As we went in out of the darkness one of our fellow-travellers brought us a specimen of the pretty, curious “kangaroo paw,” a flower that looks as if it had been cut out of bright red and green moss, whose buds take the exact shape of a kangaroo’s little foot. After dinner we strolled along the broad, silent country road, leading out into the deep stillness beyond, broken only by the barking of the village dogs, and the croaking of unseen frogs. The men of the neighbourhood loitered in the light of the shop windows, kindly looking and highly curious. We met at Bridgetown a Government official at the head of the Fruit-growing Department. He told us that this corner of South-Western Australia, a district as large as the state of Victoria, was the finest soil for fruit-growing in the whole state. The industry was of very recent growth, the first trial shipment was only made ten years ago, but since 1907 the trade had been established upon a commercial basis, and the export of apples was greatly increasing every year in quantity.

Western Australia has also successfully exported grapes, but unfortunately the manufacture of wine is now on the decline. A very delicate and pleasant chablis is produced there. We tasted two kinds, a pale, and a warmly coloured golden chablis. They compared favourably with the light wines of Italy, and though like them, they would probably lose all their character and flavour after being fortified for export, they could be grown for home consumption. The explanation of the decline given to us at Bridgetown was that since Federation, and the abolition of inter-state customs, growers cannot afford to mature their wines sufficiently to compete with the longer established trade of the Eastern states. It is hoped that raisins and currants may be produced, and the climate is also suitable for the growth of olives; the evergreen trees would serve the further purpose of affording shade for the cattle. Our return journey was made successfully and uneventfully, and we slept soundly, only awaking occasionally, to find ourselves being shot to and fro like shuttles in a spinning mill; and arrived home to breakfast at Cottesloe Beach.

CHAPTER V
AGRICULTURE AND GOLD

It was the discovery of gold in West Australia that gave the first real impetus to the development of the state. In the earlier half of the nineteenth century the country was urgently in need of labour, and from 1843 onwards was glad to supply the deficiency by the importation of convicts. The convict system “assigned” people, as it was called, to the settlers to live upon their property and perform compulsory labour for them; the residue worked in “road gangs” or in Government penal settlements. All the other states, as they grew and prospered, began to resent the dumping on their shores of the least desirable element of the population from home. As early as 1837 a Parliamentary Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole question, both from the point of view of the unhappy convicts and their Australian hosts, and recommended that the practice should cease. It was, however, too convenient a solution of a difficulty to be readily relinquished by the home authorities. It continued in a modified form till the Eastern states protested so vigorously and actively, that soon after 1848 the home Government, not without reluctance, were obliged to limit the importation of convicts to Van Diemen’s Land, as Tasmania was then called, and Western Australia.

The fact that Western Australia was glad to utilise this forced labour, and continued to do so, for many years later, provoked deep resentment in the Eastern states; it was seriously suggested that Western Australia should be boycotted by the other colonies. It was not till 1868 that transportation was finally abolished, and by that time the colony was firmly established.

So far the most important product of Western Australia has been her mineral wealth. As early as 1842 mining operations were begun with the discovery of lead and copper. Minerals form three-fourths of the value of all the exports by the state since 1900, and nearly a third of the whole mineral produce of the continent from the same date. The chief mineral has of course been gold. It was discovered in the north at Kimberley in 1882, and the announcement of the discovery brought many fortune seekers whose adventure ended in disappointment, for Kimberley has not produced any startling results. The real history of mining in Western Australia did not, however, begin till 1892. It was in the early nineties that the gold rush took place to the mining centre of Coolgardie, and it is the East Coolgardie goldfield which includes the mining centre of Kalgoorlie, that has produced more than half of the whole value of the mineral products of the state. The total produce was calculated up to the end of 1912 at more than £113,000,000, and of this total more than 54% was produced by the East Coolgardie goldfield.[7] The principal part of it came from the famous group of mines which form the “Golden Mile” at Kalgoorlie. Much has been written about the goldfields of Western Australia, and the gold rush of the early nineties. Now Coolgardie has burnt itself out, is a dead city, though mining is still carried on at Kalgoorlie. When gold was discovered there was no water within three hundred miles of Coolgardie, and an engineer of rare gifts and indomitable enterprise, conceived a scheme for conveying water from the hills round Perth the three hundred odd miles through the intervening almost desert plains. His name was C. Y. O’Connor, and he is also responsible for the artificially constructed harbour at Fremantle.

He got his water from the Darling Range, the low wooded hills that make such a charming background to the Swan River, utilising a stream in the hills to form a great dam or weir. Mundaring Weir is one of the sights of Perth, not merely as a triumph of engineering, but for its beautiful scenery. We started early in the afternoon one hot day on the pretty little journey up to the granite slopes of the Darling Range. The intervening country is almost populous, and very busy. The line runs through Midland Junction, where the rolling stock for Western Australia is constructed, and past a blank stretch of brickfields. The granite begins to crop out on the grassy slopes of the hills as the train approaches Mundaring. The neighbourhood is very fertile, with large vineyards, and groves of orange trees covered with fruit. The river, which forms the weir, had the appearance of a large lake lying between steep, wooded banks, in the hot afternoon sun. It was faintly reminiscent of Coniston, except that a large area of the trees on the distant hills had been ringbarked to increase the water supply. They stood a melancholy sentinel company on the hills they had once clothed, tossing twisted, white arms to Heaven in mute appeal. The air was heavy with the scent of wattle flashing golden among the sombre grey of the other trees. The distant rattle of frogs in some backwater below, and the occasional sharp trill of a bird were the only sounds to break the stillness. We descended the rocky bank to get a better view of the great dam. Its concrete walls are so sloped that the falling water does not leave them at any point, and so an impact that would wear out the wall is avoided.

In the course of its construction a large fissure was discovered in the bed of the river, which had to be filled in with cement. We visited the power-house, where the great pumps are busy day and night sending water to the goldfields. It took eleven days from the time the first trickle of water left Mundaring Weir for it to reach Coolgardie. While the work was nearing its completion, its successful achievement seemed incredible to the outside world. Unfortunately the inventor of this great experiment, Mr. C. Y. O’Connor, died just too soon to know that the water from Mundaring Weir had covered the three hundred odd miles to the goldfields. A statue of Western Australia’s famous state engineer stands on a hill above the scene of his greatest achievement. The execution of this scheme, as well as that of the harbour at Fremantle, were largely due to the influence and interest of Sir John Forrest, first Premier of Western Australia, to whose enlightened views and active patriotism the state has owed much.

We had tea at a hotel, whose verandah overlooked woods falling steeply away at the back. It was a charming little place, and we should have liked to stay there, forgetting that in Australia there is no soft, lingering twilight, but dusk follows immediately, darkness very swiftly, on the setting of the sun. Sometimes there is an afterglow, a luminous orange light suffuses the darkness, and the heavy masses of gum trees stand out inky black on the horizon. Such an afterglow illuminated our return journey from Mundaring Weir to Perth.