I stayed at the Imperial Hotel, a tolerably good sort of place, but with little box-like bedrooms. The average Australian has no idea of the comforts of what a European would call an ordinary hotel. Give him beef, mutton, a solid pudding, and a room like a good-sized packing case to sleep in, and he is contented,—anyhow he puts up with it.
That evening, while strolling in the streets, I was attracted by the sound of revelry in an hotel. As the windows leading on to a veranda were open, I walked in, took a seat, and acquiesced in the wishes of a gentleman who commanded me to help myself. I make it a point never to differ with gentlemen who are imperative on such points. If he had told me to drink it out of a tin mug, and to like it, I do not think that I should have opposed his wishes. At the piano there was a universal genius who could play anything and everything that was called for. A short conversation with my neighbour revealed the fact that we had both been educated at the same school. This led to other acquaintances, and by 12 p.m. I knew fifty (I here speak poetically) people who were willing to identify me. After hearing a lot of music, many songs, violent discussions as to how a Russian invasion was to be met, and finally joining hands to sing ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ I got to bed about 2 a.m.
That morning I started at 8 a.m. by train to visit the mining district and town of Charters Towers. The distance is between 80 and 90 miles. The first thing I noticed was the dust. In fact the dust insisted on being noticed. It went into your eyes, your ears, your nostrils, your mouth, your pockets and your boots, as if you were to be buried. Some of the trees in the gardens near the railway station were so earthy, that they looked as if they had been planted root upwards. Outside the town the country had an open park-like appearance. The trees were the same old type which I saw at Port Darwin—scraggy gum trees with white stems. There were also a few screw palms. Here and there, there were plains covered with tombstone-like ant-hills. Along the line there were posts marking every quarter mile. By observing these I found that we were running a mile in from seventy to eighty seconds. All the gradients were also marked. It did not take long before I found that I was on a railway line, the engineer for which had some originality. Part of the way I rode in a coupé at the end of the train and I could see what I left behind me. Sometimes I was looking down a slope and sometimes up one. ‘Grand line this,’ said a fellow-passenger. ‘Compensating grades they call them. Wait a bit, and you’ll see some fun presently.’ It wasn’t very long that I waited. The fun began at Reid’s River, where there was a slope of 1 in 25, down to a bridge which was purposely made low in the centre, so that the train could swoop down upon it and then by its impetus climb up the other side. This sort of arrangement saved viaducts. There is another good rush made at the Buredkin River. Here the bridge is said to be too flat, and the train comes down upon it very like a thunderbolt. It makes passengers quite nervous. When we commenced to lower ourselves gently down the first of these slopes, which I could easily see by craning my neck out of the window, I felt troubled. Very quietly the speed became greater, and I felt my heart palpitating. Then the train seemed to control the engine, and away we went with a lighting-like rush down towards the bridge. At this point I drew in my head, and prayed that the bridge was strong. It was just a rattle and a ‘whish’ and we were climbing the other side. We reached the top, panting and puffing like a broken-winded horse. When the floods are on, the train apparently charges down into the river,—the waters of which may have run above the metals. There was a lot of this, so-called fun, on the road. At the end of it, I felt that my days had been shortened by nervous excitement. The great thing was to know how I was to get back. I have travelled in America over high trestle work, when the engine has crossed with the delicacy of a cat,—feeling every timber as it went along,—not unlike Blondin on a tight rope. In Queensland you felt like a shooting star passing through space. I think I prefer listening to the squeaking of a rickety framework in America to the railway fun in Queensland. At one place we were dragged by two engines, up a series of steep inclines, called the ranges. At the time the line was being made an old lady took a passage down the ranges in a trolly in company with one of the engineers. The trolly got under weigh and took possession of its two passengers, who had to lie down flat and hold on. ‘The trees,’ referring to the bush on either hand, said the old lady when relating her adventures, ‘looked like one tree. Never had such a journey in my life. Why, it didn’t stop until we were four miles past my house. Further off home than when I started. Never catch me on them trollies any more.’
The man who called this kind of travelling ‘fun’ was an insurance agent. After some conversation he found out where I lived, and how many years I had been there. Then he wanted to insure my life. He informed me that he often got ‘cases’ in the train. With him a ‘case’ was the technical term for a man who is induced to pay a certain sum of money to an Insurance Company. Another technicality with a similar meaning was, I found, ‘a subject.’ ‘I live in an unhealthy climate,’ I remarked. ‘Well, you say you have been there ten years, and taking you as a sample I don’t mind insuring the whole of the inhabitants in that part of the world.’
