After a voyage of a few days I arrived in safety at Gracemere. On the journey from Herbert river down the coast you pass two establishments for freezing meat for export, viz. Bowen and Rockhampton. This comparatively new industry in Australia has recently been largely developed, and is no doubt destined to become of great importance to the country, which will in this manner be able to dispose of its great surplus of meat. The largest amount is exported from New Zealand.
Gracemere was now in its winter dress. How poor Central Queensland looks to a person coming from the charming tropics of Northern Queensland! But here in the south the genuine Australian landscape is found, the characteristic feature of which is the fantastical and the gloomy; solemn gum-trees, which lose their white bark in winter just as European trees shed their leaves, stiff grass-trees, solemn-looking acacias, can hardly give any charm to a landscape. And yet I have seen beautiful landscapes outside Northern Queensland, as for instance the fern-tree gully in Victoria, where the most splendid tree-ferns grow at the feet of the highest trees in the world. The views from the heights in the rear of the capital of South Australia across the wide Adelaide plains are very imposing, as are also those obtained on a journey across the Blue Mountains in New South Wales, especially where the windings of the Paramatta river are seen in the distance.
Though I enjoyed in a high degree the pleasure attendant upon a return to the comforts of civilisation, I soon began to make expeditions northward along the coast.
On one occasion I was invited to take part in hunting the dugong (Halicore dugong). I set out in the latter part of August in a carriole (karjol) which the Archers many years ago had imported from Norway, and which probably is the only one of the kind in all Australia. A carriole requires a good road, for it easily upsets, on account of the short distance between the two wheels, but in the open woodlands of Australia it is possible to drive almost anywhere, if there are no fences, brooks, or other obstacles.
After a journey of four days I arrived at Torilla, where preparations were at once made for the hunt. The first need was a boat. My host had only a small sailing boat given to him by some French Communists who had escaped from their confinement in New Caledonia and landed on his premises. One of these fugitives had been employed on the farm, and was an excellent carpenter. He undertook to repair the old rotten hulk, which had been lying on the bank of the river for a long time exposed to the sun and rain. It was a well-built boat with new sails and good masts, but in other respects it had seen its best days. The Frenchman went to work industriously, encouraged by the lady of the house, who promised him that he should be permitted to take part in the hunt, which in her mind was a guarantee that he would repair the boat properly. And after he had spent eight days in calking, rigging, and pitching the craft, he declared her seaworthy, and we at length put to sea. The crew consisted of my host, my English friend the squatter, the Frenchman, and myself. We were to take turns in baling.
After a pleasant sail we reached an island late in the evening, and there we made our camp on the shore. We had taken drinking water with us. The old mangrove stems made an excellent fire, and the soft sand a pleasant bed. We also set fire to some tall grass, in order to give the signal to some blacks who had agreed to join us here.
Early the next morning two natives, who were to assist us in hunting, came rowing in a canoe from the mainland. One of them paddled the canoe, while the other one kept baling out water with a large shell.
The canoe of the natives here is made of three pieces of bark, one forming the bottom and two the sides. The pieces are sewed together with wood fibres, and there is nothing, by way of ribs, to keep the pieces of bark together; simply a small cross-piece to support the sides, nor are there rowlocks or rudder. There is only room for two, and as the water continually pours in, one man is occupied in baling, while the other paddles on the two sides alternately with a stick about two yards long.
We took both the blacks and their canoe on board and started with full sail for Saltwater Bay. The difference between ebb and flood was here about twenty-eight feet. In Broad Sound, which lies a little farther to the north, the difference is said to be greater than anywhere else in the world—that is, about thirty-three feet.
Saltwater Bay is very shallow, and the large fields of mud that become visible at ebb-tide are covered with submarine Algæ. Here the dugong, the strange Australian seacow, seeks its food when the tide rises. In the innermost part of the bay we found a place for a camp; we rose early the next morning, and as soon as the water was deep enough rowed out. The blacks brought the implements to be used. The harpoon consists of two parts, the handle and spear, of which I give an illustration below. The point or spear is a piece of wire about eleven inches long, sharpened at one end, the other being enclosed in grass and wood fibre, forming a sort of knot which fits exactly into a hole in the handle so as to be held firmly in its place. To this knot a line is fastened. When the harpoon is thrown the point enters the animal, and at the same time the handle is set free and floats about on the water. This handle is a heavy wooden rod about three yards long.