PIONEERING IN QUEENSLAND.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXVIII, Issue 1514, 2 May 1902, Page 6

PIONEERING IN QUEENSLAND.

" Solitude and serpents, torrid heat and work galore, Await the folk that love them on Queensland's sunny shore." So wrote a young man who, with a light heart, a heavy purse, and a gran constitution, came out from England to make a fortune, but instead returned to the land of his birth a year later with a light purse, a heavy heart, and debilitated liver. This young man's experiences were like those of hundreds of others, but method of expressing them different. We city-bred colonials who resolve to try our fortunes on the land do not fare better than other people used to the invigorating breezes of green, temperate, Old England. Certainly, Mrs F. Summers did not. This lady who now resides at No. 1, Quay St., Ultimo, N.S.W., is a native of Sydney, and the mother of five fine children. Her pioneering record in Queensland, and particularly the effect upon her health of the hardships she endured is very interesting. Writing on November 12, 1901, Mrs Summers says :—" In 1897 my husband determined to try his luck upon the land. He took a selection near Beenleigh, Queensland. With our three little lads, our goods, and a month's provisions, my husband and I arrived there at sunset. I shall never forget my dismay at the first sight our new home—a log shanty roofed with bark, windowless, with big gohannas and jew lizards crawling on the floor. No other habitation was in sight—nothing but giant trees and scrubby undergrowth. The selection swarmed with snakes, adders, 'possums, &c. One day on turning down the blankets we discovered a brown snake, four feet long in the bed. But my worst scare was caused by a pos sum running over my face in the nigh. I shrieked and so did the children, while my good man endeavoured to find the matches which, of course, were mislaid. The terrified 'possum, in its efforts to escape, knocked a lot of our crockery off the shelves. At length a light was obtained and the disturber hunted down." To live for five months in such a spot as this with the thermometer registering 112 deg. Farh. in the shade, meanwhile subsisting on corned beef; damper, and black tea, all of which had been prepared in an old kerosene can is surely disheartening enough experience enough for any woman. To one born and brought up in a great city like Sydney such a life must have been simply unendurable, and so Mrs Simmers found it. She continues : "My health began to fail. I suffered continuously from nervous headache, and a disordered sta.te of the bowels. The latter performed their functions in a very irregular manner, and a period of constipation would be followed by diarhoea. An eruption appeared upon my face, and I was frequently tortured by neuralgia. My health becoming steadily worse, my husband decided to return to Sydney, where shortly afterwards I underwent an operation for the removal of an internal trouble peculiar to motherhood, which left me in a very feeble condition. The indigestion which I had contracted in Queensland became so severe that I positively dreaded food. The physicians at the Sydney Hospital were powerless to relieve me, and it was thcuht I had not long to live, when a neighbour recommended Mother Seigel's Curative Svrup. I took her advice, but for the "first few days derived no benefit. Soon afterwards, however, 1 noticed a change for the better, so continued its use, though I cannot remember how many bottles .1 took, but ttiis I can say : that within six months Mother Seigd's Svrup restored me to a thoroughly htv..Ui/ condition." Grander testinxtiy than this it would be hard to find. Mrs Summers' experiences ir. Queensland aie st.'Ch as Ia!l to the I it of few women, h;t ccmtless w until hnve sunned the sar.:c tevtures as she was called upon to ennure—which arise from a variety of causes, many of tnem traceable and others not. Thousands have found relief in the way that Mrs Summers- found io; and that, too, when all other means had failed.