Chapter 5

He went up to the new city of Adelaide. All the buildings were of the earliest style of architecture, and were made of tea-tree and sods, or of reeds dabbed together with mud. The hotels had no signboards, but it was easy to find them by the heaps of bottles outside. Kangaroo flesh was 1s. 6d. a pound, but grog was cheap. Davy was looking for a shipmate named Richard Ralph, who was then the principal architect and builder in the city. He found him erecting homes for the immigrants out of reeds and mud. He was paid 10 pounds or 12 pounds for each building. He was also hunting kangaroo and selling meat. He was married to a lady immigrant, and on the whole appeared to be very comfortable and prosperous. Davy gave the lady a five-shilling piece to go and fetch a bottle of gin, and was surprised when she came back bringing two bottles of gin and 3s. change. In the settlement the necessaries of life were dear, but the luxuries were cheap. If a man could not afford to buy kangaroo beef and potatoes, he could live sumptuously on gin. Davy walked back to the port the same evening, and next day took in ballast, which was mud dug out among the mangroves.

He arrived at Launceston in four days, and then went as coasting pilot of the barque 'Belinda', bound to Port Fairy to take in oil for London. The barque took in 100 head of cattle, the first that were landed at Port Fairy. He then went to Port Philip, and was employed in lightering cargo up the Yarra, and in ferrying between Williamstown and the beach now called Port Melbourne. He took out the first boatman's licence issued, and has the brass badge, No. 1, still. Vessels at that time had to be warped up the Yarra from below Humbug Reach, as no wind could get at the topsails, on account of the high tea-tree on the banks.

OUT WEST IN 1849.

I did not travel as a capitalist, far from it. I went up the Mississippi as a deck passenger, sleeping at night sometimes on planks, at other times on bags of oats piled on the deck about six feet high. The mate of a Mississippi boat is always a bully and every now and then he came along with a deck-hand carrying a lamp, and requested us to come down. He said it was "agen the rules of the boat to sleep on oats"; but we kept on breaking the rules as much as possible.

Above the mouth of the Ohio the river bank on the Missouri side is high, rocky, and picturesque. I longed to be the owner of a farm up there, and of a modest cottage overlooking the Father of Waters. I said, "If there's peace and plenty to be had in this world, the heart that is humble might hope for it here," and then the very first village visible was called "Vide Poche." It is now a suburb of St. Louis.

I took a passage on another boat up the Illinois river. There was a very lordly man on the lower deck who was frequently "trailing his coat." He had, in fact, no coat at all, only a grey flannel shirt and nankeen trousers, but he was remarkably in want of a fight, and anxious to find a man willing to be licked. He was a desperado of the great river. We had heard and read of such men, of their reckless daring and deadly fights; but we were peaceful people; we had come out west to make a living, and therefore did not want to be killed. When the desperado came near we looked the other way.

There was a party of five immigrant Englishmen sitting on their luggage. One of them was very strongly built, a likely match for the bully, and a deck-hand pointing to him said:

"Jack, do you know what that Englishman says about you?"

"No, what does he say?"

"He says he don't think you are of much account with all your brag. Reckons he could lick you in a couple of minutes."

Uttering imprecations, Jack approached the Englishman, and dancing about the deck, cleared the ring for the coming combat.

"Come on, you green-horn, and take your gruel. Here's the best man on the river for you. You'll find him real grit."

The stranger sat still, said he was not a fighting man, and did not want to quarrel with anybody.

Jack grew more ferocious than ever, and aimed a blow at the peaceful man to persuade him to come on. He came on suddenly. The two men were soon writhing together on the guard deck, and I was pleased to observe the desperado was undermost. The Englishman was full of fear, and was fighting for his life. He was doing it with great earnestness. He was grasping the throat of his enemy tightly with both hands, and pressing his thumbs on the wind-pipe. We could see he was going to win in his own simple way, without any recourse to science, and he would have done so very soon had he not been interrupted. But as Jack was growing black in the face, the other Englishmen began to pull at their mate, and tried to unlock his grip on Jack's throat. It was not easy to do so. He held on to his man to the very last, crying out: "Leave me alone till I do for him. Man alive, don't you know the villain wants to murder me?"

