TASMANIA

I WRITE this in one of the “farthest south” towns of the globe. Hobart is twenty-five hundred miles below the Equator, with nothing but ocean between it and the frozen lands of the Antarctic. It is now the end of April, late in the fall in this topsy-turvy land, but the grass is as green as in old Ireland in June, and, although Mount Wellington, back of the city, has a coat of snow, the sheep are everywhere feeding out-of-doors, and it is as warm as Ohio in May.

As I look around me I cannot realize that this is Tasmania, the country I studied about years ago as Van Diemen’s Land. I had read of the cruel treatment of the criminals sent out to it from England. I knew it was an island somewhere between the South Pole and Australia. I had an idea that it was bleak, bare, and inhospitable, the jumping-off place of creation, and it seemed that to visit it would hardly be worth the time and expense.

I have changed my opinion. Tasmania is the Switzerland of the southern Pacific, and one of the most healthful and beautiful lands of the globe. It is a heart-shaped island, with its top less than two hundred miles from Australia and its point toward the Pole. At the southernmost tip the Pacific and the Indian oceans meet. Tasmania is all mountains, valleys, and glens; with waterfalls and lakes, forests of fern trees, trout brooks, and hunting parks. Its coast is deeply indented with fiords and harbours, and the tourist bureaus have made it a great health resort. The whole country is spotted with boarding houses and hotels, and during the summer months, from December until May, it is swarming with visitors. One can go almost anywhere by motor, coach, horseback, or rail, and always have good company. There are also many tourists on foot.

Although more than twice the size of Belgium, Tasmania has only about two hundred thousand people, compared with Belgium’s seven millions. Hobart, the capital and largest city on the island, has about fifty-two thousand. It lies on a fine harbour in a nest of hills on the banks of the Derwent. Back of the river rises a mountain, the rocks of which look like the pipes of an organ. The town is well laid out in checkerboard fashion; it runs up hill and down and here and there takes a jump out into the country.

I went from one end of the city to the other one day on a street car. The people of Hobart pride themselves on having the first electric railroad line in their latitude. The cars are not like any we have in the United States. They were made in England and look as though they had been pounded out by a crossroads blacksmith. They are enormous double-deckers, and their sides are plastered with advertisements. I rode on the roof right under a great steel bow, which, pressing against the overhead wire, takes the place of our trolley. I timed the trip and found we made speed only when going down hill. Most of the time our motion was a succession of spasmodic jerks, as though the electricity were afflicted with fits.

Near Hobart was Port Arthur, the chief penal colony of the old Van Diemen’s Land. Its site can be reached by a short sail down the Derwent River. Some of the convict buildings are still standing, and one can get a guide there who will describe the terrible punishments that drove many of the prisoners to suicide. They were flogged, tortured with dripping water, and loaded with heavy chains. They were kept in dark cells, were made to pull railway cars, and were subjected to all sorts of inhuman treatment. Many of the best families in Tasmania today are descendants of these convicts. Some of them will acknowledge their ancestry, but if one asks them the crime for which their forebears were transported each will invariably reply that it was for stealing a loaf of bread. It would have taken a good-sized bakehouse running steadily to supply the many loaves said to have been stolen by these early Tasmanians. Transportation of criminals ceased in 1853, and all the arrivals since then are people who have come of their own accord. To-day the number of crimes is no greater than in other parts of the Empire. Indeed, the Tasmania of to-day is rather pious than otherwise. The majority of the people are either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants from England, Ireland, Scotland, or Australia.

The Hobart museum is a Mecca to students of ethnology, for here is preserved the body of the last of the aborigines. When the island was a penal colony there were still a number of the original blacks, but they were so corrupted by escaped convicts that they became a menace to the whites. In 1830 a drive of three thousand Europeans was organized against them and all who survived were finally exiled to a dreary, windswept island in Bass Strait. Here their health suffered because they were forced to wear clothes, which they never took off, no matter how filthy they became. The poor creatures were also the easy prey of the sealers and escaped criminals that came now and then to their place of exile, and at the end of fifteen years only forty-four survived. A woman, Truganini, the last of the race, died at the age of seventy-three, in 1876. Her skeleton is in the museum and the scientists come here to study the skull. The native Tasmanians belonged to an even more backward race and stage of civilization than the aborigines of Australia.

