TASMANIA.
I made two trips to Tasmania, one of them being from Melbourne to Hobart. On one of these trips the sea was as smooth as glass, and looking in the water you could see the reflection of trees and islets as if looking in a mirror. On another trip, however, it was so rough that all passengers had to be kept below, and a fourteen-knot boat, when it did not go backwards, seldom made more than four knots. So much for the moods in which you may find Bass Straits. When Bass Straits are amiable, the time taken from Melbourne to Launceston is usually about twenty-four hours. You commence the journey by going down the tortuous muddy Yarra. As I have before remarked, there are some people who say that this river smells. The only things of particular interest which I remember passing were two steamers which had just arrived with tea from China. Both of them had seen bad weather, especially one called theAirlie, which had lost her boats and all her live-stock. When we saw her she looked pretty much like a ship that had been through a naval engagement. A fellow-passenger told a friend of mine that these ships carried Chinamen as sailors. The captainand the officers dressed in white—white coat, white pants, white hats and white shoes. They talked Chinese. He had heard them saying ‘Chop chop.’ That’s Chinese for ‘Hurry up,’ you know.
At the entrance to Port Phillip, into which the Yarra empties itself, there are fortifications and a lighthouse. Until quite recently, on account of the fear of Russians, these lights were extinguished. When we returned from Launceston in a little boat called thePateena, we had to heave to at this point, until we had satisfied the officers of a steam-launch that we were not Russians in disguise.
Amongst our passengers there were, as usual, one or two celebrities. There were illiterate millionaires travelling for business, and young Oxonian millionaires travelling for pleasure. One man was pointed out to me as being worth from £150 to £200 per day; another man was a bagman carrying samples of theAirlie’stea. The most remarkable man with whom I conversed was the heaviest man in the colonies. His name is Jennings, he is a native of Tasmania, weighs thirty-three stone, and belongs to a group of stout Tasmanians known as ‘Our Boys.’ He had been on a trip to Victoria and New South Wales, and being a distinguished personage, had been presented with ‘free passes’ for the colonial railways. In other countries he would have paid double. Not being able to go in an ordinary cabin, he had engaged the ladies’ saloon, where he had a bed made up on the floor; when once in bed he told me that he could not turn over, and ‘these ship stewards don’t understand me, you know,’ he remarked.
After dinner I spent some time in the smoking-room, where a young gentleman, who was completing his education by voyaging round the world, entertained an audience by accounts of his own adventures and the idiosyncrasies of his friends.
In the Red Sea he and his companions had nearly succumbed to the intense heat. The perspiration ran from them until they both got wet, and pools of water formed by the drippings from their chins.The playing cards were actually sticky.‘I brought five guns with me,’ said the young gentleman, ‘and in India I shot seven elephants in one day.’ ‘Seventeen,’ he means, whispered my neighbour, who gave me a nudge. After this we were entertained by a long story about one of the young gentleman’s friends, whom he described as being ‘awfully hard.’ ‘You couldn’t knock “the hard” out of him. He was the hardest fellow he ever knew. Somehow or other he was always down on his luck. Once he was lost in the bush for five days. When he got back to his station, all his cattle had died. Then he went to sea for five years, going round the world ten times. This set him up with money to start another station. The cattle again died.’ ‘Did he go to sea for five years more?’ I asked. ‘Oh no, he didn’t go to sea again; he used to make wagers with fellows that he would drink a cask of beer and nibble up the staves of wood as he went on. They weren’t large casks, you know. His great aunt died the other day and left him £60,000 a year. He was awfully hard, don’tchyerknow.’
Another gentleman, who had a long tawny moustache, told us that he knew Tasmania better than anyother man. He said that he had been collecting notes for the last twenty-five years for a book he was writing on Tasmania, and the style in which he wrote was like that of Artemus Ward.
About this time, there being a change in the amplitude and period of the ship’s movements, I decided on bed. I was glad that I had done this, as I afterwards found my health was not altogether reliable.
Early next morning we were steaming up the waters of the lovely Tamar. The river is fully a mile in width, and is bounded with big bays, clumps of trees, and hills on either side. The reflections in the water were so clear, that a photograph of what we saw must have been a double picture. Here and there along the hills there were lines of clouds, while at the extremities of the bays there were banks of mist. It is partly owing to these misty Scotch mornings, which kill off the weakly ones, that the British race exists. I was told by one passenger that the trees were red gums, blue gums, and wattles. A second passenger said they were blue gums, red gums, and wattles. A third said they were wattles, red gums, and blue gums. I gradually learnt how many names I required on which to ring the changes when describing the Tasmanian flora.
Launceston, which is forty miles up this river, is a clean, quiet, nice little town. From a distance you see several spires of churches, some tall chimneys belonging to the tin-smelting works, some saw mills, and a lot of houses, the whole being surrounded by high hills. On one side of the town is the river Esk, flowing down a rocky gorge from the Cora Linn. I went to see this, and was very much struck with the picturesqueness ofthe wild and rocky canon-like gorge through which the river flows.
The streets of the town are wide, and contain many good shops. Victorians call Tasmania ‘sleepy hollow.’ I cannot say that Launceston was particularly sleepy in its appearance. It was certainly quiet, but in the leading streets there was always a comfortable amount of traffic visible.
