VICTORIA.
PORT PHILLIP--EARLY SETTLEMENT AND ABANDONMENT--THE PIONEERS HENTY,
BATMAN AND FAWKNER--SIZE OF VICTORIA--MELBOURNE--ITS
APPEARANCE--PUBLIC BUILDINGS--STREETS--RESERVES--PRIDE OF ITS
PEOPLE--UNEARNED INCREMENT--SANDHURST--BALLARAT--THE CAPITAL OF THE
INTERIOR--GEELONG--THE WESTERN DISTRICT--VIEW OF THE
LAKES--PORTLAND--THE WHEAT PLAINS--SHEPPERTON--THE
MALLEE--GIPPSLAND--MOUNTAIN RANGES--SCHOOL SYSTEM--COBB'S
COACHES--FACTS AND FIGURES.
[Illustration: SEMI-CIVILISED VICTORIAN ABORIGINES.]
[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MELBOURNE.]
It is strange that Victoria should be one of the youngest of the
colonies, for Port Phillip was amongst the places first noticed by the
early settlers of the continent. Lieutenant Grant, commanding the little
brig _Lady Nelson_, observed the inlet in the year 1800, when _en route_
for Sydney. In 1802 Governor King, of New South Wales, dispatched the
_Lady Nelson_, under Lieutenant Murray, to explore and report. The
account given was most favourable of the extent of the bay, the security
of its anchorages, and the beauty and apparent fertility of its shores.
The result was that it was decided to establish a convict settlement on
the shores of the gulf, and in 1803 Colonel Collins and a party of
prisoners, with their guards, landed at the site of the now fashionable
seaside resort, which has been called Sorrento at the instance of Sir
Charles Gavan Duffy, one of the first landowners there. To the lover of
beauty the scene, gazing from Sorrento down Capel Sound, is fair; the
blue sea ripples at your feet; the high hills around Dromana, draped
with the rich ultramarine blue not to be found outside of Australia,
form a charming background on which one can gaze and gaze again. But the
prose of the situation for Governor Collins was that he was landed on a
well-nigh waterless sand-spit, the most sterile portion of the district,
the resort to-day of the admirers of loveliness, but shunned even to-day
by the practical settler. The citizen in his Sorrento villa is lulled by
the roar of the league-long surf which ever breaks on the rocky ocean
beach, scarcely a mile away. But circumstances alter human views, and
the historian of the expedition reports that the monotonous booming of
the breakers irritated and depressed both soldiers and convicts, and
made a miserable company still more wretched. A search was made for
water that was not brackish, but the right places were missed, and at
last, happily for all concerned, the settlement was abandoned in favour
of the Hobart colony. Governor Collins rejoiced to get away from the
spot, the soldiers rejoiced, and the convicts also, and posterity will
never leave off rejoicing that Victoria was left to be a 'free colony'
from its inception.
The bad name given to the Port Phillip district clung to it for nearly a
generation. The great central desert was supposed to extend to the
sea-coast in this direction; but gradually the real district was
discovered by 'overlanders' from New South Wales, and at last, in 1824,
Hovell and Hume crossed the Murray river, skirted the Australian Alps,
and struck the shores of Port Phillip between Geelong and Melbourne.
Later on the Messrs. Henty, crossing from Tasmania, established a
whaling-station in Portland Bay, and began cultivation also. So the new
land was more and more talked about in the existing settlements, just as
the new country in North-western Australia is being talked of in Sydney
and Melbourne to-day. Tasmania sent the first batch of colonists, an
association, with Mr. John Batman at its head, being formed to take up
land there. In one sense Batman did take up land on an enormous scale.
He landed in May, 1835. He says in a despatch to the Governor of
Tasmania: 'After some time and full explanation, I found eight chiefs
amongst them who possessed the whole of the territory near Port Phillip.
Three brothers, all of the same name, were the principal chiefs, and two
of them, men six feet high, very good-looking; the other not so tall,
but stouter. The chiefs were fine men. After explanation of what my
object was, I purchased five large tracts of land from them--about
600,000 acres, more or less--and delivered over to them blankets,
knives, looking-glasses, tomahawks, beads, scissors, flour, &c., as
payment for the land; and also agreed to give them a tribute or rent
yearly. The parchment the eight chiefs signed this afternoon, delivering
to me some of the soil, each of them, as giving me full possession of
the tracts of land.' How the blacks could sign a parchment is somewhat
of a mystery. Batman seems to have recognised that a performance of this
kind would be laughed at, and so he goes on to describe another signing
away which took place. He travelled about with the natives, marking
boundary trees.
Batman was a hardy bushman, and acquired great fame in Tasmania by his
courage in capturing a notorious convict desperado; but if he imagined
that these deeds and purchases would ever be recognised, he was as
simple as the blacks themselves. As a matter of fact, no one ever took
any notice of them. Within a few weeks after the transaction, the second
or Fawkner party of settlers were on the river Yarra, had landed in the
gully now called Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, and the future capital had
been founded. When the deeds were shown to the new arrivals, they
laughed and declined to move on, but proceeded to clear away the site of
the city. Batman died from the effects of a severe cold in 1839, and
'Batman's Hill,' where he built his hut, has been cleared away to make
room for the great Spencer Street railway station. John Batman would
probably have become a rich man had he lived, but his estate was
frittered away, and his grandchildren are now working in the mass for
their living. Quite recently, a subscription having been organised for
the purpose, a suitable monument was placed over the grave of the
pioneer in the old Melbourne cemetery. The blacks would certainly have
very much liked the terms which Batman made with them to have been
respected, for Batman spoke of a yearly rent, and no one afterwards ever
dreamed of such a provision.
The rival pioneer was much more fortunate. John Pascoe Fawkner lived to
a ripe old age, became a member of the Legislative Council, and
'Fawkner's Park,' a handsome city reserve, perpetuates his name; while
his portrait is in the Victorian National Gallery. The last time the
author met the shrewd old man was in 1870, when he had stopped his
carriage on the Eastern Hill to gaze wistfully at the scene, and was
ready to talk with animation about the changes that had passed over it.
