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-' 11 • \ • 






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00017037X 





SET, • 



QUE ANTIPODES: 

OR, HEsrDEK'CB AJTD RAUSI^S 111 

THE AUSTRALASIAN COLONIES. 

BY LIEUT.-COL. GODFREY CHARLES MUNDY, 




LONDON: 

BICHABD BENTLEY, NEW BUELmGTON STREET, 

l^ablia^n in ^inlnari! to ^n Jttafntg. 

J 857. 



■ZHJ. OC, Z'7i^, 



London: printed sy w. CLO\r£s and sons, stamford street. 



PEEFAOE. 



* Australia is the greatest accessioa to substantial power erer made by 
England. It is the gift of a contineiit ""^t^^»^ by war, usiupatioDy or the 
sufferings of a people/ — Blackwood* s Magazine, 

* The land- of The South that lies under our feet, 
Defideut in mouths, oTerbuiden'd with meat ! '•'^Punchm 

1^0 publish a Book without a Preface, is like thrusting one's ao- 
qnaintance, without the ceremony of introduction, upon some dis- 
tinguished and formidable stranger. A few obserrations may be 
necessary^ therefore, in submitting these Yolumes to the Public. 

Their contents^ then, are taken from diaries extending oTer a period 
of more than five years, — ^five years of 'Residence' in the city of 
Sydney, with various ' Eambles,' on duty or during leisure, into the 
interior of New South Wales, as well as to the adjacent Colonies of 
New Zealand, Yan Diemen's Land, and Yictoria ; — ^the latest of these 
excursions having for its object the newly-discovered Gold Field of 
the Bathurst district. 

The visit to New Zealand, its military posts and battle-fields having 
been accomplished 'on particular service,' a slight outline of the 
late Anglo-Maori war has, almost insensibly, linked itself with the 
personal narrative. 

The Author would have the Public bear in mind that, during the 
whole of his sojourn in Australia, he was their paid and of course 
hai*d-working servant. They will be pleased to contemplate him as 
part and parcel of his office-desk, plodding through returns and 
reports, records and regulations, warrants and articles of war; ex- 
changing an occasional dry word with his clerks perched on their 
long-legged stools, and enjoying only fugitive glimpses, over the rim 
of his spectacles, of more external and unprofessional affairs. 

But although the reduction of his notes, to what he would fain 
believe a readable form, constituted the recreation of his leisure 



IV PBEFACE. 

hours, not the business of ^s days, he wonld beg to advance that no 
trouble nor care was on his part spared that he had time to devote 
to this object. 

The Work is intended to be a light work; the Writer nevertheless 
would hope that the opportunities he enjoyed of seeing more of these 
remote and interesting offshoots of his native land than has fallen to 
the lot of many Englishmen, may have enabled him to supply some 
share of information likely to be useful as well as amusing, and to fur- 
nish, in a familiar shape, a just conception, as far as it goes, of a portion 
of the world destined to become every year more important to the 
British Empire. 

Such further motives as may have actuated the Writer he would 
leave to be developed in the course of the Work, rather than swell 
a Preface by dilating upon them. 

If he addresses himself to his task with any advantages, they rest 
probably in the fact, that he is wholly unconnected with, and in* 
dependent of the Colonies and communities he strives to delineate ; 
and that he has neither pique, partiality, nor prejudice to indulge, in 
thus recording the impressions he imbibed amongst them. 

G. C. M. 
London, March Slst, 1852. 



OUE ANTIPODES. 



CHAPTER I. 

A MAN mast be leading in Europe a very sad, solitary, or unsatisfactory existence, who can, 
withoat niany a pang of regret, many a sigh of painful separation, gird up his loins, sheulder 
his wallet, and dutch his staff, for a pilgrimage to Australia. Whether the sentence to he 
transported beyond the seas emanate in due course of law from a big-wig on the Bench, or in 
due coxirse of service from a big-wig in the Colonial Office, the Horse Guards, or the Ad- 
miralty, he must ha a hardened offender or an eyen-souled optimist who can hear it without 
emotion. • 

Life is but a span ; and of that brief term few are the days which by a great majority of 
men, especially by £biglishmen, and emphatically by younger sons and brotheins, are destined 
to be spent in the home of their infancy, or even in the Isuid of their birth. But however 
engrossing may be their pursuits in foreign climes — ^however viyid the excitement, cruel the 
misfortunes, or stirring the events wherein this portion of their life is passed — the memory of 
home will be intimately interwoven with all. Like a sunny streamlet flowing side by side with 
the tiaveller's path, it will cheer his eye and sing in his ear as he plods along his weary way. 
Li health or sickness, wealth or ruin, joy or grief, victory or defeat, it is from home he looks 
for sympathy ; it is at home that he hopes sooner or later to display his laurels and enjoy his 
gains, or, should fortune have frowned upon his lot, to lay down his burthen of sorrows and 
reverses. The schoolboy blubbers openly, or manfully swallows his bitter feelings, as the 
chaise or train bears him off for a few weeks only, from home and holidays to Latin and 
Greek. The fair and happy bride, while the four greys are pawing before the home no longer 
hers, throws herself — all tears — ^into her mother's arms, though well awai-e that almost ere 
tlie hone3nxioon has waned she will embrace her once more. Li such cases parting is but 
sweet sorrow. There is little saccharine, believe me, in the affair, when the Antipodes is the 
point of destination ! The immense distance and the amount of time necessary to accomplish 
it, the tardiness of correspondence with home, the gradual alienation too surely springing from 
protracted absence, and the foreknowledge that this absence can only terminate by l^e repeti 
tion of the same tremendous voyage, — such are some of the drawbacks confronting him who 
meditates expatiiation. 

There are indeed two cases in which the shock of expulsion may fall with mitigated 
rigour — the one where the individual, having both merited and expected the gallows, finds 
himself expelled his country for his country's good, instead of passing through the hands of 
the hangman ; the other, when a step of promotion and an honourable appointment accom- 
pany the fiat of expulsion. 

Give me credit, kind Reader, for belonging to the latter class of exiles.* 

On the afternoon of the 3rd March, 1846, I arrive^i at Gravesend with a brother who had 
volunteered to see me on board, and took rooms for the night at the Falcon Hotel, from the 

* The Author had been appointed Deputy A^ntant-Genend in the Aastmlian Colonies. 

llie following anecdote was related at a regimental mess in Sydney by a gentleman holding a high 
official appointment in the Colony under the Crown. 

Returning home on leave of absence about the year I84t, he got into conversation with an Irish cabman, 
who, recollectuig his person, demanded respectfully * where his honour had been this long time.' • In 
New South Walesa' was the reply. 'Botany Bay, is it?' pursued the driver. 'Exactly/ said the 
gentleman. 

After a short pause, Paddy's curiosity overcoming his politeness, he whispered, • Might I make bould 
to ask. Sir, what took you there ?'— • Oh I I went at the Queen's exi^ense,' answered the other, humouring 
bis interrogator's evident suspicions. 

Here Paddy's politeness recovered itself, although his suspicions were confirmed. *Ahr said he, 
' there's many a good man gone out that same way.' 

B 



2 OTTB AXrnPODES. 

wmdows of which we witnessed a somewhat ill-omened incident as a precarsor of the Toyage. 
Scarcely had we got the Agincourt within the focus of the hotel telescope, as she lay at 
anchor in the stream, when a hulking collier, lumbering along with the ebb tide, fell right 
aboard of the barque, snapping off her jib-boom like a carrot, and inflicting other more trifling 
damage* To And, to fasUon, and to rig so consdderable a spar, caused a delay of twenty-four 
hours,— duiing which nothing very worthy of note occurred, except perhaps that, having 
ordered a late dinner for my brother and self at the inn, and strolling into the coflee-room in 
quest of distraction from feelings fall of gloom, I found one of the tables occupied by a soli- 
tary individual, who having ak^ady dined, and possibly discussed a pint of ' Warren's Jet ' in 
the shape of inn port, seemed absorbed in the contents of a memorandum-book. Instinct 
prompting me, 1 addressed this gentleman with the words — * Sir, may I take the liberty of 
inquiring whether you are one of my fellow-passengers in the Agincourt, for Sydney ?' He 
slowly raised his head, and with an expression of countenance as disconsolate as that of Listen 
in the ' Illustrious Stranger,' when the procession, conducting him to a living tomb, crosses 
the stage, replied gravely — * I think, Sir, you might judge fr^ the length of my visage that 
I am one of those unfortunate persons.' 

Such was the commencement of an acquaintance — of a friendship t may say — ^which be» 

gufled for me many an otherwise dull and tedious hour during the passage. Mr. F will 

recognise and forgive this little sketch, while he accepts the acknowledgments due to him as 
an intelligent and intellectual companion. In this capacity, as well as in that of the humor<- 
ous editor of our newspaper. The Weekly Weed, my friend of the Fahon deserved the grati- 
tude of ' all hands ' on board the good ship Agincow^. 

A splendid summer-like Sunday was the && of March — Agmoourt trying her paces sucoess- 
fbUy with twenty other large vessels, all taking advantage of a firesh N.E. breeze, as we rushed 
together in a body past the magnificent cli£& of Dover. At nine P.M. the following day we 
Idaied hands to a lighthouse ; — ^it was the last sight of Albion as we thought ; but the wind 
proving unsettled, we were enabled to send letters ashore at the Start Point by a fishing-boat on 
the 12th, on which evening we got &irly away — a shipAil of strangers bound to a strange 
land. 

If I were writing for any but English readers, I might be tempted to extract largely fi-om 
my sea-log ; but the passage of the Atlantic had nothing new fl>r me ; and almost every 
English &mily has at least one member who, while happy in an interim of home, can en- 
lighten the fire-side circle with reminiscences rendering sanfaring life a household subject in 
the most rurally secluded nooks of our blessed islands. Nothing, indeed, could well have been 
less eventful than our voyage. We had an excellent vessel of 600 tons and upwards, — ^well 
found in every particular ; an active, skilful, liberal^ and attentive captain, who had one very 
remarkable peculiarity as a ' skipper;' he was never heard to utter an oath, nor anything ap- 
proaching the nature of one, nor indeed any expression of harshness or abuse towards his 
people : yet the discipline on board was admirable. 

We had a capital cook, who, roll and plunge as the vessel might, never fiiHed us. No 
difiSculty existed in the creation of the rei»sts. It lay in getting weir components along the 
deck to the cabin-table, keeping them there when on, and receiving them thankfully and dis- 
creetly with the proper implements and through the proper channels. We had, moreover, a 
miraculous cow which, in spite of dry food and a wet berth, contrived to yield her daily dole 
of eight or ten quarts a-day during the voyage. 

March 22nd. — Passing Madeira, >I hailed this gem of the sea as an old acquaintance, but 
ielt no desire for a second visit. In a long voyage going ashore unsettles the mind and the body. 
Once at my oar I think only of the end of my pull, and have no wish to loiter on the 
way. 

April 10th. — Crossed the equator. 

Neptune sent his usual message inviting himself and suite on Iboard for this aftemooi^ 
Our captain, however, an pnemy to any species of tomfoolery liab4e to end in drunkenness 
riot, and ill-blood, snufled out the affair at once ; and the passengers, approving of hia decision* 
collected a bonus of 5/. to indemnify the crew for the loss of their fi'olic 

On the 4th May we sailed right through the group of Tristan Da Cunha — passing ' Nightin- 
gale ' and * Inaccessible ' Islands on our right and left — ^the latter at the distance of half a 
mile ; a rock-scarped table-land covered with a stunted shrub-like gorse. Several fine fresh- 
water cascades— one of them apparently as considerable as any in Switzerland — were seen 
leaping down the whole depth of the clilT, probably five hundred feet. About six miles to onr 



VOYAGE OUT. 3 

left appeared the chief Island of Tristan Da Cunha, with its 8now-cappe>1 mountain in the 
midst. It is probably the most uttei'Iy secluded spot inhabited by man. Here resides the so- 
called Governor of the Group, Corporal Glass, and twenty or thirty other Eui-opieans — ^most of 
them descendants from the one or two patriarchal pairs who were originally wrecked there. 
AgincaurVs approach to this solitaiy cluster of islands gave ocJcasion for a forcible editorial 
article in The Weed. In the doubt whether the corporal had been duly accredited from home, 
or had usurped the supreme authority, it was proposed to eHect a landing, and to impose 
upon the united islands a new constitution concocted during the editor's cigar and gin-and- 
water hours. The only feature of the meditated schenae of government, wortJiy of record per- 
haps for the benefit of future statesmen, was the mode of election of the governor and his principal 
officers. Parties ambitious of public employment were to be invited to tender their terms. 
The best man — ^that is, the lowest contractor for the work required — would be chosen, and 
good security would be exacted for the due performance of his contract — a business-like noti<Hi, 
not repugnant to the dictum of Sir Robert Peel, ' that the very best men that can be foimd 
should be placed in the administraticm of Colonial affairs !' One of our feUow-passengers, 
remarkable for rather desultory habits, was nominated to the pluralist post of collector of 
revenue, registrar of births, &c., &c., and commissioner of woods and forests for * Inaccessible 
Island ' — ^there not being a stick, a stiver, or a specimen of mankind on that utterly desert rock ! 
Fortunately the breeze fVeshesned to half a gale of wind, and Corporal Glass had no opportunity 
of repudiating our bran-new constitution, as he would certainly have done— if for no better 
cause than his perfectly natural preference of despotic role to a form of government of a mora 
responsible cast I 

Thus wiled we away, as well as we could, the tedious and monotonous hours of a voyage to 
the Antipodes. 

I say nothing of Storms and calms, breezes fur or foul, light or stiff, weather bright or hazy, 
hot or icy, thunder, rain, or hail, tumid clouds or minacious billows. We had our share of iiX 
these. And indeed no slight variations of climate were crowded for us into a short space ; for, 
ringular as it may appear, in nine weeks we ran fairly through the seasons. We had winter 
weather at Deal, overtook spring in the vicinity of Madeira, plunged into midsummer on the 
equator, found autumn in latitude 35° ; and, soon after passing Tristan Da Cunha, winter 
helped us on with our pea-jackets again. 

Jvne 20M. — ^Land ho I Cape Otway twenty miles distant. At this first indication of our 
destined bourne, those of the passengers who liad previously visited New Holland, or who had 
adopted it for their country, began to show strong symptoms of excitement and impatience, and 
mdeed they had occasion to suffer the pangs of hope deferred, for the slashing breeze that had 
brought us as straight as a crow's flight from the Cape of Good Hope, suddenly deserted us in 
Bass^ Straits, leaving the good ship to drift about like a log within view of the islet of Ho- 
dondo, the Devil's Tower, and Hogan's Group. 

After forty-eight hours, however, the wind again arose, and carried us forth frvm this dan- 
gerous though picturesque Archipelago. 

For myself, the yearning to step upon the strange land likely to be my place of sojourn for 
some years by no means affected me to a painful d^ree. Although tired of the sea and ship 
life, and eager to plant my foot once more on terra firma, the * Terra Australis Incognita * of 
the old navigators was not precisely the choice I should have made — if I had had one ; for 
in all that land tiiere was not one human face, as far as I knew, that I had ever seen before. 

Meanwhile the Agincowrt rounded Cape Howe, the south-eastern point of New Holland, with 
a favouring breeze. On the 24th, I found myself in my solitude of the main-crosstrees, — 
solitude rarely disturbed by any of my brother landsmen, — sweeping with my telescope the 
forest hills of Twofold Bay — ^beyond these the huge salient promontory of the Dromedary with 
the pretty Montagu Island at its foot — and the long dim line of scarped and mhospitable coast 
stretching away to the northward of these points. 

Early on the morning of the 25th June we were gliding past the entrance to Botany Bay, 
and with the glass could distinguish the monument erected to the memory of poor La Perouse 
by his compatriots, on the northern shore of that extensive basin ; — ^Botany Bay ! so unde- 
servedly yet indelibly branded as the head quarters of exiled felony — ^the terrestrial purgatory 
of Britafai's evil-doers ; undeservedly, I say, because this harbour, originally chosen by Captain 
Phillip for the first convict settlement of New South Wales, was, on trial, found unfit for the 
purpose, and was adcordiiigly in a few weeks abandoned for the neighbouring position of Port 
Jackson. 

B 2 



-■V — 



4 OUB ANTIPODES. 

Shoiily before midday, the Agincourt passed dose under the lighthouse of Poi-t Jackson, 
perched upon a horizontally stratified cliff, descending plumb 300 feet into deep water ; and 
precisely at twdye o'clock we entei'ed *The Heads/ that grand and appropriate portal of one of 
the noblest harbours in the world. Working against an adverse wind, under charge of a pilot, 
the good ship zigzagged her course along tlie serai miles of inland water connecting The 
Heft£ with Sydney Cove ; and at 3 p.m. of an Australian noid-wintry but splendid day the 
anchor was dropped in that snug little haven, within a biscuit's cast of the spot where, in the 
year 1788, the first Governor of New South Wales pitched the tents of the first British planta- 
tion in New Holland. 

In spite of the undoubted beauties of Port Jackson, its glorious expanse of smooth water, its 
numerous lovely islets, its sweeping bays and swelling headlands, wooded down to the water 
edge and ci'ested with handsome villas, there is to &e stranger's eye sometiiing singularly 
repulsive in the leaden thit of the gum-tree foliage, and in the dry and steiile sandstone from 
which it springs. The stiff hard leaves, which seem expressly formed to resist the chill wind 
and powerful sun of an Australian winter, although nominally evergre&OL, but little deserve Ihe 
epithet. On this day there was no want of cheerful accessories in and about the harbour. 
Its bosom was studded with swaims of pleasure-boats ; the coves were crowded with shipping. 
As our vessel neared the sKores in the process of bcttiting, we saw parties of horsemen and 
horsewomen cantering al(mg the crescented slips of sand, carriages appearing and disappearing 
among the trees ; and, on a headland close to the town, were promenading groups of well- 
dressed people, amongst whom might be seen the uniform of officers and soldiers making up a 
gay prism of colours in the bright sunlight The weather must have been by the colonists 
considered cold, although we, after the alternations of a long voyage, did not find it so. 

The Health-officer and a Post^ffice functionary came off to us in a boat pulled by prisoners. 
I believe I expected to see these men chained like galley-slaves to their oars ; and was a little dis- 
api.H)inted, perhaps, when I found them differing in nowise from an ordinary boat's crew, except in 
their bad rowing. So, likewise, on fbding myself dodged from deck to cuddy, from cabin to poop, by 
a keen-looking young man, who addressed me in a low earnest voice, I expected to have my pocket 
picked ; when, turning sternly upon him for explanation, I discovered his intentions to be 
strictly honourable. He was a newspaper reporter, doubly anxious for news, because the 
Agincourt, being the March mail-packet from England, had arrived before the February 
packet. This sharp caterer for the Sydney quidnuncs had heard that I had brought on board 
at Deal the latest English journal. I handed it to him, with the request that it might be 
returned when done with. He vanished over the ship's side, and I never saw him nor my 
newspaper again. 

Like the generality of mercantile towns, viewed from the sea, Sydney, although containing 
nearly 50,000 inhabitants, presents from Ihis aspect no very imposing appearance. It might 
be Waterford or Wapping, with a dash of Nova Scotian Halifax. The main streets, built along 
the crests and flanks of two or three highish ridges trendii^ inland, are unseen from the 
shipping; but this very peculiarity of its site gives to Sydney a greater extent of deep water 
frontage than, perhaps, any other commercial city in the universe. These spines of land, or 
rather rock, subdivide tiie south shore of Port Jackson, at the spot where Sydney has arisen like 
a huge mushroom, into numerous small and deep basins, among which the principal are Wooloo- 
mooloo Bay, Faim Cove, sacred to H. M.'s sMps; Sydney Cove, and Darling Harbour; the 
whole presenting capabilities for natural wharfage, sudi as I have never seen equalled. The 
new Government House, a really handsome structure of stone, with its gardens and home 
domam, occupies the promontory between Wooloomooloo Bay and Sydney Cove ; and thus, 
although close to the town, its privacy is completely secured by a park paling drawn across 
the nedc of the peninsiila. Beyond this fence the outer domain, an extensive government 
reserve, acts as one of the lungs of Sydney. Its circuit embraces nearly four miles of carriage- 
rood and foot-path, cleverly and tastefully planned by Mrs. Macquarie, wife of the governor of 
that name, and executed under her direction by convict labour. To this lady the citizens of 
Sylney are indebted for Si.plaiaance such as few of the capitals of Europe can surpass in extent 
and b«iuty. At the head of Farm Cove, encompassed by the outer domain, are the Govern- 
ment Botiuiic Gaidois, comprising several acres of shrubbery and flower-garden, in which speci- 
mens of the vegetable productions of almost every pai-t of the globe are assembled for the study 
of the scientific, and for the instruction and wondei-ment of the uninitiated. But let us set foot 
upon the soil of Australia before we attempt to sketch its features. It will be honest, I think, 
to lay open to my reader first impressions as they stand noted in my diary of 1846. He will 



VTVSStt S 

find, probably, that the more my aoqnaintanoe with the colony becaine matimd, the more 
benignant became my feelings towards it— a progressiye appreciation, sorely more satis&ctoxy 
than an over-sanguine first view, chilling by degrees down to zero. 

A most kind offer of bed and board from an old friend of my family met me ere I disem- 
barked ; but, preferring independence, I declined this hosfHtality ; and landing solus at the 
bottom of George-street, I strolled, stick in hand, my man following with my portmanteau in 
a cab, up to Petty's hotel, a respectable, quiet establishment, where I remained about a fort^ 
night, ere my tent was permanently pitched in Sydney. I passed my first Australian evening 
in rambling slowly up Geoigfr«treet, the main artery of the dty, and down Pit1>«treet, the 
second in zunk ; and should have been truly astonished at the immense extent of the former 
thoroughfare — ^the Broadway and Oxford-Street of the Antipodes, 2| miles long — and at the 
endless succession of well supplied and well lighted shops in both, but that certain Sydneyites, 
my fellow passengers, had in so loud and high a key chanted the praises of their adopted city, 
that, on actual inspection, I had nothing to do but to come tumbling down the gamut until I 
reached my own pitch-note. What greater injustice to man or matter than this super-lauda- 
tion ! Niagara cannot bear it — what more need be said ? 

Passing through the Barrack-«quare to nune inn, shortly before nine o'clock, I found tattoo 
going on, the drums and fifes of the 99th r^ment rattling away Mrs. Waylett's pretty old 
song of ' I'd be a Butterfly,' in the most spirited style, just as though we were not 16,000 
miles fiom the Horse Guards I It was the first note of music I had heard since leaving home : 
and I do not know when a more soothing and agreeable sensation pervaded my mind than at 
that moment, as I stood listening under the bright moonlight of this ' &r oountrie ' to a parcel 
of *old well-remembered airs, thfit had been disouded by the London butcher-boys a quarter of 
a century ago. 

June 26tL — Sydney wants the foreign and exotic interest of other of our colonial capitals* 
Neither the aborigines themselves, nor any object belonging to them, nor thtf natives of any 
other country, mix with the nearly exclusively British population and products of the place. 
Now and then, indeed, a Chinaman, with his pig's-tail and eyes, and his poking shoulders, 
crosses your vision as if he had dropped, not from the douds— -although Ihe Cele^ials have a 
right to be expected thence— but from a willow-pattern soup-jdate. Perhaps a specimen or 
two of the New Zealander, brown, broad, brawny, and deeply tattooed, may occur. In the 
outskirts of the town, a chattering, half-besotted group of the wretched natives of New Hol- 
land itself, tall and thin even to emaciation, with great woolly heads and beards and fiat 
features, may be seen, grinning and gesticulatLag in each other's ugly fiioes in loud dispute, or 
making low and graceful bows, worthy of the old school, whilst begging a copper, or ' white 
money,' from the passengers, as they loiter near the door of some pot-house. Sydney is, 
I think, more exclusively English in its population than either Liverpool or London. Were it 
not for an occasional orange-tree in frill bloom or fruit in the back yard of some of the older 
cottages, or a flock of little green parrots whistling as they alight for a moment on a housetops 
one might fancy himself at Brighton or Plymouth. 

The construction of the buildings is blameably illHSuited to a semi-tnmical climate, — bare- 
faced, smug-looking tenements, wiSiout verandahs or even broad eaves, a mult extending to the 
Government House itself, whose great staring windows are doomed to grill unveiled, because ^ 
forsooth, any excrescence upon their stone muUion swould be heterodox to the order or disorder 
of its architecture. Surely ai little composite licence might have been allowable in such a case 
and climate. Many of Hie private residences of Sydney and its suburbs are both handsome and 
comfortable, — most of them crowded with expensive fuiniture, therein differing frt>m the prac 
tice in most warm countries, where the receiving-rooms and bed-rooms ocmtain little beyonci 
the muniments necessary for sitting and lying, and those of the plainest, hardest, and most uu^ 
draped description. The majority of the public buildings evince jnroof of the profusion of fine 
sandstone on the spot, — ^for a house may here be almost entirely buUt of the material dug from 
its foundation, — as well as of the solid advantages arising from convict labour, especially when 
so powerful an agent is wielded by a governor of such strong masonic predilections as he whose 
name is afHxed to the facades of most of the Sydney public institutions.* These edifices suit 
their purposes, no doubt, but have nothing, I think, to recommend them to the eye. 

On the subject of public places, the fiuit that the * Hyde Park ' of Sydney is merely a fenced 
common, without a tree or a blade of grass, and the ' Hyde Park Barracks ' a convict depot, 
grates somewhat unpleasantly on the fedings of one lately arrived from London. 

* Macquartai 



6 OUB A2STIPODE8. 

Jme 29^A.— The well-kaown hospitable spirit of the Sydney society- dex-eloped itself in my 
fftroar tins morning, in the shape of a mound of visiting cards, inteiliurded wi& nnmenraa in- 
TitatioDS to diiinei's and evening parties. 

I dined with my respected chief, Lieutenan1>-0eneral Sir Maurice O'Connell, at his beautiful 
Ttlla of Tarmons ; and I mention the circumstance merely to have an opportunity of i^mark- 
ing, that there were brisk coal fires burning in both dining and drawing-room, and that the 
general appliances of the household, the dress of the guests and the servants, wa« as entirely 
English as they could have been in London. The fkmily likeness between an Australian and 
an Old Countiy dinner-party became, however, less striking when I found myself sipping 
doubtfully, but soon swallowing with relish, a plate of wallabi-tail soup, followed by a slice of 
boiled schnapper, with oyster sauce. A haunch of kangaroo venison helped to convince me 
that I was not in Belgi'aMa. A delicate wing of the wonga-wonga pigeon with bread sauce, 
and a desseit of plantains and loquots, guavas and mandarine oitmges, pomegiTuiates and 
cherimoyas, landed my imagination at leng^ fairly at the Antipodes. 

/Wy \st* — ^House-rent in Sydney is veiy high, and vacant houses are very scarce. The first 
J took consisted of seven small rooms, without stable, courtyard, pump, kitchen range, or even 
bells to the rooms : rent 100/. per annum for the bare walls. It was situated in the heart of 
the town, or at least in its pericardium. The street contained, I think, upwaixls of three 

hundred houses ; and I was compelled to be pailicular in giving .-my address Street 

North, because its other extremity tapered off into impropriety. J hlid fallen by accident into 
the legal quxirter of the city ; indeed my house had been built expressly to form two sets of 
chambers for gentlemen of the long robe. The door-posts of nearly all my n^ghbours were 
scored with the names of barristers, attorneys, solicitors, notaries-public, and other limbs of the 
law, who, albeit rivals in the trade, coutiive to play into each oUier's hands to the dehiment 
of the public pocket. My street abutted upon the Supi^me Court, and I was perfectly 
astonished to see the number of sleek, and spruce, and bcwigged personages, who soon after 
bi^eakfast came swooping down from their i-ookery upon the fidd of their daily labours. 

Litigation is the luxury of young communities, as it is of parvenus who have only just ac- 
quired the power to aifoi'd it. New South Wales early took the epidemic in its most virulent 
form. It was fatal in many instances to the foitunes of those infected ; and some nice little 
incomes wei'e picked up by the leading advocates and their im>^iders. It is but just to add, 
that these wei-e for the most pai*t as fi*ee1y spent as quickly gathei^ed. I have been assui*e^l by 
an influential member of the profession, that the palmy days of the law have passed away in 
SyJney. There are probably more gleane» of ^e profits ; not, I should imagine, a thinner 
ci-op of ' cornstalks ' for the har\'est^ — some of them as long in the ear as could be wished.* 
In a country where highly educated men are comparatively rare, those brought up to the law 
;ire valuable jiublic servants. Several of the ablest and most prominent membei-s of the 
Legislative Council,— certiiiiily those best woith heaiing — ^ai^ of the forensic order. 

The prospect from my windows was anything but agreeable ; for they loOkeil upon the 
})acks of a cluster of St. Giles-like tenements, across a piece of waste gi<ouud, unbuilt on 
1)ecau8e litigated, which seems to be the central d^p6t for all the nuisam^s of the arrondise" 
VMmt, — where all sorts of rubbish might be shot, or at least vxu shot, fi-om a load of soot to 
a prosciibcd cat or the decimated fraction of a litter of puppies. Here, in the warm summer 
nights, many a drunken outcast of the pot-houses took his rest without fear of the watch- 
house : nor had he much cause for fear ; the solitary policeman crawling stupidly along tiie 
middle of the street, and the solitary lamp dim twinkling in the shadowy distance, were little 
likely to discover or disturb his sliunbers. 

The lighting, and still more the paving of the Sydney streets, are a disgrace to the city and 
its corporation, as well as to the people who tolerate the ill-performed duties of the latter 
well-paid body. The trattoirs are fall (and were to the last day of my residence in New 
South Wales) of the most ingenious traps, dangerous to the limbs, if not to the lives of tlie 
passengei-s. The sewerage of the town is also shamefully bad, though no city possesses a site 
more favourable for that essential. The thoroughfares are infested by an innumerable host of 
apparently ownerless dogs— innumerable in spite of the Dog Act, which has been in foixx ever 
since the Government oMer fulminated against the canine race in 1812. The lawless brutes 
iiwge at will the town and suburbs, to the toiment and terror of the lieges. The hoi-seman, 
who presumes to indulge in any pace faster than a walk, has, without any ambition of be- 
coming a master of hounds, a pack at his heels so addicted to ' riot,' that he may consider 
* Corostalk is the national nickname of the Anstrallan white man. 



BTBRET DOQS. — ^HBALTH AND BEAUTY. 7 

himself fortunate if he esoipe Acteeon's fate. Uany a Incklees wight hare I watrhed flying 
along the street in a dond of dust and doga, fresh detachments of cars dehonching npon him 
from every alley and ooort, until they yaniahed together round a comer, leaving me to 
imagine the finish. But more aeriona oonseqaenoes arise sranetimes from the stray dofi;8. 
Two or three times I hare heen the horrified witness of attacks upon children hy large and 
fierce dogs, which would hare ended &tally hut for the prompt help of passers-by. I once 
saw a powerful mastiff seize a horse by the throat, between the shafts of a gig, and pull it to 
the ground ; nor did the ferocious beast quit its hold until killed by a blow with an iron 
bar. 

Some of the Newfoundland dagi in this country are the finest I have ever seen^much 
laiger and handsomer than the true Labrador dog, which is neither very tall, nor very curly 
in the coat. Hound-like dogs, with a good deal of the shape and colour of the English fox- 
hound, but with none of his countenance, figure here as street mongrels. The Dcinish dog, 
the privileged attendant of aristocratic equipages in Europe, is seen in twos and threes under 
every baker's cart, or joining in the foraging parties of nameless curs. I have seen, too, with 
amusement^ pointer puppies in the streets * drawing' up to poultry and pigeons, thereby un* 
oonsciously betraying their descent from some poaching ancestor, transported probably, together 
with his master, for that crime so heinous at all times in the eyes of country gentlemen and 
jostioes — now so lig^y punished. From my sitting^rodm in Street, I have often wit- 
nessed more of a good run, and without any expense of nerve or horseflesh, than many of the 
loudest post-prandial sportsmen can boast with truth of having done in a Leicestershire 
winter. I 'have seen poor Tabby 'found ' in an area entrance or stable-yard ; 'unkenneled' 
cleverly by a volunteer pack ranging in height from that of a donkey to a turnspit ; and, after 
a ring or two on the bit of waste land opposite, ' run into,' ' killed,' and ' broken up,' in 
undoubted style 1 With varied success have 1, Quixote-like, sallied forth to the rescue of some 
poor goat, whose piteous bleat called eloquoitly for help :— pleaong meed of my broomstidc's 
prowess when I received the blessing of some wannhearted old Irishwoman, for saving the life 
of her • bit of a kid — ^the craythur I 

That picturesque animal, the goat, by^he-by, forms a conspicuous item of the Sydney street 
moiagerie — amounting to a pest little less dire than the plague of dogs. Nearly every cottage 
has its goat or family of goats. They ramble about the high-ways and by-ways, picking up a 
hap-faazard livelihood during the day, and going home willingly or oompulsonly in the 
evening to be milked. Woe betide the suburban garden whose gate is left for a moment nn- 
closed. Eveiy blade of vegetation witliin and without their reach has been previously noted 
by these half-starved vagrants. In an instant the bearded tribes rush in; and in a few 
seconds, roses, sweet peas, stocks, carnations, &c., &c., are as closely nibbled down as though a 
flight of locusts had bivouacked for a week on the spot ; and the neat flower-beds are dotted 
over with little cloven feet, as if ten thousand infantine devils had been dancing there — a 
javenile sabbat. 

Jtdy 22nd. — It has often been remarked that the profuse meat diet of the English in this 
country tends rather to injure than to fortify the health, and to diminish rather than augiflent 
the physical power. The inhabitants of Sydney struck me at first sight as looking pale and 
puffy compared with their fellow Britons at home. Many of the Cornstalks, or colonial-bom 
men, are tall and large-boned, but the majority of those attaining a standard above the middle 
lieight are spare, hollow-chested, and have a certain weather-worn und time-worn look beyond 
their years. If one sees a ruddy face, it is sure to belong to a seafaring man, an up-country 
bushmau whose cheeks are burnt by exposure into^ an uniform red bronze, or to the rubicund 
Boniface of some tavern, whose ever-blooming roees have been well irrigated by strong waters. 
The women of the poorer daases look prematurely old ; yet appear to delight in tawdry dress. 
The children in the streets and lanes are, on the contrary, so lovely, that it is almost impc»- 
sible to believe them the offspring of the hags, their mothers. Poor haixi-working creatures ! 
poor faithful helpmates ! weU may youth and health and beauty early wither before the mani- 
fold troubles, mental and bodily, that faW to their lot in this colony. The day-labourers of 
Sydney are notoriously idle, drunken, and dissolute. Earning 3s., 45. and 5s. a'day, they will 
work perhaps four out of the seven, and during the remaii^er squander their gains in drink 
and riot, leaving their wretched families to feed themselves as they can. The climate, too, 
must be highly inimical to feminine good looks, at least as far as complexion is concerned. At 
tl^ season the atmospheric changes are very great, and very sudden. A bright sun scorches 
yoo, a dry cold wind cuts you in two. You shrink from the ardent rays of the former, yet in 



8 OUB ANTIPODES. 

tlie sliade you shiver. Both in nimmer and winter the well-known Ansfralian dost, espedaily 
in the sandstone districts, keeps the face and eyes in constant irritation. Tonr hair feels like 
hay, yoor skin like parchment. Unless yon be a very eveki-souled fellow your temper even 
grows gritty under the annoying infliction. Tet with all this it is a glorious climate !— 
glorious in its visible beauty — glorions in its freedom from lethal disorders — priceless, with 
respect to this latter feature, in the eyes of those who have known what it is to serve in 
countries where Death multiform rides on the wings of the wind, lurks in forest and swamp, 
and riots in the crowded emporium. 

August 1st, — Sydney is not without its public amusements. Of the theatre I may &irly 
say that) as &r as dramatic talent is concerned, it is conducted at the least as well as the gene- 
rality of provincial houses in England. To be sure, we are compelled to be satisfied all the 
year round with the efforts of stationary performers ; for it must be an eccentric Star indeed 
which would shoot so far out of its orbit as to reac^ New South Wales. 

In decency of demeanour the audience of the Sydney Theatre JRoyal is a prodigy compared 
with that of similar establishments in the seaport towns of the old country. The * gods ' are 
particularly well-behaved. The dress-boxes are always unpeopled, unless an impulse be given 
by a bespeak or by the benefit of a favourite. These appeals act as a sort of mental gad-fly on 
the society. The herd rushes together with one consent, and disports itself in crowded dis* 
comfort ; and once more, for a month perhaps, the play-goer^ whom a love of the drama only 
attracts, has the house all to himself. 

In the pit of the Sydney Theatre one misses the numerous bald heads of an European pca^* 
terre, for the people of New South Wales have not yet had time to grow old. On the other 
hand, the eyes of the stranger wander with surprise over the vast numbers of new-bom babies 
— three or four dozen little sucklings taking their natural refection, whilst their mothers seem 
absorbed in the interest of the piece ; their great long-legged daddies meanwhile sprawling 
over the benches in the simplest of costumes,— a check shirt, for instance, wide open at the 
breast, moleskins, and a cabbage -tree hat. It was a pleasant thing to see these good folks 
thoroughly enjoying themselves in this manner on a Saturday night — a week's wages and the 
door-key in their pockets, and all the family cares deferred tUl Monday momii^. Every one 
knows — at least every foreigner knows — how cold and undemonstrative is an English audience. 
Perhaps the warmth of the climate infuses a degree of fervour into a Sydney ' house.' It 
would be a lesson to the used-up man of the world, to witness the raptures with which some 
of the public favourites, and their efforts histrionic, musical, and saltatory, are received and 
rewarded. Oh I it is delicious to mark the gratified countenances, and to hear the thundering 
plaudits which are especially awarded to the latter branch of theatric art. Well may 
Madame * * *, the Sydney Columbine and Maitresse de Danse, most spherical of Sylphides» 
bounce like an Indian-rubber ball ; well may Signer * * * *^ Harlequin and Dancing-master, 
half kill his fatted calves in acknowledgment of so much flattering approbation ! 

There are to be found round the doors of the Sydney theatre a sort of * loafers,' known as 
the Cabbage-tree mob — a class, whom, in the spirit of the ancient fyrant, one might excusably 
wish had but one nose, in order to znake it a bloody one I These are an unruly set of young 
fellows, native bom generally, who, not being able, perhaps, to muster coin enough to enter 
the house, aipuse themselves by molesting those who can afford that luxury. Dressed in a 
suit of fustian or colonial tweed, and the emblem of their order, the low-crowned cabbage- 
palm hat, the main object of their enmity seems to be the ordinary black headpiece worn by 
respectable persons, which is ruthlessly knocked over the eyes of the wearer as he passes or 
enters the theatre. The first time I attended this house, I gave my English servant, a stout 
and somewliat irascible personage, a ticket for the pit. Unaware of the propnsities of the 
Cabbagites, he was by them furiously assailed — ^for no better reason apparently than because, 
like ' noble Percy,' * he wore his heaver up,' and, his hat being driven down over his eyes, in 
his blind rage he let fly an indisci'iminate ' one, two,' tlje latter of which took effect upon a 
policeman I * Hinc V a night in the watch-house, and the necessity of proving in the 
morning the ' glaring case of assaulting a constable in the execution of his duty ' was not 
intentional and * of mall(« aforethought.' 

Much has been spoken and written by influential persons in England about the hideous 
depravity of the Sydney populace. I do not think they deserve that character. Although 
the streets are ill lighted, and the police inefficient in number and organisation, Sydney appears 
tome to have on the whole a most orderly and well-conducted population. Public-house 
licences are so profitable a source of public revenue, that l>erhavs too mauy of these con* 



▲U0TI0N8« 9 

Veniences for crime are permitted to exist ; yet drunkemiess is kept quite as well out of tight 
M in English towns; and, although a pretty strong squad of disonlerlies figures in the 
morning reports of the Police courts, the better behayed inhabitants are but little annoyed by 
their misdemeanours. All strangers notice with praise the extreme tranquillity of the streets 
at night. Whatever debaucheries may be going on, * k huis dos ' — ^and Sydney is no purer 
perhaps than other laige seaport towna — they are not prominently offensive. If a noctam- 
bulist yourself, you may indeed encounter, towards the small hours, an occasional night* 
errant wandering in search of adventures, or haying found some to his great personal dam^ ; 
but he is an exception to the general rule of the sooal quietude of the Sydney thoroughfares. 
I do not believe, in short, that person or property, morals or decency are more liable to perils 
innocence to outrage, inexperience to imposition, in Sydney than in London or Paris. On the 
contrary, I am convinced, that from our own country, not only tnight come to New South 
Walas but actually and frequently do come, individuals of every order of society — from the 
practised d€bauch€oi high life to the outcast of the London back-slums — capable of giving 
lessons in vice, in their several degrees, to the much-abused Sydneyites, and who do absolutely 
astonish the colonials by their superior proficiency. 

SepU \st, — The number of auctions daily going on in Sydney is quite extraordinary ; not 
auctions for the purpose of selling off the houses and effects of departed or departing persona 
-—though these happen often enough, too often for one's belief in the pennanent prosperity of 
the community — but for the disposal by wholesale of imported goods, or by retail of trades* 
men's stock on hand. A stranger would almost suppose that the buyers and sellers of the 
colony were too idle to transact business without the intermediation of a paid agenU From 
the sale of an allotment of Crown land, or the lease of a squatting run, to a * prime lot ' of 
})ork, pickles, or curry powder, all are equally submitted to public outcry. 

The newspapers teem with advertisements such as these : — 

'ABSTSACr OF SALES BT AUCnOW TBI8 DAT.' 

' Messrs. * * * and * * *, at tbeir Mart, at 11 o'clock, 150 doc kangaroo skins, a second-hand gig, 
ship biscuit, baby-linen, damaged Ironmongery, bottled firults, castor oil, Canary birds, BohenUan 
glass, accordions, and the effects of a deoeaaod clergyman, couprisii^ robes* &c»' 

Agaiu — 

' Mr. * * * will have the honour to offer io pnblic competition, at 12 o'clock on Monday, the 4tli 
Inst., the Crow's Nest Station, in the District of Moreton Bay, with 10.000 sheep; after which, 
arrowroot, blacking, lime-juice, lozenges, ladies' companions, Jams, bath-bricks, damaged gunny 
bags, Turkey figs, tooth-bmahes, 12,000 feet of prime cedar plai^ a fonr-roomed house, an anchor 
and chain, a mare, a horse and twenty pigs. 

'At 3 P.M. precisely, the newly-rigged, copper-bottomed clipper, JTorj/ j^ntie, well known in the 
trade ! one gross of egMpoons, a bass-viol, a superior Eumpe feather-bed, two lots of land, two 
bales super calico, OldTom, soup and bouiUi, toys, cutlery, and a cottage |rfana' 

The chief attendants at these public sales are brokers and keepers of miscellaneous stores^ 
many of them Jews either by persuasion or by descent. The Sydney gentleman has no 
chance at these auctions ; for he is known and watched by the brokers and jobbers aforesaid, 
and is either * bid up ' to a ruinous price, and left to carry off his dearly-bought whistle, or is 
* hid down,' and cowed out of his lot by the apparently fierce resolve of his professional rival 
to have it at any cost. On one occasion, when venturmg a diffident bid for a pair of carriage- 
horses, I was informed by a spectator tiiat it was ' no use,' for that ' the stout party in the 
yaller veskit, over yonder, wanted them very bad, and would have them.' So after lifting 
the animals to a figure considerably above their worth, 1 was fain to yield to inexorable necessity 
and to the wealthy emancipist and whilom bankrupt, who had resolved to drive the highest 
steppers in Sydney, 

During the first year or two of my residence in Sydney, the sellings-off families going home 
or into retirement were very numerous. An auction at a house of this description is quite a 
fashionable lounge. Gentlemanly auctioneers, whom you hesitate whether or not to admit on 
terms of social equality, address you by name, assure you that the article is one of undoubted 
rtertu — ^that you cannot let it go at a price so absurdly low — ^that you cannot do without it. 
You buy something because the salesman is eloquent, because he has flattered your taste, 
because the late owner was a good fellow— not because you want it. Thus articles of 
household furniture in Sydney become migratory, and are recognised as old acquaintances, 
bought and sold twenty times over. I do not mean to hint that Sydney has not a fair share 
of permanent and well-rooted residents; but there do occasionally happen meteor-like 



10 OUB A13TIFOD3SS. 



apparitions and diaappeannoes — ^perfectly astonndiiig to quiet people drawfog a quarterly or 
monthly salary and living within it. An unusuaUy grand ball or iSte is, in such cases, a 
virulent symptom ; — ^the crisis is not far off! — ^the torch flares up— goes out ; and all tiie 
world, except those most concerned, are left in the dark>— as to the cause. 

On the subject of street sales of miscellaneous wares — ^which I have said are not lucraUve 
pursuits to tlie inexperienced frequenter — I have a little anecdote ' to submit to public notice,' 
unique in its way, and ' a genuine article.' A young military friend of mine, strolling one 
morning down George-street in desultory quest of amusement, stepped from mere curiosity 
into an auction-room where a sale was going on. Whether he did or did not nod his head at 
the salesman is still doubtful ; but it is a fact that a lot, comprising * 50 gross of bottles of 
mixed pickles/ was knocked down to him ere he had time to cross himself. Startling 
dUemma for a well-dressed young gentleman, revelling in a salary of five shillings and tiu^ee- 
pence per day, drawing his pay from the paymaster and his pickles from the messman ! 
*' Some have greatness tiirust on them,' — ^but imagine six hundred bottles of mixed pickles, to 
be paid for on delivery, being thrust upon a subaltern of a marching regiment I Ninety-nine 
out q£ a hundred youngsters would have been taken aback, would have loudly denied the 
transaction, or made some other false movement betraying perturbation. Not so my cool- 
headed youog friend. Treating the sale as a matter of course, and awaiting the dose of the 
auction, he commissioned the auctioneer to ' put up ' his newly-acquired property in several 
small lots. The result proved' that the military purchaser was not quite so green as the 
gerkins he was dealing in ; for he realised a handsome profit, and left the mart followed by 
the admiration of the oldest auction loungers present. 

The night auction was common when I first arrived in New South Wales. It seemed 
specially intended for the disposal of articles ' that love the shade,' and for the spoliation of 
tiie raw emigrant. The locale of the night auction was usually some small open stall. A 
ragged old pauper was seen and heard ringing a large bell opposite the door. A shabby, but 
sharp-looking salesman, leaning over a horse-shoe counter, under the light of a huge but blear 
and smoky lamp, arrested the passengers by a display of his wares. The idlers gradually 
curdled into a crowd. Delusive eloquence and a dim light did the rest. 

But it is not only to public sales that newspaper notices direct the public attention and 
stimulate the public indolence, — ^merchants, traders, agents, shopkeepers of all grades promul- 
gate their wants or their goods on hand through these channels ; master and servant invite 
and proffer service by this means. At the head of a few of these entries, cut out of a file of 
ioumals before me, should be placed the following one ; published in England and Ireland, this 
advertisement alone, which hiis frequently appeared, should ensure to New South Wales what 
the colonists call * a copious and continuous stream of immigration ; — ' 

'J. K. Clsavk, wholesale and retail batcher, win supply beef and mutton of good qnalHjafc 
Id. per lb.' 

Think of that, ye Dorsetshire day-labourers 1 Think of ih&t, ye Tipperary turf-cutters ! 
Think of that, ye poor starving London needle-women, who 

' Stitch, sUtch. stitch I 

lu poverty, hunger, and dirt, 
Sewing at once with a double thread 
A shroud as well as a shirt I' 

Now for a mac^Home of advertisements • — to all concerned. They are word for word as 

entered. 

' Wakted, inmiediatply, a Blacksmith, a pair of Sawyers, a JBIan Cook, a Oovemess, and a 
Houaekeeper. (Signed) ••• General Agency Offloe.' 

'FiTKERALS.— Mrs. B , TTndertakeT, has removed from • • • to •** street, and oontinnes 

to conduct ftuierals with respectability and solemnity on moderate terms.' 
The following notice, lamentable to relate, is only one of scores of similar import that 
catch the eye of the newspaper reader. 

* Cauttok.— IVhereas my wife, Margaret , having left her home without cause or provoca- 
tion, all persons are hereby cautioned against giving her credit on my account.' 

' * To SToyBMASOKS.— Wanted, immediately, six good hands ; wages, 6«. 6i. per day. Apply to 
John Revell, Cole'sbulldlnga, Upper Fort-street, Sydney. February, 1862.' 

John Eldridge, dyer and scourer, advertises himself as * llie man who dyes for the ladies.' 
• The Art of Fencing.' — ^Mr. Hardman, professor of fencing, late seijeant-major in H. M. 



ADYBBTISEMEKTS. 11 

80th Begiment of Foot, after sotting forth in glowing language the benefits of this ' nsefiil 
art,' proceeds to state his terms : — 

* Tbsxs (for two lessons each week).— Oentlemra set np, tangbt marching and fencing, li 
guineas per quarter. Young Ladies set np^ taught to square their toes, march, and euter a room 
gncefnlly, I guinea per quarter.' 

The two next appeared in the order in which I hare left them. 

'LI6HT-BOCSR HOTBL. 

* Mr. a. Gsat begs to remind his old firioids and the lovers of harmony, that he has re-opened 
his Free and Easy on Saturday evenings. A professional gentleman preatdes at the pianoforte 
fromstoia. llM chair will be taken 1^ Mr. Emerson at 9 o'clock. Bathnisi and Sussez-streets.' 

> 

*aiOBTn>U8 PATH soorsxT. 

'Fntsc AmnnysssiLBT DnnrsB, to take place at Mr. Harris's, Jews' Haip, Brlckfleld-hill, on 
Monday, November 6, 6610. Tickets to be had at Mr. Hanls's, and of the Honoraiy 
Secretfuy, 601, Lower Qeoi^e Street,— W. L. Ptkb, Bon, Sec* 



'CAumnr* 
* I HEBVBT caution an persons from purchasing any cattle from Frances Cavin my wife or her 
son or any other person branded HC on near rump running at Bnckamell Creek Station district of 
liverpool Plains. H. C. ' September SO.' 



*V0 AtX TRUB BRrrOK& 

* A Barok of beef and Plum Pudding will be on the table at Eutwisle's Hotel at one o'clock 
this day, Sept. 28, 1848.' 



* Board ahd Lononre for a sln^e Gentleman, with vae of a saddle horse and pianoforte, at 
one guinea a week. Apply, Ac' 



' XBDrCAL OOWTBACra— TO THB TBASBBIfBir OW STDMBT. 

* A KARRTKD Medlcol Man of long standlnf^ and great prcxUcal ewperimee in his profession, 
and who has no intmtion of leaving the ookmy, is desirous of entering into contracts with a 
draper, grocer, butcher, baker, and shoemaker, to supply them and their families with pro- 
fessional attendance and medicine tfpon temu of mutual advantage. Private families 
contracted with upon moderate terms, and the highest testimonials and references submitted. 
Address, A. Z., (past^Mid) MeraLd office.' 



Slatm I Slates ! ! SlatbsII!' 
If it were not for the above heading, the political economist might deduce from what follows 
that the Imjjerial Govemroent were about to make a frantic effort to rid the Old Coantrj 
of certain objectionable members of the nobility-— to establish an aristocracy in the colony-^ 
and at the same time to remedy the present inequality in the sexes in Australia ! 

' 10,000 Duchesses, with nails. 

6,000 Countesses, slightly damaged. 
12,000 Ditto, much Ditto. 
The whole without reserve I i' 

A kindred annonnoement of a batch of * Damaged Grey Domestics ' being in the market, 
aaggestfi the idea of a consignment of superannuated housekeepers and 'sturopt-up* butlen 
from home — quite good enough for colonial consumpti(Hi ; — ^whereas, in fact^ it relates to 
some household doth rendered * filthy dowlas ' by land or sea aoddent. 

Need it be noted, that the quack professor of the day has a branch business in this colony ? 
His advertisements announce a head-quarters' agent for Sydney, with subalterns at differoit 
out-stations, each having in charge expense-magazines of pill-cartridge, suffideht to sweep 
from the earth whole r^ments of diseases— or patients. A nominal roll of the former — 
eonmiencing with ' Ague/ and running through the alphabet to the Vs and W's of nosology 
— attest the efficacy of the preparations. These nostrums are in great request among tibe 
hard-living denizens of the distant interior, and, in the absence of doctors and druggists, are 
no doubt very useful antidotes to bad rum a^ indigestible ' damper.' 

I close the subject of Sydney advertisements with the following notice :— 

*Thx Hamomait.— This offldal left Sydney yesterday fbr Bathnrsti where woik awaits him; 
from Bathurst he will proceed to Qoulbum.' 



12 0T7B ANTIPODES^ 



CHAPTER 11. 

1846. — ^The shops of Sydney are well supplied, although the supply is sometimes uncertain ; 
and it is this very uncertainty which causes, and perhaps in some degree excuses, the two-price 
system which so disgusts the old country customer. * What is the price of those sugar- 
tongs?* — Answer: * Five-and-six, sir.' 'Very dear for Britannia 1* 'Well, sir, say three- 
and-nine, although that price don't remunerate me.' * Perhaps not,* mentally ejaculates the 
purchaser, 'for such barefaced roguery must be expensive to keep up!' 'It was never 
manufactured at that price/ is the common and often veracious comment of the colonial shop- 
man ; and the complacency arising from a good bai^in is clouded by the reflection that the 
poor operative at home is the aboriginal and main sufferer. However dear the majority of 
imported goods may be, ' slops,' (shade of the polished earl shudder 1 for the ' Chesterfield 
wrapper at 75. 6d/ is included in that term,) slops are nearly always cheap, for they are 
mostly the work of the wretched sisterhood of London needlewomen ! 

There is no necessity for persons coming to New South Wales to cumber themselves with 
a huge amount of baggage. There are excellent and skilful tradesmen of every sort in 
Sydney,— coachmakers and tailors, who can build you a carriage or a coat that you may 
put yourself into with comfort and complacency ; and bootmakers, who will turn you out 
a pair of kangaroo skin Wellingtons, the softest of all leathers, that will do justice to your 
foot — all at K^ent-street prices. If you are not particular, or if you are in a hurry, or 
prefer putting on your clothes with a pitchfork, there are fifly warehouses whei-e you may rig 
yourself, • my lord, from top to toe,' in two minutes, and * at a very low figure.* 

The out-door games of old England are kept up hei*e with greater observance than in any 
other colony of my acquaintance. It is amusing and pleasant to see the minor games of the 
minor people come round in their seasons. In the keen weather of July the hoop has its 
sway. As a pedestrian spectator — if you preserve a green recollection of your schoolboy 
days — ^you criticise with a bland and protective feeling the skilful inch-driving of the urchin's 
one-wheeled coach ; but when, on horseback, you see tlie emblem of eternity abandoned by 
its guide just when it most needs its care, wabbling across your path, how differently do you 
regai-d this innocent toy and its innocent owner ! The weather grows warmer, and the peg- 
top comes in, followed by marbles — both games of an exciting nature. The earnest little 
gamblers — for the winner, as you may recollect, pockets a handful of marbles as well as his 
opponent's ' taw' — knuckle down in the middle of the street or pavement, and if you disturb 
the state of the game — ^look out, that's all 1 In the cricket season the male portion of the 
rising generation are perfectly engrossed in the study of that noble game. Every possible 
imitation of a wicket forms the tai^get for every possible object that schoolboy ingenuity can 
compel to do duty for a ball. Your milk-boy sets his can down, in open day, for the vegetable 
lad to hive ' only just one ball ' at it witii a turnip ; and old women are continually seen 
scolding and threatening because their legs have, quite accidentally of course, been treated as 
a set of stumps. 

One of the peculiarities of Sydney is the multitude of its gay equipages. In an English 
provincial town the handsome barouche or chariot rolling down the main street attracts a 
certain degree of attention. It belongs, of a surety, to some civic notable or provincial 
grandee. In George-street or Pitt-street at three or four o*clock there are crowds of such 
carriages. Gay I have called them, and gay they are indeed, for the vehicles themselves are 
smart, and the fair ladies within them are oftei very smart; but they — ^the can-iages — are 
generally ill-appointed and ill-driven, a fact by no means surprising, since many of the 
coachmen have tried every earthly trade before taking to the box. I myself possessed one 
whose previous caliiug had been that of a mufHn baker. After he left my service I heard of 
him as a street watchman, h turnkey, and an office messenger. From the bread-cart to tha 
brougham may indeed be legitimate promotion ; but that the shop- boy who has been accus* 
tomed to handle the ribands behind the counter should eo facto be capable of maintainii^ 
them with propriety and safety behind a footboard and a pair of blood bays ; or that the run* 
away carpaatei''s apprentice should, ex officio, be eligible for the hammercloth, are not 
eequUurs too apparent to need comment. Fellows like these come out to this colony with 
the most vague and aimless ideas, whereof I shall have to give some illustrations under the 
head of Immigmtion. Many of them, fit for nothing at home^ are worthless here. Dodging 



THB BOTANIO GABDENS. 13 

lirom employment to employment, and suited to none, they only gain a lirelihood in tho 
absence of a really nseful body of immigrants. 

On the subject of equipages, the publio carriages-— cab^ as they are called — are certainly 
the best in the world. Generally clarences, with a pair of well-fed active horses, they have 
nothing of the old English hackney coach about them ; and though some of the drivers are 
thorough-bred ruflSans, they are kept in pretty good subjection by the relations. Mis. 
Meredith it is, I think, who lashes with her clever pen the Iiabit of the ladies of Sydney to 
make the dusty streets their favourite drive or walk. The fiict is as true as it is astonishing 
—for I know of no town in the universe where fresh air is more necessary for the inhabitants ; 
and there are few towns of co-ordinate consequence so bountifully supplied with breathing- 
places dose at hand. I have spoken of the Government domain. Its several entrances are 
close upon the town and suburbs. Here are nearly four miles of drives through alternate 
open and wooded grounds, the greater part exposed to the sea-breeze, and opening upon 
cheerful views of the splendid harbour ; shady paths, held sacred to foot passengers, winding 
among the ' tea-scrub,' or skirting the rocky shores ; a spacious grassy plain, where a batbilion 
may manoeuvre, and where the bemd plays for the amusement of Uie public once or twice a 
week. There are the Botanic Gardens, divided into two compartments ; one laid out in 
formal squares, containing the floral produce of many widely distant lands, flourishing to- 
gether here as they flour^h nowhere else ; the other more in the English pleasure-grouud 
style, embracing a wide circuifof the picturesque Farm Cove. There is a drive or ride of 
twelve or thirt^n miles, to the lighthouse at the South Head and back, passing through such 
lovely scenery that, although enjoyed a thousand times, it never palled on my taste ; and for 
the equestrian admirer of the wild and dreary there is the wide expanse of hill and swamp 
between the city and Botany Bay. All these healthful outlets from Sydney dust and heat 
exist, and yet, with the exception of the attendance at the bend, a score of persons can rarely 
be counted in any of the spots I have enumerated. I may except also the Gardens on a 
Sunday afternoon, when the diopocracy — a wealthy and comfortable class — ^resort in considerable 
numbers to catch a puff * of the briny,' and take the creases out of their best suits. The 
Botanic Gardens at such times present a cheerful and pretty sight from any of the surrounding 
eminoices^ from a boat in the bay, or from the shipping. 

The scene is still more lively on the annual or half-yearly Exhibition of the Australian 
Botanic and Horticultural Society, when many thousands assemble to inspect the fruits, flowers, 
vegetables, and other colonial products, and to listen to the music of the band, sitting or 
strolling under the shadow of the trees of many dimes, and looking forth upon the calm glassy 
cove dotted with boats, the opposite ridge of the Inner Domain crowned with the vice-regal 
palace, the frigates riding at anchor off the Point, the less trim merchantmen in * the stream' 
waiting for a wind, with the woody hills of the north shore in the back-ground. 

There is immense competition amongst some half-dozen gentlemen and market-gardeners 
for the prizes given at this Exhibition. Some of the producers evince their fealty to thdr 
native land by exhibiting specimens of her weeds, or more properly field-flowers, strangers to 
the colony, and difficult to rear in the climate. I found myself adoring a buttercup, idolising 
a daisy, and ardently coveting possession of a glorious dandelion, which, classically labdled 
' Leontodon taraxacum,' occupied one of the high places of the Exhibition, and was treated as 
an illustrious fordgner. For myself, I know no more pleasant lounge than the public gardens, 
sheltered as they are by the heights of Darlinghurst from the chill south winds of winter, and 
in summer shaded from the sun's rays by the trees. The view of so many vegetable natives 
ef distant regions, within a small space and all in the open air, is both pleasing and surprising. 
Plants from the Cape and China, Peru and Japan, Madagascar and North Britain, South 
America and the Canary Isles, Van Diemen's Land, Hindostan, and New Zealand, are thriving 
within a stone's throw of each other. The oak and bamboo, the hawthorn and sugar-cane^ 
tho Scotch fir, plantain, and mango— the last, however, not looking happy — ^almost mingle 
branches. In a rabid attack upon the estimates by the opposition members of the Legislative 
Coundl in 1849, this pleasant place of public resort ran imminent risk of being permitted to 
go to waste for want of the annual vote of money for its support — ^a smidl instance of 
legislative wantonness, such aa the intervention of a second Chamber would serve to 
control. 

The drive along the southern shore of the harbour to the Heads or entrance to Port Jackson, 
and thence back to Sydney by the ' old South Head Road,' about thirteen miles, has haitlly 
its equal for picturesque beauty. The harbour itself rudely resembles, in its projections and 



i^p 



14 ouB Mjsrmaaa. 

indentatioQS, the form of an oak leaf>-or, to enlUt a monstroiiaafamle, it may be likeoed to the 
gaping mouih of some huge antediluvian saurian, the blufis and inlete repreeen<aag the teeth 
and the interstices between them. The eye, following the profile of the two opposite shores, 
cannot but perceive that if the said enormous sandstone jaws were, by some geological miracle, 
to snap together again, so neat would be the fit that there would remain but little more than 
a serpentile line of demolished rocks and gum-trees to mark where was once Port Jackson. 
The views of the harbour from the higher points of the road, over the tufled tops of the forest, 
and the glimpses of its glittering waters between the bolea of the enonnoas gam-trees, are truly 
beautiful. So completely is this great port shut in from the ocean, that I know of no spot a 
mile within its gates from which the strangear would even surmise the position of ite mouth^-^ 
were it not for the tall bluff of the North Head, which lifts a huudied feet of its sheer, wall-like 
profile above any of the interior headlands. I cannot describe botanically the trees, plants, and 
shrubs among which the eye of the rider wanders, well pleased, on either side of the road. The 
Eucalyptus, and other gums o£ infinite variety, form the laxger growth of ' the bush.' But 
there are trees distantly xesemUing in aspect the European ash, the holly, larch, and myrtle, 
with a luxuriant undeigrowth of ferns and lichens, and a multitiule of flowering shrubs clad 
in spring and autumn with blossoms so lovely in form and hoe as to justify the name of 
* Botany,' conferred by Dr. Solander as a title of honour on the ne^hbourmg bay. Those is 
the Correa, with stiff stem and prickly leaves, but with a string of delicate little pendulous 
flowers, red, orange, and white, something like the fuchsia, but, in my mind, a hundred times 
more brilliant. The native rose has the colour but no other resemblance to the European 
queen of flowers. It is one of the few bush-flowers possessing any odour. Wafted on the 
passing gale, it conunends itself pleasantly to the senses; but, strange eaough, on closer 
acquaintance there mingles with the rich perfume an undoubted scent of the fox I a scent 
which, however ci^eative of rapture in * the field,' is ill adapted to the boadoir. 

The South Sea myrtle, or Leptospermum, grows in fine round bushee, spangled with white 
stars. Of the heath-like Epacris there is an infinite variety, among which I name the 
Styphelia because it possesses the rare quality of a green flower. The Boroinias shoot up 
their slender stems, among the roughest rocks and stubbomest plants, towaids the sun, their 
wax-like petals showing every delicate shade between deep pink and snowy white. All these 
shrubs are evergreen. Among their branches and those of the higher trees the most beautiful 
creepers wreathe themselves. The Eennedya, with a purple vetch>like blossom, is among the 
most graceful. There is also a white variety, whose flower is so small, that a microscope is 
necessary to examine its mmute beauties. I must not forget the Bottle-brush, one of the mo&t 
characteristic plants of the bush. It has rough, twisted branches, and a leaf something like 
the holly. Su- Joseph Banks gave it the botanical name of Banksia, and his butler, perhaps, 
bestowed on it the vulgar appellation by which it is generally known. The upright, conical 
flowers with which this eccentrio-looking shrub is thickly covered resemble pretty dosely that 
usefiil implement of the pantry. When at its prime, the deep orange hue of the flower mnkea 
it almost handsome. In the swamps is a smaller and prettier l^d of Banksia, of a softer 
fiibric, and with a flower of rich crimson. I used to fancy that my favourite cluurger loved to 
wear one of these brilliant natural rosettes in his headstall. There are several pretty iris-like 
bulbs in the moister soil ; and in the low lands of the Botany Scrub I noticed a crimson and 
orange flowery like the foxglove in form, very handsome, but so hard and homy in texture 
that the blossoms actually ring with a clear metallic sound as the breeze shakes them. It 
might be the fkiries' dinner-bell, calling them to their dew and ambrosia! Alas ! there are no 
' good people ' in Australia ; no one ever heard of a ghost, or a bogle, or a fetch here ! — all is 
too absolutely material to afford a niche for imagination or superstition t 

Perhaps the greatest ornament of the bush, however, is the Acacia, of which there are 
many varieties. In autumn the trees look as if a golden snow-storm had fidlen (m their 
branches, bending down with their burden of blossom towards the earth. Some of the acacias 
possess a delicious almond-like perfume. The bark is extensively used for tanning. 

A bouquet of bush-flowers is highly ornamental in the epergne of the dinner-table, for they 
do not soon fiade, and keep better out of water than in it ; but he who would not implant a 
thorn in the basom of beauty will never desire to see them worn in the ball-room, for, with 
scarcely an exception, they are harsh and thorny as the holly itself. 

As the flowers of Australia are generally beautiful, but scenUess, so are the birds for the 
most pai t as gorgeous in plumage as they are harsh in song. Indeed, ihej have no sustained 
melody, although isolated notes of great sweetness do occasicmally break the sUenoe of the bush. 



BIDEB A2n> XXBXm. — ^A SEICK7IXLDSB. 15 

. On SmidayBf ilwn k a gensTil nuh of honemen and, cHaise-men and wenaen towards the 
HeadB,>->the Christian put of the community because it is their tabbath and holiday, the 
Hebrews because tb^ make it liie latter. A well-known tavern near the lighthouse, however, 
seems to be the chief attraction; and the wholesome sale breeses of the ocean are so modified 
with dgar smoke, that tiiis weekly airing can but little profit the Sonday jaunter. 

J£ I have a hundred times taken the ride above described without meeting a single soul of 
the 50,000 sweltering in the city and suburbs, I may say the same with regard to tiie ride to 
Botany Bay. Thei-e are two good hotels <m the north shore of this basfai, called after Sir J. 
Banks and Captain Cook ; and the point on which La Peroose's monument stands may be 
nine miles from Sydney. To tiie former there is a pretty good turnpike road, besides innu- 
merable tracks for equestrians across the stunted scrub-land. To the latter there is nothing 
that can be called a wheel-road, but a sandy galloping ground for hoisemen, soft as the riding- 
school tan. It must be the pore love of £resh air and exercise that tempts the rider in tins 
direction. Barrm, hopeless, unblessed tract ; scrubby, rocky, sandy, and boggy by turns ; excq)t 
in the short seasou of the bush flowers, one would suppose that it had been named * Botany' 
in bitter irony. Unlucky name ! retained, to the discredit of the whole colony, by reason of 
its associations in the popular mind I I cannot but agree with Dr. Lang, tliat Banksknd, or 
any other titie, ought to have been substituted for its originBl one. Tlw diores of this fine 
inlet are still as unpopulated as if it were a thousand miles from the city. Pieriuqn gentlem^ 
selecting a place of residence, may feel a squeamish dislike to hove their letters addressed to 
Botany Bay I By direct and legitimate inheritance * Tyburn Terrace ' ought to have been the 
destgnation of the present Hyde Park Gardens in London. The stex^e desert lying between 
the bay and Sydney contains the greatest treasnre— <the lifo-Uood, it may be called, — of the 
metropolis. Witiiout a fresh water river, built on a nx^ nnfovnorabie to well-digging, 
without tanks to catch the unfrequent ndn, Sydney wooid die of tiuist, and die unwadked, 
if it were not for the Lachlan Swamp. 

From some of the more elevated points of the country tiurau^ whidi the South Head road 
is conduoted, the views of the harbour are truly eplen&L It was from one of them, during 
an afternoon ride, that I saw town and country for the fast time under the influence of a 
Brickfidder. There had been a morning of terrible beat ; the sky was free of clouds, yet not 
bright ; a hot wind had raised the thermometer to 102^ in the shade. Towards the afternoon 
the wind foil, a sullen and sultry calm came on, and, ordering my horse, I cantered towards 
the Heads, to meet a breath of air from the ocean, if breath might be had. Turning my eyes 
casually towards the town, I was astonished to find that it had disappeared. It had been 
swallowed up in clouds and columns of red and white dust, which, rising madly on the winds 
and sweeping across the haiiKNir, gradually veiled from my sight also the pretty suburb of 
St. Leoiard's on the North Shore. Around my station^-H&bout five miles m>m Sydney — the 
trees and shrubs even to the minutest spray were motionless, and a little bay below me was 
unruffled as a mirror ; yet I distinctly heard the fierce roaring of the tempest as it rushed 
through the city and the country beyond it, lashing the upper portion of the harbour into 
white foam. The boats were flying for shelter in all directions, and one, with calm-weather 
canvass spread, heeled over, filled and vanished ! Soon the line of road from Sydney towards 
my post, hitherto hidden by the boxxlering bush, became visible in all its curvatures by thick 
ctala of dust; the tall still trees bowed ihar heads, and the expanse of bush before and below 
me seemed to put itself in motion and to rush towards the hill whereon I stood. Then a tonid 
gust, like the blast of a furnace, caught my face, almost stopping my respiration ; and the 
dust which had ridden on the wings of the wind for so many nules came flying into my eyes 
asid grated in my teeth. In a fow nv^ntients there was once more a perfect cahn. 

During the progress of the dust-stonn a black battalion of clouds had been rapidly collecting ' 
on the southern horizon. Rolling and coiling about in ccmfnsed masses, with mutterings ot 
thunder and half-smothered flashes of lightning, their intention and direction were soon 
developed. Torrents of heavy rain and hail, accompanied by a chilling tornado, came drifting 
horizontally over the face of the country, whilst an ebon mass of vapour right over head 
poured a perpendicular flood fuU upon my crown. The lightning bedame fearful in its 
vividness and a^^iarent proximity ; the thunder, stunning in its ma^ificent diapason, rever- 
berated from the blufls around. Joining in the general uproar, the surf on the north shore 
fluns itself madly up the steep ciifis to their very summits, seemed to stand suspended in the 
air for a space, and reooUed slowly and unwillingly to its wonted level. 

This was < all very fine ' oartainlyy but so unsuited to a * patent ventilating gossamer hat * 



16 OUB AZTTIFODES. 

and A filmy palet6t by Niool, as to drive me at length to a temporary shditer. The thnnder- 
atorm, satiated with an incursion round every point of the compass, rolle4 away sulleoly in 
the distance. Its rear-guard of light cumulus closed up to the main body, and disi^peared at 
length in the north-east, leaving only one heavy stationary mass — a sort of army of oocapatioQ 
— just above the setting sun, which, shooting its last rays from a bright stripe of sky orer the 
distet Blue Mountains, and behind the loag ridge where Sydney stands, showed the mere 
silhouette of a city — the council chamber, the infirmary, the staff offices,*the spire of St. James's, 
tJie barracks, and the gaol — in strong hard relief upon the rose-coloured haze. The valleyi 
across whidi I rode on my way home, and the deeper ravines, were already in darkness, 
while the slanting sunbeams still gilded the hill tops, the wet shining faces of the rocks, and 
the milk-white boles of the gigantio gum-trees. Night followed quickly — ^for there is but little 
twilight at the Antipodes. 

Such is a slight sketch of a Sydney hot-wind, and its constant follower the Brickfielder, 
or, as the Port Jackson boatmen call it, the Siitherly Buster I No words can do justice to 
the degree of discomfort inflicted by the first upon ihe Sydney citizens during the seasim of 
its prevalence. Luckily the rush of wind from the colder regions, displacing the more 
raiified air of the preceding ' hot-wind,' brings back a respirable atmosphere to the gasping 
inhabitants, while the floods of rain carry away all accumulated impurities. On the occasion 
I have just recounted the thermometer fell at once from 102^ to 53 . When I started on my 
ride the lee side of an Indian tattee would have been luxury itself. Two hours later I was 
well pleased to * take an air,' as the Irish say, of the kitchen fire. Subsequently, however, I 
witnessed instances of a much greater variation of the glass. One morning, while the hot> 
winds were raging in Sydney, I walked to the Australian Library, facing with some difficulty 
the scorching gale. Seating myself in the large room to read, I was soon seized with a chill 
shivering, and, looking at the tiiermometer within the apartment, was surprised to find it as 
high as 81°. The instrument outside the window in the shade stood however at llOo. Thus 
the sudden change of temperature fix>m a superlative degree of heat to a merely positive one, 
gave me as decided a case of catarrh as I ever got by a plunge from the hot-aired club-rooms 
of London to the frosty streets, or vice versa. 

In October 1848, as I find by my diary, I witnessed a fine instance of a nocturnal Brick* 
fielder. Awakened by the roaring of the wind, I arose and looked out. It was bright moon- 
light, or it would have been bright but for the clouds of dust which, impelled by a perfect 
hurricane, curled up from the e^h, and absolutely muflled the fair face of the planet. Pul- 
verised specimens of every kind and colour of soil within two miles of Sydney, flew past the 
house high over the chinmey-tops in lurid whirlwinds, now white, now red. It had all the 
appearance of an American prairie fire — * barring ' the fire. Had the * wild huntsman ' and 
his skeleton field and pack ^lloped past along with this fierce commixture of earth and air, I 
should have taken the apparition as a matter of course ! 

One of the greatest miseries of the Southerly Burster is, that (welcomed to all animated 
nature as are its cooling airs,) its first symptoms are the signal for a general rush of house- 
maids to shut hermetl(^y every apertiu'e of the dwelling. The thermometer in the drawing- 
room, and one's own mdting mood announce some 86° of heat ; while the gale, driving so 
refreshingly past your windows, is probably 30° lower ; but if you have any regard for sight 
and respiration, for carpets, chintzes, books, and other furniture, you must religiously shut up 
shop until the * chartered libertine,' having scavenged the streets of every particle of dust, 
has moderated its wrath. Even then, however well fitted may be the doors and windows, the 
volatile atoms will find their way everywhere, to the utter disturbance of household and 
personal comfort. Hot winds and sand-storms, sirocs and simooms, are common to many 
countries ; in the deserts of Africa they are, as we know, a deadly visitation. In New South 
' Wales these storms sometimes cause the eye-blight, or sand-blight, as the malady is indifler- 
ently called, than which, as experience taught me, notliing can well be more painful and 
irksome, involving actual loss of vision while inflammation is at its height — i loss sometimes, 
though rarely, as permanent as that occasioned by the Egyptian ophthalmia. 

Considering the unrivalled suitability of Port Jackson for aquatic pursuit •*, the citizens of 
Sydney appreciate pastimes on the water little more than they do the rides, and drives, and 
gardens. There is, however, connected with the shores, and islets, and coves of the harbour, one 
pursuit peculiarly congenial to the taisfces of the people — a pastime half jaunting, half sedentary, — 
a littie sea air, a very little personal exertion, and a lai^e amount of gastronomic recreation ; 
I mean, oyster-eating. Every inch of rock from Sydney to the Heads is thickly colonised by 



0T8TEB PABTIE8. 17 

these delicate shell-fish ; that is, every inch would be so peopled, but for the active extermina- 
tion incessantly going on. On any fine day select parties of pleasore-and-oyster seekers may 
be seal proceeding by water or land, fornished with the necessary mnnimmts for an attack, 
or actively engaged in it A hammer and a chisd, an oyster-knife, a bottle of vin^ar, and 
the pepper-pot, with a vigorous appetite, sharpoied by tite almost impr^nable character of 
the foe — such are the forces brought into the field, and the inducements to distinction. It is 
needless to add, that the garrison are quickly dielled out of thdr natural stronghold. I 
ouolled myself more than once in an expedition of this kind, and <Nily r^retted tiiat * my 
gr€Eit revenge had stomach ' for <Nily one-half of the luscious victims d^nolished by my com- 
pani<His. The small rock-oyster of New South Wales is excellent in its way, although inferior 
to the Carlingford. The great mud-oyster of the rivers is too unctuous for delicate appetites, 
although it is swallowed ore rotundo at the street-comers by those who prefer quantity to 
quality. 

I know no spot in the world better formed for {Mcnic parties than Port Jackson. When any 
of Her Majesty's ships happen to be in harbour, these excursions are tolerably frequent. The 
navy ought to feel flattered by the manner in which they are always received by the Sydneyites. 
The appearance of a man-of-war in the cove is the signal for all sorts of gaiety and hospitality. 
It is indeed pleasant to see the vigour which, firesh from the sea and exclusively virile society, 
the members of our sister profession throw into their enjoyment of shore-going amusements. 
Their life and spirit infctse, as it were, salt and pepper into the insipid materials of a society 
rendered dull by monotony of life and absence of incident. No wonder their advent is hailed 
with rapture by the fiur ! 

Having stumbled upon the word society, let me devote a few remarks to that of the New 
South Wales capital. 

That the society of Sydney is cut up into parties and cliques, the frontiers of which are 
not the less arbitrary because they are not very apparent, is a truth which applies quite as 
justly to any other conmiunity without an hereditary aristocracy ; I shall say no more therefore 
on that head. The remark is not more applicable to Sydney than to Liverpool, New York, 
Montreal, Calcutta, and by this time, 1 dare say, to the capital of the Auckland Islands^ 
whatever its name may be. 

There is one grand feature of the social status of Sydney, however, which is almost exclu- 
sively peculiar to itself — I mean the convict infusion. A person newly arrived here feels no 
little curiosity, perhaps some little uneasiness, on the subject of the d^ree of influoice exerted 
on the social system by the numerous body of affluent emancipists, which the lapse of time 
and their own amended characters have formed in the community. It seems almost incredible 
that, living in the very midst of this community — in many cases in equal, and even superior 
style to what may be called the aristocracy — ^possessing some of the handsomest residences in 
the city and suburbs — ^warehouses, counting houses, banking establishments, ship{ung, immense 
tracts of land, flocks and herds, enjoying all political and material immunities in common 
with those possessing equal fortunes, of the more reputable classes — ^they are, nevertheless, a 
class apart from the untainted. There is a line of moral demarcation by them peremptorily 
impassable. The impudent and pushing, and these are few, are repelled. The unobtrusive 
and retiring are not encouraged. Their place on the social scale is assigned and circumscribed. 
They belong indeed to the common flock; but they are the black sheep of it. They are- 
treated with humanity and consideration, but in a certain d^ree they are compelled to herd 
together. The merchants and men of business meet them on equal terms for the negotiation 
of afiairs in which their wealth, intelligence, and commercial weight sometimes necessarily 
involve them. They do not presume on this partial admission to equality, but fall back into • 
their prescribed position when the business which has called the two orders into temporary 
contact has been completed. Official juxta-position does not bring with it any plea for social 
mtimacy. The 'conditional' or *firee* pardon of their sovereign appears to entitle this 
unfortunate section of society to traffic on equal terms with their fellow-man, but yields them, 
no licence to pass from the counting-house to the parlour. 

The strong common sense and right feeling of our fellow-countrymen seem to have, at once 
and without hesitation, adjusted tlds difficult domestic question— quietly, firmly, and irrevo^ 
cably ; no cruelty or undue assumption of superiority on the one part, no fruitless resistance 
on the other. The barrier is complete. 

As I write this there passes my window a well-known individual of this class in a smart 
new barouche, with a showy pair of hones caparisoned in plated harness, and a ooachsoffis^va^ 



18 OITB ANTIPODES. 

piige in livery and laoed hats. If the spectacle of a wealthy ex-conyict rolling by in his hand- 
some equipage, grates unpleasantly on the feelings of those who are blesseJ with competence, 
how galling must it be tor the good man sufiering poverty and struggling for a precarious 
subsifctence for himself and his family ! — and yet this is a thing of every-day occurrence in 
Sydney. The indigmt and honest man has literally to * eat the dirt * thrown from the chariot 
wheels of the branded felon. Had the fortunes of all these persons been made since the 
termination of their bondage, the contrast between their success and the penury of the more 
deserving would not, perhaps*, appear so repugnant to poetical justice and the divine right of 
honesty. But tlie contrary is, almost without exception, the fact. The wealth of the majority 
of the * Old Hands ' was accumulated in different manners, but chiefly by monopolies, during 
the period of their punishment — or rather of their banishment, for of course it is only whilst 
in the comparative freedom afforded by the * Ticket-of-leave,* or * Assignment ' to private 
sei-vice — ^indulgences earned by good conduct under probation — ^that opportunities for acquir-* 
ing property were open to them. Certain it is that in many instances as much industry and 
lMX)bity have been exercised by persons who have been prisoners of the Crown, as by any 
order of men labouring for wealth in the colony. When such amendment becomes apparent, a 
charitable spirit is, as I have said, universally evinced towards the individual ; and, whatever 
mortification he may occasionally receive by chance shots, no intentional or deliberate re- 
proach on the subject of * old stories ' is ever aimed at him by his fellow-men. Indeed, the 
forbearance practised on thfa point amounts events even to delicacy. A convict, eo rwrninCf is 
seldom mentioned in New South Wales. He is ' a prisoner of the Crown,* an * old hand,* a 
■* government man,' or, he was * sent out.' This tenderness of expression, it will readily be 
believed, is practised not so much for the benefit of the actual offenders as for that of their 
innocent descendants — sufferers for the sins of their fathers, moral bastards, whose position is 
certainly deserving of all consideration &om those more happily bom. ' In all mixed society,' 
£ays Bulwer, ' certain topics are proscribed.' It is needless to particularise the forbidden 
topics of New South Wales general society. 

I have never had, never desii-ed, access to the records of the Convict department, but such 
cases as tlie following, of convicts' attainment to wealth and consequent power and station, 
ai*e constantly before one's eyes in Sydney. 

The first is a rich capitalist, and a landowner to the extent of a principality. He was a 
smuggler, a * fence,'* aided in the escape of French prisoners during the war ; made some 
money in these pursuits, and was * transported beyond the seas.' His money, following him, 
quicUy accumulated, as it always did in the good days of the colony. He is not respected, 
but he has a good head for business and plenty of money, and commands therefore a place in a 
commerical community. Another case. — A Jew, professing a desire for conversion to Chris- 
tianity, gains access to the plate-chest, etc., of a proselytising family. The plate is indeed 
quickly converted — — into cash. He desired no better than a trip to Australia. He is carried 
there at the expense of the tax-payers of England ; dies in the oiour of sanctity ; and his next 
descendant attsdns high dvic honours, becomes a justice of the peace, and no doubt wdl 
merits his success. One day, whilst riding with the Governor, I drew his attention to a car- 
riage of peculiar form and colour, evidently an exact copy of one brought by his Excellency 
from England. His Excellency, although not easily moved, appeared far fi'om flattered at 
finding that for the future he must be content to share the peculiarity of his equipage with 
-4;mancipist Mr. . There were the graceful bends of the vice-regal phaeton, even the very 
•shade of the aristocratic yellow closely imitated. There was a crest, coat of arms, &c., &c. ; 
and, for aught I know to the contrary, the worthy proprietor may have adopted, in profound 
ignorance of its import, the bar sinister of roytd descent, borne on the shield of the ducal 
family whose scion now rules the colony. The same armorial bearings, I understand, are 
blazoned on the wire window-blinds of this ambitious gentleman's residence. I am glad to add 
that he has the character of a good man and a charitable, and has given land and money 
for the building of a church. 

One very * swell ' member of the * swell mob ' was ti*anaported for robbing His Majesty** 
mail of a large sum ; but, previously to his apprehension, he was enabled to transfer the money 
to his wife, who followed him to Sydney under a feigned name. And here arose one of the 
worst glaring instances of the abuse of the Assignment System ever known. He was assigned 
as a servant to his faithful partner ; — an indulgence which placed husband and wife in a singu- 
lar and awkward mutual relation ; — ^for, if he offended, she by application to the nearest megi»* 

* Receiver of stolen goods. 



EMANCIPATKD PRISOOTSKS. 19 

traie ooxild have hira well flogged ; and, for a more serious act of domestic insaboi-dination, sept 
to work in chains on the public roads ! 

The career, from a state of pauper crime to wealth and independence, of an emancipated 
prisoner, was, in a few words, as follows : — ^He offends against his country's laws, is * sent out,* 
is assigned to service, gets his ticket-of-leave, finally his conditional or free pardon ; or becomes 
free by servitude of his sentence. He takes a public-house, dabbling meanwhile in various 
other money-making pursuits. He buys up cattle when the market is down, when their value 
might be reckoned by shillings, and sells them when ten or twelve pounds may be tlieir price. 
He lends money on good security, and at usurious interest. He builds, buys, and sells houses. 
In the height of his prosperity, his house-rental alone brings him in 120/. a-week ; for, liking 
qxdck returns, he ooun'te his income hebdomadally. He purchases shares in a gi'cat banking 
establishment, well known although not openly designated as the Emandpisis' Bank, a most 
safe and respectable house (the writer bmked there himself). He possesses huge storehouses 
in the city, a beautiful villa in a fashionable suburb. He diives a splendid equipage, flashing 
with silver harness and new varnished panels, and a fast trotting pair of bays, with which he 
takes pleasure in passing and dusting the government officers and other less opulent respectables 
on their way to church. The above is no fanciful portrait. It is irom nature. 

In one of my journeys in the interior of the colony, I inquired of my c(»npanion the history 
of a beautiful place about half a mile from the ix>ad-side. The moment he told me the name 
of the proprietor, I recognised it as one inscribed a hundi'ed times over in the chaiis of New 
South Wales (and New Zealand, if I mistake not,) as a possessor of allotments. Transpoi'ted 
as a lad, he served apprentice to a bricklayer, who employed a number of other prisoners. 
The sober and penniless boy saved up his daily ration of rum, then a scarce article in the 
colony, and, selling it to the other prisoners, laid the foimdation of a fortune which enabled him 
a few years subsequently to eclipse the richest merchants of Sydney. Yet, when possessed of 
wealth sufficient for every luxury, he never indulged in personal expenses. Living on 
* damper,'* beef, and ration tea, in a brick-floored room, his highest luxuiy was getting diTink 
on East India rum at home, or at the neighbouring road-side tavern on colonial beer. He 
always, however, had an acute head and a vigilant eye for business ; and mei-cantile, pastoral, 
and agricultural affairs flourished under his management. 

Exactly opposite, across the public road, lies the property of a gentleman of high station and 
character, whose avocations compel him to re^de in the capital. He must keep up a degree of 
style and exerdse a degree of hospitality, commensurate with his position. His distant estate 
is neglected or mismanaged. At present a few horses and homed stock run wild and almost 
unreclaimed on the still uncleared land ; the fences have fallen into disrepair ; the property is 
a loss rather than a gain to the owner. The ' old hand ' is makmg money, in shoil ; the old 
soldier spending it. The one is deban'ed society and its incidental expenses j the other is com- 
pelled by his duties to society to live expensively. 

In 1849 or 1850, a friend of mine, desirous of returning permanently to England, and of 
parting with his propei-ty in the colony, advertised it for sale in the public prints, — an excellent 
country squire's house and offices, with a beautiful farm around it, close to a large town. 
Considering the depreciation of landed property, many tolerably handsome offere were made ; 
but the highest bidder and eventual purchaser was a man who had been a convict, one of about 
a hundred prisoners employed by the father of the heiress of the estate. By steady beha\'iour 
this person became the overseer of the assigned men, gradually acquii-ed money, fi-eedom, and 
independence ; and, still in the vigour of life, purchases the house and property of his late 
master as a dower for his only daughter. However completely reformed, however respectable 
in life and conduct, he cannot be a very agi*eeable neighbour for the numerous branches of the 
dan ♦ * * stOl resident in the country, amongst whom he has thus settled himself. 

I could enumerate not a few similar instances of convict prosperity. Some rose to wealth 
by honest industry, some by industry unfettered by probity, and othere by downright 
roguery ; defrauding their creditors by dint of tiie Insolvent Court, afler having made over 
the bulk of their property to their wives or other tnisty relatives. Those unftniunates whom 
they had cozened, were compelled, and still continue, to go a-foot, while succ^siul and bi'azen* 
faced rascality * rides in coaches.' In mentioning the Insolvent Court, it is only fair to say, 
that enriched convicts were by no means the only class of pei-sons who fled to that city of refuge. 

I will adduce one satisfactory instance in connexion with the subject of wealthy emancipated 

prisoners of the Crown. 

; . . * Unleavened bread. 

c 8 



20 0C7B ANTIFODES. 

—^ — -» was not onl J transported for a heinous offence, bat, while under probation, had 
the character of the most unruly and incorrigible of the chain-gang he belonged to. Every 
kind of severity and indignity was heaped upon his obdurate spirit. Yet he reformed — who 
shall say through what agency ? Perhaps the devil was whipped out of him. Perhaps reflec- 
tion cast the foul fiend ou1> — ^for the reprobate had a long head on those same fustigated 
shoulders. At any rate, in process of time, and by a mixture of good conduct, good luck, and 
address, the branded and scourged felon, the manacled slave, became a wealthy capitalist. At 
the time of the general money-quake he fell like the rest — failing for an immense sum ; I do 
not know the amount, but certainly not less than — (probably twice as much as) — 50,000/. 
Unlike his compeers in mischance, bond and free, who sheltered themselves in the Court, by a 
strong effort he succeeded in paying up twenty shillings in the pound ; and, having thus re- 
duced himself almost to be^ary, he recommenced life undismayed and with that resolute 
energy which, ill directed, had foimerly made him foremost among the bad. This man, like 
some others of his class, gave to his children the highest education England could furnish. He 
is the landlord of many of the aristocracy of Sydney, who find him both liberal and con-ect in 
his dealings. The calling he has adopted brings him into contact with persons of every grade. 
He is extensively employed by the Government, as well as by companies and individuals, and has. 
always been cited as a punctual, respectable, and upright man of business — as well as a singu- 
larly clever one, although, even in his old age, he can scarcely write his name. In a transact 
tion I had in the colony, involving several hundred pounds' worth of property, I deliberately 
selected this meritorious person from among several of the same profession, possessing the 
highest qualifications of character and capacity. 

Since I made the above note, its subject has paid the debt of nature. In proof of the high 
estimation in which ' the long course of honourable and successful pursuits ' of this person 
was held by the public, a Colonial Journal distinguished by its strict principles, in thus 
alluding to his career, mentions that the * cortege ' attending his funeral consisted of nearly a 
hundred carriages — ^perhaps the most numerous procession ever seen in Sydney on similar occa- 
sions. The deceased left a lai'ge and unencumbered property. 

The most interesting of the class compulsorily expatriated — to use a delicate expression 
suited to the sex — ^has been made the heroine of a well-known popular novel in England. This 
lady has lived a model of virtue and propriety, and her children and grandchildren are well 
received, and deserve to be so, in the best society of the colony. 

I know of but one person, who came out to this country as a prisoner of the Crown, 
admitted, without any reservation, into equal communion with the society in general. Whilst 
serving in an active profession he had the misfortune, some thirty-five or forty years ago, to 
kill a man in a duel, and falling into the hands of a judge determined to make an example of 
such a case, was transported for a term of years, or for life, I know not which. Practising 
with eminent skill as a physician for a longer period than any of the profession in the colony, 
he signalised himself by his benevolent attentions to the poor and sick. He was a distinguished 
member of the First Legislative Council of New South Wales — ^being indeed one of the elected 
members for the city of Sydney ; and, after the dissolution of this body, was a successful can- 
didate for a seat in the second Council, convened in 1849 — only resigning this honourable post 
for private reasons — ^perhaps on account of his advanced age. 

At the period of colonial history when the emancipist class, patronised and drawn from social 
obscurity by the governor of the day, had attained the highest point of prosperity ; when the 
eminent and opulent firms of Lagg, Scragg, Hempson, and Co., and other houses and indivi- 
duals of similar derivation, possessed branch businesses in London, Liverpool, and in the neigh- 
bouring colonies, and qwned at least one half of the monied and landed property in the colony 
— it is a ludicrous fact that an ingenious individual, in quest of an opening for employment, 
hit upon the bright idea of establishing an * office of armorial research.* He had no difficultv 
in finding nameakes for most of his Botany Bay constituents among the nobility and landed 
gentry of England, and in adapting to them suitable coats of aims, heraldic emblems and 
mottoes. I happen to know that on one occasion this colonial garter-king-afrai-ms having 
allotted to an ex-con-vict customer the following imposing motto : — * Ictus non victus ' — 
• Stricken not vanquished ;* — and having with some complacency submitted it for approval to 
a gentleman of his acquaintance, the latter, with all due deference to the accomplished herald, 
proposed this trifling amendment — * Ictits ter convictus * — * Scourged, and thrice convictedl 
—a legend more veracious than most mottoes and epitaphs ! 

One Sunday, in passing through a country town of this colony, and taking my place amo.ngst 



COCKATOO TBSLAXD. 21 

others in one of the oxx^inary seats in the aisle of tiie parish church, I noticed a large dais-like 
pew, crimson-curtained and brass rodded, alongside the altar^ with a oostlj mfurfole tablet 
attached to the wall. In England, it would have been the ancestral seat of' the squire and 
lord of the manor. The person to whom this pew belonged occupied precisely this station 
with regard to the colonial town. So likewise did his father, who had been a convict, and to 
whose memory that testimonial of filial respect was sacred. 

Such are a few instances illustratire of an element of society peculiar to this colcmy and to 
one other only. They are every^iay instances continually under the notice of- the Sydney pub- 
lie, not now dragged. from obscurity in order to adorn a tale. Whether they are calculated to 
* point a moral ' depends much on the way in which they are taken. On the one hand, the 
spectacle of wealthy crime constantly before the eyes of a young community, in which a 
modest competence is all that the hard-working and honest man may hope for, cannot but be 
hurtful as a subject of contemplation, comment, and comparison by the inexperienced and un- 
iiedecting. On the other hand it may be argued, that an offence is fairly expiated by a com- 
mensurate punishment, and that the prosperity of the penitent ofiTender should not only be a 
subject of rejoicing, but afford a profitable and salutary example. 

Very many transported persons have thoroughly i«formed. Very mnny were not radically 
vicious, but owed their fall to bad example and bad counsel. The wheel of fortune (that of 
Brixton, perhaps I) may have played them an ugly turn or two in the youth of some ; but 
they have seen their errors, felt the consequences of them, and learnt, moreover, the value of 
chaiucter and conduct. But the blemish is irradicable : like a broken-kneed horse, they may 
continue to work, and work as well as their more spotless fellow-men ; but they never meet 
again with that implicit trust which those who have never ' been down ' have a right to ex- 
pect. So little is what may be styled active convictism now apparent in Sydney, that a 
stranger might be unaware that any remains of the system still exist. The prisoners under 
custody and punishment are all confined to Cockatoo Island. This natural hulk is ntuated 
about two miles above Sydney, just where Port Jackson narrows into the creek called the P^ 
ramatta River, and about a quarter of a mile from either shore. Here is all that remains of 
that stupendous machineiy which from first to last has introduced into and diffused through 
Jthese colonies not less than 60,000* of Great Britain's offenders, and by whose agency it may 
be said this great fifth portion of the globe has been redeemed from the savage, and appropri- 
ated to the European family. 

The isle is a triangle in form, about 400 yards long by 280 in width. It contains at present 
about 300 prisoners under conviction for offences committed in the colony, or expirees from 
Norfolk Island. Manv of these are regular incurables, doubly and trebly convicted. The 
prisoners are employed in quarrying stone, in laying down a clear and spacious wharf round 
"this rugged isle, so that a few sentries can command the entire circumference. They are more- 
over engaged in the useful work of excavating a dry dock — a convenience which does not at 
present exist in these colonies. The establishment is admirably adapted both by nature and 
art to its purpose. Nevertheless, many desperate attempts at escape were made in my time. 
One wretched man flung himself into the water, load^ with chains, and, being a powerful 
swimmer, had got nearly a hundred, yards from the pier before the sentry perceived him. 
Disregarding the soldier's shouts and threats the man swam steadily onwards, upon which the 
■sentry fired, and the wretch instantly sank ; nor was his body ever found. Sharks in search 
of offal from the slaughter-houses haunt this part of the harbour, and act as an efficient 
* cordon.* 

The great curiosity of Cockatoo Island is the Siloes — excavations in the solid rock, shaped 
like a huge bottle, 15 or 20 feet deep, by 10 wide, with a narrow neck, closed with a stone 
oapsule luted with plaster. About a dozen and a half of these siloes, filled in times of plenty 
with grain, were intended as a reserve of food for seasons of famine, which have more than 
once befallen the colony. It was a monopoly for the public benefit ; but the plan was dis- 
countenanced and disallowed by the home authorities — I suppose, beoiuse it might interfere 
with the agricultural interests. 

* Mr. V. Dumas, clerfc in the Convict Department, Sydney, states, that of these 60,000 prisoners, 
'38,000 are now filling respectable positions in life, and earning their livelihood in the most creditable 
manner .... Of the residue, death and departures fh>m the colony will account for the greater part; and 
1 am enabled to state that only 3T0 out of the whole are now underj^oing punishment of any kind.' 
^-Jjetter dated June 1850. 



22 OUB ANTn*OSES.i 



CHAPTER ni. 



I HAD not been many montlis in ihe colony before a most &vourable opportmiitj of Tinting 
the provinces occurred. Bat ere I engage my reader to accompany noe on my first inland tour^ 
I would beg permission to do for him what I did for myself on tiie passage out, and subse- 
quently ; nam«.'ly, to look up from the authorities nearest at hand a few of the leading fkcts 
attendant on the history of New South Wales. It is needless to say that he is at liberty to 
shirk these notes if he pleases, and to jump again into the current of the narratire. 

To begin at the very beginning, — ^it isr perhaps not generally known that the great islaond 
continent of New Holland, so lately occupied by the Anglo-Saxon family, is senior in existence 
to Europe itself. The absence of certain strata in its geological. formation is suificient proof 
to the learned that the sun rose and set on Australia whilst ' Old ' England remained yet sub- 
merged beneath the waves she now rules. 

This subject is so Immeasurably beyond my reach, that I jump at once out of the scrape, to 
the year 1609, when the Spaniard, De Quiros, is supposed to have been the first white visitor 
of the Great South Land. One Dick Hartog, (the ancestor, no doubt, of Sir Waiter Scott's 
hero,) of Amstei'dam, was the second. 

In 1644, the Dutch navigator, Abel Tasman, explored its coast, and bestowed upon it, veiy 
naturally and patriotically, the name of Niew Hollandt. 

In 1777, the Englii^man, Cook, in planting the British standard on its shores, with equal 
propriety styled it New South Wales. 

Both titles are retained ; the former being the generic appellation of the entire island, the 
latter that of the first colony implanted on its coasts. Australia is a more sonorous alias by 
which this great southern slice of the globe has also become known ; and the term Australasia 
has been given (as some one remarks, * with doubtful propriety ') to all the comparatively lately 
discovered lands in the South Pacific Ocean, New Holland, New Zealand, &c., &c. 

The British colonies in New Holland may be said to owe their origin to the United States of 
America ; for, on the severance of these last from the Mother Country, she was compelled to 
look out for some other place for her deported criminals. Botany Bay, so lauded by Dr. 
Solander, Cook's companion, was fixed on. 

' The main objects,' writes Dr. Lang, ' of the British Government in the formation of the 
proposed settlement, were, — 1st. To rid the Mother Country of the intolerable nuisance 
arising from the daily increasing accumulation of criminals in her jails and houses of correo 
tion; — 2nd. To afford a suitable place for the safe custody and the punishment of these 
criminals, as well as for their ultimate progressive reformation ; — and 3rd. To form a British 
colony out of those materials which the retbrmation of the criminals might gradually supply- 
to the Government, in addition to the families of free emigrants who might from time to time 
be induced to settle in the newly-discovered territory.' 

In March, 17S7, accordingly, the ' first fieet,' eleven vessels under command of Captaia 
Phillip, R.N. of H.M. ship Sirius, with 565 males, and 192 females, and a guard of marines 
— ^in all 1,030 souls on board — sailed from England. After eight months' passage, they 
reached in safety Botany Bay. This spot was found sandy, swampy, and ill watered ; the 
harbour shallow and exposed ; the natives hostile. Phillip, searching further northwards, 
entered an inlet about ten miles from Botany Bay, laid down in the chiurt of Cook's expedition 
as a ' boat harbour,' under the name of Port Jackson, from the sailor who discovered its 
entrance. Astonished and overjoyed at the view of the mi^nificent haven, which had been 
veiled from the sea by the outer headlands, Phillip hastened to remove the fleet from Botany 
Bay ; and on the 26th January, 1768, it was anchored in Sydney Cove. On that day the 
epoch of transportation to New South Wales commenced ; it terminated on the 20th August, 
1840. This punishment is now confined to Van Diemen's Land, and its dependency, Norfolk 
Island. Cockatoo Island receives the incorrigibles of New South Wales. 

In May that year the entire live-stock of the colony, public and private, was found to 
consist of 2 bulls, 5 cows, 1 horse, 3 mares, 3 colts, 29 sheep, 19 goats, 74 pigs, 5 rabbits, 
18 turkeys, 29 geese, 35 ducks, and 210 fowls. In the following month, two bulls and four 
cows were lost in the bush — a great apparent disaster, eventuating in most fortunate results ; 
for these animals, led by instinct, took their coarse inland, traversing the sterile and sandy 
tracts round Sydney, and finally choosing their pasture about forty miles from the settlement, 
on the banks of the Hawksbury. Here they quickly multiplied, owing their safety from tha 



INFANCT OF THB COLONY. 23 

natives to the novelty of thefr appearaooe, thdr fiexce looks,* sharp horbs, sad foraoidaUe 

voices. 

Tlie troubles of the iiivt governor were very great. The stores fiiiled : the soil produced 
but little food. More prisoners arrived. He sent the Siriua with a psrty of troops and 
convicts to take possession of Norfolk Island ; the ship was wrecked, and Uie provisions on 
board lost. The people lived on the mutton-bird, or sooty peti-el, which swarmed on the 
island, until grain grew up. The convicts at Sydney became mutinous ; many escaped. A 
party of twenty of them st/asrted for China, by l(md, in 1781, and the few who survived were 
brought back half- starved to the settlement. The blacks were tioublesome. His Eioellency 
himself was dangerously wonnded by one of them. Food had to be seat for from Batavia and 
the Cape of Good Hope. Botany Bay and Port Jackson fortunately afforded great quantities 
of (ish, whi(^ were caught and ser\-ed out as rations. Agriculture was gradually established. 
Land was granted to a few free settlers, as well as to emancipated prisi>ners. Many of the 
marines, also, became colonists. They were furnished with clothes and rations from tlie public 
stores for eighteen months, tools, implements of husbandry, seeti-grain, live-stock, and eventu* 
ally, the service of such number of prisoners as they could engage to feed and clothe. 

Thus originated the assignment syistem, the best ever invented, had it been jHroperly admi- 
nistered ; but being, like most other systems, open to abuse, abuse walked in as a matter of 
course. It i*elieved the treasury from the expense of maintenance, sepaaated the convicts, and 
associated the better conducted of them with respectable families. To the colonists them- 
selves this supply of lubour, when no other was to be obtained, was an inestimable boon. 
When the boon was extended to emancipated and expiree prisoners, or to other wortliless ■ 
characters, it became an abuse. 

Old chronological tables, as well as histories, testify that the birth and infancy of the 
colony were attended by natural prodigies, terrestrial anid meteorological, such as might have 
been i-eceived as omens of failure, if not as warnings from on High, i^inst the rise of a 
nation bearing on its scuteheon the fetter and the scourge-t-sad emblems for a nascent people. 
These phenomena have providentially not attended the maturer age of the col<»iy. In the ixrst 
year a severe shock ot an earthquake was felt, with sulphureous exhalations from the ground. 
Others occurred in 1801 and 1806. Tremendous hail-storms, or rather showos of ice-flakes 
six and eight inches in circumference, destroyed young stock, poultry, and crops. Furious 
hurricanes and an influx of Uie sea occurred at Norfolk Island. There were fearful and repeateil 
floods of the Hawkesbury River, the most memorable of which, in 1806 and 1808, caused 
terrible devastation, and drove the settlement to absolute starvation. Yet destructive to the 
rapid progress of the new colony as were these natural causes, there was another yet more 
disastrous — namely, rum ! In the absence of coin, rum became the chief article of exchange* 
Government officers, settlers, military men, emancipists and convicts, all dabbled in the 
dirty but lucrative traffic — and rum became a legal tender and the great drcnlating medium. 
Licences to retail spirits were given to members of what might, at that time, have been styled 
the aristociacy of the society. Whilst the gentlemen so indulged were going about their 
official avocations, their assigned convict servant-^sometimes female convict and concubin^^ 
managed the shop and the till. Such was the paucity of women of good repute, and such the 
consequent general depravity, that in 1806 two-thirds of the children annually born were 
illegitimate. 

The miserable spirit of huckstenng, well styled by one of the eariy Governors a * low and 
unmilitary occupation,' brought about one of the most extraordinary instances of military 
usurpation extant in the history of the British army, namely, the deposition of the Governor by 
the officers and men of the New South Wales Corps — afterwards embodied as the 102nd 
Regiment. Captain Bligb, the famous commander of the Bountyj on assuming the Govern- 
ment, resolved to break up this m<Mistrons system. The civil and military monopolists, 
resenting his interference and resisting his authority, persuaded the pro tern* commandant of 
the corps to place the Governor in arrest, and to assume himself the government of the 
Colony — which violent measure was carried instantly into effect. The regiment paraded at 
seven o'clock the same evening, the twentieth anniversary of the Colony, and was marched 
at a quick pace, with fixed bayonets, band playing, and colours flying, to the Government 
House. The subaltern in command of the Governor's guard loaded and joined the corps with 
his men, and was pushing into the entxwnce-hall, when his advance was gallantly resisted by 
the fair daughter of His Excellency, a young and pretty widow. The parasol which, 
* legenils say,* was on this occasion bravely wielded in ddSence of a father, proved but a 



I 

i 



24 OUB ANTIPODES. 

•poor para 8ol-datt for the men, rushing pMt ttte lady into the Goyemor's apartment, captured 
him in the act of destroying some important papers. The Commandant was installed as 
Qovamor. The real GoTemor was confined in the harracks, hut was afterwards permitted to 
take conmiand of H. M. ship Porpoise — ^then in harhour — in order to return to £ngland. 

In December, 1809, Gok>nel Maoquarie arriTed at Sydney, with instructions to vindicate 
the laws by reinstating for twenty-four hours GoTemor Bligh, and then to be sworn in as his 
successor. The deposition of Goyemor Bligh was designated by the Secretary of State as a 
* mutinous outrage.' The Major (who had meanwhile been promoted to a Lieut.-Colonelcy) 
was ordered home imder arrest, was tried by a general court-martial in May, 1811, and was 
cashiered — ^his Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief confirming the sentence, while he 
characterised it as * inadequate to the enormity of the crime.' The New South Wales Corps 
was imm^iately relieved by H. M.'s 73rd Regiment, whose gallant colonel, with great poetic^ 

justice, espoused the fair and spirited daughter of the ill-treated Governor. Mr. J , late 

Lieutenant-Colonel, returned to the colony, where he died much regretted, leaving considerable 
property. This singular event in the annals of the colony is minutely detailed in Lang's 
History of New South Wales. 

Some items of an old roister I picked up in London before I left England, afford curious 
glunpses of the olden times of the settlement. 

' 1807. — ^Auction at the Green Hills on Saturday next. A capital grey horse with an 
elegant chaise and harness. Payment to be made in wheat, maize, or swine's flesh, at 
government price or in copper coin.' 

' 1810. — ^Market. Mutton, beef, and pork. Is. 6d. per lb. — ^wheat, 1/. Ss, 4d, per bushel — 
— ^maize, 6s. — ^potatoes, 17s. 6J. per cwt. — ^fowls, Ss. — eggs, 2s. 6c?. per dozen — wheaten 
bread, I2jfd. per 2 lb. loaf. 

' October 15th, — ^First Races and Race Ball at Sydney. * * * The Ball-room was occupied 
until about two o'clock, when part of the company retired, and those that chose to remain 
formed into a supper-party. After the cloth was removed the rosy Deity asserted his pre- 
eminence, and with the zealous aid of Momus and Apollo chased pale Cynthia down into the 
western world. The blazing orb of day announced his near approach. Bacchus drooped his 
head, and Momus ceased to animate,' &c. &c. ! 

* Execution.'— ^e Murphy hanged for sheep-stealing.' 

* May 19th f 1810. — ^Prisoners of the Crown directed to attend Divine service on the 
Sabbath-day.' — Query — ^for the first time since the formation of the settlement in 1788 ? 

* 1812. — Government Public Notice and Order. Secretary's Office Sydney 10th Aug. 1812 : — 

* The extraordinary increase of curs and mongrels of a base and worthless description 
rendering the streets of Sydney dangerous to all persons, &c., &c., His Ex. the Governor is 
pleased to express a hope that the inhabitants of Sydney will take immediate means for the 
destruction of those d^nerate and worthless animals, &c. I' 

Never surely were dogs called by such a multitude of bad names I 

' December. — ^Ten rams of the Merino breed, lately sold by auction from the flocks of John 
Macarthur, Esq., produced upwards of 200 guineas.' 

* 1815. — The road over the Blue Mountains to the New Territory finished.' 

* 1821. — ^Twenty-six prisoners capitally convicted at the Criminal Sessions, nineteen of 
whom were executkl.' 

* 1822. — ^Thirty-four prisoners condemned to die at the Criminal Sessions in October ! !' 
' 1824. — August. — ^Black Tommy executed for murder.' 

* August IIM. — ^A Legislative Council, established by Royal Sign Manual, proclaimed in 
the colony.' 

* October. — ^Liberty of the Press acknowledged by the Governor.' 

* October 19th. — ^H.M.'sship Warspite, the first (and only) 74 that ever entered Port 
Jackson, arrived with Conmiodore Sir James Brisbane.' 

' 1830. — ^Donohue, the desperate bushranger, shot by a party of mounted police at Raby. 

' 1831. — His companions Webber and Walmsley captu^d.' 

'Aprii 19th. — A Government order, prohibiting tiie abominable traffic with New Zealand 
for human heads, which had so long disgraced the colony.' 

The honour of originating the Aus^alian wool trade, now so famous, is due to Mr. John 
Macarthur, who^ going to England about 1803, 'displayed the samples of wool grownJby him- 
self .in New South Wales to some brokers, who, foreseeing the advantage that would accrue to 
Great Britain if by its extensive cultivation the Australian fleece could b« made to compete with 



POFTTIiATION IK 1853. 25 

the Spanish and Saxon artide, interested themselves to obtam for Mr. Macarthnr the fpecial 
favour of the Home Government. In consequence, when Mr. M. returned, as he shortly did, 
he received a large grant of land suitable to his adventure, and a number of assigned servants 
sufficient for his purpose. He continued his operations with varying success at first, but 
ultimately with such profitable certainty as to make sheep-farming the general pursuit of 
the colony.** 

I must allude but passingly to the vast alternations of prosperity and disaster which befell 
the colonists from the date of the live-stock first attaining a high value ; — ^the wild spirit 
of speculation, the ruinous facility of credit, fi?titious wealth and substantial extravagance, 
the mortgages, bankruptcies, monetary panics, and commovial revolutions. They wiU be 
found correctly narrated by Lang, Braim, Westgarth, and others ; and afford a wholesome 
lesson to young and rising colonies. In the three years 1842-3-4, when the population of 
New South Wales was only 162,000, there were 1,638 cases of sequestration of estates— 
the collective debts of which were three and a half millions sterling I 

With respect to the population of the colony — one Governor constituted himself the champion 
of the convicts — adopting the principle, that long tried good omduct should lead an offender 
back to that rank in society which he had forfeited, and do away all retrospect of former bad 
conduct. He gave to pardoned and expiree prisoners places of trust, and the entree of Govern- 
ment House. He discountenanced free immigration. His successor, on the contrary, kept the 
emancipists at a distance and encouraged immigration. . A fierce jealousy grew up between the 
parties, bond and free. It became the business of a third Governor to allay these hostile 
feelings, and he succeeded as far as human nature would permit. The census of 1833 exhibits 
the population of New South Wales as follows : — 

Free Males . . . 32,Y98 Oonvlct Mates . . . 21,846 

Free Females . . 13,4S3 { Convia Fonales . . . 2,698 

Total Free . . . 36,251 -'=^-*l' Total Convicts . . . 24,643 
Gnmd Total 60,794- 

Of the free population one-half were liberated convicts. 

The disproportion of the sexes in the total population is very remarkable.f 
In 1840 the number of convicts assigned to private service was 21,000 and upwards.} 
On the 31st December, 1849, the firee population numbered 242,782 ; the IxhuI, or convicts, 
9,517 ; total, 246,299. 

In 1831 the system of granting or giving away Crown lands, whether in reward of service — 
to encourage settlers — or to induce them to employ and maintain convicts, was abandoned, and 
the principle of sale was introduced — the object being to provide out (^ the proceeds of the 
land fund the pecuniary means of assisting the immigration of a free and virtuous population. 
The upset auction price of land was by Lord Ripon in 1831 fixed at 5s. an acre. In 1838 by 
Lord Glenelg it was raised to 12«. ; and by Lord Stanley in 1842 to 1/. — at which price it 
now rests. Land in the larger towns reached at one period a price that throws even Lcmdon 
land into the shade. In 1834 a comer allotment in George-street, Sydney, sold at the rate ot 
18,150/. per acre, and another at 27,928/. per acre. In 1840 one small allotment was 
purchased at the rate of 40,000/. per acre. About the same date as the establishment of the 
sale of Crown lands, arose that of issuing depasturing licences, in order to prevent the 
unauthorised occupaticm of Crown lands by squatters and others. The fees raised by this 
impost were devoted to police and other public purposes in the pastoral districts, or, as Sir 
George Gipps styles them, Umds beyond the shireland of New South Wales. 

Various successive emigration schemes were concocted, tried, and annulled. The land fund 
became exhausted or was dissipated ; and hitherto, it may be said, no really efficient plan, 
advantageous to the mother country, the colony, and the emigrant himsdf, has been hit upon, 
and carried out to any satisfactory extent for this colony. 

The emigration fix>m the United JSlngdom in 1847, in round nnmbers, was as follows :— 

' To the North American GoIoDlea. • • • .109.600 

To the United Sutes 142,500 

.To the Australian Colonies and New Zealand . . . . 4,900 ooly t 

In 1840, New South Wales ceased to be ' a place to which convicts might be transported 
from the United Kingdom.' 

• Bralm's Hlstoiy of New South Wales. t BnOm. J Teny. 



26 OUB ANTIPODES. - 

la 1843 it was fonad that, up to December 1842« upwardg of 50,000/. had beat dfl£rmj«i 
fzom the traafiory (^ New Sou& Wales, for the missunu and pirotectozate of the Ahorigmv. 
How small the result, I may have hereafter to ahow. 

In 1847, the Squatters received, afler a long agitation of the question at home and abroad^ 
the by them long desired and deserved fixity of tenure on their lands rented from the Crown. 

In October, 1846, the colony was invited to receive convicts once more. Afler much vadllav 
tion of counsel, the proposition was finally rejected in October, 1850. 

1849 and 50. — Great migration from New Souili Wales to California.* 

1851. — ^A new constitution tendered to the colony — and remonstrated against by the 
oolonists. 

1851. — May. — Gold discovered in New South Wales. 

June 12M.---Goven]or Sir Charles Augustus Fitzroy sworn in at Sydney as first Govemor-i 
general of the Australian colonies. 

July 1st. — Port Phillip separated from New South Wales, and erected, into an independent 
colony under the title of < Victoria,' by proclamation of the Governor-general. 

I had not been many monUis in New South Wales (as I have said), before an opportunity of 
semg, under the most £sivourabie auspices, something of the interior of the country was 
offered to me. 

His Excellency Sir Charles Fitzroy, in his first address to tiie legislative council in 1846, 
informed that body, that he had come to the colony unbiassed by preconceived opinions, and 
that to enable him to judge for himself on some of the main questions then in agitation, h« 
should take an early occasion of visiting in person the inland counties, as well as some of th& 
districts beyond the boundaries of location — commonly called the Squatting Districts. He fixed 
upon the beginning of November in that yeai* for his first trip,- which was to extend to Bathurst 
and Wellington, with a run through the pastoral tracts westWaid of those counties j and the 
author was invited to accompany tJie expedition. 

Accordingly, on the ^th of November, 1846, the party left Sydney. It consisted of the 
Governor and Lady Mary Fitzroy ; Mr. George Fitzroy, the private Seci'etary ; Mr. E. Deas, 
Thomson, the Colonial Secretary ; and myself. We had with us one female and four male 
servants, with two men of tiie mounted police as escort — ^the latter being relieved at each 
station on the road. Sir Charles had turned out, expressly for travelling, a new caiTiage — a 
sort of mail phaeton, with a hood, a rumble, and a very high driving-box, under which was a 
spacious boot for luggage. On the perch swung a small leathern receptacle for tools, screws, 
nuts, buckles, straps, &c, likely to be useful in cases of fracture or accident — cases of very 
frequent occurrence, as may be supposed, in bush journeys. I particularly notice this latter 
appliance, and recommend it for adoption by all travelers in a rough and thinly-peopled 
country. This vehicle, with four horses, was driven by His Excellency, who is an accom- 
plished whip. The Colonial Secretary and myself occupied a light open carriage and pair, each 
contributing a horse ; and my English valet attended us. A dog-cart followed, caiTying two 
servants. 

The road between Sydney and Paramatta is so well known that I shall say nothing of it on 
this occasion, beyond noting the singular &ct, that the annual lease of the Annandale turnpike, 
the first on tiie road out of Sydney, was sold by auction in 1848, for 3,005/. — about half the 
yearly proceeds of Waterloo Bridge, where foot passengers also pay. A very dusty drive of 
fifteen miles brought us to the town of Paramatta, where, crossing the river by a handsome 
stone bridge, and descending its left bank about two miles, we came to Vineyard,' the residence 
of Mr. Hannibal Macarthur, at which place we were to remain two nights. The house is laige, 
and better constructed for a hot climate than the majority of the Sydney dwellings. It is 
prettily situated on a bend of the river, with a spadous lawn in front, beautiful gardens, 
orangeries, and vineyards, all bounded by the dense forest, or bush. Here our pai ty was most 
hospitably treated. What with driving, riding, boating, and bathing in the morning ; feasting, 
singing, and dandng in the evening, the rosy and somewhat sultry hours flew as fast as they con- 
veniently could, the range of Uie.thermometer, between 80° and 90**, being taken into consideration^ 

* It was towards the end of 1848, 1 think, that the intelligence of the discovery of gold in California 
reached New Sonth Wales. " Ift the first week of the following year four or five large vessels were 
chartered at Sydney for the transport of Australian diggers and speculators to that distant country. By 
the end of 1850 the population of the colony was reduced by nearly 6,000 persons, manv of whom, 
by the way, had^been brought firom England to Sydney, at the expense of the New South Wales Land 



A FKUALK BBVOLT. SI 

' Na^emJber lOi^Ait^PaMed the day in lioniziDg Paramatta. It is a eoDAiderable tiIIi^ or 
nther town, weU laid out, but low, and in sumiDier extremely hot, being entirely surrounded 
by land considendily higher than iti site, which scraena it &om the sea-breeze — ^the life-blood 
of the Sydneyites, and other dweUers near the ooast The town is oonveniently placed at the 
head of the narigatiim of the salt creek miscalled the Paramatta River, which is, indeed, 
nothing more than an inlet of Port Jackson. A small fresh-water streAm, not always fluent, 
IB thrown back by a dam just aboye the town, and is thus sared firom pollution by the sea- 
water, which at high-tide washes tiie lower slope of that barrier. It is not easy to fmd 
anywhere prettier cottages than many of those dropped down in their tiim little gardens in 
this earliest— one can hardly use the term, most andeni— of Australian country towns. At 
the present season there is a profusion of flowers in full bloom, not yet burnt up by the sun of 
the fast-coming summer. The Terandahs' and porches are embowered with creeping-pIantB — 
Tines, woodbines, bignonias, passiim-flowers, &c Immense standard orange-tiees and %s 
grow in some of the endosores ; and there are some tolerably good specimens of the £ngli^ 
oak, which, however, does not take kindly to the climate and sou of this country. 

In the towns of New South Wales, the first object upon which the sti anger's eye falls, is 
some grand building devoted to the custody and coerdon of convicts ; in civiler terms, to the 
accommodation of its original white population ; or to their protection, when age and disease, 
mental or bodily, may have overtaken them, — gaols, in short, hospitals, lunatic asylums, and 
the like. At Paramatta, the most prominent of these establishments — a handsome solid stone 
edifice, a ' stone jug ' well calculated to contain the most ardent and eflervescent spirits — is 
the Female Factory, where prisoners of that sex, sanely or insanely unruly, are incarcerated. 
I had an opportunity of visiting it with the Governor, and have no wish either lo i-epeat the 
visit, or to dwell on the details thereof. The numbers of the tenants of this establishment 
are, since the cessation of transportation, much diminished ; but it is net many years ago that 
the Amazonian inmates, amounting to seven or eight hundred, and headed by a ferodous 
giantess, rose upon the guards and turnkeys, and made a desperate attempt at escape by burn- 
ing the building. The ofEoer c(«mnanding the troops then occupying the stockade, who gave 
me this account, sent a subaltern with a hundred men, half of them armed only with sticks, 
and fuk effort was made to drive the fiur insurgents within one of the yards, in order to secure 
them. This manceuvre, however, failed. They laughed at the cane-carrying soldiers, refuting 
their argtunenium baotUinum by a fierce charge upon the gates, in which one man was 
knocked over by a brickbat from Mrs. Ajax. The military were reinforced ; the magistrate 
omde them load with ball-cartridge, and the desperadas were eventually subdued. 

This unladylike ebullition was considered, as I am assured, the most formidable convict 
outbreak that ever occurred in the colony, not even excepting that of Castle Hill in tlie yeai* 
1804 ! I believe the periodical dose-cropping of the women's hair was the prime cause of 
the outbreak. From Samson downwards it has be«i a dangerous trick to play man or woman. 
I have known many a good soldier rendered disaffected by the harassing warfare against his 
whiskers and side- locks by martinet officers. In the case of the Paramatta factory, the 
Governor was diplomatic enough to relax the depilatory laws. A penitentiary is not predsely 
the market to which a squeamish man would go for a wife. The Governor, however, was, 
in old times, besieged by applications, both from manumitted prisoners and respectable settlers, 
fc^ helpmates from this factory. I was told by an officer who had been an eye-witness of the' 
same, that it was amusing to see the aspirant for matrimony passing in review a lot of women 
paraded to be chosen from. Good looks were but a trifling consideration ; former character 
and mode of life were proscribed subjects of inquiry. H^th and strength, with tolerable 
conduct in prison, were sufficient dower. 

The stockade of Castle Hill, of which a few bricks now alone mark the site, was placed on. 
a beautiful range of hills, a few miles north of the Parmatta River, at present covered witU^ 
settlers, and distinguished for luxuriant orange-orchards and vineyards. Several hundred 
prisoners were employed there by the Government in clearing and cultivating the country, 
then clothed with forest. These men, having contrived to collect about 150 stand of arms,, 
besides pistols, pikes, pitchforks, and other agrarian weapons, advanced, in number about 360, 
upon Paramatta. The major commanding the New South Wales corps, havine notice of the 
conspiracy, marched from Sydney with only forty men, (all that were available for the service,) 
and without hesitation attacked the rebels, who, having but a bad cause, made but a bad fight. 
The result may be given in a few words. Sixteen were killed out of hand, twelve wounded, 
thirty made prisoners. ' The rest they ran away j* but, being starved out, they yielded, and , 



26 OUB ANTIPODES. 

five were hanged. Those were not the days when any scruples existed as to the orthodoxy of 
hemp 88 an instrument of correction. There was no fear of Exeter Hall before the eyes of the 
local executive. In an old history of the early days of the colony, I find that somewhere 
about the same date six soldiers were brought to the gallows at once, 'for the unpardonable 
crime of procuring false keys to the public stores, and committing frequent robberies upon 
them while on guard.' Their offence was aggravated by the fact, t^t the then infant settle- 
ment of Sydney was in the greatest distress for provisions ; and the punishment was the more 
appropriate, that it diminished by so many the mouths consuming the scanty stock ! In 
1830 these plunderers would possibly have gotten fifty lashes at the triangles, and a sensitive 
and humane public and press would have fulminated indignant remonstrances at the barbaiity 
of the sentence. 

There are two excellent inns at Paramatta, which must be chiefly supported by the jauntino* 
cits of Sydney. Their most interesting and, doubtless, most lucrative customers, are, how- 
ever, the cooing couples from the flaunting metropolis, who repair to this rural and quiet 
village for the short period devoted in this country to the honey-moon — for honey-lunacy is 
but a very temporary derangement where the votaries are people of business. But if only a 
half-moon in duration, it may be reckoned a full one in splendour ; for Mr. Edwards's or Mr. 
Scale's best clarences and best four horses (unicorn at the least 1) may be seen every week at 
the portico of St. James's church, plated harness, satin favours and all, dashing away with 
some experimental pair to the nuptial bowers of the * Red Cow ' or * Wool-pack,* or, perhaps, 
further a fleld to the * Black Horse ' at Richmond, — (on the Hawkesbury, not the Thames,) — 
where something like retirement, in a public-house, may be enjoyed. One wants the post- 
boys, though I An awkward, puUy-hawly, broad-brimmed, mufbi old coachman, whose whip 
has no sort of connexion ¥rith his leaders, and who has no notion of the pace rigorously correct 
on such occasions, jars upon one's prejudices, and introduces the * jog-trot,' sooner or later 
an infallible element of wedlock, much too early in its career I 

Paramatta is the Richmond, the Versailles, the Barrackpore of Sydney. The plaisance of 
the Governor is situated on a gentle eminence above the fresh-water stream, a few hundred 
yards westward of the town, looking over the trees of its lawn directly down the main street, 
which may be three quarters of a mile in length, abutting upon the Sydney steam-boat wharf. 
The dwelling-house looks like that of an English country squire or gentleman fanner, of some 
1,500/. a-year. The domain around the house comprises a Government reserve of 5,000 
acres. 

Either as a place of residence or resort. Paramatta possesses great advantages in its double 
access by land and water — wheels or paddles. On a cool day, the trip by the river is very 
pleasant as well as pretty. The country on the northern bank is elevated and picturesque ; 
and both shores are studded here and there with solid stone houses and snug cottages, with 
tolerable gardens, and orange orchards truly Hesperidean in their profusion of golden fruit. 

Paramatta has not the air of a thriving place. Amongst the causes of its evident financial 
indisposition are assigned the removal of the Government establishments on the cessation of 
transportation, and the undue absorption of trade into the capital — an instance of centralisation 
unequalled in any part of the world, for nearly one-fourth of the population of a country, 
perhaps 700 miles long by 250 in width, is crowded into the chief town. 

November l\th, — An early start — for early starting is the soul of Australian travellings 
from Vineyard en route for Bathurst. Passing through Paramatta, whose somewhat somnolent 
echoes were startled by the sound of the ten wheels and thirty-six horse-shoes of our cavalcade, 
and skirting the Domain, we soon found ourselves trotting briskly along the high-road to 
Penrith, our half-way stage of this day's work, a village about nineteen miles from Para- 
matta. Our route up to that place lay through the metropolitan county of Cumberland. 
Without being absolutely picturesque, the country is agreeably undulated, the soil good in 
many parts, and free from the deep ravines common to the sandstone tracts. Even in these 
days there appears, along the road-side, at least ten times more bush than cleared land ; but 
the woods are all fenced in for pasturing purposes. We were particularly struck with the 
fine dark loam of the Prospect Hills, cultivated to the very summits, and the well-chosen site 
of Veteran Hall, the residence of Mr. Lawson, with its luxuriant orange-groves and vineiies, 
contrasting in their vivid green with the leaden hue of the gum forest below. This gentleman, 
one of the oldest, if not the oldest inhabitant of the colony, was formerly an officer of the 
New South Wales Corps, which was raised in England for the purpose of escorting prisoners 
of the Crown to the colony, and of eventually becoming settlers. He was of the proper stuff 



B0AD-8IDE I27NS. 29 

for a pioneer of a raw, rough country. That he possessed the neoessaiy personal actiTity is 
proved by his constant practice, before horses were common, of wallcing from the barradu at 
Sydney to Prospect one day, and back the next, as a common oocorrence, and in the hottest 
weather— about twenty miles. Mr. Lawson was one of the three gentlemen who first pene- 
trated those same Blue Mountains, over whose ridges we are now about to pass by means of a* 
good a hill-road as any in New, or indeed old. South Wales.* 

The weather this day was terribly oppressive. It was thought that our start had been 
made too late in the season : but the quick passage through the air, the occurrence of new 
objects, and the knowledge that in a few hoars we should have ciunbed into a cooler climate, 
prevented, so long as we were in motion, any feelii^ of exhaustion from the heat. Many of 
the road-side inns — and every mile or two has some establishment of the kind, ranging 
between the hotel and the shebeen house — are rurally picturesque, reminding one pleasantly 
of home. They are generally built of weather-boards on a frame of wood, with a bit of 
garden in the rear, the old-fashioned horse-trough hollowed from the trunk of a tree, now 
almost extinct in England, in front, and a tali sign-post bearing some old familiar title, * The 
Traveller's Home,' * The Cottage of Content,' so expressive of welcome as to be well-nigh 
irresistible, especially when the sun is hot, and the weather and the traveller are equally dry. 
And, indeed, there is a large class of wayfarers in this country, (perhaps in all others,; who 
never resist this particular invitatioiL In some of my rides and drives from Sydney to 
Paramatta, 1 have been astounded by the powers of absorption displayed by certain of my 
fellow-countrymen, especially when horse-racing happened to be the ostensible object of 
the passengers on the road. At a moderate calculation there is a pothouse for every mile of 
the' fifteen; and I am certain that the same gig, with the same two fat men, have passed me, 
pulled up, and repassed me ten times in that distance. Tasting every tap, and trustuig, I 
suppose, to profuse perspiration as a safety-valve from absolute explosion, they were to be 
found tossing off a foaming glass under every sign-post, while the wretched horse got no 
refreshment beyond a temporary relief from the weight of his masters. 

* That ain't a bad nag, sir ; steps well. There can't be much less than two-and-thirty 
" stun " in that buggy, sir,' remarked to me my old coachman, (who had driven for twenty- 
five years between London and Huntingdon,) as we were tandeming along one day on this 
road ; and in ten miles we had as many opportunities of admiring the speed and action of the 
horse, and the size and sponginess of the two Sydney butchers who sat behind him. The most 
abject-looking little bush taverns on Australian roads do not fail to announce ' Good accom- 
modation for travellers ;' and many of them advertise ' Secure paddocks for teams and fat 
cattle, with good water.' At one of the more pretentious public-houses where we stopped to 
water our horses, there was a private race-course belonging to the establishment ; and a 
notice was put up that a ' First-rate Saddle ' and a ' Prime fat Hog ' would be run for on a 
day named — a common scheme for collecting together a crowd of drinkers. 

His Excellency had been apprised that addresses would be presented at all the towns on 
the line of march. Accordmgly at Penrith, before we had time to look round us, we 
found ourselves in a very crowded little court-house, where a most loyal and hearty address was 
read to the new Governor, and an equally complimentary reply was rejidei*ed in exchange. 
Penrith is a neat little town ; yet I was assured that the town is not a town, because the 
proper site of the township is at some distance, having been abandoned for the present 
position on account of the brackishness of the water. Even here on higher ground the water 
is brought form the river, a mile off at least ; and at the inns it tastes and smells like very 
weak grog, the supply being kept in old spirit casks. Ailter the presentation of ihe address we 
regained our dusty carriages, and passing onwards through the village and along a mile or so 
of road lined with pretty cottages — ^pretty although formed only of * split stuff ' and bark — 
we reached the * Emu Ferry Inn,' an excellent two-storied brick-house posted on the right 
bank of the Kepean River. Hei-e, halting to refresh ourselves and horses, we found good 
rooms and wholesome fare, with the drawbacks, however, of an unmannerly host and a land- 
lady so ultra-republican in her independence, that it did not permit her to rise from her chair 
to receive the daughter of a Duke and the lady of the Governor I In 1850, when travelling as a 
family man, I passed an hour or two at this inn for rest and refreshment, when host and 
hostess were equally invisible, neither of them condescending to welcome the coming, nor 
speed the pai'ting guest. In travelling, civility is the only gilding to the bitter pill of over- 

* ' Old Ironbark ' died foil of yean in 1850. Mr. Lawson was thus familiarly styled, after the hardy 
forest-tree of that naon. 



30 OUB A^rriFODSB. 

chai^ ; and in New Soath Wales it too often happens that the pessenger finds in unfair 
oonuexion a dirty hovel and 'a morose landlord, with the charges of Mivart's or the Clarendon. 
My brother colonels and my superior officers the generals, keeping hotels in the United States, 
are infinitely more affable to their inmates — especially when the former happen to be in their 
*jpoii of exercise, in rear' of. their bar, and the latter are addicted to juleps. On my retom 
down the country I purposely avoided Wilson's inn at the Emu Ferry — which I hercbj 
placard as a lesson to nncourteous innkeepers. Johnson and Shenstone would hardly have 
prosed and poetised in favour of such-like ' inns.' 

The view fi'om the Ferry inn, looking westward, is very striking. Bight in front, across 
the Nepean, the long range of the Blue Mountains rises abruptly out of the dreary, sun-baked 
flat of Emu Plains — those Bine Mountains, so long (nearly a quarter of a century indeed) the 
western boundary of New South Wales; for it was not until the year 1815, when the great 
road was completed, that Governor Maequarie travelled by it to the champaign country 
beyond these Australian Pyrenees^ and announced to the colonists the n^wly-opened land of 
promise. Tliitherto the territory occupied by the English extended only eighty miles north 
and south of Port Jackson, by forty from that harbour to the base of the hills. Many and 
desperate attempts had indeed been made, by enterprising individuals to penetrate and explore 
this great natural barrier. As the flocks and herds incressed, and wider pastures became a 
question of life and death to them, and of ruin or prosperity to their owners, these attempts 
became more resolutely obstinate, and were ultimately crowned with success. 

Through a deep goi^ a few miles south of the ferry, the Nepean bursts upon the low 
country with a tribute of fresh water, such as is nowhere equalled in the settled districts of 
this arid continent. Passing onwards in its fertilising course, and washing the townships of 
Richmond and Windsor, it, unreasonably enough, changes its name to the Hawkesbury, and 
finally loses itself in the estuary of Wide Bay on the eastern coast. Thei'e are some really 
fine estates in this neighbourhood; that of the late Sir John Jamison is in sight of the inn. 
The name of Regentville is, in the mind of old colonists, associated with the times and 
practice of unbounded hospitality and profuse expenditure, such as never again will be 
seen in New South Wales. A whole dan of the family of Cox are settled along the 
river's banks within visiting distance of each other, and, on family epochs, meet together in 
formidable numbers. At a later date I passed some pleasant hours at two of the houses of 
this family. 

From one of these I rode one day to Hegentville. There are sermons in its stones, in its 
gardens and vineries ruined and run to waste, its cattle^trampled pleasure-grounds, its silent 
echoes. My foot sank through the floor where many a joyt)us measure had been trod. The 
rafters were rotting that had ofltimes nmg to the merriment of host and guest ; and, if 
rumour lies not, there were ' sad doings ' as well as merry ones at Regentville in the days of 
its prosperity ! 

To return to Emu Ferry. At mid-day we crossed the river by a punt running on a rope. 
The mode of traject is Tery inconvenient, and it is to be hoped the colony will soon be rich 
enough to afford a bridge. The ardent and ignorant sportsman, who expects to find emus on 
Emu Plains, will no more succeed than he would in finding buffaloes in the streets of Buffalo. 
As there are no bisons within 1,000 miles of that go-a-head town, so there are no emus within 
200 or 800 miles of the Plains named after that bird. The river, now about 200 yards wide, 
appears to have formerly flowed over the whole expense of the flat land, for on its thinly- 
grassed surface are scattered quantitiM of large quartz boulders — pebbles such as Goliah 
might have slung at David, had their duel been conducted with slings ' for two.' I looked 
in vain for any traces of the Government agricultural establishment, which had been formed and 
maintained at vast expense. The military, commissariat, and police stations have dwindled 
down to an invalid soldier or two in charge of sundry tumble-down buildings, and one or two 
fat constables, full of beans, and with nothing to do. If proofs of decadence such as this are 
chargeable on the withdrawal of the convict system, it requires some courage elid self-denial 
to rejoice in the cause. 

Having traversed the Plains for two miles as straight as a French causeway, the road runs 
plump against tlie Blue Mountains, or rather against that part of them colled Lapstone Hill, 
and logins to wriggle up the ascent as best it can under the directing hand of the engineer. 
The southern flank of a profound ravine abutting upon the Plains has been chosen for the 
eastern terminus of the Great Mountain Road ; and I think there is no part of it finer 
or more creditable as a work. The highway is absolately carved. oat of the living 



BULLOCK DBAT8 AND SBIVEBS. 31 

rock. Huge slices of the hill side have been blown off by blasting, hurled by conrict 
crowds into tlie gulf below, or pounded by them into the material now called Macadam. 
< Villanous saltpetre * and villanous humanity have been the great agents here, as in many 
other parts of New South Wales. Had £ngland been always * virtuoos,' thei-e would have 
been no ' cakes and ale ' here. Had she reand no robbers and homicides, burglars and fbi^ers, 
the Australian Colonies in general, and the Great Westem Road in particular, would, in all 
human probability, never have existed. On our right yawned a profound gully, at the bottom 
of which, struggling through water-worn crags and fellen logs, — proofs of foregone torrents, — 
was hai*dly to l^ disceitied a wretched little streamlet, quite out of human reach. Ikyond 
the gully rose a rough jagged precipice, with hardy and obstinate trees of large growth clii^ng 
to its face — enabling the traveller to form an estimate of the difficulties oicountered in making 
the road on this side of the ravine. Right and left, above, below, the everlasting gum-tr«e 
filled the landscape ; — the gum in all its varieties — and its varieties are scarcely various ; but 
in the dark and damp spots near the water>course, the graceful casuarina, the delicate yellow- 
blossomed acacia, and a lofty kind of box, with small shining leaves, mingled branches 
refreshingly with the great staple of the bush. 

At nine miles from the I^epean, having been one hour and fifty minutes in performing that 
distance, we reached the * Welcome Inn,' kept by a jolly old soldier named James, who rejoices 
in a Waterloo medal, a pretty daughter, and, wlmt was more to our purpose than either, some 
excellent bottled ale. In these parts this delicacy costs 30. a-bottle, — not a wonderful price 
when one considers the distance and difficulties between its native brewery on the banks of the 
Trent and the top of the Australian Cordillera. The old campaigner had fought through the 
Peninsula in the 40 th regiment, as he Informed me, and came out to this country in a company 
of veterans escorting prisoners. Beyond this house we toiled through miles and miles of heavy 
sand, with dense forests on either hand, and without a human habitation to cheer the scene. 
The ascent, however, after the first thousand feet, is fortunately gradu^. Here and there we 
met long caravans of drays, drawn by six or eight horses, or ten or twelve bullod^ and laden 
with wool-bales, hides, &c. : or we overtook similar vehicles charged with stores—* tea, sugar, 
tobacco, &c.— chiefly for the gi'eat squatters of the interior ; for in the distant districts, if the 
employers of labour failed to act as commissaries for the subsistence of their servants, the latter 
might starve, there being few, and often no shops whence they could procure the commonest 
necessaries of life. Wherever nature or the last thunderstorm had siq>plied a rill, a ^ring, a 
water-hole, or even a puddle, however muddy, we found encampment of these slow-moving 
wains, the horses and oxen hobbled and turned adrift to feed on the scanty herbage ; some of the 
drivers cooking at the root of a hnge half-burnt tree, that looked as if it had served as stove and 
oven time out of mind, others smoking in the shade, or sleeping on mattresses or fur rugs spread 
mider their drays, where, at night, witii the aid of a tarpaulin, they are secure from rain and 
dew. Strange, wild-looking, sunburnt race, strong, rough, and taciturn, they appear as though 
they had never lived in crowds, and had lost the desire and even the power to converse. So 
deeply embrowned were the faces, naked breasts, and arms of these men, and so sha^y the 
crops of hair and beard, that a stranger had to look twice to be certain they were not Aborigines. 
I have seen many an Oriental tribe much fairer in skin. There were women with some of 
the bullock-drivers' camps, or perched on the moving drays, most of tiiem meet helpmates for 
their rude partners ; yet now and then, like a lily among the thistles, there peeped from under 
the awnings a pretty young face,— so fair and young, indeed, as to be hardly in its teens. 
Amongst the rugged and weather-worn males, old and middle-aged, I noticed some of the tallest 
and handsomest young men I ever saw. 

Except in the gullies, the forest trees of these mountains are rather stunted than large. 
Among the leading trees are the Ironbark, with its tall, black; u]iright, and rugose trunk, 
lool^ing the very picture of hardihood. The timber is extremely useful, making the strongest 
and most lasting fences. Under ground it resists rot as well as * Kyaned ' oak at home. There 
is the Stringy Bark, a gum with the streamers of its epidermis twenty and thirty feet long, 
^^guig liJ^e a beggar's garment from its ra^ed stem, or rolled up on the ground precisely 
Like great sticks of cinnamon. There is the White Gum, with its smooth, polished, round, 
and naked boughs, looking so like human limbs as to be almost indecent in their nudity. 
Among the smaller growth of the bush is the Bottlebrusfa, with its rigid cones and harsh leaf, 
contrasting shar]dy with two delicate and graiiefnl neighboTtrs, — the £xocarpus or native cherry, 
and the Wattle or Acaoia, covered with golden blo<»n, and embalming the surrounding air. 
Beneath these, in some plaee^ grew a showy tmdcrwood of £upborbia$, Epacris, Boxxxnias, 



32 OUB AKTIPOBES. 

Oorreas, and I know not what besides. Gleaming through all was sand, — sand suffident to 
supply Old Time's hour glass to all eternity. 

Late in the afternoon — at 21 miles from Penrith and 40 from Paramatta, a hard day'A 
journey — we reached * The Blue Mountain Inn ' kept by the more civil brother of him of the 
£mu Ferry ; and a very creditable establishment. The site is 2,800 feet above the level of 
the sea, and the prospect very fine. Towards the north the eye ranges over the mountain 
tracts across the great ravine formed by the Grose River, until it lights upon Mount Thomar, 
rising like an island in the midst of the billowy forest ; whil^ looking eastward through the 
clear air and over an immense expanse of hill and plain, the sand-hills of Sydney are distinctly 
visible at a distance of 50 or 60 miles. 

Ifovember 12tA. — ^This day to Binning's Inn — 34 miles. Starting at 6 JlM. we reached the 
Weather Board Hut, a police station and tavern, in about an hour of heavy pulling. Here 
enthusiasts in sceneiy are expected to halt, in order to visit the Regent's Glen. Having, 
however, a long day's journey before us, and a scenic lion of the same character and calibre to 
see at Blackheatb---the hall-way baiting place, — we pushed on, through sand and rock and 
gum forest, to Pulpit Hill — why so called I could neither guess nor discover, where we got a 
substantial and welcome breakfast on ham and eggs and a 'spatched cock — ^very literally — ^for 
we witnessed his pursuit and heard his death cries. Thence onward, the scenery growing 
wilder, the climate cooler, we got some splendid glimpses of the sea of hills through which we 
were ploughing our way. On the right was pointed out the distant valley, or rather gully of 
Cox's River, which cuts its channel through piled-up walls of red and w^ite sandstone crowned 
with bush. On the lefl we skirted for miles a range of stag-headed forest, dying apparently from 
tiie roots of' the huge trees having struck the rock — a most dismal scene, only equalled perhaps 
by a subsequent one of thousands of acres of thickly- timbered land in progress of destruction 
by fire ; fallen log and flourishing tree, sapling, flower, and shrub and herb all blazing and 
blackened and smoking — ^vast result perhaps of a spark from a stockman's pipe, or the cast- 
away dgar-end of a thoughtless mail-passenger ; not a blade left on many a weary league of 
sand and rock — not a drop of water for the doomed oxen that are counting upon hoth on thdr 
upward journey. Truly here was the sublimity of desolationi The periodical occurrence of 
bush-fires is general throughout Australia. Every tolerable sized tree is more or less charred 
by them. Sir Thomas Mitchell, in one of his expeditions into the wild interior, found ' in 
the most remote and desolate places the marks of fire on every dead trunk and tree of any 
magnitude.' 

Suddenly the highway became smooth as a bowling-green, beautifully macadamized ; and 
our carriages trundled on the nails of their new tire-irons into Blackheath. This settlement con- 
sists of a convict stockade under charge of an officer, and a pretty good inn — Gardner's, more 
lately Bloodsworth's. The commandant's house is backed against the bush, overlooking the 
cantonments of his detachment and the huts of the prisoners under his orders. The barracks 
and convict ' boxes ' form a little hamlet of some two dozen buildings of whitewashed slabs with 
tall stone chimneys, laid out on a rocky plateau deared of trees, and conmianding a prospect of 
melancholy and desolate sterility — qualities certainly not reflected upon the joyous countenances 
of the captain and his wife, nor symbolical of his well-peopled nursery. The prisoners here 
form what is called an iron-gang-— or ironed gang. They are employed working, in chains, 
and for periods according to sentence, on the repairs of the high road. We passed several lots 
of these wretdied creatures — ^England's galley««laves — danking along with straddling gait 
and hopdess hang-dog looks, to their allotted labours, escorted by soldiers ; or working with 
pick and spade, crowbar, maule and wedge on the stubborn rocks — ^working with mule-like 
slowness and sulkiness because forced to work by fear of the lash. 

His Excellency had a parade of the prisoners, and we passed down the ranks as we might 
have done those of a raiment. The sdences of phrenology and physiognomy may be fidlades ; 
but here was undoubtedly, a line of countenances and craniums, laid bare for inspection by the 
close-cut hair, such as Lavater and Gall would have perused very much as if they were 
perusing the Newgate Caloidar or the ' Causes Ce'l^bres. Kor would they have read amiss ; 
for many of the squad under review had been convicted of the blackest crimes that ever be- 
devilled humanity. 

The convicts are marched to and watched at their work, marched to and watdied at their 
meals, which they eat in a shed open at back sad fnait,— marched to their wooden beds, 
and shut np imder lock and bayonet nntil morning ; yet, spite of all care and vigilance, many 
of them hare escaped or tried to escape— braving the bullet of the sentries, the lash, Cockaioa 



BUBH-RANGING* 33 

Islaiul, the gallows, and what is hardly less terrible, tbe chance of dying of hunger in the hoah* 
The scafTold is the more ireqaent destiny of the succeBsful runaway from sacfa a place aa 
Blackfaeath. He has neither food nor money ; he would be recognised as a prisoner by his grey 
dress and his dose-cut hair, if, having contrived to rid himself of his chains, he were to beg a 
crust of bread at a road-dde house. One resource only offers itself, not very repugnant probably 
to his case-hardened mind. He lies in wait, cudgel in hand, for some lonely traveller, rushes 
lipon him unawares, strikes him senseless, takes his money, his clothes, and his arms, if he havft 
any. Should he resist he murders him, and casts the body into some lonely gully. But 
' murder will out,' — and strange have been the means of detection in such cases : a drayman in 
search of stray oien, a passing dog attracted by the scent of the mouldering corpse, the unerring 
sagacity of the black scouts of the Mounted Police — ^have been the instruments of discovery. 
Even when the assassin has resorted to the common stratagem of burning the remains of his 
victim under a pile of dead wood, a scrap of cloth, a button, even the peculiar size of a limb 
bone which has escaped combustion, have been sufficient to identify the murdered man^ and to 
throw suspicion, perhaps conviction, on the murderer. 

It will readily be believed that, during a journey like that we are now prosecuting, and in the 
wildest part of that country where bush-ranging may be said to have been first invented^-espe* 
cially when strangers in the colcmy were the listeners — ^bush-ranging became a frequent subject 
of conversation. It will be conceded too that Blackheath, from its dd Home assodatioDS, is 
DO inappropriate locale for some slight allusion to the subject. The numerical straigth of our 
party and our escort of police rendered us perfectly secure from any attack, although several 
notorious runaways were known to be harbouring somewhere within reach of the road among 
the deep fastnesses of the mountain. The ransom of a Governor might indeed have tempted a 
bandit of high pretensions. But, in truth, the days of bush-ranging on a large scale are long 
gone by. One hears no more of such heroes as Bonohue or Walmsley, who had at their bada 
oi^anised bands stnMig enough in men and arms, and horses whoi they wanted them, to sustain 
pitched battles with the military and police; carrying with them a regular commissariat of 
cattle and sheep levied from the settlers too weak to resist the foray ; washing down good beef and 
mutton with rum, wine, and tea, rifled at the ]ustd's muzzle from travel^ig drays ; smoking 
tobaoCo quite mild enough for the taste and character of the consumers, from the same gratis 
source ; and gambling, Hke devils, among themsdves for shares of the plunder. It sounds like 
a jolly life 1 Without much more risk to the neck than is necessary to make fox-hunting 
charming, what wonder that it should have been populsu* ? 

* For tibe benefit of country gentlemen,' it may be well to give here a definition of the term Bush* 
ranger. This cannot be more concisely done than in the words of the Act of Council passed for 
the suppression of such criminals, intituled — * An Act to facilitate the apprehension of trans- 
ported felons and offenders illegally at large, and of persons found with arms, and suspected to 
be robbers.' He is, in short, a runaway convict, desperate, hopeless, fesffless ; rendered so, per- 
haps, by the tyranny of a gaoler, of an overseer, or of a master to whom he has been assigned. 
In colonial phrase, ' he takes to the bush.' The Rangers of Her Majesty's forests in New Souih 
Wales are, of course, well informed in all matters likely to put money within easy reach. Tra- 
, Tellers about to start ore placed under dose but not obvious survdllance. A good haul is some- 
times got from the periodical payments of provincial publicans' licences through the post-office to 
the colonial treasury, the time and channd of remittance bdng well known to those chiefly con- 
cemed, namely, the bush-rangers. A settler goes to a neighbouring town, or fair, sells a horse or 
two, some pigs, or produce ; he returns home rejoidng, and ddi vers the money to his wife, at whose 
hands, the very n^ morning, when the good man has gone to his work, a couple of crape-faced 
fellows demand the price of the property disposed of on their account. Simple farmers or labourers, 
with six months' wages in their pockets, incautiously ' flash ' their money at pot-houses, the very 
hot-beds of bush-ranging plots. The landlord cannot afford to be squeamish, however suspidous 
he may be of the quality of some of his guests. The half-drunken betrayer of the state of 
his purse is watched, waylaid, and quickly rdieved of all trouble aa to the investment of 
his gains. 

The grand desideratum of the robbery is, of course, cash ; but cheques and orders, which are 
constantly and necessarily passing between the interior and the capital, are readily negotiated. 
Paper, for the most triflhig sums, is cun-ent in the provinces, like ' shhi-plasters ' in America. 
A great many more of these ffimsy representatives of bullion than are really requisite are issued. 
It is averred, and that without contradiction, that certain large proprietors make a prBctice of 
paying wages by orders written purposely on small and thin scraps of paper, and that they 

i> 



M 06% IMSPOMg. 

p«(dt»t Many ktmlfedg n y«tr l»y tiie Iom or dert n ictto cf audi fimgils liabilitiwiB the iu«te cf 
nrngib, careless, a&d tmscAwr persons. 

The character of l^s Austnllaii boshTasger of feroMT diys mtf inysstad wH]i samethmg of 
&e dignity aocovded to the terrible Bnooaneer of the Amerkon eoasts, the galUnt C^mJIcto dd 
CftiBino of Castile and Mexioo ; nay, even ci that billet'«Qd'4ableaaHBid«&iey'4>aUKlflrlng, the 
silfer-buttoned, ribboned, and gartered bandit of the Apennines. His bnsiMBS was so {MvfitaUe 
that) Uke some of the more elevated highwaymen of the oU oomrtfy and dden times (when, to 
ride oyer Hotmslow Heal^, or Ffaidiley Common, after dusk, was to be robbed), the bnsh-raiiger 
of mark and likelihood conld oooasionally afford to be magmwrfmoBs. Not that magnanimity was 
his generic pocaliarity. If generosity and hnnaanity were not tiie lewttng attributes of the old 
Gftglish robber, who sometimes wore a bag^wig and steel battens on his reivet coat, it beoonaes 
ft logical consequence that the doubly-distilled desperado of Botany Bay was not the man to do 
much to raise the character of the trade. In the present days, at any rate, there is notfasag of 
the romantic or cUvalrous in the annals of Australian bosh-ranging. The nKMkan newspapen, 
on the contrary, teem with petty and cowardly robberies of the peer, and the old, and the 
defenceless ; hwrd-working opnatives cruelly besta and robbed of every copper, and every rag of 
dotfaing ; half^lranken pedlars with gutted pecks and hamstrung hones ; «r some helpless, 
feckless old woman rifled and rumpled, and left with her ' petticoats cut all round about,' and 
without a glimmering in the worid how, or by whom, or when, where, mt why, it ail happened. 

Even now, however, half-a-dozen tones a year, some frigbtfbl, sweraing, and barbarous oai- 
Mge Mis the columns of the public journals, and reminds one how deeply the old fel<Hi infusioii 
hsA poisoned the corporate mass. So lately as September 1850, when travelling with my &mily 
along this same mountain road, we found on the walls of every inn a govennnent notice offering a 
rew^ of 50/. 'to any free person, orapardon to any prisoner of the Crown, who would give audi 
information as might lead to the apprehension and conviction of one Henry Carroll,' on charges 
of robbery with violence and of rape."' Several other rather red-handed gentry were known to be 
* illegally at large ' at the same period ; yet the rich squatters and landowners, members of council, 
and ^ers, travelled quite unconcernedly in thefar carriages, on horseback, or by the mall, most of 
them making a point never to carry any fire-arms, nor money more than sufficient to buy o£f a 
broken head if stopped. All hotel bills are paid by cheques, a prudent plan for more feasoos 
than one. Many c^ the roadside lonely hostdries are kept by persmis who have been prisoners ; 
nnd in all of them there are servants, often in places of the highest trust, still serving their %eik- 
tence on tipkets-of-leave, in whom the chink of a &t bag of sovereigns, or a glimpse of a plethoric 
pocket-book, might reawaken dormant propensities. Experienced traveUers, moving smgly, are 
not m the habit of oarrying weapons, because their display is apt to provoke maltreatment, and 
they can rarely be used with effect, seemg that the wearer is usually taken by surprise at some 
mnvenient spot, and has no time for preparation. As for carrying money, * Cantabit vacuus, &&»* 
is a good motto for the traveller. 

CHAPTER IV. 

1 FIND in my notes not a few anecdotes of bush-ranging, most of them orally ddhrered to 
me, and will here insert a small draft from my Collectanea. But first, and in strict connec- 
tion with the subject under notice, let me give a slight sketch of tbat excellent force, the 
Mounted Police ; a force which has done much good service in the country, especially in the 
suppression of convict outrages, and which, long before this book can be published, will, 
through the mistaken parsimony of the Local Legislature, have ceased to exist. 

The mounted police force is drawn from the infantry regiments serving in New South 
Wales. It was first established in 1825, the infant corps consisting of two officers and thirteen 
troopers only. The numbers, gradually augmenting, reached in 1839 the maximum of 
9 officers, 1 sergeant-major, 156 non-commissioned officers and men, and 136 horses, 20 of 
the troopers being dismounted. Thus was formed an efficient body of mounted constables, 
controlled by military discipline, and subject to military law ; for, al^ough appointed to serve 
in the police, they remain as supernumeraries on the roll of their regiments ; and on the 
removal of these regiments from the colony, the men are transferred to the relieving corps. 
The officers are magistrates. The dress is a neat and serviceable light dragoon uniform ; ^e 

* In November, 1850, the Sydney Morning Herald reported that a man, supposed to be this Carroll, 
had been taken by the police at Csrooor, but hod again escaped, leaving his horse and bridle In the hands 
cf cue of the constables. 




HOUKTXD FOUCB-KtAFTUBES. S5 

amoB, the asbrei, the carbioe, aad the pistol. The heiidN{imtcn'dMi<»» 
commandant, the adjutant, and about 25 men, is statknied at Sfdney, awl the ol 
divisions are at different inland posts, with small parties en idl the main roada. 

Many a gallant service was performed by this useful corps. Many a dssfiente bushnanger 
was taken or slain by them ; many a formidahle banditii bvokcii up» «r hmited down until 
they yielded in despair. Many were the flocks, and heids of cattle, aad horMS re^capturad 
from the ou%wb. Many the murders, and robboies, and outrages mi men and women pre- 
vented by the terror of their name anid neighbeurhood. The privatioBi endured by officers 
and men on these expeditions ware very great ; great the perseverance and intelligence witii 
which they followed up the tracks of the brigands through forest, scnib, and swamp, rocky 
gully, and sandy plain. Sometimes the numerical odds were fearfully gainst them ; but, 
although crime often fights with desperation, it is seldom successful against cool yalour and a 
good cause. 

In the year 1830, Donohue, the most successfol as well as the bloodiest male&ctor that 
ever broke bonds, was killed in a determined fi^ with the police, which had a heavy score 
to reckon with him. Not long before his aid he had shot dead a young offioer, whom he met 
on horseback and attempted to rob. The unhappy young man, unwilhog to be plundered by 
a single footmd, struck spurs to his horse and attempted to ride over the villain. Donohue, 
stepping aside and letting him pass onwards^ took driibecate aim a&d shot him throng the 
brain at fall speed. v 

Whilst on a visit at , the Messrs. ■, who are natives of the colony, informed raa 

that, in their numerous journeys through the bush, over a period of thirty or forty yean, 
they had never but once fallen in wi& bush-rangers. It oecurred as follows: the two 
brothers, with an old gentleman, a friend of theirs, were riding togethv unarmed, but acc(»n- 
panied by some dogs, when they saw two men, one carrying a musket the other a bundle, 
dive into the bush on the road side. The horsemen gave chase, and, with the d<^' assistanoe, 
soon brought them to bay, and commanded them to yield. 

* Have you any fire-«rms about you ?* demanded the armed footpad ; ' if you have not, I 
can't and won't surrender. Vm an old soldier; fought through the Peninanla; and Vm 

d d if I strike to an inferior force !' Mr. -^ — replied that they had no fire-arms, but 

could get them in a few minutes. * Produce them, and I will give in,' was the r^inder ; 
. ' that will be an honourable capitulation.' Meanwhile the man with the btndle had been 
secured, and placed in charge of a shei^ierd who came up, and a mounted stockman rode off 
for the stipulated fire>arms, the old soldier-robber remaining doggedly at bay* Placing his 
back against a tree, and c(miing down to the * Prepare for cavalry,' he showed an imprac- 
ticable front ; but the accession of foi-ce necessary to dignify the act of laying down his arms 
aniving, this stickler for the honour of the army permitted himself to be nutde a prisoner oi 
"war without further resistance. 

A clever and spirited capture of an armed highwayman was made by a retired military 
officer in 1 849, on the mountains we are now traversing. This gentleman was travelling 
alone in his gig, ^hcn a policemfui coining up mformed hiih that he was searching for an 
armed bush-ranger who had robbed one or two persons near the spot. Upon this the major, 
having borrowed a large horse-pistol from the constable, placed it bdiind his gig-apron, and 
drove on his way. A solvent looking gentleman, solus in a bug^, is the very thing for a 
highwaynmn; and accordingly he had not proceeded half-a-mile, before, sure enough, a 
horseman gallopped up from the rear, passed ahead, then suddenly stopping, commanded him 
to deliver his money. The gallant traveller instantly plucked out his pistol, and, without 
more ado, let fly at the robber's head, who fell heavily to the ground from his saddle. The 
major thought him dead ; but to make all safe, he jumped out, and tied his hands behind 
him. This job was hardly completed when the bush-ranger recovered his senses ; and his 
captor, who at this time was neitiier so young nor so strong as when he learnt the goose-step 
forty years before, had the satisfiicti^n to find that his prisoner was alive and well, a remark- 
ably mie athletic young fellow, and likely to have prov^ a Tartar had not his horse thrown 
him by shying at the report of the pistol. The same report being heard by the policeman, he 
quickly reappeared upon the scene of action ; and this clumsy practitioner in the profession of 
Pick Turpin was safely carried off to a place of confinement. 

I could not help laughing in the face of a respected colonial friend of mine, when he con- 
fided to me how, once upon a time gigging along this unUest mountain road, he was mulcted 
by bush-rangers not only of his portmanteau, but of all his raiment tlien in wear except his 



36 OUB AKTEPODBI. 

shirt and drawers ; and, being of a philoaopliic torn of mind, he was oongratolatiiig himself 
that matteis were no worse, when the robbers, who had left him, returned, and, b^^;ing his 
pardon, said that in their hunj they had forgotten his hat, which they accordingly took, and 
once more departed. 

The reader may laugh, if he likes, at my next anecdote. A gentleman whom I met at 
Bathurst, and who b well known in the colony for his humorous qualities, was stepped <»i a 
bush-roed by a rough fellow, who, rushing upon him, thrust the muzzle of a ]»stol into the 

pit of his stomach, roaring out at the same time, ' Stand, yon , or I'll blow oat yonr 

brains I' ■* My good fellow,* retorted Mr. P , with perfect self-possession, * you won't 

find my brains down there I' The ruffian laughed heartily at the joke, and treated, as well as 
robbed, the joker vrith a degree <^ tenderness and dvility very foreign to his usmsd habits of 
doing business. 

I cannot omit the following characteristic incident in the bush-ranging line, which was 
related to me by the driver of one of the inland mails : — 

During that period of the history of the colony when highway robbery was an everyday 
«ffiur, he was driving from Windsor to Sydney witii several passengers— one of whom, on the 
box, was well armed-— when, at the foot of a hill, they came upon the body of a man lyii^ 
upon its face in the middle of the road. ' A case of robbery and murder I' remarked the pas- 
senger ; and the coachman, impelled by Samaritan fedings, drew up his team, and was in the 
act of descending to see if life still remained in the plundered struiger, when, ' Bail up— ^r 
you're dead men I' resounded from behind a tiiick tree, through a fork of whidi a double-bar- 
relled gun covered the driver's head ; whilst at tiie same moment the couchant bandit — ^for 
such he proved to be — sprang to his feet, turned the leaders across the pole of the carriage, 
and had his blunderbuss at the armed passenger's breast before he could get out his pistols. 
The coachman was then compelled to take his horses off, the passengers were ordered severally 
to get out and to * bail up ' — ^like cows prepared for milking — at the fence-side ; their pockets 
were rifled, the mail-bags were slit open and letters containing money extracted ; and finally 
the carriage was permitted to proceed with its impoverished freight — ^minus, moreover, its 
leaders, which wera required to carry the footpads to some chosen hiding-place distant fh)m 
the scene of their exploit. The armed passenger, it appears, was roughly treated. Getting 
away with whole limbs, he got away with inexpressible discomfort to hk nether ones ; for the 
weather was inclement, and the bigger of the two brigands, complimenting him on his being 
* a tall fellow like himself,' borrowed his trousers, putting them on over his own, and leaving 
him to pursue his journey not only ' poor,' but bare * indeed.' 

