["In the Far Nor'-West", The Western Mail (Perth, WA), Monday 25 December 1905, page 37]
In the Far Nor'-West.
A RUN UP THE COAST.
(By "Geoffrey Dell.")
LYING inert in the shimmering heat, the great, lone land of the Nor'- west almost appals with its majestic solitude. But the appalling is more than counterbalanced by the weird, hypnotic attraction it exercises over the imaginative wanderer from the zone of civilisation. How quiet it all is, and how silent; how bare, how glassed, how dry, how muddy, how inhospitable. But the romance of earlier days! Talk about traditionless Australia--what a wraith of tradition envelops King's Sound redolent of the l6th century Dampier and his fellow buccaneers, their doings shrouded in legendary twilight. Here, it is told, the famed freebooter repaired his ships in a confidence born of remoteness, and here he laid his plans for the next predatory excursion into the fruitful Asian seas.
The real Nor-West--the Nor'-West of the fossicker the drover, the pearler can be known only by a lengthened exile; but there is the unkempt, sun dried, weed-choked front garden, over the low wall of which the passer-by may stare as he loiters on his bye-way to the old world. The coast-line of the Nor'-West extends from the North West Cape on the south to the Cambridge Gulf on the north-a distance of approximately, 1,200 miles as the ship goes. Although not geographically of the Nor'-West,
the little town of Carnarvon, on Sharks Bay, 200 miles south of the South West Cape, has much in common with this little known, self-sufficient portion of the Commonwealth. In a relatively modest way its sun has frizzling power; it is duty with an all-pervading dust; it lies far back from a long, exposed jetty; with rain, its red soil will grow anything; its communication with the outer world is practically restricted to the periodical coming of the coastal and Singapore steamers. It has a main road, a public pound, a Jubilee Hall, a public school, a couple of hotels, an improvised Anglican church, a Resident Magistrate, a Police Court, a gaol, and a doctor. These lat- ter facts are worthy of record, because they do not obtain in all Nor'-West ports. Carnarvon depends almost entirely on its hinterland of sheep and cattle stations, and its little community takes a deeper interest in the ills which bullocks are heir to than it does in typhoid fever. For what concern have these people in typhoid fever or any other human ailment? An officer of the Rivers and Harbours Department, who has resided in every port on the coast of Western Australia, once declared to the writer that, taken all the year round, the climate of Carnarvon was the finest on the State's coastline. When Admiral Kamimura was in Western Australian waters, he looked in at Carnarvon and exercised his men along the road. The peaceful little community has never forgotten the incident, the memory of which they cherish with the subsequent visit of His Excellency the Governor (Admiral Sir Frederick Bedford).
Onslow, on the Ashburton River, is the first coastal settlement above the North West Cape. Like most of the other ports along this part of the coast, it has a long jetty jutting out into the open roadstead. Even so, its end is in shoal water, and steamers calling have, perforce, to drop anchor a mile out and await the sailing lighter. Here a few pearlers have their headquarters, running down Exmouth Gulf for shelter in the infrequent but awe-inspiring bad weather. The town, lying some distance back from the jetty is remarkable chiefly for its volatile red dust, which on most days of the week hangs like a cloud over the devoted little village. Onslow dates from the time--20 years ago--Mr. James Clarke, of Fremantle, landed on the banks of the Ashburton in the self-same boat that now does duty as the lighter.
Cossack
is at once the dullest and the most interesting town--if town it may be called--along this fascinating coast. To-day it is merely an aggregation of small galvanised iron structures, with a stone Customs House (save the mark !), a post and telegraph office of like substantial make, and a concrete wharf. There may be one or two private houses of stone or wood, but the impression left on the mind is that there are but two buildings in Cossack not chained to the ground! The object of this caution is to keep the various structures in their place when the "willy-willy" blows. So frivolous a term is a strange misnomer for the terrific hurricanes which periodically sweep along a broad path, in the very middle of which, apparently, Cossack stands. The necessary security is given to roofs and walls by the passing over the building of a couple of steel cables securely hove down to anchors buried in the ground. Cossack has achieved its stunted growth on the banks of a dismal mangrove creek meandering behind Point Sampson. Reputed to be the oldest port on the coast, its appearance is up to its reputation. One would be surprised to know that Cossack had added one cubit to its stature during the past decade. The former days, so romantic with their rich finds, their quarrelling, their conviviality, their irresponsibility, have gone; and now the little community of 170 apparently lives a round of unbroken serenity. Eight miles behind Cossack lies
Roebourne,
by comparison quite a busy pastoral town, of approximately 400 inhabitants. Roebourne is a straggling, irregular place, that would seem to have grown up around the gaol--held to be the strongest and most commodious outside Fremantle and within the State. To this prison are brought prisoners ol all shades of colour and beliefs from right away up to the Kimberleys. The immediate country around Roebourne is stony in nature, and the town itself gives the impression of having been built--for there are quite a number of substantial structures--on a disused stone quarry. The district, however, is anything but stony, for some of the pastoral lands in the Pilbarras--of which districts Roebourne is the undoubted capital--are recognised to be equal to anything in the State. Roebourne, of course, was busier when Cossack flourished on the gains of the pearlers, but Roebourne, while not participating so fully in the profits accruing from an abundance of pearl shell has not suffered so severely as Cossack from its cessation.
