Foot-prints of Travel by Maturin Murray Ballou (buy e reader TXT) 📖

lightning is the angry expression of some enraged god.

The most peculiar weapon possessed by these aborigines is one which originated with them, and is known as the boomerang,--of which every one has heard, but which few have seen. It is a weapon whose characteristics have caused its name to pass into a synonym for anything which turns upon the person who uses it. It seems at first sight to be only a flat, crooked, or curved piece of polished wood, about twenty-eight inches long and three-quarters of an inch in thickness. There is nothing remarkable about this weapon until we see a native throw one. In doing this he carefully poises himself, makes a nice calculation as to distance, raises his arm above his head, and brings it down with a sort of swoop, swiftly launching the curved wood from his hand. At first the boomerang skims along near the ground, then rises four or five feet, but only to sink again, and again to rise. As we carefully watch its course, and suppose it just about to stop in its erratic career, and drop, spent, to the ground, it suddenly ceases its forward flight, and rapidly returns to the thrower. It is thought that no white man can exactly learn the trick of throwing this strange weapon, and certainly few ever care to attempt it a second time.

Ethnologists tell us that these blacks belong to the Ethiopian race,--they are the lowest probably of all the human family. The conviction forces itself upon us that they must be the remnant of some ancient people of whom we have no historic record. When Australia was first taken possession of by the whites, it seems to have been, if the term is in any instance admissible, a God-forsaken land; certainly it was the most destitute of natural productions of any portion of the globe. We can well believe that before these blacks came hither,--perhaps a thousand years ago,--this land was untrodden by human beings.

No species of grain was known to these natives; not a single fruit worthy of notice grew wild, and not an edible root of value was produced. The only game of any size was the kangaroo and a few species of birds. Now, the trees, fruits, vegetables, and game of all regions have become domesticated here, proving to be highly productive, whether transplanted from tropical or from semi-tropical regions.

Queensland measures thirteen hundred miles from north to south, and is about eight hundred miles in width, containing a population at the present time of three hundred and forty thousand. The climate may be compared to that of Madeira, and it is entirely free from the hot winds which sometimes render Sydney and Melbourne so uncomfortable. Leaving out West Australia, which is yet so little developed, the country may be divided thus: Queensland is the best and most extensive grazing section; in this respect New South Wales comes next. South Australia is characterized by its prolific grain-fields, and Victoria is richest in auriferous deposits; but there is gold enough in all of these colonies to afford constant stimulus to mining enterprise, fresh discoveries in this line being made every month. It is proposed to separate the north of Queensland from the south, at the twenty-second parallel of latitude, and to form the northern portion into a separate colony. As Queensland is larger than England, France, and Belgium with Holland and Denmark combined, there can be no want of territory for such a political division: population, however, is needed.

We will now turn our steps southward, by the way of Sydney and Melbourne, to Tasmania. At the last-named city we take a coasting steamer passing down the river Yarra-Yarra, the muddiest of water-ways, until Bass's Strait is reached, across which the course is due-south for a hundred and twenty miles. This is a reach of ocean travel which for boisterousness and discomfort can be said to rival the English Channel, between Calais and Dover. As the coast of Tasmania is approached, a tall lighthouse, one hundred and forty feet above sea-level, first attracts the attention, designating the mouth of the Tamar River. While crossing the Strait we are surrounded by a great variety of sea-birds, among which are the cape-pigeon, the stormy petrel, and the gannet, which last is the largest of ocean birds next to the albatross.

On drawing still nearer to the shore, flocks of pelicans are observed upon the rocks, and that most awkward of birds, the penguin, is seen in idle groups. He is a good swimmer, but his apologetic wings are not intended for flying.

We pass up the Tamar River, through a narrow, winding channel for a distance of forty miles before coming to the harbor and town of Launceston. The many tall, smoking chimney-shafts which meet the eye indicate that the town is busy smelting ores, dug from the neighboring mineral hills and valleys. It is a pleasant and thrifty little city, somewhat liable to earthquakes and their attendant inconveniencies. The place has a population of ten or twelve thousand, and is named after a town in Cornwall, England. We have left Australia proper far behind us, but the Bass Strait which separates that land from Tasmania is evidently of modern formation. The similarity of the vegetation, minerals, animal, and vegetable life of the two countries shows that this island must, at some time in the long-past ages, have been connected with the mainland. And yet the aborigines of Tasmania were a race quite distinct from those of Australia, so different, indeed, as only to resemble them in color. They were a well-formed, athletic people, with brilliant eyes, curly hair, flat noses, and elaborately tattooed bodies. This ingenious and barbaric ornamentation, practised by isolated savage races, seems to have been universal among the inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, though the great distances which separate them, as well as the lack of all ordinary means of intercommunication, would lead to the belief that they could not have borrowed the idea from one another. So late as 1828 there were a few of the Tasmanian aborigines still alive, but to-day there is not a representative of the race in existence.

