George Dunderdale - The Book of the Bush

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THE

BOOK OF THE BUSH

CONTAINING

MANY TRUTHFUL SKETCHES OF THE
EARLY COLONIAL LIFE OF SQUATTERS, WHALERS,
CONVICTS, DIGGERS, AND OTHERS
WHO LEFT THEIR NATIVE LAND AND
NEVER RETURNED.

By GEORGE DUNDERDALE.

ILLUSTRATED BY J. MACFARLANE.

LONDON:
WARD, LOCK & CO., LIMITED,
WARWICK HOUSE, SALISBURY SQUARE, E.C.
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.

[ILLUSTRATION 1]

CONTENTS.

_____________

PURGING OUT THE OLD LEAVEN.

FIRST SETTLERS.

WRECK OF THE CONVICT SHIP "NEVA" ON KING'S ISLAND.

DISCOVERY OF THE RIVER HOPKINS.

WHALING.

OUT WEST IN 1849.

AMONG THE DIGGERS IN 1853.

A BUSH HERMIT.

THE TWO SHEPHERDS.

A VALIANT POLICE-SERGEANT.

WHITE SLAVERS.

THE GOVERNMENT STROKE.

ON THE NINETY-MILE.

GIPPSLAND PIONEERS.

THE ISLE OF BLASTED HOPES.

GLENGARRY IN GIPPSLAND.

WANTED, A CATTLE MARKET.

TWO SPECIAL SURVEYS.

HOW GOVERNMENT CAME TO GIPPSLAND.

GIPPSLAND UNDER THE LAW.

UNTIL THE GOLDEN DAWN.

A NEW RUSH.

GIPPSLAND AFTER THIRTY YEARS.

GOVERNMENT OFFICERS IN THE BUSH.

SEAL ISLANDS AND SEALERS.

A HAPPY CONVICT.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

ILLUSTRATION 1.
"Joey's out."

ILLUSTRATION 2.
"I'll show you who is master aboard this ship."

ILLUSTRATION 3.
"You stockman, Frank, come off that horse."

ILLUSTRATION 4.
"The biggest bully apropriated the belle of the ball."

* * *

"The best article in the March (1893) number of the 'Austral Light'
is a pen picture by Mr. George Dunderdale of the famous Ninety-Mile
Beach, the vast stretch of white and lonely sea-sands, which forms
the sea-barrier of Gippsland."--'Review of Reviews', March, 1893.

* * *

"The most interesting article in 'Austral Light' is one on Gippsland
pioneers, by George Dunderdale."--'Review of Reviews', March, 1895.

* * *

"In 'Austral Light' for September Mr. George Dunderdale contributes,
under the title of 'Gippsland under the Law,' one of those realistic
sketches of early colonial life which only he can write."--'Review
of Reviews', September, 1895.

* * *

THE BOOK OF THE BUSH.

---------------------

PURGING OUT THE OLD LEAVEN.

While the world was young, nations could be founded peaceably. There
was plenty of unoccupied country, and when two neighbouring
patriarchs found their flocks were becoming too numerous for the
pasture, one said to the other: "Let there be no quarrel, I pray,
between thee and me; the whole earth is between us, and the land is
watered as the garden of Paradise. If thou wilt go to the east, I
will go to the west; or if thou wilt go to the west, I will go to the
east." So they parted in peace.

But when the human flood covered the whole earth, the surplus
population was disposed of by war, famine, or pestilence. Death is
the effectual remedy for over-population. Heroes arose who had no
conscientious scruples. They skinned their natives alive, or
crucified them. They were then adored as demi-gods, and placed among
the stars.

Pious Aeneas was the pattern of a good emigrant in the early times,
but with all his piety he did some things that ought to have made his
favouring deities blush, if possible.

America, when discovered for the last of many times, was assigned by
the Pope to the Spaniards and Portuguese. The natives were not
consulted; but they were not exterminated; their descendants occupy
the land to the present day.

England claimed a share in the new continent, and it was parcelled
out to merchant adventurers by royal charter. The adventures of
these merchants were various, but they held on to the land.

New England was given to the Puritans by no earthly potentate, their
title came direct from heaven. Increase Mather said: "The Lord God
has given us for a rightful possession the land of the Heathen People
amongst whom we dwell;" and where are the Heathen People now?