The desperado lay for a while gulping and gasping on his bed of glory, unable to rise. I observed patches of bloody skin hanging loose on both sides of his neck when he staggered along the deck towards the starboard sponson.

There was peace for a quarter of an hour. Then Jack's voice was heard again. He had lost prestige, and was coming to recover it with a bowie knife. He said:

"Where's that Britisher? I am going to cut his liver out."

The Englishman heard the threat, and said to him mates:

"I told you so! He means to murder me. Why didn't you leave me alone when I had the fine holt of him?"

He then hurried away and ran upstairs to the saloon.

Jack followed to the foot of the ladder, and one wild-eyed young lady said:

"Look at the Englishman [he was sitting on a chair a few feet distance]. Ain't he pale? Oh! the coward!"

She wanted to witness a real lively fight, and was disappointed. The smell of blood seems grateful to the nostrils of both ladies and gentlemen in the States. A butcher from St. Louis explained it thus:

"It's in the liver. Nine out of ten of the beasts I kill have liver complaint. I am morally sartin I'd find the human livers just the same if I examined them in any considerable quantity."

The captain came to the head of the stairs and descended to the deck. He was tall and lanky and mild of speech. He said:

"Now, Jack, what are you going to do with that knife?"

"I am waiting to cut the liver out of that Englishman. Send him down, Captain, till I finish the job."

"Yes, I see. He has been peeling your neck pretty bad, ain't he? Powerful claws, I reckon. Jack, you'll be getting into trouble some day with your weepons." He took a small knife out of his pocket. "Look here, Jack. I've been going up and down the river more'n twenty years, and never carried a weepon bigg'n that, and never had a muss with nobody. A man who draws his bowie sometimes gets shot. Let's look at your knife."

He examined it closely, deciphered the brand, drew his thumb over the edge, and observed:

"Why, blame me, if it ain't one of them British bowies--a Free-trade Brummagen. I reckon you can't carve anyone with a thing like this." He made a dig at the hand-rail with the point, and it actually curled up like the ring in a hog's snout. "You see, Jack, a knife like that is mean, unbecoming a gentleman, and a disgrace to a respectable boat." He pitched the British article into the river and went up into the saloon.

As Jack had not yet recovered his prestige, he went away, and returned with a dinner knife in one hand and a shingling hammer in the other. He waited for his adversary until the sun was low and the deck passengers were preparing their evening meal. Two of the Englishmen came along towards the stairs and ascended to the saloon. Presently they began to descend with their mate in the middle. Jack looked at them, and for some reason or other he did not want any more prestige. He sauntered away along the guard deck, and remained in retirement during the rest of the voyage. He was not, after all, a very desperate desperado.

During the next night our boat was racing with a rival craft, and one of her engines was damaged. She had then to hop on one leg, as it were, as far as Peoria. The Illinois river had here spread out into a broad lake; the bank was low, there were no buildings of any kind near the water; some of the passengers landed, and nobody came to offer them welcome.

I stood near an English immigrant who had just brought his luggage ashore, and was sitting on it with his wife and three children. They looked around at the low land and wide water, and became full of misery. The wife said:

"What are we boun' to do now, Samiul? Wheer are me and the childer to go in this miserable lookin' place?"

Samiul: "I'm sure, Betsy, I don't know. I've nobbut hafe a dollar left of o' my money. They said Peoria was a good place for us to stop at, but I don't see any signs o' farmin' about here, and if I go away to look for a job, where am I to put thee and the childer, and the luggage and the bedding?"

"Oh!" said Betsy, beginning to cry; "I'm sorry we ever left owd England. But thou would come, Samiul, thou knows, and this is the end on it. Here we are in this wild country without house or home, and wi' nothin' to eat. I allus thowt tha wor a fool, Samiul, and now I'm sure and sartin on it."

