The Terrible Tragedy of the Pearl
|
Northern Christmas Eve
|
Cape York Peninsula
|
John Nairn
|
The Peruvian Tragedy
|
FERRY STEAMER SUNK
MANY LIVES LOST
STEAMER PEARL CUT IN TWO
BRAVE RESCUERS
PERSONAL NARRATIVES
CAPTAIN AND CREW SAVED
HAIRBREATH ESCAPES
In
our special edition last night we reported on a terrible
tragedy that occurred below the Victoria Bridge at five
minutes past five o’clock.
All traffic having been stopped on the bridge, the
small steamer pearl left the Queen’s Wharf for the Musgrave
Wharf, South Brisbane.
The vessel carried a large complement of passengers.
Accounts vary as to the number on board, but it was thought it
was between 80 and 100. The flood water was at the time
running fairly strong, but not strong enough to interfere
greatly with the handling of the steamer.
On the journey across the Pearl steamed down the river
a short distance in order to pass between the steamer Normanby
and the Government steamer Lucinda. The Pearl, in avoiding the
Normandy, was carried by the current broadside on to the
anchor chains of the Lucinda. The Pearl suddenly capsized, and
it is thought that she was almost cut in two by the force of
the collision. In a minute or two after the first contact, all
the passengers were struggling in the water.
It is not known how many of the passengers were saved.
A number, it is known, succeeded in scrambling up the anchor
chains of the Lucinda, and others were rescued by boats, with
which the river near the scene of the accident was in a few
minutes alive. Up to the present, only 34 have been accounted
for; but there may easily have others rescued.
It is feared that more than one half of the number of
the unfortunate people on board the Pearl have been drowned.
The accident was witnessed by a large crowd of people
who were in the vicinity of Victoria Bridge and William Street
at the time. A rush across the bridge was made by hundreds of
people, and as the news of the accident spread rapidly in
South Brisbane and the city the people flocked in thousands
towards the Bridge to gaze on the scene of the unfortunate
occurrence.
The hands on board the Beaver and
other vessels in the vicinity immediately threw overboard all
the forms, life-saving apparatus, and, indeed, anything that
would float, but this act of thoughtfulness, timely as it was,
was unavailing, for the awful suddenness of the catastrophe
placed those unfortunates who were victims almost beyond all
human aid. As an instance of this, it may be mentioned that
those at the dry Dock saw no people in the water save two
little boys, who were floating down on a form, and were
quickly rescued. Save for these, and the groups of sorrowing
relatives and friends, there was nothing to show that an
accident had happened.
At the end of Sidon Street, about ten minutes after the
catastrophe, a body floating feet uppermost was observed at
the dredge which lies there.
Willing hands quickly seized it, and all efforts were
made to restore animation. Dr. William Kebbell was present,
but the unfortunate woman was past all human aid. She was
conveyed to an empty shop opposite the Dry Dock, and placed on
a stretcher.
One of the females, a young girl, who was rescued by
the Lucinda’s boat, was carried into a Stanley Street shop,
where the work of revival was vigorously prosecuted. Her lips
were black, and her face discoloured, but she was quickly
brought round, and taken to her home in West End by a relative
who was at hand.
The Lucinda’s boat picked up several persons. Reckoning
those who jumped from the sinking steamer on to the Lucinda’s
decks and those
rescued from the water, there were twenty-eight, which
included several boys, two elderly women, and the girl rescued
above.
The lessee of the Ernest Street ferry and others who
willingly plied with his boats, also did excellent service.
Five boats were out from this ferry. One succeeded in rescuing
ten, another eight, and a third two.
The Pearl was seen drifting past Bulimba Ferry about 7
o’clock, apparently broken in half. No one was seen on the
remains of the steamer, but several hats were observed
floating near the wreck.
The gloom which inevitably attaches itself to so
gruesome an incident is somewhat brightened by the readiness
with which help was extended, and the despatch which
characterized it. At the time the work of clearing the bridge
was going on apace. Presently a man sitting on the top of one
of the girders of the new bridge shouted to those below, and
immediately all the rowing boats in the vicinity put out,
while the steamers at work at the debris literally flew under
the bridge to the scene of the catastrophe. In the meantime,
however, craft lying nearer to it were among the debris and
floating people, and rendered all the aid that could be given.
The scenes at the river ends of the streets and on the
wharves were of the most painful and affecting nature. Men
looked anxiously as the rescue vessels returned practically
empty, women wrung their hands frantically, and moaned aloud
with the grief which weighed them down, while children looked
eagerly for their parents or brothers and sisters, and it is
feared many looked in vain.
When the news was received on the southside, the scene
was a terrible one. Women and men came running down to the
Ernest Street and other ferries, sobbing and crying. A great
many seemed quite beside themselves with grief. There was the
terrible uncertainty as to whether their loved ones were
onboard, and as fresh arrivals came over the bridge and by
other means managed to cross the river, there were many scenes
almost too pathetic to see.
At the Garden Ferry, the only relics of the disaster
that were found were the women’s hats and a few articles of
personal attire. Even there, there were within half an hour
anxious enquiries.
One of the saved passengers, when interviewed by one of
our reporters as he was landed at the Ernest Street ferry,
said that the moment the boat struck he leapt clear. He was
drawn under by the current, and passed two little girls
without any power to help them. He was picked up when opposite
MʿGhie
Luya’s by a ferry boat
So far as could be ascertained last night from
exhaustive enquiries, the following were saved:-
Misses
Geraldine and Maud McGroarty, daughters of Mr. McGroarty,
inspector of schools, who were picked up near the Earnest
Street Baths by a boat.
Miss Mary Lehane, daughter of Mr. Lehane, licencee of
the Boundary Street Hotel, rescued by a rope thrown from a
steamer.
Miss Mary Cain, Jane Street, West End, rescued by a
rope thrown from the Lucinda.
Miss Isabella Braidwood, Jane Street, West End, rescued
by a man holding on to a lifebuoy near the Railway Wharves,
and taken on board a boat.
Mr. Frederick Ballinger, traffic inspector, who swam as
far as the Dry Dock and got ashore there.
Mrs. Priest, wife of Mr. Priest (of Messrs. Priest and
Kennedy), rescued by a rope thrown from the Lucinda.
Mr. W. O. Lamond, Morehead and Co.
Mr. Bell booth, Queensland Trustees.
Mr. C. H. Briggs, Brisbane Newspaper Company.
Mr. W. Hucking, G. T. Bell and Co.
Mr. William Wilson, Yeronga (Apollo Company).
Messrs. Finlayson (2).
Mr. Geddes, senior, Toowoomba, father of Mr. T. Geddes,
postmaster, Melbourne Street, who was picked up near
Pettigrew’s wharf.
James Chard, master of the Pearl.
Tate, fireman of the Pearl.
Mutch, engineer of the Pearl.
Mr. Arthur Loseby, wharf labourer, Spring Hill.
Mr. P. L. Williams, of Teneriffe, picked up off the
Gardens.
Mr. J. Fitzmaurice, picked up at Gardens Ferry.
Mr. Peter Dowd, Government Printing Office.
Mr. James Wassall, son of Inspector Wassall, Lytton.
Mr. E. Owen Rees, manager Equitable Insurance Company.
Mrs. B. Brooks.
Mr. Alex R. Henry, son of Mr. R. D. Henry, Ernest
Street.
Mr. Leslie Walter Groom, son of Mr. Groom, M.L.A.,
Franklin Street.
Mr. David Kerr, son of Mr. R. Kerr, Little Jane Street,
West End.
Mr. Gurney Henzell, Coorparoo.
Mr. T. Sythers, Geological Museum.
Mrs. Jarman.
Deck hand of the Pearl.
Mr. W. Ellis, Queensland Trustees, who was at first
reported missing, has since been heard of.
R. Alford, Yeronga.
L. Pardon, Survey Office.
James Wilson, South Brisbane.
T. Brock, Wynnum.
It was rumoured that two boys were picked up out of the
water, clinging to a form, and that a young lad named Phil,
who formerly worked in the publishing dept of the “Boomerang”
office, jumped from the Pearl on to the Lucinda and did not
even get wet.
It was a matter of the greatest difficulty to obtain
information with reference to those who were missing after the
accident, but it is believed that the following were on board
the Pearl, and they have been reported as missing-
Son of
Mrs. O’Sullivan, aged 9 years.
Mrs. Best.
Mrs.
Messenger.
Mrs.
Gould.
Mrs.
Wilson.
Miss Ida
Newman, teacher of dancing, Coorparoo.
Mr. S.
