The Land of the Kangaroo Part 1

The Land of the Kangaroo.

by Thomas Wallace Knox.

PREFACE.

The rapidly increasing prominence of the Australian colonies during the past ten or twenty years has led to the preparation of the volume of which this is the preface. Australia has a population numbering close upon five millions and it had prosperous and populous cities, all of them presenting abundant indications of collective and individual wealth. It possesses railways and telegraphs by thousands of miles, and the productions of its farms, mines, and plantations aggregate an enormous amount. It has many millions, of cattle and sheep, and their number is increasing annually at a prodigious rate.

Australia is a land of many wonders, and it is to tell the story of these wonders and of the growth and development of the colonies of the antipodes, that this volume has been written.

T. W. K.

THE LAND OF THE KANGAROO.

CHAPTER I.

WEST COAST OF AFRICA--ADVENTURE IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC OCEAN.

"We don't want to stay long in this place."

"I don't think we do, sir," was the reply.

"The sooner we leave it, the better."

"That is so," said Harry; "I quite agree with you. I wonder how white men manage to live here at all."

This conversation occurred at Bonny, a trading station on one of the mouths of the river Niger in Western Africa. In former times Bonny was a famous resort for slave traders, and great numbers of slaves were sent from that place to North and South America. In addition to slave trading, there was considerable dealing in ivory, palm oils, and other African products. Trade is not as prosperous at Bonny nowadays as it was in the slave-dealing times, but there is a fair amount of commerce and the commissions of the factors and agents are very large. Bonny stands in a region of swamps, and the climate exhales at all times of the year pestilential vapors which are not at all suited to the white man. Most of the white residents live on board old hulks which are moored to the bank of the river, and they find these hulks less unhealthy than houses off sh.o.r.e, for the reason that they are less exposed to the vapors of the ground.

The parties to the conversation just quoted were Dr. Whitney and his nephews, Ned and Harry; they had just arrived at Bonny, from a visit to Lake Chad and Timbuctoo, and had made a voyage down the Niger, which has been described in a volume ent.i.tled "In Wild Africa."

One of the residents told Dr. Whitney that all the coast of the Bight of Benin, into which the Niger empties by its various mouths, was quite as unhealthy as Bonny. "We don't expect anybody to live more than three or four years after taking up his residence here," the gentleman remarked, "and very often one or two years are sufficient to carry him off. The climate is bad enough, but it isn't the climate that is to blame for all the mortality, by any means. The great curse of the whole region is the habit of drinking. Everybody drinks, and drinks like a fish, too. When you call on anybody, the servants, without waiting for orders, bring a bottle of brandy, or whiskey, or something of the sort, and place it on the table between the host and the visitor. You are expected to drink, and the man who declines to do so is looked upon as a milksop. When one rises in the morning, his first call is for brandy and soda, and it is brandy, and whiskey, and champagne, or some other intoxicant, all the day long. The climate is bad enough without any help, but the drinking habit of the residents along the Bight of Benin is worse than the climate, and everybody knows it; but, somehow or other, everybody is reckless and continues to drink, knowing perfectly well what the result will be."

Dr. Whitney had already made observations to the same effect, and remarked that he thought the west coast of Africa would be a good field of labor for an advocate of total abstinence. His new acquaintance replied that it might be under ordinary circ.u.mstances, but that the conditions of the region where they were not ordinary. It was necessary to remember that the men who went to West Africa for purposes of trade were of a reckless, adventurous sort, having little regard for the future and determined to make the most of the present. Men of this cla.s.s take very naturally to habits of dissipation, and would turn a deaf ear to any advocate of temperance who might come among them.

Fortunately for our friends, they were detained at Bonny only a single day. A small steamer which runs between Bonny and Fernando Po took them to the latter place, which is on an island in the Atlantic Ocean, and has a mountain peak ten thousand feet high. This peak is wooded to the summit with fine timber, and altogether the island is a very attractive spot to the eye, in comparison with Bonny and the swampy region of the lower Niger.

Port Clarence, the harbor of Fernando Po, is said to be one of the prettiest places of Western Africa. The town consists of a group of houses somewhat irregularly placed, and guarded by a fort which could be knocked down in a few hours by a fleet of modern warships.

