New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria & Tasmania

Front matter

ROWLA

Is the purest and most fragrant dentifrice ever made. It whitens the teeth, prevents decay, and gives a pleasing fragrance to the breath, and the fact of its containing no acid or mineral ingredients specially adapts it for the teeth of children.

All dentists will allow that neither washes nor pastes can possibly be as efficacious for polishing the teeth and keeping them sound and white as a pure, non-gritty, tooth-powder; such Rowlands' Odonto has always proved itself to be.

Chapter I. Early History Of The Colony

On reaching Sydney the traveller should remember that he is visiting the spot on which our Australian empire was commenced, amidst difficulties of which we in England in these days think very little. We know something of Australian explorers of a later date. We do hear of Oxley, of Hume and Hovell, of Cunningham, Mitchell, Eyre, Sturt, Kennedy, Leichardt, Gregory, Stuart, Burke and Wills, and others who have succeeded in opening up new regions in Australia or have lost their lives in the attempt ; — but we hear nothing of the perils endured and the efforts made by those who first brought convicts out to Botany Bay, and who were called upon to perform the almost impossible task of feeding and of governing them there.

Captain Cook landed at Botany Bay, a few miles south* ot Sydney Harbour, — or Port Jackson, as it is properly called, — in 1770, and took possession of the land on behalf of the English Crown. But Captain Cook was by no means the first to find Australia. Manoel Godenho, a Portuguese, is supposed to be the right claimant of that honour, and is said to have landed on the north-west corner of the continent in 1601. A Dutchman was the next, by name John William Verschoor, who is said to have touched at Cape York, the northern point of the great Queensland piomontory, in 1606. Dirk Hartog in 16 16. another Dutchman,

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was the third ; and then, for many years, the Dutch continued to discover parts of the coast and various islands or what was then called Terra Australis. They have left theil names behind them in many places ; — in Nuytsland, a most dreary region on the southern coast, at present utterly useless, so called from Peter Nuyts ; in the great Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, so called from Peter Carpenter; in Tasmania, — Van Diemen's Land, as it used to be, — discovered by Abel Jan Tasman, who called it Van Diemen's Land after the governor of the Dutch East India Company, who had sent him on his voyage, and since re-christened Tasmania because a flavour of convicts had attached itself to the former name. Indeed the Dutch did so much and were so energetic in their voyages, that they were justified in calling the new continent New Holland ; and it seems now to be marvellous that a people so enterprising, and at that time so prone to get and to keep territory, should have lost their hold of the - great " Terra Australis." It appears that they defeated their own object by their own secrecy and mystification. They published no records of the voyages made, and no charts of the newly discovered seas, fearing that the great futurfr possession would become too well known to other explorfirs. Consequently, even among themselves, the doings of their sailors were unknown and unappreciated, and no r ational desire was created for possession of the land.

It seems that a Frenchman was on the coast before any Englishman, one M. de St. Alouran having anchored off "Cape Leuwin — the great south-eastern corner of the continent— in 1670. After him came Wi'.Iiam Dampier, an English buccaneer, who in 1688 landed on the western coast, and was, as far as we know, thf; first Englishman to put his foot on the soil of our great dependency. For eighty years after that English, Dut^h, and French, with intermittent energies, endeavoured to become masters of New Holland. In 1770 Captain Cook, not only landed at Botany Bay, but actually surveyed a large portion of the eastern coast, and formally took possession of the country in the name of the King of England. This he did, having first louclied al New

EARLY HISTORY OF THE COLONY. j

Zealand, which had been discovered by Tasman in 1 642. In 1777 Captain Cook made another voyage into the Pacific, — in the course of which enterprise he was murdered at the Sandwich Islands. It was at this time that he recommended the English government to send out to Botany Bay the convicts from England which could no longer be sent to the revolted colonies of America. In 1787 Commodore Phillip, the first Australian governor, was despatched in accordance with Cook's advice to form a penal settlement at Botany Bay. Finding Botany Bay and the territory immediately around it to be altogether unfitted for the purpose he had in hand, with no fertile land around it, and no sufficient supply of water. Commodore Phillip sailed northward, entered Port Jackson, — as Cook had already called it, — and founded the settlement for British convicts.