Chorlton, Longlands Street, Woolloongabba.
Mrs. A. B.
Benton, Cordelia Street.
Miss
Louisa Barnes, Boggo Road.
Mrs.
Harper, corner Gray and Russell Streets.
Mr.
McCorkindale late president of the Coorparoo Shire Council was
with Mr. Ballinger at the time of the accident. He said to Mr.
Ballinger, “Good-bye; I cannot swim. Remember me to my wife.”
He then disappeared, and Mr. Ballinger did not see him again.
On the body of the woman found at the foot of Sidon
Street was a receipt, given apparently that day, to a “Mrs.
Harper,” and is signed by Mrs. A Warner, bedding manufacturer,
Roma Street. The body is that of a woman apparently between 25
and 30 years of age; about 5ft 4in. in height, slightly
freckled, and with prominent teeth. The dress was black, and
laced boots were worn. On the body was a lady’s silver Royal
Waltham watch and lady’s Albert chain, with tassel pendants; a
silk handkerchief, with deep-coloured embroidered border. Her
body is awaiting identification at the establishment of Messrs
Kenny and Dietz, undertakers, Stanley Street.
S. Chorlton formerly kept a temperance boarding-house
in Stanley Street, South Brisbane, more recently has been at
work engineering. It is supposed that he elft North Brisbane
by the Pearl. A pocketbook, evidently his property, has been
found in the river containing railway pass bearing his name,
from Brisbane to Ipswich; also memorandum concerning iron work
on the Countess Street bridge, which is counter-signed by
Chas. Sutton for J. W. Sutton and Co. Mr. Chorlton was a
well-known resident of South Brisbane for many years.
Under “Missing” also will come the name of Mrs. A. B.
Benton, of Bentwood, Cordelia Street, South Brisbane. Mr.
Benton is a well-known citizen, employed at Perry Bros, Queen
Street. Mrs. Benton was expected home at about 5 o’clock, but
it is reported that nothing has been heard of her since the
accident.
The Colonial Secretary has handed over the ferry
traffic to the control of the Mayors of Brisbane and South
Brisbane, and has placed the Government steamer Miner in their
charge. It has been arranged that the steamers Alice and Miner
would resume ferry traffic at 6 o’clock this morning, running
between Queen’s Wharf and the Musgrave Wharf.
James Chard, Captain of the steamer, Pearl, states that
he was crossing the river between the steamer Normanby and
Lucinda, following the usual course, when an eddy got hold of
the vessel, and before he had time to go astern, she got
across the chains of the Lucinda, and crashed in two.
The fireman of the Pearl, Tait, was interviewed while
standing on the Musgrave Wharf. He stated that the first thing
he knew of the accident was hearing the Pearl crash broadside
on to the Lucinda. Within ten seconds of the accident, he was
in the water, struggling for dear life. He looked around him,
but could see nothing. The Pearl must have sunk a few moments
after the collision and the passengers who were able to swim
had been carried downstream with the current. He did not hear
anyone scream, and had in consequence arrived at the
conclusion that the majority of the passengers went down with
the vessel. There were four men employed on the Pearl, but he
had not heard whether any of them besides himself had been
saved. Tait, who is a good swimmer, struck out for the shore,
which he reached in safety.
The Pearl was a wooden screw-steamer of ten horse-power
and forty-one tons register, gross. Her dimensions were:
58.7ft long, 15.1ft beam, and 5.1ft depth, and she was built
in New South Wales in 1883.
She had been engaged in the river trade, and between
Brisbane and Redland Bay, and was formerly running between the
city and Humpybong.
The vessel was built with an upper and lower deck, and
was licensed to carry about 120 passengers in the river.
Constable Gregg, of the Water Police, who was in charge
of the wharf at the time she left on the fatal trip, says that
she had between seventy and eighty persons on board at the
time, which would be but a moderate load, but most of these
were on the upper deck.
She was in charge of James Chard, her master, who has
had many years experience on the river.
At the time of the accident, she was running in
conjunction with the Alice and Young Mat, and plying between
the Queen’s Wharf and the Musgrave Wharf. Like most of the
river steamers, she was supplied with life-saving apparatus,
in the form of seats with oildrums lashed beneath them; but
the catastrophe was so sudden that, although many of these
were seen floating down the river, very few of them, so far as
is known, proved a means of saving life.
A young man named Leslie Walter Groom, son of Mr.
Groom, M.L.A., living with his brother, Mr. L. E. Groom, of
Franklin Street, South Brisbane, was among those of the
Pearl’s passengers who were fortunate enough to get on board
the Lucinda. Mr. Groom states that on the way across, the
Pearl was almost bumping into the Normanby. The Captain gave
orders to stop the engine, and this order was obeyed. The
engine was not started again, and the Pearl was carried down
with the strong tide towards the Government steamer.
The engineer sang out to the Captain, “Look out Jim,
you will be on the Lucinda.”
Captain Chard thereupon gave the order, “Stern,” and
just then the Pearl bumped into the Lucinda amidships.
Young Groom was standing beside a companion named Alex.
Henry, and the latter said, “We will have to swim for it.” The
Pearl seemed to be lifted up by the anchor chains of the
Lucinda. Henry jumped into the water, and Groom crawled along
the bottom of the vessel for a few yards, and succeeding in
getting over the side, caught hold of the bumpkin of the
Lucinda and sprang on board that vessel.
Groom says that about thirty people, nearly a dozen of
whom were women, were successful in getting on board the
Government steamer. Several of the Pearl’s passengers clung to
the Lucinda’s chains, and were rescued by being dragged on
board.
The excitement on board the Pearl was terrible, and Mr.
Groom said it was heartrending to hear the cries of the people
as the steamer capsized. The whole occurrence was over in a
few moments. Then nothing was to be seen of the doomed vessel,
and few persons could be seen in the water near the place;
those who were fortunate enough to get clear of the vessel and
rise to the surface being carried quickly downstream. Mr.
Groom estimates the number of people who were on board the
Pearl at between ninety and 100, and he is afraid that at
least half the number have been drowned.
Miss Isabella Braidwood, who is employed by Messrs.
Grimes and Petty, had a very narrow escape from losing her
life.
She was taking a holiday yesterday, and in the course
of the day accompanied a friend, Miss Louisa Barnes, residing
with her parents at Boggo Road, into the city.
They were returning home by the pearl, and were
standing on the deck when the steamer collided.
Miss Braidwood, as the Pearl turned over, was thrown
into the water well clear of the sinking craft.
She sank more than once, and was then carried down the
river. When nearly opposite the railway wharves she caught
sight of two people – a man and a woman- who had hold of a
lifebuoy. She called out to the man to save her, and he
succeeded in catching hold of her, and keeping hold of her
until she secured a firm grip of the lifebuoy, to which she
held on until rescued by a passing boat.
She did not know the name of the man who caught hold of
her as she was being swept downstream, but thinks he was a
seaman, and a passenger on board the Pearl.
The middle aged woman who had hold of the buoy, and was
being supported by the man referred to was elderly, and seemed
to be exhausted; and was in all probability the woman who was
brought ashore, but too late to admit of anything being done
to restore consciousness.
Miss Barnes was never seen again by her friend, and up
to a late hour last night had not returned home, so that it is
feared she has been drowned.
Mr. Malcolm Finlayson gives the following account of
his experience on the steamer:- “I should think about seventy
people were on board. I stepped on about a minute before the
steamer started. With my brother William, I was standing
between the seats on the bridge deck, talking to a Mr. Lavers,
sen. Some person standing near remarked that the Pearl would
collide with the Normanby, which was anchored in mid-stream,
but I answered that it looked very as if she would strike the
Lucinda.
Soon afterwards, the Pearl struck broadside on the
Lucinda, and within a few seconds rolled over and disappeared.
I was thrown into the water, and upon rising to the
surface, clung with two others, to a large seat. The form went
down with our weight, and upon my rising to the surface a
second time I was the only one left clinging to it. As I
floated past the stern of the Lucinda, my brother William, who
had climbed up the bow of the vessel, threw a rope out to me,
but I was unable to catch it. I drifted down to near McGhie,
Luya, and Co.’s wharf, and was then rescued by a steam
launch.”
Mr. William Finlayson states that Mr. Lavers did not
get on board the Lucinda, and he did not see him after the
Pearl went down.
Four girls, scholars at the Convent School, who reside
with their parents within a stone’s throw of each other in the
West End, were among the Pearl’s passengers. Their names are:
Mary Lehane aged 13 years, daughter of the licencee of the
Boundary Street hotel, her cousin Mary Cain, residing in Jane
Street, and Geraldine and Maud McGroarty, daughters of Mr.
