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In the Chamber of
Horrors |
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Tales of Old Brisbane
Town |
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Gone Wild |
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Hodgkinson |
DAILY MAIL FRIDAY JUNE 22, 1923
IN THE CHAMBER OF HORRORS
Madame Tussaud, the famous waxwork exhibition, had one
section called the “Chamber of Horrors,” as it contained a
choice collection of some of the most notorious scoundrels on
the face of the earth.
A close observer noticed that a large section of the
visitors went direct to that chamber, and among them there
were usually the most cheerful and lighthearted, more so than
the somber and melancholy and misanthropic.
Byron says that “quiet to quick spirits is a hell”, and
is responsible for much of the crime in the world, and much of
human sorrow.
Far west it has been my fate to meet men who, in
drought time, had seen a whole year of beautiful blue sky,
without a cloud, and they would have joyfully have welcomed
the wildest, maddest, thunderstorm that ever swept over the
land, even if it blew their house down.
So these cheerful people who went direct to the Chamber
of Horrors were actually heart sick of the monotony of
cheerfulness, and so sought for ever the briefest respite,
and, for once, at least, a swift descent from the zenith to
the nadir of their emotions.
The happiest people in the world have periodic phases
of melancholy, for which usually no rational reason cane be
given.
The correspondents who want a series of morbid
tragedies are really actuated by the same hatred of monotony
as Grimaldi.
Three of them want to know if it has been my lot to be
present when people are hanged, what the scenes were like and
how the condemned acted! We shall see how one or two of these
pictures appear on this page. The poet says of Death- “Many
are the ways which lead to the grim cave, all dismal.”
It has been my lot to see death in many shapes, and
they were all nearly dismal. The first executions seen by me
were in the old Brisbane gaol in Petrie Terrace, and the two
victims, who were hanged together, were a white man and a
Chinaman. The white man was a teamster from the west, a man of
splendid physique, a fine looking fellow, who had deliberately
shot one of his mates, at whom he fired five times before
killing him.
He was only 32 years of age, and bore the name of an
old time honoured English family.
It was a mournful sight to see that perfect specimen of
manhood, brought out of the grim cell on that glorious
morning, when the life of the city was just beginning, and the
birds were singing their morning songs on the somber pines
outside the gaol yard.
He had only his arms pinioned across his back, by the
elbows, his legs being free, but a strong policeman held him
on each side.
As he passed us he cast one swift sidelong glance, as
if looking for some friendly face, then passed on to the foot
of the gallows.
Arrived there he gave one look and actually ran up the
steps to the platform, where he stood on the drop, and the
hangman fastened his ankles.
When the rope was being adjusted, he gave his head an
impatient jerk, and we heard him say, “Put the knot farther
round!” Those were his last words. He was absolutely fearless
and defiant, evidently his one desire being to have to over as
soon as possible. He had really gone through the horrors of it
all in his imagination in the condemned cell, and it was a
positive relief to face the stern reality.
The Chinaman was in mortal terror, and had to be partly
carried up to the platform. They stood side by side about 2ft
apart, on a trap door hinged at the back, and held by a
sliding bolt in front.
At a signal the hangman drew the bolt, with a lever,
and the trap door fell, the two men gliding down off it into
space, ending with just such a sound as any heavy object would
make under the same conditions. The white man was about 12
stone in weight, and he fell stone dead, without making the
slightest movement.
Both gave a slight convulsive start when they felt the
trap door going from under them. The Chinaman struggled for
about a minute, and kicked both his shoes off.
When cut down, his body was handed to Baron Mikhoule
Macleay, a visiting Russian scientist, who had to cut John’s
head off, a privelege given by the Home Secretary, and he
asked Jack Hamilton and myself, the only two members of
Parliament present, to remain and witness the act of
decapitation. The Baron took the head away to a back room in
the Museum, for anatomical purposes, to decide if the skull of
the Mongolian was built the same as that of the European.
That, of course, was all bunkum, as hundreds of Mongolian
skulls were familiar to comparative anatomists long before
that date.
Was present when a notorious aboriginal known as
“Johnny Campbell” was hanged. His native name was “Parpoonya”
a very powerful determined man, who showed no fear whatever
upon the gallows. Like the Western teamster, it was a relief
to get away from the monotony of gaol, and brooding over the
final catastrophe. He, too, fell stone dead and his body was
given to the Russian scientist Baron Macleay, who dumped it in
a cask of rum, or as much rum as Johnny left room for, labeled
it “Dugong Oil,” and consigned it to a St. Petersburg
scientific society.
When going up the Baltic, and the Gulf of Finland, the
Russian sailors could only understand the word “oil”, and
having a weakness for fat or oil of any sort, and assuming
that Dugong oil must be a special and expensive brand to be
sent so far with such care, they decided to “tap the Admiral,”
and so bored a gimlet hole in the cask, and drank everything
inside, except Johnny Campbell. When the corpus delicti of the
redoubtable Queensland aboriginal was delivered to the
scientific society, and they knocked out the end, the perfume
was wafted over St. Petersburg in a thick cloud, and the
members of the Scientific Society drove rapidly out of town in
two horse droskys to get some fresh air.
There has only been one woman hanged in Queensland, a
woman who assited a man to murder her own husband on the
Mosman River, near Port Douglas.
She and her paramour were hanged together, but as her
husband and herself had once been my host and hostess, and a
very charming hostess she was, it was necessary for me to
avoid the pain of seeing that execution, but heard that she
showed far more courage than the man. With her, too, it was
probably a relief from the deadly monotony of gaol, and the
pain of the awful suspense.
THE WORLD NEWS
TRAGEDIES AND COMEDIES
MEDLEY OF REMARKABLE FACTS
The following facts are likely to be interesting or
instructive, or both, to a majority of “The World’s News”
readers. They are from the experiences of our early explorers
by sea and land, some from the adventures of the pioneers, and
two or three recorded in my own career.
