Colonial memories

Few people can realise how rapid is the growth of a colony when once it begins to grow. Like a young tree, after reaching a certain stage, it may seem to have almost attained its limit, and one often feels disappointed that more visible progress has not been made. But come again a little later, and you will find your sapling shooting rapidly up into a splendid tree. It was really growing, as it were, under ground; searching with its roots for the most favourable conditions. Perhaps there was a piece of rock to be got round before the good soil could be reached, but the little tree was covering that rock all the time with a network of roots so that it ceased to be an obstacle and was gathered up and assimilated with its growth. In the decade between 1880 and 1890 Western Australia was just in that stage, and the splendid young giant of to-day must have been growing underground then, though it did not seem to be making much progress as a colony. In those days we sadly called ourselves “Cinderella,” but the Fairy Prince—Responsible Government—was not far off, and I am proud to remember that my dear husband, then Governor of the colony, was one of those who helped to open the door and let Prince Charming in.

They tell me the colony is quite different now, and that Perth is unrecognisable. I try to be glad to hear it, and keep repeating to myself that the revenue of a month now is what we thought good for a year, fifteen years ago. But no one can be more than happy, and I question very much if the rich people there to-day are any happier or even better off, in the true sense of the words, than we were. Of course, enormous progress has been made, and many of the works and wants which we only dreamed of and longed for, have suddenly become accomplished facts. Our Cinderella’s shoes have turned out to be made of gold, but they pinch her now and then, and have to be eased here and there. Still they are, no doubt, true fairy shoes, and will grow conveniently with the growth of her feet.

In our day—which began in May 1883—the colony was as quiet and primitive as possible, but none the less delightful and essentially homelike. I must confess that one of its greatest attractions in my eyes was what more youthful and enterprising spirits used to call the dulness of Perth. But it never was really dull. To me there always appeared to be what I see American newspapers describe as “happenings” going on.

For instance, one morning I was called into the Governor’s office to look at a tin collar just sent up from the port of Freemantle for the Governor’s inspection. It appeared that the two little children of a respectable tradesman in Freemantle had that morning been playing on a lonely part of the beach, and had observed a large strange bird, half floating, half borne in by the incoming tide. It was a very flat bit of shore just there, and the sea was as smooth as glass, so the boy—bold and brave, as colonial boys are—fearing to lose the curious creature, waded in a little way, and, seizing it by the tip of the outstretched wing, dragged it safely to land. There, after a few convulsive movements and struggles, the poor bird died, and the little ones wisely set off at once to fetch their father to look at what they thought was an enormous seagull. When Mr. —— arrived at the spot, he at once saw that the bird was an albatross, and furthermore that a large fish was sticking in its throat. A closer inspection revealed that a sort of tin collar round the neck, large enough to allow of its feeding under ordinary circumstances, but not wide enough to let so big a fish pass down its gullet, had strangled it. The collar had evidently formed part of a preserved meat tin of rather a large size, with the top and bottom knocked out, and around it were these words, punched quite distinctly in the tin, probably by the point of a nail:—

“Treize naufragés sont refugiés sur les Iles Crozets, ce”—then followed a date of about twelve days before. “Au secours, pour l’amour de Dieu!”

In those days everything used to be referred to the Governor, so Mr. —— at once went to the police station, got an Inspector to come and look at the bird, hear the children’s story, take the collar off—a work of some difficulty, in fact the head had to be cut off—and bring it up by next train to Perth.

It was an intensely interesting story, and aroused all our sympathy. A telegram was at once sent off to the Admiral commanding on the Australian station, telling the tale, and asking for help to be sent to the Crozets; but the swiftly returned answer stated, with great regret, that it was impossible to do this, and that the Cape Squadron was the one to communicate with. Now unfortunately this was impossible in those days, so another message was despatched directly to the Minister for Marine Affairs in Paris, and next day we heard that the Department had discovered—through an apparently admirable system of ship registry—that a small vessel had sailed from Bordeaux some months before and that the way to her destined port would certainly take her past the Iles Crozets. No news of her arrival at that port had ever been received, so a message was even then on its way to the nearest French naval station ordering immediate relief to be sent to the Crozets. This reply, most courteously worded, added that there were caches of food on these islands, which statement was borne out by the fresh look of the tin collar. A curious confirmation of the story was elicited by the volunteered statement of the captain of a newly-arrived sailing wool-ship, who said that in a certain latitude, which turned out to be within quite measurable distance of the Crozets, an albatross had suddenly appeared in the wake of the ship, feeding greedily on the scraps and refuse thrown overboard, and the crew observed with surprise that the bird followed them right into the open roadstead which then represented Freemantle harbour. The date coincided exactly with the figures on the tin. The bird must have found the collar inconvenient for fishing, and had joined the ship to feed on these softer scraps, until, with the conclusion of the little vessel’s voyage, the supplies also ceased.

