Читать книгу Over The Straits: A Visit To Victoria - Louisa Anne Meredith - Страница 4

Table of Contents

Old intentions to be at last realized—Our "Golden Legend"—Colonial Circumlocution office—Home view—Schoutens—Departure—Mountain ride—Oyster-Bay Pines—Stock-keeper's cottage—Who makes the "Images?"—Sam Slick's clocks—Dinner-tea-supper—Serenades—Morning start—Some true stories about snakes—Forest trees and flowers

So many years in Australia, and we had never seen Melbourne! True, we had talked of going there for a long time past. Each ensuing Spring we said, "We will go in the Autumn;" and as each Autumn came, and found our hands full of other affairs, we said, "Not now, but we really will go in the Spring; the country always looks greenest then." For, seeing that we hold our Tasmanian climate to be as near perfection as most sublunary things, we were not disposed to face the greater extremes of our northern neighbour. But Springs and Autumns alike passed away, and we had not seen Melbourne.

In the meantime occurred the terrible "Black Thursday" conflagration in Victoria; which has been so often described, that the dreadful story needs not repetition, save as the fire made itself felt all over Tasmania. The extreme heat of the day, in which the thermometer showed a great increase after sunset, was rendered more intolerable by the hurricane of hot wind, like the blast from a furnace, which sprung up in the afternoon. The air was thick and smoke-laden—

"All in the hot and copper sky,

The bloody sun at noon

Right up above the trees did stand,

No bigger than the moon."

and was, ere four o'clock, obscured altogether. We felt a mysterious and horrible dread of some impending calamity—for no one of course could divine the real cause of the awful aspects of earth and sky. We wandered up and down the garden and veranda in the pitchy darkness of the premature night, expecting to feel the earth reel beneath our feet in the convulsion of an earthquake, or see a burst of blinding lightning cleave the "thick blanket of the dark" asunder. On the north coast of our island, charred leaves and twigs, blown over the Straits, fell in great quantities on the sea-beach; and as far south as Perth, black dust and ashes covered the flowers in gardens, and in greenhouses, whose sashes were open. We know from long experience, how perceptibly the summer bush-fires increase the atmospheric temperature in their vicinity, but never imagined anything so frightful, or so far-felt, as the fiery desolation of that awful day.

We are notoriously a prosaic, matter-of-fact community, we settlers and sheep-farmers of the far south-east, and it is but seldom that an original or picturesque thought can be laid to our charge; therefore, when so rare an elimination is achieved, it seems only prudent to follow the sensible advice of worthy Captain Cuttle, and "when found, make a note of it." On this sound economic principle, I repeat here, what we may call, a Golden Legend, (so weird in its uncouth simplicity, that it sounds more like a bit of black-lettered monkish tradition, than a parable of the 19th century,) repeated to me by my valued friend our excellent Bishop; his authority he did not give me. But I am making my Overture longer than the Opera itself. On that Thursday of dread and destruction, amidst the blazing and crashing forests—the wide plains of hungry fire—the heaps of smouldering ashes, that a few hours before were luxurious and happy homes—the hecatombs of wretched, terrified, torture-maddened animals, fleeing from death on the one hand, only to meet it in perhaps a worse form on another—amidst bereavement, suffering, affliction, and despair—

The Devil was abroad,

"Going to and fro upon the earth, and walking up and down in it," Sowing the gold. And when the flames abated, and the land cooled once more, and men went forth to their wonted labours—Lo! there it was!

Then the gold-fever broke out—(for the gold was found immediately after the great fire), and raged furiously—and anon grew milder in its symptoms, only to rage again with greater force than before—and suffered continual accessions and relapses; and still we had not seen Melbourne. At length circumstances enabled us to carry out our long-cherished project. It was the middle of April, answering to an English October, ere we started, and our first intention was to go to Hobart in the little steamer then running on the east coast, and take our passage to Melbourne in one of the large and commodious vessels trading between the two ports. But this scheme involved the necessity for four voyages, and four doublings of Cape Pillar, whose environment of "ever-vexed" sea I hold in enough dread to avoid it, if practicable. Our plans consequently resolved themselves into the amphibious arrangement of riding over the "Tier," as our mountain-range is termed; and taking our departure by sea from Launceston instead of Hobarton.

