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ADVANCE AUSTRALASIA
* * * * * *
PREVIOUS WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE CRUISE OF THE _CACHALOT_
IDYLLS OF THE SEA
THE LOG OF A SEA WAIF
THE MEN OF THE MERCHANT SERVICE
WITH CHRIST AT SEA
A SACK OF SHAKINGS
A WHALEMAN'S WIFE
DEEP SEA PLUNDERINGS
THE APOSTLES OF THE SOUTH-EAST
SEA WRACK
SEA PURITANS
A SON OF THE SEA
CREATURES OF THE SEA
BACK TO SUNNY SEAS
SEA SPRAY
FRANK BROWN, SEA APPRENTICE
OUR HERITAGE, THE SEA
* * * * * *
ADVANCE AUSTRALASIA
A Day-to-Day Record of a Recent Visit to Australasia
by
FRANK T. BULLEN, F.R.G.S.
Author of "The Cruise of the 'Cachalot',"
"With Christ at Sea," etc.
Second Edition
Hodder and Stoughton
London MCMVII
PREFACE
Upon revising the last sheet of this small book for press I could not
help feeling that some little explanation was needed of its appearance
at all. For assuredly, when I accepted the commission of the Editor of
the London _Standard_ to write for him a series of articles giving my
impressions of Australasia during my forthcoming lecturing tour, I had
no idea or intention of subsequently publishing those articles in this
form. The onerous nature of my lecture engagements and the rapidity
of my passing from place to place precluded any idea of giving such
careful attention to form, sequence, and detail that I believe a book
demands.
But to my surprise and gratification, while the articles were
appearing, always in a more or less abbreviated form according to the
exigencies of space, the Editor wrote and informed me that there was
a strong demand that the articles should be published in book form.
I demurred on several grounds, but principally because they were the
slightest journalistic impressions, that they necessarily contained
many repetitions as the same features struck me obtaining in various
places, &c. These objections, and others which I would rather not
quote, were overruled, however, and so the book is here. And I send
it out without any misgivings, because even if the critics do feel it
their duty to go for me, they have in all my seventeen previous books
been so uniformly kind, fair, and generous that a reversal of the
treatment may perhaps have a bracing effect, though, like the nigger,
"I dreads de process."
F. T. BULLEN.
MELBOURN, CAMBRIDGESHIRE.
1907.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THEN AND NOW! 1
II. THE YOUNG GIANT 12
III. A LAND OF DELIGHT 24
IV. A GOODLY HERITAGE 36
V. SANE SOCIALISM 48
VI. MIGHTY MELBOURNE 58
VII. SOME FLEETING COMPARISONS 71
VIII. ON THE OLD TRACK 85
IX. THE QUEEN CITY OF THE SOUTH 98
X. SOME FRIENDLY CRITICISM 108
XI. THE KING OF NEW ZEALAND 118
XII. TOWARDS MAORILAND 129
XIII. THE PARADISE OF LABOUR 140
XIV. A UNIVERSAL SHOCK 151
XV. MUTTON, THE MASTER 162
XVI. A HOMELIKE TOWN 173
XVII. THE CAPITAL OF WONDERLAND 184
XVIII. A NATURAL MARVEL 195
XIX. NEW ZEALAND SHIPPING 206
XX. SOME POLITICAL REFLECTIONS 217
XXI. NORTH AGAIN 227
XXII. THE HEART OF THE NORTH ISLAND 237
XXIII. THE MAORI 247
XXIV. AUSTRALASIAN JOURNALISM 258
I
THEN AND NOW!
Thirty-four years ago, in a fine American ship chartered by Messrs.
Anderson Anderson & Co., I paid my first visit to Australia, and the
only one I ever made thither direct from the United Kingdom. Those
were the palmy days of sailing ships to the Australasian Colonies,
and a splendid fleet of regular liners, whose names were household
words, made wonderful passages for equally wonderful freights with
full cargoes each way for the great firms of Green, Wigram, Devitt &
Moore, George Thompson, Anderson Anderson, and many others of less
note, but of quite equal stability and repute. Passengers were carried,
of course, in great numbers, and were, generally speaking, fairly
comfortable, especially in the first class, or cuddy, although, of
course, many of the necessities of ocean travel to-day were then
its luxuries. It often happened, though, that through pressure of
cargo or passengers, outside ships--that is, not owned by the regular
lines--were chartered for a voyage, and passengers who had booked
with a great firm upon the reputation of their ships for comfort
and attention to the needs of the traveller, were sometimes badly
disappointed. It was certainly so in the ship in which I paid my first
visit. She was a splendid Boston-built vessel, but with very scanty
accommodation for passengers. The captain was a very old Yankee, really
past his work; but in one thing he was full of vigour, and that was
in his hatred of and contempt for anything or anybody British; and he
resented bitterly carrying British passengers in his saloon at all,
telling them, as I well remember, upon an occasion when they approached
him with a complaint, "I wish to have nothing to say to you. If I had
been consulted, I would have paid big money rather than have carried
you; but since you are here, make the best of it, and don't bring any
complaints to me, for I won't hear you."
