We welcome these volumes as giving a full account of the Enterprises by which Australia has been explored, and as calculated to enlarge our knowledge respecting this vast and important region. They are careful, accurate, and succinct epitomes of Australian discovery, and the results it has produced, and contain a great deal of valuable information.
Athenæum, May 6, 1865.
Mr. Howitt’s volumes comprise the history of Tasmania and New Zealand as well as that of the Australian Continent. We recommend them to those who wish for a convenient book of reference on Australian discovery and exploration, or those who wish to know all that has been done towards our present acquaintance with New Holland and the adjacent islands.
Illustrated News.
Mr. Howitt in this work does, as it seems to us, all the justice in his power to every gallant explorer; enlivens his history with many anecdotes, and has enriched his work with excellent maps.
London Review, July 22, 1865.
Mr. Howitt possesses a sort of family claim to write on the topics contained in his book. He has been in Australia; one of his sons, Alfred, commanded the expedition sent out in quest of Burke and Wills, whose remains he found and buried; and another, Charlton, was drowned in New Zealand while trying to make his way across the country from Canterbury to the Western Coast over the Southern Alps. The history of the exploration of the New Zealand group is briefly told, and well.
Bell’s Messenger, June 17, 1865.
Mr. William Howitt, of all travellers, is perhaps the very best person that could have been encouraged to give a history of those vast colonies, which in little more than a quarter of a century have vied with the mother country in progress and prosperity. For some time a resident in one or more of the three great dependencies whose growth he describes, he is perhaps better adapted than even many a permanent settler to solve the question so often asked, “How is it that these enormous districts became annexed to England?” His object in going thither was not to trade, not to seek for gold at the “diggings,” not to dispossess a single Maori of his vast pasturage, and grow his own wool, tallow, and mutton thereon, to the ruin of the original native holder. He crossed the broad seas, not as a cosmopolitan, but as a keen observer, a patient investigator, and an honest student, bent rather upon gathering information that might do more good to others, in a pecuniary point of view, than to himself, since the remuneration for his literary work could never bring to him the return, which the facts he had collected may be the means of recommending to others. The subject he undertook to deal with is large; but he has had the power to grasp it; and the simple-minded manner in which he relates the trials of the first adventurers, the difficulties they had to surmount, and the results which have followed upon their enterprise, adds a charm to the book, which will ensure its popularity. To those desirous of trying their fortune at the antipodes this will be a book indeed of very considerable usefulness; not because it abounds with advice to such individuals, or tells them what to do, and what to avoid, but because it is suggestive of a host of things that will enable a prudent man to judge rightly, and act accordingly. Whilst however, the value of Mr. William Howitt’s experience will do good service in this particular, it is also calculated to assist the merchant and manufacturer at home, to tell them many truths it were well for them to know.
Examiner, April 15, 1865.