"And why must you ride over the Tier?" perhaps some one not unreasonably inquires; and I reply—because our Circumlocution Office, the Colonial Government, so wilfully and wickedly mismanaged, misapplied, and red-taped the immense amount of labour which was at its disposal for fifty years—that instead of having excellent roads made, leading into every fertile and habitable nook of our beautiful island, and connecting each township and district with towns adjacent—we are still for the most part, as destitute of such works as if Great Britain had never emptied her gaols upon our shores at all. And thus the fertile and populous district of Great Swan Port, which was settled and occupied by members of our family, and the emigrants they brought out, as early as 1821, remains to this day without a land-approach fit to drive a cart over; although the island was for fifty years swarming with convicts, for whom sufficient employment could not be found, even in working for the benefit and emolument of their officers; and at Maria Island, the rocky hills, and other so-called "probation-stations," (though in what the probation consisted, except in increasing idleness and crime, it were hard to say,) the prisoners were used in tens and twenties, attached to ploughs, harrows, and light carts, with two or three to each common wheelbarrow, for the purpose of cultivating land, and growing grain, potatoes, turnips, &c.; feeding pigs, and in fact, farming; the Government doing the hucksters-shop part of the business, and selling the articles in competition with the then wretchedly low-priced produce of the oppressed and tax-ground free settlers; to whom the labour of the gangs by day was thus made a curse instead of a benefit; and by night they were robbed equally, but undisguisedly; and occasionally murdered too, by the ill-guarded desperadoes, who made forays round the neighbourhoods of these probation dens. Add to which, they were pillaged by enormous taxes for the maintenance of a large police force to keep the prisoners in check.

Can it be surprising that the Colony grew weary of such an incubus? or that such strenuous exertions were made to be quit of it? Few persons believed that the Home Government ever intended to lay such a galling yoke on the colonists. It is the perverse short-sighted Government here which deserves the blame, not only of our grievances, but for the loss to Great Britain of this outlet for her criminals.

That many of us would have preferred competence without a convict population, to wealth with it, is most true; but these, I opine, would have found themselves in a very small minority, had the labour of the prisoners been wisely and honestly directed to the benefit and improvement of the Colony. Few men who saw substantial bridges building over dangerous rivers, or roads in progress, which gave them greater facilities for conveying their wood and grain to port or market, would have had moral courage to say, "Take away those busy workmen. Let me still continue to be half-drowned in flooded fords, and wearied by scrambling over precipitous mountains. Let my wood cost me a quarter or third of its value to get it shipped—and my wheat rot in the barn—rather than try the work of criminals!" But to pay an enormous amount of taxation for the maintenance of a grievous wrong to ourselves—to see thousands of men, not only ingeniously and systematically prevented from benefiting the Colony, but specially and deliberately empployed to do it mischief—was too much to be borne; and perhaps the enormity of the evil has been a blessing, in securing its destruction; for, had the Comptrollers-General of convicts, in past times, directed, or permitted others to direct, the great amount of disposable labour to useful works, I believe that this island would be to this day a Penal Colony—and the Jubilee of 1853, which we celebrated with such enthusiasm on the final cessation of transportation hither, would be still an undone thing—and the cheers that rang through the hills, for the Queen and the Duke of Newcastle, would never have awoke the echoes! As it is, poor Tasmania has for ever shaken off the Old Man of the Sea—whose own sin and greediness wrought his downfall, as they did that of his Sindbadian prototype.

As one item in the frightfully voluminous list of grievances inflicted upon us by the misappropriation of convict labour, there is not a road into Swan Port:—not that it is a remarkable predicament for a wealthy district to be in—the districts that are really remarkable here, are the two or three, that do possess such extraordinary advantages. Hence, when we required to reach the interior by land, we had only the choice between a very circuitous and very rough road in one direction, which might be driven over with care; and a more direct, but far worse track, in another, which could only be traversed on horseback. Thus, every time we have occasion to go or to send on these most dreary and rugged ways, we remember, with the tenacity of injured and insulted victims, the dismal years when we were ground down and outraged by the Convict Circumlocution Office, and its graceless tribe of malicious, covetous, and unprincipled obstructives.*

[* The utter idleness of the entire swarm at many of the Probation stations was notorious. Mr. Meredith was one day visiting our then Governor, and his esteemed personal friend, the lamented Sir John Franklin, when his Excellency inquired concerning Mr. M.'s journey to town, etc., and added—

"You passed the Rocky Hills Station?"

