COLONIAL ADVENTURES AND EXPERIENCES.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1150, 19 October 1871, Page 3

COLONIAL ADVENTURES AND EXPERIENCES.

Under this title (ways the European Mail) a work has just been published from the pen of a University man, which professes to give an insight into his experiences in Queensland. The author tells us that lie went out to .Queensland armed with plenty of letters of introduction, which proved rather Jess useful than waste paper, inasmuch as they raised up entirely false hopes, and after pottering about in the hope of getting employment for some time, found bis only chance to be to go into £he bush, and take whatever rough jobs came to hand there ; now sweeping out a il a telegraph line, acting as tutor to the family of a blacksmith, or as barman to a small public-house. One of his most P'oniuneiativc jobs was selling cards at a race-meeting. By this he made five pounds, at the rate of threepence profit on each card, wlijcl) was sold for a shilling. The account given of shepherd ing in the bush is very curious. Naturally, nobody who can get better work will take to such employment.. and the shepherds generally are an idle, Jazy lot. Wages go as high as thirty shillings, and sometimes even two pounds a week, and all this may be \ saved, as the shepherd has no expenses, even no way possible to hini of spending his money, except by going to a station or township and drinking it all out. The greater proportion are " brokendown swells," men never taught to work, and so not good for much in a country where a man's value depends on hU ability to use his hands. Curiously enough, he refers to one station belonging to a man who could barely read and write, where there were seven shepherds-—one Cambridge man. one Trinity, Dublin, an old army lieutenant educated at Rugby, one Oxford man, one old Wintonian, and two Germans. So much for education in the bush. The author talks about himself, his mistakes and Jps failures. It must be owned that he does not seem to have that knack of Turning one's hand to auything which is such a valuable faculty in a new country, Few people, indeed, have it, especially those who are not taught to use their hands as well as their heads. Hence some men would doubtless have done better, though it would not be easy fr> find many more ready to take any work that offered, and do their best with it. The author's idea is that the colonies are capital places for working men, but not for men who Jaave been well educated. JJI-leck, i£ is true, seems to have stuck to him. He and Jiis mates sold a claim to a sailor for five shillings, a gallon of rum, and two pairs of old breeches. They had worked it for three months and got next to nothing. The sailor next day found a nugget of sixty-five pounds weight, which he sold W the spot for £2,000. ' Fortune must have.a peculiar spite against a man to freat him like \\ns. As a straightfpv-

ward, candid account of what befell one man amongst many who take up the same way of life, the " Colonial Adventures "are.at once valuable and interesting.