CHAPTER 5.

FIRST ADVENTURES.

We had providently dined before we took possession; and now, at sunset, we stood on the bank before our house, looking down upon the placid river. The blood-hound was chained to one of the posts of the verandah; Jezebel, the noble mastiff-bitch, lay basking before the door, perfectly contented with her situation and prospects; and little Fig was busily hunting among the shrubs, and barking at the small birds which he disturbed as they were preparing to roost.

One of the men was sitting on an upturned box beside the fire, waiting for the gently-humming kettle to boil; whilst the other was chipping wood outside the house, and from time to time carrying the logs into the room, and piling them upon the hearth. As we looked around we felt that we had now indeed commenced a new life. For some months, at any rate, we were to do without those comforts and luxuries which Englishmen at home, of every rank above the entirely destitute, deem so essential to bodily ease and happiness.

We were to sleep on the floor, to cook our own victuals, and make our own beds. This was to be our mode of acquiring a settlement in this land of promise. Still there was an air of independence about it, and we felt a confidence in our own energies and resources that made the novelty of our position rather agreeable than otherwise.

There was something exhilarating in the fresh sea-breeze; there was something very pleasing in the gay appearance of the shrubs that surrounded us—in the broad expanse of the river, with its occasional sail, and its numerous birds passing rapidly over it on their way to the islands where they roosted, or soaring leisurely to and fro, with constant eyes piercing its depths, and then suddenly darting downwards like streams of light into the flood, and emerging instantly afterwards with their finny prey. The opposite bank of the river displayed a sandy country covered with dark scrub; and beyond this was the sea, with a view of Rottnest and the Straggler rocks. A few white cottages relieved the sombre and death-like appearance of that opposite shore. Unpromising as was the aspect of the country, it yet afforded sufficient verdure to support in good condition a large herd of cattle, which supplied Fremantle with milk and food.

Here, then, the reader may behold us for the first time in our character of settlers. He may behold three individuals in light shooting coats and cloth caps, standing upon the bank before their picturesque and half-ruinous house, their dogs at their side, and their gaze fixed upon the river that rolled beneath them. The same thoughts probably occupied them all: they were now left in a land which looked much like a desert, with Heaven for their aid, and no other resources than a small capital, and their own energies and truth. The great game of life was now to begin in earnest, and the question was, how it should be played with success? Individual activity and exertion were absolutely necessary to ensure good fortune; and warmly impressed with the consciousness of this, we turned with one impulse in search of employment.

Aesculapius began to prepare their supper for the dogs, and Meliboeus looked after his sheep, which were grazing in the paddock in front of the dwelling. As for myself, with the ardent mind of a young settler, I seized upon the axe, and began to chop firewood—an exercise, by the way, which I almost immediately renounced.

And now for supper!

Our most necessary articles were buried somewhere beneath the heaps of rubbish with which we had filled the store-room at Fremantle. Our plates, cups and saucers, etc., were in a crate which was not to be unpacked until we had removed our property and abode to the inland station which we designed for our permanent residence. There were, however, at hand for present use eight or nine pewter plates, and a goodly sized pannikin a-piece. In one corner of the room was a bag of flour, in another a bag of sugar, in a third a barrel of pork, and on the table, composed of a plank upon two empty casks, were a couple of loaves which Simon had purchased in the town, and a large tea-pot which he had fortunately discovered in the same cask with the pannikins.

The kettle fizzed upon the fire, impatient to be poured out; the company began to draw round the hospitable board, seating themselves upon their bedding, or upon empty packing-cases; and, in a word, tea time had arrived. Hannibal, as we called the younger of our attendants, from his valiant disposition, had filled one of the pewter plates with brown sugar from the bag; the doctor made the tea, and we wanted nothing but spoons to make our equipage complete. However, every man had his pocket-knife, and so we fell to work.

Butter being at that time half-a-crown a pound, Simon (our head man) had prudently refrained from buying any; and as he had forgotten to boil a piece of the salt pork, we had to sup upon dry bread, which we did without repining, determined, however, to manage better on the morrow.

In the meantime we were nearly driven desperate by most violent attacks upon our legs, committed by myriads of fleas. They were so plentiful that we could see them crawling upon the floor; the dogs almost howled with anguish, and the most sedate among us could not refrain from bitter and deep execrations. We had none of us ever before experienced such torment; and really feared that in the course of the night we should be eaten up entirely. These creatures are hatched in the sand, and during the rains of winter they take refuge in empty houses; but they infest every place throughout the country, during all seasons, more or less, and are only kept down by constant sweeping from becoming a most tremendous and overwhelming plague, before which every created being, not indigenous to the soil, would soon disappear, or be reduced to a bundle of polished bones. The natives themselves never sleep twice under the same wigwam.

After tea, the sheep and dogs being carefully disposed of for the night, we turned out before the house, and comforted ourselves with cigars; and having whiled away as much time as possible, we spread out our mattresses on the floor, and in a state of desperation attempted to find rest. We escaped with our lives, and were thankful in the morning for so much mercy vouchsafed to us, but we could not conscientiously return thanks for a night's refreshing rest.

At the first dawn of day we rolled up our beds, lighted the fire, swept out the room, let the dogs loose, and drove the rams to pasture on the margin of the river. After breakfast, which was but a sorry meal, we determined to make our first attempt at baking. Simon, a man of dauntless resolution, undertook the task, using a piece of stale bread as leaven. It was a serious business, and we all helped or looked on; but the result, notwithstanding the multitude of councillors, was a lamentable failure. Better success, fortunately, attended the labours of Hannibal, who boiled a piece of salt pork with the greatest skill.

Mutton at this period, 1841, was selling at sixteen-pence per pound (it is now two-pence), and we therefore resolved to depend upon our guns for fresh meat. We had brought with us a fishing-net, which we determined to put in requisition the following day.

The most prominent idea in the imagination of a settler on his first arrival at an Australian colony, is on the subject of the natives. Whilst in England he was, like the rest of his generous-minded countrymen, sensibly alive to the wrongs of these unhappy beings— wrongs which, originating in a great measure in the eloquence of Exeter Hall, have awakened the sympathies of a humane and unselfish people throughout the length and breadth of the kingdom. Full of these noble and ennobling sentiments, the emigrant approaches the scene of British-colonial cruelty; but no sooner does he land, than a considerable change takes place in his feelings. He begins to think that he is about to place his valuable person and property in the very midst of a nation of savages, who are entirely unrestrained by any moral or human laws, or any religious scruples, from taking the most disagreeable liberties with these precious things.