Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

The streets are straight, and run at right angles, and faintly resemble Philadelphia in symmetry.

and disappeared; cities came up almost in a night. The | its thoroughfare.
people moved like avalanches over the hills-drawn by
gold's powerful magnet. Every fresh discovery attracted
a rush to its glittering ores. Camps were unexpectedly
deserted, and untenanted ravines suddenly teemed with
life. The richest digging absorbed the bulk of vitality.
Half-prospected ledges were forsaken for others more
promising.

The gold-fields proved of unprecedented richness, and created a furore through the habitable globe, and goldhunters continued to seek antipodal shores. While many sons of toil were crossing the American plains, scaling the Rocky Mountains, and invading alkaline deserts, to search for the Golden Fleece on the Pacific Coast, other brawny-armed yeomanry were crossing the oceans for Australia.

The gold-fields soon numbered a dense population. A new colony was formed south of the Murray River. The colonial infant was called Victoria-after Her Majesty the Queen-and Melbourne was made its capital. The young city bounded into life, enlarged its proportions and multiplied its population. Houses rose by hundreds on the hilltops; substantial blocks speedily walled thronged thoroughfares, and warehouses confronted busy streets; ships filled the harbor, and the port became a bustle of activity; goods, of weighty stocks, were put on sale, and commerce set in vigorous motion; drones decamped to quieter precincts; vagrants and loafers were hustled out of the way; men were for making hay while the sun shone, and they struck while the iron was hot. Wagons and ox-teams were headed for the gold-fields, and hourly bore out from Melbourne loads of mining supplies. Every roadway conducted returning teams. with bags of dust and chests of nuggets, to change hands over the Melbourne counters. The city grew opulent, vain and arrogant. It indulged in satire at its less enterprising and less prosperous competitors, and called them names. The "slow coach" Sydney became a special object of ridicule.

The mines poured into the lap of Melbourne a steady stream of golden treasure, inflated her banks, filled her mints, crowned her knolls with mansions, decorated her squares with lawns, and fronted her pavements with palatial stores. Placer digging was exhausted, and quartz mining introduced. The reefs held greater wealth than the surface ores, and their precious tide ebbed into Melbourne.

Victoria's capital became the largest and most attractive city in the Australias. The residences top the hill-slopes on both sides of the River Yarra. The site of the city is quite hilly and rolling. The northern bottoms of the river are, however, flat and miasmatic. The commercial streets parallel the Yarra, and the wholesale houses face the river. Ships of light tonnage come up to the city wharves, but vessels of heavy draught anchor at the piers of Sandridge, six miles down the Yarra, at the head of Hobson's Bay.

Narrow alleys-close as dangerous infest the city and breed foul air-rank enough to choke a mule or knock down an ox.

The drainage is overground, and cannot be too severely condemned. The swill, slops and garbage coursing along the sluggish gutters collect in pools, and fester in the sun-rays, and in hot summer-days emit a deadly aroma. In public buildings Melbourne is seen at her best. Her City Hall is a beautiful piece of architecture; the finest organ on the continent occupies its platform. A music concert is weekly given, of great popularity and large attendance. The Postal edifice is an elegant building, and a credit to the city. The new Parliament House is airy and tasteful in design, and commodious in proportions, shaded by wooded grounds. The most famous institution of Melbourne is her Public Library. The building is a colossal structure, long and tall, and fronted with a stone-columned portico. The grounds are ample, and covered with turf. A wide range of steps sweep up to the pillared entrance. The halls are crowded with volumes; flights of shelves loaded with books face the walls from floor to dome. The reading-rooms are numerous, roomy and comfortable. The Picture Gallery is an elaborate collection of the gems of art. Some heavily framed and mammoth paintings ornament its halls. The Museum is an extensive repository of curiosities, of almost countless variety and nameless shape-from the hideous to the beautiful.

