CHAPTER II.
ON THE EMIGRANT SHIP—THE JOURNEY TO QUEENSLAND
What a motley crew we were: Germans, Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, a Russian Finn, and an Icelander. There were many nationalities, but in the majority of cases extreme poverty was evident in their dress and stamped upon their faces, and it was easy to see that the same spirit of recklessness which filled me had somehow also been instilled into them. Nearly everybody had guns, revolvers, and knives, which were promptly taken from us as we stepped on board. Then the Germans would sing in their language of the Fatherland they had left, and in overflowing gush, men, women, and children would hang about one another's necks. Everybody acted in such a mad manner as, I am quite sure, he would never have thought of behaving in any time before. Most of the men were drunk, and as it grew dark at night one would seek for the other, and as no one knew the way about, a perfect pandemonium was raging—singing, fighting, blubbering in all languages. I do believe if I had had a sixpence left, I should have spent it in schnapps too, because my courage had never been tried so hard before. But I had spent my all, and so I made a virtue of necessity, and stood aloof looking round me in silent wonder as to what the end would be.
The prospectus said that the best and most wholesome food would be served out to us in abundance, and to look at the bill of fare one would think it enough to satisfy any gormandizer. But we got nothing at all the first day, and I was unspeakably hungry. The prospectus said also that bed-clothes were supplied to us, and these were already in the bunks—it said mattrass, pillow, sheets, and blanket. The mattrass and pillow were right enough. The sheets it did not matter much about—they were no good at all for their purpose. But the blanket, the only thing we had to cover ourselves with at night on a four months' voyage, was smaller than the size of a little dining-table when it was spread out, about the size of a saddle-cloth and much inferior in quality to anything worthy of the name of blanket I have ever seen before or since. As a consequence, those who had like myself put faith in that part of the promises made us, and who had no other bed-clothes, were compelled when we went to bed at night, to put on all the clothes we had and sleep in them. I slept every night for months at a stretch in my overcoat, woollen comforter around my neck, and the blanket, the all sufficient bed-clothes, rolled round my head!
I did not, as it may be imagined, sleep at all the first night on board the ship. At break of day the cook came in with a large wooden bowl of hot potatoes, which he put on the table singing out, "Breakfast!" I was thankful because I was very hungry, and I began at once to get out of the bunk so as to lose no time, but I was not half way to the table before a dozen Germans had rushed the dish and stuffed all the hot potatoes into their pockets, their shirts, anywhere. There was not a taste left! We were twenty-six men in that compartment, and now the row of last night began again with renewed vigour. I looked upon it as a lesson in smartness which I should have to learn, and I thought that if I did not learn it soon it would be a bad job. Half of the twenty-six men were Danes—in fact we were fourteen Danes in the compartment against twelve Germans, because I, who hailed from Hamburg, had been classified as a German although I am not. I believe it was a premeditated assault on the potatoes by the Germans, because they were all in it, and not one of the Danes had got a morsel to eat. The twelve Germans gave nothing up. They ate the potatoes intended for us all with great composure while we others were storming at them. Didn't I feel wild!
While the dissatisfaction was at its highest point, somebody we had not yet seen came into the cabin. He was a person with a decided military air about him, and he was also dressed in a gorgeous uniform. Two of the passengers who had already been sworn in to act as police constables during the voyage came behind him, and in one of his uplifted hands he held a document which he was waving at us. "Halt," cried he. "Halt, Donnerwetter, I say, halt, while I read this paper." All the Germans without an exception had just come from the Franco-German war, and the sight of the uniform and the determined military air about the doctor, as we soon discovered him to be, had the effect of shutting them up in an instant. Some of the Danes were also old soldiers; anyhow, you might have heard a pin drop while the doctor, who also came straight from the war, where he had been army surgeon, read a proclamation, the exact words of which I forget, but which was to the purpose that he had supreme command over us all, and—"Donnerwetter," cried he, "Donnerwetter, I will have order. If you are not amenable to discipline I will handcuff every one of you. What sort of Knechte are you?" This last remark was addressed to a big strapping-looking German who happened to stand close to him. The German stood as stiff as a statute, saluting with the one hand, while with the other he made a slight movement which threw his overcoat a little to one side and displayed a silver cross which he wore on his vest. "Ha!" cried the doctor, greatly mollified, "I see you have served the Kaiser to some purpose. Don't forget you are not outside the Kaiser's law yet. I hope we shall be friends." Then he marched off to read his proclamation in other parts of the ship. These Germans, I found out by degrees, were not at all bad fellows, but we did not for a long time forgive them the assault on the potatoes, and I have often thought what a peculiar sign of German thrift it was. They had simply taken in the situation more quickly than we; indeed it has become nearly a proverb in Queensland to say that a German will grow fat where other men will starve. After that time order was restored, and no disturbance worth mention occurred on the whole voyage.
