Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water

After luncheon was over we tried some fishing, but too much débris from the feast had already been sent overboard for the fish to do other than nibble at the bait.

In coming home, Clontarf, the spot where the Duke of Edinburgh was shot at, was pointed out to us. We landed two passengers at the camp, anchored for tea in Chowder Bay; then went slowly home, disembarking members of the party at various piers. As we neared our wharf we saw the little Noah's Ark belonging to the American man-of-war plying backwards and forwards with guests returning from the afternoon dance they were giving on board.

C. had a very pleasant dinner at the House that evening, given to him by Mr. Burdett Smith, meeting Sir John Robertson, the Speaker, and many other prominent politicians.

The next day he made an expedition to Parramatta, to see the Premier, Mr. Stuart, who had gone there for change of air after his recent attack of illness.

Saturday, November 22nd.—We left Redfern Station at 8 a.m., in a special train provided for us by the Government, to make an expedition up the Blue Mountains. The party consisted of Sir Alfred Stephen, the Hon. George Dibbs, Colonial Treasurer, Mr. Critchett Walker, Principal Under Secretary, Mr. Barton, Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Mr. Harnett, Sergeant-at-Arms, Mr. Fosbery, Commissioner of Police, and Mr. Loftus; as well as of Mr. and Mrs. Francis Joseph, who had been most kind in asking us to stay with them at Double Bay, and four other ladies.

Breakfast was served on board the dining-car attached to the train immediately after starting, and if the truth ought to be told, we were eating all day long, with the wherewithal so close at hand. We passed Parramatta, or Rose Hill, the ancient Sydney, and saw its old Government House, now used as a lodging-house, and the church, with its two little towers, which was to have been a cathedral church.

At Penrith Station we were at the bottom of the Blue Mountains, and had our first comprehensive and beautiful view of them, tracing at the same time our zig-zag line up their sides. Soon we crossed the Nepean, or the more familiar Hawkesbury on a stone bridge, which has so lately been the scene of Canadian Hanlan's rowing feats. After passing Emu Plains, so called from the herds of emus that used to roam over them, we reached the first zig-zag. In eight minutes more we had ascended 600 feet.

The train at the zig-zag is run to the end of the gradient, points being shifted by the guard, and then run up the gradual ascent of the next level. It certainly is a much simpler method than that in America, where the train describes a circle round the corner, whilst clinging to the mountain side. We had a beautiful view over the rich cultivated fields of the lowlands in the country of Cumberland—a changing, ever-shifting view, as we ran along the side of the mountain, and then turned upwards to face the opposite way.

The air felt brisker and colder as we got up into higher altitudes. After reaching the summit we went through many miles of gum-tree woods, the young, tender shoots yet crimson in their spring foliage. Lovely glimpses of deep gorges we had, dimly defined by the trees sloping downwards into the shadow of the ravine, but with that all-pervading dull greeny-grey blue, produced by their dense covering of gum forests. It seems to me that no scenery in Australia can appear very beautiful. One view must be much like another on account of the terrible monotony of the gum-tree. How we longed to-day to see some of these deep gorges in the mountains clothed with the different shades of green produced by our oak or beech or chestnut!

We passed Faulconbridge, the beautiful mountain home of Sir Henry Parkes, who had very kindly asked us to spend part of the day with him, but we were anxious to go on to the Lithgow and the second zig-zag. Katoomba, with the Great Western Hotel, is the spot where most of the visitors from Sydney stay, its great attraction being its splendid situation overlooking the Cunimbla Valley.