In the same year a French captain. La Perouse, also landed at Botany Bay, anchoring there as it happened on the very day on which Commodore Phillip hoisted the English colours at the head of Port Jackson. La Perouse perished on his road home, but Commodore Phillip created the colony of New South Wales, — from whence have sprung all our Australian colonies.

Mr. Rusden, who knows Australian history probably as well as any man living, commences his account of the discovery, survey, and settlement of Port Phillip, or of the colony of Victoria as it is now called, with the following words : — " American colonization sprang mainly from private adventure. The foundation of colonies in Australia M-as not the result of private enterprise, but of the policy of the ministry of which Pitt was the real as well as the nominal head." There can be no doubt that Mr. Rusden is right in his statement that our possession of Australia is due to the government of the day, and not to any gallant adventurer such as was Raleigh, or to any band of Puritan brothers going forth in search of freedom, as aid they who landed from the Mayflower on the shores of Massachusetts. The expedition to Botany Bay was planned by government, — whether actually by Pitt or not I do not know that v\e can now say, — with the ','iew of finding a shore on wliich

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we might rid ourselves of our ruffians. It was to be governed by martial law, and was based on the footing of a penal settlement. After that the French still made renewed attempts, and endeavoured to call the whole southern district of Australia "Terre Napoleon." This was intended to include, with much other territory, all that country which is, perhaps, now better known as Victoria, than by the imperial name then given to it.

Governor Phillip, with his convicts and few attendants, had by no means a pleasant time of it. He had indeed about as bad a time as any government servant of whom we no w read. There were two establishments for convicts in his hands, one at Sydney, and the other at Norfolk Island, — where the descendants of the mutineers of the Bounty are now dwindling back to the insipidity of savage life amidst the charms of Utopian freedom. In Governor Phillip's time the life on Norfolk Island was by no means idle or Utopian. There was a great deal of rebellion and running away, a great deal of punishment of a kind which now seems to us to have been very barbarous, but without which the convict element would probably have got altogether the better of the governing element. And there was terrible want, not only at Norfolk Island, but also on the mainland, — want so dire as almost to have become starvation. Nearly all the food consumed for the first years had to be brought either from England, or from some other distant land, such as Ilatavia or Bengal. The land round Sydney, on which attempts were made to create farms, was found to be poor and barren. The few cattle which the settlers or, rather, which the governor possessed, strayed away or were killed by the blacks. And tlien these black men, the aboriginals, were a source of difficulties for which no satisfactory solution could be found. If only they would be friendly all might be well ; — but how could friendship be expected from a race whose all was being taken from them by a handful of strangers who spoke a strange language, — and who had fire-arms ? If

the blacks would be friendly it would be well ; but if not •

then they must be repressed, as were the convicts. The settlement was not to be abandoned because savage tribes

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f could not be made to understand quickly the benefits oi civilisation, — and the blacks were repressed, and driveri away, and sometimes starved, to the great affliction of im first governors.

For five years Governor Phillip fought his battle against convicts, black men, recusant settlers, famine, floods, and drought, and he fought it like a hero. In every emergency, — and every day created a new emergency, — he was forced to think for himself. He had no ministers, and no council. He was commander-in-chief, and the life of every man was in his hands. But he was responsible to the King's government at home, and to public opinion in the colony. From day to day there was pressed upon him the fear that, one after another, they might all perish from want. If this vessel or that did not come at the expected time, there would not be even half a day's rations per day either for convicts, freemen, or for the governor. That modicum of half a day's rations was, more than once, the allowance for them all. I do not know where to look for a better story of great, continued, unpicturesque heroism than in the records of Governor Phillip's career. In these days it is very pleasant to be a governor of a colony. A charming house is provided, there are aides-de-camp and private secretaries, there is a liberal salary, there is probably much hospitality, and just enough of work to enable the governor of an Australian colony to feel that he earns what is bestowed upon him. Bat in truth he governs nobody, and is simply a medium of communication between the ministry of the colony and the Secretary of State at home. In Governor Phillip's time it was very different. He had indeed to govern, — to rule all and everything, and to do so with an iron hand that could not dare to relax its severity. His hand was of iron, but his heart was very soft. He had no rest from providing for the wants of those around him, and when they were put on half rations, and on less than half, his own were always as scanty as the scantiest.

