Australian Pictures Part 1

Australian Pictures.

by Howard Willoughby.

PREFACE.

In one respect this work differs from its predecessors. The companion volumes were written by travellers to the lands which they described, but AUSTRALIAN PICTURES are by an Australian resident. Hence, when praise is required, the author has often preferred to quote some traveller of repute rather than to state his own impressions. Thanks have to be given to the Government of Victoria, which kindly placed all its works at the disposal of the author. The official history of the aborigines compiled by Mr. Brough Smyth is especially a valuable storehouse of facts for future writers. The proprietors of the _Melbourne Argus_ liberally gave the use of the views and pictures of their ill.u.s.trated paper, the _Australian Sketcher_, and the offer was gratefully and largely taken advantage of. Mr. R. Wallen, a President of the Art Union of Victoria, gave permission for the reproduction of any of the works of art published by the society during his term of office.

Australia is a large place, and it will be seen that, where the author could not refresh his memory by a personal visit, he has here and there availed himself of the willing aid of literary friends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SCOTS' CHURCH, COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE.]

SECTION I.

INTRODUCTORY.

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY.

AREA OF AUSTRALIA--ENGLAND'S HERITAGE--NATURAL RICHES--POPULATION--PRESENT PROSPECTS OF IMMIGRANTS--THE SIX COLONIES--FACILITIES OF TRAVEL--CHARACTER OF PEOPLE.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A NATIVE CLIMBING A TREE FOR OPOSSUM]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A ROAD THROUGH AN AUSTRALIAN FOREST.]

'Australian Pictures' must necessarily consist of peeps at Australia. It seems presumptuous at first to ask that great island-continent to creep into a single volume. But sketches of parts and bird's-eye views will often reveal more to the stranger than a minute and fatiguing survey of the whole. These pages, though few in number, will, it is hoped, convey to the reader some idea of that vast new world where Saxons and Celts are peacefully building up another Britain.

Some of the early errors about Australia must have already faded away.

Few can now believe that her birds are without voice and her flowers without perfume, and that the continent itself is a desert fringed by a habitable seaboard. Yet it is perhaps hardly realised by the many how grand is the heritage secured in Australia for the British race. The extent of territory is enormous. Twenty-five kingdoms the size of Great Britain and Ireland could be carved out of this giant island and its appendages, and still there would be a remainder. Its total area, 2,983,200 square miles, is only a little less than the area of Europe.

At first it was supposed that only a limited portion of this enormous tract would be available for settlement, but this fear is dying out. The central desert, that bugbear of a past generation, has an existence, but man is pushing it farther and farther back. Where the explorer perished through thirst a few years ago we now have the homestead and the township; water is conserved, flocks are fed, the property, if it has to be offered for sale, is described as 'that valuable and well-known squatting block.' The tales that were first told were true enough, but man, as he advances, subdues the country and ameliorates the climate.

Already Australia exports to the markets of the world the finest wheat, the finest wool, and the finest gold. Her produce in these lines commands the highest prices, and no test of superiority could be more conclusive. In two at least of these items the export could be indefinitely increased, and meat and wine can be added to the list. On such articles as these man subsists, and they are produced here with a minimum of expense and effort.

The total population of Australia is 2,800,000. The settlers have drawn about themselves over 1,100,000 horses, 8,000,000 cattle, and 70,000,000 sheep. But three millions of men and tens of millions of creatures fail to occupy; they do little more than dot the corners of the great lone island. In the north-west of the continent there are tracts of country which the white man has not yet penetrated. Tribes still roam there who may have heard of the European stranger, but who have never seen him.

Adventurous spirits are now pushing into these distant regions, but there will be pioneering work for many a long term of years, and after the pioneer has had his day the task of settlement begins. Even in Victoria and New South Wales, the most thickly populated of the colonies, there are many fertile hillsides and valleys as yet untrodden by man. The population has sought the plains, where the least expenditure was required to make the earth bring forth its increase.

Some of the richest land in both colonies has yet to be appropriated, the settler having neglected it because it has to be cleared. The giant eucalypt of the uplands frightened the colonist away to the lightly timbered, park-like plains; but now, thanks to the extension of the railways, the mountain ash, the red gum, and the blackwood, with their companions, are found to be sources of wealth. Thus, in the old states and in the new territories alike, openings exist for the agriculturist and the grazier as favourable as have ever been offered. More fortunes have been made in Australia within the past ten years than have ever been acc.u.mulated before. The labourer has put more money than ever into the savings-bank or the building society. The farmer has more rapidly become a comfortable, well-to-do personage; the grazier or squatter has seen his income swell. The value of city property has increased as if by magic. It may be truly said that the chances and prospects of the new arrival are greater to-day, and are likely to be greater for years to come, than they were even in the feverish flush of the gold era.

