"We're better diggin' holes, even if they are duffers," spoke Stewart, "than makin' oorsel's meeserable at hame." Which argument in a sense settled the matter, and I forthwith purchased tickets for Kalgoorlie, with the intention of penetrating thence towards the far interior.
It is a weary journey eastward from Perth, and one that cannot be too quickly passed over. The single narrow-gauge line has been laid without any attempt at previous levelling, and the snorting little engine puffs over switchback undulations ceaselessly, at a speed that averages nearly sixteen miles an hour. It is a fortunate circumstance for the fresh enthusiast from "home" that the "Kalgoorlie Mail" leaves Perth in the evening. The discomfort experienced in the midnight ride is bad enough, but he is mercifully spared from viewing the "scenery" along the route, which would assuredly have a most demoralising effect: Western Australia must be taken gradually.
The Coolgardie "rush" may be fresh in the minds of most people. The township now stands almost deserted, bearing little trace of former glory; and yet it is but a few years since the railway was pushed out to this remote settlement. Southern Cross, two hundred miles nearer the coast, was formerly the terminus of all traffic, and the hardy pioneers of Coolgardie daringly ventured on foot from this point, as did also the vast numbers who "followed the finds."
Very insidiously Kalgoorlie has risen to high eminence as a mining centre; it accomplished the eclipse of its sister camp some time ago, and by reason of its deep lodes it is likely to retain its supremacy indefinitely. To the individual miners a new strike or location is considered to be "played out" when limited liability companies begin to appear in their midst, as only in rare cases can fossickers succeed in competition with machinery. However, the flat sand formations around Kalgoorlie have proved one of the exceptions to this rule, and the alluvial digger may still sink his shallow shaft here with every hope of success, and even in the proved "deep" country surface indications are abundant.
When my little party stepped from the train at Kalgoorlie, we saw before us a scattered array of wooden and galvanised-iron houses, white-painted, and glistening dully in the sunlight through an extremely murky atmosphere. On closer acquaintance the heterogeneous erections resolved themselves into a wide principal thoroughfare, aptly named Hannan's Street, after the honoured prospector of the Camp's main reef, and a number of side paths that bore titles so imposing that my memory at once reverted to the fanciful names distinguishing the crude log shanties of Dawson, where there were: Yukon Avenue, Arctic Mansions, Arcadian Drive, and Eldorado Terrace. Here, in keeping with the latitude of the city, more salubrious, if equally fantastic, were the various designations of the alleys and byways.
In the near distance we could see the towering tappet heads of the widely-known Great Boulder mine, and the din created by the revolving hammers of the ever-active stamping machinery assailed our ears as an indescribable uproar. But beyond the dust and smoke of these Nature-combating engines of civilisation, the open desert, dotted with its stunted mulga and mallee growths, shimmered back into the horizon. Here and there a dump or mullock heap showed where the alluvial miner had staked his claim, but for the most part the landscape was unbroken by any sign of habitation.
"There's a lot of room in this country, boys," I said, as we stood unobserved in the middle of the street and took in the scene.
"It's a deevil o' a funny place," Mac ventured doubtfully.
"It's a rale bonnie place," reproved Stewart, whom the inexpressible gloom peculiar to the interior country had not yet affected. "I'm thinkin'," he continued, with asperity, "that ane or twa men o' pairts like oorsel's were jist needed at this corner o' the warld."
"In ony case," Mac now agreed, "it's better than being meeserable at hame."