The Emigrant: a tale of Australia

Chapter I

" I write not of what I have heard, nor of what I have read, but of what I have seen." Petrarch. There is neither a more interesting nor a painful sight, than to behold the departure of a vessel, with her tear-bedewed passengers hanging in intense anguish over her side, and gazing, probably for the last time, on faces which, in all human probability, they are destined never more to behold. The brother is there ; his tenderly-loved sister is weeping on the sands. The son is in that proud-sailing bark, and his silver-haired sire is supporting himself on his staff as he wafts forth his blessing upon his only hope. Hearts are big with agony, and the bosom is swelling with the vain attempt to drown the deep sorrow that is reigning, to smother the long-drawn sigh that shaketh the hot tear from the straining eyeball.

Gallant is the bearing of the vessel, as the favouring wind distends her white sails to the sun. Noisy is the mariner, as he bustles amid the confusion that is around him ; but he, even he, accustomed as he is to the wild waves and the storm, turns yet an eye of tenderness upon the round, green hills, which are so soon to be enshrouded from his view : the rapidly-drawn sleeve over his bronzed brow swept thence affection's tribute from a heart that no danger could cower, no tempest disturb. B These are the times, and these are the scenes, which would make the most prosy, poetical ; the most unthinking, reflective ; the most callous, feeling ; and cast a momentary shadow over the sunniest, the glad somest brow. The heart that is unaccustomed to the woes of another, now has a double duty to perform ; and the eye that has but gazed upon its lonely troubles, is rivetted by the melancholy that is accumu lated around it.

In that little bark, as viewed from the anxious shore, what numbers have embarked their all ! In that lonely speck, fast disappearing in the waste of waters, how many have trusted their entire world ! All that can make life sweet, or existence endurable, is there. The father gazeth silently upon his little ones, and their playful smiles but meet in return the pallid cheek of their long-struggling, their ill rewarded sire. Now, he and his helpless family are there : the land where their forefathers are sleeping is left for ever. The past must be viewed, with all its pleasures, its vicissitudes, or its pains, as a blank which is never to be noted ; and the future must be gilded by the ray of all-radiant hope, to light him cheerfully to a more peaceful, a happier goal. Over the scarcely-heaving bosom of the sea, how silently is skimming that proud triumph of man — that floating ark, destined to traverse such an immensity of water ! to meet with the sickening, dispiriting calm, and to lie upon the encircling belt of the world a solitary and unmoving thing !

Day after day will she rest, motionless and dead, upon the slumbering wave, where all around is lifeless — not a bird dare raise his drowsy wing — but deathlike stillness, in all its dread solemnity, must attend them till the lazy and fickle wind shall breathe once more spirit and energy into the flagging, useless sails. Then comes the tempest, hurrying along, and driving like a fury in his car ; lashing the angry waters into foam, and whirling their giant crests resistless over the sailless and giddy bark, till once more the ele ments of strife shall sink to peace — the favouring zephyr swell the sail that wafts the weary wanderer to his long-looked for, his adopted home.

Chapter II

" I cannot say but 'tis an awkward sight To see one's native land receding through The world of waters ; it unmans one quite."— Byron. In a vessel bound for such a voyage as from England to Australia, there must of necessity be but little room to spare ; the supply of pro visions, the water, the baggage, articles belonging to the ship, live stock, and compressed hay for their use, hanging round the already crowded vessel, with the motley group of passengers — all these, mighty in bulk and in weight, are to be wafted over the unfathomable deep, defying the very elements, to the antipodes of the land they have left. What a subject for reflection are those few planks that are bearing so heavy a burden ! and what a subject for wonder is man, who could devise so astonishing a machine, and direct it to lands in darkness or light, through tpmpest and elemental vicissitude, to its destined port !

How daring the project ! how happy, how marvellous its perfection ! By it, man receives the advantages of lands how remote from his own ! by it, the luxuries of the Orient are at once at the Laplander's cot, and the blessings of civilisation and the education of the human mind can travel with the feet of the wind. How the ill-requited, the unfortunate, must turn to this mighty condor of the water ! must behold in it what at once bespeaks the liberator from the fruitless toils they endure — the willing messenger from climes of a sunnier aspect, and the patient camel of the weary waste, that is ready to bear him to the land he has selected — to waft him, as in a dream, from his chilly clime to where a brighter sun shall beam over him, and the bountiful earth return his labour with the hundredth fold.

