ASIA Cornell Jlttinctaitg ffithranj iltljara, SJem fork CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library G 440.G95 Over MjAA&iSMUaaiAfill 3 1924 023 561 941 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023561941 OVER LAND AND SEA. Bppffp mm i i TJf--..::;-^-- aisak SENTINEL ROCK, YOSEMITE VALLEY. OVER LAND AND SEA. A LOG OF TRAVEL .. ROUNDTHE WORLD IN I 873-1 874. By ARTHUR G. GUILLEMARD. FIJIAN CHIEFS AND DWARF. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHEKS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. l87S " ■ , ' - <; 1 I V [All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved.] ft _^-J ^ OVER LAND AND SEA. A LOG OF TRAVEL ROUND THE WORLD IN i873-i874: BY ARTHUR G, GUILLEMARD. LONDON : TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1875. [All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved. J TO LEWIS WILLIAM NOVELL I, IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY PLEASANT DAYS BY SEA AND LAND, THIS BOOK IS |,ffcdionateIg §*irkaifir. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. A Long Sea Voyage — From London to Melbourne in Four Lines — Passing Glimpses of Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Canaries — Amusements on board the Lord Warden — Cricket at Sea — Our Club and its Doings — Law in the Mizen-top — Lj>tus- eating — Australia Felix at Last — Hobson's Bay— -Sandridge and Williamstown pp. i — 8 CHAPTER II. MELBOURNE. The Road from Sandridge — Appearance of the City — Its Streets and Gutters — Melbourne Dust v. Epsom Dust — Cabs and Cab-horses — The New Government House — The Botanical Gardens — The Public Buildings — The Fair Sex and the Fashions — Melbourne Faces — A Porter of Importance — A Leading Waiter — Manly Physique — Advantages to the Immi- grant — High Wages and Cheap Food .... pp.9 — 25 CHAPTER III. ACROSS TASMANIA. Across the Straits — Scenery on the Tamar — Launceston — Corra Linn — Domestic Economy — Farms and Farming — The Laun- ceston and Western Railway — Westbury — Dog, Cat, Lamb, and Kangaroo— Deloraine — The Trackless West— An Early CONTENTS. Game of Skittles — Perth — A Day with the Kangaroo — Coaches and Coaching in Tasmania — Campbell Town — Oat- lands — Scenery on the Derwent — Arrival at Hobart Town pp. 26—56 CHAPTER IV. AN EXCURSION TO THE TASMANIAN LAKES. Hindrances to Visiting the Lake District— Stella — The Main Road — Melton Mowbray and Rabbit-shooting — Antill Ponds Forge — Our Blacksmith and Guide — His Appearance, Con- versation, and Horsemanship — Ascent of the Western Tiers — "A Good Road" — Almost a Catastrophe — A Tableland Forest — A First Look at the Lake — Steve, the Bridge-keeper — Scenery of Lake Sorell and Lake Crescent at Sunset — Interlaken — Stock-driving in the Lake District — Lake St. Clair — The Great Lake — A Day's Drive through the Forest — Both- well— The Falls of the Clyde pp. 57 — 75 CHAPTER V. HOBART TOWN. Aspect of the City and Harbour— Streets and Public Buildings— The Botanic Gardens— Fern Tree Bower — Ascent of Mount » Wellington— A Trip to Port Esperance— A Tasmanian Re- gatta—New Norfolk— Hops and Hop Gardens— The First Tasmanian Salmon— Fruit and Flowers — The Huon Forest— A Big Tree— The Wellington Falls— Through the Forest by Torchlight— The Climate of Tasmania ... pp. 76—96 CHAPTER VI. TASMANIA. State of the Colony — Want of Labour — Produce — Wool— Mines and Minerals— Whaling— Cessation of Transportation and its CONTENTS. Results — Railways — Emigration — Convicts — Capital and Labour pp. 97 — 105 CHAPTER VII. SYDNEY. From Hobart Town to Sydney Heads — Sydney Harbour — Hotels — Streets and Public Buildings — Parks and Gardens — Horses and Horse-breeding— Attractions of Sydney — Up the Parramatta River — Twelve Miles of Jelly Fish — A Parramatta Orangery — A Picnic at Botany Bay — A Heavy Rainfall — Climate of Sydney — Prosperity of New South Wales — Sydney Hospitality pp. 106 — 121 CHAPTER VIII. A WEEK IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. Scenery of the Blue Mountains — The Great Western Railway — Views from the Line — Mount Victoria — Govett's Leap— Its Cliffs and Waterfalls — Sunlight and Storm — Characteristics of the Gorge — The Weatherboard Falls — Prince Regent's Glen— The Vale of Clywdd— The Lithgow Zigzag — Bowen- fels— Hassan's Walls— The Alum Mount and the Caves — Leicester's Fall — Monaghan's Falls — Weather in the Blue Mountains pp- 122 — 135 CHAPTER IX. A FEW WORDS ON THE COLONIES. English Ideas of the Colonies — A Worthless Immigrant — Field for Capital and Labour — Openings for Artisans — English Institutions — Freedom and Loyalty of the Colonies — Sepa- ration—Victorian Energy— Sydney and New South Wales Prospects — Victorian Policy— Scarcity of Labour — Society- Telegraphs and Mails pp. 136— H4 CONTENTS. CHAPTER X. THE FIJI ISLAND S. Best Friends must Part— The New Mail Route— Lord Howe's Island — Kandavu — A Native Congregation — Fijians Aboard —"The Giant Wind;" his Wife and Daughters— An Olive- skinned Venus in Full-dress Undress — Morning Calls — A Luncheon Party — A Fijian Cricketer— The Barrier Reef- Government House—" The Giant Wind's" Turtle Pond — A Love-stricken Princess's Farewell — The Natives — Fijian Poli- tics — Products of the Group — Climate and Position — A Future Naval Station — Levuka — Revenue — Population — Coast and Mountain Tribes — Fijian Prospects under British Rule pp. 145—167 CHAPTER XL HONOLULU. From Kandavu to Honolulu — The Capital of the Hawaiian Islands — Bijou Villas— Honolulu Beauties — The Pali — The Parliament House and Parliament — A Hawaiian Church — The King's Palace — Charge Bayonets ! — A Political Emeute — King Kalakaua — A Hawaiian Ballet — Mortality amongst the Natives — Products of the Islands — American Views of the Situation — Climate — Volcanoes in Hawaii . pp. 168 — 189 CHAPTER XII. SAN FRANCISCO. From Honolulu to San Francisco — A Pacific Gale — The Golden Gate — San Francisco Carriages — Melbourne and San Francisco Compared— The Chief City of the West — Hotels— An Expen- COA 7 TEA'TS. sive Laundress — The Chinese Quarter — A Chinese Theatre — Chy Lung — Chinese Ladies— Californian z>. Chinese Labour — The Exchange : a " Deal ;" how it is done in San Francisco- Sunday and yet not Sunday— The Fruit Market— Earthquakes, Suicides, and Shooting Affrays— A Brace of Fire-eating Editors pp. 190—203 CHAPTER XIII. INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY ON WHEELS. An American Steamer and Train — From San Francisco to Merced —Stage Travelling— The San Joaquin Valley — Dudley's Mills — Ascending the Sierra Spurs — Forest Scenery and Wild Flowers— Bower Cave — The Merced Big Trees — Opening of the First Waggon Road into Yosemite — Down into Yosemite Gorge on Wheels— The Cascades— The Opening Ceremony — View up the Valley— Yosemite at Last . . pp.204 — 2I S CHAPTER XIV. THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. A Morning. Ride to Cholock— The Highest Waterfall in the World — Down the Valley — Pompompasus — Cathedral Spires — Tutockahnulah— Cathedral Rocks— Pohono in Sunlight— The Virgin's Tears Fall— Up the Valley— Tocoyoe and Tissaatk —Mirror Lake— The South Canon— The Vernal Cascades— Piwyack at Sunset— Mahtah— The Silver Shoot— Yowiye by Moonlight— Snow's Hotel— The Little Yosemite Valley — Tuloolweack— The View from Glacier Point— On Sentinel Dome— A Panorama of Peaks— Loya— A Last Look into Yosemite PP- ^- 2 4 6 xii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XV. ABOUT Y O SE MITE. Discovery of the Yosemite Valley— The Digger Indians— Hotels and Hotel Expenses — Horses, Saddles, and Riding Costumes — The Buildings in the Valley — Yosemite Photographs — Routes to the Valley— The Hetch Hetchy Valley— The Total Cost of a Visit to Yosemite— Table of Heights of Waterfalls, Cliffs, and Mountains — Winter in the Valley — When to Visit Yosemite 247 — 256 CHAPTER XVI. THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. From Inspiration Point to Perego/s — Forest Scenery — Clark and Moore's — The Mariposa Big Trees— The Upper Grove — Wahwonoh — The Fallen Monarch — Appearance and No- menclature of the Trees — Their Bark, Wood, Cones, and Seed — The Lower Grove — The Grizzly Giant — Big Tree Groves — Comparison between the Californian Sequoia and the Australian Eucalyptus — Mariposa .... pp.257 — 265 CHAPTER XVII. ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. The San Joaquin Valley— The Richest Com-land in the World Volunteer Crops — Modes of Reaping — Waste of Straw A Boundless Ocean of Corn — Tobacco, Oranges, and Silk Stockton — Sacramento — Sleeping Cars— Up the Sierra Nevada — Cape Horn — Gold Mining — Moonlight on the Mountains Fifty Miles of Snowsheds — The Deserts of Nevada — A Cour- teous Official pp. 266—274 COA T T£A T TS. CHAPTER XVIH. A SUNDAY IN SALT LAKE CITY. The Great Salt Lake— The Capital of Utah— Its Streets and Buildings — The Tabernacle — A Mormon Service — The Digni- taries of the Church — A Mormon Sermon — A Vindication of the Creed — The Temple — Brigham Young's Houses — The Present State and Prospects of Mormonism — Girl Converts to Protestantism — A Mormon's Dictum on Polygamy PP- 275—288 CHAPTER XIX. FROM SALT LAKE CITY TO CHICAGO. Scenery in the Wahsatch Mountains — Weber and Echo Cafions — Over the Rocky Mountains — The Highest Railway Station in the World — Across the Prairies — Coggia's Comet — Omaha — The Central and Union Pacific Lines — A Railway of the Future — Through Iowa and Illinois .... pp. 289 — 295 CHAPTER XX. CHICAGO. Railway Station and Car Accommodation in America — Chicago's Rise from the Prairie — The Export of Grain — The Lake Shore — Grain Elevators— Trade in Timber and Cattle — Massacre of a Million Hogs— The Great Fire— New Chicago— Its Streets and Buildings — The Largest Hotel in the World — Independence Day and Anti-British Sentiments — The Debts of Chicago PP- 296—307 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXI. NIAGARA. From Chicago to Niagara — Lakes Huron and Erie — Buffalo — At Niagara — Prospect Park and Point — The American Fall — The Horse-shoe Fall — Descent of Twenty Million Cubic Feet of Water every Minute — Nature's Symbol of Force — Goat Island— The Three Sisters — The Grand Rapids — The Cave of the Winds — Under Niagara — Yosemite and Niagara pp. 308 — 318 CHAPTER XXII. TORONTO. From Niagara to Toronto — A Canadian Thunderstorm — Toronto — Facilities of Communication — Toronto Bay in Summer and in Winter — Ice-boats and Ice-boating — A Mile a Minute under Sail — Trade of the City — Toronto Lions — The Queen's Park — The University — Osgoode Hall .... pp. 319 — 327 CHAPTER XXIII. * DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. Kingston — Sunrise on the St Lawrence — The Spartan — Amongst the Thousand Islands — River Scenery — The Rapids of the St Lawrence — Down the Long Sault — Perils by River — A Timber Raft— "When Greek meets Greek"— A Brace of Shipwrecks — Lake St. Louis — Baptiste — Montreal from the St. Lawrence — The Victoria Bridge — Montreal by Night . . pp. 328 — 339 CHAPTER XXIV. QUEBEC. Point Levi — Quebec — A Walled City with a History The Upper Town: its Sinuosities and Peculiarities — A House CONTENTS. in extremis— Breakneck Stairs— The Citadel on Cape Dia- mond — The Gibraltar of Canada — The Plains of Abraham — Wolfe's Monument— The Montmorenci Falls— The Trade of Quebec PP- 34°— 353 CHAPTER XXV. FROM QUEBEC TO LIVERPOOL. Afloat Again— The Northern Lights— Through the Straits of Belle Isle — Amongst the Icebergs — The North Coast of Ireland— Lough Foyle— The Scottish Coast from Rathlin Island— Home Again PP- 354—355 OVER LAND AND SEA. CHAPTER I. ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. A Long Sea Voyage — From London to Melbourne in Four Lines — Passing Glimpses of Porto Santo, Madeira, and the Ca- naries — Amusements on board the Lord Warden — Cricket at Sea — Our Club and its Doings — Law in the Mizen-top — Lotus-eating — Australia Felix at Last — Hobson's Bay — Sand- ridge and Williamstown. ALONG SEA VOYAGE is generally supposed to be in every way uninteresting : once out of sight of land, everybody is said to give himself or herself up to a routine of ennui, a species of mental as well as physical torpor which lasts unin- terruptedly until the welcome cry of " Land-ho !" rouses all again into life. It is imagined by some that there is next to nothing to be done to kill time, that the petty jealousies of those who take upon themselves the task of catering for public amusement, will cause any entertainment that may be projected to be nipped in the bud, that even the most good- natured individuals are put out of temper by the 2 ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. merest trifle before the ship has been a week in blue water. Covert jealousies and open squabbling have been said to form the leading features of society at sea. In fact I was warned, before sailing, that by the time I had crossed the Line I should not be on speaking terms with my best friend. All predictions of unpleasantness fortunately failed of fulfilment, and from London to Melbourne every- thing went smoothly with our small community aboard the Lord Warden. But a voyage round the Cape to Australia has been described so often, that a few brief notes only need be transferred from my log to these pages. An editor once told a correspondent starting for a voyage round the world, that he could go from London to Melbourne in four lines, and I have this hint before my mind's eye in referring to my three months at sea. The frigate-like hull and taut spars of Messrs. Green's ship, the Lord Warden, moored in mid- stream, are looming dimly through the fog and driving rain on a cheerless morning early in Oc- tober, 1873, as Novelli and I are rowed off from the Terrace Pier at Gravesend to commence a tour round the world. Strong head winds and calms ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. 3 alternate to detain us a long time in the Channel, but we have a good run across the Bay of Biscay, and on October 2 7th, the ninth day after having put our pilot ashore at Dartmouth, we sight Porto Santo, and that evening watch the sun setting in a grand golden blaze behind the mountains of Madeira A couple of days later we pass Palma, one of the Canaries, and then see land no more for eighty days. We have the customary " burial of the dead horse," when we have been a month at sea, and, crossing the Line on November 13th, Neptune boards us in full marine toggery, with a crowd of attendant satellites, and celebrates his mysterious rites with due solemnity. Amongst eighty first and second-class passengers one expects to find a little musical talent, and on the Lord Warden we are fortunate in numbering amongst us a very energetic musician. Thanks to his training, we have a very fair choir of twenty ' voices, and also a small but diligent glee club. We have several concerts, and an evening in Christmas week is devoted to theatricals by the "Shooting Stars of the Southern Seas," which, as a matter of course, are most successful. But amusements of this kind are common enough b 2 4 ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. on passenger ships. However, our most popular pastime has been but seldom indulged in at sea, and yet with us scarcely a day passes without it, be the weather what it may. We have a cricket club ! Never were members of a club on shore half so energetic as we ; and in order that future passengers may learn how to kill time pleasantly, I here jot down a short account of our doings. The Lord Warden cricket ground is on the main deck, and, owing to the somewhat limited space at the disposal of the ten members, single-wicket matches are the invariable rule. The stumps, which are fixed in a frame so as to remain steady on the deck, are about two feet in height, and of course bails are provided but never used. Of bats the club boasts not a few of varied construction. Of these the majority are fashioned out of a thick deal plank, and soon go to pieces ; but one of elm, which is christened off Cape de Verde, survives many weeks of hard usage, and is more precious to the club than the most expensive of Cobbett's productions. It was fully intended by a member of the Maryle- bone Club to obtain for this tough little piece of elm a final resting-place in the Pavilion at Lord's, but unfortunately the " leviathan hitter," in attempting a ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. 5 huge drive, lets it slip out of his hands, and it is lost to us for ever. The boatswain accumulates a small fortune by the sale of balls, which he makes of spun yarn, and supplies to us at sixpence each. These seldom have a long life, four or five being frequently hit overboard in the course of an afternoon's play, and we exhaust a stock of nearly three hundred between the Channel and Cape Otway. The wicket is pitched just in front of the weather poop-ladder, the bowling-crease being thirteen yards further forward, by the side of the deck-house. Behind the bowler stands an out-field, whilst mid-on or mid-ofF, according to which tack the ship is on, has his back to the midshipmen's berth, and has also occasionally to climb over the boom-board above it, and search for a lost ball among a chaos of boats and spare spars. Point, or square leg, is stationed against the mainmast, and his contortions in trying to reach a ball hit under the winch and so save a run, are occasionally most extraordinary. Run-getting on board ship is a matter of difficulty, the ball having the supremacy over the bat which is exactly reversed on shore. A cricketer who thinks but little of the side-hill at Lord's, would find him- 6 ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. self thoroughly nonplussed by the incline of a ship's deck in a stiff breeze. A good eye and hard straight driving effected much, but a steady defence and the scientific "placing" of the ball under the winch often succeeded equally well, especially on a wet wicket. The highest score of the season was eighteen, which included two hits on to the fore- castle, feats of very rare occurrence. Scarcely a day passed throughout a very fair- weather voyage without an hour between tiffin and dinner being devoted to cricket, and appreciative assemblages testified that the game was not devoid of interest to spectators. But most people spent some part of the day in work of one kind or another, the ladies of course being particularly industrious, and working enough slippers for a whole army of curates. An aspirant to legal fame was wont to devote two hours every morning to getting up leading cases in the mizen- top, but even there he was not often left to himself for long. A midshipman would soon descry him, and suddenly remembering something that required attention in the neighbourhood of the cross-jack- yard, would give the " landshark " no peace till the obnoxious volume was stowed away. RO UND THE CAPE TO A USTRALIA. 7 A voyage round the Cape is not often eventful, and ours, thoroughly enjoyable as it is, forms no exception to the rule. It is yachting in blue water on a large scale, and we have but one gale of wind throughout the entire passage. Du reste, we see our fair share of glorious sunsets, catch our quota of albatross — half-a-dozen being rather a large allow- ance^ — and are well up in the vagaries of whales and grampuses, of flying fish and Mother Carey's chickens, long before we sight Cape Otway, early on the morning of January 18th, 1874. Running up a bold and picturesque coast for sixty miles, we pass between Points Lonsdale and Ne- pean, the two low, sandy spits of land which form Port Phillip Heads, at four p.m., and are at last in Hobson's Bay. Leaving Queenscliffe, the Brighton of Victoria, on our port side, the Lord Warden with a fresh breeze and following tide makes short knots of it up the eastern shore, and at nine p.m. the chain cables rumbling through the hawse-holes bring the ship to an anchor off Williamstown, and our voyage to an end. Hobson's Bay presents a very busy appearance next morning. Melbourne, the limits of which are at least two miles from the sea, rejoices in two ports, 8 ROUND THE CAPE TO AUSTRALIA. Sandridge and Williamstown ; but so crowded are the piers and wharves, that a large number of ships have to remain at anchor in the • bay, where are also two or three men-of-war, including the Cerberus, a small turret-ship built for harbour defence, and con- sidered a second Devastation by the Victorians. On either side of the spires and chimneys of the distant city blue hills meet the horizon, whilst on the eastern shore the pretty white houses of St. Kilda peep out seawards from well-wooded gardens. Before mid-day the Lord Warden is safely berthed amongst the tiers of shipping alongside Sandridge Railway Pier. One is so comfortable on board of one of Messrs. Green's Australian liners, and our voyage has throughout been so pleasant, that we are very loth to quit our floating home for shore quarters, to change the beautiful surroundings of our life at sea for the heat and dust and bustle of the Victorian capital. The charms of "blue water" broke more than one heart on the Lord Warden. CHAPTER II. MELBOURNE. The Road from Sandridge — Appearance of the City — Its Streets and Gutters — Melbourne Dust v. Epsom Dust — Cabs and Cab-horses — The New Government House — The Botanical Gardens — The Public Buildings — The Fair Sex and the Fashions — Melbourne Faces— A Porter of Importance — A Leading Waiter — Manly Physique — Advantages to the Immi- grant — High Wages and Cheap Food. FTROM Sandridge into Melbourne proper is a ■*• three-mile drive along a very dusty road, with absolutely nothing to interest one by the way. The country is a dead flat, intersected by deep ditches, and but a few years ago, after an unusually heavy rainfall, the whole of Sandridge was flooded, and boats were brought up from Hobson's Bay to rescue the inhabitants. However, from present appearances it would seem that this fact has already been lost sight of by builders, for in all directions houses are multiplying rapidly, the old-fashioned wooden huts giving place to two-storied dwellings of brick. Crossing the bridge over the Yarra, and MELBOURNE. leaving the wharves where the colonial steamers load on the left hand, we are fairly in Melbourne, and in another five minutes dismiss our cab at Menzies' Hotel. To a " new chum," as the colonists style a fresh arrival from the old country, the aspect of the capital of Victoria, though hardly attractive, is decidedly imposing. The main streets, set out rec- tangularly, are all as broad as Whitehall opposite the Horse Guards, the public buildings are each splendidly built and admirably adapted to the re- quirements of the city, the warehouses and stores are most substantial, and the shops bear ample evidence of a thriving trade. One sees at a glance the wonderful energy of the early settlers, which has enabled them in the short space of five-and-thirty years to plant a mighty city where before was a mere wilderness of scrub. Nothing has been left unattempted which might add to the glory of the capital of Victoria. From the very outset the city authorities seem to have considered it their bounden jiuty to spare no expense, and to leave no stone unturned to make of Melbourne something whereof the nineteenth century might well feel proud : their sole aim to make it an object of wonder and admi- MELBOURNE. n ration as the mightiest city of modern times. Per- haps the fact that Sydney boasts an earlier origin, and a site of great natural beauty, may have to some extent stimulated the efforts of those who laid out the city of Melbourne, and given the archi- tects of the public edifices a keener zest for their work. But, be this as it may, the fact remains that in its earliest infancy a great future was foreseen for the settlement at Port Phillip, that there were energetic men at hand to grasp the opportunity as soon as a commencement was practicable and the necessary means forthcoming, and that the great object in view has all along been carried out without let or hindrance from any class of the community. Imposing, however, as Melbourne undoubtedly is, there is a sameness about the strict regularity of its streets which is wearisome to the eye, and for which even the grandeur of the public buildings cannot compensate. There are no spacious squares with well-kept gardens and here and there a statue or a fountain, on which the eye may rest, oblivious for the moment of the dazzling glare and blinding dust of the streets. With the exception of the few shrubs in the Hospital grounds, there is no green to be seen nearer the centre of the city than MELBOURNE. the Fitzroy Gardens, and it would vastly improve the appearance of the streets if they were planted after the fashion of the Boulevards in Paris. Droughts are frequent enough, it is true, but even in the height of summer there seems to be enough water in the large Melbourne gutters to keep the trees alive. There is no underground drainage in the city, and it is down these street gutters that the greater quantity of the liquid sewage escapes. Perhaps the water from the Yan Yean reservoir, which supplies the city, aids in flushing these gutters more or less, but they must be detrimental to health, and the mere fact that they still exist should be sufficient to insure their being done away with at once. They are both unsightly and unsavoury, and though they are spanned by small bridges, it is in many places, and especially in Elizabeth Street, impossible to cross them dryshod after a heavy fall of rain. In addition to this, they are so deep that wherever two streets meet, the springs of a carriage are most severely tried, and the passengers jolted almost out pf their seats. Looking at the great works which have already been accomplished in Melbourne, the mere covering-up of the gutters would appear to be a trifle indeed, and an improvement which has so MELBOURNE. 13 long been talked about should be taken in hand forthwith. People who have gone to the Derby by road are generally of opinion that they know pretty well what dust is. Not a few of them imagine in the innocence of their hearts that a light overcoat and a blue veil are sufficient protection, and don such armour as this more for the look of the thing than for real use. I should like to set down some of these Epsom pil- grims in Collins Street when a fresh north wind is blowing, and, when they had walked from Bourke and Wills's monument to Scott's Hotel, a distance of three quarters of a mile, to ask their opinion on the discomforts of dust on the Surrey hills, as compared with that to be met with in the streets of the Victo- rian capital. I think that they would be unanimous in giving Melbourne a first-class certificate without any further trial. It seems singular that with the Yan Yean supplying its hundreds of thousands of gallons, and the Yarra flowing almost through the centre of the city, a moderate breeze from any quarter is suffi- cient to envelop Melbourne in a storm of dust And yet such is the case whenever any wind is blowing throughout the summer months, and this, too, in spite of powerful hydrants at regular dis- i4 MELBOURNE. tances along the length of each main street. There seem to be plenty of hydrants and plenty of water, but a grievous neglect of watering. No one who has not been blinded by it can have any conception of the powers of penetration of Melbourne dust. Not only does it fill the eyes, mouth, and ears of every one venturing on the trottoirs, ruining coats, bonnets, and tempers in every direction, but it finds its way into every room and every shop, leaving a deposit almost de*ep enough to grow small salad in even on one's dressing-table, and doing an infinite amount of damage to goods of delicate fabric. And so it comes about that a feather brush comes as naturally to a Melbourne shopman as a napkin to a waiter, for every article has to be regularly dusted before it can be submitted to a customer's inspection. It might not be altogether unprofitable to start a feather-brush store on a large scale in Melbourne — provided only there is not one already in work- ing order. In the matter of cabs the Victorian city has de- cidedly improved upon the London model. There are hansoms in plenty, but none of those abomina- tions on four wheels, vulgarly called "growlers." MELBOURNE. 15 In their place are Albert cars, a strong kind of covered dog-cart, and waggonettes, also covered and provided with dust-curtains. All these vehicles are really well horsed, and a "screw" such as is so commonly seen in the shafts of a London four- wheel cab is not to be found in Melbourne. The cab-horses are all of a good stamp, stout and cobby ; they invariably trot fast — for slow travelling does not go down with the colonists — and, in spite of the heat, seem to take as kindly to their work as to their food. They are set on short powerful legs, which look up to plenty of knocking about, but then it must be remembered that they have no work on the stones, for Melbourne streets are not paved but macadamized. And whilst on the subject of streets, I may re- mark here that, as a rule, they are either very badly mended or not mended at all. Holes of all sizes abound everywhere, independently of the gutters, and after once enduring a jolting in the course of a drive across the city, one descends from one's car a sorer but a wiser man. For any one requiring a few hours' shelter from the dust, and quiet after the noise and bustle of the crowded streets, the Botanical Gardens will be the 1 6 MELBOURNE. most pleasant resort. Crossing the river by Prince's Bridge, which connects Melbourne with what was originally Canvas Town, but now rejoices in the more aristocratic name of Emerald Hill, a shady walk through groves of wattle trees close to the water's edge leads to the gardens. On the summit of the hill which rises from the southern bank of the Yarra is being built the new Government House, a stately pile, well in accordance with the riches and prosperity of the colony. No more fitting site could have been chosen, and the white buildings of the Observatory alone dispute the right of possession, but the most economical of the future Governors of Victoria will find it a hard matter to keep up so princely an establishment on 10,000/. a year. The view commanded from the crown of the slope is as beauti- ful as it is comprehensive. Beneath one's feet is Melbourne mapped out, the extreme purity of the atmosphere enabling the eye to define clearly all the rigid regularity of its streets ; to the right the pretty suburbs of Richmond and South Yarra are embowered in bright green shrubberies, and to the southward over the villas of Emerald Hill and the thick forests of masts at Sandridge and Williamstown, one's glance rests finally on the dancing waters of Hobson's Bay. MELBOURNE. 17 The Botanical Gardens have been spoken of as stiff and formal, and to some extent it may be that the allegation is true. But though they might have been laid out with more view to the picturesque, still a good deal has been made of the resources at hand, and a good deal more may yet be done if the autho- rities think fit to take beauty as well as science into consideration. What strikes a visitor most about the gardens is, that they are but little more than a vast shrubbery. Arboriculture, and not floriculture, seems to be the main point There are but few flowers, and no attempt whatever has been made at display, such as one is accustomed to see in English gardens. The only flowers that appear really to thrive are verbenas and petunias, which in spite of the drought display their bright blossoms in rich profusion. The shrubs, however, are most varied and luxuriant, and the soil must be wonderfully favourable to their attain- ing a large size. From northern latitudes as well as from tropical regions, nearly every country seems to have contributed representative trees and plants, and the majority are already acclimatized and thriving. The gardens, however, are evidendy far too exten- sive for the staff, and in a great measure are left to take care of themselves. When they are once got c 1 8 MELBOURNE. thoroughly into good order, and the culture of flowers as well as of shrubs is taken in hand, the Melbourne Gardens will not fail to hold a high position. The Melbourne people are very proud of their Town Hall, and well they may be, for, though not showing any beauty of architecture such as has ren- dered famous many an H6tel de Ville on the Conti- nent, it is a strikingly massive, pile. The Great Hall impresses every one with its grand proportions, and the magnificent organ in it is one of the largest in the world. The minor council chambers, com- mittee rooms, &c, are admirable in their appoint- ments, and the most perfect order and neatness are everywhere discernible. Indeed, this regularity de- scends even to the spittoons, for in a row of a dozen placed between the fore-legs of the chairs in a council chamber, I fail to detect one that is an inch out of its proper position. This council at any rate seems to combine pleasure with business. The Houses of Parliament are neat without being imposing, but the Public Library is a fine substantial building, and the large reading-room is strikingly handsome and well decorated. It contains more than eighty thousand volumes, and is the most valuable MELBOURNE. 19 collection of books in the southern hemisphere. The whole is admirably classified and indexed, and every one is at liberty to make use of it gratis. The Post Office is decidedly a handsome building, and is commandingly placed in the centre of the city. The Hospital has no beauty to boast of, but it is very roomy, and said to be excellently conducted. Indeed, Melbourne is rich in charitable institutions, for in addition to the usual asylums for the aged and orphans, the blind and the lunatic, there are homes for immigrants, servants, and sailors. But in spite of their great width and strict re- gularity, their fine public buildings and substantial warehouses, Melbourne streets wear a certain aspect of incompleteness, which it will take some years to efface. This is owing to the fact that many of the small badly-built houses put up by the early settlers, still remain even in the chief thoroughfares, such as Collins Street and Bourke Street, so that the line of roofs varies in an absurd manner, the eye wandering from the highly-decorated pile of eight floors down to the mean little two-storied shop next door. This is gradually righting itself, but the proprietors of the insignificant tenements will c 2 2o MELBOURNE. know the value of their site, and hold on for a high figure. When this is reached down comes the pig- sty, and a very few weeks suffice for the erection of a palace in its place. House rent at Melbourne is very high, and in the suburbs — for nobody lives in the city- — a villa suitable for a gentleman with a small family cannot be had for much less than 200/. a year. Many of the fine houses at Richmond, South Yarra, and St. Kilda command double and treble that sum. The Melbourne shops are somewhat disappoint- ing, for as a rule the windows are by no means tastefully set out, perhaps on account of the all- searching dust — and prices rule high. But this does not seem to affect the toilettes of the Melbourne ladies, who are evidently far from holding the opi- nion that " beauty unadorned is adorned the most." And on the subject of feminine attire I have to listen to a considerable amount of " blowing" by an old colonial, who tells me that all the haut ton get their costumes fresh from Paris by every mail ; that a thousand pounds is frequently expended on a single dress, and that even Ascot and Goodwood can show no more brilliant an array of fashion than the Flemington course on a Cup day. These state- MELBOURNE. 21 ments are from the lips of a confirmed old bachelor, and must be taken for what they are worth. If the first two are correct, the husbands and fathers of the Melbourne belles need the sincerest condolence. Manufactured goods are gradually decreasing in price now that colonial manufactories of many articles are being established, the Government sys- tem of bonuses greatly favouring local industries. There are now some twelve hundred manufactories of various kinds in Victoria ; and amongst the articles manufactured are cloth, paper, glass, pianos, and numerous agricultural implements. But many years must elapse before the goods made in the colony equal in amount those imported from the mother-country, and till that time arrives the freight paid for the long sea voyage must keep the prices up. On an average Melbourne prices are quite twenty- five per cent, higher than those charged in London. One's first day in Melbourne is sufficient to im- press one with a strong sense of the wonderful vigour and energy of its inhabitants. This is not communicated so much by the size of the city and the grandeur of its buildings as by the aspect of the busy crowds in every street and on every wharf. Much may be learnt about a nation from a study of MELBOURNE. faces ; and Melbourne faces speak well for the pros- perity of the colony. Every one one meets seems to have plenty of work to do, and to be doing it to the best of his ability. There is scarcely a loafer to be seen in the course of a morning's walk, and beggars are unknown. Wages are too high and food too cheap for begging to be a paying occupa- tion ; and so every one is hard at work and appears to like it. Indeed, the air of contentment on every face is as striking as the utter absence of anything approaching to idleness. The careworn faces one cannot help noticing at every turn in London are almost unknown in the Victorian capital. Business and cheerfulness seem to go hand in hand, and the combination is delightful to contemplate. It cannot fail to impress one with the firm belief that every one, from the merchant hurrying into his huge wool warehouse, to the city Arab selling newspapers in the streets, either is, or imagines himself to be, on the high road to independence. And one cannot help wishing that this absence of idleness and destitution, this general air of busy industry and contentment, were as characteristic of London as of Melbourne life. If Melbourne manners are not quite Parisian in their polish, civility at least is generally met with. MELBOURNE. 23 But a friend with whom I paid a visit to the Hobson's Bay Railway Station the day of our landing, was early enlightened as to the independent spirit that is not unfrequently engendered by pros- perity in the lower classes. Wishing to have some luggage carried to the cloak-room, he called across the line to a porter standing doing nothing on the opposite platform. The porter came to him slowly and unwillingly, and delivered himself of the follow- ing rebuke — " When you require the services of a porter, it is the custom here to come and ask for them, and not to call out to him ' Porter, Porter !' " After this my friend for many days refused to believe in colonial civility. This porter had too exalted an idea of his own importance ; but though the demeanour of the working classes is decidedly more independent than in England, instances such as this are the exceptions. Our cabman occasionally appears to consider that he is conferring a great obligation on us by driving us, but that is all. We are not a little amused at the hints of their past career that are occasionally let drop by middle- aged colonials holding a not very exalted position in 24 MELBOURNE. the social scale. A waiter at our hotel, whose age we guess at thirty, says to us complacently — " I came out here twelve years ago ; and, if I had then had the wits I've got now, I should be one of the first men in Melbourne." It would appear that life in Melbourne had done much for that man's head but little for his pocket. This, however, is his own opinion; to us he hardly seems qualified to play a leading part either in society or politics. That the great heat of summer is not without its effect upon the people of Melbourne is evident from a general want of colour, the paleness of the fair sex especially being very noticeable. The physique of the men, however, is remarkably fine ; and it would seem that the young emigrants thicken and fill out wonderfully in the course of a few years, broad, mus- cular, well-developed frames being quite the rule. That the reverse is the case with children born in the colonies is well known. A very short stay in Melbourne convinces one how many advantages it offers to young Englishmen who have served their apprenticeship and thoroughly learnt a trade before emigrating. Even a common labourer gets six or seven shillings for his day's MELBOUKNE. 25 work of eight hours ; whilst carpenters, bricklayers, and masons get ten shillings a day with constant employment There is a great want of female servants; and a good housemaid can readily com- mand 30/. a year. Married couples, without families, are also in such demand for stations that as much as 90/. a year is frequently given. There are but one or two trades only which are fully supplied with hands ; and a good workman is seldom long in the colony without employment And not only are wages universally high, but food is both good and cheap, whilst the rent of houses suitable for artisans is very reasonable. With wages at ten shillings a day and meat at fourpence and fivepence a pound, a man who can keep aloof from the liquor shop may confidently look forward to earning an independence at no very distant date. And surely independence should be the one great object of every working man. CHAPTER III. ACROSS TASMANIA. Across the Straits — Scenery on the Tamar — Launceston — Corra Linn — Domestic Economy — Farms and Farming — The Laun- ceston and Western Railway — Westbury — Dog, Cat, Lamb, and Kangaroo — Deloraine — The Trackless West — An Early Game of Skittles — Perth — A Day with the Kangaroo — Coaches and Coaching in Tasmania — Campbell Town — Oat- lands— ^Scenery on the Derwent — Arrival at Hobart Town. # | ^O steam away down the muddy Yarra, and ■*- leave behind all the heat and dust and bustle of Melbourne ; to turn one's back upon a busy city and seek quiet and bracing air in a lovely island where the mercury never rises into the three-figure stage and " brickfielders" are unknown, is a treat such as most people who have stayed in the Victorian capital in the height of summer know well how to appreciate. A week of glare and dust following immediately upon the fresh cool breezes of a three months' voyage made us long to quit the city until the advent of autumn should enable us to see it under more favourable circumstances. ACROSS TASMANIA. 27 Tasmania is a favourite resort of Victorians in the holiday season, and our little steamer Tamar is most inconveniendy crowded, and begins badly by running ashore halfway down the Yarra and re- maining a good half-hour in the mud. This seems to please most of the passengers ; but not so the Rip outside the Heads, which we reach as the sun is setting in a grand blaze of gold and crimson behind the Western mountains. Between Points Lonsdale and Nepean the Hobson's Bay and ocean tides meet, and there is always a " lop" on the water. This is augmented to-night by a fresh head- wind, and the slight southerly swell is sufficient to enable the majority of our fellow-passengers to settle their accounts with Neptune without trouble or delay. In fact, judging from the noises which make night hideous throughout and almost banish sleep, the bouyant motion of the Tamar finds favour with few. The distance between Melbourne and Launceston is but 280 miles, and all the morning the high land in the north-west of Tasmania is rising cloud- like on our starboard-bow. At two p.m. we are off the Heads, and can take a long look at the line of coast. Far as the eye can reach, eastward and westward, 28 ACKOSS TASMANIA. the land trends in swelling hills, rising from the very shore to the blue mountains in the inland distance. No precipitous cliffs frown over the Straits ; but the undulating hills, green with bush and scrub almost to the water's edge, run down as it were to be kissed by the dancing waves. But there has been a drought in Tasmania for the last three weeks, and some hours before entering the mouth of the river Tamar the clouds of smoke overhanging the island told us of numerous bush-fires. There is scarcely a hill along the coast that does not bear the aspect of a volcano, here by a thin column of light blue vapour, there by sharp tongues of flame visible miles off even in the full blaze of the noonday sun. After passing Low Head Lighthouse, and getting fairly into the river, we steam through Lagoon Bay — an excellent anchorage for wind-bound vessels — and, rounding a low point of land, come suddenly upon George Town — a tiny watering place quite in the northern wilds. The scenery now is diversified at every bend of the river; here we glide quietly along beneath a cliff of rugged brown rock beetling over the water, and five minutes later we emerge from its shadow into a broad lake-like reach, whence the country can be viewed for miles. At one time ACROSS TASMANIA. 29 all around us is dense forest, at another we pass a little hut amongst the trees, and further on come upon cleared land and an occasional farmhouse. In several places the scenery on the river is not unlike that on the Dart above Dittisham, and now and then one might fancy oneself in one of the beautiful upper reaches of Milford Haven. It is forty miles from the Heads up to Launceston, approaching which several prettily-situated country houses are visible close to the banks of the river, whilst the romantic gorge of the South Esk, spanned by a graceful single arch, is on the steamer's starboard bow as she swings round the last jutting point of marshy land and is warped up to the quay. Launceston, which, as viewed from a distant reach on the Tamar, had a pretty and picturesque appear- ance, loses somewhat in point of attraction on a nearer approach. The greater part of the town is built on the low land where the North and South Esk rivers unite to form the Tamar, and has nothing whatever to commend it, the streets being on a dead flat and the houses scattered about in very straggling fashion. Vessels of 500 tons can come up to the quay ; but the expenses of towage and pilotage are considerable, and there seems to be 3o ACROSS TASMANIA. but little trade to the port. The streets in the chief part of Launceston are broad and well paved, laid out at right angles, as is usual in the colonies, and contain the well-built public edifices and churches which speak of a populous country town. The hotels however, as far as our own experience goes, are decidedly not what one expects to find in a place of this size, for Launceston boasts of ten thousand inhabitants, and is second only to the capital in importance. The shops in Launceston are good, but there seem very few people about the streets to keep them all going. But the charm of the town lies in the villas with which the hills at the back are terraced. Most of them are prettily built and stuccoed, with long, cool-looking verandahs, and in nearly every case they are surrounded with large and well-kept gardens, and shaded by the heavy foliage of weeping willows. The green lawns, shady shrubberies, and trim flower-beds have a most refreshing and home- like appearance after the glare and dust of Mel- bourne streets. The Botanical Gardens are neat and pretty, but do not boast of an elaborate display of flora. The Launceston people have also varied the monotony of their streets by laying out a well-planted ACROSS TASMANIA. 31 square, in the centre of which an elegant fountain of French manufacture is constantly playing. From the west-end of the town a steep hill rises abruptly, its northern face forming one of the rugged cliffs of the South Esk gorge. To climb this hill is no easy work on a hot summer's day, but the summit gained, great is the climber s reward. The town lies beneath, sleeping quietly ; beyond it stretch miles of rich cornfields, through which wind the Tamar and North Esk like tiny silver threads ; and far away on the horizon Ben Lomond looms dim and blue against the sky. Facing westward, a very different prospect meets the eye. A succession of rugged hills, covered with scrub and gum-trees, enclose the South Esk in a tortuous rocky bed, down which it makes its way seaward in a series of small cataracts, diversified by deep, still pools, very enticing to a fisherman — a thorough bush scene, and a vivid contrast to the cultivated country visible from the same standpoint This view — commonly called the Cataracts — is really the only lion of Launceston proper, but another is within a six-mile drive. And certainly no visitor should leave the north of the island with- out having seen Corra Linn, of which the guide 3a * ACJiOSS TASMANIA. book says that " few spots in all Tasmania have won such universal admiration!" Leaving the outlying villas and gardens of Launceston, the road passes along the side of a slope overlooking a tract of country not unlike the Weald of Kent as viewed from Riverhead. Fertile cornfields are on every side, rich in stubble high enough to rejoice the heart of any partridge-shooter if he could only meet with it in an English county, and enclosed by thick haw- thorn hedges, which are generally untrimmed, and abound with wild flowers and creepers innumerable. The homesteads, comfortable-looking white houses, surrounded by their barns and stackyards, lie snugly nestled amongst their orchards and poplars, and complete the thoroughly English appearance of the landscape. It is only here and there that some old gum-tree, solitary survivor of the bush, rears its naked white limbs to the sky, and reminds us that, though looking around, we might almost imagine ourselves in Kent, yet we are really in Tasmania. After a drive of four miles we pass through a little village, now named St Leonards, but amongst early colonists still known as Patterson's Plains, and two miles more along a rough and dusty road, and we are at Corra Linn. The view from the bridge ACHOSS TASMANIA. 33 that spans the river is indeed picturesque and pretty, and the miniature gorge forms one of the most romantic little bits of scenery imaginable. Through a beautifully wooded ravine of basaltic rocks the North Esk comes tumbling and foaming over huge boulders in a succession of tiny waterfalls. Looking up stream from the bridge all is foam and tumbling water, but, immediately below it, is a deep still pool, over the unruffled surface of which the huge dragonflies are flitting busily, whilst on the broad smooth stones amongst the tea-tree scrub around its banks the lizards bask in the warm sum- mer sunshine. Fern fronds droop gracefully into the still water, wild flowers grow in rich luxuriance at the foot of the cliffs, and up the sloping banks a wilderness of sweetbriar, flowering shrubs and creeper hedges in the ravine with a hundred vary- ing tints of colour. Another fifty yards of brown boulders, rushing water and creamy foam, and then the river turns abruptly to the right, and flows deep and still beneath the gloomy shadow of a grey lichen-covered cliff, a hundred feet in sheer height, to lose itself in the quiet meadows below. The vivid contrasts at the various turns of the gorge, the changes from sloping terraces of shrubs D 34 ACROSS TASMANIA. and ferns to stern precipitous cliffs, from brawling rapids to deep rippleless pools, the bright brown water and smooth boulders suggestive of a Cornish stream, and the exquisite colouring of the grey and green and dead-leaf tints, all combine to form a scene of fairylike loveliness at Corra Linn. One may well accept it as the gem of Northern Tas- manian scenery. Living in Launceston is decidedly cheap. House rent does not shape after the Melbourne model ; beef is only $d., and mutton ^d. a pound, fowls are at two shillings and ducks at half-a-crown a couple ; whilst, when any are obtainable — a matter of no little difficulty after a long drought — vegetables cost next to nothing, though they seem hardly of as good a flavour as in England, green peas especially suffer- ing by the comparison. Butter varies considerably, a month's drought bringing it up from sixpence to one shilling and ninepence a pound. Fish are fairly plentiful ; mullet, salmon-trout, and flounders espe- cially so. The bread appears very pure, and much whiter than the usual run of loaves in England. Hops grow well in various parts of the island, and there are several flourishing breweries, the Hobart Town beer being especially worthy of a favourable AC&OSS TASMANIA. 35 notice. , Judging from these short notes on the current prices at Launceston in the summer, it will be seen that one can live there on English food at half of the English cost, and there appears to be but little poverty or distress amongst the lower classes. Such being the case, it was annoying to have an instance of juvenile cadging brought before my notice, on stepping out of my hotel the morning after our arrival in Tasmania. Before having walked five yards, I was surrounded by some half-a-dozen unwashed young specimens of the city Arab class, who, pulling vigorously at their dirty forelocks, shouted " Give us a copper, sir," with considerable pertinacity and impudence. Of course they saw in me a traveller or a new arrival in the colony : I should not give them credit for much acuteness if I were to fancy otherwise, but why should they beg ? I had been told before I landed in Australia that I should find begging unknown in the colonies, and during a stay of ten days in Melbourne I never saw a beggar or heard a single application for money. Who then taught these young scapegraces the only too well-known English cry for " a copper?" And can it be wondered at that when I showed them a thick Tasmanian walkingstick and threatened d % 36 ACROSS TASMANIA. summary proceedings, they shouted " Yah, would yer ?" like a genuine London street boy ? Launceston is the sleepiest of sleepy places : I cannot remember ever to have visited another town of ten thousand inhabitants wherein there were so few signs of life. Shortly after our visit it was awakened to a certain extent by several days of rioting and window-breaking, on account of the enforced pay- ment of the Government Railway rate, but although this ebullition thoroughly roused the mayor and burgesses, I must decline to look upon it as having enlivened the town in at all an attractive manner. We enjoyed a fair morning's fishing from a boat moored in the Tamar, about a quarter of a mile from the beautiful South Esk gorge, -catching forty- three mullet and salmon-trout, but none of them of more than half a pound weight. Duck may be got at Pig Island, about three miles down the river, and the morning before we left I saw a couple of fine pelican that had been shot there at sunrise, but from all we could learn, there was not sufficient prospect of sport to detain us. Leaving Launceston Station by the midday train on the only railway in the colony, we pass through good agricultural country for many miles. It has ACROSS TASMANIA. 