The island state deserves its name of the “Apple Island.” It is a voyage of more than a month by sea from Hobart to London, but apples are sent to England every year by the shipload in refrigerator steamers. The annual crop now amounts to more than two million bushels and brings in close to two and a half million dollars. It would surprise our orchardists to see how close the Tasmanians plant apple trees. They set them out ten feet apart, instead of twenty or forty feet, as with us, and I am told that as many as six hundred bushels are sometimes gathered from a single acre. The trees begin to bear in their third or fourth year and keep on bearing for twenty-five or thirty years.

Tasmania ships much green fruit to Australia. It raises quantities of pears, plums, cherries, and currants, and in recent years has been exporting several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of jam, not only to the United Kingdom, but to South Africa, France, and even to the United States. By the law of the Commonwealth every jar of jam or marmalade exported must bear a label stating that it was made in Australia. Tasmania, which had built up a reputation for her preserves before the federation of the states, does not like this law, for it seems to give all the credit to Australia. The jam makers get around it by printing their labels with the word “Tasmania” in large letters and “Australia” in smaller letters.

These people are excellent farmers and their crops are usually good. The wheatfields cover only about twenty-two thousand acres, but the average production is more than eighteen bushels per acre, which is far ahead of the yield in the other Australian states. Large quantities of barley and oats are grown.

This island ranks with Vermont as a place for breeding fine sheep. It has many sheep worth upward of a thousand dollars apiece. They are sold to the mainland states and the countries of South America, pedigreed rams often bringing as much as five thousand dollars each. The land holdings are smaller than in Australia or New Zealand, so that the Tasmanian sheep breeders can therefore take better care of their stock. This is a great turnip country, and in this part of the world a good turnip country is a good sheep country. There are fields about Hobart that have produced as much as sixteen tons of turnips to the acre, and in northeastern Tasmania twenty-five tons have been grown on an acre.

Until 1872 the minerals of Tasmania were practically unknown, but in that year on Mount Bischoff, in the northwestern part of the island, tin mines were opened which have proved to be the largest tin mines of the world. They paid their first dividend in 1878, and are still yielding large profits.

Another big mineral property is that at Mount Lyell, which was discovered in 1881. It was first worked as a gold mine, but was afterward found to contain copper and silver. When these ores were smelted the results were so gratifying that the original company was reorganized with a capital of about four and a half million dollars, a railroad was built from the mines to the smelting works, and within a short time the company had five smelters treating eleven thousand tons of ore a month. This company paid its first dividend in 1897 and by the middle of the year following it had distributed more than a million dollars to its stockholders. It now pays out many thousands a year in salaries and wages and is making money right along from its copper.

I have made some inquiries about lands, both mineral and agricultural, and I find that all the best land has been taken up and that farms and city property bring almost as much as in the United States. For years one trouble with Tasmania was the fact that its lands were held in big blocks by rich men who would not sell. But now, under the closer settlement laws, the Minister of Lands may acquire, either compulsorily or by agreement, private land in any part of the island to be leased to settlers. The land taken over by the government is divided into farm allotments, the value of which may not exceed twenty thousand dollars. These are rented on ninety-nine-year leases. Unfortunately, the government is not yet rich enough to buy up many of the large estates.

One of the troubles about taking up government lands is the dense growth of timber which must be cut down before they can be used. The climate here is moist and the undergrowth is thicker than in most parts of our country. Much of the timber is eucalyptus, but there are also beeches, dogwoods, oaks, and other hard woods. There are millions of acres of virgin forests, some of which are now being cut to furnish railway ties to other Australian states and to South Africa.

The cost of living is as high in Tasmania as in the other Australian states, but wages are lower. The best paid labourers are the skilled iron and electrical workers, and they get a maximum of only thirty dollars a week. As to clerks and bookkeepers, they are poorly paid, and there are few clerical positions open. Domestic servants are in demand and their wages are fair.

The Australians of the mainland seem to consider the people of Tasmania as slow as the New Yorkers do the Philadelphians. They have a saying: “Don’t send a live man to Tasmania; send flowers.” I have heard it said that the island used to be peopled by women, children, and graybeards; for as soon as the boys reached man’s estate they crossed Bass Strait to Victoria or New South Wales. This, however, is no longer true; Tasmania is waking up, and its people think it has a big future as a manufacturing centre for all Australia. Its numerous lakes and rivers can furnish abundant water power at low cost and the development of its hydro-electric resources is going forward rapidly. All kinds of electrical appliances, which are regarded more or less as luxuries even in the large cities of the mainland, are conveniences of every-day life in many small towns of Tasmania.

