Jtljaca, Hew ^ork CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1876 1918 Cornell University Library G~440.B98i)4 1870 BT ™i,IAM CLO™ AND SONS, SIAMFOED SIKEET AKD OHAKIKG CKOSS. TO MRS. SUSM E. MACLEAY, TO WHOSE HOSPITABLE KINDNESS WE OWED SO MUCH AT SYDNEY, THIS RECORD OF OUR TRAVELS, IN ITS ENGLISH DBESS, IS MOST KESPECTFULLT DEDICATED BY" THE AUTHOE. PREFACE. The sole reason that I have tf) hope for the indul- gence of the reader, in laying before him this journal of my voyage round the world, is that I completed my twentieth year only a week before setting sail for Australia, and that, after having travelled over some 50,000 miles, and seen various parts of the globe with a rapidity worthy of the slides of a magic lantern, I face the perils of publicity at twenty-two. My journal was intended merely for my own relations, a consolation promised to those I left behind, and I wrote in it every- thing that I saw and learnt during my travels ; indeed I may say that I devoted every spare moment to it, to note down each incident of a restless and busy life. Every night, however fatigued, I hastily committed to paper the various events of the day, and every mail carried to my people at home the all too short account of my doings. Sometimes, when contemplating that vast extent ot country which still lay before me, in which I should not see those I loved, or when looking back upon the shores where I knew they must be saddened by my absence,, the fact of being able to turn to my journal, and for their sakes enter into each minute detail of my life, whether wild and enthusiastic or calm and serious, was VI Preface. sufficient to invigorate me and give me fresh courage, to fill my heart with lofty aspirations and delight. But can I hope that these hasty lines, vrhich were sometimes written on the unsteady table of a ship beaten about by the sea, sometimes on my knees after a day's sport, and sometimes in the hut of a savage, can give to those who read them even a faint impression of the great enjoyment, the lively emotions, and the delightful recollections of my travels ? I have left these reminiscences just as I first put them down, whether on the Equator or near the South Pole, though sometimes they may be confused and abrupt, after the manner of a journal ; and I have only cut out what was personal and would merely interest my own family. I wish simply and modestly, but with all the ardour of youth, to relate what struck me most in the glorious sights, curious facts, adventures, and dangers of long sea voyages and distant countries. No doubt, although the account of the first three months' journey has been abridged, it may seem mono- tonous, but if so, I hope to be pardoned, and I shall Ijeg for forgiveness if I become too wildly enthusiastic in my descriptions of the exciting sport on the exten- sive plains of Australia, or the burning jungles of Java. Then, too, my opinions on the political constitution of the Australian Colonies may be objected to, as well as the intense amusement expressed at the harems of the Javanese Sultans, the King of Siam's Amazons, or the breakfast at Pekiii with the Kegent of China. For all this I shall hope for pardon. Preface. vii There is no merit due to me for having in so short a journey been able to do and see so much ; these long and distant wanderings were not undertaken on my own account, but under exceptional circumstances. I was honoured by being the companion of a prince, \vho from my earliest childhood had called me his friend ; and who now wished to make a voyage round the world, having already seen six years of service and gained his promotion, first as naval cadet, then as lieutenant in the United States navy, where he made great progress by earnest and deep study. During the space of three ' months, three young princes of the house of Orleans left Europe, to see if in some distant country they might not turn their talents and energy to account, as at present they were unable to devote them to tlie service of their country : the Due d'Alenqon became a lieutenant in the Spanish army during the glorious expedition to the Philippine Isles, where he commanded the artillery, and most gallantly made his first essay in arms ; the Prince de Conde went to India and Australia, where death, alas ! cut him off at the commencement of a career which promised to be a great one ; and the Due de Penthievre, the Prince de Joinville's son, started on a voyage round the world. I had the pleasure of accompanying the latter. He was received and feted everywhere by kind-hearted people, who did the honours of their country with an unusually profuse hospitality. And as I was able out of this abundant harvest to glean a few ears for myself. viii Preface. I will take this opportunity of expressing the very lively recollection that I retain in my heart of the extreme cordiality with which we were received by all ; amongst them were some whose names a feeling oi' delicacy prevents my mentioning. I -will only say thus much — they are the names of Frenchmen . I must also offer thanks to our distant friends in the name of one who is no more ! . . . For the pleasant recollections of our long dreamed of journey are mixed with many painful thoughts, and on our return a veil of sorrow fell between us and the happy past, in which we had so fully realised dur brightest anticipations. The sad duty of bringing home the cofSn of M. Fauvel was reserved for me. He was a lieutenant in the navy, who had never left the Prince for seven years; an amiable, high principled, accomplished man, whom we loved as a second father. But after having joined in all our pleasures and all our dangers, he fell a -^rictim only twenty days before arriving in Europe to the pestilential fever of a tropical climate. And now that the reader knows us all three, and is aware that it is but a boy who relates this story of a voyage round the world, I must ask his indulgence for the ' Journal of my Travels.' Sandricourt, December, 1868. CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTEE I. TheStai-t Pasre 1 CHAPTER 11. THE PASSAGE TO AUSTEALIA. In the chops of the Channel — Teneriffe by sunset — In the tropics — Phosphorescence — Flying iish — Opposing trade-winds — The ' Omar Pasha ' — Sea diet — The constellations — A storm in the Southern Ocean — A man overboard — The albatross . . . . 3 CHAPTER III. THE LANDING AT MELBOURNE. First sight of land — Entrance to the Bay of Port Philip— News of the death of the Prince de Oonde — Landing — The railway — The town — Natives in front of the opera-house — The museum — The prisons 17 CHAPTER IV. MONUMENT TO BUEKE. Bronze cast in the colony — Autograph leaves from the Journal of Burke the Explorer — He crosses Australia from the south to the north — Fatal mistakes made by his companions — Pieturning, he dies of hunger — Discovery of his remains 52 Contents of Vol. I. CHAPTEE V. MELBOUENB AND ITS ENVIRONS. The European quarter — The Chinese quarter — A stag hunt — Parro- quets and cockatoos — Accounts of New Zealand — An ex-Zouave comes to our assistance Pfige 72 CHAPTEE VI. THE GOLD MINES. Strange appearance of Ballarat — A nugget worth 7360Z. — A theatre at the diggings — Working of the veins of auriferous quartz — Shafts sunk in the alluvial sands — Gold-dust washers on the surface — The port of Geelong — Destruotiveness of the rabbits imported 90 CHAPTEE VII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. Different elements of the colony — Self-government — Universal suf- frage — Parliaments and ministers 117 CHAPTEE VIII. JOUENEY UP THE COUNTRY. Bendigo — Travelling by compass through the plains — The Mm'ray — Shooting swans, pelicans, and wild turkeys — Single combat with an old kangaroo — The Australian ostrich — The blacks — A cattle station 130 CHAPTEE IX. A PROPRIETOR OF SIXTY THOUSAND SHEEP. Thule — Fishing by torchlight — A " corrobori " or native war-dance — The balance-sheet of a sheep-station — The ornythorynx — Con- trast between Australian productions — Echuca and the rail- road 159 Contents of Vol. I. xi CHAPTEE X. OUK LAST DAYS IN VICTORIA. L'Afrioaine ' in Australia — Clubs and evening parties — The lyre-bird — The clergy — Reservoirs at Yean -Yean — Botanical gardens — Summing up of statistics Page 175 CHAPTEE XI. YAN DIEMEN's land. Bass's Straits — An interesting meeting at Lannceston — Hobart Town — Balls at the antipodes — Euina of French tombs — Pisciculture — C!ook's tree — Farewells — A hurricane — Political reminiscences — We take refuge at Eden 191 CHAPTEE XII. SYDNEY. A fairy-Ute bay — French missionaries — High tone and charm of the society — Botany Bay and recollections of La Perouse — Convicts and immigrants — Schools — The Blue Mountains — The sons of the illustrious MacArthm' — Connection with New Caledonia — Institutions and wealth of New South Wales 223 CHAPTEE XIII. EAST COAST OF AUSTRALIA. first-rate opportunity of crossing Torres Straits — The 'Hero' — Newcastle and its coals — Brisbane and flying foxes — Queensland, a growing colony — Description of the human sacrifices at Dahomey — A town only two years old — Cannibal fires — Coral isles- — Where the ' Hero ' nearly foundered 257 xii Contents of Vol. /. CHAPTER XIV. CANNIBALS AND TOEEES STRAITS. Dangerous navigation — Landing on a desert isle — The bower bird — The salvage station — Curious exchanges with a native tribe — The remains of a cannibal repast — A killer of the blacks — Ships wrecked on the coral — A letter-box in the rooks — Farewell to Australia — Fire on board — Heat of the Ajafoura Sea and the luxuriant vegetation of the Malay Archipelago . . . . Page 281 A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD. AUSTEALIA. OHAPTEK I. THE STAET. Our preparations are made : the hour has arrived when all the ardour of the three travellers is likely to be stifled by the overpowering emotions of leave-taking. The funeral of Queen Marie Amelie took place during the last week, and this sad ceremony had been as it were the final touching scene of our European life ; outward mourning and heartfelt sorrow cast a gloom over those friends who were assembled on the quay at G-ravesend to take a last look at the ship which was to carry us to the Southern Ocean ; their tears flowed as though to baptise the vessel which Avas to convey the travellers over 6000 leagues, through wind and storm, though it would face but a small portion of the dangers feared by mothers' hearts. It was one of those scenes, which those who have felt the most are the least capable of describing, but which leave an indelible impression on the heart. VOL. I. B The Start. [Chap. I. All our friends came on board to examine into tlie smallest details of what was to be our home, not to say our world, for three months. How closely the heart clings to material objects, when they are connected by so near a tie with the fate of those we love. They all insisted on examining the deck which was to be the pleasure-ground of our floating island, the cabins which some called our cells, the saloon where we meant to study our charts, and the strong masts which seemed as though no wind could hurt them. Every one can understand, that after the first warmth and enthusiasm with which we had been inspired at the idea of a journey round the world, after our impatience to see the first preparations made for a campaign, the mere plan of which at each new phase only further excited our youthful fancy, every one will understand why, at this solemn moment, when we were taking a long, perhaps a last farewell of our dearest friends, our courage failed us, and we melted into tears. But time is inexorable, and at one o'clock, on the afternoon of the 9th April, 1866, our sailing vessel, the ' Omar Pasha,' hove up her anchor, and two tugs rapidly drew us along the banks of the Thames, which was enveloped in a veil of fog and mist. Chap. II.] In the Atlantic. CHAPTEE II. THE PASSAGE TO AUSTRALIA. In tbe chops of the Channel — Teneriife by sunset — In the tropics — Phosphorescence — Flying iish — Opposing trade-winds — The 'Omar Pasha' — Sea diet — The Constellations — A storm in the Southern Ocean — A man overboard — The Albatross. At Sea. Southern Ocean, 5th July, 18G6. Lat 39° 15' S., Long. 137° E. Three months have passed since we bade our last adieux, and put to sea ; we are still distant some three or four days' journey from Australia, and I will just give you a rapid sketch of the events of our long voyage. During the first twenty days we were constantly strug- gling against head winds : we had hardly entered the Channel before a strong breeze from the south-west got up and beat us about unmercifully. Alternately we saw the coasts of France by day, and the lights on the English coast by night; till at last at about the end of a week the shores of England grew fainter and seemed as though blending with the horizon, and we boldly launched out into the Atlantic, sometimes knocking about in a heavy chopping sea, sometimes rocked by the long slow swell of the ocean. During the night of the 1st May, when a brilliant moon was lighting up the angry sea, and the deep B 2 4 Passage to Australia. [Chap. II. sliadows of the after sails showed in strong outline on the fore snils, the vessel stopped almost abruptly ; the vast spread of canvas was suddenly caught aback by the wind which seemed in one moment to have shifted to an exactly opposite quarter. We passed an hour of terrible anxiety, and were only saved by the exertions of the captain, who was a first-rate sailor. We were near Madeira, and that Isle of Enchantment, with its forests of orange and geranium, was the point where our trials ceased. A mild and steady breeze set in, and as we strained our eyes to discover the Canary Isles on the horizon, the Peak of Teneriffe appeared in all its majesty ; we were still some 75 miles off. At this moment the mass of silvery white snow shines out in all its glory ; then gradually the crimson rays of the sun fade away from our sails, each moment growing paler ; one by one they take their flight and concen- trate themselves on the snow-covered dome, changing its dazzling white to the most delicate rose-pink. We are in the twilight, sombre hues all round us, but the Peak is still radiant. A brilliant red clothes the sum- mit, round which numbers of little clouds form a trans- parent halo, and when the last fiery rays of the sun die away from the rosy snow, the evening breeze disperses the clouds, which in their flight seem to carry with them the last reflection of that last glow; The winds waft them towards us like a thousand-tinted veil, dropped from heaven, then one by one they vanish, and are swallowed up in the night which already surrounds us. Here we entered upon the region of the trade-winds. Chap. II.] In the Tropics — Phosphorescence. 5 No more storms, no more head winds, no more anxiety, no longer those fearful moments of doubt, when an ill-executed order may place a sailing vessel in such danger. The ship assumes a holiday aspect, an awning is stretched over the deck, all the sails are set. The temperature not exceeding 82 degrees, we turn the deck into a regular drawing-room, and settle ourselves there with our books and musical instruments. In the solitude that reigns at sea, each new sight offers a fresh charm. Thousands of little " Portuguese men-of-war," those fascinating inhabitants of tropical seas, tloat around us on the crests of the waves, with their outspread fans sparkling and glancing with tlie transparent brilliancy of crystal. The sunlight reflects all the colours of the rainbow on their tiny sails, as the wind gently blows them through the spray, and the rapid course of our vessel creates terrible confusion in the midst of their many-coloured little armies. On the 4th May we passed the tropic of Cancer. At night the track of the ship shows like a white marble road dotted with brilliant and innumerable stars on the phosphorescent sea, and the sides of the ship are lighted up by the thousands of electric sparks which the waves collect and disperse, causing them to dart about on the deep blue sea. At times there are brilliant flashes of light, which rise crookedly to the surface of the water, or waves of electric fluid, which extend around a mar- vellous light, only to tremble, fade, and die. But what charmed me more than anything, and had indeed a most fairy-like aspect, was when on a dark night, a Passage to Australia. [Chap. n. great wave broke against the bows with a tremendous crash, and the spray spurted up into the air, to fall again on deck like drops of fire. In the day-time we could watch the flights of flying fish, darting out of the water like arrows, and hovering about like swallows, scarcely touching the froth of the waves, then sinking suddenly as though a stone had fallen. I never saw anything so pretty as the blue reflections on their fluttering wings, the transparence of their tiny bodies, and the lightness of their movements : poor little fools, they one day settled in great numbers on deck, too near the frying-pan for their safety, so instead of dipping their silver wings into the waves again, they were cooked for dinner. When approaching the equator, we expected to be overtaken by the dead calms which usually intervene between the different regions of the two trade-winds. Such calms, which are always dreaded, are the only drawback to the navigation of these seas. We sailed slowly and safely over a smooth sea, under the influence of a gentle breeze, that every moment subdued the extreme heat of the sun, which for one moment we had felt at its zenith. All goes well, for we feel sure that the trade-wind will prove faithful, and we know where it will carry the ship ; it has been our companion for many weeks, and will only forsake us in that fatal region of calms which is produced by its meeting the opposing trade-wind; one coming from the north-east, and the other from the south-east. Happily for us, instead of remaining for weeks as Chap. II.] Opposing Trade-Winds. 7 stationary as a buoy, so that throwing a feather over- board each night, you would see it again in the morning in precisely the same place, we only stopped for one moment. The wind ceased, and we waited : a great bank of clouds coming to us from the direction of the equator, broke over our heads like a waterfall, and this deluge of tropical rain actually brought with it the steady wind that, rising at the Cape of Good Hope, blows over the Island of St. Helena. The south-east trade-wind which now propels us towards the south, carries us steadily along the coast of Brazil, as if we were going to Cape Horn. But in the low latitudes, after turning a corner on the map, we are certain to meet with the fresh breezes from the west, which will take us below the Cape of Good Hope, and so on to Australia. What a wonderful thing it is to have arrived at such a perfect knowledge of the currents of air and water, that even on these vast seas, one is sure of arriving quicker at any given point, by taking the two sides of a right angle, than by taking the hypothenuse, and more sure of making out the journey to Australia in three months by following a circuitous route, than of making it in five if one followed the shortest route traced on a chart ! The day on which the Line is crossed is one of time-honoured gaiety. Even if the novice be not per- suaded that he sees it by a hair being fastened across the glass of a large telescope, being christened in the sea is always a ridiculous sight. Youth, work, and enthusiasm, none of which were 8 Passage to Australia. [Chap. II. wanting on board, were the three companions of the travellers. I began to assist in the working of the ship in utter ignorance, but quickly profited by my good fortune in crossing the sea with two such experienced sailors as my companions ; and, by dint of studying the theory in the saloon, and practising on deck, I acquired a perfect passion for sailing. The constant activity, the necessary quickness of eye, the grandeur of the sails swelling out to the wind, are so many charms, as soon as you are initiated into that science, which we see represented in our fast and beautiful English-built clipper. This was the reason why the Due de Penthievre preferred going on board a sailing vessel, where he could easier pursue his study of navigation, to being treated as a bale of goods in a Suez mail steamer. The ' Omar Pasha ' was the winner of four vessels which raced from Melbourne to London — in a steeple- chase, so to speak, with gigantic waves for fences. She reached the metropolis in seventy days, whilst one of her rivals took not less than one hundred and eleven. She registers twelve hundred tons, carries a crew of forty-two men, and contains sufficient cabin-accommo- dation for sixteen passengers. But we are very com- fortable, for besides our three selves, and Louis, the Prince's faithful and able servant, we. have only two travelling companions — a young widow and her be- trothed, who, I suspect, find the Frenchmen on board rather noisy, and whose idea of the sea is, an agreeable Chap. II.] The Constellations. 9 Tievv and whispered talk whose echoes the gentle breezes waft away. They do not make the best of things as we do, in laughing at a sort of food which is unknown on dry land. Soup, made of water and pepper ; sauces made of pepper and water ; a great deal of cod for breakfast, and more again for supper, with herrings as an extra, and water worthy of an aqua- arium : such is the basis of our daily fare. Luckily, there is some preserved milk (for the cow is but a deligbt to the eye), and ten sheep, which we devoured, beginning with their heads, and finishing with their tails. As to the poultry, they generally fly overboard, and we have already lost several hens, whose surprise was great at finding themselves in the midst of the waves. But, in proportion as everything is fixed and regular on board, so everything around us changes continually. Sea-gulls have been succeeded by the tropic-bird, which is extremely pretty, with two long feathers, like streamers, hanging down behind; and flying fish by dolphins, and sword fish of bronze colour shot with gold, and sharks three yards in length, whose capture, after a long chase,' caused general rejoicing on board. Above our heads, in an exquisitely clear sky, new stars are shining. The constellations of old Europe are gradually sinking ; the Great Bear, followed by the Pole Star, have disappeared beneath the heavy line of clouds on the northern horizon ; and when, during these lovely nights, I think of my friends, above whom the same constellation is shining — and who, perhaps, at this very moment are gazing at it and dreaming of lo Passage to Australia. [Chap. II. me — I say farewell to it as to a friend, whom God alone knows whether I may ever see again ! Before us the Southern Cross rises each night higher in the firmament, as though to point out to us the neighbouring lands of the South Pole. And so, a slight breeze, striking upon our sails, has carried us so far in a month that we are no longer under the same sky, and we no longer see the same stars that shine upon you. Crossing the equator on the 13th May, and the tropic of Capricorn on the 21st, we kept in the current of the shores of Brazil, as far as the 30th degree of S. lat., and the 28th of W. long. Not till then did we begin to bear to the east. We left the rocks of Tristan d'Acunha to the northward, and, on the 5th June, crossed the meridian of the Cape of Good Hope 450 miles to the southward. Here we were above the 42nd parallel, between Africa and Australia, and able to profit by the strong currents and considerable westerly gales, which rapidly carried us towards Mel- bourne. And there I experienced the awful sensation of a storm in the Southern Ocean. The hurricane, coming from the Vest, drove us on with bewildering rapidity, and the sight was magnificent. Heavily laden clouds, hanging low, now bounded the horizon for a couple of miles; the vessel, masts and all, disappeared in the trough of the sea. Foaming, and as high as herself, a sea-v/all relentlessly pursued her, threatening each moment to break over the taffrail, and urged on by the wind, which whistled and howled in the rigging. Chap. II.] Storm in the Southern Ocean. 1 1 We shouted to one another without being heard ; we were lashed to the shrouds, not to be swept away by the " green seas," which from time to time broke over the deck, carrying a mass of water which covered the poop to the height of three feet. Four men, tied together with a rope round their waists, are at the helm, struggling and clinging to it with all their strength, and sometimes giving way, overcome by too violent a jerk from the rudder. Two lines are stretched along the length of the deck, and the men cling to them convul- sively, not to be washed overboard. We were so fright- fully shaken by the rolling of the ship, that no one, not even the sailors, could stand upright. We rolled at an angle of 42 degrees ; and, under this awful gale, which the sailors call a hurricane, driving at the rate of 90 miles an hour, the masts bent to the very step, and the hull cracked all over, under the repeated shocks of the seas. We only carried two sails, a storm -staysail and the close reefed fore-topsail; all the rest was furled, but still offered an enormous resistance to the wind; one reef turned out, and all the masts would have given way. So great a force impelled us, that we made 278 miles in twenty hours ! There was a distance of more than a thousand yards between the two waves which followed us. We gained upon the wave ; we escaped from the one whose foam- ing crest towered over the taffrail, and rose slowly on that in front — of which, but a moment ago, we could only see the summit by looking above the fore-top- mast crosstrees! We had been sunk in an abyss. I a Passage to Australia. [Chap. II. and were now, for some seconds, raised on the crest of a wave which rolled and foamed beneath us, and could see over all the rows of waves which pursued us. When, again, we were carried down this awful incline, we could see nothing of the horizon, and the wave which we had just crossed sheltered us for a moment from the storm. The fact is, that at this distance below the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn, and in the great circular space around the South Pole, there is no land to break the force of these long rows of waves. From whence do these great waves rise, where do they die, which, in the perpetual and combined movements of sea and air, grow in exact proportion to the distance traversed, and between whose summits tliere lies a pro- found abyss ? One day the wind came more from the quarter. Some two or three hundred yards off there passed, going in an opposite direction, an English ship. Her crew, beyond those on board our own vessel, were the first human beings we had seen since leaving the banks of the Thames. We hailed her with signals ; we could distinguish their faces on board, but each great wave that came between us completely hid her from our eyes, with all her yards, and sails, and masts ! We could only occasionally, when lifted up by the waves, see beneath the water-mark the plates of iron on her sides, which the water left uncovered to the keel, or the deck presented obliquely towards us, like the side of a hill. It was not till then that we fully appreciated our situation ; that night the sun appeared when just about Chap. II.] An anxious week. 13 going down ; it was alternately made visible and was hidden from our sight by the rising and falling of the waves. One end of the yards sometimes flicked off the crest of the waves. Twice in six hours the foresail was noisily torn off by the wind, and blown away ; strips of the sails torn from the bolt-rope, beat loudly against the yards and the back-stays, and their blows were so violent that the men in the tops ran the risk of being enveloped in them, without the power to master them. They cut the headropes with axes, and the sail flew off in front of us like a gigantic kite. To run faster than the sea, so that she may not stave in our stern port-holes, and so invade the cabins, or, sweeping the deck from end to end, break the skylight and hatchways ; to set as much sail as will steady us, without cari-ying the masts away — are the conditions of our comparative safety in this extraordinary overthrow of the elements. Every minute brought new sensations, new dangers; and, contrary to what had happened during the last voyage of the ' Omar Pasha,' as yet no one had been swept off the deck. I followed, with the deepest interest, the course of this struggle, which lasted eight days and seven nights, seldom going into the cabin, which had become uninhabitable from the smell of bilge water, and where one lamp, swinging like a pendulum, was but little help in the darkness to which we were condemned for a whole week — for the skylight was obliged to be battened down, in order to prevent its being broken in when covered with a weight of water. 14 Passage to Australia. [Chap. II. It was duriog one of these storms that suddenly resounded the awful cry of " A man overboard ! " While the ship was rolling violently a man fell from the mainyard ; he struck against the netting in his fall, and disappeared in the waves. We leapt upon the starboard boat, we cut the cords which fastened it up, but alas ! so quickly were we going in this awful sea that we could no longer see the unhappy man ; he was not able to grasp the life-buoy which was thrown to him. No doubt his back was broken by the fall, and he must have sunk immediately. Our distress was great ; the sea was so high that any small craft would be sure to sink, and the captain absolutely forbade us to let down the boat : he would not allow eight lives to be risked for the sake of picking up a corpse. Unfortunately, the night before the waves had broken go violently against the stern of the ship, that the lashings of the life-boat, which perhaps might have resisted the force of the sea, had been broken : we had been obliged since the morning to prevent the waves from destroying this our only chance of escape from fire or shipwreck, and it had been placed for safety in the centre of the deck. The unfortunate young man was twenty-one years of age, and was just finishing his time as pilot's apprentice. I can see him now as he sang in the morning : in how short a time had he passedFfrom life to death ! If he had time to regain consciousness and to rise again to the surface of the water, what despair he must have felt on seeing the vessel containing his companions fly from Chap. II.] The Albatross. 15 him, on feeling his arms failing, and seeing the rolling waves of the ocean ready to engulf him. A few days after this catastrophe there came a lull, and the sea-birds, pressed by hunger, came to see what they could pick up in our track. By merely hanging a bullet attached to a long thread of silk from the stern of the ship, the Cape pigeons were enticed to come and entangle their wings in the almost invisible threads. Heavy frigate-birds allowed themselves to be caught at night in the rigging ; but what caused the greatest excitement were the albatross. When the first of these solitary birds of the Southern seas appeared on the horizon, it looked like a pirogue sweeping over the foam of the waves ; it approached gradually : its huge body and long wings are of a brilliant white, the eyes are pink and a band of the same colour encircles the neck. It is the largest bird in the world. Several were quickly attracted by our vessel, and a voracious crowd of them never ceased soaring around us in circles. We put some bait at the end of a rope five hundred yards long ; instantly the famished bird swooped down, describing slow circles as he came, the sun shining brightly on the silky reflections of his wings, which spread to the width of fifteen feet. He balances him- self on the waves with half-shut wings like the sails of an ancient galley, seizes his prey, going straight to the bottom the moment he feels Ifce fish-hook, and it requires several men to drag him on board ; it tore all the skin off my hands. It is a curious thing that when once they are taken these birds run idiotically about the 1 6 Passage to Australia. [Chap. II. deck, without having spirit enough to fly off, and remain prisoners with nothing to hold them. But the noise made by their wings, which spread to the width of fifteen feet, flapping against the wind is extraordinary. I really believe that if one of these huge flying monsters were to alight in our fields all the labourers would run away ; but they need not be afraid, for this gigantic bird is as stupid as he is cowardly. We were always amused at seeing one escaping from the attack of a sea- gull. In spite of the rope with which we caught the alba- tross, my hands are luckily well enough to hold the sextant, and it is my delight to take the points each day. Far from the close atmosphere of a schoolroom, where, seated at dirty tables, I must confess that cos- mography and trigonometry slightly bored me, I can admire all the beauty of the science, and learn to practise it. It was a moment of great excitement when for the first time in the solitude of the seas I said, sextant in hand, " On such a day, at such an hour, I am here," at a spot marked on the map. And such is the life one lives for months at sea, each day ascertaining the exact position of the vessel with the heavens as a guide. Do you not think that we must be very enthusiastic not to feel the days long, that are filled with such varied occupations? It is true that going due east, frequently making three hundred miles a day, and at a quicker rate than the apparent course of the sun, our days consist only of twenty-three hours and a half. Chap. III.] First Sight of Land. 17 CHAPTER III. THE LANDING AT MELBODENE. First sight of land — Entrance to the Bay of Port Phillip — News of the death of the Prince de Conde — Landing — The Railway — The town — Natives in front of the Opera-house — The Musenm — The prisons. At Sea, 7th July, 1866. At last after having seen the sun rise out of the waves before us, and again sink down behind us, eighty-eight times, we arrived yesterday at the last events of our journey. " If the chronometers have not varied, if we are not mistaken in our calculations, this is the night," we said to ourselves, " on which we shall see the lights of Australia." A sharp look-out is kept in the tops, and the silence of joyful expectation reigns on deck, where all hearts are beating, and where every eye is strained to penetrate the horizon. How long the hours seemed now. At half-past nine we again took the observations. If the wind continues to blow with the same force we shall not take more than an hour and a half to arrive at the spot where the lighthouse spreads its rays. Oh ! the wonders of navigation ! At the very hour mentioned, after living for three months between sky and water, a loud cheer from the mast-head an- nounces that the look-out can see the light — can see VOL. I. 1 8 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. III. land ! It was Cape Otway. We quickly climbed the top-mast, that we also might see these long-desired lights; twenty minutes later they were to be seen from the deck. As soon as we had taken the bearings of this point, we made for the Bay of Port Phillip. It is impossible to give any idea of the excitement which prevailed around ; the sides of the ship echoed to the sounds of merry songs, no one slept now, there was too much noise and bustle everywhere for that. Heaven has permitted us to see land again, and there is no longer any talk of " making a hole in the water." Baggage is got ready, sextants are packed up. Australia is at last before us! And now our three months' ■voyage takes the form of a delightful dream, brought to a satisfactory conclusion; a time both of meditation and mutual confidence, such as should always precede action, and a pleasant time of intimacy and of work, in which the days succeeded one another almost uncon- sciously. As soon as the sun appeared, great was the delight of levelling our telescopes upon the coasts, which we Were skirting at some distance. High and wild- looking shores, covered with a dark herbage, were spread before us, and the pleasure was indescribable of seeing a country on which for so many years we had never thought of setting foot, and which is distant 18,000 miles away from Europe. We seemed during the hours spent in sounding the depths of the bays, in avoiding the rocks near the shores, and in skirting the more formidable promon- Chap. III.] Nearmg Land. 19 tories, to be going over again all we had learnt about the discoveries made by celebrated navigators on these shores — like those who, having heard long histories of some war, go to visit the field of battle. But the very fact of knowing so little about this domain of history, only excites one's curiosity the more on the subject of a country the very existence of which was unknown to our forefathers for so many centuries. We seemed not only to be entering a new world in a geographical point of view, but into a new world of thought : in the distance we could trace the outline of rugged mountains, whose uncultivated aspect contrasted strangely with the lighthouses and similar works of the hands of man. This growing civilization in a country snatched from inactivity or barbarism, is still enveloped in a veil of mystery. What secrets there are for us to discover on landing upon it after being beaten about by the sea, with the ideas and the very atmosphere of Europe still about us ! It is a good thing to arrive at a place without any preconceived notions or preju- dices, to wait for and seize upon first impressions, though very likely riper experience may change one's opinion. To laud in a young country in the days of one's own youth is indeed fascinating, and contrasting it with life at sea, where a man learns a great deal more from reflection than from the study of outward objects, the mind is filled with curiosity. Before us is the land of gold mines, of enormous herds of cattle, of towns sprung up but yesterday. Here we mean to bring into use all the energy of our twenty years, so 2 20 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. hi. that we may enjoy every sight that is to be seen. But the first pleasure to which I am looking forward — an indescribable pleasure, which has been the object of my thoughts day and night — is to read your letters, which will have arrived before I do. Letters from Europe ! So great is the merriment on board that every one has slightly lost his head. We followed the line of the coast, and all the morning sailed rapidly along a series of sandy shores growing out of one another, but we sailed so fast that suddenly to our great horror it was discovered that we had missed the channel, and were making straight for the breakers ! The channel was about twelve miles behind us, and it would take many long hours to struggle bade against wind and tide ; all hope of arriving this evening at the quay is lost. We are tacking about between these shores, exactly as we did three months ago in the English Channel. A brilliant sun lights up the tops of wooded hills of a dark green colour, and in the middle of a wood of a kind of umbrella-tree, which spreads out like a fan at the top, among rocks and great masses of dingy vegetation, little white houses with gardens, appearing like so many excrescences, are dotted about, looking just like old English cottages. At half-past three the channel is cleared ; it is barely a mile in width, and the current is tremendous. The quarantine boat, with its abominable yellow flag, came to assure herself that we neither brought cholera nor the cattle plague, and then under full sail we entered Chap. III.] Bay of Port Phillip. ix the Bay of Port Phillip, which is a great basin of four hundred square miles, a thoroughly wild lake, sur- rounded, as though with a belt, by sombre shores. Melbourne is at the far end. Numbers of vessels get under sail and pass out, saluting us as they go, no doubt hoping to escape the dangers of the seas through which we have just passed; others are letting go their anchors, and the noise made by the unwinding of the chains, mingled with their songs as they work, reaches even to us ; others again lie at anchor, like enormous buoys, along the winding route which leads to the town. But the sun sets before his rays can light up the end of the bay, and suddenly the wind falls and there is a dead calm ! So here we are stopped short at a moment of intense excitement, and only twenty miles frOm the end of our voyage. But alas ! even before we had cleared the channel, or seen the land near to us, the very first stranger who had come on board since we started, the very first new voice we heard, which was that of the pilot, told us of the recent dfeath of the Prince de Conde. You who learnt this news with all the painful abruptness of a telegram, will understand what a blow it was to us, after having passed three months without any news from home, during which we cherished the hope that in this distant country we might join that amiable and generous prince. The sight of the country where he died causes our hearts to bleed again. Yesterday we were rejoicing at the thought of finding him there, of travelling through 22 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. III. Australia with him, and of starting for China and Japan in his company. It was sad to die at twenty years of age, eighteen thousand miles from his mother and his home ; but he died a victim to noble instincts which made him search for know- ledge in distant countries, that he might put to the proof, with a manly energy, all his powers both of mind and body, so as not to fall short of the fair hopes already centred in him by reason of his former conduct. His great piety, the firmness of his character, and the high standard of his political opinions, can surely never be forgotten. It was sad to fall doubly exiled, but death alone could destroy that passionate love for his country which burnt in his breast, that France which he never forgot wherever he might be, and whose name — true Frenchman that he was — he tried to make all love and admire by working for it, even in the Antipodes. But though he died far from his family and friends, and, born at the Palace of St. Cloud, QXpired on those shores from whence la Perouse sent his last news before his death, and where Dumont d'UrviUe touched on his way to the South Pole, by order of the king Louis Philippe, do not imagine that he died without striking sorrow to the hearts of many even in this country. He had shown himself so noble and so affable, so intelligent and so engaging, that the whole city was anxious during his illness, and made his funeral an occasion for a public mourning. The Supreme Court and the Houses of Legislature sus- Chap. III.] Death of the Prince de Coitdd. 23 pended their sittings. The governor, the magistrates, all the public officers, all naval and military officers, the vrhole French colony, and the officers of one of our men-of-war which was then in the roads, joined the funeral procession. The shops were shut, all the vessels in port crossed their yards, and their flags and those of the public buildings floated half-mast high. On that day all Sydney, the hearts of whose inhabitants he had completely won, wished to do honour to his memory. But we, his friends .... our sadness pressed heavily upon us as we thought of him in the silence of that marble set, while the night brought to us with sad thoughts 8 sight which the daylight had hidden from our eyes. The glinmer of the lights of Melbourne, similar to that of ou" own capitals, can be seen at an immense distance a1 night ; the bursts of noise and tumult of a large town only reached us at intervals, the whistle of the railwar, the hoarse bell of the steamboats which came and ivent, were the only things to draw us out of our sad reveries. Such is the preparation for our first entrance upon the Southim Continent. All the signs of the life of a nation, mngled with tears for the death of a friend, and we have fone nearly half round the world to find nothing remaining of him we loved but a coffin. %ih Jdy. — A whole night, a whole morning, and a whole a'ternoon of a dead calm keeps us immoveable in 24 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. hi. this great lake, in sight of the town which we so long to investigate. It really is as bad as the torture of Tantalus ! We can no longer put our minds to any- thing on board, indeed this perfectly immoveable float- ing house is no longer a ship. With the night came a slight breeze, which carried us a little nearer to the glimmer of light, only to leave us again. A-gain the great coils of the anchor chains are dra^n out of the hold with a noise like thunder, and for [one more night, this time within five miles of the ^uay, the anchor again sinks to sleep at the bottom of the water, and we also, for the last time no doubt, seek (jur rest on the shelves which have served us for beds diring three months. i But now comes a slight noise in the distance ; it is the sound of oars touching the water ; reguar and in time the noise increases and becomes evew- moment more distinct. They are boats; they come lalongside. Are they natives armed with lances? No it is the butcher, and the baker, and the fruit seller, Ind one of the police, all in black bats and dressed k we are, who, in spite of the night, have come to insure the patronage of the ' Omar Pasha.' We engate in con- versation, and become very much puzzled \y\ it. For if you were to go into the Salle des Pas Penus of the Palais Bourbon on the day of a stormy delate, you would hear just the same sort of thing. We cnild hear of nothing but " political crisis, commercial cisis, dis- putes in the House, animated quarrels betw(bn pro- tectionists and the partisans of free-trade : an aWal to Chap. III.] Arrival in Port. 25 universal suffrage." In short, it seems tliat we have arrived in this corner of the world at a moment when politics excite great interest in all minds. These good Australians seem to me to be very hot in their argu- ments ; but then, if this reflection of our disturbances in Europe creates surprise at first sight, we can. but sa)"^ to ourselves, " So much the better. It is very possible that a knowledge of the true state of the affairs of a nation with which we are so little acquainted may spring from these discussions, and we may be able to examine into the machinery of the Government and all civil functions, as its works must now be in motion." %t}i July. — One step more and we shall be in port, Melbourne is not actually situated on the bay, but two or three miles from the shore ; the port of Sandridge is connected with the town by a railway. We are here in the midst of about fifty great high-masted ships, and all around is as full of life and activity as the roads at Havre or Marseilles. All our men are occupied amongst the rigging, climbing and scrambling about like so many monkeys in a wood; they are letting out and drying the sails in the gentle rays of the morning sun. As soon as we arrived in port the ship took a totally different aspect ; she was regularly dressed out. And when I saw the sails which I had so often watched swelling out or shivering before the wind, now floating helplessly about one by one, and the ropes carefully put away which a short time before had been so worked, and the yards which only yesterday had bent beneath i6 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. III. the gale, these peaceful cares reminded me of the old story of the carrier-pigeon drying its wings in the sun after the fatigues of a long flight, shaking off the wild- ness of aspect which the inclemency of dangerous coasts may have caused, and hiding the gaps left by the scattered feathers which the wind has carried away. And now we are surrounded by boats filled with fruits, flowers, vegetables and poultry ; but soon things take a more business-like aspect : make place for the gig of a man-of-war ! An officer comes on board to ask at what hour we mean to land. A few minutes later another boat arrives; it is the officer in command of the ' Victoria,' who comes on board to greet the Prince. "The Governor," said he, "sends to congratulate him on his arrival in the colony, and wishes to know when he enters Melbourne, that he may be received with all due honours, while the ' Victoria ' will salute him with twenty-one guns." Of course it was extremely gratify- ing to the Prince to find, the moment he set foot in the country, that all were ready to receive and do Mm honour in memory of his race and of his father's name, but he begged the commander to stop all these pre- parations in his honour, as, owing to his exile and his double mourning, he would not know how to receive them. The gig flew off, and we waited for a tug, which was soon attached to us. We took the captain on board us, and he passed his orders to the tug through one of those little squeaky-voiced cabin-boys who are always to be found on a Thames steamer, or crossing over to Calais. We glided slowly between the anchored Chap. III.] Port Phillip. 27 vesselSj and at half-past three were alongside the quay. At last that moment both of rejoicing and regret has come, when we shall set foot on land after a voyage of some eighteen thousand miles/ a moment that has been looked forward to, and dreamt of, and hoped for, for three months. I must say that on landing at Port PhiUip, from the very first moment I was struck with astonishment at the point to which its civilisation has advanced. Two long wooden piers have been thrown out at right angles into the middle of the harbour; about forty large vessels are lying along each side; a double line of rails is carried to the extreme end of both the piers; trains follow one another incessantly; more than thirty cranes moved by steam are at work, some lifting cargoes out of the holds, others filling empty vessels with innumerable bales of wool, which have just arrived from the interior. The combined effect of whistling locomotives, creaking cranes, and engines getting up their steam, makes it almost impossible to believe that you are in a country so near the South Pole. And now we bade farewell to our 'Omar Pasha,' and returned thanks to God for bringing us safe and sound to the Southern Continent. But by a strange contradiction of feeling, we left so many pleasant 1 Our rate of speed was in April 73'28, or 83 miles a day. May 171'84, or 198 „ „ June 182'57, or 210 „ " July 221 '57, or 251 28 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. ill. recollections in the ship, that it was like parting with a friend.' At a quarter-past four we set foot on land. For the first moment one feels rather giddy after spending three months upon planks, and apart from any senti- mental notions of at last treading the earth again, I can assure you that pavements make a great impres- sion upon any new arrival. We passed alongside the ' Moravian,' the ' Omar Pasha's ' sister ship, which came from London in seventy-three days, with her masts broken, and her bulwarks carried away, and for more than a week she had three feet of water in her cabins. We are lucky not to have similar recollections. It is not more than a hundred yards from there to the station. We went to get our tickets, but they refused to give us any, saying that the government of Victoria meant to defray all railway expenses during our stay. Can anything be more amiable ? In a quarter of an hour we were at Melbourne, and jumping into a cab drove to Scott's Hotel, which had been recommended as the best in the town. We were immensely astonished at the mixture of waiters buried in false collars and white ties, and little Chinese servants trotting up and down the stairs. They brought us our letters at once, and we devoured them with unspeakable pleasure. What tender thouo-hts rose on opening them ! We all three crowded up to 1 The ' Omar Pasha ' was not destined to pursue her brilliant career for long. On 22nd April, 1869, she was entirely destoyed by fii-e, in the open sea between the Azores and the Equator. Chap. III.] Kmd Reception. 29 the light that we might read them, and any little bit of good news was instantly read aloud. They are two months old, and the first that we shall send will arrive in Europe five months and a half after we left. We stare about us incessantly, which is returned a hundredfold, though we were expected to arrive to the sound of guns and a military band. Presently, during dinner (and what a good dinner it was, with fresh vegetables !), a great envelope is brought in on a large tray ; it proves to be from the Melbourne Club, which has instantly and unanimously elected us members; another letter still larger soon follows, — this time from the railway company, enclosing free passes for all the lines; a third turns out to be a nomination to the TJnion Club ; then comes a heap of cards from all the great people in the town— a perfect deluge of them ; and that evening's edition of the papers announcing our arrival, and serenades under our windows, and I don't know what besides. So we left the dinner table, after having enjoyed such food as had been unknown to us for ninety-one days, served up upon a steady table, without any dried cod or perpetual beans, astonished at the magnificence of the hotel, which was as good as « Meurice's," and touched by the hearty welcome which was given us on all sides. We enjoyed walking about the big streets of Melbourne immensely that night, Collins Street and Bourke Street, which are two fine thoroughfares, parallel to one another, very wide, with flagged footways and lighted with gas; they are the Kue Vivienne and Eue Eichelieu of these parts. We 30 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. ill. sauntered along them, looking at the well-furnished shops which fill them from one end to the other, and whose contents would rouse the envy of any of our second-rate towns in France. People had said so much about a pair of boots costing a hundred francs here that I was much surprised to find that everything costs precisely the same as at home. Yes, there is no doubt that landing at Melbourne is very astonishing ; there are cab stands like those in London, theatres, quantities of people walking about, handsome and luxurious houses many stories in height, policemen uncommonly well set up, open restaurants, and walking advertisements, well- lighted squares, — everything, except the size of the streets, combines to produce the most striking likeness to England; and since I have landed it has struck me that the local tone of the country consists precisely in being no local tone at all, and that the colony, contrary to custom, resembles the mother country in a very unusual manner. I do not know whether I am wrong, but at this first sight of a new town and a new people, the thought comes across me that we must examine into the laws of morality as into the laws of nature, — not to look for the eccentricities which travel- lers greedy of unnatural things try to see everywhere, but for all that is surprising in the faithful repro- duction of the Old World in a country that was un- known two hundred years ago, and has only been cultivated for the last thirty-three years. lO^A July.