“I will go first,” said Tregonwell, “and report from the other side,” and he prepared to climb the huge and slippery trunk.
The outward appearance of Mr. Blount had undergone a striking and material change, from the days of Bunjil, and even of the “Lady Julia” alluvial claim. A blue serge shirt, considerably torn, even tattered from encounters with brambles, had replaced the Norfolk jacket and tweed suit. His gaiters were mud-covered to the knees. His boots, extra-strong and double-soled, were soaked and wrenched out of shape. To add to his “reversal of form,” he carried on his back a heavy “swag,” in which under a pair of coarse blue blankets, all his worldly goods immediately indispensable were packed.
“This is something like ‘colonial experience,’” said he. With a slight twist of the shoulders, and a groan expressive of uneasiness, he shifted the weight of the burden. “I never carried a swag before, though now I come to think of it, our knapsacks of the old days on walking tours were much the same thing, though more aristocratically named. This confounded thing seems to get heavier every mile. There is a touch of John Bunyan about it also.”
The partners found Trial Bay in a worse muddle than Strahan. Tents had been pitched everywhere; men were working hard to get their own and other peoples’ loading away.
The small inn was in the usual independent state that obtains when there is too much custom. “They could sleep there, if they had luck,” said the landlord airily, but “he didn’t know as there was any beds vacant.” Accommodation for the travelling public was a secondary matter, in his estimation. The bar paying enormous profits, was filled to overflowing the whole day through—the night also. Here Tregonwell’s colonial and other experience stood him in good stead—an all-round “shout” or two, combined with an air of good fellowship, and judicious douceurs to the maid-servants, resulted finally in permission to sleep in No. 5—which haven of rest, after a South African sort of meal, largely supported by “bully beef,” the tired partners bestowed themselves. After forcibly ejecting several volunteer bedfellows, they slept more or less soundly until daylight.
Certainly no fitter habitat could have been chosen for the desperate irreclaimable convicts, who alone were exiled there. The dense, gloomy, barren forests provided sustenance neither for man nor beast.
No birds—no animals—with one exception, the so-called “badger” (or wombat) which was snared, and eaten by the convicts. The endless rain, priceless in other lands, was valueless here, save to change the mood of the outcast from depression to despair.
The Gordon River pine is the most valuable of the enormous growth of timber in proximity to its banks; a beautiful, soft, red wood, not unlike the cedar of Australia. It can be split into excellent palings and will, fortunately, burn well, either in a wet or dry state. The dense undergrowth, closely intertwined with climbers, renders it impossible even for a man to get through, unless with an axe to clear his way before him. And the locally named “horizontal scrub” is a study in forestry.
It is possible to progress for a quarter of a mile at a stretch, without being nearer the ground than eighteen or twenty feet. This curious shrub, growing as it does at a considerable angle less than forty-five degrees, with its intertwined branches made the jungle all but impenetrable. A stage of fifteen miles was no child’s play therefore, and meant a hard day’s work for strong men, if unused to walking. Even slow walking on the Corduroy, demoralised by the heavy traffic, was exasperating. Many logs were missing altogether. This meant extra danger for the pack-horses and mules. These horses were wonderfully sure-footed and sagacious. Though carrying two hundred pounds (dead weight too) they were fully as clever at this novel species of wayfaring as the mules. The pack tracks were cleared just wide enough for the animals to travel in single file—and with the exception of a few places they could not get off them, as the forest timber, with dead wood and undergrowth, was impossible for any horse to get through, until a track was cut.
No deviations were possible; in a climate where the rainfall was ninety inches per annum, one could imagine into what a condition these tracks would get.