J H BINNIE’S REMINISCENCES
“MY LIFE ON A TROPIC GOLDFIELD”
Mr. J. H. Binnie, who spent his boyhood on the great
Palmer Goldfield, in the late 1870s, continues his interesting
reminiscences of those stirring days.
Owing to there being no delivery of telegrams to our
outback settlement, Echo Town on the Palmer River, an urgent
business telegram from Cooktown for father reached him a week
after it was despatched. The business was very important and
had to be transacted in Cooktown on an early date, and as the
coach had left for Cooktown only a day or two before, it
caused father considerable trouble. So he decided to make the
150 miles journey on horseback, and two men were immediately
sent out on foot with firearms to get our horses, which
usually grazed on the river flats, a mile or two from the
township.
The men returned towards evening without the horses.
They reported having found the bones and the hoofs of two
horses but no trace of the other two. Father was very quick at
coming to decisions, and he decided to walk to Cooktown. He
calculated that by cutting across some of the steep ranges
instead of following the road all the way, he could do the
trip in about 120 miles, so he made an early start next
morning, with mother and the four children accompanying him
half a mile along the road where he kissed us all goodbye. All
he carried was a small bag of food and a billy can. He was
totally unarmed as he could not get a revolver, and a rifle
was too heavy to carry.
We fearfully watched as he passed over the first
hilltop on his long and dangerous journey through some of the
wildest and roughest country in the Far North. Without a
compass to guide him, he travelled as much as possible by
night and slept during the day so that the hostile blacks
would be less likely to see him as he travelled.
Mother returned to her primitive home in the wild bush
with her children, feeling very lonely after father’s
departure. Neighbours were few and far between, and there were
only three women in the locality- all living in bark huts or
tents with their young children.
At night dingoes gave a howling chorus nearby; possums
and native cats made uncanny noises, and occasionally, a big
snake slid into our bark house. All these things added to
mother’s anxiety about father’s safety.
However, on the seventh day after his departure a
telegram arrived by a galloping horseman via Maytown, giving
us the welcome news that father had arrived safely at
Cooktown, having made the journey in five days. His had been a
very risky undertaking with hundreds of hostile blacks roaming
the bush eager to spear lonely travellers such as he.
Father said that he had one scare when he reached the
top of a ridge at night and almost walked into a blacks’ camp
before he saw their fires on the other side, and he had to
make several wide detours for this reason. Bushmen who knew
the country father had travelled over, said that it required a
great courage for a man to traverse it without a mate, and
unarmed, in those days of the war-like Palmer tribes, not to
mention the very real risk of becoming lost among the tumbled
maze of rugged stony ranges.
Although father never looked on the risky side of his
adventures, he had several narrow escapes in small
undertakings. While living at the Lord Nelson on the Palmer
River, he and a man named Jensen had occasion to go to the
battery on the opposite side of the river from home, in the
boat, and while they were engaged in doing odd jobs the river
rose rapidly. Before they could get away it was in full flood.
To allow for drift they took the boat some distance up river
and when within fifty yards of the bank on the home side of
the river, the boat capsized on a submerged snag and both men
were thrown into deep water.
Jensen was unable to swim and was swiftly carried
downstream under water. It was a difficult job for father to
locate him and it took a great effort to secure the half
drowned man and struggle with him as they both drifted
perilously close to the rocky falls. It was, in fact, almost
beyond human effort for an exhausted man.
The few Chinese fossickers on the river bank were
unable to help, but eventually both men reached land; Jensen
had to be resuscitated, father officiating. The boat was
smashed to pieces when it was washed over the rocky falls,
and, of course, everything in it was lost. I had been sent the
seven miles to Maytown on an errand, and, but for the sudden
rising of the river, I would have been a passenger on that
boat, and, as father would have had two to rescue, the three
of us would probably have drowned.
The Chinese population was rapidly increasing and now
numbered about 2000. Almost all of them were fossicking for
alluvial gold or carrying on sluicing operations on a large
and profitable scale. Quartz mining was left almost wholly to
Europeans. One of the Chinese sluicing parties paid father £50
for the right to bail all the water out of a big waterhole in
the river covering about two acres, used by him for the
battery and for which he held a water right licence.
As it was impossible to drain the hole by gravitation,
the Chinamen cut a drain along the river bank, and started on
what everybody thought was the impossible task of emptying the
hole by bucketing the water into the drain. They worked almost
continuously 24 hours a day for several weeks. This operation
was carried out in shifts by two Chinese sitting in a
convenient position on staging opposite each other at the
water’s edge; each man held two ropes attached to a bucket in
such a way that by a swinging motion, one rope dipped the
bucket into the river, and the bucket, when full, was quickly
pulled up and tipped into the drain. It was a big undertaking
for manual labour only, but it proved very profitable to the
party, as they obtained several small nuggets of gold and good
results from the sluicing.