37 been a hot and dry summer, and the corn is all cut and ready to be carried here in the North, though we are only in the last week of January. Of root crops we see but a single field of turnips, and owing to the want of rain, these are small and patchy. Round Longford the soil is said to be very good for corn, but many farms have been quite ruined for want of manure, the farmer simply working out all the strength and goodness of the ground, apparently considering that it requires no fertilization. In some parts so great was the richness of the soil, that it bore good crops for more than twenty years without being manured. Until recently many farmers looked upon straw as useless, and actually took the trouble to collect it into huge stacks and burn it They are grown wiser in their generation now. However, some of the land in the midlands is com- pletely worked out, and whereas uncleared bush land in the immediate neighbourhood was selling readily at 16/. an acre, many of the farms could not find buyers at 10/. Coming up the Tamar, we passed several clearings that had been worked out and then deserted for fresh virgin soil, and indeed the policy of the early settlers in this district would appear to have been literally suicidal. 38 ACROSS TASMANIA. The whole country through which we are travel- ling is completely burnt up, and except along the banks of some little stream scarcely a green blade is visible. The grass fields are as white as the stubble, and the application of a match would cause them to flare up like wildfire. Both sheep and cattle are wofully poor in condition in consequence, for they can scarcely find any feed at all in the fields, and the state of the pasturage would fairly open the eyes of an English farmer, to whom the privations suffered by stock in the course of a pro- tracted drought are almost unknown. The first sod of the Launceston and Western Railway was turned by H.R.H. the Duke of Edin- burgh in January, 1868, and the line, which comes to an end at Deloraine, forty-five miles from Laun- ceston, has now been open three years. We are told that it pays, but there seems but little traffic, only three trains each way running daily. The directors are certainly economical in the way of staff at the various stations, one man appearing to act in the several capacities of station-master, ticket- clerk, porter, and switchman. The fares are much the same as in England, but the trains travel very slowly, and are usually behind time. There seems ACROSS TASMANIA. 39 a good deal of unnecessary delay at the stations, and the engine not unfrequently goes on a cruise by itself to a distant siding, returning after a few minutes with a truck or two laden with gum-tree logs. Perhaps if after this fashion goods and passenger trains were made up together in England, there would not be so much shunting done just before an express is due, and there might be fewer accidents. Unfortunately " if" does not always introduce a possibility. Our train in this instance having killed time to the extent of two hours and twenty minutes in running thirty-five miles, deposits us at last in West- bury. We had been led to believe, in reply to our inquiries at Launceston, and in consequence of the high-flown language of the guide-book, that West- bury was quite an important and lively little country town, and in the centre of "eminently a. sporting district" But we live to be undeceived, and the real truth was plain for all eyes to see in the course of our drive to the hotel. The important little town is nothing more than the tiniest of country villages ; indeed, were it not for the railway station, the church, and the post-office, it would hardly soar above the level of an ordinary English hamlet. 40 ACROSS TASMANIA. Westbury, however, has considerable advantages of position and climate. The little township is situated at the head of a valley, and commands an admirable view of the bold mountain ranges to the south and west; Dry's Bluff, Quamby Bluff, and Roland's Repulse, each exceeding 4000 feet in height, standing out prominently in the blue dis- tance. We are more than 800 feet above sea level, and the air is fresh and bracing — a real treat after the sultry heat in hill-embosomed Launceston. Near the town — if so it must be called — all the gum- trees have been "ringed," that is, have had their bark cut through just above the ground, in order that the sap may not flow upwards, and thus the tree may die, and be the more easily cleared off the ground. The result of this is, that acres of dead gum-trees are rearing gaunt white branches to the sky, and the prospect is weird rather than pretty. The English church, built by the convicts some thirty years ago, has a neat and airy interior ; the service is very nicely conducted, and it is pleasing to hear "Hymns Ancient and Modern" in the midlands of Tasmania. The parsonage rejoices in a lovely view, and, thanks to the kind hospitality of the Rev. Montague Williams, here we spend a very pleasant ACROSS TASMANIA. 41 evening, and learn much about the flora of the district. The bush-fires are spreading terribly, and from the lawn, after sunset, we can plainly distinguish a line of flame extending for several miles along the southern tiers. These fires are in many cases most expen- sive to the owner of the run which they devastate, burning the fences and occasionally getting into a crop of standing corn. But as long "as they confine their attentions to the bush, they do more good than harm, as they destroy all the dry worthless scrub and underwood, in the place of which a fresh green growth, which affords excellent feed for sheep and cattle, springs up after the first fall of rain. There is little to be said of Westbury in its capa- city of township. I talked the matter over with the proverbial " old inhabitant," and heard that Westbury is not what it used to be, that there is little doing, and the place is retrograding rather than advancing with the times. " It's the railway 'as done the mischief, sir," said he, stroking a well-trimmed white moustache, and puffing savagely at a short black pipe ; " Westbury used to be a centre for all the produce round to be brought into, but now all goes up to town by the line, and no one comes near us." 42 ACROSS TASMANIA. And certainly as regards the township, I may well quote the lines of Mr. Robert Buchanan : — " Nothing coming, nothing going, Locusts grating, one cock crowing, Few things moving up or down, All things drowsy — Drowsietown !" There is an amusing old ostler at our hotel, a man whom age or chronic rheumatism has bent into the form of the letter C. He seduces me from my matutinal stroll in the garden, and takes me to see him feed the kangaroo. He evidently knows how to spin a yarn, and I draw him out. Accepting my proffered tobacco, he eyes me curiously and begins. " Thirty years agone, sir, I come into Westbury every morning to my work, and along with me come a dog, a cat, a pet lamb, and a tame kangaroo. The dog, the lamb, and the kangaroo they come right into the township with me, and stayed by me all day, but the cat never come beyond the last bush- fence. There she rested till I passed by going home of an evening, and then she jumped out of the fence, and trotted away through the bush with the rest of us— a queer lot, surelie ! Wonderful fond them things was of me too — wonderful fond ! ACROSS TASMANIA. 43 dog, cat, lamb, and kangaroo, and I never knew 'em quarrel." Whilst at Westbury we go by rail to Deloraine, and find it the prettiest place we have yet seen. It is built on the slope of a gently-swelling hill, at the foot of which " A broad brook brawls o'er a shingly bed." Close to the end of the village a winding valley runs up among the densely-wooded hills, high above which Quamby Bluff towers ruddy in the sunlight. At present the terminus of the line is here, and, to judge from the look of the bush to the westward, at present the march of civilization ends here too. Chudleigh, however, lies beyond this apparently end- less bush, with the celebrated caves which we have not the time to visit, and I learn of a new settle- ment, Elizabeth Town, on the road to the north- west coast. On inquiry we ascertain that this new township as yet consists of only two houses, a public-house and a police station. In reality, west- ward of Deloraine up to the seaboard there is scarcely a single human being. A day's journey suffices to reach the region of trackless forests, where the gum-trees grow to the height of over 44 ACROSS TASMANIA. — _ 300 feet, and beneath them is scarcely a sign of life. In these forests one might wander for days and weeks without coming across a single human being, and there are more instances than one of men being lost in the bush, of whom, in spite of the efforts of active searching parties, no trace has ever been discovered. It would be utter madness for any one but an experienced bushman to attempt even a day's exploration of the depths of these gloomy forests. An excursion with a guide to the district will enable one to form some idea of their extent and the enormous size attained by the trees, but no one whom duty did not lead there would dream of trying, to penetrate into their recesses. Mr. Calder, a great explorer in Tasmania, made the ascent of Roland's Repulse, a mountain more than 4000 feet in height, some years ago, and reported that he "saw nothing but one appa- rently boundless ocean of forests, an interminable desert of trees, as stern and dusky-looking as if it had rained nothing but soot on them through all time." In several parts of the north-west district grassy plains extend for miles, and as much as 160,000 acres of land were taken up by the Van Diemen's ACROSS TASMANIA. 45 . $-, Land Company, but the pasturage is said not to support stock nearly so well as the inferior-looking grass of the midland counties. Much of the land, too, is so swampy as to be almost worthless, and though the forest land here is very rich, the expense of clearing it is so great as to prevent its being taken up. To Circular Head, the farthest settlement along the north-west coast, steamers run weekly from Launceston, and the line from Deloraine will probably in a few years be extended in this direc- tion, but at present all but the sea-coast is a mere wilderness. There are clearings on a small scale here and there, but the want of inland communica- tion almost puts a stop to the extension of civiliza- tion westward. The construction of roads through trackless forests is a matter of time as well as money, and Tasmanians say that it has taken all the spare labour of the colony sixty years to open up a quarter of the island. It is believed that as yet there are not more than forty persons living along the entire length of the western seaboard. As Westbury has been retrograding, so Delo- raine has been advancing with the times. There are evident signs of increasing prosperity as we walk along the straggling main street, which lies 46 ACHOSS TASMANIA. * terrace-like on the sloping hill above the shallow Meander. Houses are springing up, new shops and stores are being opened, and there is an air of life and activity about the township which tells of pro- gress.. We regret that we cannot spend a few days here, for it is by far the most picturesque spot that we have yet visited. The Meander and Mersey teem with freshwater herrings, and there should be plenty of brush kangaroo and small game in the bush. We cannot hear of any sport at Westbury, but see two splendid setters and a host of workman- like wear-and-tear-looking kangaroo dogs. These latter appear to have a good deal of the English grey- hound breed in tnem, but are heavier, deeper in the flank, and rather coarse-looking by comparison. As a rule they have a very intelligent-looking head, and a great reputation for speed and gameness. The only sport at Westbury seems to be skittles. I am awoke shortly after dawn by a heavy rolling noise, winding up with a loud bang, which is re- peated at short intervals. I listen intently. Can it be distant thunder ? No — and in these civilized times it can hardly be the breaking in of the back door by bushrangers. At last " skittles" flashes to my mind, and I sink back upon my pillows astonished ACROSS TASMANIA. 47 but convinced. I charge the landlord next time we meet, but he smiles incredulously, and denies the impeachment in toto. However, I mean to hold to my belief that two young townsmen of Westbury had a discussion over their Saturday evening beer as to their respective capabilities in the skittle line, and determined to settle the matter before six o'clock on Monday morning should summon them again to work. From Westbury we travel east by rail to Perth, a tiny village on the main road, and here we hap upon comfortable quarters at an hotel, the landlord whereof is celebrated in the colony as a crack shot and successful floriculturist. Before now he has killed thirty-five out of thirty-six pigeons in a public match, and a Tasmanian bird will fly as fast as the best blue rocks ever trapped at Hurlingham. His little garden boasts more flowers than all the gar- dens we have seen in the colony put together, and is brilliant with colour in spite of the long drought. His zinnias, petunias, verbenas, and gladioli are particularly fine, and he is a frequent prize-winner at Hobart Town and Launceston flower-shows. He is anxious to show us some sport, and invites us to join him and a friend, and have a day's 43 ACROSS TASMANIA. kangaroo shooting. We accept gladly, and ten o'clock next morning, a fresh breezy day, finds us, with guns and luncheon and a boy to carry the game, bowling merrily over Perth Bridge. We drive for some six miles along the main road through parched-up pastures, from which the stock have long been driven, and then turn off on to the turf of an extensive sheep run. In parts this is thoroughly cleared of timber, and covered with thick tussocks of grass as dry as tinder, through which the native hens are running like landrails ; in other places the fern is spreading a bright green carpet knee-high under the dark foliage of wattle and honeysuckle, * in which the gaudy paroquets and magpies are chattering busily, heedless of our approach. We wend our way through small copses of wattle-trees, beneath many of which the bark, so valuable for tanning, is lying in large bundles, and after passing a long waterhole which with its reedy surroundings call up visions of duck and snipe, enjoy a drive of nearly a mile up a beautiful glade of thoroughly park-like scenery. At the end of this a rough log fence crosses the run, and here we are to camp. The horses are soon taken out, and the boy ACROSS TASMANIA. 49 mounted on one of them to accompany our host and his friend, and carry any game that may be bagged whilst they beat the cover. Novelli and I are directed to make a detour of half a mile and station ourselves close to a bush fence, through the gaps in which the kangaroo are expected to attempt an escape. At midday we are at our posts, a hundred yards apart, awaiting the approach of the beaters. A quarter of an hour elapses, I hear a distant shot, and the next minute the regular beat of a kangaroo's hind legs through the dense undergrowth. But he seeks fresh fields in another direction than mine, and I see him cross a glade in the bush and disappear a hundred yards from my gun. For two long hours we remain at our posts, expectant to the last, but unrewarded. The sun beats hotly down in spite of the fresh breeze which is bending the tops of the taller gum- trees, and nothing happens to vary the monotony of leaning against a post-and-rail fence, and gazing intently into a thick scrub of wattle saplings, rushes, and fern. At last the beaters make their appear- ance and report the killing of three kangaroo and. a big snake. The high wind they say spoils the sport, and we, who have seen none, are not disin- 5o ACHOSS TASMANIA. clined to agree with them. We return to camp and make short work of an excellent lunch. This and the necessary amount of tobacco having been duly discussed, I start with Mr. R. and his friend for another part of the bush, about a mile distant. Here we separate, each taking a line of his own, but still no success attends our efforts. As for myself I wander hither and thither for a couple of hours, and see nothing but numerous snakes. The scenery varies occasionally, but never enough for a view to be obtained of more than a couple of hundred yards of bush. At one time I am crossing a dried-up marsh thick with rushes, at another forcing my way through a thicket of dead lichen- covered she-oak, swarming with thousands of orange butterflies, netted with huge spiders'-webs, and so dense that it is impossible to see more than ten yards in front Of course I lose myself completely, and my companions too, but that was only to be ex- pected, and after an hour of " cooee" and shrill whistling, I get an answer to my signals, and rejoin the party. No one has added to the morning's bag, only one 6r two kangaroo and wallaby having been seen, and these being very wild. We put in the horses, break up our camp, and are soon again ACROSS TASMANIA. 51 at Perth. And so ends our first day with the kan- garoo, uneventful in the way of sport, but still an enjoyable ramble into the bush. A couple of days later we leave Perth, and for the first time try coach travelling in Tasmania. The vehicle to which we entrust ourselves is drawn by five horses, carries nine inside, and resembles nothing in the world but a circus-waggon. It capsized a month ago on St. Peter's Pass, and killed a pas- senger. Its ungainly dimensions and indifferent team of horses do not commend it to our notice, and a reputation for manslaughter is hardly in its favour. But our luggage is on the roof, and the coachman is shouting, " All aboard," with an amount of energy which is apparently quite unnecessary. We board at once, the ship pitches heavily twice, gives a lurch to port and then to starboard, and we are under weigh. And so, with a large amount of rolling, varied with an occasional pitch, we journey southwards at the rate of eight miles an hour. All Page's coaches — Page is the Cobb of Tasmania — are fortunately not of this build, and the mail, which bears a fair resemblance to an English coach, covers the one hundred and twenty-six miles be- tween Hobart Town and Launceston in thirteen £ 2 52 ACROSS TASMANIA. and a half hours, very good travelling considering the hilly character of the country. The horses are poor to look at, but do their work satisfactorily, and, if properly groomed, several of them would pass muster in the teams that during the summer months leave London daily for Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, and Dorking. The northern-midland country is mostly pastoral, and at this time presents the appearance of a sue cession of stubble fields. But there is much to admire in the dim distance, the last rays of the setting sun shining softly on the eastern mountain ranges, and casting a ruddy glow over the preci- pitous crags of majestic Ben Lomond, twenty miles away. Epping Forest, through which the main road passes for several miles, is very different from our Epping Forest, dear to the hearts of smoke- dried Londoners. It is very thick scrubby bush, and as we drive rapidly through it we can see that the bush fires have in many places made a clean sweep of the fencing for several hundred yards. It is pitch dark as we change horses for our stage into Campbell Town, and this last hour's drive is not so pleasant, as the dust, thanks to a following wind, completely envelops the leaders, even the ACROSS TASMANIA. 53 coachman confessing himself unable to make them out through the whirling cloud. However, the coach keeps the road, and we pull up at the chief township in the midlands very stiff and an hour behind time. The next day is Sunday, and we repair to the English church for morning service. Eleven o'clock passes, and still there are no signs of mi- nister or congregation. At last a lady appears and informs us that the incumbent is away, that the Scotch church is not open, and that " it is not the morning for the Wesleyans !" Is not this rather an anomalous state of things for the principal town of Central Tasmania ? Campbell Town boasts nothing in the way of scenery or attractions to tempt us to stay, nor does the accommodation at our hotel prepossess us in its favour. So ten o'clock next morning finds us again journeying southwards on one of Page's coaches. The soil hereabouts is not suitable for agricultural purposes, and sheep-runs extend for miles. After passing through Ross, a neat little township with a pretty English church, we get a distant view of Mona Vale, the seat of Mr. Kermode, and reputed the handsomest country house in Tasmania. Here 54 ACROSS TASMANIA. we enter upon a long valley, after leaving Horton College, the chief school in the centre of the island, on the right, and for an hour have really nothing to look at but burnt-up pastures, the scenery, here decidedly uninteresting, being inferior to that of any other part of the main road. Long teams of bullocks, drawing waggons heavily laden with farm produce, meet us now and then, and call up memories of the Sussex downs, where oxen still do much of the work which in other counties is usually allotted to horses. Having passed the halfway inn, where we meet the down coach from Hobart Town, we have uphill work for some half-a-dozen miles through St. Peter's Pass, and then emerge from amongst the hills to find our- selves at Oatlands, and the coach stopping for dinner. a Oatlands is built upon the western shore of Lake Dulverton, and is at an elevation of more than 1300 feet above the sea. It boasts a gaol and a windmill, and as far as outward signs of prosperity go, has a very decided advantage over its northern rival, Campbell Town. Here, the hotel being scrupulously clean and comfortable, we stay a couple of days, though there is nothing to be seen in the neighbour- hood, and nothing to be done but shoot rabbits. ACHOSS TASMANIA. 55 The sun-heat is considerable, but the wind cold and cutting, and far from summer-like ; whilst, owing to the numerous bush fires, all the country round is obscured by a gloomy pall of smoke. Two hours by coach brings us to Melton Mowbray, and an hotel well known for good accommodation and the capital shooting that is obtainable within easy distance. From the summit of Spring Hill, which we descend for five miles, half way between Oatlands and Melton, one has a grand view of the mountain ranges of Southern Tasmania — tier beyond tier extending into the dim distance, where Mount Wel- lington frowns over the blue waters of the Derwent After a day at Melton, we drive the last thirty-three miles into Hobart Town without any further loiter- ing on the main road. Scriptural names obtain in this district : we have already passed Jericho and Lake Tiberias, and now cross the Jordan and leave Jerusalem on our left Three miles of gradual descent of Constitution Hill, and we are at Bagdad, and for an hour drive along a fertile valley, shut in by thickly wooded ranges, and containing many pro- sperous-looking stations. At Bridgewater, twelve miles from the capital, we get a lovely view of the valley of the Derwent, and cross the river by a 56 ACROSS TASMANIA. bridge and long causeway, the distance from bank to bank being here about half a mile. The last twelve miles are far more attractive than all the rest of the road between Launceston and Hobart Town. On the left the Derwent opens into numberless bays and creeks, and winds in and out of its bold background of mountains and hills, amongst farms, orchards, and hop-gardens ; whilst on the right the swelling pastures rise in easy slopes to the densely-timbered heights and gullies of the tier which culminates above Hobart Town in the noble Mount Wellington. Behind us Mount Dromedary stands boldly out against the sunset sky, across the Derwent Mount Direction rears itself in an abrupt peak from out the bush which clothes the river banks, and before us the monarch of the southern ranges, crowned with wreaths of cloud, towers sublime above all. The scenery here is indeed beautiful, but our horses are anxions to get their work done, and we have but little time to enjoy a series of lovely views. Below us Hobart Town lies nestling down by the sea, and our long coach journey across Tasmania has come to an end at last. CHAPTER IV. AN EXCURSION TO THE TASMANIAN LAKES. Hindrances to Visiting the Lake District — Stella — The Main Road — Melton Mowbray and Rabbit-shooting — Antill Ponds Foige — Our Blacksmith and Guide — His Appearance, Con- versation, and Horsemanship — Ascent of the Western Tiers — "A Good Road" — Almost a Catastrophe — A Tableland Forest — A First Look at the Lakes-^5teve, the Bridge-keeper — Scenery of Lake Sorell and Lake Crescent at Sunset — Interlaken — Stock-driving in the Lake District — Lake St. Clair — The Great Lake — A Day's Drive through the Forest — Both- well— The Falls of the Clyde. THE lake district is a terra incognita, not only to ninety-nine of every hundred visitors to Tasmania, but even to ninety-nine of every hundred Tasmanians. And there are valid reasons for this being the case — difficulty of access and want of accommodation, which in combination are said to be sufficient to deter most people from penetrating into the recesses of the mountains. But those who think little of the roughness of bush roads, and are ready to camp out, or share the shelter of a log hut with a solitary shepherd, will be well rewarded for their 58 AN EXCURSION TO trouble. They must go fully prepared to lose their way and have to pass a night in the bush, but wher- ever they may chance upon a station or hut, they may safely reckon upon a hospitable reception. Before I have been a week in Hobart Town one of our fellow-passengers in the Lord Warden calls on us, to propose a trip to the Lakes. He is on the look-out for a sheep-run, and wishes to visit some Government land round Lake Crescent. Novelli is not strong enough for the excursion, but I am glad of the opportunity of seeing some scenery, of which a good deal of capital is made by Tasma- nians. Our preparations are completed in a few hours. S. has just bought a very likely-looking mare, with a good " barrel " and plenty of bone below the knee, both of which points so often go a long way towards telling the working capabilities of a horse. Stella is a five-year-old, and before our trip is half over, we are both ready to swear by her as a star of the first magnitude. We hire a light chaise-cart, and having stowed our light luggage, guns, axe, raw-hide and rope for mending broken harness, and the inevitable "billy" or tin pot for tea-making, set off late in the afternoon for our first stage of seventeen miles. The weather .is not THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 59 auspicious. It has been showery for the last three days, and Mount Wellington is still capped with rain-clouds. All is gloom over head, and a driving Scotch mist necessitates an early recourse to macin- toshes. Keeping to the main road, along which we have to travel sixty miles before turning off into the bush, Stella covers the seventeen miles in an hour and fifty minutes without feeling the whip, and we pull up for the night at Brighton, a small village on the banks of the Jordan. Small game is plentiful at our inn, and we are glad enough to turn out soon after sunrise to go over a sheep-run before breakfast Similar work takes up the morning, and in the afternoon we drive another seventeen-mile stage to Melton Mowbray. Rabbits swarm in this neighbourhood, and a couple of guns killed forty-two in half an hour, shortly before our arrival. We do a little execution amongst them before our breakfast is ready, and that morning drive twenty miles to Oatlands, which we find in a great state of bustle owing to a large sale of stock. We attend this for a few minutes, and see several hundred sheep change owners at eight shillings a-head — an extraordinary price to English ears. We then dive into the bush to the north of Lake Dulverton, and in the course of a 6o AN EXCURSION TO walk through pretty park-like glades, come upon two lonely little lakes, over which a flight of herons are slowly winging their way, whilst far out of gun- shot two or three wild duck seem to sleep on the still water. Having laid in a stock of * provisions, we make an early start next morning, and drive ten miles over St. Peter's Pass to Antill Ponds. We are now half way across the island, and have done with the main road for the present. Stella, however, has cast a shoe, and we seek a farrier to replace it. The loss of this shoe turns out a real blessing to us, for had we not lighted so opportunely upon a forge and its worthy owner, it is doubtful whether we should have ever got to the Lakes at all. The blacksmith waxes communicative over his work, and expresses unbounded astonishment on hearing that we purpose driving, or attempting to drive, a chaise-cart over the western Tiers. Now we did not set out on this trip without having first made inquiries as to the state of the roads over which we were about to travel, and the replies were invariably the same — that the roads were good but steep. This we tell the blacksmith, but he only shakes his head incredulously. THE TASMANI AN LAKES. 61 "Trust me, sir, and I'll not deceive you. I've been here fifteen years, and never seen a chaise-cart go up the Tiers yet, though I've been up them a-foot or on my old mare many a score times. You might get up in time with your mare, but 'twould take all the heart out of her for good — and that's truth." He speaks earnestly, and with the air of one experienced in bush travelling, concluding with an offer to accompany us on his own mare, so as to be able to drive tandem up the mountain range. With this we gladly close, and, as it is now noon, and hard work is in store for all, we give Stella a feed, and sit down ourselves to an impromptu lunch in the cottage. The blacksmith's wife is no mean cook, and we do ample justice to some rashers of excellent bacon and potatoes, which succulent dish is faced by a substantial apple-pudding and flanked by a huge pot of tea. An hour after midday we are again en route ; the blacksmith throws his saddle over his old bay mare, without waiting to fasten the girth, vaults on her back, and leads the way out of the yard. A few hundred yards along the main road, and we turn sharp to the left into a field. Little did we dream when consulting the map previously to starting, that 62 AN EXCURSION TO the "good road" to the Lakes was at the very- outset no better than a mere neglected cart-track across a sheep-run and barred by a rough bush-gate. For five miles we trot steadily over level plains, sparsely timbered and parched to a bright yellow, travelling parallel with the mountain tiers, which a couple of miles to the westward rise steeply, clad to the summit with thick gum forest. Here and there we pass through a plot of grain, ripe and ready for the sickle ; but far as the eye can range over the plains there is but little variation from the monotony of scanty dried-up herbage. The drive, however, is really enjoyable. It is a true Tasmanian summer's day, the sun shines hotly down, but its rays are tempered by a pleasant cooling breeze, and our guide turns out a most cheery companion. Dressed in moleskin trousers and flannel shirt, his appearance is that of a thorough bushman as he canters along by the side of our cart, his rough brigand's hat set jauntily over one ear, and a raw- hide whip carried sabre-like over his right shoulder. He is a practised horseman, too, and on two occasions sits back well over his mare's tail and takes the saddle off her back, readjusting it with perfect ease and success, in spite of continued efforts on the part THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 63 of Kate, whom he is keeping at a fast canter all the while, to unseat him. He is as communicative as he is amusing, never allowing the conversation to flag, and asking as many questions about England as we about Tasmania. He is as merry as a schoolboy out for a day's holiday, or a sailor enjoying a shilling ride on Southsea Common, and every now and then puts his mare at a fence and dashes off into the bush to scatter magpies and parrots right and left with his shrill whisde, returning after a few minutes' wild gallop to make some fresh inquiries into English life and English field-sports. Five miles from the main road we meet another track, and at once head straight for the mountains. Here the road runs between two fences enclosing different runs, and we work our way slowly amongst numerous boulders and fallen trees, passing within a couple of hundred yards of a large bush fire, the flames of which are plainly visible through a vista of gum-trees and wattle scrub. After proceeding a couple of miles downhill, into a valley running parallel with the Tiers, we come to a halt at their foot for a few minutes' rest under the scant shade of a huge white gum. We look up some 3000 feet of 64 AN EXCURSION TO forest-clad mountain, up which the rock-strewn track winds steeply, and are fain to confess to our guide that the prospect for the springs of a chaise cart is but a poor one. To the right Mount Franklin rises abruptly, its summit towering to the height of nearly 3600 feet above the sea level, and our road seemsto pass almost directly across it. But nothing daunted we set to work to strengthen the harness in various places with wire, raw hide, and rope, the blacksmith puts his mare on tandem-fashion in front of Stella, we doff coats, waistcoats, collars and scarves, and are ready for the ascent. The blacksmith, whip in hand, leads Kate, S. is at Stella's head, and I, behind the cart, bring up the rear, carrying a huge stone to stop the wheels in case of accident. To the right of the road at starting the ground falls away into a rugged creek, at the bottom of which a tiny mountain stream trickles over a rocky bed beneath arches of fern and wild flowers. On its sloping banks numbers of rabbits are basking in the sunshine, and Tom, a black and tan proUg4 of the blacksmith, wearies himself in many fruitless courses through the dense bush. All around is thick forest, the various species of eucalyptus grow- ing in their usual profusion and raggedness. Cab- THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 65 bage gum saplings seem numerous enough to supply all Tasmania with hop-poles, and the bright red of their fading leaves, mingling with the graceful light green foliage of the wild cherry, forms an agreeable contrast to the brownish hues which always charac- terize an Australian forest. If we mean to surmount the Tiers before night closes in, we must not waste time ; and, as fast travelling will be easier work for the horses, we start at a good round pace, taking spells of rest about every ten minutes. Stella and Kate work well together, but the latter is getting lazy in her old age, and needs frequent reminders with the whip. For an hour we progress steadily and monotonously on our uphill trudge without incident or casualty, till, coming to an abrupt turn in the road where the incline is about one in four, and " a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull altogether" is absolutely necessary for the safety of the cart, Kate, disregard- ing her owner's voice and whip, lays her ears back, plunges violently to the side of the track, and makes for the bush. The off-wheel trembles for an instant on the verge of a steep descent of a dozen feet or more into a wilderness of boulders and tree-trunks, another such plunge, and cart, leader, wheeler, F 66 AN EXCURSION TO and all will be irrevocably smashed up in the chaos beneath. But our guide, bringing all his strength and weight to bear upon his refractory beast, forces her back into the middle of the road, the wheels jam against a huge boulder, and the cart is safe. A moment of inaction, and both horses pull together with a will, the difficulty is overcome, and we rest in a patch of shade. " A severe pinch, sir," remarks the blacksmith, " and I never knew my old mare jack a job up before." He is a trifle pale as he sits on a fallen gum-tree mopping his face, but the next minute is himself again and whistling a popular air with sundry variations of his own. Halfway up the mountain we refresh ourselves with a draught of ice-cold water from a spring tp which the name of " Mary Magdalene's Well" has been given ; and the blacksmith relates how a bullock dray recently came to grief at the corner where Kate did her best to bring about a like result, and one of the team was killed. At length, after three long hours of trudging, we get over the last '.'severe pinch," and find ourselves fairly on the tableland of the Western Tiers. The view would be grand if only one could see it ; but in every direction the gum-trees grow so thickly that one has THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 67 to be content with a peep here and there of yellow plains and the hazy blue of the Ben Lomond range on the north-east horizon. Kate is unharnessed and mounted by her owner, S. and I get into the cart, and we drive merrily forward into the heart of the forest along an almost invisible trail. The scanty burnt-up herbage of the plains has disappeared, and in its place we have rich deep green grass, on which the eye rests gratefully after its long probation of yellow. Tall white gum- tree shafts are everywhere, here grouped in pictu- resque clumps, there forming a stately avenue, and again opening out to disclose a spacious sunlit glade, only lacking a herd of deer to make a charming picture of forest scenery. But the absence of life strikes one very forcibly at this altitude. There are no rabbits running across the track, no kangaroo skipping away into the bush, the magpies and parrots chatter not here, and even the common bush butterflies are not to be seen. At rare intervals our horses' hoofs rouse a solitary jackdaw, whose loud caw is the only sound that breaks the weird silence of the forest. After piloting us a couple of miles across the Tiers, our guide, who is about to make a straight f 2 68 AN EXCURSION TO course home, pulls up to take his leave. He throws his mare's collar and traces over her neck, loads his. gun on the off-chance of a kangaroo, and then comes alongside our cart to give us a few final instructions and receive his douceur. The next moment he digs his heels into Kate's sides, whistles his dog to him, charges a stiff bush fence with his gun held like a lance in rest, and disappears at a gallop down a colonnade of gum-trees. Another mile, and on each side of us we see the sheen of water through a vista of tree-trunks. Five minutes more, and we are standing before a wooden hut on a narrow neck of land dividing two wide-spreading lakes. The white-haired old bridge- keeper gives Stella a drink of water, and tells us that he has lived a hermit's life here for thirty-years, during which time he has on two occasions nearly lost his life, once in a flood which threatened to merge the two lakes in ohe, and a second time in a snowstorm which almost buried his hut. Poor old Steve ! the life seems to agree with him in spite of the severity of the Tasmanian winter at this altitude, and he smiles grimly as he points out to us ' his provision of fuel— a stack of gum-tree logs quite double the size of his dwelling. And with THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 69 pure mountain air to breathe, and such a view as his hut windows command, we do not wonder that he bears his years lightly. It is indeed a grand panorama of mountain and lake scenery that we linger long to enjoy amidst the golden glories of sunset. To our feet ripple the waters of Lake Sorell, stretching in a broad sheet of the deepest blue to where, five miles away, the forest-clad mountains of the Western Tiers cast a sombre mantle of purple over creek and bay. Along its eastern shore rough rocky headlands and wooded promontories thickly fringed with rushes enclose many a placid cove, and stand out boldly against the dark blue of the lake : the western side under the shadow of the dense forest is all in deep purple gloom ; one tiny island, a mass of trees and underwood, alone breaks the unruffled expanse. We turn and gaze southward over the solemn stillness of Lake Crescent, beyond which heavily timbered hills swell upwards to the precipitous crags of Table Mountain, the grand outline of which, sharply defined against the rich evening glow, is mirrored in three miles of glistening water. It is a scene of almost unbroken repose. No sound falls upon the ear, save the clamour of a string of wild 70 AN EXCURSION TO duck rising from the sedgy banks of the lower lake. But darkness is coming on fast, and we have more than three miles yet to drive before we reach our quarters. Part of this is through thick forest, and the rest across tracts of marsh land which afford us fresh glimpses of both lakes. Every- where, however, boulders abound, and we stumble along on foot, leading Stella, game to the last in spite of evident leg-weariness. At last we are saluted by the loud barking of kangaroo dogs, and another quarter of an hour finds us hospitably housed at Interlaken. Interlaken is a small station on the property of Mr. Kermode in the Lake district, and here live his manager, a stock-driver and hut-keeper, to all appearances in good health and no small degree of comfort. The house is well built and large enough to accommodate three or four visitors, who are always made heartily welcome. Indeed, without the hospitality of Mr. Kermode and his staff, visitors to the Lakes would have to camp out for the night. Now, camping out is pleasant enough in summer weather, but, before we have finished our tea, in comes our host with the news that it is freezing THE TASMANIAN LAKES. li sharply, and we are glad enough to draw our chairs round a huge log fire for our evening tobacco and yarns. Our host enlightens us not a little as to cattle driving in the Lake district. He tells us — and we hardly venture to express any doubt on the subject — that, as his stock roam over 75jOOO acres of forest, he does not always know exactly where they are, that sometimes it takes him a couple of months' riding to find them, and that once a herd of thirty eluded his search for two years but were brought home safely at last. He corroborates old Steve's testi- mony with regard to the severity of the winter, and says that he has often gone to bed on a bright frosty night, and awoke to find the snow high above the hut windows. Locomotion is naturally at an end under such circumstances, and for the sake of the inmates we are glad to see that Interlaken boasts a small well-selected library. Lake Sorell is the lion of the district, but fifty miles to the westward Lake St. Clair is stated by ex- plorers to be the Killarney of Tasmania. At present, however, it is almost unapproachable. Twenty miles of trackless forest separate it from the last shepherd's hut, and its fathomless waters are on 72 AN EXCURSION TO. ^___ * every side hemmed in by precipitous ranges of lofty mountains. A hundred years hence Lake St. Clair may prove a favourite resort for tourists, but as yet month follows month without human eye gazing on its tranquil waters. Five-and-thirty miles north-west of Lake Sorell along a very rough bush road is the Great Lake, sixteen miles long and in several places from four to five miles in breadth ; but though its shores are much indented, its scenery is tame. Nor, we are told, would a visit to Arthur's Lakes and Wood Lake, some ten miles beyond Lake Sorell, repay a lover of the picturesque. Black swans and duck, however, are fairly plentiful, though from our experience they are as wild here as in more inhabited regions. But any one fond of a little quiet sport in the wilds, and not over-particular about quarters, may spend a fortnight very pleasantly going the round of the lakes. Only let him take plenty of tobacco — for shepherds seem to do little else but smoke— and let it be Barrett's Twist. Lake Sorell boasts one pebbly beach, where cor- nelian, agate, and jasper abound, and we obtain several very pretty specimens, good enough to be cut and form brooches for absent friends. Of ferns THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 73 we see nothing, and of flowers, only one — the tiny blue harebell — here and there peeps up from the carpet of thick coarse grass. But S. has soon seen enough of the Government land, and is anxious to be off, so the following morn- ing sees us once more under weigh, homeward bound by a new route via Bothwell, distant twenty-four miles from Interlaken. We are still favoured with perfect summer weather, and lake and mountain and forest look their loveliest beneath the exqui- sitely deep blue of a cloudless sky. Crossing the Clyde, a pretty mountain stream, which we shall admire still more at Bothwell Falls, we explore the western shores of Lake Crescent, and then dive again into the recesses of the forest. We were told at In- terlaken that we should have no difficulty in finding the road, as two carts had come up from Bothwell a fortnight before, but we have frequently to make a cast to the right and left before we hit off the indistinct trail, and now and then our axe is brought into requisition to hew oft" an obstructing limb from some prostrate giant of the forest. As a rule, our range of vision is very circumscribed, so thick is the timber, but here and there as we gradually make our way down the western side of the Tiers, we 74 AN EXCURSION TO get a magnificent view over a succession of moun- tain ranges to Wyld's Craig and the Frenchman's Cap, looming faintly on the horizon seventy miles away. And so for six hours we plod steadily on beneath the overarching gum-trees, cooking our " billy" at midday, and enjoying a frugal lunch of tea and a stale loaf, till, just as the splendours of sunset are spreading over the western sky, we pass Denistoun, the only station on the read, and, the state of the track now admitting of our driving, Stella soon covers the remaining four miles, and lands us safely in Bothwell before dark. The Falls of the Clyde are the great attraction here, but the village is neat and pretty, and there are several charming stations in the neighbourhood. Irrigation is easy, and the green lawns and water- meadows of Ratho sloping down to the river side, with its background of thirty-feet hawthorn hedges, look thoroughly English. Weeping willows over- hang the banks, and beneath their cool shade our kind host throws a fly, just to show us that he has some good fishing, and lands three fine trout, each over 2 lb., during the quarter of an hour that we are waiting for lunch. About a mile further down is a rugged wooded gorge, a little like Corra Linn, but THE TASMANIAN LAKES. 