Missing Friends: Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)Weitemeyer, Thorvald Peter Ludwig
History
Missing Friends: Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)
Weitemeyer, Thorvald Peter Ludwig
Queensland -- Description and travel
wonder why they were not as glad to see him as he to see them? Would he
purchase their good-will with grog? What else could he do, or was he
likely to do? Anyhow, when it was all spent, and he would get angry when
people would have no more to do with him, would he be kicked out? Would
he then come back here for another year? What else could he do? I have,
among shepherds, seen many men who must have been what is called well
educated. They count in their ranks both lawyers and parsons, but
disappointed and embittered silence is generally the stamp of them all.
Sometimes the reverse is the case; then they will talk as if they could
never stop. I like solitude myself to a certain extent, but it must
surely be an unnatural life for any man to lead quite alone in the bush.
When at last the floods subsided I had the greatest trouble in making my
way, because there would be the most treacherous boggy holes where one
least expected them. I had also fared hard on very short rations, so as
to make what I had last until I could purchase more, and when I started
away from my camping-place I had only one more loaf of bread; all the
rest was gone. I was, therefore, very sorry to hear at the nearest
station that they would sell me nothing whatever, and when I came to the
next one again it was just as bad. I travelled for some days in this
way, and had had scarcely what would make half a meal for each day, when
at last I arrived at a place only twenty-four miles from town where I
should have to cross the river--if I could--so as to get on the main
road leading into the settlement. It was about ten o'clock in the
morning when I neared this place. It was only a small cattle station,
but I thought that whatever happened I must try to get some rations
here. I came along at a pretty brisk gallop, but when I was about twenty
chains from the houses which formed the place my horses shied violently
at a man who was lying in the middle of the road. I was, on the spur of
the moment, put out of temper, and began to rate the fellow for choosing
his camping-place there.
"Oh, let me lie!" he cried. "Accursed be the day I came to Queensland! I
have laid myself down to die here. Shall I not be allowed to lie? Leave
me alone. O God, O God!"
I looked closer at him. It seemed that he was in earnest, and the wonder
was that he was not dead already, as he was lying there in the terrible
sun without the least attempt to get into the shade. He was a short,
slightly built man and had a terribly emaciated, woe-begone face. It
took a long time and much persuasion before I could get him to tell me
what was the matter. Then he said he was dying from hunger. "Pshaw," I
said, "right here in front of the station! I am hungry too, but in half
an hour I shall be back to you with something to eat."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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