At Blackheath we got out of the train, and found a break waiting to take us the two miles to Govett's Leap. We drove along a sandy road, looking at the masses of wild flowers that bordered it, or grew in the underscrub. We noticed particularly among them the wild lobelia, and the blue iris, and the Australian "edelweiss," which they call the "flannel plant," and which has a varying number of petals, from seven to fourteen; but above all there was the beautiful waratah, that wiry flower, glorious in its deep crimson colour, and resembling an artichoke dipped into cochineal, as one of our party remarked. As we were looking and talking about the flowers, quite unexpectedly, and with a sudden alarm, we found ourselves on the edge of the precipice of what is called "Govett's Leap." Twelve hundred feet below us there was a plain, shut in on all sides by titanic walls of granite rock. I call it a plain, for it seemed so by comparison to where it narrowed imperceptibly to the gorge, only wide enough for a narrow river to flow through, and which lost itself to us under the blue haze of the distance. This plain was covered with sassafras, or spinnefex, a stunted undergrowth, amongst which peeped up the bare heads of rocks, and all around and beyond them was only the grey-blue undulations of a sea of gums. Just to our right there was the black shiny cliff, over which trickles the falling mist of the waterfall called Govett's Leap. It is dignified you perceive into a waterfall, but here droughts are so frequent, and water so scarce, that drops trickling over a rock must be so called, or none would remain in existence. The waterfall is not called Govett's Leap, as many would suppose, after some legendary convict's leap, escaping from the pursuit of his gaolers, but after the name of the first surveyor of the Blue Mountains.

The great beauty of the scenery in these mountains lies in the grand expanse of the valleys that open out sheer at your feet, under precipices of from 300 to 500 feet and in the curious formation of rock that generally surrounds them, standing out into their midst in jagged masses or formations that take the shape of something human.

Certainly there are these grand and glorious views in the Blue Mountains, these vast panoramas as at Govett's Leap, or at the "Weatherboard;" but taking them as a whole I think their monotonous beauty is somewhat exaggerated by the fact that Australia is so poor in beautiful scenery. Going through Mount Victoria Pass we came to Mount Victoria, which has a fine hotel, and is over 3000 feet above the sea level. It is generally taken as the headquarters from whence tourists can explore the mountains. Then we reached the second, or the "Great Zig-zag," the marvel of the engineering feats. At one point we looked down and saw below us three distinct lines of railway, and these had only been made after tunnelling and blasting the rock away sometimes to a depth of forty or fifty feet. But I think it looked still more wonderful when we looked up to it from the bottom, and wondered how we should ever reach the top again. The cost of this part of the railway was between 20,000l. and 25,000l. a mile.

Lithgow formed our terminus, and we had luncheon in a siding, and some of the party went to see the pottery works opposite, and returned with bricks which they had seen baked in the oven, and tiles, and little brown earthenware teapots, valued at 7½d. These pottery works were started almost accidentally by the Lithgow Valley Colliery Company, who began by baking bricks for a chimney to their furnace in connection with their large coal-mining operations, and finding clay suitable for pottery purposes in the neighbourhood they continued. Nearly the whole of the pretty Lithgow Valley is spoilt by being used for manufacturing purposes, coal being found in large quantities and worked by several companies.

We ran back quickly, though the return journey seemed much Longer. At Mount Victoria we experienced a curiously sudden change in the atmosphere. A little damp mist rising from the valleys spread so quickly that the warm, bright afternoon was suddenly clouded over, and changed to drizzling rain and a chill, clinging mist. We had fortunately seen the views in the morning, in brightness and sunshine, for now in the afternoon they were totally obliterated. We heard afterwards that we narrowly avoided a collision with another passenger train at Parramatta when returning, and we were saved by the presence of mind of our engineer, who ran us into the siding just in time. We reached Sydney, and were back at Government House by 8 p.m.

Sunday, November 23rd.—We had luncheon in Macleay Street with the Chief Justice, Sir James, and Lady Martin. Sir James has never been out of New South Wales, but he has read so extensively and to such purpose, that he knows Europe almost better than any traveller, and will tell you the exact position of any of the celebrated pictures in the galleries of Rome or Florence. Their house has a narrow garden, with a succession of beautifully-planted stone terraces leading down to the edge of the harbour.

We drove out afterwards to Rose Bay to see the Hon. James White's beautiful house. Mr. White is the owner of a celebrated stud, and had that morning taken C. out to the race-course at Randwick to see his stables. The garden is very beautiful, and from it the harbour presents the appearance of two distinct lakes, caused by the jutting out of Point Piper. Mr. William Cooper's, Mr. Mitchell's, and Sir Wigram Allen's are the finest houses at Sydney after Mr. White's. I think Sydney is a far preferable place to Melbourne to live in. It has not the American "go" and tone of the latter, nor the same amount of society; but the place is so much prettier, and the climate so bright, that the blue waters of the harbour have often reminded us of the Mediterranean—indeed the mean temperature of Sydney is found to be exactly equal to that of Toulon.