Australia is for the present divided into six colonies. As time rolls on we may expect six times this number of states. If some of the larger provinces were at all thickly populated they would be absolutely unmanageable for administrative purposes. The states are named Victoria, New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania. They will be noticed in these pages in turn. Victoria, with an area of 87,000 square miles, has a population of a little more than 1,000,000. Thus it is the most densely peopled of the group.

Agriculture, gold mining and wool growing are its prominent industries, and it is the colony in which manufactures are most developed. New South Wales has also a population of 1,000,000, with an area of 309,000 square miles. She is a pastoral colony. Queensland, with an area of 668,000 square miles, has less than 350,000 people, a circ.u.mstance that shows how little she has been developed. Her industries are pastoral and gold mining; and in the far north sugar plantations have been established under somewhat unhappy auspices. South Australia has an area of 903,000 square miles, and a population under 350,000. Much of her territory is absolutely unexplored. Her little community is cl.u.s.tered about Adelaide, and has relied so far upon the export of wool, copper and, above all, wheat. Last of the continental states comes Western Australia, the Cinderella of the group. Her population is only 35,000, her area is no less than 975,000 square miles, much of it being absolutely unknown, while the greater part has no other occupants than the black man, the emu and the marsupial. Tasmania, the little island colony, has a population of 135,000, and an area of 26,000 square miles.

All the capitals are on the seaboard, and, setting the Western Australian Perth aside, the traveller can proceed from one to the other either by the magnificent liners of the Peninsular and Oriental, the Orient, and the British India Steam Navigation Companies, or he can avail himself of splendid Clyde-built steamers run by local enterprise.

Very shortly he will be able to land at either Adelaide or Brisbane, and journey from the one point to the other by rail, as the iron chain is almost continuous now, and missing links are being rapidly completed.

Whichever capital he lands at, he will find a network of railways branching into the interior, and seated behind the locomotive he can visit places where a few years back the explorers perished! Only if he is very ambitious of sight-seeing need he have recourse to coach, horse, or the popular American--but acclimatised--buggy.

So far as the people are concerned, he will find that he is still in the old country. Traveller after traveller, Mr. Archibald Forbes and Lord Rosebery in turn, and a host of others, affirm that the typical Australian is apt to be more English than the Englishman. There is no aristocracy, it is true, and no National Church. Each state is a democracy pure and simple, under the English flag. But the Queen has nowhere more devoted and loyal subjects, and nowhere are the Churches more numerous, more active, and apparently more blessed in results. The traveller meets with English manners, English sympathies, and a frank hospitality which, the compilers of books and the deliverers of lectures affirm, is peculiar to Australia. But he finds the race amid novel surroundings, amid scenery whose peculiarity is vastness, with a distinctive vegetation unlike any other, with seasons which have little resemblance to those of the old country; and the occupations of the people, he discovers, are also often new. When a writer undertakes to sketch the scene, it must be his fault if he has nothing of interest to relate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORANDERRK STATION.]

CHAPTER II.

CONFIGURATION AND CLIMATE.

DIMENSIONS OF AUSTRALIA--MOUNT KOSCIUSKO--THE MURRAY RIVER SYSTEM--WIND LAWS--THE HOT WIND--INTENSE HEAT PERIODS--THE EARLY EXPLORERS--STURT'S EXPERIENCE--BLACKS AND BUSH FIRES--DROUGHTS--UNEXPLORED AUSTRALIA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GIANT GUM-TREE. [_See p. 196_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAILROAD THROUGH THE GIPPSLAND FOREST.]

It is not possible to understand Australia without a glance at the physical conditions of the continent. A good angel and a bad, an evil influence and a beneficial, are ever in contention in nature here. From the surrounding sea come cool and grateful clouds; from the heated interior come hot blasts, licking up life and absorbing the watery vapours which would otherwise fall as rain. Sea and land are ever in conflict.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JUNCTION OF MURRAY AND DARLING RIVERS.]

Australia measures from north to south 1700 miles, and from east to west 2400 miles--the total area being somewhat greater than that of the United States of America, and somewhat less than the whole of Europe.