Samiul could not deny it. His spirit was completely broken; he hung down his head, and tears began to trickle down his eyes. The three children--two sturdy little boys and a fair-haired little girl-- seeing their dad and ma shedding tears, thought the whole world must be coming to an end, and they began howling out aloud without any reserve. It was the best thing they could have done, as it called public attention to their misery, and drew a crowd around them. A tall stranger came near looked at the group, and said:

"My good man, what in thunder are you crying for?"

"I was told Peoria was a good place for farmin'," Samuel said, "and now I don't know where to go, and I have got no money."

"Well, you are a soft 'un," replied the stranger. "Just dry up and wait here till I come back."

He walked away with long strides. Peoria was then a dreary-looking city, of which we could see nothing but the end of a broad road, a few frame buildings, two or three waggons, and some horses hitched to the posts of the piazzas.

The stranger soon returned with a farmer in a waggon drawn by two fine upstanding horses, fit for a royal carriage. The farmer at once hired the immigrant at ten dollars a month with board for himself and family. He put the luggage into his waggon, patted the boys on the head and told them to be men; kissed the little girl as he lifted her into the waggon, and said:

"Now, Sissy, you are a nice little lady, and you are to come along with me, and we'll be good friends."

Never was sorrow so quickly turned into joy. The man, his wife, and children, actually began smiling before the tears on their cheeks were dry.

Men on every western prairie were preparing their waggons for the great rush to California; new hands were wanted on the lands, and the immigrants who were then arriving in thousands, took the place of the other thousands who went westward across the plains. There was employment for everybody, and during my three years' residence on the prairies I only saw one beggar. He was an Italian patriot, who said he had fought for Italy; he was now begging for it in English, badly-broken, so I said:

"You are a strong, healthy man; why don't you go to work? You could earn eight or ten dollars a month, with board, anywhere in these parts."

But the Italian patriot was a high-class beggar; he was collecting funds, and had no idea of wasting his time in hard work. He gave me to understand that I had insulted him.

Besides this patriot, there were a few horse-thieves and hog duffers on the prairies, but these, when identified, were either stretched under a tree or sent to Texas.

In those days the prairie farmers were all gentlemen, high-minded, truthful, honourable, and hospitable. There were no poor houses, no asylums. All orphans were adopted and treated as members of some family in the neighbourhood.

I am informed that things are quite different now. The march of empire has been rapid; many men have grown rich, to use a novel expression, beyond the dreams of avarice, and ten times as many have grown poor and discontented.

The great question for statesmen now is, "What is to be done for the relief of the masses?" and the answer to it is as difficult to find as ever.

But I have to proceed up the Illinois river.

The steamboat stopped at Lasalle, the head of navigation, and we had then to travel on the Illinois and Michigan canal. We went on board a narrow passenger boat towed by two horses, and followed by two freight barges. We did not go at a breakneck pace, and had plenty of time for conversation, and to look at the scenery, which consisted of prairies, sloughs, woods, and rivers. The picture lacked background, as there is nothing in Illinois deserving the name of hill. But we passed an ancient monument, a tall pillar, rising out of the bed of the Illinois river. It is called "Starved Rock." Once a number of Indian warriors, pursued by white men, climbed up the almost perpendicular sides of the pillar. They had no food, and though the stream was flowing beneath them, they could not obtain a drink of water without danger of death from rifle bullets. The white men instituted a blockade of the pillar, and the red men all perished of starvation on the top of it.

The conversation was conducted by the captain of the canal boat, as he walked on the deck to and fro. He was full of information. He said he was a native of Kentucky; had come down the Ohio river from Louisville; was taking freight to Chicago; reckoned he was bound to rake in the dollars on the canal; was no dog-gonned Abolitionist; niggers were made to work for white folks; they had no souls any more than a horse; he'd like to see the man who would argue the point.

