Part 13

Truly a P. & O. steamer is a wonderful institution, worthy to take a high place among the unquestionable successes of the last thirty years. Once, in Tasmania, in a remote little bay of D’Entrecasteaux’ channel, I came across a man getting his living laboriously by hewing timber in the bush. He told me he had worked in the gang which turned the first sod (or nearly the first) of the new docks in which the first P. & O. ships were cradled. One man sows and toils that another may reap. Few reap so richly, so abundantly, in these days, as those whose time and means enable them to travel on freshly made tracks to see the glory of a new world.

XV.

CHANGE OF AIR.

As travelling becomes easier all over the world, an increasing number of people who suffer from English winters are tempted to migrate annually in pursuit of sunshine and a more genial climate. Formerly fewer pleasant places were accessible, and there was comparatively little choice; and as to keep a consumptive person warm through the winter was supposed to be the one thing needful, little attention was paid to other peculiarities of climate. It is only of late years that doctors have become fully alive to the very different effects produced on invalids by much the same temperature in different places. Experience has shown that warmth is by no means the only point to be considered. People who coughed all day and all night at Nice have altogether ceased to cough when they went to Pau, where it was quite as cold. On the other hand, it was found that some people got ill at Pau who were ill nowhere else. Madeira, where it is _never_ cold, is going out of repute as a place for consumptive patients; and to the utter astonishment of everybody, it was found that consumptive people who spent a winter in Canada not only did not die immediately but got better. Climates came to be divided into moist-relaxing, as Madeira, Pisa, and Torquay; dry-relaxing (_sedative_, I believe, is the correct word), as Pau; exciting, as Cannes and Nice; and so on. Doctors became more discriminating in different cases, as far as their geographical knowledge enabled them. But they have something better to do than to go about sniffing the air and observing thermometers and anemometers and hygrometers in half a dozen South-European or Devonshire watering-places. They are obliged for the most part to judge of them from the reports of the local doctors at each place, each of whom is likely to be a believer in his own particular place, and directly interested in making it popular.

And if doctors are compelled to speak with diffidence in distinguishing between European climates, what must their perplexity be when they recommend to their patients, as they often do now, and as I hope they will do more and more, a voyage to Australia? If Cannes has been confounded with Caen, is it surprising if Tasmania should be dimly believed to be one of the West India Islands? What they do know, because they can see that for themselves, is that in cases of threatening consumption, or weakness following an illness, a marvellous change for the better, and often complete cure, is the effect of a voyage round the world. How much of that is due to the sea-air and sea-life, and how much to the land-air and land-life of the Antipodes, they have seldom any means of judging; and still less can they know of the differences in climate between different places in Australasia. An invalid fellow-passenger of ours was furnished with two medical books on the climate of Melbourne, one all praises and encouragement, the other all depreciation and warning. He used to read them alternately in such proportions as to keep his mind in a just balance between hope and fear. Poor fellow! the laudatory book had to come out by itself for a long time, though I think the other appeared now and then when we had been some time in the tropics.

As for the voyage, three months in circumstances inducing the most complete inanition of body and mind of course may, or may not, be desirable. For those who are very weak, either from disease or from overwork of body or brain, I suppose nothing could be more beneficial. Such do not feel the want of bodily exercise and mental occupation which to a more vigorous man is so depressing. It is pleasant to see them, their thin, pinched features gradually relaxing, welcome each day which takes them farther south, discard wrap after wrap, and note down each degree of northern latitude sailed through, till the tropics are reached; where in a temperature seldom varying by day or night beyond a range of from 81° to 85° they breathe the open air throughout the twenty-four hours, with no more exertion than mounting the companion-steps from the berth by the open port in their cabin, to the easy lounging chair under the awning on deck. True, it is a damp heat, and at night it is sometimes soaking wet. Toothache and neuralgia attack you now, if ever they do, and you probably feel limp and lazy and head-achy, and disgusted with everything in the ship except your bath; but the damp does not give cold at sea in the same way as it would on shore, unless anyone is so foolish as to sleep on deck. Nothing can be better for the invalids for the first six or seven weeks of the voyage, and till the tropics are left to the north. But not long after that comes the inevitable and often sudden change. As you get to about 35° or 40° south, the strong westerly winds begin to blow. The ship’s course generally touches 45° south, and runs nearly in that latitude for two or three weeks. Doctors and other people at home do not know how much colder 45° south is than 45° north. If, as is pretty sure to happen sooner or later, the wind blows a little from the southward, it may bring sleet and snow with it, and the air may be at 40° or lower for days together, with half a gale of wind blowing all the time to prevent any mistake about how cold it is. It needs no description to give an idea of how dangerous or even fatal this may be to a sick man fresh from his boiling in the tropics, with no fire (probably) in the ship at which he may warm himself, yet for ventilation’s sake forced to open window or door from time to time, and to be hustled everywhere, except in bed, by a tempest of draughts. Nor is it possible to escape the cold by timing your departure from England so as to do this part of the voyage in summer. It is more or less cold here all the year round. All things considered, August, September, or October are perhaps the best months to begin the voyage. The English summer is over then, and the coming winter may be cheated.

