THE PACIFIC FERRY.—ANOTHER ROUTE.
The Hawaiian Islands—King and Parliament—Pleasant Honolulu—A
Government Hotel—Honeysuckle‐covered Theatre—Productions of the
Islands—Grand Volcanoes—Ravages of Lava Streams and
Earthquakes—Off to Fiji—A Rapidly Christianised People—A Native
Hut—Dinner—Kandavu—The Bush—Fruit‐laden Canoes—Strange Ideas of
Value—New Zealand—Its Features—Intense English Feeling—The New
Zealand Company and its Iniquities—The Maories—Trollope’s
Testimony—Facts about Cannibalism—A Chief on
Bagpipes—Australia—Beauty of Sydney Harbour—Its
Fortifications—Volunteers—Its War‐fleet of One—Handsome
Melbourne—Absence of Squalor—No Workhouses Required—The Benevolent
Asylums—Splendid Place for Working Men—Cheapness of Meat,
&c.—Wages in Town and Country—Life in the Bush—“Knocking Down
One’s Cheque”—Gold, Coal, and Iron.
A popular route now to New Zealand and Australia is that _viâ_ San
Francisco, Honolulu, and Fiji, the bulk of the voyage being usually over
the quieter parts of the Pacific; it takes the passenger, of course,
through the tropics.
Honolulu, the capital of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, is now a
civilised and pleasant city, while the natural attractions of the islands
themselves are many and varied. One need not now fear the fate of poor
Captain Cook. Most of the natives, of whom there are 50,000, are clothed
in semi‐European style: the men in coats and trousers of nankeen, and the
women more picturesquely clad in long robes fastened round the neck, and
pretty often of pink or some other bright colour. There is a white
population of some 10,000 souls scattered over the islands, a large
proportion of whom are English and American. Honolulu is the Government
centre and residence of King Kalakau, who used to be called “Calico” in
the United States, and who, in fact, is a very slightly tinted, good‐
looking, and most intelligent gentleman. The Ex‐Queen Emma, who visited
England some years ago, has a villa beautifully situated a few miles out
of town. The king devotes his energies to bettering the condition of his
people, and some few years ago, when the money was voted to build a new
palace, declined to accept it, at least for two years. The Hawaiian
Parliament consists of a House of seventeen nobles and twenty‐eight
commoners, who, strange to say, sit in the same hall, their votes being of
equal weight. There are always several Europeans or Americans in this
council.
Mr. Guillemard thus describes Honolulu(20):—“The town, which is built on
the low land bordering the shore—partly, indeed, on land reclaimed from
the sea, thanks to the industry of the architects of the coral reef—looks
mean and insignificant from the harbour, but on going ashore to breakfast
we get glimpses of fine public buildings and numerous shops and stores, of
neat houses nestling among bowers of shrubs and flowers, and evidences of
a busy trade and considerable population. The streets are narrow, and the
houses built of wood, without any attempt at decoration or even
uniformity. In the by‐streets or lanes pretty verandah‐girt villas peep
out from shrubberies of tropical foliage, honeysuckle, roses, lilies, and
a hundred flowers strange to English eyes. Tiny fountains are sending
sparkling jets of water up in the hot, still air; and other music is not
wanting, for here and there we hear the tinkle of a distant piano, telling
us that early rising is the rule in Honolulu, and suggesting as a
consequence a _siesta_ at mid‐day.
“But here we are at the grand Hawaiian Hotel, a fine verandahed building,
standing back from the road in a pretty garden, the green lawn, cool deep
shade, and trickling fountain of which are doubly grateful after the glare
of the scorching sunlight, scorching even though it is not yet seven a.m.
The theatre, half‐hidden by its wealth of honeysuckle and fan‐palm, is not
fifty yards distant, but is quite thrown into insignificance by the hotel.
