PIONEERING IN QUEENSLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7418, 2 June 1902, Page 4

PIONEERING IN QUEENSLAND.

"Solitude and serpents, Horrid heat and work Await* the iolka who love them on Queensland's sunny shore."

So wrote a young man who, with a light heart, a heavy purse, and a grand 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 his 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 now 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 hardships she endured, is very interesting. Writing on November 12, 1901, Mrs Summers says: — " In 1897 my imsband 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 first sight of our new home— a log shanty roofed with barkj doorless^ 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, etc. One day on turning down the blankets we discovered a brown snake, fouo feet lomg, in the bed. •But my worst fright was caused by a- 'possum running over my face in the night, 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 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 a thermometer registering 112deg. Fahr. in the shade, subsisting meanwhile on corned beefj damper, and black tea, all of which had to be prepared in an old kerosene can, is surely disheartening enough experience 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 Summers found it. She continues: "My health began to fail. I suffered continuously from nervous headache, and a disordered condition of tie bowels. The latter performed their functions in a very. irregular manner, and a- period of constipation would be followed by diarrhoea. An eruption appeared upon my face, and I was frequently tortured by neuralgia. My healbh becoming steadily worse, my husfeand 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 one, and it was thought I had not long to live, when a neighbour recommendfed" Mother fieigel's Curative Syrup. I took her advice, but for the first few days derived no benefit. Soon afterwards, (however, I noticed a change for the 'better, co continued its use, though I cannot remember how many bottles I took, but this I can say: that within six months Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup restored me to a thoroughly healthy condition." • Grander testimony than this ib would be hard to find. Mrs Summers' experiences in Queensland are such as fall to the lot of few women, but countless 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 the way that Mrs Summers found it ; and that, too, when all other means had failed.