“These were known as assigned servants, and the practise of having assigned servants spread everywhere and became very popular, as the parties to whom the convicts were assigned got their labor for practically nothing. Sometimes the wives of convicts came out as passengers in the same ships with their husbands, or followed them later. When they arrived and set up housekeeping, they would apply for servants to be assigned to them, and would name their husbands as the men they preferred. The plan was found to work very well in nearly all cases, and the government encouraged the practise. Sometimes, though, it happened that the husbands were inclined to abuse and beat their wives, but this did not happen often, as the wives had the power, like other employers of assigned servants, of sending their husbands to be flogged.
“Whenever, in the early days, the sentence of a convict expired, he was given a farm at Paramatta, or in its neighborhood, and in this way quite a farming community grew up. The agricultural features of Paramatta have continued down to the present time, and all about it there are pretty farms and gardens, which make the place look very much like an English town of the same size. It is regularly laid out, the principal street extending about a mile back from the landing place, with a width of two hundred feet. Many business men of Sydney have their residences here, and there is a goodly number of public buildings, including hospitals, asylums, churches, and the like.
“Our attention was called to several manufactories, but we were less interested in them than we were in the orange groves and orchards, which are numerous and extensive. They showed us some orange trees which they claim are the largest in the world, but whether that is the case or not, I am unable to say. They showed us one tree from which ten thousand oranges had been taken in a single year, and after we had looked at the orange groves, we were shown through several flower gardens, which seemed to be literally masses of flowers. When we returned to Sydney by the boat, we observed that the banks of the river were lined with flower gardens, and were not surprised to learn that almost the entire flower market of Sydney is supplied from Paramatta.
“We were unfortunate in not being here in the season of fruits, as they told us that the Paramatta oranges are among the finest in the world, and the same could be said of the other fruits grown in the place. I think we have said before that the climate of Australia is very favorable to the cultivation of fruits, those of the tropics as well as those of the temperate zones showing a universal tendency to thrive in the genial atmosphere.”
Dr. Whitney and his young companions spent two or three days at some of the country residences in the neighborhood of Sydney, and were charmed with the warmth of the hospitality and the beauty of the places that they visited. It was impossible for them to accept a tenth part of the invitations they received, as their time was limited, and they were anxious to press on to the northward. So one day they bade farewell to their friends and took the train for Newcastle, the principal point of the coal-mining industry of the colony.
CHAPTER XIX.
COAL MINES AT NEWCASTLE—SUGAR PLANTATION IN QUEENSLAND—THE END.
“The region between Sydney and Newcastle,” wrote Ned in his journal, “is a diversified one. Here and there are forests interspersed with open country. Some of the ground is level, and some of it very much broken and mountainous. Most of it is fertile, and we passed through many fields of wheat and other grain. Some of it is devoted to cattle raising and some to the production of wool, though it is not generally regarded as a good country for raising sheep. In places the mountains come quite close to the sea-coast, and there we found the railway winding over a very tortuous course, where the rocks that rose on either hand, and the tunnels through which we were occasionally whirled, convinced us that the building of the railway must have cost a great deal of money. At several places coal mining was in progress, and it was evident that Newcastle didn’t have an entire monopoly of the coal-producing business.