EMPTY AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 89, 11 October 1913, Page 10

EMPTY AUSTRALIA

» THE NORTHERN TERRITORY DOMESTIC LIFE IN DARWIN. | * (For The Post.) (By Elsie R. Masson.) No. 11. Most important 1 of all to the newcomer to Darwin and the Northern Territory is the house which he and his family are to make their home. Naturally the building must be especially adapted to the climate, and yet this very climate makes it possible to dwell in houses of a simple design that would not be practicable in a colder place. The houses are of wood, with corrugated iron roofs, and are built on concrete piles surmounted by tin plates, so that the white ants may not eat their, way from the ground into the woodwork. The kitchen, the only room with a fireplace and chimney, is detached, while the other rooms run right through from one side^ to another of a twelve-foot verandah surrounding the house. The verandah is the part. o£ the house that matters ; the rooms are of small account, and the newcomer to Darwin will be wise to leave behind all elaborate furniture, ornainants, and pictures, and only bring necessities. The verandah, on the other hand, can easily be made very pretty with graceful palms in pote, ferns in hanging baskets, cane chairs, and lounges. One side serves for sleeping quarters, the other for dining and sitting room. Even in the wet season, when rain storms sweep up from the northwest, a sheltered corner can always be found. It is enclosed with plaited bamboo, out of which open shutters, framing enchanting scraps of view — green trees hung with festoons of purple bougainvillier, blue water, and the rock ing masts of pearling luggers, with tn* bright red blankets of the Japanese crew hung over the sides. The newcomer is at first badly attacked by mosquitoes and sandflies. Tho former can be frustrated by letting down mosquito nets round the beds before sundown, and they can to a large extent bo got rid of by kerosening all the tanks and waste water in which they breed* The are go small that they creep through the netting, and their bites last, twice as long and are twice as virulent as those of mosquitoes. Luckily after a time one becomes immune to' them Other pests, of silver fish in linen and books, of cockroaches, of ants that swarm in a moment round any food that is left about, can be exterminated by careful cleaning, poking into cracks, dusting shelves, and, in the last case, by standing the legs of safes and tables in tins of water. The question of food in Darwin is not nearly so difficult as is imagined. Certainly till lately mutton was th© Christmas treat, and still the only word in the blacks' vocabulary for "meat" is " beef." At that time butter and vegetables were tinned and ice unheard of. Now, with tho establishment of a Government freezer, the diet of beet can be varied with mutton, lamb, and rabbits, while fresh butter and ice can be obtained. As yet the few cow 6 that Darwin boasts are not enough to supply the whole town with milk. As to vegetables, fownerly only the Chinese variety were grown, and though Chinese cabbages and turnips can be made palatable by especial ways of cooking, yet they are really only a musty edition of our own. Quite lately a vegetable garden has been started by the Government under the contrbl of a white man, and the result has been a supply of English vegetables of exceptional quality, and comparatively cheap. French beans, ready for cooking after six weeks' growth, tomatoes, pumpkins, cabbages, turnips, and lettuces, make the housekeeper independent of tinned

vegetables. At present the fruit — bananas, pineapples, pawpaw, and mangoes — still all comes from the Chinese farms, and is surprisingly expensive, considering how easily it is grown. The servant difficulty in Darwin is a real one. In the past Chinese cooks and boys were plentiful and cheap, and equal to any white servant in efficiency and conscientiousness. Now the supply has decreased and wages risen, till only very few pedple can atford to keep one. So the woman of the house has to do her own work, but this will be lightened if she makes up her mind to spend time and patience on training a lubra, or aboriginal girl. The lubra, one of the many Maudies andLillies and Nellies that frequent Darwin, is dressed in a draggled cotton frock, wears a strip of red round her frowsy black hair, and always has an old pipe sticking out of her mouth. She has only two expressions of countenance^ — an' intent frown when she receives an order, and a delighted grin when she comes back to announce, " Finissem, Missis," or when it is tucker time. It needs untiring patience to train her. Every day the same orders have to be given, and will be cheerfully carried out under the eye of the mistress. But if she leaves the lubra to herself, or expects her to remember routine from day to day, or gets angry when she uses dusters as dishcloths, sweeps all the dirt under the sofa, or washes away a whole cake of soap in one day, then the lubra sulks. Worse still, she may tell her Missis, "Me no more sit down longa you, Missis. You too muchee growl," and decamp. Commandß must be given separately and firmly ; there must be absolute justice in the mistress's treatment of the lubra; at the same time she will work all the better if a little friendly chaff passes every now and then between then^. It is worth while to the white woman in the Territory to study Native nature, for by so doing she may gain a valuable servant, who will %orub, sweep, do laundry work, and carry out every behest with ready cheerfulness, however absurd it may seem to her aboriginal mind. The wise housekeeper in Darwin rises early, gets work over while the morning is still fresh, rests during the hot part of the day, and af tor 4 o clock goes out to take air and exercise. There are walks to be had on golden beaches, fringed with coconut palms, or drives along red roads between a thick tangle of jungle to a white point of rock sticking out into the sea stiffly set about with groups of 6piky pandanus. As the sun sinks, all life begins to stir again. Wallaby sit up to state and then dash away in the long grp.ss, flying foxes flap through the branches of the trees, a wood cart drawn by a solemn black buffalo with a tan-coloured old Chinaman crawling alongside passes on its way home, families of blacks wave cheerily as they march baok^ to camp. Night follows sunset within a few minutes— cool, scented, tropic night, with the glimmer of 6tars on the water, and mingled sounds of the drone of a blacks' corrobboree and shouts from pearling luggers. < There is only one newspaper in Darwin. This publishes daily a small slip called an Extraordinary, whioh purports to give the news of the day. Every week the paper comes out in full, and contains all the Extraordinaries of the past week reprinted. For the rest, it confines itself to comments on local events, and its reports of the world's news are spasmodic. Hence Darwin often only hears of events that have long been stirring other parts, when the mail comes in. Mails arrive at irregular intervals, sometimes two or three boats calling from the south within a few days of each other, followed by a pause of three weeks without even one. During the pause, harbour and jetty are lifeless and deserted. Then it « telephoned from the gaol, where a black prisoner haß been on the watch, that the steamer has been sighted.-^ Presently there is a hoarse roar of aN siren, and the steamer sails into view, looking a monster to eyes that have grown accustomed to the small craft of Darwin. Immediately the whole place m galvanised into

action. Trucks rattle along the jetty, all of Chinatown and most of the white population swarm on to the pior, and the doors of the Post Office are closed while mails are rapidly sorted within. A bell from the Post Office Bteps announces that they are ready, and the crowd of whites, Chinese, Malays, and Japanese that has collected hastens away, bearing big bundles of letters* and papers. For an hour or so afterwards everyone is far away from Darwin, drowned in news of distant friend? and the far-off %vorld. It is then one realises how isolated Darwin realij is, cut off by thousands of miles from the reßt of civilisation. But to know Darwin is not to know the Northern Territory. To feel the true fascination of the land, one must pack one's swag, and set off for the wilder, freer life of the bush. '