But much more benefit, I believe, is to be got by invalids from the air of Australia than from the life on board ship. The authorities are now pretty well agreed that, at any rate for consumptive patients, a dry air is the first essential. The statistics, if they are worth anything, go to prove that in England consumption is prevalent or rare in proportion as the soil and situation are light, dry, and high, or, on the other hand, heavy, damp, and low, and that temperature is of secondary importance. Now the Australian air is peculiarly dry—drier than anyone who has never been out of England can well imagine. A new comer from Europe cannot fail to be struck by its exciting, invigorating effect. Considering how great the heat sometimes is, it is astonishing how little it is felt, and how little enervating it is. In the hottest weather the perspiration is absorbed by the air almost immediately, so that the skin is always almost dry. Those who ride about in the heat all day feel it less than those who stay at home. The sun has power even in winter: it is seldom clouded except when rain is actually falling; on the hottest days there is generally a breeze, and indeed the greatest heat comes with the strong hot winds. I never felt any air like it except perhaps that of the Egyptian Desert.

Still it cannot be denied that there are few, if any, places on the mainland where the climate is pleasant all the year round. The way to enjoy the country luxuriously is to migrate with the seasons. Some people indeed like great heat and are all the better for it, and these may do very well in the interior of Victoria or New South Wales all the year round. But except at a few places in Gipp’s Land, and elsewhere at a great elevation above the sea, the summer is too hot to be pleasant. The burnt-up grass and vegetation are dismal to look at. The dust is abominable, and the flies sometimes almost amount to a plague. There is no place which is not more or less liable to hot winds, which blow violently from the interior for a day, or two days, at a time, laden with dust, and producing a temperature in the shade often over 100°. These hot winds are not so bad as might be supposed from the degree of heat, but still they are not pleasant; and they cease very suddenly, so that the fall of temperature, especially near the coast, is very great in a short time. I have heard of a fall of 44°, from 106° to 62°, in two hours at Sydney. Near the sea-coast, especially the eastern coast, the air is often cooled by the sea-breezes. At Sydney, for instance, it is not nearly so hot as in the interior. But, strange to say, the cool sea-breeze, instead of being invigorating, is in the long run enervating; and though a stranger at first rejoices in it, it is dreaded by the inhabitants in general, and is the principal cause of the situation of Sydney being less healthy and less bracing than that of most other places in the comparatively temperate parts of Australia. Sydney is, on the whole, to be avoided by those who are fastidious as to climate, except in winter—that is, in June, July, and August, when it is delightful.

Nor is Melbourne a very pleasant or healthy place in which to spend either winter or summer. It is more agreeable in either spring or autumn. The hot winds of summer and the cold winds of winter are alike disagreeable there. And if, by any chance, there is a day without wind, fog and smoke will sometimes hang over Flinders Street and the low plain stretching towards the bay, making _longo intervallo_ an imitation of a London fog. The hospital was crowded with consumptive patients while I was there; but it would not be fair to lay too much of this to the charge of climate. Ill built houses account for much. The comparatively small number of days on which rain falls and the rapidity with which the ground dries make people careless about making their houses waterproof, or draining them properly. Kitchens and servants’ rooms are sometimes separated by an open roofless space from the rest of the house, and on rainy days constant wet feet and damp clothes are the consequence. Much illness, too, must be attributed to the bad drainage of Melbourne. A new-comer is at first delighted with the clear running water which is always flowing down the gutters of the principal streets, like Hobson’s Conduit at Cambridge. But if he passes by at night his nose informs him that the once limpid stream is neither more nor less than the common sewer of the houses on each side. There are no underground sewers. The rush of water in the hilly streets after heavy rain is so great and sudden that it has been hitherto found impracticable to construct any sewer which would stand against it without bursting. I believe projects are on foot for an effective system of drainage; the Victorians are never sparing of money for public works. But as yet Melbourne is as ill-drained as almost any city I ever saw inhabited by Englishmen, and if cholera or any other bad epidemic ever reached Australia the consequences might be fearful. Even the abundant supply of water, which is such an inestimable advantage in all other respects, makes the evil worse. For before it was obtained, the dry air and especially the hot winds acted as effectual deodorizers by drying up all that was disagreeable, and preventing any effluvium from it. Now there is too much dilution for this to happen, and in parts of the town are to be seen green pools of liquid, poisoning the surrounding air.