"Yes, Sir John."

"Did you see how the men were employed? What were they doing?"

"They were sitting in arbours."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean. Sir, that they were all sitting under arbours made of green boughs, by the road-side; except a few, who were amusing themselves by fishing with rods and lines off the long rocky point."

"Where were the officers in charge of the party?"

"Sitting under arbours too. Sir John, but with superior accommodation; as they had camp-stools, books, or newspapers, whilst the men sat and lay on the grass."

"Perhaps," said the Governor, "it was the dinner-hour?"

"No; I passed about three in the afternoon; but the scene was nothing uncommon there."

"You are serious, Mr. Meredith?"

"Indeed I am. Sir. You could not suppose I should jest, when you desire information. I tell you the simple truth."

"Did you speak to them?"

"Only to refuse the request of one man, who got up from his arbour, asking me for tobacco."

At the time this occurred, the gang were stationed at the Rocky Hills ostensibly to make a road into Swanport; but as the making of that road would have benefited persons for whom the then Comptroller of Convicts entertained a vindictive hatred, the road remained in an incomplete state, until the possession of Representative Government, and the passing of a Road Act, enabled the inhabitants of the district to tax themselves, and make it roughly passable. The Governor was in those days a secondary person, the Comptroller of Convicts was the real despot in power; and as few gentlemen are ambitious of a head gaoler's position, such power fell into dishonest and unscrupulous hands, who first cheated and deceived the English Government, and then robbed and insulted the colony in its name.

Sir John Franklin was just beginning to emancipate himself from the ruling faction, composed of old disciples and tools of the Arthur school, and had dismissed one of them, when his term of residence here expired. His successor. Sir Eardley Wilmot—good, honest, thorough English gentleman that he was—not being capable of trickery himself, could not, for a long period, credit the villainy of that in which he was enmeshed by the same old clique; but the scales had at last fallen from his eyes, and he, too, was about to free himself and the colony from the mischievous influences oppressing both, when, dreading the result to themselves, his covert foes, as a last effort, attempted, by infamous slanders, to impose on the pharisaical credulity of the English Colonial Minister, who fell into the trap laid for him; and—there is no possibility of doubt in the matter—our good Governor was murdered by the treatment he received, not for his faults, for wickedness would have won some sympathy, but simply because he was too honest to countenance fraud, when he had discovered it.

Sir Eardley Wilmot told us, one day he had been riding out unattended, and passing a gang of men supposed to be road-making, observed one dropping his hammer on a stone, with a particularly slow, listless motion, and presently observed to the man—"If you don't take care, you'll break that stone!"

"Not if I can help it!" was the cool reply.

Now seeing that, however easy our own transit over the Tier might be on our good horses, we could not, in like manner transport those indispensable incumbrances which came under the denomination of "luggage," and for the conveyance whereof a cart was dispatched first, to go by the rough and circuitous track, we proceeded by the rougher and straighter one, purposing to meet our trunks on the main road at Campbell Town.

As we mount at our own gate, we glance over our wide home view, ere we depart. There lies the bay, blue as the heavens, save where a passing cloud drops a shadow, and weaves a green ribbon across its broad bosom. On the opposite side, twelve or fifteen miles distant, rise the granite peaks of the Schouten mountains—all cliffs, ravines, and many-folded slopes, with turret rocks and towers, that Cyclopaean Architects may have fashioned for the pre-Adamites—and deep precipitous gorges, curtained and canopied by forests of our sombre evergreen trees and shrubs. On clear sunny days, the sea-washed crags and stretches of snowy quartz-pebble beach, are all seen perfectly clear and sharp from the other side of the bay. A tiny black object is visible in the Schouten Passage (or strait), and a lengthening puff of smoke therefrom tells us that the East-coast steamer is coming in from her trip to Wabbs Harbour, Falmouth, and George's river; where she steams periodically, carrying thence to Hobarton, butter, cheese, coals (from the mines at Douglas river and the Schouten Island), apples, wool, wheat, and sundries, passengers included.

