THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES . Wills, ■'' n an Wills. Opals and Agates ; OR, SCENES UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS AND THE MAGELHANS: BEING MEMORIES of FIFTY YEARS OF AUSTRALIA AND POLYNESIA. (Ltlith i^tnc Illustrations. NEHEMIAH BARTLEY. PRICE FIFTEEN SHILLINGS. flriebaiu : CORDON AND GOTCH, MELBOURNE, S "ST TJ 1ST E Y , -A. 1ST ID X, O UST T3 O 3ST . I 8 i) ? . BRISBANE : GORDON AND GOTCH, PRINTERS. ?R on°i 3xnt>- THE AUTHOR DEDICATES THIS BOOK TO THE GIRL PATRIOTS, PAST AND PRESENT, OF AUSTRALASIA, WHO BELIEVE IN THEIR NATIVE COUNTRY, WITH ALL ITS FAULTS, FOR THE SAKE OF ITS MANY PERFECTIONS, AND WHO ARE PROUD, AND NOT ASHAMED, OF ITS POINTS OF DIFFERENCE FROM OTHER LANDS. SO, TO THEM ARE HEREBY INSCRIBED SUCH " Opals and Agates " \S Till. WRITER HAS BEEN ABLE TO FIND, BY THE WAYSIDE, IN HIS MANY WANDERINOS, IN THIS OREAT SOUTHERN WORLD. PREFACE. At the suggestion of friends, I have herein collated, for publica- tion, some rambling recollections, drawn from a diary that was first started in 1846. 1 hold that, neither the era of Dampier (circa 1690), nor of Cook (in 1770), nor of Macquarie (in 1820), bears so deep an interest for posterity as those fateful, stirring years, during which, thanks to her gold, Australia rose, from being a mere convicts' wilderness, to become one of the most advanced and interesting countries in the world. And, besides this, not only is truth, at times, stranger, and more readable, than fiction, but a book, which is destitute, alike, of dialogue, plot, or hero, and in no way built upon the orthodox lines of the three-volume novel, may still — if it follows humbly in the wake of such guides as " Robinson Crusoe," or the " Essays of Elia " — hope to find some readers ; so, I venture. CONTENTS. Wyndomel, pages 1— 3. Voyage Out, 4. Tasmania (1849), 5— 6. Bagdad, 7. Mt. Wellington, 8-9. Off to California, 11. Tahiti and Eimeo, 13— 17. Raiatea and Samoa, 19—20. Caroline Island, 21—27. Honolulu, 28—34. San Franeisco (18.30), 35—41. Norfolk Island, 42—43. Lakes of Tasmania, 44. Launceston Races (1851), 45. The Turf, 46—47. Melbourne (1851), 48—50. The Turon (1851), 51—55. Sydney Banking Life (1852), 56—57. Overlanding (1853), 58-60. Paika and the " Mallee," 61-66. Riverina (1853), 67. From Melbourne to Sydney, 68—69. An Australian in London, 70—88. Site and Topography of Brisbane, 89—98. Early Journeys to the Burnett and Darling Downs, 99—121. General Reminiscences of Sydney, Melbourne, and Moreton Bay, 122—142. Holt's Election, and Other Events of 1856, 143— 14S. Other Reminiscences of Queensland, 149—163. " Forty Years Ago "-Memories of Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Hobart, 164—174. The Delpard Family in Sydney, 175—180. With Cattle to Cape York Peninsula, 181-200. Sinbad's Valley, 201-204. Australian Folk Lore, 205. Aladdin's Opals, 206-207. What the " Wild Waves were Saying," 208-212. The Brisbane Botanic Gardens, 212—217. The Genius of Australia, 217—218. Australian Shells and Butterflies, 218-220. " Sun-Chips," 220-222. Australian Gums, Oils, Timbers, &c, 222—224. The Cascade of the Barron River, 225— 227. About Clubs, 22S-230. The Birth of Queensland, 231. Queensland Champion Race of 1861, 232—235. The Duke of Edinburgh in Brisbane, 235-236. ' ' Yuletide " in Sydney, 236-243. Lord Harris in Sydney, 243-247. The "Garden Palace" in Sydney, 247-251. The Princes' Visit (1881), 251—252. International Cricket (Ivo Bligh) 1883, 252-257. Krakatoa Earthquake (1883), 257-260. Melbourne in 1888, 260-265. The Darling River 50 Years Ago, 266~ 268. A Chapter on Sentiment, 268-272. About Bullock drivers, 272—274. Some Statistics of Nuggets, 275—277. Home- sickness, 277—279. Ode to a Piccaninny, 279—282. A Brisbane Reverie, 282-283. The Brisbane Cup, 285. White Waistcoats, 286. Mosquito Baiting, 287. Laycock and Beach, 289. Good Old Times, 290. Usury, 292. The Melbourne Cup, 293. "Gothenburg" Wreck, 294. On "Love," 295. On Education, 297. Our Boys, 298. Good and Evil, 299. Wholesale and Retail, 300. Feminine Prose, 301. Captain Clinch, of the " Swordfish," 301. Milton in 1S75, 302. Petrie's Bight (1876), 304. " 1875," 304. "Fuimus," 306. South Sea Murder, 307. Brisbane in 1822, 308. " Bridget," 309. The World's Climates, 311. INDEX. A "Auld Lang Syne," page 12— JDolian Harp, 16— An "Atoll," 25— The "Alcalde," 35 — Australian Wines, 71 — Australian Climate, SO — Dr. Armstrong, of Drayton, 120— Alboni, 124— Amity Point, and the " Sovereign," 147— The "Artemisia," 148— The Adsetts, 158— \V. H. Aldis, 168— Abyssinian Hunt, 170 — Colonel Arthur, 172 — Archer, of " YVoolmers," 173 — "Anstey Barton," 173 Atheism, 197— Aladdin's Islands, 199— The Agate Valley, 200— Aladdin's Opals, 236 — The Anihurium Flower, 214 — Australian Patriots, 217 — Ait Gallery, Sydney, 250— "Attic" Wit, 2S2— Australian Scullers, 289. B Bagdad (V.D.L.), page 6 — Bread Fruit, 19 — Brooklyn and Buffalo, 32 — Belknap and White, 33 — Theodore Bartley, 44, 172 — Ben Lomond, 45 — Sam Blackwell, of Green Ponds (T.), 46, 169— " Bay Middleton," 46— " Black Thursday," 48—" Bowenfels," 51— F. N. Bume, 57, 146— Life in Borneo, 79- The " Bell " at Edmonton, 81— The Brisbane Kiver, 89— William Barker, 95 — Balfour and Forbes, 100, 140— The Bottle Tree, 102— Henry Buckley, 104 —Joshua P. Bell, 104, 127, 229— Fred. Bracker, 105— Blyth, of Blyth. dale, 105— Wm. Anthony Brown, 110— Burnett, the Surveyor, 111 — Thomas Boyland, 111— "Bush" Inn, Fassifern, 118— Dr. George Bennett, 123— Thomas Bell, of Jimbour, 128 — Beck, of the Moonie, 128 — Balbi, of Fassifern. 133— John Bramston, 133, 228— Dr. Hugh Bell, 133— Burns, Philp, and (Jo. , 134— F. Bigge, 141— Rev. Thomas Binney, 141— "Billy" Bowman, 142 William Beit, 146— Balfour, of Colinton, 147— T. C. Breillat, 147, 148— The "Bunyip," 149— Martin Boulton, 153— Bribie Island Murder, 157 — J. E. Bicheno, 160— Noah Beal, 164— John Black (of the Bank of N. S. Wales), 165 Gamaliel Butler, 169 — Charles Bath, 169 — Octavius Browne and Co., 172 — The Bisdees, 172— Buck Jumping, 188— Ben Boyd, 15, 209— The Barron Falls, 227 — Sir Geo. Bo wen, 231 —Mr. and Mrs. Boucicault, 235 — Braemar and Deeside, 236— Burwood ami Petersham, 240— Brickfield Hill, 240— The Leichhardt Bean, 249 — Ivo Bligli in Sydney, 252 — Blackham and Horan, 256 — The Bullock Driver, 272 — The Brisbane Cup, 285— Brisbane in 1822,306 — " Bridget," 309. c Dr. W. L. Crowther, page 8, 17" The Calaboose, 17 Tin' Convict's Curfew, 18 — Claret at Tahiti, 17— The "Caroline" Wrecked, 37 Convicts at Norfolk Island, 42— " Crucifix," 46 Thomas Winder Campbell, 52- Roberl Cribb, 91, 109, L30 Captain R. J. Coley, 94, 117 Alpin Cameron, loo Cressbrook and Colinton, 100 Cribb and Foote, 103 John Crowder, of Weranga, 106, 160, 229 Curious Accident; 109 Captain Collins, of Telemon, lio Tim Corbett, I!:; W. B. Campbell, 116, 132 Pollel Cardew, II!) "Chucks, the boat M,' I 10 Cunningham's Gap, 120 John Croft, of Mount .Adelaide, 123 Vlll INDEX. Covent Garden Opera, 124 -Sir Michael Costa, 124— H. C. E. Childers, 125— Clapperton, of Tarong, 130 — Robert Cran, 132— J. H. Challis, 137 — Rev. Robert Creyke, 143— H. M. Cockburn, 143— " Tinker " Campbell, 147— The "Conrad," 148 — The " Chaseley," 148 — Donald Cameron, of Tarampa, 154 — Charles Coxen, 155 — Contts, of Toolbnrra, 160 — Cleburne, of Hobart, 170 — The Carandinis, 172 — Schoolmaster Cape, 172 — The Crocodile (Queensland), 190— Cassiterite, 208— A. W. Compigne, 234— " Tertius " Campbell, 234— Prince de Conde, 235 — Christmas Eve in Sydney, 238 — Chirnside and Manifold, 263— Cockney Melbourne, 264— Christie, of Paika, 266— N. Chad- wick, of the Lachlan, 266— Captain Cadell, 266, 277, 278— Clinch, of the " Swordfish," 301 —The World's Climates, 311. D Delpard Family, page 3 — Degraves's Brewery, 8 — Colonel Despard, 45 - Robert Douglas, 95, 228 — John Douglas, 105 — Sylvester Diggles, 107 — W. A. Duncan, 107— W. P. Douyere, lit— R. E. Dix, 118— Deuchar, of Glengallan, 118, 151,229 — Dr. Dorsey, 119, 146, 150 — Adele Dumilatre and Pauline Duvernay, 124 — Stuart A. Donaldson, 125 — Fred. Daveney, 129 — James Sheen Dowling, 147, 164 — Judge Dickenson, 157 — Dr. Dobie, 164— Ernest Elphinstone Dalrymple, 165 — Earl of Derby, 170— Sir Wm. Denison, 170— Tilmouth F. Dye, 172 — Dalgety, Gore, and Co., 172 — A Darling Point Ball, 177 — The Game of Dambrod, 182— Maria Van Dieinen, 210— Beevor Daveney, 229— The "Dunbar" Wreck, 247— The " Dandenong " Gale, 248— The Dust of Ages, 273— Double-banking with 30 Bullocks, 273. Earl of Shaftesbm - y,page 7 — Eimeo, 18 — Ecuadorand Bolivia, 34 — Esquimaux Dog, 41-Charles Hotson Ebden, 49, 69, 125, 266— Emu's Nest, 60— Hon. Emily Eden, 70— An Essex Village, 86— Ambrose Eldridge, 92, 106— George Edmonstone, 92 — Geoffrey Eagar, 129 — Eton Vale, 153 — John Eales, 164— E. S. Ebsworth, 228— Duke of Edinburgh, 235-" Eerie" and Haunted, 278— Education, 297 — Early River Steamers, 305. F " Peter Finn," page 45— Thos. Howard Fellowes, 69 — A Fishing Inn, 72 — John Pascoe Fawkner, 91, 126 — John Stephen Ferriter, 98, 146 — Rudolph von Freudenthal, 100 — Albrecht Feez, 107, 131, 235— Sir Charles Fitzroy, 109— John Ferrett, 128, 229— Flat Top Island, 130— E. B. Forrest, 133— Peter Faucet, 139— Dr. George Fullerton, 141— F. A. Forbes, 144, 148— The "Fortitude," 148— George Faircloth, 153, 233— Folk Lore of Australia, 205— Charley Fattorini, 209 — Floods and Droughts of a Century, 259 — Feminine Prose, 301. G Giant Clam Fish, page 25 — Grizzly Bear, 3S — Giant Trees at Tolosa, Tasmania, 47 — Glyn, Halifax and Co., 84 — Grenier's Hotel, 91, 128, 129 — Goode's Inn, Nanango, 101— Walter Gray, 103, 229— Colonel Gray, 103— Matthew Goggs, 105, 160— A. C. Gregory, 10S— H. C. Gregory, 108— Gillespie, of Canal Creek, 113 — Gammie Brothers, 114 — Robert J. Gray, 117 — Dugald Graham, 123 — Captain Geary, 127 — Ralph Gore, 128,229 — St. George Gore, 140— "Jimmy " Gibbon, 141— John Gilchrist, 137, 169— S. D. Gordon, 169— IXDKX. IX Arthur Gravely, 169— "Gipsy Poll," 171, 209— The Gellibraiuls, 172— Great Barrier Reef, 186, 199— Gold and Malachite, 196— Gold and Quinine, 198— A Gold Buyer Murdered, 204 — Grisi and Alboni, 212 — A Guadaloupe Creeper, 216 — Giant Gum Trees, 224— J. J. Galloway, 229 — John Gammie, 229 — Sir James F. Garrick, 232— Gibson, of "Chinchilla," 233— The Garden Palace, 247— Gold at Hayti, 276— The Good Old Times, 290— The " Gothenburg" Wreck. 294— Good and Evil, 299. H Hobart, page 5 — Geo. Harrison, R.N., 6 — Hobart Regatta (1849), 11 — Hawaii State Cloak, 17 — Huahine, 18 — Hilo, 27 — Hawaiian Divers, 33 — Leonidas Haskell, of 'Frisco, 40 — "Ho-Shan-See," 49 — Nicholas Hieronymus, 58 —Haunted Essex, S8 — Hockings's Corner, 93 — The "Hawk "and "Swallow," 99— Sir Arthur Hodgson, 106, 230, 236— Hon. Louis Hope, 106— Highgate Hill, 112— Tom Hayes, 118— Cecil Hodgson, 113— " Bill " Horton, 114— Wm. Handcock, 114— Sir R. G. W. Herbert, 133, 228, 231— George Harris, 133— A. T. Holroyd, 139— J. Leith Hay, 140— Dr. Wm. Hobbs, 141, 231— Thomas Holt (junr.), 143, 147— Charles Leith Hay, 145— George Hill, 145, 147— Hughes and Isaac, 160 — Hood and Douglas, 160 — Hayes, of the Weir River, 160 — The Howsons, 172 — Heape and Grice, 172 — Norman Leith Hay, 200 — T. Skarratt Hall, 233 — Lord Harris in Sydney, 243 — F. Hobler, of Nap Nap, 266— Over the Hurdles, 306. I Clark Irving, page 111, 139, 146— Thomas Icely, 164— The Iredales, 169. J " Merchant " Jones, page 96— Jubb's Hotel, 111— The Judge's Prayer, 131 — Joshua Jeays, 141 — A Judge on Fleas, 163 — Dr. Revel Johnson, 164 — Moses Joseph, 171 — Gore Jones, 229 — Hugh Jamieson, of Mildura, 266. K The Kingsmill Group, page 42 — Kanaka Labour, 77 — Henry M'Crummin Keightley, 104— "Joe" King, 115, 132— R. A. Kingsford, 126— " Fassifern " Kent, 133, 229— Kent and Wienholt, 160— Lord Kerr, 165— Kermode, of Mona Vale, 173— Kissing Point and Hunter's Hill, 240 — Krakatoa, 257. L Commissary Laidley, page 7 — Dr. Lloyd, of St. Bartholomew's, 16 — Lahaina, 17 — Los Angeles, 38 — Lake St. Clair, Lake Echo, 44, 172 — Lapstone Hill, 50— Wm. Colley Lang, 57 — Sir Charles Lilley. 94 — John Little, 107— Patrick Leslie, 111, 133, 160— Judge Lutwyche, 113, 229, 231— James Laidley, 111, 141, 147— Edward Lord, of Drayton, 114— John Do V. Land), 116, 132 Prank Lucas, M.D„ 117. 239— Leonard Edward Lester, 122, 233— Dr. J. Dunmore Lang, 150— Leichhardt's "Sell," 156— C. -J. Latrobe, 160— R. M. Lindsay, 168— Arthur Sidney Lyon, 169— T. Y. Lowes, 171— Laudale, of Riverina, 172 -William Long, 174 — Simeon Lord, 174 Lotus of the Nile, 215 Robert Little, 228- <;. L. Lukin, 233— Louis of Battenberg, 252 Losl Sinil.s, 270— Leichhardt Bean, 240— Gigantic "Loo" Party, 286 On " Lo e," -l'J7>. X INDEX. M Mount Wellington, page 5, 9 — Mauna Loa, 27 — Maui, 27 — Macfarlane's Hotel, Honolulu, 2cS— " Monte " Saloons, 36— Mounts Ida and Olympus, 44— Mount Elephant, 48— Mack's Hotel, 49—" Mylecharane's," 51— Monday Point, Turon River, 55 — Duncan M'Killop, 50 — " Mallee " Scrub, 02 — Murrumbidgee in Flood, 63 — M'lvor Diggings, 68 — Manilla Fire-flies, 75 — Patrick Mayne, 93 — F. D. Mercer, 95 — Conrad Martens, 97 — Moggill and Woogaroo, 99 — T. L. Murray-Prior, 100 — Mondure, 101 — Macquarie M'Donald, 103 — Chessborough M'Donald, 106, 234— David M'Connel, 106— De Lacy Moffatt, 106, 127, 146, 229— Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, 107, 136, 168— Charles Moore, 108— Monteliore, (Graham and Co., 109— Stephen Mehan, 111, 151— A. W. Manning, 115, 139— Dr. Miles, 115 — Henry Mort, 116 — Arthur Hannibal Macarthur, 118, 132— Robert Meston, 119, 169 — Archibald Michie, 126 — General Macarthur, 126— Colin Mackenzie, 127— J. F. M'Dougall, 127, 229— Moncrieff, of Drayton, 129, 140— M'Evoy, of Warwick, 132— Sir R. R. Mackenzie, 133, 147, 236— R. G. Massie, 134— A. M'Nab, of Kianga, 135— Herman Milford, 136, 147— Edye Manning, 137— Graham Mylne, 142, 229 — Donald Mackenzie, 152 — Marshall, of Glengallan, 153— J. D. M'Lean, 153—" Merry Boys of Brisbane," 159— Marshall, of Goondiwindi, 160 — Mount Morgan, 185 — " Mitchell " Grass, 186 — A Man-Eater Killed, 191 — Murdered Gold Buyer, 204 — Askin Morrison, 212— A. A. May, 229—" Arthur Macalister, 229— Judge Milford, 235- " Melbourne " and " Touchstone," 235— Murdoch and Nat Thompson, 245— Massie and C. Bannerman, 246 — Morley and GifFen, 225 — Melbourne in 1888, 260— Menzies' Hotel, 261— The Melbourne Cup, 263— Manifold and Chirn- side, 263 — E. Morey, of Euston, 267 — Metempsychosis, 281 — Mosquito Baiting, 287— The Melbourne Cup, 293— Milton in 1875, 302. N Nukuheva, page 20— The Old " Niantic," 35— Norfolk Island in 1850, 42— Nepean Girls, 54 — Native Names, 65 — Navigation of the Murray, 66 — Nicol, of Ballandean, 113 — Captain Neatby, 126 — Lieut. Nicoll, of Native Police, 153 — " Bob" Nichol, 164— A Costly Necklace, 178— Native Police of Queensland, 193 — New Guinea Butterflies, 223 — North Australian Club, 228 — Sir George Nares, 229—" Noctes," at Ipswich, 230. o Oatlands, Tasmania, page 11 — Oahu, 28 — Otis, 33 — Oregon Coast, 35 — John O'Shanassy, 49, 135— Captain O'Reilly, 90— Reuben Oliver, 92— Win. Bligh O'Connell, 101— P. O'Sullivan, 127— James Ord, 129— Oolawambiloa, 149— An Opal Found, 195 — Oriental Bloodstone, 202 — The Opal of Destiny, 207 — Owen, of Yandilla, 233— 120° in the Shade, 239— One Taken, One Left, 270— Our Boys, 298. P Page and Hyrons, page 6 — " Poi," 16 — Pitcairn's Island, 18 — Queen "Pomare," 21 — A Oahu Princess, 29 — Pirate " Lorcha," 31 — Panama Mail, 37 — Paved with Flour, 39 — Price, of Norfolk Island, 42 — "Pocahontas" ami "Banter," 47— Prince's Bridge to Liardet's, 48^-Pulpit Hill, 51— Phelps, of Canally, 62— Andrew Petrie, 92, 142— Murray-Prior, 100— Philip Pinnock, 105 — Pike, of Pikedale, 106 — James Canning Pearce, 134 — Henry Prince, 107 — INDEX. XI \V. A. Purefoy, 139— R. Pring, 139— Wm. Pickering, 142, 229— John Petrie, 147, 152— "Phoebe Dunbar" Wreck, 147— The "Parsee," 148— "Black Perry," 151— G. L. Pratten, 154— The "Palmer" Rush, 180— " Poinciana Regia," 213— David Perrier, 229— Princes' Visit (1881), 251_A Piccaninny, 279— Petrie's Bight, 304. Q Queen Emma, of Hawaii, page 14 — Queen Victoria, 14, 124, 252 — Quamby, Tasmania, 45— Queensland Water Lilies, 215 — The "Queensland Club," 229. R Emma Rooke, page 14 — Raiatea, 19 — Rotumah, 21 — A " Robinson Crusoe," 24— Russian Gold, 34— Admiral Rous, 46— P. N. Russell, 110— Christopher Rolleston, 114-Henry Stuart Russell, 125— F. Roche, 128, 132— R. M. Robey, 141- D. F. Roberts, 143, 228— E. M. Royds, 147— Andrew Ross, 153— Toby Ryan. 104— Lavington Roope, 212— Read and Tylecote, 254. s The " Sea Witch," page 40— The Sacramento, 40— Shorthand's Bluff, 48— Sydney Cockneys, 53 — Sydney Belles, 54 — Shipping Bar Gold, 55- -St. Jude's, Randwick, 82— P. L. C. Shepherd, 92, 108—1). R. Somerset, 93, 104— Sam Sneyd, 98— John Swanson, 103— R. J. Smith, 110, 147— Sinclair, of Woombo, 111— Spicer's Peak, 118— Thos. Whistler Smith, 123, 165-Emile de St. Jean, 128, 233— Henry Gilbert Smith, 129— Shepherd Smith, 133, 226— G. P. Serocold, R.N., 142 — Stephens, of Charrapool, 144 — Win. Spreadborough, 146 —Sir Alfred Stephen, 157 — Shakespeare and Scpieers, 163 — Lord Scott, 165 — Edward Salomons, 169— S. K. Salting, 171 — The Sorells, 172 — Sharland, of New Norfolk, 172— Gordon Sandeman, 172— A Sydney Villa, 176 —Sinbad's Valley, 201— The Sardonyx, 201— Sihon and Og, 209— Shells and Butterflies, 218— Sun Chips, 221— Strength of Australian Timber, 222— The Solvent Oils, 224— Studd and Spofforth, 253-Sable Venus, 280-R. W. Stuart, 307-South Sea Murder, 307. T Clement Tyrrell, page 3— Tahiti, 13, IS— Hamilton Tighe, 13— Tutuila, 20 — The Turon, 51 —Tyson Brothers, 61, 267 — Taromeo and Simon Scott, 101 — E. M. Tobias, 109— Robert fhorrold, 113— Wm. Butler Tooth, 133— Atticus Tooth, 115— Talgai Station, 115— Wm. Turner, of Helidon, 119,151,229— Terrific Beat, 119— George Thorn, 129, 147, 230— John Tait, 130, 152— Edwin Tooth, 137, 170— Robert Tooth, 138— George Salt Tucker, 141— W. R. Thornton, 153, 148— Robert Towns, 147, 171, 209— James Taylor, 153— Dr. Tuflhell, 155 — Judge Theiry, 157 — Tawell, the Quaker, 151— K. I >eas Thomson, 160 — John Thacker, 171 — A. Torning, 172 — Tabart, of Fonthill, 17'2 Tropical Thunderstorm, 192 Thirlmere and Helvellyn, 210 Tattersall's Club Cup, 242 Tylecote and Read, 254— Three Thousand Tons of Gold, 261. -Then and Now, 283 Mark Tapley in Queensland, 284 "Tulip ' Wright, 309. U " Union Club," Sydney, page 208-^Ulyett and Penn, 244-Usury, 292. xii INDEX. V A " Vaudoux " Rite, page 28 — Vienna Steeple, 74— Captain Vignolles, 114 — Yaucluse and Wentworth, 240. w Wyndomel, page 1 — General Wynyard, 10 — The " Wanderer," R.Y.S., 14 —Washing, 48s. a dozen, 29 — Whirlpool Reach, 43 — Jeremiah Ware, 50 — The "Weatherboard" Inn, 50 — Williams, of Erromanga, 52 — W. 0. Wentworth, 56, 209, 240— Wardour street, Soho, 87— James Warner, 95, 142— Wivenhoe, 99 —Walsh, of Degilbo, 102, 125— F. J. C. Wildash, 107— Ernest White, 108— Wyborn, of the " Palermo," 112 — Wm. Henry Wiseman, 114— Waterfall at Tarome, 121— Captain J. C. Wickham, R.N., 123, 140, 160— Joshua Whitting, of Pilton, 130— Watson, of Halliford, 132— Wilson, of Wombo, 146— Taylor Winship, 147— Edward Wrench, 148— John Watts, of Eton Vale, 153— Wm. Wilkes, of the "Courier," 155, 158— Major Walch, of Hobart, 174— "Peg Leg" Wilmot, 174 -A White Heroine, 200— The World's Waterfalls, 225— W. Duckett White, of Beaudesert, 228, 234— General E. W. Ward, R.E., 229 — Wallgett and Narrabri, 240— White Waistcoats, 286 — Wholesale and Retail, 300-" Tulip" Wright, 309-The World's Climates, 311. Y Wm. Yaldwyn, page 128— W. H. Yaldwyn, 229, 223— Sir Henry Young, 66, 267. z H.M.S. "Zebra," page 8— The Zouaves, 16— Zambesi Falls, 225— " Zoe " and "Ben Bolt," 234-Zenia and Diez, 276. ERRATA. Page 28—" Strutted " should be " strolled." Page 121 — " Brunton Stephen's " should be " Stephens's." Page 124—" Life Guards " should be " Horse Guards." Page 163—" They would " should be " would." Page 192—" Couple " should be " a couple." Page 216— " Seringifolia " should be " Syringi/olia." Page 275—" Army " should be " Navy." In sooth she seemed A marv'llous wench : gifted and crowned with youth's Immortal seal of peerless, priceless beauty : Dower magnificent ! — Nor, save once, bestowed On each fair damsel while she walks this earth : And, then, for brief time only. The time was just before sunrise : the scene was one of those delicious " bits " of Australian bush, wattle scented, breeze swept, gemmed with hill and dale, soothed with the sound, and enlivened with the sight, of falling water — a place where the " magpie " and butcher bird warbled in blithe contralto chorus their matin song, and the pale wood smoke curled slowly upwards from the station chimneys. Wyndomel Station was 80 miles from the sea, placed just where the eastern escarpment of the Great Cordillera of the island continent blends with, and merges into, those swelling downs, crowned with rich pastoral herbage, born of volcanic soil, where the grass alone contains all the nutriment of solid ripened grain, and where the sour thin herbage of the sea-board lands is as a thing forgotten. Wyndomel was a fine " run," and, as a former owner said of it, " If the most experienced squatter had imagined and got made to order, a piece of perfect country, his highest soarings might have fallen short of this." There were little undulating open plains, covered with the sweetest grasses (from a cow's point of view), clotted with blue and yellow flowers for miles at a stretch, till it really from the hills did look like a carpet. These plains were separated from one another by small belts of park-like open timber, which formed here and there into jutting promontories of wood, sloping from the low hills out into the open sea of grass and dividing it into bays, as it were; the trees were low and spreading on these clumps on the Downs, and it was only as you ascended into the heart of the Main Range that you came to the deep chocolate coloured soil, and were astonished with the huge, straight trunks of the tall and deeply-rooted old forest giants which grew there : fellows 150 feet high and 10 feet round the butt. 2 THE SISTERS. Delicious clear little brooks and creeks flowed east and west from the great watershed, 'mid pleasant green wattle country on the cloud-melting shoulders of the Great Cordillera, and were all comprised in the property ; for Wyndomel extended to the foot of the Range easterly, and 25 miles from its watershed westerly, where its lowest point was 1,700 feet above the sea ; the house was 2,200 feet, and the main peak easterly, the giant Kunghi, rose to 3,500 feet. Fat and well favoured were the cattle and sheep of the owner of the property, and every cow and ewe which brought forth its young was unconsciously adding to the heritage and wealth of his two girls, with the forms of women and the beauty of children, like most of the better Australiennes. Lucy and Laura were their names, native born ; a Helen of Troy and a fairer Cleopatra of Egypt on their complexions ; blonde and brunette, respectively ; they were girls who could ride, swim, and perform very well at the piano, and very little at billiards and archery. Lucy was a healthy damsel, with matchless teeth, and cheeks in which a delicate, creamy, sunburnt brown faintly overspread the pink and white groundwork of her skin. She was generally known as " Old King Cole " by familiar friends, on account of her unflagging spirits and good temper. Laura had a more spirifoielle look ; dark, lag dreamy eyes, with an attractive half-frightened look in them, and dark as were her hair and eyes there was a freckle or two visible on her fair face ; and wherever nature could plant a dimple, whether on ankle, elbow, wrist, or chin, there it was in all its beauty ; but, with her perfect physique, she was a matter-of-fact girl, intelligent, but not profound, full of health, and natural in manner, and, having little or no sentiment in her composition, was extra dangerous to " spoony " men. I like to be exact in the description of my heroines, so I may at once state that Lucy weighed nine stone, and was five feet three inches. Laura was ten stone, five feet five inches, and each of them was seven times as long as her foot, a proof that they were well proportioned. One striking point about Laura was her beautiful hair. "When "down" it nearly hid her from view ; when " up " it packed into so small a compass that you would have thought how little she had of it. It was that exquisitely fine straight silky hair, which, when stowed away, shows nothing of itself, but leaves the little shapely head to be seen in all its classic beauty — the pretty head of an Artemis, but not of a Minerva, with its unfeminine width at the back, where that useful, but unsightly, " bump " of caution (vouchsafed to a percentage, only, of the sex) " hangs out." COLONIAL EXPERIENCE. 6 There was a son, Walter, older than either of the girls, and who at the time was on a visit to England for the first time in his life. The mother was well dowered, and the father, Mr. Delpard, had been a navy man and seen service before the Crimean war, and the fortune he had received with his wife had enabled him to buy and stock the Wyndomel run. Walter was travelling in Europe in order to obtain that knowledge of the world which adds such keenness to the zest with which an Australian born man, or woman, of the better class, enjoys life ; for, the untravelled denizens of Old England are blind to one-third of its attractions and scope for enjoyment. There was one other resident at the Wyndomel head station, in the person of a young gentleman, only a year out from England. He was the son of one of those iron-nerved Peninsular captains whom the times and the exigencies of the years 1809-1812 appear to have called into action. His father married late in life, and Clement Tyrrell, his only son, and a relative of Mrs. Delpard, had, with some sacrifice, been blessed with a university education. Clement was acquiring what is called " colonial experience," by living at Wyndomel and joining in the station work of all kinds — one of those free gentlemen apprentices who can only in this way learn to become practical squatters. A clue to his character may be obtained from the following incident. There was once a great dinner party at the station, and poor Clement had felt very jealous at the attention bestowed on the fair-haired Lucy (the mistress of all his heart) by some of the wealthy neighbouring young squires, and when he thought of his present poverty, and the years that must elapse ere he could become like one of his rivals, he felt inclined to despair. Better thoughts took possession of him before he slept that night, and he said to himself : " She is not for me ; certainly, not yet ; perhaps never. ' Work ' is to be my sole mistress for many years, and after I have worshipped and served Her to the full, and when she has smiled on me in mind and body, then I may with better grace approach the daughter of Hugh Delpard." But I must hark back a little, and tell my readers how / came to know Wynddniel at all. Well, in the year of grace 1 S4 ( J I was a young nid r«-st]css cockney, with no parents to tie me to England, and with rich relatives settled in Australia. I was weary of walking excursions to Cheshunt on the north, and Chiselhurst on the south ; tired of Hampton Court on the west, and Shcerness and Rochester on the ' ; so I found myself one day in the London Docks eyeing the " Mary Bannatyne " for China,, and the "Hendrick Hudson" for 4 SHIPPING A SEA. New York, with a Robinson Crusoe sort of feeling tugging at my heart, and I got my boxes packed by the deft fingers of pretty cousin Lizzie (long since with the angels, bless her), and shipped me in the " Calcutta " for Hobart with other passengers, Bisdees, Pettingells, and Thomsons on board, bound for Gipps Land, Font Hill Abbey, Jericho, and other classic spots in Tasmania (you must not judge of them by names). The Bay of Biscay was smooth and warm this June, albeit the South Foreland upset our stomachs " a wee." (A drink of salt water, it may here be remarked, is the best cure for mal de mer). Dimly the Lizard had faded from our sight, and the light of Ushant was the last glimmer of Europe seen by us. All went smoothly till we were near the Cape of Storms, and then the tempest of the century came on us. Never, even on the wild coast of Oregon, or oft* the breezy Leeuwin, amidst its towering seas, did I ever see such vast waves ; one before us, one behind us, each a half mile away, and one on each side, bounded all our view of the outside world ; only four waves in sight, but such giants as they were. When becalmed and stationary in the watery hollow, a relentless billow struck us abaft, sent the stern boat into chips, drove the " Calcutta's " whole forecastle bodily into the sea, flooded the decks right up to the rail, and for a moment and more it was a question as to foundering, for " old teak built " was deep wais'-ed, and drew 19 feet of water on a burden of 500 tons only. The water was warm, though in the depth of winter, and it must have come down the Mozambique Channel from hot Zanzibar, and the cross current made this awful sea. But we were not to be drowned that time. The ports were knocked out, and up she rose minus her jibboom, minus her foretopmast and maintop gallant mast, the bow- sprit sprung and the live stock overboard. We concluded to heave to and wait a bit after this hint. What a tale the very sight of a worn out ship can tell to an imaginative mind ! There (say) lies the old " Hebrides," with her vast bows and carved quarter galleries on the North shore of the Thames, below Blackwall, ready to bo broken up. Grand old " hooker " your history is past ! You have lived your life bi'avely out, and have led no passengers or crew to a watery grave ; you never damaged a package of cargo, and your record is a long and a clean one. Poor dead old Indiaman ! Voyage after voyage your ample breadth of beam hath defied alike the levelling hurricane of the Antilles and the fierce cyclone of the Maldives. You, the ship who had borne in the days when 1825 and 1835 were the dates on our almanacs, Governor-Generals' wives- and fair " coveys " of muslin clothed girls to far off India and matrimony. A DIADEM OP SNOW. 5 But to return to the living ship " Calcutta." It is a strange thing — to a reflective mind, and one that takes in the i*ealities of the position — to lind oneself far out at sea, and watch the ever receding frothy wake of the ship. It is not so nice as it looks to be, when you realise that there are 15,000 feet deep of salt water under your feet, thousands of miles of it sideways in every direction, and that the nearest bit of hard land near to you is covered with oozy mud three miles straight downwards. So, it is pleasant to turn from such considerations to the nightly whist, and to see the jovial skipper quaff his punch out of a silver-mounted cocoanut shell, which imparts the same flavour to "grog" as does pewter to beer. The " Calcutta's " passage ended at last, and a few days after we had seen the great masses of kelp afloat off Cape Leeuwin (the south-west point of New Holland) we sniffed the delicious land odours from the south-west Cape of Van Diemen's Land, grateful as a new mown hay field to us brine-wearied voyagers. On, past the " Mewstone," which sits proudly on the water like a lion, and quite eclipsing its older namesake in the English Channel. What a dark looking shore it was ! The olive foliage, so different from the light green of England. But on we sailed by the basaltic pillared capes, and turned up Storm Bay, past the " Iron Pot " Lighthouse, and so on to our anchorage in front of the gorgeous panorama of Hobart Town, glowing, a la Naples, in the sun, and looking like some rich-toned drop scene at the Lyceum in this glorious mid- October. A clean, stone-built, beautifully rising city, but so small after London to my Cockney eyes, as yet innocent of bush solitude. So it was good-bye for a time to Lea bridge and Epping, and the limpid anchorage at Sheerness. But the scene possessed what London did not. The magnificent broad old Mount Wellington as a new background to its scenery, with the snow crowning its table top, and running adown its ravines like a Vandyke collar of white, its summit being 4,200 feet over the beautiful estuary of the Derwent River, on which Hobart is built ; and the wonderful stupendous basaltic " Organ Pipes," 700 feet perpendiculai-, near the top, appearing to support, like pillars, his " diadem of snow." But I had no heart then for scenery. I wanted to see my mother's youngest sister, who had been to me a mother when my own one died years before, and whose marriage to a well-known la-ewer of Sydney had settled her, and for hygienic reasons, at one of iiis numerous malting barley farms at Bagdad, IS miles from Hobart, with another at Ticehurst, near Richmond (V. D. L.) Ashore went I, and <>n to the box of a well-appointed four-horse 6 A " DUDE " SUPPRESSED. coach, which ran then from Hobart to Launceston daily each way,. 122 miles. The first thing which struck me on landing was the old-fashioned look of the people. The women of the middle and lower class were attired in the " rig " of 20 years back. Battered old velveteen poke bonnets, and shabby plaid shawls ; for the " fashions " took a couple of decades in those days to reach all the classes in Australia. Van Diemen's Land was the last place on earth where the real old English four-horse stage coach survived in its full business glory of basket, blunderbuss, bugle horn, boot, guard, red panels and all, and it travelled, also, over the finest road in the world, macadamized for 122 miles, arched in the centre and drained at the sides, equal to Oxford or Regent street in " traversability," and all the work of unpaid convicts ; and so beautifully graded that its highest point, "Spring Hill," 2,200 feet, was passed both up and down at full ten-mile trot by the splendid coach horses all the year round. It was only the glorious view from the highest part of the road that let you into the secret that you had got to the summit of a mountain range at all. Rival coach proprietors, Page and Hyrons, were employed at the time in sinking £10,000 apiece trying to run each other off the road, and they took passengers the full 122 miles from Hobart Town to Launceston for five shillings, with the finest coaches, horses, and drivers in the wide world. I arrived at Bagdad, and was tearfully welcomed by the aunt I had last seen early in 1843 at Upper Clapton, and " so like your poor mother " was my first greeting in Australia. I was then introduced to her husband and a visitor, Captain George Harrison, R.K., who, with Captain Wickham, of Brisbane, did much marine surveying about the Straits of Magelhan and Northern Australia in the early part of the century. I mention Harrison in order to bring in a story he told us. He was once much persecuted by the vapourings of a " dude " of the period at the Club. A wearisome creature, who decried all Austi-alia, and vowed there was not a building in the country to be compared with his friend Lord Mythman's stables, and so forth. "You are quite right" said Harrison at last to him ; " it is a beastly country this, and as soon as my time is up I'm off out of it. You know, of course, that I got seven years in London for pocket-picking, and it will be over in another 18 months." What the "masher" of 1848 thought will never be known. His face was a study, and no matter whether he realized the hoax, or believed the tale, Harrison got his wish, and was troubled with no more boredom from that quarter. I found myself in a new world at Bagdad. The trees were laden GUESTS AT BAGDAD. i with lovely parrots and parroquets, then worth a guinea apiece in London, but as common as larks or sparrows here. There was a hawthorn hedge round the garden, and huge sweetbriar trees growing wild by the road side and big haystacks in the farm yard ; but the house was quite a gentleman's seat, with beagles in the yard and hunters in the stable. My bedroom was a novelty to me, panelled with sweet-scented woods, never seen in England. The toilet service (from Canton) was scenic china on a foundation of sheet copper. When morning came the breakfast surprised me. Never before had I seen such tiny "merino" mutton chops, and sardines (then a new luxury in London) were here too. But all was not "skittles and beer," for cooks "did not grow on trees" in Van Diemen's Land in '-49, and the pie crust was " adamantine." I had brought with me in the " Calcutta " a renovating supply of glass and china in huge hogsheads from Spode and Copeland, at Lambeth, for my aunt, as convict servants were great as smashers of crockery, and though she often lured the steward, or cabin boy, of some English packet ship to take service at Bagdad as footman or "buttons," still, as a rule, the colonial "prisoner" article had to be fallen back on ; and all the farm hands, except the overseer, were of that class. But, despite all drawback, life was pleasant in Tasmania then, and the society, like the roads, was the best in Australia, and plenty of it did I meet in the old house at Bagdad. Amongst the elderly was the widow of Commissary Laidley, of Sydney, in 1829. Amongst the young was a midshipman of the frigate " Havannah," then lying at Hobart, the Hon. Mr. Ashley (son of the philanthropic Earl of Shaftesbury, who, unlike some Earls, laboured for and loved his fellow creatures for two-thirds of a century), and who now, I believe, is the Earl himself; Major Tylee, R.E., and others ; but it was all the same wherever you went in Van Diemen's Land. Nice houses, some with marble pillars in the hall, like Cox's at " Clarendon ;" carriages, some with postillions on the horses (as Mrs. Dunn, at Hobart, had) ; and the backbone of society composed of retired army, navy, and commissariat men and their families, than whom no better colonists can be wished for. And it is just as good, too, in the north of the island, and around W'stlmry could be found families that vied with those about New Norfolk, in the south, in all that tended to hospitality, social happiness, and refinement. Victoria at this time was chiefly settled by emigrants from Tasmania, w h .k<; original flocks of 200 each had increased t>> 20,000, and more, apiece, and who were now full blown "squatters." Ne^ 8 DEATH ON MOUNT WELLINGTON. South Wales was wealthy, but still struggling with the old Botany Bay legacies, and their inevitable train. South Australia, save for the " Burra Burra," was yet in the infancy of her copper and wheat achievements ; while Queensland and New Zealand were in their babyhood also. By way of bracing myself for a colonial life, I made, with Dr. W. L. Crowther, of Hobart, the perilous ascent of Mount Wellington. I say " perilous," for, some time previously two mid- shipmen of the "Zebra," man-of-war, had gone up. One was never again seen or heard of, and the other was found, a week later, raving mad from terror and privation, through being lost in the dense bush. He turned up at a small settlement, seven miles from the mountain, but could give no account of his later wanderings. However, this did not deter us. We started before daylight from Dr. Crowther's house and his cherry garden, and here a word or two as to the climate of Yan Diemen's Land at Hobart Town. It resembles that of France more than that of England, though at mid-summer and at mid-winter it corresponds exactly with that of London. But where the difference exists is, that the spring comes on six w r eeks earlier than it does in London. The autumn is longer and the winter shorter than in Middlesex. The English potatoes we brought from the Thames in the " Calcutta " had perished by the time we had been six weeks at sea, while those brought home from Hobart on the voyage before ours lasted us good all the way out again. Such is the vitalising effect of virgin soil. Well, to resume. Dr. Crowther and I, armed with some sandwiches and a flask of brandy (of which more anon), began our ascent in the small hours before the dawn. Passing Degraves's brewery, we toiled up past the sassafras bushes to the Fern Tree Gully, fully 2,500 feet, where we concluded to breakfast ; but, upon uncorking the brandy, we found it had been put in a bottle that once held turpentine. Anathemas ! and then, happy thought ! we handed the bottle over to a poor man, clothed in the yellow and black harlequin suit which marks the lowest grade of convict, and who was picking and shovelling a better road up the mountain, and as he had never tasted spirits for ten years at least, he did not object to the " turps " as long as there was some brandy in it, and so the worthy medico and I determined to breast the hill on cold water alone. On we went, and up we went- — we were 2,500 feet high by 8 a.m. — and arrived at the " Ploughed Ground " in due course. This is a risky plain, quite covered with huge boulders, rounded, and some of them rs.b-^ A DREAD WILDERNESS. 