Those changes had been great indeed. On the whole, the lieutenant of the
convoy ship _Calcutta_ was not exactly happy in his prophecy, when he
wrote as he sailed away: 'The kangaroo now reigns undisturbed lord of
the Port Phillip soil, and he is likely to retain his dominion for
ages.' Sir Thomas Mitchell was more felicitous when, being commissioned
by the Sydney Government to explore and report on the country to the
south of the Murray, he wrote back in 1836-7: 'A land more favourable
for colonisation could not be found. This is _Australia Felix_.'
[Illustration: MELBOURNE, 1840. (_From the original sketch by Mr. S. H.
Haydon._)]
The surface of this south-eastern corner of Australia is strangely
diversified, and hence its charm. Its own south-eastern region is
occupied by the Australian Alps. Hundreds of peaks rising from 4000 to
7000 feet in height secure here an abundant rainfall, and in the
sheltered gullies a noble vegetation is to be found; then come the
uplands sloping down to the Murray plains. And back from the western
seaboard stretches the beautiful so-called Western District, composed of
open rolling plains studded with lakes, and with the isolated cones of
extinct volcanoes. A grand and terrible sight they must have presented
when these agents were at work sending forth fire, ashes and water, but,
happily for man, their powers have departed long, long ago. Mount
Franklin shows no sign of becoming a second Vesuvius, and the volcanic
deposit has secured for the west a wonderful luxuriance of growth--such
a growth as the grazier dearly loves. The beauty of the eastern district
of Victoria is of the kind that delights the artist; the pleasant
western spectacle is grateful to the banker. The capitalist will
build a cottage home in the one, but he will advance money freely on the
acres of the other. The gold-fields are the least picturesque of any
portion of the Austral region, though as gold-fields they possess a
romance of their own.
[Illustration: A RAILWAY PIER IN MELBOURNE IN 1886.]
But, turning from the country to the town, we have first and foremost
that special pride of Victoria, the great city of Melbourne. Batman
proclaimed the site 'a good spot for a village,' and the village has
become a metropolis. We give an engraving showing what Melbourne was
like in 1840, and as a contrast, one of a railway pier in the same city
forty-six years later. Its population of over 350,000 puts Melbourne
into the rank of the first score of the cities of the empire. And if
area were considered as the test, the city would not easily be
surpassed, except by London itself, for a ten miles' radius from the
Post Office is required to cover it all. There is much filling in to be
done, of course, but Brighton, Oakleigh, Surrey Hills, and other of the
long distance suburbs have not only been built up to, but are being
passed by the spreading population. The city itself is a compact mass of
about a mile and a half square, encircled by large parks and gardens,
all the property of the people, and permanently reserved for their use.
Built upon a cluster of small rolling hills, the views of Melbourne are
pleasantly interrupted, and yet it is possible to obtain frequent
glimpses from commanding points, either of the whole or of parts of the
whole. You will turn a corner and come upon a panoramic peep of streets,
of sea and of spires that takes one's breath away. Near Bishopscourt you
have one of these 'coigns of vantage.' You see the busy town below, and
hear its hum. On the one side are the suburbs where artisan and clerk
and small tradesman have their long rows of cottages and houses, costing
from L200 to L2,000 each, while on the other side are the high lands of
Malvern and Toorak, where the successful squatter, speculator, and
storekeeper have erected mansions, standing in at present prices from
L5,000 to L50,000. Government House, the residence of His Excellency,
the representative of the Crown, is a conspicuous object to the south;
to the north is the handsome Exhibition Building, in which the gathering
of 1880 was held. Numerous places of amusement speak of a
pleasure-loving people. The two or three spires upon every hill proclaim
a Christian community not averse to spending money and making sacrifices
for its religion. There is no veneer. The cottage is usually of brick;
the public buildings, from the twin cathedrals of the Roman and Anglican
Churches downwards, are of stone, which is costly here. The mushroom
Melbourne of 1857 has been exchanged for Mr. G. A. Sala's 'Marvellous
Melbourne' of the present year of grace, 1886.
[Illustration: A MELBOURNE SUBURBAN HOUSE.]
Melbourne streets are wide--a chain and a half or ninety-nine feet in
all--and they are busy. The shops seem 'squat' to most visitors from the
Old World, for two stories high was the rule until within the last few
years; but as the price of land goes up, so does the height of the
buildings. Nothing would be built in the city now under four or five
stories, and there are tradesmen's places and stores and 'coffee
palaces' that run up to six and seven stories, and are more than a
hundred feet above the level of the roadway. Thus the complaint of
squatness will speedily disappear. Not only are the streets wide, but
they are also regular. Some run north and south; others east and west.
Thus the city is something of a gridiron, or rather, giants could play
games of chess upon its plan. Usually towns have been built on the
tracks of the cows of the first inhabitants, but Melbourne is a
surveyor's city. All the streets are straight, and none would be narrow
but that lanes intended by the original designers as back entrances for
the residents of the main roads have been eagerly seized upon, and are
utilised as business frontages. The importers of 'soft goods'--that is,
of articles of apparel--have taken possession of one of these streets,
Flinders Lane, and as 'the lane' it is known everywhere throughout
Australia, without the need of any distinctive affix. Further north,
dilapidated buildings in another 'lane,' with their shutters up and a
profuse display of blue banners with golden hieroglyphics, proclaim
that Little Bourke Street has been converted into a Chinese quarter. The
main streets run their mile and more east and west. They are five in
number, with four lanes, while nine broad streets run north and south.
Of the five, Flinders Street is adjacent to the wharves and great
warehouses, and is commercial in character.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF MELBOURNE, SHOWING PUBLIC OFFICES AND
GARDENS: ST. KILDA IN THE DISTANCE.]
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF MELBOURNE, LOOKING SOUTHWARDS TO THE
SEA.]
Collins Street runs from the public offices in the east to the country
railway-station in the west. The one end is given up to the fashionable
doctors and the favoured dentists, handsome churches and prosperous
chemists filling in the interstices. From the Town Hall corner, Collins
Street is gay with carriages and with pedestrians who come to see or to
shop. Farther on we enter the region of the banks, the exchange, the
offices of barristers and solicitors, and the rooms of the auctioneers.
Here men of business are hurrying about. The flutter about the tall
building on the left tells of some mining excitement. Farther on, a
bearded, sun-burned, but well-dressed group will attract attention.
