Part 8 (2/2)
In charge of the train was Mr. Norris Bell, the eminent engineer who controlled the construction of the line, and is now running it in such a way that, despite almost total absence of local traffic, it is nearly paying its working expenses, a remarkable achievement considering the desolate nature of the country through which it pa.s.ses. The railway connects the populous States of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, with the vast and potentially rich, but presently undeveloped, western territories. It is one of those imaginative national enterprises undertaken by young countries, and is bound to be justified by the generous policy of land development which usually accompanies, though at present it draws its dividends from the future.
The Nullarbor plain through which it pa.s.ses is so devoid of rain that it not only possesses no streams, but its level expanse is unscarred by even a dry water-course. It is almost absolutely flat for several hundreds of miles, after which it undulates slightly, the folds being in some cases occupied by lakes or tanks, most of which are so salt that they are useless for either drinking or irrigation. Their banks form desolate patches of gleaming white on the horizon, owing to the crystallization of ma.s.ses of salt upon them. In places where fresh water is obtainable, it has usually to be pumped up from some depth below ground. Wells are so far between that the train has to carry tanks large enough to water the engine for two hundred miles without replenishment.
The portion of the plain in which the Prince found himself, the morning after leaving Kalgoorlie, was of red earth thickly sprinkled with white stones of irregular shape, shaded by bunchy grey salt-bushes the size of cabbages. These salt-bushes, dry and dusty as they appear, afford quite good fodder for sheep. The plain, therefore, almost entirely rainless as it is, only requires the provision of drinking-water to enable it to be put to profitable use. Sheep-stations already exist upon it, wherever it has been found possible to tap subsoil water sweet enough for the sheep to drink, and with growing knowledge of this remarkable region, and improved methods of purifying saline springs, it is hoped gradually to convert much of what is now unproductive into sheep-raising areas.
As the train rushed onward through the day, the stones became smaller and eventually disappeared, and the salt-bushes grew gradually larger.
One lost the impression of moving through an interminable cabbage patch, and felt as on a s.h.i.+p. The salt-bushes rippled over a calm expanse of ocean extending on all sides to a far horizon.
In the afternoon a halt was made and the Prince alighted and paid a visit to a rude encampment of aborigines, who had travelled a hundred miles on foot to meet him. They performed a number of weird ceremonial dances before him, and gave an exhibition of their skill in the throwing of boomerangs and spears. The performers were almost completely naked men and boys, painted all over with red and other brilliant patches on a whitish ground, whose only garment was a scanty rag of dirty cotton cloth that could hardly be said even to encompa.s.s the waist. The dances were slow, the performers sometimes stealing in single file round a circle, sometimes springing as if to the attack, the while incantations were chanted by miserable bundles of savage humanity, feminine as well as masculine, who squatted upon the ground. The boomerang-throwing was a much more lively affair. The air hummed with sharp wooden blades the size and weight of reaping-hooks. About a dozen performers operated simultaneously and each threw quite a number of these blades in quick succession to immense heights, where they hovered like hawks, eventually to descend with uncanny speed in a series of crooked swirls and side-long rushes. The circles described were such that quite a wide area was swept by flying blades each of which travelled on a complicated orbit of its own, of extraordinary speed, the sharp edge continually leading. It was explained that these boomerangs were of the hunting type, and were used in practice chiefly against flights of duck, the birds taking them for hawks and keeping low and thus within range when they were in the air. The spear-throwing was also interesting. The spears consisted of straight wooden shafts, like slim but heavy bean-sticks, with a tapering charred point sharpened to acuteness, and tail winged with a thin wooden slip the size of a biggish paper-knife.
These spears were thrown with marvellous force and precision, with an action like that of overhand bowling, a sack stuffed with salt-bush branches and crudely painted to represent a human face, being transfixed again and again, in the centre, at sixty yards. These wretched people appear to be rapidly dying out despite liberal grants from the Commonwealth and State Governments to educate and feed them. In the south they seem to be entirely incapable of learning even how to cook or wash or build themselves shelters. In the north they are less degraded and find employment on cattle-stations where some of them make excellent stock-drivers, learning to ride well and handle animals.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CROSSING THE NULLARBOR PLAIN]
[Ill.u.s.tration: ABORIGINAL DANCE]
The camp visited by the Prince was typical of the lowest amongst them.
It was being looked after by a cultivated Australian lady who was devoting herself to the services of these poor creatures, who seemed to be entirely dependent upon her, so incapable were they of fending for themselves in any practical manner beyond that of adding to the larder by the killing of a limited number of small animals. When left to themselves, we were told, they seldom had more than twenty-four hours'
food supply within sight. Their intelligence does not even extend to the keeping of provisions when supplied with them in any quant.i.ty beyond what they can devour upon the spot.
Another picturesque incident occurred about sunset, when the train stopped at an artesian boring to take in a fresh supply of water. Here some twenty well-conditioned camels were grazing upon the salt-bushes, in charge of two intelligent natives of Rawalpindi, India. These turbaned Punjabis, who spoke Hindustani with a distinct Australian accent, so long had they been in the country, were marching the camels overland to Western Australia, where they hoped to sell them at a good price for transport work in the bush. The men had evidently prospered.
They said they had found Australia a good country, though they looked forward to retiring eventually to their own land. Several Eurasian children were with them. It was a reminder of those racial problems of which the people of Australia take constant thought when they determine to develop the natural resources of their wonderful land, as far as may be, by white labour alone. It is no disparagement of the Oriental to say that he is at his best when he is entirely of the East, just as the white man is at his best when he mates with those of his own country and race, a point upon which Australia, at all events, is thoroughly convinced.