Australia was not given to us either by the Pope or by the Lord. We
took this land, as we have taken many other lands, for our own
benefit, without asking leave of either heaven or earth. A
continent, with its adjacent islands, was practically vacant,
inhabited only by that unearthly animal the kangaroo, and by black
savages, who had not even invented the bow and arrow, never built a
hut or cultivated a yard of land. Such people could show no valid
claim to land or life, so we confiscated both. The British Islands
were infested with criminals from the earliest times. Our ancestors
were all pirates, and we have inherited from them a lurking taint in
our blood, which is continually impelling us to steal something or
kill somebody. How to get rid of this taint was a problem which our
statesmen found it difficult to solve. In times of war they
mitigated the evil by filling the ranks of our armies from the gaols,
and manning our navies by the help of the press-gang, but in times of
peace the scum of society was always increasing.

At last a great idea arose in the mind of England. Little was known
of New Holland, except that it was large enough to harbour all the
criminals of Great Britain and the rest of the population if
necessary. Why not transport all convicts, separate the chaff from
the wheat, and purge out the old leaven? By expelling all the
wicked, England would become the model of virtue to all nations.

So the system was established. Old ships were chartered and filled
with the contents of the gaols. If the ships were not quite
seaworthy it did not matter much. The voyage was sure to be a
success; the passengers might never reach land, but in any case they
would never return. On the vessels conveying male convicts, some
soldiers and officers were embarked to keep order and put down
mutiny. Order was kept with the lash, and mutiny was put down with
the musket. On the ships conveying women there were no soldiers, but
an extra half-crew was engaged. These men were called "Shilling-a-month"
men, because they had agreed to work for one shilling a month for the
privilege of being allowed to remain in Sydney. If the voyage lasted
twelve months they would thus have the sum of twelve shillings with
which to commence making their fortunes in the Southern Hemisphere.
But the "Shilling-a-month" man, as a matter of fact, was not worth
one cent the day after he landed, and he had to begin life once more
barefoot, like a new-born babe.

The seamen's food on board these transports was bad and scanty,
consisting of live biscuit, salt horse, Yankee pork, and Scotch
coffee. The Scotch coffee was made by steeping burnt biscuit in
boiling water to make it strong. The convicts' breakfast consisted
of oatmeal porridge, and the hungry seamen used to crowd round the
galley every morning to steal some of it. It would be impossible for
a nation ever to become virtuous and rich if its seamen and convicts
were reared in luxury and encouraged in habits of extravagance.

When the transport cast anchor in the beautiful harbour of Port
Jackson, the ship's blacksmith was called out of his bunk at
midnight. It was his duty to rivet chains on the legs of the
second-sentence men--the twice convicted. They had been told on
the voyage that they would have an island all to themselves, where
they would not be annoyed by the contemptuous looks and bitter jibes
of better men. All night long the blacksmith plied his hammer and
made the ship resound with the rattling chains and ringing manacles,
as he fastened them well on the legs of the prisoners. At dawn of
day, chained together in pairs, they were landed on Goat Island;
that was the bright little isle--their promised land. Every
morning they were taken over in boats to the town of Sydney, where
they had to work as scavengers and road-makers until four o'clock in
the afternoon. They turned out their toes, and shuffled their feet
along the ground, dragging their chains after them. The police could
always identify a man who had been a chain-gang prisoner during the
rest of his life by the way he dragged his feet after him.

In their leisure hours these convicts were allowed to make
cabbage-tree hats. They sold them for about a shilling each, and the
shop-keepers resold them for a dollar. They were the best hats ever
worn in the Sunny South, and were nearly indestructible; one hat
would last a lifetime, but for that reason they were bad for trade,
and became unfashionable.

The rest of the transported were assigned as servants to those
willing to give them food and clothing without wages. The free men
were thus enabled to grow rich by the labours of the bondmen--vice
was punished and virtue rewarded.

Until all the passengers had been disposed of, sentinels were posted
on the deck of the transport with orders to shoot anyone who
attempted to escape. But when all the convicts were gone, Jack was
sorely tempted to follow the shilling-a-month men. He quietly
slipped ashore, hurried off to Botany Bay, and lived in retirement
until his ship had left Port Jackson. He then returned to Sydney,
penniless and barefoot, and began to look for a berth. At the Rum
Puncheon wharf he found a shilling-a-month man already installed as
cook on a colonial schooner. He was invited to breakfast, and was
astonished and delighted with the luxuries lavished on the colonial
seaman. He had fresh beef, fresh bread, good biscuit, tea, coffee,
and vegetables, and three pounds a month wages. There was a vacancy
on the schooner for an able seaman, and Jack filled it. He then
registered a solemn oath that he would "never go back to England no
more," and kept it.

