Every week the horses were allowed two rest-days. Saturday was the recognised washing-day. Although the travellers were “going bush,” the cleanly habits of civilisation were strictly observed, even to the ironing of clothes. And the little girl of seven with astonishment watched her mother convert the tail-end of the caravan into an ironing-board. Sunday was observed in a Christian manner. There was always a service, the father reading the Anglican prayers and lessons to his family and attendants.
And then one day, after four months of continuous travelling, the new homestead came into view. The woman’s heart sank within her as she beheld the new “home” to which they had come. It was little more than a barn, with great gaps between the boards. And the very first thing she beheld upon entering the bedroom was a tiger snake gliding into a hole. Did ever woman have such a welcome to a new home? But it was the “Never Never” country, and homesteads there boast no luxuries. But lo! when a few months had passed a true home was formed; a man’s labour and a woman’s deft fingers had combined to make a cosy dwelling, in which our little girl of seven grew up to womanhood.
The bush is not everywhere so rough as this. Times have changed and civilisation has altered the aspect of things. Our dear old grandmother companion of the “Never Never” has a son in North Queensland who lives in comparative luxury. His house is three hundred and fifty miles from the nearest railway station, yet he has electric light throughout the house, and boiling water laid on to bath and sinks. That, however, is because Nature has been kind to him. Seven years ago, when he went to his farm, he bored for water, and lo! an artesian well shot up a column of water to a height of 250 feet above the ground, and the water was boiling. And for seven years that flow has continued without diminution. It has already formed a huge lake more than a mile in width. The bush has a strange fascination for anyone who has once fallen under its spell. It has happened more than once that a kindly disposed Englishman has taken compassion upon a native baby and had it brought up in English fashion, clothed and educated as an English lad. And one thing has always happened when the lad reaches the age of eighteen or nineteen. He hears the call of the bush, and one day he is missing. Nature asserts herself as stronger than civilisation, and the lad is off to his true habitat.
Even with Englishmen and Australians the spell, once cast, remains. Our “Never Never” friend has another son who “went bush” for ten years, and then, weary of it as he thought, he came to Melbourne and entered a house of business. In less than a year he was back in the bush, unable to resist its call. For five years they have heard no word of him. But he is there somewhere in the North on a station, and one day he will write or suddenly reappear. The bush plays sorry tricks with men.
Slowly the “scrub” is being cleared. Great forest fires consume the wood and undergrowth of hundreds of square miles of land, thus making it easier for men to exact from the soil the toll to which they are entitled. The day must come when there will be no “bush.” When Australia has its transcontinental railways, from Melbourne to Fremantle and on to Port Darwin, and when an adequate population arrives, then the bush will be replaced by cities and farms and gardens. For there can be no doubt that Australia is a garden of Eden, and that its chief need is men to till the soil and to replenish the earth. And when there is true unity in Australia, and a common-sense, God-fearing and united Central Government, the real move forward will have begun.
CHAPTER XIV
A HONEYMOON IN THE BUSH
It is to one of the most highly esteemed citizens of Melbourne that I owe the following thrilling narrative. He is a gentleman whose personal service, influence, and money have for many years been freely used for philanthropic, evangelistic, and general Church work. He is one of my own personal friends. It is necessary to say this at the outset as a guarantee of the truthfulness of the story which I am about to relate. Otherwise the reader might be excused for believing that a parson, hitherto without stain upon his character for veracity, had suddenly turned romancer, or that his former shrewdness had deserted him, leaving him the victim of a picturesque story-teller.
I have heard this particular story at least half a dozen times. It has always held me fascinated, and stirred in me what is left of the old Spanish blood—that thirst of adventure which belongs to men of the Peninsula.
The hero is now past 70. He will not be here during many more years to tell by word of mouth to a new generation the astonishing tale of the great adventure forty-three years ago. It is somewhat unfortunate that the date of the occurrence was the first of April, but there is nothing of the poisson d’Avril in the narrative.