UC-NRLF 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO, 
 
 AND 
 
 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO 
 
 AND 
 
 TALES AND SKETCHES, 
 
 PERCY RUSSELL, 
 
 || 
 
 AUTHOR OF "king ALFRED," "AFTER THIS LIFE," " THE LITERARY MANUAL, 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 E. A. PETHERICK & CO., 33, PATEKNOSTER ROW, E.G. 
 
 MELBOURNE: 3, ST. JAMES'S STREET. 
 
LONDOS: 
 
 Printed by George Berridge & Co. 
 179 & 180, Upper Thames Strket, e.c. 
 
1\^ 
 
 IS 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 AFFECTIONATELY TO OUR 
 
 RELATIVES 
 
 IN- 
 NEW SOUTH WALES AND YICTOEIA. 
 
INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 The growth and development of Australia and New 
 Zealand, present the last of the most important and 
 interesting problems that the world can now see solved 
 in respect to the evolution of the nation from the general 
 community. Africa, it is true, is not yet completely 
 colonised, but Africa has its own native races, and it was 
 only in the Austral worlds that there were, a generation 
 or two back, areas entirely unclaimed and vacant, soils 
 geographically removed from the practical politics of 
 Europe, and at first occupied by such, small groaps that 
 here, if anywhere, the shaping hand of the benign legis- 
 lator could work unrestrained. It was possible initially 
 to here build up communities of barmoniously co-ordi- 
 nated classes, whence all evils common to civilised life in 
 
VI INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Enrope could be wholly eliminated, and here it was 
 possible so to educate and influence the mass of the 
 people that each colony might be legislatively crystallised 
 into a miniature Christendom. The way to this realisa- 
 tion of an ideal, hitherto only dreamed of by Utopian 
 Christian legislators, was clear, and all the usual elements 
 of discord and disorder might easily have been excluded 
 prior to the epoch of responsible government. This last, 
 supplied fully by contingents of God-fearing statesmen, 
 bent on developing a true Christian polity, might, in the 
 issue, have richly crowned a work, glorious as good, and 
 fitly symbolised in the distinctive constellation of the 
 Southern Hemisphere. 
 
 It is not for me to say here how the Austral colonies 
 really stand in relation to this ideal polity, but I have 
 ventured, through the medium of an imaginary character, 
 to indicate, at all events, the direction in which much that 
 might have been splendid success has been marred by 
 incompleteness and even failure. 
 
 In case some should consider me singular and eccentric 
 in these views, I will hei^e cite writers personally un- 
 known to me, but whose plain, outspoken books have 
 greatly impressed my mind in respect to the existing 
 state of society in Australasia. 
 
 In "New Zealand of To-day," Mr. John Bradshaw 
 
INTRODUCTORY. Vll 
 
 remarks strongly on the purely sec alar system now 
 enforced in the State schools of the Britain of the 
 South. In 1885 a Bill to compel the reading of the 
 Bible in the State schools was lost by a majority of 
 32, owing mainly to the opposition of Sir Robert Stout, 
 who was not only Premier, but Minister of Education 
 and President of the Freethought Association of Dunedin. 
 Mr. Bradshaw, however, declares that the large number 
 of votes cast against Bible reading in the State schools 
 does not really represent the true state of feeling in the 
 colony. Many of the colonists side with Mr. Larnach, 
 who holds that the State interfered improperly when 
 it decreed that children should not be taught the ele- 
 ments of religion in the public schools. Mr. J. C. Firth, 
 in his book, " Our Kin Across the Sea," utters a like 
 complaint, and dilates on this advanced infidelity; and 
 Mr. Barlow, in " Kaipara," says : " Freethought has 
 taken strong root in Auckland, and I think the cause 
 is due to the expulsion of the Bible from the New 
 Zealand Government schools." 
 
 I am fully aware that over large areas under the 
 Southern Cross a very different state of things prevails, 
 but obviously the immediate outcome of purely secular 
 State schools can hardly be other than a new generation, 
 to whom religion, as understood and felt by their fathers 
 
VIU INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 and mothers, is a strange and quite extraneous thing. 
 That Theism, at all events, should be taught through the 
 medium of the schools of the State, is a proposition 
 wherein most men will agree, however widely they may 
 differ among themselves as to doctrine and sect. The 
 difference between an unsectarian Theism and secularism 
 is wide indeed, and — let doctrinaires allege what they 
 may — the end of the latter is intermittent anarchy and 
 social confusion. True religion is undoubtedly the 
 foundation of society, and when that is seriously disturbed, 
 nothing remains fixed or stable. As Chalmers says. 
 Infidelity gives nothing in return for what it takes away, 
 and, after all, without Grod or religion to what end do 
 men and women labour and live ? 
 
 In conclusion I must express my sincere thanks to the 
 Proprietors of the European Mail and the Sull News for 
 permission to reproduce "The Treasure Tree," which 
 originally appeared in those journals. 
 
 Trent House, Trent Road, 
 
 Brixton Hill, S.W. 
 1889. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 2EaU0. 
 
 A Journey to Lake Taupo 
 Ax Austral Theocracy 
 The Theasurb Tree 
 A Mad Passion 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1 
 
 43 
 
 57 
 
 113 
 
 Edward Gibbon Wakefield 
 
 Tasmania : a Sketch and a Prophecy 
 Victoria and England : a Contrast 
 
 Australian Art 
 
 United Empire 
 
 A Melbourne Tragedy 
 
 161 
 173 
 181 
 191 
 207 
 213 
 
THE BIRTH OF AUSTRALIA, 
 
 Not 'mid the thunder of the battle guns, 
 
 Not on the red field of an Empire's wrath, 
 
 Rose to a nation Australasia's sons, 
 
 Who tread to greatness Industry's pure path ! 
 
 Behold a people thro' whose annals runs 
 
 No damning stain of falsehood, force or fraud, 
 
 Whose sceptre is the plough-share — not the sword — 
 
 Whose glory lives in harvest-ripening suns. 
 
 Where, 'mid the records of old Rome or Greece, 
 
 Glows such a tale ? Thou canst not answer. Time ! 
 
 Her shield unsullied by a single crime, 
 
 Her wealth of gold, and still more golden fleece, 
 
 Forth stands Australia, in her birth sublime — 
 
 The only nation from the womb of Peace ! 
 
TALES. 
 
A JOUENEY TO LAKE TAUPO ; 
 
 OE, 
 
 THE LIFE AND OPINIONS OF THOMAS MOYLE. 
 
 I. — The Start for Lake Taupo. 
 
 The most northern of the three islands designated New 
 Zealand simply, includes in the source, basin, and valley 
 of the Waikato River some of the most beautiful scenery 
 in the southern hemisphere. Here Mount Ruapehu 
 soars up over 9,000 feet, far into the regions of perpetual 
 snow; here, too, is the frequently thundering and terrible 
 Tongariro and the famous Lake Taupo, which stretches 
 a sea-like expanse of some 30 by 20 miles, and is linked 
 to much curious and highly poetic Maori legend ; while 
 in this region we have the central thermal springs and 
 natural sanatorium of the north island, to say nothing of 
 the beautiful and matchless pink terraces which were 
 overwhelmed by the awful convulsion of June 10, 1886, 
 when from the south-western portion of the grand Tara- 
 wera mountains there burst forth the dreadful deluge of 
 
 2 
 
2 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 fire, stones, and mud whicli devastated the whole of 
 the surrounding country and quite changed the aspect of 
 nature. 
 
 In these regions the mountains are generally clothed 
 with evergreen forests, and here and there the landscape 
 has an indescribable fairy beauty and grace, due to the 
 lo\rely fern-clad ridges which, seen for the first time by 
 the newly arrived traveller, strike the imagination as 
 something entirely new. Then round Lakes Rotomahana 
 and Rotorna there are a number of great geysers, like 
 those of Iceland, throwing up magnificent columns of 
 boiling water and sometimes filling the whole sky with 
 enormous volumes of steam. 
 
 This, or something like it, mingled with sundry grim 
 tales of Maori daring and ferocity in the early days of 
 the colony, was the substance of what my friends told me 
 when I started off on a walking tour to Lake Taupo. 
 
 I was young and hopeful — I, John Maclaren — having 
 come out only a few years before to take a clerk's stool 
 in a good mercantile firm in Auckland, and was even 
 anticipating that, in the course of ten or twelve years 
 more I might be earning enough — my salary was slowly 
 progressive — to settle down a married man and become a 
 *' somebody " in the place where I had already made 
 many good friends. Moreover, there was a certain young 
 lady " saving up" for me, if nothing untoward occuiTed, 
 when suddenly misfortune came on me in the shape of 
 giddy attacks and a dimness of vision which made neat 
 and accurate ledger work simply impossible. The doctors 
 told me that I wanted fresh air and exercise and entire 
 change, that I ought to leave off working, and that unless 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. d 
 
 I did SO I should probably be invalided for life. I must 
 say this advice was much to my mind. I was a clerk 
 only because I had not seen any other way open to inde- 
 pendence, and the lady I was engaged to had set her face 
 dead against an idea of mine to try farming, for which 
 certainly I had neither experience nor skill. Once 
 colonists are settled down, as she and her widowed 
 father were, in a snug competency amid the comforts 
 of " paving and lighting," and in a home which is a 
 replica, with only agreeable variations, of one of old Eng- 
 land's middle class establishments, and " roughing " it 
 out in " the bush " seldom recommends itself. There was 
 a reasonable prospect for me in time oF getting off the 
 office stool to a comfortable easy chair in the parlour with 
 my two principals, who took a kind and an encouraging 
 interest in me, and I was now rather perplexed and de- 
 pressed on account of the present than the future. 
 
 Well, as I have hinted, my principals came round hand- 
 somely, and as business was just then " quiet," suggested 
 that I should try a walking tour to Lake' Taupo, and 
 advanced me a quarter's salary to cover expenses and pay 
 cost of lodging at a sort of boarding house they recom- 
 mended me to try when I had arrived at the great New 
 Zealand sanatorium. 
 
 All this was very nice, and I felt exhilarated and 
 restored to a degree that made me feel quite guilty of 
 deception when I wished them good-bye before starting 
 on a tour which was to change and colour the whole 
 course of my existence. 
 
 I had very ample directions with me and the names of 
 sundry hospitable settlers who would bo i*eady to give 
 
4 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 me a night's welcome and comfortable accommodation, 
 and I certainly set out in the best of spirits, while at 
 the bare thought of even temporary emancipation from 
 the ledgers I secretly hated, my eyesight seemed miracu- 
 lously improved. 
 
 T was always a lover of nature and was ever inclined to 
 exclaim, with George Lancaster, the North country poet: — 
 
 It is only a calling for cripples 
 To sit in an oflBce and write. 
 
 Nothing very special happened to me until I had got 
 quite out into what appeared to me a wilderness, but a 
 wilderness of marvellous beauty and variety. Then I 
 came on some Kauri gum diggers, equipped with their 
 curious spade-handled steel spears for probing about the 
 fallen and buried gum trees ; and I fell in with one or 
 two gossipy ne'er-do-wells, who were trying fresh fields 
 and pastures new, to meet, probably, with their usual 
 ill-luck. But it was not until I had been gone over a 
 week that the incident befell me which was the real, and, 
 indeed, the only, cause why this little sketch of my 
 experiences in visiting Lake Taupo came to be written. 
 
 I had put up for the evening at the house of a settler 
 — a very intelligent man — originally an agricultural 
 labourer who had emigrated, and who was full of tales 
 of the tough fighting with the natives in Taranaki, when, 
 in the course of our conversation, he enquired how far I 
 meant to go on the morrow. I gave him an idea. He 
 was silent, puffed away at his pipe, and then remarked — 
 " That's a longish pull, and when you've made it I don't 
 think you'll find any place to take you in." 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 5 
 
 " Oil ! " I rejoined, smiling, " I am hardened now, and 
 a bed on the ground is not a killing matter." 
 
 "It is a wild bit of country and rough, that you are 
 going through," he went on. " There was a report once 
 of gold being there, but after a small rush it all ended in 
 smoke," and he emphasised the word with a tremendous 
 puff. " Still there is a house somewhere up there, only 
 everybody except the Maoris gives it a wide berth." 
 " "Why ? " I asked, my curiosity roused. " Well, it is 
 inhabited b^ a sort of bear in the shape of a man — aye, 
 and a big bear too. He's a character ! I caught a sight 
 of him once, and he looked exactly like one of them 
 Druid chaps I once saw in a history of England. The 
 Maoris like him. One or two who have taken to tillage 
 and given up ' long pig ' are his neighbours. I believe 
 he speaks tVieir language, but he is generally held to be 
 cracked. When he heard a rumour — it was quite an idle 
 one — of a railway coming down here, he was in a fury 
 and uttered horrible threats as to what he would do if a 
 surveyor came on his land. He is an oddity all ways, 
 and one of his peculiarities is a hobby for felling trees. 
 He has built around his house a regular wall of splendid 
 Kauri logs. By the way, they are worth seeing. They 
 are all squared off, like pieces of Portland stone, some six 
 feet long or so, and built up and dovetailed in like 
 masonry. ' If we had a pah like that,' said a Maori to 
 me one day, ' your redcoats would never have got in.' " 
 
 My host had more to say about this queer old settler, 
 but I have given the salient points, and when I lay down I 
 must confess I felt an inextinguishable desire to see this 
 strange man and judge for myself ; and all that night I 
 
O AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 had a perfect niglitmare wherein Maoris and Druids, 
 mediaeval castles and pahs were jumbled up in inextric- 
 able confusion. 
 
 It may well be imagined that when I woke and 
 started on mj pilgrimage the next day to Taupo Lake^ 
 my thoughts ran much on the strange man of whom I 
 had such an extraordinary account. 
 
 II. — Struck Down. 
 
 It is always easy to distinguish that magnificent and 
 distinctive New Zealand tree, the sylvan king of the 
 Southern Cross — the Kauri pine — by its dense, dark 
 foliage as well as by its grandeur of stature and the pecu- 
 liarity that, as it mounts upward, the lower boughs die 
 off and leave the ever ascending tower of timber clear. 
 I was in a rough track winding about some eminences, 
 and now and then opening up splendid views of valley 
 and plain, of grassy plains and close woodlands. Up till 
 now I had been singularly favoured as to weather, and 
 began to calculate on reaching Taupo Lake without 
 encountering even the semblance of a storm. I was 
 already wonderfully restored in health. My eyesight 
 seemed all right again, my head was clear and cool, and I 
 felt again that I was little better than an impostor and 
 ought to be back again in the close, stuffy office at my 
 usual ledger work. " Oh, that I were rich !" I exclaimed 
 that morning, '* and that I might ever enjoy all these 
 beauties of nature !" Only I wished most decidedly for 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 7 
 
 a companion, and began to reflect that the lady of my 
 love was much in error in shrinking, as she plainly did, 
 from that close contact with Mother Earth which is the 
 necessary condition of a settler's existence. As I went 
 on I soon became conscious of a strange stillness and, it 
 seemed to me, weight in the air. Occasionally, as I 
 advanced, my view opened out and showed in the dis- 
 tance two or three mountain peaks — one, I fancied, might 
 be Tongariro, but I was by no means certain, and from 
 oae of these cloud-capped eminences there streamed f'»rth 
 a singular trail of very thick and sharply-defined 
 smoke, which cut the clear, blue sky in a strange manner 
 for anything so light and naturally soft-looking as 
 smoke. Suddenly I became aware of a rather loud chop- 
 ping noise, and, being cuiious to investigate the cause, I 
 went in the direction of the sound and in a few moments 
 saw something through an opening in the undergrowth 
 that quite arrested my steps as well as my eyes. 
 
 I looked into a little glade, where, evidently, a number 
 of fine Kauri pines had been felled, for the stumps still 
 remained, and there standing clear and cameo-like against 
 the slanting sunshine as it broke through an opening 
 from the other side, was a man of magnificent proportions 
 — I am myself by no means a pig*my — and with a head 
 like those you see in the sculptured Homers. His beard, 
 snow-white, flowed over his chest for quite a foot or so, 
 and he was now well into the trunk of a fine young 
 Kauri pine, which seemed to quiver beneath the prac- 
 tised strokes of his axe. This, then, was the strange being 
 of whom I had been told. As he now posed before me 
 he was, I thought, less bear-like than leonine, and as he 
 
« AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 chopped he appeared to be repeating to himself some- 
 thing rhythmical, only nothing exactly articulate reached 
 my ears. The tree was, I saw, about half cut through, 
 and I concluded that he meant to lay it from him, when 
 without the slightest warning, ihere was a loud concus- 
 sion in the air, a wind — I never experienced anything so 
 appallingly abrupt — smote the top of the pine, which 
 rose above most of the others and, to my unspeakable 
 horror. I saw it literally spin rapidly round on the butt 
 whence it was so nearly severed, and then, ah, then ! it 
 came down with a shock like thunder, and for a moment 
 I saw nothing ! 
 
 I am not, happily, deficient either in nerve or presence 
 of mind, and I made but a leap or two and eagerly 
 looked to see what had become of this strange woodman. 
 At first, with a thrill of thankfulness, I fancied that 
 he had enti» ely escaped, but the next moment I perceived 
 that he was entangled in the head of the tree and 
 pinned down by one of the branches. Fortunately, my 
 strength had quite returned, but before I could release 
 the prostrate man, who uttered not a sound, I was 
 obliged to find the axe and do the hardest bit of chop- 
 ping that I ever did in all my life. Then, and only then, 
 did the sufferer open his eyes and reward me with a 
 grateful look. It was now evident that he must be 
 seriously hurt, although no blood was to be seen any- 
 where, and his head and face had escaped perfectly 
 unscathed. 
 
