Christmas having actually arrived, it was the commencement of the “season” in Hobart and Tasmania generally. The dear little island, so true an epitome of the ancestral isle in the climatic conditions, in the stubborn independence of the population, in the incurious, unambitious lives of the rural inhabitants, was filled with strangers and pilgrims from every colony in Australasia.
Persons in search of health, haggard men from the Queensland “Never Never” country, the far “Bulloo,” and “The Gulf,” where hostile blacks and fever decimated the pioneers! Outworn prospectors from West Australia—a rainless, red-hot, dust-tormented region, where, incredible as it may appear, the water is charged for separately as well as the whisky.
Commercial, pastoral and legal magnates, whose over-taxed brain craved little save rest and coolness—contented to lie about inhaling the evening breeze—to read, to fish, to muse, to think maybe, of a heaven, where lawyers’ clerks, even with briefs, were not admitted. Sailors too, from the half dozen men of war from the South Pacific fleet, having a run ashore, and playing their part nobly, as is their wont on land, in all picnics, balls and cricket matches, even in drives to the Huon River nearly fifty miles out and back. This was rather an object lesson for British tourists, as to the capabilities of Australian horses, and Australian drivers, inasmuch as the leading drag with four horses, hired from a well-known livery stable proprietor, and driven by a native-born Tasmanian, negotiated the fifty-mile stage, allowing two hours for luncheon and boating on the river, between breakfast time and dusk, the whole being performed not only without distress to the well-bred team, but with “safety to the passenger, and satisfaction to the looker on.” The road was by no means of average description, far from level, indeed, having shuddering deeps, where it wound along hillsides, and sudden turns, and twisted at right angles, when the leaders ran across a dip in the gully, which crossed the road, and the wheelers had their heads turned at right angles to the leaders. Then the down grade towards the sea, on the return trip, when the heavily laden coach rolled, lurching at times near the edge of the precipice, and the “boldest held their breath for a time.” But through every change, and doubtful seeming adventure, in darksome forest, and ferny glade, where the light of heaven was obscured, the watchful eye and sure hand of the charioteer guided team and coach, with practised ease and assured safety.
Then the race meeting, to which you went by land or water, as taste inclined. The deep sea fishing in the harbour, or the streams so clear and cold in summer, where the trout lay under bridge or bank, and when skies were dull, took the fly much as in Britain.
The hunting with country packs, the shooting, the long walks over hill and dale—the halts, when a peep through the forest glades showed a distant view of the foam-crested ocean! What joyous days were those, when with Imogen by his side, who walked as well as she rode and drove, they started with a few picked friends for that exceptional piece of exercise, which includes the ascent of Mount Wellington. It is an Alpine feat, only to be attempted by the young and vigorous, in the springtime of life. “The way is long, the mountain steep,” and if limbs and lungs are not in good order, the pedestrian is sure to tire half way, to collapse ingloriously before the summit is reached. Rough in some places is the track—over the ploughed field’s (so called) painful march. A sprained ankle may easily result, from a slip, or worse even, a dislocated knee, most tedious and troublesome of the minor injuries, and which has lamed for life ere now the too confident pedestrian. Another danger to be feared, is the sudden envelopment by the mountain mist, under the confusing conditions of which more than one person has lost his way and his life, perishing in some unnamed retreat. No such dangers affrighted Imogen and her husband. They reached the summit, and standing there, hand in hand, beheld the unrivalled scene. High over forest and valley they gazed o’er the boundless ocean plain—so still and shining, three thousand feet below them. The forest, with apparently a level surface above its umbrageous eucalypts, looked like a toy shrubbery. The city nestled between the sea wall and the enormous mountain bulk, under whose shadow it lay.
The busy population looked small as the denizens of a populous anthill. “It is a still day, ‘Grâce à Dieu,’” said Blount; “there’s no tyrannous south wind from the ocean—coming apparently straight from the ice fields of the Pole, to chill us to the bone, and cause the poor forest trees to cry and groan aloud in their anguish. Wind has its good points, probably, but I confess to a prejudice against the Euroclydon variety. Especially when we are doing this Alpine business. By the way, there is Mr. Wendover’s delightful woodland châlet—only a mile away. Suppose we make a call there.”
“I scorn to acknowledge myself tired,” said Imogen; “but raspberries and cream—this is the season—would be an appropriate incident on this day of days. They recall the Hermitage, do they not? I can’t say more.”
“And Mrs. Wendover is so charmingly hospitable,” said a girl companion. “She has always the newest books, and music too, which, with the before-mentioned raspberries, takes one far in the pursuit of happiness.”
“While youth, and the good digestion which waits on appetite, last,” said a middle-aged person with a bright eye and generally alert expression. “Youth is the great secret. Heaven forbid that any of this good company should confess to a hint of middle age, but I have a haunting dread lest the world’s best joys should be stealing away from me.”