75 not nearly as pretty, through which the river rushes over rapids for half a mile, and then plunges over a cliff, forty-five feet in height, into a deep gloomy basin of basaltic rock. The fall is a pretty one, and has the advantage of being easily reached. The falls on Mount Wellington and of the Snug River far surpass it in grandeur, but in each case several hours of walking and climbing through the bush must be undertaken before they can be seen. Twelve miles from Bothwell we strike the main road, and the following evening finds us back in Hobart Town, after a very pleasant drive of a hundred and sixty miles. CHAPTER V. HOBART TOWN. Aspect of the City and Harbour— Streets and Public Buildings — The Botanic Gardens— Fern Tree Bower— Ascent of Mount Wellington— A Trip to Port Espe"rance— A Tasmanian Re- gatta—New Norfolk — Hops and Hop Gardens — The First Tasmanian Salmon— Fruit and Flowers — The Huon Forest — A Big Tree— The Wellington Falls— Through the Forest by Torchlight — The Climate of Tasmania. T T OBART TOWN, as viewed from the sea, -*■ -*■ has been likened by two authors to Genoa and Geneva, but inasmuch as I have not yet visited the two places in question, I am unable to confirm either opinion. The beauty of its position, how- ever, just at that point where the Derwent may be said to meet the sea, admits of no dispute, and its inhabitants claim for it the title of the prettiest town in the colonies, Sydney not excepted. Although at a distance of forty miles from the two capes that shut in Storm Bay, which forms the mouthpiece of the estuary of the Derwent, the river is two and a half miles in width opposite to the wharves, at HOB ART TOWN. 77 which vessels of 800 tons can He at all times of the tide. Twelve miles down the sound the estuary narrows again, and the promontory of South Arm completes a perfectly landlocked harbour, which naval authorities have pronounced unsurpassed in any part of the world. Certain it is, that here all the navies of the world might ride at anchor at one time. I must not forget, however, that an equal capacity has been claimed and allowed for Kirkwall Roads and Inganness Bay in " the storm-swept Orcades," and as naval matters are now, Orkney sees more war- ships than Hobart Town. Tasmania has seen more prosperous days, and it is to be hoped that more are in store for her ; but it is dispiriting to look across this grand expanse of harbour day after day and see only the white sails of two or three small coasters flecking the blue waters, 4.0 notice that the shipping wharf is almost deserted, and that a long line of fine warehouses is untenanted and falling into decay. The town is built on several gently-swelling hills bordering on the Derwent and its estuary, and rising gradually at the back, where Mount Wellington rears itself in blue-black gloom to the height of over 4000 feet Up the valley of the Derwent the 78 HOB ART TOWN. double-humped mass of Mount Dromedary closes the view, whilst across the harbour the eye wanders over a succession of wooded hills to where the mountains and tall cliffs of Tasman's Peninsula rise dimly out of the grey sea haze. The streets intersect at right angles, and Mac- quarie Street, in which are most of the public build- ings, is as handsome as the chief thoroughfare of a town of 20,000 inhabitants should be. The Houses of Parliament, the Town Hall, the Post Office, the Public Library, and the Museum are all substantial and well built, but the same cannot be said of the Cathedral, which, consecrated in a very unfinished state just previous to our arrival, is neither handsome in its proportions nor architecturally beautiful. The interior gives sad evidence of hasty or inferior workmanship, and the coloured glass is of the most indifferent manufacture. St. John's Church, how- ever, though small, is neat, and reminds one much of an English parish-church. The recently-built Roman Catholic Cathedral, too, boasts of some architectural beauty, and quite eclipses its Protestant rival. The shops are poor, and vastly inferior to those of many a third-rate English town, but perhaps as the Melbourne belles get the fashions HOB ART TO WN. ' 79 straight from Paris, the Hobart Town ladies get theirs straight from Melbourne. Government House, though shortly to be thrown into the shade by the stately edifice rising on the banks of the Yarra at Melbourne, has the reputation of being the finest building of its kind in the colo- nies. Its site, standing as it does on the side of a hill above the Derwent, and commanding a magnifi- cent view over the estuary and its shores for forty miles away to the Southern Ocean, could hardly be surpassed ; and though 67,000/. is a long price for a small and not over-rich colony to pay for the man- sion of its chief, there is a good deal to show for the money. The Botanical Gardens, which overlook a lovely reach of the river at the back of Government House, are very prettily laid out, and along their terraced walks students of scientific botany as well as simple lovers of flowers can gain plenty of enjoy- ment. Franklin Square has also a pretty garden overlooking the harbour, and contains a good bronze statue of the late Sir John Franklin, who was governor of Tasmania from 1837 to 1843. The town is as quiet and sleepy as it well can be, and beyond fishing in the estuary there seems abso- So HOB ART TOWN. lutely nothing to be done. From it, however, there are several interesting excursions to be made, and to these, having seen all within the city boundaries in a couple of days, we turn our attention. Mount Wellington is the first lion to be slain, and with my friend Brooke, a compagnon de voyage in the Lord Warden, I start early one lovely morning in mid March. Four miles up hill on the Huon road, in the course of which we pass several gum-trees exceeding 200 feet in height, bring us to a small hostelry in the forest, called the Fern Tree Inn. Here we leave the road, and attack the southern slopes of the mountain by a forest path. A few hundred yards further on, we come to the Fern Tree Bower, a scene of beauty well worthy of its name. Some thirty fern trees throw their shade over two or three rudely-fashioned benches in front of a small stone pillar, which serves as a record of the completion of the Hobart Town waterworks. Here the several rills come tumbling down from steep banks crowned with tree-ferns and thick with the greenest moss and a hundred varieties of ferns and wild flowers, to meet in a small clear ice-cold pool. We now strike into the forest, and follow up the bed of the largest of these brooklets. Here HOB ART TOWN. 81 there is nothing more than a tiny track, and for more than an hour we have pretty stiff climbing up about a thousand feet of ascent, and through a per- fect wilderness of forest. In every direction lie prostrate the enormous trunks of fallen gum-trees, covered, in many instances, with a thick carpet of velvet moss and grey lichen, and fringed with fronds of fern. These bridge the ravine every five or ten yards, and beneath and round them winds the stream, hurrying down in an endless succession of miniature cataracts, now gliding smoothly over a gravelly bed, a clear rich peaty-brown in the sun- shine, the next moment tinkling away in darkness over a rocky fall, beneath a huge over-arching tree- trunk. Around us are tree-ferns in all their luxuri- ance, ten, twenty, and thirty feet high, their magnifi- cent fronds measuring ten and twelve feet in length, and spreading a perfect canopy of delicate green over the bed of the brook. Above them again tower lofty gum-trees and the tapering shafts of sassafras, the most graceful of Australian forest trees ; and looking back down the gully, through the breaks in the foliage, we get a grand view over Storm Bay, and the blue line of the Southern Ocean in the far distance. Such a scene of fairylike loveliness I never beheld before. G 82 HOB AST TOWN. After an hour's rest at a small hut, kept by a worthy old couple, half-way up the mountain, we continue the ascent up a very rock-strewn path through a part of the forest where thousands of trees have been killed by fires. The majority of them have fallen, and their blackened trunks cover the ground so thickly that it is difficult to see the earth at all. A tiring climb of 1 500 feet brings us to the limits of the forest, and we enter upon the desolate expanse of rock which trends northward to the summit. The " Ploughed Field" lies before us, a tract some twenty acres in extent, of enormous boulders of greenstone, piled one above another in wild confu- sion, lying loose as they fell one by one from the mighty mass above. On the opposite side rise abrupt fluted columns of rock, 800 feet in per- pendicular height, and commonly called the " organ- pipes." Springing from rock to rock, we cross the Ploughed Field, and are upon the tableland of the mountain. This is a dreary expanse of black swampy land, on which a few stunted shrubs and yellow everlast- ing flowers drag out a wretched existence. Tall pillars of greenstone crop up here and there, but, HOB ART TOWN. 83 though several of the mountain plants are bright with flowers and berries, there is little to vary the monotonous desolation of the scene. A walk of two miles on a slight ascent, and we are at the Pinnacle, a cairn about twenty feet high, at an ele- vation of 4166 feet above the sea Climbing this, we command one of the most extensive views in the colonies. Beneath us lies Hobart Town, a mere cluster of white specks along the silvery reaches of the Derwent ; north and west extend mountain, valley, and plain in endless variety of form and colour ; eastward the eye ranges over isthmus, creek, and bay, far away to the hazy Southern Pacific ; and southward, shrouded in blue gloom and the mists wafted inland by the sea breeze, stretch tier upon tier of lofty desolate mountains, rising from vast tracts of dusky forest land, uninhabited, and as yet uninhabitable. The view is indeed impressive in the extreme, and the gathering gloom of evening adds not a little to its grandeur. But the sea haze is already beginning to cap the summit of the mountain, and, after adding a few more boulders to the cairn, we lose no time in re- tracing our steps to the hut at the Springs. In the G 2 84 HOB ART TO WN. course of our ascent we walked eleven miles, but returning we avoid the Fern Tree Gully, and thus saving two miles, reach Hobart Town at dusk. . I can remember one view only bearing any re- semblance to that from the summit of Mount Wellington, and that is the view of the Orkney Archipelago, as seen from the Ward Hill of Hoy. There of course there are no forests nor mountain ranges, but yet the moorland wears much of the same dusky aspect as the forest, and the eye takes in the same wonderful diversity of water and land, the same innumerable bays and creeks, the same bright patches of cultivated land standing out boldly from the great mass of brown, and in the distance the same greyish-purple tints where the ocean meets the sky. In company with Brooke I take advantage of an excursion to Port Esperance by steamer, to pay a visit to the southern part of the island. The coast scenery in D'Entrecasteaux Channel is very beautiful, the bays being wooded down to the very water's edge ; in fact, the shore for a great part of the distance is littered with fallen gum-trees. The water is exquisitely clear, and full of colour, thanks to a cloudless sky: in some places it is of the HOB ART TOWN. 85 deepest blue, in others of an equally brilliant green. The Channel is shut off from the Southern Ocean by the long and almost uninhabited island of Bruni ; it was on this island that Captain Cook first landed, and he refitted his ship in Adventure Bay. Forty miles from Hobart town we steer straight across the Channel, and enter Port Esperance, as pretty and picturesque a bay as any in Tasmania, and a grand landlocked harbour three miles in length. Thick forest surrounds it up to the very Heads, and Adamson's Peak, a fine cone shaped mountain over 4000 feet in height, rears itself boldly at the head of the bay. Three small green islands, Faith, Hope, and Charity, rising in the centre of this placid sheet of water, add not a little to the beauty of the scene. Dover is the name of the tiriy settlement, at present consisting only of two or three saw-mills and about a dozen weather-board houses. These have been erected in admired irregularity, without any idea of streets in prospect : indeed only a few acres of the forest have been cleared, and lanes have been cut through the dense scrub between the houses and the shore. The timber trade, however, is flourishing, the trees in this district attaining an &6 HOB ART TOWN. immense size. Snakes abound, and one of the in- habitants tells us that a couple of miles inland the bush is so thick and so tangled with creepers that it is almost impossible for a man to force his way through it, even with an axe. Woe to the amateur explorer who loses himself here ! But that there is no lack of spirit in the place, in spite of the total number of inhabitants not exceed- ing a hundred, is evidenced by a regatta, to assist at which our steamer has made the trip down. All the neighbouring settlements have sent boatloads of spectators and crews to compete ; there are flags and cannon afloat and ashore, and Dover is quite en fite. Two or three of the sailing boats go in extensively for fouling, and in the rowing matches, the crews set the official starter at defiance, and get off as and when they think fit, but everybody seems satisfied, and the day is a great success. We had intended spending a day or two in this neighbour- hood, and walking back to Hobart Town through the Huon district, but the Dover Hotel, a neat little weather-board erection, is full, and we are com- pelled to abandon our excursion, and return by the steamer. Some future day Port Esperance may be a fashionable Tasmanian watering-place. HOB ART TOWN. 87 Leaving Novelli, who is still weak and ill, in solitude for a couple of days, we take the steamer for New Norfolk, a pretty little township on the banks of the Derwent, twenty-two miles from Hobart Town. The river scenery is pretty all the way, and the sunset shades of rose and purple over the distant mountains, seen through a vista of gloom between the precipitous cliffs of Hell's Gates, just below New Norfolk, quite charm us. Here we are in the centre of the hop district, and, were it not for " the everlasting gum-tree" on the hills, I might fancy myself at home in Kent. Walk- ing out of the village, hop-gardens are on every side, shut in in many instances by luxuriant haw- thorn hedges twenty feet high, above which here and there peeps up the cone-shaped top of a hop-kiln. There is but little difference in appearance between Tasmanian and Kentish gardens, and in each country one may see a poor crop in close proximity to a very good one. One hears occasional com- plaints of a scarcity of poles, but there are enough gum saplings in the bush round New Norfolk to supply all the hop-gardens in the world. By several growers wires are used to connect the poles, and where this Coley system is adopted the hops do not 88 HOB ART TO WN. suffer so much from high winds. Fly and spider can be as destructive here as in England, but there are very few cases of these pests this season, and the crop is said to be considerably above the average. Drought occasionally plays havoc with the gardens, most of which, however, are provided with means of irrigation from the Derwent. I cannot ascertain with any accuracy what is the average yield through the district, but this season it is estimated at 24 cwt. * per acre. The expenses per acre have been set •down at 50/. by a Tasmanian grower, but the Aus- tralasian has been ventilating the subject, and con- siders that good management should bring this amount down to 40/. Seven miles beyond New Norfolk are the Salmon Ponds, of which Tasmanians are very proud ; but, unless he be an angler, the visitor will find the scenery along the road more interesting than an inspection of the establishment where the young fish are reared. The experiment, however, has proved a success ; for, in December last, a real salmo salar, weighing 2lb. 140Z., was caught in the Derwent, and the lucky angler received the promised bounty of 30/. All credit is due to Sir Robert Officer, Mr. Morton Allport, and others who R0BAR7 TOWN. 89 interested themselves in the venture, for this feat of acclimatization. I had heard much of Tasmanian fruit before I set foot in the colony ; but the amount I have seen in the course of my wanderings has fairly astonished me. Every house seems to have its orchard, and every vessel seems to take away tons upon tons of fruit and jam. There appears to be no limit to the productiveness of the apple orchards,* every tree bending down with its weight of fruit. A maggot- pierced apple is but seldom seen, and the fruit is net only plentiful but very large. Thirteen apples picked from a tree within a mile of Hobart Town weighed i2lb., and the largest measured fourteen inches in circumference! Pears are not much grown, as they spoil so easily when packed, and there is no demand for fruit except to export. Growers have told us that it often hardly pays to pick their apples, and it certainly does not seem to pay to pick them up, for bushels may be seen rotting on the ground in most orchards. And yet, curiously enough, we have not heard the word cider during a stay of two and a half months in Tas- mania It is singular that with a good climate and fertile 90 HOB ART TOWN. soil to help them, Tasmanians care so little for the cul ture of flowers. Except in the Royal Society's Gardens and at Perth, we have not seen one well-arranged flower' Ded in the island. Great shrubs of geranium and fuchsia, ten and twelve feet high, are common enoi%lr%but bedding-out is an art which is eithei not knqsvn or utterly neglected. The Hobarl Town florist tells me that no one in the capital cares tha very least how his garden looks, and certainly 'the, aspec* of most of them quite bears out his statement. He adds, " And yet you've only got to stick a thing in, sir, and it'll grow." Why do not the Hobartonians " stick a thing in ?" Wild flowers and flowering shrubs are as numerous as they are beautiful; and, now that autumn is upon us, berries of white, blue, and red make the bush as brilliant as the flowers that gave them birth. The hedges, however, are still in many places pink with masses of geranium, and the banks abound with heaths of every shade from crimson to white. Having heard of an enormous gum-tree in the Huon Forest named after Lady Franklin, I set out by myself— my friend Brooke having returned to Melbourne — one hot morning early in April to HOB ART TOWN. 91 inspect it After passing Fern Tree Bower, five miles from Hobart Town, trees of 200 feet in height are to be seen at short intervals, most of them with perfectly straight white trunks, without a branch for upwards of a hundred feet from the ground. The markings on some of the trunks are curiously spiral, and run up the tree as regularly as the turns in a corkscrew. Huge fallen trees en- cumber the numerous ferny gullies in ifvery dire|- tion, and I measure the butt of one of the largest of these to be eighteen feet in diameter. Another five miles brings me to a little clearing, in a gully running down from the Wellington range, called Leslie ; and here I learn that Lady Franklin's tree no longer reigns supreme, that the track to it is over- grown, and that another giant rules in its stead. My guide commences by telling me that he "left the old country for the country's good," that he was " terrible wild when a young 'un," and that he came out here " to do seven years." We proceed then to fight our way through the densest scrub for a quarter of a mile in search of the monarch of the district Here the fern trees are in the height of their luxuriance, and grow so thickly that in many places their spreading fronds completely shut out the 92 HOB ART TOWN. rays of the sun. Beneath one's feet is not earth, but a chaos of tree-trunks green and slippery with decaying vegetation, mosses and lichens of all kinds. The tree is indeed worthy of the title of monarch of the district. It is seventy feet in girth six feet g from the ground, and is set down as 240 feet in height. A fire has burnt out the butt, which now forms a bfeckened gloomy chamber twenty feet across, and is provided with a natural door and several windows, owing to great rifts in the outer shell. Externally the butt is very rugged and deeply seamed, and in many places overgrown with moss and tiny ferns ; but forty feet from the ground the trunk rises smooth and white, in girth not much exceeding half that of the butt. In spite of its being burnt out, this huge gum-tree is still green and flourishing. How many centuries it has lived no one can tell. A letter to the Hobart Town Mercury elicits several answers to my inquiry as to the size of the largest measured trees. Within four miles of the town there till lately stood a huge eucalyptus, eighty-six feet in girth, and more than 300 feet in height, and a bushman tells me that the highest HOBART TO WN. 93 tree he has met with in his wanderings measured 200 feet from the ground to the first branch, and fully 350 feet in all. My last excursion before leaving Tasmania is to the Wellington Falls, distant seven " kangaroo" miles from the hut at the Springs halfway up the mountain. The first mile is along a terraced path commanding glorious views over the Derwent estuary, but the remaining six are on a very rough track through the forest and across another edition of the Ploughed Field, called the Potato Garden, and consisting of many acres of masses of green- stone in which iron pyrites is abundantly visible. My guide, called by Hobartonians " The Old Man of the Mountain," is very loquacious, and has scarcely completed the story of his life and adven- tures by the time we reach our destination. We come at last to a deep rocky gully, and climbing down a couple of hundred feet step out on a jutting crag facing the fall. The scene is indeed wild and picturesque. The stream comes tumbling down into the head of the gorge in a series of cascades from rock to rock over the face of a steep cliff 250 feet high, opposite to which, behind the promontory on which we stand, one of the mountains of the 94 HOB ART TOWN. Wellington range rises to a height of 3000 feet in a steep unbroken slope. The gorge for a distance of seven miles is blocked up with enormous masses of rock which have fallen from the crags fringing its sides, and mingle with the trunks of fallen trees in a chaos delightful to the contemplation of an artist, but decidedly perplexing to a traveller. We lose no time on our return for fear of being benighted, but my guide is nearly an octogenarian, and makes "very bad weather" of the rock-strewn track. Fortunately; his young nephew comes out to meet us, but in spite of his help we are over- taken by complete darkness more than two miles from the hut, and frequently lose the track. To add to our discomfort the clouds settle down upon the mountain, and every tree seems to salute us with a volley of raindrops. However, we have two boxes of matches, and by dint of these and torches made of all my letters, we managed to grope our way to the terrace with just two matches left in stock. Were I not addicted to the use of tobacco, we should have had to spen,d the night on the mountain : as it is, I am in Hobart Town at ten o'clock. The spirit and pluck of the young pilot, a boy of thirteen, who saved his old uncle's bones HOB ART TOWN. 95 many a severe bruise against the rocks, by the dexterous interposition of his own active little limbs, was most highly to be commended. The English Eleven visit Hobart Town during our stay, and inflict a severe defeat upon the Tas- manian Twenty-two. This enlivens proceedings a little, but Hobart Town is a very dead-alive place, and its climate, about the salubrity of which the in- habitants " blow" considerably, is not as pleasant as we were led to expect Novelli derives no benefit from it : indeed, after a stay of two months from the middle of February to the middle of (April, he leaves it weaker than when he came. We seldom have found it warm enough for a seat in the shade to be pleasant, and the changes of temperature must be very trying to an invalid. The sun is often very powerful up to midday, and then the sea breeze comes in and makes one long for a winter suit and a great-coat. - From first to last, although our stay has been during the pleasantest part of the year, we have been not a little disappointed with the climate of Hobart Town, though in midland Tas- mania the weather was delightful. The Hobart Town hotels afford very indifferent accommodation, but there is one good boarding- 96 HOB ART TOWN. house with separate suites of rooms, where we spent six weeks very comfortably. Novelli is too un- well to undertake our projected second visit to Melbourne, and so on April 14th just as the hues of a glorious sunset are beginning to deepen behind the blue gloom of Mount Wellington, we bid good-bye to Tasmania, and steam away down the Derwent on our passage to Sydney. CHAPTER VI. TASMANIA. State of the Colony — Want of Labour — Produce — Wool — Mines and Minerals — Whaling — Cessation of Transportation and its Results — Railways — Emigration — Convicts — Capital and Labour. /^\NE cannot be many days in Tasmania without ^S hearing sad stories of the condition and welfare of the colony from the lips of inhabitants, both young and old. These stories must of course be taken only for what they are worth ; but no one ventures to deny the fact that Tasmania has seen better days. There are some who say that times are improving, and that the colony is now in a more prosperous condition than it has been for the last fifteen years. But still the fact remains that Tasmania for many years was retrograding instead of advancing, and it is plain for all eyes to see that she has not yet succeeded in regaining the trade and prosperity she enjoyed twenty years ago. I need not dwell at any length upon the reasons H 98 TASMANIA. that have combined to bring about this change. The colony's decline dates from the discovery of gold in Victoria and the abolition of convict labour. The gold rush to Port Phillip attracted many thousands of Tasmanians, and where thousands went, hundreds only returned. The island lan- guished whilst half its breadwinners were seek- ing a fortune in another colony. Farms were neglected and fisheries abandoned for lack of hands. Sailors, labourers, and artisans were hardly to be engaged at any wages ; and Tasmania, with much to do and few to do it, did next to nothing. At this crisis, when all the available labour was trebly valuable, the decision of the colonists to refuse to receive any more convicts came into force. And thus, just when the large exodus to Victoria caused an enormous demand on the labour market, the supply was cut off. The result was soon apparent : things stagnated ; the colony seemed suddenly to have lost all its working hands and to have only the drones remaining ; the people generally seemed to settle down to a state of inaction, appearing bent on resting on their oars till some deus ex machind should rescue them from their difficulties. The god has not yet thought fit to make his appearance. TASMANIA. 99 The want of labour, too, has been much increased by the cessation of emigration, and farmers com- plain bitterly of the difficulty they have in husband- ing their crops. I was told on the best authority that if the steamer which brought us to Tas- mania had brought 2000 farm labourers, they would all have found immediate and permanent employ- ment. From ten to twelve shillings a week with board and lodging is good pay too, and the men get plenty of excellent meat, better than they would get for themselves *in England, however high their wages. Tasmania produces annually nearly a million bushels of wheat alone, but farmers complain that they have considerable difficulty in finding a market for their grain, and that, after sending it to port and shipping it out of the colony, their profit is but small. In the grain line South Australia cer- tainly rather puts Tasmania's candle out, but with fruit and hops the little island shows the lead to all the colonies. I have already spoken of the New Norfolk gardens, their average produce and cost, and need only add to my remarks that hop-growing is so successful in Tasmania that a few years should suffice to show double or treble the acreage under h 2 TASMANIA. cultivation. The bine is quite as luxuriant as in Kent, but the growers have not yet succeeded in obtaining the rich flavour of the English hops. Wool growing is rapidly increasing in favour with Tasmanians, and the colony boasts about a million and a half of sheep. Tasmanian sheep farmers, too, are not slow to tell us that their wool is considered by buyers equally good with the best produced by the other colonies. The superior quality of the grass on Tasmanian pastures, which are seldom scorched by long droughts, is the reason of this, and plenty of water and green herbage are blessings to a sheep farmer such as few Englishmen can understand. There is excellent timber in nearly every part of the island, arid from the Huon district there is a steady export trade to New Zealand. From many small northern ports, too, coasters are constantly engaged in a busy trade in planks and " shingles " with Victoria. In minerals Tasmania is decidedly rich, but then the rule seems to be to leave them in the earth. There is one very productive quartz reef in the north-east, and a crushing shortly after our arri- val resulted in 528 oz. of gold, the stone yielding, if TASMANIA. I remember right, some sixteen ounces to the ton. But it is only here and there that gold is found in sufficient quantity to pay for its working, and the Tasmanian deus ex mac hind is not likely to jump out of a reef of quartz. There are signs in several districts of abundance of iron, but unless English money and English hands are brought to bear upon it, it will not be worked. From all accounts Mount Bischoff in the north-west is one huge mass of tin, and surveyors from Victoria say that the mine there will make itself a name throughout the world. The shares of this company are in the hands of a few, who know well the value of their investment There is coal in plenty in several districts ; in fact, it would seem to have been scattered over the island for the special convenience of the colonists. Tas- mania, however, still obtains some portion of her supply from New South Wales. Whaling, years ago, was a great industry, but it is sadly on the decline now. Some eighteen vessels are still employed in the fishery, making Hobart Town their head-quarters, but very little success has attended their efforts of late. Two whalers re- turned from an eighteen months' cruise whilst I was at the capital ; one had eighteen tuns of oil only, k>2 TASMANIA. whilst the other was almost empty. Whaling can scarcely be a remunerative investment now. There can be no question that the colonists were short-sighted and foolish in their determination to have no more of John Bull's rubbish shot on their little island. Their decision to work for themselves was a good one, but they failed to carry it out. They estimated their own powers too highly, and held the great advantages of convict labour far too cheaply. The convicts did nearly everything for Tasmania. They opened up the centre of the island from north to south with one of the finest metalled roads in the world, built bridges, churches, and pub- lic buildings by the score, laid out wharves, cleared thousands of acres of heavy timber and dense scrub, and settled down in hundreds of cases as respectable hardworking farm labourers, fed, lodged, and often confidently trusted by the colonists. No colony has been helped in this way to an equal extent, and when Tasmania declined a further supply of labour, and so had to give up the subsidy paid by the home Government, she lost her main- stay. Sir William Denison, the then Governor, urged upon the colonists to consider what they were about to do, and its probable result, and strongly TASMANIA. 103 advised that convicts should be received for ten or fifteen years more, when the island might fairly be expected to be able to furnish its own labour. But his advice fell upon unwilling ears, and availed nothing. The result he prophesied has now come about The colony is at a loss for working hands — labourers, that once were obtainable at the cost of their board and lodging, are now few, and demand a high rate of wages. There are no gangs of men to open up fresh districts by road-making, no fresh industries are set on foot, and the colony generally stands still, even if it does not retrograde. Hence came its name of " Sleepy Hollow." But, singular to relate, Tasmania, unwilling or unable to construct roads, must needs dabble in railways, scorning the wholesome advice of Julius Caesar. The Launceston and Western line failed to prosper in the hands of a company, and when the Government took it off their hands the people refused to pay their rates, and preferred the confis- cation of their property, which resulted in rioting and the destruction of much glass in Launceston windows. A main line from Hobart Town to Launceston is now more than half completed, but as it runs by the side of the coach road nearly all io 4 TASMANIA. the way, and it is calculated that a speed of not more than twelve miles an hour faster than the coaches will be possible, it is not likely to be of much mate- rial advantage to the colony for some years to come. Tasmania, twitted by neighbouring colonies for standing still, must needs run before she can walk. A stay of three months in the colony is quite sufficient to show one that there is a general want of vigour and enterprise amongst the inhabitants. Even the young Tasmanians themselves are aware of this, and large numbers of them seek a better field for their labour in New Zealand. Tasmania is not prosperous, and employers cannot afford to pay the high prices for work that are current in Victoria, New South Wales, and New Zealand. The fact of her own children deserting her to seek their fortunes elsewhere argues ill for the advancement of the interests of the colony. I was unable to visit the great convict establishment at Port Arthur, which is shortly to be broken up. There are still some five hundred prisoners there, but about a fourth of the number are lunatics. Round Hobart Town one comes occasionally upon a gang of twenty or thirty men dressed in dark grey TASMANIA. 105 suits who are engaged in mending roads under the supervision of a stalwart keeper ; but, without going to look for them, one sees but little of prisoners in Tasmania now. Perhaps when Port Arthur is de- serted, and the convicts have finally disappeared, the colony will feel itself bound to put its best foot fore most, and wake up from its present state of inaction. I have been frequently told that there is plenty of capital in the island to develop fresh industries, and to secure the necessary labour, but that capitalists "prefer embarking in the ventures of other colonies to furthering the interests of their own. If they them- selves distrust the resources of Tasmania, it is useless for the colonists to expect capital and labour from the mother-country. And they who desire help must first evince a readiness to help them- selves. CHAPTER VII. SYDNEY. From Hobart Town to Sydney Heads — Sydney Harbour — Hotels — Streets and Public Buildings — Parks and Gardens — Horses and Horse-breeding — Attractions of Sydney — Up the Parramatta River — Twelve Miles of Jelly Fish — A Parramatta Orangery — A Picnic at Botany Bay — A Heavy Rainfall — Climate of Sydney — Prosperity of New South Wales — Sydney Hospitality. 1 .^AVOURED by fair winds and smooth water, -"- our three days' passage from Hobart Town to Sydney is pleasant enough, and materially benefits my invalid companion. There is some fine coast scenery in the north-east of Tasmania, but grand cliffs seem to be the exception, and sandy beaches, with wooded hills swelling away to the distant mountain ranges, the rule. Twenty-four hours' steaming brings us well into Bass's Straits, and we get a good distant view of Flinders Island, to which the last of the Tasma- nian aborigines were consigned to end their days. The rapid dying out of the black population, which dates from the colonization of their country by the SYDNEY. 107 whites, has been as remarkable in Tasmania as in other parts of the world. In Hobart Town we saw the last living specimen of the original inhabitants of the island. In Australia Queensland is now the only colony in which the blacks are still living in any numbers and hostile to the whites ; and in New Zealand we are told that the Maori population has been reduced from 200,000 to 20,000 in less than thirty years. To Flinders Island in the breeding season resort myriads of mutton birds, whole flights of which are destroyed every year for the sake of the oil contained in their small bodies. Passing Cape Barren Island, the second morning we sight Cape Howe, and plainly see the boundary line between Victoria and New South Wales in a broad lane cut through the gum forest on the foothills that rise from the sea to the lofty Australian Alps inland. Running along a picturesque coast-line all that day, we enter Port Jackson Heads at ten next morning, and all the many beauties of Sydney Harbour beneath a cloudless sky lie before us. And Sydney and Rio are pre-eminent amongst harbours. Of these same beauties I do not mean to write at length. Abler pens have failed to convey more io8 SYDNEY. than a faint shadow of the loveliness of the scene, and the picture has been painted too often already. The snowy mountains and tropical vegetation of Rio Janeiro enable that glorious harbour fairly to claim the pride of place. From what I hear of Rio from several travellers who have seen both, Rio should be called the most beautiful, and Sydney the prettiest harbour in the world. For six or seven miles from the precipitous cliffs of the Heads the harbour stretches in a succession of charming bays and creeks, wooded down to the water's edge, to the busy wharves of the mother city of the Australias. Once inside the Heads, north, east, and west are glistening sheets of water ; on our right is Manly Beach, a beautiful sandy bay much frequented by holiday-makers ; before us Middle Harbour runs up inland for fifteen miles or more, indented by a hun- dredtiny coves, and on our left lies the glorious reach of which Australians are so justly proud. As we steam past the jutting points of land, most of which are strongly fortified, the guns peeping out amongst the trees from terraces tunnelled in the solid rock, bay after bay opens out, disclosing many a snug villa nestling mid Norfolk Island pines on the sloping hillsides, with here and there a tiny SYDNEY. 109 yacht at anchor in the quiet of the cove, whilst in mid* channel two or three small islands rise abruptly from the tranquil expanse of blue. ' Indeed, one can hardly wish for a prettier view of wood, water, and hill than that to be obtained from one of the many villas that dot the green slopes above Sydney Harbour, But our steamer slackens speed for no views, and already the crowded suburbs of Woollahra and Woolloomooloo rise terraced on our left, and passing the Challenger and Dido at anchor off the Botanical Gardens, and the fleet of shipping moored in Sydr ney Cove, we round our last point and join the numerous squadron of steamers discharging at the wharves in Darling Harbour. It is the Exhibition week in Sydney, and the streets seem quite as crowded and bustling as the busiest of the broad thoroughfares of Melbourne. But we are at once impressed with the thoroughly English look of the city and its inhabitants, and our first day's ideas result in a decided preference for Sydney over its Victorian rival, which preference is materially increased by the experiences of a three weeks' stay. Sydney, indeed, boasts a hundred attractions of which Melbourne knows not, and here every SYDNEY. traveller is glad to arrest his steps. The hotels, it is true, are neither as pretentious nor as good as those in the Victorian capital, but Petty 's is com- * fortable, well situated, and moderate in charges. We are reminded of Rugby schooldays the first morning by the vigorous ringing of a bell down the passages, to rouse every one from sleep. Half an hour elapses, and we are rung downstairs to breakfast; we are rung in to lunch, and again to dinner, by which time we fully expect that we shall be sooner or later rung upstairs to bed. Waiters in the colonies are somewhat amusing. At Melbourne one answered a gentleman's call with " I fancy I heard your sweet voice ;" at Sydney we are accosted with a hasty " After you with the beans !" proceeding from the back of our chair. But if a trifle familiar, they are civil and obliging, and not always on the look-out for half-a-crown, like their English brethren. Sydney streets and houses are very English in their appearance. George Street, though not impos- ing, is in the main handsome, the buildings in it having an air of wealth and solidity, without being either ornate or pretentious. Pitt Street is said to be the characteristic thoroughfare of Sydney, and the SYDNEY. in offices and shops give it a sober, well-to-do appear- ance. There is one street, however, which in its dingy narrowness resembles many minor streets on the Surrey side of London Bridge, and this is Oxford Street It is more London-like than any- thing we have seen in the colonies. The public buildings are equal to those of Mel- bourne, and as a rule better situated, though in this latter respect the new Post Office is by no means favoured. The Town Hall stands boldly out by itself, and is well worthy of the city in point of external appearance. As yet, however, it is in an unfinished state, and I hear that the interior arrange- ments will not be so complete as those of the Mel- bourne building. Perhaps it will not be provided with spittoons in the council chambers. The University is at some distance from the city proper, and forms a conspicuous feature in a pano- rama. It is in the Elizabethan style of architecture, and boasts a grandly-proportioned and highly- decorated hall, which is 135 feet in length and more than 70 feet high, and wherein the Commemoration is held. The University was inaugurated in 1852 for " the association of students, without respect of re- ligious creeds, in the cultivation of secular knowledge." ii2 SYDNEY. The architecture of Melbourne churches is not striking, but Sydney is proud in its possession of a Cathedral, which, though not of large dimensions, nor remarkable for elaborate workmanship, is handsome and well placed. It is a perpendicular Gothic build- ing, and is rich in stained glass windows, but unfor- tunately, with but two or three exceptions, the stained glass is not rich in colour. This seems to be the common failing ; indeed, we have noticed it in nearly all the painted glass windows we have seen in the colonies. Colonists tell us that they order the best English windows, but they certainly do not get them. For not only are the colours poor, but the designs are by no means artistic, and are chiefly confined to a number of single figures set in surroundings of white glass. Sydney also rejoices in a permanent exhibition building, erected in 1870, the centenary of Captain Cook's landing in Australia. Here is held annually an Exhibition of Australian industries, whilst in Prince Alfred Park, which surrounds the building, there is a great show of stock. Sydney is very crowded during the week, and, as far as we are able to judge, the stock possess far superior attractions for the visitors than the industries. SYDNEY. iij Sydney, as a city, independently of its harbour, has much to please the eye. The extent of land within the precincts of the city that is laid out in parks, domain, and gardens, is very large — perhaps larger than in any other city of the same size. In Hyde Park, the Domain, Prince Alfred Park, the Botanical and the Belmore Gardens, there are some 250 acres admirably laid out in drives and walks, whilst, bounding the ^ty proper, Moore Park, Victoria Park, and the Fort Philip Reserve, contain some 600 acres more of ex- cellent turf, planted with fine trees and shrubs. In the very centre of the city, too, small private gardens crop up, the Norfolk Island pines and Moreton Bay figs agreeably diversifying the long lines of buildings. The frequent sight of green leaves relieves the eye, which is not oppressed with the glare as in Melbourne. The Botanical Gardens fringe Farm Cove, and can hardly be surpassed for beauty of site or luxuriance of foliage. A very large number of tropical shrubs and plants thrive wonderfully here, and the views over the flower- beds, and across the waters of the little bay to the turrets of Government House can never fail to charm. Government House suffers by comparison with that ii4 SYDNEY. on the banks of the Derwent, and the palatial edifice now in course of erection at Melbourne will quite throw it into the shade, but its site could not be improved upon, and it commands a whole series of lovely views. The Sydney racecourse is at Randwick, distant only two miles from the city, and we here witness the last day's racing of the principal meeting of the year. The#horses seem inferior to the best stamp of our English thoroughbreds, and the jockeys are decidedly considerably behind Fordham and his compeers, but the Governor, Sir Hercules Robin- son, is a great patron of the sport, and the Turf is said to flourish in New South Wales. In the colony horses generally have deteriorated very much of late years, owing in a great measure to in- and-in breeding, and those we see in the streets and country are certainly not- up to the Melbourne stamp. The climate is most favourable for breeding, and New South Wales early earned for herself a reputation for first class animals. An importation of new blood is much wanted just now, or this reputation will vanish into air. Sydney people are great sight-seers, and the slightest excuse for a holiday is eagerly snapped up. SYDNEY, 115 To many of the hundred bays in the harbour small steamers run at frequent intervals, and by means of them we visit Manly Beach, Watson's Bay, and St. Leonards, and enjoy many different views of the beauties of Sydney. Perhaps St. Leonards, on the north shore of the harbour, affords the finest pros- pect : the panorama from its heights is charming beyond all description. From here a drive of a couple of miles brings us to the Willoughby Falls, a pretty cataract falling ninety feet into a rocky ravine opening into one of the harbour coves. Above Darling Harbour open several estuaries, one of which is the Parramatta River, and this we ascend for sixteen miles in a small steam launch on a visit to the now celebrated orange-groves. Leaving the city behind us, and passing Cockatocr Island with the Challenger in dry dock, we enter at once upon some very pretty scenery. Low cliffs fringe the water, and above them rise gently swelling hills covered with bush, from which peep out many handsome country houses. Creeks innu- merable diverge from the main channel, and, as we advance, the rocks disappear from the margin of the stream, and leave the overhanging trees to dip their boughs into the tide. The mountains that skirt the 1 2 ii6 SYDNEY. Derwent are here wanting, and for beauty the Tasmanian river certainly bears the palm. If I were asked for what the Parramatta River is most celebrated, I should certainly say, for jelly fishes. For twelve miles our steamer made her way ,through one long Uninterrupted shoal of them. Looking over the side at any moment, one could see a hundred at least floating along with the tide. If on each side of the steamer we could see a hundred in a space thirty feet in length, how many must we have seen in the course of a twelve mile run ? From Parramatta wharf we drive into the town on an omnibus, the Jehu of which uses his whip incessantly on three wretched specimens of the genus horse. Drivers in Australia seem to have this fault common to their calling, and we have often been quite disgusted with their cruelty. Parramatta dates back as far as to 1798, and it was here that the first farms were established for the growth of grain for the young colony. The town is straggling, and pervaded with an air of dulness. There is a pretty park round the old Government House, and in it are some of the finest oaks we have seen since leaving England. A walk of two SYDNEY. 117 miles brings us to the chief orangery in the district, Rocky Hall, the lane bounding which is hedged with prickly pear and carpeted with bright blue lobelia. Mr. and Mrs. Pye have a very pretty house overlooking the slopes of the hills on which the orange groves are planted, and we are most kindly welcomed. Mrs. Pye herself shows us several kinds of orange trees, lemons, limes, and guavas in full bearing, several of them with the flower, the green and the ripe fruit almost on the same bough ; tells us that some of the trees bear as much as 7/. worth of fruit in the year ; shows us some trees fifty feet in height, which are said to be the largest in the world, and then dismisses us to inspect the groves at our leisure. The .soil appears to be a light sandy loam, and the trees, which are on an average from ten to fifteen feet in height, are planted in long rows about twelve yards apart. Most of the fruit is green now, and the majority of the trees are so heavily laden that their boughs are almost breaking with the weight, the mandarins appearing especially prolific. A disease has made its appear- ance in some parts of the groves, turning the leaves yellow, and quite spoiling the fruit,, but as yet its 1x8 SYDNEY. ravages have been small. Let us hope it will never seriously affect the prosperity of Mr. Pye. The lady of the house meets us on our return, shows us over her flower-garden, adorns our button holes with camellias, presents us with some fine specimens of her fruit, and parts with us with the . heartiest of good wishes. I did not hear the amount of acreage that Mr. Pye has under oranges, but it must be very large, and to all appearance the pro- fits of cultivation are not only sure and devoid of any appreciable risk, but considerable. Botany Bay has long been a very favourite resort on a holiday, and here we spend a pleasant day at a picnic organized by some Sydney friends, fellow- passengers with us in the Lord Warden. The bridges on the usual road having been washed away by the bursting of the reservoir dams, which re- sulted in a small inundation after the Sheffield fashion, our drive out is through Randwick and along the coast-line for ten miles. The land is covered with low scrub, above which the tall " black-fellows' heads" — a rush-like seed-spike — tower to a height of from ten to fifteen feet. There are some pretty gardens skirting the north shore of the bay, and we lunch under the shade of SYDNEY. 119 a clump of fine specimens of the Norfolk Island pine. The bay itself contains twenty square miles of water, but, except in the middle, it is shallow, and, owing to the flatness of the surrounding country, it is not picturesque. The monuments com- memorating the visits paid by Captain Cook and La Perouse stand up conspicuously on opposite shores, and it is for its associations and not for its beauties that one visits Botany Bay. It certainly knows how to rain in Sydney. For two nights and a day of our stay it falls in sheets, and the rain gauge announces ten inches as the amount of the fall in thirty-six hours — a large total for a country outside the Tropics. After this we are not surprised at the bursting of the water-dams. The Sydney climate is said to be hardly as healthy as that of Melbourne. This is probably to be accounted for by the amount of moisture in the air, which makes the sea breezes in the height of summer most oppressive. Residents tell us that, when these are blowing, they rise as languid in the morning as if they had had no rest all night The mercury has touched 106 , but it only occasionally rises above ioo° in the shade. As in Melbourne, so in Sydney, rosy cheeks are quite the exception, j2o SYDNEY. and for them Tasmania bears off the palm from all the colonies, New Zealand perhaps excepted. The prosperity of Sydney has suffered two distinct shocks within the last four years. The first was owing to the low price, of- wool in the London market, which seriously affected very many of the squatters in the interior, and through them many of the leading merchants in the colony. The banks, however, came to the rescue, and thus the difficulty was tided over. Later, some eighteen months since, a mining fever set in, which proved infectious to all classes, and numerous were the disasters, the soil swallowing far more money than it yielded, Thia too passed away, and now Sydney tells us that the colony is going ahead. The people certainly seem contented and well-to-do, but they are not such money-grubbers as the Victorians, and they are far more English in appearance and manners. A few more enterprising men with capital would do much for New South Wales. By a gentleman more noted for his enterprise than any man in the colony we are told that if two or three ironmasters were to come out from England with the necessary capital, iron would in a few years be one of the chief exports. The affairs of Victoria have been running; SYDNEY. on at high pressure for some few years past, but New South Wales's time is coming. After having spent two months in Hobart Town almost unnoticed, except by several families, fellow- passengers with us round the Cape, it was doubly delightful to be most kindly and hospitably enter- tained in Sydney. At one of the lovely villas above Double Bay, as well as in the city itself, we met with a hearty welcome, and our friends could hardly have believed how pleasant after our seclusion was their thoroughly English society. Of Sydney are our last and our pleasantest impressions of the colonies. CHAPTER Vin. A WEEK IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. Scenery of the Blue Mountains — The Great Western Railway — Views from the Line — Mount Victoria — Govett's Leap — Its Cliffs and Waterfalls — Sunlight and Storm — Characteristics of the Gorge — The Weatherboard Falls — Prince Regent's Glen — The Vale of Clywdd — The Lithgow Zigzag — Bowenfels — Hassan's Walls— The Alum Mount and the Caves — Leicester's Fall — Monaghan's Falls — Weather in the Blue Mountains. /"~\NE who leaves Sydney without having paid a ^-^ visit to the Blue Mountains, misses the en- joyment of some of the finest scenery in Australia. The line of railway, now completed to within four miles of Bathurst, renders the trip as easy as it is pleasant, and he who returns disappointed has no soul above buttons. The Blue Mountains form one of the seven links of the Great Dividing Chain, the main watershed of Australia, which runs parallel with the coast-line almost throughout the entire length of the east and south-east sides of the continent. Few of the peaks exceed 4000 feet in height, but the range is A WEEK IN THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 123 celebrated for its stupendous cliffs and rugged gorges, and contains many grand waterfalls, and some caverns so extensive that they have never as yet been thoroughly explored. The entire range is clothed, with the exception of some few of the highest peaks, with dense forest. Here and there are tiny villages, founded in the old days when the coaches used to run from Sydney to Bathurst, and in some of the richer valleys there are clearings, but except along the line of railway there are very few people to be met with in the Blue Mountains. The country between Sydney and Penrith is flat and uninteresting. Beyond the latter station, thirty- three miles from the capital, we pass some fields of maize, but there is no good agricultural land within fifty miles of Sydney in any direction. We com- mence the ascent of the mountains by means of a short buf steep zigzag, the gradient being one in thirty- three. Before getting fairly amongst the gorges, we get a very extensive view over the plains for forty miles north and south of Sydney, bounded to the east by the dim blue line of the Pacific. But the cream of the scenery is not to be seen from the railway. Very beautiful, however, is the everchang- ing panorama as viewed from the windows of a saloon i2 4 A WEEK IN carriage. In some places a few feet only separate the line from an abrupt descent of iooo feet into a thickly-timbered ravine enclosed on both sides by precipitous cliffs ; in others dense forest is alone visible, with the old Bathurst road, deep in sand, ' winding through the trees : now we are buried in some dark cutting, on emerging from which we find the train running along an embankment above a deep valley, the head of which has to be rounded by a curve, for the continuation of the line is plainly to be discerned on the opposite slope. The distant scenery is as lovely as much that is within a stone's throw of one's carriage is grand. Well was the range named the Blue Mountains, for every far-off gorge and jutting headland of rock, every bluff and peak, has its own distinctive tone of colour. Varying with the position of the sun, the purity of the atmo- sphere, and with every passing cloud, these tones are now brilliant, now misty, at one moment deep- hued, at another as light and clear as a sapphire. No artist could desire a better field for the study of distance and the effects of light on a land- acape. We pass through such scenes as these for forty miles after leaving the plains, and five hours' travel- THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 125 ling at the rate of sixteen miles an hour has brought us to Mount Victoria We have been steadily ascending, averaging almost 100 feet a mile, and are now more than 3400 feet above sea-level. Here we find a few scattered weatherboard cottages, and a roomy comfortable hotel kept by one Perry, who spins endless yarns about bushranging, and would be a good man to speak against time in the Legis- lative Assembly. He draws the long bow now and then, perhaps, telling us that he once rode a hundred miles over the mountains in thirteen hours, but he is an amusing companion when Scotch mist and driving rain-storms keep us within doors. Govett's Leap is the great lion of the Blue Moun- tains, and thither we drive the first morning of our stay. It is on the Sydney side and some six miles distant from Mount Victoria, partly along the main- road, and partly along a bush track abounding in swamps and bright with the flowers and bottle- brush-like fruit of the honeysuckle. Leaving the buggy, we walk a couple of hundred yards down a steep descent, and the lion is at our feet. Climbing cautiously down a rugged path, we reach the coign of 'vantage, a level jutting rock some twelve feet square hanging from the abrupt slope of iz6 A WEEK IN wild heath and fern. This is Govett's Leap, the Inspiration Point of the Blue Mountains. Step out upon the rock, and look over its edge; Beneath you the cliff falls sheer away 1200 feet, a wall of rock without twig or leaf to break its outline, as perpendicular and clean as if cut with a chisel. On your right, swollen with a night's rainfall, a stream falls into the chasm, the sunlight giving to its waters the appear- ance of a waving veil of silver lace 700 feet in depth. On your left, partly hidden from view by an angle of rock, is another tiny waterfall, resembling an incessant shower of silver coins melting into rain long before they touch the ground. Far as you can trace the gorge in its windings extends this perpendicular wall of rock without crack, ledge, or crevice to aid the efforts of the most adventurous cliff-climber. It seems impossible to imagine a chasm more completely shut out from ingress with- out the help of a lowering rope. Within these stupendous cliffs, which vary from half a mile to a mile and a half in distance apart, "no earth, no stream, no rocks are visible ; all is one dense mass of foliage. But all is not gum-tree, though gum-trees innumerable are there. Indeed THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 127 the varieties of tint are charming to an eye weary of the monotonous brownish green of the Australian bush. Huge tree-ferns uplift their spreading crowns in every direction, the feathery foliage of the mountain ash, and the darker hues of many a stately pine are plainly visible, and the inaccessible forest has many claims to beauty. At a distance of five miles, Mount Hay towers to the height of 3000 feet from the bottom of the gorge, on the opposite side of which Mount King George rears its peak into a rain-cloud some 600 feet above its rival. It is a weird scene indeed ! There is a fresh wind blowing in our faces, but not a leaf is stirring of the foliage beneath us. There is no sign of life in this mighty chasm. Ten seconds elapse before a stone thrown from our standpoint is lost to view, but