Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 18]
14
Friday 28th : We landed again today on Gt. Palm & spent the whole day skirmishing. It was rather trying work storming some of the hills, but good practice. Two or three small snakes were seen & one was killed. We came across a grave with a small headstone stating that ___, a Papuan, had been buried there in 1908, I forget the date.
Our letters are to go away tomorrow; the mail closes at 8.30 in the morning. Rigid censorship is being exercised with letters addressed to Newspapers, etc. & all postcards are read. One or two are emasculated so completely that the receiver will probably imagine that the sender is a little bit "touched". A few of them look like statistics of some sort with thick black or blue lines drawn in irregular lengths across the page. It may interest readers to know that there is now a feeling that it is rather "infra dig" to shave. Consequently there are some fine growths to be seen on erstwhile smooth chins. My own feels somewhat like the barrel of a musical box. It is rather difficult to have our things washed, but one of the stewards has decided to take it on @ 6 per article. Gent Gillam (NSW) proposes sewing 4 pocket handkerchiefs together thus saving eighteen pence. It would do you good to hear Gillam laugh; his good natured fat face wrinkles up and his diaphram quivers like a jelly, that is I suppose it does, for its voluminous covering simmers & quakes. He reminds me very much of James in "Pickwick Papers" whose exasperated master is forced continuously to exclaim, "Damn that boy; he's gone to sleep again".
Captain Bruce, the Pilot, is an amusing character. He is of Scotch descent; I asked him if he was related to Robert Bruce, King of Scotland. He replied that he was, and added that he always kept on hand a large herd of dropping spiders. He remarked the other day that