The country all about here had a
healthful appearance.
The harbor was easy of approach, spacious and safe, and afforded
excellent holding-ground. It was quiet in Bowen when the _Spray_
arrived, and the good people with an hour to throw away on the second
evening of her arrival came down to the School of Arts to talk about
the voyage, it being the latest event. It was duly advertised in the
two little papers, "Boomerang" and "Nully Nully," in the one the day
before the affair came off, and in the other the day after, which was
all the same to the editor, and, for that matter, it was the same to
me.
Besides this, circulars were distributed with a flourish, and the
"best bellman" in Australia was employed. But I could have keelhauled
the wretch, bell and all, when he came to the door of the little hotel
where my prospective audience and I were dining, and with his
clattering bell and fiendish yell made noises that would awake the
dead, all over the voyage of the _Spray_ from "Boston to Bowen, the
two Hubs in the cart-wheels of creation," as the "Boomerang" afterward
said.
Mr. Myles, magistrate, harbor-master, land commissioner, gold warden,
etc., was chairman, and introduced me, for what reason I never knew,
except to embarrass me with a sense of vain ostentation and embitter
my life, for Heaven knows I had met every person in town the first
hour ashore. I knew them all by name now, and they all knew me.
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