During the last two years Launceston and northern Tasmania have been much disturbed with small earthquakes. Many of these have been sufficient to produce slight cracks in walls, and to disturb stone ornaments on the parapets of buildings. One small minaret, like a spire on a church tower, had been partly twisted round. The origin of these disturbances is supposed to be near the eastern entrance to Bass Strait.
I suffered from toothache when I was in Launceston, and was in consequence led to make inquiries about dentistry. ‘Speaking of teeth,’ said a gentleman at the club, ‘we have a dentist in this town who will whip spots out of all the tooth carpenters in creation. He came here about two years ago, and set up as a locksmith and general mechanic. Everybody said he was pretty clever, but somehow or other he didn’t succeed as he ought to have done. The only work he could get when he first came was to mend sewing machines, and now and then a bicycle. But it is an ill wind that blows no one any luck. Fergusson, the manager of the Bank of Van Diemen’s Land (that’s a name we hate, you know), was taking a walk one afternoon near thebeach, when he suddenly found a sack over his head, and, before he could turn round or shout for help, he was tied to a tree and gagged. The ruffians then took his keys, went down to the bank, and helped themselves. Of course there was a lot of talk about the affair, and the newspapers said that bank-managers who had only one key to their safes ought to be held responsible for any loss which might occur. The result of all this was that Johnson got the job of altering a lot of safes, so that they could only be opened by two keys. Next he got railway work. After this he started electric bells. The electrical business—which he does very well, mind ye, and, if you want electrical bells, you can’t do better than go to Johnson—seems to have started him off in a new line. You have heard, no doubt, of Pulvermacher’s electrical belts, which are made of bits of magnets wrapped up in flannel. They say it’s the magnetism that works the cure, but I think it’s the flannel. Johnson had an idea that electricity was the thing, and if you could get from time to time a gentle current passed through your system it might be exceedingly beneficial. That electrical currents work cures for rheumatism and other diseases is demonstrated every day in hospitals throughout the world. The problem which Johnson set himself was how to get a current passed through a man without using a machine or a battery—the man must make his own current. At every meal a man took in a certain quantity of food which, like fuel, gives out heat. Instead of converting the whole of the food into tissue and heat, Johnson wanted to convert a bit of it into electricity; and he solved the problem splendidly.’
‘And how did he do it?’ I inquired.
‘Well, when a man takes his food, there is always a certain amount of salt and acid in his mouth, you know. Now Johnson thought that if a man had his upper row of teeth made of copper, and the lower ones made of zinc, a regular battery might be established.’
‘And has he ever tried it?’ I asked.
‘Tried it indeed! He’s tried it in all shapes you could think about, and, what is more, he has taken a patent out for the arrangement. In a prospectus he issued, he called it “The New Dentistry, the Curer of all Diseases and the Improver of the Mind.” Battery teeth were guaranteed to strengthen the whole muscular system, restore long-lost complexions, cure headaches, and to rouse into activity the whole physical action of the human frame. He began with his shop-boy. First he stopped some holes in his uppers with copper, and then corresponding holes, which he bored in the lowers, with zinc. The boy was originally one of those stupid fat-faced youths, without a sequence of ideas in his head. After the new stopping was in, it was generally remarked that he had suddenly become intelligent. As this was so successful, Johnson next experimented by respectively replacing two of his uppers and two of his lowers with zinc and copper. The effect was astounding. Every time the boy closed his mouth and made contact, his countenance would light up with a preternatural glow of intelligence, and he would look at you as if he was reading your inmost thoughts. When he opened his mouth, of course the contact was broken, and the expression of wisdom would be suddenly replaced by the old look of stupidity.
‘Lots of us used to go round to see Johnson’s boy make and break contact, or, as he called it, turning on the intellect.
‘One thing which was very remarkable, was the boy’s behaviour when, after lying all night with his mouth shut and the current running, he first got up in the morning. He seemed to be so full of spirits, that until he had had a run round the town with his mouth open there was no restraining him. Johnson was delighted, and to determine the limits to which the experiment might be carried, he pulled out all the boy’s teeth, and set him up with his copper and zinc arrangement.
‘The results were more remarkable than ever. Day by day the boy’s brains got bigger and bigger, until at last his intellect became perfectly gigantic. When the current was on, one great hobby he took to was to write poetry, for all of which Johnson secured the copyright. At times, when he had his teeth arranged in series, the current was so intense that Johnson was afraid to let him sleep, unless he had a wooden plug in his mouth just to keep the circuit open.
‘Johnson, however, lost him at last. One night he and the boy were having pickled salmon for supper (one of those salmon which have thriven so well in the rivers, you know), when all of a sudden the boy jumped up with a yell and bolted out of the door. Johnson was after him, but it was no use—off he went along the road towards Hobart. Some people who saw him said that his eyes were lighted up like two electric lamps, and sparks were flying out all over him. Several search-parties went out to look for him, but without success. In the inquiry which followed his disappearance, itturned out that Johnson had forgotten to put his teeth into parallel circuit, which, as he admitted, was the only way in which persons with metallic teeth ought to sit down to pickled salmon.’
‘And has there never been any trace of him discovered?’ I asked.
‘Well, there has been no decided trace, but a fellow who read a paper the other evening at the Mechanics, attributed the electrical state of our atmosphere to the proximity of Johnson’s boy; and one man who spoke said that he might be the cause of the red sunsets we have been having. When folks don’t understand a thing properly they always put it down to electricity. You ought to go round to Johnson and get him to put some of his patent stopping into your teeth. It’ll cure the toothache, and give you an imagination. My teeth were stopped by Johnson.’
