MISSING FRIENDS

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTORY v

CHAP.

I. MY FIRST EXPERIENCES ON LEAVING HOME 3

II. ON THE EMIGRANT SHIP--THE JOURNEY TO QUEENSLAND 19

III. MY ARRIVAL IN QUEENSLAND 43

IV. GAINING COLONIAL EXPERIENCE 73

V. TOWNSVILLE: MORE COLONIAL EXPERIENCES 101

VI. ON THE HERBERT RIVER 131

VII. LEAVING THE HERBERT--RAVENSWOOD 161

VIII. SHANTY-KEEPING, PROSPECTING, THORKILL'S DEATH 185

IX. GOING TO THE PALMER 211

X. RETURNING FROM THE PALMER 231

XI. A LOVE STORY 259

XII. BRISBANE--TRAVELS IN THE "NEVER NEVER" LAND 271

XIII. THE END 315




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


(1) A SWAGSMAN _Frontispiece_

(2) LANDING OF EMIGRANTS _To face page_ 55

(3) AN ALLIGATOR POOL " " 145

(4) THE BAKER'S CART " " 190

(5) BREAKFAST IN THE GOLD FIELDS " " 198

(6) ROCKHAMPTON " " 232




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.