 I had of late been a constant and, I believe, an apt 
 pupil at some ambulance lectures, and was fully able to 
 give first aid to the injured. The obvious difficulty, 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 9 
 
 however, was liow to move so bulky and heavy a man, and 
 the more so as I feared for internal injuries and fancied 
 that not a few bones had yielded to the fearful shock. 
 Presently he still farther revived, thanked me with a 
 mild and very collected voice, and drew my attention to 
 what he had noticed and I had not, namely, the fact that 
 the sky was now overcast with an ominous gloom, while 
 the upper branches of the trees were whipping about in a 
 tremendous wind. 
 
 "My house is there " — he pointed to an opening in the 
 glade. " It is quite close. If you will go for me you'll 
 find a Maori inside — a woman — that does not matter — 
 she is strong and you can get something to carry me home 
 on. I shall never walk again, I fear. And the trees will 
 henceforth be safe from me," he added, with a smile 
 which made his face, large as it was, look very childlike 
 and simple. 
 
 I lost no time, it may be readily imagined. The house 
 was easily found, standing within its strange and cyclopean 
 walls of hewn timber, and I presently hui^ied back Avith 
 a hastily improvised litter and the Maori woman in 
 charge — a fine, stalwart specimen of her race, but already 
 on the somewhat haggard middle age period of what had 
 once been considerable personal attractions. I wasted no 
 time in useless questions, and in a few minutes we were 
 on our way back, carrying our heavy burden as carefully 
 as possible, and just as we got inside the house, the storm, 
 of which fitful gusts had warned us, broke in appalling 
 fury overhead and a blaze of blinding lightning filled the 
 whole place. 
 
 I am not, as will presently appear, writing a mere 
 
10 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALKS AND SKETCHES. 
 
 sensational stoiy, romance or novel, but a history of a 
 very strange man and a still stranger life — a bit of real 
 human drama — that, but for the accident of my walking 
 tour to Taupo Lake would never have been known 
 perhaps, and, therefore, I shall not linger over artistically 
 devised interludes, or dressing up for startling situa- 
 tions, but pass on rapidly to give simply what is salient 
 and essential to enable the reader to comprehend what is 
 to come, only premising that that something is well 
 worthy of thoughtful attention. 
 
 All idea of proceeding to Lake Taupo was for the 
 present abandoned by me, as the injured man expressed a 
 strong desire that I should remain with him. He had 
 evidently taken what is popularly called " a great fancy'* 
 to me, and I soon found him to be both original and 
 eccentric. He told me that no doubt I had heard of his 
 " bad character " and "misanthropy." " But the truth is," 
 he went on, " I have preferred much to be alone here. I 
 have found in the productions of the natural world around 
 me in this place an ample fund of material to employ 
 myself. Moa, the Maori woman, does all the domesticities 
 needed, and, until this totally unexpected calamity, I 
 have been living free and contemplative, and utterly 
 oblivious of the date of the year or even the month, and 
 very often of the name of the day itself." It struck me, 
 very soon after my introduction to the proprietor of this 
 strange house in the wilderness, that there must be some- 
 thing unusual about him, and every hour I spent with 
 him confirmed the impression more and more. 
 
 The ' effects of the deplorable accident that had 
 attended our first introduction to each other, rendered 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 11 
 
 liim greatly dependent on aid, and he frankly confessed 
 that I pleased him much as a nurse. He told me that he 
 had, in the pride of his physical strength, never contem- 
 plated what he called his humiliating defeat, and at last 
 one day he said plainly, that if I would consent to stay 
 with him I should be well rewarded. " It won't be for 
 very long," he remarked dreamily. " I know better than 
 any doctor what will be the effects of this accident, and if 
 you like to make up your mind to throw in your lot here, 
 I can, I think, make it worth your while." He saw I 
 hesitated — as, indeed, was only natural, I think, at such a 
 startling proposal — and then he went on, " This accident 
 has been a sort of judgment on me for my self-sufficiency. 
 I thought I had ordered all things so well as to be abso- 
 lutely self-contained and self-supporting, and dreaded 
 nothing but the coming of a railway " — and, wrecked and 
 impotent as he now was, he laughed aloud — " but I have 
 been rebuked by a gust of wind and a slip of an axe, 
 which tool I thought I had perfected. Do you know I have 
 got Moa, the Maori woman here, to spread her fingers 
 out on a log, and have struck fair and straight between 
 more quickly than you could count them ! Ahem ! That's 
 all over now. But I dread your going, my boy. You 
 mustn't do your good by halves. If you stay by me till 
 the end, I'll adopt you as the old Romans did sometimes, 
 and you won't find the heirship half a bad thing." He 
 was silent a moment, while I fear I looked on him with 
 anything but a properly grateful expression of face, and 
 then muttered half to himself, " I have done a good many 
 eccentric things in my time, why not one more ? " 
 
12 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 III. — A House in the Wilderness. 
 
 It was not long before I somehow settled down into 
 what was to me a very novel form of existence. I was 
 astonished at myself for yielding to the solicitations of 
 my singular host, and still more astonished at the readi- 
 ness wherewith I fell into the ways and routine of nursing. 
 Something to me, at least, was very fascinating about this 
 old man. He was a crippled giant to my imagination, and his 
 Tenerable beard and large, bold features reminded me of a 
 sculptured Moses that had much taken my youthful fancy. 
 
 Much has been finely written in novels about love 
 between the sexes, but I think no adequate pains have 
 been taken to paint the development of friendship. At 
 all events, I know not how or why, a strong friendship 
 sprung up within me towards this lonely old man, and 
 although with each day I knew well that I ought to be 
 up and off, I had really no power, or inclination it may 
 be supposed, to stir, and settled down to the routine of 
 quite a new life to me with an apathetic contentment that 
 was born of the powerful but subtle fascination this old 
 man exercised over all within his immediate influence. 
 
 The house, castle-like in its solidity, was quite sur- 
 rounded by a high wall of squared and masonry-like 
 Kauri logs, and inside there was a quaint old-w^orld look 
 about the aii'angements which struck me, colonial bred, 
 as remarkaMe. The old man had one room specially his 
 own, filled with old books, many folios strange to me, 
 ancient car\ ed furniture, such as is rarely to be seen in 
 the Austral world ; and in his conversation he often fell 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 13 
 
 into disquisitions on subjects quite new to me, and in 
 whicli I could hardly follow what certainly seemed at the 
 time rather rambling discourses. 
 
 The more I knew of Thomas Moyle, for that was the 
 name of this singular recluse, the more he interested 
 and, at the same time, surprised me. Except for the 
 crippling consequence of his late misfortune, which had 
 deprived him of the use of his legs, he now seemed little 
 the worse, and he delighted, I could see it plainly, more 
 and more in my society. He had a raised bed made 
 under a window in one of the rooms, so as to enable 
 him to look out on a little shrubbery or plantation he 
 had formed within his walls of Kauri pine. Here grew 
 an abundance of the luxuriant Tara ferns, with their 
 edible roots, and a fine vine climbed about and over the 
 verandah. Some English flowers had been planted here, 
 Avhich gave colour to what was a beautiful shady retreat, 
 filled with a tremulous green light, except when the noon 
 sun poured directly down. Moyle had been, he told me, 
 an enthusiastic gardener, and was fond of repeating that 
 a garden, which he called " an Eden to the wise," had 
 always been the inclination of kings and the choice of 
 philosophers, for, as he added, when Epicurus taught that 
 pleasure was the chief est good, " he in a garden's shade the 
 sovereign pleasure sought." 
 
 Day by day I discovered in Moyle some new and amiable 
 trait, and it was to me a marvel how such a man could 
 have been thus buried in the utter obscurity of this wild 
 retreat. 
 
 Little by little Moyle had elicited from me the simple 
 facts and circumstances of my commonplace and un- 
 
14 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 eventful life, and one day lie asked me abruptly why I 
 did not send for Miss Mercer (that was the name of the 
 young lady I considered myself engaged to) and marry 
 her! 
 
 He Faw my look of astonishment and smiled. " I sup- 
 pose she would not consent if we asked her," he remarked. 
 " It is but one more instance of the fact that we are, all 
 of us, enslaved by a thousand artificial restraints on our 
 personal freedom. If we were but free, we might, perhaps, 
 be happy* I came myself into this vdlderness in search of 
 liberty, and this bed on which I am now lying shows how 
 I have fared in that direction." He had began lightly, but 
 he ended with evident emotion, and we were both silent. 
 Presently he went on : " It is selfish of me, I know, to 
 keep you hei e. I ought to be altruistic — you know the 
 cult, I dare say, of the Positivist idiots — and endow you 
 with everything I have, and send you on your way 
 rejoicing. Well, well, my boy, wait a while. But if you 
 like to marry, and the lady will consent, why, have her 
 here as soon as possible. I would the house had some 
 youth and beauty in it. I dare say the lady is young and 
 pretty, eh?" 
 
 What could one say to speech like this ? Moyle amazed 
 me more and more, and yet withal I had an instinctive 
 feeling that he held something in reserve, which I began 
 to long and yet still dreaded to know. 
 
 What more perplexed me, perhaps, was the fascination 
 this helpless old man exercised over me. All along I 
 had felt that I ought to pass on and go my wa}^, but I 
 was utterly impotent to put the resolution into execution. 
 He seemed to hold me to his side by a kind of spell, 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 15 
 
 which I could not in the least resist. He had, in a 
 manner, taken possession of me and appropriated me, as 
 it were, for his own. My friends at considerable trouble 
 and some expense, sent me urgent remonstrances to 
 return, and Miss Mercer herself wrote a letter, which I 
 considered exceedingly unkind and stupidly sarcastic, 
 wherein she remarked that no doubt 1 found the Maori 
 charms of Mr. Moyle's establishment too great an 
 attraction to leave me any inclination for going back to 
 humdrum business and civilised recreations, and more in 
 the same strain, and yet all the time I knew well that if 
 the writers had only come under the personal influence of 
 this strange old man, under the same circumstances as 
 I had, they would most likely have stayed with him as I 
 was doing then. 
 
 There was such a depth of genuine and sympathetic 
 feeling in Moyle's warm, brown eyes, such a tenderness 
 in the gentle curve of his full-lipped mouth, so far as it 
 could be seen amid the bush of his venerable beard ! 
 
 ly. — An Adopied Son. 
 
 How rapidly one's ideas alter sometimes with changed 
 ■circumstances. Something, I know not what, seemed to 
 draw me more to this strange old man, and I resigned all 
 concern in my former liie without a pang or a^egret. I 
 knew well that by my friends and acquaintances I was 
 given up as a lost man — one who had by some wild 
 eccentricity, little short of downright lunacy, suffered 
 
16 AITSTRALTAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 himself to be drawn into the service of one who, I found, 
 ■was held by many to be a mad old settler. I, John 
 Maclaren, who had such excellent prospects, and might 
 in time expect to graduate from clerk to junior partner, 
 had now sunk into the low position of a male nurse and 
 unsalaried attendant to one who. Miss Mercer assured me, 
 in one of her remonstrative letters (for had she not made 
 very careful enquiries ?), was commonly held to be a mad 
 old man, who could get no one to consort with him but 
 Maoris as mad and as savage and morose as himself. 
 
 Then there was another spell cast over me by Thomas 
 Moyle. As I have confessed, I was, when I went on my 
 fateful walking tour to Lake Taupo, but an ordinary 
 well-informed nineteenth century young man of the 
 middle class, devoted to mercantile pursuits. As we 
 settled down to a sort of daily routine, new developments 
 came. Moyle was a great smoker, and had a large stock 
 of choice tobacco. He delighted in his pipe, and during 
 the afternoon and evening, he would discourse to me for 
 hours on all imaginable topics under the sun, interrupted 
 only by the Maori woman, who would bring us in our 
 evening meal. I literally sat at the feet of the old sage, 
 as though he had been another Gamaliel, and I eagerly 
 drank in a flood of information, mostly new and strange 
 to me, respecting the past, present, and sometimes, in a 
 speculative sense, the future of the human race. !N'ow 
 and then some old tattooed Maori would pay us a solemn 
 ceremonial kind of visit, accept with great deference a 
 gift of tobacco, and exchange with the utmost delibera- 
 tion some sentences in Maori with Moyle. Other visitors 
 we had none. 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 17 
 
 Although now quite paralysed as to the lower limbs, 
 Moyle was in all respects apparently hale and hearty, and 
 somehow he seemed to gain day by day more and more 
 placidity in his features and to assume quite a different 
 aspect from that he had at first borne at oui first strange 
 introduction to each other. He had certainly a venerable 
 aspect ; age seemed to rest with a becoming grace upon 
 his somewhat large features, and to my fancy, as I listened 
 to his daily disquisitions, he appeared to bear in his face 
 and brow the signs of a well-spent life. Was I mistaken? 
 Well, we shall see soon enough. 
 
 As I have already hinted, this is not exactly a fictitious 
 narrative, and this must be my apology for not " dressing 
 up" the incidents thereof in the approved way of the 
 sensational fiction of the day. In real life some things 
 seem to occur in an isolated manner ; some courses of life 
 lead to true no thoroughfares, and in now reproducing 
 the main incidents of the life of Thomas Moyle, I adhere 
 as much as practicable to his own words. The story was 
 told me a bit at a time in the course of our afternoon and 
 evening dialogues, when " work " was over and we blew 
 the "cloud of peace" together. We had quite come to fill 
 the relations of father and son, and it seemed to afford 
 him much satisfaction to explain the present circum- 
 stances in which I found him by revealing his singular 
 past history, which he insisted was only due to me if I 
 consented to abandon my own career and take him at his 
 word and cast in my lot with his. 
 
 It would be, however, tiresome to give the story as it 
 was told to me in many snatches, and I have therefore, 
 with what little skill I have, thrown the whole together 
 in a connected form. 3 
 
18 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 V. — The Life of a Would-be Reformer. 
 
 There can be no doubt that I was a strange child. At 
 eight I was caught saying that something had happened 
 "when I was young," and two years later I startled my 
 mother — a dear, good-souled, but perfectly matter-of-fact, 
 unimaginative woman — by asking her if she had ever 
 thought that " all things ended badly ? " 
 
 I had ready a string of miserable illustrations from 
 history, such as the ruins of all the ancient empires, &c., 
 but I had no opportunity for displaying this part of my 
 precocity, as I w^ell remember that my father, who had 
 overheard me, boxed my ears and told me that I should 
 end badly myself if I didn't amend my ways. My 
 parents, plain Avorking people, were neither happy in me 
 nor I in them, but — we lived in quite a rustic Bedford- 
 shire village — the vicar took much notice of me, and 
 one of his daughters gave me special care in the Sunday 
 school. I picked up, one way and the other, a desultory 
 sort of education, all odds and ends thus jumbled up 
 together, but as I grew older I took a violent dislike to 
 work in a manual sense, and to tools, which will surprise 
 you, seeing how you found me chopping down trees. Ah, 
 me, just one too many ! 
 
 I displayed, all at once, great aptitude for drawing, 
 and somehow the vicar and his daughter, my Sunday 
 school mistress, persuaded an architect and surveyor in 
 the neighbourhood to take me as a sort of apprentice, 
 pupil, clerk and I know not what, giving me board and 
 lodging but no salary. My father and mother both died 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 19 
 
 soon after, leaving but a trifle for me, and I was quite 
 alone in tlie world. Althongli born of and really one of 
 tlie people, as I now admit, I was very different then, and 
 mncli of my youthful ambition lay in the clothes-horse 
 direction so scathingly satirised by Carlyle, and I looked 
 forward to being well dressed and becoming engaged 
 to some young lady — emphatically such — and there my 
 ambition at that time ended. I did not gaze so far as 
 marriage. "Well, I am confessing everything; and after 
 all, I dare say I was not so very different then from the 
 majority of young fellows of my age. 
 
 By this time I had grown skilful as a draughtsman 
 but a friend suggested that I might add to my income, 
 which was at this period very small, by " doing an 
 article" for the local paper; and as I had always been, 
 on the whole, a studious and reading youth, I had taught 
 myself, as I then thought, the art of composition out of 
 some grammar that dealt with the subject rather fully. 
 I tried my hand. My early attempts were poor things 
 enough, but they somehow got into print, and from 
 one thing to another, I fell at last into a course of 
 journalism. I removed to Exeter, where an opening on 
 a rather good paper presented itself, and, laying aside 
 the office work of my old master, I soon found myself a 
 member of the Fourth Estate. 
 
 Thus far I had not done badly, and as my rise was 
 mainly due to my own exertions, as I fondly fancied, and 
 my inborn ability, I ought to have continued in the same 
 course. My idle desire to be *'the human clothes-horse" 
 satirised by Carlyle had long ago departed, and I was 
 really settling down into a steady, industrious course, which 
 
20 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALKS AND SKETCHES. 
 
 should have at last conducted me to an honourable inde- 
 pendency, when I had the misfortune, or, let me say at 
 once, the misery — well, I cannot find a fitter phrase than 
 the threadbare and hackneyed one — to fall in love. The 
 object of my new passion, which changed my whole 
 destiny and has landed me here and chained you to the= 
 side of a crippled, baffled, and, in some things, as you 
 will see, foolish old man, was the second daughter of 
 an Exeter physician, a very proud, reserved, austere man, 
 who lived beyond his means and regarded "newspaper 
 men" as entirely beneath his social notice. 
 
 I am not writing a novel, but simply telling a story,. 
 and one, I admit, with a purpose, so I pass over all that 
 is irrelevant to the main issues of my confessions. 
 
 We were married, and, much against the advice of her 
 relatives and friends, Lily Stanton became my wife. 
 
