deteriorating influences which must exist, even under the present
or the most favourable circumstances, in a colony, for instance, of
the size of Tasmania, let him imagine the inhabitants of any English
provincial town amounting to nearly a hundred thousand, spread over
a country as big as Ireland, and encircled by a wall through which
there can only be communication perhaps twice a week with two or
three neighbouring provincial towns, and only once a month with the
rest of the world, from which, too, all communications must wait
seven weeks till they are delivered. Would Nottingham or Bristol, or
even Birmingham or Manchester, be likely to contribute much to the
enlightenment of mankind under such circumstances? People in England
do not realise what drops in the ocean of territory the Australian
populations are. The wonder rather is how _much_ intellectual energy
there is, and how favourably the population of many of the colonies
would compare with that of many manufacturing towns at home. But of
those who now go to Australia from England, an overwhelming proportion
are from the labouring or comparatively unlearned classes. The
proportion of clergymen, barristers, and university men who go out now
is very insignificant compared with what it once was, and anything
which caused it to diminish still more would be a misfortune. Local
interests and local connections make it difficult for an emigrant from
England any longer to compete in the race with the colonial-born in
any profession with much chance of success. It was my good fortune to
be present at a gathering at Melbourne of all old Oxford and Cambridge
men who could be collected. There were about thirty present. They
included the Governor, the Bishop, two or three leading politicians
of the Opposition—the rest chiefly professors, clergymen, barristers,
squatters, or doctors. Considering its small number it was a remarkably
influential group. But I was struck with the regretful but unhesitating
opinion expressed, that the number was likely to diminish rather
than to increase, especially in the ranks of the clergy. In all the
professions this is to be regretted, and amongst the clergy more
particularly, because it is upon them as a class that any narrowness
or incompleteness of education tells with most fatal effect. There are
indeed both at Melbourne and at Sydney, Universities, which as far as
I could judge are excellently managed and liberally supported, and
unquestionably contain professors of the very first rank of ability.
But it is impossible for any colonial university, in the midst of
a small society in which almost all interests are swamped in the
overwhelming one of commerce, to carry education to a very high point.
A few people who are particularly anxious for a good education for
their sons, send them home for five or six years; but most are content
with a colonial university for them, and often remove them when they
are still almost boys.
There are many causes to account for the diminishing supply of
well-educated clergymen from home. A clergyman’s position in a
colony is very different from what it is in England. For liberty and
subsistence he is more at the mercy of others. To a certain extent
(to what extent I do not know) there are fixed stipends attached to
parochial cures, but in the absence of a regularly established and
endowed Church, the clergy are likely to be much more than in England
dependent for subsistence upon their popularity. Many high-minded
clergymen are naturally reluctant to put themselves in a position
where their very bread may depend upon their catering successfully for
the tastes of their parishioners, and where they would be constantly
under the temptation to devote their energies merely or chiefly to
exciting or amusing their hearers once a week. The fixed annual grants
originally given out of the State-funds to the clergy are being
gradually withdrawn, either ceasing with the lives of the present
holders, or having been commuted for a lump sum paid to a trust-fund.
In one township in New South Wales it was satisfactory to find that the
inhabitants had insured the life of the present incumbent, with whom
‘State-aid’ (as it is called) was to cease, and were paying the annual
premiums, so as at his death to have a sum to invest in trust for his
successors—to endow a living, in fact.
Happily for its peace, representatives of the extreme religious parties
of the Church are rare in Australia. An underpaid and overworked clergy
has not either time or money to spare for imitating Roman Catholic
vestments or Exeter Hall invective. The Scotch often join in helping to
build an English church, and are regular attendants upon its services.
Hence, fortunately, it has seldom if ever been necessary to ascertain
what the exact legal status of a clergyman of the Church of England in
the various colonies is—how, for instance, and for what, and by whom
he is removeable—and I never could get any very clear account of it.
I believe it is at the present time somewhat undefined and uncertain.