Nearer to our shore, we see flocks of gannets, either skimming along high above the sea, or poised for an instant, like silver stars; till, one after another, dozens of them pounce down on the shoal of fish below.

For the foreground of my picture I can say but little. All the trees and bushes near the settlement were cut away long before I saw it, in the old times of convict official-rule, lest they should harbour prisoners; and one straggling street comprises the main body of the small township of Swansea.* Three little reefy points of black-trap rock jut out into the bay to the south; and on the chief of them sits, snugly perched amidst green Booby Alla bushes, and dusky olive-coloured Casuarinas, the white cottage abode of the English clergyman; and above this, rising clear and purple, is the distant lofty crest of Maria Island, thirty miles off. How grandly beautiful all these black points, and broad sandy beeches are, when a southerly gale sets in, and the giant waves come rolling on and on, one behind another—an awful amphitheatre of angry foaming billows, plunging over the dark crags in cataracts of spray—only those who have dwelt in such a spot can tell! But now all is calm and sun-lit, as we look our farewell, and turn away to the hills.

[* Whose chief feature is an excellent and substantial wooden pier, erected by the inhabitants, assisted by a Parliamentary grant of £1000. Its length is over 600 feet, and the height above high-water mark, 15 feet.]

So long as our way lay through level and partially cleared land, we had a road, though an indifferent one; but by degrees the country assumed a wilder look, dead timber cumbered the ground in an abundance, that showed the absence of the fire-wood cart, which acts as a marvellous improver of the bush in the vicinity of a homestead; and in times when labour was cheaper than at present, owners of small sheep-runs found it answer to employ men to gather up the dead wood and rubbish in heaps, to burn on the ground; so much more grass could then grow on the space freed from the sticks and leaves, to say nothing of the improved appearance of such land. In portions of estates where this had been carefully done, and the ugly trees removed, I have seen beautiful glades and slopes of the native turf, with groups of trees and shrubs, of quite a park-like aspect.

But far enough from any likeness to park scenery were the mountain ranges before us! Steep, narrow gullies with almost precipitous sides rising into lofty ridges, covered with loose rocks and scraggy gum-trees, charred and disfigured by the frequent bush fires, formed the dreary scene, here and there relieved by groups of our beautiful Oyster Bay Pine (Frenela Australis). The view being nearly always bounded by the next ridge, there was little to beguile the tiresome monotony of our ride, which, from the steepness and roughness of the track, seldom exceeded a foot-pace for twelve or fourteen miles; until, passing through a region of moister soil, deeper grass, and more luxuriant shrubs and trees, we emerged from the hill-forest upon a wide open moorland on the summit of the Tier, with hilly ground on all sides, but flat as a lake itself. The evening wind blew bitterly cold, sweeping across this high plain, and we gladly unbuckled coats and plaids, and wrapped ourselves up for the last hour's riding.

The whole of the wild country, through which our track lay, is occupied by the flocks of neighbouring sheep farmers. Some portions are the freehold possessions of settlers, but for the most part it is "Crown Land," leased from the local government in lots of from 640 acres (one square mile), to 2,000 acres or more, at an annual rental of £1 for one hundred acres, payable in advance. Failure in payment of the rent due is followed by the forfeiture of the lease, and by the advertisement in the Government Gazette of such lots (described by their numbers and boundaries) for new rental. Each lessee surrounds his "lot" with brush or deadwood fences; and as these cross the road at not very distant intervals, gate-opening is an ever-recurring interruption. When a gate is a gate, and can be opened without dismounting, this is little thought of; but when the barrier is some heavy and rickety slab-rail and paling fabrication, that one person can scarcely lift when on foot; and, as is most usual, is placed in the midst of a deep, sticky quagmire, and digs into the mud so obstinately, that the widest space it allows hardly permits us to twist through, we not unreasonably vote it a nuisance, and threaten to leave it open next time we pass, if not made more practicable.

