History of Australia and New Zealand Part 8

#5. Gloomy Prospects.#--Matters grew worse and worse, and those of the disappointed colonists who had sufficient prudence to start before their means were all exhausted either returned to Europe or sought the other colonies, where several achieved success--notably the brothers Henty, who settled at Launceston and established at Portland Bay the whaling station already mentioned. The gloomy reports of those who reached England prevented any further accession of immigrants, and in 1835 it was rumoured, though erroneously, that the British Government intended to abandon the place.

In the following year (1836) the colony of South Australia was founded; and a great extent of territory previously marked as belonging to West Australia was a.s.signed to the new settlement. These two colonies, during their early years, experienced trials and difficulties of the same kind; but while South Australia, in a short time, emerged to a career of brilliant prosperity through st.u.r.dy determination to make the land productive, West Australia for forty years never enjoyed more than a transitory gleam of success.

#6. Introduction of Convicts.#--This little improvement consisted of a message received from Earl Grey in 1848 asking the settlers if they were willing to accept convicts in their midst. The other colonies had refused them, but it was thought not unlikely that West Australia might be glad to get them. Opinions were divided as to the reply which ought to be given: while some were averse to the idea, others believed that the money sent out by the British Government to maintain the convicts and soldiers would originate a trade which might give to the colony new life and fresh prospects. These arguments prevailed, and in 1849 the first shipload of convicts arrived. From time to time new gangs were received, and the place began to be much more populous than before. The shopkeepers in Perth became rich, and the farmer squatters of the surrounding districts found a ready market for their produce. Yet this success was only partial; and there was nothing which might be said to const.i.tute general prosperity. In the little town of Fremantle, the few and scattered houses had still a rural aspect, and the streets echoed to the sound of no commercial bustle. In Perth the main street was still a gra.s.sy walk, shaded by avenues of trees, and even in the business quarter the houses stood each in the midst of its s.p.a.cious garden.

#7. Evils of Convictism.#--West Australia had now to suffer the consequences of having become a penal settlement. Many of the convicts, on being liberated, took up their abode in the colony; but their dispositions were seldom either amiable or virtuous, and from the vices of these men the whole population began to lose character in the eyes of other countries. A large number of the prisoners were no sooner liberated than they set off for the goldfields in the eastern colonies, which thus began to share in the evils of convictism. These colonies were not inclined to suffer long in this manner; and, to defend themselves, they refused admission to any person who came from West Australia, unless he could show that he had never been a convict. Thus the colony at Swan River was branded, and held to be contaminated; no free immigrants sought its sh.o.r.es, and many of its best inhabitants departed.

This stigma continued to rest on West Australia until the year 1868, when the transportation of criminals from Great Britain altogether ceased, and the colony no longer received its periodical supply of convicts. Since that time it has, in a great measure, retrieved its character; it is now doing what it can to attract free immigrants, and offers large tracts of pastoral land at low rentals, while the farming cla.s.ses are attracted by free selection at only ten shillings an acre, with ten years in which to pay it. It has joined Perth to Albany by a good railway, and several branch railways have been constructed, as well as a large number of telegraph lines; and at Albany, the town on King George's Sound, it has established a coaling depot for the mail steamers on their way to Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. But West Australia is still what it was called twenty years ago, "the giant skeleton of a colony," consisting of about forty thousand people, scattered over a hundred thousand square miles of territory, behind which stretches a vast region of unexplored wilderness. There is every indication, however, that its progress in the near future will be rapid. Up to 1870 it formed what was called a Crown colony: the people had no voice in their own government; their affairs were managed for them by the officers of the English Government. At that date, however, when transportation was abolished, the colony was promoted to the partial management of its own affairs, and the people began periodically to elect a Legislative Council. In 1890 it was still further promoted, being raised to the full dignity of an independent colony, having, like the other colonies of Australia, a Parliament of two Houses, with power to make and unmake its own laws as it pleases. Perth is now rapidly increasing, and the colony is on the eve of its palmy days.

CHAPTER XVI.