I inquired about Johnson, and from what I heard he was a remarkable man. I, however, should rather recommend him as a mechanist than as a dentist.
Now for a few facts I cribbed out of a book. Tasmania was discovered in 1642, by Van Tasman. At first it was called Van Diemen’s Land. It fell into the possession of the English in 1803, and for many years was used as a station for convicts. For the next twenty years it appears to have been governed by military orders. There is a remarkable novel on convict life in Tasmania, called ‘For the Term of His Natural Life,’ by Marcus Clarke. Those who wish to know how brutal and tyrannical Englishmen may have been, cannot do better than read Clarke’s depiction of early times nearHobart. I do not suppose that all that is related in this book is absolutely true, but from documents which I had shown to me when in Tasmania, from what I heard, and from the testimony of official records to which Marcus Clarke refers, it would appear that many of the incidents referred to are by no means pure invention. To many ladies, and to those who are easily affected by the descriptions of the trials and misery of others, I would say, Do not read ‘His Natural Life.’
For many years the aborigines gave considerable trouble to the settlers. The last of them died in 1876. In early times many of them were shot, but after they had been subjugated, they rapidly died off whilst undergoing the process of civilization. Tasmania is a hilly country, having several mountains over 4,000 feet in height, and one, Ben Lomond, is 5,000 feet. Between the mountains there are many picturesque lakes, and round the coast there are several large harbours, some of which, like Hobart, are not only commodious, but extremely beautiful. The climate is on the whole mild. In the mountains it is cold in winter, but the mildness of the summer attracts many visitors from Victoria.
In the woods there are a number of animals, which are chiefly marsupial. Amongst them are the kangaroo, wallaby, native devil, wombat, platypus, the opossum, etc. There are also a number of snakes and lizards. The flora, like the fauna, is very similar to that of Victoria.
The animal on which Tasmanians pride themselves is the duck-billed mole, more commonly known as the ornithorhynchus or platypus. This is a fierce little animal about twelve inches long. Its body is like amole, while its head is like that of a duck. A very good picture of this interesting creature may be seen on some of the Tasmanian postage stamps. Not long ago it was discovered that this extraordinary combination of bird and mammal laid eggs. Their nests are usually situated in the topmost branches of the highest trees. The eggs, when boiled hard, are said to be delicious, whilst the animal itself, when stuffed with sage and roasted, is fit to place before Lucullus. The plural of platypus is platypuses, platypi, or platypodes. This interesting little animal is also found on the adjoining continent.
While at Launceston I spent an evening visiting the Smelting Works. The tin-ore which is treated at these works comes from Mount Bischoff, one of the largest and most famous tin mines in the world. The process of smelting is apparently very simple. The ore is mixed with about one-fifth its weight of powdered coal, and then put into a reverberatory furnace for about eight hours. To purify the tin after it is drawn off from this furnace it is kept liquid in a large iron caldron, fixed at the bottom of which there is a piece of green wood. The green wood, as it is charred in the bath of molten tin, gives off gas which rises in bubbles to the surface of the metal. This gas oxidizes the impurities, which float up as a scum that can be easily removed. After this the tin is cast into brick-like blocks, which are carefully stored until the price of tin has risen sufficiently high to yield a profit to those who own the works.
The manager of the works is a nice old gentleman with grey hair. To look at, you would think he was made of good-nature and solid facts. He has a lot of fun in him, however—not common fun, but deep fun. The jokes he made you had to crack for yourself—about a week afterwards. When he showed me the works I can honestly say that I saw nothing even with a veneer of fun upon it. I felt I was getting solid facts, and it was only about two months afterwards that I discovered that I had really been looking on and listening to something which was exceedingly funny. He showed me a chimney at the end of a furnace with a little hole at the bottom of it. ‘Draw out the plug, Jim,’ said he to a workman, ‘and let the gentleman look at the flames and feel the draught.’ One by one we peered into the little hole and looked at the dazzling white flame, and felt the inrush of the air. ‘Be careful, be careful,’ said the old gentleman; ‘that draught is something tremendous. Once a man put his hand to the hole and it was stuck fast like a sucker on a stone. Before we could get him loose we had to draw the charge and extinguish the fire. This made us very careful. When we first started smelting we had the chimney forty feet higher, and then therewasa draught. My eye, how it roared! The first charge of ore we put in the furnace disappeared right up the chimney. The directors told us it wouldn’t do, and the shareholders said that letting all their ore fly up the chimney was bad management, so we cut it down twenty feet. After this the furnace worked all right, but the things that happened round about it were quite mysterious. Things took to disappearing. First a lot of coal was lost, next the workmen lost theirtools, after that there were several complaints made to the office that clothes had been stolen. Finally, visitors to the works began to complain, and some of them sent in polite notes saying that they had accidentally left some of their belongings behind them, and asked us to be kind enough to send them back. One had lost his umbrella, another a dog, a third his watch-chain.
‘It was clear that robbery was going on, but how to catch the culprits was the difficulty. One suggestion was to mark a lot of things, and lay them about the works. The expense that followed the suggestion nearly broke us. First we marked a few bank-notes, but these went so quickly that we took to marking clothes. After that we marked walking sticks, and finally some pigs of iron. But the whole lot went, and where they went to nobody could tell.
