There were never lacking men ready for the enterprise and hardship of pioneering when there was such a field of profitable work open before them, work that was for those trained in bush experience, hardy and acclimatised as they were. The life, in spite of hardships, was not without attraction and satisfaction to many who took part in it. There was a kind of fascination to many bushmen in the idea of being the first to enter upon new and unknown scenes; to note the surprise of native game beholding for the first time the presence of the stranger, and to observe the terrified astonishment of the aborigines when first they saw the white intruders; all this tended to add to the romance and interest of helping to open a new district. But outside pioneer life in early days had a reverse side; there was little or nothing of comfort or relaxation; there was always hardship and exposure; there was no Sunday for rest, no holiday, no Eight Hour Day, nothing but constant movement and watching. The duties were shared by all alike; each had to take a turn at anything and everything, cooking one time, driving a team another, shepherding sheep occasionally, herding cattle sometimes, cutting timber, making bough-yards for sheep, lambing down a flock of ewes, shifting hurdles, and poisoning dingoes, killing and salting beef, ear-marking, washing and shearing sheep, looking for stragglers, yoking bullocks, building huts, tracking and hunting stock, all little duties that made up the routine life of the outside grazier. They all took their turn, and generally there was one dish and one table. Where the ways and customs consequent on the life brought all on a partial level, the man who could turn his hand to anything from shoeing a horse to weighing out a dose of quinine or driving a bullock team, was the most valuable.

THE STOCKMAN, OR STOCKRIDER.

He is a class of his own, and is a man of some importance in the daily life of a station. The term may mean to many any man who can climb into a saddle; but a good stockman is not so easily picked up, nor is he made out of any material to hand. A good and experienced stockman, one who knows his work thoroughly, is active, and can ride well, can command wages all the year round. His work is not by any means easy; there are long hours, in fact all hours, hard fare, and often no lodging but the bare ground; he must endure hunger and thirst, cold, heat, and wet, and often has to take a watch at night. When at work in the yard branding and drafting, he has either to endure tremendous dust, or else he is covered with mud. But the trained stockrider makes light of all these discomforts, in fact he looks on them as all in the bill of fare, and belonging to the day’s work. He is hardy, wiry, as well as possessed of a good deal of endurance and pluck, and like all men who ride much, is nearly always lean in condition. He is generally the owner of a couple of horses and an outfit of saddle, swag, stock whip, and spurs, and takes an interest in all racing and sporting matters. As a rule, he is not a saving man, although some may lay up enough money to start a small store. The native youth makes the best all-round stockman; many follow horse-breaking at times, or take a turn at droving. To draft on horseback in the cattle yard, or in the yard on foot, to castrate and brand horses and calves, to ride a young horse, to make a leg or head rope out of green hide, or a pair of hobbles, to counterline a saddle, to cook a damper, all comes within the province of the stockman. Towns and townspeople are not much in his way, any more than the customs of the city are congenial to his free-and-easy style of associations. Moleskin trousers, Crimean shirt, cossack boots, and felt hat, are his rig out. The modern type is less pronounced than he of the ancient school, the flash, hard-riding, tearing, loud-swearing, rowdy stockman of olden days, with a stockwhip sixteen feet long, sporting breeches and leggings, and a loud red shirt. Stockmen have very little to do with unions, but are seldom without employment on stations or on the road.

THE COOK.

