AUSTRALIA FELIX
The story of a sea-voyage thirty years ago, if it could properly be
included in this chronicle, might interest the young reader, born
since the era of the sailing ship, and to whom therefore the true
romance of ocean travel is unknown. To me, who, if I could cross the
world to-morrow, would choose the most civilised steamer I could
afford, the memory of the _Hampshire_ on her maiden trip brings regret
for beauty vanishing from the world, as the Pink Terraces of New
Zealand have vanished, or the big bird-thronged hedges of rural
England in my nutting and blackberrying childhood. All such losses
have been amply compensated for, no doubt--I am not of those who,
having outlived them, insist that the old times were better than the
new--but they are losses, notwithstanding. The fine old sailing
sailor-men and their noble seamanship, and the almost sentient
responsiveness of the "powerful clipper" of a thousand tons or so in
their hands--the spectacle of her with all her tiers of sails full,
leaning to the breeze, or fighting storms, bare-poled, by sheer brain
sense and the inspiration of the divinest unconscious courage that
human history can show--there is nothing in the splendid new regime to
touch the heart and the imagination as these did. I forget the
hard-bottomed and treacherous bunks, the soon-carpetless, soaked
floors, the dancing table that shot fowls and legs of mutton into our
laps out of dish and fiddle, the cold that one could find no shelter
from except in bed, the terrible gales, the incurable sea-sickness,
the petty feuds of the lady passengers; that is, I think of them as
not worth thinking of, with the feeling that it was finer to rough it
a bit as we did than to be pampered at every turn as sea-travellers
are now, and in recognition of the fact that my sufferings brought me
many pleasures that otherwise I should have been deprived of. The
captain wanted to--only I would not let him--give me his own swinging
cot. The head steward used to smuggle in mysterious parcels, which,
when unwrapped, disclosed little dainties, specially prepared and hot
from the cooking-stove, to tempt her who was said to be "the most
sea-sick lady they had ever carried." The other ladies, when not
immersed in their little social broils, from which my physical state
and geographical position detached me, were kindness itself. One of
them gave me that nearly extinct article, a hair net--it was the day
of chignons, the manufacture of which was beyond me--and seldom have I
received a more useful gift. With my hair tucked into this bag,
dressing-gowned and shawled, I used to go up after nightfall to a
couch on the skylight; there I would enjoy myself, feeling fairly well
until I moved to go down again--amused with the little comedies going
on around me, and enraptured with the picture of the winged vessel as
I looked up through her labyrinth of rigging to the mastheads and the
sky, and then down and around at the sea and the night through which
she moved so majestically. Pictures of her sweeping through a
dream-like world of moonlight and mystery are indelible in my mind.
Sometimes the moonlight was so bright that we played chess and card
games by it on the skylight and about the deck. At other times we lay
becalmed, and I had my chance to dress myself and enjoy the evening
dance or concert, or whatever was going on. But at the worst of
times--even in the tremendous storms, when the ship lay poop-rail
under, all but flat on her beam ends (drowning the fowls and pigs on
that side), or plunged and wallowed under swamping cross-seas that
pounded down through smashed skylights upon us tumbling about
helplessly in the dark--even in these crises of known danger and
physical misery there was something exhilarating and uplifting--a
sense of finely-lived if not heroic life, that may come to the coddled
steamer passenger when the machinery breaks down, but which I cannot
associate with him and his "floating hotel" under any circumstances
short of impending shipwreck.
We sighted Cape Otway on the 16th of August. Seventy-seven days! Yet
the Melbourne newspapers of the 19th called it smart work, considering
the sensational weather we had passed through. More than forty ships
were reported overdue when we arrived--a curious thing to think of
now, with the steamers crowding every port keeping time like
clockwork. The pilots that bring them up the bay can rarely enjoy the
popularity and prestige of their predecessors of the last generation.
The sensation caused by the knowledge that ours was on board, with his
month-and-a-half-old letters and newspapers, filled with information
of the happenings in the world from which we had been totally cut off
for nearly a quarter of a year, must have been delightful to him. We
came out to breakfast to find him there, crowded about by the young
men, the honoured guest of the company, one and all of whom hung upon
his every word--particularly the gamblers who had had to wait till now
for the name of the Derby winner. I remember that this item of news
was considered the most important; next to it was the news that
Dickens was dead.
