Petrie's Partnership. 249 me join you:" Jolliffe was a sailor: therefore an acquisition. Of course I assented on certain conditions. "I've had a long yarn with Petrie about your going, and I will tell you what he says you've heard of that Bunnia-Bunnia which the blacks here talk so much about; Petrie is the only white man who has looked for and found it; he has a bit of its wood, you know; it's called Petrie's Pine, and mighty proud of his discovery he is. Well, the Governor gave him orders before he left to go to the river on which they say it grows most, and examine it thoroughly and report. A proclamation has been issued that no settlers are to encroach on its quarters, and no white man is to cut down any of it. Petrie says he must go at once; the place is on the banks of a river, a little north of the river called the 'Morouchidor.' Petrie says that queer-looking oyster-boat isn't fit for any sea; he wants you to join him; and his work, your own, mine, too, perhaps, may be knocked off by one trip." "What boat can we have, though?" Why, there is a five-oared kind of mongrel whale-boat, which was built by a prisoner here, in a fashion, which he will take. You know that there will be no more Commandants at Brisbane (some Government Resident by the bye is to be sent here), he will take five ticket men to pull, a mast to stick up, and a bit of a sail when the wind serves; the boat is new and sound, whatever she looks like, the other thing's rotten." My After a little deliberation the matter was settled. object was to get to Wide Bay (often called White), in the conviction that some good stream would be found running into it from the interior; and so, after the Governor's commands had been attended to, we were to proceed farther north, and examine the coast as far, at least, as the Bay named; and if practicable, get on to Port Curtis, the next place of any mark on the charts of the day. CHAPTER XV. Time hath a wallet at his back A great sized monster of ingratitudes; Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured As done. -Shakespeare. (Troilus and Cressida.) ABOUT five years before this time I was in London. Walking from Hyde Park down Oxford-street, I observed a man who was carrying over his shoulder one of those show advertisements: a large wooden square frame nailed to the end of a long pole. On the calico with which it was covered was a bright coloured daub which represented savages with bows and arrows, some dead bodies of white men and women, which other savages were cutting up on the ground, and another squad was holding on "spits" to a large fire. It was amusing enough to stop me in my walk horrible enough to impress the writing beneath this picture on my mind, "Stirling Castle,' wrecked on the coast of New Holland, Botany Bay, all killed and eaten by savages: only survivor, a woman, to be seen, 6d. admission." Here then, it suddenly recurred to me I am on the point of visiting the very spot of that beastly scene, "Great Sandy Cape," which I had afterwards heard was the real stage on which this horror had been perpetrated, and that very spot was the eastern formation of Wide Bay. I gathered by inquiry that a man of the name of Fraser, who had his wife with him, had commanded the "Stirling Castle," and another named Brown had been mate. Before long, in a very unexpected manner, I heard the details of the whole terrible incident from an eye-witness. Excepting by surveys of the actual line of coast from seawards nothing was yet known of the country north of Moreton Bay. While making preparation for a start upon this excursion, that querulous, clever, mischievous acquaintance of mine in New England-Edward Baker-came to the settlement, and to Petrie's house-the only open house to travellers. With him was a late arrival from England-Walter Wrottesley, third son of Lord Wrottesley. He had been a Christ Church man at Oxford. On the 27th I had a look at our nondescript boat. Petrie called it a "gig": Jolliffe would not venture to give it a name : Boating After a Run. 251 but being a "middie" in Her Majesty's Navy, was bound to laugh at it. Certainly, when in the water, with her full burden, her midships rowlock was but a measured five inches above the water: for I tried the distance afterwards. Bnt I found that we could step two lug-sails and carry a bumpkin stuck out for a bit of after canvas-that was a comfort. At four o'clock of the morning of the 4th of May, Wrottesley, Jolliffe, Petrie and myself stowed ourselves away in the stern sheets, somewhat cramped for room. I had so hoped that that capital fellow, George Mocatta (whose sheep "Cocky" Rogers had settled down at Grantham), would have come with us. He couldn't: at least wouldn't. "Seven men, Petrie ! Well, I hope we shall have grub enough." Five set themselves to the oars, and we paddled with the ebb down the river, receiving hearty cheers from some early risers who came to see us off. : "Who is that man pulling for'ard, Petrie?" "Aye! he's just the bonniest o' the lot! his name's Russell." I asked no more questions about our companions. "Didn't you say, Petrie, that you were instructed to take certain bearings and make a rough map of what you see at all remarkable?" "Oh! yes, I just took care to stow away a braw sex- Boys! where's the sextant. I would raNo use looking the sextant had been left behind so certain observations were knocked on the head. Dead silence for some miles: a fair wind up stick and straight for the north passage. After slipping along Bribie's Island as far as its extreme point under Caloundra Head, jutting out from the mainland further on, we had hoped to bear up into the passage between the two, but our five-inch free-board