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.