"Oh! 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine."
--Love's Labour Lost.
"He makes a July day short as December."
--Winter's Tale.
But my chief excursions, which have left a pleasantly vivid recollection
of early colonizing life, were made to the far west--the one in 1844,
right through to the Glenelg; the other the year after, to the
newly-founded township of Warrnambool. The first of these was undertaken
partly on business in the interests of the Boyd stations lately formed
about Eumerella, a place of evil repute then as to the native hostility.
I had previously chanced to "chum" with Boyd's Port Phillip manager, Mr.
Robert Fennell, a young fellow as well-looked, gentlemanly, and pleasant
as anyone could meet with, and with whom I both officed and housed to
mutual satisfaction for two years, until his marriage with a daughter of
John Batman. And thus I came in for some few of the many Boyd
commissions that were flying freely about in those years, and which were
not at all unacceptable to any of us in that time of small things. I
afterwards, as I have pleasure in recording, received the hospitalities
of the great commission-maker in his generously open house at Sydney.
Once more, in passing westwards, I was at Colac. It was the month of
June (midwinter), but the country, with its lake, was not the less
beautiful in the universal green. Excepting the partial post-and-rail
barricade of my friend William Robertson's 5,000 acres of purchased
land, there was nothing all around but free and open squatting. On every
side was the hardly yet disturbed indigenous aspect. Pelicans flew
aloft, tall "adjutants" stalked about here and there, and cockatoos
screeched everywhere. One of the curious green knolls, so common there,
was so thickly covered with the yellow-crested white cockatoo as to give
the look of a cap of snow.
Leaving Morris's huts, I made for another Boyd station, in the famous
far west Eumerella district. There were many beauties around, for I had
entered Mitchell's "Australia Felix"--its extreme borders, to be sure,
but the most beautiful of it all. My nag was more than ever "in clover,"
and we wandered on through marvels upon marvels of remarkable and richly
fertile country. The country was all but empty as I now coursed through
it, but no amount of colonization could much alter its most striking
scenery, geological and general. I had some sense of awe and mystery as
I gazed down into a sort of "Dead Sea" depths at the southern end of
salt, salt Korangamite, and then up at the abruptly towering "Stony
Rises," capped by volcanic Porndon in my near vicinity. I passed the
Manifolds', where a sprinkling of fat cattle left hardly an impression
on the superabounding grass.
Eumerella, or rather the Boyd fragment of that large, rich, and varied
cattle area, was in charge of a versatile youth of the name of Craufurd,
of a good Scotch family, whom, to the great amusement of my friend
Fennell, I re-christened as Squire Hopeless, owing to his utter
nonconformability to the monotonies of civilized life. I was
sufficiently versed in geology to be aware of the wonders around me, so
we were soon off over the Stony Rises to Mount Eeles, only a few miles
away, which, like another Porndon, raised its not lofty but
mysterious-looking head to arouse our curiosity. We were guided latterly
by a well-beaten native track, for this seemed a favourite walk of the
aborigines. Our trip was not without danger, for the aboriginal
relations had been anything but of that peacefulness which characterized
the Melbourne vicinities; but we made up a station detachment under a
remarkably fine strong young fellow called Wells, of Tasmanian birth,
and equal, in an emergency, to six or a dozen natives for his own share.
We saw nothing of natives, however, and were rewarded with wonders of
geology. The little Mount Eeles cone surmounted, we looked far down into
a vast crater of miles in circuit, whose sharp-ridged, angry,
unsettled-looking sides could barely convince us that we looked upon an
extinct volcano. Hardly did its aspect reach the solid quiet of the
Vesuvian interior, as described by some scanty classic records, prior to
the grand, sudden, entirely unexpected outburst of the Pompeiian
eruption. Let the crowds of the future Pompeiis and Herculaneums of
Victoria look out, for their Vesuvius may some day play havoc, with
similar treachery.
We were introduced early to old Gorrie and his nephew McGregor, two
doughty Scots, famous--and too famous--in the native hostilities of the
last year or two--indeed, ever since these fine runs were taken up. The
aboriginal of so fine a country was, at any rate, a primus inter pares
of his race, and no way to be despised. The white invaders suffered
heavily, in property at least, if not much in their own lives, at the
hands of the invaded. Which side was in fault would have been a hard
knot to unravel, and probably few on either side troubled themselves
much to undo it. Old Gorrie was ever in the thick of war, and duty and
inclination went cordially together. He was a cool and terrible shot,
and had a terribly long and forcibly arguing rifle. The story goes that,
when a couple of pursued marauders had escaped from one covert, and in
wild terror were making for another, he quietly waited till they chanced
to come in line, and then sent one bullet through both. But he had his
cautious and adroit way of telling his doings, as he described to us
how, in the turmoil of pursuit, "the gun gaed aff" and "some puir
craturs fell." He had good need, for the authorities had been thoroughly
aroused by the occasional atrocities that were sure to arise out of the
strong mutual antipathies of the case; and on one occasion, for what
seemed a signal case of this kind, involving the massacre of unresisting
women as well as men, five colonists were arrested and brought to trial,
and would certainly have "swung for it" had there not been some
inadequacy of direct evidence.