‘The end of it all was that the directors called in the police to watch the place. Next morning, for it was only at night we run the furnace, you know, down came the police to the office, saying that if they stayed at our works they would soon be bankrupt; several of them had lost their truncheons, one his pocket-handkerchief, and another his coat-tails.’
‘And how did it all finish?’ I asked.
‘Well, it finished by a detective coming down.’
‘And did you lose the detective?’ I inquired.
‘No, we didn’t lose the detective; but if that hole’—and he pointed with his stick at the hole through which we had been peering—‘had been three inches bigger we might have had to have advertised for him. When we saw him stuck to that wall like a sucker to a stone, we knew where all the lost property had gone.’
‘Of course you had to draw the charge and extinguish the fire before you got him loose,’ I remarked.
‘Take a drink,’ said the narrator. ‘One fact that proves the truth of history is that it repeats itself. This story has repeated itself, and therefore it must be true also. D’ye see?’
Having seen these works, I felt that I should like to see Mount Bischoff, by making the journey to which I might see as much of Tasmania as by making a journey in any other direction. In consequence of delays and accidents the trip to Bischoff and back took me seven days.
I left Launceston next afternoon by train to Latrobe. The first part of the line is the same as that which takes the traveller to Hobart, distant 133 miles. The country is undulating. In a few places you see bush or forest, but the greater portion of the land is laid out in farms, and is dotted over with country-houses and clumps of furze, which, at the time of my visit, were in full bloom. In many districts I was told that rabbits had become so numerous as to be a pest, and it was necessary to legislate for their destruction. The furze-bushes, although so pretty and English in appearance, from the rapidity with which they spread, had also become a pest. What is more, they sheltered the rabbits. Thus it has happened that legislation is required for the extermination of the homely furze. To get rid of it, first it is burned and then grubbed up by the roots. Rabbits are got rid of by shooting, trapping, but what is more destructive, by the use of phosphorized oats. I shall say more about the rabbit plague when I come to New Zealand.
Amongst other importations made by our colonial cousins which have in places thriven until they have become a nuisance, may be mentioned Scotch thistles, briar-bushes, sparrows, and brown trout. Sparrows in the neighbourhood of Melbourne have at times played sad havoc with the fruit gardens. The brown trout of Tasmania, which runs up to nine or ten pounds in weight, although being in itself a fish which is good for the rod and for the table, is accused of devouring all the other river fish. As we went along I saw many rapid-running rivers, which would undoubtedly yield good sport to the angler. Near to Perth we left the main line, and branched off to the westward. In the distance to the left were the snow-capped hills of Westmoreland. Many of the counties in Tasmania are named after those in the old country. For example, you find a Dorset, a Devon, a Cornwall, and a Pembroke. Some of the stations on the line were so small that they contrived to exist without any local officials. At Little Hampton, for instance, the only persons to be seen were those who got out of our train. Their tickets were collected by the guard. At Longford and Deloraine I saw nice towns. After this it became dark, and all that I could make out was that we were passing through a country where there was a great deal of bush. The last people I saw were two young ladies walking along a road running parallel with the railway line. The train was moving very slowly, and I had my head out of the window. The young ladies curtseyed, kissed their hands, waved their handkerchiefs at me, and then exploded in a fit of giggles. I wonder what would have happened had the train stopped!
At Latrobe I found that I had to go on one station farther to Fornby, to catch a mail-coach which would take me to Emu Bay. The ride to Emu Bay reminded me of my experiences in New England. It was nine p.m. and dark at the starting, and I had an outside place on the box. Now and then I could see tall, white-stemmed trees, standing like ghosts in the midst of paddocks. These are the trees which had been ring-barked in order to kill them. The road was hilly, and in many places our four horses seemed to be charging down into a black abyss. At the bottom of these valleys we usually crossed a river. One of them, I remember, was called the Forth, and another one the Leven. A great portion of the road was along the coast, which, as I found out on my return, was exceedingly pretty.
It was two a.m. when we reached Emu Bay, and I was benumbed with cold. The coachman opened a back-door in the hotel, and conducted me to a box-like bedroom, one bed in which was occupied by a young gentleman, who woke up and had a conversation with me on the difficulties of travel. I was too cold to sleep. About five a.m. my companion lighted a candle, and after spending a considerable time in covering his head with pomatum, completed his toilet and left me. Shortly after this I had to rise to catch the train going from Emu Bay up to Waratah, which is the name of the settlement at Mount Bischoff. The line is a private one, and is owned by the Tasmanian Land Company, who have bought up all the land in this part of the colony. There is one train of two carriages, and perhaps a truck, once a day each way. The generaldirection of the line is from the North Coast towards the South, running right into the heart of the country. Here and there are steep gradients of about one in forty. The scenery of the bush and valley is remarkably fine. The bush is much thicker than in Australia. In places it appeared like a solid wall of green. On all sides as you climb up you see huge tree-ferns, many of which are twenty to thirty feet in height. Above these are tall gum trees, whilst beneath them are beds of common bracken.
All was white with frost, and the fronds of the ferns in many places sheltered small pools and ponds of water which were covered with a thick cake of ice. Tree-ferns helped in carboniferous times to make the coal. In those times we are told that the climate was warm and damp, and we are asked to picture to ourselves something like a swamp in Florida. After what I saw and felt in Tasmania I should say that it was cold and dry. The probable reason why stems of tree-fern-like plants are so common in the coal measures as compared with the stems and branches of ordinary phanerogams, is that the stems of tree-ferns resist decomposition so remarkably well.
