After my experience on the barque “Edinburgh” I felt that I was entitled to a spell on shore, and, as my landlady’s daughter had responded to the attentions I showered upon her, I had a most enjoyable time as long as my money lasted, then my restless spirit began to assert itself again and to long for pastures new, and the farthest thought in my head was to settle down. I was debating in my mind whether to start up country or join a vessel going to a port that I had not yet been to, when news reached Newcastle of a rush to the Palmer goldfields. This news put the whole place in a ferment. Hundreds of men in Newcastle alone threw up their employment, and started for the north, whenever there was a chance of getting along the coast. Ships in the harbour were deserted by their crews, even the officers in many instances deserting at the same time. It would have been quite an easy matter to get a berth on a ship, but that I, too, had an attack of gold fever, and determined that I would get to the Palmer and try my luck. But that was easier said than done, for the Palmer goldfields lay somewhere in, as yet, an unexplored country, which it was quite impossible to reach after the commencement of the wet season. Many attempts had been made, all more or less unsuccessful, and all were loud in proclaiming the impossibilities to be met with on the road, such as swollen rivers, marshes, swamps, mountains, blacks, and besides these, provisions had not only to be taken for the journey, but there were none to be obtained on the goldfields, so these had to be carried, or else you would have to starve. Many people went to Sydney, and from thence to Brisbane, and then tramped the rest of the way, many lost their lives in the attempt, some were killed by the blacks, some got drowned in crossing the rushing swollen rivers, many died of hunger and thirst crossing the waterless tracks beneath the terrible fiery sun that shone down so pitilessly from a cloudless sky, for in that arid track there was no shelter, no shadow of a great rock, no trees to give a moment’s respite to the travellers in that weary land.
The nearest port to the Palmer was the newly opened port of Cookstown, at the mouth of the Endeavour River, and the spot is identical with a place mentioned in Captain Cook’s travels, where he ran his ship, the “Endeavour,” ashore to carry out some very necessary repairs to that vessel, hence the names Cookstown and Endeavour River, it was about twelve hundred miles from Newcastle. That there were already thousands of people flocking there from all parts of the world, New Zealand, California, England, India and China, did not deter me in the least, rather the reverse.
There was a great difficulty in getting a berth in a north bound vessel, but several of the shipowners in Newcastle put a vessel on the berth for passengers and stores to Townsville, but would not send their vessels to Cookstown, for the place was not well known, and there was a great risk of losing a ship, and as these vessels were uninsurable, they did not care to take the risk. Townsville was about two hundred and forty miles from Cooktown, and I think about the same distance from the new diggings, the difficulties of the overland route to Townsville were almost insurmountable, unless provided with a good stock of horses, a good bush cart, and at least six months stock of provisions, and as many of the gold seekers did not carry much extra equipment, they all made for Cookstown.
Several vessels had got away full up with passengers, whom the shipowners charged thirty pounds passage money per man, and the same for each horse, the passengers finding their own provender and the ship finding fresh water. Of course, there were hundreds of persons who wished to go, but could not afford that price, I among the number, so I determined to try and get a berth as seaman on one of these vessels, but was unsuccessful.
However, one day, while talking the matter over with several friends, I suggested that a number of us should form ourselves into a company, each paying down so much, and purchase one of the many Ketches sailing up and down between the Hunter and Manning Rivers, and which were to be had for an old song almost, for they would scarcely float. My suggestion was laughed at by most of those present, but one man asked if I would risk my life in one of these ketches all the way to Townsville. I replied that I would willingly work one of them along the coast, but I had only ten pounds to my name. Then the matter dropped for that day.