Government House is an imposing pile, capping a hill cone by the riverside, overlooking a broad stretch of the bay. Well-kept yards, with foliaged trees and graveled walks, beautify the grounds. Exotic shrubs and gaudy flowers perfume the drives.

The

The University buildings are of accommodative size, with verdured squares and convenient museums. law courts are of unique design and attractive form. Melbourne's parks are her pride. Carleton Gardens embellish many square acres in the residential suburbs. Grass of luxuriant growth carpet the lawns. Roses of many tints and shades glorify the walks. Flowers of sunset colors blossom on the sward. The wealth of the tropics permeates the groves, and floral pomp and bowery beauty charm the eye.

The Exhibition building added a prominent feature to the grounds. Fitzroy Gardens have a denser growth and taller groves than its Carleton sister. Statuary gleam amongst the trees. Fountains play in falling showers and streams gurgle along fern-clad banks. Willows throw down their long, sweeping boughs, and passageways open blue ribbons of sky through the leaves. The shade is cool, and the nooks form inviting retreats from the dusty streets.

The Botanical Gardens are large, and dotted with A railroad connects the port of Sandridge with the lakes. Swans swim on the waters, and willow-trees rain depots of Melbourne.

Forests of masts continually rock on the bay, and steamers daily pass up and down the tortuous river.

The bay shores are low, and often treeless, and lack the water views and sylvan beeches on Sydney's beautiful haven.

The mercantile houses of Melbourne are compactly built. Buildings of massive mold and lofty front rise in stately rows.

Bourke Street is the most noted commercial avenue, and many handsome blocks, of fancy ornamentation, flank

down their threadlike branches around the shores.
Flowers of bewitching loveliness bedeck the vases with
red-tipped bouquets. Hedges are gay with blooming
creepers, and fragrant buds fascinate the senses.
The gardens can never rival Sydney's Botanical floral-
land. Nature has done more for the Sydney gardens in
the beauteous setting with which they are enshrined, and
the port views stretching away from their viny vistas.

The city has a family of suburban villages, but the prettiest residences and finest yards are found in East Melbourne. The buildings are more modern in archi

tecture, the grounds more ornamental with decoration, and the avenues shaded with trees. Like all large cities, Melbourne has a bleak line of naked cottages, red walls, hovels, and treeless streets-the homes of the poor.

The climate cannot be called exemplary. Hot winds blow for two or three weeks at a stretch, and wilt the life almost out of the human frame, and prostrate the strongest systems with debilitating heat. The sky radiates with an equatorial glare, and the air pulsates with blistering torridity till the desert gales cease to blow. Sandstorms periodically envelop Melbourne in a suffocating clond of dust, and drive frantic the eyes and pores of both men and animals. The sandbars at Sandridge furnish exhaustless fountains of dust to the winds, and when a blow "gets its work in," distance is blotted out, and the firmament charged with powdered atoms. Lungs suffer, throats ache, lips crack, and catarrh comes to the front till the winds veer or lull.

The water of the city can't be bragged on. Many people prefer beer. The Yarra is a beautiful creek, but for imbibing purposes does not give satisfaction.

The congregation of nationalities drawn to Melbourne by gold's seductive wand assembled a cosmopolitan population that resemble an American city with its variety of races. I have stood on the steps of Melbourne's Custom House and seen the different shades and colors of people from nearly all the nations and islands of the world on promenade. The characteristics of two-thirds of the earth are represented. Such a motley aggregation of races, diversified customs, broadened sentiment, associated energy, enriched thought, advanced knowledge, and excited progression !

The genius of the human family was in competition. The nationalities borrowed inventions from each other, exchanged ideas, absorbed theories, benefited by intellectual friction, and Victoria became the most enterprising colony at the antipodes. Wares from the looms and factories of the globe are kept on sale. The Arcades are novelty emporiums. No adhesion clings to commodities, forsooth they are English. Do they pay? is the inquiry. No "genealogy" of the origin and nativity of merchandise is wanted, if profit or convenience follows their use. Iconoclasm, industrial, commercial and goy

Geelong, a few miles up the west coast, claimed to have better water, but not enough of it. Saidtown also as-ernmental, prevail. serted that it had a better and healthier location for the colonial capital, but had not enough room for the expansion of a large city.

