CHAPTER XIITHE BLACK SPUR

TheVictorian 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 from that flowing westward. An early rain had laid the dust, so that we had ideal conditions for motoring, as we left the city behind us, and passed through a region of trim villas or bungalows in gardens, each one of which showed its patch of wattle gleaming among the grey gum trees. At one point the road was bordered by fir trees, often planted by early Scotch settlers to remind them of home. Presently we had left all traces of the suburbs behind and were crossing “Kangaroo Ground,” where, alas! kangaroos have long ceased to browse and skip. The distant mountain range loomed up before us gloomy and threatening. Every stream we crossed had its course marked by a ribbon of wattle flashing among the sombre eucalyptus. Boys were going out rabbiting this spring morning with bags of ferrets; the whole country-side lay open to these infant patriots intent on slaying their country’s enemies. The day was like a showery April morning at home, with heavy drifting clouds, that threw deep shadows on the dark mass of the mountains rising on our left. Sometimes we ran through cleared open country with pale patches of early crops, oats or barley, springing here and there, or lean store cattle, brought from up-country to be fattened for sale, and feeding on the richer pastures. Sometimes our way led through the bush, sometimes through occasional villages.

THE DIVIDING RANGE.

At last we had climbed Christmas Hill, and stopped to survey the famous view from its summit. Here the road runs between banks with the dark shining gum trees stretching away on either side. We climbed through a fence, where a little cleared space enabled us to look over the tops of the trees to the valley of the Yarra spread out beneath; a wide, wide plain with the stern-looking ranges in the background. Below us theYarra meandered like a yellow ribbon threaded through the green, for its course was outlined by flowering wattle. Beyond, the gloomy and forbidding wall of the Great Divide went up to meet the low-hanging clouds.

At the foot of the Black Spur there is a sort of pleasure place, with villas, hotels, and a golf course. Immediately afterwards we began to ascend a very steep gradient. Here the Government have taken over a reserve large enough to provide a sufficient water supply for Melbourne. From time to time we had seen the aqueducts on our way. In the early part of the year there had been a great bush fire; it had raged for three weeks, and the smoke had hung about distant Melbourne like a fog. The after effects of the fire were curious and very interesting. In some places a whole gully had been burnt out, leaving only the immense white poles of the gums upstanding like the masts of ships. So wonderful is their vitality that in many cases the gum trees had begun to reclothe themselves with young green shoots as if with ivy. Great tree-ferns shot up too in the cleared spaces, repairing the havoc that the fire had wrought; bracken covered the ground, and some kind of pink heath was coming into flower. The fire had been curiously partial, sometimes leaping the road, sometimesleaving a small area untouched. Nothing can be done to stem the torrent of these fires or to arrest their course, for they travel at sixty miles an hour.

Descending from Black Spur, we stopped to lunch at one of the characteristic Australian picnic places, above a tumbling mountain stream close to a place called Fernshaw. A fine rain was falling, and it was pleasant to find the shelter of a roof, and dry benches and tables. The place was a bird sanctuary; beautiful, and to us, unknown varieties came and watched us from a wooden fence that bordered the little clearing, or hopped about on the grass. The gorgeous Australian robin flaunted his brilliant vermilion and black plumage, here was the fabled “blue bird” in the life, a kind of wren; green finches, a large crow, the ever-present magpie, of course, and pretty fawn-coloured honey birds, said to cull honey from the flowers like bees, and the peewit, black and white, like a smaller magpie, and so called from his shrill, insistent note.