9 '20 feet in diameter, and you have to leap from one to another, and any slip between them would bury you out of sight, like an ant in a bag of marbles. Luckily they are not slippery, so we got over them all right, and by 11 a.m. we were on the summit of Mount Wellington, alongside of Lady Franklin's "cairn," and 4,196 feet over Storm Bay. The view from the top of a high mountain is, to me, disappointing ; it is always far more picturesque half way up ; everything is below you and merged into one level. There was the giant " Dromedary " (the height of Helvellyn and Skiddaw) out by my aunt's place at Bagdad, and near Glenorchy, and it looked like a black spot below us, the said spot being the summit centre ; the " Dromedary " and Derwent are like Helvellyn and Thirlmere. Below us was Hobart Town ; the streets like a map ; the ships like emmets ; the " Iron Pot " Lighthouse, on its long, low, narrow, sandy islet, looked like a man sitting up in a wager boat. I was very tired with the climb, and would have given much for a glass of sherry, but I had to be contented with some melted snow water, pellucid and prismatic as the' liquid shown at a filter seller's shop in the Strand of London. The snow, where drifted against a rock, was in large crystals, like the squares in coarse salt. Away to the north and west of us stretched the endless tiers and ranges which lead to the " Frenchman's Cap," a crooked peak of 4,850 feet, and out beyond it to that dismal wilderness where nineteen escaped convicts and twenty-seven soldiers, who went in pursuit of them, were, it is said, swallowed up alike, and seen no more by mortal men. But the story of convicts and bushrangers is an old and oft told one, and I am not going to inflict it here. The doctor and I, having seen all that was to be seen from the top of the mountain, and having finished the sandwiches, began the descent by a more direct cut through the forest than the easier graded one we had ascended by, and here our troubles began. A mountain mist gathered and rain began to fall, and our way became uncertain. It was a fearful forest to struggle through, full of deep pits and fallen timber of enormous size. If you found a forest monarch, 150 feet long by six feet thick, lying prone, and barring your path, it would never do to waste time walking round him, but over him you had to climb, and perhaps to fall into a deep hole on the far side, clutching atcoarse blady grass as you descend, grass which cut your hands like a knife would. Never in my life before, or since, did I perform so man)' gymnastic feats in tin; same space of time. Now a passage through dense underwood would tear my clothes, for I had to press on and keep in sight of the doctor, who had been up -Mount 10 GENERAL WYNYARD. Wellington often before and was pioneering in front of me. Once I passed a huge lump of flesh in the bush. Was it a bit of the " Zebra's " midshipman, or only part of a kangaroo 1 Quien Sabe ? Es muerto, whoever he was, and I had no time to stop, or even think, in that mad hurried descent of the awful south slope of " the Wellington." Let me draw a veil over the whole scene, which lasted from 11-30 a.m. to 7 - 30 p.m. on that long midsummer day of December, 1849. By the time we were clear of the mountain (for in the mist and rain we had travelled twice the needed distance) my new Wellington boots had turned their heels right up, and the little nails were looking me in the face. My trousers wei'e tied, the tops to the bottoms, with pieces of string (torn asunder by the thickets at mid-thigh) ; the dye from my black vest was transferred to my skin in dark purple. I was so utterly unpresentable for the streets, that we had to send for and take a cab into the town, and here ended my first mountain climb in Australia, a matter of seventeen hours hard tramping and acrobatic work, without a rest or adequate sustenance. Dr. Crowther once took his mother up with a party, and they got into much the same trouble in descending that we did, and it was only with the aid of the powerful stimulant, opium, which he fortunately had with him, that the good old lady found strength to pull through the ordeal. There was, at the time I write of, no " opening for a young man " in Yan Diemen's Land. The country was all parcelled out, and still is, amongst the great families of the island, and those who wanted to "expand" had to go further afield. My ever kind uncle and Dr. Crowther were at that time fitting out a ship — the "Eudora," Captain Gourlay — for California, laden with timber, houses, and shop fronts, onions, and potatoes, all so saleable in the then new El Dorado, where onions had been 4s., and potatoes Is., a lit., and they offei-ed me the post of super-cargo, which I joyfully accepted, and before I bid adieu for a while to the south, let me give a proof of the surpassing excellence of the roads and coaches of Van Diemen's Land in those days. One day I went across from Hobart to Launceston, 122 miles. We had General Wynyard and his daughter as passengers, and Frost, the coachman, was so pleased with his aristocratic freight that he kept the nags going, and put us through the journey in ten hours, including all stoppages to change horses and the mid-day meal at the Oatlands Hotel. This was " travelling," as all must admit, and over high mountains as well for part of the road (as before described). REGATTA AT HOBART. II I, of course, went to see the Hobart Town Anniversary Regatta of December, 1849. Dr. Crowther and I were moored where we could see everything. The whale-boat race was most interesting. The boats gaily painted, and with the " nose " at each end of them, always of a different colour from the middle, and every competing boat with its five 18 feet oars, and its 30 feet steer oar, had to carry harpoons, lances, lines, «fec, clown to the very last item, as if really after a whale in mid-ocean ; or, it was disqualified. Geo. Chase's crew, in the " Aborigine," used to win frequently ; the " Traveller " also, was a good boat. But, in one regatta, Sydney sent a crew of its champion scullers — men like Green and Mulhall, Punch and M'Grath — and pulled it off from Chase and Company. It mattered not that they were not all bond fide whalers, so long as they carried the lances, harpoons, etc. The ferry-boat race was a good one also. Little fore and aft schooners of 15 tons burden used to ply between Hobart Town and Kangaroo Point, across the harbour, in those days, and a race was always made up for them at each regatta. A few words here as to the hotel at Oatlands, on the centre of the island. No part of Australia exactly resembles England ; the differences force themselves on your notice wherever you go ; but if a man would draw down the blinds, and refrain from looking out of the window at the scenery, grandeur, and gloom of the Table Mountain over Bothwell, he might, for once, fancy himself " at home " in the old country while dining at the " Royal Hotel," Oatlands, Tasmania, in 1849. The old-fashioned green woollen embroidered dinner mats, with knives and forks to match ; the funny old hunting pictures on the walls of the room ; the quaint sideboard, with its out-of-date appliances, in the shape of bygone electro-plated ware : the very English-smelling roast goose and rhubarb pie ; the " Cascade " di-aught ale, brewed at Hobart, would all combine to make one think of the far away fishing and other dear old inns of the motherland, with her beechen glades and her trout brooks, unknown in Australia. And now, at length, behold me fairly embarked on board the- "Eudora," Captain Gourlay, for San Francisco, with my bills of lading securely fastened in the inner recesses of a pocket book. The good ship heeled over to the breeze as we slipped down Storm Bay, and, shortly, only the snow on Mt. Wellington could be seen from our decks. I pass over the sorrowful parting from my kind, fond aunt, who did not want me (at nineteen) to risk the dangers of early California any more than her loving mother in England wished me (her sole comfort) to go to Australia, even to her 12 TROPIC THIRST. daughter ; but young men are hard hearted when unknown lands and adventures lie temptingly before them ; and I never realised, till I grew older myself, the wrench to other hearts which I was the cause of, and so it will be, I suppose, to the end of the chapter. I was fearfully sea sick all the way to New Zealand, and a packet of musk in my cabin (which was the larboard stern one) made me still worse. We were off the " Traps and Snares," the southern point of New Zealand on New Year's Eve, '49-50, and coming on deck about II p.m. in the clear full summer moonlight, I was surprised by an unwonted sight. Some exemplary Scotch people, whom I never before, nor since, caught forgetting themselves, were employed in a sort of free skirmish all over the decks, cuffing and wrestling with hearty good will. Crew and passengers, some, but not all, were involved in the fray, while an English sailor, John Mayfield, held the wheel, calmly steering over the smooth, moonlit sea, looking on with supreme indifference at revels into whose spirit he could not enter, not being Scotch. Now, for myself, English as I am, I revere the Caledonian character, with its ingrained self-respect and plodding, self-denying perseverance (not to continue the catalogue of good qualities), and I fairly worship Scotch music, reels and plaintive airs alike, and never fail to lift my hat to the world- uniting hymn of " Auld Lang Syne " as I would to "God Save the Queen ;" but, for the life of me, I never yet could make out why Scotchmen should go mad and cease to be themselves on New Year's Eve. We had intended to touch, and till up with water, at New Zealand, but deceived (like the captain of St. Paul's ship) by a spanking fair wind, we held on past it for Tahiti, and were, soon after, caught in the repellent embraces of Euroclydon, a ceaseless north-easter, and with 80 souls (crew, cabin, and steerage) on board, we were soon on the famine allowance of a pint and a-half of fresh water each per diem for all hands, fore and aft, served out at 9 a.m. on the poop by the steward, to do what we liked with it, and this, in January and February in the southern tropic, is a matter which must be endured in order to be realised. Salt water soap allowed us to bathe still, but as for soup and tea, and the like, they " ceased ;" the cook would have boiled it all away. We had •champagne, claret, and bottled beer, all useless for thirst, and it was melancholy for us at midnight to hear through the saloon bulkheads the thirsty babes and children talk in their sleep and murmur " Drint o' yorter, Ma." My plan was to mix a little lime juice and sherry with the water, and drink once only in the 24 hours, and then out of a bottle. Nobody died ; some suffered and some did EIMEO PEAKS. 13 not ; I was amongst the latter. I am very patient of thirst, and I never even carried a pannikin in my thousands of miles of solitary bush rides in Queensland summer time, but if some of us young fellows had not " subscribed " a daily gill apiece out of our scanty allowance to aid the " hot coppers " of the confirmed old " pawnee " drinkers on board, some of them might have gone under. We were kept at sea, baffled by this wind, till we got down to ten inches of water in the last tank — which, all must admit, was rather a " tight fit " for 80 people in such hot weather — when we sailed into the fairy bay of Papiete, on Otaheite. What a jump ! From Regent street to Otaheite, and bread fruit. The day before this, I had climbed to the top-gallant yard to view the conical spiky peaks of the island of Eimeo, and, when I came down, my example was followed by young Wales, the son of the Police Magistrate at Morven, Van Diemen's Land, and two of the sailors (not liking this intrusion on their domain) followed him up the rigging with rope yarns round their necks, wherewith to bind (till he paid a forfeit) this too-aspiring youth; but he was "clear grit," for, coolly waiting till "Johnny Flatfoot " was within a few inches of him, Wales slid like lightning down the top-gallant backstay to the deck, ruining his " pants " with tar and " barking " his palms a bit, but triumphant as a native Australian " Hamilton Tighe," should be, and leaving his would-be captors lamenting, and laughed at by all hands. The boy had " been to sea " before. Tahiti has the full tropical beauty of Ceylon multiplied by three, with the per contra tiger and cobra business totally eliminated. The harbour of Papiete is a semi-circular bay, like a bow, the string of which is a coral reef with one opening in it, enclosing a harbour smooth as the Docks of London. I now found myself in an atmosphere and temperature like unto the palm house at Kew, or Loddige's hot house at Hackney, with the odour of guavas and oranges hanging about. Otaheite was pronounced a thorough " success " by all hands, fore and aft, in the " Eudora." A pretty island, with a tiny palace on it, adorned the centre of the harbour, and Papiete was not half the dull place one would have looked to find, 40 years ago, in a remote Pacific island. The French had taken Tahiti by force from the natives. There had been a fight on a large scale, and under a lofty monument, duly inscribed, reposed a number of the officers and men of the " Uranie " frigate who had fallen in the conflict, quite as disastrous as a subsequent German loss at .Samoa. The middle-aged queen, called by the family and titular name of " Pomare," had a 14 QUEEN EMMA. husband much younger and handsomer than herself. The men are handsome in those islands, for when I came down the day before from the " Eudora's " cross-trees we were boarded by young men in an outrigger canoe from Eimeo, who, as they sat on our bulwarks, showed the profiles and heads of Antinous and Achilles, with an air of unconscious and unpretentious dignity and manners only to be met with in the higher class of European youths. They bartered with us their beautiful mother-of-pearl fish hooks for any trifle we could spare, and their noble heads, bound with fillet and a feather, disappeared over the side as we sailed onwards for Tahiti, whose queen was distinguished by a black satin cassock. She was about 40, and her aquiline husband 30 years of age. The small-eared beautiful girls of Tahiti wore cassocks also, but made of gaily coloured cotton prints only, and with a flower in each ear for a pendant, and some sweet-scented native flower oil on their long straight black hair. Never walking far, never carrying burdens ; always swimming, or canoeing, they had diminutive hands and feet to match. Not so, however, with some old chiefs, who were pointed out to me as having remembered Captain Cook's visit, 70 years before, in their early childhood, and their white heads, and their legs and feet swollen to the size and shape of a log of wood with elej)Jiantiasis, certainly gave them, as they sat in a row, an air of great antiquity. They appear to be a longer lived race than the Sandwich islanders, as well as far handsomer. The kings of HaAvaii follow each other in quick succession, as well as the queens. I met one of the latter, once Miss Emma Rooke, a slender creole-looking half-caste girl of 14, later in 1850. I sold to her father, Dr. Rooke, of Honolulu, a frame house, ex " Eudora," and on my calling to collect the doubloons, she officiated for him, as he was out. She was a grand-daughter of John Young, one of the companions of Vancouver, and she married the fourth Kamehameha, and she became the plump and popular Queen Emma, who was made so much of by Queen Victoria in England in 1865-66, and who deserved it, for she went home to beg for the missionaries. She had the same lai'ge, kindly, luminous, half-sad, half-winning eyes when I saw her as a girl, and all through life, and she died untimely in 1885, the death of their only child having killed her husband with grief many years before. But I am digressing, and forgetting that I am at Tahiti at present, and not yet at Honolulu. I met at Papiete the yacht " Wanderer ,' of the R.Y.S., in charge of her owner, Ben Boyd, Esq., of Twofold Bay, New South Wales. She was a pretty and luxurious vessel, with a richly furnished cabin that extended nearly her whole length, and full of BEN BOYD AT TAHITI. 15 skins and garnered curiosities from all parts, to say nothing of piano, bookshelves, and sofas. On deck, amidships, was a long smart-looking brass 18-pounder. I had some earnest talk with Mr. Boyd, who had just come down from the North Pacific, and was on his way back to New South "Wales, which, by the way, he never reached, for he was murdered soon after, en route, by the savages at Guadalcanal-, Solomon Islands, and I was one of the last white men who saw him alive. He told me it would be useless for me to take my Tasmanian hardwood timber to glutted San Francisco ; that the Yankees would not use it for firewood even ; that they had not a tool amongst them that would touch any but the Huon pine which I had with me also (a more beautiful wood than bird's eye maple), and that I had better call in and sell out at Honolulu, where a good and virgin market existed, and I took his advice. Tahiti was anything but dull at this time. The French military bands, and those of the men-of-war, rendered evening music on the beach, such as neither the Melbourne, nor the Sydney, of those days could match with their regimental bands. The massive foreyard of the " Sybille " frigate, like a fallen gum tree, lay on the shore where it had been floated for repairs. A well-kept, tropical- thatched French hotel on the beach dispensed glorious claret with a divine rough bouquet, and one drank it rapturously out of coffee cups, or whatever came handy ; it needed no coddling in any shaped glass. They had a cunning method, too, of frying tomatos in eschalots and vinegai-, and could work up bananas into all sorts of artful pastry, for the Frenchman's mission is to cook, the Briton's is to eat, ask no questions, and be thankful. The thin, pale, sour, bottled ale from Paisley was execrable, though the jmrfait amour and other liqueurs were quite up to the mark for a Polynesian island far from civilization ; but I am free to confess that, while at Chilian posnda, or East Polynesian hotel, one misses the dear old malt and hops, for which the aguardiente and the red, yellow, and green liqueurs are no earthly substitute. A " wag " amongst our passengers vowed that the Tahitians must be of Irish extraction, for their form of salutation was invariably, Yure 'anner ;" and, joking apart, there are in some Pacific Islands certain rites observed, analagous to those enjoined by the Mosaic law. Query 1 ? How did they travel from Mesopotamia to Poly- nesia? or were they originated in the latter place? Quien sabel We passengers of the " Eudora" got a noble dinner served up to us in that hotel n, la, Francais. Queen Pomare's 70 feet carved canoe w;is sheltered from the sun under a thatch roof on a bed of bamboo << 16 AN ISLAND PARADISE. leaves, and it was here that, for the first time in my life, I heard the romantic hum of the tropic mosquito, a cousin of the gnats and midges of the dear old Essex lanes. It was an ^Eolian harp-like sound, that suggested ideas of verandah courtship by starlight, the glass at 80°, what time the land breeze would cut oft" the head of every roller, that, day and night, ceaselessly moaned and beat on the guardian coral reef of enchanted Tahiti, and would blow the top spray out to sea again. We had to stop several days here in order to get in all the water we required for 80 people, with the primitive local appliances, so an excursion was planned for three of us — namely, Wales, myself, and Turner (a surveyor, who afterwards settled at Oahu), to ascend to the mountain stronghold of the island,. the last defence from which the natives had been driven, and only then because they deemed it inaccessible, and therefore impregnable, and not necessary to be guarded. But they had, alas ! to deal with that active Zouave breed of biped cats, who, six years later, scaled the " Malakhoff " at Sebastopol and dropped inside, a veritable Niagara of 30,000 irrepressible red breeches ; and the Tahiti warriors (who had never heard of such things as ladders) found the enemy, armed to the teeth, suddenly in the midst of their garrison, and all was over. It was to this mountain fastness, nearly 4,000 feet above the sea, that we started to climb. Five times we had to cross a beautiful little crystal river, 80 feet wide and three feet deep, and didn't I get a fine sore throat next day from the wetting ; but our doctor (a brother of Eusebius Lloyd, of St. Bartholomew's,. London) soon sent it "flying " with a gargle of dilute sulphuric acid. Lovely was the scenery, and fertile the soil, as we began and continued the ascent. Cones of rock, 1,000 feet high, rich in lichens, and veiled with flowering creepers, towered by the side of our route. The wild ginger threw out its gnarled tubers under our feet. Grand timber trees, solid and hard as teak or ebony, made up the forest, in company with the bread fruit, guava (which scented the air), " mammee " apples, papaws, oranges, limes, lemons, bananas, &c. It will be noted that, unlike the forest of Australia, nearly everything that grew here was food of some sort, and it, with the easily caught fish and pigs of the country, made up a bill of fare, which caused anything like hunting, or hard labour, to be as out of fashion and uncalled for, as hunger, thirst, and want, were. Amongst the foods of Polynesia I must not forget to mention " po-i " (two syllables, please), a kind of blue arrowroot, made up by pounding, after cooking, the " taro," a glutinous blue and turnip - looking sort of bulb (an alocasia or caladium, I think). It becomes as o S u El E-i O CO a: < m o O H O ►J W O THE TROPIC BIRD. 17 thick and as sticky as treacle, and is eaten in much the same manner as the Italians use with macaroni. Each person dips his finger in the dish, winds it round two or three times, and drops the food into his mouth, dipping his fingers into clean water between each raid on the dough. We were made heartily welcome by the Gallic Lieutenant and his company of soldiers, who kept the " Pah Fattawah " as the fastness was called, and some excellent cognac, with pure cascade water, made Turner and me recollect our French and find out all the history of the capture of the place, which happened as before described. Full in view of the officers' quarters was the loveliest waterfall imaginable ; not a broken one, or in a mountain gully hidden by underwood, and only visible here and there, but a sheer fall of 700 feet over a clean perpendicular wide wall of rock, and, poised high in the air above it, hovered, clear cut against the sky, a solitary beautiful tropic bird, with one long coloured feather in its tail, the feather from which, the priceless state cloak of the kings of Hawaii has now been 200 years a-making, at the rate of one bird one feather, and no more. This wall of rock bounded our view in that direction, and the tumbling water became mere mist and spray ere it reached the foot of the fall. But it was a sight never to be forgotten, and we dwelt on it as long as we could, compatible with the necessity for being back in " town" before gunfire, and onboard our ship again, for matters were strict and martial law was not go back t" the ship again, as she was standing on and of!, and waiting for us ; hut 22 FIGHTING THE SURF. the tide had fallen greatly since we landed, and we had to face the rollers, for, when the sea receded from the edge of the perpendicular red reef, a fearsome gulf yawned between, and when it returned, towering and curling 30 feet high, ere it broke, it gave one a lively idea of the fate of being caught in a small boat down between the high wall of red rock on one side and the high wall of green water on the other. It was totally different from the gentle, easy break at high tide, and very dissimilar was the rush and roar of the terrific roller that came to cover the dripping, bright red, scarp, once more, especially to those in an unsuitable boat like ours. It would have tried the mettle of the best manned surf canoe, or whale boat, that ever floated, to have emitted this place at low tide, even with the powerful lever of a 30-foot steer oar, and the fate of our squat, square-built,, deep-laden dingy may be foreshadowed, when we came to face " this little lot." Out we went, bravely facing it on the top of the highest wave, but, ere we could get any " offing," down sunk the water, leaving us like a boat deep in a Thames lock, but with somewhat more lively surroundings, and, before we knew what was the matter, we broached to with broadside to shore, were just lifted clear of the awful wall of scarlet rock, but we shipped a sea that filled us. We got out and waded the boat into shallow water and baled her out. I could not swim and did not like the outlook much. Some took off their ti'ousers, and some their coats, ere we made the second attempt, and they evidently thought they might have to swim for it. I took none of my clothes oft ; it was all the same to me. We went out again on the top of a receding wave, and might, I think, this time have got off, straining might and main, had not one of the four oars broken. This stopped our way and gave us a second cant round, and broach to, and fill up to the gunwale. Guns and pistols and powder were flooded, and the tide was falling all the while, and, by the time we had again baled her dry, the outlook, where reef and sea alternately met and parted, was something terrible. Coats, hats, and trousers had already floated away, and at it we went, once more, like bull-dog Britons. Wider and deeper yawned the seething gulf between the red bastion and the sea as the latter retired, and to break through it now seemed a foolhardy attempt ; but we made it, none the less. I sat in the " nose " of the boat and had a fearful view of the red coral edge behind, and the green water wall in front of us. Old ocean seemed fairly angry with us, at last, for thus doggedly challenging and tempting him so- often, and, this time, the towering return wave fairly lifted us on end, nose up in the air, on the, all but perpendicular, side of the CAROLINE ISLAND. 23 incoming billow, and pitched the ten of us right out, like a sack of coals, pell mell on the top of each other, into the water, on the reef, luckily, and not outside. The boat, thus freed, righted herself as she turned over and bumped a big hole in her planks this time, on a boulder of coral. I was thrown on the top of Wales, who was swimming well on his back, and he kept me up till the water again receded, for, as I said, we had providentially been thrown on to the reef again. Once more we waded the boat — to whose gunwale we all hung, as the next wave lifted us olf our feet — on shore, to the beach this time, for she needed a carpenter ere she could carry passengers again. Any one who would like to picture the scene and tumult, where reef and ocean met at low tide here, can get a faint idea of it by looking at the first engraving in London "Punch" of 1892. Damages sustained were, three oars gone out of four, one man (Mr. Irwin) had lost boots and trousers (he had a wife and pretty daughter on board, who married one of the firm of Crabb and Spalding, of Honolulu) ; three of us had lost hats and coats. I lost my manilla hat, and one man lost his watch as well. The ship was close in at the time, and we spread ourselves out on the beach in a row, 30 feet apart, just to show those in the ship that we were all there, and no one lost. All our guns and powder were, of course, soaked, and, having swallowed a quantity of salt water in the surf, we were all most horribly thirsty. My sculling experiences on the placid Lea, amongst fat bream, chub, and barbel, under the pollard willows, had never prepared me for this experience. The bootless and trouserless unfortunate had a "high old time" of it, all night, with the attentive land crabs, who tried to eat him. The Rotumah man rubbed sticks together, made a tire, and we ate roasted turtles' eggs, and sucked birds' eggs, raw ; but it would not do ; thirst reigned supreme, and I wished myself in the lowest Whitechapel tap-room in London, within reach of ginger beer, or the claret cup of Blackwall, rather than on Caroline Island, an "atoll " in the South Pacific Ocean. The humblest drink would have been "accepted at sight;" but it was no use wishing; there I was ; I could see no chance of getting off again, and I wondered what Mr. Tooth and Dr. Crowther would say re my "gallivanting" on coral islands, whilst in responsible charge of timber, &c, on the " Eudora," and I was a sad and sorrowful London youth of 19 summers all that night on the coral isle, you bet. I couldn't see where the joke came in at all, or " the sweet sit ata of a summer day, the tropic afternoon of Tooboonai " cither. Then, as to the sleeping arrangements, some of us preferred the soft sand for a bed, and " chance " the hind crabs, while I chose the bard 24 A FLAG OF TRUCE. planks of the broken boat, with the " crustaceans " left out of the programme. No one slept much (mosquitoes, to wit), and, early in the morning I took a stroll along the beach with " Rotumah Tom," whose experienced eye saw a spot on the beach, above high water mark, where he scooped a hole, which filled up with milky-looking, but fresh water, some of which I drank, sparingly, out of a shell — it was not the stuff which an Indian staff surgeon, who understood troops and dysentery, would prescribe in large quantities — and then I went for a bathe with John Guthrie (owner of the " Eudora ") in the shallow beach sea, amongst a lot of small seven-foot sharks, who took no notice of us, not being able to get below us ; and, then, who should we see but Captain Gourlay, who had come ashore in the whale-boat with two hands, but had brought, alas ! no " grub " with him. We upbraided him, but he replied that he came to scold us for stopping ashore and detaining the ship, he not being aware of our misfortune and dilemma, till we showed him the stove and broken boat, and, while we talked to him, we all became conscious of a white flag, and three men, coming towards us from the eastern point of the island, we being on the south side of it. Here was a new trouble. Savages, perhaps, or treacherous pirates, and not a gun, or pistol, amongst us, that would go off, but all saturated. However, I said, we need not let them know that, so I tied a red handkerchief round my hatless head, put two pistols in my belt (Wales had my African rifle), and off we 13 marched to meet the "enemy," in the persons of the three new-comers, who might, for all we knew, be the heralds of 300 more, ugly customers. When we came up with them, we found one to be a striking Robinson Crusoe looking figure of a man, with long grizzly beard, wrinkled skin, burnt to leather colour with the sun ; his garments in the last stage of dilapidation, and only held together with pieces of twine. Such a costume was never imagined, or made up, even at a theatre. The other two were handsome native " boys " from the neighbouring group of " Chain " Islands. He explained to us that the island was a ring of coral, five miles across in the central lagoon, and half-a-mile " thick ;" that he had a splendid cocoa-nut plantation on the opposite side to where we were ; that his name was John Lewis ; that he was an American sailor, left there, by the Tahitian firm of Lewsett and Colley, to make cocoa-nut oil, for which they sent a schooner once a year, with a fresh supply, for him, of rum, tobacco, tea, biscuits, sugai', canvas, needles and thread, with 30 dollars a month for wages. He liked the life, and, it need hardly be said, was saving GIANT CLAM SHELLS. 25 money at it. He had plenty of pigs, and fish wei*e abundant. He had a fresh water cistern in the coral rock at the plantation. He and the two boys each had a girl "wife,'' the youngest and prettiest, with long eyelashes, voluptuous form, black eyes, full of sub-latent amber fire (I never saw such glorious eyes), and feet barely a span long, a coy, jolly girl, and veritable " Maitai whahini," was our Yankee friend's Sultana, and " sweet sixteen " (sly old dog, Lewis) ; while two soberer looking, but splendid, damsels, belonged to the boys, with finer eyes, but not finer forms, than the Tahiti girls. It was told us that there was a smooth water break in the coral reef on the side where he lived (the coral insect, somehow, always leaves one opening, at least, in every reef). The captain was recommended to go off in his whale-boat and bring the ship round to the other side of the island. Two sailors were to walk the broken boat in shallow water round the beach to Lewis's place, and the rest of us were to wade across the lagoon in a " bee line " to the same haven of rest. Lewis and his boys piloted us through the mangroves and across the lagoon. I may here remark that I registered a vow on Caroline Island which I religiously kept for a time, and it was to the effect that never again, so long as I lived, would I go ashore at any place again, unless there were a civilized wharf, quay, or licensed watermen's skiffs and steps, or some such properly constituted landing place there. And now, we will follow Lewis and his " boys " across the half- mile mangrove belt and the salt water lagoon, five miles wide and three feet deep, on a coral bottom. Lovely shells of the cone variety, purple and pink, were plentiful. The coral was snow white, and of all shapes ; some like stags' horns ; some like a coachman's wig ; some like a porcupine ; some like knife blades ; and some like a salad lettuce in shape ; and huge " clams," 400 lb. in weight, like those on the Queensland barrier reef, lay under the water, open mouthed, and able and ready to snap off' any human leg that came within their gigantic oyster jaws. Beautiful little ones of the same class (Tridacna) were there also, with their neatly toothed bivalve edges. Fine ornaments would a pair of these giant clam shells make for a West End, London, oyster shop, and like the GOO lb. clam from a "Key" in the West Indies, which used to figure al .Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, even as tusks of the elephant do at a cutler's shop. But Londoners would stare if the champion clam of th<- planet, could be taken thither to grace a garden, or fish shop. Hi; lives and holds his eourt, on an island in Torres' Straits, and 26 BLACK AMBER EYES. weighs half a ton. But no one cares to disturb him. The weight of his " oyster " can only be guessed at, but a good ordinary sized Queensland one has an oyster of many pounds weight on it. It was now that two of the pai'ty began to feel uneasy. One was poor Mr. Irwin, who, bootless and breechless, found the sun scorch his legs, and the coral cut his feet ; while I, the only one of the party with high boots on, found the weight of water lifted at each step in the tops of them (fully 40 tons lifted in that five miles) a terrific burden, but I dared not face the coral barefoot. Yet, the water weight seemed to drag my legs off, ere I had gone one mile out of the awful five, and it was in February, and 9° south latitude, too. Talk about thirst ! Even / felt it. But all things mundane come to an end, and so did our long wade through this pretty, but wearisome, lagoon of clear sea water, with all those handsome, but sharp, cutting things at the bottom of it. The welcome cocoa-nut grove hove in sight, and big " drinks " all round, became an assured and delightful fact. Rotumah Tom and the two " Chain " boys were soon up the slender hard trunks of the graceful nodding trees, and down came a shower of green nuts. I drank the milk of seven of them, before I felt my thirst relieved, and, here, let me remark that the pure, sweet, milk of a green nut varies considerably from the rancid oil of the maturely ripe one, as seen in London and Melbourne. Our friend, Jack Lewis, soon put a small pig to death, and baked it in hot stones under ground ; but it was not half so nice as the dew and parrot fish, fried in lard. Hunger and thirst had vanished, and we were introduced to the three ladies before described. Their eyes and lashes were a caution. If fire could be black it would depict those eyes, deepened till the amber tint merged into coal almost. The men's eyes were good, but without the female wealth of eyelash. In order to properly imagine the eye colour of these girls, you must picture to yourself a clear- amber, deepening into darker shades by successive degrees, till it threatens at last to merge into pure black, but arrested just before the beautiful brown lustre disappears. Our skipper, who had brought the ship round to this side of the island, came ashore through the smooth water passage, bringing rum, biscuit, and salt beef, all of which Lewis was "out" of (the annual schooner being due in about a month), and I regret to say that some of our people made old Lewis " tight " that evening. The skipper had, before leaving the ship, told the mate to hang a lantern at the gaff, to guide him back at night, so that he might not miss her in the dark, and when dusk fell, he announced to us his MAUXA LOA. 27' intention of going back to the ship, and asked who would go with him. Mr. Irwin, whose red and peeled thighs needed the doctor's care, made one, and I another ; the rest made a night of it, ashore. Piloted by one of the Chain Island boys, in a canoe with a lantern, we rowed out through the break in the reefs, and so to sea. After pulling out about a mile from the shore (the groans of poor Irwin responding to every pitch the whale-boat made) we found, to our disgust, that we could see neither ship, nor land. Here was a pretty pickle ! Out at sea at night, no compass, food, or water in the boat. "Out of the frying pan into the fire" with a vengeance in that desolate main. Providence favoured us, however, for, the skipper saw a momentary flash on the horizon, and, noting the star that it was under, steered us for that star, and was rewarded, for we found ourselves right under the ship's beam as she braced about to go her " in " board to the island again. The mate had neglected to hang the lantern at the gaff, not thinking we should come oft", and the light we had seen was the sperm candle lamp in Mrs. Guthrie's cabin (the stern one, next to mine), and the port was open, as the night was hot, and, but for this, it is difficult to say what would have become of us in the empty boat in that solitary sea. I don't know what the skipper said to the mate, but, catching a rope that hung over, I soon was on board, drank a breakfast cup of the Tahiti claret, out of the hogshead we bought there, and went to bed. I have been told since, that, when jocosely asked about my adventures and general health, I briefly replied " that I would not have clone it for £5, had I known beforehand ;" and my former faith in the " Robinson Crusoe " business was, already, severely shaken. Next morning the rest of our people came ott", with supplies of pigs and cocoa-nuts from the island, for which we gave due barter ; and once more the " Eudora's " nose pointed northwards to Honolulu. Old " Ursa Major " hove in sight again, and the dear " Cross " sank from our view. We crossed the line again (no shaving this time), and were long past the meridian of 180°, and, in due course, the lofty peak of " Mauna Loa," 14,000 feet, loomed high out of the sea, for we were of!" the islands where Captain Cook met his fate, in 177< s , and where Hilo and Lahaina see, at times, the glowing lava come down in mile wide streams, like an ocean of slow moving, but red hot, treacle. (Excuse the homely simile). Mountains, that rise to this height from the sea, or from a plain (like Ararat), show to better advantage than those of greater height, but hemmed in by others around theii base On, past Maui, and the giant volcano, the biggest (--rater on 28 BILLIARDS AT HONOLULU. earth ; and so to Oahu and Honolulu, where I resolved to unload the " Eudora," and not face the glutted 'Frisco market. One of the first sights which met me on landing at Honolulu, in early 1850, was one which seemed to belong more properly to the Atlantic, than to the Pacific, side of North America, as it vividly recalled the Vaudoux and Obeah sacrifices of dark Hayti, or distant Papua. An African negro, lightly attired, and puffing a cigarette, had, on a circular platform raised about four feet off the ground, nearly a dozen large hogs, with huge tusks, and securely bound, foaming with rage, and lying on their sides ; and as he leisurely strutted round the platform, with a keen knife, he administered a stab to each of them as he passed, and repeated it the next time round if he thought it necessary ; but he was only a butcher, and not a priest, after all. At Honolulu I first met with those two Brisbane " institutions," the lantana weed bush, and " hop beer," the latter called for with the words " Chin Chin " to Hop Wah, or some other vendor thei^eof. Honolulu was even more lively than Tahiti, but not half so picturesque. It was evidently a place of call for shipping even in those early days. Chinese merchants — Hop Sing, Hop Wah and Co. — sold silks, and tea, and pumpkin pie ; hop beer shops were plentiful ; and goat's milk superseded the cow's ditto, and was far nicer, at a " real " per bottle (6d. ) in the market place, with cocoa-nut fibre for corks. Here, tomatoes and bananas also figured. Native girls rode astraddle, and tied on, with gay shawls and sashes wound round their legs, to their spirited little horses, and galloped fearlessly, if not prudently. Paki, the gigantic seven-foot chief, in black suit and hat, watched our ship make fast to the wharf. The lights of Honolulu had glittered before us, the night before, as we lay outside the reef, and some of us went ashore to Macfarlane's Hotel, where I first saw the American custom of selling wine and spirit by the bottle, on which the buyer's name was put, and he could come back, and help himself again when he liked, from the duly labelled, and put away, and paid for, bottle, in the glass cupboard behind the bar. Upstairs, to a game of billiards, which I had never before seen played, when in London, so as to know what it meant. Wales, in attempting a dangerous " screw," tore the cloth for 11 inches each way, and as billiard cloths, and men who could mend them, did not exactly " grow upon trees " in Honolulu in early 1850, and as the rule and fine there, and in San Francisco, at that time were, for the ripper to cover the rent with gold doubloons, it looked serious for the luckless wielder of the cue ; but the matter was afterwards compromised for something less than this. PRINCESS AND HEIRESS. 29 Honolulu was not so pretty as Papiete, but there was far more business doing. It supplied a good part of the potatoes which San Francisco then vised, and it was the laundry field of the Golden City. Washing cost, in 1849 and 1850, 48s., or 12 dollars, a dozen in San Francisco, and new shirts, in that glutted market, could be bought at half the labour price of washing an old one. Hence, people sent their dirty clothes 4,400 miles by sea, to Honolulu and back, to be washed, as it could be done there by the native girls at one dollar per dozen, and the schooners, in the potato trade, carried heaps of dirty and clean clothing, backwards and forwards, between the two places, and, I suppose, this forms the only instance, in the world's history, of clothes being regularly sent 4,400 miles (there and back) by sea to be washed. Soon after we got to Honolulu, there arrived the English man-of-war " Herald," fresh from an unsuccessful search up Behring's Straits for Sir John Franklin. The girls of Honolulu, like the New Zealanders, are not so pretty as the Tahitians, but they manage to secure better husbands. The swarthy beauties and belles of Lunaliho and Lahaina, aided by their seductive climate, aided by their faultless cleanliness and semi- aquatic life, aided by the garlands of scented flowers with which they are always decked, diffuse an incense and glamour, before which the white men bow ; and, when there is a " property " to boot, even men of position will offer the wedding ring freely ; and this kind of thing is not altogether unknown in Maoriland, I believe. Charley Vincent, an American builder and contractor of note (once a whaler's carpenter), married, at Honolulu, a native princess, who had 800 head of cattle, besides land of her own ; and in addition to his being a rich and honest man, he was a " brick " of the first water. Captain Joe Maughan, the English harbour master of Honolulu, married a handsome native lady, and had daughters to match, and with their mother's ancles, too ! I have called Charley Vincent a " brick," and I will now proceed to prove it. He gave me 250 golden "onzas" or doubloons, worth £3 16s. each, for some of the frame houses, ex " Eudora." He begged me to talk " dollars and cents " to him, and to spare him the intricacies of the non- decimal £ s. d. of old England. A whole row of cottages in Nuuanu street were built of my timber. But Vincent's goodness was otherwise proved. I had brought with me, from Hobart, the most clean cut, close mouthed, brindle, bull-terrier pup, you ever saw. A chief at Tahiti, weary of the spaniel mongrels of that isle, bad, aa before stated, offered me, in vain, a ship's boat full of oranges for 30 A FORT BOMBARDED. "Towzer," for I thought the latter might be useful to me 'mid the irowdies of " Forty-nine 'Frisco." I took the clog ashore for a run at Honolulu, where he got sunstruck, and ran off shrieking into the jungle, and I saw him no more. Vincent had, before this, offered, but in vain, to buy the pup from me, so I went and told " Charley " of my loss, and he, unsolicited, had, at once, 500 handbills printed, and posted all over the island of Oahu, in the English and native languages, describing " Towzer," and offering a liberal reward for recovery (like a Chevalier Bayard, as he was), but to no purpose. However, " Towzer," the faithful, made his appearance one morning at the butcher's shop, wagging his tail to some of our passengers, who brought him on board to me, and I made him — as was only becoming, and not to be outdone in chivalry — a present to Vincent, and he grew into a splendid dog, the terror of all plebeian Hawaiians and their bare legs, if they ventured too near his chain. Charley Vincent was a great actor, and used to perform in the coral-block built theatre of Honolulu, not far from the dismantled fort, which the ubiquitous French had bombarded some months before. Bless me ! how everything was knocked to pieces, and how fragmentary was the debris inside that fort. " Smithereens " was no name for it, even with the comparatively " pop gun " artillery of those days. I wonder how any place would look after a thorough visitation from the artillery of to-day, if only sent in with the same hearty good - will, as were the French compliments to Honolulu 40 years as;o. The United States war schooner " Dolphin " called in at Honolulu while I was there. I saw the captain land, and never before, or since, did I behold so much bullion and gold lace on one uniform. No British Admiral, even, so dazzled me as did this commander of a mere revenue cruiser ; but I suppose it was necessary to impress the Hawaiian of that date with the majesty of " Uncle Sam," and hence this lavish display of " upholstery." The church at Honolulu, and all the public buildings were made from squared blocks of coral in 1850, and an English ship came in from China, whose captain had two Chinese lady wives on board. A nasty shipwreck took place while I was here. The captain of the English barque " Caroline " anchored outside the harbour reef, with a gale dead on shore. Our skipper rowed out to him and advised him to cut his cable at once and come inside. He asked our captain (Gourlay) whether the latter thought that the under- writers would pay for cable and anchor, if he did so, and he was told, in reply, that they would have to pay for them, and for the ship too, A GRISLY CORPSE. 31 if he stayed out there much longer, and so we left him. Presently, I saw the vessel strike, and the three masts jump out of her, for all the world like three men jumping off a wall, and a Russian Finn, the best swimmer in the ship, was drowned as he executed some order alongside, with " Ay, ay, Sir," the last words he ever uttered, briskly and cheerfully. I saw his body brought ashore, two days afterwards, by the natives, who had found it on the deep inner side of the reef. They carried it on a litter ; it sat upright, with its arms and legs twisted and dangling, in the same objectless fashion as with a stuffed figure of Guy Fawkes when carried about on the 5th November. The face and head were swollen to double the usual height and size, and were purple mulberry in colour. The neck was long, and the eyes, nostrils and mouth were all tilled with snow-white sand — an awful sight, which (as T had never before seen a corpse) dazed me with horror, and even the brave young Wales turned pale, as our eyes met, after a glance, each, at this hideous, piteous, travesty of life. There was another queer sight T saw at Honolulu — tragic, but not so terrible. A Chinese pirate "lorcha" came in, and was seized for irregularity of papers. Her captain was a Dane, and her crew of every nation under the sun, and only one Englishman, and he had been shot on Christmas Day, 1849, and had never seen a doctor till now (March, 1850), so, I sculled Dr. Lloyd off in the dingy, to see him. He screened his wounder, and would tell no tales, but professed to have been accidentally hit on shore, when firing at wild goats, with his mates, in a dense forest ; but, in reality, he had been pistolled over a little dispute, which the pirates had had over some bright-eyed, pretty native girls whom the fellows had kidnapped at laie " Bonine " Islands, a group somewhere north of Australia. He vas shot, and no mistake, for, a little round blue hole, which had cut the left pectoral muscle in two, was matched by another little round blue hole to the right of his back bone ; and yet, there he was alive, 12 weeks later, but thin enough, and full of "funk." Our doctor simply put two pieces of plaster on him, before and behind, to keep the air out, and bade the man eat, drink, and be merry, for that he was in no danger at all, no vital part having, strange to say, been touched. Here I am going to digress, and anticipate, again, and to tell how I saw the man, fat and well, the following June, in San Francisco, nothing but fright (whieh the doctor dispelled) having been the matter with him, and his wound having procured for him mi escape from the fate of his shipmates, and their punishment. This sane- June there was a New York and Havre liner burnt 32 THE FIRE FIEND. as she la} 7 in the tier with her sister "liners," amongst the 800 crewless ships, which adorned the big, land-locked bay of San Francisco. They cut her loose, chopped holes to scuttle her at the water line, and, hung on to by a swarm of those lovely, gaily painted, straight stemmed watermen's skiffs, called, in New York, the " Whitehall " boats, she drifted on to Yerba Buena Island, out of danger to all but herself. I saw that something else was wanted, so, young Marsh (of Hobart) and I launched a whale-boat from the old " Maguasha," seized a pair of 18-feet oars, attached the painter of a big ship's long boat to our stern, and pulled, like eager harpooners, for the burning ship. Marsh could not talk the while, and he told me afterwards how he wondered I could chatter all the way, as we rowed our hard, weary journey, but the excitement kept me from feeling fatigue. We got to the ship at last, and we did what the useless flotilla of pretty wherries could not do, and the big liner's sails, band of music, and ship's stores (I especially remember the loaves of sugar wrapped in blue paper) were soon stowed in the long boat, and away pulled Marsh and I back, to her sister ships on the tier, and delivered the salvage. Being Britishers,, we only got thanks. Had we hailed from Brooklyn or Buffalo,, something more substantial would have resulted, no doubt. But this fire was as nothing to the one, which broke out a few days later. Beginning at 8-30 a.m., in a baker's oven, it had the whole city in cinders by 2*30 p.m. A space greater than that of the London fire of 1666 was swept of all but brick buildings with iron shutters, and they were but few in number, for, the Boston blue tire bricks had to be " carted " round " the Horn" in June, 1850, and were too costly, even for golden California. The scene and sound of the fire (fanned by a fierce north-west Oregon dry gale), and which destroyed six. nnillions of dollars worth, were simply indescribable. An incessant rattle and crackle, like the noise of 100 railway trains in rapid motion, intensified by the occasional explosion of some place where gun-powder was stored, aud supplemented by the ceaseless clangour of 800 ships' bells rung all the while, made up a din such as, surely, was never before, nor since, heard, and not a drop of water procurable. It was a pitiful sight to go ashore after the fire, and remark the uninsured loss. Here were bales of rich Genoa velvet, the sides and edges all charred, and the fabric cut, by fire, into yard lengths. Next to this, would be the debris of a gunsmith's shop, with rifle barrels all twisted into shapeless iron by the fire heat. Then, would come the ruins of an erstwhile restaurant, and here were the hungry loafer and the luckless digger, devouring the half opened,. a; 03 a. C/5 O < Q Z Id M < O 55 O H CO -I Pi O O c t> O o 7* YANKEE " GRIT." 33 and still warm tins of green peas, tfcc. Delue and Grellet, the famous pastry cooks, from Paris, were burnt out, and their niceties, notably their pies of mince meat, mixed with rice, boiled in milk, ceased for a time. Shrewd and sharp were the Yankees, and, long before the lire got much of a start, they had rowed off to the " Iowa," of Boston, and other huge ships, full of unsaleable " clear pine," and had bought the wherewithal to rebuild their stores, before the price icent up, and the gale which blew showed that the entire town was "bound to go," and so they were wise in time. As soon .as ever the fire had swept past, small cards, in cleft sticks, such as are seen in English and Australian front gardens, to mark the spot -where the choice flower seed is planted, were stuck on the ground on the site of the burnt building to notify, to all concerned, that Adams and Co., or Folsom, or Belknap, or Otis, could be seen and consulted, and business done as usual, in some tent or shed in Vallejo, Kearney, or other street, or up the hill, till the " repairs were effected." Not a moment was lost by the "Yanks," over a lire that would have paralysed a Britisher for a fortnight at least. Your true West Coast and island " swell," dresses very differently from the London and Paris "masher." His Panama hat, elegant in shape, is worth up to £30, and will wear and wash for years, so tough and tine is the grass thereof, and a black ribbon forms its sole ornament, and a black ribbon is his only watch-guard, though there is a £100 watch at the end of it; there are no finger rings, but an .£80 solitaire brilliant stud fastens his shirt front, and, for the rest, he is dressed in a sort of a white muslin suit, the only colours being white and black. Business and earnest resolution stand written in his face ; he is an adept with fist, revolver, or knife, for he has to meet strange, coloured, folk at times ; and on the whole he is a cleaner looking, purer type of man, than the average European, or, Eastern American " swell," and he is the growth, solely, of the islands and western shores of the Pacific, north and south, be he planter, merchant, or what not. The American stands high in the opinion of the Hawaiians, those champion swimmers and divers, whom I have seen play " follow my leader " out of pure sport, and dive off the top-gallant yard of a 500 ton ship into the harbour water. They dive feet first, with legs interlocked, wedge like, and at angle of about 75°, with one arm uplifted to aid the impetus, and the other holding their drapery together. If they dived perpendicularly they would sink too far; if they dived more horizontally they would have the breath knocked out of them ; but 75°, or so, is the happy medium. The angle of entrance into the i' 34 AN EIGHTEEN MILE SWIM. water rapidly lessens by its resistance. They can soon be seen.' rising, with eyes and mouth open, and teeth glistening, under water,, which is expelled from the lips on rising to the surface, and up they go again, to repeat the sport off the lofty yard arm. Captain Webb's feat, of swimming from Dover to Calais, has often been rivalled by unknown, and unsung, male and female Hawaiians. A married couple, with their child, started, in an outrigger canoe, to cross, 22 miles, from one island to another. When four miles out, a strong following gale sprung up, raised the sea, and broke the outrigger. Down sank the canoe. The gale was too strong to swim back four miles against both it and the sea, so the parents swam, 18 miles, for the island of their destination, carrying the baby,, alternately, on their backs. They arrived safely, but the child was- dead from exposure. And now to return from my digression. The wharf at Honolulu was soon covered with the " Eudora's ,r cargo. Charley Vincent took the bulk of it. Dr. Rooke (Queen, Emma's father) took another house, and she paid me for it ; and an Englishman, who had worked at the Thames Tunnel, bought another. Strange, and mixed, was the money I got in payment. Doubloons of Mexico, Spain, Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador ; dollars of Spain, Mexico, and United States ; coins of Russia, France, and Germany. I amused myself by testing the purity and value of the coins of different countries. Mexico heads the list. Her heavy dollars and doubloons are so pure, as to be cmite soft and ugly in the die, and her dollar weighs nearly an English crown. Spain comes next ; then England and the United States rank together, a little ahead of France and Russia, far behind whom came Prussia and Austria, in the poverty of their coinage and assay of metal. The handsomest coin of the lot was a Russian sovereign, called, I think,, an " imperial," which, for clean cut and artistic die (English made, I'll be sworn), quite outshone all its compeers in 1850. Half our passengers elected to stay and settle in Honolulu, and we filled up their places with those from the " Emma," a New Zealand brig, which went no further. Amongst these, was a handsome Maori woman, the wife of Mr. M'Cabe, a merchant at Sacramento, California, and her little son ; her chin beautifully tattooed in blue ; also, two Americans, William Brando, of Vermont, and Jerome Feary, with two pretty Honolulu girls, their wives. They had done well at Mariposa and the north fork of the Yuba River, and were going back for more gold. Big Bill Brando was a fearless fellow. I saw him once, in 'Frisco, when the terrific tide swept a couple of 800 ton ships, swinging at anchor, rapidly broad- THE "niantic." 35 side on to each other, leap, just in time, into a pretty gig that lay, and would have been crushed, between them, and " prize " it out, with his hands, clear of them, just one second before it would have been cracked like an egg shell, and he never seemed to think of what would have become of him, between those two high, flat, wooden walls, if his strength and skill had not been in time for the " shove clear." We had baffling, easterly winds, and a long trip, from the islands to the Golden Gate, and were driven far up the coast, towards Oregon, 'mid clear skies, high winds, and towering seas, this same May of 1850. At last we sighted a rock, covered with seals, and entered between two heads, and, after a time, " slewed " to the right, and found ourselves anchored, with 800 other ships, in front of a straggling town of sand hills and wooden structures, called San Francisco. A cold, strong, north-west wind blew daily, and a terrific tide ran, for the bay was a land-locked affair, about 70 miles by 12, and the entrance was narrow in proportion to this. The old " Niantic," of Boston (with scores of others), was newly beached, and built over for a store ship. The wharves extended out to her when we arrived, and had left her far behind, almost in the middle of the town, six months later, so rapidly did the building of wharves, and the covering of the shallow w T aters with new stores, progress in those days. The old " Niantic " was "dug out" again in 1872, a venerable relic of the past. The sand hills yielded no water for ship, or shore ; but a bore, put down through the sea water, and the mud and clay below it, yielded, through an iron pipe, water fairly fresh ; not very whole- some, but enough for ordinary purposes. The nearest good water, then, was at Saucelito, an anchorage in the bay, sacred to men-of- war only. I had " no work to do " in San Francisco, till the " Lady Leigh," laden with potatoes from Hobart, and consigned to me, arrived, so I went ashore, and looked about me at the strange, new sights and sounds of an American town, just conquered from the Mexicans, not yet incorporated with the Union, and near which gold had just been found in fabulous tmantities, and was shown in bowls in the bank windows. Here, as police magistrate, still sat the Mexican alcaldt . Here, in the Plaza, were massed 300 mules, and a man on horseback showed his skill with the lasso, by throwing it unerringly over the neck of any one animal in the crowd that any spectator might point out to him, for ;i wager. And now a glance at the gambling saloons, which, bar tin.- Custom House, wm- the finest, and almosl fche onlj 36 " MONTE." fire-proof buildings in the city. Fancy a room 100 feet long, and 40 feet wide, with a bar in the middle of one side of it, where all the cocktails, juleps, and cobblers of Yankee land were dispensed, with crackers and " punkin pie," and, for the rest, three rows (from end to end of the room) of gambling tables, each one covered with piles of dollars and doubloons, with no room left on any table, except for the cards and the stakes. " Monte " was the one monotonous game played (needless here to describe), and cloaked and stolid Mexicans (to whom gambling is " board, lodging, and washing ") stood the live-long day, and won their money and lost their money with a set equanimity, born of life-long habit, which would puzzle any Celt, or Gaul, to imitate, under like circumstances. The banker lays two Spanish cards on the table, possibly " el Re " (the King), and the " Cavalier " (for their cards are picturesque, and unlike ours), and each is staked on, and the one, King or Cavalier, that next turns up, wins from the Bank, and the other forfeits to the Bank. The above, which supplies a description of the " Empire " saloon, will suffice for all the other similar ones which swarmed then openly in San Francisco. I next went to the Post Office, and found there only two windows, one for the general male public, and one for ladies and clergymen only. Woe to the layman who intruded at the second window, and woe, knife and bullet, also, to him who " crowded " at the other one, where, it was the inexorable rule, that all " ranks and stations " should stand in Indian file, each strictly in his turn, merchant or loafer alike, and take his place, and leave in the same order as arrived in. On mail days, when the " Tennessee " or " Isthmus " steamers came in from, or went out to, Panama, the Indian file extended round the corner, into the next street. Anyone who attempted to usurp the place of another man would be at once shot or stabbed, for all carried arms then, and " etiquette " was so much de riguetir, that "all hands" dreaded the possible result of even the inception of overt rowdyism ; and I never was in such an outwardly quiet spot in the world as was 'Frisco, between May and September, 1850. Everyone knew the penalty of ruffianism, and no one cared to incur it ; only once, in five months, did I hear even an oath in the streets, and that seemed quite justifiable. It was one Sunday morning, and I was walking down a bye-street, when a door suddenly opened, and a man was forcibly ejected, followed by four more, who began to throw stones at him. He drew a revolver, and said he would shoot the next (adjective) man who threw a stone at him. I suppose it was some brothel row ; anyway, it was the only profanity I heard in a THE "ALTA CALIFORNIA." town where the arch ruffians of the earth, armed to the teeth, were congregated. I must not forget a lively young American news agent, whose shop was in a street just outside the " Plaza," and who (when he handed you the " A Ita California" full of arrivals of " bbls.," alias barrels, of Haxall and Gallego flour, the leading brand, and salseratus, &c.) did not forget to proffer you what he, in his " Ne' York " accent, called the " Jernal dez Deebatts" A strangely-named old ship, in San Francisco, was the " Balance." She had a history, and belonged to an American, but was British built. Her owner's father had had four of his ships captured by the English in the war, and had taken five of theirs, with a pri\ ateer ; so he kept the odd one, and called it the " Balance " (to the good), of " profit and loss." The daily necessity of rowing ashore, good part of a mile, in order to get meat and bread, taught me to become an oarsman. I had to row past the bows of a score, or more, of ships, no matter which way I took, and, in that terrific tideway and current, the anchored monsters would surge on their chain cables, like uneasy giants, anon slacking up after an extra taut wrench, when the chain would be submerged for a while, but woe to the unwary one who was deceived by that, for, the next minute, the iron links would lift like a tightened harp string, and toss any boat, that lay across them, up high like a pancake ; so, every figure head had to be given a wide berth, and the rudder of the ship ahead kept close to. I grew so skilled by this at last, that one day, when I put some passengers on board the brig '• Waterlily," of Hobart, her owner, the well-known John Thomas W , struck by the professional way in which I laid the boat alongside, said, " Really, Mr. Bartley, you're quite an accomplished waterman." The real hard work made me grow heavier that I ever was before, or since, that same time in San Francisco. You had to ivork for your rations there. Quaint, high beam engine, paddle-wheel steamers were the " Tennessee " and " Isthmus," which plied to and from Panama, and so, also, were the "Senator" and " New World," magnificent boats of their era, which ran up the bay to Sacramento, and the San Joaquin. I have spoken of the crowd at the Post Office window on mail days, and many a broken down loafer, who expected no letters, would take his stand in the ranks, and sell his place near the window to a merchant for 10 dollars (£'2), when the merchant, arriving late, would prefer to pay the money rather than lost- one hour out of the four vhicli intervened between the income and the 38 RATTLESNAKES. outgo of the mail, from and to Colon and New York. Any man could sell, or give away, his place at the window, but no one dared '• rush " it. And now, a glance at the restaurants of that period. Curious seemed the food, to an English palate. The white bread, made of Haxall or Gallego flour, was inferior in gluten to the matchless wheat of South Australia. The butter, from "Goshen," in Indiana, was superb, and packed to perfection, and a veritable nosegay. There was a native red wine, from Los Angeles, like pale port, which was all that could be desired, and it spoke volumes for the old monks who introduced the vine into California. Buck wheat cakes (a cousin of the London crumpet) were nice ; bear and venison steaks were crisp, delicious meat, compared with the wretched Mexican beef, which fried white, and boiled red, and disagreed with the white stomachs, and was decidedly " uncanny." The only American pastry seemed to be " punkin " pie. I went for a stroll outside the town, across a pretty little valley stream, about five miles, to the " Prasidio," an old Spanish fort, now, I believe, the site of some grand hotel, the " Cliff House," overlooking the sea, and close to the " Golden Gate," or Heads. I heai'd what I thought was the twittering of birds in several of the bushes as I passed along, but I could see no feathers. I was not aware, till later, that my cockney ears had mistaken the tail of the rattle snake, and its merry chirp, for the conversation of feathered tribes. A young and tame grizzly bear, sitting up out in the road, opposite the " Half-way " Hotel, was about as big as a St. Bernard dog, and made me laugh by the way it invariably over-balanced itself, and fell over, every time it attempted to scratch itself with its hind legs. There, verily, is nothing on earth so uncouth and comic as a juvenile bear. There is nothing very funny, however, about the full grown " grizzly " of a ton weight, with a forearm about 14 inches thick, and hard as an oak limb, and which could crumple up any 500 lb. lion, or tiger, that ever lived, with the greatest ease. My next trip was to the Custom House, where I was horrified at the immense ad valorem duties on our English goods, and I realized, for the first time in my life, what a fearfully heavy breach that was which took place between Lord North and the American colonists, about 70 years before, when Stars and Stripes replaced the Union Jack, and two sets of once united English speaking people suddenly became ceremonious strangers to each other. Well ! well ! Let us hope it will never happen again. I sincerely wish that England and BANJO GEMS. 39 Australia were as much united to each other, as they are in my heart, and I see no reason why dear old America should not " chip in," and form one of the crowd, either. What an American " twang " there was about the names of the shijns then in harbour ! The "Roanoke/' the "Probus," the "Decatur," the "Susan Drew," the "Patapsco," the "Tecumseh," the " Montauk," with a flavour of Cooper's novels through them all, a name and a history to each place and patronymic. There are certain songs which, like certain viands, can never be properly "tasted" outside of their native land. Of such is the " Canadian Boat Song," which sounds, on American water only, with a native flavour, which it never does when transplanted to England and Australia ; and then, again, there are nigger and plantation songs, peculiar to Yankee land, which were never, and never will be, transported to England, such as " On ile Ohio blntis, in tie State ob Indiana " all racy of the banjo, the tobacco plant, Tennessee, the corn patch, and hoe, and whose native flavour is totally lost if exported. The guitar twanged also in those days, and " Mas Querida de mi corazon " was the burden of many a song from the American youth to the Mexican maid. Our Yankee Customs' ofticer on the " Eudora " was an " emusin' little cuss," from Albany (N. Y.), who, while he could bear to see his countryman chew tobacco and expectorate over everything and everybody, nearly went into hysterics, when a lovely English girl, in the midst of her splendid singing and playing, disenchanted him for ever, by simply blowing her nose. Such are the customs and prejudices of different countries ! And now the time arrived for the " Eudora " to quit, and go home to Hobart again, and I shifted my flag to the " Giraffe," brig, of Sydney, belonging to my owners, and which had just brought a cargo of bottled beer from Port Jackson ; then, again, to the " Lord Hobart," an old war brig of heavy scantling ; and, finally, to the old " Maguasha," a whaler, whose " boarding knives," for cutting whale's blubber up, were keen "blades of flexible, tempeied steel, worthy of Damascus, or "Andrea Ferrara," of old. But I spent plenty of time ashore, and saw wonders every day. The planks with which tie- sandy sidepaths were paved for walking, were eclipsed in the court yard of one merchant, which was, actually, paved with small 501b. bags, "quintals," of Chili flour, laid edgeways, and watered, s<» that they might grow hard and firm as wood, when dry and " caked, for it rains not all tin- summer in 'Frisco, and the bag'- en edge made a fair imitation of paving blocks, and Hour was valueless, and 40 A CREW OF SKIPPERS. in glut, at the time. Piles, when I left London Bridge in 1849,. were driven by hand winch ; but, in this new found land of go-ahead Yankees, steam power was used in wharf-making. Iron steamers were building on the beach, and red hot rivets from the furnace were driven and clinched at a galloping pace, for time was- money, and steam "scows," for the increasing up river and bay trade, were wanted in a hurry. Beautiful American ships lay at anchor. The "Samuel Russell " and "Sea Witch," yachts of 1,000 tons each, that could do " the Horn " route in 95 days ; black hulls, with gold or vermilion " beads," and every taper mast, yard, spar, and block, made of richly grained, highly varnished, red Baltic pine ;; perfect pictures on the water. A barque, the " Architect," and a brig, the " Pacifico," looked each a clipper model, fit for a glass case. You never see such vessels in the Thames ; they donH carry enough ;, and the huge three-masted, fore and aft schooners, of 700 tons each, carried giant spars, that spread those flat, shapely, "dead to windward " kind of sails, which won the " America " Cup, jspars which, in their mammoth size, gave one a lively idea of what a- sudden "jibe" would involve, in the way of rip and tear of wood and canvas. And now arrived the "Lady Leigh," from Hobart, full to the hatches with potatoes for me, and I engaged the skippers of several Boston ships, at £2 a day each — men wearing green baize jackets, and all deserted by their crews, and with nothing to do but mind' their ships meantime — so they acted for me as stevedores, to break out, and put on board the steam punts, or " scows," for Sacramento, the potatoes, which I had sold to Leoniclas Haskell, at £35 a ton for the cargo — for the " Lady Leigh " crew had bolted to the diggings, and I had hesitated to accept an offer, from a youthful American owner of a store ship, who had a beautiful and stately wife with him, for they bore an air of fastness and impecuniosity, which, boy as I was, I misgave ; and it was a bad thing for England to sell to America on credit, in the way the law courts of 'Frisco were run then. Judges, who were paid by fees chiefly, were apt to give the case against the party best able to pay those fees. With the sale of the " Lady Leigh " cargo, my work in 'Frisco ended. I purchased gold dust from Burgoyne and Co., and Argenti and Co. ; also ash oars and tobacco as my return cargo, and, on board the " Timbo " schooner, Marsh, of the "Maguasha," and I, headed for Honolulu once more. And, so, it was good-lye to '"Frisco." Good-bye ! Happy Valley ! Farewell Rincon Point ! What are your names now, I wonder ? THE "VIGILANTES." 