Stories should always end well, but alas! this one does not. We heard nothing more for several weeks, and then came an official document, full of gratitude for the prompt action taken, but stating that when the French gunboat reached the Crozets it was found quite deserted. A similar tin, with the same sort of punched letters on it, had been left behind saying that the contents of the cache had all been used, and that, supplies being exhausted, the naufragés were going to attempt to construct some sort of a raft on which to try to reach another of the islets where a fresh supply of food might possibly be found hidden. This message had briefly added that the poor shipwrecked sailors were literally starving.

The most diligent and careful search failed, however, to discover the slightest trace of the unfortunate men or their raft. Probably they were already so weak and exhausted when they started that they could not navigate their cumbrous craft in the broken water and currents between the Islands. We felt very sad at this tragic end to the wonderful message brought by the albatross, and only wished we had possessed any sort of steamer which could have been despatched that same day to the Iles Crozets.

Another morning—and such a beautiful morning too!—F. looked in at the drawing-room window, and asked if I would like to come with him to the Central Telegraph Office—a very little way off—and hear the first messages over a line stretching many hundreds of miles away to the far North-west of the colony. Of course, I was only too delighted, especially as I had “assisted” at the driving in of the very first pole of that same telegraph line two or three years before at Geraldton, some three hundred miles up the coast.

I was much amazed at the wonderful familiarity of the operator with his machine. How he seemed hardly to pause in what he was himself saying, to remark, “They are very pleased to hear your Excellency is here, and wish me to say,” and then would come a message glibly disentangled from a rapid succession of incoherent little clicks and taps. Presently came a longer and more consecutive series of pecks and clicks, to which the operator condescended to listen carefully, and even to jot down a pencilled word now and then. This turned out to be a communication from the sergeant of police in charge of the little group of white men up in that distant spot, where no European foot had ever trodden before, to the effect that he had lately come across a native tribe who had an Englishwoman with them. The sergeant went on to say that this woman had been wrecked twenty years before, somewhere on that North-west coast, and that she and her baby-boy—the only survivors of the disaster—had ever since lived with this tribe. She could still speak English, and had told the sergeant that these natives had always treated her with the utmost kindness, and had in fact regarded her as a supernatural and sacred guest. Her son was, of course, a grown-up man by this time, and had quite thrown in his lot with the tribe. She declared she had enjoyed excellent health all those years, and had never suffered from anything worse than tender feet. She hastened to add that whenever her feet became sore from travelling barefoot, the tribe halted until they had healed.

Naturally, we were deeply thrilled by this unexpected romance clicked out in such a commonplace way, and the Governor at once authorised the sergeant—all by telegraph—to tell the poor exile that, if she chose, she and her son should be brought down to Perth at once, cared for, and sent to any place she wished, free of all expense.

Of course we had to wait a few moments whilst the sergeant explained this message, though he had wisely taken the precaution of getting the tribe to “come in” to the little station as soon as he knew the line would be open. I spent the interval in making plans for the poor soul’s reception and comfort, promising myself to do all I could to make up to her for those years of wandering about with savages. But my schemes vanished into thin air as soon as the clicks began again, for the woman steadily refused to leave the friendly tribe—who, I may mention, were listening, the sergeant said, with the most breathless anxiety for her decision. She declared that nothing would induce her son to come away, and that she had not the least desire to do so either. The Governor tried hard, in his own kind and eloquent words, to persuade her to accept his offer, or, failing that, to say what she would like done for her own comfort, and to reward the tribe who had been so hospitable and good to her. She would accept nothing for herself, but hesitatingly asked for more blankets and a little extra flour and “baccy” for the tribe. This was promised willingly, and some tea was to be added.