So, of course, they were none too comfortable, especially as they had
to wait upon themselves entirely, and bribe the cook to prepare their
food, which, as he was a perfect fraud of a cook--a most unusual thing
in American ships--did not help them very much. And unfortunately,
however smart the old skipper may have been in his prime--and I cannot
imagine a Yankee skipper not being smart--he was now, as I have said,
quite past his work, and consequently we made a very long passage
for so fine a ship. We commenced badly. Although the weather was
beautifully fine, we took a Channel pilot--an almost unheard-of thing
for an outward-bounder to do--and when we got well down off Plymouth,
the captain forbade him to stand in for the English shore so that he
might get a chance to land. So we carried him, fretting terribly and
exhausting his vocabulary of abuse, half-way across the Bay of Biscay,
where, meeting a homeward-bound steamer, the captain condescended to
signal, heave-to and release the unlawful prisoner. His farewell was
copious, involved, and highly decorated with flowers of sea-speech, at
which I did not wonder.
The weather all the way out was exceedingly favourable, but the time
taken to Melbourne was 137 days, the average passage for such ships
as she was being about 95. The only people who really enjoyed the
passage, and, I believe, could have wished it longer, were the fellows
forward who commenced broaching the valuable general cargo before the
ship was out of the Channel, and lived always like the proverbial
fighting-cocks, washing down their huge meals of various preserved
foods, biscuits, &c., with copious draughts of all kinds of liquor
from beer to champagne. The fact that to reach the spoil they often
had to crawl amongst, over, and beneath a consignment of gun- and
blasting-powder, amounting to over one hundred tons, and that with
naked candles, never seemed to trouble them. Perhaps it is hardly
necessary to add that they all deserted immediately upon the ship's
arrival at Sandridge Pier, and, not to seem peculiar, I followed their
example a day or two later.
The conditions obtaining on my present passage out present, I suppose,
as complete a contrast to that long-ago journey as are possible at sea.
The great steamship _Omrah_ of the Orient Royal Mail Line, with a crew
and passenger list of over seven hundred, gliding away from her berth
in Tilbury Docks in majestic silence, and an utter absence of fuss or
bother, the schedule of times of arrival and departure from each port
called at on her twelve-thousand-mile journey calculated to the nearest
hour, the minute attention paid to the comfort of each individual
passenger of whatever class, and the extreme order and regularity of
the working of the huge intricate machine--all these are commonplaces
of the regular ocean traveller to-day, who indeed has grown so to
consider them as a part of the scheme of things that he or she,
especially she, is prone to regard any irregularity, however caused, as
an infringement of chartered right, and without any consideration of
circumstances to resent it accordingly. So easily do we grow accustomed
to what, only two or three decades ago, was looked upon as a series of
miracles.
To me, however, this passage was of the highest interest, because in
all my meanderings on many seas for so long a period I had never yet
sampled the wonders of the Suez Canal, very inelegantly dubbed the
"Ditch" by veteran Eastern travellers. I had heard fearsome stories
of the iniquities of Port Said, of the discomfort of passing through
that furrow in the desert of eighty-seven miles, and especially of the
terrible heat of the Red Sea. Consequently I took little heed of Gib,
of Marseilles, or of Naples, except to note that we left the latter
port about midnight, the cone of Vesuvius glowing fiercely against a
background of lowering sky, and wonder whether a similar fate to that
of St. Pierre (which I visited in 1904) was imminent for the crowded
villages of Torre del Greco, Torre dell' Annunziata and Ottignano. For
the mountain looked furiously angry, and it has ever been noted that
this warning is given before a grand exhibition of Plutonic power.
Stromboli, which we passed close to, lay basking in the glorious
sunshine, an innocent-looking halo of light vapour crowning his august
head, and evincing not the slightest sympathy with his fiery brother in
the north. Etna, which was passed later, looked, if possible, even more
peaceful, in that his vast flanks were robed in purest white almost to
the summit, which, like Stromboli, had just a light wreath of vapour
hovering about its lofty crest.
And then away under the same pleasant, placid conditions to the land
of Egypt, not a cloud in the sky, hardly a ripple on the sea, and the
climatic conditions as regards temperature nearly perfect. We arrived
at Port Said in the early dawn, the weather being quite cool enough
for an overcoat, picked up our pilot and steamed sedately in to the
buoys off the town amidst an extraordinary hush, only broken presently
by the hubbub of the coaling Arabs, who worked with an almost fiendish
energy to get the six huge lighters of good Welsh fuel into the body of
the ship through the side ports, thus producing the minimum of dust.
To any one accustomed to disciplined work, the ways of these Arabs are
mysterious beyond comprehension. Everybody seems to be in command,
and to issue orders in a high yell of which nobody appears to take
the slightest notice. The most insignificant, ragged varlet, who has
apparently been dozing upon the coal, will suddenly start up and rend
the atmosphere with his raucous cries, taking command of the whole
flotilla. But nothing happens, except that by and by all the barges are
in position and the coal passing begins, every man, as he empties his
basket into the shoot and descends the plank, making some mystic passes
in front of his face with his left hand, and intoning a few weird words
of Arabic, probably an invocation or thanksgiving to Allah.
The police arrangements at Port Said appear to be well-nigh perfect.