41 I wonder, too, if any other man than myself, lives, who saw San Francisco in 1850, and who has never seen it since, to have the living picture of what it was then, effaced from his memory by the sight of its modern palaces ; cemetery, with priceless monuments ; its streets,. no longer all sand and planks. After I left, " etiquette " relaxed a little, and thieves from Australia and elsewhere grew bolder, till the era of the " vigilantes " set in, and scaffolds and ropes adorned the public squares, and the Plaza. Good-bye to my friends from the "Emma" brig, with their ceaseless warblings from " Fra Diavolo." Good-bye to the " Harmony " bai*que, and the " Una." Good-bye to Macondray and Otis, to Moore, Folgor, and Hill, to Belknap and White. Farewell ! Kearney street ! Farewell ! Vallejo street ! and eke Montgomery of that ilk. Farewell ! Alcalde ! Plaza and Prcesidio. Good-bye to the girls from Baltimore and Mexico. Good-bye to Sutch's, where I had to nurse my pneumonia, born of a cabin stove, and an Oregon blizzard breeze. I brought away a Colt's revolver with me, the first that ever went to Australia, silver mounted, and cost 55 dollars, to help me guard all the 20-dollar pieces in my sea chest. I bought an Esquimaux dog, and was- disgusted to find he could not bark. But we are now between the Golden Gates, the 'Frisco Heads, bound south, and, as we came out, several vessels were all doing the same, and one huge Yankee liner, 1,200 tons, to our 140 ditto, tried to get to windward of us. She could forereach us to any extent, but not easily weather us. We had another " big un " to leeward of us,, so had no sea room ; it was a critical position. We dared not keep away, and to "luff," was to get under the liner's bows. I tumbled up out of my seasick bunk, quite cured as I saw her huge bulk tower over us, and did not feel qualmish again till the clanger had passed. The fear of drowning is a certain cure, pro tern., for mal de mer. There was a singular place we passed, half way to Honolulu, at sea, with a dead calm, and the schooner spinning round like a top, from no cause that was apparent. In due time, Honolulu hove in sight. " Towzer " had grown into a clog of note, and was no longer the stertorous pup of months gone by. I bade a cordial farewell to Charley Vincent. His last words to me, as we shook hands, were, " Well ! Mr. Bartley, there is nothing left now, between us two, but good will, for all time." He was a better man to have for a friend, than an enemy, as anyone would own, who had seen him throw an offensive 12-stone native, bodily, over a fence. He w;is an American — all out. Our " Eudora " passengers had settled down, comfortably, u i'2 NORFOLK ISLAND IN 1850. business, and, after a brief stay, I duly transferred my belongings to the "Harriet Rockwell," ship, bound for Launceston, Yan Diemen's Land, and full of return California]! passengers, belonging to that lovely island. Walker, of "Rhodes," John Pooler, Ritchie, Hartnoll, Dr. and Mrs. Bunce, of Adelaide, &c. She was a cotton clipper, and left the water behind at the rate of 12 miles an hour. Passing, unharmed, by the Kingsmill, and other dangerous groups, we came in sight of Norfolk Island, a spot which may be best described as a hilly, English park, lifted bodily, and placed in the South Pacific ; a natural paradise, ready made, grassed to the water's edge, fertile, and flowery, undulating, with hill and dale, rising, in one corner, to 1,700 feet above the sea • the noble pine trees, towering high, adding to the beauty of the landscape ; exquisite parroquets, differing from the Australian ones, and peculiar to the island, abound. At that time, 1850, the place was not inhabited, as now, by the Pitcairn Island and " Mutiny of the Bounty " half-caste people, but was the final depot for the worst of the Tasmanian convicts. No strange ships were allowed to call there, on any pretence, but, as we were bound for Tasmania, their ruling island, and offered to take a mail direct, we were made a special exception of, and supplied with bread, milk, and butter, the milk tasting strangely " vaccine," and cow like, after the pure goat milk of Honolulu. We were all invited to come ashore (while all other ships were warned off, by a garrison of soldiers, from the island prison). Mr. Price, the commandant, and a handsome lieutenant, came off to see us, and their fellow Tasmanians, on board, and were rowed out to us, by a prison crew, in a huge surf boat. Mr. Price was afterwards murdered, in 1857, by the prisoners at the hulks, near Melbourne, and was said to be a martinet, and is so depicted in Marcus Clarke's story of " His Natural Life," but, all I saw of him, was a mild faced, mild spoken gentleman, with a big head of curly, fair hair, a pleasant voice, and gentle manner, and sadly sea sick on our moving decks, and, perhaps, it was that which made him seem so subdued ; but very different were the crew which rowed him off to us. Never shall I forget the monkey-like eagerness of their working eye brows, and wrinkled foreheads, under the leathern caps, and the mute, appealing look which the said boat's crew, cast along our bulwarks at the many heads which crowded there ; a look, of which the meaning was lost upon my cockney self, but which our Tasmanian tars straightway interpreted ; a look which meant, " Tobacco, for the love of Heaven," a smoke, or chew (the wretched ^convicts' only solace), and, while Mr. Price drank a glass of wine in A PERILOUS LANDING PLACE. 43 -the cabin, to stave oft' the seasickness, our pitying tars threw down figs of " Barrett's twist " into the rocking surf boat, which " honeydew " treasures were caught by the Norfolk Island crew, as famished tigers might catch flying legs of mutton, and were swiftly hidden away in the blue serge recesses of their shirts, by those battered, and scarce human-faced wearers of leather caps. Poor creatures! / was no smoker, and they might have gazed long at me, before I should have divined what they wanted, and so earnestly asked for, in that indescribable silent, monkey-like look of the eyes, and working of the facial muscles. Speak, of course, they dared not. The landing place at Norfolk Island was a " real terror" in 1850. Exposed to the full fury of the sea, it was an uncomfortable spot for ladies, or landsmen, to face, and sturdy convicts, with strong ropes round their waists, securely fastened at the shore end, were in attendance, and rushed out in the seething water, and made sure that you did not drown, by grappling you, and hauling you safely to land, and, as they were always rewarded for extra zeal, and skill, in this department, there was never any half-work performed in it. One of them, who rescued the wife of a judge from real danger, got an immense slice taken off' the length of his sentence, for the feat. I bought a dripstone, and some parrots here, and away we headed for Bass's Straits, leaving the " Ocean Hell," or "Island Paradise" (which you please), behind us, and we were bowling along, a few days later, before a fair east wind, with all sail set, and met a wretched brig, of 200 tons, the "Maukin," from Sydney, for New Zealand, battling to windward, under a shred of sail, and diving into the trough of the sea, so that her deck looked like a map before us, on the opposite wave. We saluted, and passed on, and by night our positions were reversed ; for, we were on our beam ends with a westerly "snorter," and, soon, almost on bare poles; while, no doubt, our friend, the " Maukin," had all sail set to catch the newly-arrived fair wind. And now, shortly, hove in sight the Swan Island lighthouse, north-east coast of Tasmania, and we entered the Georgetown Heads, Port Dalrymple, and the lovely Tamar River, born of the union of the North and South Esk streams, back, safe, in dear old V. D. L. But we had to go up that river slowly. "Whirlpool Reach " was dangerous. Swan Hay was lake like ; boats from the farm houses, on the banks, put off to us, with crisp loaves of home made bread, and pats of exquisite butter, and iger enquiries from us returned Californians, as i<> absent brothers 44 LAKE SCENERY. and cousins, who had gone to the far-off, wild land, and had not since been heard of ; for adventurers seldom wrote, and mails were few and far between, and some never were heard of again. We were made much of by all hands, and passed between glorious, high, wooded banks, twice the height of the Brisbane hills, by the river, and, in due course, found ourselves in the " Cornwall Hotel," Launceston, " interviewed," and holding levees almost, for returned Californians were scarce in those days. Here I met my cousin, Theodore Bartley (formerly, in 1822, aide-de-camp to Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales), now a prosperous farmer and grazier, about four miles out from Launceston. I was delighted, once more, to find myself amid the scenery and climate of Tasmania. Some people prefer New Zealand to it, but I do not. New Zealand is damper all over, and more " muggy " in. the north part, than Tasmania, which has the climate of France,, the clear sky of Italy, and a dry pure air beyond the utmost nights. of either place. It is true that no mountain in Van Diemen's Land exceeds 5,000 feet in height, while New Zealand has them up to- 13,000 feet; but what of that? Does anyone prefer the gloomy grandeur of Norway " fells " and fiords, to sunny France, and the sylvan beauty of Languedoc and Provence 1 Are not Clermont, and the Auvergne mountains high enough for all purposes of scenic beauty 1 I think so, and, therefore, I prefer Tasmania, which, in lake and mountains, surpasses, for beauty, anything in France, or Britain, save the vivid green hues, which are, however, otherwise made up for. Nothing in England, in the way of mountain and water, comes up to the bold outline of "St Paul's Dome," a rounded peak, of 3,370 feet, as it looks down on, and contrasts with, the- silvery surface of the South Esk. Tasmania has its lake districts, the same as England, only more beautiful. The largest lake is 15 miles by five, but it is not the prettiest. Lake St. Clair has an area of about 10,000 acres, and about nine miles long, by two in width ; its waters, blue as sapphire, are watched, at the head of the volcanic gorge, which it fills, by the twin guardians, Mounts Ida and Olympus, as amethystine in their hue, as the lower hills are in beryl tint, and with thin, fleecy clouds travelling over, and varying the light and shade from time to time ; no scene of greater enchant- ment, outside the tropics, could be imagined, or desired ; and the- little islands, in some of the lakes, are not wanting to complete the picture, and are conspicuous on Lake Echo (six miles by three), exquisite in colour, full of lovely little bays, and environed by mountains, which send their heavy timber down to its very edge. BEFORE THE GOLD. 45 None of your dreary Canadian winters here ! but noble, unfrozen irrigation reservoirs, high above sea level, such as the old Romans, •of Trajan's day, would have delighted to form aqueducts from. And, now, turn we to Ben Lomond, the champion hill of the island. No lovely, verdant slopes here ; more of the characteristics of Sinai, in the desert. Columnar rocks, upright pillars, like giant oriel shafts of ruined abbeys ; rock and stone, of the perpendicular school of nature's architecture, pointing upward to the sky, and rising out of a lower mound of dense timber and foliage, to over 5,000 feet, Such, with a little mirror of a lake at its foot, is Ben Lomond, away to the east of the main road of the island. Beautiful are the basaltic bluffs of Tasmania, some of them, as at Eldon, giving us a sheer fall of 4,800 feet, and in other places, as at " Quamby,'' looking as if some gigantic cheese knife had cut straight down from the sky, and swept away the further continuity of a range, 4,000 feet high, all through. I spent a day at " Rhodes," the house of my fellow-passenger, Walker (son of Assistant Commissary Walker), and here, amongst others, I met his sisters, and Miss Despard, whose father was colonel of the 99th. of New Zealand fame, and Miss Minnie Allport, of Hobart. How those good girls deplored, to me, the dulness of the lovely island. No politics, no excitement, no "topics," beyond the eternal quotations, amongst the men, of the prices of wheat and wool, the only, and staple, products of the period, but matters which girls of intellect cared little for. Not much did they, or I, then reck of the grand transformation scene, which was so close at hand, even then impending in the immediate future, a mere question of weeks, when the "jewellers' shops," the hidden gold lumps of Ballarat and Bendigo, should render it needless, any more, for us Australians to travel the weary way to California for the kingly metal, which lay at our own doors, where it would be rolling into Melbourne, alone, at the rate of £400,000 a week, soon. The next item on my programme was a visit to the Launceston races, the first in the world I had ever seen, being, in my steady London youth, ignorant, alike, of billiards, and horse racing. I was astonished to see how fast, horses could go, when put to it, for there was grand, stout blood, even then, in the horseflesh of Tasmania. The " Peter Finn " strain was not wanting, and "Shadow,"' the fleetest mare south of tin- line, was there located, in the days when Homebush, of Sydney, could not compete, and when Randwick and Flemington (born of the golden era), as yet, were not. Why ! they used to run mile and a-half " heats" then, in Launceston, BO as <<> 46 ADMIRAL ROUS. have lots of fun for their money, and to put them through in 2 '48,. 2-49, and 2-50, respectively, in early 1851, and what would our modern " sprinting " weeds, on four legs, say to this ? I found the scene deliciously exciting ; beautiful fresh air ; riding habits ; dog carts ; cheerful faces, and friendly greetings ; and such well-supplied booths. I made a most impudent bet of two half-crowns, with my cousin's sons. There were two splendid mares, from the Hobart side, at these races, a black and a bay, yclept " Deception and Modesty," and belonging to Samuel Blackwell, of Green Ponds, near " Constitu- tion Hill." (By the way, how those Tasmanians have borrowed on. the old world names ! The river Scamander is close to Yarmouth ;. and the Eddystone, and the Mevvstone ; Bagdad, adjoining Brighton ; Ben Nevis, and Tower Hill, close together, form but a. few of the names in such strange juxtaposition here). I wagered five shillings that the Hobart mares would win any race they started for, and so they did, for their adversary (and " master ")• bolted. I found a poetic and beautiful side to horseracing, apart altogether from its baleful, and gambling aspect. "What can be more delightful than the feeling, at early morn, of the fresh, pure- air on the Yorkshire wolds, or the breezy Australian Downs, whert the elegant and innocent two and three year olds take their matin breathers 1 No element, there, of the midnight betting ring, in the grand appetite for breakfast, which becomes born of a couple of hours in such a scene, and — when we remember that our grandsires lived, and moved, in similar rapport, with the bygone racers of their day — a feeling of old association and sentiment ties us to the time, when the happy youth, of both sexes, 50, or 100, years ago, witnessed similar scenes of early morn quietness, and exciting race meetings. Human nature is alike all through the decades, and people, like good old Admiral Rous, die hard, and are loth to quit the scene of healthful excitement. But they must pass on, all the- same, men, women, and horses alike, and 1892 sees a different set from 1809. Carved stones, and stately trees, mark, in England, the- resting places of such horses, and mares, as Crucifix, Emilius, and Bay Middleton ; and befittingly are those noble animals so honoured in death, for, in life, they ministered healthfully to innocent, human pleasures, in their day and generation, and not to them must be- imputed the stain, akin to the dice box and card pack, which, unhappily, rests upon some phases of that noble institution, known (metaphorically) as "the Turf," and which should, rightfully, be as- pure, and free from corruption, as the green clover sods after which it is named. Little used I to think, as I sailed past the mouth of the BRILLIANT PEDIGREES. 47 Clarence River, in New South Wales (famous for the breed of race-horses reared at its mountain head), that, perchance, the spirit of old Admiral Rous rested on the spot which he visited in his youth ; rested in the cattle ranged gorges, in which this splendid river, the birthplace of Searle (the lost, and peerless, sculler), rises, and it is possible that the guardian spirit of Rous, R. N., hovers there at times; for, in the year of grace, 1828, in H.M.S. "Rainbow," he did some marine surveying about this part of the world, not forgetting Moreton Bay, and was he not " in great form " at the Parramatta races of that same year? And is it any wonder that the spirit of horse breeding, and horse racing, has struck deep root in that classic, and Rous-haunted, part of Australia ? When I see the beautiful animals led up and down in the saddling paddock, it is not so much their mere bodily forms, in bay, or grey, in chestnut, or black, that come up before me. I seem to look beyond that, at each horse's distinguishing and special (albeit invisible) coronet, or diadem, in the shape of his brilliant pedigree ; made up gems, skilfully blended, like Stockwell, the diamond; Touchstone, for the ruby; Pocahontas and Banter, the emerald and sapphire; and, without continuing the list, either of animals, or jewels, I need only say that the variety, and beauty, of the skilled artist's blending of sires and dams, that appear on the genealogy of each one, is, to me, an exact reflex of the other artists' work, which we trace in the endless series of tiaras, made up from pearl, diamond, opal, topaz, and other treasures of the sea and mine. To return to Tasmania ; quiet science, and philosophy, a la Pickwick, amused the gentry of that placid island in 1851. They measured the trees at " Tolosa," 84 feet round at the ground, 78 feet at two yards up, and 330 feet to the top. Dr. Milliken sent a specimen of the Cypnea umbilicata to the Hobart museum. Sir Win. Denison tried to import salmon, alive, in tanks on the poop of a passenger ship. Edwin Tooth, of Bagdad, sent in a specimen of auriferous quartz from Ophir (New South Wales) ; and Dr. Officer, a lump of the same, from " Buninyong, on a spur of the Pyrenees." Ha ! say'st thou so? Here was the infant Hercules shadowed forth, the germ of the mighty Ballarat of 1852 — -the upheaval force that socially revolutionized Australia to the tune of 300 millions, sterling, of " El Oro." Are not the annals of those dear old (your for ever) days of Australian "Leisure" duly written, and set forth, in the " Philosophical Transactions " of Tasmania for 1851 I And, now, the time is at hand, when I must, once more, quil her shores; for, 1 nerd "colonial experience,' 1 and I must go I 48 "BLACK THURSDAY." Melbourne, on the main land of New Holland, which I have not yet seen, and explore the bush beyond it, and learn how sheep are bred. So, armed with letters of introduction to Jeremiah Ware, squatter, of " Mount Elephant," out west of Geelong, Victoria, I take passage, in the brig " Raven," Captain Bell, from Launceston to Melbourne, having, for fellow passengers, Mr. Gwynne, a returned Californian and squatter in " Riverina," and Miss Agnes Peat, whose friends lived at " Shortland's Bluff;" but, before we sail, I must narrate a little episode of " Black Thursday," February 6, 1851, as it appeared to me. There had been little, or no, rain in Tasmania and Victoria for nearly 18 months, and bush fires were rampant. That afternoon, strolling in the bush, near the house, at Bagdad, I noticed, about 5 p.m., that all the birds got off" the trees, and sat on the ground, with open mouths, and, as the heat was not anything extraordinary, I wondered at it. At the same time, I noticed a low, small, brown cloud spread across the northern horizon, and rapidly rise. Before it, came a mighty wind, which blew our farm men off the haystacks which they were building, and sent the barley flying. Next day, we heard that -the mail coach had been blown over on the high road, and that a French man-of-war's boat, with no sail set, was blown over, when rowing, in Hobart Harbour. Next week (for there were no electric- telegraphs then) we learnt that Victoria had been swept by a forest conflagration, 100 miles broad ; several scattered and separate fires had united in one, before a hurricane, from the north, which blew burnt leaves before it across Bass's Straits. To this fire-swept colony did I sail in the " Raven," brig, and, after a preliminary bumping on the sea beach at Georgetown Heads, owing to the tug not giving us enough of the " offing," we crossed the straits, and the bay of Port Phillip, and worked our way up the mal-odorous Yarra River, with its " boiling down " nuisances on the banks. How my heart sank as I viewed the scene. The river was full of dead calves, which, impelled by drought, had descended the steep banks higher uj>, had fallen in, and got drowned ; and this was all the water Melbourne had to drink, for, it had hardly rained since the middle of 1849, and tanks were empty, and there were no Yan- Yean water pipes then. I went ashore, to Tankard's Temperance Hotel. How I disliked Melbourne, after Tasmania. No mountains, no lakes, no scenery ; all flat plains, dust, and white bark, stunted gum trees, a dreary waste of " pig face " (/nesembryanthemum) all the way from Prince's Bridge to Liardet's boat shed, on the beach. Business was dull, money scarce ; no produce, but a little wool and ■ ■ ■ " ._ ... •J m m- <4 r PI ■tetf £23 ' I ' 'I. 7, < < < O H 75 < < s. ►J D o w C-t JOHN O'SHANASSY. 49 tallow, to circulate coin on. A smell of new bricks and mortar in the air, like an outlying part of London, at Camberwell and Walworth. A swarm of children's funerals every day, from dysentery, and bad water. Strolling down the street one clay, March, 1851, with my friend, Guthrie, of the " Eudora," he pointed out to me, across the road, a big, strong, stout man, in a brown shooting jacket, and standing, looking out from the doorway of a small draper's shop. Guthrie said to me, " Do you know who that is ?" I said "No." "That," said he, " is a man called John O'Shanassy ; he has come forward a good deal lately, and will be heard of, more, by-and-by, I think." This was before the gold discovery, and the words were amply fulfilled after that, as the electors of Kilmore and Melbourne, and the annals of C. H. Ebden, J. T. Smith, Michie, Stawell, &c, could testify, and "J. O'S." went through many an "up," and many a " down " (politically), between that clay and the time when I next ran against him, which was, I think, at the corner of the Bank of New South Wales, in Brisbane, in June, 1860. O'Shanassy was universally popular at one time ; even a Chinaman (who had married an Irish woman) declared for " Ho-Shan-See." A bit of gold, like a musket ball, hung, in March, 1851, from a thread, in the window of a Melbourne jeweller, and was labelled "from Chines;" but all the " knowing " ones vowed it must have come from California, and no where else ; but they changed their minds in 1852. I took the night coach, across the Exe River, to Geelong, en route for Ware's Station, and met him at Mack's Hotel. Corio Bay was pretty, after the Yarra, but the drought was all pervading. In due time I arrived at Ware's sheep farm, near Captain Ormoncl's, on the Leigh River, and was duly initiated into the mysteries of driving the bullocks, which ploughed the home paddock, and was instructed if I found a scabby sheep dying out on the plains, to cut its throat, and not let the crows pick its eyes out, alive ; but, somehow, I failed in this. We had, every night, to cut down a she oak tree, or two, for the horses and bullocks to eat, for grass there was none. I looked contemptuously around me, on the level flats, so different from the mountain gulches of California, and Tasmania. I said to myself, " No gold Acre." I asked in May, 1851, which was the nearest mountain, and I was told "Buninyong, aear Ballarat," ami I felt half inclined to go over to it, and try for gold. But, two matters happened, which cut short my stay in the colony of Victoria. One w;is the non-arrival of my income remittances !■: 50 STOLEN REMITTANCES. from England (vid Tasmania) ; the other was the discovery of gold, near Bathurst, in New South Wales. Never, during my whole stay in Victoria, did I get one letter. I wanted money for postage stamps, and the like ; I was too proud to borrow of Mr. Ware ; so, off I set to Geelong, and thence, by steamer, to Melbourne, where I sold my watch, the gift of my dear dead grandam, who had passed away while I was first at Honolulu, and did not live to get the heart-felt letter of gratitude I sent her from Tahiti. I had to sell my watch to pay my passage, in the schooner " Mariposa," to Launceston. They found the post office fellow, afterwards, who had stolen all my letters, and other people's, at Melbourne, and he got seven years for it ; but I never got my watch back. So I shook off the dust of Victoria, and landed, once more, in Launceston, then whitened (June, 1851) with snow, went over by the coach to Bagdad, found that my aunt had gone to Sydney, to winter there, and, after a kindly farewell to the Theodore Bartleys, Edwin Tooth, and the Crowthers, I sailed, in the " Blackfriar," for Port Jackson, having, previously, found out that my remittances had been regularly sent to me, and as regularly stolen, in the Melbourne Post Office. A stormy, wintry, passage, in a ship full of men, of all classes, bound for the new Bathurst gold fields, ended in a night entrance between Sydney Heads ; the brig, "Algerine," having been wrecked, the previous night, in attempting the same task, and we had a narrow escape ; yet, we had some old whaling skippers on board, who knew the way in well. The " Sow and Pigs" light blazed in front of us, as we anchored, and, next day, dear old Sydney (where I had a brother, and a cousin, and an aunt) received me. It was a nice mediaeval sort of place, after that bran new Melbourne ; some signs of moss and house leek on the walls ; a good, old-fashioned, London smell of gas pipes, and draught porter, in the streets ; and all that sort of thing, you know ; and, above all, the alluvial gold on the other side of those Blue Mountains, and no need to go to California, any more, after it. Arrangements were made, and in early August, 1851, I took the coach, from Sydney, to Penrith, with money in my pocket, and, sleeping by the Nepean, tackled Lapstone Hill, on foot, in the morning, and rested that night at the " Twenty-mile Hollow " (James's). Lovely wild flowers, epacrids, red, with white lips, lined the sides of the road, and blossomed far down the fathomless sandstone ravines of those mystic mountains. Next day I passed the " Weatherboard " and " Blue Mountain " inns, about 2,500 feet above the sea, and overtook two young THE BLUE MOUNTAINS. 51 gentlemen, Roderick Travers, and Henry Turner, armed with double-barrelled guns, shooting birds, and marching to the Turon gold mines, the same as myself. They made execrable puns on ■everything they saw, and met with, and we put up that night at Joel Heard's hostelry, at " Pulpit Hill;" Jellore, and the Burragorang mountains being beautiful, and distant, away to the left. Bloodsworth's, at Blackheath (3,500 feet), and Haynes's, at Hartley, were the next resting places ; Martha, the landlord's daughter, at the latter pretty village, being a good looking girl. And, now, the i-oad forked, and only one more decent hotel on my road could be looked for — namely, Barnaby's, at the " Round Swamp," for I had to quit the old, beaten, Bathurst road, near '• Mylecharane's," at Bowenfels, and take the wilder one to Mudgee, through a country, desolate as the mountains of Edom, which, in its stone-topped, flat-headed, eminences, it somewhat resembles. I bought a loaf of bread at the last house on the road, and faced the Avilderness. Down the steep " Razorback " mountain (terror to teamsters) I descended, and found myself on the banks of the golden Turon. Here was a man washing out a dish of sand, at the bottom of which was half an egg-spoon full of glorious, pretty flakes of gold, the pure native article. It gave me, somehow, an " eerie," creepy feeling, to see, for the tirst time, drawn from its native lair, in Australia, the metal I had been used only to meet with at the Bank •of England, or in money, and jewellery, ready made up ; but there was no time for philosophising ; I had to find a lodging for the night. I crossed the Turon, and kept on down its far bank, till I came to a deserted shepherd's hut, and there camped, with another man. We had a small tire, but no food, no blankets, and the ice in a bucket formed pretty thick in the night. I had a macintosh, but it warmed me not ; money in my pocket, but there were no stores to buy at ; and, I may as well confess it, it was too cold for sleep, so T laid awake all night, and, next morning, chilled, empty, and downhearted, I faced onwards, further along the river, wondering how it would all end, when, suddenly, I heard my name called, and, turning round, I saw four of my shipmates in the " Blackfriar " — Worley, Espie, Spong, and Gerrand — all Tasmanians, and they asked me in to breakfast. They had a noble tent, floored with gum tree boughs, on which a tarpaulin, and opossum rugs, with the fur upwards, were spread. On these, again, more opossum rugs, with the fur downwards, were placed, and the skin of the black 'possum <»t Vim I)iemeii's Land in warm, I tell you. Then they had a noble 52 GOLDEN GRAVEL. sack of biscuit, a ditto of smoked pig's cheek, flour, tea, and sugar,, all from Hobart, with them. They offered to let me buy a share of it all, and of their gold pit, and their labour, and the proceeds thereof. All this I joyfully agreed to. In their party, but in a separate tent, were four Cornish miners, from the " Burra Burra," who did all the tunnelling, and propping, and getting out of the gold gravel, while we " gentlemen's sons " (as the sarcastic term then went) pounded it fine, carried it to the river, and washed it in a cradle. Cruelly hard and back-breaking work it was, too, especially the carrying of the hundred-weight bags of earth, and the stooping, for half a hour at a time, in a tunnel, only four feet high, wielding a ten-pound, maul on the hard gravel lumps. I slept warm that night, unlike the fearful one which preceded it, and I soon had time to look about me. Travers and Turner were camped near me, so, also, was Marshall, a son of the chief cashier of the Bank of England, and his West Indian friend, Davson. Fearfully and wonderfully made was the "damper" compounded by Marshall and Davson ; wedges of putty were digestible in comparison therewith. Here, in a storekeeping " spec," were "Williams, the son of the Erromanga missionary martyr ; David Jones, a son of the rich. Sydney draper ; John West, a son of the reverend editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, &c. Thomas Winder Campbell, a brother of " Tertius " Campbell, had a palatial bark hut, and was buying gold, at £2 10s. an ounce, for the Bank of New South Wales, and. paying for it in blue bank notes. Our gold digging did not pay our party any too well, the best day's work, for nine of us, was £li. Williams, Jones, and West had a store, and resolved to start a baker's oven, import a yellow bread cart, with painted wheat sheaves on the panels, from Sydney, and teach the Turon diggers to exchange indigestible damper for fermented bread ; they got, also, ten tons of flour from Maitland ; and it was done. I, afterwards, had full charge of the store, and of this, the first bakery ever known on any Australian gold field. My brother, in Sydney, about this time, wanted me to join him. in a digging cruise, so I sold out of Worley and party, and started for Sydney, to meet my brother, and help him up with our impedimenta, whith were piled on a dray, just about to start from that city, loaded with our tent, tools, and a year's provisions. So, I set forth, on foot, accompanied by my faithful bull dog " Tiger " (rough hair, tan, with black muzzle), who grew footsore in following me in my flying trip, 300 miles, to Sydney, and back, in ten days. And here I must say a few words of descriptive on that wonderful city, and harbour, of the southern ocean. DARBY AND JOAV. 53 " More English than England herself " is what Trollope says of lier ; and Trollope is quite right, only he was not the first to find it out. The old English types, which have died out in the mother country, are preserved exactly, and alive, in Sydney, in their sleepy, happy plenty, and comfort, and freedom from care and fretful Yankee worry. It would be difficult, elsewhere, to match the old " Darby and Joan " folk, homely specimens of married comfort, no scholars though, with good incomes from their orange orchards, and other sources, people such as you meet nowhere but in Sydney. These cosy, rich, shabby old couples, she in her faded velvet bonnet, umbrella, and warm check shawl, of 50 years ago ; he, in his velveteen vest, and glass buttons, and rough furred hat. As they step into the 'bus with you, you would never imagine they had hundreds a year, from oranges, up Parramatta way. They carry big bundles, and revel in tea, shrimps, and watercresses, and they know, and care, as much about the traditional bush " hardships," as they do about North Polar expeditions. They are true Port Jackson cockneys, as thoroughly cockney as the Londoner himself. They believe in comfort, and they get it, too, in well appointed Sydney, where cab, 'bus, and steamer await one's call at every turn, and save all trouble of walking, or even thinking, no matter in what direction you want to go, and where a well supplied public market renders " foraging " a merely nominal task. I am particular in thus describing these types of bygone English people, so scarce at home, but so well preserved at the antipodes, for they remind me of the dear old mother country, as she was, before modern " flashness," and the " music-hall " era's arrival, had extinguished for ever her simple and primitive style. These happy antediluvians, whom I have endeavoured to describe, are found abundantly in old Sydney, where (unlike in modern " Yankee " Melbourne) the moss has had time to grow, and cap the walls, and where a century of settlement has imparted a " well aired " flavour, and finished aspect, to the surroundings. And, in Sydney, too, it must be remembered, that our old " Darby and Joan " are not subject to, nor do their venerable air pipes suffer, the wheezy miseries of old Britain's clinic And they are the cynosure of attentive tradesmen, for their " money is good," and rattling 'busses take them to every place which steamers and train do not, and where the prawns and the muffins of civilised life and (Jiavesend are recalled, and where (as already Btated) actually living specimens of the extinct old men and women of England can still lie found. This is old Sydney, and I shall come to "young" Sydney by-and-bye. But our aged couple are only 54 A HAWKESBURY " TYPE." one type of our Sydney. There is, in addition, the rough old tyke,, hailing from the healthy Hawkesbury, or Hunter Valley ; the- Yorkshireman of Australia, clad in drab tweed, or Kerseymere, strong and keen withal ; full, to the brim, of sheep, and sovereigns, and sense ; full of anything you like, except book learning and ideality ; a man, whom none could " get to windward " of, either in a billiard room, or on a racecourse, and who could see you, and all hands, "out," and be vital and fresh at the finish, either on a long bush coach journey, or a stormy trip by sea. His Yorkshire- cunning has not failed, nor forsaken, him here in Australia ; but,, happily, his Saxon coarseness does not descend to his pretty daughters, born in the picturesque Nepean Yale, as you may very plainly perceive, if you glance at the delicate faces, and slender figures, perched on " dad's " dog cart at the races ; and if you could take the shopman of George street into your confidence, you would be surprised at their " sizes " in gloves and shoes in this Spanish climate, even if your own eyes failed to impart the intelligence ; and,, but for their healthy look, there is little in common between these girls, and the tough, old, fifteen-stone " knot " of " stringy bark and green hide," who is their father ; but our Italian climate has a tendency to refine all damsels born in the land. But, the pretty girls of Sydney are not all country born, o? country bred. There have been officers in the army, and navy, and commissai-iat, and younger sons of good families, who have married,, and settled in New South Wales, and the blonde and brunette belles, whom you may see on any fine day in their stylish carriages, in George and Pitt streets, have an air of well disciplined breeding,, which has won, for many of them, a high caste Indian official (civil or military) for a husband. But these daintily stepping, artfully veiled, senoritas, are not all. Sydney is also the paradise of young "sparks," who fondly conceive that health, life, and money, are- matters that last for ever, and to whom tailors, and yachts, race horses, and billiards, form absolute necessaries of life. Many of these young fellows inherit their father's money, but not his astuteness, nor stamina, and, to use the aphorism of a 'cute Sydney bootmaker, who " made " for the haut ton, " some of them begin where their fathers left off (with a fortune), and leave off where their fathers began (with nothing). The principal streets of Sydney, which lie north and south, are- named after Royal Dukes — George, Clarence, Sussex, Kent, and Cumberland, to which may be added the ministers, of Pitt and Castlereagh ; while the cross, and other streets, which run east and SHIPPING GOLD IN '52. 