A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8440, 14 May 1907, Page 5

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

By ALBERT DORRINGTON. (Author of "Along the Castlereagh,' "Children of the Gully," etc.) (Published by special arrangement —Copyright reserved.) V.—MAN OVERBOARD. Sunday was an eventful day. Ar Austrian gum-digger from New Zea land had been acting strangely eve: since he came aboard. At 4 o'clocl in the afternoon he scrambled ovei the rail and plunged into the sea. Hii comrade, a big-bodied, black-whis kered fellow, tore round the decks, snatching frantically at all the available lifebuoys and hurling them ovej the side. The stewards forcibly restrainec him from denuding the ship of its stock of life-saving appliances. Strange how quickly a man disappears when a moderate sea is running ! The eye is continually bafflec by the swift-changing surface currents. It was at first surmised thai our man had been swept astern and caught by the propeller. The Orotava slowed round; a boat was lowered in fairly good time, and was soon pulling back through the long, white wake astern. No sign of the gum-digger anywhere. The boat cut here and there travelling far until it was lost to view. A mail boat is as impatient of delay as a woman with an appointment. She fretted and heaved while several officers searched the wave hollows from the bridge for a glimpse of the unfortunate man. Five hundred people crowded the sides peering across the long insliding seas that swept under our stern. A flock of sea hawks and albatrosses circled in groups at a certain point in our wake. A dozen glasses covered them to ascertain whether the struggles of the Austrian had caused the unusual commotion among the birds. Broad-winged molliehawks and black shags joined the scrimmage, thrashing and screaming in mid-air as though anxious to share the spoil. "Those big birds will drown a man," said one of the sailors to me. "I've seen 'em settle on the head of a swimming boy and drive him under." "They're a derned sight worse than sharks," added a New York man excitedly. "I got adrift from a whaleboat up in the Barrier, some years ago, an.d a big, skulking,coyvbird came at me claw andjwing as if it wanted : my two eyes for breakfast. "A mahn can't fight birds when he's swimming for his life. He's got j to chew up all his bad language and duck his head," continued the sAmerican. "I ducked every time it clawed my head until I was blamed near silly and half drowned. Every time my bald head showed above water the derntd wings hit me on the face and jaw." "Then I felt my mate grip me by the shoulder and haul me into the boat. Guess he wasn't a second too soon either. About a dozen other cowbirds had swarmed round and started sharpening their claws against my scalp." A sudden shout from the Orotava's stern told us that another boat had been lowered. A minute later we beheld the missing Austrian being lifted into the stern, a life-buoy gripped tenaciously in both hands. He had been in the water exactly 35 minutes. His lips were blue from exposure; his jaw hung listlessly.ad the boat was heaved to the davits. He was placed in hospital, immediately and received medical attendance. Later, an enquriy was held concerning the manner of his going overboard. It has been considered advisable to keep him under strict surveillance during the rest of the trip. The approach to Fremantle is fairly easy, and far less monotonous than that of Melbourne. To the uninitiated eye the deep-water channel is well buoyed and lit, although from Rottenest to Cape Leuwin the sand banks have a camel-like habit of appearing on the horizon. A launch conveys passengers up the Swan River to Perth. We did the trip in a blinding shower of rain—the first for many months. Off Five Fathom Bank lies the hull of the Orizaba; gulls and hawks circling round its weather-beaten sides. She was caught in a fog more than a year ago and ran aground. The Orizaba was a splendid sea-boat, and on account of her .good qualities her insurance was reduced 50 per cent. The Company had decided to withdraw her from the Australian service; but the fog willed otherwise, and Five j Fathom Bank holds her till wind and sea shall have sundered her planks. One hundred and fifty passengers, mostly young men, left at Fremantle bound for Kalgoorlie and Leonora. The gang of Afghans streamed ashore, glad to be out of the stuffy forehold and eager to face the open camel tracks again. Times are supposed to be dull out West, but the crowd of new arrivals think otherwise. "It's hot out beyond," said one; ''but tucker and wages are all right. Good-bye, old man." Perth itself was a revelation to us. We had pictured it a veritable Chinatown among the sandhills and ti-tree swamps. The railway from Fremantle to the capital serves a dozen thriving suburbs. Everywhere one sees the hand of the builder at work. Acres of outlying scrub are being cleared; homsteads and factories bob up from behind yellow sand-hills, and tree- covered heights. Perth is probably the most modern of Australian cities. The streets are well laid out, and from east to west one feels the throb of new life streaming into the capital. Here and there a dilapidated boarding-house peeps from the rows of well-built dwellings. The mind goes back to the early nineties when the East invaded the West and the strenuous crowds of gold-hungry men flocked in from Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. The ancient boarding-house suggests days and nights of wild excitement when the sand-bitten piospectors crowded back from Bayley's and the Murchison into Perth. To-day the old coastal steamers are reminiscent of the old days when crowds of successful miners stampeded homewards in quest of elusive pleasures, and the girls they had left behind. These weie the days when champagne ran into the scuppers, and ; every steamer was transformed into a floating Monte Carlo.

