Page images
PDF
EPUB

"the man must have been made destitute to only just raise the money." It was clear enough that the word destitute, or the feeling that word excited in John, caused him to go back from Melbourne with those two bits of worthless paper in his pocket.

But we are at Highatt's Dairy Farm, close to the Barwon, a good substantial building, with other nearly as good and substantial out-buildings, all of them of stone. From Geelong it is ten miles, and I had been told it was six; and had it not been for my guide, what a wearisome walk it would have seemed. This was a pig-station as well as a dairy, and no small number of swine, old and young, ran about almost everywhere. John said there were three hundred. I saw the dairy, a spacious cool room, the floor well lined with rows of zinc milk vessels, broad, shallow and long. From this farm they send abundantly butter by the steamer to Melbourne Market. The pigs are to be killed, salted, and barrelled for export. From Mr. Highatt's other farm, a very fine rich black-soiled one, corn and potatoes are sent most abundantly to Geelong and Melbourne.

Hence, after a rest, and the refreshment of tea at noon, with benedictions on Australia's behalf and our own, on the good Chinese, and on our hostess also, not for her tea alone, but for the fresh golden-hued butter, and the really beautiful damper, we continued our course two miles further to the Swiss vineyards. These I had long purposed to visit. I had been told that fifty Swiss peasants had here located themselves; and consequently I had come with enlarged ideas of the extensiveness of their operations. Of the rumoured fifty only were there three ; and amongst these there had been division. Two separate vineyards a mile from each other was the consequence. The first we approached was the recent one; yet with newly-set vine-cuttings looking promising enough, it could not be more than three or four acres in extent. The next we found to be the vineyard ! One of the proprietors, a gentleman from Neufchatel, only proved to be at home. His cottage of wood-picturesque as it should be outwardly-was not yet, as most likely it will be, overgrown with vines covering it entirely. Inwardly it was rustic enough-hung everywhere with domestic utensils, garden and vine-dressing implements, and chequered all over with dried plants, or with parcels of garden-seeds. But in the vineyard and the sweet garden was the treat. In what luxuriant, diamonded rows were the vines growing-many of the new green shoots from five to ten feet high. Everywhere was evidence of industry and skill. The vineyard was seen to great advantage, lying before you at a glance, covering broadly the rich

[ocr errors]

slopes of a hill. In one part, where the soil seemed chalky, the vines were stunted and seemed poor; but the vine-grower observed that from such soil they would have the best wine. He pointed out to me with evident pride a small vine-tree, as an object of great interest: That,” said he, "is a Burgundy." The vineyard was kept in the neatest possible order, all the taller trees being tied with rushes to upright poles. In the garden were abundance of vegetables; but what delighted me most was to meet with so many old and dear friends amongst the flowers-the richly-blowing balsams, passion-flowers, &c.,whilst the scent of thyme, and other homely cottage-garden smells, made me feel myself in England. The same associations often, no doubt, wrap their owner in a Swiss Elysium.

Here, having shown us all his sources of present gratification and of his future expectancies, he led us into the house, and there sliced up for us three or four kinds of the most delicious and fragrant melons: of these we partook, and then with thankfulness wended on our way. Such men as this our friendly entertainer, simple in their habits, unostentatious and economical in their mode of living, respectable and industrious, are an acquisition to any country. The land possessing such, and blest with good laws, must flourish. He spoke with evident gratification of several visits paid him by Mr. La Trobe. Such men deserve encouragement; and Mr. La Trobe is just the kind of intelligent patron to stimulate and encourage them by his kindly approbation. Such a vineyard as this, although small in itself, is a noble and important one as a commencement: the forerunner of rich Australian vintages, which will hereafter

"In Bacchanal profusion reel to earth,
Purple and gushing."-BYRON.

On my way back to Geelong I took another road and crossed a small stream called the Morable, ascending along pleasantly at the foot of the Morable Hills. Here at Fyan's Ford is a tastefullybuilt stone house, used as an inn, in one of the most romantic spots imaginable: the inn, verandahed and terraced, with rocks about it-with the not alder-shaded but gum-tree-shaded river in front, and a long, winding road-track seen for miles ascending the ranges, make a very pretty kind of Derbyshire picture; I could have thought myself in Matlock Dale.

I reached Geelong in the evening, having progressed to and fro thirty miles. With the neighbourhood I had been much pleased, and with the locality of Geelong itself no one can be undelighted. The knoll on which North Corio is built over

looking its arm of the Port Phillip Bay, stretches out bold and bare, seven miles from Point Henry, projecting far into the inland sea of Port Phillip. South Corio is half a mile, perhaps, beyond a gentle ascent on which stand alone the church and a courthouse; the pleasant mount wooded, gracefully overlooking both South and North Corio, the principal portions of Geelong. These knots of houses and Barwon Terrace also display many excellent establishments, both town and suburban. The country is smooth, delightfully undulated; and its woodlands are of the richest character, principally she-oak. This place is secondary only to Melbourne; has progressed wonderfully; and should this country become more prosperous, must at no distant date almost equal its more fortunate prototype, the metropolitan city of Australia Felix.

Perhaps Geelong was seen by me at its best, just at the races ; for the next day, when the bell rang to announce the departure of the steamer for Melbourne by which I returned, all the beach was alive with holiday people. The steamer was thronged not only with gay passengers, but with stately carriages and horses, going the nearest, most expeditious, and least expensive way home again. Not only had the steamer store of gay passengers, but the unaccustomed waters were enlivened with the sound of martial music, there being a band on board.