The state government has already built a hydro-electric power station at Great Lake, about sixty miles north of Hobart. This delivers thirty thousand horse power to the Electrolytic Zinc Corporation, whose works are the largest of the kind in existence. It also supplies a big carbide-manufacturing plant as well as power for Hobart’s street cars and lighting system. Woollen mills, a big chocolate factory, and other industrial plants will get their power from this station. So will Launceston as soon as the transmission line from the lake to the northern city is completed. Launceston has its own power plant but this does not give sufficient current for its needs. Ultimately the capacity of the Great Lake power house will be raised to seventy-two thousand horse power. Other projects are planned, for Tasmania’s hydro-electric resources are estimated at more than two hundred thousand horse power. There is even talk of transmitting some of the power from the island by cable to the mainland.

CHAPTER XXII

THE PEARL FISHERIES OF THURSDAY ISLAND

THE metropolis of the pearl-fishing industry of the Pacific Ocean is Thursday Island. It lies in Torres Strait off the north coast of Queensland and is part of that state. I visited it on my way to Java and the East Indies, but its story rightly belongs with that of Australia, and so I tell it here.

If you will turn to the map you will see that Torres Strait, which separates Australia from New Guinea, is spotted with islands. There are hundreds of them, some inhabited by strange tribes and others sparsely settled by Australians. There are islands for every day of the week, and when we came into the harbour of Thursday Island we were told we must go on to Friday Island for quarantine.

Thursday Island is scarcely more than a tiny speck in Torres Strait, but owing to its excellent harbour it is a port of call for ships on their way through the passage. All the steamers that go about north Australia to Europe stop here. There are also steamers for Japan, China, the Philippines, and other parts of Asia, as well as vessels bound for New Guinea and the islands of the South Seas.

The island has a military importance, as it commands Torres Strait and is one of the defences of the British possessions in this part of the world. The harbour is large enough and deep enough for the biggest warships; it has been strongly fortified and has also a coaling station.

Through its commerce and pearl fisheries a considerable town has grown up on the island. Two piers have been built out into the harbour for the accommodation of the smaller steamers, and back of these are the warehouses and stores. There are six hotels, three or four churches, and the large house of the governor, who is a Queensland official. This stands on a little hill at one end, not far from the barracks, great two-story buildings with galleries around them, looking not unlike one of our second-class summer hotels.

The port has one of the most mixed populations of this part of the world. I had no sooner stepped on the wharf than I was surrounded by representatives of all the peoples of the South Pacific. There were brown men, black men, and yellow men; Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, East Indians, Fijians, Papuans, and Australian aborigines. There were pearl divers, beachcombers, bêche-de-mer fishermen, and adventurers of all colours and races. Thursday Island is a sort of Suez for an area of nearly twenty thousand square miles of island-sprinkled ocean between New Guinea and Australia. The town itself is far cleaner than many of its population, being quite free from epidemics, for the Queensland government rigidly enforces the health regulations. Native councillors elected by the people must see that the villagers keep their houses, food, and clothing clean, that they go regularly to church, and that they send their children to school. These black officials strut about in red jerseys with the word “Councillor” in white letters across the front.

The chief interest in Thursday Island lies in its pearl fisheries. Pearls and shells are the principal subjects of discussion, and the finding of a large pearl is talked of everywhere. The best pearl shells are taken from the coral islands and lagoons. The oysters grow to an enormous size, often having shells as big as a tin wash basin. The average weight of a pair of shells is about two pounds. The oysters lie on the bottom of the sea or cling to the coral rocks. They do not like sand or mud, and will not thrive where the tide shifts the bottom about. They grow largest where they can fasten themselves to coral formations. There are many caverns in the reefs, and the oysters attach themselves to the roofs of these submarine caves in clusters of a dozen or more. They cling to the rocks by a cartilage, or muscle, that extends out near the hinge of the shell, and then branches off into multitudinous threads, each of which glues itself to the rock.

Several years ago a perfect pearl, weighing thirty-two and a half grains and valued at five thousand dollars, was taken out of the Thursday Island grounds. But this was a rare find, indeed, for most of the money in getting pearl oysters comes from the shells and not from the occasional pearls within them. It is estimated that only one shell in a thousand contains a pearl. In a recent year the value of Australia’s export of pearl shell was nearly two million dollars, while the value of the pearls shipped in the same year was only about one sixth as much.

