At Warwick there were a lot of Toowoomba football boys waiting to go home. They must like football very much to cross the Darling Downs for a game. I would as soon cross the Sahara. From Warwick we again commenced to climb up hills. On either side we had open forests of gum trees. Now and then we saw a wallaby or a kangaroo. Wallabys and kangaroos are like gigantic crickets covered with hair. They have long tails. Their great forte is jumping. From what I saw, I fancy they would win the long jump at any athletic sports. Unless closely pursued by the hunter, they do not care about jumping over wire fences. They get past obstacles like these by lying down and rolling through between the wires. Like donkeys, kangaroos carry their battery in their back legs. When cornered by a pack of hounds, the kangaroo pivots and places his back to the aggressors, and astonishes them with lightning-like jerkings of his battery. Dogs are often disembowelled by kangaroos. Some kangaroos have pouches in which they carry provisions. If one kangaroo picks the pocket of another kangaroo the fight which succeeds is terrific. At Thulimba, where we passed some clay slates and granite, we were at an elevation of 3,004 feet, so said the railway guide. It was cold enough for 10,000 feet. When we reached Stanthorpe, which was the end of the line, it was bright moonlight and freezing hard. Half an hour’s walk took us to Farley’s Hotel. Stanthorpe is a funny little place. It consists of a few low, one-storied houses along the sides of wide roads, I can’t call them streets. They have too much grass on them to be streets. I hardly know why, but I shall remember Stanthorpe, the last town I visited in Queensland, for very many years. Perhaps the difficulty I had in getting there makes me remember Stanthorpe. After a long journey at sea, any rock may be hailed as a paradise. The hotel was like a little old-fashioned English hostelry. There was the white-capped maid-servant, and there was the open hearth with its huge log fire. When I looked at these logs fizzing and crackling and throwing out a generous warmth, I thought well of scrubby gum trees. The best thing, however, was the steaming fragrant half an acre of beefsteak. ‘Will you try a little more beefsteak, sir?’ said Mary; and I tried another perch or so. ‘Will you try a little pie—will you try a little salt—will you try a little bread?’ Everything, it did not matter whether it was flesh, fish, fowl, vegetable or mineral, Mary always inquired if you would try a little of it. In this respect I may remark that Mary was like nearly every waiter I met in the Colonies. They all wanted you to try a little. The usual reply is to say, ‘Yes, please, I will try a small piece more.’ If it is steak, a small piece means the usual slab.
Stanthorpe was at one time one of the principal tin mining centres in this part of the world. There is still a little mining going on. The tin occurs in grains and pebbles distributed through alluvium. The earth is thrown into boxes or sluices through which water is flowing. The light materials are washed away and the heavy tin remains behind. At one place I was shown a band of granitic rock, through which grains of tin were disseminated. It is probable that it was by the decomposition of rock like this, that the alluvium deposits have been formed. On my way out to this we passed the house of a gold miner who had at one time been so elated with his success, that he made horseshoes out of gold, with which he shod his horse. After a five-mile ride, I believe the shoes were carefully removed.
During the night I found it bitterly cold. Next morning everything was white with frost, the ground was steaming in the rising sun, and there was ice half an inch thick in the pails. This was tropical Queensland. The streets were quiet, and with the exception of one man, who was drunk and holding a maudlin conversation with a post, they were deserted. This was the first time that I had heard a man talking to a post, and I was quite interested to know what they had to say to each other. People do sometimes talk to inanimate objects. I once heard of a certain Mr. Smith who, when returning home late at night, had a conversation with a pump. ‘Hillo, Tompkins, old chap! Hie! you’re out late to-night.’ Tompkins was the pump. ‘Why don’t you walk about? Hie! Very ridiculous standing there. You’ll catch cold, and what’ll your wife say?’ Here Smith made a long pause, wondering why his friend was so silent. ‘Can’t you talk? Suppose its beastly pride. I’m not proud. Gimme your hand, and let’s help you home, old chappie.’ And rolling up to the pump he took hold of the handle.
‘Oh! ’ow cold your ’ands is; you gimme the shivers. You’re like an iceberg, Tompkins!’ Just then the pump-handle, under the weight of Smith, slightly moved and squeaked. ‘Hillo, you’re wheasy, old man. Let’s go and get six pennoth ’ot. Your wife’ll blow me up if I bring you home cold.’ Leaning a little more on the pump, the handle suddenly sank, and Smith tumbled forwards just in time to receive a deluge of water from the spout. ‘So you’re sick; are you, you beast? No need to treat a fellow like that. Shan’t stay here any more. May take yourself home, Mr. Tompkins.’ And away Smith rolled, muttering something about ‘beastly behaviour’ and the ‘evil effects of drink.’