Some kind of Government was necessary, and, as the first inhabitants
were criminals, the colony was ruled like a gaol, the Governor being
head gaoler. His officers were mostly men who had been trained in
the army and navy. They were all poor and needy, for no gentleman of
wealth and position would ever have taken office in such a community.
They came to make a living, and when free immigrants arrived and
trade began to flourish, it was found that the one really valuable
commodity was rum, and by rum the officers grew rich. In course of
time the country was divided into districts, about thirty or
thirty-five in number, over each of which an officer presided as
police magistrate, with a clerk and staff of constables, one of whom
was official flogger, always a convict promoted to the billet for
merit and good behaviour.

New Holland soon became an organised pandemonium, such as the world
had never known since Sodom and Gomorrah disappeared in the Dead Sea,
and the details of its history cannot be written. To mitigate its
horrors the worst of the criminals were transported to Norfolk
Island. The Governor there had not the power to inflict capital
punishment, and the convicts began to murder one another in order to
obtain a brief change of misery, and the pleasure of a sea voyage
before they could be tried and hanged in Sydney. A branch
pandemonium was also established in Van Diemen's Land. This system
was upheld by England for about fifty years.

The 'Britannia', a convict ship, the property of Messrs. Enderby &
Sons, arrived at Sydney on October 14th, 1791, and reported that vast
numbers of sperm whales were seen after doubling the south-west cape
of Van Diemen's Land. Whaling vessels were fitted out in Sydney, and
it was found that money could be made by oil and whalebone as well as
by rum. Sealing was also pursued in small vessels, which were often
lost, and sealers lie buried in all the islands of the southern seas,
many of them having a story to tell, but no story-teller.

Whalers, runaway seamen, shilling-a-month men, and escaped convicts
were the earliest settlers in New Zealand, and were the first to make
peaceful intercourse with the Maoris possible. They built themselves
houses with wooden frames, covered with reeds and rushes, learned to
converse in the native language, and became family men. They were
most of them English and Americans, with a few Frenchmen. They loved
freedom, and preferred Maori customs, and the risk of being eaten, to
the odious supervision of the English Government. The individual
white man in those days was always welcome, especially if he brought
with him guns, ammunition, tomahawks, and hoes. It was by these
articles that he first won the respect and admiration of the native.
If the visitor was a "pakeha tutua," a poor European, he might
receive hospitality for a time, in the hope that some profit might be
made out of him. But the Maori was a poor man also, with a great
appetite, and when it became evident that the guest was no better
than a pauper, and could not otherwise pay for his board, the Maori
sat on the ground, meditating and watching, until his teeth watered,
and at last he attached the body and baked it.

In 1814 the Church Missionary Society sent labourers to the distant
vineyard to introduce Christianity, and to instruct the natives in
the rights of property. The first native protector of Christianity
and letters was Hongi Hika, a great warrior of the Ngapuhi nation, in
the North Island. He was born in 1777, and voyaging to Sydney in
1814, he became the guest of the Rev. Mr. Marsden. In 1819 the rev.
gentleman bought his settlement at Kerikeri from Hongi Hika, the
price being forty-eight axes. The area of the settlement was
thirteen thousand acres. The land was excellent, well watered, in a
fine situation, and near a good harbour. Hongi next went to England
with the Rev. Mr. Kendall to see King George, who was at that time in
matrimonial trouble. Hongi was surprised to hear that the King had
to ask permission of anyone to dispose of his wife Caroline. He said
he had five wives at home, and he could clear off the whole of them
if he liked without troubling anybody. He received valuable presents
in London, which he brought back to Sydney, and sold for three
hundred muskets and ammunition. The year 1822 was the most glorious
time of his life. He raised an army of one thousand men, three
hundred of whom had been taught the use of his muskets. The
neighbouring tribes had no guns. He went up the Tamar, and at Totara
slew five hundred men, and baked and ate three hundred of them. On
the Waipa he killed fourteen hundred warriors out of a garrison of
four thousand, and then returned home with crowds of slaves. The
other tribes began to buy guns from the traders as fast as they were
able to pay for them with flax; and in 1827, at Wangaroa, a bullet
went through Hongi's lungs, leaving a hole in his back through which
he used to whistle to entertain his friends; but he died of the wound
fifteen months afterwards.