McGroarty, school inspector, also residing in Jane Street. The
girls were in a group on the deck when the collision took
place. They rushed forward and the girl Lehane took hold of a
seat, and kept a grip of it after she was precipitated into
the water. A rope was flung to her from a vessel – she thinks
it was the Lucinda- and she was thereby rescued. The girl Cain
was successful in catching on to the Lucinda’s anchor chains,
and was speedily taken on board that steamer by willing hands.
The sisters McGroarty clung to each other as the Pearl
collided, and went into the river together. Geraldine caught
hold of a piece of wood that was floating past, and bravely
supported her sister Maud, who was clinging to her, as they
were carried down by the current. The sisters were picked up
by a boat when a little below the Ernest Street Baths. Last
night the four girls were suffering no ill effects from their
trying experience.
It was a pitiful tale which Mr. James Wilson had to
tell. He was found in a South Brisbane boarding-house, pretty
well overcome by the affliction which had come upon him. A few
kind neighbours were at hand seeking to administer such
consolation as their hearts gave out for the distressed.
Mrs. Wilson, who had some shopping to do, met him at
the Queen’s Wharf. The couple left the Queen’s Wharf, and the
steamer’s head was put towards the south side. There were two
boats lying on the other side of the river, the Lucinda and
the Normanby, at no great distance from each other, and the
steamer Pearl set out to go between them. She attempted to
cross between the two vessels. Mr. Wilson said that in his
opinion the Pearl went completely wrong, and he told the
Captain that he would not get clear of the Lucinda. Seeing the
danger he caught hold of his wife, and held her up when they
found themselves in the water. Another lady also clung to him,
but both were carried down by the stream. Wilson tried all he
could to save his wife, but without success, and she sank
before his eyes. The occurrence quite prostrated him, but when
some neighbour brought in four children, their ages ranging
from 3 to 8, whose mother had been drowned in the accident, he
readily consented to take charge of the. Their mother (Mrs.
Harper) had recently come for Gympie.
Mr. A.R. Henry, one of the survivors, said that all
went well until they got to the steamer Normanby, which they
passed immediately astern. When the collision took place, he
dived off, and swam to the Lucinda’s boat, which had been put
out. When the Pearl sank he saw a number of people struggling
in the water, but he did not notice many school children.
Charles Herbert Briggs, clerk in the “Courier” office,
stated that he left Queen’s Wharf in the Pearl at about 5
o’clock. He considered there were about 100 passengers on
board. The
steamer went upstream, and turned to cut the stern of the
Normanby. In doing so, the captain appeared to miscalculate
his distance, and had to allow his vessel to drift downstream
to clear the Normanby.
In doing so, he got too much sideway on with the
current. When the captain discovered his position he ordered
the engines to reverse, but the space being too short the
vessel crashed into the bows of the Lucinda.
The Pearl was lifted up by the current into the chains
of the Government steamer, throwing the starboard side
completely under water. She immediately became filled, and
within the space of about half-a-minute, sank. The passengers
were panic stricken, and had no time to free themselves from
the awning of the sinking steamer.
As far as he could judge, the vessel was cut clean in
two. He saw the danger approaching, and went across to the
port side, and dived overboard. When about forty yards away he
turned and was just in time to see the last of the Pearl go
down. He swam down the stream with his umbrella and bag in one
hand, and guided himself with the other, and was picked up
near the Dry Docks by a ferry boat.
He afterwards assisted in landing one woman and four
men who had been who had been swept down the stream after him.
In his opinion about thirty were saved. The passengers were
nearly all full grown people, very few children being on
board. The majority of passengers were on the upper deck of
the steamer.
William Huckins, an acct in the employ of Mr. G. T.
Bell, stated that he went aboard of the Pearl in company with
Mr. Briggs.
All went well until rounding the stern of the Normanby,
when Mr. Briggs remarked to him that the thing was being cut
pretty fine. He concurred, and immediately afterwards the
danger with the Lucinda became plainly apparent. The moment
they were fully clear of the Normanby the engines, which had
been previously stopped, were again put in motion, but the
vessel drifted rapidly port side on to the Lucinda.
The danger was apparent at about thirty yards, and as
the engines were stopped, the passengers must have realized
the position. When within about ten yards of the Lucinda, he
rushed after Mr. Briggs to the side, and saw him jump
overboard, but he himself remained standing on the bulwarks.
At the time of the crash the passengers were huddled together.
As soon as he saw the hopeless condition of the steamer he
jumped overboard, and followed Mr. Briggs down the stream,
eventually being picked up by a ferry boat. He considered that
about forty passengers went down with the steamer.
Through the kindness of a gentleman resident at
Yeronga, who communicated with us by telephone, we are enabled
to furnish the following interesting particulars:-
So far as
can be ascertained, all the Yeronga people who were on board
have been saved. Amongst those on the Pearl at the time of the
accident were – Messrs E. O. Rees (of the Equitable Insurance
Company), Richard Alford (Alford and Co.), L. Pardoe (of the
Survey Office), William Wilson (of the Apollo Candle Company),
all of whom were rescued from the water.
Mr. Alford
climbed on board the Lucinda before the Pearl went down,
escaping without much difficulty.
Mr. Rees, on finding that the steamer was going down,
dived overboard and surfaced up near the funnel; avoiding
that, he had some difficulty in getting clear of the wreckage.
Eventually he drifted down the river and was picked up near McGhie, Luya’s
wharf by a boat that had put out by a boat.
Wilson was struck on the head by some part of the
vessel and does not know how he escaped, but he rose to the
surface, and was eventually picked up by the same boat that
saved Mr. Rees. He had a very gruesome experience. When he was
in the water he saw an object floating by which seemed likely
to afford support, and he tried to swim to it. He was not able
to stem the current, but presently it drifted near him, and he
then saw that it was the body of a man, which sank within a
few feet of him.
Mr.
Pardoe, after swimming for a while, found one of the steamer’s
deck forms floating near him. He got on to it, and then
noticed a boy about 14 years of age close by, whom he pulled
on to the form also. Together they drifted down the stream,
and before long a boat came to their rescue. At this time Mr.
Pardoe noticed a woman floating not far off, and directed
those in the boat to go to her rescue. A couple of life-buoys
were thrown them from the boat, which then left, and, after
rescuing the woman, returned to take them off the form. By
this time they had floated near the coal wharves, where they
were taken off the form and pulled ashore in the boat.
The
accounts of all the rescued persons agree that as soon as the
accident had happened, boats shot out from all directions to
aid in the rescue work.
As already
stated, the accident had no sooner happened than the river
teemed with boats and small steamers seeking to pick up the
drowning passengers; but very little could be done.
The men on
the various ships in the river were quickly on the alert.
Amongst these the crew of the Merrie England, in the Dry Dock,
did all in their power, and the watch on board the gunboats
lower down the river.
Mr.
Petherbridge and Mr. Cyrus Williams, on hearing the news,
pulled off from the Port Office Wharf to the Midge, and,
picking up Captain Drake, they went down the river to Kangaroo
Point towing a dingey. They passed a dozen forms buoyed up
with oil drums, also a great quantity of wreckage, but nothing
was seen of the people. Afterwards the Midge steamed up almost
to the scene of the accident, but without having observed
anyone in the water.
Pilot
Craven, in charge of the steamer Pippo, who had spent the
afternoon at the work at Victoria Bridge, receiving the alarm
that the steam ferry boat had capsized, at once gave orders to
clear away all lines and go to the rescue; but being unable to
get clear, sent the boat with three men. The steamer
afterwards went down to Kangaroo Point, keeping a sharp
lookout, but saw nothing of the Pearl’s passengers.
The Pippo
is under orders to start at daylight this morning to make
search down the river for any bodies that may have been cast
ashore.
Coxswain
McIntosh, of the Laura, states that while his crew were
engaged hauling on the wreckage around the bridge, his
attention was drawn to the accident, and he at once summoned
his men to jump into the boat and pull off. On reaching the
Lucinda he found a woman – Mrs. Priest – in the last stage of
exhaustion, hanging to a rope from the Lucinda, whom he was
just in time to rescue. He then took off a man who was hanging
to one of the stanchions of the Lucinda’s paddle-box. He
looked carefully about but could see no more persons.
Mrs.