The Government of Melbourne is termed the "blue ribbon" of the colonial service, and has a salary attached to it of 10,000l.; but Sydney, with its salary of 7000l., should be, I think, the more popular of the two.

Sir John Robertson has very kindly asked us whilst here to make an expedition up the Hawkesbury, to stay with him, but the steamer for Brisbane is leaving to-morrow. C. was also very anxious to have made a trip from Sydney over to New Caledonia; but the twenty-one days of strictest quarantine imposed by the French Government on all vessels arriving at Noruma from Sydney, on account of the small-pox here, has rendered it impossible. He has been fortunate, however, in meeting French officers, who have given him all the necessary information, and he has obtained many official papers concerning the French penal settlement.

Tuesday, November 25th.—We bade farewell to Lord and Lady Augustus Loftus in the afternoon, and went down to the wharf, where lay the Ly-ee-moon, of the Australian Steam Navigation Company, with the "blue peter" flying. Mr. Loftus, Mr. Unwin, and Dr. Garran, the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, came to see us off. We went down the harbour, saying good-bye to Government House as we passed its windows, but seeing nothing, to our disappointment, of the race that was going on between boats' crews of H.M.S. Miranda and the American man-of-war. We passed out through "the Heads" into the open sea, which had a heavy swell on, the remains of a "southerly burster" of the previous night. The Ly-ee-moon is a dirty little steamer of 600 tons; she is fast, but rolls terribly. After it got dark and cold on deck nothing remained but to go below, and plunge, without asking questions, into the dusky recesses of the bunk in the cabin.

Wednesday, November 26th.—On board S.S. Ly-ee-moon, off the coast of Queensland. Coasting all day along a country covered as far the eye could see into the interior with gum-trees. It gives one some idea of the density of the forests before the country is opened up. Sea smooth, but many ill; cuisine disgusting, and passengers noisy and objectionable. I wrote letters for home all day.

Thursday, November 27th.—The stewardess came into my cabin at seven o'clock, to say that we had been at anchor for an hour or more in the River Brisbane, waiting for the doctor to come off and pass us. The ascent up the Brisbane for thirty miles took us nearly two hours. The river is so deep and broad that large vessels are able to come up to Brisbane, and anchor at the wharves. The banks are low and pretty, but little we saw of their beauty that morning for the dense mist caused by the downpour of rain.

Mr. Prichard, the Governor's aide-de-camp, was waiting for us on the wharf with the carriage, and we drove past the Government buildings, which are very fine, and the Club House, with its broad verandahs, to Government House. Here Sir Anthony and Lady Musgrave received us most kindly. Government House is a low, ugly stone building, with numberless verandahs, into which the rooms open out. The servants' quarters are quite separate, in a bungalow apart from the house. The house lies on a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the river, and the road which leads past the houses ends at Government House as a cul de sac.

The deluge of rain lasted all the afternoon, but cleared up enough in the evening for Lady Musgrave and her three boys to take me into the adjoining Botanical Gardens. The climate at Brisbane is nearly tropical, and these gardens are proportionately more luxuriant than those of either Melbourne or Sydney. There is a beautiful avenue of bunyea-trees bordering the walk by the river. On the pond in the centre grow the most lovely blue and pink water-lilies; the latter is "the sacred lotus" of the Egyptians, a plant that, besides Australia, only inhabits China, Japan, Persia, the Malay Peninsula, and the Philippine Islands. The lawns feel short and springy to the tread from the crisp buffalo-grass. There is a grove of tall bamboo-trees, interspersed with palms, the bread-fruit tree, or the traveller's tree—a species of palm which gives water when tapped by the traveller in the desert; on some of these grow the stag-horn ferns, so called because it is a fern which branches out like the horns of a stag. There were thickets of mimosa; the common sensitive plant, whose leaves curl up at the touch; interspersed with the candlenut-tree, the castor-oil plant, Moreton Bay figs, or wattle-trees, and every one of the fifty-four species of eucalypti or blue gum that flourish in Queensland. In the borders grow ohias, and hibiscus, white or red, single or double; seringea, boronia, crimson pointsettias, red-purple bougainvillea; jackerandia, like our purple wisteria; and daturas, with their pure white blossom, growing amid a cluster of dark green leaves. There were all the commoner sorts of flowers, and hundreds of others of which I did not know or could not learn the names.