And there are those within that distant speck who have now forsaken the home of their fathers — have abandoned for ever the land for which their hearts would bleed. There are those within that swift-retiring speck whose souls are animated with the noblest fire, and whose only hope, humble and unostentatious though it be, is the desire, the certain prospect, that their industry may meet with reward, and their endeavours be crowned with success. Sad is it for that land which parteth with her choicest sons, un willing to receive their proffered assistance, or unable to reward them for the labour they have performed, yet how often must the sorrowing eye gaze upon the manly hearts that sheer desperation is hurrying from the soil ! How often must the Briton turn and sigh to behold his country diurnally drained of her choicest sons — her hard-working, well-deserving, but neglected peasantry !

And still oftener must the heart of the philanthropist be shocked when squalid misery surrounds the cot and rank weeds are accumulating around the dwelling where pining industry unwillingly is idle, and where the strength of the soil is left in his squalidness, his helplessness, his want. " 111 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Princes and lords may flourish or may fade ; A breath can make them, as a breath has made; But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once neglected, ne'er can be supplied." Let the sigh that the expatriated tiller of the soil heaved for his de serted country be recorded as an evidence, that indigence, and not incUnation, had driven him, an alien, to a distant, but a less-loved land. The sea had gradually changed from its apple-green, the sandy bottom no longer had illumination from the heavens, and the deep blue of the bottomless water was dashed into foamy diamonds by the speed of the vessel.

Every one had gazed for the longest, the latest moment, on the island, the island they so devotedly loved, which now appeared but a dim cloud upon the verge of the horizon. The evening was rapidly advancing. The watch of the night was set. The mate had, with stentorian voice, declared " eight bells," and Darkness was, for the first time at sea, drawing her dark mantle around the wanderers.

Chapter III

" I sate beside the steersman then, and gazing Upon the West, cried 'Spread the Sails!'"— Revolt of Islam. " Holloa ! — here we are ! — now's the time for sailing ! — 'Merrily, merrily goes the bark Over the waters blue ;' Merrily, cheerily, sings the lark, Bampfylde Moore Carew! I could not for the life of me find another rhyme but the Gipsy King ; but how satisfactory it is to me, after the dreadful sickness I have en dured — the horrible, as the French call it, the ' mai de mer horrible,' or the horrible of the ; but I forget my Latin, save the ' propria quæ.' That's an ill omen ! that's a foul bird ! there he goes ! Well, thank Heaven, I've made my will anyhow, in case I should have — what should I have ? I'll chew a biscuit. I feel like a man released from his prison, with a touch of poor Pelisson when his gaoler killed the spider.

Well, anyhow here we most decidedly are, with nothing to look forward to but — I cannot say what misery to endure, for I cannot say how long ! When it will be more endurable, it is impossible at all to say ; and who, and what we are, is more difficult still — and what, and for what we are voyaging, and the results of all this, as the poet says, or sings — I think he sings, (May I be permitted to trouble you for a light ?) The poet sings thus — thus sings the muse : — ' As o'er the bosom of the mighty main The gallant sailor seeks the distant land, He leaves the home he ne'er may see again, Yet proud he beareth on the strangest strand. I have seen the time when I could sing those ballads ; but that time and the voice are like Nebuchadnezzar's dream — ' they are gone from me;' but how gaily this craft skims 'the ruffled wave!' 'How Neptune's sheep are grazing o'er his Downs ! ' " Do you know ? if you do not, how can I tell you the secret with which I am oppressed? but, 'There's glory in the fading eve;' 'There's beauty in the night;' 'There's wonder in the firmament.' (Thank you, sir, for a light) — Fal la la la la la la la !

Well, I should have been very sick, very ill indeed. How dreadful is that sickness ! Look at those unhappy, miserable beings, ' on forrard' — God bless me, how distressed they are ! Don't it appear as though the very — but I won't mention it — they must indeed sigh for some friendly hand to give them the ' neutral tint,' as painters say. Is it painters ? — yes, memory serves — to give them the neutral ! they have at present what physicians denominate the ' ventral tint' — yes, memory serves again. How horrid it is, that same sickness ! How well the ancients describe it ! thus : — ' How violent the tossing ! — o'er that wave That was to thousands such a sudden grave, How dreadful the commotion ! — and how sick — I forget the last line, but it goes on to state that the ancients certainly were intimate with the malady — and, as I was stating, it must really be owing to beholding those poor persons ; but — I really — well — I could not have — I feel very — " Can't be helped, as Jupiter observed to the Egyptians respecting the mummy, (vide Josephus.)