55 west, or nearly so, take their titles from the past Governors of the colony — King, Hunter, O'Connell, Phillip, and Bligh, with Bathurst, Liverpool, and Goulburn (amongst minor English politicians), to fill up. Darling Point is a pretty promontory, stretching north from the south shore of the harbour, and contains, amongst costly Italian style villas, a perfect little bijou of an Anglican Church, " St. Marks." Pardon this digression about old Sydney, of which I shall have more to say by-and-by. I walked 300 miles, there and back, to the Turon, in ten days, over mountains, 4,000 feet high, with a heavy kangaroo rug on my back, and thought nothing of it. Our gold digging was not very successful, and it was provoking to see the fellows on Monday Point, washing up in the evening, with a show of gold in each tin dish, equal, in volume and coarseness, to a pint, or more, of Indian corn, for the gold lay thick and heavy on that earthy river cape, round which the old Turon had swept for ages, leaving fresh deposits with every flood. My brother and I could only chance upon light, shaly deposit, with fine gold in it, of which it took a great deal to weigh an ounce, and so it fell out that we made but a bare living, and no fortune at all, which led to his sailing to England, once more, in the old " General Hewitt," while I accepted a tellership in the Bank of New South Wales, in Sydney, a somewhat arduous position, at a time when half the clerks had gone to the gold mines, while the half who remained behind, had to wrestle with the trebled allowance of work, which the gold discovery, and the heavy immigra- tion from abroad, and the enormous expansion in business, forced upon their shoulders. One of the most pleasing episodes of my banking experience was in the regular shipping of gold bars, from Sydney, for London. At this time there were no mail steamers, no gigantic " P. and O.," or "Orient," liners. All gold had, in 1852, to " go home " in small sailing ships, and take, at least, 100 days over the trip, and, as the freight on gold then was something handsome, the skippers of these ships made a good thing out of it, and, invariably, invited all the mercantile and banking clerks, who came on board in charge of the gold, to a champagne luncheon. I was the oflicial who shipped the precious metal, then, for the Bank of New South Wales, the largest buyer and exporter, and it was the only bit of outdoor work I got, and, of course, proportionately pleasant. At the appointed hour, I was at Circular Quay, in charge of 12, or II iron-clamped, heavily sealed, thick timbered boxes, each full of the yellow, weighty ban ; 56 A CRANKY DIGGER. and there, I met the representatives of other gold buying banks and merchants, with the unsigned bills of lading in my pocket, and I, and the rest, stepped on board a little steamer, which took us out to the ship in the far anchorage ; for gold ships did not lie at the wharfs, for obvious reasons, and, once on board, and the gold stowed, and the bills of lading duly signed, corks were drawn, and sounds were heard, as of " Australasia, a glass of wine with you," responded to with " Most happy, Gilchrist and Co.," as the representatives of the Bank and the firm pledged each other in the " Epernay moussetix " of the period. I can only recall the names of Brindley and Luke, now, of all the different chums who used to figure on those occasions. I took a turn, a while, at the Bank ledgers, in 1852, and could weave you a three-volume Austi*alian romance, from the names alone, of the old colonists which figured at the heads of the pages. Trust accounts, and trustees' accounts, of men, long dead, even then. Why ! \V. C. Wentworth himself, used, at times, to come into my little sanctum, and pore over the array of orders and cheques that had rolled in from his numerous, and wide-spread, stations, and he was one, only, of the prominent colonists who came, at times, to do similar inspection of their accounts, when they had omitted to leave their pass books in time. I faced the counter, for the first time, on Monday, October 4th, 1 852. Sydney was a small place then. We had been closed on the 1st and 2nd for our half-yearly balance, the 3rd was Sunday, and the 4th was " bill " day, and, with the " pent up " business of the 1st and 2nd, to face. I may here state that I took the banking berth because (as I said to myself) I should be sure of some penny- weights of gold in my dish, for my labour, every night, which I could never be sure of at the diggings, no matter how hard I worked. The doors opened, and the crush began. The people were three rows deep at the counter all clay long, queer customers, some of them. I well remember one rough fellow, who threw me a deposit slip for £200, which I, at once, threw back to him as " wrong," to which he replied, with some oaths, that he could count money as well as I could. Without disputing that fact, I told him that I was possessed of no information on that point, but that he would now have to wait till all the people, then at the counter, had been duly attended to. When his turn came again, I took up his deposit, and began, for his edification, to count it aloud before him, thus — " one, and ten, are eleven, and five, are sixteen ;" before I could get any further, his jaw dropped, and he poured forth apologies as profuse, and abject, OVERLANDIXG. 57 •as his previous abuse had been violent. He was a lucky and illiterate digger, one of those who had no idea whether they were worth one thousand, or two thousand, pounds. He only knew that there were 200 actual bank notes in his deposit, but, being no scholar, he had reckoned them all as one pound notes, while, half of them being "tens" and " fives," there were £1,000, in place of £200, in his deposit. He departed, grateful and abashed, and he was but a type of a class, very numerous at that period. We had plenty of other queer " deposits " at that time. Bank notes, taken from the body of a man who had been dead six weeks in the water of the Turon (unpleasant money) ; also, a bundle of notes that had been " planted " in, or near, a lime kiln, and were incrusted, and stiff", to the last degree. My deposits that day were £150,000, and it was past nine at night before I " balanced," when I found myself £10,081 short ! By 10 p.m. I had found the £10,000, an error of addition, and the £1, a cheque, in the wrong column ; but the £80 was a "baffler," till, before 11 p.m., I remembered that the Colonial Treasurer had sent in his pass book on the Friday to be written up, and, with it, a cash box, with £80 in it, which box had been put away, and forgotten, on a top shelf, in the strong room, and which, while it was duly noted in my cash book, was not with the cash in my drawer; so, here was the missing link in the " balance," and, at 11 p.m., I rushed into my fellow-teller's arms, and executed a pas de triom]jhe, and went home to bed. But this kind of high pressure life, when we were constantly kept in till 8 and 9 p.m., told on the health of many of the clerks. Dr. Lang's son, who was my " exchange " clerk, the sweet-tempered, gentle William Colley, died of it. My fellow-teller broke a blood vessel, and died of it, five years later ; and I sustained a fierce attack of influenza, which swept over Sydney in the winter of 1853, and which, in my earlier bank days, I should have scorned and laughed at. My medical man told me I must go to the bush, and open air, once more ; so, I arranged with my kind uncle, in Sydney, the introduction, which enabled me to travel, overland, with 10,000 sheep, from Dubbo, on the Macquarie River, to Paika, on the Murrumbidgee. I had two friends, companions with me, Felix Neeld Burne, and G. V. James, who, fired with a love of adventure, resolved to throw up their situations, and come with me. Tliis was a 1,200 mile trip, not a 150 mile one, so, I bought a horse, saddle, and bridle, and so did J. (who was the son of an Indian General), and B., whose father was a rector, near Bath, and who must have; brought up hifl 58 A LOST FLOCK. family well ; for, one son was a P. and 0. captain ; another, a high; military officer in India; and another married the daughter of a distinguished political Viscount, and was well up in the " War Office." Never before did a poor parson " place " all his sons so well. My friend, B., was, afterwards, one of our largest sheep farmers, at Lansdowne, on the Barcoo, Queensland, and this trip with me was his- induction into squatting life, which he afterwards followed up, in partnership with the master of the Sydney Mint, and Captain Mayne. Behold us, then, " B.," "J.," and self, on our horses, facing west,. on the Parramatta road, out of Sydney, on the 1st June, 1853. Shall I tell you of our 270 miles journey to Dubbo, where we were to pick up the 10,000 sheep ? How we passed a cloven mountain of pure blue slate ; how the snow lay on the road, at the top of Mount Lambie, -4,000 feet above the sea ; how we refreshed at Heagren's inn, at the Diamond Swamp, near Solitary Creek ; and put up at Larry Durack's hotel, at " Meadow Flat " (500 feet above the modern Katoomba). We passed the " Green Swamp," and we joined Walter Black (who, with his mother and handsome sister, then kept the chief hotel at Bathurst) in some mulled claret. Next day, passed the " Rocks," and Wentworth's ironstone gold mine, at Frederick's Valley, and put up at Carr's, opposite the steam flour mills. Next day, lunched at Hanrahan's, rode through the bleak, high town of Orange, over Summerhill Creek ; the huge "Canobolas" mountain, nearly 4,500 feet high, in sight, to the left, for a day and a-half ; got on to the Bogan road, as far as Kerr's place, by mistake, and had to turn back, and got to the ' ; Three Rivers " at night fall. Next day, passed the " Black Rocks," at noon, through " Montefiores," to Wellington, in the evening, where were some noble looking aborigines, in old Hieronymus's inn yard, camped by a tire. We, also, on this journey, passed Smith's, at. Molong, near " Larras Lake " (often called " Larry's Lake "). We got to Dubbo at last, and there met our " super," and commander-in-chief, Mr. L., who was the son of a gentleman farmer in Devon, and who had married against his father's consent, and brought his wife to Australia, to seek their fortunes. He was a splendid rider (bar the buck jump), and could find his way through the bush from the very start of his career ; he had only just landed from England. We divided our 10,000 sheep into four flocks, and travelled them, each about half-a-mile apart. The first night out was dark, and wet, and one flock, and its shepherd, did not come into camp. Off* went L , a brave and conscientious man, at 9 p.m.,. THE BOCiAN COUNTRY. 59' in the darkness and rain, to seek the lost ones, and, about midnight, when I had the watch, I noted a movement in the 7,500 sheep, which slept under my guardianship, and found it arose from the arrival, and mingling with them, of the missing 2,500, which Mr. L. had found, and guided to our camp, a feat of the highest class of bushmanship, on a dark, wet night, and in a country where he- had never been before, and creditable, in the extreme, to a " new chum." We had a horse dray, and a bullock dray, to carry rations, for 11 people (for a trip of 70, or 80, days) ; and, also, the skins of such sheep as we killed for food purposes. Our party consisted of Mr. L., " B.," " J.," and myself, four shepherds, a black boy, to track, a horse driver, and a bullock driver, and we carried a case, containing 12 bottles of rum, for " medical comforts," for we had to ford rivers that were born of melted mountain snow. It was pleasant, at night, in one's watch, whether it was from six to ten, or from ten to two, or from two to daylight, to sit and read " Martin Chuzzlewit," " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and " The Cruise of the Midge "' (as I did), by the light of the log hre, in the intervals of " shying " lighted brands, boomerang fashion, at the head of any body of sheep that seemed disposed to stray out from the main camp, and, so, to make them " scurry " back to the rest of the fold. I never remember feeling such splendid health as I used to, when day would break, after I had been on watch, in the open air, under the Southern Cross, and Magelhan clouds, from 2 a.m. We had a tent, for B., J., L., and myself, and I, in addition, bought, at Dubbo, a canvas stretcher, to avoid sleeping on the ground ; and, here, a word as to the intense " home " feeling- connected with one's camping place for the night. What is it, but the sensation of a "home," that gives zest to a patch of ground, 12 feet square, that was bare grass yesterday, before you came, and will be bare, deserted grass, again, to-morrow, after you have gone 1 What is it that promotes it for the time, that puts it before any other spot of earth, unless it be that it is {pro tew) " Home, Sweet Home 1" We got the 10,000 sheep at Murrinbidgerie, and our first stage was to Duncan M'Killop's, at Wambanglang (he was a brother of Peter M'Killop, now of Victoria) ; he used us well, and lent us a set of spare bullocks, and his own black driver, to help us over ;i soft spot on his run ; and, so, we progressed past Tomingley, Immilgylie, and the " Captain's Creek," through the Bogan country, in sight of "Hervey's Range," traversing Bctts' place (Cananagey), and Korudgery, and so on to the Gunnimblan lagoons, Burrawong, and the Lachlan itself. €0 AN EMU'S NEST. I have spoken of "Norbury," the black boy, our tracker, a native of the Barwon and Namoi River, in New South "Wales. He and I used to go out on the dewy grass, at day dawn, to track, and bring in, the bullocks and horses which had strayed in the night. / could see a track in the soft ground, and so could any white fool ; but, when it came to the stony ground, it " was Norbury, you bet." 'Often have I seen him (he had but one eye, and that was a "piercer ") jump suddenly on one side, where the scent and track grew dim, and " spot " a place on the hard sandstone rock, and, when I asked him to show me what he saw, he would point to one grain, a mere speck, of sand, dislodged, by a horny hoof, from the main mass of rock, and, presto ! we were full on the track again. Amongst the " disagreeables " of our trip, was, that we came to •some streams, 80 feet wide, and three, or four, deep, which we and the sheep had to cross, and which the sheep did not want to ctoss, and, so, had to be made to cross. It is neither a light, nor a pleasant, labour to have to seize a 70 lb. wether, and drag him across such a brook, more especially when he is muscular, and the water is the produce of melted snow ; and it is still more unpleasant, when, at the end of a hard day's work, you have put 100 of them across, you find the 100 swim back to the main body, in place of the dog-urged main body swimming over to their 100 mates ; but these ure amongst the amenities of " overlanding," and have to be taken in the day's work, in a country where there are no bridges over the rivers. A comical episode, in which eggs figured, occurred. One of the •"new chum " shepherds was seen, one afternoon, fiercely belabouring, ■with a heavy cudgel, something under a bushy tree. On going up to him, he said, " Look at that big green boa constrictor." "For goodness sake, stop," said I, for he had mistaken the handsome dark green, pimpled emu eggs, as they lay in the nest, for the folds of a buge green snake. I saved two of them, and they formed a good substitute for milk in our bush tea that day, and the next. We passed the Bogan, and ran down the Lachlan River. Far •out, to our right, lay the track of a wide dray, said to be that of 'Sir Thomas Mitchell's expedition. I washed for gold at " Hurd's Peak," discovered by Oxley, in 1817, but found none. Anon, we came to very boggy ground, which, dry on the surface, was, at six inches deep, soft as butter almost. Onward, for weeks, till, at length, our goal drew near, in the lake country of the Murrum- bidgee ; and Gunarwe, Tauri, Makormon, Makoombi, and the great Betarponga (18 miles across) formed the chief of the group of lakes. THE TYSON BROTHERS. 61 Our journey clown the Lachlan River was by way of Burrawong - thence to Philip Street's station, on to Flanagan's, Kiokatoo; thence to Euarba, on to Willandra (Suttor's place), on to Burrangeramble (Dr. Ramsay's), Wheelbali (Bell's), Booligal (Thomas') ; the Lake (Waljeers), and Towpruck (held by Nicholas Chadwick). I have omitted minor stages, such as Jigelong, Hyandra, Yarrowbendra, and Marrin, and Alec. Long's place. At Towpruck, we heard of three brothers, named Tyson, who had sheep hard by, and who were remarkable for never smoking, nor drinking "grog," nor sleeping in a house, nor marrying, but living a pastoral, open air, life of temperance and celibacy. I was full of admiration at the idea, for I could see what a piled up store of brain pow r er a man could bring to bear upon business, if he only kept himself clear of the entangle- ments of matrimony and drugs, like alcohol and nicotine ; but, still, I should have been inclined to say to such a nearly perfect one, " One thing thou lackest ; give up tea and coffee, also ;" for, there can be no doubt that, with the use of these drugs, the nerves are not always on the exact balance, for the perfect " finance " of faultless business, as they would be if no unusual " ups and downs " of wisdom were introduced by their noxious agency. The most perfect complexion I ever saw in a woman was in the cheeks of an Australian blonde, who, not only eschewed stimulants, but, also, avoided tea, coffee, cocoa, ginger beer, lemonade, and all "made up" drinks, confining herself to the two natural beverages, of milk, or water. There was none of the " muddy " skin of indigestion on her face. At Lake Paika we delivered our sheep. Our dogs had not been of much use, except little " Bos'un," the only one of the four who would go all round a mob of 10,000 sheep ; but, so well had we watched them at night, that, counting the skins of the slaughtered ones in our cart, we found we had only lost two sheep on our long journey. At Paika I was inducted into the mysteries of sheep washing, and sheep shearing, and yard making, and made the acquaintance of the vast tribe of aborigines, who then (1853) still were to be found there. Marsh mallows lined the shores of the lake, and the nankeen bittern emitted his bull-like boom in the forest, while the largest eagles I ever saw flew about. One fellow, whom I met walking about in a glade of the gum trees, looked big enough to be formidable, even on foot. The river system here is peculiar. The banks are low, the water, from the melted snow at the mountain sources, overflows every summer tide, and, in retreating in the autumn, leaves behind it a fringe of rich gn which supports the sheep and cattle, when the outside plains are 62 THE " MALLEE " SCRUB. burnt bare of all herbage by the summer sun, and only the salt bush, with its leaves covered with the glittering saline particles, would be left for food. There are, in various parts of Australia, dense jungles, and undergrowths, called " scrubs ;" some are of vine, some of gidya, some of "brigalow," some beautiful in their fern, and creeper, and orchid growth, and peopled with birds of rare, and startling, cries, like the " coach whip " bird ; the bell bird, which seems to tinkle a bell ; and one bird, which whistles a complete bar from the drinking song in " Der Freischutz," egfbcge, an octave between the e's ; while other scrubs are desolate enough for Dante's " Inferno." Of such last is the " Mallee," which covers the countiy for hundreds of miles, near Paika, where I now was. If the English reader wishes to know what " Mallee " is like, let him picture to himself a level country of poor, yellow soil, destitute, alike, of stones, water, or inequalities of any kind. This soil is covered (as thickly, nearly, as they will grow) with bare saplings, 12 feet long, and two inches thick, of the Eucalyptus Dumosa, bearing a tuft of leaves, only, on the top, and springing, perhaps, a dozen of these dreary sticks, from a root, or boll, that rises just above the ground ; this only, and nothing more, whatever, of any kind ; no birds, no insects, no animals, for there is nothing for them to live upon, and only a rare snake. Woe to the traveller who gets lost in this terrible desolation ; he can see no distance ; he can climb no hill ; and if the " mallee " sticks ivould bear him on the top, he could only see Mallee, Mallee, Mallee, all round him. Right pleased was I when, some months later, I saw the last detached clump of it away south, in the colony of Victoria, near Mount Pyramid and Mount Hope. The main body of the awful " Mallee " is on the Murray River, in South Australia. Mr. John Lecky Phelps, of Canally, where I spent a few weeks, was a man much in advance of his time. While other people, for 150 miles round, had no vegetables, he cultivated a half-acre, on the river bank, with potatoes, green peas, French beans, cabbages, and he kept it irrigated by a very simple process, for rain was very uncertain in that far inland spot. He had a Calif omian wooden pump, about six inches square, with its end fixed in the river, and about 150 feet of " Osnaburg " hose from it to the top of the garden, which was, perhaps, three feet higher than the lower end by the river, and, half-an-hour of hand pumping every morning, sent the water flowing zig zag, backwards, and forwards, and in, and out, through all the well-kept furrows, and beds, of the enclosure, and the vegetation was always fresh and green at Canally garden. The A FLOODED FOREST. 63 Messrs. Chaftey Brothers have now (1892) some magnificent irriga- tion colonies in this same part of Australia, but the embryo idea ■was in Phelps's garden, in 1853. To return, for a while, to Lake Paika. "We were short of flour, and I volunteered to cross the Murrumbidgee, then in flood, and ten miles across, and go to Tala, the head station, in a canoe of tree bark, and fetch a 200 lb. bag over. Two things were necessary for this — namely, a black pilot, and a bark canoe, cut from some tree with a hump on its back. " Jacob " was the name of my Palinurus, and be, sent on the errand, soon returned with a bark canoe, 12 feet long, a flaw at one end being neatly plugged with clay. This was duly launched on the flood waters of the river Murrumbidgee, which was here ten miles wide ; the forest on each bank being submerged to a depth of three feet, for a breadth of five miles ; the main river was 150 feet wide, and about 60 feet deep, and flowing clear and fast. So long do the flood waters remain out, that beautiful, spongy, and filamentary water weeds have time to grow, and gladden the eyesight as one glides over them in a canoe, which draws about three, or four, inches of water, as it threads its way under the stately, solemn, lofty gum trees. Ever, and anon, a bed of high, thick, green reeds, in some branch creek, is encountered, and here Jacob has to get out, put down his pole, and drag the canoe bodily through, as the beds are too long for us to go round. Right and left fall the elastic reeds, as we pass through, nearly recovering themselves after we have gone on. Strange noises, louder even than the boom of the nankeen crane, or bittern, are heard in the still, solemn, weird, watery solitude. The day is cloudy, and inclined to rain, but Jacob never falters. At length we reach the main river, and the punting pole has to act as a paddle, for " no soundings " are here. The flooded forest, and the reed beds, of the north side, by Paika, are exactly reproduced on the south bank, by Lake Tala, the head station, and, after a pretty trip, we land in sight of Tala House, where we are to get our bag of flour. During the trip, Jacob showed me two specimens of his woodcraft. With his little reed spear, he caught, and killed, a big water rat, and, hearing a flock of wild ducks, on the other side of one of the reed beds, he sent his reed spear unerringly up, so as to fall straight down, with the h<;ivy, pointed end, unseen, in the middle of the flock, and was rewarded with a transfixed duck, and a rat, for his supper. It is only fair of me to state that when he speared the rat, be did not know of the "ducks to follow." "We announced our business at the head station, and were made comfortable for the night, as we could 64 A BLACK LAOCOON. not return home on the same clay. Here were some white females,, of which there were none at Paika, two married women, 800 miles- out west of Sydney. "Next day we got our 200 lb. bag of flour into the canoe, and returned to Paika with it. What a strong sense of locality the Australian aborigine must have. Jacob had no sun, and no track, to guide him ; all was water, reed beds, and submerged forest, yet he took me that ten miles, straight to Tala, and back, next day, to the very tree we had started from, the clay previous ; no broken twigs, no landmarks, here to> guide him ; nothing but pure, unadulterated, faultless instinct, such as no other race, white or black, on this earth possesses. A. prominent aboriginal, on Paika, was "Old Bill ;" his native name I do not know ; but, if the reader wishes to picture him, then imagine the Laocoon, with a black skin, and a white beard, and you have this terrible old warrior before you ; a man slayer, a mighty hunter in clays gone by, and, even when I saw him, there was much of the old fire and strength left in him. No humble follower of the white "boss" was Bill, as other blackfellows were; and, the first time I heard his voice was in altercation with the superintendent, when, at night, in the kitchen, he shouted the words " Wortey toonarpel,"' regarding some event of the day, meaning " It's not true, it's a lie," " wortey " being the emphatic Murrumbidgee word for " No." Differently inflected, it would be shrilly uttered by the smiling black girl, if accused of kissing her sweetheart, as " warr-ti," in the white girl's tone of "I never did." Old Bill had two pretty daughters, aged 14 and 12, called Bessie and Louey, their native names being Kuckeelbuckie, and Lymebennaroy ; and, for curly hair, brilliant black eyes, and pure white teeth, it were hard to beat them. It is the habit here to give each native an alias (not unlike our- old English Saxon fashion, of Fitz, Hurst, and Combe, tfcc, or the 11 Mac " of Scotland, or the " O " of Ireland), by putting the affix " ipo " to the name of the place where they were born. Bessie was born at Bouripa, so was called Bouriparipo, and Louey, Lymebennaripo. I happened one evening, after tea, to say to the superintendent that they were pretty girls, and my expression must have been quoted to the sable Laocoon, for, soon after, I had a call from him, and an offer of the two of them for my wives ; but, a bird of passage, such as I was, could not close with the flattering over- ture, pretty and innocent as the gills then were. One girl, of 20, named Maria, and the wife of Martin, an eagle-eyed black, who was the " super's " aide de camp in the field, and who, some blacks averred, could see a bullet in its flight, wore the cotton dress of a N CO ■fc. < < < C/3 w .-J W DP 55 O § in NATIVE NAMES. 65 white woman, and stockings and shoes on her small feet, and rode "horses astraddle, as coloured women, alike in Australia and Poly- nesia, do. Some of the native names and phrases are very pretty. " Lycullin " signifies a camp, or resting place ; " tenarpogee " is a black swan ; " toombarngee " is a sheep ; " cullingharly " is a knife ; " minga kiene " means "fetch water ;" and " minna wenarpe " means " bring fire;" " koondarley " means "gammon, rubbish, stuif and nonsense," the same as " ean-ang-hela " means it on the Barwon, far away to the north- east, and is a favorite female reply to ardent, and jocular, professions of love. Snakes are very plentiful in this Murrumbidgee country, and come down from the dry, burning plains, to drink at the edge of the flooded ground. Often have I, armed with a " mallee " sapling, met, and killed, eight of them in a mile, either just coming to drink, or just returning. All sorts ; the dappled, fowl-swallowing, but not venomous "carpet" snake; the black, with the red belly; and others. The most deadly known snakes of Australia are the three- sided death adder ; the brown snake, with the stumpy, rounded tail, and yelloio belly ; and the black snake, with the yellow belly. A big retriever, or a similar dog, bitten by the brown and yellow gentleman, falls at once, and is dead in ten minutes. No cobra, or rattle snake, could operate more quickly than this. The bare, grassless, summer plains of New South Wales contrast strangely with the plains of Queensland, 700, to 900, miles further north. In Queensland, the verdant time for grass is midsummer, on those magnificent Downs, born of basaltic and volcanic soil, where the hardy grasses show six inches of herbage, succulent as green oats, and nutritive as wheat ; and, no wonder ; for, these six inches above ground are supplemented by six feet of root below ground, searching out all the moisture, and enabling the seen part of the plant to defy the sun, and the endless cropping, alike ; and these Queensland Downs, alone, would cover nearly all France. The time had now arrived when B. and J. and I were to be Bummoned back to civilization, all, however, on different errands. Let me, however, describe the first navigation of the Murray River, which took place while I was at Paika and Canally, in November, 1853. W. C. Went worth's great stations of Tula, Yangar, and Paika, were near the junction of the Murray and Murrumbidgee. Up to 1851, all went well there. The supplies of Hour, and sugar, &C, were hauled overland 800 miles, or .'500 miles, from Sydney, or V 66 THE MURRAY NAVIGATED. Melbourne side, as might be, by bullock drays ; and the wool' travelled back the same road. To provide for contingencies, Wentworth kept 20 tons of flour always in stock, and other supplies in proportion; but, when the "gold broke out," no Melbourne teams would go beyond Bendigo, nor Sydney teams beyond Bathurst. They could get more per ton for the short trip, with loading for the gold fields than any squatter could afford to pay them for the long- trip ; so, when I was at Paika, in 1853, no teams had been up, or down, for two years. There were two seasons' wool stored in the sheds ; the remainder flour was awfully musty ; boots, saddles, tin- ware, " slops," and the like, had, long since, " given out " in the store ; when, one fine day, as I rode out with John Lecky Phelps, of Canally, we spied the first steamer that had come up the Murray, with Governor Young, of South Australia, on board, and under the- command of Captain Cadell. We went on board, and had some " pawnee," for it was " wond'rous hot " that November day. Still, we did not "realize" matters till afterwards. The old sujrplies, in the days of the "forties," dragged wearily overland, from Maitland, or Melbourne, per dray, used to arrive in lots of a ton and a-half, or so, to each dray, and smothered in the dust, and caked mud, bags worn with the impact of the dray wheels, all dirt, and bad order, at best. But, mark the contrast of the steamer from Adelaide. Clean,, white, 50 lb. bags of flour ; clean, white, boxes of loaf sugar, and sperm candles ; cases of brandy, spick and span, from the bonded stores, at Adelaide ; everything clean and new ; and 100 tons of it,. too, all tumbled ashore (as if from the clouds), on the river bank. Not a miserable 30 cwt. of it (ex dray), and covered with dirt at that. It was an era in one's life, and in that of Australia's. The engorged wool sheds were quickly relieved of their contents, and the price of Pviverina station property went up 50 and 100 per cent, straight away. In order to give an idea of Riverina, and Northern Victoria, at this date, I will transcribe a few items from my diary. December 10th, 1853. — Steamer again came up the Murray. I found that she would not return to Goolwa till January ; heard of Buchanan's teams going from Yangar to Melbourne at once, and, so, resolved to go witli them, having sold my horse. December 11th. — Walked from Canally to Yangar; lunch with Frank Todhunter, of Sydney, and went on with Constable Lalor to W. P. Buchanan's teams. December 12th. — Awfully hot in the mallee ; carried water for bul locks ; got to Talbett's, on the Wakool River ; met Captain Cadell, of the steamer ; also, James Morris. FROM SWAN HILL TO MELBOURNE. G7 December 13th. — Swam the bullocks across the Wakool ; got to " Poon Boon," on the Edwards, and met with great hospitality. December 14th. — Reached the Murray reed beds, and camped al fresco by them ; cold, and south wind, in the night. December 15th. — Bullocks strayed, and started late; crossed the Murray, at Swan Hill, by moonlight, and put up at Rutherford's Hotel; ale, 8s. per bottle ; new style of squatter, in plaid jumpers, visible here. December 16th.- — Steamer came up to Swan Hill, which we left, and passed through a bog before we got to camp. December 17th. — Passed the missionary station for the blacks ; travelled 20 miles, and camped by a swamp, and some pines. December 18th. — Passed Reedy Lake, and got to the inn at the Loddon; no meat there; a fearfully hot day on the shadeless plain. December 19th. — Rainy morning; started, at 3 a.m., to tackle the 20-mile plain ; got across by 10 o'clock ; and camped by the Serpentine River. December 20th. — Another terribly hot day ; arrived at the " Durham Ox," on the Serpentine. December 21st, 1853. — Heat worse than ever ; got to the " Serpentine " Inn ; got some dinner, and a bath ; very wet night. December 22nd, 1853. — Bailed up by rain; bullock driver got drunk. December 23rd. — Travelled 18 miles, to Bullock Creek ; saw men splitting slabs. December 24th. — Passed Campbell's ; camped at Bullock Creek ; washed some tailings ; and yarned with a miner. December 25th. — Walked to the " Porcupine " Inn ; traffic some- thing tremendous ; met 200 drays ; so strange, after all the months of solitude ; reached " Sawpit Gully " at 5 p.m. December 26th. — Picked up a real "live" coach, at Kyneton ; could not wait to see my friend, F. Arthur, an old ship mate ; arrived at the " Bush " Inn, at nightfall. December 27th. — Arrived at Melbourne, at half-past one ; tents, now, all the way from Prince's Bridge to Liardet's boat shed ; got hair and beard trimmed ; went on board the " Maitland," or " Diamond," at 3 30, and she put us on board the " Harbinger," screw steamer, by 6 p.m. ; played chess with the captain, and Mr. M'Donough. To go back for a moment to Paika. Burne and James left for Sydney, vid Wagga, with a black, called "Jimmy the Rover," for a guide in the first stages, and, for myself, the long spell of bush 68 MELBOURNE IN 1853. solitude was finally broken at Bullock Creek, for I had hardly met one traveller between Dubbo and Bendigo, except some Americans, who had been to the M'lvor, and who had wonderful tales to tell of gold (1853) in some badly-watered, level country, away back from the Lachlan, which, I suppose, was the subse- quent "Lambing Flat," or some neighboring diggings, of the " sixties," where the Forbes, and Young, and Parkes townships now flourish. Passing Carlsruhe and Mount Alexander, I now came to a country which, so far from being lonely, much resembled Greenwich Fair, for the road side was lined with tents, and booths, where " refreshments " could be purchased ; and from that time forth, all the way to Melbourne, there was no solitude, for about 80 miles. I passed places, small then, but afterwards much larger, known as Gisborne, &c, all seen in succession. Flemington, the now renowned scene of the great money-making, and money- losing, " Cup " race, was, then, a dusty, desolate level, with very unpicturesque, white-stem gum trees, giving no sign, or forecast, whatever, of the lovely lawns and flower gardens, and unequalled race course, of 30 years later ; and then came Melbourne itself, where, I am bound to say, there was some considerable life, and bustle, to be seen, compared with what was apparent when I had last been there, in May, 1851. There was not much extension of buildings, however, for "labour" was away at the gold mines, and was not available ; but, when one surveyed the scene from Prince's Bridge to the beach at Sandridge, where, two years before, all was grass, there was now a myriad of crowded tents, which covered the face of the earth just there. Here was the tract of ground, where wholesale and impudent robberies were perpetrated on newly landed people, in broad day light ; no one was safe. I was told that a band of 1 4 newly landed, and armed, young gentlemen, walking from the beach to Melbourne, from a " Black Ball " liner, were set upon by 23 armed ruffians, and i"obbed, and one of their number killed. I embarked in the " Harbinger," one of the same line as the " Jason," " Croesus," and " Argo " (afterwards so famous in the Black Sea, at the Crimean war), on board of which was Mr. G. S. Caird, now of Sydney, as passenger from England. We went out of the Heads (guiltless, then, of all their present powerful forts), in company with the paddle steamer " London," of the Dundee and Perth line, which had been pressed into the colonial coastal service ; and the sea was like a mill pond, as we passed " Rodondo," and the other island " institutions " of the straits, and were, at one time, so close to the " London," that I could see a lady in her berth, through VICTORIAN HISTORY. 