I dose the subject of bush-ranging with the following inscription engraved on a mural tablet 
in St. James's church, Sydney. The epitaph tells in a few words tiie touching tale of sisterly 
anguish over a brother's bloody death :— - 

ROBERTO WARDELL, LLJ>. 

▲ LATBONB VAOANTB 
OOCISO 
A.D. 1834— JETATB SUO 41. 
SOBOBES. 

In the words * Latrone vagante,' tiie unlearned reader gets a tolerably literal translation of 
the term bush-ranger. I l^lieve this unfortunate gentieman met his end in a rash attempt to 
apprehend single-handed on his own estate a desperate and well-armed robber. 

If a certain correspondent in 1850 of the ' Sydney Herald ' is to be believed — and my own 
experience bears out his statement — ^there exists in the purlieus of Sydney a juvenile school for 
bush-rangers, which bids fair to keep the trade well supplied with professors. The young 
idlers of the town form themselves into gangs, and take up positions on the roads leading to the 
dty from the bush. Here they waylay and rob smaller boys, or weaker parties, of their ' five 
comers,' a wild berry of the scrub, ' according to the most skilful methods of highway robbery.* 
A knife is held out, and under threats and oaths that would disgrace Norfolk Island, the juniors 
are compelled to dub up, or are seized and robbed by force.' I myself witnessed, and enacted 
Quixote in an act of puerile bush-ranginz precisely of the above nature — a case of ' robbery 
with violence.' ' Hurrah for the Road I is the motto of these pi*omising youngsters. 

It is too late, I fear, to apologise for digressions. Indeed the word < Rambles ' in my title* 
page was adopted advisedly, and intended to apply equally to pen and person. 

About two miles from Blackheath is the scenic ' lion to which I have before made allusion 
•—namely, Govett's Leap, Under the guidance of the officer commanding the station, some of 



govett's leap — ^Hassan's walls. 37 

oar party went to visit the spot. Pushing oar way for half an hour with no little labour 
through the thick and dark forest, suddenly a bright though filmy expanse of sun-lit air ap- 
peared beyond the close-growing trees, and in the next instuit we stood <m. a bare rocky iheu, 
looking into and over a magnificent basin scooped among the mountains — about five miles across 
and perhaps a thousand feet in depth. The bottom of this wide and profound abyss is so 
densely overgrown with wood, that not a speck of earth is vifdble from if^ve. Its flanks are 
formed of precipitous cliffs crowned with timber and perpendicular as a wall. Through ver- 
tical clefts in these the sun shot its sidelong rays, right across the dark gulf, upon the Leap or 
Cataract — a slender thread of water which, hanging from the rim of the bowl, seemed to wave 
in the wind, the s%htest breeze dissipating it into mere .mist. A stronger gush occurred now 
and then, but the thin stream never appei^edto reach the depths below. Australian waterfalls 
are indeed but sorry affairs. I fancy there are very few, if any, permanent. 

As to the name of the place I could gather nothing further than that it was first discovered 
by one Mr. Govett, a surveyor ; but whether tliis gentleman took a Utenl or only a poetical 
jump into his own punchbowl did not transpire. It is certainly one of the grandest freaks of 
nature I havetteen in any country — quite' beyond the power of pen or pencil to delineate. I 
have seen an attempt by the most talented artist in the colony to transfer this scene to canvass. 
It is a fine picture, but not ' Govett's Leap !' In the bush around we found the War&tah 
growing in great perfection. Its noble crimson cone, i^ped like a large artichoke, crowns a 
straight stem of hard wood from five to ten feet high, clothed with an oak-like leaf. This 
majestic wild-flower is well entitied to be called the Queen of the Bush. I saw here for the 
first time the black cockatoo, which, in a flock of about twenty, kept screaming at us as long aa 
we were in sight. TKis handsome bird is as large and as black as a crow, with a fine crest, 
and a long £m-tail beautifully striped sometimes with scarlet, sometimes with orange bars. 
He is very shy, and in no instance has been domesticated. 

Pursuing our journey from Blackheath in the aflenioon, a few miles brought us to Sir 
Thomas Mitchell's cAe/ d'<mmre in road-engineering, the Victoria Pass. At two points on the 
summit the narrow parapeted ridge looks on either hand sheer down into deep bush valleys of 
immense extent, beyond which range after range of wooded mountains blend at length with the 
clouds in the indistinct distance. Were there, as in Switzerland, shming lakes and snowy peaks 
added to this landscape — ^the finest by £ar in the Blue Mountains — ^I know of nothing that could 
surpass it in wild beauty. The valley on the left looked dark, desolate, and wholly uninha- 
bited ; on the right lay the smiling Vale of Olywd and the little township of Hartley, upon 
which the road drops as gentiy as could possibly be contrived by human art. Ere reaching this 
highland hamlet we came upon a considerable body of horsemen, who, saluting his Excellency 
with loud and hearty cheers, so astonished our horses, if not ourselves, as nearly*to drive the 
whole cavalcade over the precipice. In a doud of dust, and with wild huzzas, they closed round 
us and bore us away to the Court-house, where the usual dud of address and reply was instantiy 
and warmly engaged in by the authorities of the place and the Governor. The Courtrhouse 
and Catholic chapel of Hartley are prettily situated. My sketch was taken firom a spot just 
beyond these objects. 

Our attention and admiration were next arrested by Hassan's Walls — an immense crescent of 
crags naturally castellated, 400 or 500 feet high, towering above the forest and frowning grimly 
down upon the road which winds round thdr base. Here are rampart and bastion, buttress and 
barbican, of nature's own building — ^the perfectiy horizontal character of the strata and the cubic 
form of the blocks making the resemblance to ruined fortifications extremely striking. Had I 
been travelling in Hindostan, I should not have doubted that it was some formidable ' hill-fort ' 
we were approaching, and I should have expected to hear the dangour of gongs and the braying 
of shawms, and to have seen a brave cavalotde of elephants and camds, with the glittering of 
sted casques, the fluttering of gay pennons, and all the pomp of oriental panoply, winding down- 
wards through the umbrageous jungle. Hassan's Walls are, in outline, not unlike Gwalior ; 
but the latter fortress is situated on a plain. Who was Ha^an ? and whence the Modem and 
Byronic name ? We got no answer from the edioes. 

Kot hr from this spot, at a little wayside tavern with two or three cottages neai* it, where 
we did not stop, a party of women and children came forward, smiling and curtseying, and 
carrying arms and aprons full of flowers, which they threw before the Governor's carriage— 
a sight we hardly expected to see among the wild recesses of the Blue Mountains. Not so 
pleasing a feature, although a characteristic one, was the scene occurring in a small hut a 
little farther on. A drunken man and his wife, or more likdy his concubine, equally drunk. 



83 OUB ANTIPODES. 

were Swearing and Bghting with bloodj iaoes over their taps ; thej rushed out and gave ns 
a maniacal shout as we pa»ed. This was what is called a * sly grog-shop/ where all aorta of 
liquors are drank withant licence, and all sorts of ruffians get drunk * on the premises ' with 
every kind of liceDce. There was a spirit-etill, perhaps, on the hill side, not far off. 
■ We passed this day through large tracts of country of the most dreary and unavailable 
character ; yet here and there were very grand and even lovely peeps of distance through the trees. 
At length — and indeed it was a hard day's work in weather so hot, and roads so dusty and 
rough ^at length, shortly after dusk, we came in sight of Hiuning's Inn, which we approached 
through a triumphal arch of (oliage and flowers, while fireworks fizzed and cracked their 
compliments to the Viceroy and his amiable lady. This inn is decidedly the best on the line, 
with active and obliging people, good plain cookery and clean beds. Doubtless the fore- 
knowledge of the Govemoi^s visit had produced along the road no little furbishing and refitting 
of the mountain taverns; for we found humble but successful attempts at neatness and com- 
fort in almost a^ of them ; although, if I recollect right, a fair and clever, but somewhat 
severe writer, my predecessor by a few years, has condemned them wholesale as a parcel of 
filthy dens. In some oif the Australian houses of entertainment, and particularly those far 
inland, it has indeed occasionally been my fate to be allotted a very small and very hard bed, 
more thickly peopled than was pleasant^the blankets with insects, the chaff paliasse with 
mice ; a soup-plate, a milk-jog, and one small cotton rag, for basin, ewer, and towelry ; a 
public hair-brush and comb which looked as if they had curried bullock-drivers for a whole 
summer ; and a looking-glaas grimly corrective of pei-sonal conceit. In one pothouse on this 
journey, I was the suooessor to a stout and cross gentleman who, I fear, had been turned out 
of his room on my account, for he growled exceedingly as he removed a very tiny travelling- 
bag and an enormous pair of slippers, both of carpet, — ^the latter article of outfit absorbing 
twice as much Kidderminster as the former. But in general we found all prepared /or us ; 
plenty of clean white dimity and huckaback, water and brown Windsor. A requisition for a 
matutinal tub did, indeed, in the minds of some hosts and hostesses, produce as much surprise 
and speculation as though some act of necromancy were the object in view ; and at the smaller 
taverns so little were the worthy people prepared for this particular demand, that there was 
always a severe run upon the stable-buckets. But, after all, this is not an Australian 
peculiarity. In England itself— clean and comfortable England — the traveller (sometimes the 
visitor) who habitually practises what may be called general ablution, is too often stigmatised 
by the race of chambermaid, housemaid, and housekeeper, as * a nasty, dirty man, always 
messing and slopping about!' Mr. Binning is a sculptor and stonemason by trade. He 
possesses several hundred acres of land, and a capital stone-built private residence, apart and on 
the opposite side of the road from the tavern. I heard the sound of a piano from within the 
dnwing-rooro curtains of the former, and was told that the young ladies were practising with 
their governess. 

18iA Noveaiw. — ^To Mr. William Lawson's. of Maoquarie Phiins, — about 32 miles. 

We were up and off ' with the first cock.' It was a beautiful morning, cool almost to cold- 
ness. A light haze in the hollows was soon dispelled by the sun, which, travelling the same 
way with ourselves, never gare us much annoyance until after midday. Early in the day, 
when the dew is yet on the leaf, a peculiarly aromatic odour arises from the gum-forest. I 
have sometimes fancied the scent resembled that of cloves, of mace, or of pepper ; but the 
perfume of camphor is very general. These balmy and spicy exhalations from the ' medicinal 
gum,' so different from those of other hot climates whare the soil is richer and the vegetation 
more rankly abundant, must be a healthful ingredient of tiie air we breathe. 

It was, as I have said, a beautiful morning : the aspect of the country too became more 
smiling. In place of the eternal sandstone, the granite with its glittering mica was now the 
prevailing rook ; the ti-eea were larger and not so closely set, and the undulating slopes were 
covered with tolerably good gnw. Here was to be seen a herd of sheep browsing straight 
a*head according to their wont— lioflering where the pasture was abundant, and nibbling at a 
trot across tracts that, having been ktely burnt, were thinly covered with nice young shoots 
of grass. A tail-less oolley gathered, unbidden, a troop of firisking lambs from under our 
oarriag^wheels ; while the shepherd lay hizily supine, reading ' Bentley's Miscellany ' — ^aa I 
was near enough to peroeive ; and ftr below the road, near the wate]>oourses, we descried here 
and there the variegated skins of herds of cattle shdtering themselves under the dark shades 
of the Casuarinas. It was a decided improvement in external nature. I felt strong and well 
U^ joyou»-*haTiiig left Sydntr in other mood of mind and body ; and I thought that he 



THE LAUOHINa JACKASS. 39 

must be of morose or obtuse tempenunait who lailed to relish a journey like Uus— and with 
such a companion (I must add) as him who sat by my side. Uniting the freshness and 
buoyancy of youth, with the acquirements and experience of middle age, and a stock of general 
information, the fhiits of an onerous and reqionsible post, I had at <Hioe a tator and a play- 
mate in this prince of colonial secretaries and good fellows t 

* Toujonrs gum-tree !* exclaimed he this morning as we plunged for another da/s work 
into the eteriud avenue of Eucalyptus called the Bathurst i-oad — *Toujours, toojours gum* 
tree !* — ^But the tirescHne monotony of the bosh did not affect our spirits; on the contrary, 
that bosh often rang with our laughter as we poshed along our good steeds, ' Punch ' and 
*Mexry«man,' exchanging light anecdotes and reciprocating light nonsense. It does not take 
mueh to make a man laugh when his health is good, and his heart is light. We laughed at a 
notiee stuck up on a painted board by the road side, threatening prosecution with the utmost 
rigour *■ to any person trespassing on this property ' — the county for twenty miles round 
looking as inuooently unpeopled and primeral as when ft first emerged from chaos ! We 
laugh^ at the pompous inscription, < General Store and Provision Warehouse,' scrawled in 
whitewash over the door of a wretched little bark hovel, where were exposed for sale on a 
sheet of the same material a cabbage-tree hat or two, a few bottles of gioger beer, a tumbler 
full of bulLs'-eyes and lollipops, and half-ardoaen shrivelled oranges. Nor did we look 
particularly grave while deciphering with difficulty the abstruse sentence, ^ Tailor and Habit- 
maker,' chalked on a plank which was nailed against a tree above an equaliy small and 
eolitary shieling, perfectly out of humanity's teach, and more particularly of any human 
being entitled to wear a habit. Bat we langlied, * holding both our sides,' when at the 
^Solitary Creek,' whwe we stopped for breakfast, we heard (myself tor tiie first time,) 
the ludicroos song of the ' Laughing Jackass.' It is no uncommon thii^ for a writer to 
pronounce an obje^ to be utterly indescribable, and forthwith to set to work to describe it. I 
must try my hand at a description of this absurd bird's chaunt, although no words can pos- 
sibly do him justice. He commences, then, by a low cackling sound, grodually growing louder, 
like that of a ben in a fhss. Then, suddenly changing his note, he so closely imitates Punch's 
penny-trumpet that yon would almost swear it was indeed the jolly < roo-to-to-too ' of that public 
favourite. Next comes the prolonged bray of an ass, done to^e life; followed by an articu- 
late exclamation, apparently addressed to the listener, sounding yerj like/ Oh what a Guy !^ 
and the whole winds up with a suppressed diuckle, ending in an uproarious burst of laughter, 
which is joined in by a dozen others hitherto sitting silent. It is Impossible to hear with a 
grave iiice the jocularities of this feathered jester ; in spite of all reasoning I could never 
help feeling that it was myself he was quixzing I The Laughing Jackass, or Daoelo gigctnieay 
is a laige species of woodpecker, black and grey in colour, with little or no tail, and an 
enormously disproportionate head and bill — a most ugly and eccentric-looking fellow. 

During the last two days we saw aAd heard many things not so suggestive of merriment, 
and these chiefly caused by the crowning and fatal failing of the country — the want of water. 
The road was strewed with the rotting carcasses and the bleached skeletons of draught baIlo<^, 
Which had fallen victims to the drought and to the cruelty of their brutal drivers. We saw 
ihem dead or dying in the yokes of the teams ; or in the water-holes into which they had 
rushed in a iurv of thirst : the dingo sneaked away from his foul feast at every resting-place. 
Some were stickiog fast in the muddy pools, too weak to extricate themselves, and no one had 
been merciful enough to spare a bullet to put an end to their sufferings. All the ordinary 
watering-places were nearly dry, trodden into a consistency resembling pea-eoup. I shall 
never forget the rapture of our party — ^man and horse — after toiling twenty-one miles without 
seeing a drop of water, at the appearance of a beautiful spring of the perfectly pellucid element 
in an ardi«l grotto of rock by the road-side — ^nearly the only instance, I believe I may say, 
that I ever met with in my Australian travels of any such provision at the hands of man. 
With the tea thousand convict power onployed on this great road, fine covered tanks might 
easily have been cut in the rock at many points where springs are now losing themselves in 
the sand. Lamentable accounts, too, reached us of the pajstoral districts — no rain, and there- 
fore no grass ; cattle and ^eep dying of famine, or driven ofi^ in flocks and herds to the newly- 
discovered resource of the grazier — ^the boiling-down establishment, to be converted into 
tallow ; and lambs knocked on the head as soon as dropped, because there was no * feed' for 
th«r dams and themselves. 

'Solitary Creek, where we stepped to break&st, ia indeed well named. A lonely bonse^ 
The Woodman's Inn,' is situated in a dreary hollow among the hiUb, vrith a small dairinf ai 



40 0(7B ANTUPODES. 

its rear through whidi meanders— nn wet weather — ^the brook whence its name. At prese&f 
the ' Oeek ' is indeed ' solitarj/ for it has not eren its ordinary oompnion, water. We found 
here a portly but keen-looking old landlord, with a pretty young We, who gave us a tolerable 
breakfast. We congratulated mirselves, however, at not being compelled to stay a night in 
such gloomy and unpromising quarters ; the more so when it was whispered to me — perhaps 
by a prejudiced informant — ^that the head of the establishment was an * old hand,' and * as big 
a rogue as any on the mountain — and t^t's saying a good deal.' * Solitary Creek ' is just the 
locality for a tale of robbery and murder such as in early boyhood made one's flesh creep, one's 
eyes grow round, and one's hair to stand on end at the will of the nantitor. The belated and 
lonely traveller with lame and stumbling steed perceives, at length, through the obscurity of 
the night and of the forest, the welcome glimmer of a light. He knocks impatiently at the 
door, in opening whidi there is some delay, and confusion is heard within. He is admitted, of 
course, by a withered crone. A tall black-a-vised man is sleeping or feigning sleep on an oak- 
settle by the fire. Then comes the supper. Worn out with fatigue, after having swallowed 
some food he wishes to retire, and, as he is guided to his bedroom by the beldame, a young 
girl passes through the kitchen and seems to lift a finger to him with a gesture of warning. 
The sleeping apartment is large and unfurnished, except with a low couch in one comer. He 
throws himself upon it in his dothes. He cannot sleep. He rises, relumes the lamp, and 
scrutinises certain stains (xi the fleor at which his dog is smelling. Amid the roaring of the 
wind through the forest and the heavy plash of rain drops, he fanaes he hears suppressed voices 
imder his casement. He finds the room-door bolted outside. Overpowered, however, by fa~ 
tigue and by an unaccountable drowsiness, he again approaches the bed, and is about once more 
to consign himself to sleep, when his £Euthful 6iog seizes him by the tunic and drags him 
furiously back I A sound as of machinery is now heard — and, aghast with horror, the traveller 
sees the bed nnking slowly' through the fioor into a dark vault beneath. Another instant, and 
three or four brigands throw themselves upon it, and drive their poniards into the — bolster I 
Some such a dream as this — suggested by I know not what recollections— did indeed haunt 
my pillow when, two or three years later, fate decided that I should sleep at this dismal hos- 
telry. New faces were there ; they tried their best to make me comfortable, and nothing more 
disastrous or more romantic befell me than a severe biting by fleas and their fellows. 

The landlord of tly Woodman's Inn complained bitterly of the ravages of native dogs on his 
poultry-yard and piggery. He had often seen them in packs of forty and fifty at the creeks 
early in the morning ; and he believed that they feed chiefly on the kangaroos which abound in 
the neighbouring rocky dells. He had found a remedy against the wild dogs by keeping tame 
ones of a fierce, swift, and powerful breed, — one of which, a splendid animal half mastiff half 
greyhound, he assured me would go out of his own accord and of malice prepense, accompanied 
by a small cur which hunted by scent, and would not only kill, but bring home the dead dingo. 

Immediately beyond Solitary Creek the road begins toi climb, or rather is dragged by Uie 
resolute will of the engineer, light over the summit of Mount Lambey — one of the highest 
peaks of the Blue Mountains, — a work which earns the hearty curses of every bullock-driver, . 
and the objurgations of every traveller of a higher grade who is compelled to follow the vault- 
ing ambition of its originator. From the summit of Mount Lambey Sir Thomas Mtdiell suc- 
ceeded in intersecting at night the lighthouse on the heads of Port Jackson — a distance of about 
ninety miles. To reach the top of this hill we had about five miles of terribly steep and rough 
ascent— yet jiardly more difficult than some other passages we had encountered and overcome 
in this toilsome journey. Sometimes at a trot, oftener at a walk, we pushed on * with difficulty 
and labour hard.' Heat, dust, swarms of flies, scarcity of water, jaded horses, rocky steps, 
broken bridges, deep mud-holes, and awfully yawning precipices did not prevent * the sport- 
ingest Governor that ever I see,' (for thus was my distinguished cousin eulogised by a well- 
known Sydney publican,) from sticking to lus box the whole of this tour: nor do I believe that 
any other individual of the party, gentle or simple, could have got that carriage and those four 
horses over such an extent o£ rough and dangerous roads without breakage. (In my humble 
opinion. His Excellency handles tiie reins of his government with no less skill, judgment, and 
temper.) As to ngr own vehicle, it is not too much to say that scarcely a fragment of its 
ori^nal materials got back to Sydney. One or two of our fractures were of so complicated a 
nature, that my companion and mysdf had to contemplate the puzzle for some moments before 
we could comprehend its details — ^much less remedy them. I particularlv remember one case 
where, the phaeton plumping saddenly into a hole, the hind wheels actually ran over the fore 
mode of ' changing &aat * unheanl of in military manoeuvres. In choosing a carriage 



A convict's BEYENGE — ^BATHUBST PLAIK8. 41 

for a rugged joumej, low fore-wheds should especially be avoided. Sir Charles's tool-box waa 
in constant requisition by ns ; and great was the ingenuity of the mounted policemen, two old 
bush-hands, in repairing damages with straps, ropes, and poles cut firom the roadside. 

Somewhat later in our tour, while trotting merrily cbwn a hill not far from Bathurst, we 
were €ar from edified by seeing one of our fore-wheels taking an independent and divergent 
course of its own ; and we had hardly time to calculate on the consequences ere they occurred I 
As a proof of the readiness of resource which necessity imparts to persons of all conditions 
living in the Bush, Mr. Suttor (who accompanied the party at that moment,) on seeing our 
accident came to our assistance, and from an old boot and an old nail manu&ctured a couple of 
new washers and a new linchpin for the recreant wheel, to such gpod purpose that it canied ua 
safely to Sydney — about one hundred and twenty miles. 

During the journey we passed several spots where ironed gangs had been established in tem- 
porary stockades. In one of these there is an exoelloit stone house, the quarters of the officer 
of the guard, abandoned to decay ; and of the hut village of the priswers nothing remains 
but a Stonehenge of tall grey chimneys. These road-gang relics give additional gloom to the 
dismal character of the mountain scenery. The superintendence of convict stockiades was an 
unseemly duty to be thrust upon an officer of the army. He was a slave driver — a gaoler— 
a captain of banditti — ^without the excitement and profits of the post He had absolute power 
as a m£^strate. The conditi<«i of the prisoners depended almost wholly on his disposition ; 
he could encourage or flc^, pet or torment them, according to his temper. He could do worse 
—^lamely, leave tibem to the mercies of subordinates, convict constables, and others ; and the 
consequences may be inuigined. The following instance of vulgar tyranny and its punishment 
was related to me by a servant who had been a prisoner at the time of the occurrence. In 
digging the portion of soil allotted as his task, a prisoner of an ironed gang broke in upon an 
ants' nest of that large and venomous kind called the Lion Ant Bdng severdy stung he jumped 
out of the hole. The overseer ordered him to get in again. The man proposed that the 
nest should be blasted with gunpowder ; the overseer repe^ed his order ; the man obeyed, but» 
tortured by the fierce bites of the insects, he again desisted from his work. Upon this the 
other sdzed him and thrust him once more into the ants' nest The prisoner plied his pick for 
a few minutes, but the tempter was busy at his heart ; when, suddenly springing out of the 
hole, he cleft the skull of the overseer with his spade, and killed him on the spot It is quite 
needless to add that the perpetrator of this act of * justifiable homicide ' was hanged. 

From Mount Lambey the general tendency of the road is downwaixls. We stopped to 
bait at a little wild-looking inn near ' Diamond Swamp.* In New South Wales the word 
swamp is generally significant of good alluvial land, and in the populated parts it is usually 
found covered with crops of grain instead of the water which originally lay upon it. The 
numerous dried bogs and waterless lakes of this country give likelihood to the theory that 
its surface has risen considerably, and is still being thrust upwards from the earth's centre. 

The trees were now larger and fewer in num&r ; the character of the country less rugged* 
We were leaving rocks and ravines, peaks and pi-edpices, for the swelling moor and curving 
upland. These, in their turn, gradually subsided like a calming sea, until the hills became 

fentle undulations, the thickset scrub open glade ; and at length the troubled ocean of the 
llue Mountains rippled out in wavy hillodcs upon the smooth and wide expanse of the 
Bathurst Plains. 

How must the hearts of the toil-worn explorers have leapt with joy when, bursting from 
the dense bush of this rough Sierra, their eyes first fell upon the splendid champaign tract 
below them, containing not less than 50,000 acres of naturally clear land covered with 
grass, and with a fine river flowing through the midst 1 What ^ God-send, in the truest 
sense of the word, for the crowded and quickly multiplying flocks and herds hitherto confined 
to the seaward of the mountains I It was, indeed, a rich reward of a gallant enterprise. The 
eldest son of Mr. Lawson, one of the three discoverers, and to whom a large grant of thia 
valuable land was justly awarded by the Govemmenty is to be the Governor's host for 
a few days. 

Looking at the Bathurst Plains merely as a military and migratory stranger, without the 
slightest vocation towards * settling ' or sheep-fiirming, I could only contemplate them, at first 
sight, as afibrding a pleasant relief from the mental and bodily suffocation always experienced 
by me in a protracted journey through a thickly-wooded country ; as a locale for a gallop 
highly refreshing after seventy or eighty miles of precipices and gullies ; as a likely spot for 
the production of mutton humbly imitative of Southdown ; and as a promising beat for quail- 



42 OUB Am^IFODEB. 

shooting — for I obierred, as we descended rapidly to the lerel land, many fine patehea of 
grain pretty sure to abound with the only representative of England's i^nurian game fenqd in 
the colony. One ought to be an Australian to appreciate Bathunt Plains as fully as he dees. 
He looks at these rery ugly and featureless prairies of scanty pasture*land through a wootty 
medium. He * grows ' wool, as the term is, and rich at the same time, by dint of these same 
plains and others of a like nature — ^by the natural grasses of the country, in short ; his admi- 
ration of them is, therefore, quite intelligible. Except in unusually wet seasons, tbere is little 
water on them and less vendure ; the grass grows in separate tufts like the strawberry plant, 
instead of forming a ccnmected turf, a reddish calcareous earth showing itself tiirough the inter- 
stices in some parts and a Uadc sun-eracked soil in others. A hardy kind of everlastii^ with 
a stiff yellow flower, and a minute pink convolviilusi mix with the herbage occupying the 
(llaoes of our daisy and buttercup. 

Presently we came in sight of a most eztensire crop of the great staple of the oolony«->woOL 
— Iburisbing on the fat saddles of some two or three thousand sheep, whidi, under chmge 
of a shepherd or two, were crawling like white maggots ovor the distant flats, carrying wi& 
them a cloud of dust nearly as dense as if they had been travelling on a tumpikc'road in the 
dog-days. Other object mere was none, with the exception of a great black eagle tearing 
carrion on the edge of a water-hole. Trotting with a free rein along the natural road, 
smooth as a race-course — no little treat after ^ree days of cautious drivings— « few miles 
brought us to ' Maoquarie Plains,' the seat (as the Guide-books say) .of Mr. William Lawson, 
where we were most kindly received, and comfortably acoommodat(Bd. The house looks over a 
wide extent of the Plains. In its rear are extensive offioes, farm-buildings, stock-yards^ 
stables, &e., requisite for one of the largest grazing and breeding establishments in Australia. 
Detached, at a short distance, is a garden, useful and ornamental, a mixture of the flower and 
kitchen-garden, full of English productions ; roses and other old floral frioids in great profu- 
sion ; cherries, peaches, apricots, apples, pears, and grapes ; abundance of fine v^etables, 
not one of whi<^ plants, ornate or esculent, or, indeed, any other that I know of, is indigenous 
to this originally outlandish and unproductive country. The cherry, by the way, is unfaiown 
eastward of the mountains, and never seen in Sydney except in the sophisticated shape 
qS cherry-bounce.* 

Besides Mr. Lawson's family, there were several guests at Macquarie Plains ; and the house 
was stretched by the hospitality of its ownera Itu'ge enough to contain the whole of the 
Governor's party, a specious additional room having been, however, temporarily erected for 
purposes of refection. In this same room there dined, to meet His Excellency, no fewer than 
thirty-five ladies and gentlemen, whom the provincial journal described as < a select party of 
the itite of Bathurst," a phrase conveying the idea of an extraordinary degree of social sifting. 
Yes, at this Australian country-seat, 120 miles from Sydney, at which emporium European 
supplies arrive afler four or five months' voyage enhanced nearly double in price, and with 
the superadded risk, difficulty, and expense consequent on a dray journey of another half month 
across almost impassable mountains, we found a well-damasked table for thirty-five or forty 
persons, handsome diina and plate, excellent cookery, a profusion of hock, claret, and cham- 

rgne, a beautiful dessert of European fruits — in short, a really capital English dinner. Now 
assert that this repast afforded as strong and undeniable proof of British energy in the 
Abstract as did the Battle of the Nile, the storming of Badajoz, the wonderful conflict of 
Meaner or any other exploit accomplished by the obstinate resolution, as well as dashing 
valour, of John Bull. Wonderful people ! plodding, adventurous ; risking all ; ruined, yet 
rising again ; oakhearted, hardbitten Britons ! you and your descendants shall reclaim, and 
occupy, and replenish all those portions of the globe habited by the savage. A few more turns 
of the year-glass, and the English language — who can ddobt it ? — ^will be universal, except 
in a few of the old-established and time-mouldy nations of little Europe, to whom by some 
inscrutable dispensation it is denied to reproduce themselves beyond their own original limits 
of empire. We have accepted the glorious commission ; may We prove worthy instruments 
of the great work ! f A feast of creature comforts may appear an unfit text for such a 
subject ; but perhaps my deduction will not seem extravagant when it is remembered tliat 
within the memory of many hale old men there was no white inhabitant of this vast continent, 
and nothing more eatable than a haunch of kangaroo, more drinkable than a cup of water, even 

* Staioe this was written, in 1849. the oherxy has been Induced to grow in Cumberland. 
t At a Missionary meeting In Sydney, 1851, the Bishop of New Zealand stated that there is an Ent^sn* 
nan settled in eveiy Island of the Padfle. 



A DRIVE TO BATHUBST. 43 

wheare Sydney now stands ; and that, little more than a quarter of a eentray agr, theea Plaina^ 
to which most ,of the luxuries of the Old World now find their way, were not even known 
to exist. 

One of the delicacies of Mr. Lawson's table on the above occasion was the fresh-water cod, 
ood perch, or Orysttt Peeliif only found on this side the mountains. One fish was more than 
sufficient for the whole party. 

Iknemher 14tA« — Halted at < Macquarie Plains.' Macquarie ! what an all-penrading name 
in New South Wales is this ! Riyers, mountains, plains, counties, porta, forts, harbours, 
lakes, streets, places, public buildings, promenades, &c., all are the namesakes of this creatire 
Governor ! a nominal monopoly which, as I remarked to his present Excellency, acts unfiurly 
upon his successors ; for it leaves them so little to be known by that * The Fitz-Roy polka 
coat, silk lined, at 30s.,' and 'The Fitz-Roy omnibus, fare 6<f.,' are the only innovations for 
the public good to whidi the patronage of iSir Charles has hitherto given birth. The explorers 
of those days fathered all their foundlings upon the willing Governor, so that he was driven 
at length to affiliate some of them under his Christian name ; thus we meet with ' Lachlan 
Swamps,' * Ladilan Rivers,' aun^ rmdtia aiiis. The facades of nearly every public edifice in 
the colony attest the vigour with which, during his long reign, the woruiy general wielded 
the enormous oonvict power with which his office invested him. 

This morning we drove to Bathnrst, the capital of the district, eight miles, for the pm>> 
pose of receiving an address and visiting the township. The road lay across tiie terrestrial 
billows, the long ' eround swell ' of tiie Plains, whicb reminded me in some degree of the 
* rollij^ prairies ' of Iowa and Wisconsin, although the herbage of the latter is immeasurably 
snperior. During the last four miles we were encompassed round about by an equestrian 
escort of all ranks and f^^es, in number about two hundred, which took us into its keepine 
for the remainder of the drive. There were ' gents ' in green cutaways and cords ; ' parties 
in black dress coats, satin vests d la Doudney, and white Berlin gloves ; and one or two old 
soldierlike figures with stiff stocks, formal whiskers, and upright seats. These contrasted 
well with many gradations of the real ' currency ' cavalier, handsome-looking men in loose 
tunics and blouses, broad belts, tweed pantaloons strapped inside the legs with wide leathern 
stripes, cabbage-tree hats tied under the throat, bare necks, and beards and ringlets in hirsute 
profusion. There was an inferior class of the same order, wearing light drab jackets of 
oolonial tweed, some with hlusk velvet collars and cuffs, the everla^tmg cabbage-tree hat, 
white trousers up to the icnees, hunting spurs and whips. Here and there among the throng 
rode an individual of a Puritan or Romish cut, hurried by the general excitement out of 
his usual demeanour and pace. Next came a legion of lathy lads, standing in their stirrups 
and plainly showing by their first-rate equitation that their education had taken the direction 
of cattle-hunting and stock-driving rather than that of the humanities. All alike came 
charging alongside, around and behind; gallop, trot, canter, pull up, and gallop again: 
themselves and ourselves in one continual cloud of dust — all apparent confusion, yet not one 
horse's nose at any time ahead of the vice-regal equipage. If ever the circumstances of the 
colony should compel it to raise a local force for the preservation of internal order, I would 
i<eoommend the authorities to enrol a light dragoon corps, to be called the Australian Hussars. 
It wDuld be a popular service with certain individuals of all classes, fit, perhaps, for nothing 
else; there are plenty of old soldiers to instruct and command them; and plenty of light, 
long-armed, bow-legged, (and, as James loves to depict his ruffling cavaliers,) 'deep-chested 
and hollow-flanked ' fellows who have been on horseback ever since they were bom, and who 
know how to rough it in the bush, ready for the ranks of a regiment with good pay, a showy 
uniform, and a discipline not too stringent. There are, moreover, plenty of active, wiry, and 
hardy horses ready to ' mount ' suoh a body. 

At length we came down in cue grand swoop upon the Macquarie River-^fhe Wambool of 
the bUicks — now a fallow gravelly stream shrunk between wid»«part and lofty banks, but 
after heavy rains an impassible and destructive torrent. It was an amusbg and cheering 
flight to see the troop of horsemen aooompanying us, and even the gentry delighting in gigs, 
like Ossian's car-borne heroes, taking the river at fiiU gallop in the height of their glee, tad 
making the water spin twenty feet into the air. All was loyalty and hilarity, pleasant to the 
eye and to the mind of an Old Country man and a good subject ; every one smiled and shouted 
a warm welcome to the new representative of the Crown. Tour Knglishman will sometimes 
talk, sometimes write like a Rq>uhlican ; your British colonist, when the shoe pinches, will 
sometimes vapour about separation ; but in his heart of hearts he feels the real value of our 



44 OUB AKTIP0DE8. 

glorioaB ooDstitationt— our admirable institations. His fealty m&} he aovrndSiu ya^ ., » no. 
extinct. I truly believe that a ruler or a government must personally and repeatedly injure 
or wrong a Briton — ^wheresoever naturalised — ^before he shall be driven to the serious enter- 
tainment of a rebellious thought against his country and his sovereign — especially when that 
sovereign is a young and virtuous lady. 

I cannot conscientiously compliment Bathur^ on its external aspect It is as yet the mere 
promise of a red-brick rectangular town, looking, as His Excellency remarked, (and Goremors' 
jokes are always applauded and recorded I) looldng as if it had just been put down to bake on 
the hot, bare, and bright slope which forms its site. This site seems singularly ill-chosen. 
There is no shade from sun nor shelter from wind. The want of fuel will soon be severely- 
felt — indeed has already been so, nearly all the neighbouring timber having been cut down, 
and no coal-mines existing in this Australian Traz os Montes. It is said that coal of good 
quality may be had at Piper's Flat, though none has yet been ' got ' there. Mrs. Black's 
hotel, whither His Excellency repaired to receive the address, is an excellent spedm^i of an 
Australian provincial inn. In his inland hotels, however. Brother Jonathan beats Brother 
Cornstalk hollow; but then the Americans, having less taste for domesticity than the 
Austitdians or Canadians, frequent such establishments infinitely more. 

Most of the members of the deputation destined to present the address having for the last 
hour revelled in the vice-r^al dust as well as their own, the weather being moreover fearfully- 
hot, and themselves (for they were substantial citizens and settlers) apparently in soft condition, 
a little delay was allowed them for ablutionary purposes ; — and ind^ such was the plight we 
were all in, that it required the utmost aid of soap and water to ensure our recognition by our 
nearest friends. Meanwhile, the Governor retired with his ministers and suite to a private 
council chamber to discuss — ^beer, or rather a bland beverage called ' Apperley's mixture/ 
concocted by that oriental gentleman-— our companion on this part of our tour — and having 
bottled ale, ginger beer, mint, and sugar for its ingredients. Ah I a Sybarite in search of a new 
pleasure might wisely compound for a throat full of dust to have it laid by such a draught as. 
that cooling cup 1 Afler the reception of the address we proceeded to visit the county gaol — a 
fine building, and one whidi in Australian towns has always hitherto — ^perhaps for obvious 
reasons— been the first public edifice erected; except indeed the public-houses, whereof at 
Bathurst there are two at the comers of every street, while along each side of them the sign-> 
posts are so numerous, as to form something like a vista of pictorial gibbets. This, however, 
is not a feature peculiar to the good town of Bathurst. Windsor, Campbell-town, and others, 
have the same fsunily likeness. Here the gaol is not only the first-bom Government building, 
but it is full grown ; while, sad to say, the church is still swaddled in scaffolding, without roof 
or belfry. It must be recollected that I am writing in 1846. In my subsequent visit to this 
town in 1850 the church was in a complete state. * All Saints ' is of brick, the style Norman, 
and the design very good. 

During the interval between those two years a great deal was done by the Bishop in procuring 
the erection of small places of worahip, and in appointing clergy for the thinly and somewhat 
wildly peopled Bush-districts. Yet Uie spiritual destitution of both rich and poor in the &r 
Interior must be still very great — ^thousands who have no place of worship within a hundred 
miles', thousands who are gradually losing sight of the ordinances of religion, or who have never 
known them. There are many parts of New South Wales where the first rites over the in&nt 
and the last over the dead are not performed by ecclesiastics — ^where there is no <Nie, bearing a 
divine commission, to strengthen the wavering faith of the living, nor to dieer the departing 
and despairing soul I The very sight of the steeple and the sound of ' the church-going bell ' 
are useful mementos of the higher designs of our being for the thoughtless or depravoi, ti^e idle, 
the busy, and the vidous. 

I have hinted that ample provision for the spirituous wants of the community has been made 
in the township of Bathurst, as in other country towns. A stranger would argue that there 
cannot be customers for so many grog-shops. The fiict is, that every month or thereabouts 
comes an influx of bush-labourers to the town, with their pockets full of wages, for the express 
purpose of spending them. There is a glorious scene of drinking and riot for a few days or 
weeks ; their money is soon exhausted, pouched by the unscrupulous publican ; and away they 
go again to their teams, their flocks, or their saw-pits, to earn money sufficient for another 
periodical debauch. Nor, when very flush of coin, do these rough fellows confine themselves to 
vulgar drinks. Occasionally they indulge in a bout at the * swells' tipple,' as they call 
champagne, starting a dozm or two into a pail, and baling it down thdr throats with thdr tin 



'fishhook* in gaol — A CX>BOBBXBT. 45 

mags. Nay, for want of a baler, some of them hare been known to lap np their liquor as cats 
do cream ! Almost incredible tales are told of the redcless sotting of the bushmen of the 
interior. I will adduce one only as related by a provincial newspaper. Five labourers, who 
had ' stopped out ' the rea|ung and shearing at a long distance firom the town of Geelong, put up 
at a well-known bush-tavern on the road ; and in the course of two or three days spent amoDgst 
them 130/., besides selling the whole of their clothes, bedding, shears, and reaping-hooks to the 
servants and hangers-on about the house, the price of which was also spent in drunkenness and 
riot. The worst of it is, that to encourage these brutal habits is directly conducive to the 
interests of the employers of labour, for no man in New South Wales — ^do unmarried man at 
least — ^will do a ' hand's-tum ' of work so long as he has a shilling in his pocket. But I must 
not be too swee|Hng in an accusation of drunkenness against the bush-people. Teetotalism — ^that 
practical confession of the subservience of the soul to the body, of the power of the animal 
propensities over the reason — ^is prevalent among all classes in the provinces. Many indeed are 
Kechabites by force of drcumstances rather than by choice, — living in tents, and drinking no 
wine, — ^because they can get no better lodging or beverage in the remote wilderness. 

I have mentioned our visit to the gaol at Bathurst, because here I witnessed the effects of 
protracted confinement upon an Aboriginal prisoner. This man. Fishhook by name, had been 
sentenced to imprisonment for cattle-stealing — although it was by no means certain that he had 
not been the mere cat's-paw of white depredators. When brought out of his cell for the inspec- 
tion of the Governor, he showed little or no sign of intellect, and when I saw him again a month 
later he was quite icUotic The poor black had left within those high brick walls the little 
mind he ever had, whilst his soul-case looked in the highest preservation — ^for he was naturally 
of athletic frame, and to him prison &re was profusion. Sir Charles ordered his immediate 
release ; and my excellent friend, the member for Bathurst, imdertook to interpret His Excel- 
lency's merciful intention to the culprit, and to convey to him at the same time a suitable ad- 
monition. Now I have no wish to be presumptuous, but I do believe that, in spite of my late 
arrival in the colony and my total ignorance of the blacks, I could have given utterance to as 
much genuine Australian as was comprised in the spirited and ingenious harangue of the worthy 
senator. The language, or rather lingo, he employed occasioned us all mudi surprise at the 
time ; but we subsequently found that it was by no means an original invention of this gentle- 
man. A kind of bush patois^ chiefly composed of very broken English mixed with other words 
quite foreign to either tiie British or native tongues, has long been the established mode of oral 
communication with the Aborigines. 

With the open mouth and drooping lip of perfect vacancy, yet with a kindling eye, the poor 
* black fellow received his liberty. All imprisonment — ^indeed all punishments hitherto in- 
vented — it is obvious enough, are extremely unequal and therefore unjust in their operation ; 
the solitary system pi^eeminently so. The dull, lethargic, and ignorant sleep or doze through 
the heavv hour^ The active, energetic, and imaginative suffer cruelly. To the free roaming 
savage, fresh fr-om his boundless forests, the dark contracted cell must be madness and martyr- 
dom. I am well pleased to be able to interpolate here the remark, that in the year 1850 I saw 
Mr. Fishhook for the third time, when, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Suttor, who had taken 
him into his protection and service from the moment of his manumission, his mental health was 
perfectly re-established. 

Afler dinner this evening our attentive host, Mr. Lawson, procured for our entertainment a 
Corobbery, or native dance. Proceeding to a short distance from the house, we found a level 
spot illuminated by a large blazing fire of logs and branches — for these aboriginal ballets always 
take place after d^k. In the diuky distance sat a crowd of indistinct figures, while on one 
side of the fire squatted a party of * gins,'* who, after some preparations, commenced drum- 
ming upon a skin tightly stretched over their knees, assisting the dull cadence with a monoto- 
nous song, or rather scream. This had continued a few minutes, gradually increasing in loud- 
ness and energy, when the men, uttering a wild howl, sprang upon their feet, and b^an the 
dance. They were^ all naked, or nearly so, and painted from top to toe in fantastic fashion— 
the pattern most in vogue being an imitation of a skeleton, contrived by chalking out the posi- 
tion of the spine and ribs with a white pigment. Their 1^ were uniformly striped downwards 
with broad white lines. The first performance was a war-dance, wherein a variety of com- 
plicated evolutions and savage antics were gone through, accompanied by a brandishing of clubs, 
spears, boomerangs, and shields. Suddenly the crowd divided into two parties, anid after a 
chorus of deafening yells and fierce exhortations, as if for the purpose of adding to their own 

* Native vomen— from Tv^, mnlier, evidently • 



46 OUB AJin^IFODES. 

and each other's excitement, they mshed together in date fight. Oda diyiBicD, shortly giving 
way, was driven i^m tiie field and pursued into the darlc void, where roars and groans, and 
the sound of blows left bnt Httle to be imagteed on the score of a bloody masRMre. Presently 
the whole corps reappeared dose to the fire, md, having deployed into two lines and ' pvorod 
distance,' (as it is called in tlte sword exercise,) Hie time of the music was changed, and a slow 
measure was commenced by the dancers, every step bdng mfbroed by a heavy stamp and a 
noise like a paviour's grunt. As the drum waxed raster so did the dance, until at length the 
movements were as rapid as the human frame oouM posribly endure. At some passages they 
all sprang into the air a wonderful height, and, as tiieir feet again toadied tiie ground with tbe 
1^ wide astride, the musdes of the thighs were set a quivering in a singular manner, and the 
straight white lines on the limbs being thus put in oscillation, eadi stripe for the moment be- 
came a writhing serpent, while the air was filled with loud hhBmgs. This particular tour de 
force, which bad a singular effect in the fire-light, requires great practise. I remarked that the 
front-rank men only were adepts at it ; and I was told that some could never acquire it — w 
sundry of my countrymen can never unravd with their dumsy feet the mysteries of the wahz 
and polka. • 

The most anraring part of the ceremony was imitations of the dingo, kangaroo, and emu. 
When all were springing together in emulation of a scared troop of their own maxsnpial bmtes, 
nothing could be more laughable, nor a more ingenious piece of mimicry. As is usual in 
savage dances, the time was kept with an accuracy never at fault. The gentiemen of our party 
alone attended the Corobbery ; fin*, whatever heraldry might do, decency could not have de- 
scribed any one of the performers as a * salvage man ducted, proper V Tlie men were tall stnd 
straight as their own spears, many of them nearly as thin, but all surprisingly active. Like 
most blacks they were well chested and shouldered, but disproportionately slight bdow the knee. 

The chief of this tribe, and the only old man belon^ng to it, was of mudi superior stature 
to the others—full six feet two inches in height, and wdghing fifteen stone. Although ap- 
parently approaching threescore years, and somewhat too &r gone to flesh, the strength of ' the 
Old Bull ' — ^fbr that was his name^-must still have been prodigious. His proportions were 
remarkably fine ; the development of the pectoral musdes and the depth of chest were greater 
than I had ever f een in individuals of the many naked nations through which I have travdled. 
A spear laid across the top of his breast as he stood up, remained there as on a shdf. Although 
ngly, according to European appredation, the countenance of the Australian is not always un- 
pleasing. Some of the young men I thought rather well looking, having large and long eyes 
with thick lashes, and a pleasant frank smile. Thdr hair I take to be naturally fine and long, 
but from dirt, neglect, and grease, every man's head is like a huge black mop. Their beards 
are unusually bliusk and bushy. I have since seen one or two domesticated Aborigines whose 
crops were remarkably beautiful, parted naturally at the top of the head and hanging on the 
neck in shining curls. The skin, however, is so perfectly sable, the b'ps so thick, and the nose so 
flat, as to qualify the Australian black for the titie of the Austral negro. The gait of the 
Australian is peculiarly manly and graceful ; his head thrown back, his step firm ; in form and 
carriage at least he looks creation's lord. 

— • erect and tall, 
Godlike erect, in native honour clad.' 

In the action and ' stetion ' of the black there is none of the sloudi, the stoop, the tottering 
shamble, inddent all upon the straps, the braces, the high heels, and pinched toes of the patri- 
dan, and the douted soles of the dodpole whiteman. If our first parent dwelt in Mesopotamia, 
and his colour accorded with the dimate, his complexion must have more nearly resembled the 
Australian's than our own. 

All the men are disfigured by the absence of one of tiie front teeth, whidi is punched out 
with great ceremony on the attainment of the age of puberty. Another very unbecoming 
practice in both sexes consists in a rude spedes of tattooing, peribrmed by a series of cute on the 
flesh of the breast and shoulders, which, by some spedal freatment, are made to heal in high 
ridges, having predsely the appearance of a weal Gram the severe stroke of a whip. Nor is the 
white head-lMind, whidi tightly compresses the forehead, any more omamentel than ite use is 
comprehensible. According to the rules of what poor Theodore Hook called * Free knowledgy,' 
the Australian cranium is exceedingly ill shaped — the animal bumps largely prqwnderating 
over the intellectual. 

The women are mere drudges and sumpter-animals, preparing the food in camp, and on 
journeys carrying the baggage as wdl as the in&nte, while the men stalk in firtmt bearing their 



NATIVB WXAFQIIRI. 47 

weifOBt aloye. Wooed, m it is laid, hf dint of blows, they am erw tiUr Ttiltd by dob law; 
tfid fi)r them tbere is bo reservation as to the thiokiMss of the oorrsctiv* flick I At nsals they 
sit apart firom the males, and their food is thrown to them as to the dogs. Polygamy, iofanti- 
dde, and forcible abduction of females, are also some of the rumpled rose-Ieayes of Australian 
domestic Hie. 

The chief natiTe weapons are as follows : — ^The spear, nine or ten ftet long, rather thadoer 
ihan one's finger, tapered to a point hardened in the fire, and sometimes jagged. The wammera, 
or throwing stick, shows oonsidenible ingenuity of invention. About two and a half feet long, 
it has a hook at one end which fits a notdi on the heel of the spear, in whose projection it acta 
very much like a third joint to the arm, adding very greatly to the force. A lanoe is thrown 
with ease and accuracy, sixty, eighty, and a hundred yards. The waddy is a heavy, knobbed 
club, about two feet long, sad is used for active service, foreign or domestic. It brains the 
enemy in the battle, or strikes senseless the poor * gin ' in cases of disobedience or neglect. In 
the latter instance a broken arm is considered a mild marital reproof. < La femme est sacr^e — 
la femme qu'on aime est sainte,' gallantly writes a native of the most civilised of nations. * A 
woman is a slave — a wife an anvil !' would be the Australian firae tmslation of the French 
dictum. The stone tomahawk is employed in cutting opossums out of their holes in trees, as 
weQ as to make notches in the bark, by inserting a toe into which the black can ascend the 
highest and lai^gest gums in the bush. One can hardly travel a mile in New South Wales with- 
out seeing these marks, old or new. The quick eye of the native is guided to the retreat of the 
opossum by the slight scratches of its daws on the stem of the tree. The boomerang, the 
most carious and original of Australian war-implements, is, or was, fiimiliar in England as a 
toy. It is a paradox in missile power. There are two kinds of boomerang— that which is 
thrown to a distance straight ahead, and that which returns on its own axis to the thrower. I 
saw, on a subsequent occasion, a native of slight frame throw one of the former two hundred 
and ten yards, and much further when a ricochet was permitted. With the latter he made 
several casts truly surprismg to witness. The weapon, after skimming breast high nearly out 
of sight, suddoily rose high into the air, and returning with amasing velodty towaids its 
owner, buried itsdf six inches deep in the turf, within a few yards of his feet It is a dangerous 
, game for an inattentive spectator. An enemy, or a quarry, ensconced bdiind a tree or bank, 
safe from spear or even bullet, may be taken in the rear and severely hurt or killed by the recoil 
of the boomerang. The emu and kangaroo are stunned and disabled, not knowing how to avoid 
its eccentric gyrations ; amongst a flight of wild ducks just rising from the water, or a flock of 
pigeons on tiie ground, this weapon commits great havoc. At dose quarters in fight the 
b<Mmerang, being made of very hard wood with a sharp edge, becomes no bad substitute for 
a cutlass. Sir Thomas Mitdidl, ' on observing the motion of the boomerang in the air, whirling 
round a hollow centre, and leaving a vacant centre of gravity,' was strudc with the idea of adopt> 
ing its principle to the propulsi<»i of ships ; and, if I mist^e not, he received in 1848 a patent 
for the invention. I have not heard whether the idea has been made practical.*^ 

The hieleman or shidd is a piece of wood, about two and a half feet long tapering to the ends, 
with a bevilled face not more than four indies wide at the broadest part, behind which, the left 
hand, passing through a hole, is perfectly guarded. With this narrow buckler the native will 
parry any missile less swifl than the bullet In one of my visits to Mr. Suttor, the black, 
' Fidihook,' permitted me — no contemptible ' shy ' eithe]>— to pdt hun vrith stones as rapidly 
as I could throw them at twenty paces, invariably turning aside those aimed at his head or body, 
and jumpng over those directed at his l^s. I thought the boomerang would have puzzled him, 
but did not propose a trial. 

The natives are not always in the hamour either for peifonning the Corobbery with spirit or 
for exercising their weapons with skill, merely for the amusement of strsngcfs. At Wdlington, 
a noted good spearsman having missed three or four times Uie piece of bark I had set up for him, 
I put a sixpence on the top, and takii^ a policeman's carbine, made the black fellow understand 
that if I knocked the coin down before him, I would re-podcet it Whilst pretending to take 
aim, I saw the savage brace up his muscular littie figure, fix his fierce emu-like eye on the 
target, and in an instant he had transfixed its c^tre at sixty yards. Having put the ' white 
money ' into his mouth, he had to exert all his strength, with his foot on the sheet of bark, to 
withdraw the weapon. The spear is immeasumbly the most dangerous arm of the Australian 
. savage. Many a white man has owed hia death to tiie spear ; many thousands of sheep, cattle, 

* The Times, 39th September, 1852, contains an extract from a Sydney journal, stating that 'the 
boomerang propeller' had been fitted to a small steamer, and obtained a speed of twelve knots against a 
head-wind. 



48 OUB ANTIPODES. 

«nd hoi'ses have fallen hy it. Several diBtingtushed Englishmen hare been severely- wounded by 
spear casts ; among whom I may name Captain Bligh, the first Governor of New South Wales, 
Sir Geoi'ge Grey and Captain Fitzgei-ald, the present Governors of New Zealand and Western 
Australia, and Captain Stokes, R.N., long employed on the survey of the Austi^ian coasts. It 
appeal's singular that that simple but tbmiidable arm, the bow and anx>w, is unknown in 
Austitdia, as well as in Kew Zealand, althot^gh used by the natives of many of the smaller 
South Sea Islands, ^ 

CHAPTER V. 

If the bill of &re of the Aborigine be not tempting, it has at least the chanp of vai-iety. Besides 
the lauigai'oo, which b his venison, and the emu his pheasant, he has fish and wild-fowl, both of 
which he catches with nets neatly constructed by the women. Then he delights in such small 
game as snakes, guanas, grubs, and the larvae of white ants. The gum of the acada, which 
resembles gum-arabic but is sweeter, and the pulp of a buhnish ground into flour ai*e among his 
most innocent ailicles of food. Honey is no less so ; and the black deserves to enjoy tliis 
luxury for the dexteiity with which he sometimes discovers its whereabout. Catching a sti:ay 
bee, he sticks upon its little busy body ^vith gum an atom of white down fix>m the owl or swan, 
andy releasing the sacred insect, follows it by eye and foot to the hole in the hollow tree where 
the comb is concealed, and whence it is quickly cut out after the hive has been well smoked. 
Pity that all his gastix>nomic tastes ai'e not quite so innocent ! but I fear — despite the resistance 
of tills creed by some experienced colonists and travellers — ^that the New Holland savage is a 
most atixicious cannibal. If he be not so, for what pui*pose have long flakes of flesh been cut 
from the bodies of murdered men, white and black, and hung up to dry in the sun ? And 
what peculiar viiiue is there in human kidney-fat, which is undoubtedly accounted an article of 
value by the Austi*alian tribes ? I feai* — ^veiy much fear — ^that tlie former is but the pemican, 
the latter the rognon, of the savage cuisine. The brawny chieftain, * the Old Bull,' is sus- 
pected of having in his earlier days treated one or more Englishmen — ^not to mention black game 
^-precisely .is an Englishman would have tresitcd a woodcock ; «. e., brought him do^vn in good 
style, given him a turn or two before the fire, and discussed him with zest and appetite. The 
jaws and teeth of this huge savage ceiiainly promised unequalled powcre of mastication. Well 
authenticated instances of this teiiible practice ai-e to be found in the works of vai-ious authoi's ; 
but one, related in a parliamentary Blue Book of 1844, exhibits, as Sir Geoi'ge Gipps I'emai'ks, 
* perhaps one of the most ferocious acts of cannibalism on I'ecord.' It is too long and too hor- 
rible to find admission here ; but those who do not shrink fixim revolting details may fmd the 
incident alluded to at page 241 of the collection of Pailiamentary papers on this col<Hiy, 
9th August, 1844. Instances of pai'oits killing and devouring their children, if unoommoa» 
are not unknown ; for one of the Protectoi-s of the natives of the Port Phillip District has 
I'eoorded a cose in which an infant was butchei'ed and eaten by its own mother and brethren. 

The language appeared to me soft and full of vowels and liquids; and is spoken with 
«xtreme volubility, especially by the women. Some of the native names of places are gi'andly 
sonorous and polysyllabic : it is well when they are retained by the English possessora of the 
lands, instead of substituting vulgai' and unmeaning Europeim tities. Here is a stiing of 
names — taken at hazard (that sort of hazard that suits a purpose) — ^almost as round-sounding 
as old Homei''s muster roll of heroes, and not unmusical in the sliape of hexametei-s,— ^ 

Woollondilly, GSIong, Bendendera. Coolapatamba, 
Tangabalanga, Pe^r, Paramatta, Rhyana, Menangle, 
Oobberalong, Nandowra, Memendere, Ponkeparinsn, 
Yaas, Oandiilga, M6long, KanOong, Naradandara, Bongbong ! 

The political relation of the White race and the Australian blacks, with reference to the 
possession of the country by the former, is peculiar to itself. We hold it neither by inheritance, 
by purchase, nor by conquest, but by a sort of gradual eviction. As our flocks and henls and 
population increase, and oon*esponding increase of space is required, the natural owners of the 
aoil are thrust back without treaty, bai'gain, or apology. A tract of rich and virgin pasture 
is heard of through a surveyor or through some adventurous settier or stockman riding in 
search of fresh ' runs ;' and in an incredibly short time it is overrun with live-stock. Heedless 
of the heritage of the savage, the vigilant squatter hunies to be the first white occupant ; 
depasturing licences are procured from Government, stations are built, the natives and the 
game on which they feed are driven back— ^the latter chased and killed by the Englishman's 
greyhounds : the graves of their fathei'S are trodden under foot by the stranger ; — and yet, 



BLACK AKD WHITS OONFLIOIB. 49 

wandering and irregular as are the habits of these nomadic tribes, they are as staunch in their 
local attachments as other men. In proof of their sense of proprietaiy right, Mitchell relates 
that tlie natives of the Darling River country, on seeing his men drawing water from t)ie 
stream, desired them to pour it out of their buckets, as if it belonged to them — digging a hole 
to receive it when it was poured out. ' I have more than once,' says this enterprising 
explorer and pleasant writer, ' seen a river-chief, on receiving a tomahawk, point to the stream, 
and signify that we were then at liberty to take water from it.' 

If Mephistophiles could read the New South Wales police reports, how would he grin on 
finding that * certain Aboriginal blacks had been apprehended and punished fur stealing dead 
timber, the property of Mr. Whiteman,* for fire*w(X)d I The said Mr. Wliiteman had pur- 
chased from the Government the land on which the timber grew, or had received it in free 
grant from the same source. What did the Government give for these ' waste lands of the 
Crown ?* — ^nothing ! The grandfathcsr ol the prisoner probably hunted over this very ground 
— ^the culprit himself was perhaps bom under the very gum-tree whose fallen boughs he had 
been ' stealing !' The native lords of the soil have, I conceive, infinitely gi*eater cause for 
displeasure when they see the white usurper hunting down for mere pastime the kangaroo 
and bustard of their rightful demesne, or pulling out of their scanty rivers the magnificent cod- 
perch, than has the English lord of the manor and country justice of the peace when he finds 
his coverts have been thinned ' of a shiny night,' or his stews swept of a sackful of carp and 
tench. Yet many a magisterial double chin has quivered with angry emotion whilst its owner 
held forth on the heinousness of poaching ; and for aught I know, many a scape-grace bumpkin 
has found his way to this very country of the blacks for a crime no heavier than the wiring of 
a few hares or the netting of a few birds. A Christmas battue is spoilt, perhaps, in one case 
• — a sad pity, I admit. But a tribe is starved to death, in the other ! What wonder that 
the native retaliates upon the sheep and cattle of the pale-faced trespasser on his land and 
food I He thinks, perhaps, in his primeval simplicity, that he has as good right to beef and 
mutton as John Bull-calf, the Anglo-Australian, has to kangaroo-tail soup. Can one reason- 
ably expect that any man, whatsoever his complexion, possessing a vigorous appetite and no 
moral code, will dine off grubs and lizards when a sirloin or a saddle is to be had for the cast 
of a spear ? If a savage have any political creed he must be a leveller, a communist ; and his 
resolution to share the white man's food is probably whetted by his knowledge, that the 
countless fiocks that cover hill and plain, are the property of one person— and that person, 
perhaps, living at Sydney, hundreds of miles away. 

It were well if the matter ended with the reciprocal destruction of property ; but the past 
history of the colony and the occurrences of eveiy month prove the contrary. The aggressions 
of the savage are followed by acts of reprisal on the part of the white man. The overseer, 
the stockman, and the shepherd of the distant pasturing station may be a hireling convict — 
emancipist, expiree, or ticket-of-leaver — not a model of virtue and forbearance. His sheep are 
' rushed ' from the folds at night, his cattle driven off, speared, hamstrung or otherwise mu-^ 
tilated. He passes three or four days in the bush, hunting them up ; and perhaps only' 
recovers in oi-der to have them again dispersed. His master visits the station, blames his^ 
carelessness, perhaps doubts his honesty. The owner goes away ; the shepherd and his neigh-^ 
hours arm themselves, mount their stock-horses, proceed in chase of the marauders, and gain 
at least a temporary ^eedom from black forays by shooting half a tribe and scattering the- 
survivors. Some poor solitary shepherd or hut-keeper, perhaps utterly unconnected with this 
retaliatory expedition, repays witli his life the unnecessary severity of the white party. His- 
hut is robbed, his brains dashed out with a club ; three or four high bred horses are speared, 
an imported Durham bull value 200 guineas, or a Saxon ram value 50, is hamstrung, and the- 
itige of the proprietor himself is now aroused. Reprisals are undertaken on a large scale — a 
scale that either never reaches the ears of the Government, which is bound to protect alike the- 
white and the black subject ; or if it reaches them at all, finds them convem'ently deaf. Is it 
not enough to irritate even the Executive, when they learn that a policeman's horse has been 
Ftolen, killed, and eaten ? The squatters or their representatives at the stations combine, arm 
themselves and their followers, and proceed on the tracks of the black-mail barbarians ; guided 
probably by a domesticated native, and easily overtaking them on horseback, extermination is 
the word ! Men, women, and children are butchered wiUiout distinction or stint. Superiority 
of weapon makes it a bloodless victory on the side of the ISnglishmen ; but there is a species of 
excitement in it, and— children of wrath^ as we are — ^it becomes by practice a pleasurable 



50 0X7B AKTIFODEB. 

tedtemeut. Dreadfal taleB of cold-blooded carnage have found their way into print, or are 
whispered about in the provinces; and although tiiere be Crown-land commissioners, police- 
magistrates, and settlers of mark, who deny, qualify, or ignore these wholesale massacres of the 
blade population, there can be no real doubt that its extirpation from the land is rapidly going 
on. The savage is treacherous, bloodthirsty, cruel, ungrateful-^often requiting the kindness 
and generosity of the Christian, who is really friendly to him, by burning his huts and crops, 
or even barbarously murdering his benefisctors. The dvilised man is inordinately greedy of 
gain, and regards tJie black as a being scarcely above the beasts that perish.' The result of this 
combination is the certain annihiiation of the savage race. 

One of the great squatters of the north-west country, told me at my own table in Sydney that 
just before he came down, he ' had had a bmsh with the black fellows.' It seems that three or 
four hundred sheep had been driven off by night; upon hearing of which this gentleman (and I 
believe him to be at least as modemte and humane as the nu^rity of his fellows) with a friend 
and his stockman, well-«rmed and mounted, went in pursuit. They shortly found that all the 
stock had been retriev«d by the shepherds with the exception of ten wethers, which the natives had 
carried off into a dense scrub, where the smoke of their fires strongly betokened roost mutton. 
The Englishmen, fully resolved on beating up the quarters of the sable foragers, fastened their 
horses at the edge of the thicket, and, entering it on foot and following their noses, soon came 
upon the skins and remains of the lost sheep. Whilst examining the black camp, now vacant, 
they were suddenly saluted with a volley of spears discharged by a peculiar knack, so as to fall 
V almost perpendicularly upon their heads through the tops of the tea-scrub, which was so thick 
x^ jM to be impervious to a point hlank cast. Finding that a strong body of natives were silently 
posing upon and trying to surround them, they retreated to the open forest, and, each sdecting 
a^]arge tree, stood ou tibe defensive. The blacks, rushing after them to the margin of the bush, 
let <fly a shower of spears and boomerangs, which they avoided with no little difficulty. Thus 
beleaguered, the three Englishmen opened a rapid fire of bullets and slugs, which in a short 
time silenced and dispersed the enemy. On subsequently inspecting the scene of action, the 
bodies of eleven natives and haif^a^02SMi of their dogs were found — as great a loss of life 
BB has occurred in many a well-fbugfat frigate action. Twice as many must have been wounded. 
This affiiir was duly reported by ihe gentleman most concerned to the Commissioner of Crown- 
lands, an officer representing tiie Government in the trans-frontier districts ; and I fancy it 
mnst have been considered a case of justifiable negrodde, for I never heard any more about it. 

In the same year a friend of mine connected with the colony, who had recently returned 
ftom a trip to the far-west, for the purpose of catching up and driving in for sde at Sydney a 
lot of hones, informed me that, while sojourning among the border settlers, he heard plans for 
the destruction of the Aborigines constantly and openly discussed. It was commfon, after an 
inroad of the blacks upon the sheep or cattle, for the men of two or three adjoining stations to 
assemble for a regular and indiscriminate slaughter, in which old and young were shot down, 
as he said, like wolves ; pregnant women being espedal objects of destruction, as the polecat 
or weasel heavy with young is a ridi prize for the English gamekeeper. Occasionally bush* 
gossip let out that the * black fellows were goit^ to get a dose :' and, indeed, in more than 
one notorious instance, damper, well * hocussed' with arsenic or strychnine, was laid in the way 
of the savages, whereby many were killed. Some attempts were made to bring to justice the 
perpetrators of this cowardly as well as barbarous act ; but, in the bush, justice is too often 
deaf, dumb, and Isme, as well as blind. The damper, indeed, was analysed, and poison 
detected therein ; but of conrse no White evidence could be obtained ; Aboriginal testimony is 
by the law of the land inadmissible ; the bodies of the poisoned were too far decomposed for 
^ lucid diagnosis ; and, in short, these deliberate muixlerers escaped the cord. Others, 
however, have been less lucky. About nine years ago a party of stockmen on Liverpool 
Plains, having had their herds much molested by the natives, determined on signal vengeance, 
and resolved to wreak it on the first blacks they met. Having fallen in with the, remnants of 
a tribe, which, having been partially domesticated with Europeans, made no attempt at 
escape, they captured the whole of them, with the exception of a child or two ; and having 
bound them t<^ether with thongs, fired into the mass until the entire tribe, twenty-seven in 
number, were killed or mortally wounded. The white savages then diopped in pieces their 
victims, and tlirew them, some yet living, on a large fire ; a detachment of the stodanea 
remaining for several days on the spot to complete the destruction of the bodies. In this case 
the law was sternly vindicated; for the murderers, having been arrested and brought to trial, 

«n of them in one day expiated their offences on the scaffold* Thb wholesale execution of 



ABORiaiNAL LAB0UBEB8 FOB HIRE. 61 

white men for the nmrder of blacks, at a time when hanging had become an mifrequent erent, 
caiued a great oomm<^tion among tlie white popalation, high and low — ^* judicial murder' being 
one of the mildest terms applied to the transaction. In England we are unaccustomed of late 
to see or hear of our fellow-countrymen being hung up by halMosens : but in New South 
Wales some such m terrorem exhibition of the law's extreme power may be occai»ionally 
necessary, or rather may have been so when two-thirds of the population were convicted 
felons, uid one-half of the other third unscrupulous adventurers. 

It is quite true that the residoits of the cities and settled districts are not in a situation to 
judge feirly of the amount of provocation endured by those living in constant juxta-poeition with 
fierce and treacherous barbarians. It is our next-door neighbour with wh(»a we are always at 
such desperate loggerheads. But gentlemen of conditifxi and education, such as many of the 
stock proprietors, while repelling with sufficient determination aboriginal aggression, might 
exert themselves more than is done to prevent indiscriminate retaliation by their subalterns 
and servants. More than once I was no less shocked than surprised at hearing men of station 
and cultivation advocating a precisely opposite course; and en one occasion, when a fiery 
yomig gentleman of the interior boasted before me that he would shoot a black fellow wherever 
he met him as he would a mad dog, I thought it a rery ordinary Christian duty to infoim 
the head of the Executive of the existence of a professor of such highly uncompromising tenets. 

In the distant provinces of ti>e colony collisions between the races have always been ot 
frequent occurrence — were so up to the day on which I left it; and doubtless will prevail 
trhenever a new tract is entered upon by the settlers, and wild tribes are encountered, 
Naiwam expellas furcd — you may drive bade the native with the bayonet, but the savage, 
degnded as he may be, will fight for his hunting-grounds ; and the Anglo-Saxon, in his 
destined progress to possess the land, to have the heathen for his inheritance, will march over 
his body or make him his bondsman. The best we can hope for the poor blackeys is, that 
in time they may become voluntary labourers for hire, and thus gradually be Inrooght to 
prefer some steady calling to their old, comfortless, and wandering habits. But it is not to 
be expected that they will abandon their free, though precarious mode of life, for one of hard 
imd earnest toil, unless for a tolerable equivalent. I have found oofonists condemning the 
race as hopeless in the way of labour, because some of them had deserted in the midst of the 
harvest after a few days' work. On inquiry, however, I beard that a meagre meal of broken 
victtials, or some article of cast-oiF clothing, was the highest remun^vtion bestowed <m a stout 
and active black, while the white prisoner by his side in the hay-field was receiving a guinea 
a-wedc and regular rations. Some instances there have been of the successful employment of 
the natives, especially in pastoral pursuits, and they are fast increasing in number. If the 
haughty Red-man can bend to work for wages alongside the negro in the cotton-field-— and 
such I believe has happened — ^the simple though wild Australian may surely be induced to 
labour with the European. In the Port Phillip district, for the last four or five years, they 
have been thus employed to a considerable extent. A correspondent of the Sydney * Morning 
Herald,' in November 1850, m«9itions that, in a district where the blades have always 
hitherto been most troublesome, 'the once dreaded Macint3rre country,' where scores of 
Englishmen have been murdered, and where stock has been destroyed or harried to sucli an 
extent ' that not only most of the first proprietors, but many of the second and third owners 
were ruined,' the blacks are now admitted into all the stations, acting generally throughout 
the district as stockmen, and supplying all the extra hands at lambing and sheep- washing 
times. At one station they have charge of 6,000 sheep. 

Two or three days afler the Corobbery before described, I saw the tribe, with their lubras 
and children, taking their way to some distant camping-place. The old chief collected his 
people by a loud ' coo-ee ' — the well-known peculiar cry of the race ; and, tossing his huge 
aim to me by way of adieu, strode down the hill followed by the rest in Indian file, a 'forma- 
tion ' well adapted for threading the bush. The men erect, bearing only their weapons, the 
women cowering under heavy loads, they entered the scrub and were soon out of sight. In 
less than a month later we heard with regret that the stout old leader and six of his band had 
been killed in a treacherous attack by a hostile tribe, the latter having the advantage of fire- 
arms, shamefully supplied to thera, as was reported, by white people for the bloody and 
express purpose. 

The experiment of enrolling as a border force a native mounted police, with British officers, 
htm perfectly succeeded. In 1850, the division stationed on the Macintyre River consisted of 
fortyfoor men, with a commaiidaDt, two subalterns, aad « feigeaat-major. The pay of the 



[■ 



52 OUB AKTIFODES. . 

privates is 3d, a-day ; their tmiform a light dragoon nnclresi. Thej are all quite young 
men, avenging five feet nine inches iu height, light but strong, and very quick at drill, the 
use of arms, and horsemanship. In the Port PhiUip district a similar force has been raised. 
There is no want of recruits, nor need of 'bounty ;* the only difficulty is to choose among 
the herd of long-legged, shock-headed, grinning feUows, offering themselves ' to plenty fight ' 
for 3d, per diem I They have no qualms about acting with the utmost rigour against their 
brother black fellows ; and such is the terror of their name that wheresoever a section of the 
force shows itself the eviNminded tribes instantly disappear. Nor are rangers of the 
bush, fairer in skin but equally dark in deeds, less afraid of these active, vigilant, and dashing 
black Hulans. Shepherds and stockmen no longer fear to quit their huts, and gentlemen 
graziers may now ride from station to station without arming themselves like an ambulant 
arsenaL For bush duties, especially against their own countrymen, the native police is 
infinitely more effective than the English police. Indeed, with the latter force there are 
always a few blacks employed as * trackers.' ' Tame ' blacks have been known, even when 
unconnected with the constabulary, to capture, single-handed, English bosh-rangers for the 
sake of the reward. However superior in bodily strength, however desperate his courage, 
the robber has no chance against the black scout imless possessed of fire-arms. The latter 
attacks him with a running fire of stones, thrown with such vigour and accuracy, that a few 
minutes would suffice to cut to pieces or disable the former. The superior agility of the 
savage effectually prevents close quarters ; and as for resisting with the same weapons, the 
poor clumsy Saxon might as well pelt a shadow. An instance was related to me of a native 
following for days, unsuspectedly, the steps of a runaway prisoner armed with a musket. 
Having exhausted the little food he had brought with him, the white man was at length 
compelled by hunger to fire at a bird, and, ere he could reload, he was felled by a stone 
followed by a sustained volley — something like that of Perkins's steam-gun — which soon 
placed both man and musket in the power of the wily savage. 

In his piuely natural state the New Hollander is little better than a wild beast. Indeed, he 
may be said to Joe the beast of prey of his native land. Strong, agile, fierce, voracious, cnUiy, 
his eye and hand are always ready for a victim. His reason, su(^ as it is, serves the purpose 
of the tiger's instinct, and has scarcely a higher office to fulfil. Compared, moreover, with the 
innocent denizens of the Austaalian bush, he possesses the superior bodily strength of that tyrant 
of the Indian jungle. Yet, low in the scale of humanity as is the grade of the savage, I agree 
with those who believe the assumption un&ir that he is incapable of attaining the same standard 
of intelligenoe as the European. No really effectual and properly sustained pUn for his amelio- 
ration has as yet been extended to him. Efforts, prodigal indeed in zeal and money, have been 
made to dvilise and Christianise him, but they have hitherto met with signal fiulure. We are, 
in the prosecution of our present tour, to pass one, the greatest of all the Mission stations on 
this continent, that of Wellington Valley, where we are taught to expect a heap of ruins as the 
sole result of much earnest legislation, much labour and sdf-sacrifioe on the part of the 
Churchmen oigi^ed in it, and many thousands of pounds' expenditure. These means, we are 
bound to beheve, have unfortunately been ill directed towards the end desired, or not directed 
with sufficient patience and constancy. The New Zealand native teacher reads and expounds the 
Scriptures. The Haytian and Haiwaiian Governments are distinct and distantiy apart proofs of 
mental capacity in the darker races. The freed African slave is as quick in wit, as keen in 
business, as the white num. Nay, * if we go into the great cities of the United States, New 
York and Philadelphia, a comparison between the free negro population and the quarters occupied 
by the Irish emigrants would, we venture to say, be decidedly to the advantage of the former.'* 
The promptitude with which the Australian blacks enrolled in the police have acquired a 
proficiency, not only in the manual parts of their duties, but in discipline, abstinence from 
drink, obedienoe to orders, &c, affords satis&ctory testimony of their aptitude for better things. 
Nor is there, I think, anything very extravagant in the assumption, that the creature who haa 
sufficient skill and enexgy to construct the spear and the boomerang, to transfix the kangaroo at 
sixty paces, strike down the bird on the wing, ensnare the river fish with his nets, and pierce 
the sea fish with his harpoon, who can manu&cture his canoe and its implements, is capable^ 
also, of learning more useful, though in fact less ing^ous arts and sciences. 

It is never very difficult to make what may be vulgarly styled ' blanket and soup ' proselytes 
among a starving people; and accordingly the worthy and simple ministers of the Apsley 
lliiiioQt bad at first a tolerable attendance at their schoolroom and refectory. In 1838 then 
• Qoarterly Review, December, 1849. f Wellington VaUey, 



THE 'COO-EE* OF fiSCAL. 68 

were from fifty to eighty nativeB resident and supported at the MissioiL Many took kindly to 
the various departments of labour — ^tending cattle, thrashing ooni, carrying wood and water, 
gardening, &c. The diildren were docile and promising; and sanguine hopes of eventual 
success in the good work were entertained. But the Pi^iciple of Evil sat not idly by. A 
hundred stumbling-blocks arose in the path upon which these poor people had but entered. 
Police, convict, and other government and private establishments grew up around the Mission* 
house. Attracted by the ridi soil of the Wellington Valley, settlers, with troops of prisoner- 
servants, located themselves in the vidnity. It soon became anything but a quiet retreat for 
the Christians elect Drunkenness was introduced by sly giog-seUers , the fbnales were seduced 
away by the Europeans, and were ashamed to return ; tibe black scholars were encouraged to 
deride their teachers and the things taught. Many learned merely by rote, but all enjoy«l the 
good feeding ; the words Missi<»iary and Commissary were synonymous terms with them ; and 
however much the lecture-room declined in &vour, the refectory was always well attended. 

Just when these zealous pastors had begun to congratulate themselves that they had subdued 
to the fold a remnant of tiiese lost black sheep, a body of wild natives would arrive and camp 
beside the walls, and next day both the newly arrived and a batch of half-converts had dis- 
appeared together. I can picture to myself the mortification of the good teachers, as the wild 
Goo-ee of the savages, reclaiming their kindred, rang through the forest, and, obedioit to the 
call, the half-tamed pupils, with flashing eyes and answering cry, tore oiT their garments- 
symbols of incipient civilisation — and, once more naked, rushed into their native wil£. 

■ Give me again my hollow tree^ 
My kangaroo and liberty I' 

was thdr exclamation, as these children of the bush, tired of boiled mutton, turnips, potatoes, 
and tea, and the twaddle (as they thought it) of their teachers, relapsed into their natural state 
cf savagehood. 

In 1842, nine years after the first institution of the Missi<Hi, there remained only ona 

* saias&ctory ' inmate. In December, 1 849, the Bishop of Sydney, during an inland tour, 
admitted to confirmation but one adult * of this painfully n^lected and forraken race ' — as he 
too truly designated them. 

At the Moreton Bay Missi<»iary Establishment the station was plundered by the blacks whom 
H was intended to benefit, and the ungrateful barbarians were proceeding to fire the buildings, 
when the mudi-oiduring Missionaries had recourse to the secular arm, giving their riotous 
acolytes a hearty peppering with small shot, — a fulmination of the Church intelligible to the 
meanest and most savage capacity, and well worth all the anathemas in the catalogue. 

Past endeavours to better the condition of the Australian native have, then, it appears, been 
abortive. But fresh and more vigorous efforts are to arise out of the Meeting and Ccxiference 
of the Metropolitan and Suffragan Bishops of Australaaa, which took place at Sydney in 
October, 1850, when a plan for a Board of Missions was matured, having for its objects,^ 

* First, the conversion and civilisation of the Australian blacks ; and seeond, the conversion and 
civilisation of the heathen races in all the Islands of the Western Padfic' So eloquently and so 
forcibly did these right reverend prelates plead the cause of ' the benighted ' in the pulpits and 
public meetings of Sydney, and other places, that very considerable sums were collected on the 
spot, and many leading gentlemen enlisted themselves heartily in the good cause. 

AmcHig the varipus arguments adduced on this occasion by churchmen and laymen, there was 
none that struck me more fordbly than the following remark by the Speaker of the l^slative 
coundl, at one of the Missionary meetings : — ' Having possessed the lands, having taken from 
the original occupants tiie hunting-grounds which once belonged to them, we have made these 
ignorant savages amenable to our laws. Only a few days ago one of these unhappy beings was 
odied upon to pay the penalty of his life for the infringement of those laws.* I must coufess it 
is an occurrence exdting in me feelings of the deepest commiseration, self-reproach, and humilia- 
tion — a sense of reproach which must be shared by all who see these benighted creatures, and 
remember how lit^e has been done to bring them to a true sense of the duties expected from 
them. If these tribes are to be made amenable to the Christian code, let them at least be made 
aware of the duties for which they are responsible. Whatever difficulties may interfere, it is 
therefore our duty to persevere in constant endeavours to enlighten and convert this people.' 

History has no precedent of suddoi dvilisataon. Wh^ Britain was known only as the Tin 
Islands, tiie Phanicians, trading with them for that metal, probably considered the wild iuha- I 

* An Aboriginal native, ezecnted for murder. 




&4 

hUa/^mioewahlj lmlaimm o nly fit to i Im I w i m ' ifc> tia ' m irhiy ftriaA 
the fOfage lofidh. Aft tiie liaie of Cmma^m imwmm ike gmfc Bohsb fimd ns fiur 
tknmljf wdl-dmaed, — o^ more, a thonagliljr bad s^e cf pwfilf, ^ ao mens unlike tihe 
picieni Keir Holkuid wnges ; dtrided into ■ancRHu aod lanrkci tabei ; eU m skn ; panted 
and tottooed; great hnnten (we an so ililQ ; imAilkd in agrienltare («a don't * pretaet ' it 
noir I) oiwallrti in regad of women (io there not an Agypmon e enoting in 1851 ?); »*»''■*— ! 

pcdi^ oar Gallic neig^iboan will cede no the seooiiMi pboe among nationa. Gertainlj we hare^ 
more libenllj tiban tiiey, diwwninatwl oar share of lli^ aeqaiHtion among other laoea. 

There are l^it and shade in eraj pictoR ; and I do not knaw tint anytiiing coold nMie 
firablj poftrej the eiAremes of diander in the Aostialiaa Uack than tiie inridpnte aoeompn- 
njiogtiiedeafthof the hunoitod Mr. Kennedy in the jear 1848. I aDade^ on tiie one hand, to 
tiie cmel, traachereos, yet patient ferocity wkh winch the mvage tiibm ioffjA the steps of tibia 
e aie i p ei sm g and unfi Mrt n nate young gatieman, finally bnCchenng him in oi^ blood when roi- 
dered by &nnne no longer capable of reastanoe ; — and, on the other hand, to the horaie 
cndoranoe, the nnriialffn fiddify, and the devoted coonge diqJajed by his native fbnowcr, 
' Jacky-'Jadcy/ wtio, thoo^ himself woonded, deftaded Ub maaler to the last, gave his body 
deesnt bmial, and, after nnheaidH>fsaffiBrings»saooaedBd in aavii^ the lives of the two Enropean 
snnrivon of this ill-fiied expedition. 

Mr. AssistmfrSnrreyor Kennedy started from Sydney on the 28tfa April, 1848, for the ezpKo- 
laiaon of the oocmtry lying between BocJringham Bay and Cape York, the K. E. extremity of 
Kew Holland. He was aooompomed by deven white persons and Jacky the black. His stock 
consisted of one hnndred dieep, twenty-dg^t horses, and three dogs. Obstmcted by impassable 
scmbs and swamps, by dis^ue, &mme, and hostile savages, on the 10th of November, Mr. 
Kennedy, with three of the strwige st Englishmen and the blade, farmed an advance party, in 
order to attempt by fiirced marches to reach Cape York, where he expected to find H. M. 
Schooner Brambite ; — leaving the remaimng eight peisons (^ his party under Mr. Carron, the 
botanist, encamped within view of Weymoath Bay. 

Mr. Canon sdA a man named Goddard, the sole survivors, were within an hour or two of 
inevitable death, when the master (^ a small vessd dispatdied by Government with proviaons 
for tiie exploring party, gnided by the trusty black, discovered the encampment and carried 
them off Just as the cowardly and bmtal savages, who had sunvanded the wretdied bat still 
well-armed men, were mnstering coorage for a general attack. 

Mr, Kennedy had previously been engaged in several ardnons and haiardoos services, and tiie 
year before his death he had aooompanied Sir Thomas Mitchell, the Sorveyor-General, on a 
lengthened expedition into the interior. A few days before be started on his last and fiital 
jonmey I saw him at a ball at Government House, dandng joyously — ^the handsomest youn|^ 
man among the crowd of guests. Struck by his appearance, I adced his name of an old 
colonist stfl^ng near. On giving me the required information, my nd^bour made the pro* 
phetic observation, ' He is a &ie fellow ; he will dther accomplish his object, or leave his bonea 
in the bush 1' His bones do rest there t The party onployed to search for his ranains and hia 

a ere were, although directed by Jadcy, unsuccessful in (fisoovering the grave, which had pro- 
ly been obliterated by subsequent heavy floods. Some charts and note-books were found 
where the black had deposited them. 

Jacky- Jacky became quite a * lion ' in Sydney ; and when I last ^w him he was in a foir way 
of being spoiled, if not utterly mined, by tiie dangers attendant on notori^y. 



The reader will be kind enough to recollect that we are still under the hoepitoble roof of Mr. 
William Lawson. 

This was a day of excessive sultriness— a day on which Diogenes would have desired Alesander 
to ' stand fiist ' between him and the sun, instad of countermarching the kmg to the rear of his 
tab. The pl^ns were burnt brown and hard as a brick ; the sky, from zenith to horizxm, waa 
one nnveiled glare ; the fervour of the atmosphere was visible in the hollows, quivering in 
misty wreaths. Bat the gnun fields were full of quail : so, with two brother sportsmen, I 
sallied ont for thdr destruction in what might appropriatdy have been called the ^oarm of the 
evening. Upwards of thirty couple were soon bagged, the son of « Nimrod,** with his twenty 
ywrs of IncBan experience, followmg up the sport with untiring vigour ; while F and 

* Mr. Apperley. the great sporting writer. 



A DAKCB UNDBB DIFFIOUtTIES. 56 

myself, stambling upon a small bnaeh of tlie neariy drj M aequarie, deposited oor guns and 
raiment <hi the beuok of a water^ole, and hastoin^ into the stream, remaliiBd there some thne 
wallowing with oor noses above the sarfine like a couple of Mr. Gordon Cummins' Hippo- 
potami. Nor was our aquatic pastime entirely unshared; for a huge Duiham bull of the 
ndghbouring pastures, ooming up to look at ua and seemingly approvmg of the idea, walked 
into a shallow, and, gravely fixing his great bo-q4acs upon us, tvested himsdf to a shower-bath 
with his wet tail. 

If the weather was unsuitable to out-door pnrsdts, neither did it better accord wHb a 
drawing-rooBB held this day by Lady Mary Fitzroy at Bathnrst, nor with a dinner-party (^ 
forty pevsoBS, followed by a ball, at Macquarie Plains. Myself did net attend the former of 
these conventiona ; but rumour whispered, untruly of course, that serious discord had arisen 
owing to certain fair ones, savouring, it was thought, too streogfy of * the shop,' having 
ventured to mingle with the local aristocracy in offering their devoirs to the Govemoi^a 
much-respected laiy. The camse of this not uncommon jodoosy of position in provincial and 
colonial circles is obvions enough ; where boundaries are ill marked, trespasses ase ooinmon. 
. Aprojpos to this subject, at a later date I had the pleasure of making ocular acquaintance with 
a lady in a neighbouring colony, who, on some question of female prnedeaee, ^ undoubtedly 
assert that she was *■ the rankest lady present !' 

As for the ball, the thermometer stood steadily at 92^ , while we on tiie contrary daneed 
furiously on the brick floor of the verandah from nine o'clock till daylight. Fatent 
leather boots and white satin shoes soon became like the multitudinous sea, * one red ;' the 
air we 1»«atfaed was like a Sydney Brickfielder in hue ; the musie, or rath^ the band, waa 
excruciating — I can find no milder term for it ; it diniy reminded me — etpceially afto* I 
had retired to bed, and it * came o'er my soul ' in dreama--^ a description in some old 
hook, where a company of musicians playing on daricoms, duldmers, and sudft like instnx*^ 
ments of torture, are described as causing ' so delectable a noise, the like was never before 
heard f But * whaf s the odds, so long as you're happy T saya a shrewd though inelegant 
proverb. Every one danced with all his or her might— from the veiensn captain, who emi- 
grated fifty years ago, and who led the dancers aU nigh^ to his wdl-grown and handsome 
granddaughter. Here we saw the proofs of a fine and genial climate — ^healtii, strength, and ^irit 
in extreme age and singular phyucal precocity In the young. There were girk of fourteen and 
fifUen, tan and full-formed women, ready, and perhaps wiUing, to prove themsdvee such by 
wedlock. The young men looked tiuined imd weather-wom, rather thin perhaps, but strong 
and active — their bronze throats and hands appearing unea^ in straw-ecrfoured kid and 
starched white muslin. As some amends for its want of lakes and rivers, Australia has, at 
any rate, none of the sallow and i^eish faces and shaky ferms the traveller meets at every 
step on the fertile banks of the Hoogbly and the Mississippi ; even the mangrove swamps — 
nests of miaama elsewhere — exhale no noxious vapours in New South Wales. 

Our worthy host has the reputation of considerable wealth. An intelligent and experienced 
man, in the full vigour and activity of life, he derives great advantage fVom beloi^ing to the 
second generation of a family naturalised in the colony. He possesses an immense range of 
pasturage, with countless flocks and herds, reckoned carefully, however, at periodical musters. 
His bnmd, particularly with respect to horse-stodc, is reckoned about the best in the country, 
i. e. the W. L. with which his stock is marked is a certificate of good breed ; md he exerts 
himself to uphold this character by importing from Europe fVesh and first-rate blood, to pre- 
vent deterioration. The mode of life, and the business of a thriving stock-proprietor or 
squatter, one who has flinds to fall back upon in case of reverses, must be highly agreeable, 
exciting, and healthful. But the prosperity of the ordinary stock-farmer, who has embarked 
all his capital in one venture, is precarious in the extreme. Thanks, however, to a modem 
invention, when threatened by shortness of * feed,' scarcity of shq>herds, or disease, he haa 
one partial remedy,<~the pot ; — ^not the quart pot, English reader, the too common resource 
undn* reverses — but the melting-pot. There ia in this country no artificial or stored-up food 
for winter or bad seasons, as in Europe. The weal of the grazing interests, and indeed that 
of the colony, depends wholly on the natural grasses of the soil. When these fail, it is cer- 
tainly better to convert flocks and herds into tallow, than to let them die and rot on the 
ground. There are now * boiling^down establishments' in most of the pasturing districts ; to 
vritieh panics arising among the squatters from any of the alM>ve-named causes give plenty of 
work. The public is made acquainted with Oieir existence by advertisements in the papers, 
as fbUowB :— 



56 ouB^^imFODEs. 

*T0 THS STOCaCBOLDBllS OF XAITIWOO. 

* Pakbcla Stkam Mbltikq Establisbkekt. — Mr. C. W. BeU having taken the above establishment, vrUl 
be prepared to make arrangements for rendering down stock, during the ensuing seaaon, at the foUuwiug 
prices : — Cattle — Five shiUings and sixpence per head. Sheep — Sixpence each. 

The process of boiling down, or as the proprietor of the above establishment more daintily 
styles it, rendering down, is thus shortly described. The stock are shoi^ flayed, hong up, 
quartei'ed, chopped in pieces, and thrown into huge iron yats licensed to carry sixtn^ to 
twenty-four oxen, or three times as many sheep, at once. In these the fat is boiled out, 
skimmed into buckets, poured thence into casks, which, after being headed up and branded, 
are shipped for England. The fleshy fibre is thrown to the dogs or used as manure ; or 
ought to be so used, but unfortunately not only are the legs and feet parboiled for pigs' food, 
but these animals are permitted to devour and fatten on the offid. The lover of pork in New 
South Wales should never partake of that meat unless he knows the biith, parentis, and 
education of the pig producing it. These cannibal swine are truly disgusting beasts — mangy, 
half-savi^, horrible to think of as human food. Surplus stock, or the increase which over** 
Stocks the pastures, is often summarily disposed of through the medium of the melting-pot. 
These tallow-factories are a serious nuisance to the sensitive traveller — still worse to a resi- 
dent neighbour ; but they are, as I have shown, a saving help to the grazier in dry seasons. 

In the year 1846 I find there were boiled down al^ut 40,500 sheep, and 10,400 cattle. 
In 1849, no less than 743,000 sheep and 45,000 cattle were thus sacrificed, producing 
160,000 cwt. of tallow. In 1851, the tables fumii^ed by the Colonial Secretary make the 
amount of tallow for the previous year 217,000 cwt. and upwards, valued at 300,000/. 
This is a smgular statistic of a country whose entire population is much below that of the 
English county of Northumberland and that of the towns of Dublin or Manchester. In 
1847 a member of the L^slative Council stated in his place that in the current year there 
would probably be destroyed 64,000,000 pounds of meat by this process I It is a matter 
of painful reflection, too often dwelt on to need repetition, that British subjects in one part of 
Her Majesty's dominions should be driven by necessity thus to waste the food which was 
given for the sustenance of man, and which in other parts of the same kingdom might have 
saved a million from starvation. 

Far from the turmoil and distraction of the city, the tramontane settlers live in peace and 
plenty — ^he who has a lai^ family, cheaper than in any other part of the world ; for meat 
is nothing in price when mutton is merely the soil on which wool is grown : grain, v^tables, 
and fruit are plentiful ; game, from the bustard to the quail, and ^e best of fish, the fredi- 
water cod, are to be had for the shooting and netting. The colony will soon be tolerably in- 
dependent of European wines. The soil and climate are peculiarly suited to the vine, for it 
thrives under a degree of drought fatal to other crops. The wines of this country, however, 
have got a bad name by having been prematurely offered to the public, and they have there- 
fore been deservedly condemned. On the whole, I consider the best kinds both salubrious and 
exhilarating ; but there is a certain peculiar twang about them, either of the stalk or of the 
eai-th, to get over which a taste must be acquired. There is no reason to doubt, that not only 
will the Australians some day produce excellent wines, both red and white, but that they wiU 
grow their own tobacco and olive oil, silk, cotton, and flax. 

A scene highly entertaining to a stranger, especially if he be a lover of that noble animal 
the horse, is the driving in from their pastures of < a mob ' of young horses for examination 
and selection. This scene we enjoyed to perfection at Macquarie Plains. Two or three 
mounted stockmen had started by daybreak to hunt up the number required. About 10 
o'clock the sound of the stock-whip^an awful implement, having twelve or fomieen feet of 
heavy thong to two feet of handle, and crackable only by a practised hand, — accompanied by 
lond shouts and a rushing mighty noise like the Stampede of the South American Prairies, 
announced the approach of the steeds. They came sweeping round the garden fence at full 
speed, shrouded in a whirlwind of dust ; and in a few minut^ snorting, kicking, and 6ghting, 
about one hundred and fifty horses were driven within the atock-yard,— a wide enclosure 
surrounded by stout railings seven or eight feet high. The highest leaps I ever saw were 
taken on thi^ occasion by some of the wild young colts in their attempts to evade the halter 
for closer examination; seven or eight feet of iron-bark rails were not too much for their, 
oounige, or rather their terror, and more than one heavy, perhaps ruinous fall was the result. 
Nothing could be more roughly nor worse managed ; the poor colts' resistance was foolish 
because it gained them at most a few minutes' liberty, man^s supremacy being very quickly 



JOUBNET TO COOMBXNG. 57 

and strennoQslr asserted ; the stockman's system was foolish, because cruel, dangerous, and 
nnnecessary. But time aod labour are too precious in New South Wales to be thrown away 
en the amenities of horse management ; the poor brute is broken by force in a few days, — 
broken in spirit if he be naturally gentle, made a ^ buckjumper * for life, if bad tempered. He 
is handled, lunged, backed, tamed, and turned out again — ' a made hoiw ' in the shortest pos- 
sible time. The purchaser who takes him as such had better lay in a stock of cobblers' wax 
before he assumes the pigskin 1 That expedient of the idle and unskilful rider, the martin* 
gale, is seen on every horse in the provinces, and is the cause of many a brokra knee, and 
probably of not a few broken necks. One of the stockmen at Mr. Lawson's, a limping, 
crooked little old fellow, had hardly a whole bone in his skin, from his riskfnl office of galloping 
down, * catching up,' and handling wild colts and cattle, through every kind of rough country 
on any kind of rough nag. 

The well-known Austailian horse-play, called buckjumping, — ^the like of whidi I do not re- 
member seeing in any other part of the world, — is not only very disagreeable but extremely 
dangerous even to the good horseman. To the equestrian ' tailor' it is inevitable prostration. 

The price of 20/. was established as a sort of general maximum for a good horse by Captain 
Apperiey of the Honourable East India Company's Service, who was some years resident in this 
colony at the head of an establishment for purchasing and breaking New South Wales horses 
for the Indian military service. India is an ecoellent general market for this stock, the hand- 
some prices given there affording a brisk stimulus to the breeders ; it will be the fault of these 
gentlemen if this advantageous rent for thdr produce fail them. Private speculations for that 
country are thus managed : — the proprietor, embarking his lot of horses in a ship fitted up at 
Sydney expressly for that kind of freight, pays 25/. passage money per head for every animal 
safely landed at the Indian port. Some very successful ventures have been made, although 
others indeed have proved dead failures. One great breeder told me that, a few years back, he 
sent two batches of horses to Calcutta, amounting in all to forty-five. On one batch he got a 
dear average profit of 60/., and on the other 50/. per head. 

The cav^ier in New South Wales may mount himself at a lower rate than in any other 
quarter of the globe — short of horse stealing. It is astonishing to see the number ukl the 
tolerable stamp of horses knocked down at the aucti«is at from 2/. to 10/. I have heard more 
than one breeder say that 5/. jper head, ' all round,' would pay him ; and I have beoi offered a 
lot of one hundred horses at 4^. a-head. The consequence of this absurdly low figure is that 
the best stock is seldom sent to Sydney by the distant breeders. In the &r inland districts I 
saw many fine horses, from seven to eight years old, that had never been backed, because the 
expense of breaking and travelling to a market would have swallowed up all profit. Good, 
smart hacks, however, may generally be got at extremely moderate prices. Heavy-weight 
roadsters, or really handsome carriage horses, are very rare. As for blood horses, there are 
never more than two or three worthy of the turf current in the same season. Some of the 
* Walers ' have, I understand, greatly distmguished themselves in Indian racing ; and, judging 
by \ time,' their performances on the colonial courses are quite equal to the average running at 
Home. Colonial sportsmen however do not, I think, take into consideration the extreme and 
almost uniform lightness of the ground as oompai*ed with the ordinary state of the race-courses 
in England. 

November 17th, — ^Mrs. Lawson's ball had barely ended, when our party were again en route, 
the day's journey being about thirty-six miles, our destination Mr. Icdy's, of Coombing, near 
Carooar. 

Passing through the town of Bathurst, we came upon a fine undulating, lightly wooded 
and tolerably well grassed country. The upland soil seemed to be generally poor in quality, 
but the lowlands fertile, being much subject to inundation. The apple-tree and the box, 
mingling with the common gum, added a littie variety to the monotonous character of the bush. 
The road we took was a mere bush track ; but the wheels ran lightly on the glittering granite 
soil, and tolerably smoothly, except when we fell among ndka on the crest of some ridge, or, 
in avoiding them, got upon a ' sidling ' on the slope of the hill. This ' sidling,' which resembles 
the * slewing' of the Canadian sleigh, is very unpleasant, tiring to the horses, and even highly 
dangerous. To start off at full speed, and tiius to get the wheels to * bite ' again, is the (mly 
way to redeem an incipient sidling. 

In a country more liberally endowed with water our drive of to-day might have been con- 
sidered beantinil ; but the dire want of that element is as fatal to the picturesque as it is, in 
this colony, to animal and Y^etable life. There beii^ no convenient half-way house, we made 



68 OOB ANZIPQSkEa. 

a mid-day halt afc a spot caHed the * White Becks/ a duater of quartz crags in the recy 
savagest part of the wildenussy holding oat no paxtioular temptation to the traveller beyoniA 
a meagre rmilet of dear -water whidi gave iu the meana w prepanng grog, and, aboat a 
hundred yards dawn the ravine, a maddy water-hde, hardly solvoit eaou^ to meet the soiaa" 
what exorbitant draughts of nearly a dozen horses. The {acinic basket was, hsmevtx, 
unpacked, the Inndi spread ; the servants and mounted policemen led away the horses to the 
pool, and, in spite of 1^ heat of an Australian summer day, we enjoyed extremely onr aylvaa 
i-epast and a temporary release, from the joltings of the carriages. A bell tinkled throng Ute 
trees, it was the bell of a bullock walking loose before a dray drawn by ten othos. One of the 
drivers, b^;rimed with dust and sweal^ came hurrying down towards the water-hole ; we had 
drained it dry I The poor jaded bullocks turned their patient heads in vain to the well-know& 
drinking-plaoe. The disappointed drayman, swearing two or three fearful oaths, looked very 
much as if he would have liked to pick a quarrd wi^ us ; but taming his wrath upon h^ 
wretched team, he brought down a hail of blows upon their scarred flanks, and they passed on„ ^ 

the tinkUog of the bdl, the cracking of the long whip, and the olajurgatioBs af the reasoning i 

animal growing &inter and fainter until they were lost in distance; , 

The last six miles of a new road into Carooar had just been marked out and partially made 
by the inhabitants, expressly for the Governor. It was a well-chosoi bat rough traGk,^ 
designated by blazed trees on either hand, the unbarked parts being painted white in ord^ to 
be more manifest in the dusk. After a long and latterly steep descent through a densdy 
wooded and hilly country, we suddenly dropped down upon the little snug-looking village of 
Carcoar, seated in a hollow vale on the banks of a river, in describing which it would be inoor> 
rect to say that it rtma through the town ; for although on ooeasions of inordinate rains it may ' 

form a continuous stream, at present and in g^ieral it constitutes what is wdl known ia I 

Australia as ' a chiua of ponds,' the periodical predicament of moat of the rivera of this land of 
drought — except indeed when the water disappears altogether. 

To the grazier these chains of ponds are links of gold. Without them — and they fail him 
but too often — ^he might consign his flocks and herida to the tallow-vat and himself to the 
Insolvent Courts no uncommon lot unfortunately for both stockowner and stock; the 
great difference being that the tallow will always yield a shilling or two in the pound 
avoirdupois, while the owner, when ' rendered down,' produces, perhaps, but twopence 
halfpenny in the pound sterling. The lack of water is indeed the hete noire of the odony. 
It has rendered agriculture, as a general pursuit, except in a few ^vourite districts^ hop^ 
less ; and even pastoral pursuits are precarious where this great essential of life is not a pro- 
perty of the earth but a thing to be hoped for, and prayed for, and expected from the douda. 
This want, too, is more likely to increase than to diminish^ for all the well-watered runs 
have already been appropriated, and those settlers coming later ioto the squatting-field 
will have to put up with the pastures avoided by their precursors. The blacks say, ' When 
white fellow com^ water go away.' The cutting down the trees and the trampling of 
stock do doubtless produce this effect. It is said, moreover, by geologists, that a gradual 
upheavement of the Australian continent is laying dry many of its original water-beds and 
courses. 

No traveller can fail to remark how greatly favourable is the surface formation of this 
ooontry for the structure of artificial reservoirs. Wherever, in the different lines of road, 
a causeway or dam has been thrown across a hollow in lien of a bridge, there is almost unif> 
formly a considerable collection of water ; yet the farmers and squatters have, with scarcdy 
an exception, been blind to the practical hints given them by the road-makers. I do nut re- 
member to have seen an acre of land laid under water by artifidal means in New 
South Wales. The * bunds ' and ' tanks ' of Hindostan, the ' awais ' of Mesopotamia — two 
regions L'able to drought— are monuments of andent enterprise and ingenuity. What the 
Assyrians did three or four thousand years ago the Nova-Cambrians may and must do now 
if they would hope ever to be an agricultural nation, and to continue to be — as they are 
now become — ^the great stand-by of the wool-consumers of England and of Europe. It was 
not xmtil 1850 that the Lachlan Swamp, on which Sydney is dependent for her water- 
supply^ was fenced in firom the intrusion of cattle. 

But the mere lack of drink for man and beast, and of humidity for grass and grain, are not 
the only disasters attendant upon drought. The excessive dryness of the herbage and the 
fiorce hot winds prepare the earth for those awful bush-fires which — whether they owe their 
origin to the flash of the thonder-doud or the spark of the boshman's pipe, or, as soma will 



A BinHT HOXB* 

hare it, to the lens ofiered to the son hj a broken bottle — do yearly rayage vast tracts of 
land, destroying not only^xtstorage and agricaltural prodnce, bat flocks, herds, homesteads, 
and even human life. To the general exploration of the country drought has opposed one of 
the sternest obstadea. Perhaps whilst I sm revising theie motes tiie gallant Leichart, toiling 
in the causa of science^ may be suHering all the extremities of thint — ^if his bones and those 
of hia comrades be not ahready bleaching in the inhospitable wikteniess I 

I can hardly reeoncib the general mle of a bright doudlcas sky and a dusty earth with 
the assertion of the accomplished traveller Stnselecki, that * New Sovth WaJes has been 
shown to reoetre a larger amount of rain than does Brussels, Berlin, Genera^ Y^ork, and lastly 
London, so eelebrated for ita humidity/ If it be true tlutt as mnch water Mk upon tiib 
continent as upon others, it most &U in larger quantitiet at Awer periods, and does not 
remain on the earth. At Sydney, at least during tiie heavy rains, in ten minates afler the 
first drop has £illen the discoloured floods are seen ruahk^ off the baked atA, carrying away 
the edges of the surcharged gutters aud soon disappearing in the sea. In the country the rains 
tear up courses for thenuelyes on the sides of the hills, rad quickly leave them — ^fertilising the 
Talleys alone. 

At the loyal town of Carcoar, His Excellency was received with triumphal arches, pistol 
salutes — for I saw no ordnance of hu^r calibre— cheers, agitated cabbage-tree hats, and of 
course an address. These addresses were uniformly most flattering, and therefore, of course, 
most satisfactory to the newly-arrived ruler of the colony. The replies, framed on the model 
of royal speeches in older countries, were, it need hardly be remaiked, lucid and explicit in the 
extreme. Our exit from the town suffered somewhat in digmty from the jaded state of our 
horses. His ExceUoicy had to double thong his whedters and * tip the sUk' to fau leaders up s 
very steep ascent from the river with an emphasis not irrelevant to the necessity of the case ; 
the Ooloidal Secretary and myself, although we flanked up our pair and even dieered imaginary 
leaders, were at one moment — ^with the ^es q£ Carooar upon u»--4n a state of abject &«r lest 
our jfdiseton should perform the humiliating act of retrogression. However, after a toilsome 
three miles, we joyMly hailed the si^ of Mr. Icely's fence. There was a clearing of some 
two or three faun^bred acres ; an approach tlnrough flourishing grain-fields ; we left on one hand 
an extensive range of &rm buildings, and driving fhrough a modest white gate and a neat Eng- 
lish-like garden — ^the road lined with [Routing tenants, servants, and shearera (for the sheep- 
shearing had commenced) — ^we drew up at the portico of a romantic cottage surrounded by a 
wide verandah whose columns and eaves wore completely overdiadowed with climbing roses, 
honeysuckles, and other flowering creepers. The front loda over a garden luxuriant with 
European flowers and standard fruit-trees oppressed with their glowing prodnce ; beyond are 
large enclosures ydlow with ripening grain and sloping to a winding watercourse ; and aU 
around the prospect is, somewhat too closely, bounded by lightiy wooded hills aspiring to be 
mountains ; — indeed Mount Maoquarie has secured that title to its^ So pretty and romantic 
(fid the cottage of Coombing, with its ' woodbmes wreathing and rosea brtatlung,' its u|dand 
forests, grassy glades, and rural seclusion, appear, that some of the bachelors of the party agreed 
that love in such a oottage could hanQy be bored to death in less thaaamooit— Kiuly considering 
a proper supply of new novels, a &ir amount of quail and snipe shooting, an inventive ooolc 
anid a case or two of champagne 1 The proponnder of this theory, however, yawned a good 
deal, whilst he admitted that he had taken a sanguine view of the case. 

The happiness of Mr. Icely's fimoily — and they appear to form a truly happy circle— must 
be contracted within a narrow sphere and be indepokdeat of what is comm(»dy called gaiety 
from extraneous sources ; for Carcoar contains but few assodates for them beyond the parson's 
family, and neighboura' visits, far exoelleat reasons, must resemble those of angels in the 
hackneyed old quotation. Onr host, like Mr. W. Lawson, is aooounted a squatter in Australian 
phrase, and like him — some reverses apart^-^ most sncoessfiil and opulent one. He was 
launched on the world in early youth witii slender means, has won wealth and wide possessions 
by his own exertions ; and, having attained them, he is liberal and hospitable without extravv* 
ganoe, and lives comfortably and handsomely without the smallest parade or ostentation. 



to OUB ANTXF0DE8, 



CHAPTER VI. 



The term squatter — inelegaiit as it may appear — is an o6kial term in this oolonj ; bnt it is 
applied to a very different class fimn that to which it belongs in AmeiiGa, whence it is borrowed. 
The squatter of America is generally a small fiurmer or labouring man, who, wanderii^ beyond 
the limits of the districts snnreyed by the Government and consequently open to sale, has sat 
down or squatted <m wild land as the buffalo or moose might do, with as great a right and no 
greater to its occupancy, and no more liable to distraint for renl^ licence, or assessment than his 
quadruped neighbour on the prairie. As the frontier of the State extends and the surveyor 
approaches his * form,' the squatter either removes to ' fresh diggins,' or, taking advantage of the 
right of preemption, purchases for the fixed price of a doQar and a quarter an acre as much of 
his original squattage as he may need or can afford to make his own. Such for the most part 
are the squatters of the fiur west: and such were some of the original squatters of this colony. 
Men of mark and likelihood, 'gentlemen and well derived,' soon embarked in the lucrative 
pursuit. The flocks increaaiDg at that w(»iderful ratio only perhaps known in Australia, the 
granted lands and those purchased even at the low rate €£ five shillings an acre were unequal to 
their subsistence ; they spread themselves therefore ova* the country, and their owners followed 
them either in person or by proxy. Other individuals, who had reasons of their own for 
preferring a fixmtier life, got possession of sheep or cattle and located themselves on the waste 
lands. Government might have winked at tiiis informal style of occupation in &vour of the 
increase of the stock of the colony thereby caused, had not the wild and lawless life of these 
earlier borderers compelled the higher powers to finme laws for their better government. Judge 
Lynd) was not to be trusted in a country where half the population were convicts, emancipated 
prisoners of equivocal character, land-jobbers, stock-robbers, and idle and ignorant people, who 
had got po6sessi(m of large tracts whi(^ they either could not or would not improve or cultivate. 
It was soon discovered ^t the system of free alienation of land was nothing short of ' making 
ducks and drakes ' of the Crown's most valuable property and most powerful source of influence. 
Various plans were concocted, and revoked, both for sale and the lease of Crown lands ; they 
resulted at length in the creation of a land fund, to be expended on the introduction of freie 
labour to cultivate that land, and in the licensing of tracts within and beyond the boundaries of 
location for depasturing purposes, at small rents, with an assessment on live stock for the 
malnt^pnance of a border police and for internal improvements. 

Let not my reader fear that I am about to inflict even a digest of the Land B^uhitions upon 
him. Those now in feroe, which have of course been compressed into the smallest useful 
dimensions, form a neat little book of fifty pages — ^published ' by authority ' at Sydney in 1848, 
and doubtless obtainable at the Colonial Office. 

For purposes ot squatting, the waste lands (a term very improperly and imprudoitly given 
to the splendid territorial i^eritance held by the Crown as trustee for the public) aro divided 
into throe dasses— 4he Settled, the Intermediate, and the Unsettied districts. In the Settled, 
the lease is enjoyable for one year only ; in the Intermediate, for eight years ; in the Unsettled, 
or ultrarfifontier lands, for fourteen years. The rent is 10/. per annum for a ' run ' capable of 
carrying 4,000 sheep or 640 head of cattie or horses. The runs aro not open to purchase during 
the lease, except by the lessee. On the expiration of a lease it is competent for Government to 
put up all or any part of the lands for sale, the lessee having the right of preemption at its fiiir 
value, which shall never be less than 1/. per acre. The assessment on sUxk is 3^. for horses, 
lid, for cattie, ^d* for sheep per head. 

At the period of my first excnrrion to the Bathurst district, the squatters were clamouring 
fin* the fixity of tenuro since yielded by these r^ulations, which enable them to carry on their 
mvocations with a degree of security unpermitted by former enactments. 

With respect to the purofaase of Crown lands, it is enough to state that the upset auction 
price was raised in 1838 fimn 59. to 12s., and again in 1842 to 1/. an acre — at which figure it 
now stands. Whether the theory of a high minimum for waste lands be good or bad,is a 
question hot and heavy to handle, and fortunately no business of mine. It is quite as warmly 
disputed now as when it was firat mooted by Mr. Wakefield. Its avowed chief intentions are 
to prevent land-jobUng, the accumulation of land in the hands of persons without capital ar the 
means of introdadng labour, the undue dispersion of the population, and to exclude the labourer 
finom the possession of a frediold. Opponents of this system affirm that it makes land dear and 
flcaroe instead of plentiful and dieap ; that it discourages the immigration of small ca{Htalists 



8QUATTEB8 AND 8Q0ATTINO. 0| 

from Euxx)pe and diyertB than to the United States, where firedioldt may be porchfjed, better 
land, at one-foarth of the price. The alteration is fiivourable for the iquatting uitei^sts ; with 
the waste lands at the present prioe the leaseholders are little likely to he dispossessed by 
purchasers. But it cuts two ways : without land sales there can be no land fund ; without 
land fund no emigration at the public expense ; without emigiant-Iaboiiuen or conyicts the wages 
of shepherds, stockmen and fimn-serrants must rise; high wages infer paucity of hands; 
paucity of hands causes hasty and careless tending, washing, shearing, and getting up of woot— 
and consequent depredation of the great staple in the European markets. 

I oonfl?ss I find it difficult to understand why the halt rocky, half sandy, densely wooded and 
ill-watered acre of New South Wales is worth four times as mudi as the deeply alluvial, ready 
cleared, and well irrigated acre of Wisoansin or Illinois — the former lying three times the cUstanoe 
from England. It seems to me that if small capitalists were permitted to purchase at a low 
price as much land as they wanted for culture, Ihe natural bias of man to herd with his kind 
would induce him to pitch his tabemade near his neighbour ; give them a dburdi and a bit of 
common land and there would soon be a Tillage : no danger of dispersion, and if dispersion be 
an evil what so like to cause it as the squatting system ? The English reader must understand 
that the lessees of Crown land^, the squatters, are debarred by law from cultivating any part of 
their runs except for the consumption of their families and establishments. Immense tracts 
must therefore remain untouched by the plough, and continue to be primeral deserts. 

The pastoral state, it is but a stale truism to remark, is the first step, a great me certainly, 
beyond that of the hunting and fishing savage ; it implies location^ but on somewhat loose 
terms, and a collection of some few stationary comforts and conveniences ; but the cultivation of 
the soil is a oonditicm absolutely necessary to high dvilisation and to the permanoit organisation 
of sodety. Let no one, however, underrate the value of the pastoral interests as tiiey now 
stand in New South Wales. In 1850 it was publidy stated by one of the greatest fiock-masters 
and statesmen in the country, and never publidy refuted, that the whole produce of the 
agricultural interests of the colony, induding Port Phillip, did not exceed 600,000/. a-year; 
while those proceeding from the pastoral interests amounted to 1,500,000/. a>year. I think 
this speaker further stated that, from his own squatting propoties alone, 10,000/. worth 
of produce passed yearly through the hands of the Sydney merdiants. The immense area of 
this continent and the exceeding poverty of by &r the greater part of the soil pdnt it out as a 
country better adapted to grazing than to grain-culture. Less skill and experience are required 
in the former occupation ; the returns are more rapid and more simple ; and besides, there is 
something &sdnating, especially to the Englishman who has been pent up perhaps on a single 
acre of the Old Country, in the feeling that he can count his horses by tiie hundred, his caUle 
by the thousand, and his sheep by tois of thousands, and can gallop for a week across his 
territories without touching thdr confines. 

That the pursuit is popular is pretty plain. There are squatters of all dasses, high and 
low, — squatters, (and these really deserve the name,) who reside constantiy at their stations, 
never moving to tiie dty except, perhaps, to receive from the merchants the prioe of thdr yearly 
clip of wool and to load tiie return drays with stores. There are squatters who drive other 
trades in the metropolis, leaving their country interests in the hands of reddent agents, and who 
should therefore be rather designated proprietors of stock than squatters. There are, for instance^ 
physicians picking up their fees in the towns ancl carrying on in the country extensive sheep* 
farming concerns ; there are lawyers by dozens who practise the art of fieedng both in town 
and country ; half the members of the L^slative Coundl are squatten ; the Speaker squats 
equally and alternately on the woolsack of the House and at his wodnstations on the Murrum- 
bidgee. 

The moment the sesaon is prorogued, honourable members, honourable and gallant members, 
honourable and learned members, hasten away to the bush and to their flocks and herds, 
returning in a month or two, sometimes with smiling, at otheis with long faces — always with 
sun-burnt ones. Squatting is a pursuit pliable according to the means, and to the other 
avocations of those engaging in it. One may squat on a large or on a small scale, squat directiy 
or indirectly, squat in person or by proxy ; one may buy stodc, borrow stodc, hire stock, or 
take stock on the system of * thirds, in which the working partner gets one-third of the wool 
and of the increase, while the proprietary partner, as he may be called, follows some other 
profession, or his pleasures, or holds some Government appointment at the capital or dsewhere* 
Two friends conjoin in a squatting concern, and take it by tuns to enjoy ' a spell ' m Europa. 
Two or three brothers unite thdr lesooroesy the two younger perhaps '.xnducting the businesa 



02 OUB AKTIFOBES. 

of the tfcations, while the eldep— « bit of a dandj — manages the mercantile and shippii^ part. 
When the squatter is a married man, and carrieB with him into the biuh the courtesies and 
amenities c£ life, his retit^ression from a high standard of social polish need not be very visible, 
but it is pinned on the sleeve of the badielor squatter. You may know him anywhere. He 
brings the bush into Sydney with 1dm, like the burr on the fleece. Shy and ungainly, or 
t^rish and unpudent, he prefers tiie upper boxes of the theatre to the drawing-room, and the 
company of gamblers, adveDtureFS, and horseHlealav to that of the more respectable, and what 
he would probably call the ' slower ' classes. Eren the more &Tourable specimens of this order, 
^— and there are many formed to move in the best sodetyj-^are not unapt to relapse into what 
an old Indian calls jungle habits on their return to the interior from a temporary sojourn at the 
captal. The same yoimg man whom you may meet in a Sydney ball-room, well-dressed, well- 
looking, getting handsomely through a quadrille, decently through a raise, and something of a 
iMckjumper in the p<dka, y<m would be clevei>-4n short you must be a French pr€fet de 
police (Yidocq himself) to recognise a month later, after he has rebushed himself. Cabbage- 
tree hat, colonial tweed jadc^, fustian trousers, rusty boots, short day pipe, unsh<Hm beard — 
one would suppose that soi^ and water, dressing-cases, dean shirts, and other sudi effeminacies, 
had been discarded the moment Sydney was out of sight. In the bond fide working bushman, 
gentle or simple, — him who passes the hot hours of liie day in riding after stock and * locking 
up ' sheep, the growtii of 4he beard is not <xily excusable but advisable, for you see by the way 
m whidi his nose is barked that his mouth and diin are none the worse for their natural 
shdter. 

Among the poorer of the single men engaged in it, pastoral life in Australia is almost 
savage life — ^the life of <iie sav«^ without tiie softening influence of squaw, gin, or wyenee.*^ 
But the grazier grandees, the squatting mi^ates, like some I had the pleasure of visiting, are 
the aristocrats of the land. Many of them are well-educated gentlemen — ^Eton and Oxford, 
Westminster and Cambridge men, who contrive to spare time for the culture of the mind as 
well as that of wool and tallow, ' hides, horns, and hoofs ;' and who maintain their connexion 
with the higher aspirations of humanity by a constant supply of books, periodical publications, 
correspondence with Home, as well as by their hospitality extended to persons of other pur- 
aaits, who are able to import fresh subjects of discussion to their distant and secluded home- 
steads. The worst feature of bush-life for family persons must be the difficulty of obtaining 
education for their children, especially in ' the more elegant branches.' Indeed there are not 
a lew establishments where a help-mate in the strict sense of the term, rather than a helpless 
mate endowed with all the gifts of the muses and graces combined, is the domestic 
desideratum. 

Although it may not require any great amount of intellect to manage grazing affairs, let 
no man embark on it heedlessly. The bush, believe me, is no rose-bush ; or if it be, it has its 
thorns, its cares, its fluctuations, its reverses. Nowhere more than in this (K)lony is verified 
the quaint adage, — ^ Many go out for wool, and come home shorn ;' for sheep-farming has 
been the ruin of hundreds, ^ut, grown wise through their own and others' misfortunes, the 
squatters of the present day conduct their concerns with more prudence and foresight than 
of old ; and the majority of them, I hope and believe, are laying up for themselves, if not 
v«y large fortunes, at least certain competence. There are many enemies to the squatter ; 
of which the rivalry of other wool-growing nations nearer Engltmd may be the greatest. 
Their chief local foes are bush-fires and blacks, drought, dingoes, and disease. 

There are two great leading classes into which the squatocracy may be divided, — those who 
are but temporary sojoumere in the land — younger sons or brothers of opulent English 
families, who have ventured their 10 or 20,000/. in a grazing investment, with the very 
natural intention of making a good round sum of money,— enough to live ' like a gentleman ' 
in England — and of carrying their gains to their still cherished home ; and on the other hand, 
those bond fide settlera who, on planting their foot on Australian grotmd, adopt it as their 
country, and resolve to invest in it what they win on its soil. No need to Hay which of 
the two is the better class of colonists. It is sometimes, however, not easy to distinguish 
the one from the other. Of course, he who deliberately intends to noake of the colony a sponge 
to wring wealth out of, does not think it necessary to publish his resolution ; indeed I have 
hend individuals — especially those who value local popularity — take the very opposite 
course^ in publidy and privately vapoaring aboat th^ir ' adopted oooatry,' its future pnspKta, 
wad their own vested interests tiunin, whilst in £ict th^ were only oooatiBg tiw iiuaiber of 



THE OBaAK-MAOPIE. 63 

days and of bales of wool thai would enable them to shake Australian dast from off their 
feet for ever. 

Hfocernher Wh, — Coomlnn^. A lovely xnoming. I was awakened early by a chattering of 
parrots absolutely stunning, and looking forth 1 found the standard cherrj-trees thror.ged 
with these birds, — a thousand beautiful and mischievous creatures frisking among the branches, 
eating no small quantity of the fruit of these exotic plants reared with so mudi trouble, and 
wantonly destroying every berry and bud within r^uJi of their strong little beaks. What 
wonder that the old Scotch gardener strewed the ground, in vain, however, with their painted 
corpses as he prowled round the garden with a vengeful face and a gun as long as himself! 
Seyond the garden fence, down on the cultivated luid, the iieMs were covered, as by a aiow- 
drift, witii Socks of the large white coc^too, — a bird of the strongest anti-protectionist 
principles on the subject of the Com Laws. The seed in the ground, the ripening or the 
ripe grain, are ' all fish' to him; the havoc he commits is immense ; and he is so wary as 
to preserve an absolute impunity from gun or snare. In delightful contrast with the shrill 
harsh voices of these two feathered scolds, came, from the garden hedge, the full soft note of 
the organ-magpie — like the low breathing of the flute-stop of that instrument. Some of 
the tones are as soft and sad as those of the cushat, but with even more of music in tiiem. 

There is a sort of ventriloquism in his voice. You may be looking out afar for the 
tostroment of the seemingly distant music, when a note louder than the rest calls jrour atten- 
tioo nearer home, and you find the songster sitting on a branch within six feet of your 
head. He oi^n-magpie, pied crow, or barita, is somewhat larger than the English magpie, 
with 8 tail as much shorter as his voice is sweeter. When trying aflerwards to find some 
likeness for this bird's song, it suddenly struck me that it resembled in some degree the notes 
of an aocxnrdion, or rather a flutina, touched by a timid and uncertain hand, attempting over 
and over again the first two or three bars of ' Nix my Dolly,' an air which, unsentimental as 
are its associations, I always thought full of beauty and originality. On my return to England 
after three years in America this tune was in possession of the London butdier and pot-boys ; 
and my frimds, I remember, were much amosed when I told them, on the first evening of 
our reunion, how charmed I had been with a certain song of the streets, which proved to be 
no other than Blueidrin's popular and vulgar air. 

There was another vocal bird that I frequently observed perched on the topmost branch of 
aome tall tree, with its bill pointed skywards and singing with all its soul in a tone somewhat 
sharper, but not very unlike the magpie's. This bird appeared to be a kind of woodpecker, at 
least in diape, tfaongh I* never detected him in the act of ' tapping.' I could not learn his 
nanse, so gave him that of Dick Swiveller, because, to my ' fanciful mind,* he seemed to have 
that gentleman's habit of indulging in snatches of song, Ihe prevailing ditty sounding like the 
commencement of Macheath's solo, ' When the heart of a man,' &c. 

One of the greatest curiosities of animated nature at this season is the locust, — the Tettix 
of Anacreon, — the Latin Cicada, When the weather becomes warm, this insect, which has 
been all winter laid up beneath the earth, perforates its sur&ce and emerges in a full suit of 
russet armour. Crawling to the nearest tree, he lays fast hold of the bark with his gauntlets, 
then, squaring his shoulders, he splits the back of his cuirasse, — and lo 1 a gay, bright green, 
gauze^winged and gold-spotted denizen of air, — his subterranean attire left banging up like a 
fusty old garment at a Jew's door in Monmouth-street-, or a rusty, battered suit of armour 
on the walls of an ancestral hall. Not a word is to be said in favour of this creature's voice ; 
his stridulous notes ring through the air from morning to night with an effect so distracting 
that one can hardly atfbrd to pity him when one hears him chirping through the closed 
fingers of the Sydney urchins — each of whom, in the locust season, carries about in his 
clutches at least one of these living castanets. One species of locust, as is well known, 
reappears from his earthen retreat only once in seventeen years ; no wonder he makes a noise 
in the world during his short holiday. 

We witoessed to-day the several processes of shearing, sorting, packing, and pressing wool. 
The weather being extremely sultry, it seemed very hanl and hot work — ^yet some of the best 
hands contrive to clip 70 sheep in a day. It was curious to observe how rapidly the poor 
panting, helpless, innocent beast was disrobed of its thick downy fleece without breaking it, 
and was then let go naked aad astonished back to its pen : and it strongly reminded me of a 
process I have watched at Doneaster, Newmarket, aad elsewhere, in whidi the patient looks 
•^[Oafly iheepi^ after he has been donel A more unpleasing and cruel operation is the brand- 
fa% e^yewig stock. Every coH and heifer !s mafked with Hie initiab or other cypher of its 



64 OUB ANTIPODES. 

owner, burnt on some conspicuous point ; on the shoulder of a fine hone it is Tcrj dl^figurii^, 
jet no less necessarj to prevent theft in a country where the animals, roving over their wide 
and wooded pastures, are sometimes not seoi or heard of for months together. But branding 
does not as a matter of course preclude cattle-stealing ; for the marks are either cut out bodily 
or altered by reforanding, — some lettera being easily changed to othera. The roars and groans 
of the suffering J uomct, as they were hauled by ropes into a sort of wooden cage, proved how- 
painful was the system of impressing upon them their ABC. 

Among other stockyard sights I was attracted by seeing a lot of men preparing to capture 
and as I thought to slaughter out of hand, a remarkably wUd cow. She knocked down one of 
her pursuers and was nuJdng towards myself, who liaving a gun on my shoulder was conning 
the idea of shooting her through the head to save further trouble and expense, when I was 
quietly informed that tiiey were only going to milk her. It was the most flagitious case of 
' violence with intent ' to milk I had ever met with I Having lassoed her horns, and induced 
her to run her head through the rails of the yard, they quickly belayed it there ; her legs were 
then tied with thongs of ' green hide,' and the poor mad cow was milked accordingly by main 
force. Be it known to all dwellers in Cockaigne that ereen-hide rope, an article used here in 
various departments georgic and bucolic, is formed of long narrow strips cut from the raw 
skin of an ox ; the epithets * green ' and ' raw ' are synonymous, as some of my young friends know. 

In large establishments, like that of eur host, where many scores of hands are employed, 
the proprietor is compelled to keep a store well filled with all the requisites of consumpticHi — 
such as shop-clothing, tea, sugar, tobacco, soap, rum, blankets, &c. All those extras not in- 
cluded in the stipulated ration are charged against the consumer at what is considered a fair 
price ; and I have been assured that masters do not lose by the transaction ;— on the contrary, 
that some of them turn it to good account. Indeed some employers are accused of making too 
large a profit by this retail buaness, charging their servants 50 and 100 per cent, for the ex* 
pense of carriage from Sydney or the nearest market town. At Coombing there is a r^^lar 
office, with clerks, issuers, &c. — ^in short, a Commissariat of stores. The scarcity of labour at 
the present juncture is severely felt by the country residents ; indeed it threatens stagnation and 
ruin to those who work up to the extent of their capital. In New South Wales all the great 
annual business of a stock fiurmer is necessarily crowded into the summer months — sheep-wash- 
ing and shearing, hay and grain harvests, operations connected with breeding, &c. ; so that the 
pressure for labour falls heavily and at once. No wonder that convicts or any class of able 
workmen were welcome at Mr. Icely's establishment ; for hands dean or dirty must be procured 
at the present busy time, and during the existing industrial destitution.' Our host indeed (who, 
like many capitalists in the earlier days of the colony, received firee grants of land on conditi<Hi 
of employing and maintaining convicts, and who on the other hand entitled himself to a supply 
of prisoner labour by the extensive purchase of Crown land,) appears to feel no repugnance to 
the employment, in any department, of prisoners or of men who have * served their time.' 
This feeling is founded on his own personal experience. During the days of the old system he 
had many hundreds of * Government men ' assigned to his service, and most of them proved ex* 
oellent servants. His present butler, a trusty and trusted man and quite a privil^ed character^ 
did not expatriate himself voluntarily. 

I shall have to descant on the plague of Australian servants in another place. The present 
tour — ^to go a little ahead — affoided us apt illustration of its excess. The several hospitable 
gentlemen who received us were naturally anxious to afford the new Governor the best reception 
in their power ; but wherever we went, almost without exception, the domestic upon whom de- 
pended the well-beiug of the party took this particular occasion to get drunk — and perhaps to 
quarrel with his master, in order to show his independence. To violate still further the chro- 
nological order of this journal, I may here remark that in 1851 matters had but little mended 
on this head ; reallv good domestic servants, especially males, were still hardly known ; really 
bad ones vibrated from pantry to pantry, frt)m coach-box to coach-box of the Sydney gentry^ 
and smiled impudently in the &ce of the master who last discharged them— or whom they had 
dischaiged — well knowing that if they could lay a table or drive a pair of horses they could 
always get a place, and no impertinent question asked as to character. It is a regular Dou* 
larchy — a servile tyranny, which nothing but competition, an influx of 500 or 1,000 good 
bouse servants can rectify. This very day, while busy sketching in the midst of the bush 
about a mile from the house, I was surprised by a rough voice dose to my ear, — * Any hands 
wanted on this 'stablishment?' It was a tall ruffianly-looking fdlow, with his personals 
wrapped up in an opossum rug which he carried on his stick, and followed by two as rascally 



A BUSH HAND — ^A SETTLER OF SUBSTANCE. 65 

k)okmg ioga. * What can you do?* said I, as if I were the lord of the manor. *Wdl, most 
things,' replied he, * split, saw, wash, shear, break horses — ^what not.' * Go away up to th« 
oflSce ; the overseer will put you on the books, I dare say,* I rejoined, only anxious to get rid of 
so unpromising a comrade ; and it was so. In a town he would haye been arrested on suspicion. 
In the country and at shearing time he got 1/. a-week and full rations, and no questions asked. 

The wide extent of Mr. Icely's concerns rendere him peculiarly yulnerable by a deai-th of 
labour. The gi'eat graziers and even the wealthiest landed proprietoi^ of the Old Country may 
hide their dimkdshed heads when compared with him in point of territory, stock, and numbers 
of persons employed. This gentleman s estate and live stock are said to consist of 50,000 acres 
of purchased land — puix;has«l when the price was 5s. an acre ; how much of granted land, I 
did not learn ; with of course hundreds of thousands of acres of pasture rented from the Crown ; 
25,000 sheep, 3,000 head of cattle, and some 300 hoi-ses. Near the dwelling-house is one pad- 
dock — as it is modestly styled — consisting of 3,000 acres, another of 1,500 acres ; and there 
are about 45 miles of substantial three-railed fencing on the property. This latter article alone 
must have cost a small fortune. On one occasion of the reduction of his stock, «. e. the sale of 
the surplus above the depasturing capabilities of his runs, Mr. Icely, as I have been infoimed, 
sold by auction horses, cattle, and sheep to the amount of 25,000/. ; but this occurred, it is 
needful to remark, when prices were more than double their present rate. 

In the afWnoon the ladies took a drive, and the gentlemen a ride in the ' pork ' — as it is 
styled, although to merit the name some portions of it should be cleared and thrown open. 
The undulating and lightly wooded uplancb ai-e very beautiful. These are occasionally diversi- 
fied by naturally clear and swampy savannahs, in which the cattle luxuriated up to their knees 
in herbage. We saw some very handsome cattle — ^two or three Durham bulls, for which the 
owner had paid large sums — 100/. and 200/. in England, and a few well-bred and clevei* hoi-ses. 
He has one of the finest Arab sires I ever saw, even in India ; as well as one of first-rate English 
blood. Hundreds of parrots of various sorts, sizes, and hues, darted through the air in flocks, 
giving us a shrill scream and a flash of brilliant colours as they passed— or climbed among the 
gum-tree branches, busily engaged in eating the seeds. In the moister grounds we flushed 
several sm'pe, like the English bird but larger, wild ducks of more than one soi-t, and a good 
many pigeons of the bronze-winged kind — specimens of all of which I brought to bag. Later 
in the afternoon too,;Qot being so ardent an admii*er of &rm-stock as His Excellency, I betook 
myself to a lucerne field near the house, and in about an hour shot fourteen brace of quail, and 
could easily have doubled the number. 

A chain of ponds just outside the park abounds, as I was infonned, with that curious animal, 
the Platipus, alias Ornithorhyncus Paradoxus, alias Water-mole, which latter is pei-haps the 
plainest and most descriptive name. The Platipus is always cited among the inconsistencies of 
Australian natural history ; and is very like a large mole with the head and mandibles of a 
duck ; — ^he is in short a b^ist with a bill, like a Christmas tradesman ! The fur is soft and 
prettily shaded from black to silver-grey. The natives spear and trap these animals, and they 
are et^y shot by any one liberally endowed with patience, perseverance, and immobility of 
person, and who can shoot straight and sharp just as they rise bubbling to the sur&ce of the 
water.* The houses, the fields, the wildest parts of the bush, swarm with flies at the present 
season ; and, not to mention the intolerable nuisance of their continual teasing, their attacks are 
apt to cause what is called the fly-blight in the human eye, occasioned either by the bite of the 
Insect or by the deposit of its larva*. Acute inflanunation and temporary deprivation of sight 
are the results attending the attacks of this petty creature — results painful to any one, but 
disastrous to the working-man. We sometimes met a dozen bullock-drivers in a day more or 
less affected by this blight — ^poor wretched fellows with large gi-een leaves bound over their 
eyes, staggering along almost blind but unwilling to give in. The ladies at Coombing employed 
their inventive faculties and fair fingers very charitably and usefully— as we found aftei'wai'ds 
— in making a kind of netting for the hats of the travellers, so contrived as to drop round the 
face ; and, although the meshes were large and therefore did not obstruct the air, the insects 
never entered wi^in the predncts of tilie ' Fitz Boy paramouche ' — as the appendage was 
aptly named. 

The evenings of Coombing were passed very agreeably : music and singing were not wanting ; 
there was plenty of books ; and on the table, just as might be in a country-house fifty miles 

• The Platipns was long considered a fabulous animal in England ; and when the first stuffed specimen 
cacie under the inspection of the London naturalists, they had difficulty in persuading themselves that 
the duck's head had not been artificially annexed to the body of a mole. 

P 



05 OUB AHTIF0DE8. 

hem London, hj tlie last nnmben (four or fiTemoofchiold, of ooume) of tiie Illiustnted London 
Ne^n, Pouch, aod other periodical pnblicatiaBa. The pictorial press is a very importaxxt sad 
valuable vdiicle of general tolbnDatica to the people of these coloDies— especiallj to those who 
have never visited Ihe Old.World — ^the plates conveying impressioDB men dtrtiact and probably 
more lasting than oooki ever be afforded by verbal d i Mcri pti on alooe. Throagh the pleasant 
medium of tlu pencil tb^ leam the beauty and grandeur of the mother country, and the effect 
is to incite her diildren to follow and emulate her. As for dear old *■ Punch '~-4ie always does 
one good. Besides, the Australians, through his iatenrention, have beome indelibly acquainted 
with the external peculiarities of most of tiie notable personagea of Europe. They are perfectly 
convinced, for instance, that Louis Philippe had a fiice like a huge pear with a t(^;>-knot of hair 
curling up, flame^like, above it, and no straps to his troosen ; that Lord Brougham has a 
square end to his nose^ wears hk diin m his cravat and plaid pantaloons day and night ; that a 
very hi white waistcoat and a double eye-glass are part and pared of the late Sir Robert Peel's 
idiosyncracy ; and that Mr. D'Israeli has no end of ^iral curk. 

November l^tK Coombiog. — A trip to the Abercrombie Caves. Our party was a laige 
one, occnpyii^ two carriages-and-lbur, one tandem, and two gigs. We had, beodes, an officer 
and two privates of the mounted police, with several other horsemen— Ibuiteen persons in all 
and twenty horses. A dray with tents, provisions, &c. preceded us at daylight — the cavalcade 
itself following at S a.m. Our halting-place for the ni^t was a i^Mt called ' Fiddes Station,' 
— ^but whether the said Fiddes was a bdng still in the flesh, extinct, xx purely imaginary, no 
(me, 1 fancy, inquired. H«% we camped till morning. 

The treatnaent of the horse in journeys through the boi^ is in the last degree simple, inex- 
pensive, and unceremonious. Having pulled him reeking and panting out of his harness, you 
give him — not com, or even a promise of it, but a * tddb' (horse language), or a slap on. the 
quarter, which means, ' Be oflf till further ordsn 9xA help yonrsdf ;' and away he goes to pas- 
tures new, happy if he find a few blades of grass among the dust and stones fi>r food, and a 
muddy puddle for drink. The strangest part of the story is, that the next morning he comes 
xu^ looking sleek and hearty and ready for the Imigest day's work. The foct is, thore is much 
good and hard nourishment in Australian grass, nouridmient greatly better than that yidded 
by ranker pasturage ; for a steed that had passed his night revelling in a Cheshire meadow 
would make but a poor figure in a series of journeys of forty to sixty miles a-day under a semi- 
tropical sun. Hereabouts the feed is abundant ; the hills lightly wooded and grassed up to 
their tops — the valleys bare of trees, with chains of pools running along them. After a merry 
if not a very delicately dressed meal alfresco — fresco, with the thermometer at 85° — ^we aU 
set to work to hut ourselves for the night. The Govemor and his lady had a bdl tent. Other 
canvas contrivances were pitched or half pitched, for we had few practised hands and the 
ground was almost impenetrable to ihe p^. A more loose and lop-sided camp 1 never saw. 
My tent, viewed by moonlight, looked like a drunken giantess staggering in quest of adventures. 
Then came the serving out of blankets, the purloining of carriage cudiions for pillows, the pulling 
on of various but not picturesque or becoming nightcaps ; (whoew saw a n:iale nightcap that 
was not quizzical ? — quizzical enough to injure materially, perhaps fotally, the dignity of the 
husband in the eyes of the wifo ! what hero continues to be a hero in a cotton nightcap wilh a 
tassel to it ? Ladies and gentlemoi, I pause for a reply.) Lastly, there supervened such a 
night as I would not wish my direst enemy to undergo. The heat, the damp, tiie smoke of the 
fires, the mosquitoes, the flying bugs I The ants Ihey crept in, and the ants they crept out of 
the inmost penetralia of our clothing ; sleep, in short, with roost of us was out of the question. 

November 20th. — Early rising this morning required no great effort; — we wwe up and off by 
four o'clock. Away we weat through pathless woods — ^for here no track guided our steps ; nor 
in any other countiy in the world could a four-in-hand carris^ have been safdy driven over the 
natural surface of the forest sdl. We passed one or two small sheep stations ; — ^nothing of the 
Arcadian, the romantic, or the picturesque was there; nothing to recal Florianand his meadows 
€maUlifes de fleitrs, his brebiSf his hergeres, and their garlanded houiettes. There was poverty, 
dirt, and rags, only to be surpassed in the worst provinces of poor Ireland. The women, who 
were acting as hut- keepers, and their children looked half-starved and dejected, and their huts 
were totally devoid of any of the ordinary domestic utensils or articles of comfort. . At one of 
these places it was with difficulty that we procured a tin cup of v«ry bad water. Whenever I 
met in New South Wales with such cases of family destitution as this, I suspected that a drunken 
husband and &ther was the cause thereof. As we approached the Caves the scencr7 grew 
\^ilder and rougher, reminding me somewhat of the Lower Himalayas ; but the eucalyptus and 



THE ABEBCBOMBIE CAVES — DAHFEB. 67 

acacia are poor substitutes for the tree-rhododendron and the deodara pine. It would have been 
beautiful, but for the total absence of water, and the dismal aspect of the myriads of fii-e- 
blackened logs, erect or prostrate, encumbering our path. Path, indeed, tliere was none : for 
sime time we had been driving through brushwood up to the horses' knees, as thick as, and not 
unlike moorland heather ; but we had no fear of losing ourselves, for we were under the 
guidance of Mr. Davidson, who, on a surveying expedition, had originally discovered these caves. 

At length we reached the brow of a hill about half a mile from the object of our visit, 
beyond which the carriages could not proceed. Right below us, in the cleft of a deep ravine 
overhung by grassy hills, lay a huge black rock about a quarter of a mile in extent, which we 
reached aft^ a severe scramble. The mass is perforated by a natural tunnel 200 feet in length, 
from 50 to 80 feet high, and from 30 to 50 in width, whence numerous minor caverns and 
galleries ramify to the right and left. The timnel has the appearance, by the subdued light 
within, of an immense Pagan temple, numerous idol-like crags and stalagmites assisting the 
similitude. Water has evidently been both the excavator mi the beautifier of this grand 
natural edifice ; about half way through there remains a dark pool, exquisitely pure and cold. 
The caves are the night lodgings of numerous wallabis and wombats, the former a small kind of 
kangaroo, the latter a sort of marsupial bear nearly resembling the sloth. Swallows were the 
only day boarders we found there. The police-officer and m]^f explored with lighted tapen 
many of the galleries and vaulted chambers, the colonnades, chapels, and aisles of this singular 
spot. To get into some of them we had to crawl ofi our hands aind knees. All were as cold as 
death, and smelling of the grave, hot and healthy as was the atmosphere above gi'ound. The 
horrid reflection more than once crossed my mind that a trifling fragment of the vast arch might 
fall, and, (not crush us to atoms, for that would have been comparative mercy !) but close the 
narrow passage between the upper world and our living tomb I A momentaiy effort of the 
imagination took in all this and a host of other .concomitant pleasantries, includii^ a meal upon 
sperm candles, another upon boots and gloves, and, lastly— closing scene of the subterranean 
tragedy ! — ^the * terrific combat ' for whether of the twain was to devour the survivor. After 
all, there are things upon the cards more serious than a sleepless night in company with crawling 
and stinging insects ! 

The Abercrombie Caves are certainly a magnificent freak of Nature. Yet I will not press 
my Derbyshire friends to lose no time in coming to visit them, because a journey of 16,000 
miles might possibly interfere with the ordinary coui^ of life of quiet domestic people ; and 
besides there are caves very similar to them, and quite as beautiful, a^ Matlock. Upon my life ! 
I might almost fancy myself there now ; for at this distant spot among the wild Australian 
hills, where there is not a man to a million acres, I descry remnants of the well-known black 
bottle, proof positive of the presence of the beer and beef-fed Briton, and great vulgar names 
scrawled on tiie while quartz rocks and snowy stalactites. Thus fares it with the Pyramids ; 
thus with the Table Rock of Niagara ; thus with that monument of exquisite and delicate taste, 
the T&j MahiU of Hindostan ! J^ honest man need never be ashamed of his name ; and such, 
I suppose, is John Bull's apology. Woe betide the 
leaden roof of any architectural chef (fcmvre John 
may climb to under the guidance of Mr. Murray, 
for there, without fail, he leaves to posterity the 
figure of his hoof with his name and the date within 
it, — thus : 

Returning from the Caves, at a filthy cabin where we halted for the night, some of us tasted, 
for the first time, the Australian bush-bread, a baked unleavened dough, called damper — a 
damper, sure enough, to the stoutest appetite — whence its name, I suppose, for it is as heavy 
as lead. Its manufacture is as follows — a wheaten paste is made, kneaded for a short time, 
flattened out into a muffin-shaped dough, about the size of the top of an ordinary band-box, 
and an inch or two thick ; a part of the hearth-stone is cleared of the wood ashes, the dough is 
dropped upon it, and the hot ashes ralced over it ; if not made too thick, the damper comes 
out done to a turn in about half an hour. The Indian Chupdtee is akin to the damper, but 
of much more flimsy febric. I soon learnt to think the latter very palatable, preferring it 
to ordinary bread. Human love of change is apt to relish the coarse after long feeding on 
the superfine. *Tis in the spirit of the legendary ceremony of being * sworn at Highgate/ wherein 
the neophyte is made to vow * not to eat brown bread if he can get white ; not to kiss the maid 
if he can kiss the mistress, &c. ; tmless he jwefers it.' 

Ifbvember 21st. — A pleasant drive back to Coombing, where this evening — fifty miles to the 

F 2 




68 OTJB AliTriPODBS. 

westward of the Australian Blae Mountain*— 4etters reached me from my parents in Loiid<Hiy 
from one brother in Jamaica, and another in Borneo. Vvfly, thougl:-. T, as I conned the 
domestic intelligence from sudi distant quarters, — ^reril^, 6'>st respectabl? Mother Britannia, 
sitting in thy cosy arm-chair with spectacles on nose, (i^^ wuttesi out wILH the old-&shioned 
scissors hanging from thy &rthingale a good deal of V^«;rk and waiiocrings for thy children ! 
From Pahatanui to Penetuiguishine, from Ootacamos*'* to Amapondaland — ^places never heard of, 
perhaps, by other European nations, and not mii>Ji Anown by the * gentlemen of England "who 
stay at home at ease,' — 'from Timbuctoo to Tipperary — ^r^ons not utterly dvilised — ^the names 
of thy sons are familiar in the wildest and uttermost parts of the c»rth I Venerable dame, may 
thy shadow never be less I It extends already pretty nearly over the surface of the globe. 

NwenAer 22nd. — ^Attended Divine service in the little courtr-house of Carcoar. About 
fifty pei-sons were present. It was performed by an Oxford gentleman, thus &r from his 
Mma Mater, 

When I revisited this secluded village, a handsome church stood on the hill, and a large par- 
sonage near it. The cottage occupied by the former minister had been swept away, and the 
worthy pastor himself had gone to man's last reslang-place ; — ^whither, alas I he had been pre- 
ceded by the excellent and amiable lady whose sodcly formed tlie first charm, as her comfort 
and safety were the first care, of her travelling companions on this tour and of the kindly 
colonists whose guests we were. Thus it is, as we advance in life. Scarcely can we look back 
a few short years upon pleasurable occurrmces in which we have been associated with a group of 
friends, without sadly reflecting that one or more of the well-remembered and perhaps well- 
beloved cux;Ie have been taken fram its numbers ; and without wondering why we ourselves 
should have been spared by the ruthless scjrthe of the destroyer. 

November 24th. — Trip from Coombing into the squatting districts, within and beyond the 
boundaries of location. 

The projected trip, this day commenced, is to take in Bangaroo, the chief grazing station of 
our host on the bai^ of the Lachlan, whence we are to describe a circle round the Conobolas 
Mountains to Wellington, the chief town of the county so named, and from thence through the 
pastoral districts of the western portions of Wellington and Bathurst back to Coombing. Most 
of the quarters we were likely to occupy on this extended tour being reported too ix>ugh for a 
lady's accommodation, our pexty on this occasion was exclusively male. We made an early 
start, and setting our heads westward, jogged at a steady travelling pace of about six miles an 
hour through the apparently interminable bush. 

At about eight miles from Coombing, in a tolerably open part of the forest, my eye was 
attracted by the movement of some animal's head, which turned to look at us over a thicket 
not thirty yards from the road. It was a bustard, the first I had seen since the year 1829, 
on the plains of Bundelcund. No one perceiving it but myself, I allowed the carriage to pro- 
ceed about a hundred yards, when, having put together my gun, I alighted, and, the bird 
rising, got an unsuccessful shot, the charge taking an obstructing tree and cutting it in two. 
Away went the splendid bird through the tops of the gums, slowly flapping his enormous 
wings. Hastily dismounting a trooper, 1 jumped on his horse, followed at full speed, and 
soon had the satisfaction of marking down my quarry. Halting at a respectful distance, and 
quickly reloading, I attempted to convert my temporary charger into a stalking-horse ; the 
brute, however, having an apparent antipathy to fire-arms and becoming unruly, I let him go, 
and back he went on our track all the way to Coombing. This incident caused a diversion 
favourable to my views ; for the bustard gazed stupidly after the retreating steed, totally 
unaware that his real enemy was citiwling up to him like a chetah upon an antelope, 
screened by every intervening bush and hollow — when the snapping of a twig startled, too late, 
the unwary bird, and he had just lifted his body heavily into the air after running a few paces 
to catch the wind, when at about sixty yards the fatal cai-tridge pierced his head and neck, 
and he fell dead. Being a fine young bird, weighing about fifteen pounds, he was sent back 
to Coombing as a present to the ladies. 

After a drive of twelve miles we reached the residence of Mr. Rothery, a near connexion of 
our host, where we breakfasted. He po^rsesses a comfortable cottage, with a good wide 
clearing round it, a pi*etty wife, and a quiver full of those arrows, which are veiy useful 
weapons in a colony, although in Europe they are apt to be somewhat burthensome. Of 
course at some distant squattage browse the flocks and herds that support this establishment 
and feed the numerous mouths — as yet too young to eai'n their own subsistence. At 2 p.m. 
wc halted at Canoindra — a station on the Belabula River, where in a half-finished hut, and in 



THE BUSTARD — THE 1)IXG0. C9 

a tremendous stoi-m of rain we enjoyed a capital lunch provided by the forethought of Mr. 

Icely. The rain had been falling for many days here, for the rich alluvial plains over which 

we now prosecuted our journey were terribly heavy for our hoi-ses. The grass was two and 

three feet high on the spacious savannahs between the rivei-s Belabula and Lachlan, the ti-eos 

gi'owing in fine clumps, and of enormous magnitude, with wide open pasturage between them 

— very unlike anything we had previously seen in the country. Here we came in sight of 

several bustards, flying in flocks of six or eight over the forest with slow and heavy wing, or 

stalking in twos and threes on the distant plain. With our large and noisy cavalcade it was 

idle to hope to get within good shot of so wary a creature on open ground ; I brought down 

one indeed at a long distance, but the bird recovered and escaped. On a hoi-se that will stand 

fire it is easy to approach and kill the bustard — still easier in a cart. Numerous bevies of 

quail arose from under our carriage wheels as we ploughed wearily through the deep wet loam. 

At 6 P.M., after twelve hours' work, we drew rein at Mr. Icely's station of Banjjnroti, 

which is represented by a couple of ordinary huts, built of split stuff, and thatched with baik. 

One of these had been nicely whitewashed, and became our banquctting-hall by day, and at 

night the dormitoiy of His Excellency, his son, and myself. There was just room enough 

for the three little stretchers and the enormous fireplace. It was a night of united rain and 

heat, that made our lodging not unlike a forcing-house for orchidaceous plants. The rest of 

the party betook themselves to tents, which were quickly wet through j nevertheless^ we all 

slept soundly — for 

* Weariness can snore upon a flint. 
When rusty sloth finds the down pillow hard.' 

Bangaroo is situated in a bight formed by the confluence of the rivci's Lachlan and Belabula, 
which at this point constitute the present boundaiy of the colony— properly so called. Beyond 
them are the * Unsettled Districts* — the waste lands, in which many thousands of the live 
stock of New South Wales find their subsistence, driven westwaixi by the increasing demand 
for pasturage in a country where three or four acres are required to feed a sheep, and twice as 
many for an ox or a horse. The Belabula, about fifty yaixls' from the huts, afforded our 
beasts plenty of water in a chain of ponds which the heavy rains were just beginning to 
convert into a running stream — enormous heaps of drift-timber proclaiming how furious ar« 
the torrents which occasionally force a channel along this now only too placid watercoui-se. 

November 2oth. — Halted at Bangaroo. At the generality of gi'iizing stations each hut con- 
tains two shepherds and a hut-keeper ; the folds are near the hut ; the shepheixls tend the 
flocks to their pastures by day, and bring them home at night. The hut-keeper cocks for the 
men, receives the sheep at night, and is answerable for tliem until morning. With the assist- 
ance of his collies, and a gun perhaps, he guai*ds them ngainst the attacks of tlie native dog, 
and what is woi'se, the native man. The mischief inflicted by the dingo is not confined to 
the mere killing a sheep or two ; for sometimes at night this am'mal will leap into the fold 
amongst the timid animAls and so * rush' them — that is, cause them to break out and disperse 
through the bush, — when it becomes very difficult to recover them. I have heard that the 
dingo, waiTagal, or native dog does not hunt in packs like the wolf and jackal ; though occv 
sionally two or three together have been known to follow on the scent of a stray foal or calf, 
and to catch and kill it in company. Cattle keeping requires fewer hands than the care of 
sheep ; the beasts being streng enough to take care of themselves by day and night — except 
when the blacks get among them and take their tithes, as they sometimes do in the far interior 
when kangaroos and emus are scarce. The stockman, as he who tends cattle and hoi'ses is 
called, despises the shepherd as a gi'ovelling, inferior creature, and considers * tailing sheep ' 
as an employment too tardigrade for a man of action and spirit. The latter sits all d»y 
• sub ,tegmi7ie gum-tree,* playing on the Jews'-harp or accoi*dion ; or sleeps supine, while 
his dog does his master's duty with one eye open. The importation and sale of the above 
instruments — substitutes for the ancient shepherd's reed — are immense ; five hundred accor- 
dions and fifty gross of the hai'ps of Judnh are considered small investments by one vessel. A 
shephei*d has been known to walk 200 miles from a distant station of the interior, to purchase 
one of them at the nearest township. 

The stockman lives on horseback. He has always a good hoi se-7 very likely has selected the 
best iu his employer's stud, and is the only person aware of his superior qujility. He has need 
of a staunch and a fast horse, and one ttiat is not afraid of a three-railed fence or a wild bullock's 
horn. The riding afler cattle in the bush for the purpose of driving them in, or collecting 
them for muster, is very hard and sometimes d^mgerous work. It is so exciting an employ- 



70 OUB A17TIP0DES. 

ment as not only to become a favourite one witli stockmeUi but of the bush-gentlemen ; nay, 
the stock-horse himself is said to enjoy the spoit — ^much as the high-mettled hunter at liome, 
when not diiitresseil, seems to relish his gallop with the hounds. By this rough work, hoir- 
ever, many a fine young horse has been broken down, or * stumpt up ' brfore he has shed his 
colt's teeth ; and many a broken rib or limb has fallen to the stockman's share. The stockman 
brags of his horse's prowess and his own, and, as I have said before, contemns the shepherd's 
slothful life. You know the stockman by his chin-strapped cabbage-tree hat, his bearded 
and embrowned visage, his keen quick eye; he wears generally a jacket and trousers of 
colonial tweed, the latter fortified with fustian or leather between his thin bowed 1^ ; but 
the symbol of his peculiar trade is the stock-whip — a thick, tapering thong of twelve or 
fourteen feet, weighing, peihaps, a couple of pounds, afHxed to a handle of a foot and a half at 
most. At the end of this cruel lash is a * cracker,' generally made of a twisted piece of silk 
handkerchief, or, what is better tlian anything, a shred from an old infantry sash. The wilder- 
ness echoes for miles with the cracks of this terrible scourge,- which are fully as loud as the 
repoH of a gun, and woe betide the lagging or unruly bullock that gets the full benefit of its 
stroke delivered by an experienced hand ; for I have seen a pewter quart pot all but cut in two 
by one flank of the stock-whip. Practice alone gives the power of cracking this implement ; 
it is as difficult as the use of the flail to the uninitiated, and is emphatically a bush accom- 
plishment. The juvenile bush-brats apply themselves to its acquirement with gi*ave devotion ; 
and nothing pleases one of them more than to see the abortive and self-flagellating efforts of an 
adult in the infancy of the art. Dandy amateur bushmen have the handle of their stock-whip 
made of the Mydl, Acacia pendula, or violet wood, and are otherwise dainty about its orna- 
ments. Myself did not fail to import to England a specimen of this implement— ^as an article 
of ' vertu ;' but I hereby give notice of my inability to afford instruction in the use of it. 

In the eai'lier days of the colony — as the Attorney-General stated one day in the L^islative 
Council — ^the condition of shepheixl or stockman was the only (me aspired to by the Australian 
youth. At that time Government situations went a b^ging in &vour of such employment. 
Those were, doubtless, the days when the gentlemen squatters played whist at sheep points and 
a bullock on the rubber ; and remunerated a doctor for setting a broken limb (no other ailment 
is ever heard of in the bush) with a cow-fee. 

Another impoiiant * hand ' employed by the squatter is the bullock-driver — or teamster ; he 
who conducts the huge wains full of wool &om the station to the port for shipment, and brings 
back the yearly supply of stores. Through heat and dust, rain and mud, over rock and sand, 
plain and mountain, he plods his slow and weary journey of three or four months — never, 
perhaps, seeing the inside of a human dwelling during its monotonous continuance. With his 
blankets and mattress, his iron pot and tin pot — stretched at night under the tarpaulin of his 
dray, with a smouldering l(^-fire before him and his vigilant dog as sentry over his charge, his 
mind aspires not afler higher luxuries. In spite of his rough and reckless character when im- 
employed, or only employed in spending his accumulated wages, and his sometimes barely human 
exterior, the bullock-driver is generally trustworthy to his employer — although occasionally his 
virtue does succumb to the temptations offered by a cargo of rum or tobacco. I could put my 
finger on more than one person engaged in this capacity who came out to the oolony as men of 
birth, education, and capital, but, having been ruined by misfortune, misplaced confidence, or 
misconduct, have betaken themselves to an employment so uncivilised. The worst feature of 
bush-labour is the almost exclusive employment of males — a remnant, of course, of the old 
convict system. The habit of engaging married couples to do the duty of shej^erds and hnt/- 
keepcrs is, however, growing into use, and even diildren are made of service in carrying the 
rations to the men in charge of flocks. The wages of this class ranged very high during the 
whole period of my stay in the country — ^from 15/. to 25/. for shepherds, stockmen, and dray- 
men ; watchmoi or hut-keepers, 15/. The usual ration allowed consists of 10 Ihs. of xheat, 
10 lbs. of bread, ^ lb. of tea, } lb. of sugar per week. Any extra supplies are booked against 
their wages. It is needless to say that tobacco is an absolute necessary of the bush. High and 
low, all indulge in smoking — smoking, solace of the empty head among the well fed, of the 
empty stomach among the standi^ ! 

During busy seasons a handsome addition is given to the wages of those employed. All 
workmen lodge gratis, and at many farms or cattle stations wliere milk is plentiful a supply is 
furnished to them. Some of them find time to cultivate a few v^tables. The bush affords 
them fiiel ' galore ' for warmth and cooking. As for meat, it is suoi a drug tliat twice as much 
as the ration is often devoured or wasted. Alas I what a pity that some of the lusty paupets 



couBsma akd sbootikg. 71 

of the 10 or 11 per omt. of England's pi^alation recdying parochial rdief are not shaiing ia 
the excessive abundance of these colonies, imd giving their labour in return for it I What pity 
that the small capitalists, who are daily trenching on their principal under the pressure of rates, 
and taxes, and dear food, do not more frequently bring their money to a market, where with 
common industry they may make it the nudeos of a handsome competence, and meanwhile 
assist in the devdopm^t of the still latoit resources of the ctAonj I 

I fed 8<«ne degree of responsibility in making remarks of the above taidency, because, as I 
have said before, it is not to be disputed that hundreds have met ruin in New South Wales, 
whether engaged in pastoral or other pursuits ; and that, in the cases of seme, no human exertion 
could have averted the catastrophe ; yet I cannot but gather fWmi all I have heaixi and read, 
that the mishaps of the majority are dearly traceable to the idleness, ignorance, or imprudence 
of the sulTerei's. 

Halting at Bongaroo this day, the whole of our party went out, in different directions, in 
search of game. Some taking with them greyhounds rode a drcuit of nearly thirty miles in hopes 
of getting a kangaroo, but only succeeded in killing two or three of the smallest kind, called the 
kangaroo rat — about the size of a hare, and affording pretty good coursing. Others followed the 
bustard on the Plains ; but owing to the wet weather these birds were uKxre than usually shy. 
Althou^ 1 found full a dozen of them I did not get a &ir shot all day. A curious instance 
oocorrod of the method in whidi the bustard conceals himself from observation — an instance 
by no means confiimatcHy of the old story that this bird, in common with the ostrich, while 
Idding his head only, faades his whde body secure. Espying a very fine bird descending in 
his fl^ht, I marked him down on flat open ground abmit a mile distant, and immediately 
gailof^ed to the spot. The grass was thin, and not six inches high ; there was indeed one trifling 
bush or tuft which might have hdd a pheasant. I examined it at the distance of twoity yards, 
but feeling satisfied thsdb it wm not capable of containing an animal four feet high and we^hing 
from fifieoi to twenty pounds, I passed on sordy puzzled. After proceeding about 100 yards, 
I returned with a fecli^ of doubt towards the tuft, when, sure enough, up jumped the mighty 
bird, and after two or Siree strides, took to his wings. I gave him a shot which broke his 
thigh, and nught have broken my own neck, for my horse shied and plunged at the report, and 
for some time refused to be comfortecT A stockman on a &st little horse pursued the stricken 
bird at full speed, and had almost reached him with his whip when he rose again from a mound 
on which he had alighted, and with renewed strength swept out of sight. Mr. Fitz Roy was 
more fi»rtunate. Cantering home towards the station in the evemng through the bush, a bustard 
started up almost under his horse's feet, and so slow was the bird in getting under sail that he 
had time to pull up» dismount, and make a successful shot before hs was out of reach. This 
was a very fine faini, wdghing upwards of twenty pounds. 