This was built by Government, at a cost of £25,000, and is admirably
planned and appointed.” Its large airy rooms and cool verandahs, shaded
with masses of passion flowers, its excellent food and iced American
drinks, all combine to make it a capital resting‐place.
In the streets Mr. Guillemard noted bevies of gaily‐attired girls on
horseback, their robes being gathered in at the waist with bright scarves,
which fling their folds far over the horses’ tails. Their jaunty straw
hats were wreathed with flowers, and now and then some dark‐eyed beauty
would be found wearing a necklace of blossoms. The girls rode astride up
and down the main streets, making them ring again with their merry
laughter. Mosquitoes were abundant, and, as some compensation, so also
were delicious melons, guavas, mangoes, bananas, and commoner fruit.
The sugar‐cane was first grown on these islands in 1820; now over
20,000,000 pounds of sugar are produced annually by the aid of Hawaiian
and Chinese labour and steam‐mills. Not a quarter of the land suitable for
this purpose is yet under cultivation, though some of the plantations are
of thousands of acres in extent. Hides and wool are staple exports.
A few hours’ sail from Honolulu some of the largest and most wonderful
volcanoes in the world are to be found. Two of them, Mauna Loa and Mauna
Kea, are each over 13,000 feet in elevation. The eruptions from the great
crater of Kilauea, which is _ten miles_ in circumference, are something
fearful. One explosion ejected streams of red mud three miles, killing
thirty‐one people and 500 head of cattle. This was followed by several
earthquakes, which destroyed a number of houses. These, again, were
succeeded by a great earthquake wave, during the continuance of which
three villages were swept away and seventy people killed. Next a new
crater formed upon Mauna Loa, from which rose four fountains of red‐hot
lava to a height of 600 feet. A lava stream, eight to ten miles long, and
half a mile wide in some places, carried all before it. In one place it
tumbled, in a molten cataract of fiery liquid, over a precipice several
hundred feet in height. The interior of Hawaii is a vast underground lake
of fire, and were it not for the safety‐valves provided by Nature in the
form of craters, it would be shaken to pieces by successive earthquakes.
[Illustration: THE VOLCANOES OF MAUNA LOA AND MAUNA KEA, SANDWICH ISLANDS
(FROM THE SEA).]
And now the passenger has before him a fortnight of the most tranquil part
of the ocean called the Pacific. He must not be surprised if the heat
rises to 90° or so in the saloon. The distance from San Francisco to
Sydney direct is 6,500 miles, and Fiji is naturally _en route_; the detour
to New Zealand considerably increases the length of the voyage. It will be
remembered that these islands were formally annexed to Britain in 1874,
after vain attempts at a mixed native and European government. The
population was then 140,000; in a year or two afterwards 40,000 of the
poor natives fell victims to the measles, another of the importations
apparently inseparable from civilisation. The Wesleyan missionaries, in
particular, have worked with so much zeal in these islands that more than
half the people are Christians. There are 600 chapels in the 140 islands
comprising the Fiji group. Formerly the natives were the worst kind of
cannibals. They not merely killed and ate the victims of their island
wars, but no shipwrecked or helpless person was safe among them. Numbers
were slain at the caprice of the chiefs, especially at the building of a
house or canoe, or at the reception of a native embassy. Widows were
strangled at the death of their husbands, and slaves killed on the decease
of their masters. The introduction of Christianity and partial
civilisation has changed all that for the better; and the natives of to‐
day are described as mild and gentle, and little given to quarrelling.
Among their customs is that of powdering the hair (always closely cropped)
with lime, which is often coloured. Their huts are of dried reeds, lashed
to a strong framework of poles, and have lofty arched roofs, but are
without windows or chimneys. Each has two low doors, through which one
must crawl. The best native huts have a partition between the dwelling and
bed room, and all are carpeted with mats. The only furniture consists of
one article, a short piece of wood on two small legs, used for a pillow!
Clay pots are used for cooking their principal diet, yams and fish. Many
of them nowadays have houses well furnished with mats, curtains, baskets,
jars, &c.
