CHAPTER IV.

I BECOME A LAND-LUBBER.

When I was a brass-bound apprentice on a wind-jammer, aged sixteen, I visited Melbourne on my first voyage, and became acquainted with the young lady who now enjoys the honour of being Mrs. Senex. Naturally then, when the idea of settling in Australia occurred to me, Victoria was the State I first thought of. I applied to the Government, stating my case, and their reply was a very distinct damper. Regarded in the light of a hint not to come, it was a verbal brutality:--

"The amount you mention is utterly inadequate to make a start in Victoria, and we should not advise you to leave your present employment until something more certain and easy eventuates."

A distinct "Tite-Barnacle" flavour about it altogether. New South Wales was my next try. Far more encouraging. I could certainly come to that State; I would be put in touch with farmers in whatever district I selected, and when I thought I had enough experience to start for myself they would do their best to find me land. Also they sent me some pamphlets.

Then Queensland. Ah! that _was_ something like a hospitable invitation:--

"Certainly you ought to make a decent start with the amount you mention. Even with nothing you are welcome if willing to work. We hope you will decide to come.... If you are not afraid of work and a bit of roughing it, you should command success," and so forth.

Accompanying this missive was a parcel of pamphlets on which six shillings postage had been paid. So I reckoned Queensland was good enough for me, and it was--and is.

I watched my ship leave Newcastle on the Sunday. Next day I was in Sydney enquiring about a boat for Brisbane. It was the time of the Badger tram strike, and, as most people remember, shipping was being held up. However, the company I went to said they were running a special boat on Wednesday, and I might squeeze in. Went steerage, of course; had to study economy now. And it _was_ a squeeze-in all right. She was an awful old tub. I won't mention her name. The steerage bunks were two high and two abreast--four in a section. My berth was on the cold hard deck under a bottom bunk, whose inhabitant had, of course, an unpleasant habit of spitting. Two blokes camped on the table, and several, like myself, on the deck. Well, I hadn't forgotten my old sailor dodge of "pricking for the softest plank," so it was no particular hardship to me, and I passed a fair night.

I went on deck about 6 a.m., in time to see my old pal, Sugarloaf, abeam.

The weather was clear, blowing a bit, and a good lop of following sea. Breakfast was at 7.30. When the bell went I was on the fo'c'sle head, and waited a minute or two before leisurely descending. The mob was jammed round the table like peas in a pod, jaws working overtime, eyes hungrily roaming over the table, hands ever and anon reaching like talons for the eatables. I accosted the steward, poor man, who, with a care-lined face, was hovering round like an unquiet spirit.

"Can't help it, sir," says he; "you'll just 'ave t' do the same as th' others--grab what ye can, and Go delp the last man. Cripes! They are a 'oly lot er cormorants this trip."

So I grabbed a spud, a ragged lump of meat, and a hunk of dry bread, which were all I could effect salvage on, but it kept the worms quiet. After that I was always anchored in mid-table half an hour before meals, and held on like grim death against the rushing tide when the bell went. Very soon half of them were squatted round the table like vultures half an hour before time, so my dodge failed in the end.

They were a merry, rough, happy-go-lucky crowd. Mostly shed hands, rouseabouts and suchlike, bound for Rockhampton and Townsville. They soon jerried that, if I was a pretty smart seaman, I was also an extremely raw new chum; and the old, old gohanna farm tale was sprung off on me with enthusiasm. I didn't know what a blooming gohanna was. I was also advised to keep my eye open for a few likely-looking emus when I got settled, as there was good money in their plumes. I got a bit suspicious of fifty-foot carpet snakes, but swallowed cannibal blacks and crocodiles in the Atherton scrub. North of Townsville, I was informed, it rained for nine months, and then the rainy season started. I caused a good deal of amusement all right, and the roars of laughter might have been heard all over the ship when I mentioned casually that I had some heavy blocks ashore in my baggage, with a view to hauling down scrub timber. (N.B.--The blocks were stolen from my ship, but as I originally stole them from the Standard Oil Co.'s wharf in New York, I reckoned I'd a proprietary right to them. You'll find the mate of the average tramp an accomplished pincher. He's got to be, the way owners cut requisition lists). They enquired if I had any idea what scrub was like. I said "No, but I supposed it was just ordinary trees." More merriment.

It was late in the evening when we arrived in Brisbane. I got ashore at once, and chartered a cabby to take me to some decent place to camp. He did, and charged me five shillings for a five minutes' journey to that fine caravanserai, the People's Palace. Next morning I was early at Roma-street station, enquiring for my traps from Newcastle. They hadn't arrived, and wouldn't do so for a week or more--congestion at Wallangarra. Bestowing my blessing on the Railway Department, I strolled down to the Lands Office, and interviewed the gentleman with whom I had corresponded aboard ship. Let me pay a tribute to his courteous urbanity, and the patience with which he answered the innumerable questions I was inspired with.

"Yes, Mr. Senex, Queensland has good soil ... er--it _is_ suitable for growing potatoes. Yes, it _is_ possible to go dairying in the State. Orchards? Oh, yes! Fruit grows here," and so on.

How he must have laughed when the brand-new, fresh-minted, new chum left him! Well, I learned that among the earthly paradises abounding in Queensland the district of Atherton was, for climate, scenery and general farming purposes, the nearest approach to Heaven in the State. I could do anything there--grow my beloved spuds (my dad was Irish, by the way), or dairy, run an orchard, or raise chooks. In fact, the trouble was not so much what to grow as what not to raise, in case of swamping the market, off twenty acres.

Of course it was Atherton for me after that--you bet! Couldn't get there quick enough. I found time, though, to worry the Department of Agriculture a bit, and I have no doubt they were very delighted to see the last of the infernal bore who "wanted to know, you know," and wouldn't be satisfied with the assurance that Atherton _was_ a good place.

"Yes; but," said the bore, "have you ever been there?" And when they said "No," the bore opined that they couldn't know so very much about the place after all, and doubtless caused secret fist-shakings behind his unconscious back.

One brilliant gentleman told me he'd give me a half-fare concession to visit Gatton College next day, and, in the joy of getting something for nearly nothing, I forgot to worry them any more. The other gentlemen probably stood him a drink that afternoon.

I thoroughly enjoyed that trip, and it was queer to think that at Gatton I was further away from the sea than I had ever been since I was born, and I don't think I bored the College people. I was such a palpable "newey," with such an eager interest in everything and so easily entertained. I caused one of the principals a heart-throb though when he turned round and caught me clambering over the fence en route to pat old "Spec," one of the savagest bulls in Queensland, I think, standing treacherously quiet on the other side. I was hauled back by the neck, while "Spec" boomed his disappointment and pawed up the earth in showers. I would have liked to have stayed there a week, admiring the beautiful, sleek cattle and dropsical pigs, snoring in bloated contentment, but the setting sun and the 8 p.m. train took me back to Brisbane.

I went to the Lands Office next day and worried them some more. They gave me a railway concession as far as Gladstone, and I left, staggering under a pile of maps, plans and pamphlets, which I afterwards conscientiously waded through and finally used for papering the walls of my bush humpy to keep the draughts out.

About 9 p.m. that evening I boarded the Gladstone mail train, and found myself one of a herd of males penned up in a bare wooden "three-in-one" dog-box of a carriage, with a mouldy odour of mildew, sulphur and antediluvian "Flor-de-Cabbagios" hanging about it. A short wait, a long whistle, a jarring jerk or two, and we slowly rumbled out of Brisbane into the moonlit country, and into the romantic mystery veiling the unknown life before me.