It is a strange thing on a ten-thousand-ton liner to awake at night to a silence unbroken even by the familiar throbbing of the engines, and to feel the great ship rising and falling on the swell like any cockleshell; to go on deck and find her lying at anchor under a panoply of stars, and apparently in mid-ocean, for there is no sign of land. Yet this is a frequent experience of any passenger traversing the barrier reef. Whether liner or dream ship, it makes no difference to the infinite care necessary in navigating these reef-infested seas.
A young navy of pilots performs the miracle—for miracle it is. After long apprenticeship they learn the exact dimensions of every open stretch of water, and if they leave one side at nightfall, they can tell by the vessel's speed, and to a yard, when they have reached the other, when they anchor until dawn. The farther we progressed up the magnificently rugged coast of Queensland, the more varied became the nature of our passenger list. There were sun-baked pastoralists from the cattle and sheep stations "out back" who owned herds and acreages that would cause the largest Western American rancher to open his eyes. One of them at a recent cattle "muster" had tallied up to half a million head, and he had not finished yet. The possibilities of the "Northern Territory," as it is called, are infinite—if it were not for the bugbear of labour troubles that stalks Australia with a heavier tread than any other country of the world.
Then, there were commercial travellers—not the sleek variety that boards a "flyer" and is on its battle-ground in a matter of hours, but lean, hard-bitten men who take a launch or trading cutter and traverse vast stretches of ocean to the farthermost corners of the Gulf of Carpentaria, sleeping, eating, and having their being for weeks together in a stifling, evil-smelling deck house with native "boys" and their own sample cases for sole company.
Wireless operators, engineers, pearlers, teachers of aboriginal schools, Chinamen, Japanese, all were on their way to this mysterious equatorial land of vast, unexplored spaces.
A great deal has been written about Thursday Island, otherwise known as "T.I.", but, without exception, accounts refer to a more picturesque past when this sun-baked tile on the roof of Australia was the busy headquarters of a pearling fleet manned by "whites" and native "boys"; when hefty schooners were employed as floating stations, where shell was opened and treated at sea under the lynx-eyed supervision of a skipper or mate who claimed the hidden treasure it might contain. To-day, the pearling fleet is manned entirely by Japanese, who work on a prosaic fifty-per-cent. basis, and are entitled to every pearl they find.
But of this, later. There were luggers in the bay, likely-looking craft, the most likely I had seen in all my weary pilgrimage. Was it possible that I was on the verge of being able to look Peter in the eye once more—and send a cable to Samoa?
High Holiday on a "T.I." Beach
Not five minutes after landing in the corrugated-iron and goat-infested landscape of Thursday Island I was in the shipyards watching an army of Japanese workmen putting the finishing touches to a pearling lugger. Yes, I was told by the manager of the Pearling Company that had commissioned her, I could have a similar craft built for —— (a sum nearly double the seemingly preposterous figure I had received for the dream ship)—and she could be delivered in about a year! Labour, you know, prices of material—everything! Things were not as they used to be on 'T.I.'. Or yes; there were second-hand craft to be picked up, but it stood to reason they would have passed their day, or they would not be sold.