Jfooember 26th, — ^Brei^ing up our quarters at Bangaroo, we retraced our steps amid a storm 
of rain across the beautiful park-like Plains to Candndra, with the intention to cross the Bdabula 
at that point in prosecution of our tour. Here a coundl was hdd as to the abandonment of or 
the ponseveranee in the original plan of operations ; for the roads in advance were merely bush 
tracks, eadly rendered impassable by heavy rains, and travers^ by many rivers and water- 
courses liable to flood. I gave the casting vote. * En avant,' was the word ; and, dashing 
through the mingled mud and water of the Bdabula, the Governor, guided by the police, led 
the way across tiie heavy loom of an alluvial country, the rest following on his track. The 
whole day's journey was like a {toughing matph ; but in due course of *ime — ^without one 
m<xnent's reprieve q£ the demoits — ^we gained, after sunset, the little bush-settlement of the 

G Brothers. Here, ' fiir removed from ndse and strife,' except such as may arise among 

themselves, finir of a fiunily with their wives and dhildren reside in as many slab huts, within 
a few hundred yards of each other. Would not experience predict &mily jars and disimion 
under such circumstances ? I ftar me the fraternal establidmients so straigly bound to support 
each other in the sditude they had chosen, were not connected by such p^icoful relations as 
the ties of blood should have warranted ; for the domestic atmosphere was manifestly cloudy ; 
and doubtless the qnesti<»i of which of the four tenemoits was to shelter the person of Her 
Mijesty's representative, was calculated to bring on a storm. The cottage allotted to the 
Governor, his srni, and mysdf had evidently undeigone some considerable beautifying in the 
expectation of its becoming a temporary palace ; the windows wore shaded by clean white dimity 
curtains, festooned with pink calico; a ooorse but snowy table-cloth was spread on the old 
cedar table, and a regiment of licketty diairs were drawn round the capacious, newly white- 
wadied chimney-lug, in wluch cradded a cheerful wood-fii-e. All this, with a suit of dry 



K 



72 OTjn Ksmpoim*, 

clothes and a hot heaker of negus, after a substantial and wholesome meal, was fiir firom unen- 
joyable, while the rain fell in ceaseless cadence on the bark roof and splashed in torrents off the 
eaies. * 

Heary rain in Australia is so completely an exception to the general rule, that I always 
contemplated it with that degree of interest and curiosity with which one observes a phenomenon 
of whatsoever sort. After a year or two in this couutiy it becomes a new sensation to be wet 
through ; and the grave adult feels as much pleasure as the street urchins in England appear 
to do in personal experiments on a puddle. 

The nuptial couch of the profnietors of the hut, with a green gauze mosquito net and a finfr 
patch-work quilt, was decently spread for His Excellency ; his secretary was accommodated 
with the sofa in the sitting-room, while myself was consigned to what appeared to be the dairy. 
^ I cannot enlarge on my shai^ of enjoyment of the bed tibat fell to my lot, not being its only 

, tenant by some thousands ; suffice it, that I had rather for ever * press my pillow alone ' than 

in such sprightly company. Odious, filth-engendered insect ! there is bliss in shedding the 
blood of the guilty mosquito caught in the fact — ^though, after all, it is our own blood that we 
spill ; there may be felicity in the cracking of a flea in flagrante delictu ; — but there is no 
retribution for the bug — ^his life and death are alike offensive ! 

Our hostess was assisted in her household operations by a remai'kably pretty girl, apparently 
about sixteen years of age, whom I was surprised to see carrying a bouncing child wliich she 
claimed as her own. She was the daughter, it appeared, of one of the brothers, and the wife of 
a soldier serving in New Zealand. When I told her that the head-quarters of the r^ment — 
for he was in the band — ^was on its way from the land of the cannibal to Sydney, the sunny 
beam of blushing delight which ought to have suffused the young bride's cheek at tiie unex- 
pected news, would have fallen warmly on the heart of an old soldier and bachelor like myself. 
Unluckily for connubial sentiment — the deuce a beam was there ! — on the contrary, a dark 
cloud passed across the pretty countenance of the absent soldier's wife, and was succeoled by a 
deadly pallor. There were whispers regarding the visits of a handsome stockman at the &mily 
hamlet—-* one,' perhaps, * who had blighted many a flower before.* I closed my ears to the 
details ; yet some months afterwards the d^noiiement was, as it were, forced upon me : — ^the 
returned soldier was in hospital, mad, having lost his reason through repeated paroxysms of 
Jealousy 1 

November 27M. — ^At 4 a.m. I called up my fellow-traveller on the so& ; and, putting on 

our slippers, we repaired through the dusk of daybreak to a pool hard by, where plunging in 

we cooled our flea-bitten skins. The water seemed delidously fresh to our feverish sensations^ 

I and I mention the trifling circumstance as a warning to inexperienced Australian travellers ; — 

', the extreme muddiness of the rain-swollen water-hole, imperceptible in the dark, was a 

' bagatelle ; but we heard on returning to the house that the pool was full of horse-leeches, and 

that, but for the freshet of rain and our hasty bath, we might have suffered phlebotomy to au 

, ' extent extremely inconvenient on a long journey. 

During this day's work we occasionally came near the Belabula River, whose course was 
easily distinguishable by the dark selvage of casuarinas fringing its banks. It forms, at 
present, the frontier between the located and the imsettled districts, and will probably long 
remain so, unless the upset price of waste land be reduced. Traversing a fine pastoral 
country, with a fair share of land well calculated for agriculture, we passed the grazing 
stations of Tolong and Roreecabon — making our mid-day halt for rest and refreshment at 
Boreeiiarang, the homestead of Mr. Barton, who gave us as hearty a welcome as a fine^ 
i English-looking, and I believe English-hearted gentleman could offer while lying on his couch 

with a desperately fractured leg ; his lady bemg prevented from app^ring by a less melan- 
choly cause of conflnement. 

The rain rattling down as though on purpose to convince the new Governor that the 
general colonial croak of * drought, drought,' was a thorough humbug, — a bugbear got up to 
frighten the Legislature out of further concessions to the ' suffering squatters ' —onward we 
went through miles after miles of mud, always haunted by the doubt whether the next creelc 
(as the fresh-water streams of the interior are absurdly called) would place a bar to our further 
advance. At about five P. M. we found ourselves on the bank of the Molong creek, which 
separated us from our destination for the night, — ^the Molong Inn, — a lone house on the opposite 
plain. It was an ugly-looking turbid stream, of the consistency of pea-soup, with greasy and 
rotten banks. However, our night's lodging lay before us as well as the obstacle; and Sir. 
Charles, appealing to consider the cucumstances such as to wan-ant the remai'k of the old 



THK MOLONG HOTEL — ^RIVEB BELL. 75 

huntsman to the * craning * rider — * the more you look at it the less youll like it,' — ^poshed hi» 
tired team boldly at the brook ; and, after a pause in the middle that looked very like sticking, 
the yellow drag'was seen to emerge from the black slough, the last spot of its original colour 
completely blotted out. 

A few minutes brought our cavalcade to the inn, where we were politely received by M. 
Hyeronimus, the host of the M6long Hotel as well as of the chief hotel at Wellington, 28 miles 
from this spot. A foreigner, civil and civilised, with a good dad of the courier-cut about him, 
Uonsr. H, gave us excellent fere and beds, nor did he forget to chme for them. The bar of 
the house was filled bv a dozen regular bush-boys — great hulking fellows, labouring under a 
temporary plethora of pay, and hanging about the rum-butt until it should be spent. There 
was a fiddler, too, for their delectation ; and these boisterous, half-drunken clowns continued 
to dance together the greater part of the night, apparently as much inspired by the cracked 
violin, the real * Old Tom,* and the rougli-muzzled partner, redolent of rum and * nigger- 
head ' — indeed very much more inspired than I have often seen the white-waistcoated, patent- 
leather-booted dandy, with his Weippart, his iced Roman punch, and the belle of the season 
as his associate in the valtz. 

Uncouth as they appeared, these good fellows were civil in their way, and did not persevere 
in their uproarious pastimes when told that the Governor and his paxty were tired and gone 
to bed. Many a lai^ and rapid fortune has been made in New South Wales by publicans 
from no other customers than such as those I have just sketched. 



CHAPTER VII. 



Noffember 2Sth, — Up at four o'clock. A regular * old country ' rainy day — * very dirty 
weather,* as they say at sea. During the last 48 hours we had enjoyed various fine viewb. 
of the Canobolas Range, the highest peak of which is 4500 feet. We halted for an hour 
at the Head Station of the Messrs. Burton, where three brothers, living together, conduct the 
provincial part of the business, while a fourth attends to its interests at Sydney. The 
station is one of the simplest constiiiction — a log hut or two, bark-roofed for a dwelling- 
house, and some farm buildings somewhat more carefuUy put together. The locality is well 
chosen for grazing purposes, and there appears to be plenty of game in the neifirhbourhood ; 
but the idea of comfort could hardly be connected in my mind with so homely a lodging and 
so few of the less absolute requirements of civilised life as are enjoyed by these gentlemen. 

We crossed three several times this day the River Bell. Each attempt was both hazardous 
and doubtful, and delayed us much ; for the stream had overflowed its banks, (Australian 
rivers possess two sets of banks, one for dry, another for wet seasons,) and the strength and 
depth of the water could only be proved by actual experiment — a duty which devolved upon, 
and was well performed by, the troopers. The leaders, being unmanageable in deep 
rapid water, were taken off, and, with the police horses, assisted in carrying over to tlie 
opposite bank the servants, the policemen, and some of the gentlemen, and, with them, a 
stout green hide rope, one end of which had been affixed to the carriage-pole. Sir Charles 
gallantly kept his fiace on the box, myself standing on the seat behind him, to help in ca«e 
of need. When all was ready, the wheel-horses were urged into the stream ; eight or ten 
men hauled on the rope, thus assisting in the draught and keeping the pole straight, and we 
were soon tumbling about like a ship at sea, over stumps and stones, some of which were 
heard rumbling along the bottom of the current. However, after a brief struggle, Ctesar 
and his fortunes were safely delivered on the opposite shore. As for the joint phaeton of the 
Colonial Secretary and myself, every article of baggage having been removed, my servant, 
sitting up to his waist in water, drove it across, assisted by the rope. Old * Merriman * 
looked more like a mer-man, as his long mane floated on the waves ; and poor * Punch ' was 
terribly diluted, his ears alone at one time remaining above the face of the waters. 

At one of these fords an old settler, living on a bit of cleared land near it, stopped onr 
progress by his well-timed advice to wait awhile for the partial subsidence of the flood, which 
the tide-mark proved to be sinking. He brought us some black damper and a diy chip of 
cheese, (for we were famished,) together with a hot beverage in a tin pot, which richly 
desei*ved the colonial epithet of 'post and rail' tea, for it might -well have been a decoction 
of* split stuff' or 'iron bark shingles,' for any resemblance it bore to tho Chinese plant. 
Another notorious ration tea of the bush is called * Jack the painter ' — a very green tea 



74 OUB ANTIPODES. 

indeed, its viridity e^ndentlj produced by a discreet use of the copper drying-paos in it& 
manufacture. Hunger is indeed the best aaure ; for, sitting on a fallen log, and watching 
the gradual retrocession of the water-mark, like * Rusticus ' awaiting the flood's recess, we 
discussed our damper and discoloured hot water with more appetite than many a better 
repast under more iacile circamatoBoes. These sadden floods are one of the many scourges of 
the squatter — as destructive as the blacks, the dingoes, scab, catarrh, drought, or bush-fires. I 
read in a newspaper lately of a flock of 2,000 or 3,000 sheep being hemmed in, with a single 
shepherd, on an insulated patch of mund hardly wide euough for them to stand upon. On 
the thiixj day, (the poor sheep havmg long before nil>bled off the very roots of the narrow 
pasture, and the shepherd having swallowed his last crust), the latter plunged into the 
current, in the hope of reaching the mainland ; his ductile and £imished charge followed him 
to a sheep, the faithful ooUey followed the last of the flock, and shepherd, sheep, and dog were 
swept away together. We saw a good deal of game to^y, four or Ave bastards, and several 
kinds of water- fowl ; but there was too much rain and hard work to allow of our puisolng 
them. At the third crossing of the Bell, we were met by Mr. Maxwell, our host for the 
night, who welcomed us to his flourishing s|ieep-station at Narrig&l. The proprietor repairs 
to this place in the shearing season only, his chief homestead bejng far away elsewhere. He 
possesses, however, purchased land with eleven miles of water fronU^ on the located side of 
the river, and extensive runs on the opposite bank, the Bell here fonning the frontier of the 
colony proper. Mr. Maxwell has the r^utation of being what is financially styled ' a wami 
roan ;' with such a mountain of wool as we saw piled under tarpaulins, he can hardly be 
otherwise. He had * lots of sheep,' he said, (which probably meant 30,000 or 40,000,) <but 
only a few head of cattle (1,000, or so I) The dwelling-house of Narrig&l is a mere shieling ; 
the abodes of the servants (as the performers of any kind of labour, domestic or s^arian, arc 
called in Australia,) form a village street of whitewashci bark-huts, with stables, stack- 
yards, &c., and a huge wool-shed, like a railway engine-house, in which (the bales having been 
for the purpose turned out) we dined sumptuously--claret, hock, champagne, axul of coui'se 
bottled ale, as plentiful as though our carouse had taken place on the bonks of the ' blue 
Rhine,' the * arrowy Rhone,' or ihe beery Trent, rather than on those of an Australian bush- 
river only a few years ago discovered by the enterprising surveyor, Mr. Oxley: 

There was a large party of natives, men, women, and children, camped behind the station, 
that is, squatted before a fire and behind a sloping sheet of bark turned from the wind — in 
bush-lingo, a break- weather — or in guneeahs* of boughs thatched with grass. Fnmi the 
half-drunken looks of some of the men, the greedy begging of othei*s, and certain indications 
of good understanding between their women and Uie station-men, (not a single white womau 
was to be seen there,) I set them down as one of the many families or tribes of the 
Aborigines, who have nothing to thank the English for but demoi'alisation and deeper 
degradation. As for the Christian inhabitants of a squattii^ hamlet like the one I am 
describing, they may be all honest men and trusty servants ; but whether they have ever set 
eyes on a parson, their foot in a place of worship, or their minds upon the contemplation of a 
future state, can hardly be a doubtful question. 

November 29th. — Started early on horseback, and leaving the vehicles to follow, rode to 
Wellington, fifteen miles, through a fuse rich valley of naturally clear pasture land firamed in 
wooded hills. The road passes close to the famed caves of Wellington, where many curious 
fossil remains, specimens of which were sent home for the examination of Professor Owen, 
liave been discovered. Mitchell describes, I think, three distinct caverns, full of fragments of 
bones, apparently belonging to a gigantic species of kangaroo. I entered the larger of the 
caves with another of the party, but having no better light than that pi'ocured by Inrifers 
and a bit of bark, we could, explore but little. The roof and sides are of limestone, with a 
floor of soft snuff' like dust, and a temperature, on a day of uncommon heat, cool as a catacomb. 
We passed, en route^ the ruined Apsley mission station, whereof I have previously given some 
accoant, and where, I believe, a most patient experiment of several years' duration, and the 
united endeavours of two or three zealous clergymen, did not produce as many true converts 
amongst these wild and intractable tribes. The situation of the abandoned establishment is 
beautiful and eveiy way suitable for the habitation of civilised man. It was sad to tivce the 
almost obliterated foundations of the buildings, and to see the spacious gardens relapsing into 
wilderness. The Government had formerly in this fine valley a considerable stock-farm, and 
an establishment for the cuii>tody and employment of convicts. 

* CriftiMaA, hat of the black. 



CLEANIilNBSS YEBSUB DIBT. 75 

After a delightfal canter of about three hours across a country where a horse might well 
be left to his own pace and guidance, and where the falconer might follow his hawk without 
one glance at the ground under foot, we found ourselves stopped short at the confluence of 
the Bell with the Maoquarie, just beyond which jimction the township of Wellington stands. 
The latter river, the same that waters Bathurst about 150 miles to the eastward, had 
increased in impoi-tance very much since we last crossed its stream almost with dry axles — 
increased both from the tribataries it has received in its winding course, and from the late 
heavy rains. There was now no question of axles ; the ordinary ford was quite impassable ; 
trees denoting its original rivage stood trembling in the midst of a rushing muddy torrent ; a 
naked black attempted to swim our horses over, beginning with an old experienced bush-horse, 
whose veiy experience taught him to refuse the doubtful voyage. So the project of passing 
them over was abandoned, and, saddles and bridles having been stripped off, the quadrupeds 
were turned loose into the luxuriant meadows within the loop of the two rivers. Ourselves 
and our saddles were transported, two by two, across the stream in a rudely-fashioned punt, 
ti'ough, or quadrangular tub, with a pair of paddles — all whidi apparatus looked as if it had 
been growing in the bush and in the full pride of leaves and life not half an hour before. 

Mr. Wrighty formerly of H. M. army, the present Crown Commissioner for the district, 
who bad been our very agreeable fellow-traveller for some days, received the Governor and his 
suite most handsomely at his residenee just beyond the town. The duties of Commissioner 
of Crown Lands are multi&rious and important ; he is general superintendent of the Crown's 
demesne, the waste lauds of the colony ; looks after the revenue, in so far as it depends upon 
depasturing licences and assessment of live stock ; and as a government functionary and 
justice of the peace, is in other points a potential person. He is furnished with a house, and 
is tolerably well paid. The dwelling-house of the gentleman holding this post in the district of 
Wellington, although rude in structure, has all the neatness and order of a barrack. It is 
beautifully situated on a bend of the Macquarie, here roJling between high banks, on the 
farther of which Mount Arthur rears its wooded crest, dominating the Plains. Within its 
walls, this most comfortable of Australian bachelors afforded us practical proof that, even on 
the confines of civilisatioD, a cuiaine recherch^e, with perfect cleanliness, may be obttiined 
imder the eye of an experienced and attentive master. Every part and article of the cott;^ 
shone with cleanliness ; it was possible in this establishment to ask in the morning for a tub of 
water without impressing the owners with the notion that you were about to fnlfil the conditions 
of ' every man his own washerwoman,' or to perform bome rare experiment in hydraulics ; 
and the plate, linen, and servants' dress were neatness itself. Such-Uke domestic observances 
are too much lost sight of in the bush — ^more's the pity, because they cost nothing, and 
without cleanliness household comfort is a word of mockery. If in certain Australian houses 
a couple of hours a-week were devoted to domestic purification, it is fair to suppose that the 
travelling guest from cleaner quarters would escape the endurance of a severe course of 
practical entomology, which, science and joking apu^, becomes a serious affair when porsued 
through a week of wakeful ni^ts. 

The township of Wellington is 117 miles from Bathurst, and 23B miles firom Sydney ; from 
which dty it is the mest distant settlement directly inland, or to the westward. Nothii^, I 
think, can give a clearer im]Nne8BU»i of the vastness of the insnlar continent of New Holland, 
and of the comparative insignifiauice of its occupancy by civilised man, than the taking <»i the 
map a step of the compasses firwn Sydney to WeUin^cn, and firom thence describing a stride of 
that instrument across the unknown wilderness of the interior to tl» settlement of Swan River 
on the western coast. The step would cover, as the crow files and the compass walks, hardly 
200 miles, the stride not less than 2,300 miles 1 From north to south the measurement is 
computed at 2,000 miles. New Holland is indeed a crudly compact mass of earth. Look at 
its form on the map, and pursue with your eye the coast line ; there is scarcely an indentation 
on the whole circuit of sufficient magnitude, nor a river of sufficient importance, to assist in 
the least degree the explorer in penetrating its distant and mysterious interior. 

November 30M.~-This day was devoted by s<Hne of the resident gentlemoi of the vicinity to 
an attempt to show the Governor the sport, par excellence^ of the country — ^kax^aroo hunting. 
Under tl^r guidance, accordingly, well mounted and accompanied by three or four greyhounds 
of a powerfid breed, we traversed a wide extent of forest-land where in (miinary seasons this 
animal was known to abound. In a 1<»^ day's ride, howevor, we only found one kangaroo, fi>r- 
tunately a good specimen of that kind known as a veASjetf a strong and fleet amnuJ not less 
than five feet high. The bush was tolerably open, hampered only by fidlen timber and occa- 



76 OITB AKTirOBES. 

sional rocky or hoggy Boil. The kangaroo, which was feeding in a patch of long grass, jumped 
up under oar horses' feet, and at first starting looked very mnch like a red-deer hind ; its 
action was less smooth though equally swift; bat no one oould have guessed that it consisted 
onlv of a series of jumps, the fore-feet never touching the ground. A shrill tallyho fix>m one 
of ^e finest riders I ever saw made all the doga spring into the air ; two of which got away on 
p^tty good terms with our quarry, and, while feeing the hill at a pace considerably greater 
than an ordinary hunting gallop, I thought we should have had a ' whoo— whoop !' in less 
than five minutes. Afler crossing a ridge and commencing the descent on the opposite skie, 
however, the red-flyer showed us quite ' another pair of shoes,' and a pretty &st pair too. I 
never saw a stag in view go at all like our two-le^ed friend ; and, in short, after a sharp burst 
of twelve or fourteen minutes, both dogs and men were fairly distanced. In about half that 
time I had lost my place by riding at ^11 speed into the fork of a fallen tree concealed in long- 
grass, a predicament out of which there is only aae means of extrication, namely, retreat ; for 
cavalry has no chance against a good abattis. The Australian gentlemen present rode with 
snaffle bridles pretty nearly at full speed, through, under, or over the forest trees, according to 
their position, standing or prostrate, the great art bdng, it should seem, to leave the horse as 
much as possible to his own guidance. On the whole, taking into consideration the hardness 
of the ground, the stump-holes, sun cracks, and deep fissures caused by water, the stiffiiess of 
the underwood and the frequency of the trees, living, dying, and dead, burnt and burning, the 
riding in a kangaroo hunt may be considered tolerably dangerous. It affords, in short, to Eng- 
lish manhood that quantum of risk which seems to form Ihe chief seasoning of the dish callc>i 
sport ;, in a good run with fox-hounds your person, on a race-course your purse, are just suffi- 
ciently jeopardised to promote a pleasing d^ree of excitement. 

The dogs employed to-day were in no condition to cope with a ' red-flyer,' or ' old sol<Der,* 
as a large kind of kangaroo is called, on good ground ; in deep ground, either is soon caught by 
really good dogs. I think I perceive the reason why the * animal always, if possible, takes a 
down-hill course when pursued. The hare, which, like the kangaroo, has very long hind-1^, 
prefers running up-hill, but she makes good use also of her fore^legs. At full speed the kan- 
garoo's fore-feet, as I have said, never touch the ground, and tiierefore, in going down-hill he 
has more time to gather up the hinder limbs to repeat his tremendous spring than he oould have 
in feeing an ascent. I wish I had had time to measure the stroke of the ' red-flyer ' we chased 
to-day when at his best pace ; I am convinced it would have equalled the well-known stride of 
the great ' Eclipse.' 

At bay, the kangaroo is dangerous to young and unwary dogs, from the strengfJi with which 
he uses the long sharp claw of his hind foot, a weapon nearly as formidable as the wild boar's 
tusk. The animal, when hard pressed, not unfrequently takes to a water-hole, where from his 
stature he has a great advantage over the dogs, ducking tiiem under water and sometimes drown- 
ing them as they swim to the attack. The tail of the kangaroo makes excellent soup ; the 
haunch is tolerable venison, but, like most really wild venison, it is too lean. A good bush- 
man, or a black, knows, however, where to find a certain portion of &t whoi he is about to 
make a hunter's dish, which might with propriety be called an Australian kabaub. The 
directions are as follows : — Skewer or shiver (to use my informant's stronger word), skiver 
alternate slices of lean and fet on your ramrod, roast at a fire that any native will make with 
two sticks ; and if you happen to be hungry, you will not require knife or fork, salt, pepper, 
or pressing. Kangaroo ' steamer' is another bush-dish — a sort of ha^s of venison and salt 
pork, very popular with those who have time and patience for the culinary process called sim- 
mering. 

An officer from Van Diemen's Land told me that he had once killed in that colony a 
kangaroo of such magnitude, that, being a long way from home, he was unable, although on 
horseback, to carry away any portion except the tail, which alone weighed 30lbs. This species 
is called the boomah, and stands about seven feet high. Besides the single kangaroo, we saw 
this day no otiier animals with the exception of a few kangaroo rats, which the dogs occasion- 
ally bounded after with littie success among the scrubby rockland, two large guanas about two 
feet long swarming lazily up a tree, one of which a black fellow brought down dead with a 
cast of his boomerang, and a poisonous ash-coloured snake, which I cut in pieces with my 
hunting-whip under my horse s legs. There were also a good many quail, which, as we 
flushed them, were swoopcl at by a large black falcon that kept his place near us on tlie 
march, now on a tree, now on the wing — and thus shared our sport. In the gi*ass lands a sort 
of gi*ound pigeon, called the dudu, a very handsome little biid, got up and went off like a 



HOW TO STOP A FIGHT. 77 

partridge, strong and gwift, relighting on the ground, and numing into coyer, I never saw 
the bird except on this occasion. 

Our hunt led us through some fine tracts of forest pasture ; the ' intervals/ as allavial flats 
near rivers are called in Canada, were extremely rich ; the trees too were of the most majestic 
proportions. I measured the girth of one of these bush Falstaffs, and found it no less than 
thirty-tliree feet. Along the surface roots of the largest trees, the soil, we observed, had 
been turned up as if by swine. This is done, as we were told, by the blacks in their search for 
a species of grub, a &vourite article of food with them, and reported to be quite as palatable as 
marrow. There is something truly revolting in the idea of eating a great white maggot ; the 
very thought makes one shudder ; yet, after all, the man who first tested the qualities of the 
ravf oyster, * ripped untimely' from its mother shell, was no less adventurous than the grub- 
eating Australian savi^e. Poor blackey ! although the white usurper will exterminate, devour, 
or drive away your kangaroo, emu, and wallabi, and shoot you if you indulge in mutton chops 
in return ; I do believe he will leave you in undisputed possession of yojr tree grub, — ^the only 
food in which the British maw cannot follow you ; except indeed human steaks, which, I ima- 
gine, have never yet been deliberately eaten by white man — although it is notorious that dogs, 
cats, and horses, in unrecognised form^ do occasionally find their way into the London meat- 
market! 

December 1st, Mj English friends may perhaps imagine that on this first day of December 

I am blowing my fingers — as thet are ; nor would they indeed be wrong ; for I am blowing 

them, as the satyr's guest in the &ble did to cool his ponidge. An Australian bard sings 

* While hot December's sultry breeze 
Scarce moves a leaf on yonder trees,' — Lang. 

and this day was a smoking hot one. 

I would describe the town of Wellington if I could : but what can be said of a town where 
there are scarcely two houses within a stone's throw of each other, and every second one is a 
public-house ? 

In the morning we retraced our steps to Mr. Maxwell's station at Narragil, fifteen miles, 
where we resumed the carriages, and continued our retreat, to Coombing through the squatting 
districts of Wellington and Bathurst, thereby travelling over fresh ground. Our party were 
indebted for our supper and beds this night, and our breakfas't ^e following day, to fhe 
hospitality of two squatting establishments ; the gentlemen were away at Sydney with their 
wool ; but it was impossible very deeply to lament an absent landlord, when landladies so very 
agreeable remained at home. Perhaps it was in consequoioe of the absence of the master that 
in the former of these houses there arose, after our retirement for the night, a glorious disturb- 
ance among the menials— the scene being the kitchen, towards which my bedi^oom looked, and 
where botib sounds and sights announced a serious affray. Pulling on my boots again I 
proceeded through the back-door to the spot, and found two rough-looking fellows fighting, or 
rather sparring, in the midst of screaming women and crashing crockery. J saw at a glance 
that the combatants devoutly hoped in their hearts that my interference was intended to 
promote peace : but no, my object was to save our kind landlady's property — not their eyes and 
noses ; and I read in their looks bitter disappointment when I simply invited them to finish 
their set-to behind the stable by the bright moonlight^ and offei-ed myself to see £Eur l>lay. 
These pugnacious fellows shook hands immediately 1 

During the early part of the next day, December 3rd, our guides fairly lost their and our 
way. We got into a boggy tract of country, and becaune seriously apprehaisive lest the 
carriages should permanency stick fiist The position was &r from pleasant, for we had no 
provisions, and our next halting-place was at some distance. Horsemen were sent out in 
different directions in search of a track. At length, sweeping the dreary pix)spect with eager 
eye, I discovered a moving object ; it was a sheep ; — ^there was a flock — and near them I found 
a young girl seated on a log. A youthful shepherdess tending her snowy and bleating charge 
under the sylvan shades of the forest, sounds highly romantic and charming ; one recals at 
once the sighing swains and tender maids of Arcady the Blest, and the Strephons and Floi-as of 
pastoral song. In this case there was no room for sentiment, except that of pity for the poor 
jrirl and anxiety for our own situation. She seemed half idiotic, answering not a word to my 
inquiries, but pointing tg a distant hut. 

The father of the poor little shepherdess having guided us into the right road to Summerhill, 
at which place we were to bait, we soon di*ew near that little settlement; and at about half a 
mile therefi-om a deputation of some thirty hoi-semen advanced to meet tlie Govei-nor, and 



78 



OUB AKTIPODES. 



Gcndacted him to a rery tolerable inn, where we reoeired and digested a loyal address and an 
early dinner. Little thought His Excellency — little thought the good folks who were welooming 
him with every showy demoDstratioii in their power — ^that our meeting at Snmmerhill in 1846 
took place <«i a * field of the doth of gold !' It was not until 1851 that, in the bed of the 
Sommerhill Creek, not &r from this spot, gold was first found, and first announced to the public 
of New Sonth Wales. 

While we were r^aling oorsdTes in the parlonr of the inn, affairs at the bar of the house 
were goii^ on with spirit. Tlie health of Her Majesty's representatiTe, and of each other was 
repeatedly and entiiusiastically drank by the deputies ; and when onr progress was resumed, it 
had become a kind of bacchanal triumph. The plump and iiiddy indiriducd who took command 
a£ the escort ought to have been moanted on a leopard and crowned and cincted with yine>leaves. 
It was wonderful to see the strength and balance with which he kept his seat in spite of his 
potationB. His aide-de-camp was nearly as remarkaUe in the same line. It was clear that 
both had practised equitation and ind[>riety as twin sciences, from their boyhood upwards. In 
the centre of a dozen jets of mud i^ashed up by our zealous guardians, our cavalcade passed 
oat of Snmmerhill under a pair of gorgeous banners sustained by two standard-bearers standing, 
• or, more properly, stagg»ing opposite each other, and apparoitly on the worst of terms. I 
heard one of them, a little old native of the land of pat-riotism, conclude a volley of abuse 
discharged at his vM-d-vts by contemptuously denouncing him as * a bloody immigrant V — 
thereby leaving the hearer to infer that the speaker was himself a * Government man,' that his 
rival was a fres man, and that it was dUsgraceful for any one to come to this country ezo^ in 
pursuance of the sentence of a court of criminal jurisdic^on. 

We were getting somewhat tired uid bored with our equestrian companions, who continued to 
canter by the sides of the carriages, when, just as one of them had sworn eternal friendship to 
' myself and good fellowship with all mankind, and had repeatedly wrung my hand at the risk of 
his neck, a largish house hove in sight ; a sign-post stood before it ; it was a public house, 
* licensed to retail fermented and spirituous liquors.' To our great relief, this apparition put an 
immediate, a natural, and a general termination to the attendance of our well-meaning 
friends. 

Passing over the rich lowlands of * King's Hains,' we roiched at 7 P. M. the snug country 
imi of Mr. Doyle ; and here a council was called on the question of remaining there for the 
m^t, or pushing onwards the fifteen miles to Goombing. ' Forward ' was once more the 
veidict, and accordingly we enjoyed— the enjoyment somewhat doubtful — a most beautiful 
moonlight drive through forest, swamp^ and swollen creek, over crackling branches and soughing 
mud, brier and brake, sand and rock ; and for some miles through the * burnt fathers' of the 
bush — a lai^ tract just passed over by fire, subdued but not extinguished by the rain ; and in 
four hours and a half, at one o'clock of the night, we thankfully reached Coombing; — 'and so 
to bed with great content,' as old Pepys cosily expresses himself. Thus, with a good day's 
work of nineteen hours was concluded our circuit of 230 miles round the Canobolas Mountains 
and the pastoral districts at their feet This range has since hem discovered to be the axis of 
an immense gold-field. ' 

In the spring of the year 1850, when I paid a second visit to Mr. Icely, this night journey 
would have been impossible ; for during the preceding winter, or rather at the close of it, so 
heavy and unusual a fall of snow had taken place that the whole face of the country round 
about was strewn with branches broken down by the weight of the drifts. Many of these 
disjected members of the gnarled old gum-trees were thicker than a man's body ; and so 
completely were the bush-pastures cumbered with the d^brt's, that the area of grazing ground 
was seriously diminished ; nor could it be restored until the whole of the falloi timber had been 
burnt otf— a dangerous remedy to adopt. The oldest blacks had never seen the like before ; 
they were alarmed, and their lives endangered, by the continual and general downfell of boughs 
during two or three nights. The poor wretches could find no safe shdttA' from the chilly storm, 
for every tree might be a traitor. Experienoed bushmen seldom sleep under a large gum-ti'ee, 
well knowing the dangerous brittleness of the branches. 

This part of the country, so destitute of humidity, has rarely been viewed under such 
flattering circumstances as distinguish it at pre^^nt, the Xmusaally heavy and continuous fall of 
rain having made it one sheet of verdure. It was easy to see that the squatters were alarmed 
last the new Governor should imbibe, together with the numerous wettings he got, too high an 
idea of the natural wealth of the soil, and thus form too low an estimate of ^e risks and 
difficulties of their position, with reference to 'his future legislation. It must not be forgotten 



THE FLYING BQUIBBEL. 79 

that Sir Chaxki^B ialand tonr took place in 1846» previoady to tho eeHtoii of fbrtiwr pririkgw 
of tamvt, &c. to the etodc proprietors, m coo&rred bj tbe preeent regnktioiis. 

In the subeeqneat visit to Coombing I found the worthy propnfltor, in addMon to his other 

avocations of squatter, landed proprietor, member of the Legisiativ« Coandl, &c., had got yet 

another iron in the fire ; but he was introdudng it so cautioiuiy as to ron little risk of burning 

his fmgere, an acddent which has be&lkn many dabblers in mining. Within 200 yards of his 

dw^ling lie had disoowred a rich lode of copper, and had got well down to it at fifty or sixty 

feet. Amongst other mineralogical curiosities, Mr. Icely showed us on this ooeasioa two or 

three minute specimens of a 'metal more attractive ' — of gold in a quarts matrix, found on his 

own estate, so minute as to ^ be clearly visible only through a microceope. He produood also 

from his cabmet a letter — I forget whether printed or in manuscript— from the hands of Sir 

Boderick Muxchison, dated some time back, in which he states, with re&renoe to a specimen 

soit home by Mr. Icely, that the precious metal ia found in tbe Und Mountains in a like 

deposit, and under similar geological conditions ; and expresses an opinion that the western slope 

of the Australian Cordillera would be found highly aniiftrous. Here was an actual specimen 

of Australian gold, with the judgment of one of our first geologists that it existed in abundance 

on or near the spot where we stcKnL In September 1850, an almost invisible gp&ck of native 

gold was displayed to me with evident signs of exultation by a resklwt of the Bathunt district ; 

in July 1851, at the town of Bathurst, was exhibited to me a single spccnncn of Australian 

gold, weighing upwards of one hundredweight 1 

» December 4^A. — We bade adieu to oqr very kind and agreeable hosts of Coombtng, and 
started early on our return towards Sydney. This day's journey was to terminate at Brucedale, 
the country seat of Mr. William &ittor, member fer Bathurst, about eight miks from that 
town. Threading the usual numoer of gum-trees, we performed it very satisfactorily and 
wholly without acodent, except that of His Excellency's cairiage paasing an hour up to the 
axles in a bo^y bit of ground, from whence it was at length retracted by a stout cart-horse 
IxuTowed from the <Hily dray we met on the road. 

Amongst other game we saw to-day several flying squirrels; one of which Mr. Fitz Roy 
succeeded in killing with a ball from a policeman's carbine. It is a beautiful little animal, its 
ur dark coloured and soft, and its floating mode of flight from tree to tree, supported on the 
membrane stretching between its fore and hind-legs, extremely graoefhi and singular. 

Our route took us once more across tbe Plains of Batiiurst ; leaving which town on our 
right, we re-plunged into the bush, and, gradually ascending some ftnr miles mere, emerged, 
late in the afternoon, afW a journey of eleven hours, at Brucedale. The house is large and 
commodious, situated on a knoll which pushes itself into the nndst of a richly cultivate vale, 
through which winds the pretty little Windbumdale rivulet The proqiect is bounded, at the 
distance of half a mile or thcareabouts, by wooded hills, highly pictuiesqve and making the 
position of the ]dace ro m a nti cally sequestered. Yet th^ is precisely one of the fiiults I find 
Avith the home scenery of New South Wales ; to be shut up in a forest, with no outiet for the 
eye, gives me always a sense of mwtal suflbcation. Thus situated, I should never lay down 
the axe until I had obtained a vista of sufRciotit extent to take a long breath in. The detritus 
, of these hills affords excellent soil for the vine ; the climate also &vours it ; and whereas this 
plant, though stimulative and assuasive of human thirst, is itself not greedy of moisture, there 
will doubtiess be good wine produced here some day — for the grapes are beautiful. If my 
gustative acumen is worth anything that day had not arrived in 1846. In 1850, when I had 
the pleasure of visiting Brucedale again, it had certainly dawned, if not reached its meridian. 

We found two kinds of natural bush-fruit growing in great plenty on the uplands, — namely, 
the ' five comers,' produced by a beautiful species of ftichsia a£ber the &11 of the blossom, and the 
geebung, a native plum very woolly and tasteless. With r^ard to the former flower, the 
cluldren of Mr. Suttor taught me to find at the bottom of each calyx a single drop of the richest 
h<»iey->water ; and we sipped tt^ether some hundreds of these fairy cupsof hydromel. Depending 
from some of the larger gum-trees were ihe most enormous mistletoes I ever 8aw,~-one or two 
of the clusters of this parasite being so unifimn in shape as to look like a huge oval chandelier 
of bronze, (for that was their colour,) hanging }dumb down frt>m some slend««* twig.' In the 
lowlands here, a^at Coombing, the JEucaiyptua manntfera^ or Flooded gum, grows in great 
profusion and of majestic size. It sounds strange to English ears, — a party of ladies and 
gentlemen strolling out in a summer's aitoiMMn to gather manna in the wilderness : yet more 
than once I was so employed in Australia. This substance is found in small pieces on the 
ground under the trees* at certain seasons, or in hardened drops on the sur&oe of the leaves ; 



fiO OUB ANTIPODES. 

it is BDOwy white when fresh, but turns brown when kept like the chemist's drag so called, b 
sweeter than the sweetest sugar, and softer than Gtmter's softest ice-cream. The mansa is 
seldom plentiful ; for birds, beaists, and human bdngs devour it, and the slightest rain, or eren 
dew dissolves its delicate oranpooents. Theories have been hazarded and essajs published as to 
the origin of this singular substance ; but whether it is formed bj the puncture and deposit of 
4in insect, or is the natural product of the tree, no one, I believe, can venture to assert. Xor 
was there wanting hereabouts another special article <^ the heaven-sent food of the wanderii^ 
tribes of Israel ; for hundreds of quails were to be found within a few paces of the manna-field& 

Mr. William Suttor is one of the secmd geieraticMi of the name settled in the colony ; a third 
is rising pretty rapidly. His father, a venerable and highly intelligent gentleman, whose 
acquaintance, also, I had the pleasure «f making on this occasion, having established himsel: 
originally on an estate granted to him by Government near Paramatta, sent forward his soq, 
still in his teens, to superintend the squatting stations in the Bathurst district. In like maimer, 
the branches as well as the property of the fomily having subsequently increased, some of the 
younger scions are now about to join a party of youths on an expediti<m to se^ for ]ocati<ns for 
iiocks and herds, and to take duu^ of them when established, on the Baig&n River, for in the 
interior. Our host, who appears to be one of those men well calculated to gi'apple with 
difficulties, and to make nme, gave me some interesting details connected with his eai'ly occupa- 
tion of the country. Surrounded with convict servants, and with numerous tiibes of the 
Aborigines, he never had any trouble with either. Doubtless, his treatment of both was firm, 
just, and consistent. The mutual relations of these two classes were, however, not so peaceable— 
fi'eqnent collisions taking place, in which blackey of course fored the worst ; yet, on one occasion, 
no less than aev&i white men foil under their spears. Mf . Suttor possesses very considerable 
property in land and live-stock ; and has discovered copper, lead, and even indications of gold on 
his estate. He prudently contoits himself, however, at present, with the superficial produce of 
the earth. 

A party of some thirty-five ladies and gentlemen from Bathurst and the neighbourhood 
dined at Brucedale this day to meet the Governor ; and about forty more came to a dance in 
the evening. During the dinner, I found myself very assiduously waited on by a servant 
belonging to a gentleman present ; his foce was familiu* to me ; but "where, when, or how we 
had met before I had no recollection. Amid the noise and bustle occasioned by the ball, he 
drew near me, and whispering, said, * Don't you know me, Sir ? don't you remember 

James ? I was six years in your company in tiie 43rd.' I immediately recalled to mind 

that this man had been transported for life by a general court-martial for deserting firom the 

regiment during the Canadian rebellion in 1838. In 1846, 1 (the Deputy Judge Advocate, as 

it happened, of the court which tried him) find the dii^raced and dishonoured soldier, who was 

' marked with the letter D, and transported as a folon for the term of his natural life,' now the 

^ trusted, well-paid, and well-fed domestic servant of a wealthy colonist I Is not this foct a direct 

/ premium for ' mutiny, desertion, and all other crimes,' for which transportation is awarded bj 

^ a military tribunal, and a somewhat dangerous subject for discussion in a barrack-room, whoi 

f duties happen to be heavy or officers severe ? How ibis fellow and felon must chuckle ovec 

the loyal soldier who toils through the world, following his colours for Is. a-day, while he gets 

his 20/. or .30/;. a-year, food, and lodgings, and can go where he lists over a wide continent,--' 

to which thousands of the poor and honest labourers of England' would joyfully repair, could 

they afibrd the cost of passage and outfit, both of which were furnished to this criminal at the 

public expense I Mr. Deserter -~-^ was very much inclined for conversation with his former 

captain ; but I told him, that, as an officer in Her Majesty's service, I could hold no coomitt* 

aication with one who had fonaken his colours and broken his oath. 

Military crimes are thought nothing of in New South Wales ; and men who have been 
transported for committing such are high in the labour market and eagerly sought for. 
A wide distinction is drawn between him whom a breach of discipline has made a felon, and 
him who has gained that title through a civil court for robbery, burglary, perjury, foi^ery, or 
other offences against society at lai^. The soldier who (mce or twice a-year eaUes the 
barrack Walls and makes away with his kit in order to raise funds for a nocturnal spree, and 
in a paroxysm of pot-valour trips up the heels of the fat sergeant who is testing his sobriety by 
putting him throui^ his focings ;— ^r who punches or threatens to punch the head of the cor- 
])ond of the pioquet which captured him — ^is, in the martinet's eye — indeed in that of every good 
soldier — a terrible and unpardonable delinquent; — ^yet whoi grown a year or two older 
•nd wiser, perhaps the very qualities of flesh and spirit which induced these disorders would 



AUTOBIOGEAPHY OF A WAITER. 81 

render him eligible for the posts of constable, policeman, overseer, watchman, or such other os 
a Colomai Government or private employer, in times of scarcity of labour, has great difiicultr 
iu filling. This very scarcity and deamess of labour, which has subsisted for so long in the 
colony and which c^iainly did not decrease during the five years of my sojourn there, present a 
powerfiil incitement to desertion, for crimps are active and unscrupulous, and, when a half* 
diTinken private, known to be a tolerable handicraftsman, is promised ensign's or even 
lieutenant s pay — and moreover gets it — ^what wonder that he should foi^ the obligations he 
subscribed to in his attestation ? And should his conscience afterwards urge him to return to 
Lis allegiance, he can only do so through the gates of a military court. I met in this Colony 
Tvith more than one deserter or other delinquent from our military service, who, having 
completed the period of their sentence, are now doing well and living as respectable and useftil 
citizens. But there was one case that came to my knowledge, so singular, that I am tempted 
to insert a notice of it here, rather than admit it in its more ttiictly appropriate place, because 
I am unwilling to point too directly to the person in question. In 1850, when proceeding with 
my wife on an excursion into the provinces, a gentleman recommended us to pass a day or two 
2it a certain rural inn, where the climate was considered cool, ^d whone, as he said, 

* old John , the waiter, will take excellent care of you, and make you very com- 
fortable, if you mention my name.' Accordingly we soon became veiy good friends with 
John, whom we found to be a little weazened old fellow, quick and intelligent although evi- 
dently declining in strength, most attentive to our comforts, a first-rate cook (for he performed 
that office in the absence of the hired one), and full of amusing anecdotes and proverbs 
d la Sancho. I believe I must admit that, with all his estimable quaUties, rogue was so inde- 
libly written in his countenance, that although it belied his present character it was still 
impossible to look in old John's face and feel (however one might place) implicit trust in him. 
I knew nothing of him further than that he had led an adventurous life ; and one evening 
while sitting over our tea, which the old fellow had embellished with some regular English-inn 
butt«red toast, I asked him to give us his history — for he had just told me that he hi^ served 

* a little ' in tiie army. He was nothing loth ; and I took down the following ' Autobiography 
of a New South Wales Waiter,* nearly in his own words ; nor have I since t^en the trouble to 
test his dates and facts. 

' I was born/ began John, * in the island of North Shetland, and was, as early as I can 
remember, and long before 1 could lift an oar, employed in the ling-fishing trode. In 1806-7, 
I was in Greenland, where I served a short apprenticeship in whaling. In 1808, when at 
North Scalloway, plying in my father's boat, I was pressed by a man-of-war's tender. I ran 
from the press-gangj the very same day, and went and enlisted with a party of artillery 
stationed in the fort. Marched with them shortly afterwards to Aberdeen, and was employed 
there and at Glasgow recruiting, for some time. Being considered too short for the artillery, 
I was transferred to the 1st Koyals, and joined their 4th Battalion in December 1808, on 
their return from Corunna. I embarked with them July 1809 in the Bevenge (74), Cap- 
tain Paget, for Flushing — the second expedition. Landed under Colonel Hay, and assisted at 
the taking of five batteries. Was wounded in the head by a musket-&hot the day before the 
town sun-endered. Came to England, and was placed in hospital at Harwich. In January 
1310 I was sent with the force to Portugal, and was landed in the Black Horse Square, 
Lisbon, where we were brigaded. Thence we went by water to Santarem ; afterwards to 
Thomar. I was at the battle of Busaco, and the subsequent retreat to the Lines. In 1811, 1 
was present at the affairs of Pombal and Sabugal ; at Almeida, Fuentes d'Onor, Cuidad 
Hodrigo ; at the siege and capture of Badajos ; at Salamanca, where I received a bed sabre 
wound in the side ; at Madrid and Burgos, and the retreat from the latter. I was at Lamego 
and Visu, (but these were mere skrimmagesi) at Vittoria, and St, Sebastian — where I was 
shot through the thigh, and taken prisoner by a sortie while reconnoitring the horn-work 
and brejich J — this was July 21, 1813. Was retaken on the 31st August, when the place 
icll. I lay ibr some time m hospital at Sautander and Bilboa ; but i was young and strong, 
and my wound soon healed. I was fit for duty, and present at the sortie of Bayonne. 

' In 1815 I embarked at Cork for the Netherlands with ihe 3rd Battalion of the Royals. 
Recollect well the towns of Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, and Brussels. Was employed at this 
time in the regimental mess. Was quartered close to the house where the Duchess of Rich- < 
mond |i:ave the gi-and ball on the 17th of June. I was married then, and both myself and 
my wife were employed in the officers' mess. I was on the field of Waterloo, and was sent, 
with the quarter-master of the battalion, back to Brussels after the battle, and thence to 



1 



82 ova. ANTIPODES. 

Clichi. In 1816 I was stationed at Valenciennes with the Army of Occupation : and in th<» 
sj\me year I got my discharge. I set up for myself, and at one time had 500/. or 600/. in th** 

Bank. In the year I came out to New South Wales ; and in this country I have met 

with adventures, successes, and troubles such as few men have gone through.* 

The retired veteran was proceeding to recount some of the leading incidents of his Austra- 
lian career, when his present historian interrupted him with the pertinent, but perhaps inde- 
licate remark — * But, John, you have not told us how or why you emigrated.* 

* No, Sir, I have not,* replied my hero, with a slight change of countenance. * Well, Sir 
I endorsed a bill for a person who signed another man's name ; was tried for being an accom- 
plice in a forgery — (forgery itself was, you know, a hanging matter in tho<e days) — and was 
transported. I don't complain of my judges. They behaved very well to me. They could 
not know that I was innocent of any wrong intention when I signed my name. The authori- 
ties in this country, too, behaved very well to me. I was always a sober man, you see. 

They assigned me as servant to Mr. H , of G , whom I served for four years as cook 

and house-steward. Having made some money, I afterwards set up an eating-house at 
Sydney, and did well in that line. However, getting tired of it, I piu-chased a vessel of 95 
tons lying in the Hawkesbury ; stored it well in Sydney, and traded to Hobart Town, where 
at one time I had a house. I also made several trips to Swan River when it was fii-st 
settled, carrying sundries there which I sold at high profits — especially wooden frame houses. 
Unfortunately I entrusted my vessel and cargo to a hired master, who got drunk with his 
crew and totally wrecked the schooner on the rocks of the Five Islands. Vessel and freight 
were worth, I suppose, 3,000/. Being now entirely ruined, I accepted the post of super- 
cai^o in a vessel trading to New Zealand ; and whilst in that country I lost the use of my 
limbs from rheumatism. Returning to New South Wales, and having once more saved a 
little money, I rented a farm on the Kurrajong Hills, but the main road from Sydney to 
Bathurst was diverted from it by the Government ; the caterpillars devoured my crops, and 
I was compelled to give up the lease. After that I took to house-service again, which I find 
the safest and surest employment in my old age. I am now nearly worn out, and shall try 
no more experiments.* 

I have elsewhere remarked— or shall remark — that present good behaviour, independent of 
former character and conduct, is all that is required of a servant — (1 had almost said of an 
employ € of any sort) — in New South Wales. John, when I first made his acquaintance, was 
cook, waiter, and indeed ostensible manager of an excellent inn ; for the host and hostess 
were of that easy-going and invisible order which is remarkable, although luckily not nniversal 
among the hotel-keepers of this country. When I left the colony, I ascertained that the old 
man had quitted the public line, and had become major-domo and factotum to an opulent 
squatter. The narrative is as he gave it to me. Subsequently, accident enabled me to fill up 
one or two of the many hiatus which self-esteem naturally inclined this much-by-fortune- 
buffeted Shetlander to leave in his autobic^raphy. In a casual conversation with one of the 
judges of the land, I was made cognisant of John's second entrance into the bonds of matri- 
mony, as well as other bonds. It appears he wooed and wedded one of his own feather, who 
shortly afterwards was convicted in tiie colony of being principally, while the husband was 
proved to be secondarily, engaged in a grand robbery of futient spirits. What became of his 
better half I did not inquire, but my respectable old friend paid a compulsory visit to the two 
sequestered islands of Cockatoo and NoHblk. His Honour who pronounced the senteice was 
nevertheless so much impressed with the many valuable qualities of the exile, that aiier seven 
years of probation, he procui'ed his return to New South Wales. Even in Norfolk Island 
itself his talents did not remain under a bushel ; for the officers of the detachment found ont 
his cooking qualifications, and John was once more engaged at a military mess. 

The above is a long story — ^here is a short one, on the subject of convict servants, just as it 
was related to me by a friend holding an exalted office in one of the Australian colonies. 
Pleased with the conduct and capabilities of a foreigner whom he had employed for some time 
as his butler, the gentleman, departing from the ordinary custom in such cases, demanded 
privately of this meritorious domestic what might have be«i the cause of his being * sent out.' 
* Something about a vatch,' was the prompt, frank, yet diplomatic, and therefore valet-like reply. 

December bth. Bnicedale. — ^A riding and driving expedition. When the party about to be 
ihus employed promises to be a numerous one, the following are something like tlw preliminary 
operations at the residence of an Australian provincial gentleman. 

Moet.^^* How many horses have you got with you ? 



PREPARATIONS FOR A RIBE. 83 

Visitor. — ' We hare three for the saddle, and six carriage horses.* 

Most. — * Oh ! then we shall want three more riding horses and four for the carriages j — 
your carriage horses will be all the better for a * spell,' (a rest). Here, Larry, take Fishhook 
\inth you, and drive in eight or ten horses. And, John, step tip to the store-room,* and bring 
down two new saddles and a couple of bridles and martingales ;— »-and, John, two or three 
irhips. And, oh, John, you must get up twenty or thirty of the best colts for His Excel- 
lency to see this aflemoon. He will see the heifa-s too ; so let Paddy and Johnny Russell (a 
black) drive them down to the lagoon by five o'clock ; — and halloo I you, Bill Ugly Mug 1 
^another black), run down and open the slip-rail into the 1,000-acre paddock !' 

Then comes a galloping of wild steeds with a cracking of stock-whips, and, after sundry wily 
evolutions of the drivers, the requisite number, and perhaps a dozen or two more, are collected 
within the stock-yard. They are soon haltered, saddled, and bridled by fair means or foul ; 
for the Australian horses are genei-ally good-tempered, and besides no option is allowed them. 
*Phe chestnut is a capital hack but a little stale in the fore-legs, for he is a favourite stock- 
horse, and has passed the greater part of his life at full gallop over ground as hard as the floor 
of a racket coui*t ; moreover he happens to have only one shoe on, and that a hind one ; — mere 
trifle ! The ' Emigi-ant ' Filly has a sore back and mouth from the breaking — ^bagatelle ! she 
will be all right aflei* the first ludf-hoar. The * Agitator ' colt will buck-jump a bit at 
starting ; — * Oh ! put Willy on him — ^he'U soon take the devil out of him 1' . . . 

The weather was beautiful, and we enjoyed a delightful excursion across the plains past 
Alloway Banks, a pi-etty cottage residence belmiging to the Suttor fiunily, and into the town of 
Batliui'st, where we visited the barracks of the infantry detachment and of the mounted police, 
the Government cottage, now the quarters of the officer commanding the troops, and other 
public buildings. 

December 7th. — G. F. and myself, with a small Aboriginal boy aa guide, repaired this 
aflemoon to seek for snipe in a swampy valley not far off, and had a very good two hours' 
.spoil — ^my bag containing seven couple of those biixls, a wild duck, and four brace of quail. 
One of the pleasantest passages of the sport was to count the teeth of the black lad, as he grin- 
ningly picked up a pair of widgeons which my companion and I respectively and simultaneously 
brought down on his head, as i^ey skimmed over the tops of a dump of gum-trees. The floods 
were very much out — so were the sun and the mosquitoes ; and I don't know that I was ever 
in a shoi-t time, so burnt, bitten, and wet through. The snipe of Australia appears to me to 
be a finer bird than him of Europe, to tlie eye ; — ^not so to tiie palate. 

December 8th. — Quitted Bracedale, and set forth on our return to Sydney — our own horses 
having been sent on twelve miles to the hostelry of the widow Jones on the high road, and Mr 
Suttor obligingly supplying us with teams for one stage. It was on this o<k»sion that, as 
previously related, an accident to my ill-starred vehicle drew out the bush resourpes of Mr. 
Suttor in the manner described. It was truly a disivputable looking carriage when. I turned 
it over — for the hist time, fortunately ! to Mr. Martyn, coach-buildor, Sydney. A few miles 
beyond Diamond Swamp we cheated the Surveyor-general and turned his flank, at least in so 
far as he is identified with the awful passt^ over Mount Lambey, by taking the line of Piper's 
Flat, a fine alluvial oasis in the midst of hills, covered with rich grass and watered by a 
beautiful stream, on the banks of which the wdl-fed cattle seemed almost to stagger under 
their fat. The projector of the concurrent mountain road, for which he has be«i so much 
abused by travellei-s, would have smiled sarcastically could he have looked down from his pet 
mountain upon our weary cavalcade, toiling like tortoises through the deep, black, flooded soil 
of the -valley below. Had it not been for tiie change of scaiery, I could almost have wished 
myself and my carriage upon the steep and precipitous, but at least firm road of Mount Lam- 
bey, by which route we performed our upward joum<7". 

December 10th. — ^A stage of twenty-one miles along the route already described, brought 
us to Bungarabee, the H. E. I. Company's stud establishment (just on the eve of abolition), 
where Captain Apperley gave ns a warm reception and excellent entertainment — albeit his 
old butler did select this particular evening to get most uncommonly and inconveniently drunk. 
His gi'ey haii-s, I think, alone saved him fhnn what his master calls, and sometimes inflicts — 
' a deuced good hiding.' Bungarabee consists of an excellent dwelling-house and offices, stables 
pennanent and temporary for several hundred horses, with some fine open paddocks around 
them, and is about twenty-three miles from Sydney. 

December lUh. — To-day we passed a spot where a year or two ago» in a thicket not far 

* The proprietor's private stoie, which contains everythiog, from • pkmgh to a tin*tack. 

Q 2 



84 OUB AKTIP0DE8, 

removed from the public road, wm found a human skeleton with a military cloak and cap 
lying near it. On the peak of the latter, scratclierl with a penknife, were the wonis: — 
* J. — H. — Major, died of starvation, May the — , 184 — .' I was told that the cause of this 
fearful incident was simply that the poor old ruined officer could not dig, was ashamed to 
beg — so he died, after writing his own mournful epitaph. 

As for our party, we reached the capital safe and sound at five P.M., after a most agreeable 
tonr of thirty- three days. * Travelling,' says Ford in his amusing * Gatherings,' * makes a 
man forget that he has a liver, that store-house of mortal misery, bile, blue pill, and blue 
devils.' I believe that no one of our party rejoiced at the change from the road to the city — 
from the picturesque and pastoral scenes of the Bush to the *Fumum et opes, strepitomique 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Winter is the gay season at Sydney. During the hotter months — ^November, December, 
January, February, and March — ^the society very wisely withdraws within its shell, shutting 
itself up, and the sun and hot winds out, * until further orders ' — as we say in the aiiny. No 
one moves abroad during the daytime for mere pleasure ; but towards four or five o'clock ia 
the afternoon, those who wish for air and exercise get into their carriages or mount their 
horses; and if there be a breeze in the air it may be met with on the road to the 
. Heads blowing over the vast Pacific Though not always cool, it is at least always pure 
and fresh. 

Of the surface peculiarities of the Sydney society I have said, and shall say but little. 
There is a feature of deeper importance to which I am pleased to be able to bear testimony. I 
have visited no pai-t of the world where there appears to exist so much of universal competence, 
so much equality of means, if such were possible ; there must be very few individuals in ^ew 
South Wales spending 1,000/. a-year upon the ordinary appliances of living ; equally few who 
cannot afford a sufficiency of good clothing, bread and meat and firing for tiiemselves and 
families every day of the year. The barometer of domestic finance has but few degrees on 
its scale ; no one in health can be at the zero of indigence, and scarcely any will bum like- 
Dives, for the same cause. In spite of the occasional grumblings of discontent on the sub- 
jects of the ' exhausted resources,' the ' paralysed energies,' the ' universal insolvency,' and the 
' downfall of the colony I'— there exists, in New South Wales, an amount of comfort and hap- 
piness for whidi its people ought to be deeply thankful. I have heard the society of Sydnej 
accused — I have heard them accuse themselves, of an addiction to scandal and tittle-tattle \ 
and I dare say, many persons who know the city quite as well as myself, will disagree with 
me when I exonerate the good people in general from those vices, or at least from possessing 
them in an inordinate degree. In New South Wales there is no aristocracy, properly so called, 
no hereditary idlers, no pensioned dowagers, no half-pay loungers, few widows or unmarried 
elders of either sex ; — all are working people, from the Governor downwards. There is, there- 
fore, I think, less backbiting and gossiping, less amiable uneasiness about other persons* affairs, 
than are generally to be found at an English watering place or country town. 

In the cool weather this sociefy meets together very pleasantly at dinner-parties of ten to 
fourteen, and at soirees dansantes of one hundred to three hundred persons. The really splendid 
rooms of Government-house, during the same season, receive a vast number of guests at 
dinners of twenty to thirty persons, and at balls from two hundred to twelve hundred pei-sons, 
the latter number being, I think, something under that of the cards of invitation issued on 
Her Majesty's birthday. 

In spite of the worthy Colonial Secretary's statistics, which tend to prove the still existing 
undue proportion of males over females in the colony generally, the fair sex preponderates very 
largely in the ball-rooms of Sydney. The brothers and sons of those pretty girls and 
respectable matrons are, one must suppose, pushing their fortunes in the Bush or elsewhere ; 
and, were it not for the officera of the staff and garrison, and now and then a lucky influx of 
naval men, the young ladies might live unpaired — even for the fugitive engagement of a 
quadrille or valtz. Viewed as a marriage market New South Wales must at piesent be set 
down as decidedly and shockingly bad. A speculative young woman emigrating, withont | 
capita], in the hope of securing an establishment for life, will no more succeed than would the 
young man without funds make a livelihood hy coming out as a squatter. In former days, 
inde^, when times were good and wool remunerative, the prosperous settler, tired of solitude, 



THE MABBIA6E MABKET. 85 

and desiring with Paul Richter ' to find a gentle girl who ooold cook aomething for hiin, and 

who would sometimea smile and aometimea weep with him/^ 

* A creatore not too bright and good 
For human nature's daily food :' 

<lesii*ou8, in a word, of assistance and sympathy in the loneliness of the bush — ^repaired to the 
xneti'opolis in deliberate and determined quest of the article desiderated ; but the reverses of the 
colony made men cautions, and unluckily for the ladies they still continue so. Sentimental 
impulse seems to have utterly stagnated I Perhaps many of the fiur damsels have souls above 
damper and bark huts — ^perhaps some of them really pr^er celibacy. Be this as it may, I see 
numboiB of nice girls still performing tiie very natural and graceful duties of danghten, without 
any apparent prospect of engaging in woman's msiin mission. Perhaps, as I said beibi'e, they prefer 
celibacy ; — ^but, admitting the possibility of thei'e being one or two dear little creatuixs who do 
not prefer that state, it is painful to me, who haveasofi heart (I write now as a married man !) 
to see the vine, the honeysuckle, the passion-flower, stretching out their delicate tendrils, and 
finding, alas ! no responsive oak or elm to lend its firm and permanent support ! Strange to 
«ay, too, the well brought up and pretty maidens of the middle and servant classes of Sydney 
<lo not appear to be much sought in maniage. Yet it is undoubtedly in these classes that tlie 
welUknown prqwndei-ance of males exists. The single m&a. do not want wives, and the respon- 
sibilities and encumbrances of family life. They prefer woiking hard — working like slaves — 
four or five diiys, and * larking' the rest of the week. 

It results from the circumstances I have above noticed, that in Australia, as in other de- 
pendencies of the Crown, the members of the martial professions are more graciously regarded 
in the light of possible husbands and sons-in-law, than they are known to be in the OM 
I!ountiy. There is a vulgar old-fitshioned notion among all classes at home — ^for which some 
of the ancient novel and play-writers may be thanked — ^that, if the private soldier be notoriously 
a * I'oscal in red/ the officer must be a dicer, a drinker, and a rufiler— capable of jilting a 
woman and bilking a turnpike— a perpetrator of 'broken oaths, and hearts, and heads,' and of ever}* 
inteimediate enormity between chuck-farthing and manslaughter ; — or, what is worse, a pauper ! 
Who has not seen the cautious husband or father watching with distrust the epauletted atten- 
tions of the most innocuous child of Mai's, wholly unsuspicious of the spruce young fellow in 
the black coat and white cravat who, two to one, is the real snake in the grass of the domestic 
lawn ? Thus the mouse, in a good old fiible, fled in terror from the cock strutting and crowing 
nbout the farm-yard, but looked without fear on the sleek tom-c^t, whose gentle purring 
manners disarmed suspicion I Luckily we have the softer and moro influential sex on our side ; 
—although occasionally ' a malignant and a turbaned ' chaperon, possessing a pretty and wealthy 
daughter or ward, toiU turn against us and ' traduce tiie state ' of our morals, finances, and 
intentions. 

As the close application to business, rendered necessary by the badness of the times, has 
operated as a deterrent l^m matrimony among the Colonial gentlemen ; perhaps it is the great 
amount of leisure enjoyed by, or rather forced upon individuals of my profession in this country, 
that has given the combined forces of Cu]Hd and Hymen such an advantage ovei' them. The 
shafls which glance harmless ofl^' the rhinoceros hide of the money-hunting merchant and the 
wool-gathering squatter, have transfixed the unoccupied heai-t and secured the unemployed 
hand of many a son of the swoixl in New South Wales and the neighbouring colonies — ^to a 
greater degi-ee pei-haps than occurs in any other of the five-and-forty dependencies of Great 
Britain. It "was here that that social prodigy, a married ensign, first broke upon my asto- 
nished sight ! Alack-a-day ! — 'twas a feai^ spectacle for a philanthropist or a prophet ; but 
the pailies most concerned were as happy as if there were no to-morrow ; — and lite is shoit, 
— so tiie consequences usually accruing from the condition of * nothing a-day, and find himself ' 
had no terroi-s for the hesid of this youthful establishment. May they ne^'er meet the troubles 
that, in the panoply of timsting and lovuig heaiis, they have not feared to brave 1 The blue- 
jackets too have n6t come oft' scot-fi'ee. Not a few of these open-heai"ted fellows, rendered 
doubly susceptible by long deprivation of female society, have fallen in love and into a pro- 
posal, with some fair Australian — some lily of the Pacific ; and, since their mission into these 
»oas by ' their loi-dships ' in Whitehall does not comprise a clause for the replenishment of the 

tho 




army * a good quaiier,' especially 
for the otficcra. It must be admitted, I suppose, that, taking them as a class, gentlemen of 



86 ouB ai;tifodbs. 

{he sword are not deeply addicted to literary ponoits ; tbat no great anunint of nndnigfat dl— 
in the poetical sense at least ! — ^is consumed by them in their general aTOcations. In these 
colonies, and especially near Sydney, there is no shooting or hunting, usually so rife in 
countries without game laws ; nor any other safety-valves for exuberant vitality, — while all 
the less innocent pastimes common to large towns, axid seaport towns in particular, extend Iheir 
temptations to young men of leisure and spirit. I err in saying that there is no hunting. 
There was none near Sydney when I first arrived. Formerly some approaches were made to 
an imitation of the good old English sport of fox-hunting ; for your Briton generally oootrives, 
in obstinate resistance to ciimate and circumstances, to carry about with him the custonos and 
pursuits of the Mother-land. The mere non-existence of the fox in this country presented no 
obstacle to the performance of fox-hunting by Her Majesty's servants in New South Wales. 
,Aa the jackal obligingly undertook at the shortest notice that character in Hindostan, so, m 
Australia, the dingo or native dc^, — (you may see a fine specimen in the London Zoological 
Gardens,) — ^was not permitted, through any difiidence on his part, however natural, to decline 
the performance of fox to the best of his ability. And truly he is no bad substitute. The 
Cumberland Hunt was only a matter of history when I reached the colony. It was left for 
Mr. George Fitz Roy to establish a regular pack, well turned out, master and whippers in 
' pink and skins,' fixtures advertised, and everything orthodox. 

The country is as inimical to fox-hunting as can well be conceived ; wide tracts of dense 
forest, salt creeks, impracticable ravines, a hard, sandy, scent-repelling eoil, and in the cleared 
and enclosed ground three and four railed fences of iron bark and other unmanageable timber, 
which might well appal the stoutest heart — if not break the toughest neck — that ever put a 
nag at a fence or tumbled over it. Now and then occurred such slight incongruities as the 
master, servants, and field coming home with only half-a-dozen hounds out of the twenty 
couple, and sometimes without a single card of the pack, — during which abs^ce of the proper 
authorities some uneasiness could not but be felt as to tiie nature of the prey fourteen or 
fifteen couple of hungry hounds might happen to pick up in their TmcontroUed course. Not 
unfrequentiy indeed, when legitimate game was scarce and when the woody nature of the 
country fiivoured an outbreak, the mottied conspirators would * run into ' some stray sheep- 
dog before they could be whipped off; or, on the way home, would * walk into ' some old 
lady's fat lap-dog — ^the latter a species of * riot,' which gave me, I confess, unmitigated satis- 
faction. The destruction of noxious animals was, as every one knows, the original motive of 
the chase ; — I am old enough to remember the pug-dog, the very type of useless cur-ism ; — 
he is now — ^with his black snout and curly tail — as extinct as the mastodon and the golden 
pippin. I wish all drawing-room rug-dogs a like &te ! 

To get a good run with a real wild dingo, it is necessary to ruto with the lark as our ances- 
tors did — * dull sleep and our downy beds scorning,' — and while the dew is still on the ground 
to try to cross the ti*ail of the robber of hen-roosts and reveller in tiie garbage of boiling-down 
stations ; for later in the day he is laid up in some rocky bank ; and the sun quickly dispds 
the scent so strong while the turf is yet damp. I beg to insert a short account of a run with 
this pack, which I joined in and reported to a newspaper. 

* SPORTrsro Intelligence. — Mr. Fitz Roy's hounds had a brilliant run on Saturday last, 
tiie 5th of June. The fixture was Vineyard, the seat of H. Macarthur, Esq. ; the hour five 
A.M. On being thrown into covert, the hounds almost immediately unkennelled a fine dingo, 
which made off at a good pace along the north bank of the river towards Kissing Point. 
Owing to the dryness of the ground the scent was not very good, but after a slight check the . 
pack hit it off again on the swampy land near the river, carrying it breast high through Mrs. 
Bowerman's grounds, and across alternate scrub and cleared land till they reached the cross 
roal to Pennant Hill wharf. Here Reynard, hard pressed, turned his head northward, and, 
ski: ting the road, gave the field — ^most of whom had lost ground in the dense bush — an op- 
portunity to retrieve lee way by racing up this woodland lane. Close at his brush the pack 
pushed him across the Paramatta ro&d and through a l<Hig rough dingle, without giving him a 
moment's breathing time, into a large grass paddock of forty or fifty acres thinly dotted with 
acacia bushes, the horsemen charging several stiffish flights of rails ; until dingo, hounds, and 
field together, reached the paddock above mentioned, in the middle of which the pack &irly 
coursed up to him and pulled him down, not a single hound havmg lost his place. A party of 
fiuming people who were working in a field hard by, hearing the whoo-whoop ! joined in the 
ceremony of breaking up, and appeared highly delighted at this realisation in Australia of the 
good old field sports of the Mother country. This capdtal run occujMed twenty-six minutes ; 



BPOBTniQ nrrELUGBNCE. 87 

tbe pace in the low grounds was very fast, and the fences were of a less impracticable 
nature than is usual in Australia. At one point a field of British fox-hunteis found themselves 
in the somewhat imcommou predicament of thrusting through a dtnae scrub of burnt wattle- 
bushes about tiie height of hop-poles, to the great disfigurement of white leathers ; and at 
another charging, at full cry, over hedges of lemon and through alleys of orange-trees, laden 
with fruit. As the worthy master trotted home through Paramatta with a white-tagged brush, 
peeping out of his pocket, the dingo's head hanging from the whipper-in's saddle, and the hounds 
ibllowlng with blood-smeared muzzles, a wizened veteran, looking like a retiied earth-stopper 
from the old country, exclaimed, " Well, d me, but this looks like work !" * 

I have little to say about the turf of New Soutii Wales. The Homebush course, which is 
situated between Sydney and Paramatta, is well attended by all classes, from the Governor of 
the colony down to the real lord of the soil — the AboriginJal black. The dullest feature in 
Australian racing is the fact of one or two well-known horses carrying off all the prizes. I 
"Was sick and tired of hearing the * ould horse, Jorrocks,' cheered by his numerous and up- 
roarious friends as he came in ' a winner' a dozen seasons in succession. The icorat feature is 
tiie dishonest and scampish characters of the jockeys. 

If on the Antipodal Turf the race is not sQways to the swifl, neither in the Antipodal Ring 
is the battle always to the strong. The latter thoroughly British pastime is therefore in very 
bad repute here, and I dare say deservedly so. Amongst the * Pets* and * Chickens' of the 
modem English ring there are not to be found many individuals of high moral woilh, although 
some of them have attained eminence as public characters. It is needless therefore to hint that 
your Botany Bay * Slasher,' or your Hobart Town * White Headed Bob ' — considering the pro- 
bable causes of tiieir excursion to these colonies — are hardly likely to add lustre to the pro- 
fession of the noble art ; and the authorities seem fully to appreciate this fact. One reason, 
perhaps, for the little popularity of pugilism, even among the lowest orders of this purely 
English colony, may be that fistic encounters are here often fatal— so often as to lead to the 
supposition that tiie climate may have something to do with it. In reference to this subject, I 
find a note in my diary of a talk I had one day with a blacksmith on the Paramatta road, in 
whose forge I had taken shelter fi:x)m a shower. On my remarking that the name and sign had 
been lately removed from a laige road-side tavern opposite his shop, he told me that the licence 
had been taken from the landlord on account of a man having been killed in a boxing match on 
the premises. The worthy son of Vulcan favoured me with a really sensible lecture on the 
effects of climate and intemperance. ' Di-ink is the ruin, body and soul, of the people of this 
country,' said he. * With a pint of East Indy rum inside, and a burning sun like this outside, 
any little accident will finish a man ; a clip on the head that at home would not do a chap a 
morsel of harm, would settle him here outright. You might as well blow out his brains at 
once as give him a heavy back-handed fall. This ' harmonious blacksmith ' was himself in 
excellent health, which he attributed to sobriety and good temper. The thermometer must 
have ranged at about 90° in the shade, and he was thundering away at his anvil with a twenty- 
pound hfunmer and within a yard or two of a tremendous furnace ; he would not be pitied, 
however, insisting upon it that the forge heat kept out the heat of the climate. This is the 
right stuff whereof to make a prosperous emigrant. Strength of arm, cheerfulness of spirit, 
sobriety and good sense, must command success in this country — or any other where the tiades 
are not overstocked ; — ^the converse ensures rapid ruin. 

In the absence of game near Sydney, inveterate shooters engage sometimes in pigeon 
matches, but these birds being expensive here, and the real blue-rock seldom attainable, the 
purveyoi-s for the trap occasionally substitute parrots, which at some seasons are easily 
caught in sufficient numbers. The English bird-fancier's feelings will be shocked when i tell 
him or her that 1 have seen fifty couple of these beautiful denizens of the bush — blue, red, 
green, and yellow — butchered at one shooting match. He must be a quick shot who can 
kill ten oat of twelve parrots at twenty-one yards from the trap. 

I have said elsewhere that fishing excursions down the harbour often take place. Those who 
engage in the sport often return with a good basket of schnappers and flatheads — perhaps a 
rock^cod or two : and with every bit of skin burnt off their noses and chins ; moreover, iJ 
*hey fish in their shirt for coolness sake, they are not unlikely to have their shoulders and 
arms blistered by the sun. Shark-hunting was the only kind of fishing in New South 
Wales that I thought worthy the trouble. I propose to give a specimen of a day's sport 
in this lino. 

If there is one luxury greater than anotb**" in a hot climate, one exercise more healthy 



88 OUB ANTIP0DS8. 

than another, it is bathing. Until late in the year 1849 it might be enjoyed to perfectioa at 
f^ydney; for there is a bathing cottage at Government-houBe, a large hulk moored and titled 
ns a public bathing-house in Wooloomooloo Bay, and every villa near the hsu'bour possesses 
a like convenience. A shady bank of the Domain called the Fig-tree is the favourite bathingw 
place of the populace. Although large sharks had more than once been caught far up the 
Iiarbour, no accident was ever heaixl of, and bathers swam about the coves without fear and 
with impunity. It was in November of that year, I think, that a dead whale was floated by 
some accident within Port Jackson, and was picked up and ' tried out ' by some speculating 
fishei*man. A troop of sharks must have followed the dead fish, and, having disposed of his 
carcase, remained foraging near the shores round Sydney. One day a large Newfoundland 
d<^, swimming for the amusement of his master near the Battery, was seized by a shark, and 
owly regained the shoi'e to die. The newspapers warned bathers : but no caution was observed 
until, early in December, a poor man swimming near the Fig-tree was attacked by a huge 
shark so near the bathing-place that another {terson repeatedly struck the fish with a boat- 
hook, thereby forcing it to release its victim. The unfortunate man was so dreadfully torn 
that he bled to death a few minutes afterwards. Not many days later I saw a fool-hardy 
fellow swimming about in the very same place with a straw hat on his head and a cigar 
in his mouth I 

Soon after the destruction of the man in the Wooloomooloo Bay some fishermen reported 
that, a part of the dead whale having been cam'ed by tlie tide into Botany Bay, a detadiinent 
of sharks had followed it there. An expedition against these tigers of the deep wsxs organised 
while the desire of vengeance was still vivid, and I accepted an invitation to join it. We were 
four amateurs, with an old experienced fisherman, and a stout youth his son. We met at the 
* Sir Joseph Banks Hotel,* on the shore of the Bay, and proceeded at high tide to a spot 
usually frequented by sharks, and by other fish of different kinds, in a good staunch little 
boat furnished with sails and oars. There was plenty of tackle both for larger and smaller 
game ; shark hooks, as big and strong as those on which butchers hang up a sheep or calf 
for flaying, with stout chain lines to resist their teeth, and a graduated scale of others suited 
to the ca})acity of jaw of schnapper, flathead, bream, &c., and adapted to their habits, whether 
of grovelling at the bottom like the latter fish, or hunting in mid-water for his food 
like the former. 

Besides the implements for securing our finny foes, there lay across the thwarts a small 
magazine of weapons for dispatching them when hooked — ^iron lances, with handles of stout 
nsh, and long and strong iron gafis or landing hooks. Anchoring the boat in about thirty feet 
water, the first operation was the baiting of the spot with burnt fish and with the eggs of 
sharks. Lines were then thrown in as far as possible frcim the boat, the hooks for shai-ks 
being baited at first with pieces of star-fish, and afterwards, when some of these had been 
caught, with huge junks of sharks' flesh. The latter seemed peculiarly tempting to the shaiks 
themselves ; — the huge pot-hook to which it was attached, together with a yard or two of 
dog-chain, being swallowed as an accompaniment too ti'ifling to mention — ^much less to damp 
appetite. When one of the sportsmen feels a tug at his line, and judges by its energy that he 
has a shark for his customer, all other lines are, if possible, hauled aboai'd, in order that thri-e 
may be no confusion and ravelling. If the fish be strong, heavy, and active, no little care is 
requisite to jsave your tackle from breakage and your quarry from escape. He who has hooked 
the fish holds tight — like grim Death on his victim ; and if you watch his face you will see 
powerful indications of excitement, mental and muscular ; — his teeth are set, his colour is 
heightened, the perspiration starts on his brow, while something like an oath slips through 
his lips as the cord strained to the utmost cuts into the skin of his empurpled fuigers ; — he 
invokes aid, and with his feet jammed against stretcher, thwart, or gunwale, gradually 
<«hortens his hold. Meanwhile the others, seizing lance and gaff-hook, * standi by * to assist 
the ovei*tasked line, as the monster, darting hither and thither in silvery lightnings beneath 
the translucent wave, is drawn nearer and nearer to the surface. 

* My eyes, he's a whopper I* cries the excited young boatman. 

* He's off!' shouts another, as the shark makes a desperate plunge under the boat, and 
the line, dragged through the hands of the holder, is agaiu suddenly slackened. 

* He's all right, never fear — belay your line a bit, Sir, and look here,' says the old fisherman. 
And sure enough there was the huge fkh clearly visible about ten feet under the keel of the 
boat, and from stem to stem about the same length as herself. 

' Now, Sir, let's hare him up.' And the instant the line was taut the shark shot upwards 



A BHABK EUKT — THE WOBEGONO. 89 

— -his broad snotit showing above the surface close to the boat. Then oomes a soene of 

activity and animation indeeid. The fish executing a series of summersets and spinnings, gets 

the line mto a hundred twists, and if once he succeed in bringing it aczxMshis jaws above the 

chain links — adieu to both fish and tackle. But, in the midst of a shower-bath splashed up 

by the broad tail of the shark, both lance and ga£f are hard at work. He is speared throneh 

and throngh~his giant struggles throwing waves of bloody water over the gunwales of Uie 

little boat ; the gaffs are hooked through his tough skin or within his jaws — for he has no 

gills to lay hold on ; a shower of blows from axe, stretcher, or tiller falls on his devoted 

head, and, if not considered too large, heavy, or dangerous, he is lugged manfully into the 

centre of the boat, and, threshing right and left with his tail to the last, is soon dispatched. 

A smart blow a few inches above the snout is more instantly fatal than the deepest stab. 

The * school-shark* is dealt with as above. But if the * grey-nurse,' or old solitary shark be 

hooked, the cable is cut or the grapnel hauled on board, and he is allowed to tow the boat as 

he darts away with the line. The tables, however, are soon tamed upon him ; and after 

being played^ as this cruel operation in fishing is blandly styled, for awhile until some 

portion of his vast strength is exhausted, the line is drawn over a roller in the stern of the 

boat, the oars are set to work, and, towed instead of towing, the shark is drawn into some 

shallow cove near the shore, where his bodily powers avail him less than in deeper water ; 

and after a fierce resistance and some little risk to his assailants, he falls a victim to 

their attacks. 

llan has an innate horror of a shark, as he has of a snake, and he, who has frequented 
tropical climates, felt the absolute necessity of bathing, had his diurnal plunge embittered by 
the haunting idea of tiie vicinity of one of these sea-pests, and has occasionally been harrowed 
by accidents arising from their voracity — feels this antipathy with double force. There is, 
therefore, a species of delightful fury, a savage excitement experienced by the shark-hunter, 
that has no affinity with the philosophy of Old Isaak's gentle art. He revels in the animated 
indulgence of th<it cruelty which is inherent in fhe * child of wrath ;' and the stings of con- 
science are blunted by the conviction that it is an act of justice, of retribution, of duty he is 
engaged in, not one of wanton barbarity. These were precisely my own sensations, when, 
drenched to the skin with showers of salt-water, scorched to blisters by the burning sun, 
€xcoriated as to my hands, covered with blood and oil and dirt, and breathless with exertion, 
I contemplated the corpse of my first shark. Tiger-hunting is a more princely pastime : 
boar^hunting in Bengal Proper fhc finest sport in the world ; fox-hunting an £nglishman's 
birthright. The chase of the moose is excellent for young men strong enough to drag a pair 
of snow shoes five feet long upon their toes ; and Mr. Gordon Gumming tells you how man 
may follow the bent of his organ of destructiveness on the gigantic beasts of South Africa. 
Shark-fishing is merely the best sport to be had in New South Wales ; and affords a wholesome 
stimulation to the torpid action of life in Sydney. The humane or utilitarian reader will be 
glad to hear that the shark is not utterly useless after death. The professional fishermen 
extract a considerable quantity of excellent oil from the liver ; and the fins, cut off, cured and 
packed, become an article of trade with Ghina — whose people, for reasons best known to them- 
selves, delight in gelatinous food. 

The most hideous to behold of the shark tribe is the wobegong, or woe-begone, as the 
fishermen call it. Tiger shark is another of the names of this fish. His broad back is 
spotted over with leopard-like marks; the belly is of a yellowish white; — but to describe 
minutely so frightful a monster would be a difficult and ungracious task. Fancy a bloated 
toad, elongated to the extent of six or seven feet, and weighing some twenty stone ; then cut 
off his le$cs, and yon have a flattering likeness of the wobegong — two of which we killed this 
day. A heavy sluggish fish, he lies in wait for his prey at the edge of some reef of rocks, or 
bank of sea-weed; swallows the bait indolently; appears but little sensible to the titillation 
of the barbed hook ; and is lugged hand over hand, to the slaughter without much trouble or 
resistance. Neither lance nor gaff will penetrate his tough hide, but a blow on the head witli 
an axe proves instantly fatal. The schnapper affords a long and strong pull at the line; and 
is considered by the colonists as one of their best table fish. We killed one to-day weighing 
21 lbs. The flathead is half buried in the sand at the bottom, but bites freely; and is, in my 
mind, a much better fish than the former. Our fishing-basket of this day comprised nine sharks, 
four schnappers, and about forty fiatheads. 

Just opposite La Perouse's monument we saw a Black spearing the rock-cod and groper, 
which feed on the shell-fish torn from the rocks in stormy weather. The figure of this man 



90 CUB AimCPODES. 

poisel motionless on a pedeBial of rock, with his lance reader to strike, the waves dashing np 
to his feet^ was a snbject for a bronze statue. This most have been the yery spot where in 
April, 1770, two natives armed with spears opposed the landing of Cook and his party, 'arid 
seemed resolved,' as he says, * to defend their coast to the uttermost, though they were bat 
two and we were forty/ The last of the Botany Bay tribe, old 'Boatswain/ who had long 
been permitted to establish his gnneah in the gardens of the Banks Hotel, died a shcwt time 
before the iishing excnrsion I have just described. 

The monument of La Perouse stands on a cleared spot near the entrance of the bay. Fifty 
yards from the obelisk is an old dead tree, on which may still be faintly traced some words 
of an epitaph in memory of one of the unfortonate French captain's fellow-travellerB, and 
which luive been transferred to a tombstone by its side. They run thus ^— 

mo JACET 

Ut BEOXVEUB 

XX r, F. VIKORIBVS 

GALIJJB SACBBOOS, 

rHYSicus IK oracnoiAvioATioirs wnaa, 

]>UCS D. DB XUL FBBOUBB. 
OBirr DIB 17 BBB. 
AKHO 1788. 

The view from the spot is very picturesque. 

On the evening of my shark hunt I had the pleasure of seeing my twenty pound schnapper 
at the foot of a friend's dinner-table, looking something like a fine English cod-Hsh. But, 
alas I crowning disgrace of the colony ! — wretched destitution in the earliest and worthiest of 
the sciences I — there is no one — ^in a word, there is not a cook in New South Wales,— -never 
have been, I believe, since the great circumnavigator just mentioned ; for the cooks in this 
country are no more cooks in the European and artistical acceptation of the term, than any 
one of my coats would have been a coat in the eyes of Brummel 1 

And the word cook leads me to the subject of domestic servants in genei-al. Of all the 
plagues in New South Wales, and indeed of all the Australian colonies, the household servants 
are the worst ; there are few good and faithful — as few skilful. One reason of this is the 
blameworthy indifference to character exhibited by the employing classes— a relic of the old 
convict system. Another cause lies in the unsettled mind of the emigrant, and his trying half- 
a-dozen trades of which he knows nothing, before he is driven to accept service. A servant, 
holding the most responsible place, discharged in disgrace at an hour's notice, and without a 
character, is engaged the next day in a similar post, and you have the pleasure of seeing him 
installed as confidential butler behind the chair of the lady or gentleman who may be enter- 
taining you at dinner. You recognise at the table of your neighbour the toupe a la jardiniere, 
the baked schnapper fargi^ in the preparation of which, and other dishes, it had taken you 
six months to instruct your late cook — whom you had just discharged for repeated insolence 
and Tiishonesty. But, as I have said before, a cook — in the solemn signification of the ivord — 
is in New South Wales a fabulous animal — fabulous as the Bunyip of the blacks. The men- 
cooks are mostly ship-cooks, or stewards, dealers in cocky-leekie, sea-pie, plum-dough, and 
other blue-water barbarisms; the she-cooks are — kitdien-maids at best. Few private 
dinner-parties therefore are given, or can be given in Sydney, without the attendance of a 
professional cook, as well as a public waiter or two. This hus a singular effect in the eyes of 
the traveller lately arrived from Eogland : for in the general exercise of hospitality towards 
him he is led to believe that each well-found establishment has an uniform butler— white 
waistcoat and tie, frill, toppin, Irish brogue^ and all;— never suspecting that this functionary 
is one and indivisible — the same honest and civil, but glass-jingling and plate-rattling lUr. 
O'CoflFee-Tay — ^price 75. 6rf. per evening — public and transferable property ! 

The Sydney domestic servants treat service like a round of visits, taking a sojourn of a 
week, a month, or a quarter, according to their own tastes, the social qualities of their fellow- 
servants, the good living of * the hall,' or the gullibility and subf»erviency of their employer. 
They greatly prefer engaging by the week. Not uncommonly they maintain a kind of run- 
ning correspondence with the heads of neighbouring fiimilies, and lufter coquetting for terms, 
pass over to the best bidder. The gentleman may think himself lucky if he have not occa- 
sionally to ' groom and valet ' himself and his horses ; as for the lady — to chronicle small beer 
is her lightest task, happy if she be not compelled at intervals to try her fiiir hands at cooking, 
or spider-brushing. I have been myself the guest at a country house where the lady con- 
£Essed that she had not only dressed the dinner, but had with her own hands carried the logs 



D0ME8TI0 SEBVAKT8. i)l 

to the kitchen fire^ while the goodman was busy sftwing and splitting them in the yard. The 
cook had got sulkj because she had been expected to do what the lady was thus compelled to 
do, and the man servant, her hosband, had gone into the town to drink and fight, * because 
the fit was on him.' 

I must have had twenty or even thirty servants in one year, dways giving the highest 
wages. I shall not readily forget the amusing results of an advertisement for a batler and 
valet, which I inserted in the * Sydney Morning Herald.' There was no want of applicants : 
the firat was a miserable old ruin of a man, scarcely four feet high, who indignantly repelled 
my well- intended hint, that I did not think him strong enough for the situation. The next 
was a gigantic negro ; who had been * * teward,' he said, on board three or four merchant 
veissels, and was tired of the sea. He looked like a descendant of Mendoza, the pugilist, and 
had probably been transported for killing a man in a twelve-foot ring. A tall, thin, grey, 
haired man, of polished exterior, next tendered his services. He had been a solicitor in Eng- 
land ; had met with reverses ; was at present a tutor at a school ; could clean plate, because 
once he had had a service of his own. Then came a handsome, dark-eyed gaiUardf with long 
black curls banging over the collar of his round jacket, who threw rapid glances over the 
furniture and trinkets of the drawing-room— not forgetting the maidens as he passed the 
kitchen-door — in a truly buccaneering style. He gave his name Juan da Silva, and resented 
any mention of refinrences. At length we were suited ; it was a highly respectable young 
immigrant just landed, who had served in an aristocratic family at home ; and * Jeames,' 
being steady, attentive, and perfectly acquainted with his duties, we were charmed with our 
acquisition, congratulating ourselves on something like piWijZiaaence of service, when, lo ! in less 
than a month he gave warning. He had made use of my house as an hotel until he could 
settle himself ; and having at length decided in favour of the drapery line, he was in a fev 
days duly installed behind a counter in George-street. This mode of action had probably been 
suggested for his observance by some crafty adviser in England, and the idea is,by no means 
bad. A gentleman's regular household is not a bad look-out post for the newly arrived, 
perhaps penniless, immigrant ; — he gets good pay, food, and lodging ; he disguises his am- 
bitious projects under a show of zeal for his master's service ; no one suspects that he has a 
soul above crumb and coat brushing ; — when on a sudden the mask is thrown off, and the 
tape and ribbon measurer elect stands confessed I In the case just mentioned, our old nurse 
warned us that ' that young fellow ain't a-going to stay ;' and I wondered the less at his want 
of taste when she told me that she had one son in the ironmongery line getting fifly-two 
guineas a-year, and another, only twelve years old, receiving at some shop 207. and his * diet.' 

My first coachman had learnt all the arcana of his trade by driving a muffin-baker's cart. 
"My second was an old worn-out gouty man, but an excellent whip, who * had druv the last 
four-OSS coach between Lunnon and Huntingdon, for Muster Newman,' and had beeu beat off 
the road by the railways. This was an immigrant at the expense of the Land ITund. He 
remained about a year, and then went off to California (tiiereby defrauding that same Fund) 
to dig gold, just three weeks before the gold was discovered in Australia. I may here state 
as a fact, that the only really steady, sober, active, and efficient'stableman I had in the colony 
was an emancipated convict. Another specimen of the well-selected immigrants paid for out 
of the territorial revenue as an addition to the labour market, was a fine lady cook from 

London, last from the service of Sir , Bart. She had plenty of money and clothes ; 

could not work without an assistant in the kitchen ; had delicate health and appetite ; preferred 
solitary titbits in the kitchen to dining in the servants' hall with the rest of the household ; 
was glad to quit service and to set up a shop ; failed, and before she had been two months in the 
colony, had advertised to get a passage back again to England as lady's maid or nurse to a 
lady returning home. This is not the notable, strong-handed, cheerful-minded, butter- 
churning, cheese and child-making woman, fit for a he^ emigrant to a working colony — 
coming out at the colony's expense, for the colony's good I I have seen something of the 
Jielps in the Western New World ; — the Southern is no better off in this essenti&l article of 
housewifery, although the homes of Sydney certainly have a larger allowance of what we 
English associate with the name of domestic comfort than those of the Atlantic cities. 

Talking of the domestic pests of the colony, 1 must reserve a place for the mosquitos ; and 
ought to have placed them at the head of the list. The mosquito is known, 1 daie say, in 
every colony and dependency of Great Britain, from the Pillars of Hercules to the foot of the 
Himalayas— from the swamps of Hudson's Bay to the boiling springs of New Zetiland. In 
jive quarters of the globe (if such division can exist) has this minute enemy stabbed at my 



92 OUll ANTIPODES. 

personal jicace; — ^let mc drown him in my bitterest ink! Those lucky persons who sjr« 
unncqiiaintctl with the mosquito, cannot n]>pi-ccinte the discomfort ai'ising from so con- 
temptible a cause; — reading and writing, riding and walking, eating and sleejnng, by daylight 
and candlelight, indoors and out, dunng six months of tlie Australian year, you arc hemmed 
in by an aimy of these insidious insects. 1 'resume to wear shoes and silk stockings — ^a 
pleasant dress in sultry weather — and before dinner is over your insteps and ankles ai'e covered 
Avith burning wounds. A stoic could hardly resist scratching, however undignilied the act ; a 
siiint could hardly help sweaiing, however small the provocation ! But the fair lady is the 
mosquito's chief victim. Her ungloved hand, her imguarded shouldei's, her velvet check, ai*e 
the too tempting objects of the tiny epicures. The ti'uculent proboscis stabs the lily skin, 
sheds the innocent blood, and, what is worse, plays the deuce with good looks. How curious 
its history ! The eggs of the mosquito are laid on the surface of the water. The giub 
disengages itself, and passes through two innoxious stages of its life in this element. In 
the second stage it lies wrapped in a thin membi-ane, which soon bui*sts ; the little water- 
demon draws itself out of its wrapper, stands for a few minutes on the surface, expanding its 
wings to dry in the sun— miniature likeness of Satan surveying the world he was about to 
iniin — and at length takes Hight in seardi of adventures and to fulfil its mission — ^the art of 
tormenting canned into practice. As the weather grows colder the sufferer has his revenge. 
Although the ajipetite of the mosquito is as voracious as in the summer of his existence, his 
movements are faint and languid, he becomes too weak to pierce the human skin, and is now seen 
a*ecruiting his waning health by sipping at wine-glasses and tea-cuiMs. The winter anives, and 
the vampire that has lived so long on the life-blood of others, ceases to exist. The reprieve to 
suffering humanity is, however, but short; returning spring brings back with returning 
vegetation the mosquito in all its glory, and in countless myriads of legions. It was truly 
as well as forcibly remarked by an English housemaid in my family, that the mosquitos 
appeared to J[>e most ' biteful ' just before the cold weather kills them. 

Amongst the plagues incidental to this colony I must not forget to anathematise the 
tardiness and uncertainty of epistolaiy correspondence, I could enumerate a handi*ed 
instances of results, inconvenient and perplexing, ludicrous, or truly lamentable, w^hicJi have 
arisen, and do still arise, through the iri-egularity of the mails from Europe. For ix^stance, to 
begin with political events. In the first days of October, I think, in 1848, the Charlotte 
■Jane, emigrant ship, amves at Sydney, bringing the news of a revolution in Paris having 
been accomplished ; a provisional government foimed ; the Tuilleries and Palais Royal sacked 
the thi-one burnt ; and the King of the Fi-ench a refugee in England ! Unprepared by any 
I'evelatlon of previous events, the intelligence falls like a thunderbolt on the quidnuncs of 
Australia — ^upon those especially whose gains depend on the peace of Europe. Kot until the 
19th of the same month dopes in, at the rate of two knots an hour, the post-office packet, 
Achilles, (not the swiftrfooted I) 133 days from the Downs, with all the public despatches, 
gazettes, &c., informing us that things wei'e beginning to look somewhat democratical and 
republican in La belle France : that the Reform Banquet was to come off at Paris on Tuesday 
next ; and that the King intended to prohibit it, &c. I give a case in private life. Mi's. A—, 
of Sydney, receives intelligence from England that her younger sister has evident prospects of 
becoming a mother. And it is not until several days later that a letter of much earlier date 
announces the not irrelevant preliminary of that beloved relative's marriage. 

Steam communication has long been talked of, and it is to be hoped that Her Majesty's 
Australasian dominions will not long suffer the disadvantage and disgrace of being the only 
portion of her realm beyond the i-each of this great agent. Time and space must be, if not 
tinnihilated, so far modified as to diminish the difference of distance from England to America 
a.nd to Australia respectively ; for who can doubt that it is tJie length and expense of passage 
that prevent tlie emigrant from pitching his tent in a colony of his countrymen, rather than 
amongst a people where he will lose his individuality as a Briton ? 

It is a pleasant feature of the Australian social status, that there are no beggars ; indeed 
it is only in the older countries that mendicancy is not only a necessity but a trade. Sydney 
owes this happy exemption not a little to her own charitable institutions, suppoited equally 
by Government and voluntary contributions of the public. But the cheapness of the common 
necessaries of life is no doubt the chief cause. I am speaking of street beting alone — beggary 
which is done to pei-fection in France and Ireland only, but in which England is not veiy far 
behind — ^beggary which haunts the traveller and the lounger, the man of business and the man 
of pleasure : famine, nakedness, disease, and defoimity dogging your steps, running by your 



MENDICANCY — ^BEZONIANS. 93 

side, and often extorting alms by exciting feelings rather of impatience and disgust than of 
humanity and sympathy. No one but he who has returned to London or Dublin after a long- 
residence in a thriving colony can appreciate the torment of mendicant solidtation, with a 
concomitant desire to give, poverty of means and fear of imposture ; nor can know the luxury 
of exemption therefrom. Not that the givers of alms in Sydney are saved money by this 
freedom from street beggary, however much their feelings may be spared ; for every now and 
then comes an appeal that cannot well be resisted, and of a somewhat more expensive cast 
than the mere dole of coppers or sixpences. A decayed professional gentleman, with a folio 
full of testimonials to character ; one who not many years ago spent his thousands a-year, and 
' had tlie honour of entertaining at his table many gentlemen of your cloth,' waits on you 
with his memorial. Another, having retired from a civil branch of the- military service, on 
the faith that starvation was impossible in a land of plenty, relates his melancholy tale^ 
ending with the assurance that he passed the Inst two or three nights in the domain under n 
tree, because he could not afford a lodging : — ^he begs a loan of 5/., and refuses indignantly the 
prudent offer of a free gift of smaller amount. Some lady of fashion in England coolly asks 
the Colonial Minister or other ptitron of emigration for a free passage to Australia, (which she 
understands is one of the West Indian Islands,) as well as for a recommendation to the 
Governor, in favour of * an excellent creature, an old governess of mine.' Her style of singing- 
is out of date at home : her voice is ci^acked, her French somewhat German, her health and 
nerves rickety. She arrives with two or three letters of introduction, five pounds in her 
pocket, and as many smart evening dresses ; fully expecting that before that handsome sum is 
spent a situation of 200^ or 300^. a-year will drop from the Australian skies into her lap. In » 
month or two the charitable public hears of her having been ' sold up * by her landlady for 
board and lodging ; some worthy clergyman puts his name and mite to her * Humbly 
showeth ;' and society supports her until she finds employment very much less lucrative than 
her ill-founded hopes led her to aspire to. She had better have asked in London how many 
families in Austi^lia can afford to give 50/. a-year to a governess. Such is by no means a 
mre specimen of the pei*sons unfairly thrown upon the charity of a poor community. In 
1848 a young lad of good family, aged eighteen, was deliberately sent out here with only 30/. 
wherewith to begin life — ^because his wise parent had heard that everybody could * get on ' in 
New South Wales I He presented a letter of introduction and his card with smiling con- 
fidence to a friend of mine occupying a high post in ihe colony, and was dumb-struck when 
he found that he had an excellent chance of stai-ving. 

I remember some yeai's ago purchasing for Qd. at a book-stall in Covent Garden Piazza, ft 
little work entitled ' How to live well on 100/. a-year, and how to live like a gentleman on 
150/. a-year.' Some of the aimless emigi'ants I have met with hei'e, had bettei* have stayed at 
home, and lived acooi'ding to the statutes of that sixpenny code. 

At intervals the Sydney cits are dazzled by tiie evanescent career of some ' bright particular* 
* swell ' from Europe. He contrives one or two inti-oductions, gets admission as an Hon. Mem-> 
ber to the Australian Club ; talks largely and knowingly of his English stud — ^the whole of it 
glittering probably in mosaic gold on his corazza front ; dines once at Government-house — and 
disappenra, leaving a sciirlct hunting coat and luathers, with a few minor articles of attii-e, to 
defray his just debts. It is only afler the total evaporation of such a visitant that sagacious- 
persons begin to find out that no one knew much about him ; that his advent to New South 
Wales had never been well accounted for ; — and^ indeed, that such a visit to such a countiy 
does i-cquiro some explanation. 

Sydney was relieved of not a few Bezonians of a more pretentious order at the first outbreak 
of the Califoi-ninn mania. I i-emember, some time in 1849, missing from his * pride of place * 
on the driving-box of a well turned out and beautifully diiven tandem, a dashing-looking per- 
sonage, who, from the tip of moustache to that of patent leather boot was tiie very perfection 
oi point de vice, I may say I was sorry to miss him ; for somdiow or other, from my boy- 
hood upwai*ds — in common with many another of my species — the spectacle of a tandem 
ailistically and boldly driven alwajrs caused a certain undefined degree of pleasurable excite- 
ment. Through the medium of the Sydney papers, not many montiis later, we received the 
intelligence that our shoAvy friend had accepted the appointment of waiter at an hotel in San 
Francisco ; which at firat sight would appear a downhill stage in the journey of life ; but he is 
probably much better paid now than either he or his creditora ever were before. I could enu- 
merate sundry other special instances of rapid wane, but in mercy to my patient reader I for- 
bear. I may mention, however, that some of the human meteors that diot from Australia t« 



D4 OUB AXTIFODES. 

Califoitiia about this time were heard of as helping, for hire, to unload merchant vessels at the 
roo'JLth of the &icramento. Persons from Australia were I'eoeived there with suspicion, and 
were the last in the labour-market to obtain employment. The * Sydney Rangers ' were a pro> 
scribed race in the Califomian wooden cities ; and such is the disadvantage of a bad name, that 
some of them met the dog's fate, and were hanged out of hand, without deserving it a jot 
more than the ' free and enlightened' citizens who acted as their judge, jury, and executioners 
in the one summary process of the law of the backwoods. 



CHAPTER IX. 

1847. March Isf.— The Governor, being desirous of visiting some of the more northern 
piiils of his government, fised upon tliis day — the iii-st of the Australian autumn — for the 
commencement of his tour. 

At 8 P.M; accoixiingly, His Excellency, with a party consisting of two ladies and four 
gentlemen, embarked in the Maitland steamei*, and put to sea. Major Innes of Lake Innes 
Cottage, who attended the Governor on the voyage, was to receive the whole party for a visit 
of some days ; and Mr. Iklai'sh, an extensive squatter of New England, had invited the 
gentlemen to share the hospitality of Salisbury Couit — ^the name of hk homestead ; in order 
to show them something of pastoral life in that distant pro>'ince. Our vessel was a slow one, 
but safe and clean, the commander an excellent seaman, and besides oui'selves thei-e were few 
passengers. The night was dsu'k and calm ; but towaitls morning the wind and sea, getting up 
togethei', imparted to our little cixift a dcgi^ee of motion which spared ndthei* sex nor age in 
those unfortunates whose inteiior economy sympathised with its billowy and bilious undula- 
tions. Its effects however WQi'e highly b^ehcial in the case of the only ti-oubled and trouble- 
some spirit on board — a noisy and diiinken woman, a * foi*'aitl' — ^I may say a very forwaixl 
passenger — ^who had absorbed during the night the contents of a great bottle of strong watei-s, 
and was by sea-sickness so quickly and completely sobei'ed and silenced as could have been done 
by no other agency — ^marital and constabulaiy authority inclusive. 

Human vanity is always tickled by a feeling of superiority over one's neighbour. I do not 
know that it is ever more satisfactorily indulged than by the exempt from sea-sickness, as he 
lounges at his ease on the heaving taffrail, and occasionally casts a pitying glance on the * poor 
ghosts ' who, one after another, sink pale and silent through the stage-trap of the cabiU'Stairs, 
or on the more actively wretched creatui-es on deck, flinging their flaccid corpses over 
the bulwarks, as if they were hanging them up to dry, or as Punchinello does those • 
of his various enemies — from his wife to the devil — after he has sufHciently pounded 
them and poked them with his murderous baton. Let me pause a moment to inquire 
how it is that the high oflicial, in whom i^ides the duty and the power to quash all public 
exhibitions or dramjitic representations of an immoral or irreligious tendency, has pei-mitted 
Punch to escaixs the rigour of his censoi-ship ! How is it that the * virtuousest, discreetest, 
best' of parents ex^iose without apprehension their children to the bad example and evil lessons 
inculcated by the entire life and character of this ^lopular hero, but unmitigated reprabate ? 
Is not the career of Punch, domestic and public, one of successful and unpunished vilL'my fi'om 
beginning to end? Does he not break the laws, thrash his wife and dog, murder his infant 
offspring, belabour the magistrate, cheat his tradesmen and the gallows, hang the hangman, 
and defy the— devil himself? And yet — ^humiliating reflection I no sooner does his i-ascallv 
penny trumpet sound at the comer of a London sti'eet or square, than every soul within sight 
or hearing, even the professional mute who is hired and paid to look gi'ave, gets a grin iipon 
his face in mere anticipation of the enjoyment he is about to receive, in the exhibition of the 
infamous adventui^es of this diabolical . But I have no patience with the inconsisten- 
cies of human nature ! and no temper to continue so instating a subject ! 

March 2nrf. — During this day our course kept us pretty generally withm sight of land, and 
sometimes very near it. The character of the coast is scarcely highland, yet neither is it flat ; 
presenting a wavy line of hills and hollows covered with bush, occasionally jutting into bold 
i-ocky bluffs, or gi-een turfy knolls sloping abniptly to the surf-vexed beach. The veixJure of 
the grass lands in the vicinity of the sea is very remarkable in this country, as compared with 
the pastures of the interior. The same feature is obsei*vable on the banks of the inland salt^ 
water creeks, and doubtless, arises from an evaporation which of coarse falls on the earth in the 
shape of fi'csh water. 



A BAR HABBOUR — ^LAKB INNK8 COTTAGE. 96 

March Brd. — ^At 5 a.m. after a roughish passage of two nights and one day, we made Port 




harbour of Sydney can hardly be said to be exempt from this serious blemish. The water was 
leaping and chafing on the saodspit in a manner highly unpleasing to a seaman's eye ; bnt, no 
pilot appearing, our captain put his head out to sea again, as if to verify the adage * reculer, 
pour mieox sauter,' and then, wheeling about and plying both * persuaders, he took the three 
successive surfs in capital style ; and in a few minutes the steamer was alongside tlie little 
-wooden pier of Port Macquarie. Would he have acted so boldly in the absence of the sleepy 
pilot, had he been able to look only a few days into the inscrutable future? On the 11th ot 
this month occurred the fearfiil wreck of the Sovereign steamer on the Bar of Brisbane — a port 
situated about 270 miles north of Port Macquarie. From the 3rd (this day) until the 10th, 
the shoal was considered impassable on account of the weather. On the following day, how- 
ever, the commander of the steamer attempted to com3 out on his passage to Sydney. After 
saf6ly crossing two of the lines of surf, the beam of the engine was fractured by a violent 
jerk. The third surf curling over the paddle-box fell on board, and sent the vessel to 
the bottom with fifty-four persons, of whom forty-four perished. On the 27th of the 
same month a widow lady residing in Sydney, received the awful intelligence that at one 
blow she had been berefl of a danghter, a son-in-law, and two grandchildren. In the 
experience of a life I remember no object more pathetic than the one surviving little 
girl of three or four years old, who had not accompanied her parents on the fatal voyage, 
and whom I frequently saw on my return to Sydney. Dressed in the deepest black, and 
her childish mind vaguely conscious that her father and mother and brothers were gone 
to heaven, her sunny face and bounding step were above the reach of grief — for she could 
not comprehend the immensity of her loss, and had never learned its terrible details. Poor 
little Lconie I 

At eight A.M. our party landed, the Governor being received with great warmth of welcome 
by all the inhabitants of the town who happened to be out of bed, and by a guard of honour 
consisting of the whole garrison, namely, an ensign and twenty men. The town contains 
about 500 inhabitants ; it has contained that number for some years ; and although a dozen or 
two of children were playing on the village green — hrotm rather — ^there is something about 
the place which denotes decay rather than growth. It looks like a little man dressed in the 
clothes of a lai^e one. The streets are very wkle, and cut out to be very long, like a certain 
street of Toronto, in Canada, whose name I forget, and which maintains its title for upwards 
of twenty miles into the unpeopled bush, — but the houses are so few and &r between, that, 
in the oppidan sense of the word, there can be no such thing as a next door neighbour among 
the citizens. There is a good-sized church capable of holding the whole population, of which, 
however, Romanism and Dissent claim one-half; a gaol capacious enough for an EngliKh 
coanty ; a hospital for invalid and insane convicts ; and a smalt, but well posted barrack for 
the military detachment. The Hastings River, rather a fine stream, runs into the bay, and 
foniQs a kind of lagoon which constitutes the harbour ; but in high winds the bar sometimes 
for <lays together closes the port, a serious detriment to the success of the settlement. Port 
Macquarie was originally a penai station, but all the prisoners, excepting the invalids, have 
been withdrawn ; and it is the sudden cessation of the convict expenditure, which here, as in 
other towns of New South Wales, has given an appearance of waning prosperity not common 
in young countries inhabited by the Anglo-Saxon, and which I do not believe to be a type of 
the general condition of this colony. 

Two carriages b«longing to Major Innes awaited our party, and conveyed us through 
several miles of forest land, some part of which is remarkable for large and handsome timber 
and carpeted with luxuriant fern, to Lake Innes Cottage. Here Lady Mary Fitz Roy was 
courteously received by a numerous circle of ladies ; and we were all quickly installed in our 
respective apartments, as commodious and well-appointed as in any English country house. 
There were drawing-room, dining-room and library ; a separate range for the young ladies ; 
spacious offices on the opposite side of a court-yard ; hot and cold baths ; and, what is rare in 
this country, a large stable-yard and out-houses kept well out of sight. The house is situated 
on the slope of a green hill, descending to Lake Innes, a wide sheet of water three or four 
miles long by two miles wide — rare feature in a country which perhaps more than all others 
is obnoxious to the stigma of the Boyal Psalmist — * an arid and dry land, where no water is.' 



96 OUB ANTIPODES. 

Beyond the lake and the bush bounding it, rises a distant background of mountains, and its 
head is only divided from the ocean by a wooded isthmus about half a mile in width. The 
view from a hill behind the dwelling house, embracing a panorama of sea, lake, wood, and 
raonntairi, is strikingly beautiful. The roar of the surf on the rocky coast, and tlie silvery 
lipple of the placid kke, so near' yet so different, present a singular and agreeable contrast. 
A luxuriant and tasteful garden, profuse in fruits and flowers and with arcades of creeping: 
plants bordering the walks, surrounds the house on three sides. From the knoll above mentioned 
(the signal-hill as it is called), wide as is the prospect, no other human habitation is visible ' — 
the retired soldier is monarch of all he surveys. 

The Major possesses sheep and cattle-stations, dotted over the country both on this and on the 
further side of the mountains we are about to cross. He owns inns, built by himself and tenanted 
by his overseers or other dependants, on the unpeopled roads of the bush to a distance of 1 50 
miles. His live stock comprises, I believe, about 50,000 sheep, with herds of horses and cattle 
commensurate. The very soul of hospitality and kindliness, I should say that all this, and 
more, is requisite to keep pace with the suggestions of an open heart and a profuse hand. On 
the present occasion, this most elastic of cottages accommodated seventeen or eighteen persons, 
besdies servants ; there were dinner-paities and dancing every evening, the chief music beino- 
furnished by a Highland bagpiper in full costume ; in short, at this secluded bush-i'esidence 
there was every luxury that could be found in the distant capital, except the jwlka ! and that 
one of our paily imported and imparted, to the immeasui-able delight of a numei'ous bevy of pretty 
girls, tlie daughtei's and fiieuds of the house. 

March 6th, — Early this morning I walked down to the boathouse on the lake, with a view 
to a row and a swim ; but on my way I was entertained by a legend wjiich somehow diverted 
me from my intention. Bid my reader ever hear of the Bunyip ? (fearful name to the Abo- 
ligimil native !) — a sort of * half-hoi"se, half-alligator,' haunting the wide rushy swamps and 
lagoons of the interior — at long intervals heard of through doubtful sources as having been 
seen rolling his voluminous length above the sui*face of the silent watere, or rearing his 
monstrous head over the tall rushes on their banks ! A good deal of excitement was created 
among the scientific and curious at Sydney, not long after my anival in the colony, by the 
announcement in the public prints, that part of the skeleton of a bunyip had been found ; and 
further, that the head of a young one, with the skin perfect, had been picked up on the banks 
of the Murrumbidgee and forwai-ded to Sydney for examination. I fully anticipated the fatal 
rssult ; I was sure that myself and other gullibles would be disabused of a pleasant supersti- 
tion. Accordingly, the light of science dispelled in an instant the dubious and delightful dusk 
of tradition ; for the unsynipathising savant , to whose inspection the specimen was submitted, 
unhesitatingly pronounced the head, (which somewhat i-esembled that of a camel, but with a 
more conical cranium,) to be that of the foal of a horae — no more ; but to a foal the entire 
foim of whose slcull had been changed by a severe hydi*ocephalous aflection I Science is a fine 
thmg no doubt ; — ^but somehow, atler peering over the gunwale of my boat into the deep mys- 
terious gloom of the waters, I found no difficulty in pereuading myself that a swim in this par- 
ticular lagoon was not a pai'amount necessity 1 One advantage arose from the aforesaid long- 
defeiTed discovery, — ^a new and strong word was adopted into the Australian vocabulaiy : 
Bunyip became, and remains a Sydney synonyme for impostor, pretender, hianbug, and the like. 
The black fellows, however, xmaware of the extinction, by superior authority, of their favourite 
loup-garou, still continue to cheiish the fabulous bun3rip in their shuddeiing imaginations. 

la the afternoon we repaired to the town of Port Macquarie to attend a public dinner, given 
by the inhabitants of the district (the northernmost of the ' nineteen counties ') to the Queen's 
representative. We sat down about forty-five in number. The loyalty of Port Macquarie, — 
and in this colony 1 found loyalty evei*ywhere rife, except among the lowest rabble of Sydney 
after it had been well stin-ed up by professional demagogues — the loyalty of Port Macquaiie 
on this occasion vented -itself in toasts, sentiments, and speeches, full of good feeling and of 
fealty towai'ds Her Majesty and her representative. The ai-my was drunk with so much 
enthusiasm as to convince me that there were a good many old soldiers present, which was 
indeed the case. It is painful to add, that I did not hear of a single individual of the many 
military officers settled in the district who admitted that the money he had laid out had been 
profitably invested. Knowing this fact, why, in returning thanks, did I assure our entertainen; 
that if ever I was tempted to turn my sword into a sheepshears 1 knew of no !»pot so attrac- 
tive for location as that on which we stood, &c. ? It must be that there is truth in tho 
cynical saying, that the * use of words is to conceal our thoughts ;' for I had seen and henni 



THE YABROWS — TOBIN'S HOLE. 97 

enoagh, here and elsewbere, of militarr colonists to have arriyed at the conclusion that 
freedom from direct taxation and plenty of beef and mutton, accompanied by burial above 
ground in the bush, however tolerable to persons accustomed from early youth or reconciled 
by previous habit ,to the predicament, must be but poor recompense, and must brine sad 
retrospection to those who have 'passed the prime of their days among the changeful and 
exciting scenes of military life, and who, perhaps ill-advised or prompted by some t^porary 
disgust, have thrown the price of their commissions, their prize-money, and their patrimony, 
one or all, into an experiment on sheep, cattle, and colonial acres. Tet, after all, what is 
a mari'ied captain of foot with a couple of hundreds a^year, a barrack-room, and half a score 
of wide-mouthed craving callows to do ? He cannot be at one and the same time a gentle- 
man, a soldier, and a half-starved beggar ! 

The rough plenty of a colony like New South Wales naturally enough suggests an agreeable 
alternative to the troubled mind of one so situated. The route arrives for the removal of his 
regiment from the counUy where mutton is Id, a pound to another where it costs six or 
eight times as mudi. At his age and with his fiimily it would be madness to expend his 
little capital on further promotion, so he 'settles' — awful word! few know how much it 
imports I In making a just appraisement of the worldly success of military colonists, taken 
£rom their own accounts, I always make also due allowance for the nature of the animal. 
From the goose-step to the grave grumbling is the privily and resource of the old soldier, 
the safety-valve to blow off his discontent. We all growl — so do old sailors ; and from this 
sage reflection I deduce the belief that retired veterans are not always so ill off as may appear 
in conversation, before a glass or two has enabled them to see things through a more 
cheerful medium. 

March 8^A. — Having passed several days very pleasantly at Lake Innes, the Governor, with 
his son Major Innes and myself, took the road to New England this morning at break of day. 
The journey of 150 miles was to be performed in three days, and on horseback, there being 
no r<Mid across the mountains for any wheel carriage of less rough construction than a bullock- 
dray. Our host provided the horses, roadsters as well as the sumpter-nags on which our 
baggage was bestowed in saddle-bags. The latter animals were driven loose by my servant 
and a border policeman, both also well mounted; — ^for many of the pastoral nabobs of 
Australia possess the horse-power of a 2,000 ton steam-ship, and could mount a dragoon 
i-egiment at two days' notice. The country through which we rode this day presented, nearly 
the whole distance, alternately low, undulating ranges and rich levels on the banks of the 
Hastings. A good and welcome breakfast awaited us after a trot of two or three hours, or 
xather a canter— (for Australian journeys are usually made at what is called a bush canter, 
the sort of pace that a man goes to cover in England, and one that comes naturally to a 
^ screw,' and the best bush-horses are always screws). Our breakfast awaited us at a lone 
inn, the * Prince of Wales,' one of the majoi^s creations, situated near the Big Greek on a little 
clearing in the thick of the bush, like a bald patch on a shock head of hair. A mile further 
we passed the property of a retired officer. Colonel Grey, the dwelling-house prettily posted 
on a plateau overloolang the stream, and, beyond it, a comparative handful of cleared land 
terminating in the etem^ gum-tree wilderness. The soil hereabouts seemed exceedingly rich, 
and the herbage and foliage wonderfully luxonant; but although the grass was in some 
places as high as our saddles the live stock which we saw hereabouts looked less sleek than 
oin the Bathurst and Wellington plains. 

Our halt for the night took place at an inn and stock station belonging to the Major, 
called the Yarrows — ^where we found excellent fare and beds. Around this station our worthy 
host and guide depastures a large quantity of sheep and 3,000 head of cattle. His overseer, 
the piper Bruce — of whom I have made honourable mention as incorporating within his own 
person and pipes the dandng orchestra of Lake Innes Cottage — resides at the inn, and 
makes what custom he can from the rare travellers on the road ; — for the more frequented 
route from New England, Beardy Plains, and other of the northern squatting districts to the 
great emporium^ Sydney, avoids these mountains and (unluckily for that township) Port 
Macquarie, striking the sea at the mouth of the Hunter River. It is with great difficulty 
that the mountain road is passable by a heavy dray, and the traject is very tedious. 

March 9th. — ^At six A. u. we mounted our steeds for an arduous day's work — ^the passage 
of the hill range dividing the settled from the squatting districts. Our ride was about fifty 
miles, thirty-five at least of which lay through a most rugged and wild region, and occupied 
eleven hours—- daring nine of which the lain never ceased nuUng in torrents. From the house 

H 



■9^9««l 



M 0T7U AUTIFOD&S. 

at the Yairews to the sheep-fiyrm of the Measn. Todd and Fenwick, on the north-western 
(dope of the Mitcqiiarie range— oar intended honta for the night-— there is no human habita- 
tion. Major Innes, however, in the prospect of Sir Charles's risit, had cansed to be erected 
about half waj a slab hot, at a spot called Tobin's Hole; — bat whether said Tobin was a 
Goyemment saryeyor, a land'-seeking squatter, a biillockHdriyer, or simply a bnsh-ranger, 
tiiere exists^ I think, no legend to prove. Indeed in this country the traveller is saved all 
trouble as to antiquitiesy whether historical or anthitedtiiral ; for the chances arc that^ in a 
whole month's journey, with- the exception of a few patriarchal trees that have survived 
storm and fise md. an, he finds no objeet around him half so venerable as himself. Where the 
owls, and bats, and satyrs dwell in Austnii% I cannot imagine ! 

Our progress this day consisted, without exception, in crawling up and diding down hill 
after hill, mountainaflter mounted of deep wet soil — ^very like the peristal tie advance of a 
travelling catsrpillar. The road leads for the most part right ovor the crests of sncoeasrFe 
ridges — as is generally the case with respest to bush roads, — in order to avoid the * sidlings^' 
which are sure to occur on roads formed along the flanks of hillSb The ranges hei-e are inva- 
riably wooded up to their summits; there are no rocky crests or jagged pedks; all is etenul 
budi — a sea of folic^ as fiur as the eye can reach. There is no water in the shape of li^es or 
even pools, yet we crossed several fine streams fringed with the graoefbl casuarina, which in 
Australia is as constant a companion of running water as the willow or alder in England. 
Hfioreand there,, as wt dropped into some deep cool dell, the monotonous but silvery note of 
tha bell bird — the eampanella of WatertoUy I suppose — afibrded the" well known*, and- to the 
liiinity tmvelles and tirad steed, the welcome indieation of some rippling^ but hiddieD- sfireamlet 
The single ' ting' of this little harbinger of water is curiously louid and metallic, yet the bird 
itself is so small as rarely to be visible, even when a score of them may be ringing a peal 
among the high tcees. I once shot one for a specimen, and found it to be about the aixe of) 
aparrow, and of a dull olive-green colour* 

The vegetable world of these mountains is wholly unlike mything I had hitherto seen in 
Austxalia. The gum-tree is of course not wanting ; but that tiresome shadeless never-gnes 
does not here exclusively usurp tiie Sylva, as in tibe Blue Mountainsi It grows side by side 
with a singularly handsome tiee of a myrtaceous characto', covered with anall, dark green, 
riuning leaves, and often of gigantic magnitude 7— many of this qveeies measuring firom 160 
te 200 feet in height,, by 25 and 30 feet in girtii.. Here I saw for the first time the oedar^ 
the most viduable timber in the country for upholsteiy — ^the mfdiogany, in short, of Neir 
Holland, a wood which it much resembles in colour and grain, altfaou^ inferior in> solidity. 
It has no affinity whatever with the cedar of other clhnes— it is not even ooniftrous, the 
foliage nearly resembling the European ash. Host of the trees of this colony owe their names 
to the sawyers who fint tested their qualities, and who were guided by the oolour and 
chaiacter of the wood, knowing and caring netiiing abeat botanieid rdations. Thus the 
swamp oak and she-oak have ra^er the exterior of the lareh tiian any qneroine aspect;— 
Pomona would indignantly diaowai the apple-tree, for there is not the semUance>of' a pippiii 
•n its tufted brandus ; — a shingle of. the beef- wood looks precisely like a raw boef^eteAk ;— 
the oherry-tree resembles a.cypic8s, but is of a tenderer green, bearing a worthies* litHe beny, 
having its stone or seed outside — whence its arientific name of exooarpuB, The^ pear-tree k, 
I believe, an eucalyptos^ and bean a pen* of sdid wood, hard* as heart of oak. These two Isrt 
trees are among the well-known natural paradoxes of AnslMdia. Those veryuMfel trees, the 
ison bark and the stringy bask^ dessribe themselves very precisely. 

In many points along the road side afqieaBsd ^eat tinekafta of the pretty Tentana, withiii 
dJdicate pink cluster flower and its sough leaf, looking and smefling like that of oar blsek 
eoixant, and springing up whosever the forest has been foiled, like the wild raspberry in 
North America. We found, indeed, the last shrub very plentifol m this day'h ride ; but the 
froit, though spedons in form and hue, moehs the taste by a* pnlpy substanoe like- cotton. A 
variety of enormous creepers— vines,, as they call them her^^thiew their grotesqoe coils 
firam txee to tiee, not sddom dothing some old dead stomp with a close network of large sod 
lustrous leaves, and giving it the guiae of a dandified skdeton. Hers and there pliant leaden 
ropes, twenty and thirty «yards long and peribdiy uniform in sise from end to end, awuug 
entirely across the road ; while others, dropping firom the topmost bnnches, descended in an 
ominous loop straight down to a levd with the ridex^s neck, inviting him to hang himself in 
such plain terms, as to be positivdy dangerous in weather so nearly resemUing that of an 
English November. But^ to me, by for Uie greatest curiosities in vegetation were the xan* 



A SEGLTTDED SQUATTAGE. 99 

thorea <»: grass-tree, and the tree-fern. The former might with more propriety he styled the 
Ttish-tree ; for on a date-like stem grows a huge hunch of spikes some three feet long, from 
whose centre shoots a single tall stamen, like a balrash, ten or twelve feet in height. In the 
flowering season it is full of honey. The f^n-tree here attains a mazimnm of about twenty 
feet. Its wide and gracefal plume seems to rise at once perfect from the earth, — as Venus 
from the sea, — ^the growth of the trunk gradually lifting it into mid air. When I left £ngw 
land some of my fnends were fem^BAid, and were nursing little microscopic Tarieties witii 
vast anxiety and expense. Would that I could place them for a moment henedth the patulous 
umforella of this magnificent qieciea of Cryptogamia I On the forks of some of tiie older 
timber-trees grew, lUso, the stag-horn fern, as large as the biggest cabbage, tiie fronds exactly 
resembling the palmated imtlers of the moose and rein><[eer. 

In no part of the worid £d I ever see sudi absolute midday darknesa as occurred in many 
spots of this forest. Not a ray pierced, nor apparently had ever pierced, the dense shade ; 
and the eye ranged tiirough the melancholy colonnades of tall blade stems, and along the roof 
of gloomy foliage, until it was lost In the night of the woods, — ^midnight with an Anstraliaa 
sun at its meridian t We were^ perhaps^ the more struck with its peculiarity because the 
refverse is the usual cluaucter of tiie Australian bush ; for the foliage of the gum is so thin 
and so pendulous, that, when the sun is oyerhead, one rides almost as utterly unsheltered as 
though there were no trees. If there be such a thing as a sinumbral-tree, — a Peter Schlemil 
of the woods, — it is the gum-tree. It was a singulis and pretty sight to- see, as we did this 
day, dnrii^ one- op two momentmy bursts of sunshine, Ifo^ flocks of parrots dart across our 
path, like a shower of rabies, emeralds, and sapphires, glittering for an instant in tiie watery 
beam, and ynnisfting as quickly in liie gloom of tiie wilderness. The scrub of these mountains, 
as the beautiful fbrest is vulgarly called, is by no means rife in animal life. With the excep- 
tion of a fight or two ei tiiese birds, we saw no wild animals but one solitary dingo, whom a 
ringing * tally-ho ' sent scouring into covert as promptly as though he knew the import of tiie 
English view-haUoo. 

We passed within twelve miles of Mount Sea View, whose elevation is about 6,000 foet, wad 
^m whence Oxley, the eminent surveyor, revived the despondent spirits of his exploring party» 
whoi bewildered among the mazes of 1^ scrub, by a glimpse of the ocean at a distance of sixty 
xniles. Although the road was cdl but impassable for horsemen, we overtook several buUock* 
drays laden witi^ stores for the squatting districts, or met them on their way to the coast with 
loads of wool. One of tiiem had been ten days in going twenty miles. The savage shouts of 
the drivers, and the clang of their terrible wUps, edioed through liie arcades of tiie forest ; 
while our eais were sduted by the most brutid and blasphemous execrations ever lavished by 
human lips upon qua(hniped objects. A» the Governor rede past one of the most excited and 
foul-moused of these ^ows, we were diverted by the sudden molfificationaf tone and language 
to his beaste,— 'God bless your heart, Bfaimondl €ome up, will youP'-^but he accompanied 
his benediction with a flank of his wattde-stick whip that would hove cut a crab-tree in two. 

At Tohm'fr Hole we halted for an hour/finding some refiedmients phmied there for us by the 
Major, — for that is the ododal phrase, borrowed from the slang of London burglars and thieves, 
for any artide sent ferwwd or left behind for future oonsumption in spots only indicated to 
t^se eoneemedp— after the manner of the oSu^tes of the f^vnch Cawnfian trappers on the Ameri- 
can prairieB. To * sprkig' a phint is to'disoowr and pillage it, — ^an arfwhich is well under- 
stood and pretty often pisactised by the blacks, from whose keen eyes and quick instinct it is 
difficult to conceal tiie locality of a ^ plant.' Horses and bullocks aresemetfanes driven off and 
^-planted ' in seme seduded gully by ingenious persens, who- will find and produce them when 
a good reward is advertised. In Sydney, moreover, good round sums of hard cash have been 
* planted ' by pfetenHted ruined tradesmen and men of business, wlto, after passii^ the Insolvent 
Court, contrive to eadiume them again, and again to lanach forth into life with handsome equi- 
pages and expensive esteblishments. 

At length, after many tedious and fotiguing miles of rapid descent, we came down upon the 
little settlement of the Messrs. Todd and Fenwick, — the fhst habitations of the great table-land 
of New England, — our bilkt fur the night. Two slab cottages of four rooms each, with offices 
behind, form huts around, and divided by a brook, constitute the station. These gentlemen, 
until latdy partners, are at present separated, because one of them has taken a partner for life, 
as all- squatters ought to do,-^HBole means of saving them from a lapse into partial or complete 
savagehood. On our arrival to-day at the station, the bachdor was alone at home. On the 
return of our party, however, the married pair were present, and the lady presided with grace- 

H 2 



100 OUB AliTTIFODEB. 

fdl tact and qTuetoess oyer the humble but plentiful manage that had' fikUen to the lot of aa 
old soldier's daughter. We were all well tired, wet to the skin, and were most grateful tor 
the homely but hearty shelter, fii^de, and £ire here bestowed upon us. I never recollect bang 
so sick of my saddle as I was this day. It was somewhat humiliating to an old staff-officer 
and sportsman to find himself in the predicament in which the worthy Samuel Pepys, F.IuS. 
must hare been, when, afier an unwonted equestrian journey, he remarks, ' but I £uid that a 
coney-skin in my breeches does preserve me perfectly from galUng.' 

March 10th, — An early start for Salisbury Court, the residence of Mr. Marsh. There were 
seventeen horses in cavalcade including the pack-horses. These trotted alcmg very- quietly 
after a day's practice, sometimes indeed jostling thdr saddle-bags against the trees or each 
other, and sometimes stopping to graze ; but never requiring to be led. We rode ten miles 
through undulating open woodland affording excellent pasturage, to the prettily situated sheep- 
station of Mr. De^ where, afler break&st. Sir Charles and myself exchanged oar hacks for s 
tandem. Thence to ' Wato-loo,' a station of our fxiend the Mi^r, where we lunched on roast 

mutton and potatoes, damper, champagne and hock, in the correctest of green glasseSy Mr^ , 

a Yorkshire gentleman, and a superintendent of our host's, doing the honours of the house. 
Pursuing thence our onward march, we encountered at the side of a wateAole, twelve miles £paiD 
his residence, Mr. Marsh with his deseri-trandt-van, built oa the principle of the Egyptao 
Overland carriages, and driven by him four in hand. It something resembles a large jaunting 
car on two wheels, rigged like a curricle as £u: as the wheelers are concerned, and holding ai 
or eight inside. This vehicle seems particulariy well suited to the ^t roads, and sandy stony 
plains of Egypt. One might, afler a trial such as we had this day, question its adaptation to 
the rough, rocky, and hilly tracts of the Australian squatting districts ; but, certainly, do 
doubt of the kind appeared to haunt the mind or daunt the courage of its worthy owner, who, 
putting his team idong at mail-coach pace, after an hour of galvanic exercise to our hones and 
joints, placed us down safe and sound at his hall door. Some of our party rode the whole 
distance of fifty-five miles this day without changing horses ;— so much for the graas-fed hacb 
of New South Wales. 

The country we passed through latterly did not give us a very favourable idea of the soil of 
New England, its vegetation or its scenery. Being lightly wooded, it is however well caica* 
lated for stock farming. The timber is poor in size and tiresome of aspect. 

Salisbury Court is a roomy one-storied house, solidly built of rough stone, and looking 
over a well-watered vale, just beyond which rises the Mountain Range dividing the waten 
running towards the ocean from those running westward into the unknown interior. A ooo[»le 
of hundred yards from the more modem and more commodious dwelling stands the pro- 
prietor's original squatting cottage, * Old Sarum,' now given up to the farming people. The 
present establishment affords evidence of affluence, good taste, and mental cultivation ; — an 
excellent library being not the least of luxuries in so lonely and distant a dwelling-place. 
Our host is one of the many gentlemen of supblor condition and education, university men 
and others practising bucolics in this country, who have gained for the squatters tlie title ai 
the aristocracy of New South Wales. The healthiness of the climate of New England— s 
vast plateau nearly as high above the sea as the summit of Snowdon — ^is attested by the ro^ 
cheeks of the children, so unlike the pale and pasty little faces of Sydney. In spite of a nearer 
position to the tropic by several degrees, this elevation gives a much cooler climate than thsi 
of the metropolitan county^ We are now in early autumn, yet the potato tops and other i«6S 
vulgar annuals in the garden are nipped by the night frosts, which have just set in. The 
thermometer at 5 a.m. to-day stood at 40°. At Sydney it is ranging at a mean of 70°. A 
good blazing fire in the evening was really enjoyable. 

Mr. Marsh and his amiable lady do not usually confine themselves to the bush for thft 
entire round of the year. At the commencement of winter the transit-van is put in requi- 
sition, and the family migrates in a body to the milder and gayer habitat of Sydney. Their 
xvute on this excursion is not by the mountain track we have just traversed, but by a lai^r 
detour which, I have said before, strikes the coast at the mouth of the Hunter River. Thence 
there is steam to Sydney. Our host is, according to my interpretation of the term, the onlf 
true and exclusive squatter whose homestead I have visited in this country. Although bied 
to tiie law he practises no other occupation than squatting ; has not an acre of purchased or 
granted land ; is a lessee of the Crown and proprietor of Uve stock and nothing else. He 
does not wield a Government quill with one hand and his pastoral crook with the other; is 
not a member of the Executive, Legislative, or City Councils— not a land-jobber, merchant, or 



A SHEPHERD, A POBT, JlTSD A PICKPOCKET. 101 

commission agent ; not an agricnltarist, nor a wine foctor. He is a gentleman sqnatter — ^no 
more. I may put down Mi* Marsh's sheep at 50,000, I suppose. As for homed and horse- 
stock I am unable to conjecture their amount. He employs about one hundred pair of hands, 
and his annual wi^es and rations cannot amount to less than 3,000/. 

It is a singular fact, that up to the date of my quitting New South Wales, the squatting 
interest, by far the most powerful and important in the colony, was unrepresented in 
the legislature, in so far that no members were returned for the unsettled districts. In the 
contemplated change of the Constitution, the priyilege of legislative representation is to be 
extended to the squatters, and Mr. Marsh will probably be elected. Our host has a substantial 
roof over his head, and is surrounded with every possible domestic comfort ; yet, if I mistake 
not, men of his cast of mind, education, and pristine habits, have always latent hopes — 
perhaps distinct aspirations— beyond a life in the Australian bush — ^yearnings for enjoyments 
and associations only attainable in old countries. I shall be surprised and disappointed if 
at no very distant date I have not the pleasure of meeting this hospitable and intelligent 
gentleman in our mutual native land. Meanwhile may his ' clip ' never be less ! He had a 
famous one this year (1846-7) ; — ^nor can it have since decreased ; for in 1851, when I 
quitted New Soutii Wides, he was assessed, if I mistake not, for 90,000 sheep I 

March nth. — ^A drive round Salisbury Plains, one of Mr. Marsh's sheep-runs, an undu- 
lating tract naturally clear of tre» and scrub, and clothed with eood grass. Both the 
pasturage and climate are admirably adapted to sheep-farming ; suitable also for the breeding, 
but not for the feeding and fattening of homed stock, the winter nights being too severe for any 
animal not lanigerous. The herbage appeared to me to be inferior to that of Bathurst and 
Wellington ; but, on the other hand, there is the inestimable treasure of a plentiful supply of 
water. We came upon several fine flocks— one of them consisting of 3,000 sheep, a strong 
brigade under one commander and his staff, that is, a sli^le shepherd with two or three 
collies. It is only in open ground, a condition very uncommon in Australian runs, that so 
lai^ a charge can be entrusted to one individual. The saving in wages is of course immense ; 
for small flocks, like little wars, don't pay ! The pastor in question was a poet, we were 
told]; and I was &voured with the perusal of one of his last pastorals, which was by no 
means original. Another shepherd, whom I met and questioned as to game in a distant part 
of the bush, could no more understand my plain English than if it had been so much Sanscrit ; 
— ^it seemed as though his rare communion with maiukind had deprived him of half his mental 
faculties. Many of this class are or have been prisoners of the Crown— old pickpockets, it is 
said, making first-rate shepherds. 

I have heard it averred that tending flocks is an employment favourable to meditation ; but 
I much doubt whether the inward ruminations of such solitary philosophers are directed to 
any good end ; and am not convinced that a retrospection of past rogueries does not produce 
in their stagnated minds more satisfieu^tion than remorse. Wives and children are, I really 
believe, all that is required to humanise these exiles from human sympathies. As it is, they 
work for a while — ^if work it can be called, sitting on a log playing the Jews* harp— and they 
only hoard their pay in order to lavish it on some periodical and senseless debauch. How 
strange must be the contrast presented to those, whom the avenging hand of the law has 
plucked from out of the lanes, courts, and alleys of London, where from infancy to manhood 
their ears had been accustomed to the eternal roar of the great Babylon, and their eyes to the 
never-ending rush of its thronged inhabitants — ^how strange, I say, the change to the still 
calm solit ude of the Australian bush I 

Considering its great distance from the peopled settlements, the blacks have not lately been 
very troublesome in this district. On one occasion, however, our host's flocks suffered a 
serious foray, in which 2,000 sheep were driven off, one shepherd killed, and another, an old 
soldier, wounded. He, however, shot the savage who threw the spear, an act which put a^^. 
end to these black-mail inroads. The farm people, in the case mentioned, pursued the native 
foragers and recovered a great portion of the sheep, but the wanton and epicurean barbarians 
left hundreds killed on their track, merely taking the kidneys. 

' Salisbury Plains are, as their British namesake once was, a favourite resort of the bustard. 
In our drive to-day we saw several of these huge birds stalking in the distance, but we failed 
in some iU^x>nducted attempts to get within shot of them ; for it is nearly impossible to 
approach on foot tliis wary game, unless much favoured by the lay of the ground. Of snipe, 
quail, and wildfowl, there is plenty in the neighbourhood. In feet, the squire of Salisbury 
Court, who is fond of shooting, and a good shot, has an excellent manor without the bother 



102 OUE ANTIPODES. 

of keepers, sbooting^lieences, or other clogn to the sport. He need never fear being wamd 
off a neighbour's preserve — for I suppose it is not too much ft> calculate that his domau 
extends over a million of acres. 

On the following day I ascended on horseback the Dividing Range, as it is called. Ii 
cannot be more than 500 or 600 feet above the site of the house ; yet from the summit a 
most perfect panorama is obtained, the circle of the horizon complete — ^not a single peak o: 
other intermediate obstruction breaking the entire round of vision—an aocident of mouotaii 
scenery which is very uncommon. From the spot where I stood, the bare patch of Salisbun 
Plains, extensive though it be, was almost lost in the vast expanse of the bush below. Tix 
spine of the ridge was thickly carpeted with the wild rsspbeny, aad an everlastiDgy with a 
large stiff yellow flower. 

March 13^A. — ^Although we are piere in autumn, one camiot give the season the poetics! 
name of 'the Fall,' as it is always styled in America ; for nothing falls from tiie gum-tr« 
except the bark. It might be an English March day, cxAA. and bright and windy, so as tc 
make basking in the sun a positive pleasure. Oar part^ and the Crown-land CommissioiKr 
rode to Armidale, the township of tiie district, about seventeen miles, the only spot in Kew 
England, I suppose, where half-a-dozen houses are coUeeted* Disdaining the road, which is 
indeed not very distinguishable, we struck right into the bosh, steering by liiesun as we miglit 
have done at sea, and had scarcely accomplished five miles, when Sir ChBrles's horse &11 1^ 
him in full canter, and rolling heavily on his leg severely injured it; His Excellency, how* 
ever, nothing daunted, moiutted another steed, and with great pain and difficulty completed 
the remaining distance. The town of Armidale consists of two inns, the Commissiooer*s 
house, two or three private stores established by and belonging to gentlemen squatters, fbr 
the supply of tiieir stations, of which inns and stores at least one of eourse appertains to the 
ubiquitous Major, two or three slab and bark huts, aad a sprouting diuzch. It has the id* 
vantsge of a large piece of natonlly dear land, looking prraisely like an English race-K^ooise 
filmed in gum-trees; and boasts a fine chain of water-holes, which, after heavy xaiiis, pati 
on the guise of a oontinuoiis stream. 

The Governor received an address signed by *the dergy (man), magtstrscy, and other is- 

babitants ' of Armidale, after the presentation of whkh we sat down^with the pilgxim &tban 

of this Austral New England— some tweoty young gentlemen — ^to an exodlent lunch, is 

which we discussed the wines of the Rhine and the Bhone^ or very good imitations theieoC 

16,000 miles from their birth-plaoe — the last 200 miles of their journey having been per* 

formed on a bullock-dray. Armidale, it is needless to say, did not madi remind me of the 

capital of the AmarMHui ^ew England— the fioaiishing Boston, -where, some 226 yean ago, 

.. «AbHBdofezllflssMMir'd.fhelrbai1c 
On the wild New EDgUmd's ihore.' 

Nor can it ever, exo^t 1^ a mirade, approach in the most distant d^ree the pDoqterity of its 
Yankee prototype. The want of navigable rivers and tfaegeaeral desrih of water are dbstadav 
not to enumerate others, in the road to wealtii, which English indnstiy and eateiprise nsj 
modify but can never whdlf remove. 

From Armidale Sir CSisiks get back to Salisbory Ooort in a gig, the only a^ed-carriage io 
iBbt town ; — whik a party ef me proceeded toa or twdve miles fiirther north to Tisit (he 
•eattLo-statioQ of Captain O'Oonndl on tiieOyxa Biver. The mdiments of this geKtlemaa's 
intoided residenoer-'ftr he has not yet established htmsdf in the bosh,— are wdl situated en s 
^ope dotted with huge granite crags, just above the bed of the stream, with a fine view of the 
mountain range over the tree-tops of 'the wilds immeasor^ly spread' roond this Uitima TfaU 
of European location. Six of us dined very agreeably in the room that is to be seme day the 
kitdien; and at ni^^ although we saw the stars of heaven winking at us throu|^ the afaingled 
?;pof, and felt the frosty breeze playing on our pillows, we dept wdl, &x there were noae of the 
cre^^ng annoyances we had met with at some other of our temporary resting-plaoaB. In the 
monnng we walked to see a natural curiosity called the Falls, a singnlar and tranendous fissoxe 
in the earth's crust, six or seven hundred feet deep, and of similar width ; — the coontry bdow 
looking like another world, designedly severed from the inhabited surface, as though it had 
never wholly been redeemed frt>m Chaos. A thread of water, sometimes hoisted by the wind 
into the air, sometimes trickling like a tear down the wrinkled fiice of the precipioe, seemed 
never to reach its foot ; but when the sun rose higher in the heavens, the cascade was onoe 
more revealed in the diape of a tiny tortuous stream, wrig^Ung its silvery way among the 
sfdintered rocks at the bottom of the gulf. It was on the verge of this awful chasm, as I wi^ 



BUCK-JUMPIKO — ^DKPABTUBE FOE NEW ZEALAND. lOS 

inform^, that the Captain's overseer had a straggle for life or death with a native black whom 
lie bad surprised in the act of spearing cattle. The sable maraoder was both fierce and ath- 
letic ; but few men, black or white, could stand long before that stalwart Torkshiieman ; and, 
afler a breast to breast struggle of some moments, the Aboriginal was hurled over the &Us to 
feed the kites and warrigals below. 

My friend the Captain has no sheep at Gyra, only homed catile and borsea. I cumot 
clearly comprehend how money is to be made by cattle-farming at so great a distance fixnn a 
market. J)iW being driv^i across the mountains we have lately traversed, I should say that 
very little suet would reach the sea-port on the backs of a herd — ^however ' Sceah,* as the 
graziers say, they might have been at starting. 

March lith. — ^Bode fi-om Gyra to Salisbury Court, twenty-one miles ; and having taken 
leave of our kind host and hostess, we performed, as before, in three days, the passage over the 
mountains to Lake lunes. Nor did His ' Excellency, his son, or myself complete our jooxney 
without each tasting some of the Intters of Australian traveL 

March 17 th, — I had heard of * buck-jumping,' as who has not in this country of ill-broike& 
horses ? but as it happened I had never seen, much less personally experienoed, an instance of it. 
To-day I was &ted to l)e an actor, or rather a patient in the process so styled. When about to 
start from ' The Yarrows ' at daybreak, I found a fi^esh horse toild off for my use, a tall raw- 
boned brown with a spine like a park paUng, every vertebra visible. Ko sooner had I mounted 
than he rushed against the garden fence, be£bre my right foot had found the stirrup, and tried 
to rub me off; and, £ndmg that did not succeed, he gave a kick and a rear, and then 
getting his head down, commenced and sustained a series of jumps straight up and down, with 
bis bade hogged and his four &et colleeted together like the sign of the Golden Fleece. For 
about £ve minutes^ very long ones to me, this was kqot up with great spoit, and not one of the 
bal^dozen Arming men around iX)uld or would get hold of the brute's head. A little man of 
this rude exercise would have fairly tired me into a tumble, when luckily for my bones one of 
the men seized the snaffle by a sudden spring, imd the buck-jumper, with one eHtrechat of 
greater force than the rest, concluded the dance. I got from the speoulatsEs ' kudos' for keefH 
ing what is sometimes vaorted on such occasions, namdy the saddle. The ronains of a stoat 
Cape buffalo-hide whip attest the revenge I took on the ribs of my raw-boned steed. G. F. 
farad worse, for his hoEBe, after carrying him quietly at first, suddenly became nstive, ran 
among the trees, and finally struck him off by a blow on the &ce, leaving him stunned and 
bleeding on the ground. Neither did the already battered Governs esci^ fiirther mishap ; 
for, getting into a tandem to perform the last twelve miles of the journey, and tiie wheder 
falling over the root of a tree, he was thrown fidrly over the splash-boEurd, adding more bruises 
to his already liberal share. The travellers, however, reached at sunset the bootable roof of 
Lake Innes Cottage, where we recruited ourselves until the 22d ; Bruoe's bagpipes were in good 
wind and condition ; and the same may be said of the eight or nine young ladies in the house, 
who took care that the Sydney gentlemen should not forget how to djmoe for want of practice. 
On that day our party, with a numerous C8!valcade of the £ur and tiie brave, quitted Lake 
innes for Port Macquade, where at eleven A.1I. we embarked once mate in the MosUkad 
steamer, for Sydney. 

CHAPTER X. 

1847. — ^I HADhmg determined to seiae the first fiivourable opportunity'of visiting New Zealand- 
its chief settlements, military posts and battle-fields, and of makmg sudi notes as might be useful 
at the bead-quarters of the Australasian Conomand in case of further wwfiue. And the 
Lieutenant-General Commanding the Foroes having expressed his approval of the step, and sup- 
ported it by givmg me a mission ' on partioular service,' I oonsidered m3rself fortunate in 
receiving from Commander Hoseason, ox HJf .'s steam-sloop Inflexible, the kind offer of a pas- 
sage in that ship on her return to Auckland, New Zealand, from Sydney, m the summer of 
1847. At mid-day on the 5th of December, accordingly, ILM.'s sloop got under weigh, with 
fine weather and a smooth sea. 

A capacious cabin was allotted to me, and, thus having privacy at my command, I deter- 
mined to devote a few hours every day to learning something of the countiy I was about to 
visit. Not being stinted in amount of baggage, I had brongbt a small box of books, among 
which were sundry Parliamentary blue-books, one of which alone contains upwards of 1,100 
pages, and weighs, as expressed on its cover, * under eight pounds I' — a mass of colonial lore 



^f^t^^m^^B^'^ 



W^^^^!^ 



104 OUB ANTIPODES. 

which had been thrown at my head on leaving England by an M.P. friend, who, in oommoc 
with the majority of his brother senators, probably lodrad upon these volumes relatlxig to 
savage countries as so much waste paper, and had of course never opened them. They stood 
me in good stead now ; and perhaps I cannot employ myself better, as we steam towards New 

Zealand, than in preparing, as wdil as I can, a digest of the information so gathered fbinish- 

ing a very imperfect sketch of the history of the colony up to the present day, and serving as 
an introduction to my journal. 

The group of islands constituting New Zealand are. in number three, two of them as larp 
perhaps as Ireland, with a smaller one at the southern extremity. They were first discovered 
by Tasman in 1642 ; but he experienced so rough a recepti(»i from the natives, and was so 
alarmed at the big fierce fellows with loud voices and long strides, as to leave him little taste 
for farther exploration ; and New Zealand was not honoured by another visit frt>m a white &oe 
until the year 1770, when Captain Cook circumnavigated the islands, found good harbours for 
large shipping in the strait called after himself, which divides the two northern islands, and, 
landing, took possession of the country in the name of the king of England ; his instructions 
being to do so with the consent of the natives, if there were any, and, if there were none, as 
first discoverer and possessor. In a subsequent visit he landed at several spots, conferring an 
everlasting benefit on the natives by sowing European gardennseeds, potatoes, cabbages, onions; 
maize, and other v^etables, wluch have never since &iled. 

The first rough pioneers of civilisation among the Maoris,' were undoubtedly the EnglisB 
whalers and sealers from New South Wales. Otbers of the same craft but ef different nations 
followed, who, locating themselves on the coast of Cook's Straits, gradually improved their 
conmiunications with the natives, and pursued a rude but lucrative trade in what is calld 
shore-whaling, in contradistinction to deep searfishing. The Sydney merchants gave employ- 
ment to these land whalers, their vesseb carrying away the oil, and leavii^ money, clothes, 
arms, and, alas I rum, in payment. These rough-and-ready settiers amalgamated in some 
d^ee with the turbulent Maoris — ^half-warriors, half-fishermen of the coasts ; some of them 
marrying the daughters and sisters of native chiefs, thereby securing the powerful protection of 
the latter. Others contracted alliances of a less formal nature with native women, and a half^ 
caste breed sprung up to cement the alliance between the races. In the numerous confiids 
between the native tribes, the Englishmen sometimes sided with that which had shown them 
favour, or was connected with them by marriage or traffic ; and their furious bravery, their 
fire-arms — ^then rare in the country — and the formidable weapons of their trade, the harpocMi, 
the axe, the lance, and the whale-spade, caused the ifortmies of the party against which tiiey 
fought to kick the beam. They themselves sometimes suffered no trifling reverses. When 
absent in their boats in pursuit of fish, some foraging party of hostile Maoris would rush upon 
the settiements, bum down the huts and whaling stages, and carry off property, women, and 
children — ^not perhaps so much out of enmity to the whites, as in blind retaliation on the tribe 
among which they resided. The utter want, or rather alienee, of law, or of any superior 
example of conduct, and the periodical plenty of strong waters, gave rise to and pcapetuatec^ 
scenes of drunken riot, such as, knowing the actors, one can easily conceive, but which to de- 
scribe would be impossible. 

Such being the European dramatis personcB in the first scene of New Zealand civilised, 

* enter to them * a straggling host of runaway sailors, military deserters, escaped convicts horn 
New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land, sawyers and lumberers, adventurers and evasives 
of every sort ; and giving the natural Maori every credit for ferocity, villany, and blood- 
thirstiness, I fiincy it will not be denied that his maiden impressions of fhe European scale of 
morals and polite arts, as furnished by these specimens, could not by possibility rise above 
mediocrity. Indeed, the brutal drunkenness and reckless debauchery of the Pakehas* actually 

* astonished the natives,' if it did not revolt them ; for they are sober by nature and by 
practice even now. Moreover, on those especial points on which the New Zealander was supposed 
to excel — namely, the merdless and bloody onslaughts on the unarmed and unsuspecting 
adversary, where neither sex nor age was a shield — ^there were not wanting instances in which 
Englishmen distinguished themselves above the savage, lending their vessels, boats, arms, and 
personal aid through every stage of enormity short perhaps of eating what they had killed. 
Tradition seems to clear them of that consummation ; but, as for me, I see no reason for stopping 
dead short at that particular point. 

If, therefore, as I have sud, the Aborigines were not impressed with exalted notions of the 

* Foreigners. 



CX)NQUE8T OF HONGI. 105 

white man's purity of condtict, nor of the code that rnled his morak, there was no mistake 
about the respect thej entertained for the thews and sinews, the powers of endorance, the 
pluck and spirit, as well as the skill and perseverance cf their pale-faced visitors. Paie, 
by-the-bj, is a most inapplicable epithet as conferred on these rough denizens of the coast and 
wave ; for such as I saw were bronzed, burnt, blown, and bloated by sun, wind, sea, and mm, 
to sudi a shade of red-brown that, were it not for the wicked blue eyes and wickeder oath, and 
for the rolling gait acquired on the sea and retained on land by seamen, a traveller might eudly 
mistake his fellow-Saxon for an un-tatooed Maori. To complete this fortuitous aggregation of 
the wildest elements of society, nothing was wanting but to oigrafb upon it a convict poial 
settlement ; and, by all accounts, from this fate New Zealand was saved only by the character 
of ferocity and treachery generally attributed to the natives. The project, had it been attempted, 
would have Med amid fearful bloodshed ; for what military or police force usually granted to 
a young colony would have sufficed to coerce at once 10,000 or 20,000 felons and 50,000 
savage warriors, united, possibly, in a common cause of resistance and vengeance ? 

While the Anglo-Maori oonomunities were thus progressmg from a bad infancy to a worse 
maturity, fortunately for the English strangers, — fortunately for the natives, — ^happily for 
humanity at laxge, — ^the accounts r^rding New Zealand, gathered at Sydney from the whalers 
and others tradmg between the two countries, as well as from some native chiefi who visited 
New South Wales, induced the zealous Colonial Chaplain, Mr. Marsden, of Sydney, to attempt 
the formation of a Christian Mission [in I the land of the cannibal : and accordingly, in the year 
1815, he carried into effect this work of charity, by founding the first Church Missionary 
Settlement in the Bay of Islands. A Wesleyan missicm followed about 1822, and was located 
at Wangaroa, on the opposite coast. The labours of the early missionaries, their dai^rs, 
difficulties, and sufferings for Christ's sake, were so appalling as the courage and constancy <^ 
the true Apostle could idone have enabled them to sustain, and finally to turn to good account. 
Their zeal and perseverance were at length rewarded by the adherence of many chie& besides 
followers of less note, under whose poweriul protection tiieir labours of love were thenceforth 
prosecuted with comparative safety and comfort, as well as increased success. Many years 
later, a Roman Catholic bishop, with a party of Jesuit clergy, arrived,']and established them- 
selves also at the Bay of Islands. 

Meanwhile, not a few concurrent incidents of stirring'' and various nature helped to augment 
the troubles of this distant land. A native gentleman named Hongi, whom the missionaries 
had brought, as they flattered themselves, within the humanising pale of Christianity, 
determined to finish his education by making * the grand tour,' under the guidance of an 
English bear-leader. He accordingly repaired to London, where he attended levees, dined with 
nobles and church dignitaries, displayed an exemplary attention to the observances of his new 
creed, frode in the Park, skated on the Serpentine, was petted by the ladies, and, finally, 
returned to his native land loaded with presents from royalty, nobility, and commonalty, — 
among which was a number of fire-arms ; for, with other western accomplishments, he had 
learnt to be a good shot. At Sydney he exchanged most of his other presents, less suited to the 
patriotic object he had in view, for double-ba^rrelled "guns, muskets, and ammimition ; and, 
having safely disembarked himself and his armoury in New Zealand, he set to work in right 
earnest to civilise his native land by the shortest (perhaps the only) method, — namely, by 
exterminating the Maori race ; which, at the head of his tribe, amongst whom he distributed 
his newly-acquired fire-arms, he found no great difficulty in effecting, when opposed only by 
dubs, spears, and stone tomahawks. Sweeping onwards from the north, he drove all before 
him ; the great chief, Te Rauperaha, even flying fix)m the * villanous saltpetre.' Te Rauperaha, 
in his turn, unseated from his hereditary lands, deft his way towards the south, and, paying in 
the coin he had received, stayed not his blood-stained course until, crossing Cook's Straits, he 
had reached their southern shore on the Middle Island, where, afler a sweeping massacre of men, 
women, and children, and a series of grand political dinners on human flesh, at which it is by no 
means certain that more than one wUte man did not assist, he finally went into winter qusoters 
—pitching his warree on the territory into possession of which he had thus literally killed and 
eaten hin^lf. 

Among other characters in the earlier scenes of the New Zealand drama, appeared a certain 
]^^ch baron, who having employed an agent to purchase a large tract of land from the natives, 
arrived and prodaimed himsdf sovereign of Ahini-Mawi, the northern island ; the self-elector's 
claim howevw met with but few supporters, his pretensions but little respect, — as may well be 
imagined, since our gradous Queen Victoria has found the assumption of sovereignty over these 



106 OUB ANTIPODES. 

proud and warlike tribes no &cile task. Monsieur le Baron, accordingly, subsided in dae tixne 
to his proper level ; namely, that of a worthy oc^omst and an aficomplifihed monber of society, 
and such he still maintainB. 

On the rise, progress, struggles for eristoioe, and &ll of the New Zeahmd Land OcajapoBxy 
and Association for Systematic Colonisation on the Waksefield System I shall faordlj Tentnre to 
impinge, certainly not in this introductory chapter. A more exquiaite embroglio ihMn that 
offered by this body's relations with the datiyes, the settlers, the enugiants, the local and ihs 
imperial GoTemmoits, nevo* was left to be muarelled by political patience and ingennitj. 
But, for the sayings and doings of the New Zealand Company, are they not written in xeazns of 
the Blue Book, open to others as to myself? 

The state of ^e iskads being such as aforesaid, tiie interferanoe of Govemment became 
absolutely necessary ; and, indeed, in 1833, a joint applicarfion for protedaoa was made Iry the 
missionarieB, the settlen, and «ame of the native ohiefii to the Govreraor of New South Wales, 
in consequence whereof there was diepatcbed from Sydney to i&e Bay of Islands a Besident, 
whose powers, however, proving insufficient, Captain Hobscm, fi.li[. was appointed Consal in the 
fbrst instance, and, in the y«ar 1840, Lieutenant-Governor of New Zealand imder the Governor 
of New South Wales. The abort rule of this officer was tenninaitod by death, caused prohnWr 
iby the troubles and anxieties of his <<nMt>us and perplexing office ; hut one of its most 
remarkable iruits was the &mous lareaty of WaHsangi, concluded with the natives at the Bay of 
Islands and ratified by the signatures of 512 <?hieftaifiH, ithex^y the aovere^ty of the Islands 
x>f New Zealahd was ceded by the Maori chie& to Queen Victaria. The proprietary zights of 
the former to 'aQ their land and estates, forests, fisheries,' &c were secured to thenft; hat the 
ezdusive ligfat of preemptien over such lands as the natives migkt he disposed to alimate, was 
yielded to the ciown. 

The gradually increasing love of trade renderad the natives move desirous than Ibrmeii j of 
the presence of £nrqpean settlers, and of the visits of vessels to their ooasts; but on the aD- 
absorbing sulject of hmd they were shrewd enet^ to zise in their demand, as tiiey di8oo<v<aed 
its augmeated value in the eyes of tine whites. They jiet <eniy stood -eut for higher pricea in 
present and future dealings, but repudiated bygone bargams, on the plea that they had been 
bamboozled and overreached, which was undoubtedly tiie fact] <jfreat]y outnumbering 1ht 
white settlers, they became gradyally mere aggnesflive, and disputes and pexBooal soiffies 
&equently oooorred between ti^ hot-tempered of both races. It was difficult, if not impessible^ 
to instil into Maori intelleot the full intent and meaning of the sov^eignty that had been 
ceded to England, or rather to Queen Victoria. But the cbie& <did sot tal to ^scover that tibeir 
dignify and authority were elippiag firam than : indeed, the introduction of the Christian 
xsdigien had ali«ady sapped their hereditary influence over itiie tribes ; for those who «mifacaoed 
this creed, (as many did,) in -spirit and in truth as well as ly profeflsion, became naturally ia 
same degree subservient to thehr spiritual maefceis, the nussionaxMB — withdrawing^ peih^ 
unconsciously, from thdr atill heathen nobles their pristine leverenoe and obedienoe. 