Recently a writer in a Victorian paper gave an
erroneous origin of the name of the Huon pine of Tasmania.
That pine was named from Huon Kermadee, commander of
the Esperance, a ship in the expedition of D’Entrecasteaux, in
1792. He was the first white man who saw that pine, and he
also shot the first black swan ever seen or heard of in
Tasmania, on May1, but they saw hundreds of swans on their
return there in December of the same year. He mentions that
the blacks of Tasmania used a double-ended spear, hardened in
the fire, that they had no front teeth knocked out, and “hated
the sound of a violin,” so the fiddler was probably not a
Camilla Urso, or Paganini, and our own love or hatred of a
fiddle depends on the performer, so we sympathise with the
Tasmanian of 1792.
Huon mentions the remarkable fact of seeing seven fruit
trees which had been planted by Captain Bligh – three figs,
two pomegranates, one quince, and one apple – so the blacks
had evidently not touched them.
Sir Thomas Mitchell mentions in his journal that the
blacks never meddled with any marks he made on trees, or any
temporary bridges he built, and it may be mentioned here that
the wild blacks never touched the tree marks, pegs or posts of
the early surveyors.
In a recent article by me on our birds, there was a
mention of their rising in such numbers as to make a noise
like a storm or surf.
Sir Thomas Mitchell, referring to the waterfowl rising
from “Tooring-orra” Lagoon, on the Warran, wrote that “their
rising all at once was like the sound of thunder, heard
remote.”
On my first visit to Armidale, as a boy, it was my fate
to be witness of a very tragical episode on the racecourse, on
the day of the races. Two fine young fellows, Allingham and
Proctor, started off for a friendly gallop, Proctor riding a
grey horse with a dash of the Arab.
The grey bolted off the track to the inside, and, when
being pulled back on to the track, he crossed at right angles
in front of Allingham, whose horse struck Proctor’s grey on
the flank, turned a complete somersault, and fell on top of
Allingham, killing him on the spot. There was no blame for
Proctor, whose horse was really out of control. That is my
recollection of the tragedy, and, being a spectator, not more
than 100 yards away, it is probably correct.
An amazing accident was seen by me on another New
England racecourse in the same year, but was it Inverrell or
Uralla? Some “World News” reader will remember.
In this case the course was round a lagoon, and two mad
wags, one a butcher, the other a blacksmith, started from the
grandstand in opposite directions to decide who would be first
at an equidistant point at the back of the course. Approaching
each other, they were evidently not versed in the rule of the
road, and so pulled from side to side, in fatal uncertainty,
until the foreheads of both horses came together on the same
track, and then the waters came down at Lodore!
Both horse fell back stone dead, and the two riders
were shot into space as if fired by a gigantic catapult. The
butcher landed first, and so described a pirouettes curves and
slides finally coming to repose without more ado than an
unusual shock and a belief that he had been through two
earthquakes and a boiler explosion!
His fat had acted as a safety buffer, but the lean son
of Vulcan had no lard concealed about him, and so he struck
the ground like his own sledge hammer, and had his collar bone
broken.
Had one been fired into the other they would certainly
have been killed as dead as their horses.
Also in the same year, on the Glen Innes racecourse,
there was quite a different episode. My attention was drawn to
a very plainly dressed bushman with a horse and cart, two or
three bags of chaff, and a little lucerne. He was addressing
the spectators in a loud voice, while standing in the cart,
and soon had a big audience. He told them their racehorses
were only imitations, and nothing like the brilliant Barbs and
Eclipses of his young days.
Finally he expressed a firm opinion that his old cart
horse could beat the lot of them. This evoked much mirth and a
good deal of sarcasm, and he made a fine artful show of being
“real wild”, and said he would enter his cart horse for the
half mile race, and back him for all he was worth, as he had a
few hundred to spare. He had a confidential friend who offered
to bet him a level fifty that the cart horse would be fifty
yards behind and the bet was promptly accepted. Caught by this
simple device genuine bets that the horse would not win came
in, to the amount of about £300, and when they were all
recorded the simple bushman took his steed out of the cart,
removed the harness, got a jockey’s saddle and bridle, and
then asked presumably a strange youth looking on if he would
ride for him. The strange youth consented, and the cart horse
rubbed his nose on that youth as if they were old friends.
Then the gentlemen who were in a hurry with their bets
observed that the cart horse was a beautiful animal, about 16
hands, with all the action of a first class racer, and they
began to feel as if slightly seasick, a complaint which
increased when they saw the cart horse with the jockey on his
back and on his way to the starting post. There were, as far
as my memory is concerned, about 15 starters, and the cart
horse took prompt leave of all at the start, and came in hard
held, with about 50 yards to spare between him and the second
horse! That cart horse was one of the fastest half mile
sprinters in New South Wales, and the artless youth who rode
him was one of the most experienced jockeys. It was all
artistically done, and there can never fade from my memory the
picture of that innocent looking cart horse, the simple
unsophisticated bush man, the allegedly amateur jockey, and
the seasick “smart Alicks” who were prepared to take the
simple bushman down for all he was worth!
When McIntyre and his party, in search of runs in 1864,
were going north from the Paroo to the Gulf, they found the
bodies of Curlewis and McCulloch, pioneer squatters, who were
killed while asleep by the blacks. They then went west for
three weeks, on the way to Cooper’s Creek, and followed Burke
and Wills’ track north to the Cloncurry River. Some distance
west of Burke’s track, and about 300 miles south from the
Gulf, they saw two old saddle-marked horses near a creek,
traces of two camps, and two L marked trees. That was the
McIntyre selected as leader for the expedition, to be paid for
by the ladies of Victoria, and to go in search of Leichhardt,
but, unfortunately, he contracted the malarial fever of the
Gulf at that time, and died.