Three days afterwards one of the coasting captains, named Alec Brown, came to me and asked if I would help him work the “Woolara,” a small schooner of fifty tons, to Cookstown. He offered me twenty pounds for the run, and a share of the profits if I cared to return with him. He was quite candid with me, and said the “Woolara” was not a new vessel, but had been laid up at Waratah on the mud for a couple of years, and would leak like a basket if we got any bad weather, but he thought we might nurse her, and make a good thing out of her if we got to Cookstown all right. I was quite willing, and closed with him at once in consideration of his paying me the twenty pounds in advance to enable me to get a few things I wanted. He agreed to this, and the following day we both went up to Waratah, and got the old craft afloat. We found, as you may think, a few leaky places in her sides, and the captain got three men to caulk her well, and then we gave her three good coats of boiling pitch all over. After a week’s work on her we made her as tight as a bottle, and she looked quite a smart little craft when cleaned up and painted a bit. She had a suit of sails that were like a patchwork quilt, but Captain Brown bought another second-hand suit of sails from one of the schooners that traded to Lake Macquarry for timber. A quantity of stone ballast was laid level in the hold, and, if I remember right, we had fifty casks of water stowed securely on the top of the ballast. After all was shipshape she was advertised to sail for Cookstown, and so great was the craving to get to the goldfields that we had on the first day over fifty applications for passages. The passage money was £35 down, and ship fare only supplied. I think if they had only been offered bread and water we could have filled the vessel with them, to such an extent was the gold fever affecting the place. When the captain found he could get sufficient passengers, the ballast in the hold was boarded over and temporary berths put up. We arranged to take twenty passengers, each man signing articles as seamen at one shilling per month.
We left Newcastle at night, a beautiful cloudless night, singing and making merry, just as though we were on a pleasure trip, for most of the passengers had been seamen at some time or other and were a right down jolly lot of men. They looked after themselves, and also gave us all the help we required. We had a fine passage right up to Brisbane, but here our luck as regards the weather forsook us, for just after passing Brisbane we got into a black north-easter, and for a few hours it was nearly a case with us, so dangerous was our condition, but we managed to crawl into Hervey Bay until the breeze had blown itself out.
After eight hours detention we again started on our journey and reached Port Denison. Here we encountered a terrific gale that very nearly finished our sailing. The little craft was a splendid sea-boat, and that helped us to nurse her through the angry waters. But we had our work cut out. At times the schooner would be standing almost on one end, and the next moment she would be on the other. Then she would be thrown from side to side like a shuttlecock. Soon she began to leak freely, and no wonder, but we had plenty of willing help, although a number of the men had caved in and were lying helpless in the hold, battened down, the only ventilation they could have being that which passed through the cabin, for though many of them had been sailors, they had sailed in larger vessels, and our little craft was being tossed about so violently in the gale that they were laid low with sea-sickness. But there was no complaint from any of them. The thought of the bright yellow gold that lay in the earth on the Palmer, waiting for them to come and gather it, cheered them up, for each man thought in his heart that he was sure to make his fortune.
After a terrible experience we managed to creep in behind Cape Upstart, about one hundred miles from Townsville. Here we lay twenty-four hours to put things a bit shipshape again, and recover from our knocking about. The captain offered to put any of the passengers ashore at Townsville, if they chose, but one and all decided to continue the voyage to Cookstown, and each one cheerfully took his turn at the pump, and so saved the captain and me any anxiety on that account.
It had been no pleasure cruise after we passed Brisbane, and became worse every day. There was not a dry place on board, unless it was our throats. Everybody was constantly drenched with the sea, and no one had a good square meal during the last four days; but there was no discontent, everything was taken in good part, and many a tough yarn was told while they were lashed to the rail to keep themselves from being washed overboard.
After two days sheer battling for our lives, the wind died down, and a steady southerly wind sprang up. This soon brightened our prospects, and added considerably to our comfort. How thankful we were for the peace and quiet after the rough and tumble experience we had just passed through! The sea became as smooth as a mill pond with just a steady south wind blowing, that drove us about five knots an hour through the water. All our effects were brought on deck and dried, and our sails, which had been considerably damaged, were repaired, and on the fourteenth day we arrived at Cookstown. Our passengers were soon landed, and Captain Brown took the little vessel well into the river and moored her there until he decided what he was going to do himself. I landed the following day, and soon found that the Palmer was as far off as ever. The rainy season had set in, and the roads were impassable. Whole districts between Cookstown and the Palmer were under water, the rivers were swollen and in flood, and no stores of any sort could be bought on the road.