The Crown's right of preemption, too, wluch oempeiQed the BotiTe to nalce the Govemeift 
his sole eoatomer in land, — a most wise enactmea^ eipresslf devised fir ike benefit of the 
Aboriginal himself — ^was aeverthelflHs offiBBsive and m^Mpukr m opention, mone espedaHy 
whea the said customer did not happen to want anyidiing in 4^at liae I Jack Maori (as 
the soldierB call him) had signed away his right to be .swindled by ihe British jNiblicv »d 
lie regretted the lost privilege as a salky chfld resents anattempt to piKiveBtU 

T^ interregnum of Mr. ShertlaBd, the C^onial Secretary, who admiinstered tiie geremmeBt 
for a year and a half after Captaia Hobsoa's deetii, was no bed of roses; aal in i^ midst of it, 
(June, 1843,) occurred the most henaible event of Anglo-Maori histoay^— ^be msssBcre of 
Waixau, when seven £nglish gentlemen and fifteen of their IbllowerB were slaughtered la oold 
Uood by the natives. The passions of the two races, rooaed hf this &ightful event, had last 
little of their exasperation when Captain Fitz Roy, R.N^ m the latter end ^ 1843, assumed 
the reins of Government. The disaffiacted natives, indeed, ihsd evidently gained enoonrsgement 
for further '•utbreak from the easy victory «£ their brethren over an equal number of aimed 
white men. The now well-known John Heki had about this time commenced his crusade veibal 
and actual against the British flag, which certain foreigners, hostile to English sapnemacy, and 
certain English scoundrels adverse to the establishment of law and order, persuaded hhu to 
consider as the symbol of the slavery and d^radation of his countrymen. The fiag-staff at the 
settlement of Eororarika, in the Bay of Islands, was cut down, and the town finally plaadered 
and burnt — ^which events I shall have to notice in visiting the spots of their occurrence. 



AUGMENTED FOBCES AKB BESOUBCES. 107 

Governor Fitz R07 had stepped into a hornet's nest. (It will be some time before a Goremor 
o£ New Zealand will feather any softer one for himself !) No attempt at creatiog fortified posts 
liad been made, sncfa as with any nation but Englishmen would hare been the first care after 
^^aining possession of an aore of land amongst a people of such doubtful firiendship. His 
JSxcellency had no power to draw on the Home treasory. There was an empty excl^quer in 
the oolony, with starving unpaid public servants, and a standing army of some 150 soldi^ 

In March, 184-5, a reinforcement arrived a^ Auckland; and, pressed bd. all hands by 
bellloose advisers, the Lieutenant-Governor was induced to send against Held a force wluc^ 
utterly destitute of equipment for the siege of a strong stockade, was unsuocessful. The 
following m(xith a second expedition, with augmented numbers and a poor supply of mnnitioiis 
of 'war, onoe more beleaguered the rebel Christian chief. Attadc by assault failed; but, alfcer 
a short blockade, the garrison evacuated the pah, which was entered and deatMyed, — aa 
advantage gained at a sfdly disproportionate expense of life on the British side. Heki, severely 
woTxnded^ was quieted for a time, aod his adherents dispersed. His fierce old ally, Kaawiti, retired 
to a distant post, where he occupied himself in fortifying the most fonnidable pah ever ereded 
in Hew Zealand. The Governor's anxious and nnremittiDg effixrts, with insuffioient means to 
control the discordant dements with which he fonnd himself snrrranded, were bat partially 
snccessftd ; and certain of the measores which he was impelled by dire necessity to adopt 
meeting with the cBsapproval of the Home Government, he was recalled; and, in November 1S4^ 
y/ras succeeded by Captain Grey, late of the 83rd raiment, the present lieoteoant'Oovenior. 

The difficulties of the first two Governors had roidered so obvious the necessity of strength- 

ening the hands oF their 0Ucoeas<Hr, that Captain Grey's resouroes were ]aac;gely and wkely 

multiplied. The dignity of Her Majesty's representative was oihanoed by a threefold an^ 

niented salary, a parliamentary grant of 30,000«. a-year jn aid of the young colony, and a 

force of 2,500 men. He was moreever invested with the onperior title af Govemorwin^lUef, 

with a Lieutenant^ovemoc, subordinate in authority, seated in the southern province. A 

general o6^er, with a suitable staff, was appointed to command the troops ; vessels of war 

Bew on the wings of canvas and of steam to these lately negleoted isles ; it was dear that the 

* powers that be' had resolved ' to go the whole ' distance between severe eooaomy and 

lavish liberality at one stride ; but whether this stimulus was borrowed firom a soddes 

appreciation of the importance of the New Zealand group as a Crown colony, or from oob- 

dderations connected with the aristocratically suf^rted intererts of the New Zealand 

Land Company, is a question doubted by some. His £zoe])eBcy aealonsly and adivelj 

took up the cudgel which his predecessor had not strength enough to wield with peiAct 

success against the saalcentent natives ; and ere a mon& of his reign he' had Ahrowa a 

force of 1,000 men upon ihe veteran Kawiti, destroying his new stronghold of the Rtia-pelai> 

peka, and utterly crushing his power and party. The northern province being thus tras- 

^uillised by the defeat of Heki and Kawiti, Governor Ghrey was endbled to turn bis attanttoB 

to the sontit, where Bangihaieta was committing every kind of depnedataon aad outrage, hk 

July 1846, the treacherous eld chief, Te Rauperaha, whq. pretendmg friendship towards tiw 

Blnglish, secretly 00-opeHted with his friend and fighting general Saagihaieta, was d e wa l y 

seized in his pah at Tanpe, wsthout UoodAed. A force was pcuhed ag^st RaBgihalela, and 

his fine pah of Pahataaui on the Periraa inlet taken and eoeqpied by the troeps, he hinielf 

narrowly escapix^ caf]tnre by a parfy v^di doselj pn rsoed Juta m, liia ttj^ ap the 

Horokiwi valley. His peeple were utterly rooted and disperwd. 

In all these military expeditions the aboriginal chieis and their followers, whe wave 
attached to the Christian faith and to the English Government, co-operated seak>ialy mA 
faithfuHy with our troops — ^in many instances distinguishing themsrives by brilliant aets ai 
valour and devotion. As gnides, scouts, and skirmishen they wttre most valaid>]e allies ; nor 
is it too much to say that, had these influential natives kept aloof and withheld their assist- 
ance, none of our <^ierations would have succeeded without a loss ef life irreparable in so snail 
a foroe. Had they deserted the cause and sided against the Britieh, the latter would eithar 
have been driven into the sea er uselessly cooped up in fortified posts «n its sherea. 

In the spring of 1847, Wanganns, a small military post, and one of the Cerapeny's aetll»> 
ments on the S.W. coast of the Nortbon island, was attacked by a body of natives, who 
were driven off with loss. With the skirmishes at Wanganui, and the subsequent breaking up 
of the Taua or war party, ended all serious disturbances between the races; and althou^ up 
to the time of my visit to the colony, occasional rumours of outbreak reached head-quarters^ 
I found on my arrival at Auckland, as had been truly r^Kirted to the Secretary of State by 



108 OUR AISTIPODES. 

the Governor, * a greater amonnt of tranquillity and prosperity prerailing in New Zealand 
than had ever yet existed/ 

Although irahued with quite as much philanthropy as usually fells to the lot of a mere 
soldado, I will admit some secret feeling of disappointment at this pacific position of afiairs. 
An honourable peace is the ultimate object of a well-fought war, and the greatest amount of 
happiness to the greatest number is the legitimate desideratum of all good goyemment and all 
good folks. But I must confess a regret, that up to this day the Maoris have never yet 
received what I verily believe wonld have been of infinite service to their particular com- 
plaint — namely, a good sound thrashing ! such an one as has been frequently and salutarily 
administered by British blue-jackets and red, to troublesome people in wellnigh every other 
quarter of the globe. A good stand-up fight, hand to hand, foot to foot, would, I firmly 
believe, have materially assisted in simplifying and even strengthening and cementing the 
future relations of the white and native races in this country.* 

The present government of New Zealand consists of a Govemor-in-Chief, with an Executive 
Council, formed by the Colonial Secretary, Treasurer, and Attorney-General, and a Legislative 
Council of four colonists, nominated by the Governor. So it is tolerably despotic in character 
— ^the best form for a young colony — and scarcely less absolute than the mode of rule in a 
public school, or in a man-of-war. The Lieutenant-Governor holds the reins at Wellington in 
the southern province, reporUng to the Govemor-in-Chief, who alone corresponds with the 
Secretary of State for the Colonies. 

December 10th, — Saw land on the starboard bow, and from 3 to 5 P.M. we were steaming 
past the group of the Three Kings, consisting of one rocky isle three or four miles in extent, 
showing partial spots of verdure, and surrounded by six or eight smaller ones — nigged, 
volcanic, insulated peaks, tops of submarine mountains forming the northern outworks of the 
Islands of New Zealand. Cape Maria Van Diemen — or Rainga, as it is called by the natives 
— the northern extremity of New Zealand, is holy ground in their eyes. It is there that the 
soul, released from the corpse of the deceased warrior, takes a kind of purgatorial rest, exposed 
to the furious storms of the rugged promontory, before its final absorption into — what ? 

December 11th. — ^At 4 a.h. we were traversing the mouth of the Bay of Islands, a splendid 
harbour, much frequented by whaling vessels as well as Her Majesty's ships, and a consi- 
derable military station, to which I shall make a future visit. At 9 A.M. we passed Bream 
Head. Running within five to ten miles of the coast, its volcanic and peaked character was 
very apparent. The shore is indented with many inlets, but there are few good harbours, 
even for small vessels. A fine bluff was indicated to me as * Cape Rodney ;'f and I was 
pleased to find an ancestor's name commemorated in these distant countries. We passed 
during the day several groups of islands— the * Cavallos,* the * Poor Knights,' and the great 
and little * Barriers.' About 2 P.M. the ship was gradually becoming involved on either hand, 
' and fore and aft, in a frame of land — island and continent — but all alike in feature and 
expression — a very plain repulsive face indeed, with a dingy brown complexion spotted over 
with extinct volcanos, like eruptions on the human skin. Verdure seemed to be very scarce, 
the higher order of vegetation still more so. Certainly there is nothing inviting in the aspect 
of New Zealand at this point, so far as is to be gathered by a -distant view of its shores. 

We were now approaching Auckland, the present capital. On our left was the island of 
Rangi-toto, an immense volcanic cone composed of scorise and stunted bushes ; on our right. 
Mount Victoria, a long tongue of land terminating in a lofty knoll surmounted by a siprnal- 
post, from whence a sudden jet of little flags announced our approach to the expectant func- 
tionaries of Auckland— expectant, I say, because the Inflexibl^s trip to Sydney was * a visit to 
my uncle,' on the part of the New Zealand Government, and 50,000^ was the result, by way 
of loan,* from the military chest of Sydney. Right ahead we saw, some six miles off, the 
Bishop's College ; and shortly afterwards, wheeling round the signal promontory, we opened 
the truly splendid harbour of Waitemata. We passed on the right or northern shore the fire- 
blackened spot where, onlyyour weeks previously, the entire family of Lieutenant Snow, R.N., 
had been, as was then supposed, massacred and half devoured by the natives ; almost rubbed 
sides with Her Majesty's ships Dido and Calliope, and finally, at 4 P.M. anchored about three- 
quarters of a mile distant from, and right abreast of, the city of Auckland. 

* A critic has observed that this sentiment is inconsistent with others afterwards expressed. I think 
It is not 80 ; because I still believe that, althongh the Maoris are rapidly attaching themselves to peaceful 
pnrtalts. the chances of a fresh outbreak would be fewer had onr conquest been of a more decisive 
character. f So named by Cook, Nov. 24, 1769. 



AUCKLAND— HEAD QUABTEBS. 109 

Akarana, the Maori name for Auckland, and indeed their closest approach to its pronuncia- 
tion, contains about 6,000 or 7,000 inhabitants. It is seated on a rather high plateau of land, 
divided by ravines into three coves — called ' Mechanic's,' * Commercial,' and * Official Bays.' 
The tonner is a strand devoted to boat-building and rope-making, with a small native village 
long established there ; Commercial Bay is the searvent of the mercantile and shop-keeping 
quarter ; and a nest of neat villas, with pretty little gardens around them — houses and grounds 
exiguous almost to the extremity of Dutch toyism — denotes Official Bay, where the public 
officers and aristocracy have oongr^ted. Mount Eden, i^ped like a little Etna, but, unlike 
her, now extinct and innocuous (for every dog and volcano has its day I) is the grand natural 
feature of the scene, and is situated about three miles south of Uie town. The brick steeple of 
the Protestant church, the Old Barracks on a fortified bluff called Point Brittomart, and the 
Catholic chapel beyond Mechanic's Bay, are the artificial features most prominent ; — for the 
Government House, with its long, low, shingled, bam-like roof has no very important place in 
the landscape. The New Barracks are further inland, but the officers live, here and there, in 
numerous small cottages, some of them prettily situated and romantic with roses and wood- 
bines. The mess rooms, commissariat stores, brigade office, &c., are within the old barrack- 
yard which is defended by a breast-work and ditdi towards the land, and is naturally scarped 
seaward. 

Major-General Pitt, who has but lately arrived in the colony, had no little difficulty in find- 
ing among the wretchedly small clinker-built houses of the town one capable of acconunodating 
his large family. At loigth he pitched upon a weather-board building, which up to the date 
of his occupation had been a tavern. When I proceeded, as in duty bound, to pay my respects 
at head-quarters, I found a grenadier sentry on his post in firont of the entrance, whose beaa> 
skin cap exactly reached the eaves of the roof. The sign and the name of the licensed retailer 
of fermented and spirituous liquors had indeed been removed, but a highly obvious directi<Hi — 
' To the Tap 1^^ still invited the thirsty stranger within the General's hospitable walls. 
The head-quarters of the 58th Begiment are quartered in new wooden cantonments, with an 
extensive parade ground within a flanked wall, now in progress of erection entirely by Maori 
labour, and affordhig good proof of their aptitude in masonry. It was in consequence of the 
scarcity and expense of European mechanics and labourers that, at the end of last year, it 
occurred to Major Marlowe, Royal Engineers, to employ a few natives on the works. He found 
difficulty in exercising any discipline over them at first. In a few weeks, however, they learned 
to dress stone ; they squared the quoins and arch-stones of the military hospital, and the wall 
of the Albert Barrack-yard, ' and, as reports the Major in May, 1847» * performed their work 
equal to that of any of the European mechanics.' Out of sixty-seven so employed there was 
only one who could not read and write, and all were anxious for instruction. Since the first 
employment of them only one had been the worse for liquor. They meet the clerk of the 
works every Sunday morning, to attend a place of worship ; and they have prayers every 
morning and evening among themselves. Most of them save money (the pay being !«. GcT. 
^ 2i. ^. a day), in order to purchase European clothing and live stock. Great credit is due 
to this officer and his assistants^ in thus instructing the Maoris, and bringing them under the 
discipline of organised labour* Better to pay for their labour, and thus employ them as 
fellow-sabjects, than to live at constant enmity with them I better to pay for their land than 
to fight for it I better to satisfy the moderate expectations of the savage, and to humour his 
pride and prejudices, than to affiront both as was done at the Wairau, and thereby bring on a 
war which cost half a million of money and many valuable lives ! 

I have not much to say in praise of Auckland as a town. Ninety-nine out of a hundred of 
the houses are bailt of wood and are of imsubstantial appearance ; lucifer matches are cheap, 
fifteen out of twenty nights are boisterously windy, and, if the natives were bent on a bonfire, 
nothing could be more readily effected than a conflagration of the capital. But no, the New 
Zealander has no enmity against the European, unless he appears in arms against him ; he is 
gradually learning the value of property ; he is taking to mills and to coasting vessels, to 
cattie and to horses. And this is a great step towards the subjugation of the country ; for as 
an enemy, the Maori will be more vulnerable when he has something to lose ; — the mere 
savs^e has nothing to lose but his life* Governor Grey's policy tends to foster tiiis growing 
taste for English customs. His intimacy with the chiefs, and his general treatment of them, 
—whether in giving encouragement and reward to the well-disjwsed, or in unmasking and 
punishing the treacherous and rebellious — together with his steady perseverance in the Caesar- 
like mode of oonquesti road-making ;—>will, I believe, if anything can, bring about the even* 



110 OUB AKTIPODES. 

tnal comfortable colonisation of the countiy, without the osnal accompaniment of the extirpa- 
tion of the Aborigines. Yet the same fete appears to attend the wild man, whether he sub- 
mits and conforms to the habits of the civilised man, resents and resists his nsarpation, or 
sullenly retires from the borders of civilisation. * As surely as day dispels night, as eternity 
swallows up thne/ says the author of Sbchelaga, * so does the white man sweep away the 
Black r Will this theory prove void in the instance of the Maori? If with any- savage, it 
may with the New Zealancter. 

The day of our arrival being Saturday, the town was full of natives, either coming into 
market or for other purposes. It was an interesting and curious sight to watch the groups 
flocking in to receive their week's pay at the commissariat for working on the roads or other 
public labours. The bran-new glittering half-crowns, fresh from the Mint, seemed to possess 
great charms in the eyes of those wbo had earned them, and I was assured that very little of 
their gains would go to the tapster. Some of the men were of remarkably fine ibrm, and 
the younger ones, when untattooed, very good-looking, with frank and bold coantenances, fine 
curly black hieur, and erect, muscular figures. A few were extremely tall. There are at this 
moment upwards of 1,000 Maoris employed by the Government on the roads in the northern 
and southern districts. From among these fine fellows who, working under English overseers, 
have become habituated to English discipline, might be selected excellent materials for a 
native regiment. For the incorporation of some such local force the Lieutenant-Governor 
has received authority from Home ; but in deferring this step until the colony becomes more 
settled, he is acting with his usual prudence. 

It is said that the substitation of the European blanket for their original dress, — the flax 
mat, is introducing catarrh and consumption among the natives ; and, indeed, in passing groups 
of strong-looking Maoris, sitting smoking round their fires, wrapped in their blankets up to 
their eyes, I was particularly struck by the continual coughing kept vp amongst them. Many 
have no other article of raiment than this most heavy, ugly, and awkward robe, yet, singular 
enough, it is always worn with decency, even with grace, and sometimes with dignity- ; for 
the massive, square, Roman-like fece and tall broad figure are peculiarly suitable to this to^ 
style of costume. The blanket or mat is thrown on in loose folds, leaving the right arm free, 
and is usually secured on the right shoulder by a pin of human bone. I delight in the descrip- 
tion given by Tasman of his first view of tile natives of tiiis then unknown land ; it breathes 
such pure ' frink' of the inhabitants of a country, with which he had the strongest desn<e to 
be better acquainted. Old Abel, writing in 1642, says : * As we approached the land with a 
design to have refreshed ourselves, we perceived on the mountein thirty- five or forty persons, 
who, as fer as we could discern at such a distance, were men of very lai^e size^ and had each 
of them a club in his hand: they called out to us in a rough strong voice, but we could not 
understand anything of what they said. We observed that these people walked at a very 
great rate, and that they took prodigious long strides !' The Patch navigator took the hint, 
it appears, and sheered off. 

The hair of the Maori — to carry on the Roman likeness — is a complete Brutus crop^ and 
he has rarely any other covering to the head. Sometimes, by way of ornament, one or more 
large black feathers tipped with white, or a searlet flower, is stuck in the hair or throng a 
hole in the lobe of the ear — in which are also hung drops of green jade stone, or malachite, or 
a peculiar kind of shark's tooth dotted with red sealing-wax. An ugly idol-shaped figure of 
the same stone, denominated a Tiki, hangs by a flax i^Snad an. the breast of those who have 
inherited or can aflbrd a somewhat expensive jewel. The legs and feet are always naked. 
The tattooing is a great disfigurement, imparting a savage repression to a naturally good- 
humoured face. This process is said' to prevent wrinkles in old age,, and I think it does pro- 
bidily defer them ; for the deep scoring of the cheeks must act somethmg like the act of 
crimping fish, in making the flesh hard and firm. Some of the young dandies rouge their 
cheeks with red ochre, — a habit Governor Grey tries to shame l^em out of. The women- 
appeared to me much less well-looking than the men. They tattoo the under-lip a deep blue 
— *a most unbecoming practice. One encounters here and there a pretty young girl, with a 
fresh round face, long^ almond-shaped eyes, and a well-formed figure; but, speaking generally, 
I think that the Maori gentlemen belong to * that condition of humanity,' upon which the 
author of Edthen says he ' expends an enormous quantity of pity I '-^namely, the possessors of 
ugly wives I I saw more than one very handsome woman among the half-breeds, and a good 
many of this class in and around the settlements ; and I heard the opinion mooted by ex- 
perienced persons, that the half-caste population in New Zealand will in time succeed to, 



HALF BBXBIMi — BISHOP SELWTS, 111 

rather than dispossess, the original Maori. But to this theory I cannot sohscribe ; for whers 
is the coontrj in which the mixed race has ever been either formidable in nomber or infla- 
ential in mental or physical character ? In New Zealand, sach of either aex as came under 
my notice, had a gentle ezpreseion of eye and countenance, denoting an indolent and volup- 
tuons tendency — more akin to the people of the Friendly Islands than to the turbulent and 

warlike Maori. 

December 12th, — Governor Grey was so good as to make me his guest and to give me 
rooms at Govenmient-house^ wheie, m the mtellectual society of His Excellency and his lady, 
in the enjoyment of daily novel scenes, and with a most excellent libraiy at my command, the 
time passed most agreeably. The Government-house is a frame building, and was sent out 
from Ff"g^*~^ ready for erection. It is tolerably conmiodious, but not comfortable from the 
fiict that there can be no privacy, no quiet or sil«it comer fbr study or retreat in a tenement 
which looks as if it had been built in half an hour out of a dozen or two old packs of cards. 
The muttered consultation between the Governor and the Colonial Secretary in ^ Excellency's 
study— ^the merry laugh of the ladies in tiie drawing-room — the audible arithmetic of the Co* 
lamal Treasurer and the Private Secretary in the latter's office — the bed-making of the house- 
maid on one side— -the peifiirniaxiGe of * Jeames Plush ' on tfiat harsh instrument, liie 
knife-board, in the pantry— the jingling of silver and china by the butler in the dining-room— 
tmA the afnimated discourse between half-anlosai native chiefe and the Government interpreter 
in the vernndah, — are all within the scope of one pair of ears. But de mortuia, ftc. — ^the poor 
old GovemmeBt-house was burnt to the ground not l<mg after its roof had afibrded me 
shelter ; and I fear that not only did Captain Grey sufier severely in loss of property, but tiiat 
mmy Talnable curiosities were lost tosdenoe. 

March 14M. — ^Rode wifik Captain Hoseason to the College at ffishop^s Auckland, about five 
miles from town. A good read across an undulating country of wild &m and sooriie, with but 
little timber, and dotted here and there witii the truncated ocnes of extinct volcanoes, brought 
us to a duster of monastic buildings, not yet wholly finished, situated in an exposed and at first 
si^t not pleasing podtUm. Bishop Seiwyn received us in full cammicals ; and I recognised at 
once, in his « H^g exterior, the courageous and humane pastor, who at tiie sacking of Korora- 
lika remained to toid the wounded, unscared by the showers of musketry sod the whoops of 
the triumphant savages ; the intrepid and vigorous pedestrian, who* tired down both the 
En^sh and native companions of his rot^ journeys among the Maoris, disseminating^ the 
Gospel ; and the comely and intellectual original of a most excellent portrait which I had seen 
in the house of the Bieiiop of Sydney. I was well pleased, too, to meet in the flesh and in ex- 
oeUeot bodily health Iha zealous apostle to whom, it is said, the Rev. and witty Sidney Smith 
gave the fiiUowing serious counsel on his dspartuie for his new diocese. He ejdiorted his Lord- 
ship * to have re^nd to tiie minor as well as the more grave duties of his station— 4o be given 
to hospitality, and in order to meet the tastes of Ids native guests, never to be witiiout 
a smoked little boy in the bacon laok, and a oold clergyman on his sideboud.' And he added, 
* If your new parishioners do eat you, I sincerely hope you will disagree with them.'* 

Dr. Seiwyn soon gave us a proof of that personal activity — as well known in the ' playing 
fields' of Eton and on the bread breast of old fiither Thames, as in the wilds of l^ew Zealand 
and amoof^ tibe savage ishuids ef Polynesia. Wilb faim we paid rapid visits to his College of 
St. John's, finr the ^ucation of English and native youths— their hospital, printing office, &c.; 
to the beantiftd chapel, huilt and lined throughout with a daik mahogai^r-Kke wood, and of 
which I ahoaUd witiiout stint or xeservatioB hi^ admired every future had it not been fbr a 
certain cluster of tall tapeis upon tiie altar t He introduced us to his MsMnt butler and general 
servant, a smiling goodf-loeking young man, trusted and tru st w ort hy. Then, still in his gown 
and bonds and college cap,, ^tiioo^ the weather was most oppiesnve, he led us a walk 
through fields of wvring com, with yom^ quickset hedges bordering-the path, (the first I had' 
seen smce leaning England,.) aod docks, mi poppies, and sow-thistles here and there among tiie 
crops — ^volunteer endgranta, little weteome to the importer, but reminding the traveler very 
pleasantly of weedy, seedy old Engfamd ; thence, in the rear of the Coui^, to a growing 
gjBOcdea and orchard, with European and semi-tropical fhrits promising* to flourish well in com- 
pany ; and a most abundant apiary, among the natives of which the accustomed hands of the 
Bishop and his Acolyte waadored unharmed. The honey-bee, so wdl known in almost every 
other country, is not indigenous to any part of Australasia. 

It is an interesting feature in the disdi^ine of St. John's school, that, in the intervals of 
* Note In Memoir of the Rev. B. H. Barbam, author of • The JnffOdabj Legends/ 



112 OUB AKTIFODES. 

play, different usefiil tradfls are taught and practifled. If this utilising of leisnie be a Tolun- 
taiy, not an aiforced system, then is it admirable ; — ^but * boys will be boys' — ^fortunately, as 
I think ; and no one ought to know better than the Etonian prelate that * all work and no play 
will make Jack a dull' (me I I must say, there was among the young faces here a heayy 
aspect that jarred upon my feelings. The College looks oyer a fine extended view of ferny 
country, with occasional Tolcanic monticles and wooded gullies, creeks, bays, islands, and ocean. 
Mount Wellington towers within a mile of it. In former days the soorisB must have been pro- 
jected as far as its site, and the boiling lava must have rolled down the neighbouring ravines ; 
hut New 7fi^}»^^ is burnt out now, with the exception of one or two great craters in the 
interior of the country, which, however formidable in their more active existence, give utier> 
ance at present to notMng more terrible than volumes of steam from their snow-ca^ied peaks. 
Then are, moreover, one or two sulphurous islands vapouring away in like manner. I after* 
wards sailed within view of a small insulated volcano of this land, filled White Island. 

December 15th. — ^Rode to the na>tive settlement QnSunga, on the shore of Manakau harbour. 
This spot is only six miles from Auckland, which is on the eastern coast of the great Northern 
Island ; and Majiakau harbour opens to the west~;-«o narrow is this part of the land ; indeed, 
between the heads of these two great inlets on opposite coasts, the portage is not a mile 

across. 

At OnSunga is the nascent, as well as the first settlement of the New Zealand veterans or 
corps of pensioners, which wUl ultimately amount to 500 men. The lide from the capital to 
this spot may be xnade at a hand gallop, on an excellent road extending over swelling plains of 
what is called good volcanic soil, some porticms of which are laid out in. neat and apparently 
well-managed farms— those at ' Epsom' showing fine crops of wheat and maize, and better hay 
than I evOT met with in Australia. The earth, which at first sight appears as if strewed with 
coke and cinders to a greater or lesser depth, looks most hopeless, yet is in truth very fruitful, 
being especially suitable for gardening. As far as one can see round the Pensioner Cantonment 
(that is to be) lies a nearly uniimbered tract of fern-land, promising but little shelter and no 
fiiel. Captain Kenny's company is here temporarily housed with their families in slab hnts, 
while the men are employed in erecting their p^manent cottages and in laying out thdr 
allotments. The streets have already b^ marked out by the engmeer, and, when complete, 
the village, containing a company of a hundred men, will cover no small space ; for each two 
£pmiilies wUl have a cottage and two adjacent acres of land, whereof a small st^p in the way 
of ornamental garden will front the street. To these habitations there will be two distinct en- 
trances under one roof. When I reflect upon human nature in goieral, and soldiers' wives in 
particular, I cannot feel sanguine as to the entire domestic peace of these Siamese households. 
Considering that this was a community of old soldiers, however, I was rather surprised to find 
more cheeH'ulness than grumbling among them ; for what with the utter ignorance of the 
people at Home upon colonial detaila, and what with the senseless and overweening expecta- 
tions of the emigrant himself one seldom sees a cheerful fiice among any class of those newly 

arrived. 

The following day I visited, with the Governor, the second cantonment of pensioners, called 
Howick. The first ten or twelve miles of the trip were made in the harbour-master's whale- 
boat, along the southern shore of the Waitemata harbour. We met several large native canoes, 
full of pigs and other provisions for the Auckland market, running at a great rate before the 
wind in a rather heavy sea, with sails of canvas or blanket — most of the owners giving us 
loud salutations as we passed. Turning into the Tam&ki Biver, an inlet of the Waitemata, we 
landed on its right bank, and proceeded on foot. At the landing-place a polioc guard turned out 
to His Excellency, consisting of a little old English corporal and three strapping young Maoris. 
Their uniform, well adapted to their duties, is a blue woollen shirt worn as a firock, white 
trousers, with black belts, carbine, and bayonet. Well-looking, broad-shouldered, erect, and 
smart young fellows as a martinet would wish to see, — ^I can imagine no race better adapted 
for the ranks. They would make excdlent sepoys, officered by EnglSh gentlemen. Particularly 
apt at drill and naturally well set up, there is nothing of the bumpkin about the young MaorT ; 
— no, beer and bacon and hobnails about his look and carriage ; — in fiumess it ou^ht to be 
added, that there has been no hard labour, no toiling at the niade and plough, to round the 
back and clog the step. For the same reason the Irishman requues generally much less drilling 
than the Briton. In his native provinces young Paddy is indeed ' brisk as a bee, light as a 
&iry ; ' for light feed, light labour, light or no shoes, and light s|Mrits, leave him as eUstic and 
supfkle as the savage of & forest. 



OLD SOLDISB SETTLEMENTS— AN INQUEST. 113 

A walk of about three miles across a pemnsola separatiiig the Tamaki fVom the Thames 
River, brought us down upon the embryo village of Howick, the destined location of Captain 
Maodouald's company, on the mouth of the latter fine stream ; ten miles further from the 
capital than the other pensioner settlement, and cut off from it by the Tam&ki, across the 
narrowest point of which there is a ferry, about 100 yards in width. Its position, therefore, is 
much exposed should the natives at any time prove hostile ; and the villagers will scarcely 
benefit by the labour market of Auckland at so considerable a distance from the town. The 
locale is wild enough — almost wild enough for Macbeth's witches— a ferny heath, with- 
out a tree, and here and there the cone of a bygone volcano. Of the meditated village there is 
little now to be seen but a plan of the street»----(which I recommended should be named afier 
celebrated military leaders and battles) — and the rudiments of a church, chapel, hosjntal, &c. 

There are about 120 veterans and their fionilies to be located at Howick. The next genera* 
tioa, springing firom this collocation of old soldiers, will be a valuable addition to the white pcmn- 
lation. Without intending to be severe upon the present one, I cannot think that they will do 
much more than subsist, and sot, and smoke over their acre of scons ; — happy if their rough 
habits and ignorance of Maori character do not embroil them seriously with this people, in whose 
power they undoubtedly are at present. An unprovoked and unexpected attack on these mHitary 
settlements need not indeed be apprehended ; for the Maoris having strong notions of fidr-play 
and chivalry, it is tiieir usual custom to give some notice of warlike incursioDS ; but a blow, 
an insult passed upon an individual of this proud people — and likely enough to occur in some ot 
the fishing and wooding expeditions of the veterans — ^would assuredly be repaid in blood. The 
thunder does not more surely follow the fiash than Maori vengeance its cause. * Utu,' (which 
may be fireely translated,) ' blood for blood,' is with him a sacred necessity. No apology or 
reparation is accepted, or by a native offered in its stead ; it is the lex talioni$ carried out to the 
letter. The exact interpretation of the formidaUe little word ' Utu ' is, I believe, ' payment.* 
While discoursing on its etymology. Governor Grey gave me credit fbr ingenuity in providing a 
root for it in the simple English words of somewhat similar sound, ' you too,' — in the sense of a 
practical tu-quoque. In the old Maori criminal law it was not necessary to indict the prisoner, 
— ' for that he did on such a day, at such a place, fel<Huously assault such a person with a 
certain weapon, striking him on the left side of tiie head, and giving him divers wounds, contu- 
sions, and bruises, whereof he instantly died,' &c., fbllowed^by ti^, defmce, conviction, and execu- 
tion, or perhaps by escape through a fiaw. No ; a blow of the Meri>poonamoo,* or a slice with 
the tomahawk, simplified as well as settled the affair. One of the worst feature of Utu is that 
it is sometimes inflicted vicariously — ^if the real object of vengeance cannot be found, another 
answering the purpose — however personally innocent. 

December 17th, — ^This morning there occurred at Government-house a sort of investigatioii 
on the subject of the murder of the Snow fiunily. On the floor of the verandah sat the accused, 
fNgamuka by name,) a stout, stupid«looking young man, who had been instantly produced on the 
fiat of his chief, the venerable Te Whero-VHiero, so soon as suspicion of the murder was attached 
to him. The diief admitted that the prisoner's character was bad, but challenged proof of the- 
charge. Long, dull speeches were made by this personage, by old Taniwha, by a villanous looking 
and notoriously man-eating notable, named Taraia, by the well-known veteran Te Rauperaha, who* 
IS now under a sort of open arrest as a state prisoner^ and by his fiiend and son-in-law Tamai- 
hengia. Some of the rival speakers were not sparing in their personal abuse ; but I fancy it 
must have been strictly parliamentary and Pickwickiffii, for no loss of temper was apparent, and 
no one ever interrupted another, nor cried Oh I oh I Taniwha, Te Rauperaha, and Taraia were 
vehement in gesture. Te Whero-Whero (* he of the red robe,') or Potatao, listened with a'quiet 
sarcMtic smile, and spoke with the calm and lofty dignity of a practised orator. He rose^ as if^ 
P^nfully, from his chair; and when he stretched out his naked r^ht arm from his toga of flax, 
raisu^ his large finune to its full height of at least six feet, the attitude and bearing, the square 
naassive countenance surmounted by the crisp-curled iron-grey hair, and the heavy folds of the 
^pery, presented an object startlingly antique in a living figure. He finished his oration with 
the simple expression, * I have spoken ;' and, like the dying Chatham, sank slowly back into his 
■^^j; ^or he is very old and his limbs are weak. 

The famous warrior-chief, — ^famous for his successes and his cruelties, — ^Te Rauperaha, is 
short of stature, with the remains of great personal strength, although his figure is much bowed 
^age. His countenance is repulsive beyond description, and his long yellow teeth look as if 
"Jfiy had torn many a butchered prisoner. It would not be easy to give an outline of the 

* Jferi^^wonamoo,— stone batdiet. 



114 OUB AimFODKS. 

eyentfol Gareer of this hero of a hundred xnaasafGireB and a hundred hnman^flesh feasts, eyeo if it 
were perfectly known. He appears to be upwards of seventy years old at present. Belonging 
to the Ngatitoa tribe.seated in the north, he was, as I have mentioned in my introductory notes, 
driven, with his allies Te Pehi and Rangihaieta, (the latter then quite a youth,) from their 
hereditary territories towards the south by Hongi ib/d Waikato chief and his newly-imported fire- 
arms. Tlie worthy triumvirate, dispossessed of their own lands, marked thdr progress throu^ 
those of other tribes by conquest and caxnaga, and finally located themselves on the southern 
shore of Cook's Straits, upon a tract of counta^ whose original inhabitants th^ massacred and 
devoured, rendered tributary, or reduced to slavery. Amongst a long list of atrocities, he is 
accused of having deliberately killed and oooked one of his slaves, and having thrown another 
faithful servant overboard to lighten his canoe while flying finom the vengeance of one of his 
many foes, — for old Rauperaha was never celebrated for personal valour. The natives them- 
selves regard his character with aversion, however they may admire his prowess as a general and 
his devemess in accumulating property. His conduct towards the English has idways been 
marked by deep duplicity ; — sometimes threatening, at othecs cringing, and always an impudmt 
b^^ar, he has generally contrived to gain his ends. 

When Colond Wakefield was purchasing land in Cook's Straits, in the name of the Kew 
Zealand Company, fix>m the natives, Hiko, the son of Te Pehi, (as the Colonel's nephew, Hr. E. 
Wakefield, relates in his entertaining, work,) demanded in payment blankets, soap, tools, iim* 
pots, &c. ; when Te Eauperaha exclaimed, * What use are these things, when we are g<nng to 
fight ? What matter whether we die cold or warm, dean or dirty, hungry or fall ? Give me 
two-barrelled guns, plenty of muskets, lead, powder, cartridges, and cartridge-boxes V Perhaps 
the fact that his father was killed and eaten, may offer some excuse for the * ould I^pparee ' (as 
the soldiers somelames called him), acting so fi<equently as his own butcher and cook : the prin- 
dple of ' Utu ' would almost mal^ it an act of filial piety. For cunning in entrappng, r^ne- 
ment in killing and cutting up, and zest in discussing his man when properly barbecued^ this 
* old original ' Ngatitoa was, and it is to be hoped will remain, unrivalled. In 1 846, Govemor^Grey, 
convinced of his treadiery, caused this chief to be seized and conveyed to Auckland, where Te 
Whero-Whero, his andent enemy, became surety in stHue sort, for his good behaviour. In the 
absence of a bridge to spit over, the officers oocasicnally paid Te Banperaha a visit in lus state 
of open arrest ; and in retom for dgars, &c. there was no fl^padty-— even that of Sir Pandams 
himself — in which he was not willing to serve them. 

Te Whero-Whero is the first chief of all the Waikato tribe, numbering, it is said, 25,000 
aouls, is treated by them with the greatest deference, and oould bring 6,000 or 7,000 fighting 
men into the field. This chief was one of the first influential Maoris to become- convii^ed ^ 
the advantages to be derived by friendly interoourse with Europeans. In a letter to the 
Queen, after the death of Governor Hobson, he applied for Pakehas to come and settle and 
trade among his people. Below will be found another, letter which he latdy wrote to Her 
Hajesty, its obje^^ h^g to obtain a promise that the treaty of Waitangi should zemain 
inviolate.* 

Taniwha, who must be about eighty-five years old, and seems nearly imbecile, is consider- 
ahly over six &et in hoght and extremely thin, with a physiognomy strongly Jewish, — a^ type 
by no means uncommon in his coontrymen. This old man describes Captain Cook as he saw 
him in the year 1769,— a distant date for a living man to look back upon, — and mimics away 
he had of waving his right hand to and £ro wherever he walked. The veteran, then a child of 
seven or dght years old, has no oonoepftion of the meaning of this strange gesture. It remains 
for us to guess. Our great navigator was sowing the seeds of Europe in the wilds of Ahioa 
Maui ! — plucking them from his pockets, and casting them on prtMousing soil. The potato 

* « Uadax, • Alooana (AucUand), Nov. 8, 1847. 

'Saluttaig yon, great is ear love to you. we have not foraotten your words and your kind 
thoughta to all the wond. Uadam, listen to our words, the words of me chiefs of Waikato. liove vs and 
be gracioos to ns» as Christ hss loved alL Kay God canse that you may hold fast oar woid, and wo your 
word for ever. 

* Madam, listen. Newa is going about here that yonr£klen(]ianisten) are telUng of taking awi^llio 
land of the native without cause, which makes our hearts dark. But we do not believe this newi, 
becoase we heard from the first Governor that the disposal of our land Is with ourselves; and ftom^the 
fleoond Governor we heard the same words, and from tUs Governor. 

*Th^ have all said the samew Thenfi)te we wrlto to yon thai jou naj be kind to u^ to yoor ftfenA^ 
that love jou. 

* Write your tbonf^ts to us that peace may prevail among the natives of these islands. 

* Enough are these words. lYom your frleiuis in love. 

, (Signed) • Tb Wtew>^¥aiBO, and other Waikato GUafk' 



THE KAOBI LAKCRTAGE. Il5 

has never since failed ibe Maori ;-»it has fiucceeded Hit fern-root as Ids staple ^Mid,— the 
munificent beqnest of poor Gook6, as the natires call bim. 

Heki and Rangihaieta, — ^the one in the north, the other in the sonlii,— ape at present the 
only men of mark, lately active enemies of the English rule, still standing aloof. Probably 
sceptical of the existence of such a virtue as clemency, they will not trust themselves withhi 
the grasp of the Governor. 

Most of the chiefs of note, heathen as well as baptized, (for I use the term Christian wHh 
some feelings of reservation,") — are running j&st into superannuation — a fortunate oontin* 
gency ; for without wishing them any harm, I may be permitted to hope that they may be 
succeeded, by a better generation. During my tour in New Zealand I was lucky enough to 
meet many of the most distinguished ; and I notioed that they were all much broken, suffering 
generally under the complaint common to worn out old gentlemen and worn out old horses 
all over the world, namely chronic cough. 

To return to the trial of Ngamnka. As the examination proceeded, the strong commoft 
sense of the native crowd outside seemed to revolt at the useless mockery of the proceedings. 
Now and then a manly voice exclaimed, (as I was informed by one of the interpreters,) ' What 
is all this bosh ! if he is guilty, let him be killed ; if innocent, let him go.' It was clear to 
them, — as it was to others, — ^that the whole thing was a korirOj a talk, no more ; — indeed, it 
was perhaps too grave a subject to be handled out of a coui*t of justice. In the course of the 
debate, Te Where- Whero let fall some insinuation of connivance against Taraia ; on its being 
refuted, he withdrew the charge, and, in ratification of peace, he ordered his slaves to bring 
and lay before tHe other a large offering of preserved fish, oil, and other unctuoue-looldng 
articles of food, enclosed in gourds and mat baskets. Directly to windward of our party, 
this palm branch of peace was anything but a bouquet.* 

. The Maori language, although sounding strongly guttural firom some of the speakers in the 
vehemence of debate, struck me aT 'musical and agreeable to the ear. In the mouth of a 
young and pretty woman I dare say it may be soft and persuasive. It is said to possess but 
a m^gre vocabulary, and I particularly remarked the frequent recurrence of the same words 
in the long-winded speeches of this d^. A mere language of tradition, the original Mis- 
sionary clergymen married it to the English alphabet, as well, perhaps, as its peculiarities 
would permit, althongh ft is diBScult for an Endishman to believe in the existence of aa 
orthography in which the sounds D, F, G, L, J, Y, Ch, Sh, and Th are wanting. Ng repre- 
sents a peculiar nasal sound ; and I conclude the Maori gullet and nose produce unspellable 
intonations, whidi supply the place of the letters above mentioned. The New Zealand 
tongue being imable, as it appears, to compass our harsh words full of consonants, or ter- 
minating in them, a. vowel is alwajrs interposed, so as to soften the sound and keep it running, 
as in Italian. Thus, Queen is Kuini; Victoria, Wikltoria; Governor, Eawana; sheep, hipi; 
mill, miri ; Jesus Christ, Ihu Earaiti ; Bishop, Pihopa ; Devil, Rewera. It is curious how 
Tsry wide of the mark are most of these nearest shots at the pronunciation of English words : 
nor is that \esa the case in fimiiliar English names g^ven to Maori Christiana — Edward, Eroera ; 
William, Wiremu; John, Honi; Joseph, Hohepa — (Gneseppo, Beppo t')f 

Governor Grey's management of the natives appeared to me admirable. He knpire already 
enough of their language to be able to exchange with them a few words <it greeting^ which "m 
never fails to do in his walks and rides. The Kawana, and the Mata Kawana (mother 
Governor), by which somewhat mature title the young and handsomie lady of His Excellency 
is known, are always greeted with smiles and shouts of salutation in their rides and walbi 
(this it was, perinps, which frightened the old Dutchman Tasman !) * Tena ko koe' — * Tena 
\o koe, etama.' • There you are. Governor I' — * There you are, friend 1* is, I believe, the 
literal translation of the Maori ' How d'ye do ?' and about equally unmeaning^ On meeting 
aa English fnend, the broad fiace of the New Zealander expands into a frank and open smile ; he 
■nods his head vpmtrds, and offers his hand. Captain Grey never lets slip an occasion of 
instilling a taste for civilised habits into their minds. He quizzes the young dandies who use 
red ochre to rouge their cheeks — a not imcommon practice ; and the young women may be 

* The Nexo Zealandfor newspaper of the 4th Karch, 1848, states that an Enc^Uahmao, named Boms, 
oondemned to txaoflportation for another offence, (xmfesBed blmself and two others as the real murderers 
of the Snow family. I must do Governor Qrey the Justice to mention, that firom the first he attributed 
the murder to white hands, althoo^ the todies had been mutilated in the Maori mraner aa if te a 
cannihal faasL 

t Alexandre Dumas remarks, ' La g^nle des langues tend toi:\jourB, i mesoze qu'on s'avaooe vers le 



116 OUB A27TIFODSB. 

seen hiding away their pipes when he pusses, because he sets down smoking as an mrfeminiBe 
habit. As far as. his own personal safety is concerned he seems to repose the most perfect 
trust in his brown subjects ; going about unarmed and unattended, and constantly permitting 
diiefs and their followers, coming from the interior, to encamp in the garden close to the 
Goveroment-house, and within t^ guards. Yet his two most prominently restrictiye ordi- 
nances — ^the Arms Bill and the Spirits Bill, whereby the sale to the natiyes of fire-arms 
and ' fire-water * is prohibited — prove that he can be stringent as well as indulgent towards 
them: thus he is feared as well as liked — precisely the feeling with whidi a British 
Governor should inspire a warlike race of semi-savages. He will find it — or I misread the 
aspect of afiairs very egregiously — ^more laborious to cultivate the good-will and affection of 
his fellow-countiymen in New Zealand, than that of the Abor^;ines. A Governor, armed with 
almost despotic and irresponsible power, can no more gain the suffrages of a people derived 
from a country of free institutions, however zealously and conscientiously he may labour for 
their good, than the eaiih can love' the plough and the harrow, although these implements 
are working for her improvement and enrichment. 

The Maoris, as a race, are much given to sobriety. The term * fire-water,' which I have 
used above, does not express any particular abhorrence in the North American Indian for the 
use of the dram. In his climate fire implies comfort as well as heat ; and it is well known 
with what headlong haste the poor red-man fell into that snare of the devil. The Maori's 
name for ardent spirits is 'stink-water,' which marks decided repugnance. During three or 
four weeks' stay at Auckland, I onlv fell in with two drunken natives, and that was in a 
Sunday walk with the Governor. The moment one of the fellows espied Te Kcnoana, he and 
a fiiend, both pretty &a gone in inebriety, jumped up and took to their heels across a 
swamp, and the tipsier, tumbling over a tussod:, broke his bottle of strong water to pieces. 
Strolling about the streets on a day when the Maori workmen had received their week s pay, 
I saw no drunkenness ; all were spending their earnings in objects of utility. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Tkoember 18iA.— Beauttfcl weather, therm. GS^' in the shade. A pleasant gallop of some 
twenty miles' circuit witU Captain Grey to visit Mounts Wellington and Halswell, and their 
neighbourhoods. The appearance of both affords evidence of a numerous and warlike population, 
now passed away. Each is cut into several ranges of terraces, with breast-works and excava- 
tions originally roofed in, forming the dwellings and potato-stores of the garrisons of these forti- 
fied hills-— once raging with their own subterranean fires. For half a mile all round their base 
are to be traced, among the high fern, hundreds of scoria walls, evidently the endosores of 
former potato-gardens, and piles of white shells of the ' pipi,' or cockle, brought fircon the sear 
shore for food. 

Mount Halswell, to the very sunmiit of which we rode with some difficulty and risk, possesses 
a singularly strong positioa, being situated in the centre of the isthmus, just 2,260 yards wide^ 
which sepuutes the Eastern Bay of Tamaki from the Western Bay of Manakau. The remains 
of ancient fortificatians to the very top are quite manifest, and the base is defended by a wide 
and deep swampy ditch, crossed by a causeway, both of wldch may have been produced by vol- 
canic accident, although they bear all the appearance of a ruined artificial &6se. There are 
natives, and even white men, who recollect the remnants of wooden palisades on Mount Hals* 
wdl. The population in those days was undoubtedly tenfold more numerous than at preset, 
and its partial extennination is, I suppose, to be dated from the so-much-talked^f return of the 
patriot Hoogi firam Europe, and his fiunous tour of self-aggrandisement and vengeance. He 
must have starved out, or have passed by these .hill forts ; for a staunch garrison, armed with 
sticks and stones alone, might have defied all his boasted muskets and double-borelled guns. 
Hongi, I have heard, died a lingering and pamful death from an old wound. He who dealt it 
him— dealt justice I Fnnn the crest of the mount we commanded a view of both the eastern 
and western oceans ; and my companion pointed out the perhaps unique spectacle of high tide 
in the bay on our right, and low water in the opposite inlet The fiict is, that the figure of 
the island is wasp-waisted at this point. The Mazkakan harbour has not yet been accurately 
surveyed; but when the passage diall have been correctly buoyed, it idll probably turn oat a 
good haven— at least for steam-vessels. Auckland in this case would possess the singular ad^ 
vantage of two harboors within seven miles of each other, commanding two different seas, in an 



BEYBBSES W A BIDE— CLIMATE. 117 

island not less than 400 miles in length. The high-road now in progress, oomecting the two 
extremities of the Northem Island, or New Ulster, will cross this isthmus, wliich will be aa 
important point in a military view. , 

Scrambling with our' horses down goat-paths <m. the flanks of the hiU, we next dixected ottr 
cx>nrse over a fine wavy oomitry, to a point on the Tam&ki Bivtf , where, the shores approach- 
ii^ within one hmidred yards, a ferry is to be established. At this commanding spot are to be 
seen indications of very extensive and evidently wholly artificial works, with a d^p ditch, high 
curtains and gateways, and, in advance of the main work, a rq^ular demilune. This is a likdy 
spot for a tUrd company of veterans. So interesting^ at least to me^ was this antiquarian 
ramble, that we took little note of time, until a chance reference to my watch showed us that 
we had but half-an-hour to perform a distance of about nine miles back to Auckland by the 
shortest lin^ and to dress for a grand dinner at Govemment^ouse. No time was to be lost 
therefore; nor, indeed, was the fern allowed to grow under our feet, except during one trifling 
interruption to our course ; namely, the fall of the Viceroy's good diestnut over a hidden mass 
of pumice, at full speed, the breafaige of both his own knees, and the projectian of his rider full 
ten feet over his head,-— of which accident His Excellency took so little account, that he re* 
sumed the thread of the conversation and his saddle precisely at the point when the former had 
been broken by the tumble, without any visible alteration of countenance or mien beyond that 
which was derived from the crown of his hat being knocked in. It is a curious &ct, that the 
smallest indentation of a gentleman's castor is fiital to the dignity of his exterior ; and the effect 
is the more absurd when the wearer is unconscious of the amorphous condition of his headpiece 
and of his having consequently forfeited all claim to the veneration of the public, how imex- 
ceptionably soever he may be accoutred in other respects. Suspidon dogs his steps ;— 4t would 
be lost labour to try to convince a looker-on that the cause is not attr&utable to bacchanalian 
excess, — a pugilistic set-to with the watch, — a case of evcait, ervpit, frcm a back window,<— or 
some other aaaodj reputable adventure. This is a curioos feature in the philosophy of dress, 
worthy, I think, of the consideration of Pelham, who devotes half a page or so to the cut of 
pantaloons. 

The only carriage in Auckland, that of the officer commanding the 58th Regiment, was con- 
veying its owners to the vioer^al dinner, as their host and m]/^elf, both looldng as if we had 
been in a smart skirmish — ^for I had had a roU in a bog— entered the town. Yes— there was a 
dinner to twenty-four guests in the dinket^buUt palace of the Governor of New Zealand ; and 
not a bad dinner either — ^with wines from France and Germany, fi:om the Ti^us, (aad the 
Thames, no doubt 1) There were some very pretty &oes there too ; and some good-looking 
fellows moreover, most of them culled firom the garrison and ships in harbour, lliere was on 
many of the fair cheeks a freshness and a bloom which are rarely to be seen in Sydney, espe- 
cially in the hot weather. The flush of the heated ball-room is a very different thing; for 
music and exercise, and soft nonsense, and gratified vanity will bring transient colour to the 
palest face, but it fades with the cause of exdtement. In New Zealand the rose is not merdy 
a night-blowing flower — ^it is permanent. The climate indeed appears — (it is proved by medical 
statistics) — to be angularly suitable to the English ccHistitution. This was wonderfully proved 
in the New Zealand campaigns, for there lie in the pigeon-holes of my office numerous docu- 
ments, showing that however great the hardships the troops were exposed to during the war— 
however wretched the sheds or huts they lived in — although thdr dothing was in rags, their 
boots solele», and their^ beds nothing better tlian a tattered blanket on a heap of damp fern- 
happy when the latter was attainable ; — ^never was any large body of men so perfectly free from 
malady of any kind. I sincerdy hope (and shaU be curious to aMjertain the fiict) that at no 
future day may these fine fdlows suffer ftvm the exposure and privations they endured rat' 
scathed while their * blood was up ;' but I know so well the physical idiocracy of the soldier, 
and have so oflen found him, as well as the mral labourer, old before his time by rheumatism 
and other complaints arising from habitual exposure, that I cannot fed sure that the germ of 
these maladies of the old campaigner may not be contracted in this country as wdl as in others 
•^latent, although unfdt at tiie time. 

New Zealand has indeed a rough but healthy climate, a rough but fruitful soil, and a 
rough people — yet capable, I think, of being made useful subjects and members of sodety, if 
they may be spared the ordinary fate of the Savage on the approach of the White — ^first 
demoralisation, then extinction. 

I have mentioned the smallness of the Auckland dwelling-houses. Thdr apartments are 
indeed what the French call modest in the extreme. Nevertheless this peculiarity ia the 



US ocTEt AismroDEs* 

leoepiianrrooma of the New Zeaknd metropolis appeals to operate as no bindranoe to the 
sociability of the inhabitants. I attended more than one quadrille party in saloons 12 feet 
}yy XO — while four whist-playing seniors were stowed immovably in a closet off the dancii^- 
iKKnn— -the table being slewed so as to wedge a player into each of the four comers. 
Verandahs, and tents, and sails, and banting were called into play to furnish forth supper^ 
rooms; and I did not remark that the guests danced, played, ate, drank, talked, laughed, 
or flirted with less spirit and zest than they would have done had they hikd more room to 
do all this in. 

One evening a very gay little ball was given by the Sheriff at hia pretty cottage about 
two miles out of town. There being, as I have said, only one carriage — ^in the gmteel 
acceptation of the term — ^belonging to Auckland, it is needless to say that all the ladies were 
not conveyed to the festive scene on springs, however many of them might have travelled 
there on wheels. Aa for me, I found myself part of an equestrian escort to a detadiment of 
yoong ladies, whose vehicle was the Sheriff's cart carpeted with a feather-bed. They were 
too light-hearted to admit a doubt as to whether their equipage had on former occasions 
assisted in the more melancholy functions of its owner's dread office — a suspidcm that cer- 
tainly crossed my own mind; suffice that it played its part well in the present instanftp. 
On reaching its destination, the backboard being removed and the cart tilted, its hai freight 
was shot out in safety at the door, and about daybreak, the same vdnde leoonveyed. theoHy 
without coughs or eolds, to their home. 

Dto'ing the progress of this ball, several natives, attracted by the soomI of ncosic, entesed. 
the groimdfi^ waliM boldly up to the open Frendi windows of the danemj^room, and. 
aeemed n^t in astonishment at the scene wKiiiiK. Perhaps the enormoos amonat o£ 
labour tfarowa ii^ ona of the favourite pastimes of the richer English snipiiBed Hobu, It 
ii pofliibls that while oontemplating the vagoiir and eoxnestoieBS wiSi which valse and foUkiL 
we»' executed, these naked philoao|dlianB may have feianed the oaDcluaion thai a lace ao« 
oergvtie in a dance must be invincible in fightf that the nu6indiing fertitode which carried 
young and old, light and heavy, through the herculean labours of Su* Roger de Coicde^y. 
Bsnet sweep all befers it when the con^ueat of a oonntry becama the object in qaestion I 
Chnental and sontham nations have difficnlty in understanding that our daily recreation aa 
wdl as our daily bread is to be earned in the sweat of tho brow. I have myself hcBrd & 
Kossnlman magnate express his surprise that the great men of a great nation shonid oonde-- 
soend to do such things— and that their women should be permitted to do them. 'We 
always keep dancers and singers^ or hire them, when we want to be amused in that wi^ I' 
is the maxim of the ' gorgeous East.' There appears to me a good deal of Orientalism in the 
duuracter of the Maori, very strikingly difierent to that of the Australian aborigioaU The 
latter is quick, light, almost quadrumanous in his activity. I cannot fency the massive fann 
of the Maori darting up the stem of a slippery gum-tree io cnt out an opossum from his hole t 
I rather picture him to myself sitting in the son at the month of his warree smoking his pipe^ 
with his half-shut eyes just above a fold of his mat. Although brave and warlike, there is, 
too, something of the Lazzaroni about his nature. Hi» langoage, moreover, resemblea in 
dtEU»cter the ' soft bastard Latin,' as Byron calls it, of the modem Roman. 

I was standing with some officers on the lawn near a window opening to the ground, wiun 
a tall Maori, in a blanket and Brutus crop, ' thrust in,' and made one of us witiiont apology 
or remark. An officer asked the intruder, in military Maori, whether he admired the white 
kdies, and which of them most. He instantly pointed out the object of his preference, 
thereby showing that his own standard of taste did not greatly differ from that of many of 
the Pdceha gentlemm present ; and he clenched the compliment by averring that he woold 
give a ' hickapenny ' for her, which, measuring his regard by the price, was more liberal 
than might at first sight appear, — ^for it was his a/// His blanket, his Brutus, and sixpence 
in hard cash (tied up in a comer of the former), was *all the store' of this noble savi^e. 
And indeed I have rarely met a finer looking creature. Full six feet high, erect and well- 
proportioned, he had a handsome oval face, a clear skin, scarcely darker than that of the 
aonthem European, was neither tattooed nor bearded — for he seemed quite young ; and his 
black hair, curling back from his high brow, fell round his ears and poll in the most 
picturesque style. His only ornament was a fiower of scarlet geranium, stuck behind one ear. 

The residence of our host for this night is a fair specimen of those of the English gentarj in 
the vicinity of Auckland. The house is placed at the end of a wooded ravine felling towards 
the sea, a site usually chosen in this part of the island, for there is little timber except on the 



THB ICAK 07 THB VOtmTAIN. 119 

sides and bottoms of the gallies by whieh it is liberally intersected. The chief jostioe and 
the attorney-general have located themselTes somewhat in the same manner. Qardens, vaeftil 
snd ornamental, surround the dwellings, and the soil shows a capacity for growing the pro* 
ductions of a wonderfolly-wide range of climate. Bnt the prettiest place and best ganlea 
I Tisited were those of the Rererend Mr. Lawrie, Wesleyan Missionary. The Ittznriaiit 
hedges, ooyerad with the climbing rose and passiflora, the arched aTenae of frnii-trees, and the 
perfectly snng seclosion of the dwelling, although well nigh in the n^dst of the town, are 
remarkable proofs of taste and skill — ^if not of self-denial. 

This zealoos divine had hitely returned from a voyage to the Figi Idands, whence he had 
imported a large collection of native curiosities. These, daring my stay at Auckland, wem 
exposed for sale at a baaar held in aid of the expenses for the erection of a chapel for the 
Aborigines ;^-clubs, spears, bows and arrows, fishing-nets, hooks and lines neatly constructed; 
aeddaees of teeth ors hells : ladies' full dresses of flax, sea-weed, or feathers, remarkable lor 
tiieir simplicity and suitableness for ' light marching order;' cannibal knives and forloi, war* 
nmted to have been used at several feasts, and other goods ' too numerous to mention. This 
k just the alluring but useless sort of gear with yrbuSi every traveler encumbers himself as 
a matter of course. He drags the aceumalated hoard with infinite trouble^ anxiety, aad 
expense round the world, and on arrival at home consigns it to 'dust and oUivion in some 
dark closet oi" lumber-room, where the treasures lie hidden till his notable wife persuades him 
that they are of no use, that there ia no room for them, that they area nuiaanoe, that the chUdnft 
wm-pltLY with the poisoned arrows; and the owner, actuated more by the desire to get rid «f 
*- the whole confounded thing' than by sny feeling of public spfarit, at length makea a virtu* 
sf neeessity, and derotes th^ to thehr best end, ^presenting them to a Moaeum. Deeplf 
i iapi assi d and oonvlnoed by lon^^ eipsrieaoe of tiie causes and effects above noted, need I adi 
Ihrt I carried away team the basaar katf a e«rt4oad of these savage trcasni is? Amoa|f 
then^ by-the^, is a sling, ttsi most andeni weapon, made pneiMly on the pattern m 
those naed by English schooRx^ It is Ibmed entirely of liemp,aad tiiere Is attached to it 
a pon^ of pebbles, sooM of then of agate, groond into an oval shape, pointed at both ends. 

i> fl oswiftsr 19£l. — ^This day, a chief froni the Taopo Lake, SOO miles hence inland, caa« 
into Anckfamd to see the Oovemor. Te Ibo-Hao is, I believe, the degenewte son, for h& 
is a ^little follow, of the gigantic chief of the Boiling Water tribes, deecribed by Wakefield' 
and Kdwill. This old man of the mountahi^for he deservvd this titie if any man ever did— ^ 
claimed his classic descent from Tongariro, the M<Hit Blanc of New Zealand, at whose feet hef 
dwelt, and by a landslip of which, a sUee of his ancestor, he was reoeatiy killed. The late 
Te Hao-Hao was brave in fight, uneqnalled in personal might, eloquent in comcil, generou* 
in his gifts, and hospitable to all strangers. Bnt he had two forbidden matters, as rigorous 
as Bluebeud's one. He would permit no attempts to convert him to Christianity, nor any 
one to desecrate his forefother, monarch of mountains, by walking up his back. My firien^ 
Mr. Bidwill, however, (and I will not say he did well la so doing,) excited bya mbition and 
a botanical mania, stole a mardi upon the mountain as well as upon its human desoenduit^ 
tiiereby breaking the 'tapn' and scarcely escaping the dire vengeance of the old chief. The 
present chief has taken the embargo off his anceator Tongariro, but continues as cood a 
heathen as his fiiiher. He is a pitiftil follow with only a couple of wives, whereas the old 
' Boiling Water ' * man had eight. The present tepid representative of the Hao-Hao camtf 
on board the Inflexible with three inforior attendants. None of these men had ever before 
left their own wild mountain home, and they seemed astounded at all the wonderful things 
they saw on board. Yet they appeared to attach no particular interest to any object except 
such as were applicable to warfare. The chief himseit gauged the calibre of the huge 841b. 
gun on the quarter deck, by thrusting into the muzzle his head and as much of his body 
as he could ; and he took accurate measurement of the deck in length and breadth, by causing 
the longest of his slaves to prostrate himself, and thus using him as a six-foot rule.- He 
looked over my shoulder as I was sketching Auckland from the seaward ; and recognised the 
prominent features with great quickness and seeming pleasure. 

December 20th, — Did my reader ever chance to be (m board one of Her Majesty's steam-shipS 
when the double operation of coaling and «mHHng ^t^ere goii^ on ? If not, let me urge him to 
sdze the first opportunity of so doing, if only to reconcile him thereafter to ail the changes and 
chances of this mortal Ufe, however desperate. If only a passenger, like myself, he would hare 
packed up his kit, and gone straight ashore as I did. * 

• The conntry of hot springs. 



120 OUB ANTIPODES. 

During the remainder of mjr stay at Auckland I was, as before stated, kindly accommodaied 
-with quarters at the Goremme&t-house. The Home Gardens, or what in Calcutta would have 
been called the * compound/ was filled with the encampments of native chie& and thdr families 
cm a visit to His Excellency from distant provinces, with other aboriginal loiterers ; one could 
not go out of the doors without stumbling over them. Unlike most of the dark-skinned races, 
these people make no salutation to, nor indeed notice in any way a white stranger, of whatever 
rank, except by a dull and sometimes fierce stare, unless he first salute or address them. A 
formal introduction seems as necessary a preliminary to acquaintance as it would be in making 
that of the most porcupinish exclusive at Home. The Govonor was good enongfa on this occasion 
to act as master of the ceremonies, presenting me to many foul and famous chieftains, and thdr 
fair and fouler wives ; nor must I forget that, among the softer sex, he recommended me to the 
good graces of a widowed daughter of old Te Whero-Whero. I was not aware of the {hUi of 
His Excellency's Maori speech to the lady on the subject of my unworthy self, until he inibimed 
me that she had signified her consent to accept me as her second husband. I declared an in^ 
pediment, however, and thus escaped an union with an heiress of no earthly chattel that I know 
of, except a single blue calico smock, which appeared to have been as long in wear as Queea 
Isabella's of Spain during the si^ of Grenada, whence the fashionable colour — ^Isabeau. 

I had several pleasant rambles about the town and neighbourhood of Auckland. The mghts 
that meet the eye of the stranger in the streets are both interesting and amusing. They cannol^ 
but continually urge upon him the reflecticm that no race like the Anglo-Saxon has the singular 
power of acconunc^ting itself to the peculiarities of every climate, country, and people, and 
every phase of life and fortune ; or rather, perhaps, of ^forcing all these to accommodate them* 
selves to its own strong, but quietly exerted will. Hflodly a shop in the main street bat had 
its two or three aboriginal customers. Some were trucking their wheat, maize, mats, potatoes, 
and green v^etables s^ainst various articles of European manufacture, or paying for these in 
ihe shining new silver firom the military chest.' Others sat outside the doors, calmly awaiting 
iheir turn at the counter, or examining with pleased expression thdr newly bought property. 
Two of them I saw canvassing the respective qualities of negrohead, pigtail, and shag ; a third 
trying the edge of a Yankee tomahawk ; a fourth was in the act of consigning to the caie and, 
what was woi'se, to the shoulders of his wife, a load which would have made a donkey groan 
with impatience, among the components of which I noted a hammer and several pounds of nails 
and as many of moist sugar, a huge bale of coarse calico, a scarlet blanket — article of supreme 
Maori dandyism — for his own private endorsement, and finally — ^what amply recompensed the 
faithful and, of course, furiously vain creature for a heavy burthen and a long journey home— 
a most gorgeous cotton handkerchief, coloured in the pattern of an union jack. 

This people, however, do not appear to share the passion for gewgaws so common to savage 

races ; and those traders who invest their capital in, and their windows with, such like 

trumpery, did so in blind ignorance of ,the tribes they had come among. Articles of practical 

utility are by them 'most in request ; and but littie observation sufficed to convince me that 

these simple children of nature were in no danger of being outwitted in barter by the keenest 

of tiie trans-counter folks, although very many of the visages of the latter were distinguished by 

the unmistakeable lineamoits of that ancient people who, from Shylock downwards, have hsesx 

considered as hard bargainers — ^D^Isroeli's Hebrew-Caucasian type ; or, as 'Ingoldsby' quaintly 

expresses it, — 

* The ^es and the noses 
Pecoliar to peraons named Levi and Moses.' 

Nor were there, among the shopkeepers, fewer of another race, scarcely less difficult to outflank 
in a matter of business — a ' canny' people, whose national physiognomy is almost as absolutely 
marked as that of the Israelite. 

Some of the native figures sitting aloof near the beach were ferocious enough in aspect, and 
the glances they cast on the passengers betokened no particular good-will ; yet there was an 
appearance of perfectiy good imderstanding between the races — ^buyers and sellers conducting 
their traffic quietiy and courteously — the Whites patiently tolerating the fifee and easy intrusion 
of their dirty and dilatory customers; and the Maoris, on the other hand, oiduring the 
screwing and sometimes the rough jokes of the English with at least sang froid. There was 
littie ti:ace of the inimical feeling which had so lately and for so long a period brought into 
bloody collision the European and Aboriginal. The only disturbance I witnessed was somewhat 
ludicrous in its character, and the natives were noways mixed up in it except as astonished 
spectators. From the open portal of a pot-house — one of those comer allotments so desiderated 



ONGI AND TAKGI. 121 

hy retailers of strong drinks— came flying a figure in the dress of a bricklayer, who fell flat on 
his back in the middle of the street, closely followed by a broad-backed and bow-legged little 
sailor, with whom he had evidently just had a round or two in the bar. Seizing his antagonist 
by the collar, Jack, in the purest spirit of England's pride— fliir play — hoisted him to hi8 feet ; 
and, first shaking a bushel of brick and mortar out of him, roared ' D — n ye, ye lubber, will ye 
strike— will ye strike ?' * No, I tell you, no, I won't,' bellowed the other. ' Then blow me 
but 111 make you,' thundered the A3, seaman— following up his threat by three or four 
' weaving ' hits so rapidly thrown in that the man of masonry was again brought to the ground 
— before the sharpest-witted of the lookers-on had time to explain that the poor landsman, in 
his eager reply to the summons to capitulate, had intended to convey his assurance that he 
would not again strike a foe by whom he was so evidently over-matched. 

Turning a comer into a quarter of the town called Shortland's Crescent, I came suddenly 
upon a most favourable case of Ongi — ^the nose-rubbing salutation of the New Zealander. A 
couple of middle-aged men coming in one direction encountered a man and woman from another. 
Instantly squatting they paired off, and, laying the fiunt part of their noses together with a 
gentle pressure, each cou^e omtinued for some time in this singiilar attitude of contact, the two 
elders rubbing their hooked probosces with an occasional grunt of satisfaction, such as would 
have well become a fat hog scratching his flitch against a post. The couple comprising both 
sexes contented themselveB with a salute of shorter duration, their snouts male and fentde re* 
maining ' in close column' finr about a minute of grave, motionless silence. If the Ongi be intended 
to represent, or supply the place of kissing, I must say it is very cool kissing — * respect with 
the diill off,' no more I A Maori Hotspur might well be excused in crying, ' &s is no world to 
tilt with ' noses, as he broke from the detaining arms of his wyeenee, and hurried to the battle* 
field* It is indeed a ludicrous and ungraceful kind of salaam, although I do not know th«t its 
performance at first sight exdted more strongly my risible fiiculties'than did the double-bairelled 
accolade of a brace of black-muzzled Frenchmen, on my first landing at Dieppe. The fonnal 
and formidable chapeau baa meeting of the Dutch peasantry is preferable to either, although life 
is almost too short for a ceremony so tedious. 

The Maori, however, is gradually adopting the hand-shaking process of the Briton, which ia 
perhaps the best of all friendly salutations— only objecti<Hiable in hot climates, and in aoquainl^ 
anoes who prove then: regard for you — ^if not * by thumps up<Hi the back ' — at least by crushing 
your five fingers into one pulp I But for a truly absurd and unaccountable practice of this 
people, commend me to the Tangi, or weeping ceremony, which is adopted indiscriminately on 
occasions of mourning, of parting, and of meeting after long absence. Squatting down, the per- 
formers proceed without loss iS time or any ^fficulty to dissolve into a flood of tears. The 
lachrymal duct appears to be under perfect control, and the brine ' laid on ' for instant use. As 
jor sighs, groans, and sobs, they are thrown in at discretion. A pleasant writer says that the 
Tangi can be done at convenient times so asnot to interfere with business ; or it may be inter- 
mitted, for the purpose of carousing, and taken up again at leisure. In short, Mrs. Malaprop's 
much libdled ' Allegory on the banks of the Nile,' never wept more artificially than the Maori 
at the Tangi. Tet wilii the full knowledge of the utter hollowness of this socaal rite, the sight 
of it more than once moved me exceedingly. One instance was at the meeting after long separa- 
tion of a father and daughter on board the Inflexible, off Otaki, I think. The female was the 
wife of a chief, a passenger in the ship. She was unusually tall for a Maori woman, very 
handsome, with much of the peculiar beauty of the Gipsy. Soon after the ship had dropped 
anchor a canoe shot alongside, and a fine-looking native stepping upon the quaiier-deck, gazed 
quietly [yet anxiously around. In a moment he was joined by her he sought, who, fldling at 
his feet and clingmg with her arms round his right knee, dropped her &ce veiled with her loi^ 
black hair towards the deck, whilst the fiither stood erect, with his hand upon her head. Her 
tears fell hi showers upon his feet, and I could see the muscles of his dark tattooed cheek work- 
ing as he strove hard for seLf^xnnmand. A Scieod who had been for some time in the colony, 
laughingly pointed out this scene to me, as * a good case of tangi ' — ^but my heart told me this 
was no simulation of feeling : it was the deeply joyful imion of the two relatives most endeared 
to each other by nature and by the bonds of love and protection — a joy too great for words. I 
must confess to less success in disguising my sympathy with the scene than was attained by 
the stoical sire. 

December 22nd.— -Therm. 79°. A pleasant ramble with Captain Grey to Mr. Robertson's 
rope-walk, and other lions of the neighbourhood. In Mechanic's Bay, where the ropery is 
situated, there stands a considerable native village, through which we passed. The huts pfe- 



122 OUB AlSTTfGDEB. 

aented a most wretched and aqnalid appearance. Some fiigfatftd old hagB were bosily- employed 
in preparii^ food for the Maori lords of the creation, a kaot of whom, rolled in blankets and 
mats, were sitting in solemn c<»iclaTe on the beadi among the canoes. It is to he hoped that the 
old women's fledi-pots inspired them for whose appetites they were intended with difierent 
sensations from those produced on myself. There was a mess of pntrid maize, and a baskset of 
dried sharks' flesh, haimbly odoriferous ; while dozens of these huge fish split down the middle, 
and in every stage of deoompositicxi, were hanging or lying in the snn alcmg the road-sade"- 
polhrtmg the fi«h searbreeze. The maize-dish, a fiivonrite one, is incompeffably nasty. In 
ordflr to the completion of this literal potpourriy the green cobs of the plant are left to steep in 
eold water xmtil cornxption ensnes, and this condition is a siM qud non to the perfectton of the 
preparation. As for the dried shark meat, whether the mode of jerking or caring it is fimlty, 
and that, therefi>re, * what can't be cored must be endnred ' by the Maori ocosomer, or whether 
stinking fish is deliberately preferred — I do not hear. There was a hatterie of halt-»dozen 
OTeos of heated stones, so predsdy similar to those described by ancient drcmnnaTigators as 
adapted to cannibal cookery, that I &ared to ask what was their present contents. Alongside the 
very ' plain cooks' above mentioned— -one of whom had her enormons mouth more than fall of fem- 
rooi-^were spread several little mats and baskets of green rashes or flax, whidi were to act as 
dishes and plates. It is needless to add that fingers and teeth, with a goard ortwo fbr drmking- 
casps, are the sole implements of the Maori canteen. There are other artides of food not so 
xevolting — sacfa as cockles, mussels, a smali sprat or whitebait, with a variety of larger fidi, 
eds and wild ducks, and pork on occasions of higher festivity. The Maori shares the taste of 
the Australian black for a large grub, extracted from decayed trees, whidi, gqlled over a wood 
fire, is said to be not unlike nor inferior to marrow. Their v^getabfes are eziodlait ^ — Ae 
potato — especially in the Wellington district — ^better than any in the AosferaBan cdoniesy not 
tven excepting Van Diemen's Laui ; and the knmera, or sweet potsto^ is a moat useftd root, in 
the cultivation of which the natives take great care and pride. The native gardens near 
Aoddand contain most of the common European vegetables, grown, Iniwevw, fbr the E&gli^ 
market rather than for home consumption. 

Among the numerous small vessels ashore and afloat in Hediaoic's Bay, were feor or Ave 
belongmg to natives. One was crowding all sail into the bay with a freigjbt of p^ and pot»* 
toes. The master of the little cutter or smadc vras an Aboriginal, and stood on his quarter- 
dei^ holding the tiller. The crew before tiie mast comprised one man, and tins man was a 
PaJseha Maori — or white man blackwashed ! He was, as I was informed, tattooed, married to 
a Maori woman, lived with, and was, in plain terms, the slave of his semi-savage emjdoyer. 
This d^raded individual was probably a runaway convict—possibly a deserter from the army 
or a ship's company — sole way of accounting fer an Englishman Uving in contented bondi^ 
und^ a barbarian master. There are many Europeans in the interior native settlements llvxng 
Maori flishion, who are not only tattooed, but wear mats and indulge in polygamy ; and a few 
choice spirits who have, it is said, not stopped short of anthropophagy. Constant exposure to 
sun and weatiier, and dirt, soon reduces the Anglo-Saxon complexion to the tint of the brown 
races, of man — tiiat 

' Shadow'd livery of the bomish'd snn,' 

which Bishop Heber (whose valued accpiaintance I once possessed) so far admired as to remark, 
on his first sight of the natives of India, ' that the bronzed skin is more agreeable to the eje 
than the white, and that all idea of indelicacy is removed by the colour.' 

The desire of the more enterprising natives to become shipowners is most ardent, and 
the number of coasting craft in their possession is said to be rapidly increasing. An interest- 
ing instance of honourable conduct and gratitude on the part of a Maori purchaser of a vessd 
was related to me by Mrs. Grey. The price demanded by the builder was 100/. The native 
paid down 80/. — all he could contrive to raise ; but the builder would not permit the boat to 
pix)ceed on h&r first trip, which the owner was most desirous to engage in, until the whole sum 
was fiirthcoming. The poor Maori, sore troubled in mind, unfolded his distresses to the Mata 
KawanOj who very kindly lent him the 201. required for the completion of the purchase~-with 
the agreement that it was to be repaid in tliree months. There was no bond — oo note of hand 
exact«l ; it was purely a case of ' honour bright' between the parties. The happy 8ki]^>er took 
possession of his vessel after relating to his fiiends and neighbours the munificmt act of the 
Governor's lady ; aad the tribe, not to be outdone in generosity, collected among themselves in 
small sums the amount of the loan, and repaid it to the fair lender in golden sovereigns at the 



FLAX — TBBATiasirr OF WOMEN. 123 

end of the first numth, while the debtor was still on his crnise, trying to earn money enough to 
liquidate it at the expiralioii of the stipulated term. It is pleasant to hear of such traits in 
the character of a comparatiy«ly savage race. It is pleasant to reflect that such traits may be 
called into existence by the well-timed kindness of an English lady. Nor is it too much to say 
that, with a pec^le like the New Zealanders, an incident of this nature, dreolated as it is aaze 
to be by the natiye lore of news-mongering, will do more towards the subjugation and pacifica- 
tion of the comitry — more towards the reconcilement of the Maori to the role of their * Kuini 
Wikitoria,' than all the men of war naral and military, all the ' trumpets, guns, drams, blun- 
derbusses, and thunder,' of H. M.'s forces, however energetically exerted ; all the cant and slip- 
slop of the snpeiHsanctimonius, and all the laborious policy of diplomacy, however craftily 
concocted and applied. 

I was much interested by the rope-fiictory of Hr. Robertson, and by the beautiful material' 
itself— the New Zealand flax. The staple is brought to the premises by the natives in large 
baskets, an ordinary man's load fetching about 89. 6c?. — no bad earning for a Maori labourer. 
The flax is prepared from the raw leaf by the women, who separate fiW the green skin of the 
leaf the stringy fibres extending the whole length, by scraping it with a mussel-shell. Id 
Europe the thread is obtained from the stalk ; but the two plants are wholly different. Some 
of the specimens of flne flax, e^)ecially fixim the shrub in a state of cultivation, were extremely 
beautiful, resemUing in c<^our and not far difering in texture fitnn the raw produce of the 
silk-worm. This valuaUe object of v^etable nature is capable of being converted into a caMe 
for a sbdp, or koe for a lady'iB veil— a halter for the gallows-bird, or blonde for the bride. I 
have a reticule made by an ingenious lady, in vHndi the Tihori, or finest flax, worked in what 
18 called the Kaitaka stitch, hn all the soft lustre of floss silk. So tough is the substance, 
that, even when just cut fium tiie root, one ef the long flag^like kaves is commonly used as a 
strap to fisten heavy loads on the shoulders of men or the backs of beasts ; and in the con* 
struction ef the strongest pahs it serves to bind together the ploquefcs ef fl» stockade woiit. 
The Herapkeke, or PhomUum ienax, grows spontaneously in most partv of New Zealand, and is 
fiMmd in ail kinds of soil. I have seen it flbuiidung witii equal luxuriance in the arid crater of 
an exluHisted volcano, and m the Uack alluvium of a swamp-~-in the valley, on the hillHnde, 
and on the mountam-top. When machinery shall have superseded the slow process of manual 
preparation, the New Zealand flax wiH probably become a very important artide of colonial 
export. 

On our retreat fixnn the rope-walk tfaroogh Mechanic's Bay, where we again came into un- 
pleasffiit proxhaity with the weird cooks afore menti<med,— our sight was refreshed and our 
good ojnnion of womankind re-established, by meeting, as we ascended the hill, a remarkably 
pretty native girl, whom His ExceQency stopped and addressed with hn usual amenity. It was 
charming to see the blush of modesty tinge her nut-brown cheek, like the rosy snnset shining 
through a thnndeiHilond ; and I was marking, with tiie analytic coolness of middle age, the 
singular visibility of tins suffusion through a skin so dnsky ; — ^when a young man hurried over 
the crest of the hill, and strode hastily towards us. ffis fiice coloured also — ^but firom very 
different emotions. It was evident that he imputed to us no good motive in thus making 
acquaintance with his wife or sister ; and never was jealousy more fiercely manifested in any 
juvenile countenance— (in old ones it is common enou^ l)---than in that of the youth before 
us ; when, suddenly recognising Captain Grey, his fiioe as suddenly bri^tened up, and he 
frankly held out bis hand to Te Kawana for a shake. 

On the whole, the countenance of the natives when youthful and untattooed struck me as 
very winning ; but the deep tortuous lines of the Moku add fierceness to featnres strongly 
marked, and give hardness and rigour to those muscles which are acted upon by the softer pas- 
sions. There are, however, even in these islands, some fat, fubsy, Gibbon-like faces, which this 
savage operation &ils to invest with ferocity. Of such is the jolly good-humoured visage 
of our finnest friend and ally, Tomati Waka. The young girls have fme almond-shaped eyes, 
emitting a mixture of fire and languor, good hair and teeth, taper hands and feet, and a certain 
resemblance to the bulbous beauties and plants of the Cape of Good Hope, which renders their 
town dress of a single blanket or a simple calico round-about becoming or unbecoming, accord- 
ing to taste. Poor things ! — some of them were terribly heavy laden, and were too toil- 
engaged, as they staggered past. Government-house, to think of their personal appearance. I 
saw young tender girls with the family baggage, newly purchased goods, or agricoltural 
produce of tbeir husbands or fathers, strapped on their backs — ^while the men, like all sav^ 
males, carried nothing, not even their arms, for the English law allows them to carry none in 



n 



124 OUB ANTIPODES. 

the settlements. If it be trae, as it undoaMedly is, that the softer sex is ' the sex that 
dvilises oars/ it^ not less true that wmnan, in x«tnni» owes infinitely more to dvilisation 
than man does. The angd, the idol, the goddess of London, Paris, and Vienna, ia the slave, 
the dmdge, the beast of burthen of the red man, the n^pro, the Australian, and the Maori ; — 
the mere toy of the Asiatic, imprisoned and denied even the possession of a soul. Travellers, 
residents, and writers in wild countries tell incredible stories of sarage wooing by dint of stun- 
ning blows from the club, and of cracked skulls and broken bones as common incidents in mar- 
ried life. I rejoice to say that in all my travels, no such instances of marital remonstrance ever 
fell under my observation. I therefore firmly disbelieve in their occurrence. Tet, alter all, 
who knows but that if wife-beating became the right thing ; if some autocrat of fisishion gave 
the sanction of his name and practice to this kind of domestic disdpline-^who knows that it 
might not become of generu adoption even in the highest civilised communities I Human 
nature is human nature all the world over ; and since truth to nature is more likely to exist in 
the imtutored Aboriginal than in the conventionalised denizen of the Court — ^we surrive at the 
logical conclusion, that the will to vapulate wives exists in civilised countries, although law 
aai custom forbid its indulgence 1* 

Auckland — ChHstmaa-day. — Divine service at the little brick-built church of St. Paal's. 
The interior was prettily decorated, Christmas fashion, with the graceful fronds of the tree-fern, 
some of them eight and ten feet long, entirely covering the windows. I perceived none of the 
Aborigines among the congregaticHi, nor\lo I know whether they are encouraged or permitted to 
frequent the parish church, tJ^ere being separate houses of prayer devoted ,to their spiritual 
teadiing apart from the white population. I observed, however, several bushy heads and wild 
tattooed &ces peeping at times through the windows daring the service ; and towards its dose 
two or three stole into the body of the building, stared about them for a few minutes, and 
quietly withdrew. In my afternoon stroll I pasMd the door of the Maori chapel, a short way 
out of town, where a very attentive and crowded congregation were engaged in ranging in 
excellent time and tune a well-known psalm in their own language. As a Chinese artisan, in 
working from a pattern, £uthfiilly copies into a new garment aU tiie holes and other defects 
observable in the old one, so the New Zealand Christian servilely imitates the English rural 
fashion of psalmody, enlisting the nose into the service as an important vocal organ — tiie nn»iAna] 
liTG giving him a nasal superiority over his white instructors. 

On the following day, which happened to be Sunday, as the Governor and mys^ were 
returning fixim a w^ to the summit of Mount Eden, on turning one of the angles of the 
volcano we came suddenly upon a small hamlet, belonging probably to a party of native 
employed permanently by Government in quarrying stone at the foot of the hiU. I do not 
remember a more interesting and impressive scene than met our view as we looked down into 
the little valley below us. About eighty or a hundred Maoris of various age and sex were 
standing, sitting, or redining among tibe low fern in front of thdr village, in such groups and 
attitudes as acddent had suggested. In the midst, on a mound slightly devated, stood a native 
teacher, deeply tattooed on tiie &ce but dressed in decent black dothes of European fi&shi(Hi, 
who, with a Bible in his hands, was expounding the Gospd in their own tongue. Taking ofi' 
our hats we approached so as to become part of the congregation. No head turned towards 
us — no curious eyes or ears were attracted by the arrival of the strangers, (as so often occurs 
in more dvilised congregations,) although the Governor was one of &sm» Their cahn and 
grave looks were fixed full of attenticm upon the preacher, who, on his part, oiforoed his 
doctrine with a powerful and persuasive voice, and with a manner and gesture replete with 
energy and animation. The sermon was apparently extempore, but there was no poverty of 
words or dearth of matter. It was delivered with the utmost fluency, and with occaaonal 
rapid reference to and quotation from the Scriptures. The wild locale of this outdoor worship 
(in the lap, as it were, of a mountain torn to pieces by its own convulsions, and in the midst of 
heaped-up lava and scoriae, with the fern and the fiax waving in the gale) invested the scene 
with a peculiar solemnity. The rugged and sequestered position of the ceremony carried one 
hade some centuries in the history of the world ; — ^forcing one to rally his thoughts, in order to 
recollect that the assembly into which he had stumbled was not composed of some proscribed 

* From a published paper attributed to Goveraor Grey : — 

* In the IrHringa, or baptismal ceremoDy, the male diild was baptized into the rites of Tn, the God of 
War. The priest said,— Let this diild be strong to grasp the battle-axe— to srasp the spear. Strong in 
the strife— foremost in the diarge— Sec. Whflst over the glri, he said,— May she be industrious in 
cnltivsting the ground— in searching for shell-flab— in weaving garments— in weaving ornamental mats. 
May ihe be ttroiftg to cony dttrxisvu/' 



KATiyiB CHBIBTIAKfl — ^ZEALOUS COKYEBTS. 125 

and persecuted sect, doomed to perform in secrecy and in fear and trembling, under penolfy of 
the torture and tlie stake, the rites of a forbidden creed. Kear the spot -where these 
* Mihonaries ** were convened, we met a young Englishman, who proyed to be the Orerseer of 
ihe native quarry-men, and who informed ua that he had conducted uxty of them to church in 
the morning. 

The Maoris of the Northern Island appear to have reodved more readily than any other 

savage the gracious influences of the Gospel. It has been stated, that out of the supposed 

population of 100,000 souls, there are now 35,000 attendants on public worship, 15,000 public 

scholars, 300 native preachers, 2,850 communicants of the Church of England missioih— 

Wesleyans and Roman Catholics of course not included. But giving this people every credit for 

unusual openn^s to reh'gious conviction, utilitarian motives have undoubtedly been very 

powerful auxiliaries to their reception of the Christian &ith : and, indeed, most of the miswonaries 

have wisely laboured to instil into the fidlow minds of their pupils an inclination and respect 

for the arts and habits of civilised life — simultaneously with the truths of revealed religion ; 

without which union of objects these zealous labourers for the good of others, as &r as the 

temporal benefit of the natives is concerned, would have perhaps aolj shaken the salutary 

influence of the chiefs without substituting a better ; — ^for many of the native teachers are 

merely slaves, havii^'no authority except in matters spiritual. The original Maori religion is 

of so vague a nature as to be easily replaced by one whose tenets are as simple as well d^ed ; 

and once embraced, this people hold to the latter with admirable tenacity and with less pliability 

to mundane expedimcy than is sometimes practised by older believer^. As a slight illustration 

of this position, I may state that I was permitted the perusal of a MS. Journal of an officer of 

rank in New Zealand, wherein he relates that his fellow-tourists and himself suffered extreme 

privation, not to say positive starvation, in halting for a day at a native Christian village^ 

because no persuasion could induce the chief, who was otherwise most dvil and hospitable^ to 

kill anything on the Sabbath for the food of the travelling Pakdia Rangitira8.t 

Even in the darkest days of Maori heatheniam it was the custom of this people to engage ia 

acts of solemn devotion before entering upon any important undertaking ; and in prqwiing for 

battle earnest invocations for aid were offered by each party to some deceased chiefiain, who^ 

having fallen gloriously in the fleld, had been not <Hily canonised but promoted to godhead. 

There are on record many interesting and edifying instances <^ zegeneration on ihe part of the 

New Zealanders, some of them men of rank and influence. Mr. Angus, the clever artist and 

author of < New Zealand Illustzated ' relates that Te Awaitaia, alias William Naylor, Kaifnee 

Wiremu Nera, the principal chief of Wangaroa, fonnerly a terrible warrior, and the bosom £riend 

of the still pagan Te Whero>Whero, is now a zealous Christian as well as ally of the British^ 

The same writer instances also Horomona, or Solomon, as a singular and satisfactory case of 

prosely^ism. This chiefiain, a preacher and teacher at the missionary station of Otawhao on 

the Waikato River, has been for some years an earnest Christian, and is now stone blind. ' He 

was one of the most successM and sanguinary warriors of his day, and has confessed to have 

o^ eye-witness and actor for many years, quite fix>m his boyhood, in some of the most fearAd 

battles and massacres in the history of New Zealand; in one of which, when Hongi overcame 

the Waikatos under Te Whero with great skughter, 2,000 of the dead were cooked and 

devoured to consummate and solemnise the victcry. The banes of the shiin still whiten the 

P^ of Matuketuki.' Here is, indeed, a brand snatched fitnn the burning. In reference te 

the miasioDaTy station of Otawhao Mr. Angus relates, that when it was formed nine years ago, 

there was not a single native Christian in the vicinity ; but, about five years back, a congregatioK 

of nearly 200 were gathered together there. * They built a chapel, which was J[)lown down 

during a gale of wind. They then completed the present commodious place of worship, which 

wUl contain comfortably upwards of 1,000 natives. The lidge-pole, a single tree*tem, eighty- 

fflx feet in length, was dra^^ by the natives from the woods, a distance of three miles ; and aH 

the other tinaber was likewise conveyed by them from a simihir distance. The entire design 

ongmated with the natives, who formed this spacious building without rule or scale, and with 

no other tools than their adzes, a few chisels^ and a couple of saws* After the erection of the 

framework, the season had so fiur advanced that, fearing they should not be able to complete it 

in time, the Otawhao people requested the assistance of 100 men of a neighbouring tribe, to 

whom they gave the whole sum that had been paid them by the Missionary Society, amounting 

m yalue to about 25/. They also killed 200 pigs, that their friends might live weU 

auring the time devoted to their assistance. The windows, which are of a Gothic shape, were 

• Miseionary Christian natives^ • t Gentlemen. 



126 ouB AxmpoDss. 

Mched from Tanianga, on the coast, a dutanoe of seTeaty-five miles, by fourteen men, who 
carried them on their hacks over mountains and through forests without any pay whatever. 
The whole tribe, amounting to about six or seyen hundred, are now nearly all Ghiistianised.' 

Mr. £. Wak€dSeld, in Ms ' Adventure in .New Zealand/ mentions an old chief named 
Watanui as a good Christian, a just man, with an orderly and united family, and with slaves 
attached to him and treated wiUi humanity and kindness. He or his son read prayers every 
day; and, what is almost more rare and wonderful, the whole household use soap and water! 
Tomihona, or Thomson, son of the old reprobate and cannibal Te Bauperaha, is also a living 
proof of the melioration of the Maori. He is considered a devout Christian, and I can myself 
vouch for his being aa intelligent, civilised, and well-dressed young man.* 

The absence of caste— ^«n institution so powerfully hostile to conrersion in Hindostan— i< 
very favourable to missionary labours in this country. The Tapu, which either temporarily 
or permanently renders sacred an object, animate or inanimate, is the nearest approach to the 
Hindoo religious exclusive-ism. As the Druids of old resisted to the last the conversioa of 
the painted and skin-clad Britons, so the Tohungas or priests and sorcerers of New Zealand 
are ex officio averse to the introduction of a new faith, well knowing that their power 
depends upon the adherence of their people to thdr ancient superstitions. Christianity asd 
civilisation are, moreover, decidedly inimical to the authority of the chie&. They have pot 
an end to tiie continual state of warfare between tribes, when each, living in a posture of 
defence and in fear of its neighbour, naturally looked up to a great fighting chief as a spedei 
of demi-god, depending on his superior wisdom and valour for protection and guidance is 
time of trouble. It does not sound very complimentary to the middle ages of England to say 
that a strong resemblance exists between the social position and chazucter of the reu 
thorough-bred heathen chieilbain — ^the Ariki of New Zealand — and those of the burly baroo a 
feudal times. Yet the former has, in fact, rather the advantage in point of educatioD^ 
for many can at least sign their names; whereas those iron -clad, iron-fisted, and ir<>0' 
headed nobles despised all manner of derk-crafb from the bottom of thdr hauberks— Jooluog 
upon letters as the exclusive business of monks and shaveling^.f The baptized Maori trans* 
fers his allegiance, wholly or in part, from the lord of bis tribe to his spiritual master; a°^ 
hence it is that many of the oldest^ proudest, and most influential chiefis — even those wiio- 
like my venerable fnends Taniwha and Te Wfaero-Whero, have been firm allies to the Biiti^ 
Govenunent— still obstinately adhere to their pristine pe^^mism, and discounge as much tf 
possible the oonversicni of their adherents. 

One cannot doubt that the snoeess of the Christian missions would have been incaloolably 
greater had there been one unifoim creed and priesthood. It is only wonder^ I think, that 
a shrewd and caotious people should have so readily adopted a new religion, the pro&ssoTS^ 
(which— at first naked by them under one generic term of Mihonari — ^they soon feund to be 
jRibdivided into inmnnerable parties, Episcopalian, Kkopo,{ Wesleyan, Baptist, Independent 
-»with Jews, dissenting from them all. The observant Maori cannot he blind to sodi^p^ 
and wide schism, nor deaf to t3ie virulence of sectarian animosity. He hears of ^^^^^^ 
SBtichrist, of tiie beast 1 One aealous minister offers brazen crucifixes, images of saints, sz" 
precious relics ; another anathematises graven images of all B<M*t8 and sizes ; a third deooaoo^ 
both the former. Poor Jack Maori stands aghast, halting, as well he may, between two 
opinions, for he is sharp enough to perceive these anomalies in a religion professing miiverw 
love, the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Unfortunately, it is an undoubted fact, tf* 
«eEtainly no original remaric, that Christian zeal and Christian charity nraly go hand in haw; 
and that our religion, exoeUent as it may be, is no bond between men where the shadow oi * 
difference of opmion ezistB. 

The dambeiing walk to the top of Mount Eden, which ended In our encounter with ii>^ 
eongregation of native Christians above described, was extremely enjoyable in a fine bie^ 
evening. Mount Eden, or Maungfr>Wao, as it is named by the Aborigines, is about 500 f^ 
above the level of the sea; its flanks and base are thickly covered with ruins of stodode^ 
entrenchments, hnti^ potato-gardens, and ovens of stone — evidences of a numerous origi^ 
population. The crater, which may be 150 feet deep, is fuU of verdure to the bottoBOy so" 
the ubiquitous flax flourishes on the very sommit. The view hence is worth tiie tronUs » 

* This Maori emtlemaa ii^l believe, now in England. Feb. 185S. 
t ' Letter nor line know I never a one/ 
boasts Sir William of Deloraine to fais liege ladye. 
X Hkofo, Boman Catholic, from Episcopos. 



MOUNT KDEN — ^THE KAUBI FINE. 127 

an aflemoon stroll to any one with tolerable lungs. It was not quite a case of ' bellaws to 
mend ' with myself — although I greatly prefer four legs to two in locomotion — ^for I was in 
pretty fi^ood wsJking condition ; but 1 hereby recommend any gentleman tonrist who happens 
to be short of wind or limb, to be cautious in engaging in pedestrian pursuits with Governor 
Grey, or, I may add, with his Lieutenant-Governor, Hr. Eyre, in the sonthei-n district, for 
each and every of tiiem possess a power of stride and a will toe xerti t, which, in an tiphiU 
expedition, must very soon reduce a plethoric companion to the stale expedient of halting to 
adrnire the prospect. 

The prospect from Monnt Eden is as beautiful as a prospect in a pnrely volcanic oonntry 
can be. Auckland, with its villas, and gardens, and cultivation, (not quite such as lie in the 
lap of Vesuvius,) at your feet; the fine sheet of Waitemata harbour, with its numerous inlets, 
stretching half round the panorama ; the island of Rangitota, shaped so like Stromboli that 
one momentarily expects to see it burst forth in fire and smoke, right before you near the 
mouth of the harbour ; and the Great Barrier Island just visible in the distant loom. Further 
eastward are the high bluffs of Coromandel Bay and the estuary of the Thames; and behind 
the spectator are spread the lake-like waters of the Manakao. All this forms a spectacle that 
cannot fiul to charm, and that in spite of the rugged calcined aspect of the country. In looking 
forward into Auddand's future, it is pleasant to know that — ^barren as a tract of scoria and 
pumice may seem in a newly occupied and therefore little cultivated country — ^the vine, the 
olive, and a host of delicate and valuable vegetable productions rejoice in a volcanic soil, 
thriving not only on the plains around, but half way up some of the burning mountains of 
Europe. Thus the stockaded stronghold of Mount Eden, and a score of similar hills visible 
firom its top, with their legendary associations of strife, and massacre, and cannibal feasts, 
may become smiling vineyards, tad the symbol of peace itself may take root and flourish on 
their war-worn flanks. 

One day, with a riding party, we struck off the beaten road to visit an ancient burial-plaoe 
of the Aborigines. I am not sure that the Governor, who is properly observant of the rites 
and superstitions of the natives, would have approved of our intrusion on tiie iapued restin|^ 
place of departed ehieflains, nor is it certain that we should have escsqaed soot-finee had a 
party of short-tempered Maoris witnessed the sacrilege. As it was, we dismounted at the 
entrance of a kind of cavern, shaded by stunted old traes, and without ceremony entered the 
sepulchre, where, in a series of natural niches in tiie rook, were piled a mass of human benei, 
the skulls being placed at the top. Among these latter were a lew bearing indelible prools 
of the owners having jBnished their earthly career in some akizmish whexe weightier weapons 
than sprigs of bhokuoni had been wielded, and where the ' knecking<down ' had not been 
practised for *love.' A gentlanan residing not iar from this Golgotha, has upon his obinmeT- 
piece a skoU on which more bumps had been raised than were «v«r dreamt ef by SporzhsiBite 
philosophy. The cranium had been split so as entndy to alter the foxm of one side, and to 
leave a dent in wlueh one's hand might have been laid ; yet this desperate wound had 
evidently healed oen^iiletelj, and the original owner had perhaps lii«d many years afterwards 
— ^lived doubtleas 1o take blody ' utu ' for his cKaoked crown, and to dine open the dealer -of 
the blow. The stroke appeared to have been inflicted with the stone Meri, or club. 

On another eceastoa i joined an expedition by water, luHriqg for its object a visit to a 
forest of the Kauri pine^ the pride of the New Zealand Sylva. Thsa tree does not grow in t]» 
hnmedia te vicinity of Auckland, nor does it at the present day, whatew it may have fmw 
merly done, flourish furtheraouth than the Wangansi Biver. It is the moat majestic of tiie 
pine family, not excepting the Aramcaria Exceba, or Norfolk lakmd Pine. Chi a fine sultiy 
morning, 72o in the shade^ the harbour-master's baige took us on board, and after a mixed 
sailing and rowing passage of some 10 miles up the Waitemata harbour, entertd Banger's creek, 
a narrow ann of the same, whose banks were covered wifli fine trees, amoi^ which tha 
Pohutakawa, with its huge twisted branches, and splendid tufls of scarlet flowers, dropped 
both boughs and hlossoms into the salt stream at its foot. This tree, tlie ved flower apart, 
reminded me more of the British oak than any other I had seen in the Anstralaaian colonies ; 
it has some of its qualities too, bdng very hard and durable, and much used in ship-building;. 
At the furthest extremity of the creek we found Mr. — — 's timber d^p6t and cotti^, whidi, 
nestled in the heart of the New Zeaknd bosh, is not inaptly designated * The Betteat'— just 
the place whence any one a degree more sociable than Alexander Selkirk would have retreated 
without beat of drum. 
Mr« or zBflwr Ci^itain '— <-, (for so he is commonly styled,) showed -m one hanri, juift 



128 OUB ANTIFODES. 

ft 

fdled, aboQt 6 feet in diameter with 50 feet of perfectly straight wood. There was another 
grand stidc 9 feet in diameter, a slioe of which would have made a round table of 27 feet, at 
which King Arthur and his kxiights might have conTeniently caroused without stint of Show- 
room. It was still standing in all its glory ; but the fatal ' blaze ' on its trunk, and an omi- 
nous looking ' scaffold pt ' at its foot, prefigured its destruction. This tree seemed to have 
about 50 feet of bole, little diminishing in size, before the branches divaricated, and 'was calcu- 
lated to contain about 8,000 or 9,000 feet of solid timber. It was not a particularly fine stem, 
however, for some have 100 feet of straight wood, with a head towering high above the sup- 
rounding forest. The Kauri {Dammera Australis) is coniferous, resinous, and has an dongated 
box-like leaf. It grows commonly on poor clayey soil. The timber is particularly good for 
deck-plankinff and scantling ; as well as tor topmasts and yards of large ships. On one knoll in 
the forest, which the thidmess and ropiness of the creeping plants rendered very difficult of 
approach, we found a group of thirteen fine young Kauris varying in girth from that of s 
quarter cask to a hogshead, all apparently well known to the Captain. He seemed to contem- 
plate this promising fimiily, as the Grand Turk or the Great Mogul might be supposed to view 
a group of handsome Ciroissian ' girleens,' as yet too young for tiie Harem or Zenana — ^laading 
their tall and taper stems, and caressing with professional kindness their smooth rind. Wher* 
ever the axe had wounded any of these trees the Kauri gum was oozing out in vast quantiti^ 
and the ground was thickly strewed with, its hardened droppings. There are now, I am toH 
very few pines large enough and near enough to the settlements to invite destruction. Tfa« 
finest known tree of this species — ^known by the natives as the *■ Father of the Kauri,' is said to 
be growing and in good health near Mercury Bay, and to measure no less than 75 feet in or- 
cumference at the base. 

Somewhat ftirther up the Waitemata — after having quitted the Betreat — we landed upon s 
small island, on which, among the surrounding wilderness, we had observed a picturesque 
ootti^ and some land under culture. The former we found locked up and deserted, although 
evidently furnished, and a really beautiful and extensive garden, full of European flowers, fi-uits, 
and vegetables, running in rank luxuriance to waste. Woman's hand was apparent in the tzain- 
ing of the roses and clematis on the latticed verandah, and in other triflhig embeHishments. 
The annals of this now lonely spot might have told of shortlived happiness, of competence 
rashly squandered, of ruin and desolation where once .were joy and peace — a gradation too oos»> 
mon in oolooial life ; and our party were all expending a vast deal of sentimental oonjectoR 
upon the subject before us — for there were fair and gentle ladies of the number — when one of 
the boatmen growled out that the owners had *■ cut away for a spell to Sydney or somewheRs' 
upon business or pleasure — thus leaving their home and its c(mtents to the tender mercies of Hx 
homeless Maori, well knowing that, with scarcely an exception, this people would respect th» 
closed doors of an absent Pakeha. In our sail back to Auckland we passed at anchor, refitting, 
the Misnonary brig John Wesley, a beautiful vessel in every pomt, and, as I was told, splendidly 
fitted up within — a yacht, in short, worthy of the most seapworthy of the Cowes-freqnenting 
peers. The gUded beading along her bends and the glittering mouldings of her stem, togethff 
with the accounts of her interior luxuries, contrasted unplearantly, in my mind, with her name 
and duties. 

This evening, after dinner, the Governor entertained a select party of Aborigines with an 
exhilntion of ue magic lantern. His swarthy guests squatted on the floor in soleoon silence^ 
and maintained perfect gravity and decorum during the more ordinary passages of the spectade 
^-only testifying their admiration by an intenectional grunt, or their recognition of the object 
represented by pronouncing its name — ^ Teema, steamer — * Hoia,' soldier, &c. But when, i& 
the character of showman, I manceuvred the double slides, under the operation of which a plmn- 
pudding was seen to blow up just as the clown was sticking his fork in it ; or the huge era 
were made to roll in the head of a monstrous ogre, their childish ^ee broke forth unrestnined, 
and it became impossible to prevent some of them fixim violating the old nursery commandment, 
* Look with your eyes and not with your fingers ;' for three or four great bushy heads were 
soon shadowed forth <mi the mi^c tablet, and a dozen great black hands rushed to manipulate 
its surfittse. Like Quixote's showman, I began to fear for my puppets ; but all passed ofi 
quietly ! As for me I made the utmost possible allowances for their excitement ; for, next to 
Punch, the magic lantern ranks, in my memory of by-gone enjoyments, as the most attractire 
of minor spectacles. 

Kot less amusing than the evening pastime I have just noticed was the presentation by the 
Goremor of a horse to Te Hao Hao, the Taupo Chief. On the steed being brought to the door 



IXAUQURATION — ^WAR DANCE. 129 

this provincial laird was so oyerjoyed at his acquisition — although of a surety the animal was 
no beauty I— ^that he scrambled without delay or ceremony upon its bare back, mounting on 
the wi'ong side (if there can be a wrong side to a gift horse I) and disappearing as quickly over 
the other. He had probably never before seen a horse, so there was more reason to wonder at 
his spirit than at his lack of equitation. Like many others I know in more civilised countries, 
he was a * bold bad (horse) man.' 

Januat'y 1st, 1848, Auckland, therm. 70° in the shade. — I have now been more than three 
weeks under the influence of tlie * wet, rough, and tempestuous climate ' of New Zealand ; and 
during that period have seen neither cloud, rain, mizzle, or even mist ; plenty of wind and dust, 
however, — dust that would not shame Sydney, Melbourne, or Adelaide— dust in every degree 
of granulation, from pellets the size of a pea to that subtile powder that is blown through the 
fibres of your innermost raiment. Warm and cool weather th»:« has been ; but he must be in 
want of a grumble who could call it either disagreeably hot or cold. 

The new year was opened this morning by the grand ceremony of the publication of the new 
charter for the govenmient of the colony, followed by the inauguration of the present Govemor- 
in-Chief. There was in the gardens of the vioer^al palace a large assanblage of Her Majesty's 
white, brown, and whity-brown subjects, in red jackets and blue jackets, black coats, brown coats, 
and petty-coats, silks and satins, mats and blankets, shark's oil and marechile — ^a motley crowd, 
la fi*ont of the house was drawn up the Grenadier * Guard of Honour,' of the 58th Regiment, 
stiff and motionless — a scarlet wall coped with black. With the towering bear-skin cap these 
Bti'apping fellows made even the tallest Maoris look diminutive. Around the guard, and in strong 
contrast of posture — stood, squatted, and lounged in Iszzaroni attitudes on the soft turf, a host of 
brawny savages with their wives and children, staring in mute surprise at the, to them, un- 
meaning ceremony of swearing in the Governor and his ofHcers. The two objects which seemed 
most to attract the notice of Te Hao Hao and other natives from the interior, were the big 
drum of the band and the big wigs, crisp with curled horse-hair, of the Crown Law-officers. 
The latter, I was told, were the theme of lively discussion and dispute. They had no 
such opportunity of bringing the matter to the test as fell to the well-known red Indian chief, 
in the charming tale of the Prairie Bird, — ^who, having captured on the war-path a French valet 
and twisted his left hand in the hair of his victim, was brandishing the scalpel for the circular 
cut, when his prisoner, making a desperate plunge for his Ufe, left his peruke between the 
fingers of the astonished Potawotami, (or whatever sept of two-legged tigers he belonged to,) 
and effected his escape while the savage still meditated on the miracle. 

The inauguration was followed by a parade of some 700 native Christians divided into com- 
panies imdei' constituted leaders, each company wearing a distinct uniform of coloured calico, with 
caps of green flax-leaf or other simple invention. In passing down the ranks it was painful to 
see how many of these poor people were suffering imder scrofulous affections, — a taint for which 
they may thank tiielr early communication with white nations. At the request of some of the 
European spectators, a grand wai'-dance succeeded, in which nearly all the male natives present, 
and a few of the females took part. I was told, however, by some of the military officers, who 
had seen it enacted under all the fierce zest of a preparative for deeds of blood, that this was a 
very tame representation of the national dance. The peace-establishment war-dance was quite 
horrible enough for my taste. The grimaces were hideous beyond all conception — eyes uptumed till 
nothing but the whites were visible, tongues protruded past all probable power of recall, diabo- 
lical grins, savage frowns, bitter smiles, hisses, groans, shudderings audible as well as visible, 
fejurful distortions and quiverings of body and Kmb ; the whole accompanied by a recitative 
chant, and ending with a terrific and universal roar (like 10,000 bears among the bee-hives), a 
stamp that shook the ground, a grand leap into the air, and a final relapse into quietude I The 
scene impressed me so disagreeably, that after gazing for a few minutes upon the fiendish faces 
of the performers, I strolled round their flank to take a look at the women and children who 
were stationed behind ; and, having satisfied my curiosity, and had two or three wives offered 
me, I was returning close along the rear of the four-deep line of bounding and yelling demons, 
when, at some secret signal, the whole troop perfonned the evolution of * right about turn so 
suddenly, and with so stunning a shout, as nearly to tumble me backwards over a gi-oup of 
whyen6es and piccaninnies, who were sprawling on the turf and who appeared highly amused at 
my momentary rufflement of nerves. The most agreeable feature in this dance is the wondei^ 
fully correct measure in the eyes, limbs, and voices, without the assistance of ftigleman, m so 
numerous a body. In other respects this Maori national dance is a degree more baibarous tnan 
the jig and the strathspey. - 



130 OUB AKTIFODBS. 

An acquaintaoce of mine, who has travelled much thxvnghoat these islands, saw a war-dance 
at Roturua, performed by 350 natives, nearly all having fire-enus, and who were about to avenge 
the death of two native teachera. The hollow earUi of that conntrj of hot springs am! 
smothered volcanic fires resounded with their furious stampede. The war^daoce and siMig is the 
Maori pibroch — stimulating to a sufficient d^ree of ferodtj for bloody deeds a people who, 
when unexdted, have a good deal of what Lamb calls * animsu tranquillity.' The venerable Te 
Whero-Whero (telivered himself of a mild but grave rebuke on its being introduced, in mockery, 
on this occasion ; * such thii^ are finished now, let them be foi^tten, said the noble old leader 
of 10,000 Waikato warnons. 

Our war-dance broke up with a flourish of hanis* in the air ; and all the distorted connte- 
nances relaxed without efibrt into broad good->humour, — ^for the next, and, (as far as the natives 
were concerned,) the closing act in celebration of the New Year, was a feast of biead and jam to the 
whole party assembled, perhaps 1,000 Maoris. There is nothing to be said about it, except thai 
a few shillings or pounds more would have been well laid out in the business ; for, as it was, 
the slices of bread looked as if they had been first jammed and thai well scraped, so slight was 
the firuity discolouration of the staft' of life. Fortunately the guests had never heard of JDo-the- 
boys HaU I 

If the Maoris of the better order are be^nning to be ashamed of their barbarous dances, it 
may well be supposed that cannibalism is at present a delicate subject of conversation with s 
native any way ameliorated. They are indeed heartily ashamed of the practice, although they 
confess its existence. I believe that deliberate slaughter, with intent to eat, was never commoo 
in New Zealand, although I have heard that interchanges of baskets of choice joints of hmnan 
flesh have been freqa^tly made (like turkeys and game at Christmas at home,) betweoi some 
of the ancient chie&, to whom I had the honour of being presented at the Govemment4iouse. 
As for one's enemy in battle-^when a man has killed him, he may as well eat him — ^thinks the 
Maori warrior. Some English sage asserts that the worst use you can put a man to is to hang 
him. The Maori thinks that you can hardly make a better use of him than to eat him. If the 
savage ^1 to fulfil the most difficult of Christian precepts, * love your enemies,' during their 
lifetime, — at least he likes them, he relishes them, he makes much of them, he is fond of them, 
in short — aiter death and proper cookery ! There is no need for a commissariat when the soldier 
depends upon his firelock and sabre for his food ; — ^no need of exhortations to gallant deeds wh^ 
he wins by them at once a battle, renown, revenge, and his rations I Horrible and incredible are 
the tales of cannibal voracity and excess in the history, written and l^endary, of these islands. 
Far be it from me to enter upon them. A missionary Clergyman, now U^ong, once saw forty 
ovens filled with human flesh, in full operation. My acquaintance and subsequent fellow- 
passenger, Taraia with the yellow tusks, is said to have killed as many wives as Blueheard «r 
Henry * of ours ;' — U fit plus — ^he ate them I I felt squeamish, I confess, about shaking hands 
with this gentleman when introduced, but I exchanged manual greeting, doubtless, with many 
other equally distinguished Anthropoph^sts. 

A good story appeared lately in an Australian newspaper. It is too long for admisskm, hut 
the gist lies as follows : — 

A zealous missionary, discovering that one of his proselytes possessed two wives, which was 
contrary to Christian bonos mores, the good pastor reconomended the chief, whose consdence altio 
stung him upon the subject, to retain her whom he loved best, and to put away the other, 
taking cai^ to provide for her properly. The Maori promised obedience, though it wait sore 
against his heart. Not long aflerwards he visited the missionary, and declared himself quite 
happy in mind for he had only one wife now. * You have done well, my friend,' said the 
worthy minister : * and the other — ^how have you provided for her ?* * Me eat her I* replied 
the other with a chuckle of self-approbation. This was certainly one way to * put away ' a 
surplus wife I 

Although gradually djring away in New Zealand, if not entirely obsolete, this horrible custom 
is still activdy and openly carried on in some'of the more northern islands of the Pacific. So com' 
pletely is it a matter of course in the island of Tanna, that in 1849, the two chief articles in the 
meat market being swine's flesh, and human flesh, the only distinctive names by which they 
were known were * long pig,' and * short pig ' — ^the former being given to the man, I sui^)ose,on 
account of his stupid habit of walking on his hind legs only. It is agreeable to know that 
white man's flesh is, according to cannibal epicurism, considered salt and bitter ; yet in cases of 
short commons it is to be feared that the ' dura ilha Maorum' have accommodated theBosdves 

* Staffs. 



VOYAGE TO THE BAY OF ISLANDS, ETC. 131 

to this diet ! In some of the South Sea islands white meat is preferred, and whole crews of 
sandal-wood^seeking vessels have been devoured. My naval brother relates, in his work 
published in 1848, that in Borneo, some tribes, in punishment of crime, condemn the cnminal 
to be kiUed and eaten.^ 

Are you quite sure, reader, that Tomati Waka, or other patriotic Maori, might not chaUenge 
us to px>ve that cannibalism was not practised by the British up to a late period in the dark 
ages — long after the Romans had condescended to conquer and civilise U9, as to^ are now doing 
for the MacMris ? Are you quite sure that human flesh did not form one of the standing dishes 
of King Arthur's Bound Table ? If they did not eat men, what meat did they eat ? it is dear 
— and this, I think, is rather an original observation — ^it is clear that although tiiere were sheep, 
and oxen, and cahnes, and deer m Britain at tiiat time— neither beef, mutt<«, veal, nor venison 
c6ald have existed at any date long anterior to the Norman conquest, — ^for these are all French 
words! t 

CHAPTER XII. 

January Srd. Aogkland. — H.M. ship Inflexible weighed and made sail at 6 p.m. for the 
Bay of Islands, and for Wellington, with a prospect of a lengthened voyage round the. Middle 
and Southern Islands — ^passengers, His Excellency the Governor-in-Chief and Mrs. Grey, 
Major-General Pitt, their suites, the native chiefs Te Whei-o*Whero, Te fianperaha, Taniwha, 
Taraia, Charlie, tiieir wives (old Rauperaha had two) and their suite : there were also on 
board an officer and seventy-five men bound to ' the Bay/ the whole, with myself, forming a 
tolerably large party — intolerably lai^e to nineteen out of twenty captains of men-of-war, 
whose love for * idlers ' as passengers is too well known to need remark. How many out of 
twenty would have relished having the quarter*4ieck lumbered day and night with a host of 
filthy savages and their families ? Oar captain was the soul of good humour and hospitality ; 
— -may his shadow never be less I unless he particularly desires its diminution. 

We left Auckland, as I have said, at 6 p.m. one evening, and the next morning arose and 
found ourselves safely anchored abreast of the military station of Wahapu, in the Bay of 
Islands. Oh ! the blessing of steam as a travelling i^nt ! A few wedks later it fell to my 
waning star to perform the same trip in a sailing vessel, when four mortal days of rough 
work were spent in compassing what Her Majest/s steam-sloop performed with perfect ease 
and comfort during the few hours passed in a good dinner and a sound night's repose. Th<* 
Bay of Islands is a splendid frith, running eight or ten miles into the heart of the country. 
There is excellent anchorage within the Bay, especially in the welUknown cove of Kororarika, 
or Russell. Wahapu appeftfed to me the most attractive point in its wide circuit, except,, 
perhaps, the missionary station of Pahia, which exactly confronts its military neighbour on the- 
opposite side of the Bay. As a post whether for attack or defence, nothing could be worse- 
than Wahapu ; the cantonment, barrack-yard, and magazines being situated on a flat a few 
feet above high water-mark, and its rear and flanks pressed itpon and commanded within 
pistol-shot by a crescent of steep hills. It is a perfect soldier-trap, in short. Falling into an 
ambush is bad enough, but habitually residing in one is past all joke. The officers are- 
quartered in neat cottages along the beach, and might readily be picked off down their own 
chimneys by an enterprising enemy, from the high cHfls against which their backs are resting. 
With all its defects the Bay of Islands is a favourite quarter with all ranks of the soldiery. 
There is * very good boating/ whatever that may mean ; some shooting up the creeks, and 
excellent Ashing. The soldiers were pulling out the small fry by soores within the barrack 
bounds, and their wives and children w«*e carrying them off * all alive oh !' to the pot not a 
dozen yards distant from their native element. The climate here is delightful, milder and less 
boisterous, it is said, than any other part of New Zealand. 

* * Borneo and Celebes/ by Captain G. R. Mundy, R.N. Mmray. 

f The Rev.}T. Buddie, in a leetnro delivered at the Auideland Mechanics' Institute, gave a specimen of 
Maori imprecations, as uttered in the form of poetry, ly the Chief Topeora, against his enemies. 

The following is an extract from it :— * Oh, my dauffhter, are you screaming for your food ? Here it is 
for you— the flesh of Hekemann and Weratu. Though I am surfeited with the soft brains of I'ntii, and 
Rikirild, and Baukauri; yet saoh is my hatred that I wUl fill myself taller with those of Pau, of 
Ngaraunga, of Pipd, and with my most dainty morsel, the flesh of the hated Te Ao. I will shake with 
greedy teeth the bodies of Huhikabu and Ueheka. My throat gapes eagerly for the brains not yet taken 
from the skull of Potukeka. FlU up my distended stomach with the flesh of Tiawha and Tutonga ! Is 
the head of Ruakerepo indeed considered sacred ? Why, I will have It for a vessel to boU Kaeos in at 
Kawau ? 

K 2 



132 OUB ANTIPODES. 

When the military denizeoB of Wahapu, tired of rustic sports, sigh for the pleasures o 

* the flaunting town/ Kororarika opens her arms to them ; and an adjutant-general had to rub 
his eyes and look twice, before he could ' realise ' that the wild-looking figure, stmw-hYittedy 
moustached, aud wearing, in lieu of the now cashiered surtout, a blue serge shirt with a belt 
confining it at the waist, (a truly sensible dress by the way,) was in truth a real liye subaltern 
of foot, lounging up and down the single street of this baby-house Portsmouth, and liable to 
martial law. 

I have mentioned that my trip to Kew Zealand was mainly occasioned by a desire to visit 
its several military posts and the spots rendered locally, if not generally, classical by tJie 
struggles between the rebellious, or patriotic, natives on the one part, and the British troops 
assisted by the loyal, or recreant, Maoris — ^as the case may be — on the other ; and to make 
notes thereof, which might be useful at the head quarters of the Australasian Command in 
case of further warfare. Circumstances prevented my tour being so extended as I had pre- 
viously chalked out; but they favoured me singularly in one respect, namely, that the move- 
ments of the Inflexible^ so long as I was her passenger, corresponded chronologically and 
topographically, as it were, with the chief events of the late war, so that my personal 
journal and the brief and purposely informal outline of military operations, which I have 
thrown together from mj more complete memoranda, march side by side, and form a con- 
current narrative. 

It was at this spot that the long, expensive, obstinately sustained, and, by this wild people, 
cleverly conducted war may be said to have commenced. The settlement of Kororarika, or 
Russell, had been founded many years before the British Government determined to assume 
the legislative dominion of New Zealand ; and the white population, or a great proportion of 
it, was, as stated by competent authority, 'the very scum of the Aus^Tdian colonies' — a 
character by no means flattering, reference being had to the sort of 'devil's broth' from which, 
forty years ago, tills skimming had taken place. The Maoii appreciation of European society 
was, however, at that time not very discriminating, and, already awake to the advantages of 
trade, they tolerated the English residents and visitors through whose agency they received 
European aiticles in exchange for the native exports of timber, flax, whale-oil, &c. The 
storekeepers and taverns of Russell drove also a considerable and lucrative traffic with whaling 
ships of all nations which put into this snug little cove to refresh and refit. Considering 
therefore its immense distance from the Mother country and its isolated and defenceless posi- 
tion, it had become a place of some importance, and the Bay of Islands was well known to all 
the rovers of the South Seas. 

The imposition of customs, or harbour diarges, by the local government drove the whalers 
and other marine customers from Kororarika to the purely native and untaxed harbours ; and 
the introduction of law and order, as a consequence of Government interference, was equally 
unpopular with the primitive and unshackled Maori, and the unprincipled and perhaps out- 
lawed white man; the latter of whom did not hesitate to excite the former to resist the new, 
.and to him far from improved state of things. Foreigners of more than one nation, jealous 
>of England's footing on these fine islands, as well as unpropitious to a regular form of govern- 
ment, and the exaction of port duties, are known to have secretly stirred up the jealous and 

• excitable natives by their misrepresentations ; and rumour has not spared the Jesuit mission 
the imputation of having undermined the progress of English rule in the mole-like modus 
operandi which has been ascribed to that religious body. Indeed a high public officer makes 
a distinct accusation to that effect. The causes of ill-blood between the races must have been 

-of gradual growth, and of various kinds. Governor Hobson enumerates among them the 
mania for land-jobbing which pervaded every class and had extended to the natives. In 
1840 he truly prophesied that when the conflicting claims should ' be brought under the con- 
sideration of the Commissioners appointed to investigate them, they would create a violent 
ferment through every class of society, both native and European. He knew perfectly well 
that the former would resist the execution of all awards that might be unfavourable to them ; 
and that it would require a strong executive, supported by a military force, to carry such 
decisions into effect.' The avidity for the possession of land on the part of the whites, the low 
price at which they obtained it from the native, and the high price for which it was sold 
soon after to other speculators, betrayed to the Maori the true value of the most precious 
commodity he had at his disposal. He repudiated past bargains or exacted additional remune- 
ration, lu vain the white purchaser displayed the parchment deed of sale, duly engrossed at 
Sydney and executed by both parties ; — for one may reasonably doubt whether a legal 



HEBREW FOR THE MAORI. 133 

instrument like the following would convey any very distinct idea to a heathen Maori — 
especially if it was convenieilt for him not to understand its provisions. For instance : — 

* CE^Uf JEntrnttUt^ made the of in the year of our Lord 184 hetween Hoky 

Poky Bloody Jack and other chiefs on the part of the Wai-wot-a-row tribe and Cimon Sharkey 
of Bloomsbury on the other part— &c. . . . And whereas the said Hoky Poky and Bloody 
Jack &c., have agreed with the said Cimon Sharkey for tlie absolute sale to him of the piece or 
parcel of land and heriditaments hereinafter described being &c. — &c. . . . at or for the price of 
six tomahawks two pounds of gunpowder one dozen of blankets one iron pot twenty Jews'-harps 
and a gimblet jiolD this Indenture witncsseth that in purauancc of such agreement and in 
consideration of the said six tomahawks &c. by the said C. S. to said H. P. and B. J. in hand 
well and truly paid &c. they the said H. P. and B. J. have granted bai^ained sold and released 
and by these presents do grant bargain sell and release unto C. S. his heirs and assigns all that 
parcel or parcels of land situate &c. — running fourteen miles back from the river frontage 
together with all the woods ways paths passives timber water* courses mines metals profits 
appendages and appurtenances and all and singular other the premises &c. . . . And the same 
may be held and enjoyed by the said Cimon Sharkey his heirs and assigns without any let suit 
molestation eviction ejection interruption or denial whatever by the said Hoky Poky &c 
according to the true intent and meaning of these presents ' — (which intent and meanvvj we 
should like to know how my friend Hoky Poky would ever arrive at !) — this precious instru- 
ment concluding perhaps with the following lucid explication — * always provided anything 
hereinbefore contained to the contrary notwithstanding!'—-— 

Governor Fitz Roy writes, that in nearly all the af&ays * the white man appears to have heea 
the aggressor, not always unintentionally. Ignorance of language, customs, boundaries, or tapa 
marks, has not caused so many quarrels as insult, deceit, or intoxication. Thus while the mis- 
sionary was endeavouring to christianise — and was emmently successful for a time — ^his 
numerous opponents were difiiising their vicious influence, and demoralising the followers of 
their depra\%d examples.' 

It was on account of the growing ill-will between the English and the natives, that the first 
Governor applied for a military force to be stationed in New Zealand. In consequence of this 
requisition the Governor of New South Wales was directed to send a force from Sydney ; and 
accordingly a party of the 80th R^., consisting of 3 officers and 84 men, with a commissariat 
officer and an ordnance store-keeper, were dispatched from Sydney to the Bay of Islands, and 
i-eached that place — ^then the seat of government— early in April, 1840. The detachment of 
the 80th had not long to wait for emplo3nnent ; for in less than two months after their arrival, 
a party was sent to quell a disturbance between some American seamen and the inhabitants of a 
native pah belonging to an influential chief. It was a drunken night-brawl, and no one was 
hurt on either side except a tipsy sailor and one native. Yet this first and trifling shock between 
the native and the English soldier was certainly not forgotten by the former. 

An apt instrument in the hands of the enemies of order and the British Government was 
found in the now famous Heki. This turbulent warrior, not a chief by descent, and, 
perhaps fortunately for the fate of the British settlements, never either liked or much respected 
by the majority of the real chieftains, lived as a boy in the capacity of servant at the Church of 
England missionary station at Pahia. Accompanying, as I have heard, the worthy Mr. Mai-sden 
to New South Wfdes, and residing in his service at Paramatta, he was continually found absent 
from his duties and was as constantly discovered in the Barrack-yard, looking on at the diill. 
His missionary education so far profited him that he had read as well as * heard of battles,' and 
had longed, like the less ambitious Nerval, not only * to follow to the field some warlike lord ' 
— but to be himself that lord. The exterminator Hoi^ — Christian like himself by very loose 
profession — gave him his first lessons in war and his daughter in marriage. At length his long- 
ings took the peculiar form of cutting down the British flag-staff, which designing persons had 
taught him to r^ard as the symbol of Maori subjugation and slavery. This desire seems to 
have amounted to a kind of monomania. Wound up for mischief, Honi Heki commenced 
operations by sundry depredations on the white settlers—carrying off horses, cattle, boats, &c. ; 
and in July, 1844, on a tiivial plea of having been insulted by a native woman married to an 
Englishman of Kororarika, he made his appearance at that settlement with an armed paity of 
wild young men, who remained therefor two days bullying and plundering the men, andbrutcally 
insulting the women. These unworthy eleves of the missionaries, •* afW performing prayei-s 
with arms in their hands,' proceeded in a body to the signal-hill, and cut down the flag-stali" 
with gieat ceremony. The police magistrate on this occasion dissuaded the male inhabitants 



134 OUB ANTIPODES. 

from armed resistance of tliis savikge inroad, although there were, t^ w said, a hundred men 
ready and willing to turn out under liis orders. It was evid^tly Heki's main object to excite 
the whites to hostilities, as a pretext for the commission of eveory hontir wheraef ihe man-brute 
is capable. Yet it is difficult to believe that an English magistrate, with a hundred armed 
Englishmen at his back, would hare counselled tame sulnnission to a couple of hundred Manis ; 
or that, if such counsel had been given, a hundred Englishmen would have been bound to follow 
it, and in so doing to see their wives and daughters insulted, and their property despdied by the 
barbarians I 

This first crusade against the standard of England by Held was, in &ct, a deliberate dedans 
tion of war ; for it was imdertaken by previous and open arrangement, and, in spite q£ Hne 
icmonstrances of the Missionaries, the Protector of Aborigines, and tiie Police Magistrate. * Is 
Te Rauperaha to have all the honour oi tilling the Pakehas ?* exclaimed the psendo-Christaan 
chief, adverting to the massacre of the Wairau which occurred some ten mimths beibi'e,-^«-a 
tolerably plain avowal of his intentions, and furnishing a motive for the evidentiy premeditated 
insults inflicted on these miraculously placid settlers of Kororarika ; for, placid to a quakerish 
•extent they must have been as a body, however individually intrepid, to have * turned the otlier 
<:beek,' not only on this comparatively trivial occasion, but <m ibsA oi the subsequent destmcium 
of the place, which I shall presently have to describe. 

The unlucky £lag*«taff of Russell, on which the Government chose to hoist the red crosB ui 
EnglcBid, was situated on the top of a high and rugj^ hill, sunoonded by tangled ravines, half 
a mile fiom the town ; and was, in £iot, so placed as a signal-mast for tel^raphing shippii^ 
-oui^de the bay. The proper place for the standard would have been within the town stockade ; 
and, surely, on the first occupaticm of a country where our welcome was so doubtful and psatkl 
•obstruction absolutely certain, no settlem^t ought to have been made or left without suc^ a 
place of refuge for the inhabitants in case of need, and where a &w sturdy soldiers mi^t luive 
defied any Maori attempt. But the fable of * the flag-staff' was like tliat of the * w<df and ihe 
lamb ;* and Heki, in the character of the former ravenous animal, would have found other bone 
of contention to pick, if fiag-staff there had been none. 

At the time of the first &11 of the flag at Kororarika, (which, as I have said, might be con- 
sidered, and was, indeed, regarded by tilie Government and the settlers as a most significant 
declaration of hostility on the part of Honi Heki's faction,) the military force at Auckland, the 
new seat of Government, amounted to about 180 soldiers of all ranks, beloi^ing to the 80th and 
96th Regiments. Lieut.-Govemor Fitz Roy, on hearing of Heki's outrages, immediately 
detached a small party — one ofHoer and thirty men — ^to the scene of riot, and wrote a prasnng 
requisition for a strong reinforcement to the Governor of New Sonth Wales, who so prompliy 
acted upon it, that on the 14th of the following month a detachment of 150 men of the 99th 
regiment, with two light guns, field equipages, stores and provisions, were disembarked at 
Koroiaiika, and encamped there. The Lieut.^Govemor himself soon afterwaixb arrived at the 
Bay of Islands in Her Majesty's ship Hazard, and instantly caused to be put on board fins ship 
and some other vessels a party of 210 stddiers, with which force, together with a body of aimed 
seamen, he crossed the'hai'bour to Heki's country. This sudden demoastreticKi of force, iti en- 
campment at Kororarika, and its rapid descent upcm the enemy's coast, had, doubtlesB, a good 
effect upon the wiser and less warlike native leaders, whose consequent mediation between the 
Governor and Heki prevented a collision which, considering the weakness of tiie Eng^h foroe, 
and the determined character of the natives, — ^not then fully appreciated, — ^with tin stxong md 
difficult country through which the invasion was to be carried, might have proved disastnnis to 
the British. 

Prior to sending back the troops to New South Wales, (pursuant to the desiie of the Governor 
of that colony) the Lieut^ovemor called a convocation of the neighbouring chiefs, and he met 
them at Waimate, the Church Missionary settlement in the Bay. The conference betw«en the 
English Governor and his officials, civil and military, the Missionary Clergy, the Maori leaders 
and their adherents, must have been a singular and interesting spectacle. His ExeellencT 
addressed the assembly in a speech full of indignation. He reminded them (^ the benefits 
wrought among them by the Missionaries, and explained to them that the Queen of Rn gi md 
iassumed the government of their islands for their own good, and to protect them from amRaaMa 
hy other nations ; that the Flag was the sacred sym£)l of that protection. Hie ExceHencr 
doaed his speech by a demand for a number of fii^e-arms to be given up by the assembled natrres 
as an atonement of Heki's misconduct. Thereupon several chiefs spnmg up, and bringing about 
twenty guns laid them at the Governor's feet. These he accepted in acknowledgment of Honi's 



CONFSBSErOB AT WAIMATE. 136 

errors, and immediately restored them to the Maoris. In letnni. His Bzoelle&cy had to litten, 
tbrough his interpreter, to some yery long-winded speeches, (not, howerer, devoid of wild 
eloquence, and even of good feeling,) from the native chiefs, among whom the paasioa for ontorj 
is Tery strcmg. No fewer than twenty-four men of note got upon their legs on this oocaaioii. 
I subjoin a few spedmens of these ontions, or rather their pith. 

Moses Tawhai (a brave warrior, and staunch ally of tiie British afterwards) said,—' Wel- 
oome, Governor I your kindness is great. My heart has been roasted and cooked on aooonnt of 

this circumstance of Heki's Don't imagine that evil will entirely cease. It will 

not. You must expect more troubles from us ; but when they oome^ settle them in this 
ymsy ; and not with guns and soldiers. Governor, I give you my first welcome, folly acknow- 
ledging you as Governor of this country.' 

Anaru said, -^ * My people are a troublesome people. Do not be disooaraged. Many 
Euivpeans have had troubles with the Maoris ; but nothing very serious has ever taken place. 
Do not be disooonged. Governor, welcome ! Remember, Heki is a child of Hongi, and has 
always been troublesome. Do not be discouraged.' 

TonuUi Waha, NeM^ (our firmest natiye iHend.) — *• Governor, if that flag^^taff is cnt down 
s^ain, we will fight for it : we will fight for it all of us. We are of one tribe, and we will 
iig^t for the staff and for our Governor. I am sorry that it has occurred; but you may 
return the soldiers. Return, Goremor ; we will take care of the flag ; we, the old folks, are 
wwlWdisposed, and will make the young fidks so also.' 

SikktMo (the would-be Qnfaitius Cuitios of the Maori race) then sprung up and said, — * X 
am the man who cnt tiie staff down. Do not look after that man, Heki. Take me as pay- 
ment WhoisHekl?--whDisHeki? Take me!' 

The sel^«acrifice does not appear to hare been accepted. Before leaving Waimate, IQs 
Exc^ency received a characteristic letter from Heki — see note.* 

The hollow truce ^ected by the Koriro above noticed was of short duration. Enemies of 
England and order, national and denominational adrersaries, were active in perverting the 
minds of the Maoris by every means — among which the practice of translating aocordii^ to 
thobr -views, and garbling passages from the local and English newspapers, was very effective. 
In January, 1845, accordingly, Johnny Hicky (as the soldiers called him) made another gather^ 
ing of the wild yonngsters at his beck for any deed of mischief, and with than paid a nocturnal 
visit to the old object of bis antipathy, the fiag-staff, which had been duly r&«erected and was 
guarded by friendly natives. These recreant guardiwis, being connected with Honi's tribe, and 
unwilling, as they afterwards said, to shed Uo^ for a bit of wood, made buta faint resistance ; 
•— the axe was once more laid to the root of the staff; the red cross kissed the dust ; and the 
rebel chief sent his compliments to the resident magistrate, to say that he would retnm in a 
couple of months to bom the Government buildings, and eject the Government offieens from the 
settienient. His Excellency, now oonvinoed that Sie disaffected party had gamed strength and 
were bent on coming into actual collision with the authorities, again applied to New South 
Wales ftr an aoceasion of force — which, however, owing to the difficulty of obtaining tonnage 
for its transport and stress of weather, did not leave Sy&ey until the 11& March, the very day 
on which the third and crowning visitation of the Waimate Missionary pet to the doomed 
settiement of Kororsrika occurred, when it was effectually surprised, taken, sacked, and bnmt I 

In the previous month H.M.S. Haxoird had conveyed to that place from Auckland, a detach- 
ment of fbfty men with two subaltern officers— all that could be spared from the weak garrison 
cvf the ciqrital ; and they carried with them the materials for a musket-proof blockhoose to pro- 
tect tlft already twice dishonoured fhig-etaff. ' The settlers,' relates Captain Pits Roy, *• were 
armed and drilled, although very reluctantly on their port. A strong stockade wns erected as a 
place of safety for the women and children, and some light guns were mounted. No anxiety as 
to the result of any attack was entertained, but on the contrary there was rather oveiHSonfidenoe, 
and far too low an opinion of the native enterprise and valour. During the first days of March 
anned parties of natives collected in the neighboorhood of Russell, carrying off horses and 
destroying property. Other fiirays followed, which prepared the English-— or ought to have 

* •Friend Governor,— Tbia is my speech to you. My disobedience and my mdeneas is no new thing. 
I iidieTlt it from my parents, from my ancestnrs. Do not imagine that it is a new feature in my 
oluaaeter. But I am thinking of leaving *M my rude conduct towards the Europeans. Now. I say that! 
will prepare a new pole, inland at Walmata, and I will erect it in its proper place at Kororarika, in order 
to put an end to our present quarrel. Lot your soldiers remain beyond sea and at AnddaDd. Do not send 
them here. The pole that was cut down belonged to me, I made it for the Maori flag, and it was never 
iJeidforbytheEngUsh. From your fHend. (Signed) Hoai Hbd Pokai.' 



136 OUB ANTIPODEB. 

prepared them, for further troubles ; but no one expected — no Englishman bad a right to exjiect, 
the disastrous and disgraceful results of the 11th March, 1845. 

Having brought my reader up to that peiiod which may be looked upon as iJie opening of the 
Anglo-Maori war, I will, with his leave, conduct him also to the spot where the fii-st blow was 
struck ; aad, having placed him by my side on the summit of the signal-hill, we will look forth 
over the scene of operations. We are about three or four bundled feet above the sea, on a nar- 
raw platform of tolerably level ground, where a company of in&ntry could scarcely be paraded. 
It is as though we stood on the crest of a huge wave, surrounded by hundreds of tamilar billows 
with deep dark hollows between them. The flanks of these smpng elevations and the gorges 
dividing them are thickly clad with fern nearly man's height, and with stunted storm-worn 
shrubs. The cluster of hills forms a rugged peninsula, whereof three sides are embraced by the 
devious waters of the Bay of Islands. The view across this fine estuary is remarkable for pic- 
turesque 'beauty- — various pretty islands gemming its glossy bosom. On its opposite shore, 
some four or five miles distant, you descry tiie level plains of Victoria, where the first Go- 
vernment officer ever employed in New Zealand first pitched his tent ; and, fm-ther on, the 
green, sheltei-ed, and peaceful nook of the Waimate station, eloquent of Missionary thrift and 
emulative of ancient monastic acumen in choice of site. Beyond these the swelling ferny hills, 
rising gradually into mountains of wilder and grander form, lose themselves in the showery 
clouds conmion to tliis climate. 

Rounding the head of the Bay we pass ov«.* the snug-looking but ill-chosen military Can- 
tonment of Wahapu — not more than three miles from Kororarika by water, but separated by 
seven miles of rough hill and gully from this place, which it is intended to support. Approach- 
ing Kororarika from that direction, our eyes fall upon a mass of heights somewhat suniiar to 
that on which we stand, but of smaller extent and elevation, and between them, under our feet, 
the yellow crescent of Kororarika Cove, about three-quarters of a mile in length. Accommo- 
dating itself to the cur^^e of the beach, runs a double line of white-washed wooden houses, con- 
stituting the present town, arisen, though much reduced in size, from its ashes. At the 
furthest extremity thereof, close imder the opposite buttress of the little cove, is seen a group of 
buildings, showing more of age and greater evidence of care and prosperity than its neghbours. 
This is the French Roman Catholic Missionaiy Station, pi-esided over by Bishop Pompalier — ^the 
only portion of the town spared by the invaders. Immediately behind the town extends a some- 
what swampy plain or common, backed by a ridge of shrubby hills, which completes iiie seou- 
circular enclosure of the settlement by high ground within musket range. 

With its quiet anchorage, land-locked from prevailing winds, and its level site favourable for 
building, it is difficult to conceive a more convenient spot as a resort for whaling or other ve«seb 
seeking refreshment, repair, or recreation such as Jack ashore loveth ; and niched within a duster 
of hills, with somewhat similar coves favourable for the landing of canoes in rear of them, it is 
equally difficult to conceive a settlement, founded in the midst of a country of warlike savages, 
more vulnerable to attack and surprise ; — except indeed its neighbour Wahapu. Half way up 
the ridge behind the village stand the Episcopd and Catholic places of worship— modest weather- 
board Sifices. With the glass we can perceive several gun-shot holes in the front wall of the 
former, for which it was indebted to the broadside of the Hazard, Near the base of the heights, 
on which we stand some blackened ruins and dismantled gardens, with two or three rusting car- 
ronades lying amongst them, denote the site of the stockaded house blown up during the attack. 
Thence, the ascent to the Signal Hill is extremely steep — so steep as to be cut into steps of earth 
fronted with plank. The last object the eye rests on in completing the cuxile within its range, 
is the fallen flag-staff rotting where it fell, whilst the native-cut Kauri spar intended to replace 
it lies helplessly on the beach below, as if waiting for a centipede's power to crawl up to its 
appointed station I There are traces also of two block-houses — one protecting the flag-staff, the 
other below the dip of the hill, well posted to cross a fire w^ith the town stockade a^ barrack, 
but affording no support to the uppei* block-house. 

On the night of the 10th of March, Heki and his veteran associate in arms and mischief, 
Kawiti, with a force variously computed at fix)m 1,200 to 500 men (the former chief afterwards 
declared that not more than 200 were in the attack, although 1,000 joined in the sacking,) 
landed their respective parties in the two coves of Onoroa and MataWa. The former disposed 
his men in close ambush among the ferny ravines in rear of the Signal Hill ; and so favourable 
is the grounci for such an operation that the chief and his foremost men lay undiscovered and 
unsuspected within a few yaixls of the block-house, biding their time with all the patience and 
motionless silence of the savage. So well matured wei'e their plans to make the sui-prise 



TBIUMPHS OF THE SAVAGES. 137 

complete, that they were not tempted to deviate from them by killing or capturing the junior 
of the two officers, who late that night passed close to one of their bands, little thitiJdng of the 
fierce eyes liiat were glaring on him through the underwood skirting his path. Kawiti placed 
his followers in concealment close to the opposite flank of the settlement. Although Heki, in 
accordance with Maori custom, had given the authorities of Kororarika a blustering promise of 
attack, and various and, if report be veracious, equally blustering preparations to meet it had 
been made, on the night in question no person, civil, naval, or military, dreamed of the oovdon 
of lurking savages by which tliey were compassed round. Instead of lynx-eyed vigilance, 
careless carousing was the order of the day in many of the houses of the town ; and, unless 
iTonour lies, some of the most prominent heroes of the morning ' bore their blushing honours * 
liberally bedewed with — grog I The professional belligerents, it appears, were perfectly on the 
alert — the little detachment of soldiers, disposed in the upper block-house and the barrack, 
sleeping with their loaded arms by their sides, and an armed body of seamen and marines, under 
the command of the acting commander of the Hazard^ being stationed on shore for the night. 
The lower block-house was occupied by some twenty of the towns-folk, with three small gims 
mounted on a platform in front of it. 

The weather favoured the assailants, for the morning of the 11th March broke over the earth 
in clouds and haze. At the first gleam of day the young ensign in chaige of the block-house 
started with a few men, and with more zeal tiian prudence, to finish a breast-work on a height 
looking into Onoroa Bay, where a picquet had been posted during the day, at a distance and 
separated by nigged ground from his post. This working party carried with them then* 
entrenching tools and arms. Fifteen men were left under a central in the signal block-house. 
The lieutenant in command had repaired to the barrack to turn out his detachment, and the 
commander of the Hazard had proceeded with an armed party to complete a little field work 
for a gun on the spur of a hill commanding the road to Matavia Bay. The ensign had just 
broken ground when several shots from the side of Matavia attracted his notice, and he 
immediately fell back towards the block-house. Under the impression that his officer had been 
attacked, the corporal got his moi under arms, and, with as little forethought as his superior 
had shown, advanced towards the brow of the hill, leaving only three or four men at the post. 
But finding that the firing was from the further side of the town, the gallant but out-witted 
non-commissioned office was in the act of returning to his little forties, when suddenly, and &s 
if from the bowels of the earth, a strong body of well-armed Maoris sprung with loud yelb out 
of the gullies on its flanks and rear, one party of them rushing into the block-house and 
instantly destroying its few defenders, another opening on the soldiers a heavy fire, which, as 
reports the gallant corporal, * repelled us back.' ' Firing and retiring,' he retaieated upon the 
officer's party, who, reforming the whole of his men, attempted to retake the lost block-house. 
In this he was frustrated by the fire of a cloud of native sharpshooters spread unseen among 
the brushwood, as well as from the captors of the post, when finding that these soldiers of 
nature were striving to throw a force between him and the lower block-house, his only rallying- 
point, he retreated upon and took possession and command of it. 

Meanwhile the Lieutenant of the 96th, and the naval Commander, had barely reached their 
posts, when the latter was attacked, as is said, by about 200 men, who, taking advantage of 
the darkness, their knowledge of the ground, and the cover afforded by the brushwood and flax 
tussocks, outflanking and outnumbering the Fnglish, gradually drove them, fighting hand to 
hand, back upon the town, killing and wounding seveitil, but suffering severely themselves. 
Near an angle of the churchyard-fence, I was shown the spot where the gallant Captain 
Robertson cut down a stalwart chief, and recdved five desperate wounds while dealing sturdy 
blows right and left among the swarthy foes by whom he was encompassed. Lieutenant 
Barclay, with his detachment, was so briskly attacked in front and flank as to bring him to a 
check, and finally to compel him to retire with the naval party, whose ammunition had failed 
them, to the lower block-house, into which he threw his people just as its beleaguers, becoming 
more audacious, had pressed close up to its walls. 

A considerable reinfcnxsement of Maoris now came pouring over the hills, and a large party, 
rushing down a gully, seized the barracks, of which, always indefensible and now deserted, 
they took possession. A gun on the platform opened upon the barrack to dislodge them, while 
the two others blazed away among the thickets in front, filled with skirmishing natives. The 
gtdlant Philpotts, an ofiScer of the JIazardy who fell afterwards at Ohaiowai, proposed *to rush 
the hills ' if supported by the soldiers, and drive off these daring savages ; and although this 
measure was not acceded to by the lieutenant in command, a few soldiers and sailors dasi 



138 OUB ANTEP0DB8. 

without ordens, and cleared the front of the block-hoiise. An attempt to retain the ujjper 
block-house was also proposed by a bold civilian, but his proposal wae zioi seconded ; nor ooald 
it possibly have succeeded, the fern being filled without lying aayages doee upon the w<nk, and 
ready to ceoss thdr fire with their friends within it. What has been lost by an afOfe of groaa 
D^ect can rarely be redeemed by one of gross temerity, although, perhaps, the oonHaiflslon o£ 
the fcmner fiiult might account for and excuse the latter. 

It was now mid^lay. The women and children had bem removed frxim the crowded rooms 
and cellars of the stockade to the shipping; and this fortunate migration had bai«ly been 
oomi^eted, when, to put a olinuuc to the confasion, the magazine withm the building exploded, 
wounding seyeral persons and entirely destroying the place, tiie last refuge of the non-eombataiits. 
In consequence of this mishap, whereby the greater part of the spare ammunitkm w«s lost, 
a council of war wb» held on board the Hazard, and the resolution to evacuate and abandon at 
sundown the settlemoit of Koroiarika was passed and adopted. Accordingly, duxing a tnioe 
which had been demanded by the chiefs to carry off their killed and wound«l, Hie military and 
dvilians were embarked on boafd H.M.'s ship Mazard, ^ib United States oorvefate 8t% Ixntit 
(which was present during the conflict, bat remained neutral), the whale<ehip MaHlda, and the 
JDo^hin schooner. The party of military in the block-house were Uie last to embazk. Doling 
the evening, a few of the townspeople who were most popular with the natives were employed 
in bringing off porti<8is of their property.* Astonished at their own success, the Maoris 
deliberately perftnrmed the usual rites over the dead, danced the usual quantum of war-daxioes, 
indulged in long-winded koriros or boasting speedies ova* their pipes> and then commg down 
fi!om the hills in a body, plundered the stores and dwelling-houses so obligingly ceded to them. 
On the afternoon of the following day they burnt the town to the ground, ' and a settlemoii of 
very early days, but of great iniquity,' reports Colonel Hule, * is now a mass of ruins.' 

The 96th's loss was &ur men MUed and five wounded. The Hazard lost six men killed and 
eight wounded; and Captain Robertson's hurts were so severe, that his life was for seme time 
despaired of. The loss of the natives was put down at about ei^ty killed and wounded^ bat 
they acknowledged to no such amoimt. The offiows lost the greater part of thdr baggage, and 
about 40/. of public money ; and the soldiers the wbcde of their greatNeoots and Uts^ baxnck* 
bedding and uteittils — ^fine plunder for the Maoris, in whose eyes an English Uanket is as great 
a treasure and an article of costume as absolutely ds HgueitTf as a Cashmere shawl in those of a 
Froioh lady. On the 13th, the shipping got under w^h from the Cove on its way to Auckland, 
and Kororarika ceased to enst as a British settlement. 

Such is the singular, the almost incredible, story of the fall of Kororarika. I have coonrcned 
with eye- witnesses, read public and private accounts thereof; of course studied all the miiitaiy 
documents relating thereto ; yet to me the climax is inexplicable. The word panio afibrds, 
probably, its only solution. The towni^ieople, the garrison, the marine force, were duly Are* 
warned of an intended attack ; there was a detacbament of fifty British solctiers^^oaqxised^ 
indeer], as the Colonel reports, of very young men, < scarcely dismissed drill ;' — ^with two bulieU 
proof block-houses and a stockaded building ; a British sloop of war, carrying fourteen gms, 
moored within a quarter of a mile of the shoiie, with pinnace, or other heavy' boat; caq^dkle, 
I conclude, of placing a gun or two in closer action, if necessary. A strong party of seamen and 
marines, well armed and oificered, were stationed ashore; there were some police, tDi^o or three 
old soldiers capable of mani^nng the guns in battery ; tiiere were arms and ammunitioB for all 
hands, and more than one full-of-fight-ful townsman ready to lead to battle the armed dviUan^ 
of whom a few months before, as reported by one of theor number, ' there were not lesi than 
100 men ready to stand up in defonoe of their families and property.' These seem aihiihaUe 
materials for defence against a desultory foray of undisoipliued barbarians ; but there was no 
head, or too many, to direct them ! Civilians were permitted to interfere with the miittary, 
instead of being compelled to act as subordinates, or to manage their own amateur soldiering 
independentiy of the regular forces. The round shot of Ihe sloop and the block-house did but littie 
execution amongst a wily enemy dispersed over broken and- scrubby ground ; and for the same 
reason the musketry was nearly as innocuous ; the glacis of the signal blodthousewas ohstrocted 
by the hut of the signal-man and by rough gullies running up dose to the ditdi ; the two woiks 
were not provisioned ; they did not enfilade each other. In short, the afl^r of Russell is, I 
suppose, a proof on a small scale that we are not a military natiott ! The loss was irretrievable, 
the ennor inexplicable ; because it opened the eyes of the natives to their own power, and broke 
down the prestige of British superiority and the previous infidlibiliiy of the British soldier. 
* iSespatoh of Lient-Colonel Hulme, 96th Begt coounaading in New Zeala&d. 



HEEI THREATENS THE CAPITAL. 189 

Nothing, I ^ncy, could have been more foreign to Heki's intention, or more titter!^ beyond his 
hopes, than the idea of taking, saeking, and destroying an English garrison town I His visit was 
to the * kara ' — the coloor, — ^type as he thoagfat of Maori subjugation. He had outwitted and 
ontmanoeuyred its incautious defoiders, and having eut it down his object was effected. His 
quarrel was not with the inhabitants, but with the Government, with the flag, uid its guard. 
Tlie evacuation of the settlement by fhe townsfolk was an absurdity. The land and marine 
forces would, of course^ have stood by them had they remained, and the town could scarcely 
have been plundered imder the guns of the Hazard. I do not agree, however, with certain 
philo>Maorists, in the opinion that the inhabitants might have remained with perfect safety in 
their homes, even had Uiey been deserted by the soldiers and sailore ; far the passions of the 
barbarians were thoroughly roused, and every brutal outrage of which * the noble savage ' is 
capable, would assuredly have beiallen both man and woman. 

Two Christian Bishops, Dr. Selwyn, and M. Pompalier, head of the Jesuit mission, were 
present at this unblessed conflict. The former, who had arrived in his little yacht^ employed 
himself with the greatest assiduity in asristing the wounded and helpless in embanking. ' Was 
it not a tenrible scene ?' said I to tiie good prelate one day, striving to elicit his opinion of the 
afifldr. * It was a painfoi, a veiy painful sight !' was the gnve reply. He added that the 
plundering vras conducted wil^ the utmost moderation — the savages pillaging from one door of 
a house, whilst the owners were removing goods by the other. There were not wanting those 
'who read in the destructkm of Kororarika a judgment upon its crimes. As for me, from its 
foregone history, I viewed it as a dirty littie place, doubtless the scene of many dirty little 
vices, but, that to suppose it the object of special vengeance from on High, would be to invest 
it with too much dignity; 

On the an-ival of tfa» ships in Auckland, great was the tumult and panic, for Honi had 
boasted ^t he would attack the capital next. The late inhabitants of Kororarika, who had 
lost all their property, and perhaps no little of their self-respect, were loud in their reproaches 
against the military and the Government oflicials, making such gross imputations against the 
two young officers as compelled the Lieutenant-€olonel commanding in Kew Zealand to con- 
vene a couil-martlal for the investigation of the charges. The Lieutenant was 'most fully 
and most honourably acquitted ' by the court. The Ensign was airaigned < for that he did 
heedlessly and carelessly guard the block-house committed to his charge, and evacuate the 
sane without sufficient cause and without orders from his superior officer.' He was found 
sfnilty, with the exception of the word ' evacuating/ and sentenoed to be severely reprimanded. 
His were merely fhe errors of inexperience. 

A sentence of outlawry wns pamed against Heki imd his ally Kawiti — ^which, it is likely, 
did not seriously affect the ^irifs, appetite, and health of these warriors ; but, what was 
mnch more important, tiie Gowmor was assailed by writers in the papers and * other 
thoughtless persons,' burning for vengeanoe and blind to all risk from its hasty indulgence, 
who urged him to fit out a retributive expedition against the rebel chiefs. Sorely against 
his own jadgmeut and expressed opinion, he tiierefoie gave dhrectiens for the ill-faiced expe- 
dition under Lieut.-Oolonel Hulme. 

A rumour was rifo in Auckland that Heki, the missionary Christian,-->the great qnoter 
of Scripture, and, therefore, perverter thereof, — elated with his success, intended to attack 
the Christian capital with 2,000 men at the next full moon. Fortanately, however, a con- 
siderable accession of fofroe reached that station towards the end of March in H.H.'s ship 
North Star, which, together with a small transport, brought six officers and 200 men of tbe 
58th regiment to restore confidence to the desponding colonists, many of whom, under ^ 
mtinence of the better part of valour, were leaving New Zealand for more tranquil quarters. 
Civil warfare, moreover, operated pretty strenuously to divert Johnny's attention from his 
object; for the brare and loyal chief of Hokianga, TomatI Waka, with his brother, raised 
their tribe, and, true to his promise at the Waistiate cmvention, attacked the conqueror of 
Kororarika and the enemy of the British flag ou his own territory. Finding himself, how- 
ever, unable to cope with superior numbers, or tired of fighting— for your Maori, tiiough 
fond of war, is incapable of long^snstained operations — Waka urged the Governor to hasten to 
his assistance ; and accordingly His Excellency, conceiving that the case admitted of no delay, 
dispatched all the force he could muster to the Bay of Islands with discretionary orders to 
its leaders, Lieutenant-Colonel Hulme and Captain Sir E. Home, to attack Heki in conjunc- 
tion with Waka, whenever fit occasion might occur. 

The expedition, embarking at Auckland, reached Kororarika on the 28th of April, o**^ 



140 OUR ANTIK)DK8. 

foand the North Star in the bay. The gallant captain and colonel, in order to re-establish 
the authority of the Queen at that place, landed immediately with a guard of honoar, and 
once more, with every ceremony, hoisted the British flag. After seizing the person and the 
pah of a disaffected chief named Pomare, a few miles up the harbour, the expedition sailed 
for and anchored off the missionary station of Pahia, across the bay, where Tomati Waka 
came on board and held a conference with the British commanders, urging instant action 
against Heki, whose force he rated at 1,200 men. This sagacious and loyal chief indicated 
the best route for the march, and promised to co-operate with 800 of his tribe. H.M.'s ship 
Hazard having meanwhile joined the expedition, at daylight on the 3rd of May the force, 
consisting of thesmall-ai'med seamen, the marines, and the military — in all about 400 men — 
disembarked at a point about thirty miles distant from Waka's pah, which they hoped to 
reach in two days, carrying five days' biscuit and two days' cooked meat. There was no 
means of transport for spare ammunition, camp equipage, cooking utensils, or the spirit ration. 
So tremendous was the weather and the state of the roads that the colonel did not reach his 
destination until the 5thy and he found there but wretched shelter from the continual rain. 

The following morning the colonel, as he reports, * had a koriro with Walker ; and when 
he found that I intended to assault Heki's pah, and force an entrance by pulling down the 
palisades, he smiled, and said we were all madmen, and that every man would be sacrificed 
in the attempt ; and to impress his opinions more forcibly he declared that we could not 
easily take his pah, which was not half so strong as Heki's.' White persons who had been 
there informed him, * that it had three rows of palisades all round it ; that there was a deep 
ditch inside ; that large stones had been piled up against the inner palisades ; and that tra- 
vei'ses had been cut from side to side, and deep holes dug, in which the rebels would 
shelter themselves from our fire and destroy the troops as they advanced.' He had no 
artillery, but he possessed a few rockets, the effect of which he was resolved to try; and 
fe»ling, as he says, ' that the chances of war are many/ the gallant officer placed his force 
in position near that of the enemy, formed in three parties of assault and a reserve, prepared 
to seize an opportunity for storming it should accident offer one. 

On the morning of the 8th of May the English force, accompanied by about 300 of 
Waka's tribe, marched from that chiefs stockade towards Heki's camp—- the friendly natives 
wearing a white head-band to distinguish them from the foe. The reserve halted in rear of a 
ridge about 300 paces from the rebel pah ; while the three assaulting parties—one composed 
of armed seamen, another of the 58th Light Company, and the third of detachments of the 
marines and 96th Regiment — advanced and occupied under a heavy fire the positions pre- 
viously arranged, within two hundred yards of the work, driving some natives from a small 
breastwork. 'And now,' observes the colonel in his despatch, ' more closely examining Heki's 
pah, I was convinced that it was impossible to take it by assault until it was first breached, 
without a great sacrifice of life and with uncertain success, for the pah had been unusually 
strengthened, the flax leaf having been forced into the interstices of the outer palisades to 
turn the musket balls. The rocket party, under command of Lieutenant Egerton, of H.H.'s 
ship North Star, took up a position, and fired several rockets, but in consequence of Heki 
having covered the roofs of the huts with flax leaf they did not set them on fire. A few of 
the rebels Ipft the pah on the first rockets exploding, but they afterwards returned to it — the 
affair of Kororarika having accustomed Heki and his main body to the operation of shells.' 

Meanwhile the besieged were not idle, nor did they show themselves ignorant of that very 
effective method of protracting defence — ^the sortie ; for a strong body under Kawiti, stealing 
through the bush, were in the act of falling upon the unprotected flank of the advanced posts, 
when the ambush was detected by the sharp and practised eye of a friendly native. Warned 
of the impending danger these parties, directing a heavy fire upon the spot, made a spirited 
charge, driving the enemy in confusion before them, and killing many at close quarters ; — the 
British bayonet doing its work in its usual style when fairly brought to bear on its object. 
Soon aftei*wards some signalising, by means of flags, took place between Heki within the 
fortress and Kawiti without. The result was a combined attack by these leaders on the 
advanced position, in which many of the boldest reached the entrenchment previously taken, 
and were there killed. Kawiti was again repulsed by the bayonet with some loss. Yet was 
this not the last effort of the hoaiy warrior, who was much more liberal of his person than 
his younger and stronger associate (a tall and athletic man, while Kawiti is small and 
decrepit) — for when the advanced posts were ordered to retire on the reserve, and were 
bringing off their wounded, unsupporied by Heki he made a third and fierce attack upon our 



HEKI KEASONS ON PAPEB. 141 

people, which was checked and finally repulsed by the skirmishers. It was said that the old 
chieftain here narrowly escaped the bayonets of a party under the Adjutant of the 58th, him- 
self a formidable antagonist : — making up for his want of activity by his skill in concealing 
his person in the scrub, he was fairly run over more than once. The British loss was fourteen 
soldiers, seamen aud marines, killed : two officers, four sergeants, thirty-two soldiers, seamen 
and marines, and one private servant, wounded. The loss of the rebels could not be correctly 
ascertained. Several chiefs were slain ; old Kawiti was rendered childless, two of his sons 
being killed ; besides which several near relatives, and nearly the whole of his tribe who 
were present, fell in the skirmishes. Having collected his wounded, the English leader com- 
menced a retrograde movement, and reached on the evening of the 8th Waka's stockade. 
Harassed by heavy rain, and encumbered with his wounded, he arrived on the 12th at Pahia, 
the missionary settlement, where he awaited further orders from the Governor. 