In any case, what the hope of finding Leichhardt 16
years after he was lost?
A full history of Torres would be one of the most
fascinating and tragical volumes ever written. On no other
part of the Australian coast have there been so many tragedies
and thrilling historical scenes, since the days of Torres and
de Quiros, to the wreck of the Quetta. And in fine weather
today, you can sail among
those glorious “green islands in glittering seas where
fragrant forests perfume the breeze,” and imagine yourself in
a marine Paradise where truly every prospect pleases, and it
seems impossible for even man himself to be vile. Yet these
beautiful islands were inhabited by merciless cannibal
savages, quite a distinct race from the Australian aboriginal
and there are dreadful records of the fate of shipwrecked
mariners, and cannibal feats at one of which 18
men-o’-wars-men were killed and eaten. But how many awful
tragedies have never been recorded; those that forever must
remain hidden in the imperious silence of Time?
Among all that procession and panorama of ancient
mariners, who are now only shadowy phantoms to us, silhouetted
far off on the horizon or for ever vanished years there passes
Captain Bligh, one of the immortals in that Bounty launch, in
which, in 1791, he passes through Torres Strait and steers
away for Coepang. It is all now only a wild romantic wondrous
dissolving view, a mysterious fascination phantasmagoric
picture, visible only on the spectral canvas of the
Imagination, or in that celestial and wondrous art gallery
which fertile fancy peoples with the divine creations worthy
of the immortal gods!
Port Phillip, the harbor of Melbourne, was discovered
by Lieutenant Murray in the brig Nelson in 1802. It is very
remarkable that Captain Cook missed discovering Sydney Harbor,
when he passed it so near the coast, and yet, if you look at
the entrance today, from even five miles out to sea, you can
readily understand the great navigator dismissing a sight of
the Heads by merely writing, “Saw an opening in ye land.”
But Phillip had a copy of Cook’s Chart, and when he
found Botany Bay was not a fit place for settlement, he
thought of Cook’s “opening in ye land,” and on the 22nd
of January 1788, he and Captain Hunter went away with a party
and three boast to have a look, and found it one of the finest
harbors in the world. Cook discovered Moreton Bay in 1770, but
he called it “Glass House Bay,” from the Glass House
Mountains, and the name of today is a mistake. Cook’s Morton
Bay was the great sweep in the coast from Point Danger to Cape
Moreton.
How many people know that “Donkin’s Hill,” on the
Australian coast, was named in 1820, by Captain King of the
Mermaid, in honor of Donkin, the inventor of preserved meats?
And how many people have ever heard of Donkin?
Yet King writes: “I named it Donkin’s Hill in honor of
Donkin, the inventor of preserved meats, on a tin of which I
and our party dined.”
“We had lately used a case preserved in 1814, equally
good as some packed in 1818. This was the first time it was
used on our boat excursions, and the result answered every
expectation, as it prevented that excess of thirst and
distress from which we suffered in all other previous
expeditions.”
And that was 109 years ago, when Donkin preserved beef
apparently as well as today!
Newcastle, the great coal centre of New South Wales,
was called “Kingstown,” in 1818, and not Newcastle for some
years afterwards. Illawarra for years was known as the “Five
Islands District,” and the Lake Illawarra of today was “Lake
Alowrie” of the early days. In that dialect, “Illa” was water,
and “warra,” was bad, so that “Illawarra” was actually “bad
water,” and was probably the name of some unclean lagoon.
Recently met a fine old fellow, whose father was
drowned in the Gundagai flood of June 25, 1852, when 77 people
lost their lives, that and the recent flood at Clermont, in
Central Queensland, being the worst in Australian history in
the sacrifice of life.
On Myall Creek Station, near Warialda, in November,
1838, there were 28 aboriginals murdered by white men,
ex-convict stockmen and shepherds. At first nine were
arrested, tried, and got off, but seven were again arrested,
tried, and hanged together on the gallows on Brickfield Hill.
They were defended by Foster A’Beckett and Windeyer,
prosecuted by Plunkett and Therry, afterwards judge and author
of “Therry’s Reminiscences.”
The indictment was drawn up in that extraordinary and
ridiculous legal style that would excite only derision
today.
THE DAILY MAIL, BRISBANE. 7
JANUARY 1924
TALES OF OLD TIMES
IDENTITIES OF THE DOWNS
SOME LACONIC GENTLEMEN
LURID COMMENT IN THE ASSEMBLY
Many hundreds of Queenslanders still living will
clearly remember all the men mentioned in these anecdotes’ men
whose family names will long be familiar in Queensland
history. With myself they were all personal acquaintances in
the years that have gone.
A once well-known man, squatter, and politician, and
nearly 10 years Postmaster General, was Thomas Lodge Murray
Prior, who took up Maroon station, near Mount Lindesay, and
became in after years father of Mrs. Campbell Praed, the
brilliant Queensland novelist.
One of his sons, Tom Prior, was one of the two first
white men to reach the top of Mount Lindesay, the other being
Mr. Pearse, then a tutor on Maroon, and who in after years
acted as Police Magistrate at Warwick in the 1870s.
When the diggings started in 1851, in New South Wales,
the next two or three years saw a stampede of all classes of
men from all parts of Australia. Among them were the
shepherds, stockmen, shearers, cooks, and bullock drivers, so
that the squatters were driven to many devices to overcome the
labour problem.
One of these was the introduction of Chinese shepherds,
of whom there were 300 on the Darling Downs alone in 1854.
But John was no use as a bullock driver or stockman,
though he was at home as cook, shepherd, and shearer.
If the aboriginals occasionally regarded John as some
strange animal with his tail on the back of his head, instead
of in the kangaroo position, and speared him, there was no
fuss about it. The fact was not even reported, and another
John took his place, all going as serenely as if nothing had
happened.