As one works north, the proportion of Asiatics to Europeans in the various centres markedly increases. Cossack has its Japtown, and so, too, has Roebourne. At
Port Hedland
the Jap, the Chinaman, the Malay boy, and the Australian Binghi, seem to make up the majority of the residents.
And, in addition, there is a large floating population of Afghan camel drivers, who, coming in from Marble Bar and Nullagine, lend colour to the first impression that the town is an alien one. It is a strange sight, truly, to see so many nationalities represented on the little wharf, with, perhaps, only three white men--including the policeman--among the lot. Port Hedland is becoming accepted as the natural outlet for the goldfields, and, in consequence, Port Hedland is a busy place on steamer days. Teams of mules, of donkeys, of camels, of bullocks, of horses; the coming and going of drays and waggons and bush buggies--there is more life in little seven-year-old Hedland than can be aggregated by Carnarvon, Onslow, Cossack, and Roebourne. The harbour is the only thing of the sort worthy of the name between Fremantle and King Sound--a distance of approximately 1,400 miles. It is narrow and tide ridden, but experts declare that the removal of a stony ledge from the middle would convert the harbour into a really desirable haven. It is mangrove-fringed, and unwholesome to look upon, and the entrance is a tortuous channel through shoal water; yet it is going to be of some considerable importance when the Marble Bar railway runs down to the wharf. There is no other place on the Nor'-West coast approaching
Broome
in size, in life, or in charm. It is the South, under the mask of the Orient, and it exists solely for the European pearler. Incidentally, the latter is sometimes thought to exist for the benefit of his Japanese diver, but this does not materially affect the life object of Broome. There is absolutely nothing but the pearling industry supporting Broome. The sheep and cattle that pass through it are infinitesimal in number, and the fishing industry is restricted to less than the demands of the local market. Of a total normal population of about 1,300. quite 1,000 are of colour, and when the pearling fleet comes ashore in the lay-up season, there is an increase of about 2,000 Asiatics and perhaps 150 Europeans. The place carries the unmistakable appearance of a village in a tropical clime, date palms and other shade trees growing along the broad dusty streets and around the wide, cool-looking verandahs. The Japanese and Chinese quarters are Australian only in the galvanised iron huts and houses. The meanest structure in any quarter has been designed with an eye to the intense heat. The levelling garb of topi, white shell jacket, and duck pants, is to be seen in every part of the town on all classes of the community.
When the fleet of 300 or more pearling luggers comes in, the partially sheltered water in the vicinity of the mouth of the creek and around the big sea jetty presents an indescribable appearance of activity. Boats of every description, from sailing dingheys up to stately schooners, literally cover the surface of the water, or, at low tide, lie at every conceivable angle on the hard sand. Then most of the Babel tongues of the earth may be heard within half-an-hour, and, having regard to the conditions of the industry, one approaches a realisation of the futililty of attempting to adapt to practice the White Australian ideal.
From Fremantle to Broome the coastline is relatively flat and uninteresting. Steaming northward to
Derby,
it takes on bolder characteristics, until, at the island-studded entrance to King's Sound, it might almost be described as picturesque. Off Swan Point, as the steamer heads into the Sound, tho approximate position of the ill-fated Karrakatta is pointed out. and the force of tide that contributed to her destruction is remarked upon. Sixty miles up the Sound lies Derby. At first sight Derby is the most desolately repellant place that could be pictured by a hypochondriac. A deserted jetty, rearing out of the swift-running yellow water; a rusty tramline, borne by a low? causeway straight back through the
mangrove swamps to where a few white roofs lie shimmering in the distressing heat. Only that and nothing more. As far as the eye can reach tho la id lies flat as the sea, hazily finishing in. alluring mirage.
The township is merely a straggling collection of dwellings, all small and mostly constructed of the inevitable galvanised iron. Gazing out across the horizon-bounded sun-baked plains and marshes, one strives to understand, as he is told, that at a couple of days notice they could be literally hidden from view under herds of fat cattle from West Kimberley. The flora and fauna of Derby is anything but Australian, as known to the dweller in southern parts. The grotesque boab and bottle trees, thc unfamiliar varieties of acacias, and the endless profusion of bright plumagod birds, lend reason to the fanciful impression created by the mirage--that one has unconsciously passed out of Australian life and scenes into these of the Malay Archipelago. Like Broome, Derby has an excellent water supply, both as to quality and quantity, and there is perhaps no other part of the State where the boring operations of the Water Supply Department have been attended with such beneficial results. Between Derby and
Wyndham,
the most northern port of the State, the coast line is rugged and deeply indented, and. generally speaking, is of more interest than the light reading which, on a trip un north, is found to be indispensable. Wyndham lies on Cambridge Sound, and is the port for East Kimberley, and Kimberley, East and West, is counted amongst the richest pasturages of the Commonwealth. The little galvanised iron humpies, the crocodile-infested waters, the lonely jetty, the reedy marshes, the forest, the twittering of birds, the lowing of cattle, the crack of the stock-whips, the rush down the cattle race--all serve to impress upon the mind the attractions and defects of Wyndham, the extreme northerly port of the lone Nor'-West.