QUEENSLAND, 1823-1890.

#1. Moreton Bay.#--When Captain Cook, in 1770, sailed into the wide opening of Moreton Bay, several of his friends on board observed the sea to be paler than usual, and formed the opinion that, if a careful search were made along the sh.o.r.es, it would be found that a large river fell into the sea somewhere in the neighbourhood. Cook attached so little weight to this idea that he did not stay to make any examination; and when, about twenty years later, Captain Flinders surveyed the same bay, he saw no trace of a river, though he made special search for one.

But the reports of both these travellers were subsequently found to be erroneous; for, in 1823, when Governor Brisbane sent the discoverer Oxley, in the _Mermaid_, to select a place for a new convict station in the northern district of New South Wales, Moreton Bay was found to receive the waters of a large and important river. His success was, at least in part, due to accident. Among the blacks, on the sh.o.r.es of the bay, was a naked man, who was seen to be white. This man was taken on board. He had sailed in an open boat from Sydney, with three others, about a year before, but had been driven by gales out to sea and far to the north. They had landed and had been well received by the blacks. The rest had started to walk along the sh.o.r.e to Sydney, but one man, named Pamphlett, had remained with the natives; and it was he who now was rescued by Oxley, to whom he gave the information that, when roving inland with the tribe among whom he was living, he had seen a fine river of fresh water. Under the guidance of Pamphlett, Oxley left his little vessel in the bay, and with a boat entered upon the broad current of the stream. Before sunset he had ascended about twenty miles, and had been delighted by the richness of the scenery and the magnificence of the timber. On the following day he proceeded thirty miles farther up, and throughout the whole distance found the stream to be broad and of sufficient depth to be navigable for vessels of considerable size. Oxley was justly proud of his discovery, and wished to penetrate still farther into the forests that lay beyond; but his boat's crew had been so exhausted by their long row under a burning sun that he could go no farther, and found it necessary to turn and glide with the current down to his vessel, which he reached late on the fourth night. To the stream he had thus discovered he gave the name of the Brisbane River.

#2. Convict Station.#--On his return he recommended this district as a suitable position for the new convict station, and during the following year (1824) he was sent to form the settlement. With a small party, consisting of convicts and their guards, he landed at Redcliff, now known as Humpy Bong, a peninsula which juts out into Moreton Bay a few miles above the mouth of the Brisbane. Here the settlement remained for a few months, but afterwards it was moved twenty miles up the river to that pleasant bend which is now occupied by the city of Brisbane. Here, under Captain Logan, the first permanent commandant of the settlement, large stone barracks for the soldiers were erected, and lines of gaols and other buildings for the convicts. And in these for twelve or fourteen years the lonely community dwelt--about a thousand twice-convicted prisoners, and a party of soldiers and officials to keep them in order. No free person was allowed to approach within fifty miles of the settlement, unless with special permission, which was very sparingly granted. The place was a convict settlement of the harshest type; and stern were the measures of that relentless commandant, Captain Logan, who flogged and hanged the unfortunate people under his charge until he became hated with a deadly hatred. He was an active explorer, and did much to open up the interior country, till at length, on a trip in which he was accompanied only by some convicts, they glutted their vengeance by spearing him and battering his head with a native tomahawk.

#3. The Squatters.#--For thirteen years the settlement was not affected by anything that went on in that outside world from which it was so completely excluded. But in 1840 the onward progress of squatting enterprise brought free men with sheep and cattle close to Moreton Bay.

That fine district, discovered by Allan Cunningham in 1827, and called by him the Liverpool Plains, had almost immediately attracted squatters, who by degrees filled up the whole of the available land, and those who were either new-comers, or who found their flocks increasing too fast for the size of their runs, were forced to move outward, and, as a rule, northward. It was about the year 1840 that the pioneers entered that fine tableland district called by Allan Cunningham, in 1829, the Darling Downs, and when the year 1844 was ended there were at least forty squatters over the Queensland borders, with nearly 200,000 sheep and 60,000 cattle, and with many hundreds of shepherds and stockmen to attend them.