Although we sighted land on the 16th, it was not until the 19th that
we set foot upon it, so leisurely did we do things in those days.
Contrary winds kept us hovering about the Heads for some hours. The
pilot who came on board before breakfast saw us well into our
afternoon dinner before he decided to tack through the Rip against
them; we shortened the meal which it was our custom to make the most
of in order to watch the manoeuvre, which was very pretty. The captain
was charmed with it, although there was one awful moment when the
vessel was but her own length from one of the reefs--the noise of the
wind had caused one of the yelled orders to be misunderstood--and it
was amusing to note his joyous excitement as he marched about, rubbing
his hands. "She's a yacht, sir," he bawled to the sympathetic pilot;
"you can do anything with her." "You can that," the pilot answered, as
he made his delicate zig-zags through that formidable gateway in the
teeth of the wind--a feat in seamanship that the dullest landlubber
could not but admire and marvel at.
And so we came to shelter and calm water at last. We anchored off
Queenscliff and signalled for the doctor, who did not immediately put
out to us, as he should have done. We had had such hopes of getting
to a shore bed that night that most of us had stripped our cabins--the
furniture of which had to be of our own providing--and packed
everything up; now we had to unpack again, to get out bedding for
another night and find a candle by which to see to take off the smart
shore clothes in which we had sat all day, eyeing each other's
costumes, which for the first time seemed to reveal us in our true
characters. We were ungratefully disheartened by this trivial
disappointment, and retired to rest all grumbling at the Providence
which had brought us through so many perils unharmed.
Next morning the ship seethed with indignation because the doctor
still made no sign. What happened to him afterwards I don't know, but
the penalties he was threatened with for being off duty at the wrong
time were heavy. He detained us so long that again our confident
expectation of a shore bed was frustrated; for yet another night we
had to camp in our dismantled cabin. The pair of tugs that dragged us
from the Heads to Hobson's Bay, making their best pace, could not get
us home until black night had fallen and it was considered too late to
go up to the pier.
I suppose it was about nine o'clock when we dropped anchor. All we
could see of the near city was a three-quarter ring of lights dividing
dark water from dark sky--just what I see now every night when I come
upstairs to bed, before I draw the blinds down. We watched them,
fascinated, and--still more fascinating--the boats that presently
found their way to us, bringing welcoming friends and relatives to
those passengers who possessed them. We, strangers in a strange land,
sat apart and watched these favoured ones--listened to their callings
back and forth over the ship's side, beheld their embraces at the
gangway, their excited interviews in the cuddy, their gay departures
into the night and the unknown, which in nearly every case swallowed
them for ever as far as we were concerned. Three only of the whole
company have we set eyes on since--excepting the friend who became our
brother--and one of these three renewed acquaintance with us but a
year or two ago. Another I saw once across a hotel dinner-table. The
third was the clergyman who had been so kindly foisted on us--or we on
him--before we left England; and it was enough for us to see him afar
off at such few diocesan functions as we afterwards attended together;
we dropped closer relations as soon as there was room to drop them.
However, he was a useful and respected member of his profession, and
much valued by his own parish, from which death removed him many a
year ago. Quite a deputation of church members came off to welcome him
on that night of his return from his English holiday, and to tell him
of the things his _locum tenens_ had been doing in his absence. He was
furious at learning that this person--at the present moment the head
of the Church of England in this state--had had the presumption to
replace an old organ--_his_ old organ--with a new one. In the
deputation were ladies with votive bouquets for his wife; the perfume
of spring violets in the saloon deepened the sense of exile and
solitude that crept upon us when their boat and the rest had vanished
from view, leaving but the few friendless ones to the hospitality of
the ship for a last night's lodging.