Yes, Josephus — memory serves. I was very ill; a touch of the hum-phum-gum -bogie — yes, that's the com plaint, memory serves ; but a man, as Falstaff says, a man of my liver — is it liver ? yes, as he, Lord John, says — ' a man of my liver' to have a touch of the abominable ! Well, after the dreadful deposit I have made, I can only quote the illustrious bard who sino-s I forget his name — however, hear what he says ; — after my misfortune I called to mind these rhymes, and as I thought of them I felt consoled, as they were peculiarly applicable to my case. Now for them : ' Full many a gem of purest ray serene The dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear.' You are fond of poetry; so am I. What think you of those rhymes? as Pope said to his father, or his father to Pope. Does memory serve ? Well, I like the sea, and I like the land ; but I do not like a ploughed field to walk through after a heavy fall of snow when 'tis nearly thawed ; neither do I relish the sea when we get what the sailors call a ground swell — ground swell, is it? yes, memory serves, (vide Bond Street, last page, or the tail end on it.) ' I am like the jolly tars — I like bumbo and flip, But I do not like knocking about — ' That's my creed — that my idea — and may a worse — but if you like to just step down into my nutshell, — and I am a man of rank, being the ' kernel,' — I will give you a whiff of the primest Cavendish you ever distended your cheek with.

But as time is growing late, and the eight bell hath tolled, I wiU not press upon you any longer for the present ; but, mark this ! and it's a plain, untanned hairy bacco-pouch. Just mark it, and if you like the plain unadulterated herb within, it is your earnest welcome ; and during the long voyage and pilgrimage before us, it is your own fault if we smoke not the calumet of peace." All this was spoken, sung, and said, with a volubility that defies our pen, and with a gaiety that seemed but ill to suit the party to whom it was addressed. Be that as it may, the speaker, upon the conclusion of his last sentence, gave a flourish of his old-fashioned German pipe, and descended to his berth with the rapidity of one well used to a seafaring life. WhUst our voluble friend is below, let us take a transient view of what is passing upon the deck of the " Ocean Queen."

Upon the forecastle are to be seen numbers of the emigrants who have as yet escaped the agonies of sea-sickness : some engaged in deep and abstruse speculations as to the time which is to elapse before they make the first land, viz. the Cape of Good Hope ; and others, indifferent, or apparently so, are indulging with the ease, satisfaction, and nearly the attitude of a Turk, the " fragrant weed." The seamen for the most part have already performed their duties of the day, and are mixing, as if forgetful of the day that has passed, with the gaiety and thoughtlessness peculiar to their race. How often does the hoarse, but hearty laugh, resound from their quarter as brother Jack in his humour detects some awkwardness in the lubbers with whom he has so recently become acquainted! and how puzzling it is to them, and how delightful is their ignorance to him, as they marvellingly behold with what facility and confidence he can mount aloft, and how deeply learned he is in the knowledge of each individual rope that appears to hang in such tangled confusion !

Jack is now in his peculiar sphere ; he can please to spin them yarns of amazing quality, both as regards their length and in terest ; and when he condescends (for to all intents and purposes it is with him extreme matter of condescension) to actually remove his quid to the opposite position, and when the romantic moon just deigns to smile upon Jack during the spinning of that same yarn, then is the perfection of nautical hfe. No man need wish to hear any other tale of danger, of war, of courage, and the expeditions against the natives — no ! the stranger, when he is permitted to rest for an hour upon that sacred spot the forecastle, and when the ghost story — but I must not anticipate that, there slumbereth one now that may fitter deal with so awful an event. Well, from that " Boothia Felix," the " forrard," as our lively friend maintains, there is a kind of "no-man's ground," to those precincts, where the chief and his clan are seen to walk.

Often ere now has the noblest form, the most undaunted heart, paced over the poop of the " Ocean Queen ;" but never was there a more beautiful favourite of nature than was seen to step lightly over its broad and whitened surface, to behold the round moon this evening throwing her broad and trickling flood of light over the bosom of the half-slumbering waters.

Chapter IV

" Fit couch of repose for a pilgrim like thee! Magnificent prison enclosing the free I" — Wilson. " Thy messenger! to render up the tale Of what we are !— Alastor. Once more let us gaze upon the dark blue sea. Once more may we turn over the waters the longing eye of anxiety, of thrilling suspense ; now may we find time to become upon more familiar terms with those who are destined to be our fellow-travellers ; and now it behoves us the more especially to observe " peace and good-will to all men." As a life at sea (in spite of all that has been said to the contrary) is the most monotonous, irksome, and unsatisfactory, to the mere passenger, that can be passed, — as it generaUy, if not always, is to him, from its sameness of sky and water — its unpleasant and unremitting, as well as unnatural motion, a period of absolute purgatory, — we must enforce the social law with double rigour, in order that man upon this most pressing occasion may render unto his fellow every assistance that he possesses to shorten by friendship and kindness the tedium of the voyage, and to show there yet exists in the human bosom the unextinguished spark of benevolence, which requires but a slight exertion to brighten into a glorious, a heart-warming flame.

