Part 2

Now let us turn for a moment from the animal to the plant life of Australia. In the tropical parts of Queensland there are many plants which belong to the Malayan region as a whole; this we might expect. We may see palms growing even at Brisbane; while 23 further north they form a dense forest, thoroughly tropical in appearance, with its creepers and undergrowth, as we see in these two pictures. But further south we meet more species 24 peculiar to Australia, in the vegetable no less than in the 25 animal world. The typical Australian plants are those specially adapted to resist hot sunshine with drought, and often sudden changes of temperature. All over the continent the gum trees 26 give a special mark to the landscape of the forest. The leaves hang vertically, so as not to give a large exposure of surface to the hot sun, and are collected in dense clusters for the same purpose of protection; so that we miss much of the spreading shade of our English trees. The leaves, too, are alike on both sides, and the colour is more uniform than in our own trees, nor do they change colour and fall in autumn, but decay gradually on the stalk. The bark of many of the gums hangs in strips, thus spoiling the appearance of the huge trunk, for huge it is, rising to four hundred feet in some species. Owing to the character of the foliage the forests are more open than our own, except in the wetter parts where there is a dense undergrowth of fern and creeper. These districts are always near the coast. As we travel away from the coast the forest thins out, except along the watercourses, and becomes smaller and more stunted. In place of trees with leaves we find thorny scrub of various kinds, such as 27 the mulga, whose leaves are replaced by woody spikes still more resistant to drought. Finally we reach the salt-bush and spinifex 28 and wiry grasses of the desert interior. Often there is little 29 but bare rock as in the pictures before us. The watercourses 30 themselves may dry up in the hot season, leaving a desolate 31 expanse of sand and stones, but the line of trees still marks the presence of moisture below. 32

The huge gum trees are, as a rule, the main feature in the forest landscape, but this is varied by curiosities like the grass tree and the bottle tree; while in the moister regions, as in the forests of Gippsland, we find beautiful tree ferns of every 33 kind. Here are specimens of grass trees and gums. Everywhere 34 we find the acacia and the wattle with its sweet scent, the 35 banksia shooting up into great trees, and the beautiful waratah; everywhere, too, where the rainfall is sufficient, flowers of the same order as those with which we are familiar in Europe grow in great profusion.

So we see that there is great variety of vegetation in Australia, though the only native plants of much use to man are the gum trees, which we value for their dense hard woods. All else that is of value, both among plants and animals, has been introduced by the settlers, and many of the native types seem doomed to extinction.

We may now be able to understand why this country of strange plants and animals had no attraction for the Dutch trader, especially in the drier west; in fact, it could have no trade until it had been settled by Europeans bringing with them European crops and animals. In India and Malaya there was already a basis for trade in some of the natural products of the region; while the natives were sufficiently advanced in civilisation to make commercial intercourse possible. It was far otherwise in Australia. The aborigines, as we found them, were as primitive as the plants and animals. They are not black, but a dark-brown people, and their hair is waved and silky, not curly like that of the negro. They are different also from the negro in the shape and build of the head and face. There are various theories as to their origin, but the nearest correspondence seems to be in some of the ancient hill tribes of India and the Veddas of Ceylon. At any rate they are quite different from the Malays, and equally also from the now extinct Tasmanians. The Tasmanians had woolly hair, and perhaps represented the remnants of an earlier and even less developed race than the invaders from the north.

The native Australian, as the first European discoverers found him, was not an attractive being. He was looked on as little better than a wild beast and treated as such. This was partly due to ignorance of his language and customs. His mode of life was fitted by long adaptation to the peculiar conditions of his surroundings. He had developed no agriculture in his new home; not without reason, if we think of the agricultural possibilities of the country in the hands of a rude and backward people. He was equally without any of the useful animals, and had no means of procuring them. So he was reduced to the nomad life and to the utilisation of the wild roots and plants of the country and such small game as he could kill with his rude weapons. He was necessarily a hunter, with a temporary shelter for his home, 36 often an overhanging rock as in this picture; and civilisation does not grow up in such conditions. Here we see some natives 37 fishing, and here again are some armed men scouting in the bush. 38

The hostility of the native to the European colonists often arose from their interference with his natural food supply, or to their careless ignorance of his semi-religious ideas or customs, such as the tabu.