69 the roomy stern ports of that luxurious packet. A mistaken impression prevails that the bill of fare was " rough " on board Australian steamers at that date. All I can say is, that on board the " Harbinger," 1,100 tons, in December, 1853, a written menu was placed by the plate of every saloon passenger at dinner time, an attention which I failed to observe when travelling by a P. and O. steamer, of 6,000 tons, from Melbourne to Sydney, in the year 1888 ; and, not only was the menu written out, but it was a menu well worth the writing out, also. With the exception of a few hours spent there, in passing through, in 1853, I never saw Melbourne from early 1851 to late 1888, when I, of course, approached by the railway, and Albury route, and not vid Swan Hill. Heavens ! what a metamorphosis was there I Thirty-eight years of gold-fostered development ! A royal city, then, in every sense of the word. But, then the other changes, which do not appear on the surface, but which all bore their part. The Governors, from Latrobe, and Hotham, to Loch and Hopetoun ; the Premiers, and Cabinets, from the days of Ebden, Ireland, O'Shanassy, Michie, Fellowes, Haines, Nicholson, through the era of Harker, Heales, M'Culloch, Francis, and Berry, down to the modern times of Gillies, and Munro. What a chapter, or, rather, what volumes, of Victorian history do they represent. The social growths ; the " ups and downs " of fate ; the constant onward progress since the good old days when Thomas Howard Fellowes, and his colleagues, of the Victorian bar, took part in those glorious, witty, social, circuit dinners and suppers of that bygone time — well on in this same nineteenth century, perhaps, but still far back in the growth of the young giant, known as the colony of Victoria. But I am on my way to Sydney, in the " Harbinger," just now. and we duly arrived in time for Christmas, of 1853, and then it was put to me, by one of my friends, in Sydney, as to whether I should rejoin the Bank, or take a free one-fourth interest, as manager, in a Darling Downs station, or, open mercantile agencies in Brisbane, Moreton Bay. Employment was not scarce in early 1854. The gold business had robbed the market of clerical, and manual, labour, alike ; so, I had a plentiful choice of openings. The Bank, with its indoor life, often till 10 p.m., was out of the question. Labour was scarce in pastoral pursuits, and hampered them much ; while the gold had given such expansion to mercantile business, that I hail no difficulty in selecting the outdoor life of a commercial traveller, and agent, in the new land of Moreton Bay, doing the rounds of the Darling Downs and Burnett districts every six weeks, or so. 70 Leaving New Holland for a time, we will — before turning to my Queensland reminiscences — follow the fortunes of Walter Delpard, in London. Long sea voyages have often been described, and by charming writers, such as the Hon. Emily Eden (Lady Auckland), in 1836, in her graphic, and womanly, letters between Calcutta and England, and no one can hope to improve on her style. Walter is on board the good ship " Parramatta," the last of the dear old wooden, Sydney-trading, " frigate built," family-carrying ships, with her ample quarter galleries, and roomy " chains," and gorgeous figure head ; short on the keel, by comparison with the P. and O. " liners," but with an equally long pro rata allowance of promenade deck. What a history, what a book, might be written on the families carried " home," first and last, by the " Vimeira," " La Hogue," and " Parramatta !" What an epitome of early Australian times it would be ! Sometimes, the dreary " Horn " and the icebergs would be " dodged," by taking the westerly route, vid the Cape of Good Hope, in February, and, certainly, it teas a great improvement. In 86 days from Sydney, the " Parramatta " was boarded by a fisherman's boat, off Brixham, in the Channel, and that most delicious of all fish, fried soles, with anchovy sauce, greeted the palates of the voyagers from the antipodes, in exchange for a bottle of Queensland rum, the older samples of which are, now, the best in the world, for, the early Queenslanders had not, at one time, learnt the West Indian art of distilling the maximum of rum from the minimum of sugar. Three days after this, the rainy flats of Gray's Thurrock were seen on the right hand, and soon Walter was ashore in the city of London, where, passing the wondrous docks, Cheapside, St. Paul's, and the rest of it, he found himself at (what we will call) the " Ashburnham " Club, at the western end of London, (a great "house of call" for Australians "at home,") preparatory to using his numerous letters of introduction. The first thing that struck Walter, in the city, was the comparative darkness, after Australia — the grey, cool, dim light, so grateful, in moderation, to the hepatic patients, burnt up with the sunny glare of India, but so strange to the healthy, young, country-bred Australian. Another matter, which struck him as strange, was the intense, the — to him — unaccustomed, and almost unwholesome, vivid and " rank " looking green of the fields, both meadow and crop bearing, a green which, in Australia, would, at once, suggest ideas of " blown " cattle, and bovine mortality, in that land of wholesome, but sober coloured grasses. And, here, a few words on the edibles of England and Australia. BREAD AND MEAT. 71 First of all, wheat and bread. Here Australia reigns supreme. Spanish wheat is better than English ; Australian better than Spanish ; I speak not here of damp New Zealand ; but the dry climate of South Australia produces a glutinous, nutritious wheat, which makes a bread unapproachable for excellence. In meat, England, with its pastures fed over, and renewed, for 800 years, bears the palm for sweetness, though some of the untravelled beef and mutton of Australia, fed on the rich herbage of the basaltic uplands, and killed, and eaten where it was born, is a remarkably good second to England's first. Few people in Australia have ever tasted a really good mutton chop ; few people in England a first-class loaf of bread ; and, strange to say, that neither of them are aware of their loss, so, there is but little harm done. Wine, in Australia, will be a great " institution " by-and-by. Amongst a sea of rubbish, made by amateurs from unsuitable grapes, one comes, now and then, across some "fluke" of a vintage, that has lain, forgotten and unsuspected, in some fool's cellar for years, and which serves to show what the place is capable of. " Verdeilho," at £1 a dozen, by whose side the finest " Riidesheimer " of the Rhine, at 90s., must needs " take a back seat." Wine, that hugs the glass like oil, and before which the best still champagne, montepulciano, and the rest of them, must hide their diminished heads, not to mention that liqueur-like, and scented, " Brown Muscat," which, now and again, manages to escape from South Australia, and is, happily, drunk in other lands. But we have left Walter Delpard, alone in London, and must look him up again without more ado. The smoke-begrimed, but noble, old Italian pile of St. Paul's struck his soul deeply with a new born sense of awe and beauty ; the endless labyrinth of streets (an easy book to a born cockney) was to him as bewildering as the trackless forests of Walter's home would have been to the Londoner, lost in the bush. He called on his father's London agents, Messrs. Ransome and Son, and was asked to dinner, of course, and they had a long talk over Australian, pastoral, and other affairs. Mr. Edmund Ransome had a beautiful villa and grounds (old, and park like) in the vicinity of Epping Forest; and Walter Delpard liked visiting there, and soon grew to be a frequent guest. The old LT'iitleman was one of the few remaining types of the bygone school of London merchants, aquiline, and stern looking, scanty haired, and smooth shaven on the firm mouth and prominent chin, a disciplinarian in business and family matters, alike ; of irreproach- able honour in mercantile affairs, and a worthy successor, in form and style, of his father, and grandfather, whose portraits, in powder 72 EPPING FOREST. and pigtails, looked down from their cabinet frames in the breakfast room of the old Essex house, situated where the south-western borders of the Forest merged into the venei-able hamlets of Ley- tonstone, Woodford, Chigwell, and the rest of them. The house had once belonged to the Van Voorsts, an old and noted political family, the last male scion of which had perished, with all others, on board the missing, and never again heaixl of, frigate " Aurora," on board of which he was proceeding to India on a delicate diplomatic mission, on behalf of the Crown, after the days of Clive, and before "Warren Hastings. The quaint old iron gates opened on to a pleasant green lane, bordered by a purling brook, and all buttercups and daisies ; the brook was full of oozy water plants, and small fish, and went to feed the waters of the Lea River, which, graced, then, with a high, old, ricketty, wooden bridge, flowed, some miles away, past cosy fishing inns, whose parlour walls were garnished with stuffed pike, the trophies of dead and gone anglers, and adorned with coloured wood engravings of the past century. Old hostelries, where the talk was all of fishing, and cockney punt exploits, and where the cordials were more drinkable than the " hard " ale was. Ransome's house had been built at that period of the seventeenth century, when contractors used to put in plenty of work and material, abundance of wood and brick, for the money. There were old trees in the ground, higher than the roof of the mansion itself, and, in the enclosure, was an old round tower of flint and mortar, hard as granite, of an antiquity past judging of, and with a deep brick well in the centre of it ; and we must now introduce the reader to the family. Edmund Ransome had five sons, and only one daughter, Jane, whom Walter Delpard found this evening alone, and standing before the drawing room fire, previous to dinner, occupied in warming a neat foot on the fender. There w r as not much variety of colour about Jane Ransome that evening. Her shoe sole was white, and the kid upper, black, and nearly nine inches long, and an open work black silk stocking showed a very white instep beneath (the Ransomes had dealt, for generations past, at one shoe shop in Soho Square, which bore the Royal Arms, and where " Georgius Rex " had dealt from 1730 to 1830), and the black and white were continued in her dress, collar, and cuffs. Her hair was a pretty gold yellow colour, and gloriously abundant ; her eyes, a dark, luminous brown. JSTot a beautiful face, in the style of Walter's sisters, but, to him, a very winning and attractive one, in the house JANE RANS0ME. 73 near the old London road that wound thence, over hill and dale, to Epping (where they make those undeniable pork sausages), and so on to Newmarket (where they do some equally undeniable horse racing). Jane was the only being in the world who could coax that man of iron, her father, in his Leadenhall street office, or make him alter his mind, on any subject, before the Eastern Counties railway carriage had borne them past the sound of the pealing chimes, which echo from the lofty spire of St. Leonard's, in Shoreditch. Of the five sons, one was his father's partner ; another a leading auctioneer, in Moorgate street ; one was a Mincing Lane broker ; and one a wine merchant at Cadiz. W. and J. had a long talk before the rest of the family came into the room, and, as usual, nearly all of questions about Australia, which left Walter but little opening to air his impressions of London. He was, like his sister Laura, dark, with curly hair and beard, and with all that chest and shoulder development that comes of an active bush life ; for, your Achilles is as symmetrical in his way as your Venus. Jane often, afterwards, admired his free, firm seat in the saddle, so different from the riding-master style of many whom they met in their numerous excursions in the green lanes of Essex, for Jane was a white Diana, on horseback, on her dapple bay " Dragon," as well as in her bathing costume at Hastings. Said Jane to Walter, " I must say that I rather like the few Australian gentlemen I have seen. They appear to be more manly than the military, or mercantile, men I have met here." " No great wonder in that," said Walter, " for men in the colonies soon learn the lesson that what is known as ' comfort ' is not the be-all, and end-all, of life. They don't, by any means, object to comfort, if it happens to come in their road ; but, as a rule, they sacrifice nothing, in the shape of duty, for the sake of it. When comfort is thus made a very secondary consideration, it is surprising how soon it ceases to be a necessity. People, in England work in a groove, the foundation has all been laid for them, and their work, long ago, and there is little to evoke manliness, compared with what is found in raw Australia, where, in the bush, each man who wants to succeed must think, plan, fight, and originate for himself. Tt would," continued Walter, " be worth the while of any one, who felt himself to be defective in wholesome manly feeling, and who bad money and time to spare, to travel for a few months, or yens, in Australia, not in the big cities, which are as civilized and effeminate as London, and not in the usual tourists' route either, but into the 74 ABOUT CATHEDRALS. interior, amongst the sheep and cattle stations, the mines, and the plantations ; he would learn lessons at every step, would have to shift for himself, and face, and bear, much ; he would meet men with iron grey beards, nt an age, ten years earlier than is usual in Europe, but men, none the less, well worth mixing with, and knowing ; men who had fought the battle of life, suffered, no doubt, but conquered all the same ; men who had pluckily adapted them- selves to evei'y contingency of the bush, that had turned up ; men, more useful and fit, for Heaven or earth, than the bulk of those bred in a city, with the civilization of 800 years ready piled up all around them." Jane's honest eyes sparkled with delight as she listened to Walter's peroration (her Walter, as she was beginning to think him) as he thus painted, in words, her own fond ideal of a man, and, what she might have said in reply will never be known, for, at this juncture, the rest of the family, and several of the guests, entered the room, and dinner was shortly afterwards announced. Now, a dinner in this part of suburban Essex, as it may be called, is not invariably a la Hitsse, or a Frenchified affair of plats and compotes. Here, at " The Priory," was a table service of porcelain, and silver, that had done duty long before Waterloo was fought. Roast turkey, Devonshire "junket," draught ale, and the like, are all most unfashionable ; and rhubarb pie must not be mentioned with Nesselrode, and ice pudding. " And so you admired St. Paul's, did you, Walter " (said Vincent Pansome, the second son). " I applaud your taste, for there is nothing in the world, in its own style, to equal it ; but, you should also see the spires of Antwerp and Strasburg, for their Gothic beauty." — -" Not forgetting," chimed in old Mr. R., " Salisbury, York, and Norwich, in this country. For my own part," continued the old gentleman, " give me Vienna steeple for a perfect Gothic ■exterior, and Toledo altar for an interior." " Oh ! Papa," said Jane, " you must not forget Milan and Freiburg, and the dear old bits of carving we have seen at Chartres, ■and in Flanders, and the Palais de Justice at Brussels." "Has no one a word to say for St. Peter's, at Rome? " chimed in Fred Batwing, the mining broker, of Copthall Court. " Well," said Mr. Ransome, "it is big, but not beautiful. Michael Angelo was a divine sculptor, but his buildings have not the gem like beauty and harmony of Wren's." "Yes," said Walter, with a glance at Jane, " I mean to 'do ' all these before I go back to Wyndomel." MAXILLA FIRE-FLIES. 75 "You have a line climate there," said Jane. " Yes," said Walter, " it would do you good to see some of the poor invalid refugees who come to us, at times, with their lungs punished by the icy blasts of southern, and rainy, New Zealand, or the changeable Melbourne ; they open their chests, draw in our dry air, and all recover, if they only come in time. There was the Rev. Dr. Arnwood, carried ashore, apparently dying of consumption, and he lived 25 years afterwards, preached, kept a school, and had seven children, and died of a different complaint altogether. Men, who get ' hit ' in the liver with us, in Australia, have to get a thorough change in New Zealand, where there are neither snakes nor gum trees, as in Australia, and which differs from it in all respects — damp, rainy, breezy. Maori land will soon fetch a ' liver ' man round, if his lungs be all right." " Are your snakes dangerous in Australia V asked Fred Batwing. " Some, very much so," said Walter. " Snakes and crocodiles abound all through, from tropical Australia to the Malayan Islands, and the Philippines, where I once was," continued Walter ; but it is very delightful to swing, at sunset, in a grass hammock, at Manilla, and smoke a cigarette in the evening of a hot day, when the glass is below 80°, in the forest breeze, and to hear the senoritas play the guitar, and sing songs about 'mi corazon;' as nice, but in a different way, I suppose, as a summer picnic at a ruined abbey, or a moonlight boating with some of the pretty girls of old England." " Oh, indeed, Sir " (thought jealous Jane), " I wonder if you have a sweetheart at Manilla, and I'll find out too." Walter went on to say, " The fire-flies at night, the scented air, the balmy temperature, and the pretty girls, in their ' pina ' (pine- apple fibre) dresses, little, grass-plaited shoes, or bare feet, or wooden clogs (Japanese fashion) would make the place a lazy man's paradise ; but, when the ladies smoke, and, also, at times, spit, it rather spoils it." Jane felt relieved. There was a young American married lady at the dinner, a Mrs. Tripman, native of Louisiana ; her husband, of New York. She spoke French fluently, and English quaintly, as, for instance, when Jane admired her friend's natty shoe-bow, she replied, "Yes; that's rale cunning, isn't it 1 ?" and you might have guessed at her southern origin, by the way in which she preferred some (batata) sweet potatoes (which Mr. Ransome had somehow got from the Mediterranean) to the best of English ones. She was an exqui ite pianist, and the music and variations she could extract from Buch airs as "Jenny Jones," and "The girl I left behind me," stamped 76 GYMPIE GOLD. her education in that line as perfect ; and, by-and-by, when Jane gave the gentlemen the gems of " Lucrezia " and " Pasquale," and, the two girls, the " Naples Quadrilles," as a duet, the company were all English enough in their tastes to like it as well as Schubert's " Au bord de la mer," for Donizetti was Jane's champion, all through, in music ; but we anticipate. Walter had paid a visit to the British Museum that day, and, like some educated Australians, went straight for the minerals, rather than to the Elgin Marbles. Fred Batwing asked him what he thought of the mineral show. " I was chiefly struck," said Walter, " with the way in which nature repeats herself in distant parts of the world in minerals. There is green stained, coppery quartz, flecked with gold, from the Ural Mountains, in Russia, which could hardly be distinguished from the same as found in Central Australia, and at Morinish, near Rockhampton, in Queensland. There is gold in black tourmaline (or schorl) from the west coast of Africa, and found no where else in the world, apparently, except at the Cloncurry River, in North Queensland." "I suppose your colony is very rich in gold, Mr. Delpard." " Well, speaking from memory, I can quote some instances. At a place called Gympie, they got 335 lb. weight of it in 365 lb. of quartz ; and, when the 700 lb. block was shattered by gun-powder, small ropes of flexible gold still held the disjointed fragments of quartz together, and you might as well have tried to crush lead, or Indian-rubber, with the steel stampers, as this rich quartz gold ; and, it was only by adding many tons of barren quartz to it, that it grew hard enough to lose its golden tenacity, and become tractable powder." " Wonderful," was the remark that went round the table. " I once saw a block of quartz, from the ' Aurelia ' mine, at the same place ; it was about four feet square, and eight inches thick, and, from corner to corner, ran, all through, a diagonal seam, of spotted gold, five inches wide, and visible on both surfaces. ' Hill End,' in New South Wales, used to yield rich patches, also, and a piece as big as a man, and, of course, much heavier, looked to be nearly all gold. I think it came from Holterman's claim." "But," interposed Batwing, "putting rich 'patches' on one side, what are your steady yields from Gympie 1 " " Well," said Walter, " what do you think of 60,000 ozs. from 18,000 tons, out of one of the Monkland claims'? and 11,000 ozs. from 300 tons, at the ' Wilmot Extended,' both at Gympie 1 Not much ' patch ' about that quantity of stone." BLACK LABOUR. 77 " I should like to ask you a few questions, Walter," said Mr. Ransome " about the South Sea Island labour, or traffic, or slavery, as some of the people here, call it " "Well," said "Walter, "it originally arose in this way: Times were bad for the settlers, wool was cheap, the skies were dry, and grain, and crops, scarce ; the banks were frowning, and accounts, too, much overdrawn ; so, some aspiring agents in North-eastern Australia, began to cast wistful eyes to the islands, about a couple of thousand of miles away, across the Great Barrier Reef, in hope of making a rise in a new quarter ; for, all was ' flat, stale, and unprofitable ' on the main land, and the only real ' El Dorado ' lay ' beyant the seas,' in the New Hebrides, and Solomon Islands, where so many missionaries, and white men, had already left their bones behind. These islands swarmed with cannibal blacks, to whom a full square meal was a luxury, and exemption from being eaten, moreover, a high privilege. Hundreds of the men were easily persuaded to come to Queensland, for a three year, or ' forty moon,' term, for 10s. a month, and a guaranteed stomach-full, all the year round ; and, as the^ enterprising agents who chartered the schooners, could land men for about £3 a head (bounty and barter included), and, as they charged £12 a head bonus to the settlers who engaged them, and, as the schooners could make several trips a year, and carried over 100 ' niggers ' each time, you can imagine there was money in the business ; for a settler, or planter, could well afford to pay a bonus of £12, in order to get an islander secured for three years, at £6 a year, in place of having to give a white man £40 a year, to do sugar cane cutting ; the food being the same, nearly, in both cases, as to cost, the black man's being more plentiful, but coarser, and cheaper. And, then, these islanders thus set a lot of white labour free to do other, and less menial, work than cane- tending ; besides, in the impetus they thus gave to the sugar industry, making work, and finding employment for thousands of white engine drivers, labourers, wood cutters, carters, horse and bullock drivers, and the like, which employment, but for the extra coloured labour to start it, would never have existed at all." " And what do the black labourers do when their three years have expired, and they get their wages?" asked Mr. Ransome. "They buy muskets, powder, and ball," said Walter, "so that, when they get home to their islands again, they may be able to ist the tyranny of their chiefs, who are apt to make slaves of them, if unarmed ; and it is strange (continued lie) to note the difference between them and our own Australian blacks. These 78 KANAKA DANDIES. latter are squalid, and have no love of finery ; hut the South Sea Islanders, who, when they first land in Queensland, have big shock heads of hair, like pillows, their black wool all made yellow by the application of lime to it ; and with gaping holes in their ears, through which pieces of bone are passed ; mere savages and cannibals in every look, and glance, and movement ; staring with wonder at every well-dressed lady in the streets of Brisbane, or elsewhere, these men, when their time has expired, become like the old bygone dandy slaves of Baltimore, in Maryland ; and you would wonder where they had acquired new tastes so soon ; clad in double-breasted, silk-lined sacques of black broad-cloth, with heavy gilt watch chain, crossed in front, black silk hat, and pink silk tie ; blue silk umbrella overhead ; all these, with black pants and boots, and a red hibiscus flower stuck either in the ear, or the button-hole. Imagine all this, and you will see how instinctively the savage has picked up the ' points ' of the white man's ' best clothes ;' and they parade often, hand in hand, like simple children, as they really are, in brain and manner (but Herculean all the same, many of them, in bone, weight, and muscle) during the few days before they return, with their cherished ammunition, to their native islands." "Well," said Mr. Ransome, "there is nothing very terrible in all this ; but I have heard that they pine, and die of home sickness, like the Swiss do." " That is a mistaken idea," said Walter. "The fact is, that these savages eat inordinately when they come to Queensland ; some of them could eat a three-pound loaf and a shoulder of mutton at one meal, if procurable : and they thus get into a gross habit of body, and, if they happen to catch cold, which is very frequently the case in the change from an island, to a continental climate, it takes a very heavy hold on them ; and, though the Government provides splendid hospitals for them, and has strict regulations as to medical attendance, the islanders, unused to sickness and over-feeding at home, despair of life at once, and die in a ratio, far exceeding the white man's mortality ; for, as I said, they are mere children, and know nothing of sickness, or that it is curable. This is the secret of their rare recovery, if once really ill. It is from fright at an enemy, who, they feel sure, is invincible. They resemble the children, too, in their daintiness. Some of the kanakas, when their time is up, do not return to the islands at all, but clean boots, chop wood, sweep yards out, and so forth, for a living, being well rewarded by a shilling, or a good meal. One of the island 'boys,' at the home of a friend of mine, was, at first, glad of a lump of stale THE "SIESTA" AT BORNEO. 79 bread, and a bowl of weak tea ; but he soon grew to turn up his nose at that, and then he progressed so far as to grow sick of treacle,, then of honey, then of jam ; and, after that, he ' boycotted ' stale bread, coffee, and cocoa, and would have nothing but new bread, fresh butter, eggs, and strong tea, so rapidly did he become ' educated,' till, at last, his services were dispensed with ; so true is it that all inferior black races are mere children in brain." " Have you ever visited any other country, before you came to England ?" was the next question put to Walter. "Yes ; my father sent me, for a couple of years, to be 'broken in ' at a merchant's office, in Sydney, and I made a business voyage to the Mauritius, where I soon found that you could not face the noon- tide summer sun, as at Brisbane, without danger of sunstroke ; and I also went a trip to Borneo, and Singapore, and, at the latter place, went up country, and saw the gold mines of Malacca — a curious formation to an Australian eye — where a soft ' flaky ' slate, which you can split with a pen-knife, carries gold between the flakes ; nothing like it was ever seen in the Australian gold mines. Borneo is one of the most sensible places I ever visited. It is, of course, very hot, being under "the line," and the shop people advertise that they keep open from 7 to 12, and from 3 to 6, and do the siesta business in the middle of the day, when all shops are shut, and all trade suspended, an example which might, with benefit, be followed in tropical Australia, which will yet have to come to it as an institution of daily life." Here Mr. Ransome queried : " What of the climate of your North Queensland. I have heard of what they call ' Gulf fever ' there. What is its nature?" "Well," replied Walter, "if people in the same hot latitude as Hayti is, will persist in sleeping in the night dews, and let wet clothes dry on them, drink new rum, eat unwholesome food, and not enough of food at all, and never even see a vegetable, or fish, or fruit, for months, and years, together, can it be wondered at if they fall ill with malignant fever and ague % Why, under similar conditions of life, it would go hard with you, in London itself. I must confess, however," continued young Delpard, " that the Australian fever is ' no gentleman,' in that he never properly ' declares his intentions.' The yellow fever, of Rio, is no such ' humbug,' and he lets you know at the end of five days, or less, whether you are going to live or die. Not so, with the Australian variety. You never know how long he will hist, or when you will have done with him, so wearisome and tedious are his reiterated relapses, and he is a nuisance indeed. 80 STATISTICS OP BEAUTY. But Australia is a healthy place, compared with America. Look, for instance, at Memphis, Tennessee, in 34° north. What a splendid article they can raise there, in the way of 'yellow Jack !' And, then, take Sydney, in 34° south, and see how much ' vomito nigro ' you could raise there at any price, or even 1,000 miles nearer to the Equator, in Australia. People who live in weather-proof holdings, and eat wholesome food, don't get fever in tropical Australia, which is more than can be said of America, or Africa." When Walter Delpard's head pressed his pillow that night, his thoughts dwelt much on the wistful, earnest face, and the dazzling white skin of Jane Ransome, in her becoming attire of black and white, and he began to ask himself if he were falling in love. He had letters of introduction, from Clement Tyrrell, to friends, near Cambridge, which he had not yet presented, and which were sure to bring him the acquaintance of plenty more pretty girls ; but, still, he doubted if he should ever find another so to arrest his fancy as had the " little Essex girl," whom he had found warming her handsome foot on the fender, under the Sevres china mantel clock, that evening. We are strangely constituted mortals ! Statistics assure us that there are " on hand," at any moment, in the world, at least five millions of beautiful marriageable girls, between the ages of seventeen and four and twenty, and a corresponding number of " eligibles " also, of the sterner sex. Nay ! more ! It would take any young man 30 years of his life to pass in review before him — at a levee, at the rate of one per minute, and working eight hours a day at it — all the pretty girls " on hand," on any given day, in the world. Yet, each individual Damon and Chloe elects to go mad over some one " bright particular star " of the other sex, and he, or she, for the time being, totally ignores the claims to admiration of the remaining 4,999,999 candidates of the rest of the tribes. They shoot, drown, and poison themselves, and, sometimes, even extend these favours to others, and all for the sake of some solitary, cruel, fair one, who is indignant, perhaj^s (and with some show of reason), at their wishing so to restrict her choice amongst the millions of available duplicates. Ah ! well, it all comes to this : Love is one thing, and philosophy is another. But, none of these speculations surged through the brain of Walter Delpard, as he lay in the roomy state bed in the old-fashioned bed-room in the Essex house. The carved mantel, the wide grate, the rich cornices in the ceiling were, even if old, deliciously new to our Australian. He dreamt of Jane ; dreamt he had a " tiff" with her, in which she showed some of the lion spirit of her father — " cm';. " ELIAS ENFIELD. 81 a spirit she could not have shown to anyone whom she did not care for — and he woke, opened his window, and let in some of the fresh air of East Anglia, and gazed on a scene as un-Australian as could Avell be conceived. The old pollarded timber by the brook ; the low, thickset, spreading trees ; the bright green, cleared country, all mapped out, and divided by the hedge rows ; the church tower, and spires, that were, already, giving out warning that Sunday morning had dawned, and reminded Walter that they were all to walk to church, across the fields, before the 2 o'clock Sunday dinner ; for, the carriage never went out on Sundays, except in the case of actual need. " Tub," toilet, and all, were soon complete, and Walter found himself strolling amongst the well-furred, white moss roses, and also under the mulberry, chestnut, and walnut trees of the rich- soiled garden, adorned with fountain, shells, and the golden carp, from China, and he found Miss Jane, prettily costumed in mauve and white, wetting her dainty little bottines (made to measure, of course, at the family shop in Soho Square) in the morning dew. " How delightfully new everything in this country is to me, Miss Ransorue," said he ; "I do so enjoy everything indoors, and out." "Oh !" said she, "wait a little, till you have seen more of it; if you be so charmed in the present, how enraptured you will be by-and-by. I would give something to be an Australian, and enjoy all your new feelings. Mother and I intend to drive you in the pony phaeton, and shew you all the " lions " of this part of the world. You must see Tottenham Cross, and the ' Seven Sisters,' and the ' Bell ' at Edmonton and Entield, where ' Elia ' lived, and Epping Forest, and all the rest of what papa calls the ' classic ' sights. And, we must not forget the West End, and its picture galleries, and the opera, where the chorus and orchestra will, perhaps, surprise you, after Sydney ; and we must have Richmond, and Hampton Court, and Clieveden trips, all of them solely in honour of your noble self. You will see plenty of London life under our able tuition." Here the breakfast bell rang, and, after tasting fried trout, and assigning it, instanter, a high place in the gastronomic institutions of the mother country, breakfast being over, Walter, not joining in th<- early morning cigar, that two of Jane's brothers indulged in, was ready, in good time, for that pleasant walk across the fields of buttercups, and wooden stiles, which the church bells had hinted at. Dour Church bells ! whence arises your cosmopolitan charm, and potent spell, on human spirits 1 What matters it whether old G 82 THE "ANGELUS." Cripplegate steeple, by the tomb of Milton, chimes the " Hanover " of the sublime Handel ; whether it be the merry peal of St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, looking down from its 212 feet of beauty and height on the spot where the squalor of North London merges slowly, through Hackney, into the healthier heights of Clapton, sacred to the abodes of rich old maids, with lucky nephews remembered in their wills 1 or whether it be the picturesque square tower of St. Jude's, on Rand wick heights, by the South Pacific, and Port Jackson, and where " The proud forefathers of ' swell ' Sydney, sleep," sending forth its Sabbath evening bells' tones across the deep, fertile valley which separates it from the old South Head road ; what boots it which of those, or others, it may be 1 One is carried back to days gone by for ever, and dear ones gone with them, and, even the child of five years old, seems to recall some former state of existence, as it listens to the magic sounds of the vibrating metal, and Beethoven's music comes before us again in " Those Evening Bells," and we pass on, and the peal grows fainter, "Till their swelling, soothing clangour, Ever waning, lower, less, Dies in distance, like fond anger, Melting into tenderness." Yes, it is so, that " When the ' Angelas ' floats in the mellow air," and its companion, the " Ave Maria ;" then, if we have taken but one unaccustomed cup of that delicious, and much-to-be-avoided, poison called " tea," and lie down, it comes to pass that sweet shadows steal in upon us (as on Longfellow at eventide), and " little Nell " comes in, alive and well, and we picture her, married and happy, in Australia. And we picture sweet Dolly Varden, too. She was born (as we all know) in the year of the Lisbon earthquake, and we begin to speculate, and wonder, what age Joe Willet's grand- children could have been, when dear Dolly's nerves (that tea, again !) first began to fail her, with their noise, and whether she sleeps now in Clerkenwell, or Finsbury, or Bunhill fields. Give us but one cup of that same unaccustomed tea, and one " sough " of the bell chimes, and we are off, forthwith, to the realms of imagination, and in another, and an artificial world. But we must return to our party, which consisted of Jane, her father, and two non-smoking brothers. I am afraid that our Austi^alian friend heard but little of the service, and thought but little of the singing, which was not first-class, by any means ; but AUSTRAL PIONEERS. 