Among the squatters who acted as their own bullock
drivers was Murray Prior, who spoke with a decided Oxford
“hah,” and had all the proud airs of a Plantagent. He was in
every sense a gentleman, with the respect of all classes, and
so the “hah” was forgiven him.
He was driving his team on the occasion from Maroon to
Brisbane, and about where Goodna is today he met a team going
to the Downs.
The driver, not knowing Prior, and taking him for any
ordinary teamster approached him familiarly, and said, “Look
here, me blanky covey, can you spare a quart of rum!”
And Prior, with great dignity, replied, “How dare you
address mew in that vulgar manner, when you ought to see that
I am a gentleman driving my own team!”
That was a permanent joke against Prior, and was a
source of much merriment among the bullock drivers who
frequently had a burlesque rehearsal among themselves.
William Henry Traill, one of the ablest of Australian
journalists, and for some years editor and part proprietor of
the “Bulletin,” told an amusing story of Murray Prior.
Traill was his guest at Maroon, and they were all at
supper, among those present being the beautiful 16 year old
girl who afterwards became Mrs. Praed, the novelist. She was a
daughter of a mother, who was one of the handsomest women in
Queensland, even when I was her husband’s guest in 1874.
(Norah Barton).
When Prior started to talk, everybody else could do
nothing but sit and listen. Traill declared to me that Prior,
at the start of the dinner, cut off a small piece of mutton,
intended for the first mouthful, poised it on his fork, and
started to talk. He was still talking with the mutton on his
fork when the dessert was being cleared away! He did exactly
the same when he was his guest.
The Thorns, of Ipswich, were an historic family in
Queensland, the first being old George Thorn, who had been a
sergeant of militia in England, and came out in charge of a
lot of convicts. He finally became superintendent of the first
convicts sent up to start a settlement at what was called
“Limestone,” from the rock formation, the site of the present
Ipswich. When the convict settlement was abolished, and the
convicts were withdrawn to Sydney in 1839, those at Limestone
were included, so that George Thorn’s official position ended,
and he decided to remain and become the first free settler in
what is now Ipswich.
He was fine, genial old fellow, a general favourite,
and he built and kept the first public house in Ipswich, a
substantial slab building roofed with stringy bark. He had
four sons, Harry, George, Charley, and Willie, and George
became member for Ipswich, and Premier of Queensland when
Arthur Macalister resigned the Premiership and went to London
as Agent-General in 1874. The others were all squatters, one
of their stations being Normanby, in the Fassifern district.
Harry went west to Dalby, and took up Warra station, and was
living there when the line west from Dalby was being
constructed. Harry was a genial, good natured fellow, very
generous to the navies, who swore by him; and George persuaded
him to stand as a candidate for the Northern Downs. George was
a political and electioneering artist of the first water, and
he knew that a solid navy vote would put Harry in, in calm
defiance of the fact that Harry had never spoken in public in
his life, and could not make an eloquent speech to anything
except a bullock, to save his immortal soul.
At his first address to the electors, Harry stood on a
grey gum stump, and the chairman, who told me the story, sat
on the butt log. Around Harry were gathered as wild a
collection of red blooded democrats as ever faced a Queensland
orator. They had a fixed purpose to return Harry, regardless
of his opinions, or even if he had no opinions at all.
Likewise that free and independent crowd knew that Harry had
ordered three hogsheads of beer from Brisbane, and that all
that beautiful beer was housed in a shanty not far off.
So when Harry rose to remark “Gentlemen!” a hundred
voices yelled in chorus, “Three blanky cheers for Harry
Thorn!”
And there were cheers that scared every bird and animal
for a mile.
Harry
tried three times to start with “Gentlemen,” and never got any
further, being at once drowned in those terrible cheers.
Finally he said to the chairman on the butt of the log:
“Mr. Chairman, I can’t go on with my speech; let us finish the
whole blanky business, and everybody come and have a drink!”
The cheers at this stage made cracks in the earth, and they
drank Harry’s health until nothing was left of those three
hogsheads except the staves. And Harry went in at the head of
the poll, and sat in Parliament without ever saying a word.
The member who made the next shortest speech was the
late James Lalor, a strong McIlwraith supporter from the
Maranoa. Taking emphatic exception one night to a remark from
some member on his own side, he rose and said, “Mr. Speaker, I
tell the honourable member it is a … lie.” James was the
“Single Speech Hamilton” of our Parliament. Being present at
the occasion, and hearing that speech, there is no doubt about
its accuracy, and it was also duly reported in Hansard.
Morehead rose to observe that “after that eloquent speech of
the honourable member for Maranoa the House might adjourn for
refreshments!” Whereas there was a considerable ripple of
hilarity.
In Ipswich, in my time, when editing the “Ipswich
Observer” in the 1870s, there were two doctors, one being Dr.
William McTaggart Dorsay, and the other Dr. Von Lossberg.
One of Dr. Dorsay’s daughters married Sir Joshua Peter
Bell and another married Robert Gray, who was for a long time
Under-Secretary in the Home Secretary’s Office, and for years
one of the three Railway Commissioners. Von Lossberg was a
Prussian, and a big six feet, 15 stone man like Dorsay.
Between them there was an Orsini and Colonna vendetta,
and to me it was a source of considerable entertainment. Both
were good fellows and my personal friends, but in that wild
period of my wayward youth, the love of mischief overcame me.
I informed Lossberg confidentially that Dorsay’s father
was a notorious pirate, and that his mother was a McTaggart,
who came from one of the most blood thirsty of the Scottish
clans, who were all cannibals.
This gave much joy to Lossberg, who increased in weight
for a week or two.
Dorsay was informed by me also confidentially, that the
name Lossberg came from the words “loss” a man, and “berg” a
stone, and was the name of a blood thirsty tribe of cannibal
Prussians who lived in the dark depths of the Black Forest,
made periodic raids on peaceable tribes, whom they murdered
and roasted on hot stones for a cannibal feast. Dorsay, on
hearing this, would insist on shouting with great enthusiasm!
