With all her natural advantages Western Australia’s development is only a matter of the last twenty years. Like most of the rest of the continent, she has an inhospitable and forbidding coast. The Dutch knew of the existence of a southern land or, “Terra Australis,” before the end of the sixteenth century, and Dutch captains sailing from the Cape to Java and the East Indies not infrequently found themselves within sight of a desolate and unknown coast, which they gradually charted, till it was mapped in outline from the Gulf of Carpentaria to Cape Leeuwin. It was not, however, till nearly the end of the century that the first Englishman landed in Australia, when Captain Dampier, commanding the “Roebuck,” navigated the western and north-western coastline in 1699, and was not encouraged by what he saw there.
Sailing from the Downs in January with fifty men, and twenty months’ provisions, Dampier sighted the low, even shores of Australia in August of the same year, and entered Shark’s Bay, as he called it. He and his men went ashore, but sought in vain for water on that waterless coast, digging wells, but to no purpose. A hundred years later, in 1803, the continent was circumnavigated by Matthew Flinders, who suggested that “Australia” should be substituted for the Dutch name of New Holland.
Still nearly another century passed away before Western Australia begun to grow and prosper. In 1826 Major Lockyer was sent from Sydney, with troops and a party of convicts, to occupy King George’s Sound on the south coast, where the Port of Albany stands to-day, and a few years later the Swan River Settlement was formed in the neighbourhood of Fremantle and Perth; but these first beginnings of the colony were unpropitious, and it languished till the discovery of gold brought the first great influx of population, and with it the consequent demand for agricultural produce, which at last gave an impetus to Western Australian development.
Slowly the outside world began to realise the immense possibilities of this great territory, which occupies about one-third of the whole continent, and has an area eighteen times that of England and Wales. Within its fertile and beautiful interior, stretching from the temperate to tropical zones, were found districts well fitted for raising cattle and sheep, for agriculture, and fruit-growing and the cultivation of vines. Vast primeval forests of valuable timber cover many square miles, while the discovery of coal and other minerals accompanied that of gold. Western Australia is no less fortunate in its climate than in its natural resources: over the greater part of the state it is equable and pleasant without violent extremes. The dry season lasts into April; the greater part of the rainfall, which varies in different districts of the state from 40 to 10 inches, taking place between May and September.
CHAPTER IV
IN THE BUSH
One great source of wealth to Western Australia are the karri forests, covering thousands of square miles. Karri is a kind of eucalyptus closely allied to the better-known jarrah, one of the hardest woods in existence. It has been used at home to pave the streets of London. In all but one respect karri is as good as jarrah, its only point of inferiority is that it cannot be employed for underground purposes, while jarrah can be left under water for twenty years without being any the worse for it. Karri has to be specially prepared—“powellised” is the technical term—and that is an expensive process. Otherwise it is almost impossible to tell the two woods apart, except by the ash after burning.
Western Australia asserts that its karri trees are the tallest in the world, though Victorians make the same claim for the giant gums of Gippsland. So far these Gippsland trees have been proved to be the tallest in Australia. The official measurements are: height, 326 feet 1 inch; girth, 25 feet 7 inches; measured six feet from the ground.[4] Their dimensions are surpassed by the Californian redwood, which have been found attaining a height of 340 feet; but whatever the actual measurements, the effect of the immense height of the Australian trees is everywhere imposing enough to warrant competitive statements concerning it.
Remote from all habitation, the difficulties in the way of felling and transporting the karri are very great, and the Western Australian Government have in consequence established some state sawmills about two hundred miles up-country, in the heart of the primeval, uncleared forest. It is the nucleus of a new township called Big Brook. Australia has not shown herself altogether felicitous in her nomenclature, for generally it is neither original nor descriptive, except where native names have been adopted, which, if not euphonious, have a meaning.
We had the good fortune to be in Perth on the occasion of an official visit organised by the Government. Australian trains always run at night, and so avoid much tedium and loss of time. After an early dinner, we started from Perth at 7.30 for Big Brook in a special train.