Jewell, wife of Mr. V. Jewell, cabinet-maker, residing next
door to the office of the “Freelance” newspaper, South
Brisbane, who is not in good health, had spent the afternoon
on her veranda fronting the river. She had been greatly
interested in the steamboats crossing and recrossing the
river, and more than once had she told her husband that an
accident must occur in the passage between the Normanby and
Lucinda. To quote her own words to a correspondent of the
“Courier”: “It was about 5 o’clock, or a few minutes after, I
had been watching the boats plying between the north and the
south sides, when all at once I noticed the steamer Pearl make
to the opening between the steamer Normanby and the Government
steamer Lucinda, and all at once something seemed to get out
of gear, and the boat dashed broadside on to the Lucinda’s
bows.
The
shrieks and screams startled me, and made me feel sick and
giddy; indeed, I feel so now, and never shall I forget to my
dying day the sight of the poor creatures perishing before my
very eyes. I called my husband to see if he could render any
help.”
Mr. Jewell
said: “I rushed out of the workshop on hearing my wife scream
out. I saw the accident; the shrieks were fearful for a
moment. The boat was against the bows of the Lucinda. I saw a
few people jump, and it seemed to me glide (they were so
quick) from the Pearl to the Lucinda, then the boat gave a
turn and slid on her side, the steam hissing. Dozens of people
slipped off as she turned, and were swept under as she sank.
To picture what happened is almost impossible; so quick was
the scene that I could hardly realize that so dreadful a
catastrophe had taken place. I saw about twenty persons, men,
women, and children fighting with the debris in the rushing
waters, and sinking from exhaustion.”
Captain Mackay, Harbour-master,
states that he proceeded at 9 o’clock in the Laura to assist
in clearing the debris lodged around the piles of the bridge.
Finding the Laura’s masts were too tall to pass under, he was
reluctantly compelled to cut them away.
He arrived
on the scene of operations at 2pm., and after dropping the
Laura’s anchor upstream to hold her in position, he secured
the services of the Chance and Undine, who, under his
direction, were moored one on each side of the Laura.
Two piers
were cleared under Captain Mackay’s directions.
When the
disaster occurred, at the moment the collision seemed
imminent, Captain Mackay’s attention was arrested by one of
his crew calling out, “My God! There’s a ferryboat sinking!”
Captain
Mackay states: “Simultaneously to this, I saw the unfortunate
steamer go down stern first, her bows standing straight up,
and only a whiff of steam, when her boilers touched the water,
marking her disappearance. The ill-fated Pearl was simply
hurled by the force of the rush of the water on to the
Lucinda’s anchor-chains, which stood out like bars of iron,
and heaved her clean over.
I
immediately cut the Undine and the Chance adrift from the
Laura, and placing several men under the charge of my coxswain
sent them away in the whaleboat, which I am happy to say
succeeded in saving three persons. The Pearl must have turned
over and over, and numbers must have been scalded to death.”
A young
girl, who is fatherless, had been to visit her mother, who
lies ill in the hospital. She was one of those saved, but on
being brought ashore she burst into tears, and between her
sobs, told that she had neither friends nor relatives to look
after her. Needless to say she was not long friendless.
The case
of the lad Morren, who was amongst the saved, is especially
distressing. He had been with his father and sister attending
his mother’s funeral, and was returning to his home at Manly
with them. His father and sister are numbered with the
missing. Morren is about 14 or 15 years of age.
A wharf
laborer named Arthur Loseby, of Spring Hill, was one of those
on board. As the vessel sank, he was under the awning, but
managed to extricate himself, and get to the surface. While
swimming about he got hold of a woman, whom he supported for a
while, until the master of the Pearl, Captain Chard, who was
also in the water, put a lifebelt around her. The woman was
saved. Loseby, when swimming ashore, got hold of an old man,
and assisted him into a boat, afterwards getting in himself,
and being landed at the Dry Dock.
A man
named Gibson, in his hurry to get into a dingey to go to the
rescue, fell and dislocated his ankle, besides seriously
injuring his joint. He was conveyed to Dr. Fisher’s surgery,
where his injuries were attended to.
It being
necessary to remove the telephone and telegraph wires from
Victoria Bridge in consequences of the unstable character of
part of the structure, direct communication with South
Brisbane was cut off last evening.
Police
reports were, however, forwarded to the Roma Street station.
Constable Corfield reported that about 5.05pm, he was on duty
on the Musgrave Wharf. The Constable saw the steamer Pearl
leave the Queen’s Wharf, North Brisbane, for Musgrave Wharf,
South Brisbane, with about seventy passengers on board. She
was steered in a vertical direction for the south side, and
when about 100 yards from the south side she was drifted by
the current against the bow of the Lucinda, which was anchored
in the river.
Instantly,
as the Pearl collided with the Lucinda, she turned completely
over, and her passengers, numbering about seventy, were left
struggling in the water. The Pearl rose to the surface again
but she soon broke up, and part of her floated down the river.
Boats were lowered from the Lucinda, and put out in all
directions to the rescue of the passengers, and in this way
about thirty were saved. Captain Chard, who was in charge at
the time, and W. Mutch, fireman on board, and all the members
of the crew were saved.
+++
Mr. W. Stephens, M.L.A., a former member of the Bridge
Board, was busily engaged yesterday in regulating traffic from
the south side of the river. When the passenger traffic was
stopped on the bridge, he made application for the steamer
Beaver to ply between South Brisbane and the city, but the
application was not granted, on the ground, it is believed,
that the vessel was not at all suitable for the purpose.
Mr. Stephens, on his own responsibility, placed the
steamers Alice and Pearl on the ferry service, and it is said
that he warned the master of the latter vessel not to run
between the Normanby and the Lucinda, but to cross the river
below where the Government steamer was at anchor.
It was at the instigation of the Mayor of South
Brisbane (Mr. Luya), that yesterday morning the bridge was
reopened for passenger traffic, after having been closed for a
time.
A notification appears to the effect that the Colonial
Secretary has handed over the ferry traffic to the control of
the Mayors of Brisbane and South Brisbane, and that the
traffic would be resumed between the Queen’s Wharf and the
Musgrave Wharf at 6 o’clock this morning.
We are indebted to Mr. W. Stephens, M.L.A., for his
courtesy and kindness in lending our representative a buggy,
in which he proceeded to Wynnum and interviewed Messrs. C.
Briggs and W. Huckins, a report of which appears in another
column. The train service to Wynnum would not result of
returning last night, and as soon as the circumstances were
made known to Mr. Stephens, he promptly had the champion
trotter L. Jeannie in a buggy and our reporter on his way for
the desired information.
LATEST REPORTS
FURTHER LIST OF MISSING
NAMES OF SAVED
SOME STIRRING INCIDENTS
ACTION TO RECOVER BODIES
A son of Mr. T. M. King, Under Secretary to the
Treasury, appears to have had a narrow escape. He boarded the
Pearl on the trip before the disaster and was ordered off. He
did not, however, leave the boat. Had he done so, he would
certainly have been in the disaster.
It has been ascertained that Miss Maud Robson, who was
reported in this morning’s “Courier,” missing, was not on
board the Pearl.
Our correspondent at Wynnum telegraphed last evening as
follows: ‘In connection with the disaster to the Pearl, most
painful anxiety is felt here as to the safety or otherwise of
the people who are usual passengers by the three evening
trains from Brisbane, and who have not yet arrived. Those
saved from the Pearl, and who have arrived here, are Messrs.
James Wassell, Thos Brock, Bell, Booth, and Lamond. Amongst
those supposed to be drowned is Mr. Harry A. Jarman, son of
Mr. E. Jarman.’
There is no information yet to hand as to any one
missing from Cleveland or Wellington Point.
When the accident occurred, two boats at once put off
from the Commercial Rowing Club shed as smartly as possible,
and succeeded in rescuing two men, one of them a coloured man
who had lost his wife and two children. The other was floating
in one of the eddies. One of the boats was manned by Constable
J. Deevy, who is a member of the club, and Messrs. W. B.
Carmichael, R. Macalister, and J. Fury; the other by Constable
Foley, also a member of the club, and Messrs J. H. Williams,
A. Dennis, and A. Burton, all being well-known oarsmen. The
boats were club pleasure skiffs.
The death of Harry Jarman, eldest surviving son of Mr.
R. E. Jarman, will leave a blank in a large circle of
estimable young fellows who have done much in the Cadet
movement in the Defence Force and in amateur theatricals. He
had a lifebuoy when the steamer went over, but handed it over
to his aunt – who was saved, saying to her, “Here, you take
this and save yourself, I’ll be alright.” That was the last
seen of him. Much sympathy will be felt with his father, Mr.