Thus ended the first series of operations undertaken against Honi Held, the missionary lad, 
in his fortress of Okaehau. The unsuccessful issue of this expedition is attributable to one 
radical want — ^the want of battering artillery. The troops, indeed, suffered under a multitude 
of minor difHculties, such as are enumerated in the official letter of Colonel Hulme, — most of 
them rendered unavoidable by the public indigence ; among which were the absence of car- 
riages or beasts of burthen, of camp equipment, and of hospital, commissariat, and store depart- 
ments. But soldiers belonging to an army .whose energies the flaming sun of Hindostan and 
the icy hurricanes of America have alike failed to daunt, would have derided hardships such as 
befell them here, however severe, if the war munitions absolutely necessary to place their 
enemy within their reach had been afforded them. The Colonel states his unquestionably cor- 
rect opinion, that in New Zealand 'the troops should be actively employed only when the 
season of the year is favourable for military movements ;' and that *■ whenever it may be 
necessary to assemble a force to crush a rebellion of the natives, the troops should not be em- 
ployed on that duty without a proper equipment, in order to be able to act with vigour and 
alacrity ; and every aid which modem wai'fare affords.' 

A few days after the affair of Okaehau, Archdeaicon Williams had an interview with Heki 
— once his mission servant, now a great rebel chieftain, successful in two battles, in both 
attack and defence, against English disciplined forces ; and the reverend missionary proposed 
terms of peace to him. Certain places were to be vacated by the natives, and ceded to the 
English ; horses, boats, and other property belonging to Europeans to be restored ; the flag- 
staff to be paid for 'staff for staff;' the rebel leader himself to retire to Wangaroa for two 
years ; ' afler which, if he remained quiet, the Governor would receive him.' 

Upon the subject of this proposal, Honi addressed a letter to the Governor, of which the 
following are a few characteristic passages : — 

* Friend the Governor, * May 21st, 1845. 

' I have no opinion to offer in this affair, because a death's door has been opened. . . . 
Where is the correctness of the protection offered in the Treaty ?♦ Where is the correcViess 
of the good-will of England ? Is it in her great guns ? Is it in her Congreve rockets ? Is the 
good-will of England ^own in the curses of Englishmen and in their adulteries ? Is it shown 
in their calling us slaves ? or is it shown in their regai'd for our sacred places ? 

* . . . The Europeans taunt us. They say, ** Look at Port Jackson, look at China, and 
all the islands ; they are but a precedent for this country. That flag of England which takes 
your country is the conmiencement." After this the French, and ^ter them the Americans, 
told us the same. 

* Well, I assented to these speeches .... and in the fifth year (of these speeches) we inter- 
fered with the flag-staff for the first time. We cut it down, and it fell. It was re-erected ; 
aud then we said, " All this we have heard is true, because they persist in having the flag- 
staff up." And we said, " We will die for our country which God has given us." .... 

' If you demand our land, where are we to go to ? To Port Jackson ? To England ? If 
you will consider about giving us a vessel it will be very good. Many people — (here he enu- 
merates tribes) — took a part in the plunder of Kororarika. There were but 200 at the fight, 
but there were 1,000 at the plundering of the town. Walter's fighting is nothing at all. He 
is coaxing you, his friend, for property, that you may say he is feithful. I shall not act so. 

He did not consider that some of his people were at the plunder of the town lb was 

through me alone that the missionaries and other Europeans were not molested. Were any- 

• Treaty of Waitangi. 



142 OUB ANTIPODES. 

thing to happen to me all would be oonfu^on. The nafcives would not oonsider them hai-mless 

Europeans, but would kill in all directions. It is I alone who restrain them If you 

say we are to fight, I am quite agreeable ; if you say you will make peace with your enemy, I 
am equally agreeable. . . « I now say to you, leave VValker and myself to fight. We are 
both Maoris. You turn and fight with your own colour. It was Walker who called the 
soldiers to Okaehau, and therefore they were killed ; that is all. Peace must be determined 
by you, the Governor. 

• From me, John Wiluah Pokai (Heki).' 

Ib this originial letter there is too much of truth to be pleasant to the reader possessing 
a conscience and a recollection of some passages in our colonisation of countries peopled by 
nices wearing skins of any shade darker than our own. The * little learning ' the savage 
mission-boy had picked up at the Station of Waimate had taught him to distrust the disinter- 
estedness of our conquests and the purify of our rule. The barbarian chief argues from 
analogy, judges of the future by precedents in past history, and arrives. at the logical con- 
elusion, Uiat whether he fights or trudclcs, he will eventually be swallowed up by Kii)<; 
Stork I A few days after writing the above letter, Heki, in making an attack upon the pafa 
of his pertinacious old foe Waka, who, nothing daunted by the retreat of the British, held his 
ground, received a bad wound by a musket shot in the thigh, from the effects of which he 
never entirely recovered, and which partly caused his death in the year 1850. Ueki was 
more of a diplomatist than a sabrewy not possessing much physical courage ; his person and 
features were fine, with a small cunning eye, and a massive obstinate chin. 

The expedition under Colonel Hulme, — a most intrepid and experienced soldier,' — althougL 
in the noain unsuccessful, caused the dispersion of the rebek for a time at least, as well as the 
loss of some of tlieir bravest men. But scarcely had the ships and troops returned to Auck- 
land when information was received that Heki was again collecting forces, and was actlvelr 
engaged in building a new pah which would be stronger than any yet constructed in New 
Zealand. Reinforcements continued to arrive from Sydney, where Sir George Gipps and the 
Commander of the Forces were making every exertion in their power to assist the Iocs! 
Government of New Zealand. It was of the utmost importance to prevent the rebels from 
making head, and collecting the disaffected from other pai*ts of the island : therefore, without 
delay, another expedition was prepared on a larger scale ; and the command of it was cod- 
fided to Colonel Despard of the 99th regiment. The first expedition had expected to cany 
all before them, and failed. The second expedition, organised with greater foresight, aod 
with the experience afforded by past disaster, was still more sanguine, and had better cause 
to be so ; yet the attempt to storm Heki's new stronghold was mistiated with a deplorable 
loss of life on our side. 

Colonel Despard having heard on the 13th June, from an Englishman who had seen Heki, 
that his wound was very severe, and that the ball had only been cut out the day befi>re, re- 
solved to hasten his movements. The vessels aocoi-dingly got under weigh from Eororarika at 
daylight on the 16th; crossed the Bay of Islands quickly; and the troops being landed, 
reached the Station at Waimate the following morning early. By a return, dated 15th June, 
the force (not including the armed seamen and marines, of whom I can find no account) 
appears to have consisted, in round numbers, as follows: — Twenty-four officers and 510 men 
of all ranks of the 58th, 96th, and 99th regiments ; one officer of engineers, one of artillerv , 
two of the commissariat ; volunteers from the Auckland Militia for the services of the Ro^l 
Artillery and Engineers, two officers and seventy-five men; Ordnance, — two 12-Ib. howitzers, 
two six-pounders. Nearly the same difficulties which harassed the former, beset the present 
expedition, — rainy weather and almost impassable roads ; paucity of means of transport, and 
consequent short supply of military and commissariat stores ; a difficult country, covered in 
some parts with brushwood seven or eight feet high, and only a footpath traversing it, and 
intersected with high-banked and swampy streams ; guns without tmnbrils or limbers, having 
ship-carriages with wheels fifteen inches high, little suited^ to New Zealand mud, iamons for 
depth and tenacity — such were a few of the impediments in the way of the troops on the road 
to Waimate. 

It was not until the 23rd that the force was encamped in front of Ohaiowai — about 350 
yards from the &ce of the stockade, covered by an eminence. From Waka's position, the 
Colonel, as he writes, * obtained a bird's-eye view of the pah. It is mtuated in a hollow jjain, 
in form a parallelogram, about 150 to 200 yards long, by 100 broad each face. On two 
angles there are projecting outworkS; but the others have none. There is an outer barricade 



BOMBABDMEKT OF OHAIOWAI. 148 

of timber, aboat ten feet high, and, as well as I could judge with a good glass, each upright 
piece from six to eight inches in thickness, and fixed in the ground dose to each other. On 
the outside of this barricade a qnantity of the native flax is tied, so as to make It more ball- 
proof. Within this barricade there is a ditch, from four to five feet deep, and about the same 
broad. Within the ditch theie is a second barricade, similar to the outer one ; and the whole 
place is divided into three parts by two other barricades crossing it, of similar height and 
strength to the outer one. During the night of Monday, a battery of four guns was erected 
for the purpose of breaching the face opposite where the troops were encamped, which opened 
at 7 o'clock A.M. on Tuesday, but not with the effect I anticipated, as the shot frequently 
passed between the timbers, without displacing any of them. Afler firing a short time it was 
discontinued, and during ike night the battery was removed to a better position, not more 
than 250 yards distant.'* 

The shells plumped right into the midst of the stockade, the six-pounders whistled through 
its wooden walls from one side to the other; yet the tattooed rogues made no sign. They 
slipped into their burrows underground when a match was laid to a touch-hole, and kept up 
a brisk iusilade from their dangerous and well-contrived loopholes d flew de terre» After 
some time, ' the small brass pops,' (as a former writer designates the breaching guns brought 
from Hobart Town), tumbled off their platforms into the soft mud, as if astonished at their 
own efforts. A battery at closer quarters was next tried, but with no better success, for the 
breastwork being shaken down, it was soon silenced by musketry, and the guns were with- 
drawn after the enemy had made an unsuccessful attempt to take them by a rush. 

On the 30th June, with infinite labour and difficulty, a 32-lb. gun was brought up to the 
camp from the ffazard, — a distance of 1 5 miles ; and was posted on the hill occupied by 
Waka's tribe — where a light gun had already been posted under a guard, to enfilade the 
defences. At 10 A.M., on the 1st July, the great gun opened with a diapason that astonished 
the natives, and the six-pounder yapped like a small cur by its side. Great were the expecta- 
tions raised by this formidable acquisition ; and whilst the attention of every one was occupied 
in observing its effects, old Eawiti once more tried his favourite trick of a flank attack. 
Rushing from a thick wood close in rear of the battery, he drove Tomati's * Irregulars ' in 
confusion from the hill, and would undoubtedly have overpowered the guard and taken the 
two guns, but for a timely and spirited charge of a party of the 58th, who recovered the posi- 
tion and drove away the enemy with loss. Yet they succeeded in carrying off a small union 
jack, which shortly afterwards was seen flying below the rebel standard in the stockade. This 
impudent sortie ' put the Colonel's dander up considerable,' (as Sam Slick has it ;) and by 
thjnee o'clock, not having a heavy shot in his locker — for the 32-lb. shot, twenty-six in 
number t brought from the Hazard^ were by this time expended — he resolved on assaulting 
the place by esoUade. Indeed he had been prepared since the morning for this bold measure ; 
and the orders issued for the distribution and direction of the storming parties were so detailed 
and so suitable to circumstances, and the troops under his command so admirable in every 
way, that had the breaching battery been tolerably effective, no reasonable doubt can be enter- 
tained of his perfect success. The sequence demands but few words of narrative. 

Soon after three o'clock all was prepared ; the Englishmen ready to rush on their savage 
enemy ; the Maoris awaiting in grim silence their onset. Not a shot was fired, not a sound 
heard ; when suddenly a bugle-blast, the signal for advance, rang through the forest. Its 
notes were instantly drowned by a deafening cheer from the British ; and the wild yells of 
the savages joined in the fierce concert, with the shouts of the officers and the rattling of 
musketry. — In ten minutes all was over I one-third of the English force had bitten the dust. 
The remainder recoiled, baffled, from the absolutely impregnable stockade ! 

The following is the list of the British ,loss before the fortified den of the Savage, at 

Ohaiowai. 

xnxxD. 
Officers, 2 ; Serjeants, 4 ; Rank and File, 29 ; Seamen, 2. -; 

W0TTin>Bl>. 

Offloers, 5 ; Sergeants, 3 ; Rank and File, 75 ; Seamen, 3. 

KAXSS 07 OTFICERS KILLKD. 

Ueutenant Philpotta, H.M.& fftuard. 
Captain Grant, 58th Regiment. 



• Ck)k>nel Despard's Despaidi. 



144 OUR ANTIPODES. 

KAUES OF OFFICEOS WOUKDED. 

99th Begimentt 
Brevet Mqjor ^Macpberson, severely ; Lieutenant Beattie, severely ; Lieutenant Johnstone, slightly ; 
Lnsign O'Reilly, severely ; Mr. W. Clarke, Interpreter, severely, 

SIKCB DRAD OF THEIB WOUKDS. 

Lieutenant Beattie and 4 Privates. 

Daring the night after the assault, the shrieks of a tortured prisoner of the 99th, mingling 
with the yells and roars of the war-dance within the pah, harrowed the souls of his comrades. 
This unfortunate was never again heard of ! 

All the shot and shells being expended, and no transport for further supplies being available, 
the Colonel contented himself with holding his position, directing his chief attention to the 
conveyance of the wounded to Waimate. Sleanwhile the rain fell in torrents, night and day ; 
the men were harassed by rumours of night attacks ; the native allies rendered no assistance ; 
for, although they admired the determined hardihood of the attempt upon that impregnable 
stockade, they condemned, even ridiculed it as the act of mere madmen ; and appeared to have 
lost all interest in the business so soon as the British took the lead and the operations lost that 
stealthy and desultory character which suited their tactics. Preparations were accordingly in 
progress for a general retreat to Waimate, there to await fresh supplies and reinforcements ; 
when, early^on the morning of the 10th July, it was discovered that the enemy had evacuated 
the pah, leaving behind them four iron guns on ship carriages, which do not appear to have 
been used during the siege, immense quantities of provisions above and under ground, and 
many Maari valuables, such as muskets, axes, saws, and the like — intended probably to encra<re 
the cupidity, and to prevent the pursuit of their countrymen under Waka. They had no fear 
— could have none, of the Red-coat in the bush ; for they had already seen enough of him to 
know that it was only on open ground he was their superior, and they took very good care 
not to meet him there I 

Upon taking possession of the pah, active search was made for the body of the gallant Grant, 
Grenadier Captain of the 58th, and after disturbing several Maori graves, it was found. On 
stripping in oider to wash the corpse, what was the horror of the officers, his comrades, to find 
that it had been bi-utally mutilated ; — ^after cutting off the flesh, which the monsters had pro- 
bably devoured, they had carefully re-fastened the (iress over the denuded bones I There is some 
consolation in knowing that no tortures could have been inflicted upon his living body, for the 
death-shot had passed thxough his gallant heai-t. The deceased, it is said, had the strongest 
presentiments of death. In the old church at Paramatta, in New South Wales, is a tablet 
i-aised by his brother officers to commemorate the loss * of a good soldier and a warm friend.' 
Poor Philpotts was shot dead whilst bravely, but vainly stiiving to force his way through the 
pallisades, and was scalped by the barbarian enemy. Beattie, a fine young oflScer, and 
much beloved by his brethren in arms, died of his wound ; and these two lamented officers 
of the sister professions, buried with military honours, lie side by side in the Mission church- 
yard at Waimate.* 

On the 11th and 12th, the pah of Ohaiowai was burnt. The strength of the place struck 
every one with astonishment. The^enemy was now dispersed in different directions ; the winter 
was fairly set in ; thei-e were not seventy effective soldiers at Auckland. No choice therefore 
remained but to wait for better weather and reinforcements from Sydney, before operations could 
be recommenced. The gallant Colonel, in a lettei* to the Lieut.-Govemor, concludes with the 
remark, that, * whatever has been the real cause of our want of success, it is not to be attri- 
bute.! to the officeis or men under my command, for a braver or more intrepid body never wore 
the British uniform ' — an indisputable truth, for there were present at this disastrous combat 
l>ortions of three splendid regiments, and a small but picked body of man-o*-war*s men, all 
eager for distinction, working well together, and led by zealous, able, and dashing officers. Thev 
did all that could be done by human strength and courage, unassisted by those appliances and 
inventions of war which alone give advantage to the civilised over the savage combatant. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



In searching for the * real cause * of our want of success in the preceding occasions — as well as 
certain others in different parts of that empire upon which the sun never sets, we may safelv 
pass over sundry minor ones, and stop at the main and true cause — t?ie perilous habit of und^rrai-^ 

• Waimate, • The river of Tears.* 



WAEFABE AGAIN6T SAVAGES. 145 

iiig our enemy. To what is attributable the terrible and lamentable massacre of the Wair&u» 
but to blind incaution' and an arrogant assumption of superiority, which merited and leceived 
severe chastisement? When the game of war began between the British and the revolted 
Maoris, each had a self-evident stumbling-block to avoid. The game of the English was to avoid 
desultory fighting, and to act if possible in masses ; that of the New Zealander, to skirmidi, 
and to avoid being drawn into a fair stand-up fight in open ground. The events of the 
-war have proved who were the abler tacticians. I believe the Maoris were never in a single 
instance tempted to break through the system they had resolved on; — unless the spirited 
sorties of Kawiti may be deemed exceptions. The English more than once fell, or rather rushed 
into the snore prepared for them by an astute enemy, thereby losing not only many a sturdy 
pawn, but several more valuable pieces, literally thrown away. Aller the first disaster the 
Governor lamented that the Maoris should have * discovered their strength.' They did not dis- 
cover it : it was divulged to them by our heedlessness and temerity. His Excellency had the 
better reason to r^ret it, because he was forced into premature operations — avowedly contrary 
to his own opinion — ^by the evil counsel and vain clamour of ignorant and interested persons. 

Important results will follow the gallant but unfortunate affairs above related. The New 
Zealander will build no more pahs — certain that the English, warned by repeated experience, 
will never attack another without sufficient ordnance and engineering appliances to blow its 
timbers to the winds. The love of trade, the desire of gain, are &st growing upon the natives ; 
and, besides, they are shrewd enough to feel, that having once got within the long and stiong 
tentaculce of the sea monster, Albion, it is but lost labour to struggle in her grasp. There is 
now therefore little chance of further resistance. When some half-dozen of turbulent chieftains 
shall have died off fix)m age, consumption, scrofula, or drink, there will be less. Yet this is not 
a people to be openly trampled upon ; — ^it was in a much less warlike race that oppression 
roused a Toussaint and a Christophe ! — and there are the germs of such in these islands. 

In New Zealand, then, there will be no more fighting. But in other countries our incurable 
habit of undervaluing our enemy — especially if he wear a dark skin, will continue to lavish 
precious lives and limbs, and bring reverse and discredit upon us to the end of the chapter ! — 
and that, in spite of the fearfully significant experience which in India, Canada, the Cape, 
and elsewhere, has been periodically forced upon us.* If for no other or better reason than 
his •£ s. d. value, the British soldier should be charily expended, especially in barbarian war- 
fare. It may appear paradoxical to assert that operations against savages — at least in circum- 
stances similar to those of New Zealand in 1845, should exact more caution and forethought 
than those undertaken against a civilised foe. In the latter case, each antagonist knows the 
other's strength, his wants and his weaknesses ; can calculate the chances of victory, and the 
consequences of defeat. If overpowered, or out-manoeuvred, he may retreat with honour, 
well knowing that such a movement, skilfully conducted — from that of * the Ten Thousand ' 
downward — may reap as much glory as a victory. But gainst a barbarian enemy, offensive 
measures should be, humanly speaking, certain of success, or should be unattempted. Tern* 
porise, negotiate,* if necessary, till all is complete ; then fall like a thunderbolt ! such should be 
the maxim. In warfare against a savage race, there is also one very unpleasant feature, — and 
a very unfair one, because retaliation is out of the question, — ^namely, that a prisoner may, 
contrary to the etiquette of polite war, be tortured, mutilated, rx)asted, and devoured I Had 
there been no loyal natives to hold the rebels in check during the withdrawal of the troops 
from Heki's country to Waimate, such might possibly have been the fete of our wounded 
officers and men. 

Failure, too, is more humilating when the campaign has been heralded by public thi-eats of 
retribution. Suchlike proclamations of punitory intentions may frighten out of the field a 
pusillanimous adversary ; — ^but they fall pointless upon such an one as the phlegmatic Maori. 
The preamble of the operations in 1845 was, that no terms of peace were admissible that did 
not secure the persons of Heki and his adherents ; the principal object of the expedition was 
stated to be their capture or death ; they were to share the fate that the destruction of Koro- 
rarika had rendered inevitable. Yet not one of these chiefs, or any other, has ever been taken 
with arms in his hands I How untoward the following upshot of a menace before action ! — 
In 1846, on the frontier of the Cajw of Good Hope, a resolution was formed * to chastise the 

• These notes were written in 1848. 

Whilst the edition published in 1855 was in coarse of preparation, the disaster of nonabew, February 
1853, (when a combined force of 500 seamen, marines, and sepoys, were led into an ambuscade, and 
worsted by the Robber Chief, Mea Toon, with a loss of 3 officers and 15 men killed, about 70 woimded, 
and 2 guns abandoned), was annonnced in sad confirmation of the opinion above expressed. 

L 



146 OUB AKTIF0DE8. 

the Kaffirs ;' and a proclamation to that effect was issued accordingly. In prosecatioii of this 
threat, a splendid force of British cavalry, infantry, and artillery, marched in parsuit of the 
wild, muhsciplined enemy. A few days afterwards, among thdr mountain passes, the Ka&rs 
made a stand ; the result was, that several valuable English lives were lost, the whole of the 
bagg^ of a cavalry i^iment, part of that of an infiemtry corps, and upwards of £fty waggons 
full of spoil, fell into the hands of ' the barbarians !' 

The direct and material causes of Colonel Despard's failure in his dashing assault on the pah 
of Ohaiowai were general poverty of means, of munitions, of informati<m, badness of i^esither 
and roads, owing to the expedition having been undertaken at a season when the troops ought 
to have been in winter quarters, — ^the inefficiency and bad practice of the guns — and the scarcity 
-of heavy shot, which precluded a sustained fire on the defences, and permitted repairs hj the 
besieged — the subterranean safety cells of the defenders, — ^ffint locks in combination with floods 
of rain, — and, finally, the disobedience of orders, which, as at the fatal affair of New Orleans, 
caused the ladders, ropes, and axes to be thrown away by those told off to carry them. It was 
iherefore an attempt at escalade sans €cheUes I a practical abuse of terms, a * bull,' in short, on 
whose horns our chance of success was tossed to the winds ! 

When the troops were withdrawn shortly afterwards to Kororaiika, some uneasiness was felt 
on the score of Waimate, the Missionary station ; but the Maoris respected the place for the 
sake of the ' just men ' it contained ; tiiey warred, as they said, against the soldiers and the 
flag, not against the missionary and the settler. It is impossible to deny to the Maoris the 
possession of great instinctive magnanimity. Their foulest crimes, their most atrocioiis acts of I 
ferocity, are seldom committed on impulse, but are dictated by custom and sanctioned by long i 
tradition. To forgive an injury is not a tenet of the Maori creed ; nor have we Europeans to ' 
exert a very distant retrospect into our own history to find hereditary feuds inexorably fi>llowed 
up for successive g^erations ; — ^it will take a shorter time to teach the New Zealander to love 
his eaemy than was consumed ere the Scottish chieftain of former days forgot and foi^ve his 
wrongs, or the wrongs of his forefathers. 

In the middle of November Governor Grey reached Kororaiika, and gave the rebels a few 
days to consider the terms of peace dictated by his predecessor. Houi Heki, still smartiiig under 
his wound and from an attack on the lungs, sued for peace in tolerably humble terms. *" Give 
me a ship, and I will leave the country ait<^ether,' cried Honi sick ; but Honi convaleBoeDt 
■sung by no means so small. Sound in wind and limb, 

* The devil a monk was he T 

and not much of a Mihonari. However, he held aloof from his old ally, Kawiti, whose 
overture to the Governor, couched as ifollows, evinced no great humility. A translatioo 
will be found below : *— 

The old warrior was only gaining time to strengthen Ills new fortress, Rua*peka-pelca, or 
the Bat's-nest. The Governor, however, quickly put an end to his evasions, and to th« 
possibly not very single-minded negotiations of the missionaries, by giving orders for the 
recommencement of hostilities ; and no time was lost in carrying them into effect. Churchmeo, 
I may venture to opine, were hardly the best heralds to employ in treating for peace or wir 
between the British Government and the Maori in arms ; an honest interpreter, to deliver a 
plain message and bring back a plain answer, would have been a better medium. To be sure, 
an honest interpreter is not an every -day article, and a plain answer from a savage is as rare. 
As it was, much delay, and some loss of character for prompt action on our part, were 
incurred by these negotiations ; and rumour did not scruple to charge the reveroid gentlemen 
of Waimate with a desire, from motives of personal and worldly gain, to protract rather than to 
terminate the war. It is quite true that the relatives of the Church Missionaries contracted 
for the supply of provisions to the troops in the Bay of Islands, and that they raised so high 
the price of meat that it became necessary to meet the increased expense by issuing jsalt provi- 
sions five days out of seven to the soldiers ; and as for luxuries of a higher nature, there were 
some stories of butter being sold to the officers at the moderate rate of 10s. and I5s. a 
pound I It is impossible to believe that the self-denying missionary himself would, hj 

• * Sm, THE GovERSOR, ^ • Rua Peka Peka, Sept 24. 1845. 

' How do you do? I am willing to make peace^that peace should be made. Many Europeans have 
been killed, and many natives alBo have been killed. You have said that I must be the fiist to begm 
pace-making, Now this is it. Now I agree to it This Is all I have to say. It ends here. From me. 



BRITISH FORCE — ^PAH OP PUKU-TUTU. 147 

fostering the war, emperil, for private profit, the bodies of those whose souls he came so far 
to save ; but that their sons, being farmers and graziers, should take advantage of the exigencies 
of the public market, i& by no means incredible ; and indeed these gentlemen did undoubtedly 
reap a rich harvest, at this juncture, from the wants of the troops and seamen. 

It was towards the middle of December that the Commandant, with a force and with 
means infinitely more commensurate with his undertaking than had hitherto beoi employed 
iu New Zealand, advanced from Kororarika towards the rebel stronghold. His route lay 
about ten miles by water up the Bay and the Kawa-Kawa Biver to a point on the latter, 
where stood the pah of a friendly chief named Puku-Tutu, beyond which some twelve or 
thirteen miles of difficult country lay between him and the Bat*s-nest. 

On the 22nd the Colonel pushed on with the greater part of his little army, and, overcoming 
a thousand dilHculties by dint of extraordinary exertion, was soon enabled to take up a fine 
position about 1,200 yards from his enemy, where the rest of the force quickly joined him, 
and where they had to halt in their bivouacs under heavy rain on the 25th and 2bth. On 
the 29ih December the force before Kawiti's pah was, in rough numbers, as follows : — 

STAFF. 

1 Acting Colonel, and 1 Acting Mt^jor of Brigade. 

ARTILLEBT AND ENOINEKRS. 

'' 1 Captain, and 1 Subaltern. 

0HAIX-ABXED SBAMEK. 

10 Offiens, and 211 Seamen. 

BOTAL MABIirES. 

3 0£Ek»r8, 99 men of all ranks. 

DETACHHSSTS OF THE 58TH AXD 99TH KEGIlIEirrS. 

21 Officers, tSO men. 

HON. EAST INDIA COMPANY'S ABTILLEBT. 

3 Officers, 21 men. 

VOLTTNTEBRS AS PIONEKBS. 

^1 Officer, and 48 men. 

ABTILLEBT. 

Two medium 32-pounderB ; one iR-pomider ; two l2*pounder brass howitzers ; two 6-pounders, and 

four Si-inch mortars, with shot, shell, and rockets. 

The veteran chief must have felt flattered, if not frightened, by the very respectable arma- 
ment assembled for his subjugation. Kawiti himself had shown no little shrewdness in the 
choice of his new position. The general aspect of the country between Puku-Tutu's village 
and the Rua-peka-peka is that of bare and steep downs, intersected by occasional strips of 
bush, through several of which the troops had to pioneer their way by axe>work. The pah 
itself was erected on a rising spur of land, about a quarter of a mile within the margin of an 
extensive tract of the heaviest timber and brushwood, which skreened its front and flanks, 
and stretched away interminably in its rear. About 200 yards of cleared glacis surrounded 
it. The chief strength of the place lay in its difficulty of approach and the massiveness of its 
palisading. The commander of the incursion, warned by foregone events, resolved to proceed 
against the work by regular trench — a method which, if ever contemplated in the affair of 
Ohaiowai, would probably have failed owing to the excessive wetness of the ground. 

Leaving the Colonel snugly, if not very luxuriously, lodged in his camp of boughs, awaiting 
the concentration of his forces in the position above noted, I will beg leave to return to the 
Bay of Islands, in order to record the favourable and agreeable opportunity I enjoyed of follow- 
ing, step by step, the route of IJie invaders, and of visiting the ruins of Kua-peka-peka just two 
years afber its capture and destruction. 

It was on a beautiful January morning — ^antipodal midsummer ; for New Zealand stands 
more directly foot to foot with England than does Australia — that the Governor and his lady, 
with two young officers and myself, stepped into the captain's gig from the deck of the 
Inflexible, and, with a choice crew, swept swiftly up the beautiful Bay of Islands, on a 
lionising ramble intent. Leaving behind us the cantonments of Wahapu, we soon glided past 
the old settlement of Russell, where the British flag was first hoisted and the capital of New 
Zealand first established by New Zealand's first Governor. In this case * Hobson's choice ' 
was a bad one ! — the face of the country being barren and dreary to the extremity of desola- 
tion, and so rugged of feature, that, if Rome had seven hills for her site, Russell would have 
sat upon seventy hillocks. The spot was abandoned ere much more than the survey of allotments 
had been completed, and little now remains of Russell but a huge ugly storehouse, once occu- 

L 2 



148 OUB ANTIPODES. 

pled by the military, now probably the abode of owls and satyrs, for I saw no human being in 
its vicinity nor sign of haman frequency. 

We soon entered the KawarKawa river, a wide but shallow stream, along whose banks, few 
and far between, appeared wretched huts of bark, reeds, or grass, which would have escaped 
notice but for the smoke curling up among the tall trees, or a canoe hauled high and dry in 
some sandy cove. Straining your eyes, you might descry in the shade of the underwood a 
group of what appeared to be haycocks ready for carting ; and it required some credulity to 
accept the fact that these motionless and shapeless objects were in truth a family party of 
natives squatting under their coarse flax cloaks, gravely and silently smoking their pipes of 
English clay, and following with apatlietic gaze the track of our swift little boat, with its 
broad ensign — Heki's antipathy — floating on the breeze. At one point a well>manned and 
appointed canoe, with high head and stem, shoved off and made towards us, the quick paddles 
keeping stroke to a wild but musical chorus. Suddenly it stopped, and after much consulta- 
tion and gesticulation on the part of the crew, put back again, and was lost in the mouth of 
an invisible creek. The thought crossed my mind that the Governor * was wanted ' as s 
hostage ! Further on we encountered a tiny canoe, so slight, shallow, and heavy laden, that 
its gunwale was within an inch of the water. Within it knelt the most frightful old witch 
that ever wore and libelled woman's form ; and close in front of her knees, sitting on its 
haunches with its fore legs stretched out, its huge head erect, and its long snout pointiag 
towards the bows, was a gi-eat fat hog. The smallest lateral movement of either beldame or 
beast would have capsized the frail craft ; but reason and instinct swayed with equal effect 
the two interesting passengers, and eacti was careful not to sway their common conveyance. 
Naked to the waist, with skinny arms, long pendent breasts, and bleared eyes, she passed us 
like a hideous dream. The Governor, ever courteous to the natives, shouted at the top of his 
lungs the salutation of welcome, 'Hacremai !' yet answer gave she none: looking neither to 
the right nor to the left, she and her companion * munched and munched and munched' 
mouthfuls of fern-root ; and plying vigorously her paddle, they were soon out of sight. The 
well-fed * porka ' was doubtless in the Wahapu market before night. 

After once or twice grounding on shoals of soft mud, we entered a narrow creek with rushy 
banks, where hundreds of wild ducks were diving and pluming themselves in blind ignorance 
of Wesley Richards and Ely's cartridges, port wine, lemon, and cayenne : nor had I an oppor- 
tunity of putting them through a course of instruction on these points. In about two bonis 
we reached Puku-Tutu's pah, and our boat was st)*anded on the spot which it took the expe- 
dition of 1845-6 two whole days to arrive at. The pah, well placed on the slope of a hill, in 
open ground, overlooking a rich, swampy valley, is defenceless against a regular attack, being 
merely a village surrounded by an open stockade, sufficient perhaps to prevent surprise. Sudi 
places are, 1 beUeve, termed kaingoj in contradistinction to the closely forti6ed camp, which 
is the true pah, or hippah of old Cook. Some of the buildings, although so low as to compel 
the visitor to enter in the unseemly attitude of all- fours, were neatly constructed and waim 
looking. Here, stewing together in close contact, with the air carefully excluded, the Maoiis 
get that fat flabby flesh, blood-shot eyes, and hectic cough, which are so common to the race. 
There is in this pah very little ornamental carving ; but at the several gates of the village 
stand the usual tall posts, surmounted by rude imitations of the human figure, hideous and 
obscene as those on certain temples of Hindostan, and as savage ingenuity could make them. 
Very few of Puku-Tutu's tribe made their appearance. Two or three ugly, half- naked 
women, and as many quite naked children, with thin legs and enormously fat stomachs, came 
and squatted near us ; but the chief himself, who, it was expected, would have paid his respecb 
to the Governor on landing in his territory, was not forthcoming ; nor, as it appeared, had His 
Excellency's jJrwwm to collect horses for our land journey been received at the pah. 

After much delay, howev^, some of the young men who were idling about undertook to drive 
in some horses from the neighbouring bush ; and accordingly, by dint of much shouting and 
chasing, half-a-dozen wild-looking mares and colts were caught up and draped by their fore- 
locks into the presence of His Excellency, — their captors delivering them over tx) us with a 
complacent simplicity of manner betokening that ^dles and bridles did not enter into their 
notions of the requirements of genteel equestrianism. Horse equipments had been brought far 
Mrs. Grey ; and His Excellency had given me his vice-r^al assurance that himself and the rest 
of us would be provided for at the village. Nevertheless, in my capacity of o^d soldier, I htA 
stowed my * Wilkinson and Kidd ' — ^my constant vade mecum — under the thwarts of the boat ; 
for, somehow, I had no faith in the chance of finding such an article indigenous in the wilds of 



TRIP ON THE TBAOK OF THE TE0OP8. 149 

ISew Zealand ; nor was the precaution supererogatory. In vain I offered, as in duty bound and 
with as good a grace as possible, to surrender my private pigskin to Her Majesty's representative, 
— in vain protested against the possibility of anything short of Nessus himself sustaining his 
seat upon the dorsal ridge of the starved steed destined to bear the Governor, and which more 
nearly resembled a towel-horse than a riding one. Strong in the memoiy of the bushman's 
prowess for which he was famed in other colonies, Captain Grey sprang upon its bare back, 
while I was employed in taming my properly-accoutred but buck-jumping colt ; and, the lady's 
palfiy bearing her deftly, away we started in a canter, — the two young officers preferring their 
own long and strong legs for a walk of thirteen miles and back, to the Elgin marble style of 
equitation which was the alternative. Nor indeed could His Excellency tolerate it for more 
than a mile or two ; for he was soon observed to pull the bridle over the head of the fathom of 
animated park-paling he so painfully bestrode, and setting the beast at lai^, he proceeded man- 
fully on foot. A stout young Maori shouldered the basket carrying our provisions, which he 
strapped firmly to his back, like a knapsack, with \(ithes of the raw flax leaf, a material as 
tough as any buff belt. 

Taking the path cut with such infinite labour by the troops and seamen in December, 1845, 
it led us at first into an almost impervious brush, where it became obliterated. Lost for a few 
moments, we hit on it again, when, after crossing a small pellucid stream, we suddenly stumbled 
into a fine orchard of peach and apricot-^ees, laden with fruit and mingled with rose-bushes and 
other well-remembered flowers of home origin, — alT flourishing in neglected luxuriance. In the 
midst stood a ruined roofless lv3use ; — ^it was a deserted Missionary station. The wilderness had 
reclaimed the once trim garden ; the fence lay rotting on the ground ; a wild sow and her 
farrow rushed at our approach from among the ornamental shrubs near the windows, and 
plunged into the adjoining thidcet. Where was now the self-sacrificing zealot, who in this 
remote comer of a savage land had devoted himself to tlie conversion of the heathen ! I could 
learn nothing of his history. * The world forgetting, by the world forgot,' — his reward will 
doubtless be better than earthly fame can give I Beyond this melancholy spot — for the 
primeval wilderness, however dark apA gloomy, inspires no such sadness as does the ruined and 
abandoned homestead — we came upon a high ridge of fern-land bare of timber, with undula- 
tions sometimes deepening into ravines. On either hand lay open to view, as far as the eye 
could reach, vast tracts only partially wooded and apparently capable of being turned to good 
account by future graziers and agriculturists for the support of the great family of man ; while 
the whole circle of the horizon was bounded by serrated ranges of mountains, some clothed 
witli bush, others rocky and volcanic. 

Following the Colonel's trail, the military road led us for the most part over open downs, 
occasionally skirting, at respectful and prudential distance, patches of dark and tangled bush — 
fit lair for ambushed foe. Here it zigzagged down the slope of a tremendous hill, at the foot 
of which yawned a swampy gully, ready to swallow guns, tumbrels, and the many impedimenta 
of an army. There it plunged headlong into an unavoidable strip of forest, festooned and 
matted with huge creepers and supplejacks, through which the pioneers, protected by skirmishers, 
had to hew a path. The march of the troops was both tedious and harassing, and they were con- 
tinually annoyed by heavy rain. However, blue and red jackets combined have dragged guns 
through rougher ground and rougher circumstances than those now noticed ; and although 
their progress was slow, it was not the less sure, — ^for all obstacles and hardships being cheer- 
fully and vigorously encountered, were successfully overcome. At some spots we saw the 
marks on the trees where hawsers rove through blocks had been fastened by the seamen, to 
extricate guns ojit of difficulties. Captain Grey and one of the officers of our party had been 
present with the besieging force ; and it was interesting to trace in their society the different 
passes threaded by the troops, the ruined xcarrees * of the halting-places, and the * ugly * spots 
where ordnance, tumbrels, or waggons, tumbling over, had been hauled up again by sheer 
muscle and pluck, with many a * Heave oh !' and many a * strange oath,' unpropitious to the 
eyes and limbs of tlie Maoris, as each successive gully, torrent, bog, or precipice appeared in 
their path. More than once we observed, near the line of route, places marked out by arched 
twigs or saplings, which, I was told, indicated the graves of departed chiefs, strictly sacred. 

I was fortunate enough to find a fine specimen of the Kauri gum cropping out of the open 
road, and looking like a block of yellowish spar or amber. It is singular that this substance 
should be found, as it usually is, on and under the surface, in spots where not only thei*e are 
no Kauris or other trees now growing, but not a vestige of any bygone forest. It has probably 

• * Warree,' Maori for a hut. 



150 OUB AKTIPODES. 

some stroi^ balsamic pioperties that preserve it uninjured by the storms and suns of centuries. 
The Kauri gum is light in weight, has a slightly resinous T)dour, and on being ignited, bums 
with the bright, steady flame of a candle. Certain speculative parties in Auckland and Sydney 
contrived to bum their fingers with it, in a figurative sense ; for at one time, an impression 
existing that this gum would turn out a valuable staple of ihe colony, a good deal of money 
was invested therein. The virtues of the gum failed, however, to sustain the tests applied to 
it in England, and this bubble burst like many others. The trade, while it lasted, was never- 
theless of good service in employing the attmtion of the Maoris, who, so long as they found it 
a barterable commodity, busied themselves in collecting and conveying this pxxluft to markrt 
instead of joining the rebel ranks. 

Our little party called a halt, and indeed both pedestiians and horses w«re glad to draw 
breath, on the elevated position whereon, as I have' said, the first batteiies were thrown up by 
Colond Despard. In front a profoun4, rocky, and thickly-wooded gully presented an im- 
passable barrier to artillery, and beyond it a small plain opening to tl^ sight was terminated 
by the dense bush, within whose verge lay the Bat's-nest, almost entirely masked by hi^ 
trees. The troops were compelled to turn Ihe head of the ravine by carving their way through 
a thick wood, absolutely laced together with a netrwork of creepers. The old rebBl was as 
hard to get at as the ' Sleeping Beauty ' in the faiiy tale. Like the knight of old, the Engilish 
commander had to cut a path through an almost impervious forest to reach the object of his 
enterprise. . Following his track for about a quarter of a mile through a kind of cloister of 
foliage — ^result of the pioneers' labours— we emerged upon the small plain above mentioned, la 
the centre of which stand the remains of a temporary stockade — ^the handy-work of oar native 
ally and excellent skirmisher, Moses Tawhai, who, just before da;^ight on the 29th December, 
pushed silently through the bush with some picked men of his tribe, and seizing this forward 
position, quickly and cleverly ran up some palisades and breastwork, sufficient to cover his 
party from musketry and from a sudden rush of the enemy. The Colonel promptly joined the 
enterprising Moses with 200 men and a couple of guns ; and the position, 600 yards from the 
peh, was secured before the enemy were aware of the movem^t. Not far from this spot we 
saw the graves of twelve British seamen and soldiers who fell in the assault, whichy to the 
honour of the Maoris, have to this day never he&i disturbed. 

Thus pursuing the line of advance, we were quickly drawn by it into the forest where the 
pah stood, and, struggling through fem higher than the tallest grenadier, we found ouzselTeB on 
the site of the breaching batteries, some 350 yards distant fi'om the front face of the fortress, 
where remnants of platforms, breastworks, broken entrenching tools, and the ruins of burnt 
Hvouacs brought the whole scene vividly before the mind's eye. A narrow path through a 
labyrinth of coiled and matted creepers mixed with fallen thnber and enclosed by tedl trees, many 
of them dimi^ed or splintered by gun-shot wounds, guided us to the glacis of Rua-pdca-peka ; 
and we were soon stumbling among the now weed-grown excavati(«s used as potato and kumera 
stores for the garrison. The glacis had been easily and naturally formed, by cutting down the 
trees necessary for making the pcquets of so extensive a stockade. Although the interior of the 
pah is now entirely overgrown by gigantic fern and other underwood, it Was not difficult to trace 
its figure, which, in the several fianking angles and in the stockaded divisions of the enceinte, 
eymced considerable practical knowledge of the science of defence. And, indeed, it would be 
strange if the Maoris, like the SikJ^s and Afghans, were not in some sort skilled in war&re, since 
they are habituated from childhood to all its stratagems, and their history, as &r back as tradi- 
tion can reach, is an almost uninterrupted series of hostile incursions, battles, and massacre. 
The height and solidity of the picquets composing the curtains — whereof there were two distant 
some six feet apart, filled me with astonishment ; nor was I less struck with the ingenuity dis* 
played in the formation of the trenches and covered ways, from whence the defkiders oooM take 
deadly aim along the glacis at the exposed st(Miners. Most of the loopholes for musketry were 
(Ml the ground level ; and, acro^ the trenches in which the musketeers stood or crouched were 
erected regular traverses, with narrow passages for one person, to guard against the ricochet of 
the British shot. The interior was, as has been said, subdivided into many c(Hnpartments» so 
that the loss of one of them would not necessarily prevent the next from holding out. 

How these rude savages had contrived in a few weeks, and without mechanicsd appHanoes, to 
prepare the massive materials of their stockade and to place them in their pr(^>er positions, 
deeply sunk in the earth and firmly bound together, is inconceivable. To be sure, the timber 
and fiax grew on the spot, and the labourers engaged in the work were working and prepeiix^ to 
fight for their native land and for liberty — what more need be said ? 



FALL OF THE BAT'S-NEST. 151 

Tlie pah was studded with subterranean cells, into which the more timid or prudent ran — 
like rabbits at the bark of a dog — ^when they heard the whizz of a shell or a rocket, or had rea- 
son to expect a salvo iix)m the guns. I descended by the notched pole, forming the usual stahv 
case, into more than (me of these Maori waiMrypts, and found them about eight or nine feet deep, 
and large enough to contain an Auckland whist-party. The mouth was defended by a bomb- 
px)of roof and breastwork of logs and earth. The ground was thickly strewed with English 
round shot, and fragments of bombs and rocket-cases ; and amongst the weeds we found a couple 
of the enemy's guns— one of which, a good-sized howitzer, had been dismounted and split to 
atoms by a still lai^er shot from the batteries, which had made an unconscionable attempt to - 
enter its mouth — ^to the infinite amazement, one may suppose, of the Maori gunner, who, in the 
act of taking aim, was ' hoist by his own petard.' There lay, also, the flagstaff of revolt, cut in 
two like a carrot by the initiative shot of my young fi^end and relative, Lieutenant Bland of the-' 
Bacelwrse — some ofl'set for the oftKlenoUshed staif of Kororarika. The resolution of the 
British leader to approach by r^ralar trench and to effect a practicable breach before storming, 
leaves no doubt as to what would have been the result had the afl'air proceeded to the length of 
a r^ular assault, which it can scarcely be said to have done. 

It was quite apparent that the stout wooden walls had been no match for the heavy guns. 
Many of the huge picquets, eighteoi or twenty feet high by two feet thick, lay in a heap 
knocked into splinters, and more than one of them had been regularly bowled out of the ground 
by tiie thirty-two-pounders, like a wicket stump by a * ripper ' from Alfred Mynn ! A con- 
centrated fire would therefore have soon made a goo^l breach. The actual capture of the Rua- 
peka*peka occurred somewhat fortuitously. The * Mihonari,' or Christian portion of the garri- 
son, had assembled for their Karakia, or Church service, on the outside of the rear face of the 
fortress, under cover of some rising ground. - A party of loyal natives, wide awake to the 
customs of their countr3rmen, approached under command of Wiremu Waka, brother of Tomati, 
and reconnoitred the breaches. IKscovering the employment of the defenders, a message was 
sent back to the English, reporting this most righteous and laudable act of religion, but most 
unpardonable breach of military tactics, on the part of their hostile compatriots. And who 
shall say that this neglect of man's ordinances and observance of God's in the time of their 
trouble, did not bring with them a providential and merciful result ? It led doubtiess to their 
almost instantaneous defeat ; but it saved them and the English from the tenfold carnage 
which a more vigilant and disciplined resistance, fi'om within their wails, would have infidliUy 
caused. An officer or two witili a small party oi soldiers and seamen stole quietiy into the 
almost deserted pah, and farther reinforcements followed quickly from the trenches. The 
Maoris, too late discovering their error and the movements of their foes, rushed tumultuously 
back into the work, and made a fierce but futile attempt to retake it. Hand to hand and un- 
favoured by position they had no chance against the British bayonet and cutlass. Baffled and 
overpowered, they fled by the rear of the stockade, and the Bat's-nest was ours. 

Thus fell, on tiie 11th January, 1846, Kawiti's pah of Rua-pekarpeka ; and with its ftdl 
ended the active resistance of that chief and Heki, and our military operations in the noiiJiem 
district. The brave and cunning Maori was not only fairly defeated but feirly outwitted. The 
lesson was salutary ; for this people are sagacious enough to ' know when they are beaten ' — a 
branch of knowledge which that great preceptor in the art of war, Napoleon, was disgusted to 
find he could never instil into the English armies. The rebel chieilain must have had a bold 
heart to hold out against a force ofnearly a thousand British seamen and soldiers arrayed against 
him, while H.M.'s ships CoBtor, Calliope, North Star, and Bacehorse, with the East India Com- 
pany's sloop Elphmstene, lay at the mouth of the Kawa-Kawa river, within fii^'een miles of his 
wooden fortress. 

Our loss during the assault was — 

SEAKBK AND MARHTES. 

KiUed, 9 ; wounded, 1 Midshipman and 17. 

SOLTMERS. 

Killed, 3 ; wonnded, 11 ; and 2 volunteers wounded. 

The pah was dismantled by the troops : and the Aborigines appear to have since deserted 
and avoided the place as a spot accursed. The paths leading to it are grown up and nearly 
obliterated ; and the Genius of the wilderness, true to her children, is fast erasing every trace 
of the Maoris' defeat at the Rua-peka-peka I 

Kawiti, who had made his escape on the capture of his fortress, was, in the May following, 
received by the Governor on board H.M.S. Driver, in the Bay of Islands, and there and then 



152 OUB ANTIPODES. 

gave in his allegiance to the British Government, expressing regret for * the trouble he had 
given/ and gratitude for the treatmrat he had received. The old wiurior, it is said, appeared 
deeply humiliated in making such concessions in the presence of other chiefs, who had tbnght 
on the English side and had eventually triumphed over him after a long and stout resistance. 
His letter, wiitten a week after his defeat, and expressing a desire for peace, is a rich specimen 
of Maori epistolisation. There is a vein of ironical iim peeping out of it, quite in keeping, as I 
am told, with the Maori character.* 

Heki, it is said, arrived at the BatVnest on the day it fell. He seems to have laid aside 
the name hy which he was known as a great New Zealand warrior — ^his signature at this time 
being Honi Wiremu Pokai. 

As for our lionising party, we retraced our steps to the spot where our horses, the Maori 
carrier and the provend basket had been left, and passed two or three pleasant hours, during 
the heat of the day, talking over the events of the siege, regaling ourselves with the cold 
viands, an^ resting from our previous fatigues on a green bank that formed a rustic triclinium 
shaded fi'om the sun's rays by a canopy of tall trees. Some of the party experiencing that 
ardent desire to indulge in a cigar, which is so common to the youth of the present era, and so 
unintelligible to those who are not slaves to the popular weed, fire was quickly produced by 
om* Maori porter. Selecting a flat piece of dry wood, he placed it on the ground, and with a 
sharp-pointed stick made a groove in the other, rubbing the f>oint to and fro along it with 
with great force and rapidity until it began to smoke. Then applying some dry and fine grass 
from the inside of a hollow tree, he whirled the whole quickly round his head until it was 
blown into a flame. It was a labour of love, — for no one appeared to enjoy his pipe so well 
as himself. From this congenial employment it was difficult to arouse him; curled up in a 
sunny nook, and, with half-closed eyelids blowing thin clouds from his tattooed lips, the 
Governor suddenly asked him if he was one of the garrison of Rua-peka-peka when it was 
taken by the Pakehas. The stout young Maori only opened one eye at this pertinent query, 
and, puffing out a slow volume of smoke, nodded a silent affirmative. 

The temperature of the day was to my taste perfect ; the sun intensely hot, but the air 
light and fresh, a brisk breeze driving high and fleecy clouds across a deep blue sky. I 
started on foot about a quarter of an hour before the rest of the party, and had walked 
about nine miles before they overtook me, and, although it was Midsummer or thereabouts, 
and the way both rough and steep, I do not know when or where I felt my step more 
springy, my spirit more elastic. The evening proved deliciously cool; and the boat-trip 
by moonlight down the river and the bay to the Inflexible — ^which we reached at 10 p.m. — 
was most enjoyable. It seemed strange that an unarmed party of English — one of whom a 
lady, and another a personage who would have made a valuable hostage in the hands of an 
enemy — could traverse without one thought of risk so considerable a space of wild country 
recently at open war with us — at a time too when, in the southern districts, the natives were 
in so unsettled a temper that one of the Governor's next movements in the Inflexible will be 
to proceed to Wanganui, (where a war party of five or six hundred men is still assembled,) for 
the purpose of bringing them to reason either by force or by argument. 

The following morning we had a considerable levh of aboriginal men of note on boaid, 
among whom was Puku-Tutu, who came to apologise for his absence when His Excellency 
honoured his ' poor pah ' with a visit He is a fine, tall man. The venerable Tomati Waka 
was there, too, with his broad, honest, good-humoured but devilishly tattooed face^ — looking 
like a hog in armour in his blue frock-coat, gold epaulettes, and cocked hat. Then came Ripa, 
(I don't know how to spell him,) a lathy, active, and lively looking fellow, who fought gal- 
lantly on our side at Rua-peka-peka with old Waka's party, and had two or three of his 
fingers shot off while skirmishing with the enemy and insulting them with impudent gestures. 
In the heat of the battle he made light, I was told, of his painful wound, and, having hastily 
bound it up, went on fighting ; but he bellowed like a bull when an English surgeon came to 
amputate the mutilated digits. Nor, indeed, need one despise the poor savage on that account ; 

' Januaiy I9th, 1846. 
♦ * Friknd.— Oh, my esteemed friend, the Governor, 

* I salute you. Great is my regard for you. . .". . Friend Govemor, I say, let us have peace 
between you and me — because I am tilled (satisfied, have had enough) of your riches (cannon balls). 
Therefore, I say, let you and I make peace. Will you not? Yes t— This is the termination of my war 

against you. Friend Govemor This is the end of mine to you. It is finished. 

' To my esteemed Friend. To the Govemor. 
(Signed) 'Kawati.' 



NATIVE NOTABLES — A SEA LUItCH. 153 

for a man can hardly be placed in two more strongly contrasting positions — and likely enough 
to follow each other pretty closely — than when, at one moment, his energies mental and 
corporeal are exalted to * the sticking place ' by all the wild, glorious, intoxicating excitement 
of the battle-field, — and the next, when he awakes from a state of painful insensibility to find 
himself seated in a wet ditch on the lee side of a thin hedge, with the thermometer at freezing- 
point, and an almost equally cool gentleman in an unfeathered cocked hat preparing to saw off 
his best leg with a hideous implement of bluish steel ! A hero, I think, may be excused if his 
ardour be slightly chilled by such a process ! 

Pomare arrived next — Uie umquhile foe of the British, and supporter of Heki — and who 
was made prisoner by Colonel Hulme, as before related. He dashed alongside in a handsome 
canoe, and, on reaching the deck, went up to and saluted Te Rauperaha, pi^esenting him with a 
pair a£ beautiful fiax cloaks, 'pasmented ' with scarlet worsted sprigs. The giver had hardly 
turned his back on taking leave, when the old rogue offered to sell them to me — for twice 
their value of courae. Uoepa, or Charley, the old cliiefs brother-in-law, pressed me hard to 
become a purchaser of the goods. Having described the persons of other Maoris of distinction, 
I must sketch Charley in a few strokes. In form and aspect, then, he is something between 
a buffalo and the Tipton Slasher. He is described as having been one of the most active at 
the Wairau massacre, and is said to have cut out the interpreter's tongue after having toma- 
hawked him. He appeai-ed to be a man of enormous though sln^ish strength. 

John Hobbs was presented to me— a warrior distinguished for personal intrepidity, and one 
of the most: daring skirmishers at Kua-peka-peka and elsewhere. He it was who at Okaehnu 
discovered Kawiti's ambuscade, ready to fall on the fiank of the besiegers. In different 
combats he courted danger and signalised the high-sounding name given him in his baptism, 
by wearing a white^calico scarf, whereby he might be known — as the beau sabreur Murat 
wore his snowy plume. His stature, like the majority of the natives on board, was above the 
ordinary standard. John Hobbs, who is not an aristocrat, or Ariki,* by descent, is but little 
marked by the Moku. All the rest were elaborately tattooed. It is a mark of efieminacy 
to have an unscored visage. Some desperately foul specimens of the fair sex came on board 
the Inflexible with these really fine-looking Maori lords of the creation. 

January 1th, — ^Weighed at 9 A.M., and made sail from Kororarika Bay — or rather Port 
Busscll, (for its former title had better be forgotten,) — the Governor intending to proceed to 
Wellington north about, visiting the settlements on the western coast. A stiff north-west 
breeze, however, compelled the captain to make the eastern passage — our native shipmates 
thus losing an opportunity of viewing the North Cape, or Rainga, where the ghosts of departed 
chiefs are supposed to stop to bait on their way to another world. 

Our gallant ship encountered so much rough and adverse weather, especially off East Cape 
— a point of very stormy character — that at one time she hardly made two knots an hour 
against a head sea. It was in rounding this headland on the 8tb, that one of the most genial 
occupations of the passenger on ship-boaid, namely dinner, met with a somewhat rude inter- 
ruption. The pea-soup had been stowed away, and we were — ^in number about ten — in deep 
discussion of the first course, when a tremendous lurch jerked the legs of the table out of the 
cleats in the deck, and the festive board * fetching away,' rushed bodily to leeward with such 
an impetus that two-thirds of the guests, especially the military ones, (not excepting the 
General,) were carried away, chairs and all, and prostrated beneath it — a relative position of 
table and company very uncommon in these abstemious times. The worthy Vice-president, 
although a seafaring man, disappeared like a stage ghost through a trap, the mahogany closing 
over his head against the bulkhead with a snap that guaranteed his clean decapitation had the 
edge chanced to catch his neck. The viands, strictly obseiTing the rules of gravitation, pre- 
cipitated th^selves by ricochet after their intended devourers ; the captain stormed ; the 
stewaixi and loblolly boys scrambled and tumbled over each other ; the Governor * held on ' 
and laughed ; the carpenter and his mates rushed in with hammere and lashings : the two 
* young gentlemen ' dining in the cabin stuffed their napkins down their throats and grinned 
with furtive delight till they were blue in the face ; and the good ship, having played the very 
deuce with comfort and crockery, righted herself and paddled onwards. Meanwhile, sad to 
relate, His Excellency's fair lady was thrown out of her berth in the state cabin, and sustained 
many bruises. (N.B. — Ladies ought never to go on board ship, or if they do, tliey should be 
laced up in a hammock and fed with a quill !) 

The voyage, although rough and unpropitions, was amusing enough. A British man-of- 

• Hereditary chiertafn. 



Iu4 OUB AKTirOIlEB. 

war's quarter-deck was, I rappoae, never before so crowded with Ihre lumber. The natire 
potentates and their wives and attendants l^j qnrawling, or sat croodied, daj and night amid 
a^thy heap of mats, blankets, and bedding, on that portion of the detk so tc^nty so sacred, in 
the eyes of a sailor, that a poor soldier officer cannot lean on the taffirail, or lay an arm on a 
hammock-nettingy without a hint bong given him not to loonge (mi Her Majesty's qciarter-- 
deck. It most have been gall to the captain, and wormwood to the first lientmant, to see the 
dirty vermin-infested herd making themselves qnite at home on the white planks of this 
nautical sanctam. ■ 'Ould Rap' had two wives on board, one a pretty and delicately formed 
girl of, perhaps, eighteoi. I never saw a hand and foot of more p^ect symmetry thaa those 
of this young savage. She appeared, however, to have scarcely health and strength enough 
to rise from Uie dedc where she lay coiled ; and, on nearer inspection, it was piteous to find 
that, in common with many of her compatriots, this pret^ and delicate young creature was 
fearfully afflicted with scrofula. 

Captain Grey, ever greedy of knowledge, availed himself of the presence of the natilTe chie& 
to gain a further insight into the customs and traditions of the people. On these subjects tbey 
seemed £sir from willmgly communicative ; but His Excellency, not being one easily turned from 
his object, with the aid of his interpreter contrived to humour old Taniwha into garrulity. He 
described, although rather in ambiguous terms, the human sacrifices which in olden days made 
part of their religious rites ; gave us several specimens of Maori poetry, some of whic^ cast- 
tained elegant imagery ; and, at length, after much pressing, chanted a sort of wild incantalkn, 
to which his hoarse and hollow voice, his taU weird-like figure and excited gesture gave elo^ 
quent effect. He treated his hearers, moreover, to a lecture on the measorement of time 
according to Maori computation, wliich was curious enough as far as it went. The year, it 
appears, is composed of thirteen lunar months, each day of the month rejoicing in a name, 
while the week-days are anonymous. Te Whero- Where appeared to disaj^rove of his compeer 
being drawn into an expontion of ancient customs, some of which were growing into disus^ and 
some whoxiof the more liberal Maoris are already ashamed ; and both he and Te Ranperahs 
turned away with cold contempt when the simple old savage was betrayed into such foi^e^l- 
ness of dignity as to sing us a song in their heaviness, — &>r the others had penetration enongh 
to see that in these pleasant sea-trips with His Excellency, they were, although ostensibiy 
guests, actually prisoners. Without the slightest show of compulsion, and treated with kind- 
ness, and, indeed, with distinction, they are carried about at the chariot wheel ' of Te Kawana, 
and are thus kept in sight and out of mischief, bound with invisible and insensible bonds^ yet 
not the leas bound. 

The half-doating old Taniwha came out strongly on another occasi(m, in which he displayed 
no little of the fire and energy of his younger days. The native group were em|doying their 
leisure one forenoon, according to their usual habit, in one of the most important duties of a 
gamekeeper, the destruction of vermin, or in plucking out their beards with a pair of cockle- 
shells, (simple substitute for the volsell^e of the Romans, and for their descendaiat the modem 
European tweezers,) aided by an inch or two of looking-glass ; when they were suddenly arooaed 
firom their ordinary state of lethargy by two of the officers ei^aging in a bout at single-stick. Most 
of the chiefs contrived to maintain, as they looked on, a decent appeanmce of niiadmirart — the 
practical motto of every noble savage of every clime ; but the sight was quite too much for the 
self-command of old Hookinoe, (for such is his own version of the nickname Hook-nose bestowed 
on him by his white acquaintances.) Scrambling upon his long bent shanks, he approached 
the mimic combatants, and, as the boot inci-eased in warmth — ^for the blows fell both * fiisfc and 
furious ' — so the old man's excitement increased. It assumed indeed almost a serious a^iect 
when, after two or three very stiff ci^rs, he hobbled away to his canoe» which had been 
hoisted on board, and, snatching out of it a loi^ and heavy ham or staff of carved ironwood, 
again drew near the scene of action, with a world of animation in his eye, and a volume of 
meaning in liis gestures. One of the players, a gentleman holding a naval a^^intment who 
had been some time resident in the colony, chiming in witii the humour of the veteran chi^ 
quitted his young military antagonist, and offered to have a round with the other — an o£fer 
which, to every one's surprise, the old fellow with infinite readiness accepted. Youth and 
strength were on the Englishman's side, length of arm and of wei^n on that of the Maori, 
for his hani was about six feet long. The sailor was an adept at the single-stick, as we had 
just seen, but he was unacquainted with the tactics of his adversary — ^perhaps underrated his 
prowess ; if so, he paid the penalty usual in such a case. 

The octogenarian gladiator commenced operations by a most grotesque war-dance, accom- 



SINGLB-BTICK — ^A PEACTTCAL JOKE. 155 

panying his moveiDents by a monotonons croaking song, wielding meanwhile his staff in exact 
measare with his cliant, and gradually nearing hk opponent, who, on his part, stood firm, with 
his eye fixed on that of his adrersary, but with a careless guard. From the manner in which 
the old man held his staff, we all imagined that his visitation would be in the shape of No. 5 
or 6 of the broadsword exercise with the oar-shaped end of it ; when suddenly, and with a 
vigour whereof he seemed quite incapable, old Hookinoe, elongating his left arm and sliding the 
hani through the same hand, gaye his opponent the point, the stoccato alighting on his ribs with 
an emphasis quite sufficient to prove that, had the tourney occurred twenty years ago and been 
d routranGOf the white knight would have been— clone brown and supped upon ! There was a 
roar c^ iq)plause, as may be supposed, from the spectators of both races at the unexpected 
triumph of poor Cooki's superannuated cotemporary. It is but fair to add that, on further 
trial, the Englishmtm showed that he knew how to keep a whole skin. He completely took in 
old Taniwha by the stale trick and the delist of the drill-sergeant — * the adrantage of shifting 
the leg,* — in which, as every recruit knows, the right limb is ostentatiously protrtided to invite 
a cut, but is swiftly retracted from the descending stroke,. while the sword of the assailed falls 
plumb on the unguarded sconce of the assailant. 

On another occasion, we all enjoyed a hearty laugh — one of Hygeia's chief assistants — at 
very trifling expense to ourselves, although, as is too often the case, at some trifling outlay 
by another. A brawny Maori, attendant on one of the chiefs, lay extended on his back near 
the fonnel enjoying at onice its warmth and his siesta. His sleep was not sound, however, for, 
as my companion and myself made our quarter-deck turns, we noticed that it seemed to be dis- 
turbed Jby terrible dreams ; it was a sort of dog-sleep, full of starts and writhings and mutter- 
ings of complaint — a sleep like that c^ihe conscience-haunted Richard, when he exclaims, 

' Bind up my wounds,— have mercy, Jesn f 

At length his contortions became so eneigetic as to draw together several spectators : and I was 
about to rouse him from his anything but ' peaceful slumbering on the ocean,' when he sud- 
denly sprang up wide awake, first rubbing his eyes and then that part of 1^ person called 
sometimes by our Gallic neighbours son skdnt^ and by the Jamaica negro girl, with still greater 
precision, her * sit upon.' The rapidity of his change of position disclosed the root of his un- 
easiness ; for through a small circular grating in the deck, just where he had slept so uneasily, 
there gleamed a pair of wicked blue eyes, that could only belong to a midshipman in mischief; 
— a small hand, too, holding a sail-maker's needle, was not so quickly withdrawn as to escape 
the notice of the sufferer and the lookers on. The broad face of the native assumed at first a 
tiger-like ferocity of expression ; but he soon caught the infection from the laughing &ce8 
around, and good humouredly joined in the laugh himself. Had he caught the youngster on 
bis own native hill-side, awful would have been the ' utu ' exacted for this somewhat too 
serious joke ! 

The Mihonari Maoris on board were most exemplary in their observance of the rites of their 
adopted religion — every morning and evening engaging in public prayer, and occasionally joining 
in a hymn. This latter act of devotion gave rise more than once to the most incongruous 
scenes and sounds ; for in the forecastle of the ship a party of Christian sailors and soldiers 
were singing after their manner what might well be described as a set of heathenish songs ; 
whilst, on the quarter-deck, a group of * the heathen ' were chanting, with great apparoit 
unction, a well-lmown psalm in their own tongue. The compositions of the inspired Hebrew 
king may not, however, be really so incongruous to the Maori as might at first be imagined ; 
for it is said that many of their customs, civil and religious, correspond in a remarkable degree 
with those of the Jews ; and, as I have before noted, the features of Taniwha and many olJiers 
bear a strong generic resemblance to those of that ancient race,— ^e same prominent and 
heavy though lustrous eye, the same somewhat coarse aquiline nose, and thick, sensual mouth. 
Are the Maoris descendants of one of the lost tribes ? 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Jawaary \Oth. — ^Meanwhile Inflexible was not idle. The wind was high and sore against 
her ; but by dint of * expeDsive gear ' and active stoking — almost up to boilingK)ver mark- 
she plou^ed her way along the eastern coast of Ahina-Mnuee, sometimes quite out of sight, 
at others within clear view of the land. Stem and rugged and storm-beaten is its aspect, — 
here a wall of serrated peaks with little apparent arable soil ; there a congeries of hills, fern 



156 OUB ANTIPODES. 

or forest-clad, with narrow alluvial valleys between them showing patches of cultivation near 
the beach, — sequestered spots, where the scattered remnants of tribes driven from the more 
fei*tile and populous parts of the island, have taken refuge from persecntion. On this coast 
there are, I am told, but few permanent inhabitants, with the exception of one formidable 
sept (the Ngati — something, of course I), whose numbers are said to amount to thirty 
thousand souls. 

•I thought we should never get round East Cape, — a fine obtuse cloud-capped promontory : 
and, having at length rounded it, I thought we should never see the last of it, so fiercely 
buffeted was the good ship by wind and wave. In one of the wildest and most secluded nooks 
of this inhospitable shore, a verdant oasis amid ru^ed volcanic crags was pointed out as the 
residence of an English Missionary and his wife. Hundreds of miles of trackless wilderness 
must lie between them and their nearest white neighbour. A shudder, I confess, i-an through 
my veins as I contemplated with worldly eye the position, social and material, of this voluntaiy 
exile from his kin and country : yet, after all, life is but a pilgrimage, and a brief one ; and 
whether the traveller hurries towards his kaaba environed with the noisy kafila of society, or 
with staff and scrip wends his lonely way, the bourne will equally be reached ; and who can 
say to which of the wayfarers the balance of joys and sorrows, duties and pleasures, good and 
evil shall accrue ? 

Almost within sight of Port Nicholson, and ere we reach it, let me seize the occasion to oon 
over a brief outline of the origin of the settlement of Wellington, and of some of the incidents 
accompanying its creation. Wellington then is the head-quarters of the New Zealand Land 
and Colonisation Company ; and is a few months senior in existence to the Crown settlement 
and seat of Government, Auckland, from which it is distant about 500 miles by sea. Every 
one who has heard of New Zealand in connexion with British rule, has heard of the Land 
Question in connexion with the New Zealand Company. It would little become a mere military 
tourist, and still less suit the object and character of this book, to do more tlian touch ver}- 
lightly ou so grave a subject. In 1839 the above-mentioned joint-stock company, so reliant 
on the powerful names enrolled among their ranks as to resolve to act, or at least to initiate 
their scheme, without the sanction of the Crown, sent an agent, in the pei'son of Colonel 
Wakefield, in charge of an expedition to New Zealand, 'to select a spot for a considerable 
colony, and to prepare for the emigrants.' The Tory, 400 tons, carrying the agent, with 
goods for barter, &c., and mounting eight guns, sailed from England accordingly in May, 
arrived in Cook's Straits on the 17th August of that year, and shortly anchored in Port 
Nicholson. The native proprietorship of land on the shores of Cook's Sti-aits was at this 
juncture, owing to successive conquests of various tribes, wholly unsettled and undefined, — 
a fact well known to all the old European residents. Yet the agent had no difficulty in finding 
native chie& willing to sell any quantity of this commodity, from an acre to a province, but 
who had no earthly title to the precious article which they so readily disposed of for blankets, 
tomahawks, Jews -harps, fire-arms, &c. ; and, when in a few short months three large ships 
full of emigrants followed on the heels of the Tory, great were the disappointment, discontent, 
and distress caused by the discovery of the fact that there was no land, on really secure tenure, 
to be got for love or money. A peaceable debaikation of the intended settlers took place, for 
the Maoris were prominently civil to them until their interests began seriously to clash ; and 
the gallant Colonel's mild yet film demeanour and excellent temper gained him golden opinions 
among the Maoris as well as his own people. A spot in the delta of the Hutt River, fiowing 
into Port Nicholson exactly opposite its mouth, was first selected ; the New Zealand Company's 
flag (whatever manner of bunting that might be, for I never heard of their being authorised 
to hoist a * Kumpani ki NishUn,' like that of the H. E. I. Company I) — the New Zealand Com- 
pany's flag was planted on the soil, and the embryo township was named Britannia. Britannia, 
however, in this case, failed to rule the waves, for in high winds the sea beat tumultuously 
upon the shores, and the river, proving rebellious, overflowed its banks and overran the town 
allotments. The site on the Hutt was therefore abandoned for that of Thomdon Flat on the 
shores of Lambton Harbour, an inner lobe of the great basin of Poi*t Nicholson; Wellington 
was founded, and the neighbouring land was greedily bought up at all hazards of faulty title 
and dangerous tenure. A population gradually poured in from England and elsewhere, and, 
in March 1840, six large vessels rode at anchor in the port scarcely as many months established. 
A provisional government was formed ; and the council signed an agreement of r^ulations for 
self-government, binding themselves * on honour' to submit to the Company's aca-edited agent, 
as first president thereof— a measure deemed necessary to maintain law and order in the infant 



LAND RIGHTS OF THE SAVAGE, 157 

community, * until the Home government should see fit to extend over them its protecting 
dominion.' The sanction of several influential natives to this public step was obtained ; but 
the • protection * thus humbly invoked from the imperial government by the free colonisers of 
the south was not extended to them by the local government in so paternal a spirit ns might 
have been expected ; for, in June 1840, one of the agents employed to diffuse the treaty of 
Waitangi through the more distant parts of the colony arrived from Auckland with a small 
detachment of military and police, and, landing at ^.Vellington, proceeded, without loss of time 
or waste of words, to haul down the Company's flag, replacing that emblem by the standard 
of England, — a supercession so natural and inevitable that the ceremony must have been per- 
formed in a manner peculiarly galling to the feelings of the Wellingtonians, in order to account 
for the bitter terms in which it is treated of by a I'elative of the Company's representative in 
liis interesting work on New Zealand. 

The good folks considered that a community of nearly 1,500 English and 400 savages, 
which had been living several months together without serious breach of their self>imposed 
laws, deserved somewhat tenderer treatment at the hands of Her Majesty's officers. Nothing 
daunted, however, by the cloudy appearance of aflfiiirs, the Company's agent created several 
new settlements, some of which were at a considerable distance from Wellington ; and in about 
a year, including Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth, Wanganui, and smaller places in Cook's 
Straits, they contained a white population amounting to about 5,000 souls. 

The premature and informal occupation of the country by the Company, and their improvident 
and profuse sale of land to others before they had achieved a good title to it themselves, 
involved the Government at home and abroad in endless troubles, and the emigrants themselves 
in embarrassment and distress. The country had been partially and loosely settled by 
Europeans long before the birth of the New Zealand Association, and the Government quickly 
discovered that large tracts had been purchased at merely nominal prices, and that the Maoris, 
if not interfered with, would soon alienate all they possessed. An enactment was therefore 
passed, declaring invalid all title to land purchased directly from the Aborigines. The Crown 
was to be the only direct customer with them, and the sole source of all titJe. The land was 
to be sold to applicants by the Government at a fixed price per acre, and the proceeds were to 
form a fund for the promotion of immigration and for internal improvements. Thus the 
buyer would get for his money not only his allotment but the labour to cultivate it, and the 
roads, bridges, &c., to connect it with the townships and transport its produce. This right of 
pre-emption asserted by the Govemmait appears to have been peremptorily neceiKary for the 
prevention of inordinate portions of earth's surface falling into the hands of jobbers, merely 
for the purpose of doling it out to retail purchasers at fancy prices ; or, what was still worse, 
letting it lie idle and unproductive for want of capital, inclination, or knowledge to bring it 
into culture. 

Commissioners were appointed to inquire into and adjudicate in all cases of claims, — of whom 
all I can say' from all I have heard, is, that I do not envy them their hopeless and tliankless 
office. Nor were the Government's self-imposed fiduciary duties any sinecure. Statesmen and 
jurists and political economists have dogmatised, and of course disagreed, on the land rights of 
savages, — some holding that, however few in number, however erratic in habit, the hunting, 
fishing, naked, man-eating Aboriginal black is as truly the rightful lord of the manor and 
proprietor of the soil, as the hunting, shooting, well-dressed, venison-devouring Leicestershire 
squire : others that, since it is the lot of man to subdue the earth, the right of property only 
comes with fhe labour bestowed upon it ; that as everything was made for the use of man, 
those who neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into bams, deserve to be dispossessed of their 
inutilised property. The surplus soil of the New Zealander would, according to the latter and 
more popular theory, be as fair game for an over-populated, imder-fed country like England, as 
that of the Red Indian, the Hottentot, or the Australian ; and, really, there have, now and then, 
exuded from letters of instruction from Home such acquisitive symptoms on the subject 
under notice^ that it is excusable to doubt whether it is our high appreciation of the Maori's 
proprietary rights that has procured him the exemption he now enjoys from the ordinary fate of 
the savage possessor of broad acres ; or whether, on the contrary, he rather owes this immunity 
from pilli^ to his own formidable character,'to the warlike attitude he has ever assumed 
towaitls the whites as a body, and to the inexpugnable nature of his country. 

The natives openly avow, * our land was of no value till you Pakehas came here ; if you 
want it now, you must pay well.* Yet, some of the most bloody feuds [in the annals of the 
country have arisen firom disputes on this subject. So lately as 1843, there took place, at 



.158 OUR ANTIPODES. 

Monganuiy a famous battle about land. The forefathers of a chief called Nopera (Maxuri for 
Noble) now living at Eataia, were, about forty years ago, driven from then: ancient abiding 
place at Monganui by a hostile tribe ; and the conquerors had retained peaceful possession ever 
since. Encouraged, however, by the English local Govemm^it, Nopera resolved to reassert his 
claim — which was, of course, resisted by the actual possessors of the soil. The Monganui tribes, 
with numerous allies, amounting, it is said, to 2,500 . men, tinder chiefs of known -valour, 
encountered in a pitched battle the tribes of N<q)era and his adherents, headed also hy men of 
I'enown and numberii^g 2,000 fighting men. The conflict must have been conducted in the 
rambling and vapouring manner of the heroes of Troy, — alternate speechifying, boasting, feasting, 
praying, and fighting — which is, indeed, the ordinary mode of transacting warlike affairs when 
* Greek meets Greek ' in the civil broils of New Zealand. After several days' skirmishing not 
more than thirty or forty men were killed, although fire-arms were plentiful. This was a 
battle for a great principle, not a petty feud or foray, — one side comlkting for the right of 
inheritance, the other for the right by conquest. Noble, who still lives, and is well spoken 
of by the English, suffered signal defeat. &)me of his head men were slain ; and thus ended 
the affair. 

Nor is it only clan against clan that the Aborigines are ready to fight* for their territorial 
privileges. The sad business of the Wairau affords bloody token that they will stand foot to 
foot with the white man in defence of the soil they have inherited from their ancestors, or won 
by the red right hand. Not that I think the Maori iu general has any sentimental attach- 
ment to particular patches of his father-land; but he loves it as his chief marketable 
staple, and will * bide a bout ' for it as another man might do for his purse, if it were in 
danger. 

The massacre of the Wairau occun'ed in the same year as the battle above cited ; its details 
are well known ; yet, as a narrative of it is before me, and some of my friends know as tittle 
of it as I did myself before I left England, perhaps a concise account thereof may be here 
admitted, although it might have been more appropriately inserted afler visiting the q)ot. 

Certain purcluusers of land from the New Zealand Company having been put in po6ses8i<Hi of 
their town and suburban sections at Nelson (the chief settlement on the southern shore of 
Cook's Straits), it was found necessary, in order to obtain land for the country lots, to resort 
to the Wairau, an extensive valley abutting upon Cloudy Bay — ^about seventy noiles firom 
the township. The Company's surveyors, who were dispatched to this district to prepare it 
for delivery to the settlers, were immediately warned off by the natives, who did all in tiidr 
power to obstruct the survey. Meanwhile, Te Bauperaha and his friend Rangihaieta, the 
original owners of the land in question— owners by conquest-^arrived from the other ade of 
the straits, where they had beoi attendiog the Court of the Conunissioner of Land Claims, 
whom they had settled to meet at Cloudy Bay towards the end of the current montii, for the 
purpose of adjudicating the dispute r^rding the purchase of this very district. These chiefs 
finding the surveyors at the Wairau, informed them that if they persisted in the survey, they 
would turn them off. They then proceeded to bum down the hut of the chief surveyor — ^first, 
however, removing his property to prevent its destruction. They pulled up and burnt the 
ranging rods, flags, &c., and drove away the men. The surveyor's assistant upon this proceeded 
to Nelson, where, on the 12th June, 1843, he laid an information before the police magistrate, 
the result whereof was the issue of a warrant against Kauperaha and Bangihaieta for burning 
the hut ; and the magistrate resolved to attend in person its execution. 

Mr. Thompson, the police magistrate, was accompanied on this ill-&,ted expedrti(Hi by the 
following gentlemen :—-CaptaiA Wakefield, R.N., the Company's agent at Nelson, Captain 
England, J.P., late of H.M.'s 12th Regiment. — ^Mr. Richardson, the Crown Prosecutor — ^Mr. 
Howard, Company's storekeeper, — ^Mr. Cotterell, assistant-surveyoi>-*with several others ; also 
an interpreter, four constables, and twelve special constables : the whole amounting to forty- 
nine persons, among whom were distributed thui;y-three muskets and one or two fowling- 
pieces. On Friday, the 16th, the expedition proceeded in boats, a few miles up the Waiiaa 
river, and camped for the night — having been watched all day by Maori scouts. On Saturday 
morning, pursuing their course, they came upon the Maori party, squatting in groups mi the 
opposite side of a narrow deep brook called the Tua Marina, with a dense scrub covering their 
rear. The white men halted on the left bank ; the armed esccat were formed in two 6ub> 
divisions under Messrs. England and Howard, with strict directions not to fire without ordere : 
while the police magistrate and Captain Wakefield, wii^ some others, crossed Ithe stream on a 
large canoe which the natives permitted them to use as a bridge. Approaching the Maoris, 



THE WAIBAU MA88ACBE. 159 

Mr. Thompson produced his warrant and commanded Ranperaha to accompany him, with any 
followers he chose, on hoard the brig — to be brought to trial at Nelson for burning the hut of 
the Surveyor. The chief replied, * I will not go — ^I will stay where I am !* The other then 
threatened to compel him, and pointed to the armed escort ; when Rangihaieta arose from among 
the bushes, came forward, and in vehement tones defied the magistrate. Mr. Thompson, under 
great excitement, now called upon Captain England to * bring down the men ;' — ^whereupon 
5ie Maoris arose with a shout, and fell back under cover of the wood. The Englishmen, who 
had crossed over the brook, refareated immediately towards the armed escort, and began in great 
confusion to recross the stream by the canoe ; — ^when, as the escort rushed forward to support 
them, a shot was fired — probably by accident — and instantly a general fusilade commenced on 
both sides. Several of itie English leaders soon falling, a sudden and shameful panic seized 
their followers, and the greater part of them, turning their backs, fled in disorder. Te Rau- 
peraha and Bangihaieta witli their myrmidons, in number about forty, rushed across the creek 
in pursuit. The English genliemen, deserted by their escort, gave up their arms and surren- 
dered themselves prisoners : and Mr. Thompson and Te Rauperaha had I'edprocated the word 
* Kati ' — * Peace,' when Rangihaieta coming up exclaimed , * Rauperaha, remember your 
daughter V (one of the former s wives, killed by a chance shot during the afiiay), and instantly 
struck down Captain England — ^when a general massacre followed. 

A Maori woman, who, on the subsequent investigation, gave her evidence with a fearful 
simplicity, said, * Rangihaieta killed them all with his own hand, with a tomahawk : I saw him 
do it. I saw him Mil Captain Wakefield, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Richardson. I saw him 
kill John Brooks, near the bunch of trees up the hill. I saw him kill Mr. Cotterell. I saw 
Rangihaieta snatch away Captain Wakefield's watch, after he had knocked him down. He 
afterwards offered it to tiie missionary natives who were present, but they refused to take it, 
saying, " Let it lie with the dead, and all that belongs to them." ' 

Seventeen dead bodies of Englishmen were afterwards found, and buried by a Wesleyan 
clergyman who went there with two boats' crews of whalers. The skulls of all had been cleft 
with tomahawks and generally disfigured by repeated blows, struck with such ferocity that any 
one of them must have been instantly fatal. The killed amounted to twenty-two, the wounded 
to five ; twenty effected their escape. Such are some of the terrible details of the massacre of 
the Wairau. In reporting its occurrence to the Home authorities, the acting Governor stated 
tliat the measures of the police magistrate were undertaken not only without his sanction, but 
in direct opposition to previous instructions ; and that, as far as his information went, they 
were in the highest degree unjustifiable, inasmuch as the question of the ownership of the land 
on which the hut was burned by the natives was yet unsettled, and was on the point of coming 
under the consideration of the Connnissioners. 

It was the affair of the Wairau first broke down the prestige of the superiority of the white 
man, especially^f the white gentleman, over the semidvUised Maori. Heki's well-known 
taunt oa. his foray to Kororarika, * Is Rauperaha to have all the credit of killing the Pakehas ?' — 
and its corollary, his attack and sacking of that place, are practical proofs of this. The series 
of operations in the north against that chief and Kawiti, those against Rangihaieta and Maketu 
in the south — ^in a word, the New Zealand war, with its sacrifice of valuable lives and its 
expenditure of half a million, together with the consequent stagnation in the progress of the 
colony, — are the lineal and legitimate descendants of the unwisely undertaken, miserably 
conducted, and fearfully consummated affair of the Wairau. Yet, however unwarrantible the 
persistence of the English claimants in surveying lands still under dispute; — ^however 
lamentable the loss of life inflicted on the natives by the English fire ; — the amount of obloquy 
heaped upon the vanquished party, dead and survivors, by certain public officials at Home and 
abroad, was certainly unmerited. A high Government functionary, of course deriving his 
impression of the affair fi-om the local ofiUdal reports, pathetically expatiates on the death of the 
fair Te Rongo, the spouse of Rangihaieta, who, according to the Downing-street appreciation of 
her virtues, * fell a victim to conjugal affection ' during the conflict. This conjugal bias must 
liave been — to speak botanically — of the polyandrian class ; unless her intimacy with the 
sailors and whalers of Cloudy Bay has been foully misrepresented ! No one disputes that the 
attempt to sen'e a warrant of capture, backed by a few half-armed bumpkins — many of whom 
had never before handled firelock — ^upon two savage chieftains, heroes of a hundred battles, in 
their native fastnesses and in the midst of their warlike and devoted adherents, armed as well or 
better than themselves, — was a rash and foolhardy, as well as, under the circumstances, an 
illegal act. The Surveyors, in the first instance, deserved to have their theodolites and ranging- 



160 Ob'It ANTIPODES. 

rods broken over their heads for persisting in a trespass, afler dae warning : and to talk ot 
* handcuffs ' to a Maori chief in the heart of his native ^ilds, was, indeed, 

' To beard the lion in his den — 
The Douglas in his haU !' 

a piece of arrogance that deserved correction — ^but not a cmel death. Again, the dispositions of 
the English leader of the expedition were as careless and £Eiulty as those of the Aboriginal chief 
were sagacious and well-devised ; for after the very first evolution — the passage of the brook, 
the white party was, in fact, at the mercy of those whom they had come to capture * by force 
if necessary/ It would have been a brilliant victory on the pait of the Maoris, as well as 
a disgraceful defeat on that of the Pakehas, if the former hal contented themselves with winnins 
a battle by open prowess, and secuiing their prisoners ; and had it not been for the presence of 
the bloodlJiirsty Rangihaieta it is likely such would have been the result. That this arch 
ruffian was permitted to escape unpunished at the time was not a matter of choice. Any 
attempt to arrest him would hiave caused a certain and useless sacrifice of life, if not the utter 
destruction of the British settlements ; for the entire military force in the colony at the moment 
of the massacre consisted of a weak company of infantry quaiiered at Auckland, and there was 
no vessel of war on the station. It is stated that immediately ailer the massacre Rauperaha 
repaired to his estate at Otaki, and, the very day after his arrival, formally embraced Chiistianity 
and attended chapel. His wife and slave women openly wore the rings of the murdered English- 
men, and his house was full of their clothes, arms, watches, and other property ; and it was 
shrewdly surmised that this hurried assumption of the Christian faith was a mere ruse to secure 
the alliance of the Missionary natives, in case the English came to open rupture with Rangihaieta 
and himself. 1 accept the want of power as the sole valid motive for the forbearance exercised 
by the local government on this occasion ; for another consideration, uiged by one-sided philan- 
thropists, viz., that it would have been heinously wicked to encourage or risk an internecine 
war between these amiable baibarians, by employing one tribe to fight against another, was, I 
must be permitted to say, throwing cold milk-and-water on a measure whose execution the 
honour of England and the cause of humanity imperatively demanded, — namely, the captuic 
and punishment of Rangihaieta.* And Rangihaieta still lives and goes free ; free to boast of 
having inhumanly butchered more Englishmen than any savage had ever done before, — ^free to 
vaunt his impunity, and to bully with equal impunity any white person whom he may fancy 
to insult or pillage. Yet, stained as is this truculent monster with the blood of unarmed men — 
infamous as was his previous character as a drunkard, a robber, a murderer, and a cannibal, — 
and actively instrumental as he subsequently proved in aggressions against the peaceful settlers, 
and in covert and overt hostility to British rule, it will haixUy be believed that there have been 
found Englishmen, — English gentlemen, — who have visited in his bandit camp, broken bread 
with, and given the hand of amity to Rangihaieta ! It was disgusting to witness the * paddling 
of palms ' between some of the highest colonial notables, and that cringing old sycophant and 
anthropophagist, Te Rauperaha ; but to cultivate a close intimacy with Jack Ketch might be 
considered a careful and exclusive selwtion of acquaintance, compared with a voluntary chumship 
with Rangihaieta. The writer was offered at once an opportunity and an excuse for a visit to 
this celebrated savage in his forest lair ; but, though he must confess himself, in this instance, 
susceptible of that unworthy craving common (perhaps ;peculiar) to his countrymen — the 
passion for personally inspecting the pei'petrators of foul and bloody deeds, the place of thor 
occurrence, even the instruments — pistol, poker, or pitchfork — ^whereby they were effected, and 
afterwards to batten on a rechauff€e thereof in the shape of a three-volumed novel, — ^}'et he had 
the virtue to forego the occasion, fairly stating, as his reason, squeamish though it might be, 
that he could not give his hand to (still less rub noses with) the Tiger of the Wairau ! 

Rangihaieta, it is said, (indeed, passages in his life prove it,) is not without some redeeming 
qualities. He keeps his word for good or enl ; is frank, brave, and generous, sometimes pay- 
ing handsomely and voluntarily for \vTongs committed by him in headlong fits of passion. He 
hates Europeans, and has never disguised his antipathy. When Governor Grey had an intci^ 
view with him some years afler the * unhappy deeds ' I have just related, this unpllant son of 
the wilderness exclaimed, * I want nothing of the Pakehas ; I wear nothing of their making • 

* It is a dictam of Lord Chatham's, I think, that civilised nations are not Justified in employing 
savages in their war against savages— the very mode of all others which England hat adopted with no 
small success in every qnarter of the globe ; and which, afler all, is but realishig the old fable of 
i<H>6ening the faggot. E Kuru, a powerful Christian chief, had offered to pursue the murderers with l,oao 



MODEST LAND-CLAIMANTS. 161 

see my dog-skin mat ; — you may go I* His Excellency pointed, with a smile, to a peacock's 
feather in his hair, when Rangihaieta, plucking it scornfully out, threw it on the ground, and 
set his foot on it, saying, * True — ^that is European 1' His acts of violence towards white per- 
sons hare heen innumerable. So late as 1849 I read in a newspaper that, after compelling an 
Englishman, keeping a ferry, to pass him over, he knocked him down and robbed him of some 
Tum, merely remarking that he must have it. Shortly afterwards, however, he gave the man 
liberal ' utu' both for the liquor he had taken and the licking he had given. On the Hutt 
river and Porirua road, during his struggles against British supremacy, he made war upon the 
unarmed and helpless settlers, driving them off their purchased lots and carrying out his * evic- 
tions,' and * tumbling ' their shielings with all the rigour of the Irish agent of an absentee land- 
lord. Having once heard that he had been evil spoken of by a stout Engb'sh whaler living on 
an island in Cook's Straits, he proceeded there in his canoe, and finding the man standing by 
his door, after measuring his more than ordinary bulk, Rangihaieta seized him in his arms, and 
raising him in the air, dashed him on the ground senseless. 

A friend of mine who has resided several years in New Zealand, — and whom, by-the-by, 
ihis turbuloit bully once threatened to shoot— -described the person of Rangihaieta as singularly 
manly, well-formed, and athletic ; in height about six feet two, with curly black hair, aqui- 
line features, a small piercing eye, and a haughty bearing.* 

On the subject of the Land Claims, I do not know that the paramount necessity of inter- 
ference by the Government can be more pointedly proved than by the following extract from 
fui ' Abstract of claims to land in New Zealand by right of purchase from the Aborigines, as 
far as they can be defined from the Government Gazette to September 1841,' — claims, too, of 
persons resident in New Soutli Wales t I do not insert names, although they have duly ap- 
peared in the Government Gazette, 



1 Claimant. 


Area in Acm. 


OooBidmrtioa giTcn. 


Mill 
1 1 1 1 1 


67,000 acres. 

250,000 acres. 

1,200,000 acres. 

1,328.000 acres. 

5,500,000 acres. 


102. 

, 3011. 

2001. 

3931. 

601.!! 



Yet these requisitions for portions of Mother Earth's crust — startling as they may sound 
and look upon paper — shrink into moderation when compared with the grand land-swoop 
attempted by a well-known mighty squatter and statesman of New South Wales, whose claim 
amounted to about 100,000 acres in the Northern Island of New Zealand, and 20,000,000 
t>f acres in the Middle Island — the whole of the latter island, in short, except about three 
millions of acres I 

I have said that the Land Claims Question has proved a ' poser,' — ^and all because it is im- 
possible to define accurately the territorial rights of the savage. The writers and speakers on 
this vexed subject are legion. The law of nations was turned and twisted to suit the views 
and to support the position of each exponent ; and the New Zealand Company itself boldly and 
freely construed the palladium of nations, the jus gentium, into a right of certain gents frt)m 
the east end of London and elsewhere, to purchase * no end ' of acres of land for as many Jews'- 
liarps, and to sell them for as many guineas ; to erect colonies without the sanction of the 
Crown ; and to send out emigrants and locate them upon tracts that had neither been * rqwrted 
ready for delivery,* * surveyed,* nor even * discovered.* The knot into which company and 
tx>lonists, whites and blacks, nilers and ruled, jobbers and jobbed, had got entangled, has never 
yet been deftly reeled off into a clear and even skein. It was indeed, in some sort, finally cut by 
the Imperial Government, who, in pity to the embarrassed association and their still more em- 
barrassed constituents, granted to it a Charter of Incorporation, a large loan of money, a right 
of pre-emption in native land (the peculiar privilege of the Crown), together with sundry other 
inomunities and modifications intended to reconcile both, as much as possible, to a bad job. 
Pity that so grand a scheme should &il ; for noUe and grand is undoubtedly that undertaking 
whfch would tend to relieve the old country of its surplus population — a surplus foredoomed 
to poverty, famine, and therefore to crime ; and would pour it upon a land — ^to use the lan- 
guage of one of our pleasantest modem writers, though not applied to New Zealand — a land 

* This gentteman gave me the genealogy of Te Bangihaieta, in unbroken descent of tiiirty-one genera* 
tioDs from XJi, bis ancestor, who originally came in a caooe from some island to the northwaid of New 
Zealand. 



162 OUB A2STIP0DES. 

* 60 kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.' Experience has 
taught us what common sense and oommcm honesty might long ago have suggested, namely, 
that it is better to purchase the land and the good-will of a warlike race by equitable remune- 
ration, than to get it by first cheating, then fighting, and after all having to pay. The Wairau 
and sundry other disputed districts have now been bought up for a few thousands of pounds by 
the Government, and will, doubtless, be resold to settlers at prices not ruinous, and imder a 
tenure more consonant with conscientiousness and personal comfort than the former leas costly 
but less secure terms of possession. 

It is true that speculators, missionaries, and colonists in general on the old Jew8*-harp-y 
system, held their property at very cheap rates financially speaking, bat at the expense of a vast 
amount of grievous humiliation, extortion, and even violence at the hands df an inferior race,— 
a patience of hardship and outrage which might be intelligible oiough in the long-suffering 
Mssionary, but which is hard to reconcile with the known duoacter of the indqwndent 
British layman, who would hardly exercise such forbearance, did he not feel that he was in 
truth a trespasser on the soil, that the price he paid for his footing was little better than a 
swindle, and that consequently the kicks and cufis that befell him were no more than bis well« 
merited meed. 

Under any drcmnstances, the first colonisers of a strange land an destined to hard work, 
privation, and too often to ruin. The pioneers of civilisation, they are men of the axe, the 
shovel, and the pick, of the beard and leathern i^ran, — ^with slung firelock always ready for 
action. Or rather I would liken them to the forlorn hope of a colunm of assault, which 
covering the advance of the main body, and meeting the brunt of battle, too often lose life or 
fortune in the desperate duty — serving only to fill with their corpses the ditch over whidi 
their more prosperous followers march to eventual victory. Yet — glory be to British enter- 
prise and spirit I— ^point but out the spot of earth capable of maintaining its man, and, however 
distant, however hedged in with danger and difficulty, there will ever spring to the front a 
gallant band of voltrnteers, ready for the adventure and sai^uine of success ; and sooner or 
later the courage, the perseverance, and the thrift of an orderly people will assuredly meet 
their reward. 

But all this while the Inflexible is drawing near Port Nicholson. Great was the fear that 
we should not get into port this day. Towards sunset, however, we were within Cook's 
Straits ; and as the steam-ship rounded Cape Palliser, the southernmost point of the Northern 
Island, the sinking luminaiy glinted on tiie snow-capped peaks of the Sonthem Island ; in 
another hour or two we had p^sed Baring's Head, and were threading the somewhat long and 
narrow entrance to Port Nicholson ; and finally, at ten F.M., we dropped anchor in that arm of 
the great southern haven called Lambton Harbour. Our berth was about ten miles fixnn the 
Heacb, and a short half-mile from the shore. Around us lay a magnificent basm, land-locked 
by lofty and precipitous hills, and immediately before us the town of Wellington. 

The harbour and settlement reminded me slightly of St. John's, Newfoundland, but the 
comparison is xmjust to the New Zealand port Fortunate it is for the colony that in so 
Btormy a part of the world and on a coast so generally devoid of shelter, such a splendid 
refuge has been provided. Wonderfully diverse, however, are the opinions I have heard and 
read rq;arding Port Nicholson as a harbour, and Wellington as a chief town and province. 
Certain deponents aver that its mouth is narrow ; its throat beset with dangerous rocJcB ; that 
tiiere is bad holding ground in the anchorage ; and that through the gorges of the surrounding 
bills bobterous and sudden gusts plough up the smooth water of the bay, and rush upon the 
shipping thus insecurely moored. Its flatterers, on the other hand, uphold the characto* of the 
port for amiability of climate, and triumphantiy point to the many hundreds of vessels that 
nave entered and cleared without a shadow of an aoddeot. All I know personally is, that 
tiixte days out of four during my short stay ' it blew great guns ;' and had I access to the log 
of H.H.S. InflextbUe^ I think it would be found that, with all her titular inexorability, sbe 
dragged her anchor, and therefore shifted her berth, the very night on which it was ' let go * 
there. There is an old story, too, complacentiy repeated at Auckland to all travellers, of a 
boat hauled high and dry on the beadi of Thomdon, having been blown bodily along the main 
street of Wellington, like an autumnal leaf, killing what the accident^nongers call ' an aeed 
female ' in its ^ong-shore gambols. As for the township and vicinage, detractors affirm that 
' there is little avails^^e or good land near at hand, owing to the impractioible nature of the hills 
that hem it in — that the heavy timber p rM cnts serious obatadas to the Mttier, and that the 
difficulty of opcnii^ communioatioDS with the interior will prerent Wellington becoming the 



WELIjyOTON TEB8U8 AUCKLAND. 163 

sea Tent of any wide drctiit of coontry. Those, on the contrary, who gire their suffrages to 
Wellington, dwell on the splendid valley of the Hutt, already laid open and nnmerously 
settled ; and on the eztensiye vale of Wairarapa, which the fine road through the former will 
soon bring within reach. 

Self-interest is the lens through which the several observations have been taken. The Com- 
pany's colonists were disappointed tliat Wellington, rather than Auckland, should not have been 
chosen as the seat of Government; they claimed seniority of existence, superiority in the 
census, and the more central position when all the islands shall be peopled. The colonists of 
the north — more especially the owners of town and suburban lots at Auckland — ^were naturally 
fearful that the title and advantages of metropolis should be lost to their new dty ; and they 
not only cited their milder diroate, their twofold ports of Waitemata and Manakau, their 
naturally clear land, &c., but they drew a most unflattering parallel between their own 
abiding-place and that of their rivals. 

Putting myself in the position of a newly-arrived emigrant, neither Akaiana nor Poneki * 
would have many charms in my eyes, at least at first sight. The aspect of the former is 
repulsive like that of all countries whose interior has been convulsed and exterior disfigured by 
the action of subterranean fires. The mountainous character of the latter is discouraging to 
any one who, like myself, may have no fancy to live in a continual state of up and down hill. 
This feature, with the insecurity of property and the hostility of the natives, has prevented 
that devotion to &rming pursuits on whidi depends its ultimate success, and has reconciled 
the emigrants, who came out with worthier intents, to the wretchedly inferior traffic of the 
counter. Those who came to till, remained to peddle ; those who should have been producers, 
became the suttlers and hucksters of the bolder few and of the natives, while the better bom 
advoiturers dissipated their capital in the clubs and taverns of the townships. Perhaps it is 
presumptuous in me to say, that, did circumstances induce me to make New Zealand my 
* new home,' my choice of locality would fiUl upon neither of the provinces I have named, nor 
even on any spot in the Northern Island. I cannot conceive that any solid advantage will 
accrue to the English settier from the labour or the vicinity of Maoris. Of what use is an 
idle, independent, free-and-easy savage, at 25. 6d. or 3s. a-day ? I would pitch my tent, 
rather, on the comparatively uninhabited Middle Island, where there would be no Rauperahas 
and Rangihaietas, nor even Te Wh^ros, to watch and humour, bully or propitiate, according 
to one's strength or weakness ; — perhaps at the nascent Churdi of England settlement of New 
Canterbury, where doubtiess there will, ere long, be transplanted a complete social slice of 
England ; something in the old style — church and state, peer, priest, and peasant — an entire 
community packed and labelled in the Old Country, and landed without damage, as per 
invoice, in a fine, clear, level district, with plenty of room in rear of its port, and a British 
climate. To be sure, 3/. an acre is somewhat high for land 16,000 miles f^om May-fair, 
especially if the purchaser stretches a point to pay it, in the faith tiiat the settlement will 
maintain an exclusively episcopalian character; for, long before its streets are half laid out, 
some nonconformist Ponndtext will be found mounted on a barrel at a comer allotment, or on 
a tree^ump in the market>place, and will not wait long for a flock If 

January lUh. — ^Wellington is a long straggling village, thinly spread — ^like the raspberry 
jam at the Auckland native feast — over two or thm miles of the crescent-shaped beach, and 
over a plain, sometimes wider sometimes narrower, lying between the sea and the grand 
amphitheatre of hills within whose strict onbraoe the township is confined — their hirsute sum- 
mits absolutely frowning down the chimneys and into the back windows, and some of the 
more intrusive spurs of tiie range pushing, as it were, the houses and their inhabitants into 
the waters of the harbour. 

At either extremity of the town are the barracks of Thomdon and Te Aro ; — at either 
extremity a native pan. A good solid brick gaol stands near the former, and the general 
hospital for both races— an iateresting and excellent institution but just established — near 
the latter. The best effects, it is said, have arisen from the Maori patient seeing the white 
man submitting to treatment and regimen wholly strange to the former,, and thereby gaining 

* MacHi names for Anckland'and Port Nicholson. 

t Towards the end of 1850 I was Informed, by an oflScer who had Just arrived from the Canterbory 
Settlement, and who has purchased land and stock for the purpose of settling there, that when he left the 
place there were about 260 persons there, and that, at this essentially Church of England plantation, the 
only Churchman present was a Eonan Catholic Frieit, to whom all the children were taken for baptism 
and other rites 1 

X 2 



164 OUB ANTIPODES. 

confidence in Earopean medical skill. The physician in charge has recommended that natives 
of rank should be numbered among the official visitora of the hospital. 

There are in Wellington one or two very fair hotels, and the shops and stores are pretty 
well supplied with the ordintiry requisites of a young settlement. There is, moreover," a very 
good and convenient club, properly exclusive in its tenets, whose advantages are extended to 
strangers and travellers of respectability, on the same hospitable principle as that of the 
Sydney Club. 

As a military post — and surely all settlements amongst a warlike race of Aborigines should 
be considered as military posts, with reference at least to choice of site — Wellington is 
vulnerable in the extreme. Ten thousand hostile Maoris might assemble without discovery 
among the masses of wooded -hill and ravine close in rear of the town, and might select a con- 
venient moment to overwhelm it. To fire the weather- boarded city at different points, on 
one of the dark tempestuous nights common to the climate, would be an easy exploit ; and the 
half-asleep and half-naked inhabitants would fall under the silent blows of the club and toma- 
hawk before the garrison could turn out. On the plain of Thomdon is an old field-work, 
called Clifford's Stockade, mounting a few guns, offspring of the panic caused by the sacking 
of Kororarika, and intended as a place of refuge in case of an attack. With a little repair and 
deepening of the ditch, this trifling earthen fortalice might be made quite eflicient against a 
coup de main ; and by a very simple contrivance, which perhaps may have never yet occurred to 
engineers or other defenders of a fortified post, might be rendered impregnable against bare- 
footed savages — ^namely by throwing into the ditch (instead of throwing them on the horse 
and foot-paUis and the sea-beach) all the broken bottles which in a short period have been so 
lavishly emptied by the Company's colonists ! If one must credit half the tales of former 
extravagance cun-ent here, six months' consumption of champagne alone would have furnished 
broken glass sufBcient for the purpose. This may be a usefud and perhaps original hint for 
future beer and wine swilling settlere in a wild country I Methinks I hear the agonised yells 
of the night attacking barbarians, as they recoil with mangled soles from the glass-strewn 
fosse ! nor could the baffled savages console themselves with a koriro or a cannibal supper 
after the defeat — for they would all be suffering lockjaw ! 

The audacity of the rebel Maoris never went the length of attacking either Auckland or 
Wellington ; although Heki threatened the former, and Te Rauperaha is said to have openly 
ridiculed the idea of the latter, with its then garrison, being able to resist a combined attack, 
had he and Rangihaieta chosen to undertake one aflter the affray of the Wairau. 

I found Mr. Eyre, the Lieut.-Govemor, no less hospitable and kind than had been tlie 
Govemor-in-Chief, He provided me with an apai'tment in the unpretending tenement styled 
Government House ; and this gentleman is indeed so generally liberal and hospitable, that it is 
to be feared the modest salary of 800/. a-year, supposed to repay his services and the expenses 
consequent on his station, will as certainly be swallowed up in the first six months — as has 
the annual revenue of the colony and the parliamentary subsidy been absorbed in as short a 
period ! Considering the rugged nature of the country round about, there are some very 
pleasant rides from Wellington. The Karori road, running from the rear of the town through 
a wooded gully to a small upland hamlet of that name, is extremely romantic — initiating £e 
traveller at once into all the splendours of the New Zealand forest. The great roads to the 
Porirua district and the Hutt settlements were commenced by the Company's immigrants, 
and completed by Government, chiefly by soldiers' labour. They afford pleasant rides, good 
intercommunication, and are executed in a style that does credit to a young colony and to the 
workmen employed. As for the walks, he must be a practised mountaineer in wind and limb 
who could enjoy pedestrianism in any direction from Wellington, except along the shores of 
the bay. The weather was, however very cold to sensations like mine fresh from New South 
Wales, and a good rough valk was therefore a goqd thing. Being particularly anxious to get 
a sketch of the settlement and harbour from some commanding point, one afternoon, when the 
sun was shooting his rays precisely at the angle most favourable for light and shade, I set my 
face resolutely against the slope of the Tinakiri range, and soon reached a spot on its chine, 
from whence the crystal bay in its bronze frame of rugged hills, the shipping on its sm-face 
lying calmly at their anchors or scudding along with white wings, the long wood-built town 
curving round the horns of the haven or creeping like ivy up the spurs of the mountain 
behind, and the grand back-ground of the snowy Sierra of Tararua, formed a cmp (Tceil worthy 
the trouble of a scramble and a sketch. Having performed the first^ I must account for 



A SKETCH PBEVEKTED. 165 

failing in the second, whereby my readers have losfc the view of Wellington which oaght to 
have been here inserted. 

I had reached some patches of rude cultivation near the summit, had recovered my breath 
by stedfast contemplation of the scenery, had gotten out my paper and pencil, and, with a dis- 
couraging feeling of the difficulty of my subject, had selected what appeared a favourable spot 
for a seat. My eye, moreover, had fallen complacently on a herd of lone that came browsing 
towards my station, and which were destined to perform the part of animated nature in the 
fi)reground, when I suddenly remembered having been warned against wild and wicked cattle 
in this neighbourhood. A brief consultation of the bovine countenances before ine so satisfied 
me of their pacific temper that I continued to advance up the hill, and had left the whole herd 
behind me, as I thought, when suddenly from the midst of a detached thicket appeared a wild 
black head with a pair of fiery eyes and remarkably sharp horns. There was a fierce bellow, 
a flash of the eyes, a * swirl,' as Bums has it, of a long black tail, — (truly, such tail, boms, 
and eyes, might have well become the Principle of Evil !) — and, ere one * could say it lightens i' 
a long-legged cow dashed through the bushes and made right at me. Waterton would have 
been upon her back in the twinkling of a tough story, and have riddeu her into subjection, as 
he did the alligator ; Guy Earl of Warwick would have reduced her to a state of beefhood, 
carried her home ready spitted on his spear, turned her into a done cow before a good fire, and 
eaten her whole for his supper. As for degenerate me, a tiiree-railed fence stood at my left 
hand, and I hailed it as a firiend in need. My left fingers grasped the top bar, as the right 
horn of the beast touched my skirts ; — one spring and I was safe — ^ingloriously, but indisput- 
ably safe ! But my pencil being among the ' missing in this affair ' (my dignity, I must con- 
fess, was in the list of ' slightly wounded,*) the sketch wfts unavoidably, and, as it happened, 
permanently postponed. 

An acquaintance of mine did not escape so easily in a nmilar encounter that befell him near 
Auckland. While walking with some ladies they were attacked by a bullock, and, in a gallant 
but fruitless attempt to repulse the wild animal with a parasol or umbrella, he was thrown 
down, ti*ampled on, and seriously bruised. A soldier, at the same place, was also much injured 
in a like adventure. This dangerous propensitv in the cattle of New 2^ealand arises probably 
from the graziers of Australia and Van Diemen s Land favouring theur customers with all the 
' ne'erslo-weels ' of th^ stock — cows that decline to ' bail up,' and bullocks that * break fence' 
and rebel against the yoke — a practice which, although very notorious and certainly very sharp 
practice on a sister colony, gave me, I admit, no manner of inquietude until my own person 
became so pointedly affected by it. 

January IBth. — ^Inspection of the 65th regiment on Thomdon Flat — an excellent parade 
ground, like an English village green. It is pleasant to see the truly British appearance of the 
troops in this coimtry ; — ^no pale faces — ^no dried-up fi:«mes. Here was a corps 900 strong, in* 
duding detachments, so increased individually in bulk and healthiness of aspect since I saw 
them a year ago at Sydney after a long voyage from England, that it was difficult to believe 
them the same body of men. They have here plenty of beef and potatoes and a fine blustery 
climate — just the things to assist in erecting the raw young clodpole from the plough-tail, or 
the half-starved stripling from the shuttle, into that hardy and indefatigable machine called the 
British soldier. 

One fine January day, so cool, albeit Midsummer, that a pea-jacket was no unseasonable 
dress, I accompanied the Lieut.-Govemor, the General, and their respective suites on an eques- 
trian*excnrsion to the Valley of the Hutt — a most interesting ride of about thirty miles, easily 
performed between break&st and dinner. This is no little to say in proof of the enterprise of 
the colonists and the Government ; for half-a-dozen years ago a snake— if there were such a 
reptile in the country, which there is not — or a savage, could hardly have wriggled through 
the thick bush now traversed by a beautiful carriage road — a road formed too under the ad 
verse drcumstances of constant interruptions from the hostile natives. For the first eight or 
nine miles the passenger has on his left hand a precipitous bank of rough whinstone covered 
with dense scrub, among which is noticeable the handsome laurel-like Karcka — ^bearing a kind 
of plum, which is eaten by the natives after having been rendered wholesome by cooidng : on 
liis right the waters of Port Nicholson dash their spray against the coping of the road. At 
length the high bank on the left trends away to the north, losing itself in lofty wooded hills, 
and the delta of the Hutt opens itself to view — three or four miles in width, with a similar 
forest ridge sheltering it on the further side. The vale itself seems perfectly flat, the soil very 
rich, the timber magnificent — ^the river Hutt — or Eritonga, to use its native and, without 



166 017B ANTIPODES. 

offence to the owner of the patronymic, more musical name — watering and fertilising its whole 
length.' Quitting the beach and taming up the valley, the road took us close past the pah of 
Pitone, of which the loyai chief, £ Puni, is the heact — merely a stockaded Tillage, whose pali- 
sades would hardly sustain the assault of my late en«ny, the Uack cow. A chapel of ease ia 
the most prominent building within this Maori hamlet, whose exterior fence is still decorated 
with the hideous symbols of the Heathen. Not far beyond, hidden by tiie clustering forest, is 
the residence of the Hon. Edward Petie, the most oonsidenible settler and breeder of stock, 
especially horses, in the province, and one of the numerous scions of ancient and honoarable 
Boman Catholic fianilies, who have, under the auspices of the New Zealand Association, emi- 
grated to the country. This Company, in numbering aristocratic names, the Petres, and 
Stourtons, and Jeminghams, and Cliffords, and Yavasoum, among their first settlers, do cer- 
tainly af^iroach nearer than the rival Crown settianeot of the north, to the system of the 
original English plantations in the New World — ^when the Raleighs and Baltimores and Dela- 
warrs were among the leaders of the adventure ; — and, indeed, to the custom of the oohmising 
andents. 

Galloping over altsmate flax plains, bush, and swamp, in a couple of miles we came upoo 
the British stockade of Fort Richmond, which, with its advanced post of Boulcott's fitnuy 
and a police stodcade stiU fiirther up the valley, was established for the protection of the 
settlers during the late war. The fort is at present held by a subaltern's detachment ; but was 
a more important post during the hostilities of which the valley was the scene, when Rangi- 
.haieta and his associate in arms and mischief, Mamaku, ravaged the indpient settlements on 
this richly alluvial and therefore by the natives vehemently disputed district, committing many 
barbarous murders on the unarmed and unresisting odl(»iBts. H is oert^ly worth fi^tii^ 
for, — ^the valley of the Hutt, from the goi^e on the hills where the river enters on the plain 
to its mouth, containing not less than 30,000 acres of what will be fint-rate meadow land, 
when the bush shall have yielded to the axe and saw. 

liCaving the little fort, we spurred aloi^ a fine wide road, drained cq either hand and spanned 
here and there with bridges— « road as long and as straight as a French cAouss^^. Right and 
left, to a distance of fifty or sixty feet, the timber had Iwen felled ; and beyond this arose the 
tall, tangled, and impervious fbanst Many of the trees were of nugestic growth, and several 
— am<nig others the Kaikatexa, like an English yew, with red berries— are very valuable as 
timber, for hard and durable qualities. Some of the tree foras must have been not less than 
forty or fifly foet bi^, shooting their slender items through the dense underwood, and epna^ 
ing their wide and delicate fronds to the upper air like so many Hindostanee umbxdlaa. A 
hundred feet above them towered the ruder giants of the forast, yielding them that shade and 
ahelter which, both in New South Wales and New Zealand, aeem necessary to their exiafamcft. 
But the arborescent fom was by no means the only kind here. Hundreds of beautiful spedaBens, 
infinite in variety, arrested one's attention at every step. Innumerable paradtes and cHmhing 
plants, vegetable boapoonstrictors in appearance, flung their huge ooila from tree to tree, from 
branch to brandH-^bropping to the earth, :taking root again, running for a space along the 
surface, swanning up toad MSng in their strict embrace some young and tender sapling; anan, 
as if in pure ficklcneas, grappling and adopting some witherad and £cayed stump, anraying and 
.disguising its superannui^ed form in all the splendour of thdr own bright leaves and bloasoms 
•and firnits (for soma of the passifloras bear one like a cfaeny) ; and, having readied the top, 
'Casting their light festooos to the wind, until they caught the next chmoeobject Grand brawl- 
leaved fans, paUnated like the horns of the elk, niehed themsdres gratesqudy in the forka d 
the oldest trees ; and another kind, long and wide as a donUe-handed sword, looked so unlike a 
fern as not to be recogaiaable but by tl^ mode of carrying its seed. * Enormous mistletoes hung 
upon, and seemed, l2ce vampires, to exhaust the life-Uood of the plants on which thty had 
fixed their fatal affections ; the graceful dematis spanned the dark recewes of the groves with 
ite silver stan ; bdow was a caxpet of lichens, and mosses, and fungi, among which the karaan, 
or supple-jack, matted the ground knee-de^ with its tough network. I had not advanced fifty 
paces into the bush, with tibe intent of measuring one of the tree-ftms, era I was oompleldy 
naade prisoner by its prdiendle wdw, and did not escape with a whole coat or skin. A plague 
on such a country for campaigning ! I willingly admit that, if pushed by superior ordera into 
a bush of this nature (for no will of my own would take me into such a pontion), with a party 
of fint-rate British light-infantry — ay, even my own old company of the gallant 43rd — and told 
that only an equal foroe of Maoris opposed me, I should consider my men, mysdf, and m] 
in a very critiod predicament 1 



THE BUSH OF 'SVW ZEALAND. 167 

Here and there appeared a clearing more or leas perfect, and, in peaceful contrast with the 
irild woodland I hare just described, fine crops of wheat, oats, barley, and potatoes, with cot- 
tages of brick or wood and huts of leeds and mad, according to the wealth or enteriwise of the 
oocapMit. Ah occasional English-looking cart, with blue body and red wheels, and good teams 
of horses or bullocks, gave a dash of Home to the picture, which was enhanced by the luxuriant 
growth of well-known English weeds, — the dock, the duckweed, the Scotch and sow-thistles, 
— all proving, if proof were wanting, that the tare as well as the wheat, evil as well as good, 
have crossed the seas and taken root on this land, with Britidi occupation. The introduction ot 
the dock-weed is attributed to a Yankee skipper, who, amongst outer * notions,' (selected ez« 
pnssly for trading with the Maoris in their more pristine and gullible state,) imported and 
finmd, as may be supposed, a ready sale for a lot of gtmpowder seed! In preparation for the 
next fighting season, the simple and benevolent savages sowed the dark-ooloured grains, and, ex- 
pecting to reap the best ' Dartfijrd,' got a fine crop of docks. I rather 'think Cook found the 
sow-thistle here ; at any rate, thb humble weed is in Kew Zealand promoted into an esculoity 
the Maoris making of it a sort of salad. It is a god-send to the btnis, eepedally to the parrot 
tribes, hundreds of which, of beauteous dyes but odious accents, we saw nuttering and feeding 
ca its filmy tops. 

Among the reeds of the river side, and on a pretty fiowerii^ shrub in the woods, the Tui, or 
PaanKHi Bird, with his sleek black coat and snowy bands, was chattering in busy synods, plunge 
ing his long tongue into the blossoms and gathering fit>m them heavy tithes of honey. This 
}£d has a high character fbr docution, and is readily domesticated ; his mimicry of all kinds of 
sounds when caged is truly surprising : bark of mastifT, yapp of cur, crow of cock, pipe ot 
camary, the deep bass voice and hollow cough of the old man, and the shrill laugh of the young 
gtAj are all within the compass of the Tui, whose size is rather less than that of the English 
bladdbird. High above our heads flapped, with heavy wing, the cumlnrous Kawkaw, an ugly 
brown parrot, with a note like hu name prooonnoed by a cabman with a cold. 

Although remaricaldy deficisnt in indigenous animals, some very curious birds are peculiar to 
this ooun^. The Moa I neither saw, nor do I know any one in New Zealand who ever actually 
set 9piA on this gigantic apteryx ; if not extinct, tiie living specimens must be very rare. A 
MMrt of wingless roo. An must have looked down upon her unfathered brother-biped, Man, fix>m 
considerably more than twice his height ; for judging by the length, size, and weight of the 
1>oiie9 that have been found, this immoderate stork may have been fourteen or fifteen feet high, 
and as strong as an elefrfiant. The Kiwi, a small species of the same family, I saw more t^m 
once, although it is now scarce. It looked like a wingless curiew, about the size of a turkey, 
with grey plumage more like hair than feathers. The Rev. T. Jackson, then Bishop-Designate 
of Lyttelton, in returning fit^m Kew Canterbury to England, brought with him to Sydney—- 
where I saw it— a living specimen of the Kakapo, or night-parrot, a very singular and rare bird, 
with the rudiments of wii^ bat no power of flight; half-owl and half-parrot, it seemed a 
wretched and abortive creature. 

Not half a mile firam a group of 8mock-fi!t)cked and blueserge-shirted Britons, carting produce, 
ire came open a large party of AborigineB, under charge of a white overseer, woiHking, idly 
enou^, on the xoad. Theiy received us with a cheorfiil shout of welcome, * Aheremai ! 
Ahersmai !' brandishing their spades and pickaxes in the air,— a demonstration which dis« 
pened our horses right and 1^ in wild amazement, and betrayed, no doubt, to the observant 
Ifoori, how innocuous to the steady foot soldier is tiie mounted trooper, terrible as he may ap- 
pear to the opponent ignorant of his vulnerabQity. The infantry-man and his firelock have omy 
one will — ^the dragcoa and his charger may have two ; and whether the centaur thus composed 
iTUiheB gallantly into the enemy's ranks, or precisely in an opposite direction, it might some- 
times be a matter of doubt which of the two volitions — ^the human or the equine— ^had the 
momentary ascendency I It is unquesticHuble that a road like the noble one we were now 
travelling on, running right through the heart of a new country inhalnted by a savage and un- 
disciplined people, is as &tal to their continued resistance as the thrust of a rajner through that 
of an iadividuu foe. Tet at present, even with this fine and level thoroughfiue, passable fw any 
kind of vehide and ordnance, and with its ^uosj-deared mai^n of fifty or sixty paces, an Engliw 
force, however well composed, marching along it with aggressive purposes, would be exposed to 
great risk of discomfiture. The clearings are encumbered with gigantic felled trees, some of 
them six or eight feet in diameter, with spreading tops, affording excellent cover for an enemy 
clever at skirmishing, obstructing the operations of flanking perties, and thereby delaying the 
advance of the main body ; while the bush itself, absolutely impervious to the belted^ booted. 



168 OUB A17TIF0DES. 

chaoo-ed, and compaiatively clumsy soldier, has paths along which the naked savage, with his 
douhle-harrelled piece, can — as has been proved — -move on the flanks of the regulars as &st as. 
the latter can march along a smooth road. This, therefore, will not be, in the proper sense^ a 
military road until both sides have been cleared to the distance of musl^et shot, and that can 
only be done gradually by the axe of the settler. 

Coming to such conclusions as we rode along, and commenting on the not altogether happy 
complexion of our late military efforts in this particular locality, it appeared astonishing that^ 
when this great high-road was but a swampy bush-track, the thickets fdmost meeting across it, 
the disaffected natives, headed by so Inveterate an enemy to English domination as Kangihaieta^ 
had accomplished S0 little against the weak detachments in the Hutt Valley. Not that the soil 
is' unstained with English blood ; — ^for, besides more than one cruel murder of settiers, several 
British soldiers fell imder the musket and tomahawk of the Maoris at Boulcott's Farm and in 
its neighbourhood. We diverged irom the road to examine this now abandoned post — ^the scene 
of one of the boldest attacks on an English regular force ever attempted by the Maoris. The 
Farm consists of a weak wooden cottage and offices, with a bam hard by, which had been 
partially stockaded by the officer in command, thereby making it bullet proof^ which was by no 
means the case with the other tenements. The premises are surrounded by a rough clearing oi 
no great extent ; which, in its turn, is shut in by^the primeval forest. The River Hutt, 
fordable in ordinary seasons, but impassable except by boats or canoes during flood, runs at hal^ 
musket shot distance from the post ; and at the time of the attack the opposite shore, covered with 
thick scrub, was in the hands of the enemy. The garrison consisted of a single officer and fifty 
men of the 58th — one half of them occupying the bam. 

Just before dawn of day on the 16th May, 1846, the sentry in fiwnt of the inlying picquet 
observed a dark object crawling towards him. He fired ; — and in an instant the air was roit 
with a chorus of yells, as fifty naked savages, springing up from the herbage, rushed upon hini 
and overpowered and slew both the men of the picquet and himself, before any efl*ectu^ reast- 
ance could be offered ; while a general onslaught was made upon the post fix)m all parts of the 
surrounding bush, and a heavy fire was poured upon the fragile building in which the officer 
and a section of h^ people were housed. The gallant lieutenant hurried from his quarters with 
two men. Intent on joining the party in the stockade, but was immediately driven back by a 
rush fit)m the Maoris. The sergeant got a few men iogieiher and checked the fiirious assailants^ 
and in a second attempt — ^with only six men carrying three others wounded — ^the officer sac* 
ceeded in reaching the bam — ^whence, leaving a sufficient force to protect it, he sallied against 
the enemy with the rest, and, advancing and firing in extended order, soon drove them 
across the river. There they danced a spirited war-dance, showing their numbers to be about 
two hundred, within view of the British post. * But for the alertness of all in turning out,' 
says the officer in his report, * and the determination of the men, we should all have fidlen.' 
The British loss was six killed and four severely wounded. The bugler, quite a lad, was struck 
by a tomahawk on the right arm, while in the act of sounding the ' alarm ;' the brave boy 
changed the bugle to the other hand and continued to blow, when the savage split his skull 
with a second stroke of his weapon. The Maoris had good right to be satisfied with the havoc 
they had committed, without push|pg their audacity frirther. As to the loss on their side, if 
there was any, both killed and wounded were carried off as usual. The affiur of Bonloott's 
Farm was a successful surprise of a British picquet on the part of the natives ; — a gallant re- 
pulse of a superior force in a night attack, on that of the British. The Maoris did not want 
the post — ^they wanted blood, as they afterwards boasted, and they got it. The force in the 
valley was immediately augmented by the officer commanding in the southem district, who 
drove the still hovering rebds from their woodland position on &e right bank of the river, with 
some loss. 



CHAPTER XV. 

PUBSUiNa our interesting ride up the valley, which narrowed as we went, in about two miles 
we came upon another spot where the Maori insurgent and the English soldier had come Into 
collision. 

About a month after the combat at the farm, which had subsequentiy been rdnforoed and 
placed under charge of a captain, that officer, with a view to acquaint himself with the roads in 
the vicinity of his post, the fords of the river and the position of the enemy, who were reported 
to be encamped not far distant, and, perhaps, with a desire to avenge the loss inflicted by them 



6KIBMIBHE8 IK THE BUTT VALLEY. 169 

on the 16th May, marched out to hia front with forty soldiers, a small party of loyal natires 
tnder the chief Waiderapa, and a few militiamen ; accompanied also by a young officer of the 
dSth, a volunteer on the occasion. 

The main road along which they proceeded was at that time extremely narrow, full of deep 
holes, and in some places up to the knees in mud, the bush so thick that the view of the ad- 
TBDcang party hardly extended beyond a few paces to their front and flanks. On reaching a 
piece of cleared land, or rather land with felled timber lying upon it, a smart volley delivered at 
fifteea paces from among the logs on the left of the road informed the Captain that he had fallen 
into an ambuscade. The loyal natives threw themselves into cover, and returned the fire from 
the same side of the road as the enemy. The English, in skirmishing order, answered it briskly 
from among the trees on the opposite side of it. In about ten minutes some of the Maoris were 
seen crossing the road so as to obtain a flanlnng fire on the right of the soldiers, while a strong 
party were observed to move swiftly towards tiie road in their rear so as to cut them off from 
the stockade. This display of tactics on the part of the barbarians induced the officer to soCuid 
the retreat, which movement was accordingly effected without further loss of time or blood. 
Indeed, the casualties had already been pretty severe ; four soldiers being severely wounded, oi 
whom one died, and two missing ; while the officer of the 58th was severely hurt, maimed 
perhaps for life, by a shot through the aim. Meanwhile, the subaltern of the stockade^ heariog- 
the firing, promptiy armed his men, who were working on the defences, and inviting the oo> 
operation of a fxiendly tribe encamped hard by, advanced with fiirty soldiers, and no less than a 
hundred Ab<mgines under their veteran chief, £ Puni, to the supp(Ht of his superior. Meetii^ 
him half way on his retreat, he was, after a short consultation, directed to form an advanoe- 
guard in the direction of the camp, to which the entire British party accordingly retired. The 
two native chiefs, on meeting, held a brief koriro, or talk, when Waiderapa and E Puni, joming 
thdr forces, detennined to return to the scene of action ; which they accordingly did, reaching 
it just in time to see some of the rebels retreating to the river across the clearing, and dropping 
blankets, cartridges, and potatoes in their track. 

The account of the action given by Waiderapa, affords an amusing specimen of the vain- 
glorious bombast of the Maori warrior. ' The reason why we retreat^,' said the gallant and 
self-satisfied chief, in his evidence before a Court of Inquiry, ' was, because we were partly 
composed of soldiers and portly of natives ; — ^hod we been all natives, we would have driven 
away Rangihaieta's people.' * The soldiers,' he added, ' retreated because they thought the 
enemy were dividing into two parties to cut them off. I did not think so, because they, the 
enemy, had seen the position that / had taken up 1' 

Here was indeed an unfortunate affair from b^inning to end. The leader of the reconnais- 
sance having fallen into the snare deliberatdy laid for him, had the choice of two alternatives — 
to fight his way through it, or extricate himself by retreat. All the evidence collected by the 
inquiry held to investigate the details, agree that tiie commander was justified in retiring when 
he was satisfied that the enemy, whom he supposed to be the whole of Rangihaieta's disposable 
force, had turned one of his flanks and were menacing to cut him off from his reserve ; that the 
retreat was conducted slowly and with regularity ; and that the Captain was the last man to 
retire — ^himself taking charge of the rear-guard. No mean guerillas these Maoris ! — ^nor are 
they ill aimed and equipped for the service ; for the dark naked skin is quite as suitable an 
uniform as the ' invisible green of the rifle-corps ; and the double-barrelled p'ece, which most of 
them wield, is an awkward weapon in bush-skirmishes, especially when, after an exchange of 
volleys, the soldiers make a rush with the bayonet, in tiie raith that there has been no time to 
load. How came this people to be so well provided with fire-arms, in the face of the vigilant 
Governor's oiactment against their sale to natives, is a question easily answered. The Americans, 
the French, and above all the Sydneyites, are theur purveyors. Not many days ago, while the 
Govemor-in-Chief, the Lieut.-Govemor, and the senior officer of the sou^em district, were on 
different missions to Wanganui and other places, with strong doubts whether the issue would ba 
peace or war — ^I cut out of a Sydney newspaper the following advertisement : 

*TO ITEW ZELAAMD TRABSBS AKD OTHEBS. (; ., 

Always on Hand, and for Sale at tbe Stores of the undersigned :— 

Tomahawks, Crosscut saws, Spades and shovels^ 

I Axes assorted, Handsaws, LooUng'glaBses, and 

I Adzes, of sizes. Saw files, Fishing hooks. 

Pickaxes, Chisels and gouges, 

AuBo, a large supply of muskets, carbines, single and double-barrelled guns, Ounpowder, loose and tn 
oai^ter. Shot and musket balls. Cartouche-boxes and cutlasses. • * * * George and King-sireeta.' 



170 OUa ANTIPODES. 

Bnt trade is trade— <tock in hand must be sold off — the Sydney ironmongers' fortune must 
be made— (it w made !) How ean he help it if the rebel Maoris ^onld happen to be his best 
customers ? The also in the advertisement is full of pith ! 

Quitting those bellicose spots of the now peaceful yale of the Hntt our riding party pro- 
ceeded as iar as the ' Gorge/ where the mountains on either hand, cloeir^ in upon the little 
rippling treat-stream that the river here presents, seem to push the road into its waters. 
Beyond this point there is at present only a foot-track ; but it is the intention of Government 
to connect the valley and Port Nicholson, by a good road over the intervening ranges, with 
the extensive and fertile plains of Wairarapa — a district which will no doubt 1^ shortly par- 
chased from the Aborigines for a moderate sum in hard cash unmixed with blood — ^not by a 
large expenditure of both, as was the case with the Wairnn, Porima, Wanganui, &c The 
two former districts were bought early this year for 5,000/., to be paid by instalments ex- 
tending over five yeare—not an exorbitant price, when it is considered that tiie Wairau alone 
was included in a general land purchase of not leas than 2,500 square miles. If it be worth 
a single round of ball cartridge it is worth that snm. I was sorry to miss seeing the Wyderop 
or Wairarapa valley, for I hmrd much of its beauty. Of its history I know littie, except that 
my old ship^mate, Te Rsuperaha, as I was informed, paid a visit to it some years ago— a 
friendly visit to the remnant of a tribe that had been driven from their possessions in the 
north, and had settled down for a quiet life ; and he seized that favourable opportunity to 
massacre some 500 of them — not ftillng, of course, to eat those who were fittest for the spt. 
Of the Hutt Valley I prophesy great success, and, should destiny make me a settler in Kew 
Zealand, I would prefer a site for a house on the flank of the hills near the sea, with about 
1,000 acres of the allavial flat at their base, to any other spot visited by me in (he oountiy. 

Another interesting trip which I made, with a party of twelve, from WellingtoB, was to the 
military posts of Porima and Pahatanui. Nothing can be more wild and beautiful in its war 
than the forest scenery on the road between Kaiwarawara, the pdnt where it quits the beaxn 
of -Port Nicholson, and Jackson's Ferry, where it debouches on Porima Bay. The whole dis- 
tance of fourte«i miles is through a ruined and densely wooded mountain tracts with but few 
clearings. The line was first opened by the New Zealand Company's people, and was taken 
up, improved, widened, and completed in excellent style by military lalxMir, under officers who 
appear to have known and done their business well. 

I have no words to describe the luxuriant beauty of the wilderness traversed hy this monu- 
ment of a young colony's energy and industry, the gigantic size of the timber, the glossy 
tufted foliage of tree and creeper and parasite, tiie noble contour of the uplands wtMded to 
their very summits, the dail:, tangled, and absolutely impervious glens, rock and ravine, brush 
and swamp-— the natural bolwarics of a country inexpugnable except by Anglo-Saxon enter- 
prise. Every man who has traveled at all has travelled through tracts of mountain forest, 
and has folt his soul awed and elevated by the romantic and sequestered grandeur of these 
portions of the universe, which seem as if purposely made too solemn and sublime for the 
permanent abode of busy man. The effect produced is still deeper ; — ^the wilderness seems 
wilder still, when every tree and shrab and flower and weed, and every specimen of animated 
iitttare, is utterly strange and unknown to the traveller ; when every object is an object of 
mysterious wonder. Such was my position in traversing this forest pass ; — ^the blue vault 
above and the earth's cmst on which I trod appeared to be my only old acquaintances. 

Among the predominant timbeNtrees, I was introduced to the Totara* and the Rinra f 
— ^the most splendid of New Zealand pines next to the Kanri, whidi does not flourish so far 
flovtb — ^both yielding a wood applicable to the beams of the largest house or to a lady's woiic- 
box, a mainmast or a paper-cutter. The Rata ^—ostensibly one of the legitimate aristocrata 
of the bush — is, in fact, no better than a creeper, a hanger-on, which, attaching itself to some 
convenient tree, destroys, and in time obliterates all trace of the ladder whereby it clomb to 
honour and power. The Rata ranks as one of the highest ornaments of the New Zealand sylva 
— its bright red blossoms literally illuminating the dark flanks of the mountains. There 
were convolvuli, and clematis^ and passiflors festooning the branches with their light garlands, 
and enormous brambles covered with little wild roses— 4ach as I have seen am<Mig the deodaras 
and rhododendrons of the Hymalaia— clambering up to the summits of the tallest trees, and 
toppling down again in a casonde of bloom. These, at least, were to me old familiar fiiends. 
Then there were manifold and curious ferns, and fungi, and orchidese, and mosses, and Uchi 
* TaxQB. t Dacxydiom CBpraaslnnm. t Kebnsitew BiAoita 



THE ABBBtT OF TK BAUFEBAHA. 171 

— all objects of simple wonderment and i^otunt speiiulation to one nnvened in thoae eciences 
which lay open the more hidden operations of nature to the ken of man. Of the three firsts 
there are kinds producing food for the natives. The common, or what appeared to me 
the common fern-shrub grew in some places to the height of eight and ten feet ; and the 
ironds of the tree-fern must, in some instances, have measured fifteen or sixteen ieet in length. 
A sort of sago is made from one spedes of iem ; and the root and young shoots of othen are 
edible. There are but few wild roots fit for human, even Maori food. Those of certain 
orchidete, however, afford a meal to the travelling savage. The epicurean Englishman, 
balancing whether to emigrate or to stay at home, would probably decide on the former rtep^ 
when he hears that the truffle is indigenous to New Zealand I 

On the subject of fungi ; of all tiie strange fungi that ever I met with— not excepting the 
luminous toadstool of Australia, by which you may see to shave yourself at midnight I — ^the 
vegetable caterpillar, whereof I saw several specimens found in this district^ is the most 
strange. I believe the insect is, at one st^ of its existence, a large grey moth, nt another it 
becomes a caterpillar ; when tired of a somewhat dull liie it buries itself in the earth, and, 
after death, assumes a fungous form, or, at least, theje springs from its skeleton a fungous ex- 
crescence like a bulrush, which pierces and rises several inches above the ground. 

At length, bursting out of the solemn arcades of the forest, much as Ab railway traveler 
bursts into open day from the mouth of a tunnel, we found the beautiful harbour or estuary 
of Porirua spread beneath our feet, a prospect singularly bright, placid, and refreshing to the 
eye after several hours of sylvan gloom and circumscribed scenery. Near its shore stands the 
I<erry House, kept by an Englishman married to a Maori woman, who was dressed in Euro* 
pean attire, but with deep ' tangi ' * scars on her face aind breast. Tuning our horses into a 
stock-yard, we took to the boats, and, after rowing a short distance down a rushy creek, came 
upon the open bay. Porirua Harbour extends nor& and south about six miles, and is separated 
from the ocean, with which it communicates through a narrow inlet, by a ridge of pretty 
high land. Displaying every apparent quality of a commodious port — a refuge much wanted 
on this open coast—its waters are so shallow as to be navigable only by boats of light ton^ 
nage. With exoeption of the almost invisible month, the bay is entirely land-locked, and, tha 
richest vegetation flourishing down to the tide<inark, one can hardly believe that he u tm- 
venung s^t water; EiUamey itself is scarcely more lake-like. On the day of our visit the 
weather was perfect, — bright, and breesy, with clouds sitting on the distant mountains, merely 
to add charms to the scene without suggesting uneasy thoughts regarding a wet jacket. But 
the campaigners, during the earlier military operations of which it was the theatre, saw it 
sometimes under very difierent auspices ;— housed in reed huts, in a position exposed to gales 
from the seaward during the season of almost incessant rain ; with none of the comforts, and 
few of the necessaries of life ; sleeping on heaps of fern in thin, damp, and worn-out clothes ; 
hard worked on the roads and in fortifying their post ; henuned in by a treacherous enemy, 
whose alerteSf however, furnished the. only welcome incidents of a monotonous and oomfortlesa 
existence, the garrison of Porirua were no feather-bed s<ddiers. The officers' mess at one 
period numbered ten .or twelve membcfs, who daily sat down to a dinner of salt beef, biscnit, 
and rum, with neither table nor chair nor bed to turn into when satiated with such delicate 
viands. Mr. Hume, periiapa^ would admit that the daily stipend of 5s. 3d. is not eztravagsnt 
pay for a young gentleman under sudi drcumstanoes ! 

Within a mue or two of the camp is the pah of Taupo, belonging to Raoperaha, where he 
was cleverly captured for the following cause and in the following manner :— This wily old 
chief, pretending friendship towards the English during the rebelliim, was found to be secretly 
supplying his old ally, Bangihaieta, then in hostility against them, with provisions and intd« 
IJ^SQce; and suspicions existing that he and other disaffected chiefs were conniving at the 
movement of a hostile body from the Wanganui tribes down the coast, to fonn a junction with 
tile latter rebel leader, his arrest was resolved on. 

On the 23rd July, 1846, accordingly. Major Last of the 99th, with Captain Stanley of the 
CaUiope^ and a party of about 130, landed before dayli^t with such perfect silence and order, 
that the stockade of Taupo was surrounded and entered before the inmates caught the alarm. Te 
Rauperaha was seized in his bed by a band of seamen, and, struggling, bit^g, and shoutings 
'Ngatitoa — Ngatitoar-~to the rescue!' he was safely carried off to the ship without any 
casualty. A considerable quantity of muskets and ammunition and a small iron gun were also 
taken in the stockade, 

* The native womsn sUoe themselves with sharp shells, by way of deep mooniiog. 



172 OTTB AKTIFODES. 

The attention of ' the fighting OoTemor ' — ^thns was Captain Grey styled by the Maoris — 
was then tamed to Baogihaieta ;)£ and a (»>mbined movement from Wellington, Porirua, and 
from the Hutt Valley across the hills, was planned. The arch-rebel's oomvge Ruling him, he 
fled firom Pahatanui with his followers before the force had assembled ; and a party of miUtia 
guided by friendly Maoris along a native path fix)m the Hutt, cleverly slipped in and secured 
tiie evacuated fortress. Had he remained and fought well, there would unquestionably have 
been ' wigs on the green/ for the position and construction of the pah are remarkably strong. 
Bangihaieta, however, was aware that there were cannon at Porirua that would soon have 
levelled his wooden walls. Perhaps, too, his coUscience made a coward of the once bold and 
bloody warrior — ^perhaps his thousand murders, like those of King Richard, sat on his right 
arm and unmanned him for the field. 

Our party enjoyed a pleasant sail up the salt water lake to the two camps of Porirua and 
Pahatanui — ^inspecting the detachments and cantonments of both, and getting at tlie former 
place so excellent a lunch as to prove beyond cavil Ihat, whatever might have been the hard- 
ship and starvation during the war, no penance in that line was at present undergone by the 
gallmit occupants of the Porirua stockade. On approachiDg Pahatanui, we were much struck 
by its picturesque as well as defensible position. £ven unopposed, it was not easy to climb 
up to the pah, which, perched on a bluff facing the harbour, is defended by ravines, swamps, 
and a difficult creek, with a double line of strong palisades, trenches, and traverses, and flank- 
ing defences. We found it garrisoned by a captain of the 65th, with a fine detachment of 
young fellows fresh from England. They are now employed in pushing forward the great 
road which is beii^ gradually extended northwards along the coast, and which will one day 
connect Wellington with Auckland. 

How soon the soldier shakes himself comfortably and contentedly into positions which at 
first sight he surveys with horror and disgust ! Like a surly lion, driven by hunters from 
his ^miliar lair, he growls and grumbles, and kicks up the dust around his new quarters—^ 
until, wisely resolved to make the best of it, he finally coils himself complacently within them 
—only hoping that there will be found plenty to eat and drink in the neighbourhood. At 
Sydney — 1,500 miles from the scene — I had heard noUiing but complaints of the military 
occupancy at Pahatanui. Standing within that stockade, 1 heard of nothing but its productive 
garden, its fine climate, the shooting, fishing, and bathing, the eels, the ducks, and the pigeons; 
and certainly I never set eyes on more well-fed and wholesome ' food for powder ' than the 
officers and men of this distant detachment of Her Majesty's army. Distant indeed ! for how 
many members of the * United Service Club,' senior and junior, how many of ' The Bag and 
Famish' — that queen of clubs, — how infinitely few of the self-styled * Travellers,' — how 
many of the gallant Household Brigade, roughing it in the * warrees' of St. James's, — ^have 
ever heard the name of * Pahatanui ?' 

On our return across the harbour, about midway between Pahatanui and Porirua the 
entrance of the Horokiwi Valley was pointed out to us. Up the forest defiles of this rugged 
pass, and through regions almost impracticable to man or beast. Major Last, with a strong 
force of troops, militia, and native allies, pursued the flying Bangihaieta. Hotly pressed, the 
rebel chief soon turned to bay on a spot which had been previously prepared for a stand — a 
rough breastwork of horizontal logs, pierced for musketry, having bieen drawn across a narrow 
and steep spur of a thickly-wooded hill flanked by steep ravines. On the morning of the 6tb 
August, 1846, this stroDg position was attacked with but little effect, and with the loss of a 
promising young officer. Ensign Blackburn, of the 99th Regiment, and two privates killed and 
nine wounded. Two small mortars having meanwhile arrived, the position was agsaxk 
assailed on the 8th. The height and thickness of the trees, however, prevented the efficient 
practice of the shells ; and the inaccessible nature of the country, with the evident intention of 
the enemy to abandon post after post, firing a few destructive volleys and then flying from 
their valueless positions with little or no loss to themselves — ^together with the difficulty of 
subsisting so numerous a force, induced the officer commanding the expedition to desist mm 
further pursuit of his slippoy foe. The troops were accordingly withdrawn into the stodcades 
and the loyal natives, in pursuance of their gallant offer, were left to watch the enemy, to cut 
off his supply of provisions and water, and thus eventually to capture or drive him back. 

On the i3th, the rebels opening a brisk fire on the loyalists, Puaha« the leading chief of the 
latter, rushed with his followers to meet them, and, finding that the others retreated, pressed 
forward and entei^ their works by the front as the rebels passed out by the rear. The poor 
wretches had been fairly starred out — ^no remains nor signs of provisions being found in the 



SUKBI8E OK MOUKT EOMOKT. 173 

camp, except the mamuka, or edible fero. A day or two later, the Christian chief, Wiremu 
Kingi (William King), issuing from Waikanae,* fell upon the rear of the discomfited rebels, 
capturing a few half-famished creatures who had been driven by hunger to approach the coast. 
Harassed on all sides, Rangihaieta thought himself fortunate in making his escape to the 
mountains, almost totally denuded of his * tail ;' and deeply humbled by the foregoing events, 
this turbulent chief never again appeared openly in arms against the British Govenmient* 

Wellington, ISth January, 1848. — ^A *Taua,' or war-party, said to consist of some six 
hundred well-armed men, having assembled in the passes of the Wanganui River, demanding 
a conference with the English authorities, and refusing, as I understand, to confer with the 
Lieut-Governor, or indeed with any one but the Governor-in-Chief ; His Excellency was not 
the man to disappoint them. In order, therefore, that the matter should not cool, he re- 
embarked this day in the Inflexible, and set sail for the above-named settlement, situated 
about 130 miles north of W*ellington, on the western coast* The Hajor^General commanding 
the forces also took the opportunity of visiting this important military post, and I was fortunate 
enough to accompany him. As it was the purpose of His Excellency to meet the overtures of 
the Taua with certain stringent, if not humiliating conditions, there were not wanting among 
the large party, naval and military, on board, some few sanguine enough to expect a fresh 
rupture of these martial and unruly tribes — an expectation which I may at once take occasion 
to say was not realised. In some of the cabins of H.H.'s steam sloop, I noticed several very 
truculent-looking weapons*— swords evidently sharpened with intent to split Maori skulls, and 
rifles that would pick off a rebel at any reasonable distance. They were bloodless this bout ; 
— ^for the matter was settled by diplomacy without appeal to the * ultima ratio v«ce-regum.' 

Passing the little islet of Mana, which looks as if it had been shot out of the mouth of 
Porirua Bay, and which was formerly one of Bangihaieta's buccaneering d^p5ts ; and shortly 
afterwards the high ))eaked island of Kapiti — also a favourite resort of that outlawed chief, but 
mainly notable as forming the only tolerable roadstead on this exposed coast ; — ^aud running 
past the Missionary Station of Waikanai, whose church loomed like a huge bam ; late in the 
afternoon, H.M.S. Inflexible ranged alongside HJtf .8. Raoehorae, riding — or rather kicking 
and plui^'ng — at anchor in the open and insecure roads of Wanganui, three or four miles from 
the mouth of the river. Though the breeze was light there was a heavy sea, and the surf was 
thundering upon the bar so as to preclude all communication with the shore except by means 
of the telegraph which, with the aid of Marryat's signals, the officer commanding at the post 
lias established. Through this medium we received the information ' all quiet,' and then stood 
off for the night into deeper water. In the morning we found the ship anchored in a calmer sea. 

The sunrise- — a spectaicle which, while admitting its beauty and sublimity as well as the 
healthfulness of its enjoyment, few of the richer classes have witnessed a dozen times in their 
lives ; — the sunrise was truly magnificent on this fine summer morning. While the ocean was yet 
dai'k under our feet, and the shore was dim and indistinct in the mist of dawn, his earliest ray 
— like a flaming sword from its scabbard — ^flashed across the great island upon the snowy scalp 
of Tongariro, 70 miles distant inland, and 10,000 feet above the level of the sea; and, in a 
few seconds later, upon the hardly less elevated peak of Mount Egmont, which though con- 
siderably to the northward of Wanganui is not more than fifteen miles from the shore. The 
effect of Sol's first greeting to this latter mountain — ^in shape and colour the most perfect 
sugarloaf I ever saw — was both singular and beautiful. Some one who knew the locality was 
trying to make me see the white pio which was visible to him above a bank of cloud. While 
straining my vision with this object, a spot became suddenly illumined so infinitely higher 
than where my eyes were fixed, that 1 had some difficulty in believing that it was a point on 
the earth's sur&ce. The light had leapt from the first-named mountain to the second, like 
beacon answering beacon I Soon afterwards the entire apex of the cone was silvered over ; but 
the flanks and bas6 remained shrouded in mist and darkness for several hours. Tongariro 
^the ancestor of the old Titan Chief, Te Hao-Hao, whom I have before mentioned) and its 
sister mountain Ruapehu, may be considered a district of mountains — ^while Mount Egmont 
atarts abrupt and isolated from the midst of the comparatively level country of Taranaki — ^now 
I(ew Plymouth. 

The bar in front of Wanganui is sometimes for weeks together impassable, and its passage is 
always precarious. The Government schooner in the month of the river was seen trying in 
vain to come out to us ; and we were contemplating the predicament of having to wait perhaps 
two or three days for a change of wind, or to give up the expedition altogether — as other 

* A Miasionarj station on the sea-coasts 



174 OUB AKTIF0DE8. 

▼easels have often had to do ; when fortunately an inwiird*bound schooner hore in sight, was 
hailed, brought to, took us on board, and, after half an hou'^s straggling among the breakers, 
got us safely within the entrance of the Wanganui River. We grounded on the mud of the 
channel two or three times-— once near some high blu£Bi of land connected with terrible tales 
of massacre and man-eating— at which old Rauperaha played a good knife and fork, in times 
long past; and from whence we could have been hotly peppered as our craft lay wedged in 
the ooie by any one bent on receiving the Governor vith such a compliment. At 3 P. M . we 
were met by some of the oflScers of the garrison in their boats, and, at about five miles from 
the mouth, came to anchor close off the settlement, and were quickly landed by the Battle- 
make's boats lying there. 

The New Zealand Company's settlement of Wanganui consists at present of a church and 
some forty houses, scattered over a dreary flat of alternate sand and swamp. Two spun, 
elevated perhi^ sixty feet above the plain, abut upon the village fnnn its rear, and on their 
extreme points have been erected stockades commanding the settlement and the river, which 
is here a fine stream aboat 150 yards wide. Nearly fiicing the village is the native Christian 
pah of Pntiki. 

In the year 1840 a large tract of land was purchased at Wanganui by agents of the New 
Zealand Association, and received the name of Petre. Seven hundred pounds' worth of 
< goods' is stated to have been the price paid to the natives, among which * goods ' was ' one 
case of fire-arms only.' The deed of sale was ratified by the signatures of twenty or thirty 
of the head chiefs. L^nds faint that the commixture of white man and Maori on the first 
foundation of this offiihoot of the New Zealand Company brought anything rather than mond 
advancement to the barbarians — its infancy being disgraced by scenes of profligacy and low 
life. In short, like Kororarika, Wanganui got a 1^ name — a bad thing to begin life with — 
and, if it has escaped the dog's fiite, it lias at least been in -continual trouble since its birth. 
The really earnest and deserving settlers — and Wanganui numbered several — were constantly 
obstructed by the natives in the occupation and culture of the allotments they had purchased. 
The warlike tribes of the interior — ^highlanders in birth and spirit — to whom the river was 
a great thoroughiare, kept the place in a harassing state of inquietude, ruinous alike to the 
comfort and the success of adventurers on a new home. The purchases of land were r^u- 
djated by the natives ; and ultimately the distiict had to be repurchased by a commissioner of 
the Government. The rapacity of tiie Maoris increased by what it fed on ; the settlement 
was openly threatened, and the colonists began to desert it. Military occupation did not mend 
the matter, as far as regarded the townsfolk; for the officer who first commanded there 
showed his soldierly qualities by garrisoning and stockading such houses as suited his pur- 
poses of defence, and destroying such as hampered his glacis. Finally, the barbarous massacre 
of a harmless English family in the vicinity, and the gradual investment of the township by 
a war-party variously computed at from six to eight hundred men, put the coping-stone on 
the general panic ; and although some of the bolder few remained to fight — * to see tiie soldiers 
through it,' as they expressed it — the majority of the inhabitant!, never I believe amounting 
to more than 300 persons, betook themselves to Wellington for a safer and quieter life ; and 
Wanganui remained a purely military post beleaguered by a vigilant and treacherous enemy. 

It was in December, 1846, soon after the defeat and dispersion of Hangihaieta and his 
* taua ' in the Horokiwi valley, that Wanganui was first occupied by soldiers. Sites were 
quickly selected for stockades and block-houses, officers and men were soon hutted in temporary 
warrees of reeds, the position was entrenched and surrounded with double palisades bullet 
proof, and a few light guns and mortars were mounted. 

In the following April occurred near the township one of the most appalling and sweeping 
massacres of a pouxful household that ever blackened the histoiy of a savage race, and 
harrowed the feelings of a white oommonity — ^namely, the destruction of the Gilfinnan fimiily. 
Let me relate it as snodnctly as possible. On the evening of the 18th April, Mr. Gilfinnan, 
a settler residing about five miles from Wanganui, was heai^ calling from Uie opposite bank of 
the river for a boat to be sent for him, as he had been wounded by some natives. He was 
brought across the water, and found to have been severely hurt by a cut from a tomahawk 
on the beck of the neck. Next morning, the officer commanding the post dispatched a party 
of armed police and friendly Maoris, accompanied by two or three gentlemen, to Matarana, 
the residence of the sufierer, in order to ascertain the fate of the fitmily, when they discovered 
the house burnt to the ground, and lying around the ruins the mutilated bodies of the mother, 
two sons of twelve and four years old, and a daughter of fourteen years. The eldest daughtei-, 



HURDEBEItS GAFTiniED AKO BANGED. 175 

a girl of sixteen, had escaped, badly wounded, and foar other children Kiiuuned imhurt The 
same day, the news of the murder and the names of the murderera having readied the MiMioiuury 
pah of Putiki, just opposite the cantonments, some of the natives tendered their sernces to 
attempt their capture, for they were known to have fled up the river with their booty. The 
Christian chief, Honi Wiremu (John Williams), with six other young men, in a swift canoe, 
pursued, overtook, seized, and brought prisoners to the British camp five of the six assassins. 
A coroner's inquest, assembled by the commandant, letumed a verdiGt of * wilful murder* 
against four of the prisoners, expressing a strong conviction that the fifth was also an acoom- 
plioe. The district of Wanganui was at that time under martial law, which, however, would 
expire with the current month. No time was therefore to be lost, ani Captain Laye 
(58th Regiment), the commandant, lost none. He brought the villains to tiial by a generid 
oourt-martial, composed of seven officers, on the 23rd of April, continued by a4Joursment to 
the 24th. All the five prisoners pleaded guilty to charges of murder and robbery,-— one of the 
miscreants acknowledging that they had cut off and devoured a part of the cheek of the 
slaughtered mother. The four men w«re condemned to death ; the other priflooer, a boy, 
to transportation for life. The 25th was the sabbath. On the morning of the 26th April, 
the four murderers were hanged on a gibbet in front of the stockade. 

It was a good and gallant act on ihe port of Honi Wiremu and his companions, and an 
interesting proof of the ameliorating effects of Christian teaching, that they should have so 
strongly testified their abhorrence of the barbarities committed by thdr countrymen as to 
xesolve to bring them to justice at the risk of their own lives. Indeed, the forcible appre- 
hension, by only equal numbers, of a band of ruffians from whom a desperate resistance 
might be expected, required a mixture of rashness and rtue that seldom go hand in hand. 
Mr. Power, one of the gentlem«i who volunteered to ascertain the &te of the wretched family, 
thus closes his animated account of tho pursuit of the assas s in s : — * The fugitives, who by tlds 
time were fifty miles from the settlement, and no longer feared puxioity were taking it easy, 
singing songs, and bragging of what they had done. As their canoe ran alongside of thait 
of the murderers, Patapo, a wild young chief, and a great fiivourite of the officers, who was 
hidden in the bow, saw that one of the fugitives had a cocked musket beside him, and that 
the others had arms lying within reach; and being anxious to take them alive, he, with a 
tomahawk between his teeth, made one spring on the fellow with the musket, seising it, and 
at the same time upsetting the canoe. In a few minutes the whole party were captorol in the 
water.' Tet nothing could be more modest than the tenour of the evidenoe he gave on thia 
exploit before the court-martial : it was a model for a despatch after action. It would seem 
that this brave young chief was still a heathen, as he knew not the nature of an oath. I feel 
pleasure in adding, that the Governor-in-Chief, in reporting these matters to the Secretary of 
State, writes, that he had 'satisfied himself that Captain Laye^ in adopting these proceedings, 
had followed the only course that was open to him, and that there is little doubt that his 
firmness and decision saved the country from a serious rebellion.' In this opinion I heartily 
concur. Military law, right or wrong, had been proclaimed by the gallant Captain's superiors ; 
the ordinary law was ^erefore, pro teau, in abeyance ; and I consider it a happy circumstance 
that at such a juncture a prompt arraignment, a simple formula, a trial * according to the 
consciences and to the best of the understandings ' of seven honourable gentlemen, and a swift 
execution should have filled, for the nonce, the place of that cumbrous piece of madunery — that 
net full of large medics, called the dvil law.. 

White apologists of the native Kew Zealanders — some of whom will go any length to prove 
them mirrors €£ knighthood, instead of truculent cannibals — assert that the manacre of the 
Gilfinnan fiunily was perpetrated in ' ntn ' for a wound inflicted upcm a Putiki chief by a 
young BEiidshipman — his pistol having gone off by accident. The truth is, that the natives of 
Putiki were totally unconnected by relationship or friendship with the assassins ; and that the 
wounded man, being kinmy and sldlfiilly treated by the English surgeons, entertained no ill-wiU 
to the youthful cause of Ins injury— ^nuch less an indisorixninate desire for vengeance on the 
white race. 

On the 18th May large bodies of tiie insnigent Maoris were seen approaching the place from 
all directwns. They todc po a s o ssian of the surrounding hills and of severs! houses en the out- 
skirts of the town, and keeping well under cover, opened a harwwing fire on the stockades, the 
Tillage, and the gun-boat in the river. Too weak in numbers to move out by daylight to attack 
the enemy, the captain dispatched at night two strong parties to seize the buildings occupied 
by the fi)e--« duty which they gallantly perfonned— *the Maoris plundering and evacuati'^ 



176 OUR AHTIF0DB8. 

•them at the fii'st onset. The troops suffered no loss, but the rebels, in addition to some tiiirty 
-men wounded, lost a great ' fighting cliief/ Maketu by name, who was killed by a musketrsbot 
in a house which stands at a distant extremity of the vills^. I traced the course of the 
bullet, which afforded no bad proof of 'Brown Bess's' power. At 150 paces the ball had 
jxissed through five planks including the garden paling, as well as through the skull of the chief, 
as he crouched on the floor fancying his person quite secure. Another minor chief was also slain. 
After the fight their fiiends retirod for a time to bake the bodies of the slain, and to vow 
rei^eance. They were seen the following morning sitting disconsolate on the hills lamenting 
their loss, and soon afterwards all had disappeared. 

On the 4th June Lieutenant-Colonel McCleverty arrived at Wanganui in the Inflexibie with 
a strong reinforcementr— raising the numbers in the camp to about 550 men, and assuming the 
ctHumand. During the week he made reconnaissances three or four miles up each bank of the 
river, thereby ascertaining that the enemy's camp, which was posted on the right bank, was 
4»vered by a series of entrenched ravines, stretching from a swamp to the river ; but that there 
was no regular pah. His Excdlency the Governor, who had repaired to Wanganui, took active 
interest in these movements, as well as others. A few days afterwards the rebel tribes seoned 
to be gradually closing round the settlement— ^considerable numbers showing themselves on 
either side of the river, as well as on the before-mentioned heights, distant about a mile and a 
half firom the town. Finally, so insolently bold were some of the native scouts in an attempt 
to cut off a herdsman and his charge under the very guns of the fortress, that two parties under 
active subalterns were sent to drive them off. The scouts fled — doubtless acconling to pr&> 
arrangement — ^towards the hill of St. John's Wood, and up a steep ravine which ' had been 
strongly entrenched, and behind which among the trees a body of the rebels lay concealed. The 
floldierB, dashii^ after the runaways, were received with a heavy fire, which they of course 
jcetumed, and an action was commenced. The colonel, having oome up, sent to the camp fi>r 
reinforcements ; the insuxgents wero strengthened from their supports in rear of the wooded 
^ghts ; and in a short time about 400 men on either side were briskly engaged. 

In the hope of tempting the enemy from their cover, the colonel now tried the effect of a 
partial retreat, which movement was no sooner observed by the Maoris thlm, with a deafening 
shout, they rushed boldly down the hill, and, musket and tomahawk in hand, fell upon the 
nearest of their white opponents. Then the soldiers, turning upon their savage assailants, chained 
the foremost at the distance of fifteen paces, overthrowing tiiose who waited for the touch of the 
bayonet, and driving the others, in hot haste, back to thdr breastworks and reserves. On our 
aide one officer was wounded ; and a young acquaintance of mine, of the 65th, narrowly escaped 
hwag tomahawked by a stalwart warrior, who sprung upon him while stumbling among the 
fern, but who was shot through the head by a soldier of the 58th, just in time to arrest the 
stroke. Two privates were killed, and eleven wounded, one of whom died subsequently. 
Nothing but the well-known awkwardness of the New Zeaianders in the use of fire-arms can 
{iccount for the small execution done by them during this skirmisl^. 

After the brisk brush just related, the rebels stuck iast to their works, which were admirably 
though only temporarily constructed — all approach to them being impossible except under a 
front and flank fire. A few days later the Taua broke up altogether from the British front, and 
dispersed into winter quarters — a movement to which their usual desultory mode of wax^bre, 
the scarcity of ammunition and provisions, (for these wild warriors had hitherto lived from hand 
to mouth by plundering the cattle and swine of the settlers and loyal natives,) the severe cold 
of the season, and, perhaps, the slight taste of the bayonet they had enjoyed, all contributed to 
incline the insurgents. A long^threatened, and, by the troops ardently-hoped-for assault on the 
British stockades never took effect, though, it is said, the storming parties for each, with the 
chie& to lead them, had all been regularly * told off.' Superstition, as I heard, was one poten- 
tial cause of the abandonment of the projected onslaught. On tiie evening of the night fixed 
for its execution, the priests or seers consulted the relative positions of the moon and of a certain 
star — ^the former bdng considered to represent the beleaguering Taua, the latter the Britidi 
camp. These very diplomatic horoscopists did not fail to discover that the aspect of the two 
luminaries was nnpropitious to Maori success ; for the crescent of the half-moon had its back 
turned towards the flashing rays of the star, instead of threatenii^ it with its horns, which 
would have been the favourable augury. They did, indeed, deserve tiie name of sages, who thus 
read the fortunes of an attack upon the English position. 

The sustained blockade of the river, and other stringent measures enforced by the English, 
^uced the natives residing on its bank to the greatest straits ; and, under the prassore of 



^ CLOSE OF THR WAB. 177 

fimine, a numerous deputation of men of note, in the month of October last, came down to the 
camp, and toidered thdr pcccavi to the officer then and still in command. He assured them ot 
the pardon of the Govemor-in-Chief upon certain conditicms. His £xcellen<7 is now here to 
name these conditions, and, on their ratification bj the contrite rebels, to administer absolution 
for past transgressions. 