Of the climates of Adelaide and of Queensland I cannot speak by experience. From all accounts Adelaide is charming in winter, but in summer even hotter and more burnt up than either Sydney or Melbourne. Brisbane is very hot indeed, almost tropical. But the Darling Downs, high rolling sheep country a couple of hundred miles inland from Brisbane, are said to be in winter charming beyond description; and judging by the experience of a delightful fortnight spent in winter near Scone, two or three hundred miles to the south of them, I can well believe that the winter there affords a type of all that is most charming in Australian air. You have a hot unclouded sun warming you through and through, and raising even the shade temperature to perhaps 70° or 80°; the air never stagnant with the mournful stillness of an English autumn day, but stimulating to exercise, and fresh and bracing beyond what can be conceived in England; boundless open grass country over which you may ride all day on horses that never tire; at night stillness, and perhaps a slight frost, which makes the Squatter’s blazing wood-fire grateful; and after a day of perfect bodily enjoyment, you totter off with winking eyes to sleep not the restless sleep of the sickly and feeble, but the sound sleep of the tired and strong.

Of the general attractions of Tasmania I have already spoken, and incidentally of those of its climate. It may be described as midway between the English and the (mainland) Australian, and consequently far pleasanter than either. There are the hot sun, dry air, almost constant breeze, cool nights, sudden changes, and comparative rareness of frost and snow, of Australia; but hot winds are almost unknown there, the sky is more often clouded, and the spring and autumn months are sometimes tempestuous and comparatively cold. The extent of deeply indented sea-coast, and the differences of level in different parts of the country, produce a considerable variety of climate within a small compass. At Hobart Town invalids sometimes suffer from the sea-breeze, which after a hot morning in summer generally blows somewhat keenly in the afternoon, coming up with remarkable regularity at about one o’clock. But a few miles inland its keenness is no longer felt. In summer Tasmania is a delightful refuge from the heat of the continent. The winter there, though colder than that of Victoria, is far warmer, drier, and, above all, lighter and sunnier, than that of any place in England.

I do not wish to disparage European refuges from English winters. But my belief, founded on my own experience, is that in most cases infinitely more benefit is to be obtained by invalids from the Australian than from any European climate. And climate is not the only thing to be considered. What is more depressing, more humiliating to one who seeks to be free, as far as poor humanity may, from the trammels of enfeebled flesh, than the daily routine of a _poitrinaire_ at a winter watering-place;—the club room, the tittle-tattle of politics in which he is never likely to take an active part, the still more insipid gossip about other peoples’ affairs, the whist by daylight, the weekly weighing to see if flesh is being made or lost? Compare the net result, mental and physical, of a continuance of this sort of life with the rich harvest of memories gathered in from a sight, however limited, of the new southern world. Six months’ absence from a profession and from ordinary occupations is in many cases fatal to an immediate resumption of them, and little would really be lost by extending it to a year and a half, which would give ample time for a visit to Australia. The time might be distributed thus: Leaving England by sailing-ship in August or September, and arriving in Melbourne in November or December, a traveller might spend the summer in Tasmania, the autumn in Victoria, and the winter and spring in Queensland and New South Wales, returning to Melbourne some time in the second summer, and sailing thence so as to get home again before the English summer begins. In this way both cold weather and also extreme heat will have been avoided, and two English winters missed. If the whole of the second summer can be spared for going to New Zealand so much the better, or if the mail-steamer’s route by way of Galle be taken, a short stay in India during the cool season may be made. Whichever way home is chosen, a much pleasanter voyage may be anticipated if it is begun during the summer months—that is, between the beginning of November and the end of March; for by Cape Horn the cold, by the Red Sea the heat, and round Cape Leuwin and the Cape of Good Hope the adverse winds, become worse as the year advances.

For the reasons already given country life is almost as preferable in regard to health in Australia as it is in England. Those who are not strong enough to travel about much will generally do best to take up their quarters in the country wherever they may have friends or acquaintance. A very slight introduction will procure a very warm welcome everywhere in Australia to any traveller from home. Home has only one meaning there, and long may it keep that meaning. There is no hospitality more readily and kindly proffered and more delightful to accept than that of the Bush. Its simplicity is a pleasant change after the sometimes excessive luxury of English country life. Bed, board, and a horse are at your service; and for sitting-room there is the ample verandah with its wooden or cane lounging-chairs, where air, and light, and sun, will put new strength and vitality into you, if anything will.