On the slopes of the Black Spur the eucalyptus attain to an unusual height, even for their soaring growth, and some of the tallest trees in Australia are to be seen here. It is impossible to be long in the country without hearing much discussion on questions of forestry. A great part ofVictoria is still forest, about 4,000,000 acres of which are reserved by the state. But though there is much valuable timber—in the mountain ranges in the north-east especially—it is impossible to transport it. Much forest country is let for grazing at nominal rents, and forest let for grazing is inevitably burned. The timber is cleared out by fire to obtain pasture. The fires are generally lighted on purpose, with the consequent enormous destruction of valuable timber. On the other hand, there are few cases in which the timber could be profitably sent to any market, and a land covered with forest cannot be used for grazing. Australian public opinion is becoming alive to the importance of this question, and there is a Department of Forests in the state of Victoria, but it is not considered that its powers are sufficiently drastic and untrammelled, or its supply of expert opinion adequate.16

The return journey was an exhilarating experience, for it was downhill most of the way, and we spun through the sweet invigorating air, with one wheel generally poised on a higher level than the other, bumping and plunging, dodging the deep broad ruts, holding on tight with that pleasant sense of adventure and hairbreadth escapes that only an expert Australian motoristcan give. At one point we stopped to take a photograph of the Yarra, where its swift green stream took a sharp bend in a low-lying meadow. Its opposite bank was one brilliant blaze of wattle; through a gate in the hedge the mountains showed blue and distant. While we were adjusting the lens a kookaburra somewhere out of sight burst into his peals of derisive laughter; the shrill chorus of unseen frogs, an ever-present accompaniment to the stillness of the Australian country, was the only other sound. It was so typical, so arresting, so unlike anything to be seen elsewhere, that we wished we could have transferred the whole scene with its intensity of colour and freshness to these pages. While we were busy on the bank a boatload of rough boys swung into sight, shouting, barging, and splashing, disturbing the peaceful charm of the little picture, breaking up and destroying the reflected wattle on the smooth water by the bank. We called to them to put ashore. They immediately did so, and, landing, came up to us and asked some technical question about the photographic process—it was a colour photograph on glass—with perfect civility and friendliness. The little incident was such a marked contrast to the relationship of different classes of the community at home that it impressed us as being equallycharacteristic with the scene in which it took place.

As we neared Melbourne the wet roads of the morning had already dried and we were swept home in a cloud of dust. We arrived in time for a very late tea, and went on to dine at one of those pleasant colonial houses, whose warm friendliness and lavish hospitality is so homelike and yet so un-English.

The next day, after lunching at Government House, we visited the zoological gardens. This was the first unpleasant example of Australian weather; it was like a nasty March day, with gusts of cold wind sweeping up swirling clouds of blinding, stinging dust. It only lasted one day as a weather sample, but it was a singularly objectionable day, with a kind of parching quality in the air.

On this occasion we pursued a fruitless quest on which we had already exercised considerable energies since our arrival in Australia. We were very anxious to see a live platypus, that curious little hairy animal, with the bill of a duck, which burrows, or used to burrow, for it is becoming very rare, in Australian river-banks. We were told that if we wanted to see a platypus we must go to Tasmania, there were plenty there, but this was not part of our programme; however, there wasactually at the moment a live platypus in Melbourne. They do not survive in captivity, but this hapless platypus had been sacrificed in the interests of science, and was on exhibition at the zoological gardens. We therefore made our way thither, our hearts beating high with hope and excitement. The porter at the gate was calm, not to say indifferent; it was also approaching closing time. We entered vaguely, none of the animals could help us in our quest for the platypus, neither the mild and browsing kangaroos, the haughty eagles on their perch, or the slim cranes, like the answer of the winds brought by ‘sage Hippotades,’ “they knew not of his story.”

We were at last directed to a large wire enclosure, in the midst of which lay a little muddy pool, it was planted with tall bamboos, amid which fluttered innumerable small birds. Here, said a passing official, the platypus was incarcerated. We eagerly watched and watched in vain the unruffled and opaque surface of the pond. The platypus had effectually concealed his outraged feelings in the mud. He is a shy animal and resents observation. By this time, however, we felt that our journey to Australia was vain unless we saw that platypus. Night was drawing on, it was long past closing time. In these desperate straits we penetrated withsacrilegious feet a threshold inscribed “private” and unearthed the daughter of the keeper. She was very sympathetic, but not encouraging. Her high authority, however, produced a man with a key, and we squeezed in among the bamboos, which we found sharp and aggressive plants, and with ruthless cruelty warmly applauded the efforts to stir up the platypus out of the mud with a stick; but the despairing platypus had buried itself beyond the reach of human intervention. We were forced to give up and retreat, and it seemed to us, as we went out of the gates, that the large blue parrot, who sits sentinel on his perch at the entrance, winked at us derisively.