My contribution to the conversation was to demand a personal description of the woman from the sergeant, but I cannot say that I gathered much idea of her appearance from his halting and somewhat laboured word-portrait. Apparently she was not beautiful; no wonder, poor soul!—tanned as to skin, and bleached as to hair, by exposure to weather. Only her blue eyes and differing features showed her English origin. She had kept no count of time, nothing but the boy’s growth told that many years must have passed.

“They look upon her as a sort of Queen,” the sergeant declared, “and don’t want her to leave them.” It was very tantalising, and I felt quite injured and hurt at the collapse of all my plans for restoring such an involuntary prodigal daughter to her relatives.

I fear I became rather troublesome after this episode, and got into a way of continually demanding if there were nothing else interesting going on up in that distant region; but, except the sad and too frequent report of interrupted communication, which was nearly always found to mean a burned-down telegraph pole, there was nothing more heard of the tribe or its guest whilst we remained in the colony. But these burned telegraph poles held a tragedy of their own; for they were always caused by a fire lighted at their base as the very last resource of a starved and dying traveller to attract attention. I fear I was just as grieved when, as sometimes happened, it turned out to be a convict, who was making a desperate and fruitless effort to escape, as when it was an explorer who perished. The routine followed was that, as soon as the line became interrupted, two workmen with tools and two native police officers would set out from the hut, one of each going along the line in opposite directions until the “fault” was found. As the huts or stations were at least a hundred and fifty miles apart, and the dry burning desert heat made travelling slow work, this was often an affair of days, and I was assured that the relieving party never yet found the unhappy traveller alive. All this is now quite a thing of the dark and distant ages, for a railway probably now runs over those very same sand plains, and no doubt Pullman cars will be a luxury of the near future.

I wonder, however, if the natives of those North-west districts still contrive, from time to time, to possess themselves of the insulators, which they fashion with their flint tools into admirable spear-heads. Also if they have at all grasped the meaning of those same telegraph poles. In the days I speak of, they considered the white man “too much fool-um,” as the kangaroos could easily get under this high fence, which was supposed to have been put up to keep them from trespassing!

It must have been towards the end of 1889 that men began to hope the statement of an eminent geologist, made years before, was going to prove true, and that “the root of the great gold-bearing tree would be found in Western Australia.” Reports of gold, more or less wild, came in from distant quarters, and although it was most desirable to help and encourage explorers, there was great danger of anything like a “rush” towards those arid and waterless districts from which the best and most reliable news came.

One of the many “gold” stories which reached us just then amused me much at the time, though doubtless it has settled into being regarded as a very old joke by now. Still it is none the less true.

A man came in to a very outlying and distant station with a small nugget, which he said he had picked up, thinking it was a stone, to throw at a crow, and finding it unusually heavy, examined it, and lo! it was pure gold. Naturally there was great excitement at this news, and the official in charge of the district rushed to the telegraph office and wired to the head of his department, some five hundred miles away in Perth: “Man here picked up stone to throw at crow.” He thought this would tell the whole story, but apparently it did not, for the answer returned was: “And what became of the crow?”

Diggers used to go up the coast, as far as they could, in the small mail steamers, and then strike across the desert, often on foot, pushing their tools and food before them in a wheelbarrow. Naturally, they could neither travel far nor fast in this fashion, and there was always the water difficulty to be dealt with. Still a man will do and bear a great deal when golden nuggets dangle before his eyes, and some sturdy bushmen actually did manage to reach the outskirts of the great gold region. The worst of it was that under these circumstances no one could remain long, even if he struck gold; for there was no food to be had except what they took with them. As is generally the case in everything, one did not hear much of the failures; but every now and then a lucky man with a few ounces of gold in his possession found his way back to Perth. Nearly all who returned brought fragments of quartz to be assayed, and every day the hope grew which has since been so abundantly justified.

It happened now and then that a little party of diggers who had been helped to make a start would ask to see me before they set out, not wanting anything except to say good-bye, and to receive my good wishes for their success. Poor fellows! I often asked about them, but could seldom trace their career after a short while. Once I received, months after one of those farewell visits, a little packet of tiny gold nuggets, about an ounce in all, wrapped in very dirty newspaper, with a few words to say they were the first my poor friends had found. I could not even make out how the package had reached me, and although I tried to get a letter of thanks returned to the sender, I very much doubt if he ever received it.

