Numbers of boats soon surround the ship, filled with people anxious to
hear news, and traffickers with fruit and other refreshments, besides
watermen to land passengers; a regular establishment of the latter
description has long existed here, many of whose members formerly plied
that vocation on the Thames, and among whom were a few years back numbered
that famous personage once known by all from Westminster stairs to
Greenwich, by the shouts which assailed him as he rowed along, of
"Overboard he vent, overboard he vent!" King Boongarre, too, with a
boat-load of his dingy retainers, may possibly honour you with a visit,
bedizened in his varnished cocked-hat of "formal cut," his gold-laced blue
coat (flanked on the shoulders by a pair of massy epaulettes) buttoned
closely up, to evade the extravagance of including a shirt in the
catalogue of his wardrobe; and his bare and broad platter feet, of dull
cinder hue, spreading out like a pair of sprawling toads, upon the deck
before you. First, he makes one solemn measured stride from the gangway;
then turning round to the quarter-deck, lifts up his beaver with the right
hand a full foot from his head, (with all the grace and ease of a court
exquisite,) and carrying it slowly and solemnly forwards to a a full
arm's-length, lowers it in a gentle and most dignified manner down to the
very deck, following up this motion by an inflection of the body almost
equally profound. Advancing slowly in this way, his hat gracefully poised
in his hand, and his phiz wreathed with many a fantastic smile, he bids
_massa_ welcome to _his_ country. On finding he has fairly grinned himself
into your good graces, he formally prepares to take leave, endeavouring at
the same time to _take_ likewise what you are probably less willing to
part withal--namely, a portion of your cash. Let it not be supposed,
however, that his majesty condescends to _thieve_; he only solicits the
_loan_ of a _dump_, on pretence of treating his sick _gin_ [wife] to a cup
of tea, but in reality with a view of treating _himself_ to a porringer of
"Cooper's best," to which his majesty is most royally devoted. You land at
the government wharf on the right, where carts and porters are generally
on the look-out for jobs; and on passing about fifty yards along the
avenue, you enter George-street, which stretches on both hands, and up
which, towards the left, you now turn, to reach the heart of the town.
* * * * *
Although all you see are English faces, and you hear no other language but
English spoken, yet you soon become aware that you are in a country very
different from England, by the number of parrots and other birds of
strange notes and plumage which you observe hanging at so many doors, and
cagesful of which you will soon see exposed for sale as you proceed. The
government gangs of convicts, also, marching backwards and forwards from
their work in single military file, and the solitary ones straggling here
and there, with their white woollen Paramatta frocks and trousers, or gray
or yellow jackets with duck overalls, (the different styles of dress
denoting the oldness or newness of their arrival,) all bedaubed over with
broad arrows, P.B.'s, C.B.'s, and various numerals in black, white, and
red, with perhaps the jail-gang straddling sulkily by in their jingling
leg-chains,--tell a tale too plain to be misunderstood. At the corners of
streets, and before many of the doors, fruit-stalls are to be seen,
teeming, in their proper seasons, with oranges, lemons, limes, figs,
grapes, peaches, nectarines, apricots, plums, apples, pears, &c. at very
moderate prices.--_Two Years in New South Wales_.
* * * * *