a weapon, and we were unarmed. But, as it full out, they were quite friendly. One of them could even speak a few words of English. "Goo' day, boss," he said very amiably; "gib it bacca." After so sensational an opening, one now recognises a touch of bathos in this dénoûement. But, at the time, this did not occur to us. Far otherwise. We thankfully distributed among our visitors such ship's biscuit and "bacca as we could spare; and these offerings were cepted by them with, it is possible, some feeling of gratitude. There was, however, no more outward demonstration of it than is made by monkeys at the Zoo for similar benefactions. There was just the same simian wary-eyed acceptance, and the same long, hairy, outstretched arms. No risks were to be taken. The sun came up out of the sea, and the little herd of Blackfellows disappeared into the bush, spears in hand, for the day's hunting. It fills with strange feelings the civilised heir of all the Western ages when first he sees grossly naked shock-headed Man sliding, untrammelled, between the trees of his native forest. A snapshot of ancient Memory is suddenly exposed on the sensitised plate of the mind; and one sees oneself in a flash, as dark, slim, and swift, with heavybrowed eyes, full of malice and watchfulness, prowling for food by day, nesting anywhere in the woods by night among the torn-down branches of trees. ... By this time the "billy " had been induced to boil, and breakfast took place amid the ruins of last night's camp, now hated, but once the admiration of its constructors. When you are ashore in Australia you do as Australia does, and make tea in an ordinary can, a plain tin cylinder, such as encoffins bully beef, but furnished with a practicable lid and a wire handle. This is is named a "billy." 66 When you are on board a British man-of-war, the same simple vessel is called a fanny." The superstition exists that tea made in a "billy" (or "fanny," which you will) is the best to be hada superstition having its basis probably in the fact that you can actually see that the water is boiling before the addition of the tea leaves. What the origin of the name "billy " may be, I know not; but "fanny has a gruesome etymology. Years ago, in the 1870's, at just about the time when tinned mutton first came into the Navy, to alternate once a week with the then beloved (but horrible) "salt horse" and salt pork of our even more salted sea-ancestors, it happened that a certain Frances Adams was murdered. Her remains were cut up and distributed variously by her murderer; and the legend ran that a portion had been found in Deptford Victualling Yard. When, as soon happened, this legend became "a fact," pre served mutton was, throughout the Service, known as "Fanny Adams"; and though the appetising origin of the term is now largely forgotten, the tins which were alleged to have sepulchred the poor lady's remains still universally commemorate her Christian name. It is now extended to any similarly shaped can, quite innocent of the Victualling Yard, such as is supplied with the mess-gear of every lower-deck mess. On Point Look-out we built a splendid cairn of the large stones which lay in profusion all around. It is a pleasant headland, 300 feet high above the sea, grassy and clean, with patches of sand, as Captain Cook remarked, of an exquisite fineness." 66 Cairn-building is not an easy task for sailor hands to do, but it is quite interesting. A mere heap of stones will not suffice. It must be scientifically constructed, circular, with dry walling exterior, firmly bonded; and the whole structure must have a slight "batter," sloping inwards, like the foot of a lighthouse. Finally, the work is crowned with a tall flagstaff, carrying a large calico flag, brilliant in red and white, and the cairn itself is whitewashed. Later on one regards from seaward a satisfactory mark with the happy pride of the successful artist. "Look at my cairn on Lookout," you proclaim," twinkling away like a little star." Few things are so agreeable as watching other people at work. Through a glass I could make out the far-flung groups of my brother-builders about the field of survey, and mark their progress, as the flicker of white came from each new stopping place, like lamplighters along a street. The view was fine, and the breeze cooling in the restful shade of our own noble construction, where we sat with our backs supported by its handsome curve. We drew several breaths, and they were long ones, before before descending to the boat, and the hot shoreline, to continue our labours there. The pale-blue floor of the coral-enclosed sea was spread in a semi-circle before us, sprinkled with reefs and islands, like the pattern on a carpet. Below us, three or four miles away, were two large ugly patches, brown surfaced, creamedged with surf. Beyond lay another reef, a narrow crescent, along the crest of which ran a gleaming strip of coral sand, terminating in a tiny islet, on which stood a solitary tree. This was Eagle Island, so named by Cook in 1770 in consequence of finding upon it an enormous nest containing young seaeagles. When we landed there later on it was interesting to find still an enormous eagle's nest, still occupied, evidently the home of a county family. Beyond Eagle Island in our outlook came the pièce de resistance of the whole table of our survey: our base of history here, though actually operations, and our home from it took place a few months home-Lizard Island,-flanked later than that just recounted. and backed by a patterning of reefs and islets innumerable, reaching beyond it to the Barrier itself. Lizard Island is a ridge of granite three miles long and over a thousand feet high. It was seventeen miles away, so it was with the eye of faith only that I could see our agile skipper sweating his way up to the summit on a cairn-building expedition; but the vision was sufficiently vivid to inspire thankfulness on that baking day that this expedition was his share of the proceedings, and not mine. The often boisterous southeast trade wind had finished for the year, and had died away; the weather was fine, and the ship and her boats were consequently making the best of the smooth interval for sounding. Then came to the Skipper the Engineer officer, to say that a sudden important need had arisen in the engineroom for certain small stores which had been sent for, and were, we knew, waiting for the ship at Cooktown. Cooktown was fifty miles from our base at Lizard Island; and to have taken the ship there to get the stores would have meant the loss of two precious days from our work, to say nothing of the waste of coal for the double journey. If the fact that a certain