Ecclesiastical synods are held from time to time, and (especially at
Sydney) seem to do a good deal of business, and to be possessed of
considerable responsibility and power. But in general the bishop of
each diocese appoints the clergy to their cures, and has, I believe,
the absolute power of removing or suspending them. The bishops are
naturally unwilling to exercise this last power except for flagrant
moral offences, and for causes in which they and the parishioners
interested concur. But it is a power so obviously liable to abuse that
the right of appeal from it seems indispensable.
All these difficulties and evils are likely to be increased by
separation from the Mother-Church at home. In Victoria the clergy
almost without a dissentient voice subscribed to the earnest protest
which was sent to England against any scheme of Church separation.
Religious and ecclesiastical isolation is worse than secular in the
same degree that religious and ecclesiastical life has a greater
tendency than secular to narrowness and intensity. I cannot but
think that the separation of the different colonial churches from
the English Church would be a wilful removal of a precious safeguard
against religious ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance, and that
the substitution of the final authority of local synods or bishops
or parish-vestries for that of the wide but definite limits of the
Articles, interpreted by that bulwark of the liberty of the English
clergy, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, would be, not to
give liberty, but to bind on the clergy heavy fetters and grievous to
be borne.
I cannot conceive it possible, as some do, that political and
ecclesiastical separation could fail to promote isolation of ideas, to
diminish the flow of intercourse and sympathy, and to breed jealousies
and heartburnings between the new country and the old. The Mails might
go as often, ships and steamers be as numerous, and commerce carried on
as before. But if commercial intercourse unites countries in the bonds
of peace and mutual interests, it also, when pushed too eagerly and
too exclusively, may rouse the spirit of covetousness, selfishness,
jealousy, and division. Those who have leaned upon commerce as a
sufficient means of bringing peace and good-will upon earth have,
sooner or later, found that they have been leaning on a broken reed.
A glance at Australia will show how little ‘well-established and
enlightened commercial principles’ are carried out by those who fancy
they can gain a temporary pecuniary advantage by repudiating them.
That the attachment to the Old Country and to the Crown is strong,
is abundantly evident everywhere. It is stronger of course with the
English-born than the native-born, and hence it is particularly
observable in Victoria. It is seldom that even the most contemptible
demagogues venture to trifle with it. Amongst other small items
of English news, the Mail once brought word that a leading Oxford
Professor was going to leave England and settle in America. Such a
thing would scarcely be noticed in an English newspaper, but it was
thought worthy of being announced amongst the items of intelligence
telegraphed from Adelaide in advance of the mail-steamer, and was
alluded to by the leading Melbourne paper with a shout of satisfaction.
Yet the paper had no complaint to make of him except one. He had made
himself conspicuous amongst those who have declared themselves in
favour of turning the colonies adrift.
It is in the nature of things almost inevitable that the second
generation of a colony should be inferior to the first. The struggles
and hardships which pioneer settlers have to encounter constitute a
discipline and confer an experience such as scarcely any other life
can afford, and are a great contrast to the routine life and physical
comforts to which the next generation succeeds. These old colonists,
too, have had an old-world training in addition to the experience of
the new. They know well how much they owe to having been born and bred
amongst the historic monuments and associations of the old country
of their forefathers, and that it is not mere foolish sentiment that
binds them to it. None feel so keenly how real and not sentimental is
the loss which their children suffer by being removed from and in part
deprived of them. None regret so bitterly the relaxing and severing of
bond after bond, or (if it were in danger) would cling so closely to
the last but strongest bond of all—allegiance to the English Throne.
XIV.
HOME AGAIN.
The voyage home from Australia is a less easy and pleasant one than
the voyage out. Owing to the prevalence of strong westerly winds for
the greater part of the year in the South Pacific and Southern Indian
Ocean, homeward-bound ships almost invariably sail eastward round Cape
Horn, though the distance that way is greater, instead of westwards by
the Cape of Good Hope. In rounding Cape Horn they must go to at least
56° south, and these latitudes have a disagreeable reputation for heavy
gales, fogs, icebergs, and intense cold. To get amongst the icebergs in
a fog, and with half a gale of wind blowing, is a very serious business
indeed; and in spite of the utmost precaution many good ships have
had hairbreadth escapes in this part of the voyage. During January,
February, and March, indeed, the westerly winds are not so regular—old
Horsburgh noted this fact as much as fifty years ago—and a Melbourne
ship now and then manages to get round Cape Leeuwin and to the Cape of
Good Hope. And ships sailing from Adelaide, being already so far to the
west, attempt this course at all times of year, so that you may get
a passage home by the Cape by sailing from hence. But it is a tedious
voyage at best. A hundred days is a quicker voyage this way than eighty
days by Cape Horn.