Some of the gum trees were very large. One stump was pointed out to me which I was told was twenty-one feet in diameter. The place for big trees is in Gipps’ Land, in Victoria. Here there are gum trees 400 feet in height. One tree was measured as being 480 feet in height; that is to say, it was fourteen feet higher than the spire of Strasburg Cathedral. I always regretted that I had not time to go up to the Dandenong ranges where these big trees are growing. As it is, I was compelledto take all that I have heard about 400-feet trees as hearsay.
As the train jogged along, once or twice I noticed a paper parcel fly past my window. ‘Some fellow having sandwiches for breakfast,’ I said to myself. At last one huge parcel flew out, struck the bank, and out of it there rolled a leg of mutton. Then I knew that this was the method of delivering parcels to the residents up the line.
We stayed a short time at a place called Hampshire Hill. The township consisted of two rickety-looking houses. The only inhabitants who made themselves visible were two fat pigs. All the way up the line the soil seemed thin and poor. It may perhaps have been very good soil, but I do not understand such matters. Waratah is a village situated on the edge of a steep valley at the foot of Mount Bischoff. It is about 2,000 feet above sea level, and is therefore always cool. The great trouble is rain. Sometimes it will rain for twenty or thirty days without ceasing. Possibly Mount Bischoff may have been the scene of some of Noah’s adventures. At times I was told that the air appeared to become so rarefied that it was difficult to smoke when going up the mountain. On my arrival it was fine, and I was told I was lucky in finding it so. There are two very small hotels. The one I went to was like a cottage; the bedrooms or sleeping-boxes being up amongst the rafters. It was impossible to stand upright in my room, excepting in the centre. There were no mirrors, shiny sideboards and blue vases, as at Emu Bay, but there were comfortable beds. The bedsteads were of the smallest description, which is necessary in mostparts of the colonies, on account of the size of the rooms. As a rule I don’t like feather-beds, but in spite of my prejudices against such old luxuries, when I heard the rain and sleet beating on the window-panes and roof above me, after turning in that night, the feather-bed felt comfortable. It seemed to fit my shape better than a mattress.
Although the weather at Waratah was considered to be unusually good, it seemed to me chilly and damp, and I found the open grate and log fire in the little parlour down below quite acceptable. Here I made the acquaintance of my host, his family, the domestics, and several of the residents in Waratah. Everything was extremely homely, and rather than being a guest at an hotel, you felt that you had been admitted to the bosom of a family. At meal-time the visitors and the family sit down together, the maid-servant was called ‘my dear,’ and we all talked with prismy pruny puckered-up lips. Everything was very old-fashioned and very nice.
I spent several days at and about Waratah. One day was filled up with a stroll over Mount Bischoff. This is a hill about half a mile away from Waratah, which, so far as examinations have yet gone, appears to be made up of yellow and red earth, through which blocks and grains of tin are disseminated. The mine is simply a huge yellow-coloured, quarry-like excavation in the side of this hill. Running through the hill there are one or two lodes. To test these lodes, but more with the object of testing the nature of the hill, shafts have been sunk and levels have been driven.
In many places hundreds of tons of pure tin-stonemay be picked out. The bulk of the earthy material which goes to the dressing-floors contains about two or three per cent. of the ore. At the dressing-works this is stamped and washed, until it contains from seventy-two to seventy-five per cent. of the ore, when it is put up in bags and sent to Launceston to be smelted.
At the dressing-floors the warm material is stamped, and then classified according to size. The fine materials and the coarse materials are then treated separately upon machines called jiggers, when the rich ore is separated from the poor material. The poor material then passes through buddles and over revolving tables, where it undergoes concentration, and more rich material is obtained. To describe the different machines, and the order in which the material passes over them, would require the assistance of Mr. Kaiser, the talented director of these works, who constructed them. To me they appeared to be the most perfect dressing-works I saw in the colonies.
The last evening that I spent at Waratah, my hostess, who was entertaining a few visitors, insisted on my learning the game of euchre. Euchre, nap and cribbage are the games of the colonies. I was very stupid at learning, but when it came to me to deal I accidentally obtained for myself Ace, King, the right and left Bower, and the Joker. For the rest of the evening I felt that I was regarded as a doubtful character.
On my way back to Emu Bay, I had the company of a reverend Catholic Father. I found him a good-natured, amusing gentleman.
‘Do you object to smoking, sir?’ said I, shortly after I was seated.
‘Do I object to smoking? faith, give me one of your cigarettes and I’ll show you how much I object,’ was the reply.
The result of all this was that we smoked and talked until we reached our journey’s end. He told me a great deal about the land, and the difficulties which settlers had to contend against. All about here the only animal which gives trouble is the tiger-cat. This is more foxy in its face than feline. It has a trick of breaking through the sides and roofs of buildings in search of hams and other provisions. After this I heard a great deal about large gum trees, and the sassafras, an infusion from the bark of which yields a valuable tonic, and other things which I have now forgotten. When we parted, we did so with the hope of again meeting, if not on earth, at least in heaven. This is how my companion put it.
At Emu Bay I fell in with a young engineer who was superintending the building of a pier, to accommodate the steamers and other boats which occasionally ply between Emu Bay and Melbourne. Talking of steamers, not long ago I had a conversation with an engineering friend who had just started in his profession in London. Knowing how difficult it is for an engineer to make headway in these days of competition, I asked him how he was ‘getting on.’
