Australia ... Illustrated with drawings by Skinner Prout, N. Chevalier, etc

Chapter I. Introductory

. _ PAGE The Centenary of Australia. — Captain Cook. — Tasman. — Pampier. — Cape Howe. — La Perouse. — Convict Colonisation. — Growth of the Colonies. — Other Englands. — Subdivision of Australia. — Botany Bay. — Port Jackson. — Tasmania. — Vi'-toria. — South Australia. — Western Australia. — Queensland 1

Chapter II. Victoria

The First Settlement.— Old Whaling Stations.— The Wild White Man.— A One-sided Bargain. — Trading with the Blacks. — A New Colony. — Newspapers and Public-houses. — A Governor for Port Phillip. — A Pleasant Pastoral. — Desire for an Independent Existence. — Overcrowding of Melbourne. — Cheap Pood and No Labour. — Government Mismanagement. — A Panic. — Improvement . . . . . .11

Chapter III. Victoria

{continued). The Discovery of Gold. — Selling Off. — The Re-discovery. — Daisy Hill. — Balaarat. — Mount Alexander. — The Mad Christmas. — Sailor-diggers. — Undesirable Colonists. — Arrival of Chinese. — Reckless Trading. — Confusion. — Learning Wisdom. — An Unwise Government. — The Police. — The Gold-licence Feev — Unlucky Diggers. — Political .Agitators. — The Balaarat Riots ID

Chapter IV. Victoria

{continued). Constitutional Government. — Vote by Ballot. — Elections. — Free-Trade **>. Protection. — Chinese Gardeners. — Home-making. — James Macpherson Grant. — Prospecting for Land. — Diggers' Homes 2S

Chapter V. Victoria

(continued). The Border- Country. — A Mountain Lake. — The Gold-fields of the Hills. — Australian Fern Trees. — Ferns and Flowers. — The Forests. — Birds. — Gipps's Land. — The Source of the Murray. — Mountain Herbage. — The Gates of the Murray. — The Waterfalls. — Native Names. — Cattle-lilting. — Travelling by Strange Road**. — A Change. — Albnry. — Riverina. — The Pioneers of the Vine. — Rare Wines CONTENTS.

Chapter X. Victoria

(concluded). Balaarat. — The Blue Mountains. — A Poet's Home. — Daylesford. — Stange Flowers. — Mount Franklyn.— Castlemaiue. — Bendigo. — Heathcote. — Conclusion ..... 86

CHAPTER XL NEW SOUTH WALES.

Love of Natives of New South Wales for Sydney. — Victorian Estimation of Melbourne.— The Untravelled Australian. — Where the Bad People come from. — The Coast. — Sydney Heads. — Port Jackson. — Middle Harbour. — Willoughby Falls. — Varying Phases of Beauty. — The Defences of Sydney. — A Prophecy 92

Chapter XII. New South Wales

(continued). The Tank Stream.— The First Theatre. — The Beginning.— The Progress. Old Pictures and New Ones.— First Impressions. — The Antiquity of Sydney ; its Present Aspect . 100

Chapter XIII. New South Wale's

(continued). The Extent and Boundaries of New South Wales ; its Mountain Svstem.— The Rivers • their Courses and the Country they drain ,,g LIST OF ENGRAVINGS TO VOL. I. General Map or* Australia .......... To face Title Map of the Overland Route to Australia : — Section I. British Islands to Ceylon. Section II. Ceylon to Australia ......... Page 1 Barrossa Ranges .............. 8 Map of Victoria ............... 11 Old Whaling Station 12 The Gwalor Plains It Diggers on the Road to a Rush ........... 20 Night Scene in the Diggings 21 Jamieson's Valley 26 A Chinese Garden in Victoria ............ 31 Lake Albert 32 Mount Zero and Lake Taylor, Victoria ... . . 35 Mallee Scrub, River Murray . . .39 A Fern-Tree Valley 42 Concordia Gold Mines 43 Grass-Tree Plains 44 Carrobboree, on the Banks of the Murray ......... 47 Victoria Valley and Mount Caroline 52 Morse's Creek, Victoria 53 Alluvial Gold Washing 54 Mount Arapiles, Victoria ............ 56 Ovens River, Victoria ............. 56 On the Goulburn, Victoria 58 Australian Shepherd's Hut 59 The Old and New Home Stations 60 Mount Macedon, Victoria 67 Valley of the Goulburn, Victoria 68 The Uiter Goulburn, Victoria ' . .