it disturbs no birds as it crashes through the tree-tops. All is silent, mysterious, awe-inspiring. We have seen the effect of sunlight, and now we have the effect- of storm on the landscape. A thick Scotch mist drives up the valley, shrouding the distant cliffs from view, and in a few moments the buried forest lies hidden in impenetrable gloom. Govett's Leap is so called upon the lucus a non 128 A WEEK IN lucendo principle. Govett was a surveyor, and dis- covered the chasm whilst exploring the mountains before the work on the railway was commenced. It is a popular idea that the bottom of the gorge has never been trodden by man. It is to the interest of host Perry to hold this view, and Mr. Trollope has fallen into his trap. But it is not the correct one, for the gorge has been thoroughly explored from end to end, and more than once. Twelve miles from its head there is a narrow precipitous gully, by which my informant with six others climbed down into the gorge to " prospect" for minerals. He tells me that they spent three days between the cliffs, but made but slow progress owing to the enor- mous size of the boulders scattered everywhere. He describes the tree-ferns as growing to a height of from thirty to forty feet, the foliage of all kinds being most rich and luxuriant. His party saw no animals, but a large number of lyre birds and a few parrots. The surveyors entered the gorge from the low country, some twenty miles from Govett's Leap, at a point where the Grose River emerges from the moun- tains. I hear a whisper, too, that an illicit still prospered for some months in the depths of the Ghasm, and certainly, when half-hidden in mist THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 129 and rain, it looks very much like the abode of bad spirits. Our next trip is to the Campbell Cataract, com- monly called the Weatherboard Falls, after a weatherboard inn on the neighbouring Bathurst road. Retracing our steps by means of the early goods train — for there is only one passenger train a day on the G. W. R. — we alight after a run of sixteen miles at the Weatherboard Station, which consists of a small platform and one cottage. A walk of two miles along a very swampy track, and a descent of 200 or 300 feet brings us on to a similar rock to that at Govett's Leap. Here, too, we are at the head of a valley; we stand on a cliff 1000 feet in height ; opposite to us, and distant some 200 yards is another sheer wall of rock ; on our right another range trends away into the distance, and on our left are the Falls. The stream is of considerable size, and commences its descent into the glen by a series of rapids. It then plunges over a cliff from 400 to 500 feet in height, the main body of water in the centre, with a tiny jet on either side. Then foaming over huge boulders covering a steep incline of 100 feet, it falls over an underhung wall of rock, and is lost to view. Leaning over the cliff K 130 A WEEK IN and gazing down into the abyss, one can see some 200 feet of the second fall ; the lower half is hidden by a jutting crag. The height, of the whole cataract is said to be 1 100 feet, and it is more beautiful and infir nitely more grand than the waterfall at Govett's Leap. The deepest part of Prince Regent's Glen spread out at our feet is 1500 feet beneath us, and is filled with thick gum-tree forest. Confined into a corner by the cliffs round the cataract, it opens out to a width of three or four miles, and the effects of sunlight and shadow over fifty miles of forest and mountain are surpassingly lovely. Near at hand the precipices of white and red sandstone are flecked with the light green tints of a hundred ferns ; in- the glen below all is deep dark-green foliage, chequered by the shadows of many a passing cloud, whilst away towards the horizon commence the now familiar hues of blue, which culminate on the sky-line in a depth of colour which can hardly be described, — not the misty tints of distance, but the deep clear blue of the open sea. Although it is autumn, the wild flowers are very beautiful, and we return to Mount Victoria with a bouquet of white heath and tea-tree blossom fit for a bride. THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 131 There are many grand views to be obtained from Mount Victoria, many cliffs whence you can gaze over miles of mountain scenery. The Vale of Clywdd which lies at its feet is well worth a visit, and here we see a kerosene mine, the shale from which is hoisted in trucks up a cliff more than 200 feet in height to a railway siding. But fine weather is abso- lutely necessary for the enjoyment of scenery, and the weather is but seldom fine for many days together in the Blue Mountains. During two days of our stay Scotch mist prevailed, and our. view was limited to the school-house across the road. In proceeding to Bowenfels, twenty miles by rail, we pass some more stupendous gorges and get a grand view of Mount Tomah, but the Lithgow Zigzag is the great attraction to travellers, and certainly it is a marvel of engineering. Before reaching it we run through some cuttings eighty feet deep, hewn out of the solid rock, and pass beneath the Mount Clarence Tunnel, 3700 feet above sea-level, the highest point of the line. From this tunnel the train descends nearly 700 feet in five miles, zigzagging down a steep hill-side. So precipitous was the descent, and so great the diffi- culties to be overcome, that the surveyors and K 2 132 A WEEK IN workmen had to be suspended by ropes from the summit. The work has been admirably done, there are several fine viaducts in the Zigzag, and the cost of this part of the line was nearly 25,000/. a mile. Bowenfels is a village that has seen better days, but there is plenty of coal in the neighbourhood, and in all probability its former glories will be far eclipsed when it supplies the Bathurst district Here we are lodged by a Mrs. Binning, whose house we most cordially recommend to travelling friends. However, there is but little to be seen in the neighbourhood with the exception of Hassan's Walls, some deep gullies, and two or three pretty waterfalls. Hassan's Walls is the name of a bold range of battlemented cliffs, overlooking the Vale of Clywdd. The strata here is not that of Govett's Leap and Prince Regent's Glen, but exactly similar in character to that of the cliffs at Sydney Heads, the prominent crags being rounded like turrets of a castle, whilst the grain of the stone being horizontal results in jags and shelves cut in the most fantastic fashion. Ascending a lower spur of the range at Bowenfels, we reach the summit of the Walls after a walk of four miles. The cliffs fall sheer for from THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 133 400 to 500 feet, and then are met by an abrupt slope of forest, which runs downwards to the Bathurst road, winding along round the foot of the range. The view is allowed to be one of the finest in the Blue Mountains. We are fortunate in having a clear sunny day, and can enjoy it to the utmost Mount Macquarie, seventy-five miles away, stands out in bold outline, and range beyond range crops up to the eastward till it seems as if there is no limit to the prospect Before us a mountain, streaked with lines of shining white, rears itself at a distance of five-and-twenty miles. We are told that it is an alum mountain, and that the celebrated caves are there. The windings of these caves are so numerous and intricate, that people have spent many days in exploring them in different directions without exhausting the labyrinth. The stalactites and stalagmites are said to be magnificent, and we are shown some very fine specimens, some clear as crystal, others clouded like amber. That part of the mountains, however, is almost uninhabited, and those who start from Bowenfels to see the caves must be prepared to spend a week in the bush. We regret that our time is too limited to allow of such a campaign. i34 A WEEK IN Hassan's Walls are rich in heaths — the wild heath of Australia is the Cape heath of our English hothouses — and the forest slope is literally carpeted with maiden-hair fern. We saw enough in half-an- hour to supply Covent Garden for a year. In two of the gullies near Bowenfela are pretty cataracts, though insignificant compared with the Weatherboard. Leicester's Fall is about 120 feet in height, and here one Leicester really fell, his horse missing his footing and being dashed to pieces at the bottom of the gully, the rider barely escaping with his life. Monaghan's Fails are 100 feet in height, and the stream flows over a broad granite bed through such beds of watercress as would delight the heart of a kitchenmaid. Mountain bears, opossums, kangaroo, and wallaby are plentiful in the Blue Mountains, and there are many varieties of beautifully-plumaged birds, Blue Mountain and Rosella parrots, lories and lyre birds being the most brilliant. We do not know whom or what to believe as to the weather in the mountains. One man tells us that previously to our arrival it had been fine for five weeks, another that during that same period it had rained five days out of seven. Our own THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 135 experience tends to confirm the latter statement ; perhaps we are to consider five days' rain in every week to be fine mountain weather. The winter is said to be very pleasant, sharp frosts and bright blue skies being common at that season. From Bowenfels we return to Sydney, hearing much but being unable to see anything of the mag- nificent scenery of the Hawkesbury River. The mouth of the river is within two hours' steaming from Sydney, and yet no steamer, except under charter for a private part), has visited it this summer. Oh, Sydney ! where is your enterprise in search of the picturesque ? Are you not blinded by the beauties of your harbour, and have not your appe- tites for scenery wandered wool-gathering at picnics at Clontarf and Manly Beach ? Is it not a disgrace to your glorious city that no facilities should be given to the public for seeing that which has been termed the grandest river scenery in the world ? CHAPTER IX. A FEW WORDS ON THE COLONIES. English Ideas of the Colonies— A Worthless Immigrant— Field for Capital and Labour— Openings for Artisans— English Institutions — Freedom and Loyalty of the Colonies — Sepa- ration — Victorian Energy — Sydney and New South Wales Prospects — Victorian Policy — Scarcity of Labour — Society- Telegraphs and Mails. /"""*OLONISTS complain bitterly that the great ^— / majority of Englishmen are so grossly igno- rant of the colonies and their resources, as to think that those who make for themselves a home in Australia are altogether shut out from the world and know nothing of the ordinary usages of society. We are informed that many people in the mother- country believe that all children born in the colonies are born black, that no one ventures out of doors without a revolver for fear of bush-rangers, that Sydney and Melbourne are as closely allied as Liverpool and Manchester, and that when writing to a friend in the Victorian capital, it is correct to ad- dress the letter, Melbourne, South Australia. And without doubt they do not complain without some A FEW WORDS ON 1 HE COLONIES. 137 reason. Englishmen at home are hardly as ignorant of colonial life as colonists would have us believe, but their knowledge of Australia is decidedly super- ficial, and there are few who are not better up in the geography and government of Holland and Belgium than in that of New South Wales and Victoria. It is to be hoped that Mr. Trollope's work will bring about the result desired by the colonists, and not only convince the English public of the wonderful resources and vigour of Australia and New Zealand, but enable them to form a fair opinion of colonial life and society. Colonists complain, too, that Australia is unfairly judged in another way, and in this they are certainly correct They say that young men too idle and worthless to earn a living in England are shipped off to the colonies, as if there a fortune were to be had for the asking ; as if, in fact, we are sometimes told, their idleness and worthlessness were a recom- mendation sufficient to insure success. There can be no more fatal mistake than to send a young good-for-nothing to Australia without having pre- pared the way before him. If he has a place ready for him on some sheep station, where he is to learn the life of a squatter, or if he goes out to a situation 138 A FEW WORDS ON in a bank or merchant's office, well and good. But ship him off from England with nothing in prospect but what his hands may find to do, and the result is as sure as it is speedy ; what money he has is quickly spent, and then what becomes of him ? He may take to driving a cab, he may try his luck at the diggings, perhaps he will turn billiard-marker, or a hanger-on at race-meetings ; but almost to a certainty he will lose his position in the social scale with but little chance of regaining it We hear of instances of this in England ; four months in the colonies enables us to see them. Nor is it advisable to send young men, however steady they may be, to search for clerkships at Syd- ney or Melbourne, or even in Tasmania. The supply is infinitely greater than the demand, and colonists themselves have often much difficulty in obtaining for their own children the employment in the Civil Service or in a mercantile house that they desire. Situations of this kind never go begging. But the colonies are so vigorous in their growth and increase, and offer so many and varying in- ducements for the outlay of capital and labour, that for seveitl classes of emigrants there is a grand and ever-enlarging field: It is difficult to see how a THE COLONIES. 139 well-educated young Englishman, endowed with an average share of brains and common sense, and possessed of a little capital, can fail to succeed if he is willing to work, and work hard. Let him be ready to take advice from those who, from experience of colonial life and knowledge of colonial resources, are qualified to give an opinion ; and once started in a line of business, let him devote all his energies to that line, and not be persuaded to dabble in other speculations. Having a number of irons in the fire has often compassed the ruin of adventurous colonists. For young artisans, single or married, there are numerous openings. Ten shillings a day is the usual rate of wages for skilled labour, and it must be always borne in mind that a scale of payment averaging almost double that current in England is not by any means the only advantage offered by the colonies. They also offer cheap food, moderate house rent, and a healthy climate, with a higher social position, and the prospect of earning an inde- pendence. The artisan's wife will find plenty of employment, and in Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania, children are very well educated at a trifling expense. i4o A FEW WORDS ON Especially in New South Wales, the emigrant will find himself amongst English people, and enjoying, institutions and privileges almost similar to those of the old country. Social and political freedom is one of the boasts of the colonies. Loyalty to England and English institutions is another. Every one, even though colonial born, speaks of England as " home" or " the old country," and during our four months in Australasia we have never once heard a whisper as to separation. Every one is far too fond of England to bear the thought of being severed from her. Not one of the branches as yet desires to be lopped from the parent tree. Out here we are told that it is the old country that con- templates separation, that not a single British soldier is to be seen in an immense continent that acknow- ledges British rule, and that the governors of the various colonies form the only real connexion with the United Kingdom, whilst even their salaries come out of colonial exchequers. There is no question as to the intense loyalty of the colonies to England, but the colonies express grave doubts as to the loyalty of England to them. Tell any one that the mother- country is very proud of her colonies, and one is instantly met with, " Then why did she take away THE COLONIES. 141 the troops ?" Not being able satisfactorily to ac- count for this piece of policy, I attempt to throw out a grain of comfort, and say, "Depend upon it England will never throw you over in your present helpless state ; she will at least wait till you are able to look after yourselves and fight your own battles." But this allusion to their want of fighting men and fighting ships is hardly taken in the spirit in which it is made. The Sydney man declares roundly that, so strongly fortified is his beautiful harbour as to preclude the possibility of even an iron-clad passing the lightship inside the Heads. The Melbourne man bristles up as he thinks of the as-yet-unknown powers of the Cerberus, and vows that she is a small model of the Devastation. Even the Hobartonian feels warlike as he remembers that there is an unfinished battery commanding part of the Derwent estuary. But, truth to tell, the colonists, "blow" as they may, are well aware of their defenceless position, and trust that their isolated situation will protect them from attack. But it will hardly do to trust to this when the question of separation is fairly mooted All the colonies allow that of late years Victoria H2 A FEW WORDS ON has shown a decided lead. The energy of the people of Melbourne is evident enough to the most casual observer : every one seems to have work to do, and to be doing it to the best of his ability. ' More than this, every one has the appearance of doing well : the entire city seems to be thoroughly prosperous and well-to-do, and all its inhabitants seem to be bent upon making money and improving their position. There is apparently a great race for wealth, and so determined are the runners that I was quite afraid of getting in any one's way in the streets, lest I should by any chance impede his progress towards a fortune. Melbourne is in every way a livelier place than Sydney ; there are more theatricals, more concerts, more balls, more excitement. Sydney is far more quiet, far more English, and to a visitor far more enjoyable. There can be no question that she is well-to-do, but she seems to be content with her position, and in no great hurry to heap up riches. She has had bad times of late, and has scarcely recovered from the effects. Mel- bourne men always twit her with her slowness and want of enterprise, and even her own inhabitants would gladly welcome a few energetic capitalists. THE COLONIES. 143 But they are already looking forward to regaining the lead wrested from them by the Victorians. Perhaps this will come with the development of the undoubtedly great mining resources of the colony, and the extension of the railway to the Riverina, for then Victoria will not profit by the exportation of wool grown in New South Wales. The policy of the. Victorian Government in dis- couraging immigration is very generally questioned in the colonies. Labour is very scarce, and servants can hardly be obtained at any figure. A good housemaid can readily command 30/. a year in a private house, and a skilled cook as much as 50/. These wages are worthy of notice, and it must not be forgotten that servants, as a rule, fare better in the colonies, where food is invariably cheap and good, than in England. New Zealand and Queens- land are now receiving most of the emigrants, but Victoria will probably soon find it necessary to throw out a bait again. Society in the colonies is hardly the same as in England : manners are more rough-and-ready, and in many cases there is not quite the same polish and refinement. But it is doubtful whether a stranger can anywhere meet with a more hearty welcome, or 144 A FEW WORDS ON THE COLONIES. be treated with greater kindness or hospitality. It is pleasant to get rid of much of the absurd formality of English society, and a guest will feel himself more at home in a day in the colonies than in a week of ordinary English life. The extension of the telegraphic system has done much for Australia, and the reduction of the rates is anxiously looked forward to. As it is, the colonial papers, united by the Press Association, publish daily telegrams from England, so that Australia is kept au fait with respect to all movements of impor- tance in Europe. In addition to the P. and O., too, two new mail routes, vid San Francisco and Torres Straits, have this year been started, so that the facilities of communication with Europe are now largely increased. CHAPTER X. THE FIJI ISLANDS. Best Friends must Part — The New Mail Route — Lord Howe's Island — Kandavu — A Native Congregation — Boarded by Fijians — " The Giant Wind ;" his Wife and Daughters — An Olive-skinned Venus in Full-dress Undress — Morning Calls — A Luncheon Party — A Fijian Cricketer — The Barrier Reef — Government House — " The Giant Wind's" Turtle Pond— A Love-stricken Princess's Farewell — The Natives — Fijian Poli- tics — Products of the Group — Climate and Position — A Future Naval Station — Levuka — Revenue — Population — Coast and Mountain Tribes — Fijian Prospects under British Rule. T T is with many regrets that I bid adieu to the -*- Colonies, and on the second Saturday in May steam away down Sydney Harbour bound for Fiji. Novelli is much better, but still too weak to travel, and he goes to spend the winter with some friends on the Darling Downs, whilst I, having already lengthened my stay by a month, am compelled to leave him and complete the circuit of the globe a solitary man. We can only hope that the colonists have not been unduly "blowing" about these Queens- land Downs, and that the balmy breezes, of which 146 THE FIJI ISLANDS. we hear so much, will effectually reinvigorate a sadly enfeebled frame. The Australasian and American Mail Company commenced operations with the new year, the through steamers to San Francisco starting alter- nately from Sydney and New Zealand, each colony paying a subsidy of 40,000/. for the conveyance of the mails. Affairs have gone badly from the first. The few schemers yclept the Company chartered steamers of insufficient speed and accommodation, the mails have been invariably behind time, and the passen- gers have fared indifferently at the best When the Company is fairly floated and the fine steamers now being built ji England are on the line, the route home across America will undoubtedly become most popular. At present the entire working of the Pacific line seems to be in the hands of one man, and his arrangements have by no means given satis- faction. Sydney Harbour is looking its loveliest as we leave it, and the R.M.S.S. City of Adelaide passes through the Heads and meets the long swell of the Pacific. We have a decidedly mixed set of passen- gers in the saloon, which is inconveniently crowded by reason of its accommodation being shared by THE FIJI ISLANDS. 147 those holding second-class tickets. We have Fijian store-keepers, one of whom, apparently of Jewish extraction, seems to live upon lemonade ; diggers who lose no time in telling every one that they have " made a pile" of ten or twenty thousand pounds — I invariably halve their amounts — and are bound to Europe for a spree ; squatters and merchants going home for a year's holiday ; a lord, who is also a clergyman and conducts our Sunday services ) and an American spiritualist, who has reaped a rich harvest in gullible Melbourne ; besides the usual sprinkling of Englishmen travelling for health or pleasure. " Colonial manners" is a term of reproach in Eng- land, and the manners of many of our fellow-passen- gers are nil, but they are hardly fair specimens , of colonists. He on my left hand, directly the " tops" — as he terms the covers — are removed, " goes for" the nearest dish, apparently afraid that otherwise he will get no dinner. Owing to the rolling of the ship a leg of mutton in front of him manifests signs of unsteadiness, and on these occasions he leaves off eating for a moment in order to dig his fork into the joint to preserve its equilibrium. With his own knife and fork he helps himself to meat and vege- tables, and finishes a meal sufficient for three men L 2 i 4 8 THE FIJI ISLANDS. by ordering a pint of stout with his almonds and raisins. It is not uncommon, either, to see the leg or wing of an unruly chicken pulled from the body and placed on a plate with the fingers. One soon gets used to these little irregularities. Early in the afternoon of our second day out we pass Lord Howe's Island, a rugged mass of rock and mountain, rising to a height of 4000 feet, its western face being a perpendicular cliff of 2000 feet. There are a few people on the southern side of the island, but it is not easy to see how they get their living. A number of dangerous reefs and rocks extend seaward on the northern side, and at a dis- tance of tw© or three miles is St. Paul's Pyramid, a conical peak rising many hundred feet above the sea. On the sixth day out we enter the Tropics, and are reminded of it by two flying fish, which invade the saloon through one of the stern ports. Two days later we sight Kandavu, the southernmost of the Fiji Islands, shortly after dawn, and admire the noble mass of Mount Washington on its western side, rearing its head 3000 feet up into a huge white rain-cloud. From the eastern points of land run out miles of THE FIJI ISLANDS. 149 coral reef, on which the ocean rollers are breaking grandly, and outside this barrier we take our pilot on board. The entrance to Kandavu Harbour is narrow and intricate, and here two months ago the Macgregor, one of the mail steamers, struck on a submerged reef and remained for several days hard and fast aground. The passage will shortly be properly buoyed and lighted, and the new Com- pany are said to be about to build offices and stores, and to establish a coaling- station here. The view of Port Ngaloa from the entrance is very beautiful. On our left the coral reef encloses a still lagoon of the softest lightest green ; before us hills and mountains, covered from base to summit with the richest vegetation, are tipped with fleecy cloud ; and on our right, dividing the waters of the bay, is Ngaloa Island, its slopes feathery with the foliage of the cocoa palm and banana, half-hidden in which appear here and there the low brown huts of the natives. H.M.S. Rosario and a small coasting schooner are alone in the harbour ; the New Zealand steamer is even later than ourselves. The brothers L. accompany me ashore on Ngaloa, . landing close to a small collection of huts scattered about just above the coral-strewn beach. It is ijo THE FIJI ISLANDS. Sunday afternoon, and a native missionary is preaching to some fifty men, women, and children squatting on their hams on the mat-covered floor of a neat whitewashed mission-house. Amongst the congregation is a tall native, with a thick cane, keeping silence by tapping the heads of the inatten- tive. The preacher is eloquent and energetic in gesture, but Fiji is hardly a pretty language to listen to, being decidedly characterized by queer guttural sounds, and spoken very fast. The sermon over, a hymn is read out and sung to a rather monotonous dirge-like chant, and the congregation disperse. We are at once surrounded by an olive-skinned crowd ; the ladies' dresses are minutely examined, for a white lady has scarcely been seen in Kandavu before the present year ; the gentlemen have to display their watches and chains, and by means of shouting and signs every one is soon carrying on a vigorous con- versation. Why is it that one always elevates the voice when trying to make one's native tongue in- telligible to a foreigner ? We wander away into the bush, and are soon lost in a wilderness of ferns, creepers, bananas, cocoa palms, and chestnut trees. We meet with a young , native, and make signs to him that we are thirsty THE FIJI ISLANDS. 151 and wish to refresh ourselves with the juice of a green cocoa nut. Clutching the trunk with both hands, he almost runs up a palm, and our wants are soon plentifully supplied. He receives his douceur with apparent nonchalance, and proceeds to tie it up in a corner of his sulu with a fibre of banana bark. Monday morning breaks fine and clear, and our slumbers are early disturbed by the chattering of a hundred natives, a whole squadron of whose fruit- laden canoes are alongside the steamer. Queer crank-looking craft are these, roughly dug out of the trunk of a tree, and kept steady on the water by an outrigger consisting of a log half the length of the canoe, attached to it amidships by a few light poles projecting some four or five feet from its side. They are usually propelled by means of a long oar worked between the poles, after the fashion of sculling a boat from the stern, but sometimes we see the ordi- nary short paddle being plied at bow and stern. Some of the larger craft hoist a large lug-sail, but they do not seem very weatherly under canvas, which they use but little compared with the Society Islanders. The scene on deck is amusing enough. Forward 1 52 THE FIJI ISLANDS. fifty natives, their olive skins blackened and be- grimed with dust, are hard at work replenishing the coal bunkers from the hold, and thoroughly earning their shilling a day ; on the poop as many more, laden with lemons, huge bunches of bananas, cocoa nuts, shells, coral, matting, tappa — a soft white fabric, called by the natives "marse" — and a few clubs and other weapons, are driving a brisk trade with the passengers. Everything is to be had for a. shil- ling. " Shillin" is the only English word that all the natives understand ; in fact, this useful coin seems to be the " almighty dollar" of Kandavu. You take a lemon and ask " How much ?" " Shil- lin" is the reply, but you can take the man's whole stock of sixty — basket and all, for the same sum. The natives regard a florin with suspicion, but de- light in a half-crown. Think of this, ye managers of the mint : Kandavu will rejoice at the new issue. The Governor of the island, whose name signifies the " Giant Wind," a grizzled old man, comes on board to breakfast, and comports himself in a staid and somewhat lugubrious manner. His wife is by no means 'attractive in appearance; perhaps he is hen- pecked. His daughters, however, are comely girls, and boast more clothing than the other women^ as THE FIJI ISLANDS. 153 in addition to a sulu of tappa, they wear a loose print jacket adorned with knots of bright-coloured ribbon. We give them paper and pencil, and they both write their names — Vivita and Taravini — in well-formed English characters. Two attendant maidens, of about seventeen and fifteen years of age, exhibit signs of shyness ; but, after a little hesitation, the names Kaisya and Ana are traced in sprawling round text, and the signatories hand back the document with a smile of triumph. The younger of these is a very pretty girl, with an oval face, well-cut mouth and nose, and brilliant dark eyes. Her hair is dark brown, and falls in loose tresses over her shoulders — a charming contrast to the lime-powdered close-cropped wigs of the generality of Fijians, females as well as males ; a necklace of scarlet and white beads is her only ornament, a sulu of fringed tappa round her waist her only article of dress. With difficulty forcing our way through the fleet of canoes we row ashore, landing at a " koro" or village on Kandavu, nearly opposite to that visited yesterday on Ngaloa. We are received by a Tiorde of tiny islanders of both sexes, most of them guiltless of sulus. A few venture to shake hands, 154 THE FIJI ISLANDS. which mode of recognition is a novelty in Kandavu. The village consists of some thirty large huts and a mission house, and is built under the shade of a large grove of cocoa palms. The huts are of dried reeds lashed to a strong framework of poles, and have a lofty arched roof, but are without windows or chimney. They invariably have two doors, but so low and narrow that crawling has to be resorted to for ingress. Mats of plaited rushes cover the floor, and in the best huts a partition of canes separates bedroom from sitting-room, but of furniture we can see one article only — a short piece of wood sup- ported on two tiny legs, which is used as a pillow. A rough hearth occupies one corner, and there are one or two large clay pots for cooking fish and yams in. We see but little more than this in any of the huts : here and there a club, a canoe paddle, a necklace. We find it easy to make friends. Crawling in we shake hands with the women, inspect the household arrangements, admire the baby — there is always at least one baby in every hut — exhibit a watch, locket, or photograph, present a necktie or picture, and, after another bout of handshaking, crawl out. Close to the village a brook comes tumbling down a rocky THE FIJI ISLANDS. 155 little ravine, forming in*one place a large deep pool. Here we proceed to enjoy a bathe, to the great amusement of our attendant body-guard of gamins. Strolling through the bush to the beach, where several canoes are being laboriously dug out of felled trees, we meet with a couple of natives, father and son, the one apparently about forty years old, the latter eighteen. They are highly delighted when I present them with a pipe and some tobacco, and ask us whether we " want eat." Such an invitation is of course not to be declined, and we enter a hut on the margin of the shore, not without disturbing a member of the family, who, in the form of a sow, is reclining at her ease in the doorway. The other occupants are a woman of about five-and-thirty, with the stock baby in her arms, her daughter o» fourteen, and a couple of young sons. We greet them one and all, and squat down on the mats with the whole party in a large family circle, I being seated in the place of honour, between husband and wife. The fire is at once lighted by means of rubbing a thin pointed stick in a groove hollowed in a larger stick of dry wood, and cooking operations are commenced. Meanwhile we are being inspected as well as 156 THE FIJI ISLANDS. inspecting. We present oui* cards, and father and son write their names for us — Cornilio Drano and Michael Ohake ; Fijians seem to despise surnames. Michael is intelligent and inquiring; he can also speak a few words of English, and very proud of it he is, for father and mother can only say " shillin." He produces some texts in Fiji and reads them to us, and gives signs of being a discerning native.' At any rate, he is not slow to appreciate the superiority of the Virginian leaf over the ordinary wild tobacco of his own island. Our lunch is ready at last, the pretty daughter has picked a couple of banana leaves, and on these are dished up some boiled fish and half a dozen yams, with a block of rock salt to be scraped as required with a shell. Ripe cocoa nut and bananas conclude the repast, which is washed down with the juice of the green cocoa nut, and our trio decide that they have lunched well. The family declined to eat with us, Michael explaining that one meal a day, and that at five in the evening, is the rule in Kandavu ; but as soon as we have finished, they all set to work with avidity, and soon nothing is left on the mat- table but the bare banana-leaf dishes and the lump pf rock salt. Dried leaves of wild tobacco are then THE FIJI ISLANDS. 157 produced, and wife and daughter proceed to make cigars for all hands. These they roll up with great rapidity and neatness, tie with a fibre round the middle, light at the fire, and pass from their lips to ours. This tobacco is better than nothing, but that is all that can be said for it ; and I admire Michael's taste when, laying aside the cigar and taking up the pipe I had given him, he hands it to me and asks for " more good smoke." Half-an-hour's conversation and we take our leave, much pleased with the hospitality of Mr. and Mrs. Drano. Waiting for our boat, we get up a small game of cricket on the beach, greatly to the delight of a large concourse of natives. At last we persuade one of their number to try his hand with the bat — a roughly shaped piece of wood. He is much distressed at being bowled out first ball, but succeeds better at his second attempt, having a capi- tal eye, and hitting every ball on the full pitch, his companions heartily enjoying the fun. Both the San Francisco and the New Zealand steamers enter the bay the following morning, and transhipment of cargo, passengers, and coal results in the usual scene of confusion. We escape after a while, and are rowed up to the reef by a crew of six iS« THE FIJI ISLANDS. stalwart natives. The coral'is of various hues, some white, some light pink, some blue. The colouring here is indeed exquisite. Outside the reef the sea is deep dark blue ; within it the lagoon is of varying shades of the most delicate light blue, and near shore of the brightest green ; on the reef all is white flashing foam. We then go ashore and visit the Governor's house, which is much like a mission house, but fairly filled with furniture of a very civilized pattern. We are also shown his turtle pond, the occupants of which would appear to thrive although confined in a very small space. The sight would have made an alderman's mouth water. Just as we are leaving the village the Governor and his wife return from the steamer, and we are able to exchange compliments. The scene on board the Cyphrenes next day, before we get our anchor up, is almost affecting, and one middle-aged gentleman, not unknown on the London Stock Exchange, is visibly moved, so loth is he to say farewell to one of the young princesses. This affection is reciprocal, for the fair charmer — fair for a native — follows him wherever he goes. I attempt to appease her sorrow by presenting her with the only silver coin I have in my pocket. She is THE FIJI ISLANDS. 159 evidently grateful, for she offers me a large mother- of-pearl shell as a keepsake, and then, shaking hands hastily, trots off after her favourite. By noon on the third day after our arrival we are again under weigh, and Kandavu is soon nothing more than a blue-peaked line on the horizon. On a visitor the natives cannot fail to make a favourable impression, for they are well-made, and by no means ill-looking, and in manner they are gentle, and apparently seldom quarrel. They seem to work well when they are at work, and to be easily managed with kindness ; but they are said to be not over-industrious, and occasionally obstinate and treacherous. They are certainly most attentive to religious duties, and their conduct is a remarkable instance of how vast an amount of good may result from the efforts of missionaries. Forty years ago, when the first missionaries landed in Fiji, the natives revelled in cannibalism, polygamy, and idolatry ; now they are as attractive specimens of the rough material, just sufficiendy polished to preserve its nature without offending the eye or senses, as can be desired. One slight reservation must be made. Small game in the hair is rather a prevalent complaint. The natives find it difficult to , 160 THE FIJI ISLANDS. avoid this ; but they try to cure it by means of lime and close cropping. As a rule, their hair is woolly and much matted; and the heads of a crowd of natives, covered with red, yellow, or white, accord- ing to the fancy of the artist, present a very queer appearance. The women, as a rule, cut their hair like their lords ; occasionally it is allowed to grow long, but even then it is not pleasing to the eye. Ornaments are not much worn ; bead bracelets and necklaces, however, are common enough, and to the latter a chief will attach a large ivory ring. The women sometimes wear a waistbelt of beadwork round their sulus, and I saw one or two wedding rings and even a keeper. In very few instances painting or smearing the face with colours in grotesque patches is to be noticed. Fijian politics had beeh in a state of ferment for several months before our arrival in Kandavu. The whites and natives fell out during the dis- cussion as to the cession of the kingdom to the British Government, and the conduct of the former, who on one occasion had recourse to firearms, and then turned tail ignominiously and bolted, did not jredound to their credit. There were many meetings held, and much violent abuse indulged in, before the THE FIJI ISLANDS? 161 cession was finally agreed upon ; but now all is quiet, pending the arrival of the British reply. No one doubts that it will be favourable, and under •English rule the condition of the islanders, as well as the prosperity of the white settlers, will probably be materially improved. King Cakombau and his Government have fared ill, and the islands have been saddled with a debt of nearly 90,000/. within the last few years. • I have had occasion to meet the late Premier, and from what I have seen of him, and his evident want of tact and judgment, I should say that it would be difficult to find a man more thoroughly unfitted for any post of responsibility. And I speak of an Englishman, not of a native. The products of the Fijis are at present neither numerous nor important. Cotton has been exten- sively grown for some years on Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, the two largest islands of the group, but it is now looked upon as a failure, as it is of so fine a quality that the price it fetches in the English market is by no means remunerative. Unless a coarser quality can be grown, cotton will probably cease to form an export at all. Coffee is being intro- duced, and already there are two or three small plantations in full bearing. It takes three years M i62 '. THE FIJI ISLANDS. # for the plants to attain this growth, and then they bear two crops a year. Sugar is also being intro- duced, and, it is said, with every prospect of success: indeed, some tons of excellent quality have already been exported. Nature bountifully provides for the bodily wants of the natives. Yams, bananas, breadfruit, taro, and cocoa-nuts are growing luxuriantly in every direc- tion : oranges, lemons, plantains, and guavas also thrive, and there is an abundant supply. of tobacco in the bush. In some places this tobacco is culti- vated with success, and it fetches a paying price in Levuka, the capital. There are wild pigs in the bush, but the indigenous animals are few, and the snakes are reported harmless. The weather during our stay is hot, and, owing to frequent heavy showers, very oppressive, by reason of the great humidity of the air. The mean temperature is about 80 degrees, and the climate is said to be healthy, though dysentery is more or less prevalent amongst the natives. Hitherto the Fiji Islands have been little known. In Australia they are spoken of as a refuge for the destitute, and Levuka enjoys no enviable reputation. But now they seem to have a chance of going THE FIJI ISLANDS* 163 . w a-head. They are already connected by the new mail route with the Sandwich Islands, America, New Zealand, and New South Wales, and there will shortly be steam communication eastwards with Tahiti and the Society Islands, and westwards with New Caledonia If the new industries thrive as is anticipated, Fiji under British Government is not unlikely to become the West Indies of our Austra- lian colonies. But independently of the fertility of the group, the great advantages offered by Fiji for the establishment of a naval dep6t and coaling station may well be brought under consideration. From the little settlement of Victoria in Vancouver's Island to the Australias, Great Britain has no har- bour, and as her ships may fairly be said to command the western Pacific, some naval station would become an absolute necessity in time of war. Port Ngaloa, when properly buoyed and lighted, would form a grand harbour, and there are many others amongst the northern islands which only require an accurate survey. The approach to Levuka is somewhat intricate, the coral reefs extend- ing seawards in various ramifications for many miles ; but there are admirable charts of the entrance M 2 i6 4 " THE %IJI ISLANDS. • obtainable, and the men-of-war cruising on the station frequently put in. There are several Levuka merchants among our passengers, and from their accounts of the aspect of the capital, I gather the following facts. The town consists mainly of a single street, three-quarters of a mile in length, running parallel with the beach, and backed by lofty mountains. The public buildings embrace three Churches, a Parliament House, Theatre, and Hospital. A gaol has been much wanted for some time past. There are four or five hotels, though perhaps boarding-houses would be the more correct term, and a paper called the Fiji Times is published weekly. Levuka is on the east coast of Ovalau, a small and unproductive island ioo miles north of Kandavu. To the west of Ovalau is Viti Levu, and to the north Vanua Levu ; these are the principal islands of the group, the former comprising an area of 41 12 square miles, the latter 2432. On these two islands most of the cotton planting has been carried on by the white settlers, but as but little money has been made by this product of late years, sugar and coffee are taking its place. Two years ago it was reckoned that 300,000 acres of land had been taken up by British THE FIJI ISLANDS. 165 subjects, and that as much as 10,000 acres had been cleared and were under cultivation. Roads, however, are much wanted, as those now existing are mere tracks thr»ugh the bush, and beasts of burden being scarcely known in Fiji, most of the produce is trans- ported by water round the coastline inside the barrier reefs. That the islands may easily be made to pay their way and leave a good margin of profit may be judged from the fact that the exports two years ago amounted to the annual value of 90,000/. The principal products contributing to this total were : Sea Island cotton, 76,000/ ; other cotton, 3800/. ; cocoa-nut oil, 3500/. ; copra, 1080/. ; and cotton seed, 1000/. The estimated revenue was then 23,500/., and the expenditure 20,000/., so that there was a fair surplus, even during a period of the grossest mis- management I have heard of " cooked accounts" in England, but nothing to compare to those served up by Cakombau's ministry. The transfer of land will be the chief difficulty to be dealt with by the future rulers of the islands. Hitherto this has been transacted by affidavit and deed registered at the Consulate, but to some holdings many claimants have occasionally ap- 166 THE FIJI ISLANDS. peared, and land tenure has been rather precarious of late. According to the state of the soil and position, it has been sold at prices varying from 4s. to 1/. per acre. • The latest estimate puts the native population at 150,000, which number is scattered over about 140 islands. The whites are reckoned at 2500, more than four-fifths of this number being British subjects, and the remainder principally Americans. The natives are divided into coast and mountain tribes> which hold no intercourse together. The coast natives are decidedly well-disposed, thanks to the efforts of the missionaries, who have established more than 600 chapels throughout the group, and claim to have made 100,000 converts to Christianity. Certainly the Kandavese with whom I came into contact were a very "proper" and Sunday-go-to- meeting race. Of the mountain tribes but very little is known, as they remain buried in almost inaccessible fast- nesses amongst the gorges, and have been but seldom visited by white men. That they are never likely to interfere with settlers, however, is very plainly shown by the experience of old residents, and people who fancy that the annexation of Fiji THE FIJI ISLANDS. 167 means another war similar to that with the Maories in New Zealand are much mistaken. The moun- tain tribes are reckoned at not more than 7000, and this number is distributed over many islands. It is even doubtful whether cannibalism still exists amongst them at all, though they are decidedly given to internecine warfare. There can be but little doubt that within a very few years Fiji, under British rule, will be in a prosperous condition. The islands have naturally all the elements to be desired by settlers : a fixed system of land tenure, and the construction of roads between the most fertile districts and the ports will result in the full development of these resources, and with a fertile soil, a healthy climate, cheap labour, and great advantages of position, Fiji should not fail to rise speedily into general notice. CHAPTER XL HONOLULU. From Kandavu to Honolulu — The Capital of the Hawaiian Islands — Bijou Villas — Honolulu Beauties — The Pali — The Parliament House and Parliament — A Hawaiian Church — The King's Palace — Charge Bayonets ! — A Political Emeute — King Kalakaua — A Hawaiian Ballet — Mortality amongst the Natives — Products of the Islands — American Views of the Situation — Climate — Volcanoes in Hawaii. TTOURTEEN days' steaming from Kandavu -*■ brings us to Honolulu, the capital of the Sandwich Islands. We have two May the twentieths, and so accommodate our Antipodes Day — the extra twenty-four hours which enabled Mr. Phileas Fogg to win his bet when he circum- navigated the globe in eighty days, as chronicled by Jules Verne. But nothing occurs during the fortnight to vary the monotony of a fair-weather run through the Tropics. Not even are we treated to the glories of a grand sunset to hold entranced the promenaders on the poop, and we are quite ready to believe that in this respect the Pacific HONOLULU. 169 yields the palm to the South Atlantic. The ther- mometer marks 90 in the saloon on several days, but though the trade winds do not favour our pro- gress, they make life under the poop awning quite tolerable. Unfortunately the Cyphrenes has accom- modation for thirty-six first-class passengers only, and yet the Company's agent did not scruple to ship sixty-four, and thus make every one uncomfort- able. He is a man of no manners, but with an exceedingly bad temper in place of them, and he succeeded in nothing but making all the passen- gers thoroughly disgusted with his inefficiency and conceit Leaving the Kandavu barrier reef flashing in the sunlight far astern, we head up north-east through the Nanuku Passage, instead of going east about and keeping clear of the outlying islands of the group. The time of our sailing enables us to clear all the dangers by daylight, and this short cut saves us sixty miles. The second day out we sight se- veral small islands, and have a larger one, Uea or Wallis Island, abeam in the afternoon. After this we see neither land nor a sail till the bold mountain ranges of Oahu rise dimly out of the grey sea at dawn on June 2nd. At five a.m. the pilot 170 HONOLULU. boards us, and we steam In through a very narrow gut between two dangerous ridges of the barrier reef, passing a small fleet of canoes paddling out to fish, and make fast to 'the wharf an hour later. Honolulu, the Hawaiian capital, has a very pic- turesque appearance as we approach it from the sea* The whole aspect of the island tells of volcanic; action ; the mountains and foot-hills are brown and .* bare of vegetation, the plain extending from their base to the sea is sterile and dreary, and only in the gullies, which look like light green feathers laid on the mountain slopes, in the town itself, which is admirably planted, and in the King's cocoa-grove, fringing the eastern shore of the bay, can one detect the luxuriance of tropical foliage. But the mountains, intersected with deep gloomy ravines, through which the morning mists are driving, rear their serrated ridges throughout the length of the island, and even the brightest sunshine fails to rob them of their sombre grandeur. The town, which is built on the low land border- ing the shore — partly indeed on land recently re- claimed from the sea, thanks to the industry of the architects of the coral reef— looks small and insig' nificant from the harbour, but on going ashore to HONOLULU. 171 breakfast we get glimpses of fine public buildings and numerous shops and stores, of neat houses nest- ling among bowers of shrubs and flowers, and evi- dences of a busy trade and considerable population. The streets are narrow, and the houses built of wood, without any attempt at decoration or even uniformity. In the by-streets or lanes pretty ve- randah-girt villas peep out from shrubberies of tropical foliage, honeysuckle, poinsettia, roses, lilies, and a hundred flowers strange to English eyes; Tiny fountains are sending sparkling jets of water up into the hot still air, and other music is not want- ing, for here and there we hear the tinkle of a dis- tant piano, telling us that early rising is the rule in Honolulu, and suggesting as a consequence a siesta at midday. But here we are at the Grand Hawaiian Hotel, a fine verandahed building, standing back from the road in a pretty garden, the green lawn, cool deep shade and trickling fountain of which are doubly grate- ful after the glare of the scorching sunlight, scorching even though it is not yet seven a.m. The Theatre, half-hidden by its wealth of honeysuckle and fart palm, is not fifty yards distant, but it is quite thrown into insignificance by the Hotel. This was built 172 HONOLULU. by Government at a cost of 25,000/4 and is admi- rably planned and appointed, but it certainly does not strike one as being worth the money. How- ever, with its large, airy rooms and cool verandahs, shaded with masses of passion-flower, with its excellent food and iced American drinks, we of the Cyphrenes, long confined in stuffy cabins and hurried over uncomfortable meals, are delighted with the Hawaiian Hotel, and hardly think it ne- cessary to question the policy of the Government. We learn that no rent is charged to the landlord, but that he has to pay an annual tax of 200/., the Hawaiian duty on hotel-keeping. Having engaged the only four-in-hand team in Honolulu, a party of us devote the morning to a visit to the lion of the island, the Pali, a mountain pass six miles north of the town. People who only know of the Sandwich Islands as the scene of the murder of Captain Cook, would be rather astonished by the aspects of the streets of the capital. The reed huts of the natives are nowhere to be seen, on all sides the houses are strongly built of wood, the larger buildings and the more pretentious villas boasting stucco or concrete. A very civilized town is Honolulu, with its regular streets and bowery HONOLULU. 