'Scott's' is the squatters' hotel, and it has been selected as the place
for submitting to auction those 'well-known and extensive pastoral
properties entitled the "Billabong Blocks," within easy distance of
market (say eight hundred miles), together with all improvements and
stock.' The conversation is whether the station will bring L300,000 or
not--for it is a large property; whether a better sale could have been
effected in Sydney, and so on; and next day you read in your _Argus_
that 'the biddings reached L290,000, when the lot was passed in, and was
subsequently sold at a satisfactory price, withheld.' Last of all, in
Collins Street come Assurance Companies' offices, the buildings of
merchants, and great wool stores.
In Bourke Street, commencing again at the west, where the new Houses of
Parliament stand, we have first shops, hotels, and theatres, then hotels
and mews, and finally a region of hotels (now less frequent), and of
offices and stores. Lonsdale Street is in a transitive condition. La
Trobe Street is not recognised. Standing on the midway flat you see two
hills: the western hill is commercial, the eastern hill is social. After
six o'clock Flinders Street and Collins Street are deserted. In place of
busy scenes of life there is gloom and solitude, while Eastern Bourke
Street, where the theatres and concert halls are, is lit up and is
thronged. Leisured people who can promenade in the daytime use Collins
Street as their lounge; the toiling multitude, who must promenade in the
evening or not at all, patronise Bourke Street. On Saturday nights the
Bourke Street block is great; the footways will not accommodate the
crowds.
Another Melbourne feature is the rush from the city from four to six
o'clock P.M., and the inrush from eight to ten o'clock in the morning.
It is enormous, but it is easily met. There is an extensive suburban
railway system, the property of the Government--as all railways in
Victoria are. Omnibuses and waggonettes are numerous, the latter taking
the place of the London cab; and now there are gliding through the
streets the successful and popular cable trams, a company having
obtained a concession to put down fifty miles of these costly roadways.
Let a heavy shower of rain fall at or about six P.M., however, and the
rush is too great for the accommodation, and those 'too late' have to
wait for return vehicles, and to bewail their misfortune.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF CENTRAL MELBOURNE.]
[Illustration: BOURKE STREET, MELBOURNE, LOOKING EAST.]
In public buildings Melbourne would be really great, if all that have
been begun were finished. But few are. The citizens are not running up
miserable flimsy structures, but are building for posterity. Final
contracts have been taken for the Houses of Parliament, which are to be
finished with a newly-discovered stone of a beautiful whiteness, but
expensive to work. From first to last half a million of money will be
spent on these halls of legislation. They will crown the eastern hill.
The Law Courts, which cost nearly L300,000, are finished, and constitute
a handsome pile on the western hill. St. Patrick's Cathedral, on the
eastern hill, will be a marvel, and it is slowly creeping on. The
Anglican Cathedral, founded by Bishop Moorhouse, is in the heart of the
city, and is making more rapid progress. The Public Library is a noble
institution, containing 150,000 volumes, and is open without restraint
to all comers. So is a National Picture Gallery which is attached, and
which contains specimens of the work of many of the best modern masters.
There is a National Museum, in which the Australian fauna is admirably
represented, and the Melbourne University is near at hand. This
institution, beautifully situated and handsomely endowed, grants degrees
which are recognised throughout the Empire, and its doors are open to
male and to female students alike. Ladies have taken B.A. and M.A.
degrees already, and the number of the softer sex entering is on the
increase. Not a ladies' school of repute but has its matriculation
class. The Town Hall, where 2,000 people can sit to listen to the
organ--one of the world's great organs--is not to be passed over. The
Botanic Gardens are another show spot. They are well within the civic
bounds, and by visiting them you obtain a series of lovely views, and
become acquainted with the flora of the Australian continent, for
everything that can be coaxed to grow here has been provided by the
director, Mr. Guilfoyle, with a suitable home. There is a gully for the
graceful Gippsland ferns, a spot for the gorgeous Illawarra flame-tree,
a guarded receptacle for the great northern nettle-bush, which is here
twelve or fifteen feet in height, and which no one would presume to
handle. Cycads, palms, and palm lilies represent Queensland in one
division; a mass of foliage of a bright metallic green speaks of New
Zealand in another. Of no place is the Melbournite more proud than of
the Gardens, which Mr. Guilfoyle has only had in hand about twelve
years, but which he has transformed from a waste into a Paradise.
[Illustration: UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE.]
Melbourne has a grand system of water supply. The river Plenty, a
tributary of the Yarra, is dammed twenty miles away, and the huge
reservoir when full contains nearly a two years' supply. The
reticulation allows of a supply of eighty gallons per head to each
consumer; but in hot days the demand for baths and for the Garden are so
great that this quantity is not found to be half enough, and
improvements are to be effected. The Yan Yean system has cost
L2,000,000, and now the Watts River is to be brought in, and as the
engineers speak of L750,000 being necessary, the presumption is that
L1,000,000 will be required. It is a grand spectacle to see a full head
of Yan Yean turned on to a fire, say at night, when there is no strain
to abate the maximum pressure. The flames are not so much put out as
they are smashed out of existence. On a wooden building the jet will act
like a battering-ram, sending everything flying. No engine is required
in these cases; the hose is wound on a light big-wheeled reel, and the
instant an alarm is given a brigade can start off at racing speed and
come into action on the moment of arrival.
[Illustration: THE FITZROY GARDENS, MELBOURNE.]
As to industries, a list would be wearisome. A hundred tall chimneys
make known to the observer the fact that Melbourne is becoming a great
manufacturing centre.
The reserves between the city and its suburbs must ever be the greatest
charm of Melbourne. To leave Melbourne on the south, you must pass
through the mile-long Albert Park, with its ornamental water and its
handsome carriage drives, or you must saunter through Fawkner Park or
the Domain. Yarra Park and the Botanic Gardens are to the south-east,
and they link with the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens. Carlton Gardens crown
the city to the north, and communicate by smaller reserves, such as
Lincoln Square, to the 1,000 acre Royal Park, in which, among other
attractions, are the well-stocked gardens of the Zoological Society,
open to the public on certain days, in consideration of a Government
subsidy, free of cost.
