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RAMBLES IN AUSTRALIA
RAMBLES IN AUSTRALIA
“ The books are not designed as guides. Up to a point they may be used as such. They are really very pleasant essays by writers who know their subjects, and they may be read with pleasure and instruction quite apart from their utilitarian value to the traveller. ”—Liverpool Courier. Rambles around French Châteaux. By FRANCES M. GOSTLING, Author of “The Bretons at Home.” With 5 Illustrations in Colour by L. Lelée and C. R. Andreae , 33 from Photographs, and a Map. Crown 8vo, 6s. Rambles about the
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MILLS & BOON’S RAMBLES SERIES
MILLS & BOON’S RAMBLES SERIES
Rambles with an American in Great Britain. By CHRISTIAN TEARLE, Author of “Holborn Hill.” With 21 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. Rambles in Norway. By HAROLD SIMPSON. With 8 Illustrations in Colour by Paul E. Ritter , and 32 from Photographs. Crown 8vo, 6s. Rambles in Florence. By G. E. TROUTBECK. With 8 Illustrations in Colour by Rose McAndrew , and 32 from Photographs. Crown 8vo, 6s. Rambles in Ireland. By ROBERT LYND, Author of “Home Life in Ireland.” With 5 Illustrations in Colour by Jack B.
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PREFACE
PREFACE
This little book aims at giving such general impressions of Australia as could be gleaned during a visit lasting from July into September, and including some time spent in each state. We have tried to convey some idea of the aspect of the country itself, with its brilliant sunshine, great plains and trackless forests; of the social atmosphere of warm-hearted hospitality; of its economic problems and democratic legislative experiments. These last are so essentially Australian, that it seemed impo
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PART I WESTERN AUSTRALIA
PART I WESTERN AUSTRALIA
MAP OF AUSTRALIA to illustrate “RAMBLES IN AUSTRALIA” George Philip & Son L td Mills & Boon L td...
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY: THE LAND OF THE UNLATCHED DOOR
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTORY: THE LAND OF THE UNLATCHED DOOR
Opposite to us was Australia. During the long days of the voyage across the bleak South Indian Ocean it had seemed no more than a vague area on a map, small, as all countries and even continents are, compared to the interminable stretches of the sea. But the voyage was ended now, and Australia, first no more than a blur on the horizon, and then solidifying into a shore with green trees, had now become resolved into an island with a lighthouse; and now into a harbour with wharves and quays and a
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CHAPTER II FIRST IMPRESSIONS
CHAPTER II FIRST IMPRESSIONS
It behoves visitors to Australia to realise that they will have a good many things to do for themselves that they have never done before, and that the conditions of travelling, for instance, are very different from those in Europe. To begin with, the station porter is absent, and everyone has to carry his own hand baggage, for in a country, where labour is very scarce and very highly paid, there are no loafers ready to scramble for odd jobs, even at a port. What cannot be carried ashore by the p
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CHAPTER III PERTH: A PARADISE FOR THE WORKING MAN
CHAPTER III PERTH: A PARADISE FOR THE WORKING MAN
The city of Perth is in a transition stage. Scattered over the low hills of the Swan River, its situation is magnificent, and its climate superb, but it is as yet only partly built, or rather it is undergoing the gradual process of rebuilding. As the municipality becomes more wealthy, handsome houses are replacing temporary structures, so that imposing white official buildings alternate with makeshift affairs hurriedly run up in earlier days, when need was urgent and money was scarce. Perth is,
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CHAPTER IV IN THE BUSH
CHAPTER IV IN THE BUSH
One great source of wealth to Western Australia are the karri forests, covering thousands of square miles. Karri is a kind of eucalyptus closely allied to the better-known jarrah, one of the hardest woods in existence. It has been used at home to pave the streets of London. In all but one respect karri is as good as jarrah, its only point of inferiority is that it cannot be employed for underground purposes, while jarrah can be left under water for twenty years without being any the worse for it
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CHAPTER V AGRICULTURE AND GOLD
CHAPTER V AGRICULTURE AND GOLD
It was the discovery of gold in West Australia that gave the first real impetus to the development of the state. In the earlier half of the nineteenth century the country was urgently in need of labour, and from 1843 onwards was glad to supply the deficiency by the importation of convicts. The convict system “assigned” people, as it was called, to the settlers to live upon their property and perform compulsory labour for them; the residue worked in “road gangs” or in Government penal settlements