83 his eyes dwelt hungrily on the old brasses, and partly defaced monumental effigies around, which tilled him with a humiliating sense of the newness of all human things in Australia, venerably primeval as may be the Avorks of nature there, where the latter dame is older than she, anywhere in Europe, is ; and that (if I may so call it) archaeological chord, all ready to be vibrated, which underlies the nature of so many of us, was powerfully touched in Walter. He warmed to those old relics with a fervour which only an Australian, of old English blood, could feel ; and the humblest, and parti}* effaced, stories told on the broken stones, under the yew trees, and told in quaint and ill-spelt English, had an interest for him, which no marble and bronze mausoleum of the nineteenth century could have ever awakened. The Americans are reported to venerate all that savours of antiquity in Europe. How much more, then, must the white native of Australia, first settled only in 1788 — while the "Mayflower" Puritans sailed, as far back as 1621 — feel an awe of the mediaeval records, and relics, in Europe ? There is already a flavour of semi- antiquity about America ; but, as for Australia, a few still survive who were born before she was settled at all. Still, there are Australian families proud, indeed, of their military progenitors ; Avhose family portraits (in the old-fashioned " rig " of General George Washington) are preserved, and who landed, and began life in Sydney, nearly a dozen years before he died ; and others, again, who came out "free," and at their own expense, in the ships of 1801 ; and others, who were "settled" in Sydney in 1795, and 1798. These have an Australian pride, as deep-rooted and solid as that of the lineal descendants, and representatives, of the nobles of John of Gaunt's days, or the old families of Virginia. There has been a social metamorphosis in New Holland — as great, in 100 years, as in England in 700 of them — and the present " swells " of Australasia are more " in touch " with the memory of their recent founders than the " John of Gaunt " people are, and can shew you all their grand- fathers' letters, and uniforms, and books, and the like. It may well be imagined that Jane Ransome, the one sister of so many brothers, had a large circle of male, as well as of young lady, acquaintances. Educated at a ladies' Seminary, at Upper Clapton, and " finished " at a first-class continental pension, her powers of mind bad been well cultivated, Many a spruce young fellow, with money and position — -the men of Mincing, and eke of Mark Lane had worshipped already at the shrine of old Edmund's fair treasure. But tin- spirited little queen of East London, keen of wit, ready of 84 LONDON BANKERS. repartee, kept them all at bay, and, in her heart's freedom, was- touched by none of them. The " knowing " fellows, the shrewd brokers in hemp, jute, wheat, tea, and coals, all " personable " young men, faultlessly attired by St. James's street tailors, were surprised at her coldness to one, and all, if they ventured to try the game called " love " on with Jenny. And Fred Batwing, the cleverest of them all, said, one day at the lunch rooms, at Cornhill, to a friend, apropos of "J. R., of the Priory" — " Mark my words, that when that little lady strikes her Hag, it will be to some ' soft head ' of a fellow, that none of us thought to be in the race at all." And, so it was, that Walter Delpard, without being (in the least sense of it) soft-headed, seemed to her so different, in his Australian freshness, and altogether new style of manhood, that he had already made sad havoc in the heart of our Essex Cinderella ; and himself was not quite scot-free in the encounter (for Providence is, generally, merciful all round, in those cases), while he dwelt with admiring eyes on her pale green kid glove (No. 6), as it reposed on the chocolate-coloured sleeve of her father's coat ; and the strongly perceptive little dame was alive to the fact that the delicious heart wounds were not all on her own. side. We have already denoted the Soho Square shop, where female royalty had dealt for 100 years, and it was a tailor, not 50 miles from Fenchurch street, who was responsible for those amazing velvet collars which always adorned Mr. R.'s unvarying brown coats. His bankers were Glyn and Co. ; his father's had been Barnett, Hoares, and Co., and this was nearly the only change which two genera- tions had worked to the firm. The " Mary Bannatyne " had brought him tea from China ; and the " Rambler," fustic to the London Docks ; tar, hemp, and flax, per " Agnes," from the Baltic ports, and Riga ; other hemps, from Calcutta, and Manilla ; and crystalline sugars, from steamy Demerara, were, also, " in his line." They got home, again, hungry and happy, to " The Priory,"' where "Walter had, for the time, taken up his abode, and they sat clown to hare, and saddle of mutton. The talk, at dinner, turned on the minerals of Queensland, and Walter explained, that the tropic end of the Great Cordillera of Australia had the richest gold, and tin, in the world, but that, for want of cheap labour, cheap capital, and skilled experts, in the way of managers, the results were not what they should be. "Our mineral lodes," said Walter, "differ from those in other parts of the world, even as our birds, trees, and animals do ; and our lodes, moreover, differ much from each other, and you need a skilled chemist, and patient metallurgist, to humbly A FOREST TAVERN. 85 put the tests, and questions of science, to the strange new combina- tions of metals met with in Queensland. Your Mexican, or South African, mine manager is ' all out ' when he grapples the lodes of Australia, and must unlearn much, and learn afresh. If our ores could be transported, bodily, to Freiburg, or Swansea, they would startle the world ; but, situated where they are, exploited, too often, by unscrupulous brokers, weighed clown by costly 'labour,' they cannot compete, in the Home market, with inferior ones, which are nearer to Europe, and can command cheaper labour ; and the probability is, that until certain parties, in Queensland, get rid of their craze that God did not create the black man to labour in the tropics (or anywhere else, it would seem), which craze will probably come to an end after much suffering and ruin ; till then, the finest mineral treasures in the world must remain as sealed up, as if they were in the moon, or the planet Jupiter." After dinner, and cigars, came a stroll for Jane, her mother, and Walter, into the village, a mile away, where a noble sign-board, swinging high in the breeze, on a lofty pole, and representing a white stag, with a gold collar, abutted on the road ; the horse trough, just behind it, was shaded under a gigantic old elm tree, with seats round the base of it ; and the ancient inn itself was approached by a semi-circular road, which curved into, and out of, the main trunk line to the north-east counties, and which half circle enclosed a neat grass plot, environed by posts and chains, behind which the old hostelry itself displayed its two-storey brick beauties to view. Through its open windows, in the clay time of Sundays, the snowy- white table-cloth was exposed to sight, covered with substantial viands, which, once a week, hungry male and female cockneys would devour, 'mid a clatter of tongues, knives, and forks, and a popping of corks, which befittingly followed on a long walk, or drive, from the world's metropolis ; the Avell-furnished bar was redolent of lemons, and gold or ruby-coloured wines and cordials, in cut- glass bottles, of tempting aspect. " Oh ! " thought Walter, " if I could but transport that dear old ' public,' just as it stands, to Australia;" and, he would have thought so still more, if he had gone up-stairs, to the bed-rooms, and opened the linen presses, with the sprigs of lavender between each layer of snowy cotton and flax fabric, and the venerable coloured print pictures which adorned the walls, representing market carts, and market places, in the days of 1780. They strolled on, and came to a row of six ancient semi-detached h0U86B Cor " villas," as they are now called), with the traditional grass H6 WASPS AND GREEN GAGES. plot, white posts, and connecting chains (never seen in all Australia),. in front of them ; with green bell-pulls, and white wooden gates, with green iron gratings in them, all carefully locked, of course, and through which the neat-handed Phyllis of the. period was wont to reconnoitre the butcher and baker daily, as they disposed the needful commissariat supply. Fine old houses, with front gardens and back gardens, too, in -which the huge elm trees, in places, pushed the brick garden walls aside, with numerous cracks, by the mighty side-thrust of their sylvan growth of trunk and root ; where the- nests of birds, and the song of birds, graced the trees ; where the saccharine green gages, and yellow-downy apricots, ripened on the wall, that faced the south sun ; where cruel spielers, in geometric webs, daily bit to death tender, and unwary flies, with their curved, poison teeth ; the said green-gages, when brought indoors, with the sugar coating every crack in their rind, being an irresistible attraction to the summer wasp, whereupon the young ladies at the boarding school, at No. 5, would take off a slipper of prunella, or kid, as might be, and straightway slay Master Wasp on the window- pane, and learnt to do it well, too; for, a half-killed wasp had, on one occasion, paid Miss Sarah L. such a compliment in her tender flesh,, as left its memory long in that same seminary. Passing onward, they arrived, at length, at their destination — namely, the poorer cottages at the far end of the village, where some of Miss Ransome's pensioners lived. Amongst these, was an elfin- looking girl child, of some five years, but who was little larger than a baby ; whose big head, and shrivelled limbs, told a tale of diseased glands, past the art of the village doctor, but which made Walter take out his pocket book, and write in it a memo, about the magic dugong lard, of Queensland. A wondrous sea-cow is that " dugong," a warm-blooded, mammal fish, whose oil and lard cure consumption,, and bowel-wasting, and whose flesh is nicer than veal sweetbread, or turtle steak, as Brainerd Skinner, the meat preserver, and every- thing else preserver, of Brisbane, could readily prove to you. Jane's pocket money, a liberal sum, went, a good deal of it, amongst these cottages. Walking home by a different route, Walter saw, in the hands of some children, the, to him, new and curious animal they call a "mole." The "Priory" was reached, and some rare good tea discussed, and, again, the talk was of the ups and downs of Australian squatting life. Walter's father was one of the few, in his neighbourhood, who had never owed a bank a penny, for his wife's fortune had secured him against that , so, our hero knew SHOES AT SOHO. 87 nothing, by sad experience, about the matter, but he was a perfect chronicle of the history of others. Jane Ransome, with her mother, next day took Walter for a drive right through London, from east to west, so as to let him see the streets ; from Tower Hill, through Lombard street, and Cheapside, past that colossal pile of harmonious symmetry that sits cooped up in St. Paul's Church yard, the finest Italian exterior in the world ; along Fleet street, and the Strand, to Charing Cross ; and then up to the right, and Regent street, and round to Soho Square, where Walter, at the family shoe shop, saw the assistant deftly wield the shoe-horn and sandals, as Jane made some " No. 2 " purchases ; and, by the way, there are few prettier objects on earth than a new sandalled kid slipper, of not more than nine inches in length, ere it has grown acquainted with the paths of mud and dust, as it, too often, is allowed to do. Light as a feather, shapely as a yacht, hygienic, astringent, and antiseptic in its pleasant tan-pit odour, it is, with, or without, a foot to correspond, a pleasant sight to dwell upon. A foot is as pretty, in its way, as a face, and possesses the advantage that it can bear to be stared at, without growing embarrassed, as the face does, at times ; and it, at all events, is quite unconscious of its beauty, which is more than the face always is ; playful, unintellectual, and charming in its restless, unaccount- able, floor-tapping ways, the female foot is, most appropriately, covered with the skin of that most erratic and playful of all animals, the kid ; and, in a thorough-bred woman, it is shapely, and un-aged, at 60, as at 16 ; but the same can never be said of the face, even of the most high born. But Jane did not take Walter to Soho Square to see her ankles, for she wanted him to go and have a good rummage at the dim, haunted, curiosity shops, in one of the gloomy side streets, where they sold old armour, halberds, helmets, weapons, cabinets, oak chests, mirrors, and mediaeval " nick nacks," of all kinds, fully sure that that would be something quite new to a native Australian ; and she also made her eldest brother take him to the fox hunt, not 100 miles from a place called Branford. Dear old Essex ! Quaint in thy ruined halls, and haunted mansions ; pleasant, even, in thy swampy fens, where flat and rainy Gray's Thurrock looks out upon the departing Australian liners passing Gravesend, all laden with their cargo of hopes and fears ; pleasant to our memory, in thy hills of strength, and old Roman camps, where a pleasant champaign country lies, spread in buttercup and daisy hues, by winding streams, below us. Cherished, and never to be forgotten, are thine ancienl 88 IIAUNTED ESSEX. blackberry and oak forests ; and thy merry girls, in muslin, kid skin, plaited straw, and all and sundry, the cunning devices of feminine charm. Neither the semi-tropical Devon, nor the salubrious Yorkshire, with its mountain streams glittering adown the glade, and its abbeys of ivy, can hold the heart as do thy level meads, redolent of the old German Ocean, of fog and rain. All of us must die ; but he who hunts as a man should hunt, will cheat grim death for the longest spell. " I have lived my life, I have nearly done, I have played its grand game, all round ; But I freely admit, of the best of my fun, That I owe it to horse and to hound." Here, in these lines, is the moral of the chase, as healthily set forth in that dear old county, where the pens of Dickens, and of Hood, the pencils of George Cattermole, Hablot Browne, and Samuel Read, have been, alike, exercised, to till us all, with the delicious terror of haunted, dilapidated, deep-mossy-moated, rusty gated, old Elizabethan mansions, where wicked, pretty women, of Charles the Second's day, must have done some curious things, that will not, now, let them sleep quietly under the lordly hatchment, in the venerable parish church, whose spire just peeps above the trees. Walter enjoyed his gallop, with a fox for a kangaroo, and the "eastern counties " for the Darling Downs, and he well appreciatad a certain " little woman," and her thoughtfulness, and he wished that she had been there, too. And, now, for New Holland, once more. THE SITE OF BRISBANE. Brisbane differs essentially from the capitals of the other Australian colonies, in scenery. In its infancy, it was simply the prettiest country township in New South Wales. It has not the Highland " loch " like, and lovely harbour of Sydney, nor the snow- clad mountain, of Hobart, to back it up; but it has a winding river, as wide as the Thames at London, and below it, and far deeper. It has — what Sydney, and Melbourne, and London have not — picturesque timbered hills, from 200 to 1,000 feet high, within a five-mile radius. It is only ten miles from the sea, in place of 50, as London is, and this forms a great element in the scenery. The country is quartz, slate, and granite, wholesomer than sandstone, and well drained ; and from its hills, of 250 feet, and upwards, there is a far reaching view to be obtained, such as neither London, or the other places named, can show, from 250 feet of height ; east- ward and northward, 50 miles; southward, 80 miles; westward, 70 miles. You can see to the east the river, the sea, and the distant islands of Moreton and Stradbroke ; westward, 70 miles, to the giant warder mountains that enclose the Darling Downs ; south, to the peaks which border New South Wales ; north, to the ranges, which are neighbours unto those overlooking the head waters of the Mary, and the Burnett ; a stretch of country, that would blot out all Wales, or a great part of Ireland, or Tasmania, can be seen from the hill summits in Brisbane, and a combination of river and mountain, sea and city, farm and forest, garden and steeple, that would make up a notable landscape anywhere ; and, as one enthusiastic and clerical climber of the 1,000 feet hill said to me of it, " The finest view / have seen, outside of Switzerland." Inside the city boundary, the greatest elevation is 300 feet, at " Highgate Hill," and, nowhere within the municipal boundaries of London, Sydney, Melhourne, Adelaide, or Hobart, is there so high a one as this, which fact gives a fair idea of the hill and dale in the capital of Queensland. The beautiful estuary of the Derwent, at Hobart, is here wanting, and so are the rock capes, and miniature bays, of Port Jackson : but there is the 1,000 feet wide river, from 25 to 100 feet deep, on which the 5,000-ton steamers — which loom so large 90 BRISBANE, 1854. at the Circular Quay, Sydney, and which cannot go up to Melbourne,, or Adelaide, at all — appear dwarfed by the great natural features around them, as is, also, the case with tall public buildings, that would look large anywhere else, as in Sydney or Melbourne, or in. narrow streets. And, lastly, Brisbane is the only Australian metropolis with good reef gold, and alluvial of the same, within ten miles of its General Post Office. I sailed from Sydney in the first week of February, 1854, in the 100-ton wooden steamer " City of Melbourne," once a schooner, built on the Yarra while I was there, in 1851, but converted into a steamer, with the screw shaft about level within the cabin floor. Captain O'Reilly commanded her, and my fellow-passengers were Mrs. Geo. Thorn, Mr. F. A. Forbes, and his little girl " Ellie," Mr. John Cooling, and Mr. Clai\ke, a Port Curtis squatter. We picked up Mrs. R. Little, and her young sister Martha, at Moreton Island, where they had been for change of air. When I first landed in Brisbane, February 7, 1854, the Sydney steamers always berthed at the south side, where Parbury's wharf now is. There was a wooden hotel near the wharf, kept by John M'Cabe, and then by his successor, John Campbell, and this was the house of call for Sydney visitors. Next to this was a genei^al store, kept by Daniel Peterson, the father of Seth L. Peterson (afterwards known in the Land Titles office). Next to this was a butcher's shop, kept by Mr. Orr, which concern has now merged into the great " Graziers' Butchering Company." A creek ran up from the l'iver here, clothed with a little fringe of scrub, in which the fire- flies, on summer nights, disported in brilliant swarms. Where is that scrub note 1 Mr. George Appel had an office close by, and, further on, was the wharf of Mr. Conolly, the father of the Colonial Architect ; and Mr. John Ocock, solicitor, lived on the river bank, also. Speaking of Mr. Appel, he was official inspector of stock at that time, and a lot of sheep, about 300 in number, were landed, with scab in them, and were ordered to be killed, and burnt, at once, which was done in an open allotment, in front of Orr's place, in sight of all, females and children, who passed by. Volunteers (to save time) were pressed into the service, and even the butcher's clerk, a college man, had to wield a knife, and, oh ! how he did perspire under the unwonted exertion, so different from ordinary quill driving. And the wood to burn such a heap of carcases was another heavy drain on the limited resources of " our village," in order to be up to time with it. Messrs. J. and G. Harris had a store on the south side then, pending the building of their wharf grenier's. 91 and store in Short street, North Brisbane. The only other establishment of any note, near there, was Mr. Kent's chemist's shop, and Geo. Toppin's, the baker ; and I believe the Melbourne street railway extension now goes over this place, and erases from view, even the very site of Thomas Grenier's well-kept hostelry. It was pleasant then, in the old winter days of Moreton Bay, to arrive, at sunset, from a long bush journey, or ride, in the sharp, cold, clear air, loaded with the wattle scent, just as the sun was sinking in a gold red fringe, to come to any good hotel (such as Grenier's, for instance), and be sure of a good supper and fire, safe for a cheery welcome, and lively company. There was plenty of all of it then, and I fancy I can, even now, see Dr. Dorsey, on " Mameluke," at eventide, about to alight, but, first of all, enquiring from that stately little lady, Miss Eliza Grenier, on the verandah, whether the hotel was full, or not, a question which it was always needful to put in the days of the Crimean war, and of numerous travelling squatters. At that time, old Martin Feeney, a military sexagenarian, was the gaoler of Brisbane, and his wife was, in after years, lost in the burning of the " Fiery Star," ship, from Brisbane to London. Robert Cribb was, at this date, prominent in politics, in Brisbane, in the battle of the free people versus coolies and convicts; he was (so to speak) the "John Pascoe Fawkner" of Brisbane ; the same sterling democrat, and the same small thin, fearless, manly facer of stormy political meeting and opposition, that the old Melbourne pioneer was. The busy Woolloongabba, and the bustling " Five Ways," were then uninhabited, and known as the " One Mile Swamp," where Daniel Junkaway's cottage stood, at the turn off to Ipswich, and where his bullocks (for he was a " bull puncher ") grazed in the pellucid water and grass that no drought could dry up. A dense, sweet, wattle-scented grove extended the whole way round what is now called " River Terrace " to Kangaroo Point, and in it could be picked up, as late as 1857, the skulls of blackfellows, who had fallen in tribal fights, years before. Hockings's nursery was on the river bank, higher up, and Captain Taylor Winship (afterwards of Cleve- land) had a nice orange, and fruit, and flower garden, between Hockings's and the ferry, which was just below where Victoria Bridge now is, with those wonderful, penny fare, ferry boats, of Brisbane, with their roomy seats, and their absolute safety, for, not once, in 60 years, has one of them drowned a passenger, though many a volunteer oarsman has shown off", before the ladies, how /" could row. Greatly scandalised once, was Win. Uaxtcr, lessee of 92 QUEEN STREET, 1854. the Brisbane ferry, when a captain of an immigrant ship pulled up from the bay, and, stopping at the ferry, asked Baxter noiv much further up it was to Brisbane 1 J. P. Wilkie, of Daandine, lived round at Hill End then, but all between was a forest wilderness. And now for a glance at North Brisbane, as it was when I first saw it. St. John's Church was building, and was not consecrated till 1855, about the time when Captain O'Reilly illuminated the " Boomerang " steamer, in the reach below, in honour of the fall of Sebastopol ; but St. John's Parsonage was a fact, all the same. Church service was conducted in the little building, which still survives, at the back of the " Longreach " Hotel, and I well remember one Sunday, when Captain Geary's (harbour master) bull-dog had impiously ensconced himself under one of the seats, he was sent out flying, and conscience-stricken, with his tail and ears down, by a terrific resonant sneeze from an elderly maiden lady, which sneeze, he concluded, was addressed solely to himself. Queen street ran up hill and clown dale at its own sweet will, then. On the left side was R. S. Warry's grocery and spirit store ; further on, came Markwell Brothers' tailoring place, and D. F. Roberts' (solicitor) office. Ambrose Eldridge's chemist shop (now Mrs. Beesley) had just passed to Dr. F. J. Barton, who, in 1850, took over the typhus fever patients in the ship " Emigrant," after its surgeon, and the •Government Health Officer had both died of it. Further on, Reuben Oliver had a place similar to Warry's. The " Australian " corner was occupied as a store by Mr. Charles Trundle, senr. ; further on W. Mason sold tobacco, and G. Adkin sold shoes, and Mat Stewart kept a public-house where Stewart and Hemmant now are. David Peattie came next, and R. A. Kingsford had a two- storey brick drapery store, also. There was nothing more of any great note on that side of the road, till you came to old Andrew Petrie's house — blind, but intelligent, Andrew. If my memory serves me, the first time I saw the inside of it, with P. L. C. Shepherd, of Sydney, was on one occasion when Miss Edmonstone, a bonny daughter of old George E., a " flesher," from the " north country," was there, and Miss Petrie {afterwards Mrs. Ferguson) showed to Shepherd's and my wondering •eyes, the variety of beautifully coloured jams and jellies that could be made from rosellas, and native fruits, in Brisbane. Across the street was the little den of a Custom-house of the period ; then came Richardson's wharf (now Bright's), where I first started business in Brisbane ; and Daniel Rowntree Somerset had the P. L. C. SHEPHERD. 93- upper floor, a kindly, honest, simple-hearted gentleman, all too easily imposed upon, as witness the following : Captain John Murphy, of the barque " Bella Vista," was a bluff, bold seaman, and never " stood on repairs " much, any more than did Brown, of the " Raven " schooner. One day Murphy brought the barque up the river, all sail set, with such a vigorous rush, that her flying jibboom went through the shingles on the roof of Somerset's wharf shed. Murphy hauled off clear, anchored, and was ashore in his boat instanter, and in the upper oflice. " Come out on the wharf for a moment, Mr. Somerset," said he, and Mr. S. did so. " Do you see those goats on the roof of the shed, and those loose shingles'?" said Murphy. "Indeed I do, Captain Murphy, and I had no idea, till now, they were such destructive animals ; I am much obliged to you for telling me of it, and I will see that it does not happen again." I do trust that Murphy repented, afterwards, of this unspoken taradiddle. Then, up the river, were Dr. Simpson's cottages, inhabited by Dr. Hobbs, and William B. Tooth, of Clifton ; and, then, Raff's wharf came next. But, I am getting out of Queen street, and must go back thither. I have described the left side of Queen street, as you come from South Brisbane. I will, now, sketch the right-hand side, as it was in February, 1854. First came the Bank of New South Wales, a cottage building — Craies, manager ; Knowles and Luke, accountants (the latter married Miss White, of Edenglassie, Hunter River). Then there was the hardware shop of James Sutherland (father of Mrs. J. G. Appel), afterwards W. and B. Brookes, the origin of Foster and Kelk's large business. After this came George Mac Adam's, the " Sovereign " Hotel (he and his wife came from Leslie's, Canning Downs), separated by a brick building, belonging to Powers, who died September, 1854 (the Union Bank of Australia), from Greenwood's (father of Alderman Greenwood, Sandgate), the Victoria Hotel, afterwards Cowell's and now the site of Spilsbury's. Mark Wallace, the saddler, and Thomas Clark, the fruiterer, helped to till the space till you came to Hockings's corner, after which Patrick Mayne's butcher's shop, Jerry Scanlan's public-house, and Ede, the watchmaker, and J. S. Beach, the table beer brewer, and one or two more brought us on to the corner of Edward street, where was a fine banana garden, with a brick house and shop, where Skyring, the elder, lived, and E. B. Southerden, later on. Queen Street, from this point onwards, was almost unbuilt, and chiefly Crown laud, iii L854, save for the gaol, lock-up and police station, where the Genera] Post Oflice now is. 94 THE OLD WINDMILL. A creek came up from the river near the foot of Creek street, and considerably deranged the symmetry of the streets which it crossed, including Queen street, near Alfred Shaw's ; and there, also, came tumbling down from the schistose rocks, of the future Wickham Terrace, in wet weather, some pretty, tiny rills, and water falls, with clear, drinkable water, falling into a little pool just above where the girls' school, in Adelaide street, now is. Not a vestige of these ancient land marks now survives. Outside of Queen street were a few buildings. Mrs. Luke, the elder, lived in a two-story brick house, at the corner where Burrell and Durant lately were (Edward and Adelaide streets). There was a locksmith's shop, in Edward street, near Prentice's. In •George street, Captain Coley, Lloyd's agent, and director of the New South Wales Bank, Dr. Caiman, and D. F. Roberts lived, facing the sea breeze, and " Red " Smith had a cottage on the opposite side ; and, further on (opposite side) and where the survey office now is, was the Hospital, with Dr. Hugh Bell, as resident surgeon. There were two houses on the north-east side of Ann street, near George street, one of which was a ladies' school ; but a deep gulf crossed this street, and the present School of Arts part of it was cut off from the George street end, altogether. Mr. Robert Little's wooden cottage, and solicitor's office, in one, occupied the corner where the " Imperial " Hotel now is, and there I first met Mr. (now Sir Charles) Lilley. The old windmill, and its ruined sails, peeped out from above the thick forest of trees which covered the hill, afterwards pegged out as "Wickham Terrace," and " Leichhardt street," and sold in November, 1856, in lots of about an acre each. Ladders led to the first and second floor of the mill, and a fine view of wood and water, mountain and paddock, could be seen thence, with very few houses to break the primeval aspect of the scene. The School of Arts was in Creek street. With a small room on each side of the door, then an open hall, with forms, where public meetings, and philharmonic practice, under Duncan and Diggles, used to be held ; and, at the far end, a railed gallery, approached by a staircase, and ranged round with book shelves on the wall, formed the library, including a magnificent picture atlas of the counties of England, presented by Henry Stuart Russell. Here Miss Matilda Innes, the timid, pretty daughter of the secretary, sometimes gave out the books in his absence. i • I must say that I liked Brisbane at first sight. It was such a relief — after the flat Riverina country, where an intrusive river, in KANGAROO POINT. 95 flood, had a habit of making no apology for suddenly becoming your bedfellow — to find oneself in a high, and dry, and flood-proof town. The old convict barracks, or court house, in Queen street — the key stone of the central archway of which was exactly opposite the boundary line, between the Cafe Royal and the Globe Hotel — was used for election meetings, for examinations, in insolvency, before the Government Resident, for the civil and criminal sittings, twice a year, before the Sydney Circuit Court, for Crown land sales, and so forth ; the police court being placed on the already described site of the lock-up and police stations, on the hill (now cut clown and levelled), where the General Post and Telegraph Offices now are. Kangaroo Point was, in 1854, a small place indeed There was a bone shed and a wharf there, and a big roofless brick building. Mr. James Warner, surveyer (late Sergeant-at-Arms) lived on the west river bank, and Mr. Ptobert Douglas (also once Sergeant-at- Arms) resided on the east side of the point, at the water's edge, both of them hospitable hosts in the early days. Impromptu regattas, on Saturday afternoons, were the rule at Douglas's. Lots were drawn for boats and pullers ; and how the ladies laughed, when a heavy and a light man with a boat all on one side, had to pull to the bitter end of the race ; and it was never shirked. Mr. Thornton was in England then, and his house was not built till after this. The only hotel on " the Point " was kept by Frank Dawson Mercer, a rather " fast " son of a Yorkshire rector (of Northallerton, I believe), a fine rider and boxer, and a man who was never so happy as when he had his " field safe " in the "straight," or when he was engaged in expounding to some stalwart " bull puncher " the creed, that science is, now and again, too much for brute strength. Mercer once kept the " Bush " Inn, at Fassifern, and he, one morning, showed me, on the plain there, how his black horse " Magic " could " sprint," and he was away, and almost out of sight, in no time. Phthisis claimed poor Mercer at last, and he sat up on his death-bed, with his face lighted up at the news that Veno (with Higgerson in the saddle) had beaten Alice Hawthorn in the champion £1,000 match between New South Wales and Victoria, for we were a part of New South Wales then, and it concerned us ; and F. D. Mercer died a few minutes later, a " sport " to the last. Another suburb of Brisbane was Fortitude Valley, then approached only by climbing over Duncan's Hill, where Win. Augustine Duncan (the Collector of Customs) lived, at " Darra," for there was no Wickham street then, but only a row of ponds, and brick yards, 96 " MERCHANT " JONES. on the site. " Father Hanley," the Roman Catholic priest, lived in the stone cottage, shingle roofed, which still stands at the Petrie Bight end of Boundary street, which street then only existed on paper. But, to pursue our journey to the Valley. Charles Wind- rnell kept the hotel there, where Ruxton was, afterwards, and the " Federal Butchery " now is ; and (I think) W. J. Loudon had the " Royal George,", opposite. John Lloyd Bale had a store in that corner of Duncan street, next Hawgood's, and on the town side of it. The New Farm road branched off at WindmeH's, and is now- called Brunswick street. Much of the land hereabouts had been bought by Logan squatters, and a Tanirookum street, opposite to William Barker's estate, was a sign thereof. New Farm itself (native name " Pinkenbah ") was the residence of Mr. Richard Jones, erst chairman of the Bank of New South Wales (the Sydney member for Moreton Bay), and of Mr. George Raff, merchant, who married a daughter of Missionary Bourne, who, in 1822, was at the Tahiti group of islands. Often have I seen " Merchant Jones," when I was teller at the " New South," in Sydney ; and his cottage and garden in Hunter street, Sydney, between Pitt and George streets, were, in 1827, close by the (then pellucid) brook known as the " Tank Stream," now a mere sewer. Mr. and Mrs. Raff gave dances to old and young, and the children were not forgotten. I remember, at some game they had, where the children called for a lion, or an elephant, or other animal, and some imitation of it had to be produced in order to carry out the game properly, someone asked for a cameleopard, and old " G. R." himself came forward, duly " made up," and said, " You can't have a cameleopard, but here's a giraffe " (G. Raff). Another road led from Windmell's corner on to Breakfast Creek, past the modern " Bo wen Hills," and the mount where Messrs. Cowlishaw and Morehead now reside ; all Crown land then. The principal residents, in early 1854, were Captain Wickham, R.N., the Government resident of Moreton Bay, who lived at Newstead ;. and Mr. Thomas Childs, who had an orchard at " Beulah," on the river bank, near the present gas works. Captain Wickham had married into the Macarthur family, in New South Wales, as had also one of the Leslies, and I believe that " Newstead " was built on the lines of the original house at Canning Downs. Captain Wickham gave good dinners and balls, and his household menage was methodical, and a caution to vermin. All stores were kept in zinc lined bins — pease, flour, sugar, &c. — and no rat ever got a feed, or a footing, there, for one moment. Snakes were summarily dealt A PORTENT. 97 with, by well-aimed jugs of scalding water — an infallible remedy — and snakes and rats were, once, far too plentiful at " Newstead." There was a ricketty wooden bridge at this spot, over Breakfast Creek, which fell into the water in 1856, and was replaced by a wretched little punt, till New South Wales took pity on us, and, in 1858, built a new bridge, and, during the interim, horses and vehicles — for the punt only carried passengers — had (if they wanted to go to Eagle Farm) to work round by the ford at Kelvin Grove, or the " Three-mile Scrub " (as it was then called), for Breakfast Creek was not crossable (save by punt, or bridge) anywhere lower clown. The present site of " Toorak " was then known as " Gage's Hill," and a foot track led over it to the German Station, so as to avoid the longer route by the river side ; and the beautiful little spring, in the deep gorge, under where " Bartley's Tower " now stands, shed its clear water through all droughts. What is now called " Bowen Terrace," then had only one house on it, inhabited by Mr. Sylvester Doig, editor of the " Moreton Bay Free Press ;" but the site was then known only as "The Judge's View," from the intense admiration which Mr. Justice Dickenson, of Sydney, had for it, and the panorama which it commanded. He never forgot to come up thither, and sit and enjoy the scene, when- ever he came to Brisbane on circuit. About the year 1849, Conrad Martens, the artist, painted this view, and the picture is now in the Brisbane Museum. Fourteen' acres of the hill-top, where " Cintra," and " Montpellier " (Messrs. Morehead and Cowlishaw's residences) now are, used to belong to me, and I had a most mysterious adventure there, after I bought the land from the Crown. I had a habit of walking up that hill after church, and before dinner, every Sunday, and once, when I was half-way to the top, I suddenly heard a most awful noise in the road below, as of a horse galloping at a fearful rate, which meant almost certain death to the rider. It was such as to make me stop in a moment, and look round to see what it was, when, as soon as I turned and looked, the sound died away far more quickly than should have been the case, even with such speed as was indicated. It ceased almost in a moment. I could see nothing whatever in the road, which wound round the foot of the hill, which last commanded a full view of it, both ways, for some distance. I wondered much, and I turned to continue my climb, when, lo! within a foot of me, stood up on end, a huge black snake, with red belly, facing me, and on whom I must inevitably have trodden, as he lay asleep on the ground, but for this ii 98 York's hollow. mysterious noise, for he was certainly not up on end before I heard! it, and I must have seen him if he had been so. He must have been half hidden under the dead leaves. However, he and I now faced each other with our eyes, and I had no stick; but he was the first to quail. He lowered his crest, and slid off sideways, and it was not for some minutes that I realised that that (surely supernatural) sound had saved my life, for no subsequent enquiry could elicit a word of any runaway horse, and it was no ordinary quick hoof beat that would make me stop and look round at any time. It is a mystery which I have never been able to solve, and I leave it to the reader. The ferries of Brisbane were, then, only two in number — one kept by William Baxter, which plied to the foot of Russell street parallel to Melbourne street ; and the other, carried on by Carter, from the Custom-house to Kangaroo Point. The latter was the- first to treat his passengers to an awning for the sun in the boat, Mr. John Stephen Ferriter, R.N., was the agent for immigration then, and lived in tiie cottage adjacent to the stone barracks, between George and William streets, which were afterwards the Queensland Colonial Treasurer's office. He was somewhat addicted to bad puns, but, otherwise, of a kind and genial disposition. Brisbane had only six constables then, dressed in the blue, and pewter buttons, of the London force. Sam Sneyd, the " Chief , A. S. Wright, the lock-up keeper ; and the latter still survives at New Farm, and he used to be a prominent member of the choir at St. John's. Such places as Ipswich, Drayton, and Warwick, and Gayndah only had one, or two, constables each. Brisbane was- grandly metropolitan with a whole half-dozen all to itself. The old commissariat stores of 1822, and Pettigrew's saw-mills v were the only places, besides Tom Dowse's, and a small public-house, on that part of the river bank in 1854 ; and the Botanic Gardens, barring the old bunya and lebeck trees, were in a very primitive state, till Walter Hill came along, in 1855, to put a new face on them. York's Hollow, below the present site of Gregory Terrace, was a pleasant glade, full of the clear water lagoons for which nearly every level hollow in the Moreton Bay country is famous ; but I had no leisure to scan the beauties of Brisbane, for I had my orders, from Sydney, to go direct to Joe Fleming's " boiling down " place, near Ipswich ; there to borrow a stock horse from William Tooth, called "Spanker," and to ride him " post haste " up to Gayndah, on the Burnett River. It was fortunate for me that my uncle, Dr. Lucas. MOGGILL AND WOOGAROO. 