Those whose convictions are different, are none the less bound in honour to cling to them, because they involve (as far as can be foreseen) inevitable and perpetual political ostracism. It is indeed said, that whether an unmixed democracy be a blessing or not matters little; for it is ordained for us—as is plain enough—sooner or later, and all efforts can but stave it off for a time. It may be so. And it may be, at the same time, that it is coming because we have brought it down upon ourselves, invoked our own wholesome punishment, as the Jews did when they asked for a king to reign over them. It may be thus, and thus only, that the vox populi which demands democracy, and the vox Dei which grants and ordains it, are in harmony.[3] If Samuel was not ashamed to be so far ‘behind the age’ as to tremble at the decree, and to shudder at the thought of the sons and daughters of Israel becoming slaves to an oriental despot, may not some of us be justified in seeking at least to stave off some of the changes that seem to be in store for us, and in shrinking with abhorrence from the Nessus-robe of corruption which seems to be a prominent characteristic of ultra-democracy?

CONTENTS.

PAGE
I. A Voyage to Australia[1]
II. Melbourne[13]
III. Ballarat[26]
IV. Squatting in Victoria[35]
V. Politics in Victoria[50]
VI. Tasmania[59]
VII. Tasmania (continued)[71]
VIII. Tasmania (continued)[85]
IX. Sydney and its Neighbourhood[101]
X. An Institution of New South Wales[115]
XI. Political Difficulties of New South Wales[121]
XII. Aristocracy and Kakistocracy[132]
XIII. Mother and Daughter[149]
XIV. Home Again[162]
XV. Change of Air[180]
XVI. A Plea for Australian Loyalty[192]
XVII. Loyalty and Cynicism[200]

I.

A VOYAGE TO AUSTRALIA.

Some people who have been to the Antipodes and back will tell you that a voyage to Australia in a good sailing ship is a very pleasant way of spending three months. Seen through the halo of distance it may seem so; certainly it leaves pleasant and amusing reminiscences behind. But I doubt if one person in twenty on board our excellent ship the Mercia, provided as she was with every comfort, or on board any other ship whatsoever, if cross-examined during the voyage, would have persisted that he was thoroughly enjoying it. From the first, a resigned rather than a cheerful look is to be noticed among the passengers. Even those who at starting were loudest in their praises of a sea life spoke in the same breath of finding means, and slender means they seemed, of relieving its tedium and monotony.

We left Plymouth in the fag end of a gale. The second day, just about the place where the London is supposed to have gone down, a large piece of timber was floating high out of the water. We passed within twenty yards of it, and I then saw it was the keel of a vessel, of three or four hundred tons, capsized, and drifting bottom upwards. There was still a good deal of swell, and it would have been dangerous as well as useless to lower a boat; so we passed it almost in silence, and in a few minutes it was out of sight astern.

For a week or so the cuddy and even the poop were almost deserted. By degrees the population emerged from their cabins like rabbits from their burrows, to the number of forty or more, so that there was scarcely room to sit at table. Most of the passengers are Australians, ‘old chums,’ who have crossed the Line more than once, and are going back, either because the east winds of the old country last too long and are too keen after an Australian sun, or because they have come to an end of their holiday. Even among second and third class passengers this is so, for the attraction homewards is still strong, and it is common enough, it seems, for clerks and persons holding mercantile situations to get a year’s leave to go home. There are one or two brides, and about a dozen others, not yet Australian, some of them more or less invalids, taking the voyage for pure sea air’s sake, and hoping by following the sun across the Line to enjoy three summers in succession. Six children and a nurse abide in one stern-cabin; the other has been fitted up luxuriously and artistically with cushions, pictures, and loaded book-shelves, by a man who apparently intends to pass the time in literary retirement in the bosom of his family. Alas! in the stern there is motion on the calmest day. Not an hour is it possible to write or read there without experiencing certain premonitory symptoms necessitating an adjournment to the fresh air on deck.

It is not easy to be alone or to be industrious at any time on board ship. But it is not till you enter the tropics that exertion of body or mind seems to become impossible. It is then that your limbs almost refuse to move, your eyes to see, and your brains to think. The deck is strewn all day with slumbering forms. No plank, no hen-coop redolent of unpleasant odours, is so hard as to repel sleep. It is seldom that a sail needs setting or taking in. Even the barometer almost refuses to move, and influenced (it is said) only by the tide, sinks and rises almost inappreciably with lazy regularity. Nor is there often any excitement to arouse us. Twice only throughout the voyage is land seen: the rough jagged outline of Madeira, and the Desertas, rising from a smooth sheet of blue and purple water, and standing out against the glowing colours of the setting sun; and a few days later Palma, hiding the Peak of Teneriffe. We hope in vain to see, later on, Trinidad (the southern, not the West Indian, Trinidad) and Tristan da Cunha. There are two months in which the horizon is straight with a straightness abhorred on land by nature, such as even the deserts of Africa do not afford. Can it be that so much of the globe is always to be a dreary waste of waters? Is it all needed to make wind and rain, and to be a purifier of the land? Or when earth is overpeopled, will a new creation spring out of the sea? At any rate, there is change of some kind going on. We are unpleasantly made aware of this by a sudden cessation of wind, with calms, squalls, and foul wind, off the Canaries, in what should be the very heart of the trade-winds—the trades, whose blast used to be as steady and uniform as the course of the sun itself. A great change has occurred, says the captain ruefully, even in his time (and he is not forty,) in their regularity. If they go on at this rate, there may be none at all in a century, and not Maury himself can foresee the consequences of that.

On the other hand, the luck is with us when we come to the much-dreaded belt of calms, which lies near the equator, shifting north and south of it, according to the time of year, but always more to the north than to the south of it. Often are ships detained there for days, and even weeks, drenched in tropical rain, which makes it necessary to keep the skylights shut, to the great discomfort of everyone, except the ducks and geese, which are for the only time during the voyage released from their narrow coops, and put in possession of unlimited water and free range of the poop. For two or three weeks the thermometer stands at from 80° to 84°, not varying perceptibly day or night. In the upper-deck cabins there is plenty of ventilation—you may make them a race-course of draughts,—but below it is intolerable. It is unsafe to sleep on deck at night, for the air is charged with moisture. Portmanteaux, bags, hats, coats, and boots cover themselves with furry coats of green and blue mould. It is not unhealthy, but it is enervating and wearisome, except for five minutes soon after sunrise, when in the intervals of washing the decks the hose is turned upon you, as you stand thinking the warm air clothing enough. There is not much to look at but the flying-fish, as they rise in flocks, frightened from under the ship’s bows, and tumble in again with a splash a hundred yards off; and at night the brilliant phosphorescence which lights up the white foam in the vessel’s wake. For two days amongst the Madeiras turtles floated by asleep, but they were too wary to be caught.