XVIII
SOUTH AUSTRALIA
The Prince alighted at sundown at the s.h.i.+pping centre Port Augusta, at the head of Spencer gulf, and was welcomed to South Australia by Mr.
Barwell, State Premier, and other members of the Cabinet. A civic reception was held, and the party changed over from the standard gauge train of the Trans-Australian Railway, into a train on the narrow gauge of South Australia, which was standing in the station profusely decorated for the occasion. A start was then made on the two hundred and sixty miles that lay between that point and Adelaide, throughout the whole of which distance, we afterwards learnt, a guard had been placed on every bridge and culvert. The people of South Australia were in no mind that the Prince should run the risk of further accident.
Civic receptions, at which numbers of returned men and other war workers were drawn up, and all the inhabitants turned out, were given at various places _en route_, including Quorn, Peterborough, Terowie, and Gawler.
The first part of the way was over the picturesque Pichirichi pa.s.s, thirteen hundred feet above sea level. After descending on the other side the narrow gauge gave place to the broad five-feet-three-inch track, which connects Adelaide with Melbourne. Sir Archibald Weigall, Governor of South Australia, soon afterwards joined the train. The latter part of the route was through flat and extraordinarily fertile farming country.
Adelaide was reached about noon. Here a large proportion of the inhabitants of the province had a.s.sembled to welcome the Prince. A procession was formed at the railway station, where guards-of-honour were drawn up. The Prince shared a motor with Sir Archibald Weigall. Mr.
Barwell and other members of the South Australian Government occupied cars behind. A well-mounted escort of light horse, in khaki, jingled on either side. The entire route, some three miles in length through the princ.i.p.al streets, had been elaborately decorated, and was lined ten deep the whole way with cheerful crowds. Entering the s.p.a.cious and solidly built King George's Street, where magnificent bodies of Flying Corps, Engineers, Naval Reserve, and other returned men kept the barricades, the Prince was greeted by numbers of lady war-workers, in fresh white uniforms, who had public-spiritedly reopened, for the benefit of the blue-jackets and marines on the various visiting war-vessels, the ”Cheer-up club” which did such good service during the war. Cadets, red cross workers, and ma.s.ses of medalled returned men lined the s.p.a.ce opposite the town hall, where Mayor Moulder read a civic address, to which the Prince replied, describing his now nearly half-completed travels in the Commonwealth as a most memorable experience, a statement heartily endorsed by all who shared them. From the town hall the procession went on to the working-men's quarter, where the reception was as enthusiastic as anywhere. It was also noticeable that although only school-children, of whom there were incredible numbers, lined the route for at least half a mile in this part of the city, order was as well kept as in thoroughfares elsewhere, where regulars or volunteers were lined up.
Outside the big market in Rendal Street, beneath a wide arch built on one side with vegetables, and on the other with apples and oranges, a pretty function occurred, a little girl, daughter of the oldest gardener doing business with the market, presenting the Prince with a bouquet, and a small boy, the son of the oldest packer, with a basket of fruit, offerings that symbolized pleasantly enough the very considerable business done in South Australia in garden produce.
Further on, in North Terrace, a more touching spectacle was presented where hundreds of beds from the hospitals, each with a nurse in attendance, lined the route, and the Prince paused for a word of greeting with the patients. Medical students, apprentices, and yet more cadets, were lined up near the fine stone buildings of the Art Gallery, the University and the Exhibition, which are here grouped together. The procession ultimately entered and ended in the quiet gardens of Government House, where H.R.H. was to spend the week of his visit.
Amongst functions which took place at Adelaide during the next few days, was a state dinner at the leading hotel, at which three hundred sat down, including everybody of importance in the South Australian Government. Mr. Barwell proposed, and Mr. Gunn, spokesman of the Labour Party, and Leader of the Opposition in the State Legislature, seconded the toast of the Prince's health. The Prince replied and the proceedings throughout were of the usual cordial nature. A climax was reached after the dinner was over, and it was time for the Royal guest to get home to bed. It was then discovered that the streets outside were so solidly packed with people that it was quite impossible either for the motor-cars to reach the door or for the party to walk to where they were posted. The Prince was brought back into the building, whence he addressed the crowd, at first from an upper window, and afterwards from a roof on which he climbed so as to be nearer the throng. In the end, a way out was found through a side street, by a door much affected by bridal couples.
In the course of his speech at this dinner, the Prince referred sympathetically to the recent death of Premier Peake. He went on to express appreciation of the welcome given him by Adelaide, ”the garden city of the Commonwealth,” and dwelt upon the fine war-services of South Australia, and the magnificent opportunities which this State offers for development. He also mentioned the extent to which the future of Australia, as a whole, depends upon a broad far-seeing railway policy, a railway policy in fact ”that is continental in scope.” Continuing he expressed regret at having been compelled to omit his originally proposed overland journey from South Australia to Queensland, and announced that, to make this up, it had now been decided, in consultation with the Queensland Government, to subst.i.tute at least one week in the back-blocks or interior of Australia, for the proposed visit to the new mandated territory at Rabaul. ”I am very sorry,” the Prince added, ”to have had to cut out Rabaul, but as I had to choose between the two I am delighted to think I shall now be able to spend some days in seeing bush and station life for myself in the real heart of Australia.” This decision met with general approval. Rabaul stands for the mandated territory of tropical New Guinea, formerly in German possession, and now allocated to the Commonwealth. It is a territory bigger than England and Wales but only spa.r.s.ely inhabited, partially developed, and with no specially outstanding features. No interest it offers could compare with that of Australia itself.
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