VI LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. The Punt, Echuca To face page 70 70 Marysville, Victoria ....■•■•••■' Mount Laura, Camperdown ' Lake Colac Cape Otway .....,....■■■■■■ <° Port Phillip Heads 1 1 Sandridge, Victoria . . . 40 On the Plenty, near Melbourne ........... 79 South Bank of the Yarra, near Melbourne ' **0 Melbourne from the Yarra i ■>■... i ...*.*.. 8.1 Post Office, Melbourne 84 Melbourne from St. Kilda Road 85 The Dandenong Ranges, Victoria. .......••'• 86 Ballaarat, Victoria > .... 87 Ballaarat ....... 88 Daylesford, Victoria 89 Map of New South Wales ............ 92 Port Jackson, New South Wales 95 Willoughby Falls, near Sydney 97 Quarantine Burial Ground, Port Jackson 98 The Old Tank Stream, Sydney ............ 100 Broulee, New South Wales lul Sydney Heads 105 Government House, Sydney , . . . .113 View from Top of Grose Head - . . .118 Fairlight Glen, on the Warkagamba . . . . . . . , , .119 An Explorer's CAMr .............. THE OVERLAID ROUTE TO AUSTRALIA.

Chapter I. The Centenary Of Australia

CAPTAIN COOK. TASMAN. DAMPIER. — CAPE HOWE. LA PEROUSE. CONVICT COLONISATION. GROWTH OF THE COLONIES. OTHER ENGLANDS. SUBDIVISION OF AUSTRALIA. — BOTANY BAY. PORT JACKSON. TASMANIA. VICTORIA. SOUTH AUSTRALIA. WESTERN AUSTRALIA. QUEENSLAND. AN the 19th of April, 1770, Captain Cook saw, running away to the north and west of the course he had been steering for some days, a long range of Wooded hills. There existed no record of such a land, and the grand old sailor knew that he gazed upon a new world. With the islands of the sea he was well acquainted. His last departure had been taken from New Zealand ; he had expected to fall in with Tasmania, but from his position on the day named he knew that a fresh discovery had been made, and the spirit of the explorer was strong within him. Long before Cook's time, in 1600, and half a century afterwards, travellers had visited the western and northern shores of Australia, and Anthony Van Diemen had left a souvenir of his home love in the name he gave to the island.

Forty or fifty years later, in 1688, the buccaneering Dampier had knocked about for some little time up and down the mangrove-lined shores in the neighbourhood of the Gulf of Carpentaria. To him, however, was not given the eyes to see the beauty and advantages of the Island Conti nent. The inhabitants he looked upon " as the most miserable wretches in the universe, having neither house nor garment, altogether degraded, without religion or government." Dampier paid a second visit to the country ; but his last impressions were no more favourable than the first, B and, but for the honour of having " discovered the barrenest spot on the face of the globe," he thought he might just as well have stayed away. Cook was happier, either in his point of approach or in the intelligence he brought to bear upon the discovery.

"The sea-shore," he said, "was white and sandy ; but the country within green and woody. It had a very pleasing appearance, was of moderate height, diversified by hills and valleys, ridges and plains." He shortened sail, and remained for the night. Pur suing his researches the next day, he called the highest point of the land Cape Howe; and from this very Cape Howe there now runs the line of division between the oldest and the richest of the Australian colonies — New South Wales and Victoria. Just one hundred years after Cook named the point, a party of Victorian surveyors commenced the work of defining and marking the exact bearing and position of this imaginary line. Having satisfied himself as to the richness and beauty of the land, Cook bore away north, went into Botany Bay, missing, as was not difficult, the entrance into the now famous and far more important Port Jackson, and, after pursuing his journey as far as Booby Island, sailed away from Australia.