The suite of rooms we have are connected by a succession of verandahs. Doors and windows open to the ground, giving in the evening a terrible invitation to the mosquitoes to enter, of which they avail themselves freely, humming and buzzing round in a maddening dance. Fortunately we are too early for the sandflies, a tiny insect which hops like a flea, and whose bite is very vicious and painful; they have been known to worry a horse almost to death. The frogs, with their sometimes deafening chirping, are heard in the early morning or after sundown, the same as we used to hear the locusts at Sydney. The hoarse laugh of the "jackass" often rings out on the night air.

Friday, November 28th.—Lady Musgrave took me to the Museum in the morning, where they have a good collection of native birds. Following the example of hot climates, for the heat in Brisbane is intense, though we are early enough to escape the worst, which is between this month and April, we stayed quiet during the afternoon, and went out driving in the evening. We drove through the town and principal streets of George and Queen Streets to the Acclimatization Gardens, reserved solely for that purpose, and being so far removed from the town that they are little used. Thence to the Girls' High School, and the Grammar School; and afterwards coming down one of the fine "terraces" or roads overlooking the town, we drove out to Kangaroo Point. Then I was able to master and understand the difficult geography of Brisbane, caused by the windings in the river, which puzzle you as to which side of it you are on. The river winds round the town, so that in one street you can see it at the top and again at the bottom. Brisbane is a thoroughly uninteresting and ugly town. C. met the Premier, Mr. Griffiths; Sir Arthur Palmer, Speaker of the Legislative Council; Sir Thomas MacIlwraith and Mr. Morehead, Leaders of the Opposition, yesterday.

Saturday, November 29th.—We did some shopping in the town in the morning for the voyage, buying deck-chairs and table, &c., and a box to send home to England. C. had a long talk with the Premier, detailing his Massachusetts Probation Scheme, for the probation of prisoners who have been convicted of a first offence only. An article written by him on the subject has just appeared in the Melbourne Victorian Review; and the three other colonies that we have visited, New Zealand, Victoria, and New South Wales, are about to adopt it as being very economical, and advantageous in preventing the manufacture of habitual criminals.

Lady Musgrave held her weekly afternoon reception.

On all sides we are hearing such terrible accounts of the drought, which has ruined and is still ruining many owners of "sheep runs" in Queensland. In some places it is two years since a single drop of rain has fallen. No water can be obtained for drinking purposes without sending many miles for it, and even in that case a serious difficulty presents itself, for the horses are dying or dead from want of food. The ground is described as being like a vast bed of sand or gravel, without grass or green thing left growing on it. One lady told me this afternoon that a relative of hers had just gone up country, and wrote to say that they had had no water to wash with for four days, scarcely any to drink, and that at last she had washed her baby in soda water! Sheep can be seen who have staggered to some creek where water had formerly been running, and sinking into the mud, perished, too weak to draw themselves out. Others, again, coming down would get piled dead on the top, forming a ghastly heap. It is computed that between two and three millions of sheep have perished during this drought, and as many as 20,000 on a single run. The rainfall here is very partial, and that which falls on the seaboard often does not penetrate up country.

Advent Sunday at Brisbane, November 30th.—In the midst of this torrid heat, the Advent of Christmas comes unseasonably round. We had a hot and dull morning service in the church, half a mile away. During the afternoon I was reading Anthony Trollope's "Australia and New Zealand:" what a terribly narrow and one-sided view he took of things! A thunderstorm came in the evening to clear the oppressive atmosphere, and we sat out under the verandah after dinner, and watched the lights twinkling among the houses and on the wharf opposite, with the phosphorescent sheet lightning sweeping the sky. It seems well-nigh impossible to realize the murky skies and cold gloom of the November of home, and Advent Sunday has come as an awakening of this fact. C. had luncheon with his cousin, Mr. Gilbert Primrose, at his pretty little place outside the town.