— In spite of the most intense modesty, I must say that we are very great people ; a whole town Chap. III.] The Town. 31 is occupied with us ; they are good enough to seize upon us, as well as upon our photographs. You must forgive me for always saying " we " and " us," which I do very much like the famous story of the cure's servant — " we shall confess, and we shall say mass to-morrow," — but it is more convenient, and you will understand. Well, I can tell you it is worth some- thing to be a prince here. First of all they have never seen one before in the colony ; and secondly, they feel infinitely indebted to him for having faced the dangers and fatigues of a three months' voyage to come at a venture to visit the productions, works, and institutions of an isolated group of men, in a country which' only forty years ago was described on maps as terra Australis incognita. Then any visitor like him being unknown before on these shores, he at once feels himself to be the great event of the day, and it gave him great pleasure to see all rivalling each other in true sym- pathy and open cordiality ; consequently there were no difSculties and no impediments placed in his way, the traditional and open hospitality of the English warmed all hearts, and was eagerly displayed before us from the very first moment, every wish being- gratified as soon as expressed. This morning we went to see General Carrey, who is Governor for the time being ; then we left the town, longing to see some green fields, and curious to find out if the nature of the soil would be as English as the general appearance of Melbourne. Taking to sailing in a small way, we got into a light boat, and 32 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. in. rowed up the Yarra Yarra, a river whicli flows right through the towu. It is a river that requires a magni- fying-glass to be seen, and only very small boats can get up it, but that was no matter ; everything on its shores was new to me, — Barbary figs, aloes, great india- rubber plants, groves of luxuriant flowers, huge red and blue gum-trees ; it took us several hours of hard pulling to get up, but the further we got from the town the flatter the country became. The banks are green, but monotonous, and not very pretty ; the euca- lyptus abounds in profusion, but though the trunks are inagnificent the foliage is poor, rather like that of a weeping willow, and has too much the eifect of thousands of grey rags hanging vertically from the branches, and giving neither shade from the rays of the sun, nor shelter from the rain. When we returned to the town we found it in a wonderful state of agitation; great red placards an- nounce that the European mails have arrived in Adelaide (the capital of South Australia), and that the telegrams ai-e going to be published. The mail only arrives once a month, and you must come here to understand why there is no longer our daily indifl"er- ence for daily newspapers, but rather an excess of excitement, and a longing for news, which possesses all minds ; ten minutes later, and there were the yellow placards, with their sensational announcements : — Gebat wab in ETmoPB ! Gigantic Aemambnts! Gigantic Panic in the Monet Market! No MOEE Money, kg moee Ckedit! Chap. III.] Aborigines. 2iZ This news put us into a great state of anxiety. Five minutes more and there was a blue placard, with a quantity of exclamation stops. Crowds gather round it ; Epsom Backs! The Derby!! Lord Lyon 1st!! Amongst the anxious betting men, some were over- powered with delight, others drew back from the crowd with the gait and air of men who have, just lost some thousands of pounds, and that many thousand miles from here. It is not enough that this great passion for betting should be encouraged at Epsom, but through the medium of the telegraph gold-seekers on the other side of the line are tempted to risk gold which is stUl hidden in the bowels of the earth, and all for horses which they have never seen, and probably never will see. Whilst standing greedy for news in the midst of this restless crowd, which was as excited as one in the streets of London, we suddenly saw a sight -which con- trasted strangely with any ideas of needle-guns, or the Derby, contained in the telegrams — a most offensive and horrible group of men and women passed along, with skins as black as a crocodile's, dirty woolly hair, and low and degraded countenances. They were abori- gines. Eagged old trowsers did not sufSciently hide their repulsive bodies ; a miserable appearance of old boots at the end of a bare thigh and leg; rags of European dress, whose colours might formerly have been tartan, but were now as black as the skin which they barely covered ; Gibus hats, reduced to the con- VOL. I. ^ 34 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. hi. sistency of a dried apple, or plumed hats, with which no doubt some Irishwoman has presented them, to save her blushes at their want of clothes; a collection of wretched rags on their mean little bodies, uglier than any monkey ■ in the world, — such is the aspect of the ancient possessors of this continent ; such is the race with which, rightly or wrongly, we dispute the possession of this enormous extent of soil, thrusting them each day farther back into the bush. Some of them, intoxicated with tobacco and strong drinks, both of which are no doubt new to them, stumble in walking against the walls of fine houses built in the European way, or against glass windows which exhibit the finest specimens of gold that have been found at the diggings — these unknown treasures which this black race, who are now beggars, so long trod under foot, and with which the white men build palaces and towns. Others, who were mostly women, walked down the middle of the street, examining into everything around them; and open-mouthed, and with hands hanging helplessly, stand amazed at the crowd. And when I saw these idlers from the desert come to look at the marvels of a civilised town I wondered what was passing through their minds— their minds ? — well, no doubt they ham minds and souls, however repulsive the body is in which they are placed. Some among them have a mass of unkempt white hair, like a snowball, surmount- ing their body and limbs of ebony, but dirty ebony, —and who knows but what these withered old men, whose limbs are like sticks, may not have been here Chap. III.] Aborigines. iiS thirty-four years ago, and seen the ground an uncul- tivated forest, which now supports a gas-lighted town containing 130,000 souls ? Who can tell whether they may not have hunted the opossum in the hollow trees on the very spot where now streams of people wait on the flagged pavements to take tickets for the opera ? In, less than half a lifetime the whistles of steam engines have succeeded the shrill and wild cry of the cockatoo ; and instead of the line of fires lighted by cannibals, as a sign that there were some white men to be eaten, the lines of the telegraph cross cultivated ground, and announce to an excited town the winner of the Derby. While relieving them with money stamped with the effigy of the Qaeen of England, I thought of the series of vicissitudes which had obliged them to leave the wandering life of the desert, and the freedom of the forest, for the streets of a city where the splendour of other men only points out to them their own misery, of which they were before unconscious; I could not help thinking of that famous convention which was concluded in 1836 between the first colonists and the natives, and by which the latter exchanged a million of square miles in Victoria territory for three sacks of glass beads, ten pounds of nails, and five pounds of flour. llth July. — Don't expect of a man who only landed the day before yesterday an account of an interesting hunt, or of the discovery of nuggets of gold. I must introduce you still further to Melbourne, and lead you D 2 ^6 The La7iding at Melbourne. [Chap. HI. in thought through all the principal parts, to show you that Australia is not so wild and out of the way as is generally thought at home, and as I rather thought myself, but, on the contrary, possesses all the luxuries of Europe. We went into several banks, regular city offices, judging by the amount of business and the number; of clerks ; they are perfect palaces, the buildings are so large, so handsome, and so carefully finished, even to the minutest details. As to the Melbourne Club, it is quite equal to any Paris Club, everything is arranged with the most perfect taste. It is the general meeting- place of all the business men in the town, and the squatters, who from time to time come to rest from the loneliness of the bush and to refresh themselves with a sight of the world. It is a kind of society which I shall enjoy very much, and I fully intend to extract a great deal from their conversations, which will con- siderably enlighten me as to the ways of the country. As for the English, their arrangements for comfort come second only to their great institutions for the public good. Melbourne possesses a library which has only existed ten years, and already contains 4-1,000 volumes; it cost the colony 120,000Z. We were even more struck, in going to see it, with the number of people collected there than with the great skill shown in its construction. I had imagined the inhabitants of Australia either sinking a well in auriferous rocks, or washing gold on the banks of a solitary stream, or riding across endless deserts ! So I was surprised to Chap. III.] The Library. 37 find in this library, amidst a solemn silence, more than four hundred men of the working class, scattered at will in different departments, either studying practical books or searching for all that science could teach of the development of that branch of trade which they had taken up. They are admitted in their working dress, and are only required to sign their names in the register. This library, which is more scientific than literary and more practical than theoretical, and which, accord- ing to its own register, counts more than five hundred readers a day, shows how the Government of the colony tries to improve, by work, the morals of a population still much tried by a passion for adventures and a feverish love of gold, but whom a general state of over- excitement does not disincline to the pursuit of more useful studies. I shall probably find much the same audience at the Polytechnic Hall, a large amphitheatre where crowds are attracted by lectures on natural phi- losophy and chemistry. I was much struck with the rapid civilisation, and this laudable effort to instruct the working classes. At first I was greatly surprised that a workman could find spare time to devote to his education, but I was told that they only work eight hours a day, so they have plenty of time to follow up bodily exertion with that of the mind. When you ask who is the promoter, foimder, or chairman of the Club, the Library, the Polytechnic Hall, the National Museum, and all the political, scientific, 38 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. ill. and benevolent institutions in Melbourne, Sir Eedmond Barry is always named. Most good-natured and ener- getic, be bimself showed us, with the most scrupulous care, over the National Museum, where can be studied, represented in the most striking manner, the history, both ancient and contemporary, of Australia. This Museum is especially designed for the instruction of workmen. Everything connected with the diggings, from the tin basin of the first digger to the most com- plicated steam-engine for crushing quartz, everything to do with architecture, agricultural machines, weaving machines, and, indeed, trades of all sorts are fully re- presented ; but science will soon find her place here too. As for the Natural History department, it would enchant you. Everything in this country seems so strange to me, that I cannot pass over in silence the most remarkable thing on its surface ; which is the im- mense variety of Marsupialia. From a kangaroo eight feet high to a rat or a liliputian mouse, all the native mammals of this country, the human race only excepted (and they want but that !) have a pouche like a little bag, in which they carry their progeny. Conceive this scale of more than forty degrees of animals clothed in fur, possessing four legs, yet only running upon two, galloping along, not with their hands, but with their little ones in their pockets. At present I have but one idea, which is, from this very night, to set traps for mice, and, as soon as possible, to go off on a kangaroo hunt in the distant country. You may be very sure Chap. III.] The Museum -. Birds. 39 that if we are alive we shall have first-rate sport. What sportsman is there whose instincts would not be aroused at sight of the collection of stuffed birds in this museum, which is unique ? pink cockatoos, many-coloured parrots, black swans, emus, a kind of grey ostrich with emerald- green eggs, and the ornithorynx, with its otter's slun and duck's beak. The most curious characteristic of the modern fauna of Australia is an appearance of isolation and distinct- ness from all species inhabiting other parts of the world. Here the generic groups are frequently distinct from the same species of animal, inhabiting similar latitudes, living by the same means, and in all other respects exercising the same essential functions ; and this dis- tinction is founded on such important characteristics that they indicate new families, races, and orders, such as are found nowhere else. But any traveller who, like us, can only run over the surface of the country to visit its towns, and cross its forests, must come to this build- ing for descriptions of the interior of the country, and here he may draw instruction, as from a living source, and discover those secrets which the earth tries to con- ceal from our eyes, but which bold and distinguished scholars have already torn from her. We were guided amidst all these curious things by the learned Professor MacCoy, who made all clear to us in this beautifully-arranged labyi-inth, by the light of his own knowledge. He spoke of the isolation of the present race of Australia. He himself has tried to trace the history of the world back to the date of that isola- 40 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. ill. tion ; and disputes the generally received opinion of the formation of this continent. Bones and teeth have been found in oolitic rocks in England, indicating the existence of Marsupialia, or pouched animals, of the same family as the Perameles of Australia ; such types do not now exist individually in any other part of the world but this. These English fossils are conglomerated with thousands of sea-shells, of the genus Trigonia, which are now only to be found on the coasts of Australia ; upon that was founded the common opinion .that the existing fauna was a direct continuation of the fauna which disappeared from the rest of the surface of the globe at the end of the Mesozoic period. From this it has been inferred that, "Australia belongs to the first formation, and remained dry land above the level of the sea throughout an epoch during which the world passed through the Mesozoic aud Caniozoic periods. But this is denied by Mr. MacCoy, who, by the most arduous researches in the depths of mines and the crevices of mountains, has satisfied himself as to the period and manner of the formation of rock which con- stitutes the crust of this country: "the stratum of alluvial soil covering the crust of primitive rocks which, formed round the earth while it was still in a liquid and incandescent state, possesses," he told us, "the same specific type of animal life that characterises the ancient strata of Wales, Sweden, and North Ame- rica. Then come soils identical with those of these countries, schist and fossil rocks; thus, Canada, Scot- land, and the province of Victoria have all passed Chap. III.] The Museum : Geology, Botany. 41 through the same form of existence at this remote period." During the upper Paleozoic period, the first appear- ance of vegetation on the earth was of precisely the same type here as in the northern hemisphere at the same epoch. And comparing the natural history of the Antipodes, Mr. MacCoy has found the most re- markable identity both between the marine fauna, and the produce of the earth, which rose to the surface in Australia at the same epoch as the mass of the dry land of Europe and America, As for the plants springing from the coal-deposits of New South Wales and Tasmania, they have the same diversifications as the corresponding geological creations of India, Germany, and America ; and as for the famous little Trigonia, which are by some considered the key to the question, he does not recognise them at aU in this stratum, but considers them a distinct species, which gives rise to a belief in triassic deposits. During the Tertiary period, which is denied by those who believe Australia to be the most ancient continent, the greatest part of the country was, like Europe, covered by the sea ; for all trace of anterior animal or vegetable creation was destroyed, and replaced by totally different species both of animals and plants, more nearly allied to those which at present inhabit the Australian continent and its neighbouring seas. So that it is no longer admissible that Australia can have had a different fate to that of the rest of the world, and remained unsubmerged throughout the Oolitic period. Fossils support this 42- The Landing at Melbotirne. [Chap. hi. idea, showing that here, as in America and Europe, the race of animals which inhabits the world were pre- ceded by the same anatomical distinctions as are pecu- liar to them now. While telling us this, the learned professor placed us opposite to the foot of a Dinornis. What a foot it was ! It alone is as big as I am ; that is to say, about six feet. This magnificent and majestic foot, which could have kept pace with the seven-league boots of nursejy tales, comes from New Zealand, and I leave you to imagine the sort of body it must have supported. The Dinornis, which has been reconstructed on theory, thanks to this limb, worthy the appetite of a cannibal, was it would seem all legs, for he had no wings. W^ell, this antitype has left in New Zealand a descendant exactly like him only in small, the little kiwis {A'pU- ryx) ; and as this wingless bird has been reduced by centuries to its present small form, as the Sloth of South America was preceded by the Megatherium, that monster whose skeleton weighs many thousand ounces, and is as big as a hunting lodge — so the present Australian kan- garoo had an ancestor whose anatomical peculiarities were precisely similar, but so enormous that the sight of its bones hung up on the walls of the Museum, with a ticket announcing its name to be the Deprotadon, is enough to frighten you. These monsters, all of the marsupial race be it understood, were discovered near Lake Timboon. A whole small family might get into one of these pouches, as if it was an omnibus, and I can assure you that I congratulate myself considerably on Chap. III.] The Ahisetim : Fossil Remains. 43 tlie fact of the Tertiary period liaying suppressed such unpleasant hosts from the forests which we propose exploring. All these fossils for a long time caused it to be thought that the Marsupialia were the only quadrupeds native to Australia ; even the wild dog (Ganis dingo) was not supposed to be indigenous ; but the fossil of a wild dog was lately discovered in the dark caverns of Mount Macedon, and this discovery was the means of restoring harmony amongst geologists. A curious thing is that it appears that in the hard matter which encloses the bones of the giant kangaroo (who luckily was submerged) there were ferruginous and auriferous veins, which proved them to be of the same period as the gold deposits of Australia and Eussia. The Museum is situated on a height, and from its enormous windows the opposite shore of Hobson's Bay can be seen. From it has been taken some of the miocenic deposit which Mr. MacCoy made us compare with some of the same deposit from Paris. This little bit of my native land, transported to the Antipodes, and exactly similar in its most prominent features to that which we now trod underfoot, I must confess had more effect upon my feelings than the palpable proof it gave of the law of representation of central species, which plays so important a part in the organic life of the world. Besides this, here as in Europe the living shells, and those of the miocenic deposit, are separated by several degrees of latitude, showing tbe gradual cooling of the earth dming these remote periods. 44 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. ill. These are the grounds upon which our learned guide refutes the theory of an Australia rising out of the waters before all other continents ; this is the identity which he insists upon between this country and ours ; but then how strange it is that this surface should be so different from that of other countries, and that explorers should have found so many stony deserts, such an extent of ground deprived of all vegetation, such ravages caused by some unaccountable inundation, while part of the same country is so fertile ! Some believe it to be an archipelago that has become a continent, and of which the denuded parts have been arms of the sea sud- denly dried up; others insist that Australia started with one great bound from out of the waters which had submerged it longer than any other country, and they account for its curious appearance by saying that there has not yet been time for its forests to grow, from which spring forth the daily increasing springs, nor for it to be covered with the clay soil which is engendered by the current of water, nor for the close crust which still covers it, and wliich emerged too suddenly from the waters to become crushed and pulverised by the action of the air and the sun. For the latter opinion there is this to be said : the extremely small number of native animals which inhabited this enormous extent of ground at the moment of its discovery, the appearance of the antediluvian chaos in the interior of the country, the scarcity of large streams of water, the curious vegeta- tion which covers it, the alternation of inundations and excessive drought, seem to indicate that this soil having Chap. III.] Skating. 45 been too recently washed by the waters of the sea, or by prolonged deluges, has not yet arrived at maturity, and that man has rescued it from oblivion many centuries too soon. I feel that I have been carried too far by the recollec- tion of what I have heard to-day ; but though I have been fortunate enough to hear an experienced man enlarge upon the most curious facts of the geology of this country, and though I have been charmed by his conversation, my mind is in a perfect whirl now, and quite incapable of holding so much knowledge, and I see that my memory as well as my paper are utterly powerless to transmit to you the faintest reflection of it. So to-night, after a short visit to the Polytechnic Hall, I wished to relieve my brain of a little of the science with which it was filled. Accordingly we laughed to our heart's content at a most delightful scene — namely, the skating-room. It is a curious fact that men far from their native land always attempt to institute its amusements in the land of their exile, and to produce a reflection of their own country in spite of the obstacles which are presented by such different climates. In Australia it never freezes sufficiently to form ice. " Never mind," said the English, " we will skate ; " and there on a slippery floor polished like a mirror, three hundred people were skating on wheels : the noise is infernal, but the general effect very amusr ing. Some, very skilful and experienced, skated as well as if on the Serpentine ; they were mostly ladies, 4-6 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. ill. and nothing could be more graceful than their light movements and capricious zig-zags. Others, awkwardly- venturing with too heavy a step, are upset, and knock up against each other every moment, falling in all directions ; arms work like the sails of a windmill, it is a general scramble, and a perfect hecatomb of fallen, falling, and tottering. We never shall forget one stout gentleman who was always falling, and invariably- dragged with him to the ground groups of skaters who had been imprudent enough to approach him. TaU and short, fat and thin, graceful and awkward, all laughed heartily, not caring a bit for the audience who joined in the chorus. VMh July. — In the eyes of many Europeans, Australia is still only a convict colony belonging to the United Eangdom, and a refuge for adventurous gold-seekers. No doubt you imagine that we sit at the same table with, and jostle at each step, convicts and murderers who have killed both father and mother, but have been allowed to plead extenuating circumstances, and in short every variety of human criminal. Europe is praised for having disposed of them in an out-of-the-way country, like noxious animals that must be got rid of, and the convict tone is supposed to extend over the whole map of Australia. But this is a great mistake, and by no means the real state of things. New South Wales and Tasmania suffered under this scourge from 1788 till 1840, but though the pure and healthy population of Sydney could not do away with Chap. III.] Convicts. 47 this pestilential importation before 1840, when with impetuous zeal they thrust from their shores a vessel loaded with convicts, the colony of Victoria has been so lucky as never to receive any from the mother country. Yessels filled with the condemned which New South Wales and Tasmania had refused to receive were turned also from here, and apart from the disorders of the gold fever, its history is pure. I can vouch for this, not only because one never meets these " gentlemen " walking about the streets, but because we have been to see the only place in Victoria where there are any convicts — the Peutridge Prison, eight miles from Melbourne — where they are completely kept out of the way in cells and surrounded by high granite walls. It was a good opportunity for seeing the country which surrounds the town, and never did a visit to a prison seem more like a party of pleasure. We started from Melbourne with Captain Standish, whose name alone implies to me everything that is most charming in Victoria. We were introduced through mutual friends in Europe, and I was received by him with the most hearty welcome in this distant country. Since our arrival, every hour which he could spare from his high post in the Government was devoted to us, and to him we owe all that we have seen. The high road which we followed was bordered with eucalyptus, and animated with incessant traffic. A luncheon awaited us at Colonel Champ's, the governor 48 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. hi. of the prison,- who beneath these deep walls, which defy the possibility of being sealed, has collected every cheerful contrast to help him to forget the melancholy neighbourhood in which he lives — his daughter, a pretty little cottage, a carefully-kept lawn blazing with flowers, English turf. No bad entrance to a prison indeed! Presently we crossed the threshold, which always makes one shiver a little ; we went through the corridors and cells. Everything is made of granite, built on the newest plans, and beautifully clean — a real model prison. A hundred warders armed with carbines go the rounds, the corridors are like rays of light coming from one centre, where the eye of an official Cerberus watches over everything and gives the alarm by electric bells. Each cell has a small library, of which the most pro- minent book is a Bible. All the convicts of the colony are here. At present there are nine hundred and fifty, which is not much for a population of six hundred and twenty-six thousand souls. We examined all their work. To begin with, the great walls of the prison, which could hold four times as many inhabitants, were built by the convicts ; the bird made and secured the bars of his own cage. A high wall surrounds the grounds, which are intended for agricultural labour and the use of the prisoners. Then , come the workshops for carpentering, locksmith's work, shoemaking, and the weaving of wool and cloth, amongst which they are dispersed. Perhaps it would be too much to assert that work alone has greatly improved Chap. III.] Pentridge Prisons. 49 the moral condition of these men, but the statistics of the colony proTO that numbers leave the Pentridge prisons and live afterwards honest and peaceable lives. No doubt all this labour, which to begin with gives use- ful occupation to the prisoners, and admits of their making small sums of money in proportion to their industry, inures them to work. They leave this place knowing how to write and keep accounts, acquainted ■with various trades, which get well paid in the colony, and frequently they return to free life no longer to do any mischief, and henceforward having the means of gaining a livelihood. Is it not the case that misery more than wickedness is the first cause of many crimes ? Certainly this is a well-organised institution. It takes a man who has failed because he can no longer find gold beneath the surface of the soil, and whom the fever of lost riches has maddened into misery ; after a hard trial he is permitted to return to a free life in the light of the sun, but not till he is able to gain money by the work of his hands. In going through the workshops we remarked two native blacks, mere children and utterly hideous, but with a perfectly gentle expression; their extremely white teeth exposed to view by a mouth split from ear to ear, formed as strong a contrast with their black skins, as their joUy and perpetual laugh did with the dress wliich is worn by those condemned to hard labour for life. Their appearance was so cheerful, that we were naturally much interested by them. Besides there was a great deal in their novelty as aborigines. They VOL. I. E 50 The Landing at Melbourne. [Chap. III. understood the orders which the head warder gave in English. To show us their skill they threw long spears to an enormous distance, and caught with them some stones which we tossed into the air. " What was their crime ? " we lost no time in asking of the Colonel. " The one who is laughing most at this moment, killed three sailors," he replied, " the other two white women." Our pity ceased immediately. " We have not condemned them to death," continued the Colonel, " because they are natives, and we have never yet hung any of them ; their instincts and belief are so different that with them murder is no crime ; we tame them more by gentleness than cruelty." This was well said, certainly, and a Government which professes such principles, after invading in the name of civilization a country occupied by a barbarian race, deserves the admiration of all Europe. Besides it is not a solitary case, for H'^to'^os of this I was told of a sentence from the records of the Sydney law courts which quite coniirms this instance. One day, not far from the house of a squatter possessing many thousand sheep, some hundred and fifty miles ia the interior of the country, a whole tribe was discovered cut in pieces and half consumed by a fire that was barely extinct. Was this the work of some rival tribe who had just won a bloody victory? No, it was perpetrated by seven convicts employed in keeping the sheep ; seven white men, who without the slightest provocation, committed this horrible murder of defenceless beings. The Court of Sydney did not hesitate to condemn them to death Chap. III.] A just Government. 51 and to execute them, thereby giving a good example to the rising generations of the young colony, who should pity the blind and ferocious instincts of this race, from whom, having taken their liberty and their country, it is unfair to snatch their liveS: 5 2 Monument to Burke. [Chap. IV. CHAPTER IV. MONUMENT TO BUKKE. Bronze cast in the Colony — Autograph leaves from the Journal of Burke the Explorer — He crosses Australia from the south to the north — Fatal mistakes made by his companions — Eeturning, he dies of hunger — Discovery of his remains. A GOOD gallop, which is my favourite pace, takes us back to Melbourne ; every moment I see things which I have not yet described to you. Here is a monu- ment in bronze. A monument is such a rare thing in America they say, in consequence of the towns not being more than one or two hundred years old; then is not it more astonishing in this city of Melbourne, where fifteen years ago everything was contained in a few huts made of the bark of trees, and some tents. Well, it is at the top of a bill over which passes the greatest thoroughfare, that a high pedestal stands a little back, supporting a bronze group, modelled, cast, and set up in the colony, and extremely well done. It represents three men leaning affectionately on one another, with eyes gazing into space. The chief amongst them is easily distinguished by his heroic attitude, his height, and his air of authority ; but at the same time their torn clothes, their skeleton limbs, their drawn Chap. IV.] His Explorations. i^o^ features, their dying look, show that they are expiring of hunger and fatigue, abandoned in the middle of a desert. The chief is Burke, the men are his unfortunate companions, and the name alone of Burke, perhaps little known in Europe, here fills every mind and causes every heart to beat. This name implies more to Australia now, than that of Coriolanus ever did to ancient Rome, or Bonaparte to the French Republic. The excitement caused by the discoveries of bold ex- plorers on the Australian continent, was as nothing compared to the glory of Burke, who was the first to cross it from end to end, — from the Southern Ocean to the Pacific. Heroic labour and almost superhuman perseverance made a great man of Burke ; but his noble ambition — an ambition that bordered almost on fanaticism — was not permitted to enjoy its triumph, and this monument perpetuates the memory of the moment in which was given to him the one thing wanting to his glory — the consecration of misfortune. Since we have set foot in this country every one we have seen has spoken at great length about him ; many knew him intimately, and loved him; he had shared their feelings, their sorrows, and their joys; he took considerable part in the works which have created a great nation here, but he was devoured with ambition, and that was his crime. You can imagine how vividly I see him before me when his adventures are being related to me by his friends, whose last prayers followed him so short a time ago, and whose tears flow even now 54 Monument to Burke. [Chap. IV. as they lament their inability to save him ; and above all when I read the autograph pages of his journal, which are reverently preserved, partly torn, showing signs of use, and bearing the impress of long wanderings, that were found in the midst of the desert, where he had buried them, before dying in solitude on the burning sand. I seem to see him before me, travelling towards the north, through a desert, seeking the sea, and finding nothing but an ocean of bare stones ; expiring of hunger while food was still a hundred miles away from him ; dying for having undertaken a great work, and feeling, after having accomplished it nobly, that perhaps the world would be ignorant of his last labours. My head is so full of all these stories, my heart is so touched by these misfortunes which every hour are told me by eye witnesses, and described so touchingly by Burke himself in his diary, that I must tell you about this man to-day, and with a few rapid touches give you a sketch of his sad and memorable campaign. During more than twenty years the neighbouring colonies had vied with each other in repeated efforts to explore the interior of Australia. Amidst all this emulation in the field of danger, Victoria alone had stood aloof; either because she was too much occupied in her feverish search for gold, or absorbed in the peaceful occupation of raising cattle. But in 1860 the gift of lOOOZ. from a citizen desirous of encouraging an attempt on the part of the city of his adoption, gave a new turn to the ideas of the great gold colony, and Chap. IV.] Expeditio7i into the Interior. i^i^ the expedition which she then projected eclipsed the others in the magnificence of its preparations as much as by the magnitude of its disasters at the end; an expedition baptised in sufferings, paid for by the lives of ten men, but fertile in great results. The Government of Victoria appointed as leader a former Woolwich cadet, and ex-officer of Hungarian hussars, O'Hara Burke, already popular with all, honest and open, greedy of fame, and full of contempt for gain, fired with heroic ardour and almost exaggerated enthusiasm. But the excess of these qualities was the cause of his loss, and of those who went with him. There was less of the passion for adventure, more calm- ness and scientific reflection, in the head of the second in command, who was but twenty-six, young Wills, who was appointed as the necessary astronomer to direct the column in the desert. One member of his family had already been lost in the ' Erebus,' with Sir John Franklin, in the expedition to the North Pole, and still another martyr was to be given to the dis- coveries of the world beneath the burning sands of the tropic of Capricorn. It was on the 20th August, 1860, that these bold pioneers set out on their road ; there were seventeen, and with Burke at their head they started amidst the acclamations of the people. Melbourne had never seen so imposing a sight, as they went on their way, filled with proud and lofty thoughts, and followed by the prayers of all. The Government gave 10,000Z., private indi- viduals, 2000?. ; they had twenty-seven camels, fetched 5 6 Momwtent to Burke. [Chap. IV. expressly from India, twenty-seven strong horses, tents, clothes, and food for fifteen months. Amidst the cheers of the crowd — cheers which expressed heartfelt wishes for their success — none imagined that the greatest number of this band of adventurers were marching to their death. As far as the Murray the route was wearisome. Burke was too hard . on himself to make sufficient allowance for the others ; he started with a wounded and troubled heart, seeing nothing but bitter grief in the future, notwithstanding his hope of triumph; he was too impetuous, too anxious for the future, to be able to command with coolness. Three of his men quarrelled with him and left him, and he but ill replaced them on the frontier of the cattle grounds, and the union which from that moment was uninter-, rupted of the impetuous energy of the chief and the calm docility of his lieutenant, was the cause of the whole series of their terrible misfortunes. The road which they took across this enormous con- tinent may be divided into three principal stages, Menindie, 373 miles from Melbourne ; Cooper's Creek, 373 miles further north, almost in the centre of the continent ; and at the extreme north, more than 555 miles from the centre, the shores of the Pacific Ocean, The start was difficult; too much baggage, and too many provisions, each day checked their impetuous ardour, though they were all sturdy bushmen. To fear neither rain nor sun, to sleep on the ground, to have no further ambition than to explore the distant country Chap. IV.] Counter-Expedition. 5 7 and the endless forests, to ride in search of adventures, to wear the beard of a patriarch and the dress of a brigand, to discover new countries which will produce either gold or grass, forests or stones, but to discover it before any one else, and give his own name to it, — all this constitutes a bushman. But this bush life, which makes men a thousand times more capable of enduring fatigue than camels or beasts of burden, provided Burke with very careless and inaccurate companions. On the 19th October, 1860, he left half his men, his animals and his baggage, at Menindie, under the command of his other lieutenant, Wright, with the express order to join him after a short rest, at Cooper's Creek, which he meant to make the central depot, and it was not till the end of January, 1861, that Wright set out for the place of meeting indicated by his chief! In the mean time months passed by, June came, and no news of Burke arrived at Melbourne, though it had been especially agreed upon that the leader should from time to time send some news so that the com- mittee instituted for that purpose might send him help. The thought that these unhappy men might be lost and dying of hunger in the desert stirred all hearts. All Melbourne was so greatly agitated that a counter- expedition was organised to go and search for the explorers, which was confided to young Howitt. Other colonies were moved, and imitated this example. Mac- Kinlay started from Adelaide, Walker from Queens- land, Landsborough arrived with a ship in the Gulf of Carpentaria. And so these four bodies of gallant men 5 8 Monument to Burke. [Chap. iv. were in a few days well equipped and provided, and moving towards the interior, where in the repeated circles which they must describe they hoped to come across some trace of the lost explorer. They started from four different points, north, south, south-west, and north-east, distant eight hundred miles from each other. What wonderful harmony \yas shown in this praise- worthy zeal of a generous nation, which, besides proving the bold perseverance in danger of the Anglo-Saxon race, also shows how rapid the communication is along the shores of a country almost as big as Europe, and how all are fired as by an electric spark when a great cause is in danger, and men of energy are wanted. There is a curious contrast between the European activity of the sea coast and the deserted condition of the interior. Young Howitt was the fortunate explorer who brought the great but fatal news. He started in all haste, and on the 29th June, while crossing the river Loddon, what was his astonishment at meeting some of Burke's companions on their way back. It was Brahe, the fourth in command, who had lost four men from scurvy, followed by Wright, who had lost three. The following report was given by these men, with their livid faces and skeleton limbs. In two months Burke had safely passed through the series of deserts and grass land which separates Menindie from Cooper's Creek, which was half the entire distance between Melbourne and the Gulf of Carpentaria. But he arrived in the month of January, suffering all the terrible heat of summer ; men and beasts were enfeebled Chap. IV.] Mishaps and Mistakes. 59 and worn out : the way was closed to them on all sides. In vaia he waited for Wright's reinforcement, deploring the delay which deprived them both of camels and pro- Tisions ; in vain Wills started on a reconnoitring ex- pedition, with three camels ninety-three miles towards the north, to find water. Not a spring, not an oasis looming in the distance, not a puddle of stagnant water was to be seen. His companion allowed the camels to escape, and it was on foot, without a drop of water to drink, under a burning sun and fifty degrees of heat, that he retraced his weary way to the camp at Cooper's Creek. Burke rightly thought that under the circumstances he ought to venture into this stony desert with as few people as possible, and that he must leave on the oasis at Cooper's Creek all the invalids with sufScient sup- plies, and, indeed, all the provisions which were in- tended for their homewai-d journey. He left Brahe in command of the depot, with orders to wait at least three months, and after that as long as the provisions held out. Oh, if only Wright, who had been left behind at the very first stage of this campaign which was to cost such anguish, had sooner awoke from his lethargy, what dangers might not have been averted. But Burke, who was energy personified, continued his work. He took with him Wills, his second in com- mand. Gray, and King, who was an old soldier, six camels, one horse, and provisions for three months, and set off to discover the shores of the Pacific Ocean. On the 16th December, 1860, the four explorers, about to 6o Monument to Burke. [Chap. IV. enter upon the most difficult and unknown portion of their task, left the camp in the oasis ; they crossed the river and landed on the other side, waving their hands to their comrades and crying out, " Wait for us, wait for us." And yet Brahe and his men, Wright and his men, returned without him. The first had for a long time struggled in their camp against the ferocious attacks of the natives ; the heat became intolerable ; hourly they watched the gradual sinking of the tainted water, which was their only resource ; and thus they waited four months. At last several died, the survivors were wasting away with scurvy, provisions were failing, and at the end of April Brahe determined to quit his post at what he considered the last extremity. He had no doubt but that Burke was dead ; still he left some provisions on the oasis. At the end of two or three stages on the way back, he met Wright and his band. By what series of deplorable delays did Wright arrive four months too late at the meeting place agreed upon? When these men met they seem to have been seized with some feeling of remorse. They returned together to Cooper's Creek, and seeing no sign of the return of any of their companions, they bade farewell to the desert, in which they felt themselves to be entombed, and returned on their way to Melbourne. Such were the principal features of this melancholy story, which young Howitt heard from the people themselves in passing them on the Loddon. He instantly sent the news to the town, where it aroused general indignation, Chap. IV.] Retracing his Steps. 6 1 and for liis own part energetically continued his journey towards the north. For one month and a half he travelled through a totally different country to that which the first pioneers had seen. "Where they had found arid sands he found inundated valleys, and across endless meadow lands he pursued his way to the borders of Cooper's Creek. On the bark of a tree he saw written the word " Dig," and proceeding to do so he found the iron case in which Brahe had placed the papers explaining the motives and date of his departure, and with these papers were some of Burke's, saying that he had crossed the continent to the Pacific Ocean and had returned to Cooper's Creek. This was what was stated by the unfortunate ex- plorer in a portion of his diary which he deposited at the foot of the tree. It was on the 16th December, 1860, that he left the oasis with his three companions. During nearly two months he advanced rapidly, each day discovering more fertile ground. Instead of stony deserts, meadow-land surrounded them on all sides, trees overshadowed them, and constant springs provided them with fresh water. The natives generally fled from them in terror ; though once or twice they allowed themselves to be approached, and gave dried fish to the travellers. Here and there were marshes of salt water, hills of red sand, spaces laid waste by some extraordinary inundation and covered with heaps of stones. But soon a high chain of moun- tains could be traced towards the north : they called them the Standish Hills; while at their feet so beauti- 62 Monument to Burke. [Chap. IV. ful a country spread before them, such green forests, plains so rich in vegetation and so plentifully watered with streams, that they called it the " Land of Promise." And now, after the excitement of making new dis- coveries every hour, after the perilous crossings of rivers, struggles with the natives, with serpents, with the hosts of rats which attacked them at night, they were surrounded by so thick and tangled a vegetation that they were obliged to cut their way through with axes. Burke and Wills left their two companions and advanced on foot, encouraged by a faint flavour of salt in the air. Worn out with fatigue, enfeebled by the heat, they struggled on till the 11th February, across almost impenetrable thickets and marshes, in which they sank up to the shoulder. On that day they came upon an arm of the sea, where they stopped exhausted. The ebb and flow of the tide alternately covered and laid bare to their eyes wild shores, where poisonous man- groves extended their branches above the waves. There was no doubt that this was the Pacific Ocean. After six months' labour, they felt themselves to be within a few steps of the accomplishment of their glorious mission; they were determined to get to the sea ! They cut, they climbed ; they scaled the highest points from whence they could see the horizon, but fell back harassed and unnerved in the muddy marsh from which the sea had only that morning receded, and where very soon that sea for which they had searched so long, would rise and threaten to engulf them. Their determination to arrive at this ocean which so Chap. IV.] Disappointments — Privations. d-^ nearly proved fatal to them was as strong as ever. But this consoling happiness was refused them ! Moses did at least see the land of Canaan from Mount Nebo ; but they only heard the murmur of the ocean from afar, while the most superhuman efforts were unavailing, and the sight of the blue waves was reserved for those who had done less to deserve it. To all intents and purposes, they had attained their end ; but the prospect of starvation was there in all its horrors before their eyes. They had brought with them provisions for twelve weeks, they were only half- way, and there remained barely enough for five. The intense agony of privation daily became greater, and the consequent haste of their homeward march no doubt precipitated the death of their beasts and their own exhaustion. Torrents of rain had so broken up the valleys that they were in constant danger of drown- ing. On the 6th March, Burke nearly killed himself by eating a piece of a huge serpent that he had cooked. On the 20th they began to lighten the loads of the camels which could go no further, and threw away about sixty pounds weight from each animal of the provisions which they so feared might run short — Like a ship which, filling with water, throws aU its cargo into the sea at any loss ! On the 30th they knied one of the camels. On the 10th April they killed Billy, Burke's favourite horse, on which he started from Melbourne, and which had stood the campaign better than all the rest. On the 11th, they were forced to stop for a quarter of an hour for Gray 64 Monument to Burke. [Chap. iv. who could walk no further ; famine had so exasperated these two really generous-hearted men, that they positively spoke harshly to their friend! The fact was they had reserved some flour for their last ex- tremity, and they found Gray hidden behind a tree eating some. How these last sufferings of the unhappy Gray, then so little understood, must have come back to their minds when a few days later they themselves felt that agony ! At last, on the night of the 21st April, they arrived at the oasis! they were then but living skeletons; they looked about, they called for the comrades to whom they had said, "Wait for us;" the oasis was deserted, no human voice replied to them ! What sad thoughts must have pierced their hearts in that solemn hour ! Whilst looking about them in bewilder- ment, they saw cut in the bark of a tree the word " Dig ; " they searched about ; some provisions had been left in an iron case by Brahe ; there were papers there also, explaining the motives of his departure, and they were dated that very day — the morning of the 21st April ! Thus after a desperate journey as far as the ocean, and a still more desperate journey back again, after having lost or eaten all but two of their camels and horses, after making the greatest discovery which can be registered in the history of Australia, they arrived at the oasis of which they had so dreamt amidst all their torture, and the men who should have saved them, on whom they counted, had been gone only seven hours I Chap. IV. ] Return to the Oasis. 