At the__end of five years Governor Phillip went home, and after a lapse of two years, — which two years were very injurious to the young settlement, — was succeeded by Captain

Hunter, who had come out with Philhp. Hunter again, after five or six years, was succeeded by another officer who had come to Botany Bay with PhiUip's first band of convicts, — namely Governor King. And these men also were heroes in their way, facing terrible difficulties— difficulties in regard to the black men, difficulties in regard to the convicts, difficulties in regard to food, and, perhaps worst of all, difficulties in regard to a certain New South Wales Corps, which had been sent out from England with an idea that perhaps by such military body the convicts might be controlled, — and perhaps also, in some degree, the governor also. The officers of this corps soon became dominant in the colony, and used their dominion after a strange fashion. They obtained the right, or at any rate the power, of an almost exclusive monopoly, at first in spirits, and afterwards in all imported goods. When Governor Hunter and Governor King had resigned, the battle was carried on by Governor Bligh, — the famous Captain Bligh of the Bounty, — who thus became king and lord over the very island on which are now settled the descendants of those who took his ship away from him and sent him adrift upon the waters. Governor Bligh was a very rough man, but seems to have been a manly fellow, with a strong idea of his duty. In the third year of his government he was arrested by the commanding officer of the very troop which was supposed at home to be at his hand for his support. His government was then brought to an end, and the New South Wales Corps was sent home.

Thus were passed the first twenty years of the new colony, amidst struggles of which the history has not yet been fairly written. Great efforts in the meantime had been made to extend the settled district. Farms were established up the Paramatta Ri\ er, on grounds now rich with orange groves, but which were gradually found to be utterly unfit for cereal crops. The first attempts at growing corn in the neighbourhood of Sydney were failures, sad enough to break the hearts of all but heroes. The Hawkesbury was discovered ■ — a magnificent river which makes its way into the ocean about fifteen miles north of Sydney Harbour, — and on the

EARLY HISTORY OF THE COLONY. 9

Upper Hawkesbury, where now stands the town of Windsor, the land was found to be a rich alluvial deposit, capable of growing anything. But no sooner had settlers made their young home on this seemingly happy soil, than floods came and washed everything away. And there is Windsor now, with its rich lands, and its constant floods, — and some 2,000 inhabitants, who must surely be web-footed. Various also were the attempts made under these first governors to find a way out from the narrow strip of territory occupied along the shore across the mountains into the interior. These are the Blue Mountains, which are blue indeed, and very lovely, —now crossed by the Bathurst railway, but over which in those days the settlers long found it impossible to make their way Wool had become an article of export during these early years, and did at last give rise to the energies which in time forced a passage through the Blue Mountains. Captain Macarthur, who had been one of the officers belonging to that wretched New South Wales Corps, introduced merino sheep into the colony, and obtained a grant of 10,000 acres of land. Then others took to massing flocks. In 1 813 there came a great drought, and Messrs. Wentworth, Blaxland, and Lawson got through the mountains in search of grass for their sheep.