R. E. Jarman, who is at present away in West Australia, and
with Mrs. Jarman, who is a resident of Wynnum. Harry Jarman
was about 21 years of age, and was in charge of his father’s
saddlery business at the corner of Adelaide and Edward
Streets.
Hugh Kerr Morren, who was drowned while returning from
the funeral of his wife, was a well-known resident of Manly,
and leaves a large family of young children. He was a
dairyman, but it is understood was in receipt of remittances
from England. He was a well-educated man, and was well
connected.
Miss Grace Yorston, who was expected home last evening,
has not been heard of up to this morning at 8.30, and it is
feared that she may have been one of the unfortunates who were
onboard the Pearl.
Among those reported to be missing is Mr. William Percy
Hall, of the Marine Defence Force Dept, who, it is feared, was
on board the Pearl. He left his occupation about a quarter to
5, and it is believed started for his home on Mertons Road,
South Brisbane, but has not since been heard of. He is 22
years of age, about 5ft 8in in height, slightly built, of fair
complexion, with a light moustache.
The Commissioner of Police particularly requests that
any one who can give information as to persons supposed to
have been on the Pearl, or who were rescued, will communicate
with his office.
The girl Martha Morren, who was on board the steamer
with her father and brother, was not drowned, as at first
supposed, but got ashore, and joined the Wynnum train at
Vulture Street.
Reginald Pickering, aged 18, in the employ of Messrs.
Thynne and Macartney, solicitors, was one of the saved. When
the Pearl struck the anchor chains of the Lucinda, he was near
the man at the wheel on the lower deck, and as the vessel
heeled over he climbed up to the side which was out of the
water. He could see very little at the time, owing to the
escape of steam, but just before the Pearl sank she seemed to
rise up, and he was able to catch hold of the bumkin of the
Lucinda. He thinks that when the Pearl broke in two a good
many people were killed, some by being crushed against the
Lucinda’s bumkin.
Young Pickering had a narrow escape, his legislation
being grazed. He climbed on board the Lucinda, without being
wet. Mr. Crowther, of Messrs Wilson and Hemming, and a Mr.
Steel were near Pickering at the time of the disaster, and the
former is known to have been saved.
Messrs. A. J. Crowther and B. P. Brown, who were among
the persons on board the ill-fated Pearl, state that when the
Pearl struck the Lucinda’s cables, she rolled over, her masts
facing upstream. Most of the people on board ran down the
incline into the water. They state that in their opinion, the
Pearl should never have gone in front of the Lucinda. They
further state that when the Captain saw the approaching
danger, he seemed to lose his head, and gave the order
“stern!” just as the Pearl was passing the Lucinda’s bows.
They are loud in their praise of Captain South and the men of
the Lucinda, who treated those rescued with every attention in
their power.
A report was circulated this morning that Mr. Connah,
of the Treasury, had lost two of his sons. It seems, however,
that both boys just missed the boat. Mr. Connah’s daughter
crossed in the boat on her trip immediately preceding the
disaster.
No bodies have been found this morning. Instructions
have been given by the police that so soon as any are found,
they will be taken at once to the morgue on the Queen’s Wharf,
and when identified, will be allowed to be removed by
relatives.
Inspector Wassell, of Lytton, had crews out at daylight
this morning patrolling the banks of the river.
Mr. Charles Clibborn, aged 15, who was reported among
the missing this morning, now turns out to have been never on
the boat at all.
Captain Almond has sent two rowing boats to the mouth
of the river to search for bodies. People living along the
banks of the river have been warned to look out for bodies.
In the list of the missing must be included the wife
and two children of a coloured man, whose name we have not
been able to ascertain, but who was picked up on the
paddle-wheel of the Lucinda.
R.
Pickering.
A. J.
Crowther.
B. P. Brown.
Thomas
Brock, of Wynnum.
Additional Names
The
following are the names of three who have been reported as
missing, in addition to those mentioned in our report on page
5:-
Mr.
H. E. Williams, Pastoral Butchering Company.
Mr.
H. C. Morren, Manly.
Miss
Grace Yorston.
Mrs.
Worthington.
Mr.
H. A. Jarman.
William
Percy Hall, Merton Road, South Brisbane.
Miss
Brand, Edward Street, off Boggo Road, who with a friend, went
shopping yesterday afternoon. Her friend was saved.
Mr.
Lavers, Merton Street, fruiterer.
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 3, 1923
A NORTHERN CHRISTMAS EVE
A search among so far unpublished manuscripts revealed
the following account of one of my Christmas Eves, written on
the following day, when the scene was all before me.
On the day before there was a visit from Louis Severin,
Mayor of Cairns, who, unseen by me, picked up one of my guns
and pulled the trigger to see how it worked, “not knowing it
to be loaded,” as usual, and the ball went through the
weatherboards, and, by a hair’s breadth, just missed potting
one of the men in the survey camp of Monk and Amos, who were
then surveying the Cairns railway over the range.
After Severin left, three wild blacks, who had been to
see me before, came wading across the Barron – only a couple
of feet deep there at low tide – and brought me a piece of
quartz they called “joboor,” with half an ounce of gold in it,
and the arrangement was made for them to come on the third day
and take me to the source of the gold.
They never returned, and three months passed before
learning that all three had been shot on the following day, on
the sea beach near the mouth of the Barron, and all ever seen
by me were two of their skulls, one of which is now in the
Brisbane Museum. The scoundrel responsible calmly told me what
he had done, just as he was going on board a steamer at
Cairns, on his way to America, and was informed by me of my
genuine sorrow for not having the news on the previous day
when he was passing my place on the Barron, as his journey
might have been suddenly interrupted. So far that rich quartz
reef has not been located, but one day it will be a prize for
somebody.
That morning on the Barron River began my visit from a
packer named Guilfoyle, who came out of the scrub leading a
little chestnut mare that had been interviewed by a crocodile
in the river, in sight of my house. Down the front of both
shoulders were the terrible scars made by the saurian’s
forefeet. As the mare had struggled to escape, she was torn on
both flanks in such an awful fashion that I told Guilfoyle to
take her away and shoot her, and this was done.
This same Guilfoyle was afterwards killed in a row in a
shanty, near Herberton, by another packer named Hogan, whose
sentence was death, commuted to life imprisonment. Curiously
enough, this Hogan was once swimming the Barron at the spot
where Guilfoyle’s mare was mangled, and a crocodile tore his
horse from under him, leaving Hogan to swim ashore, a feat he
performed in the fastest time on record, being so paralysed by
fright when he reached the shore that he could hardly walk up
the bank.
There had been heavy rain for a week, and the Chinese
on Freshwater Creek were flooded out. Their fowls were
roosting on trees, and their pigs were loose in the scrub.
Excited Chinamen were rushing round with their pigtails
flying out on the winds, and using language that was
fortunately unintelligible.
My sole companion was my Chinese chef de cuisine, Jan
Yin, and on this night he slept in the kitchen. A hundred
yards away were the white tents of surveyors Monk and Amos
“Eatee too
muchee man. Master, you shoot him dead two time! Holy God! No
more; me long Hongkong! Wooooh!”
As crocodiles were common enough at that time, and some
animal near the kitchen was making a grunting noise very much
like the dread denizen of the river, I took the rifle and
fired from the end of the verandah, taking merely the line of
the barrel. Then came a loud squeal from the supposed
crocodile, and a frenzied yell from Jan Yin, who opened the
kitchen door and sallied out with a candle to pick up the
dead. Lying in a pool of gore was a very fine, fat pig that
had escaped from some flooded stye. Then Jan Yin laughed in a
manner never heard by me before nor ever since. He bled the
pig, took out the interior, and had a supper of fried liver,
after which he went to bed and dreamed of a forty foot red
dragon with iron teeth, hauling him into a blood spattered
cave, strewn with the bones of Chinamen!
Then my mediations were resumed …Before me was the
black river, covered with driftwood and the wreckage of the
scrubs, rushing by, in gloom and terror, to the ocean, the
trees in its course bending before the resistless rush of
waters. The rain fell in sheets and cascades, one desolate,
pitiless torrent from the open windows of heaven and the
broken up fountains of the Great deep.
And the black darkness was palpable, like that of a
vault, or the awful mantle the avenging gods spread over
Jerusalem on those last days so magnificently described in
Croly’s “Salathiel.”
Among the Alpine solititudes, Byron beheld such a night
as this, and it inspired his “Dream of Darkness,”
“A sea of stagnant idleness,
Blind, boundless, mute, and
motionless.”
With what
passionate fervor must blind old Milton have prayed for-
“Holy Light! Offspring of heaven
first born,
Or of the eternal co-eternal
beam.”