To describe Cookstown as I first saw it would be impossible. It resembled nothing so much as an old English country fair, leaving out the monkeys and merry-go-rounds. Tents were stuck up at all points. Miserable huts, zinc sheds, and any blessed thing that would shelter from the sun’s fierce heat and rain, were used as habitations. There were thousands of people living in the tents and sheds, and the place literally swarmed with men of all nationalities. Large plots had been pegged out in the main street, on these were erected either corrugated iron sheds, or large tents, and here all sorts of merchandise was sold, cheap enough to suit all purses, but the wet season was on, and there was no way of getting to Palmer. Parties of men left every day in the rain and slush to try and reach what seemed such a land of promise, but many returned saying that it was no use trying, as the rivers could not be crossed. Hundreds of these men lived out in the scrub with just a couple of blankets thrown over some twigs for shelter, no fire being needed except for cooking. All the scum of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane were gathered together here, thieves, pickpockets, cardsharpers and loafers of every description. This class had not come to dig for gold with pick and shovel from mother earth’s bosom, but to dig it out of honest men’s pockets by robbery and murder, and the robbing of tents in their owners’ absence was becoming a daily occurrence, for gathered there were the good, bad, very bad and indifferent.
One day a party of three men returned after having got as far as the Normanby River. They had been caught between two streams, and could neither get backward or forward. The patch on which they were imprisoned was only a few feet above water, and for some time they were not sure if they would not be swept off and drowned, as the island was only about one mile long and a quarter of a mile wide.
Whilst they were searching for means to get over to Normanby they made a gruesome discovery, one by no means uncommon. There at their feet lying together were five dead bodies. They had been starved to death, and under the head of each man was a small leather bag of gold, averaging in weight about six pounds each. What a terrible irony of fate—shut in between the waters and starved to death, with over five thousand pounds between them! The bodies were all shrunken and black, so burying them where they lay, the party took the gold and divided it. A couple of days afterwards they were able to swim their horses over the stream and return to Cookstown.
There were several instances told about this time of miners who had reached the diggings before the wet season had set in, gathered a stock of gold, then finding their stores giving out, were forced to pack up and retrace their steps for a fresh supply. Many, on that terrible return journey, were struck down by the sun’s intense heat, and after using their last small stock of food, died a miserable lonely death by starvation, their treasures of gold powerless to buy them an ounce of food.
It was quite a common occurrence for miners travelling up from Cooktown with plenty of stores and provisions, but no cash, to arrive on the banks of a swollen river, over which there was no means of crossing, and to see on the other side of the river a party of men on their way down to the coast with bags of gold, but with hungry, empty stomachs. There they were, looking across at each other, one holding up a bag of flour, and the other shaking his gold purse, each powerless to help the other. Such was the lot of many of the diggers at that time, but all the horrors, the suffering and death that took place in that mad rush for gold, will never be known. ’Tis better so, I saw men return from the gold fields, with thousands of pounds worth of gold in their possession, but with frames so emaciated and ruined with what they had gone through on their return journey, that their very existence was a burden to them, their horses, dogs, and even their boots had been eaten to keep them alive. It is a fact that they have boiled their blucher boots for a whole day, and then added any weeds they could find to make a broth of, so tenacious of life were they.
There were hundreds of men idle in Cooktown. They had no means of buying an outfit, even if the road to Palmer had been passable, and many of them had no desire to go any further. These could easily be distinguished from those who really wanted work during the waiting time, so many there were that anyone who wanted a man might easily get him for a whole day’s work for a good square meal. Men would walk about among the tents and whenever they saw food there they would beg. Many were getting a living by their wits and knavery, and it was not safe to be about alone after dark, unless you were well armed and prepared for these light-fingered gentry. And yet the leading articles in the newspapers at that time were painting in glowing terms the bustle and activity going on in the rising city of Cooktown, declaring that any man who could use a hammer or tools of any description could earn a pound a day.
Feeling a bit disheartened at the grim realities that I had witnessed, and after knocking about Cooktown for a week, I called on Captain Brown, and asked him if he was going to take the “Woolara” back to Newcastle.
