The Land of the Kangaroo / Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent

by Thomas Wallace Knox

First-class hands on these farms receive twenty shillings ($5) per week, and employees of other grades are paid in proportion. One clause in the rules says that any man in charge of horses who abuses them or neglects to care for them properly will be discharged at once, and forfeit all wages that may be due him. Penalties are stated for every sort of offense, all of them being in the shape of fines or loss of situation, or both. Every laborer who begins in a low position is promised an advance in pay and place as a reward of his industry and good conduct.

“There are a good many farms of this sort in South Australia,” said Ned in his journal, “and we are sorry that time prevents our visiting all those that we have been invited to see; but our regret is modified by the recollection that one farm is very largely a repetition of another farm, and so we accept the situation and say nothing more about it. South Australia is a great wheat-growing country, and ships an immense quantity of wheat to England. In good years it produces fully fifteen millions of bushels for export, in addition to the quantity required for home consumption.

“Next in importance to the wheat crop in South Australia is the crop of wool. There are nearly seven millions of sheep in the colony, and between the wool and bread-stuffs, the income to the country is very considerable. We now understand the uses of the immense sheds, and the grain elevators that we saw when we landed at Port Adelaide. Large as they are, the capacities of these places of storage must be taxed to their utmost in busy times.

“They have given considerable attention to the cultivation of the grape. Grapes, apricots, peaches, and other fruits grow in great abundance, so much so that in the fruit season they are retailed in the market of Adelaide at a penny a pound, and all of them are delicious. Quite an industry is being developed in canning fruits for exportation, and it will probably increase gradually as the years go on.”

Our friends were invited to make a journey on the line of the Great Northern Railway, which is ultimately intended to reach the northern coast of Australia. The distance across Australia, from north to south, is about seventeen hundred miles; about four hundred miles of the line are completed, leaving thirteen hundred miles yet to be built. It will cost a great deal of money to finish the railway, but the people are ambitious, and will probably accomplish it in the course of time.

They already have a telegraph line, running for the greater part of the way through a very desolate region. For hundreds of miles there are no white people, except the operators and repairers at the stations, and in many places it is unlikely that there will ever be any inhabitants, as the country is a treeless waste, and, at some of the stations, water has to be brought from a considerable distance. Artesian wells have been bored at many of the stations; at some of them successfully, while at others it was impossible to find water.

The railway official who invited our friends to make the journey, told them that he was connected with the telegraph company at the time of its construction, and he gave an interesting account of some of the difficulties they encountered.

“The desert character of the country,” said the gentleman, “caused us a great deal of inconvenience. We were obliged to haul or carry provisions and material for long distances. Where it was practicable to use wagons we used them, but where we could not do so we employed camels. Camels were introduced into Australia forty or fifty years ago, and they have been a great deal of use to us in parts of the country where water is scarce. The conditions of Northern and Central Australia very much resemble those of the regions of Northern Africa, where the camel had its origin, or, at all events, where it abounds to-day in greatest numbers. Had it not been for the ‘Ship of the Desert,’ it is possible that we might not have been able to build the telegraph line across Australia. The camel is so highly appreciated here that the government has established several breeding stations for those ungainly creatures, and their number is increasing every year.

“You know already about the scarcity of water in the desert region. Springs are few and far between, and rain is of rare occurrence. It was frequently necessary to carry water thirty or forty miles, and on account of the great heat it was impossible to carry it in skins or in wooden cases, owing to the rapid evaporation. Cases or cans of galvanized iron proved to be the best receptacles for water, so far as evaporation was concerned, but they have the disadvantage of becoming cracked and leaky in the rough treatment to which they are subjected.

“Poles for the telegraph had to be hauled a long distance for a large part of the way. Iron poles are generally used, owing to an insect that destroys wood with great rapidity. I wonder if you have yet seen any of the ravages of this little creature?”