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CHAPTER VI A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
CHAPTER VI A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA
In a poem written long ago by Bret Harte the opening of the Pacific Railroad which joined East to West was commemorated in an imagined dialogue between the engines that met midway on the track. Then Bret Harte went on to record the puffing phrases in which each engine described what it brought from the land of its base: the engine from the East, speaking of the shores where the Atlantic beats, and the broad lands of forest and of prairie; and the engine from the West rejoining that it brought to
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CHAPTER VII ADELAIDE
CHAPTER VII ADELAIDE
We had been warned to expect cold and rough weather, if anywhere, in the great Australian Bight, but like everything we had ever been told about Australian weather, the prophecy was fallacious. The Tuesday in August on which we sailed from Fremantle and the four following days of the voyage were fine, calm, and sunny. We skirted a coast bound by gneiss rocks, rounded, ground, and weather-worn to smoothness, with immense breakers dashing their foam up the face of the cliffs. Except the beautiful
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CHAPTER VIII COMPULSORY TRAINING AND SOCIAL LIFE IN ADELAIDE
CHAPTER VIII COMPULSORY TRAINING AND SOCIAL LIFE IN ADELAIDE
Adelaide, when we reached it, was like the rest of the Australian continent, celebrating the declaration of war by a tremendous outburst of patriotism; the whole place fluttered with little flags, Union Jacks were on every bicycle or cart or motor-car, loyal crowds were assembling at street corners. We in England have no conception of the depths of feeling that our fellow-countrymen in Australia have for “home.” It embraces all those who come out there on a visit, so that instead of strangers in
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CHAPTER IX COLLINS STREET—MELBOURNE
CHAPTER IX COLLINS STREET—MELBOURNE
On the day we reached Adelaide the train that took us from Port Adelaide to the city slipped by an encampment of tents, those of the naval division; and on the day we left Melbourne we saw the recruits for Australia’s first contingent swing past us along Collins Street. Splendid they looked: young and strong and confident. The cars and motor omnibuses bunched up by the pavement, and the people hung out of the windows to cheer as they went by. I remember I suddenly found myself without a hat and
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CHAPTER X SOCIAL LIFE IN MELBOURNE
CHAPTER X SOCIAL LIFE IN MELBOURNE
The country surrounding Melbourne was far more populous than anything we had yet seen. The land was very flat, and the plain was extremely bare, even denuded; there was hardly a tree to be seen on the great expanse; scattered over it were innumerable little yellow boulders, thousands of them. Sometimes they had been laboriously collected and heaped up to form walls. These are the recollections which the approach to the Victorian capital by railway from the west leaves in the mind. The entrance t
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CHAPTER XI BALLARAT
CHAPTER XI BALLARAT
Nobody has seen Australia who has not seen a goldfield, and though with a certain reluctance, for the way was long and the trains unprovided with restaurant cars, we decided to visit one from Melbourne, whence, as one counts distance in Australia, they were easily accessible. The choice seemed to lie between Bendigo and Ballarat; they were equal as far as we were concerned, but there was something about the name of Bendigo that expressed a smug prosperity, while Ballarat suggested something of t
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CHAPTER XII THE BLACK SPUR
CHAPTER XII THE BLACK SPUR
The Victorian bush is very beautiful owing to the immense tree-ferns that grow among the gums, and during our stay in Melbourne we were motored out to Black Spur, a favourite objective of Melbourne picnic and week-end parties, and a point of the “Great Divide,” as the Dividing Range of Australia is familiarly called. From Melbourne, which lies at the edge of a plain, the country rises to the great Dividing Range. This belt of highlands starts from Queensland, and separates the coastal drainage f
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CHAPTER XIII SYDNEY HARBOUR
CHAPTER XIII SYDNEY HARBOUR
When we were sailing from Batavia in Java to Colombo there was a New Yorker on board, who was buying rubber in anticipation of the needs of belligerents, and who knew most of the places in the world where rubber was to be raised or bought. His views on Australia we have forgotten, and his denunciation of the Indies, as places where the white resident must deteriorate, do not matter here. What we do recall is the dislike he expressed, as an Eastern American, for the pretensions of the West, espec
