At the back of the world

by George Pugh; Jennie Pugh

There were hundreds of men idle in Cooktown. They had no means of buying an outfit, even if the road to Palmer had been passable, and many of them had no desire to go any further. These could easily be distinguished from those who really wanted work during the waiting time, so many there were that anyone who wanted a man might easily get him for a whole day’s work for a good square meal. Men would walk about among the tents and whenever they saw food there they would beg. Many were getting a living by their wits and knavery, and it was not safe to be about alone after dark, unless you were well armed and prepared for these light-fingered gentry. And yet the leading articles in the newspapers at that time were painting in glowing terms the bustle and activity going on in the rising city of Cooktown, declaring that any man who could use a hammer or tools of any description could earn a pound a day.

Feeling a bit disheartened at the grim realities that I had witnessed, and after knocking about Cooktown for a week, I called on Captain Brown, and asked him if he was going to take the “Woolara” back to Newcastle.

“No,” he replied, “I have sold her, and made a jolly good thing out of her, too, and I’m going to have a try to get to the Palmer. What are you going to do?”

“Well, I am undecided at present, there are so many returning disheartened, and broken down in health, and they give such bad accounts of the road to be travelled over before you reach the Palmer, that I don’t care about tackling it alone.”

“Well, look here,” said the captain, “I have done very well by this venture so far, and I don’t care about returning without having a try for the diggings, even if I have to return. What do you say to us joining forces, and trying our luck together. I will buy three horses from the next squad that returns, and use one for a pack horse.”

I agreed to his plan, and the following day about a dozen horsemen rode into Cooktown. They had been a month on the road, several times they had narrowly escaped drowning, while trying to cross the Normanby river. They had lost nearly the whole of their provisions, and one of their mates had been seized by an alligator before their eyes, while they were powerless to help him. Then they had been obliged to kill two of their horses for food. They willingly sold us three horses at fifteen pounds each, but strongly advised us not to try the road for at least two months, or to wait for the end of the rainy season. But the thought of the gold beyond made us eager to take our chance. Had we gone back to Newcastle without trying, our friends would have chaffed us unmercifully.

The next day we began our preparations. We bought a tent, two small picks, two small spades and one gun. Captain Brown had a gun and revolver. I had a revolver, and the gun that was bought was for me, and a good supply of ammunition. As we were going where money was of no value and food invaluable, and everything depended on our being able to carry sufficient provisions, we got a good supply of the best. We had cocoa, extract of beef, preserved meat, tea and sugar, two hundred pounds of flour—this was divided, one hundred pounds to the pack horse, and fifty pounds to each of our horses—two large billy cans, a couple of drinking pots, two knives, two basins, a tinder box and burning glass. When we were all packed and ready to start, we looked like a couple of mountebanks off to a village fair.

It was a fine morning when we started, but before we had got ten miles from Cooktown our horses were sinking in the mire. Road there was none, it was just a track or belt of morass, into which one sank at times knee deep, and as night came on it rained in torrents, so we picked out a dry piece of ground, and pitched our tent for the night. We then hobbled the horses with about ten fathoms of line to keep them from straying.

We slept well that night, for we were dead tired, and had we been lying on a feather bed in a good hotel instead of on a piece of ground that might soon be under water, we should have slept no better. As it had ceased raining when we awoke we started on our way again after we had breakfasted, and got along very well until noon. Coming to a place where there was good grass for the horses we decided not to go any farther that day, but to let the horses have the benefit of a good feed.

The following morning we started early, and at noon met a party of diggers returning from the Palmer. They had been fortunate enough to get a fair amount of gold they said, but what a terrible condition they were in, thin and emaciated as skeletons, with barely a rag to cover them. Three of their party had been lost crossing the Laura river, and one had died of sunstroke on the road.