The same evening we were at least gratified by the sight of a stuffed platypus. It was at the museum, where there was a civic reception. The municipal buildings at Melbourne are on a most imposing scale. The museum, picture galleries, and free library are all under one roof. The museum is beautifully arranged. Most interesting to English visitors are the complete collections of native animals of all kinds. Every sort of kangaroo and wallaby is represented. From immense creatures sitting up with that air of surprise peculiar to them, as if they were wondering what had happened to their forelegs, to little things of the same species no bigger than a cat.We saw the curious sharp-nosed bandicoot, and at last our search was rewarded by a sight of the platypus. All these smaller animals were exhibited under their life conditions, with sandy burrows, or whatever they might be, carefully reproduced.

TREE-FERNS IN THE BUSH NEAR MELBOURNE.

The picture gallery consists principally of modern paintings, many of them by Australian painters or of Australian scenes.

It seemed to us that the painter has yet to arise who will really capture the spirit of Australian scenery. It is so wholly individual a thing in colour and chiaroscuro. In a photograph it shows not unlike Europe, but the heavy opaque look of the gums seen massed together at a little distance does not resemble anything on this continent, nor does the rather sad, almost dun-coloured effect of the grey eucalyptus, near at hand, nor the translucent atmosphere, the clarity of light, the brilliancy of sun, that makes a London winter seem a thing of abysmal gloom following on those illumined days.

Leaving the picture gallery, a long corridor leads to the free library, and Melbourne is justly proud of its beautiful and luxurious reading-room, in every way worthy of the chief city of a great democratic country. Circular in shape, it is surmounted by a dome so high that it ratherdwarfs its proportions. But looked down upon from an upper gallery the effect of space and the soft radiance of the electric light falling on the white walls combine to give a charming architectural effect to the whole. Every member of the public over fourteen years of age has the right of free access to the library. The trustees have evolved an admirable system of a “travelling library,” for circulation among country residents of the state.

It was a very pleasant evening. Every section of Victorian social and official life was represented, for in an Australian town if there is an evening party everyone goes to it, because there are not dozens of other things going on at the same time as in London. So that everyone goes to everything, and thus in the smaller societies of colonial towns a few days in a place suffice to make many acquaintances, and a visitor can never feel a stranger.

The authorities, however, always hopefully provide an amount of cloakroom accommodation, which is to the needs of the guests in the proportion of a sentry-box to an army. Having already experienced this idiosyncrasy at Adelaide, we prudently deposited our wraps behind a large stuffed kangaroo and asked him to keep an eye on them. He faithfully fulfilled his charge.

We lunched next day with one of the leading citizens of Melbourne, one of those active, public-spirited men that colonial life produces, whose patriotism has grown with the growth of the town he has done his part in building. It was interesting, because in the colonies everyone is doing something and is ready to talk about his business, whatever it is. One of the guests, for instance, had a thousand acres of dairy farm in the neighbourhood of Bacchus Marsh. He could grow seven or eight crops of lucerne a year, but it cost him 30s. an acre for irrigation. Our host had a fascinating hobby of keeping a small private menagerie. In a sloping paddock beyond the garden a number of kangaroos were nibbling the grass; they were quite tame, but their pace if they are startled is incredible; they don’t appear to touch the ground, but seem to fly with their long hind-legs stretched out like a bird, skimming the ground with a curious effect of great speed.