best girl lived at Cooktown lay at the root of the "urgency" of our susceptible man of machines, as we others in the ward-room secretly suspected, he was (to put it vulgarly) "sold a pup." The Skipper decided not to move the ship, but instead to send the steam-cutter on the It errand, these important stores being, unfortunately for the best girl, no more than an easy boat-load; and I was sent in charge of the boat, and to navigate her through the reefs. We were to sleep the night at Cooktown, and return on the following day. Food, coal, and water were piled into her, Along the mainland, to the southward from our point of observation, ten miles of sandy shore separated us from Cape Flattery: a great buttress 900 feet high, with rough ridges and crags reaching down on three sides of it into the warm sea, white and busy at its feet; and on the fourth side, landward, sinking into a soft smother of low and shifting sandhills, with gleams of blue lagoon waters between them. Beyond these, and nearly in the same line, was Cape Bedford, another buttress not unlike Cape Flattery, and of the same height. was beyond the limits of our survey; but the wide sandy bay on its southern side, where the coast takes a sweep inwards to the mouth of the Endeavour River, was the scene of my second adventure with Australian natives. The account of it may therefore fall into and we started in the cool maining ten or twelve miles to calm of a lovely morning, Cooktown. The unpleasant hoping to arrive at Cooktown by about sunset; for the little steam-cutters of those days could not be counted on to keep up more than a 5-knot speed. "All went well," as the newspapers compendiously describe the dull interval that precedes a really juicy disaster, until, in the early afternoon, we found ourselves off Cape Bedford, afore-mentioned, after a journey of thirty-five miles. Then, with malignant suddenness, there sprung up a fresh breeze, dead in our teeth, soon followed by a choppy head sea. It was quite the wrong time of year for a southerly wind of this or of any nature; but, in defiance of this fact ele mentary in every sense-wind and sea steadily grew worse and worse. By five o'clock in the evening we were still off Cape Bedford, still nosing into it heavily, and our speed had dropped to something less than one knot. There was by now scarcely any coal left for the furnace, and the tank of fresh water for the boiler was nearly exhausted too. All hope of reaching Cooktown that night vanished. Sunset was rushing upon us; and all that remained to be done was to anchor the boat off the coast for the night, and to land the next morning, cut wood for the furnace, fill the water-breakers with fresh water for the boiler, and, thus replenished, to steam the re part of it was that there was no sheltered water within our reach that was shoal enough for anchorage. On the contrary, the only place to which we could fetch with the few pounds of steam-pressure still remaining in the boiler was off the open sandy beach southward of Cape Bedford, where we should have to anchor off a dead lee shore, completely exposed to both wind and sea. Nothing, in fact, could have been much worse. White curling waves were breaking far out from the shore over the shallows in curved lines of foam; and when the steam at last failed, we anchored as far outside them as possible, paying out every inch of our small chain cable, so as to lessen the possibility of dragging the anchor. Fortunately it held fairly well in the sandy bottom; but it was far from being a good holding ground. We all spent a night of complete wakefulness, caused not only by the discomfort of the cramped boat, but, much more, by grave anxiety. With the first glint of morning came the need and the resolve for immediate action. The southerly wind, though lessened in force, still continued; and it was evident that through the night the boat had been dragging her anchor slowly, but decidedly, into the shallows, in which, if she should bump on the bottom, and get broadside-on, she would certainly become a total loss. It was necessary to swim for about 200 yards through the surf in order to reach the beach-a broad and gentle slope of white sand. Behind it there was a thin wood of gum-trees, which would, I hoped, provide us with fuel, and behind the wood again we could see a lagoon, presumably of fresh water; but investigation was necessary. Leaving the coxswain to look after the boat, I stripped and jumped in-not, in my own mind, exactly regardless of sharks, yet not (I hope) exhibiting trepidation, for I knew that some of the crew would have to follow me presently to cut wood and fetch water. There was no real danger of sharks in shallow breaking water; but any idea of it had to be suppressed ere it arose. When I was about half-way to the shore, with head down, swimming among the cresting waves, I heard sudden shouts from the boat, borne on the wind above the roaring of the surf. I reached down an exploring foot, and finding ground, stood and faced seaward to see what was the matter, in cold expectation of I knew not what-possibly a capsized boat. But the boat was there, riding to her anchor, much as I had left her; only all hands were standing up shouting and pointing to the beach. "Look out, sir!" (I heard undisguised alarm in the voices.) "Look out; look ashore!" I turned, and then indeed I felt a sudden qualm; for there I beheld a strong gang of naked Blackfellows, twenty or thirty of them, rushing down the belt of sand towards me, spears and waddies (which are extremely unpleasant, handy, little clubs) in their hands. There was no retreat : it was a matter of being speared in the water in any attempt of mine to buffet back through the waves to the boat, or of being clubbed on the beach when I landed. Awful stories had been told us at Cooktown since our first encounter with Queensland aborigines of their malignance, of their treachery, and every one of these yarns came flying into my mind to reinforce my consternation. I determined (I know not why) that a death on the beach would be, on the whole, preferable to a watery one, and, without further hesitation, but with a thumping heart, waded ashore. What was my amazement, not to say my relief, when I reached the land to find my hand grasped and shaken vigorously by each wildlooking savage in turn. Incredible as it seemed, they were friends, and not foes after all. Next, and almost as incredible, there appeared a white man, completely clothed -redundantly clothed, as it appeared to me, who at that moment was as untrousered as the dark remainder of the assemblage. The situation was then explained. This was a Government Settlement of Aborigines, |