173 lanes, its handsome Parliament House, its large churches, its gaol and hospital, and its kerosene lamps. We meet neat buggies, and here and there quite an elegant stanhope or phaeton drawn by a pair of horses that would not look amiss in Hyde Park on a Saturday afternoon. And turning a corner, we come suddenly upon a small inn with its benches and horse-trough in front, and its sign- board, lettered " The Bay Horse," swinging over- head, which, but for its sheltering palm and a mass of brilliant creeper, looks as if it had been imported bodily from England. Leaving the business part of the town behind, we bowl along a good but very dusty road, bordered for a couple of miles by the villas of the ilite — bijou residences all of them, peeping out of a wilderness of creepers, flowers, and foliage, to gain a lovely view over the town and bay, with the high mountain range swelling up into cloudland at the head of the valley. Here it is that Queen Emma lives, and her villa, though small, is beautifully situated, and pretty enough for a royal residence. The foot-hills now close in, and passing many fields of taro well irrigated by the streams from the mountains, we come upon good mountain grass, and see cattle and 174 HONOLULU. sheep grazing quietly on the lower slopes. On our right the hills are rugged, but in the gullies thero is dense vegetation. The town should be well supplied with water, for we see a hundred brawling little brooks winding their silver threads across the light green velvet of the turf, and in one place we catch a distant view of a waterfall over a steep crag some 200 feet in height. We meet but few people in the course of our drive, a few Chinese taking their garden produce into market, a string or two of pack-mules, and a herd of eighteen oxen driven by no less than nine stock-men, who are riding wiry little cobs, and rejoice in huge Mexican- like saddles with large wooden stirrups, and wear broad sombreros and scarves of the brightest colours. Labour would seem to be cheap in Oahu. As far as dress is concerned, the Hawaiians are far more civilized than the Fijians, but, as regards morals, they suffer very much by comparison, and to this cause the fearful mortality amongst the native population is in a great measure traceable. The men, as a rule, wear coats and trousers of nankeen, which sit by no means well upon them, The women, however, are very picturesquely clad in a long robe, generally of a bright pink colour, HONOLULU. 17s which is fastened round the neck and descends loosely to the ankles. We meet several bevies of girls on horseback who are still more gaily attired, their robes bein|^gathered in at the waist with bright scarves, which fling their folds out far over the horses' tails. Their jaunty straw hats are wreathed with flowers, and now and then we see a necklace of brilliant blossoms adorn- ing some dark-eyed beauty. Many of the girls are decidedly pretty, but the Fijians are the handsomer race, in figure as well as in face. The girls ride astride, and rejoice in galloping up and down the main streets of Honolulu, making them ring again with their merry laughter. They are as light-hearted and gay as the Fijians are staid and solemn. Approaching the Pali, we pass through thickets of how-tree (I doubt my orthography), the thousand stems of which, crooked into the most fanciful forms, make an undergrowth through 'which neither man nor beast could hope to free a passage. Here one realizes — " Lucus nulli penetrabilis astro." The Pali is a narrow pass across the central mountain range, and the view from it comprises a 176 HONOLULU. magnificent panorama of fertile lowlands, breezy foot-hills green and well-wooded, miles of yellow sands and flashing coral reef, shut in on either side by bold ^eadlands, washed by the deep blue island- studded Pacific. The cliff on which we stand over- looks a sheer precipice 800 feet in depth, beneath which all is luxuriant foliage, whilst beyond it the sunny plain is dotted with sugar and coffee plan- tations, the stations connected with which lie snugly ensconced in clumps of waving feathery vegetation. The extent of the view of mountain, plain, and sea is indeed charming, but the variety of tints in the landscape is more charming still. Every shade of green is here, from the light delicate tints in the distant lagoon to the deep green black of the wooded gully in shadow ; every shade of blue, from the blue-purple of the open sea beneath a passing cloud to the misty grey-blue of the far ranges ; every shade of yellow, from the whitish yellow of the sea-shore to the tawny reddish hues of the road winding through the pass. On either side of us rise dark rugged peaks, their summits capped with cloud, a smart shower is falling, and the wind blows keenly off the sea, but beneath us all is .gay and smiling in sunlight. We gaze from the gloom and HONOLULU. 177 sterility and savage grandeur of the mountains on a little Paradise at our feet The Hawaiian Government have not only built an excellent hotel, and so done good service to tourists, but they have just completed a really im- posing Parliament House, erected and arranged in a style such as not even those well acquainted with Honolulu would have ventured to anticipate. It is built of concrete, stands in its own grounds, shortly to be planted, and has cost 30,000/. — only 5000/. more than the hotel. The building is not only for debates, ' but contains in addition to the large Council Chamber — in which spittoons abound, but smoking is forbidden — a Jiost of offices devoted to the transaction of legal and Civil Service business, and is surmounted by a fine clock-tower, whence we obtain a grand bird's-eye view of the town, arid in- deed all the southern side of Oahu. The Hawaiian Parliament consists of two Houses in one, the seventeen nobles and the twenty-eight representatives of the plebs sitting together in the same Hall, and their votes having equal weight. Mr. Bishop, the Honolulu banker, an American by birth, is the President, and occupies a dais at the head of the chamber ; on his right are the Treasury N 178 HONOLULU. benches, where sit the Attorney-General, and the Ministers of' Finance, Foreign Affairs and the In- terior ; on his left are the seventeen nobles ; facing him sit the twenty-eight members of the Commons. It is two in the afternoon before we arrive, and the House has just ^"isen, so we are unable to hear a debate, but we learn that business commences every day at ten, and is generally carried on for four hours. Prayers in Hawaiian are first offered up, the minutes are then read in English and Hawaiian, and the debates come on. Several of the Upper House are whites, but, with one exception only, all the Commons are natives. The King does not sit in the House, but he has a certain right of veto on the resolutions. Entering a large church a l,ittle beyond the House of Parliament, in which the principal peW — pre- sumably that of the late King — is heavily draped with black, we find it difficult to believe ourselves in the Sandwich Islands, The building has galleries and high pews, and much resembles an English Methodist church, and there is a good organ, on which a young lady is playing " Oh, rest in the Lord." ' But we open a hymn-book and find " Hark ! the herald angels sing," in Hawaiian, and this HONOLULU. 179 quickly disillusionizes 'us. " Hamau ! poche winka mau" — if I remember right — is the translation. There is nothing very palatial about the aspect of the King's Palace from the road, and were it not for the native sentry at the gates and the guard- room in the front court, we should probably have passed it unnoticed. We can get no information out of the sentry, who can only mutter " King's house," and handle his rifle ominously. An officer makes his appearance, and we ask him " Can we go in to see the Palace ?" to which he replies, " Oh yes," quite cprdially. But our first step through the gates is the signal for the black private to bring his sword bayonet to the charge. This said bayonet prods the waistcoat of a worthy friend, before alluded to in these pages as beloved by a Fijian princess, and as the rifle is at full cock, he for the moment is in danger of being shot as well as disembowelled. The guard lounging round their quarters give signs of turning out, and it appears that we are suspected of an attempt on the King's life ! We try to expostulate, but the officer now distrusts us completely and signs us away in wrath not unmixed with disdain. The affair amuses us not a little, the black sentry looked such a perfect N 2 180 HONOLULU. diable in nankeen trousers as* he charged bayonets, and we have realized that, in military circles at any rate, " Yes" means " No" at Honolulu. There was a serious and fatal imeute in the capi-; tal four months ago, on the occasion of the election of a King to succeed Lunalilo. He had not nomi- nated his successor, and it was agreed by the pre- sent King, Kalakaua, Queen Emma, the widow of a former sovereign, and Mrs. Bishop, one of the high- est chiefesses, that the first-named alone should be a candidate. But Queen Emma's adherents afterwards nominated her in opposition, declaring that Lunalilo had given her a dying injunction to do her utmost to come to the throne. But if it was his wish that she should succeed him, why did he not nominate her ? However, the feeling of the House asserted itself very strongly, and Queen Emma polled but six votes against Kalakaua's thirty-nine. Thereupon the Court House was the scene of a free fight between the rival parties, with chairs and table-legs for weapons, which resulted in one man being killed outright and many others severely injured. However, Honolulu re- lapsed into quiet again, and David Kalakaua reigns at the Palace, whilst Queen Emma leads a quiet re- tired life in her pretty villa up the valley. HONOLULU. 181 As we are lounging in front of the hotel waiting for dinner to be announced, quite a procession drives up, and " The King," passes in a hurried whisper round our group. A smart well-horsed stanhope draws up in front of us, and King Kalakaua alights, responding to our doffed hats with a bow and a cor- dial "Good afternoon." His face is not un-English in character, and had he not such high cheek-bones, he would be a good-looking man. Good eyes, a pleasing smile, and luxuriant whiskers and moustaches may make an otherwise plain face good-looking, and the present King of the Cannibal — I beg his pardon, the Hawaiian — Islands has these three re- deeming characteristics in his face. He speaks excellent English, and has all the bearing of a per- fect gentleman. His dress and manners are quite English, and one of our party who was presented to him tells us that he is not only well educated and well read, but decidedly clever. He seems deter- mined to devote all his energies to the welfare and advancement of his kingdom, and that he is bent on economy is evident from the fact that, although the required amount has been already voted for the erection of a new King's Palace, he has declined to allow the works to be commenced for two years. He i8z HONOLULU. says that his predecessor was extravagant in his expenditure of the public revenue, and that he means to retrench. He is now returning from a shooting party; in fact he has been to the Hawaiian Hurlingham. His two aides-de-camp, following him in a buggy, carry a couple of guns, and in the third carriage are his two sisters, one of whom is married to a merchant in Honolulu. In the evening we— a party of six — attend a native dancing performance, given in a large hut dimly lighted by two or three kerosene lamps. There are but three girls, and they are not remark- able either for their beauty or costume. Their dancing* though hardly to be called graceful, is decidedly energetic, and their efforts have a visible effect upon them after an hour's hard work in the still heat of a tropic night. The orchestra com- prises one performer only, and he has no more melodious instrument than a Jew's harp. Of this, however, he is a perfect master, and his gestures are irresistibly comic. There is a full and appreciative house, consisting of some fifty , natives squatting on the matted floor and smoking as stolidly as Dutchmen. They are all on the free list, and see the HONOLULU. 1S3 same girls dance the same dances nightly. To us the performance is rather monotonous, but it seems to throw the natives into a dreamy state, and perhaps conduces towards the enjoyment of a good night's rest. For my part, the mosquitoes have got underneath my curtains, and keep me awake for hours, whilst the murmur as of a far distant ^Eolian harp tells of a thousand more holding a moonlight corroboree in the room. But a " mountaineer" after one's morning bath is a great restorer, and the melons, guavas, mangoes, and bananas, which are always found on a Honolulu breakfast-table, complete the cure. By half-past nine we are again on board, and an hour later the Cyphrenes is steaming round the barrier reef to clear the Diamond Head, a noble promontory which was once an active volcano, and we are watch- ing the frail canoes of the natives dashing through the surf into the lagoon. The Hawaiian Islands can hardly be said to be prosperous, and it is sad to hear how rapidly the natives are diminishing in numbers. There are about 60,000 inhabitants of the group, of which some 10,000 are whites, and it is computed that the native population has decreased by 3000 in the last two years. The rate of mortality is certainly fearfully on i8 4 HONOLULU. the increase, and it would seem that the natives are dying out It is not easy to account for this, but the fact remains here as elsewhere. Sugar was first grown in the islands about the year 1820, and now there are more than 20,000,000 lbs. exported annually, though not more than a quarter of the land suitable for planting is under cultivation, owing to want of capital and labour. There are now some thirty-five plantations, varying from two hundred to several thousand acres in extent. Some of the sugar mills are equal to any in the world, so Hawaiians say, and they are not addicted to " blow- ing." These are driven by steam, and manufacture from six to ten tons of sugar a day. The labourers are Hawaiians and Chinese, the former being the most sought after. The cost of manufacture is about five cents per pound, and San Francisco and Australia are the principal markets. Rice is the next principal export, and Hawaiian rice is said to be little inferior to that grown in Caro- lina. About a million and a quarter pounds of paddy and rice are exported annually, and, were labour obtainable, ten times as much might be grown in the islands. Hides are also much exported. Cattle seem to be worth but little, fine fat oxen only HONOLULU. 1 85 fetching some 3/. a head. Most of them are slaugh- tered for tallow and hides, and it seems singular that the meat is not preserved in tins or in ice — there is an ice manufactory at Honolulu — and exported, as it is from Australia. Nearly half a million pounds of wool are also exported annually. The advantages of the group are very great in many ways, and monthly communication with the colonies and America should increase these. The Hawaiians, however, complain that the usual line of steamers between Honolulu and San Francisco has ceased running since the starting of the new mail route from Sydney, for as the mail steamers are always full of passengers, their means of communication with America are diminished instead of being in- creased. This, however, will probably be shortly rectified. America, truth to tell, is not over-pleased with the result of its negotiations with the Hawaiians. There is a harbour in Honolulu Bay called the Pearl River, and here the United States wished to form a settle- ment and navy station — in fact, to get a footing — in exchange for the repeal of the sugar duties. But the Kanakas were sharp enough to realize that the repeal of the sugar duties would only benefit the 1 86 HONOLULU. planters, themselves mostly Americans, and that the kingdom would hardly be safe if the Stars and Stripes were to float over batteries on Oahu, and they wisely declined the offer. America desires the control of the Pacific, and San Francisco papers complain that in the Sandwich Islands, as well as in Fiji, "the British sentiment is as dominant as the American is quiescent." They complain that "Americans here, as well as in Europe, are the greatest toadies to royalty," that the King was lately a poor clerk, who could not get credit for a new coat, sent to him a fortnight before his election, with instructions to the bearer to bring it back if not paid for, and that now the American man-of-war in the bay salutes him with twenty-one guns and manned yards. They complain that " the poor Kanakas really think that America actually knuckles down and toadies to the Hawaiian King." But at the same time tney say that " the bottom has dropped out of the country as an independent political organization called a kingdom, that the revenues show a great falling off, and that the pro- posed loan to meet the deficiency of about 100,000/. had better be favoured or guaranteed by the Ameri- can Government, who are to take for security a HONOLULU. 187 mortgage on the inlands." One article winds up with " A free access to the markets of America is evi- dently the only thing to build up the islands, and America ought to grant it, after obtaining some gua- rantee that, when this poor farce of monarchy is played out, the sovereignty of the Great Republic will embrace this fertile and genial archipelago." America is very anxious to annex the Hawaiian Islands, but the Kanakas are not desirous of annex- ation. The climate of the Hawaiian Islands is said to be extremely healthy, the heat being tempered by the trade winds, which blow regularly with the exception of some ninety days in the year, whilst the rainfall averages thirty-eight inches only in Honolulu. The largest and most wonderful volcanoes in the world are within a few hours' sail of Honolulu. Hawaii, the island on which Captain Cook was killed, contains two mountains — Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea— each more than 13,000 feet in height^ and the eruptions from the great crater of Kilauea, which is no less than ten miles, in circumference, have been indescribably fearful. The ninth recorded occurred in March and April, 1868. One explosion ejected a stream of red mud a distance of three 1 88 HONOLULU. miles, killing thirty-one people ^|d more than 500 head of cattle. It was accompanied by a series of earthquakes so violent as to oblige people to sit down on the ground, and to destroy houses in- numerable. Following upon it came the earthquake wave, which swept away three whole villages and some seventy people. This again was followed after an interval of five days by an awful eruption from a new crater on Mauna Loa, throwing up red- hot lava from four fountains to the height of 600 feet. The lava stream was from eight to ten miles in length, and in some places half a mile wide ; it destroyed many houses, the inhabitants of which had barely time to escape with their lives. This stream travelled at the rate of from ten to twenty-five miles an hour, and finally lost itself in the sea. In one place it tumbled over a precipice into a valley, forming a cascade of liquid fire several hundred feet in height ! Mr. Jarves, the Hawaiian historian and chronicler of the recent eruptions, says that there can be no doubt that, " to a great extent, the interior of Hawaii is a vast' globe of fire, against the sides of which the liquefied rocks dash their fiery spray and roll with unceasing noise ; and were it not for HONOLULU. 189 the number and magnitude of its vents, it would be shaken to pieces by successive earthquakes." This being taken into consideration, Hawaii can hardly be a desirable place of residence, interesting as a month's visit would be at a quiet time. CHAPTER XII. SAN FRANCISCO. From Honolulu to San Francisco — A Pacific Gale — The Golden Gate — San Francisco Carriages — Melbourne and San Fran- cisco Compared — The Chief City of the West — Hotels — An Expensive Laundress — The Chinese Quarter — A Chinese Theatre — Chy Lung — Chinese Ladies — Californian v. Chinese Labour — The Exchange : a " Deal •" how it is done in San Francisco — Sunday and yet not Sunday — The Fruit Market — Earthquakes, Suicides, and Shooting Affrays — A Brace of Fire-eating Editors. "1 ~\ 7"E take ten days to steam over the two * " thousand one hundred miles of water that lie between Honolulu and San Francisco. Strong iM.E. and N.W. gales prevail the last two days, and a very heavy beam sea fully brings out the rolling powers of the Cyphrenes, which stout ship has but little cargo in her, and appears to some people as if she were going to turn turtle. A seat on the floor of the saloon at meals is at a premium these two days. Food is obtained with difficulty ; and the gentleman whom Ihave previously alluded to as beloved by a SAN FRANCISCO. 1 9 1 Fijian princess, and afterwards nearly spitted by a Hawaiian sentry, after considerately handing on fish, flesh, and fowl to passengers beyond him, has to satisfy his hunger with four different kinds of fruit tart. We sight the light on the Farallones Islands at eleven p.m. on Friday, June 12th, and at four next morning are steaming slowly up to the Golden Gate through a thick haze, which causes us to miss the pilot boat, if, indeed, there was one outside the harbour to miss. The entrance to San Francisco Bay, as the heat of the rising sun causes the mists to lift from the bold cliff ranges that flank the Golden Gate, is very picturesque. Between the northern lighthouse-surmounted promontory and the high jutting headland on the opposite shore lies a mile of tumbling yellowish water, and at the foot of the southern point of land several rocks rise to a considerable height out of the sea The summits of these are alive with pelican, and the shelves washed by the waves are covered with seals, their loud bark- ing being plainly audible. Looking down on these, the celebrated Seal Rocks, stands an hotel, and the drive out from San Francisco to the Cliff House is, we are told, " quite the fashionable route." Passing through 1 92 SAN FRANCISCO. the Golden Gate, the strongly-fortified Alcatraz Island is ahead of us, and, steering round a battery- guarded point, we are fairly in San Francisco Bay, which stretches away north and south for fifty miles. Half a dozen miles from the Golden Gate in the southern bay the city, wrapped in smoke and haze, rises on its terraced hills. On one of the incon- veniently-crowded wharves without any shelter from the burning sun — it is 88° in the shade — we undergo the Custom-house ordeal amidst a scene of dirt, , noise, and confusion which I have never seen sur- passed. There are no cabs in San Francisco, no vehicles plying for hire except tram-cars and l^wo-horsed carriages. In one of these latter we are driven to our hotel, and a very grand carriage it is, almost as showy as that of a London city dignitary, and fitted with a small mirror and dressing-case, so that a lady can "fix up" before paying a call. These carriages, we are told, cost more than 350/. each, and to take one for an hour's drive one has to pay five dollars — a guinea. San Francisco has been compared with Melbourne, a city of much the same age and growth, and owing its rapid rise, too, in a great measure to the dis- SAN FRANCISCO. 193 covery of gold. Melbourne may boast of its larger population, but San Francisco is the more imposing city. And yet it has not public buildings to equal the Town Hall, Post-office, and Public Library of the Victorian capital, its streets are comparatively narrow and superlatively ill-paved, and in several places connect as inconveniently as the various thoroughfares at the top of Cheapside. But the blocks of buildings in Montgomery and Kearney Streets are more regular and imposing than those in Bourke or Collins Street in Melbourne, the banks and insurance offices are more numerous and built in better style, and the hotels and shops are decidedly superior in every way. San Francisco has an air of busy trade, but hardly to the same extent as Melbourne, and it savours of unhealthy excite- ment Melbourne has the making of a finer city than San Francisco ; she has a better site, and has pro- vided for future greatness by broad thoroughfares laid out in such a fashion as will preclude the pos- sibility of the traffic ever being seriously impeded. But in appearance San Francisco has the lead of Melbourne at present, and this too in spite of her steep hills, up which the tram-cars have to be pulled by a steam-engine connected with a continuous o 1 94 SAN FRANCISCO. wire rope beneath the roadway, in spite of her mismanaged streets and numerous wooden houses. When Melbourne has got fid of her above-ground sewerage, and San Francisco has paved her streets and footpaths, or at least has removed the boulders and rubbish that encumber them and endanger the limbs of horses and men, both cities will be vastly improved. It is surprising that the inhabitants should have permitted the existence of such nuisances so long. The disastrous fires that again and again almost destroyed the city in its infancy, convinced the San Franciscans that wooden buildings were a very bad investment, and now most of the business part is of stone or brick. The warehouses and shops are very lofty and spacious, and not only substantially but handsomely built. In every direction, too, the city is spreading fast, new manufactories and storehouses are being erected, and there is evidence of rapidly increasing trade and prosperity. More than half the wealth of California pours into San Francisco, which is not only by far the most important city of the West, but also the connecting link with Austra- lasia, Japan, China, and the islands of the Pacific. *» San Francisco is shortly to have a new City Hall, with law courts and municipal offices, of which the saw fsaJstcisco. 195 design is very magnificent, and if it be carried out as intended, the Melbourne Town Hall will be "very small potatoes" in comparison. At present the hotels are the handsomest buildings. Of these the Occidental is perhaps the most comfortable, the Lick House has the most beautiful dining-room — about 100 feet by 70 feet, panelled with paintings and lit by large chandeliers — and the Grand is the newest and most imposing in appearance. I take up my quarters at the first-named, and find no fault with either food or accommodation. The billiard- room, which holds thirteen tables, is perhaps the finest room in the house, and would be perfect for a ball. It measures about 80 feet by 50 feet, and 30 feet in height, and is decorated and furnished in admirable taste. The charge per diem at the Occidental is three and a half dollars, as low a sum as one can expect, considering the dearness of everything in San Fran- cisco, and the fact that no extras or attendance have to be paid for. But hotel-keepers, knowing that a cold bath in the morning is as necessary to most people as sleep at night, should not any longer levx half a dollar for it In this respect at any rate, the American boast of being in advance of the age does o 2 196 SAN FRANCISCO. not apply, but then Americans are not, as a rule, extra fond of bathing. But if washing oneself is expensive, what shall be said about the washing of one's linen ? What would English housekeepers say if their laundress were to charge them 1 6s. 8d. per dozen articles, large and small ? And yet this is the price charged by and paid to the proprietors of the Occidental laundry by some friends of mine. The washing is certainly beautifully done, but, gentle housewife, think of is. \\d. per article ! Rumour, however, says that all the present hotels are shortly to be thrown into the shade by the Grand Central, now being built on a block adjoining the Grand. It is to cost 600,000 dollars, and amongst other novelties, the clocks in all the 500 rooms are to be connected by electricity, so .as to strike the hour simultaneously. This will draw much American custom. I have spoken of the fine rectangular blocks of stone and brick buildings that adorn the main streets, but wooden houses are by rib means un- known. Even in some of the large thoroughfares a wooden house, perhaps stuccoed over, crops up here and there, and in the less frequented parts of the SAN FRANCISCO. 197 city there are very large stores and manufactories also built of wood In the outskirts are many pretty little villas similarly constructed, but clustering masses of creepers and trellised vines hide the material. The Chinese quarter above Kearney Street is amusing to the eye, though occasionally unsavoury to the nostrils. Here the Celestials swarm in pig- tailed thousands, their numbers far exceeding the muster of their countrymen in Melbourne or Sydney. They have two theatres, one of which is opened on the night of our arrival in port with a play which extends over eight hours, the curtain falling at 3.30 a.m., on Sunday! The exterior of the building, which is of three verandahed stories, is very elaborately decorated. The fluted columns supporting each story are coloured with vermilion, green and gold, and emblazoned with Chinese characters, which also adorn the yellow walls at the back. Suspended in festoons from the roof of each balcony are the gaudiest of paper lanterns, the lowest of each festoon being quite three feet in diameter. The basement of the building is occupied by a restaurant, where two or three of our party obtain some excellent tea, but refrain from venturing to ig8 - SAN FRANCISCO. partake of the solids that are placed before them.. The shops are not specially attractive, but in a cross street leading into Montgomery Street is a large, store, over which is painted Chy Lung,- and here are a myriad curiosities from Japan and China, cabinets, tables, workboxes, fans, wood and ivory carvings and bric-a-brac, at prices from twenty- five cents to a hundred dollars. It is easy to pur- chase some very pretty presents at a low figure, but, one is sorely tempted to stretch one's purse-strings too far. Curious objects are the Chinese women, but there are not many of them to be seen in the streets. The majority dress like the men, in a loose tunic and trousers of a blue material much resembling serge; but I notice a woman apparently of forty and her daughter of sixteen years of age, who are very much "got up :" their tunics are longer, and of black silk trimmed with coloured ribbons, and on their heads are coquettish little black lace caps adorned with bright bunches of flowers. Surely these are of the " upper ten." The number of Chinese in California is increasing very fast, greatly to the disgust of Californians. They are a saving people, and willing to work at SAN FRANCISCO. 19& low wages, and the natives and emigrants from the East, who demand very high wages — a bricklayer gets six dollars a day — and spend their money freely, say that labour is being degraded and the country ruined by the Chinese, and hate them with a cordial hatred. But the Chinese care nothing for this, and on more than one occasion have proved them- selves quite capable of holding their own in a row. From the Chinese quarter into the Exchange is rather an abrupt transition from quiet into a perfect Babel. Outside there is enough confusion and noise, the pavement is blocked with speculators, and twenty yards off an auctioneer is selling a number of horses in the roadway ; but inside the tumult is increased tenfold. The crowding, pushing, and heat are almost unbearable, but the scene is suffi- ciently lively to induce one to become a spectator for a few minutes. The gestures and shouting of the members are quite frantic. A man on my right is proclaiming in stentorian tones his desire to dispose of a certain number of shares in some extraor- dinarily-named Mine. To him through the crush comes a buyer, elbowing and fighting his way, regardless of limb and apparel. He reaches his man after a fierce and prolonged struggle ; he seizes SAN FRANCISCO. him by the shoulders with both hands, shakes him vigorously, roars in his face, shouts in his ear, and after a short tussle of words, which causes both combatants to turn purple in feature and foam at the mouth with frantic excitement, the conflict ceases, the bargain is concluded, a few notes are pencilled down, and buyer and seller retire amicably to " cool out" with a brandy-smash. Can the London Stock Exchange furnish a scene as exciting as this ? Sunday in San Francisco is not kept as Sunday. The shops are open all day, and business seems almost as brisk in them and in the theatres as on any of the six working days proper. The churches are poorly attended, and at Trinity*, perhaps the principal church in the city, there are not more than a hundred people. The singing is good, but confined to the choir, and the music is secular and florid. A lecture on the rise and growth of the newspaper press one hardly expects to hear from the pulpit, but such the sermon amounts to at a church attended by some of my late fellow-passengers. The San Francisco fruit market is well worth visiting. Here are oranges, grapes, lemons, limes, and figs from Los Angeles ; bananas and cocoa-nuts from Honolulu ; apricots, plums, cherries, currants, SAN FHANCISCO. 201 strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, and black- berries from the San Joaquin valley and Sacramento foot-hills; apples, pears, and nuts from all parts. I especially notice the red currants, every berry being almost as large as a fair-sized cherry, and the blackberries, which are regularly cultivated, and of unusual size and flavour. The vegetables, too, are equally fine. But with all its advantages I should not care to move my household gods to San Francisco. And for several reasons. Earthquakes are not uncom- mon ; there were two slight shocks just previous to our arrival, but a friend tells me that during his last visit, four years ago, there was so violent a shock as to cause the ground to tremble in a most alarming manner for some seconds. He was in the Occiden- tal at the time, and saw each corner of the passage into the dining-room open from floor to ceiling, and let in rather more daylight than was desirable. Then again, the papers say that there have been ten sui- cides in the past ten days, and account for them by the fast life of the city. But these reasons are of no moment as compared with that which is to come. There is a "shooting affray" in the streets every one of the four days that I spend in the city. SAN FRANCISCO. The last takes place almost on the steps of the General Post Office, at eleven o'clock in the morning. It is between the editors of rival rags, who discard paper for pistol warfare. He who considered him? self insulted had the previous afternoon attempted to shoot his rival near the Exchange, but the in- sulter, being unarmed, took to his heels, and his pursuer, in full career after him up the street, mea- sured his length over a dust-heap before he could "sling his weapon into position." Doubly incensed by his failure, he disguises himself in the morning, and lays wait for his foe. And these two miserable scribblers, at ranges varying from six to twenty yards, exchange eight shots across a crowded street at midday. Of course they do each other no harm, but they put a bullet into the leg of a telegraph boy, and endanger the lives of a hundred lookers-on, who, according to an evening paper, " at .the sound of the first shot had hurried to the spot, their faces beaming with delight in anticipation of an affray, but when they found that bad practice was being made, and that they were themselves in danger, at once arrested the foemen." Ten minutes later I appear on the battlefield, on my way to the Pos$ SAN FRANCISCO. 203 Office ; had not the sight of a Japanese coin tempted me into a shop en route, I might perchance have fallen an early victim to a stray bullet These fire-eating editors are locked up for three hours, which most San Franciscans perhaps consider full punishment Not all, however ; for a gentleman I meet afterwards in the Yosemite Valley, says, " The worst of our country is that you can commit any crime you please if you have the money to pay for it You have in England excellent laws, and judges that are not to be bought, but in America law and order are unknown, and corruption reigns in their stead." CHAPTER XIII. INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY ON WHEELS. An American Steamer and Train— From San Francisco to Merced —Stage Travelling— The San Joaquin Valley— Dudley's Mills — Ascending the Sierra Spurs— -Forest Scenery and Wild Flowers — Bower Cave — The Merced Big Trees — Opening of the First Waggon Road into Yosemiter— Down into Yosemite Gorge on Wheels — The Cascades— The Opening Ceremony — View up the Valley— Yosemite at Last f^\ N the 1 6th of June, still in company with the ^-^ brothers L., also travelling round the world, I leave San Francisco in the afternoon en route for the Yosemite Valley. The Central Pacific Railway has its terminus at Oakland, a town of some impor- tance on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay. Thither we steam through the thick mist in which the beauties of the bay are so frequently shrouded on a summer afternoon.' The El Capitan is one of the ungainly-looking steamers so common on Ameri- can rivers, but in spite of her high decks and over- laden appearance she steams fast ; and having this recommendation, and also those of a bar and nume- INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY ON WHEELS. 205 rous newspaper boys, she probably supplies all ^he requirements of San Franciscans. At Oakland we take the train for Lathrop, and our first acquaintance with railway travelling in America does not tend to prejudice us in its favour. We have to choose between two long trains, but there is nothing to guide our choice, and no official is in sight along the entire length of the platform. Porters it appears there are none, so we shoulder our baggage, and take our, seats according to the directions of a fellow-passenger. The cars are long and airy, but not nearly so comfortable as an English first-class carriage, and as in each compartment there are some sixty people, in addition to a troop of boys selling oranges, pea-nuts, cigars, and newspapers, there is no such thing as quiet. Leaving Oakland Wharf, the train runs for two miles along a wooden bridge above the shallow waters of the bay, which surge through the piles directly beneath our feet. Dashing down a long street, we then emerge on to open plains covered with thick yellow corn. These soon give place to low rounded hills, above which on our left Monte Diablo stands out dim and grey against the bright glow of sunset. At Lathrop, eighty-one miles from 2o6 INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY ou| starting-point, we leave the main line, and proceed along the Visalia branch to Merced, where we arrive at eleven p.m. The El Capitan Hotel is large and comfortable, but we have but little time for sleep, as at five in the morning we are turned out to take the stage for the first half of our journey to Yosemite. The stage is neither comfortable nor elegant in appearance, but we are told that it is built specially for mountain travelling, so we console ourselves with the notion that comfort and safety cannot be com- bined in a journey across the Sierra Nevada spurs. It is said to hold nine inside on its three seats, but there is not room for more than six. Fortu- nately, besides our party, consisting of the brothers L., Mr. R., and myself, there are only two other passengers, an American and his wife, the latter of whom has a strong penchant for green apples, and is violently ill on the road in conse- quence. For the first few miles the track — for by no stretch of imagination can I call it a road— runs across a sandy plain, yellow and treeless, and in less than an hour we are perfectly begrimed with dust. The jolting we undergo is quite appalling, the vehicle appears to have no springs at all, and the ON WHEELS. 207 track to consist of nothing but ruts and boulders. We are aching all over by the time that we arrive at Snellings, a little village sixteen miles from Merced, where we change horses. Uncomfortable as is the travelling, I must say a word or two in praise of the horses. The team with which we leave Snellings is excellent both in point of working abilities and appearance, and the two leaders, though said to be worth only 20/. each, would make a very handsome pair of carriage horses. Our teamster drives admirably, and the whip is but seldom brought into play even in the most difficult parts of the track. We now enter a well-watered country, green with herbage, and abounding with oaks and buck-eye, the laige white blossoms of which are not unlike the English horse-chestnut. Here we cross the Merced River, much swollen with snow water, on a ferry- boat worked by runners on a wire rope, the current forming the motive power. We are now beginning to wind among the low foot-hills of the Sierras, rolling hills thinly sprinkled with trees, wfth the mountain peaks just visible on the horizon, and the general aspect reminds me strongly of some of the scenery along the main road across Tasmania. We 208 INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY dine and change horses for the second time at a small wayside inn, and then fairly commence the ascent of the outer spurs of the range. By four o'clock we are at Coulterville, a dead-alive mining town that has seen better days, and get our fourth team in harness. Hitherto we have seen scarcely a living thing, except squirrels and quail, since leaving Merced. But on the Yosemite side of Coulterville we are in the forest, melodious with song-birds, and every mile or so we come upon a little ranch, where cattle and sheep are feeding quietly on the bright green grass of some stream-fed valley. Pines and firs of many kinds clothe the country every- where, varying in height from the graceful shrub of twenty feet, fit ornament for the lawn of a villa, to the grand forest tree of 200 feet. A little befpre six p.m. we rattle down a rugged hill into a beau- tiful valley, green with a young crop of barley, and pull up for the night at a group of small cottages known as Dudley's Mills. Here we join forces with the occupants of four other stages' on their way to or from the Yosemite, and a gathering of forty taxes the landlord's accommoda- tion severely. However, somewhere or other every one gets a bed, and, tired out, seeks repose at an ON WHEELS. 209 early hour. We are turned out next morning at half-past four, and find the ground covered with thick hoar-frost, so that a fire at breakfast-time is quite enjoyable. We leave before half-past five, drawn by five horses, for the steepest part of the track is before us. Our teamster is of Indian extraction, and soon lets us know that he means "making time," for we get over the first five miles in half an hour. Now this is fair travelling on a good road, but the track we are on is of the roughest description, very narrow, deep in sand in some places, en- cumbered with boulders in others, and the hills are indeed heart-breaking to the stoutest team. But George cares nothing for difficulties, and ignores dangers, and so we gallop down the steepest grades, the-stage swaying over the edge of a gulch or gorge 200 feet in depth, and whirling round the sharpest turns with only two wheels on the ground. One swerve off the track, and it would be better to make no inquiries as to the fate of passengers or horses. But " Black George," the agent tells us, is the most careful driver on the line, and doubtless he would live to tell the tale But in spite of all the jolting and dust, the glo- rious scenery of the forest comes in for its full p INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY share of admiration. In every direction are par- terres of the brightest wild flowers, shrubberies of white azalea; manzanita and Californian lilac, dells of fern, through which the ice-cold brooks come racing down from the heights above. The ruddy trunks of pine and fir stand out in bold relief against bright flower-banks and the deep dark blue of the summer sky, and their sombre foliage contrasts strangely with the vivid green of the oak saplings at their feet Our first halting-place is Bower Cave. This we explore under the guidance of the French custodian, who cherishes pleasant recollections of a visit paid by Lady Franklin. It is a huge cave in the lime- stone rock on the side of a steep hill, worn out by currents of water, and measures 109 feet in height, 133 feet in length, and 86 feet in width. A ladder leads to the bottom, which is partly filled with water so clear that one can trace the rock downwards for forty feet. From the ground bordering the pool rise three large maple trees, the boughs of which overshadow the mouth of the cavern. From a ledge of rock some fifty feet from the water-level open out several small caves or grottoes, down which one can walk for a considerable distance. Neglecting to provide myself with a candle, I walk rather too far ON WHEELS. 211 in one of these grottoes, and have a narrow escape of falling down a hole some thirty feet in depth. At Hazel Green, seventy-one miles from Merced, and twenty miles from the Yosemite, we change horses and visit on our way the Merced Grove of Big Trees. These are but poor specimens of the Sequoia gigantea, as compared with those of the Mariposa and Calaveras groves. The largest stands a little distance back from the track, and is said to measure eighty-six feet in circumference. Within a fewfeet of the track stand two fine trees about three yards apart, the largest of which we measure to be seventy feet round : in height neither of them exceeds 240 feet, and they strike me as being about equal in height and girth to the large gum-tree I measured roughly in the Huon Forest in Tasmania. And now we enter on the most important as well as the most beautiful part of the journey. The Yosemite Valley has been visited by tourists for twenty years, but no living man has ever yet entered it except on horseback or foot. We are to be the first party to enter it on wheels ! Yes, Yosemite has been conquered at last, and Dr. Maclean may well feel proud of the achievement. At a cost of from 60,000 to 70,000 dollars he has constructed a p 2 2 I2 INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY really good carriage road from the outside world down the precipitous walls of rock into the heart of the valley. The whole line had to be thoroughly surveyed, bridges had to be built, and thousands of tons of solid granite had to be blasted away in one place and built up in another, but a year of Chinese labour sufficed to complete the task, and Dr. Maclean's face beams with triumph as he tells us of the success of his venture. The scenery becomes much wilder as we ad- vance, and grand views of. deep gorges and distant mountains open out before us. We halt a little after midday in a green valley, where we spend half an hour very pleasantly in discussing lunch kindly provided for all the pioneer party by Dr. Maclean. We drive two miles more on a gradual descent, and then dust and jolting are alike for- gotten, for, rounding a bold mountain spur, we gaze down 2000 feet into Yosemite gorge. Beneath us the Merced is roaring and flashing over huge granite boulders on its way out of the valley through a deep ravine blocked up with masses of rock, from amongst which tall pines and firs raise their spiral heads out of clumps of chapparal ; on either side grey walls of cliff rise to the height of from 1200 to ON WHEELS. 213 1 500 feet, and from the northern crags a magnificent waterfall, called the Cascades, comes foaming down, and makes its final plunge into the gorge in a clear fall of 800 feet. Black George sends our team along at a smart pace, and we are soon winding our way down a very steep but well-made road that has been blasted out of the side of the granite cliffs. On our right hand immense masses of dibris tell of the work that has been wrought by powder, and many of the fallen rocks are as big as a cottage. Down the face of the cliff on our left a tiny stream is leaping in a succession of cascades, and to this Dr. Maclean has given the name of his daughter, in honour of the opening up of the valley. Half an hour suf- fices to bring us to the bottom of the gorge, and a drive of half a mile amidst huge masses of talus leads to the new toll-gate just beyond the crags, where — " the livelong day, Behind an angle weatherscarped and grey, Secluded in its blue mist-circled halls, A high foam-laden cataract falls and falls." Here we wait some time to allow several other stages and a large body of horsemen, tourists, and guides to form up -into a processioa At length all 214 INTO THE YOSEMITE VALLEY is ready, the Stars and Stripes are unfurled on several flagstaff's, the bugler attempts to play " Hail ! Co^ lumbia," but, failing at the high notes, gives us the " Old Hundredth" instead, and after hearty rounds of cheering for Dr. Maclean, the cavalcade moves on up the gorge. The scenery all the way into the valley is very wild and imposing. There is only just sufficient room for the road between the roaring rapids of the Merced and the masses of rock encumbering the foot of the northern cliff, and the width of the gorge is but little more than half the height of the frowning walls which enclose it. The gay colours of the ladies' dresses and the flags have a very picturesque effect contrasted with the sombre hues of the tall firs and pines, the grey granite and the flashing foam of the rapids, and the Yosemite photographer takes advantage of the occasion, as the cavalcade halts at the point where the gorge widens out into the valley. All that we have as yet seen has been inaccessible to visitors hitherto, so that Dr. Maclean has opened up a new waterfall in the Cascades which will now take its place amongst Yosemite lions. The wild magnificence of the rapids and the entire gorge will well repay a visit from the hotels. ON WHEELS. 