile, swing the gate and then pass on. Do not pause when once inside the squirrel-cage, or another person may come, and, by swinging the gate at the wrong moment, crack you like a nut between nut-crackers. Here I found labels and Latin names, nursemaids, perambulators, grassy slopes, and children to my heart’s content. Sir George Bowen’s invention is very pretty, and well repays a visit. I forgot to say that at the museum there are the apartments of the Royal Society of Queensland. They began by calling themselves ‘Royal,’ in the same way that a public-house may call itself the Royal Bull. Subsequently they prayed the Government to petition the Queen for the use of the word ‘Royal.’ This was naturally granted. They have a fine library, and are doing much good work.

_ADVENTURES WITH A BOOMERANG._

I had a boomerang given to me when in Brisbane. I have got it yet. If the troubles it has caused me, and the troubles it has in store for me, do not bring me to an early grave, I have the intention of passing this specimen of aboriginal workmanship on to some fellow I don’t like. By the same messenger I intend to send him the address of a respectable undertaker. If you have a deadly hatred for a man--if there is a man who has insulted you, called you a liar and a thief, converted you and your family into paupers, blasted your hopes for this world and the future--just ask him, when he goes to Australia, to bring you a boomerang. Tell him you would like a good big one--a fighting boomerang. He will either be dead or imprisoned before he gets back. My boomerang is a fighting boomerang. It is made out of very hard wood. At both ends it is pointed. The edge of it is like that of a sword, and it is shaped like a young moon. My troubles with this thing began in the streets of Brisbane. It would not go in any of my portmanteaus, so I tied it on the outside of my bag. The bag then became like a double-ended ram pointed at both ends. The first notice I received about my double-ended ram was from an old gentleman against whom my bag happened to bump. ‘D--n it, sir, what’s that? You’ve torn my trousers,’ said he. I apologized, and felt very mean. I shall never forget the way in which that old man glared through his spectacles, first at me, then at his trousers, and then at the double-ender. The last look decided the course I should take. I might charge him. After this I tried to be more careful, and got on pretty well until I reached the station.

At the ticket-office I found myself in a crowd, and, the persons behind pushing me, drove the double-ender into the legs and hinder parts of those in front. The way in which they jumped and squirmed was quite ridiculous. ‘Please excuse me; it’s only a boomerang,’ I said. ‘Boomerang be hanged!’ said one man. ‘What do you mean by bringing a thing like that for in here?’ By-and-by it got generally known that there was a man with a boomerang in a bag coming through the crowd, and they made a passage for us. The amount of apologies that I made for my boomerang during the next six or seven days nearly killed me. Every time I made a move into a railway-carriage, out of a railway-carriage, near to a group of people where there was not much room, I had always to herald myself by, ‘Ah! please excuse me--ahem! I’ve got a boomerang.’ Once the bag got a side-blow, and swung round to catch me across the calf of the leg; the result of which was that for decency’s sake I had to borrow some pins to fasten up the rent. It is useless to say that the trousers and my leg were both spoiled. My leg got better, but the trousers didn’t. It cost me twenty-six shillings for a new pair. Once or twice I thought of throwing the thing away; but as I heard that boomerangs come circling back towards the thrower, my courage failed me. To have a thing weighing forty pounds, with the shape and edge of a scimitar, cavotting about your head, was not to be risked. If I had paid a man to throw it away for me, I might have been indicted for manslaughter. I would sooner be mated to a tinted Venus or a Frankenstein than to a good-sized boomerang.

Since the above experience I have tried the thing, and thus far it has not exhibited a trace of the movement attributed to Noah’s dove. At first I only threw it two or three feet; but as I gained courage I threw it farther--first edgeways, then sideways, flatways, pointways, straightways, upwards, downwards, obliquely forwards, backwards, upwards, outwards, and in some fifty or sixty other manners and directions, but invariably with the result that I had to walk after the confounded thing and bring it back. I was afraid to leave the weapon behind--it might kill somebody. I believe I have walked one thousand seven hundred miles after that boomerang. The only way in which I have been successful in inducing a boomerang to return to me has been either by paying a man to fetch it, or else by tying a long string to it. After this it is needless to say that the return of the boomerang is a myth, and as a myth let us relegate it to the land of the unicorn and the deadly upas.

