NORTH AUSTRALIA.
Residents in foreign lands often think that it is an impertinence if a passing stranger write about them. Those who have been for a long time resident in a country seldom write a description of their experiences. About many things they seem to have learnt how little they really know, whilst to things of every-day occurrence they have become so accustomed, that they do not think them worthy of description. The persons who do write, and who delight to write about a place, are the birds of passage. These persons know very little about their subject. The very fact of only knowing a little about a place adds a charm to an attempt at its description. If you know everything about it you are inclined to write a series of facts, while if you only know a little, there is room for the exercise of the imagination, and the production becomes a combination of truths and untruths.
Reading a book of facts is like reading a dictionary. To make facts palatable they must be diluted as you dilute whisky. Never having been blessed with a capacity for gleaning facts, I have gradually come to dislike them. Now and again facts have been unpleasantly thrust upon my attention. Some facts come out of two bottles. You take an inch of one and dilute it with two inches of the other. In many respects these facts may be compared to the high and low pressure cylinders of a marine engine. Other facts come out of tall, gilt-necked bottles. First they pop, and then they fizzle. When you have imbibed a lot of these facts, at first you feel jolly. Afterwards you feel unwell. The facts I picked up at Port Darwin gave me a headache. When I came to P.D. (it is an Australian custom to abbreviate), I did not know the difference between a kangaroo’s tail and a gum tree. I do not think that I knew very much more when I left.
The first thing that happened when we dropped anchor, was that the anchor made a great splash in the water. This was followed by the rattling of the chain, and a great deal of vibration. We had many Chinamen on board, and as Australians dislike Chinamen, they do what they can to keep them out of their country. At every port, wherever we went, no matter whether the Chinamen were to land or not, they had to pass a medical inspection. At some of the ports the doctors also inspected the Europeans. ‘Let me look at your forehead, now your chest—Um, no spots. That will do.’
The doctors hold their appointments from the Government; the Government holds its appointment from the working man. The working man, the horny-handed son of toil, bosses Australia. It is the ‘navy’ to whom we must look for the stringency of the quarantine regulations of Australia. At the present time it is reported in Australia that there is cholera in China. That a ship has a clean bill of health, although it may have come from a non-infected port, although China is as big as Europe, although the ship has been nearly a month at sea, on arriving at Sydney she must go in quarantine. You come from China, you have Chinamen on board; we don’t want you, and therefore in the face of reason and justice, we will do what we can to throw difficulties in your way. But more of this by-and-bye. I am in a hurry to get past the facts.
The water at Port Darwin is dirty green, and it is full of sharks. When people bathe they do so in a big thing like a bird-cage, and the whales and the sharks have to snuffle about outside. These animals are said to regard this treatment as unusually rough. The town at Port Darwin is called Palmerston, but the two names are pretty well synonymous. The place is located on the level table-land like ground above the low cliffs which fringe the bay. Some of the houses, including the Residency, the Government offices, and a town-hall, are built of stone. Nearly all the other houses are built of corrugated iron. The internal arrangement of these latter buildings, which are lofty and gable ended, is quite ecclesiastical. The streets are wide and at right angles. The houses occur at intervals along the sides of these streets. Some of the streets have lots of grass in them. I heard that it was suggested to run up a tall tower in the town to see the Russian fleet approaching. The Russophobia has run throughout the colonies, and I shall have to refer to it very often. There are about two hundred whites in Palmerston, six or eight hundred yellow Chinamen, and a few aboriginal ‘blacks.’ The ‘whites’ have in addition to the town-hall, several hotels, a public library, a race-course, a cricket ground, two or three tennis-courts, rifle butts, and a dramatic corps. There are some wells in the place, but a lot of water is collected in corrugated iron water-tanks. Many of the residents have an idea that the water is not good, and in order to keep down the comma bacillus and other microscopic organisms, it is advisable to dilute it with liquors imported from Europe. The place is called Port Darwin, because it was evolved out of nothing. The town was called Palmerston because many of the early inhabitants had a habit of carrying a twig in their mouth.