It is over these wide ranges of hill, mountain, and ravine, that the summer bush-fires rage furiously, and sometimes destroy immense quantities of fencing, which must either be replaced, or the land relinquished. No years pass without large portions being thus lost; and it is more than suspected that in many instances the fixes originate with the men who subsequently apply for the "job" of replacing the loss. Not unfrequently the applicants give the first intimation to the loser, where the fire has been.

Many anxious and harassing campaigns of fire-fighting have occurred in my bush-life; when for days and nights together, every man on our establishment has been enlisted in the weary and exhausting service; beating out the advancing fire with green boughs, or tearing gaps in the fences, to save a portion of them, or carefully themselves burning the grass and deadwood on a strip of land not ignited, so as to leave no fuel to the coming foe, and cheat its advance by that means. Often when the poor fellows, worn out with fatigue and scorching, have left all safe, and gone home to rest, a patch of lurid light is seen in a new quarter, and a fresh alarm arouses them, to hurry off miles in another direction. Frequently the mountain streams fail, in our hot dry summers, and even water to quench their inordinate thirst has to be carried to the sooty fire-brigade. As the fight is generally a long one, and obstinately contested, supplies of food, and above all, of tea and sugar, are sent out; and the fire-side beverage is boiled on the field of action, poured into buckets, and ladled out into pint pannicans. With ourselves and other settlers whose orchards were old enough to be productive, cider of late years gradually superseded the use of tea on such occasions, and the pleasant, sharp, cool drink, was more grateful and refreshing.

Twilight was nearly out of the sky ere we neared our shelter for the night, as we divided the long day's ride to Campbell Town between the afternoon of one day, and the morning of the next; purposing to sleep, or at least to sojourn, at a little cottage occupied by a shopkeeper and his wife, who keep what they term an "eating-house" for travellers; but that these accommodations are not on an extensive scale, may be inferred from the fact of those dedicated to first-class visitors being all comprised in one apartment of about ten feet square.

The barking and growling of dogs made sonorous announcement of our arrival at the small settlement of huts, sheds, stables and hovels (many of them in a very unpicturesque state of ruin), which formed the homestead of this outstation; but their masters, who ran out to meet us, soon restored quiet; and whilst Mr. Meredith went to see the horses properly cared for, our young son and I followed our hostess into her best parlour, where we found an immense fire of logs blazing away in the huge chasm of a chimney, which laid open half one side of the room, and was surmounted by a wooden shelf, covered from end to end with objects in glazed and coloured earthenware, of various sizes and shapes. As I stood before the welcome blaze, thawing my benumbed fingers, and getting unfolded from my riding wraps, I examined the unmeaning display before me, and marvelled, as I have done often, who are the people who in this 19th century—and in the face of art-unions, schools of design, and the universal extension of common knowledge and eye education, can fabricate such things; and with what ideas of pleasure or ornament others can not only give them house-room—but pay hard money to obtain them, and then effect their conveyance over long and rough mountain roads! Here were seven articles nearly alike; with a black knob on the top, touched with two spots of white and one of red, (for eyes and mouth?) a mass of white below, eccentrically pencilled out by lines and dots of gilding, and four more patches of black—two halfway down, and two at the base—which latter spots, when informed by the gold letters on the pedestal that the whole mysterious combination is "Uncle Tom"—naturally resolve themselves into hands and feet. Another device, named "Duke Wellington," is all cocked-hat and boots, with a dab of scarlet connecting the two; and this is flanked by nondescripts of the animal kingdom, to which the Australian Bunyip, and Mons. Violet's mythic swamp monsters, are tame everyday acquaintances; though I know they pretend to represent cows, dogs, and sheep. We often hear of the "schoolmaster" being abroad; I wish he would take the "artist" with him!

In the place of honour, the centre of this menagerie of crockery monsters, stood a noisy American clock. Sam Slick and his brotherhood of clock-makers are universally patronized here: I rarely enter a cottage that is without one of their loud, busy "go ahead"-sounding square cupboard-like clocks, about a foot broad, and a foot and half high—the upper stage filled with the broad face of the dial, and the lower glass either permitting a sight of the penduluun, or presenting some flaring coloured print behind.

