Missing Friends Part 1

Missing Friends.

by Thorvald Weitemeyer.

INTRODUCTORY.

I was born in Copenhagen in the year 1850. My father was a builder there in moderately good circ.u.mstances. I was the second son of a large family, and it was my parents' great ambition that we all should receive a good education. My eldest brother was intended for a profession, and I was to be, like my father, a builder, and to take up his business when old enough to do so.

My father ruled us with an iron hand. I am sure he had as much love for us all as most fathers have for their children, but it was considered necessary when I was twenty years old to treat me as boys of ten are ordinarily treated. During the time I learned my trade in my father's shop I never knew the pleasure of owning a sixpence. After I had learned my trade, it was just the same. I worked for my father and received my food, clothes, and lodging as before, but I never dared to absent myself for a quarter of an hour even without asking permission, and that permission was as often refused as granted. A rebellious feeling kept growing up in me; but I dared not ask my father to relax a little and give me more liberty. To a.s.sert my independence before him seemed just as impossible, and yet my position had become to me unbearable. There was but one thing to do, viz., to run away, and I had scarcely conceived this idea before I carried it into execution.

I was now twenty-one years old. One evening, after saying good-night to my parents in the usual orthodox fashion, I went to my room, and when all was still, crept downstairs again and left the house. I had a bundle of clothes with me and a watch, which I p.a.w.ned next morning. I forget the exact amount I received for it, but to the best of my recollection it was the first money I ever possessed, and it seemed to me a vast sum to do with just as I liked. I dared not to stay in Copenhagen for fear of meeting my father, or somebody who knew me, so I bought a through ticket for Hamburg the same day, and although the purchase of this ticket nearly exhausted my funds, it was with a feeling of glorious freedom that I left Copenhagen. On arriving in Hamburg I obtained work at my trade without difficulty, and soon saved a little money, so that a few months after I found myself on board an emigrant ship bound for Queensland, where I have been ever since; but for fourteen years I never wrote home. After that interval I sent a short letter to my eldest brother, telling him that I was in Queensland, married, in good health, my own master, but that I had not made my fortune; however I owed n.o.body anything, and was satisfied, &c., and asked only for news.

By return of mail came two letters, one from my father and the other from my brother. My brother wrote that our father was now getting to be an old man, and that his one sorrow these many years had been what had become of me, coupled with the fear that I did not remember him as a loving father; that he had always acted as he thought best for us, and that the greatest joy the earth could offer him would be if he might see me again. My father wrote in the same strain, adding that if I could not come home I must write, and that nothing I had done would seem trivial or uninteresting for him to read about.

When I had read these letters my conscience smote me. Not that I had ever felt indifferent to my parents. I had thought of them often. I do not think ever a day went over my head during those fourteen years in which I did not remember them. Yet I had never written. But I was now a married man, had children of my own, and I could fully realize how it is that the parents' love for their children is so inconceivably greater than children's love for their parents. Would it not be a hard day for me if ever I should have to bid good-bye to any of my sons, even if they went out of the front door, so to speak, with my blessing? Would the least they could do be to write to me circ.u.mstantially and often what they thought, what they did, how they fared? And here was I who never to that moment had been conscious of having done my parents any wrong!

Yes; I would write. I began the same evening, and kept writing on about all my wanderings from the day I had left home up to the time of writing, and as I wrote, many things which I thought I had forgotten came clearly to my mind; and so I grew interested in it myself. I had my writing copied. All this took time; but at last the ma.n.u.script was posted to my father with a large photograph of myself enclosed. It arrived the day after his death, but before the funeral. They buried the ma.n.u.script and photograph with him.

These are matters far too sacred to write much about, even anonymously.

I only touch upon them to show the origin of the following narrative.

The copy I had taken has been lying in my desk now for some years, and when I took it out the other day it occurred to me that as it gives a faithful picture of life that thousands of people lead here in Queensland, it might be of general interest. I doubt if ever a book was written with more regard to truth. I have added nothing to the original ma.n.u.script, but I have erased such private matters as, of course, would be out of place in a publication, and I have also considerably shortened the description of the voyage out, as a voyage across the sea is a more than twice-told tale to most Australian people. I have also altered the names of persons and places mentioned wherever I have thought it necessary. It is now several years since the events recorded happened.

The incidents themselves are sometimes trifling and always harmless.