There was once no better known sea captain on the East
Australian coast than Captain Lake, whose name will strike a
sympathetic chord through hundreds of Australian hearts. Lake
never lost but one vessel, a small vessel, called the “Sable
Chief,” on the way from the Fitzroy River to Gladstone with a
cargo of wood.
Among my researches in old newspapers, I find the
following letter addressed to “N. Towns and Co.” from
Gladstone on December 31, 1857, in the Sydney “Empire,” Henry
Parkes’ paper, on January 5, 1858.
The letter says: “The vessel was lost about six miles
off Gatcombe Island, on my way from Fitzroy River to
Gladstone. On the 26th we went out to the wreck, if
possible to save more cargo. After going about three miles
outside Gatcombe Head it began to blow so hard that we were
compelled to go back and anchor inside. We walked across the
island to see what remained. We found the masts gone, and the
vessel breaking up. On Saturday we found the vessel had quite
gone. Several bales of wool were on shore, and on Sunday we
got 13 bales, slept on the island and got 40 more, making 50
bales recovered. On Tuesday we went out again but could see no
more, so I went at once to Gladstone. The Sable Chief is fully
insured.”
That is a tale of the times of old, of those who went
down to the sea in ships, and either never returned, or
whose tale has never been told.
GONE WILD
LIFE AMONG THE BLACKS
QUEENSLAND CASES
SAVAGE AND CIVILISED MAN
What we are pleased to call “civilisation” is only a
very thin veneer on the surface of the old savage man
underneath. The average man, in a rage, is purely the primeval
savage. If civilized man goes to war, he becomes a savage and
more, and all the accumulated artificial veneer of thousands
of years is rubbed off in his first battle, and he is just as
ferocious and merciless, and bloodthirsty as any tribe of
cannibal savages in Central Africa.
It is one of these cold-blooded, unsentimental facts,
which are not pleasant, but which it is well for us to ponder
over occasionally, and learn a little wisdom thereby – if
possible! We have seen how soon Duramboi went back to a wild
state, and even to cannibalism. He was a pure savage, when
Stuart Russell found him among the blacks of the Mary River.
Buckley was merely a white savage when found among the blacks
in 1836, after 33 years, but his intellect was much inferior
to that of the aboriginal.
In the year 1832 a convict named Bracefell escaped from
the Moreton Bay penal settlement, two years after the murder
of Logan by his own men.
Duramboi had gone north, and Bracefell took the same
direction, finally being adopted by the Noosa River tribe, by
whom he was called “Wandye,” the word for “wild,” and also one
of the names of the dingo. He had been 10 years with the
blacks when found by Andrew Petrie and Stuart Russell in 1843,
when they were on their way to Wide Bay.
Bracefell knew the story of Duramboi, and had met him
at various meetings of the Mary and Noosa tribes, so he told
Petrie and Russell, and acted as pilot across the Wide Bay
bar, along Sandy Strait, and up the Mary River, to the tribe
with whom Duramboi was camped.
Bracefell was one of the most intelligent of all that
escaped white men, and after his return to Brisbane he
prepared a map, giving a remarkably accurate feature survey of
the country, from Noosa to the Mary, and it was sent to the
Governor of New South Wales. Where is that map today? It ought
to be in the Mitchell Library.
Bracefell had a mate when he escaped, and some
aboriginal woman regarded him as the reincarnation of a long
lost son until one day, when down at the beach, gathering
yugarie, he took a bark coolamin out of the hollow of a tree,
emptied all the bones and carried it back to the camp full of
yugarie. The coolamin was at once recognised, and the
relatives of the dead man killed the convict, regarding him as
an imposter, quite certain that no genuine aboriginal would
desecrate the bones of the dead, which were always regarded
with great reverence by all aboriginals.
Bracefell, even in the ten years, had become a savage,
and could throw the spear and boomerang with great dexterity.
When he had been about three years with the blacks, the ship
Stirling Castle was wrecked on Elizabeth Reef, far away to the
East, on her return from Sydney to London, and the survivors,
including Captain Fraser, and his wife, finally reached the
shore of Fraser Island, - the “Great Sandy Island” of the
early maps, where the blacks treated them kindly, and passed
them over to the mainland at Inskip Point, so that the coast
tribes could pass them along to the penal station at Moreton
Bay.
We have only Mrs. Fraser’s story for what happened
after that, but she must have either had a serious quarrel
with truth, or else her head was badly affected by her
experience, for she told one tale at the penal settlement,
quite a different story to Sydney, and a different version in
London.
Certainly she gave a wildly improbable tale in
Brisbane, accusing the blacks of deeds quite foreign to their
known character, and quite unheard of before or since, in
aboriginal annals. She also behaved towards Bracefell with an
ingratitude inconceivable in any sane woman under the
circumstances.
Bracefell deliberately risked his own life by getting
her away secretly from the blacks, and traveling south along
the beach, where the tide would wash out their tracks,
successfully avoiding all other blacks on the way, until he
and Mrs. Fraser safely reached within sight of Brisbane, or on
to the track from Eagle Farm to the settlement.
Bracefell was of opinion that his action in rescuing
the white woman from the blacks would be rewarded by a full
pardon for his escape, but when she found herself in sight of
white people, and fairly safe, she threatened Bracefell to
make a serious charge against him to the authorities, and this
so scared him that he put her on the Eagle Farm track, and
went back his lonely way to the blacks, with whom he resided
for another seven years until found by Petrie and Russell.
Bracefell and Duramboi both declared that Mrs. Fraser’s
tales in Brisbane, Sydney, and London, were evolved from her
own imagination, and old blacks at Noosa and Fraser Island, in
1874, told me a story very different from that of the lady,
and 1874 and 1836 were only 38 years apart. Her subsequent
actions clearly showed that she was certainly not quite sane,
so she may be forgiven.