However, in the morning, we had our turn. It was the loveliest
morning, a sample of the really matchless climate (which we had been
informed was exactly like that of the palm-houses at Kew), clear as
crystal, full of sunshine and freshness; and when we awoke amid
strange noises, and looked out of our port-hole, we saw that not sea
but wooden planks lay under it--Port Melbourne railway pier, exactly
as it is now, only that its name was then Sandridge and its old piles
thirty years stouter where salt water and barnacles gnawed them.
With what joy as well as confidence did we don our best clerical coat
and our best purple petticoat and immaculate black gown (the skirt
pulled up out of harm's way through a stout elastic waist-cord, over
which it hung behind in a soft, unobtrusive bag, for street wear), and
lay out our Peter Robinson jacket and bonnet, and gloves from the
hermetically sealed bottle, upon the bare bunk! And the breakfast we
then went to is a memory to gloat upon--the succulent steak, the fresh
butter and cream, the shore-baked rolls, the piled fruits and salads;
nothing ever surpassed it except the mid-day meal following, with its
juicy sirloin and such spring vegetables as I had never seen. This
also I battened on, with my splendidly prepared appetite, though G.
did not. The bishop's representative--our first Australian friend,
whose fine and kindly face is little changed in all these years, and
which I never look upon without recalling that moment, my first and
just impression of it and him--appeared in our cabin doorway early in
the morning; and it was deemed expedient that G. should go with him to
report himself at headquarters, and return for me when that business
was done. So I spent some hours alone, watching the railway station at
the head of the pier through my strong glasses. In the afternoon I
too landed, and was driven to lodgings that had been secured for us in
East Melbourne, where we at once dressed for dinner at the house of
our newest friend, and for one of the most charming social evenings
that I ever spent. The feature of it that I best remember was a vivid
literary discussion based upon _Lothair_, which was the new book of
the hour, and from which our host read excruciating extracts. How
brightly every detail of those first hours in Australia stands out in
the mind's records of the past--the refined little dinner (I could
name every dish on the dainty table), the beautiful and adored invalid
hostess, who died not long afterwards, and whom those who knew her
still speak of as "too good for this world"; the refreshment of
intellectual talk after the banalities of the ship; the warm kindness
of everybody, even our landlady, who was really a lady, and like a
mother to me; the comfort of the sweet and clean shore life--I shall
never cease to glow at the recollection of these things. The beautiful
weather enhanced the charm of all, and--still more--the fact that,
although at first I staggered with the weakness left by such long
sea-sickness, I not only recovered as soon as my foot touched land,
but enjoyed the best health of my life for a full year afterwards.
The second day was a Saturday, and we were taken out to see the
sights. No description that we had read or heard of, even from our
fellow-passengers whose homes were there, had prepared us for the
wonder that Melbourne was to us. As I remember our metropolis then,
and see it now, I am not conscious of any striking general change,
although, of course, the changes in detail are innumerable. It was a
greater city for its age thirty years ago than it is to-day, great as
it is to-day. I lately read in some English magazine the statement
that tree-stumps--likewise, if I mistake not, kangaroos--were features
of Collins Street "twenty-five years ago." I can answer for it that in
1870 it was excellently paved and macadamised, thronged with its
waggonette-cabs, omnibuses, and private carriages--a perfectly good
and proper street, except for its open drainage gutters. The nearest
kangaroo hopped in the Zoological Gardens at Royal Park. In 1870,
also--although the theatrical proceedings of the Kelly gang took place
later--bushranging was virtually a thing of the past. So was the Bret
Harte mining-camp. We are credited still, I believe, with those
romantic institutions, and our local story-writers love to pander to
the delusion of some folks that Australia is made up of them; I can
only say--and I ought to know--that in Victoria, at any rate, they
have not existed in my time. Had they existed in the other colonies, I
must have heard of it. The last real bushranger came to his inevitable
bad end shortly before we arrived. The cowardly Kellys, murderers, and
brigands as they were, and costlier than all their predecessors to
hunt down, always seemed to me but imitation bushrangers. Mining has
been a sober pursuit, weighted with expensive machinery. Indeed, we
have been quite steady and respectable, so far as I know. In the way
of public rowdyism I can recall nothing worth mentioning--unless it be
the great strike of 1890.