Bush cooks are of every shade of colour, complexion, and social standing, from the foreign count who has been expatriated for political leanings, to the squalid shuffling Chinee, or the wily, treacherous Cingalee. Hut keeper was the term employed in the olden days when two shepherds had each a flock of sheep folded for the night inside a yard made of movable hurdles, and a hut keeper was joined to them to do a bit of cooking, as well as to shift one set of hurdles each day. He was supposed also to watch at night against native dogs, strychnine not being so much in use then to reduce the numbers of these pests. They were men of dirty, lazy habits; their cooking was fearful, consisting simply of boiling a bit of beef or mutton, making a damper, and rinsing out a tin pannikin. Greasy-looking, growling, and drunken they were, with scarcely energy enough to fetch a little wood or water; to wash their clothes was an unheard-of thing. Those who cook for drovers on the road have to be more alert; a good man on the road is a great consideration, and it is no sinecure to cater for a party while travelling with stock. The cook is exempt from watching, as he has to be up during the night to get breakfast ready by daylight for the men to start on with their cattle. Some good cooks will provide hot suppers for the men in all weathers. The shearers’ cook is quite another variety. He is often a boss man employs one or two others under him, and gets top wages, but he has to be up to the mark, for our shearer is a fine specimen of an inflated growler, and will have nothing but of the best, and up to time, tea and cake between meals, duff and all the luxuries for dinner; in any case he comes in for a full share of the shearer’s arrogance and abuse. Station cooks comprise all sorts, good, bad, and indifferent, clean and unclean; but one who can make real good bread is a rarity, and all are self-taught. They frequently get good wages, but soon become lazy and dirty, and often a Chinaman has to be put on to do the kitchen cooking. About the towns it is notorious that European cooks cannot be relied on for any time on account of their drinking habits, and once again the Chinaman has to be resorted to.

THE SHEARER.

This class of labourer has been very much in evidence of late years in Queensland on account of the numerous strikes that have taken place, brought about by them or their leaders, although it is the best paid of all unskilled work in the colony. The Shearers’ Union attempted to rule all labour and labour interests throughout the whole colony, and succeeded for a long time in keeping things in a very disorganised state. There is nothing in shearing that any man could not master in a few days, although the work may be laborious when long continued. The money earned is out of all proportion to what other classes of labour receive, nevertheless the shearer is the most discontented and turbulent of all classes, and very decidedly aggressive. He can earn in a few months enough to keep him for the rest of the year without work, he is gregarious in his habits, and travels about in mounted groups, generally armed. He may be said to be a flash man, given to gambling, dicing, and other sports, and a good deal of his money is spent at roadside shanties. When at work, however, he is sober and industrious, as most of them are desirous of making a good tally at the end of the shearing, and the rules of the shed forbid any latitude for loafing or mischief. Shearing by machine instead of by hand will tend to modify the aspects of the work, and allow more men to learn the art. Shearers travel from shed to shed during the season, and sometimes earn from four to six pounds a week. They live on the best that can be got. Instances are common of men shearing over two hundred sheep per day for days running. Amongst the shearers will be found many respectable men, who have homes or selections of their own on which their families reside, and who travel round a few large sheds to earn enough money to carry on with and support their homes.

THE BULLOCK DRIVER.

The man of strong body, and of stronger language, the old “bull-puncher,” is going out. He was an institution of early days when the pole-dray was in vogue, a fearful kind of vehicle that tipped up going out of a steep creek with a load on, and going down would bear on the polers fit to break their necks. The four-wheeled waggon has for a long time superseded the old bullock-killing dray, but the driver remains much the same. Instead of driving ten bullocks in a pole-dray, he yokes up eighteen or twenty to a waggon and draws instead of three and a half tons, about seven or eight tons.