6^^ What was to be done ? Ought they, while so exr hausted that they could hardly move, to attempt with half-dead animals, to follow for 360 miles a well-mounted caravan, which had been resting for a long time, to rush after safety, so far off, that it was possible they might never attain it ? But there is no doubt that this would have been the wisest thing to do, though it is easy to say so when one judges after the event, and is not dis- tracted by months of torture. But Burke recollected that Mount Hopeless, a sheep station, was some 90 miles from there ; that, at least, could not fly from before him; so, taking a few provisions, he prevailed upon \\'i\ls, and King to go there. He deposited in the iron case the journal of his discoveries and his return, in which journal he also deplored the desertion of his lieutenant, and announced his departure for Mount Hopeless. To complete this list of misfortunes, while Burke, hardly able to drag himself along, and plunged in de- spair, was losing sight of the oasis, and going on towards the west, Brahe and Wright having, as you will re- member, met on the 23rd of April, were touched with remorse, and came back to this same oasis, to assure themselves that no one had returned ; as thoughtless as they were imprudent, they never thought of digging up the sand to search in the hiding place ! They would have found what Burke placed there, with the date of that very morning, and the plan of his route ; they would have saved him. But no, they found the surface of the earth just as they had left it when they started, VOL. I. r 66 Monument to Burke. [Chap. iv. and they turned back to the south-west, to make for the Darling ! So twice in one week, these men, who were searching for each other, and whose reunion would have brought to a happy termination these terrible sufferings, had been, without knowing it, quite close to one another, in a radius of only fourteen miles in the infinitude of the desert. At that moment, Burke, Wills, and King, going down the valley of the Cooper, carried with them the provisions out of the hiding-place. One camel dropped from over-fatigue, they killed him, and dried his flesh in the sun ; the next day the last died also. At the end of all their resources, they dragged themselves to a native tribe, whose ferocious instincts were subdued at the sight of such suffering ; they took pity on them and divided their food with them, which consisted of a horrible grain called " nardoo," which they could hardly masticate, and could not digest. And in this manner they lived to the 15th of May. Suddenly returning to their nomadic customs, the Blacks fled, and appeared no more. Thus, those from whom the three travellers had always feared hostilities, but who had providentially come to their relief, aban- doned them without any reason. Then necessity forced them to continue their march to Mount Hopeless and to drag themselves along a burning, sandy road till the 24th of May. Then seeing nothing on the horizon, they sank with fatigue, and from that moment gave up their last hope. Truly misfortune pursued them, for in following on their steps, it was discovered, that had Chap. IV.] The last Agony. 67 they only gone on one day longer, they would have seen the mountain — and they would have been saved. On the 27th of May, they returned to Cooper's Creek, living on nardoo, the mastication of which exhausted them, while its substance was not sufficient to nourish them. " We will go back to the oasis and die there ! " they wrote, and they buried in the case, described in a few lines, the account of their last at- tempt. How long this sort of half-death lasted, we learn from the few lines occasionally written by Burke or ^^'ills, and deposited as their last testament in the iron case at the foot of the tree. It was a comfort to them to write almost in their last agony these disjointed words, which were designed for their friends, and showed how they had suffered true martyrdom for the love of science and discovery. On the 20th June, the nardoo which they ate, be- came no longer sufficient to sustain them; two lines written by Wills, say that " to feel himself abandoned is too horrible, and he can bear it no longer." On the 22nd, he writes, '• that he will lie down and cover him- self in the sand, and that hereafter. King, who is the strongest, will put these last farewells into the hiding- place." On the 29th of June, he dated his last words : it is a letter to his father, full of gentleness and resig- nation : " My death my death must take place in a few hours ; but my soul is at peace." This was all that young Howitt found under the tree that was connected with so many sad memories, there was nothing to enlighten him as to the fate of Wills. F 2 68 Monument to Burke. [Chap. iv. Where was the dried skeleton, or the body with the death-rattle still in the throat? The last words of O'Hara Burke, are dated one day earlier than those of Wills — the 28th of June ; though feeble and dying, he still wished to search for the tribe of Blacks, as his last hope of salvation. There was more spirit in his last farewell, and quite as much heroic resignation. " King will, I hope, survive ; he has shown a noble spirit ; our task is accomplished — we are the first who have reached the shores of the ocean — but we have been aband " this last word was not finished, he liad not the courage to write it. There was no doubt that he had died, he and the others, and had remained unburied after having closed the tomb where were hidden the writings which were to unveil the mysteries of the country, and to be witnesses to their overpowering sufferings. There was no vestige of anything else to indicate where they were. When Howitt arrived, the hiding place had been covered again with sand. Amongst the confused and often-repeated tracks marking the ground, the innumerable goings, and comings between the camp and the small pond of water, it was impossible to distinguish the last. Howitt searched in all directions round about, misled every day by the footprints of camels, which, after going a long way round, invariably led him back to the oasis, till at last, on the 10th of September, amongst the tracks of the bare feet of a native tribe, he found the imprint of a boot. It was a frightful moment for him ; but soon seeing the fires of the Blacks in the middle of Chap. IV.] The One Survivor. 69 the woods, he came suddenly upon them, and saw a miserable creature, covered with rags, so feeble that he could not stand upright, showing the delirium of his joy by the sparkling of his eyes, but hardly able to utter a sound. Here was one survivor of the great expedition. It was King, the old soldier. Gradually speech returned with strength, and he was then able to relate all that had happened to the three travellers since the day when he had covered up the hiding-place with sand, and when, had it not been for him, all this would have remained a mystery to the world. On the 28th of June, Wills, in his agony, implored him to go in search of the natives ; for in them was his only hope of salvation ; he gave his watch and farewell words to his father, to Burke, and the three friends thus proved by common suffering, separated sadly, to meet no more on earth. At the end of two days march, Burke fell exhausted to the ground, begging of his cxjmpanion " not to leave him tiU he was dead," and then to let his body remain unburied, and exposed to the sun of the desert in which he had marked the pro- gress of his age and met his death. On the '29th he felt himself giving way for the last time on the parched earth ; he buried his face in the sand, and then gazing at the Southern Cross, which is the consoling sign to the dying in the southern hemi- sphere, his eyes closed, and he died in agonies on the sand of the desert. The last survivor, completely bewildered, returned to 70 Monument to Burke. [Chap. IV. the river, on the banks of which he had left the unfor- tunate Wills,— he, also, had died, but with no friend to close his eyes. King wandered alone into the bush, weeping for his two chiefs ; at last, he met again the hospitable tribe, on whose provisions he had been able to live longer than his companions. Howitt, guided by him, found the two skeletons, which the natives had covered with branches, as a sign of respect : on Burke's right side was his revolver. Howitt buried his remains in a union-jack, the national flag being the worthiest coffin for so brave a man, and after rewarding the natives, he returned on the road to Melbourne, taking with him the journal and testament of the explorers. On the 9th of December of the same year, he re- turned again to visit their solitary graves, commissioned by the colony of Victoria to bring back the remains ol the two Australian heroes; one year after, the in- habitants in mourning, received the melancholy pro- cession. They wished to honour these men, who had died in the flower of their age, and in devotion to their countrymen, with a public funeral of unequalled magni- ficence, and a monument placed in the centre of the city. But such men do not altogether die ; Australia owes to their boldness and disinterestedness, to their devotion and their sufferings, the wonderful develop- ment of her energy and her life, her prosperity and her splendour. She has had bold pioneers from the North, the South, the East, and the West ; they have ad- vanced into the unknown, and most of them succumbed ; Chap. IV.] Public Funeral. 7 1 but they opened the way, and colonisation, riches, and life have followed them. In the nations of the old world, sovereigns see un- moved the death of thousands of soldiers, in the wars which they have made ; in this new world, when the desert is the field of battle, and the explorer is the soldier and apostle of civilisation, when seventeen men have been in danger, a population of a million souls rose full of grief, and, to save them, did all that human strength — heroic strength — could do. But though death triumphed over these bold at- tempts, the town that only sprang up yesterday, knows at least how to honour her great men, and ought not we, travellers and strangers, and full of admiration for their history, to respect the sorrow which still over- shadows it, and salute in them the creators of an empire, of which the future destinies seem as great as the commencement is extraordinarv. 72 Melbourne audits Environs. [Chap. v. CHAPTER V. MELBOUKNE AND ITS ENVIEONS, The European Quarter — The Chinese Quarter — A stag hunt — Parro- quets and Cockatoos — Accounts of New Zealand — An ex-Zouave comes to our assistance. \Wi July. — We continue to-day our exploration of Melbourne, its charitable institutions, its schools, its hospitals, its Houses of Legislature. Passing through the well-built streets leading to these buildings, one could fancy oneself in Europe, and still more so when one sees the buildings themselves. But no; at home, restricted space, old buildings, irregular sites, conse- crated by long use, too often prevent a better use being made of the more perfect knowledge of the present day, than a mere improvement, and making the best of what already exists ; here, from the very outset, from the foundation to the last stone, the builder has stretched his line on a soil clear of every obstacle, and he may model his work on plans which it has taken centuries to perfect, and which he may apply in a single day. But in this world every merit has its attendant defect, and the town seems to have sprung from the earth in too uniform a pattern, reminding one too much of our new boulevards ; there is no trace of Chap. V.] The House of Legislature. 73 ancient art, no picturesque variety in the old parts of the town, like those at home which M. Haussmann has not yet whitewashed. But M. Haussmann would have been greatly at a loss here ! For before he began to build, he would not have found the shadow of anything to appropriate or pull down. The House of Legislature, where the Legislative Council and Assembly sit, has aspired to be a smaller Parthenon, and has both style and dignity. I am very sorry that the session is already over, for in these fine halls, worthy of the representatives of a free people, plain truths are spoken, and business is quickly despatched. In a society which has spread so rapidly over thousands of square miles, tilling the soil, covering the land with towns, and exti'acting millions of ingots of gold from beneath the surface, the office of debating and passing laws is no sinecure ; and a room filled with Parliamentary Acts and Reports shows that the Houses have done their work with vigour. By a rapid transition we pass from this " Salle des Pas Perdus " which has re-echoed, we are told, with so many political storms, to a part of the town where the strangest and most discordant sounds meet our ears. We are now in the Chinese quarter. These " celestial gentlemen," as they are called here, are like so many hideous dolls all exactly alike. When you have seen one you have seen five hundred ; yellow as tobacco- juice, screaming like cockatoos, with a smell that would frighten the rats away, they dress themselves up as 74 Melbourne and its Environs. [Chap. v. Europeans and dandies, and hide their long pig-tails under the collars of their waiscoats, thereby destroying all their charm. But, indeed, whom should they please ? The Government which was forced for some years to stop the invading hordes of Chinese, is satisfied now with levying a tax upon them, and utterly prohibiting their being accompanied by any of the softer sex. Chinamen, say they, we can endure, but Chinese women, never ! Perhaps I have been wrong in starting thus early so tender a subject as this Chinese question ; it is a deli- cate matter, which has startled some, and their outcries have scandalized others. The glowing accounts of the discovery of the Austra- lian gold-fields which reached, though somewhat late, the Celestial Empire, drew from their homes and pagodas thousands of Chinese ; they crossed the ocean, carrying as their only capital the bag of rice on which they lived during the passage, and inundated the diggings. Greedy of gain, an indefatigable worker, and sober as an anchorite, John Chinaman, with an insect-like patience, tenacity, and power of suction, is wonderfully successful in pumping up the riches of the country, and his hoard once collected, he returns, bearing it with him, to the northern hemisphere. What did the young colony do? she levied upon every Chinaman as he landed a capitation tax of 10?. ; she allowed only one Chinaman to every ten tons of goods on board vessels arriving from China ; and once Chap, v.] The Chinese Question. 75 at the diggings imposed a tax of ten shillings a month on each man. By this means immigration was greatly checked, but a political storm was raised. If, said some, the white race have, after innumerable dangers and enormous expense, planted then- flag on Australian soil ; if their sheep farmers have converted the wilderness into fertile fields resembling the counties of England ; if men like Burke, Sturt, Landsborough, and Leichardt have sacrificed their lives to open the country to civilisation ; if this race have made roads, opened ports, constructed towns and railroads, created a magnificent social, commercial, and political organisa- tion, anil formed a second country for themselves eighteen thousand miles from their native land — is it fair that the very day when the bird has laid its golden eggs, thousands of beings of an inferior race, having no thought or habit in common, and bringing with them a pestilential cargo of vices, should lay their hands upon the precious brood, and arrogantly dispute its possession ? By what law of the equality of man, can the colonists who have discovered and cultivated the country, who have established themselves in it, and made it pros- perous, be forced to permit strangers to share with them their treasures, and carry away rich booty to their semi- barbarous country. Australia presents a great field to all the white races^ without distinction of nationality. Grant that the Chinese element may be beneficial to the population of the Philippines, and amongst the Malay races of Java and Polynesia, producing: there a half-breed race, 76 Melbourne and its Environs. [Chap. v. which from the paternal side inherits greater intelli- gence, physical power, and industry ! But in Australia, thanks to a fine climate, and a healthy mode of life, the Anglo-Saxon race developes in its finest form on a virgin soil ; here you have a nation starting up, and looking carefully to its future ; but the quickly-earned wealth of the Chinese digger contrasts too sharply with the poverty of the Irish immigrant on her first landing. Think of all these little yellow men, with their slits of eyes, their flat noses, and skin like a shark's, becoming the happy husbands of the fair daughters of Erin, and the joyful fatliers of a young Australia, a half-caste, bastard race, decayed and degraded, speaking a semi-Asiatic language, with pagoda-churches and steam-junks ; think of these when there comes a question of voting, of con- structing machinery, of keeping up the impulse of civilisation given by the first pioneers of the country ! No ! this is not the future dreamed of by the young English colony ! There were, unfortunately, only too many specimens of the Irish-Chinese before the Govern- ment resolved positively to stop the inroad of Orientals, who would carry away the gold of Australia, and leave behind them an original stain which no lapse of time could efface. As to allowing Chinese women to enter the country, travellers, who have known the Celestial Empire thoroughly, tell us that such a measure would bring upon them only a double portion of the most utter physical and moral corruption known under heaven. Matters, however, have only been pushed to ex- Chap. V.] The Chinese Question. 77 tremity as regards the ladies. As to the restriction on the immigration of men, the six thousand inhabitants of this quarter, and their twenty-four thousand fellow coun- trymen scattered over the gardens and diggings, prove clearly that they earn enough to pay the tax ; none have ever been expelled, some still arrive every year, but fortunately in small numbers. To escape the tax they tried landing at Sydney or Adelaide, and making their way on foot to the diggings, a distance of six hundred miles, but the neighbouring colonies have fol- lowed the example of Victoria, which puts them to some inconvenience. But nothing, nothing, can daunt them ! But you must not suppose that they are without zealous advocates. To such these restrictive laws are only a new application of the fable of the wolf and the lamb ; instead of the hospitality of the Anglo-Saxon race, they see a selfish tyranny disgraceful to this land of liberty ; and the most enlightened of nations has no right, in their eyes, to exclude from the common harvest these wretched members of an impoverished race. You see I am not one of those people, who listening only to one side, hear only one story. We were fortu- nate enough to visit this quarter with two agreeable and well-informed men, one a friend of the Chinese, the other an opponent ; but I confess that the latter converted me to his views, and I have it especially at heart to see this population, the first born in this country, free from all hereditary taint. I do not see why these hardworking men, who, with their families, have had the courage to leave their own country — be it Germany, France, or 78 Melbourne and its Environs. [Chap. V. England — to seek, not their fortunes, but their daily bread in this far-off land, by the peaceful labours of the fields, or the more laborious search after gold, why these men should see this lot, which they consider so fortunate, disputed by a horde of vicious Asiatics, whose flag was never seen in these seas in the hour of danger, of hard work and discovery, who, incapable even of making their way here in one of their own junks, only arrive in time to reap where they have never sown. Except towards the Chinese, however, nothing can be more liberal, more hospitable, than the colony of Victoria. Be the immigrant French, Italian, or Ameri- can, he has the same rights, the same freedom as the Eng- lish. The latter form more than nineteen-twentieths of the population. The Germans are next in number. As for us we nobly sustain our reputation as cooks, hair- dressers, and milliners ! By these alone is the name of Frenchman known here. " How is it, people said to us, that no French capitalist, no man of any standing, has ever come here ? Yet the most distinguished men in England do not think lightly of us." The tri-coloured flag, however, is still held in high esteem, not that it is ever seen here floating over the deck of any ship in the roadstead, but because every mail that arrives from Europe brings with it something of that indescribable high spirit and sparliling thought peculiar to our country. Trulj-, it is very pleasant to see the high idea people here have of France. But then, on the other hand, these politicians, and respon- sible members of a free nation, free without limit in Chap, v.] A Stag-Huni. 79 voting, in the press, in the Houses of Legislature, in society, ask us to explain to them the meaning of oiBeial candidature, of an irresponsible ministry, of a first and final warning, suppression of newspapers, im- prisonment without trial, prohibitions of public meetings. In short, all our new litany and the de profundis of our liberties are Greek to them ; I understand their feelings, and could find none but a Chinese argument to answer them with. nth July. — To-day may barometer and chronometer rest in peace ! I am off to a stag-hunt, for which Cap- tain Standish has mounted me on a splendid horse. The meet was seven miles from Melbourne, and I could hardly believe from the appearance of the country that fifteen years ago this was a wilderness ; I fancied myself on my way to Epsom to a meet of the Surrey stag- hounds, when I saw the whole road filled with elegant phaetons and four-in-hands. We were more than a hundred and fifty horsemen at the start: red- coats, ladies in riding habits, and a stag brought from Eng- land! Wherever Englishmen establish themselves, whether it be at G-ibraltar, the Cape, or Australia, they always carry with them the customs and amusements of their native land. They have their cricket-matches, as well as their stag and kangaroo hounds, and many an English hunt mio'ht envy them their well-chosen pack, fine horses, and excellent horsemen, who boast themselves, not without reason, to be the best steeple-chase riders in the 8o Melbourne and its Environs.' [Chap. v. world. 0£f at last, and we giiillop at a terrific pace, across meadows, cornfields and marshes, intersected with deep ditches ; the pace is killing ; fence follows fence with no breathing space between, there is no end to them, and some are really frightful. Those in Ire- land, which I know pretty well, cannot bear a com- parison with them ; the reason is the immense quantity of wood here. They are all made in the following manner ; between two ditches, quite close together, a lofty barrier is raised formed by three or four great beams, about a foot square, nailed at regular intervals one above the other, on to actual trunks of trees. A regiment of cavalry charging such a fence could not break through it. You must either clear it or come to fearful grief. I must confess, therefore, I have seldom had such good cause to feel my heart beat, or been so nearly thrown ; but by good luck and my happy star, which belongs to both hemispheres, I rode hard for au hour and a half through this nice little preserve of fences, without breaking any bones. I can't say the same for the stag, who broke his leg at the bottom of a ravine, where all the red-coats arrived in safety down a frightfully steep incline. The master of the hounds was good enough to ask me to dine with the Hunt at the Club, where every thing was served with the degree of luxury you can imagine amongst tlie fortunate inhabitants of this golden land. It ^vas a good specimen of an English hunt dinner, full of life and animation. What endless subjects we discussed ! ranging from Paris, its siglits Chap. V.] Siinday. 8 1 and charms, to sheep walks, kangaroos, and the South Pole. Amongst other things, I was given an account of a cricket match here two years ago. An Australian eleven entered the lists against an English eleven, -who took ship and travelled twelve thousand miles to play one game of cricket. It really was a little too much of a good thing. The game being won, the English eleven, after being most cordially entertained by the vanquished party, returned by way of Cape Horn, as if> they had done the most ordinary thing in the world. merely taking a return ticket to the Antipodes. 1.5^/i Juhj, Swiday. — From early morning all the bells were ringing merrilj^, and the sacred songs of the Old ^Yorld went straight to our hearts. Not only was the Catholic church quite full, but numbers of people were kneeling outside the doors. There are a great many Catholics at Melbourne, and the bishop is now superintending the erection of a great cathedral, already half finished, for which I am told the Houses have voted a considerable sum of money. The question of creeds in this land of liberty is a very interesting one ; I intend to make inquiries on the subject, and any information that I receive I wiU send you in my next letter. Is there anything in this world more melancholy and depressing than Sunday passed in an English town ? The great thoroughfares are deserted ; you might hear a fly move in them. No sound save the whistling of VOL, I. Gt 82 Melboitrne and its Environs. [Chap. V. the wind is to be heard under the beautiful trees of the Eitzroy Gardens, the Australian Bois de Boulogne, M'here the other day, in spite of winter weather, we heard a charming open-air concert. Alas for the gay Sundays of France ! 10th July. — A good horse and a carriage, high boots, guns, and ammunition, what more can we want? and before daybreak the Prince and I have started on our way to a wood eleven miles off, which we are told is full "of parrots. My first day with the parrots : it is like a dream of enchantment to me. I have not slept for it, and cannot sleep still. Our road, three times as broad as any of our own, goes due north ; it is bordered on either side by open patches of ground, intended for the cattle when travelling ; the soil is of a reddish colour, and the road well made. Presently we meet a herd of two hundred bullocks coming from the interior, to supply Melbourne, its suburbs, and the ships in the roadstead with provisions. They are driven by three horsemen, whose long beards, which seem a national peculiarity in Australia, their tall figures, high boots, and curiously-shaped felt hats, give them a most fero- cious and brigand-like appearance. In the meadows, divided by woods, are troops of horses ; they are of English race, and abound here in great numbers. As a proof of this, we meet successively four or five wood- cutters riding leisurely to their work, one carrying a hatchet, another a pruning-hook, a third a saw, a fourth a saucepan. Chap. V.] Parrot-Shooting. 83 By midday we arrived at the village which had been pointed out to us. Its name is Dandenong, and it con- sists solely of four wooden houses. We quickly loaded our guns, and enlisted in our service a red-haired Irish- man, iather of eight children, as our guide to the woods and meadows to shoot parrots, astonishing him greatly by not allowing him to ride. It seemed to him a very low thing to go on foot even out shooting. Our walk through the meadows and woods of this wild valley was full of excitement. I ^vas filled with admiration at the sight of the red gum-trees in all their glory; such stems, such branches, I never saw in Europe. All the savage grandeur of the forests dying away in these immense natural meadows, ravines where tree ferns grow three times as high as a man, verdant grass, herds of cattle and horses grazing untended amongst great woods, venerable trees uprooted and piled one upon another by storms, trunks whose roots are decaj^ed tottering to their fall, at their feet the traces of the fires lighted by the natives. I cannot tell you what enchant- ment there is in all this ; the magnificent vegetation, the wild aspect of all around. I was in ecstasies. We climbed rocks, crossed streams astride upon stems of trees ; we were running like madmen in chase of our delightful parroquets. Had it not been for our friend the Irishman we should have been lost a hundred times over. But what a pretty sight it is, these flocks of parroquets darting about in the sunshine, uttering piercing cries. What wonderful colours ! Twenty — G 2 84 Melbourne and its Environs. [Chap. v. thirty — fifty take flight together, and disappear like an arrow. Suddenly in the distance a wonderful screaming is heard; we hasten towards it. Three hundred white cockatoos were on the ground, fighting over their evening meal, half a mile from where we were. You cannot conceive what a deafening screeching this con- gress of cockatoos kept up, of whom one half were acting as sentinels, while the other half, spread out like a great white cloth, were pecking at the grass. A very wary, winding approach on hands and feet, and even flat on our faces, through thicket, grass, and rocks, only resulted in the death of one cockatoo who, waving his yellow crest, struggled and shrieked for aid. A general hue and cry from his screeching companions answered him, as soaring far out of range over our heads, they chanted a vehement funeral dirge for our magnificent victim. The evening came only too quickly, and we returned to one of the four wooden houses which seemed lost amongst the great trees; one of them was a small tavern, where the good ^oman of the house cooked for us, and we dined very happily. I happened after dinner to stumble upon a very odd book, the travelling experiences of an Australian in Europe. The worthy writer, landing in France, describes the natives of town and country as we should describe the Chinese. A truly original idea. What a long night this has been! Was it the shrieks of the cockatoos that pursued me, or did the relatives of the cockroach, wliom we found prowling about our dinner, and put Chap. V.] Parroquets and Cockatoos. 85 to death accordingly, take vengeance upon me for his death ? The next morning the stars were still shining when we plunged into the depth of the forest, up to our knees in water. The parrots — dark-red, scarlet, light- blue, green, orange, or lilac — wake with the fii'st rays of the sun ; but they are very wild, and take flight as rapidly as the last shades of the night. There are such myriads screaming on all sides, there are trees so covered with speckled ]jarroquets, and real green sparrows, hanging together in clusters, that I am quite beside myself with delight at the success of our sport again to-day. We brought back to Melbourne in the evening the prettiest trophy that ever was seen, and one which would have made a charming picture. Eighty- five head altogether. Blue cranes, white coclvatoos, but mostly parrots and parroquets, whose brilliant sparkling colours, from ruby to azure, are really like jewels. Strange that " the voice is not fine with birds so divine." In Europe the woods resound with the musical songs of birds, ajid the nightingale enchants one before day dawns, while here the most piercing and discordant cries make up their barbarous music. But then to console them has not Nature clothed them in the most transplendent attire ? 18;;^ July.—kxi official day. Visits to return to the bishop, the mayor, the consuls. In the evening a great dinner at the Governor's, Brigadier-General Carrey, " the luckiest man in the army," who returned only this 86 Melbourne and its Environs. [Chap. v. morning from a six days' tour of inspection into the interior. The ministers were there, and all the high functionaries of the colony, and what was more, a good many ladies in full dress amongst the scarlet uniforms and gold lace of the staif. It was really our first return to the civilised world. After three months of a lonely sea life, which had produced a certain amount of shyness, I seemed to be waking in bewilderment out of a dream. No one can understand the curious effect of it who has not known such long solitudes at sea. But here conversation soon became animated, and there was no flagging of interest. I was much struck with all the accounts given us by the officers returned from the New Zealand campaigns. The General had distinguished himself in his command there, and some water-colour drawings, hastily sketched between two engagements, gave us a good idea of all their positions in the islands of Eaheinomauvve and Tavia Toonammoo. The last arrival from that quarter is a young officer of very soldierlike appearance, Colonel Tupper, who per- sisted in coming to the dinner, though it is only a month since he broke his leg out hunting ; only two months before he had broken the same leg, also out hunting, and even that was not the first time. You see that in the category of chances of death in Australia, falls out hunting take a higher place than even the arrows of the savages. He told me, however, the most curious things about New Zealand. He sho-wed me among the trophies in the armoury, stone hatchets, poisoned lances, and some complete costumes for ladies Chap, v.] Kaiigaroo-Hunt. 87 old and young, namely, a necklace and a pair of ear- rings. The Maories, it appears, are very fine men, thorough soldiers, active runners, sensitive on all points of honour, and particularly addicted to himian cutlets. To them a prisoner represents a joint for dinner; cooking is an art, red-hot stones form an inexpensive oven, and ribs of man are cooked between two lavers of aromatic herbs, when they have attained a sufficiently gamey flavour. Such entertainments however are not those at present offered to us. Some splendid balls are talked of, but our mourning obliges us to refuse them. 22w(^ July. — We have just returned fi-om another shooting expedition. Captain Standish carried us off to "Snapper Point, the cape which shuts in the bay of Port Philhp on the east side, and cuts it off from the Southern Ocean. We went by land ; sometimes along the sea shore, sometimes through thick woods, some- times along the cliffs which overlook the sea. During the entire day which we spent in getting to the Point we only met with a most ill-favoured snake, and an old sailor who has been here since 1840 — the pre-historic days of the colony — and who to console himself for his losses at play, now hunts seals, and numbers of enchanting parroquets. At the Point lives a worthy islander, who possesses a number of Scotch deer hounds, trained to hunt the kangaroo. The next day we plunged into the forest with him, where certainly it would be very easy to lose 88 Melbourne and its Environs. [Chap. V. oneself, galloping about amongst tlie trees and high grass. We agreed that three shots with a revolver should be a signal to the others that some one had lost his way. We followed the hounds belter skelter, but tlie hunt went so fast through thickets and a species of jungle, that we never saw till after their death the three small kangaroos which our dogs ran down. One gets terribly reckless with this hard riding, the charm of which is really intoxicating. One always wants to penetrate further into these endless forests, where at every turn a veil of mystery seems raised. On our return to the little village the inhabitants, seeing our eagerness for sport, gave us a great piece of news. " Two miles from here there is a pool hidden in the woods ; for the last three days, at sunrise, flocks of black swans have taken their flight from there, and returned again at night." This news was like a match in a powder magazine. At four o'clock in the morning of the 21st, in utter darkness, we were on our way, by a rocky path, to the ravine pointed ou.t to us. The nearer we advance the greater are the precautions that we take with beating hearts, — dead silence, walking on tiptoe, all on the wildest ground. The two miles are passed, night vanishes, day dawns, at nine o'clock the sun shines brightly, but of the black swans there is not even a shadow. We had been sent on a wild goose chase, and after such geese as cannot be cooked. On our homeward road one of our horses was very near making us take a somersault of three hundred feet from the top of a cliff overhanging the sea ; seized Chap. V.] An Ex- Zouave. 89 with a sudden panic he backed wildly, and the abyss was but ten yards behind us. A man came to our aid ; springing boldly upon the horse, which threatened to upset us all, and to drown me, his iron wrist i'airly got the better of the brute. In the struggle, by way of encouraging himself, he swore a good round oath. It was a Frenchman. He was an old African soldier, covered with scars on face and chest. Soon he began to talk of his campaigns. " I served seven years under the tricoloured flag, and have been wounded eight times. Then I took service with Abdrol-Eader, but as I did not like him receive the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, I left him, starving, and came here to grub up the earth in search of gold." You must allow that this was a strange meeting. 90 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. CHAPTEE VI. THE GOLD MINES. Strange appearance of Ballarat — A nugget worth 7380Z. — A theatre at the diggings — Working of the veins of auriferous quartz — Shafts sunks in the alluvial sands — Gold-dust washers on the surface — The Port of Geelong — Destructiveness of the rabbits imported. 23r^ July. — We, too, are off to the diggings, about 94 miles from Melbourne. This road which has led to such illusive hopes and to such wealth, which thousands of men have traversed on foot, even bare- footed, a tent and a pick-axe their sole capital, to return in a little while laden with sacks of gold-dust won by the labour of their hands ; this road at the termination of which so many gamblers have seen the last of their luck, so many poor wretches the last of their misery, seems to carry inscribed on every mile- stone the most striking dates in the history of Australia. No\v-a-days a railroad connects Melbourne with Bal- larat, and you can get in four hours from the commercial city to the city of gold. We passed, therefore, with all the rapidity of steam through the fertile meadows which surround Melbourne with a belt of verdure, and through the forests of eucalyptus, whose echoes are roused day after day by our engine. From time to time we crossed Chap. VI.] Appearance of Ballarat. the windings of the old road, which still exists though deserted now. Our companions begin to tell us of all the old recollections the sight of it recalls to them. The first particle of gold was discovered in the bed of a tributary stream of the Loddon, on the 10th June, 1851 ; at Mount Alexander on the 20th July ; at Ballarat on the 8th September. In one month twenty thousand, in one year a hundred and five thousand people, were hastening breathlessly along this road towards the fortunate hills, v.here treasure might be amassed by merely turning up the soil ; conceive what the appear- ance of this road must have been when an anxious crowd was hurrying along it in search of gold, as people at home hurry to a fire. But suddenly our attention is arrested by an astonish- ing change in the appearance of the country opening before us. The deep gloom of the forest seems to vanish at one stroke, the verdure of the prairies dies away, immense trees have been cut down by the hands of men, and lie heaped in disorder on the broken up ground ; the whole plain has been dug up, scoured, dis- figured in every way ; it is a labyrintli of works, a chaos of infernal excavations, while here and there in the bewildering throng gigantic funnels vomit out smoke in convulsive gasps ; bells ring, creaking iron wheels are set in motion, immense pumps discharge the muddy water, a human ant-hill is in motion. This is Ballarat. The search after gold has given this valley the appear- ance of an infernal region. I know no place more calculated to impress the imagination of any one who 9a '1 he Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. has not yet pictured to himself what men will venture in this feverish task of searching for gold in the bowels of the earth. It was at Ballarat that a poor workman one day found his pick-axe embedded in a solid mass : it was a nugget of gold weighing 2600 ounces, and worth 10,400^. In this valley, on these disfigured hills, a golden harvest has been reaped almost equal to the destruction done, nearly a hundred and sixty millions. For manjr years there was nothing but an immense camp here, and the suburbs still consist of scattered tents, -nhere tlie last arrivals bivouac. But the town proper is a very good imitation of Melbourne. It is a town which possesses 30,000 inhabitants, and has existed 13 or 14 years, containing fine houses and fine streets. By day it is filled with carriages, by night lighted with gas. It is full of clubs, theatres, libraries, and banks. The wealthy digger may live here in peace ; there are no more revolvers, no more midnight attacks, no more sanguinary scenes at the gaming tables. Here and tliere groups of men, covej-ed with mud and sweat, come up from the groimd to get their meals ; they are gold-miners employed by the great companies. The galleries that they have tunnelled 500 feet below ground extend under the whole town. All these hundreds of houses have been built as near as possible to the veins of gold ; but I should not be surprised if, in order to follow up the many veins on which it is built, it were found necessary to pull down the w*hole town, which would thus owe its destruction to the same cause that gave it birth. Every one here tells us of the Chap. VI.] Gold-Diggers. 93 curious appearance Ballarat presented ten years ago, when the iirst paroxysm of the gold fever was at its height, and all the diggers were assembled here, who have since been scattered over the many diggings which have been discovered in the coui-se of years. Particles of gold were discovered on the surface soil, mixed with a fine gravel, which had to be washed in the streams. Parties of men roamed from one valley to another on the first discovery of a new treasure, and each started on the search for gold-dust, a piek-axe in one hand, a revolver in the other. Some often gained 2S?. or 30?. before breakfast, but then they had to pay 4?. for their meal. One shoemaker told me that he used to spend his mornings in grubbing up the earth and washing for gold ; he often made 12?. or 15?. in a few hours. Then he would set to work to make boots, which he hung up on a pole in front of his tent. Parties of miners would soon an-ive, their belts full of nuggets, but their feet unshod. The boots were put up to auction, every one produced a handful of gold-dust, and the skilful work- man became the richer by 15?. or 20?. for a single pair of boots. In the evening some of the wilder spirits met in some tent, or under a shed of planks roughly nailed together, where, by a dusky torchlight, they gambled furiously. Gold-dust was the current coin, which the diggers staked in handfuls, the lucky ones picking up in one night the fruit of many hours' labour. The wiser men, rich since yesterday, with hundreds 94 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. of pounds secured in their belts, retired quietly to rest in some secluded hut in a liollow of the valley — a semi- millionaire under a tent in the mud! Often it was necessary for him to pass a sleepless night, revolver in hand, ready to fire at the robbers who knew of his wealth. Finding myself here amongst so many people who for years lived this stirring life, who can show me the beds of the streams where they found the finest nuggets or gold-dust, I seem, as I listen to them, to see for my- self the changing events, the excitement, the allure- ments of a period when everything seemed in a whirl ! There is a certain fascination in gold which explains the disturbances and scenes of bloodshed which took place amongst these thousands of excited gamblers, vying with one another in the accumulation of riclies. The first thing which I saw at Ballarat, was a nugget found lately by a common digger, and bought by a banker, who received us most amiably. This nugget of pure gold weighed 1840 ounces (£7360). It is a rounded and misshapen mass ; its outlines broken only by the pick-axe of the lucky mortal who discovered it ; the pick is still there, religiously preserved, and re- garded as a trophy, as a weapon wliich has finished its course with honour. And, would you believe that this man is now ruined ; in a few months he lost everything at play, and is now working for a small salary in the service of one of the great companies ; so that in future, if he finds a treasure, it will not benefit him. In this same bank, we saw sacks of gold nuggets, which the Chap, vi.j The Chinese Town. 95 clerks were stowing away in safes ; others were melting down the gold-dust over a fierce fire, or stood stream- ing over the pans of boiling gold, removing with a ladle the scum which rose to the surface ; others again, were weighing blocks of the precious metal, shaped in oblong moulds and stamped at the corner ; their constant occupation is the handling of five hundred or a thousand pounds in one small lump, and throwing them about as workmen at home handle bricks. Before nightfall we visited also the Chinese town, whose disgusting odour drove us back at our first ap- proach : the scene there was more picturesque. The Chinamen dress themselves up as Europeans, which gives them exactly the appearance of monkeys dressed like men; they strut about with the most dandified air, smoking big cigars, and making the streets resound with their shrill voices; they, too, have their banks, decked out with scarlet signboards, wdiere every even- ing, after gleaning like Euth the Moabitess in the fields of the rich Boaz, they come to deposit whatever they have discovered on a soil that has been already twenty times scoured ; they are the scavengers of the diggings. In the evening we went to the theatre ; the piece given was "The Pirates of the Desert;" the house filled with diggers coming up from their underground galleries in working-dress, was to me a more extraor- dinary scene than that on the stage : an excited audience, in jack-boots and red flannel shirts, vehe- mently applauding a pretty, young, Italian actress. 96 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. whose timid manner was a singular contrast to these rough, uncouth spectators, bushmen, and half savages. IMh July. — We start early with several engineers and large proprietors of mines ; we are to see, under their guidance, the three different modes of working : the working of the veins of quartz, the working of the alluvial loam, and the working of the surface soil. A high hill overlooks Ballarat, called Black Hill, though it is really quite white, one of its projections has been entirely cut away, and every particle of it has been sifted by men's hands ; in a few years it has been gra- dually, but entirely, removed two hundred yards from its original position ; slices fifty feet long have been cut out of Black Hill as if it had been a cake, and in different parts immense holes show the daylight through. After scaling in succession the mounds of crushed quartz thrown up from the interior of the hill, we found ourselves at the entrance of the galleries which traverse it in every direction. Every one carries a candle, and must walk with head bent, in this damp, close, unwholesome atmosphere. We are let down into great depths, the foot merely passed through the loop of a cord, and by degrees we become accustomed to the sight of the abyss below. As one plunges into these pits and levels, one is really disposed to think oneself in the infernal regions ; the darkness, the smell of gunpowder, the hoarse thunder of a mine being sprung, these men bending, half-naked, and streaming, working at the hard reck by torchlight. Chap. VI.] Black Hill. 97 all has the most striking effect. At any rate, if it be a hell, it is the hell of the rich ! In the quartz which the miners are blasting, we see the gold shining in sparkling veins. As soon as a new vein is discovered, it is followed up steadily in all its ramifications ; it may vary in depth from half-an-inch to twenty or fifty feet, and in richness from twenty to a thousand pounds per cubic yard ; but the direction is always the same, it follows slavishly the direction of the magnetic pole, and sinks into the interior of the earth almost always with an incline of eleven degrees. We followed up these auriferous veins into their smallest details ; the richest contained only two square feet; but the en- gineer told us, that for the last two days it had yielded 225 ounces, or 900Z. per ton, which appears to be something quite out of the way in richness. We might have guessed as much from the radiant expres- sion of all faces. In this level some fifteen men were at work on this vein, not allowing a particle to escape them. The quartz once broken up into moderate sized lumps, was shovelled into little trucks about three feet square, which ran on tramways as far as the shaft. This is the first operation ; the trucks arrive from all parts at one central point, under a great wooden shed ; their contents, an indescribable medley of mud, pebbles, quartz, and gold, are thrown out together in a heap, to await the series of operations from which the gold is to emerge pure. The mine of Black Hill, we are told, is one of the most considerable in Australia, and all is done there VOL. I. H 98 The Gold Mines. [Chap. vi. with such rapidity, and on so large a scale, that we have been able to follow a cubic yard of auriferous quartz from the moment of blasting, till that when the gold was entirely freed from all surrounding matter. The great wooden shed contains the machinery used for crushing the quartz. For this purpose sixty large iron stampers, each weighing a ton, are set in motion by a steam-engine, which raises each stamper three feet and lets it fall again with its full weight, sixty or seventy times in a minute. This stamper or crusher, is a cube of wrought iron mounted on a long rod, and fitting easily into a strong iron case, fixed on solid foundations. Into these sixty cases, of which the bottom is covered with a thick layer of mercury, the auriferous quartz is thrown in shovelfuls; while the stamper crushes the quartz with repeated blows, a strong stream of water is admitted into each cistern by several aper- tures pierced in one side. The opposite side is formed of strong wire gauze, which will only allow of the pas- sage of completely pulverized matter. It is a whitish sand that comes through, in which the eye can hardly disting-uish the gold from the agate, clay, or iron. This sand flows from the iron cisterns down sixty trenches, on an incline of seven or eight degrees, swept by a constant current of water. These trenches are eight yards long : — the first yaa-d, at the upper end, has six small wooden rods placed horizontally, and per- pendicularly to the stream ; they stop the particles of pure gold, whose weight is sufficient to steady them. The next three yards are furnished with eighteen rods, Chap. VI.] Quartz-Crushing. 99 three inches high, each bearing a sheet of mercury; finally, the last four yards are covered with thin layers of wool. Before arriving at the lower extremity of each trench, the slime of 'crushed quartz has deposited successively every particle of. gold that it contained. Every sheet of mercury, while all incongruous matters pass it by like a looking-glass, retains on the contrary the gold which immediately amalgamates with it. The layers of wool are only used as a final pre- caution to stop the particles which in consequence of too strong a stream, or some unnoticed saturation of the mercury, may have escaped paying toll in the four first lengths. The gold is now amalgamated with the mercury. To collect this amalgam, to saturate it by pressure in a wash-leather sack, and carry it off to a blazing fire, is the work of a few minutes, and then the moment of the prettiest operation of all has arrived, that of separating the gold from tlie mercury. As over a hot fire mercury evaporates, while gold only melts, the precious mixture is deposited in the retort of an alembic, and the mercury takes flight in vapour, to condense again in an adjoining apartment. The gold remains at the bottom of the pan. Happy pan ! what thousands have passed through it ! From this mountain alone nearly a million has been extracted, and yet the levels only extend as far as 460 feet. The ground conceded to the Company is a square of which the upper surface contains 30 acres, and in which they H 2 loo The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. may dig through to the antipodes if they please ; they only pay 30Z. per annum to the Grovernment ; and very soon there will be no tax at all imposed upon mines. On an average, machines and wages, taxes, over- seeing, and the entire working expenses included, each ton of quartz cost 7s. to extract from the vein alone, and altogether 13s. when it is brought to the surface, and handed over to the crushing-machine. Each stamper requires machinery of one-horse power, and can crush about 43 cwt. of quartz in twenty-four hours. In twelve months, the sixty stampers have crushed 55,264 tons of quartz, yielding 82,384Z., which makes about 31s. per ton. The gold has been collected in the following proportions : — In the first part of the trenches . . . . . . 66'08 In the sheets of mercury , . . . . . . . 22-95 In the layers of wool . . . . . . . . 