Then there is the way home by New Zealand and Panama, which takes about
eight weeks from Melbourne. And, lastly, there are the Peninsular and
Oriental Company’s mail-steamers, which are in correspondence with the
Calcutta and China mail-steamers, which they meet at Galle; and this
is the quickest, the most interesting, and, from October to April, the
pleasantest way of going.
Punctually to the hour the anchor of the trim little _Bombay_ is got
up. A Peninsular and Oriental steamer scorns the contact, it seems,
of almost any wharf but that of her own native Southampton, and waits
with proper dignity in mid-harbour to take in her passengers not only
at Melbourne, but even at Sydney, the starting-place of her voyage. So
there is no shore-tackle to be loosed. In an instant the powerful screw
is revolving, making the whole ship quiver and vibrate, the water in
the glasses spirt up and spill, and the passengers at the saloon-table
shake and nod over their luncheon as though they had the palsy. For the
last time we pass through Port Phillip Heads, and steer straight across
the Australian Bight.
One more glimpse of the new Southern world we have before striking
straight across the Indian Ocean to the old Oriental one. At sunset
about five days after leaving Melbourne the land is in sight again,
and soon after the distant glimmer of the lighthouse which stands on
a little rocky island at the mouth of King George’s Sound. In a few
hours we enter the Sound, a large harbour or bay, land-locked except
to the south and south-east, embraced by a confusion of long irregular
promontories and islands between which the eye cannot distinguish, and
bare of tree or house to disturb their undulating outline. So white
they look in the moonlight, that they might be bare chalk hills, and
even by daylight it is difficult to make out that it is only pure white
sand which covers them. A few lights on shore ahead of us are the only
sign of life. Even the pilot seems to be asleep, for we have to burn
blue-lights and rockets to summon him as we steam on at half-speed.
At last he comes on board, looking very sleepy; we enter the inner
harbour, the anchor drops, and the twelve hours’ work of coaling is at
once begun, and goes on continuously throughout the night.
Daylight reveals that in all the great natural harbour there is only
one sea-going vessel, the Adelaide packet, which has come to meet us.
There are still three or four hours left, and we land in one of the
boats on the pretty sandy shore, and make our way through low scrub
towards the settlement. The flowers are lovely, especially a large
brilliant red bottle-brush, and a handsome white flower growing on a
bush with slimy sticky leaves, which is the fatal poison-plant, or one
of them, which has been so injurious to Western Australia, by poisoning
the sheep and making the land valueless for grazing. As for Albany,
the settlement, it is a pleasant, cosy little village of wooden houses,
with three or four superior habitations for the Government officials
and the Peninsular and Oriental agent; and considering that it is on
a splendid harbour, and situated in the extreme corner of a great
continent, it is about as quiet, dull, lifeless, and unprogressive a
place as can well be conceived. For what is there to be done there?
The climate is said to be particularly charming, but the soil is so
poor and sandy that even the few hundred inhabitants can scarcely grow
food for their own wants. There is an establishment of convicts here,
and they are to be seen doing such work as can be found for them; and
in one respect it is a good place for them, for there is little chance
of their escaping. From the top of a hill we could see to a great
distance inland, but there is scarcely a sign of habitation or even
a large tree to be seen. The nearest station is fifty miles off, and
Perth, the only considerable town, two hundred and fifty. The road to
it is plainly visible for miles and miles, stretching straight across
the plain. The native black-fellows frequent the place, and are to be
seen more in their original condition here than in most other parts of
Australia—repulsive-looking, dark-brown figures, their hair and bodies
smeared with grease, boomerangs and spears in their hands, and opossum
skins sewn together hung on them as on a clothes-horse, and making a
poor apology for clothing.
