Missing Friends

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MISSING FRIENDS

[Illustration: A SWAGSMAN.]

"Adventures are to the adventurous."

BEACONSFIELD.

[Illustration: THE ADVENTURE SERIES.]

[Illustration]

* * * * *

THE ADVENTURE SERIES.

Illustrated. Crown 8vo, 5s.

=1.= Adventures of a Younger Son. By E. J. TRELAWNY. With an Introduction by Edward Garnett. Second Edition.

=2.= Robert Drury's Journal in Madagascar. Edited by Captain S. P. Oliver.

=3.= Memoirs of the Extraordinary Military Career of John Shipp. With an Introduction by H. Manners Chichester.

=4.= The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner. Edited by Dr. Robert Brown.

=5.= The Buccaneers and Marooners of America. Being an Account of the Notorious Freebooters of the Spanish Main. Edited by Howard Pyle.

=6.= The Log of a Jack Tar; or, The Life of James Choyce. With O'Brien's Captivity in France. Edited by V. Lovett Cameron, R.N.

=7.= The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto. With an Introduction by Arminius Vambery.

=8.= The Story of the Filibusters. By JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. To which is added the Life of Colonel David Crockett.

=9.= A Master Mariner. Being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert William Eastwick. Edited by Herbert Compton.

=10.= Kolokotrones, Klepht and Warrior. Edited by Mrs. Edmonds. Introduction by M. Gennadius.

=11.= Hard Life in the Colonies. Compiled from Private Letters by C. Carlyon Fenkins.

=(OTHERS IN THE PRESS.)=

* * * * *

MISSING FRIENDS

Being the Adventures of a Danish Emigrant in Queensland (1871-1880)

Illustrated

London: T. Fisher Unwin, Paternoster Square. Mdcccxcii

INTRODUCTORY.

I was born in Copenhagen in the year 1850. My father was a builder there in moderately good circumstances. I was the second son of a large family, and it was my parents' great ambition that we all should receive a good education. My eldest brother was intended for a profession, and I was to be, like my father, a builder, and to take up his business when old enough to do so.

My father ruled us with an iron hand. I am sure he had as much love for us all as most fathers have for their children, but it was considered necessary when I was twenty years old to treat me as boys of ten are ordinarily treated. During the time I learned my trade in my father's shop I never knew the pleasure of owning a sixpence. After I had learned my trade, it was just the same. I worked for my father and received my food, clothes, and lodging as before, but I never dared to absent myself for a quarter of an hour even without asking permission, and that permission was as often refused as granted. A rebellious feeling kept growing up in me; but I dared not ask my father to relax a little and give me more liberty. To assert my independence before him seemed just as impossible, and yet my position had become to me unbearable. There was but one thing to do, viz., to run away, and I had scarcely conceived this idea before I carried it into execution.