Bracefell took Petrie and Russell to the rescue of
Duramboi, and they all came back together to Brisbane. In
after years, Bracefell was killed by a falling tree when
felling scrub at Goodna.
In the year 1838 a man named Fahey came out on a life
sentence prisoner in the ship Clyde.
Four years afterwards a party of convicts, including
Fahey, were working on the public road near the present
Armidale of New England.
The overseer was one of those heartless savage human
devils who treated the convicts as if they were ferocious wild
beasts, and goaded them to desperation by frequent, merciless
floggings on the most trivial pretences. But there came a day
of reckoning, and it seems the two soldier guards joined in
the transaction, as it was not possible without their
acquiescence.
The convicts first tied the overseer very securely to a
hurdle, and then laid him carefully on top of a big nest of
soldier ants, the real red warriors that stood on their hind
legs and pawed the air in their fierce anxiety to get at you.
When they had done with that overseer there was only a nice
clean, white skeleton suitable for an anatomical museum.
Fahey told Lieutenant Bligh of the Native Police, in
1854, that he could still hear the yells of that overseer, and
that date was 12 years after the event!
After the soldier ant episode, Fahey and three others
escaped, and were passed along by the “Yoocum” speaking blacks
of New England, finally to the “Waccah” speaking blacks of the
Bunya Mountains, where Bligh and his troopers found him in
1854, and brought him to Brisbane.
Fahey had gone “wild”, could throw the spear and
boomerang, speak the language fluently, and had his breast
tattooed with the “Moolgarra” scars, so they must have passed
him through the Boar ceremony, a distinction not claimed by
any of the other Australian white men. Fahey was taken to
Sydney, identified by the superintendent of convicts, and
actually was given 12 months’ hard labour for absconding 12
years before!
The blacks had given him the name of “Gillburri,” of
the names of the spine-tailed swift. He was adopted by the
blacks in the same year Duramboi and Wandye were brought back
to civilisation, so that in another year these three wild
white men might have met at the great triennial festival at
the Bunya Mountains.
The three men who escaped with Fahey were never seen or
heard of again, probably being killed by blacks, whose anger
they had excited by a breach of some law, whose violations
meant death.
In the year 1846 a barque, called the Peruvian, bound
from Sydney for China, with a cargo of timber, mostly red
cedar, was wrecked on a reef far east of Cape Cleveland, which
is near Townsville.
It was one of the most terrible tragedies in the
history of wrecks, and yet not one sentence of that awful
story was given to the world for 17 years afterwards, when the
sole survivor at that time was found living among the wild
blacks of the Burdekin River.
After the wreck the captain’s brother perished next
morning, and the others were washed away from the vessel on a
raft, which carried three ladies, two children, two men
passengers, the captain, carpenter, Sailmaker, cook, four able
seamen, four apprentices, and two black men – a total of 21.
Their food and water rapidly diminished. They caught a
few birds, drank their blood, and ate the flesh.
Then James Quarry and his child died,, to be at once
thrown over and eaten by the sharks, which followed the raft
day and night.
Then two of the children and Mrs. Wilmot died, and one
by one followed them to the jaws of ravenous sharks.
The survivors cut a leg from a dead man, tied it up to
the end of an oar, and caught a shark, which they ate raw.
It was such a scene as Dante, the gloomy Florentine,
might have sketched in his Inferno.
After 42 days on that awful raft through horrors that
baffle the imagination, seven miserable survivors, landed on
the southern end of Cape Cleveland, including Captain
Pitketchly and wife, George Wilmot, James Gooley, Jack Millar,
James Murrells, and one of the boys.
Wilmot and Gooley died soon after landing, and Millar
went away in a black’s canoe, and died of starvation at Cape
Upstart.
After 14 days the others were found by the blacks, who
treated them kindly, and gave them plenty to eat.
The Cape Cleveland blacks took the captain and his
wife,, and Murrells and the boy went with another tribe to Mt.
Elliott, the Bunggolungga of the blacks of the Burdekin, which
they called “Mal-Mal.”
Two years afterwards the captain, his wife, and the boy
died, and Murrells, who had come from Maldon, in Essex, was
left alone, of all the party.
He was 17 years with the blacks, spoke their language
fluently, and was expert with all their weapons.
On January 25, 1863, he walked up to a newly forming
cattle station on the Burdekin, and was nearly shot by one of
the men, in mistake for an aboriginal. He called out, “Don’t
shoot. I’m a British object!” having forgotten his own
language.
At the time of his death he was a warehouseman in the
Customs at Bowen.
He married a white woman, and had a son, who sold in
1887 for £10,000 an allotment bought for him at the first sale
of Townsville land, in Bowen for £8, the upset price.
The late Government Printer, Mr. Gregory, took down a
short vocabulary and some notes from Murrells, and issued
them in a pamphlet, which he asked me to edit for him.
OUR EXPLORERS
W. O. HODGKINSON
QUEENSLANDER’S GREAT WORK
Of all the old explorers, Hodgkinson was the best known
to Queenslanders, having lived the best part of his life in
this State, been for some years a member of the Queensland
Parliament, and a Minister of the Crown in one of the Griffith
Ministries.
He first appears on the page of history as a member of
the Burke and Wills Expedition, which left Melbourne on August
20, 1860, with 17 white men, three Indian camel drivers, 26
camels, and 28 horses, all under the command of Robert O’Hara
Burke, with Landell and Wills as second and third officers.
At Menindie, on the Darling, Burke foolishly divided
his party, leaving the majority there to follow and join him
at Cooper’s Creek.
At Menindie, Landell resigned, his place being taken by
Wills, whose position was given to a man named Wright, manager
of a station in the district. This man was an evil genius of
the whole party, and responsible for all the disasters that
followed.