Nothing can well be more tedious than a sea voyage of four months under our circumstances. The food was wretched and insufficient, and, as I have already mentioned, most of us had to sleep with all our clothes on us. We did not undress; we rather dressed to go to bed!
There was not a single individual among the passengers who understood English. It is true I had learned English for seven years in school, but when we came ashore it proved that I could scarcely make myself understood in a single sentence. None of us knew anything about Queensland, and many were the surmises and guesses at what the country was like and what we were going to do there. I remember distinctly once a number of us were sitting talking about the colony, and that one ventured to say that he had heard how in Queensland, when journeymen tradesmen were travelling about looking for work, they needed no "wander-book," and travelled about on horseback; whereupon another got up much offended, and said that he had heard many lies about Queensland, but this last beat all. He did not know so much about the "wander-book," although he had taken good care to have his own in order, but if any one tried to make him believe that beggars went about on horseback over there, then it was time to cry stop. "No," said he, "he knew we should have to walk." We others concurred.
One of my companions, I remember, was a shoemaker, and a religious maniac besides. He would lie in his bunk and pray aloud night and day. It was quite startling sometimes in the middle of the night when all were asleep to hear him in a sanctimonious voice chanting a hymn. If the spirit moved him that way, then it was good-bye to sleep for us for a long time after. He would be quite irresistible. Most of us in the cabin were a phlegmatic set who did not mind, but one, a Swiss, was of a very excitable temperament. He was "down" on the shoemaker. When the hymns began in the night one might be quite sure to hear after a minute, from the bunk in which the Swiss lay, a smothered whispered little oath like "Gottferdam." Then ten seconds after he would exclaim in an everyday voice, with, however, an affected resignation, "Gottferdam"; and as the full burden of the sacred song kept rolling on, he would start screaming out of his bunk with a real big "Gottferdam." But the others did not allow him to hurt his enemy. They seemed to agree that even if it was not very nice, yet it must be wicked to hurt any one for practising his religion; but I believe that their motives were not quite so pure, because this shoemaker had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote, and if anything were allowed to annoy him in the night, he would tell them no stories during the day. When all went smooth, it was the practice for him to gather a score or two around, the numbers swelling as he proceeded, and then tell a story, something of a sensational sort about love and murder. His whole soul would then be in it, and he gesticulated as if he felt and believed it all. Every Sunday he was always more or less ready to cry out for hunger, and would at such times sit and look right before him straight out into space. Then he would say, "I wish I had a dish of German dumplings. With cherry-sauce, with cherry-sauce. Not the way one gets in the steam-kitchens, but the way my mother used to make it." Then we would get a long description of his mother's recipe for German dumplings. There is no mistake about it, too, we did fast on that ship.
In reading over to myself some of these last pages, I am afraid I have given my readers the impression that the people on board, taken as a whole, were a bad lot. If I have done so, it is erroneous. It is true that my first impression of the emigrants was not a good one, and perhaps few among us excelled or were remarkable for anything in particular, but taken as a whole they were honest, hard-working people, and as I became acquainted with them one after another I found that men of whom I had a very low opinion when we first came on board, were in reality entitled to very much higher estimation.