99 (the principal medical officer of the Brigade of Imperial troops, then stationed in Australia) had but lately arrived in Sydney, from Cawnpore and Delhi ; for, he gave me his solar pith helmet (useless to him, in a cool climate) to help me to face this summer ride from Ipswich to Gayndah. My bridle hand was burnt black before I got back, and what I should have endured with an ordinary felt hat, or " black box," on that ride, is hard to guess at. But the pith helmet, a thing, till then, never seen in Moreton Bay, compelled me to run the gauntlet of much derisive laughter in some places ; and, on the other hand, quite frightened Mrs. Donald Mackenzie, at Colinton, as I suddenly passed the window where she sat, if I may judge by the cry she uttered. There were numerous punts, and two steamers, then trading between Brisbane and Ipswich, the two latter called the " Hawk " and the "Swallow," respectively. Thomas Boyland had the " Hawk," and (the present pilot) Bousfield, the " Swallow ;" paddle boats of some 15 to 30 tons burthen. I went up to Ipswich in the latter, and oh ! what a hot trip it was up the river, to my southern nerves. The " Swallow " puffed, and wheezed, and sighed, as if from the heat. We called at a place which some people then spelt " Moghill " (Moggill), and I thought what a strange name " Mog " was for a hill. The principal settlers there were Roper, Twine, Lumsden, and Ben Brookes. Mr. Daniel Young, of Woogaroo (another awful name), had lately been lost in the bush, and mutilated by native dogs. What a strange, wild place this " Moreton Bay " seemed, with the scrub creepers, all trailing in the river, as it swept, with the tide, round the then uncleared points and bends. I got to the boiling down place, and met Joe Fleming, a sun- burnt, tough, " pin wire " specimen of the men that the old Hunter River district used to "raise." I had my choice of going vid Griffin's, Durundur, and Kilcoy, from Brisbane, but preferred the Ipswich route. The last sight I saw there, when I went in to get " Spanker " shod for the journey, was an old woman holding, and shaking, her sides at the sight of my pith helmet. I rode down a forest slope, that bore no track, till I came to a river, wide, but not deep, and this was the fresh-water Brisbane. But there was no road out on the opposite side, so I rode up and down, to discover an opening in the scrub for an exit on the other side; and, well it was for mi- that the water was not deep. At last I found a narrow track, and, taking it, it soon widened, and, before night, I found myself at .John Smith's capital hotel at Wivenhoe. Good chops, 100 ALPIN CAMEKON. good fish, good eggs, tea, bread, and butter of the same, and que voulez vous, more than this in the scented bush air of Queensland, where the trees give out an odour of fresh Havanah cigar boxes ; and, in the hunger which a ride in that air micst generate 1 I had a dip in the river, admired the lovely sylvan scenery, the sandy bottom, the white pebbles, the cliff banks, the clear water, here deep and still, there, babbling along, shallow and noisy. And I saw old Mr. North, at his garden gate, at " Ferny Lawn." Next day I rode on, as I thought, for " Mount Esk." I met, and exchanged greetings, with Mr. T. L. Murray-Prior, who smiled, and said " Good morning." I rode on, and wondered much at the dark, high hills which ever frowned by the road side, and I wondered still more at the marvellous heat, and to find, when the afternoon waned, that I came to no place at all, though on a good beaten road all the time. "When night was falling, I met some bullock teams, and asked where I was, and the drivers told me that I must have missed the Mount Esk " turn off," to my right hand, far back, and that I was, now, on the road to Ivory's (wherever that was) ; and, as I did not want to go to Ivory's, I camped for the night at a stock- yard, on the Cressbrook run, with the teams ; and, next day (Sunday) one of the men showed me to Cressbrook head station, where I met Alpin Cameron, and Freudenthal (afterwards of the native police), a warrior and musician, like most Germans, and not guiltless of the usual duel-born face scars of a student. The reason I missed the turn off is easily explained. People, in coming in from Mount Esk to the wide, plain road which I was on, used to diverge right and left when they saw it, according to whether they were bound up or down it ; hence, there w T as no proper grassless, concentrated track at the junction, but a widely divergent " fan " of tracks, which barely bent the grass ; so, no wonder that I missed it altogether. What a grand place for vegetation was this same Cressbrook ; such long, rich grass, such a country to grow maize and fruit if there were only a market ; and the banks of the river were rich in that species of melaleuca (ti-tree), which grows a gorgeous flower, like a huge red bottle brush. From Cressbrook I still ran up the Brisbane River, to Colinton (Balfour and Forbes). Here it is a wide stream, with a clearly- defined bed and banks. Mr. and Mrs. Balfour were in England. Mr. and Mrs. Donald Mackenzie occupied the house. He was station manager, and afterwards a Government sheep inspector on the "Warrego ; a genial Scot, with a broad forehead and a kindly smile, whose life Dr. Frank Lucas afterwards saved. I hied me to the BLIGH O'CONNELL. 101 bachelor's cottage, where G. E. Forbes was, and met there with F. Walker, the explorer, and organiser of native police in Australia, who was disporting his lengthy legs on a reclining chair. Forbes, who had lately come from India, scrutinized my helmet as something he had seen before ; and we had a game of chess, in which I was much beaten, and would have done better with draughts. Next day, I crossed a high range, and penetrated a thick scrub,. and arrived at Taromeo, where Simon Scott, a widower, with a governess, and a boy and girl of tender age, resided. Here I bathed in the upper waters, that feed the Brisbane River, and, at 1,400 feet of elevation, found the night cool ; and, next day, crossed the awful deep, steep, boulder-strewn Cooyar Creek, and a range that shed the waters of the Burnett River, and got to a place called " Goode's Inn," where now is the township of Nanango, which name then applied only to Bryce Barker's sheep station. At " Goode's Inn," I met an old lieutenant, or doctor, of one of Robert Towns's whale ships, who advised me to go on to Mondure, by way of Barambah, and so break the journey, for it was a terribly long ride from " Goode's Inn " to Mondure ; but I resolved to " chance " the direct mail " track," and was sorry for it. I had not gone far before my only saddle girth gave way, and I could not canter. I crossed a number of creeks, full of beautiful cornelians and agates, bloodstone and sardonyx. But night fell, and I made no station, for you can't walk a horse 50 miles between sunrise and sunset ; so, I camped by a lagoon, and flattered myself I should sleep, even if I did not sup ; but not so. I had no matches, for I did not smoke, and there was a breed of large-boned mosquitoes at that lagoon, who pierced my tweed suit everywhere, and I might as well have been naked as far as they were concerned. It was an awful night to pass, sleepless and stung, and I was off, at daybreak, from that same lake, and after about four miles of further travel, I heard a cock crow, and got to Mondure Station — Captain Win. Bligh O'Connell's, who married a daughter of " Merchant " Jones, of Sydney, and was father of the member for Bundaberg, and a son of Sir Maurice O'Connell, Governor of New South Wales. His brother, Carlo O'Connell, and ;i Miss Baldock (from Parramatta, I think), and a young clergyman, named Tanner, were also there. My forlorn condition, after a sleepless night, was realized in a moment by my hospitable host, who knew that lagoon well, and I was made to stay over the clay a ml night, and my saddle girth fully renewed by the station saddler, while a draught of good brown sherry at lunch, and a read on the sofa at " Soapey Sponge's Sporting Tour," helped t<> set me up again. 102 CHARLEY HAUGHTON Next day I passed a " bottle tree " on the road, like a real champagne bottle, 30 feet high, covered with the bark of a box tree, and with a gum tree growing out of the cork thereof, and, had I not been warned of it the day before, I should have been startled, as at something " uncanny," so unlike anything I had ever seen before was it. The above description pourtrays it exactly. That evening I came to "Wigton," Mr. Pigott's station, where his brother, Gerald, was manager, and bewailing his bush isolation. The same Mr. Pigott, I believe, whose marriage to Miss Lydia Clarke (with Mr. Leith Hay as best man), I had been a spectator of in St. Mary's Cathedral, Sydney, a few weeks before. From "Wigton" I rode, next day, to my destination, Gayndah, and spent a few days at the hotel of Harper, an old Sydney (North Shore) friend of the Joubert family. I climbed Mount Debateable, and saw a doctor's grave. I bathed in the Burnett, here a great wide river, running on a clean, pebbly bottom, full of the long-tailed tortoises, which dropped in from the trees, when I disturbed them ; full, also, of the wondrous ceratodus fish, of which more in another place. One day I took a turn, with Carlo O'Connell, down the river, to what was called the " Commissioner's Place," a noble reach of wide, deep water, on the Burnett, where a squadron might float and anchor. I noticed a pretty girl at the Court-house church service on Sunday, February, 19th; name " unbeknownst " to me ; but my stay at Gayndah was far too brief for any clanger to me from that source. I noticed the name of " Le Breton " on a house on the out- skirts of the town ; and, my task being ended, I set out on my return ride, and, at " Wigton," I met the gallant Charles Haughton, so disastrously killed afterwards. I had a letter of introduction to Mr. W. H. Walsh, of Degilbo, as it was " on the cards " that I might have to return to Sydney via Maryborough ; and a fine brig, the " Burnett," traded on the coast then ; but business ruled that I should go back by the way I came. I resolved not to be benighted again between Mondure and " Goode's Inn," so I started at 8"15 a.m. from Captain O'Connell's, and never drew bridle till I got to Goode's, at Nanango, at 2-30 p.m., " Spanker" and I well fagged ; so that some cold beef, and a bottle of beer, and a " lounge " on the sofa, was my form for the rest of that day. I never rode so far, in so short a time, before, nor since. Next day, to Taromeo, the place where gold, and copper, and plumbago, and mica, and bismuth were found later on ; but it was not talked of in 1854. Here I, again, met T. L. Murray-Prior; and AX ALBUERA VETERAN. 103 the last I saw of Taromeo was, next morning, with Simon Scott, and John Swanson, sitting on the stockyard rails, and bidding me a cheery farewell, and saying that they were glad I was going to live in Brisbane, and would look me up there. Passing through Colinton, I came to Cressbrook once more, and Freudenthal rode with me in to Ipswich. Crossing the Brisbane, I got into a deep hole, and was surprised at the way my legs seemed to float, whether I liked it or not. I wonder how many times I had to cross the good old Brisbane stream in that early 1854 journey. It is a little bit better bridged now. At Wivenhoe I met Macquarie M'Donald. Behold me, then, returned to Ipswich, the horse delivered up to Joe Fleming, at the " boiling down " place, and myself free to have a look round at old Limestone, before I went back to Brisbane to organise the business I meant to start there. I found Ipswich not so much scattered as Brisbane ; the Bremer a mere ditch, for narrowness, after the Brisbane clown below ; but there was a grand and near mountain view, such as Brisbane town did not command. The leading wholesale stores belonged to Walter Gray, and John Panton ; the wholesale-cum-retail ones to Cribb and Foote, Richard Gill, George Thorn, William Hendren, F. A. Forbes, H. M. Reeve, John Pettigrew, and others ; Christopher Gorry was the saddler ; and "Yarraman Dick," the butcher; Kilner, the chemist; Dr. Challinor, and Dr. Dorsey, the " medicos ;" Arthur Macalister, and James Walsh, the solicitors. Colonel Charles Geo. Gray, the police magistrate, had been a veteran of Albuera and Waterloo, the same as Colonel Prior, of Brisbane. There were, of course, plenty of Waterloo men left, in the " Alma " year, now, far back in the century. A fine specimen of the tough old Ipswichians was known as " Terence Macgusalem," a bullock driver. He, one day in the month of May, late in the "forties," went to a doctor, and said he felt out of sorts, and did not know why. The surgeon examined him, and said "Terence, the fact is you're getting an old man now, and you must not go about in the winter time in a Scotch twill shirt and white moleskins, the same as if it were mid-summer ; it may do for the young fellows, but not for you. Go and buy a thick pilot jacket, and wear it, and you will soon feel all right again. You must begin to wrap up a little, now," thus the medico. " Oh ! that's it, is it?" said the old "bull puncher," it's come to that, lias it? I'm oidy a crawler, now, am 1 1 Well, I'll see it out, anyway, now/ and lir gallantly refused to "coddle" himself, and he kept on with his summer "rig" all through the winter, and died, like a hero, in two years more. 104 II. M. KEIGHTLEY. I made the acquaintance of most of the Ipswich people, and' returned to Brisbane. I rented a large, cool, deep cellar on the- wharf at South Brisbane, from R. Towns and Co., and the lower story and wharf of Richardson and Co. (now Gibbs, Bright, and Co.'s), from Mr. D. R. Somerset, and so prepared myself for the heavy stock, of all classes of goods that could either be eaten or drunk, which I had arranged for. One of the first men I saw, on my return to Brisbane, attracted my notice by his really handsome face, with a heavy, long, brown, moustache, that seemed carved from mahogany, so compact and solid did it look ; and with eyes as blue, and richly blue, as any sapphires. I asked his name. It was Henry M'Crummin Keightley ; but this was years before he married that pretty Miss R., of Bathurst, or shot the bushranger, or was ransomed for £500 by his brave wife. He wore a long beaixl in later days, but had a shaven chin when I saw him, for beards only came in after the Crimean war was over. A speech he made in his bachelor days to a youthful friend, who did not dress quite up to the " H.M.K." standard, will give a clue to his tendency to playful chaff. '• My dear G.," said he, " I am your friend always, of course,, and would help you, or borrow your money, or your neck-ties, but don't, my dear fellow, don't, for goodness sake, ask me to walk down George street, Sydney, with you, like that." I put up at Campbell's Hotel, Stanley street, next the A.S.N. Company's wharf. Henry Buckley was the agent for them, and for the A.M.P Society, and the Fire Insurance Companies ; and C. J. Trundle was his factotum, and is, still, at the insurance business. H. B. could be seen in China buff crape coat, Panama hat, nankeen "continuations," and green silk umbrella, crossing in the ferry boat, nearly every day, to the north side ; that used to be the Moreton Bay dress, to suit the climate. He went over to sit on the bench with Captain Wickham, or John Stephen Ferriter, to " tell their fortunes " for the people in the dock, for justices of the peace were scarce, then, to the north of the Bellinger and Numbuccra rivers, in New South Wales, and they had to work when the honour was conferred on them. I was just speaking of H. M. Keightley, and his good looks, but he was not one whit more of a lady-killer, in that respect, than was young Joshua Bell, whom I saw at an auction room, in Brisbane, a few days latei\ Tall, and slim, as perfectly dressed, in London style, as the Prince Regent himself, and without his foppery. I asked W. B. Tooth who that was, and he replied, " Young Bell, of BRACKER AXD GOGGS. 10-") Jimbour " (aged 26), and no one, then, would have guessed that the tall stripling would have developed into the genial grand seigneur of 1877. Another young, tall, well-made, slim "swell" of the period was John Douglas, of Talgai ; and, in his velvet coat, Bedford cords,, and boots, none might him surpass, either. Joshua Bell rarely dressed in bush costume. I, soon after, made the acquaintance of another sterling squatter, who was not a " swell " in his attire, nor an Adonis, either ; old " Fred." Bracker, of Warroo, beaming with rosy face smiles, and quaint comicality, who — when he carved the ham at Campbell's hotel, and asked everyone to have some " Zwine Vlash," and when, between the acts at the play, he rose in the pit, turned his back to the stage, and waved fat smiles of recognition and greetings to all friends who sat behind him — gave one but little idea of his real sheep-breeding skill, or of what a good shot he was, or how well up in wool, and its classification. I had heard of him (long before I saw Moreton Bay) from the shepherds on the Lachlan and Murrum- bidgee, who told some wondrous camp tire yarns of " Fred the German," the only man who could make the wool grow all over the ram's horns, alluding to some marvellous stud sheep, which he was the first to import from Germany. Then, too, amongst the visitors to Campbell's, were Blyth, who formed Blythdale, and owed money to Captain Towns ; and Living- stone, a cousin of Sir Thomas Mitchell ; also, Fulford, of the Native Police. George Harris and I often strolled up to Grenier's in the evening, for there was more " life " there than at any other hotel in the town. Here I soon met Matthew Goggs (also well heard of on the Murrumbidgee side), and was challenged by him to play draughts. "Take that man," said he to me ; " Now take that, and that," and I did so, making sure that my own annihilation was speedily to follow ; but, somehow, it did not come off, and, with three men to the bad, Matthew, of Chinchilla, lost the game. He did not even know my name then ; but afterwards, when he did, he used to open his mind to me, and, one day, said, " Bartley, what is the great problem of life 1 ?" I replied that I knew not. Goggs said, " The problem of life is, to find a sure and safe 10 per cent, investment for money, after one has made a fortune, and I don't think the whole world holds that investment, and I speak as a man who has made a fortune, lost it again, and made it again." I very much fear that Matthew Goggs was right in what he said, and, perhaps, it is best so (from a borrower's point of view, at all events). Amongst the, then, frequenters of Grenier's I must not omit Mr. Philip Pinnock, and 106 CHESSBOROUGH M'DONALD. 'his partner, Mr. Vaughan, both Logan men ; and, well as the hotel was kept, its architectural pretentions were such, that I much doubt whether Mr. Pinnock would, now, in his stipendiary capacity, grant it a license. Another regular guest at Campbell's hotel was handsome John Crowder, of Weranga. I remember seeing his tall, splendid figure plainly relieved against the sky at sunset, as he stood on the South Brisbane ferry steps, waiting for a boat, as I was crossing thither ; and he was the only man I ever saw, who, with all his tailor-made clothes on, still looked something like a Greek statue in outline. Poor fellow ! he confided to me that too much hard galloping after cattle, on the lower Condamine, had injured his heart and lungs, and he must go home for a change. He went " home," and died at Bordeaux, so I saw in the papers. This was about the time when Arthur Hodgson and Dr. Lang contended for the honour of representing Brisbane in the Sydney Parliament, when the election was a tie, and Colonel Prior gave his casting vote to Hodgson, and when the indefatigable Bob Cribb ■(then in his prime) found a flaw in the proceedings, and got a new election, and ran Dr. Lang in, by one vote, in the next " heat." Ambrose Eldridge, the chemist, who built the " Milton " House {which named that suburb), and who ruined himself by cotton- growing experiments at Eagle Farm, was great at that election, on the Cribb and Lang side. Poor fellow ! I have still his letter to me, asking me to attend his meeting of creditors. What narratives I could write, with no other spur to memory than some of the old well-known wool bale brands ! What a tale of sheep, and shed, and shearers ; of dray, and road, and wharf ; of bank-parlours, and bills of lading, is conjured up by a sight of the old OHO, the well-known MFT, and other standard wool marks of fame. These brands were used by the Hon. Louis Hope, son of a former Earl of Hopetoun, and who came out in 1843, and held Kilcoy, while David M'Connel, of Cressbrook, was director of the Bank of New South Wales, in Brisbane, with Captain R. J. Coley ; and used by De Lacy Moffatt, a son of the Rector of Athlone, and nephew, I believe, of old Captain Pike, of Pikedale, at whose former station so many pioneer Moreton Bay squatters were " broken in," and learned their " colonial experience." Mr. Pringle, further south, was another schoolmaster of squatters, in the by-gone days : and I must not forget the genial- Chessborough M'Donald, of Cadargah, on the Burnett — a Highlander, a " laird," and gentleman to the back bone ; an army captain, and with a becoming contempt A BACHELORS BALL. 107 for a newly enriched parvenu Lowlander. I shall ever remember his well-set, military figure, and the rich bass of his hearty, sympathetic voice, as he gave me (then a youngster, beginning life in the colony) the best advice, and friendly encouragement, at his -command. I have already spoken of how well I was helped at Mondure. I will now relate a case of how I had a chance to help someone, and got repaid, unexpectedly, a year later, for it. One day a pretty little schooner, the " Souvenir," arrived, and landed passengers and cargo, from Sydney, at my wharf. One of these was Sylvester Diggles, with his family. He looked very " tumbled " and wretched after the voyage, which had been stormy, and so I walked him into the store, drew out a spile, and handed him a big tumbler of Marrian's ale, a good reviver after sea sickness. I found he was an artist, a musician, and an expert in birds, reptiles, and insects. In the year of grace, 1856, we "bachelors" of Brisbane — Albrecht Feez, myself, Thos Jones, J. J. Galloway, John Little, and, I think, •J. C. Heussler — gave the usual ball, in return for all the hospitality we had received. But a " hitch " occurred. There was no band, harp, fiddle, or professional pianist in Brisbane in those days. Every lady guest would, of course, dance in the opening quadrille, and, query, who was to play it 1 ? So, I bethought me of Diggles, and he agreed to play it (for me only, as he told me) ; and so, that " hurdle " was surmounted. I raised the ill-will of one of my fellow bachelors as follows : Bachelors can be jealous, as well as spinsters, and when I state that I got my friend, T. S. Mort, of Sydney, to send me a case of fresh cut " Greenoakes " camellias, bv steamer, and had them placed in the ladies' dressing room, for hair decoration, my cup of iniquity became full. Camellias were not plentiful in Brisbane in '56. I was twitted with trying to set the fashion, and the name of " Bartley's camellias " was cruelly applied to some withered " expirees " from Cockatoo Island, whom a sharp Sydney labour agent consigned to me, in the same steamer with the flowers, as shepherds for a Darling Downs run (Jondaryan), for which I was then the agent. The Brisbane bachelors' ball of 1856 broke up at 5 a.m., and I wonder now if Captain Feez remembers (as I do) how his faithful dog, " Alley," sat outside till that hour, waiting to go home with his master. In the early part of 1854, there arrived from Sydney, and put up al Campbell's hotel, Frederick John Cobb Wildash, whose father was a doctor in Kent, and with whom (he told me) Dr. Cannan, of Brisbane, Studied his profession. Wildash was, then, <>n (he look- 108 SIR CHARLES FITZROY. out for new country, about Port Curtis, and equipped his expedition,, with Frank Bush, and another companion. Wildash told me once that he could " live and die " in Sydney, as he regarded it as the happy medium between the barbarism of the bush and the crowded civilization of London. Another expedition left Brisbane soon after — namely, A. C. Gregory's exploring one ; and his brother, Henry Churchman Gregory, was the life and soul of the organisa- tion thereof. How well I remember the leather helmets, pack horses, and multifarious hobbles of that same expedition, and Melville, of Toowong (who has charge of the cemetery now), was one of them. " Henry Churchman " put up at Tom Grenier's hotel, as a matter of course, for, did not his friend, Ernest White, and all the Logan River " contingent " do the same ? Henry Churchman differed, essentially, from the staid Augustus Charles in one respect — viz., that he was sadly addicted to practical jokes, whereof witness the following. One night, old Mr. Duncan, Collector of Customs, gave a ball at " Darra." It was too far for me to walk thither from South Brisbane, in full dress (no cabs, " no nothing," then), so I rode a pony, and put it in a paddock, where All Hallows Convent now is. Dr. Hobbs' young wife was the belle of the ball. At 2-30 a.m I left, and sought the little flea-bitten pony (that I gave George Raff £35 for), but it was not in the paddock. I started to walk home — not so bad, you know, as walking to a ball — and, at Petrie's Bight, I found the animal tied to the river side fence, so mounted, and rode home. It was Ernest White and Gregory (not A. C.) who had done the deed ; both were at the ball, and left just before I did. Very wrong of them, was it not 1 Campbell's hotel, about the time of my arrival, received two more guests from Sydney — namely, Charles Moore, the director of the Sydney Botanic Gardens, and P. L. C. Shepherd, now M.L.C.,. another botanist. They were, both of them, bound for Port Curtis on a professional and scientific tour. Another, and still more distinguished, new arrival, at that time, was Sir Charles Fitzroy,, the Governor of New South Wales, who sat in the little church (behind the present " Longreach Hotel) on the first Sunday after I got back from the Burnett, March 26th, 1854, and we banquetted His Excellency on the 7th April, in the big room in the stone barracks (afterwards the Queensland Treasury). I well remember the praiseworthy efforts of Henry Buckley, and the rest of the " wine committee," to realize and secure some genuine champagne in the remote village of Brisbane, but it was not to be. Wilkes, the " Courier " editor, was at the feast, and sang his famous original F. J. C. WILDASH. 109 song of the " Merry Boys of Brisbane," to the air of " Loudon's." Burnett, the surveyor, who found that river, was there also. I saw the affair out till 3 a.m. I have spoken of the " champagne." One prominent citizen, who loyally honoured every toast in " bumpers, and no heeltaps," died three days afterwards ; and I was not up till 2 p.m. next day, but, then, I did not drink the " sillery mousseux " of Epernay (?) not much. Still, I was often " seedy " in those days, and so was Wildash, for we had a habit of sitting up, at whist, till 2 or 3 a.m., our friend, George Harris, with us, a habit totally incompatible with a feeling of comfort on the following day. 1 consulted a doctor, who gave me digitalis, and bade me " keep quiet. Sir Charles Fitzroy was " put up " at Captain Wickham's, at Xewstead, and the inevitable black snake of Breakfast Creek was found between the sheets of his bed, one afternoon. The sheep killing (alluded to before) took place on Saturday, May 20, 1854, the very day that Robert Cribb started for Drayton in the interest of Dr. Lang, versus Arthur Hodgson, in the famous election of the period, and the sheep burning took place on the 21st. The whole town was in terror re the scab, and wool buyers, like T. B. Stephens, were about, and measures were prompt, I assure you, Beattie and Burke, whist partners of mine, and Jeghers, from Montehore, Graham and Co., and E. M. Tobias, were up in town, from Cleveland, where the barque, " Blackfriar," loaded wool for London. Cleveland was the rival " port " to Brisbane, and great woolwashing and packing took place there, and Ipswich was " in the swim." I must here relate a strange accident, which befell a young lady of " sweet seventeen," with now, grey-green, now, violet eyes, who, with myself, her married sister, and others, formed a bush riding party, in 1855. She was on my left hand, and, as we cantered through the forest, I saw her suddenly lifted clean out of the saddle, by some invisible agency, and her horse pass from under her. She fell on her face on the ground, and a dead tree, 12 feet long, fell on her, and the roots cut the crown out of her straw hat, but she was not hurt. It happened thus : There lay, by the side of our road, a dead she-oak tree, bare of bark ; its projecting roots lay behind, and its ln-ad in front. The skirt of her riding habit caught the roots, lifted, and "up-ended" the tree, which, when perpendicular, pulled her out of tin- saddle, and, when it sloped over, fell on her as she lay on tin' ground. -Memo. — Short skirts are best in the bush for riding habi 110 R. J. SMITH. Fun there was, in plenty, in those days. Did not Gordon Sandeman always stop at Grenier's 1 Did not someone dress up an image of him, with his own spare hat, coat, spectacles, and all, with a bolster and pillow, and place it as if writing at a table in his bed- room 1 and did not G. S. guess in a moment that it was S. G. who- had done the deed 1 All innocent fun ; but there was real mischief at work when some unknown fiend packed all the spoons, knives,, and forks, from Mrs. Grenier's public breakfast table, into old Captain Collins's valise, already half full of clean shirts, just before that unconscious gentleman started home to the Logan. Mrs. Grenier thought the blacks had stolen them, and had their camp* searched in vain. The mystery was solved when, a fortnight later,. the captain came to town again, and threw the articles on to the verandah, with some of that figurative language, peculiar to elderly sea captains. The real culprit was never discovered, or nobody knows what might have happened. But, old Collins stayed there, the same as of yore, for it was all taken in good j^art in those days,, and there was a feeling of old friendship between landlord and guest, then, which is all out of date now. Captain Collins was the father of Carden, Arthur, and " Bob " Collins, the latter now a " ranchero " in California, I believe, and the former (who married a niece of Canon Glennie) was the best gentleman "jock " in Moreton Bay. We used to race at New Farm, on P. N. Russell's ground, then, near " Kingsholme," where Wm. Anthony Brown, the C.P.S., lived. He was the father of Villiers Brown, M.L.A., and of the first Mrs. Seymour. C. R. Haly's "Jeanette" was the best racer of those days here, and would have been a hard " nut to crack " even now. I must not here omit the legend of R. J. Smith and the sweetbreads,, as authentic a one as Stuart Russell's tradition of Arthur Hodgson,, and the marked eggs, at the Queen street hotel. One morning, at breakfast, were seated at the table R. J. Smith, and three athletic juvenile squatters, from the far interior, and on the table were some veal sweetbreads. R. J. Smith was, in 1852, returned as member, for some Moreton Bay constituency, to the Sydney Parliament, and I remember seeing him and Mrs. Smith, when they,, in Sydney, came round to return the calls of the Tooths, and Morts, and other visitors. But, to resume. " R. J." wanted the sweet- breads. Force was out of the question, so stratagem was resorted to. He rose suddenly from the table, and exclaimed, as he rushed to the window, " Hello ! who are the ladies 1 never saw three such pretty girls in my life." The three juvenile squatters (who sat with their backs to the window) rose also, and looked out {they had not PAT. LESLIE. Ill seen a white woman, hardly, for two years). They saw nothing through the glass, so made for the verandah ; saw nothing still, and rushed round the corner of the next street, and still perceived no ladies, young or old. When they returned, the sweetbreads had disappeared. There is a mystery here which has never been properly explained, in the simultaneous vanishing of the sweetbreads and the ladies. Was it an optical illusion 1 or have we here the earliest real ghost story of Queensland 1 Burnett, the blonde moustache surveyor, who found the river that bears his name, and who was such a martyr to rheumatism that his arm broke when a lady leaned on it, was buried on the 21st July, 1854. Amongst the guests at this time at Campbell's hotel, were the Rev. Mr. Sinclair, of Wornbo Forest, Condamine River (the father of Mrs. W. Yaldwyn, of Ipswich), and also young Blair, son of Sir David Hunter Blair, and who was (what his father was not) an " expert " at billiards, and he had many a match, for the local championship, with Willy Macalister, who, also, played much better than his father did. When at Ipswich, I generally stayed at Sullivan's hotel. He was an ex-jockey, who owned " War Eagle," famous for his matches with " Priam," the property of Stephen Mehan, of Drayton. Here I met my old chum, David Jones, of the Turon, son of the Sydney draper, and who now owned ' ; Boonara " sheep station, on the Burnett. The "Swallow " steamer was sunk by catching under the wharf; she tilted, and filled by the rising tide, and the steward, who rushed on board to get his money out, was drowned in the cabin ;. so I travelled up and down in the "Hawk," Captain Thomas Boy land ; a guileless hard worker was old " Dash it " (as his nick- name was). Patrick Leslie was with us at Campbell's about this time, and reported that Clark Irving (of the Sydney Sugar Company) " would give all the shoes in his shop " to get elected (for the Clarence, I think it was). A "game" thoroughbred " terrier " of a man was "Pat Leslie;" knew nothing of fear, any more than Lord Nelson did, and recked nothing of odds against him in numbers. He, once, when travelling with Mrs. Leslie, near his station, Goomburra, probably on las way to Canning Downs, stayed for the night at Jubb's hotel, high up in the verdant bosom of the Main Range, in a pleasant, healthy country. Mrs. Leslie was in delicate health, and the bar of this wooden hotel was crowded with noisy bullock drivers, drinking, and swearing, and away from their teams, camped hard by. The sound went through the house, and Mrs. Leslie could not 112 WILLIAM JUBB. stand it. Her husband went down to the bar. One thin, wiry, man, amongst a dozen heavy, burly ruffians, each more than a match for him in size, in a lonely, even if beautiful, part of the country, far from police, or help. But mind rules matter. Men recognise a " thoroughbred " when they see him. Jubb himself, a pretty brawny bit of stuff, would not have dared it. But, a solitary magistrate's life, or a constable's life, was safer, then, in the presence of 1,000 yelling convicts, of the manly old type, disciplined by hard- ship, than it would be now, with a dozen of the modern shed- burning " shearers," especially if the victim's back, and not his face, were turned to them for a moment. Jubb had an adventure with the blacks. Mr. Jubb was " belting up " the steep sides of Mount Mitchell, about the same height as Ben Nevis, with his coat, and, it must be confessed, his trousers also, over his arm, for it was hot, and he needed full play for his muscles in such a climb as that was ; when lo ! he met, face to face, the real " myall " blacks, who knew not the coast language, and not much " pigeon English." He had no weapons, but had nothing to be robbed of. He was furious at such a slice of bad luck, but he made an effort, by signs, to let the savages know that the " wheel- barrow, carrying his flour and tobacco," was close at hand behind him, and off they set in pursuit of the drays, whose drivers were well armed ; and (as Jubb said) " Wasn't I glad to see the backs of those wretches, Mr. Bartley." The vessels which traded from Sydney, and elsewhere, in 1854, to Brisbane, were the " Volante," " Brothers," " Vision," " Souvenir,' "Bad Spec," "Raven," "Bella Vista," " William Miskin " (s.), " City of Melbourne " (s.), " Bonnie Doon," " Don Juan," &c. ; also, the "Palermo," Captain Henry Wyborn, afterwards of the Harbours Department. Brisbane is, I think, the only metropolis in the world which combines a Highgate Hill with a Kedron Brook. The latter, a crystal-clear, mountain-born stream, flowing from west to east, on the north side of the city, losing itself, ultimately, in swamps, below where the German missionaries, of 1838, had their settlement, Niquet, Zillman, Rode, and the rest of them. The " brook " was a fairy-like stream. Its banks lined with the narrow leaf wattle, which blooms so beautifully, and loads the air with its " nutty " gorse-like scent every August ; its banks lined, also, with the narrow- leaf ti-tree, a melaleuca neriifolia, which, in early November, breaks into bloom as gracefully as the wattle, with leaves, which, when crushed, exhale the perfume of thyme ; and flowers, with the exact o •8 "is Q < >-) Z hi D