Mrs. Beecher Stowe was then writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," at too great a distance to hear the challenge, but a greenhorn ventured to argue the point.

"What about the mulatto? Half black, half white. His father being a white man had a whole soul; his mother being black had no soul. Has the mulatto a whole soul, half a soul, or no soul at all?"

The captain paused in his walk, with both hands in his pockets, gazed at the argumentative greenhorn, turned his quid, spat across the canal, went away whistling "Old Dan Tucker," and left the question of the mulatto's soul unsolved.

When I arrived at Joliet there was a land boom at Chicago. The canal company had cut up their alternate sections, and were offering them at the usual alarming sacrifice. A land boom is a dream of celestial bliss. While it lasts, the wisest men and the greatest fools walk with ecstatic steps through the golden streets of a New Jerusalem. I have been there three times. It is dreadful to wake up and to find that all the gold in the street is nothing but moonshine.

I proceeded to the Lake City to lay the foundation of my fortune by buying town lots. I laid the foundation on a five-acre block in West Joliet, but had to borrow seven dollars from my nearest friend to pay the first deposit. Chicago was then a small but busy wooden town, with slushy streets, plank sidewalks, verandahs full of rats, and bedrooms humming with mosquitoes. I left it penniless but proud, an owner of real estate.

While returning to Joliet on the canal boat my nearest friend, from whom I had borrowed the seven dollars, kindly gave me his views on the subject of "greenhorns." (The Australian equivalent of "greenhorn" is "new chum." I had the advantage of serving my time in both capacities). "No greenhorn," he observed, "ever begins to get along in the States until he has parted with his bottom dollar. That puts a keen edge on his mind, and he grows smart in business. A smart man don't strain his back with hard work for any considerable time. He takes out a patent for something--a mowing machine, or one for sowing corn and pumpkins, a new churn or wash-tub, pills for the shakes, or, best of all, a new religion--anything, in fact, that will catch on and fetch the public."

I had parted with my bottom dollar, was also in debt, and therefore in the best position for getting along; but I could not all at once think of anything to patent, and had to earn my daily bread some way or other. I began to do it by hammering sheets of iron into the proper curves for an undershot water-wheel. After I had worked two days my boss suggested that I should seek other employment--in a school, for instance; a new teacher was wanted in the common school of West Joliet.

I said I should prefer something higher; a teacher was of no more earthly account than a tailor.

The boss said: "That might be so in benighted Britain, but in the Great United States our prominent citizens begin life as teachers in the common schools, and gradually rise to the highest positions in the Republic."

I concluded to rise, but a certificate of competency was required, and I presented myself for examination to the proper official, the editor and proprietor of 'The True Democrat' whose office was across the bridge, nearly opposite Matheson's woollen factory. I found the editor and his compositor labouring over the next edition of the paper.

The editor began the examination with the alphabet. I said in England we used twenty-six letters, and I named all of them correctly except the last. I called it "zed," but the editor said it was "zee," and I did not argue the point.

He then asked me to pick out the vowels, the consonants, the flats, the sharps, the aspirates, the labials, the palatals, the dentals, and the mutes. I was struck dumb; I could feel the very foundation of all learning sinking beneath me, and had to confess that I did not know my letters.

Then he went on to spelling and writing. My writing was barely passable, and my spelling was quite out of date. I used superfluous letters which had been very properly abolished by Webster's dictionary.

At last the editor remarked, with becoming modesty, that he was himself of no account at figures, but Mr. Sims would put me through the arithmetic. Mr. Sims was the compositor, and an Englishman; he put me through tenderly.

When the examination was finished, I felt like a convicted impostor, and was prepared to resume work on the undershot water-wheel, but the two professors took pity on me, and certified in writing that I was qualified to keep school.

