The Land of the Kangaroo Part 6

Our friends were invited to make a journey on the line of the Great Northern Railway, which is ultimately intended to reach the northern coast of Australia. The distance across Australia, from north to south, is about seventeen hundred miles; about four hundred miles of the line are completed, leaving thirteen hundred miles yet to be built. It will cost a great deal of money to finish the railway, but the people are ambitious, and will probably accomplish it in the course of time.

They already have a telegraph line, running for the greater part of the way through a very desolate region. For hundreds of miles there are no white people, except the operators and repairers at the stations, and in many places it is unlikely that there will ever be any inhabitants, as the country is a treeless waste, and, at some of the stations, water has to be brought from a considerable distance. Artesian wells have been bored at many of the stations; at some of them successfully, while at others it was impossible to find water.

The railway official who invited our friends to make the journey, told them that he was connected with the telegraph company at the time of its construction, and he gave an interesting account of some of the difficulties they encountered.

"The desert character of the country," said the gentleman, "caused us a great deal of inconvenience. We were obliged to haul or carry provisions and material for long distances. Where it was practicable to use wagons we used them, but where we could not do so we employed camels. Camels were introduced into Australia forty or fifty years ago, and they have been a great deal of use to us in parts of the country where water is scarce. The conditions of Northern and Central Australia very much resemble those of the regions of Northern Africa, where the camel had its origin, or, at all events, where it abounds to-day in greatest numbers. Had it not been for the 'Ship of the Desert,' it is possible that we might not have been able to build the telegraph line across Australia. The camel is so highly appreciated here that the government has established several breeding stations for those ungainly creatures, and their number is increasing every year.

"You know already about the scarcity of water in the desert region.

Springs are few and far between, and rain is of rare occurrence. It was frequently necessary to carry water thirty or forty miles, and on account of the great heat it was impossible to carry it in skins or in wooden cases, owing to the rapid evaporation. Cases or cans of galvanized iron proved to be the best receptacles for water, so far as evaporation was concerned, but they have the disadvantage of becoming cracked and leaky in the rough treatment to which they are subjected.

"Poles for the telegraph had to be hauled a long distance for a large part of the way. Iron poles are generally used, owing to an insect that destroys wood with great rapidity. I wonder if you have yet seen any of the ravages of this little creature?"

This last remark was made in the form of an interrogation, to which Harry responded that he had not yet observed anything of the kind, nor had his attention been called to it. Ned remarked that he had been told of the destructiveness of this worm, but had not yet seen anything of its work.

"If you had seen it you would remember it," said the gentleman. "The worm abounds more in the country districts than in the city, and it does not seem to get so much into the city houses as it does into those of the rural districts. Suppose you settle in South Australia, and build yourself a house or buy one already built, and proceed to take your comfort. Some day when you are sitting in your parlor you suddenly feel a leg of your chair going through the floor, and down you go with a crash. Somebody runs to your a.s.sistance, and the additional strain put upon the floor causes the break to increase, and, together with the person who has come to your aid, you go down in a heap through a yawning chasm in the floor, no matter whether your room is carpeted or not. If it is the former, the ravages of the worm have been quite concealed by the carpet; while in the latter case the surface of the wood presents the same appearance, while the whole interior of the plank or board has been turned to dust. This sort of thing has happened in many an Australian house, and will doubtless continue to happen."

Harry asked if there was any way of preventing the ravages of this destroyer.

His informant replied that there were two or three kinds of wood which these insects would not touch. Unfortunately, however, they were higher priced than ordinary wood, and consequently the temptation was to use the cheaper article. Houses could also be built of cement, brick, or other substances which defied the wood worm, but these, again, were expensive and could not be afforded by newly arrived emigrants, whose capital was generally very limited.

"Returning to the subject of the telegraph," the gentleman continued, "we found a great deal of trouble with the insects destructive to wood, and then, too, we had considerable difficulty with the blacks, though less than we had antic.i.p.ated. We managed to inspire them with a very wholesome fear of the mysterious fluid that pa.s.sed through the wires, and though they have burned stations, and killed or wounded quite a number of our people, they have never meddled with the wires."

"How did you manage to inspire them with such fear?" queried Harry.

"We did it in this way," was the reply. "Whenever a native visited us, we managed to give him a shock of electricity, and if we could shock an entire group at once it was so much the better. On several occasions we got two or more of their chiefs at stations hundreds of miles apart, and then let them talk with each other over the wires. Where they were well acquainted, they were able to carry on conversations which none but themselves could understand. Then we would have them meet half way between the stations and compare notes, and the result was something that greatly astonished them. Savage people generally attribute to the devil anything they cannot understand, and they very quickly concluded that 'His Satanic Majesty' was at the bottom of the whole business and it would be well for them to let it carefully alone.