His only possible clothes were the skins of animals, and his weapons and tools all belonged to the Stone Age. The axe, knife, and hammer were in universal use, and long journeys were made to obtain the right kind of stone. This involved a certain amount of intercourse among the tribes. For weapons of offence the native had the club, and the spear tipped with bone or stone; while some tribes used a special spear-thrower. The boomerang was a curved bar of heavy wood, often five or six feet long, which was used for killing or stunning at a short distance. The smaller boomerang, which returns to the thrower, was merely a toy and used in sport; here we see it in use. The stone implements are 39 all similar to those which are dug up in Europe, the relics of the Neolithic Age of man. One of the chief uses of the axe was to cut notches for climbing trees, in search of honey among other things; though they had another method which we see here. 40

The natives were divided into tribes and sub-tribes, and had some form of tribal government, under headmen. In the south-east of the continent these chiefs had considerable authority and were sometimes treated by us as representing the tribe. Here is one of them, though he does not look imposing in his European dress. 41 They had an elaborate social system and curious marriage customs about which the learned still dispute. They had a strong belief in spirits of various kinds, though it could hardly be called a religion, and a whole series of tales and legends handed down orally, some of them showing considerable power of imagination. They even had the beginnings of some ideas of art and ornament, 42 as we can judge from the crude paintings shown here. 43

The most interesting of their social customs was the corroboree, a great gathering for feasting and dancing, often combined with 44 some religious or social ceremony. Such meetings represented the only real social intercourse of the people and tribes, except messages by ambassadors who were sacred everywhere.

On the whole, then, they were not so low in the scale of civilisation as the early observers imagined. Even the language, with its many dialects, due to the absence of writing and the nomad life of the people, is elaborate and inflected like those of Europe.

The native life in its original form is decaying, and survives chiefly in the interior and the west. Wherever white occupation has extended, the native is dying out; in fact, in some parts he survives only on the Government Reservations. Here are some 45 of these survivors in Victoria. Here again, in Queensland, we 46 see the native converted to European clothes, though he does not 47 seem very comfortable in them. In this district, as in South and Western Australia, and the Northern Territory, they still exist in considerable number; but it is probable that there are less than 100,000 in all in the Commonwealth. In the census of 1911 an attempt was made to count them, and some 20,000 were found to be living in or near white settlements; only a vague estimate was possible in the case of the tribes of the interior, who still live their nomadic life in the more inaccessible parts of the country. But the area untouched by the white man grows smaller every year, and unless the native can change his character greatly, he is likely to die out in the north and west as in the south-east. In 1911 there were only about two thousand in New South Wales, hardly any in Victoria, and none at all in Tasmania. It was inevitable that the Australian native should be displaced from his hunting grounds. An area about equal to that of the United States could not be left in the sole occupation of a few thousand savages. Now, instead of the savage with his primitive tribal system, we have a white race, purely British in origin, with industry and agriculture of the most advanced type, and an elaborate political constitution of federated States. It is the utilisation, by the white man, of the resources of this vast area which we must study.

We have seen something of the coast of this area; let us now try for a moment to picture it as a whole. The map shows us an oblong block, which lies east and west, on either side of the Tropic of 48 Capricorn. On the north, two peninsulas, Arnhem Land and Cape York, project towards the Equator; between them is the Gulf of Carpentaria, the only deep indentation in the whole continent. On the south, Victoria, continued by Tasmania, stretches into the cool waters of the Southern Ocean. A coastal plain, broad in the north, narrow elsewhere, fringes a plateau which occupies the greater part of the oblong. The plain is narrowest in the east, and the plateau edge most marked, so that it resembles a series of mountain ranges. Rivers, short for the most part, plunge down the seaward edge of the plateau. The only large area of lowland is in the south-east, drained by a group of long rivers and shared by four of the Australian States. Some of these rivers lose themselves in the salt lakes and marshes of the inland basin of Lake Eyre; the rest, gathered up by the Murray, reach the sea at the one point where the plateau rim disappears. The tropical lowlands, the temperate coast-plains, the plateau and the long inward slopes of the Murray system are the main features which we shall find recurring in the geography of the various States.