#4. A Free Settlement.#--Whilst the squatters were gathering all round, a change took place at Brisbane itself. We have seen that about 1840 the English Government had resolved to discontinue transportation, except to Van Diemen's Land. The word, therefore, went forth that Brisbane was no longer to be a place of exile for criminals. It was to be the home of free men and the capital of a new district. In 1841 Governor Sir George Gipps arrived from Sydney, and laid out the plan of what is now a handsome city. Blocks of land were offered for sale to free settlers, and eagerly bought. The Governor also laid out a little town, now called Ipswich, farther inland. Meanwhile the township of Drayton, and that which is now much larger, Toowoomba, began to gather round two wayside inns established for the convenience of travellers. Captain Wickham was sent up to a.s.sume the position of Superintendent of Moreton Bay, which thus became practically a new colony, just as Port Phillip was in the south, though both were then regarded as only districts of New South Wales.

#5. The Natives.#--In these early years the squatters of the district were scattered, at wide intervals, throughout a great extent of country, and, being in the midst of native tribes who were not only numerous but of a peculiarly hostile disposition, they often found themselves in a very precarious situation. The blacks swarmed on the runs, killing the sheep, and stealing the property of the squatters, who had many annoyances to suffer and injuries to guard against. But their retaliation oftentimes exhibited a ferocity and inhumanity almost incredible in civilised men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BOOMERANGS, OR KYLIES.]

The Government troopers showed little compunction in destroying scores of natives, and, strange to say, the most inhuman atrocities were committed by blacks, who were employed to act as troopers. On one occasion, after the murder of a white man by two blacks, a band of troopers, in the dead of night, stealthily surrounded the tribe to which the murderers belonged, whilst it was holding a corrobboree, and, at a given signal, fired a volley into the midst of the dancing crowd--a blind and ruthless revenge, from which, however, the two murderers escaped. On another occasion the shepherds and hutkeepers out on a lonely plain had begun to grow afraid of the troublesome tribes in the neighbourhood, and cunningly made them a present of flour, in which white a.r.s.enic had been mixed. Half a tribe might then have been seen writhing and howling in the agony of this frightful poison till death relieved them. On such occasions the black tribes took a terrible revenge when they could, and so the hatred of black for white and white for black became stronger and deadlier.

#6. Separation.#--In less than five years after the removal of convicts the district began to agitate for separation from New South Wales; and, in 1851, a pet.i.tion was sent to the Queen, urging the right of Moreton Bay to receive the same concession as had, in that year, been made to Port Phillip. On this occasion their request was not granted, but, on being renewed about three years later, it met with a very favourable reception; and, in the following year, an Act was pa.s.sed by the Imperial Parliament giving to the British Government power to const.i.tute the new colony. Again, as in the case of Port Phillip, delays occurred; and, in 1856, a change of Ministry caused the matter to be almost forgotten. It was not until the year 1859 that the territory to the north of the twenty-ninth parallel of lat.i.tude was proclaimed a separate colony, under the t.i.tle of QUEENSLAND.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PARLIAMENT HOUSE, BRISBANE.]

In the December of that year Sir George F. Bowen, the first Governor, arrived; and the little town of Brisbane, with its 7,000 inhabitants, was raised to the dignity of being a capital, the seat of government of a territory containing more than 670,000 square miles, though inhabited by only 25,000 persons. A few months later Queensland received its Const.i.tution, which differed but little from that of New South Wales.

There were established two Houses of Legislature, one consisting of members nominated by the Governor, and the other elected by the people.

