We passed a cotton tree with ripe pods, growing in a garden, and several coco palms, the coconuts hanging in yellow bunches like a cluster of immense bananas. After crossing a river bordered by mangrove swamps, and passing through the main street, we struck off up a steep hill in quest of the church. On climbing a granite mound we found ourselves at its doors, with a beautiful view of the bay and its green shores, but no service, for probably to suit the habits of the people in a hot climate, it had ended about the time our churches at home are beginning. Following an admirable plan, pursued elsewhere in Australia, only a section of the church had been completed. There was an apse, and enough space beyond it to seat a fairly large congregation. It was very simply constructed, and had the dignity that simplicity gives to a building. It was of red brick with an ambulatory and a kingbeam roof, and had an air of being carefully tended. We lingered there a little wistfully, for in a country very far from home there is a sense of intimate nearness in hearing read that familiar liturgy, which contains the noblest prose in the English language. Leaving the church behind we wandered down towards the shore, and came to a wonderful tangled garden. Tall palms grew there, and masses of feathery crimson grasses; bananas drooped their immense purple bells, and the frangipani tree was bursting into bloom, holding out to us over the fence bunches of its dazzling, scented, creamy blossoms at the end of its bare, blunt boughs. Returning, we faced the strong breeze off the sea, which had been at our backs on the way up. We knew all about the dust on that walk, and were very glad to attain once more the haven of the ship.
In the afternoon the whole population came down to the wharf in cars and buggies to inspect the Australian hospital ship, which was lying alongside ready to sail. We strolled on the shore, where a large convolvulus with very succulent leaves grew profusely among the stones; and watched a forest fire on a mountain at the farther end of the bay; since the morning it had gradually worked its way right round the crest and was crawling down one side. Our stay at Townsville should have been a very brief one, but we were delayed there for three or four days by the Customs officials, as we were carrying a contraband cargo of meat. Nobody wanted to stay in Townsville, as there was nothing to be seen in the neighbourhood, and it would mean cutting short the duration of the ship’s visit to the Northern Territory.
The second day of our stay there, we climbed the granite peak that rises behind the town, going across by a little ferry-boat that plies between the wharf and the opposite side of the harbour. A strong wind was blowing in from the sea, as we steamed across to Townsville, lying deep in dust in the hot sun. We made our way up to the Castle Hill, the red granite peak that dominates the town. A very steep path leads up to it, and on the rocks above some goats and kids were silhouetted against the clear blue sky like a scrap of Swiss scenery. The town from this side is scattered along the shore, and the slopes above it half hidden in tropical foliage. Below us were the Botanical Gardens, the hospital embowered in trees, with the patients lying out on a shady balcony. Everywhere was the heavy scent and glorious bouquets of gold and white frangipani. We had been sent in the wrong direction, and missed the path, so that the ascent was very steep and rough, but we went on, slipping and scrambling up among falling stones, clinging on where we could, among big butterflies and lizards, and large brown grasshoppers with black spots. As we climbed higher Townsville spread itself out beneath us charmingly. Bungalows nestled among vivid green foliage, beyond were the blue bay, and its boats, ours amongst them, riding gaily at anchor, with the dark green wooded mass of “Magnetic Island” rising behind. Higher still we rested, while a fish hawk soared far above in the clear blue, and on the southern side Townsville looked like nothing but a vast mud flat with the river winding through it, and houses dotted among the mangrove swamps. One fancied that one big wave might submerge the whole.
On Wednesday we sailed early, keeping fairly near the coast, and reaching Cairns the same night. Cairns is the port of Trinity Bay—“a large and deep bay which I called Trinity Bay after the day on which it was discovered,” says Captain Cook, who had spent the intervening days in coasting up here from Whit-Sunday Passage. At Cairns we wished profoundly that the stringent Australian labour laws would prohibit night work, for our boat was lading or unlading with all the clangour and shouting incidental to these operations till 3 a.m. We had to be called early, because we were only to wait long enough in port to give the passengers an opportunity of making the return journey to the famous Barron Falls, about twenty miles inland from the coast, among some of the most celebrated Australian scenery. From the porthole of the ship’s corridor we looked straight into a mangrove swamp, beyond was a background of misty dark hills with heavy clouds rolling down them.
BARRON FALLS SCENERY AT CAIRNS.
Cairns, apart from its fame for the beauty of its falls and mountain scenery, is already an important place, and will become much more so, for it is the port for the rich inland districts, with which it is connected by railway. This fertile country is suitable for bananas, maize, for dairying, as well as for the timber trade. In the neighbourhood of Herberton, south-west of Cairns, fruit-growing is carried on, and apples, plums, pears, peaches, and vines are all successfully cultivated. The sugar industry is, besides, a most important factor in the prosperity of Cairns. Not far from the railway station of Redlynch, at the foot of the Barron Range, are the Kamerunga State Nurseries for growing coffee, bread-fruit, coconut, and rubber, and carrying out all kinds of experiments designed to solve the problems of tropical agriculture.
The country is also rich in minerals. Herberton is the principal centre for the production of tin, and the Herberton and Chillagoe districts contain deposits of tin, copper, silver, lead, bismuth, gold, and coal.
Our time, however, did not admit of our penetrating far enough into the interior to inspect the development of all these agricultural and mineral sources of wealth, which have so great a future before them; nor did it admit of our extending our journey far enough for even a glimpse of the curious and beautiful volcanic Lake Eacham. We had to content ourselves with the Barron Falls. We went ashore early, but the boat was late, and the train had got tired of waiting and gone away, so there was a long interval while it was fetched back and put together again. We sat about on sacks on a high covered platform, and conversed with some of the lean, long-limbed Australian workmen about the Australian labour question.
Immediately in front three ibises were feeding on a sort of salt marsh. The range of hills behind was half hidden in cloud. There was an all-pervading smell of raw sugar from bales awaiting shipment, and though it was not yet very warm the atmosphere was heavy with moisture like that of a hothouse. There did not seem to be very much of Cairns—one or two hotels and boarding-houses, a few wide grassy streets. The scattered houses on high piles had a more than usually unfinished air, with washing hanging out, kerosene tins lying about, and bare-legged children playing among them. There were a great many goats; two of them had discovered a bag of maize on the wharf and were having a happy time. At last our train arrived, consisting of one or two carriages, so arranged that the backs of the seats could be reversed, and as they all turned sideways you faced the whole length of the carriage, like a Pullman car, and we got the whole of the view during the journey, for most of the time the train has one side against the hill.