Melbourne gained the seat of government, and relerated its ambitious competitor and its healthful waters the honors of a distant suburb.

Like all Australians, the Melbournites are fond of outdoor amusements. Many English games, almost out of recognition in America, are enjoyed with great zest by the colonists. Boating, cricket, and foot-racing, are favorite entertainments. The Victorian takes care of his dogs, and is given to chasing whatever there is to chase. Kangaroos are the most numerous game for the hounds, and are driven by hundreds into pens on the colonial plains. Horse-racing is a fashionable recreation. Youthful beauty does there most congregate. Ladies lend the charm of their presence. The greatest assemblage of female loveliness ever seen in the colonies are found on the racingstands. Personal decoration is studiously and lavishly displayed. For bodily ornament extravagant sums are expended. The jewelers are crowded with orders, and the milliners busied with work, before the races come on. Competition in the art of dress is carried on with spirited rivalry, regardless of cost. The prettiest and best dressed lady is sure to be the happiest, and the object of a thousand envies.

All grades of society, from the highest aristocrats to the lowliest artisans, attend the races. Those whom the mines have made into nabobs are present with their millions, the digger comes with his sovereigns, and large moneys change pockets.

A sail up the Yarra is an enjoyable holiday excursion. Steamers, like port-tugs, decorated with ribbons, flags, and evergreens, ply up and down the little stream. Flowers clothe the banks and mirror their flushed faces in the water. Vines swing from the trees and drape the bends with emerald hangings. Willows border the river and rear their bunchy heads along the channel. The merry voices on the water, the pealing laughter from passing boats, make the moonlight voyage a scene of delightsome adventure.

Tours to Gippsland lakes furnish invigorating Summer ruralizing. Wooded hills and sylvan glens-like the Highlands on the Hudson-skirt the lake-shore, and the water-views recall the Thousand Islands down the St. Lawrence.

Advanced policies of local and colonial legislation lave been introduced, and Victoria is taunted by Sydneyites with being the "Yankee Colony."

Melbourne once contained 300,000 people. Since the decline of the gold-fields the city is undergoing a shrinkage. Factories have been erected to replace the mining industries. Protection is enforced in Victoria, and high tariff shelters home manufactures. The colony is small, and has a shallow depth of soil. Its surface is covered with rolling hills bristling with timber, and undulating plains overgrown with sward. The grass is of a stunted growth, and does not attain the luxuriance seen in the northern colonies. Trees in some districts grow to a gigantic size, and rival the Sierra Nevadian prodigies; but the body of Victorian forests are of inferior height. Wheat is raised in some of the provinces, but shee ̧> and cattle monopolize most of the open plains. Around Melbourne English grasses have been sown, and fine pasturage produced. Herds of cows roam the green slopes, and furnish milk to the city dairies.

Many villages are scattered over the interior settlements. Stage-coaches formerly connected the rural towns with Melbourne, but railroads now traverse the colony to its borders, and one through line reaches from Hobson's Bay to Sydney. Hot tornadoes are rampant all over Victoria, and are the settlers' scourge.

Rabbits infest some of the northern districts-like mosquitoes on the Mississippi, for multitude-and often strip the earth of vegetation. Crops are destroyed and ranchers starved out and compelled to move by the devastating pests.

Fruitful vineyards clothe the valleys along the Murray River. The red wine of Victoria I prefer to any of the Australian vintages.

The mining camps along the Murray are almost deserted. The diggers have gone to herding and grapeculture; many have emigrated to other colonies.