Other men, both clerical and lay, followed the lead of the Rev. Mr.
Marsden. In 1821 Mr. Fairbairn bought four hundred acres for ten
pounds worth of trade. Baron de Thierry bought forty thousand acres
on the Hokianga River for thirty-six axes. From 1825 to 1829 one
million acres were bought by settlers and merchants. Twenty-five
thousand acres were bought at the Bay of Islands and Hokianga in five
years, seventeen thousand of which belonged to the missionaries. In
1835 the Rev. Henry Williams made a bold offer for the unsold
country. He forwarded a deed of trust to the governor of New South
Wales, requesting that the missionaries should be appointed trustees
for the natives for the remainder of their lands, "to preserve them
from the intrigues of designing men." Before the year 1839, twenty
millions of acres had been purchased by the clergy and laity for a
few guns, axes, and other trifles, and the Maoris were fast wasting
their inheritance. But the titles were often imperfect. When a man
had bought a few hundreds of acres for six axes and a gun, and had
paid the price agreed on to the owner, another owner would come and
claim the land because his grandfather had been killed on it. He sat
down before the settler's house and waited for payment, and whether
he got any or not he came at regular intervals during the rest of his
life and sat down before the door with his spear and mere* by his
side waiting for more purchase money.

[Footnote] *Axe made of greenstone.

Some honest people in England heard of the good things to be had in
New Zealand, formed a company, and landed near the mouth of the
Hokianga River to form a settlement. The natives happened to be at
war, and were performing a war dance. The new company looked on
while the natives danced, and then all desire for land in New Zealand
faded from their hearts. They returned on board their ship and
sailed away, having wasted twenty thousand pounds. Such people
should remain in their native country. Your true rover, lay or
clerical, comes for something or other, and stays to get it, or dies.

After twenty years of labour, and an expenditure of two hundred
thousand pounds, the missionaries claimed only two thousand converts,
and these were Christians merely in name. In 1825 the Rev. Henry
Williams said the natives were as insensible to redemption as brutes,
and in 1829 the Methodists in England contemplated withdrawing their
establishment for want of success.

The Catholic Bishop Pompallier, with two priests, landed at Hokianga
on January 10th, 1838, and took up his residence at the house of an
Irish Catholic named Poynton, who was engaged in the timber trade.
Poynton was a truly religious man, who had been living for some time
among the Maoris. He was desirous of marrying the daughter of a
chief, but he wished that she should be a Christian, and, as there
was no Catholic priest nearer than Sydney, he sailed to that port
with the chief and his daughter, called on Bishop Polding, and
informed him of the object of his visit. A course of instruction was
given to the father and daughter, Poynton acting as interpreter; they
were baptised, and the marriage took place. After the lapse of sixty
years their descendents were found to have retained the faith, and
were living as good practical Catholics.

Bishop Pompallier celebrated his first Mass on January 13th, 1838,
and the news of his arrival was soon noised abroad and discussed.
The Methodist missionaries considered the action of the bishop as an
unwarrantable intrusion on their domain, and, being Protestants, they
resolved to protest. This they did through the medium of thirty
native warriors, who appeared before Poynton's house early in the
morning of January 22nd, when the bishop was preparing to say Mass.
The chief made a speech. He said the bishop and his priests were
enemies to the Maoris. They were not traders, for they had brought
no guns, no axes. They had been sent by a foreign chief (the Pope)
to deprive the Maoris of their land, and make them change their old
customs. Therefore he and his warriors had come to break the
crucifix, and the ornaments of the altar, and to take the bishop and
his priests to the river.

The bishop replied that, although he was not a trader, he had come as
a friend, and did not wish to deprive them of their country or
anything belonging to them. He asked them to wait a while, and if
they could find him doing the least injury to anyone they could take
him to the river. The warriors agreed to wait, and went away.

Next day the bishop went further up the river to Wherinaki, where
Laming, a pakeha Maori, resided. Laming was an Irish-Protestant who
had great influence with his tribe, which was numerous and warlike.
He was admired by the natives for his strength and courage. He was
six feet three inches in height, as nimble and spry as a cat, and as
long-winded as a coyote. His father-in-law was a famous warrior
named Lizard Skin. His religion was that of the Church of England,
and he persuaded his tribe to profess it. He told them that the
Protestant God was stronger than the Catholic God worshipped by his
fellow countryman, Poynton. In after years, when his converts made
cartridges of their Bibles and rejected Christianity, he was forced
to confess that their religion was of this world only. They prayed
that they might be brave in battle, and that their enemies might be
filled with fear.

Laming's Christian zeal did not induce him to forget the duties of
hospitality. He received the bishop as a friend, and the Europeans
round Tatura and other places came regularly to Mass. During the
first six years of the mission, twenty thousand Maoris either had
been baptised or were being prepared for baptism.