When the country cast off the disgrace of being a penal colony, the name it bore was very judiciously changed from Van Dieman's Land to that of Tasmania, in honor of its first discoverer, Abel Janssen Tasman, the famous Dutch navigator of the seventeenth century. We should perhaps qualify the words "first discoverer." Tasman was the first accredited discoverer, but he was less entitled to impart his name to this beautiful island than were others. Captain Cook, with characteristic zeal and sagacity, explored, surveyed, and described it, whereas Tasman scarcely more than sighted it. However, any name was preferable to that of Van Dieman's Land, which had become the synonyme for a penal station, and with which is associated the memory of some of the most outrageous and murderous acts of cruelty for which a civilized government was ever responsible.

The whole island has now a population of about one hundred and thirty thousand, and a total area of over twenty-four thousand square miles. It is not quite so large as Ireland. Lying nearer to the Antarctic Circle it is of course cooler than the continent, but the influence of the sea, which completely surrounds it, renders the climate more equable. The general aspect of the country is that of being occupied by thrifty farmers of advanced ideas, such as carry on their calling understandingly, and more like well-populated America than sparsely-inhabited Australia. Our native fruits--apples, peaches, pears, and the like--thrive here in such abundance, as to form a prominent item in the exports, besides promoting a large and profitable industry in the packing of preserved fruits, which are in universal use in Australia and New Zealand. These canned fruits have an excellent and well-deserved reputation. Here, also, we find enormous trees, with a circumference of eighty feet near the ground, and a height of three hundred and fifty feet. Fern-trees, with their graceful palm-like formation, are frequently seen thirty feet in height. The country is well-wooded generally, and traversed by pleasant watercourses; it is singularly fertile, and rich in good harbors, especially upon the east coast. In short, its hills, forests, and plains afford a pleasing variety of scenery, while its rich pastures invite the stock-breeder to reap a goodly harvest in the easiest manner.

Launceston is situated at the head of navigation, on the Tamar, where the town nestles in the lap of a valley surrounded by high elevations. It is regularly laid out in broad streets, lighted by gas, and has a good water-supply brought from St. Patrick's River, fifteen miles east of the city. There are numerous substantial stone buildings, and everything bears a business-like aspect. There is a public library, and several free schools of each grade. The North and South Elk Rivers rise on different sides of Ben Lomond, and after flowing through some romantic plains and gorges, they join each other at Launceston. The sky-reaching mountain just named is worthy of its Scotch counterpart; between it and Launceston is some of the finest river and mountain scenery in all Tasmania. Ben Lomond is the chief object in the landscape, wherever one drives or walks in this part of the island. Tasmania possesses vast mineral wealth. The richest and most profitable tin mine in the world is that of Mount Bischoff, situated about a hundred and fifty miles from Launceston. The Beaconsfield gold mine is only thirty miles from the city, besides several others not much further away, which are rich in their yield of the precious metal.

The journey from here to Hobart, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles, takes us through the length of the island in a southeasterly direction. We pass through lovely glades, over broad plains, across rushing streams, and around the base of abrupt mountains. Hobart was so named in 1804, in honor of Lord Hobart, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies. It is surrounded by hills and mountains except where the river Derwent opens into lake form, making a deep, well-sheltered harbor, whence it leads the way into the Southern Ocean. Among the lofty hills in this vicinity Mount Wellington towers forty-two hundred feet above the others, so close to the city as to appear to be within rifle range. The shape of the town is square, and it is built upon a succession of hills, very much like Sydney. It has broad streets intersecting each other at right angles, lined with handsome, well-stocked stores and dwelling-houses, serving an active and enterprising population of thirty thousand and more. Of these shops, two or three spacious and elegant bookstores deserve special mention, being such as would be creditable to any American city. It must undoubtedly be a cultured community which affords support to such establishments.

Yet we cannot forget that Hobart has scarcely outlived the curse of the penal association which encompassed its birth. Between thirty and forty years ago, the British government expended here five thousand dollars a day in support of jails and military barracks. The last convict ship from England discharged her cargo at Hobart in 1851, since which year the system has gradually disappeared. The city is supplied with all the necessary charitable and educational institutions, including a public library and art gallery. The street scenes have the usual local color, embracing the typical miner, with his rude kit upon his shoulder, consisting of a huge canvas bag, a shovel, and pick. The professional chimney-sweep, with blackened face and hands begrimed,--he whom we lost sight of in Boston years ago,--is here seen pursuing his antiquated vocation. Market-men have the same peculiar mode of delivering purchases to their customers that we have noticed elsewhere in this country, and are seen galloping about