A Boy's Voyage Round the World

by Samuel Smiles

My favourite walk in the bush, in early summer, is towards the summit of a range of hills on the south of the township. I set out a little before sunset, when the heat of the day is well over, and the evening begins to feel deliciously cool. All is quiet; there is nothing to be heard but the occasional note of the piping-crow, and the chatter of a passing flock of paroquets. As I ascend the hill, passing an abandoned quartz-mine, even these sounds are absent, and perfect stillness prevails. From the summit an immense prospect lies before me. Six miles away to the south, across the plain, lies the town of Talbot; and beyond it the forest seems to extend to the foot of the Pyrenees, standing up blue in the distance some forty miles away. The clouds hang over the mountain summits, and slowly the monarch of day descends seemingly into a dark rift, leaving a track of golden light behind him. The greeny-blue sky above shines and glows for a few minutes longer, and then all is suffused in a soft and mournful grey. The change is almost sudden. The day is over, and night has already come on. Darkness follows daylight so suddenly that in nights when there is no moon, and it is cloudy, one has to hasten homeward, so as not to miss the track or run the risk of getting benighted in the bush.

But, when the moon is up, the nights in Australia are as brilliant as the days. The air is cool, the sky cloudless, and walking in the bush is then most delightful. The trees are gaunt and weird-like, the branches standing in bold relief against the bright moonlight. Yet all is so changed, the distant landscape is so soft and lovely, that one can scarcely believe that it is the same scene we have so often looked upon in broad daylight. It is no exaggeration to say that the Australian moonlight is so bright that one may easily read a book by it of moderately-sized type.

But Australian summer weather has also its désagrémens. The worst of these is the hot north wind, of which I have already described my foretaste; though old colonists tell me that these have become much less intolerable, and occur much seldomer, since the interior of the country has been settled and comparatively cultivated. But the hot winds are still bad to bear, as I can testify. They blow from the parched lands of Central Australia, and bring with them clouds of dust and insects. I should think they must resemble the African simoom. The Melbourne people call these burning blasts the "brick-fielders." The parching wind makes one hot and feverish, and to fly to the bar for cooling drinks; but there even the glasses are hot to the touch. Your skin becomes so dry and crisp that you feel as if it would crackle off. The temperature rises to 120°—a pretty tidy degree of heat! There is nothing for it but to fly within doors, shut up every cranny to keep out the hot dust, and remain in darkness.

While the hot wind lasts, the air is of a heavy copper colour. Everything looks yellow and withered. The sun appears through the dust dull red, and no bigger than the moon, just as it does on a foggy morning in London. Perhaps after an hour or two of this choking heat the hot wind, with its cloud of dust, passes away southward, and we have a deliciously cool evening, which we enjoy all the more contrasted with the afternoon's discomfort. The longest time I have known the hot wind to last was two days, but it is usually over in a few hours. The colonials say that these winds are even of use, by blowing the insect tribes out to sea; and that but for them the crops would, in summer time, be completely eaten away.

Another source of discomfort is the flies in summer. They abound everywhere. They fill the rooms, and as you pass along the streets they rise in clouds. The ceilings are sometimes black with them, and no food can be left exposed for an instant without the certainty of its being covered with them. There is one disgusting yellow-bodied blow-fly, which drops his maggots with extraordinary fecundity. The flies are also a nuisance in the bush, where veils are usually worn when driving, to prevent their annoyance. And in the swamps there are vigorous and tormenting musquitoes, as I have elsewhere described.

After the parching heat of summer, and especially after the excessive dryness occasioned by the hot winds, the whole face of the country becomes, as it were, combustible, and bush-fires have at such times burst forth apparently spontaneously, and spread with great rapidity. The "Black Thursday" of the colony, some fifteen years since, when fire covered many hundreds of miles, is still remembered with horror; but, as settlement and cultivation have extended, these sudden outbreaks of fire have become comparatively rare.

When Christmas arrives, summer is at its height. It finds us perhaps gasping with heat, sitting in our shirt-sleeves for coolness, and longing for the cool evening. Yet there are few who do not contrive to have their Christmas roast and plum-pudding, as at home. As strawberries are then in their prime and in great abundance, many hold strawberry picnics on Christmas Day; while sober church-goers enjoy them at home.

The abundance of fruits of all kinds affords one of the best proofs of the geniality of the climate. First come strawberries, followed by abundance of plums, peaches, and apricots, and afterwards by pears and apples in plenty. Our manager's garden at Maryborough is a sight worth seeing in summer time. Having a plentiful supply of water, he is able to bring his fruit to great perfection. The plum and peach trees seemed almost overburdened with their delicious loads. Through the centre of the garden is a cool green alley, shaded with a vine-covered trellis. The bunches of fast-ripening grapes are hanging on all sides, and promise an abundant crop.

Some of my pleasantest associations are connected with the January afternoons spent in the orchards about Majorca. One day a party of us drove out in search of a good fruit-garden. We went over the hill to the south, and down the long valley on the Talbot road, raising clouds of white dust as we went; then up another hill, from the summit of which, down by the banks of the creek, and almost close to the foot of Mount Greenock, we discovered the garden of which we had come in search. We descended and entered the garden, still covered with greenery, notwithstanding the tremendous heat, and there found the fruit in perfection.

Mount Greenock is one of the many volcanic hills which abound in this neighbourhood. It is almost a perfect cone, some eight or nine hundred feet high. "What a splendid prospect from the summit!" said one of my companions. "Well, let us go up—there will probably be a fine breeze on the top." "Too hot by far," was the answer. "Not at all," said I, "the thing is to be done." "Well," said my friend, "you may go if you like; but if you do, and are back in three-quarters of an hour, I'll undertake to shout fruits and drinks for the remainder of the afternoon."