At the back of the world

by George Pugh; Jennie Pugh

We left Newcastle at night, a beautiful cloudless night, singing and making merry, just as though we were on a pleasure trip, for most of the passengers had been seamen at some time or other and were a right down jolly lot of men. They looked after themselves, and also gave us all the help we required. We had a fine passage right up to Brisbane, but here our luck as regards the weather forsook us, for just after passing Brisbane we got into a black north-easter, and for a few hours it was nearly a case with us, so dangerous was our condition, but we managed to crawl into Hervey Bay until the breeze had blown itself out.

After eight hours detention we again started on our journey and reached Port Denison. Here we encountered a terrific gale that very nearly finished our sailing. The little craft was a splendid sea-boat, and that helped us to nurse her through the angry waters. But we had our work cut out. At times the schooner would be standing almost on one end, and the next moment she would be on the other. Then she would be thrown from side to side like a shuttlecock. Soon she began to leak freely, and no wonder, but we had plenty of willing help, although a number of the men had caved in and were lying helpless in the hold, battened down, the only ventilation they could have being that which passed through the cabin, for though many of them had been sailors, they had sailed in larger vessels, and our little craft was being tossed about so violently in the gale that they were laid low with sea-sickness. But there was no complaint from any of them. The thought of the bright yellow gold that lay in the earth on the Palmer, waiting for them to come and gather it, cheered them up, for each man thought in his heart that he was sure to make his fortune.

After a terrible experience we managed to creep in behind Cape Upstart, about one hundred miles from Townsville. Here we lay twenty-four hours to put things a bit shipshape again, and recover from our knocking about. The captain offered to put any of the passengers ashore at Townsville, if they chose, but one and all decided to continue the voyage to Cookstown, and each one cheerfully took his turn at the pump, and so saved the captain and me any anxiety on that account.

It had been no pleasure cruise after we passed Brisbane, and became worse every day. There was not a dry place on board, unless it was our throats. Everybody was constantly drenched with the sea, and no one had a good square meal during the last four days; but there was no discontent, everything was taken in good part, and many a tough yarn was told while they were lashed to the rail to keep themselves from being washed overboard.

After two days sheer battling for our lives, the wind died down, and a steady southerly wind sprang up. This soon brightened our prospects, and added considerably to our comfort. How thankful we were for the peace and quiet after the rough and tumble experience we had just passed through! The sea became as smooth as a mill pond with just a steady south wind blowing, that drove us about five knots an hour through the water. All our effects were brought on deck and dried, and our sails, which had been considerably damaged, were repaired, and on the fourteenth day we arrived at Cookstown. Our passengers were soon landed, and Captain Brown took the little vessel well into the river and moored her there until he decided what he was going to do himself. I landed the following day, and soon found that the Palmer was as far off as ever. The rainy season had set in, and the roads were impassable. Whole districts between Cookstown and the Palmer were under water, the rivers were swollen and in flood, and no stores of any sort could be bought on the road.

To describe Cookstown as I first saw it would be impossible. It resembled nothing so much as an old English country fair, leaving out the monkeys and merry-go-rounds. Tents were stuck up at all points. Miserable huts, zinc sheds, and any blessed thing that would shelter from the sun’s fierce heat and rain, were used as habitations. There were thousands of people living in the tents and sheds, and the place literally swarmed with men of all nationalities. Large plots had been pegged out in the main street, on these were erected either corrugated iron sheds, or large tents, and here all sorts of merchandise was sold, cheap enough to suit all purses, but the wet season was on, and there was no way of getting to Palmer. Parties of men left every day in the rain and slush to try and reach what seemed such a land of promise, but many returned saying that it was no use trying, as the rivers could not be crossed. Hundreds of these men lived out in the scrub with just a couple of blankets thrown over some twigs for shelter, no fire being needed except for cooking. All the scum of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane were gathered together here, thieves, pickpockets, cardsharpers and loafers of every description. This class had not come to dig for gold with pick and shovel from mother earth’s bosom, but to dig it out of honest men’s pockets by robbery and murder, and the robbing of tents in their owners’ absence was becoming a daily occurrence, for gathered there were the good, bad, very bad and indifferent.

One day a party of three men returned after having got as far as the Normanby River. They had been caught between two streams, and could neither get backward or forward. The patch on which they were imprisoned was only a few feet above water, and for some time they were not sure if they would not be swept off and drowned, as the island was only about one mile long and a quarter of a mile wide.

Whilst they were searching for means to get over to Normanby they made a gruesome discovery, one by no means uncommon. There at their feet lying together were five dead bodies. They had been starved to death, and under the head of each man was a small leather bag of gold, averaging in weight about six pounds each. What a terrible irony of fate—shut in between the waters and starved to death, with over five thousand pounds between them! The bodies were all shrunken and black, so burying them where they lay, the party took the gold and divided it. A couple of days afterwards they were able to swim their horses over the stream and return to Cookstown.

There were several instances told about this time of miners who had reached the diggings before the wet season had set in, gathered a stock of gold, then finding their stores giving out, were forced to pack up and retrace their steps for a fresh supply. Many, on that terrible return journey, were struck down by the sun’s intense heat, and after using their last small stock of food, died a miserable lonely death by starvation, their treasures of gold powerless to buy them an ounce of food.

It was quite a common occurrence for miners travelling up from Cooktown with plenty of stores and provisions, but no cash, to arrive on the banks of a swollen river, over which there was no means of crossing, and to see on the other side of the river a party of men on their way down to the coast with bags of gold, but with hungry, empty stomachs. There they were, looking across at each other, one holding up a bag of flour, and the other shaking his gold purse, each powerless to help the other. Such was the lot of many of the diggers at that time, but all the horrors, the suffering and death that took place in that mad rush for gold, will never be known. ’Tis better so, I saw men return from the gold fields, with thousands of pounds worth of gold in their possession, but with frames so emaciated and ruined with what they had gone through on their return journey, that their very existence was a burden to them, their horses, dogs, and even their boots had been eaten to keep them alive. It is a fact that they have boiled their blucher boots for a whole day, and then added any weeds they could find to make a broth of, so tenacious of life were they.