Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water

By 4 p.m. we were out of the shelter of Moreton Bay, and Captain Phillips (who did all in his power for the comfort of the passengers) pointed out to me the curious low range of conical-shaped hills called the "Glass-houses," from their sparkling appearance when the sun shines on them, and which is caused by the mixture of mica with the quartz; but to-day they were veiled in mist. The last of the sandbanks to our starboard disappeared, our course was altered, but for the next nine days we shall still have land on the port side as we coast along, calling at various ports in Queensland, and waiting for the mails at Cooktown.

Wednesday, December 3rd.—Everybody felt languid and unsettled on the first morning. I managed some writing, however, in the course of the day. We passed the group of Bunker Islands, near one of which there was a wreck, and by 4 p.m. we were inside the great Barrier Reef.

These detached masses of coral form a gigantic Wall, stretching along the coast of Queensland for 1300 miles, varying in depth from 600 to 1000 feet.

It has been ascertained and deduced from the depth of the soundings that originally the Barrier Reef formed part of the coast of Australia. Under the level of the lowest tide, but exposed to the force of the wave, these coral polyps and reef-building zoophytes extract by their tentacles the corpuscules in the surrounding water necessary for their existence, and separate one by one the atoms of lime, either in the form of sulphate, chloride, or carbonate, held in solution in the ocean. With these they hold up their beautiful submerged ocean gardens of trees, and flowers, and plants, or structures with domes and towers, forming a world within the world of ocean life. The lifelong struggle between the living mass of coral and the breakers of the ocean for ever continues; "myriads and myriads engaged from age to age" in repairing the damage to the outer wall by the action of the ocean. Each zoophyte possesses tentacle, mouth, and stomach, but here their individuality ceases, and a calcareous tissue forms the means of living communication and nutrition to the whole community, and it is this interior stalk by which they are united, of a bright red colour, which forms the pink coral. Various swarms of fish or mollusci, chief among the latter being the Holuthuriæ, or bêche-de-mer, are formidable enemies to the polyps.

As we sat on deck at dusk there was a beautiful effect from the chain lightning, which was supposed to be either the reflection of a storm elsewhere or the phosphorescence of the sky, the same as that we were looking at on the water over the side of the ship. We passed the revolving lighthouse on Cape Capricorn, just opposite which we were crossing the line of the Tropic of Capricorn. We had a grand scene here, for the sea was wild and stormy from the break in the Barrier Reef, and there were banks of black cloud lying on the horizon, with the frowning brow of Capricorn coming out into the sea, lighted by the bright spark from the alternating beacon of the lighthouse.

We hung out a limelight from the bridge as a signal for them to telegraph our approach to Rockhampton, and then describing a very wide circle round an unseen reef, and going some nine miles up the Fitzroy River, we anchored there at 10 p.m.

Rockhampton lies forty-eight miles further up, but the river is unnavigable for large ships, and the passengers come down in a tender, and the cargo in lighters.

A terrible night we passed from 3 a.m., when the lighters came alongside, and the steam-winch worked over our heads; and worse was it when morning came, and the heat of the sun beat down on the far-extending mangrove swamps. The last bale of wool was stowed away in the stern hold after breakfast, and order was restored to our deck, but several hundreds still remained for the hold forward. Vainly the captain offered the lightermen two bottles of "grog" to go on working during the dinner hour; they were proof against the bribe, and it was late in the afternoon before we weighed anchor and went out to sea again, in a storm of thunder and lightning. The evening was intensely close and oppressive, for with the decks and double awning dripping from the deluge of rain, we were all obliged to crowd into the deck-house. We began to dread the heat of the Torres' Straits route, of which we had been previously warned.

Friday, December 5th.—As I awoke at 7 a.m. I found we were going half-speed, and almost immediately afterwards we stopped and swung round to our anchor in the Pioneer River, some miles below Port Mackay. How annoying it was waiting there till twelve for one passenger, because the tide was too low for the tender to come down! During the afternoon we were passing a succession of pretty little islands, called the Blacksmith, Goldsmith, Silversmith, Tinsmith, Bellows, Anvil, Forge, &c., all the names connected with the trade, and later on a mountain called Mount "Merkara," from the Merkara having once sent help and provisions to some lost surveyors.