There was always a small percentage of unemployed
Chinamen on the field, and father employed most of them
occasionally carrying firewood to the battery per bamboo
across the shoulders. They carried loads up to 200 lbs a
distance of a mile or more, and they did several trips on the
hottest days. They lived on boiled rice and a little meat.
When a Chinaman died, his countrymen placed all his
belongings on his grave, together with a good supply of cooked
food for feeding his spirit. In another case a Chinaman died
when sitting on a bag of rice and superstition compelled the
storekeeper to give the rice to a number of his poor country
men; but some of them would not use it.
Generally speaking the Chinese on the Palmer were a
peaceful law abiding people. An occasional case of theft was
about the only crime committed and such offenders were tried,
and sentenced by a local “court” composed of leading Chinese
in the district. In a case of theft at Revolver Point, the
thief was tried by the Chinese storekeeper (from whom he stole
the goods), and others of his countrymen. He was found guilty
and was sentenced to be hung in the store during business
hours; in other words he was to be suspended in the store by a
rope tied to one wrist and another rope tied to one of his
ankles. The sentence was duly carried out.
While living at the German Bar where Chinese carried on
the whole business of the small township, our family was
treated to an excellent Chinese feast on the occasion of their
New Year festivities. The tables were specially laid out in
the best of oriental style. There was a plentiful supply of
poultry and pork and other European dishes, while much
Oriental food was included in the menu, including some very
dainty dishes. We were given thorough attention and utmost
courtesy.
After we returned from the feast everything was taken
off the table, and it was laid out again in full Chinese style
with plenty of poultry and pork (two Chinese favourites), and,
of course, a great variety of their own national foods, also
liquor. The leading Chinese of the district then attacked the
“spread” and there was much merriment amongst them. Everyone
then adjourned to the sports ground where some novel turns
were given by young Chinese acrobats.
But the most exciting event was the exploding of
hundreds of packets of crackers of all sizes. Several poles
were erected with wire stays, and both the poles and stays had
packets of crackers hung or tied on them from top to bottom
with a continuous connection of wick. Lighted at one end, it
started a continuous explosion of 4,000 packets and at the
same time a dozen men were throwing up lighted packets
amounting to over twenty cases of crackers. The crowd appeared
to get much amusement out of this event. There was a
tremendous pandemonium while it lasted.
The great majority of the Chinese population wore
neither boots nor shoes, but some wore leather sandals which
they made themselves. Although I always had boots to wear, I
seldom wore them. I preferred to copy the Chinamen, and either
went about bare footed or wore sandals which I also made
myself. As snakes were numerous near the river, there was
always an element of risk going about bare-footed, and my toes
encountered many hard and painful knocks. Nevertheless the
number of snake bite cases on bare feet was surprisingly
small.
While on the Palmer we lived in three different
bungalow houses, and as each was built on a hillside, the roof
almost touched the ground on the excavated side. So it was
that snakes managed to get under the roof and crawl along the
rafter; this happened on several occasions, and once, one of
the reptiles, measuring seven feet, fell into the house tank
and was drowned. Most of the snakes seen measured six to ten
feet in length, and death adders killed some of our chooks.
As there was no school within five miles of our home we
children lost five and a half years of schooling. Father
taught us reading, writing, and arithmetic, but being a very
busy man, he was unable to spare time to give us further
attention. Frequently his advice and services were sought
after by big companies in consultations, drawing plans,
supervising the erection of additions to big plants etc.
Although
we had no playmates, time passed pleasantly with our regular
work about the house. Sometimes we carried all the water for
the house from the river, Chainman fashion with a bamboo.
Then there
was “bogeying” (native name for bathing or skinny dipping),
boating and fishing, prospecting for gold in the gullies with
a panning-off dish, and bird nesting. We had great fun
disturbing the bower-birds by displacing the wonderful
collection of small articles in their bowers, built in the
scrub on the river flats. On the bird’s return, they would
replace every article we displaced to exactly where it was
before.
I did a
lot of walking, my record being 24 miles in a day at 11 years
of age. It was often an easier task to walk a journey than to
find a horse to ride. I well remember being sent on the long
journey from the Lone Star to the town on an urgent message, a
distance of 28 miles return. I made a very early start next
morning, hoping to break my previous record of 24 miles in a
day, but somehow I was late leaving on my return journey and
when darkness closed in on me, I got on the wrong track within
8 miles of home, and wandered about in the darkness for some
time. Then I saw a camp fire in the distance. Then I
remembered that a prospector and his wife were camped
somewhere in the locality, and so I made a direct course
through the bush towards the fire, meanwhile fearing that it
might be an Aborigines fire.
The
prospector and his wife got a scare in the darkness thinking
the blacks were coming in on them, when their dogs barked
savagely at me. I in turn was scared of their dogs. However,
after the excitement calmed down, I received a cordial
invitation to have tea and stay the night. As I was now right
on the edge of very dangerous “wild black fella” country and
had another four miles to travel to reach home, besides
feeling very tired, I stayed with them for the night and
forgot about breaking the record.