The boatmen do not pester for hire, because the fare is fixed at
threepence per passenger during the daytime and sixpence at night, and
it is paid into an office on shore--a penny of _backsheesh_ making
the boatman quite happy. On shore it is warm undoubtedly, but other
discomforts there are none. No almost savage importunities to buy or
go here or there; and as for vice, the unparalleled viciousness for
which Port Said has long been a byword--well, if it exists, which I
very much doubt, at least to any great extent, it must be deliberately
sought for, and that at considerable expense. Certainly as far as I
have been able to ascertain, viciousness is not nearly as flagrant in
Port Said _now_ as it is in any large city at home or on the Continent.
No doubt it was, as a cosmopolitan acquaintance of mine put it, "a gay
place once, but these infernal hypocrites of English have made it as
tame as a London suburb on a Sunday afternoon." At midday we cast off
from the buoys and entered the Canal, having, during our stay, shipped
an extension of the rudder and a huge searchlight over the bows, the
former because the slow rate of speed admissible in the Canal (about
four knots) does not allow the vessel to answer her ordinary rudder
quick enough, and the second to permit of the navigation of the Canal
by night. At first the scene was quite impressive, especially the
amazing contrast between the gigantic dredgers, which lie by the banks
and scoop up the bed of the Canal, pouring it out through a huge tube
on to the desert beyond, and the nuggars, or Nile boats, of a type
dating back two thousand years or more, with their upward-flaring bows
and their huge lateen sails. The wind was right aft, so that we were
in an almost perfect calm; yet it was cool in the shade, and only over
the desert, where an occasional mirage showed itself, did it appear
to be hot. As evening came on, the desert scenes aroused strange
memories, the unkempt encampments with their groups of couchant camels,
the solitary figures engaged in prayer with their faces Mecca-wards,
and then a sudden blaze of colour, a golden glory in the West, and the
vivid day was done.
As in all such situations, night succeeds day with almost startling
suddenness, but surely never did sweeter dark succeed glaring sunshine
than now. There was no moon, and in the clear, deep violet of the
heavens, from zenith to horizon, the stars glowed incandescently.
The air was most invigoratingly cool--in fact, to the incautious
ones coming up from the heated saloon after dinner in light evening
dress, it was fraught with considerable danger. A solemn hush pervaded
space--a silence which only seemed more profound for the gentle s-s-s-h
of the returning water to the banks as we glided past--and the sense,
hardly due to hearing, of the slow throb of the giant propellers below.
Ahead the steep banks glowed white as snow from the touch of the 30,000
candle-power electric light at the bows; astern, a vast, dazzling eye
showed where another ship was silently stealing along after us. Even
the usual gay chat of passengers exchanging reminiscences was hushed as
if by the mental burden of the countless centuries of history round
about them. For slowly we were stealing through the world-old desert,
almost every grain of whose sands could tell, if vocal, wondrous
tales of immemorial civilisations; and it needed no great stretch of
imagination to people those solemn breadths with legions of ghostly
watchers, whose sphinx-like faces expressed neither anger nor surprise,
envy nor contempt, but only deep-browed contemplation of the splendid
insolence of the modern engineer who had thus invaded their secret
solitudes. And I could not help projecting my mind forward a few
thousands of years, passing as swiftly as the space between us and the
Ancient Egypt, and wondering whether the ephemera of that day would not
class us as contemporary with Sesostris or Assur-banipal, even as we
are apt to lose our historical perspective, and to look upon all the
early civilisations as practically coeval.
We emerged from the Canal into the Gulf of Suez on one of the most
glorious mornings conceivable, a fresh breeze ruffling the dark blue
of the Gulf into a myriad sparkling wavelets, the air sweet, cool, and
heady as new wine, while the distant mountains lay enfolded in sombre
purple. But all this beauty was lost upon our commander, who was loud
in his objurgations against the abominable neglect, as he put it, of
the authorities in allowing this roadstead at one end of the world's
greatest highway to remain almost unnavigable for want of dredging,
pointing, as he did so, to where our propellers were churning up the
mud, and at the ship, which, by reason of her keel _smelling_ the
ground, was almost refusing to answer her helm. However, his annoyances
were soon at an end, and in the splendid freshness of the new day,
we sped joyously down the Gulf towards the much-dreaded and deeply
historical Red Sea.
II
THE YOUNG GIANT
Of course the time of year--the middle of March--must be taken into
account, otherwise I should ask, in utmost bewilderment, why all
this wholesale vituperation of the Red Sea? I am quite prepared to
believe also that we have been especially favoured this voyage, as we
have never, since leaving London, had an unpleasant day at sea. But
when all has been said I am perfectly certain that many other places
of my acquaintance, notably the Spanish Main and the East African
littoral, are quite equal, if not superior, to the Red Sea in its
alleged bad eminence of torridity. No; it was not until we began to
near Colombo that the heat waxed at all oppressive, and even then only
so to people who persisted in worrying about it. In Colombo it was
hot and coal-dusty, and generally unpleasant to the traveller eager
for sight-seeing, yet fresh from the coolth of home and even the Suez
Canal. But it was over soon, and the latter half of the day was also
tempered by a few tremendous tropical rain-showers, heralded by a
thunder-clap out of a blue sky which sounded like the crack of doom and
brought seriousness to many faces. I thought it was the report of a big
gun fired close at hand, and looked vainly about for the smoke-wreath.