“No,” he replied, “I have sold her, and made a jolly good thing out of her, too, and I’m going to have a try to get to the Palmer. What are you going to do?”
“Well, I am undecided at present, there are so many returning disheartened, and broken down in health, and they give such bad accounts of the road to be travelled over before you reach the Palmer, that I don’t care about tackling it alone.”
“Well, look here,” said the captain, “I have done very well by this venture so far, and I don’t care about returning without having a try for the diggings, even if I have to return. What do you say to us joining forces, and trying our luck together. I will buy three horses from the next squad that returns, and use one for a pack horse.”
I agreed to his plan, and the following day about a dozen horsemen rode into Cooktown. They had been a month on the road, several times they had narrowly escaped drowning, while trying to cross the Normanby river. They had lost nearly the whole of their provisions, and one of their mates had been seized by an alligator before their eyes, while they were powerless to help him. Then they had been obliged to kill two of their horses for food. They willingly sold us three horses at fifteen pounds each, but strongly advised us not to try the road for at least two months, or to wait for the end of the rainy season. But the thought of the gold beyond made us eager to take our chance. Had we gone back to Newcastle without trying, our friends would have chaffed us unmercifully.
The next day we began our preparations. We bought a tent, two small picks, two small spades and one gun. Captain Brown had a gun and revolver. I had a revolver, and the gun that was bought was for me, and a good supply of ammunition. As we were going where money was of no value and food invaluable, and everything depended on our being able to carry sufficient provisions, we got a good supply of the best. We had cocoa, extract of beef, preserved meat, tea and sugar, two hundred pounds of flour—this was divided, one hundred pounds to the pack horse, and fifty pounds to each of our horses—two large billy cans, a couple of drinking pots, two knives, two basins, a tinder box and burning glass. When we were all packed and ready to start, we looked like a couple of mountebanks off to a village fair.
It was a fine morning when we started, but before we had got ten miles from Cooktown our horses were sinking in the mire. Road there was none, it was just a track or belt of morass, into which one sank at times knee deep, and as night came on it rained in torrents, so we picked out a dry piece of ground, and pitched our tent for the night. We then hobbled the horses with about ten fathoms of line to keep them from straying.
We slept well that night, for we were dead tired, and had we been lying on a feather bed in a good hotel instead of on a piece of ground that might soon be under water, we should have slept no better. As it had ceased raining when we awoke we started on our way again after we had breakfasted, and got along very well until noon. Coming to a place where there was good grass for the horses we decided not to go any farther that day, but to let the horses have the benefit of a good feed.
The following morning we started early, and at noon met a party of diggers returning from the Palmer. They had been fortunate enough to get a fair amount of gold they said, but what a terrible condition they were in, thin and emaciated as skeletons, with barely a rag to cover them. Three of their party had been lost crossing the Laura river, and one had died of sunstroke on the road.
“What is it like further ahead, mates?” asked Brown.
“Well, it is only just passable to the Normanby river from here. I don’t think you will be able to cross it with your packs. We had to swim it, holding on to the horse’s tails, and then we lost some of our little stock of food, it was a narrow squeak for us all, horses and men, but we are here, thank God, safe so far.”
Brown gave them a small tin of beef essence, and a few ship’s biscuits that he had brought with him. The gratitude of the poor hungry fellows was pitiful to see, then they offered us some of their hardly won gold for it, which we promptly refused.
“No, no, mates,” said Brown. “You chaps have earned and suffered enough for that. Keep it, and take care of it, and may you live to enjoy it.”
We camped all together that night, after sitting yarning for some hours, and when we had all eaten a very hearty breakfast we separated, each party going on its way, like ships that pass in the night, never to meet again.
Our track that day was very bad, just slush and mire, the horses at every step sinking up to their knees. We were ready and expected to meet with hardship on the road, but to realize the suffering to man and horse dragging themselves along that quagmire is better felt than described. Every moment we were afraid of them breaking down, and when about two p.m. we got on a stretch of solid ground, we pitched our tent, and gave them a good rest. So far we had not seen a living bird or animal since leaving Cooktown. Had we been depending on our guns supplying our larder with food we should have had to go short, fortunately for us we were not.
