‘My wife opened the door for me. “Maria,” says I, “I’ve brought a boomerang just to amuse you and the children.” “Oh, you darling!” and she threw her arms round my neck. What she thought a boomerang was I don’t know; but while she was dangling on my neck, the parcel slipped from beneath my arm and dropped on the floor.
‘As to the exact sequence of events which followed this unfortunate accident, I have but a hazy recollection. For a moment or two the parcel bobbed up and down on the floor, until the top of the boomerang stuck through the paper, when off it went with a whizz, gyrating, waltzing, twisting, and turning in all directions, round and round the room. Maria was stretched flat; I got two bangs on the head, but managed to crawl beneath the sofa; the cat was killed, the chandelier was smashed, every ornament was cleared from the shelves. Then it paused, balancing itself on one of its tops on the corner of the sideboard. All of a sudden an idea seemed to strike it, and off it set upstairs. For the next ten minutes I had the pleasure of listening to my Christmas present smashing and banging round every room from the first floor up to the attics. The servant-maids and the children had luckily escaped to the cellar. Suddenly the noise stopped, and Maria, who had found me beneath the sofa, suggested that the Christmas present was taking breath. “This ain’t particular paradise, Maria,” said I. “Oh, Tom, let us run into the street and call assistance.” Just as we had got from beneath the sofa, we heard a hop-hop-hop on the top story. The boomerang was evidently coming downstairs. “Shut the door!” said Maria; and I did, but only just in time. When I looked through the keyhole I could see Boomey with a bit of string and a streamer or two of brown paper round its neck, sitting on the bottom stair. At that moment there was a fearful knocking at the front door, and the boomerang raised itself on end and hopped off along the passage, as if it expected more sport. Maria ran to the window, and said, “Good gracious, Tom, there’s two policemen!” “Throw them my latch-key,” said I, “and tell them to come in.” I was too busy watching my friend in the passage to do any interviewing myself. By the time Maria had got the window opened a crowd had collected, who, when they saw Maria’s black eyes and tangled hair, guffawed and made some remarks about the old gal getting clawed by her husband. “Excuse me, marm,” said the bobby, touching his hat, “but we’re come to arrest a gentleman a-living in this house for having travelled in the streets with a boomerang.” “Yes, policeman, this is the house he went into; I had him watched,” said an old lady in the crowd. I recognised the voice as that of my neighbour in the coach who had called me a wicked young man. “But,” says Maria, in a state of terror at the thought of legal troubles. “But be hanged!” I whispered to Maria. “Just tell them it’s all right—the gentleman’s inside—and throw them the key. Boomey’ll get ’em!” Just then I could see Boomey dancing up and down, and waltzing about in the passage, as if he had understood the conversation.
‘To see Boomey when the bobby opened that door was particularly fine. He commenced with a gentle kind of tattoo, bouncing round from head to head like the banjo of a Plymouth brother. He evidently just wanted to get the crowd started, so that he could have some fun a-chasing of ’em. When they did start, the stampede was immense. “Go it, granny!” shouted an urchin from an upstairs window to the old woman who was my accuser; “Boomey’s a-following!” The basketful of rags that lay in front of the door before the crowd got clear would have run a paper-mill for a month. For a week or two the house was in a state of siege. No one dare venture outside the door without first looking up and down the street. At last we got into the way of travelling by going from house to house. By pre-arranged signals an open door would be ready for us. If all was clear, we’d make a rush. If Boomey was following, we’d just snap the door to, and wait until he’d gone. One or two tried shot-guns on him, but it wasn’t a bit of good—it only seemed to make him more vicious.
‘After clearing the town of cats and dogs, Boomey suddenly disappeared. When I was last in Clarenceville I heard that he was raging round a sheep station up in New England, and the contingent had gone up to try their hand on him.
‘After my experiences, sir, you needn’t tell me that boomerangs won’t return; the difficulty is to keep ’em away.’
P.S.—The information for the middle piece of this last story I cribbed from a fellow-passenger. I suspect that he cribbed it from a book. When I and the fellow-passenger meet the original author, we sincerely hope that he will be prepared to reward us for the trouble we have taken in making his remarkable story public.
DARLING DOWNS AND NEW ENGLAND.