The Yarra Park, lying between Melbourne and Richmond, contains the
principal cricket grounds of the city. Here the Melbourne Cricket Club
has its head-quarters, and much its sward and its grand stand and its
pavilion are praised by our cricketing friends from the Old World. In
the season the big matches, All England _v._ Australia, or New South
Wales _v._ Victoria, will draw their tens of thousands of spectators,
and on other occasions the area is utilised for moonlight concerts, for
flower-shows, and for pyrotechnics.
A jealous eye is kept upon these reserves. Once or twice a minister,
eager to increase the land revenue, has made a dash at a city park, and
has essayed to sell a slice, but so great has been the uproar that no
Government is likely to indulge in the effort again. Indeed, in almost
all cases, the alienation has now been rendered impossible except by
means of an Act of Parliament, which could never be obtained. The belt
of reserves--5,000 acres in all--is secure, and it must grow in beauty
yearly, continually adding to the attractions of the town. As it is
within a stone's throw of city life, you can wander into cool glens and
sequestered shades, and hear the thrush sing, or study the beauties of a
fern gully. To the pedestrian the walk to business in the morning or
from it in the evening is thus rendered delightful; but if the ordinary
Australian can possibly avoid it he never does walk. You meet curious
traces in these reserves of that former time when the eucalypts
sheltered not the inevitable perambulator and nursemaid at noon, nor the
equally inevitable 'young people' at the 'billing and cooing' stage in
the evening, but rather the kangaroo and the black fellow. In the Yarra
Park an inscription on a green tree calls attention to the fact that a
bark canoe has been taken from the trunk. The canoe shape being evident
in the stripped portion, and the marks of the stone hatchet being still
visible on the stem. The blacks would find their way to the river
impeded now by a treble-track railway that runs close to their old camp,
carrying passengers to a station which three hundred trains enter and
leave daily.
Melbourne has a river. One knows this mostly by crossing the bridges, as
otherwise the Yarra plays but a small part in the social arrangements of
the community. The lower portion of the stream is being greatly
improved. It is to be straightened and deepened, so that the largest
liners are to come up to the city, as already do 2000-ton intercolonial
steamers. The works, which will cost millions, are now (1886) about
half-way through. Near Melbourne the stream is muddy and nasty. Sluicers
use the water for gold-washing purposes twenty miles away, and factories
were allowed years back to be started upon its banks, and though new
tanneries and new fellmongeries are forbidden, the old evil-smelling
establishments remain. Few who look upon the sluggish ditch at
Melbourne would imagine that five and forty miles away it is a brisk and
sparkling river, parrots and satin birds and kingfishers floating about
it, ferns bending over and hiding its waters, and the giant gum rising
from its banks to double the height of any city spire. The improvements
will make the Yarra below the city a grand stream, bearing the commerce
of the world on its bosom, and one may look forward to the time when the
city portion itself will be purified, and the river made worthy of its
romantic mountain home.
[Illustration: THE YARRA YARRA, NEAR MELBOURNE.]
The city has its drawbacks. There is dust in the summer, which the
water-carts seek in vain to control; and there is mud in winter, which
no raving against the Corporation appears to affect; and the less said
on the drainage question the better. Again, as to weather, there are
people who protest against the suddenness of the change when the wind in
January chops round from north to south, and after panting in the
morning you begin to think of a fire at night. But the three hundred
delightful days of the year, when existence is a pleasure, are to be
remembered, and not the odd sixty-five when ills have to be endured. A
favourable impression is usually made upon visitors by the city with its
charm of suburbs, its wealth and reserves, its crowds of well-dressed
people, always busy about either their pleasure or their business,
always obliging, the poorest showing no signs of poverty, nor yet the
lowest of the influence of drink. And if a visitor had ideas of his own
he would withhold any adverse dictum until he was away, and would not
seek to wound the feelings of his hospitable hosts. With them, at any
rate, it is a cardinal principle of faith that their much-loved home is
entitled to the proud appellation of the 'Queen City of the South.'
An 'unearned increment,' such as would satisfy the most glowing dreams
of the most ardent speculator, has occurred in the capital. One instance
may be given. One of the few original half-acre blocks now in possession
undisturbed--not cut up--of the family of the original purchaser is
situated in a good part of Collins Street. The colonist whose executors
are now holding the property gave L20 for it in 1837. To-day the
sixty-six feet frontage to Collins Street is worth L1,150 per foot; the
Flinders Lane frontage is worth L350 per foot. A little ciphering brings
out a sum total of L99,000 as the present value of the original L20
investment. And for decades the income derived from the block has been
counted by many thousands per annum. The L20 has by this time earned at
least L200,000 in all. In many country places a L5 lot will bring L500
when a decade has passed. But then the place may not become a centre,
and your 'unearned increment' will be no more substantial than the
evening cloud. There is a reverse to this shield, as to all others.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF SANDHURST.]
From Melbourne it is easy to journey to the two great gold-fields of
Victoria--Ballarat and Sandhurst. The latter is due north, and is
reached by a double-track railway, built in the early days at a cost of
L40,000 per mile. Single-track railways, costing L4,000 per mile, are
now the order of the day. Sandhurst is the Bendigo of old days. It has
had many ups and downs; has been deserted, and has been ruined; but the
result is the fine city of to-day, with its broad, tree-lined streets,
its splendid buildings, and high degree of commercial activity. As a
recent writer puts it: 'What vicissitudes has not the place undergone!
From enormous wealth to the verge of bankruptcy, from the pinnacle of
prosperity to the direst adversity; from financial soundness to
commercial rottenness; and yet, with that wonderful elasticity and
buoyancy which characterises our gold-fields, the falling ball has
rebounded, the sunken cork has again come to the surface, and Sandhurst,
after all her reverses, is perhaps now richer and on a safer basis than
ever--a city whose wide, well-watered streets are perfect avenues of
trees, bordered by handsome buildings and well-stocked shops,
brilliantly lighted by gas; whose hotel accommodation is proverbially
good, whose civic affairs are admirably regulated, whose citizens are
busy, hospitable, and prosperous.' There is no mistake about the
character of the town. Miles and miles of country before you enter it
have been excavated and upturned by the alluvial digger. And there are
few more desolate sights to be met with than a worked-out and deserted
diggings, for often Nature refuses to lend her assistance, and does not
hide the violated tract with trees or verdure. Ugly gravel heaps,
staring mounds of 'pipe-clay,' deposits of sludge, a surface filled with
holes, broken windlasses, the wrecks of whims, all combine to make a
hideous picture as they stand revealed in the pitiless sunshine.