 We were then most decidedly in love. I had obtained 
 a month's vacation, and for that brief period life to us was 
 Elysian. Lily was fond of quiet, restful, contemplative 
 and refined enjoyments, and as she was then to me my all 
 in all, everything went well. But, alas ! here again my 
 childish touch of philosophy that everything ends badly 
 was soon realised. I went back to work, and stimulated 
 by a new-born ambition, applied for and obtained a post 
 in London, where I was to be both editor and sub-editor, 
 and, in consideration of getting up a whole paper, to 
 receive what seemed to me a very large salary. This 
 was the beginning of all my misfortunes, but at first 
 everything seemed very bright indeed. 
 
 At that time I was young, ardent and impulsive. T 
 verily believe that on returning from the honeymoon my 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 21 
 
 real affection for Lily was miicli increased, but I suppose 
 there is a strong strain of the practical in my nature, and 
 I said to myself, " N'ow is ihe time for work, now is 
 the time to achieve something." I was intellectually 
 ambitious, and had even then worked out the path I 
 fondly fancied would lead at once to distinction and to 
 well-doing in a truly philanthropic aspect. I was 
 entirely dissatisfied with all existing systems of govern- 
 ments and with the accepted principles and canons of 
 political economy; especially was I dissatisfied with such, 
 to me, horrible things as competition and the survival of 
 the fittest. 
 
 I employed all my thoughts and my leisure, which 
 latter was exceedingly limited, on the subject of social 
 evils of all kinds, and sought to discover why it was that 
 a so-called Christendom was so very unchristian in its 
 practices. I was soon sharply pulled up. An opening 
 occurring, as I fancied, in one of my articles for touching 
 on these topics, I did so, but very slightly and cautiously. 
 The effect was very marked, but not at all in the way I 
 had expected. The proprietors, as it happened, never 
 noticed the change I had made, but some one of those 
 officious, unfeeling, thoughtless persons who never think 
 about consequences to others, wrote direct to my em- 
 ployers, and as a result I was "warned" that a repetition 
 of the offence Avould be deemed tantamount to my 
 resignation. 
 
 This galled me greatly. I was young then and 
 inexperienced, and opposition always made me more 
 resolute in those days to carry out any end I had set 
 before me. 
 
22 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 I now Systematically studied sociology, and found it 
 in all ways intensely fascinating. I read up all the 
 authorities on both sides, and especially did I study 
 Saint Simon, Louis Blanc, Henry Carey, that enlightened 
 American political economist, who, after all, is the 
 original Heniy George, and a host of others. I took 
 copious notes of all that I read, and converted these notes- 
 into texts, whereon I began to compose essays ; and as I 
 all this time quite faithfully carried out my ordinary 
 duties, it may be readily imagined that I had not any 
 time to myself. 
 
 I quite admit that at this time my wife and home, and 
 even our only child, were all completely neglected. I 
 rose early, which my wife resented much, as it woke her 
 " at an unearthly hour," and I was the last in bed, and 
 again made her cross, as I had then had the misfortune 
 to rouse her, as she put it, out of "her beauty sleep. "^ 
 When I returned from the toil whereby we lived I was 
 not, I confess, in a light or recreative mood. All the way 
 home I had been working hard at my social problems, 
 and little passed my lips on arriving, as I was impatient 
 to get to my books and desk, and to resume what I fondly 
 called my magnum opus. "Well, Lily, how have you 
 been ? Anything new ? " was frequently all I said, and 
 yet even now, after the lapse of so many memory-dulling 
 years, I affirm that within I was at that period actually 
 growing fonder and fonder every day of my wdfe. Unfor- 
 tunately she was unable, and indeed unwilling, to enter 
 into my plans for the reform of governments, and she even 
 let me know that she considered me extremely foolish to 
 waste my time and strength and deprive myself of all 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 23 
 
 pleasure for what she believed to be a kind of insane 
 dream. I urged on her that she should go about and see 
 things and visit her friends, and when she declared that 
 she had none in London, I advised her to make acquaint- 
 ance with the neighbours and to interest herself in school 
 and church work. 
 
 I believed at this time, in my eggregious folly, that 
 before very long I should be fully recognised as a great 
 social reformer and popular leader, and that, wafted high 
 upon the wave of democratic enthusiasm, we should find 
 our lives revolutionised ; that enthusiastic friends would 
 spring up all around us and that henceforth our way 
 would be plain and easy. How I have laughed at myself 
 since ! Lily was very different from me. She looked the 
 embodiment of a dream of some fair woman, a poet's ideal 
 outwardly, whereas she was, indeed, what I was not then, 
 practical and full of strong common sense, and, unfortu- 
 nately for us both, she had a spice of obstinacy. She was 
 one of the best, the kindest and dearest of women. 
 I confess that she sometimes made me feel in secret 
 ashamed, for she, in spite of her refinement and her 
 scrupulous carefulness in attire, would pick up and nurse 
 some poor stray sick animal and make it well again in 
 most cases, with a skill that would have won the admira- 
 tion of any veterinary surgeon ; and she was just as 
 tender and sympathetic to human beings in trouble or 
 distress. Still, she was peculiar in this, that she would 
 rarely associate herself with others, but remained alone and 
 ministered in secret. I did in those dreadful dark days, 
 as they soon became, sometimes feel qualms of con- 
 science, and even wondered whether I was not, after all, 
 
24 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 only a paltry paper philanthropist, while Lily, who pre- 
 tended to nothing at all, was really doing something ; bnt 
 then at such times of introspective doubt, I would read 
 over some of my more perfervid declamations on the 
 rights of man and evil of governments as at present con- 
 stituted, and I soon qaieted my mind for the time. My 
 wife had an uncle married, with a large family of 
 grown-up daughters, and in the country one or two other 
 relatives similarly circumstanced. I was always in 
 hopes that she would have some of these young relatives 
 to visit us, bnt, as may be imagined, they preferred when 
 they did leave home to go to houses where there was 
 something like a population. My wife would not move 
 in this matter, and I dared not do so, because I felt »ure 
 that she would wrong me by imagining that 1 preferred 
 the society of others to hers. It will generally be found 
 that in matters like these, as in others, those who want 
 the least obtain the most. It did gall me sometimes 
 when my wife read out from letters that so-and-so had 
 gone on a visit to such a place instead of coming to us, 
 where they might have wrought such incalculable and 
 enduring good and where a new face w^ould have been as 
 sunshine breaking through the deepest gloom. 
 
 Ah ! those were terrible and fearful days, and I even 
 now recall them thus faintly with a shudder. Often and 
 often did I meditate casting my great work aside and 
 trying to be as others, but as everybody knows, habits 
 are fearful things tj break when once formed, and at this 
 time I seemed to have grown into a sort of habit of 
 solitary work, whence I strove vainly to break away. 
 Lily, too, did not help me. She had now settled down into 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKP] TAUPO. 25 
 
 a kiod of permanent disappointment plainly expressed in 
 every lineament, but never allowed verbal expression. 
 She was chilling, and oh ! so quiet and still that some- 
 times I would slam the door and throAV the chairs about 
 in the room where I worked in a sort of mad revolt, im- 
 potent as mad, against the nnendurable reproach of this 
 patient, voiceless bearing of one whom I felt in my secret 
 conscience I had nsed so hardly ; and yet all the time, so 
 cnrious is the working of the human mind, I felt angry 
 too, and considered that Lily was cruelly unsympathetic 
 in not aiding me forward in my great work by continual 
 encouragement ! 
 
 Well, well, these are painful confessions, and they 
 would not be made did I not deem them due as retribu- 
 tive humiliation on the part of an unhappy man who is 
 constrained to relate all this by an inward uncontrollable 
 prompting to tell all and set everything down without 
 the least bias orte way or the other. 
 
 But enough for the moment of this. Let me return to 
 facts, which are, after all, the realities of life. T brought 
 my big book into what I fondly thought a pitch of perfec- 
 tion. I cannot now conceive how, with my other practical 
 qualities, I could have been such an idiot as to think for 
 one moment that such a work would be of the least avail ; 
 but we are blind to oar failings, and I suppose I was full 
 of a foolish pride to see how vast my literary child had 
 grown. I now submitted the work with most pleasurable 
 expectations to a good publisher, and coming as it did 
 from a professional writer, it was well received, and a 
 careful scrutiny promised. For a few days I was in the 
 seventh heaven. I fancied that the volume would be 
 
26 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 accepted, produced with hot haste, reviewed by all the 
 leading papers, and cited in the House of Commons, and 
 I don't know what besides. Of course all this was very- 
 childish and egotistical ; but then think what I had done 
 in the way of work. I had really put my very soul and 
 all my domestic enjoyment and happiness that might 
 have been, into this infernal book — for infernal it was 
 soon to prove. Then, too — for I can write coolly of these 
 matters now — there was really a prodigious quantity of 
 thorough painstaking toil in the thing. It was, indeed, 
 a vast library of the whole literature of sociology boiled 
 down and squeezed into one enormous book. I was not 
 long in suspense. The publishers wrote asking me to 
 call. I went eager for, and expectant of, complete triumph. 
 The senior partner of the firm, a mild looking, bald man, 
 wearing spectacles and speaking in a singularly soft voice, 
 received me and said, pointing to my gigantic pile of 
 manuscript on the chair, " Is that really your work P " 
 I assured him most emphatically that it Avas. " Then," 
 he went on, "I recommend you to burn it and try to 
 forget that you were ever so foolish as to waste valuable 
 time and toil over a book that nobody wants." I was 
 indignant and protested, but he went on, in his even, 
 ambling tone — I think I hear him now : '' It is an ency- 
 clopaedia of Socialism ; no one would ever read it without 
 being paid for the job, and it will ruin anybody who tries 
 to publish it so far as it goes. If you have anything new 
 to say, for God's sake, young man, say it in a 32-page 
 pamphlet. I and our reader are amazed that anybody in 
 these days could be such an idiot as to produce a book of 
 the kind; no one wants it. It is really so much waste 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 27 
 
 paper." I was in a towering passion by tliis time, and 
 declared that lie was exceedingly rude, and marched off 
 with my four or five pounds weight of MS. Well, I tried 
 all the publishers, and not one of them would take the 
 work, and most of them added that they would not issue 
 it if paid for doing so. I don't know what demon pos- 
 sessed me, but somehow a species of insane fury fastened 
 on me for a time and I became, to a certain extent, an 
 irresponsible agent. 
 
 When I look back now I am amazed that I could ever 
 have been such an idiot as to suppose that the world 
 really wanted such a work. I might as well have striven 
 to popularise a digest of Roman law. For many days I 
 was by turns morose and irritable to the last degree, and 
 without having any intention or animus^ I suppose I spoke 
 to Lily very much like the mixture of bear and tiger that 
 I had unconsciously become. Alas ! she did not reflect, and 
 she did not hear or see me when quite alone, or she would 
 never have so foolishly imagined that my splenetic, short, 
 and perhaps, at times, brutal manner, had any reference 
 to her. Language, unfortunately, is at times totally in- 
 adequate to correct errors of this kind, and moreover we 
 were both of us proud, sullen, and, in truth, sulky, full of 
 cross purposes, and no doubt each cruelly wronging the 
 other. It is indeed curious how completely under certain 
 abnormal conditions those very qualities that per se draw 
 individuals to each other, will sometimes set up a violently 
 rei^ulsive action. 
 
 To me at this time Lily seemed hard and unsympathetic. 
 Probably to her I seemed the same. I was constantly 
 swayed by violent gusts of passion and she by temper of 
 
28 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 quite another sort. When I was enveloped, as it were, in 
 a sort of vapour and was blind with my own heat she 
 was quiet, cool and contemptuous. From her lovely lips 
 came tlie quiet taunting phrase whose lancet-like keen- 
 ness goes to the quick ; from her lovely lips came the 
 measured sentences designed to mortify and wound my 
 self-esteem. When I raved, saying I knew not what, 
 swayed about by the gusts of passion, she would almost 
 whisper the most cutting speeches. Why had I taken 
 her away from her home and all that was dear to her ? 
 I did not want a home evidently, why didn't I stay away 
 altogether ? I was always wrapped up in foolish dreams, 
 and she might as well be alone ! It was vain for me 
 to seek to stem these quiet, almost silent flows of a sort 
 of devastating domestic lava, if I may so term it, which 
 came from her lips. Any attempt at endearments roused 
 her to a fury that was scarcely articulate, and I knew 
 not at times what to do or think. Meanwhile the book 
 remained that had indirectly occasioned all this misery, 
 and I, with a fatal, blind obstinacy resolved to issue it at 
 my own expense ! To accomplish this I determined to 
 take more work in, and as this naturally withdrew me 
 more and more from social intercourse, I fear matters 
 went worse still at home. I felt, however, more and 
 more convinced that if only the leading men of the 
 country could be once brought to read my book, which 
 focussed all that needed to be known on sociology, they 
 would no longer hesitate to set about applying the simple 
 and easy reforms that were formulated in the closing 
 chapters ! Can you conceive a more absolute infatuation, 
 a more idiotic conceit ? 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAL'PO. 29 
 
 Things were thus, and Lily hardly spoke to me, when 
 I was asked by someone who knew me as a writer if I 
 would go down to Glamorganshire and visit Caldy Isle 
 and explore what are, if I remember aright, called the 
 Boue Caverns of Paviland. A monograph was wanted on 
 the antiquities and remains of the locality, and as the 
 amount offered more than covered the sum required to 
 bring out my precious book, I consented, having hired a 
 substitute to take charge of my London paper during my 
 absence. I hardly liked to tell Lily about this, because I 
 felt guilty at going not for her sake but for that of the 
 book, which was indeed to prove a thing accursed. 
 
 Let me hurry on this unhappy narrative. On arriving 
 in Wales I found the work much beyond anything I had 
 anticipated, and on making this known my employer, to 
 my astonishment, generously offered me extra remunera- 
 tion, "as he wanted the thing thoroughly done, and 
 believed that I could do it well," and moreover agreed, 
 although I had not asked this, to bear the expense of my 
 finding a substitute for my ordinary work on the weekly 
 journal. Surely, I said to myself on receiving this unex- 
 pected reply, which contained as earnest money a cheque 
 for £20, I am in fortune's sunshine at last ! In truth 
 things began to smile, as I fancied, on me and — for this 
 is more a confession than aught else — I was inwardly 
 conscioas that my zeal for the mass of my fellows was 
 not quite so ardent as when my circumstances were worse. 
 I dismissed for the time all care — the first time I had 
 done so for years — and gave myself to the work, which 
 greatly interested me. I had to make very minute 
 examination of the coast, to penetiate into the many dark 
 
30 AUSTRA.LIA.N AND NEW ZEALIND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and dreadful caverns where, even in calm weather 
 outside, the ground swell made great booming waves, and 
 churned up fountains of ghastly spray that seemed to 
 make darkness visible, and I had to interrogate the 
 " oldest " inhabitants to elicit from them whatever of 
 tradition or folk-lore bore on the subject of my researches. 
 I had also to make rough sketches of the relics that came 
 before me, and altogether my work was undoubtedly very 
 engrossing and heavy. I lodged in the house of one of 
 the principal fishermen, and was regarded by him and 
 his family as something very extraordinary indeed. 
 
 I began my outdoor task early in the morning, and on 
 returning sat down to my literary w^ork. At first I wrote 
 every other day to Lily, but although I did not mean to 
 do so, I missed writing when the day came round, and on 
 the following I was upset in a boat when exploring one of 
 the old caverns, and had such a soaking that I hastened 
 back and went to bed and never looked even at the post 
 that had come in. It happened that in tumbling out of 
 the boat I gave my head a nasty blow^ against the rocks, 
 and what with this and a sort of low fever that super- 
 vened, I was laid up in a sort of semi- stupid state for 
 some time. When I did get round again I turned at 
 once to the letters and papers that had accumulated, and 
 then — how can I tell it? — learned that our only child 
 had been dead some days ! 
 
 "I shall not trouble you with any more letters," his 
 mother wrote, " as you do not evidently care what be- 
 comes of him or me. If you had stayed at home — where, 
 God knows, I trouble you very little with my company or 
 , conversation — ^this might not have happened, the doctor 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 31 
 
 says. It is now too late. I do not want to trouble you 
 to write. I suppose you will return when it suits your 
 convenience." This awful shock came upon me like a 
 thunder-clap. In my innermost self I had ever been 
 loyal to my wife and child, but now that this catastrophe 
 had come, I seemed to see for the first time how wrong, 
 blind and really selfish I had been. What right, de- 
 manded my conscience, had I to sacrifice their present 
 happiness to a problematical future good, and a good 
 which was mainly — I could not honestly deny it — for my 
 own personal glorification ? I did not deserve that Lily 
 should thus doubt my affection, but how was she to know 
 that my true self did not correspond with my outward 
 demeanour and my actions ? I had felt so convinced 
 within myself of my love for her that I had not hesitated 
 to neglect her utterly, because forsooth at some future 
 time possibly. Fortune might give me the means to do as 
 I liked ! I was at first as a man distracted, and the more 
 60 when, after reading that dreadful letter from home, I 
 took up another from the proprietors of the weekly paper 
 on which I now mainly depended and read, with eyes 
 that seemed blistered with the few curt lines, that my 
 substitute had been permanently engaged in my place, as 
 he had done the work much better than I, and it was not 
 possible to retain the services of one who dabbled in 
 archaeology, and was ready to leave his duties on the 
 slightest excuse ! 
 
 Truly blow had followed blow with an appalling swift- 
 ness and force. 
 
 For some time I was veritably stunned. Then I 
 recovered myself a little, and hastily gathering up all my 
 
32 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 work SO far as I had cariied it, I rushed homewards with 
 the force of a consuming fire — homewards, I say, where 
 there was now no home to receive me ! 
 