The Darling Downs were the last I saw of Queensland. From Brisbane you go to them by train. One of the waiters at the hotel told me that I had better take my luggage to the station on the evening before starting. If I took them before 8 p.m. I paid a shilling for a cab. If I took them between the hours of 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. I should pay ten shillings. I shall have more to say about Australian cabs and carts by-and-bye. Independently of the cost of a conveyance, I was glad to take my bag and boomerang to the station in daylight. The latter might have been dangerous in the dark. The train left at 5.50 a.m. It was quite dark, and I did not see much of the country or fellow-passengers until about 7 a.m., when we reached a pretty big town called Ipswich. Here we had a scramble for a very bad breakfast, after which we got into the train almost as cold as when we came out of it. At Ipswich I saw several factories. Up to this point the country was undulating. Farther on I saw a number of post and rail fences, a few small houses, and a great lot of gum trees forming open woods. After a climb up a range of yellow sandstone hills, we entered a park-like country. Here and there were a lot of palms with heads on them like tufts of grass. These were grass trees I suppose. Now and then there was a creek, consisting of a series of pools of stagnant water. These I put down as an example of the so-called water-holes we read so much about in books on Australia. Near the water there were some trees which looked like pines. These I learnt were river oaks. Some big trees were called honeysuckles. There are a lot of things in Australia which are not what they look like. Sometimes we rushed past a ploughed clearing. It may have been planted with wheat. In a few hours more we were again amongst hills, and as we wound in and out, gradually climbing upwards, I had glimpses of many pretty scenes. At mid-day we reached Toowoomba—the capital of the Darling Downs. I don’t know whether I have spelt Toowoomba right, but it is a very good example of the Hoos and Woos and Moos and Boos they are so fond of in Australia. The letter O is a great favourite. In Sydney I saw a word, in fact, I saw it every day, with eight O’s in it. It was usually on an omnibus. At first I couldn’t read it for astonishment. The next time I saw it I got as far as Woo, but as I ran my eye along the length of the wonderful word, it got confused. It is easy to lose your way in a good long word, especially if it is stuck on a bus and the bus is moving. Once I chased a bus along a street, but I never got past Wooloo. After that my sight was dazed, and I was in a jumble. On returning to a hotel in the evening, I described my troubles to the waiter, who wrote the mysterious word for me, and after ticking slowly off the letters I found it was Wooloomooloo. I was told that Woo-loo-moo-loo was the war cry of the aborigines, who resisted the landing of the early settlers. Wooloomooloo, it may be observed, rhymes with Timbuctoo.
The latter part of the climb up to Toowomba (I spell the name differently in different places because I hope that I may get it right sometimes), which is situated on the very edge of the downs, was steep enough to require two engines. If our engine had not been so leaky, it might possibly have done the work alone. I never before saw an engine that could afford to lose so much steam through its cylinder covers outside a workshop. I am glad I went up to Toowomba, if it was only to see this engine. The view looking back down the incline, over the heads of the trees which filled the valley up which we had come, was beautiful and extensive. Gum trees, in quantity, do very well for general effect; when you get close to them, then you see too many spaces. A forest of gum trees would look all right if viewed from above, say from a balloon about ten miles high. Turning round and looking ahead the scene was altered. Before us were the undulating open Darling Downs, brown, flat, and anything but inviting. In spring time, when they are green, they may perhaps be prairie-like, and beautiful to the eye of the farmer, but as I saw them with their miles of wire fencing, they were not so interesting as the desert of Arabia. I was always going to places at the wrong season. They are of basaltic formation, which probably overlies the sandstone which I had seen below. Perhaps the basalt welled up through great fissures; perhaps it came from some of the small conical hills which I saw farther along the line. All the water from the basalt contains magnesia. New-comers don’t like it. It produces peculiar effects. Now and then I saw flocks of sheep. They did not seem to be eating. If they liked dry stubble, clay, or bits of basalt, they might do very well. They were usually standing still, with their noses all pointing one way. Why sheep should keep parallel, and cows point about in all azimuths, I couldn’t make out. I thought I should never get across the downs. Late in the afternoon the basalt was replaced by sandstone, and we reached the thriving township of Warwick. Here I saw a race-course. Every town in Australia has a race-course, I fancy. Some of them have two or three racecourses. Racing is an Australian mania. Australians like cricket, football, rowing, and athletic sports generally.