His whip is a terrible long plaited thong with a strip of green hide attached, and a handle like a flail, with it he wakes the echoes and his oxen at the same time. The crack of the whip is accompanied by a voice as deep and hoarse as the bellow of one of his own long-suffering yoked-up slaves, and his lurid language makes even his bullocks shudder. To see the “bullocky” at his best is only given to those who travel with him for a whole trip, and observe his style of getting out of difficulties that would dishearten many another man. He is full of resource, and not lacking in energy, and when his team is bogged in a creek in a seemingly hopeless mess, and beyond all appearance of ever being extricated, after exhausting his ample stock of dire profanity, he proceeds in a methodical manner to dig under his wheels and corduroy the track with branches and limbs of trees, weeds out his jibbing bullocks, and with renewed energy and awful voice, he calls on his patient and weary team for a big effort, and out they walk with their load on to the bank. The “bullocky” was a great factor in the early days of settlement, where there were no roads and loading had to be dragged over mountains and through steep creeks and over all obstacles. His bodily strength, great experience, and energy, came in to help in no small degree to keep settlement alive. The arrival of the bullock teams was quite an event, perhaps after being months on the road, and when all supplies had run short—not that the fact of supplies being short on the station would induce them to hasten their progress, for no bullock driver was ever known to hurry or go out of his slow, crawling pace for any inducement whatever. The “bullocky” could drink rum in buckets, and was always given to use his fists. Take him all round, he was about as rough a specimen of a bush artist as could be found; but he was hospitable in his camp; it was always “Come and have a pot of tea, mate,” to any traveller. The quicker-moving horse teams and the railways, are elbowing the bullock driver out into the never-never, where there are still opportunities for his special faculties, and it is not often that bullock teams, with their wood and iron yokes, and dusty, hairy drivers, are seen on any roads coming into railway stations. To ask a bullock driver where he got his beef from was not always a safe or prudent question; it was looked upon as a piece of wanton impertinence that would require suppression. After putting down so much on the debit side, something should be said to the credit of the carrier. He must have been hard-working and thrifty to have acquired the necessary capital to purchase his waggon and team. Physically, he must be exceptionally strong to stand the life he leads. Mentally, he must be full of resource to overcome the obstacles he meets with on unformed and often uncleared roads. Morally, he must be passing honest, for he often carries loads of great value, for the safety of which he alone is responsible for weeks and often months. These men take up the work of distributing goods where the railways end. Their duties are arduous and responsible, and they deserve more consideration than they generally receive.

THE TRAMP.

The tramp is found everywhere in the world. The bush tramp is only another variety, and since the big strikes took place in Queensland some years ago, the tribe has multiplied, as it taught them to loaf on the stations for rations. Now they make a practice of getting all their supplies for the road from the station stores, pleading they have no money, and from policy rations are given them, and no questions asked. Many men carrying their swags on their backs are really looking for work, and deserve encouragement by the gratuity of a little rations to help them along, as stations are far apart in the outlying districts. As station owners are dependent on these same swagmen for the extra labour they require from time to time, it is policy to keep on good terms with a class that can work incalculable damage to station men that have miles of grass in sheep paddocks to burn, woolsheds to demolish, and gates on the main road to be left open, with no evidence forthcoming as to how fires were started, etc., and no police to supervise or control the actions of these irresponsible wanderers. But the tribe of “whalers,” as they were called in New South Wales, men who tramped up one side of the Darling River, and tramped down on the other side, never betraying any desire to find work, these can be found in the Queensland bush too, but not far out, where there are long dry stages between the stations, and a shortness of water which terrifies these old “bummers.” There are men who have tramped all over the colonies—every colony in Australia they have been through, and know all the tracks. They come up to a station and ask for work in a sort of a way, and then ask for rations to carry them on, even asking for a bit of tobacco; they say they have no money (and their appearance confirms all they say), and have done no work, for six months past, or longer, tramping all the way, and never a job. Their rags and swag betray dire poverty; their clothes patched in every colour, so that a blackfellow would hardly wear them, and they are dirty in the extreme. These men are not decrepid or weak, but are simply lazy, whilst the fine dry climate enables them to live without hard work. Occasionally, in order to procure some tobacco or a little money for a spree at a shanty, they will take a job for a time as rouseabout or wood-chopper, but they are soon off on the “wallaby track” again. It is a recognised custom now among stations in the west and north-west to ration the swagmen as they pass along, and the cost to some stations during the year is very considerable; they just bring up their ration bags and get them filled, and go to the creek to camp and cook the evening meal they have walked perhaps twenty miles to obtain, but which cost them nothing but the exercise. Poverty is the inheritance of some, but many of these wanderers are poor because as soon as they do earn a few pounds at odd jobs during shearing time, they march at once to the nearest bush shanty and drink what they have earned until turned away, and then tramp back to the stations, begging rations as they go along, and at the same time regarding the donors with a consuming and persistent malice. The professional tramp is not a nice character, there can be no mistaking him, with his swag done up in a long roll, and hung round his shoulder and down his side, a billycan and water-bag in his hand. He creeps along slowly with sore feet and shuffling steps, camping in the shade when he can to rest; he has no companions generally, and his life is a joyless and miserable one; but there he is, and there he will remain, for his tribe will not die out, because no one will refuse to give a little rations to a wayfarer because he is hard up, ragged, and penniless.