Mr. Guillemard describes a tropical dinner, served to himself and
companions in one of these huts. A couple of banana‐leaves formed the
dishes, on which boiled fish and half a dozen yams, or sweet potatoes,
were offered. A large block of rock‐salt was handed them to use _à
discretion_. Then followed ripe cocoa‐nuts. Dried leaves of somewhat
tasteless wild tobacco, rolled up rapidly and neatly, and tied round with
a fibre, formed the post‐prandial cigars, which were lighted by the women
at the fire, and passed from their lips to the guests’.
The natural productions of this group are extensive, and comprise bread‐
fruit, taro, cocoa‐nuts, yams, bananas, plantains, guavas, oranges and
lemons, wild and cultivated tobacco, sugar, cotton, and coffee. The india‐
rubber tree is cultivated, and among the leading exports are dried cocoa‐
nut and pearl‐shell. As there are at the present time comparatively few
white settlers—perhaps not over 2,500 in all the islands—there are
innumerable openings for settlement, and Fiji, with many other
neighbouring islands, will doubtless soon afford fresh examples of British
enterprise.
The point touched by the steamers is Kandavu, on one of the southernmost
islands, where Mount Washington, a fine mountain, rears its head 3,000
feet into the clouds. A visitor says:—“From the eastern point of land run
out miles of coral reef, on which the ocean rollers are breaking grandly,
and outside this barrier we take our pilot on board. The entrance to
Kandavu harbour is narrow and intricate, and here the _Macgregor_, one of
the mail steamers, struck on a submerged reef, and remained for several
days hard and fast aground.” The passage has been properly buoyed and
lighted, and the New Company have built offices and stores, and
established a coaling station here.
“The view of Port Ugaloa from the entrance is very beautiful. On our left
the coral reef encloses a still lagoon of the softest, lightest green;
before us hills and mountains, covered from base to summit with the
richest vegetation, are tipped with fleecy cloud; and on our right,
dividing the waters of the bay, is Ugaloa Island, its slopes feathery with
the foliage of the cocoa‐palm and banana, half hidden in which appear here
and there the low brown huts of the natives.... The brothers L. accompany
me ashore on Ugaloa, landing close to a small collection of huts scattered
about just above the coral‐strewn beach. It is Sunday afternoon, and a
native missionary is preaching to some fifty men, women, and children,
squatting on their hams on the mat‐covered floor of a neat, white‐washed
mission house. Amongst the congregation is a tall native, with a thick
cane, keeping silence by tapping the heads of the inattentive. The
preacher is eloquent and energetic in gesture; but Fiji is hardly a pretty
language to listen to, being decidedly characterised by queer guttural
sounds, and spoken very fast. The sermon over, a hymn is read out and sung
to a rather monotonous dirge‐like chant, and the congregation disperse. We
are at once surrounded by an olive‐skinned crowd; the ladies’ dresses are
minutely examined, for a white lady has scarcely been seen in Kandavu
before the present year. The gentlemen have to display their watches and
chains, and by means of shouting and signs every one is soon carrying on a
vigorous conversation. Why is it that one always elevates the voice when
trying to make one’s native tongue intelligible to a foreigner?
“We wander away into the bush, and are soon lost in a wilderness of ferns,
creepers, bananas, cocoa‐palms, and chestnut‐trees. We meet with a young
native, and make signs to him that we are thirsty, and wish to refresh
ourselves with the juice of a green cocoa‐nut. Clutching the trunk with
both hands, he almost runs up a palm, and our wants are soon plentifully
supplied. He receives his _douceur_ with apparent nonchalance, and
proceeds to tie it up in a corner of his sulu with a fibre of banana bark.