Sandhurst, in Western Victoria, is still a flourishing mining town. Several rich quartz reefs are profitably worked. The surrounding hills once contained the most famous surface diggings in the colony. The naked face of the earth and the dismantled gulches show the ravages of the gold-hunter's spade for many miles around.

Many of the old rendezvous are now silent as gravevards. Cabins and tottering chimneys have fallen down, and forlorn foundations are the remaining vestiges of

what was.

Tents have been furled, and the roving miners | into decay, and sit motionless over many exhausted have gone to other lands. Streets once crowded with ledges. toilers, walled with shops, and noisy with Saturday

Ballarat, south of Sandhurst, is the largest and pret

[graphic]

carousals, are now in ruins, and like the relics of Hercu- tiest mining city in Australia. It contains 13,000 people.

laneum, keep watch over departed greatness.

Closed shafts, moldy pits and leaky tunnels scar the hillsides. Crushing-mills and hoisting-works have gone

The streets are wide and bordered with trees. A long avenue extends through the city. The yards are embellished with shrubbery. Fine residences have been

GENERAL VIEW OF MELBOURNE.

erected. The commercial buildings are large and dense. A blue lake nestles in the suburban hills, and on Saturday afternoon hundreds of pleasure - seekers boat on the waters. Low, flat shores spread around the lake like the level coasts of Pontchartrain, above New Orleans.

The city gave an Art Exhibition some years since, with a creditable display of colonial productions.

English population predominates, but the foreign element is sufficient to make a concourse of all nations. The intermarriage of races has produced an attractive type of female beauty. The young ladies have model forms, and a complexion tinted with Nature's own color

[graphic]

NEW GOVERNMENT OFFICES AT ADELAIDE.

VICEREGAL RESIDENCE, ADELAIDE.

pastoral population, and made it a noted grain - producing colony.

Wheat is shipped throughout the Australias, and exported in large quantities to England.

The grain is of the best body, and its flour the finest quality produced on the continent, and is the favorite brand in both local and foreign markets.

Sheep are herded in vast numbers, and wool is a chief staple of export. Cattle of bulky size roam the plains, and blooded stock is largely raised.

Fruit of fine flavor and splendid size is profusely grown. Grapes of Sonoma

[graphic]

the mountain atmosphere imparting a glow to their cheeks, a sparkle to their eyes, and vivacity to their manners.

A few of the mines are yet in operation, and are rich in bullion. Many of the early veins are worked out. Windlasses stand idle over the prospect - holes; waterless trenches and broken sluiceboxes are neglected. Wrecks of villages mark the streams, and awaken memories of the deserts in Nevada and the ranges of Northern California. West of Victoria lies the Colony of South Australia. Its depth and fertility of soil and great stretch of plains have attracted an increasing

[graphic][merged small]

proportions, peaches of golden hue, luscious pears and | tudes of greenery, untouched by the hand of man. Many plums, ripen in the sunny valleys. South Australian of the silent levels have never been trodden by the colofruits are sold in every port in the Australias. Large nist's foot. vineyards are cultivated, and wine of enviable repute is manufactured. Hops grow along the brooks, and waving grain fields spread seas of verdure over the rolling prairies.

[blocks in formation]

Droughts sometimes visit the colony, and entail a temporary suspension of its prosperity. But dry years are less frequent than in adjoining colonies.

Hot winds blow in the Summer season, but are not so prostrating, nor of such duration, as in Victoria.

Mines have contributed to the wealth of the colonists, but the principal source of revenue is found in their grain, wool, cattle, stock, fruits and wines.

North of New South Wales stretches the Colony of Queensland. It is one of the largest and richest colonies in Australia.

Its boundaries lie between 10° 41' and 28° 8' South Latitude, extending into the warm embrace of the tropics. The coast is wooded, and mountain chains cross the eastern provinces. The western territory is a vast spread of plains, overgrown with tall herbage, and resembles Texas with its level prairies, great herds of cattle, flocks of sheep and droves of horses pasturing on the plains.