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CHAPTER XIV SYDNEY AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
CHAPTER XIV SYDNEY AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
The approach to Sydney by rail lies through wooded hills with beautiful views of dark ranges in the distance. It had been raining overnight, and everything was glistening in the early morning sun that lighted up the red shoots of the gum trees. Along the line were small encampments of workmen, who have to live under canvas to be within reach of their employment on the railway. We had been told that Sydney would be very hot, but our first impression was one of all-pervading moisture, for after th
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CHAPTER XV THE BLUE MOUNTAINS AND A BUSH PICNIC
CHAPTER XV THE BLUE MOUNTAINS AND A BUSH PICNIC
We had heard much of the famous Blue Mountains during our progress from West Australia to New South Wales and were anxious to visit them. In the early days they formed an impenetrable barrier between Sydney and the rich country beyond. Many vain and unsuccessful attempts were made to cross these labyrinthine ranges. Each successive line of heights is so like another, its eucalyptus-covered shoulders with the deep, blind gorges between, for long baffled and defied all attempts at exploration. The
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CHAPTER XVI BANANA-LAND
CHAPTER XVI BANANA-LAND
Those lines were written by an Australian in exile, for he was with the Australian contingent in the war in South Africa. He is dead now, and he did not long survive the brave soldiers whose epitaph he wrote beginning with those words, which seem, to one who has known Australia only a little, to sum up in a wonderful way the clinging memories of the land. He spoke too of the “blue skies clear beyond the mountain-tops,” and “the dear dun plains where we were bred,” and there are no two sentences
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CHAPTER XVII THE BEGINNING OF THE TROPICS
CHAPTER XVII THE BEGINNING OF THE TROPICS
Soon after crossing the Queensland border we entered a stony country in which intrepid settlers had built themselves houses among granite boulders. In spite of this the soil of the surrounding district is very rich, and consists largely of decomposed granite, which stretches for eight hundred miles round the township of Stanthorpe, and is specially good for fruit-growing and vineyards. “There,” observes the guide-book poetically, “roses bloom all the year round on the cheek of the young, and vig
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CHAPTER XVIII A DAY IN THE QUEENSLAND BUSH
CHAPTER XVIII A DAY IN THE QUEENSLAND BUSH
This was one of the most delightful of all the many crowded days we spent in Australia, for it revealed to us the wonder and the beauty of the Queensland Bush. We started early for the station through the streets that leave on one’s mind, looking back, an impression of sharply defined black and white, from the contrasting sunlight and shadow in that brilliant atmosphere. The three hours’ journey to Nambour, where we were to see a sugar manufactory, was full of interest. The line passes quite nea
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CHAPTER XIX IN AND ABOUT BRISBANE
CHAPTER XIX IN AND ABOUT BRISBANE
The Brisbane River, flowing gently between its green banks, is a favourite resort of picnic parties, one of the most popular forms of entertainment in Australia, where dry wood is abundant and the weather can be depended upon; and the party pride themselves on their skill in producing “billy” tea in the shortest possible space of time. One sunny afternoon we started up the river in a motor launch. On either shore were pretty suburban houses, each with its shady verandah, and palm trees in the ga
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CHAPTER XX THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
CHAPTER XX THE GREAT BARRIER REEF
We had already made acquaintance with the “Montoro” when she was unlading in Sydney Harbour, her final port of call, and we now spent on board three of the pleasantest weeks of our journey. There is a great sense of peace and cleanliness on a ship after long dusty travels. The “Montoro” was a small boat, less than 6000 tons, but remarkably well-appointed and arranged, our airy bedstead cabin was positively spacious, with the luxury of a large wardrobe and a full length looking-glass in its door.
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CHAPTER XXI THE NORTHERN TERRITORY
CHAPTER XXI THE NORTHERN TERRITORY
The Northern Territory is one of Australia’s many problems. How can the immense tract of rich and fertile country with its tropical northern area be cultivated, and its great resources developed, without the importation of coloured labour? The native black population, though they are useful and efficient with stock, are found to be unadapted for agriculture, and incapable of the steady methodical work essential to its success. The immigration of Chinese, who formerly were the market gardeners of
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