SYDNEY—CAMELLIA TREES—ORANGE GARDENS.
SYDNEY, NEW SOUTH WALES, _June 2_.
DEAR NELL,—My last letter home was posted at Rockhampton, two days before
we reached Brisbane. The latter lies twenty miles up a river, so a little
steamer comes down to meet the big one and carry letters and passengers
to and fro. On this occasion there was a special one for Sir Arthur,
and he and his party were hospitably entertained by the Governor, Mr
Cairns. His private secretary at present is Mr Maudslay, a son of the
celebrated engineer. He has already travelled far and near for his own
amusement, and we think it probable that some day he will find his way
to Fiji and become one of our band of brothers, or Knights of the Round
Table, if you think that sounds better. I should scarcely think Brisbane
was a congenial atmosphere. It seemed to us a singularly uninteresting
place, its botanical gardens being almost the only resource. Of course,
in a semi-tropical climate like that of Queensland, there is always the
attraction of very varied foliage; but we thought even this was somewhat
stunted.
We had lovely weather on our two days’ voyage from Brisbane, and also the
day we arrived here. Unfortunately we just missed seeing the festivities
for the Queen’s birthday, when every ship in the beautiful harbour was
dressed, and there was an immense volunteer review. There are no military
here, and the volunteers only meet on this one day. Lady Robinson is,
however, to have a great ball to-night, when she promises to show us any
number of Australian beauties.
The accommodation of Government House is so very limited, and the family
party so large, that it was as much as she could do to find room for
Lady Gordon and the children. All the gentlemen have found quarters at
an hotel; and Commodore and Mrs Goodenough, a most hospitable and kind
couple, have managed to take me in. Never was there a better illustration
of the old proverb that “where there is heart-room there is hearth-room,”
for their house is tiny and yet shelters many friends. Lady Robinson
kindly says that, though not living under her roof, I am nevertheless her
guest. So I dine there most nights.
How you would revel in the exquisite loveliness of the camellias! The
dinner-table is most often decorated with delicate pink camellias and
maidenhair fern; and the loveliest white ones are abundant as snowdrops
in an English spring. Beautiful as these are, I am not enamoured of what
we have hitherto seen of Australia as contrasted with Ceylon and India.
To begin with, I have contrived to catch a severe cold, not improved by
all these starlight walks to and from Government House, which is just too
near to be worth driving to; and the climate is apparently as changeable
as in England. We have had four consecutive days of incessant rain and
cold, raw air, so on every side you hear people coughing and sneezing;
and we are glad to cower over fires—for which, by the way, the coal comes
from Newcastle.
It is so absurd to hear the old familiar names out here. A man tells you
he has just come from Morpeth, Oxford, or Hyde Park, Norwood or Sydenham,
Waterloo, Waverley or Paddington, Birkenhead or Liverpool, Brighton or
Cremorne, Clifton, St Leonard’s, Darlington, Anglesea, &c. It is quite a
relief to hear so wholly novel a name as Wooloomoolloo!
But truly all the attractions which have hitherto delighted me in foreign
lands are here conspicuous by their absence. Apparently no native
population. Certainly no rich colour; no statuesque tropical undress; no
graceful cocoa-palms. Everything is British, even to the ploughman riding
his horses home at night, and the four-horse omnibuses, and the hansom
cab which drives you about the town at 4s. an hour, and the genuine
unadulterated cockney accents of men born and bred in the colony. Of
course it is interesting to see this Greater Britain mushroom, but it is
difficult to believe that we are 14,000 miles from London! and I hope,
before long, to get glimpses of bush-life.
But of Sydney itself we run some danger of getting more than we wish,
inasmuch as the difficulties of getting ready a house in Fiji are very
great, especially from lack of hands to labour—a difficulty which has
been sorely increased by a frightful plague of measles, which, by news
just received, have (at the lowest computation) carried off one-fifth
of the whole population of the Isles. Some rate it far higher. And
the survivors are all disheartened and miserable, and unfit for work.
So, although Sir Arthur is buying his doors and windows and planking
ready-made here to facilitate his building, it may be months before he
has a house ready for us; and meanwhile we must have one here, and a very
difficult article it is to find. The gentlemen are house-hunting all over
the place, with very bad success; and the worst of it is that there is so
little time, as Sir Arthur must start for Fiji within ten days, and leave
us settled here,—a dull prospect for Lady Gordon, and doubly so as she
must be anxious at his running into such a sink of measles, he being the
only one of the party who has never had them.
We went to the opera last night. The most remarkable thing about it was
the drop-scene, which was simply a huge advertisement sheet, with puffs
of all sorts, from the newest sewing-machine to the most efficacious
pills! Imagine the effect of this descending between each act of Anna
Bolena! I regretted much that I had not rather accompanied Commodore and
Mrs Goodenough, who spent the evening with a large party of blue-jackets.