A bed, not much more than four feet and a half long, stood in one corner of the room, a little dresser beside it, and in the midst, a small table, covered, in anticipation of our arrival, with rough but plentiful materials for tea, the main feature of which, a large tin teapot, made its appearance as soon as Mr. Meredith came in; and having, by dint of some squeezing and jostling, and overlapping of dishes, made room for a plate of nice fresh eggs, and a roast chicken, we arranged the three infirm chairs, snuffed the dark and not fragrant candles (with the old pair of scissors lent to me as a favour by the hostess)—and sat down to supper.

An extempore bed was managed for Charlie at the foot of the other, and with his head peered up oddly enough beneath a shelf-full of empty bottles, and his feet poked out at the opposite end, he enjoyed the comfortable proximity of the fire.

The vast width and extreme lowness of the chimney, had this inconvenience, that unless a fire, enough to cook us all, were kept up, a volume of icy-cold air rushed into the little room from without; and accordingly at various intervals during the night, the terrors of starvation urged me to rise and scrape the ashes together with a stick—and coax them into lighting the fresh wood I put on. Nor was this my only nocturnal diversion; I could watch as I lay, the transit of the stars which shone through the chinks in the roof, from one aperture to another, and if I dozed off in the midst of an "observation," Sam Slick on the chimney-piece woke me up the next time he struck. A cat, of uneasy mind and doleful voice, performed in long-drawn solo, a species of promenade concert on the creaking roof; and when during her wanderings to the more distant rafters of sheds and stables, the demoniac voice died away and blended with the wailing of the wind in the giant trees around—then, lest sleep should find a quiet pause to make good its entrance—the poor baby, for whose teething-troubles my sympathy and advice had overnight been sought by its puzzled mother, began to cry noisily, and to be hushed up more noisily still; and as every sound, in such a crazy, cranny-full tenement, pervades all corners of it alike, I may be understood to have, in popular phrase, "enjoyed a very bad night."

I could not help wishing that my hostess's taste had inclined rather to the useful than to the ornamental, in the earthenware department, as I could have suggested several desirable additions of homely requirements; a wash-handbasin for instance—as I rather demur to the use of a tin-bowl out of the kitchen—but tastes differ.

Our dressing-table having been cleared for breakfast, that dispatched, and valises packed, we set forth on a rough, rocky track, twisting and turning through the forest, which here consists of very lofty trees, nearly all Eucalyptus of different species. As we passed one giant gum-tree, Mr. Meredith, pointing to the black cavernous hollow which repeated bush fires had burned in its enormous trunk, said—

"The last time I rode this way, I killed the largest black snake I ever saw, in that hole."

And the narration of this perilous, but not otherwise remarkable incident, gave to the conversation of the next few miles a very reptilious complexion. We have known several recent instances of snakes being found in the act of swallowing other snakes. Sometimes the victim has been alive and writhing actively when discovered; and then the question arises—'How was its head induced to go down its neighbour's throat?' In other cases, both reptiles were lying perfectly still; one quieted by death, the other by repletion. I have seen snakes opened, and the creatures they had swallowed taken out; the process of digestion had evidently been going on upwards—the head, which first reaches the stomach, being quite, or nearly decomposed, and the adjoining parts in a sort of transition state. In the digestion of so long a body as that of another snake, I believe that several days must elapse before the whole is sucked in and consumed. As a snake thus occupied is incapable of biting anything else, it would be curious, and quite safe, to capture one after his meal has begun, and keep him until he finished. But the horror of them is so great, and they so often contrive to elude pursuit, that few persons have sufficient coolness and composure to pause in this favourable moment for the solution of any natural enigma.

A lady of my acquaintance once displayed greater presence of mind, than I, with my impulsive, shuddering terror of the dangerous reptiles, could have supposed possible. She was lying awake one dark night, aroused, she believed, by a slight noise in her room, and felt something come softly on to the bed, and pass over her feet; it glided on, and pushed, gently and coldly, against her arm, which lay outside the clothes, across her breast. She then knew that the moving thing was a snake, and that to stir—was to die. With wonderful self-command, every nerve thrilling with horror, she lay perfectly still, whilst the reptile endeavoured again and again to nestle itself beneath her warm arm; failing to do this, it glided slowly on, over her shoulder and the pillow, and thence dropped on the floor. With one convulsive plunge, she gained the door and called for help, and when lights came, a large black snake was found and killed; but my courageous friend suffered in general ill-health for some time, from the fright of those few awful moments.