The next day it was terribly hot, and, to add to our discomfort, we had several heavy showers, which soon wet us through and through. When these stopped and the sun came out again our clothes steamed on us, just as though we were near a fire; this and the steam arising from the ground made us feel faint and feverish. We were also pestered with a common little house fly that swarmed around us and was a perfect nuisance. At sunset we felt we could go no farther, so pitched our tent on a patch of stony ground close to a creek, where there was good grass, so we hobbled the horses and let them graze.
We turned in early, for we were dead tired, and the mosquitoes were buzzing round in myriads, with their incessant cry of “cousin, cousin,” when about midnight we were roused by a tremendous row near us, a peculiar indescribable noise was coming down from the creek, which we could not account for. We both sprang up and seized our guns, but the night was pitch dark. What it might be we did not know, we did not go out, but remained in our tent on the defensive. Never had either of us heard anything like it; it was as one often hears, “sufficient to raise the dead.” We began to wonder if we were surrounded by a mob of the blacks, who were lurking around us, or was it the spirits of those who had perished on this lone track, and who were trying to make us return to civilization, but whatever it was, it was awful and above all the noise could be heard quite distinctly—a piercing yell of pain, such as no human being or animal we knew could utter. Thinking to frighten the blacks, if it were indeed they, we shouted out to each other in different tones and names, to give them the impression that we were neither alone or unarmed.
When the welcome daylight came we Went in search of the horses. We could only find two, but on the bank of the creek, not far from the tent, was the forepart of our third horse. It was bitten off right under the forelegs, all the rest was gone. There on the ground and in the soft mud were the signs of a struggle, and the marks of some big body having been dragged towards the water. Close to the water were the tracks of a huge alligator, and where it had come out of and entered the creek, a deep furrow had been turned up by its tail. This explained the noise in the night, it was the struggle and death agony of the poor beast, it must have been drinking at the creek and been seized by the alligator. This was a very serious loss to us, and made us feel quite disheartened.
We remained where we were until noon. Then crossed the creek and went on our way—our horses more heavily weighted than before owing to the loss of the packhorse—and at sundown we pitched our tent. Our fire was barely lighted to boil the billy for tea, when three men crawled up to the tent. We were so surprised, that for the moment we stood still looking at them, for they looked like scarecrows with their clothes hanging in rags upon them.
“For God’s sake mates, give us something to eat, we are starving, we have lost everything crossing the Normanby.”
“Aye, aye, lads,” said Brown. “Come up to the fire, and you shall share our meal. Have you come from the Palmer?”
“No, we could not get there. It is six weeks since we left Cooktown, and we are trying to get back. Our provisions gave out, and we could neither go forward or get back, owing to the district being flooded and impassable. Three days ago the strength of the river eased down a bit, and we managed to cross by strapping our bits of clothes, and the little food we had on the horses’ backs, then we got on their backs and forced them into the water, but the current was so great that they were borne down the stream, so we slipped off, and getting hold of the horses’ tails with one hand, we swam with the other. We managed to cross, but it was a desperate undertaking, and we were so done up that we were too weak to tie up the horses. We just lay where we landed and went to sleep. We never saw the horses again, and have not the slightest idea what has become of them. And now mates, we are stranded here, without a bite of food, and unless you can help us here we must die; we can go no farther. What is it to be?”
“Well, strangers,” said Brown, “my mate here and I were bound for the Palmer. We have had a tough job of it so far, and we have had quite enough of it. Hal a good meal, and rest yourselves well, and we’ll all go back together.”
The poor fellows could hardly find words to thank him. They ate a hearty meal, and washed it down with a good pot of tea, and very soon after were in a sound sleep.
Brown and I sat talking far into the night. To tell the truth I was not sorry he had decided to return, for with one thing and another, I had begun to ask myself whether the game was worth the candle, and seemed all at once to have sickened of the roaming about, and felt that the ups and downs of sea life were luxury in comparison to hunting for goldfields.
The following day we divided the stores between the two horses, and prepared to tramp back to Cooktown.