It is quite touching to see their cordial kindness to all the men, and
extreme interest in all that concerns them; and yet the Commodore has
the name of being stern. I can only say I never saw a face which more
thoroughly revealed the genial nature within.
* * * * *
_June 10._
We have had several pleasant expeditions in the neighbourhood. Last
Monday, Sir Hercules having ordered a special train to take us to see the
Blue Mountains, we started early and went as far as the wonderful zigzags
by which the rail is carried across the mountains. I had the privilege of
sitting on the engine, so I obtained an admirable view.
The following day Mr Gordon, Capt. Knollys, Dr Macgregor, Dr Mayo, and
Mr Eyre started for Fiji in H.M.S. Barracouta, so our first detachment
is fairly under weigh. Sir Arthur is waiting for telegrams from England,
and is to follow in H.M.S. Pearl with Commodore Goodenough. It has been
decided that we are to remain at Pfahlert’s Hotel till he sends us orders
to follow, which we hope may come soon.
Meanwhile we find some attractions here. To-day we drove out to the South
Heads, and had a most lovely walk along the cliffs. At the entrance to
the harbour we came to a pretty little church perched among the rocks,
and listened to the choir practising “The strain upraise,” while we sat
basking in the sunshine, the whole air fragrant with the honeyed blossoms
of the red and white epacris, which grows in profusion, and is suggestive
of many-coloured heaths. Though the everlasting gum-tree is apparently
the only indigenous growth, there is lovely foliage of all sorts in the
gardens of innumerable villas, which lie dotted all over the countless
headlands, and along the shores of the many creeks which branch off from
this immense and most lovely harbour.
In these gardens you find clumps of bamboo growing beside
weeping-willows; holly-bushes, with clusters of scarlet berries,
overshadowed by stiff date palms; broad-leaved plantains, contrasting
with leafless trees; frost-dreading heliotrope beside wintry
chrysanthemums and withered oak; while dark Norfolk Island pines
serve as a background to large camellia-trees, literally one blaze of
blossom, pink, white, crimson, and variegated. These grow in such rank
profusion wherever they receive the slightest care, that we marvel to
find them in so comparatively few gardens, especially as their value
is so fully recognised that good blossoms fetch about 6d. a-piece; and
market-gardeners allow millions to drop unheeded, rather than lower their
price.
There are lovely ferns in many of the little gullies, and delightful
spots at which to land for picnics. One of the favourite “ploys” here is
to start armed with a small hammer, a bottle of vinegar or some lemons,
and slices of bread and butter, and find a feast of oysters on the rocks!
Two days ago, the weather being warm and sunny, Lady Robinson took us
in her steam-launch fourteen miles up one of the creeks. It was like
a beautiful Scotch lake; and we caught glimpses of many lesser creeks
branching off to right and left, all tempting us to explore. Now I must
despatch my letter. So good-bye.—Your loving sister.
* * * * *
PFAHLERT’S HOTEL, SYDNEY, _Sunday, June 20, 1875_.
I told you in my last that the first detachment of our party started
for Fiji in the Barracouta. Now so many have followed that we feel
quite forsaken. This day last week Sir Arthur and Lady Gordon went to a
farewell lunch on board H.M.S. Pearl with Commodore and Mrs Goodenough,
and on Monday the Barracouta sailed. We sat in the beautiful botanic
gardens to watch her pass down the harbour, carrying away so many of our
friends—Sir Arthur, Mr Mitchell, and Mr Le Hunte of our own set, and the
good kind Commodore and his officers. I do so envy them going off to
the Isles, and of course it is a sore trial to Lady Gordon to be left
here: it will be fully three months before we are allowed to follow. On
Wednesday another detachment followed—namely, Mr and Mrs de Ricci, Mrs
Macgregor and her little girl, Mrs Abbey and her two little boys. They
went by the Meteor, a very small sailing ship, and I fear they are likely
to have a very uncomfortable passage, lasting fully a fortnight.
The people here are not encouraging as to our prospects. Many of them
have lost a great deal of money which they had invested in Fijian
plantations; and those who have had friends or relations there, in some
cases ladies and children, give us most lamentable accounts of the
hardships they had to undergo from want of the commonest necessaries of
life, and dangerous voyages in open canoes. From all we hear, I think
there can be no doubt a planter’s life in the Isles must be a most
unenviable lot; but of course, as far as we individually are concerned,
the way will be made smooth.