“Monday morning breaks fine and clear, and our slumbers are early
disturbed by the chattering of a hundred natives, a whole squadron of
whose fruit‐laden canoes are alongside the steamer. Queer crank‐looking
craft are these, roughly dug out of the trunk of a tree, and kept steady
on the water by an outrigger consisting of a log half the length of the
canoe, attached to it amidships by a few light poles projecting some four
or five feet from its side. They are usually propelled by means of a long
oar worked between the poles, after the fashion of sculling a boat from
the stern; but sometimes we see the ordinary short paddle being plied at
bow and stern. Some of the larger craft hoist a large long sail, but they
do not seem very weatherly under canvas, which they use but little
compared with the Society Islanders.
“The scene on deck is amusing enough. Forward, fifty natives, their olive
skins blackened and begrimed with dust, are hard at work replenishing the
coal bunkers from the hold, and thoroughly earning their shilling a day;
on the poop as many more, laden with lemons, huge bunches of bananas,
cocoa‐nuts, shells, coral, matting, tappa—a soft, white fabric, called by
the natives ‘marse’—and a few clubs and other weapons, are driving a brisk
trade with the passengers. Everything is to be had for a shilling.
‘Shillin’ is the only English word that all the natives understand; in
fact, this useful coin seems to be the ‘almighty dollar’ of Kandavu. You
take a lemon, and ask, ‘How much?’ ‘Shillin’ is the reply; but you can
obtain the man’s whole stock of sixty, basket and all, for the same
money!”
Our next stopping place is one of particular interest to the British
colonist. New Zealand, albeit one of the youngest, is now among the most
promising of England’s outposts. Auckland, in the North Island, is the
port at which the steamers touch. The harbour is very fine, and residents
compare it to the Bay of Naples.
Every schoolboy knows that New Zealand includes two large and one small
island, respectively known as North, Middle, and Stewart’s Island. One
great feature of the coast line consists of its indentations; the colony
is rich in fine natural harbours and ports. The area of the islands is
nearly as great as that of Britain and Ireland combined, and about half of
that area consists of excellent soil. The climate is that of England, with
a difference: there are many more fine days, while winter is not so cold
by half. The islands are volcanic; on the North Island, Mount Ruapahu, a
perpetually snow‐capped peak, rises to a height of 9,000 feet, while in
the same range, the Tongariro mountain, an active volcano, rises to a
height of 6,000 feet. The highest mountain range is on the Middle Island,
where Mount Cook rises to a height of 14,000 feet. One can understand that
in such a country there should be an abundance of evergreen forests of
luxuriant growth. These are interspersed with charming fern‐clad slopes
and treeless grassy plains. Water is everywhere found; but none of the
rivers are navigable by large vessels for more than fifty miles or so. One
great advantage found in the country is the absence of noxious reptiles or
insects: of the latter there is not one as offensive as an English wasp.
The pigs, introduced by Captain Cook, run wild over the island, and there
is plenty of large and small game: the red and fallow deer, the pheasant,
partridge, and quail. Everything that grows in England will thrive there,
while the vine, maize, taro, and sweet potato grow in many districts. A
traveller(21) says of the (Thames) gold fields:—“Mines here, like
everywhere else, are now dull. At one time there was a population of
22,000, but now this is only 13,000. Everybody one sees seems to have lost
in the gold‐diggings, and it is a mystery to me who is the lucky person
that wins—one never seems to meet him.” This somewhat random statement may
be taken _cum grano salis_, as the gold‐fields have yielded largely at
times. Nevertheless, mining is always more or less a lottery.
Mr. Anthony Trollope testifies to the intense British feeling in New
Zealand, where he felt thoroughly at home. Australia he found tinged with
a form of boasting Yankeeism. “The New Zealander,” says he,(22) “among
John Bulls is the most John Bullish. He admits the supremacy of England to
every place in the world, only he is more English than any Englishman at
home.”
