"Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire."
--Milton.
The year 1851 had for us three memorable events: first, "Black
Thursday," on 6th February; second, the elevation of Port Phillip
district into the colony of Victoria, on 1st July; third, the discovery
of gold, which was practically and substantially that of Ballarat,
during the third week of September.
Black Thursday has been so much written about by others that I had best
confine myself to my own experiences. I rode in to business, as usual,
from my Merri Creek residence, 4 1/2 miles north of the city. The
weather had been unusually dry for some days with the hot wind from the
north-west, or the direction of what we called Sturt's Desert, where hot
winds in summer, and almost as distinctly cold winds in midwinter, were
manufactured for us. The heat had been increasing daily, and this, as we
comforted ourselves, was surely the climax which was to bring the
inevitable reversion of the southerly blast and the restoring rain, for
it was felt as the hottest day in my recollection. In town we did not
hear of much that day, although reports came from time to time of
sinister-looking signs from the surrounding interior, whence an unusual
haze or thick mist seemed to rise towards the cloudless sky. Some few,
however, who were more active than others in their trading or gossiping
movements, became aware in the afternoon, or perhaps were favoured with
the news as a secret, that Dr. Thomson had ridden posthaste from Geelong
to Alison and Knight, our early and leading millers and flour factors,
to warn them that the whole country was in flames, with incalculable
destruction of cereals and other products; whereupon the said firm at
once raised the price of flour thirty per cent. The Doctor had certainly
earned a good fee on that occasion, and we must hope that he got it.
I returned home as usual after the day's work. Nothing to alarm us had
even made a near approach to Melbourne, as our trees were too park-like
in their wide scatter, and our grass too much cropped off by hungry
quadrupeds, to expose us to any danger. But feeling unusual oppression
from the singularly close heat, for I was attired in woollen clothing,
not greatly under the winter woollen standard, and which, by the way,
serves to confirm that our dry Australian clime is not to be measured in
effect, like most others, by mere height of the thermometer, I proceeded
to indulge myself, for the first time in my life, I think, with a second
"refresher" of my shower-bath. Next morning accounts began to pour in
from all quarters of an awful havoc, in which, sad to say, life to no
small extent was lost, as well as very much property.
There has never been, throughout Australia, either before or since, such
a day as Victoria's Black Thursday, and most likely, or rather most
certainly, it will never, to its frightful extent, occur again; for
every year, with the spread of occupation, brings its step in the
accumulation of protectives. Still these fires are a terrible and
frequent evil, and even if the towns and settlements are safe, the
destruction of the grand old forests is deplorable, and ere very many
years will be, indeed, most sadly deplored. What between the unchecked
clearances of the fires, and the unchecked clearances on the part of the
colonists, I fear that those noble gum trees, the greatest and loftiest
trees probably in the world, so graphically described by Mr. Froude in
his recent Australian tour, will have but a poor chance. He describes
also, with equal life, those dangerous forest fires, which are so
especially frequent during the ever-recurring ordeals of drought, of
which he had a fair sample at the time of his visit. Only think of eight
miles of forest burnt in one fire which he witnessed, and such fires
frequent occurrences!
Let us in time take warning by the example of the States and Canada,
where, in and around the more settled parts, the magnificent primeval
forest has entirely disappeared, alike from areas still unused as from
those brought into use. When I travelled by rail from Montreal to
Toronto, during the British Association's Session at the former in 1884,
a very large part of the way was through the monotonous and utterly
wearisome scene of a second growth of miscellaneous small trees and
underwood that had succeeded to the grand original. We were told of one
small town which had become famous by its good taste or good fortune in
having preserved in its midst one of the ancient monarchs. Well, what
could be done to preserve Australian forests? We must not deprive the
people of the use of these forests, for there they are for the purpose,
as part of the country's wealth, and in quantity enough for all,
discreetly dealt with. I would parcel out the forests, into great
clumps, marking off adequate passages between each, and only permitting
for the present the latter to be dealt with. With the gradual clearing
of these intervals, the reserved portions, and the colony generally,
might be freed, in great measure, from the risk of fires.