Towards evening we went through part of the beautiful Whit-Sunday passage, but to our disappointment not the most beautiful, because of the dark clouds and the lateness of the hour. There the channel is so narrow that you almost touch the wooded banks on either side, but Captain Hannah, the pilot provided by the Government for the Queensland coast, is well known for his prudence. The mainland on one side, the long wooded island of Whit-Sunday with its solitary white lighthouse on the other, while peninsulas of other islands, meeting in the sea, and forming quiet backwaters, shut out the ocean. We imagined ourselves for a short time in a landlocked lake, with beautiful shoal-green water. Further on we passed the remarkable rock called Pentecost Island, which resembles a lion couchant, and both this island and Whit-Sunday Passage were named so by Captain Cook, who probably sighted them on the Day of Pentecost and Whit-Sunday. We had one of the most gorgeous sunsets I ever remember after dinner this evening.

A pale blue, melting into opal, when again it merged into pink, and the pink into purple. Then a delicate saffron suffused the sky, gently effacing the other pale hues, before becoming a glorious golden red sky,—a sea of fiery liquid gold, floating over the dark purple range of hills, flecked with tiny cloudlets, like ships sailing over the moulten gold. A flat plain of shimmering moonlight blue was the sea, and in the foreground rose two huge pyramidal islands of rock, densest black, against the yellow background. We watched it silently, and still sat on long after it had faded, and the remembrance only remained to us.

Saturday, December 6th.—We touched at Bowen during the night, and anchored again at Townsville in the afternoon, about nine miles from the town, in the open roadstead. Townsville is the most rising place of the north of Queensland, and, should it secede from the south, will become the capital. The town lies in the little plain at the foot of the hills, Castle Hill rising 1000 feet in its rear, and the surroundings of our anchorage were very pretty, wooded hills and shoal-green water. The Custom House launch and the lighters came alongside, but no launch or boat for the passengers to land, and we were all disappointed of our previous intention. It seems the most shortsighted policy and want of enterprise on the part of the townspeople providing no facilities or encouragement to strangers to land. We were again and again disappointed in this in the Torres' Straits route, for we had hoped to be able to land and thus see the Queensland towns and ports. The heat was awful, the saloon for dinner almost unbearable even with the punkahs working briskly, and we sat on deck gasping and wearily wondering where to sleep, with the heat in the cabins up to 100 degrees, and the deafening whirring of the steam-winch on deck.

Sunday, December 7th.—A fresher morning to my own especial and every one else's delight. It has often been a hard struggle to persevere with my writing when the saloon and cabins were out of the question from a degree of heat indescribable, and when the glare and heat, and frequent interruptions on deck were very harassing.

Our 800 bales of wool and many little bags of silver ore were shipped, and we waited only to take on board one passenger, the American lady doctor, Dr. Anna Potts, M.D., who has been delivering lectures in Australia to audiences of 6000 with great success. The lightermen at these ports are well paid, earning from 15s. to 1l. per day. They get 2s. extra for loading on Sunday, or working over hours—after 6 p.m. I pitied the crew and officers, who were up all night loading without extra pay, particularly those who were down in the hold. None but a lascar crew would work as these do all day and all night without complaint.

There was no service on this Sunday, as we were in port in the morning, but we sung some hymns in the evening.

Monday, December 5th.—Very early in the morning we passed Cape Weary and Cape Tribulation, and rounding the hill of granite and sandstone rock, called Mount Cook, we anchored opposite Cooktown and the celebrated Endeavour Beach. This part of the coast is fraught with great interest in the travels of Captain Cook. It was here at Endeavour Beach, in 1769, that he beached his little vessel, having run on some of the reefs. Again she stranded at Cape Tribulation, and yet once again at Cape Weary, which must have seemed to them by this time but too truly named. An obelisk is to be erected just above the beach to the honour of Captain Cook, Government having just voted 1000l. for this object. It is a tardy recognition of his indomitable courage and perseverance, but, with the exception of Sydney, Australia and New Zealand seems to be singularly ungrateful to the great explorer and founder of their country.