Discovered by Tasman in 1642, England only commenced to take an interest
in the islands more than a century and a quarter later, when Cook surveyed
the coasts. The missionaries came first, in 1814, and a British Resident
was appointed in 1833. All this time a desultory colonisation was going
on, and the natives were selling parcels of their best lands for a few
cast‐iron hatchets or muskets, shoddy blankets, or rubbishy trinkets. In
1840 a Lieutenant‐Governor was appointed from home, and his presence was
indeed necessary. The previous year a corporation, calling itself the New
Zealand Company, had made pretended purchases of tracts of the best parts
of the country, amounting to _one‐third_ of its whole area! The
unscrupulous and defiant manner in which this company treated the natives
and the Government brought about many complications, and led to very
serious wars with natives not to be trifled with. The New Zealand Company
was “bought out” by the Government in 1852 for £268,000. During 1843‐7,
and in 1861 and after, England had to fight the Maories—foes that she
learned to respect. At last, weary of war, all our troops were withdrawn,
and the colonists, who of course knew the bush and bush life better than
nine‐tenths of the soldiers, were left to defend their homes and property,
and in the end to successfully finish the fight. The natives now are
generally peaceful and subdued, while many are even turning their
attention to agriculture and commerce. Nine years ago they numbered
37,500, but are fast dying out.
Physically and intellectually, the Maories are the finest semi‐savage
natives on the face of the earth. Mr. Trollope is an author and traveller
whose words carry weight, and he has given us the following concise
summary of their qualities and character:—“They are,” says he, “an active
people, the men averaging 5 feet 6½ inches in height, and are almost equal
in strength and weight to Englishmen. In their former condition they wore
matting; now they wear European clothes. Formerly they pulled out their
beards, and every New Zealander of mark was tattooed; now they wear
beards, and the young men are not tattooed. Their hair is black and
coarse, but not woolly like a negro’s, or black like a Hindoo’s. The nose
is almost always broad and the mouth large. In other respects their
features are not unlike those of the European race. The men, to my eyes,
were better‐looking than the women, and the men who were tattooed better‐
looking than those who had dropped the custom. The women still retain the
old custom of tattooing the upper lip. The Maories had a mythology of
their own, and believed in a future existence; but they did not recognise
one supreme God. Virtue with them, as with other savages, consisted
chiefly in courage and a command of temper. Their great passion was
revenge, which was carried on by one tribe against another to the extent
sometimes of the annihilation of tribes. The decrease of their population
since the English first came among them has been owing as much to civil
war as to the injuries with which civilisation has afflicted them. They
seem from early days to have acquired that habit of fighting behind
stockades or in fortified pahs which we have found so fatal to ourselves
in our wars with them. Their weapons, before they got guns from us, were
not very deadly. They were chiefly short javelins and stones, both flung
from slings. But there was a horror in their warfare to the awfulness of
which they themselves seem to have been keenly alive. When a prisoner was
taken in war he was cooked and eaten.
“I do not think that human beings were slaughtered for food in New
Zealand, although there is no doubt that the banquet when prepared was
enjoyed with a horrid relish.
“I will quote a passage from Dr. Thompson’s work in reference to the
practice of cannibalism, and will then have done with the subject.
‘Whether or not cannibalism commenced immediately after the advent of the
New Zealanders from Hawaiki, it is nevertheless certain that one of
Tasman’s sailors was eaten in 1642; that Captain Cook had a boat’s crew
eaten in 1774; that Marion de Fresne and many other navigators met this
horrible end; and that the pioneers of civilisation and successive
missionaries have all borne testimony to the universal prevalence of
cannibalism in New Zealand up to the year 1840. It is impossible to state
how many New Zealanders were annually devoured; that the number was not
small may be inferred from two facts authenticated by European witnesses.
In 1822, Hougi’s army ate three hundred persons after the capture of
Totara, on the River Thames, and in 1836, during the Rotura war, sixty
beings were cooked and eaten in two days.’ I will add from the same book a
translation of a portion of a war‐song:—‘Oh, my little son, are you
crying? are you screaming for your food? Here it is for you, the flesh of
Hekemanu and Werata. Although I am surfeited with the soft brains of Putu
Rikiriki and Raukauri, yet such is my hatred that I will fill myself
fuller with those of Pau, of Ngaraunga, of Pipi, and with my most dainty
morsel, the flesh of the hated Teao.’”