In reviewing the Wanganui campaign, I have found much to admire, — many individual 
instances of gallantry, firmness, and self-devotion ; with much cheerfulness under hardship and 
privation. The cardhud fault of it may be characterised by the homely phrase of * too many 
cooks.' There were military cooks, sea cooks (famous fdlows, we all know !), and civilian 
oockSf who, although full of good feeling towards each other and of zeal for the common cause, 
were, collectively, not always unanimous as to the modus operandi— or (to carry on the culi- 
nary metaphor,) as to the materials and mode of serving up ' the broth.' No two tastes agreed ; 
— ^in short, amongst them it was * spoilt 1' It is witii every sentiment of respect for the great 
talents and imdoubted gallantry of * the fighting Governor,' that I venture to state my c<xi- 
viction that interference in military details, by a civilian, of whatever rank, is productive of 
oonfunon, subveilsive of unity of plan and steadiness of purpose, and destructive of that sense of 
responsibility which by a leader of troops should be, not feared, but deeply felt. If such a perw 
eonage must be present during the prosecution of military operations, he should be considered in 
the Ught of an amateur — ^no more ; and, unless his counsel be asked, he has no more right to 
meddle therein than the spectator at a game of chess, cricket, or cribbage. In making this 
passing remark, chiefly with reference to the operations round Wanganui, I must, on the other 
hand, observe, that in some of the earlier war passages in New Zealand, where large bodies oi* 
natives fought on the English side, the consummate tact of Governor Grey was of good service 
in securing the co-operation of the friendly chiefe and their followers, as well as in deterring from 
active hostilities against the British the doubtful and wavering. 

With the skirmishes at Wanganui terminated the New Zealand War, — the first, and the last» 
I verily believe. The Maori i^ shrewd enough to know when he is over-matched. When Honi 
Heki &rst cut down the British standard and unfurled that of revolt in the country, there was 
no vessel of war on its seas, and only one company of soldiers on its soil. At the close of the 
Wanganui campaign in August, 1847, there were two splendid regiments, full 900 strong 
each, a powerful naval force, including a steam-ship of 1,200 tons, and a strong band of Pen- 
sioner Fendbles, gradually increasing in numbers. The elder chieflains, who are not ignorant 
of English tenacity of purpose, well know that from whence these came, more * hippas ' and 
* hoias ' — ships and soldiers — ^would be forthcoming if necessary. With such odds against him, 
the Maori, who takes up fighting as a stimulating pastime, not as the business of life, has dis- 
covered that macadamising on commissariat pay, pig-and-potato dealing at the settlements, and 
even psalm-singing with the misdonaries, are more profitable than warfare. It is the happy 
result of this conviction that he is graduaJly sacrificing his innate love of laziness and blood for 
the arts and customs of civilised lifb. The least to be expected of the white usurpers of his 
country is, that they will heartily assist in the amelioration, moral and material, of the natural 
proprietor of the soU. 

January 15th, Wanganui. — ^The aflemoon of this day had been fixed for the meeting of the 
Govemor-in-Chief with the leaders of the Taua from the river districts, who had demanded an 
audience of His Excellency. Mamaku, the friend of Rangihaieta, and the head chief of the 
rebels, together with the main body of the tribes implicated in the late outbreak, stayed away, 
— ^perhaps because they were not permitted to treat with arms in their hands ; but about mid- 
day a fleet of fine large canoes was seen gliding with prodigious speed down the stream, and was 
quickly moored under Shakspeare's Clifl'. A few of the chiefs then came across, and were ad- 
mitted to the Governor's presence in a small room of one of the deserted houses, now an officer's 
quarter. The Christian native, Dawson, who was dressed in European costume, came forward 
boldly, though his loyalty of late was by no means beyond doubt, and spoke up in behalf of his 
jebel brother Te Pehe, a most ferocious-lookinff and crapulous savage. This man and Ngopera^ 
another * robustious and periwig-pated fellow, scarcely less unwashed in appearance, were at 
first extremely nervous, striving vainly for many minutes to recover their self-command. At 
I^igth, however, each spoke, and, as far as I could gather through the interpreter, spoke to the 
purpose of the conference, both acknowledging that they had joined in the war party against 
Wanganui, but averring tiiat Mamaku had originated and was at the head of it. The koriro 
ended by these duty notables promising that certain cattle, sheep, &c., the property of settlers; 
which had been * lifted ' during the rebellion, should be restored ; and that a murderer who 



178 OCTB ASrriiPODBs. 

had taken refuge ttp the rivm, ahonid he deliveted up to British justice if he could he feond. 
The Governor's pardon was goamteed to them on ihe perfdntnanoe of their promise. 

After inspeeting the stockades and admin^ the ingenuity, ckanlinesa, and comfort of' the 
reed and rush-built bairacka of both officers and men withLi the palisades, onr paily dined at 
the mess, and did not the less enjoy the repast because the mess-room was in a wrefcdied hovel, 
the festive board formed of a chain of email tables of Tuious width and altitade--« peculiarity 
iezttttding also to the benches around it ; nor because decanters and canddabras w»e personatad 
by one imd the saone class of utensil — ^the weU-known black bottle, which was here poformiiig 
ihe double and genial duty of sheddii^ Ught and liquor. We found Wanganui beef^ poi^ 
.poultry, and potatoes ekcellait. The wines, too, aKhongh perhaps not of the first vintage, 
seamed delicious to a traveller as thh^ty as I happened to be, and to one who for ao many years 
of mess life had become ooostitationally aoclimaited to the ' good strong military port, an extra 
heavy dragoon ditto,' advertised by a waggl^ wine merchant, in Dublin, who koew his market, 
and supplied it accordingly. Nor should I have had a word to say against the blanket and plank 
that formed my bed for Ihe night, — for it was the best and softest that could be offered me,>^ 
but that its lowliness cost me a Inte on the fiioe by a venomous spider called by the natives 
Katipo, which not cnly caused me much pain, but very particularly ccmpromised my exterior 
economy. 

Both officers and soldieia appeared satisfied with their wild and fio>-away quarters. They 
have * made themselves comfortable ' (as the troops during the Peninsular war were often en- 
joined to do by orders from head-quarten, when, after a loi^ day's march in heavy rain, liie 
ground to be occupied by them for the night was marked out in a deep and wet plon^ied 
field I) and have shaken down into a perfect state of amity with the natives. Some of the 
officers have made excuiaioDs &r up the river, and have bc«n received, if not very politdy, at 
least without rudeness except in 'one or two cases, by the redtless and martial people «n its 

I had entertained vague hffpn of being able to take a trip np the Wanganui Kiver %> its 
sources in the mountain region of Tongn^ and to visit the fiimous hot lakes and springs of 
Tanpo and Boturua, l^ various accounts of which my curiosity had been much esEcited. Some 
of these natural baths are, it appears, quiet and lukcnvann, others gently situmering, and a few 
boiling over furiously. The natives — men, women, and children>--sit for hours gossiping in 
these sulphuric sudatoria ; and a molitsry friend, who visUed ^e spot, assured me that a Iwvy 
of six or eight couple of young girls, laughing and chatting and splasliii^ together, was iv&er a 
pretty sight. The winter huts of the people are built over spots of earth warmed from below ; 
and the traveller may {ntch his tent in a temperatmre aoconling to his taste and the season. 
£gg8 and potatoes are boiled, and p^ scalded, without trouble or fuel in the hotter springs. 
My time was short: the occasion was, by those w^o knew best, considered an uxipropitions one 
for ptfietmting the intaiiar> and the idea^was abendoDed. 



CHAFTEE XVL 



1848. Kkslt mondng, on our return towards WelKngtcni, the Irt/lexible anchoivd oiF Otaki 
for the interesting ceremony of releasing to his people the veteran chief Te Raoperaha, after a 
detention, under sorveillanoe, of cigbteoi months. fiBs son Tomihani, or Thomson Banperaha, 
came off to greet his fidiher, dressed like a clen^yman in black dothes and white cmvia, a quiet 
respectable young man. The leadtng traits of the three last generations of this young Maori's 
family are somewhat -carious ; his grand&ther killed and ate men prodigiously, and was himsdf 
killed and eaten ; his fitther did kill and eat men. Tomihana is a discreet Christian teadier, and 
tea-and-toast man. When ^tte boats had been lowend and manned ready for the Governor and 
his suite and the old chief to go ashoi^ the latter eame on the quarter-deck in full uniform, — 
oodced hat and epaulets ; but, on observing that His Excellency and the other gentlemen were In 
CBidrees coats, his eye flashed and his nostril dilated with anger, and, hurrying away, he exidanged 
2ii8 English dress for a dirty mat and blanket. He had tiie impudence, moreover, to ask ^xr a 
Mdnte from the steamer on landing, and was quite sulky when he found that his restoraiioii to 
liberty was not to be siffualised by any honorary demonstration. The other state ddtema were 
not so touchy on the sidjed; of ceremonial, nor did they display any outward tokens of joy at 
their manumission. 
The venerable and loyal chieftains, Te Whero-Whero and Taniwha, accompanied Ifcfae party 



A PHAirrOK 8H1SP. 179 

ashore, 4reiBed in tSiesr bert. Thanks to the spider-stingy I fdt too feverish to leaira tiie Aif, 
hut the last I saw of the shore-gonig part;^ was the poor old Waikato chief gettii^ a trcBaeDdooa 
fcack^&ll on the deck b7 his Iwds lapping up. The oostnine he had seleeted for this state 
oooBsioB was not a partacnlarly dignified one ; namdj, a new suit of fustian dittos, like l^iat of 
an EngHsh gamekeeper, with a pair of thick heed boots, palled on for the fint time over his 
naksd and, doabtless, astonished feet. I was afterwazds told that on the boats readhb^ the 
siMir^ liie whole of ^e party proceeded towards the Tillage, which Is oituated some two nadlis 
infamd. Te Baupendia, howerer, tamed from ibsm, and, sit&ig -down on the beadi witii his 
fivie towards the ocean, oorered his old grey head with his mat, and remained £»r hours im- 
DMrvable. Not a sonl of his tribe or teoly came near him ; they stood aloof in a ccowd at 
sereral hxmdred paces distant ; for Maooi etiquette forbade llialfc tiie great chieftain should ho 
approached whilst exhibiting sndi signs of emotion. It is said tHat he was well-mgh farokoy- 
hearted when he found his grand old heathen pah, which stands dose to the searshove, utterly 
deserted and in ruins, while tiie new Christian settlement u fully peopled and flourishing like « 
green bey-tree. To-morrow he irlll present himself pubUdy before hu people ; when donbtleBS 
some dap wSl be spent in long^windra and pointless speedi-making. 

¥bre or six liundrod persons pouxed out of the village to meet fiis Excellency and his lady. 
Prayeors in the native tongue were read in the open air ; a cajatal breakfast of tea, l»«adrand» 
butter, &c. — clean damask table-doth and all — was tarved in a handsome glasa-windovrad and 
carpeted warree for ^ party ; and « dau^ter of the outlawed Rangihaieta did the honours of 
the repast, ^e is now the wife or widow of a Mihonari native, named Martin. The Bebel 
Chief himsdf was not &r off, harbouring a notorious murderer, whom he refused to give up to 
justice. The Governor commanded Te Rauperaha and the other frioDdly diiefii to cut tiie 
company of this stubborn ' patriot,' who, it was plaunbly reported, felt so deeply iheir desertion 
as to have' signified his immediate intention (in order to prove his conversion to civilisation) to 
kill and eat &e aforesaid murderer, and then ' to get into the best sodety V 

Daring the return passage from Wanganui to WelHngton my journal notes a little marine 
ioddeDt of extivmdy picturesque diaracter, although, afWr aU, its details prosaically viewed am 
ordinary enough. The Racehorae was to sail in company \rith us, but ihe wind being dead 
ahead, ^A» steamer took tiie sailingHsfaip in tow, and the two thus proceeded on their course. 
Some time after daris, (hour uncertain, for I had been doidng in my cabin,) methou^ I heaiid 
« voice say, ' Come and see:' rubbing my eyes, I went upon deck, and had to rub them again 
i)efare I could satisfy mysdf that there was a fine large vend, evidentiy a man-of-war, careering 
past ujB to leeward, crowding all sail, going iSree, and with every seam of her white canvas 
visible in the stlvery light of the mocm agaimt the bad^round ^ night. The laige paddle- 
wheels of the Infiex^e were plunging into the brine, dashing it into scintillating atoms, and 
her stout frame was thriOrng with the concussion of the engines as she rushed on her way. Yet 
the Phantom Ship^m she seemed— beautilul in her synmietry, almost awful in her silence, 
passed rapidly ahead; a black cloud swept across the face -of the moon, and she was gone I 
Some one, I found, had called me to witness this pretty sight, so eadly explained. The wind 
during the night had suddenly slnfted to a fiivouraUe quarter; ihoBacehone had 'cast us off;* 
and, witii a stiff breeae but smooth sea, canvas had in tiiis case fairiy outstripped steam. 

Jamuary 24£A« — W^mgton. — ^On this desf was hdd, for the 22iid, the anniversary fSte of the 
settLeraent. I was fortunate in the opportunity of assisting thereatj inasmudi as the assembly, 
on tfa&s occasion, df great numbers of the Aborigines and their oommixture with the white 
inhabitants, afforded an instructive view of two noes so distinct in character and customs, whom 
Providence has thrown together under sndi peculiar circumstances, and who have at this jonctuia 
aniv«d at an epoch in their intercommunion which may probably dedde 'whether tiie Maori and 
Jki^o-fiaxon are henoeforfli to work 'together for good, in a country and a dtmate as fiivourable 
to one as to the other ; or, by a second, and, to the natives a surely fiital appeal to arms, l>reak 
tip pediaps for ever the brittle bonds that the spread of a common fiutii and the ties of worldly 
interest are but now casting around tiiem. 

I think that the majority of opinions expressed in my hearing at this time was in &vour of 
the Maoris again betiddng themsdves to xevoH. Some of the war-prophets unquestionably 
ai^ed as they wished; for there are not a few whose interests, — at least as mudi as their 
inclination, — ^bias them towards war, with all its concomitants of increased naval, military, and 
commissariat expenditure, and ready markets and high <^prices for stores and prodaoe««-4iot to 
xnention the compavative, and, to some persons, not unpleedng rdaxation of the laws and of 
monds which a state of warfare usually brings m lis train, for myself, I embrace the belief 

N 2 



180 OUB AKTIPODES. 

that tiiere will be no more fighting on a largre scale in New Zealand. The old pagan duefs, 
whose feudal power is gradoally felling away from them under the influences of Christianity, 
civilisation, and commerce, are for the most peut superannuated and dying off, — ^^ving p:t>motioti 
to a totally different class. There will succeed them young chiefs, wild and unruly perhaps, 
and prompt to take offence, who will squabble among themselves, and who, looking upon furious 
excitement as a necessary of life, will, like the ' Wi-wis ** of Young France, indulge occasionally 
in what that volatile people style ' revolutions intestines I' Others there will be, steady and 
respectable, — perhaps fanatics in their new faith, — who have become, and will remain attached 
to the Missionaries: and numbers shrewd, active, and avaridons — willing and able to stru^le 
with the Europeans in the race for gold. I do not know that the Maori is by nature rapacious ; 
but the ' Spirit of the till,' that so powerfully rules the actions of the greater part of the 
colonists, — especially the huckstering inhabitants of the townships, — is rapidly infu^ng itself 
into the native character and dealings. The Hon. Arthur Petre, who has travelled much in the 
country, told me that on one occasion, on remonstrating with a Maori who charged him 1/. for 
ferrying him across a river, the native replied that before the English Government came they 
never asked for payment. Now they only imitated the whites, their superiors, in so doing. ' T go 
to Akarana,' said he ; * I see blankets and tomahawks in the shops. Do the shopmen ^ve them 
to me without purchase? I see the dealings of the Pakehas amongst themselves. Are there 
any gifts? No: all is buying and selling I' 

The pastimes of the anniversary were protracted through three whole days, — ^the last 
exhibiting those signs of exhausted amusonent and draggled indulgence which in England and 
elsewhere are the invariable symptoms of race, fair, fete champitr€f or other public festivity 
unduly drawn out. The Te Aro race-course, — a grassy flat at the end of the town overlooking 
the bay, — ^was the head-quarters of the sports cut out by the stewards for the occasion ; but 
the sea had also her share. There were sidling races by the settlers and whaling folks : xvwing 
races by men*of-war's boats ; canoe races by the Maoris ; hurdle and flat races by the horses 
belonging to the officers and to Engli^ and native gentry. There were rustic games of various 
kinds ; booths, and bands of music ; war-dances, and dancing of jigs ; a good deal of fun, some 
littie flghting, and no end of drinking. 

The hurdle race was won by a littie old horse ¥rithout a 1^ to stand upon, but against whose 
quarter century of jumping experience there were of coarse * no takers. The screw-propeller 
who rode him was a tall and strong subaltern, who might have ' exchanged duties ' witii his 
steed, and carried him round the course with equal speed. Among the riders and perhaps owners 
of the horses entered for plates or public money, were one or two dry-looking, Tommy-Lye-like 
fellows, with tight leathers and seats, whose ardent attachment to horseflesh had probably been 
the original cause of their translation to the Antipodes. To the correct horsemanship of thess 
there was an amusing contrast in the race bv horses ' exclusively the property of Maori gentlonen.' 
In the first heat the black boy riding the leading horse, intoxicated by his almost certain success, 
]>ulled off his cap, and waving it round his head cheered himself vehementiy as he passed tha 
grand stand ; when his perverse steed, bolting straight for his manger, ran in rear of the winning 
post, threw his rider, and disappeared ; while a heavy galloway, testridden by a fatter and less 
excitable jockey, cantered quietiy in, and won the stakes, — non sine puivere, however, for bis 
single girth having given way, he fell off when the horse stopped, and remained stunned on the 
ground with his saddle held tight between his naked legs. 

The canoe race— the competitors bemg men of different tribes — was contested with extreme 
spirit, nay fury I and was indeed one of the most smgular and exciting spectacles I ever beheld. 
Two of the four canoes entered, being but small, had no chance in a sea ruffled by a trestx breeze ; 
but those belonging respectively to the veteran chief E Puni, of Pitone pah, and to E Ti^o, of 
Te Aro pah, contested the prize in a course of four miles so closely, that, up to the last moment, 
the issue was doubtful. These chiefs were both acquaintances of mine. I had seen and 
conversed the day before ¥rith the latter chief, a handsome young man with the manners of a 
gentieman accustomed to good society, and spealdng a little English, who had been breathing his 
crew for the coming race, and certainly had not spared either their wind or their muscles. It 
consisted of sixteen fine young men, (of whom only two or three were disfigured by tattooing,) 
all stript to the waist, displaying theu: sleek brown skins and singularly well-formed busts, as, 
kneeling in the bottom of their bai^, they impelled it with wonderful force through the water, 
their paidles conforming to the measured cry — ^*tena-tenS' of their leader, who, standing 
upright in the centre, gave the time by vo'ce and gesture, cutting the air at every stroke of the 

• TlM Maori name for the French. 



OLD AND TOUNG ITEW ZEALAND. 181 

paddles with a weapon like a wooden axe tailed with feathers. In the stern sat a singalarl/ 
pretty and animated girl gaily dressed in parti-ooloured mats, her hair decked with scarlet flowers 
and ihe black and white feathers of the Huia, who steered the vessel with a richly carved paddle, 
and occasionally added her shrill cheer to that of the chief. The canoe itself was about sixty 
feet long, scooped out of a single tree. The prow and stem were much raised, and covered with 
intricate sculpture, as also with fringes of feathers and of hair that looked very like American 
scalp-locks. The mazes of the pattern carved on the bow terminated in a fea^ul figure-head, 
more fearful even (which is a good deal to say) than the specimens of dock-yard statuary that in 
the British navy are received as authentic likenesses of the * Nelsons,' * Ajaxes,' * Rodneys,' * Billy 
Rough'uns,'* ' Semiramises,' and other heathen heroes and heroines, connected (some of them, 
Heaven knows how) with naval achievements and architecture. The nearly uniform figure- 
head of the New Zealand fleet consists of a huge grinning &ce elaborately tattooed, with large 
round eyes of mother-of-pearl and a protruding tongue, symbol of insult and defiance. 

Wishing E Tako success on the morrow, I saw, by the flash of the dark eyes of himself and 
his fair helms-woman, that they doubted it not ; — ^perhaps he was not aware of the odds against 
him I Too late to see the sttui, I was, however, eye-witness of the greater part of the raoe, 
which was, as I have said, very closely contested. The shores, as well as certain blufis of land 
near the Ixach, wore crowded with spectators white and brown, all apparently much interested 
in this spirited trial of strength and skill ; but animation, excitement, frenzy, are words too weak 
to give an idea of the emotions betrayed by the i!f aori lookers-on. lAea. and women roared, 
yelled, and shrieked at the top of their voices, sprang into the air, their eyes rolling and mouths 
£>aming, while individuals of adverse tribes vied with each other in abusive terms and insulting 
gestures, shakmg their fists, grinning, and stamping on the ground. High above the rest, on a 
bare hill, stood or rather rav^ a tfdl, stout, indeed corpulent woman — ^widow, they told me, of 
a great chief, and a sorceress. Brandishing in one hand a red flag, and in the other a splendid 
green-stone Meri, heirloom of her deceased lord, and the skuU-cracker no doubt of a hundred foes, 
her invocations for the success of one porty, imd her imprecations against the other rose above 
the general uproar, awakening the echoes of the surrounding hiUs. Crowds of pretty young girls, 
dressed in mats and blankets, calicoes, silks, velvets, rags, and native * buff,' manifested, without 
reserve and by a thousand extravagant ebullitions, their deep interest in the various tenants of 
the canoes, laughing, crying, singing, dancing, even rolling on the ground. And, indeed, the 
erews of these two barks included the crSme de la crime of the native manhood of Poniki. 
But, in my eyes, the most singular and significant featiu'e of this animating scene, showing the 
gradual adoption of English habits by the jB'esent and rising generations of Maoris, — a feature 
not observable in the north, — ^was the number of young native exquisites riding about the coiuise 
and the strand with new English saddles and bridles, dressed in neat fitting round jackets and 
ibrage caps of blue cloth, with white trousers, a cheroot stuck jauntily in the comer of the 
mouth, chatting, laughing, and betting — some, I regret to say, drinking with their companions. 
And these are lineal successors to the tattoed, mafrclad, cannibal old caterans — strenuous oppo* 
nents of every innovation, which, by elevating and enlightening the minds of their subjects and 
slaves, must overturn their own hovditary influence. Too late and vain their resistance! 
Progress is amongst them. Yes, it is all over with the ' fine old Maori gentleman, all of the 
olden time I' No more ' long-pig ' for him I not much more feudal observance. < Young New 
Zealand !' is almost of age, and votes ' all that sort of thing ' rococo. A well-dressed man no 
longer, in Maori parlance, signifies a well-cooked one ; a writ of habeas corpus is not an invita- 
tion to a cannibal dinnei' ! The New Zealander of the day has rubbed intellects with the 
European, and he finds there is no great difference in their natural abilities. Tommy Rauperaha, 
and a hundred others^ can read, write, and cypher, and what is more, expound the Scriptures. 
Why should he not go a step further, and ' wag his pow in a pu'pit?' and if capable of attaining 
proficiency in spiritual learning, surely he and tiiey may, with hopes of success, study other 
learned professions. In an East Indian newspaper lying before me, I notice the following 
Government appointments : — * Mr. J, Macleod, deputy collector, has been transferred from 
Sbahabad to Gya, in exchange with deputy collector Azeem Ooddeen Hossein, of that place ;^ 
and * Dr. Soojecomar Chuckerbutty is appointed to the medical college, Calcutta,' Would not 
Dr. John Hobbs, or Collector Wiremu Kingi, or Turing! Kuri,t Esq., Barrister-at-Law and 
Memb^ of the L^islative Council, sound as well as those native oriental appellations ? But 
I wander. 

The canoes now approach the goal — a spot marked out on the Te Aro beach. Two, as I have 
• BeUerophon. t Turing! Kuri,— Dog's Ear, a well-known chief. 



182 OUB AlimFOlMCS. 

mentione d , dipped astenu E Pimi and E Tako alone strove for ibe prise— « punaof tkifiy 
gianeas. The nameroiu paddles flashed in the son ; the Tesada abaolatdy flew throogli tbe 
lightly ripi^ed water. The frantic action of the veteran E Poni-'aa erect amidahips he thrashed 
the air with hia stai^-^Bggeated the idea of a grey-bearded Jullien in ooe of his monateivooiiottt 
paroxysms ; — ^while the younger and more degant figare of E Tako was not a whit less ener- 
getic. They were now within fifty yards of the shore ; and, althoajj^ four miles had hom pe^- 
formed at the utmost speed, not a hair's breadth of advantage could be discerned, acept whan at 
each sweep of the paddles each canoe shot alternately a few inches ahead of thfi other. Ten 
yazds only remained to be accomj^ished, and the race was still nedc and neck. He would have 
been a bold better who had offerwl the most trifling odds ; — when, suddenly, with a shout that 
rent the air and drowned the univeraal clamour, tl^ dd chieftain's crew drove the Pitoae galley 
in advance, and its lofty rostrum ran far np on the beach among the crowd, a few short ieet 
ahead of the other. In an instut the victors sprang aahore, and, without even waiting to trice 
heath, commenced a furious war-dance ; — ^while poor E Tako with his men seemed to seek 
concealment amoi^ the assemblage, and soon disappeared fivm the aoeae of hia defeat. He had 
no cause for shame, fer Ida opponent's crew numb«ed at least twenty-feur men, while his own 
OMoplement was but sixteen. Many of E Puni's men were perfect modds for statuary, and «ne 
or two of them — ^young feUows of twent y cxli e m ely feir m complexion. Nearly all had their 
chedes rouged with h(£owai or red ochre, with a black spot in the centre of the red — giving a 
siBfular efiect to the axpression of the face. 

Nearly as naked as miwdoome troth, the persons of some few of tiie eider paddlani ikpbif&St 
a deoomtive peculiarity which the orthodox Maori warrior shares with his canoe-— in two wokfas 
a carved stem. I was aware that the Mokn, er Tattoo, the rigoroosly feafaionaUe omameni cf 
I9ie native frontispiooe, was oocasionally extended to the antipodal extremity ; and more than 
once in mv travds aome btswny individual, stalldng past, had pennttted, by a peculi a r- p erim» 
intantkxMd— sweep of his toga, a partial expoaure of this smgi:dar item of Abariginal dandyinn. 
Bat on the present oeeasion I hod leisure to examine in detail the tastefol arabeiqae df the 
patt cm i as wdl as to adndie mentally the cxtrasiduniy amount of paiienQe w^uch mant have 
been exerted by both sufferer and practitioner m the execution of this erud corporeal senlptare. 
An aapumtanoe of mine, whose jonmal in thb country I have latdy perused, racntiona that, 
while tiavdUng in the interior with a party of natives, the act of fmStog a river divulged to 
him the feet tbrt the tattoo, implied as a penonal endoraanait, ia not invariably restricted to 
the rougher sex 1 

I know not why my sympathies sided with E Tako in the contest, any more than I <l» why 
aaaboy I was a hot partiaan of the Trojans against the OredtB. £ Puni, to ^idnm I had hem 
^Mcially presented by the Oovenidr, is a venerable and now pladd-looking old man with a irinte 
beard. In his day he had been a temblc warrior, although very small in perasn.* He waa eae 
of the fint diiefe to welcome and sdl hmd to Colond Wakefidd,the Company's i^;ent,m 1840; 
has diown hnnadf a good friend to the English genoally, and was frequently OMisalted wiflk . 
advantai^ by the British Government and military leaders dniing the coatinnanoe of hestilitiea. 
He and Tomati Waka saved the lives of many a soldier, whom raaber eoondla would have aent^ 
port haste, to certain deslmctkn. I have :briefly noticed this veteran in my sketdi of the 
ddrmishes in the Hutt Valley. Governor Grey and Colond Wakefidd ddig^ted to honoor Ae- 
dd man. He and the Nestor of the Nortfa—^Tomati — ^were two of the few esquiresof the knight 
dect at the invertiture of His Exrallency Sir George Grey with the Order of the Bath at Awk- 
land, in 1848 ; — and in the same year, E Pnm attended aa a pall-bearer the fnnerd of his nn- 
swerving fiiend and patron, poor ' Wideawake,' as the Maoris styled the gallant and l am e n ted 
Colonel Wakefldd, who died in the full vigour of Ufe. As fer E Tako, I knew nothing of him 
beyond that he was a gentlemanly savage who affected Anglomania and let out hack-hones. Hia 
nspected fether was an admowledged Kaitangita, or man-eater ; and hia feasts, like those of tite* 
tiger, were aooompanied by acts of ferodous crudty. The pr e s en t represe n t a tive of the fenHy- 
bni made a great stride towards dvilisation. Not long ago he desired to iHing into the English 
Courts an action fer damages in a case of alleged infiddity on the part of one of his wives ; and 
was astonidied to find, that according to English law, poljrgamy deprived him of all dafan to 
oompensation I Not to be disappointed, however, he carried it into another court; — fer there 
oxists a court of appeal composed of two or more natives, whose business it is to settle dispotea 
between Maori and Maori ; — where he probably obtained what he considered justice. 

• Though the Maoris look large In their mats and blankets, as a race they are said to be of lower 
stature than the English. 



TBS XAKA» 18S 

A ywag English tourist in this oooatiy told tm that when pasting ihioi|^ iht district t£ 
Taupo — perhaps one of the wildest in the land — he had heoa present A a naitiYe trial fyt adnt' 
tery. The eUns of the tribe assembled m the open air, the grandest of halls of justice^ 
eolumned and canopied by the jsrimeyal forest ; the principals, in the case were not themsalTM 
present ; the defendant had concealed himself; but his fiicsid and iqjNsentatlve Aernipp^ of the 
plaintiff's fiiend^ ' whether it was to be a ease of Uood or of money ;* for his prindpal was 
bcaye and rich, and ready for either aHenatkve I It was decided that payment would snffioe. 
The greybeards assessed ibtb damages*— (two pigi^ * pair of pedi£es» a fig of tobacco, and a kit of 
potatoes, perhaps)^^aBd the affair was satismcterily acljnated withoat appeal to the tomahawk. 

On the second day ef the Wellington anniTersary, I witnessed a aaAiMal spectacle which was 
new to ne — a sort of incantation performed by women alon^-^the Haka» I thmh it is caJleol 
The actors, in nnmber about sixty, having fiJlen in four deep and opened out to double distanoe^ 
exhibited a quarter-distanioe column ef four ranks entire at extended older. Sqnatting with legs 
CTOsaed, Turk or tailorJike, they commeacfd a low chant, which, gradually swelling in Yolume^ 
increased at Jeagth to the atmost extreme ef vehesDMnce. The attitude I hayementtoned is not, 
one would suppose, susceptible of mueh activity, and at first I thought it had been assumed ftr 
the purpose of giving firee scope to that fonnidable organ, the tongue, without &kigue to body 
nr Umbs. Blii^ error ! for as the performeif warxned to their work, member after member 
waaauooesslvely enli0tedintheeanse;aadwhanbynnpid'Greseend9'the Aranmra had readied 
He acme — beads, ^es, anns, hands, fiiKgers, bado, kneBt, and legi becan»e aTolred in one g^ 
■eral CQDTulsion, thaA beggars and oQght pvhapa te predude daKvintion* HadtheSyiensof did 
thus sung they would have eaoght ne human fish except those or the gyossest taates 1 Then 
were lad& of various ages, firom sixfy te six, engaged in this ceremony ; and it was rem«k» 
able that even the youngest girls were quite perfect in thdr lessen ;^-not a note, a grimace, a 
oontortien, a spaam» ont ef time cr tune— «U w«e OMsplete ndtepAa in human dJaholiiim — 
dttkhran ef wmth hnbihing with eagsr awt a tMfte ftr the savage ^naditiooary rites ef thekr 
country. I could not but recall to .mind oldTe Where's dbserratiea at the eonohiaion of the 
wa»4ance tA AocUand— >' Such things are finished now — let them be ftigoHen t' 

In dosing my account eC tiie WeUingtan festivitieB, I mwl cempliBMnt the Maori race on 
their gencnJ sobriety nader great temptation. Hany a redng and reekuHt wretch among the 
white dviUsera ef the savage I aaw ; and two ef than, I grieved to hear, &i»ed good descent ; 
bu^ I noticed only one native who had fallen a victim to tiie rum bootha»»"end, wick 1 it was a 
woman. She was instantly surrounded by a crowd of Aborigines, male and fenale ; ho: child 
was taken forcibly fimn h^ anns, a blanket was thrown over her head^ and she waa hurried 
fiam the Baee-couiae. 

January 28M. Wellington. — My hopes of being able to continue * on the hooka ' of Her 
Majesty's ship InfismbU^ uA to return with her to Sydney, were frustrated by the Govemoiw 
in-Chidf ei^aging the services of that ship for an extended tour round the Ishmds of the New 
Zealand gronp^fior too extended for the time I had at my command. I therelbre took my pas- 
sage with Majer^General PHt, who w«s retoningtethe Korth in the Gorermnent-brig Victoria^ 
fyr Auckland — ^there to await an opportunity ^ a (nxther panage to New South Wales. 

I will venture to say, that ndthier Qeneral Pitt nor any ef the six ladies and gentlemen will 
ever forget our voyage in this 200 tons tub raund the atonny bac^ of New Zealand \ The bttt 
chip of wood, the la^ pint of water, the last sheep had been consume ^ all bread stuff*, except 
biscuit, had been devoured before half the voyage was over ; the last goose was dying of soli- 
tude*-too thin to be eaten*— in his pen ; the rats even, of which there were hundreds, looked 
gaunt and &mished, and seemed strongly inclined to jump overboard in a body, when, on the 
12th February, the anchor was dropped in Auckland harbour. Owing to this tedious passage! 
missed the fine 500 ton barque Eleanor Zanoaster, a noted swift sailer, by two da3rs, and con- 
sequently had to fall back upon a schooner of about 100 tons and of slow repute, for the tngect 
to Sydney, — a voyage of some 1,400 miles. 

Fabntary l^th. Auck]and.--Shipped mysdf, servant, and baggage^ on board the Dehorah^ 
and made nil with a light breeze. I paid double fare for my caUin, in order to avoid being 
made up into a kind of human sandwich with some other passenger ,-"-each little cupboard, 
called a state cabin, having two shelves in it for the stowage of human live-stock. The 
J)^)orah was very deliberate in her paces, but, as her name imported, was, on the whole, a well- 
conditioned old maid, — stiff, dry, and safe ; the captain a worthy and Intdligent man, with well- 
pleniahed lockers, and a laudable cook, (hi the 15th we had an opportunity of vinting Kawau 
Island and its copper-mine, from which great thin^i are expected l^ the Aberdeen Cempeny whe 



184 ouB AiirnpoDBs. 

have rented and are working it. On the 18th, I found myself once more in the Bay of Islands, 
and went ashore to visit the officers stationed there. In proof of tiie loxory of New Zealand 
military life, these gentlemen had tasted no wine and no hutter for two or three months, nor 
milk for some time. A huge cheese, which I borrowed from Aunt ' Deborah's' dairy, was 
hailed by the Wahapu mess as a God-send. 

February 19th. — Tomati Waka came on board and dined with us, behaving with perfect pro- 
piety. On learning that I was quitting New Zealand, the veteran and loyal chief confided to 
me that the ' desire of his heart ' was to possess a miri (mill) ; that he was rich with his pul- 
sion* — ^whei'eof, by parenthesis, he had not yet touched a shilling — and that he would ^ve it up 
for a year if the Governor would get him a fine mill from Sydney. I made the old man happy 
by promising to write a ' bookapbooka' (letter) to His Excdlency on the subject, which I did 
that very day, in due time recdving a favourable reply. It is to be hoped, therefore, that be- 
fore very long Mr. Thomas Walker, — n^ Nene, — ^became what was the height of his ambition, a 
miller on his own account, grinding com for his neighbours at so much per bushd ; much 
better employment, it will be conceded, than splitting their skulls, grinding ' t^eir bones to 
make his br^,' and dining off then' steaks — pursuits in which the worthy old convert wiU not 
deaj that he engaged, in common with all Maori great men, in his hot youth when killing and 
eating were brothers in arms — * like twin cherries, never parted.' The countenance of Tomati 
is of so good-tempered and benevolent a cast, in sjnte of the grim tattooing of his cheeks, chiUy 
and forehead ; and he looks so fat and fubsy, that I should have thought him a better man at 
the trencher than in the war-path ; not so, however, for in his day he did many noted acts of 
bravery. Once he walked alone into the pah of an enemy, called him by name, and ehot him 
dead for having murdered his Mead and relative. This was merely utu. In 1839, he tried and 
shot a native for murdering an Englishman. 

Held, I found, was now living quietly at home, and had consented to receive a visit from 
Major Brifl^, 58th raiment, commanding at the Bay. A meeting was anan^ by old Waka, 
who, a day or two ago, wrote thus to the Major :•— 
« * Fbiend the Major, The Ahnaha, Feb. 14, 1848. 

' Honi Heki and I are here, at the Ahuahit ; we are waiting for you, and the Cap- 
tun of the man-of-war, to come and see Honi Heki. Come you two to-morrow, and likewise 
bring some tobacco ; come, do not delay. Bring some tobacco, oh I Captain of the Calliope^ 
bring plenty of tobacco. « Prom Waka Nenb,* 

The Major accordingly met the ex-rebel chief at Waimate, and was received by him, as Major 
Bridge writes, ' with much ceremony and respect. He is a fine-looking man, with a command- 
ing countenance, and a haughty manner, which appears habitual to him.' Heki wished much 
that the Governor would come to see him at Waimate, for a koriro, and a shake-hands. In May 
1850, he wrote the following somewhat touching letter to His Excellency : — 

< Fbiend the Governor, Kaikohe, 30th of the days of May, 1850. 

< Salutations to you. Your loving letter has reached me. Lo, this is my lov- 
ing letter to yon. Yes, my illness is great, but do not be dark or sorrowful. This is not the 
permanent place fiir the body ; we are at the disposal of God. My words to you will not be 
many more, as I am very ill. Present my love to your companion, Lady Grey. Salutations to 
you and to your oompem<m. 

' From your loving Frioid, 

* Hone Wiremit Here Pokai.' 

On the 6th of August following, Honi Heki expn:ed at Tauteroa, but little beyond forty years 
of age, of a pulmonary complaint aggravated by his old wound. In his last moments, this once 
relentless enemy of the British Government urged his ' young men to sit at peace for ever 
with the Pakehas.' Am I rendering myself liable to prosecution for defamation of chaiticter 
on stating my belief that the immediate cause of the death of ' the Lion of the North ' was a 
sound thrashing administered by his wife ? It is certain that the daughter of the great chief 
Hongi was very jealous of her low-bom but handsome husband, and had cause to be so up to 
the very day of his decease. Honi's intimate friend and ally, Pene Tani, in i-eporting his 
death to the Governor, 15th August, 1850, writes: — 'Thus it was. Heki was sleeping in 
the forenoon, he was sound asleep. Then came Haniett with a hani, (a staff or club,) and 

* A pension of lOOl. a-year was granted by the colony to thfs chief, In aocordanoe with Her Miner's 
desirs to ccmliBr a mark of her favour upon him, * for his zeal, oonrage, aod loyalty.' 



MASSACRE OF * THE BOYD.* 185 

struck him on the ribs. When she had beaten him she threw him down on the bed, and 
when he was down she showered blows and kicks upon him. That is all.' And qultb 
enough, in all conscience I Poor Honi never rose again. 

February 2lst. — Sailed from the beautiful Bay of Islands, passed the rampant-looking rocks 
of the ' Cavallos/ and peeped into the narrow moutlis of Wangaroa and Monganui Bays, the 
latter a safe and commodious harbour, which, to the detriment of Bussell, is getting into 
favour with whaling and other vessels. Our skipper, anecdotic and spinning pleasant yams 
about ]Sew Zealand history, pointed out Wangaroa as the scene of one of the fiercest tragedies 
ever enacted on its bloody shores, namely, the destruction of the Boyd, with her crew and 
passengers, a detailed account of which is given in Major Cruise's old work. 

This vessel sailed from Sydney fur England in 1809, with seventy white persons on board 
and a few New Zealandeis, intending to touch in that country to get Kauri spars. Tara, 
sumamed George, son of a chief of Wangaroa, being one of the Maori passengers, was worked 
like a common sailor, ill-fed, and at length flowed by the master of the vessel. The young 
chief dissembled his anger, persuaded the captain to go into this port in search of spars, and, 
on landing, revealed to his tribe his suflerings and d^radation. The captain and two or 
three boats* crews were^ under mask of friendship, decoyed up the harbour to cut timber, 
when the natives fell upon and butchered them all. Then dressing themselves in the clothes 
of the slain and getting into the boats, they boarded the Boyd in the night and murdered 
every soul on board excepting one woman and two children, whom they made prisoners, and 
who were afterwards rescued by some Europeans. The murdered were all devoured — Tara, 
in all likelihood, cutting up tiie captain with great zest ! The Maoris then proceeded to 
plunder the vessel, whi<^ lliey had run aground, getting a rich booty, amongst other goods, 
of fire-arms and ammunition — booty which, however, cost them dear ; for one of the savages 
—-evidently an experimentalist, a class often ruinous alike to themselves and their fnends^ 
tested the quality of a cask of powder by snaj^ing his musket over it, thereby blowing a couple of 
dozen of the pirates to pieces, and burning the ship to the water^s edge. Such was the fate 
of th^ Boyd -ODd her inmates. 

li^fntary 2Qncf. — ^Amid thunderings and lightnings — fit accessories of a spot so wild and 
grand — but with lulled airs, about an hour after sunset we doubled the North Cape, passing 
so close to the rugged and cloud-capped bluff as to be obliged to tack ship in order to avoid the 
attraction of the land. Fortunately a light breeze sprang up and bore us out of so dangerous 
a neighbourhood ; and, as the shades of evening fell upon the face of the ocean, I lost sight of 
the shores of New Zealand — a country which on a short acquaintance has impressed me most 
favourably — a country full of intrinsic good — a country whose destiny it is to be a flourishing 
and a happy offshoot of the great and glorious Mother of so many noble children. 

Once more a cruelly long passage fell to my lot. The Deborah proved a marine hackney- 
coach of the most tturdigrade order ; but it could not be helped : so, like Diogenes, I resolved 
to be satisfied with my tub, and as for sunshine, I found it within and without I Let me not 
imitate the schooner in loitering over the voyage ; one glance at my fellow-passengers, and I 
have done with it. There were three only in tiie cabin. The first was a sickly, consumptive 
tailor of Sydney, who had been hunting for health in the fresher climate of New Zealand, 
(perhaps also to open a connexion at Auckland,) but he seemed to have left there its residue, 
and was besides so piteously sea-sick, that there was nothing left of a rather well-looking 
fellow but a flaccid husk of humanity, when he was put ashore in Port Jackson. My second 
messmate was an old whaling skipper, with two very young grandchildren — ^little fatherless, 
motherless, helpless creatures, a boy and a girl, who clung together all day, and at night slept 
in each other's arms ; and who could not besur to be a moment out of sight of the old sailor their 
grand&ther. Looking from my berth of a morning through the Venetians, I felt the moisture 
rise in my eyes as I watched the bald and grey veteran taking his little prot^g^es one by one 
from their common crib, carefully washing and dressing them, combing their flaxen locks, and 
then folding away their bedding. During the day he would feed and tend them, and carve 
toys for them with his pocket-knife. Ajad at night, after undressing his * little people,' as he 
called them, he * coiled away and stowed ' their day gear, and put on their night clothes— his 
great rough hands fumbling the small tapes into all sorts of un- nautical knots which cost him 
a world of trouble to undo in the morning. Then he placed them in their bed — side by side 
generally, but sometimes with their heads diffei'ent ways — and, having * shipped ' the panel to 
prevent their &lling out, he would sing them to sleep with a low, hoarse lullaby, of which 
the words * Yo ! heave ho V and * Whack Old England's ioe,* fonned the burthen. Then he 



186 OUB AXTEIFODES. 

ligtenad to their ligbt breathings aad, assured thai they slmnbered* dropped his furrowed hvow 
oa the bed-panel for a time, as though he blessed and prayed for them, and posting himsdf on 
a bench below, he opened an old chest, and, taking oat a weUrWom bo(^ and patting oa hia 
glasses^ he read therein sometimes for half tiie night. 

At the fixst nod of approaching sleep, the old fellow turned in ' all standing * — for I nerec 
saw him take off more than coat and shoes ; bat was up again in a moment at their slightest 
plaint. It is a sad thing when the intermediate generation ia thus missing in a family gro«^> ; 
when upon the old a^ that itself demands fosterage deTolve the duties of the young and 
strong — tottering in&ncy upheld by tottering age I The old man was taking the children 
to England, to hand them orer to their deceased mother's relatives ; and he hoped to get from 
Sydney to Londou on cheap terms, by^ giTing his services on board the vessel in vrhich he 
should take their passage. He was a hale and hearty old fellow ; and, as we passed through 
the ' middle whaling ground,' he became quite excited as weU as very entertaining, in hia - 
accounts of whale 6dbii^^ carrying his hearers away with him in his aaimated descriptions. 
* There she spouts I ' * Out with. &e boots.' ' Give way, lads.' The boat-steerer has ' jastoned 
to her' with the harpoon. 'Now die sounds!' (dives) with 150 fathoms of line, tha 
whale-boats flying through the water ' like seven bells.' 'There she rises : bend your becks, 
boys/ The headsman, a tall strong fellow, poises the deadly lance. He strikes it deep into 
the huge mass. * Stem aU ^r yourlivesl' then cornea the 'flurry,' cor death-struggle of the 
gigantic monster; tha ' cuttiag-in,' and the 'trying-out;' and we have our whaU fous^ 
dused, killed, and cut up, with six or eight hundred pounds' worth oC oU safe oa baai^ in a 
very few words. 

The third, last, and fairest of my fellow cabia-passengers appeared im the weUHSooasrved 
person of a lady of uncertain age, probably of an uncertain history* It wis hard to any what 
were the main objects of her voyage to New South Wales ; but during its pvosecntioii tbejir 
aeemed to have settled down into t£e benevolent project of keeping houae lor the writer in 
Sydney. Luckilv, however, the lady let fell one day, in the heanng of my London LeponUo, 
that she had a * little independence of her own,' and a sum of moQi^ in coa ctf the banks (^ the 
New Sooth Wales capital. From that auspicious moment tkia best t^ «J1 possible valets took 
tile feir one in hand, and his master was spared the neoeasity of enbnciqg or rejectii^ the 
domiciliary advances of the middle-aged adventuress. 

March 6th, 1848. — Landed at Sydney, tolerably tired of small vessels ia rough latitudes ; 
such, with the exception of two days passed at Auckland, having beeft. my lot auioe tha 24tb. oiT 
Jammry last, tha day on whidi I left WelUngtoa. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

1848. Jtdy. — Stdiibt has improved in several important points during the two ysais otf my 
a(>joum at the Antipodes. Its increaaa is enormous; fer a new suburb, eeuBcctiiv DuJteg^ 
hurst with the city by one continuous street, half-a^mile long; with nmnerous Intend bnn^ca^ 
has qfimi^ up where, two years aga^ the belated ^ncr-ont might have feUen aaaang 
bushningers, and the bewildered one might have fellen into a Mind ditch, and theia 
bivooaeked with the frogs 'untU daylig^ did appear.* The whole of the grtNud al 
the head of Wooloomooloo Bay,* known by the name of the Riley Estate^ forming a valley 
between the elevated plateau of Hyde Pturfc and that whereon the fashiooablo siAnb of 
Dariittghnrst ia spread, and which, on my first arrival, contained no honsa but the aaeieat 
Biley Residence, is now a forest of chimneys. Some of the modem houses ara great improre- 
mants upon the older dass, and many comfortable residences, suitable to persons of modamto 
means, have been erected. Within a few years house-rent has fellen hnmensely ; yet it ia stiU, 
bgr comparison, considerably higher than in England, except in the feshionable qnarteia of 
London and a few of the largest towns. The houses in Lyon»>temiee, perhsfis equally oem- 
BMcfious with those of Eaton-phioe, about 1840-— 1843, were let fw 400/. a-year, and ava now 
not paying more than 150/. unfurnished. The latter was the sum I paid fer a hoosa newly 
erected in the feshionable suburb above mentioned. The stranger is modi struck by tha hand- 
some appearance given by the profuse use of cedar in the fittings of the Sydney dwellings. The 
doors flind sashes, the window-frames and shutters, staircases and balnslrades, skirting-boards 
and oomioes, and, in a few instances, the floors and ceiUngs, ari all of cedar. It has all the 
• Witt-lOa-ttie Place of Tomba-on old borlal-place of the blacks. 



CLIHATB ANB ITS EFTECTS. 187 

beauty in colour and figure of tibe Spanish xoakogtmj ; indeed, the ezpeneoce of an nphot- 
sterer is necessary to detect the difference by sight alone. In solidity and closeness of gnin thft 
Australian cedar is, hovever, greatly inferior to mahogBny. 

Sydney is happy in the possession of many wellHsitaated and healthy sabnihs — ail of whidk 
show evident proof* of advancing wealth and consequence. On the soath-east of the city are* 
Paddington and the Snrrey Hills ; en the south, Bedfem and Chippendale ; on the sonth-wea^ 
Camperdown^ Newtown^ and the Gtebe ; on the west, separated by an arm of the harboor, 
Balmain and Pynnont ; and <Ht the' north shore— only aooessiUe by watsar— the pretty and 
sedoded hamlet of St. Leonard's. 

The harbour of Port Jadcson presents exeellent nataral ieatnres for fiartificatifHi agamsk 
hostile inroads. All I shall say on this head is, that at present art has not done much towiods 
the safeguard of the capital. Daring part of two years the . colonia]^ public |»rints indulged in 
repeated and most unwise discossions on the subject ef the harbour deftnoea and the hripless 
state and hoarded wealth of the great sonthetn emporium ; — entning on detalk smgulsriy 
useful and instructtve to any national enemy meditating a foray, and indeed soggestiTe of sucib 
an undertaking to any tdenbly pow«rf id pirate nnpreoocnpied by the happy idea. Sydney^ 
twaddling over the hundreds of tboosands in her Banb-Tanlts, and the ftdlity with which rihe 
might be laid under contribution by an enterprising foe, always renrnded ne of n fnasy old 
hen cadcHng an unintenliona!, but not the less tempting invitation to the roving £n« Sardj 
there must be some better way ef remedying public and private Ibiblea than by noising them 
shroad! 

Climate— though a pesitive thing — is s point, all the world over, sulject te difference o^ 
opinion ; and is, not sdidea^ disenssed aoooxdinff to the passing temper ef the individnal — the* 
state of his bile, his oonsdenoe, his purse, w o&er equally potent motive. On the article ef 
climate it is especially difficult to pkase an old can^MUgner ef whaAevtr p ro fess i on. It isnoihin 
judgment so much as his muscles, nerves, and organs thnkdiffGt his opWona. In a hot tempera* 
ture the burthen of eempIaiBt is that he wants bracing he ftek hngnidy hipped, djyspeptie. in 
acold one,rheQmatisB,lnmhago,brQndiitis,ftc.,ooiiq)ooehisdaily jercmiade. Heresonhles an old 
worn-out ooadi, wfaax^ nttles and rumbles when its sprii^ sod mptkm are pemitled to 
become relaxed ; and grinds, squeaks, and perhaps breaks down altogether, when its screws^ 
str^, and washers are too much tighterod. Wear and tear is amalady thai may be mitigated 
^-<annot be cured ; — from China to Peru thore is no condition of the nn o m eter or barometer 
that will give the grumUer hack the youth, health, strength^ aod activity ttat he haafiurieited, 
lost, or outlived, — any more than a long life of hestemal vices am be eficetuidly oouniar- 
balanced by an equally long life of ' sermons and soda-water the day after.' I hnve heard the 
dimate of New South Wales praised and abased much beyond its deserts* To a healtiiy 
person I sfaoold imagine that it promises as long fi-eedom from dio e aae as any dimate in the 
world. It is said to be particularly fevonrable to old people, even theae of delicate healthy 
provided they are afflicted with no orgaaic compbdnt: hut it tramples upon the invalid oaee 
fiiirly down, and makes short work of the consumptive, apoplectic, and drenched. He whaae 
liver has been devilled in India or the West Indies^ will find that an Australian hot season ia 
likely enough to jwodnoe an active r€6hauiff€e of the part affscted. The elimate is piodactive» 
8^ the faculty, <3/i chronic dueases rather than acnte ones. Let no man having, in coloBiaD 
phrase, 'n shixigle short' try thia country. He will pass his days in Tarfaan Cre^ Asylum I 

Port Jackson has beoi found to possess the summer of Av^non, Constantinople, Baltimarey 
and Philadelphia ; a winter nearly similar to that of Cairo, and the Cape of Good Hope. It may 
be doubted, therefore, whether the Briton is quite at his best when transplanted here-— or 
indeed anywhere. One hears a good deal of tiie ' stalwart sons of Australia' in local writii]^ and 
speeches od captandum ; and 1 have met occasional splendid specimens ; hot as a rao^ the native 
white oi this, as of all other of our colonies, is physically inferior to the Briton, especially hmi 
of the agricultural districts, — for Spinning Jenny rears but a stunted offspring. The sexual 
precocity consequent upon a warm dimate mnst not however be fergotten, ami the stranger 
from England has often to take .this into account when he hears with surprise a knot of what 
at Home would be called little boys shouting and singing in ihe^oox rauca of manhood. There 
is one great peculiarity in the hot season of Australia. It does not appear to produce exhaua^ 
tion or languor. There is no habitual * siesta' practised by the people. The climate may be 
said to be Mgh pressure^ exdting rather than productive of lassitude and listiessoess ; it may, 
and I believe does, wear the machine of life pretty rapidly, but is not apt to throw it out of 
work so long as it husts. Mr. Braim, the historian of New South Wales, asdibes to its climate 



188 OUB AKTIPODES. 

the power of rejuvcnizing those who are 'bronght under its iofluence in middle or Rdrnncei 
life/ So charming a creed is sure to be popalar. Whether I entertain it myself after a per- 
sonal experience of iiye years, caution induces me to keep secret ; but should I be weak enough 
to do so, without a shadow of doubt I shall be disabused of the 'flattering unction/ much as I 
was at a former epoch of my life — as follows : — I had been abroad following the fortunes of 
war^ when, a day or two after my return home, walking down St. James's-street I received 
the following cordial greeting from an old acquaintance and former friend about town. ' Hallo, my 
good fellow ! is that you ? have you been out of town? why you look deuced seedy !* — * I have 
been five years in India since I saw you last,' was my placid reply. I might have added, that 
this Iwtre had added none to my affectionate friend's outside, bat I spared him so deadly a 
thrust. 

In Australia no one' appears to fear the sun even at nndsummer. One sees masons and 
]N)ofers employed for tight or ten hours a day, eiposed to its full blaze. They are burnt so 
brown as hardly to be recognised as Europeans, yet their health is not damaged. I once asked 
tn old man who had just descended from the roof of a tavern, where he had been all day 
employed with his basket of shingles and tomahawk, whether the sun did not make him ill. 
' Oh no, Sir,' said he, ' I'd never tsi^e no harm on the outside of a house ; it is the inside of a 
liouse like this where the mischief to the likes of me comes from.' He had been a teetotaller 
for twelve years, and had never had a headache since he took the pledge. Bat at all times of 
the year the climate is subject to sadden and therefore unhealthful changes ; however the 
spring, — September and October, — appears to be the only season when any considerable amount 
of disease is prevalent. Without note of time or reference to almanack, one may recognise this 
somewhat unhealthy season by the frequent rush of the gigs and broughams of the faculty, and 
the cheerful aspect of their owners. Scarlatina and croop ravage the nursery ; influenza spares 
seither sex nor age ; all the complaints, arising in this carnivorous country from lai^ feeding 
and little exercise and omtracted during the just past season of dinner giving and receiving, 
accumulate now on the hands of the doctors. Were it not for these occasional windfalls, it 
would be difficult to understand how the genus M.D. and its different collaterals are saved, 
themselves, from that worst of disorders starvation, in a country so blessedly exempt from, fatal 
diseases and sweeping epidemics. 

In 1849 public attention was more than ordinarily alert with respect to the sanitary state 
of the dty. A great authority (Mr. Chadwick) says — ^before a Committee of the House of 
Commons—' All my experience and all my information go to vindicate the integrity of the 
nose. Where there is effluvium there is danger, in short.' One cannot threiui any back 
street of Sydney without feelings of dread and disgust. One might suppose it had been, 
literally, *■ raining cats and dogs ' for a week, and clearing up with a slight shower of goats 
and fowlsy such is the number of dead ones. Every kind of unnameable fllth salutes the eye ; 
and, as for the organ to which Mr. C. ascribes so much honesty, Ovidius Naso— -could he 
suddenly be dropp^ into a Sydney back slum — ^would give his ears to have lefl his nose in 
Hades I It is, therefore, impossible to say conscientiously of Sydney, as Samuel Pepys does 
of La Hague, that ' it is a most sweet towne.' 

. The newly-arrived emigrant is, it is needless to remark, much struck by the absolute 
reversion of the seasons in these Austral portions of the globe. Brimful of old Home 
associations, how strange to him to find May-day — ^the festival of young Flora — falling in 
Autumn ; and to see Jack-in-the-Green dancing about in the sere and yellow leaf! The soldier 
fresh from the d^pdt stares when he reads in General Orders that white linen trousers 'are 
to be takoi into wear on the Ist October,' and that, per contra, cloth trousers are to be 
donned, for the winter, from the 1st May. Guy Faux looks terribly out of season and out 
of countenance, toiling through the streets (as I saw him doing on the 5th of November, 
1848) in a terrific sirocco of hot wind and dust, with the thermometer at 100° in the shade. 
But, above all, how thoroughly un-English is the antipodal Christmas ! Sitting in a thorough 
draft, clad in a holland blouse, you may see men and boys drawing from the neighbouring 
bush piles of green stuff (oak branches in full leaf and acorn, and a handsome shrub with a 
pink flower and pale green leaf — ^the ' Christmas ' of Australia) for the decoration of charches 
and dwellings, stopping every fifty yards to wipe their perspiring brows. And in church — 
unlike Old England, where at this season general and incessant ' coughing drowns the paraon's 
saw ;' where stoves and fines and furs scaixely keep the frost out — here we have fluttering of 
fans, fitintings, and other indications of overheated humanity. The temporal celebration of 
ioyful anniversaiy consists, among the lower orders of New South Wales, in increased 



CHBISTMA8 HEBE A3SD THEBS. 189 

dninkenness and in an augmented list of disorderlies at the police oiBce each morning. In 
the uppor classes it is not celebrated at all. 

There is no warmth (except such as the thermometer indicates) in the interchange of the 
compliments of the season— no meeting together of old and young and the distant members 
of families for the expression of mutual regard — ^no congratulations or demonstrations of good- 
will between master and serrant — no Christmas-boxes, except to the postman. It seems 
as though each felt it a mockery to talk of a *iMerry Christmas ' and a * Happy New Year * se 
far from the home * where his forefathers sleep,* and where he first learnt to welcome the glad 
season with Old English observance. It is too hot to be affectionate ! Christmas-tide is, in 
an Englishman's mind, so rigorously assodated with ice and snow, holly and misletoe, mince- 
pies, burnt brandy, skating, cock-shooting, and Sir Roger de Coverley, that, with all his noted 
reverence for customs and epochs, it is easy to see that he is working against the grain when 
he attempts in this colony to celebrate the festival in spite of the vtce-^oersd'iion of the seasons 
and the absence of the conventional materials for its civil observance. 

Only picture to yourself, middle-aged reader, a round of snap-dragon, a cup of hot-spiced 
claret, or a plunge down fifty couple to the tune of ' Merrily danced the Quaker's wife,' with 
the thermometer steady at 95° ! And — ^whew ! — fancy the blazing Tula log in the height of 
the dog-days ! Where, too, are the old men and the old women ? There are none, it may be 
said, in Australia. Christinas is nothing without the old I While writing this I have become 
accustomed to the sight; but on first arriving, I remember being much struck with the 
paucity of bald heads and 'frosty pows' in the places of worship and other public assemblies* 
Where is the neat thatched cotti^e, with its smoke curling from the ivy-clad chimney, — ^its 
three generations issuing joyfully and thankfully from the moss-grown porch, and wending 
their way along the frosty field-path and the crisp high-road towards the grey old village 
church, decked so jauntily in the holly's green and scarlet ? Where the ruddy, rosy faces of 
young and old, of men and maidens ; the plump cheeks and bright eyes of the cotter's daughter, 
the broad shoulders and well-filled blue worsted hosen of the yeoman's son ? . . . . Won*t 
that couple cut it over the buckle to-night on the stone-floor of the squire's servants' hall ? 
and are they not thinking of the misletoe at this blessed momoiti althongh they be on the 
way to church? .... The 'grandad' himself is hale and strong, as you may see by his 
cheek, russet and wrinkled as a well-kept pippin. His head is white as he doffs his broad 
castor, for eighty Christmasses have passed over it, and he hopes he may see another or two 
ere it finds its last repose under the old yew-tree^ side by side with the faithful partner 
already sleeping there, whose great arm-chair stUI stands in the chimney-nook opposite his 
own, and is regfu^ed with almost superstitious awe by her children of two generations. . . • 
The service is over: the humbler parishioners linger awhile for a word with the good 
pastor, or hurry to exchange a greeting with the hearty old squire. There are dofBng of hats 
and pulling of forelocks, scraping of rustic bows, and dropping of rustic curtseys ; no end of 
smiling faces and reiterations of 'God bless your Reverence!' and 'Many thanks to your 
Honour 1' in return for the cordial good wishes of the parson and the lan^ord. ' We shall 
all meet again at the Hall, my friendi, to-night,' are the parting words of the squire as he 
hands his wife and daughter into the carriage, and trudges away sturdily a-foot, supported 
by his son on one hand and an ash-plant in the other, — through coppice and stubble-field, 
meadow, park, and lawn, — grateful for the health and wealth that have fiillen to his lot, and 
revolving in his mind the best means of employing them for the benefit of those over whom 
Providence has placed him in authority. Ha ! my little old friend. Cock Robin ! — there you 
are, puffing out your scarlet waistcoat, picking at the haws that Jack Frost, your chief aJIy, 
has ripened for you, and singing your Christmas hymn, if ever hymn was sung I And — but 
(as I began) where is all this ? ' In my mind's eye, Horatio :' it is a dream, no m«re. For 
six years I have seen nothing like it ; but 'tis a d^m that I trust to see realised again before 
I go hence and be no more I 

The European flowers appear to be regularly puzzled by the climate of Australia, and to 
be affected by it in a singular manner. They seem to bud prematurely, and then remain 
stationary, as though waiting for a safe opportunity of coming out. Once in bloom they are 
most luxuriant; but an hour or two of southerly wind and dust will so utterly blast the 
blossoms and young shoots that a newly-anived English gardener would suppose that his 
show of bloom was destroyed for the year. A change of wind and a shower — and lo 1 a 
r^eneration more lovely than .before ; and such may recur half-a-dozen times ere the mid- 
summer sun finally scorches the poor exotics to tinder. Except at this season of excessi« 



190 0U& AiraSfODES. 

heat, the ChinA rose^ verbena, heHotrope, waA. eiher ^miliar flowen flonridwd aU iihe Tear 
round in our garden. So well adapted for gardening porpttsai is the aaadj soil of Sydaey — 
which, without exaggeration, is whiter thim an j sea-beach I know in England — ^tibat, fair 
reader, the floral lore-token you hare jast reoeired from a buttoiKhole — hrave reader, from a 
hosmn — ^if yon but stick it in the ground the next moming, it will grow in a season or two 
into a fine plant ooyered with flowens and ranaining a perennial memento of tiie girer; 
arhereas in Europe, if preserved at all, it most have been oonsigned to the hertua siccus. 

Bat of all the features of Australian dimatology, drought is ike most prominent and for- 
bidding. Of a certainty I moirt have heretofore noticed the subjed>—for it is the bugbear oi 
the colony ; so no mora about it. When the rain does come it comes with a Tengeanoe, some- 
times carrying away in its torrents roads, gardens, walls, palings, and bridges ; every highway 
becomes a river, every by-way a brook, every bank a cataract ; the thunder cracks right erer 
head, eoholess, like the report of a gun : haibtooes come rattling down an indi long, locking 
over young live-stocd: and domestic poultry, levelling oraage-orohards and T»eyards, breaking 
windows imd human heads — saA in twenty-four hours, or less, tiie dnst is blowing aboot as 
ind as ever. No one who has not HTed in a ocamtry liable to drought can appreciate tlte 
«agecne8s with which ^everj aasemblage «f douds is watched ; wx& what&elin^ of disappoint- 
ment their breakaog «p wiflKnzt yielding a drop is accompanied; with what thankftilneas 
the boon of "modexste saio and sihowers' is received wfani it does come. The Toarkahire 
£umer * shakes the dewndrups from has tnane,' and growls out * cusses' Joud and deep against 
the torrents that aie laying has fifteen-aore wheat-piece, 'epiling of' his juat tedded hay, or 
'^minating his tQcmits.' Poor Paddy, sheltering himself at the ' back of the ditch,' the rain 
pouring down the iimnel of his crownless caul^en, mutters half in de^ir, half in levity, 
* MUle murthers 1 there goes <lie pratees to blaaes, an' wid 'em the rint, and Father Flanagan's 
dues, and the nanistar's tithes, and tAie childre's food, Iihe orsythuisl— ^and, thonomondionl ! 
to mend matthefs, it's pot me pipe out ! ' In Australia, on the oonbvy, you have the c^ 
cei^pAtulating himself that the coming storm will lay tiie dust, flush the drains^ replenish 
the wells, and bring dbwn the price of vegetables and fonge. The agriculturist assures him- 
sdf that his 'maize is saved ^bia boot, any how.' ' My word !' cries the inland squatter^ 
f this will fill the water-heleaawely, and sasve me a thousand or two head of stock on the 
JBUlibung nphmd runs.' He aefleots, -perhaps, per ooKbra, tliat the storms en Ihe mountuns 
wiU set A*g!oing the * chain of ponds ' conrteoni^ known by the name of the Marry-mn-diy 
rRMT, mid will cat him nS from Ihis i^a best out'Stations, if not carry away a flock or two. 
He may Ipse half-a-domo. honsea, if ant his own life, in 8ttenq>ting to cross the 'bottom,' 
wh^xe yesterday there was nothing to be aeea moister than a glaring white sand, h<A enoi^ 
to boil a retort 1 am not |»rticBlarfy fnrtial to being wet to the skin ; but I mi^ truly mj 
tiiat when in New South Wales a good drenchmg did befril me, I oheerfiilly and dnttfbl^ 
compounded for the wetting of niy own -particular day in nenwderation «f the benefit our 
Mother Earth was -derivii^ from ft generally* 

I wander whether any cue has obserred how oompieiely the antipodal position of Auatndia 

fidsifies many of the images of the Ei^lish and ancient poets. To the bom Anatralian, 

Thomson knows nothing about the .-seasons ; Shakapeare is no longer the poet of natnre : 

*-^hat does he mean by— 

'The sweet SonUi, 
That braafhes upon a baiflc.af violets, 
Stealing and ^ving odoor I' 

The sou^A wind brings aleet and hail and chilly hurricanes, blighting and blasting everr 
l)lossom it touches I What does Horace mean by his 'rdbiem noiif 'Tis a libel on our son 
Australian northern breezes. ' Keen Aquilon" is not keen, whatever Herbert may say or sing. 
As for the east wind, so much abused in English prose, if not in verse — here it is the balmy 
breath of the Paeific — the sweet sea-breeze, for whose daily advent during the summer the 
Sydneyite watdies and prays with ail the fervour that inspired the ' Aura veniV of Cephalus. 
The -veteran Spenser must iuve been dozing or doting when he wrote—* 

* Then oame old January, wrapped well 

In many weeds to keep the cold awey ; 
Yet did he quake and quiver like to qudl. 

And blow his naylcs to wann them if be'nuqr T 

To cool them, of oouxae he meant ) — ^for, as I have before quoted, an Anstnlian bard 



THE WEATHEB AS A TBEUE. 191 

' When hot December's saltiy breese 
ficHToe sths a leaf en yoDier txeee; 

And if Deoember be hot, JiimiaTy is liotter 1 

One of the greatest adyantsges of an Aostralian cKme is, that -whatever yeia may have 
planned for out-door work or pastime you may, ftn* three hundred and twenly days out 
of the thzM hundred «nd sixty-five, pretty assuredly perform. The words ' weather permit- 
ting ' is a reservation unheard-of here^ — wh&t in dear, drizzly old Enghuid a picnic and wet 
weather are proverbial oompaiiions. It is a great blessing, too, to be able to go abroad in an 
ordhiaiy in-door dress, instead of piling on extra pellicles, graduated according to the season. 
Here the fionily of dogs, ^odies, umbrellas, &c., imported from EurqM by tiie careful emi- 
grant, are Miung up as monuments I* Gfaesteriiekl, Benjamm, Taglioni, and Mackintosh, are 
Aimiptaary nobraies; and Niool is only tolerated in his most gossamer fonn. I am aware of 
the existence of one warmii^pan in New South Wales>-^ne only ; and I shall move the 
owner to present it to the S;pney museum when she returns to England — ^perfectly certam 
that to mnety-nine out of a hundred Anglo-Aurtralian Tisitors of the institution the inteot 
and puiposes of the implement would be utterly inscrutable. 

One of our old essayists defends the English p-actioe of making the weatiber the first theme 
tyf converBation. Ccsktrastnig it with some other matters of common interest, he says :— 
* The weather is a nobler and more interesting subject ; it is the present state of the ddes and 
of the earth, on whidi aplenty or fimiine are suspended — on which millions depend for the 
necessaries of life.' In New South Wales the words, * a fine day,' as port of a salutation, are 
absurdly ezpletrve, and have therefore become obsolete — a fine day being a mere matter of 
ooinse— ^ni»hine the *rule— Kdouds the exception. Tet with all its beauties the Australian 
climate, taken as a whole, is hard, glaring, afanost withering in its excessive aridity. If it 
does not prompt to languor and lisUessness, like that of some other southern countries, neither 
IB there in it anything voluptoous. Byron's dictum regarding * what men call gallantry ' and 
'dimates sultry' does not hold good, I think, witih regard to New South Wales; it is an 
indirect libel upon it-^happily ! Peiiiaps, however, so business-like a people would not be 
sentimental, romantic, poetical, or amorous under any skyey influences. 

The irinter season and the autumn mornings are thoroughly delightful. I o^n think how 
much we shall miss when we shall have lost I9iefli, Ttrt itfter idl — bigot that 1 am — we^ 
come, thrioe welcome 1 misty tstiBioBptere, * ladc-lustre ' dues of * my own, my native land.' 
When the sun does shine he diines on landscapes that in my eyes at least have no counter- 
{Mfft. There mv days i wdl remember (littie as I have lived in England) which no climate 
lOr ^untry can equid m loveliness— more delicious than 4my otiiers— anywhere else — ^nnder 
any circumstances ! What think you, sportsman reader, cf a fine fint of September morning 
in « good old-fashioned English oounfay house P You spring "from your couch, and throw up 
tbe window-sash to see if the weattiier 6!vours the intended business of the day. How sweet 
and fresh the early air 1 fiow gratefully it plays upon Hhe brow and fills the lungs I How 
pkanntiy the son, about a& hour above the horizon, is ' wsming off' the lingering mists 
"with his rays, like so many flaming swords. How cheerfol the munc from'tbe ro&ery I You 
look oat over the wide-spread park — over oak and elm dumps— bright sheets of water, where 
the fog still loitexs among 'the sedges — fern-dad knolh, upon 'wlii(m the deer and cattle are 
browsing. Through vistas in the woodlands you catch glimpses of golden stubbles ; here and 
there a dark green tumlp^ifield^ a brown fallow or two; beyond tiiem a ridgy potato piece, 
and a narrow strip of gorse dotted with birdi-trees, tvendhig away imtil it is lost in the deep 
purple of a heatiieiy upland. Bringing your eyes more bomeward, they alight on the smooth- 
shavvd dewy lawn, where the strutting oo<^ pheasant, — ^happy in a month's impunity, — 
IB sunning his golden plumage ; and the ' Ilinping ' hare, sponging his *■ innocent nose ' with his 
wet forepads, is longing for a nibble at the lady's well-guarded carnations. . . • And,''by Jovel 
here come the keeper and his assistants, with a leash of pointers and a shaggy pony I 

Ah ! wdl, well ! dreaming again ! 



CHAPTER XVm. 

EXCUBSIOK TO XLLAWASRA, OR THX FI7E I8LAHD6. 

tsr the summer of 1849 I made a trip to lUawarra, a sea-coast district, about sixty-six 'miles 
south of Port Jackson. This district may be sixty miles long, is hemmed in and narrowed to 
the westward by a lofty range of mountains, and has the character of being the gardenof New 



192 OUB ANTIFODES* 

Soath Wales. WoUongong is the chief town. Strange and frhameful to say, there is no road 
pi'acticable for carriages from Sydney to this long-established, fertile, and beautiful province 
— the passage of the mountains presenting difEculties ^i^ighty enough to deter private enter- 
prise and public effort, and thereby virtually shutting up the most fruitful lands in the colony 
trom the markets of the neighbouring metropolis. 

As fifty years of prisoner labour had failed to produce a suitable means of communication by 
land, I was driven to the sole alternative of adopting the existing most unsuitable one byfsea. 
With many misgivings I removed my household gods, my wife, two servants, and a horse, on 
board a wretched little steam-boat — which it was absolute disloyalty to have named after 
England's Sailor King, and which seemed to have been built expressly to disprove the omnipo- 
tence of steam as a motive agent. On the morning of the 24th of January we got on board 
and under weigh — a perfect understanding existing on the part of the captain, the engineer, 
the boilers, the passengers, and the winds, that if anything like a moderate breeze was to blow 
up from the south we were to consider ourselves weather-bound, and bound in honour to 
remain within the Heads until more favourable auspices should suiienrene. Accordingly up 
sprung, about mid-day, a tolerably fresh air from the proscribed point, and, after paddliog six 
xniles down the harbour, our craft laid itself op snugly in one of the great port's little off- 
shoots, called Vaucluse Bay, where, within an hour's drive of our own comfortable drawing- 
room, dinner, and bed, we indulged in the variety of dining and sleeping on board this litUe 
floating dungeon. Fortunately the old engineer, who was the pink of politeness, suggested an 
oyster-hunt to pass the time, and the skipper falling good-humouredly into the proposal, all 
hands landed on a cluster of rocks, well known as the * Bottle and Gltuss,' where we pursued 
that sport with as much satis&ction as success. At seven o'dodc, P.M., we again got und«r 
weigh, and, after a rough night, reached our destination on the following morning at eight 
o'clock. There were on board several Illawarra settlers, who seemed proud of their little sea- 
porty town, and picturesque district— describing with animation and minuteness the various 
objects as we neared the anchorage. I have always looked upon my countrymen's cat-like 
attachment to (not merely oontentiiQent with, but absolute enthusiasm for) the spot of their 
adoption, as a special and precious dispensation of Providence to a nation destined to replenish 
unpeopled countries; I have always treated it. with becoming respect (although in the indul- 

fince of this feeling the one step between the sublime and the ridiculous is often passed), and 
have experienced becoming pain when an unguarded expression on my part may have hurt 
such feelings. ' Pray, Sir I said I to a gentleman of responsible and courteous exterior, who 
had been kindly supplying information on the different points of view around us, — * Pny, Sir, 
what may be tiiat singular looking building near the boich T ' That» Sir,' replied he readily, 
' is popularly styled Brown's Folly — ^my name's Brown, Sir I' 

The boat harbour of Wollongong — ^for it is little more— consists of a basin and jetty, con- 
structed by convict labour. The remains of the old stockade, and the officer's cottage, crown 
the top of a verdant promontory, which protects the poi% from the southern gales. The site 
of the town, with Mounts Keera and Kembla in the background, is extremely picturesque. Its 
salubrious sea-breeses and quiet sedusion have made this little place a sort of sanitarium for 
Sydney. We took rooms at * The Marine Hotel,' — ^the same apartments, we were assured, as 
were lately occupied by His Excellency the Governor, whose previous visit to Wollongong 
was to the good folks of the hotel what the famous 'disjeune' of King James was to the ].^y 
of Tillytudlem. Nothing could be cleaner, quieter, or more comfortable than this establish- 
ment, which I hereby recommend to all tourists for health or pleasure. We had the bouse 
nearly to ourselves— only one other family sharing it with us. We had actual and visual 
cognisance of a lady-like matron, a nice fat baby, and a fatter boy of three or four years, whose 
bashfulness took the awkward form of always hiding his face on the floor. There was pre- 
sumptive evidence of a male head of the family, for we saw his capacious slippers, — ^we heard 
his sonorous ' hem !'— K)ccasionally we met his hot meat breakfast on the stairs, — ^but to this 
day he remains in our memory as our Invisible neighbour of Wollongong ! 

At the Marine Hotel we enjoyed, or rather endured, a singular proof of the want of adult 
labour in New South Wales, and of the consequent early importance of children. The posts ot 
waiter and * laquaia de place ' were filled by a lad of eleven or twelve years, the eldest son of the 
landlord ;-^it was funny enough to hear the chamber>maid calling to the waiter, * Master 
Charles, your Pa wants you 1') Sharp and intelligent, but terribly spoilt, nothing could be done 
in the house, or out, without the interposition of this little meddlesome Puck ; he brought up 
our meals ; writed at table, joined in the conversation, d:ew and helpe'l to drink the wine, knew 



TRADE OF THE DTSTBICT, 193 

everybody and ererything aboat the place, and was just the fellow to fill a gaping tonrist like 
myself with a badget of incorrect information. He constituted himself my guide in our rides to 
the * lions * of the vicinity, — assuring me that * his three-year old filly, by " young Theorem," 
out of a " Scamp " mare,' was nearly dean bred ; that he had broken her himself, and that she 
was a pleasant hack ; — ^that he had lent his gun, ' a first-rate one,' to a black, to get some wild 
ducks for ns, but would be happy to accompany me a-shooting, as he had heard I was a sports- 
man, — was one himself! — although to be sure his idea of sport was somewhat bashaw-like. He 
could get me a boat, he said, with a pair of oars, and a man who would fish and shoot for me at 
7s. Gd. per diem. One night, when on the point o£ going to bed, my self-elected brother-shot 
rushed into my dressing-room, and informed me that the lagoon near the house was covered with 
wild ducks, which had alighted in a large flight. Full of an old sportsman's zeal, I hurried on 
my dothes again, loaded my trusty Wesley Richards — carefully chalking the barrels according 
to Hawker's advice for night-shooting, and, having by great exertion of woodcraft got within 
shot of the wary game, was in the act of opening upon them what despatches call ' a galling 
and destructive fire,' when, fortunately, a * lily-white duck' sailed across the moon-beams, and 
saved me the disgrace and disbursement consequent upon exterminating whole broods belonging 
to neighbouring poultry-yards. 

I have dted young hopeful as a living proof of the scardty of adult labour here. But there 
was a still stronger illustration'of the early enumeration of children among the working hands, 
brought to our notice. A female servant of the hotel told us that one of her boys, only /ow 
years old, had been adopted by a relative, a carpenter by ti-ade, and that ' he found him very use- 
ful in carrying his tool-basket, and doing odd jobs.' 

The town of WoUongong contains about 120 houses, and 500 or 600 inhabitants. One-fifth 
of the buildings are tumbling down or tenantless, two-fifths are public-houses, and the rest be- 
long to settlers, shopkeepers, and professional men. There are places of worship for all shades 
and tastes of creed. Besides the four or five, which, as the French say, * jump to the eyes * of 
the travdler, there are others of less demonstrative exterior ; so that spiritual destitution, if it 
exist — and we hear a good deal of it in New South Wales — must be voluntary. In the Pro- 
testant church, on Sunday morning, I found about sixty grown-up persons, exclusive of the 
minister and an individual in a holland blouse and clarionet, personating the organ. The Roman 
Catholics here, as generally in these colonies, appear to have increased in numbers and conse- 
quence at a much greater ratio than other denominations. The reason is obvious ; the Roman- 
ists are devoted to one set of tenets — Abound up in one common cause — ^presenting the strongest 
* formation' for resistance, if not for conquest ; the Protestants are split into sects, and Dissent 
appears to be the rule rather than the exception. A handsome stone chapd, nearly finished, 
will shortly replace the present modest wooden edifice. The priest, it need hardly be added, 
possesses a most comfortable cottage, a clever hack, and a sleek exterior. 

- There is a painful appearance of by-gone better days about WoUongong and its neighbour- 
hood. The fictitious vfdue of land, at that period of the history of the colony when its follies 
and misfortunes formed its leading features, was one of the causes of the decUne of this town. 
The agricultural produce of the district is greater than can be sold or consumed ; and the starv- 
ing condition of tiie poor in the old countries recurs with bitterness to the mind when one hears 
a colcmist say, — * We should be as well off, or better, if we produced less ; we have not mouths 
to eat, nor customers to purchase our meat and grain.' What sad tales of misery, poverty, 
crime, violence, sedition, and death might be spared us, if plenty and population could be more 
justly balanced ! The chief exports from WoUongong are ^gs, cheese, butter, calves, poultry, 
and grain. Some excellent horses are bred in the district, espedally adapted for harness — for 
they attain a larger size here than in the drier parts of the colony, as is well known to be the 
case aU over the world — the arid and sandy deserts producing the thorough-bred and beautiful 
Arab of fourteen or fifteen hands, while the old original Flanders mares which were imported to 
England to drag at a snail's pace the gilded coaches of our ancestors, are the natural production 
of a soft swampy soil ; and the Lincoln fens grow the tall black steeds destined to carry our 
sesquipedalian Life-guardsmoi. 

There are some splendid estates in lUawarra ; yet, for want of a market, it is to be appre- 
hended that thdr proprietors can never attain wealth. 

Within the scope of a ride firom the town, may be found some very picturesque scenwy, new 
to the eye accustomed to the sandy flats and undulating scrub-land of Sydney. The pretty 
valley of * Fairy Meadows' is dose at hand, separated by a ridge of highish land from the sea 
board, backed by the mountain range, and witii a stream of fresh water running through its 

o 



194 OUB ANTIFQX>£S. 

leogth. Here are water-mills on the flat, seiners' houses perched on the hills, hark huts over- 
grown with passion flowers, vines, ivy, or gourds ; fields of wheat, stubhle, or growii^ vaaize 
with ite tall green flags and yellow plumes ; rude hams sfc the comers of enclosures, whmioe the 
obeerful sound of the flail reaches the tnveller's ear ; and many other objects whidi — ^more 
than anywhere disc in this country*— might recall England, w^e it not for two thin^ : one of 
them is the untidy and un-homeliice look of the half-deared fieUs, cumbered with stumps and 
logs, or with dead single trees — ^for the forest tree, impatient of solitude, generally dies when 
hft to stand alone ; — the oth^ peculiarity is the cabbage palm-lawe, some few spedmeos of 
which are still left growing in the valley. The a;^)eanuioe of this graceful tree carried me at 
QQce back to the East, The slender stems seemed to be from sixty to eighty feet high, and they 
swayed to the breeze, as it whistled through the round turf of foliage at their tops. The well- 
known cabbage-tree hat of the squatter, the farmer, the sailor — in short, of eveiy * gentleman, 
afK)thecary, plougbboy, thief,* in and out of Sydney, is made flxHn the leaves of this palm ; and 
the raw material forms an artide of export to the metropolis. These beautiful and useful trees 
are becoming scarce from the reckless destruction of the trunk for the sake of the leaf by the 
whites, as well as fipom the blacks cutting them down for the edible shoots at the top — ^whoioe 
the cabbage. 

January 2S,ik, — I had a visit &om the chief of the jQlawarra tribe, ' Jemmi-Jemmi,' as in- 
scribed on the brazen goi^et round his neck — the usual gift of the Government to distinguished 
natives ;— ^or Jem, as he was popularly styled. He is a wretched-looking old man, and his * gin ' 
an equally miserable specimen of old woman-hood — a perfect skeleton ; yet she seemed strong 
and active, although but lately she had been half burnt to death. There was with them a fine 
full-blown yoiung woman, the mother of two pretty children, both of them evidently indebted for 
paternity to some white-skinned dweller in the wilderness. The old man gave his protectaon 
moieover to an orphan girl — * moder tumble down (died), me keep him ; Master give me coppers 
for get him beer.' Eight dogs trotted at the heels of the &mily. And this was the hoieditary 
chieftain of Illawwia I — The Lord of the Isles ! demanding tiibute firom me a stranger and 
intruder in the land, — ^for io I considered my small offering of ' white money,' which the poor old 
&II0W was too modest to ask for. 

I had been led to expect some good shooting at WoUongongy and had contrived to borrow flrom 
an old sportsman, through the intervaition of * Master Cities,' a brace of dogs. There was little 
game to be found, however, for the season was unusually dry and fearfully hot ; the stubbles had 
been burnt, and the d(^ hunted entirely gd. their own account. In spite of them neverthdess— « 
for I could not catch them to tie them up — I killed a good many quail, and a few bronzed-winged 
pigeons. One day I was joined by an old man, who profiered his aid to show me likely qpots. 
Observing his spcrtsman-like demeanour and language, I asked him if he was a native of the 
colony. He said no ; that he had sored Squire Osbaldiston in England. In this colony, for rea- 
sons that may be guessed, I was rarely inquisitive r^arding the private histoiy of strangers — 
who might, or might not^ volunteer some account of themselves ; — «o I heard no more of my 
chance companion's bic^raphy. He was a pleasant old fellow ; but I tiiought he looked like one 
who would be a tioublesome customer at the comer of a covert on a moonlight night ; and the 
wildest hope I entertained regardii^ the cause of his * exeat regno' was, that it had fallen short 
of bagging a gamekeeper ! 

Bolwer midces Pelham say, ' that same shooting is a most barbarous amusement, oidy fit for 
royal dukes, majors in the army, and that sort of people,' and that the shooter endures * a staie of 
punful &tigue enlivened by the probability of being killed.' It is difficult indeed to account for 
the popularity of this pastime ; for sportsmen as ardent are to be found among the inteUectoal 
and refmed, as among tiie empty-headed and uneducated. The pursuit is shared by the greatest 
statesmen, (it is soothing to reflect I) the profoundest scholars, the wisest jurats, the most con- 
servative physicians, the most successful captains— as well as the &ttest majors and &steBt sub- 
alterns of the day I — But let me stop in time and return my Hobby to his stable. In a book 
published many years ago, the author of these volumes gave his reader pei-haps too weighty 
proofs of his addiction to field sports. Time, the tamer of such tastes, and the scarcity of game 
in Australia, are suflident guarantee for his not sinning in the seane shape in the present work ; 
but in previous editions, he burnt powder and shed ink in recounting an incidoit, wherein a Uadk 
cwan, tile only wild one he ever saw, rewarded his woodcraft. 

January 30M. — A trip to * The Five Islands' in the boat of and in company with Sandy Hao> 
pherson — the ' harbour-master,' as he calls himsdf, of Woll(»igong. Tius rocky group, which 
gives its name to the district, is about eight or nine miles fit)m the port. We landed at Rabbit 



HOME 60BNBS. 195 

Island, in hopes of finding a few of the coney tribe from which it derives its Engliidi appellation. 
The colony, howeyer, planted by English hands, has by the same hands been extirpated or nearly 
so ; yet its existence proves that the rabbit might be introdaced with success into this colony, so 
devoid of four-footed game. Close to the warren are the burrows of the sooty petrel, or mutton 
bird, which forms to itself a sort of underground rookery, very curious to behold — out of which 
you may pull them or their eggs by dozens, if so inclined. I know not how this biixl got its 
ovine name, unless it was from the people of H.M.S. SiriuSf which was wrecked at Norfolk 
Island when freighted with convicts — ^the crew, escort, and prisoners feeding on the mutton \Ard 
imtil other provisions arrived from Sydney. There is only one tenant of Rabbit Island of a 
Mgher order than the rabbits and petrels — ^namely a venerable Billy-goat, whose wives and chil- 
di^ have all been carried off by coasting vessels. He is very wild, and doubtless very tough — 
qualities to whidi he is probably indebted for his life. We caught a momentary glimpse of him 
among the distant rodcs, but he instantly disappeared. Some plans were talked over for fuiiiish- 
ing the involuntary hermit with one or two companions ; and, if some * unholy bark ' touch at 
the * Sainted Isle' with a partner for him, the bearded sage may thank me for the acquisition. 
Our pleasant little repast, which we cooked too near the dry scrub growing at a short distance 
friom the shore, ended with a grand conflagration, which it is to be fesured must have temporarily 
destroyed all the v^tation of the island,---lbr it was seen smoking like a Stromboli for some 
days afterwards. 

Babbit Island is not more than half a mile fit>m a salient pdnt of the coast, extensively cleared 
and cultivated ; on which, the wind preventing bur retuni by water to Wollongong, we landed, 
and hiring a cart at a fiirm-house, went back by the shore at a foot's pace— enjoying a delightful 
drive by moonlight through a tract embracing many of the peculiarities of Illawarra scenery — 
sand and swamp, forest and savannah, lagoon and dry land alternate. In India we might have 
looked for tigers and bears, in Africa for lions, on such a belat^ expedition ; — ^in some other parts 
of New South Wales for bush-rangers of a biped kind. Here we met with nothing more alarm- 
ing than the whistle of the curlew, the quacking of the wild duck and widgeon, as they rose in 
hundreds from the waters of *Tom Thumb's Lagoon,' about two miles from the town; 
the shrill scream of the heron, and the rough trumpet of the pelican busily fishing in the 
shallows. 

February 3«J.— Having hired the hack carriage of Wollongong, we made a trip this day to 
Lake Illawarra — an immense salt estuary, about seven miles distant. Our route led us 
through a line of country not only picturesque by nature but charmingly embellished — (for 
after iJl, * nature unadorned ' is but a naked savage) — ^by the presence and improvements of 
man. Right and left were proofs of successful agriculture, very rare in this most pastoral of 
countries; — ^handsome and solid houses, with spacious pleasure-grounds; snug homesteads, 
flanked by a regiment of ricks honsed-in with bark roofo ; neat little dairy-farms, with all their 
pcturesque appurtenances ; modest slab huts, embowered in vines and woodbines and climbing 
roses ; blooming orchards of peaches and apricots ; long and busy ranges of bee-hives — some or 
them fixed in the upper windows of two-storied houses ; yellow stubble-fields, plots of green and 
waving maize, and rich meadows in which, despite the season's drought, the fot cattle stood up 
to their dewlaps in clover ! There was the humble hedge-school— or rather bush-school, for 
there is hardly a mile of hedge in Australia — and a crowd of flaxen and Saxon children rushing^ 
from its porch in frwitic glee ; and, what I do not rememb«* seeing elsewhere in this colony,, 
jolly rustic pairs trotting to market on one horse, the rosy wife seated behind her lord on the 
old-fashioned pillion — ^time-honoured mode of family locomotion ! — ^mode that has brought home 
from the ' flaunting town ' many a gudeman with sober head, whole limbs, and full pockets, 
who without the guardianship of his thrifty dame" would have returned drunk as an owl, penni- 
less as a poet, and bruised and battered like * the man wot won the fight !* Many of these 
oosy-lookittg Darbys and Joans were mounted on rough, round-ribbed cart mares, with skittish 
little foals trotting and whinnying at their heels. These were cheering sights in a strange land, 
generative of pleasant Home thoughts. The wretched shieling of poor Paddy, with his dudeen, 
his caubeen, his boneen — ^his * large family of small children,* his dirt and destitution, and 
withal his merriment that went to the heart ; and the deserted clearing of the improvident re- 
tired soldier, were subjects for rumination less agreeable. 

Of the vast numbers of small grants of land made to old soldier settlers during the govern- 
ment of Sir Richaixl Bourke, I believe there is in the district of Illawarra only one instance of 
the grantee retaining and residing on his allotment. Unaccustomed to business habits, and un- 
willing to quit town for country, many of them would have sold their land in Sydney without 

O 2 



196 OUB ANTIPODES. 

ever setting eyes upon it, but for a r^ulation which enforced a certain term of residence. As 
it was, the solid acres were quickly converted into liquid ruin. The attempt to make the 
soldier-colonist a landed proprietor succeeded no better tiian the attempt to make him a capita- 
list by commuting his pension. These children in arms — ' heroes with the bayonet, dastards 
with the spade'* -nlepriTed of the dry nursing of their officers and non-commissioned officers, 
have almost uniformly proved incapable of their own guardianship ; and, had the demand for 
unskilled labour been less urgent, many of them must unquestionably have died of starvation as 
a consequence of their much craved release from the service. To such straits were reduced 
some of these crippled veterans who had sold their pensions for a sum of ready money and 
squandered the latter, and had bartered their land for a gallon or two of rum, that the late 
Lieut.-General commanding in these colonies obtained from tiie Home authorities a * compas- 
sionate allowance ' of 4^d. a-day for the most destitute among them, a small sum for food, rai- 
ment, and lodging ; but, in a country where a poor man may get his pound of meat for a peony, 
a sum eagerly sought for by the really starving. 

Just i^r my return to Sydney from lUawarra, I became aoqumnted with a singular pair of 
old soldiers, well known by some persons in Sydney, and in receipt of this charitable allowance. 
Living together in a rocky cave on the shore of Double Bay — one of the romantic coves of Port 
Jackson, about l^wo miles from Darlinghurst — they eked out a wretched livelihood by making 
and selling besoms. They were known respectively by the war-names of Waterloo and Albuera ; 
no one cared about the real names of the poor old fellows. They were inseparable ; — they 
worked together, fed together, slept together, walked t(^ether to Sydney to sell their brooms, got 
di*unk together almost daily, and together staggered home to their habitation in the rock — ^whidi by 
saving them lodging money, affordJed them each no less than three-and-sixpence a-week for extra 
drink I Waterloo had served in the Grenadier Guards, Albuera in the 57th r^;iment — iha 
former a fine tall old man, the latter a regular little bandy-legged rear*ranker. Each was aged 
about seventy ; each was invariably accompanied by a weU-fed cur-dog, which trotted at his 
heels. Inseparable, and perhaps truly attached as were' this 'par nobUe frairum/ they were not 
always on the best of terms. It was amusing to encourage one to talk of the other in his 
absence. Albuera professed the greatest regard for Waterloo : — 

' Oh, yes, your honour,' stud he to a friend of mine who patronised the poor old soldiers, and 
was talking with him, ' Oh, yes, we are the best of friends and comrades, but that Waterloo— 
you wouldn't think it, may be — ^that Waterloo is the proudest man I ever knew/ 

' Proud V demanded his colloquist, ' how is that ?' 

' Why he's proud because he was a guardsman, and I was only in the line, — ^that's why he's 
proud. Lord bless you, sometimes he would not speak to me for a-week together — ^that he 
wouldn't.' 

Thus it seems pride may live in a cave, dress in rags, accept a * compas^onate allowance ' of 
4^. per diem, and make besoms I 

One evening I perceived old Waterloo slowly passing my house towards his own abode. He 
was, contrary to custom, solus and sober, and the two dogs jogged dolefully after him ;— >I 
guessed at once what had happened ; — ^Albuera was dead. Pathos is sometimes composed of 
fttrange materials ; and to me there was something really pathetic in the mere spectacle of 
those two dogs, al^ect mongrels as they were, following that wretched white-headed and feeble 
^Id man to his. solitary and surf-beaten retreat. A few days aflerwards the old Gr^iadier 
.gave the following description of his comrade's last hours and character: — * On Friday, hofw- 
u^omever, he was took wus. I got a cab and sent him to the Infirmary. He died tm. the road. 
Next morning I went down to the Infirmary, and gave in his effects — an old pair of trousers, 
not much good, and a quart pot. That's his tomahawk. Sir, for cutting the broom ; it's a better 
.jone than mine ; — ^it's all that's left to me of poor old Albuera ! Well, Sir,' continued Waterloo 
— shaking his head meditatively, as if recalling to mind the many virtues of his deceased com- 
jade — ' Well, Sir, he was, he was the . . . but he's gone I .... Ah I well, he was the foolo 
mouthisest old blackguard that ever I saw — that he was !' And the old soldier seemed relieved 
l>y this tribute to his departed friend and comrade. 

Some time later in the year, I rode out with my wife to pay a visit to the now lonely ve- 
teran, and had some difficulty in finding his retreat, which is situated in an imfrequented spot, 
cut off from the high/rood to the South Head by a thick wood. The * twa dogs ' rushing out 
to bay at the intruders, discovered its locality; and, as we rode up, the tall, thin figure of the 
old Grenadier appeared upon a rocky point, his tattered garments flying m tbs wind as he stood 

* Edinbaigh Review, January 1851. 



SOLDIER SETTLERS — * WATERLOO' AND 'aLBUERA.' 197 

Up at the month of the cave, shading his eyes with his hand. His bare head was ooyered with 
early snow-white hair, thick as in youth. His long arms, burnt black by the snn, looked like 
dry oaken sticks through his ragged shirt-sleeves. The old man was sober, and was about to cook 
his supper over a little fire of sticks, under the shelving rock that * served him for parlour and 
kitchen and hall.' We talked a good deal about the officers of his old corps. I saw that he 
did not recognise me in plain clotibes. In course of conversation, I told him that his former 
captain, Lieut.-Colonel ♦ • • , had retired from the army and taken holy orders. Upon this 
the old Guardsman came a step nearer, and la3ring his withered brown hand on my knee, as I 
sat on horseback, said, in a tone of instruction not a little edifying, * No, Sir^ — I beg your 
pardon. Sir, — but that couldn't be. No one after being a soldier would go for to be a parson ; 

^lot that it's no ways disgraceful, — ^I wouldn't say that it is, — but you see, Sir oh ! no, 

damme, that couldn't be, no how !' And he looked at me with a grim smile of contemptuons 
unbelief. It was clear that the retired Household Brigade-man was every bit as * proud ' as his 
defunct comrade had asserted him to be ! I asked him what made him come to this country. 
' Oh I you see, I did not know when I was well off. I had twelve shillings a-week, my pension, 
and the rent of two small cottages. I had a sister at Manchester, well to do in the world, 
owner of five or six good houses. Says she to me, — " I've room for you, Joe ; — ^there's tea of a 
morning, and coffee of an evening for you if you'll stay with me. Ton need not go and spend 
your money in a public-house ; for I ve beer, strong and small, in my cellar for you, and a 
hearty welcome." But, as I said before, I did not Imow when I was wdl off.' 

I was not without hopes that the loss of his boon companion might have reformed the old 
man's habits. Alas ! the very next day, returning from my evening's ride, I met him, not 
drank, but worse, — suffering under all the mental and muscular flacddity of returning sobriety, 
— the liquor dying in him, as it is called. His brooms were sold, his money was spent, Us 
square bottle of strong waters empty ! The wretched old sot felt keenly the misery of his pre- 
dicament. The prospect of his solitary cave, 

' By the sad sea wave,' 

and a night of spirituous destitution was too much for his manhood ; and he wept ! This hardy 
old tn^lodyte had not slept under a roof for seven years. He survived his comrade longer 
than I expected ; for he was still alive, though much broken, when I left the colony in 1851. 

The boiefioent project of Government to create a large community of small freeholders in 
lUawarra does not appear to have met with much more success when exercised in favour of 
civil, than it did in tiie cases of .military settlers. They could not compete in the markets with 
more moneyed neighbours. The great properties swallowed up the little ones by degrees ; and 
the poor man who had cherished the laudable ambition of becoming a caltivator of his own 
acres, and, perhaps, an employer of labour, was compelled, afl«r all, to work for hire himself. 
In Ulawarra, as elsewhere in this colony, it is usual for the poorer classes of settlers to take por- 
tions of wild land — ^twenty or tiiirty acres, perhaps— on what is called a clearing lease, from 
the larger proprietors. The tenant builds his log or bark hut, sets to work with his axe and 
saw on the forest ; feaces, cultivates, and improves, and holds possession, rent free, for six 
years ; at the expiration of which term, he is expected to commence paying rent or to vacate his 
lot. Some of the great landowners have scores of tenants on this phm. 

At the instance of our intelligent driver, we went a short distance up the avenue of a wealthy 
rerident on the road-side, for ^e purpose of seeing a curiosity in vegetation, and were well 
repaid for our trespass. On the banks of a little frosh-water stream, over which tiie approach 
to the house leaps by a rustic bridge, there grows a cluster of the ^nest cabbage-palms in the 
country, eighty or a hundred feet high, perhaps ; and singular and beautiful to behold, the 
entire columns as well as the palmated capitals of these graceful trees were clothed with a luxu- 
riant large-leafed creeper, so that the original tree itself was only to be guessed at by its gme- 
ral form. 

At another passage of the high road to Lake Ulawarra, stands a most remarkable fig-tree, 
well known in the vicinity for its gigantic growth. It must be fifty feet in girth, and at least 
one hundred feet in height before the branches divaricate. Notwithstanding its great age, the 
foliage is most abundant and glossy ; and at this season the branches are loaded with the small 
bostaid fig so prized by the wild pigeons ; yet I was told that this splendid tree, like most if not 
all of its fellows, is but a parasite. A seed dropped by a bird on tiie stem of some forest tree 
^the gum, perhaps — germinates, and in process of time the lodger entirely obliterates its pro- 
tector. Close to this fig-tree there is a tolerably fine specimen of the Urticagigas, or stinging- 



198 OUB ANTIPODES. 

nettle tree, the fixBt we had seen. It may be forty feet high, and the stem nine or ten feet 
round. A botanical gentleman of my acquaintance told me that he had measured one more 
than thirty feet in circumference. The sting is so painful as to paralyse a limb for a time, as 
may well be imagined if its venom be proportionate to its bulk ; for tiie stocuIsb on the lea^ 
which is as large as that of the dock, look like so many shining * silyer-steel needles. 

On reaching the lake we bivouacked for an hour or two during the heat of the day on the 
rergd of a fine grove near its shore, embowered among the dark foliage of myrtaoeous trees 
mingled with a few small cedars, and looking out upon the paddocks of a considerable &rm. If 
we were not merry, over our rural repast, it was not for want of a jovial example ; for a large 
flock of the Laughii^ Jackass, obstinately hanging about om* resting-placC) kept up an unceasing 
and stunning guffaw. Situated as we were, the gloomiest of ascetics oould hardly have maintained 
his gravity. Elsewhere I have made a poor attempt to describe the vocal pecaliarities of this eccentric 
wo<xlpecker. On the present occasion there could be no doubt as to the personality of their jollity, 
for ten or twelve of these 6coif(a:s sat luround us on different trees, with their ungainly large heads 
and wide mouths pointedly converging towards our party. ' 11 rit bien qui rit le dernier !' 
muttered I as, my self^teem becoming more and more irritated, my finger sought the trigger of 
my gun; but I did not want a specimen; and my fair spouse pleading for the feathered 
humoimsts, the charges were reserved for some bronze-winged p^e(His — a bird culinaiiLj 
useful. 

In the grove where we rested tha<e were, as I have said, a few single trees of the red cedar— 
the great suocedanenm £gf mahogany in New South Wales — for tine trade in which this district 
was once &.moaB. There are now, I &ncy, no really fine cedars within I'each of the chance tourist \ 
they have long ago been cut down and sawn up for Sydney furniture. Aii old sawyer told me 
that he did not know where he could put his hand upon * a good &11 of cedar ' hereiJIiouts ; but 
that if I did not mind a rough walk up the nx>untain he could show me one or two ^ ^eitj &ir 
sticks ;' and that these would have been felled, pitted, sawn, and a&nt home to the upholsterers 
years back, but for their being * bad to get ' — that is, giowing in some inaccessible gully — ^where, 
indeed, the tree might be cut down, but whence it would be as impossible to move it as it 
unfortunately was^ in my time> to bring to a market the magmfioent pine timber of the HymalaiaB» 
The lumber^ of America and northern Europe have in winter no small advantage over the 
woodmen of Anstralia and other hot countries ; for the snow affords a road where no possifaslity 
of transport exists in summer, and where the timber-sled, with its ponderous log» runs gUbly 
down to the creek, to be rafled and floated to the mill, wherein it is destined to be ' chawed up ' 
by the inexorable t^th of the circular saw. 

Lake Illawaifa appears to be about twenty miles in cmmmfoience. Its shores are flat and 
ugly ; but there are sprinkled over its expanse many pretty islets, covered with noble timber, 
which owes its exemption fi'om the axe — as England does her safety from her many enemies and 
enviers — to its insulur position. The distant range of the Bong-Bong mountains affords a fine 
background to a landscape which, but finr the wide sheet of inland water, would not be particularly 
engaging. Wherever there is a salt-marsh there are dead trees, and large tracks round this lagoen 
are ti^us deformed. The little town of Dapto was visible from the hill wheie we diverged from 
the- high road, but we had not time to visit it. 

No lady, I think, ever travelled over rougher tracks than were jumbled over by us this day ; 
for the greater part of our route lay through bush-roads winding fiom one settler's homestead to 
another and thickly set with stumps, through fields full of felled timber all on a blaze^ throagfa 
scores of slip-railsr^-the primitive gate of Australia, and along the bush-ranges, where the tack 
was ofUsD. invisible. Yet we got home to our comfortable inn witii whole bones, springs, and 
wheels, — ^pleased with our excursion and gradually falling very much in love with lUawam. 

February 6M.^-A ride to Mount Keera, one of the lions of Wollongong. Just at the foot of 
the mountain, on the estate of a gentleman, who, it is to be hoped, will mske the best of his good 
luck, a fine vein of coal has beoi discovered ; indeed it discovers itself, for ])ortioDs of the lode 
may be seen cropping out in the> middle of the road which crosses the mountain. Here it hm the 
appearance of anthracite or Kilkenny cod, but I believe where the works are to be opened the 
mineral is of superior quality. It is supposed to be the southern rim of a great coal basin, the 
northern rim of which appean above the surface about the same distance north of Sydney, at 
Newcastle, where it has long been worked by the Australian Company. I rode for some di«twioe 
up the mountain in order to examine the magnificent trees clothing its flanks, and to obtain a 
good bird's-eye view of the district; and soon found what I sought. The road swept round the 
back of a small clearing, where a modest hut, covered with vines and pumpkins, stood in the 



MOUNT KEERA — ^AOBICULTDBAL EXHIBITION. 199 

mldBt of its * rood of ground,' in yrhkh wss a thriTing potato-patch and a dump of staodaid 
peach-trees in full blossom. This tranquil little domain was seated, as it were, in tiie lap of thft 
mountain, surrounded on three sides by aodivities, dotiied with suoh giganttc trees as to keep 
out the light aud sight of the heayens, exoept such as were caught from a triangular slioe of the 
sky directly in front. The view ^ui4;ed hence upon the wide and fiertile plain below. The 
prospect was bounded on the ri^t by the long waU-like range of the Bong-Bong hills trandiag 
away to the southward) and fencing out this fitvoored province from the interior country ; on 
the left by tiie Padfic — the surf-beaten group of the Five Islands breaking the dnll uniformity of 
the coast line. Amongst the timber growing on the hill-sides were booc-trees of immense size, 
fme specimens of the cabbi^ pebns, of whidi there ai« two distinct kinds, of the tree ftm, the 
grass tree, and of a sort of date. The hybiscus, attaining a hd^t of twenty mr thirty feet, was 
in full flower; bignonias clomb from branoh to brand), and many other fine creeping plants, 
anHng which was one with a leaf and a bad like a camdlia — whose ddidous perfume filled the 
an* around. Here and there, surrounded by the wrecks of smaller trees, crushed in theD: frdl, 
lay boge logs of the gam or iron-bark, some sawn through into lengths, but apparently abandoned 
hy the woodbman in despair of removing sudi nnwiddy masses, or because they were rotten at 
the heart. In my exjdoration of the buah, I was more than once only saved by the sagadty of 
my mare from bdng stong by the giant nettle — ^whidi she always avoided with pecoliar care. 

The country round about is dreadfully burnt up^-the cattle dying in great numbers from 
want of water and scantiness of herbage. In the upland pastures it has been found necessary to 
cat down the growing maize crops for forage. I do not know whether I have mentioned the 
£ict befere, but the English farmer and hone-owner will be surprised to hear that maiae, or 
Indian com, is the * feed,' in lien of oats, and the oat itsdf is sown, grown, and cut dowB 
green in New South Wales, in order to make * hay' for the horses. Oats in the grain> for thoee 
who frmcy the maise too heating, may be got reasonably enough from Van Diemen's Land. 

Our time bdng limited, we ^mI none to viat the southern dividon of the district, where are 
to be seen some of the finest scenery, rarest natural curiosities, and best estates of lUawianu 
On the day |neoediBg the termmation of our sojourn at this little Brixton of New South 
Wales, the town was enlivened by an event of coiuideraUe local importance, namdy, the 
ammal exhibition of the Illawana Agricullunl Sodety; when all the beauty and faduon of the 
oonnty attended. Among tlie more interesting products of the soil there were not wanting a 
fevp particularly fine loddng * cuRenoy lasses ;' and there were plenty of long-l^ged cabbag!^ 
hatted, tweed-ooated sons of the same soil, much mote worthy of the mane of com-etalka than 
the underdsed native-bora deniaens of the Sydney sti^ets and grog-shops. The show of vege- 
tables -was remarkaUy good — as good as any in the world probably ; and the fiowers, although 
less remai^Ue, evinoed a creditable desire on the part of the settlers to embelUdi tlieir dwdl- 
ings ; for a wellrteoded flower-gardoi is one of the surest^ and certainly a very pleasant indio»« 
tioB of competence, Idsure, and taste. 

The MBurket-green just oppodte our inn waa allotted for the exhibition of live stock, amongst 
whidi were some* wdl*bred cattle of the Durham race, and more than one * good cut of a horse ;' 
and the little quiet village hotel was converted for the nonce into a noisy tavon, reeking witii 
spirits, beer, and tobacco. I dare say our excelleat host put more money into his pocket this 
day by bar-custom alone, than accrued to him fi-om our fortnight's patronage. It was very 
thkaty weather— -very sultry, very dusty — some excuse for propose ingurgitation of malt 
liquoiB, ginger beer, &c. ; nwie for the really frightful coneumption of udent spititA by the 
men, young and old, and for the consequent rapidity with which many of the lords of the* 
creatl^ reduced themsdves to the levd— 'infinitely below the level->-of the beasts they came to 
exhibit and inspect, to buy and to sell. I have descanted elsewhere upon the wild drinking 
bouts of bushmen, and of the sums squandered therdn. The persons assembled here had pro- 
bably no accumulated wi^es to veer away upon, but, in default of this, every bargain, eveiy 
meetii^, greeting, and parting was solemnised by liberal libations ; not, as will be readily 
believed, poured out upon the dusty earth in honour of the gods, but down throats that must 
hove had all the dust in them laid long before. The usually cold and undem«istrative Englishman 
wanned up as ale or rum dictated. They shook hands, laughed ; d-~d each other's old eyes 
and limbs, (the acme' of British and brutish cordiality ;) and slapped on the back and ' treated' 
each other over and over again. Paddy was himself, undiluted by expatriation*-^wfaat more- 
need be sdd, when a &ir was goti^ on ? Even Sandy's habitual caution was at fyalt-^^ least 
in one instance ; for a tall, rawfooned lowland gardener, at least fifty years old, farced a quaird 
upon a strapping young Swedish sailor, whose torn shirt and fiery eye betokened previous cnfib 



200 OUR ANTIPODES. 

and combats ; and the result was, that the Caledonian got well thrashed, and was carried off by 
his one-eyed but not the less viligant wife. 

Of the business transactiois which came under my notice, take the following instance : — ^A 
chestnut colt was the object; two countrymen the actors. After much chaffering, half- 
whispered half-aloud, and a good deal of unsteady mutual fondling — ^for they were both very 
far gone m what Mrs. Butler calls * a state of how-came-you-flo ?' — ^the would-be purchaser 
muttered a proposal into the bushy whisker of the seller. 

* No, I'm blessed if I do T cried the latter. 

< Will you split the difference?' pursued the buyer. 

< I will not,' responded the other; * but I'll tell you what I will do. I'll take six pounds 
down, and diink a sovereign of it now with you, my son !' 

Upon this the worthy and ingenious couple vehemently shook hands, and dived UygeOter 
head-foiemost into the bar. At different periods of the day their progressive career was forced 
upon my notice. When they parted at dusk it was evident that the liberal seller had consider- 
ably more than fulfilled his treaty and his treat. The purchaser, after sundry attempts at 
mounting his new acquisition — attempts which rraninded one of * vaulting ambition,' and 
certain equestrian feats at Astley's — at length got safely away ; his disconsolate friend kissed 
his hand several times to him as he departed ; and after looking around with a" maudlin and 
bewildered air, laid himself down by the rails and fell fast asleep. At night the Market-square 
looked like a field of battle ; but it is only fair to the conservators of the public peace of Wol- 
longong to record the £act, that before we retired to our couches there was a general oollectian 
of Ihe killed and wounded — and I may add prismiers — ^by the constabulary, under the orders of 
an important functionary in a blue coat and gilt buttons, black velvet vest, red face and black 
and tan terrier. The last objects having reference to the Illawarra Agricultural meeting that 
my eyes closed upon were a brace of disorderlies in handcuffs meandering under escort to the 
lock-up; and an utterly insensible seaman, proceeding in a wheelbarrow to join his vessel — and 
ours — in the harbour. 

On the morning of the 9th of February, in the midst of a thick fog, we once more entered 
Port Jackson, and shortly afterwards our steamer ran, or rather walked — ^for she could make 
no runnings— plump upon a rock off Bradley's Head, a promontory half-way up the harbour. 
Had the vessel possessed more than half-a-dozen donkey power, she must have left her — ^tf not 
our — bones there. As it was, the shock was but small, although the consequent confusi<Hi was 
great. There was some talk of lightening the vessel ; and, my mare and another alongode of 
her — the only horses on board — ^becoming alarmed, some considerate persons prc^Kwed throwii^ 
them overboard. I moved as an amendment that the calves, pigs, butter tubs, trusses of hay 
and cabbage-tree leaves, with other provincial products, should first be got rid of— a motion 
which at least induced tiie withdrawal of the original resolution ; and fortunately no removal of 
cargo was requisite. A kedge was sent out and hauled upon ; and after twenty minutes' see- 
sawing upon the reef — far fi^om the pleasant game it is on dry land — she was got off with littie 
or no damage, and soon afte* dischaiged ourselves and chattels in Darling Harbour. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

It is not surprising that emigration forms among the colonists of this country a promfaie&t 
topic of thought, of conversation, writing, and speculation ; for it is nothing short of an infusion 
of life>blood they are canvassing. On the other hand, the most indifferent reader can scarcely 
take up an English newspaper or periodical without being struck with proof after proof of the 
' plethora of humanity ' with which our overcrowded islands are bursting. There is harmony 
in the cry fix>m the uttomost parts of the earth : — * bring us your strong arms and your willing 
hearts, your skill, your courage, and your thrift, your notable dames, your blooming maids, 
your growing children. We have fertile lands, we have beef and mutton *' galore;" send us 
hands to till our soil, mouths to eat our sm-plus I' And Britain's deep voice booms across the 
deep she rules — *Give us a home; give us breathing room ; give us food and peace for oar 
starving sons and daughters !' Expatriation or starvation is the alternative on one side, increase 
of population or rum on the other. Pity it is that so tardy has been the supply, to these 
colonies at least, that many hundreds of thousands of good colcmists have meanwhile carried 
their industry and their savings to enrich a foreign country — ^possibly to aggrandise a hostile 
power;— for where the emigration io Australia may be told by tens, that to the United States 
must be counted by thousands. 



EMIGBATIOH AS IT WAS. ' 201 

But quality as well as qnantitj in the matter of emigratiim is very reasonably looked for by 
the redpient colony. New South Wales would bear just now an immense influx of mere 
muscle, and would repay honest industry with liberal remuneration ; but she cannot afford to 
be swamped with pauperism and crime ; her moral cotnplexion is not so spotless as to defy taint 
from an indiscriminate introduction of the budding thieves, rising rogues, and r^ged parent- 
deserted juveniles, who, to the tune of 30,000, are said to infest the lanes and alleys of Lond(m. 
She does not offer herself as a refuge for runaway apprentices, thimble-riggers, poadiers, and 
prostitutes ; nor tor the sturdy tramps and vagabonds now occupying in workhouses the room 
and devouring the meal which should be devoted to the honest but destitute labourer, the 
disappomted but really earnest applicant for work. Nor does this colony desire to have ' its 
mond atmosphere Tipperaryfied ' by idle and <£safiected Irish, nor to be overrun by English 
s|He8 and * approvers, or chartist and socialist outcasts. When she exclaims, * Send us your 
poor— we will feed and clothe them, your orphans — we will adopt them ;' she does not advertise 
for the old, infirm, and sickly, nor for the * kids forlorn ' of the rascals, hanged and unhanged, 
of England's Alsatias. Enterprise and dext^ty are, undoubtedly, valuable qualities in one who 
proposes to strike out for himself a new existence in a new and rough country ; but the skill 
and nerve — ^not to mention the frankness — of the promising youngster who boasted of having 
picked his mother's pocket while both were spectators at his father's execution, are not precisely 
those calculated to adorn or profit a rising community. The vceurien of London will be equally 
worth nothing in Sydney ; the drone and the voluptuary had better stay at home ; the able 
and sober mechanic and labourer, whose strength and still are a drug in England, will receive 
thdr highest value here. ' The colonies want men who will go thither to live there, to work 
ihere, and to die there, — ^to find a home there for themselves and children. Such men may sail 
with ocmfidence, they will not be disappointed.' * 

The process of emigration was ftmnerly — as compared with its present gradual perfection — a 
very blmd-hookey kind of game. A poor devil finding himself miserable and starving at home, 
made interest to be sent out to * the Plantations ;' or iros sent out pell-mell by some landlord or 
parochial authority, desiring to be rid of a nuisance. He departed in worse tlmn ignorance as to 
the land of his pilgrimage ; for if he made inquiries at sdl, he was sure to obtam false or 
exi^gerated information. He performed the voyage in misery, dirt, and perhaps disease, in an 
ill-found, slow, and unsafe vessel. On arrival in a country utterly strange to him, he found 
few ready to help or advise ; very many prompt to deceive and swindle him. If possessed of a 
little ready m(mey, while loitering about in puzzled attempts to discover the best way of laying 
it out, the temptations of a town, after the long tedium of a sea voyage, in a few days or weeks 
saved him all further trouble as to its investment. 

Otlei, in different dependencies of Great Britam, have I oicountered some poor, illiterate, 
helpless creature, wandering bewildered, like a mastwless d<^, down the strange street of a 
strange town ; looking vacantly in the faces of the busy passengers, and, in the depth of his 
tribulation, wishing himself safe back in his native land, with all its starvation and wretchedness, 
so he could be among familiar faces and fimiiliar objects. I well remember being accosted one day, 
in a Canadian town, by a ragged, red-headed, wretched-looking, but able-bodied Irishman, who 
begged my Honour to tell him where the ' Immigrant's office ' might be. I pointed in silenoe 
to tiiese very two words, in huge black letters over a door across the street ; but he was ' no 
scollard,' and though the inscription was ' jist fominst his nose, sure enough,' it conveyed to 
him no information. He had been five or six days in the town, ' and bad luck to him if he 
ooald hit upon the place at all at all.' 

' Why did you not use your tongue, my lad ?' said I. ' Tour countrymen are not generally 
very bashfid !' 

He had used it, it appeared, frequently ; and had uniformly be^ carried into the nearest 
tavern, where the kind stranger he had questioned promised to tell him all about it over a 
quartern of whisky ; * and by the hooky, one and all left me to pay the piper, and to get out 
as I could I' * SoiTow a rap ' had he got of tdl liis savings, barring a five dollar note, which, 
on presenting it for change, he would probably have found to be no better than one of those 
illusory specimens of paper currency known as * shin plaisters.' 

Three or four months after this interview, I recognised my friend in an Amoican steam- 
boat, bound firom Buffido up the Lakes. He had entered the service of a naturalised American 
fanner, who informed me that he had been for many years a tenant of a Cambridgeshire baronet, 
of whom he rented three hundred acres ; that, finding his femily and the difficulty of meeting 

* fVom the AUat, 



202 OUB ASTIP0DE8. 

his rent yearly iacreasing, he had emigrated to Canada; but, solely beoaiue thfi prooen of 
Laying land in the Britii^ oolony was too dilatory for his active and decisire humour, he * up 
stick and crossed the bolder ' to the United States. He had been seven years there, had. bought 
up for next to nothing the impoverished land of his neighbours, who, knowing little of the 
arcana of Arming, had gone iurther west, in search of ' fresh diggins ;' and, from his ddll in 
the rotation of crops, and by the application of restoratives to the exhausted soil, he could now 
undersell every competitor in the surrounding markets, making a handsome profit. He had 
several sons, each of whom, befinre tiiey left home, had been instructed in seme useful tuade; 
and two or three well-grown daughters, adepts at the chum and cbeese^press aa wdl as the 
needle and spindle. Such is a family group fit not only for emigratioD, but for its hif^er aim 
—colonisation I Truly, it is to the settler in a new land that a numerous and welt><^i|dined 
family is like * the arrows in the hand of the giant ;' with his quiver full of them he may dnve 
the enemy — ^Want and CarB~^fit>m his gate I In the crowded Old World, where consumptioo 
presses too hard on. produce, a father's joy at the annual sprouting of an olive-braBch on the 
&mily tree may posnbly have some alloy ; but when a man sets himself down, axe in hand, 
before the primeval bush of Australia or America, to carve out for himseif a h<Mne^— the more 
diopping boys his wife brings him the better I 

Compared with the haphazard system of f(Hmer days, the act of emigration is now maAt 
easy indeed. At home, societies for its ]Hromotion multiply in all directions. Dqiuties thera* 
fimn distribute information, not always velry correct, through rural distriots and manuiacturiii|^ 
towns ; leetorers hold forth for pure unpaki pfailanthiopy ; Luds and Commons speeeliiiy and 
agitate ; dorgymen, magistrates, pooivlaw commissioners, parish authorities, mayors and aldef^ 
men, and rate-payers in general, all preach ' systenwtic emigration.' Tories and radicals, pro* 
tectionists and fi'ee-traders, join in the propagandism of popular depletion ; magarines, pamphlete^ 
newspapers, p^any journals, lend thor aid to dispd ignorance on this absorbing theme; and union 
workhouses, penitentiaries, foundling hospitals, ra^ed schools, asylums, refuges, fdl are ready 
and willing — ^who shall blame them ? — ^to disgorge their contents upon the depeodenoieB of the 
Crown. 

The aspirant for emigration, according to the improved system, places himself in the handa of 
the Colonisation Society. He and his family are ' told otf ' to a vessel, which will prebaUy 
make the passage to Sydney in a hundred days ; to Adelaide or Port Phillip ten days quioker. 
On its arrival, a Government noUce is issued, giving the number, sex, and callings of the immi* 
grants, whet^ married or single ; and a day and hour are appdnted £m* the hirmg of than. 
The single females are lodged, boaided, and looked after at the Imm^ntion I>ep6t, — a walled 
barrack, where they can be engs^ed by persons known by the agent to be re^ieetable. In shorty 
the emigrant is taken charge of by competent authority from the moment he w she annmrnoes 
in England a desire to become one, and is not abandoned until fiurly establidied in the new 
country. 

Having admitted, a few pages ba^, an account, taken fixnn an old diary, of an Ifibemiaii 
emigrant oioountered in America about 1837, 1 now take leave to insert an extract finm my 
Joumal of Ist December, 1850, giving a short notice of a newly-arrived hiak emigrant, whom 
I met and conversed with on tint day near Sydney. Riding on a smoking hot afternoon (for at 
six TM, it was 98° in the shade) from the Heads towards the town, I perceived a young man 
stepping briskly across a ferny paddodc near Rose Bay, and, touching lightly the top rail of the 
fence, vault into the road in a very un-currency style. * You are from the Old Country,' said 
I, as I overtook him. He was an Irishman, true enough ; and being a good-natured, oommnni* 
cstive fiellow, he walked with me for more than two miles, telling me about himsdf, and asking 
questions about the colony. He had come out a free emigrant * on ' the Kate six weeks ago; 
aiid the day afler landing, reading an advertisemmt in the paper ' for an active young man, 
willing to make himself generally useful,' he had tfdcen service * with the missis over yoader»' 
— ^pointing to a substantial resklenoe. He was tired of it, and was leaving, and had not yet got 
another place. The young master was the cause, I found — * a strip of a lad, fourteoi or , fifteen 
may be. Oh ! bedad, his woid's law in that house!' Paddy got lbs* a-week, a hut to him- 
self, fire, candles, and milk. In Ireland he could not earn Gs. a>week certain, and had to find 
himself in everything. But he could not stand the late hours of the youi^ter, so he vacated 
this wdl-paid situation. He descanted on the subjects of the climate and of drinking. It wan 
a fine country for a poor boy to come to ; he did not mind the heat ; * but oh, my darHn' ! 
last Wednesday night wid the hot wind ! I'd heard of it befbre. I thought I'd be smothered. 
Murther I says I ; if this is what it is by nighty what '11 it be by day ?' * Drinking,' he said. 



EMIGBATIOK AS IT 18 — CASTAWAYS. 203 

' is a fine thing if a man oonld take enon^ to do him good, and no more. It's the rune of 
many a man ; bat it will neror take the feather oat of my cap, for the pledge is on me these 
twelve months ; and I trust in the Lord I may never taste the taste of sports f^ain V 

I tried to persaade him to leave Sydney and go np the country, where I would get him em- 
ployment. He seemed mnch tiekled by my aooonnt of the life of the provmoes, and, above all, 
of the Saturday serving oat of weddy rations to the labourers — •* the mate, and the tay, and 
the like ;' — * but the snisdces, my darlin', the snakes !' he continued ; and having once stamUed 
on tins unlucky subject, he gave up all idea of rural employment I The good feUow told me he 
had saved at his last situation ten shillings a-week ! He got as good a one in a few days — and no 
young master, I am glad to be able to add. 

By some mismanagement or mischance emigration to this country has never yet been steadily 
and uniformly mniBtained. Oonducted by fits and starts, no oontinuous stream has been kept 
up ; and the clamour for workmen which rung in my ears daring the first year of my residence 
arose with nearly equal eamestneas in my last. WagBB were always eicessive ; they flactuated, 
bat never descended on the scale to a degree fiur upon the em]doyer. Nor has the system, such 
as it is, been done jastioe to ; fw* crowds of pawns have found their way out at the expense of 
the emigration funds who ought never to have been assisted — specimens such as I have sketched^ 
speaking of the domestic servants of this aAtmj, Let me add here another instance or two ; — 
for a good example is better than an eauty. In 1849 a wretched, helpless-looking lad offered 
himself to me in the capacity of footman ; he had just arrived from London, where he found 
that he had neither •personal length nor l»«adth, oilves, whlsken, or impudence sufHcient for 
West £nd flankeyship. The clergyman of his parish, who oaght to have known better, told 
him he could get 60/. a^year wages in New Soath Wales. He had married in England a pretty 
nursery-maid of eighteen, expressly, as he said, for settling in a colony. She did not like work, 
he said, but expteted to live like a lady ; he declined service unless she were pomitted to live 
with him ; and so missed the 301. a-year which, in the dearth of domestic servants, I was pre* 
pared to give him. But one of the worst — ^the cruellest case of emigration at the public cost 
that ever came tmder my observation (not excepting a hump-backed fiddler I) was the follow- 
ing: — ^Towards the end of 184 — , two young orphan girls, little more than children, daughters 
of a respectable professional man, came out from England, with strong reoommoidations from 
the minister of their parish to tiie head of the Churdi in the colony, who bespoke for them the 
favour of some of the ladies of Sydney. They had no relatives or friends in the country. Their 
ostensible objeet was to procare situations as nursery governesses ; marriage might possibly have 
been their r^ aim. A married gentleman very humanely took them under his roof, and allowed 
them to live on nearly equal terms with his fiunily until they might be able to provide for them- 
selves. Both were, as I have said, young — one very pretty. It is needless to say that Sydney 
possesses the same snares and pitfalls for the innocent and inexperienced as other towns containing 
fifty thousand inhabitants. The elder was for a time — ^for a time only — ^permitted to escape. 
The younger and handwomfr soon b^an to show such leyity of manner as to forfeit the protection 
of her kind patrons ; and she shortly afterwards oonagned herself to that of a young gentleman 
of Sydney. The subsequent downward steps of this unfortunate child can only be predicted. And 
these were emigrants at the cost of the territorial revenue of the colony I Did the mother country 
benefit by sending two of her defenceless daughters to almost certain shame and ruin ? Did the 
colony benefit by their coming ? . . . Did the poor young creatures themselves benefit ? . . . 
I might pile instance tipon instance of this nature ; but enough has been said to point a moral — 
perhaps to tend, in a very humble degree, to the preventicn of future ill-selected emigration. 

A word about the Irish orphan girls, so liberally poured into the colcny during the last year 
or two.' Forty thousand pounds' worth of this commodity was imported into New South Wales 
up to 1850. The public, I think, took more pains to drag to light the defaults of this clairir 
thim to publish their virtues and to reform their errors. The police reports teemed with 
instances of their rebellious conduct, as well as of their imfitness for household service. In July, 
1850, an hon. member of the L^slature complained that there were at that moment three 
hundred of them unhired at the Immigrant Depdt, and maintained at the public expense — ^the 
said maintenance costing, by the way, Sd, a-head per diem. Many of them, doubtless, pre- 
ferred food and lodging and idleness in that establishment to wages and labour out of doors — as 
the hackney coach-horse prefers his stand and nose-bag to hard work and whipcord I One young 
lady was brought before the bench of magistrates at Paramatta, because she persisted in operating 
at the wash-tub in patenlr-leather pumps. Another broke her indentures, and demanded to 
return to the dSpdt, because she was not permitted to receive a male friend after hours. In 



204 OUR ANTIPODES. 

some cases these poor girls were shamefully treated on board the emigrant vessels. Several 
were seduoed by the niffians who ought to have protected the fatherless ; and one wretched 
creature died soon after landing, from the effects of having been slung up by the waist to the 
ri^ng when far gone in pregnancy, by way of punishment for misconduct. 

The matrons were, in some instances, baldly selected. One of them, who took service in my 
family, was somewhat ill-fitted to control two hundred and fifty young girls, of whom she had 
charge for four months ; for she could not control her middle-aged self for a fortnight ! The 
term orphan was utterly misplaced in many coming out imder that designation, who were in 
truth quite as well supplied with parents as their neighbours, and had quitted them willingly. 
Not a few were in the condition of an individual of this class, who, being twitted in the street 
by * a common scold ' with the opprobrious term of poor Irish orphan, exclaimed in her haste — 
' Horphin ! Tm no more horphin than yon are. Tm a married woman, and mother of two 
children !' 

I was particularly struck with the cleanly and decent appearance of these poor giiis as a body 
in the depdty as well as by their marked superiority in good looks over the native bom ^ris of 
the same order. Why they hung so long on hand, both in the labour and the marriage maricet, 
in a country where males so greatly preponderate in the distribution of the sexes, I cannot tell. 
Perhaps the local authorities did not meet the d^nand of the distant districts with sufficient 
promptitude: for in 1850, the public prints contained several requisitions of the following 
tenour: — 

* WIDB BAT AKD BURKKIT DISTRICTS.— THX ORPHAV OIBL8. 

* To ike Editm-t of the Sydney Morning HeraJd. 
" 6KKTI.BUBK, — Whilst the Government pretend they do not know what to do with these girls, they 
entirely neglect the northern and rapidly Increasing Wide Bay and Burnett River Districts. On the 
Burnett, Severn, Dawson, and Boyne Rivers, there is a lai^ entirely male population; there are not 
more than six women in the whole district, and those have arrived within me last six months. If a 
vessel was dispatched immediately to Wide Bay with 200 of these girls, I have no hesitation in stating 
the whole of them would be married in two months. 

* Yours, &c. A BuPHVAK.* 

I shall be thought joking, perhaps, when I say that an accredited match-maker — some staid 
and influential lady, who would convoy detachments of female immigrants to the rural districts, 
and interest herself as to their proper establishment in life — ^would be one of the most useful 
government officers in the colony ; and I believe I have heard that the great apostle of emigra- 
tion, Mrs. Chisholm, did formerly take some steps in this direction. 

Here is an extract from a statement of wages of immigrants in 1849, compiled by the agent 
j&om the reports of the police districts : — 

SYDXRT DISTRICT. 

Farm labourers, ISl. ; Shepherds, 182. ; Cooks, female, 191, ; Housemaids, 15L ; Nursemaids, ISf. ; 
General house servants. 111. 

BATHUBST DI8TB10T. 

Mcdei. 
Carpenters, Smiths, Wheelwrights, Masons, and Bricklayers, AOl. ; Farm labourers and Shepherds, 22L 
Females about the same as at Sydney. 

BATVOXD TBRRACB DrSTRTCT. 

Carpenters, &c., 471. ; Farm labourers, 18{. 

BRISBAKB DI8TRI0T. 

Malei, 
Carpenters, &c., 601. ; Farm labourers, 202. ; Shepherds, I9l. 

Females, 
Cooks, 182. ; Housemaids, 15l. ; Laundress, 162. ; General house servants^ 201. 
Food and lodging provided by the employers.* 

This scale is considerably lower than that usually held up for the encouragement of em^m* 
tion by the home agents. As a householder, I can answer for it that, daring the whole of my 
residence in the colony, I paid domestic sen^ants much higher, viz., coachman, 30/., cook, 22/. 
to 26/., nurse, 26/., and so on. The ordinary scale of rations for outKloor servants and laboorcrB 
is, per week, 10 lbs. of meat, 10 lbs. of bread, J lb. of tea, } lb. of sugar. How do these liberal 
wages and diet contrast with the following inklings of domestic indigence In the Old Country ! 

The correspondent of the Morning Chronicle, on the subject of the state of the poor in 
London, visits the apartment — the den, rather— of a woman employed in making soldien' 
trousers at 6ji. a pair, out of which she paid for thread, for lodging, fire, light, food, and 
clothing, being able, if m good health, to make two pair in a day of fifteen or sixteen IxNin. 
* I may, perhaps,' said she, * chance to get a bit of meat once a wedc, but that's a God^send 1' 

* 1853. Wt^es have risen 25 per cent. 



A WORD TO THE POOREB EMIGRAKT. 206 

A wretched tenant of a garret in Drury Lane says : — < As for sugar, I broke myself off it long 
1^. I could not afford it. A cup of tea, a piece of bread, and an onion, is generally all I have 
for my dinner. Sometimes I hay Vt even an onion, and then I sops my bread.' Among sundry 
like cases, the same authority gives one which came under his notice in one of the southern 
counties. A family of seven children and their mother depended on the man's wages as a 
labourer. The we^ly expenditure, assisted by a few potatoes and an occasional cabbage from a 
strip of garden, he puts down as follows : — Rent, Is. ; tea, 6d, ; bacon, 5d, ; bread, 55. ; soda, 
soap, &c. 5d. ; fuel, Sd. — ^total, 85. Weekly wages, 8s. I Not much left for clothing and 
other luosuries ! An old worn-out Spitalfields weaver calls to his boy — * Billy, just show the 
gentleman what beautiful fabrics we are in the habit of producing, and then he shall say 
whether we ought to be in the filthy state we are. That's for the ladies, to adorn them and 
make them handsome !' It was, says the writer, an exquisite piece of maroon-coloured velvet, 
that, amid all the squalor of the place, seemed marvellously beautifol ; one shilling and three- 
pence aryard was all the skilful weaver got for this splendid material. * There are seven of us 
in this room,' complained the old man, * four on us here in this bed, and the other four on 
them over there. My broths Tom makes up the oth^ one. There's a nice state in a Christian 
land I ... As for animal food, why, it's a stranger to us. Once arweek, may be, we gets a 
taste of it, but that's a hard struggle ; and many a &mily don't get it once a month : ajmt we 
never sees.' 

These may be called extreme cases ; but the fortunate man who enjoys what may be called 
full wages at home, is only half fed and clothed, if he have a numerous family. In England 
and Irdand the permission to work hard from Monday morning to Saturday night is a great 
boon ; in Australia, the artisan and labourer has leisure as well as work. Contrast, I repeat, 
such facts as the above with the preceding statement of Australian wages and rations, and the 
well-known Australian profusion of human food ; add to them the statistical truth that about 
one-eleventh in England and one-fourth in Ireland of the entire population ai'e receiving pa- 
rochial relief, and exhortations to emigrate would appear supereogatory indeed I Philantluopic 
societies and individuals ¥nll do well to direct the course of emigration and instruct the emi- 
grants ; — but Competition is the Emigrant Queen ! — she will send forth her l^ons to subdue 
the world ! 

That the emigrant, of whatever class, should well weigh the matter before he decides, is 
merely supposing him a rational being ; but I would offer one sentence of advice, perhaps more 
Kxiginal, to the poorer order of intended emigrants. Be most circumspect in your inquiries 
before you commute your Homes for ever. Lay not too implicitly the unction to your soul, 
that the benevolent association, or the philanthropic individual, that promotes yom* expatriation, 
and the generous open-hearted-and-armed colony which invites you, are actuated wholly by a 
desire for your welfare and benefit. Recollect, that it is the interest of the first to ' shovel you 
out,' and that the second, which welcomes you in order that your presence may bring down the 
price of labour, is not a whit more disinterested in its object than the well-known placard — 
' Rubbish may be shot here.' The advocates of emigration, in short, are not, eo factOy the 
emigrant's best friends. 

The foregoing remsurk applies chiefly to the poorer, the assisted, and the fr-ee emigrant. But 
in the upper and middle orders, the educated classes — (those who inherit the right to maintain 
themselves by the labour of the intellect, and whom manual toil would ill befit) — all the pro- 
fessions are overstocked. The present generation may possibly, by strenuous jostling in the 
crowd of competitors, contrive to support themselves and their families without stooping to some 
less refined occupation ; but if the children are to be reared like the parent, what hope can he 
reasonably have for them, when increased numbers press upon the already overtasked field of 
educated emplo3rment ? There will be more lawyers than litigants, more medicos than mori- 
bunds, more clericos than churches or church-goers I Many will go downwards, struggling 
with greater or less vigour, but still go downwarcls in the stream of life ; while a few will, of 
course, rise to the surface by strong volition and intrinsic worth. The very highest classes will 
scarcely be exempt from the imiversal pressure ; for one important and hitherto feiiile source of 
employment for the younger scions of the nobility and gentry of England may fail them ere 
long. Our colonies are clamorous for a lai^er share of self-government, and for freer institu- 
tions ; and those that do not clamour will perhaps have these forced upon them by Home agi- 
tation. The dependencies which obtain such institutions — ^and what one gets another may— - 
will refuse to be saddled with officials from the Mother Country; they willwiW^ ^<8csv4sjss^ 
among the * sons of the soil,* Yet, if colonial patcon^i^e \a \ii \3fe ^is\«aa^. '^w^R^ %— ^^ '^Ssr 



206 OUB AUTIPODEB. 

pprigs of England's oristociBCj and squirearchy should be debanred 6noin official employ in the 
colonies,^ — they may still oolooise and settle in them ; and do so advantageously ; and so cheep 
in Austealia are the mere neoessaries of lift, that a gentleman emigratii^ with capital — small 
or large— can well afibrd to liye inoperative for a period saffioient to enable him to look well 
about him, and in so doing to gain some insight into, if not to go through a regular apprentioe- 
ahip in the pursuit he may resolve to adopt. 

It has often occurred to me that the law of primc^eniture in the u{^per classes has been in* 
8tmm«ital in no «nall degree in making Englishmoi the best — ^the only-^ colonists in the 
world. The landed, and the bulk of the fimded, property of a &mily very generally go to the 
eldest son. What better for one or two of the cadets to do with th^ two, four, six, or even 
ten thousand poimds — if they belong to no solvent pn^esskm — ^than to colonise ? Better that, 
than to Ife a very fast man for a season or twx), aping and toadying those rioherthan himself, and 
thus losing money, time, his own and othws' esteem I — ^better that, than to be put to a thousand 
shifts and humiliating expedients to feed the little hungry mouths around his hearth. There is 
nothing very alarming in the idea of removing to some comparatively imtaxed portion of the 
same empire, where, undei* the segis of the same institutians, an Englishman may find all the 
protection that is needful, and all the freedom that is good £br him. 

A very superficial although personal acquaintance with the five great diviaona of the globe 
gives me, perhaps, no right to uphold Australia as the best of all fields for European settlement ; 
yet that impression has taken strong hold of my mind. Its distant geographical positim, and 
the consequent ezpenseof time and money on tiie voyage, are undoubtedly serious drawbacks. 
On the other hand, Australia, in its unequalled extoit of coast, pvesents localities for colonisa- 
tion at a hundred different points ; the land, though not rich, is productive ; • the climate is ex- 
cellent. There are no insalubrious swamps, noxious reptiles but few; no lions or tigers — no 
Pawneeloups or Maories or Kaffirs ; no cholera, yellow fever, endemic or epidemic diseases, no 
assessed taxes, no hydrophobia, no volcanoes, no earthquakesr-^«uch as lately convulsed New 
Zealand, where a friend of mine, after a long and rough passage, found the earth rocking like the 
sea off'Cape Horn instead of the terra f.rma he folt he had a right to set foot on ! — ^no revolu- 
tims nor rebellions, nor landlord butcheries, nor beggary ; — scaroely a bushranger now to be 
found for love or money. There is no frost or snow worth mentioning, and the land, therefore, 
bang never shut up, the demand for labour is nearly equal all the year round. Sooner or later, 
it may be predicted, there will be a great influx into these peaceful colonies of persons having a 
predilection for a quiet life ; — -not merely from Great Britain, but from thoseoontinentBl nations 
where political commotu>ns continually disturb the social state, and endanger life and property. 
Indeed the immigration of foreigners has already commenced pretty actively, hkmw especially in 
the colony of South Australia — ^the increased culture of the vine, and the augmenting import- 
ance of wine-&cturein this country, having already brought out coasiderable numbers of settlers 
fixnn Germany and France. 

In a large majority of the points admitted as requisite to invite and sustain a p<^alatioii re- 
dundant elsewhere, Australia in general appears tl^ to be equal, if not superior, to any other 
country. If Europe be a vast crush-room, Australia is a splendid saloon, well aired and lighted, 
and with elbow room for millions ! She is titerally, as Dr. Lang quotes, * a land of wheat and 
boriey and vines and fig-trees and pom^ranates, a land of olive <nl and honey, a land where 
thou shalt eat bnaad without scarceness. Thou shalt not lack anything in it.'* 

The £em^ Oonvictism, and the act Transportation, are so intimately assodated with the hiafcory 
of this colony, and are so fiiequently forced on the attention of the resident and the traveller in 
Australia, that t^ r^ect the subject altogether would be something like performing the play of 
Hamlet with the part of the Dane left out. Pretending, however, to no higher art than that of 
a mere sketdier — a < rambler,' I do not presume to enter with my reader upon a subject so 

* Among the various emlgiation schemes, that invented by the benevolent Mrs. Chlsholm, under the 
title of 'The Family ColonisaUon Loan Society,* wtll probably most deserve the gratitude of the 
colonies. The soul of it seems to consiBt In the careful selection of persons, male and fniiale, suited to 
colonial reqairements, and the association of them in family groups, before they quit England. 

Neither this branch of emigration, however, nor Mr. Sydney Herbert's ' Needlewomen ' plan (founded 
on tiie abnormal excess of females in Great Britain and ueir abnormal deficiency in Australia) ; nor the 
' Irish Orphan,' nor the ' Ragged School ' schemes, cum mttUic aUU^ can be said, as yet, to have had 
a foir trial 

Any one can buy a homa : it Is not so easy to boy a gogd horse. It is easy to get emigrants— difficult 
to select good emigrants. The colonies do not want scamps and sluggards among the male, nor what the 
■Timei terms ' sluts and slatterns, flirts and fine ladles, dawdlers and do-nothings, the awkward, the 
ilUtempered, and intractaUe,' among the female Unmigruits. 



TRANSPORTATION— OLD AND NEW SYSTEMS. 207 

infiidtely above mj aim and my ability, much further than may be attained by the glimpses of 
its practice past and present as they oocor casually in ihe course of this my IMary. The 
Whatdys, Adderlys, and others, have demolished the system speculatively, philo60]dxically, and 
theoretically. It has actually beoi m esotremis more than once lately ; yet has arisen from its 
ashes In iull force again, because no scheme of secondary puniahment has been struck out, or is 
likely to be invented, by individual or collective wisdom, to supply its place. ' What is to be 
done with our criminals V is still the cry. It is a iair puzzle. Are we to starve, fiog^ hang, 
draw, and quarter them, with one school of disdplinaiians, or to pet, educate, xnake modd* 
prisoners of them, with the opposite school ?-^H>r ai'e we to provide some * soft intermediate 
d^ree ' of castigation — something between the tniculent and the emollient — ^between Carlyle 
and Maoonochie ? The amended Criminal Law forbids the rope. Phihmthropsts and moralkts 
scout exilism * beyond the seas ;' the system, they argue, is radically impure <uid un&ir. Statists 
and jurists have propounded no satisfactory aubstitute. < What, then, is to be done with our 
criminals!' 

The power of depmiing offenders from her shores to those of her distant dependencieB, there to 
undergo correction, to reform, to become colonists and the imoeBtarB of worthy dtizens, seems to 
include one of the most valuable privileges enjoyed by any nation. But the moralist shrinks 
from the idea of founding new communities in crime and disgrace ; while the disdplinarian 
doubts whether the enunple afforded by instances of priscmere having risen to wealth in the 
oountries of their banishment may not encourage rather than daunt offenders. The old system 
of Assigmnent gave too much liberty to them ; the present plan of Probation converts, it is 
urged, a community of men into a gang of dem<^. The labour accomplished by coerced labour 
is little better than none ; the cost of supervision enormous. Such are one or two of the argu- 
ments of objectors. Yet the experimoit was a noble one ; and the eiistenoe of so wealthy, so 
happy, and so important a colony as New South Wales, proves that in some points it has beoi a 
sueoessfal one. I am unwilling to believe that the legislative ingenuity and executive vigour of 
£nglffiid can frame and enforce no means for deansing from abuses — abuses, perhaps, merdy 
those of administration — a system which it seems impossible to ref^aoe. There is one cardinal 
&ult in the economy of the preset system — that of compulsory cdibacy, a practical violation 
of the natural affections and impulses, which oonverts our fellow-mai into monsters of ferodty 
and brutality. But under (my shape transportation cannot be heneficially carried out — ^if it can 
be carried out at all — ^in a colony unwilling to reodve omviots. That difficulty solved, others 
may surdy be sunnounted. The disputants upon this subject, so important to the wdfare of 
the colony, seem to me to consist of four classes. 1st. — Those who, looking at the question in 
its highest aspect, would repd the outcasts of another land, because thdr influx would brii^ a 
taint upon thdr own. 2nd, (and this indudes a numerous body) — Those with whom the cour 
victs or exiles would compete in the labour-'market — thereby redudng the rate of wages. 3id. 
— ^Those who advocate the reception of convicts at all hazards — whose cry is, let us have labour 
good or bad, but, at any rate, labour. 4th. — ^Those who are for half measures. These would 
not have * the convict dement * largdy infused into the constituency. They would keep them, 
therefore, away from the large towns ; they would wish them sent to the distant districts, where 
unskilled labour is most wanted ; they would rather accept these men at the hands of the Co- 
lonial Minister, with sudi concurrent advantages as the corcyal co-operation of the colonists with 
the views of the Imperial Government would entitie them to expect, than recdve them, indi- 
rectly and without such advantages, in the shape of emandpated or expiree prisoners from the 
existing penal colony of Van Diemen's Land, or from a threatoied new convict plantation some- 
where north of Sydney. 

The oontoiding parties on this question are not superhuman, and, thei^ore, one may swear 
self-interest does not go for nothing in the matter. The squatters, and other great employers of 
unskilled labour pray for renewal of convictism for the good of their trade, without reference to 
the benefit of the Commonwealth — as the' glazier prays for hail-storms, dvic riots, and the 
revival of Tom-and-Jerryism, for his own private ends I The immigrants and native free 
labourers contemplate an influx of exiles, much as the Yorkshire day labourer at harvest-time 
does the arrival of a band of hungry Irishmen, with their brawny arms and bran-new sickles, 
ready to work on half the wages and to live on half the food required by sturdy John. The 
freed convict-Colonists advocate the discontinuance of the system ; because its resumption would 
revive with tenfold virulence the old feelings of rancour between the Free and the Freed, which 
are now gradually dying away. I noticed, moreover, another section of the employers of labour, 
who, in theu' outward and overt dedarations of hostility towards further convictism, and their 



208 OUR ANTIPODES. 

well-known inward and covert inclinations and practices, [rennnded me of a horse shying at a 
truss of hay on tlie public road, but eating it not the less greedily in his rack I 

On all sides of the question there is an immense deal of vapouring. A large proportion of 
the Australians do not care a button for it one way or the other. There are not a few ' parties ' 
who would employ the Ardi-fiend himself, if he would engage at low wages, — and the immi- 
nence of whose ruin, owing to the past and present dearth of labourers, almost justifies the 
adoption of despei'ate measures to save themselves. As for Mrs. Mother Country, she is of 
course extremely disinterested, yet is naturally anxious to transplant her naughty children in a 
place where, she being quit of them, they may reform, and what is more — ^remain ! 

So extraordinary have been the contrarieties of sentiment among the people, and the vacillation 
of opinion in their organ, the L^slative Council, on the problem— <»nvicts or no convicts ; 
especially between the years 1846 and 1850, that a Home Govemmoit resident 16,000 miles 
distant might be excused doubting whether the Colonists knew their own minds on the subject. 
Unfortunately, the Imperial authorities, in their conduct of the question, gave a loophole for 
the accusation of breach of bargain, whereof the malcontents took large advantage in the final 
debate of October 1850, the upshot of which carries with it a lesson for the conducting of State 
questions between the mother country and her dependencies ; for I am inclined to concur with 
the opinion of tiie oldest and best orator in the Colonial Council, that ' the double system of 
exilism and emigration would now be in full operation, and that the colonists would at present 
be deriving the benefits which would have sprung from it, perfectiy satisfied with the pactical 
operation of the measure,' had the compact been rgidily stuck to by the former. Wounded dignity 
was unquestionably the mainspring of this determined resistance of Imperial overtures. ' What 
is so implacable,' says Bulwer, *■ as the rage of vanity ? Take from a maft his fortune, his 
house, his reputation, but fiatter his vanity in each, and he will forgive you. Heap upon him 
benefits, fill him with Uessings, but irritate his self-love, and you have made the best man an 
ingrat* A colony appreciates concessions however small, consideration however trifiing, at the 
hands of the parent country, mudi as an individual in comparatively humble circumstances 
values the courtesy and kindness of the rich and the great ; both, if they possess commendable 
spirit, will resent imperious treatment. One must have lived in colonies to know how sensitive 
tiiey are on the subject of their appreciation by the Old Country. Nothing touched Australia 
more nearly than the apathy shown, until lately, by the Houses of Parliamoit in matters merely 
colonial ; and indeed she did not flinch without cause. The very word ' colonies ' was the im- 
mediate signal for a * count out.' There was ' no house ' for the consideration of such dull 
subjects as the political and financial relations of the parent country and her dependencies ! Sr 
William Molesworth's plan of highly spicing his speeches was indeed sometimes successful in 
procuring and retaining to himself a tolerable audience on colonial matters ; few succeeded so 
well. Mr. Scott, in an able speech upon the < squatting question ' and the peculiarities of bush 
life in Australia, is said to have had eight pain of ears only to listen to it. 

The colonial prints take a morbid ddight in republishii^ from the Home Journals extracts 
proving this indifference. When the question of a single or a double chamber for the local 
government of the Australian colonies was debated in the Lords, a noble Peer, who was expected 
to take the profoundest interest and most active part in the question, preferred seeing his horsQ 
lose at Ascot. English statesmen were, as the Morning Chronicle expressed it, ' more anxious 
about the success of a two-year-old than about the fate of the southern continent.' Tet Noble 
Lords and Hon. Members would hardly neglect their duties in thdr respective * places ' for a 
4lay at £p6om, ^.fete at Chiswick, or for a white-6e^is& at Greenwich or Blackwall, if they )mew 
how closely their truantries are watched by their colonial oonstitueuts. Heartless, cruel, unjust, 
impolitic, are the epithets which the colonial press and the spretw injuria SydncB bestow on the 
contemptuous nonchalance of England and the English towards thdr transmarine brethroi and 
children ; and certainly, until quite lately, they were not undeserved. Per contra^ the colony 
flaps its wings and crows for joy and pride, when it finds itself distinguished by a complimentary 
passage in the speech of a Noble Lord or Honourable Gentleman, still more when it is the subject 
of a flattering leader in a London newspaper ; better than all, when, as once happened, Australia 
formed one of the leading topics in the Sovereign's opening speech frvm the throne, — ' an ind- 
dent,' remarks the Sydney Morning Herald, * we believe, without a parallel in the histcHT of 
British colonies ; plainly showing that, in the estimation of the advisers of the Crown, Australia 
had acquired an importance whidi ought to be recognised in the face of the empire, and had the 
highest possible dahns on the attention of the Imperial Legislature.' 

The transportation question awakened the only movement at all resembling a popular Smeute 






THE 'HASHEMY* — COWARDLY OUTRAGES. 209 

that it was my fortane to witness ia New South Wales. The usually drowsy, well-fed, and 
politically-i^thetic Sydney broke into a perfect fever of excitement at the arrival of the fatal 
Hashemy with a cargo of bondsmen unaccompanied by the stipulated proportion of freemen ; 
and the demagogues and mob orators took care to whip up the syllabub and keep it frothing. 
The jBashemy, I find, arrived with 212 coavicts on board, on the 8th June, 1849. (^ 
the 12th and 18th, public protest meetings were held in the open air, close to the gates of the 
present Government House, and on the very site of the old Government House, where Governor 
Macquarie, whose policy it was to create an upper class from among a population nearly exdn* 
sively convict, entertained at his table guests from this order. Under the splendid old Scotch 
firs planted by Captain Phillip, the first importer of convicts to these shores — on the very spot 
where the first convict camp was pitched — their debcendants, their compeers, and a few of the 
free class who had grown ridi upon the system, now assembled to launch and list^ to anathemas 
against it. 

The convict vessel arrived, as has been noted, on the 8th June. The protest meetings 
occurred on the 11th and 18th. There is a practical satire on human inconsistoicy in the fol- 
lowing facts 9 reported by the prindpal Superintendent of Convicts to the Governor. He begs 
to report, that on the 14th instant, after the completion of the muster of the prisonei-s on board 
the Hashemy, * the men were permicted to make engagements with persons, who were allowed 
to go on 1)081x1 for the purpose by an order fix>m me ; and it seems worthy of remark, that, 
although at the time of the Hashemi/ s arrival there were four emigrant ships in the harbour, con- 
taining about one thousand souls, all these men, with the exception of fifty-nine, who were removed 
to Moreton Bay and Clarence River, where labour was urgently required, were hired to respect- 
able householdei's and sheep farmers within six days of tiieir being ready to engage, at wages 
varying from 12/. to 16/. a-year, and some mechanics at 28/. per annum, tiie boys receiving from 
8/. to 11/. per annum. Besides which, there are now applications at my office, from private 
individuals and others in different parts of the colony, for a larger number of this class of 
labourers than can be supplied by the arrival of several convict ships.' * 

The^Goveraor, taking a dispassionate view of affau's as they stood, sat down and sketched them 
very faithfully in a despatch to the Colonial Office — ^whidi desx)atch, finding its way into the 
blue-books, and describing, in due course, a parabola round the globe, fell like a bomb-shell 
among the combustibly-disposed public The explosion took place early in August, 1850. The 
despatch was looked at, talked of, and written about, by the agitating party as if it had been an 
* infernal machine,' deliberately put together for the destruction of the colony. On the 12th of 
August (there being no grouse shooting in New South Wales), the meetings of the Circular 
Quay — the Champ de Mars of Sydney — were renewed. The same 800 or 1,000 idlers and others 
attended — ^men, hobble-dehoys, currency cubs, pickpockets, gossips, nursery-maids, with their 
followers, and children. Nearly the same speakers as before addressed the assembly. It was, per- 
haps, somewhat better attended than the meetings of the year before. The weather was charming 
— ^I was there myself — ^whereas in 1849 this congregation, sub Jove, found Jupiter Pluvius in 
the ascendant ; and there is no greater disperser of mobs, no surer cooler of patriotism, than a 
good, heaily shower of rain. The Governor was liberally bespattered with abuse ; * the unthink- 
ing mob * (so styled by one of the pristine idols of the Cabbage-tree rabble, now pulled down) 
were ta\:^ht to hoot him and his daughter as they rode out ; and the * Anti ' journals joined 
with them in coarse personalities. Fortunately for His Excellency, however, he possesses a 
pachydermatous nature, which appears to me one. of the most valuable attributes in a rul^, and 
without which, I fancy, no great public man ever existed. I believe it is not too much to say 
ihat his predecessor — ^honourable, high-minded, talented, and zealous as he was for the public 
good — was stung to death by the * slings and arrows ' of a long course of malignant opposition. 
As well attempt to subdue a rhinoceros by dint of the * sumpiter,* f ^ J^op® to conquer his 
successor by personal invective 1 

The continual blistering of the public mind kept up by the haranguers and writers against 
existing things had got it into a state of irritation favourable for an outbreak ; and the lowest 
orders seized upon the occasion of a grand fancy ball given by the Mayor at the theatre a few 
days after the meetings in 1850, to indiSge their hostile fedmgs towards their superiors in station. 
The darkness of night, the helplessness of j^ersons in carriages, and the insufficiency of the police, 
were encours^ng circumstances for some of the most cowardly street ruffians. A stone or two 
were thrown at the Governor's party, and fell among the ladies as they entered the theatre 

♦ OflBcial Report of the Principal Superintendent of CJonvlcts, June 26th, 1849. 
t Tube for blowing little darts, used In warfare by the Bomcans. 

P 



*210 OUX ANTIPODES. 

The chief oflfioer of police was knocked off his horse, and some sttempts were made to foroe the 
moks — faced inwards to form a lane — of the guard of honour at the entrance. When the oflioer, 
howerer, gave the word to ' face about/ the rabble obeyed the order as promptly as the soldiers, 
, and no more trouble was given to the red-coats. Worse things, however, happened afterwards, 
£(>r, taking advantage of the slow pace of the carriages coming up in a string to set down the 
guests, a body of blackguards amused themselves by forcing open the doors of the vdiides, amd 
/assailing those occupying them with every kind of brutal comment and disgusting words and 
actions. The weakness, in this instance, of the dvil power contrasted wii£ the impunity of 
that very uncivil power, the Sydney mob, will, if I mistake not, be productive of much future 
misGhief. Broken heads and bread and water — ^which would have been the meed of these dis- 
<«ders had ever so snail a party of the London police beoi on the spot — might have afforded the 
zingleaders a lesson and a warning which it still remains for them to receive, and which they 
will surely some day receive to their greater cost : — witness the manner in which the citizen 
army decimated the citizoi mob in New York a year or two ago, when tiie latter wanted to mal- 
treat a popular English actor who had ma(}e himsdlf somehow unpopular for the nonce. 

In Sydney there are no cuirassed and casqued cavalry — almost brickbat-proof — ^whose gigantic 
black horses will dispose a mob—especially a well-dreased one in wet weather — by a wUsk of 
their long muddy tails at the touch of the < spur insidiously applied.' An infiuitry force in aid 
of the dvil power has no means of trifling with a troublesome assemblmi^ of persons outnum- 
bering itself. It possesses only its serried array, its deadly bullet, and still rosx^ deadly bayooeL 
It is well, therefore, for a mischievously disposed populace to know, that of late years there have 
been two very important changes made in tiiie mcide of action of foot soldiers in cases of eoUidon 
with the people: the one is that the volley is delivered at the word ' Present,' which, therefore, 
it would be ^e height of imprudoice to await in the belief of its innocuous import ; the other 
consists of the prohibition of the old practice of firing over the heads of rioters, a practice to which 
many an iimooent, althou^ perhaps meddlesome, old woman has fallen a victim, while the img- 
leaders escaped scot free. *■ Fire low I' is now the order. 

The cabbage-tree mob, as I have said before, are always ready for a ' spree ;' and some of 
their pastimes ai-e <A so rough an order as to deserve to be repaid with bloody cockscombs. The 
Sydney populace, nevorthdess, as a body, are by no means inclined to tumult. R^arding 
politics, they are peailiarly apathetic ; the abstract rights of man troubling their heada but very 
little. It requires active whipping and spurring by some half-dozen agitators and pillory-oratocs 
to kindle them into even a temporary glow of mock patriotism ; for when men are individualfy 
and oollectivdy comfortable, it is difficult to ins]ure them with that sort of public vurtue whose 
real names are disocmtent, disquiet, and dissolution of sodal bonds, and whose end is revoluticw and 
itdn. The Anglo*Saxon is generally a placable beast when his belly is well filled I a child mi^t 
play with him after his dinner. God be praised, there is no such thing as hunger in this oiAsxsj ! 

New South Wales may indeed be occasionally fretful, discontented, even restive in contesting for 
what she oxisiders her rights. My Sydn^ grocer, in canvassing my vote for the city conndl, 
may include in his printed circular, * the foUowing sentiments of the man who sdicits yoor 
suffiage,' borrowed from Brother Jonathan : ' That by the immutable laws of nature and the 
principles of the English constitution, trtf are entitled to life, liberty, and property, and 100 have 
never ceded to any sovereign power whatsoever a right to dispose of the same without war ogn- 
sent I' but he may 'be a good subject and sell good tea and sugar for all that. A fiery old states- 
man may boil over in the Legislative Chamber, and make the cedar rafters ring to hi^ dedaration 
that * we must assert our rights by force of arms i' An empty platform spouter may blasts 
about * dragging the Briti^ standard in the dust of the Sydney streets I' but these are only 
periodical ebullitions ; there is more of dyspepsia than disloyalty in their origin. 

One thing I may assert without any reservation, that in no instance in these odonies ^ I 
ever hear the name of our gradous Queen spoken of or reodved without the most cordial demon- 
stnitions of homage and affection. 

CHAPTER XX. 

1850-51. In the Australian summer of 1850-51, tiie dianoes of the service threw in my way 
an agreeaUe opportunity of visiting Van Diem«i's Land, as well as Port Phillip — a provinoe of 
New South Wales on ithe point of bong erected into a odony under the titie df Yicttaia, 
Major-GeDeral Wynyard, commanding the forces in the Australasian colonies, having resolved on 
** tour of inspection to the former island, I had the honour to accompany him on that duty. 



MABIA ISLAND — MORTIFYEffG BECEPTION. 211 

The demits did not &voiir H.M.S. Hawmnah, wMdi frigate oonveyed us to oar destinatioc, 
for she commenced her voyage with a terri£c thunder-storm, in which the electric fluid fliiied 
most desperately with the conductor on the mainmast ; and during the rest of the voyage she 
had calms and adverse winds to contest with, so that no le^ than eleven days were expended in 
pafoiming the 600 miles between Sydney and Hobart Town. But if the southerly breeze 
resisted our progress, its fresh breath proved a charming relief to us, afler the heat of Sydney. 
A day or two before we left that (at this season) sudoriferous dty, the thermometer stood at 
97° and 98°, yet at sea we enjoyed the bracing effects of a temperature from 50° to 48° be- 
tween decks — enjoyed, I can hardly say, for to most of us this degree of cold seemed well-nigh 
inclement. On ihe 23rd December, harassed by oontinuied foul winds, Captain Erskine closed 
in with the land to seek an anchorage, and we soon found ourselves surrounded on the chart by 
names commemorative of the old French surveyors and disooverers. Leaving behind us Frey- 
dnet's Peninsula, and beating to and fro between the storm-lashed Isle des Phoques and Cape 
Bougainville on the mainland of Van Diemen's Land, we at length gained a snug berth off the 
settlement of Darlington on Maria Island, about a mile and a half from the shore, and half 
that distance from L'Isle du NmxL 

December 24^A. — The wind continuing both foul and fresh, HemannaJi remained at anchor 
during the morning ; and landing after break&st, we seized by the forelock this unlooked-for 
opportonity of visiting the island and its chief town. Singular enough I in one of the latest 
numba::s of the lUus^ated London News on board was found a short account of Maria Island, 
with a woodcut of the settlemait, which had become interesting as tlie prison of Mr. Smith 
O'Brioi. The island is about twenty miles long, and is separated from the mainland by a 
channel varying from four to eight miles in breadth. It is elevated and covered with wood. 
Maria Island derives its feminine appellation frt>m Miss Van Diemen, whose charms appear to 
liave so deeply imjxessed the heart of her compatriot the great navigator, Abel Tasman, that in 
his oceanic wanderings, not finding it convenient * to carve her name on every tree,' he recorded 
it still more immortally on different headlands and islands newly discovered, — ^inscribing it, in 
its full maiden length, on the northernmost blufi' of New Zealand, Cape Maria Yai^ Diemen. 
Whether he as^ted the £ur lady to change it eventually, I cannot depose. 

