‘Before lying down to die,’ said the narrator, ‘as a last hope I dragged myself to the top of the rocky peak at the foot of which my companions were lying. The sight I saw was one never to be forgotten. We were saved—saved! and I beckoned to my companions to join me. It wasn’t a ship, gentlemen; it was a turtle.’ He called them ‘tuttles.’ ‘Tuttles are plentiful in those seas, but, like blockheads as we were, we had never thought of looking for them. Up came my companions, and there we lay flat on our stomachs peering over a rock, watching the tuttle as it crawled along the beach. How our eyes followed the animal! It was no good trying rushing straight at him, for the darned beast would have rolled into the water. As for surrounding him, there was no chance unless the tuttle went asleep. It was too flat for manœuvres of that description. To make an attempt, and then to lose him, meant starvation. So we had a discussion, everybody whispering his ideas to his neighbours. If anybody only knew how fast a tuttle could run, we might let him wander far enough back until we could outrace him before he reached the sea. Sam, the cook, said that he had been told that some tuttles had a very good record. In the West Indies they used to race them for bottles of rum. The general opinion, however, was that we had better not try the racing dodge; the tuttle might win. So we all took in another reef of our belts, determined to hold on for half an hour more. By this time, gentlemen, starvation had made us as elegant about the waists as Italian greyhounds. When thus speculating as to the best course to be pursued, Ah Sing, who was cabin-boy aboard, looks up and says, “That tuttle makee new pigen.” We all looked, and we saw that the black-looking rock which had been progressing slowly across the white sand had come to a halt. Presently we saw it going in circles, for all the world like a dog going to sit down. Then it snuffed the sand, and began to scratch with its black legs, throwing up a shower of dirt in all directions. At times the showers of dirt were so thick that the motive power was invisible. “Tuttle’s gone mad,” said one. “By and by he makee hole all same as rabbit,” said Ah Sing. Sam suggested that he was going to lay eggs. Sam, I forgot to say, was an Irishman, and Sam was right. For a moment we forgot our hunger, and just watched. When he had made a hole about as big as a good-sized fish-pond, the turtle squatted down, gave a duck of his head, and laid an egg. Presently he gave another duck, and laid a second egg. Then a third, a fourth, and so on, until in about twenty-five minutes she had laid seventy-two great white eggs. This finished, she came out of the hole, or what was left of it (for it was nearly full of eggs), scratched some sand over her production, and, exhausted, fell on her back and dozed. We caught the turtle, and also got the seventy-two eggs. It was this as saved our lives.’ After this he told us how they reached the mainland, where they had a narrow escape of falling into the hands of cannibals. Finally they were rescued by a whaler. The story was filled with the most circumstantial detail, and the telling of it took fully an hour. When it was ended, the old gentleman, who looked like a colonel who had seen service in the Indian Mutiny, remarked that he would go on deck and have a smoke. ‘Well,’ said the skipper, when he had gone, ‘I was first mate of the “Mary Ann” from ’62 to ’64, and we never seed no coral reefs. Folks at Port Darwin cultivates their imagination, I suppose, I’d recommend ’im to be a poet.’

After three days’ steaming and three nights’ lying at anchor—for our skipper was a cautious old man, and preferred camping at sundown to waking up hard and fast on a coral reef—we reached Cooktown. We dropped our kedge about six miles off the shore, and there we waited lollopping about on a swell until we had been boarded by the local doctor, who came to see if we had imported any disease. All that we could see was Mount Cook, named after the famous captain, and the beach on to which he had run his ship, the Endeavour, after jumping her over several coral ranges when approaching the Australian coast. Mount Cook is about 1,000 feet high. The beach is flat, and on the edge of the water. After hearing about the famous navigator, we began to think that after all there might be some historical associations connected with Australia. Possibly behind Mount Cook there might be the relics of a baronial hall, a drawbridge, a Roman aqueduct, a moat, or even an ancient suit of armour.