Mr. Laird testifies to their cleanliness, but states that they are, like
most savages, and for that matter, most white men, very improvident. If a
bad potato or other crop occurred, they would eat it all at once, and half
starve afterwards.
The same author tells a good story of the nonchalance of a leading Maori
chief who was invited to dinner at Government House during the visit of
H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh. After dinner the Duke’s chief bagpiper came
in and played. The chief was asked how he liked the music. He replied
briefly: “Too much noise for me; but suit white man well enough.”
And now we are approaching that great continent which has had, has, and
will increasingly have, so much interest for the emigrant, who must be,
more or less, a voyager and man of the sea. Australia, a country nearly as
large as the United States, must be for many a day to come a very Paradise
for the poor man.
The American steamers from San Francisco land one at Sydney, of which
charming place Mr. Trollope says:—“I despair of being able to convey to my
readers my own idea of the beauty of Sydney Harbour;” he considers that it
excels Dublin Bay, Spezzia, and New York. And the colonists, left to
themselves—for England maintains no troops there now—have fortified it
strongly. Mr. Trollope tells us of five separate armed fortresses, with
Armstrong guns, rifled guns, guns of eighteen tons’ weight, with loopholed
walls and pits for riflemen, as though Sydney was to become another
Sebastopol. “It was shown,” says he, “how the whole harbour and city were
commanded by these guns. There were open batteries and casemated
batteries, shell‐rooms and gunpowder magazines, barracks rising here and
trenches dug there. There was a boom to be placed across the harbour, and
a whole world of torpedoes ready to be sunk beneath the water, all of
which were prepared and ready for use in an hour or two. It was explained
to me that ‘they’ could not possibly get across the trenches, or break the
boom, or escape the torpedoes, or live for an hour beneath the blaze of
the guns. ‘They’ would not have a chance to get at Sydney. There was much
martial ardour, and a very general opinion that ‘they’ would have the
worst of it.” New South Wales and Victoria have about 8,000 volunteers and
a training‐ship for sailor boys; while an enormous monitor, the
_Cerberus_, presented by the mother country, forms its war‐fleet of one.
[Illustration: VIEW IN COLLINS STREET, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.]
Of Melbourne, Victoria, mention has already been made. There are many
cities with larger populations, but few have ever attained so great a size
with such rapidity. Though it owes nothing to natural surroundings, “the
internal appearance of the city is,” Mr. Trollope assures us, “certainly
magnificent.” It is built on the Philadelphian rectangular plan; it is the
width of the streets which give the city a fine appearance, together with
the devotion of large spaces within the limits for public gardens. “One
cannot walk about Melbourne without being struck by all that has been done
for the welfare of the people generally. There is no squalor to be
seen—though there are quarters of the town in which the people no doubt
are squalid.... But he who would see such misery in Melbourne must search
for it specially.” There are no workhouses; their place is supplied in the
colony of Victoria generally by “Benevolent Asylums.” In Melbourne about
12,000 poor are relieved yearly, some using the institution there as a
temporary, and others as a permanent place of refuge. These places are
chiefly, but not entirely, supported by Government aid. “Could a pauper,”
says Trollope, “be suddenly removed out of an English union workhouse into
the Melbourne Benevolent Asylum, he might probably think that he had
migrated to Buckingham Palace,” so well are the inmates fed and cared for.
There are no workhouses proper in any part of Australia, and the charity
bestowed on these asylums is not given painfully or sparingly.
The wideness of the streets, however, and grandeur of general dimensions,
have their drawbacks, among which the time consumed in reaching distant
parts of the city counts first. Melbourne has a fine and entirely free
Public Library and a University, as, indeed, has Sydney. Melbourne is the
centre of a system of railways, and the well‐to‐do people all live out of
town; in the south and east of the city there are miles of villas and
mansions.