But here
came fancy! Beautiful angel with the opalescent eyes and
rainbow colored wings! She took me with her through the sunlit
fields of air, and drew back the lace curtains from the
sapphire Temple of Dreams!
There is the lonely timber getter camped in the dreary
scrub. He recalls soft visions of departed days, and mourns
over lost hopes and baffled aspirations. Anon he quaffs a
pannikins of hot rum, and ponders over some new method of
wedging the ends of hollow logs, so the timber merchant may
cheerfully accept them as solid timber! For the old Adam is
still going strong in all branches of the human family.
Behold the pioneer selector in his solitary hut,
wrestling in grim fight with a half cooked fragment of salt
beef. He may be a classical scholar, and sits there communing
with the old Greek gods, or reciting passages from Homer, but
his chief thought is probably how he is going to bluff the
Crown Lands Ranger, and obtain a certificate without
fulfilling conditions.
And, lo! Here comes “Harry, the mailman,” riding like
Paul Revere, splashing through rain and darkness with confused
noise and Dragon, had got him into the cave and started to cut
him from the foot end!
Then came the excited yabber of three Chinamen, who
called to enquire if Jan Yin had seen any stray pigs. This was
about midnight. Jan Yin woke in a Berserker rage, and demanded
to know if that took the people of that ranch for pig
stealers. Then the three Chows got mad, and myself, foreseeing
a protracted dispute, lighted a foot of fuse attached to three
dynamite cartridges, and threw this puissant combination
within about ten yards of the three visitors.
In due time there came an explosion like the trump of
doom, followed by a truly awful silence. The three visitors
rose, and went silently home by various routes, falling over
everything in the first hundred yards. Jan Yin crept back into
the kitchen, and sat all the rest of the night in silence
beside the dead pig, not quite sure if all the outside world
was burnt up.
Next morning when he heard my explanation, he laughed
his pigtail loose, and assured me that the three visitors were
blown over the fence, an idea that struck him as the funniest
thing in Chinese annals. A Chinaman’s humour is a little
peculiar.
Jan Yin was quite unconscious of the comic element in
his fiery indignation over being suspected of pig stealing,
when he knew the dead pig behind the door was the property of
one of the visitors.
On that night the Barron rose 20ft, and next morning
was a sweeping waste of furious yellow water, half a mile in
width, traveling 12 miles an hour, and carrying everything
before it to the Pacific. The echo of the Barron Falls, on the
breast of Mount Williams, resembled the dull roar of an
advancing storm. Along the far bed of the river – the dry bed
of ordinary days- magnificently foliaged trees stood in the
rush of waters; tall, beautiful Leichhardis, erect and
graceful; the smaller trees bent until their tops rested on
the surface of the river, the dark green scrub that fringed
the banks gazing serenely into the awful maelstrom-
“Resembling ‘mid the torture of
the scene;
Hope watching Madness, with
unalterable mien.”
From the
far off jungle of the Upper Barron came two giant cedar logs,
torn and scarred and shattered, in that awful journey through
gloomy gorges, beneath overhanging rocks, whirled helplessly
towards the dreadful precipice, where the gulf yawns abysmal,
and the foam covered waters shriek in their agony, like lost
spirits in the Dantean Hell!
Then one
terrific plunge into the “Shademanthine darkness and the
Tartarean gloom,” and thence onward to the ocean, to be thrown
on some lone sand beach, and be for ever at rest.
Type of
all human life! Along the river of Existence, through youth to
age, in gleams of sunshine in storms and darkness.
_____________________________________________
SATURDAY, AUGUST 18, 1923
The reader is asked to look for a few minutes at a map
of Australia, and particularly at the map of Queensland, where
he will see one of the most remarkable and least known
portions of this continent. That is one of the greatest
peninsulas in the world, the end, terminating in Cape York,
being the most northern portion of Australia.
The 15th parallel crosses the centre, and at
the junction of that and the 125th meridian, on the
west coast, is a small “York Peninsula,” occasionally confused
with the great Cape York Peninsula of the east coast. The base
of the latter may be regarded as a line from Normanton, at the
bottom of the Gulf of Carpentaria, eastward to Mourilyan
Harbour, on the east coast, a distance of 350 miles. Northward
the Peninsula gradually contracts to 300 miles at cairns, 250
at Cooktown, 200 at cape Melville, 135 at Cape Direction, 75
at Cape Grenville, 50 at the south side of Newcastle Bay, and
abruptly to 10 at the head of that bay, and thence about 14
miles in width to Cape York.
The length from Cape York to the bottom of the Gulf of
Carpentaria is about 500 miles, so that the Cape York
Peninsula represents about 100,000 square miles, or 20,000
more than the 83,603 of all Great Britain, and a little more
than three times the area of Ireland, with its 32,600 square
miles.
Traversing the Peninsula, from Cooktown to Cape York,
is the overland telegraph line, which runs along the watershed
of the rivers running to the Gulf, and on the west side of the
Dividing Range. Of all the Australian coast, that east side of
the Peninsula from the 14th parallel north to
Newcastle Bay is the least known.
The Jardine brothers, in their memorable expedition
from Rockhampton to cape York in 1864, travelled on the west
side, and much too far towards the Gulf, their track taking
them down among boggy claypans and a labyrinth of creeks. The
unfortunate Kennedy in 1848 kept too far to the eastward, and
involved himself in rough granite ranges and dense tropical
jungles. The Jardines and Kennedy should have gone along the
divide on the tableland at the head of the Gulf rivers, along
the track selected for the present overland telegraph. That
would have kept them clear of the swamps and creeks of the one
side and the dense jungles and rough ranges of the other. One
may say it is easy enough to see all that today, but not so
easy in the days of the Jardines and Kennedy, who had
everything to learn.
The late Dr. R. L. Jack, in his two expeditions along
the Peninsula from Cooktown to Cape York, went along the east
side of the Dividing Range, reaching the sea on the occasion
at Temple Bay, where he signaled the Piper Island lightship,
and got his mails, left there by passing steamers, posting his
own mails for the south.
On the night before he reached Temple Bay he camped in
a little valley on the head of a creek which runs into that
bay. On the next day, when marching to the coast, he passed a
wild blacks’ camp, partly roofed with sheets of copper,
accounted for by the copper sheathed hull of a wrecked barque
found lying on the beach, but no one was visible. On reporting
it at Cooktown, the Collector of Customs, the late Bartley
Fahey, went up by sea to examine the hull, and found it to be
the remains of the barque Kate Connolly, which left Cairns
three years before with a load of cedar, was caught in a
cyclone and disappeared with all hands, leaving no known
trace, until Dr. Jack found the hull on the shore of Temple
Bay, three years later.
The ship Maitland, also loaded with red cedar, was
caught in the same storm, and vanished, with all hands,
somewhere off Cairns, a few of her logs being washed ashore on
Hinchinbrook Island.
Many small rivers and creeks run off the west side of
the Peninsula into the Gulf of Carpentaria, and among these
are the Gilbert, Staaten, Nassau, Mitchell, Coleman, Holroyd,
Kendall, Archer, Watson, Embley, Batavia, Ducie, Skardon, and
Jardine Rivers.
How those old Dutch navigators left their tracks in the
Nassau and Staaten Rivers, Cape Keerweer (“turn again”), and
in Pera Head, and Duythen Point.
Nearly all the Peninsula west of the telegraph line is
open forest country, timbered by box gums, grey gums,
ironwood, casuarinas, bloodwood, and tea trees, with no very
large trees.
Occasionally there are small, isolated patches of scrub
in which, much to my astonishment, was one of the worst
stinging trees of the east coast scrubs. When Captain
Pennefather went some distance up the Batavia River in H.M.S.
Pearl, in the seventies (1870s), he reported about “a million
acres of land suitable for sugar growing.”
He was completely deceived by the dense scrub that
fringed both banks, and which in most places, is only 50 to
100 yards in width. Had he landed and walked half a mile
inland he would have found that the country was not such as
would attract the experienced sugar planter, though good
grazing land, that may one day be proved to be highly suitable
for certain crops.
The Batavia is a considerable stream, navigable for
small steamers for at least 20 miles. Where the wire crosses,
at the Moreton Telegraph Station, the Batavia is a glorious
stream of fresh water, equal to any in Australia, running over
pure white sands, the banks bordered by narrow belts of
gorgeous jungle, in which you hear the long, fond, musical
call of the magnificent Cape York rifle bird, and the mournful
“cahweeah” of the great macaw, which appears to be a black
cockatoo until you shoot him. You will find he has a splendid
slate coloured crest and no markings on the tail feathers, and
he has a long curved bill and sharper point than that of the
black cockatoo. The large bronzewing pigeon was common in the
open forest, and the plain turkey goes north at least as far
as the Ducie River. The emu goes all the way to Cape York, but
Jardine told me he never saw a kangaroo within 60 miles of the
Cape.