My man was not so bad as Smith. He had got his arm round the post of a veranda. At one time he looked like the picture of Samson carrying off the gates of Gaza. At another time he was like a revolving hobby horse. His conversation was too inarticulate to be noted.
I spent a Sunday in Stanthorpe. A gentleman at the hotel took me out for a drive. As we went along he carefully pointed out the devastation left by the Chinese. ‘They come here,’ he said, ‘bring nothing but a blue blouse, eat nothing but what they import themselves, work out the ground that ought to be worked by white men, and then they go carrying away gold, and only leaving those heaps of gravel’ (here he pointed with his whip) ‘where they have been fossicking. They are usurpers of a white man’s country. The white man is starving, and his wife and daughters are thrown on charity, and all this because our Government is wicked enough to let Chinamen come in the country.’
As we came back I saw a small Australian bear lying dead at the foot of a tree. It looked to me like a sloth. It is a feeble, timid creature, but has certain peculiarities which renders it worthy of a passing note. When up a tree which is being felled, it has been known to sob and cry with so much pathos, that the woodman has often ceased his work, and gone beneath the branch on which he hung to seek for falling tears. Many bushmen have sobbed themselves, and no one, I have been told, can fell trees in Southern Queensland without several pocket-handkerchiefs. A tender-hearted man can never earn a livelihood by felling trees. The child-like grief of this little bear has been known to overcome the stoutest hearts. Even the bloodthirsty bushranger has had his heart softened by its weeping, and chronic sorrow is not uncommon in districts where this animal abounds.
From Stanthorpe I travelled by coach to Glen Innis. It was a long journey through the bush. I started at 8 a.m., and got to the end of my journey at 6 a.m. next morning. I thought I was going to die in this journey, so I am not likely to forget it. I had a box-seat all the way, and a box-seat in a gale of wind, with the thermometer below zero and wearing ordinary summer clothes, is not an enviable position. The scenery was certainly lovely. Outside Stanthorpe we crossed the track of a new railway line, which in time will be the connecting link between the lines of Queensland and New South Wales. Near here we crossed the border between these two colonies. After that our road was over hills and valleys through interminable bush. Once or twice we saw a kangaroo, and now and then a wallaby. Some of the old kangaroos, which are known as old men kangaroos, will often sit up and stare at you before they jump away. ‘No papers this morning, Jim?’ said a driver to one of those old men sitting near the road, and the old man jumped away. ‘Dear me,’ said a new chum, sitting next the driver. ‘I didn’t know that kangaroos were so civilized.’ When the driver told this story all the passengers in the coach laughed immoderately, and, not to be conspicuous, I joined them.
At one of the stations where we changed horses, I was very much amused by watching two frisky lambs chasing a flock of geese. The geese were terrified and flapped away from their pursuers. Presently a dog appeared about half a mile away, and the frisky lambs bolted in the opposite direction. At the next station to this there were only young girls living. They groomed the horses, and gave us our dinner. At all of these places we had glorious wood fires and open chimneys, at which we could toast our frozen feet. As we jogged along, the driver tried to instruct me about gum trees, and to illustrate his lessons as we passed along, he grabbed bunches of leaves from overhanging trees, which he gave me sometimes to smell and sometimes to taste. Some of them were not unpleasant to the nose, others were frightful. ‘Some you might live on,’—at least that is what he said.
Notwithstanding all that I was taught, gum trees are to me all alike—a scraggy variety of the vegetable kingdom. Tenterfield, which we reached in the afternoon, is a nice little town with modern buildings, some of which are three stories high. It is situated on an open undulating country laid out in blocks for farming purposes. Many of the gentlemen in the streets wore tall hats—many the ladies wore brilliant and shiny black satin. By this time the box-seat had begun to tell on me, and I was more than wheezy. Notwithstanding something hot and a bag of ‘lollies,’ by the time I reached the next station, which was a solitary house in the bush called Bolivia, I could only whisper. This was at 9 p.m., and it was a question whether I should stay and die at Bolivia, or get in the coach to be hauled along to die at or about Glen Innis. At Glen Innis I might get a decent burial. In the bush there would not be much ceremony. This latter ride, through dark bush, on rough roads, up hill and down dale, with your marrow frozen, is not to be forgotten. The cold I got remained with me for three months. All this is extremely personal, but as it may possibly be the means of preventing some other innocent wanderer from anticipating death, I put it in. When I am next seen coaching in a tropical country, I hope to be wearing a fur coat and a blanket. All that I can say about Glen Innis is that it is a good-looking town with several fairly good hotels, situated about 3,500 feet above sea level.