Foot-prints of Travel, Maturin Murray Ballou [best romantic books to read .txt] 📗

decides to turn his back upon gold-digging, and adopt some more legitimate business. The great elements of success are the same in Australia as in California, Africa, or Massachusetts; namely, steadiness of purpose, application, and temperance.

Sydney is connected with Melbourne by a railway some six hundred miles in length; but the pleasantest way to reach it, either from the north or the south, is by water. We enter the harbor through an opening which is called Sydney Heads, formed by two frowning cliffs on either side of the entrance. Having left the Heads behind, we pass Botany Bay, seven miles below the city, once a penal colony for English convicts, but now a lovely, rural retreat, which retains nothing of its ill-repute but its name. The aspect of the famous harbor, with its lake-like expanse, its many green islands with handsome residences scattered over them, its graceful promontories, and the abundance of semi-tropical vegetation, all together form the loveliest picture imaginable. It may well be the pride of the citizens of Sydney.

Upon landing, we find great irregularity prevailing in the street architecture. George Street is the main thoroughfare, and is two miles in length, containing many stores furnished as well as the average of those in Vienna or Paris. There are fine business edifices, having massive French plate glass windows which are admirably appointed. The peculiar conformation of the town makes the side streets precipitous, so that a large portion of the city is composed of hilly avenues. Like the old streets of Boston, those of Sydney were the growth of chance, and were not originally laid out, like those of Melbourne and Adelaide. Our Washington Street, Boston, was once a cow-path, while the present site of George Street in Sydney was a meandering bullock-track.

This capital, like the two we have already visited in Australia, has a superb botanical garden covering some forty acres of land. The grounds extend on a gradual incline to the shores of the beautiful bay, forming a semicircle round what is known as Farm Cove, a picturesque indentation of the harbor, close to Government House. One special charm of these delightful grounds is the fact that they are accessible by a walk of about five minutes from the centre of the city. It is not necessary to make an excursion in order to reach them, as is the case with many similar resorts, such as Sydenham in London, Central Park, New York, or the Bois de Boulogne, Paris. Here semi-arctic and semi-tropical plants and trees are found growing together, and all parts of the world seem to be liberally represented. The hardy Scotch fir and delicate palm crowd each other; the india-rubber-tree and the laurel are close friends; the California pine and the Florida orange thrive side by side; so with the silvery fern-tree of New Zealand, and the guava of Cuba. China, Japan, India, Africa, Egypt, and South America have all furnished representative trees and shrubs for the beautifying of these comprehensive gardens.

There is here a fine specimen of the Australian musk-tree, which attains a height of nearly twenty feet, and exhales from leaf and bark a peculiar sweet odor, though not at all like what its name indicates. Here we see also the she-oak-tree, which is said to emit a curious wailing sound during the quietest state of the atmosphere, when there is not a breath of wind to move the branches or the leaves. This tree is found growing near the sea in Australia, and is said to have borrowed the murmur of the conch-shell. It has proved to be the inspiring theme of many a local poet. The flowers in this garden are as attractive as the trees; fuchsias, roses, and camellias are in great perfection and variety, flanked by a species of double pansies and a whole army of brilliant tulips. Flowers bloom in every month of the year in this region, out of doors, and are rarely troubled by the frost.

The excellent university of Sydney is admirably situated, and is the first that was founded in the Southern Hemisphere. The city has also its art-gallery, and free public library, with over a hundred thousand volumes. It has also hospitals, churches, and many charitable institutions, with various schools. Sydney holds high rank as a British colonial city, and deservedly so, having special reason for pride in the complete system of her charitable and educational organizations, her noble public buildings, and the general character of her leading citizens. Land in the city and immediate suburbs is held at prices averaging as high as in Boston and New York, and the wealth of the people is represented to be very great in the aggregate.

Australia in its extreme breadth, between Shark's Bay on the west and Sandy Cape on the eastern shore, measures twenty-four hundred miles; and from north to south,--that is, from Cape York to Cape Atway,--it is probably over seventeen, hundred miles in extent. The occupied and improved portions of the country skirt the seacoast on the southern and eastern sides, which are covered with cities, towns, villages, and hamlets. The country occupied for sheep-runs and cattle-ranches is very sparsely inhabited. The reason for this is obvious, since the owner of a hundred thousand sheep requires between two and three hundred thousand acres to feed them properly. The relative proportion as to sheep and land is to allow two and a third acres to each animal.

The great dividing mountain-chain of Australia is near the coast-line in the south and east, averaging perhaps a hundred miles or more from the sea. Nearly all the gold which the land has produced has come from the valleys and hillsides of this range. The gold-diggings of New South Wales have proved to be very rich in some sections; but unlike those of Queensland and Victoria, the precious metal is here found mostly in alluvial deposits.