It was curious to remark on the surrounding hills the bare patches of earth, showing where the violence of the wind destroys all vegetation.

Until 1874 Cooktown remained in the possession of the aboriginals, and as Cook had found and left it, but gold diggings discovered then on the Palmer attracted the white man. Thousands of Chinese, as being the first port of call in Queensland, landed here, there being at one time 20,000 of them at the Palmer Diggings.

A boat took us ashore to Cooktown in the afternoon. There were no carriages to be had, and after struggling halfway along the dusty road which forms the town, the heat was so intense that we sunk down on a bench (I fear it was outside a public-house), the few people about of the population of 4000 looking indolent and oppressed by the heat, which is too great for the white man in the north. The few aboriginals that we saw were repulsive in the extreme, and our sense of smell rendered it desirable to keep at a distance from them. Strange that they should say and do the same to all white men. These aboriginals are not allowed to live in the town, but are turned out at sundown, when they swim two miles across to the opposite shore to the aboriginal settlement. We were glad when, after two hours' "tacking" against a contrary wind, we reached the steamer again, feeling we had had a fruitless and vexatious afternoon's expedition. Inspector Fitzgerald came off the next morning, with a sub-inspector of native police and six black trackers in neat blue and scarlet uniforms. The skill of these trackers in scenting a track in the bush is marvellous, and where a white man will see nothing they will be able to tell the mark of a foot, even the colour and sex of the imprinter. In the settled country they are valueless, but in the wilds of North Queensland, their powers, which excel those of the bloodhound, are invaluable in tracing stolen cattle, and tracking and bringing to justice the wild, intractable natives, thousands of whom still remain, and who are all of a predatory character.

We tried some shark-fishing, many of the green monsters having being seen swimming around the ship. One was hooked, but being six feet in length, we failed to land him on board. It is a curious fact that sharks never eat the blacks.

Since 2 p.m., the earliest possible date of the arrival of the mails from Brisbane (which came up in a fast steamer in two days), we had been constantly on the watch for her rounding the Cape.

It was not till 5 p.m. that we were released from our anchorage, the little boat in three journeys bringing the mails to us from the steamer, and as the last bag was thrown on board we steamed away. After dinner we had another blue and crimson sunset, and when that had died away we saw the light of two bush fires burning in the darkness along the coast.

The mail boat has brought us most agreeable addition to our party in the Rev. C. Barton, chaplain to the Bishop of North Queensland, and a clergyman at Townsville. The Church of England has no dissent to contend with in Queensland, but we gather that drink is the curse of the country, sixty per cent. being "hard" drinkers.

Wednesday, December 10th.—Up on deck at 8 a.m., when the captain called me up on to the bridge to see some of the coral reefs of the great Barrier. It was low tide, and we could see the formation of the reef by the lovely blue-green water inside. How we longed to go and paddle about, peering down into their wonderful forests! At high-water mark they are hidden, but the spot is marked by posts.

The passage between these shoals and reefs is so intricate, that the pilot refused that night to go through them in the dark, and we anchored at 11 p.m. till the moon rose at two in the morning.

Thursday, December 11th.—We were summoned hastily on deck, all the ladies appearing in déshabille, and the gentlemen in their many-coloured pyjamas, to-see the Albany Pass. The mainland is flat and ugly, as are the islands which form the pass, but on all there were curious bright red cones, from four to five feet in height. These are huge ant-hills raised by the ants in the red earth. We could only judge their size by comparing them to a white horse which was feeding by them, and which they completely dwarfed.

Mr. Jardine, one of the partners in the great pearl fisheries, has a house in this lonely pass; he lives there surrounded by the aboriginals. He ran up a flag on the flagstaff in front of his house to greet us as we passed, and we saw his little yacht buoyed in the cove below the house.

Almost immediately afterwards we passed Cape York, the northernmost point of Queensland. It is only a strip of land, for the Gulf of Carpentaria describes a deep circle in the coast on the other side, leaving Cape York jutting out in lonely grandeur into the sea.

