Some men are not made for bush life, and this Englishman was of their number. The life proved too hard, too monotonous, too crushing for his spirits. The promise of ultimate success and even fortune was not sufficiently alluring to detain him longer in exile, and one day he retrod the forest pathway, gained the railway, and by it came to Adelaide, where he cried for very joy to find himself once again in the midst of the busy world. The bush adventure has had a curative effect upon this young man’s life. It has broken to pieces his “softness,” and given him an insight into another kind of life of which formerly he knew nothing. It will probably prevent him from ever again looking contemptuously upon any man who is compelled to work with his hands. And I observed that the semi-aristocratic drawl was considerably modified.
This story may serve another purpose. It may prevent young men who have learned no trade from venturing into a new country in the belief that fortunes are picked up without difficulty. The failures I have met with in Australia have been generally of the men who “could do anything,” for that, being interpreted, means that they can do nothing well. A new country requires men who can do something—perhaps but one thing—well. And I would earnestly advise any young man who purposes going out to learn a trade before he goes. The skilled man can generally find an opening. There are already too many native-born Australians who are unskilled workmen, and to add to their number from afar would be a fatal error. It is necessary to say this, for several young Englishmen who have called upon me at the time of their arrival have had, obviously, no chance whatever to get on, for the reason that they had learned no trade. It will be a great day for England when a technical education is enforced upon young men who are not joining any of the professions. Upon this point even Germany can teach us much.
CHAPTER XVIII
AMONGST THE ABORIGINES
When the first settlers came to Australia they found in possession of the country a black population, representing a humanity low down in the scale. The native population was never in reality so large as many persons have imagined. It is difficult to arrive at exact figures, because in the north there are still large numbers of natives living in a state of practical savagery. These roam about at their will. Where the white man has penetrated, however, the black has gradually receded. When the black adopts “civilised” ways, his already precarious existence becomes yet more precarious. Affecting the white man’s vices—the first thing he naturally copies—he speedily runs down the hill and passes off the scene. The native population is being gradually but surely wiped out.
In less than five decades the number of aborigines has been reduced from 1,694 to 652, and this in the State of Victoria alone. At the census of 1901 there were found only 271 natives of pure blood in the State, and 381 of half-castes. At the census of 1911 it was found that the figures had fallen to 196. If in fifty years the decrease in population has been so marked and so startling, it requires no prophetic gift to foretell the speedy extinction of the Australian native. A few more years and not a black will be left. That terrible law of the survival of the fittest will again have asserted itself. When, therefore, the opportunity presented itself to me to see one of the three native settlements still left in Victoria, of course I immediately availed myself of it.
Two hours’ steady climbing on the railway brings one to Healesville. And four miles from Healesville lies Coranderrk, a Government settlement for the aborigines. Quite off the road lies the colony of seventy men and women. There is no indication of its existence other than what is supplied by a fingerpost, which signifies nothing to anyone who does not know what lies behind the name Coranderrk. But the site is ideal for a retired residence. It lies in the centre of a vast amphitheatre of hills, and day and night a profound silence envelops the colony. Never a sound from the outside world penetrates the solitude. The quietness is that of a mausoleum. The race that inhabits it is slowly dying; what more fitting as an accompaniment of death than the solemn stillness which already heralds the eternal stillness of the tomb?
There is more than a suggestion of the American South in this colony. The old men and women, dressed in an odd mixture of British costumes, might well be the originals of some of the characters in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Black skins, grisly hair, and light-coloured garments form a curious compound. There is no fashion, no symmetry in any of the garments. Slouch hats of the Wild West, straw hats of Bond Street, and old billycock hats make up the male headgear; while various coloured vests, trousers, coats, and cravats complete the attire.
The log cabins, some twenty in all, which are scattered over the settlement, complete the illusion that, after all, we are in the American South, amongst the negro population. The one dash of modernity is supplied by one or two mulattos—girls—who, clad in becoming white garments, present a really attractive picture. These girls treated us to a little service of song in the humble meeting-house which is the head-quarters of the mission propaganda in the colony. For all these folk understand English—the younger generation nothing but English—and they all attend church. They are docile and happy, save for an occasional row, in which the original vernacular is used with freedom and emphasis. It was touching to hear these girls of the second generation sing simple Sankey hymns, and to reflect that the day must inevitably come when on this Government estate of 2,400 acres there would be no such songs sung by native lips. The younger people marry, and children are born; but the race is surely dying off. Some mixed marriages occur, and the offspring of these are half-castes, who are as little welcomed in the schools as the pure-blooded native children. One of them pathetically remarked to me that they were shunned by the white children. The colour line is as marked here as in America.
From the point of view of attractiveness the colony has much to recommend it. Pasture land surrounds the houses, and most of the natives keep their own cows. Everything, of course, is exceedingly simple, and it is the simplicity that attracts. Laundry work is done out of doors in a primitive manner. We found one buxom young lady seated lazily by the side of a tub in which her clothes lay soaking. She stretched forth her hands and rubbed her clothes in a style that suggested that any day next week would do to finish them. In a little natural basin on the slope of the hill the water of a rivulet had been collected into a large bath or reservoir, and the youngsters congregated about in a way that showed that they had not lost the instincts of their fathers for water gymnastics. One very modern touch appeared in the shape of three irregular pieces of wood arranged as cricket stumps. It was a species of cricket one might without difficulty have imagined prehistoric man to have played at. For bat, the youth of Coranderrk employed part of a boomerang.