In 1825 this island was made a penal settlonent for convicts whose ciimes were not of an 
aggravated nature, — a purpose for which it is admirably adapted by its isolated position and its 
ready communication, by tdiegra;^ or otherwise, with Hobart Town. The establishment was 
brokien up in 1832, and the land was rented to settlei's ; but it was resumed when the Probation 
System was introduced, and has since again been vacated as a Government station. The soil is 
&rtile. About 400 acres have been cleaied round Darlington ; and the crops in both field and 
garden have been most plentiful. Many rivulets and lagoons of excellent wat» are to be found 
on the island,-' an advantage by no means generally conspicuous in Van Diemai's Land. There 
is plmty of fish, eels and oyst^, quail and wild fowl, as well as wallabi, — a small kind of kan- 
garoo. The climate is about the finest in the world, — a &ct admitted by Smith O'Brien him- 
self, who, among all his Jeremiads from Maria Island, could not resist doing justice to the pic- 
turesque beauty and the salubrity of his place of exile. 

Aware that Darlington had been a Probation Station containing some four hundred prisoners, 
and unapprised of its abandonment ; and, moreover, giving our ship and ourselves credit ixx 
being a sight w(Hih seeing and seldom seen by the supposed inhabitants, good and bad, bond and 
free ; we were not a little surprised — perhaps the captain was a little nettled — at perceiving in 
the settlement no commotion arising from the advent of H.M.S. Havannah. The tall flag-staff 
was buntingless, the windmill sailless, the pretty cottages and gardens seemed tenantless, * not a 
drum was heard ' in the military barracks, and the huge convict buildings seemed to be minus 
convicts. At length, through a telescope, was observed one canary-coloured biped, in the grey 
and yellow livery o£ the doubly and trebly-convicted felon. There had perhaps been an outbreak 
of f^e prisoners, for the military force in Tasmania had lately been reduced to the very lowest 
possible amount I The ma^trates, superintendents, overseers, officera, and soldiers had all been 
massacred ; and the revolted convicts having afterwards fought about the spoil , — there stood the 
sole survivor ! Our suspense did not last long, for presently a whale-boat came slowly off, and 
there a{^)eared on the quarter^ieck a hawk-eyed and nosed personage, about six feet and a-half 
high, who seemed as if he had long lived in indifferent society, for his eyes had a habit of sweep- 
ing around his person, aside and bdiind, as though he was in momentary expectation of assault. 
This was an overseer left in charge of the abandoned station, with a few prisoners to assist him. 
He ]^ved an oUiging and intelligent cicerone, showing our pacty over the different buildings of 

p 2 



212 Oim ANTIPODES. 

the establlshmenty and guiding us in a deUgbtful walk over part of the islands The position of 
Darlington is truly charming — airy, yet sheltered, wil^ a splendid view of the open ocean, of 
the sti-aits, and of the fine blue hills and wooded bluffs of the mainland. A dear stream 
of fresh water meanders among the houses, and loses itself in a snug little boat harbour. 

Pity that, as in Norfolk Island, a paradise should have been converted into a pandemonium ; 
and yet again it seems a pity that so extensive and expensive an establishment — hospital, stores, 
chapel, s<^ool, military and convict barracks, houses of the magistrate, surgeon, superintendent, 
&c. — should be aband<Hied to ruin. It would be more satisfactory to see them all swept out of 
sight— obliterated from the soil — and this lovely isle allotted to a population worthy of its nu- 
merous advantages. There was one feature of this defunct convict station that I viewed with 
disgust — a single dormitory for four hundred men ! The bed places were built of wood in three 
tiers, tke upper cribs being reached by two or three brackets &stened to the stanchions. Each 
pigeon-hole is six feet and a half long, by two feet in width, and separated from its neighboure 
by double open battens. The prisoner lies with his feet to the wall and his hea4 towards the 
centre of ihe apaitment — like a bottle in its bin. Tliis nocturnal aggregation of brutalised males 
is a feature of penal discipline that I was astonished to fmd had been so lately in operation. 

The accommodations allotted to Mr. William Smith O'Biien, the state prisoner, were of course 
pointed out to us. They consisted of two small rooms, with a little garden in the rear, wherein 
he might take his exercise. Few field-officers of the army obtain better quarters, and many 
worse. He was waited upon by a constable, who cooked his convict ration of beef, bread, and 
potatoes, and, I suppose, made his * post and rail ' tea sweetened with brown sugar. The 
prisoner was as poor a philosopher as a patriot ; he had not courage to reap what he had sown ; 
he refused, as is well known, to accept the ticket of leave offered him by Government ; and yet 
winced under the consequent and necessary hardships incurred by this refusal. A medical gen- 
tleman, whose duty it is to visit peiiodi(»lly all the convict stations, related to me a curious 
interview he had ¥nth this political delinquent. On announcing his desire to see "Mr. O'Brien, 
he was politely received by that person, and conversed for some time with him. The prisoner 
complained of his rations, of the coarse tea and sugar, said his health suffeied fiom the bad food, 
and from confinement to the small strip of garden. The doctor, who is not a man readily put 
off his guard, admitted that it was not impossible that the long continuance of an existence of 
privation and humiliation might indeed afiect injuriously both mind and body ; and added that 
he should be happy to do anything in his powa* to alleviate his sufferings. O'Brien was glad to 
hear such sentiments fix)m his visitor, and expressed a hope that he would apply to the Governor 
to sanction some relaxation of discipline. The doctor, pointing to two prisoners in the yard, 
said — * If the heallli of those men was, in my opinion, injiu«d by thdr imprisonment and 
punishment, I should represent their cases, because they cannot help themselves. You, Sir, on 
the contrary, have your health and comfort in your own hands ; — one word, and you may live 
as you please on this island.' The prisoner replied that he must be consistent, that the eyes of 
the world were upon him, that the acceptation of his ticket-of-leave would amount to an ad- 
mission of the justice of his sentence. ' But you speak. Sir,' added he, * as if I had committed 
a crime I What crime have I committed ?' * A monstrous one,' replied the good Medico — 
* you have broken the laws of your country, and stirred up your ignorant fellow-countrymen 
to break them also.' He moreover assured the prisoner that Europe was in no disquiet as to 
his fate. The latter, however, remained obdurate on the subject of his ticket — preiferring to 
retain his grievance with the accompanying possibility of escape. The miserable attempt whldh 
he shortly afterwards made will not add to his chai'acter for ingenuity or fortitude. A cutter 
appealing in the bay. Smith O'Brien, duly warned of its approadi, contrived to procure a small 
boat, and was in the act of pushing off, when a single constable came up and stove the boat with 
a blow of an axe, while a whale-boat pulled away and captured the cutter. 

The * Inspector-General of the Confederated Clubs of Munster,' and the descendant of Brian 
Boru, behaved on this occasion like a petulant child ; and having thrown himself down on the 
ground, suffered himself to be carried back to his cell by three or four men. The fact of a 
ticketpof-leave having been acooided to this troublesome gentleman not long afler this effort at 
evasion, is proof enough of clemency on the pait of Government; yet while he was enjoying 
himself in almost perfect liberty—^ liberty as perfect as that within the reach of any profes- 
sional man, whose duties bind him to one district— a letter, addressed to * My dear Potter,' was 
running the round of the English papers, wherein he descants on ' the inhumaiyty of the 
Governor of the colony,' and on * the inhuman regulations of the Controller-General of Convicts,' 
' — concluding by the doleful prophecy, ' I see no definite termination of the calamities of my lot. 



CHRISTMAS TIDE IN FAB LANDS. 213 

exoespt that which 70a and other friends took so much pains to avert — ^the ddiverance which will 
be etfected by death/* 

It was i^ly melancholy to see the beautiful gardens around the houses of the departed 
officers of the penal station, wasting their sweetness on the desert air, and reverting to the 
original wilderness. On this day, however, the luxuriant flowers did not bloom in vain ; for the 
sailors pillaging the gardens of the deserted \nllas, carried off to the ship whole armfulls of their 
produce to decorate tiie tables for their Christmas dinner on the morrow. And indeed never, I 
suppose, did the 'tween-dedcs of a man-of-war resemble half so much—' 

* A bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream/ 

as did, on this festive occasion, that of H.M.S. Ifavannah, off a ruined convict station on a wild 
island of Tasmania. 

Having passed a very pleasant and a very beautiful day on Maria Island, we repaired on board 
at six P.M., up anchored, sailed, dined, and slept, rocked by old Neptune, our marine cradle 
making bows to every point of the compass as she rode on the swell left by the departed southern 
gale, during a breathless night. 

Christmas Day, — Our hopes of participating at Hobart Town in the joyful rites of the day 
were frustrated ; for the light north-east airs that arose in the forenoon, carried us no further 
than Gape Pillar and Tasman Island — ^the former the extreme salient angle, the latter the utter- 
most outwork of Van Diemen's Land towards the boundless ocean of the south. I have passed 
this great festival of the Christian world in many diverse scenes and under diverse circumstances ; 
amid the old-fashioned hospitality and the ice and snow of oid South Wales ; in the Antipodal 
sultriness of New South Wales ; I have joined in the service of the day on the brink of the Falls 
of Niagara — ^the drum-head being the reading-desk, in the centre of a square of infantry — the 
thunder of the great cataract hymning in sublime diapason the omnipotence of God. I have 
eaten my Christmas dinner at tlie presbytere of a French Roman Catibolic establishmoit — not 
the less jovially because the mess was composed of a grand vicaire and a score of pretres and 
freres ; I have passed the evening of this annivei-sary with a knot of Mussulman chiefs, gravely 
smoking our hookahs and sipping sherbet, while a group of Nautch girls danced and sang before 
OS ; have stood with unooverod head at the foot of one of New Zealand's volcanos — ^the fern our 
csTpetfthe sky our canopy — ^listening with a congr^ation of baptized Maoris to a tattooed teacher 
ejcpounding, in tiieir own tongue, the law of Christ on the anniversary of His birth. How 
seldom since boyhood have I celebrated it in the happy drcle of my own quiet home ! It was 
certainly never pre-revealed to me that I should spend one of the few Christmas days accorded 
to man, at sea, off the southermost point of Van Diemen's Land ! 

The crew of the frigate, as I have said, decorated their feast of roast beef and plum-pudding 
OQ this occasion with the. ravished sweets of Maria Island. It was a singular and pleasant 
sight, passing down the various messes, to see the hungry, happy, and hearty faces grinning 
through the steam of their holiday viands, and through garlands of gay-coloured flowers and 
shrubs, lighted up with wax candles. The captain's table was not without its epergne, the 
ladies without bouquets (for Mrs. and Miss Wynyard were of the party), nor the gentloneu 
without a flower at their button-holes on this South Sea Christmas evening. 

Cape Pillar and Tasman Island, close to which we passed, have a singular appearance, their 
southern extremities terminating in abrupt basaltic walls, whose tall upright columns bear a 
resemblance to the pipes of a huge cathedial organ. 

December 26M. — ^At early dawn we were rounding Cape Raoul, a twin of Cape Pillar; and 
the sea breeze setting in, soon carried us up the river Derwent, or rather the munificent arm of 
the sea and harbour into which that stream empties itself, and on the extreme north-western 
earner of which stands the city of Hobart Town. 

With studding-sails set alow and alofl the Havannah — like a swan swimming before the wind 
— glided past the Iron Pot lighthouse and between high and wooded shores, the splendid harbour 
gradually naiTOwing from seven or eight miles to one or two, until, at about eighteen miles from 
hie Heads, she rounded a bluff promontory on the poi-t side, and in an instant dashed into the 
midst of a little fleet of merchant vessels, in the snug inlet called vSulliven's Cove. The chun 
cable rattled out of the hawsehole in a volume of rusty dust, and the old ship swinging to her 
anchor brought up with her cabin windows looking, at no great distance, into those of Govern- 
ment>house. There was but one momentary interruption to her stately approach as observed 
from the shore ; her feathera fluttered for an instant and wei'e almost as quickly smoothed again. 

* It will be recollected that the original sentence was ' Death/ 



214 OUB ANTIPODES. 

In reUeviDg the man at the lead line, one of them fell overhonxl ; Ihe ship was thrown up into 
the wind so as to check her speed almost before the splash was heard ; the young fellow hdd ea 
to tise line and was dragged for some distaooe mider water ; bat he was soon noosed by his ready 
messonates, and sphittering oat * all right,' was jerked on to the quarterMledc like a two-poani 
trout, none the woroe for his duekiog. * Did you think <^ the sharks, Bo V asked a joker, as he 
^elp^ him down the hatdiway to be ' oveahauled ' by the doctor. *■ Hadn't time,' gasped the oth^ . 

The harbour of fiobart Town is as commodious end safe as it is picturesque. The w^-wom 
expression that all the navies in the world might ride in it, would not be eztcavagantly applied 
to it. I am loth to yield my predilection for Sydney harbour, wliichis quite imique in my eyes ; 
but nautical men seem, I think, to prefer the Derwent. There is more space for beating, and 
no shoal like the ' Sow and Pigs ' lying across its jaws. The land in whidi tiie port is filmed 
is three times higher than that of Port Jackson, the soil better, the timber finer, and the grand 
back-ground to the town afforded by Mount Wellington-— cloud-capped in summer, 6now<-ca{q9ed 
in winter — gives the palm of picturesque beauty, beycmd dispute, to Hobart Town and its hu'boiir 
over its sister port and dty. The land-tints disappointed me entirely — nothing but browns and 
yellows — ^no verdure — everything burnt up, except where an oocasicnial patdi of unripe grain 
lay like a green kerchief spread to dry on the soordied dopes. The watei* £-0Dtage of the dty 
does not alford a tenth port of the deep wato* wharfage possessed by Sydney. The site of ti» 
town is healtiiy, well adapted for drainage, perhaps somewhat too near the stonn4n?ewing gullies 
of t^ moiantain, from whence occasional gusts sweep down tlie streets with a suddenness sod 
severity very trying io phthisical subjects. 

The population may be about 20,000, convicts induded, or considerably more than one-foraih 
of the whole popalalson of the colony. The streets are wide and well laki out, nearly as dusty, 
and tiie footpaths as ill paved as those of Sydney, which latter defect, with so much convict 
power at hand, is disgraceful enough. Some of the suburbs are v«7 pretty, the style of ardii-* 
tectnre of the villas, their shady seclusion, and the trinmess of thdr approaches and pleasure- 
grotmds &r surpassmg those of the New South Wales capital. But more pleasing to my eyes, 
because more tmoommon than the ordinary domidliary oiugnees and smugness of the vUlsris of 
the richer £ngliah, is a laige outskn-t of the town consisting of some hundreds of cottages for the 
humbler dasses, pleasantly situated on the slope of a hill, all or nearly all being sepserate dwell- 
higs, with a patt^ of neat garden attached, and with rose and vine-dad porches, rooainding one 
of the South of England cotters' homes. 

The extraordinary luxuriance of the common red geranium at this season makes every ^pot 
look gay ; at the distance of miles the si^t is attracted and dazzled by the ^vide patches of 
scarlet dotted over the landscape. The hedges of sweet-brier, both in the town^aixieDs and 
oountry-endosures, covered with its delicate rose, absolutely monopolise the air as a vehide for 
its peculiar perftime: the closely-dipped mint-borders supplying the place of box, som^mes, 
however, overpower the sweet-brier, and every other floral soent. English flowers dnd fitdta 
appear to ben^t by transportation to Van Diemen's Land ; and well-remembered shrubs and 
pluits, to whidi the heat of Australia is &tal, tinive in the utmost luxurianoe under this more 
soutiiem climate. For five years I had lost sight of a rough but respected old friend — the holly, 
or at most I had contemplated with chastened affecticm one wretched little spedmen in the Sydney 
Botanic Garden — ^labelled for tiie enlightenment of the Oonistalks. But in a Hobart Town 
garden I suddoily found mysdf in the presrace of a fuU^own holly, twenty feet high and 
spangled with red berries, into whose embrace I incontinently rushed; to the astonishment of a 
large party of the Brave and the Fair, as well as to that <^ my most prominent feature ! The 
fiidisia, l^e old original Fachsvi qraciiia, attains here an extraordinary growih. Edgi^ the 
beds of a fme garden near where I lived, there were hundreds of yards of fucbna m bloom ; and 
in the middle of the town I saw one day a young just-married military couple, smiling, in all 
the plenitiide of honey-lunacy, through a cottage-window wholly surrouzided by this pretty plant, 
which not only covered 1^ entire fixmt of the modest residence, but reached above its eaves. 
And this inddoit forces on my mind a grievous consideration, however out of place here, namdy, 
liie virulent matrimonial epidemic raging latdy among the junior branches of the army in this 
Qolony. ' Dma pascit corvos/ the motto of a &mily of my acquaintance, conveys a sootlung 
aasaranoe to those determined on a rash but pleasant step ; but who will feed half-a-dozen raven* 
008 brats is a question that only oocors when too late ! At this moment the regimental mess at 
Hobart Town is a desert peopled by oat or two resolute old badielors and younger ones deror 
at slipping oat of nooses, or possessing that desultory devotion to the sex which is necessary to 
keep the soldier single and efiident. Pundi's laomic advice * to parties about to mairy '— 



I 



GABDEKS AND VILLAS--O0NVI0TS, THEIR LABOUB. 215 

*■ Dont ' — ought to be inserted in tiie standing ordera and mew roles of every rtgiment in H.M/s 
senrioe. 

Here, too, to get bat^ to mj botany, I renewed my aoquaintanoe with the wniimt and the 
filbert, just now ripe, the Spanish and horse diestnut, the lime-tree with its bee-beloved blossom, 
and the dear eld hawthorn of my native land. As for cherry and af^e trees, and the varioas 
domesticated berry-bushes of the English garden, my regard for them was expressed in a less 
sentimental manner. 

From Ihe grounds of tiie hospitable fiiend who made his house my home during the fi>rtmght 
I stayed at Hobart Town, the landscape was ertremdy beautiful and mudi more European than 
Australian in its dbaiacter. Looking ov«r villas and gardens and wooded undulations, with 
glimpses of the town through vistas of high trees, down upon the bright wat«« of the wide and 
hill-encirded harbour, I readied to mind various kindred prospects in older countries, — none- 
mom like than a certain peep from a campoffne near Lausanne over the village of Ouchi upon 
the broad expanse of clear, placid Leman.' Behind ihe house, Mount WdLlin^cm, step by step,, 
rises to the faei^t of ioxxr thousand feet and upwards, throwing its grand shadow, as the son 
declines, right across the dty and harbour. Bristling with fine trees and brushwood, this range^ 
whidi can never be cultivated, will always supply the town with fiiel and timber for building. 

If no other puUic act of tiiie present Governor may gain him immortality — ^which I am fur 
fimn supposing — ih% plan and estaUishment of an ice-house near the summit of the mountaia 
will serve that pm-pose. It is the only one at the Antipodes. During the winter the * diadem, 
of snow ' which crowns the top is pilfered to a trifling d^ree, and the material well jammed 
i&to the ioe-honse. In the hot weather a daily supply is brought into tovni on a pack-horse — 
(it ought to be done by a self-acting tram-way) — early in the moruing, and its sale and maac* 
BKture is pamitted by general consoit to be monopolised by the diief c(ufeoti«ier of the place, 
who sells it in the rough or in the smooth, reasonably enough, to those who can afford ice- 
creams, hard butter, and cool champagne. This now respectable tradesman and dtizen, <mae a 
prisoner (^ the Crown, enjoys, mm^eover, another importont and lucrative monopoly. He is 
the cook as well as pastrycook of the Hobarton aristocracy — 'the only cook in the place. I sat 
at not a few ' good men's feasts ' during my short stay here, and am not wrong, I think, in 
say^ that from the Oovemmentrhouse table downwards, all were covered with productions of 
tlie same ariisie. I recognised everywhere the soups, the pat^s ; I ventured upmi this entremMj 
avoided that, with the certainty of prior knowledge ; and plunged without the shade of a doubt 
into the recesses of a certain ubiquitous vol-rnhvent, p^ectly satisfied that a vien of truffles 
would be found, which had not crossed 16,000 miles of ocean to be left uneaten, although their 
merits seemed to be unknown to some. The cook, it is needless to say, is making, if he has 
not already made, a cmsiderable fortune. 

It were well if those professi<mB which administer merely to the body had alone &llen into 
the hands of parsons bearing upon them the convict taint ; — ^the reverse is, however, the case. 
What would an English mother think of admitting to her drawing-room or school-room, and 
entrusting the education of her daughter in music, dioicing, or paintii^, to men who are or have 
been felons ? Yet at present this is almost a necessity in Van Diemen's Land. Few or no 
accomplished fi'eemen are likely to come to a pmal oc^ny in the hope of making a livelihood by 
.imparting the TOiore «l^ant branches of education. They aie wrong, however, for if their 
expectations wene moderate, euch men might realise handsome incomes. A lady told me that 
^e had been oompelled to employ, for the purpose of teadung, or taking the portrait of her 
daughter— -I ferget windi — a person convicted of manslaughter, and suspected of murder by 
poisoning. One of her sons usually remained in the room when this agreeable guest was present ; 
but on a certain occasi<ni when the ladies happened to be alone with him, the mother was alarmed 
by seeing him rise and approach the window where she sat, with an open knife in his hand. She 
started fi-om her diair wHh eudi visible affright, that, making her a polite bow and with a grim 
smile, he b^ged to assure her that * he merely wanted to cut his p^idl— «.ot her throat V 

I had the honour of being a fellow-traveller aad dinhig several tim^ at a public table with a 
transported professor of one of those lighter sdenoes usually inflicted upon young ladies, whether 
or not they have any natural talent for them. What was the immediate cause of his exile fi-om 
home my neighbour and infixmant could not tdl me, * but I bdieve it was the gentleman's 
Grime — ^forgery,' said he. Be it as it may, this * gentleman ' was in excelleBt and full practice, 
although in this hemisphere, it was said, he had repaid the inclulgenoe of the Goyemment and 
the confidence of one of his most respectable patrons, as well as one of the kindest friends the 
convict dass ever possessed, by debauching the child entrusted to his tuition. 



216 OUB ANTIP0I»:6. 

In the streets of Hobart Town the stranger sees less of the penal features of the place than 
might be expected. Possibly every other person he meets on the whanres and thorough&res 
may have been transported ; for the population of the island has been thus oentesimally divided i 
— ^free immigrants and bom in the colony, 46 per cent. ; bond and emerged into freedom, 
51 per cent. ; military, Aborigines, &c., 3 per cent. But there is of course no outward distinc- 
tion of the classes except in the prisoners under probation, who are clothed in the d^raded grey, 
or grey and yellow, according to their crimes and character. And these men, being dther con* 
fined within walls, or in distant stockades, or being marched early in the morning to their place 
of work and back again at sunset, &11 but little under the observation of the public Now and 
then may be seen, indeed, the painful spectacle of a band of silent, soured, and scowling ruffians 
— some harnessed to, others pushing at, and another driving a hand cart, with clanking diains, 
toiling and sweating in their thick and dusty woollens along tlie streets— each marked with his 
number and the name of his station in large letters on his back and on his cap. Here a gang 
may be seen labouring with shovel and pick on the roadside, or sitting apart breaking up the 
metal ; but there is no earnestness or cheerfulness in tiiis compulsory labour ; and accordingly, 
however active and ruthless these fellows may have shown tiiemselves in the commission of 
violence against their fellow-men, they are most merdiul to the macadam, only throwing a little 
temporary energy into their action when the appearance of a carriage or a horseman suggests the 
possible advent of [some person whose duty or pleasure it may be to keep them up to their 
work. As for the convict sub-overseer, who, one of themselves, is appointed without pay to 
coerce the rest — ^no very active control can be expected fix)m him. 

To the colony the amount of solid benefit performed by these slow, but sure and costless 
opotitives, on the roads, bridges, and other public works, must have been, and still be, im- 
mense ; even where, as is sometimes the case, the settlers of a district have to provide tools and 
subsistence for the gangs employed in the improvement of their locality. It is only this 
powerful application of penal slave-labour, and tiie vast Government expencQture accompanying 
it, that have given to New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land a rapidity of prepress and a 
precocity in importance that leave the march of other colonies comparatively very &r behind. 
But to the Mo^er Country the cost of creating nations by the thews and sinews of her expelled, 
but by ha* still maintain^, criminals, must be enormous. The result of their labour com- 
pared with the outlay would be pitiful indeed, but for the concurrent advantages — namely, the 
annual riddance of a huge po'-centage of n^es from her shores and from their old haunts, thdr 
punishment and possible reformation, and the creation of new dependencies of the Crown, and, 
therein, new markets for England's exports. The clearing of an acre of land by a chain gang) 
under bad surveillance, may cost, and indeed has often cost the Home Government ten times as 
much as would have been paid to free labourers on the spot ; but the privily of shooting so 
much moral rubbish upon other and distant premises is cheaply bought at such a rate. It is 
cheapo* at any rate than a revolution ; and it is but an old newspaper story that the £i^ con- 
victs of Paris bore no unimportant part in former as well as the late overthrow of the Govern- 
ment of France. Van Diemen's Land, however, like New South Wales, (if one may judge fit>m 
the exertions made by a tolerably influential section of the inhabitants,) is striving to shake off 
the system, which, incubus though it be, warmed her into life. 

Looking at the question from the station of a spectator, I must say it seems to me rather an 
unxeasonable expectation on the part of those truant Englishmen who,' well knowing the penal 
structure of Van Diemen's Land, voluntarily settled there, that at the mere signification of ih&r 
pleasure the Imperial Government should be compelled to raze in a moment the great insular 
penitentiary erected at such prodigious cost, and to hand over its site to the adventurers whose 
tastes and consciences have so suddenly become squeamish about convict-contact. Their grand- 
sons or great-grandsons might, perhaps, prefer the petition without incurring a chaige of pre- 
sumption ; but the present incumbents have no such claim — unless, indeed, they have received 
an imperial pledge to that effect. Like the * Needy Knife-grinder,' however, 

' I do not want to meddle 
With poUUcs. Sir/ 

the colonists know their own business best, and it is none of mine : but it appears to me that 
their aspirations are somewhat premature. The ground-floor of their social edifloe has been built 
of mud ; let it at least have time to harden before they attempt to superimpose a structure of 
marble I 

December 29JA. — It is curious to find oneself in a country with a capital containing 20,000 
inhabitants, a harbour full of shipping, and teeming with evidences of wealth and comfort, and 



EABLY SETTLEMENT. 217 

jet lYithoat a history ; that is, without a maaual, a hand-book, or indeed any publication suited 
to the reference of a travelling stranger. Mr. Munay must make a long arm and supply this 
deficiency. In vain I perambulated the libraries and stationers — in vain searched the book- 
shelves of the few residents I was acquainted with. It was with some difficulty that I obtained 
even the loan of an old almanack — Ross's almanack — eleven years old. One day, indeed, I 
espied in the window of a shop the title, * History of Tasmania, on the back of what appeared 
to be a well got>up two-volume octavo work ; — it was only the husk, however, the empty cover, 
no more, of a work that had not yet eeea. the light. Subsequently I encountered the author in 
a steam-boat, and was by him ^kindly pennitted to look over one of his well-written and dili- 
gently-collated volumes. 

Bdbre pressing my reader to accompany me further into the island, I will, if he pleases, make 
him a partner in sudi information as I could glean regarding earlier events in the Ustory of the 
oolony ; whereof, however, I do not propose troubling him with more than a meagre summary. 

It appears that in 1803, fifteen years after the first settiement of New South Wales, to which 
place some 6,000 or 7,000 persons had been transported, and whidi had suffered under the 
horrors of &mine, insurrection, and other troubles, it was fbimd desirable to relieve Sydney of a 
portion of the pressure, and to disperse the more turbulent of the prisoners. Van Diemen's 
Land, firom its salubrious climate, insulated position, and its paucity of natives, being considered 
highly eligible for the erection of a penal establishment, an officer of the navy with a body of 
troops and ocmvicts was dispatched there to that intent, and in August of that year landed and 
camped his party on the eastern bank of the river Derwent, at a spot called by him Kest-down, 
since abbreviated to Risdon, where there is now a ferry across the stream. 

Early in 1804, an expedition, which had left England in 1802 for the purpose of forming a 
penal settiement at Port Phillip on the southern coast of New Holland, not finding water there, 
removed to this island, and felicitously enough fixed upon Sulliven's Cove for their location ; 
where the first Lieut.-Govemor of Van Diemen's Land, Colonel Collins, landed with a few 
ofiSoers, civil and military, non-commi§sioned officers and privates of the royal marines, and 367 
male prisoners ; and where a settlement was founded and called Hobart Town, after the then 
Secretary for the colonies. In the same year the river Tamar, which, on the northern coast of 
the island dischaxges itself into Bass's Straits, was smTeyed, and a small party of the 102nd 
regiment firom Sydney, imder Colonel Patto-son, formed a convict station near its mouth. 
Launceston, situated about forty miles inland on the Tamar, is the next large town to the 
capital, containing at present about 7,000 inhabitants. Thus Van Diemen's L^d is a child of 
Botany Bay, bom when the latter was still in her teens. The babe of grace contmued to thrive, 
although very nearly starved to death in its earlier days while still at nurse under the elder 
colony — kangaroo flesh being then greedily bought up at Is. 6d. per pound, and searweed 
(laver, I suppose) become a fashionable vegetable for want of better food. After about three 
years, however, cattie and sheep were introduced into the island in considerable numbers, and 
were found to flourish exceedingly wherever the most moderate degree of care was bestowed 
upon tiiem. 

The ports being closed i^nst any but king's ships, the oolony received but few recruits 
except by successive drafts of doubly-distilled rogues from New South Wales. After a few 
years, however, the interdict against commerce was removed ; many military officers serving 
there settied down on grants of land ; a considerable band of emigrants was brought by the 
Goyemment from Noifolk Island, when that place was selected for a penal settiement ; fineed 
prisoners increased and multiplied, and spread themsdves over the interior ; but no direct emi- 
gration firom the British isles occurred before 1821, when a census being taken, the white popu- 
lation was found to amount to 7,000 souls. 

In 1824 a supreme court of judicature was established fiom Home— judges having hitherto 
been sent £tom Sydney to hold occasional sessions at Hobart Town. In the same year, having 
attained her majority, she petitioned for release from the filial ties connecting her with Sydney ; 
'and in 1825 she was by imperial fiat elected into an independent oolony. The progress of tbe 
island has been surprisingly rapid ; although, like New South Wales, its prosperity as a colony 
has been chequered by occasional reverses, referable perhaps to similar causes — namely, ex- 
cessive speculation, rash trading on fictitious capital, extravagance in living, (the common 
frdling o£ parvenus to wealth,) bad seasons, and, in its early days, fearful depredations by white 
bushrangers and the Aborigines. Money must have been plentiful in 1835, when a piece of 
land at Hobart Town sold for 3,600/. per acre I 

The blacks, never considerable in numbers, and ferocious in their conduct more on accoimt of 



218 OUR AKTDPODES. 

outrages reodved by them from tbe bratal convict popuiatioD, than by DBtore, were gradually 
got rid of — chiefly ao doubt by indiscrimiiiate slaughter in fights about their women with 
bushrangers and e&ers, and by tbe deterBuned steps tak«i by ^ iocai government for their 
cafjture and compulsory location in some secluded spot, where then* small remnant might be 
prevented £rom collision with the Christian nsuipers of their country. At one time a sort of 
battite on a grand scale was undertaken by the Lieut.-Govemor, Bot for tiie destmcta<Hi and ez« 
tirpation of die unfeathered blat^-game, as has been sometimes mijcMtly supposed — but for the 
purpose of driving them into a corner of the island and so making prisoners of them. Nol only 
red-coats and police, but gentry and commonalty, enrolled militia-wise, were brought into the 
field on tiiis occasion. A grand movable cordon was formed or attempted to be 'ftmned across 
the whole ln%adth of the laiKl, and was designed to sweep the native tribes befere it into the 
' ooigne of vantage ' prescribed by tibe inventor of the plot. It was filling fen* minnows with 
salmon nets ; for the cumiing bladceys soon slipped through the meshes, and intense confusion 
and perhaps some little firight arose when it was discovered that the intmded quary had got 
into the rear otihe line of beaters, and was making fi«e with the supplies ! This grand ex- 
trusion plan &iled, then; — but 30 or 40,000^. of public m<mey was disseminated throi^ the 
provinces, and a good many civic Major Sturgeons got a smattering of ' mardiing and counter- 
marching ' that they will never £>rget, and that may be of service in the next Tannanian war. 
The poor Aborigines were not ti)e less, in course of time, all killed, drivm away, or seemed. 
Those who ftU into the hands of GovenmMnt were humanely treated, Ifed, dothed, provided 
with medical aid, and located in a sequestered spot where they might sit down and await-^and 
where they are now comfortably and most of them corpulently awaiting, thdr certain destiny — 
eidiaction. The present native settlement is at Oyster Cove in D'Entreoastreaux'e ChanneT. In 
1835, t^ numbo^ were 210. In 1342, but 54. In 1848, according to statistics paUisfaed by 
the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land, the numerical strNigth of the natives had &llen to 
thirty-eight — ^viz. twelve mnried couples, and ihree males and eleven ftnaaks unmarried. 
Thanks to idleness and full rations, many of them, untike the wild yacks, have grown im- 
mensdy fat — although not &ir, nor, as I have just shown, quite fartj ! Among the black 
ravagers of the rural settlers the most ferocious was a native of Australia sumamed Mosquito, 
who had been driven fix)m New South Wales on account of some outrages oommitted thoe. In 
due time, however, he was caught and hanged. 

Bush-ranging commenoed.in 1813, but was suppressed pretty vigorously. In 1824 this 
practice had again attained a fearful height. The insecurity of life and property, the murdof^ 
bomings of houses, stacks and crops, the robbery and destmotion of live-stock, must have 
seriously impeded the advance of the colony. Tlie military officers and men took an active part 
in hunting down the most desperate ringleaders, and some of them became &gnous as gallant and 
successful thief-takers. Martial law made short work with those who were captured. 

Every country has its great man — ^hero, poet, or philo8o|Aer. Van Diemen's Land has, ap- 
pri^priately enough, its great bush-ranger and desperado to bowt of. Mii^ael Howe, without 
dispute, and without disparagf'ment to other public characters who, on more reputable gronads 
may deserve a memoir, is the historical great man of this island. His faiegraphy, as drawn up 
by Mr. Syme, is ill calculated fer insertion here, for it extends over six eventful years of a Ufe 
only too long, and twenty-four pages of letterpress. 

With a well-armed and desperate gang at his bade, he became the tenw of the counliy. 
Ftodamatiens, offers of pardon and passE^es to England, rewards of money, strenuous nerliene 
by the troops, the police and the loyal ixdiabitants, treachery among tbemaelves, t^e buBet and 
the gibbet, and the lapse of time, however, gradually thinned ' the ranks of his villanous i«- 
tainers, and Michael Howe was at length left without a comrade. His existence became now 
like that of a wild beast. Scditary and savage, dothed in kangaroo skins, and ovei^iown with 
hair like another Orson, he obtained ^>od and ammunition, his only requirements, by robbing 
distant shepherds' huts. In spite of the high rewards few relished the idea of riskhig an en- 
counter, either single or double4ianded, with sudi an antagonist. Finally, lured by a promise 
of supplies, (for he was half starved,) he was tempted to a spot where a transported mutineer of 
the Nore, and a soldier, selected for his strength and courage, lay in ambush fw him. A fnrioos, 
though unequal combat, with dubbed muskets, took place — ^the [neoes having been fired without 
^fect--^«nd his skull having been beaten in by Ins two powerful assailants, this famous brigand 
'^1 and expired without a word or a gi'oen:' — ^and with Michael Howe Ml the practice of 
bushranging itself in Van Diemen's Land. 

In 1840, when transportation to New South Wales was discontinued, Van Icemen's Land, 



CENSUS — FBTCES OF PROVISIONS. 219 

with its dastant satellite, Norfolk Island, become the only plaoe in these seas to which British 
&lotis might be ranoved tmder seoteoce. The beauty of the donate — ^perhaps the finest in Hm 
world, — ^ adaptati(m of the oonntiy to sheep and cattle ftrming, its &ir share of arable hmd, 
its fiivoorable position for trading witii the neighbouring colonies of Sooth Austi-alia, Victoria, 
New South Wales, and even New Zealand, together with the advantages accruing from convict 
labour, have gradually drawn a considerable population of free persons to Tasmania. 

In 1822, as I have shown, the c(»sus gave a population of 7,000 souls. In 1842, it had 
Increased to 59,000 ; and on the 31st of December, 1847, it had reached a total of 70,164. 
The inoB«ue has been, and will be, comparatively slower tfaui in other coimtries, until the great 
dispropoitioQ of the sexes has been remedied ; but this can hardly take jdaoe, at least as &r as 
the prisoner dass is concerned, unless &ir delinquents intrude upon the province of the rougher 
sex, and take out diplomas in highway robbery, housebreaking, and other hilherto masculine 
brandies of crime, as certain American ladies, I unflerstand, have done in those of professional 
sdence. In the census of 1847, of the aggregate population (70,164,) 47,828, or 68 per cent, 
wiere males ; 22,386, or 32 per cent, females. Amoi^st the Free immigrants and the Native- 
bom the sexes are pretty equal. Of those who have become free by servitude, the males exceed 
tiw females in the ratio o£ three to one. Among the actual convict-dass the ^parity is very 
gveat ; ' for of the tiGket-<tf-leave holders the males are five to one ; of the priscmers in Govan- 
ment employ eight to <Hie ; and of pass-holders in service also dght to one. In other words, 
the males are 29| per cent, and the femaks only five per cent. ; making a diiference between 
the sons of 24^ per cent, in this dass of the population.'* * On the 31st December, 1848, the 
oonvict popolataon was 25,459, of whom 40 per cent, held ti<^tB-of-leave, 48 per cent, were 
pass-holders, and 12 per cent, were under probation or sentence.' Thus 88 per cent, were afloat 
in comparative freedom among the unconvicted people. The proportion of deaths among the 
prisoner-dass was in this year less than one per cent. 

The total imports of ^he i^and iu 1848 exceeded the exports by 17^ per cent.; bnt^ as the 
' Observations ' from which these extracts are culled point out, — * iookmg at the disparity in 
value between the total imports and exports of the year, no apprdioision need be entertained of 
any monetary derangement occurring, so long as so efiectual a counterpoise is afforded by British 
expenditure. The disbursements in 1848 for Commissariat, Convict, Militwy, sad Ordnanoe 
soirioes in the colony, amounted to nearly a quarter of a million sterlii^. 

In 1822 there wei« only 350 horses in the colony, 33,000 homed cattle, and 170,000 sheep. 
In 1848, there were 17,169 horses, 85,485 homed cattle, and 1,752,000 sheep. The c(Hmm»- 
saxiat contract prices in that year were, wheat 4s. 2d. per bushd of 60 lbs. ; flour, 10/. 8s. 8</. 
per ton; fresh meat, 2|(f. per lb. ; vegetables, 5s. 7c/. per 100 lbs. 

Taanania is a more musical alias adopted by the ishoid. It has been given in titular distinc- 
tion to the first bishop, my exodlent and accomplished fiiend Dr. IMxon, and will therefinre 
doubtless be its exdusive designatioa when it shall have become a free nation. 

December SQth. — Bode this day to Mount Nelson, a signal-station some five miles down the 
harbour. The tract of hill and dale it passes through is wild enough, and the prospect from 
the summit where the signalising apparatus stands cannot be excelled in extent and beauty. 
Storm Bay, with its isles, isthmuses, and peninsulas, its ^oidid frvme of half-wooded, hahP* 
deared uplands, embossed with bold promoatories ; the city, the harbour, the glittering riv«r, 
are all bdow and around the spectator in a perfect panorama. Aloof and aloft from the lower 
worid, the dood-capped Mount Wellington may truly be said to ' preside o'er the scene ;' and 
Mount Nelson, ranking next in elevation, may very Mrly be called apoa to offidate as vice at this 
grand banquet of the picturesque. The common practice of bestowing upon preadsonite hills 
£be names of living, modem, and often vulgar personages, ruflles ^ctremdy my sense of th« 
fitness of things ; — ^these two mountains, grand though they be, borrow dignity from their titles 1 

The rides and drives fer promenading purposes round Hobart Town are various imd agreeaUe. 
The road through the Government domain and farm, past Cornelian Bay, the Botanical Gardens, 
the old hulk Jmson, 74, now degraded to a*female prison, and by the Bishop's pretty residence 
to Risdon Ferry, presents one good direction for a canter, or for * riding ' on wheels for those 
who jaekar doWagering to horse exerdse ; said returning homewards you get perhaps the best 
possible view of Mount Wdlingtoa, with his staff of minor hills, — ^Knocklofty, &c. — around 
lum ; the pretty village of Newton, with its handsome Orphan School situated in a paric ; and 
iHimerotts neat villas snuggling away behind high hawthorn hedges and ordiards, under his broad 
diadow. The drive to New Norfolk, of which more anon, rubs the rust off one's Home 
• Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Sodety of^Yan Diemen's Land, Januaiy. 1860. 



220 OUR ANTIPODES. 

recollections in the most pleasant manner. Brown's River, too, about eight or nine miles down 
the harboor, where there is some good land thrown into cultivation, affords an object for 
equestrianism. This road, which was created and is constantly nourished hj convict labour* 
follows the outline of the bay, — sometimes nmning along the beach, at others creeping round the 
steep &oe or sweeping round the level back of some headland, diving through a hill, or striding 
over a gully ; — ^for a slice borrowed from the superfluity of a mountain and bestowed upon the 
hungry maw of a ravine, is a trifling work when half-a-dozen hundred hands can be thrown 
upon it by a word from the Governor. On my way to Brown's River I passed two gangs of 
these British Helots. The men of one lot were labouring at a cutting ; the others were marching, 
to the music of their chains, towards the town. The poor creatures touched their caps humbly 
as our party rode by. 

Some of the agricultural and garden lands on this road were as fine as I oversaw, — the colour 
of the mould being precisely that of black rappee. There were such fine crops of potatoes and 
onions in the alluvial hollows, and such &t sheep on the hill sides, as made one involuntarily 
think of Irish stew. The Brown's River potato is as well known in Australia as it is in 
Tasmania. Among many pi'etty and sterling looking country homesteads looking over the bay, 
one was pointed out to me, somewhat superior to the rest, as the property of an emancipated 
prisoner, now worth about 1,200^. a-year, who, it was said, had i-eceived fifty lashes for some 
breach of penal discipline committed while labouring in chains on the very plot of land which 
he afterwards purchased and lived upon * like a gentleman I' What were the feelings, I wonder, 
of the iron-gang I had just met, and what were those of the low-paid free overseer in charge of 
them, respectively, as they passed day after day the handsome domain of the former felon,—- 
who, had he never fidlen from honesty to dishonour, had never, in all probability, risen from 
poverty to wealth ! 

December 31, 1850. — ^This morning soon after sunrise — and a heavenly morning it was — ^I 
drove, with three compamons, in a hired carrii^ to New Norfolk, a village and district, the 
fermer of which is about twenty-three miles from Hobart Town. The road, a perfect specimen 
of macadamisation, runs the whole distance along the right bank of the Derwent, whose bed is 
compressed by high lands into a narrow channel, leaving no great room for cultivation, except 
in a few flatter spots. The hills, indeed, on the left shore are still almost entirely covered with 
the primeval forest. The population seems to cling to the highway side. There were many 
solid looking farms and comfortable residences, with occasional deserted clusters of huts, the 
temporary stockades of the road-gangs ; and pretty fuchsia and rose-dad cottages, with gardens 
full of flowers and fruit, the yellow Cape broom and scarlet geranium almost smothering the 
little tenements. The wheat and oat crops looked sickly, the barley in better health. The 
season had been unusually and ruinously dry, not only here, but in tiie neighbouring colonies. 
The * deadwood ' fence is one almost peculiar to Van Diemen's Land ; and is nothing more than 
the trees of the clearing piled into a sort of wooden wall. In New South Wales the stumps are 
goierally left standing fill they rot, the top timber is split into rails, and the refuse burnt. 
Here scarcely any stumps remain on the &ce of the field, a praiseworthy point in Tasmanian 
agriculture. Another and lighter fence is something like the snake-fence of CSanada, but, in a 
hunting point of view, not so formidable. 

One of our companions entertained us with spirited accounts of the sport enjoyed with a pack 
of English hounds, kept by a gentleman of New Norfolk, who has r^ular fixtures for hunting 
round Hobart Town in the winter season. The game is the bush kangaroo, a small but fleet 
animal ; and the pack, which I had an opportunity of inspectmg, are a rough and ready little lot 
of beagles, quick and fierce and well adapted for a hilly and wooded country. A blank day is 
never known. The runs are not very severe as far as duration goes ; but there is no time, it 
appears, for < coffee-housing ' when the game is once unkennelled. ' You must throw away 
your cigar, and s^ to work,' said my informant, fancying himself in his saddle, 'or you will 
be nowhere after the first five mmutes.' When the kangaroo can get his head down hill, the 
pace becomes very severe. The present Lieutenant-Governor is not seldom the first in the field 
during a quick burst, and is said to have no objection to four or five feet of stiff timber. 

One of the most charming peculiarities of Tasmanian cultivated scenery is the sweetbrier 
hedges. To-day we were diiving nearly the whole distance between them ; in a great many 
places ten and twelve feet high and the same in width, spangled and scenting the air with 
50,000 little delicate roses. I noticed one or two thickets of this plant in the comers of 
enclosures, which must have been forty or fifty feet in diameter, and twelve feet in height. 
Here and there appeared gardens and orchards * pinked all over,' like Gargantua's Tiaut de 



NEW NORFOLK — MR. BMITH o'bRIEN. 221 

chausses, with glowing fruits, and surrounded with hedges of hawthorn, the like of whidi I 
never saw before, even in England. In New Holland the plant is unknown, except as a delicate 
and rare exotic. Dick Christian himself could make nothing of such a rasping fence ; * Sir 
Camabj Jenks, of the Blues,' with his fifteen stone and three hundred guinea horse, would be 
pounded by a bullfincher so tall and strong ; nothing, in short, and nobody except a British 
schoolboy bent on robbing the orchard within it, would ever contemplate the possibility of 
getting through. The leaf is particularly large and shining, and would be invaluable in 
£ngland for the home manufacture of tea! There were hop plantations too — ^the most 
beautiful of crops in my mind ; infinitely more beautiful than tiie vineyard, and almost as 
suggestive of Bacchanalian images. The produce of one patch of this festive plant lying 
slopingly towards the river, I was told, had been lately sold tor 100/. an acre. 

Near the mai^in of sedges on the banks of the Derwent, we saw several of that species of 
water-bird called the Native-hen— quite new to me as a sportsman ; a rail, nearly as large as a 
cock-pheasant ; and wild ducks swam in clouds on the wide estuaries. 

The little township of New Norfolk is delightfully situated on the highest navigable part of 
the Derwent ; the tide flowing up to the handsome wooden bridge, which, erected by private 
enterprise, here spans the stieam — about as wide at this point as the Thames at Windsor. The 
settlement derives its name from the compulsory pilgrims of Norfolk Island, who, when 
Government decided upon conveiiang that *gem of the sea' into a penal settlement, were 
located in farms upon this pleasant spot — a fair compensation, one would suppose, for that 
harbourless and inaccessible, though lovely island. Standing on the bridge I sketched the 
Goveinnment Cottage, and then, facing about, without any other change of position, the pretty 
Home-like landscape up the river, including a feature interesting at least to Irish readers, namely, 
the present residence of Mr. Smitib O'Brien. I could have introduced this gentleman as a figure 
in the foreground, for he passed twice under my pencil, and he is by no means a bad-looking fellow 
for his years ; but I preferred a couple of cows as more innocently bucolic in a rural landscape. 

I am happy to give my personal testimony to the excellent bodily health, on the last day of 
the year 1850, of this political delinquent, who, having at length accepted his ticket-of-leave-— 
or licence to bestow himself where he pleases within the district of New Norfolk — enjoys, as I 
have said before, very much the same amount of liberty as the soldier, the parochial minister, 
the ofHce-man, nay, even the Governor himself; for, l^e the prisoner, neither His Excellency 
nor the other functionaries can quit their posts without the special sanction of higher authority. 
To say that he is without hope — that sheet anchor of human existence, is a piece of imbecility. 
Were I in his position I should cherish the strongest hopes of some day receiving the pardcsi of 
my Sovereign, and of becoming one of the most &iithful and loyal of her subjects. Why does 
he not send for his family to^ join him ? He complains that * it would be the greatest injustice 
to his children to bring them to a country, the present condition of which he wiU not trust him- 
self to describe.' There are many and excellent sdiools in the island, perhaps more than in any 
country in the world of equal population — ^not less than a hundred private establishments, 
without counting the various Government schools. There is moreover a paid inspector, of schools 
to * whip in ' the minor pedagogues, and to see that they do their duty — as the drum-major does 
with the minor drummers on certain occasions of military discipline. This is an appointment 
which might be beneficially introduced in older countries. On the whole, for a man under a 
commuted sentience of death, and whose head, had he lived and so acted a hundred years back, 
would have rolled on the scaffold ; on the whole, I cannot think this gentleman has valid cause 
for complaint. With an allowance from Home sufficient for every material comfort, a splendid 
climate, beautiful scenery, and no want of society, — for he is kindly received and very well 
spoken of by many of his neighbours — ^he is clearly better off than he would be in the occupa- 
tion of furnished apartments in the Tower; and I cannot but' hope that by this time he has 
revoked his opinion that * death alone can effect a deliverance from the calamities of his lot.' 

Elwin's hotel, the little rural inn where Mr. O'Brien at present lodges, is prettily situated on 
the left bank of the Derwent, amid fruit, flower, and hop gardens, with a neighbourhood of 
well-cultivated &rms, backed by wooded hills. It may be likened to a villa on the upper 
Thames, with a climate of eternal summer and autumn. 

The Tasmanians are very proud of their public buildings, and the stranger is pressed to visit 
churches, chapels, courthouses, schools, hospitals, and prisons, as a matter of course. It 
certainly appeared to me that the prevailing style of architecture in this colony is superior to 
that of its neighbours. I was invited to mspect some of the public edifices of New Norfolk, but 
not having much taste that way, my visits were confined to the really handsome and well-oon- 



222 OUR ANTIPODES. 

ducted Lonatic Asylum^ where some hundreds of patteats, male and female, £ree and bcmd, are 
aoGommodated. I could relate some curious deteuls of its inmates, but they would be, almost 
without exception, painful. Some parsons have a natural bent towards mad-houses, penitenr- 
tiaiies, and other human menageries — ^a mcnrbid craring for the excitement caused by such si^ts, 
wi^ut one worthy motire ; whether a boyish visit to the Lancaster Lunatic Asylum established 
ft panic on such like subjects, or whether the distaste is innate, I know not ; but I well know 
that whoi the shame of remaining ignorant of these things has conquered my aversiiHi to look 
closely into them, it has always been a blessed moment, when I emerged into the open and 
healthy world again from one of those catacombs of the quick. There is another fiiToniite 
species of exhibition, for which I entertain a special aversion — namely, what is called a show 
house, where one has to pay a pound to a fat housekeeper for diagging him tiirough a mile c^ 
bed-rooms and dressing-rooms-^and hearing rigmarole commonplaces about my lord and my 
lady. There ore only two classes to which such establishments can be really interesting, namely, 
their owners and their — guests. 

All the externals oi Van Diemen's Land are so agreeable to the soises that the mere pleasure 
or healthnseekii^ tourist, resolved on not looking beneath the surface of things, mi^t range 
through the beautiful island without the £untest suspicion that it is in &ct nothing more or less 
than a huge gaol, in which, contrary to ordinary prison practice, other tenants besides prisoners ai<e 
pomitfed to dwell. However, whatever my inclmation might be, it was my duty, I thought, not 
to hoodwink myself into the belief that a penal cdlony was a paradise ; accordingly, during the 
short period of my stay in the oonntry, I embraced every (^portunity of seeing its peenlisr 
establishments ; and accompanying an ofiScer, whose business it was to make periodical inspectimis 
of the several institutions, I viated convict penitentiaries, lunatic asylums, hospitals, probation 
stAtions, and though last, not the least displeasing, the female convict &ctory at the Cascades. 

The twenty-three nules to Norfolk and back to the capital forms a very pleasant jaunt. Such 
was tiie goodness of the roads and of our hack horses, that we found no c^culty in getting baci 
to dinner at Hobart Town. 

CHAPTER XXL 

Jan. 1, 1851. — ^There was, it must be admitted, nothing remarkably festive, for the first day 
d the new year, in visiting a female penitaitiary £md Ijring-in establishm^it ! Su(^ was, never- 
theless, my morning's employment. The Cascades &etory is seated at the foot of Mount Wd- 
lington, wedged in a gully between high hills — a bad situation, eKept as regards the 8a]^y of 
. water, which is plentiful. The buildings are enclosed within a high wall, with barred gates and 
y^;ilant turnkeys ; it is, in short, a gaol in eveiy respect according to the reqiective deserts of 
the inmates. We were received at the entrance by the matron, a dignified lady who looked 
quite capable of maintaining strict discipline whether in a public or in a merriy domestic 
establishment. From her luuods we received, in due military form, ' the morning state ' of her 
garrison — ^which, as it appeared, amounted to 730 women and 130 infants. Li turn we visited 
the several courts, solitary cells, the hospital, refectories^ dormitories, and lavatories. In one 
yard was formed up for our inspection, in hollow square, seventy or dghty womenr— <^peii to be 
hired as sei-vants. ' These,' as we were informed, ' were the better conducted, and the pr^;naiit 
women.' In another court were a strong division of more troublesome and notorious characters, 
who were under restraint and not permitted to go into service. The uniform^ a very unbe- 
coming one to the person, however becoming to the station of the wearer, is a white mob cap 
and a dress of grey duffle. As we passed down the ranks the poor creatures saluted us with a 
running fire of curtseys, and a dead silence was everywhere observed. In a large exercise yard, 
with an oipm shed in the cmtre affording shelter from the sun, we found some sixty wemoi, 
with as many babies from two years to two days old — women and children all silent I One 
would have thought them all deaf and dumb ;— novo* was I before in so nnmeroos a nursery ; 
— ^I hope I never may again I The diildren were mostly healthy and pretty. As for their 
mothers — ^there must I suppose, be a good deal in dress as an ^ment of beau^ — for I scarcely 
saw a tolerably pretty woman in seven hundred. Some of the females, I found, were the hiroi 
nurses of the establishment — ^not the mothers of the children. Of these latter, many, it appears, 
merely enter the &ctory to deposit their * kid fiM'lfHii,' and, when suiBBdaitly recovered, return to 
service in the town or country within the district to which their ticket or pass extends, and 
not a few re-enter its walls as soon as it is possible for them to require again obstetric assistance^ 
It is nothing to say that many of these poor brats will never know their own fothers ; — ^thcir 



PRISON EXFLOYMEKTS. 228 

mothers, perhaps know them no better : and many of the wretched little ones, in the hands of 
the nurses, will nerer know either parent. The pabljc consoles itself with the dry &ct, that 
they will all come into the labour market. A la^e ward was allotted to the mid-day sleep of 
the poor little babes. It was rath^ a pretty sight for a &ther (of none of them) to omtem- 
plate. Theie were a score or so of woodm cribs, in each <^ which lay two, three, or four 
innocents, stowed away head and tail, like sardines a VhuUe ; while others were curling about 
like a litter of kittens in a basket of straw. All were wonderfully goodr— chiefly, I suspect, be^ 
cause there was no anxious mamma nor fussy nurse- constantly soliciting them to be so. 

The yisiting-surge(Hi of the establishment, whom I accompanied, had found it necessary to 
prescribe half-rations and gentle medical treatment (a grain or so of ipecacuanha, I suppose,) to 
a certain turbulent few of the prisoners ; and as it was whispered to him that his £ur but fierce 
patients meditated a remonstrance when it came to their turn to be Tinted; and as there was 
little doubt this appeal would have taken a Billingsgate form, the prudent Medico postponed 
hearii^ it, which, I confess, was to me a great relief. This was on his port a merciful as well 
as a discreet step, because tiie half-rations of the insurgents would assuredly haye been further 
reduced to bread-and-water discussed in silence and solitude— thiiigs that no woman loyeth. 
Foity-eight hours of this kind of single blessedness, with the above meagre diet, and a prescrip> 
tion slightly productive of nausea, occasions, it is said, a prodigiously soothing effect upon ladies 
j^cted with gross health and fiery ten^ieraments. Going along the avenues of sob'tary cells, 
tiiere was a great unlocking of massive doors, and a questioning oi *■ Have yon any complaints T 
I only looked mto two or three, one woman was carding, ano^ier combing wool. A third cell, 
on bdng opened, I found to be completely darkened ; — ^it seemed empty, so I passed within the 
door to examine its onstmetion. It looked like the den of a wolf, and I almost started back 
when from the extreme end of the £kx>r I found a pair of bright, fla«)img eyes fixed (m mine. 
Thdr owner arose and took a step or two forward ; it was a small, slight, and quite youi^ giri 
-—very beautiful in feature and oHnplexion, — ^but it was the fierce beauty of tiie wild cat I I 
am a steady married man, of a certain age, — but at no period of my life, would I for a trifle, 
have shared fer half-on-hour the cell of that sleek little savage ; for when she purred loudest I 
should have been most a£raid of her claws I As the heavy door slammed in her face, and the 
strong bolts i^oi into the grooves, the turnkey infermed me that this was one of the most refrao 
tory and umnanageable characters in the prison. That said beauty is a sad distorts of man's 
perceptions 1 Justice ought io be doubly blindfolded when dealing with her. I fear roe that 
the pang of pity that shot across my heart when that pretty prisoner was shut again from the 
light of day, od^t have found no place there had she been as ugly as the sins that had brought 
her into trouble. I had no more stomach for s<^tary cells this day. 

One of the great yards of the Factory was devoted to lamidress-work. Squads of women 
were up to fliimr dhows in suds, — carrying on the crud process of wringing,— -or displaying 
their thick ankles as they spread the linen over the drying lineB. The townsfolk may have thdr 
waging done here at Is. Qd, iper dozen, the money goii^ towards the expeauses of the institutien. 
I was pained to see so many very youthibl creatures in this yard — delinquents in their eaiiiest 
teens; debaudwd ere the pith had hardened in their little bones. We had next a glimpse oi a 
room full of sempstresses, most of them employed on fine work. It was not impossible, the 
matron stated, that some of the elaborate shirt-fronts we should see at the Government-house 
ball this evening had been worked in this, and washed and ' got up ' in the last ward. A 
rougher febric done by the less-skilled prisoners is a coarse kind of wooUen tweed, only used for 



However pautlal to a devoted servant of ' the sex ' must necessarily be the details of an est»- 
blishment such as this, there was some cons<dation at least in carrying away the conviction that 
everything that the care and ingenuity of man could contrive fer the perfecting of the system 
has here beoi exhausted. The cleanliness of the prisiMi was almost dazzling, and the order and 
discipline i^peared fenltkss ; and I had much pleasure in recording the same in the Matron's 
Visitors' Book. * See Naples and die,' is the Italian motto. ' See a Female Factory once, and 
don't do so again,' is mine.* ' 

The grand New-year^s ball at Government-house afibrded a refreslm^ counterpoise to my 
morning's employment. The vice-regal residence itself has littie to recommend it as an edifice, 

• Newspaper notice, January, 1861 :—- 

10 tTawwary.— • Female Passholdehs.— Number of Female Passholders awaiting hire : Hobart Town 
Brickfields D^pftt, 276; Cascades Factory, 176; New Town Farm, 71; Laanceston Factory, 38; Boss 
Hiring DepOt, 49.~Tetal 610.' 



224 OUB ANTIPODE& 

and its site woald be much better occupied by buildings connected with the harbour and whar&, 
which are close at hand. A weather-boarded ball-room of singularly fine proportions has lately 
hem erected by the present Lieut.-Govemor, Sir William Doiiison ; in which the six or seven 
hundred guests present this night were by no means crowded. The entrance to the ball-room 
from the body of the house is through an arched lobby and down a few steps which form a kind 
q£ daJL3 overlookii^ the saloon. On the top of this stood the Christmas ti-ee, whose main body 
was formed of a single fern-tree, its wide and graceful {ronds spreading above a whole cornucopia 
of midsummer flowers, looking strange, doubtless, in the eyes of such of the company as were not 
inured to antipodal inconsistencies. For an hour or two the dancing was kept up eiudusively by- 
children ; and among them were many beautiful specimens of rising Anglo-Saxons — for the rearing 
of whom the climate of Tasmania is evidently very favourable. The same must be said of it with 
reference to hunum plants of a more advanced growth ; for I saw in five minutes this night more fair 
&oes tinged with the English rose, than I had seen in New South Wales in as many years. Doubb' 
less some connoisseurs in female loveliness give the BpfAe of preference to the cheek where the 
lily predominates ; 'tis a pity that in very hot climates, Bengal for instance, a streak of yellow 
sometimes mars the purity of its white ! I dare say my reader has observed the scarcely dis* 
guised impatience with which adult votaries of Terpsichore look on at in&ntine dancing ; per- 
haps he has felt it himself — perhaps the writer has dime so in his time ; yet the dancing of 
children is, in sooth, a pleasant and a pretty sight ; and I have never felt this more strongly 
than on occasions when the floor has suddenly been taken possession of by grown-up dancers in 
immediate succession to these little ones. Compare the performances of bo^, and you will not 
need a betto* proof that grace is natural and not acquired ; nay more, that it may be lost by 
overtraining and artificiality. I was following with my eyes the croinnl of litUe bright joyom 
things, and thinking there was gi-ace in all their movements — grace equally in the p^iect 
dancing of some, and in the bounding disregard of art in others — ^in their boldness or bashfulness 
— Hlemureness or riot ; — ^there was grace, I thought, in the small, curly, velvet tunicked boy of 
seven or eight, pulling the muslin skirt of a pretty lass of ten, with the urgent plea — * I say, 
will you dance with me? do now,' and in the precocious coquetry of the two-tailed &iry as she 
disengaged herself with a pirouette from the hands of her too juvenile suitor, and flung from 
her laughing blue eyes such an irresistible invitation to a smart young middy of the ffavannah 
as brought him instantly to her side. Away they flew round the room in each other's arms and 
in the polka, that child's dance par excelience ; and I was r^rding with compassion the piteous 
spectacle of the poor littie mortified fellow, who, biting his finger and slowly shaking his wee 
round figure, at length ran and buried his face in the lap of a lady ; my attention, I say, was 
thus engrossed, wh^, — ^poof I inta the midst of the lilliputian throng rushed a human ava- 
lanche, in the shape of a full-grown — a very full-grown — couple of polkists ! The cavalier 
though not old was fattish, and had a small round spot of baldness on the crown of his head, 
the lady wore^ an exorbitant crenoline ; the poetry of the scene vanished in a moment I other 
Patagordans followed ; and the children's dance quickly merged into the grown-up ball I — and a 
very good ball it was. Nor was it the only one I attended at Hobart Town. The season, to- 
gether with the arrival of a frigate and the first visit of a General Commanding the Forces, 
combined to create an tmusual amount of gaiety ; and, if the mornings of my short sojourn 
here were pretty well occuined with seeing sights, so were the evenings in attenchng the dinners 
and soirees of the hospitable Hobartians. 

January 10th, Hobart Town. — If the reader will consult the map of Van Diemen's Land 
he will find that Tasman's Peninsula is a kind of ear-ring hanging at the left ear or south- 
east extremity of the island, and forming the eastern horn of Storm Bay, the estuary of the 
Derwent. The pendent is divided into two paiis — ^the uppermost, or most northern, known 
as Forestier's Peninsula, — attached to the mainland by a tery narrow isthmus called East Bay 
Neck ; the lower half, or Tasman's PeninsuUi, joined to Forestier's Peninsula by a similar 
isthmus called Eagle Hawk Neck. Tasman's Peninsula, being surrounded by the sea on 
every point except at this narrow, natural causeway, is singularly well adapted \for the 
restriction and coercion of prisoners. 

The Lieutenant-Governor having obligingly put at the disposal of my companions and myself 
the small steamer Kangaroo, we got under weigh at five a.m. this morning from Sulliven's 
Cove, and were soon paddling down the Derwent. We passed swiftly by the Iron Pot, round 
which the surf was appropriately boiling ; Betsy's Island on the left, the property of a lady, 
as the name imports, and where there is t<aid to be * great store ' of rabbits ; and Slopen Island 
on our right, where the quail are preserved for the Governor and his friends, and vrhen he 



EAGLE HAWK NECK. 225 

who can hold his gun straight may kill forty or fifty couple of these little flying failings. 
Rounding Long Point, the north-east extremity of Tasman's Peninsula, w€ entered Norfolk 
Bay about half-past ten o'clock ; on our left we had the pretty-wooded Garden Island lying 
in the jaws of the Bay ; to our right, on a high arm of the peninsula, a black patch of cleaied 
land, with some tall Lancashire-like chimneys, showed where the coal-mines are worked by 
prisoners, under the management of a company who rent them from the Government and 
hare the advantage of penal labour. We passed Saltwater River, wheie a band of lunatic 
convicts are employed in agriculture under proper surveillance ; then Impression Bay, where 
some 600 invalids are stationed, and are given such work as suits their strength, while about 
100 hale prisoners do the hardest of the labour; Qext the Cascades, a probation station for 
labout 300 men, — all of which stations are situated on the shore of a hUly and wooded 
country ; and, finally, about mid-day, our little craft running up the narrow inlet of Engle 
Hawk Bay, was moored off the long wooden wharf of the unitary post of that name. This 
post, by reason of its somewhat unique feature, — a line of canine sentries, — is one of the lions 
of Van Diemen's Land. On either shore of the inlet running up to the station there is a 
chain of huts, each containing a constable and his dog, to prevent the escape of runaways by* 
swimming this arm of the sea, — a desperate measure, since the fugitive fortunate enough to 
evade the tipstaff and the mastiff would have to battle the watch with an outlying picquet 
of sharks abounding in these waters. It was related to me that, on one occasion, four prisoners, 
good swimmers, led by a notorious black named Jacky, attempted to cross from a headland 
called Sympathy Point to Woody Island, and thence to Forestier's Peninsula. The English- 
men — perhaps because their fair skins acted like whitebait for the sharks — were one and all 
seized and devoured by these tigers of the deep ; the native made good his landing, but was 
afterwards retaken. 

No sooner came we in sight of the low, sandy, scrub-grown isthmus which cuts across the 
head of the inlet, than our ears were saluted by the baying of the deep-mouthed dogs, and as 
we walked up the pier towards the guard-room at the end of it they all joined in a grand 
chorus, including three or four videttes stationed on little platfonus laid on piles in* the 
water. Two loaded sentries are posted on the narrowest part of the neck, the one on the 
ocean side of it, in Pirate's Cove, the other on the inlet side of it. The dogs, each chained to 
a post with a barrel for a kennel and a lamp to illumine his night-watch, connect their two 
biped fellow sentinels, and complete the cordon. The dogs were generally of a large 
rough breed, mongrels of the most promiscuous derivation, but powerful and ferocious. 
One of the family, who was permitted to range at lai'ge, amused himself sometimes, and kept 
liis teeth and temper in practice by rushing into the shallows and fighting with the sharks ; 
and he not unfrequentiy succeeded in dragging them ashore. There are fourteen dogs ' on the 
chain ' at present. 

The Eagle Hawk Neck and its vicinity are exceedingly picturesque ; and the young sub- 
altern in command and his pretty wife appear to be quite satisfied with their sequestered 
quarters and their canine society ;^ — I doubt even whether the half-dozen of champagne that 
I had dropped at their door added a whit to their cheerfulness. The fair lady, whom a few 
years ago I had known as a child, undertook to guide our party on a visit to two natural 
curiosities on the coast of Pirate's Cove — Ta&man's Arch and the Blow-hole. The latter, so 
called from the loud sough of the waves as they dash with hollow roar into a horizontal tunnel 
pierced through the cliff and opening inland into a gravelly pit, is more curious than gi-and ; 
but Tasman's Arch is one of the finest fantasies of nature I ever met with. It is said to have 
been first discovered by a hunter, who, in full pursuit of a kangaroo, narrowly escaped the 
fate of Quintus Curtius without his glory ; — and, indeed, so difficult to find is the spot, and so 
suddenly does the seeker stumble upon it, that he is not a little startled on pnshing his way 
through some light bushes to find his foot on the brink of a yawning chasm or well, fifty or 
sixty feet across, its eastern side, at about thirty feet from the surface-ground, forming a 
majestic arch of rock some 200 feet deep, the entrance to a subterrene passage, through which 
the surf from the open sea comes thundering into this wild abyss. In high tides and tem- 
pestuous weather the spray is shot up high into the air as through a gigantic tube. Seating 
ourselves on the sward near the mouth of the punch-bowl, we partook of a modest repast of 
bread and wine, and, being refreshed, we retraced our steps through forest, and fern, and 
sand, and rock, our walk having extended over ten or twelve miles under a burning sun — to 
the Neck. 

At 6 P.M. we re-embarked^ pursued by the ululations of the dogs, in the little Kangaroo, 

Q 



226 OUB ANTIPODES. 

and piped to dinner as she paddled down £agle Hawk Bay. Passing Woody Island and Sym- 
pathy Point — the scene of the fatal swim before mentioned — we came to an anchorage for 
the night just after dusk, off a small station— ^nameless as far as I know-^at the head of 
Norfolk Bay, where, there being no accommodation, we slept on board. A commissary officer, 
who resides here in all the solitude permitted him by a wife and six children, came off and 
kindly undertook to arrange for our passage to Port Arthur in the morning, by railway. 
' By railway V exclaims the reader, * a railway at the Antipodes.' Yes, by railway ; not 
propelled by steam however, but by human thews and sinews, and in the sweat of the human 
brow I 

January 11th. — ^At 7 A.H, we landed on a rough pier of timber, upon which the rail, or 
xatiier the wooden tram-way abuts ; and in the middle of the dreaiy little settlement, which 
consists of the Commissary's quarters and a few huts, we found a couple of low trudcs on four 
wheels, with two baches in each, and, standing near these not elegant vehicles, eight con- 
victs dressed in the grey and yellow garb ; another, in grey unvariegated, being in attendance 
as head man of the gang. These were to be our teams. Dividing ourselves into two parties^ 

Dr. and Mrs. , and I, got into one, and two tolerably weighty gentlemen into the other. 

Upon this, the prisoners seized certain bars crossing the front and btck of the carriages, and, 
after pushing them with great toil up a considerable plane, reached the top of a long descent, 
when getting up their steam, down they rattled at tremendous speed — ^tremendous, at leasts 
to lady-like nerves—the chains round their ankles chinking and clanking as they trotted 
alone ; and as soOn as the carriages in their headlong race down the hill exceeded the possible 
speed of that slowest of all animals, man, at a word from their leader the runners jumped 
upon the sides of the trucks in rather unpleasant proximity with the passengers, and away we 
all went, bondsmen and freemen, jolting and swaying in a manner that smadked somewhat too 
much of * the d — ^1 take the hindermost ' — although a man sitting behind contrived, more or 
less, to lock a wheel with a wooden crow-bar when the descent became so rapid as to call fojr 

. remonstrance. Accidents have not unfrequently occurred when travellers by this rail have 
encouraged, or not forbidden the men to abandon the trucks to their own momentum down 
the hills; for there are several sharpish turns in the line, and the ti:am-way is of the rudest 
oonstrnction. Occasionally, perhaps, these capsizes have not been purely accidental when 
travellers obnoxious to the motive powers have fallen into their hands. One of the highest 
public officers of the colony — a gentleman popular with all classes^ and whose personal 
qualities it would be impossible to estimate lightly 1 — ^met, as I was told, with a tre- 
mendous upset on this railway. Rolling, without much damage, into the ditch, he was picked 
up * teres atque rottmdus/ by tiie * canary birds,' who placed him upon his 1^ and amid 
a thousand expressions of contrition, set to work to brush the dirt off his dotihes ; and so 
officious were they that, on his first reference to his pockets neither watch nor purse were to 
be found. 

Half-way we halted at a police-station, not to take in water for the engines, but to gi-ease 
the wheels and to breathe the men, — and then proceeded with renewed vigour. The distance 
from our starting-point in Norfolk Bay, to Long Bay, an arm of Port Arthur, by the railway, 
nay be five or six miles. It is sometimes peHbrmcd in half«n-hour ; but to-day, having a 
nervous passenger, the men did not put forth their best speed. The tram-way, alongside of 
which there is a bridle-rood, lies through a forest-tract of the most splendid timber wholly 
wild and uncleared, the largest trees bdng the blue-gum for which the island is &mous, — so 

' called, I suppose, because the leaf has much of the colour of the bloom on the Orleans-plum. 
Our mode of travelling through this fine forest was not precisely such as to add to our enjoy- 
ment of the scene ; — indeed, it jarred most distressingly on my feelings ; for our poor beasts of 
burthen at the end of the traject seemed terribly jaded, and I saw one of them continually 
trying to shift the irons from a galled spot on his ankle. Returning by this same route in 
the afternoon, we were requested by the head man to halt a few minutes for the men to get 
something to eat. The overseer told us that these men had breakfasted at four in the moxn- 
ing^ at Norfolk Bay, had run up the trucks with half a ion of rations to Long Bay, and bad 
returned to Norfolk Bay for our party by half-past six. They had had nothing to eat since 
breakfast — exactly twelve hours. 

To rid myself at once of this unpleasing subject, — a railway woriced by white slaye-power 
•—I will here finish my notes of the retuiii-trip, although it is somewhat out of its turn : — 
After our visit to Poi*t Arthur, — of which more presently — on relanding at the Long Bay 
terminus, where there stands a misenible sheiling, we found there the Governor and his 



HUMAN BAILWAY — ^A PREDICAMENT. 227 

party, sheltering tliemselves from a heavy shower of rain. Carriages being reqaired for them, 
one truck only remained for our party. The three gentlemen, all being well wet through, 
walked on at a brisk pace, and myself was left in charge of the lady ; some delay occnrred at 
stai'ting ; the first mile was up a steep ascent, and we had with some difficulty accomplished 
it owing to the slippery state of the road, and were trotting briskly along a flat, when a dis- 
tant * cooey * from the rear was heard, and looking back I saw a fifth prisoner in grey-and- 
yellow running up~a tall ugly fellow that I had not seen before. Our team immediately 
palled up, and then the idea flashed across my mind, dismissed almost as soon as entertained^ 
that some treachery was intended. Here was a lady and one unarmed man in the midst of the 
wild Bush, and completely in the power of Ave perhaps as desperate ruffians as ever cheated 
the hangman I for the gentlemen who had preceded us were long beyond sight and hearing 
and we were full two nUles from the station we had quitted. It afberwards proved that the 
questionable predicament in which we had been left had crossed their minds very much as it 
had done mine. The truth is, however, that we ran less risk of robbery or violence in this 
unpeopled wilderness, with our lives in the hands of this vUlanous gang, than might have 
been the case within the sound of Bow bells. In Taaman's Peninsula detection and punish- 
ment follow crime as sure as night follows day. 

The men employed on this tram-way, which is more used for the transport of stores and 
provisions than for passengers, are under sentence of hard labour, and those who are young 
and active enough to go the pace prefer it to other task-work---chiefly, I suspect, because 
many passengers, in flagrant In'each of the convict-rules, bestow some small reward on the 
wretched dn^men, whereby they are enabled to procure tobacco — the grand desideratum of 
all prisoners, and other trifling luxuries the value of which a man never fully knows until 
they are unattainable. 

But to resume our visit to Port Arthur. — ^At eight o'clock we reached the terminiis at the 
head of Loag Bay, an inlet of Port Arthur running up into the forest between high shores. 
The distance by water to the settlement of Port Arthur is about four miles. We found at the 
terminus a lai^e whale-boat awaiting us, manned by prisoners, the strokesman being one of the 
linest negroes I ever saw. We soon opened the port, and, sweeping ronnd a rocky headland 
on our right, the penal township lay before us. Port Arthur is the head-quarters, both mili^ 
tary and convict, of the peninsula. There are at present about 350 prisoneni, and the garrisou 
consists of a captain and seventy grenadiers of the 99th. His subaltern, as has been seen, is 
detached to Eagle Hawk Neck. The other stations on the peninsula before mentioned are at 
present controlled entirely by the civil power, an arrangement more consonant with British 
custom and more just to the army, than the former system of scattering small detachments 
under non-commissioned officers among the various minor stations and stockades— thereby 
compelling the soldier to do the duty of the constable. 

I had made up my mind to find in Port Arthur all the gloomy attributes of a huge donjon* 
I expected, and I believe wished to see the features of nature and the institutions of man 
fi-owning in grim and dreary concert on the spot expressly selected for the punishment of 
Britain's blackest malefactors — one half of whom, perhaps, ere the criminal law of England 
was amended (or diluted), would have paid the penalties of their misdeeds on the scaflbld. 
There is^ however, in fact, nothing of the Bastile in the aspect of the town of Port Arthur — 
nothing of the desert waste where the felons of other nations are condemned to linger out their 
hc^)dle8S lives. A ms^ifioent harbour lay before us, with a spacious open channel to the 
ocean. In a retired cove of this bay, with a tolerable space of level land around it and a fine 
wooded range in its rear, lies, sloping down to th^ beadi, the settlement. The first object 
that attracts the eye is a handaomp stone church with a tall dieerful-looking steeple embosomed 
in fine trees, and a beautiful public garden below it. On the opposite extremity of the town 
is the residence of the Commandant, an excellent house, also well sheltered with ornamental 
trees and surrounded with a blooming flower-^;arden and orchard, and a lawn sloping to the 
sea. It possesses a grand stone balustraded entrance, a sculptured stone gateway and such 
like features— sufficiently proving that it was never intended for the quarters of a military 
officer 1 No, no, — ^the officers' quarters stand humbly just without the gates of the premises 
I have described, and I recognised them at once by the rigid restriction of the style to 
bare habitableness. Fortunately for the Brevet-Major at present in command here — and 
especially so as he happens to be a married man — the post of Civil Commandant has, for 
economical reasons, been done away with, and he is, therefore, permitted to reside in the 
better house. 

Q 2 



228 OUR ANTIPODES. 

The architect intrusted with the design and erection of the public buildings of the settle- 
ment must have' been of a cheery and playful mind ; for hospitals, barracks, gaols, cooking- 
liouses, stores — every edifice, in short, except the old original convict depot, which is an ugly- 
wooden stockade, are of a fine light-<:oIoured stone, with a profusion of little turrets, castellated 
copings, sham machicolations, and pie-crust battlements, reminding one more of an 'Isle of 
Wight village than of a convict probation station. With a fine blue sky overhead, and the 
blue sea below, the dai*k green hills around, and a climate 'quite perfect, Port Arthur has 
certainly nothing very repulsive in its aspect. The Fi-ench prisoners of war had a somewhat 
more melancholy location on Dartmoor ; the miners of snowy and sandy Siberia have u destiny 
somewhat more desolate ; the poor charcoal-burner on the gloomy and spirit-haunted Hartz, 
and the wretched turf-cutter on the Bog of Allen, toiling in solitiuy misery for a scanty sub- 
sistence,would imagine they had dropped into Paradise, could they be suddenly transported — 
by any but judicial means I — into this beautiful comer of the universe. 

The gallant Commandant gave us an excellent breakfast ; after which we proceeded to visit 
some of the lions, living and inanimate, of the place. We saw the cooking and baking for the 
prisoners ; and better bread and meat and more savoury broth was never served up at an 
ICnglish yeoman's table ; half as good never to that of an English labourer on Sundays, nor to 
the Irish cotter twice a-year. We walked through the prisoners' refectory at their dinner- 
hour. They were sitting quietly at their tables, while one of each dozen divided the food 
into shares. The savour of the viands was really appetising. I was told — whether in joke 
or m earnest may be doubted — that if 1 waited until the meal was over, I should see a waiter 
going round with pipes and tobacco for such of the guests who desired a whijOf of the Vir- 
ginian weed. 

It is said that persons subjected to the mental and bodily discipline consequent upon 
imprisonment combined with hard labour, require more nourishment than any other class of 
consumers. I have no hesitation in saying — and I examined them narrowly — that the pri- 
soners of Hobart Town and Tasman's Peninsula, as a body, presented an appeaitmce of stronger 
physical health than the soldiers stationed there. It is true that the former are debarred 
indulgence in those excesses whereby the soldier may damage his constitution ; but when I see 
a lot of burly fellows, not only muscular of limb and body, but absolutely running to jowl, 
common sense tells me that neither the mind nor the body are much overtaxed. Indeed I 
have no doubt that, however vigilant and severe the superintendence, it is impossible to com- 
pel a man to work without pay sufficiently hard to fatigue his frame — ^much less to injure his 
health — by any rigour of discipline short of that of l£e negro slave-driver. The treadmill 
appears to be the only species of laboratory where the operative must work, and .work hard, 
or inflict self-punishment. He may, indeed, doggedly resolve to mount no higher on the 
rotatory stair, but then his shins must suffer for it I All the machinery for this punishment 
exists on a laige scale at Port Arthur ; but I was told that it had been discontinued, because 
the wheel required too many hands, or rather, too many feet, to make it pay. I cannot help 
thinking, nevertheless, that it might have been advantageously employed in reducing some of 
the * too solid flesh ' on the ribs of the Peninsula prisoners — product of the good beef and 
bread, oatmeal and potatoes of Tasmania. 

And this brings me to the Hospital — a fine building, almost untenanted. Of the 840 con- 
victs on the morning state of this day only five were in hospital ; out of seventy soldiers, 
three. In a large ward, almost alone, lay an Irish state prisoner, O'Donohue — one of the 
three gentlemen of that class who, having broken their tickets-of -leave by paying a clandeslane 
visit to their late chief, Mr. S. O'Brien, were apprehended and sentenced, not only to forfeit 
their tickets, but to imprisonment with hard labour in probation gangs on the Peninsula. 
Patrick O'Donohue was lying on his iron pallet in the common ward, and in tlie ordinary 
blue flannel hospital dress ; he was i-eading, and, as he seemed to be in bodily suflering, a 
feeling of commiseration was stealing over me, when it was quickly dissolved by a whisper 
from the surgeon that his malady arose fron two or three broken ribs," the consequence of a 
fight with another prisoner. When on ticket-of-leave, he employed himself in the editorship 
of a newspaper called the Exile. My fate seemed to constrain me to follow in Van Diemen's 
Land the fortunes of Mr. Smith O'Brien. At Maria Island there was his shadow ; at New 
Noi-folk his substance. At Port Arthur I was dragged away to inspect the premises that had 
been allotted to him after he had attempted his escape from the island. The house is a decent 
little tenement, very superior to the building intended for the officers' quarters. We next 
visited an admirable edifice, nearly finished at vast expense, for the prosecution of the solitary 



PENAL SYSTEM — FINE TIMBER. 229 

and silent sjrstem. There are long galleries of ' separate apartments/ as they are delicately 
termed ; court-yards where the prisoners are brought out one by one to take their exercise 
under the eye of a constable ; and a chapel so fitted up that each man will — like a prebend or 
ft horse — ^have a stall to himself, and so constructed that he can see no one but the parson and 
the constables. The prisoners not in solitary confinement are marched to church, and hare 
large pews, or rather pens, for their accommodation. 

The penal system must by this time approach perfection as near as human wisdom can 
bring it — for Heaven knows that statesmen, local rulers, philanthropists, and disciplinarians, 
whether of the severe or soothing sort — ^have left nothing unsaid, undone, or untried, to make 
transportation conducive to the three great ends, punishment, amendment, and prevention. I 
think, however, that, in a comparison between the old system and the new, designating them 
broadly as the assignment and the probation sjrstems, the suffrages of the colonists, whether in 
Australia or Tasmania, if collected, would give a majority to the abandoned plan. The pre- 
sent or probation scheme has for its main feature the blending correction with instruction, 
moral and religious, a careful classification of the prisoners, rigorously enforced hard labour, 
and solitary confinement undei* unblinking surveillance, for the hardened and refi-actory, with 
the lash, Norfolk Island, and the gibbet for the utterly irreclaimable. On the other hand, 
milder treatment for mitigated criminals, and for the well-conducted the certain prospect of 
the pass, the ticket, and the still larger boon of conditional pardon, after periods of servitude 
graduated according to the sentences and conduct under sentence. The instruction of pre- 
viously ignorant men in the first elements of education, in useful trades, and in religious exercises, 
gives them at least a reasonable chance of returning to society better and more useful mem- 
bers of the human family than they were at the time of their banishment from it. According 
to the present scheme the prisoner at no period is compelled to work without payment, except 
while his own bad conduct past or present restricts him to the Government establishments. 
On the first relaxation of his bonds he comes into the labour-market on pretty nearly equal 
terms with the free labourer. 

I think my readers will admit, that however heartrending the punishment of banishment 
must be, (although ninety out of a hundred delinquents who suffer it lament only the oppor- 
tunities of villany whereof it deprives them,) and however strict the supervision, severe the 
coercion, and arduous the labour imposed on the inmates ; (and burning bricks, splitting wood, 
catting stone, felling and carrying spars, quarrying and coal mining, or even trotting away 
at the rate of six or seven miles an hour with a cargo of ' swells,' wiSiout wages, are no light 
pastime ;) it will be admitted, I say, that there is nothing penally repulsive in the external 
aspect of Port Arthur, such as I have described it. 

I have anticipated my account of our tnunway return to Norfolk Bay, where, well drenched 
with rain, we regained our little steamer and forthwith set off for the Cascades Settlement, 
which we reached at 4 P.M. At this place about 400 convicts are stationed, roost of them 
being employed in felling timber, of which there is an endless supply of the largest size and finest 
quality near at hand. Alongside the wharf a fine brig, the Vigiktntf was loading with spars 
and planks for England — ^including some splendid specimens of blue gum for the Admiralty. 
The longest plank on board .was 94 feet in length, 4 inches thick, and 16 inches wide. 
There were three or four spars upwards of 70 feet long by 2 feet thick. Some lying under 
water ready for use were, I was told, upwards of 100 feet long. I saw also in the hold of 
the brig some immense logs of * light wood/ d non Iwsendo, darker than mahogany, and knots 
of the beautiful Huon pine, finer than bird's-eye maple for ornamental furniture. One deli- 
cate slice of a giant tree weighed a matter of eight tons. But these are mere splinters to the 
plank of blue gum which, 1 hear, has been [sent home for the Great Exhibition. This was 
145 feet long, 20 inches broad, and 6 inches deep. The first limb of ihe tree from which it 
was sawn sprung at 186 feet from the ground, and its extreme height was no less than 275 
feet. At a convenient distance for an afternoon's ride from Hobart Town, is to be seen a 
living gum-tree which is 60 feet round at 15 feet from its base, and 270 feet high, although 
it has lost its top. It is fenced in and treated with proper respect. A vessel's keel 100 leet 
long was lately laid down in one piece by a Hobart Town builder. 

Among the convicts on board the Vigilant, at this moment lounging about unemployed, a 
fine manly-looking individual was pointed out fx) me as the state piisoner Terence Bellew 
M'Manus, who, with Patrick O'Donohue and O'Doherty — ^ICevin Izod O'Doherty I (babes so 
named are baptized rebels to Anglo-Saxon rule !) have been * classed ' for hard labour by 
colonial sentence for having violated the conditions of their tickets. One of these gentlemen 



230 OUB ANTIFOBES. 

I left in hospital at Port Arthur, the other is devoting his eiriergies, innocuously to others and 
'profitahly to himself, in * splitting shingles ' on one of the Peninsula stations ; and Mr. 
M*Manus, at the Cascades, seemed to he taking just as much muscular exercise and whole- 
acme food as would he likely to produce the vigorous health he evidently enjoys, and wbidi 
enabled him to undergo the fiitigues of the mysterious escape which, a month later, he made to 
California. Of the other two or three Irish political prisonera I saw nothing, hut 1 heard 
that one of them was hoeing potatoes — a national pastime — ^liard by, and that another had got 
manied by the Governor's consent. None of these gentlemen, I will answer for it, are in tiie 
position aacribed to them by a local and malcontent newspaper — * treated like trebly con- 
victed felons, and condemned tb wear the ydlow garb of the degraded, because they visited the 
table of Mr. W. S. O'Brien V On the point of costume I can }» both positive and correct 
with regard to Mr. M'Manos. He wore a full suit of grey dittos with a leathern forage 
cap and on his back, well able to bear the burthen, appeared in large white letters, the word^ 
' Cascades, No. 200.' None of these criminals have been compelled to don iJie canary's 
plumage, although, from being foolish enough to run tiieir heads into the lion's mouth, th^ 
really do deserve to 'wear the motley.' I have heard IJiat these gentlemen have conducted 
themselves in an exemplary manner under the colonial aggravation of their punishment. I 
was well pleased to learn that a gi'eat portion of it had been remitted, and shall unfeignedly 
rejoice at any further mitigation that imperial clemency or their own good behaviour may 
hring them. 

Towards another prisoner, of a totally difl«rent class, located at the * Cascades,' my fedings 
were very far fiiom bdng so placable. Amongst a party of three or four men in the grey 
dress and leather cap to whom was allotted the task of carrying and stewing firewood for the 
engines of the JToagnroo, I remarked a tall and powerful figure standing on the pier, and for 
more than half-an-hour, with the measured accuracy of clockwork, handing the split logs from 
. & heap ashore to another coaviet who placed them on board. This was Robert Pate, the 
cowardly, and, I am constrained to believe, the lunatic assailant of a woman and a Queen. 
Degradation, fiogging at the cart's tail, would have been the suitable punishment; and I 
l>riieve its infiiction for sudi a 'misdemeanour \* was by a late enactment made peremptory. 
I am not aware whether humane consideration for the feelings of his fiimily, or for the infirm 
state of his own mind, saved this man from the enforcement of the cat and the cart's taO. I 
was sorry, I must say, to see him in such fine health. With perfect bodily sanity I believe 
a man can never be very unhappy or ratiier if a man be tnxly unhappy in mind, he can 
hardly possess perfect physical health. The perpetratM' of such an outrage I would wiilinglj 
have seen miserable ; his soul sinking under the poignancy of ronorae and under the reooUeo 
tion of his dastardly action ; his body macerated by the hardships of his punishment. Bohert 
Fate is, I understand from those who have him under constant observation, perfectly sane in 
mind at this moment. The fhcalty must forgive me if I express my conviction that he is 
•till mad ; — ^nor could a better asylum nor a better chance of eventual cure than tiie salnbiioiis 
dimate and diet of Taaman's Peninsula, and the present well-watched system of probation, be 
possibly afforded to this wretched offender. 

Some of our party, while the steamer was wooding, visited a spot called the FenK>1aee Yalley, 
dbont two miles from the station, which they described as smgularly beautiful. They walked 
tiirough arcades and cloisters, aidied over and daricened. by the fbUage of this graceful plant, md 
lirought me back a single frond as a specimen, nearly fourteen feet in length. The stem of this 
species, althou^ as laws round as a bandbox, is of a cellular texture, something b etween coik 
and sponge. Lumps or it, I observed, were in use am<»g the shipping as ftndev. It is fflled 
'With a beautiful brown fibre, as fine as spun ^ass. The sassafias grows in plenty near the 
jamespot. 

At 8 P.M. the steamer touched at the ' Coal-mines ' for a supply of iSiat mineraL The Fs- 
ninsnla coal is an anthracite; all that I saw burning in the dty was of that nature ; hut I am 
told i^t there exists very superior bituminous coal in the country, as yet unwmked. CScttii^ 
coal is considered the most iikaome and arduous branch of convict Ishour. The station here. Eke 
most others in Van Diemen's Land, was, until lately, kept in subjection by a miUtary goaxd. A 
manied officer was in command fi>r some time, and such was the chamcter of the papuha 
virmrum around him, tiut the females of his &mily could not move out without an escort of 
armed soldiers. Pan-Donons' Land would be almost too mild a name for a region where sodi a 
state of things existed ! ' Steaming all night, the Kangaroo readied Hobaxt Town at three o'dock 
-in the moaning. It must be admitted that, ]deasant as had beoi our trip to Tasman's Peninsola, 



A CLEVER ESCAPE — MALE HBNITENTIABT. 231 

this little vessel, for masij reasons, was but ill suited to night accommodation. To the impossi- 
bility of sleeping, however, I owe the following narrative, from the oflBcer of the watch, of a clever 
escape of a party of convicts, conducted, I am sorry to say, at the expense of my excellent friend* 
the Bishop of the diocese. His lordship possessed, in 1848, as he does now, a small yacht, which 
he employed for the public service, at least as much as for his own pleasure. With the intention 
of a somewhat protracted tiip, he had ordered stores and provisions to be put on boord ; and she 
was lying at the town wharf ready for the Right Reverend owner's embarkation on the following 
day. Close alongside of her was moored ttie Kangaroo steamer, whose steward, a convict, 
lonnerly a Cawsand smuggler and, as may be guessed, a sharpish fellow, admiring her breadth 
of beam, her clear run and other qualities, conceived the idea of making her subservient, although 
only measuring ten tons, to a tiip to California. The necessary storesi — ^thanks to the forethought 
of tiie Bishop—were, as has been said, already on board ; there was beef and biscuit in plenty, of 
fi«sh water but a small supply ; but that might be added to. Mr. BIU, the steward, was quite 
willing to be her commander ; all that was wanted was a crew. Three good hands, anxious to 
exchange the land of irons for that of gold, and volunteers for the dangerous experiment, were 
readily found among the prisoners. The land breeze and the elements at large, ai they often do, 
frivoured an unrighteous cause. An hour before midi)ight the little craft slipped away fix)m the 
midst of a dosen oompanions at the wharf-head, and was safe out of port long before daylight. 
An experienced caterer as well as navigator, the steward quickly calculated that the stock alr^y 
laid in was insufficient for a two or ttu^ months' voyage. He therefore touched at one of the 
islands in Bassls Straits, whence, having reinforced his lodkers, he macte a fr«sh departure ; and» 
in short, the Bishop's yadit was, in due course of time, recognised at San Francisco by some 
persons trading there from Hobart Town. Nothing more was heard of her enterprising borrowers, 
who probably disposed ofher before they betook themselves to the diggings. I believe, however, 
that Mr. Hill sent a polite message to his Lordship, apologising for tiie robbery, but urging the 
stem necessity of the case. 

January 12th. — ^This afternoon, (my last in the capital of Van Diemen's Land,) having dfaied 
early, I devoted to visiting the Male Penitentiary, at an hour — seven p.M. — ^when the tenants 
were on a Sunday sure to be at home. The edifice is built of solid stone, with a formidable 
wall surrounding it, and is situated within the dty. My fi-iend and myself were most civilly 
received by the governor of the gaol, who straightway conducted us to the mess-room, where 
the prisoners were attmding an evening lecture by tihe catechist of the prison. This officer^ 
standing in a high reading-desk, and selecting a subject from Scripture, (the Hfo of our Saviour 
was that uodesc present consideration,) mingled his discourse with questions addressed generally 
to his hearers ; nor did he foil to meet a prompt and intelligent reply, sometimes from two or 
more respondents. All were quiet and apparently attentive ; but the answers came from but 
fow. A hymn was sung also in good time and tune, but the performers were, likewise, a select 
few. The worst class of men, in their piebald dress, were separated from those in pepper-and- 
salt, (who are for hire by private individuals ;) and these agBOD. were separated from a more 
juvenile class, the Parkhurst lads. There are usually from 700 to 1,000 men in this prisom. 
A €ne range of solitary cells has just been erected. The greatest care is observed in the classifi- 
cation of tile offenders, in order to prevent the contamination of the bad by the worse. The 
labour, too, is apportioned by a scsde elaborately kept, whereby the age, physical poweiv, and 
health of each person, as computed by the mediod attendant, are taken into account. 

At the conclusion of the lecture the prisoners marched through a line of constables to their 
4S(leeping-rooms ; which are built to accommodate about thirty men in two tiers of berths, — a 
better arrangement than the old dormitories of 3 or 400 persons, but still I think not sufUcienfly 
subdivided. There are lan^ burning all night in each room ; and a watchman with list 
slippers, having charge of a certain set of rooms, creeps about the lantfing-plaoes, maintaining 
order and decency under heavy penalties. The wretched gaol-bu^ had all gone to roost in their 
respective nests when I looked into some of the rooms. Under former and more lax systems, as 
I was informed, the short period between turning in and foiling asleep was employed, and perhaps 
lengthened, by the most vUlainous, disgusting, and blasphemous conversation. No dormitory of 
nuns — placid votaries of celibacy and religion — could hieive been more silent and tranquil tiiaa 
the night-cells of these branded outcasts ; — and how is this managed? I really hardly knew 
whether to burst into a fit of laughter or to view with admiration and approval the scene whidi 
was enacting in each sleeping room. A large tin oil-lamp supplied the chamber with light ; and 
seated on the top of a step-ladder under the lamp was a man, one of the prisoners, book in hand, 
reading aloud — ^reading, in short, those very luxurious rogues, whose heads on their pllows were 



232 OUR AKTirODES. 

turned towards the lector, to sleep ! The good substantial raiment, the plentiful meals, the flue- 
warmed rooms, the medical help gratuitously supplied to the convicted thief, contrast in them- 
selves but too glaringly with the hard-earned livelihood of the honest laboiu*er ; but what would 
John Hodge think, if in addition to the above advantages supplied to him by an indulgent land- 
lord, he were to be fuinished with an 'attendant — ^the parisli clerk, for instance — for the purpose 
of droning him off to sleep? Poor hard-worked Hodge would not need such an auxiliary to 
Somnus ; he would snore (as some of tiie prisoners did on this occasion) before the reader had 
time to put on his spectacles ! The piison readers ai*e of course selected from among the best- 
educated men ; the lecture continues from eight to nine o'clock, and is credited to the performers 
as so much hard labour ; on Sundays serious books are allotted for these nocturnal lectures ; on 
week-days subjects of general information and amusement afford a lighter lullaby, probably less 
rapid in its operation. During the hour or two I passed in this penitentiary, such was the 
perfect order and silence observed, that I did not hear a word spoken except by the officers and 
attendants. It may &irly be styled a model prison. 

Janwxry 13iA. — ^A Mr, Page, proprietor of a daily stage-coach, running between Hobart Town 
and Launoeston, advertises in the public prints the handsome offer of < A bed, a glass of did Tom, 
a cup of coffee, and an outside place — 120 miles — for 58.' However great the temptation held 

out by this announcement, my friend Dr. S and myself, going on the principle that new 

brooms sweep clean, resolved to patronise an opposition coach lately set up — and in so doing we 
did wrong, for it proved to be slower than tiie < old original.' The opposition advertisement be> 
tokened a less liberal spirit, as well as a more distrustful appreciation of the character of 
Tasmanian travellers — ^perhaps a deeper knowledge of the world, or of that portion of it to which 
it mainly referred. It ran thus : — ' Inside, 1/. ; outside, cash, 55. ; credit, 159., and that onhj 
io responsible parties I' 

The plan adopted for the return to New South Wsles of my companion and myself was to go 
by the stage to Launceston, the northern part of Van Diemen s Land— thereby enjoying a flying 
view of the interior of the island ; and at Launoeston to take the Shamrock steamer ; — which 
plies once a month, vid Port Phillip, to Sydney, azvi back. There is no direct steam conmiunica- 
tion as yet between Sydney and Hobart Town. Our kind fiiends at the last-named city had pro- 
cured for us invitations j&om families residing at convenient distances on the road-side — ^thereby 
enabling us to see, in a pleasant manner, a little of Tasmanian country life, and to break the 
length of the journey. The great road from the capital to Launceston is the main artery of the 
island, passing through the best part of it fix>m south to north. The stage-coach travelling in 
Van Diemen s Land is the theme of praise of all strangers ; and, indeed, this particular drive» 
and the manner in which it is performed, are matters really enjoyable to a traveller who remem- 
bers the palmy days of coaching in the Old Country, and who has witnessed with regret the 
decline and fidl of that pleasant mode of transit through a fine country. I believe most of my 
contemporaries will concur with me in the opinion, that few things were more agreeable than a 
seat on the box of a really well-appointed coach, beside a driver fond of Ins profession, for forty or 
fifty miles, at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour, through some of the rural districte of 
England in the harvest season. There was something highly enjoyable, too, I thought, in the 
ringing of the horn and the rattling of the wheels as you dushed over the stones of a country 
town, turning the comers at a swinging trot, stared at by the townsfolk, and then driving und^ 
an archway into an old-fashioned inn, where you were made comfortable for the night, or sent 
forward after a hearty meal with a fresh team and renewM spirits. Yes, I confess, this suited 
my old-feshioned tastes better than the modem rail. Whisk ! you go through a forest of chim- 
neys, steeples, gables, garret-windows, and tom-cat-frequented roo%utterB — and across a street 
which looks, by night, like a flash of lightning passing under you ; — the town is travoised ere 
you have time to recollect and recognise it as your native town ; — ^you approach a pretty village 
on a hill near it, and you have buely Teisure to congratulate yourself that you will catdi a 
glimpse of Unde Anthony's house, and the Rev. Dr. Birch's seminary — ^yom* earliest school- 
when, presto ! the train whip into a tunnel like a rabbit with a terrier at his scut, and your 
uncle's cellar and the doctor s playground are left fifty feet over your head ! Three minutes 
more, and you are m the next county. 

The journey through Van Diemen's Land reminded me faintly, and but fiuntly of bygone 
days ; tiie road itself is perfect ; the London and Bath, or Brighton roads, in their best £iys» 
were not better ; and the scenery is picturesque, although some parts of the country are ex- 
tremely sterile. The pace too is equal to the festest ' Age,' * Defiance,' or * Regulator,* tliat ever 
' kept good time ' on an English turnpike road. The horses are of a better stamp and more of 



TOPOGRAPHICAL CONFUSIOK — MONA VALE. 23^ 

the old English cut than any bred in the other Australasian colonies. Much time is lost at the 
several stages, and yet the distance of 120 miles is done in twelve hours. Generally at a hand- 
gallop, we passed through a great variety of country, — wide-spread tracts of cultivation neatly 
enclosed, but with only middling crops of grain, standing or in process of being mowed ; neat 
and cozy homesteads, proving the competence of the &nner; ^irdens and orchards and hop* 
grounds ; hedges of sweet-brier embalming the air, and of course plenty of wild woodland, besides 
hopeless-looking plains, apparently deserted by animated and v^etative nature. The carriage 
was crowded with passengers — half-a-dozen more than allowed by licence — ^hanging on like bees, 
sitting edgeways, on each others' knees and on the luggage ; the guard now clinging by a lamp- 
iron, now on the step with his arm in at the window, now enjoymg half-rations of sitting-room 
on the foot-board of the box. Even iu England the days of Gentleman-Jehus are gone by,— r 
the days of the Stevensons, and the Cottons, and the Brackenburys. In tiiis colony &ere are no 
gentlemen stage-drivers, as may well be supposed. Our coachman, however, I am bound to say, 
was a pleasant fellow enough when drawn out: ' but I like to keep myself to myself,' said he, 
'when I don't know my company ;' and in Van Diemen's Land such a resolve was unquestion- 
ably a prudent one. His (Costume was pretty correct, even, to the nosegay, and he had ^e gout, 
which was in excellent keeping ; but the harness was dirty, and the horses ill put together and 
driven with as much noise as a team of six or seven hairy-heeled diligence horses in Normandy. 
Moreover, * coachee' handled a r^ular Smithfield pig-whip, instead of the neat taper holly stick 
by * Crowther,' with its thin thong fine enough towards the point for a trout line. But he 
made his nags move, and kept them moving I In 1835 the stage took two days to do this 
joiuney, and the charge was 5/. inside, 4/. outside; now it is twelve hours, 1/. in and 58, 
outside. 

At twelve miles from the city we crossed the Derwent by a causeway and bridge, nearly a 
mile in length — a considerable work. A duster of ruined huts indicates where the muscle came 
from, and a great slice out of a rocky hill where the material was found for the formation of 
this fine piece of convict workmanship. The first town we came to was Brighton, and soon 
after, strange to say, we reached Bagdad. Beyond that Persian dty our route took us over 
Constitution Hill, and having crossed the Jordan, we very appropriatdy came to Jericho, a 
singling village. Jerusalem we left some miles on our right ; and the river Styx, which,^ 
however, we did not cross, has by some means found its way into this Van Demonian Palestine. 
Many of the local names are very characteristic of the ' civil condition ' of the country as it was 
when they were given. Thus, Murderer's Plains, Gallows Hill, and Hell Gate, are the playful 
titles of three wdl-known spots, whose sponsors were doubtless bush-rangers at the best. 



CHAPTER XXII. 



At about midday, and at sixty miles frt)m Hobart Town, which we, the slower coach, performed 
in seven hours, induding stoppages for changing horses and breakfast, — ^we arrived at the en- 
trance-gate of Mr. K , a wealthy colonist, who had kindly offered to receive us for a 

night. The house and pleasure-grounds are situated about a mile from the high road in a 
country by no means pretty, but well adapted for sheep-farming — ^being by nature lightly, 
indeed too lightly timbered ; — an adaptation a stranger might at present reasonably doubt, for 
the natural pasture-land over which we passed in the proprietor's carriage was as hard and a» 
bare as a brick — ^more resembling a Sahara than a sheep-walk. 

Mr. K has however carried irrigation to a greater perfection than any other person per- 
haps in the Australian colonies ; of which he presently gave us proof by diverging from the 
dii^ct road to the house, and bringmg us to a wide tract of refreshing verdure lying in a gentle 
hollow, — where 500 acres are laid down in English grasses, divided by English quick hedges into 
convenient enclosures, along each of which are water-ducts with dam-gates, by which he is enabled- 
to throw the whole or part under water in the driest season. This valuable plot of ground, 
which will probably feed as many sheep as 15,000 acres of the native pastures, was originally 
a swamp, and was recdved under ostensible protest but with a secret appredation of its real 
value by the proprietor, as part of a fr^ grant from government. Indeed, if I remember cor- 
rectly, the worthy old gentleman, who has a hearty liking for a joke, chuckles complacently and 
openly over the fact, that some additional land was thrown in by the authorities as a make- 
weight for the boggy allotment that has helped to make his fortime. Had it fallen into any 



234 » OUB ANTIPODES. 

Other hands it would, in all prohahility, have never fed anything more profitable than a snipe or 
a wild-duck. The swamp was by him thoroughly drained and cleared ; the brook that 8U]^Ued 
it was dammed back so as to form a reservoir, and the predous dement was thus rendered 
available when and where wanted, instead of wandering and wasting itself, a ' chartered liber- 
tine,' in the useless morass. After travelling, as we had d(Hie, through aatj miles of dust and 
drought, — for I never saw anf part of New South Wales so thoroughly burnt up as Vaa 
Diemen's Land this summer, — ^it was delightful to see running water rippling along the oourses, 
and to find one's feet sinking up to the ankles in the deep and damp clover as we crossed tiie 
fields. . The &o^ were loud in their ocpresaiiHi of enjoyment ; even the water-oresses seemed 
ailentlj to luxuriate in the cool and moist comers of the ditches. 

Mr. E did not forget to display to us his perhaps unique method of sheep-washing^ by 

the i^ency of hot water. Two large iron boilers, filled by pipes from a higher levd, keep the 
water at a temperature of 105°, and supply a couple of mioden hatha cooled down to 98°. 
Here tiie sheep are well rubhed and scrubbed by one set of men, and by others are hauled over 
a wooden grating into a cold reservoir, whence, after receiving a shower from a set of spouts, 
ihey are aUowed to escape up an inclined plane of dean pebbles into a grassy paddock to dry 
iheir own coats — and our future pea-jackets and fianoel petticoats. The hot water is not found, 
as might be supposed, to afiect hurtfoUy the yolk of the wool. The extra care and expense 
bestowed upon the flocks, and the getting up of the fleeces have, I understand, been found highly 
remunerative, some portions of the wool having sold in En^and for neariy twice aa much as the 
staple ordinarily prepared. 

Sheep-fonmng is oonductod in Van Diemen's Land under more advantageous^circumstanoei 
than in the colonies on the mainland of New Holland. There are now neither blacks, bush* 
rangers, nor native dogs to harry and despoil the flocks ; the Australian practice, therefore^ of 
folding and watching &em by night, and the consequent necessity for driving them and harwiih 
ing them with collies, soiling their fleeces and crowding them in unhealthy pens, is diq)ensed 
with, or * dispensed without ' — to use tiie stronger expression of my foUow-passenger who gave 
me this information. The ' dispensing without ' two o£ eveiy three of the hirelings for the care 
«f the flocks is no slij^t saving — a saving which perhaps might just turn the scale in whidk 
the question of sheep as a profitable Investment for caqpital — if one is to believe the sqqatia n» ' 
is yet balancing. 

There is nothing remarkably picturesque in the site of Mona Vale, the residence of Mr. 

E ; but the house itsdf is excellent ; there are pleasant gardens and green-houses full of 

fruit and flowers, a tolerable growth of English trees, and, moreover,— rare foature in Austria 
lian home scenery, — a dear and rapid stream running across the lawn and forming beyond it a 
tolerably large pool, edged with English willows of great growth. Indeed, water at this place 
appears to have been dnlled into penect obedience to the behests of this ingenious and determined 
improver. Bath-houses in and out of doors, gardens, and stables, and offices, and even the bed- 
rooms up-stairs are all provided, at a turn of the filler, with a copious supply of the limpid 
clement. Just beyond the lawn, t^ fovourite and beautiful thorougM>red English mare, with m 
foal at her foot, and amicably attended by a huge emu, was luxuriating in a deep clover 
meadow. The proprietor of Mona Yale is a Manxman by birth, and, I suppose, must be thta 
richest Manxman now in existence. His property on this spot is, I am told, about 50,000 
acaes ; and his 20,000 sheep managed as they are, must be as good as 3,000/. aryear to him. 
A patriarchal profusion and a good old-foshioned hospitality reign at Mona Vale-^ahnost to a 
proverb. The table was laid for nearly twice as many guests as were present; and, indeed, 
these appeared and disappeared without apparent previous notioe or ceremony. 

January 14M. — After a pleasant stroll about the grounds and partaking of a most aubetan- 

tisl midday meal, Mr. E accompanied us in his phaeton to the high road, to meet the 

ooach. There was a gentleman in a cabbi^'tree hat and an advanced stage of inebriety oocu- 
jgying my engaged seat on the box ; but he was soon stowed somewhat among the luggage 
after making a faint and inarticulate request to be allowed to act bodkin between the ooachmaa 
and myself. ' Crack went the whip, round went the wheds :' the coach was two hours late 
and we had sixty miles before us. The driver for this half of the journey was quite a youn^ 
man, intdligent and respectable; he had travdled; he had been to California; and had lost 
nothiDg by going thither, and had gained nothing but experience. He preforred Yan Diemen's 
to any other land, especially on account of its climate — was married and lived at Lannceetook 
The vehide was quite as overloaded as it had been yesterday. I recommended tiiat the fore 
should be raised, as the demand for travelling accommodation was evidoitly greater than the 



. OUTSIDERS — ^LAUNCESTON. 235 

aapply on this road, and every one in Van Diemen's land seemed to have plenty of money. 
Yet the rage for cheap tilings — ^which is the ruin of sUl thingis — is as strong here as it is in 
England. 'Baise the &re. Sir?' said the poor coachman; *why, the public will yery soon 
expect us to pay them for travelling with us I' 

Just behind me, and next to my friend — ^whose well-proportioned soul'-case is not of very 
compre»dble mateiials — sat an entire fanuly occupying the place of one outsider — a kind of 
human pyramid, diifering, however, from that form inasmuch as the base was not the widest 
part. A slight young mas composed the lower layer : the second was a fine rQsy-&ced, bulbous 
young woman sitting on his knees ; and the apex was a bouncing babe of two years old seated 
upon hers. Common humanity forbade such a compUaiion for a twelve hours' journey od a 
smnmer's-day ; — mine made me head-nurse for the nonce, and aocordiogly I canied> the child 
for several stages. A few miles beyond Mona Yale, we crossed the Macquarie Siver by a fine 
stone bridge of fourteen or fifteen arches, and passed through the rather pretty town <^ Boss. 
Our course then traversed a levd and apparently fruitful tract, watered, on our left, by the 
above-named river and by the South £sk on our right — grand ranges of mountains rising beyond 
them, Ben Lomond on the one hand, the Western Tiers on the oth^. Sometimes a^ost 
brought to a walk by the new-laid naaeadam, the deep sand or the now dry mud ofTthe alluvial 
fiats, at others racing over miles of inimitably smooth road, we drove tfapou^ Campbeltowii 
and Cleveland, — small stra^ling townships. Then, crossing Hm South. Esk by a solid stooe 
bridge, we found oursel'ves in a richly cultured district with fruitful farms almost adjoining each 
other and betokening the neighbourhood of a considerable market for agricultural produce. The 
jgrain crops here were very luxuriant — so much so as to ensure, I should auppose 500 per cent, 
profit to the fi)rtunate fiumers in a season (like the present) of general drought and £Bulmre 
throughout Australia. 

At about seventeen miles from Launceston, we reached the by-road to the estate of a gentle- 
jnan who had obligingly invited us &nr a night ; but a report that the steamer would positively 
sail the next morning ocnnpeUed us, very reluctantly, to break our engagenent. Mr. W ' i 
with whom we were not personally acquainted, was waiting for us at his gate. The ooadbmao 
pulled up. My friend the Doctor was wraji^ped in a martial doak, with a scarlet lining. Mr. 
W ' presumed he was the Colonel,' and darted distrustful glances at the white-hatted, pea- 
coated tenant o£ the box-seat wifJi the baby on his lap, who saluted him politely. The poor 
little brat was asleep ; I had foi^gotten it altogether; it had become a sort of secGsid nature to 
me. We had inqnrted our regrets to our intended host, made our adieu, and the coach had 
driven onwards some miles before I recollected, with a loud laugh, and suddenly placed in coiii* 

hexion, the puzzled look of Mr. W , with the Doctor who looked like a cdonel and Coloud 

who looked like scmetiung between a doctor and a dry-nurse, the poor slumbering innocent, and 
.the somewhat relieved expression of countoiance exhibited by that hospitable geitleman when he 
found that the whole of this establishment, nurseling indudied, together with a big soldier ser- 
vant and a good amount of baggage, was not to be transferred from the coach to his light dog^ 
cart and from the dog-cart to his &mily circle I We on our side regretted the loss of our vidt 
to this mudi respected eoloni&t ; the more because we had hefud at Hobart ' Town that there 
was no place in tiie country that would have given us a better idea of the establishment of a 
substantial gentleman<-8ettier ; none that could have shown us at a ^ance a better part of the 
colony or a property m<ure successfully adapted to &nmng and breeding. 

* Get on, Tom,' said the guard (he wore a red coat) to the coachmaD,-"' you must get on a 
bit,' said he,, in a manner that reminded me of old stage times ; but it was all in vain ;-^ 
the poor little horses, some of tliem hardly fourteen hands high, were no match for tiie 
jCTOwded coach — they were &irly done up. Night had set in two hours before we reached 
Launceston, and so we had not only to take for granted the beauty of the country around that 
town, but the additional dai^er of darkness was added to a steeply-descoiding and twisted 
road, a top-heavy coach, wretchedly weak wheel-horses, and nothing but a ' lively faith * to 
supply the mundane safeguards of drag-chain, breeching, beariDg-reins, and blinkers, of whidi 
there was not a semblance in this ill-conditioned turn-out. On the steepest pitch of the jjull, 
the coach at last succeeded in running over the horses, and had not the young driver behaved 
with coolness and skill, we must have rolled bodily into the valley of the Esk. The fore- 
wheels were within a few indies of the coping of the road ; and I felt as if I were < going to 
Alabama, (or elsewhere,) with my babhy on my knee,' wh«i he contrived to turn the pole 
aside so as to enable him to pull up the hoi'ses and to stop the carriage ; in consequence of 
-which fortunate escape from extreme peril, at 10 P.M. I had the satisfaction of delivering over 



236 OUR ANTIPODES. 

roj infantine charge safe and sound asleep at the entrance of the Cornwall Hotel, Launceston, 
where my travelling companion and myself had engaged rooms. 

The town of Laanceston, ranking next in importance to Hobart Town, is seated on the 
confluence of the rivers North and South Esk, where their mingled tribute forms the Tamar. 
The two foimer streams ai-e not navigable ; the latter affords passi^ for vessels under 400 
tons fram its mouth, in Bass's Straits, up to the wharfs of the town, a distance of about forty 
miles. Its course, however, is tortuous and baffling, and would be unsafe but for a line of 
buoys. Although every way inferior as a harbour to Hobart Town, and with hardly a 
fourth of its population, the port of Launceston, being more favourably situated for oonomerce 
with the neighbouring colonies, and having an infinitely larger share of good arable land near 
at hand, discharges a greater amount of exports than the other. In 1848 the value of the 
exports from the port of Hobart Town was 55,000/., that of Launceston 69,000/. I have 
heard the population of Launceston variously computed at 4,000 and 7,000 souls ; and by 
striking a balance between the two numbers, the truth would most probably be arrived at. 
There is little to admire in the town itself, though doubtless it is full of charms in the eyes of 
its inhabitants. The climate of this part of the island has the character of being delightful. 
It shows itself in the healthy appearance of the people, especially in the young. I saw in this 
town and its vicinity a very good average of pretty girls, with fine teeth and high colour. 
Further on in life the heat and glare of ^e sun injures the natural beauty of the English 
complexion, bringing it pretty nearly to the Anglo-American level. The temperature is some- 
times very viable, ranging over thirty degrees between morning and evening. 

Having occasion to buy some opossum rugs for my projected voyage Home round the Horn, 
and the Air of this animal being thicker and darker here than in New South Wales, I was 
referred to one 'Johnny All-sorts,'—-a personage as well-known as the parish-pump. This 
useful individual I found a great admirer of the climate. He cited an instance of a friend of 
his who settled originally at Port Phillip, but who, • enjoying ' bad health there, removed te 
Launceston. ' He was as thin as a plank, or as you are, Sir, when he came, but in a few 
months he became as lusfy as myself.' Johnny was a puncheon personified, and any one less 
spHerical, it was evident, was, according to his views in danger of atrophy. His store was a 
picture of the Ommum Gathenim such as is seen in all newly-settled places before the trades 
assume sufficient importance to subdivide themselves. A bet, as I was told, had been offered 
and taken, that no one article could be named by the taker which would not be found in 
Johnny AlUsorts' repertorium. * A pulpit,' was rather unfidrly named ; yet a pulpit, some- 
what soiled and neglected by disuse, but an undoubted pulpit was immediately forthcoming. 
All it wanted was a strenuous divine to knock the dust out of it. 

Launceston has always been a favourite quarter with the officers of H3f . regiments, chiefly 
on account of an agreeable provincial society in the vicinity, more given, perhaps, to the 
country-house hospitality of the old country than is the case in any oSier of our Australian 
dependencies. The town society of Launceston is civic, in the severest sense of the term. 
The retail grocer and draper apologises on meeting a newly arrived officer for not having paid 
his respects to him; and the latter, if lately arrived from England, does not at first compre- 
hend that this is a proffer of acquaintance, and not merely an application for the custom of the 
new comer. It is not to be denied that, to some military gentlemen, the visiting card of their 
tailor might be more welcome than his * small account,' but no apology surely is necessary for 
delay in tendering one or the other I The tradespeople of Launceston speak more cheerily of 
'the times' than those engaged in agricultural or grazing pursuits. Like the Sydneyites, tlie 
settlers in Van Diemen's Land apparently mistook temporaiy and extraordinary prosperity for 
certain and permanent wealth. While the younger colonies .of South Australia and Port Phillip 
were stocking their earliest pastures — pastures boundless in space — ^from the Van Dieraen s 
Land flocks and herds, the Tasmanian farmers made large fortunes by the sale of their mere 
surplus — ^the sheep and oxen for which there was no available feeding-room in the island : bat 
the tables were soon turned; for so rapidly did the stock increase in the moi*e northern 
colonies that the superabundance changed hands, and the interchange of live stock betweoi the 
ports of Launceston and Melbourne, the capital of Port Phillip, has, of late yean, been greatly 
in favour of the latter. 

January 15th, Launceston.^ — The sailing of the Shamrock w^as deferred on account of blowy 
weather ; and perhaps because the captain's wife and family lived at Launceston, and thie 
captain himself was uxorious. What was to ]>e done for a whole day in Launceston ? There 
was no * man to be hanged' as it happened. My Lord Tom Noddy — even Tiger Tim himself 



LONGFORD BACES — TASMANIA^ HORSES. 237 

— would have been puzzled I Fortunirtely, however, we fell in with Mr. , the resident 

agent of the Van Diemen's Land Agricoltui-al Company, who was to he our fellow-passenger 
-as far as Circular Head, the local head-quarters of that Association, aod who recommended and 
offered to accompany us in a trip to Longford races, as affording a good opportunity of seeing one 
of the finest agricultural districts of the colony, and a glimpse of Tasmanian rural life. An open 
carriage with a smart pair of horses was quickly procured ; and we enjoyed a truly delightful 
■and England-like drive of fourteen or fifteen miles through a smiling champaign country such as I 
liave nowhere else seen in Australasia. The forests of Van Diemen's Land resemble pretty 
<;losely those of New South Wales, the gum-tree being hardly less universal in its reign ; but 
the blue gum, the pride of the Tasmanian Sylva, does not flourish in the nortiiem half of the 
island. The face of the country through which we passed is agreeably undulating, and the 
cleared lands, unlike those of every other new colony, are quite unblemished by stumps — one of 
the good effects of convict-labour. It was a cold blowy day, alternate sunshine and gloom. Ben 
Lomond wore a neuti-al-tinted cap of clouds, from which he threw us an occasional shower 
dyed in the rainbow ; while lighter vapours hung in mid air, and were drifted across the 
landscape, flinging down their fugitive shadows upon upland and plain and wide tracts of golden 
grain crops ready for the sickle. Unlike Australia, the enclosures are as often marlwd by 
hedges as by rail-fences, and here and there a single large tree, or a group of them, had been 
spared to adorn a ^eld. The South £sk, a deep and slow stream, which we crossed by a 
ferry-boat, meanders along and fertilizes this favoured district. The tall hedges of gorse in 
full bloom looked and smelt like Home. We met a flock of sheep driven by a shepherd with a 
real pastoral crook — the crozier of his diocesan authority, and two tailless dogs that dodged 
through gaps in the fences, or scrambled at full speed over the backs of the close-serried flock in 
order to lead them in the way they should go. Now and then we overtook good substantial 
■spring-carts filfed with burly yeomen, their sonsy helpmates, and no end of rosy children — 
the hind-part of the vehicle looking like a basket of peonies in full bloom, while beneath it 
trotted a trusty mastiff. In our turn we were passed by a smarter dog-cart or two driven by 
young farmers, or by fast-trotting hacks bestridden by rustic beaux in tops and cords, straw 
liats and hunting-whips. A traveller addicted to absence of mind, and imaginary absence of 
body, might well have fancied himself in Derbyshii-e. The Longford-race-comse lies near the 
village of that name, a brick-built village — brick from the church-door to the pigsty. The 
clergyman's house — foi-tnnately veiled round with shrubbery — looks out upon the hippodrome. 
It was a regular rustic meeting. A wooden platfoim for the judge, with a small pen for the 
ceremony of weighing, half-a-dozen booths decorated with motley bunting, half-a-dozen hack 
carriages, as many dog-carts, about fifty horsemen, and twice as many pedestrians, constituted 
the company of this Tasmanian Doncaster. The running was absurdly bad, but there were 
£ome very nice horses on the course, and a few of a good old-fashioned stamp — such as is now 
not common an3rwhere, and is unknown in New Soutii Wales. 

The Van Diemonians, as they unpleasingly call themselves, or permit themselves to becalled, 
■are justiy proud of their horse-flesh. They have opened a market with India, which is likely 
to prove beneficial to buyer and seller. Among a series of equine anecdotes related to me by 
the stage-coachman on our late journey — anecdotes which, emanating ex cathedrd (from the 
box), 1 invariably receive with respectful faith — there was one relating to a horse of the team 
running into Launceston, which I will repeat as testifying to the staunchness of the Tasmanian 
breed. ' Do you see that littie 'oss. Sir ? the off leader. Sir ?' said my informant ; * that 
littie 'oss, Sir, is the best bit of stuff I ever sat behind ? That little 'oss ain't to be beaten by 
anything that stands on four legs. You can't go too' fast or too far for that little 'oss. 
He's been on this road these eight years — off and on. I'll tell you a curious story about that 
little 'oss, Sir.' The story told how * the gent that owned him then' drove him one afternoon in 
his gig from Launceston to a friend's house seventeen miles distant, and after dinner back 
again to the town ; how that same night he was stolen from the stable by a notorious bush- 
ranger — one who had need of speed and knew the powers of this horse, — and how before 
twelve o'clock the next day he was sold by auction — * tiiat littie 'oss was ' — at Hobart Town 
by his borrower, looking * as fresh as a new pin,' having carried this Tasmanian Dick Turpin 
one hundred and twenty-one miles in the interim. 

January 16th. — ^The waiter of the hotel announced to us this morning that Launceston was in 
a state of unusual excitement, on account of a grand meeting and a grand breakfast to be holdeu 
and given in honour of the Delegates of the Tasmanian Anti- Transportation Society, and further 
that the Cornwall Hotel was to be the sc^e of this demonstration. My friend and myself. 



288 OUR ANTIPODES. 

although too obtnae to diseover any token of popular eballition in the dull little town, were 
thankful to have got timelj warning that the aforesaid delates were actually ' under ordera' 
to prooeed to Melbonnie in the Shamrock, for the purpose of conferring with their brother 
Antis of Port Phillip, and thence to Sydney to gather recroita for the League; and further, 
that they were to march in procession, bands playing, and colours flying, after break&st, 
from the Ian to the wharf. Forewarned we were forearmed ; there was no time to lose ; so 
packing up oar ba^age and paying our bill we hastened on board the steamer in the tantiest 
and most undemonstratire manner ;— for to have been inrolved in a party procession in Van 
Diemen's Land — however involuntary the enrolment — would have sounded ill at the Horse 
Guards, we thought, and would not have redounded much to our credit even in New South 
Wales. Ten minutes later the Delegates approached, escorted by a considerable crowd — ^the 
band playing ' Lore Not,' and other equally appropriate airs ; sereral sets of cheers were 
proposed by a gentleman on the paddle-box, and responded to by the multitade; and I am 
pleased and bound to state that * The Queen ' was reoeired with every testimony of loyalty 
and respect. 

On the absorbmg question of transportation there seemed to exist in Van Diemen's Land 
ahnost as great diversity of opinion'as in New Sonth Wales. The Antis have naturally the 
^best of the argument, or, at least, they employ more strenuous language than their opponents. 
The advantage of verbal fnlmination lies indeed on their aide; for K is always easier to attack 
than to defend a system. For some weeks after I escaped from, the steamer, my ears rang with 
the stale set phrase»— * social contamination ;' * the outpourings of British crime ;' *• imported 
corruption ;' ' the beautiful land of our adoption made a moral cesspool !' ' moral potlntion V 
* moral scabies ! !' * moral leprosy III' &c. More than once in Van Diemen's Land I heard 
very violent language used with respect to the continuance of transportation ; and, in one 
instance especially, a discontented or bilious gentleman, whose station and education might have 
taught him better taste, worked himself up to such a state of rabid denunciation of Govern- 
ment measures, colonial and imperial, in which he was joined and assisted by a beneficed 
clergyman of tiie Church of Ei^and, that I felt my position as a guest of the house, and as 
an imperial officer, extremely embarrassing ; and was very glad to quit the shelter of so 
republican a roof. In this discussion the most absurd charges were brought against the Hone 
and Colonial Government. I give one instance. To prove that expenses that ongfat to have 
been defrayed out of imperial funds had been unfairly charged against the colony, we were 
told that, a short time before, a convict, who was dying in the hospital, had been emancipated 
a day or two before his death in order that he might die a free man, and thus the cost of his 
burial might fall on the Colonial purse I Here was a finannial dodge with a vengeance ! The 
simple truth was, that the term of the poor moribund's sentence expired before himself, and 
thus he and his friends (if he dianced to possess any) had the satisfaction of feeling that he 
died a free man. One fiery dedaimer would have it tiiat the time was drawing near when tliey 
would have to fight for their ind^>endenoe ; or, at any rate, the Qneen would have to send a 
large force to keep thon in subjecti<»i ; and the colony would have the benefit of a large 
mihtary expenditure, instead of the present shamefully reduced garrisons. I assured tUs 
patriot that England would not strike a blow, except against a foreign foe, for the retention of 
Van Diemen's Land ; and that the force at present in the colony could keep tiiem in perfect 
flrder, if necessary. 

I observed in ihis island, as elsewhere, a strange inconsisteney between public protestation 
and private procedure on the convict question — an inconsistency easily explained ;— ~it was 
•popular to denounoe convictism, profitable to employ convict kbour I I heard of a prea i fc nt 
of an anti-transportati<»i meeting discussing the question in the abstract, and descanting with 
teare in his eyes upon the anxious feelings of a husband and a feither ^hen called by duty or 
business to leave his fiimily in the hands of a convict neighbourlrood. He was drily questioned 
how it happened that, possessed of such opinions, he had, on -ffiis occasion, left his wife and 
children in the power of Ihirty^ix prisoners in his own employment! This insinoatioB 
was, of course, replied with indignation, and refuted on the spot. Not a bit of it, tiie 
virtuous denouncer of convictism denied that he employed thirfy^ix oonvicts, — ^he only kept 
thirty ! 

But Shamrock is under wei^, eramful of passengers, some of them bound to Sydney like 
myself, others to Circular Head, several to Melbourne, and a tew only on a javnt to George 
Town, the Brighton of North Tasmania. After forty miles of serpentining down the pietumque 
Tamor against a rough wind, our steamer dropped anchor in tiw little cove ofi* that town. 



GEORGE TOWN — FBLL0W-PAS6EKGEB8. 23$ 

where we remained, weather-boand axid wietdied, the whole of the iiext day. Mj friend and 
myself aexti ashore, and secured, as we thought, beds for the night ; but we were diqpossesaed 
by the villainous Boniface in favour of a party of more pennaueut cuetomers,— hi tamily of 
Laonoeston sh<^eepers. 

George Town is a miserable spot, looking like the ghost of a depaited marme bagnio, and 
seated on a dreary £a.t scarcely above the level of the sea. About a dozen and a half of hooses, 
public and private, and a small . church surround a rushy conmion, such as one sees in the 
fenny counties ef England. In America or Asia it would be the head-quarters of ague ; yet 
it is, in fact, particularly healthy. George Town owed its sudden rise to the necessity eiisting 
lor a port of shipment for live stock from this island to Port Phillip, when the latter great 
squatting settlement was created by the fonner. It derived importance also fiom being a 
military and convici station. Both these sources of importance have now failed the poor 
little place. The ruins of the respective barracks are all that remain of the Government men 
and their guards; and the township is strewed with the melancholy proo& of money, public 
and private, fruitlessly expendai. From a somewhat restless and dissipated-looking fellows 
passenger, who with bee^ike diligence seemed to sip to the dr^ the sweets of every place 
and pleasure that fell in his way (for I had subsequent leisure to mark his mode of life), and 
who remained ashore until a late hour at night and came on boardsleepy and imsober, I elicited 
the fact that quoits, skittles, and a bagatelle-board were all that was to be had in the way ot 
^ life ' at George Town. This gentleman would have liked it better in an earlier stage of its 
existence, for, in the old days of mismanaged oonvictism, this placs^ it is written, was a perfect 
hell upon earth. Rum, riot, and misrule, — a state of communism among the male and 
female prisoners, — ^and peculation, and concubinage with the convict women among the 
official people, such was * life ' in George Town in its palmy days J 

Jcantary 18M.— Got under weigh and proceeded along the northern coast of Van Diemm's 
Land towards Circular Head— distant 70 miles. But ere the vessel was pennitted to take 
her final departure, a ceremony was gone through which smacked somewhat of the hateful 
pas^rt system of continental Europe, and reminded one that the mouth of the Tamar is in 
iact one of the gates of a huge prison, A functionary came on board, and, in a manner I must 
say by no means offensive, possiBssed himself of every passenger's history, so fSar at least as to 
make it imposaible, or next to impossible, for a convict to evacuate the island as a passenger 
4xt one of the crew. Yet, on a late occasion, the vigilance of this officer ww at fault, — a female 
iprisoiier having made her escape^ padced and labelled in a pretended case of stuffed bixds, 
addressed to Port Phillip. 

Like the stage-coaches of Tasmania the steamer, a nice vessel of perhaps 300 tons, and com- 
manded by a deservedly popular man, was most uncomfortably overcrowded. We had about 
twenty-five cabin passengers, and a very motley assemblage we formed. There were civil and 
military and clerical, medical and legal, and mechanical gentlemen, Jews and Gentiles, mer- 
chants and squatters. As for the * civil condition' (as the Census papers call it) of the 
guests at the cuddy-table, there was really every gradation of the bond and the fiee, short of 
prisoners under actual restraint; and one or two of them had < lag ' so indelibly written on 
their hardened lineaments, that opulent as they might now he, it seemed monstrous that they 
ahould be permitted to jostle gentlemen of character on equal terms. I found myself 
shrinking from a commenced acquaintance with one fellow passenger when I heard that he 
had but lately got his freedom from the consequence of a crime whic^ hlasts a man's character 
for ever; and had, since his manumission, committed an act of the grossest depravity and 
breach of £&ith. Yet this person, being clever in his profession, ia never in want of employ- 
ment. £very trip of ^the steamer imports a large detachment of the * freed ' and ' filtered ' 
from Van Diemen's Land to New South Wales — a very sore sulgect with the anti-transporta- 
tionist party at Sydney. There were two or three passengers named to me as the offspring of 
convicts, estimable peopl^ on whom to visit the expiated sins of their parents— expiated bb 
&r as human laws were concerned — would have been cruel injustice. A remarkably hanct' 
some and ladylike person was pointed out as a daughter of * Mai^garet Catcbpole,' the well* 
known heroine of Mr. CobboM's tale. There were some among the iroe who merited the 
adjunct of easy also — gentlemen of the bush, of the cabbage-tree hat and corduroys, of the 
beard, the belt, and the black pipe, with an exiguity of luggage amoimting to the extremily 
of light marching order. 

While I am writing these notes, a tall, picturesque-looking sprig of the squatocracy has just 
pitched his 'swag ' — a leathern vaiis^ tiirough the open skylight upon the cuddy-table, to the 



240 OUB ANTIPODES. 

astonishment of -nay inkstand — ^and of myself had I been capable of astonishment — a feeling 
luckily almost rubbed off by fair wear and tear. Nor did this hardy bushman treat his 
person more tenderly than his wallet ; for at night, having no cabin, he threw himself down 
on the oil-cloth table-cover, where, swathed in a blanket, he looked like a huge sturgeon oa a 
fishmonger's slab. Six or eight others were no better accommodated ; the floor was strewed 
with mysterious sleeping forms, and one wondered what manner of creatures would emei^e 
with daylight from their several cocoons. Nowhere have I seen individuals of the wealthier 
classes travel so untrammelled with baggage as in these colonies. Sir Charles Kapler himself 
would be charmed and satisfied with their simplicity of kit. But no— on recollection I have 
seen it outdone in another land. On board the Great Western steamer, bound from New 
York to Bristol, I shared a cabin with three other men. When I reviewed my ton-and-ap 
quarter of personals I could not but envy the independence of one of these gentlemen whose 
tiny portmanteau contained two shirt-fronts, a pair of boots, and a bowie-knife. 

Among the passengers in the Shamrock my notice was particularly attracted to a tall, 
-stout, German-like man, about fifty years of age, attired in a dirty drab Chesterfield, without 
waistcoat, gloves, or other expletives of dress, and who stood generally with hands in pockets 
smoking his cigar, and leaning against the funnel. When he did draw forth a great pair of 
freckled fists it was either to light another cigar or to refer to a note-book ; — it was a note*book 
worth re^rring to I Whoi not thus employed he was frequently sleeping, or appareatlf 

sleeping, on a bench before his cabin-door. This person was Mr. , well known as the great 

land-owner and land-purchaser. Last year he purchased from Government 28,000/. worth of 
land in the Port Phillip district, which, at the minimum price of Crown-lands, would give 
the like number of acres ; and within his cabin-door, whereat he keeps a sort of mastiff- 
watch, although not an obvious one, lies a small portmanteau, in which, as he told me hun- 
«elf, he has at this moment 20,000/. (5,000/. in gold), which he is carrying to Melbourne 
for the purchase of another block or special survey of Crown-land. In Van Diemen's Land 
he has already purchased 50,000 acres, part from the Crown, part from private persons^a 
good deal of it cleared, fenced, and with more than one valuable homestead. This season, he 
informed me, he had sheared in New South Wales 90,000, and in Van Diemen's Land 40,000 
sheep; and had sent to England 1,500 bales of wool, which, at 20/. a bale, gives 30,000/. 
He has no taste for the luxuries ; cares little even for the comforts of life, as tar as himself 
is concerned. He is bestowing on his children a liberal education; his sons studying with a 
«lerg3rman in England. They will soon be able to share his labours— the labour of amassing 
money and property. This amount of wealth, the end of which is not easy to foresee, sprung 
from a small beginning. When othei-s, in the bad times, were ruined, he bought at his own 
price the live-stock and land that they were compelled to sell. When prices rose he sold 
part, and stocked the plains of Port Phillip with the rest. Like the Gullys and Hudsons of 
the old country he seems to possess an innate power of quick calculation, wliich in matters 
of business is worth all the acquired powers in the world. Such men strike while the iron is 
hot ; others ponder and waver until it cools. 

His phjTsical power and formidable pei'son — for he must be six feet high, and about fifteea 
stone, are valuable allies (as he indeed admitted) in the control of the unruly class of men he 
employs in parts of the country where the law has little or no force. In the shearing season 
he is compelled to collect, at his head stations, about fifty or sixty roving, roaring, rowdy 
blades — wild hands when idle, but good at a * clip ; ' on which occasions he takes care to ^ 
present himself, and does not forget to bring with him a cask of rum (the teetotal Anti- 
transportation del^ates shuddered !) which, when the business is finished, he abandons to 
the discretion of the workmen, instead of troubling himself with tha daily doling of it out. 

If Mr. is to make 30 or 40,000/. a-year by his wool, and is resolved to turn it, or half 

of it, into land, he must shortly become the proprietor of a principality which will cause the 
Arch-Dukes and Princes of central Europe, and the Rajahs and Nawaubs of central India, to 
-sink by comparison into insignificant squireens ; and should his flocks continue to increase in 
the ordinary yearly ratio, he will soon possess as many woolly subjects as the kings of Congo, 
Loango, and Mandingo put together. In case the Government decline to part with more 
territory .to this gentleman — and I am aware the policy of so doing has been questioned — ^he 
will find private proprietors of land amenable to his gold; — ^indeed I have before me a paper 
showing that in the year 1846, at the sale by auction of a fine private property in Van Diemen'c 
Land, he bought 23,000 acres for less than 14,000/. (a large portion of it fenced and improved), 
d,000/. below^ the Government minimum price for wild land. His enarmons squatting esta* 



CIBCULAB HEAD— POBT PHILLIP. 241 

blishnients moreover will give him the right of pre-emption over considerable tracts. * For 
myself, I consider Mr. ■ a real benefactor, a rentable patriot to his adopted country ; for 
every ten or twelve pounds that he expends on Crown land will bring, or ought to bring, to 
Australia a free emigrant ; and population is the highest boon that can be conferred upon a 
young colony. At the risk of undue accumulation of property, and the consequent undue 
influence resident in one individual, let the Government take his guineas and give their waste 
land, in full reliance on human nature and past experience, and in the certainty that what one 

generation amasses the next will dissipate, or at least divide. Mr. is one of those 

characters that are seldom met with except in young and wild countries, and not often there. 
It is in the crash of social and financial chaos that such men elbow their way to the front rank — 
the greater the general confusion and dismay the more certain their success ; they are the rari 
nantes, who, with eyes firmly fixed on one object, after manifold buffetings come safe to 
land. In England there are instances of individuals — especially among the manufacturing 
classes — who, in the course of one life-time, have raised themselves and their families from 
moderate means to enormous wealth ; but in Australia all the stages between adventurous 
beggary and inordinate possessions have, in some cases, been traver^ in a quarter of man's 
usual term of existence. 

At three p.m., having steamed ten hours, we reached Circular Head, the chief station, as I have 
said, of the Van Diemen's Land Agricultural Company, and we cast anchor in a small cove 
sheltered by the natural feature suggestive of the name, (a huge basaltic bluff, nearly 500 feet 
high,) and imited to the main by a low and narrow isthmus. As we drew near, it looked like an 
active volcano ; for the summit was enveloped in blaze and smoke, the grass having been fired iu 
order to produce a fi^h crop. About a mile inJand, on a somewhat exposed plateau of good soil, 
appears the &rm of Stanley, with the house and gardens of the agent embowered in fine timber ; 
and nearer the harbour is the village of the same name, contdning perhaps a dozen houses, a 
greatiy overgrown and disproportionate tavern, and a remarkably diminutive church. The Com- 
pany possess 20,000 acres at head-quarters — their entire landed property in the island amounting 
to 350,000 acres. Emu Bay, one of their setti^nents, the Commissioner assured me, is a 
perfect little paradise, — * the dimate all the year round like that of a greenhouse with the 
windows open.' 

The Captain of the ShamfWik allowing us two hours, my friend and myself accompanied 

Mr. to the Resident's house, a spacious building with most delightful gardens ; and siu*- 

rounded by a well-fenced deer park, where an immense herd of fellow-deer, the first I have met 
with in Australia, are turned out. It was a curious sight to see the beautiful denizens of our 
English parks, interspersed, with a few Durham bulls of high breed, feeding under the shade of the 
Banksia and the Eucalyptus, up to their bellies in English grasses, while a group of tall Emus 
— birds that are always fond of the company of large quadrupeds — stalked amicably amongst 
them. There are several hundred renters of land and labourers, all fi'ee men, located in the ter- 
ritories of this Association. I fear that the laudable and promising experiment of peopling and 
cultivating this fine tract of country does not, at present, prove remunerative. 

At seven p.m. got up steam again, and avray across the straits (here 140 miles vdde) in a 
north-west direction towards Port Phillip, — Port Phillip, hitherto a rich and prosperous province 
of New South Wales, but now on the point of legislative separation under the new title of the 
Colony of Victoria. The divorce, in fact, has passed the Houses of Parliament, and only needs 
to be received and promulgated by the Governor of the senior colony. 

I will remind my reader that tiie territory of Port Phillip was originally taken possession of 
in the year 1804 by an expedition from Home, despatched witii the object of forming tiiere a penal 
settlement. Hastily selecting a sterile tract of Isuid, where water was scarce and bad, and with- 
ofnt any exploration of the adjacent fine country, the conductors ot the undolaking as hastily 
abandoned the spot, and, re-shipping the troops and convicts, sailed for Van Diemen's Land, 
where they settled down at Hobart Town. Thus deserted, it was not until 1835 that this 
eligible territory was once more resumed by Englishmen. A party of squatters from Van Die- 
men's Land wanting space for their increasing flocks, crossed the Straits, and quickly proved 
themselves more determined than the Imperial expedition in their occupation and appropriation of 
the soil. Mr. Batman and his companions purchased, or imagined, or pretended to imagine they 
had purchased about 600,000 acres — ^two or three English counties ! — ^fix)m an aboriginal firm 
residing in the bush — three blacks of the same femily ; * Jaga Jaga and Brothers,' as they 
might be styled — the latter house signing and duly executing a r^lar cut-and-dried deed of 
conveyance, whereby * All Persons ' were requested to * Know ' that in consideration of a certain 



242 COB AHTIFODES. 

qaantity of bkmkeis, knives, tomidiawkfi, sdsson, lixridng^^aases, slopr, and flcmr — together 
witii a yearly Mbate of the like articleB besideB — tbe original propiietorodid ' give, grant '---^iit 
it nwkes one sm^ to go on ! and I have previously troubled my bdnlgent reader with a sketch of 
some such docoment as employed in New Zealand.) The GovenuBoeDty however, fully alive to 
tbe value of this fine provinoe and port as a field for emigration, diaibused Messa-s. Batman and 
otibers of thdr illusion, explaining to them in the most practical manner the theory of colooial 
waste lands, and their absolute investment in the Crown as trustee for the public The Derwent 
Company became, therefore, squatters on the soil, taking out depastuzing lioenoes under Hie 
Government of New South Wales ; and the claims of the Association * were finally ctisposed of 
If a oompensstion allowance to the extent of 7,000/., to be given by way of remission in the 
purchase of land.'* Whatever might have been the character of the transaction with the Abed- 
gines, it is to such enterprisii^ men as Batman and his companions that Britain owes many of 
her most valuable depoidencies. The ape is not the only animal liiat aviuls itself of the 
cat's paw ! 

In 1836 the firontier of New South Wales was extended so as to embrace P<Ht PlulBp, and 
officers fipom Sydney were sent to take possession and erect a settlement. The pn^ress of Port^ 
Phillip has heen. extremely rapid. In 1837, the year after its settlement as a dependency of 
New South Wales, the total revenue of the province was about 6,000/. In 1847 it amounted 
to 138,000/. ; and in 1850, the last oitire year of its financial connexion with the Sydney di»- 
triot, it reached the good round sum of 261 ,000/. * To show,' says the Sydney Morning Merold, 
*• how Fort Phillip hm gidned upon Sydney in point of revoiue, we aubjoin the proportianB in 
which the districts contributed respectively to each 100/. of the general revenue : — 

In the period from 1837 to 1841— 

PortPhiUip. &n 

^fdney 91.3 

In tbe year 1850 — 

Port Phniip 33.7 

Sydney . . , 66.18 

Thus during the first five years Port Phillip contributed less than one-twelfUi of tbe general 
revenue ; and in the year 1850, exactly one-third.' 

There have been a good many candidates for the honour of atqpding sponsor for this district. 
What it was called by the Jaga- Jaga fiatemity no one much cares ; Governor King gave it the 
name of Port Phillip in honour of bis predeoess(»r ; Sir Thomas Mitchell dubbed it Australia 
Felix ; I>r. Lang would have tbe bonny bairn called Phillipsland ; when, fortunately for thefidr 
provinoe. Her Majesty was advised by her Privy Council to confer upon it the tiUe of Ylctoria. 
' Floreat Victoria' should be the motto of the newly-endowed colony. * Advance, Austanalia !' 
18 that of New South Wales. 

January 19^A^— With fine weather and smooth sea — just sucb weather and sea as are suitable 
to a steam vessel of small power, (a vessel quite inadequate to the commerce now existing and 
arising between the continent and Tasmania) — we approached and entered the Heads of Port 
Phillip ; and at 3 P. M . we were dancing in tbe well-^own ' ripple ' caused by the gulf-stream 
confined in a channel perhaps a mile and a half wide, but diminished by ree&. Once within tbe 
portals, which are low and featureless as compared with those of Port Jackson and Hobart Town, 
we seemed again to lose sight of land — such is the extent of the inlet within whose jaws we bad 
entffl^d. Pressing onwards, it was a considerable time before we sighted any part of its wide 
margin. At length here and there <m the horizon appeared tops of trees stem-down — then low 
banks of sand quivering in the haze of evening — ^6at tracts of bush, — and, slightly elevated 
above them, occasional levels of dear yellow space, which I fondly believ^ to be grain crops, 
but which, I subsequently learnt, were no more than bumirup pastures, grassless as we axyaoent 
sand^banks. No mountains, no bills even appeared, no indications of the boundless plains and 
splendid pastures which have made the fortune of the district The weather, to be sure, was un- 
nvourable for the enjoyment of landscape, for the atmosphere was thick and luiid fixxn 
the tonific bush-fires which bad lately rav^ed and were yet smouldering throughout tbe 
inteiior. 

We passed a lighthouse on a rocky headland to our left, saw the surf breaking on the beach of 
Brighton to our right, were informed that the port embraces an extent of 875 miles of open water ; 
and, after thirty-five miles of paddling since she entered the heads, the Shamrock^ at seven p JC 
dropped anchor in Hobson's Bay dose off the little settlement of Williamstown at the mouth of 

• Westgarth's Australia Felix. 



A STATE CABIN — A LAND-BUTER'S * SWAG.' 243 

tibA Tarra BiYca-, on whieh MdboHme staods, but still nine miles from tbuit dtj. At the present 
state of the tide the wxetdied little stream was not navigable even by a vessel of snch light 
dbsoght as onr steamer. Thero were small shore-boats hovering about, which carried off such of 
Ihe passengers as possessed more legs than luggage to a point ^ the bay whe:ice, it was stated, 
they would reach the capital by walking two or tiiree miles across a doubtfol, swampy oountry, 
by the doubtful light of a gloomy evening. My £riend and myself, having long ago buried that 
nstlees impetuosity which impels young isavellers to rush into unknown dkcomforts, resolved 
to aliide sudi as were insepacable from our lot itAheac than ' fly to others that we knew not of/ 
Not without a grumble at the tide, nor without a hot glass of brandy*and-water, we therefore 
bestowed ourselves for the night upon the i^espedive shelves ci our joint state cabin. State 
cafami what a prostitution of terms I what a cruelly ironical abuse of language! How is it 
that the word has so long and so universally, where English is spokoii, been pennitted to mo<^ 
the wretch doomed to occupy that coffin above ground — ^the closest and cruellest incarceration, 
enHvened with the chance of being drowned or blown up ; — * state ' — marry come up 1 stale of 
misery' — state of nausear— <if sufi^acation — state of stewing and compression like a Norfolk biffin 
in course of preparatiai — state of burial alive ; of burial, too, with another living corpse that is 
pretty sure to snore, or swear, or be sic^ through the livelong night, (not that my fiiend did 
either !) while the patient occupying the uppa berth is ^Eraid to sue^e — if he happen to have a 
cold, as I had — lest he should knock his nose against the deck 1 

January 20th. — ^The view of Melbourne from the anchorage is by no means prepossessing. 
Although nine miles distant up the course of the Yaira, it does not ai^>ear mwe than four across 
the flat, scrubby land, which forms the 1^ bank o£ that stream. The city lies very low, and in 
oomparison with Sydney, Hobart Town, and even Launceston, impresses the stranger with the 
idea of heat and dosesiess. At iive AJi., disengt^ing herself from among a fleet of some fifteen 
merchant vessels, the Shamrock enteied the mouth of the river, and in an hour and a half was 
aka^de the ' Queen's wharf.' The stream is narrow and lazy, and near the town by no means 
pleuing to the senses ; it runs through fiat banks, covered witii * &t weeds ' and mangroves, or 
other low scrub ; and in any other country but Australia I would have fanned my affidavit upcm 
such a tract producing ague and fever in high perfecticm. Melbourne, nevertheless, is, I bdievei 
quite as salubrious as any other pu't of New Holland. 

On the vessel reaching tlie wharf the majority of the passengers disappeared as if by m«gic ; — 
in fire minutes none being left but the great land accumulator and ourselves. The officer com- 
manding the troops at Melbourne had obligingly sent some of his men to carry our baggage to 

the hotd. Mr. C was bound there also, and, as I a»w him hanging about the auriferous 

portmanteau after the manner of an anxiously matnnal cow with her calf in peril, I profiered a 
oouple of larking 'light-bobs' to ' walk away' with the object of his solidtude — ^a prc^xjsition 
which the pro^Hietor appeared to 'relish about as much as I intended he should. The steward 
and his asastonts, being now at Idsure, seized the lidi valise by the ears, lugged it out of the 
cabm (it was as much as they could manage), and I saw no more of it nor of its worthy xtwner. 
I am aware, however, that he lost no time in carrying out his project ; for, the v^y same day 
lie waited upon his Honour the Superintendoit, and tendered for a block of land to the extent of 
the sum he had brought with him. It was impossible to help admixing the amplidty and 
atndghtforwardness of the transaction — ' Here's my miHiey, give me my acres I' 

Melboume is a well-laid-out ugly town, ocmtaixilng about 20,000 inhabitants. The adjacent 
country, visible irsfin the h^faest look-out, is but poorly sprinkled with trees, and is, at p'esent, 
herbless to a degree that I never saw elsewhere, even in New South Wales. Tlie town is but the 
outlet for the splendid back country of which, I regret to say, the short stay of the steamer — 
only ferty-dght hours — perinitted me to see nothing. There is about Melbourro an air of pro- 
gress and prosperity aj^parent to the least observant stranger ; an air of bustle and busmess dur- 
ing the working hours of the day, and of solid comfort and easy compet^ce when the labours of 
the day are over. The middle and poorer classes are so well off indeed, that they have no neces- 
sity for extreme exertion. Perhaps this may be carried a little too &r ; for it was m vain my 
servant tried to knock up a chemist at sevoi o'dock in the morning ; and the Hebrew draper 
opposite the inn lost my custom for a blouse by keeping his shop hermetically closed imtil eight 
o clock ; at which hour, heralded by a dattmng of shutters and a shop-boy with a Inx)^^ 
and a watering-pot, this gentleman s conrt-plaister vest and diam<Hid pin — rigorous morning 
costume of the Jewish and of the Yankee ' commercial gentlwnen ' — ^made their first appear- 
ance, accompanied by a bevy of pretty, wellMiressed children of Israd, with large black eyes, 

hook noses, and cork-screw curls. 

B 2 



244: OUB AXrriFODEB. 

We were very well put up at the Royal Hotel, which fronts a fine wide street, fall of exodlent 
shops. My bedroom looked apon a lai^ stable-yard, into and out of which men with beards 
and cabbage-hats seemed to be continually driving tandems. Beyond the back-yard there was a 
glimpse of the river, whose opposite bank presented the dreary bomt flat before mentioned. An 
excellent dinner for fettr was served up to us ; and on all points the establishment seemed to be 
well managed. The hostess, a handsome young woman, whose morning dress was of white 
muslin with a black silk polka-jadcet braided in red, carolled about the house and her business 
in a manner quite cheering to the spuits ; in a manner, too — and it strode me for the first time — 
not common in these bolonies ; and I don't know why. I have always thought the song or 
whistle of man or maiden a sort of indirect compliment to those they serve under ; and I wonder 
why I so seldom heard in Australia, these tokens of a cheerful heart. * The miUaxiaid's song I* 
* The ploughboy whistling o'er the lea 1' — ^in New Holland ! As well might you expect to hear 
the lobin or the blackbird warbling in a gum-tree I Can it be that the ori^nal character and 
temper of labour has been engn^ted permanently on the soil ; — ^that the sullen tcme of the 
original ccmvict serf has descended to the finee servant of to-day ? Or is it that the feodality of 
feeling existing between master and man has departed altogether out of the land ? — is d^nrtixig 
out of ail lands? I have been inclined to think so ever since the last groom and valet I had at 
home — a modernised fellow, who attended his dub twice arwedc — ^taught me to look upon 
myself, not as his master but as his employer. There was a good deal of significance, methought, 
in that substitution of title. 

The good folks of Melbourne are all mad just now about separation, — separation from New 
South Wales. I saw to-day the words * Separation Inn,' dialked up over- the door of a low 
shebeen-house, whose former sign had been erased ; and one of the five newspapers of this little 
town contained an advertisement for the sale, at a music-shop, of a new air, ' the Separation 
Polka,' — inapplicable title for a dance of whidi posonal proximity in the daaoers is a leading 
feature. * Sc^nration,' as may be supposed, is a popular waivnote with the Irish party — a pretty- 
strong one in Melbourne. It is an instalment of that ' Repeal ' whidi has rung in their eani, 
and luis been instilled into their hearts by priests and patriots ever sinoe their birth, — the only 
instalment of it they are ever likely to obtain. 

In Mdboume I fell in with several old soldiers, men of the ranks, I mean. Some of them 
called on me at the hotel, pretending business, but I saw that a gossip about * the ould corps ' 
or the service in general was the real object of many of my visitors. They expressed themstlves 
pleased with the place, and were in good emplo3rment dther in the police, where the pay was a 
guinea a^week, or in private service, which gave them fixmi 20/. to 30/. a-year with abundant 
rations. Amongst these men were two or three Chelsea out-pendoners, who had come out in 
diarge of convicts to Van Diemen's Land, and had been offered firee grants of land to induoe them 
U> settle there. They preferred the dimate of that island. * It was a deal cooler than Port 
Phillip,' said one ; * but. Lord love you. Sir, when I went to look at my bit of land, I found it a 
rough lot fiu* firom any settlement. I had not a shilling to lay out in improving the soil, and 
could sddem get a day's work to help me on a bit ; and if there were a few hands wanted by a 
ndghbonring fiirmer it was sure to be given to some ticket-of-leave-man, in preference to the old 
sojer.' Another told me that he received ' fine pay ' in the Van Diemen's Land police, but be 
had to serve under a convict diief constable, and that he could not stomach that * They are all 
links of one chain there,' remarked this maligner of penal countries — * an hon^t man has no 
dumce in it;' so he gave up his daim to a land-grant, and came away to a fi^ee colony. 

A carpenter at work on a shop-fix>nt in the strept, told me he got 7s. a-day, and that * rough 
hands ' in his trade could earn 18 or 20s. »-week if they were sober. The former sum is exactly 
the pay, if I mistake not, of the Lieutenant of H.M. Begt. stationed here. He is a married man, 
wears a dress of scarlet and gold, subscribes to mess, band, school funds, &&, is obliged to support 
the diaracter and appearance of a gentleman, and has probably purdiased the commissions whidi 
yidd him this daily stipend, and which he may lose in a moment by a bullet or a court-martial. 
' Chips,' it must be confessed, has the more lucrative — ^not to call it better, trade I* 

Sheep-ferming is the great source of the wealth of Port Phillip. No sooner did the great 
grazing capabilities of the country become apparent, than all the known available land for * runs ' 
was taken up ; and the flocks and herds gradually increasing, the squatting establishments were 
in equal degrees forced back into the wilderness. As the same process is going on in New South 
Wales Proper, the flocks will ere long meet on the banks of the * Murray,' the fix)ntier river of 
the two colonies, (pei'haps they may have already done so). Instead of a line of fortresses in 

• Since the Gold Discovery, Chips nudccs his 12. to 17. 1 Of. a day 



6UCCE8SFT7L SHEEP-FABMIKG. 1 245 

hostile observation of each other, there wiU be a line of squatting stations along its banks. Sheep 
washing and shearing on ^ther hand will be the most active operations, and fineness of fleece and 
weight of tallow will be the fiercest subjects of rivalry between the two pastoral nations. The 
squatocraej of Port Philh'p have the credit of carrying on thdr avocations with at least equal 
success as, and with less roughness of menage and less self-denial than, those of the Sydney 
district. Some of them perhaps may be obnoxious to the charge of ostentati(Hi in their habits, on 
their periodical emergence from the bush into the cities of the coast. 

Large fortunes have been made by persons with some little capital at command, taking 
advant£^e of the ' bad times ' that have compelled others less cautious or less lucky to sell off at 
any sacrifice. In 1842, when the grand commercial crash took place, sheep were selling for 
Is. Qd, and even as low as 9d. a-head. A gentleman told me he had made a considerable puivhase 
at the former rate, and had cleared off the whole expenses by the first year's wool. Such was 
the scarcity of coin at Melbourne at that juncture, that silvo* spoons were sold for one half of 
the value of their weight in metal. 

At present the price of a good sheq>-station, with the stock upon it, including the run and the 
premises, appears to be about \0$, arhead. After the transfer of the property, the purchaser 
becomes thenceforth answerable to government for the payment of the licence and assessment. A 
station with 12,000 sheep, as I have been told, is thus sold for 6,000/. ; the value of sheep at 5s. 
is 3,000/. ; buildings and other improvements, 1,000/. ; two thousand pounds remain as the 
premium of the transfer, and represent the difference between the real value of the land for the 
purpose of sheep-farming and the rent paid to Government. If then it be true that wool can be 
grown in ^% Port Phillip district at 6df. a pound, and will sell for Is. 2d, to Is. 4</., squatting 
ought to be a thriving trade.* Renting sheep or cattle with or without the pasture is growing 
into common practice, especially in this province. A man without sufficient capital for, or not 
desiring to invest it in, the absolute purchase of a station, may thus take a lease of it for a 
term ; and in so doing make a very good livelihood. The lessee pays so much per annum for 
1,000 sheep (50/. to 80/* say). He gets the wool and the increase of the flocks, and, at the 
termination of the lease, he ddivers back the statim with the stock equal in condition, age, and 
numbers. Of course the pice depends upon the character of the pasturage and of the stock 
upon it. This appears to be an excellent plan both for the proprietor and the lessee. It gives 
liberty to the former to attmd to other concerns, or to take a holiday ; while the latter, if he bo 
already a proprietor, may thus extend his wool operations ad libUum, If a man of small means, 
he may make a fiur profit at small risk ; and a young newly arrived would-be squatter may 
thus leam his business as a tenant before he undertakes it as a purchaser. 

One of my fellow-passengers fix>m Melbourne to Sydney — a man of many fleeces, I should 
think — informed me that he had just leased sheep to tiie extent of 1,600/. a-year to enable him 
to * take a run ' (he spoke professionally) with his femily to Europe for three or four years. He 
told me also that the price he had stipulated for would yield him 12 per ceai, on his outlay. 
' Are you sure he will pay you T asked I. * I have him tight !' replied Jie confidently. The 
d— 1 doubt you, thought I, as I looked in the fooe of my new acquaintance, for he had a canny, 
acute look, and his name, if I mistake not, bore a north-British prefix. Another of my fellow- 
trayellers was establishing at Melbourne a oonmiercial hi. se in connexion with England and 
China ; wool from Port Phillip to London ; goods fit>m London ; tea from Canton ; — ^three 
good comer-stones for a ' house.' Capital would not make a bad fourth I 

Melbourne with its splendid harbour is, after all, a wretehedly bad shipping port. There is 
none of the fine deep-sea wharft^ of Sydney. The system of carrying goods by lighters down 
the river to the anchor^e adds greatiy to the risk and cost of shipping produce. But with the 
rapidly increasing wealth and importance of Victoria, efforts will be made to remedy nature's 
defaults in this respect. A railway, or a ship-canal, with a substantial pier-head at its mouth, 
could readily be formed across the low land lying between the dty and the harbour. 