The next station, Dunmore, was already quite famed for its pattern
homestead. I entered its hospitable doorway with a sense of comfort and
of the climax of possible squatting attainments such as had never been
approached before. "Campbell, McKnight, and Irvine," "brither Scots"
all, and all of them at home at the time, were of the best company,
classic or otherwise, alike to one another and to all visitors. Janet,
from the kitchen, too, sent us the best oatcakes and other Scotch fare.
I always fancy now that such cooks must be called Janet, from lively
remembrance of the savoury hotch-potch and sheeps' head of another Janet
at old Robert Sutherland's, at Egham.
Thence I reached "Burchetts', of the Emus," less finished, indeed, but
hardly less attractive. They were business clients of my pleasant old
friend Charles Barnes, whose name I gave as my pass, with, however, but
little need in those open-door days. This was a sheep station, as it was
a drier locality, the other stations having been more suited for cattle.
We sat joyously chatting in the bright midwinter sunshine. The air was
redolent of humour, for which the Burchetts had a name. One of them was
rather deaf--indeed very deaf, but when he did pick up the current
subject, he seldom failed to contribute good sauce. With regret I
remounted next morning, for with business finished in this direction, I
was resolved to push on to the Glenelg, as I wished to see through
Victoria westwards while I had the opportunity. So I turned my steed
north for the Wannon.
I struck a little southern tributary of that pretty grass-banked river,
and saw a noteworthy as well as a quite Australian sight. Some recent
slight rains had just set the tiny creek in motion, and it was now in
the act of filling up a previously quite dry waterhole. I watched the
tiny stream till it filled up this hole, and then saw it duly into the
next, only a couple of hundred yards off. There was a long succession of
these holes before it, generally so precisely rounded and scooped out as
to give the idea of human intervention, only that the human beings were
nowhere visible there as yet. Then I came down upon the Wannon, in
continuous admiration of the rolling hills on either side, grass-covered
to the very tops. One part of the Wannon vale here is remarkable for the
deep, almost blood-redness of its rich soil, a hue which seemed to come
from the similarly coloured stone and rock all about. Here I suddenly
came upon a grand spectacle--the falls of the Wannon, which Chevalier's
highly artistic brush has immortalized, along with almost countless
other Australian beauty. The river plunges over a far-projecting floor
direct into a volcanic crater, which, although very much less in its
dimensions, was as unmistakable in its character as that of Mount Eeles.
The only thing I had to regret as absent from the scene, but a most
important factor, was water, for, as far as I recollect, not one drop
was visible over the edge. At flood seasons the spectacle must be grand
indeed.
As evening drew on, causing me to be on the alert for quarters, I espied
a rather pretentious homestead, cosily placed in a natural shelter
half-way up the hillside. This proved to be Mr. Edward Henty's. He was
not at home, but Mrs. Henty happily was. Young, ladylike, beautiful, she
received me with that high courtesy which sets one at once at ease by
the flattering impression that in these squatting solitudes it is rather
the visited than the visitors who are the obliged parties. Ten years
later I, with my wife, called upon her in Melbourne to renew this early
acquaintance. She was then, of course, ten years older, but hardly less
charming. Thirty-four more years have since elapsed, and yet I must
still hope to meet her once more in that country which has become so
great, and which is, in so special a sense, her own.
I reached the Glenelg, which, however, I found to be, at or near the
Wannon junction, hardly better than a big, irregular, ugly ditch. How
curious!--for not far off, above or below, I might have found great deep
waterholes and picturesque water stretches as sketched by Mitchell. I
took all for granted, and turned back homewards.