We did not know anything about the country to which we were going. We had an idea that we were to begin a new life somewhat freer than in the old world, and, simpleminded as we were—because I was just as bad as anybody—thought that when we came on board ship we could dispense with such formalities as those the old world had taught us. That is, I am sure, the true reason why so many emigrants, when they leave home as well as when they arrive in a colony, behave so foolishly as to make one think that they never had known the decencies of life before. It is the same with the English emigrants, only they are more quickly absorbed into the general population. Still the word "New Chum" has in Australia much the same meaning as the word "fool." I never felt more bitterly ashamed than once, several years after I came to Queensland, when I saw a number of Danish immigrants just arrived. It was in Toowoomba, and I had come down there from up country on some business, when one of the first things I was told was that there were a lot of my countrymen in the depôt waiting for engagements. Toowoomba is about a hundred miles inland, and they had been sent up from Brisbane. Well, I felt quite pleased, and decided at once to go and see them and to speak a kind word to some of them, if I could not do them any other service. But I came away a great deal less pleased than I had gone. There were some long forms outside the building, and on those forms sat as close as they could find room a score or so of men. Each man had wooden clogs on his feet and a long pipe in his mouth. On his knees sat his girl with her arm round his neck, and there they sat smoking and kissing perfectly regardless of ladies and gentlemen who would walk about looking at them and going on again. One I stood glaring at seemed to me the worst. He was a big ugly fellow, dressed in a blue calico blouse, black trousers and wooden clogs. In his hand he had a pipe five feet long, but on his head he had a sugar-bag. These sugar-bags are of straw and about two feet six inches in length. He had tied in the corners to fit his head. This gentleman would rush about and look in at the doors of houses, throwing side glances in all directions with the evident desire to attract attention. At last he stood in the middle of the street singing an old Danish song and jerking his body about like a maniac. I could not contain myself, so I went up to him and asked him if he did not think he was ugly enough already without trying to make himself still more so, and what did he mean by sticking that sugar-bag on his head?
"Oh," cried he, quite unconcerned, "here we are right up on the top of these blue mountains, that does not matter. It is a first-rate straw-hat. Does it not look nice? Why! this is a free country," &c.
One very conspicuous figure on board the emigrant ship was the Icelander, Thorkill; he was so unlike anybody else that I would like to describe him, especially as he became my mate in Queensland and we became close friends. His eyes were bluer and his complexion clearer than that of any one else I ever saw. He had long yellow curly hair, and a big yellow beard. He was himself also big and strong, and about twenty-eight years of age—altogether I should say, as far as appearance went, the beau ideal of a man. But as no one is perfect, so had he also a grievous fault, viz., a certain softness, like a woman. He always spoke as with a comma between each word, and although he had plenty of good sense and was, like all Icelanders, well educated, yet he would, I believe, give most people the impression that he was not fit to battle with a wicked world. I often wondered what might have brought him on board that ship, but he was very reticent about his own affairs. Meanwhile I have never known anybody whose mind was so pure, whose thoughts were so lofty as his. But he was unpractical, to a degree. He claimed to know all his ancestors from the twelfth century, when they had emigrated from Norway to Iceland, and he said his father still farmed the same land. Unless as a professor in ancient folklore, I do not know what Thorkill was good for. I had, in school, learned much Icelandic folklore, and to see his eyes sparkle with joy when he discovered this and knew that I was interested in it besides, did me real good, and so we agreed that during the voyage we would refresh each other's memory in "Sagamaal." He arranged to teach me the whole complete "Rümi Kronike." So we bribed the fellow who lay next to me (we had double bunks) to exchange berths with Thorkill, and he and I then lay together, and there we were telling "Sagamaal" from morning to night and sometimes the whole night through. He would make me tell him one of the "Sagas" I knew, although he knew it far better himself, just to see if I had mastered it properly. He would listen with all his might, then he would say: "Excuse—me—for—interrupting you—but—are—you—sure—that—you—are—correct—in—describing—Sharpedin—the—son—of—Hakon—as—a—longbearded—man. The—Rümi Kronike—does—not—say—so—on—the—contrary." Then we would have a long argument about that, Thorkill insisting upon the importance of being exact.