Previous to the year 1828 some flax had been brought to Sydney from
New Zealand, and manufactured into every species of cordage except
cables, and it was found to be stronger than Baltic hemp. On account
of the ferocious character of the Maoris, the Sydney Government sent
several vessels to open communication with the tribes before
permitting private individuals to embark in the trade. The ferocity
attributed to the natives was not so much a part of their personal
character as the result of their habits and beliefs. They were
remarkable for great energy of mind and body, foresight, and
self-denial. Their average height was about five feet six inches,
but men from six feet to six feet six inches were not uncommon.
Their point of honour was revenge, and a man who remained quiet while
the manes of his friend or relation were unappeased by the blood of
the enemy, would be dishonoured among his tribe.

The Maoris were in reality loath to fight, and war was never begun
until after long talk. Their object was to exterminate or enslave
their enemies, and they ate the slain.

Before commencing hostilities, the warriors endeavoured to put fear
into the hearts of their opponents by enumerating the names of the
fathers, uncles, or brothers of those in the hostile tribe whom they
had slain and eaten in former battles. When a fight was progressing
the women looked on from the rear. They were naked to the waist, and
wore skirts of matting made from flax. As soon as a head was cut off
they ran forward, and brought it away, leaving the body on the
ground. If many were slain it was sometimes difficult to discover to
what body each head had belonged, whether it was that of a friend or
a foe, and it was lawful to bake the bodies of enemies only.

Notwithstanding their peculiar customs, one who knew the Maoris well
described them as the most patient, equable, forgiving people in the
world, but full of superstitious ideas, which foreigners could not
understand.

They believed that everything found on their coast was sent to them
by the sea god, Taniwa, and they therefore endeavoured to take
possession of the blessings conferred on them by seizing the first
ships that anchored in their rivers and harbours. This led to
misunderstandings and fights with their officers and crews, who had
no knowledge of the sea god, Taniwa. It was found necessary to put
netting all round the vessels as high as the tops to prevent
surprise, and when trade began it was the rule to admit no more than
five Maoris on board at once.

The flax was found growing spontaneously in fields of inexhaustible
extent along the more southerly shores of the islands. The fibre was
separated by the females, who held the top of the leaf between their
toes, and drew a shell through the whole length of the leaf. It took
a good cleaner to scrape fifteen pounds weight of it in a day; the
average was about ten pounds, for which the traders gave a fig of
tobacco and a pipe, two sheets of cartridge paper, or one pound of
lead. The price at which the flax was sold in Sydney varied from 20
pounds to 45 pounds per ton, according to quality, so there was a
large margin of profit to the trader. In 1828 sixty tons of flax
valued at 2,600 pounds, were exported from Sydney to England.

The results of trading with the foreigners were fatal to the natives.
At first the trade was in axes, knives, and other edge-tools,
beads, and ornaments, but in 1832 the Maoris would scarcely take
anything but arms and ammunition, red woollen shirts, and tobacco.
Every man in a native hapu had to procure a musket, or die. If the
warriors of the hapu had no guns they would soon be all killed by
some tribe that had them. The price of one gun, together with the
requisite powder, was one ton of cleaned flax, prepared by the women
and slaves in the sickly swamps. In the meantime the food crops were
neglected, hunger and hard labour killed many, some fell victims to
diseases introduced by the white men, and the children nearly all
died.

And the Maoris are still dying out of the land, blighted by our
civilization. They were willing to learn and to be taught, and they
began to work with the white men. In 1853 I saw nearly one hundred
of them, naked to the waist, sinking shafts for gold on Bendigo, and
no Cousin Jacks worked harder. We could not, of course, make them
Englishmen--the true Briton is born, not made; but could we not
have kept them alive if we had used reasonable means to do so? Or is
it true that in our inmost souls we wanted them to die, that we might
possess their land in peace?

Besides flax, it was found that New Zealand produced most excellent
timber--the kauri pine. The first visitors saw sea-going canoes
beautifully carved by rude tools of stone, which had been hollowed
out, each from a single tree, and so large that they were manned by
one hundred warriors. The gum trees of New Holland are extremely
hard, and their wood is so heavy that it sinks in water like
iron. But the kauri, with a leaf like that of the gum tree, is the
toughest of pines, though soft and easily worked--suitable for
shipbuilding, and for masts and spars. In 1830 twenty-eight vessels
made fifty-six voyages from Sydney to New Zealand, chiefly for flax;
but they also left parties of men to prosecute the whale and seal
fisheries, and to cut kauri pine logs. Two vessels were built by
English mechanics, one of 140 tons, and the other of 370 tons burden,
and the natives began to assist the new-comers in all their labours.

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