* * * * *

So far we have dealt only with Australia. New Zealand shows to some extent the peculiarities which mark Australia off from the rest of the world, but on the whole the differences between these two sections of Australasia are more noticeable than the likeness. We might anticipate this, since the dominant fact in the development of the peculiar plant life of Australia is drought; in the case of New Zealand it is moisture. Again, New 49 Zealand has no snakes, and lacks the peculiar animals which we have seen in Australia. In fact, its only native animals are a bat and a rat, the latter perhaps introduced by the Maoris. To compensate for this it has a large group of birds peculiar to itself, including the wingless birds, which may have lost their wings since they had no need for flight from enemies on the ground. The best known of these birds is the _kiwi_; here we see 50 him in his natural haunts. Again, there is the _takahe_, which was at one time thought to be extinct; but one or two specimens have been found, and there may be others still existing. Here 51 is one of these stuffed. Finally there is the gigantic _moa_, 52 which probably existed at the time of Captain Cook’s voyage. Now we can only see its skeleton, but naturalists have attempted to re-construct the whole bird, as we see here. One link New Zealand 53 possesses with a very remote geological past; this is the curious _tuatara_ or three-eyed lizard. He belongs to an extinct group 54 of reptiles which lived in Europe many ages ago and is now only represented in the fossils which we dig up. So we see that in its animal life New Zealand differs from Australia and from the rest of the world; we shall find also a strong contrast between the native races of the two countries in their character and origin, their relations with the white settlers, and their influence on the history and development of the land which they possessed before our arrival.

LECTURE II

NEW SOUTH WALES

When, in 1770, Captain Cook dropped anchor in Botany Bay, he just missed discovering the finest harbour in the world. Voyaging northwards he sighted Port Jackson in the distance but did not examine it more closely, and the discovery was left to the first party of colonists, a few years later. The harbour which we are going to explore was the scene of the first real settlement, and is still the vital centre for the whole of New South Wales.

We steam through a broad channel, nearly a mile wide between the rugged points which guard it. There is no lack of room here 1 for ships to pass one another, and our large vessel seems quite insignificant beside the towering cliffs. On our right is a broad bay, the North Harbour, with the village of Manly at its head; on the other side of Manly, across a narrow isthmus, is the open ocean, with its long rollers thundering always in surf upon the beach. But inside the Heads the water is calm as a lake. In front of us, and beyond the North Harbour, is a narrow, winding inlet, running for miles into the hills; this is Middle Harbour. 2 There is plenty of good anchorage here, but it is mainly given up to pleasure boats; we are a long way yet from the commercial harbour. To reach this our vessel turns sharply southwards, behind the South Head with its lighthouses, and steams on for 3 about five miles up the Main Harbour. All along, on either hand, are jutting headlands, and in the bays between, especially on the south side, are seaside villages. But we shall not see swarms of bathers on the beaches as in our own country, for there are sharks in Sydney Harbour; the only safe bathing is in the surf outside. As we approach our landing-place the houses are more closely packed together, and islands are dotted here and there in the channel. We may be reminded to some degree of parts of the Clyde, or of one of the larger inlets on the west coast of Scotland; though here we find not only the most beautiful scenery but a great seaport and busy city in the very midst of it.

We turn at last into Sydney Cove, on the south side of the harbour, and here we are moored at Circular Quay in the very 4 heart of the city. Further on to the west, just round the next point, we see Darling Harbour, crowded with shipping, and its 5 busy wharves piled with merchandise. The waterway extends some miles further inland, but here in Sydney Cove is the centre of commercial activity and the landing-place of the original settlers in 1788.

Before we land let us look at a chart which shows us the long passage by which we have entered, the windings of the harbour 6 and the city spreading over the surrounding hills. This will give us our bearings and help us to understand the views.

We will now land, climb the hill, and look down on the Cove. (4) There, on the further side, is our vessel, lying close to the tall warehouses. Beyond it are the trees of Government Domain, with the tower and roof of Government House showing above them. The little bay on our left is Farm Cove, where the warships lie 7 at anchor; and beyond it again, on the next point, we see the trees of the Botanical Gardens. Then we have Woolloomooloo Bay, running up to a new and crowded suburb, and in the distance many more points and bays, as we look along the south side of the harbour back towards the sea. Or let us climb up behind our vessel, in another direction, to the library, and look down over Farm Cove. Below us, on the little island, is Fort Denison; and 8 across the water on the north side is Mossman Bay, where a new Sydney is growing up. It is all very different from the crowded ugliness of most of our own commercial cities.