10'97 The quantity of water necessary to form a constant stream through the cisterns and trenches, is 16 gallons per cistern per minute, making 22,680 gallons per day. The misfortune is that water is very scarce. Of mercury, 44 lbs. are wanted for every cistern with its trenches. If the gold is in large grains the amal- gam will yield two-thirds of its weight in gold. If the grains are but moderate sized, there will be equal weight of gold and mercury. If the gold is in very fine particles, . the amalgam will only yield one-third of fine gold. Such are the notes which I was able to pencil down on Black Hill, listening to the engineers, Chap. VI.] Quart z-Criishitiff. loi while my brain was dizzied by the infernal noise made by these 60 tons of iron, making a total of 3600 tremendous blows each minute, and my eyes filled with the brilliant reflections of the gold which was being extracted from this slime ! The search for gold in the quartz is by far the most expensive, but it is also the most certain. A vein once discovered on some rocky hill top, the miner may follow it up in security. The learned affirm that this gold is of a more recent formation than the rocks in which it is enclosed ; it is due to one of those com- motions, which in the history of geological disturbances, have so often shaken the already existing rocks. The crust of the earth was still in process of formation ; fissures were made, and along them coursed slender veins of the metal, which was in a state of fusion in the centre of this planet ; then the subterranean furnace became extinct; the thin streams of the vapours of water or of gold, of sulphur or iron, were stopped, and the harder formations of the rocks closed again for ever upon their treasures. At this moment there are in Australia 2029 distinct veins in process of working ; they extend over a surface of more than 460 acres, and the last return issued by the Office of tbe Mines gives on 3,110,328 tons of quartz, 2?. lis. Qd. gold per ton. This is the average in seven years, from 1859 to 1865, for all the quartz mines in the Australian con- tinent (it was 3Z. 17s. in 1860); but if you take as a specimen a part of this soil, you will find that a district 102 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. of 89,764 acres has produced the enormous sum of 92,787,236?.— that is to say, more than lOOOZ. per acre ; that such a Company at Korong for a long time made 416Z. per ton of crusted quartz ; that such another at Kangaroo Flat discovered a vein which contained as much as 20 lbs. of gold to every ton of quartz. I may quote also the mine at Castlemain, which during one month produced 1064Z. per ton of quartz. An engine of eighteen horse power was used, working eighteen stampers, which could crush 150 tons, pro- ducing 159,600Z. per week. The cost of the working, and machinery, amounted to 18,000Z. ; the wages of the 120 miners amounted to 960Z. for the month ; the tax paid to Government was 2407. ; and the various expenses of transport, inspection, and cost of mercury, were valued at 4000Z. When at the end of the month, therefore, the manager sent in his accounts, the shareholders were called upon to listen to the following balance sheet : — ProfHice .. , £600,000 Expenses 23,200 Net profits 576,800 I might give you similar details concerning Poverty Mine, which, for seven months gave a steady yield of 80007. per day ; or that at Wrhoo, where the vein was 270 feet thick, and yielded 440Z. per ton. I might be carried away into quoting to you all the lucky spots where a few fortunate people won millions in a few days ; but if I were to tell you also of the immense number of those who, without discovering a single par- Chap. VI.] The '' Albion:' ro3 tide of gold, have dug 500 or 600 feet into the heart of the rock, their pits costing them 16,000?. or 20,000?., you would be surprised to see how many men are ruined where such numbers of others make great fortunes. In quartz mines, as in everything else, there is good and ill luck ; they must not be judged either by the brilliant examples or by the disasters shown to us ; there are statistics to tell us what the mines have yielded : — In 1863 £1,973,996 In 1861 2,014,472 In 1865 1,800,000 They employ at present 17,730 miners, and 522 steam- engines, making a total of 9,070 horse power. But this is but a trifle compared to what we are told of the riches of the alluvial mines. Leaving the gold- filled shed at Black Hill, we arrive at the sandy ground south of Ballarat, crossing an inconceivable labyrinth of artificial mounds, valleys newly formed, and upturned gi-ound, which made us think of the verse : " Montes exultaverunt sicut arietes, et colles sicut agni ovium ! " Here we find ourselves at the alluvial mine called the " Albion," before an immense yawning chasm, pierced 319 feet below ground, which sends up a hot fetid vapour. Not far from it an engine, concealed by a shed of planks, turns rapidly, and with an infernal din, an endless chain, which raises from the bottom of the pit and discharges at its mouth great buckets of wrought iron, filled with yellowish mud. We had begun to discover by experience that there is I04 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. nothing in the world dirtier than a gold mine ; so we accepted with pleasure the boots and complete dresses of the miners, though the outfit offered to us exhaled at ten yards distance a mingled perfume of Chinese and Christian, so like the smell of an old he-goat that it would have rejoiced the heart of his wives ; then quickly (our hearts beating a little) we put one foot into the iron ring, cling desperately to the chain, and whirr! we go down the 300 feet of descent with the speed of a parcel thrown out of a garret window. It is one of those peculiar sensations almost as disagreeable as a bucket of boiling water thrown over one, a personal experience of the laws of gravitation. At the bottom of this shaft the heat is suffocating ; currents of burning air cross one another at the intersections of the galleries, which extend on all sides below the surface, as if innumerable rabbits had bored innumerable zigzag burrows. We were in water up to our knees, splashing about in sticky clay. We were obliged to walk bent double, often on hands and knees, holding sometimes in our hands, sometimes stuck into our hats, a guttering candle, which would go out occasionally, and then one's head was knocked against obstreperous points of rock. By the aid of a cord round one foot, drawn up and down by a windlass, we were perpetually ascending and descending little narrow pits, where our shoulders rubbed the walls, and for nearly two hours we con- tinued, streaming, our exploration of every turn of this subterranean labyrinth. But in the midst of this slime, across the suffocating Chap. VI.] The " A Ibionr 1 05 vapours of the hot water, how fascinatiag it is to see the nuggets of gold shining like sparkling stars in the gravel which forms the party walls of the galleries. Before us, right and left, there are little clusters embedded there. Ten, twenty, thirty nuggets, which nature has collected together in one little nest ; surely the goose with the golden eggs must have lived in these parts. I was enchanted at seeing as we passed along the levels the gold-dust falling under the miners' piclvs. Little trucks running on tramways carried the aujiferous mud to the great central level, from which it was dragged by horses to the shaft where the endless chain was at work. Nothing could be more melancholy than the appearance of these poor horses, drawing carriages three hundred feet below ground ; they are condemned to darkness as long as they live, and their stables are burrows in the earth. To enable them to pass through their narrow shafts, it appears that it was necessary to tie them up like sausages, sitting upon their haunches, fasten them to the chain and let them down to the bottom like a bale of goods. We were able during our long underground walk to see the entire disposition of the veins of gold. They no longer, as in the quartz, follow a particular direction from north to south ; they no longer descend at a given angle into the earth. On the contrary, these long lines of auriferous sand seem stretched under the ground like the threads of a gigantic spider's web, caprice their only law. One would think they had been left by the uncer- tain course of a thousand wandering streams. io6 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. In fact these veins are nothing but the beds of formerly existing streams. Down below here, in this gloomy abyss, where we seem to be buried alive, rivers have flowed over the beds of schist, carrying the gold with them. Above these has formed again a stratum of clay, of gravel, and rock, and a new stream has flowed over the rock and deposited its layer of gold ; and above this, again, has formed such another stratum. So that in this crust of the earth the gold lies, as it were, in different stages, and the richest vein will always be that in the most ancient river bed. At this spot, to arrive at the deposit nearest to the surface, the following strata have been passed through : Surface soil Basalt Clay Basalt Clay Basalt Black clay Brown clay Gravel Gold and sand Feet. 2 10 91 79 46 45 12 IG 7 11 319 To reach these ancient deposits is often a matter of luck ; there is nothing to indicate their existence. Often a shaft must be sunk five hundred feet, costing 5000Z. or 6000Z., with only the melancholy result of leaving the gold vein two or three feet on one side. One company here sank seven shafts in succession without finding anything. But once the dry bed of a stream discovered, it is Chap. VI.] The '' Albioii:' 107 eagerly ransacked by parties of miners, who follow it up closely as if fearing it might escape them, and allow no particle to be lost. This is a delicate and interesting operation ; for, if the river has branched off into diverging streams, if it has had cascades and cataracts, it is very easily lost. This is the cause of these irregular winding galleries, turning up hill and down spiral descents, and all excavated in gravel sparkling with gold-dust. We re-ascended to the surface at the same time as an immense mass of auriferous mud. Four basins lined with cement, like those at the Eond-Point in the Champs-Elysees, are ready to receive them. The puddling machines, iron harrows turned the other way, are set in motion by a steam engine, while a stream of water passes through the basins, carrying away with it the lighter particles of gravel ; the gold, retained by its specific weight, falls to tlie bottom of the basin and soon forms a thick layer. But particles of gravel, rock, and iron-pyrites still remained mixed with the layers of gold. The workmen then stop the stream of water, empty the basin with spades, and throw the precious spadefuls into the sluice, a long wooden trough placed on a gentle incline, the lower part formed of roughened planks, and down which a fresh stream of water runs rapidly. This trough is about five-and-forty feet long. A dozen workmen keep the gravel in motion with rakes, and pass it from one end to another as it is thrown in by degrees, and after an hour's suspense we saw the sluice entirely freed from pebbles and gravel. The io8 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. foreman then turned off the water, and with a brush collected all the particles of gold which had been stopped by the roughness of the planks in the trough, exactly as crumbs are swept off a table-cloth. A skilful work- man took up these sparkling crumbs, still mixed with particles of gravel, in a tin pan, and plunging them into clean water moved them gently about. The moment was exciting ; tlie last tinge of clay or gravel was carried away like the vanishing of a dark cloud, and in a moment the gold was there by the most primitive and simplest apparatus, but shining in all its purity in small fragile particles. At first all these nuggets, this gold-dust, seemed to me perfectly marvellous. They were quickly weighed, when it appeared that there were only 60 ounces (240Z.), a very bad day's work it seems. This is the result of 24 hours' labour, with a hundred workmen, who are payed 8s. for eight hours' work, 300 waggon-loads of a cubic yard each, 15 horses, and an engine of 30- horse steam power. The average produced each week is, we are told, 2400Z., and the working expenses sometimes amount to 16S0Z. Close by is the Waterloo Company's shaft. The Inspector of Mines reports that the value of the gold obtained there in the last twelvemonth is 27,000Z., and the expenses amounted to 5824Z. Further on we visited the somewhat curious shafts sunk half-way between the " Eound Tower " and the "Eed Jacket" mines. The two Companies were work- Chap. VI.] Statistics. 109 ing 400 feet below ground. Their respective veins before long met and became confused together ; a quarrel ensued, and the High Court of Mines adjudged the two Companies to be co-proprietors, and took upon itself the working of the mines for their common benefit. The work lasted 18 weeks ; 250,000 tons of stuff were extracted, producing 32,000Z. ; the expenses having only amounted to 10,000?. The alluvial mines occupy a much more important place in the statistics of Victoria than the quartz. They employ 4,131 machines = 19,000 horse power. 6,5,481 miners. 5,385 sluices. By this manner of working there has passed under Government inspection — In 1863 £4,534,240 In 1864 .. .. 4,167,320 In 1865 4,395,200 To conclude, after the first moment of stupefaction caused by the sight of these masses of gold, extracted from the mud under our eyes, afteir the first fascination, which makes the gold fever comprehensible, I must say that I was struck with the imperfection of the machinery, and in general of the means, employed. All these people are so accustomed to handle spades full of auriferous sand, to find gold always and everywhere, that they neglect the niinute treatment of the mineral, which yet they have gone so far to seek. They work hastily, taking from the earth what offers itself with facility, without heeding how much they miss. They no The Gold Mines. [Chap. vi. are like reapers, who fearing a storm, hasten to save the greater part of the harvest, and say, "So much the better for those who glean after us." And the gleaners are there ! the common diggers, of whom we saw hundreds to-day; they are both the pioneers and the stragglers of the great army of miners. Lawless or adventurous Europeans, wretched vagabond Chinese, they carry their entire working stock with them, and seek their solitary fortunes, sometimes in the smaller unexplored valleys, sometimes in the hillocks formed by the detritus of the great mines. They have a kind of wooden cradle, covered with a grating, to prevent the entrance of the larger pebbles. With one hand the cradle is kept in constant motion, with the other they pour water over the apparatus ; the water carries off the sand and dissolves the clay ; the small gravel alone remains, mixed with the gold-dust and nuggets. At the end of an hour or two they collect from the bottom of the cradle all that the water has not carried off, put it into the ancient classical tin pan- nikin, and go to the nearest stream to wash the gold- dust. Nothing can be prettier than the up and down movement which they give to the little waves in the precious pan ; they follow with an anxious eye the light sparkling cloud of gold-dust which, little by little, collects in the centre, by the force of its own weight, while the wavelets, containing gravel or clay, are thrown off and disappear. The inspector of mines told us that the average profit of a day's work varied from 10s. to 16s. From time to time the solitary adven- Chap. VI.] The Gleaners. 1 1 1 turers find nuggets worth from 11. to 4?. in this ground, which has been already twenty times swept and sifted ; and many are found to prefer this labour, where caprice is the sole guide, and which possesses the charm of absolute independence to these wandering nomads, who sleep under a tree, or in some obscure cave, always hoping to discover for themselves a great treasure. Such was the life led by all the miners for the first five or six years after the discovery of gold. With their own hands they sifted the whole surface of the plain, which then yielded a real harvest of the precious metals ; almost every day a valuable nugget was found by some one ; it was gambling, with all its temptations and heated passions! But even now this bushman's life, with all its hardships and privations, would tempt me far more than the position of the seventeen thousand miners employed in Ballarat by the great Companies. It is a curious fact that here, in Australia, where labour is so dear — where any carpenter or blacksmith can easily make 15 or 18 shillings a day — the gold-miner is only paid 9 shillings ; it is the least profitable calling here. It is true that the miner receives from the Company a plot of ground near the mine, where he may build a house and lay out a garden ; and that, in case of illness or want, his family is looked after and assisted at the expense of his employers : but while the digger may enjoy alone the discovery of a nugget worth four-and-twenty shillings, the miner, working for wages, must often endure the terrible trial of receiving his pay iia The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI, of 9 shillings, the day that he has found at the end of his pick, in the Company's levels, nuggets worth four or six thousand pounds. There is still a third class of miners ; parties of five or six men, who join partnership and work together at washing the sand in the valleys ; their operations con- sist in the construction of a long wooden trench, or sluice. They turn the course of a mountain stream towards their ground, and each man contributes his load of sand; two or three of them keep the gravel in motion with pitchforks, while the stream carries it away, and every evening they brush the bottom of the trough and divide the gold-dust. We saw a party of four who told us that the small quantity of four grains per load gave them a sufficient profit ; they washed on an average a ton every five minutes. In another place, having dug up a bed of black loam eleven feet deep, five miners found a soil so uniformly rich, that for a long time they made 8?. a week each. In short, all these different modes of working have produced already, since 1851, the enormous sum of nearly 152,000,000?. ; and some fortunate mortals have discovered 50007., or 10,0007., at one stroke. I give you the names and value of some of the most famous nuggets ; — The Sarah Sands ,. .. £11,200 The Welcome . . . . . . . . . . 10,720 The Blanche Baildy . . . . . . . . 7,360 A nugget found by the child of a native, in the detritus of a large mine ., .. .. l.SSO I have seen since a list of a hundred and fifty, varying Chap. VI.] Government Grants. 113 from 400?. to 3200Z., another of 3900Z., making a total of 144,840?. What lucky strokes for a pickaxe! What feverish excitement ! These treasures so eagerly torn from the earth, which for centuries had hid them, awaken strange recollections. I am delighted to have gone over this strangely disordered ground, where every one was occu- pied in extracting gold from the rock or the soil; to have gone down into these great pits ; to have even washed some spadefuls of auriferous sand on the bank of a stream ; and, six hundred feet below ground, to have broken off two or three flints with the veins of gold shining in them I It was great good fortune for us to have made this very tiring but most interesting expe- dition, with the proprietors of the largest mines and their Government engineers. The Government has very properly declared itself to be the.proprietor of the soil. At first a grant was made to each miner of eight square feet of ground, where he might dig, on payment of a license of IZ. 10s. a month ; and a tax of 3s. %di,. was imposed on every ounce of gold (4Z.) sent out of the colony. In those days of feverish excitement, when parties of miners, recently landed, overran the placers, the Government exerted itself to maintain order, but not without bloodshed. Large bodies of an admirable mounted police force were organised; they inspected the whole country occupied by the diggers, and every alternate day had a battle royal to make every man show his license, and keep himself to his eight square feet ; offenders were punished VOL. I. • I 114 The Gold Mines. [Chap. VI. with imprisonment and a fine of 40Z. At the present time 5s. a year guarantees the miner's property against all intruders. The tax upon exportation has been reduced to Is. 8c?. per ounce of gold, and will be entirely abolished next year. A great economic revolution has thus taken place ; taxes are gradually done away with, and the really profitable working has passed from the hands of individuals to the great companies ; Govern- ment leases to them for a long term of years the ground for working, and all look to the State for support and control. Each district has its Court of Mines, whose judges are named by Government ; and for cases of appeal they have a Mining Board, consisting of ten mem- bers, elected by all tlie miners who are on the register. Everything at present, therefore, is well-regulated and orderly : what fifteen years ago was a passion amounting almost to madness has returned now to the normal elements of colonial prosperity. Specjilation alone still runs its risks ; and the Exchange is a constant scene of gambling. I see in to-day's paper a list of shares which in the first week of June were selling for 12s. 6(^., and which are worth now Zl. a week; the Company has at last found a treasure. Here is another mine, the " Warrana," which, from seven cubic yards of ground, has yielded this week 6000 ounces of gold (24,000^.). As for me, beyond my delightful recollec- tions, I carry nothing away with me but my three flints, worth a couple of pounds at the outside. And I go away quite satisfied, even if my precious flints do not increase and multiply on the road I Chap. VI.] A fortunate Squatter. 115 Our expeditioa to Ballarat over, we went, on the 25th, to Geelong, a charmingly picturesque little harbour in the bay of Port Philip, where we had been promised, not gold indeed, but game. Our principal chase was after the myriads of fleas, who attacked us with fury. This sociable animal certainly abounds to an incredible extent in the fifth quarter of the globe. The 26th, we started early in the morning for Baraon Park, a great estate near by, where we have been firing away, right and left, at parrots and rabbits. Ten years ago Mr. Austin, the worthy proprietor, was struck with the brilliant idea of importing these latter from Eng- land ; and they have bred such a swarm of descendants, that their before-mentioned proprietor would give now a good many nuggets to get rid of these rodents, who devastate his 30,000 acres of ground. 30,000 acres, think of that ! for the modest domain of a man who landed here, in workman's dress, twenty-nine years ago. I liked to hear the good old gentleman tell us his stor\-. He settled himself in the midst of the savages, amongst these charming verdant hills, using his gun against the kangaroos, or the blacks who might attack him, while he tended his sheep. His flock prospered so well that, six years later, he had to apply to Government to pro- tect his property from the encroachments of new colonists ; such were the beginnings of a squatter's life. Then he rented from Government, for fifteen years, this run of 30,000 acres, at a shilling an acre. By his sheep, which succeeded as well as the rabbits, he made, in a few years, 120,000^., and, finally, bought the land for I 2 ii6 The Gold Mines. [Chap. vi. 30,OOOZ. At present he possesses two hundred thorough- bred horses, a considerable quantity of cattle, of which I cannot recollect the exact number, and thirty-seven thousand sheep. All these beasts wander at will in immense natural meadows, sheltered by red and blue gum-trees. Chap. VII.] Development of the Colony. 117 OHAPTEK VII. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. Different elements of the Colony — Self-government — Universal Suffrage — Parliaments and ministers. 1^t\ July, 1866. — Here we are back again at Mel- bourne, our minds still full of the recollections of the mines ; but I must send you a few hasty lines no longer concerning the material facts with which we have been so struck, but about the political and social system of this country, where we landed two weeks The traveller who arrives here after ninety -one days at sea, is disposed at first to be astonished at every- thing, and enthusiastic over all that he sees. But he cannot yet seize the details, and it really requires a residence of some days to enable one to judge things calmly, and to profit by all that the principal people here tell us. For this reason I said nothing to you in my first letter of the government and state of society in Victoria. What struck me at first, and is still the object of my admiration, is the greatness and the development of the colony. The sight of a town of thirty thousand souls, of an established society, a regular government rul- 1 1 8 Political and Social Institutions. [Chap. vil. ing through liberty, and itself the oEspring of that libert3% ^^^1 of a number of dignified and useful insti- tutions, of pubh'c offices, railroads and telegraphs, hospitals and asylums, which show at the iirst glance the commercial power of England coupled with an American spirit of progress. You find yourself sud- denly in contact with the , most advanced practical civilisation, which has no parallel in Europe except in some few capitals, and presents an astonishing con- trast between the brilliant creations of this youthful city and the routine of so many governments of the old world. You must remember that it was here that two solitary colonists — Batman and Sams — landed in 1835 with four hundred sheep amongst the savage tribes of the Yarra Yarra; that during sixteen years their fol- lowers gradually spread over the interior, pasturing their ever-increasing flocks on land to which discovery gave a right of possession; that in 1851 a great dis- covery caused a flood of immigrants to overflow the land, bringing with them adventurers of all nations, and that at this very time notwithstanding, the colony freeing itself from the cumbrous precedents of the old province of New South Wales, out of disorder evolved order, and mastering all those heterogeneous elements organised itself into such union and prosperity that the traveller is struck dumb at the first sight. It is really a fine sight. The air that one breathes here is reviving. It is because Liberty is truly the parent of all good things, because all these colonies govern Chap. VII.] Freedom of Governmetit. 119 tbemselves independently of one another, because the English Government itself gracefully offered to draw up the articles of the constitution, and far from in- creasing their burdens by a military administration, far from ruling them like a regiment or a man-of-war, or lording it over these people who have come here to seek their fortunes, with suspicious and arbitrary laws, and making the assistance and permission of the State necessary at every step, they have at once been made and declared free, free in the fullest sense of the term. They have become real States, having their houses of legislature, their electoral system (very different from that of the parent country), voting their own budgets, their laws, their institutions of all kinds. And they have arrived so quickly at such a height of prosperity that one is tempted to inquire if some fairy did not preside over the fusion of such diverse elements. The fairies of Australia are gold and sheep. These are the, two weights of such different natures, that must be placed in the scale to arrive at the equilibrium which we see now so thoroughly established. The gold fever brought an overwhelming increase of population. At the beginning there was a rush made from all sides towards the mineral that could procure so many pleasures ; society was completely upset. It seemed that the levelling of all ranks in the society which inundated the country, was as great as the levelling of the soil by the miners who dug up tlae valleys and ransacked the hills. Up to this moment the colony of Victoria, unlike the old penal settlements of Australia, 1 20 Political and Social Institutions. [Chap. VII. had made slow but steady progress. Formed by degrees by energetic and liigh-principled men of a comparatively high social position, and having always energetically rejected the introduction of the convict element, she possessed at the moment of her independence the fairest hopes of civilisation ever granted to any country since the constitution of the Uuited States of America. It was a smaller England formed on tlie model of the mother country, only with more liberal ideas. There were squatters enough, rich influential gentlemen who gave a high tone to the colonial society, but hands were wanted to increase its productiveness, and con- sumers were even more wanted for its produce. Gold brought these, they arrived at the rate of twenty thousand in a month. The greater part were mere adventurers, but what of that? It was a great movement which created the whole social, commercial, and political life, and the gold fever, whatever may have been its disastrous effects at first, was destined to be the parent of a society whose development has been marvellous. In ascertaining these facts one feels one's self infected with the same fever, but before suc- cess came the trial. The laws of nature cannot be transgressed with impunity, and an anomalous and artificial growth will surely cause an unhealthy state or general excesses. Men sprung from nothing found themselves suddenly, by the yield of a mine or the sale of land, possessed of enormous fortunes, and the greater part of the earnings of the diggers finding its way into the hands of the publicans, enriched and gave influ- Chap. VII.] Formation of the Government. 121 enoe to this scum of the population. Then, indeed, the sanguinary scenes at Ballarat, and the riots against the police, did for a moment endanger a Government of necessity too weak to resist such an effervescence. But reinforced by all the better part of the population, victory remained with the authorities. The reaction set in ; formerly it had been a party, henceforward it was an entire people, who, enlightened by the dangers of the past, and desiring to secure the prosperity of the future, constituted their Government on a basis of equality, security, and justice. This Government might well be strong, since those over whom it was to be exer- cise*d were the first to sanction it; and just, since all citizens took an equal share in its affairs. It follows, naturally, that the democratic element pervades every- thing, pushed sometimes to an extreme, but maintaining itself in spite of its original vices, in spite of the faults and errors into which it has sometimes been led. If for a moment the Government acts wrongly, it has for excuse the will of the majority ; when it succeeds, and works those wonders of colonisation of which we are witnesses, every one may take his share of the honour, for it is self-government. This, then, is what the discovery of gold has brought about; more than ninety thousand immigrants a year till 1855, and thirty thousand since, have been attracted from all parts of the world by the reports of the richness of the mines. But gold alone vould have ruined this country as it ruined Spain, if there had not been found here men who recognised the fact that the real wealth 122 Political and Social Institutions. [Chap. vil. of Australia lay not merely in her mines. That these were, so to speak, only the occasion of it, and that by the side of the search for gold lay another trade quite aa lucrative, a trade based not on hazard and a gambler's luck, but on an element of progressive production — not exhaustible like gold, but renewing itself each year with increased vigour. This is the breeding of cattle and sheep in the great pasture lands which extend over the colony of Victoria. Here you have the basis of the Australian empire, the idea which made a party of persevering men keep themselves aloof from the crowd of miners, and exile themselves into the interior, there to rear flocks and herds whose number is incredible to those who have not seen them. Here twenty thousand bullocks, there a hundred and fifty thousand sheep. And if one may call tlie epoch of the discovery of gold that of the birth of the colony, the day when the squatters went to work may with still more reason be said to be that of its salvation. Their first establishments, before 1851, were small in comparison with the impulse given later to this element of wealth, the conditions of which were completely changed by the thousands of immigrants arrived since then, who built towns, cultivated the ground, and formed by the side of the pastoral colony its complements — an agricultural and a manufacturing colony. The majority, then, have deserted the mines in favour of the fields. Though. they have yielded since the first more than 152,000,000?., only a twentieth part of the known auriferous soil is in working. If since 1854 Chap. VII.] Progress of Democracv. 123 the yield has gradually diminished, and last year only amounted to half tlie sum made at that time, you may be sure that it is only a displacement of wealth multi- plied tenfold by that very means, to the profit of the middle class which comes between the squatters and the miners, and forms the majority of the population. In this class has been cherished a spirit of democratic opposition to the squatters, who in fact represent the landed aristocracy, and whose influence, though exerted in favour of the principal industry of the colony, is dis- agreeable to the masses, and even seems to liave been looked upon with jealousy by the governors themselves. The first blows were naturally struck at them. It was the struggle of small cultivation against great, of subdivision against union, of the land-jobbers against the stable and conservative element in the country. But really if at first sight fortune seems to have singularly favoured them in securing to them large and rapidly acquired fortunes, they have had on the other hand plenty of danger to face, in establishing themselves in the interior at the risk of their lives amongst ill-disposed natives. And now that success has attended them, and civilisation is advancing with rapid strides through the colony, their estates are thought to be too large, their fortunes too easily made. Their noble courage, their perseverance, theii" labours which confirmed the prosperity of the colony are no longer remembered, and the new element wages a war of extermination against them. It is very interesting to us to look on at this political quarrel, to get into conversation with the men of both 124 Political and Social Institutions. [Chap. VII. parties, and to see how very much the characters have changed ia the last few years. Twelve years ago a miner meant almost a millionaire, and the squatter with his flocks was lost in the bush. Since then the squatter has found two certain markets for his produce, the con- sumption of meat in tlie colony, and above all the export- ation of wool. The miner, on the contrary must toil at the diggings, and there are very few now who make their 25Z. a day as in the good times. Now-a-days, there- fore, all the wealth is on the side of the squatter. The opposing elements stand face to face, and uni- versal suffrage is the arena where the battle must be fought out. The government has all the appear- ance of a limited monarchy, of which the king is only a governor named by the mother country. I could almost suppose it to be a republic with the | semblance of a president. The Governor, appointed by the Queen for seven years, receives a salary of 10,000?. a year, that he may represent with dignity the executive power with which he is invested. He accepts the ministers named by the majority of the two Houses, and dismisses those whom they disapprove ; his is the dignified and con- ciliatory hand which writes, the nation dictates through the two assemblies nominated by her. These two assemblies are : 1st., the Lower House, or House of Assembly. This is composed of seventy-eight members elected by universal suffrage for a term of five years. The only conditions necessary to be an elector and eligible are to be twenty-one years of age, and to have resided for two months before voting in the Chap. VII.] The Two Assemblies. \it^ district in -which you are registered. After the 23rd of November, 1867, to have the right of suffrage it will be necessary besides this to be able to read and write. The voting is by ballot. The House is convened by a message from the Governor. It may be prorogued or dissolved, but by the Constitution not more than a year may elapse between the end of one session and the com- mencement of another. It has the right of initiating all finance measures, and, in a word, all the prerogatives of the English House of Commons. In consequence of the perfect liberty of the press, and of meetings, and of the absence of all administrative pressure, it is the most thorough and direct representation of the people. Thanks to this House, the ma,jority of the six hundred and twenty-six thousand inhabitants of the colony pay no taxes to which they have not consented, subsidise only those works which they deem useful, maintain a Government to which they look for assistance and not for laws, and see the public revenues, and the organic sources of their wealth, employed only in their true interests. 2nd. The Upper House or Council represents the Conservative element : it is elected by the landowners and men of substance. It consists of thirty members, elected by the six great districts of Victoria, and cannot be dissolved, but it is gradually renewed by partial elections, which every two years iill up the places of out-going members. The electors who have the right to vote for members of this House, must possess 1000?. in land, or an income of lOOZ. ; such 126 Political and Social Institutions. [Chap. VII. a figure, which in Europe would be enormously high, is much more common here than you might think. You must remember that a hired labourer, shepherd, or any other, earns the half of the latter sum. All graduates of a university, physicians, lawyers, judges, &c., also have a vote for the Council. It is a union of all orders obtained without the aid of a revolution. Finally, the ministers, the well-known, essential, and, above all, responsible movers of all these parliamentary wheels upon wheels, are sworn to resign the moment they lose the support and confidence of the Houses.. It . is really interesting in this young country to see pure democracy at work, the school of political life open to all, freed from the prejudices as well as from the hindrances of the old world : democracy is here left to itself; she may do all that she is capable of performing: there has been nothing to destroy, everything to create; there does not probably exist in the world at this moment another spot where the experiment has been less hampered, and in consequence more conclusive. It seems that the Anglo-Saxon race left behind them, in crossing the Line, all that still checks them in Europe, and started here resolutely on the road of progress. From this boldness result marvels : it has raised up a free and prosperous Europe in the southern hemisphere ; it has created not a mere colony, but a new world, which one is inclined to believe sprang into life in the course of a few years, ■well-ordered, free, and prosperous. I will enter into Chap. VII.] Protectionist Party. 137 details later, but I wanted you to know my iirst impression: it is as honest as it is imexpected by me; and my admiration, great as it is, does not altogether blind me. I see in fact, beside these great results, the imperfections which if not necessarily attendant on any human work, at least almost always accompany it. In the first place, one is struck by a check in this growth. We were amazed at the enormous expenses of the simultaneous erection of all these fine buildings ; but when we came to examine them closely, we found that not one was entirely finished. While this rage for building lasted, a treasure had been found which was thought to be inexhaustible; evidently the mem- bers of the municipality went through tliis phase of intoxication, and were aroused too late by the exhaustion of their funds. But there is something more serious. During the last year a check has also been felt in the public wealth, which till then had advanced so wonderfully. The fact is that there is in the colony a protectionist party, which has now got the upper hand. The last governor having forgotten his character of a neutral, and entered as a partisan into the political quarrel, was obliged to leave the colony at once. Universal suffrage being resorted to, a protectionist majority was returned to the Lower House ; then followed a shower of taxes upon imports, and a serious diminution of the duties upon exports. This was the origin of the conflict. 128 Political and Social Institutions. [Chap. vil. The exhaustion of the surface-diggings checked the tide of immigration almost immediately. But by a sagacious and far-sighted provision, which applied half the produce of the sale of the land to encourage immigration from Europe, hands began to flow in anew, and the produce of the mines seemed likely to rise again. This did not at all suit the democrats, who regretted the fabulous wages of 1851, and who concluded that the more scarce labour became, the higher wages would be. Under the influence of this idea, the item of assistance to immigrants was struck out of the budget, and this is why, with almost un- limited gold fields still to explore, the produce of the mines is gradually decreasing. I really do not know what the workmen have to complain of; they can all make from fifteen to eighteen shillings a day, work- ing only eight hours, and I am assured by competent persons that they can live very well, with meat three times a day, and well-lodged, for four shillings a day if they are bachelors, and for six or seven if they have only a small family. But once started on this selfish road, and encouraged by success, the majority have not stopped here. Urged forward by the new projects of inventors, and by manufacturers eager to make their fortunes, it has been sought to make the price of labour rise by imposing protectionary duties upon all manufactured articles brought into the colony. But to put in competition with European manufactures, a local manufacture in its infancy in the midst of a thinly scattered population, with triple wages, witli Chap. VII.] Results of Protectionism. 129 Colonial coal at thirty-eiglit shillings and English coal at seventy shillings the ton, was (as was seen when too late) to raise the price of provisions twenty per cent., to keep away the vessels which had formerly used Melbourne as a warehouse for their cargoes for other colonies, to exhaust their savings, stop all works, in fact to kill the goose instead of leaving it to lay eggs ! The workmen were the iirst to suffer ; but ex- perience has taught them, and a reaction is beginning. There is that to be admired in liberty, even in its errors, that it is even easier to retrace a wrong path than to enter upon it. The sense of the country will be taken, and everything leads to the belief that the new Houses will bring back the wonderful prosperity of the former fourteen years. Such is the general impression made upon me by the sight of the greatness, the prosperity, and also of the errors of the colony of Victoria. The action of its parliamentary institutions, so well known to every liberal mind, would alone suffice to form a great colony; it is exciting to follow it upon this new ground, where a nation of grown men have landed, created, and prospered. And to think that after such splendid results, which are certainly not unknown in Europe, representatives should still be refused to French Algeria, and that the chances of a famine are preferred to a possible opposi- tion of the Colonial members, or even of a freely elected general council ! VOL. I. K 1 3° yourney up the Country. [Chap. vill. CHAPTEE YIII. JOURNEY UP THE COUNTRY. Bendigo — Travelling by compass through the plains — The Murray — Shooting swans, pelicans, and wild turkeys — Single combat with an old kangaroo — The Australian ostrich — The Blacks — A cattle station. I HAVE been carried away by polities, always a great subject of conversation in towns. By-and-bye I will give you some statistics. At present my head is full of the pastoral colony, for there must be so much that is interesting in the settlements of the squatters in the interior of the country. One of the great squatters of this colony, Mr. Capel, whose acquaintance we have made at the Melbourne Club, has just arranged a journey for us, which promises to be both iateresting and agreeable ; he is to tate us with him to his station on the banks of the Murray, amidst the wild pasture-lands, in the centre of the country grazed over by the cattle. 30iA July. — We set out on our way, and begin by taking the railroad for the hundred miles which divide Melbourne from Bendigo. In all this distance we have seen nothing but endless meadows and innumerable herds of cattle. As to Bendigo it is an exact copy of Chap. VIII.] A Cross Country Ride. . 131 the mining centre at Ballarat. Chinese abound there, and we were not spared one shaft or one auriferous level. 31si July. — We bade adieu this morning to cities and railroads ; the happiest moment of our little expedition has arrived. Mr. Capel carries off the Prince and me into the wilderness. For these journeys up the coun- try in Australia, the only kiad of carriage used is an American buggy, perched on high narrow wheels, with which one may go anywhere. I can hardly yet believe my eyes when I think of what the roads are in this country ; one is lucky indeed if there are any. Oui- light vehicle was drawn by four horses, caught by the lasso in the fields, and guided by the voice only. Our host and his servant sit in front of the buggy shout- ing directions to the horses, who evaded with wonderful skill the fallen trees which encumbered our path in crossing the forests ; we packed ourselves in at the back, with our guns and ammunition, and in this fashion we were to travel 120 miles in two days. Starting very early in the morning, we pass for five hours through magnificent forests, where cockatoos and parroquets flying over our heads, make an incon- ceivable din. By degrees the track disappears. We advance through a wilderness of meadow land, a ver- dant plain dotted at rare intervals with small clumps of trees, vast herds wandering over it, and magnificent effects of the mirage. Here where there was no road the compass was our guide. Often our path was barred K 2 ^3^ Journey up the Country. [Chap. Vlll. by considerable streams ; these were crossed at full gallop, trusting to good luck, a fashion that suits me very well. Our host told us that these streams are often so swelled by the rains that he leaves his carriage on the bank, and he and his black servant go home on horseback, swimming the rivers, and only returning to fetch the buggy after some days of dry weather. Nothing can surpass the grandeur of this infinite space, where one feels so far removed from every human creature ; the unbroken plain resembles a sea of verdure. Mount Hope alone, in the far distance, breaks the monotony of the scene. From time to time a wandering herd of cattle meets our view. Here the mirage makes them appear gigantic, there reflects them double, and makes us see hundreds with head down and feet in air. For a long time we fancied we saw a distant lake, reflecting in its waters, but reversed, the trees growing on its banks ; we tried to approach this lake, but it retreated before us, for it was only the mirage. What has particularly struck me is that not a stone has touched our horses, or been seen by us ; smooth, soft turf everywhere around us is all that we have seen. We finished our sixty miles as the sun went down, and halted at a little clump of trees, near a pool covered with wild duck. Here our host made us rest for, the night. We picketed our horses, lighted a fire, and cooked our frugal dinner, then, rolled in our cloaks, lay down to sleep on the damp earth under the stars, in the company of legions of insects, who have a particular predilection for the flesh of white men. Chap. VIII.] The Murray River. 133 Ist August, 1866. — Our horses are in capital condition. Keeping to the directions of the compass we go due north-east. The landscape resembles that of yesterday ; still pasture land as far as the eye can reach, and great herds of cattle, which fly at our approach. Our halt to-day was on the banks of the Loddon, not far from the spot where young Howitt met the unfortunate companions of Burke. Suddenly we caught sight at a great distance of seven emus, the Australian ostrich, going at a great pace along the edge of a wood; it would have required a rifled cannon to reach them, and we only levelled our glasses at them. Just at sunset, after crossing several streams, we reached the Murray. It is the largest river in Australia ; a fine stream now full of water, shaded by large trees, which seem to command the whole plain. Mr. Capel's station is on the opposite bank. A long rope is fastened to a tree on either side of the water; we lifted the carriage off its wheels, placed it on a kind of pontoon, and then holding tight to the rope were drawn across the water, our four horses swimming round us. I wish I could draw, that I might give you an idea of our picturesque crossing of this beautiful river, with our horses struggling against the stream, and the joyful landing on the further shore. Mr. Capel's house is on this bank. It is a mere wooden hut, containing three rooms ; the roof is made of eucalyptus bark, and the masses of creepers surrounding it give it the wildest appearance. For thirteen years our host has inhabited this hut. He is a 1 34 Journey up the Country. [Chap. vill. very charming fellow, still young, who has come here to make his fortune, and lives alone with an old friend, who shares his voluntary exile, amidst the fields and herds. His task is now accomplished, and in six months he will return to England a wealthy man. He possesses in an immense extent of pasture land, thousands of cows and oxen, and hundreds of horses. He has fenced in his whole run, and fifteen men are sufficient to guard all his herds and convey them into Melbourne. We found here his old friend, a real bushman, with an immense beard. They are both delighted to have us here, and hope to give us some very good sport, and after a good talk round a great wood fire, and an ex- cellent dinner of beef, butter, and cheese, we were very glad to retire to rest. Everything here is in the most rustic style. The wind that blows through the hut might capsize a boat, the mice have grand steeple- chases in our rooms, and my door being broken, the birds of night flock in enthusiastically to see my candle; but the air is so pure and wholesome that we do not dream of taking any precautions against the night air ; my one thought is to have finished my journal soon. hfh August. — In the course of four days we have gone over all the ground within five or six miles of our hut on every side. We start always before sunrise, well-armed, and bending beneath the weight of our ammunition, and only return to the hut quite late in the evening, to devour roast beef and clean our guns. We began, on entering the forest, by opening a tremen- Chap. VIII.] Magnificent Sport. 135 dous fire upon the magnificent flocks of yellow-crested white cockatoos, red and green parrots, inseparable many-coloured parroquets, scarlet or sky blue, who flitted like lightning through the great gum-trees. The parroquets fly like our falcons, so that the shooting is difficult but delightful. Dozens perished at our hands, and we were enchanted with our walks and constant shots under these great trees. But by-and-by, seeing that these charming many-coloured creatures were as common as sparrows at home, we were obliged to spare them. We had a plentiful harvest of tufts and irings, destined for European hats. From this time we deserted the woods and followed the banks of the Murray. Flocks of wild ducks rose whirling into the air. May I never tell you of my shooting again if we did not see a thousand the first morning. Their flight is like a cloud whose shadow is thrown by the sun over these pools ; but we began by seeing a thousand, without being able to fire at one. Half of them are on the watch, and the other half are wide awake. Our consolation is that by both of us creeping through the wild vines, and on hands and knees across the grass, we reached a wild little creek, whence an unknown sound had from far off reached our ears. It was a party of black swans. They took flight, stretching out their necks and majestically beating their wings. Three feU with a crash, and struggled in the water. I had one to my share, and my happiness was complete. Our best shots were always in the morning, by the 136 Jozirney up the Country. [Chap. VIII. light of the stars, when we went out on a voyage of discovery round the pools of water formed by the Murray. The first day we found swans, the next day there were pelicans standing on one leg, their crops stuffed full of fish, and we killed two of them. Tester- day there was a perfect cloud of blue and white cranes, which we riddled with shot, but I fear often in vain. There is nothing so wild as an Australian crane, aid you must be very clever to get near them. We hid never found so much game, but neither had we ever needed such wary approaches, advancing on hands and knees from opposite sides. ' In two mornings we killed five-and-thirty of these beautiful birds, who together form the most wonderful assemblage of colours that you can conceive. Some of these creatures have beautiful red collars, others slender egrets like mara- bout feathers ; others again, the spoonbills, have a beak half a foot long and an inch wide, flattened and furnished with small teeth. We were obliged to return now to the house, quite astonished at having killed so many large birds, and looking for the means of con- veying them home. Our host has a little negro servant, ten years of age, and dressed only in a pair of boots ; he is the factotum of the oasis. At a sign the boy jumped on to the pony, galloped off, caught sight of some horses grazing in the meadow, threw his lasso, and brought one back to us. In future, we need not wander about guided by the sun or the compass ; the horse and the black boy guide us and carry our game. After the waterfowl came the turn of the wild Chap. VIII.] The wild Turkey. 