Away again at midnight, passing through the narrow way between the ends
of the two magnificent breakwaters at nearly full speed, so confidently
are these modern twin-screw ships handled, and the long stretch across
the Indian Ocean to Fremantle lay before us, the last lap of the ocean
passage. So we settled down to quiet enjoyment again, marred only by
the digestion of the news heard about the outbreak of Vesuvius, fully
justifying my fears when I saw his angry glow on the night of leaving
Naples. Swiftly we passed into the realm of the faithful South-east
Trades, meeting the world-old swell from the southward and listening
half-pityingly, half-contemptuously to the querulous complaints of
passengers at the ship's motion, after their unstinted praises of
her steadiness before. I reserved most of my pity, however, for the
skipper, who had to meet these unwarranted aspersions upon the
character of his fine ship, with explanations which his interlocutors
did not understand, or, if they did, disbelieved, paid no heed to it,
and went on grumbling.
At last, punctual to the appointed hour, in the perfect wharf of a
pearly morning, we steamed into the snug harbour of Fremantle, and
after a brief delay for turning the ship so that she should be ready to
steam right out without delay, we gently glided alongside the wharf,
arrived in Australia. It was my first visit to Western Australia, and
from what I had heard of the Swan River I had pictured something very
different indeed from a waterway, which, though narrow, was deep and
secure as a dock, and lined with wharves alongside of which such a
ship as the _Omrah_, drawing 26 feet of water and measuring nearly
9,000 tons, could be berthed with the greatest ease. As the light
strengthened and it became possible to make out details, I was charmed
at the finished look of everything, the absence of that squalor which,
in American ports especially, seems inseparable from shipping quarters.
There was nothing unkempt or untidy, and as the sun rose and the clear
atmosphere shed its searching light upon every corner, this was most
noticeable. One other point, too, about this most modern port was the
use of the motor for harbour work, the lighters even being brought
alongside by a motor-tug, while two or three others were gliding about
the river with that uncanny air of sentience and absence of fuss which
is extremely characteristic of the motor-boat, if not of the motor-car.
Having met the inevitable interviewer who did _not_ ask me how I
liked Australia, but who did put me to considerable inconvenience by
requesting (in about five minutes) my views on the result of the recent
elections in Great Britain, and the consequences to the Empire of the
sudden rise of the Labour Party, I entered the train at half-past eight
and gat me unto Perth, about an hour's ride. We passed through many
thriving-looking townships, glaringly new to all appearance in that
all-revealing sun-glare, but still, to my delight, free from squalor. I
saw no tumble-down hovels, neglected fences, weed-overgrown forecourts,
unpainted houses with "don't care" posted in unmistakable characters
all over them, such as may be seen in the suburban districts of
Chicago, for instance, to say nothing of many less important American
cities. And I take it that to the observant traveller there are few
better criteria afforded of the character of a great city generally
than the approaches to it by train, for by some strange series of
coincidences a railway almost always runs through the worst part of a
town or city's environs.
Therefore I was most pleasantly impressed by my journey to Perth--an
impression which was deepened and confirmed upon leaving the train
and entering the pretty little city itself, which I mentally compared
with its ancient namesake in Bonnie Scotland. For its lovely
surroundings old Perth can hardly be surpassed, but it is in itself
a "dour auld toon," hard and grim, while new Perth, the capital of
the young and strenuous giant, Western Australia, is bright and brisk
and gay, humming with activity and yet solid and permanent-looking
in its buildings, as if its citizens had faith in its capacity not
merely to endure but to go on. To use an expressive if horrible
Americanism, "there are no flies on" Perth. Its citizens are obviously
full of go, and they have called to their aid all the most modern
appliances for expediting communications either by road or rail.
The electric trolley-car hums along the beautifully graded streets,
alongside of which run a very forest of telegraph poles supporting a
shimmering network of telegraph and telephone wires. I take off my
hat metaphorically to those responsible for the roadways of Perth. To
my mind nothing more fitly stamps the character of those in charge
of a city than the condition of its streets, and I bear witness that
the streets of Perth put to utter shame the roadways of many far more
pretentious and incomparably older towns and cities that I could name
both in the Motherland and in the United States.
My stay in Perth on this occasion being limited to about two and
a half hours, I could not waste time, so made haste to present my
credentials to the Premier, Mr. Rason, and a leading citizen, Dr.
Hackett, proprietor of the _West Australian_, and a gentleman of
whom I heard nothing but praise. By both of them I was received with
the greatest cordiality, but of course there was no time for any
hospitality or investigation, and as I hoped to make a stay of a week
or so on my return it was quite unnecessary to do more than exchange
a few compliments and retire. But I confess that one thought has
worried me. To judge from the newspapers which I have been devouring
since they came on board this morning, the rulers of this Colony are
mainly men whose time is principally devoted to the vituperation of one
another and the promulgation of schemes of socialism, the difference
between the ins and the outs being, as far as I can see, that between
Tweedledum and Tweedledee. If, however, there be any truth in this,
how is it that the evidences of good government and prosperity are so
abundant, so unmistakable on every hand? It is a conundrum the answer
to which I hope to learn later on.