He wrote a splendid hand, but from the pedantic ungainly way in which he took hold of anything, I made sure he was not a good worker. He had studied scientific farming at the agricultural college in Copenhagen, and afterwards had been, he said, a sort of overseer on a large farm on the island of Als. Whether he had given satisfaction at that or not, I did not know, but what was the good of all his knowledge, supposing he had any, when he did not understand English, had no friend nor money, and was a bad worker? One day I said to him:
"Thorkill, do you ever try to draw a real picture to yourself of how we shall get on when we come to Queensland? I am thinking of this, there are, according to what we have been told, no more people in all Queensland than there is in a good-sized street in Copenhagen, and here are all these people on board ship who will be, the moment they land, ravenous in their competition for something to do, and another ship has sailed from Hamburg a week after us. How will they fare? I cannot solve it. But it strikes me very forcibly that if the sail of this ship were set for Copenhagen harbour instead of Queensland, the only solution to the problem there would be for the police to have some large vans in readiness and to give us a drive in them straight out to the workhouse." "Oh say not so," cried Thorkill, "say not so. God will protect us. You and I will never part." "No," cried I, in the fulness of my heart, "we will stick together, and we will get something to do too, you will see." And then, with a new sense of responsibility on me, I would talk to him cheerfully about Queensland, and the opportunities there would be to do well for both of us, which could not fail, but meanwhile I would rack my brain with thinking about how to make a few shillings to land with. I had not got a cent, and I knew very well that Thorkill had nothing either. It was a bad place I was in for making money, for there was not much of it on the ship, but I now very much regretted that I had spent all that I had before I came on board. Here were all these empty bottles lying about the ship which nobody seemed to claim. Why, thought I, they must be worth a little fortune in Queensland. Good idea! We will collect them all. I communicated with Thorkill. "Oh," said he, "you—will—make—your—fortune—in—Queensland. They must be worth a mint of money. But is it right to take them? What—a—business—ability—you—have—got. Nobody seems to want them. I think we might have them."
So then we went about begging and borrowing empty bottles everywhere, without letting anybody know for what we wanted them, and we piled them up in our bunks so that we could scarcely get into them; then people, when they saw what we were after, put a price on the bottles and came to us to sell. So Thorkill bought five shillings' worth on my recommendation, all the money he had, and still they came with bottles, but the firm was compelled to suspend payment. Then I, who was understood to know a little English, opened a class for teaching that language. My pupils had no money, but I took it out in empty bottles, and by and by we had them stacked by the hundred all round about ready for market.
The food we got was so wretched and insufficient that it was scarcely possible to keep body and soul together upon it. I have asked many people since how they fared in other ships, and I have come to the conclusion that our ship was the worst provided of any in that respect. Indeed, the emigrant ships which leave England are well supplied with everything, even luxuries, for their passengers. But in this ship we were sometimes on the point of despair with hunger. We got our week's supply of biscuits served out once a week. Those who were unable to practise self-restraint, generally ate them in a couple of days, and for the rest of the week subsisted on the so-called dinner which consisted of a couple of mouthfuls of salt pork or mutton, with a little sauer-krout to keep it company. Our ration of sugar was a small table-spoonful per week to each man. The tea and coffee we got morning and evening was served in the same wooden trough in which we fetched our dinner, and as the sugar ration was, as already stated, served separately once a week and quickly consumed, our beverage was void of any sweetening. But as for me, I never fooled about all the week with my spoonful of sugar; I always put it into the first pint of tea I got. We also got some butter, and we never troubled much either about the quantity or quality of that article. The trouble was that we had seldom a biscuit to spread it on. The prospectus had said that cordials were served out, and in conformity with that every sixteen men received one bottle of lime-juice per week. These were our rations. There was on that account an amount of dissatisfaction on board verging sometimes on open mutiny. The water was also fearfully bad, with inches of froth on it, but bad as it was, we would drink it as soon as we got it and then feel like dying of thirst sometimes before the time came to serve out the next rations. As a sort of proof of the correctness of this statement, I might mention that one of the passengers had a canary bird which died of thirst because some of us would steal the drop of water in its glass!
