Early in August I started by the P. and O. mail boat for Ceylon, with mutual regrets on Burton's part and on my own that our pleasant holiday was ended. I never met Burton again.
At King George's Sound, Northern Australia, was a small coaling station, possessing only a score or so of houses or stores, and one hotel so-called. On arrival we went on shore and were immediately greeted by a number of the most wretched specimens of humanity I had yet seen. They were diminutive in stature, perfectly naked with the exception of a dirty rag of blanket twisted about the shoulders and waist, out of the folds of which issued a wreath of smoke from the fire stick without which the Australian aboriginal rarely leaves his or her wigwam. Their hair was plastered down on the head with thick ochre paint, and they were disgustingly filthy and altogether unpleasant to look at. They invariably asked for "sixpence," which amount seemed to represent the sum of their earthly happiness, and with most of them was the only word of English they could speak.
The men all carried boomerangs, a flat curved stick which they threw for our edification, and sixpences, very scientifically, and contrived to dispose of a good many to the passengers. We saw with them also some skins of that rare and handsome bird the emu, now I believe becoming very scarce.
A most remarkable thing about King George's Sound is the utter waste and wildness of the country, not a sign of life or cultivation. The few natives who inhabit this wild region subsist principally on roots and such wild fruits as are obtainable, or on birds which they can kill with their boomerangs. They are very little, if at all, superior to the lower animals, and I believe there is no institution of marriage or acknowledgment of domestic relations among them.
One thing, however, there was as a set off against all the rest—namely, the extraordinary wealth of flowers which grew thickly amongst the thousand varieties of rare ferns all over the land. What would be held as the most delicate hothouse plants in England here formed a brilliant carpet in their wild luxuriance. We literally walked knee deep in exotics.
We carried large bundles of them on board, when we left that night after a stay of only twelve hours.
Point de Galle was reached on the twelfth day, and here the mail steamer from Calcutta by which I was to proceed to Bombay had already arrived. A few of us went on shore with small caps on our heads and some with cabbage tree hats, but we speedily discovered they would not do. The heat on shore was intense, a muggy, stifling heat, which to us Australians was killing. We were guided to the Bazaar, and introduced to several hotels by some five score natives, whose numbers increased as we proceeded, and were augmented by numerous sellers of sun toppee, pugarees, etc. We were speedily provided each with a tropical headpiece with a long tail of white muslin therefrom which hung down the back.
After a substantial "tiffin" in a large shady room, under the swaying punkah (the first I had seen), it was proposed by some of our sable friends that we should visit the tea gardens, one of the lions of Galle, and I, forgetting all about the boat, was on the point of joining the movement, having taken a seat in the conveyance for the purpose, when my good angel, by some means I have now forgotten, informed me that the steamer for Bombay would start in ten minutes.
I jumped from the carriage and ran full speed with a crowd of attendant blacks in full cry at my heels, shot into the first boat I came to and reached the steamer as the screw commenced to turn.
In four days we arrived at Bombay, where, in due course, I entered State Service, and where I remained for thirty-five years, but my life and experiences there may possibly form the subject of another story.