Back again to the ship in a great hurry, and punctually at the time
appointed we steam out around Rottnest Island, and head for Cape
Leeuwin, the "Horn" of Australia, where for the first time the sedate
_Omrah_ begins to manifest symptoms of levity, evoking plaintive
protests from those passengers who, spoiled by the persistently calm
and uneventful passage we have made from Britain, have grown to
resent any additional movement of the ship as a breach of faith on
the part of the Company or a lack of seamanship on the part of the
captain. We have with us as passengers to Adelaide the members of an
Interstate Commission on Shipping Freights--gentlemen who all bear
the distinguishing badge of membership of a State Parliament, a gold
emblem on the watch-chain entitling them to free transit throughout
the Commonwealth. They form a select coterie, holding severely aloof
from all meaner folk, sitting together at a table of their own, and
not deigning to recognise the genial captain, whose withers are quite
unwrung by the neglect. It is impossible to avoid hearing their
conversation in the smoking-room, for it is naturally of the aggressive
order, one gentleman especially having a voice like a foghorn, with
which he endeavours to drown any utterances of his colleagues. Yet--for
the reflection will thus intrude itself--these are the men to whom,
with their like, the destinies of this mighty continent are entrusted,
and, judging by what I have already observed, with no small measure
of success. Is it, I wonder, another proof of the dictum that man is
better than his creeds, and that whatever irresponsibility may utter,
responsibility will curb?
Now one thought dominates others--that I must leave this happy home
of mine and launch into the vortex of shore life. Mentally I contrast
this feeling with the time when I almost always hated the ship that I
was in, and in any case was anxious to get ashore. But inevitably as
fate the big ship breasts the mighty south-east swell, accompanied by
a graceful cohort of albatrosses and mollymauks, until at daylight on
Easter Monday she glides through Investigator Straits into the calm
waters of St. Vincent Gulf, and punctually to the appointed minute lets
go her anchor in Largs Bay off Port Adelaide.
As far as memory will serve me, there is nothing new in the appearance
of the Port from this distance since last I bade farewell to it
twenty-six years ago as second mate of yonder fine sailing ship, the
_Harbinger_, now under the Russian flag, which by a most strange
coincidence is the first vessel to strike my eye on my return. That
argues little, however, for the approach by sea to Adelaide is
unimpressive to the last degree, the distant range of blue hills giving
no promise of the beauties which lie between their slopes and the sandy
levels of the sea-shore. And I cannot help being struck by the fact
that here alone, of all the great ports of the Commonwealth, is it
necessary for the mail steamer to lie out in a roadstead exposed to any
weather which, indeed, might not mean any danger to herself but does
often spell much misery and delay to outcoming and ingoing passengers.
Not, I hasten to add, because there is no harbour for even such large
ships as the _Omrah_, but because the snug berths up the Port River,
as it is called, take up far too much valuable time in reaching and
leaving. There should undoubtedly be an outer harbour or breakwater;
and one was commenced, but the contractors failed, and it remains in
that condition awaiting the time when the authorities can make up
their mind to go on with it again. Fortunately the fates are kind to
us to-day, the weather being beautifully fine, and we are soon in the
tender steaming for the Semaphore Pier, where a scene awaits us (it
being Bank Holiday), which reminds us vividly of home. The spacious
sands are studded with holiday-makers behaving after the manner of
trippers at Margate or Southend, but, methought, a trifle more sedately
and of course far fewer in number, while the long pier is thronged
with anglers, but to my amazement there are no more signs of any fish
being caught than are apparent on the piers of the before-named English
watering-places.
But now comes the always unpleasant business of Customs
examination--unpleasant, that is, to most people, but fortunately in
my own experience invariably modified by the courtesy of the officials
in every port which I have yet visited, with one isolated exception,
Syracuse, Sicily. Even the much-abused Customs searchers at New
York have invariably treated me as if I bore indelible signs about
me of inability to attempt fraud upon a confiding Customs officer,
and refused to examine my baggage at all. So that I was not at all
surprised when, despite what I had been told of the drastic scrutiny to
which all personal belongings entering the Commonwealth was subjected,
the most cursory glance into my baggage sufficed to enfranchise me.
But then I never do smuggle anything, not considering it worth while,
any more than it is worth while running the risk of detection involved
in riding in a first-class carriage with a third-class ticket, to
put the matter on no loftier plane. Then into the train, and away
over the perfectly level country for Adelaide the beautiful. The same
characteristics of neatness and apparent prosperity prevail here as
on the road from Fremantle to Perth; but casting my memory back over
the slight gap of twenty-six years, I am compelled to admit that I was
unable to see very much development. Within a quarter of a century a
dozen large cities of the size of Adelaide have been added to London,
villages have grown into huge towns in this effete old land of ours, as
it is contemptuously termed in America, but here in one of the fairest
and richest countries under the sun the returning wanderer can note but
little difference except in the erection of a few fine buildings in
isolated spots. And I well remember that two of the finest of them, the
Town Hall and Post Office, were in existence when I was here before.
