The journeying by land or sea to Hobart had been comparatively plain sailing. From Hobart to the west coast of Tasmania inaugurated a striking change. The tiny steamer, Seagull, to which they committed themselves for a thirty hours’ trip, was dirty, and evil smelling. The shallow bar at Macquarie Harbour forbade a larger boat. Crowded also, her accommodation was necessarily restricted. The twelve male passengers had one cabin allotted to them. The women shared another, where berths like those at a shearer’s hut were arranged at the sides. On a coast, by no means well lighted, where no shelter from the fierce gales is found nearer than the South Pole, the passage, performed at night, is invariably a rough one. All honour is due to the hardy seamen commanding the small coast fleet. They lose no time on the trip—overladen with freight, more also to follow—full passenger lists for a month in advance. That there are not more accidents seems a miracle to the passenger, as they thread their course in and out, among the numberless islands and frequent reefs, with marvellous accuracy. Tregonwell, who was half a sailor, by reason of his manifold voyages, was loud in admiration.
“The skipper must chance it, now and then,” he remarked, “but he doesn’t show it, and certainly will not confide in the ordinary passenger.” They bumped on the bar at Macquarie Harbour, and also had a narrow escape at “Hell’s Gates,” formed by the rocky point which runs abruptly northward. They touched bottom in the double whirlpool formed by the island in the very jaws of the current, where the heavy seas breaking over the tiny Seagull would not have taken long to turn her into matchwood. Here the skipper showed himself resourceful in such trifling matters. Rough though the water, and dark the night, a man would dash along a spar, laying out a sail to keep her head straight, or bring her round, if broadside on and steering way was lost. Then “full speed astern” perhaps, when not being jammed in too tightly, she glided back into smooth water, ready for another attempt. In an hour, however, the tide rose until the requisite depth of water, in the harbour bar, enabled them after the grim, ghostly night, to glide up the smooth surface of Macquarie Harbour.
It was early morning. They looked out on a sea of mist, walled in by basaltic cliffs, wherein Mounts Heemskirk and Zeehan kept watch over that dreary, wreck-lined coast.
Declining breakfast on board, Messrs. Blount and Tregonwell made for the chief “hotel” of the Macquarie Harbour township, where on a clean white beach, a friendly host, with comely daughters, made them welcome to an excellent meal.
What a change from the days when a few fishermen or prospectors constituted the entire population!
Strahan was now crowded with eager, anxious men, all of whom had money to spend. Vessels were arriving all day long—sailing craft, as well as steamers, loaded with supplies of all kinds, for the “silver field” of Zeehan, so named after one of the vessels of Abel Tasman.
It was a scene of hopeless confusion, as far as the freighting was concerned. Mining machinery, groceries, drapery, blankets, axes, picks and shovels were all dumped upon the sand, with scant ceremony and no regularity.
Day after day they had been passing historic landmarks, were actually on the scene of Marcus Clarke’s great novel, His Natural Life. They could afford to wait: “Hell’s Gates” lay behind them.
In the distance rose “The Isle of the Dead,” to which they promised themselves a visit some day, with a ramble among the ruined prison-houses, where so many tortured souls had languished.
One pictured the wretched officers in charge. How dull and aimless their lives! Small wonder if they grew savage, and vented the humours, bred of ennui and isolation, upon the wretched convicts.