When walking across from the head of the Ducie to the
Moreton Telegraph Station in 1895, accompanied only by an
aboriginal, Gnootaringwan, about six miles from the station, a
large fat plain turkey was seen crouched in the shade of a
bush, sheltered from the severe heat, no more than 25 yards
away, and we carried that turkey into the Moreton station,
where Derrig and his three men, myself and Gnootaringwan had a
Witellian banquet on the following day.
Before leaving the west side of the Peninsula, let me
take the reader to a small tea tree flat, and a small lagoon
on the Nassau River, between the Mitchell and the Staaten,
where on one fatal night Leichhardt and his party were camped,
and, in a midnight surprise attack by the blacks, the
naturalist, Gilbert, was speared to death, and next day they
buried him in a lonely grave, near that lagoon, and left him
there, and went on their long journey to Port Essington. And
the tea tree flat and the lagoon are there today, just the
same as on the night that Gilbert died, and the birds sing
their requiems, and the spectral winds play their Dead March
on the mournful trees, as heretofore, now, and for evermore.
Now we go hence to that wild, weird, romantic east
coast of the Peninsula, with its wonderful Barrier Reef,
unparalleled in the world; its dense, dark, tropical jungles,
with their glorious foliage, resplendent with beautiful wild
flowers, in amazing variety, musical with the voices of sweet
singing birds of brilliant plumage, and dark, jungle covered
ravines, running far up to attenuated pyramids, between the
mighty spurs of tremendous, granite mountains, rising to 3000
and 4000 feet. That granite range starts north of Princess
Charlotte Bay, and continues for nearly 200 miles. From any
point of that range you look away eastward across the Barrier
Reef and islands, and far out upon the deep blue sea beyond a
magnificent and wonderful scene, that defies all the melodious
eloquence of the poet, and all the scenic painting genius of
the artist.
The mountain scenery is unutterable splendid and
sublime. On the head of the Pascoe River is one mountain the
blacks call “Camboolgabann,” down whose tremendous thunder
scarred and rugged granite front there rushes a glorious
cataract that falls 1600 feet, clearly visible, especially in
wet weather, from the decks of vessels passing Weymouth Bay.
Rising from the mouth of the Pascoe to a height of
about 3000 feet is a gigantic mountain, or, rather, one long
tremendous ridge of enormous granite rocks, piled in dreadful
confusion, with not a sign of a tree, or plant, or blade of
green, to relieve the awful somber solitude of that vast
Cyclopean pile, that looks as if upheaved from some tremendous
subterranean quarry in a battle among the earthquake demons in
the dreadful morning of the world! Apparently that astonishing
mountain is inaccessible, except by a party with the outfit
essential to cross the innumerable granite chasms. It would be
a dangerous climb.
That mountain looks down on the Pascoe and Weymouth Bay
At dead low water the mouth of the Pascoe can be
crossed on foot, and that was where Kennedy crossed in 1848,
when he left at Shelbourne Bay, started north along the coast,
and found the east end of that awful mountain, away to seek
the relief vessel, and finally only death for all except the
aboriginal! And just about a mile and a half from the mouth of
the river he had left eight of his men at a little creek at
the foot of a small scrub covered hill, where six died and
Carren and Goddard were rescued by Jacky and boat party.
The reader may imagine my thoughts when walking over
where Kennedy crossed, and standing on the spot where the six
men died, and hearing the birds call just as they were heard
by those doomed explorers back in the vanished years.
And away out across the bay, when standing on the
beach, you see in the distance, about 600 yards off Cape
Weymouth, the small, rough granite island where Bligh landed
and watered his boat, and called it “Restoration Island.”
Those are some of the historic scenes which you could look
down on from any elevation on that terrific granite mountain,
which R. L. Jack called “Mount Carron,” the name of the
botanist of Kennedy’s expedition, when he saw it from the
north side, on his way to Temple Bay, the only bay ever seen
by me where the nautilus shells come ashore without being
broken. There is something remarkable about the tidal freaks
in that Temple Bay.
The two most astonishing capes on the Peninsula are
Cape Direction and Cape Melville, the latter easily
displaying more savage grandeur, romance, and awe inspiring
scenes than any other on the Australian coast. Cape Raoul,
in Tasmania, was a small rain squall to a cyclone by
comparison. That sea coast, from Cooktown to Cape York, has
charms the traveller, given the leisure and the facilities,
will find nowhere else.
__________________________________________________
THE LATE JOHN NAIRN
AN ADVENTUROUS CAREER
There died last month at Atherton, on the Barron
River, North Queensland, one of the rapidly decreasing old
pioneers whose experiences and adventures can never be
repeated, for the conditions of those days have changed and
can never return.
John Nairn was a tall, powerful 6ft 2in., Highlander,
a type of the men who, with two handed broadswords and wild
battle cries, charged down the Pass of Killiecrankie under
the eyes of Claverhouse; or the fiery Gaels who followed the
banner:
‘Of him who led the Highland
host
Through wild Lochaber’s snows,
What time the plaided clans
came down,
To battle with Montrose.”
Nairn was once well known to South Queensland
Caledonians as an excellent piper, dancer, and athlete. He
never travelled anywhere without a long cavalry sword and a
set of bagpipes, with the rampant Lion of Caledonia
displayed on the banner. Both sword and bagpipes saved his
fate on more than one occasion during a terrible journey in
North Queensland.
Nairn and two mates started from the Palmer River on
a prospecting trip. They worked across the head of Sandy
Creek and over to the watershed of the Mitchell, thence
easterly on to the range at the head of the Daintree. One
mate had turned back at the St. George River, reached Oakey
Creek and died there. The other mate died of fever on the
divide between McLeod’s Creek and the Daintree.
The blacks had been hostile for half the journey, and
spears were thrown even while Nairn was nursing the dying
man.
The sound of the rifle was the requiem of the dead
digger. To save his mate from being eaten by the blacks,
Nairn covered the body with a pile of dead timber, in which
it was reduced to ashes.
Then the solitary son of Scotia started on his lonely
journey through the wild unknown scrub covered ranges
between him and Port Douglas.
From the top of a cliff on the coast range, he saw
away to the eastward the 3000 feet granite cone of Peter
Botte, and the savage granite covered summit of the Heights
of Alexandra, rising 4000 feet between him and the ocean.
Then he followed the crest of the range southward to avoid
the Daintree. He kept the blacks at bay with the rifle until
his last cartridge, and then threw the rifle over a
precipice.
Thence onward he had to keep to the cover of the
scrub, the blacks following, but keeping at a respectful
distance. The woomera spears were useless in the thick
scrub, and the blacks were not desirous of close quarters
with Nairn’s naked sword. His rations ended a day after his
mate died, and thenceforth he had to eat anything available.
He dared only sleep an hour or two in the middle of
the night. He was partly delirious with fever, and half
maddened by the torture of the stinging tree. The blacks
followed mercilessly on his track, and he could hear them
calling each other in the scrub in a complete circle. One
day he came to an open space about 200 yards across, and the
blacks closed in for a final opportunity. His first impulse,
caused by the weakness and general misery of his condition,
was to let them come in and finish him.
With a sudden inspiration he threw up the bagpipes,
and started to play that famous old pibroch, “Up and waer
them a Willie!”
The blacks had never heard music like that, and in
their terror stricken imagination it appeared to be the
awful voice of a Devil Devil, too diabolically terrific for
the myall mind to even grasp by the tip of the tail! The
result was that some of them fell over a precipice, and the
rest started for Central Australia.
Nairn never saw any more of that tribe, but he met a
fresh lot on the second day when descending the range.
The bagpipes scattered this band like an explosion of
dynamite. But alas for the noble instrument that oft had
sounded the “war note of Lochiel,” and the “Pibroch of
Donuil Dhu,” for an evil scrub rat, in the silence of the
night, ate half the bag, and Nairn sadly threw his once
puissant but now useless pipes into a deep pool at the foot
of a water fall on the head of the Mosman.
