Once more on my own, as they say out there, I started off. It was sweltering hot. I did my best to keep in the shelter of the tall gum forest that covered the hills for miles around me, and seeing no more signs of houses about the whole day I began to consider it would be best for me to alter my course and make for Cooktown as I originally intended doing. I did so, and camping on the steeps that night I saw a ring of smoke curling up almost opposite to the side of the slope whereon I had camped. Leading my horse I went over the rim of the hill expecting to see a homestead, and as I looked down a swarm of black awful-looking faces huddled around a bush fire looked up at me with startled eyes. I had stumbled across a camp of the roving Queensland blacks! There they sat, black, pot-bellied, nude women and men, some of them holding short clay pipes between their thick protruding lips. I had heard that they were quite harmless, and so I bravely walked down the slopes and introduced myself. The head of the band was a stalwart ferocious-looking fellow and tried to speak to me. “White fella all lone,” he said. I shook my head and said “No,” at the same time pointing behind me over the hills so as to let him think that I was not alone. There is nothing like being too careful with blacks; they are harmless enough, so I had heard, but I did not want to give them a chance to profit over their old instincts. There are even white men in lonely bush lands who would crack you over the head if their exchequer was getting low and the addition of another man’s would make the outlook brighter, and so I was wise in my answer.
I shall never forget the sight of those aboriginals and their startled eyes as, squatting there, some huddled in dirty Government blankets, they watched their meal cooking, which consisted of green frog and fat lizards that bubbled and squeaked in the glowing fire ash. One fat, awful-looking woman asked me in broken English if “white man got baccy.” I felt relieved to think I could do her a good turn, and quickly gave her a small piece of ship’s plug tobacco, which she snatched out of my hand without a word of thanks. They were all nearly naked; there were four women and about a dozen men and they all continued to stare up at me as I stood by them, their bright dark eyes shining through their thick matted hair. The old woman to whom I had given the tobacco quickly tore it up with her long fingers and sat there with her chin on her knees puffing at her short clay pipe, her lips dribbling and smacking together like the flapping wet sails of a becalmed ship as she puffed away.
It was terribly hot, and as the sunset died away behind the gum clump on the skyline I took off my coat and vest and kept only my pants on, tied the legs of my horse so that she would not roam too far off and sat down by those wild bush blacks and taking my violin out of my swag I started to play a jig. Their eyes lit up at once with wonder and I was obliged to let them all carefully examine the instrument. They looked inside of it, turned the pegs and even smelt it, but could not understand where the music came from, and the one baby that clung by its mother looked at me as though it would have a fit each time that I started to play. They had no idea of melody but a good idea of time, and all started to move their bodies to and fro as I extemporised a strain which I thought would suit the occasion. One old fellow with extraordinary thin legs and a big protruding belly started off in one of their native dances. Up went his legs skyward and once or twice he almost turned a somersault, and his shadow in the moonlight mimicked him on the slope side as its head bobbed out of the gum-tree tops that towered just over him. I did not like the idea of sleeping with them, so I packed my violin in my swag and pointed to the hills and intimated to them by nods and signs that I must go and join my comrades, and off I went over the slope, and as soon as I thought I was clear away from them I camped at the bottom of a steep gully and, tired out, I fell asleep.
When I awoke the sun was blazing through the trees at the side of the gully height, and I sat up, and looking round I missed my swag. Running to the top of the slope I looked around; my horse too had vanished. As quickly as I could hurry along I went down to where I had left the blacks. There was the fire ash and round it a circle of naked foot prints, but not a sign of them in sight. They had crept over the hills while I had slept and stolen my swag and horse and left me standing alone in that wild country perfectly helpless with nothing on but a pair of pants!
I gazed like one in a dream on those footprints and the camp fire ash. I was terribly thirsty and at once started off to find water. I was soon successful and on my knees I blew the scum off the creek pool and drank. I don’t know how I got through that day, but I did, and before nightfall I had reached a wooden house on top of a hill. I crawled round to the side door and knocked. A young girl opened it and seeing me in such a state quickly slammed it and the stockman came rushing to the door to see what was the matter, a gun in his hand, and if I hadn’t been quick, as it was nearly dark, I really think I should have been shot. I soon explained matters to him and he proved a kind fellow, gave me an old suit and I stayed there for three weeks and helped him to build an outhouse. He paid me well and I arrived back in Brisbane with nearly five pounds in my pocket.
I had had enough of the Australian bush and made up my mind to get employment in the towns. Before my money had gone again I started to look for work, but only succeeded in getting a job in a restaurant in Queen’s Street. My duty was to wash the dishes and wait on the customers. It was not at all in my line, and I could not get any sleep.
The first night was an unpleasant one; my bed was one of a number in a dirty top room and up till about two in the morning the door would keep opening as those who were partially sober carried in men who were blind drunk and placed them on the beds by me. I sat up in my bed utterly miserable and watched one red-nosed, black-bearded besotted-looking man drivel at the mouth, swear and groan as he made vain attempts to get his boots off, and once or twice he looked round at me with an idiot-like stare and said, “Hello, maish, s-how are you?” and bending towards me affectionately, tumbled on the floor. And another one in the far corner would often stick his head out of the dirty sheets and shout, “Wash’s the time?” So no one will blame me when I tell you that I crept downstairs at daybreak and bolted. About a week after I was covered with a tremendous rash and was the most miserable youth in Australia. I took a motherly woman into my confidence and I soon got rid of them: bugs and fleas are real comrades compared to those terrible things that I took away with me when I left that restaurant bedroom. I can assure you that I never worked in a restaurant again and even now I am nervous in the presence of drunken men whom I do not know well. Hornecastle was bad enough, but there was something about him that inspired confidence as well as disgust.
I always found the motherly women were my best friends when I was in trouble, for though I had not got a cent they generally took me in and waited till I obtained employment. I suppose they saw that I was young and respectable, and in the colonies, in those days, there were hundreds of young fellows on their beam ends who were trying to make a way for themselves, and as they always paid up at the first opportunity these women generally had faith in the derelicts that tramped about the towns of “the land of the golden fleece” looking for work.
I got a job in a furniture warehouse and stayed there for quite three months until business got slack. I being a new hand received the “sack.” My roaming instincts took me down to the wharf and I was in with the seafaring men again, heard once more the wonderful tales of adventure on the seas and in far countries, but I was not quite so interested as I had previously been, for I too had seen a bit of the world and no longer believed all that those sea-beaten old salts told me. Nevertheless I liked their companionship; they were so frank and jovial in their narratives. I came across two or three of the men whom I had known when I was first stranded in Brisbane and several of us got a job painting the side of a large sailing ship that lay alongside. I slept on board with the crew in the fo’c’sle and got in with a young German who had worked his way out at “a shilling a month” and had not got the pluck to leave the ship, and so intended to work his passage back to London. Influenced by me, however, he altered his mind and stayed behind. He was a steady fellow, older than I was, I think about twenty years of age. He had one failing which I well remember: he was always running after the girls and thought of little else.