THE DROVER.

The life of a drover, under the most favourable circumstances, is the reverse of a pleasant one, but like all nomadic occupations, it has a fascination for many bushmen. The drover would appear to be regarded as the common enemy of every owner or superintendent through whose run he passes, although in many cases it is a fact that roads are fenced off so that a drover cannot leave them without breaking down the fences. In many instances the only permanent water on the stock routes has been fenced in by the owner of the run. The principal wealth of Australia is stock, and these, both sheep and cattle, to be marketed need bringing down to some seaport or market, either as stores or fats. Sometimes long distances are travelled, from one end of Australia to the other, the journey occupying months. At starting, the stock are counted and handed over to the charge of a competent drover, who delivers them at the end of the journey, and is paid either by contract at so much per head, with an allowance for losses, or else by weekly wages, the owner finding the whole plant and money. Overlanding is a constant source of anxiety from start to finish of the journey. The varying items, such as floods, droughts, disease, incompetent hands, lost stock, and the surveillance from the owners of runs through which they pass, make up the daily routine of a drover’s life. Stormy nights, when cattle become very restless, keep the drover awake and anxious. His duties are of a responsible nature, and he requires a good deal of tact and patience to manage his men properly, for he may have over a dozen employed with him on a droving job. With sheep the anxiety is not so great as with cattle or horses, as sheep are much easier to manage. The law provides that unless detained by flood, stock shall be driven not less than six miles every twenty-four hours. In most instances this distance is exceeded, but should the drover fail to travel the prescribed distance, through any accident, the owner or manager of the run turns up at the camp and gives the drover the option of either moving his stock on the proper distance, if it is only one mile ahead, or of appearing at the nearest police court, perhaps a hundred miles away, to answer an information for a breach of the Pastoral Leases Act or the Crown Lands Act. Although, perhaps only a nominal fine may be imposed, the vexatious delay, loss, and inconvenience of attending at the court, induce the drover to avoid any needless infringements of the Act. Some managers of runs are ever ready to pounce on any unfortunate drover who may deviate a few yards from the regulated half mile on each side of the road, and then it will be so arranged that the drover will not get a summons until he is a hundred miles away from where the offence was committed, when he has to leave his stock in the hands of the men, while he returns to answer the trivial charge; he is always fined, as he cannot well defend his case, and he is anxious to return to his duties.

As a rule, the drovers in Queensland are a trustworthy and respectable class of men—of course there are exceptions, but these are soon found out. Cases have come to light where cattle sold on the road have been returned as knocked up lame, or dead from pleuro, and grog has been entered in the accounts as stores supplied. The owner is a good deal at the mercy of the drover after the latter has taken charge of the stock, as he has then very little control over them until they reach their destination. Some drovers have a plant of their own, twenty or thirty good horses, a dray or waggonette, and saddles, and make contracts to shift cattle or sheep at so much per head, paying their own men, and finding everything. The wages of drovers are always high, but not too high when the care and constant work are taken into consideration. Sundays and week days alike, rain or fine, grass or no grass, whatever turns up, it all means that the drover, or man in charge has to be on hand and see to things himself. The life is monotonous, wearying and fatiguing in the extreme. Man and boss alike have to rise before dawn, roll up blankets or swag, get breakfast, catch horses, and move the cattle off the night camp as soon as it is light, then ride all day with them, keep them moving slowly along feeding on any grass to be found, watering them when a chance offers, carrying a bit of lunch on the saddle, and a quart pot to boil some tea in. After the day’s journey is over, the cattle have to be rounded up on the camp at sundown and then each takes his turn at watching during the night, which means three hours solitary riding round in the darkness, turning in any cattle inclined to stray out from the camp, and keeping up one’s spirits by calculating how long the trip will last. When the weather is fine, the life is bearable, if monotonous, but when it rains, especially in cold rain and wind, the pleasures of droving are limited; with wet ground to lie on, wet clothes to ride in, and scarcely fire enough to cook at, with stock restless and troublesome at night, the drover will sometimes think longingly of the home and the comforts he once despised. Still, droving is a popular calling, and men have followed it constantly for years, procuring a long droving job during the season, and spelling their horses when work is scarce.