Our friends went on sh.o.r.e immediately after their arrival, and found quarters in what Ned called an apology for a hotel. Fernando Po is the property of Spain, and the island is one of the State prisons of that country. Some of the prisoners are kept in hulks in the harbor, while others are confined in the fort. Not infrequently prisoners escape and find shelter among the Adyia, the tribe of natives inhabiting the island. They are a peaceful people, but have a marked hatred for civilization. They rarely come into the town, and none of them will consent to live there. Their huts or villages are scattered over the forests, and when visitors go among them they are kindly treated. The town of Port Clarence is occupied by a few white men and a considerable number of negroes from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and other regions along the coast.

"This will be as good a place to get away from as Bonny," the doctor remarked to his nephews, as they were strolling about Port Clarence.

"I have observed," said Harry, "that the wind is blowing directly from the coast, and therefore is bringing with it the malarias of the swampy region which we have just left."

"That is quite true," the doctor answered, "and the circ.u.mstance you mention makes a long stay here undesirable. Have you noticed that many of the natives here seem to be suffering from skin diseases of one kind or another?"

"I observed that," replied Ned, "and was wondering what was the cause of it."

"I was told by a gentleman at the hotel," said the doctor, "that there is an ulcer peculiar to this locality which is well-nigh incurable. The slightest abrasion of the cuticle or even the bite of an insect is sufficient to cause it. I was told that it sometimes happens that the bite of a mosquito on the arm or leg will make amputation necessary, and an instance of this kind occurred within the past three months. On a first view of the island it looks like a delightful place, but a nearer acquaintance dispels the illusion."

"I wonder how long we will be obliged to stay here," Harry remarked.

"According to the time-table," replied the doctor, "the mail steamer will be here to-morrow; and if she comes, you may be sure we will take pa.s.sage on her."

The steamer came according to schedule, and when she left she carried the three travelers away from Fernando Po. She was an English steamer bound for the Cape of Good Hope. There was hardly any wind blowing when the great ship started out into the Atlantic and headed away to the southward, but the movement of the vessel through the water was sufficient to create a breeze, which our friends greatly enjoyed. They sat beneath the awnings which covered the entire length and width of the steamer, studied their fellow-pa.s.sengers, and now and then cast their eyes over the wide and desolate sweep of waters to the west and south.

Not a sail was to be seen, a few craft were creeping along the coast, but they were not numerous enough to add animation to the scene.

We will take from Harry's notebook an incident or two of the voyage.

"We found a mixed lot of pa.s.sengers on board the steamer. There were a few Englishmen going to South Africa for the first time,--young fellows seeking their fortunes, and full of hope and ambition. One of them said he was going up country on a hunting expedition, not for the sport only, but for the money that could be made by the sale of hides, ivory, horns, and other products of the chase. He was quite well informed concerning the business on which he was bent, and told me that it was the custom for two or more men, generally not above four, to buy wagons, oxen, horses, and provisions in one of the towns on the coast or in the interior, and then strike out into the wild country for an absence of anywhere from three to six or seven months. Their provisions consisted of flour, sugar, tea, pepper, salt, and a few other things. For meat they relied upon what they killed; and he added that a great deal of meat was needed, as there were from twenty-five to fifty natives attached to a hunting party and all of them had ferocious appet.i.tes.

"They shot anything that came in their way, elephants, buffaloes, elands, gemsbok, and I don't know what else. It was a hard life and not without risk, but it was healthy and full of good sport. He told us so much about his business that Ned and I heartily wished to go with him and have a share in the experience and fun.

"Another young man was going out as a mining engineer and expected to find employment in some of the newly opened gold mines in the Johannesburg district. Another was to become the manager of a large farm forty or fifty miles from Cape Town, which was owned by his uncle.

Another young man was going out with no particular object in view, and said he was ready for anything that turned up.

"Then there were Afrikanders who had been on a visit to England for business, or pleasure, or both combined. One had been there for the express purpose of finding a bride; he found her, and she was with him as a pa.s.senger on the steamer. She and two others were the only lady pa.s.sengers on the ship; men greatly predominated among the pa.s.sengers, and we were told that such was always the case on board one of these steamers. One of the pa.s.sengers was a resident of Durban, the port of Natal, and he gave us a cordial invitation to visit his place. 'You will find Durban a very interesting spot,' said he, 'and the only bad thing about it is getting ash.o.r.e. There is a nasty sea breaking there most of the time, and it is tedious work getting from a ship into a small boat and then getting safe to land. You must come prepared to be soused with salt water two or three times before you get your feet fairly planted on the sh.o.r.e.'