When such hair-breadth escapes from death by snake-bites become topics of fireside chat, many strange and true tales are told, that make one fidget and glance uneasily round, with a creeping kind of suspicious dread, much as children do who go upstairs in the dark after hearing a good ghost story; and a black ribbon or velvet band, dimly seen in a suspicious shape on the floor, or the round soft tail of demure Mrs. Puss or honest Sancho, felt for a moment beneath one's foot, gives the whole frame a shock, not to be thoroughly comprehended by those who have no worse domestic intruders to dread, than a poor little sleek mouse or even a "black beadle." And the snake-panic is in one respect like earthquakes and tooth-drawing; each new visitation or alarm, instead of increasing our indifference and stoicism, seems to cause more terror than the last.

This being understood, my readers will be better prepared to sympathize with the feelings of a gentleman whose occupation as a land surveyor compelled him frequently to make long journeys and sojourns in the bush, with only a small tent for shelter; and in consequence he was led so much into the company of the snaky fraternity, that his antipathy and fear devised a scheme for his protection at night, by sewing up the sides and one end of an oppossum-skin rug, in the form of a bag, or bolster-case, with a running string round the open end. Laying this straight out where he proposed sleeping, he used to shuffle and wriggle into it feet first, and then draw up the string round his neck. Having on one occasion achieved this rather complicated process of getting into bed, he became aware that one of his dreaded enemies had retired before him, and being aroused by his entrance, was writhing and twisting about his feet. How he extricated himself from the abhorred reptile, I believe he had no very clear remembrance; one thing however is tolerably certain—that he got out of bed much more expeditiously than he got in.

Snakes are fond of being wrapped up in clothing; they are not unfrequently found in the jackets or woollen shirts which labouring men fling aside when at work; and I have heard many stories of their getting on and into beds in huts; but the comparative rarity of fatal encounters with these deadly reptiles is to me a source of as great surprise, as of thankfulness.

One day Mr. Meredith and a friend found a large snake sunning itself outside a deserted hut; when disturbed, it instantly glided in amongst the loose stones of the chimney, whilst my husband stood, gun in hand, watching for a sight of the creature's head amongst the ruins. E—— peered cautiously in at the open doorway, thinking he might discern it in the dark hollow of the smoke-blackened hearth.

"Do you see him?" inquired Mr. Meredith.

"No—no—I can't see anything—Yee-ah!" and with a bound that would do credit to an acrobat, and a yell worthy of a Red Indian, E—— leaped from the door.

"Has he bitten you?"

"Eh? No—I'm not sure—I don't think so—but I was looking straight into the chimney for him, and heard a rustle—and there he was, with his head flattened out and his eyes glittering, sailing along just between my feet."

This snake escaped in the panic—as very many do.

An incident which was lately related to me, shows that my favourites, the birds, have as much cause to dread snakes, as ourselves. The narrator, Mr. John Amos, of Swan Port, was riding through his sheep-run, when his attention was attracted by the loud and distressed cries of a pair of Miner birds, which were flying closely round and about a tree at a short distance. He rode quickly up, and then saw that a large black-snake had ascended the tree, and crawled along a large branch. On a bough beneath, and beyond it, was the nest of the poor Miners, full of young helpless birds; and the snake, elongating itself to the utmost, was trying to reach them. It had, luckily for the birds, mistaken the bough, and climbed along the wrong one. Again and again it launched itself forward, holding on by as little of its body as would sustain its weight, but in vain—when a slight noise made by Mr. Amos in approaching nearer, alarmed him, and he dropped quickly to the ground, but was killed. Mr. Gould, nature's painter, in extra-ordinary, for our part of the world, should have beheld the scene. He would have made an effective picture of it.