Should any one who may read this book think they recognize themselves in any part of my descriptions, I must beg them to accept my apology. They will most likely then also recognize the substantial truth of my description and my endeavour not to be too personal.

Although it will be seen by the reader that I have often acted foolishly and seldom excelled in wisdom, yet I do not wish it to be understood that I consider my life altogether misspent. As I look back, I think of myself as being always cheerful. It is the privilege of youth to be happy under almost any circ.u.mstances, and I was young when these things I here set down happened. If the tale has a moral, I think it will be found sufficiently obvious. Queensland is full of missing friends. Some come to the colony in the hope of making a speedy fortune, that they may go home again and bless the old folks with their good fortune. Others come out with the hope of making a good home, and to bring the old people thither. The successful man is generally a dutiful son too, insomuch, at least, that he lets everybody know of his success; but the man who fails, either from lack of perseverance or from untoward circ.u.mstances, too often becomes a "missing friend." It is generally true that a man is valued according to the cut of his coat, but it is not true between parent and son. So! write home, you lonely swagsman on the dusty track of the far interior. Do not think yourself forgotten. If you have parents alive you have friends too, who think of you night and day. If you will only let them know that you yet have a thought left for them, they will bless you.

I have nothing else to add to this introduction, except that possibly the book might have been more interesting if it contained more thrilling adventures, but in my opinion the only merit which it may possess lies in the strict regard paid to truth and the avoidance of all exaggeration from beginning to end.

CHAPTER I.

MY FIRST EXPERIENCES ON LEAVING HOME.

Having left Copenhagen in the way just described and arrived in Hamburg, my first care was to get work, which I fortunately obtained the next day. The place I worked in was a large building or series of buildings, four or five stories high, with cabinet-makers' shops from the cellars to the loft. We had to be at work at six o'clock in the morning, and to keep on till eight o'clock at night. Even on Sundays we worked from six o'clock to dinner-time. Some would keep on till it was dark on Sunday evening, and content themselves with knocking off early, as they called it. And such work! Everybody would work as if the house were on fire. It was all piecework. The man who stood next myself had made veneered chests of drawers for thirty years, and never had made anything else. He would turn out two veneered chests of drawers in a week, and the work was faultless. These chests would, I am sure, sell readily in Brisbane for from twelve to fifteen pounds each. He earned about nine Prussian thalers per week. On the other side of me stood a man who made German secretaires. There were nine or ten men in the shop.

The master was working too. He seemed just as poor as the men. Whenever work was finished, some furniture dealer would come round and buy it.

The men seemed all more or less askew in their bodies with overwork. If ever they had an ambition in their lives, it was to instil a proper sense of respect into the two apprentices. I did pity these two boys.

They received their board and lodging from the master, but they could, I am sure, easily have made one meal out of their four daily allowances.

They slept in a corner of the shop. They had, of course, to be at work at six o'clock in the morning the same as the men, but while we had half an hour for breakfast and "vesperkost," they were supposed to eat and work at the same time. After work-hours at night they had to carry all the shavings out of the shop to the loft above, from which they were occasionally removed; then they had tea, and finally, if they liked, they were allowed to work a couple of hours for themselves. They would get odd pieces of veneer and wood and make a workbox. When it was finished, they would one evening run round among the furnishers from door to door to sell it. The dealer would know that the materials were not paid for, and of course he did not pay them. A shilling or less is the price a dealer in Hamburg pays for one of those beautiful workboxes which are sold all over the world. I wonder how often the buyers of these boxes think of the lean, ragged youth who has stood late in the night and made it, most often perhaps to buy an extra morsel of bread from the proceeds--because, as a matter of fact, that was what these two boys used to do. The master was accustomed to beat them daily, and if he was at any time thought too sparing with the rod, and thereby neglecting their education, the men would themselves beat the lads. It was winter-time, and daylight only about eight o'clock in the morning. But in order to reach the shop at six o'clock, the men, who lived mostly in the suburbs, had to be up at half-past four. I had rented a small room from one of them, and he and I would generally arrive together. As we scrambled our way up the dark staircase, he would caution me to walk softly because, as he said, he wanted to catch these rascally boys in bed. Poor fellows! If we were the first to arrive they would most often lie in a heavy sleep. Then he would rush at them, tear the bed-clothes off them, box their ears, and call them all sorts of _endearing_ names.