The peculiarity is that all its mountain ranges worth taking notice of--all that are factors in the climate--are comparatively near the coast. Thus the main dip is rather inland than outward, and this formation is fatal to great rivers. An interior mountain chain such as the New Zealand Alps would have transformed the country. The enormous coast-line from Spencer's Gulf to King George's Sound is not broken by the mouth of any stream. Such rainfall as there is in this district must drain either into the sea by subterranean channels, or into the inland marshy depressions called Lake Eyre, Lake Gairdner, and Lake Amadeus, which are sometimes extremely shallow sheets of water, sometimes gra.s.sy plains, and sometimes desert. The best land is that between the various ranges and the sea, because there most rain falls. And the greatest of the ranges is that which runs from north to south along the east coast of the island, pa.s.sing through Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, and culminating in Mount Kosciusko, whose peak is 7120 feet high, and whose ravines always contain snow. Only at Kosciusko does snow lie all the year round in Australia, though the mountains near it, about 6000 feet high, are also almost always covered. To this range we owe the one river system at all worthy of the continent. The waters from the western side of the Queensland mountains--there called the Dividing Range--flow down the Warrego into the Darling. Here they are joined by the waters from the higher ranges of New South Wales and Victoria, called the Australian Alps. These waters have been brought down by the Murray, the Murrumbidgee, and the Goulburn, and the united floods fall into the sea, through Lake Alexandrina, between Melbourne and Adelaide.

On paper this river system shows well. The Darling has been navigated up to Walgett, which is 2345 miles from the sea, and this distance ent.i.tles the Australian stream to rank third among the rivers of the world, only the Mississippi and the Amazon coming before it. But the facts are not so good as they seem. The Darling depends upon flood waters. Sometimes these flood waters will come down in sufficient volume to enable the stream to run from end to end, and sometimes they fail half-way. The river is never open to navigation all the year round, and frequently it is not open to navigation from year's end to year's end. The occasional failure of the Darling for so long a period upsets all calculations. The colonists will take this stream and the river Murray in hand some day, and will lock both and preserve their storm waters, and the south-eastern corner of the continent will then have a grand river communication. Stores will then be sent up, and wool will be brought down with certainty, where now all is doubt and speculation. Commissions to consider the subject have been appointed both by the Victorian Government and the Government of New South Wales, and conferences are this year (1886) being held upon it and cognate subjects. Unhappily, there are no other streams in Australia that can be so dealt with, though it should be added that the last has not yet been heard of the rivers of Northern Australia. We are ignorant of their capacities, though a good guess can be made about them.

Taking Australia from east to west, we find a high range skirting the coast on the east, and supporting a dense sub-tropical vegetation, and giving rise to an extensive but uncertain river system. Next comes a more sterile interior, composed of desert, of shallow salt lakes, and of higher steppes in unknown proportions. Approaching the west coast we meet ranges again, and rivers and fertile country.

Mr. H. C. Russell, Government Astronomer for New South Wales, in his valuable pamphlet on the 'Physical Geography and Climate of New South Wales,' points out that 'if water flowed over the whole of the Australian continent, the trade wind would then blow steadily over the northern portions from the south-east, and above it the like steady return current would blow to the south-east, while the "brave west winds" and southerly would hold sway over the other half--conditions which now exist a short distance from the coast. Into this system Australia introduces an enormous disturbing element, of which the great interior plains form the most active agency in changing the directions of the wind currents. The interior, almost treeless and waterless, acts in summer like a great oven with more than tropical heating power, and becomes the great motor force on our winds, by causing an uprush, and consequent inrush on all sides, especially on the north-west, where it has power sufficient to draw the north-east trade over the equator, and into a north-west monsoon, in this way wholly obliterating the south-east trade belonging to the region, and bringing the monsoon with full force on to Australia, where, being warmed, and receiving fresh ma.s.ses of heated air, it rises and forms part of the great return current from the equator to the south.'

The 'hot winds' of the colonists are produced by the sinking down to the surface of the heated current of air, which in summer is continually pa.s.sing overhead; and when this wind blows in force upon a clear summer's day things are not pleasant. The thermometer from time to time indicates a degree of heat which is almost incredible. In Southern Melbourne the official record gives a reading of 179 degrees in the sun, and 111 in the shade, and at the inland town of Deniliquin, the official register in the shade is 121 degrees. Man and beast and vegetation suffer on these days. The birds drop dead from the trees, the fruit is scorched and rendered unfit for market. The leaves of the English trees, such as the plane and the elm, drop in profusion, so that in early summer it will seem as if autumn had set in. The sick, especially children, are terribly affected, and the doctors attending an infant sufferer will say that nothing can be done except to pray for a change of wind. Happily, such days as these are rare. The hot blast will not often send the temperature up to more than 100 to 105 degrees, and the duration of the heated wind is limited to three days, and often it prevails during only one, sunset bringing with it a cool southern gale.

