The tree on fire
A raging fire soon kindled in the tree, where the current of air was great, and dense columns of smoke issued from the end of each branch as thick as that from the chimney of a steam-engine.
The shell of the tree was so thin, that Ithought it would soon be burnt through, and that the tree would fall; but the black had no such fears, and, ascending to the highest branch, he waited anxiously for the poor little wretch he had thus surrounded with dangers, and devoted to destruction; and no sooner did it appear half singed and half roasted, than he seized upon it and threw it down to us with an air of triumph. The effect of the scene, in so lonely a forest, was very fine. The roaring of the fire in the tree, the fearless attitude of the savage, and the associations which his colour and appearance called up, enveloped as he was in smoke, were singular, and still dwell in my recollection. He had not long left the tree, when it fell with a tremendous crash, and was, when we next passed that way, a mere heap of ashes.
The territory of the colony has been divided into ten counties, named as follows:—Cumberland, Camden, Argyll, Westmoreland, Londonderry, Boxburgh, Northumberland, Durham, Ayr, and Cambridge.
I will now give you a short account of Van Diemen's Land.
This fair and fertile island lies, as I have told you, at the southern extremity of New Holland, from which it is separated by Bass' Straits.
Its medial length from north to south is about 185 miles, and its breadth from east to west is 166 miles.
Its surface possesses every variety of mountain, hill, and dale; of forests and open meadows; of inland lakes, rivers and inlets of the sea, forming safe and commodious harbours; and every natural requisite that can render a country valuable or agreeable.
It enjoys a temperate climate, which is perhaps not very different from that of England, though less subject to violent changes.
The island is intersected by two fine rivers, rising near the centre; the one named the Tamar, falling into Bass' Straits, on the north, and forming Port Dalrymple; the other the Derwent, which discharges itself into the sea, on the south-eastern extremity.Hobart Town, the capital, is situated on the right bank of the Derwent, about five miles from the sea.
The natives of Van Diemen's Land are described by all the navigators, as a mild, affable, good-humoured and inoffensive race.
Though they are obviously the same race of people as those of New Holland, and go entirely naked, both men and women, yet their language is altogether different.
The British settlements in Australia are both numerous and important. The oldest, most extensive, and valuable, was founded, as we have shewn already, at Sydney. The island of Tasmania was next occupied; within the last few years we have established the colonies of Port Phillip, Melbourne, Victoria, Cooksland, and others. The progress of these settlements has been rapid.
An extraordinary increase to emigration to Australia was given by the discovery of the Gold Regions.
For many years reports had been current that the Australian Alps and the Snowy Mountains were full of gold, but it was nottill after the Californian discoveries that any was found in Australia.
Two shepherds were the first persons who found any gold, and for a long time they successfully concealed the source from which they obtained it; but being watched, their secret was discovered, and the news spread like wild-fire over the colony. Everybody was mad to go gold hunting; shepherds forsook their flocks; traders closed their stores; sailors ran away from their ships; servants threw up their situations; everybody was mad to visit this newly-discovered Tom Tiddler's ground, to pick up gold and silver. A groom informed his master, in one instance, that he would stop with him, as he had been in the family for five years, for a guinea a day, if it would be any convenience to him. Another family was left with only a boy of sixteen to attend them, and his stipulations were—two pounds a week, and wine to his dinner! In one year the population of Melbourne rose from 23,000 to 85,000 inhabitants; the town of Geelong trebled its numbers; perhaps never in the wholehistory of the world had there been so extraordinary an emigration.
As a monument of the golden wealth of Australia, there is in the International Exhibition a wooden obelisk dead gilt on the outside. This column is nearly seventy feet high, and some ten feet square at the base. It represents exactly the bulk of gold which Australia has sent to this country since 1851, and which in all amounts to nearly 800 tons. Valuing the precious metal at its ascertainable worth, it appears that gold to the value of upwards of £15,000 sterling was dug from the bowels of the earth, washed from the sand of the rivers, or discovered by fortunate diggers in various parts of Australia in a single year.
The interior of Australia is still comparatively unknown. Last year an expedition was undertaken to discover a way across the Continent, and entrusted to a vigilant and enterprising commander named Burke. Although a certain amount of success attended the object of the expedition, the fate of Burke and his immediate companions wasmost deplorable. They perished by starvation!
I have now told you all that my present limits will admit, of those interesting portions of the globe, called America and Australia, and I wish you to read again all that I have said, and I wish you also to view the inhuman conduct of the first discoverers of the former with proper feelings of aversion. If you have read an account of William Penn's first colony of Pennsylvania, you will see that his was the only just way of establishing himself among the Indians. You must rejoice within yourselves on this occasion, that they were not Englishmen who practised these acts of cruelty and treachery towards the unoffending Mexicans and Peruvians. The workings of Providence are full of mystery, and I cannot help thinking that the state of anarchy and civil war in which Spain and Portugal are now and ever have been engaged, is an act of retribution awarded to their barbarity in the great scheme of God's providence.
It makes one blush for the sake of Christianity, to think that the perpetrators of the outrages upon the original possessors of the Americas were persons professing that sublime religion,—and that in the midst of their slaughter and plunder, they impiously held forth the cross of Christ. The confiding but dignified nature of the idolatrous Mexicans, did much more honour to the purity of the Christian religion than did the base treachery of their invaders, who professed Christ but knew him not.
Had they by mildness, perseverance, and reason convinced the inhabitants of the truth of the Christian religion, they might have become faithful converts, but it was unreasonable to expect that they should cast off the religion which their forefathers had professed, for a religion which they knew not at all, and the professors of which came with the sword to deprive them of their lives and their property.
I wish you, my young friends, to weighall these circumstances whenever you read. It will impress the different subjects more thoroughly upon your memory; and if your minds be properly constituted, it will cultivate the good and eradicate the bad. I will again ask you to read this book a second time, and refer occasionally to the maps. And now good-bye!
BILLING, PRINTER AND STEREOTYPER, GUILDFORD, SURREY.