#7. Gold.#--In 1858 it was reported that gold had been discovered far to the north, on the banks of the Fitzroy River, and in a short time many vessels arrived in Keppel Bay, their holds and decks crowded with men, who eagerly landed and hastened to Canoona, a place about sixty or seventy miles up the river. Ere long there were about fifteen thousand diggers on the scene; but it was soon discovered that the gold was confined to a very small area, and by no means plentiful; and those who had spent all their money in getting to the place were in a wretched plight. A large population had been hurriedly gathered in an isolated region, without provisions, or the possibility of obtaining them; their expectations of the goldfield had been disappointed, and for some time the Fitzroy River was one great scene of misery and starvation till the Governments of New South Wales and Victoria sent vessels to convey the unfortunate diggers away from the place. Some, however, in the extremity of the famine, had selected portions of the fertile land on the banks of the river, and had begun to cultivate them as farms. They were pleased with the district, and, having settled down on their land, founded what is now the thriving city of Rockhampton.

A great amount of success, however, attended a subsequent effort in 1867. The Government of Queensland offered rewards, varying from two hundred to a thousand pounds, for the discovery of paying goldfields.

The result was that during the course of the next two or three years many districts were opened up to the miner. Towards the end of 1867 a man named Nash, who had been wandering in an idle way over the country, found an auriferous region of great extent at Gympie, about 130 miles from Brisbane. He concealed his discovery for a time, and set to work to collect as much of the gold as possible, before attracting others to the spot. In the course of a day or two he gathered several hundred pounds worth of gold, being, however, often disturbed in his operations by the approach of travellers on the adjacent road, when he had to crouch among the bushes, until the footsteps died away and he could again pursue his solitary task. After some time it seemed impossible to avoid discovery; and lest any one should forestall him in making known the district, he entered Maryborough, not far away, announced his discovery, and received the reward. A rush took place to the Gympie, which was found to be exceedingly rich, and it was not long before a nugget worth about four thousand pounds was met with close to the surface.

Far to the north, on the Palmer River, a tributary of the Mitch.e.l.l, there have been discovered rich goldfields, where, in spite of the great heat and dangers from the blacks, there are crowds of diggers at work.

Many thousands of Chinamen have settled down in the district, and to these the natives seem to have a special antipathy, as they spear them on every possible occasion.

But all the stories which Australia offers of gold-digging romance are eclipsed by that of the Mount Morgan Mine. Near Rockhampton, and in the midst of that very district to which the diggers had rushed in 1858, but in which they had starved through being unable to find gold, a young squatter bought from the Government of Queensland a selection of 640 acres. It was on a rocky hill, so barren that he considered it useless, and was glad to sell it for 640 to three brothers of the name of Morgan. These gentlemen were lucky enough to find out that the dirty grey rocks of which the hill was composed were very richly mixed with gold, so that twenty or thirty pounds worth of gold could be got by crushing and washing every cart-load of rock. They immediately set to work, and before long showed that they were the possessors of the richest gold mine in the world. A year or two later the hill was sold at a price equivalent to eight millions of pounds, and it is now reckoned that it contains gold to the value of at least double that sum. What a strange adventure for the man who owned it and reckoned it worth almost nothing!

#8. Cotton.#--Throughout most of the colony the climate is either tropical or semi-tropical, and it is therefore, in its more fertile parts, well suited to the growth of cotton and sugar. About the year 1861 the cultivation of the cotton plant was commenced on a small scale; but, although the plantations were found to thrive, yet the high rate of wages which prevailed in Queensland, and the low price of cotton in Europe, caused the first attempts to be very unprofitable.

Matters were changed, however, in 1863, for then a great civil war was raging in America; and as the people of the Southern States were prevented, by the long chain of blockading vessels stationed by the Northern States along their coasts, from sending their cotton to Europe, there was a great scarcity of cotton in England, and its price rose to be exceedingly high. This was a favourable opportunity for Queensland.

The plantations were, of course, still as expensive as ever, but the handsome prices obtained for the cotton not only covered this great expense, but also left considerable profits. The cultivation of the sugar cane was introduced in 1865, and, after a few years had pa.s.sed away, great fields of waving cane were to be seen in various parts of the country, growing ripe and juicy beneath the tropical sun.