I am preparing for emergencies by attending the infirmary several days a
week, to pick up a few ideas about simple nursing. It is under the care
of Miss Osborne, a cousin of Florence Nightingale. Evidently her whole
heart is in her work, and everything is done thoroughly; and kindness
and order reign supreme. I have been very much interested in some of the
patients, especially in one poor sailor who hails from “the parish of
Dyke.”[4]
Nothing strikes me more here than the exceeding loyalty of the
inhabitants. Every one speaks of England as “home,” though neither they
nor their parents or grandparents ever saw the old country; and certainly
our Queen has no more devoted subjects. To-day being her Majesty’s
Accession, the churches were crowded; and at the cathedral this afternoon
we had the “Coronation Anthem,” and then “God save the Queen.”
I find here that it does not do to use the word _native_, as we are wont
to do, with reference to the brown races. Here it is applied exclusively
to white men born in the country, the hideous blacks being invariably
described as _aborigines_. Hideous indeed they are, far beyond any race
I have yet met with; and of so low a type that it is impossible, in
their case, to regret that strange law of nature which seems to ordain
the dying out of dark skinned races before the advance of civilisation,
and which is nowhere so self-evident as in Australia, where they have
simply faded away, notwithstanding the strict observance of their own
most elaborate marriage laws, which set forth the various degrees of
relationship between different tribes, and the rotations in which alone
they are permitted to marry. Perhaps, however, if all tales be true
concerning the ruthless policy of extermination practised by too many of
the settlers on the frontier, and the manner in which tribes have been
shot down wholesale for daring to trespass on the lands taken from them
without any sort of right the extinction of the Australian black may be
found to be less a law of nature than an illustration of the might that
makes right. But certainly the few specimens we have come across have
been unspeakably wretched, living in gipsy camps far more miserable than
those of any British tinker, altogether dirty and debased.
The Commodore rejoices us by saying that our Fijians are a very superior
race, many of them really handsome, fine, stalwart men. He brought some
Fijian yams on his return from the Isles, and had a dinner party, that
we might all taste them. Anything Fijian is really as great a curiosity
here as it would be in London. You know the Pearl took Sir Hercules to
Fiji to make final arrangements about annexation; and when that business
was settled, King Thakombau and his sons came to visit Sir Hercules and
see something of civilisation. You can imagine how strange the great city
must have seemed to men whose notion of a king’s palace is a one-roomed
thatched house one storey high. The horses and carriages were still more
wonderful; and as to the railway, that was beyond comprehension. But the
old king took it all very philosophically, and was never so happy as when
Lady Robinson’s little grand-daughter, a pretty little child with golden
hair, crept on to his knee, whispering, “You won’t eat _me_, will you?”
Or else he would lie down and rest on his own mat, keeping his big Bible
beside him,—not that the old man could read it, for I believe his studies
commenced rather too late in life, but he said “it made him feel so good!”
* * * * *
PFAHLERT’S HOTEL, _July 15_.
DEAR EISA,—I have been all the morning waiting for the mail, sure of
a letter from you, but I again have drawn a blank in that tantalising
lottery. You can scarcely realise what a matter of interest the mails
become in a place like this—the perpetual coming and going of the
steamers, the signalling of their approach from the Heads, then watching
them come up the harbour, right past Government House to their respective
creeks. Such a lovely harbour as it is, and every headland dotted with
picturesque villas! We have had both time and weather to enjoy it, the
latter having been faultless ever since the rainy week which greeted our
arrival, when it did pour with a vengeance. Now it is quite lovely, only
the nights are too chilly sometimes for perfection. It is midwinter, you
know, and all the deciduous trees are leafless. Leafless oak and apple
trees beside camellia and orange trees in full flower and fruit! But the
willows have not lost _their_ leaves, but grow beside great clumps of
bamboo.
The days slip away pleasantly. Many very kind friends plan delightful
excursions for us, by land or water; and I learn what carriage-springs
are capable of enduring when I see the daintiest little pony-phaetons
driven, apparently at random, through the bush, across fields, or over
the roughest cart-tracks. When we come to a paling, we deliberately
take it down, and, of course, put it up again. Sometimes we come to
dells where the loveliest maidenhair fern grows wild, and we fill the
carriage with it and the pink epacris. As to the sweet wild geranium
which abounds, it is thought quite extraordinary that we should care to
gather it! Yesterday we went by rail to Paramatta, and drove to the great
orange gardens, and noticed one group of trees from 40 to 45 feet high,
the stems being nearly a foot in diameter, and the lowest branch three
feet above my head. I do not remember any so large in Malta or elsewhere.
It seemed strange to see these gardens with such wealth of fruit and
blossom, while the neighbouring peach and pear orchards were all
leafless. We drove on to the camellia gardens, and paid five shillings
for quite a small basketful, though millions of blossoms were wasting
their loveliness, and I would fain have carried off even those that lay
unheeded on the grass. To-night there is a great ball at the Masonic
Hall, to which we go, being bound to see everything.