Why is this? Has Australia deliberately chosen the motto, "Festina
lente," and if so, is she in doing so wise or unwise? Far be it from
me to offer an opinion upon so momentous a matter, or to say that the
watchword of "Australia for the Australians" is wrong. Fortunately I
am not called upon to pass judgment, but only to record impressions,
although I confess my grave doubts as to whether rapid gigantic growth
of cities or of nations makes for the best of all things in the best
of all possible worlds. However, here we are at the fine, spacious,
and splendidly built railway terminus, opposite to which is the hotel
to which I am conducted, and with a sense of having most comfortably
and auspiciously begun my tour I sink into a cosy chair surrounded by
friends, luxuriously content.
III
A LAND OF DELIGHT
Hotel life, which for some people has a curious fascination, is to me
a hateful necessity of travel, and few indeed are the hotels which I
have sampled in my journeyings about the world where I have been able
to feel even moderately comfortable, much less at home from home. The
comfort of the old English inn, so fondly dwelt upon by Dickens, is a
thing of the past, and the huge caravanserais of England, America, or
the Continent, are places which to me are a positive nightmare. The
extortion on every hand, the absolute lack of plain, homely cooked
food which one can make a meal of, the almost unbearable and entirely
uncomfortable magnificence on every side combine to make hotel life
to me, and many others like-minded, a thing to be dreaded. Therefore
I feel to-day that I am among the favoured ones of mankind in that
I have "struck" a hotel which is my ideal of what a hotel should be.
The attendants are delightfully civil without a trace of servility,
the food is not merely as good as any that I have ever eaten but it is
plainly, carefully dressed, and not smothered with vile concoctions
of sauce to disguise its natural savours (in most places this is
done as a sort of compensation for the lack of savour in the fish,
flesh, or fowl dealt with), there are six or seven different kinds
of vegetables, beautifully fresh and homelike, and cooked as if they
were worth attention, with luncheon and dinner, there is abundance of
most delicious fruit, baths are free and available all day, and the
inclusive rate is ten shillings per day or three guineas a week. Also
there are no niggling paltry extras for attendance, even the matutinal
cup of tea and newspaper at 7 a.m., and the cup of afternoon tea being
supplied free. I begin to wonder first whether there was ever before
a hotel like this as I sit in my spacious, airy room, and secondly
how, in the name of common experience, can it pay? I feel it almost
an obvious duty to my kind to mention the name of this paragon among
hotels, but may not because of the inevitable misconstruction which
would be put upon my doing so.
Now I promise that there shall be little or no further mention of
hotels in what I have to say. The next morning I awoke and stepped
out upon the wide verandah into an air that was as heady as wine and
almost too chilly for a sleeping suit. A perfect day, the golden sun
flooding the world with light, the purple background of hills lying in
slumberous shadow, and that sweet breeze pouring in upon the awakening
city from the shimmering bay, just visible in patches from this
elevation. Can this be Australia? My recollections of all her coasts
from Townsville to Adelaide are very vivid, but they all include baking
heat, scorching winds laden with sand, never at any time such a morning
as this. But I must not stay indoors; it seems a sin, unless compelled.
So as soon as possible I emerge, to be astounded by every person I
meet saying, "Very cold this morning, isn't it?" Cold! I gasp with
amazement, for to me the climate seems as nearly perfection as climate
can be on this side of Paradise. As a matter of actual fact the shade
temperature is 52° at 8 a.m.
A stroll round the bright, cheerful, clean, magnificently paved streets
brings me to the inevitable conclusion that such changes as have taken
place in the last twenty-six years are hardly noticeable by me. The
most prominent edifices in the city, the Town Hall and Post Office,
were then erected, but beyond that I feel certain that the city's
growth has been so slow that its beauty remains absolutely unimpaired.
I hope the citizens will not feel aggrieved at my saying this,
especially as I fail entirely to see how the tremendously rapid growth
of a London suburb, for instance, which in twenty years will add to its
area of buildings and population two cities of the size of Adelaide,
makes for that which we all profess most earnestly to desire--the
greatest good of the greatest number. There is on this first walk of
mine alone, and on observation bent, an utter absence of those great
variations between blatant wealth and squalid poverty which are so
painfully apparent at home and in America. And there is a generally
diffused air of comfort prevailing among the people and in their
dwellings that is to me most especially delightful to see. Even the
ramshackle two-horse trams which hump along the road seem to say almost
defiantly, "We're proud of being evidences of the absence of hustle.
Our people can have the electric trolley-cars whenever they want them,
but there is really not the least little bit of need for hurry in the
world." And anyhow, all the roads in the city are just perfect to ride
on either in buggy or motor, on a bicycle or to walk on, so splendidly
graded and beautifully kept is the asphalt of which they are composed.
It is an object-lesson patent to the most casual eye of the character
of the people, this wonderful care of the roads.
