CHAPTER XVIII.SIGHTS OF SYDNEY——BOTANY BAY AND PARAMATTA.
After leaving the Blue Mountains behind them, our friends were whirled onward through a more fertile country than the one they had traversed on the western slope. As they approached Sydney, they found the country dotted with pleasant residences and diversified with fields and forest in a very picturesque way. At the appointed hour the train rolled into the station at Sydney, and landed the strangers in that ancient city; ancient from an Australian point of view, as it is the oldest settlement on the island continent, but exceedingly modern when compared with London, Paris, and other European capitals.
As our friends drove in the direction of the hotel where they intended to stay, they were struck by the narrowness of the streets, which seemed to them very narrow indeed, after the wide streets of Melbourne.
Harry wondered how the difference of the streets of the two cities could be accounted for.
“Oh, I understand,” said Ned. “Sydney was laid out by an English surveyor, and Melbourne by an American. Being a native of the little island called England, the Britisher felt that he must make the most of the land he had, while the American, coming from his own wide-spreading country, took all the room that he wanted. That’s the way of it, I’m sure.”
“Well, that will do for an explanation,” said Harry, “until we get at the real facts in the case.”
“The probabilities are,” the doctor remarked, “that as Sydney was originally a convict settlement, the officers that came out in charge of the expedition felt that it should be made as compact as possible for the greater facility of guarding the convicts. In this way the narrowness of the streets may be accounted for.”
“They didn’t foresee the tramways in the streets, and the steam cars running upon them,” said Harry, as a noisy little steam engine drawing two passenger cars passed close to their carriage.
“No, indeed,” responded Ned. “Street cars had not been invented at the time Sydney was founded, and the locomotive was unknown. One would think that steam cars, running through crowded streets like this, would cost a considerable loss of life every year.”
“I have heard that they do so,” said Dr. Whitney. “You observe that they have flagmen at some of the crossings, and that the trains do not stop wherever passengers want to get on, but only at certain designated points. There must be great danger to pedestrians, many of whom, in all cities, are careless, and I wonder the authorities do not abolish this steam traffic in the streets, and adopt the cable or the trolly.”
“We’ll take good care that they don’t run over us while we are in Sydney,” remarked Harry, and there the tramway subject was dropped.
Our friends followed the same plan here as in the other cities they had visited, of going out for a drive or strollimmediately after arranging for their accommodations at the hotel, and removing the dust of travel from their clothing. They thought there was less bustle and activity in the streets of Sydney than in those of Melbourne, and accounted for the difference that Sydney was the older and more dignified place of the two, had a smaller population, and was not so much given over to speculations in gold mines and other matters. They found it well equipped with public buildings, most of them fully equal to the corresponding edifices in the rival city. The city hall especially roused their admiration, and they passed several churches which would do honor to any city of Europe. The doctor remarked that the people of Sydney had constructed their public buildings with a liberal hand, and Harry answered that the liberal hand had been directed by excellent taste.
“I am impatient to see the famous harbor of Sydney,” Ned remarked soon after they started on their drive. “You know it is the one thing we have heard about more than any other.”
“We will have an opportunity of seeing it in two or three ways,” the doctor remarked. Then he called to the driver, and told him to stop in front of the city hall.
After giving a hasty glance at the interior of the building, the party climbed to the cupola, which is one hundred and fifty feet above the level of the street below. From their point of observation they had a fine view in every direction. The whole city was in sight, and also a good deal of the surrounding country. The magnificent harbor, too, was at their feet. Fifteen miles to the westward,they could see the pretty town of Paramatta, which is a favorite resort for Sydney merry-makers; while to the eastward, the broad line of the Pacific Ocean was spread before their gaze. They remained there for half an hour or so in the cupola, taking in the view in general, and also in many of its details.
As they were about to descend, Ned remarked that the harbor fully met his expectations, and in some points exceeded them. Afterward he wrote as follows in his notebook:—
“The harbor may be said to consist of a series of coves or bays, uniting together in a single body of water, which opens to the sea between two promontories, called The Heads. Whether viewed from an elevation like that of the tower of the city hall, or from points along its shores, or from the deck of a vessel passing over it, Sydney harbor presents a most admirable view.”
After leaving the city hall, our friends drove to Circular Quay, whose character in one respect is described by its name, as it is of semicircular shape, and encloses the most important of the divisions of Sydney harbor. Harry and Ned were unable to say whether the amount of shipping at Sydney was greater than that at Melbourne or not, but in one thing they were agreed, that neither city had a right to be jealous of the other on the score of marine business. There were ships of all nations at Melbourne, and there were also ships of all nations at Sydney. Sydney has the advantage of being the terminus of most of the great steamship lines, and consequently their vessels are in port at Sydney for a longertime than at Melbourne. There were great steamers of the Orient line, of the Peninsular and Oriental (familiarly known as the “P. & O.”), the French line, or Messageries Maritimes, the North German Lloyd, and other lines of lesser note. There was a steamer there, from San Francisco, and there were several vessels belonging to the Australian Steam Navigation Company.
As our friends were looking at the forest of masts and funnels, Harry was the first to break the silence.
“You could start from here,” he remarked, “for almost any other part of the world. You could set out for Greenland’s icy mountains or India’s coral strand with very little ease.”
“I don’t know about Greenland’s icy mountains,” said Ned, “as I don’t believe there is any line running to them from Sydney, but the P. & O. boat and several other boats will take you to India’s coral strand; of that I am sure.”