Burke and Wills, with six men, half the camels and
horses, arrived at Cooper’s Creek on November 11, to remain
there until the arrival of Wright’s party, but as there was no
appearance of Wright up to December 16, Burke decided to take
Wills, King and Grey, six camels, one horse, and three months’
provisions, and start for the Gulf.
Wright wasted three months’ valuable time at Menindie,
where four of his men died with fever, Becker, Purcell, Stone,
and Paton.
One of the party was W. O. Hodgkinson, and if he had
been placed in charge, instead of Wright, the Burke and Wills
tragedy would never have happened, for he was a man prompt of
speech and rapid in action, and would likely have been at
Cooper’s Creek as soon as Burke and Wills. As a final excuse
for delay, Wright decided on sending Hodgkinson on a 500 mile
journey to Melbourne, by himself, for more money to buy horses
and sheep, and Hodgkinson went and returned in 21 days, being
only one day in Melbourne when he started back, so he must
have ridden at least 50 miles daily for 20 days.
He told me the whole journey cost him only 2s, as no
one would charge him for anything, and his whole expenses
represented 2s punt ferries for himself and horse.
The next appearance of Hodgkinson is the second in
command of John McKinlay’s expedition sent out in search of
Burke, of Burke and Wills, leaving Adelaide on August 16,
1861, with 10 men, 24 horses, 4 camels, 12 bullocks, and 100
sheep, arriving at Cooper’s Creek on December 6,, Burke’s
grave next day under a tree, with his initials and the date,
21-9-61.
As the fate of Burke and Wills had been settled by A.
W. Howitt, who buried the remains, and rescued King, who had
been kindly treated by the blacks, there was no further search
to be made, so McKinlay decided to start for the Gulf across
the Australian continent.
McKinlay was a stern, determined Scot, swift to think
and act when there was stern work to do, like his fiery old
Highland ancestors who wore the McKinlay tartan, with its red,
white, green and blue pattern. The Irish branch spelt the name
McKinley and MacKinley.
Before finally leaving the Central area, McKinlay took
Wylde and Hodgkinson in a rapid trip to the westward for 50 or
60 miles, where they saw only dry lakes, dry creeks, red
sandhills, and stones. They crossed part of Sturt’s Desert,
which showed a weird spectacle of floods and mud, very
different from the scene presented to Sturt. They passed
Sturt’s Ponds and Lake Hodgkinson, named by McKinlay, and when
about 50 miles from Lake Yamma Yamma, McKinlay was doubtful
about his position, and asked Hodgkinson to take their
latitude and longitude.
He himself had no scientific knowledge whatever, and a
sextant, a prismatic compass, or an artificial horizon was no
more use to him than a gridiron in deciding his locality.
Hodgkinson and Middleton were the only members of the
party capable of taking the latitude. McKinlay had packed the
instruments among the tea and sugar and flour, and they were
somewhat out of order.
So after Hodgkinson had adjusted his horizon, and given
a critical glances at Alpha Centauri, or Cygni, or Aldebaran,
he solemnly assured his astonished leader that “we are now 60
miles west of Bangkok, the capital of Siam!”
Then McKinlay rose from his seat on a gidya log, and
walked sadly away to tell Middleton, that Hodgkinson had gone
mad, and would he find their latitude? Middleton was also a
humorist, so he adjusted his horizon, took calm survey of Cor-
Borealis, Arcturus, or Vega, then turned to the astounded
McKinlay to say, “We are about 50 miles east of Christchurch,
New Zealand!”
Then McKinlay spent the next five minutes cursing the
evil fate that sent him across the Australian continent with a
pair of scarlet lunatics.
Their route took them across the Cloncurry River to the
Leichhardt, and the Albert, which they reached on May 13, and
on the 21st they started away south-east for Port
Denison and Bowen, taking two days to get the party over the
Burdekin. They had more or less continuous sickness on the
journey, and much suffering from fever and gastric troubles.
On July 30 they killed their last camel, “Siva,” and
ate him, though in a country swarming with game.
They reached Harvey and Somer’s station on the Bowen,
and nearly killed themselves by eating roast beef and new
damper.
In his journal, McKinlay wrote: “The flour, during the
night, and for some days after, had the most astonishing
effect on all of us, as our digestive organs could not digest
the bread, being so accustomed to the easily digested meat. We
were in great pain, and our legs and feet swelled very much.”
A month after Landsborough reached Melbourne from the
Gulf, after his search for Burke and Wills, news came of
McKinlay’s arrival at Bowen, the first news since he had
discovered Grey’s grave on Cooper’s Creek.
On arrival in Melbourne he and Landsborough had a great
public reception at the Exhibition, and highly eulogistic
speeches were made by Dr. Cairns and the Hon. M. Hervey.
McKinlay had a high opinion of Hodgkinson, his energy,
courtesy, and intelligence.
Now we come to the time when W. O. Hodgkinson went out
as leader of the “North-West Expedition” for the Queensland
Government in 1870.
This man, who had been in the Burke and Wills
Expedition, and second in command with McKinlay in 1861, was
now to be the supreme leader of an expedition into far
North-West Queensland.
His party included Norman McLeod, a German named
Kayser, William Carr Boyd, and a black trooper named Larry.
Carr Boyd, who was well known to me, was a son of Dr.
Carr Boyd, one of the best classical scholars of his time, and
for years editor of the “Queensland Times,” of Ipswich, and
was a tall, athletic Queenslander, about six feet two and a
good, all round, genial, fine fellow, slightly eccentric.
The party went from the Cloncurry copper mine to Lake
Coongi, in South Australia, and thence by the western boundary
of Queensland to the Gulf of Carpentaria, returning to the
east coast via Cloncurry, Normanton, and the Flinders.