Let us, now we are fairly upon the " waste of waters," forthwith, and, sans ceremonie, see who is upon deck. At a glance we discover that it is denselypeopled. That horror of all horrors, the " qualm," hath left but few suffering under its tyrannical rod ; the rosy cheeks of the stern North are again visible, and the glorious sun is smiling upon what has so recently been a scene of everything dismal and wretched. By the sunny side of the long-boat, which boat for security is stoutly c lashed amidships, we may remark a pensive youth, who, as he pur sues his solitary march of five steps a turn and a return, keeps his eyes firmly rivetted upon the deck, as if he alone were the sole in habitant of that crowded bark. He turns his dark eye neither to the right nor to the left, but silently, with his arms crossed behind him, does he perseveringly continue his diminutive walk ; he is watched by a short chubby-faced individual, who sits smoking a long pipe upon a water-cask.

Ah! the gentleman of the pipe can watch him with patience no longer, but, after a preparatory removal of the aforesaid pipe and a " hem ! " he thus salutes the promenader :— " We are a-going along stylish, sir; we are just about slipping through — I suppose we are trotting out something to the tune of— (the speaker peeps over the side) — something to the tune of — Captain, how many knots ? The Captain answers, " Somewhere about seven." The gentleman resumes, " To the tune of seven, you hear. Well, I don't call that bad work," nodding his head with an air of satisfaction ; " I call that anything but — " Here the voice of the walking gentleman, deep, sonorous, and distinctly articulated, was heard, " I wish it were nine." " Ah ! there you are," interrupted the smoker, " there you are," slap ping his knee and looking inquisitively at the wisher ; " you want all things not to be got at.

If we had been going four, the first thing you would a' said would a' been, ' I wish we were going along seven !' Now we do go seven," looking over the side again — " Now, sir, we do go seven, and you want to go nine. If we went nine, then clap on another ought, and let's go ninety at once ; that's the way of the world — mortal man 's never satisfied." And here the speaker was interrupted by a third party, who gravely uttered, " Your observation, most learned Theban, is remarkable for its learning, and the grace with which it was delivered : you recollect, ' Men would be angels, angels would be gods' — Pope — memory serves. May I solicit the favour of a little of your prime tobacco ? I found a curl or two of the fragrant herb in my nutshell, and I am proud that I arrived just in time to see you knock the ashes out of — doubtless your third pipe ? ' Uncle Toby had just knocked the ashes out of his third pipe,' — that's classical, it's a certain dead proof that the ancients used the divine weed ; — ' he knocked the ashes out of — This is — (puff, puff,) — thank you, this is, vulgo, elegant bakky.

Your observation, that man was never satis — But I forget my manners, — Sir, your fellow-traveller and most humble of aU your slaves, Tobias Turkey, vulgarly yclept Toby Turkey, — you will gene rously excuse my card — it would not be worth your acceptance, for, if memory serves, it would certainly not turn up trump — I never held a trump card in my life. I have played many a game, and have generally found myself in the hedge, as the learned term it, and have never been able to get the odd trick ; — never got the odd trick — no, never, — memory serves — never. But may I be honoured, sir, with your name ? I see you are aman of considerable kidney, and one doubtless who pur poses accompanying the good ship ' Ocean Queen' even unto the final disembarkment. ' ' " Sir, with you I am uncommon pleased ; I was just awanting such a companion ; the gentleman who has popped his head down the hatch way, he has been toddling about a-first a this un, and then a that un."

"To and fro, like Satan in Job," interrupted Mr. Turkey. " Well, I can't say anything about Satan — in Job, did yer say ?—inas much as I never talks of that gentleman behind his back ; but I can just give yer my observations upon this score, and (stopping the tobacco down in his pipe — puff, puff,) fust and foremost, how do you like this here bacco ?" " It's toi loi," replied Mr. Turkey ; " it's toi loi." " It's more than toi loi ; look here, (patting the pork-cask, upon which he sat,) here's lots o' room. This bacco — but now ain't this excellent, to sit at our ease with the wind right aft driving us along so cosy to Aus — or Austral — is't? — asia!" " I assure you, my esteemed friend, Mr. — Mr. — I beg pardon, I really have not yet had the pleasure of hearing from your own lips your — your — the worthy name of my good friend on my right."