Alluvial digging of the shallow type is a curse to the unhappy country
operated upon. But alluvial mining has long had its little day, and
ceased to be in and about Sandhurst, and the town lives now by deep
quartz mining. You come upon the 'poppet-heads' and the batteries
everywhere, even in the beautiful reserve which is the centre of the
city. Sandhurst contains 30,000 inhabitants, 8,000 of whom are miners,
while the value of the mining machinery and plant is three-quarters of a
million sterling.
Old Bendigo had busy scenes, but never did it witness such excitement as
when a share mania broke out in 1871. Then it was that the richness of
the so-called 'saddle reefs' was demonstrated. The old-established
companies were paying well, and the Extended Hustlers exhibited one cake
of 2,564 ozs. as the result of a crushing of 260 tons. This was just the
spark wanted to set the market aflame. From being unduly neglected,
Sandhurst was unduly exalted; new companies were projected in every
direction where a line of reefs could be imagined; existing 'claims'
were subdivided, and in a few months L500,000 was invested in Sandhurst
mines. Of course there was a reaction; but though the speculators lost
money to sharpers, there really were auriferous reefs in Sandhurst to be
honestly worked, and no town seems more likely to hold its own in
Victoria than the great quartz city. Foundries and potteries are
springing up in its midst, or rather have sprung up; vineyards and
orchards are found to be successes in its neighbourhood, and the visitor
is grateful for the tree planting in the broad streets, appreciates the
water supply, is duly dazed if he enters a battery chamber, and is
delighted when 1,500 feet below the surface he is allowed to break off
some fragment of glittering quartz.
Ballarat lies 100 miles to the north-east of Melbourne, or at least it
is that distance by rail, via Geelong, but a direct line will soon
reduce it to a distance of seventy miles. An upland plateau, with a
fringe of hills all around, some of these now denuded of their timber,
and glittering white, cold, and bare in the sun, the earth pitted with
holes and gullies, scarified as if by some gigantic rooster,
'mullock'-heaps, 'poppet-heads,' and engine-stacks everywhere. This is
one's first impression of Ballarat. Gold-fields are very much like each
other all over the world. 'Substitute pines for eucalypti,' says Mr.
Julian Thomas, 'and I could imagine this to be California. But when one
first drives from the station and sees the magnificent width of Sturt
Street, with the avenue of trees planted along the centre, the public
buildings, banks, and churches--you are possessed with astonishment that
this is a mining town. Ballarat is indeed a great inland capital. The
difference between this and Sandhurst is that at the latter the mines
obtrude themselves everywhere. One cannot go half a block but one has
mullock-heaps and poppet-heads in view. There is a mine in every
back-yard. At Sandhurst it is gold--nothing but gold! Small nuggets are
occasionally, so say the truthful inhabitants, picked up by
sharp-visioned pedestrians in the public streets. There is gold or
evidences of it all around, even in the very bricks of the houses in
which we live, for the old men tell that the first brick building ever
erected in Sandhurst was pulled down and crushed, yielding three ounces
to the ton! In Ballarat it is all different. Walk up Sturt Street, or
along Lydiard Street, and one sees nothing but substantial buildings and
avenues of trees. The mines are in the suburbs, and do not deface the
town, as at Sandhurst. After an experience of the plains the city is a
perfect Arcadia. Embowered in trees, the homes of the people are
surrounded with gardens. There is verdure and vegetation in every
street. One mentally associates an amount of roughness and coarseness
with a mining town. Here it is quite other than so. There is everything
to bring light and culture and sweetness home to the people. Sandhurst
is superior in one respect--that its public gardens are right in the
centre of the town, running by the side of old Bendigo Creek; but there
is nothing in the colonies to surpass Wendouree Lake, the walks around
it, and the adjacent reserves and Botanical Gardens. An easy walk from
the town, and you embark on one of the fleet of elegant little
steamers--perfect yachts--furnished with luxurious cushions and rugs as
protection from the spray. Here everything is calm and peaceful. There
is no dust, no noise, no smells. Sailing boats and rowing boats are
plentiful; in little punts fishermen are bobbing for perch. This is a
lung which gives health and happiness to the inhabitants of Ballarat.
And when, after crossing the lake, you land under the shade of English
oak trees, and the air is perfumed with the scent of new-mown hay, you
feel that in no other mining community in the world have the people such
privileges as here. The Botanical Gardens are always beautiful, and are
a model to other establishments of the same kind in much larger
communities.'
It was here, early in August 1851, that alluvial gold was discovered at
a bend in the Yarrowee Creek, renamed Golden Point, where the toil of
some of the earlier diggings yielded from twenty to fifty pounds weight
of gold per day. In some spots, indeed, the gold lay almost on the
surface, amidst the roots of the bush grass, to be turned up by the
wheels of the passing bullock-drays, or picked out by hand after heavy
showers. At first it was thought that the auriferous deposit did not
extend beyond the commencement of the pipe-clay stratum, and most of the
diggers moved further afield as soon as they had turned over the bare
skin, so to speak, of the ground; but one digger, more persistent than
the rest, dug beyond the clay, and was richly rewarded by finding that
here lay the true home of the precious metal, here were the 'pockets' so
dear to the heart of the true digger. The deserted 'claims' were quickly
reoccupied, fresh thousands of diggers poured to the locality, and in a
couple of months Ballarat was more vigorous than ever.
Then for a time it was thought that the golden riches lay solely in the
alluvial stratum; but more modern research led to the discovery of a
number of quartz reefs, from which large quantities of gold have been
taken. Amongst the leading mines at present being worked are the
celebrated 'Block Hill,' the 'Band and Albion,' 'Redan,' 'Washington,'
'Koh-I-Noor,' 'Band of Hope,' 'Victoria United,' 'Llanberis,' 'Smith's
Freehold,' 'Williams' Freehold,' together with scores of others,
employing upwards of three hundred steam engines, with an aggregate of
about ten thousand horse-power, besides numerous machines worked by
horses. The total value of the plant and machinery in use is nearly a
million sterling, and the number of miners engaged in active operations
is returned as nine thousand, of whom nearly one-seventh are Chinese.