Shell is cash at Thursday Island, and in the world’s markets the better quality commands from five hundred to a thousand dollars a ton. It is used for making mother-of-pearl knife handles, buttons, and in all sorts of inlaid work. Trading vessels sail from island to island collecting the shell from the natives, in exchange for tobacco, calico, and other goods. The traders pay from sixty to one hundred dollars per ton for shell that will sell in London for about ten times as much.

The Japanese have almost monopolized the diving at Thursday Island, for they will stay longer under water and risk more than any one else. Among the divers are also many South Sea Islanders, besides Danes, Swedes, and Malays. The proprietors of the pearl ships say the Japanese are the best, and that the others often pretend to be sick.

The fishing is done by fleets consisting of one large boat, of, say, one hundred tons, and several smaller ones. The divers work from the small boats, each of which has a pump to supply them with air when they are under the surface. As even the small boats cost several thousand dollars each, the business takes considerable capital. The diver prepares for his plunge by slipping on over heavy flannels a diving suit to which ropes and air tubes are attached. He wears a metal helmet with circles of glass set in it so that he may see about him. His boots are soled with plates of copper or lead weighing about twenty-eight pounds to each foot, while the total weight of his equipment may be more than one hundred and fifty pounds.

When a diver goes down he takes with him a net bag, which he fills with shells. He then jerks the signal rope and is pulled up. The shells are counted and weighed, and he is paid according to what he has found. One diver has a record of having gathered one thousand pairs of shells in a day, but half this number is considered a good showing.

Even with the most modern equipment, one hundred and eighty feet is considered the maximum depth at which divers can work safely, although some have gone to a depth of two hundred or more feet. As the shallower beds have given out, the divers have had to go deeper and deeper and Queensland has made a law forbidding diving below the safety level. But the state courts have held that a diver must actually be seen below that depth before violation of the statute can be proved, and, as the reefs are quite remote and supervision is virtually impossible, the men often take great risks. At one hundred feet below the surface the pressure is sixty pounds to the square inch, and it increases as the diver goes deeper. At a certain depth he is attacked by pains in his muscles and joints, deafness and spells of fainting, and a kind of paralysis called “diver’s palsy.” If he is brought too quickly to the surface the sudden removal of the pressure may cause profuse bleeding or even death. Every year ten per cent. of the Torres Strait divers die from the immediate effects of their calling.

I am told that the profession has other great dangers. The Strait swarms with tiger sharks, which here grow to a length of twenty feet. They follow the pearl luggers, attracted by the pieces of salt beef now and then thrown from the boats. Unless very hungry, they trouble only the naked divers and the man in a suit can open an aircock and make enough bubbles to frighten them away. When the naked diver is attacked by a shark he stirs up the water and thus often confuses his enemy so that he gets back alive, although he may perhaps be maimed for life by the teeth of the terrible fish. As a rule the divers are not afraid of the sharks, but they do not spear fish at the bottom of the sea without first ascertaining whether there are sharks about, for the dead fish would surely draw them.

Another terror is the great squid. This marine monster fastens its long tentacles upon anything within its reach. If disturbed it vomits an inky fluid which discolours the waters about, and the diver, bewildered in the gloom, is liable to fall against the rocks and be caught.

In the native pearl fisheries much of the diving is done by women, who go down without suits. They fasten stones to their feet to enable them to sink, but do not plug up their nostrils and ears as do the pearl divers of India. Most of them can stay under water only a few seconds more than a minute, and they cannot work in such deep waters as the men in diving dress.

Pearls worth one hundred dollars are quite common and a big one, lately discovered, sold for twenty-five hundred dollars. Since an oyster may contain a thousand-dollar pearl, and the pearls are so small they can be easily stolen, the opening of the shells is carefully watched. A knife much like a common table knife, with a thin, flexible blade and a strong handle, is used. A good operator can open a ton of shells in a day and not miss a pearl. The shells containing the pearls have sometimes a curious appearance so that experts can tell before they are opened that they have pearls in them. Such shells are always laid aside to be handled by the proprietor or the foreman of the sloop.

Sometimes one oyster will contain a dozen small pearls and even more. Such oysters are often diseased and their shells are rough, but on the other hand a perfectly healthy oyster may contain a fine round pearl of large size. Many people believe that some irritating substance is the cause of every pearl. Looked at through a microscope, a pearl cut in two shows concentric layers like an onion with a hole, or sometimes a grain of sand in the centre. It is supposed that the grain of sand irritates the oyster so that it exudes carbonate of lime, coating the scratchy particle over and over until there has been formed a smooth round ball that does hot hurt.