People seem to be very busy, and move through the streets with great rapidity. Melbourne is a city of enjoyments and luxuries, equipped with great elegance and comfort; everything suggests money and the power of wealth. There is no article of luxury which is not to be found here, from Norwegian herring to champagne in every degree of dryness.
THE GOVERNOR’S HOUSE, MELBOURNE.
Among sports, horse-racing ranks first, and not a week passes without one or more races on the celebrated Flemmington racecourse, near the city, taking place. Every year, in the beginning of November, about 120,000 people come together to witness the great Melbourne Cup race, where fortunes are lost and won.
The whites born in Australia are gradually becoming a distinct race, differing from other Englishmen. They have a more lively temperament, and are slighter in frame, but tall, erect, and muscular. I also observed in Queensland that some of the children had a tendency to the American twang. The Australians pay great attention to travellers visiting their country, and they are very proud of showing its attractions. Thus a stranger may, as a rule, count on getting a free pass on all the railroads. The ladies are free and easy in their manners. They are frank and confiding, and their acquaintance is quickly made. Their friendship, once gained, may be relied on, and they are untiring in their acts of kindness.
In no other place in the world do the labouring classes have as much influence as in Victoria; for the working men in fact govern the colony. As a rule, they are well educated, and keep abreast of the times, but still their administration of affairs has not always been successful. The economical condition of the labouring classes in Melbourne is excellent, but they are rather fond of intoxicating drinks. I am able to give an example, showing how the people of Australia keep themselves informed on public questions. I once spoke to a labourer whom I met on the street in Melbourne, and as he noticed that I was a stranger, he asked me where my home was. When he learned that I came from Norway, he exclaimed: “Oh, we know Norway very well, and the Norwegian scheme!” He then explained this to me as best he could. I afterwards learned that Victoria, in 1874, was on the point of adopting a parliament like the Norwegian, with one chamber which divides itself into two bodies (the odelsthing and lagthing), a proposition which was on the point of being carried.
The climate of Melbourne is not particularly warm, though during the summer excessively hot winds from the interior of the continent may blow for a few days, and not infrequently children die from the heat at this time. The sudden changes of temperature, peculiar to the southern part of Australia, also annually demand their victims, though upon the whole the climate must be regarded as very healthy.
Before leaving Melbourne I made several excursions far into the colony. On one of these I visited the celebrated mining town Ballarat, the place which marks the first epoch in the history of Victoria, and of all Australia for that matter, for it was the gold which especially drew the attention of the world to the new continent.
Since 1851 the annual production of gold in Australia has averaged ten million pounds sterling.
No traveller should neglect to view “the highest trees in the world,” for it is easy to see them near Melbourne. Eucalyptus amygdalina grows, according to the famous botanist Baron F. v. Mueller, to a greater height than the Wellingtonia sequoia of California. Trees have been measured more than 450 feet high. Though these gum-trees are without comparison the highest in the world, they must yield the place of honour in regard to beauty and wealth of foliage. They send forth but a couple of solitary branches from their lofty tops. Thus the Wellingtonia retains the crown as the king of the vegetable kingdom. F. v. Mueller says of Eucalyptus amygdalina: “It is a grand picture to see a mass of enormously tall trees of this kind, with stems of mast-like straightness and clear whiteness, so close together in the forest as to allow them space only toward their summit to send their scanty branches and sparse foliage to the free light.”