 The journey was a wild, a fierce excitement ; but on 
 approaching the house I dreaded and yet so longed to 
 reach, a strong reaction came upon me. I felt, as it were, 
 the utterly depressing chill of a crowning calamity, and I 
 knocked timidly at my own door — I had no key — and 
 stood on the threshold more like a beggar than the 
 master of the house. I hoped our maid would let me in. 
 I had an unspeakable dread of now meeting Lily, and 
 wished to be in the house first ; but no one came, and I 
 knocked louder and more impatiently. Then steps came, 
 the door opened, and Lily stood there with a strange, 
 hard, cruel look in her face, tightly compressed lips, and 
 eyes that blazed with a terrible and deadly light. I stood 
 and stared. A thousand thoughts flashed across my 
 bewildered brain. " Come in," she spoke in a hard, 
 suppressed tone. " You needn't be afraid ; the child has 
 been buried, so there is nothing disagreeable in the 
 house ! " 
 
 " Oh, Lily ! " was all I could say, and I walked 
 mechanically in. She looked at me with a contempt 
 that cut me like a whip, but as I staggered into the 
 sitting-room she disappeared, and I was alone. Oh ! how 
 I repented during those dark, lonely minutes Avhen I 
 thus regained home, which had no welcome for me, and 
 within which there seemed to my fancy a dreadful 
 atmosphere of death and desolation that blighted all 
 within its fatal influence. With the conviction that Lily 
 was, indeed, entirely estranged, all my early boyish love 
 
A JOUENEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 33 
 
 surged up liot in my veins, all my earlier tenderness 
 revived, and I felt a thousand times fonder than I had 
 ever done of old, and all the agonising time a low, fatal 
 whisper sounded within me that it was now too late. I 
 looked around. All seemed much the same as when I 
 had left that room. The change was in me and her. I 
 rang the bell for the maid, by way of doing something, 
 and judge of my amazement when, in reply to my summons, 
 in walked Lily, with the same hard, fixed look on her 
 face. We looked at each other — she sternly, fiercely 
 even, and I in sadness and sorrow inexpressible to see 
 the change that had come over one once so gentle and 
 timid. 
 
 " What did you want ? " she asked presently, still with 
 the harsh tone that accorded with her fixed stone-like 
 countenance. 
 
 " I ? Nothing now." 
 " What did you ring for ? " 
 " I rang for the servant." 
 
 " Then you must want me. There is no other servant 
 here." 
 
 " What do you mean? " I asked, amazed at her manner 
 and words. 
 
 " What I sa}^. I am the servant here as long as you 
 choose to stay or condescend to keep the house up. You 
 have deprived me of my child, and I must do something 
 or go mad. That is all." 
 
 Why did I not yield to the tender, compassionate im- 
 pulse that came surging up within and fold her to my 
 breast, and so have unlocked the fountains of blessed 
 tears that were welling up, I know, in both of us ? But 
 
 4 
 
34 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 someliow I could not tlien make tlie first advance. My 
 pride was deeply hurt. I felt keenly the injustice of 
 visiting the death of the child on me, and I turned away 
 muttering I hardly know what. 
 
 What ensued during the next few days is far too 
 agonising for me, even at this distance of time, to do 
 more than to outline as to the main facts and hasten 
 on to the crowning catastrophe. 
 
 During some days matters went on miserably. Lily 
 practically would not speak to me, and I for my part 
 unhappily wrapped myself up in my wounded pride as in 
 a garment. I quite believe that pride is a most dangerous 
 fault. I felt that Lily was now wrong, for was I not 
 longing to take her to my heart again ? It is true I did 
 not exactly admit the truth to myself that unless I 
 humbled myself she could not w^ell know what were my 
 real feelings. I called her unsympathetic, because she 
 evidently believed that the loss of our only child was but 
 a small matter to me. One day she asked me, in a con- 
 strained tone, if I did not desire some fitting monument 
 for our little boy's grave. I fear that at the time I looked 
 anything but pleased, for matters were going amiss with 
 me on all sides, and she said no more. Meanwhile, my 
 affairs became bad indeed, and I tacitly acquiesced in our 
 existing domestic arrangements, not at all seeing the 
 way to make both ends meet. Somehow — it was mad 
 obstinacy, I suppose — I grew more doggedly determined 
 than ever to bring out the big book that was to convert 
 the nation to a new theory and practice of political 
 economy. After all, I said to myself, in this temporary mad- 
 ness which descended upon me, a really great book is, as 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 35 
 
 Luther tells us, a great action. A baby boy — well, we had 
 lost him, and he might have gi^eatly disappointed both of us. 
 A book could be made much more complete, I argued, than 
 a froward child, and I resolved that, come what might, the 
 book shoald appear. I proceeded cautiously, for I did 
 not want Lily to imagine that the work was not accepted 
 on its own merits ; and as she did not, I fancied, know 
 much about such matters, I felt little doubt of keeping 
 the fact of my bearing the expense from her knowledge. 
 Do not imagine that I am not fully conscious noAv of the 
 enormity of my conduct, but read on and you will see 
 how terribly I was rebuked, and punished too, for my 
 selfishness, conceit and duplicity. One evening I had the 
 Avhole pile of MS. (and a big thing it was) before me, 
 and also an estimate from the firm who were to produce 
 the work, and as this was a formidable thing, I was 
 making a calculation whether the work might not be 
 reduced to save a sheet in the estimate. It was a chilly 
 autumn evening, and a pretty large fire was burning 
 brightly in the ample grate. I had my back to the door, 
 which had been left ajar, and before me was spread out 
 the large sheet from the publishers of their estimate for 
 printing and binding so many copies of the work. I was 
 so absorbed in the perusal of these figures that I gave 
 quite a start to discover that Lily was behind, and, as 
 I instinctively felt, reading the large document spread out 
 before me. 
 
 I knew of her presence, but in a species of moral 
 cowardice which seized me T neither moved nor spoke, 
 and presently she reached over my shoulder, took up the 
 estimate, and said just one word — "Beast!" This was 
 
36 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 too bad. I sprang up and demanded what she meant. 
 'You are one," she rejoined; "you grudge your child a 
 monument, and when we are ruined through your folly 
 you actually spend all we possess on a piece of folly 
 which will make you the laughing-stock of everybody ! I 
 thought I had married at least a man, but I find I have 
 married a selfish beast, who thinks more of his own 
 rubbishing writings than of his wife or child!" She 
 was evidently in a spasm of passion, and without the 
 least warning of what she was about to do, swept up the 
 precious MS., and, turning round, cast it right on the 
 blazing fire. 
 
 I do not know what effect her words might have had 
 on my conscience had it not been for this terrible act. 
 As well almost kill a man as kill a good book, and, 
 anyway, if my book was nothing else, it was a good book. 
 I sprang forward to rescue the precious leaves from the 
 flames, but Lily faced round in a spasm of rage and 
 pushed me off with a strength which was frightful, 
 coming from one so slender and frail. God knows I have 
 never since ceased to grieve over the horrible thing that 
 then happened. In pushing me off with her long out- 
 stretched arms, her skirt swept back right in the fire, and 
 I saw, appalled, before she in the least knew what had 
 happened, that she was herself on fire. I shouted out, 
 and tearing the cloth off the table, strove to WTap it 
 round her, but she seemed to have taken leave of her 
 senses and, like a mad creature, burst through the 
 French windows of the room and tore out on to the lawn 
 in front, where the flames roared up far above her head, 
 and formed the most appalling sight I have ever seen. 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 37 
 
 Let me drop a dark veil over the rest. I was left com- 
 pletely alone. No one blamed me for the accident, but 
 somehow I found those who knew avoided me, and as 
 for strangers, I was certainly in no humour to make any 
 advances to them. In a word, I found my whole life 
 practically destroyed, and then I understood why men 
 often commit suicide. I had no inclination that way, but 
 I then gained an awful experience which has made me 
 much more lenient than I was before to those who find 
 in suicide their only possible resource. It is in itself a 
 stupid thing, however, as Death comes to all ; and why, 
 then, take any trouble to do his work ? My book had 
 completely perished, and somehow this was a kind of ' 
 grim consolation. I felt it as a sort of sacrifice, and by so 
 much was I the better. It was in a measure almost like 
 a purging of part of the guilt I felt for the ill way in 
 which I had played the role of husband and father. 
 Strange irony, when I remember that before marriage I 
 had determined not to be as some, never to think of 
 another woman any more, never to go anywhere without 
 Lily, except strictly in connection with my work, never 
 to gamble or drink, and a host of other excellent things — 
 all these rules I strictly kept. I do not think that I ever 
 broke one, and yet — and yet — such is the horrible irony 
 of circumstance, I had made an end that put the vulgar, 
 drunken, unfaithful husband, so I thought, on quite a 
 pedestal far above me. I had made great professions, too, 
 of affection, and I had imagined myself to be quite a model 
 man ! Why, there were bloated wretches I knew on 
 whose shaky knees innocent little girls climbed to kiss lips 
 foal with dissipation and blasphemy, while I, so virgin- 
 
38 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 like in my acts as well as in my tlioughts, was now 
 precipitated into the depths of a very Inferno of slow 
 consuming fire ! 
 
 I lived quite alone. Some w^ork came to me, and I was 
 by and by regarded as a reserved, taciturn, gloomy man 
 who had wrecked his life in some mysterious w^ay and 
 was never likely to get over it. After a time the old 
 idea of doing good by promulgating a new social cult 
 revived within me, and I began to plague editors with 
 schemes for setting forth my views. J had no longer any 
 notions of a big work, but infinite proposals for articles 
 on the subject. Nothing came of it, but one day a man, 
 who had shown some little interest in me, asked me if I 
 cared to have his advice ? I did care, I said, and he 
 then told me that it was quite absurd to suppose that any 
 radical changes like those I had explained to him could 
 ever now be effected in a country like England. What 
 you should do, he urged, is to emigrate to a colony like 
 New Zealand. There a man of ideas like yours might, 
 perhaps, take with the settlers, and there you might get 
 into Parliament and carve out a career for yourself. 
 Worse men than you have gone out as simple colonists 
 and risen to high office. If you don't mind w^orking with 
 your hands first, yoa can gain the confidence of the mass, 
 and for the rest I should judge a life there is very much 
 better than toiling anonymously, as you and I do, in a 
 dirty London printing office. 
 
 It appeared that he was going out and wanted a 
 partner. One part of the w^orld was to me very much 
 the same as another, and w^e went out in one of the 
 Orient steamers an*! did very well for some time in a 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE lAUPO. 39 
 
 joint affair at Wellington, and saved a little money. He 
 was a single man without any relatives lie knew of in 
 the world, and thence his attraction, he said, to me. 
 Unfortunately he died suddenly, having hurt himself 
 somehow in pitching a big dranken Maori out of our 
 house, and at his death, it proved that he had Avilled 
 all his property to me. Here, however, was another 
 instance of all things ending badly, for I had grown to 
 like him much, and he had, I think, made me a much 
 better man. 
 
 Thus came another fit of my old sociological madness. 
 I conceived a grand scheme for making New Zealand the 
 one model country of the world and sought to enter 
 Parliament. I spent much in printing addresses and 
 gave no end of speeches. I had large audiences, and 
 often, to my surprise, then, at the close, all would 
 promise me their votes. Alas ! I learned too late that I 
 was being only mocked, and that my orations and 
 Christian economy, as I called it, were simply regarded 
 as a jolly good lark and I was the biggest old idiot in 
 the colony. 
 
 Well, well, let me hurry on. The election came and I 
 polled just four votes, and what was infinitely more 
 mortifying, was the way in which I now found myself 
 treated by nearly all with whom I came in contact. 
 Everyone now threw off the mask of hypocrisy that had 
 been worn previously for my express humiliation, and 
 one after another would stop me in the street and say, 
 " Well, Moyle, you mustn't be offended, old man, but we 
 all said you were coming it rather too strong and wanted 
 taking down a peg or two. We know our own business 
 
40 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 best, bless you, and don't want none of your precious 
 doctrinaires, I tbink they call 'em, in our Parliament." 
 Tbis was tbe sum and substance of tlie sort of cold 
 comfort tbat was administered to me by men who pre- 
 tended to be kind friends. As to others I need say 
 nothing. In a word, I found myself successful only 
 in making a kind of political guy of myself ; and that is 
 why, in a fit of temper, 1 cleared out and came down to 
 Lake Taupo and built myself a house in the wilderness 
 and consorted w4th Maoris, and tried to find peace if 
 not happiness, in communing with nature. Still you 
 will see that, so far as my actual colonising went, things 
 ended badly too, especially when I was fool enough to 
 think I could teach the N'ew Zealanders how to emulate 
 the only one policy that is worthy of reproduction here, 
 that is, the ancient Hebrew theocracy. 
 
 Such was the substance of the conversational autobio- 
 graphy which came from the lips of this strange man 
 during a series of evenings which were devoted to the 
 subject and our pipes. Somehow the communication of 
 these singular circumstances of a wasted life seemed to 
 exercise not only a touching but a healing effect on Moyle, 
 and he visibly mended in health, although neither of us 
 had any hope of his ever recovering from his crippled 
 state. He has long since formally adopted me as his 
 son, for he often reminds me of the fact that I am 
 just the age that his boy would have been had he lived, 
 and he has been mainly instrumental in inducing me to 
 take unto myself a wife — not the conventionally-minded 
 lady of my youthful choice, but a well-favoured and 
 
A JOURNEY TO LAKE TAUPO. 41 
 
 comparatively civilised Maoii damsel, who always calls 
 him father and promises to make him a happy and 
 proud grandfather in due course. 
 
 We all live in much comfort and perfect amity and 
 true Christian accord on this remote clearing, and I at 
 least may well say God be praised for the advice given 
 me to make a walking tour to Lake Taupo, which has led 
 to so much true and, I believe, enduring happiness for 
 others besides myself. 
 
 Moyle is, as he says, quite precluded from ever again 
 taking a part in active life ; but he particularly desires 
 the true character of his views on the subject of the 
 future government of Australasia to be made known. As 
 he rightly remarks, his long retirement and years of 
 careful reflection on the subject which has always en- 
 grossed his thoughts and has lain nearest his heart, have 
 enabled him to fully formulate a policy, and although the 
 electors of Wellington chose, years ago, to make him and 
 his theories a laughing-stock and a jest, he is still desirous 
 to make his true views and moral standpoint known. 
 Under his direction, then, I have drawn up the following 
 account of what he conceives should be the course that 
 ought to be adopted by the colonists. Before, however, 
 giving forth the scheme I have just one word to say, and 
 it is that our manifesto, for such it is, has not been put 
 forth in the expectation of rallying support to me as the 
 representative of Thomas Moyle. Politics lie not in my 
 province. I am " a home-keeping youth " still, my 
 adopted father often tells me, and my wits are too 
 homely for the affairs of State. It were vain for any 
 deputation to wait under our fortress walls of Kauri pine, 
 
42 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 liewn so true and laid so firmly by liim who will never 
 more wield axe ; but we think it our joint duty to cast 
 forth the seed, such as it is, of our common ideas. If 
 they fall in stony places they will perish ; but it may be 
 that somewhere there are warm hearts eager for the 
 eternal good of human souls, and believing minds who 
 would deem it as far transcending all the vulgar gloiies 
 of conquering generals or emperor-kings to aid in building 
 up under the Southern Cross the mighty fabric of that 
 Christendom which Europe once dreamed about but has 
 — it is to be feared — abandoned now for ever. 
 
 I now give the document which is the true rahon d'etre 
 of the foregoing confessions. 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 
 
 By THOMAS MOYLE. 
 
 The great and conspicuous defect in English govern- 
 mental policy lias always been an absence of formative 
 ideas for the future. The notion of planning the lines and 
 organising the conditions on which and through which a 
 people should move onward and upward to a higher 
 development is found only in theory in English states- 
 manship — never in the practice. Thus it has come about 
 literally that the British Empire, or, as I prefer to call it, 
 the British Dominion, has grown haphazard and by ap- 
 parent chance, and owes everything to individual rather 
 than to collective and predetermined effort. Many will 
 immediately reply that it is better so, and that England's 
 greatness is due to the free play given to the individual ; 
 but surely a policy may be pursued steadily to its ap- 
 pointed goal and not interfere with individual genius, 
 nay, rather should it enlist to its aid the latter, and 
 take care that none of its forces be rendered futile 
 through lack of recognition. All our records, however, 
 teem with melancholy instances of the notorious fact 
 that, although England does not favour formative and 
 definite policies and leaves all her national greatness to 
 be the work of individual efforts, the existing govern- 
 mental system is such as to neutralise, wherever it comes 
 
44 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 into contact therewith, the strength of many, who find 
 themselves foiled in the best laid plans for the good of 
 the commonwealth by the utter impossibility of inducing 
 the collective wisdom of the nation to take a compre- 
 hensive survey of the future, or to enter into any scheme 
 that would deal with national evils by removing the 
 causes thereof, and not simply reducing for a time their 
 effects 
 
 In the case of new lands practically unoccupied, but 
 lying far and wide at the disposal of a sovereign people, 
 amounting to about one person to the square mile, against 
 477 in the United Kingdom, it might have been hoped 
 that formative statesmanship would have appeared and 
 mastered the situation so as to construct a policy that 
 might be capable of a maximum of good, moral and 
 material, now and hereafter, for the people committed to 
 its charge. 
 