‘Oh, splendidly, splendidly,’ said he; ‘working on a pier 200 feet long.’ This was a capital beginning I thought, and offered congratulations on such a successful commencement in the great city. ‘Ah, yes,’ continued he, ‘I’m—well, I’m putting twenty feet on to the end of it.’
I did not make further inquiries, for I might have been told that it was a gangway or a plank that he was supplying to connect the end of the 200 feet with the decks of steamers.
During the evening I heard an animated discussion between several of the Emu Bay residents about the disgraceful manner in which they had been treated by the postal authorities in that district. ‘You know,’ said one of them, ‘the behaviour of that old woman they’ve made into post-mistress ought to be reported. The hardest work these post-masters and post-mistresses have to do is when they get out of bed to draw their pay. They don’t care for us not a bit. Why, they won’t do anything on Sundays. When the “brake” comes along at night, why, the driver has to stop his horses, and take a lamp and sort the mails for himself.’ That this accusation had some truth in it I can vouch from my own experience, for over and over again I have had to hold the reins of the horses while the coachman was manipulating a heap of letter-bags, which he found in a box outside the post-office. At night-time, when it was freezing and blowing, I found this very trying. No doubt the coachman found it more so.
Here a defender of the postal authorities gained a hearing by reference to the poorness of their pay.
‘How can you expect anybody to do anything when they get nothing for doing it?’ he remarked.
‘Ah, but remember that new post-box we had—that one down at the corner. Why, it was perfectlyscandalous. When it was put up I stuck a letter in it for Tom Gadesden, down at the Leven, asking him about some horses he had to sell. As Tom didn’t write back I sent another, which I knew was posted because I put it in myself. Still there was no answer. Three days afterwards Tom came up here, and I asked him if he was short of ink and paper down at the Leven. “What do you mean?” says he. “Well, I mean I made you an offer for them two colts you had,” says I. “Did you?” says he; “the colts is sold, and I never seed any offer from you.” That set me asking, and I found that there was a lot of people who had been posting in that box and their letters had never arrived. You remember, Bill,’ said the speaker, pointing to one of the company, ‘you lost a letter in that box?’
‘Quite true,’ says Bill, nodding his head.
‘So I went to ask the post-mistress how it was, that when we posted letters at Emu Bay folks never got them—you ought to have heard the pow-wow that went on in that office. She bristled up like a porcupine, and said I had accused her of stealing people’s letters—she’d report me to Launceston. “If ever I’d posted the letters they went in the bag with the rest of the letters; and what did I mean going about trying to take away a poor old woman’s character?” After that she called me all the names she could lay her tongue to, and finished off by bursting out crying. I can tell you I was sorry that I’d been to make inquiries. I expected every minute she would have jumped at me and clawed my hair.
‘Well, after that I didn’t know what to do. It got noised round that I’d been slandering the old womandown at the post-office, and people were saying I ought to be ashamed of myself.
‘All that I could do was to prove I was right, and after me and six or seven of my mates talking it over—it was in this very room—we agreed to post a newspaper to one another, and then see if we got them. Well, next night, after it had got nearly dark—for we didn’t want it to be known what we were after—we all went each of us with eight papers tied in a handkerchief up to the box. You know we were then quite sure that the papers had been posted. That was sixty-four papers we put in, do you see? The night after we all met, and what do you think?—Well, there wasn’t a hanged one of us had ever received a paper.
‘That there was something wrong in the postal regulations at Emu Bay was pretty certain. Jones suggested that the post-box might have a hole in the bottom, and a tiger-cat or something had chawed the papers up. But as the box was bran-new, most of us thought the old woman was collaring the stamps, but none of us dare say so, and I am certain that there was not one of us durst go and tell her so.
‘“Let’s try once again,” was a suggestion which met with general approval. To be quite sure that all the papers were posted, we all went again in a lump to the box. I’ll never forgot that night; it was raining and blowing a bit. Six of us had shoved our papers in, and Bob bad got two of his in, when he says, “Why, hang it, the blessed box is full!” “Full?” says we. “Yes, full,” says he—and I’m blowed if it wasn’t full. Do what we could, no more papers would go in. We couldtake two or three out, but it was no good trying to get any more in—it was just chock-a-block.
‘Suddenly Bill says, “I don’t think the box has ever been cleared.” And that was just it. There was we posting and posting for three weeks, at a box that was never cleared. When they opened it they found our 114 papers and about 200 letters and parcels.
‘We felt such fools about that box and our 114 papers that we daren’t say much—but I think the old woman might have put up a notice that the box wasn’t working.’
I returned from Emu Bay to Latrobe by the same road as that on which I had come. The essential difference between the two journeys was, that while one had been performed during the night, and without any particular incidents, the return journey was performed during the day, and was accompanied by an incident known to colonials as being ‘stuck up.’