It is hard to understand how the settlement contrived to exist at
all before the days when the Peninsular and Oriental steamers made it
a coaling-station, and a place for meeting the Adelaide steamer. But
it is an old settlement, as I was reminded in a very unexpected and
startling way by an object that I should as soon have expected to see
in Belgrave Square as there—a common parish _Stocks_, in perfect repair!
But at noon the _Bombay’s_ gun booms over the dead silence of the sunny
landscape, as a signal to go on board again, and we take our last
look at Australia. In the _Bombay_ one seems to be already almost in
India. The ship’s company are a medley of races from Europe, Asia, and
Africa. The officers of course, and the quartermasters, and a few more,
are English. But the great majority are black or bronze-coloured. The
captain has a boat’s crew of nine fine sailor-like Malays, who cannot
speak a word of English. Amongst the stewards in the saloon are two
or three pure African negroes, and very good servants they are. The
firemen and stokers are long, lean, gaunt, black Abyssinians. The rest
of the crew is perhaps made up of Lascars or other natives of India,
small feeble-looking men, whom one sees eating their meagre fare of
rice and curry, half a dozen of them squatting on the deck round a
bowl of it, into which they dip their long bony fingers. They have
to make up by their numbers for their want of muscle. To see a dozen
of them pulling at a rope you would think each of them was afraid of
breaking it. It is a sight to see all the crew mustered on Sunday
morning for inspection on the after-deck, ranged in order according
to their different departments, and each dressed in his cleanest and
best. Side by side with the English sailor’s dress are turbans, and
tunics of green, red, or yellow silk, and bracelets, and all the
brilliant colours of Oriental costume. Yet all this heterogeneous crew
is in perfect discipline. The orderliness, cleanliness, and smartness
of the decks, and of everything on board, is a great contrast to the
ordinary condition of a merchant ship, and comes very near to that of a
man-of-war.
It is about a fortnight’s run from King George’s Sound to Galle. Every
day the heat sensibly increases. It is hotter, it seems, in the Indian
Ocean than on the Atlantic. One day the thermometer on deck, with a
double awning above, stands at 91°, and I cannot discover that there
is any artificial heat to affect it. In the cabin it is about 87°, but
with the ports open, and a wind-sail to direct a current of air in upon
the berths, sleep is not difficult. The Lascars in their scanty linen
clothing, who have been huddling miserably round the funnel for warmth,
now squat on the deck and play at cards, flinging them down with great
animation when their turn comes to play; but they still keep near
the funnel as a pleasant friend and neighbour. Down the stoke-hole,
where the Abyssinian firemen feed the fire, the thermometer is said to
stand at 156°—I did not go down to try—and one of the long gaunt black
figures, with scarcely a rag of clothing on and shining with moisture
emerges to the upper regions from time to time, and a bucket of water
is thrown over him to revive him. The mysterious little pulley-wheels
near the saloon ceiling are explained now; for punkahs are put up,
and little bronze-faced boys in white shirts and trousers squat in
pretty attitudes, exactly like the figures which support French lamps,
and pull away patiently at the punkah-strings to make the heat more
tolerable for those who are sitting at table. The flying-fish know
their latitude to a degree, and make their appearance as soon as the
tropic is entered. But they are not so numerous as in the Atlantic,
or else the steamer scares them away. One flying higher than usual
and losing its presence of mind strikes one of the ship’s officers on
the head, nearly knocking him off the bridge where he was walking,
and breaking its own head with the force of the shock. Day by day the
sunsets grow more gorgeous, and the crimson and purple lights on the
calm oily water more dreamily beautiful. The concavity of the crescent
moon turns more and more upwards till it is cup-like and horizontal.
The Great Bear reappears, but in humble fashion close to the horizon,
and draggling his poor dear tail in the water as if half ashamed,
and languishing in these hot southern latitudes. At last a penknife
stuck in the bulwarks at noon casts no shadow; for we are leaving the
Southern Hemisphere.