I have already written that no disturbance worth mentioning occurred on the voyage. When I wrote that, I forgot an incident which happened when we had been out to sea about a couple of months. The doctor, as I have already stated, was also in command of us. He had been an army doctor in the German army during the Franco-German war, and came straight thence. Whether he made the mistake of thinking he was in command of a convict ship full of criminals, or whether it was that his military training was the cause of it, I cannot say, but in one word, he was boss of that ship. Every now and then somebody would be handcuffed and shut up during his pleasure, without anybody taking much notice; but one day he went a good deal too far. One of the single girls had been accused by the woman in charge of them of some fault, upon which I need not farther enlarge more than to say that it was trifling, and that the culprit was a very respectable girl, who shortly after her arrival in Queensland got married to a good husband, and that both she and her husband are, and always were, pre-eminently respectable people. The girl was tied with ropes to the mast, with her hands fastened behind her in such a way that she was exposed to the full view of all the six hundred people on board. I was lying in my bunk when a fellow came in very excited, and said, "Look here, chaps, is not this getting red hot? There is that poor girl, so and so, chained to the mast and crying as if her heart would break. What are we coming to?"
The moment I heard there was a girl chained to the mast and crying, I jumped up and registered an oath aloud that she should not stand there one second longer than it would take me to reach the mast. So did every other man who was in the cabin; even meek Thorkill cried out, "It is too bad, too bad." Then I grabbed the wooden trough in which the concoction of roasted peas that passed for coffee was served out in the morning. So did every other man grab at something to strike with—one would take a wooden clog, one a long stick, another a boot, and all something, and in less time than it takes to read this we were all on deck. But to reach the mast was then impossible. The girl had not stood there yet for five minutes, but there was already a surging, impenetrable crowd on the scene of action. As I could not see, and could not content myself to stand still, I jumped up in the rigging, and from there, right enough, I saw the girl and four German constables (passengers who had been sworn in as police) watching her. How shall I describe the scene. It all seemed to me to happen in one instant. Hundreds of men were yelling from behind at the top of their voices, "Throw them in the sea. Cut her down! Where is the doctor? He shall not live another hour." A dozen men were struggling round the girl, some with the constables, and some of the more moderate among the passengers with the aggressors. One towering fellow, a Dane, had one of the constables by the throat, and the wooden bowl swinging over his head, and held back by another man, who implored him to give the doctor a chance to order the girl's instant removal. The doctor was not on deck, but he came running on now, with a revolver in each hand. He kept on the quarter-deck, but he sang out to the constables to cut her down and take her into the hospital. Somehow that was done, and the doctor walked down the steps from the quarter-deck, turned the key in the lock, put it in his pocket, and faced the crowd.
Did you ever notice two dogs when they meet, and before they begin to fight? How unconcerned they try to look. They will look at anything, anywhere but at one another. So looked the doctor as he stood there with a cigar in his mouth, smoking away and looking at anything but the sea of faces around him. Around him like a solid wall had the men closed, armed with knives, wooden bowls, sticks, &c., and the howl, "Throw him in the sea," kept on from the rear. No doubt the doctor realized that he had gone too far, and he tried all he could while he stood there not to give further offence, but I watched him particularly from my seat in the rigging. Fear was not in that man. Not a muscle in his face shook, and yet I am certain that his attention was strained to the uttermost, and that the fingers which closed on the triggers of the two revolvers would have caused them to blaze away the moment he had felt any one touch him ever so gently. Behind him again, but up on the quarter-deck, stood the captain and the first mate, with large overcoats on, and their hands in their pockets. I had a suspicion that they also had revolvers—who knows how many—within easy distance.