The Anti-transportetion Delegates from Tasmania — (let me be more precise) — the Delegates of 
the Tasmania Branch of the Anti-transportation League — or, as tiie Sydney Herald styles that 
moral militia, < The Anti-felon Confoderation ' — ^were very warmly received at Melbouiiie ; and 
so readily and liberally did the citizens, or some of them, sympathise with the cause these 

* In one week I observed sales of the following amoant of stock l^ auction in Melbounie ^— 

A station with 10,630 sheep, at 12«. 8d. a head. _ 

Ditto with 16,337 sheep, at lU. ed. ,. 
Ditto with 10,160 sheep^ at 8<. Od. „ 
Ditto with 6,000 sheep, at tl«. M. ^ 



246 OVB ANTCPOBES. 

genilemen came to adrocate, that, at the first public meeting, thirty priv^ste indindnab and 
firms, came down with 3,000/. in aid of the anti-oonTict crosade. The snow-ball is gathering 
▼olnme ; for the delegates of Tasmania, haying enrolled those of Victoria and South Australia, 
are to trayel onwards to Sydney — where, to pursue the nirose simile, they hope to fell like an 
avtdanche up(»i the transportation system and to crush it for ever ! It seems rather a hard case 
I dare say I have said as much befisre — ^that old Mrs. Mother-Country may not stuff her naughty 
children into a comer to puni^ and keep them out of further trouble, and to make them, as she 
hopes, good boys for the future ; — ^but so it is — England is not to be allowed to keep the fittle 
oatK>f-the-way useless island of Van Diemen's Land as a general penitentuury. Not contoited 
with fending off further convictism from their own shores, the Australian group are obstmatdy 
resolved upon the purificatiiHi of an island they care nothing about, — merely because, tiiroo^ 
Van Diemen's Land, the criminals of England will ' percolate ' (as is apprehended) into tihe 
adjacent colonies and, as the phrase is, * Inundate them with Brit»h crime.' Rty that the 
colonists cannot be persuaded to lay the unction to their souls, that the fool dement poured into 
the dripstone will issue f]X)m it pure and sparkling t 

The delates fiixnn Tasmania, Messrs. West and Weston, appeared to me to be truly eanellent 
men, warm aposttes of the cause, and so anxious to gain converts — albeit not unduly pnaan^ 
the subject — as to oblige me to belter myself under my clotii as exempting me from all political 
partizanship, and finally to take refuge among the squatters of the party by way of (fiversicn. 
I do not think I ever did, or shall again, *take in so much intelligenoe regarding sheepish affiais 
ds on this occasion — ^Leicesters and fine-wooled, merino and Saxon rams, hoggete wd ewes, wtMis 
washed and in the grease, scab and catarrh, tallow, ' town and nnigh fkt,' &c This class were 
m excellent spirits ; — ^the latest news of the Mark Zona Express was good ; both articles had 
been ' flat ' lately, but colonial tallow was now ' looking up '' and ' lively,' and there was s 
* steady demand fbr all kinds of consumable wools.* 

January 2l8t, — ^Melbourne. — A day of tremendous heat, such as I scarcely remember tt> 
have felt in Sydney or even in Calcutta. The hot wind blew all day and night — not in fierce 
blasts as in New South Wales — but in a steady breeze keeping the glass up at 1 10^ in the shade, 
without a moment's vacOlation. Bdng unwell from a r^ular ' old English ' cold and oongfa 
that I had caught in Van Diemen's Land; I could not fitce the weather, and thereby lost iiie 
pleasure of visitii^ the residence of a fine old soldier, who, having commanded a r^imoit fer 
many years in this country, and having subsequently fought and been severely wounded on the 
banks of the Sutledge, has settled in this country. He possesses a handsome house in Melhoimie, 
and extensive and flourishing grazing concerns in the interior. I rejoice to say there are mafiy 
aimy and navy officers doing very well in this province, — a fact tiiat can by no means be 
predicted of New South Wales. Generally speakii^, these gentlemen are but little suited to 
compete in the race for wealth with persons bom, as it were, and bred to business. Perhaps, 
too, the code of then: youth, which taught them — in the words of Sir Lucius OTrigger's fine 
sentiment — ^that their ' honour should be as bright as well as keen as their swords,' rendo^ 
them unequal rivals of the ke^er blades sharpened on the whetstone of trafiic. The stratagems 
^hich they have been accustomed to consider fidr in love or war they are perhaps too scrupulotis 
to extend to business matters. 

This evening I had the pleasure of dining with my friend Mr. La Trobe, the present Super- 
intendent of Port Phillip, and the future LieutenanfrGovemor of Victoria. He resides m a 
most picturesque cottage, well sheltered by trees and gardens, and standing on ground slo|»ng 
pleasantly down to the Yarra — his own property. 

Melbourne should take example from Sydney and Hobart Town m regard to her hack car- 
rii^es. Here they are miserable affidrs. A pair of horses, which Mr. Rtz Roy's hounds, how- 
ever sharp set, would have declmed to sit down to, took us to the Government Cottage at the 
mildest possible jog, and brou^t us home at a walk. Expede Herculen, the horse stock of 
this province must be bad, for I did not see one tolerably fine horse in its capital. They 
should import horses friom England and mares fixmi Van Diemen's Land. 

I heard a good deal and should have liked to have seen a sample of the kangaroo hunting 
with fox-hounds in this district. A day's sport is recorded, in which one of these jwim^ly ran 
thirty miles, and was then pulled down by two and a half couple of hounds out of a large pack. 
Several horses were killed, and no man was up at the death. This Boomah must have been a 
descendant of the great fossil Diprotodon discovered by Dr. Hobson some sixty miles from Md- 
■"e, whose organic remains prove him to have been as large as an elephant Fancy the 
monster hopping over the tallest gum-trees I Fortunately man's era had not arrived^ 



FRESH COMPANY — TWOFOLD BAY. 247 

for such a marsupial mi^t hare pat a couple or two of the lords of the creation into her poudi 
by mistake for her kids. 

January 22d, — Arose at 6 A.M. and paid the hotel bill, — no trifling transaction. The Shcmi^ 
rock had gone down to the anchorage at Hobson's Bay, at the top of the tide. We retamed two 
houis' longer lease of our beds, and the moaquitos of our persons, by taking our passage in the 
Vesta, bound fi>r Geelong, — a most thriving town and (fistrict, situated at the head of a navi- 
gable ann of the harbour, about fifty miles from Melbourne. This town contains about 8,000 
inhabitants. The Vesta soon put us on board our original vessel ; and we piped to break&st as 
she ran down the magnificent estuary of Port Piiillip. Shamrock had deposited the greater part 
of her original human frdgfat at Melbouzne ; but she did not fidl to take in a fr^h supply. 
We lost Ibe delegates, and gained a batch of ill-bred children, — a race at all times insufien&le, 
but in a small vessel at sea so dire a pest as to inspire feelii^ fearfully tending towards in* 
iaiitidde. There was an opulent Port Phillip settler, who had evidently risen from the ranks^— 
the humbler ranks of society, — ^with a very fine wife, unceasingly sea-ddc, in black satin during 
our five days' voyage to Sydney. Her poor, yellow, sickly-looldng fingers glittered with liags^ 
— even the index not being exempt ; while * on her &ir breast ' di6 bore a piece of gold plate, 
solid and camadous enough to vote the freedom o£ a dty in, wherein was set the * counterfeit 
presentment of her very ordinary husband — ^red whiskers, siiirt-plaits, studs, chain and ' satin 
opera-tie at 7s. 6(2.,' to the very life^ and nearly as large. There were two or three very is* 
fedligent, and I may add agreeable commercial men, going to measure their wits with their 
bcetltren of Sydney, — and not to be outwitted by them, 1 11 be sworn. There was a pleasant 
fellow, a new hand, hovering about the colonies, not quite decided where to abide. "Wheaever 
not suffering from the previdling malady, he talked, and sang songs, and witite verses,— -and, in 
short, had not yet caught tbe plodding, plotting, ledger-like look and habits of tiie colonial man 
of business ' settled down to his running. His young wife and cfaildrea remained at Melboome, 
awmting his decision as to where they were eventually to settle and swarm. 

Then there were a Port Phillip oolonist and his daughter, — he a very gentlemanly widower, 
she a V07 pretty and fine eirl, — going to Sydney for a passage to England ; he to revisit Mi 
relatives aflbisr twenty yeaia abs(9ice,--4he to make their acquaintance, bofaig a native of the 
colony. This young lady might have been produced at I3ie Great Exhibition of this year as a 
fiivomnble speeim^i of the ' currency lass ' of Australia. The gentkman is one of tiie many 
instances of persons realizing good, fortunes in this country, and losing tiiem during the finanoa- 
quakes that have occasionsdly convulsed t£. For a man retaining an ardent attadmient to "his 
native land, and a hope to revisit it, it is a harassing after-thought that at one period he might 
have returned there with comparative opulence. There are few that can whistle tiie past down 
the wind, and set to work, vigorously and unrepinin^y, to build up a second fbrtone ; and if I 
mistook not tiie prevaloit expression of this gentleman's countenance, he ia not one of these few. 

The hot wind of yesterday was, as a matter of course, succeeded to-day by a rush of cold air 
from tiie south to fill up the atmospheric vacuum. The south-east gale got up a ' nasty ' seai, 
as the sailors called it, and the sea got up sensations in the bosoms of the passeDgers equediy d«^ 
serving of that epithet Myself was the last survivor assisting the captain and first-mate in 
their attack on a Port Phillip boiled leg of mutton ; my attadL grew weaker and weaker— a oold 
sweat gathered on my brow ; at length I laid down my arms in token of snrrender to the Sea 
Fiend, and, with a sickly attempt at a joke, clomb up to my shelf j whence I had the satisfection 
of seeing the two nautical gmtlemen continuing their operations, in fiill relianoe on their own 
powers, and without any apparent regret at the gradual desertion of their allies. 

January 23rd, — Passing through * Kent's Group,' with a foul wind, heavy sea, and powerlesa 
vessel. 

24^A.— Cape Howe— « fine, wooded peak, the eastern boundary of the colonies of Victoria 
and New South Wales. At 3 p.m. we entered Twofold Bay, situated 30 miles from Cape Howe, 
and 240 south of Sydney. This is a snug little harbour, and, indeed, was originally named 
Snug Cove by Captain Flinders, the navigator, who doubtless had an ^e to its omvenienoe as a 
place of refuge for shippii^ on this shelterless and unindented coast. 

Twofold Baj is, or ought to be, the shipping port for the rich pastoral district of Maneroo^ 
lying at its back. These well-grassed and ¥rataed and li^tly-timbered * nains,'— as the un- 
dulating tatble-landof the interior is styled — are, however, separated from tiie harbour by a 
rough coast-range of stoile hills, very unfevourable for road communication. It was noting 
short of nominative insolence arid presumption to give the name of ' Eden ' to the Government 
township. The ' Eden' of ' Martin Chuzzlewit ' deserved the distinction quite as well ; and I do 



248 OUB ANTIPODES. 

not believe that ' at the gate' of such an Eden either * Peri' or Mortal would ever ' stand disc(»r 
Bolate/ — unless, indeed, they were within it. The view of the recesses of the bay from the 
anchorage is, however, singul^ly lake-like and beautiful ; yet we did not see it in its most 
smiling moments, for the wealiier was rainy and cloudy. 

I saw here for the first time a party of blacks engaged in fishing from canoes. These simple 
vessels are but sheets of bark crimped up at the ends as one might crimp a child's paper boat, 
so slender and fragile as to be quite untenable except by themselves. The paddles are bits of 
bark the size of break&st saucers held in the fingers. The fishing utensils consist of a woodoi 
reel, line, hook and leaden sinker, a long reed spear with a head of bone or burnt wood, and a 
waddy or killing stick. Off a rocky point about half a mile distant a party of thi'ee, each in his 
canoe, were catching a vast quantity of small fish. A sailor hooked a young shark from the 
bows of the steam-boat just as one of these men was passing her ; and the fish in his stru^les 
having entangled ihe line round the chain-cable and become unmanageable. Blacky paddled up 
to our assistance, and, waiting till the fish became still for a moment, drove his spear through 
its shoulders and disabled it instantly. Soon afterwards one of our passengers purchased for two 
shillings the entire outfit of the simple fisherman — canoe, spear, waddy,---all except the line. 

The Shamrock took in a hundred bales of wool at EAeaa. — a drawling, dilatory process, 
which kept a parcel of Englishmen twenty-four hours doing what as many Anglo-Americans 
would have done in four. As they rolled the bales lazily down to the wharf through a hot 
and misty drizzle, I almost fimded I had before me the dreary scene and ague-stricken actors in 
Dickens' graphic but fictitious Eden. In the evening the mosquitos, rendered hungry by the 
rain, came off in winged hosts, and exacted from us all a heavy tribute of blood. 

January 26th, — ^At Twofold Bay we only picked up one passenger, — a tall, strong, handsome 
young man ; just such a figure as James would ddight to depict. He was dad in a wide drab 
sombrero, and leathern overalls, with a New Zealand flax mat thrown over his velvet jacket by 
way of protection from the rain ; and had just emerged upon the coast fi:^m the broad region of 
mountain-bush that separates the interior plains frx)m the settlement. With his saddle and 
valise on his shoulder, he strode on board, and having placed these travelling valuables in a dry 
and safe place, he made himself oomfi>rtable by lighting a dgar and putting himself up dry with hU 
back to the frinnel. * You are a gentleman, by your neat foot,' thought I, * in spite of your 
rough outside ;' and we were soon in high talk. He had been riding a tour through the sheep, 
cattle, and horse stations belonging to a company, with a view to selling them off — stations 
and stock. He described the country as remarkably 'fine and wdl adapted for farming — grassy 
and naturally open, waving plains or table land, with plenty of water in ordinary seasons. 
This company possessed 1 J0,000 sheep, divided into forty large flocks. He had seen, he said, 
in his rambles, one or two spots in the wild bush which would have made a perfect paradise for 
a homestead. His description almost made me long to be a squatter. I can £ancy a young 
man being greatly smitten with the desire to grapple with a Bush-life in all its peculiar rugo- 
sities ; not inheriting the * improvem^ts,' or following up the already commenced operations of 
another, but beginning himself fairly at the beginning, selecting the spot in the virgin wilder- 
ness, marking where his flocks and herds are to browse, where they are to drink and find shelter; 
where the first rude hut of bark and slabs should stand, where the stables, the stock-yards, &c.; 
and where, hereafter, the more ambitious vcrandahed cottage of stone or weather-boutls should 
be erected, when the original hut, once the squire's hall, should be d^raded into servants' 
offices. Perhaps a fiur partner to share his seclusion may find a place in his aspirations. 

Having settled all these points— except the last — I can fancy the indpient bushman return- 
ing to the township full of eager haste to set to work. I see him and two or three rough bat 
experienced hands, with a dray and a team of bullocks and a couple of riding horses, arriving at 
the chosen locality. A small tent or a preliminary guneah of boughs is soon put up. The 
grindstone is fixed upon a fallen tree, for there are as yet no stumps, and the tall gums, and 
banksias, and acadas, tremble while the axes are bdng whetted for thdr fall. The salt meat, and 
damper, and bush tea, are all charming — ^for a time. Besides, he has his gun and a brace of 
kangaroo dogs, and a knowing old stock-hoi'se that stands fire and can do everything but speak. 
He can bring down his. wild-duck, or wood-pigeon, or bustard, mayhap ; and can bring home 
across his pummel a hind quarter of venison— ~of venison with a tail wdghing 20 lbs., to make 
soup of. Meanwhile his brother, or fnend, or agoit, (let him beware whom he employs I) in 
the dty, is on the look-out for stock. The newspapers are consulted daily ; nor is there mudi 
difficulty in finding what is wanted. Messrs. Mort and Brown advertise for sale by public 
auction * 8,000 sheep of very superior character, warranted sound, and from six months to four 



THE GOLD DISCOVEBY — ADVERTISEMENTS. 249 

years old ' — just the thing ! In a few weeks the new settler has reached the stage in Bush-life> 
described in the next few lines from a very amusing book called Tales of the Colonies. * Aprv 
5th. — Rose early, according to my custom, and surveyed my new dwelling with a peculiar sort 
of satis&ction. No rent to pay for you, said I — no taxes, no poor's rate — ^that s a comfort. 
No one can give me notice to quit ; that's] another comfort ; and it is my own — ^thank God ; 
and that's the greatest comfort of all.' 

The next step ; — but * my word I* (as they say in Australia and Cheshire,) my word I what 
has all this to do with the steamer Shamrock i and what has an officer of Her Majesty's general 
staff, quitting, in a few months, Australia for ever, got to do with it at all ? Let us, therefore, 
make better speed on our voyage. We sailed frt)m Twofold Bay at one P.M. on the 25th, and 
reached Sydney on the following day, the 26th of January, 1851, the 63rd anniversary of the 
settlement of New South Wales. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



A GLIMPSE OF THE GOLDFIELD. 

* Come unto those yellow sands.'— Shakspebs. 

1851. It was within a few months of the termination of my residence in the colony, that the 
astounding fact of its being a gold country burst upon' the inhabitants of New South Wales. 
No words can describe the excitement occasioned in aU classes of society by the announcement. 
Those who held the reins of government had no precedent to guide them in their new predi- 
cament. The masters and employers of labour, of all ranks, from the lordly squatter of the 
distant interior, with his battalion of dependents, to the small tradesman of the townships, with 
his single assistant, trembled at the idea of their deserting for the diggings, and the consequent 
ruin of flocks and custom. The Govenmient officers and other functionaries living on fixed 
salaries — the mere consumers of produce, to whom the presence of gold on the western slope 
of the Blue Mountains promised none for their pockets — shuddered at the prospect of raised 
prices on articles of subsistence, a prospect quickly realised by the selfish promptitude of specu- 
lators and monopolists, a few of whom, getting possession of the main staples of consumption, 
ran them up to a ruinous amount, — flour reaching, in a few days, 30/. to 35/. a ton, bread 6d., 
7d. and M, the^ two-pound loaf in Sydney, and in the country ascending to almost starva- 
tion prices. 

The most extravagant reports of the treasures discovered reached the capital day after day, 
and were of course diligently circulated by those who hoped to make a good market of such 
commodities as they had huddled together at the first flush of speculation. Sydney assumed 
an entirely new aspect. The shop fronts put on quite new faces. Wares suited to the wants 
and tastes of general purchasers were thrust ignomlniously out of sight, and articles of outfit 
for gold>minii^ only were displayed. Blue and red sei^e shirts, Califomian hats, leathern 
belts, ' real gold-digging gloves,' mining-boots, blankets white and scarlet, became the show- 
goods in the fashionable streets. The pavements were lumbered with picks, pans, and pots ; 
and the gold-washing machine, or Virginian ' cradle,' hitherto a stranger to our eyes, became 
iu two days a familiar household utensil, for scores of them were paraded for purchase, * from 
25s. to 40s.' in front of stores and stalls, so that a stranger or an absent-minded person, who 
had not yet heard the gathering cry of Gold, gold I' might have imagined that a sudden and 
miraculous influx — a plague, in short— of babies had been poured upon the devoted city. 

The newspapers teemed with advertisements pointing the same way : ^ Waterproof tents 
for the El Dorado ' — Quicksilver for amalgamating gold-soil ' — * Superfine biscuits packed in 
tins '— * Wines, ales, and spirits, ready for carriage * — * Spring-carts for the diggings ' — * Single 
and double guns and pistols for self defence' — * Conveyance to Ophir' — * Cradles, prospecting 
pans, galvanised iron buckets, &c.' 

'LA.VEB AKIK'Ca'S OPmB OOBDTAL. 

* No one who values his health or comfort should proceed to the Gold Field. without a supply.' 

* Soyer's Lilliputian Magic Stove ' — * Digger's Handbook, or GJold Digger's Guide, gratis to 
purchasers of outfit at ^— ^— and 's stores.' 

<TO GOLD DIGOVBS. 

' The undersigned will give Information'on any unknown substance found at the Diggings in the 
process of washing, tne of any charge whatever. (Signed * ^— Pjuctical Gbbmisi.* 



250 OUB ANTIPODES. 

* CHOC»LATK. 

* Every miner shonld provide himself with Peek and Go's siqierlor Flate Chocolate/ 



*QOLD MINES. 

*Two strong, able young gentlemen' are desirous of Joining some respectable parties in making 
vp ft proper nmnber for the Qold Field. Tlwy are piepared to oontrttRite a xeasonable sam. 
Address, ice' 

In the same paper appeared — 

' PAiar FOB THK HINSa. 

* . . . . Two yoong men have a good opportunity of joining this parly, being provided with 
every accommodation, Expense, 12I each; three months* provisions. Apply, &c.' 

*DISSOLVR PRIGUS.* 

— ' As the Colony Is now advancing to a state of unprecedented richness, and the emphe of Anstrafia 
will yet rival the age called the Golden, Leopold Morgan & Go. offer their recently compounded 
cordial— the Elixir of life— which will expand the benumbed veins of the gold washers, &c.' 



'THR great OOUAH of the AT78TRALTAN DTGGIK68. 

' This mi^^ficent specimen of virgin gold. Just arrived from the Ophir Mines, near Bathorst, 
weighing above four pounds truy, will be on view this day in the window of Messrs. Brush and 
Macdonnell, Jewellers, Geoige-Street, prior to its shipment for Londoik for the Great Exhibition 
of all Nations. 

< Sydney, dQfk May, 1851/ 

. The ocmversatioii of the Sydnejrites had reaoWed itself into one exclanve sabject : ' Are 
YOU going to the diggings ? Have you been ? Have yoa seen anybody from the mines ? 
Have you seen the lump of gold ? Ha?e your servants run yet ? My ooachman is off 1' kc 

It was curious to marlc how the first gold news affected different persoaa and difierent ixa^ 
peraments. The cautious smelt a hoax, ' a cruel hoax,* as some correspondent of a Sydney 
paper styled it. The suspicious went further, and averred that the hoax wis got njp by the 
Bathurst folks, in order to atti-act custom ; that the spedmens circulated in Sydney were of 
Califomian origin, and had been planted and found again with a ^w to tempting crowds of 
persons iuhuid. The Government^ «v^ was afraid to act on the fint ramoor with the prompti- 
tude and vigour suited to the occasion, lest the wliole thing should turn out an ' inventioB «f 
Ijie enemy,' and thereby throw an air of ridicule on the edicte, proclamations, and enadmenta 
whieh collective wisdom was prepared to launch at the emergcoey. The timid pvedicted 
sceoes of riot and outrage at the diggings, bush-ranging on the hif^wayiy desertioD of 
fitmilies by the men, and starvation to the wires and children left behind. The sanguine 
plunged at once into an ocean of golden dreams — some dashing into all kinds of wild specula* 
tiws— others sacrificinsf everything in present possession, — ^homes^ trades, appoiotments, bow- 
eirer well paid,— in order to scrape together a sum sufficient to buy or hire s dray, arms, aterai^ 
took for mining — and off to the diggings I 

In less than a week the diminution of the street population of Sydney was very Tuible* 
while Paramatta, previously half-deserted, became almost depopulated. My coachoiaker de> 
plored the loss of ten of hi» workmen— my tailor of seven ; and my stationer and boofcaelio' 
Qomplained that his trade admitted of no exaltation of prices, while he pajd SAcf. a pound ibr 
his bread, 8s. for getting his horse shoed, and his people denmnded increase of wages to meet 
tiie increased expenses of life. So little time or taste was there for lore of any kind, that he 
oensideped the gold-find had lost him 601, a-week in his countei^trade alone^ My veterhuuj 
surgeon averred that the gentlooaen of the leathern apron and paper cap had given him the 
option of raised pay on his part or a trip to the diggings on theirs^ and that fiicse wbo hod 
stuck to their work were ' eontinually flashing their independence in his face,' a graphic figure 
of speech accurately descriptive of the demeanour pretty generally assumed by those wboa» 
actual or anticipated success in the gold field had lif^ above their natural sphere. Nothing, 
indeed, can have a moi-e levelling effect on society than the power of digging gold, for it can 
be done, for a time at least, without any capital but that of health and strength ; and the 
man inured to toil, however ignonuit, is on more than equal terms witii the educated and 
refined in a pursuit involving so much personal hardship. 

It was on the 15th of May, 1851, that the Sydney Morning Herald announced to thepablic^ 
the discovery by Mr. Hargraves of indigenous gold in the Bathurst district. The Editor 
gives what he terms a history of the progress mode from time to time in the investigation oC 
the auriferous rocks of the Colony.' An extract from this excellent article will be found in 
the Appendix ; as well as a tianscript from T/w Bathurst Free Press^ containing a sketch of the> 



CALIFORNIA. — ^EFFECTS OF THE NBWS. 251 

proceedings of the above-named indefatigable explorer, who, it appears, made his first 'find ' in 
February last. I annex also portions of an article hj the Rev. W. B. Clarke, which appeared 
on the 24th of May in the same well-conducted and useful journal.^ 

To^ny distinguished friend, Mr. Clarke, the scientific theory of the existence of m Austra- 
lian Gold Field — its geographical position, and its first specimen, ai-e due. To Mr. Hai^^raves 
is due the practical opening up of the mines. The reverend geologist may be said to have dis- 
covered that the Bathurst Monntains were in labour ; and the resolute adventurer brought 
the glittering offspring into the world ! £ach disowned, with some emphasis, previooa 
acquaintance with the person and writings of the other ; nor can their respective claims to 
credit possibly clash.t 

The extraordmary concentration of the population of New South Wales in and about its 
capital ; the consequent ignorance of the interior regions, and their abandonment to mere 
pastoral pursuits, doubtless operated to delay the important discovery. It was in repairing 
the race of a water-mill, I think, that the acciifental discovery of gold was made in Califennk 
Had that wealthy province remained in the hands of its Aborigines, or even in those of the 
Mexicans, it had probably retained to this day its treasures within its own bowels. How 
wonderful the history of that now opulent state ! Diseovered by the Spaniards in 1543, it 
was by them colonised in 176d-->(Sir Francis Drake having meanwhile nibbled at it, 1578.) 
In 1822, California became a province of revolted Mexico, It was conquered from tJie Mexi* 
cans by the Americans in 1846 ; 'annexed' in 1847 ; and in February, 1848, the gold waa 
discovered. From 1846 to 1848, the white inhabitants amounted to but 10,000 souls. At 
the end of 1849, 200,000 persons had oongrpgated there fi:om all parts of the earth. In Jme^ 
1850, there were 250,000, and 60,000 more were expected from the United States by w^ 
of ^tfae Rocky Mountains. In 1851, eighty-three steam-vessels were engaged in the Eivo' 
Trade of California^]: 

Judging d priori, what are now the prospects ef Kew South Wales ? If the deposits of 
the precious metal tun out as proBfio as ihey promise to be, or half aa productive as the 
Califomian mines, her prospects should be infinitely more dieering than those of the American 
state. There — a heterogeneous crowd, rushing from distant eountries, with every tie l^nriDen^ 
without laws or leaders, without experience, convexged madly upon the gold-bearing Thnle— ^ 
producing gold alone to sustain Ufe — a bare wilderness, with a severe dinutte and a fieree race 
of aborigines. Here — ^the gold, as it were, comes to a community already firmly estd>li8iied> 
the machinery of govemmentv of the law, of social protection com^ste^ with a fair sbaie of 
agricnlture in the golden land itself, and a knot of sister colonies dose around, able to assist 
her augmented population with the necessaries of lifie. 

May 20M. — The Government issued a prodamation, daimSng all mines of gold, and all 
gold found in its natural place of deposit, as the property of the Crown; threatening proseev- 
tion criminal and dvil against all those digging without due autbarity, and notifying that 
licences would be issued and regulations published. The Ifcence fee was fixed at 30s. per 
month, paid in advance ; and was expected to cover the expenses of extra police and o^ntr 
exigendes arising out of the gold-find.§ The only regiment serving in New South Wales had 
just been reduced from 900 to 640 men. The garrison of Sydney amounted to about half the 
latter number, the residue being stationed in other colonies. Moreover, the Legislativfr 
Coundl had but lately dis^rfayed thdr thrift and foresight by voting and carrying into effect 
the disbandment of the mounted police — an excellent force of 150-officers and troopers selected 
from the corps serving in the colony, as described before in this woric. The pay of these 
military constables was merely their army pay, defrayed by the colony instead of by the 
Queen. The Executive was now cbmpdied to scramble together a force consisting of a score 
or so of men, chiefiy the reomants of tiie disbanded corps, with the slight difference, however^ 
that the troopers having since got their discharge from the army, and become dvilians, their 

* Appendix B. 

f Having admitted hi the Appendix extracts from flie three sonroes of fnfonnathin above'mentioned 
on the Bul^ect of the discoTery of gold ia New HoUaad, as weU as on the prediction of its existence in 
that country, a sense of Justice has induced me to recal my manuscript ftom the printer, for the puroose 
of stating, that, since the work left my hands, my friend Sir Roderick Murchison lias favoured me with a 
communication, which, as a plain narrative of facts, and in the precise form in which it was rendered, I 
now aasodate with the otl^er documents; leaving the reader to form his own Judgment npoawhJat 
appears to he a clashii^ of claims (without OQutroversy however) between two distingulsbed geologists. 

— G. C. M — London^ 3rdAprU, 1862. 

1 Pamphlet on California, hy C. H. Chambers, Sydney. 

9 For the form of the licence, see Appendix C. 



25S OUB ANTIPODES. 

pay would be 3s, Qd, or 4s. a-day with rations besides. A Commissioaer of Crown lands for the 
l^old district was appointed, and immediately started for Bathurst, with a small party of the 
police to enforce, or rather induce order at the mines, and the payment of the licence fee. 

There was great croaking in Sydney, to the effect that a magistrate with a dozen troopers, 
r^resenting the law of the kuid and the standing army, would be able to do nothing in the way 
of levying a tax, founded on a new law yet imknown to Britons, upon a motley crowd of three 
or four thousand men, half of whom carried fire-arms, and especially upon those improvident 
wretches, who, ill supplied with implements and stores, were scarcely earning enough to feed 
themselves. An active military officer, with a few horsemen, as a sort of movable force was en- 
trusted with the general guardianship of the Blue Mountain road. 

May 24th. — ^Acoording to the last accounts finom Summer-hill, the miners are all working 
together with great harmony— only one act of personal violence having occurred, and that 
merely an instance of the exertion of the natural in the absence of the established law. Two 
young men, having discovered the roguery of their comrade in appropriating a portion of the 
general earnings, thrashed him away from tiie creek with saplings — an act of justice in which 
they were joined by other indignant diggers. All will go well until drunkenness sets in ; for 
rum and riot go hand in hand ; and a drunken man with a loaded musket is no better than a mad 
dog. There is some risk to life and limb in the mere living in a canvass house or a bough hut, 
surrounded by neighbours possessing an arsenal of loaded weapons — ^many of them wholly igno- 
rant of their management. 

May 27th. — ^Mr. Hindson, a Sydney merchant, returned from the gold field with about 1,0007. 
worth, among which was a piece weighing forty-six ounces. This was sent to England for expo- 
sition in the Crystal Palace. Its own intrinsic value and the prospects for the colony which it 
carries with it will make rich amends for the unaccountable neglect by the inhabitants of tlu3 
colony to take advantage of the ample space allotted by the Commissioners for the display of 
their produce at the Great National Exhibition. 

May 2Sth and 30th. — ^Driving on these two days to the races at Homebush — ^the Epsom of 
Sydney, ten miles from the city — ^I counted nearly sixty drays and carts, heavily laden, pro- 
ceeding westward with tents, rockers, flour, tea, sugar, mining tools, fyi. — each aooompaniei by 
from four to eight men, half of whom bore fire-arms. Some looked eager and impatient — some 
half«shamed of their errand — others sad and thoughtful. Many, I thought, would never return. 
They must have thrown all they possessed into the adventure ; for most of their equipments 
were quite new—- good stout horses, harness fresh out of the «addler's hands, gayKx>lom^ 
Woollen shirts and comforters, and Califomian sombreros of eveiy hue and shape. It was a 
strange sight— « strange jumble of images. The mind could hardly reconcile a thoroughly 
English high road, witib toll-bars and public-houses — thoroughly English figures travellmg on it 
to a country race-course— stage-ooaches-and-four, onmibuses, tandems, scores of neat private 
equipages and hack carriages, sporting butchers and publicans in ' spicy White chapels,' Sydney 
cockneys on squai'e-tailed hacks, ' happles and horanges,' * cards of the 'osses, &c. — with the 
concurrent stream of oddly-loaded drays and other slow-moving vehicles, piled with business-like 
stores and unfamiliar utensils, and escorted by parties of no less English men, armed to the teeth, 
clad in a newly-adopted dress, utterly indifferent to and apart frt>m the merry scene of the race- 
course, and carrying with them a dogged, resolute, and abstracted air— as tiiough in a time of 
profound peace tiiey were bound on some desperate and doubtful deed of war. One's mental ob- 
fuscation was hardly cleared up by the reflection that these British men on this Briti'sh-looking 
tumiake road were simply journeying some hundred and fifly miles — ^the distance from London 
to Manchester — ^for the purpose of^ — di^ng gold I 

June l8t.-^R this day it was reported there were about two thousand persons at the mines, 
and about as many more on the road ; — average daily earnings stated at fr^m lOs. to 1/. per 
head ; — a correct calculation difficult, because the people were generally silent on the subject of 
their gains. Rewards advertised at Goulbum, Maitland, and other townships for the discovery 
of gold in their vicinity-~a stroke of policy intended to prevent the desertion of their operatives 
"to Bethurst, and to bring customers to their own districts ; the leading journal giving excellent 
advice to agriculturists not to allow the gold mania to make them n^lect their crops, and pre- 
dicting that with the certain influx of consumers the cultivation of their farms will prove more 
pirofitable than slavery in the gold creeks. The same paper computed that about this date five 
hundred fiunilies in Sydney had 'been deserted by their natural protectors, the lust of gold prov- 
ing stronger than conjugal and paternal love! 

June 5th, — ^Intelligence from the mines that 300 workmen had taken out licences for the Btst 



A BEA.CTION — TBIP TO THE MINES. 268 

month. The commissioner had allowed some ' law ' to the poorer and less sacoessful people* 
In the Bathurst Free Press of yesterday, is the following account of parcels of gold porchased 
hy Mr. Aas(in, a wealthy shopkeeper of that town : — * Murray's party, consisting of five men, 
four of them teetotallers, who had been at work ten days, receiTed 165/. for the proceeds of their 
.labour. The metal consisted of pieces weighing from three ounces downwards. Fitzpatrick'i 
party, 184/. 10s., had been a fortnight at work, their earnings averaging 40/. a man. This par« 
oel consisted of lumps weighing 11, 9, and 8oz. and downwards, there being but very little 
dust amongst it. McGregor's party of five were five days at work and did not dear their ex- 
penses, but made up for that lost time in the following five days, their combined earnings 
amounting to 65/. or 13/. per man. Besides the above, he has purchased many small quanti- 
ties from 1 to 4 ounces, in which the average earnings are considerably lower than those given 
above.' 

June 1th,— I saw at Mr. Donaldson^s counting-house a parcel of gold weighing one hundred 
and eleven ounces and a half— which he had just bought for 372/. to send home. It was curious 
to see and handle native gold just fresh from the deposit where it had been concealed for count* 
less centuries, now so strangely come to light. The metal was in atoms from three and a quarter 
ounces downwards to the minutest dust. An emigrant ship arrived fix>m England to-day, and 
about 200 impoverished Englishmen jumped ashore, unexpectedly, in a gold country ! 

June 26M. — ^The rains and the overcrowdii^ of the Summerhill Creek has produced a reactioo 
among the miners. I was not sorry to see red shirts and Califorman hats at tiie ordinary operaf 
tions of daily labour in Sydney ; for it proved that fools had got a lesson. I bought an excdlent 
borse for 12/. from a cabman hot for the mines at the b^inning of the week, ani at the end he 
offered me 16/. to get him back, he having cooled down without having even reached the gold 
field. The miserable appearance of the crowds retuining, had been enough to slake his sli^t 
attack of gold fever. I sold the beast by auction for 22/. 10s. when I had done with him*-i. e* 
after he had taken fn<r to the diggings. 

July \st. — ^A grand rush to the new-found diggings on the Turon River ;•— about 1,000 per- 
sons at work there. Although for many years past gold in the virgin state had occasionally found 
its way to Sydney, and been sold to jewellers tiiere, some in&tuation appears always to have led 
them to doubt that it was indigenous. An old {Hisoner named McGrigor disposed periodically 
of bits of the precious metal, whilst he was employed as a shepherd in the Wellington District. 
This man bemg in prison for debt at Sydney, when the gold-find took place in 1851, a party 
proceeding to tiie di^ngs engaged to pay his debts and to liberate him on condition of his bind- 
ing himself to them ror a term, and giving them the benefit of his gold-hunting experience. He 
soon disengaged himself, however, from tihis association, and when I was at tiie mines, he was 
supposed to be * lying up ' in some ' blind gully,' near his old haunts, with a countryman 
named Stewart for his companion. I have heard that in 1823 — so fiur back— a convict of an 
ironed gang, working on the roads near Bathurst, was fiogged for having in his possession a lump 
of rough gold, whi(£ the officer imagined must have been the product of watches or trinkets 
stolen and melted down I 



TRIP TO THE DlGOINaS. 



July 14fA. — Having secured my passage for England In the Mount Stuart ElphinsUme, ad- 
vertised to sail qn the 15th August next, and feeling ashamed to return home without having 
visited England's Gold Field, this morning I (mce more faced the Blue Mountains, on my wsy to 
the mines of Ophir on Summerhill Creek and of the Turon River. 

The roads were in a frightful condition fixnn the late heavy rains and the continual traffic of 
heavy vehicles laden with stores and materials for the new population of the diggings. The 
weather, moreover, was by no means {nropitious to my object. However, having a goMi, active 
pair of horses, a servant who was an excellent bush-hand, my own whip, and a friend's light 
phaeton, ruts, rocks, mud-holes, broken-backed bridges, and sidlings, possessed for me no great 
terrors. As it turned out, my carriage was the only one of a higher or more fn^e order than 
a bullock-dray — except, indeed, the ^thurst Mail, upon the road in my up-and-down journey ; 
•^all were travelling on horseback or afoot. The route had nothing new to me, with the excep- 
tion of its winter aspect, and the altered character of the wayfarers. The latter were almost 
exclusively gold-hunters ; the former gave me an opportunity of tasting the sweets of an Aus- 
tralian snow-storm on the top of Mount Lambey. This was a novelty, at least ; for I had seen 
no snow for upwards of five years. It was an ill-conditioned, bad style of snow ; melting oil 



2&i OUB AiraXFODES. 

one's gatta percha as it fell, firam want of tneL Small drifts, however, lay on tlie shady sida <£ 
tJiie giim4ogB, and I found myself admiring them as rare phenomeua. With all his despotiiiBy 
N^ieleoii could not have established a nioose month in the yearly crcle of Autttralia. 

Hie gold mania, so rabid at the outset, had b^un to abate towards the eud of June. The 
veatber at the mines had beonne bitterly cold, wet, and tempestuous ; provisions were eioritt- 
tantly dear, owing to the difficult transport of stores aoross the mountains at this season ; and 
tbs Summerhill Creek was flooded, whereby the workkg on its bed was put an end to. la 
abort, gold was not so plentiful as was anticipated, — not to be pitted up on the hill<ades in an 
afteinoQn's stroll ; nor were nuggets* to be dug up, like potatoes, by the bushel. The privap 
tkns inseparable from gold-digging were mcHre severe than suited tiie expectations of the san- 
guine, the ignorant, and that lai^ class of idle, feddess creatures, known in this colony by the 
name of Crawlers. In my four days' journey across the Cordillera I met, as I calculate, about 
300 men retuming, disheartened and disgusted, towards the townships ; many having sold for 
neit to nothing tlM mining equipments, tents, carts, cradles, pidcs, spades, crows, and washij^ 
dishes, whidi had probably cost them aU they poasessed in ihe world three weeks before. They 
had nothing left but tin pots, 'possom rugs, ami a suit of ragged ciothes. A few had gdd with 
them, — * no great things,' they said. Some had drank and gambled away, or had hem robbed 
of their eaningB. Mrartified, half-starved, and crestrfiiUen fellows, so abie to work and so easily 
diiqpirited, these were not the men for winter mining I Some looked so gaunt, sava^ nggcd, 
ani reckless, that my though turned involuntarily to my pistols as they drew near. They 
were returning to tbar des^ted homes and families in a state of mind by no means likely to re- 
dound to domestic peace and eomfort. A good many of this ebbis^ stream of would-be-gold- 
tniners wrare a sort of shy, embarraased, r^)eUent air, of which I could make nothing, until I 
fimnd oat that they were ticklish on the subject of a cant phrase with which it appaaed ^ley 
hnl been pelted by the villagers and upward paasengen on the road. * Have you soikl yoor 
cndle?' was a verbal dagger in their bosoms. 

The style of weather ¥rith which I was &voured on the journey, as wdl as at the Summeriiill 
JUines, was certainly £ar from oicouragiDg to ^ntlemen or shop-boy miners obnoxious to the 
caprices of the eLements, or to persons hesitating between a damp bivouac and a * damper ' diet 
st O^^hir, with the distant chance of a nugget, <m the one hand, and a comfortable cottage in 
^dney, plenty of beef and potatoes, good and sure wages, and indisputable possession of a notable 
mi&, en the other. I did not ereitake a single person going westward, — so complete had been 
thereactifln. Its duration was not long; £»r I met the canse of a second spring-tide of mining 
mania the very next day I 

On the 16th, the third day of my jonmey, I encoontered two gentkmen on horBebacky 
tEBreUii^ towards Sydney, one of whom, addressing me by name, inquhed if I had ' heard the 
neiWB,' and proceeded to inform me that a mans of pure gold, weighing upwards of one hundred* 
weight, had been found a few days before on the sheep-run of a gentleman named Kerr. At 
Binning's Inn, whilst halting to bait, the Bathurst midl came up. The passengers confirmed 
the golden tidings. 

July 17th, — For the last two days I had satisfied myself that, 'but fi>r the honour of the 
thing, I might as well have walked afoot as travelled on wheels over such bottomless roads as 
those of the Blue Mountains in winter — ^bottomless as the Irishman's Yimous sedan. Indeed, I 
did walk the greater part of the way. At the commencement of the ^^ranite region my ooadi- 
man exdaimed, * My word. Sir, they've been at the rocks here with their pid^I* The travel* 
ling miners, naturally attracted by the glittering of the mica, had indeed been trying aome ex- 
periments on the tough crags whidi looked so dawling in comparison with the dull aandwtone of 
the county of Cumbo'land.. 

After halting fiir breakfiuit at my old aoquaintanoe's, widow Jonea, of Green Swamps I 
leaefaed Bathurst at two P.if . ; and driving towards Mrs. Black's Inn across the dreary, t redc a s, 
herUesi flat— which acts the part of esplanade or ' Alameda,' I met Mr. Snttor, who forthwith 
C(HidnGted me to the Bonk, where, in a couple of minutes, I found myself in the preaenoe of the 
monster gold-block. The hunger pieces looked, I thought, something like the coralline sponges 
ao common on the sea-shcses of Australia ; the smaller were in rude battered fiiigments sU^tly 
whitened by the admixtura of bruised quartz, just as they had been knocked in hot haste from 
the matrix. I am no worshii^)er of the golden calf, nor of Mammon generally ; but I must 
oonfess that, when my eyes surveyed and my hands weighed the ahining and pondoons maoa ef 



* The word nugget amosf liumers dgnlfies a small compact beast— a nmt; amonggold minen aloaip, 
"^ oontnalistloction to the scale or dust gold. 



UNIQUlfi SPECIMEN OF GOLD — ^BATHURST DEPOPULATED. 265 

that predout* substtmce which, bj nniversal consait, has become the gi-eat "purveyor of the 
fliijojments aod the elegancies of life thrown loosely into an ordinary tin box, free^ from its 
natiTe deposit, — ^I must confess that ^osions of pick and spade, pan aad rocker, for a moment 
citKsed my mind. I recognised the first sympt(»ns of the mania, and resolved on the first op- 
portunity to apply a strong and early remedy, viz. one day of hard work in ' in prospecting,'— » 
a remedy which I foimd occasicm to carry into effect with the best result. 

It was, indeed, impossible to avoid lamenting that this unique specimen of virgin gold — rock 
and oro-~had not hem removed in a state of perfect integrity from its native bed to Sydney, 
aiMl firom theuoe to London. Great Britain could have idSforded, it is presumed, to preserve, as 
a ikational cabinet cuxiosity, tibie finest specimen of gold m 9iiu ever yet beheld. If the Em- 
peror of Russia possesses a finer, I am willing to be c<Mrrected. The Rev. Mr, Clarke, in a 
useful pami^et, published at Sydney soon after the gold-find, states that there is a specimen of 
native gold in the Imperial School of Mines of that country which weighs seventy-eight English 
pounds. Looking at the monster lump in a speculative light — ^Mr. Bamum would have rea- 
lized 50,000/. in a couple of yean by exhibiting it round Europe and Amoica with the black 
fi^ow who found it, and the saddle-lK^ in whidi it was abducted, and would have sold it after- 
wards for at least twice as mudi as I)^. Kerr got for it. Mr. Hardy, the gold oommissioner^ 
in talking of this gentleman, described him, not as the lucky man who had made 4,000/. by a 
day's ride, but as the luckless individual who had lost 40,000/. in failing to constitute himself 
the travelling showman of his easily acquired treasure. The excitement natural on such a wind- 
&U, and, periiaps, the apprdieBsian of robbery and vidienoe, may have induced the fortunate 
finder to break up and carry away, as quickly and quietly as possible^ so predinis a fireight 
from those wild ngious to a place of safor d^xisit. 

Whilst I was in the Bank at Bathurst, Mr. Snttor locked there, to the credit of his boyi^ 
who had accompanied him to Wallawao^i^^ — ^the native name of the spot where the block was 
foundr— ceariy 70/., the pice obtained for the crumbs tiiat had follen finm the breakage of the 
great mass. ' Bathnrst was mad again,' as the newspaper truly said— or, at least, it would 
hove been so, but that it waa empty. The townsfolk had with one consent put down their 
heads, shut tiieir eyes, and run full tilt after the kindred goiki lumps with which their ardent 
imaginatioDS peopled the slate ridges and quartz veins around Wallawan^ It never rains but 
it poon, and this day gold was actnally found in a pebble picked np in the streets of Bathurrt, 
oa its benig smashed by a blacksmith's hattmaer. The quarter sessiiHis were going on — ^as great 
an qwch as the ssazes of an English oonntry town — yet no one was visible but the chednnaa 
and two or Ham poUoemen. An unusually large number of Aborigines, male and female^ 
were, indeed, idling and gaping about the tavon doors, picking up, ficum the usurpers of their 
native land — ^now ri]^ing riches fh>m her bowels — scanty scraps ckT subsistoice, tea, sugar, or 
tobaooo, and the certain causes of ruin and death — ardent spirits. The shops and stores seemed 
generally deserted. Some few wero driving a smart trade in slops for the diggings ; carpenters 
were employed nn rockers only; shoemakers on mining boots; saddlers were stitching dog-akin 
bags for the gold-dust I bought one, determined to fill it by dint of money if not by work- 
little thinking how much of et&er it would take to do so — small as the pouch looked I Drop- 
ping into Austin's stores for some small article of outfit, I was civilly shown a largish tea-tray, 
thinly sprinkled with scale gold from the Turon, the first I had seen. The grains were but 
little coarser than bran, very bright, with convex surfaces, evidently polished by the action of 
water. I was surprised to find, that, trifling as the quantity seemed to be, this * pared ' of 
gold weighed no less than 11^ lbs. — ^worth about 450/. 

The inns were helpless, in the American sense of the term. You were at liberty to ring the 
bdls of parlour and dumber as much as you pleased, but there was no response — not even the 
too delusive ' Coming, Sir,' of the London waiter as he vanishes firom your sight, leaving you 
to ffigh or swear, aooording to your constitution. But though the comforts were fewer, the 
diorges were no lighter ; ten shiUings a night being the cost of puttii^ up a pair of horses 
nt Batfaurst, and lis. at more than one of the mountain inns. Such i& one of the effects 
of gold I In Caii^onua, prices were somewhat higher — doUais for shillingB, in short. 

The Government, as I have said, had appointed OommissionerB to reside on the Gold 
Field, to wmintgfw order, and to enforce the tax. I had letters from the Governor to Mr. 
Hardy, the Chief CommissioDer, who was at present on the Turon; and, fortunately for 
myself, at Bi^urst I made the acquaintance of Mr. Green, the Assistant Commissioner, who^ 
bc^g on his way to Ophir, or Summerhill Creek, from- a lioence-issuing trip to the new but 
not hitherto productive diggings of Havilah, kindly proffered me his company and assistance on 



256 OUB ANTIPODES. 

the road, with food and shelter at his sheep^station half-way, as wdl as at his camp on the 
Sommerhill Creek. Swallow Creek, Mr. Green's station, is about seventeen miles irom Ba- 
thurst, and eighteen from Ophir. 

ISth JtUy. — Amid torrents of rain, we started for Swallow Creek. Onr road led ns at first, 
for some miles, up the course of the Macquarie, and along the run of the Plains until we had 
passed the solid-looking hrick mansion of General Stewart, one of the eldest and most respected 
settlers in the colony. From the midst of his verdant meadows, through which the river, 
fringed with grand swamp-oaks, winds its fertilizing course, we turned ahruptly into the hills 
.to tiie westward, and trottmg rapidly over an undulating gi'anite country lightly timbered 
and traversed with marble veins, we reached the station in time to dine and sleep. This prettp 
farm is at present imder the superintendence of a youi^ relative of the proprietor. The 
cottage and garden are pleasantly situated on the gentle slope of a hill, looking over a fertile 
valley, along which the creek meanders. Gold has, by the simple test of the * prospecting ' 
pan, been found along its banks and at its juncti(Mi with the Macquarie River, but not as yet in 
remunerative quantities. With some 10,000 sheep and 400 or 500 head of cattle roaming 
over the mountain pastures in such close proximity to the mining region, the owner of Swallow 
Creek will hencefoith be in no want of a profitable market for his flocks and herds. 

19th July, — Still pursued by bad weather, we took horse pretty early for the mines. The 
country through which we rode was rather hilly than mountainous, thinly wooded, and occasionally 
spread out in narrow but fertile alluvial bottoms, hitherto untouched by the hands of man. 
While plunging through one of the wildest and most londy of these forest flats up to our horses* 
knees in mud and water, the rain pouring down in flakes and dashing into our faces from the 
boughs of the eucalyptus and acacias, my courteous companion informed me that we were at 
that moment traversing the main street of a large and flourishii^ town I and, in sufficient proof 
thereof, I was referred to an advertisement in the papers, the spirited production of the Geoi^ 
Robins of Sydney, which I remembered to have perused before I left that place. I am not 
about to decry a spot ' so romantically beautiful' — ^the * oasis' amid the sterile country which 
marks the route to the Diggings ! — although I did find myself in the position of Martin Chuz- 
zlewit when he exclaims, on viewing the plan of Eden in Mr. Scadder's office, ' why, I had no 
idea it was a city !' and reodves for answer, * hadn't you ? Oh ! it's a city ;'-^«nd when Mark 
Tapley, from the depth of his simple sagacity, remarks, ' the soil being very fruitful, public 
buildings grows spontaneous, perhaps !' On tiie contrary, as I cast my eye through the storm 
pelting across its wild features, and reflected upon its rich black loam, upon its frontage to the 
Lewis Ponds Creek and its vicinity to the mines, I found myself trotting through imaginary 
streets and nuurket places, only regretting the vision did not realize itsdf in the shape of a sub» 
stantial tavern, where something good for a wet skin might have been procured. 

After riding six or eight miles, we crossed, with some little difficulty, the Lewis Ponds 
Creek — a tributary of the Summerhill, and itself a gold-bearing stream — and tuning abruptly 
down its left bank, took it as our guide to the mines. Over granite ranges, and along the 
flanks of clay-slate ridges, we wound our devious way upon a very tolerable bridle-track. 
Here and there a huge vein of quartz rock shone through the dark trees, its milk-white debris 
scattered in drifts down the declivities, and heavy masses near the summit, and mnniog out 
into atoms not larger than hailstones, and much resembling them, towards the bottont. 
Jagged and vertical flakes of schistose rock jutted up like great saws across our path, present- 
ing a dangerous footing for the horseman, but promising full pockets to the gold-hunter-^lbr 
quartz, in combination with clay-slate set on edge, is, as we learn, one of the most important 
* constants,* or geological indications of an auriferous region. 

At length, passing over a high flat-topped ridge — selected by a tribe of blacks for their 
encampment-~on which I was surprised to find lai^e waterwom pebbles, as well as some fine 
crystals of quartz — ^we came in sight of a bit of hazy distance caused by a more than 
ordinarily extensive fissure between the hills, and here we recognised the valley of the Sum- 
merhill Creek. Just below us, on a small level space at the head of a steep ravine running 
down to the river, lay the Gold Commissioner's camp, consisting of that officer's tent, witk 
its cook-house of slabs and bark, and the tent and kitchen of the mounted police department-* 
whose horses fed in a small temporary stock-yard hard by, dignified by the name of the 
Government Paddock. Here tiie C6mmissioner, or his assistant, seated like a spider in the 
comer of his web, is ready to pounce unexpectedly upon different parts of the stream occuped 
by the diggers, and so to surprise such](of them as attempt to evade the Govemmmt impost. 
'"*^« country of the mines is eminently unfavourable to_ the exertions of the tax-collector. 



THE DIGGINGS FLOODED — OPHIB, 257 

Miners ot insolvent inclinations easily contrive to dodge the ofBoer as he proceeds down 
the windings of the creek, the rocks smd gnllies presenting endless and convenient hiding- 
places for the skulkers. At Ophir, the simulated croak of the raven was the signal for 
evasion agi'eed and acted on by the unlicensed. One fellow shoulders the cradle, and runs to 
earth, while his comrades disperse themselves among the legitimate workmen, assuming the 
innocent look of spectators hesitating to commence on the arduous and precarious trade of 
gold-mining. IN umbers will, doubtless, always manage to work without payment ' la 
sequestered gnllies, but when any such spot is found to be profitable it is not long kept secret. 
The soHtary miners must go somewhere to obtain supplies ; they are watched and followed by 
others who have been less successful, and the * sly ' diggings soon become known to the Com- 
missioner and his myrmidons. 

The late heavy rains had inundated the creek and its confluents, which were rushing along 
in muddy toiTents to the dismay and discomfiture of the workmen. The main stream, which 
had been payable dryshod in places, was now in no spot practicable on foot or on horseback. 
The people on the Bathurst side of the river were cut off from the township of Ophir, on the 
Wellington bank. A black man had established a rude and unsafe canoe on the junction of 
the Lewis Ponds and Summerhill Creeks, and was turning a handsome penny in the character 
of Charon. Crowds had left Ophir within the last ten days for the later discovered Turon 
Diggings ; some because the ' holes ' where they had hitherto successfully worked were 
flooded and refilled with the heavy stones and gravel they had quarried out with so much labour ; 
others from a mere restless love of change ; while not a few, unsuited to a life of privation, 
had abandoned the pursuit altogether. The waters of the Summerhill River, when once out 
at this season, do not readily subside, for its sources are in the Conobolas Mountains, whose 
summits in winter are frequently covered with snow. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



The aspect of Ophir, viewed from across the creek, although eminently picturesque, was by 
no means cheering ; for two-thirds of the wretched temporary huts and shielings of the 
miners were deserted and in ruin ; many of the fires in front of the sheds yet tenanted 
had been extinguished by the rain, and the people still at work looked as if they had slept all 
night in a wet ditch. Not far from the Commissioner's camp I fell in with a party of three 
men more comfortable-looking than tiie majority, and, attracted by the solid and cozy appear* 
ance of their abode, I asked if they intended to remain at Ophir. They told me that they had 
purchased their domicile, which was built of stones, roofed with bark, a large burning tree 
forming at once their kitchen range and parlour fire, for five shillings, from a company who 
had taken ten days to construct it, and had gone off in sudden disgust. They had got their 
cradle for 3s., other implements as cheaply, and a store of flour at less than Sydney prices. 
They had not done mudi as yet, but intended to await with patience and hope the falling of 
the river. A company, 1 understand, is in process of formation, with a view to attempt the 
drainage of the pool by pumping ; and if the trial succeed, there can be little doubt that an 
immense deposit of the precious metal will be found in the bed of the stream. The under- 
taking may be expensive ; but it is encours^ng for those engaging in it to know that in California 
many of the dams constructed to lay bare the water-courses for mining operations, cost 10,000 
to 20,000 dollars before a single cradle was rocked. 

The hill trending downwards is occupied by the township — so called by courtesy. Scarcely 
a tree remains on its bald front — every stick having been cut down for building or firewood. 
This declivity and the precipitous bank immediately facing it present one of the natural 
features which act as guides to gold-seekers in their choice of a likely location ; a tongue of 
land sloping gently to the stream opposite a rocky bluff — the two being commonly attended 
by a sharp bend in its course — ^rarely fi»iling to be highly productive. Round the entire 
margin of this bend — ^the best spot of which is called the FitzRoy Bar — extends a continuous 
series of mining works ; or rather they did extend before the partial desertion of the miners 
had taken place. Not only had the whole of the gravelly bed of the stream been turned 
up and ransacked, but , great caves had been worked horizontally into the foot of the hill. 
The space so treated varies in width from twenty to fifty yards, and looks, on a large scale, 
precisely as though it had been burrowed by the unringed snouts of a thousand swine searching 
for some tasty root—* the root^ indeed,' observes some penniless moralist,^-' the root of all evil/ 



258 OUB AVTIFODES, 

In the afternoon, accompanied hj J>^r. Green, I got down among the diggers on the Creek, 
Very few were actively emnlojed. Many I suspect were snflfering every haixiship short of 
actual starvation. Some were groping with their knives among the crevices of the slate 
rocks, or * pockets,' as they are technically termed by the miners. In this simple manner the 
nuggets, pepites, or large waterworn lumps of gold, for which Ophir is femous, have been 
got out. We came, as it happened, plump upon a hangdog-looking fellow thus engaged, 
whose averted face proclaimed him a poacher on Her Majesty's gold manor. * Have yon got 
a licence ?' asked the Assistant Commissioner. * No, sir,* said he, with a look of ague and 
impecuniosity combined. * I have neither health to work, nor money to buy a licence.* 
' Then get out of the creek. You have no business there,' was the inexorable rejoinder. The 
man slowly and unwillingly obeyed the order, but did obey it. 

The facile establishment of a new co<le of regulations among a heterogeneous mob of well- 
armed men congregated in these wild mountain glens, far from the seat of the law, and appa- 
rently beyond its reach, struck me as a wonderful proof of the love of order inherent in 
Englishmen. There is at this moment not a soldier nearer than Sydney, and the force there 
is barely sufficient for the duties of the capital. The Commissioner and his assistant have no 
more than fifteen policemen to support them in the execution of their unpopular office, yet no 
open deBanoe of their authority has hitherto occurred. The ill-disposed and unruly are well 
aware that a word from the Government officer could, in case of need, recruit into the service 
of peace and order a formidable body of gentlemen and respectable persons, fully as resolute, 
and better armed, than the anardiists. Some time and some revenue have unquestionably been 
lost by the necessity of collecting the licence fees rather by humouring and even temporising 
with the workmen, than by the more summary process which comes natural to the collector 
who knows that he is backed by * the strong arm of the law * — the strong arm of the militaiy, 
I, as a soldier, of course assei-t to be the true meaning of that hackneyed term — for though 
the sentence of the law may indeed be fulminated from the bench, trace to its source the 
power to inflict it, and will it not be found in the standing aimy ? In New South Wales, at 
this moment, the civil power, physically considered, is civil impotence : for the constabulary — 
land and water police — are throwing down their truncheons at the end of every month, and 
starting off by dozens to the diggings. One has only to compare the population now assembled 
at the mines with the amount of licence-money collected, to arrive at the conclusion that the 
impost is not effectually enforced. Nor do I believe it ever will be until a strong military 
detachment — say half a battalion — ^shall be stationed at Bathurst, as a fulcrum for the 
authorities to work upon. 

On the night of the first arrival of the Commissioner at Ophir, the diners amused them- 
selves — just as a tribe of New Zealanders might have done under similar influences — ^by 
squibbing off some thousands of musket-shots. Intimidation could hardly have been intended ; 
but if so they mistook their men very egregiously. One burly ^fellow, indeed, con/idiDg in 
his superior strength and old habits of bullying, refused either to f»ay his licence or quit his. 
ground ; whereupon Mr. Hardy, a man of excellent temper and highly conciliatory manners, 
thought this opportunity a good one to asseii; his authority by other means than the soothing 
system. He jumped, therefore, into the hole where the recusant was working, and putting a 
pistol to his ear, arrested him in the Queen's name, and the blusterer being quietly handcofied 
was removed by the tipstaff. I was glad to hear subsequently that the officers had made 
some successful as well as determined onslaughts upon notorious gangs of illicit diggers. In 
many cases the enemy escaped, but their baggage, in the shape of cradles, was captured, and 
these being immediately smashed their means of future gold mining were cut off. The right 
to carry fire-arms and other offensive weapons so largely exercised by the miners, can hardly 
at present be interfered with ; but this un-English practice is, I think, curing itself. Public 
opinion has hitherto been sufficiently executive and protective at the diggings. It will con- 
tinue effective so long, and so long only, as the public sense of right is not demented by the 
indiscriminate introduction of ardent spirits into a society so questionably constituted as sl 
New South Wales mining multitude. 

In strolling down the works — if the term strolling can be applied to scrambling anion|^ 
jagged slate rocks in the river bed and slipping over the loose shale on the hill-side — I found it 
no easy task to get into conversation with the diggers. Some appeared sullen from disappoint*- 
ment, few communicative on the subject of their gains, and all apparently imbued with that 
spirit of independence and equality natural in a community where, whatever might be the 

'>! distinction in the station and education of individuals, all were now living and laboaring 



A MOTLEY COMPANY — DIN17EE AT THE DIGGINGS. 259 

on the same tenns. If ever there was a pure democracy, it now exists at the Bathurst gold 
mines — ^pure as the most penniless possessor of nothing could wish — purer hy far than any 
spouter of socialism, having anything to lose, ever truly desired ; and infinitively too trans- 
cendently pure for the views of those who helieve that human society, lilce a regiment, should 
be a graduated community. The present state of affairs will not last long. In another year 
or two three-fourths of the men now working on their own account will be the hired laboui*ers 
of capitalists or companies, and the social equipoise will be again restored. At present, here 
are merchants and cabmen, magistrates and convicts, amateur gentlemen rocking the cradle 
merely to say they have done so, fashionable hair-dressers and tailors, cooks, coachmen, law- 
yers' clerks and their masters, colliers, cobblers, quarrymen, doctors of physic and music, 
aldermen, an A.D.C. on leave, scavengers, sailors, shorthand-writers, a real live lord on his 
travels — all levelled by community of pursuit and of costume. The serge shirt, leathern belt, 
Califomian hat, and woollen comforter, with the general absence of ablution and abrasion, 
leave the stranger continually in doubt as to which of the above classes he may be addressing 
himself. 

* What luck, my good fellow?' said I to a rough, unshorn, clay-slate complexioned figure, 
clad in a zebra- coloured Jersey, with beef boots up to his middle, * What luck?' 

* Why, aw !* replied my new friend, with a lisp and a movement as if he was pulling up a 
supposititious gill, *only tho-tho at prethent. Our claim was tolewably wemunewative 
owiginally, but it has detewiowated since the wains set in !' 

Diavolo I thought I, what euphuist in a rough husk have we here ? 

I learnt afterward that this gentleman is a member of the faculty, and was turning over 
more gold as a miner than he had ever done as a medico. I recognised many familiar faces 
without being able to put names to them, so much were their owners disguised. Some gave 
me a knowing smile in return for my inquiring looks ; others favoured me with a wink. 

My pen-uquier, Mr. R , was doing well ; he had served his time in California. My 

saddler, Mr. B , looked half- starved ; it was clear he had better have stuck to the pigskin 

— a thing, by the way, often easier said than done. The Sydney counter-skippers generally 
made but poor quarrymen ; many of them longed, no doubt, to be measuring tape agiiin, and, 
perhaps, would have long since taken steps for resuming their old and proper trade, had they 
not felt sura that the employers, whom they had deserted at a day's notice, would probably 
refuse to engage them again. 

I soon found that in so earnest a quest as that of gold-hunting, those pursuing it are averse 
to the impertinent interruption of strangers. The Jew speculators and others, who were 
beginning to traffic at the mines, had however introduced one initiative question, seldom fil- 
ing to open a dialogue in which some information might be picked up. * Will you sell your 
gold ?' was that queiy. I resolved, therefore, to become a purchaser on a small scale. Had 
the idea sooner occurred to me, I might have made an excellent speculation, for the gold rose 
in price several shillings per ounce soon after my visit to the mines. At Ophir, I could have 
bought any quantity at 3/. to 3?. Is. an ounce, and conveying it myself to Sydney, could have 
at once sold it for 3/. 7s. Gd.* At present, however, I had made no arrangement for the 
necessary outlay. 

After a long ramble over the ranges I was not sorry to get back to the Commissioner's tent, 
where, seated at a little table in its entrance, our feet on a carpet spread over sheets of bark, 
with a huge fire of logs blazing in front, we were ministered to by an old soldier, one of the 
troopers, in a rough but wholesome and welcome repast. Whilst engaged in the discussion 
of tea in a tin pot, damper, and grilled mutton seasoned with pickled onions, several men 
came up to camp for the purpose of getting their gold weighed by Mr, Green, for they dis- 
trusted the weights of the storekeepers in the township. In some instances, they had, indeed, 
been sadly imposed on ; but the cheating was not entirely confined to one side, for on a certain 
occasion a miner, presenting a nugget for sale at the counter of a store, was offered 21, for it, 
which, after solemn consultation with a comrade, he accepted. The nugget turned out to be 
a piece of a brass candlestick, battered into a rough form, with bits of quartz intermixed. The 
imposition was soon discovered, but the seller's position was impregnable— he had never said 
it was gold. The * sold ' party could hardly afford to complain, for had it been gold, 5^. would 
have been the lowest equitable offer for it. 

The Commissioner, being instructed to receive the tax in dust from parties not possessing 

* The standard gold of Great Britain is made of a metal consisting of twenty-two parts of pure gold 
and two parts of copper. The Mint price of standard gold is 3{. lis. loid per os. 

S 2 



*260 OUB AKTIPODES. 

• 

coin, has his scales always at hand. It was amusing to watch the painful anxiety of somey 
and the careless indifference of others as they produced their respective earnings for valuation. 
It was pleasant to mark the perfect confidence all had in the Government functionary, many 
requesting him to take charge of their gold nnweighed, and leaving it for weeks in his tent, 
although he was by no means responsible for any loss that might happen. Leathern bags, 
tobacco pouches, old handkerchiefs and dirty rags, were pulled out, and the glittering ore was 
poured upon a venerable newspaper for weighing ; the common wooden Inciter box, however, 
seemed to be the favourite receptacle for the gold dust — a penny match-box holding about 
40/. worth of its new contents. 

One man, a poor shoemaker of Sydney, had left in charge of Mr. Green the finest specimen 
of a ' pepite' I had yet seen. I counted on buying it ; but he came for it to-day, and refused 
^9/. which I offei'ed him, because, as he said, be wished to show it to his wife before he 
turned it into cash. The specimen, in form like a thick stick of sealing-wax, and wholly free 
from quartz, weighed 1 lb. 16 dwt. 12 gs. The little cobbler, who had by no means the 
Appearance of a hardy diggt>r, told me that the day after he had lodged his great nugget with the 
Commissioner, he had made 20/. vrorih of gold in a few houxs* work. The freshet of the 
creek had, however, filled up his * claim,' and he resolved to return home with his present 
gains. He departed this evening accordingly with a comrade — evidently a sleeping partner 
only — who looked both willing and able to rob him on the road. This man sold me a few 
smaller pieces ; and a party of three, who had made 57 L worth since the beginning of the 
month, let me have a perfect picture of a small nugget at 3/. Is. per ounce. It weighed aboat 
2^ ounces. Another company, who intended to return to the mines when the weather 
improved, had earned 112/. in three weeks. A few days before, they had found a handsome 
lump of 9 oz. 9 dwts. It was nearly perforated with a blow of the pick. A party of five 
gentlemen, two, at least, of whom were magistrates, had worked for a fortnight, and had 
made 6/. a day each, during that time. One of them, a fine able young man, told me that 
they had laboured really^hard. He was arranging a joint-stock company for the Turon when 
I saw him, and had purchased tent^ cradle, and other materials, from some disappointed party 
for one-fourth of their value. Such was at this juncture the depreciation of stores at Ophir, 
that a fine tent 20 feet by 10, 'constructed at a cost of 35/. was sold for two ounces of gold. 

The following is a singular instance of success, where success was most improbable : three 
lads from Sydney, the eldest seventeen, the others many years younger, with that precocious 
spirit common in ' currency ' juveniles, had taken leave of their mothers, and, as the respect- 
able parent of one of them told me, had commenced by purchasing for 5s. at Ophir a cradle 
which had cost 40s. in Sydney. In three weeks they had made and sold 5/. 15s. worth of 
gold each, and had brought back to Sydney 5/. worth in dust, all expenses cleared, a fact soffi- 
cient to depopulate all the schools and td break all the indentures of 'prenticeship in the capital. 

The miners, I observed, looked hazard and weather-worn about the face ; but I fancy this 
jaded look proceeded rather from intense mental excitement than from bodily hardship. More 
than one almost started when I asked them if they did not dream of gold at night, and 
admitted with apparent shame, that not only did gold foim the main subject of many a 
troubled nightmare, but that in spite of excessive fatigue, involuntary waking ruminations 
on the same absorbing theme robbed them of the rest absolutely necessary to recruit their 
strength for the morrow's labour. The general health, however, of the mining population 
has been excellent throughout — none of the fever, ague, and dysentery, which decimate the 
diggers of California, having been heard of at Ophir or the Turon. Morrison's agent in the 
mining townships is, indeed, said to be ' doing a good stroke of business ' at Is. a pill ; but 
excessive health is one of the maladies, perhaps, which the professor professes to cure. The 
diet is the real promoter of the general salubrity ; — a regimen of meat, bread, and water, 
without vegetables, fruits, or fermented liquors, bracing the frame to the utmost pitch of 
hardy and wiry strength. At the diggings, contrary to the forebodings of the dismalites, 
supply followed so quickly on the heels of demand, that after the first fortm'ght provisions 
were as cheap as at Sydney. No licences for retailing liquors had been issued, for it was 
justly apprehended that di'uukenness might in a moment convert a well-ordered, though mixed 
community into a perfect social chaos. Sly grog-selling, indeed, was attempted on a large 
scale, and in the most impudent manner, by one or two of the richest storekeepers ; but the 
Commissioners were on the alert, and contrived to seize and confiscate considerable quantities. 
An example being required, two policemen, disguised as miners and furnished with a parcel of 
gold-dust, visited the store of the chief grog-seller, who traded largely in gold, and oilered 



SLY GROG SELLING — ^A WILD LANDSCAPE. 26T 

their dast for sale. The shopkeeper pnrehased the lot, and at the reqiiest of the sellers, 
supplied them with a dram of ram each at a good round price. The information obtained by 
this rux enabled the ofBcers to swoop upon the peccant Israelite, caiTpng off eighty gallons 
of spirits and inflicting a heavy fine. 

In discussing with infinite gusto a tumbler of the Commissioner's cognac, hot and sweet, 
while the rain rattled upon our tent roof and the wind drove the smoke of the wood fire in 
our faces — I could not help thinking that the diggers likewise might relish, and, as free men, 
bad a right to their spirituous comforts in their damp bivouacs this cheerless night. I mar- 
velled at their forbearance under so mollifying a restriction ; but on reflection I felt satisfied 
that, despite the Commissioner's vigilance, wherever gold was plentiful grog would be forth- 
coming. Licences will, of course, in due time be granted to a few respectable persons to lay in 
and retail wine, beer, &c. It was rumoured that hard drinking, gambling, and fighting, were 
rife in the recesses of the tents and huts of the nomadic township, and that a noted thimble- 
rigger had been seen plying the delusive pea on the stump of a tree by the light of the moon, 
and liad plied it to some purpose. All this might very well be, but at any rate it was not 
apparent to the eye of the mere traveller. 

Strnday, 20th July — Ophir. —I had hoped to have attended divine service at the mines, but the 
inclement weather prevented the arrival of the minister from Carcoar, a distance of about 
thirty miles. He has generally a numerous congi-egation under the green gum-tree. 

Mr. Green guided me by a short cut across the ranges to a part of the creek called by the 
diggers Newtown and Paddington; where something like a street had sprung up; and a 
lodging-house at two guineas a week was in progress of erection; the butclier^s shop was 
doing a smart business, and a crowd of blacks were disputing with the dogs the heads and 
offal of the slaughtered sheep. Some of the more intelligent of the Aborigines have made 
themselves very useful at the mines, especially in cutting bark. They got 10s. for forty or 
fifly sheets. I heard cradles going in some of the secluded gullies, but in general a rest 
from work seemed to be observed by the diners. The people were quiet, civil, but 
singularly — almost unpleasantly — silent. I saw a few instances of contused eyes, suggestive 
of Saturday night's recreations. 

Lang's Point is at a short distance from Paddington. The river here takes a singularly, 
serpentine course, driven as it is from the straight direction by successive bluffs on either bank. 
The low points opposite these have been found rich in ore, a fad attested by the knots of 
miners gatiiered upon them, and the numerous little rough-and-ready hamlets erected on their 
slcipes. In this wild recess of the sterile mountain region, where the eye of the spectator is lost 
in folds beyond folds of the hitherto unpeopled hills — ^where a few weeks ago the aboriginal 
black and his quarry, the kangaroo and wallabi, alone disturbed the solitude of the desert — ^it 
was strange to see crowds of white men, many of them educated persons and nurtured amid the 
comforts and amenities of life, thronging the dreary ravines, burrowing among the dismal rocks, 
and enduring, not only without murmur but with all the zest of intense excitement^ the rigours 
of winter and every hardship short of actual starvation. What wonder! the ardent sportsman 
courts cold and wet, &tigue and hunger, or the chance of a broken neck in pursuit of the grouse^ 
the stag, or the fox. Here gold is tiie game ! 

Many marvellous stories of the earnings of the miners were current, and found their way into 
the papers ; — I believe most of them had no foundation. Their effect was to unsettle the minds 
of credulous hearers and readers, who, believing that Aladdin's lamp was only waiting for them 
to rub it, gave up steady employments for gold-hunting, and thereby too ofben abandoned solid 
substance for a vain shadow. It is impossible to form a correct idea of the earnings at Ophir. 
Ten shillings a day was pretty generally named as the average, which I cannot but think much 
too low. The search for nu^ets is de^mental to steady work, causing a less careful washing 
for the smaller atoms, which after all pay better. At the Turon, pepites are less common ; — ^it 
is this, perhaps, that renders the gains there more uniform, and the instances of complete failure 
less frequent than on the Summerhill. A few days after I left this latter place a lump of pure 
gold, wdghing fifty-one ounces, was dag up by a party of sailors, and sold by them to Captain 
Erskine, of H.M.S. Havannah, who will have the pleasure of displaying in England, for which 
place he sailed shortly afterwards, the largest waterwom piece yet discovered in Australia. The 
* spree ' of gold-hunting became very popular among seafaring men ; and the papers teemed 
with trials of runaways from the shipping at Sydney. Most of them made a bad business, some 
never even reaching fhe mines, others losing all they had got by their own carelessness and the 
roguery of their neighbours. A friend of mine fell in with one of these fish out of water, wh 



262 OUB ANTIPODES. 

had been pillaged on the mountain road whilst lying asleep ; and was trying in vain to moimt a 
sorry nag he had bought for the journey. The poor seaman was fitirly * took aback, for/ said 
he, * they've robbed me of a one pun' note, my 'stifHcate of discharge from the ship, three weeks' 
grub, and my poii stirrup, and I'm blowed if I can get up on this beast without it !' My informant 
su^ested the expedient of unrigging the starboard stirrup and shipping it on the port side ; and, 
moreover, performed this transfer for him ; upon which Jack, delighted with this somewhat 
obvious ' dodge,' * shinned ' up to his Hosinante's back, and proceeded on his journey with 
renewed spirits. 

Late in August a nugget of fifty-seven ounces was dug up, and sold in Sydney. The general 
form of these lumps is flattish, with the edges, whether of metal or stone, smoothed off as 
though they had been battered by harder substances and poUshed by the torrents of centuries. I 
brought home a nugget of about forty ounces, of a more spherical shape than commiMi — not 
unlike the nob of a drum-major's stick. The gold was^.thinly veined with pinkish quulz. The 
dust is nothing more than the smaller particles broken from the larger and worn by trituration 
into miniature nuggets. 

20th July, — ^In the afternoon I took leave of my kind and hospitable friend Mr. Grem, who 
furnished me with a mounted policeman as a guide and escort, and rode back to Swallow Creek, 
overtaking on the road a continuous line of travelling miners, proceeding, like myself, to the 
Turon. Poor people ! they had to wade the several roaring torrents through which I rode up 
to my saddle-girths. 

21st Jtdy. — ^A bright hoar frost covered the face of the country when I arose this momii^. 
The milk that was served at breakfast was frozen in the pitcher. I left Swallow Creek early, 
having there resumed my carriage. It was a beautiful sunny day, highly cheering after a week 
of rain and gloom. In Australia damp and cloudy weather is intolerable ; it seems a kind of 
breach of promise ; and you feel inclined to sue the seasons for damages. In dear old England 
you are thankful for sunshine, and have nothing to ui^e in the way of complaint against so 
common an event as a rainy day, a cold or cough, or a wet skin I 

The Summerhill and Turon rivers are alike tributaries of the Macquarie. Across the mountain 
region between the two gold-fields the distance is probably not more than thirty miles ; and a 
track available for bag^ige-aninuds will doubtless shortly be made to unite them. My route 
took me round by Bathurst — ^the arc making the distance about sixty miles. In this town I 
had to wait three or four hours for the swollen Macquarie (that capricious stream, which some- 
times does not run at all for years) — ^to run down ; and by 4 P.M. I found it fordable on wheels. 
My kind friend, Mr. W. Suttor of Brucedale, had invited me to his beautiful place, which lies 
in the direct route to the Turon diggings, whetlier from Bathurst or Sydney, — so direct, indeed, 
that for the last fortnight the road in front of his windows has exhibited the appearance of the 
line of march of a large army's ba^age. The cavalcade was still passing during my stay there ; 
— a considerable sprinkling of scarlet serge-shirts and blankets, witii a strong force of musketeers 
at the * slope ' and ' trail,' giving a martial feature to the movement. My worthy host might 
not quite relish the liberties te^en with his propei'ty by the strangers ; for they made their 
halts and their fires where they listed, and turned out their beasts where it suited .them. 
Perhaps, however, on putting two and two t(^ther, the sagacious proprietor might compound 
with their trespasses in consideration of the &mous market this roving population was bringing 
him for his flocks and herds on the neighbouring hills ; — for he has sheep-runs absolutely astride 
on the Turon. 

The discovery of the Gold Field on this river is due to a superintendent of Mr. Suttor, who 
found the precious ore on the first search, and on every spot where he tested the alluvium by 
the tin-dish. The discovery was promptly made public by Mr. Suttor ; and in a few days the 
cabalistic word * Gold ' had conjui^ into existence, among the wild £istiiesses of these mountain 
pastures, a population at the least equal to that of the town of Bathm'st itself. A1^ Brucedale I 
met the fortunate possessor of the monster lump. Dr. Kerr, who is connected by marriage with 
Mr. Suttor. It would have been wonderful indeed had not gold, and this particular morsel of 
gold, formed the main subject of discourse. The spot of the find, it appears, was by no means 
rocky, precipitous, or remarkably sterile ; it was a gentle slope, in tiie midst of a fiivooiite 
sheep-walk ; the unconscious flodcs must have a thousand times nibbled the herbage sprouting 
around the precious mass ; the shepherd had, perhaps, used it as a pillow for his noontide doze, 
or as a prop for his back while he awakened the echoes with his oaten, or soothed his solitude 
with his clay pipe. But the destined day had arrived ; the swarthy Corydon, sauntering with 
hands behind him and eyes bent on the ground, was suddenly attracted by the glitter of a yellow 



ADVENTUKES OF THE KERB HlJlirDREDWEiaHT. 263 

Speck like the head of a pin on a lump of rock ; and his thoughts natarally turning to the 
Ulioos-looking dross ahout which the white men had been for some weeks past in such a rabid 
state, he drew from his belt his tomahawk and struck off a fragment from the block. What was 
his surprise to find it not only thickly veined with gold, but a mass of gold nearly pure I Away 
went this second Man Friday, over hill and dale, until he had found his master, — and the rest 
has been told. It is not unimportant to know that Dr. Kerr owes his good fortune to the unifonn 
kindness of himself and his amiable lady towards the aborigines ; the latter having been especially 
earnest in her endeavours to ameliorate the condition of this abject race. I heard somewhere 
that another intelligent black had stated that he remembered having seen, as a child, large 
quantities of the substance about which so much stir was now made. In vain he tasked Ids 
memory as to the spot where he asserted that many years back he had seen a block similar to 
those just found ; it might possibly be the same, but his recollections pointed rather to some 
distant part of the mountain r^on. 

The hundredweight was fouxd, it appears, in three pieces, situated triagonally a few paces 
apart, and detached fi:t>m any vein of rock. Mr. Suttor took the trouble to convey down to the 
creek and to wash some pans of the surrounding earth, but not the smallest indication of gold 
was perceptible therein, although particles of the metal were readily found on the banks of the 
stream. I believe this instance of a heavy mass of gold found in situ and removable without 
the labour of the miner, to be quite unparalleled in mineralogical history. What wonder that 
such a discovery should cause uncommon — even undue— -excitement amongst a people all classes 
of whom may be styled industrial, for all are labouring by mind or muscle for their daily bread, 
and none can afford to be idle ! It is impossible to argue others, or indeed to persuade oneself 
into the belief that this particular mass, poked up within the first three months of Australia's 
golden era, is — ^in the language of sentimental poetry — * the lonely one.' Science cannot assert 
it. There is no precedent to guide probability. Everybody may find a similar jetsom ; and 
the Bathurst Mountains will accordingly be rummaged for kindi«d lumps — ^to the discovery of 
others perhaps, but to the certain disappointment of hundreds of * tall fellows ' who might well 
be more profitably employed for the good of themselves, their families, and the public. 

The ladies at Brucedale were obliging enough to make up, as a present for my wife, a pacquet 
of specimens of the different ores found in this richly metalliferous district — Mrs. Kerr con- 
tributing some beautiful atoms of the monster block which had been scattered from it by the 
sledge-hammer. They were all n^re or less inteimixed with white quartz. Some grand 
combustion had evidently fused the metal and the rock, the soft and the hard, the precious and 
the worthless, into one common mass. The gold, thus released from, or exposed in its birth- 
place, was crystallised into innumerable sharp spiracles, and looked as though it had just come 
from under the chasing tool of some cunning sculptor. Cellini himself could not have produced 
more exquisite foims. The Kerr Hundredweight had become, as I have hinted, a classical 
subject. Every detail connected with it was interesling to a stranger, and had, of course, 
become a household word at Brucedale. Even the little saddle-bi^ into which it had, in its 
Iragmental form, been with difficulty crammed, were dignified into objects of cariosity worthy 
i)f a museum. It was amusing to hear that the worthy doctor, on his long ride homewanb 
mth the gold across his saddle, being compelled to halt at some human habitation for refresh- 
ment, had, in order to avert suspicion from his precious freight, lifted it with assumed ease from 
the horse's back, and flung it with forced indifference over a rail fence ; — * it seems heavy,' 
remarked a bystander. * Full of gold, of course I' replied the owner, with a smile, and with 
more truth than he desired to get credit for. 

July 22nd. — ^Brucedale. Another specimen was added to my collection — as interesting to me 
ns the others, although not so pleasing in its association ; — a j^sed spear>head about six indies 
long, just cut by Dr. Kerr out of the breast of one of Mr. Suttor s blacks. He was the bully of 
the tribe, it appears, but unluckily getting di'unk, a rival took advantage of his weak moment, 
and, challenging him to a duel, transfixed him with his lance. The rude weapon had passed 
along the breastbone under the pectoral muscles, which the operator was compelled to lay open 
in order to release the serrated wood. No indication of pain was manifested by the manly patient 
imder the surgical knife. He was a fine powerful-looking fellow. 

This morning Mr. Suttor went into Bathurst to conclude the sale of the Kerr gold ; and I, 
having entered into temporary partnership with one of his sons, proceeded to carry into effect 
the cold water cure I had resolved to throw upon the nascent symptoms of the gold epidemic 
•which I felt creeping in my vdns. A day's * prospecting ' was the prescription. By dint of a 
rough pony, a cold day, six quartz ridges jagged with slate, two or three flooded creeks, a 



264 OUB ANTIPODES. 

pickaxe, a sledge-hammer, ft tin dish, and — a total absence of gold, eren the minute speck, in 
raward of our united laboar»— the remedy was effectuated in five hours, and ihe disease eradicated 
for ever 1 In the evening Mr. Suttor returned, having sold, after brisk competition his brotiier- 
in-law's trouvaille — 1,233 oz. 9 dwts. — ^for 4,160/. (being 3/. 7s. Qd. per oz.) to a firm in 
Sydney, the head of which had all along predicted, and did not the less continue to predict tliat 
the discovery of gold would be the ruin of the colony ! I mention this fact merely to add that 
this gentleman was not singular in his opinion ; for scores of persons were speculating deeply in 
the ore, who looked with doubt and even with dismay to the result it might produce on Ihe 
other interests of the country — especially on its paramount export, wool. The public mind was 
indeed utterly upset by the novel and startling crisis ; and the keenest calculators could not leok 
an inch into futurity. The history of the Hundredweight continued to be eventful. A Hbation 
of champi^e was poured out between the parties concerned in the sale ; the purchasing partner 
of the Sydney firm had got his s^old safe in the bank at Bathurst, and had resolved in order to 
save the one per cent, charged by Government for escort, to take his treasure under his ofwn 
personal chai^ to the capital ; the risk was small, for he had taken his place as a passenger m 
the mail, which travels in charge of a strong guard for the proteeti<»i of the gold belonging to 
tiie Government and to persons willing to pay the per-^xntage ;^-his foot was on the st^K^ 
when lo ! the Commissioner demanded tiie gold in the Queen's name ! The astounded merdbant 
refosed to * deliver,' unless force was used. Force toas used. Eventually, on the purchaser 
signing a bond to pay such royalty as might hereafter be demanded on behalf of Her Majeety, 
the gold was restored to him. The escort fee was, however, exacted ; the Hundredwe^bt 
reached Sydney in safety ; was for some hours obligingly exhibited to the public by the new 
proprietor, and was, I believe, shipped the same evening, per Bondicar, for England. I cannot 
tell What might have been the intention of the purchaser of the mass in its mutilated state, bad 
he obtained tranquil possession of it ; but harassed and justly irritated by the delays and 
difficulties and conditions attached to his acquisition, I have it from his own lips ^at &e 
Hundiedweigfat of gold should go to the melting-pot an hour after it reached London. 

Additional gold regulations were early in August issued by Government, limiting the 
privilege conferred by the licence to operations in the alluvium or beds of creeks, and insti- 
tuting a royalty of ten per cent, on crown land and five per cent, on private property, upon 
ffAd found in the matrix or original place of deposit. 

July 23rd. — Mr. Suttor having kindly offered to accompany me on a two days* trip to the 
Turon Diggings, we started on horseback this morning on that expedition with our ' swag * at 
the saddle-bow. The distance might be from eighteen to twenty miles, which it took us 'four 
hours to perform. The country through which we passed was by no means rugged ; there 
was no scarcity of well-wooded and well-grassed hills of easy acdivlty, on the tops and sides 
of which were scattered at long intervals fine flocks of sheep ; and here and there the daj^kd 
hides of great herds of cattle shone through the eternal olive grey of the gum forests in 
cheerful contrast. Nor were there wanting — although these were scarce— occasional open 
alluvial flats, apparently of the richest soil The road, or rather dray-track, from Batiinnt 
to Mudgee leads directly to the scene of the present mining operations. Indeed the position of 
the works was probably dictated by the existence of this sole path through the mountain 
region; and I mention it because it leads me to the conclusion tbat the Turon gold field is 
not confined to the twelve or fourteen miles on either hand of the point where the Mndgve 
ixiad crosses the stream ; but that, on the contrary, the ore will be found equally plentifbU 
perhaps more so, in other parts of the river and its tributaries hitherto inaccessible to wheels 
or even pack-horses. 

About half-way we came upon Wyagden — a grazing station belonging to the Suttor hamiyy 
well situated on a fertile level, with fine pasturing hills on every side. We overtook several 
formidably companies bound for the diggings ; found others encamped or baiting where water 
was plentiful, and met a very few coming towards Bathurst on foot or mounted, in twes and 
tiirees, with a obtain conscious expression on their countenances, which to a ' prospecting * 
bush-ranger would have been a sure indication of gold * in pockets* The road to the Tunm — 
or Sofala, as it has since my visit, not happily I think, been called (for the native appellations 
are surely the best) — the road to the Turon will be the grave of many an overtasked bullock 
and horse ; for, although the hills are not generally of extraordinarily steep ascent, the passage 
of Lewis's Mountain is a tremendous obstacle for a laden dray. It has been overcome, how- 
ever, and in time may be remedied or avoided. Just beyond this hill we crossed a ridge of fine 

''Stone, which must be very scarce in this country, for I do not remember noticing that 



VOICE OF THE MUTES— A GENTLEMAN BUTCHER. 265 

species of rock befbre. In the Sydney district there is none of this yaluable stone : the lime 
used in building being obtained entirely from sea-shells^ of which fortunately there exist 
enormons banks. 

At length the main features of the country became more decided in charaxster. Amid a 
ciiaos of minor swells it was easy to trace two leading sierras, dominating and marking the 
direction of a long and tortuous valley, forming the bed of the rirer Turon — the Pactolus of 
the Antipodes. Thin wreaths of bluish smoke indicated the position of the mines, far below 
us and as yet invisible. As we topped a ridge, the last of a series I thought interminable, my 
companion suddenly said, * Stop and listen.' I pulled up my hm-se, and heard as 1 imagined 
the rcnhing of some mighty cataract. ' It is the cradles,' said he ; and so it was — the grating 
of the gravel or rabble on the metal sifters of five hundred rockers ! I shall not easily forget 
the impression made on me by this singular acoustic effect. Looking down into that wild 
mountain glen, it seemed almost incredible that this uniform and ceaseless crash could be pro- 
duced by the agency of a crowd of human beings, not one of whom was visible, nor any sign 
of their existence. There was no pause nor the slightest variation in the cadence as it floated 
up to us on the still air ; and, doubtless, had we listened for an hour 'not the smallest check 
in the monotonous roar would have been detected. Pi-esently, as we descended upon the creek, 
tents and huts, and every other kind of temporary tabernacle, were descried dotting the slopes 
and levels up and down and on either bank of the stream, in indiscriminate confusion. We 
came upon the Turon at a spot where there is amply sufficient space for a considerable town, 
with frontage to the river, — indeed, the character of the country immediately bordering this 
river is less rugged and confined than that o£ the Summerhill Creek, the bed of the stream 
itself much wider, and infinitely more so than the present state of its waters, albeit flooded, 
Yequiiies. The torrents which brought the gold down must have been greater than any that 
have lately occurred ; yet, that there has been a modem downfluz of the metal is proved by 
fine dost having been found in tufts of grass on the banks. 

A tolerable road runs for several miles along the course, winding among the beautiful 
sw!amp*oaks that fringe it, and crossing frequently from (me bank to the other in spots where 
steeps impinge upon the creek. In most places this track is' passable for draya—'an immense 
advantage over Ophir ; or rather it would have been passable, but that some of the mere 
miscrupulous diggers have burrowed across it in all directions, in many instances finding the 
most lucrative spots where the dray-wheels had passed over for years before, no one suspecting 
that the road was paved with gold ! The Commissioners will, of course, put a stop to this 
practice. 

The Turon — in summer often quite dry or merely a meagre chain of ponds — ^was now 
pouring along in a turbM, eddying torrent, far up the stems of the casuarinas, whose bark 
showed a still higher water-mark. Numberless were the flooded nrcavations and deserted dig- 
gings occasioned by the late rains. Crossing the stream, as we had to do half-a-dozen trnses^ 
it was about two to one against our avoiding a dive into one of the submerged pits. We took 
the odds and the brook, however, without hesitation, and luck favoured us. Our first visit 
on attaining the opposite bank, a long sloping hill lightly timbered and sprinkled over with 
various camps, was made to a gentleman — a relative of my host, who, having tried digging 
for a time and left that pursuit to be carried on by the nest of his party, had struck out the, 
perhaps, more remunemtiv'e one of wholesale and retail butcher. A fine handsome young man, 
with raanhers and address particularly pleasing, one might be tempted to doubt his taste in the 
choice of a profession. At the present juncture, however, no one could doubt the wisdom of 

the speculation, nor the sagacity of the family combination, by which Mr. slaughters (by 

proxy, of course) and sells the mutton which, in flocks of fifty or a hundred, is driven to his 
shambles from his relative's pastures, each thus getting a handsome profit. I heard that the 
iat wethers which, before the gold discovery, were selling for three or four shillings, were 
now fetching on the Turon eight or ten shillings, and yet meat was not more than'threepence 
per pound. The shop consisted of an open shed, with a bark roof and a rank-entire of fat 
sheep depending from the eaves. Twenty or thirty others were biding their time in a rude 
pen ; and a fine flock browsed, or would have done so had there been a blade of grass lef^ on 
the hill-side above. Behind the shed the assistant was cutting innocent throats as fast as 
he could. 

Hurrying hungry and thirsty to Mr. ^'s tent, which was just such an one as a gipsy 

tinker might inlmbit at the comer of an English common, we were promptly supplied by the 
proprietor — in whom the amateur butcher does not extinguish the gentleman — ^with thi 



266 OUB ANTIPODES. 

ordinary breakfast, dinner, and sapper of the miner and the boshman, viz. damper, grifled 
mutton, and tea boiled in a tin pot with brown sugar and without milk. This is, undoabt- 
edly, the best method of making tea ; the boiling without a lid on the pot effectually destroying 
the astringency of the beven^e, so nauseous when there is no milk to soften it. Attat^ng 
these viands with our pocket-knives, our appetites were soon appeased. The hones got 
nothing, for there was nothing for them ; they had to feed upon the promise of hay and com, 
which I made them conditionally upon our reaching the quarters of my old friends, the 
sergeant and troopers of the mounted police. Meanwhile we hung their despondent heads to 
a stump, and went down to the creek to inspect the operations of the miners. The weather 
was sunny and mild, the works were going on earnestly on all sides ; and, taking the stata of 
the atmosphere into account, the scene was a much more cheering one than that presented at 
Opbir. I was not sorry to have viewed gold-diggiug under the opposite influences of tempestuous 
and fine weather. Nothing, surely, could have been moi*e dispiriting and damping to mining 
ardour than the soaking showers, deep mud, and boisterous torrents of Sunomerhill ; — ^few 
things and scenes more agreeable and enlivening than the beautiful and tranquil vale of the 
Turon under a beaming sun and refreshing breeze, with the busy, healthy, and stedfast 
throng labouring along its banks. The camps were not entirely deserted, for one of every 
company remains at the hut cookmg« washing, and keeping guard in the absence of his mates. 
I saw no women, except a few * gins,' at the mines, — one of the most odious peculiarities of 
the gold-digging population. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

In my descent to the creek, as it happened, I hit upon the very richest spot of the present 
works — ^namely, the * Golden Point,' and, moreover, the first group I approached chanced to 
be the most fortunate party on that fortunate spot — ^known as Hall's party. Two brothers of 
that name, smart little fellows from the neighbourhood of Bathurst, were rocking the cradle, 
whilst a couple of their comrades were delving in a hole worked partly downwards in the dry 
bed of the creek, partly horizontally into the alluvial bank. Two more were carrying the soil 
in buckets from the excavation to the rocker. They were just preparing to wash out a cradle, 
ten or eleven buckets of earth and gravel having been sifted through it. The manipulation of 
the brothers seemed particularly quick and skilful. Instead of removing the residuum, oonnsting 
of sand, emery, gold, &c., from the floor of the cradle to a tin dish for washing, they took off 
the * hopper' or perforated metal plate ; gathered with the point of a knife any larger lumps 
that were visible on the cross-bims or stops at the bottom ; then, after washing the grosser 
particles of the dust, &c. in the dish, they scraped up the finer residue, and placing it on the 
inclined plane or sliding-board of the rocker, gently poured a thin stream of water over it until 
the material took on the wet board the shape of a well defined cone, — ^the lighter particles, sand, 
emery, and the like, being washed down so as to form its base, whilst the fine gold dust remained 
at the apex. Thus were preserved the minutest atoms, which by the tilting action of the tin 
dish are usually lost. The product of these ten or eleven little zinc buckets just washed out, 
was 1 oz. 3 dwts. 13 grs. On my congratulating the brothers on their having realised about 
3/. 10s. in half an hour, one of them replied with exultation, * Oh, that's nothing ; see what 
we have done since dinner,' — and he pointed to a pint pannikin, standing at the root of a tree. 
They had dined about one o'clock, and it was now about four. There was gold to the amount 
of eighteen ounces in the pot, a few of the pieces being about the size of a kidney bean. 

On Mr. Hardy's last visit to Bathurst he had lodged in the Bank for these men fourteen 
pounds' weight of gold.* In a fortnight this lucky company had worked out twenty-four 
pounds, and I afterwards read in the papers that early in August they had paid a visit to 
Bathurst, leaving one man in charge of their ' daim,' when their entire gains, in something 
more than€ve weeks, amounted to forty-three pounds' weight of the finest gold. A party of 
nine, rather lower down the creek, had produced 147 ounces in four weeks, and deserted their 
allotment when it deteriorated to three ounces per diem — a day's wages at the rate of 22s. per 
man not satisfying these cormorants. They probably went further and fared worse, — and 
deserved to do so. 

A company of eight, headed by a person named Lee, washed forty ounces this day, at a spot 
a little higher up tbm the Golden Point. The following journal of the fortnight's work was 
furnished by him to the editor of the Baihunt Free Press^ and was published in that paper : — 

* From a pound troy of slandard gold are coined 46|S soverdgns. 



tf 

» 
ft 



A poetnight's earnings — ^devil's dust. 267 

* We first commenced work at the Wallabi Rocks, and for the first three weeks averaged from 
one to two ounces arday. This bdng very nnsatis£ictory we resolved upon a prospecting trip, 
and after beating about for a time^fixed on a promising spot, about eight miles higher up the river. 
Owing to the scarcity of water at that time we had to carry our eartii a distance of three hundred 
yards in buckets. After dicing to a depth of seven feet without any success, we abandoned that 
spot, and tried the land immediatdy adjoining, which we had previously secured by licence. 
And now our tide of good fortune flowed in upon us. The quantities of gold weie procured by 
us in the order given. 

Wednesday . . . . 4 oz. Thursday . . . . 13 oz. 

Friday being wet, we only worked till break&st time. 2 oz. : — 

Saturday 16 oz. Monday .... 21J oz. 

Tuesday 22 „ Wednesday ... 40 

Thursday . . . . 30 „ Friday 20 

Saturday .... 4 ^ Monday .... 3 

' As our earnings were now reduced to 1^. per day, each man, we did not think it worth while 
to pui*sue our labours any further ; our previous good fortune had spoiled us. Even extraordinary 
wages were unsatis&ctory. So we determined, after a little consultation, to dissolve partnership. 
Ta^g good and bad together, our month's earnings averaged about 100/. a man. In some 
parts the gold was so plentiful that the dust could be picked out with the point of a knife. On 
one occasion Mr. Lee got a quarter of an ounce out of a pint pannikin of earth. Forty shovelsful 
of earth yielded three ounces ; and great quantities of dust were brushed from the sides of stones 
to which the particles were attached.' 

Surprising as are the gains of this party, I met on the 4th of August in the shop of Mr. Hale, 
jeweller, Sydney, to whom they were offering their gold for sale, four men, inhabitants of 
Wollongong, whose earnings on the Turon had been yet more considerable. Three miles above 
the Golden Point, at a water-hole where two lai^e rocks mark the spot, they had procured 18 lb. 
weight in one week, yielding them 150/. per man. It was the flnest parcel of gold dust, in 
rather larger particles than conomon, that I had seen. The same party showed me, per contra, 
one ounce of very small dust, as the result of three weeks' previous labour, so complete a lottery 
is gold hunting. If I understood correctly a sort of ' aside,' muttered with a gesture of 
exultation and defiance, all their gains had been acquired without payment of the mining tax. 
At the time of my \mt the population of the Turon and its affluents was calculated at 3,000, 
and at Ophir 500 ; — yet not more than 1,400 or 1,500 licences had been issued. It must, 
however, be remembered that hut-keepers and others not actually mining, pay no tax ; but I 
hardly know on what principle, except on that of extreme indulgence, whole hordes of settlers 
and hucksters, sly grog-sellers, thimbleriggers and others preying on their kind, are permitted to 
trespass on the Crown Lands without conkibution to the public revenue. 

There were three or four neighbours of the Halls, on or near the Golden Horn, doing pretty 
nearly as profitable a business as themselves. I asked one of the diggers, whose head and 
shoulders just protruded from the grave-like hole he was digging, whether the ore was visible to 
the eye in the soil. ' Get in,' said he laconically, — ^for the miners have no breath to waste in 
chatting. I turned in with him accordingly, and my black-bearded friend made me observe a 
delicate layer or stratum of yellow dust, like flour, in one comer of the hole. Without further 
ado he shovelled dirt, gravel and gold together into a sort of canvas hand-barrow, and two or 
three spadesful seemed to have exhausted the precious vdn, for it ceased to be perceptible. This 
was the only occasion on which I succeeded in detecting with the naked eye gold in its deport, 
except, indeed, on the following day, when I saw a man pick a piece the size of a pea out of an 
old root in a dry gully. 

In the vicinity of Golden Point, the stream was about twenty feet wide. Opposite the works 
the bank was formed of nearly perpendicular bluffs. The old or dry bed of the stream on the 
right shore varied from 20 to 100 feet in width from the water-edge to the bank whereon the 
camps were erected. The upper stratum of the ground they were woriring upon was of gravel 
of every size, from a pumpkin to a pea, and of various materials — volcanic, siliceous, slaty, &c. 
Then came a rich brownish soil ; and in many spots a thick layer of day was spread above the 
rock that formed the true bed or trough of the creek. All the superstrata are composed of 
niere detritus, washed down together with the gold by the mountain storms. The very finest 
atoms of the ore frequently find lodgment among the lighter soil or gravel. The medium grains 
are caught and retained by the clay ; whilst the heaviest particles work their way down to the 



268 , OUB ATffTIPODBS. 

rook. ' The peo^e at the Point were not onxioas to sell to-day; perhaps they had parted with 
as much gold as they could spare to a btzsiness-like indiyidual on horseback with a leathern 
case strapped to his saddle, whom I observed in active conference with the diggers, up and down 
the creek. I resolved, however, to * transact ' on the morrow. 

It was growmg late. The sun had disappeared behind the mountains an hour earlier tiian he 
would have done from Bathurst Flams, and a broad shadow, deepened by the gloom of the 
cypress*like casuarinas, was thrown across the creek. The dusk of evening fell upon the mines 
as in a moment. The diggers, one by one, as the light failed them, retired slowly from the bed 
of the stream and the working-holes to their huts on the slope above their respective ' claims ;' 
the hut-keepers had prepared for the return of their more active partners ; the cheerM log^fire 
blazed in front of every camp ; the mutton was hissing on every frying-pan or gridiron ; the 
tea smoking in the tin pot. Dampers as big as the top of a band-box were keeping themselves 
warm on the embers ; the blankets, which had been drying in the sun, were huddled into the 
rude and lowly * bunks.' Supper and sleep, in order to early rising for another day's exciting 
labour, were in course of preparation. 

My friend and I took the hint. The Commissioner, whose guest I hoped to be for the night, 
had not arrived friom Bathurst. We sought his quarters, and those of his constabulary, and 
were directed to an incipient slab-hut, without roof or other more advanced symbol of hos- 
pitality. There was not a living being near it. Where were the troopers ? * Cutting shloihs 
and bark, up there,' replied a Jew from his gunyah, pointing to the moon, as it seemed. We 
pushed om: horses up a nearly perpendicular ascent, and on the opposite flank of a deep gully I 
recognised the red-striped pantaloons of a mounted policeman. * Where is Serjeant Giles?* 
shouted I to the pantaloons, proud to claim the acquaintance of that old fioldier in the time of 
my trouble. * Up at Two Mile Creek,' responded fiie voice fix)m the gully. Mr. Suttor knerw 
' Two Mile Creek ' to be tiie sheep-station of an acquaintance, Mr. Richards ; and, scrambling 
that distance over a succession of ranges, we soon came upon a pretty cottage pictoresqudy 
situated on a running brook, with some good level land under cultivati(xi around it, and a back- 
ground of fine swelling hills. Mr. Richsuxls' house Is the only residence of a tolerably peiman^Hit 
natmre in all the r^on round about. The proprietor was not residiog there, but had permitted 
Mr. Ifeufdy to make it his head-quarters, whilst his own cottage on tiie creek -was in course of 
erection. The old soldiers rushed out to welcome ' the colonel ' and his friend with a d^ree of 
hearty courtesy highly refreshing after the liberty and equality roughness of the * diggings,' 
where not much civility is cut to waste. Our starved and jaded horses (mine, old grey 
' Badger,* looked like a superannuated polar bear in the last agonies of &mine,) were lugged off 
to the stable and astonished with a real feed of hay and com ; ourselves sat down to a capital 
boiled leg of mutton and turnips, to help in discussing which our host arnved just in time. 
The Commisffloner and his assistant cannot justly be accused of pampering themselves, any more 
than the Government can be twitted with havmg unduly ministered to the comfort and oon- 
venienoe of these important officers ; who, living up to their knees in gold, get but little of it in 
the shape of salary — ^little in proportion to the responsibility of their posts. They are forbidden 
to traffic in it themselves, and have but small advantage in domestic outfit and appliances over 
the lowest miner. The pastry-cook's apprentice, it is true, contemplates jam tartlets with a 
stoical indifiference incomprehensible to the schoolboy ; but then he is permitted a surfeit of audi 
delicacies early in his career. The gold-officers are not *■ entered at ' gold in a like manner, 
and, in a post of sach high trust high payment is good policy, as well as mere justice. 

July 24th. — ^The Turon. Our plan for the day was to take a strolling ride of seven or eight 
miles down the creek, visiting the works as far as the grand feature of the diggings, the WaDabi 
Rocks, and ia the afternoon to return to Bruoedale, partly by another route. The morning 
broke calm and cloudless over the gold-bearing hills, tiie early sun darting its sidelong beams 
through every aperture in the ranges, and glinting, doubtless, on many a gem of gdden ray 
serene for ever doomed to waste its sweetness on the desert air, and on many another that shall 
.sooner or later be ravished frt)m its native bed by the restless capidity of man. Mounting socm 
after break&st and accompanied by the Commissioner, we soon reached the crest of a lofty 
eminence overlooking at some distance the course of the Turon and the mines; where a singular 
and most beautiful spectacle awaited us. As I despaired of preserving the shadow of an im- 
pression of it by effort of pencil, so do I feel my pen equally powerless to delineate the scene. 
A flrBt*rate colouiist who had passed a life in the close study of nature could have produced bat 
a ftant image of the swelling sea of mountain-forest lying before and below, us, hill beyond hill 
interlacing each other as &r as sight could range ; the devious couree of the invisible Turon 



MOBN AMONG THB MINES — DllY DIGGINGS. 269 

distinctly traced by a motionless wreath of smoke firom the bivouacs, sleeping on the mists of 
the river like a huge torpid serpent, and carrying the eye of the spectator along its convolutions 
until it rested upon the giant face of the Walkhi Rocks, jusi illumined by the morning sim, 
which threw over it a veil of golden gauze. The landscape was truly lovely— im epi^eft^.I 
fimcy, rarely applicable to gold mining r^ons — ^which are generally found on the most barren, 
ill-&voxred, and inaccessiUe parts of the earth ; as though Providence had purposely placed the 
* glistering sorrow' beyond the familiar reach of man, and doomed the soil prolific in gold to 
unfiruitfulness in any productions necessary for the support of life. 

We were soon among the diggers ; most of them were already hard at work. Some few were 
idling and yawning round the tents and booths ; a night of drinking and gambling having 
prol»bly rendered them indisposed and unfit for labour. On the other hand, I was particolarly 
struck with the neat, dean, cheerful, and. healthy appearance of a large majority of the men. I 
had heard and read in the newspapers various accounts of the desperate hard labour of mining ; 
but I do not believe that gold-digging and washing, in tolerable weather, is harder or mote 
injurious work than any other out-door labour. It is the interest of many to asseit the coo* 
trary ; and of course those inapt at muscular exertion find it irksome at first. The. hardest part 
of Australian mining, as at present conducted, is the hard &re, hard lying, and bad lodging 
hitherto provided ; all which drawbacks axe easily remedied. I am speaking merely of the 
saperficial digging at present carried on ; when the term * mining * means grappling with the 
earth's rocky ribs, 100 or 150 fathoms beneath its sur&ce, as is the case in the Brazils, none 
bat a class inured to it — indeed, bred to it — can pretend to exercise the craft of minv. The 
salubrity of the gold mines in New South Wales has been truly astonishing. In spite <^ rain 
and wintry weather, there has scarcely been a case of serious sickness at either of the diggingp. 
The absence of strong drinks, the plainest of food, physical activity combined with a heal^y 
d^ree of mental excitement, seem to render drugs and doctors useless. A few of the latter, 
wdl supplied with the former, early repaired to the gold-field with an eye to practioe. They 
soon, however, found more profit in tormenting earth's bowels than those of their fellow-men ; 
and they, who came to drug, remained to dig. A broken arm and a dislocated shoulder were aU 
the mecHcal cases I heard of. One poor fellow, at Ophir, is said to have fidlen down in a fit, 
when, like little Jack Homer, * he put in his thumb and pulled out a' nugget of 46 ounces fi?oai 
a day-slate 'pocket;' but I believe he had always been an epileptic subject. I can wdl 
imagine, however, that the sudden acquisition of such a treasure by an indigent person, who had 
besides long worked without success, might act hurtfolly on the nerves. There is, moreover, a 
fascination about gold in its bnth-place, the raw material, pure, native vii^n gold — (I felt it 
myself) — which it is far 6rom possessing when sophisticated into the shape of a soveragn. 

So near the end of the current month, the Commissioner had little to do this day in the 
way of collecting licence fees, which are paid in advance. Two or three individuals, how- 
erer, came up and tendered payment, having been only a day or two at work. Otiiers 
honestly cashed up balances which he had considerately allowed them time to earn, instead 
of driving them from their diggings. His slightest word in the adjustment of * claims ' was 
law. Some attempts had been originally got up to procure a diminution of the 305. monthly 
impost. A few threatened npn-payment, a few pleaded poverty. I consider the charge most 
moderate ; for a labourer can well afford to pay one shilling arday for the privilege of earning 
from twelve to twentv shillings which, by comparison of accounts, would appear to be the 
average wages on the Turon. For various reasons I consider this a very low estimate of the 
real profits. Four or five individuals did indeed assure me that they were 'not making 
their rations ;' and one man, a cooper, announced his intention of returning immediatdy to 
Sydney, where he could realise his present gains, ten shillings a-day, in his proper trade and 
live at half the cost. The fear of the Government augmenting the tax, the apprehension of 
robbery, the desire to deter others from coming to the mines, are some of the reasons for 
the concealment of the amount of their gains by the miners. A computation of the yidd of 
gold at the ratio above stated will hardly give the amount of gold openly shipped for England, 
not counting a vast quantity whose destination no one knows. 

Driven by the height of the waters to ascend the side of a ravine, in order to cross it at its 
head, we stumbled upon two or three parties working in its bed, three or four hundred yards 
from the river ; — an important and novel feature in the mining operations of New South 
Wales. It was the first attempt Mr. Hardy had seen of working in the * blind gullies,' as 
they are called here — ' gulches,' as they are styled in California. Two stout African blacks, 
who spoke English perfectly, and had been in that country, were doing very wdl in the helo 



270 OUE ANTIPODES. 

they had quarried among rocks and roots of trees, in the dry channel of the steep water-course. 
They were making from one ounce to an ounce and a half a day. Just above them, a party 
of respectable-looking men, with a two-horse cart, had opened a vein tolerably prolific, and 
were carting thie soU down to the river, for washing. None of the golley miners had hit 
upon the simple ejcpedient of drawing a dam across the ravine to catch the water of the next 
thunder-storm ; yet a small puddle at hand, however muddy, is better for gold-washii^ than 
two torrents in ' the bush,* half-a-mile off. 

On coming down once more upon the creek, I opened a brisk trade with the most acces- 
sible of the diggers. It has been mentioned that I had purchased a dog-skin bag at Bathorst; 
I also drew some money there. If I had neither time nor vocation for digging, at any rate I 
might buy on a small scale. One fellow asked me five pounds and half profits to lee me wash 
out a cradle. I declined, and he only obtained an ounce and a half, which, however, was 
more than he had got in the previous two days. Displaying my leather pouch, and taking 
care to proclaim that it was not a Bathurst gold-monger who was dealing with them, bat an 
army officer travelling from curiosity, no sooner did the miners comprehend my mixed mih'taiy 
and marsupial character, than they relaxed their reserved air and became both colloquial and 
commercial. Some sold gold because they wanted *• a little cash for subsistence,' others merely 
' to oblige me ;' one or two because they had become satiated with the sight of * dust,' and 
were dazzled by a handful of bi*an-new notes, the mere old-rag representatives of the predons 
specie. Suffice it to say, that I soon got rid of 60^. at 3^. 35. per ounce, and was disgusted to 
see how lean and hungry my dingo-skin bag still looked. Subsequently, however, I found 
means to fill a more capacious one, though on somewhat less favourable terms ; for in addition 
to two or three nuggets, 155 ounces of well-washed dust made me a pouch plethoric enough to 
have pleased a much more ardent chrysophilite than myself.* 

The ride down the river — now along its bed under the shadow of the swamp oaks— now 
across the frequent ridges which, steep or gentle in their declivity, trend down to the stream, 
was most beautiful and enjoyable. We witnessed gold dicing and washing in all its stages 
and phases — the-pick-and-spade-men toiling in the deepening hole ; in the hard relentless 
slate which they were splitting into endless lamina and piling aside ; in the soft damp allu- 
vium ; in the rattling gravel; — the cradle-men in every gradation of the process of washing, 
from the rough rocking to throw from the * hopper ' the coarse rabble ; the anxious but, at 
the Turon, almost hopeless search for pepites too large to pass the sifter ; to the final and 
exciting investigation of the last lees of the cradle on the plane or in the pan. The finishing 
operation put hie in mind of a hand at whist — sometimes ' four by honours,' at others not a 
trump ! Here was a party deserting an excavation because they had reached the rock, where 
the heaviest gold usually lodges, and had found truth at the bottom in the shape of *■ nil !' — 
There another group were huddled together like crows upon carrion, having just hit upon a 
rich *■ bunch ' in the sibiff clay two or three feet below the sur^Euse, and a pocket of small 
nu^ets in a cleft of the schist six inches deeper. Nothing struck me more than the extreme 
diversity of neighbouring claims — some highly lucrative, others utterly unprofitable, with no 
apparent cause for the difference. Here two newly-arrived strangers, with shining patent 
leather belts, and picks and shovels fresh from the store, were only opening up their claim. 
They had been digging for forty-eight hours, and had made but little impression on the hard 
earth. Their tools appeared foreign to their hands ; — the tailor's shears perhaps would have 
been more familiar ; they looked flushed, fatigued, and angry, and had evidently feUen out 
because they had not already fallen in with gold. 

* You must get deeper, my friends !' said the Commissioner, cheerily — *down to the rock, 
down to the rock !' 

* What's this, please. Sir ?* demanded one, holding up with anxious face some glittering object. 
' Only mica — worth nothing, my lad !* 

* And this ?' asked another. 

* Iron pyrites,' replied the officer, handing back the curious little cubes which this sub- 
stance, often coloured like gold, assumes to itself. 

• In the Appendix will be found an account of the writer's little gold transaction. It will snffioe 
to show how profitable this mode of investment might be made ; for, in his case, it was adopted 
merely as a means of remitting to England the proceeds of the sale of his effects on quitUng the colony. 
The reader will observe that the handsome profit on the onUay accrued in five months. 

The author takes this opportunity to acknowledge the great kkidness and courtesy of Messrs. Johnaoo 
and Matthey, in exhibiting to him the entire process of melting and refining the gold, as well as other 
carious details belonging to their extensive and iniere&tini «aUb\id\m'(»\t.. 



GOLD LICENCE — THE WALLABI KOCKS. 271 

* Have you a licence — you in the straw gaiters ?' 

* No, your honour ! I found no goold yet, and the divil a copper I've got in the world.' 

* Well, this is the 24th. I won't disturb you now ; but recollect I sludl be with you on 
the 1st, Friday next, remember !' 

* Ay, ay, your honour, never fear, and many thanks to your honour !' responded the half 
seaman, half bog-trotter — relieved from all fears past, present, and future, after the manner 
of his kind. / 

* Well, what have you been doing, my fi-iend, since I saw you last ?' 

* Doing nothing,' replied the man, sullenly. * You took half my month's earnings for the 
licence. Thirty shillings is too much — a d— -d deal.' 

* Ha, yes, yes, you ^ink so, do you ? then you won't take it as a personal offence if I 
don't pay my i-espects to you again before the first of August. Expect me punctually, my 
friend.* 

The greater number of the miners were both civil and good-tempered, not to say courteous 
towards the Commissioner, although a few scowled at him as he passed. I believe him to 
possess the qualities likely to make him both feared and liked by the motley population under 
his rule. I am of opinion that this officer ought not to be compelled to hunt up the miners in 
person in oixier to exact the tax ; he should have his regular office hours at his quarters, for the 
transaction of business, the adjustment of claims, and the distribution of justice ; and the 
collection of the impost should be performed by subordinate officers. His afternoons might be 
profitably spent in riding along the works, visiting the distant points, assisting the inexperienced 
by his advice, measuring ofi' * claims,' and maintaining a general sharp look-out after the 
interests of the revenue. Ophir and the Turon have lately been made places at which petty 
sessions may be held. The Commissioner will have no difficulty in forming a quorum. He 
has only to send a message down to the creek, and request one or more J. P.'s to wash their 
faces and attend the court ! 

About one o'clock we reached the Wallabi Rocks, where the scenery assumes a wilder and 
grander character than any I saw at Ophir or the Turon elsewhere. The ciag called the 
Lower Wallabi appears to be about 500 feet high, and dommates the river with a sheer 
precipice, on whose rugged face the agile animal after which it is called can scarcely find foot- 
hold. We saw two or three of them hopping about near the summit. The atoms of shale they 
displaced fell plumb into the str^m beneath. Not long ago the miners were witnesses, as I was 
"told, of a fearful occurrence on the spot. A black, hunting the wallabi on a ledge of the 
precipice, missed his hold, and bounding fi-om crag to crag dropt a mangled corpse into the river. 

The Turon makes many singular meanderings in the vicinity of the Wallabi Rocks ; and some 
of the tongues of low land within the tortuous loops of the river are rich not only in beautiful 
bits of scenery, but in gold deposits. All the banks and * bars,' for miles round these points, 
had be«i alr^y upturned, ransacked, and in a great degree deserted — ^because the creek, nearer 
its sources, had been found or suspected to be more fruitful. About eight miles down the river 
we were not sorry to reach a hut belonging to Mr. Suttor — whose occupant soon prepared a 
plentiful feed for ourselves and horses. While the chops were broiling I went in search of a 
mining party, who were reported to have found a pepite of several ounces — ^the only one I 
heard of on the Turon. The leader of the company, however, who always carried it about his 
person, was absent prospecting — so I had to content myself with a couple of ounces of dust firom 
his partners. These four men were Sydney stonemasons, who, recognising me, were very civil ; 
they had done well, they said ; that is, realised about thirty shillings a-day each for three 
weeks ; and were about to return to Sydney to ftdfil a contract for building churches. One of 
them showed me some specimens — the first I had seen except those of the monster block — of 
crystallised gold in the quartz, which he said he had found while prospecting in the vicinity, as 
he believed, of Wallawaugh — the spot of the Kerr Eureka. This man obligingly gave me a 
very curious piece of the stone, beautifully white like spar with two or three bright b^s of the 
precious metal standing prominently out of it. He hinted that when, on his next visit to the 
diggings, he should be driven by want of water or excess of it from the works in the bed of the 
river, he should repair with proper implements to the * dry diggings * where these bits came 
from, and he expected to do wdl there. He will meet disappointment, I think. An individual 
or two may indeed possibly succeed in this branch of gold hunting, but I believe that with the 
yield of gold in the alluvium will cease the profitable labour of single workmen, and indeed of 
all mere manual mining. 

The Australian gold-seeker is now on the threshold o£ \a% \.\«^'fe qt^-^* '^'^Na ^^\a^'^^^«sJ&.*5sas^ 



272 oira antipodbb. 

Peruvians and the Spaniards in Brazil did hundreds of years ago — gathering the crumhs that 
fall from the auriferous aerras. Ere long, science and machinery will haye jnerced thar crust, 
and will have torn from the deep>seated matrix the masses of ore, whcne dustr — mere wakings as 
it were — ^have been washed down their faces by the thunder-storms of ages. I bdieve tihat in 
no gold-bearing country has the production of gold by washing in the beds of creeks extoided 
over more than a few years. The good spots soon get worked out. In New South Waksy 
however, the introduction of the system of amalgamation by mercury, already commeocii^, wiU 
so &r augment and protract the yield from the alluvial lands, that most of the digging? will 
afiford a second proBtable washing — so much of the finer dust being lost by the clumsy operation 
of the common rocker. Mr. Bush, an American, was practising the Virginian rocker, assisted 
by quicksilver, on the Turon during my visit ; but I did not fall in with lum. Mercury at this 
mom«it is very scarce in the colony ; and such has been the demand for it that all the 
antiquated mirrors have been bought up at good prices, and their backs scarified for the sake of 
tiieix quidcsilver. This valuable, indeed indispensable aid to gold-getting, has been found in 
California in the near neighbourhood of the mines ; and a strict search will doubtlesa bring it 
to light &K long, in a country so richly metalliferous as New Holland. The quartz veins of 
the Australian gold fields have beat found, when particles have been crushed and treated with 
mercury, to contain a high percentage of gold» even though no traces of the ore were observable 
through the most powerfril miicroseope. 

It is safe to conclude that all the mountain tributaries of the Macquarie will prove mora or 
less auriferous. These will affoi-d amusement to the gold-hvmtiog population of all classes for a 
time. Meanwhile a campaign against the gold in situ will be ooacocted and matured. An asso> 
dation of capitalists, already in embryo, \^ offer themyelvesi as tenants ^f the Government, on 
terms favourable to individual enterprise as well as to the publib revenue. Blocks of wafSte^ 
land, selected by responsible persons, will be secured to the eompany ^ buUdpigs will be erected^ 
machines for * stamping ' ihe rock and amalgamating the metal be conveyed to the spot ; and the 
golden mountains wiU be compelled to yield up their riches by wholesale, instead of doling them 
out in driblets of ' dust * for the requirements of mankind. Companies organised for the scien- 
tific Wixrking of the Australian gold mines, will, it is to be feared, suffer disadvantage if not 
serious obstruction on the score of labour. In the Brazils, I believe, the mines — even those be- 
longing to English oompanies-^are worked by slaves ; in Mexico by natives whose wages are 
almost nominal. No white msax wiU probably be found to put a pick in the ground under five 
shillings a-day, and few at that pay ; and gold-mining, as is well known, is more pi-ecarious 
than mining for otho* metcds, because the more noble ore is seldom found in regular v^ns. How 
would a * free and enlightened ' Cornstalk,, hired as a miner, relish being stripped, searched^ and 
washed, every time he emerges from the bowels of the earth, lest he should secrete the ' dust?' 
yet half an ounce has been washed out of a n^ro's woolly pate I Coolies or Chinese will pprcK 
bably be imported and employed as operatives. 

A scientific goitleman long resident in the colony, has boldly declared that tb? Qol4 Blield of 
Australia extends over an area of 14,000 square miles I There is no want of elbow^-Foom, ihen^ 
fore, for ploughing it up. If there be but few persons versed in the arcana of gold>iacture at 
present in the colony, more will come. If the lack of labour has for years past been ruinous to 
New South Wales as a pastoral and agricultural country, rely on it there wiU be no want of 
labourers in the Gold Field I She wiU get back from California all her sdiens — many more of 
them than will be welcome ;* besides- crowds of tiie natives of other lands, who having mined 
in that country under the slight drawbacks of fever, and ague, and dysentery, and Lynch law, 
will flock to a colony where tiiey may follow the pursuit winch has unfitted them for any other, 
under a stable government and salubrious skies. But Australia will acquire still better things 
from her new God-send — however she may suffer under ' temporary derangement ' from its first 
effects. She pines and frets for proofe of maternal care and affection from the Mother Country ; 
she will have them now — ^for she is England's heiress daughter I She clamours for a popula- 
tion, and has long been willing to pay for an influx ; she will get it gratis now ! San has 
b^ged on bended knees for steam communication with Europe, and offered her utmost oontri- 
bution towards effecting that object for her exoommunicated people ; — scores of steamers will 
oome puffing in hot haste to the new Dorado ! Australia demands, finally, and might have long 
in vain demanded, freedom from oonvictism. No convicts will be sent to England's gold colony I 

The gold discovery occurred most opportunely for New South Wales. The severance of Port 

* It is singular enough that from the Ist Januaiy, 1851, to the date of the gold disooyeiy, no laaa than 
1 ,884 persons had left Sydn^ for California. :^ . 



A MODERN DANCE — CHANCE FOR A BUSHRANGER. 273 

Phillip was as the amputation of her right hand ; the loss of her left impended in the moiaced 
separation of Moreton Bay and of the great pastoral province whereof it is the outlet. Poit 
Phillip, rejoicing in its new title of Victoria, had squibbed off all her spare powder in pyro- 
technical meny-makings at her freedom from the apron-strings of her old convict mother. The 
wealthy northern squatters talked big of their residiness for independence. South Australia 
chuckled over her pockets full of * coppers I' The poor * Middle District,' shorn of her mem- 
bers, and with a limited and unproductive interior, would have lain helpless, gaping with her 
huge port towards the Paci6c, waiting for the commerce to which she could no longer help 
herself — for the food which she could no longer raise within her own frontiers. Even the 
most sanguine of the Sydney press and polititians seemed to argue against their own convictions, 
when they su^ested possiUe sources of future prosperity for New South Wales. She was 
evidently on the road to the workhouse ! — when plump into her lap— -as into that of the God- 
&youred nymph of mytholc^y — fell a shower of gold I 

July 25ih, — Left Brucedale for Sydney. On my journey downwards I overtook, at the 
outside, a score of m^, nearly all of whom were merely going to the capital to sell their gold, 
see thdr friends, and fulfil •* contracts, with the intoition of returning to the mines in the 
spring. On the other hand, I computed the number of men equipped for the diggings and 
travelling westward at not less than 500. All expected, of course, to find a hundredweight ! 
Two helpless-looking fellows who had * done well ' at the Turon, and who were going to Sydney 
in a wreck of a gig and horse which they had purchased at Bathurst, asked to be permitted to 
travel under my convoy, as they feared robbery on the road. It was ludicrous to see theii- 
pitifriUy anxious faces, as they sat in company with three or four very questionable-looking cus- 
tomers round the kitchen fire of the gloomy little forest tavern where we passed the first night ; 
and I could not but feel compassion for them, whm. on the following day they gradually 
dropped out of sight of my faster vehicle. A looker-on might have had a laugh at myself not 
long afterwards. Having more gold with me than I cared to lose, I was quite alive to the 
chaoce of being stopped on the mountain road. My coachman and I had some talk on the 
subject of bush-ranging — he adding some appropriate if not consolatory anecdotes which had 
come within his experience. 

' I don't intend to give up without a fight,' said I, in order to feel his ptdse as to pugnacity. 

* Hope not, sir — think we could manage a couple on 'em, sir— they're soon cowed, them 
coves are, for they fight with a rope round their necks. But you must not expect fiur play 
from them. They v^U take you at an amplusih if they can.' 

Whether this signified an ambush or a nonplus I could not tell ! however, our plan of action 
was arranged. I had a double-barrelled pistol ; he had a stout sword-stick. ' Recollect to 
fight at the fece, John,' was my last, and very good bit of counsel. * All right, sir,' replied he, 
cheerfully — ^and I really believe he would have enjoyed a brush with a couple of bandits — for he 
had won his pardon from his late Majesty by the capture of a notorious bush-ranger. 

We were ploughing our way through the mud and the dusk of twilight, within half a mile- 
of our destination for the night, when, at a nan'ow part of the road where the tall trees on 
either hand added to the gloom of the evening, my ear caught the sound of a horse's foot 
behind. Turning my head I espied a mounted man, with his face blackened and some weapon 
in his hand, within twenty paces of the carrii^e. He turned quickly out of the road, and in a 
minute or two reappeared from the bush ahead of us. < Now, John,' said I, my heart beating 
a trifie quicker. * Now, sir,' said he, coolly. I drew and cocked my pistol : he loosened the 
sword in its sheath. The horseman rode towards us. ' Stand and deliver !' was the salutation 
I expected — ^for doubtless he had comrades at hand. ' Masser, make a light* of a black bull 
down dis way V was however the actual address of the stranger^ who turned out to be an 
aboriginal stockman in search of a truant beast: nature, not crape, had blackened his &ce — our 
imjust suspicions his character, poor fellow I 

Among the cavalcade of miners travelling towards Bathurst I was pleased to see several 
parties with excellent outfits, their wives and children sitting comfortably under the canvas 
tilts of the carts and drays— the latter a novel and ameliorating feature in Australian gold- 
hunting. My last journey in New South Wales was otherwise uneventftil ; and I reached 
•Sydney after a fortnight's *trip to the gold-field,' on the 28th of July. 

Early in August gold was discovered on the lands of a private individual, Mr. Wentworth, 
not &r fi!Y)m Summerhill. The specimen I saw was imbedded in an indurated red clay, which 
could scarcely have been its original deposit, although the site was an elevated plateau. I was 

* * Make a lifi^t/ means merely ' to see,' In Australian patois. 

T 



274 OUB AKTirODES. 

informed that this gentleman had seen a cubic yard of earth from this spot yield after dght hours' 
washing five ounces of gold. The present regulations admit of Mr. Wentworth's issuing gold- 
digging licences on his own account, on his payment of fiye per cent, royalty to Government. 
New diggings had also been discovered on the Mooroo Creek, north of the Turon, and in other 
localities. 

The latest copy of the Sydney Morning Herald issued before my departure, namely, that of 
the 23rd August, contains the first number of a * Gold Circular,* — an interesting and useful 
documoit, whereby it appears that, up to that date, tiie following quantities of gold had been ex- 
ported by tiae undernamed ships, bound to England. 

1851. <»• dwtg. 

June 3rd. Thomas Arbuthnot 253 10 

„ 6th. Fanny Fisher 14 

„ 12th. Lady Clarke 655 10 

„ 15th. Lady Margaret . 53 9 

„ 22nd. Catherine 162 

„ 22nd. Achilles 371 12 

July 24th. Mary Bannatine 3,540 1 

Aug. 9th. Bondicar 8,263 12 

n 18th. H.M.S.Hayannah 1,298 

Total 14,611 14 

Which at 65s. per oz. amounts to . . . £47,488 3 9 
Add gold by Elphinstone 25,000 

£72,488 3 9 

The fact of such an amount of gold dust being imported into Great Britain is a political and 
financial bagatelle. But the &ct that 72,000/. worth of indigenous gold has been slupped within 
two and a half months from a colony whose population is under 200,000 souls, whose exports, 
exdusive of this new source but including the grand one of wool, are estimated at but 
2,400,000/., (enormous as that is in comparison with the population !) and whose total revenue, 
general and territorial, amounts to no more than 570,000/. — ^is indeed a very wonderful and 
important fact. 

POSTSCRIPT. 

London, Fi^fruary27th, 1852. 

The London Journals of the 16th Januaiy contain the intelligence, by the Overland Mail, that 
gold had been discovered in great profusion at Beninyong, or Ballarat, near Melbourne in the 

- colony of Victoria. The deposits appear to be at the least as rich as those in the Bathurst gold 
district. One di^er at Bathurst had made twenty pounds of gold in one day, and another had 

' turned up thirteen pounds before breakfast ! The clipper P/Msntcuzn, one of the most beautiful 

. ships I ever saw, reached Plymouth on the 3rd instant, having made the unpreoedentedly quick 
passage of eighty-three days from Sydney. She brought news up to the 11th November last, 
and 81,000/. worth of gold, making the total amount shipped frvm Sydney up to that date 
(according to the Australian and New Zealand Gazette, 7th February) 219,000/., and (aoooid- 
ing to the Money-market and City Intelligence of the Times, 6th February) 340,000/. — either 
of which sums is enormous, considering the small number of miners engaged and the fact that 
the gold discovery was at that date only five months old. Fresh mines had been discovered and 

> opened at Braidwood and Lake Bathurst, in New South Wales, 150 miles south-west of Sydney, 

— quite a new direction ; and 400 licences had been taken out there. 

10th April. — ^The Morning Her did of yesterday brings the news of the Victoria mines up to 
'the 22nd December. The Melbourne mei^chant^hip, just arrived, had on board 20O,000iL 
ivorth of gold, which added to 178,000/. worth brought by the Alert, Blackfriar, and ^twar 
^from Sydney, makes a total of 370,000/. received within a few days ; while the Hero, whidi 
vailed previously, is hourly expected with a further sum of 100,000/. The following is the 
sooount of gold brought into Melbourne by the Government escort during fiyur weeks:— 



CONCLUSION. 275 

* On Wednesday, November the 9th, the weekly escort brought down from Mount Alexander 
6,486 ounces ; from Ballarat, 2,117 ; 619 ounces for Geelong ; and 916 ounces for Government ; 
—snaking a total of 10,138 omioes. On the following Wednesday, 10,428 ounces arrived from 
Mount Alexander; 1,500 ounces from Ballarat ; 178 ounces were left at Geelong ; making a 
total of 12,106 ounces, — 1,008 pounds, or rather more than half a ton. The next Wednes^iy 
brought 13,783 ounces from Mount Alexander ; 2,550 ounces from Ballarat ; and 336 ounces 
for Geelong; — ^a total of 16,669 ounces, or 1,389 pounds' weight. * But still this astonishing 
yield went on increasing, and on the following Wednesday the cart conveying the enormous 
treasure fiurly broke down with its load, and the escort did not arrive until tiie day after its 
time. That week's yield was, from Mount Alexander, 23,750 ounces ; from Ballarat, 2,224 
ounces, for Geelong, 682 ounces ; — making the astounding sum of 26,656 ounces, or 1 ton 
221 lbs. 4 ounces !' 

A correspondent from Melbourne moreover, states that ' it is estimated by competent judges 
that the sum brought in by escort forms about one-third of the whole, weekly received in that 
dty.' Between 20 and 30,000 diners were supposed to be congregated at Mount Alexander 
and Ballarat. The towns and the runtl districts were almost depopulated of the labouring classes, 
and wages, especially of seamen, had reached an unheard-of rate. ' The shopkeepers,' however, 
it is added, * are maJring a ridi harvest at present, particularly the haberdashers, as there are no 
dresses or other articles of female costume too costly or too good for the diggers' wives.' 

The Victorian herald of the above goldoi details, thus delivers himself to the penniless, 
pinchbeck, stay-at-homes of the Old Country. * To the good people of Great Britain we commit 
the consideration of these statements. We beg to remind them that even before this discovery 
burst upon us, this was one of the finest and most prosperous of British colonies. Let the 
gold fields cease their yield to-morrow, and we still retain all the elements of national wealUi 
and national greatness. Those who venture to share our wealth, may venture boldly, for 
boundless plenty smiles side by side with countless wealth. Our splendid harvests are now 
whitening for the sickle, with no men to reap them. The same land which is thus pouring 
forth its mineral treasures is still feeding the finest sheep and cattle that ever were fattened upon 
natural grasses. Their fate has hitherto been that shameful waste — ^the melting pot.'* 

I am happy to add that, by one of the last ships, I have heard a very cheering account from 
an influential squatter of New South Wales, wherein he states that he had got through all the 
important operations of washing, shearing, &c. of his flocks, and had shipped a fine clip of wool 
for England — ^without having suffered materially by the desertion or extortion of his labouring 
men. The truth is, that gold-mining, although a &5cinating and sometimes lucrative pursuit 
is no child's play ; and plenty of old, indolent, weakly, or quietly inclined persons will be found 
willing and able to perform, on ordinary wages, the simple and regular services of the grazier 
and wool-grower. 



CONCLUSION. 

August 9th. — The vessel in which I had taken a passage for my &mi]y and myself being 
advertised to sail on the 15th instant, I repaired on'board this morning with some of the luggage. 
What was my dismay, to find there was not a single able-bodied seaman on board ! — all had 
deserted, or were believed to have deserted for the diggings. I had broken up my establishment, 
sold off furniture, horses, &c., closed my accounts, and was ill-disposed to await for an indefinite 
period the subsidence of the gold-fever, in order to obtain a passage to England. Our great 
round-ribbed vessel was loaded up to her hatohes with a few bales of wool, and an * intolerable 
deal' of tallow, hides, horns and hoofs, and such-like abominations, the usual exports at this 
time of the year. The passengers' baggage was on board, and some of the passengers themselves. 
The Captain was at his wits' end. Three mates and as many cabin-boys to work a ship of eight 
or nine hundred tons I In vain he moved land police and water police to recover his runaways. 
A few of them indeed came draggling in, from sheer satiety of Sydney back-slums — yet there 
was not even a nucleus to form a crew upon. By a happy accident one resource was left to us. 
* If I can't get my men by dint of stimulating the local authorities' — exclaimed the worthy 
Captain in a transport of inspiration — * Acherwie movebo, — I will try the Acheron 1' 

* Within the twelve months following the discovery of gold in Victoria, the lai^st amount of that 
metal ever yet collected within such a period, was brought to the surface 

T 2 



276 ouB AirnpoDES. 

H.M. Steamer of that name was in the act of toeing paid off at Sydney, or rather she was to 
remain in this port for orders, and that the officers and crew were to be disposed of in such 
manner as the senior naval officer might appoint — a great pieoe of lu<^, for Sir Eyerard Home, in 
compassion to oar distress, allotted fifteen or sixteen good hands to the Mownt Stuart JE^phwr 
stone. These men, as wdl as the merchant seamen whom the master was enabled to pkdc np, 
stipulated for the liJgh rate of wages of 4/. lOs. armonth, or three shillings a^day, with a donMe 
allowance of grog. Thus did £e gold-find affect certain interests. On Sunday, the 24th ■ 
August, the yessd got und^ weigh ; on the following day we lost sight of the coasts of New \ 
Holland; and on the 11th January, 1852, we reached EDgland, vi& Gape Horn; after a pio- ^| 
tracted suid tedious passi^ ; — the author, a somewhat slower fellow thim Ariel — having ' put j 
a girdle round about the earth in ' rather less than rax years. 

I have had enough of colonies I Glad am I to exchange a country — ^replete indeed with grand 
natural qualities, wondeiful, it is true, in its crude, in&ntine strength ; but a country without a 
yesterday—for a ' land of old renown,' whose every comer has its story, its hero, or its victim, 
its memories of glory or of guilt ; — ^where the dim traditions of sucoes^ve generations, through 
endless centuries, airest the sympathies of the pa8ser>by, chaining them to the time-honound 
spots ; — a land of ' cloud-capp'd towers, and gorgeous palaces, and solonn temples,' where the 
hoary ruin, standing grandly aloft and aloof amid modem innovations, reminds the votary oi 
Progress, ^t there were days of wealth and power and splendour and enjoyment before Steam 
and Reform and the Cr^tal Palace had ever been dreamt of; befcne the extravagance of one 
order and the skill and energy of another had housed the cotton-spinner and the clothier in the 
ancestral halls of the baron and the squire, and when the yeoman and the retains* were to the 
. full as happy and twice as contented as the farmer and cottier of to-day ;^-the land (rf* the oak 
and the ho^y, and the ' clustering filberds ' — a land of statues and pictures— of French oooks 
and Italian singers !— of parks and plaisances and gardens, of lakes and rivers and railways ; the 
land of the fleet foxhound, the feathery gorse covert, the flying fence and the echoing woodland 
-—of the gun and the grouse, the moor and the marsh, the deep dark salmon-hole and the rip- 
pling trout-stream, the emerald meadow and the fresh springy down, where elf and fairy (or 
l^ends lie !) still ' dance their ringlets to the whistling wind ;'— and, to contract the scene of 
my aspirations — ^to draw nearer home and to grow warmer as I draw nearer — ^the land, where, 
with a rapture tempered by pious sorrow, I shall stand once again on the family hearth, whose 
drde, alas ! has been narrowed by more than one grievous loss since I last sat within it, but in 
which there yet remain loving hearts and open arms to welcome back the wayworn travdler to 
his native home. 

This journal may find its way to the country of my late sojourn. I fed pleasui^ in devotinc: 
its latest paragraph to the acknowledgment of how many happy hours I passed and how many 
kind friends I possessed within the boundaries of New South Wales. If I could think that in 
ever so slight a d^ree these my humble and desultory volumes may tend to modify any im- 
pressions imbibed to her prejudice, and may heighten the favourable aspect in which she is 
viewed at Home — the reflection would afford me the highest gratification. Whether or not it 
may be my destiny to revisit the Colony, it is impossible for me to foresee ; — but, so long as I 
live, I shall watch her pn^ress with interest and solicitude ; and while predicting for her n 
prosperous, I shall be disappointed if she achieve not a brilliant. Future. 



( 277 ) 

APPENDIX. 







METEOROLOGY'. 










f 1847/ 


REGISTER. 


IMS. 


RBGOBTER. 


















MONTHS. 


1 


1 


• 
MONTHS. 




1 








102 


64 


Jasuary • 


86 


59 






February • 


85 


64 


February . 


80 


56 






March 


88 


59 


March . 


97 


56 






April • . 


79 


54 


April • • 


75 


47 






May . . 


76 


45 


May • . 


69 


42 






June . . 


65 


39 


June . • 


65 


40 






July • . 


65 


38 


July . . 


70 


39 






August • 


70 


38 


August 


74 


38 






September . 


78 


40 


September . 


74 


43 






October • 


78 


43 


October 


90 


46 






Noyember . 


99 


50 


Noyember . 


85 


50 






December . 


78 


50 


December . 


85 


48 





Meteorological Report, South Bead, from 11th to 17th February, 1851. 





Moon's Age. 


' Barometer. 


Date. 


84 A.U. 


H'-3f. 


SBBset 


9 1P.K. 


Feb. 11, Tuesday • 
„ 12, Wednesday. 
,, 13, Thursday . 
„ 14, Friday. 
„ 15, Satunlay . 
„ 16, Sunday. . 
„ 17, Monday . 


9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
Ol .33 P.M. 
15 


30-034 
30-051 
29*933 
29-851 
29*813 
29 655 
29-914 


30-020 
30-007 
29*873 
29-844 
29-800 
29-611 
29-943 


30-003 
29-076 
29-844 
29*840 
29-722 
29-610 
29-973 


30-038 
29-990 
29*840 
29*840 
29-710 
29-702 
29-966 



Date. 



Feb. 11, Tuesday 

„ 12, Wednesday 

„ 13, Thursday 

„ 14, Friday 

„ 15, Saturday 

„ 16, Sunday 

„ 17, Monday 





Attached: 






Detached 






Register 
Thermo- 
meter. 


Thennometer. 


Thermometer. 


1 


• 

< 


i 


• 

1 


M 

fi 


• 

< 


• 


4i 


i 


• 

T 


3 


73 


€4 


s 


a» 


74 


78 


71 


a* 

70 


71 


78 


k 

70 


75 


73 


73 


73 


75 


73 


73 


72 


78 


73 


71 


71 


78 


69 


77 


76 


73 


75 


75 


78 


72 


71 


73 


78 


70 


72 


74 


74 


74 


72 


76 


73 


71 


71 


76 


70 


76 


77 


76 


76 


76 


78 


73 


72 


74 


78 


70 


75 


75 


74 


73 


76 


79 


73 


68 


73 


79 


68 


68 


70 


69 


68 


68 


69 


67 


66 


79 


69 


66 



I 
I 



0*32 



0-02 
0-01 



27S OUa AXTIl-ODES. 



GOLD. 

Extract from the Sydney Morning Herald, 

The first pablished statement we find in an enclosure of a despatch of Sir Ceorge Gipps to 
the Secretary of State, hearing dale 28th September, 1840. The endosnre alluded to is a 
Report hj Count Strzelecki of his explorations of New South Wales, and in that report we 
find mention, under the head of ' Gold,' of * avauriferous sulphuret of iron, partly decomposed, 
yielding: a very small quantity or proportion of gold, sufficient to attest its presence. Insuf- 
ficient to repay its extraction,' and he quotes ' the Vale of Clwydd,' as the locality. But this 
is not an ore of gold, but an ore of iron, and therefore it may be said Strzelecki does not 
mention gold itself; for it is well known that * auriferous sidphuret of iron,' is merely a 
variety of iron pyrites. In the beginning of the year 1841, the first actual discovery of 
' native gold,' of whidi there are no other ores, was made by a geologist now amongst us, who 
has long been engaged, without fee or reward, in the laborious work of elucidating the 
structure and phenomena of Australia ; we mean the Re7. W. B. Clarke, who found the 
metal in the Dividing Ranges separating the eastern and western waters of the Macquarie. 
This fact, as well as the existence of particles of gold derived from these ranges, in the 
alluvial bed of Winburndale rivulet, was then announced by him to many persons now in the 
colony, who can bear testimony to this statement. As a matter of geolc^cal interest, the 
subject was, notwithstanding, communicated to his scientific friends in England, and finding 
that it was made known by them, he then published the fact, as well as his further discovery, 
that the gold was in small quantities, in various portions of the schistose formations, whose 
strike is parallel with the meridian, as well as in the district of Argyle, where he had also 
detected it. We find the fact announced by him in communications to the Geological Society, 
and again in the Tasmanian Journal^ as well as in the pages of the Annals of 2(atural History, 
at various times from 1842 to 1847. During this period Mr. Icely's explorations led to the 
finding of gold in the quartz rocks traversing the schistose formations of the Belubula, thus 
confirming Mr. Clarke's allegation that gold is extensively developed. A similar confirmation 
was made by the presence of gold in similar strata near Gundagai. Classifying these facts, 
the geologist above-mention^, after careful study of large collections of rocks from an 
enormous area in the colony, announced unhesitatingly to scientific persons in Europe and 
America, that the same * constants' which mark the presence of gold in Russia and California, 
as well as in Europe, are found in Australia ; and that the localities where it may be expected 
to occur are just those in which he had found it, where meridiau-directed strata of schist 
highly inclined, and travei'sed by quartz dykes, or met by diagonal intrusions of trap or 
poi'phyritic rocks, and that at such points only the metal would be abundant. As evidence 
of this we may here quote a passage from the Quarterly Revievo, published in London, in 
September, 1850 :— 

' The important point for Englishmen now to consider is, the extent to whidi our own great 
Australian colonies are likely to become gold-bearing regions : the works of Count Strzelecki 
and others, having made known the facts that the chief or eastern ridge of that continent 
consists of palseozoic rocks, cut through by syenites, granites, and porphyries, and that 
quartzose rocks occasionally prevail in this long meridian chain. Sir Roderick Murchison 
announced first to the Geographical Society,- and afterwards to the Geological Society of 
Cornwall, his belief that wherever such constants occurred, gold might be expected to be 
found. Colonel Helmersen suggested the same idea at St. Peterabui^. Very shortly afterwards 
not only were several specimens of gold in fragments of quartz veins found in the Blue Mountains 
north of Sydney, but one of the British Chaplains, himself a good geologist, in writii^ home 
recently, thus expresses himself: — ** This colony is becoming a mining country as well ats 
South Australia. Copper, lend, and gold are in considerable abundance in the schists and 
qnartzites of the Cordillera (Blue Mountains, &c.) Vast numbers of the population are 
going to California, but some day 1 think we shall have to recall them.' " 

Nothing can be clearer than this testimony to the claim which thd gentleman we have 
alluded to has a nght to prefer to the discovery and aimouncemcnt of the existence of gold in 
this colony, and in the basin of the Macquarie River. And now we have announced to us the con- 
firmation of this discovery by Mr.Hargraves, who has found the predictions of geological inductions 



AITKNDIX. 279 

verified to the letter/he himself having taken a lesson in California. Whatever value, then, 
may he attached to the abundance of gold alleged to exist in the valleys of that river basin, 
of which we shall know more when the field has been surveyed, and whatever pi*aise may be 
awarded to Mr. Hargraves for his diligence and perseverance, and public spirit, we ought not 
to pass over the consideration of the fact, that his announcement is only the confirmation of a 
discovery made long before in another part of the same lield, by one who had no object but 
the verification of scientific principles, the investigation of the structure of the colony for the 
benefit of others, and who, we have reason to believe, is rejoiced upon those grounds only, that 
his predictions have been ifound true. 

Discovery of an exte^ve Gold Field. From the Bathurst Free Press, 

Thk existence of gold in the Wellington district has for a long time been an ascertained fact, 
bnt pablic attention has never uhtil now been seriously drawn to the circumstance. A little 
temporary curiosity would occasionally be excited whenever news were spread abroad that old 
McGregor, the gold-finder from that district, had passed per mail to the metropolis, as was 
always believed, laden with auriferous treasure. This subsided, nothing more would be 
heard of the matteirfor a long interval, than an occasional rumour that he had rejected some 
tempting offer, held out by a Sydney jeweller, or Wellington settler, as an inducement to 
disclose the secret of the locale whence his treasure was derived. It is sufficient for the 
present purpose to state, that the progress he made in life, with no other ostensible means of 
earning money than shepherding and gold-finding, has always been regarded as presumptive 
evidence of his success in the latter vocation. 

The arrival of Mr. Hargraves in Bathurst on '^Tuesday evening last, who, it was generally 
known, had been in communication with Government respecting discoveries made by him of 
extensive gold deposits in our cismontane region, has now brought the subject more prominently 
before our Bathurst public. On Thursday evening he invited a few gentlemen to meet him at 
Mr. Arthur's inn, with the object of communicating such information as he had obtained upon 
this interesting subject in his recent explorations, and the readiness and intelligence which he 
displayed in answering the numerous questions addressed to him, showed satisfactorily that he 
not only possessed an intimate knowledge of gold-mining in all its branches, but was desirous of 
giving every possible information upon the matter connected with his visit. From the running 
ccmversation, which was kept up for several hours, we gleaned the following particulars. 

Mr. Hargraves, who has spent nearly two years at the California diggings, returned to this 
colony in January last, having, as he states, whilst there, derived considerable information fix>m 
the Mexican miners, whom he represents as by far the best and most successful diggers. Struck 
by the similarity of the geological formation, and external physical characteristics of certain 
portions of this colony and the California gold-fields, he was induced, at his own expense, and 
(XI his own responsibility to visit this and the neighbouring districts to institute a personal exami- 
nation. His researches have been crowned with sucsess. After riding about 300 miles, so as 
to intersect the country at numerous points, and spending from two to three months in the pro- 
secution of his object, Mr. Hargraves states as the result of his observations, that from the foot 
of the Big Hill to a considerable distance below Wellington, on the Macquarie, is one vast gold- 
field ; "that he has actually discovered the precious metal in numberless places, and that indica- 
ticHis of its existence are to be seen in every direction. Indeed, so satisfied is he on this point, 
that he has established a company of nine working miners, who are now actively employed 
dicing at a point of the Summer Hill Creek, near its junction with the Macquarie, about fmy 
miles ii'om Bathurst, and thirty from Guyong. Ophir is the name given to these divings. 

Several samples of fine gold were shown to tiie company by Mr. Hargraves, weighing in 
all about four ounces — ^the produce, he stated, of three days' di^ng. The amount thus earned 
by each man he represented to be 2/. 4^. Sd. per day ; but he observed that, from want of 
practical knowledge and proper implements, he was convinced that nearly one-half of the gold 
actually dug had been lost, owing to the labour being performed in his absence. One of the 
samples produced was a solid piece weighing about two ounces, and was found at the diggings 
attached to the root of a tree, by Mr. John Lyster, who is one of t>'e company. Another samjple 
consisted of small pieces, weigliung from several grains to a penny-weight, all elongated, and of 
various shapes ; and a third of small fiat partides, principally oval. The large piece, which 
appears as if it had been in a state of fusion, is intended by Mr. Hargraves as a present to his 
Excellency the Governor. The only process through which the above samples had passed was 
the washing, which had been performed by Mr. Hargraves himself. 



Extract from a Letter of the Rev. W. B. Olabee, m the Sydney Morning Herald, 

24^th May, 1851. 

When in 1841, and subsequently from year to year with increised oonyictioD, as the resnilte 
of my inquiries came before me, I announced that Australia was an auriferous country ; and 
when in a letter, (I think to Sir H. De la Beche,) which has been quoted in the Quarteriy 
Beview, it was said that gpid as well as copper and lead is in ' considerable abundanoe ' in our 
schists and quartzites, it was no hypothetical assertion. I simply declared what I beliered tm 
evidence which was in all points consistent with the full exploration of the Ural and the riven 
of California, and which the perseverance of gold-seekers here has now f cdly confirmed. Nor do 
I shrink from further declaring, what time will establish, that the present gold-fidd is but one 
of numerous localities aloi^ &e Cordillera, in whidi gold and gold alluvia will be found by 
those who search for them. 

That in this respect I am not excitai^ vain expectations may be believed, if we only bear fai 
mind what we are taught by the facts well established in the history of the Ural. It is but m 
very few years since the only known locality of gold was at Ekaterinburg ; and it is now known 
to occur north and south of that locality, over more than six degrees of latitude. And now a 
r^on that within the memory of the writer produced but a small amount of gold, produces 
three millions sterling per annum. Even certain rocks themselves of the Ural, not only quarts 
and schists, but limestones also, when pounded, are known to produoe a per-oentage of gold. 

It may be asked what right have we to anticipate such results here ? I answer uiahesitatingly , 
that, although it is, perhaps, out of the power of human prescience to predict with uwfiultng 
certainty that such will be the case here, yet if there be any truth in the deductions of geology, 
such may ^be anticipated, wherever constants which have never fiuled dsewhere are found* 



280 OUR ANTIPODES. 

The principal localities mentioned by Mr. Hargraves, where he had discovered gold, wen 
Summer Hill, Guyong, and Lewis' Pond Creeks. He also found gold at Dubbo, bdow WeUiuf^ 
ton, which he stated to be in powd», fine as the finest floUr« bat so &r as he could jnd^ 
from the opportunities he had, it did not exist in suffident quantity to pay for the necessary 
labour. From the nature of some of the country explored by him, he is of opinion that gold 
will be found in mass, and would not be surprised if pieces of 30 or 40 lbs. should be discovered. 
He had seen no country in California which promis^ metal in such heavy masses. T^ds de- 
cription of country he represents as not being desirable as a field of speculation. One or two 
occupied thereon might be lucky enough to find a lump, but thdr companions would expend 
much toil, and probably obtain nothing, whilst the ground which yielded the * dust ' or larger 
particles, could be calculated upon as returning a certain remuneration for a given quantity 
of labour. 

We are assured by Mr. Hargraves that there exists an opening for an unlimited suj^y of 
labour in the vicinity of the diggings already opened by him, but he holds out no fiorid hopes. 
He makes no unreasonable or exaggerated statements. His arguments and representations 
^mply amount to this, that tiiiere exists in the neighbouring districts an extensive gt^d field, i 

but whether a rich or a remunerative field of labour he does not undertake to say. This quefr> 
tion remains to be solved by actual trial. 

We have now given the principal items of information connected with this most important 
and interesting subject. In the statements made we do not intend to incur any respoEffiibility. 
We tell the story as 'twas told to us. The suddenness with which the announcement of a d^ 
covery of such magnitude has come upon us — a discovery which must, if true, be productive 
of such gigantic results not only to the inhabitants of these districts, but to the whole colony, 
affects the mind with astonishment and wonder, in such a manner as almost to unfit it fcnr t£e 
deductions of plain truth, sober reason, and common saise. Mr. Hargraves is an inteUigant, an 
educated, and we believe a respectable man. His manner is quiet and unobtimsive. He does 
not seek to thrust his information upon the people, but when questioned, answers modestly and 
intelligibly any questions put to him. The attention paid to him by Government is some 
guarantee of Us respectability and acquaintance with the subject, and ih&re reaUy does appear 
such an absence of any reasonable motive to mislead the public, that if we do not comprehend 
all we have heard horn him, we are not prepared to disbelieve it. He staited yesterday for 
Cooming, to join Mr. Stutchbury, the Government geologist, who, we are informed, will accom- 
pany him to the diggings. The matter will therefore be quickly placed beyond the reach of 
suspicion or incredulity. 



APPENDIX. 281 

Geological data Mt\j interpreted will not deodye, for the laws impressed upon the physical 
world are of Him whose ways are stable and unvarying. As a geologist, fully aware of the 
risk which reputation may run in all prospective statements, I declare it to be my belief that 
the axis and flanks of our Australian Cordillera are of the same geological epoch, and have 
undergone similar transmuting influences with the aids and flanks of the Ural ; that in con- 
stituents, in changes produced by igneous action, in age, in almost every phenomenon, and in 
eleoaiton above the sea, in standing as a wall between the sea and a desert, just as the Ural 
stands as a wall between what was sea long afler our Cordillera became dry land, and the desert 
of Siberia, there is a most perfect analogy in all respects in tliese distant chains ; and therefore, 
it is not blind hypothesis, but careful analysis, whidi has brought me to predicate of Australia 
what is now geological history in Russia. 

Again, look at the direction of these chains. It was Humboldt who first remarked, that gold 
is a constant in meridian-directed mountains. The Ural, the ranges of California, and the 
Australian Cordillera, have verified the dictum ; for there is not a greater deviation in Australia 
firom a true parallel to the meridian than there is in the Ural, which is deflected between north 
and north thirty-five degrees west in the northern part of its course, and between south and 
south for<y-five degrees west in its southeiii expansion. 

There is, however, one striking fact which I cannot omit in this place, a fact never before 
nentiMied. If we look at the globe, we shall find that in tiie longitude of about 149° or 150° 
east extends the middle of the meridian chain of Australia, parallel by similar chains, having 
similar axes, in South and in West Australia. Exactly ninety degrees from this main Australian 
chain occurs the auriferous Und 60° east, and exactly ninety degrees from the same chain occurs 
the north and south auriferous mountains of California in 120° west. The fourth quadrantal 
meridian falls along the Atlantic, between Brazil and Afi*ica, both auriferous regions. 

In three of these meridians the earth has been fissured, and igneous rocks have pierced and 
transmuted elevated and schistose beds. 

When this hct first stinick my mmd, I received a fresh light, and guided by it, I saw that if 
a earful examination and comparison of the actual formations of California and tibe Ural wou}d 
justify it, I should be safe in positively asserting what I did, and firom the effect of which 
assertion explorers have been led to verify my condusions. 

By personal 'survey, or by the assistance of numerous kind friends, who take an interest in my 
humble endtoTt)urs to advance the progress of science in this colony, I have had at one time or 
another under my hands collections of rocks from almost every available locality between Cape 
Howe and New Guinea ; and I am prepared with evidence, some of whidi will appear in the 
Report I have been long preparing (and which, but for the pressure of my more solenm engage- 
ments, woi;dd long ago have been ready for the press) to show, that what is now known of tiie 
Ural and of the CaBfomian Sierras, may be predicted of our Australian Cordillera. And I 
trust it is not taking an arr(^ant position, when I assume that as my former declarations have 
been found true, and that if I had not made them we should not now have had them so promptly 
redized, so my present warning ought not to be neglected, when I affirm that Summer Hill and 
its vicinity is but one of the looilities over which Government must one day watch with jealousy 
the rights of the Sovereign. 



Note communicated by Sir Roderick Murchison to the Author, 

Between the years 1841 and 1843 Sir Roderick Murchison described to geologists the gold- 
bearing rocks of the Ural Mountains, which he had explored. In 1844 (not 1845, as has been 
erroneously stated,) he published, in the fouiieenth volume of the Journal of the Royal Geo- 
graphical Society, a comparison between the Eastern Cordillera of Australia, which was then about 
to be described by Count Strzelecki, and the Ural Mountains. In 1846 he recommended the 
Cornish miners who wanted employment to* eidigrate to New South Wales, and there search for 
gold, (small portions of which had been foimd hear Bathurst and Adelaide,) instead of tin in the 
alluvia, — his views being recorded in the Penzance newspapers, and the Transactions of the Royal 
Geological Society of Cornwall. In 1 848, having received specimens of gold from colonists, 
(Mr. T. W. Smith, and Mr. Phillips,) he wrote to Earl Grey, referring to the forma* comparison 
with iJie Ural Mountains ; and stating the results already obtained, he added, that the opera- 
tions might be much extended if some modification of the mining laws were declared. But the 
Minister declined interfei'ence, apprehending, (as his Lordship has since expressed himself,) that 
the agitation of the discovery of the precious metals would prove injurious to an agricultural 



282 OUR AKTIFODES. 

and wool-growing community. The anticipations in England, «md the first discoveries of the 
ore in Australia, were therefore prior to the accidental opening of the golden gravel of Oalifomia 
in 1847. After that great event Sir R. Murchison treated publicly on various occasions the 
subject of the distribution of gold over the surface of the globe, his last and concluding views 
being put forth in the article ' Siberia and California' of the Quarterly Review, September, 
1850. Even this last publication, in which the subject of Australian gold was again intro- 
duced, had been read in Sydney before some of the accounts of the profitable discoveries of 
1851 were written — accounts which have been widely circulated both in the newspapers and in 
the Bltte-hooks of the Houses of Parliament, and in which no mention is made of the prognostics 
of 1844 and 1846, or of the monitory letter of 1848. 



FORM OF GOLD MINING LICENCE. 

6oni licence* 

KO July, 1851. 

ITie bearer^ having paid to me the 

sum of one pound ten shillings on account of the Territorial Revenue, I hereby License him to 
dig, search for, and remove Oold on and from any such Crown Land within the County of 
Bathurst as I shall assign to him for that purpose, during the month of July, 1851. 

This Licence must be produced whenever demanded by me or any other person acting 
under the authority of the Government, 

(Signed) 

Commissioner. 



GOLD DUST TRANSACTION. 

New South Wales, 14 Aug, 1851. 

£. 8. d. 

Bought 155 oz. of Turon Gold Dust at £3 5s. 3d. per oz ... 505 13 9 

Government charge at 1 per cent, for escort to Sydney .... 4 19 3 

£510 13 



[Copt ov Account.] 

Assay OfHce, 79, Hatton Gardoi, 

17th January, 1852. 

Bought of Colonel Mundy, 
oz. dwts. grs. £. ,. j^ 

1 55 of Gold Dust, which produced when melted 

149 15 12 ofGoldBai^ 

Better than standard 1 J grain, and containing 16 dwts 
of silver in the lb. weight. 
1 18 7 of alloy, making 

151 13 19 ofstandardGold, at77s. 9(1. peroz 589 13 10 

10 0^ of fine silver at 59. 3r/. per oz 2 12 6 

592 6 4 
3 5 2 



Melting and assay 13 6 

Refining 4s. per lb. 2 11 8 



589 1 2 



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gUflgt