Note.--Since writing the above I met with a gentleman who declares that boomerangs are capable of returning, not simply once, but repeatedly. The difficulty, in his mind, was how to prevent them from returning. ‘There were tame boomerangs and frisky boomerangs,’ he remarked. My boomerang was probably a tame one. If his boomerang had not knocked over two policemen and dispersed a crowd, he would at this moment have been the inmate of a gaol. It came about in this way. ‘Do you see,’ said he, ‘Christmas was drawing nigh, and I thought I would buy something to amuse the kids. Well, I went into a big toy-shop at the corner of Market Street, and, after looking at a lot of mechanical dolls, rocking-horses, and what not, I decided on taking a boomerang. The young lady, who wrapped it up in a sheet of stiff brown paper, remarked that I had selected one that was rather lively. It was just getting dark when I got in the ’bus, and I put the parcel containing the boomerang on my knee. Once or twice I observed that the thing began to edge along sideways towards the lap of an old lady, who was my neighbour. “That parcel of yours seems to be fidgetty,” said she. At that moment it gave a jump. “O lor’!” said the old lady; “why, it’s alive!” “Don’t be alarmed, mum,” said I; “it’s quite harmless;” and I put both hands over my purchase to keep it quiet. “It’s only a boomerang that I bought to amuse the children.” At the word “boomerang” everybody looked as if they had received an electric shock. One young man put up his eyeglass, an old gentleman looked over his spectacles, the old lady shot open her umbrella, and everybody edged away. If I had said it was an infernal machine the consternation could not have been greater. “Oh, you wicked young man!” said the old lady, still keeping up her umbrella as a shield; but just then the ’bus stopped at the corner of my street, so, wishing my companions good-night, I got out, feeling, as you may suppose, much relieved.

‘My wife opened the door for me. “Maria,” says I, “I’ve brought a boomerang just to amuse you and the children.” “Oh, you darling!” and she threw her arms round my neck. What she thought a boomerang was I don’t know; but while she was dangling on my neck, the parcel slipped from beneath my arm and dropped on the floor.

‘As to the exact sequence of events which followed this unfortunate accident, I have but a hazy recollection. For a moment or two the parcel bobbed up and down on the floor, until the top of the boomerang stuck through the paper, when off it went with a whizz, gyrating, waltzing, twisting, and turning in all directions, round and round the room. Maria was stretched flat; I got two bangs on the head, but managed to crawl beneath the sofa; the cat was killed, the chandelier was smashed, every ornament was cleared from the shelves. Then it paused, balancing itself on one of its tops on the corner of the sideboard. All of a sudden an idea seemed to strike it, and off it set upstairs. For the next ten minutes I had the pleasure of listening to my Christmas present smashing and banging round every room from the first floor up to the attics. The servant-maids and the children had luckily escaped to the cellar. Suddenly the noise stopped, and Maria, who had found me beneath the sofa, suggested that the Christmas present was taking breath. “This ain’t particular paradise, Maria,” said I. “Oh, Tom, let us run into the street and call assistance.” Just as we had got from beneath the sofa, we heard a hop-hop-hop on the top story. The boomerang was evidently coming downstairs. “Shut the door!” said Maria; and I did, but only just in time. When I looked through the keyhole I could see Boomey with a bit of string and a streamer or two of brown paper round its neck, sitting on the bottom stair. At that moment there was a fearful knocking at the front door, and the boomerang raised itself on end and hopped off along the passage, as if it expected more sport. Maria ran to the window, and said, “Good gracious, Tom, there’s two policemen!” “Throw them my latch-key,” said I, “and tell them to come in.” I was too busy watching my friend in the passage to do any interviewing myself. By the time Maria had got the window opened a crowd had collected, who, when they saw Maria’s black eyes and tangled hair, guffawed and made some remarks about the old gal getting clawed by her husband. “Excuse me, marm,” said the bobby, touching his hat, “but we’re come to arrest a gentleman a-living in this house for having travelled in the streets with a boomerang.” “Yes, policeman, this is the house he went into; I had him watched,” said an old lady in the crowd. I recognised the voice as that of my neighbour in the coach who had called me a wicked young man. “But,” says Maria, in a state of terror at the thought of legal troubles. “But be hanged!” I whispered to Maria. “Just tell them it’s all right--the gentleman’s inside--and throw them the key. Boomey’ll get ’em!” Just then I could see Boomey dancing up and down, and waltzing about in the passage, as if he had understood the conversation.

‘To see Boomey when the bobby opened that door was particularly fine. He commenced with a gentle kind of tattoo, bouncing round from head to head like the banjo of a Plymouth brother. He evidently just wanted to get the crowd started, so that he could have some fun a-chasing of ’em. When they did start, the stampede was immense. “Go it, granny!” shouted an urchin from an upstairs window to the old woman who was my accuser; “Boomey’s a-following!” The basketful of rags that lay in front of the door before the crowd got clear would have run a paper-mill for a month. For a week or two the house was in a state of siege. No one dare venture outside the door without first looking up and down the street. At last we got into the way of travelling by going from house to house. By pre-arranged signals an open door would be ready for us. If all was clear, we’d make a rush. If Boomey was following, we’d just snap the door to, and wait until he’d gone. One or two tried shot-guns on him, but it wasn’t a bit of good--it only seemed to make him more vicious.