A moderate hot wind is relished by many people, for the air is dry and even exhilarating to the strong for a while; and the claim is made that it destroys noxious germs and effluvia. Sometimes the hot wind will gradually die out, but on other occasions a rushing storm will come up from the south, driving the north wind before it, and in that case the welcome conflict will be preceded by whirling and blinding clouds of dust, and will be accompanied by thunder and lightning and torrents of rain. The fall of the temperature will be something marvellous. The thermometer will be standing at 150 in the sun; then the wind will change, rain will fall, and in the evening the register will be 50, making a difference of 100 degrees in seven or eight hours.

That these days are exceptional is shown by the manner in which vegetation generally flourishes, and by the admiration which each colonist has for the climate of that particular part of Australia in which he resides. 'The Swan Settlements,' says the Western Australian, 'are the pick of the country. No hot winds there.' At Adelaide the visitor is told: 'Yes, we are often hotter by ten degrees in the sun than they are in Melbourne, but ours is a dry, not a moist heat.' In Melbourne the tale is reversed: 'Sydney is muggy,' it is averred; 'you cannot stand that. A dry heat is the thing, but those poor beggars at Adelaide have it too hot altogether.'

No doubt many mistakes occurred in the descriptions of Australia given by the early explorers. Brave and intelligent as they were, they were 'new chums,' and certainly not born bushmen. Transplanted from a small island, continental features overpowered them. Forests which took weeks to traverse; plains, like the ocean, horizon-bounded; the vast length of our rivers when compared to those of England, often flowing immense distances without change or tributary--now all but dry for hundreds of miles, at other times flooding the countries on their banks to the extent of inland seas--wearied them. Then we know that our cloudless skies, the mirage, the long-sustained high range of the thermometer in the central portion of the continent, troubled them a good deal more than they do us, and helped to make them look on the dark side of things. Hence, as a rule, their reports were unfavourable.

Sturt's account of his detention at Depot Glen is enough to frighten anybody, and cannot be read to this day without emotion. Here, 'stuck up' by want of water, he dug an underground room, and he and his men pa.s.sed a terrible summer. The heat was sometimes as high as 130 degrees in the shade, and in the sun it was altogether intolerable. They were unable to write, as the ink dried at once on their pens; their combs split; their nails became brittle and readily broke; and if they touched a piece of metal it blistered their fingers. Month after month pa.s.sed without a shower of rain. Sometimes they watched the clouds gather, and they could hear the distant roll of thunder, but there fell not a drop to refresh the dry and dusty desert. The party began to grow thin and weak; Mr. Poole, the second in command, became ill with scurvy. At length, when the winter was approaching, a gentle shower moistened the plain; and preparations were being made to send the sick man quickly to the Darling, when Poole died, and the mournful cavalcade returned, leaving a grave in the wilderness. Yet this locality proved in time to be a very good sheep-run, differing in nothing from others around it; and eventually was found to be a gold-field, and was extensively worked.

Runs about the spot are commonly advertised in the Melbourne or Sydney papers as carrying immense flocks, and as valued with the stock at from 50,000 to 100,000. The explorer was, in fact, within a few miles of Cooper's Creek.

This process of conquering the interior is still going on. Man modifies all countries, and Australia is no exception to the rule. Even the blacks played their part, and it was a mischievous one. They had an instrument in their hands by which they influenced the whole course of nature. This was the fire-stick. With this implement the aborigines were constantly setting fire to the gra.s.s and trees, both accidentally and systematically, for hunting purposes, and probably in their day almost every part of New Holland was swept over by a fierce fire on an average once in five years. Hence the baked, calcined condition of the ground in many parts of the continent, the character of our vegetation, and the comparative scarcity of animal life. The eucalypts survived the fiery ordeal, because of the hardness of their bark; and, when every other creature perished, or had to abandon its litter, the marsupials leaped over the flames with their young in their pouches. Strange as the a.s.sertion may appear in the first instance, it may be doubted whether any section of the human race has exercised a greater influence on the physical condition of a large portion of the globe than the wandering savages of Australia. The white man is working in an entirely opposite direction. By clearing the forest he limits the area of the bush fire.

He constructs reservoirs, dams rivers, sinks wells in order to bring subterranean water to the surface, and irrigates land, so that a spot where even the hardiest scrub failed to grow in its natural state, is covered with luxuriant crops. Province after province has been rescued from the wilderness already, and the grand work is likely to go on.

Those who look at what has been done in the way of reclaiming territory in Australia will be in no hurry to set bounds as to what man is likely to perform.