When I got up to start on this journey it was quite dark, and the rain was pouring down in bucketfuls. Before we were under way day had dawned, and the rain had changed to a cold drizzle. The coach was of the ordinary type; that is to say, very like an old stagecoach or a modern drag. I was the only passenger, and sat outside with the driver, who had before him a spiked team—or in other words, a leader and two pole-horses. The driver was a young man of some eighteen summers, and, as I subsequently discovered, was learning his profession. For the first eight miles or so, which we ran in an hour, everything went along satisfactorily. The scenery was charming, the pace of the horses good, and the only thing to complain about was the drizzle andthe cold. Shortly, however, the road became hilly, and the horses, which had hitherto run remarkably well, suddenly became obstinate, and, in spite of the thrashing administered to them by the driver, they refused to move. In time, young Jehu’s arm became tired, and there was no help for it but to descend and let me take the reins, while he encouraged them and ran by their side. The result of this was that the horses started off, leaving Jehu behind, and leaving me in charge of the coach. With the help of the brake I eventually stopped them, but no sooner had Jehu mounted on the box than they again refused to move. There was no help for it but for him to descend once more and let me take control.
This method of intermittent progress was clearly unsatisfactory, and something different must be attempted.
‘I’ll change a pole-horse for the leader,’ said Jehu.
After half an hour or so this was accomplished; but no sooner did Jehu attempt to drive them, than such violent kicking and rearing took place that we felt ourselves in danger either of rolling over a precipice, or else having the coach kicked to pieces.
Jehu was fast getting exhausted. ‘The mails are on board, and what shall I do?’ said he, wiping his forehead.
‘Turn the leader adrift, and let him run loose in front. Two horses can surely drag us two and an empty coach,’ I suggested.
This was done, and away we went splendidly, the leader running about fifty or a hundred yards ahead, and the two in the coach trying to overtake him. At last we came to cottages on the outskirts of the village of Penrhyn. The people seeing a horse running free, turnedout in force to stop him. This stopped the coach, and we had to explain our troubles before the leader was turned loose and we could proceed. The inhabitants of Penrhyn appeared to be highly amused at the device. Some two or three miles farther on, the leader had gone ahead so far that it was out of sight, and then to our horror the two horses refused to move. Whip, coax, pull, lead—it was all in vain. There we were with the bush on one side, a cliff and the sea on the other side, and no house within miles—‘stuck up.’ I pitied poor Jehu. He almost wept.
‘It can’t be helped; we shall miss the train at Latrobe, and the mails will be a day late.’
The chief thing he thought about was the mails. The chief thing I thought about was myself. He would walk on to the next station for assistance, if I would look after the coach. After he had gone, I tried to coax the horses by holding a bunch of grass before them. All that they would do was to stretch out their necks and get the grass, but they would not move a foot. As they seemed to have become petrified, I got inside the coach, and lighted a pipe.
While I was devising means to induce the horses to move, a farmer came along the road with a cart and a team of three big cart-horses. Of course he stopped to have a conversation, and at the end of it suggested that if the pole of the coach were tied to the tail of his cart, my two horses would have to move. The idea was splendid, and in less than ten minutes I was sitting on the box steering the mail-coach behind the farmer’s cart. How far we went I do not know, but we were travelling along slowly when we were met by Jehu and an ostlerwith a fresh team of horses. I expect the towing of the mail-coach will be a joke for some time to come.
We reached Latrobe at about two p.m. The last part of the journey was over ground which was flat and swampy. Of course we were too late for the coach which drives to catch the train at Deloraine, and I made up my mind for a quiet afternoon and a night’s rest at Latrobe. Latrobe is a small country town of one street. Its usual dulness was somewhat increased by all the shops having their shutters partially closed, the reason being that a woman had died. A tobacconist told me that he didn’t know who she was, but the shutters would be kept up until she was buried. At one time you might see two persons and a dog in the street. The quiet melancholy of a country town in the old country pervaded not only the street, but even the interior of the hotel. In one shop I saw penny whistles, apples, cakes, peg-tops, and articles of ‘sterling silver,’ all together. I had plenty of opportunity to study my hotel. If I remember rightly, sanded floors, gaudy pictures representing hunting scenes and the seasons, a lot of advertisements and leather-covered seats, formed the chief feature in the room where I spent the evening. In a vase there was a bunch of artificial flowers. These are invariably of the same kind, and if you give a leaf a knock, the whole plant whirls round in the flower-pot, at once destroying any impression it may have made on you as to its reality. The pictures which you see in small hotels are reproductions of what you see in small hotels at home. Among the favourites were fox-hunting scenes, which usually included a man in a red coat holding up a fox, while a lot of dogs were yelpingaround him; one or two steeplechases; a picture of the Derby; a soldier on horseback while sticking a man through the throat was carrying off a standard; one or two scenes from farmyards; the village Maypole; a few pictures of racehorses, all of which to the uninitiated looked pretty much alike; dignity and impudence looking out of a barrel; the death of Nelson; and a large collection of the worst type of German lithographs, amongst which were the royal family sitting in a semi-circle, and the Prince and Princess of Wales, a ball of wool and a puppy-dog.
Speaking generally, every picture was a reproduction of what you see in the old country, and I do not remember seeing a single picture of anything colonial.
In the evening I listened to a discussion as to the relative merits of loo, euchre and poker. A local paper, referring to the ship which had brought me to Tasmania, remarked that ‘Tasmanians interested in sheep-farming will be glad to learn that the steamshipFlindershas safely landed 250 fine stud sheep; there were also some Tasmanian officials on board.’ Not being able to make out the connection between the sheep and the officials, I went to bed.
The ride back to Launceston was more pleasant than the ride up had been. We started before seven a.m. At eight a.m. the sun appeared above the hills, and the hoar-frost began to disappear as clouds of mist. Every tree and flower and haystack smoked as if it was on fire. As far as Deloraine the country on either hand was chiefly an impenetrable bush; beyond that we were again back amongst the ferns and yellow furze.