‘After clearing the town of cats and dogs, Boomey suddenly disappeared. When I was last in Clarenceville I heard that he was raging round a sheep station up in New England, and the contingent had gone up to try their hand on him.

‘After my experiences, sir, you needn’t tell me that boomerangs won’t return; the difficulty is to keep ’em away.’

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P.S.--The information for the middle piece of this last story I cribbed from a fellow-passenger. I suspect that he cribbed it from a book. When I and the fellow-passenger meet the original author, we sincerely hope that he will be prepared to reward us for the trouble we have taken in making his remarkable story public.

_DARLING DOWNS AND NEW ENGLAND._

The Darling Downs were the last I saw of Queensland. From Brisbane you go to them by train. One of the waiters at the hotel told me that I had better take my luggage to the station on the evening before starting. If I took them before 8 p.m. I paid a shilling for a cab. If I took them between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. I should pay ten shillings. I shall have more to say about Australian cabs and carts by-and-bye. Independently of the cost of a conveyance, I was glad to take my bag and boomerang to the station in daylight. The latter might have been dangerous in the dark. The train left at 5.50 a.m. It was quite dark, and I did not see much of the country or fellow-passengers until about 7 a.m., when we reached a pretty big town called Ipswich. Here we had a scramble for a very bad breakfast, after which we got into the train almost as cold as when we came out of it. At Ipswich I saw several factories. Up to this point the country was undulating. Farther on I saw a number of post and rail fences, a few small houses, and a great lot of gum trees forming open woods. After a climb up a range of yellow sandstone hills, we entered a park-like country. Here and there were a lot of palms with heads on them like tufts of grass. These were grass trees I suppose. Now and then there was a creek, consisting of a series of pools of stagnant water. These I put down as an example of the so-called _water-holes_ we read so much about in books on Australia. Near the water there were some trees which looked like pines. These I learnt were river oaks. Some big trees were called honeysuckles. There are a lot of things in Australia which are not what they look like. Sometimes we rushed past a ploughed clearing. It may have been planted with wheat. In a few hours more we were again amongst hills, and as we wound in and out, gradually climbing upwards, I had glimpses of many pretty scenes. At mid-day we reached Toowoomba--the capital of the Darling Downs. I don’t know whether I have spelt Toowoomba right, but it is a very good example of the Hoos and Woos and Moos and Boos they are so fond of in Australia. The letter O is a great favourite. In Sydney I saw a word, in fact, I saw it every day, with eight O’s in it. It was usually on an omnibus. At first I couldn’t read it for astonishment. The next time I saw it I got as far as Woo, but as I ran my eye along the length of the wonderful word, it got confused. It is easy to lose your way in a good long word, especially if it is stuck on a bus and the bus is moving. Once I chased a bus along a street, but I never got past Wooloo. After that my sight was dazed, and I was in a jumble. On returning to a hotel in the evening, I described my troubles to the waiter, who wrote the mysterious word for me, and after ticking slowly off the letters I found it was Wooloomooloo. I was told that Woo-loo-moo-loo was the war cry of the aborigines, who resisted the landing of the early settlers. Wooloomooloo, it may be observed, rhymes with Timbuctoo.

The latter part of the climb up to Toowomba (I spell the name differently in different places because I hope that I may get it right sometimes), which is situated on the very edge of the downs, was steep enough to require two engines. If our engine had not been so leaky, it might possibly have done the work alone. I never before saw an engine that could afford to lose so much steam through its cylinder covers outside a workshop. I am glad I went up to Toowomba, if it was only to see this engine. The view looking back down the incline, over the heads of the trees which filled the valley up which we had come, was beautiful and extensive. Gum trees, in quantity, do very well for general effect; when you get close to them, then you see too many spaces. A forest of gum trees would look all right if viewed from above, say from a balloon about ten miles high. Turning round and looking ahead the scene was altered. Before us were the undulating open Darling Downs, brown, flat, and anything but inviting. In spring time, when they are green, they may perhaps be prairie-like, and beautiful to the eye of the farmer, but as I saw them with their miles of wire fencing, they were not so interesting as the desert of Arabia. I was always going to places at the wrong season. They are of basaltic formation, which probably overlies the sandstone which I had seen below. Perhaps the basalt welled up through great fissures; perhaps it came from some of the small conical hills which I saw farther along the line. All the water from the basalt contains magnesia. New-comers don’t like it. It produces peculiar effects. Now and then I saw flocks of sheep. They did not seem to be eating. If they liked dry stubble, clay, or bits of basalt, they might do very well. They were usually standing still, with their noses all pointing one way. Why sheep should keep parallel, and cows point about in all azimuths, I couldn’t make out. I thought I should never get across the downs. Late in the afternoon the basalt was replaced by sandstone, and we reached the thriving township of Warwick. Here I saw a race-course. Every town in Australia has a race-course, I fancy. Some of them have two or three racecourses. Racing is an Australian mania. Australians like cricket, football, rowing, and athletic sports generally.

At Warwick there were a lot of Toowoomba football boys waiting to go home. They must like football very much to cross the Darling Downs for a game. I would as soon cross the Sahara. From Warwick we again commenced to climb up hills. On either side we had open forests of gum trees. Now and then we saw a wallaby or a kangaroo. Wallabys and kangaroos are like gigantic crickets covered with hair. They have long tails. Their great forte is jumping. From what I saw, I fancy they would win the long jump at any athletic sports. Unless closely pursued by the hunter, they do not care about jumping over wire fences. They get past obstacles like these by lying down and rolling through between the wires. Like donkeys, kangaroos carry their battery in their back legs. When cornered by a pack of hounds, the kangaroo pivots and places his back to the aggressors, and astonishes them with lightning-like jerkings of his battery. Dogs are often disembowelled by kangaroos. Some kangaroos have pouches in which they carry provisions. If one kangaroo picks the pocket of another kangaroo the fight which succeeds is terrific. At Thulimba, where we passed some clay slates and granite, we were at an elevation of 3,004 feet, so said the railway guide. It was cold enough for 10,000 feet. When we reached Stanthorpe, which was the end of the line, it was bright moonlight and freezing hard. Half an hour’s walk took us to Farley’s Hotel. Stanthorpe is a funny little place. It consists of a few low, one-storied houses along the sides of wide roads, I can’t call them streets. They have too much grass on them to be streets. I hardly know why, but I shall remember Stanthorpe, the last town I visited in Queensland, for very many years. Perhaps the difficulty I had in getting there makes me remember Stanthorpe. After a long journey at sea, any rock may be hailed as a paradise. The hotel was like a little old-fashioned English hostelry. There was the white-capped maid-servant, and there was the open hearth with its huge log fire. When I looked at these logs fizzing and crackling and throwing out a generous warmth, I thought well of scrubby gum trees. The best thing, however, was the steaming fragrant half an acre of beefsteak. ‘Will you try a little more beefsteak, sir?’ said Mary; and I tried another perch or so. ‘Will you try a little pie--will you try a little salt--will you try a little bread?’ Everything, it did not matter whether it was flesh, fish, fowl, vegetable or mineral, Mary always inquired if you would try a little of it. In this respect I may remark that Mary was like nearly every waiter I met in the Colonies. They all wanted you to try a little. The usual reply is to say, ‘Yes, please, I will try a small piece more.’ If it is steak, a small piece means the usual slab.

Stanthorpe was at one time one of the principal tin mining centres in this part of the world. There is still a little mining going on. The tin occurs in grains and pebbles distributed through alluvium. The earth is thrown into boxes or sluices through which water is flowing. The light materials are washed away and the heavy tin remains behind. At one place I was shown a band of granitic rock, through which grains of tin were disseminated. It is probable that it was by the decomposition of rock like this, that the alluvium deposits have been formed. On my way out to this we passed the house of a gold miner who had at one time been so elated with his success, that he made horseshoes out of gold, with which he shod his horse. After a five-mile ride, I believe the shoes were carefully removed.

During the night I found it bitterly cold. Next morning everything was white with frost, the ground was steaming in the rising sun, and there was ice half an inch thick in the pails. This was tropical Queensland. The streets were quiet, and with the exception of one man, who was drunk and holding a maudlin conversation with a post, they were deserted. This was the first time that I had heard a man talking to a post, and I was quite interested to know what they had to say to each other. People do sometimes talk to inanimate objects. I once heard of a certain Mr. Smith who, when returning home late at night, had a conversation with a pump. ‘Hillo, Tompkins, old chap! Hie! you’re out late to-night.’ Tompkins was the pump. ‘Why don’t you walk about? Hie! Very ridiculous standing there. You’ll catch cold, and what’ll your wife say?’ Here Smith made a long pause, wondering why his friend was so silent. ‘Can’t you talk? Suppose its beastly pride. I’m not proud. Gimme your hand, and let’s help you home, old chappie.’ And rolling up to the pump he took hold of the handle.

‘Oh! ’ow cold your ’ands is; you gimme the shivers. You’re like an iceberg, Tompkins!’ Just then the pump-handle, under the weight of Smith, slightly moved and squeaked. ‘Hillo, you’re wheasy, old man. Let’s go and get six pennoth ’ot. Your wife’ll blow me up if I bring you home cold.’ Leaning a little more on the pump, the handle suddenly sank, and Smith tumbled forwards just in time to receive a deluge of water from the spout. ‘So you’re sick; are you, you beast? No need to treat a fellow like that. Shan’t stay here any more. May take yourself home, Mr. Tompkins.’ And away Smith rolled, muttering something about ‘beastly behaviour’ and the ‘evil effects of drink.’

My man was not so bad as Smith. He had got his arm round the post of a veranda. At one time he looked like the picture of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza. At another time he was like a revolving hobby horse. His conversation was too inarticulate to be noted.

I spent a Sunday in Stanthorpe. A gentleman at the hotel took me out for a drive. As we went along he carefully pointed out the devastation left by the Chinese. ‘They come here,’ he said, ‘bring nothing but a blue blouse, eat nothing but what they import themselves, work out the ground that ought to be worked by white men, and then they go carrying away gold, and only leaving those heaps of gravel’ (here he pointed with his whip) ‘where they have been fossicking. They are usurpers of a white man’s country. The white man is starving, and his wife and daughters are thrown on charity, and all this because our Government is wicked enough to let Chinamen come in the country.’

As we came back I saw a small Australian bear lying dead at the foot of a tree. It looked to me like a sloth. It is a feeble, timid creature, but has certain peculiarities which renders it worthy of a passing note. When up a tree which is being felled, it has been known to sob and cry with so much pathos, that the woodman has often ceased his work, and gone beneath the branch on which he hung to seek for falling tears. Many bushmen have sobbed themselves, and no one, I have been told, can fell trees in Southern Queensland without several pocket-handkerchiefs. A tender-hearted man can never earn a livelihood by felling trees. The child-like grief of this little bear has been known to overcome the stoutest hearts. Even the bloodthirsty bushranger has had his heart softened by its weeping, and chronic sorrow is not uncommon in districts where this animal abounds.

From Stanthorpe I travelled by coach to Glen Innis. It was a long journey through the bush. I started at 8 a.m., and got to the end of my journey at 6 a.m. next morning. I thought I was going to die in this journey, so I am not likely to forget it. I had a box-seat all the way, and a box-seat in a gale of wind, with the thermometer below zero and wearing ordinary summer clothes, is not an enviable position. The scenery was certainly lovely. Outside Stanthorpe we crossed the track of a new railway line, which in time will be the connecting link between the lines of Queensland and New South Wales. Near here we crossed the border between these two colonies. After that our road was over hills and valleys through interminable bush. Once or twice we saw a kangaroo, and now and then a wallaby. Some of the old kangaroos, which are known as old men kangaroos, will often sit up and stare at you before they jump away. ‘No papers this morning, Jim?’ said a driver to one of those old men sitting near the road, and the old man jumped away. ‘Dear me,’ said a new chum, sitting next the driver. ‘I didn’t know that kangaroos were so civilized.’ When the driver told this story all the passengers in the coach laughed immoderately, and, not to be conspicuous, I joined them.

At one of the stations where we changed horses, I was very much amused by watching two frisky lambs chasing a flock of geese. The geese were terrified and flapped away from their pursuers. Presently a dog appeared about half a mile away, and the frisky lambs bolted in the opposite direction. At the next station to this there were only young girls living. They groomed the horses, and gave us our dinner. At all of these places we had glorious wood fires and open chimneys, at which we could toast our frozen feet. As we jogged along, the driver tried to instruct me about gum trees, and to illustrate his lessons as we passed along, he grabbed bunches of leaves from overhanging trees, which he gave me sometimes to smell and sometimes to taste. Some of them were not unpleasant to the nose, others were frightful. ‘Some you might live on,’--at least that is what he said.

Notwithstanding all that I was taught, gum trees are to me all alike--a scraggy variety of the vegetable kingdom. Tenterfield, which we reached in the afternoon, is a nice little town with modern buildings, some of which are three stories high. It is situated on an open undulating country laid out in blocks for farming purposes. Many of the gentlemen in the streets wore tall hats--many the ladies wore brilliant and shiny black satin. By this time the box-seat had begun to tell on me, and I was more than wheezy. Notwithstanding something hot and a bag of ‘lollies,’ by the time I reached the next station, which was a solitary house in the bush called Bolivia, I could only whisper. This was at 9 p.m., and it was a question whether I should stay and die at Bolivia, or get in the coach to be hauled along to die at or about Glen Innis. At Glen Innis I might get a decent burial. In the bush there would not be much ceremony. This latter ride, through dark bush, on rough roads, up hill and down dale, with your marrow frozen, is not to be forgotten. The cold I got remained with me for three months. All this is extremely personal, but as it may possibly be the means of preventing some other innocent wanderer from anticipating death, I put it in. When I am next seen coaching in a tropical country, I hope to be wearing a fur coat and a blanket. All that I can say about Glen Innis is that it is a good-looking town with several fairly good hotels, situated about 3,500 feet above sea level.