The master and the other men, with scarcely an exception, approved of this. It was not breakfast-time before eight o'clock, and very often when the apprentices had been hunted to work in this manner they would get another correction before then for neglecting to wash themselves!

Poor fellows, they had no time. But, as is well known, the harder an apprenticeship a boy has served, the more cruel does he in his turn become after his time is out. The Prime Minister himself has not, I am sure, half as serene a contempt for an apprentice, as a journeyman only three months out of his apprenticeship.

This work in Hamburg certainly did not suit my ideas of liberty. My head would swim of an evening when I came out of the shop. As already stated, I had rented a small room from one of the men for a mere trifle, and I boarded myself, and very frugal fare I had. This self-denial was because I soon made up my mind that I would not stay in Hamburg; and so I saved all that was possible, and it did not take long before I could commence to count a few thalers in my pocket.

On Sunday evenings I used to go and sit in one of the public gardens, and listen to the music and watch the faces of the people there.

Sometimes when there was a free show I would be there too, but I never spent any money. With the din of the shop scarcely out of my ears, and Monday morning looming only a few hours away, I almost fancied myself of a different species from such happy, chattering crowds as would pa.s.s and repa.s.s seemingly without a care in the world. There was not a soul to speak to me. For one thing, I could scarcely make myself understood in German; for another, the men in the shop, who were the only people I knew, if I did go down the street with one of them, conversation had but one subject for which was sure somehow to turn on the quality of the glue we used. They all had a vast reverence for the furniture dealers, and they were just the people I did not like. I was therefore quite alone. I was also wonderfully homesick. Often and often did I wish that I had never run away, but it seemed to me impossible to go home again, and so I used to sit and speculate on what I had better do. I thought when I had saved a little money I would go to Paris, or Vienna. They were nice places I believed; but of one thing I was certain, and that was that as yet I had not seen anybody I liked as well as myself, or any place I liked so well as my own home!

One Sunday evening as I walked about the streets, I saw in a window a large attractive placard on which was printed in red letters, "Free Emigration to Queensland, Australia." I am certain I had never heard the name of Queensland before, and my impression of Australia was that it was the place to which criminals were sent; I had also read something about gold-diggings in Australia, but it was in the form of a novel, and I did not believe it. I called to mind what I had read in school in the geography about Australia, and I remembered it well. It was only a short paragraph. It ran thus: "Australia. Travellers who come from this distant continent, bring us very conflicting statements. It seems to be a land in which nature is reversed. The leaves are hanging downwards on the trees instead of upwards. Rivers run from the ocean inland. The interior seems to be one vast lake of salt water. It is the home of the kangaroo and the black swan. Altogether but little is known about it.

Captain Cook discovered it in the year 1788. It belongs to England. The Dutch have possessions in the North. It has been used as a penal settlement by England, but this is now abolished. Of late years gold has been found in considerable quant.i.ties and in several places. Wool, tallow, and hides are exported. Towns, Sydney and Melbourne."

I can scarcely help laughing to myself now when recalling to mind this piece of information about Australia. It was really an ignorant and disgraceful morsel of information for one of the best schools in Copenhagen to offer to its pupils, but it was all the knowledge I had or could get, and it was not much a.s.suredly to give one any idea what Queensland was like. But somehow I determined to find out what I could for myself. There was gold there that might be more easily got, perhaps, than by making chests of drawers, so the next day I presented myself at the office, and asked for information.

Yes, it was right. The ship would sail in a fortnight. "Did I want to go? Two pounds sterling please. Only three or four tickets left."

"Well--I would like a little information." "Information, yes, we have every information. What is it you want to know? You get, to begin with, all your food, and splendid food I can tell you is provided for you on the whole journey. You also get bed-clothes, and your own knife, spoon, and fork. This will all become your own property on arrival in Queensland. Here is the bill of fare."

I hesitated. "When you have arrived in Queensland," cried my informant, "the Government of that country further engages to board you in a first-cla.s.s hotel for two or three weeks, free of all cost, while you make up your mind what occupation to engage in, and--here it is in the prospectus, look at this!--they further guarantee to find work for you making roads, for at least two years after." "Do you yourself know anything much about Queensland?" I ventured to ask; "I suppose you never were there?" "I, no, I never was there--I wish I had been, I should not have to stand here to-day. But we have every information. They have found gold-diggings again. Here are the statistics of exports; I will read them for you:--

Marks. Marks.

