It would make a pleasant change from their usual activities.
Adelaide Express and Telegraph Saturday 11 December 1886.
Alas, this striking sheet music cover is all that seems to remain of The Pioneer Schottische. Perhaps it is enough to have these fanciful dancing “alligators” forming the word “schottische” almost a century before Sir Elton came up with the Crocodile Rock. (Of course, I am happy to be corrected in my belief that only the cover remains. The sheet music itself may well be lurking out there on the internets.)
The Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 was a Thing. Queen Victoria, still in deepest mourning for a husband that had passed a quarter of a century earlier, made a stately circuit of the venue. No doubt she found the spectacular Indian Palace a tad more interesting than the jams, stuffed cockatoos and – heaven help us – Aboriginal Curios on display for Queensland.
That the Band of the Grenadier Guards playing something about Pioneers and Alligators might have livened things up a bit. Particularly the “quaint passages.”
The pages pictured come from Archive.com. Bless it.
Moreton Bay and More 