didn't suit on a wind in a jerky ripple; and wind and tide were too much for There was surf over the mud flat at the entrance: in fact too uninviting for our appetites. To the eastward it didn't look nice but there was nothing for it but let go the little anchor outside the first line of surf and lie there all the night, which was very dark. A bumping swell didn't make a 'possum sleep enjoyable weather bettered towards the small hours at daylight up kedge to a nice S.W. breeze, for the mouth of the "Morouchidor," ie., "River of Swans,"-black of course-the farthest point northward yet reached from the settlement. A pot of tea ashore was something now to think of approvingly, when alas! we found a forbidding bar of sand stretching across from head to head, on which a line of breakers gave no oars. room for even the suspicion of a passage: away again disconsolate. "So much for your Bunnia Bunnia report, Petrie !" The complacent breeze stuck to us, however, and the next projection we approached, was logged down "Petrie's Head." Under it was basking on the smooth surface a noble turtle: but he was wide awake enough to dive, and so escape au point nommé. In the grab I made, I lost my hat, and thus losing two good things, lost my temper too. We now came in sight of and took the bearings of some remarkable mountains westward, by means of a Kater's azimuth compass, which I had fortunately brought. Following up the line of coast at a distance out of some three or four miles, at a better pace than I could have hoped for, towards the evening of the day after, came to a headland, which formed a small bay running inland. [In a lately published chart I think it must have been that formed on the south side by Noosa Head.] We were beginning to jump to the conclusion that we had reached the Hervey's Bay of navigators, but on second thoughts the delusion vanished. My head, from having no decent covering for it from the sun's heat, had been splitting for some hours, and pains intolerable were creeping through my limbs, and I longed to lie uncramped on the sands. As we entered the bay a large mob of blacks appeared from the low brush bordering the beach ; they were unarmed, and ran to meet us. There being too much surf for running our boat through and ashore, we dropped the kedge in as shoal water as we could, while the natives came through the breakers to us. Petrie got on the back of one, who carried him high and dry, and an ugly-looking scoundrel seeing me helpless, manned and bore me to the beach. The others followed somehow, but I suffered too much to care to take note; there were enough to see to what was needful, and to see to our safety without me. Some biscuits were given to them, and they were signed to be off; when night approached they appeared to demur, upon which more intelligible methods of keeping them at a distance until morning were yielded to, on securing two as hostages for good behaviour in the meantime. I suppose I was in some sort tortured by sun-stroke; that night was a horrible seal upon my recollections thereof. One of the men was trying to make me a head-covering out of some canvas; but why should my limbs torment me? Well, no explanation of the cause could have cured me; and thus I miserably stared the stars out of countenance with the help of the dawning day. My friends were alarmed, but could do nothing. Our two blacks were in such a "funk," that they kept me wakeful company throughout, though the whites watched in turn by pairs. With the sun's return came that of the natives. After much gesticulation to the party, an old man squatted on his hams on the hot sand, and with a queer crone began to scoop out a hole with his hands alongside of me. I took little heed, until it had assumed, under his vigorous and odoriferous exertions, almost the appearance of a shallow grave. As a As a man under his first "flooring" by sea-sickness, so was I absolutely careless of what was going on around. Petrie and others gravely looking on, rifle in hand, re-assured me on one head, yet I could realise nothing. I believe I must have been fast becoming unconscious. What happened I can tell, however, now. When all was ready, I learnt that two younger natives had lifted me into the grave, divested of every rag on my back. Our own blacks had assured Petrie that the old man could put me on my legs again; he was too anxious about me to repel their proffered service, as long as there was no unreasonable means resorted to. Some large leaves of a water plant had been brought and placed over my head to protect it, and that again was raised upon the roll of my own clothes. Well I remember the queer sensation of hot sand being shovelled by their wooden implements—" eelamans”—over me, up to the very chin. After that I knew nothing till I came to the sense of where I was. In fact I seemed to wake up from a painful dream. I could move but my head. The leaves were lifted from my face, and the assemblage at first puzzled me. Arms had been packed in with the rest, and I was in a straight jacket of hot sand, pressed in a solid heap upon my carcase. But I felt no pain. The perspiration was still (for I was told it had been doing so for the last quarter of an hour), running in tiny rivulets from my head over my face into my eyes and ears. I was in a vapour furnace! Quickly I was unearthed, covered with blankets or any thing that caught their eye, and fell fast asleep. When I woke-in about six hours-I was well! Weak, but terribly thirsty. I could have hugged the whole tribe in my gratitude-but they were all gone! I could see that the minds of my compagnons de voyage were much relieved, specially that kind-hearted Scot, Andrew Petrie. Some efficient |