 Has it been so ? What has actually happened was 
 thus described several years ago in the Queenslander : — 
 
 " Most Englishmen emigrating from a country in which 
 the framework of civilisation is old and artificial, wherever 
 they settle endeavour, unfortunately, to reproduce that 
 state of society. They fail to see that, in coming to a new 
 land, where nature is so bountiful, and the means of sub- 
 sistence are procurable with so little labour and in such 
 great abundance from the soil, the pursuits of husbandry 
 should have a preferential claim upon them before all 
 others, and that we should endeavour to reproduce in 
 Australia the merry England of Elizabeth, rather than 
 the anxious, careworn, mammon-worshipping England of 
 Victoria. In view of the fact that the tendency in each 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 45 
 
 of the colonies is towards an augmentation of the non- 
 producing and distributing classes, instead of towards an 
 increase of those which are productive, the outlook for the 
 future is much less satisfactory than we could wish it to be. 
 The population of each of the chief centres of population 
 (including suburbs) in these colonies will serve to show 
 the aggregating tendencies of British colonists in Aus- 
 tralia :— Melbourne, having 210,000; Sydney, 140,000; 
 Adelaide, 60,000; Ballarat, 40,000; Sandhurst, 28,000; 
 Brisbane, 27,000 ; Hobart Town, 20,000 ; Geelong, 20,000. 
 Here we have over half a million of people, out of a total 
 population of about one million and three-quarters crowded 
 into eight large towns, the biggest of which has confessedly 
 reproduced all the worst features of some of the oldest 
 capitals in Europe — their vilest vices, their filth, their 
 squalor, their crimes, their poverty, and their diseases." 
 
 Had invention, however, been beneficially directed to 
 agriculture in the same degree that it has been concen- 
 trated on, say, the infernal art of destroying human life, 
 the vocation of the farm labourer generally would haA'^e 
 been elevated on a level to that of the town mechanic at 
 the very least, production would have been greatly in- 
 creased, and the best low-born intelligence of rural dis- 
 tricts would not have been compelled, as now, to forsake 
 the country for the town. Feeling so strongly on this 
 point, I have ever regarded with the highest satisfaction 
 the endeavours of those who have sought by their inven- 
 tive skill to elevate agricultural drudgery to a high and 
 scientific vocation, one to be pursued intelligently by in- 
 tellectual men fully on a level with the foremost workers- 
 in the city manufactory. 
 
46 AUSTEALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Then, too, let us consider how much the evil of concen- 
 tration and centralisation — the curses of all modern 
 peoples — has intensified since the Queenslander wrote, 
 for now we have Melbourne with 380,000, Sydney 
 332,000, Adelaide 128,000, Brisbane 50,000, Hobart 
 25,000 (a very moderate increase here), while Ballarat, 
 Sandhurst and Greelong have respectively 41,000, 36,000, 
 and 21,000. We have here considerably over one million 
 of the total population crowded into the purely artificial 
 and more or less injurious influences of urban life. 
 
 In things governmental it is obviously easiest to deal 
 with small groups of people, and it is remarkable in 
 sociology that certain special evils of civilisation scarcely 
 exist, and some not at all, outside large centres of popu- 
 lation. If it were possible to begin a governmental 
 system with population divided into comparatively small 
 bodies, it would be found that far higher results are to 
 be gained than where immense masses of men are forced 
 together. Man hides man in a sense, and the greater the 
 mass the greater the difficulty of evolving thence a high 
 relative standard of happiness and morality for the 
 majority. To perpetuate on a new continent the social 
 evils and mistakes of England, to unduly encourage by 
 all possible means the concentration of population away 
 from the direct means of subsistence, is surely a bad 
 policy, -and one that makes the thoughtful despair of 
 governments altogether as true agencies for bringing on 
 a perfected condition of humanity. 
 
 I have said, however, that it is easier to deal with small 
 groups of population for all the formative purposes of 
 a wise statesmanship, having the future as well as the 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 47 
 
 present steadily in view, and in truth in tlie scJiool wo 
 have exactly the conditions that most fully favour the 
 need of the ideal statesman who seeks to evolve from the 
 present a perfected future. Certainly the State can 
 exercise a mighty and, in truth — humanly speaking — 
 an omnipotent power over the people by casting a 
 special matrice of State teaching wherein to mould the 
 minds of the future citizens and give to each the deter- 
 mining bias which, although it may frequently fail in the 
 individual will ever hold good in the mass. How and 
 why is this to be done ? it will be asked. The way 
 undoubtedly is to furnish a distinct and truly catholic 
 religious basis for all State school teaching and to let all 
 technics, all physics, all material knowledge follow a 
 deep grounding in religion and its resultant morality. 
 Thomas Carlyle, writing on the subject of government — 
 and he was not what is commonly called a religious man 
 — says : " It seems to me a great truth that human 
 things cannot stand on selfishness, mechanical utilities, 
 economics and law courts ; that if there be not a religious 
 element in the relations of men, such relations are miser- 
 able and doomed to ruin.^' Let us suppose for a moment, 
 merely by way of argument, that in every State school 
 all instruction rose on the basis of the Bible, that every 
 text-book put into the hands of every boy and girl were 
 written on the assumption that Christianity is a Revealed 
 Religion and that that Revelation is absolutely true ; 
 suppose wherever mention has to be made of writers like 
 Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and Darwin, brief notes were 
 given condensing the best refutations of their several 
 assaults on Revealed Religion; and suppose, further. 
 
48 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 each cliild were taught that all law, order and discipline, 
 and indeed all that is authoritative in human affairs 
 rested ultimately on the eternal truth of there being not 
 only a Creator of the world and of man, but a daily Up- 
 holder, through the agency of an uninterrupted Providence 
 of the universe — suppose all science were subordinated 
 to this idea and children were taught in the mysteries of 
 electricity and of gravitation to recognise but sensible 
 connections between the material universe and its invisible 
 God — can we doubt for one moment that the vast majority 
 of the children thus trained, would grow up better, purer 
 in mind, more industriously disposed, more grateful for 
 the good of this life, more consistently virtuous, and, 
 finally, infinitely happier, as assured, each one of them, of 
 a glorious heritage beyond the grave or the pagan crema- 
 torium, which seems just now in such favour with those 
 w^hcse great desire appears to be obliteration. 
 
 Observe, in this scheme of mine for State Education 
 I propose no sectarian teaching. Let the religion taught 
 as the necessary basis of morality, law, and all obedience 
 to authority, be simply Theism Bible-based, and the main 
 object to educate a people who would be truly democratic, 
 in that they would be theocratic, the only way in which 
 any democracy worthy of the name can ever be perma- 
 nently established. 
 
 The great question seems to me, and none can be more 
 momentous to mankind — is there or is there not a Chris- 
 tendom ? If there be one let us build it up into greater 
 strength and a purer type of moral beauty ; if there be 
 none, let us make one, and the direct and certain means 
 lie ready to hand in the State schools. Once root out the 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 4^ 
 
 evil of secularism, and all the rest follows. That I am 
 not at all singular in my views is certain. Mr. Firth, in 
 his admirable book, " Our Kin Across the Sea," points 
 out the terrible spread in the United States of 
 irreverence and downright atheism; and Mr. John 
 Bradshaw, in his equally excellent, but very different, 
 volume, " New Zealand as it is," plainly indicates the 
 enormous injury that New Zealand is sustaining through 
 the banishing of the Bible from the State schools, 
 one of the most deplorable of the very many mistakes 
 that have been made in the government of the Britain 
 of the South. 
 
 Education in Australia and New Zealand has reached a 
 crisis, and on the way in which it is morally directed 
 the ultimate destiny of mankind largely depends. Por 
 the first time in history since the initial preaching of 
 Christianity there is a sublime opportunity and an ample 
 theatre for the full evolution of a true and permanent 
 Christendom, created and sustained by the great Anglo- 
 Saxon race. But let this opportunity be lost, and let 
 this theatre of the new Austral world be peopled mainly 
 by Agnostics, Positivists and other non-Christian types, 
 and we may Avell look to see humanity delivered up to 
 that Satanic spirit of science which sanctions vivisection 
 and would reduce marriage — a divine and God-ordained 
 institution — to a simple matter of business and physi- 
 ology — a mere branch of State medicine and of the 
 application of that natural selection and survival of the 
 fittest principle, which is expressly opposed to the 
 teaching of Him who declared that even a sparrow's life 
 w^as of account in the benign counsels of the Almighty. 
 
 5 
 
50 AUSTKALIAX AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Let us see what we may expect from scientists pure aud 
 simple. Sir Henry Roscoe, in his inaugural address to 
 the British Association in 1887, actually declared that 
 ** Possession fosters content, indolence, and pride. If God 
 should hold in His right hand all truth, and in His left 
 hand the ever active desire to seek truth, though with 
 the condition of perpetual error, I would humbly ask for 
 the contents of the left hand, saying, ' Father, give me 
 this ; pure truth is only for Thee.'" 
 
 Could a more deplorable example of arrogance be well 
 cited than this ? Surely Jinaliiy ^finality in moral 
 purity — is what the truly religious man seeks ; in other 
 words, freedom from sin. Then comes complete content 
 and peace unspeakable. No devout student of the Holy 
 Scriptures could ever bring himself to utter the bom- 
 bastic and irreverent nonsense put forth by Sir Henry 
 Roscoe as a sublime enunciation of the scientific spirit of 
 the age, which is for ever carping at the highest of all 
 truth, because it is to the exalted scientific mind tainted 
 with the dogma of obedience. 
 
 Writing on April 28, 1888, the Sydney Morning Herald 
 commenced a leader by asking, " Is England a Christian 
 nation P " The question might well be asked. And then 
 the writer went on to speak of the victory achieved by 
 Mr. Bradlaugh, the arch-atheist, in respect to carrying 
 his Bill for the abolition of oaths. The writer then pro- 
 ceeds to say : — " Up to the passing of this Bill, though 
 most of the old religious tests set by the State had been 
 abandoned, the people not only recognised the existence 
 of a Supreme Being, biit were one with the Church by an 
 act of formal acknowledgment, and so one with Chris- 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 51 
 
 tianity. There is left but the individual responsibility 
 and recognition." 
 
 It has been said that oaths and tests of a like character 
 open the way to deceit and hypocrisy. Doubtless this 
 may be so, but the evil thereof rests not upon the prin- 
 ciple underlying all moral tests, but on the individuals 
 who are guilty of the deceit and the hypocrisy. As well 
 might the murderer complain of the penal law which 
 numbers murder as a crime in the list of offences. Every 
 institution must fence itself about with rules and regula- 
 tions, and if individuals occasionally overcome these by 
 stratagem, it is only a further argument for their main- 
 tenance, as showing what kind of foes are without and 
 trying to enter, in order, when in, to subvert the whole. 
 In truth, if the State were truly Christian there would 
 be but one word on such points, and it is nothing but 
 judicial blindness on the part of Christians, sincerely so, 
 who consent weakly to the withdrawal of barrier after 
 barrier which the wisdom of the past has set up to keep 
 out the deluge of infidelity, which has been fostered and 
 produced by the agency chiefly of the cheap printing 
 press. What kind of an outcome we may look for from a 
 perfectly Godless democracy may be inferred from the 
 following, which appeared in the Baily Telegraph of 
 December 10, 1888 :— 
 
 " The Anarchists' vade-mecum, or ' Dynamite Guide,* is 
 the dangerously fascinating title of a volume which has 
 been printed somewhere in the neighbourhood of Leicester 
 Square, London, and is at present circulating among the 
 discontented compagnons of Paris. The book is written 
 in the simplest style, so that it may be thoroughly 
 
52 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 ' understanded of the people,' and may enable them to 
 profit by its instructions in the hour of ' the approaching 
 conflict with sweaters and oppressors.' The compiler of 
 the Indicateur in his introduction, makes a strong appeal 
 to all compagnons who are without weapons, and then 
 launches into a long detail of the various explosives which 
 may be used in the time of action. Among these are 
 * Fenian fire,' which is reputed excellent for throwing 
 among policemen or cavalry j ' Lorraine fire,' ' suffocating 
 bombshells,' ' explosive cigarettes,' ' sudden-death gre- 
 nades,' and various other combustibles, the preparation of 
 which with dynamite, nitro-benzine, and similar combus- 
 tible materials, is lucidly described. With this terrible 
 information are intermingled instructions in'street-fighting 
 and general revolutionary tactics. ' Gas ' is to be used 
 as an agent of destruction whenever dynamite is not pro- 
 curable. All government buildings and public institu- 
 tions which stand as symbols of oppression from the past 
 are to be blown up, and thoroughly destroyed, and the 
 people are told they should not listen to Parliamentary 
 Socialists, who counsel calmness and moderation, but 
 should act on their own initiative and with determina- 
 tion. The book bears the imprint of the ' Imprimerie 
 Internationale Anarchiste de Londres,' and some of its 
 contents are manifestly taken from the works of Herr 
 Most." 
 
 But turning away from these revolting details, let us 
 glance for a moment at some of the results that would 
 spring from the substitution of a religious for a secular 
 basis in State Education in Australasia. Clearly the net 
 outcome would be an enormous increase in the virtue and 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 53 
 
 practical sterling worth of the whole of the coming 
 generation. The overwhelming majority of the new 
 generation would be composed of persons who would be 
 a law to themselves, and it would be shown triumphantly 
 that if aught can regenerate and perfect man in this life 
 it is Christianity, and that alone. Indissolubly united by 
 the solidarity of religion, the great Anglo-Saxon com- 
 munities of the Southern Cross would stretch across the 
 world, resting on the United Kingdom ; and the whole 
 British Dominion, which might by well concerted action 
 secure all the sea-borne trade of the nations, would 
 then hold the whole ocean and keep it inviolate against 
 the rest of the world. The flag of this great dominion 
 would be that of peaceful industry and commerce — of a 
 Christendom whose mission was to Christianise the rest 
 of the world, and thus united in itself, its power to repel 
 any attack would be absolutely unlimited. One hundred 
 millions of Anglo-Saxons banded together under the 
 ensign of a pure Theocratic Democracy would first con- 
 trol and afterwards dominate the world itself, and war, 
 like other plagaes of scientific infidelity and satardc free- 
 thought, would disappear from the face of the globe, 
 where virtually we should have in place of the existing 
 -political chaos of hate and jealousy and endless strife, a 
 Paradise Regained of Christian brotherhood and love. 
 
 In one word it is indeed true that the service of God 
 alone is perfect freedom, and not the service of man, as 
 some vainly suppose. The following lines seem to me to 
 •express the whole Christian scheme very completely — 
 
 Thy Kingdom come. Three words embody here 
 > The sum and substance of the Christian creed, 
 
.54 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 All knowledge and all wisdom man can need — 
 
 The Adam fallen from his sinless sphere, 
 
 The Victor Adam on the Cross to bleed ! 
 
 Eternal King of David's chosen seed, 
 
 Gethsemane restoring Paradise, 
 
 And earth preparing for the beautiful, 
 
 The pure, the holy theocratic rule 
 
 That blessed in dreams the royal minstrel's eyes. 
 
 For 'tis this earth, and not a sphere unknown. 
 
 That purged by judgment, shall that Kingdom be. 
 
 Where Christ shall build His everlasting Throne, 
 
 And man be good, because completely free. 
 
 There can be no fruit without a flower and no flower 
 without a seed, and without the sower, be it bird, wind 
 jor man, no initial to the final fruition. Without a 
 deliberate and well-organised propaganda how can there 
 be an all-prevailing Christianity ; and without Christians 
 how can there be a Christendom ? If those who have 
 religious convictions and who desire to see the Church of 
 Christ triumphant, choose to give up all the great 
 agencies and opportunities now before them to the eager 
 Secularist, the Agnostic, the Scientist, and the professed 
 Infidel, what can — what must they expect ? Why, 
 nothing short of complete and overwhelming defeat. 
 ^Yes, say objectors who dread to be thought intolerant, 
 but we have our churches and our Sunday schools and a 
 great mass of missionary and evangelical machinery, and 
 with this we must counteract the unbelievina: tendencies 
 ;Of the day. Indeed, as well might a regiment sur- 
 rounded by an enemy throw down its arms and then cry, 
 now we can charge and break our way through ! If the 
 Secularist will not tolerate the Bible and the formula of 
 
AN AUSTRAL THEOCRACY. 55 
 
 prayer in the weekday schools of the State, do you sup- 
 pose that in times to come he will tolerate it in any public 
 form ? If the Christian elects to take the back seat 
 in the House where the government of peoples is carried 
 on, depend on it that by and by he is sure to be deprived 
 even of that, and will find himself turned out altogether 
 by the future Cromwells of the great Freethought camp. 
 Surely if Christianity is to be propagated — surely if 
 there are still men and women sincerely anxious that the 
 visible Kingdom of Christ should be established on this 
 earth they must indeed be judicially mad and judicially 
 blind to voluntarily yield every point of vantage and place 
 an implacable enemy in full possession of school, parlia- 
 ment and university. To me it has always seemed 
 amazing. If the Christian really believes what he 
 professes, it is his obvious duty, and nothing less, to avail 
 himself of every advantage that he can obtain to strive 
 against the increasing torrent of infidelity which is loose 
 among us. Take possession of the schools of the State, 
 inculcate Christianity on the minds of all the future 
 generation, leaven the coming Democracy with the 
 sympathies, the charities and the enthusiasm of a 
 militant Christianity, fence the Parliament absolutely 
 against the entrance of any infidel as an infidel (if he 
 comes in as a wolf in sheep's clothing the sin and the 
 hypocrisy rest on him — not on you) ; insist that all public 
 acts be publicly placed under the sanction of a theocratic 
 State, and then, and only then, can you expect to create 
 and to preserve a true Christendom. 
 
 If, on the other hand, believers aid the adversary, as 
 they now do, by weakly retiring all along the fighting 
 
56 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 line, they will certainly see militant science finally 
 enthroned with its intellectual despotism, which dares to 
 appraise human life at relative values, and would, and 
 will perhaps some day, condemn the pauper to vivisection 
 to preserve a president of a British Association for the 
 Promotion of Knowledge, to propagate a little longer 
 practical Atheism under the specious cloak of a cultured 
 and refined Freethought. 
 
THE TKEASUEE TREE: 
 
 A ROMANCE OF NEW dUINEA. 
 