The total number of quartz reefs proved to be auriferous is between 350
and 400, while the extent of auriferous ground worked upon in the
district is 187 square miles.
But, in addition to its mines, Ballarat is renowned for its pastoral and
agricultural advantages, the Ballarat farmers being always large
prize-takers at the various annual shows. The town is delightfully
situated at an elevation of 1,413 feet above the sea-level, and is
correspondingly healthy for all rejoicing in fairly robust
constitutions. In winter the weather is sometimes of an ultra-bracing
quality with sharp frosts, and even an occasional fall of snow, but on
the whole the climate is very good.
'The Corner' is a local institution. It was at the Corner in olden days
that a sort of open-air Stock Exchange was established, and here do
speculators of all degrees still delight to come. Many are the stories
of the fortunes that have here changed hands at a word--of the
Midas-like touch of some, the Claudian fatality of withering blight
possessed by others. Here, in the maddest times of the gold fever, was a
scene of gambling pure and simple, as reckless as ever broke a Homburg
bank. Here was the _auri sacra fames_ in its most maddening and
tantalising intensity. And here, even in these more prosaic times, are
sudden flashes of the old spirit, that keep gesticulating crowds surging
over the pavement, and the busy wires working hence to Melbourne,
Sandhurst, and other commerce-hives.
Now and again we read of half-a-ton or so of gold being sent by one or
other of the Ballarat banks to its Melbourne head office, and then we
may be sure, there is a bubbling over of excitement at the Corner. But
it soon calms down to the ordinary seething of the cauldron, to which
the shares of the various mining companies bob up and down with a
regularity that can be almost reduced to a certainty.
Anthony Trollope said of Ballarat: 'It struck me with more surprise than
any other city in Australia. It is not only its youth, for Melbourne is
also very young; nor is it the population of Ballarat which amazes, for
it does not exceed a quarter of that of Melbourne; but that a town so
well built, so well ordered, endowed with present advantages so great in
the way of schools, hospitals, libraries, hotels, public gardens, and
the like, should have sprung up so quickly with no internal advantages
of its own other than that of gold. The town is very pleasant to the
sight.' And with these pleasant words we may leave the great mining
capital.
If cities, like men, could enforce their rights by suits of equity,
Geelong would be the capital of the colony of Victoria, and many
heartburnings, past and present, would have been avoided. But as matters
stand, Geelong has to be content with third place in the list of
Victorian extra-metropolitan cities, and with a population of about
21,000. The claims of the town to greater consideration lie in its
situation on the shores of Corio Bay, thus nearer to the sea than
Melbourne, its central position as regards the first cultivated and most
fertile district of the colony, and its early settlement. John Bateman,
the pioneer, with his party of three white men and four Sydney blacks,
landed at Indented Head on May 29, 1835, and would have 'squatted'
thereabouts permanently had it not been for the proceedings of the
aboriginals. As it was, Geelong was really founded as far back as 1837,
when its site was planned by the then Surveyor-General, Robert Hoddle,
and in 1849, or before the golden days, it was incorporated into a town.
But fine harbour, excellent geographical position, and rich country at
its back, were not enough to enable Geelong to compete in the race with
Melbourne, Ballarat, and Sandhurst. It has grown truly, and the growth
has been of the steady nature which gives flavour and solidity; but
lacking the fertilising medium of gold, there is no luxuriance, no
profusion. In the glorious future--the good time coming--this may prove
to have been an advantage. At present it is regarded as a drawback. The
town is in almost hourly communication with Melbourne, both by rail and
steamer, and presents many other features showing it to be instinct with
vitality of the best sort, and ready at any time to forge its way to the
front.
Geelong exports goods, principally wool and produce, to the value of
three-quarters of a million sterling per annum, and sends cargoes direct
to London and Liverpool. To accommodate shipping three substantial
jetties have been built at an expenditure of nearly one hundred thousand
pounds, and the bar at the entrance of the harbour is kept clear to the
depth of twenty-two feet. Another feature which strikes the eye of the
visitor as he glances admiringly round the beautiful bay, on the shores
of which the town sits enthroned, is the number of bathing
establishments. There are no less than four of these, all of large size
and comfortable appointments.
[Illustration: ON LAKE WELLINGTON.]
Geelong tweed has achieved a high reputation in many markets, and the
shawls and blankets made in the town are also widely known.
After inspecting the gold-fields there can be no greater change for the
visitor than to proceed to that Western District, far famed in Australia
for the richness of its soil, the fineness of its pasture, and the soft
beauty of its scenery. It is easily reached, for the railway now runs
into its heart at Colac and Camperdown. This is the lake country of
Victoria. An easy climb takes you to the top of the mount at Colac, and
once there you can appreciate the description which Mr. Julian Thomas,
the most popular descriptive writer of the Australian press, gives of
the scene:--
'This lake country of Victoria,' says Mr. Thomas, 'possesses distinct
features, distinct beauties, as yet unsung and unheard of except by the
few. As I sit on a fragment of igneous rock and look around me, I indeed
feel that "the singer is less than his themes." I feel that I cannot do
justice to this magnificent view, I cannot describe all the pleasure it
gives me. My readers must come and judge for themselves. We are on the
edge of the extinct crater of an enormous volcano. Below us a number of
lakes. Fresh and salt, some fifteen can be counted from this spot. They
vary in size from the little mountain tarn filling up one of the mouths
of the crater to the great dead sea, Corangamite, more than 90 miles
round, and covering 49,000 acres. This lake is salter than the sea--no
fish will live in its waters. From the Stony Rises on the south to
Foxhow on the north its shores are outlined with jutting
promontories--quaint and picturesque rocky curves, which give it
additional beauty. Corangamite Lake is studded with islands, which
increase its attractions by the variety of their form. On these, I am
told, the pelicans, so numerous here, build their nests. Light and
shadow are depicted in the reflections of passing clouds. The shores are
white with accumulations of salt. Away in the north-west the dim, blue
line of the Grampians. All around, hills and mountains--the Otway
Ranges, Noorat, Leura, Porndon--are clearly defined. The park-like
plains stretching away to the horizon are dotted with trees, under which
thousands of cattle and sheep are sheltering from the rays of the
noonday sun. Here and there pleasant homesteads, green cultivation
patches, and fields of golden grain. But the especial glory of the scene
is in the variety and number of the smaller lakes filling the craters
below us. The yellow tints of the bracken covering the slopes are varied
with green glints from the foliage of choice ferns on the steep banks,
other colours being supplied by the mosses on the rocks. We have here
light and shade, form, outline, colour--everything which makes up beauty
in a landscape. And beyond that there is the wonderful interest in
thinking of the past. Of the age when the numerous volcanoes in the west
blazed forth their liquid fire over the land. Of the succeeding ages,
when the craters, cooled and filled by springs, for century after
century, shone in all their glory of lake and tarn under the actinic
rays of the morning sun, which darkened the skin of the few black
fellows camped on their banks. Now Coc Coc Coine, last King of the
Warrions, has gone. We possess the land, with none to dispute our right
to this earthly paradise. But the track of the serpent is even here. The
enemy of mankind has now taken the form of the rabbit, which swarms
around the Red Rock by the thousand.
