Across the Straits

"Across the Straits" is a classic work by Australian author Henry Lawson, first published in 1900. The book is a collection of short stories that depict the lives and struggles of Australians, particularly focusing on the experiences of those living in rural and remote areas. Lawson's writing captures the harsh realities and poignant moments of life in the Australian outback, exploring themes of isolation, hardship, and the resilience of the human spirit. Through his vivid storytelling and relatable characters, Lawson offers a compelling glimpse into the cultural landscape of Australia during that era.

• Short story

								
We crossed Cook's Straits from Wellington in one of those rusty little
iron tanks that go up and down and across there for twenty or thirty
years and never get wrecked--for no other reason, apparently, than that
they have every possible excuse to go ashore or go down on those stormy
coasts. The age, construction, or condition of these boats, and the
south-easters, and the construction of the coastline, are all decidedly
in favour of their going down; the fares are high and the accommodation
is small and dirty. It is always the same where there is no competition.

A year or two ago, when a company was running boats between Australia
and New Zealand without competition, the steerage fare was three
pound direct single, and two pound ten shillings between Auckland and
Wellington. The potatoes were black and green and soggy, the beef like
bits scraped off the inside of a hide which had lain out for a day or
so, the cabbage was cabbage leaves, the tea muddy. The whole business
took away our appetite regularly three times a day, and there wasn't
enough to go round, even if it had been good--enough tucker, we mean;
there was enough appetite to go round three or four times, but it was
driven away by disgust until after meals. If we had not, under cover of
darkness, broached a deck cargo of oranges, lemons, and pineapples, and
thereby run the risk of being run in on arrival, there would have been
starvation, disease, and death on that boat before the end--perhaps
mutiny.

You can go across now for one pound, and get something to eat on the
road; but the travelling public will go on patronizing the latest
reducer of fares until the poorer company gets starved out and fares
go up again--then the travelling public will have to pay three or four
times as much as they do now, and go hungry on the voyage; all of which
ought to go to prove that the travelling public is as big a fool as the
general public.

We can't help thinking that the captains and crews of our primitive
little coastal steamers take the chances so often that they in time
get used to it, and, being used to it, have no longer any misgivings
or anxiety in rough weather concerning a watery grave, but feel
as perfectly safe as if they were in church with their wives or
sisters--only more comfortable--and go on feeling so until the worn-out
machinery breaks down and lets the old tub run ashore, or knocks a hole
in her side, or the side itself rusts through at last and lets the water
in, or the last straw in the shape of an extra ton of brine tumbles on
board, and the John Smith (Newcastle), goes down with a swoosh before
the cook has time to leave off peeling his potatoes and take to prayer.

These cheerful--and, maybe, unjust--reflections are perhaps in
consequence of our having lost half a sovereign to start with. We
arrived at the booking-office with two minutes to spare, two sticks of
Juno tobacco, a spare wooden pipe--in case we lost the other--a letter
to a friend's friend down south, a pound note (Bank of New Zealand), and
two half-crowns, with which to try our fortunes in the South Island.
We also had a few things in a portmanteau and two blankets in a
three-bushel bag, but they didn't amount to much. The clerk put down the
ticket with the half-sovereign on top of it, and we wrapped the latter
in the former and ran for the wharf. On the way we snatched the ticket
out to see the name of the boat we were going by, in order to find it,
and it was then, we suppose, that the semi-quid got lost.

Did you ever lose a sovereign or a half-sovereign under similar
circumstances? You think of it casually and feel for it carelessly at
first, to be sure that it's there all right; then, after going through
your pockets three or four times with rapidly growing uneasiness, you
lose your head a little and dredge for that coin hurriedly and with
painful anxiety. Then you force yourself to be calm, and proceed to
search yourself systematically, in a methodical manner. At this stage,
if you have time, it's a good plan to sit down and think out when and
where you last had that half-sovereign, and where you have been since,
and which way you came from there, and what you took out of your pocket,
and where, and whether you might have given it in mistake for sixpence
at that pub where you rushed in to have a beer--and then you calculate
the chances against getting it back again. The last of these reflections
is apt to be painful, and the painfulness is complicated and increased
when there happen to have been several pubs and a like number of hurried
farewell beers in the recent past.

And for months after that you cannot get rid of the idea that that
half-sov. might be about your clothes somewhere. It haunts you. You
turn your pockets out, and feel the lining of your coat and vest inch by
inch, and examine your letter papers--everything you happen to have had
in your pocket that day--over and over again, and by and by you peer in
envelopes and unfold papers that you didn't have in your pocket at all,
but might have had. And when the novelty of the first search has worn
off, and the fit takes you, you make another search. Even after many
months have passed away, some day--or night--when you are hard up for
tobacco and a drink, you suddenly think of that late lamented half-sov.,
and are moved by adverse circumstances to look through your old clothes
in a sort of forlorn hope, or to give good luck a sort of chance to
surprise you--the only chance that you can give it.

By the way, seven-and-six of that half-quid should have gone to the
landlord of the hotel where we stayed last, and somehow, in spite of
this enlightened age, the loss of it seemed a judgment; and seeing that
the boat was old and primitive, and there was every sign of a three
days' sou'-easter, we sincerely hoped that judgment was complete--that
supreme wrath had been appeased by the fine of ten bob without adding
any Jonah business to it.

This reminds us that we once found a lost half-sovereign in the bowl of
a spare pipe six months after it was lost. We wish it had stayed there
and turned up to-night. But, although when you are in great danger--say,
adrift in an open boat--tales of providential escapes and rescues may
interest and comfort you, you can't get any comfort out of anecdotes
concerning the turning up of lost quids when you have just lost one
yourself. All you want is to find it.

It bothers you even not to be able to account for a bob. You always like
to know that you have had something for your money, if only a long beer.
You would sooner know that you fooled your money away on a spree, and
made yourself sick than lost it out of an extra hole in your pocket, and
kept well.

We left Wellington with a feeling of pained regret, a fellow-wanderer
by our side telling us how he had once lost “fi-pun-note”--and about
two-thirds of the city unemployed on the wharf looking for that
half-sovereign. Well, we hope that some poor devil found it; although,
to tell the truth, we would then have by far preferred to have found it

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