Copyright.]
[See [page 82].
Copyright.]
[See [page 83].
The coach will take us through more orchards, 61 towards Franklin on the Huon River, where we touch the eastern side of the broken country from which we turned back at Macquarie Harbour. There are settlements all along the Huon Estuary, which runs into the channel of D’Entrecasteaux. Here we have come upon an important remnant of past history. The name is that of a French admiral who was sent out in 1791 to seek for a port in Southern Australia, so that France might gain a footing in these new islands. D’Entrecasteaux actually surveyed the Derwent River, and a later French expedition spent some time in the neighbourhood. Partly through fear of the designs of France we occupied Risdon in 1803, and in the following year, Colonel Collins, not content with the site at Port Phillip in Victoria, which he had occupied for a short time, came over and moved the settlement from Risdon to Hobart. The evidence of the activity of the French explorers in this region is still to be seen in the names of capes and bays all along the eastern coast of Tasmania.
There are saw-mills at Hobart, and all around the Huon is a fine timber country, easily reached from the sea. Here we see the beginning of the end: the cutters 62 have built a rough platform above the undergrowth and up to the point where the trunk of the tree rises straight and even. They are using the saw, though sometimes the whole work is done with the axe. They are fond of the axe in this part of the world, and it enters even into their sports, since the chopping match is a favourite form of athletic contest among them.
The trees in this district grow to a great size; here we have a forest scene, with the huge logs scattered on 63 the ground, or loaded on to trucks which will carry them to the mill. Geeveston is noted for its saw-mills, one of which we have before us. The logs disappear 64 inside the mill, and we meet them again as sawn timber on the little wharf, ready to be shipped to all 65 parts of the world.
In the valley of the Huon, as well as in that of the Derwent, are orchards everywhere, proving that we are still in the sheltered lowland which we have traced from Launceston southwards. The cottages and gardens, with their masses of English flowers; the English trees, oaks and elms, and the hawthorn hedges all along the roadside, remind us strongly of England. Many even of the birds are English. In fact, this part of the island has been quite transformed by the colonists until it closely resembles the mother country. But we enter the forest and step at once from England to Australia. Here are the tall gums with their untidy bark and dead branches, and the swarms of honey-eating birds flitting among their blossoms. Here, too, are the wattle and banksia and many other plants peculiar to Australia, and the further we move from civilisation the less there is in the face of the country to remind us of England. But one difference may be noted between Tasmania and the rest of Australia: however far we penetrate into the wild interior we shall not meet the aborigines. They were few in number at the time of the first settlement, and the last survivor died many years ago.