PIONEERING IN QUEENSLAND.

Feilding Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 1407, 11 April 1902, Page 4

PIONEERING IN QUEENSLAND.

"Solitude and serpents, torrid beat and work galore, Await the folks who love them, on Queensland's sunny shore." So wrote a young man who, with a light heart, a heavy parse, and a grand constitution, came out from England to make a fortuue, but instead returned to the land of his birth a year later with a light parse, a heavy heart, and debilitated liver. This young man's experiences were like those of hundreds of others, bat bis method of expressing them is different. We city - bred Colonials who resolve to try our fortunes on the land do not generally fare better than people used to the invigorating breezes of green, temperate old England. Certainly Mrs F. Summers did not. This lady, who new resides at No 1, Quay Street, 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 bardships she endured, is very interesting. Writing on November 12, 1901, Mrs Summers s i »ys:-"In 1897 my husband determined to try his lack apon the land. He took a selection near Beenleigh, Queensland. With our three little Uds, our goods, and a month's provisions, my husband and I arrived there at sunset. I ehall never forget my dismay at first sight of our new home— a log shanty roofed with bark, doorless, windowless, with big gohannas and jewlizards crawling on the door. No other habitation was in sight— nothing but giant trees and scrubby undergrowth. The selection swarmed with Biiajies, adders, 'possums, etc. One day on turning down the blankets we discovered a brown snake, four feet long, in the bed. But my worst fright was caused by a 'possum running over my face in the night. I shrieked, and so did the children, while my good man endeavoured to find the matches, which, of coarse, were mislaid. The terrified 'possum, in its efforts to escape, knocked our crockery off the shelves. At length a light was obtained and the disturber bunted down." To live for five months in such a spot as this, with a thermometer registering 112deg Fahr. in the shade, subsisting meanwhile on corned beef, damper, and black tea, all of which had to be prepared in an old kerosene can, is surely disheartening 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 co Mrs Summers found it. She continues : "My health began to fail. I suffered continuously from nervous headache, and a disordered condition of the bowels. The latter performed their fuDctions in a very irregular manner, and a period of constipation would be followe-l by diarrhoea. 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 under went an operation for the removal of a an internal trouble peculiar to motherhood, which left me in a very feeble condition. Tbe indigestion which I had contracted in Queensland became so severe that I positinely dreaded food. Tbe physicians at the Sydney Hospital were powerless to relieve me, and it was thought I had not long to live, when a neighbour recommended Mother Seigel's curative Syrup. I took her advice, but for the first few days derived no benefit. • Soon after wards, however, I noticed a change for the better, so continued its use, though I cannot remember how many bottles I took, but tbis I can say, that Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup restored me to a thoroughly healthy condition." Grander testimeny than this would ■ be hard to find. Mrs Hummers' experiences in Queensland are such as f j II to the lot of few women, but countleas women have suffered the same tortures as she was called upon to endure which arise from an infinite variety of causes, many of them traceable and others not. Thousands have found relief in tbe way that Mrs Summers found ; and that, too, when ali other means bad failed.