Hides, 100,000,000,000,000. Horns, 1,000,000,000,000.

Wool, 10,000,000,000,000. Tallow, 10,000,000,000.

Cattle, 1,000,000,000,000. Horses, 100,000,000,000,000.

Gold, 100,000,000,000. Silver, 1,000,000,000,000.

Copper, 1,000,000,000,000,000. Tin, 1,000,000,000,000.

What do you think of that now?"

What I thought was that it was all Latin to me. I did not know why they exported all this wealth, or why they did not keep it at home. No more did the man in the office, I am sure. I asked, did he think it probable that I should obtain work as a carpenter and joiner, and did he know what wages were going? To that he replied that, of course, I could get work as a carpenter and joiner, and that wages were at least one pound per day, but that if I wanted to go he would have to enlist me as an agricultural labourer, because a whole cargo of carpenters was already engaged, but that undoubtedly it would pay me better to dig for gold myself. I concluded that Queensland was a sort of vast gold-field. I asked what was the cost of living. He said, "If you like to live in an hotel and be waited on hand and foot, of course you can have it at all prices; but if you like to cook your own food, it will cost you nothing.

Why man! don't I keep telling you that the cattle are running wild; if you are wise enough to buy a gun before you go, your meat supply is secured when you get there, and all sorts of game are in equal abundance--kangaroos, parrots, and all sorts." I inquired how much, or rather how little, money did he think it indispensable for me to have when I landed. He said as for that, no doubt the less I had, the less chance there was of my being robbed. It would, in his opinion, take some little time for any one to get alongside the people over there, but, once having taken their measure, there was no mistake about the resources of the country. Then, as an afterthought, he added, "In case on your arrival in the country you should decide to establish yourself as a farmer the Government makes you a present of"--I think it was--"eighty acres of land. This land is the best and richest agricultural land in the colony, and you can pick it out yourself wherever you like best in Queensland. I will give you the order which ent.i.tles you to your deeds."

I felt very undecided. I did not buy any ticket, nor did I go to work again that day. I kept roaming about the streets, thinking of Queensland and the information I had received. Wages a pound sterling per day! if I would only work for it--the price of food scarcely anything--cattle running wild--large gold-fields! How was it, then, that there were hotels where people would wait on the immigrants, "hand and foot." What silly fellows those publicans must be; would it not pay them better to work at a trade, or look out for gold? Truly the order of things seemed to be reversed in that country. And eighty acres of their best land would they give me if only I would go! Perhaps horses were running wild as well as cattle. I might be able to catch some and break them in to plough the land. But what about the plough? Surely n.o.body made ploughs there; I should have to bring that with me. Perhaps there were saddlers.

No doubt it would be a good country for a saddler to go to, as it seemed they had so many hides over there that they had to export them. Probably if a saddler wanted materials, all he had to do was to flay a bullock and carry its hide away. But were there bricklayers to build houses?

Certainly I could do the carpentry myself; on a pinch I could do the bricklaying too. Everything seemed so satisfactory. Perhaps I should even find gold enough while I was sinking the foundation for my house to pay for the lot! It need not be such a large piece either. A couple of nuggets, as large only as one brick each, would go a long way. Perhaps, too, if I found them, it would be as well to go home again at once. Then I began to wonder if the fellow in the office would not, if I had asked him, have told me that houses, by careful cultivation, would grow out of the ground themselves in that country. In a word, I gave it up. Perhaps it was all one tissue of falsehood. Perhaps the diggers over there were only trying to get slaves to work for them. That seemed to me more reasonable. Why should the Government of the country make me a present of a large estate? All bosh! But I would go, just to see the land in which swans were black and rivers running from the ocean inland. If I should be caught on my arrival, perhaps I might escape to the interior.

There would be no cabinet-maker's shops there, of that I felt certain.

The prospectus said that the Government would guarantee to every intending emigrant work on the roads of the colony for two years, if he desired it. I could not think it probable that I desired that, but perhaps it was meant to pay our pa.s.sage money. Anyhow, I promised myself I should not fail for the want of firearms if I did go, and perhaps we could slay any enemies we found altogether, because undoubtedly there would be others on board ship who would fight for their liberty.

Liberty, delightful liberty! To be the captain of a gang of warriors, half robbers, half gold-miners, roaming over the continent of Australia, seemed a delightful prospect.

This is, I am sure, quite a faithful picture of my wild ideas of Queensland after I had elicited all the information I could get.