To see something of the inside of the city we walk up George Street from the quayside. On our right is old Sydney, irregular and picturesque, built on the rocky peninsula between Sydney Cove and Darling Harbour. Here is a view of one of the old streets. 9 George Street itself is very modern in appearance, with its broad 10 roadway, electric cars, and handsome stone buildings. Here is the Post Office at one of the corners; it is built of sandstone and 11 granite which are to be found in abundance in the local rocks. Across George Street runs Bridge Street, one of the oldest in the city. It takes its name from the old bridge across the little Tank stream, which has now been absorbed into the underground drainage of the city, like so many of our old streams in London. There are many Government buildings in this older part as we might expect, and at the top is the entrance to Government House.

On the west side of Darling Harbour is the suburb of Pyrmont, on another peninsula; and at the base of these peninsulas Sydney is spreading and broadening out beyond the railway station. But even here, in the new suburb, are many parks and open spaces reserved for public use; while nothing can destroy the beauty of the older portion of the city, divided up by inlets, and with glimpses down many of its sloping streets of the blue water and the hills beyond. It is not surprising that the early settlers found this spot far more attractive than the open beach of Botany Bay.

As we look down on the Cove and its neighbourhood, we must remember that we have in front of us only a small part of the great expanse of landlocked anchorage available in the harbour; there is still room for unlimited growth, though Sydney has already over a third of the total population of New South Wales collected in and around it.

We must now look beyond the actual harbour, and try to place ourselves in the position of the early settlers. We have great distances to cover, since New South Wales is just half as large again as France; we must therefore keep fairly closely to the railway; but we shall not lose much by this as the railway will carry us through all the important districts of the State.

We may travel north, south, or west, and the map can give us some idea of the character of the country through which we shall pass. 12 Sydney lies near the middle of a long strip of coastland, shut in on its western side by the steep edge of a great plateau. In the neighbourhood of Sydney this edge goes by the name of the Blue Mountains. Here the barrier is about forty miles inland; further north, in the valleys of the Hunter and Hawkesbury rivers, the lowland widens out to nearly a hundred miles; while in some parts of the south the highlands come right down to the sea. This narrow strip was the original New South Wales.

We can travel now by railway along the coast strip to Newcastle, 13 then up the valley of the Hunter, and finally climb the Liverpool Range on to the plateau beyond. But the journey was far from easy for the early settlers. In fact, until 1820, when a stock route was discovered from Sydney to Newcastle, the only intercourse with the north was by sea, and Newcastle grew up almost as a separate colony in consequence. The valleys of the Hunter and other rivers gave a natural direction to early settlement, since in their lower courses they flow through wide alluvial flats which are very fertile and easy to cultivate. But they are subject sometimes to devastating floods, as the settlers found to their cost, while the heavy summer rainfall is not well suited to certain of our crops, such as wheat. So in the early days the colony was often in difficulty as to its main food supply.

The name Newcastle at once suggests coal; and coal is everywhere in this district. The surface of the country round Sydney is largely a barren sandstone; but underlying the whole of the area, from Newcastle on the north to Bulli on the south, and extending westward to the other side of the plateau edge, is a vast coalfield. Its chief development at present is around Newcastle. Here is a view of Hetton colliery, Newcastle; both the name and 14 the picture remind us strongly of the North of England. We see the coal being wound up from the shaft as in our own mines, and in the distance vessels lying at the wharves in the fine harbour. Here again is a general view of the harbour in which we can 15 clearly distinguish the loading of the coal and merchandise.

A journey southward from Sydney to the other end of the coalfield will bring us to a less familiar type of mine. At Clifton the early explorers found coal strewn on the beach; the actual seam is in the face of the cliff, and shows as a broad black band, 16 while the coal is mined by means of adits, and then run on to the little pier to be shipped. The coal is found under Sydney itself, and mining is now in progress on the south side of the harbour; but the shafts are much deeper here than at Newcastle, since the coal measures lie in the shape of a saucer, and Sydney is near the middle. We may notice here that the southern railway line ends at Nowra on the Shoalhaven river, and beyond are only a few small coast towns; so we need not at present explore further in this direction.

We will now leave the coast district for a time and climb the plateau edge to survey the country beyond. First let us consider the nature of the obstacle by which the early settlers were faced. The Blue Mountains are merely a part of the eastern rim of a great tilted tableland of sandstone, with a steep face towards the sea and a long and more gentle slope towards the west. Down this face a series of comparatively short streams come tumbling to the sea; while on the other side of the ridge, almost within sight of the sea, are the sources of the slow westward-flowing rivers, whose courses are measured by thousands of miles.