215 But we are now in the Yosemite Valley, and drive briskly forward through shrubberies of pines and chapparal separated by small water-meadows. High on our right, 3000 feet above us, Inspiration Point, crowned with dark forest, stands boldly de- fined against the sky; at its side a tall but thin thread-like cataract catches the eye, but for an in- stant only, for at the end of a long vista of trees is the Bridal Veil Fall, with a vivid double rain- bow spanning its 900 feet of foam and spray, and whoever has seen the Bridal Veil with its pris- matic scarf, has seen the prettiest of the countless attractions of the Yosemite. On our left is the Virgin's Tears, far exceeding the Bridal Veil in height, and, passing between glorious El Capitan and the almost equally imposing Cathedral Rocks, we pull up at a neat two-storied hotel. " Yosemite on wheels ! Yosemite on wheels !" shouts a guide, and fifty horsemen, ranging them- selves in line before the house, give three cheers for Mr. Leidig, followed by a volley of frantic screeches, and then gallop off. Five minutes afterwards we meet them again at Black's hotel, where, amidst the thunders of a salute from a small battery in front, we leave the stage and seek a bath and dinner. CHAPTER XIV. THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. A Morning Ride to Cholock — The Highest Waterfall in the World — Down the Valley — Pompompasus — Cathedral Spires — Tutockahnulah — Cathedral Rocks— Pohono in Sunlight — The Virgin's Tears Fall — Up the Valley — Tocoyoe and Tissaack — Mirror Lake— The South Canon — The Vernal Cascades — Piwyack at Sunset — Mahtah — The Silver Shoot — Yowiye by Moonlight — Snow's Hotel — The Little Yosemite Valley — Tuloolweack — The View from Glacier Point — Qn Sentinel Dome — A Panorama of Peaks — Loya — A Last Look into Yosemite. | "'VERY one who has visited the Yosemite ■* — ' Valley has realized how inadequate words are to convey any idea of its glories. Writers as well as painters have failed to depict it as it is in all its sublime beauty, and photographs, excellent as are the productions of Watkins and House worth, give but a faint conception of the reality : they show the quiet beauty of the valley and the tranquillity of Mirror Lake, in pictures which are as pleasing as they are truthful, but the grandeur of the mighty walls of granite, the extent of view over the snow- THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 217 clad Sierras, and the infinite magnificence of the waterfalls cannot be portrayed by art. Nature, at least in this, one of her sublimest aspects, defies all the attempts of man to reproduce her faithfully either on paper or canvas. But, however grievously I may fail to convey any idea of Yosemite scenery, the attempt must be made, for to visit the Valley and yet omit all notice of it would be to render my log incomplete. It is possible to see the chief beauties of Yosemite in three days, and perhaps that is the average dura* tion of a visitor's stay. Three months, however, would not suffice to exhaust all its glories, and every day enables one to realize more fully the enormous heights of cliff and waterfall. The late Mr. Horace Greeley is said to be the only person that ever was disappointed with Yosemite, and he spent but a day in the valley. Immediately after breakfast on the first day of our stay we engage horses and guide, and set off to ride to the foot of the upper Yosemite Fall, which is thundering down from the northern cliffs appa- rendy but a few hundred yards, but in reality a good mile, distant from our hotel. Heading up the valley along a narrow bridle-path, we ride for half 218 THE YO SEMITE VALLEY, a mile between hedges of wild roses and manzanita, and then, crossing the Merced on a picturesque wooden bridge close to Hutchings's Hotel, emerge on a level meadow spangled with lupins, larkspur, and coreopsis. Cantering gaily over sound turf, we are soon at the foot of the cliffs, and commence the ascent by Conway's trail, which we are told is sure to " pay us big." And to Conway, " engineer and builder," we are much indebted ; for the zigzag path, winding up the steep slope of talus between huge masses of granite, has been constructed with the greatest care, and not even the most timid of equestriennes need fear an accident.. A little more than half an hour suffices for the ascent of iooo feet, and, rounding an outlying headland, from which is obtained a superb view of the valley spread out beneath us, with the snowy peaks of Mounts Lyell and Starr King towering up into cloudland beyond the wooded glories of the South Canon, the highest waterfall in the known world is before us. Leaving our horses to graze on a grassy slope, we clamber up another hundred feet through a shrubbery of bay tree, and stand on the verge of the basin of the Fall. We are a hundred yards distant from where the water strikes the chaos of THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 219 rocks, but a gusty wind drives the mist over us in clouds, and the bright sunshine enables us to see rainbows in every direction. " Glorious, indeed !" I ejaculate involuntarily, as, Standing by the side of our guide, I gaze upwards through the blinding spray. " Yes, sir," he remarks in reply, " I guess Eng- land ought to be mighty proud that such a country as this sprang from her loins." Fortunately he is satisfied with this enunciation of his opinion, so that there is no occasion for my disclaiming the attachment of any credit to my country for the creation of the Yosemite. This is an isolated instance of an American giving England more than her due. Cholock is indeed at its best, thanks to the melt- ing of the snows, and owing to the severity of the past winter the volume of water passing over the Fall is unusually large, even for this, the most favourable month for seeing Yosemite waterfalls. The grey cliffs rise precipitously, without ledge or crevice to break their face or vary their stern regu- larity, to the height of 1700 feet From out of a rugged cleft 100 feet below their summit, foaming over a lip of granite thirty feet in width, pours THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. Yosemite Creek. The head of the Fall looks but a tiny thread from where we stand, but every hundred feet of descent adds materially to the breadth of the column of water, which Professor Whitney esti- mates to be 300 feet across where it hits the rock, and to be swayed by a strong wind through a space of thrice that breadth. A moderate breeze is blow- ing now, but the white mass which forms the centre of the column is not affected by it, and thunders down in an unbroken unwavering plunge, 1600 feet in vertical height On each side of this mass, however, rockets of spray come shooting down, now preserving their form till they are lost in the abyss of mist, now trailing out under the influence of the wind like a luminous veil of lace, and to their ever-changing beauties the fall owes much of its attraction. It is magnificent and beautiful beyond description now, but it is said to be still more beautiful in the depth of winter, when the snow is lying feet deep on cliff and valley, and from the rocky base of the upper Fall rises a cone of ice 100 feet in height, on which the falling water breaks in grand bouquets of spray. Second to Cholock in sheer vertical height comes the Gavarnie Fall of 1226 feet in the Pyrenees, but the volume of water THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 221 is so insignificant that, except in the matter of statis- tics, no comparison can be made between the two falls. Statistics convey but a poor idea of the reality in cases like this, but I may mention that half a million cubic feet of water pass over the Yosemite Fall in an hour, and that the stream below the lower fall is forty feet in width, and averages three feet in depth. Foaming away amidst huge rocks and boulders for a space of eighty or a hundred yards, the stream rushes over a succession of ledges, descending 634 feet in cascades, and then precipitates itself into the valley in a clear and very graceful fall of 400 feet The entire height of the three falls is thus 2634 feet, or just half a mile ! Returning to Black's to lunch, we ride off down the valley in the afternoon to visit the Bridal Veil Fall, the Indian Pohono or Spirit of the Night- wind. The latter part of the day is always chosen for this excursion, for after two p.m. the sun leaves Cholock, and a couple of hours later is smiling on Pohono. After a canter of two miles over the granite dust our pace is reduced to a walk, and we proceed in Indian file along a very narrow and rock- strewn trail between banks of white azalea in THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. full bloom close to the left bank of the river, which, overshadowed by pines and live-oaks, is flashing and foaming over its boulder-encumbered bed, a torrent of breaking waves seventy feet across. The valley, which is half a mile in width between the slopes of dibris opposite the Yosemite Fall, con- tracts to a furlong just below Pompompasus, the three-peaked mountain which, jutting out into the chasm in successional steps, is said to be considered by the Indians to resemble three brothers playing leapfrog. The highest of the three humps is at a height of 3830 feet above the level of the valley, and their grand proportions and bold regularity make them a very conspicuous and striking feature of the cliff scenery as one looks up the valley. A mile further on there stand up from the summit of the southern wall of cliffs two isolated columns of granite, 500 feet in height, and separated one from the other by about the same distance. These are Wahwahlena or Cathedral Spires. They are more than 2000 feet above us, and, dimly seen through the foliage of firs and pines, seem like tall obelisks raised by the Indians in memory of some departed " brave." Beyond these again Pooseenah Chuckka, or Cathedral Rocks, frown out in sullen grandeur, THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 223 and form, in conjunction with the mighty mass of El Capitan opposite to them, the gateway to the upper end of the valley. At this point there is but litde taltis at the foot of either range of cliffs, but the granite walls trend outwards in headlands of imposing size and grandeur, until not more than half a mile separates the faces of the rival precipices. Here Yosemite is at her narrowest, and there seems barely room for the Merced, fretting sorely within very confined limits, to force its way seawards. Tutockahnulah, or El Capitan, is well worthy of its name, for there can be no question as to its pre- eminence amongst Yosemite cliffs. It stands boldly out with its western face jutting some 300 yards in advance of the granite walls that trend away to the westward to the Virgin's Tears Fall, and forms a stupendous buttress to the ramparts, 3300 feet in vertical height In colour it is a light yellowish grey, streaked here and there with parallel vertical lines of a brownish hue caused by the flow of water. Either face is almost perpendicular from valley to summit, and without a tree, shrub, or even the tiniest patch of grass to vary the rigid sternness of its vast extent Scarcely a ledge or crevice is visible to which the most fearless cliff-climber could 224 THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. trust his foot ; the mighty headland appears a mountain-tower of masonry hewn by the chisels Of the gods. At one spot on the eastern face there is a tiny cave some 2000 feet up from the base of the cliff, and in the mouth of it a young pine can just be discerned, the only sprig of green on either side of .a mass of rock that must weigh many millions of tons. The enormous bulk of Tutockahnulah makes it more difficult to realize its height, than that of any other cliff or mountain in Yosemite. There is an irregular line of specks dotting its square-cut summit, and, looking from the valley, they appear to . be but tiny shrubs — in reality they are pine-trees from 80 to 1 20 feet in height. For from two to three miles of our ride the crown of the noble head- land seems to tower almost directly overhead, and this to some small extent enables us to form an idea of its stupendous proportions. Tutockahnulah is tfie most gigantic vertical granite cliff in the known world. Cathedral Rocks, or the Three Graces, much re- semble Pompompasus, inasmuch as they consist of three bold humps, rising step-like from the valley, but their highest peak, 2660 feet, is nearly 1 200 feet lower than the rival eminence of the Three Brothers. THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 225 They are neither so vertical nor so massive as El Capitan, and pines and shrubbery cling to giddy ledges on their face. Rounding them, and fording several deep streams of exquisitely clear water, from which the thimbleberry with its raspberry-like leaves and large white blossoms springs in luxuriant clumps, we head our horses straight for the southern cliffs, and the prettiest of Yosemite scenes is before us. The Three Graces are en profile, and from their western side Pohono — the Spirit of the Night Wind — or the Bridal Veil, comes feathering down in a broad ribbon of foam and spray, 940 feet in height. This is the Staubbach of America, and in beauty it far surpasses its European rival. The Fall is from thirty to forty feet across at the lip, and at the time of our visit the volume of water in the creek is so great that it appears to accomplish the descent in a clear plunge. In reality, there is a projecting ledge of rocks 300 feet from the foot, on which at most seasons the water strikes and rebounds in graceful curves of spray. Much of the beauty of Pohono lies in the slow swaying of the column of water by the wind, but it owes still more of its charm to the intensely vivid tints of the double rainbow that spans it. The depth of colour and brilliancy of the blue Q 226 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. and crimson in the arches floating over the mist- wreaths of the Bridal Veil are not to be matched in any rainbow in the heavens, and well may an Ameri- can girl, who reins in her horse by our side, exclaim admiringly, " This certainly is elegant !" The veil of water, which, by-the-bye, is more appropriately named than any other of the Yosemite wonders, is from ioo to 150 feet in width at the foot, and the rocky basin into which it falls is surrounded by trees and chapparal, from which an incessant shower of heavy drops descends to drench the enthusiast. The long flowing tresses of the young ladies are dripping, beards are thickly spangled with raindrops, and from the brim of every one's hat a tiny cataract is pouring. But one would go through a far more unpleasant ordeal than that of a shower bath with one's clothes on, in order fully to realize Pohono bathed in sunlight. On the opposite side of the valley, half a mile west of El Capitan, is the Virgin's Tears, or Ribbon Fall, half hidden in a deep recess in the cliffs, and having the appearance of a long thread of .silver hung from the heights above. The volume of water coming over it is but small even now, when the snows are melting fast, and the huge cttbris slope at its foot forbids a close acquaintance with its THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 227 beauties; but distance lends enchantment, and it looks as fairylike and graceful as any waterfall in Yosemite. The cliffs enclosing the secluded nook into which it falls are vertical, and it has a clear plunge of more than 1300 feet, down to a rocky slope of forest, through which it courses in a hun- dred tiny cascades to the smiling meadows below. Mirror Lake is the scene of an early visit next day. It is in the Tenaya, or North Canon, and at a distance of some four miles from our hotel. The first half of our ride lies through meadows literally ablaze with azalea, coreopsis, lupin, larkspur, and a pretty scarlet flower much resembling the dianthus, the dark green Merced flowing placidly between clumps of live-oaks on our right The Yosemite Fall left behind us, we pass Ummo, a vertical cliff rising to the height of 3030 feet on its eastern side, and then get a good view of Indian Canon, a steep wooded gorge much encumbered with dibris leading up from the valley to the Sierras above. It is possi- ble for a hardy climber to get out of the valley by this canon, but few have ever succeeded in their attempts. From the cliffs that flank its eastern side foams down a tall cascade, the Royal Arch Fall, dashing from rock to rock over a rugged slope Q2 228 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. of 1800 feet. The creek here owes its water supply mainly to the melted snows on Tocoyce, or the North Dome, which towers 3568 feet above us, a smooth rounded mass of bare greyish -yellow rock, characteristic of granite regions. This stern bluff appears inaccessible, but it has been ascended more than once. The cliffs from which the hump springs are vertical, and 2000 feet high, and a taller rounded buttress, Washington Tower, not unlike a castle keep, marks the division of the valley from the North Canon. Huge arches seem to have been cut on the face of Tocoyce cliffs, owing to large slabs of rock having slipped away under the action of water, which has stained the granite with numerous ribbons of yellow and brown. Heading up Tenaya Canon, our trail becomes devious, owing to the enormous masses of dibris, some of which are as big as many a villa in London suburbs. On our right rises the grandest of Yose- mite mountains and cliffs, Tissaack, the South or Half Dome. Professor Whitney speaks of it as unique in the known world, and no one who has seen this stupendous mass of granite will be in a hurry to question his statement. Tissaack is cer- tainly Tutockahnulah's better half. It is a dome of THE YOSEMJTE VALLEY. 229 bare rock, the highest part of which is 4737 feet above the valley, with its western half cut off as if with a chisel, so vertical and smooth is the exposed face. From Tenaya Canon rises a steep slope of solid granite — not dibris — for 2500 feet, and above this frowns a sheer precipice of 2000 feet, without a ledge or crevice, or even a tiny tussock of grass visible throughout its breadth and height To the east the mountain is as smoothly rounded as the half of a billiard ball, and unless a succession of steps are hewn out of the granite up an ascent of 2700 feet, it must remain inaccessible. Hitherto it has defied the most experienced mountaineers of the Sierra Nevada, and the summit of the South Dome has never been trodden by human foot. Curious to relate, this barren summit, with its spotless expanse of snow, is not entirely destitute of vegetation. One tall tree with widespreading branches, which natu- ralists, who have brought telescopes to bear upon it, pronounce a juniper, crowns the mighty mass with a dark-green wreath — a wonderful instance of vitality in extremis. Mirror Lake is a pretty little sheet of water, eight acres in extent, surrounded by thick chapparal, swarming with mosquitoes, which, in conjunction 230 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. with the icy coldness of the water, deter us from our projected bathe. The towering cliffs of the North and South Domes and Mount Watkins, named after the photographer of San Francisco whose views first made Yosemite famous, shelter the lake from all winds, and so unruffled is its surface that the reflection of the colours and outline of the cliffs and shrubbery is almost as distinct and clear as the reality. There is a small boat on the lake, in which we row across its expanse of glass, and mar for a few minutes the exquisite beauty of the reflections. Landing almost directly beneath the frowning preci- pices of the South Dome, we wander for a few hun- dred yards over slopes of talus, but beyond the lake Tenaya Canon is almost impassable. About a mile above Mirror Lake is Tenaya Lake, some forty acres in extent, and here there is a small cascade, the Tenaya Falls, 200 feet in height, but not one in a hundred visitors penetrates so far into the canon as this. But the reflections in Mirror Lake form one of the most beautiful features of Yosemite scenery. In the afternoon we set off to explore the South Cafion, taking necessaries for passing the night at Snow's Hotel at the foot of the Nevada Fall. Keep- ing close to the south bank of the Merced, Glacier THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 231 Point is the first object of note on our right. It is a grand headland, jutting out between the valley and the South Canon, and rising almost perpendicularly to the height of 3700 feet. The upper half of the cliff is of light grey granite, but the lower is per- fectly white, and it is from this, I conclude, that the name is derived. The South Canon affords through- out its entire length a panorama of wilder grandeur than is to be seen in any other part of the valley. It is watered by the main stream of the Merced, into which, just below Glacier Point, runs the Illi- louette stream, which, a couple of miles away, at the head of the fork, we can just see plunging over the cliffs in a fine cataract, 600 feet high. This is Tuloolweack, the Illilouette Fall, but owing to the huge masses of rock that block up the end of the canon, it is almost impossible to get a near view of its mist-laden column. Fording the stream, we head up the fork along the left bank of the Merced, and, beneath the shade of a dense forest of firs and live-oaks, are soon rejoicing in the many varied tints of rock and foliage. The trail winds maze-like amongst enormous blocks of granite rearing themselves out of shrubberies of azalea ; on our left the river, a torrent of seething 232 THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. foam, is roaring over huge water-worn masses of rock and fallen trees ; around us are magnificent specimens of conifers, some of which are 150 feet in height, and through their dark foliage the long lines of cliffs, rising to the height of upwards of 2000 feet, at a distance of a quarter of a mile from us on either side, seem to tower in silent majesty imme- diately over our heads. A ride of a couple of miles through scenery the grandeur of which no words can adequately describe, brings us to the foot of the cascades below the Ver- nal Fall. Here the Merced comes foaming down a sombre gorge between inaccessible cliffs in a descent of some 600 feet, roaring over granite steps in many cases twenty feet in height for a distance of half a mile. The trail, hewn out of the side of the southern cliff, leads steeply upwards, and, leaving our horses at a small weatherboard hut, we climb along a slippery path for 200 yards, and reach the foot of Piwyack, or the Cataract of Diamonds— the Vernal Fall of American nomenclature. Hither Lady Franklin was carried in a roughly extemporized palanquin, and a flat rock jutting into the cascades just below the fall bears her name. Piwyack is a clear fall of 400 feet, and rendered THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 233 doubly beautiful by the great breadth of the column of water, which is at least ico feet across at the lip, and pours down in a rippling torrent, like the tresses of a maiden's hair. Immediately in front of the amphitheatre of cliffs into which it plunges rises a tall sugar-pine, every spray of which stands out boldly defined against the background of snowy foam ; whilst, second only in brilliancy to that of Pohono, a double rainbow spans its cloud of mist. Remounting, we turn our backs upon Piwyack, and continue the ascent for rather more .than a mile through sparse forest, from which we suddenly emerge into full view of the Nevada Fall. In front of us towers up Mahtah, or the Cap of Liberty, a huge hump of granite, accessible on one side only, and rising to an altitude of 3600 feet above the valley. Immediately at its foot is Snow's Hotel, a long low building, to which we send on our horses in charge of the guide, and climb down the granite slope to the lip of Piwyack. On the southern brink of the fall is a singular parapet split by nature out of the rock, and over this one can lean and watch the broad sheet take its plunge into the misty abyss. Fifty yards away are tall ladders, by which we descend the face of the cliff 234 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. to the rocks at the foot of the fall ; they are quite safe, even for ladies, but a few years ago a visitor lost his footing and his life in stretching from them to gather some of the beautiful ferns that clothe the rocky ledges. The view down the gorge from the edge of the fall is one of the wildest magnificence, and hardly to be surpassed in the valley. A snowy line between sombre clumps of pines from which the cliffs rise abruptly from 1500 to 2000 feet marks the passage of the Merced over a succession of superb rapids, and a mile off beyond the dark forest of the South Canon is another stern granite rampart, 3000 feet in height, and trending upwards to Glacier Point, behind the crags of which the sun is setting in a broad blaze of gold. Half a mile above Piwyack is Yowiye, or the Nevada Fall, and the Merced, pouring down from the summit of the cliffs above the latter cataract, descends no less than 2000 feet in a distance of two miles. For a quarter of a mile above Piwyack the river rushes at terrific speed over a smooth descent of granite, with scarcely a rock or boulder in its bed to break the even surface of its race-like current. A river rushing down a steep gradient unencumbered by dibris of any sort is no common sight, and the THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 235 Silver Shoot is beautiful indeed. Just before sliding over this shoot the Merced passes over the grandest rapid in Yosemite, roaring downwards twenty feet in an impetuous torrent twice that distance across, and sending showers of spray flying far over the race of foam below. Above this cascade a series of wild rapids extends to the foot of Yowiye. Professor Whitney is of opinion that this fall is one of the grandest in the world for scenery and vertical height Its Indian name signifies " mean- dering," and this was probably derived from a peculiar twist in the first hundred feet of the fall, caused by a jutting ledge of rock. Four hundred feet from the lip the body of water hits a projecting obelisk, only visible in late summer, and bursts out- wards and upwards 150 feet in glorious volumes of spray before plunging down the last 300 feet on to the wilderness of rocks in the mist-wreaths below. Our party turn out after tea to enjoy the effect of a brilliant moon shedding its rays over one of the most exquisite " bits" of mountain scenery in the known world. Tissaack and Mahtah are sleeping peacefully, not a sound comes from their mighty precipices, on the white faces of which here and there tall pines on jutting crags cast a sombre 236 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. shadow ; beneath our feet gleams the Merced like a torrent of molten silver, and, beyond Piwyack's white tresses brought out in vivid relief against the weird gloom of the pine forests in the deep canon below, the grand ramparts of the Glacier Point cliffs rise to meet the sky. The hoar frost is glistening like a myriad diamonds on granite and grass, for here we are 5600 feet above the sea, and the night wind and driving mist from the fall are chilling after the heat of the day, but cold and wet are unnoticed in the contemplation of Yowiye by moonlight. Its broad column is glowing with light, the bouquets of spray seem luminous veils of airy lace thrown outwards in graceful curves and folds, and over the mist-clouds that envelop the foot of the fall a lunar bow casts its faint span of white. Pohono bathed in sunlight is scarcely more beautiful than Yowiye beneath the bright beams of a full moon. Snow's Hotel is more primitive than those in the valley, above which it is at an elevation of 1600 feet, and its solitude and difficulty of access render a regular mule transport train for the conveyance of its supplies an absolute necessity. However it is a well-built wooden house, and able to accommodate THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 237 as many as forty visitors at a pinch. Behind it, at a distance of 300 yards, the gigantic mass of Mahtah rises abruptly, and it is quite near enough, for a year ago an enormous block of granite detached itself, and almost overwhelmed the hotel beneath a mountain of debris. Next morning, long before the sun has melted the hoar frost from our verandah, our party are again in the saddle, and ride up a steep trail between Mahtah and Yowiye. The ascent is so close to the fall that we have a grand series of views of it, together with the cascades at its side throughout our long climb, and, after exploring its beauties from below, from above, and from either side, we wonder no longer at Professor Whitney's admiration. The lip of the fall, though turning to the left instead of the right, is not unlike that of the Yosemite Fall, but far broader, being sixty feet across, and dis- charging probably three times the volume of water. From halfway up the ascent the magnificent masses, wreaths and eddies of spray into which the Merced bursts on the rocky obelisk in the centre of the fall, are seen at their best, and may be described as the most beautiful feature of this, one of the most beau- tiful waterfalls in the world. 238 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. Leaving Yowiye behind us, we ride for some half a mile up the Little Yosemite Valley, and then crossing the Merced on a wooden bridge, head westward to the line of cliffs trending to Glacier Point. The Little Yosemite Valley is at an eleva- tion of 6000 feet above the sea, and in many features closely resembles the valley of valleys, from which we have just ascended. Except at its northern end, where it falls away in a sheer pre- cipice into the Nevada fork of the South Canon, it is all but surrounded by walls of cliff from 2000 feet to 3000 feet in height, capped here and there with massive rounded mountains like the North Dome and Mahtah, and flanked by tall imposing buttresses, such as Washington Tower. The bed of the valley is beautifully grassed, and as bright with flowers as its larger sister. The Little Yosemite, however, has but one waterfall, a cascade of 1 200 feet over a steeply-sloping mass of light yellow granite, not to be compared for beauty with any one of the falls below. This mountain meadow is four miles long, and averages a mile in breadth ; its scenery is beau- tiful, and in some places even grand, but, compared to the Yosemite itself, it is tame and insignificant. In the forest, through which we ride for a couple THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 239 of hours on the Glacier Point Trail, we see number- less ice-plants, bright scarlet fleshy stalks, which, beneath the deep shade of the pines, look like tongues of flame shooting up from the ground. Otherwise we see few flowers besides the light lilac tassels of the manzanita, and deep patches of snow begin to take the place of the brilliant beds of colour which charm the eye in the valleys. Illilouette Creek, where we cross the stream of that name, is a very pretty little meadow, and a favourite bivouac for hunters, deer being often met with. A quarter of a mile from the bridge is Tuloolweack, or the Illilouette Fall, and in the course of a long dUour we catch a glimpse of its spray, but as yet there are no facilities for a close inspection of its beauties. It is a slender cataract of 600 feet, but has neither the volume nor the grandeur of Yowiye. Leaving Illilouette Creek behind us, we fairly strike the Glacier Point cliffs at last, and for three miles proceed slowly along the terraced side of a steep sparsely-wooded incline, a few hundred feet down which the cliffs fall away in the sheer preci- pices characteristic of the valley. The ascent, though wearisome to the horses, is neither difficult nor dangerous, and, riding at a foot's pace, we have 2 4 o THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. ample opportunities of watching the great white peaks of the distant Sierras rising one by one behind the further range of cliffs. By tacit understanding we soon give up ejaculating " Superb !" " Glorious !" and similar expressions of admiring wonderment as scene after scene of infinite grandeur opens before us, and the last mile up to Glacier Point is ridden in solemn silence. The view down into the Yosemite from the granite ramparts of Glacier Point is said to be the grandest of all views of the valley from above, but perhaps it is equalled by that from Cloud's Rest, the ridge- like mountain beyond Tissaack in the Tenaya Canon. At the end of the Point are several huge rounded masses of granite over the very humps of which we lean and gaze downwards 3700 feet into Yosemite. Between the stupendous cliffs that trend away east and west the valley seems a mere narrow ribbon of light green, dotted with spots and seamed down the centre with a thread of white, and, beyond the chessboard-like orchard of Mr. Lamon, little is distinguishable from so great a height. We look down on massive El Capitan and North Dome, and the half-mile of water in Cholock appears quite a tiny fall, till a strong gust of wind, slowly swaying THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 241 its snowy column, tells plainly its marvellous height. Mirror Lake is but a mere patch of dark-green water in the sombre setting of pines, and in the South Canon spread out on our right, the magnificent rapids of the Merced dwindle to a long white streak, whilst Piwyack and Yowiye appear no higher than the race over a mill-wheel. The huge proportions of Mahtah, too, seem dwarfed, and from our lofty stand-point we appear to look down upon all the wonders of Yosemite. One only rears its mighty mass above us, more stupendous in grandeur at this height than when viewed from the valley below. Tissaack, the most marvellous mountain of granite in the world, is before us, and from Glacier Point the split dome is seen in all its majesty, its tremendous precipices and inaccessible hump crowned by the lone juniper tree, standing against the helmet-like eastern sky. Tissaack viewed from here is the most awe-inspiring object in Yosemite. Having discussed a hearty lunch on the banks of the little stream, which, now in early summer, fed by melting snows, forms the succession of tiny cas- cades down the cliff-face called the Glacier Falls, we remount, and retracing our steps for a short distance, strike a dim trail on the right, and plunge once more R 2 42 THE YO SEMITE VALLEY. into the depth of the mountain forest. Although we are at an altitude of 8000 feet above the sea- level some of the trees are of great size, a few of them reaching 200 feet in height, with trunks of beautiful symmetry. A ride of a mile and a half brings us to the base of the huge mound of granite which forms the summit of Sentinel Dome. On the northern half of the dome the snow is from six to eight feet in depth, but the smooth cap at the top is perfectly free from it, and in its place are several patches of tiny yellow and lilac flowers. A gnarled and stunted yellow pine, corresponding to the juniper of Tissaack, finds just enough earth . to cover its straggling roots, seeming almost ashamed of its attempt to support existence on so barren and exposed an eminence. Sentinel Dome is 4200 feet above the valley, and hence we get our grandest view over the Sierra Nevada Range. I made no mention of the mountain views from Glacier Point, because the very same peaks are to be seen to far greater advantage from Sentinel Dome. Magnificent indeed is the panorama. To the west sweeps away almost unbroken forest, intersected here and there by deep dark gorges. Turning northward, a broad plain of snow extends from THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. 243 Yosemite precipice-edges to Mount Hoffmann, the tall peaks 01 which reach an altitude exceeding 10,000 feet, and form a group of imposing proportions. Tenaya Lake is just visible in the gloomy canon which bears its name, and beyond Tissaack, 8737 feet, and Cloud's Rest, 9800 feet, the dazzling field of snow, broken here and there by clumps of pines, stretches as far as the eye can reach. Unicorn Peak, with its needle-like apex, Castle Peak, 13,000 feet, near lonely Mono Lake, of which Mark Twain relates his experience, and Mount Conness on the distant horizon, rise conspicuous amongst a forest of lofty eminences, but the monarch of them all is Mount Dana, 13,227 feet, the pyramidal outline of which looms dimly up forty miles away. Cathedral Peak, rising to the height of 11,000 feet, is the next mighty crag ; eastwards is Mount Clark, 1 1,600 feet, and then, frowning over the forest-clad slopes of far ravines, rears the huge hump of Mount Lyell, 13,217 feet, whilst the symmetrical and inaccessible peak of Mount Starr King, 11,000 feet, cuts the southern horizon, and completes a panorama of mountains, cliffs, valleys, and waterfalls as wonderful for its endless variety as for its infinite extent. We now turn our horses* heads homewards, and R 2 244 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. riding ' back on our old trail, repass Glacier Point, * and follow along the cliffs to the westward through thick shrubbery. We soon commence the descent by the customary zigzag path, and for some two hours or more our horses plod slowly and carefully downwards. They are very sure-footed, or it would be rather nervous work, for at nearly every second turn in the trail the green meadows of Yosemite, more than 2000 feet below, are seen between one's horse's ears, and a false step might easily result in one's falling that distance without a rebound. A third of the way down is Union Point, a jutting crag crowned with a flagstaff and commanding a grand general view of the valley, and a hundred feet below is Agassiz Column, a pillar of rock thirty feet high, standing on so small a base that it almost appears possible to topple it over into the abyss below. Loya, or Sentinel Rock, now rears its mighty obelisk straight before us, and there is not a more superb granite monument in the world. From the dSbris piles in the valley to the tiny peaked rock which forms its summit is 3043 feet of nearly vertical height. The lower two-thirds of the cliff has in several places pines and firs clinging to narrow ledges, but the topmost thousand feet is as sheer a THE YOSEMJTE VALLEY. 245 precipice as even the western face of Tissaack, and not a spray of green is visible to break the mo- notony of the expanse of grey. It is this mighty cliff that, apparently a hundred yards, but in reality half a mile distant, seems to tower directly over our hotel, and its peaked summit stands up 700 feet above the long range of walls that hem in the valley. From its western side comes tumbling down a tall cascade, the Sentinel Falls, 2300 feet in height, but not of sufficient volume to be noteworthy in a region where waterfalls are so magnificent We reach our hotel at six f.M., after a pleasant two-days' ride, only regretting that we had not another day at our disposal for the excursion from Snow's to Cloud's Rest This is our last night in Yosemite, and we sit long on a fallen pine in front of our hotel, watching the moonbeams glancing on Cholock's tall obelisk of spray. Vainly do we long for four months instead of four days to linger over the beauties of this glorious valley. It cannot be. Nine o'clock next morning sees our pack-mule loaded and headed westward by the guide, and we ourselves, loth to change our quarters, walk our horses down the glades of Yose- mite towards Inspiration Point Two hours later 246 THE YOSEMITE VALLEY. we have completed the ascent, and draw rein on the headland, where Americans say that every one is allowed five minutes to " gush." A last lingering look at the glories of cliff and woodland and water- fall stretching away beneath our feet to where, ten miles away, the lofty ridge of Cloud's Rest is crowned with a whirling snowstorm, and we bid farewell to Yosemite, and ride off slowly and sorrowfully " through the dim forest 'gainst a rushing wind." CHAPTER XV. ABOUT YOSEMITE. Discovery of the Yosemite Valley — The Digger Indians — Hotels and Hotel Expenses — Horses, Saddles, and Riding Costumes — The Buildings in the Valley — Yosemite Photographs — Routes to the Valley— The Hetch Hetchy Valley— The Total Cost of a Visit to Yosemite — Table of Heights of Waterfalls, Cliffs, and Mountains — Winter in the Valley — When to Visit Yosemite. A LTHOUGH Yosemite has been visited by ■*■ *■ tourists for nearly fifteen years, few but Americans and travellers through California know much about it, and many thousands of Englishmen, who are well up in the beauties of Switzerland, have heard no more than the name of the monarch of valleys. Some of our countrymen may be interested to learn a few facts about this marvel of the West, and how best to manage a visit to the recesses of the Sierra Nevada. This part of the mighty range which separates California from Nevada seems to have been quite unexplored until 1851. Early in the spring of that 248 ABOUT YOSEMITE. year, the Indians made a raid on several of the ranches amongst the western foot-hills, and drove off several hundred head of cattle. The settlers orga- nized a well-mounted and well-armed band to recover their property, and tracked the marauders over the mountains down into the valley, where they found them keeping high festival in honour of their success. The Indians were easily routed, and their numbers have, since that event, been sensibly diminished, owing to a determined battle with another tribe. The Diggers have never dared to dispute the supre- macy of the whites since their marauding propensities were so rudely checked. Yosemite was first regularly visited by tourists in 1856, when a small party made a pilgrimage and camped out in the valley. Several years elapsed before Mr. Hutchings, the naturalist and historian of Yosemite, built his hotel, and even now it is no uncommon occurrence for a party of visitors to ride from Merced into the valley, bringing with them on pack-mules tents, provisions, cooking apparatus, baggage, &c, to last them throughout their stay. Two such parties were under canvas near Mr. Lamon's orchard whilst we were at Black's Hotel, and very comfortable and merry they seemed. ABOUT YOSEMITE. 249 The few Indians that are still living in Yosemite inhabit tumbledown huts, and earn a scanty pittance by catehing fish in the Merced. Some of the men are tall and well-made, but they are neither good- looking nor particularly cleanly, and seem to abjure hair-cutting. They are decidedly averse to holding much communication with the whites, and not even the offer of a quarter-dollar would induce one of them to face the camera when our party were being photographed. There are now three hotels in the valley proper, and a fourth 1600 feet up the cliffs beneath the Nevada Fall. Those in the valley are Leidig's, Black's and Hutchings's, all comfortable houses, the last-named the largest and most crowded. Each of them commands a view of the great Yosemite Fall, and the two former seem to be built immediately beneath the marvellous obelisk of Sentinel Rock. Leidig's is about three and a half miles distant from the Bridal Veil Fall, Black's half a mile higher up the valley, and Hutchings's as far again. The ground between these two last-named houses is generally more or less under water, and a planked walk has consequently been constructed from one to the other. 250 ABOUT Y0SEMITE\ At present Yosemite is not spoilt by the invasion of an army of tourists, but it seems likely not to remain so very long. The fame of the scenery is attracting more visitors every summer, and before many years have sped, I quite expect to hear that a railway has been constructed into the valley, so that travellers may dine in San Francisco and yet from the windows of their Silver Palace Sleeping Car see the sun rise in all its glory from behind Cloud's Rest. Already there is a " Cosmopolitan " club- house, adjoining Hutchings's Hotel, where the click of billiard balls may be heard all day long, and El Capitan cocktails and Bridal Veil juleps are con- cocted for the thirsty mountaineer at a moment's notice. Tiring as is the long stage journey, those who desire to see Yosemite should not delay their visit; or the iron horse may be before them, and banish romance for ever. The cost of living at the hotels is three and a half dollars a day, and, taking into consideration that the valley is between forty and fifty miles from the nearest town, the charge is not exorbitant. The food is good and the rooms clean, and if a cold bath in the morning is not to be had, and one is charged a quarter-dollar extra for having one's boots blacked, ABOUT YOSEMITE. 251 it must not be forgotten that, at least in other respects, we are faring quite sumptuously in the wilds. Horses can be hired at three dollars a day, and if a party of several visitors are mounted, a guide is gene- rally " thrown in." The animals are not of striking symmetry or wonderful speed, but they are not to be judged by their looks. It is sure-footedness and not pace that one wants in Yosemite, and this essential quality is possessed by them in a wonderful degree. The Mexican saddles and stirrups look odd to an English eye, but they will be found very useful in ascending and descending a steep mountain trail. Side-saddles are almost unknown in the valley, and the ladies, many of whom wear Bloomer costume, ride, as a rule, astride, after the fashion of the other sex. The Yosemite Valley has been presented to the State of California by the U.S. Government as a great national park, and so plots of land in it cannot be taken up by any settler. Mr. Hutchings and Mr. Lamon claim their title to their selections as the earliest settlers, and at the time of our visit the question as to their right to the land is still pending. Besides the hotels there are but a few houses in the 252 ABOUT YOSEMITE. valley. There is one store, a large wooden hut for dances and " orations," a laundry and a photographic studio : a few tiny weatherboard cottagds complete the list. Whilst speaking of photographs, I may as well warn visitors who take Yosemite on their way from San Francisco across the continent, that only small- sized and stereoscopic views are to be obtained in the valley, so that a walk through the galleries of Messrs. Houseworth, Watkins, or Bradley and Rulof- son must not be forgotten before leaving the city. Their landscape photographs are generally con- sidered to be the finest in the world. One of the three routes to the valley I have already described, and perhaps the most popular, that by Mariposa, I shall tell of in relating my journey from the valley to the Big Trees. The third route is by way of the Calaveras Big Trees, and is not only longer, but involves sleeping another night on the road. At a distance of some sixty miles by trail from Yosemite is another valley not unlike it in formation and general aspect, but as yet it has been little more than explored, and tourists know it not Professor Whitney gives the length of the Hetch Hetchy ABOUT YOSEMITE. 253 Valley as three miles, and speaks of it as resembling Yosemite, but with walls not so high. It lies to the north of Yosemite, and is reached by a horse trail over thirty-eight miles of mountainous country from Big Oak Flat, one of the stopping places on the Calaveras route. It has a rock resembling El Capitan, but of smaller dimensions and not exceeding 1800 feet in height. It also boasts a fall of 1000 feet vertical ; but the grandest waterfall in the valley is the Hetch Hetchy Fall, a succession of cascades, 1700 feet in height, and with a greater volume of water than the Yosemite Fall. The Hetch Hetchy Valley seems to be Yosemite in miniature. I may briefly state that the total cost of a visit to Yosemite, allowing four days in the valley, and reckoning travelling expenses from and to Lathrop, where one leaves the main line across the continent, need not exceed 20/. This sum will include all travelling expenses, board and lodging, horse hire, guides' fees, tolls in the valley, and the expense of a visit to the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. The trip will take eight days in all. A few Yosemite statistics, and -this chapter maybe brought to a close. I have already said that the valley is eight miles in length and from half a mile 254 ABOUT YOSEMITE. to thrice that distance in breadth. It contains 1 141 acres of land in all, and of this area 745 acres are meadow-land ; the rest consists of tracts of sandy- soil sparsely scattered with fine forest trees and ferns. American geologists have failed to agree in their opinions as tp the formation of the valley. The majority consider it to have been caused by an enormous glacier, some by the flow of water, others again by volcanic agency. Professor Whitney, who has given the neighbouring mountains a complete survey, holds that the Yosemite was formed by subsidence, that here the earth opened and swallowed up a large tract of country, and perhaps the small dSbris piles to some extent bear out his view. As far as possible I have adopted Professor Whitney's measurements in compiling the following table of Yosemite Heights. Waterfalls. Indian Name. American Name. Height in Feet. The Cascades . . . 1200 Pohono Bridal Veil Fall . . Virgin's Tears Fall . Loya Sentinel Falls . . Cholock Yosemite Falls . . First Fall, 1600ft. vertical; Second Fall, 634ft. cascades. Third Fall, 400 ft. vertical : the highest Fall in the world! 940 1300 2300 2634 ABOUT YOSEMITE. 255 Indian Name. Tocoyoe . Tuloolweack Piwyack . Yowiye American Name. Royal Arch Falls Illilouette Fall . Vernal Fall . . Nevada Fall . : Height in Feet. . 1800 600 40O , 700 Indian Name* Cliffs and Mountains. American Name. Inspiration Point Pposeenah Chukka . . Cathedral Rocks Wahwahlena .... Cathedral Spires Tutockahnulah ... El Capitan . . Loya Sentinel Rock . Sentinel Dome . Ummo Yosemite Fall Cliffs Pompompasus . . . Three Brothers . Patillima Glacier Point Hefsetuckahnah . . . Union Point . . Tocoyoe North Dome . . Hunto Washington Tower Wayau Mount Watkins . Tissaack South Dome . . Cloud's Rest . . Mahtah Cap of Liberty . Height above Valley in Feet 2973 2660 2400 33°° 3°43 415° 303° 3830 3700 2500 3568 2400 3900 4737 5737 3600 The bottom of the valley is 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It is almost deserted during the winter months : the hotels are shut up, and not more than twenty people live in Yosemite between November and April. Last winter was the most severe that has been known for twenty-five years, 256 ABOUT YOSEMITE. and the snow lay nine feet deep in the valley. Hence the flooded magnificence of the waterfalls in Joine. This month is by far the best for a visit to Yose- mite, for the flowers as well as the falls are at their best, and it must not be forgotten that in late summer and autumn the Great Yosemite Fall dwindles down to a long trailing thread of silver. Yosemite in June is Paradise on earth. CHAPTER XVI. THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. From Inspiration Point to Peregoy's — Forest Scenery — Clark and Moore's — The Mariposa Big Trees — The Upper Grove — Wahwonoh — The Fallen Monarch — Appearance and No- menclature of the Trees — Their Bark, Wood, Cones, and Seed — The Lower Grove — The Grizzly Giant — Big Tree Groves — Comparison between the Californian Sequoia and the Australian Eucalyptus — Mariposa. npWENTY-THREE miles of forest lie between ■*- the Yosemite Valley and Clark and Moore's Hotel, where voyageurs halt for a day to visit the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees. There is no road over the mountains but simply a horseback trail, and the want of enterprise on the Mariposa side of the Valley is much deplored by the hotel pro- prietors. However, riding through the mountain forest is far pleasanter than driving, and the scenery is as varied as it is beautiful. For some miles from Inspiration Point we traverse a rolling plateau- like country, consisting of low well-wooded ridges with pretty green valleys between them, in which s 258 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. the snow is lying several feet deep, even although it is the height of the Californian summer. Down the centre of these tiny valleys run brawling stream- lets, fed by runnels from the snow-banks, against the white humps of which wild flowers stand out in perfect masses of colour. The fresh mountain breeze is swaying the tall spires of the graceful silver firs, drifting a leaf here, and a petal there, and bearing on its wing the spicy odour of the pines, mingled with the perfume of many a parterre of flowers. The shrubs here flourish most luxu- riantly, and on every side the pink tassels of the manzanita and the white and light blue clusters of the Ceanothus or Californian lilac light up the sombre hues of the foliage. At one p.m. we reach Peregoy's, Mountain View House, a neat little hotel prettily situated on the borders of an extensive meadow, and here we enjoy a better dinner than we have had since leaving San Francisco. The soup would have done credit to the chefoi the Trois Freres in the Palais Royal in days gone by. After dinner, R. and I resume our journey alone, the long ride being too tiring for one of the brothers L. to undertake. We see but little life in the forest, though deer are to be met THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 259 with in fair numbers, and a bear is by no means uncommon : squirrels are the largest game that we come across in the day's ride. Four hours at a foot's pace, and at sunset we emerge from a deep ravine, and see the snowy peak of Mount Raymond flushing bright rose-pink, and beneath us the rapids of the south fork of the Merced with Clark's Hotel nestling amongst the pines on the further bank. How good is the tea that follows, and how we do yarn with Mr. Moore over tobacco and a roaring fire of pine-logs, about the marvels of Yosemite. We spend the next day in wandering up and down the beautiful fork of the Merced, and vainly whip- ping the stream. The "scenery is charming, and after the hard work of the past week we rejoice in a thoroughly lazy day. The following morning we ride off to the Mariposa Grove, six miles distant over the mountains, through the glorious forest, the ever-varying beauties of which never fail to elicit admiration. A delightful ride of an hour and a half brings us to the Upper Grove, which is at an elevation of 5500 feet above the sea. This grove is jh ree - quarters of a mile long and half a mile wide, and contains 365 trees exceeding a foot in diameter. Of s 2 26o THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. this number 125 trees have a circumference exceed- ing forty feet, and the highest attains an altitude of 272 feet. The largest tree in the Upper Grove is, I think, called Wahwonoh, and measures 92 feet 7 inches in girth and 260 feet in height. One of the most magnificent specimens .lies prostrate with its trunk completely burnt out, and up the huge tunnel thus formed we ride for a distance of more than seventy feet without bending our heads. This is the Fallen Monarch, and was evidently the grandest tree in the Upper Grove : it is calculated that when standing it measured forty feet in diameter and 400 feet in height The larger trees, with but very few exceptions, are sadly damaged by foregt fires, their trunks, in many cases to a height of sixty feet, being blackened and burnt away. Of one of the mightiest of all — Pluto's Chimney — only thirty feet remain, and through several of those which still have tall branches green with foliage, we ride as through Temple Bar, for they are but mere shells pierced with one or more doors and windows. The scenery in the Grove is remarkably beautiful beneath the brilliant Calif ornian sky. From a dense undergrowth of various kinds of evergreen shrubs THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 261 and bright flowers rise on all sides the huge, ruddy trunks — straight, symmetrical, and branchless — often to a height of 200 feet, looking like enormous masts grown ready for Brobdingnagian Great Easterns. In the largest specimens the lower limbs are in many instances five feet in diameter. Here and there one comes upon two or three grand trunks only separated by a foot or two, and appearing to spring from a single root To such as these, names of The Twins, The Three Brothers, The Sisters, have been given, and are made known to the visitors by title-boards nailed to the bark. These may be appropriate, but Bret Harte. U. S. Grant, Lincoln, Colonel Scott, and Lesseps are only a few of many instances of absurd nomenclature. The Governor and Donald Stannaford are perhaps the handsomest and least burnt of all the trees in the Grove. Where we stand close to their butts, and amongst patches of iris and Mariposa lily, all is still and shaded by the thick canopy of leaves 200 feet above us, but, lobking up the huge columns of red wood, we can see the topmost boughs bending and waving to and fro in the brisk mountain breeze. The bark of the Sequoia gigantea is brownffli-red in colour, and on the largest trees occasionally ex- 262 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. ceeds eighteen inches in thickness. Beneath the layer of bark the wood is of a faint red, soft and light, and has a straight grain. The cones are about equal in size to a bantam's egg, and naturalists describe the seeds as a quarter of an inch long, a sixth of an inch wide, and as thin as parchment. The Big Trees in the Lower Grove are eighty-six in number, and much more scattered, but one of them has the reputation of being in girth the largest living tree in the known world. This is the Grizzly Giant, and it measures 93 feet 7 inches in circum- ference at the ground, and 64 feet 3 inches at eleven feet up the trunk. Several of its branches, Pro- fessor Whitney says, exceed 1 8 feet in circumference, and so are as large as a noble English forest tree. It is unfortunately much burnt, and its top also shows signs of considerable damage from storms, so that it is not nearly so symmetrical as many of its neighbours. Twenty years have now elapsed since the Sequoia gigantea was first introduced as a new species by botanists. The tree has been found to thrive as a shrub in many different parts of the world, but it grow* naturally in some eight groves only on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada, between 34 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 26 j and 41 north latitude, though there may be other groves as yet undiscovered in the recesses of the mountains. The Mariposa, Calaveras, Tuolumne, Merced, Fresno, and Tulare are the groves best known to fame, and the first two are those most visited. The Calaveras Grove was the first dis- covered, and contains ninety-two trees exceeding 15 feet in diameter. One of the fallen monarchs is reckoned to have been 450 feet in height, and 40 feet in diameter, and its age is estimated at 2500 years, so that it was an old tree when Rome was in the height of her glory ! The Tulare Grove is said to be eight miles long, and to contain larger trees than either the Mariposa or Calaveras groves, one of them being 123 feet in circumference twelve feet from the ground, but I have not heard that this measurement has been authenticated. However, in girth the Sequoia gigantea is, as far as is known, unsurpassed, but in height it is decidedly thrown into the shade by the Australian Eucalyptus. In Gipps Land, Victoria, the state surveyor of forests measured a fallen gum-tree, the trunk of which was bridging a deep ravine, exceeding 450 feet in' height from the roots, but as its top had been broken off where 264 THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. it measured five feet in diameter, he considered the tree to have been considerably more than 500 feet high when alive. The tallest Sequoia now standing and accurately measured, is stated to be 327 feet in height; this specimen is in the Calaveras Grove, whence came the bark which was set up and after- wards destroyed by fire in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. The following morning, unable to wait any longer for our two friends still at Peregoy's, we start by coach for Merced, distant sixty-eight miles, at six a.m. The first ten miles are most enjoyable, the road being in good order, whilst from the Summit, five miles from Clark's Hotel, one obtains a view over eighty miles of the San Joaquin Valley to the Coast Range, which well, repays one for the dust and jolting of the whole day's journey. We drive up the main street of Mariposa shortly after noon, and spend three-quarters of an hour in washing, brushing, and dining. Mariposa, like Coulterville, is a deserted mining town, and idleness reigns where once all was life and activity. There is a fine gaol, but the in- habitants of the town say that " the population is too small for it to pay," even if they " all went in at once !" There are some handsome stone houses, but THE BIG TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 265 nearly all of them are shut up, and the two churches are also closed, for there is no one to " run the gospel mill." From Mariposa to Merced we traverse identical plains of grain mile after mile for five hours to those lying between Merced and Snellings. Again, too, there is a mere apology for a road, and long before we reach the El Capitan Hotel we are ready to back the San Joaquin Valley to produce more dust in a given number of miles than any other valley in the known world. CHAPTER XVII. ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. The San Joaquin Valley— The Richest Corn-land in the World- Volunteer Crops — Modes of Reaping — Waste of Straw — A Boundless Ocean of Com — Tobacco, Oranges, and Silk — Stockton — Sacramento— Sleeping Cars — Up the Sierra Nevada — Cape Horn — Gold Mining — Moonlight on the Mountains — Fifty Miles of Snowsheds— The Deserts of Nevada— A Cour- teous Official. r "T s HE El Capitan Hotel was built by the Central -*• Pacific Railway Company expressly for the accommodation of Yosemite tourists, and is a large and very comfortable house, but there is nothing to detain us at Merced, which is a mere collection of stores and livery stables. Taking our departure by the 5.30 a.m. train on June 25th, we run up the San Joaquin Valley, and, awaiting the arrival of the Atlantic express from San Francisco, spend two or three hours at Stockton. The San Joaquin Valley, through part of which we have been travelling on our way to and from the Yose- mite, is perhaps the most fertile district of the most ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. 267 fertile of the United States. It is about 250 miles in length by forty in breadth, and contains between the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada and the Coast Range six million acres of excellent agricultural land. Here there is no rain from May to September, and wheat harvest commences early in June. The ground, when rolled level after seed-sowing, so as to keep the moisture engendered by the melting of the snows in the soil, produces with wonderful rapidity, and a late crop put in in this manner has been har- vested in seventy days from the date of sowing. One hears of " volunteer crops " in California. Land, the grain from which has been duly harvested one summer, will, if left to itself, produce a second crop the following season, and in this way as much as thirty bushels have been reaped from an acre. To an English eye, the grain appears to be dead ripe before it is got in, and the quantity that falls from the ears will account for this volunteer crop. From a first sowing sixty bushels are reckoned a very good crop in California, though in some favoured districts as much as eighty bushels have been harvested. We are much struck with the length of the stubble, which, in many places exceeds three feet This is owing to the crop being reaped by means of an imple- 268 ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. ment called a " header," which cuts the ears off and leaves the straw standing. On several large farms the wheat is being reaped with a machine, which, as it severs the grain from the straw, throws it into huge waggons driven slowly along by its side. These, when full, are taken away to the homestead, and threshing is at once proceeded with, so that corn which is growing in the morning is in the sack on its way to the coast before sunset. In California, as in Tasmania, farmers understand but little of the rotation of crops, and content them- selves with sowing the same grain season after season, without fertilizing their land in any way. In several districts the soil is thus getting worked out, and the want of manure is given to us as the reason for the poorness of the crops. The straw is very generally burnt, as the farmers say that there is not enough moisture in the ground to cause it to rot if dug in, and that such a system has been found to cause great evaporation, and so impoverish their crops. The corn-growing districts of the San Joaquin Valley do not please the eye like the cornfields of an English agricultural county. One drives for hours along a rough and dusty track with nothing ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. 269 in sight but yellow grain stretching away to the far distant foot-hills. There is not a single tree, not a hedge, not even a wood fence to break the mono- tony of the vast plain of yellow. In California, as in Cambridgeshire, high farming seems to abhor the existence of a green bough. The southern part of the San Joaquin Valley is celebrated for its fruits, and tobacco is now being extensively grown. I am shown some samples of Gilroy tobacco, which both in appearance and flavour compare very favourably with some of the best Virginian leaf. Oranges thrive wonderfully, and a very large number of orchards have recendy been planted at Los Angeles. From this town no less than four and a half million of oranges have been sent into San Francisco during the past six months. The manufacture of silk, too, is likely to become one of the leading industries of the State, and the co- cooneries in the South are said to be answering admirably. As far as the production of oranges and silk are concerned, California and New South Wales seem to be very evenly matched as yet. Stockton does not interest us. It is a dull-looking city of about 1 1,000 inhabitants, and contains nothing to delay a tourist. In fact we are told by an inha- 2 7° ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. bitant that the Lunatic Asylum is the only lion, and that it is only the export of grain from the San Joaquin Valley that keeps the city alive. We presume that when the products of the harvest are pouring in — in about a month's time — the streets wear a rather less deserted appearance, for the inha- bitants seem to us either to have abandoned Stock- ton, or to be very late risers indeed. The trans-continental express reaches Stockton at noon, and two hours later we are at Sacramento, the State capital of California. The city is handsomely laid out, and most of the principal streets are planted like boulevards. The Capitol, of which one gets an admirable view from the railway, is an imposing- looking building of Corinthian architecture, and cost two millions of dollars. The city, which now has a population of 20,000, was founded in 1845. In early days, like Chicago, it suffered much from fre- quent disastrous floods, and the greater part of it has been raised ten feet above its original level. It was at Sacramento that the trans-continental line was commenced in 1863. Here we dine, and engage our berths in the sleep- ing cars as far as Ogden. It is rather expensive to have to pay two and a half dollars a night for ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. 271 one's bed, and the Silver Palace cars are hardly as luxurious as the proprietors would have us be- lieve, but the berths are clean and comfortable, and without them a journey across the continent would be intolerable. In a state-room — a two-berthed cabin, as it were — of which there are two or more in each car, one can be quiet and in private, and these are infinitely to be preferred to an ordinary " section." My friend R. and I are fortunate enough to obtain one, and we get through our two days' journey to Ogden very pleasantly, and without fatigue. We have two engines to take our train over the Sierra Nevada Range, and they do their work right well, for in nine hours we gain an elevation of nearly 7000 feet in the course of 105 miles. The views from the car windows are very beautiful all day. We are soon out of the orchards and foot-hills, and amongst the firs and pines of the mountain slopes, crossing ravines on very fragile-looking trestle bridges, and dashing along cuttings beneath rocky crests, which almost seem to overhang the deep gorges below. We round the far-famed Cape Horn whilst all the mountain peaks are ruddy with sunset tints, and the view down the American river, 1600 feet beneath us, is looking its best, but, to my mind, the Great 273 ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. American Canon, some twenty miles further east, is still more imposing. Here the train runs for some miles along a cutting surmounting a gorge-enclosed by precipices more than 1 500 feet in height, at the foot of which the river is here and there discernible fighting its way down the glen over a rock-strewn and tree-encumbered bed. At Dutch Flat and Gold Run we see a good deal of hydraulic mining. The mountain streams are tapped at the fountain head, and conveyed in wooden aqueducts or cut channels for miles, to be finally directed in powerful jets against the face of clay cliffs, which are gradually washed away, the gold being left deposited in the sluices through which the mud escapes. An enormous amount of labour is thus saved by a simple application of the uses of nature. We are fortunate in viewing the many beauties of the Sierra Nevada summits by the light of a full moon. Standing on the platform of the car, we can enjoy the panorama of pine-clad slopes and snowy peaks stretching away for miles, and catch the moonbeams glancing on many a rushing cascade and tiny tarn in the gloom of the ravines beneath us. We pass beautiful Donner Lake, gleaming like a gem in a ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. 273 dark setting of fir forest, and beyond this get a few glimpses of the Truckee river winding a silver ribbon here and there amongst the mountains. The cold gives us a keen appetite, and we are ready enough for an extempore supper at Truckee, but after leaving this timber depot we are glad to turn into our berths without delay. The snowsheds along this part of the Central Pacific line now extend for more than fifty miles. They are plainly but very strongly built of timber, and cost about 2000/. a mile to erect The snow- fall last winter was so great that the traffic was seri- ously interrupted, for the drifts were in many places from twenty to thirty feet in depth, and at one time seven powerful locomotives driving the snow-plough were thrown off the line. More snowsheds have since been erected, and scenery has necessarily been sacrificed to obtain safety. The grand pine- forests are fast disappearing before the axe of the lumberer. During the whole of the second day out from San Francisco we are crossi^jg the sandy deserts and alkaline plains of Nevada In places we see hot springs sending up jets of steam, but beyond an occasional cluster of houses, round which a few dirty 274 ACROSS CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA. Indians are lounging, the muddy reaches of the Humboldt river, and the barren mountain ranges, nothing is visible but sagebrush and sand. Mos- quitoes and dust try our tempers sorely, and this is by no means as enjoyable as the first day in the cars. But the gaming rowdies, the " robbers of the rail," as San Franciscans term them, do not trouble us. • At sunrise next morning we are skirting the north bank of the Great Salt Lake, and reach Ogden at seven. Here I leave my friend R., who proceeds straight to Chicago, whilst I take the Central Utah line to Salt Lake City. At Ogddh I discover a new cause for being proud o£ my nationality. It would appear that Englishmen, at least with some Ameri- cans, have a character for truthfulness. My luggage checks not corresponding with those affixed to my portmanteaus, it seems probable that I may have some difficulty in obtaining my property, but the head of the office hands it over to me without demur, saying — " I believe you, sir, beeause you're an English- man, but I wouldn't believe an American." I retain a pleasant recollection of the Ogden baggage master. CHAPTER XVIII. A SUNDAY IN SALT LAKE CITY. The Great Salt Lake— The Capital of Utah— Its Streets and Buildings — The Tabernacle — A Mormon Service — The Digni- taries of the Church — A Mormon Sermon — A Vindication of the Creed — The Temple — Brigham Young's Houses — The Present State and Prospects of Mormonism — Girl Converts to Protestantism — A Mormon's Dictum on Polygamy. QALT LAKE CITY, the Mormon capital, is * — ^ thirty-six miles south , of Ogden, and through- out that distance one obtains grand* views over the Lake and its mountain surroundings. Its deep blue waters extend north and south for more than a hundred miles, and are nearly forty-five miles across at the broadest part. As much as a fourth of its weight is salt, and no fish live in it. The Bear, Ogden, Weber, and other streams flow into it, but it has no exit, and its leyel has risen as much as twelve feet within the last few years. There are several large islands, the mountains on one of which reach an elevation of 3000 feet, but they are only T 3 276 A SUNDAY IN sparsely inhabited. Some of them are used for grazing purposes, and support small farms, but there cannot be said to be any traffic on the Lake, for the vessels navigating it might almost be counted on one's fingers, The Lake shore and mountain slopes are fertile and well-cultivated, and the fields of maize, wheat, clover, and potatoes furnish a pleas- ing picture after' the arid alkali plains of Nevada. Close to a hot sulphur spring just outside the northern limits of Salt Lake City is a beautiful little tarn, in the still waters of which the snowy peaks of the Wahsatch range and the high crags of Antelope and Fremont Islands are reflected with marvellous distinctness. It might well be called the Mirror Lake of Utah. Salt Lake City looks very homelike and pleasant as the train runs slowly up a long shady street to the station. It is laid out in spacious rectangular blocks, and the houses, which look comfortable without being pretentious, are quite embowered in gardens and orchards. The streets are all more than forty yards across, the roadway being in the centre with a thick belt of grass and a line of trees, principally acacias, bordering the pathway, by the side of which run broad streams of clear cold water. Even Main SALT LAKE CITY. 277 Street and the two or three other business thor6ugh- fares rejoice in the trees and streams, but the grass is necessarily wanting. The houses are principally built of wood or adobes (sun-dried bricks) painted white or stuccoed, and having green verandahs and shutters. Water is plentiful everywhere, and a foun-' tain in the front garden is quite a common ornament It is Sunday, and the city is sleeping peacefully as I walk round the principal streets before lunch. Shops are numerous, those of milliners appearing to predominate, and certainly the young ladies of Salt Lake City affect a showy style of attire, not by any means agreeing with the saying about beauty unadorned. The banks and warehouses of a flourishing city are not to be seen in the capital of Utah, which wears the aspect of a quiet country town rather than of a centre of thriving trade. A Gentile tells me that very little business is trans- acted, the people living secluded lives amongst their orchards, but the city has of late been to some extent roused out of its lethargy by the discovery of rich veins of silver in the southern districts of the State. There are several good hotels, of which I choose the Townsend House, kept by a Mormon. Perhaps the 278 A SUNDAY IN fact of his having two wives will account for the good- ness of the dinner, and the admirable management of the house. An immense new hotel, the Wahsatch, is now nearly finished, and — Tabernacle excepted — will be decidedly the most imposing building in the city. Noticeable structures are the Protestant Epis- copal Church, the Court House and City Hall, the Theatre, and, last but greatest, the Tabernacle, the huge oval roof of which is visible from all parts of the city. It stands in the centre of a block within a high adobe wall, and the interior is oblong, 250 feet from east to west and 1,50 feet in breadth. The roof springs in an unbroken arch from forty-six pillars of sandstone, and spacious as is the hall, the ceil- ing, which is sixty-five feet above the floor, has no other support. There are large side windows and open doorways between the pillars, and thus the interior is as light and £.iry as can be wished. A large gallery has recently been put up round three' sides of the building, and is said to have improved its acoustic properties, which, however, are still in- different. Twelve thousand people can now be accommodated with seats. At the west end is a very handsome organ, the third largest in America* SALT LAKE CITY. 279 and on a dais in front of it are three large pews as well as the choir seats. The entire body of the hall is filled with unvarnished benches, rising in a gradual slope from the foot of the dais : there is no attempt at architectural beauty or ornamentation in any part Afternoon service is fixed for two o'clock, and at that hour there are some two thousand people assembled in the Tabernacle, and the floor is fast filling up. Immediately below the dais a dozen rows of seats are set apart for strangers ; behind these the centre of the hall is occupied by the women, and the sides by the men. The Mormon choir, comprising thirty female and twenty male voices, are placed on either side of the organ in low seats draped with American ensigns, and facing them stands the conductor, baton in hand. The highest pew on the dais contains three arm- chairs, well-padded and apparently comfortable ; these should be occupied by President Brigham Young and his two Councillors, but not one of the trio is present. A larger seat round a table a step lower accommodates the twelve " apostles," and in front of them, raised three steps above the floor, are ranged the "bishops" round a table covered z8o A SUNDAY IN with a white doth, updfe which stand six, large covered silver tankards and six goblets, with several white water pitchers and large plates of bread. The utter absence of reverence amongst the con- gregation strikes one forcibly. Many of the Mor- mons enter the building and walk to their seats with their hats on, talking and laughing ; the women exchange greetings, and the loud hum of conversa- tion leads me to fancy myself in a concert hall. Service is opened with a hymn, sung by the choir alone. An extempore prayer by one of the " apos- tles" follows, but only a word here and there is audible in the strangers' seats. The choir then sing another hymn to a rather florid tune, and the bread is handed round to all the Mormons, who take it or pass it as they please. A second prayer is offered, and the tankards and goblets are filled with water and circulate amongst the congregation. Then rises one of the " apostles," Professor — so called because he is a schoolmaster — Carrington, President Young's private secretary, and commences the delivery of a very long address. It is not a sermon, for it appeals, in no way to the congregation ; it is an address ex- planatory of Mormon views, and appears to be delivered for the benefit of ignorant Gentiles in the SALT LAKE CITY. 281 strangers' benches, rather than for the improvement and edification of the five or six thousand Mormons crowding the body of the hall. This address has but little solid substance con- tained in an hour and a half of loud talking. Mr. Carrington commences by claiming that no Church or religious sect has ever been so thoroughly misun- derstood as the Mormons, and yet that no religious body that has ever existed has possessed the great freedom of thought which is the characteristic of the Latter-day Saints. He complains that the general belief in the world at large is that Mormons do not believe in the Bible, whereas the very reverse is really the case ; and that he himself is conversant with it is evident from his frequent quotations from both Old and New Testament. He speaks very vehemently of the Mormon belief in baptismal re- generation and the efficacy of the imposition of hands, and proceeds from a vindication of the tenets of his Church to a forcible denunciation of the United States Government, which, he says, is the most cor- rupt and worthless in administration of all species of government of which he has any knowledge. This seems rather a peculiar sentiment to give utterance to when the American ensigns are hanging 282 A SUNDAY IN close to each elbow, and the guns of Camp Douglas are directed point blank at the roof of the Taber- nacle. But he immediately qualifies his assertion by saying that the Americans have the best form of government, but that its advantages are to a very great extent interfered with by the corrupt dealings of its administrators. The United States Govern- ment is the best in theory, but the very, worst in practice. He then proceeds to set forth his ideas on the subject of equality, and remarks that all men carmot be called equal, inasmuch as they have not the same capacity. He illustrates his argument by means of the various vessels standing on the table before him, which could all be filled full, and yet not hold equal , quantities of water. He says that all men are equal according to their lights, for absolute equality is an impossibility. The small goblet is full, but it is its misfortune, not its fault, that it has not equal capacity with the large tankard. Here the speaker attempts to apply his illustration to the case of a bachelor as compared with that of a married man, and pictures the bachelor as a very small goblet indeed. He allows that some men are by nature averse to matrimony, and such, he says, SALT LAKE CITY. 283 might perhaps be happy alone in a small house. But he evinces his sincere pity for bachelors by drawing a glowing picture of a man with means and a strong affection for the fair sex. " Here," he says, " is a man of great capacity — a large tankard. What matters it if he choose to marry fifty wives, and bring up five hundred children ?" A loud murmur runs thfough the congregation after this remark — suppressed laughter from the Gentiles, and, I presume, applause from the Mor- mons. ,- A general defence of Mormonism winds up the address, the speaker's final assertions being that the Mormons have a special mission to benefit and insure the happiness of the great human family, that they are by far the most implicit believers in the Bible, and that of all people they are the most correct, upright, and pure. These are the main points touched upon in the course of a rambling speech of an hour and a half, which has the effect of sending to sleep many of the congregation, Mormons as well as Gentiles. The speaker confines himself throughout to assertions, and in no case ventures to give any proofs for his statements. Many of his remarks, quotations, and illustrations are neither apt nor relevant, and his 284 ■ A SUNDAY IN logic is faulty to the last degree. But he has the " gift of the gab," and would not fail to attract an audience on a Sunday afternoon in Greenwich Park, though the fair sex would hardly give him a very favourable reception. As I walk to my hotel I can- not help wondering whether an inconsequent style of talking is a failing characteristic of the sect, for having asked a youthful Mormon the name of the organist, I receive as reply, " I don't know his name, but he's got red hair." Following the address, an anthem, " We will rejoice in the Lord," is very fairly sung by the choir, and one of the " apostles " dismisses the congregation after a service of two hours, which consists of a speech and a concert, and is, from first to last, as unlike religious 'worship as can well be conceived. The congre- gation is orderly, but far from devout, and there is a subdued murmur of conversation audible through- out the proceedings. The Temple, of which much has been said but little constructed, is now being slowly proceeded with. But although more than twenty-one years have elapsed since the foundations were laid, its granite walls are as yet only ten feet above the ground. Fundus are not wanting, but the Mormons SALT LAKE CITY. 285 say that something always goes wrong when the works are resumed, from which one is led to infer that a good deal must have gone wrong since 1853. Brigham Young has a block to himself, and main- tains several large and comfortable-looking houses to accommodate his seventeen wives. They stand amongst nicely-planted gardens surrounded by a high wall, which effectually prevents the curious from studying the private life of the Prophet. I am told that his favourite wife, Amelia Cott, is to have a new house built for her especial use, which is to cost 100,000 dollars. I do not see President Young, who is travelling in the north of the State, but my two friends, the brothers L., have the honour of being presented two days later, and hear from the Prophet's own lips the recital of a comic negro anecdote ! Beautiful is the aspect of the city as I look over it from a slight hill on the eastern side on my return from an evening stroll. The sun is set- ting grandly behind the mountains of Nevada, and casting a rich golden glow over the waveless expanse of lake ; not a murmur comes up from the city, snugly embosomed in its bowers of green ; away southward gleam the white stockades 286 A SUNDAY IN of Camp Douglas, behind which the plains stretch dimly to the foot-hills of the Wahsatch range, the snowy summits of which, a line of rosy peaks, are clearly cut against the violet sky. My stay in Salt Lake City is too short to allow of any study of the habits and holdings of the Mormons, which have already been described ad nauseam, and my few remarks may be confined to the present state and prospects of the sect. Presi- dent Young has succeeded in buying off for the present the corrupt administrators of the United States Government of which Mr. Carrington holds so mean an opinion, but the Prophet once out of the way, it is probable that immediate steps will be taken to eradicate Mormonism. At present the number of the faithful is on the increase ; there are more than 200,000 professed Mormons, and they have colonized more than a hundred towns. In Salt Lake City there are about 13,000 Mormons and 5000 Gentiles, but it is a notable fact, that of the thirteen female teachers in the Protestant Episcopal Sunday School as many as eight have come over of their own accord from Mormonism. The women, an English clergy- man tells me, are by no means happy, for, as a rule, they see the evils of their so-called Church, and SALT LAKE CITY. 287 would gladly shun them ; but the men, who preach and talk of their "great mission," treating their wives the while as little better than slaves, hold them in almost complete subjection. They have no freedom of thought, but from their infancy are brought up to this particular creed, which is being continually dinned into their ears, and they must either hold it or leave the community. It is satisfactory to learn that many young girls are now refusing to accept Mormonism on arriving at an age when they are capable of judging for themselves, and are coming over to Protestantism. The "apostles"and "bishops," and other elders of the Church grouped together on the dais of the Tabernacle, are by no means an intel- lectual-looking set of men. But the majority of them are fairly stout, and perhaps the great capacity of which they boast is of body and not of mind. Three days later, travelling from Omaha to Chicago, I fall in with Brigham Young's late private secretary, by birth a Scotchman, well educated, and of good address and pleasant manners. He left his home when he was eighteen, and formed one of the President's pioneer party across the prairies to Salt Lake. He tells me that the number of English Mormons in Utah is very large, and that Wales now 288 A SUNDAY IN SALT LAKE CITY. sends over the greater proportion of new converts : he himself is on his way home to convoy out a fresh band. Though the quiet aspect of Salt Lake City is always noticed by visitors, he complains that the Mormons have not the municipal management in their own hands. For many years in the early history of the city there was not a single public- house in it, and Brigham Young, though not a preacher of total abstinence, is himself a total abstainer. He speaks of continual disputes between the Mormons and the officials, and troops in the U. S. employ, for Salt Lake City is looked upon by the Government as a kind of Botany Bay, and the men sent there are invariably of the worst class. Talking of his creed, he admits that it is natural for people to consider its bearings from their own standpoint, but complains that the outside world lay too much stress on the system of a plurality of wives, apparently looking upon it as the corner- stone of the creed. But to have more than one wife is not only the exception now, but an exception which is growing more marked every year. Perhaps polygamy is anticipating a violent end at the hands of the U. S. Government by dying out of itself. CHAPTER XIX. FROM SALT LAKE CITY TO CHICAGO. Scenery in the Wahsatch Mountains — Weber and Echo Canons — Over the Rocky Mountains — The Highest Railway Station in the World — Across the Prairies — Coggia's Comet — Omaha — The Central and Union Pacific Lines — A Railway of the Future — Through Iowa and Illinois. T EAVING Salt Lake City at six a.m. on June -*~ -rf 29th, I am fortunate in falling in with one of my fellow-passengers across the Pacific in the Cyphrenes. Each of us being companionless and bound for Chicago, we join forces, and, securing a state-room at Ogden, travel on together. A few miles from this, the western terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, we cross the Wahsatch Range, and enjoy some grand wild scenery in Weber and Echo Canons. In many places the red and yellow sand- stone cliffs rear their battlements above the line to the height of more than 1000 feet, and are so close together that there is only just room for the cars to run along a terrace above the river-banks. Here u 290 FROM SALT LAKE CITY and there the formation gives evidence of some great upheaval, fantastic crags and columns are very common, and to some of the most noticeable of these names have been given. Sentinel Rock, a huge shaft towering from the summit of one of the mountains in Echo Canon, is one of the most striking objects along the line, and bears a strong resemblance to the Old Man of Hoy on the Orkney coast. Perhaps the most geologically curious is the Devil's Slide, formed by two ridges of granite some thirty feet high, which run up a mountain side in parallel lines a few yards asunder, the intervening space being filled with shrubbery and wild flowers. A geologist might spend a month very profitably in these two canons. Crossing into Wyoming, we are soon amongst the sage-brush and alkali again, and next morning breakfast at Laramie, where the first female jury was impanelled. On the high table-lands in this wide territory we see several large herds of deer, and fine antlers are exposed for sale at the stations, but beyond a low bluff here and there, there is no cover to shelter the sportsman, and the game is very difficult of approach. On either side of the line hereabouts are erected long ranges of snow-fences, TO CHICAGO. 291 there being in some places as many as six tiers, one behind the other, at distances of from twenty to fifty yards. Occasionally, too, we pass through a long snowshed, which to us summer travellers, speeding over a vast plain bright with flowers, seems rather a useless erection. At noon we reach Sherman, the summit of a spur of the Rocky Mountains called the Black Hills, 8242 feet above sea-level, and reputed to be the highest railway station in the world. As it is surrounded by a rolling prairie country, broken at intervals by flat-topped bluffs of red granite, we appear to be on the plains instead of the mountains, but sixty miles to the south the lofty peaks of the Snowy Range are plainly visible all the morning. In the afternoon we have left these far behind us, and, having shaved the north-east corner of Colo- rado, are rolling over the as yet. green prairies of Nebraska, covered with the dwarf cactus in bloom, and peopled with owls and prairie dogs. As I am enjoying my evening tobacco on the platform of the car before turning in, my attention is drawn to Coggia's comet by a young American, who announces his discovery of a star with a tail. I lend him my binocular, through which he takes a long observation, and then remarks somewhat u 2 292 FROM SALT LAKE CITY apologetically, " It's small now, but if you're staying in this country, I guess it'll grow to a pretty good size." The third morning " aboard" we are passing down the fertile valley of the Platte, a fine agricultural and grazing country, beautified by fields of maize and belts of cotton-wood. The North Platte, a river three quarters of a mile broad, but only a few inches deep, is on our right, and skirting it for some 200 miles, we reach Omaha at three p.m., having averaged just twenty miles an hour during our run of 1032 miles from Ogden. It is evident enough to most trans-continental travellers that time is of no object to the Cen- tral and Union Pacific Railway Companies. Their trains make the ascent of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains as quickly as can be expected, but over plains and prairies a speed of twenty-five miles an hour is considered sufficient when thirty-five miles should be attained. The cars are heavy, but they are furnished with " bogy" wheels, and in many districts the track runs in a bee line for forty or fifty miles. In some places the line is very indif- ferently laid, and the bridges would not bear a high rate of travelling, but both these faults can be recti- fied. The United States were very anxious to have TO CHICAGO. 293 a trans-continental railway, and it was completed as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Ten miles of line were constructed in a single day near Salt Lake, but such hasty work as this could not be ex- pected to last when subjected to the wear and tear of constant traffic. The line is insufficiendy bal- lasted, the rails are much worn, arffl the track is in no way enclosed. Nine of every ten stations are not worthy of the name, consisting of bare platforms with a solitary shed behind them, and only a few scattered shanties in sight ; many of them consist of platform and signalman's house alone. Yet the so-called express stops at all these platforms, and great is the loss of time in consequence. It is admitted as a fact that were there any competition to rouse the dormant energies of the two companies between Omaha and San Francisco, the journey across the continent might easily be accomplished in five instead of seven days. The opening of the Southern Pacific line through Texas, and the Northern Pacific through the wonderful valley of the Yellowstone, may perhaps bring this about There can be little question that before many years are past our own Government will recognise the desirability of connecting British Columbia with 294 FROM SALT LAKE CLTY Canada by means of a trans-continental railway. It is the one thing wanting to cement the inha- bitants of these two mighty tracts of country into one nation, to give them a unity of interests, and not only to enrich the whole belt of British territory, but to attract thousands of settlers from our terribly overstocked islfhds to open up a new and fertile country, for which Major Butler has prophesied a marvellous future. There are those who say that the difficulties of constructing such a line would not be as great as ■ those that have been overcome between Omaha and San Francisco, and the neces- sary funds will hardly be far to seek. Our con- structors will have the experience of the American line to build upon and profit by, and in the science of engineering England has no equal. , At Omaha we have reached the terminus of the Union Pacific Railway, and are 1914 miles from San Francisco; the lines over which we have tra- velled cost more than 53,000,000 dollars to construct- Here, on a half-mile-long iron bridge we cross the Missouri, turbid with yellow mud, and tranship our baggage into the Chicago and North Western train at Council Bluffs. Leaving here at four p.m., we are in Chicago the following afternoon, after a very TO CHICAGO. 295 hot and dusty journey of nearly 700 miles, accom- plished in twenty-three hours. The States of Iowa and Illinois, through which we pass, are wonderfully fertile, and to their produce and exports Chicago owes her rise to greatness. For the entire distance the country bordering the North Western Line is green with crops, maize and wheat predominating. We see scarcely a single acre uncultivated or un- occupied. It is difficult to believe that thirty years ago the whole of this vast tract of country was mere bare prairie land. CHAPTER XX. CHICAGO. Railway Station and Car Accommodation in America — Chicago's Rise from the Prairie — The Export of Grain — The Lake Shore —Grain Elevators — Trade in Timber and Catde— Massacre of a Million Hogs — The Great Fire — New Chicago — Its Streets and Buildings-"— The Largest Hotel in the World — Independence Day and Anti-British Sentiments — The Debts of Chicago. A T Fremont the Mississippi is a mile in breadth, ■^ *■ and its bright waters, crowded with countless rafts of timber and busy with high-decked steamers, are a pleasant contrast to the muddy Missouri. At three p.m. we enter Chicago, and, with our engine bellowing like a bull, run slowly up a mile or two of streets before we reach the depot. The pas- sengers and vehicles in these streets have nothing to prevent them from crossing the various lines of railway when they please. At Chicago especially, but more or less all across the continent, but little seems to be done with a view to lessen the chances of accident. The lines being, as a rule, unenclosed CHICAGO. 297 < and the stations unprovided with proper platforms, cows and children are commonly seen disporting themselves on the rails, and between San Francisco and Chicago our trains were stopped quite half a dozen times in this way. The Chicago and North Western Depot is about as wretched a specimen of a railway terminus as can be imagined ; small, dirty, and in every respect un- fitted for the requirements of the line. The Michi- gan Central Dep6t is but little, if at all, better, or rather, less bad, but the Lake Shore offers a con- trast, and is really worthy of the name of terminus. Indeed, if it were not for the Pullman cars, for which one pays about three dollars a day extra, rail- way travelling in America would be decidedly un- pleasant. The universal-equality principle which is the boast of Americans should not be strained so as to apply to car accommodation, for, even allowing for the sake of argument that one man is as good as another, all are not equally possessed of good manners. " Indiarubber George," the English navvy, may be as good a man as the Duke of Broadacres, but he does not stumble into a first-class carriage with his pick and shovel, and sit down next to the Duchess with his dirty boots soiling her silk dress. 298 CHICAGO. He knows that his manners are not consonant with those of the Duke, and that he will be more at home elsewhere, so he travels third-class and smokes his pipe amongst a posse of friends. But they do things differently in America. When a train has no Pullman car attached, ladies are at all times liable to have the seat next to them occupied by people whose manners, looks, or language cannot be otherwise than most objectionable to them. I have on several occasions seen men travelling with- out either coat or waistcoat, even in a Pullman drawing-room car, and in the presence of ladies. It is the fashion to consider every one equal ; this opinion, however, cannot always be endorsed by lady travellers. The late Richard Cobden is said to have re- marked, that every one ought to visit America to see Chicago and Niagara. Chicago is a city of stately monuments of private enterprise. Its unex- ampled rise, growth, and increase have made it one of the most marvellous of modern cities, as it also in point of buildings is .undoubtedly one of the most handsome. Their rapid rise has won fame for Melbourne and San Francisco, but what shall be said of Chicago ? Forty'years ago it was nothing CHICAGO. 299 more than a military outpost station whence furs were sent eastward ; the prairies round were thickly- peopled by Indian tribes, and outside the confines of Illinois even its name was hardly known. Now, in 1874, there stands, skirting Lake Michigan for eight miles, a mighty city of more than 400,000 inha- bitants, built on a grade twelve feet higher than the original level of the prairie, the centre of more than 8000 miles of railway, employing nearly 1000 sail of vessels on the lake, and exporting, every year up- wards of 100,000,000 bushels of grain. The founding of Chicago was due to the construc- tion of aj harbour on an arm of Lake Michigan, which runs inland in two branches for several miles. This was originally so shallow as to be almost use- less, but it has been dredged and enlarged to such an extent that vessels of several hundred tons can pass up what is by courtesy called the Chicago river, and the lines of wharves now extend for more than thirty miles. It is not to its harbour, however, that Chicago owes its rise and importance, but to the settlement of the prairies of Illinois and Iowa. For hundreds of miles the land was found to be rich, level, and most suitable for grain culture, and every year saw many thousands of fresh acres taken 3oo CHICAGO. up and sown. In 1838 only eighty bushels of wheat were exported from Chicago ; in 1842 this amount had increased to 600,000 bushels, and twelve years later to as much as 1 5,000,000 bushels ! These few words as to the rise of Chicago. I have said that the export of grain has made the fortunes of the city, and yet, walking down its stately streets, I see nothing whatever to lead me to imagine that Chicago deals in grain at all. Mile upon mile of magnificent buildings — banks, offices"; warehouses and manufactories, hotels, stores and shops, I pass in review in the course of a long day,'s walk through the city proper, and the impression I get is that of one of the greatest commercial and manufacturing centres in the United States. But I see not a trace or sign, I hear not a word of grain. In like manner I have heard a foreigner say that he has " done London" thoroughly from Kensington Gardens to the Bank of England, but has been unable to find any evidence of the great port of which he has heard so much. And as the crowded Pool and the thousands of acres of Docks attest the importance of the port of London, so do the thirty miles of wharfage, the huge elevators, and the countless railway sidings all along the lake shore tell of the exoort trade of Chicafo. CHICAGO. 301 I visit this part of the city after sunset, and yet . find work of all kinds progressing busily. Large three-masted schooners are being towed out of the river, cargo and passenger steamers are entering and leaving port, long trains of produce cars are being shunted up to and from the quays, steam flour and sawmills are in full operation, and several of the enormous elevators have not yet finished their- work for the day ; it is by means of these eleva- tors — buildings like huge barns, 1 50 feet in height — that the millions of bushels of grain are handled. They are fitted with powerful steam-engines, and the grain brought alongside is sucked up out of the cars on one side, and shot down into vessels lying at the wharf on the other, or vice versd. In them, too, the grain is stored in bulk, and the owner can have it sampled and negotiate his cheque for it in the market. In these elevators and the Exchange is transacted the great grain business of Chicago. And not only is grain handled in these almost in- conceivable quantities, but an enormous bulk of flour is yearly manufactured and exported, and this busi- ness is vastly on the increase. Down the Chicago river, too, are sawmills and stacks of planks extend- ing for miles, and the timber trade is but little in- ferior to that in grain. Of the number of cattle 3Q2 CHICAGO. sent East, or killed and salted down, and the number of hogs that are turned into pork, I hardly dare, venture to speak : the statistics given me seem almost incredible. For instance, I read that nearly 950,000 hogs were killed in Chicago in three months ! I am almost ready to believe that this one city could keep the whole world supplied with meat and bread. And if the Chicago of Cobden's time was grand, what is to be said of New Chicago, as it is not uncommonly called now ? The Chicago Cobden saw was completely destroyed by that fearful fire of October, 1871. I am shown a panoramic view of the city — or rather its ruins — taken by photo- graphy immediately after the fire. On a space extending for five miles in length and a mile in breadth only one block of buildings was left stand- ing ; of a city of 350,000 inhabitants only the out- skirts remained; if I remember rightly, 22,000 buildings were utterly destroyed in less than forty- eight hours. But American energy rose with the occasion. Whilst his warehouses were still in flames, a merchant was coming to terms with a contractor for their re-erection on a larger scale ! Energy and enterprise when backed by capital will accom- CHICAGO. 303 plish wonders, and in this instance their combined resources accomplished the rebuilding of quite three-fourths of the city in less than three years, and on a far more magnificent scale. And New Chicago may well hold her head high. One may walk for miles with blocks of buildings on either hand, every house of which is not only solidly built of stone, massive and lofty, but architecturally handsome and imposing, and a dozen streets in Chicago are substantially handsomer than Queen Victoria Street and Cannon Street West in London. The Public Buildings have risen more gradually than the banks, insurance offices, and warehouses. An entire block in Clark Street is still a mass of ruins, and here the Court House and other Govern- ment buildings are about to be reconstructed. The Chamber of Commerce, however, rose again within a year of its demolition, more splendid than before, and several very handsome churches have been completed for some time. But in most streets there are gaps yet to be filled up before Chicago can be said to be entirely rebuilt. The roadways are in good order, but hardly broad enough to accommodate the large traffic in the principal streets. The footpaths are here and there 304 CHICAGO. well-paved, but in many places paths there are none, and for the most part they consist of wood plank- ing only. Considering that the inflammability of this contributed in some measure to the spread of the fire, the policy of relaying it seems questionable. The hotels are very magnificent both in external appearance and internal arrangement. The New Pacific building occupies an entire block, and is said to be the largest hotel in the world : its entrance and central halls together measure nearly ioo yards across. The dining-room with its fifty negro waiters clad in spotless white jackets is a sight well worth seeing. And I may here state that in my opinion negro waiters are not to be matched : standing be- hind one's chair apparently wrapped in deep thought, they anticipate one's every want promptly but quietly, and are attentive without being fussy or self-important. I have never stayed in a hand- somer or better hotel than the Sherman House : the reception rooms are quite palatial, and except in the Louvre at Paris, I have seen no bedrooms furnished with equal taste and luxury. The Potter Palmer and Tremont Houses are also grand buildings, but all are alike very expensive. Chicago is abundantly supplied with excellent CHICAGO. 305 water. Beneath the bed of the lake a # tunnel has been bored for two miles, and an engine, reported the largest in the United States, pumps through this I am afraid to say how many millions of gallons daily. In the matter of lighting, however, the city does not shine very brilliantly ; either the gas is very bad, or there is a very short supply of it, for the street lamps do little more than render darkness visible. - Owing to the city being built on a dead flat, there is no place from which a good view of it can be obr tained. Except Lake Michigan, which stretches away to the horizon on its eastern side, Chicago boasts no natural beauties : its striking appearance is , due solely to^he uniform solidity, regularity, and magnificence of its buildings. The Michigan Avenue is a handsome boulevard, the trees appa- rently not having been within the range of the fire, but the view over the lake is spoilt by the lines of railway which run between it and the shore. My two days' stay. does not allow me time to visit Union Park, on the outskirts of the city, and I am reluc- tantly compelled to decline an invitation from a friend in the city to visit his villa some few miles out of town. x 306 CHICAGO. I leave Cfcicago on the eve of Independence Day, and see many decorations being got ready for a fitting observance of the " glorious Fourth." These, as a rule, consist of festoons of pine-boughs over the doorways, with small trophies of the Stars and Stripes, but more is attempted in some instances, and stands of shrubs adorn the fronts of many buildings. We hear sundry hints in the streets that " Britishers had better clear out before the Fourth," and the rudeness we occasionally meet with from passers-by tends, to' ^Pmrm the report, to which I was at first unwilling to give credence, that Englishmen are not popular in Chicago*. Why this should be it is difficult to * understand. Surely England's help in the hour of Chicago's-* %reat ^calamity cannot be already for- gotten. Chicago has the appearance of a very wealthy city, but she is by no means as wealthy as she looks. Many of her leading men are young, and apt to be a little too go-ahead, even for American ideas of business. Chicago has not the solid substantial wealth of Boston. Then again, so overwhelming a calamity as the great fire was a fearful blow to finan- cial prosperity, and the capital by means of which the city has been rebuilt was obtained at a very high CHICAGO. 3° 7 rate of interest Chicago is said to owe, and to be paying ten and twelve per cent, interest on 95,000,000 dollars ! Such a state of affairs as this would tell heavily on the richest city in the world, and there are signs of a reaction in Chicago. Many of the huge warehouses cannot now be let at half the figure they were wont to command, and have been divided off into floors, which can be rented for compara- tively small sums. One cannot walk down any street without being struck with the number of announcements " To Let," and other signs thatVfe city has not yet tided over her troubles. Indeed, it is not only evident to any visitor, but it is allowed to be the case by the citizens themselves. Perhaps financial matters even yet are not ,at theif wprst, but with Chicago the recovery of her old prosperity can only be a question of time. She has risen, phoenix- like, from her ashes, and, when she has paid the bill, she will doubtless be all the better for the severity of the ordeal. CHAPTER XXL NIAGARA. From Chicago to Niagara — Lakes Huron and Erie — Buffalo— At Niagara— Prospect Park and Point— The American Fall — The Horse-shoe Fall— Descent of Twenty Million Cubic Feet JHtet Water every Minute — Nature's Symbol of Flrce — Coat **Island— The Three Sisters— The Grand Rapids— The Cave of the Winds^-Under Niagara — Yosemite and Niagara. np HOUGH not persuaded by the hints of the -*- profanum vulgus that Chicago on Indepen- dence Day would x>e too hot to hold lis in one sense, it certainly is the case in another. When the ther- mometer registers 90 at eleven p.m., life becomes bur- densome, and one longs for cool air at any cost. Leaving the city at nine p.m. on July 3rd by the night express on the Michigan Central Line, R. and I are consigned to the mercies of the Grand Trunk at De- troit at eight next morning. Three hours later our train has been ferried across the outlet of Lake Huron, the foam-crested waves of which stretch in an unbroken expanse to the northern horizon, and we get a late and NIAGARA. 