Monday, December 1st.—Still very hot and oppressive. Sir Anthony took me for a drive in the evening in a phaeton with pretty cream-coloured ponies, out along the Ipswich road. There were some ranges of hills in the distance, and it was a pretty drive, but a typical Australian look was given to much of the surrounding country by the scrub of dwarfed gums, and by the wooden houses perched on piles, partly for ventilation and dryness, but more to facilitate an easy search after the white ant, the serious drawback to these wooden tenements. Queensland is still in the period of much zinc roofing. There was a large dinner party of pleasant people in the evening, after which we had to pack for two hours to be ready for the morrow's start.

Queensland is the youngest of the Australian Colonies, and so great is its extent, that it is the same size as England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Belgium and Denmark would be if added together. It is bisected by the Tropic of Capricorn, which runs nearly through the centre. The south is devoted, as in the other colonies, to pastoral interests. On the Darling and Peak Downs the sheep runs are fenced in, and luxuries even are found in the houses, but on the Thompson and the Herbert, the Warrego and Barcoo, the flocks roam at pleasure, and "boundary riders," or men who once or twice in the week ride round the outside of the run, are still in use.

There is much talk at present going on about the division of Queensland, as the north complains that the seat of Government at Brisbane is too far distant, and that their interests are not identical with those of the south. This is so far true, on account of the tropical climate of the north, which is only suitable for the growth of sugar, cotton, pine-apple, banana, or guava plantations.

Agitation is also at present being made for the abolition of island labour, without which it is impossible for the plantations of the north to be worked, as no European can long stand the tropical heat of the midday sun. The cry of the south is "Queensland for the white man," and many think that this crucial point will lead to the separation of the north.

The Queensland Government is the only one in Australasia which is at present actively engaged in peopling the vast unoccupied regions of the continent. It has agents in England, and partly under a system of nomination by those already in the colony, partly by the selection of their officers, about 400 emigrants are sent out from England gratuitously every fortnight, under contract with the British India Steam Navigation Company. Mechanics of sober, industrious habits find their wages augmented in their new homes by 300, 400, and even 500 per cent. Single women find good situations almost before the vessel is moored alongside the wharf at Brisbane. Even a maid of all work, if she can cook, receives out here nearly a pound a week for wages. There is no opening for town loafers or clerks, but ordinary labourers are frequently in demand, and Government does what it can to find them employment, and keeps them for a time at the depôts.

Before leaving Australia (though politics are not within my province), I must say that throughout Australasia there is a strong feeling among all classes for a closer union with the mother country. The loyalty of the people to the Crown and the Empire is unbounded; but Australia finds herself strong, and should any coldness be displayed by the Home Government, a cry for separation may soon be raised, and we should never forget that, "as a field for British trade, as an outlet for our surplus population, and as producers of our food, our colonies are to us indispensable."

It is with regret that we are obliged to leave Australia without seeing something of the squatter's life in the back country, but the long sea voyage before us renders it impossible for us to wait four weeks for the next mail. If we had gone up country, I fancy previous ideas of the roughing it, and hardships of bush life, with its traditional "damper" and eternal haunch of mutton, would have disappeared before the luxury and comfort which in all but the very recently settled districts now prevail.

My husband has, however, been fortunate enough to meet most of the politicians and leading public men, for at Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane the Parliaments have been in session, and this, after all, is the main object of our visit to the colonies. I have before given our reasons for not attempting to visit South Australia; and the Crown Colony of Western Australia, with its capital of Perth and still barren settlements, one would hardly go to except under compulsion. The few emigrants who arrive there rarely remain, and 25,000 numbers the entire population of Western Australia. Although its territory is enormous, it consists chiefly of a sandy waste, and a "Yankee" who landed there is said to have made the observation "that it was the best country he ever saw to run through an hour-glass!"