I struck a little north towards Victoria Range, and passed one of my
nights with a solitary shepherd in an out-hut, so far and away from all
companionable life but that of his sheep that I could well realize, in
this extreme case, the dolorous side of squatting. My breakfast was a
tin of tea without milk, and a hunch of damper of my host's own
baking--not altogether rejectable in the keen fresh air when one had
nothing else. A sheep could not be killed for two, even if the business
could afford it. On I went, merrily withal, for it was the heyday of
youth and strength, making steadily eastwards for the southern extremity
of the Grampians, which rose in grand outline before me, forty miles
away. Neither station nor human being came in my road afterwards till I
reached and was rounding Mount Sturgeon, upon whose rocky summit the
setting sun already glinted. I was now upon a good, broad bush track,
which must lead to some station. But when? This small side-track to the
left looks as though a hut at least were nearer, and so I diverged into
it. Mile after mile I trotted, as well as the rough track would permit,
and when night fell, and for long after, I still pegged away. A dozen
miles right up, within the outer sierra, towards Mount William, brought
me at last to an open glade, where some small piles of "split stuff"
showed me at once my mistake. Dodging about till day, thus giving rest
to my horse, I soon regained my road, and after an hour's further ride,
reached Dr. Martin's sheep station, where a pleasant young fellow, Byass
by name, who had lost an arm in wars of some kind, and was then in
charge, ministered to my wants, and allowed me to take well-nigh the
largest breakfast on record in those parts.
I must not continue in such detail with the rest of my western tours'
incidents, especially as the second was mostly over the same ground as
the first. I dilly reached my last Boyd station, in the pretty and
varied Pyrenees district--a sheep station, then under charge of my
friend James M. Hamilton. Here the hospitalities were equal, but all the
rest sadly below The Gums, and an infinity underneath Dunmore. But
Hamilton promised us compensation in a visit to the more comfortable
residence of a squatting neighbour, Mr. John Allen. The master was not
at home, but the mistress received us with squatting welcome. She was a
young South Australian wife, charming alike in person and manners, and
surrounded by a little troop of children, some with the stamp of her own
beauty. She died not long afterwards, prematurely cut down, alas! like
many another bright flower in the world's great garden.
Next year, 1845, I reached Warrnambool, just then commencing its urban
life with a few straggling small white houses, along the edge of its
pretty semicircular bay. I had passed Mounts Noorat and Shadwell,
occupied respectively by Mr. Neil Black and Captain Webster, both early
colonists, and was once more in raptures with the spectacle of almost
continuously rich soil. I also came upon several round, deep, and
mysterious-looking lakes, one of which, with its waters far below me, I
descended to examine with no slight sensation of awe. I was told of
beautiful and grand coast scenes towards the east and Cape Otway; but
the ways were of Nature's uninviting hardness, and I apprehended a main
difficulty of the Glenmutchkin Railway kind, from want of house or human
being to help dependent humanity. I turned, however, the opposite way,
to rising Belfast and Port Fairy, and wandered about through the Alison
and Knight, and Rutledge and other acres; amongst cockatoos, as the
small farmers were there called, observing a soil of unsurpassable
richness, the potatoes and other products, the former particularly,
being the finest in the world. The striking new feature of this journey
seemed to me the picturesque and beautiful River Hopkins--beautiful in
all but its name! Why give such starched, hard, dot-and-go-one names,
when there are Eumerella, Wannon, Doutagalla, Modewarra, Yarra Yarra,
and countless other such natural and genial modulations to be had of the
natives for the asking?
The year following, when my dear old friends, Mr. and Mrs. A.M. McCrae,
had betaken themselves from hard lines of law to the pleasant variety of
an Arthur Seat cattle station--pleasant to their town visitors at
least--I oftener than once looked in upon them from Melbourne. They had
the life and adornment of a large family of pretty curly-headed young
boys and girls, some of them with the aristocratic fine black hair and
cream-white skin of their accomplished mother. McCrae and I galloped the
thirty miles interval, and while crossing and watering at the
ever-running Cannonook half way, and admiring the varied, almost
park-like vistas among the three gentle hill rises of the bay's eastern
coast, we would marvel at the stupidity of Collins in 1803 in abandoning
such a country. To be sure he chanced to squat on the least inviting of
its varied areas, and this benevolent excuse we confirmed by a ride
across country one day to inspect the spot. All we could see was what
seemed the remnant of a small fireplace. The "cups and saucers" country
we passed over on the way might be interesting geologically, and even
artistically; but on any dry, hot summer day the look around might not
be enlivening to a new arrival. None the less, Sorrento has since arisen
there--a considerable, lively, and pretty watering-place, as I hear, for
which the colony's good friend, Mr. George Coppin, has provided, amongst
other benefits to it, a regular steam communication. This steam route
includes another like wonder of progress, Queenscliff, which, at the
time I speak of, only possessed a lighthouse, but is now a breezy and
lively crowded and fashionable retreat from the great dusty city of
business and cares to the north.