‘Look here, there is the doctor,’ and he pointed to a little old man in the corner. The little old man said, ‘Yes; I’m the doctor, and examine free.’ I felt I was being cornered. It was no good talking about fevers, earthquakes, the difficulties of collecting his fees, all that he wanted was the first fee. As a last refuge I asked for a prospectus, and told him I would consider the matter.
My having volunteered to consider the matter enabled him, by pointing to me as a semi-convert, to introduce the subject of insurance to the remaining passengers in the carriage, all of whom he would insure at cheaper rates than any other company. By-and-bye a priest got into the carriage. Old Insurance immediately wished him good-morning, and after introducing him to each individual in the train as if he had known them and all of us for years, entered into conversation on the advantages of life insurance. In Charters Towers we stayed at the same hotel. He often took a seat next to mine. When he sat down to lunch the conversation usually commenced by, ‘Well, have you considered the matter? You’ll never get such a chance again. Just got six new “subjects” this morning, and expect to get four or five more this afternoon. The doctor has been as busy as a bee; haven’t you, doctor?’ The poor little doctor gave a sickly little smile, and assented. Every day that I met Insurance, I felt that I was breaking down. Had I remained in Charters Towers another week I must either have allowed myself to be insured, or else have died from worry. The doctor has probably succumbed. I never saw a man better cut out to be led round and do as he was bidden. If Old Insurance had said to his companion—‘Now dance, doctor—jump, doctor—say yes, doctor—stand on your head, doctor,’ I believe the poor little man would have done his best to comply with the orders. My pity for the doctor was very great.
It seems to be a common thing in Australia for insurance agents with their doctors to be travelling in search of subjects. I subsequently met one or two other sets of subject-hunters, but I never met with one so determined either to kill or else insure you as my Charters Towers acquaintance. The directors of his company ought to raise his pay. The public ought to get him transported.
At Ravenswood Junction there are some experimental works for extracting gold from its ores by chlorinization. From this point we might have branched off to see some silver mines where ore is being smelted in one of La Monte’s water jacket furnaces. It was nearly one o’clock when we reached our journey’s end. Here the country was open and undulating. There was a little brown grass to be seen, but no trees—at least, near the town. The only thing to break the view were groups of houses, huts, piles of white débris (mullock), and tall poppet-heads. The roads were white and dusty. In places the dust was six inches to a foot in thickness, and so soft that you sank in it like mud. When a cart passed, the cloud it raised rendered it invisible. In the house we found preparations for races in progress. There were many book-makers on the spot, and a lot of jockeys. Sometimes they used bad language and hit each other. Mining first commenced as alluvium work. This was about ten years ago. Now the work is all quartz-crushing. Everybody talks about mining, morning, noon, and night, ‘The Day Dawn is running 14 ounces,’ says one man. ‘Fine body of ore in number two Queens,’ says another. ‘Seen the new heads at the Defiance, Jimmey?’ says a third; and so it goes on until the uninitiated gets sick of mining. When I was returning from Charters Towers I had to get in the train at 6 a.m. As it wasn’t light until about 7 a.m., I could only judge of my fellow-companions by their conversation. In front of me there was a most earnest discussion going on about particular claims. ‘One reef would run four or five to the ton. After they got finished with their new poppet-heads and got down a little deeper, things would be better, etc.,’ etc. When daylight came, I found that all these technicalities were being fired off by two small school-boys, respectively aged about ten and twelve. The children at Charters Towers must be born with a mania for quartz.
The majority of people can only talk about their own speciality, and they quite ignore the feelings of outsiders who are compelled to listen to their conversation. In Newfoundland everybody talks about codfish, excepting for a month or so in spring, when they talk about seals. The worst old talkers I have ever met have been antiquated skippers. Once when crossing the Atlantic, the smoking-room was monopolized by three old shell-backs who discussed reefing topsails, the qualifications of the barques Sarah Jane and Mary Ann, and other nautical matters, so continually, that in less than two days no other passenger could remain with them.
The gold at Charters Towers occurs in quartz veins or reefs. These, instead of running through the slates in which it was once supposed was the only proper place to expect gold, run through a kind of granite. Of late years gold has been found in most unexpected quarters. Since being in the Colonies I have seen it in calcite, and serpentine. The great gold deposit of Mount Morgan is a mountain of siliceous iron-stone, probably deposited by a geyser. At first it was thought that the whole mountain was a solid mass of gold-bearing rock. Now, however, a tunnel seems to have shown that it is only a skin or covering on the outside of the hill where gold occurs. The ground originally belonged to a young squatter named Donald Gordon. Donald suspected it might contain minerals, and asked the opinion of a scientific professor. The Professor said, ‘It is only iron-stone. Donald.’ Finally Donald sold his mountain for £640. The people who bought it estimate its value at £9,000,000. Poor Donald!