In 1805 a second dependency on New South Wales was established on the northern shore of Van Diemen s Land, for the purpose of removing thither convicts from Norfolk Island, — which place was abandoned, as the governor found it impossible to supply food to a settlement at such a distance. The abandonment of the station was, however, only temporary. Thus was commenced the second in date of our Australian colonies. In 1825 Van Diemen's Land was, at its own request, separated from New South Wales, and established as a penal colony on its own bottom, with its own governor, and its own expenses. Its name soon became as familiar with us as that of the parent colony, — but we vie^ved them both only as the homes of our exported rascaldom. In 1836 Port PhiUip, — which is now the colony of Victoria, — became a dependency under New South Wales. In /851 she was allowed to go alone, and is now, at any rate iu her

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own opinion, the first in importance of all the colonial children of Great Britain. In 1839 New Zealand became a dependency under New South Wales, — ^but the child did not remain long in leading-strings. In 1840 New Zealand received a governor of her own from England. In 1859 the Moreton Bay district, constituting at that time the northern half, — or something more than half, — of what was left of the colony of New South Wales, was cut off, and the separate colony of Queensland was estabhshed. In this way New South Wales was the parent of all our present Australian colonies, except South Australia and Western Australia, both of which originated in efforts made from home.

In 1856, five years after the separation of Victoria, responsible government was established in New South Wales, and governors of the happy, hospitable, sleek, and unburdened kind came into vogue. This happened during the reign of Sir William Denison, who came out in 1853 with the task of inaugurating the change. He, however, still kept the title of Governor-General of Australasia, which was not borne by his successor, Sir John Young. Perhaps of all her governors, Sir Richard Bourke is the one best remembered and the most esteemed in New South Wales. He came to the colony in 1832, and remained there for the normal period of six years. A large statue to his memory, standing at the gate of the Sydney domain, helps to keep alive his honours. He was no doubt a firm, considerate man, excellently well qualified for his duties. He was preceded by Governor Darling, and succeeded by Governor Gipps, a.s to both of whom it is now recorded in the colony that, if diamonds, they were rough diamonds.

CHAPTER IL

SYDNEY.

I DESPAIR of being able to convey to any reader my own idea of tlie beauty of Sydney Harbour. I have seen nothing equal to it in the way of land-locked sea scenery, — nothing second to it, Dublin Bay, the Bay of Spezzia, New York, and the Cove of Cork are all picturesquely fine. Bantry Bay, with the nooks of sea running up to Glengarrif, is very lovely. But they are not equal to Sydney either in shape, in colour, or in variety. I have never seen Naples, or Rio Janeiro, or Lisbon ; — but from description and pictures I am led to think that none of them can possess such a world of loveliness of water as lies within Sydney Heads. The proper thing to assert is that the fleets of all nations might rest securely within the protection of the harbour. How much acreage of sea the fleets of all nadons might require I cannot even surmise ; — but if they could be anchored together anywhere, they could surely be so anchored at Sydney.

In none of the books which I have seen respecting the early settlement of the colony, or of its subsequent difficulties in progcess, is much stress laid on the scenery of Sydney Harbour, or of the Hawkesbury River which is near it. Nor is much said of the glorious defiles of the Blue Mountains. Such books have been generally circumstantial and statistical,— either despondent or hopeful, according to the opinions of the writers. They have always insisted much — and have done so with well-deserved zeal — on the great eftbrts made by Australian discoverers. They have told us of the drawbacks of the land, — which are very great, as the soil is oftea t2

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poor, is encumbered with forests, deficient in water, and subject to a climate wliich is not propitious to cereals. On the other hand, we have heard from them much of Australian wool, and for the last twenty years of Australian gold. We gather from these books many facts as to the past events of Australia, and many opinions as to its future. But we hear very little of Australian scenery. Consequently we, at home in England, are inclined to believe that Australia, as a country, is displeasing to the eye. The eternal gum-tree has become to us an Australian crest, giving evidence of Australian ugliness. The gum-tree is ubiquitous, and is not the loveliest, though neither is it by any means the ugliest, of trees. Eut there are scenes of nature in Australia as lovely as are to be found in any part of the world ; — not so closely congregated as in Western Europe, but quite as much so as in North America. They are often difficult of access, — and must remain so, till the population is large enough to stretch itself about the country, and to make railways, and to run river steamers.