The story of Australian expedition during the next few years is an interesting one, but would not find its proper place here. It would include a good deal of French endeavour in the way of discovery, coupled with a record of such barbarity and cruelty as will for ever cast a shadow over the memory of men whose labours should have endeared them to their fellows. The romance and mystery that attended the voyage and disappearance of La Perouse would form part of such a history ; but none of these things bear upon the story of Australia itself, or the circumstances and people of to-day. When the intelligence of Cook's discoveries reached England, the mother country was in sore straits with reference to the ill-behaved portion of her population. With the end of the American War came a want of prison houses.

The American colonies had been found very convenient as points of discharge for the surplus convict population ; but they had ceased to answer the purpose. Fighting had demoralised the people, and crime, when discovered, was, in those days, punished with a heavy hand. There was no lack of crime, and detection was common enough — so common, indeed, that the difficulty was what to do with the offenders after they had been convicted. New places of transportation were in request, and Captain Cook's report of what he had seen in New Holland, impressed the official mind with the importance of the discovery. Hence the shipment of a cargo of convicts from England to Botany Bay in the May of 1787 ; and thus was commenced THE GROWTH OF AUSTRALIA. 3 the colonisation of Australasia. How it has grown from that day to this will best be told as the various colonies come under notice in their proper order.

From the shores of Port Jackson there has spread to the north, and the south, and west a cluster of colonies, in the history and position of each of which Britons, of whatever nationality, have a peculiar and enduring interest. From out of every English town and hamlet, from every Scottish hill-side and valley, from the whole length and breadth of Ireland, and from the quiet and out-of-the-way corners of Wales, there have gone forth families, and members of families, in hundreds and thousands, who are now engaged in building up " other Englands" in that great south land, of which Captain Cook told his wondrous story " a hundred years ago." Cities have risen up since then, and towns and villages there are in plenty. All along the coast traversed by Cook flourishing communities exist and thrive.

The valleys that run along the river-banks and into the mountains, the vast plains and the rich coast land, even the sub-basaltic depths of a pre-historic period, are all peopled and all prospering. The rivers have been traced up to their sources, the interior penetrated and partly settled, innumerable flocks and herds are feeding on its pastures, all the arts and industries of European life are cultivated and improved upon, and the country increases in interest and in riches every day. Australia is by no means the " one and undivided " mass too often under stood by those who speak of it. From north to south the vast island measures 3000 miles, and from east to west it stretches nearly as far, having the tropic of Capricorn running nearly through its centre, holding away north thence half way to the equator.

The Island Continent's southernmost point is two degrees farther south than the Cape sighted by Captain Cook, though that may be taken as the average east of the country. It is not to be wondered at, that when this vast area became even sparely inhabited a diversity of feeling and of interest on the part of the people led to a division of its lands. Within twenty years of the landing of the first batch of convicts at Port Jackson, the country had become too strait for the people. With reference to this first landing there is a somewhat strange error prevalent. So long as transportation to the Australian colonies continued it was common to say of a convict sentenced to banishment that "he had been sent to Botany Bay." It singularly enough happens, and the record is pretty clear on the subject, that no convict or party of convicts ever landed on the shores of Botany Bay.

That Captain Cook failed to discover the narrow gate-like opening to Port Jackson has already been told. That he anchored in Botany Bay is equally certain ; and so accurately did he lay down its bearings and position, that Captain Arthur Phillips, who commanded the convict expedition of 1787, and who had been appointed governor of the projected settle ment, after a weary voyage of eight months over waters then comparatively unknown, had no difficulty in finding it, and there he cast anchor. He left it however, without landing any portion of his convict cargo. Captain Cook appears to have been as singularly happy as accurate in his designation of places, their character and position. Botany Bay is a remarkable instance of this. By following his directions, the first seekers for the harbour found it without difficulty.

When they had entered, they must have been struck by the felicity with which it had been named, for the name is a perfect indication of the character of the Bay. Nearly circular in form, its waters lap lazily upon a shore that shelves step by step, and foot by foot, into a perfect wilderness of flowers. The high trees are festooned and the lower lying bushes covered with them. They vie in colour and form with the richest parterres of the most favoured places in the world. The ground is carpeted with them, whilst the trunks of the trees and the few stones that lie about are covered and concealed by blossoms. Though thus beautiful, Botany Bay was by no means desirable as a place of settlement, convict or otherwise. To this day not more than a dozen houses, if so many, have been erected upon its shores, and these are chiefly devoted to the entertainment of parties of pleasure from Sydney and elsewhere.

Visitors to Sydney, no matter how brief their residence, make a point of visiting Botany Bay. The country lying between it and the city is not of an interesting character in itself, but the perpetual plenty of flowers renders the road a pleasant one. When once the streets are left behind, the road lies through a heavy, level, sandy country ; so heavy and sandy indeed, that loco motion becomes a difficulty. Visitors are seldom in a hurry, however ; and it is a common amusement with them to gather flowers, fill their vehicle with them until it is full to overflowing, and then cast them away, only to repeat the process over and over again. There is a wonderful house at Botany Bay. It is a substantial, well-built, and roomy residence, and looks as though designed for the country house of one of Sydney's superior citizens.

Now it serves the purposes of an hotel, and there are few hotels in the world that fulfil their destiny so perfectly. The grounds surroundino* the house are marvels of flower-gardening. In addition to the native flora, all the most beautiful species of tropical and sub-tropical countries, BIRDS AND FLOWERS. as well as of those of more temperate climes, have been cultivated to a degree of perfection impossible in places less favourable to their development. With what profusion they grow may be judged from the fact, that a large vase, fully two feet in diameter, standing in the entrance hall of the house, is not unfrequently, not simply filled, but crammed with roses and fuchsias of exceeding beauty. The outer walls are surrounded by an aviary, in which are confined birds " radiant in plumage and prodigal of song," and varying in size from the silk-white peacock of India to the tiniest humming bird of the Australian Bush.

In several of the compartments the song-birds of Britain are found in hundreds : indeed, so plentiful have these become, that the surrounding woods are filled with them. A plank road, or jetty, some hundreds of yards in length, runs down the low-lying swampy ground leading from the house to the Bay. This ground is rich in water-flags and lilies ; a myriad creepers hiding the surface of the water from the traveller, whose way lies towards the silvery sands of the bathing-place. In one corner of the low-lying ground there is a menagerie, and the elephants, lions, and tigers inhabiting it seem to have become imbued with the stillness of the quiet woods. Lambs, in an ordinary state of nature, appear positively savage compared with the lions collected on the shores of Botany Bay. Had the Lotus-eaters anchored there, instead of English convicts, they would have been content with such an abiding-place for ever.

After anchoring in the Bay, in the very height of the Australian summer of 1788, Captain Phillips sent an exploring party ashore. The timber, although pleasant enough to look at, was of an inferior quality and unfit for building purposes. Of water they could find none, for that burning January sun had dried up the tributary creeks, and the springs were empty. Wood and water are among the first necessities of settlers in a new country, and a removal was at once decided upon. After a little careful searching, the fortress-like entrance to Port Jackson was discovered. The sheer upright rocks — now called the JNorth and South Heads — could not long remain unnoticed ; and it is easy to conceive the feelings with which the voyagers exchanged the rocking motion caused by the " league-long roller " of the Pacific for the still waters of the land-locked and beautiful Port Jackson.

Every mile — almost every hundred yards — disclosed new beauties. The precipitous sides of the bay were garnished with flowering shrubs. Running in and out of the harbour itself, and on either side, were others, and, if possible, more beautiful bays, each having at its entrance an island of sur passing loveliness. Nowhere does there exist a more beautiful country than c that bounding Port Jackson, and here the travellers determined to make their resting-place. The after-progress of the colony will be told by and-by. The first offshoot. of. the convictism of the "mother colony"— New South Wales is still so called — settled down first in Norfolk Island and then in Tasmania. An attempt at forming such a settlement had been made on the shores of Port Phillip ; ' but this, as well as a subsequent one, was unsuc cessful.

An experience, similar to that encountered at Botany Bay, was the result of the experiment ; and Port Phillip, in 1805, was spoken of in terms not unlike those used by Dampier, with reference to the opposite coast, two hundred years before. « It remained for free and independent men to develop the resources of Victoria. The failure at Port Phillip resulted in the settlement of Van Diemen's Land. In 1804 Hobart Town was founded by a community of convicts from Sydney. The record of the first few years of Tasmanian history contains as much of cruelty and crime as does the history of any country in the world. What with the. outbreak of convicts, and the conduct of both hired and free towards each other and the aborigines of the country, the island became, in the language of one who knew the people and the times, "a perfect hell."

Dp to the year 1824 Tasmania remained a dependency of New South Wales, and the Government was described as a " semi-military tyranny." Dnder the new constitution of the colony various reforms were instituted, but the leaven of | the .old wickedness remained for many years afterwards. Now it.would.be difficult to find a more pleasant abiding-place than Tasmania. Its progress. has not been so rapid as that of the other colonies; but for beauty of scenery, comfort of living, and a perfect homelike state of existence, it equals, if it doesnot surpass them all. It is rich in all that nature can do for a country, and is already looked upon by the residents of India and the 'Australian colonies as one of the most come-at-able and comfortable of the pleasant places of the world. Simultaneously with the inauguration of a new form of government in Tasmania, Australia Felix — the Port Phillip of the after-time and the Victoria of to-day — was discovered.

The Australias had not been left altogether to the convicts deported by the English Government, or the keepers placed over them. Numbers of both of these classes had managed to convey intelligence to their friends in the old country of the good things that awaited them in the new land, and a large increase of population was the result. By the year 1830, men, together with their flocks and herds, had so increased and multiplied, that M©TCTMT "" r©T©H, XASMAHEAo EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT. 7 some country in which to depasture the latter became an absolute necessity. From New South Wales exploring parties were sent away to the west, and the discovery of Victoria Felix was the result. The rich plains of the Murray opened up a new source of wealth, and the more adventurous of the squatters of New South Wales passed over the Blue Mountains and settled down in the new land.

Whilst this migration overland was taking place, the Tasmanians had not been idle ; one family, at least, had crossed the straits from the island, and settled on the mainland. There is little doubt but the first actual settlement in what is now known as the colony of Victoria was founded by the Henty family, for when the first explorers from the east penetrated to the south coast, they found them already established and prospering. The first organised attempt at colonising Victoria was not made till the year 1835, when two parties of adventurers from Tasmania entered upon the work. The honour of being the pioneer has always been a disputed point, Mr. John Pascoe Fawkner and Mr. Batman both claiming it. Both are dead now ; but on the river-bank, for which they disputed five-and-thirty years ago, there stands one of the most prosperous and substantial cities in the world.

The field that Fawkner ploughed has been sold in small portions at fabulous prices, and is now the site of a handsome street, whilst the hill upon which Batman settled, and which was always called by his name, has been swept away in order to make approaches to a railway station, the line from which pierces the wilderness of twenty years ago. To enter upon the new land and to possess it was not left, however, entirely either to the people of New South Wales or Tasmania. The news of the discoveries to the west of the old convict settlement had reached England. In those days emigration used to be discussed with an earnestness little dreamed of now. Then as now, philanthropists and speculators engaged in the work, but the social obstacles of the time stood less in their way ; and they had more enthusiasm.

They were fond of making experiments, too ; and to one of these is due the foundation of the colony of South Australia. The first experiment, made in 1836, was intended to develop a plan of colonisation that had perhaps as little of wisdom in it as was possible. The world has been often told of the scheme of Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, and of its failure. The circumstances that attended that failure were disastrous in the extreme ; nor was it until the Crown asserted its rights, and private speculation was diverted into proper channels, that the real prosperity of South Australia commenced. The story of that prosperity will be found in AUSTRALIA ILLUSTRATED. its proper place ; it dates from 1845, or thereabouts, and is not the least interesting of colonial histories. Before either Adelaide or Victoria had been settled, however, a country farther north had been formally taken possession of on behalf of the English Government.

As early as 1822 attention was called to the importance of Western Australia. It derived an additional value in the eyes of the English Government from the fact of the French having expressed a desire to try their hands at colonisation on its lands. In the year 1829 no less than twenty-five ships arrived at Swan River — the name had been given to it by a Dutch navigator more than a century before — with emigrants and stock, suitable for settlers. In the year following the population was still further increased ; and the year 1831 opened upon Western Australia with a population of about 2,000 white men. The circumstances of the early settlers were by no means of a pleasant character. The same fatality that attended the first attempts at settlement in New South Wales and Port Phillip followed the steps of those who attempted to settle in Western Australia.

They landed on a barren part of the coast, and the general arrangements of the colony appear to have been of the worst possible character. The parlia mentary emigration papers on the subject disclose an amount of evil doing, in connection with the administration, scarcely credible in our day. British pluck and perseverance, however, dragged the pioneers of the west through their misfortunes. The error committed in the selection of a site for the first settlement was rectified, and the town of Perth, having Freemantle for its port, fixed upon as the capital of the colony. The progress made, however, was very small, and the accounts received in England were not of a character likely to tempt a large emigration. Save in exceptional cases,* whenever business is dull and times are bad in a colony, the depression is attributed to a want of population.

Acting upon this idea, the people of Western Australia, in 1849, petitioned the Home Government to allow them the luxury of convictism that Tasmania had thrown up with loathing and disgust, and from the taint of which the eastern colonies of the Continent had long before freed themselves. With what heartiness the Government complied with the request of the colonists, may be judged from the fact that, in 1866, out of a population of less than 22,000, nearly one-half were either convicts, or convicts who had been emancipated. Thanks to the determined stand taken by the Victorians, their number will never be added to, and Western Australia is now left to the action of healthy impulses and institutions. The country is rich in natural resources, and the lSARlR®§gA B.AK©H5S. FOUNDATION OF QUEENSLAND. climate good and favourable to Europeans.

Nowhere can there be found a finer race of men, physically or morally, than the white natives of Western Australia. Already, in the first generation, they have distinguished them selves in the arduous work of exploring and opening up new country. Western Australia differs from all the other colonies in its form of a'overn- "*** ment. The Governor, assisted by an Executive Council and a Legislative Council, composed of ten members, all nominated by the Crown, administer the laws as in the old time in the other colonies. Whilst the south and west were thus early settled, the far north and north-east of the continent continued comparatively unknown. Leichardt had explored a good deal of the coast-land, and at intervals portions of the interior were traversed and described. By degrees it became sufficiently known to tempt men of means to embark in grazing, for which its wide spread pasture lands were well adapted.

Towards the end of 1868 gold was discovered at Canoona on the River Fitzroy. Immediately on the discovery being made public, a perfect mania for the far north set in. Each of the colonies, New Zealand included, contributed its quota towards the general stampede. At every port of the Australian shores ships were laid on in dozens. The Victorian diggings were deserted. Men crowded into Melbourne and Sjrdney in thousands every day ; and fast as ships were laid on, they were filled with a living freight. The madness lasted for less than a month ; but, though its duration was so short, it was severe in its character. The gold of Canoona was exhausted by the first thousand diggers ; and within three weeks of the landing of the first ship-load of men, 40,000 unemployed people were congregated at Rockhampton, a landing-place on the River Fitzroy, about forty miles above the port, Xeppel Bay.

It was perhaps the maddest " rush " ever indulged in by gold-diggers. A perfect fleet of vessels covered the hitherto unheard-of waters of Port Curtis and Keppel Bay. Within a month every ship had sailed away, carrying deluded diggers in thousands. The Government stepped in and provided passages for those whose means had been exhausted ; and it was some time before the older settlements of Australia recovered from the shock sustained by them through the exodus to the Canoona gold-fields. Although the first search for a gold-field resulted in failure, its effect was the establishment of a colony, and a prosperous one. Of the thousands who had sought the tropical gold-field, there were some who had eyes to see the natural riches of the land, and who determined to make the best of a bad bargain by remaining behind.

The majority, of course, returned to the places AUSTRALIA ILLUSTRATED. from whence they came. The squatter who selected the ground upon which the town of Rockhampton now stands as a handy landing-place for the country he had taken up as a " station," must have possessed keen judgment, and a positive power of utilising natural resources. His selection met with the approval of not only the disappointed diggers, but of those likewise who remained behind, and who, taught by experience, might fairly claim to rank as good judges. It is sufficient for the purposes of this introduction to say that the desolate river -bank of 1858 is in 1873 the site of a flourishing and pleasant town ; and that for hundreds of miles around it, prosperous settle ments are to be met with in every direction. It is worthy of note, also, that the gold by which the " Queenslanders " were first tempted, and by the want of which they were so lamentably disappointed, has since then formed one of the many valuable products of the colony.