The most important circumstance in connection with the Western Australia of to-day is the discovery that the north-western corner contains fine pasture-land, permanent rivers, and good harbours. Explorers from the east have visited the place, and have reported favourably upon its prospects, and now there is a good deal of bonâ fide squatting enterprise being displayed. Companies have been formed, and syndicates and flocks and herds have been sent from Melbourne and Sydney by sea, and cattle are also being pushed across from Queensland. If these ventures have only half the success which is predicted for them, there is a great future in store for this part of Western Australia. And recent reports from the colony disclose the fact that there is every indication that an extensive gold-field exists in the country between King Sound and Cambridge Gulf. A 'rush' has set in, and there is considerable excitement throughout Australia about the matter.
CHAPTER IX.
Tasmania.
A Holiday Resort for Australians—Launceston—The North and South Esk—Mount Bischoff—A Wild District—The Old Main Road—Hobart—The Derwent—Port Arthur—Convicts—Facts and Figures.
View of Mount Wellington, Tasmania. | Corra Linn, Tasmania. |
This island is the smallest of the Australian colonies, and the lover of the picturesque pronounces it to be the fairest of them all. It is a land of mountain and of flood—another Scotland, but with a perennial blue sky and an Italian climate. Now that there is a leisured and a wealthy class in Australia, this wealth of scenery is becoming a real fortune to Tasmania. A twenty hours' run takes the holiday-maker from Melbourne wharves to Launceston, and then the island, with its streams, its hills and its fisheries, is open to him. The rush of excursionists to enjoy the cool weather and the romantic views has become greater and greater with successive years; and, though New Zealand is the Switzerland of the colonies, yet Tasmania, being so much nearer the mainland, and having so many native charms, is sure to hold its own as a holiday resort.
Moreover Tasmania is held in affectionate regard by thousands of Australians whose birthplace she is. Her material prosperity is not so great as that of her neighbours, and consequently her youth are lured to the mainland, where they usually establish themselves successfully, and where they also acquire such substance as enables them at frequent intervals to revisit the old land. So great is the migration of the young men that it would have fared ill with the damsels of the isle but for a compensatory influence. Their own youth were lured away to seek for wealth and to woo wives in other lands; but the Tasmanian clime enriches the fair sex with complexions which are the despair of their more sallow sisters of the north, and the deserted maidens have always had their revenge by captivating and winning their visitors. His lady friends tremble for the Australian bachelor who spends a leisure month across the straits. And then there are many territorial families in Victoria and New South Wales whose sires emigrated from Tasmania in the early days of colonisation. It is not surprising therefore that there is a strong attachment between the rich sons and the poorer motherland which it will take much to sever.
Bass Straits separate Tasmania from Australia, but the journey is easily made in large well-equipped steamers which leave Melbourne regularly, and which speedily reach the smooth water of the Tamar. This river debouches on the north coast, and is a noble stream forty miles in length, coursing through alluvial stretches backed in the far distance by grand tiers of mountain ranges. Along its banks there are dots of settlement, but, as they are at wide intervals, the traveller appreciates the charm of navigating what appears to be an unexplored tract. But for the beacons and buoys to mark the shoals there is little to indicate the presence of man. Given a clear day—and all days are more or less clear in Tasmania—a bracing breeze from the south, and a trip up the Tamar cannot be excelled; and if it be that the traveller comes in the early spring, before the snow has quite disappeared from the highest hills beyond, and while the freshness of the new vegetation still makes the near landscape glorious, he will wish for no better communion with nature.
Launceston, on the Tamar, is the second city of the island—second in point of picturesque surroundings, second also in political importance, because Hobart, in the south, is the capital; but first in the material aspect, from which point of view even lovers of the beautiful are content to pay some homage. It is decidedly a pretty town. At its wharves two rivers, the North Esk and South Esk, meet, and in their mingling form the Tamar. The North Esk comes down over crags and precipices, through a striking gorge, whose bold sheer cliffs frown at each other and on the deep silent stream below. The most romantic spot of all is Corra Linn, on the South Esk, where the river dashes over boulders through a gateway of basalt, changes into a quiet restful stream, reflecting foliage and rock in its peaceful depths, and then dashes on again, falling and falling and falling, cataract after cataract, whirlpool after whirlpool, until its force is expended in the deep Tamar, and its bosom becomes dotted with the 'white-winged messengers' of commerce. The South Esk flows through rich agricultural country, where the land has been farmed for more than a generation, and where the hedged fields on the hillsides recall Kent and Sussex to the mind of the Englishman, and give the average Australian, whose knowledge of farm landscape is made unpleasant by the recollection of mile after mile of rail fencing, a splendid idea of how husbandry may be made to present a charming aspect.