That evening I spent in Launceston, being entertainedby a number of gentlemen, who told me many stories about the great Bischoff. It had been discovered by a man named Smith.
Smith was a man who liked, and I believe still likes, to hide himself in the almost impenetrable Tasmanian bush. The way in which he lived necessitated his spending much of his time in thinking, rather than in talking, and he was therefore called Philosopher Smith. Philosopher Smith is generous and crotchety. He gave many of his shares in his discovery away, and finally, disgusted with the system in which the mine was being managed, eventually threw up his connection with it. Now he is not the millionaire he might have been. Not long ago the Tasmanian Government voted him a small pension for the benefits he had conferred on the colony by his discovery. Mr. Smith, however, I was told, rejected their offer. He deserves a good big pension, and if Tasmanians don’t give it to him, they ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Other people behaved very differently. Some of the lucky shareholders drew from £250 to £300 every three weeks. One man who in three weeks drew £3,000, just to show that he had a soul above worldly dross, bought an organ and a monkey, with which he amused people in the streets. How long he continued at this self-imposed employment I was not told. Another man was so inflated with the importance he expected to derive from his riches, that he imagined himself a duke, and gave birth to a drawl.
The usual way of reaching Hobart is by rail from Launceston. The scenery on the line is said to be very fine, and I regret that I did not see it. I reachedHobart direct from Melbourne. On this occasion Bass Straits had put on their best behaviour. The sun was shining and the sea was smooth. Weather of this sort would induce many to become sailors. The profession of navigators would be ruined by numbers, and what would a captain do then, poor thing? It was God’s weather. At the north end of Tasmania we saw many rocky islands. These islands have the same general character as the eastern coast of Tasmania itself, which is high and mountainous.
It was a cold, clear, fine morning when we entered the beautiful harbour of Hobart. I forgot to say that the people in Sydney when they wave their hand across their harbour, tell you that it would afford anchorage for all the navies in the world. I should think that the harbour at Hobart might do the same.
In all directions there are high hills to be seen. Some of these rise from the edge of the waters. The summits are rocky, and many of them were covered with snow. The highest is Mount Wellington. This is at the head of the harbour, and overlooks the town of Hobart. Between these hills there are many small bays and smaller hills covered with gums. On the lowest slopes green fields and farmhouses are visible. Over all these combinations of mountain, crag, snow, forest, grass slopes and water, there was a bluish haze, like a film of gauze.
At last we landed, and at once commenced our explorations. The streets are broad and well laid out. Here and there are some fine buildings. One is a museum, others are Government offices, and many are,naturally, the banks. One of the busiest streets, where there were a few people and some good shops, is called Liverpool Street. In the other streets all is quiet. Now and then a foot-passenger pauses to look at you, and makes you feel that you are a new chum. The cabs, some of which are curious arrangements like milk-carts, stand in rows. Dogs sleep upon the pavement. All is sunshine, cleanliness, and quiet. The houses in the suburbs face the street like so many antiquated walls with rectangular orifices for doors and windows. The brass door-handles shine like mirrors. The polishing has gone on so long until the paint around them in the wood-work has been worn away. Even a little brook that at one time babbled through the town has been constrained. A brook bustling along over an untidy gravel bed would be out of place in tidy little Hobart. It now runs over a concrete bed, something like a pipe. Poor little stream, even you have been compelled to change your clamorous nature.
At the corners of the streets there are neatly painted notices hung upon the lamp-posts—‘Keep to the right,’ ‘Walk round the corners.’ What a satire to treat orderly Hobart like a Fleet Street!
Although Hobart is so quiet, its very quietness gives to it a charm that makes me wish to be one of its inhabitants. About twelve o’clock I saw a little excitement in one of the main streets which I ought not to omit to mention. This was a football-match between a number of shop-boys. I watched it with considerable interest. In the afternoon I paid a shilling to enter a Juvenile Industrial Exhibition. Inside I found that Iwas in a Poultry Show. There were a great many cocks and hens. Nearly all of them had received a first prize, a second prize, or a certificate of merit. Some of them were interesting on account of their size and the nature of their feathers. One old rooster had feathers down his legs like trousers. This gave him an appearance of great stability. Some of his neighbours seemed to have very thin legs as compared with their bodies, which were unusually large. With the amount of standing they have to do, these latter must often feel very tired. All the cocks were crowing and the hens were clucking. The pigeons were in great force. There were Jacobins, runts, rollers, fantails, Antwerps, baldheads, Hamburgs, carriers, and a variety of others, the names of which can only be found in special treatises on this order of birds.
There were also a great number of parrots, which in true parrot fashion were looking preternaturally wise. The rest of the building was filled up with sausages, masses of brawn, corpses of animals like pigs and sheep, of cadaverous heads of cows, cheese, pots of yellow butter, and canaries.
To me the dead animals, which helped to give the place a charnel-house-like smell, were very horrible.
The farmers, with their wives and daughters, appeared to find something very attractive in the exhibition. If I had been brought up as a butcher, the scraped pigs, covered with rosettes and holding apples in their mouths, might have been more beautiful than a Turner landscape.
The Museum was more interesting, as it containedmany relics and drawings of the now extinct aboriginals of Tasmania.
At this point in my travels I said good-bye to Peter Dodd and the Major, who went to India, or somewhere, and I picked up new acquaintances whom I will presently introduce.