One morning the screw has stopped, and the sun rises, and the morning
mist lifts, to show us an open bay into which the surf dashes
unrestrained, and which is fringed on one side with a thick wood of
cocoa-nut palms and tropical undergrowth, with here and there a
bungalow or a little hut, while on the other side of the bay a road
runs along the base of stone-faced ramparts covered with the freshest,
greenest turf, and leads up to a seventeenth-century gateway, by which
a crowd of people are passing in and out. Within the walls are the
red and purple tiled roofs, and strong tropical lights and shadows
of Galle. It is an exquisite scene to wake up to from the formless
solitude of mid-ocean. Paddling round about the vessel are swarms of
small craft, barge-like boats, and long picturesque canoes scarcely
more than a foot wide, made of a hollowed tree, and balanced on the
tossing swell by a small beam fastened parallel to them by outriggers
six or eight feet long and resting on the water. They are manned
by natives vociferously vending newspapers, fruit, or trinkets, or
bargaining to take passengers ashore.
Ashore all go as soon as possible, and through the gateway, and up
a street shaded by a green avenue, till the great Oriental Hotel is
reached, the large broad verandah of which is crowded with people in
all the strange costumes and head-gear of Anglo-Indians, talking,
flirting, smoking, eating, drinking, bargaining, and abusing the (at
this time of year) more than Indian heat. They are passengers going to,
or returning from, India and China. For Galle is the Rugby Junction of
Anglo-Asiatic traffic, where the China and Australia steamers disgorge
their passengers into the larger vessel from Calcutta and Madras—many
rills flowing into one stream—and there are often a couple of days
to be spent here waiting—days inexpressibly full of interest and
enjoyment to those to whom the scenes of India and of the tropics are
new and unfamiliar.
The streets are full of natives, clothed or half-clothed in white or
coloured cotton dress. The driver of your hired carriage who sits close
in front of you is perhaps bare to the waist; but the dark-brown colour
of his skin prevents you from being keenly alive to the fact, and you
are not much impressed with any deficiency in his apparel. Men as well
as women wear their black hair long and tied in a knot, or confined by
tortoiseshell combs. Indeed the general appearance of men and women is
so much alike that at first sight one is almost puzzled to distinguish
them. A lady lately arrived at Galle, talking to a friend who had been
much in her house and knew all about her establishment, happened to
mention her ayah. The friend expressed surprise, as he did not know
she had an ayah; and after explanation, and summoning the servant in
question, she was made aware that her servant was a man, and had never
pretended to be anything else, though he had been acting as nurse, and
washing and dressing the baby for a week or two.
Crowding round the verandah of the hotel is a host of importunate
vendors of tortoiseshell, baskets, ivory boxes, and jewellery. As
regards jewellery there is ample scope for their roguery, which is
without limit. A fellow will ask you fourteen pounds for what he calls
a real sapphire ring, and gladly let you have it, after a little
bargaining, for two shillings. Europeans take unblushing rascality of
this sort as a matter of course, and treat it, not with indignation,
but with contempt. Even in a few hours one can understand a little why
the natives are so often treated by Europeans much in the way that a
good-natured man treats a useful dog.
The hotel is a great building, with the bedrooms for greater coolness
separated by partitions reaching only part of the way to the ceiling,
so that a word or a snore is sometimes audible in every room from one
end to the other of the long corridor; and many are the reproaches,
expletives, bolsters, boots, and other missiles, which are flung over
the partition at anyone who offends in this latter particular. In some
of the private houses the doors are for the same reason made so as
to come within a foot of the ground, and consequently when anyone is
coming into the room there is ample time and opportunity for inspecting
his or her feet, &c. before any other part of the person is visible.
The heat does not admit of much going about in the middle of the day;
but towards evening you can drive beyond town and suburbs, and see
the palms on each side bending over the road, and the rich swampy
soil teeming with rank vegetation, and feast your senses on the
often-described wonders of a tropical climate. Beautiful as it is, it
is not to be compared for beauty (one is told) with the interior. And
there is no time or opportunity for seeing that, for punctual to its
day the great black hull of the steamer from Calcutta and Madras, which
is to pick up all the passengers for Suez, rounds the point and enters
the bay, and by daybreak next morning she is off again.