137 turkeys ; they are to be found sometimes alone in the prairie, sometimes in companies of twelve or fifteen. With their uplifted heads and watchful eyes, these turkeys are the most wary beasts I ever came across. We began by chasing a flock of seventeen for three hours without getting up to them, but we soon brought cunning to our aid. We sent the Black to find us some quaint old horse, or peaceably disposed cow. As soon as we distinguish in the distance the grey colour of the turkey, we conceal ourselves behind the cow or horse, and make it move in a circle, and, gradually and con- stantly narrowing the circle, we find ourselves at the end of an hour within gunshot of the great bird, who swells out his crop and spreads his tail, like the gentle- men of our poultry yards ; two or three buckshot bring him to the ground, and in this way we killed four or five a day. This was difficult sport too ; but with tact, patience, and a quick eye, I am as happy as a king in these plains abounding in game. In short, during our little four days' war, of which I have given you some episodes, we kept up a tremen- dous fire, and killed about three hundred and twenty head, a pretty total, is it not ? Why must one always have some one beautiful creature to regret, which still exists ? We have tried more than one shot at herds of two or three hundred kangaroos, who seemed about the size of a man, and which always ran off some five or six hundred yards a-head. Not one fell. Five emus appeared for a moment at a still greater distance, so this evening, after killing in quantities everything that 13^ Journey up the Country. [Chap. viii. would succumb to small shot, we have been actively employed in casting bullets, and in future we mean only to attack the larger game. When we return to the house, we have still plenty of work to do ; though often wet to the skin with the beating rain, each man cleans his gun with tlie greatest care, and I begin to find that it is not exactly amusing, when one is very tired ; but our arms are in an irre- proachable state, and it is the price we have to pay for our good sport. In this short time, how our feelings as sportsmen have been excited ! What lucky shots we have had ! What delightful sport! Shall we ever have such again ? We want to preserve some specimens of these beautiful birds, to take back with us to Europe, and after the first day we set to work. The work was merely to open their bodies, take out their insides, turn the skin inside out, and daub it with arsenic and soap. But we have got such a quantity now, that our hands caunot suffice ; our good-natured host has found out an old herdsman who also understands pre- paring the skins ; he sent some thirty miles for him, and in future we may each bring home a perfect museum of natural history. How 1 wish I could make a long stay in this hut ! Though if is winter we feel no cold ; the tem- perature is that of the beginning of May in France. Our diet was of the simplest when first we arrived ; we lived upon beef only (our entertainer possesses twelve thousand bullocks, so you need not fear); but our shooting has provided us with positive feasts; wild turkey, the meat of which is exquisite, flanked by roast Chap. VIII.] Start for another Station. 139 parroquets, and crabs and codfish from the Murray, taken by the Blacks, form a splendid bill of fare. We live a wild Hfe, in the great calm of the prairies, killing the prettiest birds in the world, forgetful of towns and ciyUisation ; our host would like to keep us six months. Though he is no sportsman, he is enthusiastic over our exploits, and stays at home himself to look after the cooking. He is an intelligent man, good-natured and liTely, and solitude has produced in him an originality of mind, and a frank cordiality, which have quite won our hearts. Qth August. — We have burnt so much powder round the hut at Gronn, that all the birds have taken flight. Capel carries us off this morning in a north-easterly direction, to a hut twenty-one miles from here, which is in the centre of another run, where also he has herds grazing. We start, therefore, on a three days' expedi- tion, well armed, and with powder and lead for our only baggage. Mounted on capital horses, caught yes- terday evening by the lasso, we gallop merrily across the plain, from time to time getting a shot. These horses, who have a particular objection to a bridle, run about somewhat wildly, with no shoes on their feet, and no corn in their stomachs ; if they take a sudden fancy to rejoin the nomadic troops of their brethren, nothing can stop them, and like the foals in our meadows at home, off they start, their heads up and neighing wildly, leaping in the most wonderful way over brushwood and fallen trees. I like these eccentric paces and wild 140 yourney up the Country. [Chap. VI 1 1, gallops : even after one of these involuntary scamper?, we always bring back our wild steeds to our host, who leads us through a labyrinth of streams, pools of water, woods, and high grass. The mid-day sun ia these plains is very hot, and in the woods too, I must own, for shade is unknown to them ; the gum-trees, with their slender leaves hanging straight down, like those of the weeping- willow, could not shelter us for a moment from the rain the other day ; but on the other hand they admit the sun most wonderfully. Strange to say, it is the one only kind of tree that we have seen for the last week. It it is very fine, but very monotonous. On our road, we fired at some beautiful birds, the " native companions," blue cranes with scarlet collars and tufts, three feet and a half high, who walk about with a solemn and mea- sured step. One of them, mortally wounded, led us a wild chase of more than three miles in pursuit, and we came up to it in the midst of a great panic caused by ourselves. More than four thousand bullocks were flying before us ; startled one after another by our ad- vance, each gi-oup of a hundred or two horned beasts took flight, with lowered heads, and tails high in air ; soon all the fugitives were united together in one herd, whose disorderly charges made us laugh heartily. Only the white carcases remained still on the empty plain, scattered along the banks of the streams, where, dui-ing the drought of the last two years, the poor beasts came in hundreds to take a final draught at the last pools of muddy stinking water. We are now in another hut, in a place called Chap, viil] Noo-rong. 141 Noo-rong. An overseer lives here, a bushman in the pay of our host, charged with the sole superintendence of more than four thousand oxen. It is a peaceful rustic abode where this worthy man lives, an abode where the insects of the fields are his only visitors. A little lake is close by ; it is the hour of sunset, and long lines of cattle begin to show themselves on the plain ; they all advance towards us, coming leisurely to drink, and passing over positive mounds of white carcases, which are strewn along the banks of the stream : some eagles are soaring above us, and one of them carries off as it falls, a silver duck which we had just killed. At the back of the hut, which is entirely made of bark, is the paddock, an enclosure with several divisions, extending over some three or four acres, and intended for sick cattle or horses. Such is the strangely wild and unpretending appearance of these settlements buried in the great pasture lands: around one is the infinite ! but — upon one, during the night, what swarms of ants there are. The Prince and I had wrapped our- selves in the same cloak, and this was the battle-field chosen by the white ants to wage war against the red ants. We fought these armies with clouds of tobacco smoke ; but there are moments when these audacious brutes might drive a man mad. Very early in the morning of the 7th of August, the little Black caught four horses for us to look about us in the neighbour- hood. Capel, always kind and attentive, led the way, and his big friend Harrison followed unhesitatingly ; the latter gallops full speed down the ravines, and 142 ■ Journey up the Country. [Chap. viil. comes up the other side at the same pace, his arms clasping his horse's neck. It was curious to hear the few words exchanged occasionally between our two companions. " Here's a discovery ! " cried one ; " do you see that piebald mare with a big and a quite young foal following her?" " Why its Jenny ! Its three years since we have seen her, and she has been wandering in the bush." Further on, there was some famous bull discovered by his owner, after a disappearance of months. Suddenly, after a long march through a verdant plain, intersected by small thickets, we fell upon a party of fifteen or twenty kangaroos of the largest size, and two hundred of the smaller: they fled, hastily securing their little ones in their pouches. I say nothing of the smaller ones two feet high, for they swarm in the bushes, and we have been killing them lately as one kills rabbits at home : they give us the double pleasure of a shot in the morning and a supper at night. We spurred, therefore, straight at the large ones, singling out one very fine one, and determined to ride him down without dogs ; the pleasure consists in pounding the horse or the kangaroo, as luck will have it. At the end of ten minutes, having made some immense jumps, the brute crossed a wood, where we lost him. Very soon he came out; I found myself alone in pursuit, driving in my spurs till I could no longer pull them out of my horse's sides ; but the kangaroo still kept more than a hundred yards a-head. Chap. VIII.] Caphtre of a Kangaroo. 143 At last I gained upon him by degrees, and came up with him. But I had been fool enough not to bring any arms with me, and I dared not approach, for our hosts had warned us that the brute is exceedingly dangerous when he is brought to bay, and can strangle a man in his arms in no time. Last year they had four large deer-hounds, who were all killed by the blows of an old kangaroo. At last the panting beast fell, outdone ! I confess that I was fairly exhausted with hard riding ; but the brute picked himself up again, and stood at bay against a tree, his ferocious eyes glaring, his great arms moving convulsively, — in wait for me. Luckily the Prince had come up with me, and he was armed ; he put an end to our duel by a ball through the heart of the brute ; you may imagine our delight. Our kangaroo was a splendid one, his fur like a fox's ; he weighed a hundred and forty pounds, and measured eight feet six inches from the head to the tip of the tail. The ground being soft, we were able to measure his leaps by the impression he left — they were all more than nineteen feet ; he ran entirely on the hind legs, the body a little bent forward, M'hile his heavy tail held straight up, served to balance him. On returning to the hut, we relieved our horses of saddle and bridle, and sent them out again with no further ceremonies, to the free, wild life of the prairie ; for horses who live only on grass, it has been a hard day's work ; to-morrow we shall take fresh ones. They seem a little surprised here, to see that the natives of old Europe are not entirely enervated, but 144 Journey up the Country. [Chap. vili. can ride hard without allowing themselves to be stopped by stream or trunk of tree. Wi August. — In spite of torrents of rain, which have converted the plain into a bog, I am determined to have to-day, all by myself, a duel with an old kangaroo. I have got my revolver, and am in high spu-its. I set out with Capel, and we started a very fine red-haired old fellow; the pace was tremendous, much worse than yesterday, for the horses slipped frightfully, and for half- an-hour the kangaroo gained upon us ; presently my com- panion's horse came down with him in the mire. Capel was so excited, that as he fell, he called out to me : " Kill my horse, kill him ! but kill the kangaroo ! " I redoubled my speed, and after about three-quarters of an hour of furious riding (I was like a madman), I began to gain upon the brute, just as I despaired of reaching him, for my horse was beginning to give in, and getting blown ; I was at twenty paces when the kangaroo turned and charged me ; still at full gallop, and rather excitedly, I fired my revolver at him ; the ball struck him in his fore-paws, he turned, then charged again. My first ball missed him, but I sent him a second " warning " which staggered him, and a third which " suppressed him " altogether. A last ball finished him, and put an end to the frightful convulsions in which he died at my feet. I cannot tell you how exciting this wild chase, pistol in hand, was, and the fantasia round the brute as he charged furiously, after the prolonged anxiety as to which would give in first — horse Chap. VIII.] Duel with an old Kangaroo. 145 or kangaroo. The ball which killed the fellow, went in at one shoulder and out at the other. The end of the hunt was especially exciting, for the brute at bay defends himself vigorously, leaping to every side, and stretching out his great paws furnished with immense claws : the eyes especially, which in repose seem so gentle, assume a frightfully wild expression. I was alone in the enjoyment of this excitement — lost in the plain ; how glad I should have been to share it with you. To find the hut, I had to retrace the deep impressions of my steps on the turf for two hours ; we harnessed a little cart, and all came to fetch my beautiful prize, whose skin we took, and I am preserving it carefully for you ; you will see his claws and the marks of my bullets. The torrents of rain continue : we must turn out at once, for the inundations are beginning — the streams which we waded through have risen a yard, to-mOrrow morning this will be trebled, and if we wait a few hours we may be blocked up here for a month. It was quite late at night when we got back to Gonn, the rain had ceased for some hours, and the moonlight favoured the dangerous crossings of what were ditches yesterday, and are rivers to-day. I am too tired to give you all the details, and ups and downs of our eventful return journey ; but you may believe me, that, next to our own exertions, we owe our safe arrival at the station, to our good horses' spirit. Wth August. — During the last three days we have had wonderful sport with the pelicans, and, thanks to VOL. I. L 146 Journey up the Cotmtry. [Chap. vill. cunning, have killed two emus or cassowaries for our collection. As soon as we caugM sight of a party of these beautiful birds, a kind of grey ostrich, running as fast as a horse, we took in one hand a green branch which hid our faces, and wrapped ourselves in a scarlet covering which trailed upon the ground. Eeally if I had not been so excited by my love of sport, I could have laughed at myself, advancing majestically through the meadows. The ostrich, like the bull will run at anything red. Attracted suddenly by the red spot on the horizon, the troop advances at a rapid pace, and with outstretched neck the foolish "creatures one after another charge down upon the enemy. Arrived within a hundred yards of the prince, the leader of the file stops, the others follow his example : the trick has been discovered and a panic seizes them; but the Prince took a capital aim at the largest, and brought him to the ground dead. Yesterday my gun in its turn brought down one of these running birds : the bones of their thighs are as thick as a man's wrist ; their legs are three feet long ; their grey plumage is so bushy that it falls round their bodies like a parasol ; as for their wings I looked for them for a long time, but found nothing but a little stump, five or six inches long, and without a single feather. Eccentric ! is it not ? These grey ostriches are the only kind that are found in Australia : those from whom come the beautiful plumes worn in old-fashioned bonnets, exist only in Africa. We found a good many of their eggs on the ground : they are smaller than those of the ostrich, but of a Chap. VIII.] The Blacks. 147 splendid colour, a dark emerald-green, polished and shining. Our host assured us of another peculiarity of these birds : it is the male who hatches the eggs, and while he sits still for weeks, warming under his feathers the future brood, Madam Cassowary amuses herself by gadding about the country. At last we have seen some Blacks ! To-day, in pur- suit of a swan we came upon an encampment of natives in a ravine : some opossum skins thrown over them anyhow barely sufficed to protect them from the cold. Their camp consisted of a number of huts made of dried leaves ; they are so low that you can only enter on all fours : huts and people alike exhale the most dis- gusting odour; they are stinking, emaciated, and hideous. Poor creatures ! yet they still possess the never-failing gaiety of the negro ; they laugh grotesquely but natu- rally, rolling their great blood-shot eyes. AVe gave them some ducks which we had just killed, and imme- diately the whole band began a joyful dance round us. An old man, black as liquorice, but with snow-white hair and beard, led this orchestra of black frogs croak- ing by the waterside; he took off a small piece of fur, the only garment which he wore, before the dance, and held it in his hand as the sign of command; the whole tribe followed suit, and we found ourselves, at very small cost, spectators of a most eccentric entertainment : men and women, dressed like our first parents, dancing in a ring and gambolling about ; we were in convulsions of laughter, and they were en- chanted. This old Black is called Tatambo : our host L 2 T48 jfourney tip the Country. [Chap. VI 1 1, photographed him last )"ear, and I send you his por- trait, with that of the youngest and loveliest of his daughters. This is our last afternoon but one at Gonn, and we have enjoyed it like very children ; as we came in to breakfast with our host, he told us that he thought it was a good time to send 800 bullocks down to Mel- bourne, to be sent on from there to the different mining centres, and that he intended to ride out to choose them. This was an opportunity of seeing what in Aue- tralia is called a cattle-hunt. We joined the party and found it most amusing. Capel had got together the greater number of the men scattered over his ground ; there were eight or nine of them on horseback, armed with whips with short handles and lashes three yards long. We started at a gallop, like an army of skirmishers, each one going his own way in different directions, to find the herds scattered over the plain. As soon as we see a herd of thirty or forty horned beasts we charge them at full speed, and drive them before us, goading them sometimes to the right some- times to the left, till they reach a sandy hill which commands the plain, and which is the general place of jneeting. It really is capital sport ! These charges at full gallop are gi-eat fun, and I assure you that our hunted herd, with horns lowered and tails in air, were gallantly driven up the hill in spite of stieams and ravines; 1 am sure that the Prince and I together brought in more than four hundred, from five or six miles round, in spite of the circuitous route, more like Chap. VIII.] A Cattle-Hunt. 149 an than an S, which our large game with its wild galloping made us take. Towards five o'clock there were assembled on the hill about two thousand cows and bullocks, panting and blown with their involuntary- race. The men then picked out what they wanted, the fattest oxen being galloped again to another hillock close by. I can give you no idea of the confusion which reigned around us, and which was the greatest charm of the whole entertainment ; bullocks stamping, rushing, or bellowing, cows frisking and gambolling about, the whole noisy assemblage made the most curious scene. WTien night fell, we drove away together all the " re- jected," and liglited a long cordon of great fires round the eight hundred chosen amongst so many called ; half of the men stayed to patrol them, which is no small labour. It was black night when we returned to the hut; the outlines of the cattle, and of the horsemen guarding them, stood out against the sky in the fire- light, and the melancholy lowing of all the astonished and bewildered captives, which were answered by the wandering herds in freedom, made an extraordinary change in the plain which till now had seemed so peaceful and silent. Vlih August. — This morning the cattle started for Melbourne ; they have above three hundred miles to go on foot, with four men in charge. The first obstacle in the long journey is the Murray, which is over a hundred and sixty yards wide. The men gallop the herd down between the two long barriers which reach to the water's 150 youtney up the Country. [Chap. VIII. side ; the cattle are so driven that they cannot stop in time; the foremost are hustled and pushed into the river at once by those who are rushing on from beliind and cannot see the water, and the impetuous movement is so sudden and general, that they are soon all in the water, swimming across, upsetting one another, and clambering in confusion on the opposite bank. We, too, must take our departure ; early to-morrow we must positively leave this delightful spot, where we have enjoyed ourselves so much, and had such capital sport; we intend to ask for hospitality at a sheep station seventy-five miles from here. Travelling is the normal state of every man in Australia, and in no country have I met with such cordial welcome. Here, two hundred yards from the house, is a travellers' hut, which may be found in every station up the country. In the evening, after dinner, we used to go with our host to see if any wandering shepherd had taken refuge there, and three times we were guided to it by the gi-eat fires lighted by the new arrivals. Capel provided them at once with rations of beef and biscuit. They were adventurers, shepherds; or sheep-shearers, come to ask for • employment at the farm, to lend a hand, if needed, at a cattle-hunt, or assist in cutting down wood. These people spend the whole year wandering in the bush, leading a hazardous life, with no rest, no dwelling- place, and they are passionately attached to this nomadic life ! The physical appearance of a country must have a singular influence on the moral condition Chap. VIII.] Pleasures of a nomad Life. 151 of those who inhabit it. How many men have I seen in Australia, as fond of adventure and of the unknown, as little careful of the morrow ! And we ourselves, are we not also changed in the last month ? We should like still to remain here, living as savages and nomads, sleeping in our cloaks, riding half- wild horses, advancing always further into these meadows and pasture-lands, saying to ourselves sometimes in our wild expeditions : " Perhaps in this ravine no white man lias yet set foot." Yes, this lif6 has charms unknown in Europe ; but our good friend Fauvel is impatiently expecting us at Mel- bourne, and you await us eighteen thousand miles from here. In spite of regrets, then, we must go ; if I have greatly enjoyed myself in the wilds here, I have also learned a great deal. I may now say that I know what a squatter's settlement, and a cattle-station are ; and to give you an idea of them, I think I cannot do better than tell you what our entertainer Mr. Capel has done. In 1846 three resolute men came to settle themselves on the banks of the Murray, to pasture their herds in this hitherto unexplored country, where they had to repulse the frequent attacks of the Blacks, who some- times burned their huts, sometimes waged desperate war against their cattle. These men marked out for themselves a run, an immense extent of pasture-land, which they declared their intention of occupying at their risk and peril against the aborigines, and also for a given time against the encroachments of any Euro- pean new-comer. Their boundaries once traced, they 153 Jozirney up the Country. [Chap. vill. made a declaration of it to the G-overnment, to whom, the soil of the colony belongs ; in some parts they have sold the ground, and may still sell or let on lease as they please. There are here, therefore, landowners, who as such pay no further tax to the State, and squatters. These latter are nothing but the farmers of the State ; they pay so much a year, and during the term of their lease have the enjoyment of all that is found on their run, that is to say, the woods which are upon it, as well as the meadow land, and this is no small source of profit. In New South Wales (where- we are now) the Government appraises the good and bad qualities of the run, has it surveyed by a commis- sion consisting of an equal number of representatives of the State and of the squatters, and asks a general yearly sum, which exempts the farmers from any further tax. I shall have occasion to tell you bye-and-bye how differently things are managed in Victoria, where the squatter pays so much per head of cattle, and nothing for the ground; I like the simple method of New South AYales much better. But to return to the cattle. These men had chosen a splendid estate, between two. rivers, the Murray and the Walkool, two admirable natural boundaries, two sources of fertility and irrigation, on which they might count without fear for the watering of their herds. The Murray was their boundary line for eighteen miles : the two runs of Gonn and Moorgatta contained 1,55 square miles, or more than 74,926 acres; that of Noorong 280 square miles or 124,880 acres, making a total of Chap. VIII.] A Cattle-Station. 153 445 square miles. They took a lease for fourteen years, for which they paid to the G-overninent the modest rent of £300. This lease expired in 1860. Such is the history told in a few words of the founders of this run. Let us now see what our friend Capel has done. He arrived here in 1852, and entering into nego- tiations with the squatters, who in six years had made their fortune, they underlet to him their three runs. For the goodwill of the runs of Gonn and Moorgatta, and the stock, consisting of 1500 cows, he paid them 10,000/. For the goodwill of Noorong, 500 homed beasts, and a line of solid wooden fences, constructed by them, and extending for about eighteen miles, he paid 18,000Z. The Walkool on the north, and the Murray on the south, ran almost parallel at a distance from one another varying from 17 to 24 miles. This wooden fence, perpendicular to the two streams, completely shuts in the run on the east side. To the west Capel has also shut it in by putting up, along the fourth side of the square, a wire fence, 23 miles long. Add to this about 22 miles of fencing for the interior diyisions, and the cost of his enclosures rises to 3225Z., or about 49Z. a mile. So that the expenses of his first establishment were 28,600Z. As for his regular expenses, he paid the rent of 300Z. to the Government till 1860, at which time he took out a new lease of the ground in his own name for ten years, the rent being then raised to 700Z. a year. Then for his establishment, he has only fifteen men employed 1 54 yotirney up the Country. [Chap. vill. over this immense space, both to keep the fences in repair the whole year round, and, at certain seasons, to look after the cattle, collect them, and drive them into Melbourne. These men get IZ. a week, which amounts to 780?. a year, and with their food, which costs about as much, the whole cost of his establishment comes to 1400Z. a year. One man to a thousand bullocks sounds rather start- ling at first sight. But matters are much simplified by the long straight lines of fencing, drawn straight across the country in American fashion, where, if clumps of trees are not found at hand, wire fencing may be used to great advantage. Add the cost of keeping up the fences (120?.), of rest- ing places for the cattle at the entrance to Melbourne, Ballarat, and Bendigo (400?.), as much more for " sun- dries," and you have a total of 3115?. for annual expenses. Now for a glance at the receipts. Our host sends out every year, from May to September, some ten of his men to the far ends of the colony, and to neighbouring colonies ; they go particularly into the country wliich has suffered from drought, and amongst the small farmers, and buy up, for 40s. or 50s. a head, all the lean or young beasts they can find. Three years ago, for instance, Capel bought in this way 15,000 beasts, from three to seven years old, for 40s. ; he sold them again last year fat and in good condi- tion, for an average of 7?. in the different markets of Victoria. They had cost him 30,000?., he sold Chap. VIII.] A Cattle-Station. 155 them for 105,000Z. — an enormous profit to make in twenty-four months. The spring rains decide the fate of a run. I wish you could see the delight with which our host contem- plates every morning the sheet of verdure spreading around us and out of sight. We are in August, which answers to our month of April. The blades of tufted grass are only about two inches high; but they are so green and fresh one might really imagine oneself on English turf. If the sun does not burn up too soon these promising meadows, Capel wUl not even need two years to fatten up his now lean cattle. He has, as the foundation of his stock, a thousand cows chosen for breeding, and a hundred brood-mares, who sport around us. I was looking the other day with astonishment at the fine shapes, the straight backs, deep chests, nervous throats, and fine heads of all these horned beasts. "How is it," I asked Capel, "that amongst such thousands of cattle you have so many model animals ? I look in vain for one of those saddle- backed oxen, or humpbacked long-faced cows that one sees in our fields. But no, here all their dorsal spines might have been drawn with a line, and their heads cast in a mould ! " " It is the result," said he, " of the one illiberal measure taken by our democratic Government. Stallions, rams, and horses can only be introduced into the Colony if they have received a prize in England, or in the neighbouring colonies. All these horses are thoroughbred, their sire cost 1400Z. at Melbourne. The sheep which you have seen in the fields between this ^5^ yoiirney up the Country. [Chap. VIII. and Bendigo are of the purest Saxon merino breed ; rams were imported from Saxony at a cost of 480Z. Finally, all my stock, which are of the Diu-ham breed, are descended from that magnificent bull you saw the other day near the Walkool ; he cost me 800Z., and carried off the iirst prize at the London cattle show." Fifteen thousand cattle of so good a breed ! Are not the figures amazing ; and, to credit them, should one not require to see, as I do at this moment, these fine herds grazing in this immense enclosure ? I asked my host how many oxen and cows he expected to have this year : " Impossible to say," said he. " I can't tell within a thousand or two, so many die, sometimes, in the bush ; a good many are born, too, of which I know- nothing ; we shall not know till near Christmas. For the next ten days 1 shall ride over the run from morn- ing till night, and we shall drive all the herds into the great 800 acre meadow near the house ; all the fat beasts we shall drive into another enclosure. I don't think there will be more than 7000 this year. I lost a good deal in the drought four years ago, about 20,000Z, Well, these 7000 beasts I shall send in herds of five or six hundred to the enclosures which I have near Melbourne, Ballarat, Bendigo, and all the mining centres, and I hope to sell them at an average of lOZ. If it does so happen, I shall give up my claim and return to England. I was offered 90,000Z. for it last year and refused it. Thanks to the Murray, while other runs suffer, mine prospers daily ; the damp from the river has made my fortune, and I quite reckon Chap. VIII.] A Cattle-Station. -157 upon getting 30,000?. more for my claim than I was offered." These are matters which can only be seen here, and are well worth studying. All the time of my stay here I have been learning fresh particulars ; and every evening, after our pleasant chat round the fire in the hut, I put down on a scrap of paper all the figures which Capel was kind enough to give me, and which I was greatly afraid of forgetting. I know all about a cattle-station now ; but to tell you the sum of the net annual profits is impossible ; our squatter never knows exactly, since he only makes up his accounts within about a thousand or fifteen hundred cows. In short, if this life in the wilderness should retain him another year — for there are many charms in this wild existence — if he does not make up his mind to sell his lease and stock for the 90,000Z. offered to him, or the 120,000Z. which he hopes to get, he will have what he calls an ordinary year. To meet the annual expenses of 3115?. he will sell four thousand oxen for 28,000?., and eighty young horses for 960Z. ; his profits will therefore be more than 25,600Z. During this year 5000 calves will have been born, either of the chosen herd or of the beasts of passage ; and, giving a thousand beasts for the chances of sick- ness or accidents, in 1867 there will again be 15,000 beasts on his run. Having since 1852 made between 16,000?. and 20,000?. a year, he can, at any time, con- vert this floating capital into about 120,000?. Fifteen years' work will assure him a joyful return to Europe. 158 Journey up the Country. [Chap, vi 11. But I fear that all these fig-ures will weary you, so I leave off. Think only of the owner of 15,000 cattle, the holder of 445 square miles, and remember that there are in this extraordinary country people who possess three or four times as much as Capel. Chap. IX.] Ride to Thulc. 159 CHAPTER IX. A PROPRIETOR OF SIXTY THOUSAND SHEEP. Thule — Fishing by torchlight — A " corrobori " or native war-dance — The balance-sheet of a sheep-station — The ornythorynx — Con- trast between Australian productions — Echuca and the railroad. \Wi August. — To horse again ! and followed by our animals, laden with swan, ostrich, and kangaroo skins, we take our way along the north bank of the river towards the east south-east. Six streams cross our path, and the inundations, make their passage a work of danger ; but with spurs where can one not go ? In the evening we saw far off a pretty group of huts ; it was the station at Thule, where Mr. Woolselly gave us a cordial welcome. He has here four thousand oxen and sixty thousand sheep ! Towards the north, as far as the eye can reach, the valley is full of lagoons, thick woods surrounded by water, numerous lakes to the right and left, islets covered with reeds and creeping plants, all promising us very good sport. 14^A August. — A tribe of Blacks is encamped close by ; they are distinguished from those we saw the other day by lines drawn in white chalk on their foreheads and chests. Tliey seemed delighted at the siglit of us, and while their horrible half-naked wives, carrying their i6o A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. ix. brats across their shoulders, stood giggling together on the thresholds of their stinking huts, some of the men followed us, and seemed enthusiastic in their ardour for the chase. They really answered quite as well as dogs ; if a crane or a swan fell wounded into the middle of the lake, the Blacks would throw themselves at once into the water, and, after a quarter of an hour's swim, bring us back our game. Suddenly they would throw themselves flat on their stomachs, and make the most energetic signs to us to do the same : a flight of pelicans was approaching. These good people, adorned with wooden rings in tlieir lips, and ornaments in their noses, made themselves our slaves ; and the gift of a few ends of cigars, in honour of our happy accession, made us absolute kings of all these blackamoors. Signs were our only language, we had no politics, and no debates. The first part of the night was uncommonly long. The tobacco, and a few drops of brandy, got rather into the heads of our black acolytes, and while we were following a flock of ibis our friends disappeared. We were a long way from the hut, in a wild and utterly unknown country ; we were lost, wading in the mire, entangled among the creepers, without a compass, and with no star in the slcy to guide us. After three mortal hours, we suddenly found the most awful smell in the woods : " I recognize it," cried I, " our Blacks are liere!" And, in fact, two hundred yards further, we found our band sleeping soundly at the foot of a tree. They really were good fellows ; no sooner awake, than they took up again our heavy trophies of birds, and Chap. IX.] War Dance. i6i their spears, whicli were stuck into the ground round them, and led us back to the hut at racing pace. The Blacks were certainly destined to attract us to- day, for while we were dining ravenously, after, such a day's work, we heard suddenly some wild cries, signs of excitement in the whole tribe. We hastened to the spot ; the lake seemed illuminated with flaring torches ; human figures, black as night, ran in and out, brandish- ing a kind of javelin. In their joyful excitement, at the arrival of the new white men, it appeared that they had got up a torchlight fishing party. Lying, or kneeling, in hoUowed out trunks of trees, in one hand holding a resinous torch, in the other a harpoon made of pointed fish-bones, the chiefs traversed the lake, making vigorous thrusts at the great fish attracted by the light. The fish struggled furiously, and three times a Black 'was cap- sized. There soon lay on the banks a dozen fine fresh- water cod, the Murray cod, some of them four feet long. The whole tribe was in movement, screaming vocifer- ously. The black ladies, who at first held back, came nearer by. degrees, still giggling, and carrying small javelins. These are terrible weapons; a fish-hook is fastened to the end, and once in the enemy's body it can only be taken out by being drawn through from side to side — a pleasant prospect ! But the one thing which strikes us, is the frightful putrid smell exhaled by the whole race at every pore. Presently the great fish are arranged in a trophy on a hillock ; each native brandishes his torch and his spear, and the " corro- bori," or war-dance, begins. Sham fights, back jumping, VOL. I. M 1 62 A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. ix. savage shouts, leaping on one foot, wrestling, nothing was wanting of all that Cook and La Perouse described formerly. The entertainment lasted late, but the sight was so curious that the hours passed unheeded. You can conceive nothing so extraordinary as this dance of death, the red glow setting off the meagre limbs of these ebony figures. The shrill cries of their monotonous chant, added to the fantastic eifect of these black crea- tures, barely covered with a belt of some wild beast's skin, performing their frenzied gambols, arms in hand, around their prey. The "corrobori" ends with a general round dance, and a great fire of dried grasses, which lights up the whole tribe. We then retired, as much bewildered as delighted at the sight. One thing struck me after this wild phantasmagoria, and that was the musical sound of the laneuasre of these Blacks, when they are not insanely dancing and using their weapons. Several chiefs, and even some women, came near to look at us, and addressed us in a flood of words which were Greek to us. Of this dialect, little taught in our schools, I have picked up only a few common words : — Narra-waraggaraTi . . Tattawattah-onganina Pounnamountah . . . . Loah-maggalantah Luggahnah ola'i hahna Luggahnah ahouiota . . Make haste. Lead me. Emu. Water. To the right. To the left. I carry away a very pleasant recollection of this tribe. They swim like Newfoundland dogs, chatter like mag- Chap. IX.] Evenings in the Htit. 163 pies, and have kept me laughing the whole day. But this evening, sitting at our feet was a Black, who, for a dozen years past, has been a sort of spoilt child of our host, and who has learned a sort of anglo-savage dialect, which one can sometimes understand. He begins every- thing with me, me. " Me love white men, but never see white women." Then, showing five blue marks tattoed on his right arm, " That my father make me every time he lull white men ; oh, my father ! he kill twenty-five white men before he die ; but me very good, me." Ibth August. — The Blacks have led us over hill and dale, and we have loaded them gradually with some sixty large water fowl and a dozen turkeys. But I am no longer going to talk sport to you ; I want to describe to you our evenings in the hut, when sitting over the fire smoking twenty pipes of delicious tobacco, each tells some story of his life, whether in Europe or Australia. Yesterday we talked of nothing but the " corrobori," the national and military " cancan " of the savages ; this evening we learnt from our host what a sheep station is. When he landed in Australia in 1855 he rode up the country as far as these meadows. The spot pleased him ; it was verdant and uncultivated. He wished to be free to create, to reign alone over this immense tract, and to see around him as far as the horizon nothing but the sheep on his own estate. He has lived a hermit's life, as a bushmanj but he has succeeded, M 2 1 64 A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. ix. and he is happy. He has 60,000 sheep on his run, a tract of 250,000 acres of pasture -land. No fences, which makes an enormous saving over the cattle runs. The sheep that we have seen lately, in our shooting expeditions over the country, rove about in flocks of a thousand each, and each flock, which sleeps in the open air summer and winter, and always makes gradually for the valleys where the tender grass and the salt bushes attract them, is under the care of one shepherd, who foUows on horseback. It seems that there are runs where an average of two acres and a half is sufficient for two- sheep in the year; but here, our host told us, in consequence of the dryness of some of the higher ground, of the lagoons, and thinly scattered bush, ten acres are required for three sheep ; so that for all his flocks now nearly 200,000 acres are wanted. This leaves still a surplus of meadow-land, which would enable him to raise the number of his beasts to 75,000. For the first outlay he had to build huts, provision stores, carts, in fact to provide himself and his shep- herds with all the necessary materials for a settlement, however homely it might be, in a country where no white man had yet established himself. This amounted to about 400?. Then, a hundred good horses, for the transport of the wool and the use of the shepherds, cost him 1600Z. Finally, he bought from the squatters within a hundred miles round 8000 ewes (at an average of 9s.), from whom he bred all the immense flocks which we now see. He scattered them over his 250,000 acres in eight lots, left to wander at will. Chap. IX.] Sheep-Shearing. 165 3600Z. for the ewes and 400Z. for a hundred rams, total 4000Z. His annual expenses are as follows : the Government Commission, taking into consideration the good and bad qualities of the ground, valued the whole run at 750Z. a-year, plus 20s. per thousand sheep, making 810?. He has 60 men always in his pay to look after the flocks, and 20 for the transport ; all receive 20s. a week, and their food costs as much. The whole amount is 4160Z. At the season of sheep -shearing, companies of a hundred shearers travel about the country, stopping at each run, and do their work with astonishing rapidity. On an average these hundred men can shear twenty- five sheep a-day each, total two thousand five hundred. In twenty-four or twenty-five days the fleeces of sixty thousand animals fall beneath their shears, and the wool is quickly collected. Including the feed of the men (315?.), the shearing, which cost 16s. per hundred sheep, comes to about 798?. It is a curious sight, it seems, for, as at home bands of reapers go from farm to farm cutting down with their sickles the corn which has covered the earth, so here when the troops of shearers invade the meadows in a very few days thousands of sheep are shorn, and the fortunate squatters quickly raise pyramids of bales of wool. The sheep-shearing causes the same anxiety to the squatters as the harvest does to our farmers. The wool once ready, all haste must be used to send it to Melbourne, and thence to the London market to meet the first demands. The 1 66 A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. ix. difficulty of feeding so many animals collected together in one spot is another reason for not stinting the number of hands ; and if the fine weather seems settled so good an opportunity must not be lost. Many a man has been ruined by stormy weather coming after the shear- ing, and those who have done their work too slowly during the fine weather have seen thousands of lambs killed by the terrible hail of Australia as autumn came on, and ewes dying by hundreds in a few days, killed by the cold and rain of two or three months' dura- tion. If a machine could be invented for shearing sheep by steam what an economy it would be to the squatter ! The shearing is the turning point between the expenses and the profits. Each sheep gives on an average five pounds of wool, when washed. The sixty thousand beasts belonging' to our host have yielded him this year three hundted thousand pounds of wool, which, being sold at once for the London markets for Is. M. per pound, have pro- duced a total of about 22,440Z. At the present moment there are only sixty thousand sheep on the run at Thule; but three months ago there were more than sixty-eight thousand. Since then a flock of eight thousand fat sheep have been sold to the butchers at Melbourne and Ballarat for 12s. apiece, or 4800Z. This year, therefore, has been a splendid year for the run at Thule ; and the result is the following balance- sheet, correct, Mr. Woolselley tells me, within a few pounds : — Chap. IX.] A Balance-SJicct. 167 TEAELT EXPENSES. BEOEIPTS. Eent £ 810 Shepherds 4160 Shearers 795 Transport and sundries 600 Sale of wool . . „ meat .. £22,440 4,800 £27,240 £6365 Xet profit . . .. .. £20,875. Observe that on taking the lease he put into the undertaking a capital of 5600Z., but that if he gave it up at once he would only lose a few hundreds sunk in huts and waggons, while his sixty thousand sheep would still remain, representing a capital of 65,0O0Z. Here you may see what a sheep run in Australia is ; generalities are not the fashion of the day, I send you positive figures. I have but one correction to make. Tlie run is managed by Mr. Woolselley, but belongs to Mr. Cald- vell, his brother-in-law, who possesses and himself manages another run of fifty thousand sheep some three hundred miles further west. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that these £ne results are the yearly average. As it requires a constitution of iron to live this solitary life in the ' irilderness, always on horseback under the burning rays of the sun, or the two months' continuance of rain, so also a squatter should possess strength of mind not to lose courage under the terrible disasters which may befall him. Seven years ago three thousand lambs were killed here in one day by a hailstorm ; in 1861 fifteen thousand ewes died of drought; in 1863 four thousand five hundred were drowned by an inundation. 1 68 A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. IX. Fickleness is the rule of the weather in Australia. By the side of a flourishing run another run is inundated. One province is devastated by a waterspout ; another sees thousands of formerly verdant acres suddenly so terribly burnt up by the sun that its rays falling on the dried grass are sufficient to set it on fire, and to rediice the whole surface to a black and calcined crust, where thousands of sheep wander only to starve and die. A large part of the run at Thule was dried up in this manner five years ago. Mr. Woolselley foUowedlthe example of many other victims of the same disaster, and resorted to boiling down. He packed his sheep a little more closely, and ptit thirty-five thousand into the 120,000 acres which stijl remained green ; the other twenty thousand he caused to enter one by one, not into a gulf of salt water like those of Panurge, but into a fiery gulf. Three enormous cauldrons, something in the style of small gasometers, were set up on the plain, and for three months ths shepherds, become stokers, piled up sheep upon sheep, to be converted by the fire into an ocean of tallow. Sad ending to all their labour ! How many fine flockk are now contained in a few barrels of this vulgar sub- stance! But, at any rate, it was a good expedient to meet the disaster ; and that year eighteen hundred andi seventy-nine tons of tallow, worth 75,000Z., were exported' from the province of Victoria. As to our host's four thousand bullocks, he sends them to graze on a run adjacent to the sheep run, and keeps a separate account for them ; but of them I need Chap. IX.] The Squatters Life. 169 say nothing, our friend Capel's statements are sufficient. I must say I am very glad to have been able to see so closely the two kinds of labour which have made the prosperity of Australia, and which are certainly the most characteristic things in the land. I send you as brief an account as possible, written on our return from shooting. As you may see, it is no longer of any use to land here without a farthing and hope to make a fortune. Such extraordinary things can only occur in the first twenty years of a colony ; and here the pastoral colony is thirty years old. Capital is necessary now if a man wishes to rise quickly ; and while in France hardly any money can be found for Algeria, which lies at our door, the English are to be admired for sending millions without hesitation to the Antipodes. The squatter whose herds we have lately been driving had to stake 5600?. at the outset and take his chances. If the first year had been a bad one he would have required as much more at the end of twelvemonths to set him afloat again. I only speak of what I have seen, but I leave you to imagine what sums must be required for the exceptional runs of which we have been told, where one squatter alone, Mr. Collins, owns 210,000 sheep, and another 170,000. All this is the squatter's life taken from the material point of view. There are great complaints made here of the opposition offered to the squatters in the political arena, of their social influence being set aside at Melbourne, of new laws attacking them, and causing the subdivision of the runs. But I will wait to speak 1 70 A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. ix. of the laws till I have heard the people who make them, and of the general statistics of the country till I can consult the Government blue-books. 16^A August. — We killed this morning one of the most curious animals possible to see, an ornythorynx. We were skirting a creek when we suddenly caught sight of an ornythorynx, running like a beaver along a narrow tunnel excavated in the bank. We gave chase, when it took to the water, and a shot killed it at once. It is a curious creature, this web-footed quadruped ; a kind of flattened otter, a foot and a half long, with the fur of the beaver and the beak of a duck, and the most eccentric thing of all is that it lays eggs and suckles its young. With this prize our guns finish their work. Our last hunt was on horseback. A party of three horsemen, we charged from three different directions upon a band of emus which we had caught sight of at a distance of half a mile. After an hour and a half's furious riding the emus fell at our horses' feet. Setting aside the danger, the chase is as exciting as that of the great kangaroo, and though our horses were thoroughbreds and capital goers, I thought for an hour that we should never get up to this great bird, whose strides were four yards long and always in exactly the same direction. Our journey up the country is over. It has given us an opportunity of seeing some astonishing things. A really strange country this. There is an animal half duck and half furry, which lays eggs and suckles its young. Chap. IX.] Native Anomalies. 171 You pick up the branch of a tree, throw it into the water, and it goes straight to the bottom ; it is a kind of ebony. You take up a stone from the water side, and throw it in, and it floats. It is a kind of pumice stone. Cherry stones grow on the outside of the cherry. The female emu lays eggs, which the male hatches. Also, they are birds with no feathers on their wings. You find yourself in a wood, but it is useless to look for shade, the leaves all turn their edges to the sun. You give two or three cigars to a native ; as he is perfectly naked he can only carry them under his arm- pit, or in his woolly locks. The kangaroos are more fortunate, for they have a pouch, which will hold their young ones even after they have been weaned. They have four legs, but of the thousands that I have seen flying before me not one has ever made use of more than two in running. As for their tails, they make the oddest possible use of them; as soon as they stop they sit down upon them, as a cocoa seller at home does upon his stick. We travelled more than three hundred miles on horseback, seeing always the same great tree, the gum-tree. They are good for a cold, but monoto- nous. There are no stones except on the bank of the streams, and but few there. There are green swards of turf stretching for sixty miles without a pebble. On the other hand Burke and Sturt found, six hundred I'll A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. ix. miles from here, great stony deserts, where their animals died of hunger. Does not all this seem veiy extraordinary ? Australia seems to have been created in caprice, and who knows ? — it may not yet be finished ; the elements for con- structing a country like any other are there, but they are separated. Here six hundred square miles of stones ; there, nine hundred miles of turf ; further on, water. " The difficulty is not to find a soil where there is gold, but rather to find one where there is not ; " and this is true. There is gold everywhere, in greater or less abundance, but everywhere. Eich in gold then, but poor in soil fit for cultivation, is not Australia peculiarly the country of miners and wanderins; herds? It can never be an agricultural country. My impression is that the new squatters must advance further into the interior, sending out their herds over the thousands of miles of pasture land discovered by the explorers; if they diminish the distance between them they will interfere with one another. The fortune of this country does not consist in the quality of the soil but in its quantity. 