"Ned and I concluded that we would not make any special effort to get to Durban, although we had received such a cordial invitation to go there.

"We had a good breeze," continued Harry, "until we got to within four degrees of the Equator; then the wind died out and left the sea as smooth as gla.s.s, without the least motion upon it anywhere. We seemed to be running through an enormous plate of gla.s.s, polished until it shone like the most perfect mirror ever made. As we looked down from the rail into the depths of the sea our faces were reflected, and there seemed to be a counterfeit presentment of ourselves gazing at us from the depths below, and, oh, wasn't it hot, blistering, burning hot! The sun poured down so that the heat pierced our awnings as though no awnings had been there, and the breeze which the ship created by her motion seemed like the blast from a furnace. The pitch oozed from the seams of the planking on the deck, and the deck itself became blistering hot to one's feet.

There was not the least stir of the sails and only the faintest motion of the ship from side to side. Respiration became difficult, and, as I looked about, I could see the pa.s.sengers and sailors yawning and gaping in the effort to draw in their breath. All the metal about the ship became hot, especially the bra.s.s. If you touched it, it almost seemed to raise a blister, and the spot with which you touched it was painful for hours.

"We pa.s.sed a ship becalmed in the doldrums, as this region is called, and she looked more like a painted ship upon a painted ocean than any other craft I ever saw. Her sails were all hanging loose, and so were all the ropes, and lines, and halyards from one end of the ship to the other. She was as motionless as if she were tied up to a dock in harbor, and there was very little sign of life about her anywhere. I asked one of our officers how long that ship had probably been there and how long she was liable to stay.

"'That's a question, young man,' he replied, 'that I can't answer very surely. She may have been there a day or two only, and may stay only a day or so, and then, again, she may have been there a week or a month; we can't tell without speaking her, and we are not particularly interested in her, anyhow.'"

Then he went on to explain that ships have been becalmed at the Equator for two months and more, lying all the time in a dead calm, just like the one through which we were pa.s.sing.

"Two weeks," he said, "is a fair time for a ship to stay in the doldrums, and you can be sure it is quite long enough for pa.s.sengers and crew.

"Pa.s.sengers and crew sometimes die of the heat, and existence under such circ.u.mstances becomes a burden. There are stories about ships that have been in the doldrums six or eight months at a time, but I am not inclined to believe them; for a man to stay in this terrific heat for that length of time would be enough to drive him crazy.

"The steamer was three days in the calm belt of the Equator before we struck the southeast trades, and had a breeze again. I don't want to repeat my experiences with the doldrums.

"One day I heard a curious story about an incident on board an American ship not far from the Cape of Good Hope. She was from Calcutta, and bound to New York, and her crew consisted of American sailors, with the exception of two Indian coolies who had been taken on board at Calcutta because the ship was short-handed. One of these coolies had been put, one in the starboard and the other in the port watch, and everything had been quiet and peaceable on board the ship until the incident I am about to describe.

"One night the ship was sailing quietly along, and some of the men noticed, or remembered afterwards, that when the watches were changed, the coolie who had been relieved from duty remained on deck. Shortly after the change of watch, the two mates of the ship were standing near the lee rail and talking with each other, when the two coolies came along and one of them made the remark that he was sick. This remark was evidently a signal, for instantly one of the coolies drew a knife and stabbed the first mate to the heart, while simultaneously the other coolie sprang with a knife at the second officer and gave him several stabs in the chest.

"The first mate fell dead at the stroke of the knife, but the second mate had sufficient strength left to crawl to the companionway leading to the captain's room, where he called out, 'Captain Clark!' 'Captain Clark!' and then ceased to breathe.

"The captain sprang from his bunk, and rushed on deck in his night-clothes. At the top of the companion-steps he was violently stabbed on the head and seized by the throat; he was quite unarmed and struck out with his fists at the face of his a.s.sailant, hoping to blind him. The coolie continued to stab him, and the captain started back down the steps until he slipped in the blood that covered them, and fell into the cabin, with a terrible wound in his side. He then crawled to where his revolver was, and started up the steps; when half way up, a man rolled down the steps against him and knocked him over.

"The captain thought it was the coolie, but it proved to be one of the sailors, who was frightened half to death. All he could say was, to beg of the captain to save him.