[Illustration: A VICTORIAN LAKE.]
'A strange feature in the lakes here is that they are alternately
fresh and salt. Of five within gunshot of where we stand, three are
salt and two fresh, yet they are separated only by narrow isthmuses.
They vary also considerably in their height above sea-level. Corangamite
is higher than Colac--these crater-tarns higher than Corangamite. There
is a very high percentage of salt in some of these lakes. The saline
properties are caused by the drainage from the basalt rocks, "the water
being kept down by vaporisation, while the quantity of salt continually
increases." In the summer the lakes fall by evaporation considerably
below winter level, leaving on the banks large quantities of native salt
in crystals, the gathering of which forms a remunerative occupation to
many in the district. Cattle love this native salt, but Corangamite and
its fellows are avoided by mankind. None bathe in their waters; no boats
sail upon them. The large lake itself has not even been surveyed or
sounded. I am surprised that this has not been used for navigation. In
the United States there would be steamers towing flat-bottomed barges;
live stock and fire and pit wood, as well as passengers, would be
conveyed from north to south and east to west; for, although shallow in
places, there is ample depth for boats built on the American model.
There was a tradition amongst the blacks that Corangamite and Colac were
once dry, and again that at one time the lakes were all connected in one
running stream. But whether the water privileges are sufficiently
utilised or not, the lake scenery remains unequalled by anything I have
yet seen.
[Illustration: THE UPPER GOULBOURN, VICTORIA.]
The ports of this district are Warnambool and Belfast and Portland, and
near the two first-named places is land of an exceptional richness that
has gone far to make the locality wealthy. Here the potatoes of the
continent are grown. Warnambool and Belfast supply the Melbourne, the
Sydney, the Brisbane, and the Adelaide markets. There is no successful
competition, for nowhere do quantity and quality go so well together. A
maximum yield of twenty and thirty tons per acre has been obtained. The
land has been sold at L80 per acre. One landowner lets 1200 acres at L5
10s. per acre per annum. These are the 'top' prices, but they establish
the fact that the volcanic formation of the Western District gives
patches with a marvellous producing power. A small estate in _Australia
Felix_--for it was this region which Mitchell so named--is a large
fortune.
Portland Bay is the only harbour of refuge for hundreds of miles along
the coast of Australia. As we steam in, Cape Grant shuts out the new
lighthouse on Cape Nelson, the long swell is dashing with violence
against the sides of Lawrence Rocks, whose peaks are the home of the
gannet and other sea fowl. To the right at the extreme north is the
flourishing rural township of Narrawong. Above this the green slopes of
Mount Clay merge into the thickly-timbered forest land not yet cleared.
Ahead there is a lighthouse, a signal post, a few houses embowered in
trees, high cliffs of white limestone or dark basalt, and then, as we
round the promontory into the harbour, the quaint yet lovely town is all
before us, extending along the bluffs above the shore, the only natural
depression being where a stream flows into the sea from a lagoon in a
valley at the back of the town. The beauty of this crescent-shaped bay,
with its outlines of bold headlands, is striking. As to the town, the
white cliffs, the stone-built churches and houses, give it an English
look. It recalls many spots on the Sussex coast. It is not Australian in
any of its outer characteristics. The spirit of the English pioneer,
Edward Henty, seems stamped upon it.
Victoria is traversed for its greater part from east to west by a
mountain chain, which is lofty in the south-east corner. Gippsland,
takes the form of mere high land at the back of Melbourne, rises again
in the Pyrenees, and dies out in the Western District. Usually the chain
is about seventy miles from the seaboard. From the Gippsland sea-coast
it presents a grand sight, often of snow-topped summits. Going to the
north from Melbourne, you pass over the crest, which is 1700 feet high,
without being aware of the rise. But all the water on the one side flows
to the sea, and on the other to the river Murray. Crossing the range
from Melbourne to the north and the north-east, the country slopes to
the level Murray plains. Here you enter upon the wheat-growing district.
The level ground is fenced into fields which bear this one crop.
Shepparton, the agricultural centre of the north-east, aspires to be the
Australian Chicago, and may be mentioned as an instance of the rapid
changes which are possible in Australia. In a pictorial work published
seven years ago, Mr. E. C. Booth writes; 'The township of Shepparton
lies on the east bank of the Goulbourn. It gains its chief importance
from the pound of the district being within its borders, and it will be
remembered for years to come on account of the long and weary journeys
to it undertaken by bullock-drivers and carriers in search of their
strayed cattle.' How far off are those days now! Shepparton is to-day a
local capital, busy and self-important. Its streets are lined with shops
and houses; there are five banks, several assurance agencies, a handsome
town-hall, and a busy traffic.