Thence to the coast, he carried only his trusty
sword, and met no more blacks until he walked by a party of
about 50 spearing fish on the beach a few miles north of the
mouth of the Mosman. An old gin saw him, the old gin who, it
seems, in all tribes, never to go to sleep, and she yelled
to the men. For a sick man, Nairn made wonderfully good time
for the nearest scrub, and he never left it all the way to
Port Douglas, where he spent three months in the hospital in
the process of recovery from fever and starvation. He never
afterwards overcame the deadly hatred created towards the
blacks by the tragical horrors of that terrible trip.
In 1882 Nairn went out with me on the Barron River,
where we lived in bachelor quarters while he erected the
first part of my house.
Those were the days when the grunting roar of the
crocodiles was heard nightly from the river, and the wild
blacks were satisfied to look as us from the top of the
range. Nairn stalked a crocodile that was lying asleep with
his mouth wide open – a common habit- and at ten yards range
fired both barrels of shot guns down his throat and killed
him.
He was nearly killed on one occasion by a wounded
cassowary, weighing over two hundred pounds. Senior
Constable Brown was with him, and he told me that, during
the struggle for some minutes, there was only a whirling
mass of Highlander and cassowary in a cloud of leaves, dust,
grass, and bushes, until one powerful kick threw Nairn
against a log, and broke one of his ribs. Then he rose and
killed the cassowary with a sapling. I had one kick from a
wounded cassowary, and have still a vivid remembrance.
When Nairn left me he went to Brisbane in 1883, with
a desire to visit the South Sea Islands, and McIlwraith sent
him as Government agent on the first vessel, which chanced
to be the Borough Belle, commanded by Captain Belbin. It was
a memorable voyage for Nairn.
Another labour schooner – the Lizzie –(on which
Julian Thomas, the “Vagabond,” made his memorable trip) had
preceded the Borough Belle on a visit to the island of
Ambryn, and distinguished herself by taking forcible
possession of two recruits, a transaction that afterwards
involved a protracted official enquiry.
The Ambryn natives, like all other savages, were
minded to be avenged on the first white man available. Then
came the Borough Belle with Belbin as captain and Nairn on
board.
When they went ashore they received an extremely
hostile reception, causing them to flee for safety.
Only God can tell how many
unhappy shipwrecked human beings have passed into the maws
of ravenous sharks, or the even more merciless maw of the
remorseless insatiate sea, on the east coast of Australia,
from Wilson’s Promontory north to cape York, since captain
Phillip, Hunter, and King, landed at Sydney Cove, in
January, 1778.
A detailed history of all our marine tragedies of
that period would be one of the most dreadful volumes ever
written by human pen. Britons, Frenchmen, Spaniards,
Dutchmen, all contributed their victims to awful record. To
the questions how many were eaten by sharks? How many were
drowned? How many perished from exposure? And how many
reached the shore and were killed and eaten by cannibals?
There is not now, and never can be, an answer from the
Eternal Silences!
One of the most melancholy, most tragical and most
terrible of all the wrecks, was that of the barque
“Peruvian,” bound for China from Sydney, with a cargo of
hardwood, in February, 1846.
On board were Captain George Pitkethly, Mrs.
Pitkethly, Mr. and Mrs. Wilmot, infant and nurse girl, J. R.
Quarry, and six year old daughter, the captain’s brother,
who was first mate, John Millar, the sailmaker, the
carpenter, the cook, James Dicks, James Gooley, James
Murrells, James Wilson, an ordinary crew, and two West
Indian blacks. The captain, officers, and apprentices, were
all from Dundee.
The only man who was finally saved from the wreck of
that vessel was James Murrells, and for his account of the
wreck, and his subsequent experiences, we are indebted to
Edmund Gregory, the now retired Government Printer of
Queensland, who published, in 1863, an account of all that
was obtained from Murrells when he was brought to Brisbane,
from North Queensland in that year.
The Peruvian left Sydney on a Friday – the sailor’s
unlucky day –and on the following Friday, she ran on the
Minerva Reef, just before daylight. The two boats were
launched, and immediately smashed up. All around the doomed
ship were jagged rocks, and merciless breakers.
The captain’s brother was the first who was drowned,
being carried away in the remains of the second boat.
The others constructed a raft of masts and loose
spars, with a mast in the centre and a raised platform. All
the provisions they could get were a few tins of preserved
meat, besides one small keg of water and a bottle of brandy.
The women and children were first placed on the raft.
The intention was to remain with the wreck for a few days to
either try and build a boat or improve the raft, but the
raft broke away and drifted westward, helpless at the mercy
of the winds and tides, with twenty-one souls on board.
For forty days that raft drifted through scenes of
horror such as baffle the imagination.
They mutually agreed not to draw lots to decide who
was to be killed and eaten.
Each got one tablespoon of preserved meat daily, and
the water was measured in the neck of a glass bottle. They
caught a few birds, drank their blood, and ate their flesh.
Once they saw a sail, but the vessel passed on without
seeing them. James Quarry was the first who died, and they
took his clothes off and threw the body into the sea. It was
at once torn to pieces by the sharks, which followed them
day and night. Quarry’s child was the next to die, and that
too was thrown to the sharks.
They caught a rock cod with a line baited with a
piece of rag, and that was divided and eaten raw. Then Mrs.
Wilmot’s baby died, and went to the sharks, next the other
little girl and then Mrs. Wilmot herself.
Others followed one by one, and were thrown over to
the tigers of the deep. A leg was cut off one of the dead
men, lashed to the end of an oar, and used to entice a
shark.
A snare was placed on another oar, so that a shark
would have to go through it to reach the bait. He ran into
this, and the carpenter killed him with an axe. This shark
was cut up and eaten raw.
They caught another in the same gruesome fashion, cut
it in strips, and dried it in the sun. Finally, they reached
the Barrier Reef, and got over it with some difficulty.
Two days after this, they sighted Cape Upstart, and
in three days more were washed ashore at the base of Cape
Cleveland, only seven being left from the twenty-one who
left the wreck.
The other fourteen had gone to the sharks. The seven
were the captain and his wife, James Gooley, George Wilmott,
the sailmaker, a boy, and Murrells. They made a fire with a
magnifying glass and a piece of rag. Their first food was
some of the dried shark boiled in a meat tin. For a few days
they lived there on rock oysters, but these were poor food
for starved people. Wilmott and Gooley finally died on the
bank of a waterhole, well known to me, as I camped there for
two days in 1881.
The sailmaker, Jack Millar, found a black’s canoe,
and started away in it, but he only reached the next little
bay, where he died of starvation. The others were a
fortnight on shore before the blacks arrived. The
neighbouring tribe had seen some meteorites fall towards the
coast, and marched there to see what was there, as a
meteorite was supposed to indicate the presence of hostile
blacks. In this case, they found the tracks of the boy, and
ran them to where the captain’s wife was camped.
One remained at a distance to watch the mysterious
strangers, while the third went away and brought 20 or 30
more. When the Captain and Murrells came into camp, the wife
told them of the blacks coming, but they were incredulous
until she went outside the hut and said, “Oh, George, we
have come to our last now; here are such a lot of wild
blacks!” Poor fate persecuted unfortunates! They had
apparently only escaped the sharks, and survived the awful
horrors of that raft, to be devoured by cannibals!
The blacks were just as afraid of them until they
advanced and felt them from head to foot, and found they
were human like themselves.
At night an old man slept between each couple to keep
them apart. Next day the blacks fed them on lily roots and
fish, and wanted them to corrobborie, but they were not in
corrobborie condition. However, they sang the hymn “God
Moves in a Mysterious Way,” etc., and the blacks were much
astonished, as they could hardly fail to be, seeing it was
their first religious service.
It appears they sang hymns and read the Bible every
night in the cave where they were camped. Surprising is the
number of people who, in the face of death, become violently
pious, and resume the old Adam as soon as they are perfectly
safe!
The Cape Cleveland and Mount Elliott tribes were
present, so the latter decided to take the boy and Murrells,
while the former took charge of the captain and his wife.
The boy was too weak to walk, so a big powerful black
assisted him on is shoulders with a leg on each side of the
neck, as they carry their own children, and walked off with
him as if he was a piccaninny. At the first camp the blacks
dressed themselves in the clothes of the whites, some with
their legs in the sleeves of a shirt, and others with
trousers tied around their necks!
They used the leaves of the Bible to hang in their
hair! For two years these wrecked people lived with the
blacks and were kindly treated.
Then the captain and the boy died, the captain’s wife
surviving him for a few months.
Murrells continued with them for fifteen years more,
living between the Burdekin and the present site of Bowen
until discovered by the whites, who formed the first station
on the Burdekin in 1863. But for him, no human ear would
ever have heard of the fate of the lost Peruvian.