The poor Miner has many enemies; gardeners abuse him, because he is fond of fruit, and an excellent judge of cherries; and, as I have before been forced to confess, he is an impudent and very pertinacious fellow; yet I like him more than many a bird of better behaviour, and less objectionable tastes. There is something so clever and piquant in his person and manner; he is so active and full of energy; whether the affair he has on hand be an onslaught on my cherries, or the noisy chase of a hawk or crow; or a grand convocation of some fifty of his kind, to discuss (amidst infinite fluttering, chattering, and as much irrelevant gossip, and snappish impertinent personality, as if he were a human member of a Colonial Legislative Assembly) any question of miner-ological interest; he is always the same busy, bustling, self-reliant, and thoroughly well-dressed bird. His surname of Garrula (Myzantha Garrula) is certainly well deserved. My boys in no degree partake of my partiality, for they complain that my friend is so much on the alert, that when they are creeping silently along, to get a shot at anything, the miner often defeats them by sounding an alarm in his shrill cry of "Thief! Thief!" whereat the intended victim escapes. But this only increases my respect for the clever miner. His common name is a great absurdity, it is said to be given from his resemblance to some Indian bird called Mina, or Miner. But why our merry, bold denizen of sunshine and flowers, should bear an appellation suggestive of subterranean vocations, with which he has naught whatever to do—I do not comprehend. I suppose we must attribute it to the same topsy-turvy style of nomenclature, which calls a tree, with foliage like the jointed horse-tail grass of English brooks, an oak, and a handsome talkative bird, a jackass.

I have one more snake story to tell. A little colony of swallows had built under the eaves of an old house of ours (Spring Vale), and remained undisturbed favourites of the friends who subsequently occupied the house. One day an unwonted amount of fluttering and twittering attracted attention to the nests; when the cause of their distress was discovered, in the presence of a large snake, which had, in some extraordinary manner, and with strange powers of adhesion, contrived to ascend the stone wall, and was stretched along it, beneath the wooden gutter or spout surrounding the roof, and with no other support than the trifling inequalities of the stone work; and very composedly occupied in diving its horrible head into a nest, and devouring the callous little fledglings one after another, despite the frantic endeavours of the poor old birds to drive it away. Of course the cruel destruction was stopped instantly, and the snake knocked down and killed.

In driving up our own lane on our way home from church one Sunday, Charlie called out, "There's a snake in the hedge, father!" and on stopping, we found a not very large one, lying basking on a sort of slanting ledge, formed by the gorse; in no way incommoded, apparently, by the spiny nature of its couch: it was also killed.

During this digressive gossip, let it be supposed that our horses have paced steadily on, and that some miles of monotonous forest have been traversed. The trees on this high land grow to an immense size, and are Eucalyptus, of the kinds commonly known as Blue Gum, White Gum, Peppermint, and Stringy bark; among them some green and blue Wattles (Acacia) and the Honeysuckle (Banksia) afford some diversity of tint and form. The underscrub is rich in lovely plants, including several varieties of the Epacris; the bright rose-crimson and the common white, both grow two or three feet high, with long, slender spikes of heath-like bells; another very beautiful white one, has shorter and more starry flowers, closely wreathed round the stem, with the points of their sharp little leaves peeping between the blossoms, and all as close and compact as an ear of maize, and so purely delicate, that I prefer them to the more showy crimson ones, which vary greatly in depth of tint in different situations, showing sometimes within a short space, every gradation from deep crimson to pale blush-colour.

Many of our low shrubs have small pea-shaped flowers of orange and yellow, all most daintily pencilled with veins of darker tint, and with all varieties of foliage; some have soft leaves, and are altogether of a mild and pacific character; others carry sharp spikes, like hidden weapons, beneath their festal array; and some stand on the offensive without disguise or compromise, one mass of interwoven spikes, as difficult to capture as a bunch of gorse itself: but very handsome, forming, as many of them do, a gleam of gold, like a flame in the sombre forest. Our taller shrub Lissanthe Strigosa, a perfect chevaux-de-frise of small narrow spiny leaves, bears greenish white flowers on the ends of the young shoots, and quantities of beautiful currant-shaped berries, tinted like ripe peaches, on the wood of the previous season. Any flower or shrub with larger leaves is a treasure amidst these lovely, but petite forms, and a handsomer tuft of feathery ferns, or even a great tussock of the tall reedy marsh grass, with its long, ragged, brown spikes, and far-waving green blades, "comes in" nicely in the foreground of logs and stumps, with which all artistic eyes are only too familiar in the Bush.

Oyster Bay Pines

The Old Mill at Perth