"An amusing thing happened one day when we were putting up a portion of the line. There was a crowd of native blacks watching us, and the princ.i.p.al man among them walked for an hour or two along the line, making a critical examination of the posts and wires and pacing the distance between the posts.

"When he had evidently made up his mind as to the situation he walked up to the foreman of the working party and said, with an accent of insolence:--

"'My think white fellow one big fool.'

"When the foreman tried to find out his reason for expressing contempt in that way, he pointed to the telegraph line and said:--

"'That piece of fence never stop cattle.'

"Before the foreman could explain what the supposed thing was intended for, he walked off with his nose very much in the air and never came near the telegraph line again, as far as we know."

After a short laugh over the incident, one of the youths asked how far apart the stations were.

"The distances vary considerably according to circ.u.mstances," said their informant. "In some places they are within thirty or forty miles of each other, and there are portions of the line where they are one hundred miles apart. There are two operators and two repairers at each station.

These are all white men, and some of them have their families with them.

In addition to the white residents at the station, there are all the way from two or three to eight or ten blacks. The blacks in our service are generally faithful, and we put a great deal of dependence upon them.

Sometimes they are treacherous, but not often, as treachery is not a part of their nature.

"I was making a tour of inspection of the line shortly after it was completed, and happened to be at one of the stations at a time when the blacks were threatening trouble. One of the operators, Mr. Britton, was accompanied by his wife. Her husband wanted her to go to a place of greater safety, but she refused, and said she would stand by his side.

She was a good shot with the revolver, and promised that in case of trouble she would put her abilities to a practical test.

"The blacks came about the station to beg, and also to ascertain the strength of the company, and one evening word came that they were going to have a corroboree in a little patch of forest near the station.

Perhaps you don't know what a corroboree is."

Both of the youths shook their heads and acknowledged their ignorance.

"Well, it is a wild sort of dance, something like the dances among your American Indians, with local variations to suit the climate and people.

The dancing is done by the men, who get themselves up in the most fantastic manner imaginable with paint of various colors. They daub their faces with pigments in streaks and patches, and trace their ribs with white paint, so that they look more like walking skeletons than like human beings. Generally at one of these dances they wear strips of skin around their waists, and ornament their heads with feathers.

"I said that the dancing was done by the men, though this is not absolutely the rule, as there are certain dances in which the women take part, though not a very conspicuous one. Generally the dances are by the people of one tribe, though there are a few in which several tribes take part. As a usual thing, however, this kind of a dance ends in a fight, as the dancers work themselves up to a condition of frenzy, and if there is any ill feeling among them it is sure to crop out.

"The dances in the neighborhood of the telegraph station to which I referred included men of several tribes, and we knew that mischief would be likely to come of it. Two of our black fellows went as near to the scene of the dance as they dared go, and from time to time brought us particulars of the proceedings.

"We got revolvers and rifles ready, Mrs. Britton taking possession of one of the revolvers, and loading it very carefully. All along during the evening we could hear the yelling of the natives at their dance, but an hour or so before midnight the noise diminished, and one of our black fellows came in to tell us that they were preparing to attack the station.

"The princ.i.p.al building of the station was a block house built for defense against the blacks, and strong enough to resist any of their weapons; but, of course, they would be able to overpower us by surrounding the place and starving us out, though we had little fear of that. The great danger was that they would come upon us in great numbers, and as we were not sufficiently numerous to defend all parts of the building at once, they could set it on fire and thus compel us to come out and be slaughtered.

"The warning brought by our black fellow proved to be correct. The men who had been engaged in the dance had left the scene of their jollification and moved in the direction of the station. We could hear their voices as they approached, and it was much to our advantage that the moon was of sufficient size to give a fairly good light. The station was in such a position that no one could approach it without being seen.

"In a little while we saw in the moonlight a ma.s.s of dark figures crossing the open s.p.a.ce to the south, and, judging by the ground they covered, there were at least a hundred of them. They advanced quietly about half way across the clearing and then broke into a run, while they filled the air with yells. In a few moments they were all around the building, and quite a number of them threw their spears at it--a very foolish procedure, as the weapons could do no harm whatever to the thick sides of the structure. It was our policy not to take life or even to shed blood if we could possibly avoid it, as we were anxious to be on friendly terms with the black people along our line. I had been thinking the matter over in the evening, and suddenly hit upon a scheme that I thought would save us from injuring anybody, and at the same time give our a.s.sailants a thorough scare.

"There happened to be in the station a package of rockets, which had been brought along for signaling purposes during the work of construction. Just as the crowd of blacks reached the station, I asked Mr. Britton, the chief operator, to bring me one of the rockets.

"He complied with my request, and I fixed the missile so that it would go just above the heads of the crowd of yelling blacks. Then I touched a match to the fuse, and away sailed the rocket through the night air.