It makes us realize the vast size of Australia when we think that, during the last nine days, it is 1400 miles of the coast of Queensland alone that we have been travelling along, and South Australia and Western Australia are equally remarkable in their proportions.

At twelve we anchored off Thursday Island, opposite to the three or four white houses called the village. All round the bay is dotted with small settlements, and it presented a very bright scene, boats of all kinds putting off to us; for the arrival of a steamer at Thursday Island is hailed with peculiar joy; and why? because by begging and praying they hope to be able to obtain a few pounds of fresh meat. There are 100 English living in Thursday Island; they have no sheep or cattle, for there is nothing in this sterile spot for them to feed on; no fruit, no milk, no vegetables. There is neither church nor clergyman; but the Roman Catholics have founded a convent, testifying to the activity of the Church of Rome. They have no doctor, and ours from the Merkara went off to extract a bullet out of a man who had been shot three weeks ago, and after dinner a lady came on board to have a tooth extracted! The climate is atrocious,—always the same tropical sun, winter and summer, without the charms of tropical foliage and life. The children suffer dreadfully from prickly heat, but indeed all children in Queensland are more or less disfigured by this rash. There is no water supply, and they are entirely dependent on the rainfall. A shower sent its blessings on them yesterday for the first time for six months, and did something towards replenishing the empty tanks.

We landed at four o'clock, being carried ashore from the boat by the crew. The sandy beach was over our ankles and there was nothing to be seen but the wooden pier running into the sea, and a few corrugated zinc houses belonging to the motley nationality of Thursday Island, Cingalese, Malays, Kanakas, Chinese, and Japanese. To escape from the intense heat of the sun we went into Burn Phelps and Co.'s large store. They have a small schooner, the Elsie, which trades between Thursday Island and New Guinea, and we were fortunate enough to get some New Guinea spears, bow and arrows, and one of the celebrated New Guinea birds of paradise, with the long feathery orange tail and blood-red breast.

Thursday Island lies in the midst of the Torres Straits, and is only distant sixty miles from New Guinea. There exists little doubt that originally Australia and New Guinea formed one continent, for as it is, they are now nearly connected by the reefs of the Great Barrier, the soundings never exceeding sixty feet in depth.

A great trade is carried on in the bêche-de-mer which is found on the coast of New Guinea and transported to Thursday Island for export to China. This holuthuriea, or sea-cucumber, trepang or bêche-de-mer (a corruption from the Portuguese bicho-do-mar, or sea-worm), is a slug about six inches long, and "effects its locomotion by rows of ambulaced-tubed feet, or by the alternate contraction and expansion of its worm-like body." The natives are employed by the colonists in diving after these slugs, and after being boiled, they are dried by the heat of the sun. The bêche-de-mer is considered in China the same luxury as the edible bird's nest, and 100l. to 150l. a ton are given for it. I was shown a piece of it, which looked like black leather, with a disagreeably strong ozone smell.

Thursday Island is also the centre of a great pearl-fishery. The pearl-shell, when brought to the surface by divers, is sent to London to be manufactured. To each ship there is allotted one diver, who can generally obtain from three to four tons a month, each ton being valued at 180l. These divers go down to a depth of fifteen fathoms; but they are well paid, often making 500l. a year. It is supposed, too, that they often extract the pearl out of the shell before returning to the surface.

When in port, ship-life becomes sadly disorganized. Every one had friends on board to dinner, and the piano was moved out on to the deck for music afterwards. The steam-winch kept up a running accompaniment. The culminating point of heat and patient endurance were reached that night. The saloon was the black hole of Calcutta, all ports in the cabins were closed, and the smell from the discharging lighter most noxious.

We were gasping and panting on deck, and could hardly manage to stay ten minutes in the cabin to undress. Of course we all slept on deck; the skylights and deck were strewn with mattresses and figures lying at full length. We all suffered and passed a terrible night, sleep being for the most part out of the question, with the shouts of the lightermen and the groaning of the winch.

Morning, in the early grey dawn, found us weary and unrefreshed. We loitered about on deck, not daring to venture downstairs until the ports were open, when the second officer ordered us down, as "against all orders," and very much aggrieved we felt as we descended.