But it was one thing to see a young woman tied to the mast and crying, and it was (the doctor and his revolver apart) quite another thing to look at a closed door and know that she was there and that no further harm would befall her. But most of the men had a few minutes ago been so excited, that it was not in human nature for them to cool down at once. The man who had when I came on the scene taken the most prominent part, was still the foremost person. He stood within three feet of the doctor, and, as I said already, like a solid wall stood the others armed with divers things; but no one touched the doctor, and no one spoke to him, and there was a sort of undecided silence. Then the leader cried, "Well, what are you waiting for? You said throw him in the sea; just give the word and he shall be overboard in a second." My heart beat violently. I thought murder would be committed in an instant, and not a single life either, but perhaps scores would be sacrificed. There was a dead silence. The wind whistled through the rigging, but it was the only sound heard. The doctor did not move; the captain did not move; the mate did not move; and none of the men moved. None dared to give the aggressive sign, and each seemed to feel it just as impossible to beat a retreat. It might have lasted a couple of minutes, perhaps less. It seemed an age to me. Then we all heard Thorkill's voice, he was somewhere in the rigging too, and he cried, "Countrymen—listen—to—me! hear—what—I—say! Disperse! Disperse!—quietly. Let—us—complain—when—we—come—ashore! He—will—shoot—the—first—ten—or—twelve—men—who—touch—him—and—those—who—escape—now—might—be—hung—when—we—come—ashore. Let—us—complain—when—we—come—ashore—and—we—will—get—justice." Thorkill still kept on talking, but the outburst of relief from all sides completely drowned his voice. There was an honourable way to get out of it. "We will complain when we come ashore," "Disperse," "Let it be enough," and similar expressions, were heard on all sides, and the doctor, I suppose nothing loth, had quite a pleased appearance as he stepped up on the quarter-deck again as soon as the road was clear, and disappeared out of sight simultaneously with the dispersion of the men.
That day the doctor did not show up again, but on the next, I suppose just to show that he did not consider himself beaten, all the single men were ordered below at sundown as a punishment for insubordination, and with that the matter ended. But now the men were pressing Thorkill to write out a complaint which should embody all we had suffered, and all our supposed wrongs. Thorkill, however, would do no such thing. It was not in his line, he said. Many a talk he and I had about it, but he could not see his way. "All these poor people," said he, "are treated with contempt because they are poor, and I cannot help them for I am just as poor. We do not know to whom to complain; we cannot write English, and what we do will rebound on our own heads. Still," said he, "it—is—a—shame—that—they—should—be—allowed—to—treat—people—like—this." Then I wrote out a complaint in Danish addressed to the Danish Consul, Australia. The exact contents of it I have long since forgotten, but it was to the effect that we had been starved, ill-treated, had had no sick accommodation, insufficient bed-clothes, &c., and from that day I looked upon myself as an important personage on board ship. All the single and married men, with about a dozen exceptions, signed the statement. All the single girls wanted also to sign it, but I feared the woman in charge might confiscate the document (the matron in charge of the girls on our ship was only an ordinary emigrant selected by the doctor, and in my opinion scarcely the best that might have been selected. In English emigrant ships an educated lady is engaged as matron.) Thus I could not bring myself to go among them for the purpose of getting signatures, and so the females were not represented in the complaint. (It might, however, be interesting to English readers, as showing the standard of education on the continent of Europe, that of all the people on board only one, an elderly man, had to sign his name with a cross.)
One day while I was getting these signatures, and the men were coming to where I held my levee as fast as they could, the doctor stormed the cabin with two constables behind him and ordered me to give up the document to him. Then the doctor and I talked, I in Danish and he in German, and we had a wordy war. I liked the doctor in my heart, because he was about as brave a man as one could wish to see, and very likely, too, some of the severe discipline on board was not altogether uncalled for; yet he was not going to have it all his own way, and to this day I maintain that whatever else might have been right or wrong, to starve as we starved was scandalous. I write about these things, and I do not know whether my readers may think them of much interest, but all these little incidents seem engraven upon my memory. On board ship there is nothing to think about or to talk about but the same old things. One is cross, perhaps, and everybody talks much about the same thing. "Where are we, I wonder?" "I wonder how many knots we are running?" "I wonder how it will go when we come to Queensland?" "I wonder if any one ever was so hungry as I?" So it goes on, day out and day in, and one has to discuss and answer these questions about five hundred times every day.