18^^ August. — After fourteen hours' riding we arrived to-day at the banks of the Murray, about 120 miles above Gonn, where we saw it for the first time. The river here is narrower and more rapid ; the banks delightfully green. Our road still lies on turf alone. We continue in the east- south- east direction which we Chap. IX.] Echuca. 173 took on leaving Gonn, sleeping at night in our cloaks in the open field. 19^^ August. — Another fifty-eight miles along the Murray, and our view along its banks is no longer of vast herds of cattle. Towards evening some huts appear ; we are near Echuca, a town built of wood, of some three years' standing. A dozen or so of public houses, a steam saw mill, a ferry, streets where you sink to the middle in the broken-up tui-f, woollen ware- houses, a railway station, which is only a field orna- mented with rails and a steam engine, — such is the appearance of Echuca, an advanced post of Australian civilisation. This line of railroad is only a continuation of that which we left at Bendigo. We have, in fact, described on horseback a triangle of 190 miles. Ben- digo forms the south angle, Gonn the west angle, Echuca the east angle. When one has travelled so many miles on horseback, seeing nothing but kangaroos, bullocks, and sheep, the railroad makes quite a novel effect. I am told that this line is the longest in Australia. Echuca, which is thus connected with Melbourne, is on the boundary of Victoria and New South Wales. The colony is thus traversed by a Una of rails from end to end, over a distance of 155 miles. I am told too that the town, if town it is, was only built after the completion of the railroad. So that while with us a railroad is the result of the wants of a settled population, here it is the forerunner and cause of new settlements. You have here an immense extent 174 -A Great Sheep Proprietor. [Chap. I x. of fertile pasture land ; you wish to facilitate the progress of the colonists, and draw a straight line from Melbourne to the north, which touches the frontier of a neighbouring colony, and immediately the colonists dis- perse themselves along the whole length of the road, wjiich satisfies their wants and presents an outlet for ' their produce. One may say that " stations," farms, and towns, spring into life along the line. The prosperity of the pastoral settlers, brought into life and quickened by the beneficial agency of steam, extends suddenly right and left over country formerly unproductive, on account of the long and difficult approaches. Boldness works wonders, and a colony advances with giant strides, free from all the stamped papers, the objections and decrees of " M, le Prefet," which a French town of 3000 inhabitants may study for years if they have peti- tioned for a railroad by means of an official candidate. We only remained an hour at Echuca. Towards the evening we took a train for Melbourne, and in one night were back again in the great town. We could not make up our minds to leave so soon our good friend Capel, to whom we owe so much, so we have brought him away with us. People here think us very much burnt and wild-looking. We bring away with us the most delightful recollections of our bush life. One thing only I have not brought away with me, and that is my hair, which the damp nights passed in the open field under the stars have caused to come off bodily. These nights have made me — if not as wise — at least as bald as Hippocrates. Chap. X.] Theatricals in Atistr alia. 175 CHAPTEE X. OUE LAST DATS IN VICTORIA. 'L'Africaine' in Australia — Clubs and evening parties— The lyre-bixd — Tlie clergy — Reservoirs at Yean -Yean — Botanical Gardens — Summing up of statistics, 21s^ August. — Since our return to town operas and State dinners have taken the place of the fantastic dances of the Blacks, and roast kangaroo eaten under a hut. 'Les Huguenots,' 'L'Africaine,' 'Robert le Diable,' are given at Melbourne in a splendid house, where the ladies dresses, as elegant as you would find them in London, quite carry one back to Europe : the scenery is wonderfully good ; the singing of the prima donna alone reminds us that we are at the antipodes. Sir Eedmond Barry, the founder of the Museum and Library, Chief Judge of the Supreme Court, Chancellor of the University, &c., in short, the great man of Victoria, gave one day a great dinner in honour of the Prince, at which all the Ministers and men of conse- quence in the Colony were present. I only mention this dinner, to show you what incredible luxury there is here ; our amphitryon has the fine manners of former days, made the more noticeable by his old- fashioned dress, with "jabot," tights, and pumps with buckles. The powdered footmen, the splendid room, 176 Our Last Days in Victoria. [Chap..x. the exquisite dinner sent up by a French cook, gave us anew a picture of Old England after four months' absence. Sir Redmond told us how he had marked out on the fields, the streets of the present city : how in two or three weeks, tents had succeeded the long grass, and in less than a year stone houses had succeeded the tents ; between 1851 and 1852, the value of ground in Melbourne had risen a thousand per cent. He told us also of the rapid progress of the UniTersity, which for some years past has conferred degrees as valid as those of Oxford and Cambridge. Equally well versed in arts and sciences. Sir Redmond seems to have brought with him here all the English institutions. He has brought his cellar with him too, and offers to his guests an immense bottle of Port, holding about eight quarts, adorned with ancient spider's-webs, and decorated with a classic ode of Horace, written on a parchment which has grown old with the bottle ; the wine is so good that it reminds one of our number of the lines effaced by time, and we drink to the health of absent friends. It is a common custom at the end of dinner in Australia ; and this recollection of their distant country, daily repeated, is quite in ac- cordance \vith the motto of the inhabitants of this land, so profoundly true — " Coelum, non animum muto." The next day the Melbourne Club gave a great dinner to the Prince, where a hundred and twenty members were present. Here they drink champagne like water, and the clubs are as liandsome as in London, How far off we are already from the savages ! Chap. X.] The Lyre-bird. 177 23r(Z August, Dandinong. — That we may not get out of practice, we are again roaming the wilds. A new bird ilies out of a bush, then a second, tben a third ! They are lyre-birds, the most charming birds of AustraKa ; their bodies are black, and about the size of a small hen ; the legs are short, but the tail is more than two feet long. When he nms into the bush, he lets it trail upon the ground like a gracefully waving train ; as soon as he perches, he spreads his tail like a peacock, and, opening it out like a fan, displays a yeritable lyre, a light and graceful antique lyre ; the two great outside feathers, white and flame-coloured, curve in naturally, then bend out again, thus forming the frame ; the stiff, slender feathers in the centre re- present the strings. One expects to hear melodious warblings as of a plaintive song issue from their seem- ingly vibrating chords ; but the lyre-bird, the bird emblematic of music, is born dumb. Nature in Australia, paradoxical and inconsequent, has so decreed. I killed one, missed another : a shout of laughter was heard at a distance in the bush. Then I fired at an opossum leaping from a high branch — it fell, I ran to pick it up, when it divided ; the dead opossum mother was in my hands, the young one, escaping out of its mother's pouch, had already reached the lowest branches before I began to understand this pretty little trick of sleight- of-hand. A second rude burst of laughter struck my ear, seeming each time to go further off. " He laughs best who laughs last," I muttered, as I reloaded my gun, and began to search the bush, unable to conceive VOL. I. N 178 Our Last Days in Victoria. [Chap. x. who there could be in these wild forests to find so much amusement in each of my mishaps. My surprise was great when the laugher began again — it ^^as a bird! I killed him when he was laughing his heartiest, a laugh which I defy any traveller to distinguish from the shouts of a human voice. I was quite ashamed of my surprise and anger, when I found the bird at my feet. I was told this evening that it is the Laughing Jackass, a kind of crested jay, with a long beak, and a body twice the size of a European jay. It was so named by the first colonists, astonished, as I was, at being met with noisy laughter in these virgin forests. A few magpies were our last victims ; we killed them. only for the sake of the curious arrangement of the black and white in their feathers, wliich are symmetrically disposed in exactly the reverse way to what you see in Europe. In the evening, while we were stewing down a kangaroo's tail into excellent soup, and roasting two or three fine parroquets at the end of a string, the sound of a horse's galloping brought us to the door of our wooden hut. The horseman stopped, dismounted, and addressed us by our names. He was a worthy Irish priest, fat and jolly, who had heard, I know not how, of our hunting expedition, and had come to see if we were not dying of hunger. With an Irishman, the ice is very soon broken, and from our talk over the blazing hearth, I learned many things of which I was before ignorant concerning the Australian clergy. He is a country priest, whose district six years ago ex- tended over fifteen or eighteen square miles, and whose Chap. X.] The Clergy. 179 salary was then 200Z. a year. At present, the popula- tion having greatly increased, the parish has been divided in two, and he is reduced to 100/. a year. As you may see, the Colonial Government has some fine ideas of finance. Contrary to the old errors of the mother country, the Victorian Legislature have ad- mitted no State Church, and have established eq[uality of religion before the law, as well as in the budget. The privileges of the Anglican Church have, there- fore, no existence on this English ground, where a youthful democracy, free from all ancient trammels, has set to work so wonderfully to bring everything on a level of complete equality. Religious sects are conse- quently placed under no jurisdiction but what the faith- ful impose voluntarily upon themselves. The great problem which troubles the United Kingdom has been resolved here calmly and successfully by the good effects of liberty. The colony votes an annual subsidy of 500,000/. to the clergy scattered over its territory ; this sum figures in an appendix to the fundamental constitution, and is divided between the different sects in proportion to the number of members of each faith. In Victoria, there are about 425,000 Protestants, 140,000 Catholics, 3000 Jews, and 58,000 of no religion at all. Besides the salaries of the 430 clergymen, the subsidy is proportionately applied to the building of churches ; and there are already more than 8150 in the colony. N 2 1 80 Our Last Days in Victoria. [Chap. x. This material support from the Government, was necessary to the establishment of public worship, during the social ordeal of the gold fever, and the laborious formation of the pastoral colony. But now that Aus- tralia has settled into its normal state, public feeHng is beginning to turn against the subsidy. Some of the smaller sects have already rejected the assistance which they used to receive, and the Lower House has several times passed a bill abolishing the appendix to the constitution. Up to the present time the Upper House has rejected it, but it is evident that before many years have passed, the colony of Victoria will have a free church in a free state. The worthy priest stayed in our hut till late, then remounted his horse and disappeared at full speed into the bush. Two days later we rejoined the Melbourne road to await Cobb, Cobb, and Co.'s stage-coach, an uncovered waggon, painted red, and drawn by seven horses, which comes from a hundred and twenty miles up the country. It was packed fuU of miners, shep- herds, and sheepshearers, who told the most wonderful stories of their wandering life. 30ft August. — Our last week at Melbourne has been an especially busy one. For the last six weeks we have been so overwhelmed with kindness and civility in Victoria that our farewell visits could not be hastily paid. But I must still give you an account of t\vo great works: the reservoir at Yean-Tean, the ad- vantages of which are felt by the 130,000 inhabitants Chap. X.] Reservoir of Yean-Yean. i8i of Melbourne; and the botanical garden, which is a kind of Providence for the whole of Australia. The Yean-Yean is an artificial lake, which has been made nineteen miles from Melbourne, and six hundred feet above the level of the city. An embankment of more than 900 yards in length, and seven yards high, dams up the waters of a valley, over an extent of more than three square miles; this reservoir, which contains about 5,031,000,000 gallons, feeds the town so abundantly as to provide 135 gallons per person per day, and the pressure is so great that not only in cases of iire can its streams of water, admirably distributed, stop at once the progress of the flames, but in a great many of the manufactories of the town it has replaced steam as a motive power. This artificial lake is formed by the river Plenty. We were told by the inspector of public works that this immense undertaking had cost nearly 820,000/. ; it was made by the aid of a colonial loan, but it already brings in 6O,000Z. a year, and gives promise of a much larger revenue as soon as the water has been distributed in the neighbouring suburbs. This is one of the works performed by a town born only in 1 851 ! Ah uno disoe omnes. Besides the charming public gardens, there is a splendid botanical garden at Melbom-ne, situated on a verdant hill ; this is the little kingdom of Dr. Muller. We spent there with him several hom-s, which were only too short. A member of all the learned societies in all parts of the world, and covered with orders, the excellent doctor is the most liberal of monarchs ; every 1 82 Oitr Last Days in Victoria. [Chap. x. morning he sets free hundreds of his subjects ; they are common sparrows, which come to him from Germany in cages of three hundred, and every ship which anchors in Port Philh'p brings him thousands of these little birds, which we detest in Europe, but which in Australia destroy swarms of noxious insects. These involuntary travellers — the sparrows — however, lose nothing by the change when they take their flight under a new heaven; the mean temperature of the whole year is 59°, as at Eome. In the winter it is 50°, in the spring 57°, in the summer 69°, in the autumn 60° Fahrenheit. The good doctor has often risked his life in the interests of science. He had often already travelled through unexplored portions of the interior, to collect specimens of natural history and botany unknown be- fore; he had drawn up also an account of the whole flora of Australia, an immense work, the fruit of the most arduous labour, when, two years ago, in 1864, he started an expedition to search for the unfortunate ex- plorer Leichhardt. Leichhardt is another of the martyrs to discovery, whose memory so often touches us in Australia. Between 1844 and 1846, Leichhardt had made some great journeys into the interior, where it was thought gold would be found, but where he discovered endless meadow land ; in 1847, he started from Moreton Bay to explore the country to the north-east; seventeen years passed with no news from him, no possibility of following his footsteps. Dr. Miiller moved public Chap. X.] Dr. Miillcr. 183 opinion ; considerable funds were quickly subscribed from all sides ; he sent Macintyre to follow up some fresh, indications given by the natives, and himself searched unweariedly the wild country round the Gulf of Carpentaria (1200 miles from Melbourne), seeking eagerly a countryman whom he still hoped to meet, often without finding water for eight or ten days, then •losing his provisions, and yet having to show fight to the tribes who attacked him with their poisoned arrows ; he returned at last exhausted, without having found anything. He told us of his excitement at the discovery of any apparent trace ; exhausted and enfeebled, it was only after many months that he gave up the search, hesitating between the accounts of the natives who declared the explorer to have been drowned, and those who, adorned with some European spoil, gave him to understand that they had eaten a small piece of the learned Leichhardt. With equal boldness and perseverance, Dr. Miiller has set up beacons for the adventurous spirits of the rising generation — ^he is enthusiastic for every noble end. He encourages the new squatters, and tells them, "Beyond the white stony deserts, the granite and sand, you will find pasture for thousands of herds." But the misfortune of Aus- tralia is the want of water ; he wishes to remedy this, and to this end consecrates almost all the funds of the botanical gardens; and he is succeeding. He dis- tributes over the interior of the country thousands of shrubs reared in his nurseries ; little streams form rapidly round the young woods ; the results are splendid 1 84 Our Last Days in Victoria. [C(iap. x. already, and each year confirms them. On barren plains he has created woods and streams in more than a hundred places. But what he is most enthusiastic about at present is the having put himself at the head of a great moyement, to induce all the Australian colonies and the mother- country to construct, at their common expense, a rail- road from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. If would traverse Australia from end to end, opening up the interior to colonisation, and would create an infinitely shorter route for communication with Europe and China. It is a splendid project. This people is so bold, so easily excited by a great idea, that influential persons at Melbourne hope to see these wild dreams realised within ten years. They have already got telegraphic wires acting over nearly 2600 miles in this colony, and over more than 10,450 in the whole of Australia. For they follow the shores of the Southern Ocean, and then of the Pacific, from Adelaide in the south-west to Port Denison in the north-east. These are the two extreme points of colonisation on the coast. Add to this the light-houses on all the dangerous parts of this line, and then remember that thirty-one years ago there was not a white man on the soil of Victoria. Before leaving the colony which we have, I think, dwelt upon suffi- ciently in every sense, I received from one of the members of the Government a thing which I was very anxious to get. It was the Blue Book of Victoria. A hasty glance over its annual accounts completed the feeling of admiration with which I had been struck at Chap. X.] Siatisiics — Poptdation. 1 85 first sight ; and I have endeavoured to extract the most prominent of these thousands of figures. Of an extent of territory little less than that of Great Britain, that is to say, of 55,546,875 acres, more than 37,771,875 are occupied by the cattle, 506,094 are used for agriculture, 3456 for the cultivation of the vine, and 464,125 for the gold mines. The population, which consisted of 8 people in 1835, of 31,000 in 1845, of 364,000 in 1855, amouuted last year to 626,000. Immigration, which averaged 2000 souls during the first five years, leaped to 94,000 in 1852, continued at the same height for several years, and during the last five fell to 27,000 each. Emigration, on the other band, nil in 1852, has attained now, in consequence of the discovery of gold in New Zealand, to 21,000 per annum. Since 1835, at intervals of ten years, the number of horses has risen ivom fifteen to 9000—32,000—121,000. That of horned cattle irom. fifty to 238,000—568,000 —621,000. Finally, the number of sheep from four hundred to 2,400,000—5,000,000—8,835,380 ! Since the commencement this young colony has exported 4,010,249 tons of wool, of the value of 30,783,640?., and 380,000 nuggets of gold, worth 152,000,000?. Does not this look really like the work of those good fairies of Australian commerce of whom I spoke the other day? I am perfectly amazed at the total 1 86 Our Last Days in Victoria. [ChAP. x. up of all that their wands have extracted CTery j'ear from the depths and the surface of this country. I will give you now a bird's eye view of last year's (1865) accounts, extracted and abridged from these labyrinths which people call statistics. The 8,835,380 sheep have yielded 18,850 tons of wool, worth 3,315,120Z. The gold mines have yielded 8,588,377?. The live cattle, leather, salted meat, &c. &c. sent out of the colony amount to the sum of 3,546,260Z., making a total of 13,150,748Z. for exportations. The imports, which in 1851 were only 1,056, OOOZ., and which had risen so high that ten years ago the balance was 5,88O,0O0Z. in their favour, have, happily for the colony, diminished, while the exports have augmented rapidly. The former have diminished, owing, first, to the salutary changes and moderation of wants, which began after the gold fever, and, secondly, to the progress and improvement of the local manu- factures, opposing to them the productions of their 2000 steam-engines, 650 factories, 74 breweries, &c. The latter have risen principally from the increase of the flocks of sheep, which raised the quantity of wool exported from 9932 tons to 18,850 tons. On the other hand, with liquors, flour, spices, shoes, stuffs, iron, coal, and machinery, the imports amount to 18,257,520?. More than seventeen hundred ships, weighing six hundred thousand tons, have this year brought here all that was necessary to supply so many newly created Chap. X.] Statistics — Public Expenditure. 187 wants, and have carried back to the old world, to India or the neighbouring colonies raw produce of equal value. Amongst all these details it struck me as curious to * see an item of 300,000?. for butter and cheese, for want of hands for milking, in a colony where there are almost as many cattle as inhabitants; and, for want of ma- chinery, the return of about 1 ,900,000?. worth of woollen goods, of which the raw material has been i-ound the world by Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, to be manufactured in Eui-ope. But this is the result of a rising colony. When I see the rapid progress made in thirty years, I feel certain that, if I returned here a few years hence, I should find it manufacturing its own goods, and exporting only the immense surplus of its native wealth. A trade of more than 26,408,280?. represents, then, the aggregate of private fortunes. The appearance of the State finances is different. Far more enormous works have been undertaken, without being followed by the same profits ; without liaving ever received, for any purpose whatever, one single penny from the Home Government, they pay the passage of immigrants, and maintain a colonial navy, besides all the public services, which are admirably organised in their minutest details, and highly paid. The necessary consequence of these works has been a loan, and the current debt is already 9,000,000?. ; it is negotiated at the rate of 6 per cent, and redeemable in 1891. The eagerness with which the greater part — 7,000,000?. — for the railroads, was taken up on the London Exchange shows the confidence felt 1 88 Our Last Days hi Victoria. [Chap. x. both there and here that, as with the former private works, in future " time will be money " to the State. So much premised, the annual public expenses, in- cluding the redemption of the debt, are well balanced with the receipts. These amounted last year to 2,933,200?., proceeding from three principal sources: about one-half from the customs, the other from the sale and lease of ground, the railway receipts and taxes. 6,162,000 acres have been sold since the first, and have produced more than 12,212,680?. In 18G5, 1156 squatters rented 31,841,937 acres, paying a total rent of 225,120?. This has been the rock of offence between the squatters and the agriculturists. The latter complained that they could only cultivate 506,100 acres, and produce only half the corn consumed by the colony ; that thousands of immigrants, seeking their fortunes under the sun of Australia, were obliged to settle six hundred miles further north, far removed from all communication ; and all this, they cried, because of the Government farmers, who had installed themselves first, and monopolised the ground for the good of their flocks and herds. This struggle, which has been somewhat serious, between the herd and the plough, and especially between the original legal occupants and the new arrivals, has caused the legislators to ask themselves whether it is just in a colony of 626,000 inhabitants to leave 35,842,000 acres in the hands of 1156 squatters, and if it was not neces- sary to the general good to give full scope to the immigration of labourers and small farmers, who, in- Chap. X.] Agriadhcrists mid Squatters. 189 habiting the same country, claimed the same advan- tages. The tendency of the new law is gradually to break up the large runs, and permit the invasion by degrees of the small farmers. This law has passed, and in future every small agriculturist may encroach year by year to the extent of one square mile upon a run ; thus applying a leech to the great breeding of cattle. Will it be beneficial? One must hope so. And if each run should be surrounded by a belt of corn-land, which will reduce the price of provisions in the whole colony, by a belt of population to whom he can more easily dispose of his produce, perhaps the squatter, whose complaint I can also understand, may console himself for the loss of his vast and formerly unlimited domain, by the sight of the prosperity of thousands wf immigrants who have followed the road to fortune which he himself pointed out to them. Let those then come boldly whom the colony invites anew to her fields and her manufactories. The whole or a part of the passage from Liverpool here is paid for all agriculturists or workmen, with their families. The latter earn from 15s. to 19s. a day, can get beef or mutton for Zd. per lb., bread for l\d., and pay 7s. 6d a week for a two-roomed cottage, which in 1854 let for 56s. for the same period. The former will go to the Treasury. They will find there a large map of the colony, its real treasure. All that is coloured red has been sold, all that is green is let ; from the white part they may select what they please, establish themselves there, and till the ground. 190 Our Last Days in Victoria. [Chap. x. For seven years they will only pay a rent of a sliilling an acre, on condition of buying at the end of the time this same acre for ten or twelve shillings. But the great demand of the immigration market is for — women ! The proportion, which was M to 100 men in 1838, is even now 64 to 100. The quo- tations are high, and the investment eagerly sought after. The immigrants, moreover, will find schools for their children provided by the Government with astonish- ing liberality ; it struck me as being a point of honour in Victoria. Education is free, and the clergy of every denomination both can and do have their private schools. But the national and purely secular education is alone given at the cost of the State. Children of all creeds are admitted, and religious instruction is left to the care of each denomination. Nearly a thousand schools are open, frequented by more than fifty thousand children, and statistics prove that amongst the children above five years of age four-fifths can read and write, and ten- elevenths can read. There is no sign of a conscription. In all Victoria there are only three hundred and fifty soldiers, sent by the mother-country, but in the pay of the colony. One last word, at the moment of embarkation, after seven weeks passed on this soil, will give you the epitome of my experiences during my stay: of all this white population not a hand — not one — has been held to me asking for alms. Chap. XL] Origin of Name. 191 CHAPTER XL VAN DIEMEN S LAND. Bass's Straits — An interesting meeting at Launceston — Hobart Town — Balls at the antipodes — Kuins of Frenoli tombs — Pisciculture — Cook's tree — Farewells — A hurricane — Political reminiscences — TVe take refuge at Eden. \st September, 1866. — We start to-day for Van Diemen's Land. I only know that it was not Van Diemen who discQvered it. It was Tasman, a brave and high-spirited young man, who in 16i2 was deeply in love with Mademoiselle Van Diemen, whose hard- hearted father, keeping her a prisoner in his splendid palace at Batavia, persisted in refusing him her hand. The young navigator upon this determined to go in search of new worlds; the existence of a great con- tinent in the Southern Ocean had been stated by Guiros and Torres in 1606, and confirmed between 1618 and 1627 by the Dutchmen Hertoge, Zeachen, Lewin, Nuitz, and De Witt. They had only discovered some points on the sea-shore, some hundreds of miles distant from one another, and had been driven from these by the savages. Tasman in his first voyage sailed com- pletely round this continent without really seeing it, but returned nevertheless convinced that the country which he had named formed a part of it. But he had 192 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. xi. also given the name and Christian names of his lady- love to all the islands in the Southern Ocean ; he car- ried back to the celebrated governor of Java the written reports of his discoveries, his charts, and curiosities from all the countries on which lie had planted the Dutch flag, and then at last obtained the hand of Mademoiselle Marie for his reward ! Is it allowable to ask whether fathers of families would be so refractory now-a-days — in Holland ? At half past three we weighed anchor ; the ' Derwent,' a screw-steamer, built at Glasgow, conveyed us, with some fifty other passengers. For more than an hour we steamed down the Yarra-Yarra, then darted rapidly across the bay of Port Phillip, which we had traversed so slowly the first time ; the forts fired off their guns, and the wind wafted after us, almost on the surface of the water, the heavy clouds of smoke crimsoned with the rays of the setting sun. Ind September. — Bass's Straits are passed, and at noon the shores of the island come into sight. It was not till a hundred and fifty-five years after Tasman's discovery, that in 1797, two young men. Flinders and Bass, coasting along from Sydney in a boat only ten feet long, discovered that Van Diem en's Land was an island, and separated from the continent by a deep gulf two hun- dred and seventy-one miles broad. At noon we were at the mouth of the Tamar ; it is a narrow and picturesque river, forced into a thousand curves by perpendicular basaltic rocks, and mountains Chap. XL] An Interesting Meeting. 193 wliose crests are covered with snow ; from time to time tributary streams or waterfalls open to us a charming vista of valleys filled with apple-trees in blossom, furze bushes, and thousands of flowers coming into life with the spring; then at every moment you may fancy yourself on a lake closed in on all sides ; it is rather a collection of small lakes than a river ; you question the possibility of getting out of it, and suddenly between two rocks appears a sombre gorge, you make a sharp turn, and a new lake appears in the distance. Surprise really follows surprise.- As night came on, we landed at the little town of Launceston, where there are about 10,000 inhabitants. But it looked very dull and dead to us after the rather American animation of the wealthy city of Melbourne. And then, too, it is the classic ground of the English convicts ; it is only fifteen years since these melancholy importations have ceased ; even on the quay we fancied we saw some dark, fierce faces, which seemed branded with their too illustrious origin. " Suppose we were to return to Melbourne?" we said to one another. But the silence of the evening, which did not begin cheerfully, owing to our feeling so lonely and far away in this stillness, was suddenly inteiTupted by the entrance of a very old man ; his venerable appear- ance, bold features, and long white hair, which gave him the grand and simple air of a patriarch, struck us at once. Advancing slowly, leaning on a rude staff, he began at once to speak to us of France, " for which his heart beat so warmly ; " then pointing to the north, asked us with the greatest simplicity whether we had VOL. I. 194 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. XL enjoyed our long journey in tlie colony of Victoria. " It is wonderful," said we, " when one thinks in how few years " " Yes," he answered, " when you think that Bateman is dead, and that it was I who, with Bateman, was the first to land at Port Philip in 1835, and to found a colony ! " It was Sams — the survivor of these two energetic men ! He sat down by the fire, and, seeing our interest and sympathy for him, yielded to our entreaties, and related to us his whole story. He left England in 1814, cariy- ing with him his small patrimony, and hoping to make his fortune, but he made more especially that of others. He established himself with his flocks in Van Diemen's Land. " At that time," said he, "the only known part of the great territory now called Victoria was the coast discovered by Bass. Once only an adventurous party of sailors had attempted to land, but the natives had quickly driven them back to the sea, and up to the 1st January, 1835, no white man had ventured to return. We were then living together with several honest labourers' families, employing the convicts as day-labourers, and inhabiting the slopes of the hills which now command the town ; all these families lived together really as one. We celebrated New Year's night after a strange fashion ; a great fire blazing on the mountain side lighted up our national flag, and we were all assembled round it, thinking of our absent country. There, before the others, Bateman and I took an oath to attempt some extraordinary adventure during the new year, and to carry a part of our flocks to the Chap. XL] Hobart Town. 195 other side of the straits, even should we be obliged to abandon them afterwards, hoping, if they prospered, to stocls: a part of the continent for our descendants. So said, so done ; we landed in June on the banks of the Yarra-Yarra, the hostile natives discharged their arrows at us and then fled. You know if our sheep have pros- pered ! After ten years my sons replaced me in Victoria. " Last year I wanted to see what had become of these solitary shores and immense meadows. I found palaces where these two hands had built a bark hut, railroads where I had made a path, thousands of sheep on a soil which we had conquered and opened to our fellow men." Afterwards the good man spoke to us with tears in his eyes of Captain Laplace, who in his voyage of discovery on board the ' Favorite ' had landed at Van Diemen's Land, and carried off one of his sons to give him a good education in France. It was the recollection of this that had won the old man's heart to the name of Frenchman. The son has returned, and has followed the example of his brothers. Each is at the head of a station in one of the Australian colonies, and all are on the road to fortune. Wh 8e])temher. — The island is traversed from north to south over a distance of 125 miles by a road constructed formerly by the convicts. We took this road to go to Hobart Town, the capital ; and would you believe that in this country, the nearest to the South Pole after Pata- gonia and Tawai-Pounammou, a classical English mail- coach with four horses runs daily ? We started at five o'clock in the morning ; at daybreak the great outlines o 2 196 Vaft Diemens Land. [Chap. XI. of Ben Lomond and Ben Nevis appeared to our left ; it is the most smiling landscape possible: sometimes of fields intersected by hedges as in England, sometimes wild bush covered with herds ; the metalled road, well engineered between rocks and torrents, is as good as any at home. From three points we have splendid panoramic views over the greater part of the island; they are the three passes that have to be crossed, and after fifteen hours on the road, and crossing the stone bridges over the Derwent and the Jordan, we entered silent Hobart Town. \oi'h Sejitember. — Ten days have passed very differently to what we could have imagined. In this town, which at first sight resembled the dreariest and most puri- tanical of Scotch towns, we have been constantly enter- tained in the most cordial and amiable manner. The Governor, Colonel Gore Brown, the ministers, a little nucleus of society of well-informed, cheerful, agreeable people, have given the Prince the most charming re- ception ; it was a joyful and most unusual event for the colony. Van Diemen's Land, which its inhabitants, more just than the geographers, call Tasmania, is cele- brated for its pretty girls and its beautiful apples, the daughters of Eve and that which lost Paradise to us. We found both greatly to our taste, in this oasis of the seat:, smiling and fruitful from its delicious climate, peaceful and far removed from the fever of speculations and mines, devoted to sober pleasures and the do- mestic virtues of a large family. At once, then, a whole series of entertainments was set on foot, and we Chap. XL] Ruins of French Tombs. 197 danced every night. Sometimes it was in the great armoury or the beautiful galleries filled with flowers of the Government House, sometimes in the drawing- rooms of the Speaker of the Upper House, or of some of the gi-eat landowners, who have very fine establish- ments in the town. Great dinners of twenty-four people, concerts, plays, croquet and riding-parties, always and everywhere with these charming young ladies, really made us each day forget that we were at the antipodes. Sunday was the only day left free to us ; we dedicated it to a sacred duty. AVe ascended a hill which overlooks Hobart Town, with the Catholic bishop ; at the summit, amidst rocks and trees, we searched for the vestiges of the graves, where were buried about forty sailors, who died here during the expedition of Dumont d'Urville with the sloops 'Astrolabe' and 'La Zelee' in 1840. A fragment of defaced stone has crumbled away ; the wooden crosses lie in disorder on the ground ; the little boards which held the inscriptions are falling to dust, decayed by time. Over them are spread now the great tjifts of a forest of geraniums which grow wild here. By scraping away the thick moss, by collecting the scattered pieces of these humble crosses, by searching the ground all round this collection of graves, we dis- covered with difficulty the gi-eater number of the names of those they contain, unfortunate victims of an epi- demic which had raged on board since the snows of the South Pole, and had made frightful havoc. We were greatly moved at seeing abandoned here, hidden and almost lost_ in the growing vegetation, the 198 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. XI. last traces of these Frenchmen who died in a far-off land. The Prince wishes to have the broken-down boundaries of these exiled graves repaired, and he gave orders that very evening for a large monumental stone where will be written all the names which we were able to recognise amongst these ruins. I gathered some flowers in the woods which overshadow them, hoping to take them home with me as memorials to the families of these unfortunate men. Think what emotion we must feel at sight of these graves, when far from all we love ourselves ! This is what is to be engraved on the large stone : — EXPEDITION BOUND THE WOELD OF THE SLOOPS 'L' ASTROLABE' AND 'LA ZELEE.' ta tijt ^cmorg ai AND OF THE OTHEK SAILORS WHO DIED A'l' HOBART TOWN IN 1840. THE TRIBUTE OF A FRENCH PRINCE, A SAILOR LIKE THEM, WHO WISHED TO SAVE FROM OBLIVION THE NAMES OF HIS COUNTRYMEN WHO DIED IN THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF A MISSION GLORIOUS TO FRANCE. 9th SEPTEMBER, 1866. Chap. XI.] Mojint Nelson — Orphan Asylum. 199 One day we made the ascent of Monnt Nelson, from which the view is magnificent : to the west the series of lakes formed by the Derwent scattered between wooded hills and grand wild-looking rocks ; at the end of the bay, Hobart Town with its fortifications, and the Government House, looking like a Gothic castle on the stage ; and the snow-covered Mount Wellington, 4500 feet high, towering over the whole island. Victoria is like an immense English lawn ; Tasmania is a smaller Switzerland. To the south, again, the bay is shut in, like a large lake, by a belt of numerous steep broken promontories of the strangest shapes, against which the long waves of the Southern Ocean break with fury. Not far from Mount Nelson is a ravine probably unique in the world. Fern-tree Yalley. A rapid stream flows beneath thousands of fern-trees, which rise like columns amongst the rocks, or, bending their leafy branches to the water, extend like bridges across the cascades. These ferns are more than thirty feet high, and their long straight foliage, so fresh and charming, forms a vast bower stretching from their summits. Another day we rode out with a party of ladies to a charming spot ten miles from the town, an asylum where 600 orphans are received and educated at the expense of the State ; the cost is 12,0OOZ. a year. All these little people with their fresh rosy faces were dressed in theii- best in honour of us, and 600 buns were swallowed together at the word of command. It was a more cheerful visit than that which we paid afterwards to the gloomy forts of the prison. The warder 200 Van Diemeri s' Land. [Chap. XI. took us across the fatal drawbridge, and as he showed us the trap-door through which the condemned are sent to what must be a better world, he said, with true British phlegm : " We could hang seven people at a time there, eomfortahly." Our cheerfulness was restored by a splendid ball lasting till five in the morning, given by the Chancellor of the University, where pretty people and pretty dresses mustered strongly. I will not cop}'' the 'Exa- miner ' and the ' Mercury,' the daily newspapers of Hobart Town, which give a minutely detailed account every morning of all our official visits and all the enter- tainments given to the Prince the day before, so I spare you the details of our life of dissipation. One thing has struck me greatly here, and I think it is of a very unusual nature : nothing can give you an idea of the perfect harmony, the real brotherly feeling which exists between the faithful and the clergy of the two churches in Tasmania. Catholics and Protestants forget their divisions to sefe only the great interests which unite them, in a country whose commencement has the convict stain, but where a new and pure society has struggled to form itself, and now has the upper hand. In general, in countries where two communions meet face to face, each one — always on the defensive — exaggerates, s.o to speak, its peculiar tenets, and widens still further the gulf of separation ; here this opposition, happily pushed to extremities, is not religious but social ; it is the struggle between free men and convicts, and the more distinct and impure a class the latter form, Chap. XL] Piscictiliure. 201 the more closely the former draw together into a centre of untainted honour. In this healthy society of Hobart Town, therefore, which is outwardly so proud and so hurt at the idea of being ignorantly confounded in Europe with those who built their bridges and formed their harbour, all the world are good friends and make no concealment of it. How often at the Governor's great parties we saw the two bishops talking together, arm in arm, like old frieiids, and the different members of their clergy meeting- and mixing together in perfect amity. Once, even, there- was a concert at the Government House — a Mass of Mozart's in I don't know what key, with organ and choruses for women's voices, perfoi-med in great style by all the Tasmanian beauties. I woke up at the Credo to see the two bishops side by side on the same sofa sound asleep. Luckily, after the Ite missa est, the sacred music was changed into valses and quadrilles ; all the pretty girls and younger part of the company were soon whirling round without waiting for the sermon, and we danced so late that daybreak found us stUl at supper. By way of rest, a great riding party to New Norfolk amongst the wildest rocky scenery gave us an oppor- tunity of seeing, besides the beauties of nature, a pisci- cultural- establishment. The Tasmanians are very proud of it; they have quite a staff of officers for it, and the managers are in a state of great excitement still over the serious question of fecundation and incubation. Our road was rather a dangerous one for the ladies ; it skirts the extreme edge of rocks which sink sheer down 2.02 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. XI. 300 feet, and at the bottom of the precipice a broad stream of water, rapid and bubbling, forms itself into noisy little waterfalls. At last we arrived at the river and the works where, according to the rules laid down by Messrs. Coste and Milne Edwards, these little brutes are fabricated.'^ ■ It is under the special care of the Grovernmeut, which imported from England a year ago 100,000 salmon eggs. It was necessary to keep them in cases surrounded by ice during the whole passage, which added enormously to the expense ; the whole amounted to nearly 6000Z. For ourselyes, after our long ride and much looking about, we succeeded in seeing two little fish the size of a very young carp, and I am not very certain, even, that we did not see the same twice over, for we only caught the second five minutes after we had let go the first. It was very in- teresting, and this produce of an egg which has crossed the Line and travelled 12,000 miles, to be eaten, no doubt, by a flight of cormorants which were keeping guard, reminded me of those ephemerae which remain in a state of larvse three or four years, to take birth at last at sunset and die before sunrise, without even making a single meal. But it was explained to us that from these 100,000 eggs 14,000 salmon had been bred, and 6000 had brought their first education to a happy conclusion. They had just been let go to wander down to the great sea, whence it is ho'^ed that they will return.' ' An Australian newspaper and letter have informed me since my return that they had all come hack to the fold : the colony could not contain itself for joy. Chap. XL] CooMs Tree. 203 Joking apart, this attempt may make the fortune of Tasmania ; it is the only one of the Australian colonies whose rivers are favourable to salmon-breeding; once stocked, their fisheries, with such markets as Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney, rich towns of more than 100,000 inhabitants, will bring millions to the Immble island of Van Diemen. Vifh September. — Colonel Chesney and some twenty young people have chartered a nice little steamer to show us all the picturesque creeks of the great bay ; the vessel is dressed out with the French colours, and bears us quickly through a labyrinth of islands and natural canals formed between overhanging rocks. To our right are the deep gorges of Entrecasteaux Channel, to our left Cape Ealph with its foaming breakers covered with a cloud of birds. Presently, rocked by a great swell from the south, we reach Cape Adventure ; the boats are let down, and we land. Here there is a venerable tree in whose bark these letters are cut with a knife 26 Jan. • such is the inscription made by 1777 ^ •' the celebrated captain, when he discovered this promon- tory, and christened it by the name of his own vessel. Eound Franklin Island we set to work to fish : our spoil consisted of three sharks, some fifty queer fish, which were covered with prickles exactly like a hedge- hog's, and trumpeters with their long snouts, to the great delight of one worthy archdeacon, our best friend. 204 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. xi. whose jokes were not hindered by his white necktie and hair-cloth vest. 19^A September. — The hour of depai-ture has sounded ; in spite of a frightful equinoctial gale, which has whitened the- whole bay with a sheet of foam, the ' Tasmania,' a little tub of two hundred and fifty tons, which is to take us to Sydney, is getting up its fires. We have made all our farewells this morning ; a last melancholy hour at Government House has enabled us to thank once more all our kind entertainers for a charming visit. On arriving at the quay, we found it covered with people ; the whole town had come to say good-bye to the Prince. A positively large crowd had assembled to give us a most hearty farewell, to ask us to keep them in mind, and return again. Our charm- ing partners too, among the most charming of whom were the Misses MacKellar, Lempriere, Nairne, and Smythe, were all standing near the boat, in their pret- tiest dresses, as if to add to our regret at parting. Hardly had we got on board than all the young people scaled the bridge, and in a moment the deck was so crowded it was impossible to move. The ' Tasmania ' ought to have sailed with such a cargo ! But the third bell came to cut short our shaking hands with all these good-natured people, who, for the last fortnight, and up to the final moment, had so cordially enter- tained the three travellers. The screw began to revolve, and the ' Tasmania,' getting up its speed, skirted the quay, which was swept Chap. XL] Au revoir ! — A Hurricane. 205 by the angry waTes, and yet was followed by the whole crowd, in which every individual was known to us. And as the younger members ran into and filled the hulk at the end of the pier, three cheers, three loud hurrahs, saluted us, and will assuredly bring us luck. To the last, hats and handkerchief are waving in the wind ; we can distinguish them to the last moment above the crowd, becoming gradually indistinct, and you may guess whether we responded ! Soon the shores, just now so animated, became to our eyes only the horizon line. A carriage following the promontory which shelters the harbour, appears once more, and signals are again waved to us. Arriving one evening suddenly on this unknown shore, could we suppose that we should leave it with feelings so warm and grateful ? Tasmania has offered us a hospitality such, as perhaps, no travellers ever received ; we would say to her not " Farewell," but "Au revoir ! " from the bottom of our hearts, and if she hopes never to be forgotten, her de- sires will be fulfilled. But the storm was more violent than ever. Alone on the deck, we could hardly hold on against the violent gusts of wind; the bay, which yesterday was so calm and smiling, is darkened by heavy black clouds, carried by the wind towards the snowy peaks, and the deep ravines around us borrow a fantastic hue from its sombre colours. Hobart Town disap- pears. We too, perhaps, shall disappear under the great waves which a south-wester is bringing against us ; the ' Tasmania ' struggles and staggers, everything 2o6 Van Diemetis Land. [Chap. XI. on board cracks and breaks; the shock of the waves against the rocks, the frightfully rough surge, made us count the minutes in this §trait, where the violent currents, and the whole fury of the Southern Ocean are thrown against one small island. In the evening, the wind changed to the south, and, bringing with it the icy temperature of the Pole, chased away the clouds, and permitted the full moon to light up the scene in all its glory. It blows a gale ; the waves, breaking in foam upon the deck, sweep it from end to end, and the little sail that we have got up to steady the ship makes no resistance. Under such con- ditions, in a vessel which heels over frightfully, and threatens occasionally to get water-logged, involuntarily hugging the shore, we succeed in doubling Cape Pillar, one of the most beautiful spots in Van Diemen's Land. It is the extreme south-west point of the island ; a number of sharp-pointed basaltic rocks, three hundred and sixty feet high, advance, like the pillars of a Druidic pier, nearly two miles into the sea. Driven by the waves advancing to break upon these rocks, we passed it within a quarter of a mile; the effect was thrilling, and really made us shudder. As the waves break upon these clusters of columns, which diminish gradually towards us, the spray is thrown to an im- mense height ; then the tide ebbs, and the moon, al- ternately hidden and shining brightly, appears between the slender pillars, whose intervals are one moment filled with foam, the next left open. But the planet still hangs low down on the horizon, and, rising in the Chap. XL] Reminiscences. 