At another place I had casually remarked upon the fact of the bicycle's handlebars having turned in the steering socket when I fell somewhere (thus, by the way, saving other, more vital parts, the sharp shock.) That this movement should have occurred appeared to a listener, as it will to many people, to indicate a grave fault, if not danger. "Why," he exclaimed suddenly, but after much cogitation, "to provide against that happening would be the simplest thing in the world"—by drilling a hole through the front tube where the maker's name and trade mark were (in my case, where they were not, because I had scratched both off) and then driving a strong pin in! I told him I didn't want the fault rectified.
It surprised me to find how extraordinarily anxious people were about punctures. It was "What would you do if you got a puncture?" until I came to hate the word. Very few had much thought of the consequences of a broken crank, fork, tube, shaft, or rim. But I believe nearly every one who hasn't a bicycle lives in constant terror of that dreadful bogy puncture.
I was made re-acquainted with descriptions of many of those wonderful leverage-chains, improved brakes, and puncture-proofing devices which work so emphatically well in print. One invention very much in favor was an inner-tubular arrangement—"quite a simple thing—made up of a hundred or so sections or distinct chambers, like an endless string of stumpy sausages." It was so obvious that when one sausage had lost all of its stuffing and collapsed, the other ninety-nine would yet remain for the utilisation of the wheelman!
Of such were the humors of the trip.
If the blacks I met with were not quite so wild-mannered as I could have feared or hoped for, it was through no fault of mine. Neither was it for me to rouse them up with a stick, or go hunting for some others less mild-mannered.
As I have said, if I heard of a white traveller anywhere, I did not try to dodge him. If one will but consider how I spent time and money in searching for a companion before starting (it was only because I was forced to, that I started alone), one may perhaps find excuse for me when I confess to feeling rather glad whenever I met or heard of there being a white man on the track.
* * * *
And why was the journey made? As was said long ago, I wanted to do something before I was put out of sight and mind. Had I merely wanted to dig out a few sovereigns for the pockets of cycle or cycle-part makers I should have adopted other methods. But I sincerely desired to do something for Australia, and it seemed to me that this would be the most effective means in my power of making the inlands better known, and of arousing some interest in our heritage in the north. Two or three knew of the desire; and no sooner was the task accomplished than on a day in June I wrote this letter to one of them:—
"Sir,—Now that the matter has passed very nearly out of my hands and risen beyond me, I wish to formally assure you ("formally," for hitherto I have spoken the words, as it may have appeared, but lightly) that everything I have done in connection with my recent bicycle trip has been mainly with a view to advertising the Northern Territory—a country which it is my hope to see, in the near future, looked upon and referred to no longer as a costly, cumbrous and unremunerative "White Elephant," but rather as a strong and healthy, though over-sleepy youth, whom, on awakening, something had aroused to manhood.