Of all the cities that I have ever seen Adelaide comes easily first
in the perfect beauty of its situation and arrangement. Level it is
certainly, yet not nearly so level as it appears from the hills, with
a lavish width of roadway even in what would in other places be mean
streets, and beyond all the magnificent belt of park-lands which
environ it, set aside for the health and enjoyment of its citizens
as long as it shall be a city by wise, far-seeing old Colonel Light,
bitterly as he was reviled at the time for making such a selection
of a site for the capital of the new Colony. But it is not until the
visitor has been taken in hand by some hospitable citizen, and, seated
in a motor-car, has been whirled away by winding roads through lovely
scenery up the beautiful flanks of Mount Lofty, that he recognises what
a wonderfully handsome and ideally situated city it is. And there is
a quiet exultation about those same citizens as, mounting higher and
higher, they again and again invite you to survey the panorama beneath
you, that is most pleasant to witness. They do not brag, bid you--as
they would if they were Yankees--burst into unstinted panegyric, but
they wait confidently and quietly for the expression of your honest
opinion. And I do not think they are ever disappointed.
Each suburb that is passed on the upward journey is well groomed, and,
moreover--a characteristic feature of this favoured land--looks as
if the inhabitants had come to stay. There is no "I'm but a stranger
here" appearance about the snug houses and well-kept lots, while the
fruit-trees suggest a veritable garden of the Lord. All the home
fruits grow here in rich profusion side by side with oranges, lemons,
and grapes, grapes, grapes, until you cease to wonder how it is that
the Adelaide hawkers can afford to stand all day selling grapes that
are simply perfection for size, flavour, and variety at a uniform
rate of a penny a pound. But gladly as I always welcome the view of
an orchard or a vineyard, I confess that my attention was always
more quickly arrested by the fat, black level land in the valleys,
whereon was growing in most lavish profusion all the vegetables that
we love at home--peas and beans, onions and potatoes, parsnip and
beet, side by side with luxuriant tomatoes, huge melons, and many
other tasty agricultural products of sub-tropical countries. A gentle
land, where frost is unknown, where temperate and sub-tropical fruits
and vegetables grow side by side, and the only trouble is to find
sufficient markets for the abounding crops garnered with the minimum of
labour.
But what I think impresses all visitors to this favoured spot more
than anything else are the vineyards, especially if he be conversant
with Continental grape-growing districts. This strong, red soil,
bearing evidences of abundance of iron on every hand, seems to be the
natural home of the grape, and to be free, to an amazing degree, from
those insect pests which have made the lot of the French and Italian
vignerons such a weary one. Every variety of grape seems to flourish
here in such wonderful luxuriance and fecundity, and withal in such
healthfulness of foliage and fruit, that the eye wearies of admiring
their prolific masses. Quite unintentionally it so happened that I was
invited to go and visit one of the youngest of the vineyards and its
"winery," as it is called, in company with two gentlemen, proprietor
and editor of a great newspaper out here. And I must confess that I was
amazed at everything I saw. The wagon-loads of tiny but rich-tasting,
luscious grapes, coming in from the adjacent vineyards, where they
were being picked by a merry troop of boys and girls, the ceaseless
elevator upon whose revolving shelves a burly, silent man hurled huge
fork-loads of grapes, the drum above, in which those same grapes were
separated from their stalks and crushed at the same time, the juice
flowing one way, the stalks another, and the crushed skins another. All
the swift process was mightily interesting, especially as contrasted
with the old crude methods of the Continent, with their maximum of
dirt. I thought of Macaulay's
"This year the must shall foam
'Neath the white(?) feet of laughing girls,"
and felt that this method was infinitely preferable. Then down below to
where the great square backs full of juice were bubbling and boiling
in the throes of fermentation, and I elicited information about the
hastening of that wonderful process by the addition of special cultures
_à la_ Pasteur, for your Australian wine-grower is nothing if not
scientific. Here is a flood of claret, here one from the Sauvignon
grape, here the Muscat, here port, but all busy, and none allowed to
waste an unnecessary moment in the preliminary processes, however
long they may have to lie and mature afterwards. And I was especially
interested in seeing how the tint of the grape was reproduced in the
wine, so that a very slight acquaintance and a keen eye for colour
would be sufficient to name the particular grape from which any given
back-full had been crushed.
There was an air of absolute purity, of precise cleanliness everywhere
which was exceedingly pleasant to notice, but there was also a curious
solemnity, a brooding over everything, that was most impressive. Even
on the top floor, where the machinery was in evidence, it made only a
subdued hum, all being driven by an English-made petrol engine which
I was proudly informed had run for four or five years, ever since it
was put in, without any attention beyond an occasional wipe and the
necessary feeding with petrol, and had never once given the slightest
trouble. But as we descended into the vast cellars, amid vats and
tuns of maturing wine varying in their contents from 500 to 2,500
gallons, the silence became positively oppressive, and I found myself
involuntarily speaking in a whisper, as if in some stately fane. Again,
anything more unlike the wine-cellars of the Old World that I have seen
could not possibly be imagined. There, cobwebs, mildew, fungi, and a
damp, earthy smell as of the tomb; here, not a spot of dirt or speck
of dust to be seen anywhere, as if scores of busy housemaids were all
over the place every morning, which of course could not be the case.