"Not one of those aboriginals had ever seen anything of the kind before.

They started not upon the order of their going, but went as though pursued by wild tigers or guilty consciences. They could not have been more astonished if the moon had dropped down and exploded among them.

They gave just one yell, and it was five times as loud as any yell they had previously given.

"In less than two minutes from the time the rocket was fired, there was not a hostile black man around the station. Our own black fellows had been trembling with fear, as they knew that, in case of capture, they would share whatever fate was in store for us, the wild blacks being greatly prejudiced against any one of their number who takes service with the whites. The crowd fled in the direction of the scene of their corroboree, but they did not stop there. We learned the next day that they ran three or four miles before coming to a halt.

"We saved the station and ourselves without shedding a drop of blood.

The story was told by the blacks far and wide that we 'shot a star at them.' This gave us a hint on which we acted, and we took pains to circulate the report that we had power to bring all the heavenly bodies to our aid whenever we needed them. Several times we offered to chief of the tribe to bring down the moon, or any of the stars that he might designate, but for fear that he would take us at our word, we always said that we would not be responsible for the consequences. In view of these circ.u.mstances, he invariably asked us to leave the denizens of the heavens alone.

"All the attacks on our stations have not been as bloodless as the one I have just described," the gentleman continued. "Three or four years after the line was opened the blacks attacked a station about one thousand miles north of Adelaide. One of the operators, Mr. Stapleton, was mortally wounded, and so was one of the line repairers. Both the other white men at the station were slightly wounded, and one of the blacks in our service was killed. The attack lasted only a short time, and the a.s.sailants were driven away by the well-directed fire of the people at the station.

"The mortally wounded operator, Mr. Stapleton, was placed on a couch, while the other operator was telegraphing the news of the occurrence to Adelaide. A doctor was called to the telegraph office in the city, and on learning the nature of the wound he p.r.o.nounced it mortal. Mr.

Stapleton's wife was a telegraph operator, and was then employed in the station at Adelaide. A telegraph instrument was placed at the bedside of the dying man, and connected with the instrument on his wife's desk. The two exchanged loving messages for a few minutes, and then the husband with his last efforts telegraphed an eternal good-by to his wife, dropped the instrument from his hand, and fell back dead. I was in the office at Adelaide at the time of this occurrence, and was one of those in the room where Mrs. Stapleton sat. Nearly all of those present were experienced operators, and could understand the clicking of the instrument. Every eye was filled with tears, and every heart was full of sympathy for the woman who had been so tragically widowed. As she received the final message of farewell she fell from her chair in a dead faint, from which she did not recover for hours."

As the foregoing story was narrated to our young friends, their eyes, too, were moist, and so were those of Dr. Whitney, who was sitting close by them. Silence prevailed for several minutes, and then the conversation turned to other subjects.

The gentleman explained that the northern terminus of the telegraph line was at Port Darwin, where connection was made with the telegraph cable to Singapore, and thence to Europe. "I suppose, in time," said he, "there will be other telegraph connections, but for the present this is the only one that Australia has with the rest of the world. Undoubtedly we shall one day have a cable to the United States, and that will certainly greatly facilitate commerce. At present, telegrams coming from your country to this must come by a very roundabout journey."

Harry asked what course a telegram would be obliged to take in coming from San Francisco to Adelaide.

"Let me see," said the gentleman; "in the first place, it would be telegraphed overland from San Francisco to New York, and then it would go under the Atlantic Ocean through one of the transatlantic cables, and then there would be two or three routes by which it could be sent. It could go by submarine cable to the Straits of Gibraltar, thence under the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and the Indian Ocean to Bombay, or it could cross Europe by one of the land lines, and then go through Russia and Persia to the north of India, reaching Bombay by the land route.

From Bombay it would be telegraphed across India to Madras, and thence by submarine cable to Singapore, and from Singapore it would be sent by cable to Port Darwin, and thence by the Australian overland line to Adelaide. The message would be repeated six or seven times in the course of its journey, and the fact that so few mistakes are made in the numerous repet.i.tions, many of them by people having an imperfect knowledge of English, speaks volumes in praise of the telegraph system."

Both of our young friends heartily indorsed this remark, and agreed with their informant that the telegraph certainly performed excellent work.

Our friends made the journey along the line of railway to which they had been invited. They found it interesting though not altogether free from monotony, as there was an excessive amount of sameness in the country through which they traveled. They pa.s.sed through a range of low mountains which were not sufficiently broken to be picturesque. They crossed several dry or slightly moistened beds of rivers, where indications were clearly visible that in times of heavy rains these dry beds or insignificant streams were turned to floods. Here and there the line crossed immense sheep farms and also great wheatfields, but there were wide stretches of land which seemed to have no occupants whatever.