Among Queensland products are its precious stones, and Brisbane at first seems to support a quite disproportionate number of jewellers’ shops. It is specially famous for its black opals, which are not black, but a sort of peacock blue, with wonderful high green lights. These beautiful stones are of infinite variety in depths of colouring, and their very novelty makes them attractive, but all the same the visitor should only make purchases in the presence of an expert adviser, for, even in the case of jewellers of high repute, he will find that what he pays for his stones in Brisbane may bear no relation to the value attributed to them by a London firm. Almost every known precious stone is found in Queensland, including diamonds. Opals occur in the upper cretaceous rocks in the western districts of Queensland, and sapphire mining is carried on to a considerable extent in the Anakie district west of Rockhampton. The stones are blue, green, or yellow in colour. They occur in an alluvial lead, and their original matrix is a basalt found near the source of the alluvial deposit, the gems having been set free by the weathering of the rock.
We saw some opal cutting in Brisbane. It is done in the jewellers’ workshops. They buy the rough-looking brown lumps from the miners, and they are cut open and polished with emery to test their value.
One characteristic Australian sight we were unable to see, the “wool sales.” The trade in this principal source of the continent’s wealth was at the time practically at a standstill. Owing to the war the annual wool sales could not be held. Before the war, the buyers, chiefly German and French, attended the wool sales in the principal Australian towns, so there was practically no market for the fine merino wools. September ought to have been a busy month in Brisbane, for that is the season of the wool sales. But if we could not see the sales, we thought it would at least be interesting to see the wool, and as in Australia you need only express a wish to have it gratified, an acquaintance of our river picnic of the day before volunteered to show us the principal Brisbane wool store.
It was a morning of dazzling Queensland sunshine, with a light breeze off the sea, when we motored down to the wharf where the big store-houses are built. Here the wool comes in on trucks in bales of jute, and at first the visitor sees only endless rows of shelves stacked with brown bales. These bales, or jute sacks, which are made in India, are all marked with the name of the grower and the district and quality of the wool, in a kind of shorthand unintelligible to the layman. The “clips,” as they are called, are separated into the fleeces proper and the other parts, packed in the jute sacks, labelled, and sent straight to the storehouse. Our expert friend could tell, by taking a handful of the wool out of any sack at random, the district from which it came, explaining to us that this handful was stained with the red earth peculiar to certain plains, while another contained the characteristic “trefoil burr,” a little seed-vessel, which curls itself tightly among the wool. In the sales samples of the wools of different growers are taken from the bales and spread upon tables in an immense upper room. The walls were painted a light blue, to soften the glare of the light and throw a becoming tinge on the wool, as pink lamp-shades are used for the complexion. Here the dealers inspect it, and it is afterwards sold by auction, though the seller puts a reserve price upon it. From the warehouse the bales can be run down a sort of shaft directly on to the cargo boats for Europe; but the wool packs, as they are called, are first squeezed in a press and bound with iron bands to facilitate their shipment and storage. Some deterioration takes place in the colour if it is kept longer than two years.
The most remarkable thing about the presence of this immense quantity of wool was that, though the sheep are not washed before they are sheared, the fleeces had none of the oily unpleasant smell of a flock of sheep, but the warehouse only smelt of the jute bales. As we were coming away we were shown some merino rams in a little pen yet in possession of their deep silky fleeces. The breed of merinos has been so greatly improved since its introduction in 1797 that merino rams fetch as much as five hundred guineas, while in 1913 two rams actually were sold for 1600 and 1700 guineas respectively. Merino sheep did not, however, thrive on the coastal districts, and British sheep were therefore imported for breeding purposes.
It was later the same day that to escape from the dust, which is Brisbane’s besetting curse, we went by tram out into the suburbs. Brisbane itself is on the sea level, but its suburbs climb the hills behind it. The suburbs are only scattered bungalows dotted among the green, with their flowers and paw-paw trees and palms. Patches of eucalyptus scrub remain here and there, and rough roads connect them with the main road, up which the tram climbs steeply. After its terminus the road still climbs the hill and we climbed with it, till we came to a green lane, where was a rare butterfly with wonderful metallic blue wings fluttering above a yellow-berried duranta bush, and where we heard a laughing jackass, and watched some untidy-looking magpies. All Australian birds are rather untidy-looking, as if they had lived so long in the bush by themselves, that their toilets could not be regarded as of consequence.
From these innocent diversions we were driven by a smart shower to take refuge in the nearest bungalow, which had an inviting verandah. The house belonged to a Scotch settler, who welcomed us like old friends, brought out cushions for the wicker chairs, and when the shower was over begged us to prolong our visit—it was “so nice to see someone from home.” Last summer, she told us, had been the hottest for thirty years, but with that exception she had not felt the tropical heat excessive. When we came away she gave us the handgrip of the exile.
The most beautiful point within easy reach of Brisbane, commanding a magnificent bird’s-eye view of the city, the bay, and surrounding country, is Mount Coot-tha Reserve, or One Tree Hill. It is only a few miles out of the town, and a friend motored us up there one afternoon. On the way we stopped to have tea at her house. In the drawing-room was a heavily carved massive upright piano. We commented on its unusual case, and our hostess told us it had been in “the Flood,” and the works were ruined, but it was impossible to get them replaced in Australia. Going on to talk of the drawbacks to life in Brisbane, she said that before a storm the house would be filled with flying cockroaches and other insects, and she showed us photograph frames and book bindings riddled with small holes by the ravages of silver fish. Under her carpets were quantities of crushed naphthaline to prevent their being eaten, and a winter coat that was left hanging up by some oversight, she said, was immediately ruined. We were considerably perturbed after this on coming across a large whiskered silver fish among our clothes, when we were packing, but his wicked intentions were frustrated prematurely, and there were no ill-effects from his presence, though we actually brought a silver fish home to London, where he was found between a trunk and its cover, and instantly slaughtered as something exotic and uncanny by the maids who were unpacking. He probably, however, came from Java.
After tea we continued our journey to One Tree Hill, our hostess actually was wearing a stole made of the skin of a platypus. The fur was curiously wiry to the touch. Mount Coot-tha, like all reserves, is the original untouched gum forest with carriage drives running through it. At one point the trees had been cleared away to give a view of Lake Enoggera, the reservoir of Brisbane, cradled in green hills some miles away.
From the western extremity of the hill the view is very extensive and extremely beautiful. Brisbane is spread out below nestling in greenery, with its winding river, and Moreton Bay far off lying placid in the sunshine. The view is bounded by distant hills.