207 east on the further side of the pillars, throws their shadow almost upon us,' the precipitous outlines mean- while standing out gra^^dly ; danger adds a strange and most impressive effect to the whole scene. We passed the night on deck, watching these majestic rocks, and the struggles of our frail bark. But the Cape once doubled, the ' Tasmania ' stood off, and continued her course rapidly, wind astern ; on the poop we no longer spoke of the huge waves which were washing over the taffrail, we talked over our recollections of Hobart Town. , 20^7t September. — Calm is restored, but everything has been broken by the violence of the waves, and barometers, thermometers, and washhand-basins are united in a general destruction. My impressions of Tasmania, which I am trying to profit by this moment of calm to collect, partake, perhaps, a little of this disorder. All that we have seen in this island, the people among whom we found ourselves, the smiling country and peaceful towns that we visited, might al- most make us imagine this land to be separated by a whole world from Melbourne and its factories, from Ballarat and its gold-fields — a world and a century we might say. In one day we passed from the super- abundant activity of a city far advanced in progress to a county town of a hundred years ago. After six weeks of a life with steam always at high pressure, a residence in Van Diemen's Land is a real rest, refreshing and idyllic. But one cannot sleep for 2o8 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. xi. ever, the island is left behind as a dream, and we begin to sum up all the phases through which it has passed. And first of all there is one iijea which strikes us pain- fully : in coasting along these beautiful shores, we have remarked successively Capes Eaoul, Surville, Peron, Maurouard, Bougainville, Taillefer, Tourville, Lodi, and Naturaliste ; the bays of Dolomieu, Eleurieu, Monge, and Geographe. Each point of this country, as well as of the great Australian continent, has been ren- dered illustrious by our sailors ; why is it that the French flag, which shared in all j;he dangers, has not shared also in the honours, and has shone here in the perilous hour of discovery, only to leave the field subse- quently open to others, gaining for us no possessions ? Of Marion, in the ' Castries,' the first to come here after Tasman, and under whom some French blood was shed ; of Eutrecasteaux, in the 'Kecherche' and the 'Espe- rance ;' of Baudin and d'Hamelin, in the ' Geographe ' and the ' Naturaliste,' there remains nothing but a great name : England has a great colony. But before it became the colony of Tasmania, it was the convict establishment of Van Diemen's Land. It is a dismal story that. Till 1803, nothing was known of the country beyond its inhospitable shores, defended by numerous and savage tribes. The Governor of Sydney used to send there the most unmanageable of his convicts ; this island became the Botany Bav of Botany Bay for those whom the first town founded by convicts rejected from its shores. Subsequently the mother-country sent vessels laden with convicts direct Chap. XL] Early Convict Establishment. 209 here ; the first to be sent started in tears, it seems, thinking that they were sent not to liberty, but to death ; they beUeved they should never reach such a distance, and in fact there was more than one ship- wreck. A member of the Government, Dr. OfiScer, a most agi-eeable man, gave me some thrilling particulars of these voyages. The ' Amphitrite ' went down at its first start, and three hundred women with their children were drowned in the hold, where the captain had secured them ; the ' George III.' and the ' Neva ' were wrecked almost in port ; the ' Governor Philip ' foundered slowly in Entrecasteaux Channel, where we were the other day ; but a fine trait of character was shown here. While the boats were being sent out, the officer in com- mand, Mr. Griffiths, gave his word of honour to the convicts who could not find room in them not to leave the deck till they returned; but before they could come back, he had gone down with the men. Later when it became known in the London prisons how fertUe these southern lands were, there was quite an emulation as to who should go " kangaroo-hunting." The first period was one of creation and of crime. When roads had been made, bridges built, flocks im- ported, and the aborigines expelled, the prosperity of the penal settlements attracted free immigrants to Tasmania, and the statesmen of England, who had sent out convicts to this healthy and fertile country, were found to have judged rightly in hoping that their labour would be more profitable to the infant colony than their in- veterate vices could be hurtful. It appears that at VOL. I. P aio Van DiemeiUs Land. [Chap. xi. first, astonished at finding no rich to plunder, no weak to trample upon, surprised at feeling themselves equal and responsible beings in a society composed of them- selves alone, there sprung up a certain energy of well- doing amongst these convicts, in a country far removed from the theatre of their first crimes, and that they took it to heart to create the prosperity of the country which was in their hands, where they had their lives to defend, and where their wealth depended only on their labour. They felt themselves to be men, and soon became heads of families, tilling the ground, and grazing herds which gave large returns for their trouble. Towards 1815, immigrants began to arrive, and in- creased in number in proportion to the richness of the pasturage, and the small dimensions of the island. But difSculties were not wanting. The natives who had been dispersed by the convicts returned to the charge to the number of more than seven thousand, and for many long years the white men struggled in arms against them ; it was a frightful war. After much bloodshed, it was brought to an end in a curious fashion. A certain John Eobinson, whom everyone at Hobart Town described to us in glowing terms, had during a wandering life conciliated the goodwill of the Blacks : always unarmed, passing from tribe to tribe, amidst the greatest perils, and making himself the friend of all. This remarkable man, half philanthropist, half savage, had set his heart on achieving the difiicult task of producing a good understanding between the black Chap. XI.] Aborigines and John Robinson. 211 race and the invaders. Others before him, with the whole strength of the garrison, and the assistance of all the convicts, had organised an immense hattue, to drive the aborigines from the north to the south of the island, into Tasman's Peninsula, a tolerable-sized territory, attached to the island by a tongue of land scarcely two miles wide. The hunt lasted several months : a line of fires during the night, of soldiers during the day, di-awn over about one hundred and eighty miles, advanced gradually to the southern ex- tremity — not a Black was to be seen ! Thanks to the darkness, and the broken ground, they had all forced the line of their pursuers. They had come victoriously out of the struggle, and were pillaging and killing to their hearts' content. John Eobinson then won the victory by gentleness ; he was idolised by the savages, and succeeded in drawing them after him into the peninsula. Contrasted with the injustice of coming here boastfully to conquer these fruitful lands from a race who inherit them from their ancestors, what admiration does the noble character of the man who saved the lives of six thousand natives claim at our hands ! But as the Southern Ocean is necessary to the alba- tross, so to these aborigines is space above all things needed. They could not long endure the division of property with the new occupants ; having escaped death at the convicts' Lands, they wished also to escape the benevolence and pity of the free colonists, who tried to Christianise and clothe them ; they preferred exile to a hopeless struggle, or a life without room. A frightful p 2 212 Van Diemen's Land. [Chap. XI. number died from disease, like freshwater fish confined in stagnant water ; the rest, by degrees, without fight- ing or noise, dispersed from island to island, in Flinder's Land, and Furneaux Island, and ended by reaching the great Australian continent, in the interior of which they have sought the wilderness — and freedom ! There were seven thousand in 1816, and there are now only five in the whole island — three men and two women! We saw them a few days ago ; they are preserved as relics, and photographed! Of three societies which had met here, one, then, was annihilated. There re- mained the immigrants and the convicts. I had no op- portunity of hearing the- complaints of the latter; but the former, though free men and masters, have never ceased, from the first, to curse the Colonial Office, which sent them the ofiscourings of their prisons to employ and keep guard over. Every time that a convict ship anchored before Hobart Town, immediately a protest was signed by the whole free population of tlie island, who wished, with good reason, to avoid this criminal contact, and to keep to themselves the development of their pastures and fields, instead of seeing a part alien- ated for the benefit of criminals planted on their soil, and who would gain their freedom either by good con- duct or by lapse of time. Think what struggles there must have been to keep pure this little nucleus of free men. The census table, Avhich I saw at the Home Office, gives figures which show the proportion of each element. In 1825 there were 17,500 free men against 7000 convicts ; 23,000 Chap. XI.] Tasmania and Victoria. 213 against 18,000 in 1835; 43,000 against 24,000 in 1847. Finally, in 1857, there were 77,700 free men and only 8000 convicts. For the second time a hurtful element of society disappeared. This sudden and happy re- adjustment of the balance was due in the iirst place to the cessation of shipments from the mother-country, which dates from 1850, but principally to the re-trans- portation effected by the colony itself to Tasman's Peninsula, where formerly it was sought to confine the savages, and which it refuses to consider a part of its dominion. It has a separate government, on a soil almost entirely divided from the mainland, where a system of modified coercion, Exercised over a homo- geneous whole, acts rather by hope than fear. This energetic measure, which shows at a glance the honest foundation of Tasmania, was taken at the moment when Victoria, boldly inaugurating its independence, passed an edict absolutely prohibiting fugitive convicts in her territory, which otherwise might have been quickly and fatally overrun from the penal settle- ments. But the consequence of the early struggles of the free society was the drawing of the strongest possible line of demarcation between the castes of governors and governed, and this is the secret of all the striking differences between the political life of Tasmania and that of Victoria. The contrast is so striking that on a comparison of the two populations it is hardly possible to believe that they come of the same stock. And yet they are men of the same Anglo- Saxon race, emigrants from the same England, holding 2 1 4 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. XI. coustant communication with one another and with the mother-country. This difference, between two points so near together is surely a conclusive proof of the radical influence exercised over the ideas and character of a nation by the institutions which govern it. In Victoria there is universal suffrage, an advanced democracy^ an enterprising and adventurous spirit, ideas of progress and of equality, an American activity. On the other side of the straits is a suffrage so restricted that the larger half of the free population is excluded from all participation in public affairs; the Lower House is elected by the smaller half, the Upper House by barely a quarter. There is a general narrowness of ideas, an exaggerated feeling of caste ; business is slowly and ill done ; it is a positively backward state of things. This is the result of the convict element left too long flourishing. The immigrants who have not experienced the great crisis and levelling of society which the dis- covery of gold occasioned in Victoria, form a landed and wealthy aristocracy, which forces back into the working classes the descendants of the first convicts. When I say immigrants, you must not take the word in the miserable acceptation we give it in France ; it implies here in many cases gentlemen farmers, and cadets of good families in England. Most of the in- habitants that we have seen were born here, have here received a good education, and long since taken up a good position ; they did not arrive ready-made, or spring up in one day on an equal footing, like the Melbourners scattered over Victoria like a field of Chap. XL] Political Life. 215 mushrooms, all dating their civil birth from the same day, that of the discovery of gold in 1851. It need not occasion surprise, therefore, to find here a real society with all its grades and its prejudices, and which the more affects an aristocratic bearing the lower is the origin of the inferior class. Thus all hangs together, and social life is the reflection of the political life. When the colonies were called upon to draw up for themselves the articles of their constitutions, Victoria where the servant had left his masters, and the clergy- man his parishioners, to become their equals in the search for gold, Victoria had no difSculty in establishing the rights of man and a perfect and rational democracy. In Van Diemen's Laud, where the sheep owner and the farmer despised the poor Irish immigrant, and the con- vict still branded with the ignominy of the hulks, the wealthier classes chose to raise themselves upon an inaccessible pedestal, to defend by household suffrage the government of the minority. Poverty was the excuse for exclusion from all political rights. But what was the consequence ? Having energetically worked for the abolition of transporta- tion, Tasmania did not bring the same spirit to bear upon the sacrifice imposed by this independence. One fine day, after the shipment of convicts had been stopped, the subsidy from the mother-country, which had fallen in a shower of gold upon the colony at the rate of 6000Z. or 7000Z. a week, was stopped also. With them disappeared, too, the numerous garrison which had been required to keep guard over them, and who 2, 1 6 Van Diemeris Land. [Chap. xi. had spent their pay in the country ; but people had become so used to this manna dropping from heaven, to the arbitrary rule of governors responsible only to the mother - country, that it was long before Tas- mania understood the meaning of liberty, and she re- mained in the state of infancy of an over -governed country, where the people are always looking to their rulers for help and protection. This habit, of old standing, has contributed not a little to the sleepy state of the community, and has robbed it by degrees of that manly energy which is tempered by difSculties, and which is so necessary to the development of a colony. Wielded by strong hands, and in a great country, despotism may for a time produce external power and glory, but it will always kUl with liberty all spirit of progress and speculative enterprise. This has been done here, during the first epoch of the colony, by the military and penal government. No manufactures have been created ; the imports far exceed the exports ; the country which sent the first herds to Victoria is obliged now to import not only cattle but dead meat from Melbourne to the amount of 95,000Z. The expenses of the year have exceeded the receipts by 40,000Z. ; and, notwithstanding these facts, notwithstanding the loss of subsidy, the ruinous construction of public build- ings and of a Government House has been continued at a cost of 100,000^ ; the ministers receive salaries of 800Z. or 900?. a year, and a swarm of ofBcials is kept up who absorb nearly 120,000?. The result is a debt of more than half a million in a country with 95,000 inhabitants, Chap. XI.] Political Life. 1 1 7 and which has sold more than 3,700,000 acres of laud, and this without any construction of railroads or manu- factories, and without other hope than in the sale of land to future immigrants, who seem but little inclined to arrive, or, as we were told with a smile, " in some wonderfully good apple years." ' But Tasmania has now commenced her apprentice- ship to liberty, so I was told just before leaving the colony by Colonel Gore Brown, from whom 1 learnt many of these particulars, and who under his military title is a civil governor assisting the liberal movement with his whole strength. A spark produced the con- flagration; the ministers, by endeavouring to draw a revenue no longer from the customs, but from a property tax, came in conflict with an excited public opinion. The whole country was in a state of the greatest agita- tion during our stay. The dissolution of the Houses, which had become necessary, was declared by a message from the Governor on the very morning of our departure. Through this general awakening, and by means of the new elections, sagacious politicians hope to see triumph the idea of radical reductions in the expenses ; and this party, with whose most active champions we made acquaintance, count upon the action of political in- stitutions to raise from obscurity a country which cer- tainly deserves prosperity. There is a good foundation to work upon ; with valuable ' Last year apples were exported from Tasmania to the value of 62,500Z. 21 8 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. XI. resources in timber of all kinds ; with extending pastures, which already contain 1,712,000 sheep and 110,000 head of cattle ; rich in iron-mines, as yet unworked, and with the certainty of possessing veins of gold, that gold which is the universal panacea 'of Australia, since it will always attract immigration and develop the resources of the country; with a soil far more fertile than that of the neighbouring continent, and which yields a harvest worth 1,308,000?. ; with a total from land in cultivation, cattle, personal property, shipping, banks, and exported produce, of 19,000,000?., they in- tend, freed from aborigines and convicts, to condemn the system of regulations and checks which has kept them, and which, contrary to the great principle of liberty exhibited in the marvellously prosperous neigh- bouring colonies, has turned to such different use almost similar elements of wealth : one, in fact, has acted as a motive power, the other as a dead weight. There is yet another party, that of the lower orders. The word annexation has reached the antipodes ; they wish for annexation to Victoria. The worthy Tasmanians would wish for nothing better, but it is the Victorians who will have none of them ; they think they are as yet a Httle behind the world, and look down upon them as Boeotians. BcEotians they may be, but it must be confessed that these good people possess one quality which is wanting in their facetious neighbours, namely modesty. While at Melbourne, it was always being said to us, with per- fect truth, no doubt, but perhaps a little too often: Chap. XL] Gold in Tasmania. 219 "Look what we have done. Fourteen years ago this was a wilderness ; have not we turned it into a new Europe ? " Here the worthy inhabitants make excuses for their simple oasis, and exhibit it modestly. They are quite flattered that strangers should come from such a distance to see them. They do not ransack the earth for gold, or make feverish efforts after a happiness outside the domestic circle, but go on their way peaceably and quietly in this patriarchal island to which Nature has been so bountiful. Still even on these shores a life of adventure is pos- sible. Colonel Chesney, whose bold and eager spirit makes him an exception to the general placidity, made me wild with the idea of a voyage of discovery that he is going to make in the north-west part of the island. One man only, a shepherd, succeeded in penetrating there last year, and he brought back several extremely rich specimens of gold. There is a chain of mountains there on precisely the same meridian as Ballarat, and which are nothing but the prolongation of the same veins of gold. But there still remains to be overcome a barrier of torrents, precipitous rocks, and ravines which surround this new Eldorado. The colonel showed me all his outfit, his rope-ladders furnished with cramping-irons, his portable india-rubber canoes, just arrived from London. He goes with two friends and a servant. " Come with me," said he, " you like adventures. It is so delightful to discover new countries when one is young. And then, if we find gold, we shall become 220 Van Diemens Land. [Chap. xi. millionaires, and all the European beauties " But the expedition does not set out till the month ol January, at a time when we are due in China, and, to my great regret, the question is thus peremptorily cut short. 21si Seflemher. — Under the lee of Cape Oomooroo- moon. I premise by offering my lamented wig to that grand dignitary of the Paris Faculty who shall hunt up this pretty little name among his geographical acquaintance. It is a little creek in Twofold Bay, lost between the promontories of the eastern coast of Australia, and buried in red granite rocks and mountains covered with firwoods reaching to the shore; a wild and pic- turesque spot, but just now made dark and gloomy by heavy black clouds brought by gusts of wind from the open sea. A violent equinoctial gale has driven us here. The ' Tasmania ' was no longer seaworthy. She was driving before the wind in spite of the violent efforts of the engines; the waves were driving her on shore and tossing her pitilessly, threatening to engulph us, without a possibility of resistance. When we met with foul weather between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, we could view calmly the great billows of which we were the plaything ; oup safety was in the space around us. But this time we are close in shore, and the shore means shipwreck if we do not find a shelter before the hour when no human means can resist the fury of the hurricane. Since noon, Chap. XI.] Cape Oomooroomoon. ii\ therefore, we have sought refuge from the weather, and looked for shelter in the nearest creek. At three o'clock we anchored to leeward of the Cape, at the same time as a three-masted vessel, whose netting had been carried away, and whose disabled rigging was painful to view ; it was a frightful race for life. The hoarse roar of the storm in the firwoods was so loud, the sea broke so furiously against Cape Oomooroomoon, and the thunder growled with so fearful a din, that the broad face of the captain of oiu" barque has not yet recovered from its sudden paUor. It is my delight to watch the gesticulations of this worthy man on the bridge. He is as round as a ball, and his sou'-wester cannot hide a quadruple chin, crimson yesterday, to-day perfectly white. But he understands very well what he is about ; for he told us that this was his two hundred and forty-eighth voyage between Hobart Town and Sydney, and "one of the most dangerous," he added, though we did not need his word to inform us of that fact. Now that we are in safety, and the ' Tasmania ' peace- fully cradled and lulled to sleep on her three anchors, we asked the captain for a boat and four men, and both of us went on shore, to look at a tribe of natives whose fires were seen among the fir-trees ; they are like those on the Murray, as harmless, as black, and, at first sight, it appeared to me, even more hideous, but I had for- gotten that that was impossible. This bay is celebrated for its whale-fishery; their white carcases and colossal bones are strewn in profu- sion over the sandy shore, and the sight of the cemetery 2 22 Van Diemefis Land. [Chap. xi. of these sea monsters adds to the dismal appearance of the wild and gloomy bay. The strangest thing is that in this out-of-the-way. corner of the world there are yet seven wooden huts, on a hill, inhabited by white men. With mild sarcasm, they have given the name of Eden to this cluster of miserable huts. At the rate at which things advance in Australia, fifteen years hence there may be an opera here, and a parliament. I can fancy now that I have seen Melbourne in its infancy. A hundred sheep, almost lost in the bush, some holes dug in the ground, where three men are searching for gold, and the still virgin forest of pines, this is the Eden that we have seen. Let us hope that fine weather will drive away the ' Tasmania ' with her cargo of apples, which would be a very doubtful investment here. Chap. XII.] Arrival at Sydney. 223 CHAPTEE XII. SYDNEY. A fah'y-like bay — French missionaries — High tons and charm of the society — Botany Bay and recollections of La Pe'rouse — Convicts and immigrants — Schools — The Blue Mountains — The sons of the illustrious MacArthur — Connection with New Caledonia — Institutions and wealth of New South "Wales. Sydneij, 2drd September. — We have been able to tear ourselves from the paradise of Oomooroomoon, and set sail again. We passed between Montagu Island and the coast. Towards evening, about sunset, Cape Per- pendicular, which shuts in Jervis Bay, could be dis- tinguished standing out against the sky. It is a rock two hundred and eighty feet high, going sheer down into the sea, and coming out boldly between that and the bay, like a grand pier ; the effect is splendid. We arrived in Sydney at night, guided from afar by the glimmer of the gas, and the coloured lights of all the ships in the roads. 24^^ 8e;ptember. — Early this morning, Lord John Taylour came to take us to a large riding party, which had been arranged for the Prince by his Ex- cellency, Sir John Young, Governor of New South Wales. We were to meet at the palace ; nine ladies 224 Sydney. [Chap. xil. in riding-habits, and several gentlemen, were collected, and some very fine horses were brought out to us. The expedition began with a short journey by steam ; at the bottom of the garden, a small steamer awaited us, our horses were quickly led on board, and we crossed the bay. We had a delicious gallop over the tops of the hills which command this exquisitely pure sheet of water, with its smiling shores. Opening upon the side through a passage fifteen hundred yards wide, which two rocks, overhangiBg some three hundred and fifty feet, mark like a Druidic door, the bay goes far back into the country, taking the most capricious shapes, advancing boldly like a great river that is un- certain of its way, first to the north-west, then to the south-west, then at last to the west, so thai barely inside this door, which seems so gigantic, one is very much surprised to be as much shut in as on a Swiss lake, and the illusion would be complete, did not the high yards of the clippers at anchor remind one of the wide seas. Port Jackson has twenty-six bays, which open into the large bay, and many of them advance as much as twelve miles inland; the shores are extremely pictu- resque — sometimes woody, sometimes rocky, they al- ternately exhibit the wildest nature, perpendicular rocks, against which the waves break, beautiful gardens surrounding elegant villas, and an exuberance of natural flowers, whose brilliant colours extend to the very verge of the waves ; at the end of this lake, on the south shore, stands the town of Sydney. It is al- Chap. XII.] A Fairy-like Bay. 11^ most a peninsula, and might be compared to a right hand boldly thrust out into the bay ; indeed, five large promontories, having exactly the appearance of fingers slightly spread out, form the principal part of the town ; and this is what makes it so eccentric, for all the streets that run east and west come out at each end into different ports ; they look like canals be- tween each harbour. From the highest point of a street, you see a harbour at your feet, filled with all sorts of steam vessels ; immediately on the other side are houses, and masts again just show themselves be- hind the houses ; it is as fine a situation as you could see. Close to us are pretty villas, surrounded by gardens of orange and almond trees in flower. "We continue to follow the tops of the hills, which takes us away from the high-roads and cottages, the view ex- tends, and we have a first-rate opportunity of judging of the general effect. Below us how exquisite is the blue water ! how grand those sombre gorges — how lovely those promontories covered with verdure ! Here above, the flowers, mingled with great shrubs, over which lizards are running, open beneath a spring sun ; there is a marvellous pi'ofusion • of everything, and all is brilliant in the freshness of the morning ; the flowers are up to the horses necks, and nothing can be prettier than this profusion of great blossoms, amongst which groups of riders are galloping about ; the ladies mostly in pearl grey and bright blue, with long blue or white veils. After crossing a wood filled with clumps of camphor-trees, bamboos, and palms, we arrived at an 226 Sydney. [Chap. XII. eminence, beneath which stretches an arm of the sea ; we went carefully down amongst the rocks, and going out to the extreme end of the point, we saw Port Jackson on our right, and on the left the entrance to another bay, which seemed as large — it was Middle Harbour. The Governor had sent beforehand two or three boats, and in three hours the whole cavalcade had crossed the water ; two hours after, we were on the shores of the ocean, at Long Reef, where a heavy swell from the south-east throws up great waves, which,^ be- fore they arrive, are broken over a line of rocks. Evening was far advanced before we returned in the direction of the town ; the night was exquisitely clear, a delicious perfume rose from the flower-covered hills. The wanderings of our party as they rode slowly through a perfect forest of flowers, and amidst great trees, open- ing out to give us romantic peeps of the waters of the bay, which reflected as in a mirror, the constellations of the southern hemisphere, had so many charms that I seemed to be still dreaming when I got off my horse on the second night of my stay in Sydney. \Wi October, 1866. — During three weeks of incessant activity, in a country where everything is made easy to us, and where everything charms us, we have each moment been thankful to fortune for bringing us here. The day after our ride, we embarked on a little steamer to go up the river Paramatta. Orange planta- tions, and extensive cultivation intersected by steep gorges, all green and shady, enliven the picturesque Chap. XII.] French Missionaries. 227 shores of the clear water in its wandering course. But we begin to feel the sun a little too hot, though, of course, it is very good for the oranges ; and ^vhat life it gives to the landscape ! Soon the river becoming too much shut in by the rocks, we got into a boat, which was rowed by eight young islanders from Samoa, whose skin is the colour of tobacco-juice ; they rowed vigorously, and we got out at the end of a retired bay, over which floats the tricolor flag; the Mariste missionaries live here, in a little corner of France, and several colonists from our country have also settled here. The excitement was great, and our reception very cordial. The Bishop of the Navigation Isles, who was staying for a time at the Mission, received us with open arms, and showed us a very curious sight. The sun was about to set : on the high natural terrace, from which there is an ex- tensive view, on one side of the distant and curiously shaped bay, on the other of the purple outlines of the Blue Mountains, the young islanders advanced, in their national dress — a plumed head-dress, and a sash made of various coloured strips; they performed a languid dance, to a very eccentric aii-, and then grouped them- selves and crouched in a circle, round a great vase, which was supported on a curiously designed tripod, and prepared to make " kaava," their national beverage. " Kaava " is a large knotted white root, with a sharp taste; they cut it into small pieces, chewing it over and over again, and stuflSng their mouths till it is im- possible to put another bit in. They look like little Q 2 228 . Sydney. [Chap. XII. cupids made of gingerbread, with an orange in each cheek ; with Indian sang-froid they continue to chew this salivated mixture, till it forms a compact ball, which they then gracefully spit into the right hand, and place gravely in the vase, into which some water has already been poured. It was a delightful moment for oiu- followers from Oupolu and Tongatabou ; they rapidly beat up the balls in the water, like white of egg in whipped cream, in a few minutes the frothy liquor became a beautiful gold colour ; the boys brought each of us a cup cut out of cocoa-nut, and full of the beverage, and — we drank it ! I felt as if I were taking medicine, and was much astonished to find it taste sharp, and rather agreeable at the first mouthful ; at the second, I received a shock sufficient to make hair grow on a bald head, which luckily had a bene- ficial effect upon me. They say that " kaava " is in- toxicating, and that this simple preparation turns all the heads in Tongatabou. It is possible, but I shall certainly advise the establishment to teach French cooking to their young Catechumens, and beg them to let the prehminary chewing and the salivary sea- soning take a less prominent part. I carried away a root of kaava, which will make at least a dozen glasses. The missionaries gave us some most astonishing de- tails of their life amongst the savages of the neigh- bouring islands, where a leaf is a dress, and a fish an almanack. Their year consists only of six months, and the first day is marked by the appearance of a Chap. XII.] Society. 229 small fish, of a most extraordinary shape, which they call Pallolo, and which only shows itself, like some ec- centric phenomenon, at exact intervals. This fish-chro- nometer rather sticks in my throat, but it was Mon- seigneur EUay, the Principal of the Society, who told me the story. It is the lot of these missionaries to dwell in huts made of leaves, and to live on cocoa-nuts, maize, and small birds, that they may convert the brutish natures of a naked people, and Pfere Saage spoke to us of their great zeal. But what intense simplicity of mind there is amongst these islanders. This is the scene of that famous story of the missionary who did his utmost to abolish polygamy. When leaving one of the chiefs, he extracted from him a promise that he would send away all his wives but one. Six months later he re- turned, found the chief with but one legitimate wife, and could hardly contain himself with joy at having obtained so great a triumph; but in the course of conversation, he chanced to ask what had become of the other wives. " Oh ! I have eaten them," was the ingenious reply of the proselyte. A melancholy death for an affectionate wife ! But life in Sydney soon reminded us of Europe, and I was immensely astonished to find myself at an "at home" as brilliant and well arranged as any I have been at, although so many thousands of miles from Paris. A levee at Government House causes considerable excitement every week ; and numerous and well turned out carriages, and the smartest equipages with powdered 2,30 Sydney. [Chap. XII. servants, take all the society of Sydney to the gardens of the palace. These gardens occupy a pretty promontory washed by the sea, and resplendent with tropic flowers, which, contrasted with European trees, have a splendid effect. The palace itself, built in the Gothic style, commands the bay like a citadel, and the reception rooms are worthy of a king. The moment we arrived, we ex- pressed to Lady Young our grateful thanks for the noble manner in which she had received the unfor- tunate Prince de Condd, and her motherly care of him till he died. Nearly every day, night and morning, we were entertained in the palace, where, full of kindness and courtesy, she collected everybody who could pos- sibly interest the three French travellers. What were most enjoyable, were the afternoon receptions, which, notwithstanding its being the end of the "season," she continued in honour of the Prince. Military music en- livened the gardens, where frequently more than two or three hundred people were collected. Young married women went backwards and forwards between the drawing-rooms and the lawn, just as they M'ould at a smart morning-party in London ; they wore gowns that came straight from Mesdames Soinard et Barrene, of Paris (indeed, I rather think I heard M. Worth's name), and, in fact, form as agreeable, amusing, and pretty a society as can be imagined. Melbourne was the city of gold, of clubs, of demo- cracy, and of important business; Hobart was a hospitable county town; Sydney, with all the stamp of Chap. XII.] Botany Bay. 23] tlie English gentleman upon it, with the agreeable warm-heartedneas of the Creole, with a picturesque- ness born of a tropical sky, and of flowers whose like cannot be found in nature — Sydney is the town of high life; full of movement, of aristocratic society in the enjoyment of wealth, and of all the charms of the gay world. Every day there were new expeditions. AVhat a contrast there is between this town, with more than a hundred thousand inhabitants, with thea- tres, libraries, lively streets, of which some— Pitt Street and George Street— are filled with shops from end to end, and ceaselessly traversed by private carriages aud omnibuses— what a contrast there is between all this brilliant effect of a marvellous civilisation and the wild aspect of Botany Bay, where the founders of Sydney disembarked. We have been to see this celebrated bay. A two hours' ride took us there; hills of sand separate it from the side of Port Jackson, which looks like a little tongue of the desert in an oasis of flowers. When Captain Cook discovered, in 1770, the east coast of New Holland, he expressed his astonishment at so luxurious a flora, by calling the bay by the name of Botany. You cannot, I think, form any idea of this natural flower garden, which is covered for miles" with the most brilliant and delicate colours. Imagine scarlet-tufted blossoms which the horses break off as they gallop by, an overpowermg perfume, that is apt to give you a headache, a splendid forest of flowers, both variegated and luxuriant, and you have before 1^2 Sydney. [Chap. XII. you the general appearance of the bay. The monu- ment to La Perouse is on one of these promontories. It is a column about twenty feet high, with a bronze globe on the capital, and the following inscription on the pedestal : — CE LIBIT, VISITE PAR M. DE LA PEEOUSE EN 1788, EST LE DEENIEE D'OU IL AIT FAIT PAEVENIR DE SES XOUVELLES. And lower down : — JIONUMEKT ELEVE AU KOM DE LA ERANCE PAR JIM. DE BOURGAINVILLE ET DU CAMPER, COMMANDANTS DE LA FEEGATE LE THETIS ET DE LA CORVETTE l'eSPERANCE, MOUILLEES A PORT JACKSON EN 1825. About two hundred yards off, in the direction of the sliore, shaded by beautiful trees, is the grave of Pere Eeceveur, who was physician to La P6rouse's expedi- tion, and died at Botany Bay during the stay of the French boats. On the monumental stone, the follow- ing inscription is engraved : — inC JACET LE RECEVEUR, EX P.P. MINORIBUS, GALLIJE SACEEDOS, PHYSICUS IN CIRCUMNAVIGATIONE MUNDI, DUCE DE LA PEROUSE, OBIT DIE 17 FEB. 1788. It seems that the first grave made by the crew of the 'Astrolabe' had been destroyed by the natives; but Governor Pliillip caused the inscription which I have just quoted to be engraved on a sheet of copper and nailed to the trunk of a tree close by ; and it has since been copied for the present monument. By a curious coincidence La Perouse's two ships entered the bay at the very moment when Governor Chap. XII.] Convicts and Immigrants. 233 Phillip's squadron was leaving to settle at Port Jackson. This was the opening page of the history of the Aus- tralian colonies. It was in May, 1787, that a squadron of eleven ships left England, to carry to a country of which but the outlines had been discovered by navi- gators, which was unknown, and inhabited by cannibals, the nucleus of a population which has since become so flourishing, and which was destined to form one day a powerful empire. Out of eleven hundred and eighteen persons who were in these ships under the command of Governor Phillip, there were six hundred male con- victs, and two hundred and fifty female convicts ; the rest were officers and soldiers in charge of them. On the 18th January, 1788, at the end of eight months, the squadron anchored in Botany Bay ; a week later, the Governor having discovered the magnificent bay of Port Jackson, transferred thus the site of the growing colony. In less than eighty years, these first huts have been replaced by a really magnificent town, and this land of exile transformed into a colony of four hundred and eleven thousand inhabitants, the cradle of neighbouring colonies, which for a long time were its satellites and dependents ; together they now contain a population of fifteen hundred thousand white men, whose trade brings them in upwards of sixty millions ! The poverty and immorality of the first pioneers has been lost and driven back by the flood of an honest, healthy, and industrious immigration, which, like all English immigrations, carries with it its own institutions, religion, and customs, 234 Sydney. [Chap. XII. and, in fact, its entire national character. If luck will have it that I return to Europe, there is one thing above all that I shall have much at heart, which will be to do what I can towards wiping from New South Wales the stain which is attached to it in the eyes of Europe in consequence of the criminal taint on its origin, a stain owing to historj' having only registered the annals of transportation. But public ignorance, imposed upon and encouraged by this recollection, will not lift up the veil of " convictism " which till now has hidden from it a healthy society living the same life as we do, a society which, as soon as it felt itself strong enough, thrust the convict ships from its harbour, and conquered the ground for the triumph of its commerce, the safety of its private life, and the honesty which is its foundation, and which makes it equal to any English town ; un- doubtedly equal, but all the more jealous for its honour that pubHc opinion is inclined to doubt it, and that it has been a struggle to establish it. At pleasant recep- tions at the palace, and at well-furnished country houses, where the best families, often belonging to the English aristocracy, entertained us after the fashion of the far-famed English country house life, agreeable people, born and brought up here, and speaking French as well as we do, sometimes said to us : " Our country- men in Europe believe that we live in huts, and are waited upon by blacks or convicts ; and they imagine you to be armed with revolvers, and in constant fear of losing your money, while they know so little of the whereabouts of our towns that they address 'Mr. So- Chap. XII.] Convicts and Iimnigrants. 235 and-so, Tasmania, in New Zealand, or Melbourne, in New South \^'ales.' " I can imagine that this would be exasperating ! I have gone about a gi-eat deal during the last three weeks, trying to take in everything, and, notwith- standing so many charms, always expecting to come across some sign of these convicts in the succession of sights that are to be seen in a busy city and its neigh- bourhood, or in reading the numerous papers that are published each morning. "Well, I always found the most forcible signs of a society that was determined at any cost to remain free from all stain, and whose ener- getic progress has forced the first convicts far away into the neighbouring islands, and into the bush, where, scattered and isolated, they cultivate the ground and live in concealment. One thing alone recalled its origin. On an obscure pillar supporting the stage of the chief theatre of Victoria, in Pitt Street, was engraved but a short time ago, I am told, the prologue of the first play acted in Australia. It was in 1796, eight years after they dis- embarked, and there was no one besides the convicts and the garrison. The Governor permitted the former to open a theatre which would remind them of their native land, and on the 16th January there was a most undoubted " first representation." A curious thing about it -nas that the price of en- trance was one shilling, payable at the ticket office eitlier in money, flour, meat, or wine. This alone would show what the audience were, even if the prologue, 2.36 Sydney. [Chap. XII. composed by an amateur poet, an old London pick- pocket, were not of a somewhat singular nature : — From distant climes, o'er wide-spread seas we come, Though, not with much ddat or beat of drum ; True patriots all, for be it understood, "We left our country for our country's good : No private views disgi'aced our generous zeal, What urged our travels, was our country's weal ; And none will doubt but that our emigration Has proved most useful to the British nation. But, you enquire, what could our breasts inflame With this new passion for theatric fame ; What, in the practice of om- former days. Could shape our talents to exhibit plays ? Your patience, Sirs, some observations made. You'll gi'ant us equal to the scenic trade. He who to midnight ladders is no stranger, You'll own, will make an admirable Ranger. — And sure in Filch I shall be quite at home. — Some true-bred Falstaff we may hope to start. The scene to vary, we shall try in time To treat you with a little pantomime. Here light and easy Columbines are found. And well-tried Harlequins with us abound. From durance vile our precious selves to keep. We often had recourse to th' flying leap : To a black face have sometimes owed escape, And Hounslow Heath has proved the worth of crape. And how, you ask, can we e'er hope to soar Above these scenes, and rise to tragic lore ? Too oft, alas ! we 've forced th' unwilling tear. And petrified the heart with real fear 1 Macbeth, a harvest of applause will reap. For some of us, I fear, have murdered sleep. His lady, too, with grace will sleep and talk, Our females have been used at night to walk. Grant us your favour, put us to the test. To gain your smiles we'll do our very best : And without dread of future Turnkey Lockets, Thus, in an honest way, still piclc your pockets ! This memento of the year 1796, which is the only Chap. XII.] Sydney of the Present Day. 237 trace — and that found in a cellar — of a time whicli is no more, and wliich is so utterly different from the present agreeable and healthy tone of society in Sydney, struck me as a contrast that opens out a world of thought ; it is a true picture. All that remains of the convicts is as it were in a cellar, hidden in obscurity from all eyes, in places where no one goes. It is behind the scenes, and, moreover, the curtain has been dropped. But it rises again, and now all the boxes, all the stalls, are filled, beneath a dazzling light, with English society, fashionable, rich, well educated and happy ! OfScers, younger members of noble families, men of rank, magis- trates, and large proprietors who, liking this country, have made it their home, and established a position here, preferring the country life and the extent of their possessions to the stiffer life of England, but who have all come with names as pure as could be wished by British honour, and that is saying a good deal — this is now the audience, this is the Sydney of the present day. Now, I know that before many minds in Europe — and I must confess that it was especially so with me before I came here — there is a veil of ignorance which prevents their seeing more than the facts of transportation. Now I have seen with my own eyes how the small number of the first colonists has been almost effaced from off the earth, like refuse washed away by a stream of pure water, to make place for more than four hundred thousand honest men, who brought, with their honour, either their fortunes, or the energy which has made those fortunes ; and so a grand 238 Sydney. [Chap. XII. sight is spread before us, full of light anrl full of liberty ! I shall not be happy till I have done my duty, and given Sydney its dues, for it is unknown at home, and uncon- sciously people are unjust to it. Material prosperity is the natural result of the benefits of this moral order. The activity in the colony is enormous ; every day eight or ten steamers either come into or go out of the great bay ; every half-hour steam ferry-boats run in and out of the little bays which separate the capital and its environs. The quays are edged \vith four rows of boats, some of fifteen to eighteen tons; banks, hospitals, schools, and churches (amongst which there is one really very handsome cathedral), have multiplied with that lavishness of the English race which stops at no sacrifice. 160,000?. have been given, half by voluntary contributions from private charity, half from the State, for the building of the Catholic College of St. John, which is magnificent, and for the English University, of which the Hall reminds one of Westminster. Blore than thirty-four thousand children, in the national elementary schools, and in superior establishments, receive education in the colony at a cost to the State of 64,000Z. This is only one example; every day some of the principal people of the town showed us over several of these fine esta- blishments; and sometimes coming away saddened at sight of an amputation in the hospitals, to go into a school, where the well-used rooms and forms brought back to me the recollection of my life only two years ago, the joyful cheers of some seven hundred scholars, Chap. XII.] The Blue Mountains. 239 for whom the Prince obtained from the master a holi- day, made me wish that I too could join in their sports ! At one time we wished to load our guns again and make another expedition into the interior ; but as we were advised to travel over just the same part of the South towards the Murray, where we had already been, and to cross the whole colony of Victoria, where we should only have seen the same sheep, the same stations, and the same kangaroos, we soon gave up the idea, and preferred taking a good spell of civilised life before going into the jungles of Java and the decidedly adven- turous life of China and Japan. One day, after a very good ball in the town, Mr. Martin, the Prime Minister, came at about half past four in the morning, and took us in the state carriage of a special train along the line of rails which goes as far as the Blue Mountains. Uurinar the iirst hour flat cultivated ground extended around as far as the eye could reach. " We want twice as many hands for agricultural labour," we were told on all sides. "We are obliged to import 280,000?. worth of corn ; the colony yields 28 gallons of wheat per head, and the average consumption is 56 gallons." But as the soil supports flocks of sheep whose wool alone, when ex- ported, brings in more than 1,120,000Z. per annum, ought they not to consider themselves very lucky ? They have but just begun ; yet alone to produce suffi- cient for their own consumption seems an absurdity; and the dream of Australia, which is speedily becoming 24° Sydney. [Chap. xii. a reality, is to export millions, while our colonies can only produce enough to support themselyes. We were not satisfied with seeing the railways with their steana- engiues, which had driven the native tribes from this extensive plain leaving the Blue Mountains as their only refuge; we found ourselves at the foot of these hills, and determined to surmount them. At the foot of this chain winds the Warragamba, or Nepean, a wide and deep river, full of water. Mr. Martin had sent a boat in advance with six men of the Koyal Navy. We were rowed quickly up the river. At first we could almost imagine ourselves to be on the Scheldt, the banks are so low and the country so flat ; a long plantation of oranges then varies the scene, and calls to mind the Italian rivers. At last, without any preparation, we passed from the plain into a deep gorge just at the com- mencement of the Blue Mountains, some two hundred and twenty feet wide, and full of water ; it is like one of the valleys of the Ehine, a grand and solemn scene. The mountain has been rent asunder by some sub- terranean convulsion. The opening is five hundred feet in height, and the impressions of the original form correspond on the summits, which rise to the right and left. Some of the rocks seem as though they hung by a thread, which looks very awful. Kecent shocks have torn up the trees in some places, and their trunks, are interlaced with creepers, dependmg from their roots, and hanging in clusters over the rocks, in whose openings are perfect gardens of orchids. I never saw so many curious varieties as are intermino-led Chap, xii.] BatJmrst Raikvay. 241 from tlie summit of tlie mountain to the surface of the blue water, whose banks they cover with a natural bed of creepers. It is a wonderful scene, and aU the more striking in Australia, whose real characteristic is endless plains of grass. Towards noon, after four hours of this picturesque navigation, during which we occasionally came in col- lision with some of the trunks of trees which were drawn along by the current, we stopped to cook our break- fast on a rock, where luckily there were other things besides orchids. The sailors did not seem in the least out of place as either wood-cutters or cooks ; and they very nearly set fire to the forest. Going with the stream, we quickly got back to Penrith, from where we started, and which is at present the terminus of the railway. Then the Governor and Lady Young arrived in a second special train, with some forty ladies, young and old, from Sydney. They came to inaugurate the iron bridge (200 yards long, and supported on three piers), which had been thrown across the river, and the line of rail which, scaling the Blue Mountains, joins Bathurst and Sydney. Scaling is the right word, for we saw a series of zigzag viaducts built in solid masonry, and ascents cut in the cliffs, gradually rising to the highest point of the first mountain that faced us, that is to say, 3775 feet above us. The incline is three in a hundred, and the mean cost 120,000Z. the mile. Notliing could be pleasanter than the way in which we made this journey of some 69 miles ; to begin with in very VOL. I. E 2.4^ Sydney. [Chap. XII. amusing and pleasant company, as well as in a most original manner. Tiie railroad cannot circumTent the rising ground, or take advantage of the inflections of the hills ; it is obliged to attack the flank of the mountain like a ladder, up steep ascents and winding roads. We were drawn up by an engine for about a mile, then stopped for a second at a corner, when, changing the points and with the engine reversed, we went up backwards for about the same distance; and so on, being soon able to see by stretching forwards the series of cliffs hanging one over the other, which we had passed, and which cut one another obliquely at an angle of four degrees. We were raised by viaducts placed two and two parallel to one another, and of which the farthest end of the third was ninety yards higher than the spring of the first. The summit com- manded an immense extent of cultivated ground, which faded away in the distant horizon. In a very few months the line wiU be finished as far as Bathurst, as the work will be easier. But what extraordinary people these English are. They have a town containing some 4000 souls which they ^vish to join with Sydney; so, notwithstanding a chain of mountains, which begin with an abrupt wall of some 3775 feet, they do not hesitate to lay down a railway, to establish extensive works, and to embark in enormous expenses. At this rate the town will become in ten years the centre of some 20,000 inhabitants, and an entirely new countrj'^, which at present produces nothing, will be opened to many Chap. XII.] Watsons Bay — Manley Beach. 