#9. Polynesian Labour.#--The prices of cotton and sugar remained high for some years; but when the American Civil War was over they fell to their former rates, and the planters of Queensland found it necessary to obtain some cheaper subst.i.tute for their white labourers. At first it was proposed to bring over Hindoos from India, but nothing came of this idea; and afterwards, when Chinese were introduced, they were not found to give the satisfaction expected. But it happened that one of the planters, named Robert Towns, was the owner of a number of ships which traded to the South Sea Islands, and having persuaded a few of the islanders to cross to Queensland, he employed them on his sugar plantation. He took some little trouble in teaching them the work he wished them to do, and found that they soon became expert at it. As the remuneration they required was very small, they served admirably to supply the necessary cheap labour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VICTORIA BRIDGE, BRISBANE.]

The practice of employing these South Sea Islanders, or "Kanakas," as they were called, soon became general, and parts of Queensland had all the appearance of the American plantations, where crowds of dusky figures, decked in the brightest of colours, plied their labours with laughter and with song, among the tall cane brakes or the bursting pods of cotton. The "Kanakas" generally worked for a year or two in the colony, then, having received a bundle of goods--consisting of cloth, knives, hatchets, beads, and so forth, to the value of about 10--they were again conveyed to their palm-clad islands. A system of this kind was apt to give rise to abuses, and it was found that a few of the more unscrupulous planters, not content with the ordinary profits, stooped to the shameful meanness of cheating the poor islander out of his hard-earned reward. They hurried him on board a vessel, and sent after him a parcel containing a few shillings worth of property; then, when he reached his home, he found that all his toil and his years of absence from his friends had procured him only so much trash.

Happily, this was not of very frequent occurrence; but there was another abuse both common and glaring. As the plantations in Queensland increased, they required more labourers than were willing to leave their homes in the South Sea Islands; and, as the captains of vessels were paid by the planters a certain sum of money for every "Kanaka" they brought over, there was a strong temptation to carry off the natives by force, when, by other means, a sufficient number could not be obtained.

There were frequent conflicts between the crews of labour vessels and the inhabitants of the islands. The white men burnt the native villages, and carried off crowds of men and women; while, in revenge, the islanders often surprised a vessel and ma.s.sacred its crew; and in such cases the innocent suffered for the guilty. The sailors often had the baseness to disguise themselves as missionaries, in order the more easily to effect their purpose; and when the true missionaries, suspecting nothing, approached the natives on their errand of good will, they were speared or clubbed to death by the unfortunate islanders. But, as a rule, the "Kanakas" were themselves the sufferers; the English vessels pursued their frail canoes, ran them down, and sank them; then, while struggling in the sea, the men were seized and thrust into the hold, and the hatches were fastened down. When in this dastardly manner a sufficient number had been gathered together, and the dark interior of the ship was filled with a steaming ma.s.s of human beings densely huddled together, the captains set sail for Queensland, where they landed those of their living cargoes who had escaped the deadly pestilence which filth and confinement always engendered in such cases.

#10. Polynesian Labourers' Act.#--These were the deeds of a few ruthless and disreputable seamen; but the people of Queensland, as a whole, had no sympathy with such barbarities, and in 1868 a law was pa.s.sed to regulate the labour traffic. It enacted that no South Sea Islanders were to be brought into the colony unless the captain of the vessel could show a doc.u.ment, signed by a missionary or British consul, stating that they had left the islands of their own free will; Government agents were to accompany every vessel, in order to see that the "Kanakas" were well treated on the voyage; and, on leaving the colony, no labourer was to receive less than six pounds worth of goods for every year he had worked.

These regulations were of great use, but they were often evaded; for, by giving a present to the king of an island, the sailors could bribe him to force his people to express their willingness before the missionary.