Mr. Trollope says:—“There is perhaps no town in the world in which an
ordinary working man can do better for himself and for his family with his
work than he can at Melbourne.” The rates of wages for mechanics are
slightly greater than at home, and all the necessaries of life are
cheaper. With meat at 4d. per pound, butter from 6d. upwards, bread, tea,
and coffee about the same prices or rather under, coals the same or a
trifle higher, potatoes, vegetables, and fruits generally considerably
cheaper, all can live well and plentifully. Meat three times a day is
common all over Australia, and in some parts the price is as low as 1½d.
or 2d. per pound. Wages for good mechanics and artisans average about 10s.
a day; gardeners receive about 50s., and labourers about 30s. per week;
men‐servants, in the house, £40 to £50 per annum; cooks, £35 to £45 per
year; girls, as housemaids, &c., 8s. or 10s. per week. It is usual to hire
the last named by this short term. Some of these prices rule all over the
country, but are liable to rule lower, rather than higher, outside of
Melbourne.
In the country sheep‐shearers can earn 7s. to 14s. per day for about four
months in the year; shepherds, £30 to £40 per year, with rations. The
common labourer can count on 15s. to 20s. per week, with rations: these
consist generally of 14 lbs. meat (usually mutton), 8 lbs. flour, 2 lbs.
sugar, and a quarter of a pound of tea. Of course, where fruit or
vegetables are plentiful they would be added. The meat, bread, and tea
diet, however, is that characteristic of the whole country. In the great
sheep runs and cattle ranges(23) it would be the shepherd’s diet
invariably.
Mr. Trollope advises the poor man to save for three or four years, and
then invest in land, which in some places is to be had at 3s. 9d. an acre,
payable to the Government in five instalments of ninepence per acre. Of
course, he would require money for the erection of a house, farm
implements, &c. The great trouble with most men working in the bush as
shepherds or shearers, or at the mines, or elsewhere at distant points, is
that the enforced absence from civilisation and social life makes them
inclined for reckless living when they have accumulated a sum of money.
The tavern‐keepers of the nearest town or station reap all the benefit,
and there are numbers of men who, for ten or eleven months of the year
perfectly steady and sober, periodically give themselves up to drink until
their earnings are melted, it is called “knocking down” one’s cheque, and
it is a common practice for them to hand such cheque to the publican, who
lets them run on recklessly in drink and food until _he_ considers it
exhausted. A good story is told by Mr. Trollope of a man who had been
accustomed to do this at regular intervals, but who on one occasion,
having some loose silver, “planted” his cheque in an old tree, and
proceeded to the usual haunt, where he set to work deliberately to get
drunk. The publican showed evident doubt as to the propriety of supplying
him freely. Why had not the man brought his cheque as usual? The tavern‐
keeper at last put him to bed; but the man, though drugged and stupefied,
had his wits about him sufficiently to observe and remember that the host
had examined his clothes, his hat, and boots, for the lacking cheque. Next
morning he was ignominiously expelled from the house, but he didn’t mind:
the cheque was found by him safely in the tree by the roadside, and he
surprised his master by returning to the station a week or two before he
was expected richer than he had ever come home before. Let us hope he was
cured of that form of folly for ever.
The gold yield of Australia for the twenty years between 1851 and 1871 was
50,750,000 ozs. But gold‐fields die out sooner than most mines, and
Australia has a more permanent source of prosperity for the future in its
coal and iron‐fields, which are in close proximity to each other. The coal
is already worked to great profit, and is one of the principal steamship
fuels of the Pacific.
The steamship route homeward from Australia is that by the Indian Ocean
(usually touching at Ceylon), then reaching the Mediterranean _viâ_ the
Red Sea and Suez Canal. These points of interest have already been fully
described in early chapters of this work.