Many nationalities are represented in Australia and New Zealand, but the majority are English, Scotch, and Irish. The officials of New South Wales especially, look to England for favors which a political separation would cut them off from; among these are honorary titles and crown appointments of a paying nature. The constitution under which the colonies are living is such as to entitle them to be called democracies. In many respects the local government is more liberal and advanced than in England. Church and State, for instance, are here kept quite distinct from each other. As to the legislative power of the colonies, it is seldom interfered with by the home government.

A journey of about five hundred miles northward, either along the coast by steamer, or by railway inland, will take us to Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, which has a population of about fifty thousand. Until 1860 it was an appendage of New South Wales, but was in that year formed into an independent colony. The site of the city is a diversified surface, with the river whose name it bears winding gracefully through it, about twenty-four miles from its mouth; though in a direct line it would be but half that distance to where it empties into Moreton Bay, one of the largest on the coast of Australia. It was discovered by Captain Cook in 1770, and is formed by two long sandy islands running north and south, named respectively Standbroke and Moreton Islands, enclosing between them and the mainland a spacious sheet of water more than thirty miles long and six or eight wide, beautified by fertile islands.

On approaching Brisbane by sea one is puzzled at first to find where the mouth of the river can be, so completely is it hidden by the mangrove swamps which skirt the coast. A pleasant little watering-place is situated close at hand, named Sandgate, which is connected by hourly stages with the city. Several small rivers, all of which, however, are more or less navigable, empty into Moreton Bay, showing that the district inland hereabouts must be well watered. It is less than fifty years since Brisbane was opened to free settlers, having been previously only a penal station for English criminals; but of this taint resting upon the locality, the same may be said as of Sydney, or Hobart, in Tasmania,--scarcely a trace remains.

Queen Street is the principal thoroughfare, and is lined with handsome stores and fine edifices, there being no lack of architectural excellence in either public or private buildings. Like its sister cities, it has a botanical garden, the climate here favoring even a more extensive out-door display of tropical and delicate vegetation than at Melbourne or Sydney. An intelligent spirit of enterprise is evinced by the citizens of Brisbane, and everything goes to show that it is destined to become a populous and prosperous business centre. Its climate, especially, is considered almost perfect. Queensland is very rich in gold-producing mines, but it has also almost endless rolling plains covered with herbage suitable for the support of great herds and flocks, where some fourteen millions of sheep are now yielding meat and wool for export, and where some three millions of cattle are herded. The real greatness of the country is to be found in its agricultural capacity, which is yet to be developed. A very pleasant trip may be enjoyed up the Brisbane River and Bremer Creek, on which latter stream Ipswich is situated. It is twice as far by water as by land, but the sail is delightful, often affording charming views of the city from the river, while at the same time passing suburban residences, flourishing farms, banana-groves, cotton-fields, sugar-plantations, and orange-orchards.

Queensland is more than five times as large as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and it possesses an immense amount of undeveloped resources of the most promising character. The sun shines here with much more tropical ardor than in New South Wales or Victoria. The palm takes the place of the eucalyptus to a certain extent. The tulip-tree, rosewood, sandalwood, and satin-wood, which are not observed further south, greet us here. The aborigines are oftener met than elsewhere, as they prefer to live in a more temperate climate than is found southward, and to be where they can have the country more to themselves. They probably do not number over thirty thousand in all, and are slowly but surely decreasing before the advance of the whites. Even when first discovered they were but a handful of people, so to speak, scattered over an immense territory. They have still no distinct notion of the building of houses in which to live, or at least they adopt none, though they have the example of the whites constantly before them. They are very ugly, having black skins, flat noses, wide nostrils, and deep-sunken eyes wide apart. A bark covering, much ruder than anything which would content an American Indian, forms their only shelter, and they often burrow contentedly under the lee of an overhanging rock or hillside.

The Australian blacks have plenty of legends of the most barbaric character, but by no means void of poetical features. They believe that the earth was created by a being of supreme attributes, whom they call Nourelle, and who lives in the sky. They entertain the idea that because the sun gives heat it needs fuel, and that when it descends below the horizon it procures a fresh supply for its fires. The stars are supposed to be the dwellings of departed chiefs. The serpent is believed to contain the spirit of a real devil. To eat the kidney of an enemy, it is thought by them, imparts to the one who swallows it the strength of the dead man. Any number above five, these blacks express by saying, "it is as the leaves," not to be counted. The white man's locomotive is an imprisoned fire-devil, kept under control by water. The