Small grain is extensively grown, canefields rustle in many valleys, and sugar is largely made. Cotton also grows luxuriantly.

The farms are often worked and the herds tended by South Sea Islanders, brought by "Labor schooners" from the Polynesian archipelagoes.

Oranges, lemons and pineapples of excellent quality flourish in the coastal districts, and semi-tropic vegetation pleases the eye with leafy exuberance.

The climate is temperate in Winter and warm in Summer, but the plains are swept by strong sea-breezes throughout the hot season. Malaria lurks on some of the streams, and chills and quinine and refractory livers are not out of style. On the mountain slopes and elevated tablelands a model climate is found.

Droughts sometimes burn up the great prairies, and hundreds of thousands of sheep perish from thirst. Cattle die on waterless river-beds, herds crowd into marshy bogs and mire down, and starve for food and drink. Artesian wells are now bored, and if they prove a success-will be the industrial salvation of Queensland. Railroads have been constructed from the seaports to the interior villages, and telegraph lines reach the colony's remotest frontiers.

A great expanse of the northern plains are vast soli

No cottages spot their surface, no fields mark their plateaus, no flocks rove their wilds. The voice of the plowman nor the call of the herder is ever heard. The ocean-like prairies spread off in the distance in perpetual sward, and rest in Nature's eternal sleep. The tropic sun soars over the treeless swells and leaves no shadows behind. Stars gleam out on the clear blue skies, and wink on no human face, and day dreams itself away. Flowers bud and bloom, but cheer no eye. Birds carol their melodies to space's vacant ear. It is lone land.

Over these broad areas kangaroos roam in thousands, moving like black clouds over the plains, undisturbed by the hunter's bullet, and safe from aboriginal spear.

Within civilization's border-line the squatter's rude hut may be found, and out in the dreary void an isolated telegraph station occasionally seen.

These unoccupied lands will furnish homes for England's children for ages to come, and many Britons, now unborn, will tenant these unpopulated reservations.

Brisbane-the Queensland capital-is an active city, near the mouth of the Brisbane River, within twenty-five miles of the ocean's breaking rollers. It is the centre of a large trade with the coast towns, interior villages, cattle ranches, sheep "runs," cane mills, and grain farms of the plains, and from it emanate railroads into the distant settlements.

The port has an outlet into the Oceanic islands, and tropic fruits and sugars are exported throughout the Australias. The warm climate makes shade a luxury.

These sunny plains of the antipodes have reared a population strikingly like the people in the Western States of America-strong in limb, tall in stature, muscular in frame, and ruddy in complexion. The English type of countenance is preserved, but the Australias are gradually developing a nationality of their own.

Conditions have formed customs, surroundings have molded characteristics, and occupation has influenced impulses.

The colonial-reared population have a distinct type of character that "savors of the soil," and are also a noticeable physical departure from the physique of their kinsmen in the British Isles.

The English colonists from the Old Country retain their allegiance to the Crown, when that allegiance does not conflict with their personal interests.

But the young Colonials, who have grown up in Australia, have developed a spirit of local independence and a pride of nativity that regards their home continent as their rightful sovereignty.

Australian nationality has been steadily growing in the people. The neglect of the English Government to recognize Australia as an equal part of the British Empire, and its scorn of colonial claims to peerage promotion, have chilled the breasts of many of Australia's ambitious aspirants to the honors and emoluments of advancement.

The elevation of British sons to positions of eminence and the relegation of Australia's patriots to the footstool of obscurity has not expanded colonial loyalty. The appointment of English favorites over the heads of Australian talent to colonial governorships has not strengthened Australian affection for the Crown.

Many colonists have wearied of British domination over colonial legislation, and yearned for freedom from English interference and direction. The failure of the British Government to provide adequate naval protection,

« ПредишнаНапред »