 I. — Seeking the Gold for a Wedding Ring. 
 
 "Sugar and gold, sweetness and wealth!" some new 
 arrival exclaimed on the first sight of Maryborough, 
 which lies northward 180 miles from Brisbane, the 
 capital of Queensland, and is specially the outport of the 
 famous Gympie goldfields. All around are the sugar 
 plantations — a rolling prairie flashing up in emerald and 
 gold, and cut off from the horizon by the dense bush. 
 The whole scene is tropical. 
 
 As to the town, with its picturesque wooden bridge 
 over the river, the longest bridge in the whole colony, 
 its iron foundries, shipyard, and — significant industries — 
 two distilleries and at least as many breweries, it was, at 
 the time of which I am writing, a medley of mean houses, 
 pretentious " stores" tricked out with attractive advertise- 
 ment signboards, and here and there buildings presenting 
 real architectural " elevations," while the Court House, 
 
58 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 one or two churches, sundry insurance offices, and the 
 Post Office were, and still are, quite on a level with most 
 metropolitan edifices of the kind. 
 
 A pale slender young man, in whom every townsman 
 could recognise a " new arrival," and who w^as evidently 
 conscious of being thus conspicuous, was proceeding to 
 the Post Office, balancing a letter in his white, thin, 
 artist -like hand, with the air of one uncertain whether 
 he should post it or not. 
 
 Harold Medlicott, although a mere youth, had already 
 inherited from fortune the legacy of a sad romance. He 
 was an only son, carefully brought up by an eccentric 
 but apparently fond mother, w^ho w^as "nursing" a for- 
 tune for him which had been left under her control, 
 together with an old-fashioned house in Kensington. 
 Harold, having been trained only as a " gentleman," and 
 kept as much under his mother's eye as possible, had 
 formed an attachment for the daughter of a half-pay 
 captain of Engineers, a man of good biHh, who was 
 resolved to see that his " motherless girl " married well, 
 and particularly to a man of means. This attach- 
 ment came to Mrs. Medlicott's knowledge in due course, 
 and a series of "terrible scenes" ensued, ending in a 
 complete rupture between mother and son, the former 
 declaring that her money should go to hospitals before 
 her boy should become, as she expressed it, the " prey of 
 that bad, bold girl, whose father was quite as designing 
 as herself." 
 
 Harold left his home during one of these tempests of 
 maternal invective, and confided his troubles to his one 
 bosom friend, Dick Welford, a clerk in a bank, who was. 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 59 
 
 as Harold truly said, one of the best natared fellows in 
 the world. Dick soon found that his friend was com- 
 mercially fit for nothing, and although he had some of 
 the qualifications of the recognised professions he was not 
 really suited for any one of them, as far as practical work 
 went. It happened that a member of the banking firm 
 where Dick was employed— a Mr. Walcott — was about 
 going out to Queensland, on certain financial business, 
 and required a secretary and general factotum to accom- 
 pany him. Dick, who was as energetic as he was enthusi- 
 astic in his friendship, procured the appointment for his 
 friend, and even found the ways and means to start him 
 on his way. We do meet, now and then, with real, dis- 
 interested friendship, and it deserves honourable record. 
 
 " I told them," observed Dick, "that you were like the 
 late Lord Clyde, ready to start anywhere — not to-morrow, 
 but 7^o^(7— and I made bold to get your portmanteau, and 
 a; few little things suita,ble to the tropics, and there they 
 are" — pointing to a corner of his " den." 
 
 " Dear old Dick ! " And although these were two 
 contemporary young Englishmen, and not impulsive 
 French students, they embraced and positively hugged 
 each other. It is true, however, that they knew there 
 was no one to see them ! 
 
 As Harold now walked slowly to the Maryborough 
 Post Office, he was going over mentally the last letter 
 that Miss Hardynge had written to him, in which she 
 said that their engagement, begun through impulse, was 
 a mistake. For herself she should never marry, but she 
 would not bind Harold to his promises, and she was sure 
 that her father would never consent unless, indeed, Mrs. 
 
60 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Medlicott, Harold's mother, altered entirely in her de- 
 meanour towards both Harold and herself, that she would 
 not estrange mother and son, and more to the same 
 purpose. 
 
 Harold was too unversed in the ways of woman to 
 interpret the one luminous sentence in which the writer 
 of this melancholy letter declared she should never 
 marry, and he had penned in response the following, 
 which sufficiently explains the nature of the plight 
 whereto, like many a " new chum," he now found himself 
 reduced : — 
 
 " Maryborough. — Dearest Norma, — I have come thus 
 far in search of the gold for the wedding ring I mean 
 to bring you, but as yet not a grain have I found. The 
 Voyage was monotonous, an affair of eating and drinking 
 it seemed to me principally, and Mr. Walcott was and is 
 good at both ! "We had many emigrants, a picked class 
 they told me, but to my mind a wretched lot estimated 
 by what I had read about the early days of our Colonies 
 ' — pretty pioneers of Empire, truly. Most were specula- 
 ting as to what lodgings they would find on arrival, and 
 what situations would be open to them. Such slavish 
 dependence on others ! I never hinted as much to dear 
 Dick, but you know my intense passion for liberty. The 
 first chance I mean to start off and pick up my fortune, if 
 it is lying about in this continent, or perish, and so 
 trouble no one, not even you, dear, for I know you are at 
 bottom as practical and sensible as I am poetic and 
 sanguine. No man should drag down the girl he loves to 
 a lower social scale, under the delusion of love in a 
 icottage. What is this country like, you ask, to change a 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 61 
 
 painful subject ? This is a veritable land of rivers. The 
 Avhole coast is cut up by them, coming down from the 
 great mountains parallel to the shore. The scenery 
 resembles somewhat Richmond Park indefinitely extended 
 and a hundred times more beautiful. The trees, veritable 
 towers of timber, stand well apart, and the herbage is 
 the most luxuriant imaginable. To me it is like the 
 ' setting ' of some of the Arcadian scenes in the ' Faerie 
 Queen,' while along the banks of the innumerable 
 streams are thousands of flowering lilies. 
 
 " The purity of the air' astonishes me. Nothing seemed 
 stained or soiled. You may spend days out in the open 
 air with clean face and hands, and as to the light it 
 would bring joy to a photographer. As to the natives — 
 I mean the settlers — they are, some of them, rough 
 enough, and the new arrivals are to be pitied. 
 
 " ' Where,' one of them grumbled, ' is the restaurant or 
 even the coffee-house ?' and so on. Truly Mr. Walcott 
 said Queensland is not quite a country of hotels. 
 
 " Resuming this diary-like letter later, I find my fears 
 confirmed as to Mr. Walcott 's not being quite so amiable 
 as dear Dick represented. The other day he remarked, 
 ' Well, young man, it seems to me you are having a nice 
 time. If you see any opening do not study me, but fill it. 
 This is not a country w^here people can live on nothing a 
 year!' What can have offended him? Although I 
 thought of breaking away, this suddenness, was not 
 pleasant. I said I hoped I had not been remiss in my 
 duties ? ' Oh, no ! your duties are well enough per- 
 formed, seeing how confounded little they are ! You 
 ought never to have come out here. You are not the 
 
62 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 kind of man we want. By George, didn't I see you tlie 
 other day attitudinising before an old gum tree and 
 spouting like a London Cheap Jack, only not to such 
 good purpose. Can you shear a sheep, whip up a mcPb of 
 cattle, or put up a fence? ' " 
 
 * # * * * 
 
 " Mackay. — This, dear Norma, is the very last of my 
 letters, unless I can ever write to say ' I have found the 
 gold for a wedding ring.' The crisis has come, and, as 
 usual, the unforeseen has happened. My patron wears a 
 loose coat like mine, and it chanced that, going out one 
 blazing afternoon, I put on his by mistake. Before going 
 far I discovered the error, and, further, that in one pocket 
 was a bag heavy with gold. I was hastening back when 
 some tremendous shouting and an evident disturbance 
 attracted me onward, and made me oblivious of Mr. 
 Walcott's gold. Outside a rough shedlike 'inn,' with 
 the sign of ' The Gold Diggers' Arms,' was an 
 uproarious group, the landlord in the midst, and by him 
 a Hercules of a fellow with a great, laughing, red face, 
 set off in a black frame of coarse hair, flourishing a slip 
 of paper, and shouting, ' Come and drink, you devils !' 
 
 " I knew at once, from what had been told me before, 
 that this was a miner who, paid for a spell of work with 
 a cheque, had come to the inn deliberately to 'drink it 
 out ' by the ready aid of all the idle ruffians in the way. 
 A common tub was brought out, a tin bowl placed at 
 the side, and the landlord proceeded to empty a case 
 of champagne into the tub. Unfortunately, I somehow 
 attracted the notice of the man at whose expense this 
 orgie was being given, and being in the benevolent stage 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 63 
 
 of drunkenness, he yelled out, 'You, sir, Mr. Thirsty 
 Face, come here and drink my health, and all the gentle- 
 men's here ! " And in a moment some of the ruJ0B.ans 
 clustering round had seized and were dragging me to the 
 foaming tub. I turned, however, on my assailants with 
 such an unexpected fury that I broke away, and, remem- 
 bering at a flash the gold in my pocket, took to my heels, 
 followed by the derisive jeers of the disreputable crew. 
 Recovering breath, I felt for Mr. Walcott's bag of 
 sovereigns. It had disappeared ! Evidently some of the 
 ruffians who had been foremost in this ' shouting ' for 
 drinks had robbed me. I felt I could never face Mr. 
 Walcott, for an instinct told me he would never credit 
 my story. My mind Avas made up. Mr. Walcott had 
 gone that day to Amherst, north of the Pioneer River, 
 on which Mackay stands, and would not return for some 
 day or two. I have written a note explaining my mis- 
 fortune and stating that I will relieve him of the burden 
 of my maintenance, and that if I survive I will repay 
 him the amount stolen. I then obtained a few I'ough 
 necessaries, and am now about posting this the last ol 
 my letters proclaiming failure. Far away west lies the 
 great dividing range, beyond which are well-watered 
 plains with supposed auriferous plateau, all up to the 
 Grulf of Carpentaria. I mean simply to tramp out north- 
 wards and accept my fate. It is, seriously speaking, 
 better than suicide, my only other resource — a vulgar 
 refuge — and your feelings will not be harrowed. And 
 mark this, my dear, I love you none the less because you 
 are practical and pradent, and a pattern daughter in love 
 and filial obedience. I shall tramp on, I say. Providence 
 
64 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKKTCHES. 
 
 will resolve wlietlier I meet death or life in this inarch of 
 mine. I go in search of gold. Others have found it, 
 why not I ? This is better, is it not, than dependence on 
 others ? My hope is in the chapter of accidents. I go, 
 Norma. Farewell ! If I write again yon will know that 
 the gold for yonr wedding-ring has been found in 
 Australia. If I remain silent long you will- know I am 
 dead. Do not mourn. Forget. It is best." 
 
 II.— The Coral Sea. 
 
 One of the many physical marvels of the Austral ocean 
 is undoubtedly the great Coral Sea, thus called from the 
 substance of its innumerable reefs, extending, more or 
 less, from the New Hebrides to the Queensland coast of • 
 Australia. Here and there are enormous stretches of 
 banks lying at no great depth under the surface, and 
 presenting, thanks to their vivid and varied colours, the 
 beautiful similitude of natural submarine flower gardens. 
 The Coral Sea is a region of natural wonders ; one of its 
 main features is the Great Barrier Reef, extending off 
 the Queensland shores all the way up to Torres Straits, 
 and including one reef which stretches for full 350 miles 
 without the cleavage of a single channel. 
 
 It was early morning. Far up on the shores of the 
 Coral Sea, beyond Cooktown, the growing glow of the 
 rapidly advancing tropical sunshine revealed a scene of 
 surpassing loveliness and appalling solitude. The air was 
 still, except where it already began to quiver in a gather- 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 65 
 
 iiig liaze of heat. Just here the shore was covered with 
 luxuriant vegetation. The wild nutmeg hung out its 
 pear-like golden fruit, while cedars and palms gave 
 dignity and grace to the undulating lowlands that 
 dipped their emerald edges, as it seemed, into an almost 
 unrijDpled sea, stretching out into blue distances. 
 
 Suddenly the still life of the mingled landscape and 
 seascape was illustrated in a double and very startling 
 manner. From the south a boat abruptly shot into view, 
 with only one man on board, who, after giving ever and 
 anon a vigorous pull at his oars, rested back on his seat, 
 and let his vessel glide on with its own impetus through 
 the smooth and transparent waters that scarcely made 
 an audible plash on the pebbly beach which occasionally 
 broke the outline of the richly-wooded coast. Almost at 
 tlie moment that the boat came thus into view at this 
 particular part of an uninhabited shore, there was a 
 crashing among the brushwood, and another man burst 
 blindly out, amid a shower of leaves and torn branches, 
 and rushed straight into the sea. It was here very 
 shallow, and he struggled on a considerable distance 
 before the lazy lap of the waves was above his waist. 
 As though to complete the dramatic character of the 
 double coincidence, a horrible, inarticulate, but human- 
 like clamour broke from the dense foliage, and then a 
 number of creatures, looking very like pantomimic sprites 
 without the tinsel, came into full view, brandishing and 
 darting their spears after the fugitive, who, dazed and 
 breathless, yet saw the boat and its solitary occupant, 
 and as the water deepened suddenly, struck out with 
 frantic haste. Just as he sprawled on the waters, how- 
 
 6 
 
66 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 ever, he was struck bj a spear better aimed tban half-a- 
 dozen others that fell about and even beyond him. 
 
 The episode passed in a flash, but the solitary voyager 
 took it all in at a glance. With a powerful turn of the 
 wrist, he shot his boat towards the swimmer, and then, as 
 two or three of the blacks dived in to purstie the escaping 
 man and rose to the surface, a pistol went crack ! crack ! 
 and the foremost tossed up his arms, yelled, and sank. 
 The otheis hesitated, and the stranger, with a really 
 marvellous vigour, rowed to the swimmer, seized him, and 
 with one quick, powerful arm lifted him over the stern 
 into the boat. Then, without a word, he bent to the 
 oars and rowed off the shore with a speed that was as 
 amazing as his own mixture of the imperturbable with 
 the energetic and impulsive. 
 
 The two or three blacks who had taken to the water 
 lost heart, and contented themselves with fishing up their 
 comrade and dragging him back to the shore a limp, helpless 
 mass, and in a few moments more the boat with its two 
 occupants was out a considerable distance, and then, and 
 not until then, the rescuer shipped his oars, and turning 
 to the wounded man, who lay for the moment panting and 
 helpless at the bottom of the boat, remarked, with a slight 
 foreign accent : 
 
 ''An introduction nearly as abrupt as your English 
 manners. Eh, my friend ? " 
 
 Harold, for it was he, looked up, and extending his 
 hand, said : " You have saved my life. I thought it was 
 
 gone this time, and, and ," but the pain and loss of 
 
 blood from his wound overcame him, and he swooned away. 
 
 " That is well," grunted the benevolent stranger ; " the 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 67 
 
 bleeding will stop, and I can see what is the matter, 
 eh?" 
 
 It appeared that Harold had. received a severe flesh 
 wound in the thigh, but the artery had fortunately escaped, 
 and, having dressed the gash in a rough but skilful 
 manner, the stranger produced a small flask and poured 
 some of its contents, a particularly powerful cognac, down 
 Harold's throat. He revived immediately, and the two 
 now regarded each other attentively. 
 
 They were in all ways remarkable contrasts. Harold 
 was, it must be admitted, a most deplorable object. He 
 was reduced to almost the condition of a skeleton, and the 
 few rags of his clothing that still remained hung upon 
 him as on a scarecrow. His cheeks were mere skin, and 
 his temples exhibited terrible hollows, like those of an 
 old man. He was excoriated almost all over by constant 
 struggles through dense thickets, and he seemed in the 
 last stage of exhaustion, as well he might, seeing that for 
 some time past he had chiefly subsisted on the fruits 
 indigenous to Queensland, known as the Herbert River 
 cherry, and occasionally the native kamquat. 
 
 As to his rescuer, he too was a study, although in a very 
 different way. He was a man apparently of 60, but pro- 
 bably older, vigorous, hard, and sinewy, rather under 
 the middle size, but most strongly built, and having the 
 limbs of an athlete on a reduced scale. His face was 
 tawny, and his black, thick eyebrows contrasted strangely 
 with the short, strong, white beard that had begun to 
 grow upon the chin, which was evidently habitually 
 shaved. His dress was a strange medley of the garb of a 
 Roman Catholic priest and a common sailor, and about the 
 
bo AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 whole man there was something at once inviting and yet 
 repelling, something at once benevolent and yet sinister, 
 while his eyes were piercing and small, set wide apart 
 and shadowed by a corrugated brow ; had his tarpaulin 
 hat been off, the tonsure of the priest could have been 
 seen. The boat was no less singular than its owner. The 
 whole of the outside was covered with various small 
 marine plants and animals, long tufts of seaweed trailed 
 behind like pennons in the transparent sea, and the gun- 
 wale was worn by the action of the waves into ribs, such 
 as you see in the sand just after the tide has gone out. 
 There was but little on board beyond two small water 
 casks and a bag which contained some remains of biscuit, 
 while in the bottom lay a crowbar, an axe, and sundry 
 tools, together with a small box. A mast, designed to 
 carry a small sail, now furled around it, also occupied the 
 bottom of this mysterious boat, which, to Harold, had 
 dropped, as it were, out of the sky. 
 
 The young man and the old man eyed each other for a 
 full minute. Each look said plainly, " What do you do 
 here ? " 
 
 Presently the old man spoke. 
 
 " If I had not done with such things, I should certainly 
 think that there was a Providence, after all. I have been 
 wanting a companion for the last thousand miles or so, 
 and lo ! the land casfcs him forth into my very lap." 
 