309 hasty breakfast at Port Sarnia in Canada The Port Huron people on the American shore are all in holiday attire, and have turned out in their hundreds to cele- brate the " glorious Fourth" with a regatta But here on the British side of the water all is quiet and business-like. All day we are running through thick Canadian forests and stump-encumbered clearings, and towards evening skirt the low wooded shores of Lake Erie. By eight p.m. we have crossed the long bridge over the Niagara River — in reality the St. Lawrence — and are once more on American soil, and at Buffalo. The city, which has about 140,000 inhabitants, is most unattractive, the numerous ironworks giving it a very smoke-begrimed appearance ; it looks like a manufacturing town in the Black Country. Fire- works are exploding in every direction as we drive across the town to the New York Central Depot, and we are similarly saluted an hour and a half later, on our arrival at Niagara Falls. Niagara has been worn threadbare by writers treat and small, and even little children, who have never seen a waterfall in their young lives, have been told and shown pictures of the greatest cataract in the world. I well remember being presented on 310 NIAGARA. my sixth birthday with a large book entitled " Phe- nomena of Nature," and how all the coloured illus- trations of volcanoes and geysers, waterspouts, ice- bergs, and tempests, paled before that of .the Falls of Niagara from Table Rock. If my few remarks convey no idea of the reality, at least I shall have failed in good company. I am in luck here as well as in Yosemite, for the river is at its highest, the current being a foot in depth up to the very boundary wall of Prospect Point, whilst there is not a gap visible even at the edges of either Horse-shoe or American Falls. As we are staying on the American side, we have to cross the river to get a general view of the two falls, which should always be first seen from the Canada shore. The Canadians allow every one a magnificent view of both falls gratis, but it is impos- sible to see either from the opposite shore without payment. Prospect Park is a prettily-wooded re- serve extending some 200 yards up the south bank from the edge of the American Falls, and to enter here we pay toll at a pretentious stone gate- way. This fork of the river is about a quarter of a mile in width opposite to the upper end of Goat Island, and narrows down to 300 yards at the brink/ NIAGARA. 311 Here a parapet, built out into the river, encloses the Point, and one can lean over and look along the entire front of the cataract, and watch the enormous spread of water lose itself in the thick belt of mist which hides the lower half of the fall from view. But grander still is the prospect from the foot of the Point, which we reach by means of a tram-qar worked by water-power, and running down the cliff on a grade of 45 inside a covered way. Hence a path leads to the face of the cliff by the side of the cur- tain of falling water. Standing here, with gusty winds drenching me with heavy showers of spray, I first begin to realize Niagara. Through the driving rainbow-spanned mist one can dimly discern the huge black masses of rock on which the long line of waters falls, bursting into an enormous wall of spray, and foaming away over a hundred cascades and down a thousand channels to join the main river, whilst behind the thick veil of water one how and then gets a glimpse of dark gloomy cavernous walls, which the falling torrents are continually by slow degrees wear- ing away. Retiring a few steps, I take in the whole facade — the 300 yards of cataract that separate Prospect Point from Luna Island — and mark the 3 i2 NIAGARA. many-jagged brink dancing and glittering in the sun- light in strong contrast to the still deep blue of the background of sky, and at the foot of the cascades a similarly striking contrast of colour between the intense glowing whiteness of the hurrying foam and the vivid green of the deep water of the main chan- nel with which it is mingling. As we are being ferried over to the Canadian shore, getting from mid-stream the view of both falls in all their sublime grandeur, one cannot help won- dering how it is that Goat Island, which looks so small from below, manages to keep its place between the two tempests of waters. The cliffs, which below the falls confine the now comparatively tranquil river into a channel not exceeding 200 yards across, are from 200 to 300 feet in height, and covered with chestnuts, pines, wild vines, and flowers down to the water's edge. Along their summit we walk to the Horse-shoe Fall, above which the old standpoint has disappeared, Table Rock now existing only in huge masses of dibris far below. Here the volume of water seems to be quite double that descending on the American side, the continuous roar and the sharp claps as of thunder are far louder, and the columns of mist appear to be NIAGARA. 313 ever hovering high above the lip of the fall. Here, too, as at Prospect Point, one can sit down by the very brink and watch the hurrying waters quit upper air for the world of mist and mystery in the abyss below. One can look far up the river, and see the Grand Rapids tossing their white crests as they rage over rock and ledge, and then slowly bring one's eye down with the rush of water and foam to where, in the very centre of the fall, it rolls majestically over the brink in a broad green curve twenty feet in depth. And then one can go half-way down the cliff and look behind the edge of the fall, and see the entire 1900 feet of water, stretching from Canada to Goat Island, in its descent before one's face. And one can peer down into the mist-basin at the foot of the falls minute after minute till one is tired, and then have failed to discern anything more tangible than spray and creamy foam and waterdust com- mingled in a turmoil of shining, glittering white. And, looking up, one can watch the facade — these 1900 feet — one whole minute, and try to realize that in that short space of time one has seen 20,000,000 cubic feet of water fall over a cliff 158 feet high, and that, on an average, that enormous volume falls and falls over the face of that cliff minute after minute, 3H NIAGARA. and will continue so falling to the end of time. And one will fail ; for powers of realization are overwhelmed by the vastness and sublimity of the sight; one's mind does not take in statistics, and one's feelings are better employed at such a moment as this. For Niagara is an ocean poured out. Has Nature any equally perfect representation of unchanging resistless force : any similar display of might in exhaustless never-ceasing operation ? A tempest, a hurricane, may appear resistless — but it passes away; a tremendous sea on an iron-bound coast — but it dies in a calm ; a volcano in the full grandeur of an eruption — but it exhausts itself. But the action of Niagara is ever unaltered. In the long summer months, when streams are dried up, and great waterfalls are but tiny threads, and in the depth of winter, when crystal bridges span the St. Lawrence, and lakes are feet deep in ice, Niagara rolls on resistlessly — Nature's one great symbol of unaltering and unalterable power, glorying in the majesty of its strength. Goat Island presents as quietly beautiful a picture of woodland scenery as the rapids and falls sur- rounding it of a wild struggle of stupendous force. NIAGARA. 31 S Squirrels are scampering up the trees, birds are sing- ing everywhere, and it is only the roar of waters that prevents me from believing that I am strolling through an English wood. The tiny islets, called the Three Sisters, strung to the northern end of Goat Island and to each other by neat bridges over rushing rapids, are charmingly picturesque and pretty. Their light green undergrowth offers a pleasant contrast to the sombre foliage and ruddy trunks of the fir-trees, and the various glimpses of the falls and river through a leafy vista are quite gems of scenery in Nature's own framing. It is from this standpoint that the grandest panorama of the Rapids is obtained, the long ledge, which stretches towards the Canada shore for some 600 yards, and over which the water pours like a break- ing wave twelve feet in height, being plainly visible. Like most people on the sunny side of thirty, I pay a visit to the Cave of the Winds, passing along the ladders and planks among the rocks at the foot of the western extremity of the American Falls, and getting a superb front view of the entire cataract. Of course one is drenched to the skin in a moment, but, with French bathing costume on, this is deci- 3i6 NIAGARA. dedly pleasant with the thermometer at nearly 90 in the shade, and we enjoy a regular swim in one of the lower cascade basins. Then ascending beneath the shelter of the jutting crags of Luna Island, which cuts off that which is commonly called the Centre Falls from the American Falls of which it really forms a part, we reach the underhung cliff. The topmost twenty feet of this is solid rock, beneath that to the foot it is a soft yellowish-grey stone and shale. So fretted and worn away has this become by the trickling of the water down its face and the driving spray, as to form a shallow cavern, through which the winds rage furiously. Into this, the Cave of the Winds, we fight our way against the tempest, wading through two feet of water, our eyes blinded with the pitiless spray, our ears deafened by the crashing thunder of the fall. But to see that mighty curtain of water come roaring and plunging down 164 feet straight before our eyes, bursting and splintering into clouds and wreaths of spray and mist on the huge crags beneath our f ery feet, is well worth the trouble. An Ame- rican visitor at our hotel tells me the impression the scene gives him. He says — "I feel that the Almighty made that fall and NIAGARA. 317 made me, and that He made me considerably smaller than the fall." And certainly behind Niagara most mortals must feel very small indeed. People have talked of com- parisons between Niagara and Cholock, the great Yosemite Fall, but there is no comparison whatever to be drawn. Niagara means enormous volume and resistless might ; Yosemite stupendous height and exquisite beauty. The feelings inspired are utterly different. And as to the surroundings of each, Niagara can be seen thoroughly in two days, whereas a month in the Yosemite Valley would not suffice to exhaust its wonders. In the neighbourhood of the Falls and Rapids there are several pretty walks; the Whirlpool below the Railway Suspension Bridge, in which the steamer Maid of the Mist was nearly lost, is well worth seeing, and an evening stroll past the wood fringing the southern bank above the Cataract Hotel, when the tints of sunset are flushing over the broad expanse of rapids, will pass an hour most pleasantly. A twelve years' resident tells me that the numbers of visitors have perceptibly diminished during the last three or four seasons. He says that the high hotel 3 i8 NIAGARA. charges keep them away, and certainly the living at the International is very inferior for five dollars a day. These hotels have a season of only four months, and they endeavour to make that time pay them a year's profits. This is a system that visitors find it not so easy to appreciate. CHAPTER XXII. TORONTO. From Niagara to Toronto— A Canadian Thunderstorm — Toronto — Facilities of Communication — Toronto Bay in Summer and in Winter — Ice-boats and Ice-boating — A Mile a Minute under Sail — Trade of the City — Toronto Lions — The Queen's Park — The University — Osgoode Hall. A FTER a three days' stay at Niagara, I take ■*• *- the afternoon train across the Suspension Bridge below the Falls to Toronto. The scenery along the line is very similar to that passed through between Port Sarnia and Buffalo, but there are more farms and less forest For the last twenty miles the line runs along the lake shore, and the views over the placid expanse of Ontario are extensive and pretty. At Hamilton, a lake port of some 25,000 inhabitants, spoken of as a very rising town, we come in for a heavy thunderstorm, with showers of hailstones so large as actually to break several of the car windows, but unfortunately the climax is reserved for our arrival at Toronto. Here the vivid 320 TORONTO. violet lightning is almost incessant, the hail turns to rain, and such an outpouring from the skies is not often witnessed. Rain is a novelty to me, for I have scarcely felt a drop since May 19th in Port Ngaloa, Fiji, 7000 miles away. It is a very unpleasant novelty too, for I get drenched to the skin in vain attempts to secure my baggage, lose my train and my friend R., and have to spend the night at Toronto. But as there is much to see in this pleasant city I have no reason for regretting my enforced visit. Toronto contains nearly 70,000 inhabitants, and is rapidly increasing in prosperity as well as in popula- tion. It is built on the rectangular system, and many of the blocks of warehouses and offices are decidedly substantial and handsome. The shore of Lake Ontario is for more than two miles fringed with wharves and timber-yards, and studded with large factories telling of busy trade. The city owns a large number of sailing vessels on the lake, and carries on its grain export for the most part by water. There is also a daily line of steamers to Montreal and Hamilton, as well as to Lewiston, on the American shore. Between the wharves and the business part of the city converge the various lines TORONTO. 321 of railway, so that the transhipment of goods is quickly and easily effected. Toronto Harbour is formed by an island two miles out from the wharves, running parallel with the shore for a distance of three miles. This island has only recently been severed from the mainland by the wash of the lake waves. It is a mere strip of land some 500 yards across, flat and sparsely wooded, but there are a couple of hotels on it, which are visited by excursionists during the summer. It is, however, invaluable to Toronto, as forming a perfect natural breakwater, and on Lake Ontario heavy weather is by no means uncommon. Inside this sound is a small fleet of steamers and lake craft, and several yachts are lying quietly at their moorings opposite the club-house. The bay looks quiet enough now, but an enthu- siastic skater and ice-yachtsman tells me that it presents a vastly different aspect when the winter has fairly set in, and the entire surface of the long stretch of water is transformed into a thick sheet of ice. Then skaters and skatresses are disporting themselves by hundreds, anxious to get the best of the ice before the first heavy snowfall ruins its glassy 322 TORONTO. surface, ice-boats are flying hither and thither like the wind, and Toronto keeps high holiday. Curious-looking craft are these ice-boats, a mere framework of spars in the shape of a triangle, covered with a deck of light planks, and resting at the corners on three iron skates, in some vessels six or seven feet in length, which raise the hull some ten or twelve inches from the ice. The boat has a stout mast and large lug sail, rigged on a yard and boom, and is sailed with one of the sides as the bows, the mast being stepped well forward with the forestay made fast to a stump bowsprit The after skate is fitted with a rudder-head and tiller, and with it the boat is steered. With a fresh breeze abeam, there is scarcely any limit to the speed that can be attained by a racing ice-yacht. A Toronto friend tells me that he has run a mile and a half in a minute and three quarters, and the Hudson River ice-yachts, of which the Icicle is the champion, have often beaten an express train running at full speed on the New York line along the bank. Some of these crack vessels carry more than 200 square feet of canvas, and, sailing at the rate of a mile a minutej require as steady a hand at the tiller as the Cetonia or Kriemhilda in a yacht race round the Isle of TORONTO. 323 Wight These ice-boats vary in length from thirty feet down to ten feet, and a large one built and rigged expressly for racing, costs about 35/. The Icicle is said to have cost 200/. The chief branch of industry in Toronto appears to be hat and cap manufacture, and in every fifth shop these articles are exposed for sale. There are woollen goods and furniture manufactories and ironworks, but the business of the city is rather one of supply to outlying small towns and villages in Western Canada than of produce. Certainly, whatever its trade may be, it is very successful, for quite a large number of handsome new buildings are being erected for private firms, and business is evidently brisk. Of Canadian cities, Toronto is second only to Montreal in point of- population, Quebec being a good third. Curiously enough, though Montreal has just double the population of Toronto, the latter city is spread over nearly twice the area, and the inhabitants complain that it is far too widely scat- tered for business to be conveniently transacted. The ground bordering on many of tbe*streets lead- ing out of the main arteries is only thinly built over, and one sees a row of small wooden cottages y 2 324 TORONTO. in close proximity to an impdrtant thoroughfare. The streets are broad and neat, and the city is well planted, but it sadly wants weeding out before its limits are further extended. The Queen's Park and University form the chief lions of Toronto. They are approached by the College Avenue, a very handsome drive a mile long, between double lines of chestnuts and firs separated by carefully trimmed grass borders. Op- posite the Park entrance and surrounded by brilliant flower-beds, is a handsome statue of the Queen in her regal robes, crowned and sceptred, and beyond this stretches the Park, nearly a mile square, and beautifully green and well wooded. Drives and walks are cut in every direction, and it is evidently a very popular resort and recreation-ground, for the people of Toronto are out in large numbers, cricket matches are in progress, and every shady seat is occupied. A few hundred yards from the Queen's statue has been erected a neat memorial to the Canadian Volunteers who lost their lives in the defence of the frontier against the Fenians. It consists of a pedestal twenty feet high, with the Royal and Canadian arms and laurel wreaths in relief, support- TORONTO. 325 ing two figures of Volunteers and two female figures representing Canada and Devotion, and has a large Britannia surmounting the whole. It is extremely well executed in brown sandstone and white marble, but is unfortunate in its site, for a grove of trees almost hides it from public view. The University stands almost in the centre of the Park, which, by-the-bye, is itself part of the Uni- versity property. It is a very handsome Norman building of grey stone, surmounted by a bold tower 120 feet high. There is no Chapel, a liberal education being aimed at without reference to reli- gious creeds. There is an excellently arranged museum and library, and a handsome Convocation Room, the roof of which is noticeable by reason of the beautiful grain of the pine rafters and the richly carved gurgoyles, each of which is of a different pattern. Indeed, it has been made a speciality in the whole building that no two pieces of the carved work, whether in wood or freestone, should be alike. The massive stone pillars of the entrance hall are fine specimens of this, and the outer porch or gate- way still finer. This is entirely in white stone, arch within arch of varied design, cunningly con- ceived and executed with wonderful skill and elabo- 326 TORONTO. rate detail. The principal staircases and the whol of the fittings of the library are of oak, the rest c the woodwork throughout is of pine. Several fine trees have been left standing close t the building, and in many places Virginia creepe has thrown its picturesque clusters over the gre walls, and is trailing along the tracery of arch am pillar. As I walk through the building, every roori is voiceless and deserted, for it is the Long Vaca tion now, the same Terms being observed as at ou English Universities. In all, there are about 201 undergraduates in residence, but not more thai forty live In College, as the number of rooms i limited, and the expense considerably greater thai that of lodging in the city. The University, whic has been founded about fifteen years, cost 1,000,001 dollars, and is a credit to Toronto, to the Provinc of Ontario, and to Canada. At the southern end of the College Avenue, sui rounded by green lawns and clumps of shrubbei-j stands Osgoode Hall. Here are the Courts c Chancery, Common Pleas, and Queen's Bench fc the Province, and admirably arranged Courts the are. A grand Central Hall, wi{h its richly carve pillars, tesselated pavement and pictures, and TORONTO. 327 Library of noble proportions are the most striking parts of the building, but the useful as well as the ornamental has been studied, and Courts, Judges' and Counsels' Chambers, and law students' rooms are all very complete and well fitted. The new Post-Office and several of the churches are handsome, but, owing to repairs, I am unable to visit the Cathedral. The Hotels are poor after an experience of American establishments, but the Queen's is comfortable, and charges are low. After a very pleasant day's sight-seeing, I leave Toronto that evening, having a seven hours' railway journey before me to the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where I am to quit land for river travelling. CHAPTER XXIII. DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. Kingston — Sunrise on the St. Lawrence — The Spartan — Amongst the Thousand Islands — River Scenery — The Rapids of the St. Lawrence — Down the Long Sault — Perils by River — A Timber Raft— "When Greek meets Greek"— A Brace of Shipwrecks — Lake St. Louis — Baptiste— Montreal from the St. Lawrence — The yictoria Bridge — Montreal by Night. A SLEEPING CAR makes but an indifferent ■* *- bedroom, but it seems uncommonly comfort- able when the black porter shakes me out of a sound sleep at 2.30 a.m. with the announcement that we are at Kingston. The faintest trace of dawn is visible in the east as I drive down through the town — which is of considerable size, boasting of a garrison and 15,000 inhabitants — to the wharf, where the St. Lawrence River debouches from Lake Ontario. The hotels are closed, and there is nothing to be done but walk up and down amongst pile& of firewood, and exercise patience. What a comfort is tobacco under such circumstances, and with what DO WN THE ST. LA WRENCE. 329 pleasure does one look forward to sunrise. The stars go out one by one, the great comet disappears, the banks of clouds along the eastern horizon are soon aflame with crimson, and from behind them shoot up long shafts of orange light* struck by which the fleecy cloudlets overhead shine out in golden splendour against the sapphire sky. Up rises the sun, and a prolonged bellow from the lake announces the approach of the Spartan. An hour is spent in filling up the wood bunkers, and then the big steamer backs out from the wharf, and turns her head down stream. A very different boat is the Spartan to the El Capitan, in which I crossed San Francisco Bay three weeks ago. She, too, is a paddle steamer, but more like a screw in appearance, her paddles being without sponsons, and, as it were, built into her sides, which thus have a clear run from bow to stern. A large and lofty deck-house runs from the taffrail almost into the bows, and is divided into two stories, the upper being set apart for saloon passengers. This has a fine, airy, and handsomely furnished saloon occupying the eiftire length, with state-rooms on either side and a railed promenade round it. The forward half is used as a dining-room, and can accommodate sixty people 33° DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. at table at once ; the after part is fitted with sofas, and boasts a piano and a bookstall. The appoint- ments are extremely good, but 1 50 passengers rather over-tax the stewards, and, after having been up since 2.30 a.m., one likes to have breakfast rather earlier than 9.30. Above this saloon is another deck, but this is confined to the use of the officers, for a crowd of passengers upon it would undoubtedly compromise the safety of the ship. Some six or seven miles below Kingston the banks close in on the river, and we are soon threading our way amongst the Thousand Islands. This long group extends over a distance of forty miles, and adds as much to the beauty of the scenery as to the difficulty of the navigation. The steamers running down the St. Lawrence during the summer months are daily crowded with passengers, and the Thousand Islands and Rapids are as great a source of attraction to the Canadians as the Hudson River, Lake Champlain, and Lake George to New York tourists. In reality there are 1800 of these islands, large and small, but many of them are mere rocks a few- yards square raised a foot or two out of the water, whilst by far the greater number do not exceed an DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. 331 acre in extent, and only support a few pipes and shrubs. Some half a dozen, however, are more than a mile long, and prettily wooded. On one or two of these there are hotels, the proprietors of which announce that excellent wild-fowl shooting is to be had, and that " angling is rather fatiguing than other- wise, from the great quantity and size of the fish !" How far this is borne out by facts I am unable to say. On many of these islands are lighthouses, and we are continually passing red beacons placed over shoals, and here and there a small lightship. The navi- gation seems decidedly intricate, and the steamer requires a good deal of wheel every few minutes to enable her to escape the manifold dangers of rock and shallow that almost appear to bar further progress towards the sea. The day could not be more propitious for the enjoyment of scenery ; the recent thunderstorm has thoroughly cleared the air, the sun shines brilliantly in a cloudless sky, and a light cool breeze is faintly rippling the broad bosom of the St Lawrence. The banks are not remark- able for their beauty. They are low, sparsely wooded, and green to the water's edge, and the country bordering the river is so flat that for miles 332 DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. the inland view is limited to a thin line of trees, here and there broken by a red-painted farmhouse. But there are occasional peeps to be had down a vista of islets which are pretty and picturesque, where a long reach opens out before us, with a white lighthouse just visible through the pines, and in the distance a tiny dash of red against the blue water, telling of a beacon on some rock or sand-patch. In one part of the river it is said that a hundred islands can be seen at once. I am shown the spot, but do not test the accuracy of the arithmetic. These scenes of the picturesque, however, are quite excep- tional, and I must confess myself disappointed with the scenery of this part of the St. Lawrence. The island-studded reaches may, indeed, have been replete with romance and incident during the Cana- dian insurrection, but I find it very difficult to pick out the fascinating nature-pictures in which travellers are said to revel for many a long mile. Brockville, Prescott, and Ogdensburg, flourishing riverside towns, are passed, and the broad expanse of the St. Lawrence broadens still further as we steam on. The Gallops and De Plau Rapids are small and of no reputation, but very different are the Long Sault. These extend for nine miles, and are DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. 333 divided into two channels by a succession of long tapering islands. Of these channels we choose the southern, which in many places is dangerously narrow, but frequent navigation has shown that with experienced hands at the wheel, and a pilot who knows every rock in the stream, there is not much to fear. In one reach, certainly, the Spartan takes the ground several times, but the shocks are but slight, and, urged on by a current running twenty miles an hour, she merely grates over the gravelly bed, and plunges heavily forward unharmed. The appearance of the rapids is sufficiently wild to alarm a timid passenger, and when the Spartan makes her first plunge the colour vanishes from the cheeks of several of the fair Canadians. The meeting of a strong tide and fresh breeze in a narrow sound with a rocky bottom causes a similar conflict of waters. A short chopping sea gets up, and all is a turmoil of breaking waves and angry foam. We shut off steam where the force of the stream is greatest, and with six steersmen at the two wheels, the Spartan rushes headlong down the channel impelled by the current alone. There is but little motion in the steamer, as the waves, though roaring and tossing in the wildest manner, are short 334 DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. and small. One has the sensation of going downhill very rapidly, for the steamer of course has the appearance of being very much down by the head in the course of this descent of forty-eight feet, and at times she lurches heavily, and seems to have considerable difficulty in recovering herself. Steamers going up stream escape the Long Sault Rapids by passing through a canal of seven locks eleven and a half miles long. We now enter Lake St. Francis, an expansion of the St. Lawrence, which for twenty-five miles averages five miles in width. The banks are, as usual, flat and uninteresting, but the blue humps and ridges on the horizon tell of the Adirondack range in the distant south. In this lake we pass one of the large timber rafts slowly making its way down to Quebec. It appears to be about 250 feet in length and 150 feet across, and consists of thousands of planks ready for the market lashed together. In various parts of it pole masts support large yards and square sails ; it is steered by numerous long sweeps, and bears, amidships two roughly built wood huts for the accommodation of the . forty or fifty raftsmen who form the crew. Nearly all the timber is cut in the forests and taken down stream DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. 335 by French Canadians, the English disliking the work. A Toronto man tells me that the reason of this is that the French can eat thick bacon day after day and relish it, whereas the English like it cut thin! Leaving Lake St. Francis, we run the Coteau, Cedar, and Cascade Rapids, and descend eighty-two feet in the course of eleven and a quarter miles. In ascending the river, use is made of the Beauharnois Canal, but steamers have no less than nine locks to pass through. . Here, as we open a reach of the Cedar Rapids, the Spartan comes up with the Corinthian, and we know that " when Greek meets Greek, then comes the tug of war." But the Corinthian does no|mean fighting, for she is hard and fast aground near the south shore, and has already hauled down her colours. Within a few hundred yards of her is another stranded steamer, the Osprey, and we are thus reminded that in spite of all the efforts of expe- rienced pilots and careful helmsmen, the rapids will occasionally assert their power, and take charge of the ship. At one point shipwreck stares us in the face, for. a hundred yards ahead of the Spartans bows a long ridge of rock rears itself several feet above the tumbling waves, and we are rushing 336 DOWN THE ST. LA WHENCE. headlong towards it at the rate of twelve knots. A second of suspense, and then the wheel goes hard over, the Spartan sheers wildly to port, and the danger is past. From Lake St. Louis, in which there are several pretty islands, we get our first view of the dark hump of Mount Royal, thirty miles away. 'Here the St. Lawrence for twelve miles has a breadth of half that distance, and now that the breeze has died away at the approach of sunset, a sheet of still water is spread out before us like a lake of quicksilver. On our left the outlet of the Ottawa River, and St. Ann's, celebrated in Canadian boating songs, are soon passed, and an hour's steaming brings us to the last, the Lachine Rapids. At Caughnawaga ^pint we take on board the old Indian pilot, Baptiste, well known to most voyageurs on the^St. Lawrence, who steers us safely down the forty-four feet of descent amidst the tumult of waters, emerging from which the noble Victoria Bridge is before us, with the crowded buildings and tall spires of Montreal rising terraced on the eminence beyond. Shooting the centre span of the bridge, we get a grand view of the whole extent of the city, which is said to be seen at its best from the river. Long DOWN THE ST. LA WHENCE. 337 wharves, lined with timber ships, Atlantic steamers, and two-decked river boats, fringe the north bank of the St. Lawrence for several miles, backed by rows of handsome stone warehouses, amongst which the Custom House is made conspicuous by its fine dome and tower; behind these again, street above street climbs the face of Mount Royal, and the noble towers of Notre Dame form the one imposing cen- tral object which no city should be without. But a few words about the Victoria Bridge, which is one of the largest and most celebrated in the world. It spans the river above Montreal at a place where it is a mile and a quarter wide, and with north and south embankments is in all nearly a mile and three-quarters in length. The twenty-four piers that rise from the river-bed to support the iron tubes, are built of massive blocks of stone, averaging ten tons and a half in weight, and fitted with wedge- shaped ice-breakers, for the protection of the bridge during the winter. These piers are calculated to bear a pressure of 70,000 tons. The centre span is 60 feet above summer water level, the height at the shore ends only 36 feet, but owing to its great length the bridge has the appearance of a dead level throughout It was built by the Grand Trunk Rail- 338 DOWN THE SI. LAWRENCE. way Company, and is fetid witn a single line of rails, beneath a strong iron covered way, with a high- pitched roof to prevent the snow from lying upon it. The total cost of the bridge was nearly 7,000,000 dollars, but Canadians say that it is well worth the money, for it gives uninterrupted railway communi- cation with Boston, New York, and all the eastern States, and the value of this can hardly be over- estimated. Running alongside the connecting Quebec steamer, the Spartan transfers her through passengers, and then lands the rest of us on a very crowded wharf. In the course of a steep climb and a short drive, I get a fair idea of the aspect of the streets in the commercial metropolis of Canada, and judging from its public buildings, and the handsome solidity of its blocks of warehouses, it is indeed thriving and prosperous. But I have not time even to see Notre Dame, and indeed hardly do more than eat a dinner in Montreal. Three hours after my landing from the Spartan, I leave in the night express for Quebec, and from the northern abutment of the Victoria Bridge enjoy a superb view of the city under the clear cold light of the stars. Lines of lamps are twinkling brightly up DOWN THE ST. LAWRENCE. 339 the terraced front of Mount Royal, and from the quays waving trails of light stream outwards into the dark expanse of river ; the tall column of fire from a huge foundry is making the city roofs ruddy with its glare, and bringing out tower, dome, and spire in strong relief against the background of dark sky, whilst, over all, the great comet is glowing and flaming in its headlong course to the horizon. z 2 CHAPTER XXIV. QUEBEC. Point Lev>— Quebec — A Walled City with a History — The Upper Town : its Sinuosities and Peculiarities — A House in extremis — Breakneck Stairs — The Citadel on Cape Diamond— The Gibraltar of Canada — The Plains of Abraham — Wolfe's Monu- ment — The Mantmorenci Falls — The Trade of Quebec A T seven o'clock next morning the train stops at •*- *■ Point Levi on the south bank of the St. Law- rence, and we are at the terminus of the Grand Trunk Railway. Point Levi is growing fast, many houses have sprung up of late years, as well as a magnificent Roman Catholic church — which unfortunately the railway authorities do not allow me time to visit — and on the heights above extensive fortifications are being completed, the guns on which will command the St. Lawrence for several miles. Just a mile of river separates Point Levi from Cape Diamond," the citadel of Quebec, and a steam ferry-boat lands me in the old capital of Canada, in ample time for an eight o'clock breakfast at the St. Louis Hotel. QUEBEC. 34* Quebec is built on the summit and sloping sides of a rugged rocky promontory on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, at its confluence with the St. Charles River. It is of a triangular shape, the Plains of Abraham forming the base, and the two rivers the sides, and consists of Upper and Lower Towns, the former comprising the Citadel and all within the walls, the latter a long line of warehouses and minor dwellings built along a narrow street, for which there is just room between, the heights of Cape Diamond and the St Lawrence, and also the large and populous suburbs of St Roch and St John abutting on the St Charles River. The Upper Town is the city proper, and contains the princi- pal buildings and all that is most interesting in Quebec This, the last, is by far the most picturesque city I have visited in the whole course of my tour. A walled city with the walls still intact is a rarity in these latter days. The gates certainly no longer exist, having been improved away, but the gaps where they stood are plainly noticeable, and we cannot pass outside the limits of fortification without being aware of it Breakfast despatched, I visit the south side of the 342 QUEBEC. Lower Town first, and the walk thither strikes me forcibly after having passed through city after city, town after town, village after village in Australia and America, all laid out rectangularly. The Old Town of Quebec cares nothing for right angles : it is obtuse-angled, acute-angled, tortuous, sinuous, winding to a degree : I venture to doubt its boast- ing a right angle in its entire area Its sinuosities and eccentricities are quite charming, albeit perhaps a litle perplexing to a stranger. My destination lies south-west from my hotel, and at a distance of perhaps 200 yards as the crow flies. But my course is sufficiently varied to be puzzling. I go east for some distance, then haul up to north, then keep away to north-east for a spell, followed by a wide sheer to south-east, which promises to bring me up " all standing" in the St. Lawrence ; but I gybe, and, steering due west up St. Peter's Street along the river-side, reach port after a cruise of twenty minutes in time and nearly a mile in distance. But it is delightful to be amongst the antique and picturesque once more, to feel that the city is not a creation of the past generation, but had been besieged and stormed and ceded decades before Melbourne or San Francisco or Chicago were founded or dreamt QUEBEC. 343 of, that it counts its years by hundreds instead of by tens, and is not a woolopolis, or grainopolis, or porkopolis, but a quiet old walled city with a history. The streets of the Upper Town, through which I pass on my roundabout way to the foot of Cape Diamond, are not only winding but steep and narrow, and have quite an Old World appearance. The houses are many of them lofty, and the majority are of wood, painted white and furnished with bright green shutters and Venetians. They might have been transplanted from some town in Holland, had they the simple addition of a small mirror or two fastened outside the upper windows. The best shops and stores, however, have a very English look about them, and are substantially built of stone. But it is in the side streets and along the river- bank that one gets glimpses of picturesque old buildings which call up recollections of the Old World. At one point, looking up the line of wharves from the base of Cape Diamond, is a five-storied wooden house, regularly squeezed and pinched up between two more portly buildings, which have swelled out towards the roadway on either side of 344 QUEBEC. it, and now threaten to overwhelm it in toto. It has not the remotest chance of escape : its neigh- bours have fairly got it in Chancery, and are them- selves so puffed up as to put it in darkness and out of sight, except from one position. It has lived to a green old age, and now seems likely to perish of suffocation. A side street is usually reached by a long flight of steps, proceeding up which one finds oneself in a narrow and dark but still cleanly alley. Here the wood houses are bravely ornamented with gaily painted signs swinging above the doors, and acres of habiliments of various colours, suspended from lines stretched between opposite windows, expose the mis- cellaneous character and questionable state of repair of a hundred wardrobes to a confiding and charitable public. But the alley has none of the unsavoury ele- ments of a back slum; the houses, though poor, are re- markably clean for a side street, there is no fever-laden gutter running down the centre of the lane, no dead dogs and rotten cabbages encumber the pathway, and many pretentious streets in large towns are far dirtier and more offensive than Breakneck Stairs. On all sides people are chattering in French, all the sign- boards are French, two-thirds of the names over 1 QUEBEC. 345 the shops are French, and French seems to be the prevailing language in use all over the city. In fact, it is estimated that three-fourths of the entire population of Quebec are French Canadians, and I can hardly believe that I am in a city that has been under British rule for more than ioo years. Towering some 400 feet above the river, on the summit of the rocky slopes of Cape Diamond, the dark grey ramparts of the Citadel frown over the busy throng on the narrow pavements and wharves below. On the cliff-face, some forty feet above St. Peter's Street, a large black board bears in gilt letters " Here fell Montgomery, Dec 31, 1775.'' But on walking round the Citadel afterwards, the non-commissioned officer who acts as cicerone shows me a white stone more than a hundred feet higher up the cliff and close to one of the embrasures, and tells me that the board is wrongly placed. General Montgomery, it will be remembered, was reconnoitring under cover of night, and had made his way almost to the summit of Cape Diamond, when he was discovered and killed by a discharge of grape from the British lines. On my way to the Citadel I passed a small wooden house in St Louis Street, above the door of which swings a 346 QUEBEC. board intimating that therein the body of the de- ceased General was laid out. The ramparts of the Citadel enclose from forty to fifty acres, occupied by barracks, magazines, and parade-ground, and are mounted with heavy guns, amongst which are several no-pounder Armstrongs. The massive stonework of the bastions is from eight to ten feet in thickness and admirably executed : in fact, to the eye of a civilian, Cape Diamond is a small Gibraltar. All emergencies appear to have been provided for in its construction, and tunnelled through the solid rock, are subterranean passages connecting with various parts of the city, so that the inhabitants, if driven from their houses, have a way of escape to a secure stronghold close at hand. Only one battery of artillery, however, is in garrison, for Canada maintains but a handful of her troops under arms, and I have frequently heard expressions of regret at the withdrawal of the English regiments. British North America, as well as Australia and Tasmania, misses the redcoats sadly. From the Citadel the views of the city, the Isle of Orleans, the St. Lawrence, the country to the south as far as the Adirondack Mountains, and the plains and farm-lands stretching away to the high QUEBEC. 347 ranges in the north-east, are as beautiful as they are extensive. Beneath one is a magnificent harbour, opening out from the mile of water between Point Levi and Cape Diamond to thrice that breadth above the Isle of Orleans, and, though 700 miles distant from the open Atlantic, having a tide-fall of twenty feet, whilst in it a thousand sail can find anchorage and shelter from the heaviest gales. It can compete with Sydney and Hobart Town in beauty and capacity combined. Quebec Harbour is not so beautiful as Port Jackson nor so spacious as the Derwent estuary, but it is far more picturesque than a either. Here are precipitous forbidding cliffs, and shelving slopes clad with the greenest herbage, grand mountain ranges in the distance, and fertile corn- fields running down to the very water's edge, the confluence of two large rivers round the base of a rocky headland terraced with houses to the summit, strongly fortified and girt with tiers of shipping, whilst countless timber-rafts so block up the coves of the southern shore as almost to hide the water from view. St Louis Street, which has been considerably improved since the removal of the St. Louis Gate, 348 QUEBEC. is the handsomest street in Quebec. It does not care to be too unlike its neighbours, and so preserves a sinuous tail, but on leaving the business part of the city it takes a straight course past the Citadel and away on to the Plains of Abraham, rejoicing in a border of pretty gardens and pleasant balconied villas by the way. The Plains of Abraham do not furnish a very striking or extensive prospect. The Quebec Race- course has been laid out on the portion adjoining the city, and cowkeepers and farmers rent the further country for grazing purposes. The City Gaol, an imposing building, abuts on the southern boundary of the Plains, and almost in front of it stands the monument marking the spot where Wolfe died in the moment of victory. It is a plain stone pedestal, thirty feet in height, surmounted by a general's hat and sword. The memorial is decidedly unpretend- ing, and the effect of the tall thin shaft of stone is considerably impaired by an ugly iron railing, ten feet high, which confines the rim of grass round the base to far too narrow limits. Here half a dozen small boys produce collections of "Wolfe's dia- monds," small crystal cubes found on the Plains, and offered to strangers at five cents each. It is QUEBEC. • 349 to the abundance of these crystals that Cape Diamond owes its name. From the Plains of Abraham I drive t© the Montmorenci Falls, seven miles distant from Quebec. On the way I pass through the populous suburb of St. Roch, which forms the chief part of the Lower Town, covering not only the lower slopes, but* also the fiat ground between them and the shipbuilding yards on the St. Charles River. Here we leave the antique behind us, and enter upon a rectangular district, the streets of which, roadways as well as pathways, are paved with wood planks. The houses are wooden, almost without exception, and roofed with tin. Indeed, this roofing is gene- rally adopted in Quebec ; the cathedrals and churches, the Post-office, and nearly all the principal buildings are fitted with it Some of the churches* have even their spires and towers so coated, and in the sunlight seem to point a silver shaft to heaven. The reason of this is not far to find. 6n May 28th, 1845, St. Roch's was devastated by a fearful conflagration, which destroyed no less than 1632 houses, and was only quelled by the blowing up of the buildings in advance of the flames. A 35° , QUEBEC. month later, a second fire in the adjoining suburbs consumed 1628 houses, so that the entire north and northeast of the city was a mass of ruins. The wood shingles and thatch* with which the houses were roofed caused the fire to burst out wherever a spark fell, and since that time tin has been almost exclu- sively used in Quebec. A fortnight ago I was in California watching the * gathering-in of the corn, and here on the flat lands across the St. Charles River the fields are green and waving with high grass crops, and the hay harvest has not yet commenced. Some two miles out one gets a grand view of the city, and the lines of the walls, with the grassy slopes of the glacis drawing a dark green belt between the clustered white houses, can plainly be traced. The road, ^lowever, is neither pretty nor picturesque, and runs for four long miles amongst the scattered cottages of Beaufort, a French Canadian village. Here the gables of all the buildings are east and west, to resist the winter storms which blow from these quarters. At the back of each cottage is a small patch of farm land, from the produce of which the tenants earn a scanty pittance. They live like Irish- men on their potato patch, seeming to indulge in QUEBEC. 351 no hopes of a larger sphere of usefulness and profit. A magnificent avenue of spruce firs, half a mile in length, leading up to the bridge across the rapids, is the prettiest part of the drive. The Montmorenci Falls are 240 feet in height, and 80 feet across, not descending in a clear plunge, but breaking into huge masses of spray on many jutting crags of the cliff- face, which, however, are obscured from view by the thick veil of foam-laden water. The rocks and heights surrounding a still dark pool, through which the river flows just above the falls, are heavily timbered with pine and fir, from beneath the sombre shadows of which a ckalet-Vike. wooden build- ing peeps out picturesquely. On either side of the falls stretches away an almost precipitous cliff of dark shale in the form of an amphitheatre, enclosing a broad basin, 500 yards across, having a small outlet to the St. Lawrence. From this basin in winter time rises a huge smooth cone of ice formed by |he frozen spray, and sometimes [reaching nearly eighty feet in height. Down the sides of this "tobog- gining" — sliding, seated on a small kind of sledge — is very frequently practised. Whether as regards height, width, or volume of water, the Montmorenci 352 QUEBEC. Falls are well worth visiting, but after Yosemite and Niagara one^ cannot expect to be much struck with the grandeur of other waterfalls. There are paintings to be seen, and many churches and buildings, which are curious by reason of their age, associations, or architecture, to be visited, but I have only a day to spare, and it would take a week to see Quebec thoroughly, so I must fain be content with general ideas. Quebec has no great trade beyond that in timber, for the grain of Canada is shipped out of the colony at Montreal, the St. Lawrence being navigable by the largest ships up to that city. Thither the Allan steamers proceed to take in their cargo, and the vessels at Quebec are almost exclusively laden with timber. Butter and cheese to the amount of five millions of dollars are exported from Montreal yearly, but Quebec makes up for its deficiency in this respect by its timber trade, the importance and extent of which are conclusively proved by the thousands of rafts that fill all the coves on the St. Lawrence within sight of Cape Diamond. Shipbuilding, too, is very largely carried on. Quebec is not going ahead like Toronto and Montreal. Its trade, the inhabitants say, is not per- QUEBEC. 353 ceptibly on the increase. It is a quaint, sleepy city of the last century, quiet and picturesque, within easy distance of pretty watering-places on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and also of some of the finest river scenery in the world on the Saguenay. One can easily imagine that French Canadians wish for no pleasanter or more beautiful home. Perhaps Jean and Baptiste, on their tiny farms near the St. Lawrence, occasionally think of the sunny plains of La Belle France, but the Atlantic is broad and stormy, and they are not tempted to wander. A A CHAPTER -XXV. FROM QUEBEC TO LIVERPOOL. Afloat Again — The Northern Lights— Through the Straits of Belle Isle — Amongst the Icebergs — The North Coast of Ireland — Lough f oyle — The Scottish Coast from Rathlin Island — Home again. r\N Saturday, July nth, I leave Quebec for ^-^ Liverpool in the Allan s.s. Caspian, and on the afternoon of the tenth day am again in England. Our run across the Atlantic is favoured with smooth water after two days of head winds and sea and thick fog off the coast of Newfoundland. We are treated to several marvellous displays of the Northern lights; one in particular, when over a third of the heavens extends a perfect bow, glowing with intensely white light, from which radiate upwards shafts of quivering brilliancy, alternately flushing and fading against the black-blue of night. We are passing through the Straits of Belle Isle at the time ; a silver haze hangs low over the coast-lines of New- foundland and Labrador, but in the main channel we have fairly clear weather, and the auroral light FROM QUEBEC TO LIVERPOOL: 355 glimmers weirdly on the grim masses and fantastic cones of half a dozen huge icebergs fresh from the Greenland glaciers. Ahead the open Atfantic is shrouded in a thick fog-bank, through which the light on the Newfoundland headland glares dull red, whilst the intense darkness of- the sky within the auroral arch throws into strong relief the brilliant body and gleaming tail of Coggia's comet We sight the Irish coast soon after daylight on July 20th, and, running between Innistrahull Island and Malin Head, enter Lough Foyle, and land the mails at Moville. The Emerald Isle is looking her greenest, and here and there the ivy-clad ruins of some old casde add picturesqueness to the grandeur of the coast scenery. Large kelp fires on the beach give a weird aspect to the basaltic columns of the Giant's Causeway and Fair Head, whilst on the northern horizon Islay lies like a faint purple haze, and eastward the mountains of the Mull of Cantyre loom up beyond the steep cliffs of lonely Rathlin. Next morning the Caspian is steaming up the crowded Mersey, and I have completed my tour round the world. THE END. LONDON : SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN.