Our Australian Cousins

Front matter

■ ■ OUE AUSTRALIAN COUSINS OUR AUSTRALIAN COUSINS BY JAMBS INGLIS (" MAORI "), AUTHOE 0E " SPOBT AND WOKK ON THE NEPAUL PEOKTIEE," ETC. bonbon MACMILLAN AND CO. 1880 [The Sight of Translation is reserved'] I0ND0N : OILBEET AND EIVINOTON, PRINTEES, ST. JOnN'8 SQUARE. PREFACE, Why was this book written? Principally to satisfy the questionings of many friends in India and the old country, who continually write me such queries as these : — How do you like Australia ? Would you advise me to come out ? Is it healthy ? Is there any sport to be had ? Are the people really nice ? Could a man, with a small income and a large family do any thing out there ? and so on. I have honestly tried to detail my own experiences in such a way, that they shall be usefully suggestive to my friendly catechists and others like them, and yet be sufficiently interesting to command the suffrages of the general reader.

I do not profess to be a polished writer. The graces of my style are perhaps conspicuous by absence, yet I would have the critic know, that I have no opportunity of correcting proofs. Add to this that my book has been written mostly on holidays, and late into the night, after an active day's duty in the city, when both hand and brain are somewhat jaded. It has required no slight sense of duty, and a desire to do some pubhc good to keep me up to my self-appointed task. I have incorporated letters that I wrote to The Pioneer when acting as special correspondent for that

Preface

. VI paper, and I have tried to write naturally, truthfully, and as I felt ; where I have made extracts from newspapers and books, I have acknowledged the obligation, and here again thankfully do so to my unknown friends in council. It may be asked what acquaintance I have with my text, and whether I am competent to speak as a critic, when I refer to colonial social manners and customs, politics, institutions and peoples. I can only say that I have been a colonist since I was about eighteen years of age. In New Zealand, I was by turns cadet on a sheep-run, gold-digger, travelling agent and general utility-man, turning my hand to what first presented itself, for I was young and ardent, and willing to work and did work hard. In India I was for twelve years Indigo planter and manager of large estates.

Since I returned to the antipodes, I have been journalist, traveller, special correspondent, newspaper manager, and am now secretary of an insurance company. I claim therefore as a traveller, and an observant man, to know something about the colonies. The success of a former book, and the very favourable criticisms it received, has emboldened me to commit this present volume to the winds and waves of public opinion. I honestly love Australia. It has become a healthy, happy home to me, after I had been given up by my medical friends as almost a hopeless case. I like the Australian people — the young people especially — and I want my book, if they read it, to do more than merely amuse, I want it to awaken thought. They will find here, written by no unfriendly hand, with no bias or prejudice, the opinions of a cosmopolitan. I have spoken strongly on colonial public life, and

PREFACE.

. VII public men, and public measures, but not more so than the subject deserves. The future of Australia lies in the hands of her young men. If they use the mighty power they possess, and send the right men to their parliaments and councils, and purge them of corrupt government, and look on things with a wider and more compre hensive vision ; say less, and act more, in fact : act righteously and honestly and loyally, and if my pages of sporting recollection, scenic description, and straightforward criticism, shall conduce in the least degree to this result, I shall think my night oil has burned to good purpose. I am under great obligations to Mr. R. Scott of Newcastle, for fishing and shooting notes, and to Dr. S. T. Knaggs of the same city for much kind assistance, and to Mr. G. Ranken, "Capricornus," for much counsel and kindly help. JAS. INGLIS. Strathfield, Sydney, N.S.W., Is; August, 1879. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Page

A retrospect — I slart from Calcutta — Our steamer and cargo — Down the Bay — Penang — The Cowree Festival ... 1

Chapter II

Singapore — My impressions of the island — Start for Australia — Among the islands — Torres Straits — Our Captain — Passengers and Chinese doctor— Somerset — Looking back — Colonial evidences— A bush dandy — The pearl-shell Fishery — The divers' boats and details of the Fishery — The pearl oyster — Incidents of the Fishing — Curious facts in natural history— Sharks . . ... . . 9

Chapter III

The missionary — New Guinea — Early discoveries — Recent Expeditions — General description of the island — Animals — Natives — Curious customs — Deadly climate — Legends — General remarks . . . . . . . .28

Chapter IV

"We leave Somerset — The Australian coast — The " Black Fellows " —A wreck — Brisbane — Aspect from the river — Signs of progress — Hotels — Loungers at the bars — The streets — Houses of Parliament — View of the city — Queensland a fine " poor man's " country ........ .35

Chapter V

Regaining health — An Easter trip up the coast — My travelling companion — We travel steerage — Experience of a colonial coasting trip — Ration tea — General discomforts of colonial travel — Across the bar — Our reception by our host — The fishing station — The dugong — Mode of capture — Its uses — The black fellow assistants — A domestic squabble — Customs of the black fellows — A native battle. . . . .45

Chapter VI

A corroborree— Discomforts of camp life— Treatment of the natives — The native police — British pluck and Christian courage — How the blacks are dealt with . . . .58 X CONTENTS.

Chapter VII

page Start for Maryborough — A colonial conveyance — A drive through the bush — Mosquitoes — A bush inn — We reach Maryborough — The sugar-cane country — Alford sugar estate — Method of cultivation — Yengarrie Factory — Mode of manufacture — The cheap labour question — Kanaka recruiting — Burning questions of the day — Class antagonism . . 68

Chapter VIII

Return to Brisbane — A ride by rail to Ipswich — Scenery on the line — Venality of legislators — The Bathurst burr — Grass seeds — The sicla retusa — Ipswich — The Grange Stud Farm — The horse trade with India — An Indo-Australian trading company — Excellence of Australian stock . . . .81

Chapter IX

Natural wealth of Australia — Neglect of agriculture — Proposals to establish, experimental farms — Apathy, indolence, and ignorance prevalent — My own experiments with Indian seeds — Indian products for Australia — Resume of the salient points of indigo culture — Probable result of its introduction into Australia — Mustard and rape seeds — How grown — Linseed — Sesamum — Castor plant — Hemp — Safflower — Millets — General remarks . . . , . .89

Chapter X

The marsupial plague — Young of the marsupiata born — What is a marsupial ? — Able account by a " Bush Naturalist " .111

Chapter XI

A kangaroo battue — Mr. Bracker of Warroo — The Darling Downs — Warwick and Stanthorpe — Varieties of marsupials — Pikedale Station — The scene of operations — The line — The beaters — Old wombat — The beat — Fierce excitement — Incidents of the sport — A Spartan meal — Camping out — A monster bag — Waste of skins — How these might be utilized — A letter from the Globe on the subject — Pikedale Wash Pool — Tin mining — The present and future of Queensland . 123

Chapter XII

Sydney — Her magnificent harbour — Its unrivalled beauties The city — General charge of dirtiness — Not so bad as it is generally painted — Comparison of Sydney with other towns — Sydney for her age a wonderful city — Rapid extension — General aspect of the city — The suburbs — Suburban villas Sydney freestone — Small allotments and undue subdivision of land — Absence of cottage gardens — Want of sanitation The term " Cornstalk " — Sydney streets — Public buildings — Causes of her chronic indebtedness — Unfitness of her aldermen — Testimony of one of their number — Summary . 1 CONTENTS. XI

Chapter XIII

page Sydney shop-fronts — Verandahs — Hitching horses to the side-posts — Wonderful docility of the horses — How they are trained — Cabs and cabmen — The hotels — Drinking habits — The licensing system — Need of reform — Hotels and boarding-houses — The parks — Municipal incompetence — Loungers on the pavements — Shop-runners — The streets on Saturday night — The Sydney Larrikin — Selfishness of the wealthier classes — Honour to whom honour is due . .158

Chapter XIV

Workmen's combinations — Fear of strikes retards industry — Condition of the Australian workmen— Swagsmen and Loafers — Friendly Benefit Societies — Rules, working, and objects — The Club doctor — Abuses in the system — Accident Assurance — Comparison — Life Assurance — The Mutual Provident Society — The Mutual Life Association — Insurance agents — Insurance returns — Australian prosperity — Building Societies — Workmen's wages — Labour — Summary 178

Chapter XV

The railway terminus two miles from the sea — Amazing redtapism — How not to do it in Australia — The railway — Paramatta — Views along the line — John Chinaman — Beauty of the scenery — The great Zigzag — Govett's Leap — The Blue Mountains — Hartley Vale — Dargan's Creek — Mineral wealth of the district; — Kerosine shale deposits — The sugar-loaf estate — Reports by Professor Dawkins and Professor Tate — Openings for capitalists . . . . . . .198

Chapter XVI

Sporting proclivities— Gambling and betting — Lord Harris and the Cricketing Association of New South Wales — Colonial crowds — A public holiday — Bookmakers the vultures of society — Their influence subversive of true sport — A water party on the harbour — Our host and hostess — Australian ladies — Less constraint and conventionality than in England — Precocity of the girls — Beauty of the harbour — Monman's Bay — A merry party — The eight-oar race between the rival colonies — Account of the race between Trickett and Rush for the championship of the world ..... 218

Chapter XVII

An Easter outing in the Antipodes — Arrangements for the party — Our comrades and their appearance — The start— We steam round to Port Hacking — Our camp — A damper — A bad night — Dawn in Australia — After wallaby — A gem in the forest — A pull up the river — Splendid scenery — The lyre bird — A camp feast — Hooked through the hand — Disembarkation . . . . . . . .232 CONTENTS.

Chapter XVIII

page I become manager of a newspaper — Australian journalism — Editors in the Antipodes — Characteristics of the Australian Press — General high tone of same — The Sydney Morning Herald— Literary talent plentiful, but ill-remunerated — The Australian Magazine — Sydney Punch — Illustrated Sydney News — Newspaper correspondents — The Miners' Advocate — General estimate of the colonial press .... 253

Chapter XIX

The city of Newcastle, New South Wales— Buildings, wharfs, cranes, &c. — Badly laid out — The sand-drift — Subordination of great national works to petty local wants — Negligence of sanitary principles — Want of public spirit — Want of a proper water supply— The filth and squalor of a colonial town — How contagion spreads — The shipping — Pall of smoke — Port defences — The coal trade — Devices for keeping up the price of coal — Short history of the relations between the masters and miners — The Vend Scheme — Both sides — The miners — Their sports and general characteristics — Chinese gardeners — Miners' houses ..... 263

Chapter XX

A trip to Lake Macquarrie - Beauty of the forest — First view of the lake— Boating and fishing — Our Charon — Destructive fishing — Pot-shooting — Want of a close season — Musk ducks — Black swans — The Heads at the lake — Chinaman colonists — Scenery — Oysters — Their excellence and abundance - — Present system of oyster culture crude and wasteful — Importance of the industry — Plans in vogue elsewhere — What might be done in Australia — Present apathy and neglect 280

Chapter XXI

Deep-sea fishing in Australia — Schnapper fishing — Acclimatization making progress — The fishing grounds — My friend Bob— Rock fishing — Growing scarcity of fish — Bait — Lines — Black bream — Best time for fishing — Best localities — Groper and rock cod — Flat-head and tailor fish— Gar fish — Sting ray-sharks — Fishing incidents — Leather jackets and green eels — Anecdotes ... . . . . 296

Chapter XXII

Fresh-water and fly-fishing in Australia — Varieties — Native modes of fishing — The freshwater tortoise — Spearing fish — The fish of the Western waters -The platypus — The fresh water eel — Perch and herring — Fly-fishing on the Hunter Fishing notes by Bob— Shooting — Sport on the Lachlan Varieties of wild fowl — Pigeons — Character of the country CONTENTS. XIII PAOI5 — Incidents of duck-shooting — Deterioration of the sport — Pot shooting — Necessity for conservation — Snipe in Hoxham swamps — -Anecdotes— The wood duck — -Its cunning and sagacity — The Australian crow — Anecdotes — The shrike or butcher bird — Sparrowhawk — Magpie — Future prospects of sport — Tho Acclimatization Society — Tho Animals Protection Act .312

Chapter XXIII

Climate of Australia — Sites for a sanitorium — Start for Mount Wilson — My host — -The road-side publican — Types of colonial character — Tho parvenu — Vulgarity and boorishness — "Young Australia" in the bush — Domestic servants — Argument on the subject — The beauty of Mount "Wilson — General description — Luxuriance of tho vegetation—The tree ferns and scrub — Sassafras and Messmate — Wild fruits, mosses, and plants — Clearing — A bush store — Ctscado — Opinion on the climate by one of the leading Sydney physicians — Prospecting for a section — Forest scenery and denizens — Wild indigo — Plants that might bo introduced — ■ Casting about for water — Lunch in the bush — The awful silence — Forest leeches — Wynn's Rocks — Grandeur and sublimity of the desolation — A magnificent panorama — What a country for game ! — The mountain land — Timber clearing — A field for labour — False ideas of speedily acquiring riches — A bush interior — Prodigality — The kind of labour we want— How men can rise — Advice to the newcomer ......... 334

Chapter XXIV

The functions of Government — Estimate of colonial Parliaments — Rallying cries — Many of our legislators unfit for their position — At war with " Society " — Parliament degraded into a court of petty causes — Sir Henry Parkes on the sub- , ject — Extract from the Sydney Daily Telegraph — Municipal councils — Difficulty of finding good men — Constituencies to blame — The qualities they appreciate in their representatives — Beggarly dependence on the State — Good men disinclined to enter public life— Necessity for a Cobden Club — An overgrown Civil Service — Selfishness and apathy in high places — My opinions corroborated by a well-known writer — " Capricornus " on Australian statesmanship — Deterioration of the Civil Service — The same writer on this subject — Jealousy of outside criticism — Deep-seated diseases require strong remedies ....... 357

Chapter XXV

The land question — The burning question of the day — The land settlement — Tho early policy — Free selection — Objects of CONTENTS. PAGE 371 the Act of 1861 — Abuses that have arisen — Repudiation looming in the distance — Feuds between squatter and selector — How the case now stands — Reasoning by analogy —The land system of India — Its broad and leading prin ciples — How the revenues are raised — The Cornwallis Settlement — The Punjaub system— Periodical assessments — Waste lands reclamation in Oudh and the North-West — The present problem in Australia — No more alienation — Rotten legislation — Recent legislation — The new proposals — General summary ........

Chapter XXVI

Argument continued by illustration and from personal experiences in land settlement — The work of settlement in Oudh — Fixity of tenure and easy conditions — Surveys and improvements — Village settlements — Importation of labour — The labour question — Misstatements and false views — Coolie labour — More labour wanted — Anti-immigrationists — Protectionists in disguise — More abundant labour the talisman of Australia's development — The reign of the carpet-baggers — No progress without population — Words of an Australian poet 408

Chapter XXVII

Scheme of land reform by " Capricornus " — Commutation of existing rights — Survey before settlement — Demarcation of agricultural and pastoral areas — Land operations in New Zealand — Railways and public works — Imported labour — Fixity of tenure — Employment of capital — Rents and cesses — Title direct from the State — Local land boards — A model land tax — Objections — The right of the State to a moiety of the unearned increment — Centralization — A nomadic race the result of the present system — Tenant-right — Low-cost railways — Foreign capital — Inducements to capitalists — Results of a wise and liberal land reform — Conclusion — Advance, Australia ....... 423 Appendix . ......... .139 OUR AUSTRALIAN COUSINS OUR AUSTRALIAN COUSINS.

Chapter I

A Retrospect — I start from Calcutta — Our steamer and cargo — Down the bay — Penang — The couree festival. Foe many years I had braved the burning heats of Hindostan, and borne a by no means inactive part in "the burden and heat of the day," incident to a planter's life in our Eastern Dependency. Several years of incessant exposure in very unhealthy districts had at length told their inevitable tale ; and early in 1875 I was fain to turn my steps homeward to the old parent nest, to try the restorative effects of the " caller" Scottish air among my dearly loved native Grampians. Any one who has lived in India for over twelve years finds it difficult to settle down comfortably elsewhere. On the voyage home I was not half careful enough of myself ; I did not make enough allowance for the dif ferences of temperature between the Koosee Diarahs (plains) and the chops of the channel.

The quick sudden changes and exigencies of a Scottish spring and summer proved too much for my relaxed and enervated frame, and a complication of rheumatic disorders set in, shortly after I arrived at home, which rendered a u [chap. 2 OUR AUSTRALIAN COUSINS. speedy return to the more congenial Indian heat an advisable step. So said the doctors. It was hard to tear myself away from the grand old heather-clad hills — the sparkling burnies with their silvery trout, and the homely, kindly hands and hearts of kith and kin; but there was no help for it. Barely four months at home, I was compelled to bid a reluctant adieu to old Scotland, and set my face once again towards the East. The trip home seemed to have done me little good. My rheumatic tendencies became more pronounced the nearer we approached the sultry shores of Ind.

On arrival at Calcutta I had to undergo several severe surgical operations, and at length, when not nearly recovered, I accepted sole charge of some very extensive Government Grants of Waste Lands in Oudh and the North-west Provinces, and set out to survey the scene of my future labours, though weak, reduced, and scarcely able to crawl. My new home was away up in the north-west corner of Oudh, about thirty-four miles from Shajehanpore, and the grant was located in the midst of wild, untilled jungle country. There were few villages, and little cultivation contiguous ; and the locality bore the repu tation of being the very haunt and chosen home of the dreaded malarious fever. How I worked and hoped and struggled, I may hereafter recount. My spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. I had to build indigo vats and start factories and cultivation.

I reclaimed lands from the dense virgin forest — I dug wells, founded villages, built granaries, constructed roads and bridges, and tried my best to be a brave and useful pioneer ; but the deadly climate was the victor in the end. It could not well be otherwise. I was in reality very !■] 3 A RETROSPECT. weak and ill. All my old servants who had followed me to this far-off nook from the Tirhoot villages sickened with the insidious fever, and had to go back to their homes. I battled with my growing weakness as long as I dared. Many a day, when I could no longer walk, I was carried over the cultivation in a palkee. Many a day have I lain in the jungle in the throes of fever and ague, while I directed the operations of my coolies in the ever-widening clearing ; but at last I had fairly to yield, and I was sent down by my kind and liberal employer to Bombay, on full pay, to see if a course of salt-water baths would drive the gnawing rheumatic demon from the lodgment he had effected in my joints.

All was in vain. Salicene, salycilic acid, hot baths, sulphur bandages, electricity, friction, liniments, all kinds of medicaments were tried, but all were unavail ing. The only thing that left me was my balance at the bank; and my brother just then arriving from England, took me over with him to Calcutta a crippled and helpless burden. In Calcutta I had the best ad vice, and all the alleviations that unbounded brotherly tenderness could procure, but the doctors could do nothing for me, and sea air and prolonged change of climate were prescribed as a last desperate resource, although even then it was feared I would remain a cripple for life. "When my two brothers carried me in their arms up the steamer's steep sides, and bade me adieu with fal tering speech and moist eyes, little did they imagine that a few short months of the wonder-working air of sunny Australia would transform me into a hale and active man again ; and alas ! as little did I imagine that in little more than a year my gentle younger brother b [chap. 4 OUR AUSTRALIAN COUSINS. would succumb to that dreaded Indian scourge — cholera.

Let me carry you back to the muddy, swift, and silent Hooghly. The engineers have gone below, and we are busily getting up steam. What a motley ever changing scene the deck of the steamer presents to my view as I lazily survey it from my easy-chair ! Here are Chinese, habited in blue and black calico, returning to the land of the sun, each with a heterogeneous assortment of odd-shaped cups, tea-pots, and cooking vessels, destined to prepare the mysterious mixtures and decoctions in which the soul of the Chinaman delighteth. Perched high on a pile of boxes are several Arab Jews and Jewesses, swathed in shawls and turbans of the gaudiest colours. One is a watchmaker from Baghdad, another a jeweller from Aden, while, to complete the group, we have a blind beggar from Damascus. With his shaven poll, his close-cropped dark beard, and his staring, sightless eyes, he looks perhaps the most picturesque of the group.

A noisy party of low-caste Germans are shrugging, shouting, and gesticulating with amazing vigour and volubility. Their flash jewellery and brazen looks proclaim them pot-house runners or crimps, very vul tures in human guise. Lascars, Malays, Armenians, negroesfrom Mozambique, Mussulmans from the Straits, Jews, Christians, Turks, and Greeks flit about the deck like figures in a phantasmagoria. A party of Armenian Jews, with Hindu servants, are busy attending to the wants of over a thousand goats and sheep, which, cooped and confined between barricades, stagger on the slippery deck, or, with terror in their eyes, and cries and moans of fear and pain, jostle and lurch from I-] 5 OUR STEAMER AND CARGO. side to side with every movement of the steamer. Farther forward, near the cooking galleys of the China men, are two or three rows of cows and bullocks which seem quite as miserable and as much abroad as the poor sheep and goats.

All of these animals are intended for the Penang and Singapore markets. The trade is entirely in the hands of a few Jews and one or two Mussulmans, who make it pay most handsomely. Far over the length and breadth of India, from Dinapore, Patna, Bhangulpore, and in many a village of Bengal, their emissaries buy up all the goats and sheep they can collect, at prices ranging from a rupee to four or five rupees, but rarely more. They pay a freight of two and a half to three rupees a head, and get seven and eight, and not unfrequently ten and even twelve dollars for each animal landed at Penang or Singapore. Deducting losses by deaths, expenses of fodder, &c, our dealers still realize the handsome average profit of from three to four dollars, say, seven to eight rupees a head on each goat or sheep.

These Jews are fine-looking fellows, perfect linguists, and clever, versatile, shrewd men of business ; but one and all aboard our steamer betrayed a marked partiality for spirits. They drink a most intoxicating liquor, distilled from dates and flavoured with aniseed, and during the whole voyage were more or less drunk. By-and-by, as the busy crowds settle down to their places, the medley of sounds dies away, and the un happy goats, at last making up their minds to the inevitable, begin to turn their attention to the bunches of dried grass, which, twisted into the strands of a long rope, are hung all over the deck at short intervals. We are an animated farm-yard ; and when the wind is [chap. 6 OUR AUSTRALIAN COUSINS. ahead, the odour from the pent-up animals is strong enough to " kill bees," as the Scotch mate remarks.

There is little of interest on either of the river's banks. We have left the shipping and the jute mills far behind, and already sniff the faint far odour of the sea. Near the light-ship, we pass two strongly -built, red-striped boats, with clumsy platforms of bamboos projecting over the sides. The bulwarks are open, but the crafts seem stiff sea-boats, able to live in a strong gale of wind, as indeed they are. I find these boats are from the Maldive islands, where they are built. They make one voyage a year to Calcutta, loaded with shells, cowries, dried fish, cocoa-nuts and coir fibre, and return with rice, ghee, dall, and other edibles. A Yorkshire captain on board, travelling, like myself, in search of health, tells me that the islanders are fanatic Mussulmans all, but very hospitable.

He was once wrecked among them, and they kept him and his crew for six months, and would take nothing whatever as the price of their hospitality. The air is now getting chill ; a fine fresh breeze ahead of the beam, and a crimson bank of cloud to leeward, changing to grey and bluish-black as the sun sinks, tell us it is time to go below ; so we leave the crowded deck to seek the solitude of our cabins, and dream perhaps of health renewed. The sea air beo-an soon to work wonders on the shattered invalid. My fellow-passengers the Yorkshireman and a genial Ame rican from Philadelphia were kindness itself, and we had some pleasant musical evenings on the run down the bay. Little of incident occurred, and little worthy of narration, beyond the periodical squabblings of the freely bibulous Israelites, as they quarrelled over their cups— and on the 28th of January, about sunset, we I-] C0UREE FESTIVAL IN PENANG. 7 sighted Penang island in the hazy distance, but it was not till midnight that we dropped anchor in the harbour.

Next morning we were threading our way among crowds of Chinese, Malays, and Klings. This day was being held the great couree festival of the Madras ses, and all were dressed in their brightest holiday colours. A vast concourse were hurrying up to tho waterfall that comes tumbling over a lofty wooded crag behind the town. Getting into a gharry, we rattled through the crowd at a tremendous pace. The gharries here are all drawn by very small ponies from the province of Deh-li on the mainland, and the pluck, pace, and endurance of the little animals are surprising. Rarely exceeding twelve hands in height, they are the hardiest and most spicy-looking little " tats " I have ever seen, the beau ideal of a hockey tat, and to be bought for from 80 to 100 dollars. Were the aristocratic sportsmen of Lillie bridge but to import these little equine wonders, Polo in perfection might be enjoyed in England, such as the famed Muninpoorees themselves might not equal, and such as has never certainly yet been witnessed by any Polo club in the United Kingdom.