| "I remember when the first bit of I fresh mutton came on to the Great. Northern," said Bill. "Neck chops fetched eighteen-pence a pound, and the heads were auctioned at five shillings apiece. The drover who brought 'em over started from Perth with 700 and landed 150. He said there wasn't, enough feed on the" way out to tickle the leg of a grasshopper." A decade of stock gambling has produced a shrewd type of business man out West. He is not to be confounded with the Wall Street alligator or the London mining spieler. He is a shrewdly happy man with enough nous to keep himself free from the soul-rotting influence of the game. Telegrams to hand announcing the wreck of the Mildura off North-wes*" Cape. She was bound for Fremanue with several hundred cattle on board. Grim stories are already afloat concerning the last moments of the Mildura. ... A stormy night off a treacherous coast. Heavy seas thundering over the frightened ship. Pens, and boxes smashing to and fro. Dead cattle and top hampers flung for'ard.' in Dantesque heaps. A crew of sweating half-maddened sailors heaving the dead beasts overboard. "Cattle ships are hell!" said Bill thoughtfully. "I was cook on the old Dominion, running between Halifax and Liverpool. Her for'rd decks was; like the Homebush Saleyards. We were carrying three hundred bighorned Canadian cattle to Liverpool, ugly long brutes that any decent Australian squatter would shoot at sight. About three days out from, Halifax we walked into dirty weather thajt took away bur funnels and bridge ak if they were made of tin. "About midnight we heard a smashing of glass above, an' one of the stewards came tearin' below with the fear of Gawd in his eyes. He had been carryin' drinks into the saloon when the cattle barricades broke away. "'They're loose!' he sez, crawlin' under the table. 'Oh, my Gawd, they're loose!'

"We listened. . . . an' heard the big barricades slammin' against the port staunchions. Then a sea lifted an' rolled .us down an' down until the water poured , through the blamed skylights. The next sea put us on our beam ends and spilled the cattle over the deck in scores. "Don't know that I'm a coward," went on Bill; "but I know when to | fold up when the bullocks are * out. One of the brutes, a big-horned, starver, raced along the alley-way and galloped right over the stern. The others came after him until another sea downed the leaders, and in two minutes the alley-way was blocked with broken-legged cattle bashing the life out of each other on the greasy floor. "A bullock's body was half-hang-ing across the stairs. They were piled in heaps around the skylight an' funnel stays. We had to shoot half of 'em before we could clear the deck an' hoist 'em overboard. , Talk about Port Arthur! You don't get me on a boat that ships wild Canadian bulls!" Bill passed for'rd to assist a pantryman with the dinner. A voice said "Baa," as he passed. Bill merely smiled. He returned an hour later with a roast fowl wrapped in a newspaper. (To be Continued).