243 thousand sheep. But they have to send all the way to England for iron. As night fell, we returned to Sydney, very much pleased at having seen so much in twenty-four hours, after travelling over nearly 130 miles, to say nothing of the luncheons and dances which seem so inseparable from any English inauguration. The following Saturday and Sunday we went to Manley Beach, and Watson's Bay, where the lighthouse marks the entrance to Port Jackson. Overhanging the ocean, which roars at its base, rises a black rock. from the summit of which there is an extensive view ; it is 350 feet high, and takes such a bend that you cannot see its foot, and the sight makes you giddy. There was a frightful shipwreck there lately of the ' Dunbar,' which missed the channel, and, striking the rock, was engulphed in the abyss ; 340 persons perished. Two of the officers who accompanied us had been, alas ! the helpless spectators of the awful scene, and had witnessed all these unfortunate men, after a three months' voyage, drowned whilst struggling against the waves, which dashed them up against the rocks, bury- ing their corpses in the deep. Manley Beach, on the contrary, is situated on the northern shore of the entrance, and is separated from the ocean by a narrow strip of land, where there is a cheerful view of picturesque woods and natural flower gardens.' Some dozen steamers, filled till they are ready to sink, bring all the good people of Sydney here on Sundays ; picnics, dances, and games abound. You E 2 244 Sydney. [Chap. XII. see that here they cheerfully set aside the stiff weari- ness which generally results from the way in which that day is kept in England. It takes an hour and a half to carry these pleasure-seekers back to the town. A " brick-fielder," or hurricane from the south-west, rather retarded our return. Thick clouds of yellow sand obscured the sun and smothered us ; before one hailstone had fallen, there was an inch of dust on the deck, and our eyes were full of it. With the hail there came so strong a breeze on the water that it was covered with a sheet of white foam before the waves had time to form. Had they not immediately drawn in sail, we should have been upset. Once some young fellows chartered a steamer, that they might show us all the enchanting points of this bay, which one could sail about in for a year without discovering some of the most fairy-like creeks. They jumped over into the water and fished with nets, which the first time caught nothing, and the second time two hundred fish; and the laughter and practical jokes amongst the bathers was what might be expected amongst such jolly good fellows. Another time some eighteen of us, young people of both sexes, went in a pretty cutter-rigged yacht, with a favourable wind, from the bay of Wooloomooloo to one of the wild winding courses of the river Paramatta. The boat turned up a stream of water beneath trailing creepers, where there was a dark grotto only shut off by a few planks. On the threshold of this primitive dwelling-place two old Irish people, a man of eighty Chap, XII.] Charms of Life in Sydney. 245 and his wife, were peacefully smoking their pipes, sur- rounded by their pigs. Oh, Philemon and Baucis ! They had lived there for forty years, hidden away like savages, far from any road or habitation. Is this a sight any one would expect to see in this land" of gold ? Dalley was with us, the best story-teller, and contri- butor of drawings and jokes to the 'Punch and Charivari' of Sydney. For there is a ' Punch ' here quite as good as the one in London. Our spirits never failed, not- withstanding a gale which bent the cutter over in rather an alarming manner, making us dance over the waves, though it did not seem to frighten the young ladies. But they certainly prefer dancing on dry land. All this out-door life and these expeditions are mere extras to the charms of every-day life in Sydney. They were always begging us to come back again, and never seemed to tire of entertaining us. Every night there was a ball, when we always met the same agreeable society ; they lasted far on into the night, and once I was honoured by being chosen as the leader of a cotillon. It is not every day that a Frenchman leads a cotillon at the xintipodes. Then in the daytime, Mrs. Deas Thompson, Mrs. Byliard, Mrs. Joubert, Mrs. Isaacs, the Misses Stephens, and many other kind friends, joined in jnaking parties into the country for us, in the mar- vellously beautiful gardens which surround the bay. At Lady Manning's the flower-covered terraces, ar- ranged in steps like those belonging to the houses in Genoa, give an extensive view of the sparkling bays of Sydney Cove, Farm Cove, and Wooloomooloo. The 2.46 Sydney. [Chap. XII. waves come and die away amongst the gardens of the Botanical Park, whose clumps of trees and delight- ful walks cannpt surely have been forgotten by our naval officers. Farther on a small creek, called EUzabeth Bay, almost forms a lake, of which the ver- dant banks are a perfect garden. In this situation, which is unrivalled for beauty, stands Mrs. Susannah Mackay's house. Bamboos and stately palms mingle with tree ferns and wild woods of lilies, whose delicate stems, rising to the height of some fifteen or twenty feet, support variegated blossoms of scarlet or bright blue. It is a most fairy-like spot, inhabited by the most amiable of hostesses. Then there was a French house, where the hours passed very pleasantly for us, whilst chatting with the agreeable and well-informed inhabitants. \^ih October. — But before leaving the colony, we spent one day in travelling over 'historical and most interesting ground. We went with the Governor some sixty miles from Sydney to Camden, the estate of the Messrs. MacArthur. The father was the first man who foresaw that Australia would not always remain as the lowest of penitentiaries for men just escaped hanging, but would one day become free English land, and would be called upon to act a great part in the balance of the world, by reason of its natural wealth, and the trade that he was the first to institute. The country about Camden is covered with flocks and herds and vineyards, whence come the best Australian "Burgundies." The two old men pointed Chap. XII.] The Sons of MacArtlmr. 247 out to us, through a vista, the valley where, after being lost for five years, the cattle brought into Australia with the convicts in 1788 were discovered. It seems that, when they landed, almost all the living animals sent out with the expedition had been eaten. Some twenty had got away, and until 1793 nothing more was seen of them. MacArthur, however, came across the herd, which had much increased, and, running wild over the country, defied the arrows of the natives who, having frequently eaten human cutlets, now wanted to see what stewed beef tasted like. I was eager to hear the history told by the sous of him whom the Australians justly call the " founder of their prosperity." When barely twenty years of age, Captain MacArthur ^vas one of the body of officers in command of the penal settlement at Botany Bay, in 1788. Having landed with the convicts, and witnessed all the trials of the first settlement, and the first works, which opened out a way to civilisation on these distant shores, his immediate thought was to raise cattle and export wool. It was a bold thought for' a man who saw himself surrounded by a black race, living by murder and pillage, with none to support him but banished criminals, landing without means. The distance that separated him from the countries whence he would have to fetch animals for breeding purposes, the almost utter want of communication for sending away the annual produce, to any one else would have seemed insurmountable obstacles. But in 1797 he was able to get from the Cape of Good Hope five ewes and three rams of the 248 Sydney, [Chap. XII. merino race; he crossed them with a dozen ewes from Bengal, which arrived at the same time. The result was a race with thick fleeces, and constitutions suited for the Australian climate. The rapid progress and enormous issue of this small flock encouraged Mac- Arthur. He went to England in 1803, his object being to convert the " land of cut-throats," as Australia was then called, into a commercial colony. "You talk of only giving us enough for the miserable life of a prisoner," said he to the Lords of the Privy Council; "believe me, I could send more wool into the London markets than would be required for the consumption of all England." And as the lords treated him as an enthusiast, he added, " I will say still more. Australia, with its oceans of pasture land, will send you more wool than all the flocks of Europe and Asia." And all he asked to secure so great a future was four or five vessels entirely filled with ewes. But, like all great innovations, the proposal was treated by the committee with a smile of disdain. Lord Camden alone encouraged him with fair words, and obtained for him from George III., by way of a polite gift, one ewe and nine rams from the model flock at Kew. It seems that at this period sovereigns delighted in rustic model farms, and privy councils were not of the most far-seeing. Eebuffed by the State and misunder- stood by all, the young officer chartered a ship at his own expense, and imported into Sydney, besides the munificent royal gift, four hundred Saxon ewes of the purest breed, bought at his own expense. " In the Chap. XII.] Production of Wool. 249 fields which surround you as far as you can see," said the Messrs. MacArthur to us, " our father watched the prosperity of the flocks which he alone had imported, and on which he rested his greatest hopes. Had he been permitted to attain to the age of ninety-seven, he would have seen the unrivalled development of a wealth whose modest beginning was owing to his exer- tions. He would have seen what you see, not only in our colony, but in all those of which it has proved the cradle, which it nourished in their infancy, and which took from it their first flocks as from a second mother- country." And what we saw were eight millions of sheep in New South Wales, nearly nine millions in Victoria, one million and a half in Tasmania, six millions in South Austraha, and as many in Queensland, making a total of thirty millions and a half of sheep, which represents 18,300,000?., and gives a yearly exportation of 152,300,000 pounds of wool, valued at 11,600,000?. It is wonderful to look at these figures, and to remember that as late as 1823 the first exportation from Australia of twelve bales of wool, sold in the London market for 88Z. This is Enghsh work, and a work that has taken but few years to accomplish, and in another ten will be doubled. What will it be in another century, considering that the squatters only occupy as yet the shores of a continent that is nearly as large as Europe ? The Government of the colony showed itself very grateful towards the energetic man who had done so 250 Sydney. [Chap. XII. much for it. An immense extent of land, in which there would be plenty of room for an entire French department, became his property. The youngest of the two sons took us a long walk through the grounds ; thoroughbred stallions and brood mares sported about on one side, and on the other were thousands of oxen, and tens of thousands of sheep. But in the midst of this perfect exhibition of European animals, one single native specimen suddenly appeared in the grass. It was a hideous grey and brown serpent, about two yards long. We eagerly killed it, and one of the Blacks rolled it round a great branch, and carried it along in triumph. It was said to be one of the most Tcnomous in the country. A month ago a shepherd at the station died within three hours from the bite of a similar beast. Another shepherd had been bitten in the loins. Our host, who happened to be passing, did not hesitate for a moment ; he made a great hole with his knife in the man's flesh big enough to put your hand into, then burnt it with hot iron, and bathed it with a lotion made of herbs of the country. I believe I might go ten times round the world before I should find any one without that instinctive horror of serpents. It is like the horror of convicts — every one has it ; they are detested. " And yet," said one of our hosts, " we have seen them at work when there were no free men in the colony, besides the officers of the garrison. Our doors were never shut (it is true that locks were unknown), and nothing was ever stolen. Their work consisted in clearing woods, building quays, and marking Chap. XII.] Influence of Free Immigration. 251 out roads. When the free immigrants arrived in crowds, the convicts were given to them as workmen and servants, and many were pardoned and set free for their good conduct. The average of crime here has never equalled that of England." Unquestionably the convicts have been of great use. They were the in- voluntary pioneers whose axes first cut open the way to a career full of rich promise. A thousand fi-ee men would never have been found to land on the rocks of Botany Bay, but three hundred thousand may readily be found to do so on the quays of Sydney. The convict element was a necessity at the com- mencement, when the public horror for this country was as great as the public ignorance ; but this period once passed, its pernicious influence could only be subdued by the gradual change in the mode of govern- ment, in the same manner that the free immigration transformed the moral condition of the governed. What made the good fortune of New South Wales was the amount of liberty in its government, which was in- creased by every shipload of immigrants that arrived, — the self-government, the free election, and the participation of all in political life. If the authorita- tive system of a penitentiary had been continued for the colony, we should not see towns containing more than a hundred thousand souls, parliaments issuing universal suffrage, free press, railroads, a trade of over a million : in short, the free European civilisation that is now to be seen in Australia. We should have found on the soU of New Holland barracks and prisons, the 252, Sydney. [Chap. XII. indisputable decrees of an all-powerful government, the approving silence of a formal council, heroic ex- peditions without any result, a monopoly of everything, rules for everything, and a policeman for every two colonists. In fact, it would have been very like our colonial system as carried out in New Caledonia, which seems to follow in the latter path. I very much wished to see it, but no trading vessel went there during my stay ; so there is only one thing which I know de visu about our colony, which is the table of its commercial relations with Sydney, as published in the Government statistics. The exports from Sydney to Noumea in 1865 amounted to 39,320^., while Noumea, on the contrary, only ex- ported 1,960^., making a balance of 37,360Z. in favour of New South Wales. But we are told by people here who have been to see it that this beautiful island, with its tropical nature, its great natural resources, and commercial position, ought speedily to become a great colony. Situated in the same latitude as Bourbon, with a marvellously fertile soil, which produces, as does Bourbon, sugar, coffee, and spices, it is yet unnecessary for the prosperity of this island that its produce should be sent round by Cape Horn some six thousand miles to Europe. It is but six days' journey to Sydney, and ten to Melbourne, and it has what for a tropical colony is the unparalleled good fortune, to have its "Europe," so to speak, close by, into which it can safely pour its produce. The soil of Australia is too dry for the cultivation of sugar and Chap. XII.] New Caledonia. 253 coffee. This opulent and well established population of white men, instead of taking three months in sending to the Mauritius or Java for the necessary tropical produce, has but to stretch out its hand to pour millions yearly into this island, which seems so admirably chosen for commercial purposes. I wish I might hope for such good fortune. But for the present it seems 'rather like a three- decker, commanded by the whistle of a boatswain's mate, the colonists being treated as awkward landsmen, very much in the way of the M'ork of transportation. During the recent plague in Bourbon, a deputation of twelve colonists, tempted by the richness of the soil, came to see whether they might not be able to settle here ; but a combination of military despotism and the galleys soon made them feel that they were in the way, and they returned to their native isle. Theo, taken in a business point of view, what a perfect position it is to fix on for a penitentiary. Should the convicts attempt to escape by sea, their fragile boats would be dashed to pieces on the coral reefs. Should they attempt to force their way by land through the line of soldiers that surrounds them, they must fall into the hands of the Canaques, who would immediately roast them and eat them up. It seemed such a good opportunity that these attempts were made to institute a phalanstery that should take the world by surprise in putting into practice this most original theory. But unfortunately, after several of the most exquisitely absurd scenes, and although many 254 Sydney. [Chap. XII. more shiploads of virtuous orphans arrived than had been announced as leaving France, the dream of a phalanstery came to no good. The most palpable importation from France is absinthe, and the chief exports stamped paper and military despatches. But though we have but seventeen hundred free men, where the English would probably have seventeen thousand, and though a subsidy of 12,000Z. exceeds by nearly two-thirds the internal resources of the colony, the soil of which is so fertile ; though we may know better how to occupy, to fortify, to close in, to write military despatches, and to inspect, than how to colonise, we still have our military glory. At Sydney, our garrison of nine hundred men in New Caledonia is overwhelmed with praise, and this well-deserved respect caused us very great pleasure. New Caledonia and New South Wales rose into life with a considerable interval between them, not under the same lucky star, but in the same obscurity, and seem to be placed face to face, so as to show to greater advantage, on one side the state of infancy in which the first still is, and on the other the wonderful increase of prosperity to which the second has attained, and to which I hope, with all my heart, that its younger sister may arrive at, after a similar period of existence, and in the same proportion. The picture presented by the English colony in 1865 was brilliant: 411,388 inhabitants, in possession of 8,132,511 sheep, 1,961,905 horned beasts, and 282,587 horses ; the expenses of the State rose to 1,756,491?., Chap. XII.] Wealth and Ins tihdions. 255 and the receipts to 2,157,233?., of wliich the balance helped considerably towards the liquidation of the debt, though that still amounts to 5,749,000Z. ; 1912 vessels, weighing 635,888 tons, entered the ports ; its commerce amounted to 12,199,224Z. ; meat was Zd. the pound, and the average of workmen's wages was 10*. the day. The constitution of New South Wales is different, both from that of Victoria and of Tasmania. The House of Assembly is composed of seventy members, periodically elected by residential suffrage ; it is the House of Commons. The House of Legislature is named for life by the Governor, and a council of the chief ministers, and forms the House of Lords. In this constitutional government, the able and respected hand of Sir John Young has safely held the reins of both the Liberal and Conservative elements, as they al- ternately triumph or are vanquished in the life of par- liamentary institutions. Business is always ably con- ducted, and if Mr. Martin is not at the head of affairs, Mr. Cowper is, according to the current of public opinion, which decides between them, and sanctions their elec- tion. Although the society of Sidney, the capital of a colony chiefly composed of sheepfarmers, and where a powerful aristocracy holds itself aloof from commerce, is old in comparison with Melbourne, where all ranks are levelled by the essentially commercial character of its inhabitants and the fact of its coming into existence during the period of the gold fever, there is an equal animation in the politics of both towns, and all minds are as much influenced by them. 256 Sydney. [Chap. XII. All these men whom we have seen feel that here is their country, which they love as a sculptor loves the statue which his own hands have made ; here is the arena in which they rise by election, where they fight for their principles, and where their prosperity grows by the work of their own hands. Steadier, though less liberal ; slower, but less feverish ; more like England, while her neighbours more nearly resemble America — New South Wales appeared to me the brightest and best of the gems in the crown of English colonies ; she has shown what can be done in seventy-seven years, and notwitlistanding the greatest obstacles, by order, energy, and liberality. Chap. XIII.] Torres Straits. 257 CHAPTEE XIII. EAST COAST OP AUSTRALIA. A flrst-rate opportunity of crossing Torres ^traits — The ' Hero ' — Newxastle and its coals — Brisbane and flying foxes — Queensland, a growing colony — Description of the human sacrifices at Dahomey — A town only two years old — Cannibal fires — Coral isles — Where the ' Hero ' nearly foundered. Vdh October. — The hour of departure has arrived. We intended to remain six weeks in Australia, and we have been here fourteen, detained on all sides by daily increas- ing interest and incessant hospitality. Instead of fol- lowing the ordinary routes of the English mails by Melbourne, Port George, and Ceylon, a good opportunity presented itself; the Government are sending a steamer to Batavia through the Straits of Torres, to try and establish commercial communication between the Aus- tralian and Dutch colonies. The ' Hero ' has been chosen for this dangerous mission. And notwithstanding the fears and entreaties of all who are interested in us, the attractions of a navigation of some twelve hundred miles amongst the rocks of the coral seas, and of crossing straits that are said to be the most dangerous in the world, proved too strong for us to hesitate for a moment. We were on board by daybreak ; I know nothing to VOL. I. s 258 East Coast of Australia. [Chap. XIII. compare to the confusion, the bustle, and the noise which always precedes the departure of a steamer, on a journey which will probably take a month. As a rule, all the sailors are drunk ; the victuallers are late, as is the case in all countries. Steam cranes bring down over our heads tons of salt pork, live sheep, and low- ing cows. Ten thorough-bred horses, fastened by strong girths, are slung on board, kicking furiously as they are drawn up nearly to the tops, and as soon as they touch the deck, pawing and scrambling about in terror amongst the sailors, who are still more frightened : bands of imbecile pigs charge the poop from the forecastle, with piercing shrielvs. Everything is mixed up together, coals and fresh vegetables, in a newly painted boat : all the world screams itself hoarse, while a collection of cockatoos shriek above everything. Happily, the latter only embarked at the last moment. Then we cast off our moorings, the screw began to work rapidly, and we darted like an arrow across the bay that now seemed more lovely than ever. The noise of the shore no longer reached my ears ; leaning over the poop, I was in thought again on dry land, and deeply regretting having to leave that de- lightful town, where they had so often said to us, " You will come back some day." All the spots that had so charmed us were now spread before our eyes in one view ; there was Macquarie's Chair, and Woo- loomooloo, and Elizabeth Bay; and I said to myself that the real Eden of Australia was neither at Two- fold, nor beneath Cape Oomooroomoon, but here ! Chap. XIII.] Newcastle and its Coals. 259 " Le bonheur reste au gite, Le souyeuir part avec moi." And gradually the last houses, lighted up by the rising siin, were lost in masses of flowers, and suddenly were hidden from sight by the rocks where the ' Dunbar ' was lost. Towards evening we hugged the shore ; it is burnt up, sandy, and monotonous ; we entered the port of Newcastle. The entrance is full of sandbanks, which are moved by a rapid current, and is, in fact, very dangerous. We saw, in the midst of the rocks, the high masts of the ' Covarra,' a steamer which was lost since our arrival in Australia. It was only five hundred yards from the shore, and, fearful to relate, out of two hundred and seventy-five passengers, only one, a young man of twenty, was saved by clinging to a buoy. We came here to fetch the eleven hundred tons of coal which were to feed the fires of the ' Hero ' during her voyage. Newcastle is the large and only colonial coal market in Australia; we were bent upon seeing the coal mines, which, in consequence of the enormous trade, are a hundred times- rnore^ valuable than gold mines. 18^^ October. — The managers took us on horseback to the Waratah mine : two galleries, each 800 yards long, are cut horizontally in the flank of the hill, which is one mass of coal; there begins a vein of which the end has not yet been discovered, and which, being some miles in width, and four yards in depth, 3 2 i6o East Coast of A^tstralia. [Chap. XIII. sinks towards the south, with an incline of five yards in three hundred. The Waratah employs 250 work- men, who are paid at the rate of 3s. 6c?. the ton ; they extract an average of 3500 tons a week, which return on the spot 8s. the ton. This mine is the best off, for, material being found on the surface, it is not neces- sary to dig pits, or to use machinery. It greatly in- jures its competitors, which, much burdened with ex- tensive mining, are still obliged to sell at the same pi'ice. Further on, we went to see the " Bore Hole," where we descended some 300 feet into the earth ; it is one way of getting nearer to Europe, and also an oppor- tunity of seeing how very far cleaner a coal mine is than a gold mine. The " Bore Hole " belongs to a large company — the Australian Agricultural Company — which occupies itself with everything — coal, horses, cab- bages, cattle, and sheep. The Government gave them a free gift of five million acres, and they bought two million more for the sum of 800,000?. ; they possess nearly 200,000 sheep, 20,000 oxen, and employ 500 men as shepherds and miners, for whom they pay 70,000Z. This is an example of an association of squatters, which is a very common thing in Australia. The shareholders would not sell for a kingdom : they each hope to make a million, and told us that they would not have much longer to wait. Happy money-makers, whose prospects might rouse the envy of the confiding lovers of tlie Mexican loan ! \%th OcitoSer.— The great hold of the ' Hero ' has ab- Chap. XIII.] Qtieensland. 261 sorbed its 1100 tons of coal; which is the twenty- fifth part of the weekly export from Newcastle, a town whose solemn aspect is well calculated to con- trast with Sydney ; after a fairy palace we come to a chimney-sweep. Our vessel is an old blockade-runner, built in Glasgow during the last American war, to run the blockade of the Confederate ports ; in other words, if is Tery low in the water, all iron, and pointed like a pirogue. It is 235 feet long, has an engine of 250 horse-power, carries a crew of 42 men, and weighs 1200 tons, so that you can believe there is very little room at present for a cargo. It is a pilot sent by Australia to open the way, and heavily laden trading vessels will follow if it succeeds. 22wcZ October. — We have left the waters of New South Wales to enter those of Queensland. As to tiie ^vate^s of heaven, 1 think they will soon drown us ; a fearful squall, a perfect waterspout, broke everything on board. The storm brought up cold masses of clouds from the south, and quickly met the hot heavy breeze from the north : there was a momentary struggle above our heads, then the two electricities combined, everything gave way, and the condensed vapours were precipitated in the form of hadstones as big as pigeons' eggs, and the barometer rose a quarter of an inch in a minute and a half. The way in which all our instruments danced about was delightful. Everyone sought shelter between decks, several jays and parrots were instantly killed by the blows of hailstones on their covered cages ; 262 East Coasi of Australia. [Chap. XIII. aud the dogs howled at the pain of the bruises they received. The panic was short but sharp. Not only the thunder, but the sea had to do with it ; we -were so knocked about that the scaffolding which protected the horses that were fastened on deck, suddenly gave way ; the yards and jury-masts of which it was formed fell to pieces ; the poor beasts fell down like a pack of cards, some on their sides, others with their legs in the air, were knocked about by tlie waves, and the more they tried to get up from the slippery deck the more they fell and got hurt. One ought to be pretty well hardened to keep cool in such a confusion; Logan, the captain, was well suited for the situation, with his strong arms and voice of thunder. We, being somewhat accustomed to danger, helped him to the best of our ability. The scene on deck was exactly like a battue in Africa, where huge wild beasts are forced into a gallop between two hedges, towards a ditch, into which they fall one over the other like pigeons in a pie. One horse died, and was thrown into the sea, and others were preparing for the same fate. But, alas ! even this could not purify the most fearful pigstye I ever saw, which was nothing else than our kitchen ; two mulatto butchers, oily and filthy, poured handfuls of red pepper and cloves into everything ; and the water to quench our thirst was sticky and warm. But in travelling, these kind of things must be treated as a joke, so as to lieep up one's spirits, though one's body is anything but comfortable. Chap. XIII.] Arrival at Brisbane. 26 J But liere we are at Moreton Island ; we let do'wn our heavy anchors into the bay, and are greeted by a small steamer from Brisbane. The aide-de-camp of the Governor, Sir George Bowen, brings a courteous letter to the Prince, begging him to land. We went along the flat and marshy banks of Brisbane Eiver for two hours, stopping for a moment to catch three great yellow tor- toises about a yard and a half long. Once on board, and on their backs, the poor beasts convulsively but vainly kicked about their flattened feet, at the same time sticking out their bare heads, in which two great eyes were rolling, with an expression of considerable anxiety. AYhat good soup they wild make ! We spent the whole evening at the Government House ; being close to the tropics, the heat was great ; the gardens, too, were curious. The appearance of an animal that was new to us interrupted our talk ; it was the flying-fox, a kind of brown squirrel, whose feet, when spread out, have a sort of transparent membrane between the toes, which helps to support them in the air, and serves as wings, as they fly distances of some hundred or hundred and fifty yards from tree to tree. I don't know what Greek or Latin name science may have given them, but I think as good a name as any other would be the squirrel-bat. It is very pretty to see them shoot from the top of a high fir-tree, and fly like an arrow through the air, descending diagonally on the other side of the field, on to trees of some twenty or thirty feet in height. When supported by the wind, they go very far, like autumn leaves, which. 264 East Coast of Atistralia. [Chap. XI 1 1. without any will of their own, float immense distances from high trees. There were several " bounyas " here, a tree which is sacred to the blacks in these parts. It is a strong pine of a somewhat singular form, but as regular as an arau- caria, and attaining to an imposing height. The fruit is a sort of pine-apple, which only ripens every three years; the natives collect together in tribes to gather the fruit in certain woods that are sacred to them. It is a curious thing that since the settlement of the white men, the smell of cattle and the neighbourhood of buildings have rapidly killed these trees ; and now, when the blacks go to gather the fruit, it seems that they chant to a melancholy air that, when " the last fruit of the last survivor in the forests of bounyas ripens and falls to the earth, the soul of the last black will return to the stars." It is indeed a sad sight to see the rapid extinction of this race ; a profound melancholy has taken possession of the people of the south ; daily they see themselves dying out. This unfortunate race, so simple and so wild, have reaped nothing but harm from civilisation ; excessive drinking, and new diseases, have killed them like flies in a frost. During the eighty years in which they have watched the works of the white men, they have not once had sufficient energy to set to work and, following the example of their invaders, make the same earth yield the same profits that they do. No, they are content to lie wallowing on the sand for days and nights together, then after hunting opossum with spears Chap. XIII.] Natives. 265 made of fish-bones, they eat of the flesh for four days, and afterwards lie and sleep in the sun in all the filth and slothfulness of the boa-constrictor, while digesting its food — this is the life of a race which seems to have been cursed ! Yain efforts have been made to educate some of the black children, to teach them trades that they may gain high salaries ; at twenty or five and twenty years of age, they escape from the towns back again to the woods to resume their miserable existence. There was one brought up in Melbourne who was remarkably intelligent, and enthusiastic about niaclii- nery and manufactures ; his manners were almost European ; he knew something about mathematics, and could solve a double equation. He was sent to England for two years, was presented to the Queen, and over- whelmed with kindness. Well, now, if you go along the banks of the Murrumbidgee, or the Ulla Dalla, you will see him perfectly naked, in the midst of hideous tribes, living on oppossuui flesh, incapable of work, and as brutish and miserable as any of his brethren. One could almost fancy that some evil spirit chose them to remain impassive and ignorant spectators of all the wonders which white men have wrought upon their soil. '2S>ri October. — Early in the morning we joined the 'Hero' in the roads; before arriving at the quay, I looked well round me, feeling how strange everything was. Nothing looks so queer as a growing town ; here there are public buildings looking lilie palaces, and yet a66 East Coast of Atistralia. [Chap. XIII. it is nothing more than a large village ; the streets are marked out, but almost in the midst of forests of red cedars, tulip trees, and iron-wood trees ! At the end of a street containing two or three smart little shops full of novelties is a precipice or a torrent; farther on I saw written on a slight wall, " The Treasury," but sur- rounding it were nothing but the tents of immigrants who had just arrived. The fact is that Brisbane is a colony that is just emerging ; Queensland is its territory, which comprises all the north-east part of the southern continent, and extends over a country three times the size of France. It is forty-two years since the first European entered Moreton Bay; it quickly became one of the sheep- farming districts of New South Wales; in 1859, it contained very nearly 20,000 inhabitants, but its distance from the seat of Government was a great drawback, and from that date it became an independent colony. This inate love of independence, self-government, and ' adventure was a curious thing in this body of men, who, far from fearing ruin in losing the protection of an old established State, chose to run the chance of sur- passing their neighbours, by their own exertions. The truth is that it is different to remedy an evil unless you are on the spot properly to encourage work, or judge of the prosperity of which the natural resources of the soil are capable. So they desired to have, and indeed have got, a parliament elected by universal suffrage, and responsible ministers, a complete government of Chap. XIII.] Queensland, a Growing Colony. 267 their own. They chose to advance with giant strides, and begin at once with the benefits, as well as the expenses, of immigration. There are already 90,000 people in this colony which only started in 1 859 ; they can count six million sheep in their pasture land, 900,000 horned cattle, and 50,000 horses ; they already export 1, 400,0007. per annum ; they possess copper mines, and have lately discovered some gold mines, and the Darling Downs have a vegetable soil which is compared with that of England. A perfect flood of capitalists and squatters from other colonies has poured into this almost wild countr3\ These gentlemen, possessing some 150,000 sheep, finding themselves rather cramped in the runs in the south, and animated Mith a love of adventure, boldly pushed into the interior, so as to find more elbow room. The immigrants received on landing a " non-trans- ferable land order," which gave them the right to choose a plot of ground of 148 acres, besides which the Government allow them to rent as much as they chose, at the rate of ten shillings the acre ; and for a lease of fourteen years let them one square mile at the same price. Mines and sheep are most cer- tainly the alpha and omega of all Australia. It is true that the coffers of the Treasury are only remarkable for their lightness ! which is consequent on the excess and abuse of energy, the gratuitous transport of immigrants, and the construction of railroads, posts, and telegraphs. 2,68 East Coast of Australia. [Chap. xill. But in a country where in ten years a debt is no longer divided between 90,000 inhabitants, but be- tween 500,000, and where the value of thousands of square miles in two years rises from nothing to 24Z., a debt of 831,000Z. that started with the colony is not very alarming. These first difBculties, from which Queensland now suffers, men who are barely thirty years of age, hare seen in Victoria and New Zealand, which are now such prosperous colonies. Brisbane, like Melbourne, has had its revolts ; and if no blood has been spilled, it is no thanks to the force of arms ; while there are but seven soldiers in Tasmania, there are only sixteen in Brisbane ! Now everything is in good order, and if this country can get over its financial crisis, and is not the first to fall in the war of tariffs which is now beginning amongst the Australian colonies, it will be one of the most striking examples of the difficulties encountered in distant countries, but also of the rapidity and cer- tainty with which they can be overcome, and raised from the chaos of yesterday to the prosperity of to-day. It is very possible that in ten years this country will already have become an important state. If so, I shall look back with pleasure to having seen its capital in the condition of a large village, its inhabitants living in tents, and threatened with dangers by reason of its youth. I shall have seen the foundation of an empire, and everything that human power, under the wings of liberty, can attempt and execute in a new country. But I could only see the general effect of a town in Chap. XIII.] Doctor Haran. 269 process of being formed, and I could not examine into the details in so short a time. I learnt all that 1 have told you from the conversation of the G-overnor and several squatters, and now, while I write, the ' Hero ' is already making its ten knots an hour towards the north, keeping close to the shore, of which we shall not lose sight for a long time. 25iA October . — A sea voyage is a great pleasure, and an almost necessary repose after three months of such a life as we had been leading. We could not conceive anything more desirable than returning to our peaceable walks up and down the poop, freely breathing the fresh air, and summoning before us, as in a dream, all our recollections. I laughed heartily sometimes at the stories of the good doctor on board, who had embarked in the ' Hero ' the day after his landing in Australia, having come from Ireland in a ship in which he had the distinguished and agreeable post of superintendent over five hundred and fifty young virgins from the Emerald Isle, sent by a society for encouraging the im- provement of races in Queensland. The voyage took one hundred and fourteen days, and I leave you to imagine how delighted the girls must have been the moment they set foot once more on dry land. We have a very agreeable companion in M. Van Delden, President of the Chamber of Commerce in Batavia, who has come to study the Australian colonies, and to seal the commercial relations of which the ' Hero ' is the forerunner. 270 East Coast of Australia. [Chap. XIII. At night the cooks take their harmonicas, and to the sound of an Irish tnne, which frightens even the sea-gulls, all the crew dance a jig in the stern of the ship. The hours of a starry night, on an azure sea, are the hours for pleasant conversation, and I constantly walk the deck, whilst eagerly questioning one of the most agreeable men I ever met, but who unluckily will only be our companion for five days more, Mr. Haran, surgeon in the Eoyal Navy, who is going back to the salvage post in the Straits of Torres, where with a few soldiers he lives in the midst of cannibals ; it drove his wife mad, and his two sons died from sun- stroke ! This good doctor has been everywhere, and has travelled in the least known countries. During the twenty-eight years that he was at sea, he had the op- portunity of seeing the east and west coasts of America and Africa, and two-thirds of Polynesia. In 1862 he went in the ' Eattlesnake ' with Commodore Eardley Wilmot, when the latter was sent by Queen Victoria to take presents to the King of Dahomey (on the west coast of Africa, lat. 3° N.), and to implore him to give up the too notorious human sacrifices, and not to sell negroes to the pirates. These three men, the com- modore, Dr. Haran, and another naval officer, landed alone and unarmed, and boldly advanced amongst a population of cannibals, to the palace of Dahomey, so renowned for its columns built of human skulls. The king came to meet them, followed by an army of five thousand amazons, gallantly armed to the teeth. He Chap. XIII.] Human Sacrifices at Dahomey. 2,71 received them with great pomp, presented them to the assembled multitudes, and hospitably entertained them for seven weeks. But they were forced to witness many horrible sights ; three or four times during the first month, five heads were struck off and strewn in the king's way, to call down the benediction of the gods upon his head. One day there was a solemn sacrifice ; a great procession vanished into a tower, and emerging at the top were then decapitated, commencing with some hundred chickens, then pigs, turkeys, sheep, and oxen, and finally sixty men and sixty women. It was a time of great rejoicing for the people, who were cele- brating a victory over a vanquished tribe, and offered these sacrifices for the glory of their gods and the prosperity of the royal line. The king tried to con- vince the British envoys of the lawfulness of these human sacrifices by showing them the intense delight which they afforded to the spectators, and he told them that "the sovereign would be dethroned who did not cut off the heads of half the enemies whom he defeated, for the people of Dahomey chose that their prince should be faithful to the religion of his ancestors, and should sacrifice several times a month." Having ex- hausted all the arguments suggested by humanity, the commodore proposed a considerable indemnity in money. " Dollars," said the king, " never ! Yonr queen would never be able to give me enough. Re- member that I sell each black prisoner for 12?. to the Portuguese pirates, who are welcome here. Let us remain friends, but each according to his religion and 272 East Coast of Aiistralia. [Chap. XI 1 1. customs." And upon that he led them to a feast, where his black chamberlain poured out the luscious wines of the country into white and polished cups, which were no other than human skulls. And the guests tore off great slices of human bacon, cooked with aromatic herbs. "I never was so frightened in my life," said the doctor, " for we risked our lives in our determined refusal of everything; luckily we had reserved till now some presents of guns and watches, and hats ornamented with high plumes, which made them forgive us for not eating human flesh." They snatched at the plumes, and these stark-naked black gentlemen looked most exquisitely absurd under a staff officer's hat, what the sailors call a hat with " fishes' feathers." The magicians, after throwing small squares of ebony into the air, told the king every morning what he ought to do throughout the day! The English were obliged to return to their ship without obtaining anything for which they had asked ; the king dismissed them with the utmost politeness, always persisting that he refused their demands at the instigation of higher powers, and thinking to console them by giving each of them presents of fine elephants' tusks, rhinoceros' horns, and two women from his harem. I admire the courage of these men, and would have given anything in the world to have been one of the party. This story is most scrupulously exact, for Fauvel met Burton last year at Eio, who was entrusted with the same mission two years later, and who told him the same story, word for word. Chap. XIII.] Bowen. 273 "i&th October. — A mist rather impedes the rapidity of our progress. We have strained our eyes all day, trying to see Lady Elliot Island, which would settle our position, the almost inconceivable rapidity of the current rendering the exact spot too uncertain. At last we found it. Yesterday we passed the tropic of Capricorn, at sunrise. The swell of the sea subsided ; we were sheltered by innumerable coral islands, M'hich could be detected from a great distance by clouds of white birds. We passed Peak Island, a high rock with an oval hole in the centre, pointing N.W. and S.E. It is the resort of pelicans and tortoises, a curious and most strange looking spot. From there we followed a long- channel, between the coast of the continent and the desert islands — K, 11, 12, 13, and M— which are as wild as their names are odd, and found ourselves in the roads of Bowen. One good thing about the 'Hero' is that she will stop for a short time whenever it is desired. Delicious weather, and the sight of a smiling bay opening out in the clearing of a pine wood, tempted us to jump into the whale boat, and land, that we might see the last village of Eastern Australia. The arrival of our ship, which we announced by a cannon shot, was quite an event to people who very rarely see a steamer in the course of the year. We were immensely astonished at finding ourselves in the midst of a German republic. Prussians, not so lively' perhaps as those at Sadowa, but still very much pleased with the news of the needle-gun victories with which we VOL. I. T 2 74 East Coast of Australia. [Chap. XIII. acquainted them ; natives of Baden, who, no longer ex- cited by the anxieties of the roulette table, build their wooden huts in a tropical city, not yet two years old, and which began with a church and seven public- houses, and where a thousand inhabitants struggle with serpents and natives the moment they land, under a burning sun, and amidst virgin forests. And this is what all Australia is generally supposed to be in Europe. Here are colonists at work, and poor immigrants living in tents. Here you really do see unfortunate men exiled from our countries to these distant lands to find bread. Want and despair caused them to come here ; and they have not yet got over their first astonishment at finding themselves isolated in a country where all is new to them. This colony has nothing to hope except from its own exertions, and they must risk all to create anything. One worthy Prussian peasant, who wept with joy when he heard us speak in his own language, had fenced in the field next his hut, and never lost sight of a lean flock of some forty ewes. We told him that in the south we had seen flocks of sixty thousand sheep wandering about at will. On which, giving a more violent blow with his axe to the tree which he was cutting down, he replied : " Then I may hope before I die to see this little troop of children happy and prosperous. The eldest were born in my beloved Germany ; this one at sea, almost in the ice ; that one, again, in the tropics. They are pale, and in rags ; but I will earn for them a flourishing run, with thousands of cattle and sheep, and they will Chap. XIII.] Bowcn. 275 become ricK and happy : oh Grott sei Dank ! " Let him take courage, and imitate his predecessors in Victoria and New 8outh Wales, and their contemporaries in New Zealand. We have gone over the country which surrounds the settlement, where serpents hide in the grass, and bands of natives always fly before us, though tliey never fail to strike the neighbouring cattle with their spears. This was all we saw, and it was necessary to be well armed. All Bowen was much excited at the news of two shipwrecked men, who were taken on a neighbour- ing strand, where, having gone to the rescue, a native tribe was found already occupied in eating them. Being in the tropics, it is hardly necessary to say that the sharp bites of the most tenacious of mosquitoes nearly drive us wild, while a most painful thirst would induce us to barter a year's existence for a glass of fresh water. After my excursion in this tangled forest, I can understand that the worthy inhabitants of Bowen con- sume 10,000Z. worth of liquor in the course of the year. Tou may think that I am labouring under a delusion, but I actually smelt Sauerkraut and heard a fine sym- phony at Bowen. Every people import with them the distinctive features of their life, both physical and moral. Germans are generally married before they emigrate, and, with no thought of returning, drag after them a troop of children, whom they tear from poverty and all the misery of want. They occupy themselves very little with politics; and, as soon as the colony T 2 2,76 East Coast of Australia. [Chap. XIII. prospers, they found an Orpheus Society, with a big brass band, which institution suffices for their happiness ; and the virgin forest echoes to the sound of Beethoven and Meyerbeer. A Frenchman usually emigrates in a moment of excitement ; with marvellous facility he works a little at all trades ; we have seen him as a dancing master, an actor, and a confectioner, but oftener still as a pastrycook. He has but one idea, and that to make his fortune as quickly as possible — sometimes a great deal too fast — and then, returning to his boulevards, to spend it in the pleasantest way possible. ' He is so passionately attached to his native earth, especially to his native pavements, he so dearly loves his country, that he seems like a bee, flying from flower to flower, and .sipping a drop more sweetness from each before return- ing to the hive ; he is so light-hearted, and so fond of the hum of Paris. But as for the British race, wherever they emigrate, they make a new home. They begin by instituting a parliament; church steeples, signs of a lasting settle- ment, rise rapidly above the soil which but a moment before was crowded with heathens; amongst the colonists who first land, there is material out of which speakers, ministers, and public men are made. Dressed in the London fashion, they live in all the comfort of clubs and well furnished houses, and the colony quickly becomes a prosperous and liberal England. When we leapt from the sand of the shore into the whale-boat, the ' Hero ' was no longer in sight ; the ebb Chap. XIII.] Coral Isles. 277 of the tide had forced her to leave the roads, and a promoDtory hid her lights from us. The night was fine and cool ; a heavy .swell from the east drove us amidst the phosphorescent waves, as the oars moved them, each moment shaking off drops of light : it was a pleasure to breathe. We all rowed, so as to get quickly over the eight miles which separated us from our ship. There was not a breath of air or a sound. Our atten- tion was attracted by the fires of the cannibals, who had rushed to the coast on heaving the sound of the cannon. A long red light outlined the summits of the cliffs. ' 28