Circular Quay was formerly called Sydney Cove, and it was at the head of this little cove that the first settlement was made. It is the principal one of the coves or harbors where ships can lie, though Darling Cove is nearly as important as the one just mentioned. The sheet of water into which these coves open is called Port Jackson, and extends inland some twenty miles from The Heads. Islands of various sizes are scattered through Port Jackson, some of them occupied, and some remaining in a state of nature. Our friends planned, while strolling about Circular Quay, to make an excursion up the harbor as soon as they could do so conveniently, and then, as itwas getting pretty late in the afternoon, they returned to their hotel.
On their arrival at the house they met a gentleman to whom they had a letter of introduction. He had heard of their arrival, and came to hunt them up without waiting for the delivery of their letter. This circumstance led Harry to write as follows in his journal:—
“Wherever we go we are received with the most open-handed hospitality. Persons who are entire strangers to us are always civil, ready to answer any question we ask, and every one of them seems quite willing to go out of his way to serve us. We have made the acquaintance of men in railway trains and around the hotels, or elsewhere, who have ended up a brief conversation by inviting us to visit their country places, their sheep or cattle stations, if they have any, or their business establishments in the city, and this, too, without knowing anything about us other than that we are strangers in Australia. Those to whom we have letters throw their houses open to us, and in every instance urge us to a longer stay whenever we intimate that we must depart. Those to whom we are introduced by these people are equally courteous and equally ready to show us any hospitality. The whole country seems open to us, and if we could and would accept half the invitations that have been given to us, we should remain in Australia for years, perhaps for a decade or two.
“Many Australians, some of them born here of English parents, together with natives of England who have lived here many years, complain that when they go back to the old country they are received very coldly. It is no wonderthey feel that English customs are very frigid, when they contrast them with the general kindness and liberal hospitality that universally prevails throughout this island continent. Men who have received strangers as freely as is the custom here, must have a sensation of having ice water poured down their backs when they go to London or New York, and are greeted with the formality customary to those two cities.
“I have been told that it is not infrequently the case that an old Australian who goes to England with the intention of spending not less than a year there, is back in the antipodes in less than six months. The cold formality is not at all to his liking, and, as one man expressed it, he feels as though a southerly burster had dropped on him all at once; and yet his English friends are no doubt glad to see him, and have no thought whatever of giving the least offense.
“They are only adhering to the customs of centuries, and unless they themselves have been in Australia, which is very rarely the case, they cannot understand why the stranger should feel that he is being unkindly treated. I am told that thirty years ago there was the same contrast between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, but since railways have traversed the American continent, and communication is made easier, the forms of hospitality of the peoples of the two sections have become pretty much the same.
“Of one thing you may be sure: we shall never forget the courtesies that we have received, and when we leave the shores of Australia we shall treasure long in our memoriesthe warm hospitality which we have encountered since the day we first set foot upon Australian soil.”
That evening the party visited one of the clubs where all three were “put up” for the time of their stay in Sydney, their host intimating to Dr. Whitney that, as his nephews were under age, they would not be expected to visit the club, except in his company. Before they had been in town twenty-four hours, our friends had received the offer of the hospitality of no fewer than four clubs, together with several invitations to dinner. The three agreed that Sydney was certainly a very hospitable place, and that a stranger suffering from indigestion, or in poor health, generally would find it too much for him.
The next day our friends were taken on a drive through some of the parks, of which Sydney has a liberal supply. Most of the parks are of considerable extent, one of them, called the Domain, occupying one hundred acres of ground on the shore of one of the coves. Other parks are projected, and it was evident to Harry and Ned that the authorities of Sydney were thorough believers in having plenty of breathing space for the people.
The drive included the Botanical Gardens, which proved to be full of interest. Nearly every plant and tree of the whole of Australia is represented in the Botanical Gardens, and there are many trees and plants there from other parts of the world. Everything planted in these gardens seems to thrive, the products of high latitudes growing side by side to those of very low ones.
The Botanical Gardens are not of recent origin, some of the trees they contain having been planted thereseventy or eighty years ago. Among these trees are Norfolk pines, which have attained a height of one hundred feet, and a diameter of five feet at the base. Dr. Whitney had visited the pine forests of California, and said that the specimens in the Botanical Gardens at Sydney reminded him of the magnificent trees of the Golden State.
At one place during their visit to the gardens Ned observed the smell of musk, and looked around to ascertain whence it came. The gentleman who accompanied him noted his curiosity and said:—
“I think you are looking for the musk tree. Here it is.”
And there it was, sure enough. The tree is a product of Australia, and has the peculiarity of constantly giving out the odor of musk, which is perceptible at quite a distance. Ned asked if any perfume was manufactured from the tree or its leaves, and was answered in the negative.
All the parks of the city appeared to be tastefully laid out and well kept. Ned recalled the numerous parks that they saw at Melbourne, and remarked that neither city had occasion to be jealous of the other in the matter of pleasant resorts for the people.
Our young friends asked if any of the prisons or other buildings that were erected at the time of the settlement of Sydney were still in existence.
“There is hardly a trace of any of them,” was the reply. “As the city has grown, the old buildings have been destroyed, to make place for new ones of a more substantialcharacter. One of the churches occupies the site of the original cemetery which was established soon after the foundation of the city, and a business house covers the ground where the principal prison stood. There is no desire on the part of any of us to preserve the buildings of the original settlement, as they recall unpleasant memories.
“We want to forget as much as we can,” he continued, “all that is disagreeable in the history of Sydney, just as an individual usually wants to forget anything unpleasant about his own origin or history. The subject comes up occasionally, and we have no squeamishness about discussing it, and the history of the colony is well known to every intelligent inhabitant of the place. Transportation to this colony ceased about fifty years ago, and consequently there are few men now living in New South Wales who came here as involuntary emigrants. The old disputes between Emancipists and Free Settlers were ended long ago, and the questions that greatly agitated the population of the first half of the century have now become matters of history.”
As the gentleman paused, Harry thanked him for his information, and then asked if Port Jackson and Botany Bay were the same thing.
“They are quite distinct from each other,” was the reply. “Botany Bay is situated a little to the south of Port Jackson and opens into the Pacific Ocean. It is a singular circumstance that Captain Cook missed the entrance of Port Jackson, which he does not seem to have discovered at all. It is only five miles across the landfrom one body of water to the other, and it is evident that he did not venture very far inland, or he would have found Port Jackson an infinitely better harbor than Botany Bay.
“It was in Botany Bay,” continued the gentleman, “that the first expedition to form a settlement in Australia cast anchor. Captain Phillip, who commanded the expedition, and some of his officers examined the land around Botany Bay, and found it quite unfit for a settlement. While making their examinations they discovered Port Jackson, and immediately perceived its superior advantages. The ships were at once moved around to this harbor, and then the convicts and the soldiers who guarded them were brought on land for the first time. But the name of Botany Bay clung to the settlement for a long while, and became a name of terror to the criminal classes of England.”
“It is a very pretty name when divested of its association,” remarked Harry. “I wonder how Captain Cook happened to hit upon it.”
“He gave it that name,” was the reply, “on account of the great number of flowers and flowering plants which he found all around the bay. Quite likely he would have given the same name to Port Jackson if he had discovered it, as there were just as many flowers here as at the other place.”
On another day our friends took a drive to Botany Bay, which is only five miles from Sydney. They found quite a pretty place, and were not surprised to learn that it is a favorite resort of the residents of Sydney. Their attention was called to the monument which marks the spot whereCaptain Cook landed in 1770, and took possession of Australia in the name of the British government.
Another trip that they made was to Paramatta, going there by rail and returning by water. Of this excursion Harry wrote as follows:—
“The journey is a short one, as Paramatta is only fifteen miles from Sydney. It is on what they call the Paramatta River, which isn’t really a river, but simply an arm of the bay, and is a favorite place for rowing races. Next to Sydney, it is the oldest town in the colony. Governor Phillip, the first governor of New South Wales, laid it out in 1788, his object being to utilize the labors of the convicts in farming. The first grain fields were established here, being cultivated by convict labor, and the governor had a space of ground cleared, and a house erected for his country residence.
“The experiment of cultivating grain was so successful during the first year, that it was continued on a larger scale during the second and subsequent years. Free settlers took up ground at Paramatta, which was then called Rosehill, the name which the governor gave to the little elevation where his house was built. Settlers who came out to Sydney of their own accord received allotments of land, and were supplied with a sufficient number of convicts to do their work.
“These were known as assigned servants, and the practise of having assigned servants spread everywhere and became very popular, as the parties to whom the convicts were assigned got their labor for practically nothing. Sometimes the wives of convicts came out as passengersin the same ships with their husbands, or followed them later. When they arrived and set up housekeeping, they would apply for servants to be assigned to them, and would name their husbands as the men they preferred. The plan was found to work very well in nearly all cases, and the government encouraged the practise. Sometimes, though, it happened that the husbands were inclined to abuse and beat their wives, but this did not happen often, as the wives had the power, like other employers of assigned servants, of sending their husbands to be flogged.
“Whenever, in the early days, the sentence of a convict expired, he was given a farm at Paramatta, or in its neighborhood, and in this way quite a farming community grew up. The agricultural features of Paramatta have continued down to the present time, and all about it there are pretty farms and gardens, which make the place look very much like an English town of the same size. It is regularly laid out, the principal street extending about a mile back from the landing place, with a width of two hundred feet. Many business men of Sydney have their residences here, and there is a goodly number of public buildings, including hospitals, asylums, churches, and the like.
“Our attention was called to several manufactories, but we were less interested in them than we were in the orange groves and orchards, which are numerous and extensive. They showed us some orange trees which they claim are the largest in the world, but whether that is the case or not, I am unable to say. They showed us one tree from which ten thousand oranges had been taken ina single year, and after we had looked at the orange groves, we were shown through several flower gardens, which seemed to be literally masses of flowers. When we returned to Sydney by the boat, we observed that the banks of the river were lined with flower gardens, and were not surprised to learn that almost the entire flower market of Sydney is supplied from Paramatta.
“We were unfortunate in not being here in the season of fruits, as they told us that the Paramatta oranges are among the finest in the world, and the same could be said of the other fruits grown in the place. I think we have said before that the climate of Australia is very favorable to the cultivation of fruits, those of the tropics as well as those of the temperate zones showing a universal tendency to thrive in the genial atmosphere.”
Dr. Whitney and his young companions spent two or three days at some of the country residences in the neighborhood of Sydney, and were charmed with the warmth of the hospitality and the beauty of the places that they visited. It was impossible for them to accept a tenth part of the invitations they received, as their time was limited, and they were anxious to press on to the northward. So one day they bade farewell to their friends and took the train for Newcastle, the principal point of the coal-mining industry of the colony.
CHAPTER XIX.COAL MINES AT NEWCASTLE—SUGAR PLANTATION IN QUEENSLAND—THE END.
“The region between Sydney and Newcastle,” wrote Ned in his journal, “is a diversified one. Here and there are forests interspersed with open country. Some of the ground is level, and some of it very much broken and mountainous. Most of it is fertile, and we passed through many fields of wheat and other grain. Some of it is devoted to cattle raising and some to the production of wool, though it is not generally regarded as a good country for raising sheep. In places the mountains come quite close to the sea-coast, and there we found the railway winding over a very tortuous course, where the rocks that rose on either hand, and the tunnels through which we were occasionally whirled, convinced us that the building of the railway must have cost a great deal of money. At several places coal mining was in progress, and it was evident that Newcastle didn’t have an entire monopoly of the coal-producing business.
“Newcastle is quite as much devoted to the coal business as the English city from which it was named. More than two million tons of coal are shipped from this port every year, and the engineers who have carefully examined the coal seams say that there is enough coal under Newcastleto keep up the supply at the present rate for more than five hundred years.
“We were first taken to the harbor where the shipments are made. There we found admirable facilities for loading vessels with the products of the mines. They claim that they can handle twenty-five thousand tons of coal daily, and that a good-sized coal steamer can leave port with her cargo six hours after entering. I’m not an expert in such matters, and therefore don’t know, but from what I saw it seems to me that there is no difficulty about it.
“The harbor of Newcastle was not a very good one originally, but they have made it so by extending into the sea a breakwater, which shelters it from the gales that formerly swept it. It is not a large harbor, but an excellent one for its purpose.
“We visited some of the coal sheds and coal breakers, and went into one of the mines. They would gladly have taken us through all the mines in the place, but as one mine is very much like another, we declined to make the rounds of all of them. The one that we entered was about four hundred feet underground. We were lowered in a cage to the bottom of the mine, and then walked through a tunnel to where the men were at work, dodging on our way several loaded cars that were going towards the shaft, as well as empty ones coming from it. The cars were pushed along by men, each of them carrying a little lantern on the front of his hat; in fact, every man whom we saw working underground had one of these lights for his guidance. The tunnel itself was lit up with electric lights, extending from the shaft to the front ofthe working; and in addition to these, each of us carried a lantern, which was of material assistance in showing us where to place our feet. We had a few stumbles on the way, but nobody experienced a fall.
“When we reached the front of the working, the sight was a curious one. A dozen men—I think there must have been that number at least—were attacking the coal seam, most of them lying on their sides and digging away with picks at the lower part of it. Some of them had worked their way in two or three feet, and were almost out of sight, and I shuddered to think of the possibility that the mass above might fall upon and crush them. I asked our guide if this did not happen sometimes.
“‘Unfortunately, yes,’ he replied. ‘It does happen now and then, and the men on whom the coal falls are more or less severely injured, and perhaps killed. We have to watch the miners constantly, to see that they do not run too great a risk. If we let them have their own way, accidents would be much more frequent than they are.’
“‘Why do they burrow under the coal in that way?’ I asked. ‘Couldn’t they get it out in some manner less dangerous than that?’
“‘That is the way to which they have been accustomed,’ the guide answered, ‘and it is difficult to get them to change. Most of these people come from the coal-mining districts of England, and they are very conservative. Machines have been invented for doing this kind of work, and they are in use in some of the mines, but the men are opposed to them, and in some instances they have disabled or destroyed the machines.’
“Then he went on to explain that the miner makes an opening below the mass of coal in the manner that we saw, and then drills a hole some distance above it, in which to explode a charge of powder. This brings down all the coal below the locality of the explosion. Sometimes it is broken up into lumps that a man can handle, and sometimes it comes down in a single block, which requires another blast to break it up, and then the cars are brought up as near as possible. The coal is loaded into them, and pushed away to the shaft. Each man is paid according to the amount of coal he gets out, and some of them receive large wages. There are about five thousand people employed in the coal mines here, and the probabilities are that the business will be extended, and the coal product of Newcastle increased within a year or two from the present time.”
From Newcastle our friends continued their journey northward to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland. They traveled all the way by rail, changing trains at Stanthorpe, on the frontier. During the delay subsequent upon the change of trains, Harry made the following memorandum in his notebook:—
“It seems to me that it is a great misfortune for Australia that each colony insists upon having its own particular gauge of track, thus preventing the running of through trains without change of cars. Some day the people will find out their mistake, and I believe some of them realize it already. Dr. Whitney says that there was at one time in the United States several different gauges of track from four feet, eight inches and one halfup to six feet, and that the railway managers generally agreed upon four feet, eight inches as the standard gauge. Since that agreement all other tracks have been changed to make the tracks uniform. Now any railway car can be run all over the United States, with the exceptions of a few special lines where the gauge is three feet, six inches.
“Three feet, six inches is the gauge of the railways of Queensland. That of New South Wales is four feet, eight and one half inches, while that of Victoria is five feet, three inches. In South Australia some of the lines are of five feet, three inches gauge, and others have the same gauge as the Queensland railways. The narrow gauge is especially adapted to mountain regions, and also to thinly populated districts. On lines where the business is light and the distances are not long, this gauge answers all requirements, but on many lines, especially those having considerable business, it is not at all advantageous.”
During their railway ride our friends observed the strange combination of aboriginal and English names, and called Dr. Whitney’s attention to it. “Here are Coolongolook and Coonabarabran,” said Harry, “and next come Clarkeville and Smithville. Here are Cootramundra and Illawarra and Murrumbidgee close by Orange and Richmond. Here are Curabubula and Waggawagga, with Warwrick and Union Camp. I could go on indefinitely with those names, and it seems to me that the aboriginal ones are about as numerous as those of British origin. They are picturesque and perhaps interesting, but they are very difficult to pronounce.”
“Isn’t it possible that you will find the same state of things at home?” queried Dr. Whitney.
“Quite possible; I have never thought of that. Let me see.”
“Why, certainly,” said Ned. “Go to Maine and New Hampshire and run over some of the Indian names of lakes, rivers, mountains, and towns in those States. Think of Kennebec and Penobscot, Winnipesaukee, Pemigewasset, Passaconaway, and a good many others that I could name. I think it is an excellent policy to preserve these old names and not let them die out. Piscataqua is a much prettier name for a river than Johnston or Stiggins, and Monadnock sounds better as the name of a mountain than Pike’s Peak or Terry’s Cliff. The more the native names are preserved, the better I like it.”
“I agree with you,” replied Harry; “but I wish they would make the orthography of those native names a little easier. That’s the only fault I have to find with them.”
The region through which our friends traveled was devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, as the numerous flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and fields of grain that they saw gave evidence. They were told that it was also rich in minerals,—the few surveys that had been made resulting in discoveries of gold, tin, silver, antimony, and other metals. Some of the passengers whom they met on the train were under the impression that Dr. Whitney was looking for a place in which to invest money, and they were very anxious that he should stop and investigate their promising properties. Several fine specimens of gold-bearing quartz rock were exhibited, and the fortunateowners of these specimens said that the ground was covered with them in the locality where they were obtained. Dr. Whitney politely declined to delay his journey, and assured his zealous acquaintances that he was not looking for any new investments.
When our friends were out of earshot of the would-be speculators, Dr. Whitney said that their statement reminded him of an incident which once occurred at a town in California, where a quartz mill was in successful operation. Harry and Ned pressed the doctor to give them the story, whereupon he related as follows:—
“There were many speculative individuals around that town who were constantly endeavoring to discover deposits of ore. One day one of these speculators was standing on a street corner, when a solemn-faced Indian came along, stopped in front of the man, and, after looking around in all directions to make sure that nobody was observing him, he produced from under his blanket a piece of gold-bearing quartz. Without saying a word, he held the bit of rock before the eyes of the speculator.
“The speculator grasped the specimen with great eagerness. Sure enough it was gold-bearing rock, and no mistake. It was generally believed in the town that the Indians knew of valuable deposits, but were very unwilling to divulge their location to the white men.”
“‘Where did you get this?’ the speculator asked.
“The Indian made a sweep of his arm that embraced two thirds of the horizon, but said not a word.
“‘Is there any more where this came from?’ queried the speculator.
“‘Yes; heaps, heaps more,’ and the red man made a circle with his arm that might mean anything from a mole hill to a mountain.
“‘Will you show me where you got this?’ said the speculator.
“The Indian said nothing except to pronounce the words ‘five dollar.’
“Unlike many of his associates, the speculator happened to have some money about him. He thrust his hand into his pocket, drew out a five-dollar gold piece, and placed it in the extended palm of the red man.
“The latter examined the coin very carefully, even to the extent of biting it between his teeth. Then he placed it in some mysterious receptacle under his blanket and said:—
“‘You with me come. You with me go share.’
“The Indian led his new partner a long walk, going out of the town on the side opposite the quartz mill, making a circuit of a mile or two among hills, and finally fetching up at the dump pile of the mill. The dump pile, it is proper to explain, is the pile of ore as it is brought from the mine to be crushed. Having reached the foot of the pile, the Indian paused and said:—
“‘Me get him here. Heaps more here, too.’
“A more disgusted individual than that speculator was at that moment could rarely be found in the town. He had been completely outwitted, in fact, sold, and by a savage who couldn’t read or write.”
From Stanthorpe on the frontier of Queensland the country was much the same as that through which ourfriends had traveled from Newcastle, except that its character was more tropical the further they went northward. They reached Brisbane in the evening, and were out immediately after breakfast on the following morning to view the sights of the place, which were fewer than those of Sydney and Melbourne, as the city is not as large as either of the others mentioned. The entire population of Brisbane and its suburbs does not exceed one hundred thousand. It is named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, who was Governor of the colony at the time the city was founded. In some respects it may be called an inland city, as it lies on a river twenty-five miles from the entrance of that stream into Moreton Bay, which opens into the Pacific Ocean. It is on a peninsula enclosed by a bend in the river, so that it has an excellent water front.
Harry made note of the fact that Brisbane resembles Sydney in the narrowness of its streets, but he added that the surveyors had some excuse for restricting the amount of land reserved for the streets, inasmuch as the space between the rivers was limited. The youths were reminded of New York City when they noted that the streets of Brisbane ran from the river on one side to the river on the other, just as do the numbered streets on Manhattan Island. They had a further reminder when an island in the river was pointed out to them as the site of a prison during the convict period, just as Blackwell’s Island of New York City is the location of a prison to-day.
Queen Street is to Brisbane as George Street is to Sydney or Collins Street to Melbourne. The principal shops and several of the public buildings are located along QueenStreet, and our friends observed that wide verandas extended across the sidewalks from one end of the street to the other. These verandas enable pedestrians to walk in the shade at all times, a very wise provision to avoid sunstroke. It must be remembered that Brisbane is considerably nearer the Equator than either Melbourne or Sydney, and consequently has a warmer climate. Dr. Whitney said that he was reminded of New Orleans by the temperature, and on inquiry he ascertained that Brisbane is fully as warm as the great city near the mouth of the Mississippi.
There is a fine bridge of iron which crosses the river between North and South Brisbane. It is more than one thousand feet long, and has a draw in the center to permit the passage of ships. Ned and Harry strolled across this bridge when they reached the end of Queen Street, and on arriving at its farther end they turned around and retraced their steps. When back again in the principal part of the city, they continued to the end of the peninsula, where they had expected to find huge warehouses and places of business fronting the river. Instead of these edifices they found the Botanical Gardens and other parks occupying the point of land where the river makes its bend. It was an agreeable surprise to them, and they remained in and about the gardens for an hour or more.
Whenever they came to any of the public buildings during their stroll, they ascertained the name of each edifice from some by-stander or shop-keeper. They observed that all the buildings were handsome and of good construction, with the exception of the court house, which had a very low and mean appearance. The curiosityof the youths was roused by this circumstance, and Harry spoke to a good-natured cab driver to ascertain how it happened.
“That’s easy to tell, when you know,” the driver answered.
“Well,” said Harry, “if you know, won’t you kindly tell us?”
“Certainly, sir,” the driver responded. “You see this is the way of it. That court house there used to be the female prison in the old times, and for years it was crowded with women that the government had sent out here to punish ’em. They were lifers, most of ’em, and I suppose they are pretty near all dead now. If any of ’em is alive, they’re pretty old. Them that was kept in prison had to do hard work, making clothes and that sort of thing, but a good many of ’em went out as assigned servants to do housework, and they had to work in the fields, too; but those days is gone now, and all the prisons we have in Brisbrane in these times is for them that commits crimes right here on the spot.”
“Do you mind that round building up there with the mast on it,” said the cab driver, pointing to a structure that looked like a windmill with the arms of the mill removed.
“Yes, I see it,” said Harry; “what about it?”
“We call it the Observatory,” was the reply, “and that’s what it is. That mast there is for signaling ships when they come into the harbor. In the old times there was a windmill there, where they used to grind grain into flour and meal for the convicts to eat, and I guess otherfolks ate it, too. When the wind blew the arm went round and round, the machinery worked, and the stones revolved and ground out the meal. Sometimes they didn’t have no wind, because it didn’t blow, but they had a treadmill there, and then they used to bring up a string of convicts, and put them on the treadmill to run the machinery and keep up the grinding of the grain. I suppose you know what a treadmill is?”
“I have heard about a treadmill,” said Harry, “but I never saw one.” Ned nodded, and said that he was in the same predicament.
“Well,” said the driver, “I have seen one in the old country; I never saw the one here, because it was gone before I came to Brisbane. What I saw was a wheel in the shape of a long cylinder with twenty-four steps around the circumference of it; in fact, it didn’t look much unlike the paddle-wheel of a steamboat, where the men stood to turn it. Each one of ’em was boarded off from his neighbor so that they couldn’t talk to each other. There was a hand rail for them to hang on to. The weight of the prisoners’ bodies on the steps caused the wheel to turn, and they sent it around about twice a minute. A man on a treadmill has got to work, he can’t get out of it. If he tries to avoid stepping, he’s got to hang his weight on the hand rail with his arms, and after he has tried that for a minute or so he’s glad to go back to stepping again.”
“I should think,” said Ned, “that it would be difficult to adapt it to the weight of different individuals, and also to their height. While it might not be too much for astrong man, it might be for a weak one; and if the position of steps and rail were adapted to a tall man, they wouldn’t be for a short one.”
“I believe that’s just the trouble they found with it in the old country,” was the reply; “and it’s mostly been given up there. They’ve got a machine in the place of it which they call ‘the Crank,’ which can be adapted to anybody. It’s a wheel with paddles to it, and turns inside a box. They put gravel in the box, graduated to the strength of the man who is to turn it, and the prisoner’s hard labor consists in turning the crank.”
“It doesn’t serve any useful purpose, as the treadmill does, I presume?” said Harry.
“No; there is no useful purpose about it. A man has to turn that crank because he’s been sentenced to hard labor, and there’s nothing else they can put him to, that’s all. And they don’t by any means use the treadmill all the time for turning machinery and grinding grain, or doing some other work. Most of the treadmills I ever knew anything about in the old country were just treadmills, and that was all.”
Our friends were invited to visit a sugar plantation in Northern Queensland. They accepted the invitation, and one morning embarked on a steamer which took them in the direction which they wished to go. The steamer called at several places on the coast, including Rockhampton, Bowen, Mackay, Keppel Bay, and Somerset; the last-named place was their destination, and it was here that they landed.
“We utilized the time of stoppage at each port by goingon shore,” said Harry in his journal. “Except for the exercise of the trip, we might about as well have stayed on board, as there was very little to be seen at any of the places. The coast towns of Queensland are pretty much all alike. They have from one to two thousand inhabitants each, and though they’re pretentiously laid out, they consist of little more than a single street. On the streets, other than the principal one, there are scattered houses, where the owners of land have endeavored to increase the value of their property by putting up buildings, but generally with poor success. For pavement the natural earth is obliged to answer, as most of these towns are too poor to afford anything better. The streets are very dusty in dry weather, and very muddy after a rain. At one of the places where we landed there had been a heavy shower the night before, and the main street was a great lane of mud. Ned said the street was a mile long, eighty feet wide, and two feet deep; at least, that was his judgment concerning it.
“One thing that impressed us in these towns was that hardly a man in any of them had a coat on. Everybody was in his shirt sleeves, and if he had a coat with him, he carried it on his arm. For the novelty of the thing, we took dinner at a hotel in Mackay, more with a view of seeing the people that went there, than with an expectation of a good meal. There were squatters from the back country, planters, clerks, merchants, lawyers, and doctors, all with their coats off, and we were told that this habit of going without coats is universal. One man who had lived there a good while said, ‘You may go to a granddinner party, and find the ladies dressed in the height of fashion, and the gentlemen in their shirt sleeves.’ I don’t wonder that they have adopted this plan, as the climate is very warm. The region is decidedly tropical, the air is damp and oppressive, and in the daytime especially the heat is almost insupportable. I wonder, though, that they don’t adopt the white linen jacket for dinner purposes, just as the Europeans living in China and Japan have done.