However, one day a message came out to me from the Governor’s office to say H. E. had been hearing a very interesting story, and would I like to hear it too? Nothing would please me better, and in a few minutes the teller of the story was standing in my morning room, with a large and heavy lump, looking like a dirty stone, held out for my inspection. I wish I could give the whole story in his own simple and picturesque words, but alas! I cannot remember them all accurately. Too many waves and storms of sorrow have gone over my head since those bright and happy days, and time and tears have dimmed many details. However, I distinctly remember having been much struck by the grave simplicity of my visitor’s manner, and I also noticed that, although it was one of our scorching summer days, with a hot wind blowing, he was arrayed in a brand-new suit of thick cloth, which he could well have worn at the North Pole! He seemed quite awed by his good fortune, and continually said how undeserved it was. But I suppose this must have been his modesty, for he certainly appeared to have gone through his fair share of hardships. He had been one of what the diggers called “the barrow men,” and had held on almost too long after his scanty supplies had run short.

The little party to which he belonged had been singularly unfortunate; for, although they found here and there a promise of gold, nothing payable had been struck. At last the end came. This man had reached the very last of his resources without finding a speck of gold, and although men in such extremity are always kind and helpful to each other, he could not expect any one to share such fast dwindling stores with him. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to turn back on the morrow, whilst a mouthful of food was still left, and to retrace his steps, as best he might, to the nearest port. He dwelt, with a good deal of rough pathos, on the despair of that last day’s fruitless work which left him too weak and exhausted to carry his heavy tools back to the spot they called “camp.” So he just flung them down, and as he said “staggered” over the two or three miles of scrub-covered desert, guided by the smoke of the camp-fire. Next morning early, after a great deal of sleep and very little food, he braced himself up to go back and fetch his tools, though he carefully explained that he would not have taken the trouble to do this if he had not felt that his pick and barrow were about his only possessions, and might fetch the price of a meal or two when it came to the last.

I have often wondered since if the impression of the Divine mercy and goodness, which was so strong in that man’s mind just then, has ever worn off. He dwelt with self-accusing horror on how he had railed at his luck, at Fate, at everything, as he stumbled back that hot morning over his tracks of the day before. The way seemed twice as long, for, as he said, “his heart was too heavy to carry.” At last he saw his barrow and pick standing up on the flat plain a little way off, and was wearily dragging on towards them, when he caught his toe against a stone deeply imbedded in the sand, and fell down. His voice sank to a sort of awestruck whisper, as if he were almost at Confession, as he said, “Well, ma’am, if you’d believe me, I cursed awful, I felt as if it was too hard altogether to bear. To think that I should go and nearly break my toe against the only stone in the district, and with all those miles to travel back. So I lay there like Job’s friend and cursed God and wanted to die. After a bit I felt like a passionate child who kicks and breaks the thing which has hurt him, and I had to beat that stone before I could be at all quiet. But it was too firm in the sand for my hands to get it up, so in my rage I set off quite briskly for the pick to break up that stone, if it took all my strength. It was pretty deep-set in the ground, I assure you, ma’am; but at last I got it up, and here it is—solid gold and nearly as big as a baby’s head. Now, ma’am, I ask you, did I deserve this?”

He almost banged the rather dirty-looking lump down on the table before me as he spoke, and it certainly was a wonderful sight, and a still more wonderful weight. He told me he had searched about the neighbourhood of that nugget all day, but there was not the faintest trace of any more gold. So, as he had no time to lose on account of the shortness of the food and water-supply, he just started back to the coast, which he reached quite safely, and came straight down to Perth in the first steamer. The principal bank had advanced him £800 on his nugget, but it would probably prove to be worth twice as much. I asked him what he was going to do, and was rather sorry to hear that he intended to go back to England at once, and set up a shop or a farm—I forget which—among his own people. Of course, it was not for me to dissuade him, but I felt it was a pity to lose such a good sort of man out of the colony, for he was not spending his money in champagne and card-playing, as all the very few successful gold-finders did in those first early days. I believe the purchase of that one suit of winter clothing in which to come and see the Governor had been his only extravagance.

That was the delightful part of those patriarchal times—only fifteen or twenty years ago, remember—that all the joys and sorrows used to find their way to Government House. I always tried to divide the work, telling our dear colonial friends that when they were prosperous and happy they were the Governor’s business, but when they were sick or sorrowful or in trouble they belonged to my department; and thus we both found plenty to do, and were able to get very much inside, as it were, the lives of those among whom our lot was cast for more than seven busy, happy years.