Having seen these works, I felt that I should like to see Mount Bischoff, by making the journey to which I might see as much of Tasmania as by making a journey in any other direction. In consequence of delays and accidents the trip to Bischoff and back took me seven days.
I left Launceston next afternoon by train to Latrobe. The first part of the line is the same as that which takes the traveller to Hobart, distant 133 miles. The country is undulating. In a few places you see bush or forest, but the greater portion of the land is laid out in farms, and is dotted over with country-houses and clumps of furze, which, at the time of my visit, were in full bloom. In many districts I was told that rabbits had become so numerous as to be a pest, and it was necessary to legislate for their destruction. The furze-bushes, although so pretty and English in appearance, from the rapidity with which they spread, had also become a pest. What is more, they sheltered the rabbits. Thus it has happened that legislation is required for the extermination of the homely furze. To get rid of it, first it is burned and then grubbed up by the roots. Rabbits are got rid of by shooting, trapping, but what is more destructive, by the use of phosphorized oats. I shall say more about the rabbit plague when I come to New Zealand.
Amongst other importations made by our colonial cousins which have in places thriven until they have become a nuisance, may be mentioned Scotch thistles, briar-bushes, sparrows, and brown trout. Sparrows in the neighbourhood of Melbourne have at times played sad havoc with the fruit gardens. The brown trout of Tasmania, which runs up to nine or ten pounds in weight, although being in itself a fish which is good for the rod and for the table, is accused of devouring all the other river fish. As we went along I saw many rapid-running rivers, which would undoubtedly yield good sport to the angler. Near to Perth we left the main line, and branched off to the westward. In the distance to the left were the snow-capped hills of Westmoreland. Many of the counties in Tasmania are named after those in the old country. For example, you find a Dorset, a Devon, a Cornwall, and a Pembroke. Some of the stations on the line were so small that they contrived to exist without any local officials. At Little Hampton, for instance, the only persons to be seen were those who got out of our train. Their tickets were collected by the guard. At Longford and Deloraine I saw nice towns. After this it became dark, and all that I could make out was that we were passing through a country where there was a great deal of bush. The last people I saw were two young ladies walking along a road running parallel with the railway line. The train was moving very slowly, and I had my head out of the window. The young ladies curtseyed, kissed their hands, waved their handkerchiefs at me, and then exploded in a fit of giggles. I wonder what would have happened had the train stopped!
At Latrobe I found that I had to go on one station farther to Fornby, to catch a mail-coach which would take me to Emu Bay. The ride to Emu Bay reminded me of my experiences in New England. It was nine p.m. and dark at the starting, and I had an outside place on the box. Now and then I could see tall, white-stemmed trees, standing like ghosts in the midst of paddocks. These are the trees which had been ring-barked in order to kill them. The road was hilly, and in many places our four horses seemed to be charging down into a black abyss. At the bottom of these valleys we usually crossed a river. One of them, I remember, was called the Forth, and another one the Leven. A great portion of the road was along the coast, which, as I found out on my return, was exceedingly pretty.
It was two a.m. when we reached Emu Bay, and I was benumbed with cold. The coachman opened a back-door in the hotel, and conducted me to a box-like bedroom, one bed in which was occupied by a young gentleman, who woke up and had a conversation with me on the difficulties of travel. I was too cold to sleep. About five a.m. my companion lighted a candle, and after spending a considerable time in covering his head with pomatum, completed his toilet and left me. Shortly after this I had to rise to catch the train going from Emu Bay up to Waratah, which is the name of the settlement at Mount Bischoff. The line is a private one, and is owned by the Tasmanian Land Company, who have bought up all the land in this part of the colony. There is one train of two carriages, and perhaps a truck, once a day each way. The general direction of the line is from the North Coast towards the South, running right into the heart of the country. Here and there are steep gradients of about one in forty. The scenery of the bush and valley is remarkably fine. The bush is much thicker than in Australia. In places it appeared like a solid wall of green. On all sides as you climb up you see huge tree-ferns, many of which are twenty to thirty feet in height. Above these are tall gum trees, whilst beneath them are beds of common bracken.
All was white with frost, and the fronds of the ferns in many places sheltered small pools and ponds of water which were covered with a thick cake of ice. Tree-ferns helped in carboniferous times to make the coal. In those times we are told that the climate was warm and damp, and we are asked to picture to ourselves something like a swamp in Florida. After what I saw and felt in Tasmania I should say that it was cold and dry. The probable reason why stems of tree-fern-like plants are so common in the coal measures as compared with the stems and branches of ordinary phanerogams, is that the stems of tree-ferns resist decomposition so remarkably well.
Some of the gum trees were very large. One stump was pointed out to me which I was told was twenty-one feet in diameter. The place for big trees is in Gipps’ Land, in Victoria. Here there are gum trees 400 feet in height. One tree was measured as being 480 feet in height; that is to say, it was fourteen feet higher than the spire of Strasburg Cathedral. I always regretted that I had not time to go up to the Dandenong ranges where these big trees are growing. As it is, I was compelled to take all that I have heard about 400-feet trees as hearsay.
As the train jogged along, once or twice I noticed a paper parcel fly past my window. ‘Some fellow having sandwiches for breakfast,’ I said to myself. At last one huge parcel flew out, struck the bank, and out of it there rolled a leg of mutton. Then I knew that this was the method of delivering parcels to the residents up the line.
We stayed a short time at a place called Hampshire Hill. The township consisted of two rickety-looking houses. The only inhabitants who made themselves visible were two fat pigs. All the way up the line the soil seemed thin and poor. It may perhaps have been very good soil, but I do not understand such matters. Waratah is a village situated on the edge of a steep valley at the foot of Mount Bischoff. It is about 2,000 feet above sea level, and is therefore always cool. The great trouble is rain. Sometimes it will rain for twenty or thirty days without ceasing. Possibly Mount Bischoff may have been the scene of some of Noah’s adventures. At times I was told that the air appeared to become so rarefied that it was difficult to smoke when going up the mountain. On my arrival it was fine, and I was told I was lucky in finding it so. There are two very small hotels. The one I went to was like a cottage; the bedrooms or sleeping-boxes being up amongst the rafters. It was impossible to stand upright in my room, excepting in the centre. There were no mirrors, shiny sideboards and blue vases, as at Emu Bay, but there were comfortable beds. The bedsteads were of the smallest description, which is necessary in most parts of the colonies, on account of the size of the rooms. As a rule I don’t like feather-beds, but in spite of my prejudices against such old luxuries, when I heard the rain and sleet beating on the window-panes and roof above me, after turning in that night, the feather-bed felt comfortable. It seemed to fit my shape better than a mattress.
Although the weather at Waratah was considered to be unusually good, it seemed to me chilly and damp, and I found the open grate and log fire in the little parlour down below quite acceptable. Here I made the acquaintance of my host, his family, the domestics, and several of the residents in Waratah. Everything was extremely homely, and rather than being a guest at an hotel, you felt that you had been admitted to the bosom of a family. At meal-time the visitors and the family sit down together, the maid-servant was called ‘my dear,’ and we all talked with prismy pruny puckered-up lips. Everything was very old-fashioned and very nice.