There were very few men about. Labour is costly here, and consequently
every labour-saving appliance that can be devised is employed. But
I was glad to learn that all the bottles I saw being filled were of
Australian, not Belgian or German, make; that these people had too
much patriotism to let a home industry be filched from them by free
importers who would buy nothing in return. And certainly these hocks
and clarets and ports looked very beautiful in their neat bottles
with attractive labels, especially when I remembered having watched
the whole process as far as the human eye could follow it, that they
were all absolutely the pure juice of the grape without any extraneous
admixture whatever, although for that I will not claim any special
virtue on the part of the vigneron, only pointing out that the pure
article is cheaper to make than any adulterated one would be.
We then went into the still-house, where from the must, the crushed
grape-skins, an absolutely pure brandy was being distilled, and
I remember vividly the outcry at home because it was said to be
impossible to get pure brandy. I am assured, and I have no difficulty
in believing, that it does not pay the Australian wine-grower to
sophisticate his brandy. That it is infinitely superior to any foreign
brandy on the market at double its price I can also well believe, and
as far as a novice's taste may decide it certainly is more palatable
than any French brandy I have ever tasted at any price. Why, then, is
it not in its rightful place at home? Brandy is not a drunkard's drink;
it is largely medicinal, and it is essential that it should be pure.
And I believe that if the people who now pay large sums for inferior
foreign brandy would only try the pure product of the Australian
grape they would never purchase any other. The wine is said to be too
strong, too alcoholic, and I can easily believe that to be the case,
but as far as the brandy goes, it can only be described as the best
obtainable because absolutely pure. I came away from the vineyard
with a feeling of great pleasure, on the one hand that I had been
privileged to witness so beautiful a process, and of intense sadness
on the other that these splendid natural products of our own loyal
kin should still be in the struggling stage, should still have to
fight for a bare existence against far inferior Continental wines with
nothing to recommend them but the prestige of the name. Fortunately
the Australians are loyal to their wines, and drink them themselves; if
they did not I am afraid these lovely vineyards would have to revert to
wilderness, which would be a crime against civilisation.
IV
A GOODLY HERITAGE
The soil which grows the grape, the orange, the lemon, the apple and
pear and peach in such wonderful profusion, also grows the olive,
and would, I feel sure, comparing it with the uplands of Costa
Rica, grow a splendid grade of coffee. But who of us at home ever
heard of Australian olive oil? We all know into what disrepute the
Continental olive oil has fallen owing to its gross adulteration and
its exceedingly unpleasant taste--due, I believe, to the methods of
its preparation. Well, candidly, I was never able to eat olives until
I came here, but these are so different to any that I have tasted
before that I am now almost craving for them. And the oil is so creamy,
so bland and mellow, that I look back in wonder at my dislike of the
flavour of the oil that I have had poured over my salad in restaurants
in London. And I do not at all understand why such an article of great
utility and constant demand should not be in its rightful place in
Britain, especially since, owing to the wonderful cheapness of ocean
freights, the difference in its cost to the consumer from that of the
very much inferior Italian oil would be practically nil.
Currants also grow in great profusion, but the difficulty of drying
them in the sun is great, and I do not see how they are to compete with
the produce of Greece. Still, I suppose they are prepared in sufficient
quantity and quality to satisfy the local demands, which, after all,
is one of the prime objects of every Australian citizen; and a very
laudable object too, that we in England should entirely sympathise
with, seeing how many things we could produce ourselves, and in so
doing employ our own people, which now we import under such favourable
conditions to the foreigner. I do wish that our so-called Free Traders
could see how common-sense Protection works out here for themselves,
instead of accepting the worn-out theories which, in defiance of all
reason and the experience of all other countries, are thrust upon them
by people who should know better.
The beauty of Adelaide is proverbial, but, curiously enough, it can
only be realised from the landward side. The visitor who, on his
passage hither from overseas, has been duly plied with glowing eulogy
of the Queen of the South by faithful South Australians, is--must
be--intensely disappointed as he nears the port and surveys the flat,
sandy shores, the level only broken by an occasional chimney shaft or
masts of ships lying up the invisible river as if they had been carried
inland by some necromancy. But when, after an hour's run in a motor-car
over superb roads and through perfectly lovely scenery, you reach the
upper slopes of Mount Lofty, and are suddenly bidden to turn and look
down upon Adelaide, which lies basking in the golden sunshine, edged
by the glittering sea, you recognise that you are in the presence of
one of the fairest scenes that earth can afford. Around you, nestling
amidst the luxuriant vegetation, may be discerned many a picturesque
little township, all alike noticeable for their lack of squalor or any
other appearance of poverty which so painfully disfigures the fairest
and most romantic of our villages at home. And scattered about between
the townships lie the homes of the well-to-do Adelaide folks. I had
almost said wealthy folks, but I fear to convey a wrong impression.
They may be wealthy, but there is none of that tremendous ostentation
and aggressive swagger about them that is so offensive in older
countries. Comfort, yes, and even a certain amount of luxury, but the
ostentatious note is entirely absent. Yet they are almost all self-made
men, who are popularly supposed, at home at any rate, to be in their
manners somewhat like the hero of one of Ouida's later books, "The
Massarenes," who wipes his muddy boots upon a duchess's silk gown to
show his authority over her.