The trembling men were brought forward, and, under the fear of their chief's revenge, declared their perfect readiness to sail. Sometimes the Government agents on board the vessels were bribed not to report the misdeeds of the sailors; and in the case of the _Jason_, on which the agent was too honest to be so bribed, he was chained below by the captain, on the pretence that he was mad. When the ship arrived in Queensland, the unfortunate man was found in a most miserable state of filth and starvation. For this offence the captain was arrested, tried, and imprisoned. Whatever regulations may be made, a traffic of this sort will occasionally have its dark and ugly features, yet it may be truly enough said that while the "Kanakas" have been of great service to Queensland, the colony has also been of service to them. The islanders are generally glad to be taken; they have better food and easier lives on the plantations than they have in their homes; they gather a trunkful of property such as pa.s.ses for great wealth in the islands, and when they are sent home, after two years' absence, to their palms and coral sh.o.r.es, it is in full costume, generally in excellent spirits, and always more or less civilised. Sometimes, poor fellows, they are stripped and plundered by their naked relatives, but at any rate they help, by what they have learnt, to improve the style of life in those native groves, so sunny but so full of superst.i.tion and barbarous rites.

#11. Present State of the Colony.#--In 1868 Sir George Bowen was sent to govern New Zealand, and Governor Blackall took charge of affairs in Queensland. He was a man of fine talents, and amiable character, and was greatly respected by the colonists; but he died not long after his arrival, and was succeeded by the Marquis of Normanby, who, in his turn, was succeeded, in 1874, by Mr. Cairns. Sir Arthur Kennedy, in 1877, Sir Anthony Musgrave, in 1883, Sir Arthur Hunter Palmer, in 1888, and General Sir H. Wylie Norman bring the list of Governors to the present year (1894).

Queensland possesses magnificent resources, which have only recently been made known, and are now in process of development. Her exports of gold exceed two million pounds a year; she produces large quant.i.ties of tin, copper, silver, and other minerals. The wool clipped from her sheep exceeds one million four hundred thousand pounds in annual value; and her total exports, including cotton, sugar, and other tropical productions, amount to about six million pounds per annum. The population is now about half a million, and immigrants continue to arrive at the rate of about sixteen thousand a year. Though the youngest of the Australian colonies, Queensland now ranks fourth on the list, and appears to have a most promising future before her. Her cotton industry has almost vanished, and her sugar plantations have pa.s.sed through troublous times, but there seem to be good hopes for them in the future.

However, it will be in the raising of sheep and of cattle, as well as in gold-mining, that the colony will have to look for her most permanent resources. She has now nearly twenty million sheep and six million cattle, and sends wool, tallow, hides, and frozen meat to England, while she supplies prime bullocks for the Melbourne Market.

#12. The Aborigines.#--Australian history practically begins with the arrival of the white man, for before that time, though tribe fought with tribe and there were many doings of savage men, there is nothing that could be told as a general story. Each tribe of from twenty to a couple of hundred dusky forms wandered over the land, seeking animals to hunt and fresh water to drink. They were very thinly spread, not more than one person to ten square miles, yet every little tribe was at deadly feud with its neighbour.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, BRISBANE.]

The tribe wandered over the gra.s.sy and park-like lands, the men stalking ahead with spears and boomerang in hand; the women trudging behind loaded with babies, and utensils. At evening they camp and the men put up frail break-winds, consisting of a few branches and leafy tufts; behind this on the sheltered side a few leaves made a bed. Meantime the fire was lit close by, and soon a dozen little columns of blue smoke curl up among the trees. The opossum, or duck, or wallaby is soon cooked or half-cooked; the men devour as much as they want and pa.s.s on the remains to the women and children. A frog or two and a lizard, or a few grubs taken out of decayed timber, or perhaps a few roots that have been dug up on the march by the women, form a sort of dessert. After dusk there is the sound of chatter round the fires; then all retire to rest, with the glowing embers of the fires to give them warmth. At daybreak all are awake. If there is food at hand they may stay in the same camp for weeks together, but if not they journey on.

Each man had as many wives as he could obtain. He did not support them, but they supported him, and when children became too numerous he lessened his family by killing off a few. More than half the children were thus destroyed. Their enjoyments consisted of games with a kind of ball, and mock-fights, but especially in a wild dance they called the corrobboree. They were in general good-humoured when things went pleasantly; but a man would spear his wife through the leg or dash his child's brains out readily enough when things were not to his taste, and n.o.body would think any the worse of him for it.