 "And why," asked Harold, " should you doubt it now ? 
 I have been trying to kill myself these three months past, 
 and have, as you see, miserably failed. Henceforth I 
 believe in Providence." 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 69 
 
 III. — The First Hint op the Treasure. 
 
 Both these men were fugitives, althougli in widely 
 different ways. For some days Harold's wound kept liim 
 prostrate, and lie passed most of the weary time in the 
 bottom of the boat. His strange companion nursed him 
 with a singular care, and, after a few hours, these two 
 beings — fated to meet in such a strange way, amid the 
 solitude of the Coral Sea — had become, conversationally 
 at least, familiar friends. Out in the primitive world of 
 Nature there are no conventionalities, although there may 
 be, all the same, secrets; and it was not long before 
 Harold knew all about his companion that the latter 
 chose to communicate to him ; while, as to Harold, he 
 had told his story in a very direct and simple way. 
 
 Succinctly put, what Harold learned amounted to this. 
 His rescuer called himself Claud Dubec, and, by his own 
 showing, he was a recidivist from New Caledonia, only, he 
 explained, that all the " crimes " of which he had been 
 accused were merely political. In New Caledonia he had 
 enjoyed, in common with most of his companions in mis- 
 fortune, much local freedom. It happened that some 
 considerable time before undertaking his perilous voyage 
 in an open boat, a compatriot, who fell sick, had been 
 nursed by Dubec, who possessed a practical knowledge 
 of medicine and surgery, as well as sundry other useful 
 accomplishments, and in due course, believing him to be a 
 priest — which in reality Dubec was not, although for 
 purposes of his own he had assumed that character — 
 made a confession to him just before the disease proved 
 
70 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZKALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 mortal, which had, as Dubec admitted, been the cause of 
 his extraordinary action in committing himself to an open 
 boat and the ocean with all its many risks. *' The fact 
 is," Dubec explained to Harold, "I am in search of a 
 certain treasure in New Guinea, and if I find it my 
 fortune is made." He then went on to say that he could 
 easily have found companions to escape with him, for the 
 authorities took little heed of the ordinary recidivists, and 
 rather encouraged than otherwise their endeavour to 
 reach Australia, but the whole of those he knew were, he 
 admitted, such scoundrels that he dared not trust one of 
 them, and in escaping,! his principal anxiety was not so 
 much to baffle the perfunctory search of the authorities 
 as to evade his fellow convicts. For some days, however, 
 he had been lamenting the want of a companion, for he 
 had almost worn himself out by reason of reducing his 
 sleep to short snatches, and, once in New Guinea, it was, 
 he remarked, a serious thing to sleep without a look-out 
 for the natives, and he sent rather a thrill through 
 Harold by telling him of the mancatcher invented by the 
 natives of Hood Bay, but now to be met with all over the 
 vast expanses of New Guinea. This is simply a loop of 
 rattan cane, the constant companion of the Head Hunters. 
 A sharp spike is inserted in the handle, and the loop 
 being once dexterously cast over the head of the victim 
 a violent pull brings the spike into play, and usually 
 drives it into the base of the skull or into the spine, with 
 fatal effect. 
 
 At the first moment he recognised Harold as an 
 Englishman, and he had speedily made up his mind to 
 propose giving him a share of the treasure, if they found 
 
THE TREASURE TEEE. 71 
 
 it, as a recompense for such, service as Harold could 
 render him in the work of its recovery. 
 
 Things had reached this point when Dubec, who had 
 nearly cured the wound that Harold had received while 
 escaping from the blacks, asked him plainly what his 
 views were as to a division. 
 
 The colloquy that ensued was somewhat remarkable, 
 illustrating as it did the character of this singular 
 exile. 
 
 Harold was now feeling comparatively strong. Lately 
 they had feasted on fish and on some parrots, while only 
 the day before a young dugong, whose flesh is, when 
 properly prepared, quite as good as bacon, had fallen to 
 their lot. 
 
 " What do you want for your share if you help me to 
 find and carry off this treasure ? " Dubec asked. 
 
 " That depends on the amount of treasure and the 
 work involved in getting it," Harold answered, witb a 
 smile. 
 
 "English all over, and thoroughly shopkeeper-like," 
 replied Dubec, who spoke English with little perceptible 
 accent, and with wonderful accuracy. "But you know 
 that, but for me, you could find nothing, and, so far, it 
 appears from your own showing, that you have been un- 
 fortunate in everything you have undertaken. I tell you 
 there is a treasure somewhere in New Guinea. Well, 
 what then ? Can you find it ? Go and try. I will land 
 you there and leave you, if you like." 
 
 *' I think you mean to take me with you all the same," 
 said Harold, with a confident smile. 
 
 " Perhaps I do, but I want to have a proper under- 
 
72 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 standing. Say, will you be content with value to tlie 
 amount of five thousand ? " 
 
 Harold opened his eyes. " It is a large treasure," he 
 thought, and he felt that Norma was imperceptibly but 
 surely coming at last within his reach. Dubec watched 
 him intently, a scarcely noticeable sneer curling his lip as 
 he went on — " Well, I see you think that amount too 
 little. Will you be really content with ten thousand 
 pounds ? " 
 
 Harold started. His colour went and came, and his 
 " Oh, yes ! " was rather gasped than articulated. "Very 
 well," remarked Dubec; "my friend, shake hands on 
 that, and pledge me your word that whatever you see 
 jou will be content with that amount. Is it so ? " 
 
 "It is;" and, added Harold, with simple earnestness, 
 "I promise." 
 
 " I take your word, my friend ; and do you know why ? " 
 
 " No ; how should I ? " 
 
 " Because I have noticed that you pray morning and 
 night when you fancy I am not looking at you. I 
 frankly wish I could ; but it is useless. I tell you so 
 much that you may know what kind of man I am. I 
 know, too, that my saying so much will not make any 
 difference to you, except to cause your English conscience 
 to cry out ' How shocking ! ' You will keep your belief, 
 and I my unbelief. That is all. I trust you, my friend. 
 Shake hands again. You will go back to your English 
 miss with a small fortune, and I shall have the treasure. 
 If I had brought any of my rascal compatriots with me 
 they would have wanted the whole, and we should have 
 had Murder before Discovery." 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 73 
 
 All this time the boat was making* way, often aided 
 bj the sail when it seemed safe to set it, towards Tones 
 Straits. Whenever there was the least sign of a vessel 
 in the horizon, Diibec altered his course, and probably- 
 escaped all notice, as it is difficult to discern a small boat 
 at sea at any considerable distance. 
 
 Their coarse was made for the north coast of Xew 
 (xuinea, which is remarkably rocky, and, even now, for 
 the most part entirely unexplored. But when first the 
 mountain tops of the great island came into view, Dubec 
 decided to touch the shore as soon as possible, as he 
 wanted a supply of fresh water, and hoped to procure 
 some vegetables and fruit, the former being, as he ex- 
 plained to Harold, the taro. This is the name given in 
 Polynesia to an edible root, quite a foot long, and capable 
 of furnishing an agreeable food, while the leaves are 
 accounted, when boiled, as equal to spinach. 
 
 All this w^hile Dubec had merely generalised in regard 
 to the " Treasure," and as at times he spoke very 
 strangely and in a singular, abrupt way, Harold had 
 some secret misgivings as to whether his companion was 
 really quite right in his intellect. Not unfrequently, 
 when he supposed Harold was sleeping, he would break 
 forth into snatches of verse, always in French, and 
 althpugh Harold's acquaintance with that language was 
 very imperfect, he gathered enough from his companion's 
 utterances to ascertain that these effusions were addressed 
 to the Genius of Political Liberty, and related generally 
 to what Dubec called the coming Emancipation of Man 
 ,from all forms of Law, Divine and Human. 
 
74 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 IV. — The Legend of the Treasure Tree. 
 
 Like the eastern shores of North Australia, New 
 Guinea is a land of numerons rivers, streams and brook- 
 lets ; and some of these, issuing from natural groves of 
 mango trees, are most picturesque interruptions to the 
 beach and cliff, which latter is frequently very precipitous. 
 The mango is a fine spreading tree, dividing a little over 
 the height of a man into branches with foliage so dense 
 that even the piercing rays of the tropical sun are shut 
 out, and, hung all over with its sweet, luscious fruit, is at 
 once a banquet and a sylvan hall to the wanderer in these 
 regions. 
 
 Dubec and Harold had safely stretched across Torres 
 Straits, and were now coasting cautiously in a westerly 
 direction, with a view to gaining the unexplored regions 
 of the north of the island. Up to the present only a very 
 few natives had been sighted, and these at a great dis- 
 tance. On this day Dubec had been hardy enough to run 
 the boat up a lonely creek, arched over with dense foliage, 
 while the banks were thickly grown with mango trees. 
 Here, in the heat of the mid- day, they were now resting. 
 Harold sat in the stern, watching the banks of the clear 
 stream, on which the boat was pleasantly rocking, while 
 Dubec lay at his ease in the bottom. Harold was evi- 
 dently not at his ease. For one thing, he could not keep 
 his mind from dwelling on a memory-picture of a certain 
 day in far-off England, when he and Dick had discussed 
 their joint prospects in life. What an appalling change, 
 he thought, between now and then ! 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 75 
 
 "Melancholy, as usual," observed the Frenchman. 
 " Evidently thinking of the English miss ! " Then, as 
 Harold did not reply, he went on, " Possibly you doubt 
 the Treasure. Possibly you think me a madman. Well, 
 you shall see. Meanwhile, my friend, let me tell you the 
 way to be happy is this — care for no one but yourself ; 
 avoid all attachments; be tranquil. Look at me;" and 
 he paused with an evident sense of inward exultation, 
 continuing, " See how I have come up after every fight 
 with Fortune. I am three times your age and more, and 
 have all my teeth, and such a digestion. Even these 
 pigeons and old parrots cannot try it." 
 
 Harold made some commonplace rejoinder, but he 
 could not help thinking that M. Dubec had not much to 
 boast of in finding himself a recidivist in his old age. It 
 is probable that this reflection was pretty legibly written 
 on the lad's ingenuous countenance, for his companion 
 went on, in a moralising tone — 
 
 " Ah ! 5^ou say — but how comes it you go into exile ? 
 I answer, Destiny. It is magnificent, for it leads me to 
 the treasure which will buy me pleasure, youth, long 
 days, flattery, power, and — Revenge." The old convict 
 twisted his month into an ominous grimace, and added — 
 "But you are asking what of this treasure — where is it ? 
 Now I tell you. Listen. You know, my friend, that 
 there is near Bombay a city called Goa; it is Portuguese, 
 It is a city of the Pope, of monks, and nuns. Well, more 
 .than fifty years ago, you — I mean your countrymen — 
 were at war, and you boast of your Wellington, your 
 Nelson. Good ; but there was another side to that, and 
 in the Indian Ocean we take your ships, your mer- 
 
76 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TA.LES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 chandise, and get glory and gain — much gain. One of 
 onr smallest ships was commanded by a very yoang man 
 — a child like you ; he had been of the old noblesse, and 
 he was devout, brave, great. I take ofP my hat to him, I 
 admire him, and I see him now. All went well with him 
 until he had the misfortune to conceive a grand passion 
 for — ah ! what do you think ? Why, a nun in a convent 
 at Groa. She was not a common nun, either ; her family 
 had power and wealth, and the pride of' the Pope. My 
 friend carried this nun off by force and strategy, and 
 then he found himself in great peril. He was pursued, 
 and he fled into more eastern seas, and, before long, in 
 his wrath, turned a veritable pirate. He had two, lives 
 henceforth, my friend — one all ferocity and greed, the 
 other all gentleness and devotion. His great aim was to 
 hide his mistress away where no one could find her, and 
 he discovered a place on the north side of Papua where 
 the navigation is most dangerous. 
 
 " He formed a retreat near the coast, and only four of 
 his crew knew where it was. After the work was done, 
 he used to lie off with his vessel and row himself alone 
 through the channel he had found, and return in a given 
 time the same way. It is curious that the four men 
 who helped him to form the retreat I have told you of 
 were all killed soon after in a variety of ways. I don't 
 know the precise particulars, but I believe two of them 
 at least were shot in the back during some of the many 
 engagements he fought in the China seas. 
 
 " It was known that he had hidden the nun away 
 somewhere in Papua, and that he periodically visited her 
 there. That was all. Meanwhile, he was more daring 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 77 
 
 and yet more cautious than ever in his piracies, and 
 he began to accamulate treasure. Do you understand, 
 my friend ? What was his object ? I will tell you. He 
 resolved to amass a fortune in a portable form, and he 
 quietly exchanged away his share of the plunder he 
 obtained — much of it silver dollars— for gold and dia- 
 monds, sapphires, and other gems. There he was right 
 enough. It is no bad thing to invest in precious stones — 
 a fortune takes up such a small amount of room ! The 
 diamond at least is not fickle, and it never deceives ! It 
 is hard and cold, but it is true to its owner. Meanwhile^ 
 however, as you may imagine, matters in this Papuan 
 retreat were not exactly satisfactory to this very adven- 
 turous and unfaithful nun. Philippe — that is the name 
 of this convent spoiler — provided, I believe, a Papuan 
 damsel as an attendant on his lady love. Well, to shorten 
 a long story, things seem to have gone badly in this 
 romantic sylvan retreat. My friend Philippe prospered 
 exceedingly as a gentleman pirate, and was the idol of 
 his crew — a very small one, by the way, but as fine a 
 set of Bretons as ever sailed. Had he had the sense to 
 stick to his conversion of silver dollars into diamonds, 
 rubies and sapphires, and merely found a sylvan asylum 
 for them, all would have gone well with him; but he 
 had bound himself to a woman who, wretched as a 
 nun, seems to have mourned over her convent as soon 
 as she left it, and to have been seized with what are 
 called, I believe, qualms of conscience — some derange- 
 ment, depend on it, my friend, in the digestion. What 
 was the result? First of all Philippe had qualms in his 
 conscience, and he began to be haunted by nightmares of 
 
78 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALKS AND SKETCHES. 
 
 an angry and, indeed, infuriated Mother Charcli, and he 
 resolved to amass just a little, only a little more, and 
 then abandon the trade and carry ofB his repentant nun 
 to America, and go virtuously into broadcloth and silk, 
 tall hats and Paris bonnets, and live respectably and 
 ' cleanly,' as, I think, your divine ' Williams ' has it, 
 €ver after. Such was Philippe's idea, but any man who 
 devotes himself to a woman gives all the odds to fortune, 
 and the nun who had wrought all this mischief — diverting 
 a French gentleman and a hero from a patriot to a pirate 
 — took such a fit of melancholy that she died, and on 
 visiting his sylvan asylum, after a very profitable cruise, 
 Philippe found the mistress dead and the maid flown 
 into the bush. What did he do ? Did he, like a wise 
 man, bow to the inevitable course of human vicissitudes ? 
 Did he recover his treasure and steal away alone to civi- 
 lisation and enjoyment — to safety and reputation ? Oh 
 no ! He went mad for a time, and, having shut up his 
 sylvan home, where he could never, to my thinking, have 
 enjoyed himself very much, he fled away without a single 
 gem, and did not even return to his brave compatriots. 
 He sank into poverty, and eventually worked his way back 
 to France as a common sailor, and sought out his Breton 
 home. That home had disappeared, like so many more 
 indeed, before the flood of war, and Philippe dragged on a 
 wretched existence for years, eaten up with remorse for his 
 piracies, and especially for his horrible sacrilege. Well, 
 you are beginning to guess the sequel. He fell across my 
 path, and we had a mutual liking — and, indeed, I liked 
 Philippe very much. He confessed all to me, and 
 expressed his fear as to whether he ought not to have 
 
THE TREASURE TKEE. ' 79 
 
 recovered tlie tieasure and given it to tlie Goa convent 
 whence lie ravished the nun who had been his ruin ! I 
 do not know whether he might not have eventually 
 carried out this altogether insane idea, but he died 
 suddenly, leaving me the legacy of his remorse and his 
 secret. I need not say more. I kept my knowledge of 
 the Treasure Tree to myself, and waited until an oppor- 
 tunity offered for escaping alone. Long before I had 
 reached the Coral Sea, I began to regret that I had come 
 alone, although I honestly confess that I do not know 
 one of my late companions in exile whom I could have 
 trusted while I slept, as I am going to now, my friend." 
 And so saying, the speaker folded his arms across his 
 chest, turned over on his side, and in a few moments 
 very audibly slept, while Harold remained motionless 
 and lost in thought at his end of the boat, which, still 
 gently rocking up and down, seemed to be in rhythmical 
 accordance with a vision that had sprung up before his 
 half-shut, dreaming eyes, of Norma as he had last seen 
 her in that far-off typical English home. 
 
 V. — A Papuan Forest. 
 
 Land mist and sea foam. All along the shore luxu- 
 riant vegetation, half hidden in a quivering haze of moist 
 heat, and strangely illuminated here and there by the 
 vivid hues of tree-borne flowers. Up and up, mountain 
 and vegetation soar together, a wondrous irregular .slope 
 of all shades of green, variegated with all the hues of the 
 
80 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 rainbow, and blending a tlast with the blazing sky of a 
 tropical day. All below, at the foot of this fruitful shore, 
 boomed and beat an almost tempestuous sea, churned into 
 vast fountains of irridescent spray, occasioned by the 
 dashing of the heavy seas amid the tortuous passages of 
 innumerable rocks and reefs which every moment threat- 
 ened the boat of our two adventurers with immediate 
 destruction. The earth, air, sea and sky were all blended 
 together in a blinding, overpowering beauty. In some 
 places along the shore, where the low-lying reefs threw 
 np the greatest abundance of spray and the haze of the 
 land heat was thickest, in a sort of half-luminous steam 
 the projection on high of what appeared an air-born Eden 
 of surpassing loveliness had a startling effect, while every- 
 where there were innumerable flights of birds, and, as the 
 boat slowly drew near the shore, Dubec and Harold were 
 stirred into a burst of involuntary admiration and wonder 
 as a cloud of birds of paradise floated by, far np in the 
 glowing sky, the indescribably beautiful play of colours in 
 their lovely plumage giving them all the appearance of 
 air-born creatures arrayed in living sunbeams, and ex- 
 pressing with each movement the very essence of physical 
 joy and brightness. 
 