We went to see the Town Hall--the present one, lacking only its
present portico; and the splendid Public Library, as it was until a
few years ago, when a wing was added; and the Melbourne Hospital, as
it stands to-day; and the University, housed as it is now, and
beginning to gather its family of colleges about it. We were taken
a-walking in the Fitzroy Gardens--saw the same fern gully, the same
plaster statues, that still adorn it; and to the Botanical Gardens,
already furnished with their lakes and swans, and rustic bridges, and
all the rest of it. And how beautiful we thought it all! As I have
said, it was springtime, and the weather glorious. There had been
excessive rains, and were soon to be more--rains which caused 1870 to
be marked in history as "the year of the great floods"--but the
loveliness of the weather as we first knew it I shall never forget.
We finished the week in the suburban parish that included Pentridge,
the great prison of the State--an awesome pile of dressed granite then
as now. The incumbent was not well, and G. was sent to help him with
his Sunday duty. The first early function was at the gaol, from which
they brought back an exquisitely-designed programme of the music and
order of service, which I still keep amongst my mementoes of those
days. It was done by a prisoner, who supplied one, and always a
different one, to the chaplain each Sunday.
At his house--where again we were surprised to find all the
refinements we had supposed ourselves to have left in England, for he
and his wife were exceptionally cultivated persons--we slept on the
ground floor for the first time in our lives, all mixed up with
drawing-room and garden, which felt very strange and public, and
almost improper. Now I prefer the bungalow arrangement to any other; I
like to feel the house all round me, close and cosy, and to be able to
slip from my bed into the open air when I like, and not to be cut off
from folks when I am ill. For more than twenty years I was accustomed
to it, sleeping with open windows and unlocked doors, like any Bedouin
in his tent, unmolested in the loneliest localities by night-prowling
man or beast. I miss this now, when I live in town and have to climb
stairs and isolate myself--or sleep with shut windows (which I never
will) in a ground-floor fortress, made burglar-proof at every point.
Bishop and Mrs. Perry had a dinner-party for us on Monday. That day
was otherwise given to our particular ship friend (of whom I shall say
more presently); with him, a stranger in the land like ourselves, we
had adventures and excursions "on our own," eluding the many kind folk
who would have liked to play courier. We lunched plentifully at an
excellent restaurant--I cannot identify it now, but it fixed our
impression that we had indeed come to a land of milk and honey--and
then rambled at large. The evening was very pleasant. Whether as host
or guest, the first Bishop of Melbourne was always perfect, and we met
some interesting people at his board. Others came in after dinner,
amongst them two of the "sweetly pretty daughters," of whom we had
heard in England, and who did not quite come up to our expectations.
They are hoary-headed maiden ladies now--the youngest as white as the
muslin of the frock she wore that night.
We did many things during the remainder of the week, which was full of
business, pleasure, and hospitalities, very little of our time being
spent in privacy. The shops were surprisingly well furnished and
tempting, and we acted upon our supposition that we should find none
to speak of in the Bush. We made careful little purchases from day to
day. The very first of them, I think, was Professor Halford's
snake-bite cure. We had an idea that, once out of the city, our lives
would not be safe without it for a day. It was a hypodermic syringe
and bottle of stuff, done up in a neat pocket-case. That case did
cumber pockets for a time, but it was never opened, and eventually
went astray and was no more seen--or missed. Yet snakes were quite
common objects of the country then. I used to get weary of the
monotony of sitting my horse and holding G.'s, while at every mile or
so he stopped to kill one, during our Bush-rides in warm weather.
English readers should know that in the Bush it has ever been a point
of honour, by no means to be evaded, to kill every snake you see, if
possible, no matter how difficult the job, nor how great your
impatience to be after other jobs. That probably is why they are so
infrequent now that any chance appearance of the creature is
chronicled in the papers as news.
Another early purchase was a couple of large pine-apples, at
threepence a-piece. We each ate one (surreptitiously, in a retired
spot), and realised one of the ambitions of our lives--to get enough
of that delicacy for once.
On Saturday the 24th, the eighth day from our arrival, we turned our
backs upon all this wild dissipation and our faces towards stern duty.
We left Melbourne for the Bush.