Then the editor remarked that the retiring teacher, Mr. Randal, had advertised in the 'True Democrat' his ability to teach the Latin language; but, unfortunately, Father Ingoldsby had offered himself as a first pupil; Mr. Randal never got another, and all his Latin oozed out. On this timely hint I advertised my ability to teach the citizens of Joliet not only Latin, but Greek, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. My advertisement will be found among the files of the 'True Democrat' of the year 1849 by anyone taking the trouble to look for it. I had carelessly omitted to mention the English language, but we sometimes get what we don't ask for, and no less than sixteen Germans came to night school to study our tongue. They were all masons and quarrymen engaged in exporting steps and window sills to the rising city of Chicago.

When Goldsmith tried to earn his bread by teaching English in Holland, he overlooked the fact that it was first necessary for him to learn Low Dutch. I overlooked the same fact, but it gave me no trouble whatever. There was no united Germany then, and my pupils disagreed continually about the pronunciation of their own language, which seemed, like that of Babel, intelligible to nobody. I composed their quarrels by confining their minds to English solely, and harmony was restored each night by song.

The school-house was a one-storey frame building on the second plateau in West Joliet, and was attended by about one hundred scholars. In the rear was a shallow lagoon, fenced on one side by a wall of loose rocks, infested with snakes. The track to the cemetery was near, and it soon began to be in very frequent use. One day during recess the boys had a snake hunt, and they tied their game in one bunch by the heads with string, and suspended them by the wayside. I counted them, and there were twenty-seven snakes in the bunch.

The year '49 was the 'annus mirabilis' of the great rush for gold across the plains, and it was also an 'annus miserabilis' on account of the cholera. In three weeks fourteen hundred waggons bound for California crossed one of the bridges over the canal. I was desirous of joining the rush, but was, as usual, short of cash, and I had to stay at Joliet to earn my salary. I met the editor of the 'True Democrat' nearly every day carrying home a bucket of water from the Aux Plaines river. He did his own chores. He sent two young men who wished to become teachers to my school to graduate. One was named O'Reilly, lately from Ireland; I gave him his degree in a few weeks, and he kept school somewhere out on the prairie. The other did not graduate before the cholera came. He was a native of Vermont, and he played the clarionet in our church choir. The instrumental music came from the clarionet, from a violin, and a flute. The choir came from France and Germany, Old England and New England, Ireland, Alsace, and Belgium. It was divided into two hostile camps, and the party which first took possession of the gallery took precedence in the music for that day only. There was a want of harmony. One morning when the priest was chanting the first words of the Gloria, the head of a little French bugler appeared at the top of the gallery stairs, and at once started a plaint chant, Gloria, we had never rehearsed or heard before. He sang his solo to the end. He was thirsting for glory, and he took a full draught.

I don't think there was ever a choir like ours but one, and that was conducted by a butcher from Dolphinholm in the Anglican Church at Garstang. One Sunday he started a hymn with a new tune. Three times his men broke down, and three times they were heard by the whole congregation whispering ferociously at one another. At length the parson tried to proceed with the service, and said: "Let us pray." But the bold butcher retorted: "Pray be hanged. Let us try again, lads; I know we can do it." He then started the hymn for the fourth time, and they did it. After the service the parson demanded satisfaction of the butcher, and got it in a neighbouring pasture.

The cholera came, and we soon grew very serious. The young man from Vermont walked with me after school hours, and we tried to be cheerful, but it was of no use. Our talk always reverted to the plague, and the best way to cure it or to avoid it. The doctors disagreed. Every theory was soon contradicted by facts; all kinds of people were attacked and died; the young and the old, the weak and the strong, the drunken and the sober. Every man adopted a special diet or a favourite liquor--brandy, whiskey, bitters, cherry-bounce, sarsaparilla. My own particular preventive was hot tea, sweetened with molasses and seasoned with cayenne pepper. I survived, but that does not prove anything in particular.

The two papers, the 'Joliet Signal' and the 'True Democrat', scarcely ever mentioned the cholera. It would have been bad policy, tending to scare away the citizens and to injure trade.

Many men suddenly found that they had urgent business to look after elsewhere, and sneaked away, leaving their wives and families behind them.