From Glen Innis to Newcastle there is a regular English narrow-gauge railroad. The carriages were, so far as my unprofessional eye could tell, a senseless copy of what there is in the old country. In winter they were bearable, but in summer the carriage I was in must be stifling. It had neither curtains nor sunshades. The Brisbane line was American, narrow gauge and with long carriages on bogie trucks. At one place we passed over a height of 4,500 feet. This was on the side of a mountain called Ben Lomond. All the way down to Newcastle through New England there was much cultivated country, and many prettily situated towns. The journey took fourteen and a half hours.

At Newcastle I took quarters in an hotel, which was not the best one in the place. A fellow-traveller on the train recommended it to me as the best house in Newcastle. You entered at a bar where there was a stream of visitors passing in to drink, and then passing out rubbing their mouths with their coat-sleeves.

A Newcastle Legend; or, the Story of the Dark Room.

My bedroom was like a cellar taken upstairs. But for a glimmer that came in over a door leading into a drawing-room, I was in utter darkness. It was even necessary to light a candle to dress by. When next morning I interviewed the landlord I inquired as to the nature of his contract with the neighbouring barber, for no one could possibly see to shave in his establishment.

“What, were you in number sixteen?” asked the landlord. “I gave strict orders that no guests were to be put in that room. The trouble that I experienced about that room nearly killed me once. If you want me to pay your barber’s account I’ll do it with pleasure, but anyhow you might take a drink before you leave just to show that you don’t owe me any ill feeling on account of having slept in number sixteen.” All the while the landlord looked so anxiously at me, that I began to think that he was astonished at seeing me alive. “Can’t visitors sleep in number sixteen?” I asked. “Sleep indeed,” was the reply, “the difficulty is to stop them sleeping. I had one man sleep in the room for nearly a week without ever coming out of it.” “Well, what’s the matter?” I inquired; “has there been a murder committed in number sixteen, is it haunted or what?”

“It happened in this way,” said the landlord. “Just about this time last year, we had a lot of visitors from up country making their way southwards towards Melbourne, anxious, I suppose, to be in time to see the Melbourne Cup. One cold drizzly afternoon an elderly man arrived carrying in his hand a small yellow portmanteau tied up with a rope. He said he had been sitting in the coach for the last three or four days, and was very tired. From his dirty clothes and a curious limp that he had got, we could quite believe that he had been knocking about for some time.

“I asked my wife what we should do with the stranger, as all the rooms were full. ‘Oh, put him in number sixteen, Joe,’ said my wife. ‘It’s dark now, and maybe he’ll get up pretty early and never know that there’s no window.’ At that time I may tell you that the door into the drawing-room had not been made, so there was no window. The quantity of steak and bread that the old man put away while having his supper was something terrible. Matilda, who had been sitting in the back parlour listening to the order which he gave, said ‘she thought he was provisioning a fortress.’ At last he went to bed. On his way upstairs he hoped that number sixteen was a quiet room, and that no one would disturb him in the morning. He wanted to make up for the sleep he had lost sitting in the coach. As I was going downstairs I heard him lock and double-bolt his door, and then commence to hum a tune. This was at 9 p.m. on June 30th. I don’t know whether you can believe me, but that door was not opened until 12 o’clock on the 5th of July. Of course we didn’t take much notice of him next morning. He wanted to sleep he said, and perhaps might not turn out until 12 o’clock. When dinner time came I had forgotten all about him. You know it is difficult for us to keep the run of all our guests, and, besides, he might have been outside attending to business in the town.

“That night, however, Susan, the chambermaid, told my wife that she could not open number sixteen; whenever she knocked at the door there was no answer. We thought it a bit odd, but as he said he was tired and wanted to sleep we did not disturb him.

“Next morning, as he did not turn up to breakfast, my wife was a bit anxious, and said to me, ‘You’d better go upstairs, Joe, and see if number sixteen is going to get up.’ Well, after knocking at the door two or three times, somebody inside said, ‘Hillo! what’s the matter?’ ‘Ain’t you going to get up?’ says I. ‘All right,--presently,’ was the answer, and I went downstairs and told my wife.

