At Coongarrie I Gave A Swagman A
Lift, And He Helped Me With The Camels And Loads, Until At Last Coolgardie
Was Reached.
Giving my camels in charge of the first man I could find willing to look
after them, an Afghan, Neel Bas by name, I finished my business at the
Warden's office.
Then, yielding to the persuasion of my friends in Asken
and Nicolson's store, I retired to the hospital, for indeed I could fight
against my sickness no longer. Here I remained some three weeks under the
kind care of Miss O'Brien (now Mrs. Castieau) and Miss Millar, the pioneer
nurses on the goldfields. No words can express the admiration I, and all
of us, felt for the pluck and goodness of these two gently nurtured
ladies, who had braved the discomforts and hardships of the road from York
to Coolgardie - discomforts that many of the so-called stronger sex had
found too much for them - to set up their hospital tent, and soothe the
sufferings of poor fever-stricken fellows.
The services of these kind ladies, and of many that subsequently followed
their example, were badly needed, for the typhoid fiend was
rampant - carrying off the young, and apparently strong, men at a rate too
tremendous to be credible. Funerals were too common to call for even
passing notice. "Unwept, unhonoured, and unsung," they went to a nameless
grave.
My chief anxiety was for my mates. How could I send them relief,
incapacitated as I was?
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