What is said of Shepparton in the north-east applies to Horsham in the
north-west. Horsham, the newly-created capital of the Wimmera District,
is entitled 'the Prairie City.' The Wimmera climate is hot and dry, and
there were doubts as to whether the farmer would hold his own on these
arid plains; but the settlement is now twelve years old, and is
increasing mightily. This Wimmera District tapers off into the mallee
scrub, the old desert of Victoria, which has lain neglected for years,
while Victorians have opened up country 2000 miles away. Here the dingo
found his last refuge, and to the infinite joy of the dingo, as it may
be supposed, the rabbit appeared upon the scene. When the rabbit came,
the few squatters who were trying to turn the mallee scrub to account
gave up in despair, for first the rabbits devoured the scant grass on
which the sheep fed, and then the dingoes feeding on the rabbits grew
more numerous and strong. The mallee went begging in blocks of 100,000
acres, at an annual rental of L5 per block; and at last the district had
to be specially taken in hand by the State, and long leases have been
granted to tenants on favourable terms, on condition that they destroy
the 'vermin,' for that is the title bestowed upon rabbits here. Several
rivers strive to flow from the ranges through or by the mallee to the
Murray, but none succeed. The Avon, the Richardson, and the Wimmera all
collapse and disappear on their way. The Loddon has a watercourse for
the whole distance, but at its best in summer it will be but a chain of
water-holes. Yet crop after crop is taken off these plains; the farmers
all appear to make money, and now that works for conserving water for
irrigation are to be undertaken, the spirits of these sunburnt toilers
are of the highest.
[Illustration: WATERFALL IN THE BLACK SPUR.]
All this district is intersected by 'wheat lines' of railway, over which
in December, January, and February the crop is rushed to the seaboard.
Great are the blocks that occur, and indignant is the grumbling because
the whole yield cannot be carried at once. Horsham is hot with anger,
and Shepparton refuses to be satisfied, and the lot of the Chairman of
the Railway Commissioners is not at this period to be envied. The
railways run also to the mountains of the east. One line will take the
traveller to Beechworth, a charming town in the north-east; another line
will convey him to Sale--and soon to Bairnsdale--right away in
Gippsland. Beechworth should be visited because of the beauty of its
surroundings. And if the visitor is a pedestrian, he can accomplish a
grand and quite a fashionable walking tour through the Alps into
Gippsland, striking the railway either at Bairnsdale or Sale. He is in
the neighbourhood of romantic ravines, picturesque waterfalls, and grand
fern scenery. Lyre-birds, bower birds and parrots will be his
companions, and if he chooses to diverge a little from the route, he may
break into virgin solitudes, and may measure giant gums unheard of
before.
[Illustration: A VICTORIAN FOREST.]
One feature is common alike to all Victorian towns and the bush--the
State school. In the towns the State school is a political structure. In
the bush let there be twenty or thirty children in a three-mile radius,
and there will be a wooden erection for the young people to attend. In
some cases, where the children cannot be otherwise reached, the teacher
will meet two or three families at intervals at certain houses. With a
population of a million the State has 230,000 children on its school
books. The instruction is 'free, compulsory, and secular,' and about
this latter provision there is a great stir. It is not, however,
advisable to stray into vexed issues here. Suffice it that there is no
more general picture in Victoria, than that of the children trooping to
and from their lessons, and that many a parent feels his existence
brightened by the assurance that, come what may, 'schooling' is provided
for.
Where there are no railways which the tourist can use, he may depend
upon being able to proceed by 'Cobb.' 'Cobb' is the general name for the
stage coach of the colonies, no matter who owns the vehicle, where it
runs, what are its dimensions. Any one who has not travelled by Cobb has
not properly 'done' Australia; and yet the fate of the black man and the
marsupial will, one plainly sees, be the fate of Cobb. He will be
improved out of existence, and thus another element of romance will fade
away. Our illustrations tell their own tale of moving incidents by field
and flood. Mr. Anthony Trollope wrote: 'A Victorian coach, with six or
perhaps seven or eight horses, in the darkness of the night, making its
way through a thickly timbered forest at the rate of nine miles an hour,
with the horses frequently up to their bellies in mud, with the wheels
running in and out of holes four or five feet deep, is a phenomenon
which I should like to have shown to some of those very neat mail-coach
drivers whom I used to know at home in the old days. I am sure that no
description would make any one of them believe that such feats of
driving were possible. I feel that nothing short of seeing it would have
made me believe it. The passengers inside are shaken ruthlessly, and are
horribly soiled by mud and dirt. Two sit upon the box outside, and
undergo lesser evils. By the courtesy shown to strangers in the colonies
I always got the box, and found myself fairly comfortable as soon as I
overcame the idea that I must infallibly be dashed against the next
gum-tree. I made many such journeys, and never suffered any serious
misfortune.'
[Illustration: STAGING SCENES.]
Why 'Cobb'? it may be asked. Freeman Cobb was an American driver of some
New York express company, who came to Victoria in 1853 or 1854, and,
seeing his opportunity, sent for some brother drivers and started
coaches to Castlemaine and Sandhurst. For the hundred miles the fare was
L8, and the money was well earned. Other coaches followed in all
directions. No Americans were needed to drive. It was found that the
colonial-born youth had all the nerve and the spirit for dashing down
the side of a gully, for steering along a siding, for fording a
questionable creek, or for dodging fallen timber. Happily for the
tourist, visits to some of the show places of Melbourne are still partly
paid by coach. To see the romantic falls of the Stevenson and the silver
eucalypts of the Black Spur, a partial coach journey is necessary. At
Loutit Bay Waterfalls, the ocean and the big trees are all brought
together, and to reach this favoured and favourite spot the coach must
be utilised. It was well for the nerves of Mr. Anthony Trollope that he
was not required to perform this particular journey, Lorne or Loutit Bay
not having been opened up when he was on the land. The coaches cross a
succession of ranges running up to 2000 feet in height, and they had to
shave with remarkable closeness some of those gums whose nearness
alarmed the English author. One rush down a steep siding was made
between two giant eucalypts. There was just room to pass, but so little
to spare that the axle on the off side had cut a track through the one
tree by the process of frequent touching. If it had touched too hard the
passengers would have picked themselves up after a drop of several
hundred feet. Or they might have had a grand flight through the air into
the midst of the fern jungle that hid a purling stream far, far below.
The rush through the twin eucalypts was exhilarating; the steerer of
Cobb, a native of the place, cool and confident, enjoyed it immensely.
[Illustration: A SHARP CORNER.]