More provision should be made for regular stock routes throughout the country, and the area of these should not be included in the runs on which lessees have to pay rent, as the case is now. The drover’s calling is a necessary one, and he should have more protection and greater facilities for getting his stock to market, and not a continual fight for the rights of the road as he has now.

—“Banjo.”

A. S. N. CO.

Not least among the forces that worked for the settlement of the north, may be reckoned the steamer services. In this respect, the old A. S. N. Co. held the premier position, as their steamers were the first in all the ports of Queensland, and the colony is much indebted to the energy and enterprise of that Company. From Brisbane to Cooktown, their steamers were the first to cast anchor in the new harbours and help to develope the trade of the coast. Although not always very popular, for the public complained often at the charges made for freight and passages, the Company gave a good helping hand towards the opening up of the young country.

A few notes about the history of this pioneering Company, obtained through the agency of their secretary, Mr. F. Phillips, may be of interest to some. It was originally established under the name of the Hunter River Steam Navigation Company, in August, 1839, with a capital of £40,000, and premises at the foot of Margaret Street, Sydney. In April, 1841, the “Rose,” steamer, arrived from England, 172 tons burden. In October of the same year, the “Shamrock” arrived from England, under Captain Gilmore, being 123 days out. The “Thistle” had previously arrived. In 1841, the Company advertised their intention of sending one of their steamers to Moreton Bay, and the “Shamrock” sailed thither in December of that year. The fares were £8, £6, and £4; freight, 20s. wool, 20s. per bale. After five months, the steamer was withdrawn, as the trade was not remunerative. In September, 1842, the “Tamar,” and “Sovereign,” steamers, were purchased by the Company from Mr. Grose for £12,000; they were then carrying on a trade with Twofold Bay, Melbourne, and Launceston. In July, 1844, two water frontage allotments in Brisbane were secured for £50, and Mr. James Paterson was appointed manager in October, 1845. The Company’s engineering works were established at Pyrmont in February, 1846, the land being leased for that purpose. The “Eagle,” steamer, a well-known old northerner, was built for the Company at their Pyrmont works. On March 11th, 1847, their steamer, the “Sovereign” was wrecked in the south passage in Moreton Bay, and forty-four lives lost. In March, 1851, the Company’s name was changed to the Australian Steam Navigation Company, it was incorporated, and its scope enlarged. The capital of the Company was £320,000, divided into 16,000 shares of £20 each, and the opposition of the Melbourne Steamship Company, which had been carried on at a great loss to both, ceased. In May, 1858, the Company offered the colonies a mail service to Galle, and in September of the same year the rush to the Port Curtis diggings set in, and land was purchased by the Company at Rockhampton in 1860. Their steam service was extended to Bowen, a port which was just then opening a way to inland settlers to obtain their supplies from, and the Company obtained a contract for a mail service between Adelaide and King George’s Sound. In February, 1863, a new opposition was started by the inauguration of the Queensland Steamship Company. The following year the A. S. N. Co. had extensive wharves and stores built for themselves both in Brisbane and Rockhampton. The “Leichhardt,” steamer, was built at their works for the northern trade, and the Company’s operations were extended to Townsville in 1865, Captain Trouton being appointed manager the next year. In January, 1868, the Queensland Steamship Company was wound up, and its steamers and wharves bought up by the A. S. N. Co. In 1870, the Californian mail service was opened by H. Hall, who chartered the company’s steamers “Wonga” and the “City of Melbourne” for that purpose. Campbell’s Wharf in Sydney was bought for a large sum in 1876, and the next year Captain O’Reilly leaving the Brisbane agency, Mr. W. Williams was appointed.

In 1878, three Chinese crews were obtained for the A. S. N. Co. steamers, a circumstance which caused a strike in November, 1879, lasting until the following January. The Company had been engaged in the trade between Newcastle and Sydney, but this was abandoned in September, 1880, when the plant and stores were sold to the Newcastle Steamship Co.