The people of Sydney are by no means indifferent to the beauty of their harbour, and claim for it the admiration of strangers with something of the language, but not with the audacity, of Americans, when they demand the opinions of their visitors as to their remarkable institutions. There is something of shamefacedness, a confession of provincial weakness, almost an acknowledgment that they ought not to be proud of a thing so insignificant, in the tone in which you are asked whether, upon the whole, you do not think Sydney Harbour rather pretty. Every Sydney man and every Sydney woman does ask you the question, — as does every American ask that other question ; but it is asked in Sydney with bated breath, and with something of an apology, " 01 course you have been bothered out of your life about our harbour : — but it is pretty, — don't you think so ? " It is so inexpressibly lovely that it makes a man ask himself whether it would not be worth his while to move his household gods to the eastern coast of Australia, in order that he might look at it as long as he can look at anything. There are certain spots, two oi three miles out of the town, now

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occupied generally by villas, or included in the grounds of some happy resident, which leave nothing for the imagination to add. Greenoaks and Mount Adelaide, belonging to two brothers, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Henry Mort, are perfect. Sir James Martin, who was the prime minister when I was first there, and who, I hope, may soon be so again, has a garden falling down to the sea, which is like fairyland. There is a rock outside, — or probably inside, — the grounds of Woolhara, belonging to Mr. Cooper, on which the blacks in the old days, when they were happy and undisturbed, used to collect themselves for festive, political, and warlike purposes. I wonder whether they enjoyed it as I did ! How they must have hated the original Cooper when he came and took it, — bought it for 20s. an acre, out of which they got no dividend, or had a grant of it from the English Crown ! Woolhara is a magnificent property, covered with villas and gardens, all looking down upon the glorious sea. In England it would be worth half a million of money, and, as things go on, it will soon be worth as much in New South Wales ; and perhaps some future Cooper will be Duke Cooper or Marquis Cooper, and Woolhara will be as famous as Lowther or Chatsworth. It is infinitely more lovely than either. I envied the young man, and almost hated him for having it, — although he had just given me an excellent dinner.

I doubt whether I ever read any description of scenery which gave me an idea of the place described, and I am not sure that such effect can be obtained by words. Scott in prose, and Byron in verse, are both eloquent in declaring that this or that place is romantic, picturesque, or charming; and their words have been powerful enough to send thousands to see the spots which they have praised. But the charm conveyed has been in the words of the writer, not in the beauty of the place. I know that the task would be hopeless were I to attempt to make others understand the nature of the beauty of Sydney Harbour. I can say that it is lovely, but I cannot paint its loveliness. The sea runs up in various bays or coves, indenting the land all around the city, so as to give a thousand different aspects of the water, — and not of water, broad, unbroken, and unrelieved,

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but of water always with jutting corners of land beyond it, and then again of water and then again of land. And you, — the resident, — even though you be a lady not over strong, though you be a lady, if possible not over young, — Avill find, unless you choose your residence most unfortunately, that you have walks within your reach as deliciously beautiful as though you had packed up all your things and travelled days and spent pounds to find them. One Mrs. Macquarie, the wife, I beheve, of Governor Macquarie, made a road, or planned a road, or at any rate gave her name to a road, which abuts on the public domain, and is all but in the town. A mile and a half from the top of Hunter Street carries the pedestrian all round it. Two shilHngs does as much for him or her who prefers a hansom cab, — and the Sydney hansoms are the very best cabs in the world. At the end of it is Mrs. Macquarie's chair, — with a most illwritten inscription, but with a view that affords compensation even for that. The pubhc gardens, not half a mile from the top of Hunter Street, beat all the public gardens I ever saw, — because they possess one little nook of sea of their own. I do not love public gardens generally, because I am called on to listen to the names of shrubs conveyed in three Latin words, and am supposed to interest myself in the locality from which they have been brought. I envy those who have the knowledge which I want ; but I put my back up against attempts made to convey it to me, knowing that it is too late. But it was impossible not to love the public gardens at Sydney, — because one could sit under the trees and look out upon the sea. There is a walk from the bottom of Macquarie Street,— not Mrs. Macquarie's Road, but the old governor's own street, — leading round by the fort, under the governor's house, to the public gardens. The whole distance round may be a mile and a half from the top of Hunter Street, which opens on to Macquarie Street. It runs close along the sea, with grassy slopes on which you may lie 'and see the moon glimmer on the water as it only ghmmers on land-locked coves of the ocean. You may lie there prostrate on the grass, with the ripple close at your feet within a quarter-of-an-hour of your club,