“Somerset, where we landed, is principally a pearl-fishing station, and the pearl fishers who live there are a very rough-looking lot. The business is very profitable, those engaged in it estimating that the pearls pay all the expenses of their enterprise and a little more, while thenacre, or mother-of-pearl, the smooth lining of the shells, is a clear profit. The exportation of shells from Queensland is worth, annually, about half a million dollars. The pearl shells sell ordinarily for about one thousand dollars a ton. They are gathered by black divers under the superintendence of white men.
“These white men own the sloops and schooners devoted to the pearl fishery, and they go out with these craft, taking along a lot of black men as divers. The diving is done in the same way as in pearl fisheries all over the world, so that there is no necessity of describing it. The shells are like large oyster shells; in fact, they are oyster shells and nothing else. They are about twenty inches long, and from twelve to fifteen inches from one side to the other; so, you see, it doesn’t take many oysters to make a load for a diver. The divers are paid according to the number of shells they gather, and not by fixedwages. A man familiar with the business said, that if you paid the men regular wages, you would be lucky if you got one dive out of them daily.
“I tried to ascertain the value of some of the pearls obtained here,” continued Harry, “but my information was not very definite. They told me that several pearls worth five thousand dollars each had been taken, but they were not very common, the value ordinarily running from a few dollars up to one hundred or two hundred dollars each. My informant said that the best pearls were found on the coast of West Australia, but that the fishery in that locality was more dangerous than on the coast of Queensland. He said that the sea in that locality was subject to hurricanes, and sometimes an entire fleet of pearl-fishing boats would be overwhelmed and sunk, hardly a man escaping. ‘These disasters,’ he said, ‘do not deter those who survive from taking the risk over again, and there are always plenty of black men who go out as divers there whenever a boat is ready to start.’”
To go to the sugar plantation to which our friends were invited, they had to make a journey inland, in a wagon over a rough road about forty miles long. The plantation was located on both sides of a small river, and employed, at the time of their visit, about one hundred and fifty men. One of the owners was there, and exerted himself to his fullest ability to make the strangers comfortable and have them see all that was to be seen. They visited the crushing mills and the boiling rooms, and learned a great deal about the process of manufacturing sugar from the sugar cane.
“We may say briefly,” said Ned, “that the cane-stalks are crushed between rollers, and the juice is caught in vats, whence it flows in troughs or pipes to the evaporating house. Here it is boiled till it is reduced to syrup, and then it is boiled again, until it is ready for granulation. Then it is placed in perforated cylinders which revolve with tremendous rapidity. By means of centrifugal force all the moisture is expelled and the dry sugar remains behind.”
Our friends visited the fields where the luxuriant cane-stalks were growing, but they were quite as much interested in the men they saw at work there as in the fields themselves. Harry remarked that the men seemed to be different from any of the Australian blacks they had yet seen in their travels.
“These are not Australian blacks at all,” said their guide; “they are foreigners.”
“Foreigners! Of what kind?”
“They are South Sea Islanders principally from the Solomon Islands; some of them are from the New Hebrides and some from the Kingsmill group.”
“You import them to work on the plantations, I suppose?”
“Yes; that’s the way of it. You see this country is too hot for white men to work in the field, just as your sugar-growing States in America are too hot for him to work in. The blacks are the only people that can stand it, and as for the Australian blacks, they’re no good. There are not enough of them anyway, and even if there were, we couldn’t rely upon them. An Australian black will never stay inone place for any length of time, as you have doubtless learned already. He is liable to quit at any moment, and that sort of thing we can’t stand on a sugar plantation. We must have men to work steadily, and the only way we can get them is by hiring them under contract from some of the Pacific Islands.”
“I think I have read about that somewhere,” remarked Harry. “You send small ships out among the islands to pick up the men, and the business is called ‘black-birding,’ is it not?”
“Yes, that is the name of it, or rather used to be,” was the reply. “Black-birding,” along in the seventies, was an outrageous piece of business no better than slave-stealing on the coast of Africa. In fact, it was slave-stealing and nothing else. A schooner would appear off an island, drop anchor and wait for the natives to come out in their canoes, which they were sure to do. Then forty or fifty of them would be enticed on board, and perhaps invited one by one into the cabin, whence a door had been cut through into the hold. They were shoved along one by one until a sufficient number had been obtained and imprisoned below, and then the schooner set sail and left the island.
“Sometimes one of the officers was dressed up like a clergyman, with a white necktie, broad-brimmed hat, and blue spectacles, and wrapped in a long black cloak. He carried a large book under his arm, and was a very good counterfeit of a missionary. He was rowed to the shore, where he would inform the natives that their old friend, Rev. Dr. Williams, was on board the vessel and would like to see them, and he would very much like some freshfruit. He explained the doctor’s failure to come on shore by saying that he had fallen on deck and broken his leg the day before, and was then confined to his cabin.
“The natives would hasten to gather a large supply of fruit and take it on board the schooner. Their fruit was piled on deck, and one by one they were taken below, ostensibly to see their disabled friend, but really to shove them forward into the hold in the manner I have described. When a sufficient number had been entrapped the schooner sailed away, and there was little probability that the deceived natives would ever see their island again.