From Geelong to Melbourne by water is between forty and fifty miles. We started at seven, or were to have done so ; touched at Point Henry to leave wool on board several ships lying at anchor there; and were at Melbourne by two o'clock. I had been out nearly three days.

"To

On my way from Melbourne to Geelong I had met many a large flock of sheep; and, repeatedly asking the question of whither they were bound, received uniformly one answer, the Melbourne Melting Establishment." Day after day, flock after flock, thousands on thousands were pouring in from every part of the country-sheep, and not only sheep but cattle-all to one never-satisfied vortex, that leviathan devourer of cattle and sheep, the Melbourne Melting Establishment. Nay, there are many melting establishments in Melbourne, and at Geelong also. At one place in Melbourne, when I came away, they announced that they would alone melt down three thousand sheep per week. The reader will naturally inquire for what the sheep are melted down? The answer must fill every one with pain, that all this mass of animal life is sacrificed for the fat solely. So murderous a system did this seem, such a wanton waste of food-food of which thousands and tens of thousands

M

of our hungering fellow-creatures were destitute-such a violation did it seem of God's universal economy, that as I afterwards moved along through the sheep districts, I no longer looked upon the shepherds and their flocks with pleasure: all the poetry of pastoral life had died in me, it had faded utterly from the country: the sheep-bells had a melancholy and funereal sound. How different had been my sensations and reflections on my way, a few months before, towards the eastern_mountains! I thought not then of melting establishments-I gazed on the pastoral vocation as a felicitous one, serving at once God and man; communicating the goodness of one to the other. The flocks had their fleeces tinged more goldenly by the reflection of all the good these, by their growth, brought unto and diffused amongst our kind, not only in their growth but in their manufacture. Then there was life, human life, sustained and blessed by increased animal life and enjoyment, for food. A portion not to be contemned, not to be cast away wantonly, of the life of our fellow-creatures in that food. But I had then no feeling, no haunting sense of this miserable waste: I only saw God's goodness in the immense increase and comfort of his creatures, moving on legitimately to fit ends-to man's good; everything tending by just degrees from animal to intellectual enjoyment. All that was now at an end. And from this land, so blessed with abundance of food, and so unblessed with any inward prosperity, so abounding in many respects, and so destitute in others, the people were fast emigrating. They were rushing out of itsome to Valparaiso-some to the Cape of Good Hope-and others, not a few of them-and amongst them ourselves-to England. It is a subject of sage and deep reflection for the statesman, how the Famished and the Food are to be brought together.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE OF AUSTRALIA.
"Meanwhile, ere arts triumphant reach their goal,
How blest the years of pastoral life shall roll.”

CAMPBELL.

Ir has not been all at once that society has become artificial. Men have not at first, without reluctance, and lingeringly, renounced the wild freedom of nature, the unrestricted denizenship of wood and heath, mountain and glen, for square walls and conventional habits. How tenaciously do the gipsies, in the heart of civilised nations, cling to their out-of-door wandering

life; more eastern in that, than in their black hair, eyes, and olive complexions. The eastern life lives in them; and more inclement regions cannot chill it out of them. It cannot die. In it glows the memory, an impression descending from generation to generation, of warmer latitudes, of a blander atmosphere, of uninterrupted communion with the heavens and the earth. They bear about with them, dimmed and sullied, it is true, intimations of the regality of nature. We love to trace amongst them, mingled with much that is wretched and rude, the ease and holiday spirit of untoiling, uncaring, unshackled, primitive society. They pitch their tents, appear and disappear, as pleases them. We contemplate their mode of life with more pleasure, as it is full of the youth of the earth's history: it has more of the liberal dimensions of the poetry of life; and is the nearest approach to the pastoral. It is not poetry that has given a charm to pastoral life, no disparagement to Theocritus and Bloomfield; it is the soul of that kind of occupation that has been the inspiration and the life of all pastoral poetry.

Greece, with its heroism, poetry, its gorgeous architecture, and sculpture the land of ruined temples and statues, with all its beautiful old impersonations, is less delightful to us in these, than when we fetch luxurious pastoral images from Tempe-from Arcadie.

Yet these are nothing compared with the pastoral poetry of the Bible. We see the patriarchs sitting under palm-trees, or at the doors of their tents, and with them angel guests. The pastoral is no longer an earthy vocation: heaven has descended, and the simplest is most dignified. At once is present to us all the plenitude of the most princely occupation: the whole land is studded with flocks of sheep, with groups of shepherds, and with camels. Perhaps they feed their flocks in Dothan, in Mount Gilead, or in Carmel; whilst the Cedars of Lebanon wave in all their stately beauty to complete the picture.

Nor alone were these patriarchal sages visited by angels; they waxed strong in the land; they enlarged their worldly dominion; they increased their herds and flocks abundantly; they gathered unto themselves gold and silver; and became princes-the fathers of nations.

The land and climate of Palestine, both essentially pastoral, are felt most livingly in the pastoral history of the Bible; and in a book, universally diffused, lend a charm to every other pastoral country; most especially to Australasia, where the similarity of character is so striking.

When we take this view of pastoral life and the poetry of it,

« PreviousContinue »