“Dinner time came and then tea time, but still number sixteen hadn’t come down. ‘Better go and rap again, Joe,’ said my wife. Up I went, and after thumping on the door till I heard somebody inside grumbling about a noisy house and people not being allowed to sleep. ‘Are you never going to get up?’ I said through the keyhole. ‘Will get up when it’s daylight,’ was the answer. ‘He’ll get up when it’s daylight,’ said I to myself. ‘Why, it’s nearly forty-eight hours since he went to bed, and he talks of sleeping twelve hours more.’ When I told my wife what number sixteen had said, she looked at me a moment, and then said, ‘Joe, this comes of putting a man into a dark room. It never will be daylight in there.’ ‘Matilda, you’ve struck it, exactly,’ I said; ‘the old fool thinks it is in the middle of the night.’ Then we discussed what we should do. ‘Better let him alone to-night,’ was Maria’s suggestion; ‘he has got to sleep somewhere you know. We can tell him that it’s daylight to-morrow morning.’

“Next morning I was at the door of number sixteen pretty early.

“Rat-tat-tat went my knuckles on the panels. ‘Hillo!’ was the answer. ‘Going to get up to-day; it’s morning,’ says I. ‘Morning be hanged,’ was the answer. ‘If you don’t go away, I’ll call up the landlord and have you removed. Don’t want to be disturbed by intoxicated visitors. Telling me it’s morning when it’s pitch dark. You’re drunk.’

“Well, I was just flabbergasted to be called drunk. At this moment Matilda, who was getting curious about the stranger, had joined me. ‘He calls you drunk, does he?’ says Matilda; ‘let me talk to him,’ and rat-tat-tat went Matilda’s knuckles on the door. ‘Hey, you inside there, are you going to get up? You’ve been sleeping sixty hours,’ said she.

“‘At it again, are you, old fool?’ was the answer. At the word ‘old fool’ you ought to have seen Matilda’s face. I thought her eyes would have come out of her head. ‘Old fool!’ she gasped, ‘me an old fool; it’s the first time I’ve been called an old fool, and in my own house too.’ For the next ten minutes Matilda kept on saying ‘old fool’ to herself.

“Me an old fool and my husband drunk indeed! I’ll give it to you, you wicked old ass,’ then, putting her mouth to the keyhole, she poured into number sixteen’s ears such a shower of superlative adjectives as he’ll never forget. I didn’t know she had it in her. ‘You dirty old bear, do you think we’re going to have you hibernating all winter in our bedroom. Get up, you old beast, and we’ll teach you some manners. So you think Joe’s drunk, and I’m an old fool, do you? Out you get now, quick, before I call in the policemen. You old villain, you, to think you can insult people in their own house.’ Here she paused to get a little breath. She was just putting her lips to the hole to continue, when there was a fearful bang on the door, and something which sounded like a boot dropped on the floor.

“‘Joe! Joe!’ said Matilda, ‘he’s thrown his boot at me,’ and with a little scream she fell fainting in my arms. For the next few hours number sixteen held quiet possession of his apartments while I was plying Matilda with brandy and cold water.

“What was to be done nobody knew. ‘Starve him out’ was one suggestion. ‘At nine o’clock to-night he will have been in bed seventy-two hours, and he must be getting pretty hungry.’

“By this time the other guests in the hotel had got wind of the fact that there was something strange going on in number sixteen, and several of them left us.

“Nine o’clock came, but yet there was no sign that the old man intended to capitulate. All night long Matilda was so worked up about our guest that she would not let me sleep. We couldn’t burst the door open, because it was double-bolted. It would be easier to cut a hole through the wall--the one on the drawing-room side was only plaster and wood.

“‘If we can’t starve him,’ said Matilda, ‘we can stop the old bear from sleeping. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.’ Next morning we were up betimes, and the business of keeping number sixteen from sleeping commenced. The work we did that day was something terrible; we took it in turns, two hours at a time, beating a frying-pan on the door-handle. At first the visitors who had remained in the house thought it a joke, but towards evening several of them thought it a nuisance, and moved with their traps over to the Great Northern. Number sixteen never made a sound. At eight o’clock that night, when Matilda came up to relieve me with the frying-pan she said: ‘Suppose he is dead, Joe?’ He seemed to have heard this. ‘So you are there again, you old fool, are you; it isn’t your fault that I’m not dead. You have had your racket for the last twelve hours, now I’m going to have mine;’ and then there commenced such a row as you never heard. How he managed it I don’t know, he seemed to have got all the fire-irons tied together and kept them bumping against each other and the wooden wall. ‘Stop! for goodness’ sake, stop!’ I shouted. ‘Oh, no,’ says he. ‘Why have you stopped? Please go on; the two together will make a charming duet!’ and then he continued to bang and clash as if he was going to bring down the house. By eleven p.m. every visitor that had remained in the house had disappeared, and there was I, Matilda, Susan, and Jo, the ostler, listening to the inferno going in number sixteen. At midnight two neighbours came in saying they couldn’t sleep, and if the row did not cease they would report the house as disorderly, and have our licence cancelled. Of course nobody slept that night. Matilda spent most of her time in weeping. ‘Let us try quiet measures to-morrow,’ I suggested.