“That was the method formerly in vogue for supplying labor to the sugar plantations in Queensland. The matter became so notorious that the government investigated it and put a stop to ‘black-birding.’ At present the business of obtaining men from the Pacific Islands is fairly well conducted. On every ship that goes out for that purpose there is a government officer whose duty it is to see that no deception or trickery is practised, and that the contracts with the natives are fully understood on both sides before they are signed.
“We hire these people for three years, and when that period has expired we are obliged to return them to their homes. Formerly, they had the option of renewing their contracts here without going away, and a good many planters were careful to see that the men were heavily in debt at the expiration of their term of service, so that they would be obliged to engage again in order to get themselves out of debt, which they never did. Now the government regulation forbids the renewal of a contract here,and in order to have the agreement a valid one, it must be made in the island whence the man was brought. Of course this is a hardship where a man really does not want to go home, but, on the whole, it is for the best.”
Harry asked how they managed to get along with the natives of the different islands, and if they proved to be good laborers.
“As to that,” was the reply, “there is a great deal of difference among them. The most of them are industrious and do fairly well, but nearly all need a little urging. We don’t flog them, as flogging is forbidden by law, but the overseers generally carry long, supple sticks which they know how to handle. They have to be careful, though, in using these sticks, as some of the Kanakas, as we call the South Sea Islanders, are revengeful, and they’re very handy with knives.
“The men from the Solomon Islands are the worst to deal with, as they have ugly dispositions; they are inclined to resent what they believe to be an insult, and they are a strong, wiry race. They are quarrelsome among themselves, and probably their tendency to quarrel is increased by the fact that many of them are cannibals. Sometimes we miss one of these fellows, and though we hunt everywhere, it is impossible to find him. There are vague rumors that he has been eaten by his friends. The whole business is carefully concealed from us, and it is very rarely the case that we are able to get at the facts. It generally turns out, when we ascertain anything about it, that the man was killed in a fight, and was then cooked and eaten, to prevent his being wasted.”
Harry remarked that the Solomon Islanders, as he saw them on the plantation, were not a prepossessing lot of people, and he would not care to be among them even for a single day.
The natives of the Kingsmill group were much more attractive in their appearance, but even they were nothing to be fond of. On the whole, neither of the youths took a liking to the laborers on the sugar plantation, and as the place was said to be infested with snakes, they were quite willing to cut their visit short and return to the coast.
THE END
W. A. Wilde & Co., Publishers.
ABOVE THE RANGE. A Story for Girls.ByTheodora R. Jenness. 315 pp. Illustrated. Cloth. 12mo. $1.25.
An Indian story for girls. A mission school for the daughters of the Dakota tribes is most interestingly described. The strange ideas and beliefs of these wild people are woven into the thread of the story, which tells how a little white girl was brought up as an Indian child, educated at a mission school, and was finally discovered by her parents.
SERAPH, THE LITTLE VIOLINISTE.By Mrs.C. V. Jamison. 298 pp. Illustrated. Cloth, $1,50.
A most charming and delightful story of a little girl who had inherited a most remarkable musical talent, which found its natural expression through the medium of the violin. The picturesqueness of Mrs. Jamison’s stories is remarkable, and the reader unconsciously becomes Seraph’s friend and sympathizer in all her trials and triumphs.
ORCUTT GIRLS; or, One Term at the Academy.ByCharlotte M. Vaile. 316 pp. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50.
Mrs. Vaile gives us a story here which will become famous as a description of a phase of New England educational history which has now become a thing of the past—with an exception here and there. The Academy, once the pride and boast of our fathers, has given way to the High School, and girls and boys of to-day know nothing of the experiences which “The Orcutt Girls” enjoyed in their “One Term at the Academy.”
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LADY BETTY’S TWINS.ByE. M. Waterworth. With 12 illustrations. 116 pp. Cloth, 75 cents.
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A new set of books for the little ones, better, if possible, than evenDot’s Library, which has been so popular. Full of pictures, short stories, and bits of poetry.
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WAR OF THE REVOLUTION SERIES.
ByEverett T. Tomlinson.
THREE COLONIAL BOYS. A Story of the Times of ’76.368 pp. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50.
It is a story of three boys who were drawn into the events of the times; is patriotic, exciting, clean, and healthful, and instructs without appearing to. The heroes are manly boys, and no objectionable language or character is introduced. The lessons of courage and patriotism especially will be appreciated in this day.—Boston Transcript.
THREE YOUNG CONTINENTALS. A Story of the American Revolution.364 pp. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50.
The second volume of theWar of the RevolutionSeries gives a vivid and accurate picture of, and the part which our “Three Colonial Boys” took in, the events which led up to the “Battle of Long Island,” which was thought at the time to be a crushing defeat for the Continental Army, but which in fact was the means of arousing the Colonies to more determined effort.
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IN WILD AFRICA. Adventures of Two Boys in the Sahara Desert.325 pp. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50.
This story is a fascinating and instructive one, and we cheerfully commend the book to parents and teachers who have the responsibility of choosing the reading for young readers.—The Religious Telescope, Dayton.
THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO. Adventures of Two Boys in the Great Island Continent.318 pp. Illustrated. Cloth, $1.50.
The late Col. Thos. W. Knox was a famous traveler and writer of boys’ books of travel and adventure. His last book (finished only ten days before his sudden death) describes a portion of the world in which he took a vast interest, and of which little is known in this country. Australia, the great island continent, the land of the kangaroo, and a country of contradictions, is most interestingly described.
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QUARTERDECK & FOK’SLE.ByMolly Elliot Seawell, author of “Decatur and Somers,” etc. 272 pp. Illustrated. $1.25.
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