" Oh, my name — (puff, puff,) — I'm Hke you ; I got no good cards in my pack, — there's none on 'em no great shakes ; howsomever, I've got in my pocket a letter I received (fumbling hir pouch for it) by the very last Plymouth pack — packet : no, was it the packet ? Well, really one has been knocking about the waters so long, one almost forgets ; howsomever, here is the letter. Now (handing the letter with an air of dignified importance) read for yerself what i' says on the outside, — let's hear what it says — can you sypher it ?— in course you can ; it says"—" Oh, thank you, I read distinctly, — 'Mr Ochus Moss, Esq., Mary & a bone, to bee left at Mrs."—" It don't say no such a thing as Mary and a bone; it's where I formerly resided, at Marlebon, London, and it's addressed to be left at my grandmother's. Howsomever, my name you now know, at your service, Ochus Moss, of Marlebon, London."— "Any relation to the Fungus family ?" — " Fungus ! no, the Mosses of Marlebon.

And now, sir, sitting with you on this here pork-chest, sailing away at the rate of — I suppose (looking anxiously about) — Captain ! — where's the captain ? — Mate! mate, I say ! (looking over the side) how many knots? nine, I look upon — upon it." — "Ay, nine knot — But, sir, your pipe wants a little more bacco. I see you know the valee of an old-stager ; you smokes 'em till they he a reglar Sambo, and that's the proper ticket — what say you?" — "Come, let us drink to the good luck of every mother's son onus — (drinking) — Here's luck !" " Ah, Mr. Ochus Moss, I little thought that I, an humble indiwidual — is that the correct lexico graphy ? that I, an in-di-wid-a- (oo, is it, Mr. Moss ?)" — (" Never mind the oo") — " that I, an — hut I can go no further — should have fallen into the society of one so much after my own heart.

Would it be too intruding in me to ask you, whilst we blow forth this princely weed, and beguile the fathoms, to give me an idea, a consolatory outline, of whether I am to set you down in my pocket-book as an Australian neighbour, or whether I must send you an invite a month beforehand to ask you when it will be agreeable to you to ask — (puff, puff,) — for me to invite you to a — a — the best my mansion can offer? you understand me." " I tell you what, Mr. Turkey, I have, from the time I first set foot aboard to this here very moment, entertained this—that is, I means to make my precious self" — (" Your precious self, Mr. Moss ? You're right — memory serves ") — " pretty comfortable — that is, if all goes along pretty bobbish ; but if things goes anyhow at all, I flatters us we shall just about do the thing ; hut, as you seem a decentish sort of a fellow, and as we shall in all likelihood be a smartish hit together, I'll just tell you what brought me out to emigrate in these rum Australia countries.

Now, just you fill your pipe, make yourself comfortable, and here goes. " You shall know, Mr. Turkey, that in my youth — for though rather an oldish codger now, I have heen a youth, and as dapper a one too as — but self-praise, you know, friend Turkey, is no — But, excuse me, what a queer name your'n is, Turkey ! it puts me in mind of Christmas : Tur key and sausages, or Turkey and forcemeat balls, and Turkey — " " Yes," interrupted the addressed, " Turkey carpets, Turkey rhubarb, and a few others, no doubt — memory serves." " Well, as I was holding forth — let's see, where was I ?" " You were ' as dapper a something — ' " " Oh, ay — well, I really was in those days remarkably sprightly ; but — (sorrowfully) I was then a youth. I received my education at the Gram mar School in the village ; it was a sad neglected place to be sure, like all the rest o' that name, though it had lots of property, as most on 'em have, to make it very excellent as a school, and edicate no end on us ; yet there was but about half-a-dozen when I was there, and the parson who pocketed the £700 a-year gave an old lame pensioner about £20 a-year to teach us 'rithmetic and syntax : but it was sadly managed — all was decay and ruin, even the rain used to come through the ceiling and wash out all our figuring; and when I left it, having got all my learning, there was scarcely any roof to it, and but about four lads there, at all."

" I dare say," cried Mr. Turkey, " that even those were students upon the foundation ? " "Well, I don't know about that, but upon leaving that seminary of logic, (Mr. Turkey blew out a cloud,) I was put apprentice to a man that renovated old hats, and made cast-off apparel look better nor new. I stayed touching up the castors and tickling the fat out of sleeves and coat-collars till my master found the old-hat trade but a very seedy 'fair arter all ; and though he polished up other people and brought 'em all from the shade into the very broad day light, yet in spite of his steam engine, for we did it upon scientific principles, the customers dropt off one by one like ripe apples, till at last the master calls me a one side, and he says — says he, 'Ochus,' says he, 'throw all those old leathers into the river; follow 'em up by the hoofs !'" " Beg pardon, Mr. Moss, what leather and hoofs were they ?"