Things assumed a brighter aspect when, at 7.30 we steamed out of the bay, with a refreshing breeze, thankful to see the last of Thursday Island, and the last of the Queensland ports.

We soon lost sight of land going out into the centre of the Torres Straits, or Arafura Sea. I cannot help thinking that every one is happier now that we have entirely lost sight of land, and settles down better to the routine on board ship.

At noon we stopped opposite the Proud Foot shoal lightship, to send off provisions to the three men who live here, in the centre of the Torres Straits, thirty miles away from land.

Saturday, December 13th.—Dull and threatening, with more swell on the sea. We have grown so much accustomed to the lake-like aspect of the sea, that we consider it a hardship now to see a white horse, or feel a little swell. Our "run" was 317 miles.

Sunday, December 14th.—A most miserable day. We had no service, though Mr. Barlow offered to read one with the captain's permission. Tropical sheets of rain came down, driving the gentlemen into their smoking-room, and the children to make a pandemonium of the deck-house. To add to the general depression and misery the sea got up, and all ports had to be closed, the waves washing over the port side of the deck. There can be nothing more wretched than being on a ship where there is no quiet or dry corner to sit in. Though it was such a stormy night we were obliged to sleep in the music-room: I think we should not have done so if we had heard the story told the next morning at breakfast, how once on the Merkara, in the Bay of Biscay, this deck-house had been washed bodily away, and two passengers who were in it drowned.

Tuesday, December 16th.—Tons of lava ashes have been floating by us all day, still the remains of the great eruption of Krakatau, eighteen months ago. Just before dinner we passed the Roma, another of the B.I.S.N. ships, and dipped flags with her. Her decks were black with the crowd of emigrants.

Thursday, December 18th.—Yesterday we passed the island of Rotti (Hindustani for bread) and the islands of Sandal-wood and Timor, a possession divided between the Dutch and Portuguese, and which supplies Java with a good breed of small but timid ponies. To-day we seem in sight of land again from the succession of islands—Sumbawa, Lombok, and Baly, all belonging to the Dutch. In the two latter we saw very high mountains, ranging in Lombok to 12,000 feet, and in Baly to 10,000. It is a continuation of the great volcanic range that runs through the entire islands of Sumatra and Java. Mr. Alfred Wallace, the great naturalist, divides the islands of this archipelago into two distinct divisions—those that from their characteristics and productions are identified with Australia, and those that may be classed as belonging to Asia. The line is distinctly drawn between the islands of Lombok and Baly, which are divided only by the narrow strait of fifteen miles. After dinner, and against the apple-green sunset, we saw the dark line of the coast of Java. Night after night we have been having these most glorious sunsets, gorgeous in their Eastern magnificence of colouring, and the phosphorescence of the water is far more brilliant than when we were in the tropics crossing the Pacific. Shoals of flying-fish have kept us company during the voyage, not counting sharks and porpoises.

At 10 p.m. we sent up a rocket, and waited at the entrance to the narrow Straits of Baly for the pilot to come off from Banjoewangi. We passed through the narrow passage at midnight, not seeing the tropical jungle, which here touches the water's edge, nor hearing the roar of the leopards and panthers who infest the shores.

Friday, December 19th.—We are in the Sea of Java. Numerous kattamarangs and canoes, with their outrigged frames that keep them steady in the water, tell us we are within reach of busy life again. Bamboo rods, with several lines attached for fishing, protrude out of the water, and speak of hungry humanity once more. In the afternoon we lose sight of Java, going on the outside of the island of Madura, as the water is not deep enough for us inside.

On the last evening of our voyage we went down to the engine-room. The two cylinders sliding up and down as fast as the eye can follow them are wonderful, but more interesting is the tunnel, running quite aft, containing the revolving cylinder of the screw. None but Orientals could stand the intense heat of the furnaces, the normal temperature being never less than 120°.

We went half-speed towards evening, so as not to arrive at Batavia before daylight to-morrow morning; and we shall be able to leave the ship immediately after breakfast.