The Government of Queensland spends yearly, I do not remember how large a sum, in promoting free emigration. They prepared at great cost, and with elaborate exactness, statistics to show the commercial position of the country. Then they trust all this to the care of some office at home, whose officials know little or nothing about Queensland. The princ.i.p.al in such an office puts a clerk at the counter who has, perhaps, no other qualification for the work than a facility for talking. Fancy a home-bred peasant coming into such a place with the care of a family on his shoulders, and a little money in the bank, and think of the clerk talking to him about gold-fields and firearms and statistics, all the time admitting he never was in the colony himself! I think it is quite enough to prevent any one going out. And yet people of that cla.s.s are the only cla.s.s of poor men who really can do well in Queensland, and they are almost the only desirable sort of emigrants for the country itself. The reason is that such a man can, after a very short spell of colonial experience, go on to a piece of crown land, and by residing there for five years, and making certain improvements thereto, very soon get a living out of the soil, and while keeping his children round him, be independent of everybody. But such people are at a premium in Queensland. On the other hand, the towns out here are crowded with men who seek for light work, and I have no hesitation in a.s.serting that for certain people, such as junior clerks without influence, grocers' and drapers' a.s.sistants, second-cla.s.s tradesmen, &c., it is quite as difficult, if not more so, to obtain a living in Queensland as in Copenhagen. The land order I obtained, and which ent.i.tled me to eighty acres of land wherever I chose to take them, I did not consider of any value--in fact I threw it away; so did all the other emigrants on the ship: one might have bought a whole hatful for a dozen biscuits!

But all this is digression. Still, it is a matter which excites considerable interest in Queensland, and as I think of that time, these thoughts come uppermost in my mind. No doubt if I, in the office, had met a man who came from the colony, and who could have advised me and spoken with confidence about the country itself, I should have made up my mind to go in a far less reckless way, and probably I should never have acquired, after my arrival in the country, that roving disposition which I contracted, and which did not leave me for many years, if it has even left me now. Well, I made up my mind to go. I also made up my mind that it was unnecessary for me to work any more in Hamburg while waiting for the ship, so I took a holiday and went about town every day, spending my money to the last farthing. I had bought a revolver, ammunition, and a long knife. I had bought my ticket too, and so the day arrived when we were all mustered and put on board the ship.

CHAPTER II.

ON THE EMIGRANT SHIP--THE JOURNEY TO QUEENSLAND.

What a motley crew we were: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, a Russian Finn, and an Icelander. There were many nationalities, but in the majority of cases extreme poverty was evident in their dress and stamped upon their faces, and it was easy to see that the same spirit of recklessness which filled me had somehow also been instilled into them.

Nearly everybody had guns, revolvers, and knives, which were promptly taken from us as we stepped on board. Then the Germans would sing in their language of the Fatherland they had left, and in overflowing gush, men, women, and children would hang about one another's necks. Everybody acted in such a mad manner as, I am quite sure, he would never have thought of behaving in any time before. Most of the men were drunk, and as it grew dark at night one would seek for the other, and as no one knew the way about, a perfect pandemonium was raging--singing, fighting, blubbering in all languages. I do believe if I had had a sixpence left, I should have spent it in schnapps too, because my courage had never been tried so hard before. But I had spent my all, and so I made a virtue of necessity, and stood aloof looking round me in silent wonder as to what the end would be.

The prospectus said that the best and most wholesome food would be served out to us in abundance, and to look at the bill of fare one would think it enough to satisfy any gormandizer. But we got nothing at all the first day, and I was unspeakably hungry. The prospectus said also that bed-clothes were supplied to us, and these were already in the bunks--it said mattra.s.s, pillow, sheets, and blanket. The mattra.s.s and pillow were right enough. The sheets it did not matter much about--they were no good at all for their purpose. But the blanket, the only thing we had to cover ourselves with at night on a four months' voyage, was smaller than the size of a little dining-table when it was spread out, about the size of a saddle-cloth and much inferior in quality to anything worthy of the name of blanket I have ever seen before or since.

As a consequence, those who had like myself put faith in that part of the promises made us, and who had no other bed-clothes, were compelled when we went to bed at night, to put on all the clothes we had and sleep in them. I slept every night for months at a stretch in my overcoat, woollen comforter around my neck, and the blanket, the all sufficient bed-clothes, rolled round my head!