One of the first things we did on landing was to make a pilgrimage to the various hotels. Our object was to see the town, and to read the latest papers. Many of these establishments would be creditable to any town. All of them have mahogany bars, garnished with long white handles to pump up beer. These handles made a great impression upon me—in fact they were indirectly the cause of my suffering from nightmare. That night I had a dream that my head rested on a mahogany counter, and while in this uncomfortable position a young lady, who had got me by the back hair, gave me a series of vigorous pulls. While this was going on, my tormentor smiled and inquired whether I preferred stout or bitter? I should have remonstrated, but my nose was too close to the counter for me to speak. Do what I would, backwards and forwards went my face across the slippery board, and the musical ‘stout or bitter, sir,’ kept ringing in my ears. At length the movement changed, and instead of having my nose burnished, it was being bumped. This I was told was because I had not replied to the fair persecutor, who, as her anger increased at my reticence, appeared to expand like a concertina. As she grew bigger and bigger, I grew less and less. Suddenly there was a fearful crash, and I awoke to find that Peter’s hat-box had fallen from a rack upon my head. My head with the rolling of the ship had been sliding up and down against the side of my berth, and I imagine that the ‘bob-e-te-bob’ of the screw had been the ‘stout or bitter, sir.’ The blue-ribbon faction in Australia are at present trying to introduce a bill for the abolition of barmaids in Australia. After my dream I felt inclined to offer them my support.
While at the hotel, Peter and I were introduced to an aboriginal. He was black in colour, tall in stature, and had a curly hair. They called him Charlie. I was told that he had been caught wild at a place in the bush about one hundred miles back. When he was first caught the landlord said he was a perfect terror. If you only looked at him, he would snap his jaws, and grind his teeth together like a couple of millstones, and when his passion reached a climax, he would swivel his eyes round and round in circles, snort like a bull, and jump up and down vertically. Charlie was now quite tame, and if we would give him a bob he would take us to an encampment. The opportunity was too good to be lost, for we might now obtain some authentic information about the aborigines. Before starting, Charlie asked for the shilling, remarking that it should not be squandered in the pot-house, but be kept in remembrance of this visit. We recommended him to forward it to some jeweller in Melbourne, who would mount the coin as a brooch for his wife. Charlie thanked us for the suggestion, and said that he would consult with his family on the subject, and let us know their decision in the evening. The road to the encampment led by the side of the cricket ground, after which there was a sharp descent to the beach. Not having the agility of the antelope, the latter part of the journey was very trying. As Charlie bounded from crag to crag, I observed that the cartilaginous divisional membrane between his nostrils had been perforated. Peter, whose attention I had called to this unnatural aperture, was quite shocked, and remarked that the attention of the Government ought to be drawn to this custom.
The dwellings of the natives were made of a few bent sticks covered with scraps of old bags, bits of bark, and butter tins. The average height of one of these houses was about three feet. You had to enter on all fours, and, when inside, you could enjoy a capital view of the stars, or of the surrounding scenery, through the cracks and rents in the roof and wall. As there was no room to turn round, you came out backwards. The only inmate of the camp was Charlie’s wife—Mary—the remainder of the tribe were away on a fishing excursion. At the time of our arrival Mary was sitting in a hole she had scraped in the sand, playing with a small fox terrier and six small pups.
As we approached, Mary rose. She was dressed in a black skirt with six flounces, and had on her feet a pair of French boots. Her back, like the backs of all the native beauties in these parts, was done in ridges. These ridges are produced by making cuts with a piece of flint or glass, and then rubbing in a quantity of sand or gritty earth. The custom originated by an endeavour to imitate the corrugated iron buildings of the Europeans. Charlie said that his wife derived considerable comfort from the ridges. A rigid surface freed itself from water better than a smooth one; also, as Mary often slept outside, the ridges raised her from the damp earth. He had heard that this custom had been highly approved of at the Healtheries.