The medical inspection, so far as I could see, consisted in a lot of frowsy men—who seemed, from their general unkempt appearance, to require more inspection than anyone on board our boat—going into the captain’s cabin. I suppose they went to look at the ship’s papers. Anyhow, when they came out they were wiping their mouths. I subsequently learnt that these people whom I have called ‘frowsy’ were really very good fellows; and if we met them on shore shortly afterwards, we might be wiping our own mouths. I regret not having met them. After this, one by one we descended by a ladder of ropes into a boat I’ll call a cutter. I don’t know much about ships, and it may have been a brig. One thing I remember was that it had a thing called a centre-board. Peter said that this was a substitute for the keel, which had been left ashore by accident. No sooner was this centre-board lowered and the sail hoisted, than the boat turned over on her side, and off she set. I thought she was going to upset. Never shall I forget that journey. Before us were waves ranged in tiers like the Sierras of North America. Now and then a larger range, not unlike the Rocky Mountains, would rise. All of these ranges were in motion, and, like regiments of cavalry, came bearing down upon us. Whenever a particularly big range of mountains approached, the man at the helm smiled. We simply looked from the bottom of the valley, up the watery slope at the fleecy heights looking down into our boat, with horror. Then there was a rise, a crash, a deluge of water, and we sank, wet through, down into the next valley. I never crossed so many ranges of mountains in two hours before. All the time we were holding on like a parcel of cats weathering a gale on a church spire. ‘It’s all right,’ said the man at the helm; ‘we’ll beat the Fanny yet.’ The Fanny was another small brig. ‘Just haul that jib-sheet in a bit, Jim, and I’ll keep her to it. Sorry I didn’t bring some oilskins, gentlemen. A walk ashore, and you’ll be dry in ten minutes.’ Then came another drencher. To continually look at a series of colossal waves coming along tier after tier, every one threatening to overwhelm you, was perfectly appalling. It’s all very well for sailors to imitate the penguin, but landsmen don’t like it. Just before we landed, the ruffian at the tiller said, ‘Fares, please, gentlemen—six shillings.’ Six shillings for having jeopardized your life and shortened your existence by nervous excitement! There was no arguing the point. I always felt helpless when the watchmaker, after looking through a magnifier at your watch, said, ‘Wants cleaning; afraid the mainspring is broken; the chain is off the barrel; two pivot-holes want renewing,’ etc., etc. I have also felt helpless when the doctor, after feeling your pulse, and choking you with a spoon whilst examining your tongue, remarks that ‘Your liver’s a little out of order; am afraid there is a little tuberculosis and spasmodic irritation of the diaphragm. Dear me! cerebro-spinal meningitis. I’ll send you up some medicine to-morrow. Next week you had better go to the south of France. In the meanwhile be careful and only take gruel and a little beef-tea.’

I was, however, never so helpless as I was with the charms of Cooktown.

What a mess we were in when we did land! I looked at the Major, the Major looked at Peter, and Peter looked at Dodd. Then we mopped ourselves with our pocket-handkerchiefs. Peter suggested borrowing a clothes-line and paying a housemaid to hang us out to dry for an hour. When I looked at the ladies we met in Cooktown during the afternoon, I almost wept at the thought of the miserable wet blotting-papery figure they must have cut when they first came ashore. Since that event, however, their feathers had been dried, and some of them looked quite stylish.

The principal part of Cooktown consists of one long straight street, about a mile in length, lined with a lot of wooden houses and shanties of all sizes and shapes. Usually they are one story high. Here you find confectioners, bootmakers, stationers, general stores, photographers, a whole lot of public-houses, or, as Australians prefer to call them, hotels, and six or seven chapels and schools. The greater number of the latter were a short distance out of the main street, upon some rising ground to the left. The juxtaposition of these two civilizers is very marked in this part of the world. We visited one of the hotels, and endeavoured to get some information about the place from one of the barmaids, who told us she came from London. The Major was very desirous of obtaining information about the aboriginals. He had heard of a curious contrivance called a boomerang. They used it to catch fish, and he was anxious to obtain one.

On the wall we read a notice that a certain John Smith, being in the habit of making himself objectionable to his neighbours by taking too much stimulant, it was hereby officially notified that it was forbidden to supply the said John Smith with any more liquor.

(Signed)A. B. }Magistrates.
C. D.

A similar notice was to be seen, we were told, in every hotel. John Smith had moved to the next town.

While here, a funeral passed. Nearly all the people were on horseback, and, as an indication of respect to the deceased, wore a white band on their hats. Some had it on their arm.