A description of “the season” in Hobart, whether regarded as a summer land for tourists, a safe run ashore for the men and officers of the South Pacific “fleet in being” detailed at Hobart, or as an object lesson for untravelled inhabitants—would seem to consist mainly of a record of recreational events. A list of picnics and pleasure parties, driving and fishing excursions, with pedestrian rambles—chiefly by day, but occasionally au clair de la lune.
The rivers named after Messrs. Brown and Huon, long dead celebrities, received more than their share of patronage, it would seem, in the entertainment of reckless revellers, whose polo meets and gymkhanas alternated with the legitimate annual races and steeplechases.
There must have been business transactions, but they were eluded or postponed—the only exception being the Great Silver Bonanza, which kept its bond-slaves hard at work, by means of remuneration on the higher scale. Night and day, work proceeded with the regularity of one of its own steam-engines. The Hobart weather was delightful—occasionally threatening rain but chiefly relenting, and ending towards the close of day with soft and cooling sea breezes, which refreshed the pleasure-driven crowds to the inmost fibre of the nervous system.
In all these ingenious projects for lessening the strain upon the minds and bodies of ordinary humanity the officers and men of H.M. Royal Navy were conspicuously effective. At all aristocratic entertainments “Man-of-War Jack” was utilised to keep the gangways clear, to hold the rope of division in the ball-room, and otherwise, as “the handy man,” in spotless array, to display his disciplined alertness. Even the naval Church parade was attended by the fair ones of perhaps the last night’s entertainment. On each Sunday morning, therefore, boat-loads of worshippers, in silk or muslin, might be descried crossing the waters of the harbour, rowed by an ample crew, under the charge of an all-important middy, to the flag-ship or frigate, where divine service was celebrated by the Chaplain of the Fleet, or other amphibious clergyman, provided by the Lords of the Admiralty.
In this sense, perhaps, the gay season of Hobart constituted a social federation of the Australasian States, when other matters, not of ephemeral weight, might be suitably discussed. From the wave-beaten isles of New Zealand, where the mountain-crested billows rolled on their stormy march from the ice-fields of the ultimate pole, to the mangrove-bordered marshes of Northern Queensland; from the “Never-Never country” and the “back blocks”; from “the Gulf” and the buffalo lands of Essington and Darwin, came languid, fever-stricken squatters, to breathe the cool air of this southern Lotus Land, differing among themselves in minor respects as to manner, accent, stature and ordinary habitude, but in heart and brain, British to the core. Roving sons of the Great Mother Land, holding God’s Commission of the strong hand, the steadfast brain, to occupy the Waste Places of the earth and develop their inborn trend towards justice and mercy, law and order. With such inherited gifts, going forth conquering, and to conquer, to weld into one solid, enduring fabric, the Empire of Britain. Thus, handing down to their children’s children lands of freedom “broad-based upon the people’s will,” where equal laws administered with moderation and mercy are to be the heritage of England’s sons. The Greater Britains of the South, for all time; and whether in peace or war, loyal, self-contained, immovable, one and indivisible.
The great event of the season was to be the Polo Ball, looked forward to with almost feverish eagerness, not only by the young men and maidens of the Happy Isle, but by the large important contingents from abroad, which exceeded in number, and social value, those of any previous year. Hence applications for tickets were beyond all calculation.
Requests, even entreaties poured in, almost until the opening of the doors of the great hall secured for the function. Claude Clinton was, as he said, “walked off his legs,” having indeed hardly time to dress and eat his dinner, while the committee, who had the onerous and responsible task of deciding upon the fitness of applicants, had to improvise a late sitting, so as not to disappoint the arrivals by the train from Launceston, just landed from the New Zealand Company’s extra service boat, the Rotorua. The funds of the Club, however, would be benefited to such an extent, that the secretary and committee worked loyally till the last moment, and when Mr. Clinton had given a last authoritative order, and made a final inspection of the decorations, he sat down to his dinner at the Travellers’ Club, and drank his pint of champagne with a conviction that everything had been done to deserve success, and that the issue lay with Fate.
Imogen had condescended to inform her relations that a friend of hers had arrived from Melbourne, who, having made up her mind at the last moment, would dress and join their party after dining at the Orient Hotel, where rooms had been secured for her previously.
She had written confidentially to Mr. Clinton and had her name properly submitted to and passed by the committee. All was arranged, and she would go under Imogen’s chaperonage to the ball, and perhaps stay with them all night.
“What is her name? Do I know her, Imogen?” inquired her husband. “You are very mysterious, my dear!”