In January, 1887, the extensive intercolonial trade of the A. S. N. Co. ceased, and all their steam fleet was sold to a new company called the A. U. S. N. Co. The fleet stood at £481,000 in their books, and was sold for £200,000. The shareholders received £20 8s. 9d. per share, the par value being £20 per share; the shares when the fleet was sold were £9 10s. in the open market, but the increase in the value of the landed properties of the Company helped to this satisfactory result.

BURNS, PHILP & CO.

Throughout Australia, but above all in the northern parts of Queensland, the name of Burns, Philp and Co. ranks foremost among the many wealthy and large companies that have helped to develop trade in the northern parts, and a short account of the growth of this great business may prove interesting. Intimately associated with North Queensland, the business of the Company has grown and prospered with the growth and prosperity of the youngest colony of the group, and much of the rapid opening of new ports and harbours on the northern coast line, and also among the Pacific Islands, is due directly to the natural business capabilities of the founders of the Company.

A number of shipping agencies are also held in North Queensland, Western Australia, and Sydney, and the Company itself owns a fleet of small vessels used in the coasting, lightering, and island trade. Altogether there are between sixty and seventy steamers, sailing vessels, and lighters owned and chartered which fly the flag of Burns, Philp and Co., and the red, white, and blue, with Scotch thistle in the centre, is a flag well known throughout the Pacific Islands and all round Australia. A mail service is run by the Company between Cooktown, New Guinea, and Thursday Island, also a three years’ contract was in 1897 entered into with the Government of Western Australia to run weekly between Albany and Esperance. Considerable trade is done with the Solomon Islands, and steamers run regularly from Sydney in this trade. The Company have also steam and sailing services with the New Hebrides, Louisades, New Guinea, New Britain, Ellice, and Gilbert, and many other islands in the Pacific, having a ten years’ contract with the Commonwealth Government for regular communication with all the islands which are practically under British control, while branch businesses have been established at Port Moresby and Samarai in British New Guinea, at Elila in the New Hebrides, Nukualofa in the Friendly Islands, and elsewhere. The first steam service down the Gulf of Carpentaria from Thursday Island was inaugurated by the senior partner of the Company, Mr. James Burns, in the year 1881, by means of the little steamship “Truganini,” which used often to be overcrowded with passengers and freight for Normanton.

The Company is the largest colonial shipper to the European and Eastern markets of Pacific Island produce, such as copra, beche de mer, sandalwood, ivory nuts, tortoise shell, and, above all, pearl shell, for which Torres Straits is so famous; add to this the amount of tallow, wool, and other Australian produce annually exported, and it will give some idea of the export business done. The Company has two fleets of pearl shelling luggers, comprising about forty pearlers in all.

Burns, Philp and Co. is essentially a company of a co-operative character, and a glance at the share list will show that the great bulk of shareholders are managers, employees, and others actually working in the company. This tends to a live interest all round, and each branch vies with the other in good management and success. The business was originally established at Townsville, thirty years ago by the senior partner, Mr. James Burns, and the new offices lately completed there at a cost of £15,000 are the finest in North Queensland, while recently, premises costing £50,000 were erected in Sydney. Mr. Philp, now the Hon. Robert Philp, Premier of Queensland, joined Mr. Burns some twenty-five years ago. Both are Scotchmen, the one hailing from Edinburgh, and the other from Glasgow. The Company was formed into a limited liability company twenty-one years ago.

Much could be written of the varied character of the business of Burns, Philp and Co., which embraces almost every colonial interest besides, while they are allied to a group of other colonial companies which act in accord with them, notably the North Queensland Insurance Company, and other concerns. For some years the Company engaged in the whaling enterprise with fairly successful results, but the detention of Captain Carpenter, and the seizure of the whaling barque “Costa Rica Packet” by the Dutch authorities in the Malay Archipelago, abruptly terminated what promised to be a most important colonial enterprise. It will be remembered that the Dutch Government had to pay a considerable sum to the captain, owners, and crew of the vessel for this wrongful seizure.

The total turnover of this Company now exceeds two millions sterling, and it is one of the largest and most progressive of the purely Australian concerns.

In the Sydney office a special telegraphic operator is always at work, and cable and telegraphic messages are sent to, and received from, all parts of the world direct. This is the only company in the colonies which has a Government operator established on the premises solely for its own business.