This was the only occasion during our stay in Australia on which we saw a wombat. He is a thick-set, squat animal, about three feet long, and not unlike a large guinea-pig in build. He lives on grass and roots, and in his native state burrows a home for himself with his sharp claws. He is such an inveterate burrower that in captivity he can only be kept in an enclosure witha concrete floor and corrugated iron sides without a door; in fact, his pen resembled those in which pigs are incarcerated for life at Las Palmas, except that it was quite clean. He seemed not unfriendly in a molluscous way; he lifted his flat head to take grass from our hands, and his odd bristly fur felt like the spines of a porcupine to the touch.

But the most engaging denizens of the garden were the little opossums. The opossum bears a rough sort of resemblance to a squirrel with a long prehensile tail, and, like squirrels, lives in trees. When we went to look at them only the little pink inside of an ear was showing through the open door of their hutch. Then one brown eye appeared, a little hand-like claw was cautiously advanced towards the biscuit held out to it, a bushy whisker emerged, and slowly the whole opossum came into the open. They are most charming little things, very gentle and well-mannered; they gingerly hold your hand in their tiny white claws while they delicately nibble at your biscuit, and if they inadvertently bite your finger by mistake they immediately draw back with an air of distressed apology. Little Australian animals have an exquisite urbanity that makes them the most endearing acquaintances.

VIEW OF THE AUSTRALIAN ALPS FROM THE MURRAY RIVER FLATS.

It was a bright afternoon of sunshine, and the Botanical Gardens to which we went on the way to an At Home were looking their best after an earlier rain. They are laid out on rising ground, with ornamental water, sloping lawns, and graceful groups of trees.

In the evening we dined very pleasantly with a university professor, when a fellow-guest at dinner described his experiences in shooting the rapids of an Australian river. He and the friend who went with him had to keep their food in watertight bags, as the canoes continually upset. The one thing, he said, was whatever happened never to let go of the canoe, or you would find yourself two hundred miles from anywhere, bereft of all means of existence. “Was it dangerous?” somebody asked. “You are never out of danger,” was the reply. And it is this sense of the possibility of adventure that constitutes part of the charm of colonial life, where men come into contact and into conflict with a nature not yet all sleek and combed.

Our last day at Melbourne we spent in driving round the city and such of its environs as we had not already seen. We visited St. Kilda’s, the watering-place of Melbourne. A low, grey, cloudy sky threw a pale light on the waters of the great inland sea, with its pretty oppositeshore. This is Melbourne’s pleasure-place, with hotels along the front.

Returning through the older part of Melbourne we saw the old road along which men went out to the diggings, with some of its original galvanised iron buildings still standing. We passed by the cemetery, where the first settlers were buried, closed long ago. As we returned into the everyday busy streets of the great city we met the newly formed Australian contingent of troops marching out to their camping-ground. There can be few people so invertebrate that they can watch levies on the march without a responsive thrill, even in time of peace, and these men were going to fight not for their homes and families and country, but were relinquishing all for their distant kindred in a life-and-death struggle miles away. This great unpeopled country, where men are so urgently needed, was gladly sending of its best to “the Old Country”—“home,” as they tenderly call it, with a depth of sentiment incomprehensible here, and incomprehensible to anyone who does not know and feel his own patriotism awake and flourish on alien soil.

Our last visit was to the Tourist Bureau, which in general management and organisation is incomparably the best in Australia. Here we weregiven our choice of the admirable views of Victoria and small handbooks of local interest. That afternoon our visit concluded.

We left Melbourne feeling more Australian than the Australians. The afternoon sun was gilding the level plain as we sped across it, passing scattered villages, often little more than clusters of iron-roofed shanties, with a horse, its bridle hitched to a post, and children and dogs playing in the road. After the swift darkness had come, there was a clear night of stars lighting up the dim country, the great spreading empty plain with its scattered gum trees, while the lamps of the carriages sent out shafts of light, like searchlights, across brilliantly illuminated patches, momentarily visible in the darkness.

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