No Australian explorer – not even Sir Thomas Mitchell,
or Sir George Grey – has given more graphic or poetic pictures
of the country passed over, or the scenes surveyed. On page 22
of his diary, we have the following perfect picture of a scene
on a lonely waterhole on Manner’s Creek, in a period of severe
drought:- “A naturalist might here procure specimens of the
whole fauna and aiv-fauna of the district. Thirst, which
conquers fear, brings them all together. These two daily
decreasing pools are the resort of every living creature for
miles around. The timid emu and plain turkey, the stealthy
native dog, await their opportunity. A passing pelican
pauses to see if a fish is left, and a couple of herons and
a spoonbill stand motionless for hours, while four or five
shags actively search every square foot, most of the water
so shallow that their attempts to dive are ridiculous.
Cockatoos, galahs, and other noisy members of the parrot
family, scream loudly in the adjoining trees, while
countless finches, and parroqueets, and Java sparrows, chirp
and twitter from dawn to sunset. Birds of prey swoop down
upon the flights at the water, pursuer and pursued, impelled
by hunger and terror, dashing wildly into the thick,
poligonum around. Grave, but active, the ubiquitous crow
walks warily about, now seizing some morsel from the camp,
or securing some unfortunate wounded bird, disabled, but not
clutched, by the swooping falcon. Night too, has its active
nocturnal army, for then the smaller marsupials travel their
well worn tracks, nightjars swoop with noiseless wing, and
strange cries rise above the ceaseless murmur of the
foliage.
The very timber bordering the creek reveals the nature
of the climate. Warped in all fantastic shapes, thick of bark
and meager of foliage, it is formed equally to resist the
rushing torrents of floods, or the burning sun and scorching
winds, of droughts. All is in extremes – fiery heat or
chilling cold.”
Not one of all the other explorers has left to us so
graphic a picture as that; but Hodgkinson had often an
eloquent pen, and was capable of being also eloquent of
speech.
They left the Cloncurry River in April, 1876, and on
May 12 passed over rolling downs in sight of Mounts Aplin,
Birnie, Bruce, Murray, and Merlin, named 15 years before by
Robert O’Hara Burke.
Blacks were very numerous, but a strict watch was kept,
as Hodgkinson was not the man to take any foolish chances.
From start to finish he never fired a shot at an aboriginal,
and maintained amicable terms throughout the journey, though
several times strongly tempted to hostile acts by the
threatening demeanour of some of the blacks.
On May 16 they were on the Diamantina, crossing rolling
plains of sun cracked calcareous soil, tessellated by patches
of trapped rocks and ironstone pebbles. Emus and bustards
(plain turkeys) were very numerous. Passed hills of red sand,
through gidya scrubs, and over undulating downs. On the 19th,
heavy rains, and game in great abundance, including black
duck, wood duck, teal, and the crested bronzewing pigeons,
with many dingoes howling in the night. Began on the 17th
to eat a thick leaved plant called portulae, known to bushmen
as “pigface,” and found it a useful vegetable food, and
excellent anti-scorbutic, and the verdict is quite correct.
On May 31, they caught many splendid fish the blacks
called “Ulderra,” known to Western men today as the yellow
perch, one of the best fish in Australia. They also got a rock
cod called “Cooeeya,” and he says the blacks called the
Diamantine “Gnappera,” but that was merely from their word
“gnappa” for water, and said it ran into a lake called
“Thirda” one of the native names of Lake Eyre.
A lot of friendly blacks presented them with two clay
ovens full of a roasted root called “Wantye,” shaped like a
radish, and tasting like a sweet potato. Then on across
spinifex covered sandhills, flooded creeks, claypan flats,
open downs, through scrubs of mulga, gidya, and poligonum,
past lagoons covered by wild fowl and cork trees crowded with
nests of Java sparrows, passing numerous tribes of blacks, and
he and his party dieting on portulae, fish, ducks, pelicans,
pigeons, and salt beef, sometimes with food in abundance, and
occasionally very hungry, with more than a fair share of heavy
rain.
In July they reached Lake Hodgkinson, named by
McKinlay, swarming with fish and wildfowl, a beautiful sheet
of water set in a glorious border of emerald clover, with an
outer ring of handsome box gums, all enclosed by a circle of
picturesque sandhills. They saw their first swan on that lake,
and near there were some huge native graves, one 18ft long,
10ft wide, and 4ft high, made of sand, boughs, and logs. They
camped by a lagoon on the Mulligan, with ducks, swans,
pelicans, and fish in abundance.
On August 28, they surprised a party of blacks, who
fled and left 1218 dead birds, mostly shell parrots and Java
sparrows they had caught in nets. Finally they had traced the
Diamantina to the border, and traveled from Cloncurry to Lake
Conginiu South Australia, the journey extending from April 13
to September 27, 1876.
The name W. O. Hodgkinson has not, in Queensland
history, been so prominent as it deserved. He was a remarkable
man. He had done very fine work on the Burke and Wills
expedition of 1860, and splendid work on the McKinlay
expedition, when second in command in 1816. His career is a
romance. He was born at Wandsworth, in England, in 1836,
entered the mercantile marine as a middy in 1851; came out to
Australia, went back and entered the War Office in 1854,
returned to Victoria in 1859, becoming at first reported, and
then sub-editor of the Melbourne “Age.”
Then his expeditions with Burke and Wills, and
McKinlay, his expedition of 1876, his position as police
magistrate on the Hodgkinson and Palmer from 1877 to 1884,
then member for Burke, from 1874 to 1876; finally a member
again in the 1880s, and a Minister of the Crown, in the
Griffith Ministry, in charge of the Education Department. And
this man, who had done such fine patriotic work for Queensland
and Australia, died among strangers in a house on Petrie
Terrace, North Brisbane, his many friends knowing nothing
until he was gone.
Go,
think of it, in silence and alone,
Then weigh, against a grain of sand, the glories of
a throne.