Light and sunshine—that is what a weakly man gets in Australia far better than anywhere that I know of in Europe. Perhaps he does not think much about it at the time; but after he is home again, and is groping or shivering through his first English winter, he begins to realize the blessings he has been enjoying.

XVI.

A PLEA FOR AUSTRALIAN LOYALTY.

[The _Spectator_ of May 23, 1868, contained a letter signed ‘An Australian Cynic,’ and also an article founded on it, commenting on the extraordinary outburst of excitement and indignation at Sydney occasioned by the attempted assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh, as manifested in the passing of the Treason-Felony Act and in other ways. These manifestations, and the attitude of the Australians generally on the occasion were attributed to a ‘starved appetite for rank,’ and censured accordingly.

The following Letter was written to endeavour to show that this view of the case was a mistaken and impossible one. The succeeding Letter was an answer to the reply of the _Spectator_ that the view of loyalty implied in my first Letter was itself impregnated with ‘veiled cynicism.’]

Your last number contains a letter from ‘An Australian Cynic’ commenting upon the exhibition of feeling shown in Australia after the attempt to assassinate the Duke of Edinburgh. It also contains an article on the same subject, the writer of which would hardly, I should think, object to being called an English cynic. It seldom happens that English newspapers find space to notice Australia, or that English people care to make themselves acquainted with Australian affairs; and it is unfortunate that when notice is taken of them, the occasion should call for severe not to say contemptuous, censure. Still, let censure fall where censure is due, even though it come under the questionable guise of cynicism. Better too much blame than too little.

But I must confess that to me the spirit which has been shown on this occasion, so far from seeming contemptible, has appeared, on the whole, in the highest degree creditable. I have little hope of being able to bring over you or any of your readers to my way of thinking. Nevertheless, as Australia cannot answer for itself in less than three months, I will endeavour to put the case in the light in which it strikes me.

We Englishmen at home are of all men most devoid of imagination. We spend our lives on soil teeming with tradition, where the very shape or colour of every brick and stone tells its story of the past, and may be a silent but ever-present reminder of some especially honoured friend or hero, some favourite struggle lost or won. But we do not know how much these associations are bound up with us; we cannot tell, till we try, how ill we can dispense with them. I do not believe we have the least idea of the fidelity with which Australians preserve old memories; how tenaciously they cling to their right of inheritance in the history of the past. At first it may be that an emigrant is altogether engrossed with the occupations of the moment. He must get his bread; he must strike his roots into the new soil; he has no time to sit down and think. But as he grows older, when he finally makes up his mind to make the new country his home, old memories and old attachments return with immense force. An old weather-beaten settler, who after a life spent in hardships at last sees his children growing up about him in prosperity and comfort, will look at them proudly, yet half sadly, knowing that he has within him an inheritance which he can transmit to them only in part, doubting whether after all a dinner of herbs amongst the old scenes and the old traditions, sustaining (so he fancies) the old beliefs, is not better than a stalled ox without them. No one who has not experienced Australian hospitality can imagine the jealous care which they take of a chance visitor from England, how distressed and almost angry a settler will be if a visitor, although an utter stranger, puts up at an inn instead of going to his house. And as you talk to him, the chances are he will speak sadly, even bitterly, of the carelessness, the indifference of people at home to their Australian Colonies. They do not know even by name one colony from another. Melbourne and Sydney are set down as places where a revolver is as necessary as an umbrella in London; their populations as composed mainly of convicts, runaways from Europe, dishonest demagogues, or merchants who care to remain only till they have made their fortunes. But what he will complain of most bitterly is that a school has grown up in England which says, ‘Let the Colonies go. All we want of them is wool and gold. All they want of us is a market. What we both want is wealth. We can get this as well separate as together, perhaps better. Traditions, loyalty to the throne, willingness to share danger as well as security, war as well as peace, with the old country—all this is sentimental rubbish. We have almost got rid of this sort of thing at home, they must have quite got rid of it at the Antipodes.’

This, I believe, is false slander. As such, I believe it has been felt, and felt keenly, by the vast majority of Australians. Can you, then, wonder that when the news came that the Queen was sending out one of the Princes, not selfishly, for his own benefit or for that of the Crown, still less to confer any mere _material_ benefit on the Australians, it came to them like a chance offered to a maligned man to clear himself from a false charge—like light thrown on a dark place? And so, when the Duke, after weeks and months of expectation, at last arrived, it did not matter whether they did or did not find him all that they thought an English Prince would be and ought to be; it did not matter if he disliked politics, was bored by balls and ‘functions,’ was indifferent to the beauty of the country. They refused to look a gift horse in the mouth. He was the Queen’s son; that was enough. They would do him all possible honour, and so prove that they were loyal Englishmen, and cared for Queen and country as well as gold and wool.