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Your after-dinner cigar will last you there and back if you will walk fairly and smoke slowly. Nobody ever is there at that hour, the young men of Sydney preferring to smoke their cigars in their arm-chairs. Then there is the little trip by steam ferry over to the north shore, where lives that prince of professors and greatest of Grecians, Doctor Badham, of the university. I should like to be the ferryman over that ferry to Lavender Bay on condition that the Doctor met me with some refreshment on each journey. Sydney is one of those places which, when a man leaves it knowing that he will never return, he cannot leave without a pang and a tear. Such is its loveliness.

The town itself, as a town, independently of its sea and its suburbs, was, to me, pleasant and interesting. In the first place, though it is the capital of an Australian colony, and therefore not yet a hundred years old, it has none of those Avorst signs of novelty which make the cities of the New World unpicturesque and distasteful. It is not parallelogrammic and rectangular. One may walk about it and lose the direction in which one is going. Streets running side by side occasionally converge — and they bend and go in and out, and wind themselves about, and are intricate. Philadelphia, which has not a want in the world, and is supplied with every luxury which institutions can confer upon human nature, is of all towns the most unattractive because it is so managed that every house in it has its proper place, which can be found out at once, so long as the mind of the seeker be given to ordinary arithmetic. No arithmetic will set the wanderer right in Sydney ; — and this, I think, is a great advantage. I lived at 213^ in a certain street, and the interesting number chosen seemed to have no reference to any smaller numbers. There was no i, or 5, or 20 in that street. If you live at 213 in Philadelphia, you know that you are three doors from Two Hundred and Ten Street on one side, and seven from Two Hundred and Twenty Street on the other. Information conveyed in that manner is always to me useless. I forget the numbers which I should remember, and have no aid to memory in the peculiarity either of the position or of the name.

i6

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The public gardens at Sydney deserve more than the passing mention just made of them. The people of Australia personally are laudably addicted to public gardens, — as* they are to other public institutions with which they are enabled to inaugurate the foundation of their towns, by the experience taught to them by our deficiencies. Parks for the people were not among the requirements of humanity when our cities were first built ; and the grounds necessary for such purposes had become so valuable when the necessity was recognised, that it has been only with great difficulty, and occasionally by the munificence of individuals, that we have been able to create these artificial lungs for our artisans. In many of our large towns we have not created them at all. The Austrahan cities have had the advantage of our deficiencies. The land has been public property, and space for recreation has been taken without the payment of any cost price. In this way a taste for gardens, and, indeed, to some extent, a knowledge of flowers and shrubs, has been generated, and a humanizing influence in that direction has been produced. There are, in all the large towns, — either in the very centre of them or adjacent to them, — gardens rather than parks, which are used and apparently never abused. Those at Melbourne in Victoria are the most pretentious, and, in a scientific point of view, no doubt the most valuable. I am told that, in the rarity and multiplicity of the plants collected there, they are hardly surpassed by any in Europe. But for loveliness, and that beauty which can be appreciated by the ignorant as well as by the learned, the Sydney Gardens are unrivalled by any that I have seen. The nature of the land, with its green slopes down to its own bright little sea bay, has done much for them, and art and taste combined have made them perfect. It may be said that of all drawbacks to public parks distance is tlie greatest. We know that, in London, Hyde Park is but of little service to those who live at Mile End. The great park at New York, though it is connected by omnibuses witb. the whole city, requires an expedition to reach it. The gardens of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham are so fir off from the multitude that the distance rather