“Next morning we both went to the door, and told the gentleman that he had been in bed for nearly five days, and if he would get up we should be much obliged. We were sorry, we said, that there was no window in the room; but if he would open the door, we would give him a light.

“Getting quite ‘perlite’ we heard him remark to himself, and then speaking louder he said ‘he would do what he could to oblige us.’ Then we heard him step on the floor. For a moment there was quietness; but it was only for a moment, for immediately afterwards we heard a crash. ‘My looking-glass!’ said Matilda, and tears again began to run down her face. Presently there was another crash. ‘There go the washing utensils!’ I said; but, before I could tell him how to steer, we heard some fearful abuse, and he told us he had got into bed again. He couldn’t steer through a pot-shop in the dark.

“‘Never mind the things,’ sobbed Matilda; ‘do please try and find the door.’

“‘What will you give me to try?’ said he. ‘You have imprisoned me in a dark cell for five days, my feet have been cut with trying to get out, and I am nearly dead from starvation. I shall certainly prosecute you when I do get out. If you will push £5 through the keyhole, and send with it a bit of paper, saying that the money is on account of the five days’ pleasant company I have afforded, I’ll make a try and say no more about the business.’ There was no doubt but that we were cornered, so, after a consultation, we poked the five sovereigns and the bit of paper through the keyhole.

“After he heard the sovereigns fall, he asked us to shine a light through the hole; and, as you can guess, it wasn’t long before he found the door.

“When he was gone, and we went to clean up the room, we found the bedclothes full of the tailings of ham sandwiches and crumbs of bread. Underneath the bed there were several empty bottles. What the yellow portmanteau tied up with string had contained was clear; but why a healthy, strong man should come and camp in a bedroom for five days, it took us long to discover. We had all sorts of theories. Tilly had a notion that he was hiding to escape justice.

“Some time afterwards the mystery was solved by some strangers from Rockhampton laughing over a story that they had seen in one of their local papers. _It was about a fellow who won a wager of £500 by staying at an hotel in Newcastle to which he was a perfect stranger, and being paid £5 for the pleasant company he had afforded._

“I never like strangers to sleep in number sixteen now, sir.”

* * * * *

The trade of Newcastle is indicated by its name. Although there are no collieries in the town, the town has nevertheless a very dingy aspect. It looked like a town where there ought to be coal--like a town where there was more business than pleasure. At breakfast the landlord officiated at the slabs of meat and mounds of steaming chops. It is a common thing in the Colonies for landlords and landladies to do the polite at the head of the table. To me they were like watchdogs, guarding the spoons and forks. When you go away they are usually very friendly, and shake hands. One landlord, after two hours’ acquaintance, began to slap me on the back, and commence his sentences with, “Now, Tom, old boy!” If landlords are jovial, this does not matter very much; but when they are of a retiring disposition, they make you feel that they are obliging you by giving you admission to their houses. One rule for a traveller in Australia is to remember that, in entering an hotel, he is not necessarily obliging the landlord. While breakfasting I looked over an old copy of the _Newcastle Morning Herald and Miner’s Advocate_, where, under the title of “Football on Sunday,” I read about an unfortunate little boy who had been summoned by the police for having played football on Sunday in the Royal Park. Oh, you goody, goody people! How particular you are not to be naughty on Sunday--that is to say, on the particular twenty-four hours you have set apart to represent Sunday! When you are roistering, your father and mother in Britain may be praying; and when your father and mother in Britain are roistering, you may be praying. You seem to recognise your vices, and you do what you can to prevent them. On Sunday you close your public-houses for the whole day, and on week-days you usually close them at night about ten o’clock. You would not even go to the limits of a Forbes-Mackenzie. On Sunday you stream to your churches, with the spires of which many of your towns are fairly bristling, and often listen to the wisdom of a young man. You look up to him, admire him, and discuss him. Even if his views are palpably wrong, you tolerate him and give him support. While travelling in the Colonies I talked on religious subjects with several persons, all of whom were wealthy--one was a member of Parliament--who inveighed against all forms of religion but their own, in a manner which reminded me of the fanaticism of the Middle Ages. One gentleman, and a high Government official took me round one Sunday evening to look through the windows of a Roman Catholic chapel, where we saw a priest swinging incense. “Look at the idolaters! They are the ruin of the country; they ought to be classed with savages, and swept off the face of the earth!” was what he expressed.