 Never had Harold imagined, although he had read as 
 much about the tropics as most young men of his age and 
 station, that there could be concentrated within one sweep 
 of the human vision such a wealth of colour — such a 
 splendour of pure light, and such an intense profusion of 
 life, in what seemed to him a Paradisiacal region. The 
 palms, in particular, as they drew nearer still, were 
 amazing for their magnitude, some of the leaves being 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 81 
 
 indeed full fifty feet long, wliile the powei-ful odour of 
 some of the flowers attracted dense clouds of insects. 
 Oranges and lemons, loaded with fruit, could also be dis- 
 tinguished, together with the cocoanut and the masooi, 
 whose fragrant bark exhales a delightful and powerful scent. 
 Several times Harold lost himself so far in his sponta- 
 neous admiration of the gorgeous scene that Dubec called 
 him sharply to bis senses, as once or twice the boat was 
 well nigh swamped with the breakers, and at other times 
 bumped and grated on the rocks, as they came on with 
 the powerful inrolling tide to a kind of crescent bay, 
 surrounded and guarded by tremendous cliffs, over which 
 in several places there dashed down, in mighty cascades, 
 the mountain streams that found here an outlet for their 
 waters. 
 
 Dubec seemed puzzled ; and he grew at once excited 
 and angry, speaking rapidly in French to himself, and in 
 a manner quite unintelligible to his companion. Sud- 
 denly he gave vent to a jubilant ejaculation, and, throw- 
 ing himself into the stern of the boat, burst into a fit of 
 laughter, which Harold plainly regarded as idiotic. 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Dubec, recovering his usual de- 
 meanour, " you cold, icy English, you have no sympathy 
 — you have no esprit — you do not know what it is to 
 imagine. I have seen my fortune at last — (sinking his 
 voice to a low whisper) — I have seen the place of the 
 tree; now we go on — we are in the right passage, and 
 my friend Philippe, he tell the truth." 
 
 Harold, of course, saw nothing in the way of a land- 
 mark, and remarked, drily, that he should like to see the 
 place too. 
 
 7 
 
82 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 "All in good time," replied Dubec ; "you would not 
 know or understand if I showed you. We shall presently 
 find ourselves in a creek, and then in a little river, and 
 then — and then, my friend — we shall see, we shall see a 
 sight — a magnificent sight ! " 
 
 It certainly turned out so, for, in accordance with 
 Dubec's prediction, in a short time they were borne by 
 the strong current into a small creek, which looked very 
 like a natural dock, the sides rising abruptly ; and 
 after pulling vigorously for a while, they entered first 
 a deliciously gi'een twilight, caused by the trees meeting 
 overhead, shot here and there with sunshine ; and as 
 they proceeded further up a narrowing stream the gloom 
 deepened, and in front, as overhead, for the most part 
 there closed an extraordinary mass of the most luxuriant 
 vegetation, so dense that it seemed impossible to land 
 without cutting out standing room from among the inex- 
 tricable tangle of grasses, reeds, plants and trees, all 
 bound together with intricate masses of climbing vegeta- 
 tion. All was vigorous vitality — no dead thing could be 
 seen. From the water's edge to the very crown of the 
 beautiful green and blossom-and-fruit-variegated tunnel 
 through which they forced the boat, everything was 
 exuberant and fragrant, and, as Harold soon found, to his 
 great disgust at first, the insect life was in proportion to 
 the extraordinary wealth of vegetation, which here throve 
 in an atmosphere of 80 or 90 degrees, although entirely 
 shielded from the rays of the sun. After a while exertion 
 became far too painful to be persisted in, and both rested 
 on their oars and looked at each other exhausted. 
 
 "Ah! you see what a tropical forest is like now," 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 83 
 
 remarked Dubec, who was evidently the less overcome 
 by the effects of the vapour bath in which they floated. 
 " Wait a while ; we shall find that Master Philippe 
 chose cooler quarters further up. I wonder, my friend, 
 what your English miss would say to such a place as 
 this ? How would it do for what you call, I think, a 
 picnic ? " 
 
 " Not at all," gasped Harold ; " I think I would rather 
 the next time seek a treasure at the North Pole. Can't 
 say I like adventures, now I am in for them at last. I 
 can tell you, old man, if we do get out of this mess, as it 
 seems to me, I shall have no more adventures, I can 
 promise you." 
 
 " And yet," rejoined Dubec, in a musing tone, " the 
 life has its good side, if we can only escape the head- 
 hunters. There is nothing to do but to enjoy. All you 
 really want is furnished ready. The sago tree, for 
 example, is a regular natural flour mill, and when it has 
 reared its pithy tower full of flour it is ready to build 
 another for anyone who will kindly cut down its pillar of 
 natural flour barrels, piled one on the other ! I have had 
 many adventures, and look for many more, but I suppose 
 you will return to your domestic monotone — your getting 
 up to breakfast, read the newspaper, talk, write, gossip, 
 dine, smoke perhaps, and then the comfortable bed again, 
 and the dull, correct, proper English wife. Bah ! it is a 
 very insipid business," 
 
 " Insipid or not, I should be very glad to be back 
 again in London," Harold replied, emphatically ; " and, 
 what is more, I should never have come out if I had 
 known what was before me." 
 
84 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " Not even for the fortune ? " 
 
 "Well, we haven't got it yet." 
 
 " Ah, that is sure ! But you astonish me. You are not 
 the English youth I have heard and read of, but never 
 seen. I wonder what you would do for me if we were 
 to run into a nest of savages? They may be anywhere 
 about us, and a flight of arrows would be very awkward 
 here." 
 
 " Oh, you will find me quite ready to fight," rejoined 
 Harold; "only I mean to say I have just had enough of 
 this life, and I don't want any more of it. Give me 
 England for ever, a steady business, and a good wife, j 
 never knew till now all the blessings that such common 
 things really meant." 
 
 Dubec regarded the young man attentively, and with 
 an evident sneer that ended in a mocking smile, as he ex- 
 claimed, " One life — one love — how exceedingly ridiculous ? 
 Did you ever hear of Lope Felix de Vega-Carpio ? Ah ! 
 what is your divine Williams to him? He began a soldier, 
 then half turned priest — that was useful by way of ex- 
 periences — figured at Madrid, went into court life, married 
 a great lady, Isabella de Urbino, quarrelled with a courtier, 
 satirised and then killed him in a duel. Lope next had a 
 turn in prison — more useful experiences, my boy — and 
 lost his wife, and, for a little while, had a new luxury, 
 lucky fellow, that of grief. Next we find Lope serving in 
 the Armada, which was beaten, my friend, by the storm 
 and the sea — not by the English, mark you ; and returned 
 to Madrid. Lope there became secretary to some of the 
 leading statesmen of the day — and what a day it was ! — 
 and again married. He lived happy, and had a son ! Lo 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 85 
 
 and behold ! wife and son died ; but he soon found con- 
 solation with Donna Maria de Luxan, and, when he was 
 once more quite tired out with pleasure, he became a 
 priest in earnest, and entered the Order of St. Francis in 
 1609, and such was his ardour that he burnt a heretic in 
 1623. 1 tell yoQ Lope lived in splendour when he chose, 
 and when he preferred to be the hermit he found the 
 alternative good. Why, he grew so great that people 
 used to talk of a Lope jewel or a Lope poem. He wrote 
 nearly two thousand plays, and sometimes he composed a 
 whole drama in one single day ! No one was ever like 
 him. Your Shakspeare — bah ! he was nowhere. I say 
 this was a man; but you, with your English notions — 
 yonr one love, one wife, one home, one occupation — bah ! 
 again. You do not live, you do not see the world, and 
 you do not understand men and women either — you are 
 wretched — what you call it — nincompoop." 
 
 " I don't know anything about your hero, but if he had 
 lived among us I fancy he would have been hanged,'* 
 retorted Harold, who of late had — he hardly knew why — 
 felt an increasing distrust of, and dislike to, his com- 
 panion. He had, to tell the plain truth, been greatly 
 exercised within himself to account for what he conceived 
 to be Dubec's generosity in regard to the Treasure. It 
 had dawned on him by a kind of intuition that Dubec was 
 mocking him throughout — that circumstances having cast 
 him in the way of the Frenchman, the latter was willing 
 to make what use he could of his aid, and that if, when 
 the Treasure (if it really existed, which he sometimes 
 doubted) was found, Dubec could dispense with his 
 services, Harold would find himself left in the lurch, if — 
 
86 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 as a dreadful instinct warned him — the old recidivist did 
 not imitate the action of his friend Philippe, who, he 
 shrewdly suspected, like other pirates on like occasions, 
 had already assassinated the men who knew of the locality 
 of his treasure. Altogether Harold felt particularly 
 uncomfortable, and the more so as he was practically 
 unarmed, while Dubec carried — but where did not appear 
 — a pistol which had already done execution on the 
 Queensland blacks. In addition to this intense dis- 
 quietude, Harold felt all the time that the old convict 
 had undoubtedly saved his life, and in a strange, almost 
 inexplicable, way there was mingled in his mind a pro- 
 found sense of gi-atitude with an utter distrust. 
 
 As they floated further up the stream, which wound in 
 and out amid what was in fact an impenetrable forest, the 
 water began to fail them, and they were continually 
 grounding. The only resource was to get out and push 
 the boat off, and sometimes propel it for weary distances 
 through a dreadful black ooze with but a few inches of 
 clear water above, and, as Harold expressed it to himself, 
 with a constant apprehension of treading on some veno- 
 mous reptile finding its home in the rotting vegetation 
 that seemed to form the bed of the rivulet. 
 
 Happily, Papua, unlike Borneo, has little in its forests 
 of a noxious kind, and beyond bats and a few tree- 
 climbing kangaroos, they encountered nothing living 
 besides the innumerable birds and the complete plague of 
 insects which sorely tried the temper of Harold. At 
 length the rivulet began to run so dry that Dubec pro- 
 posed to leave the boat, it being evidently useless toil 
 to carry it further, and, moreover, as Dubec now con- 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 87 
 
 descended to inform his companion, they must be nearing 
 the end of their toilsome journey, "unless," as he muttered 
 to himself, " my friend Philippe was the victim of some 
 Opium dream." 
 
 As the stream narrowed and grew more and more in- 
 distinct, it being difficult to trace its bed at times, Dubec's 
 spirits evidently rose. % It was quite evident that he was 
 all the while following a very complete clue, with the 
 details of which he did not choose to trouble Harold ; and, 
 indeed, although ever and anon he broke forth into 
 various gay chansons which he never quite finished, always 
 starting a new one after a verse or two had rippled forth 
 from a mouth that ill-suited such airy trifles, he hardly 
 addressed a word to Harold, who trudged on by his side, 
 wrapped in thought that seemed to grow more gloomy 
 in proportion as Dubec became obviously more gay. At 
 last, just as the bed of the stream seemed to disappear 
 altogether, and a dense, impenetrable mass of verdure, 
 solid as a wall, rose up before them, the old recidivist 
 grasped his companion's arm with a hand which quivered 
 with the strength of his emotion, and stopped abruptly, 
 exclaiming in French, " It is here." The manner an 
 tlie tone roused Harold from the lethargy which seemed 
 to have crept over him, and pulling himself together with 
 an effort, he rejoined, " Then it is about time, for it is my 
 belief that I am going to be knocked over by some 
 confounded fever or disease peculiar to this awful vapour 
 bath." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " cried Dubec. " We shall soon cure that ; 
 the treasure is in sight, almost; at all events, the Tree 
 is." And taking a strong hold of Harold's arm, as though 
 
88 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 at this particular moment lie feared desertion, he plunged 
 with him into the thick undergrowth on the right, and 
 presently, after battling with innumerable creepers, the 
 two emerged on a small glade or opening, to which, in 
 truth, a kind of avenue had been originally cut, but 
 which was now nearly choked up by the rank vegetation 
 that had sprung up to fill the place of a long line of 
 felled trees, forming a kind of timber road, over which 
 they stumbled with no little difficulty. 
 
 "There," saidDubec, pointing straight in front; "there 
 is the Tree. Whether we shall find the treasure too, may 
 be another thing." 
 
 But the sight that met their view — the day was now 
 drawing to a close — must be reserved for another chapter. 
 
 VT. — Inside the Tree. 
 
 The sight that the two explorers beheld was, indeed, 
 arrestive. They stood on the verge of a small glade, 
 walled in by the loftiest and mightiest trees that had yet 
 met their view — trees that soared up over a hundred feet 
 at least, and from which depended fantastic curtains, as it 
 were, of climbing plants, many having aerial roots, cling- 
 ing to the topmost boughs of the trees, and some being 
 gorgeous with flowers of gigantic size and of colours 
 which were, even in the fast-failing light, singularly 
 vivid. Harold was no botanist, and knew nothing of 
 trees and plants beyond what he had picked up from his 
 knowledge of English gardens and parks ; but Dubec 
 pointed out, as the cause of a peculiar odour which 
 
THE TREASURE TREK. 89 
 
 loaded the air, some camphor trees, massive in trunk and 
 having small yellowish -white flowers. And there Avere, 
 too, some splendid ironwood trees, which, Avith their 
 enormous masses of flowers, very like small white roses, 
 in striking contrast with the deep crimson buds and 
 shoots of this remarkable tree, lighted up the glade in a 
 manner at once beautiful and yet ghastly. Dubec 
 informed his companion that this species of Myrtaceae, 
 which includes the clove and the eucalypti, is planted 
 frequently near Buddhist temples, on account of their 
 equable and endunng fragrance. All this, which takes 
 many words to faintly depict, was seen at a glance ; but 
 the attention of both was fascinated by a single tree, 
 which Harold, Avithout a word more from his strange 
 companion, felt instinctively must be the object of their 
 long and painful search. It Avas of gigantic girth, and 
 rose to a giddy height without throwing out a single 
 branch ; but, at an elevation at which everything Avas 
 now dim and indistinct, there spread out an immense 
 head of thick foliage, which loomed like a grotesque air- 
 born structure — for it had a certain defined form — in the 
 gathering obscurity. 
 
 The tree, Avhich Avas altogether the vastest they had 
 yet encountered, was very far from occupying the centre 
 of the clearing, but its branches, which spread a con- 
 siderable distance, and stretched out quite horizontally at 
 one point, appeared in contact, and to be even inter- 
 mingled, Avith the foliage of one or two of the trees on 
 that side of the glade nearest to this veritable giant of 
 the Papuan forest. 
 
 Neither of our adventurers at first approached within 
 
90 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 several yards of tlie tree. Harold felt an inward awe that 
 he could not explain, and Dubec, now that the goal was 
 attained, had grown marvellously quiet and complacent. 
 The fact was, now the tree stood before him exactly as it 
 had been described in Philippe's confession, he hesitated 
 on the eve of the final investigation, for the dreadful 
 thought flashed through his mind — Suppose that after 
 all the treasure is not there ! But he preserved an outer 
 calm, and even sought excuse, as it w^ere, to postpone for 
 a time the crucial investigation. 
 
 "Yes, my friend," he said, "that is the tree unques- 
 tionably, and up there, where that mass of branches and 
 leaves look so solid, is the lofty sylvan mansion — the 
 country seat, I think you English call it — of my foolish 
 friend." 
 
 " It is a tree house then?" observed Harold, who had 
 heard of the tree houses of New Guinea, although, owing 
 to their remarkable success so far in keeping clear of the 
 natives, they had not yet seen a specimen of this extra- 
 ordinary form of human dwelling. 
 
 " Yes, my friend, it is a tree house, but one of a very 
 peculiar kind, as you will soon see. These houses hav.e 
 usually ladders with long vines at each side, an abundance 
 of natural cordage to get up by, and these black fellows 
 manufacture first-rate ladders, broad as a staircase and 
 nearly as easy to go up ; here there is nothing of the kind, 
 but the house is up there (pointing with his hand) all the 
 same." 
 
 " I suppose," said Harold, in his matter-of-fact, common- 
 place manner, " that the ladder was there, but it has 
 simply decayed and rotted away among this rank grass." 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 91 
 
 "No, my friend, yon are wrong. These ladders require 
 sentinels at the top to see who climbs up, but our friend 
 Philippe had a better idea than that. Bah ! He was 
 clever — an original. I tell you he put his ladder inside 
 the tree, and laughed at the savages, the head-hunters, 
 and all the rest. Oh, he beat all — except destiny." 
 
 Some little time had elapsed since our two explorers 
 had first penetrated into this strange glade, and it was 
 now not only dark but beginning to be decidedly chilly, 
 for even in New Guinea — island of an Orient sun as it is 
 — the nights are cold, and many of the natives have the 
 practice of keeping a fire going in their huts during the 
 period of slumber — a thing that is at once a comfort and 
 a precaution, for it operates as a good prophylactic against 
 the noxious vapours that exhale from the enormous 
 masses of undergrowth and rank weeds in a country 
 where hardly a spot can be found clear of vegetation of the 
 rankest sort. 
 
 " Come," continued Dubec, "let us have a fire and 
 some supper and a light, and then we can see what is 
 before us." 
 
 Both were, indeed, physically very tired with their long" 
 and laborious forced march up the difficult bed of the 
 stream, which had, in reality, been the guide or clue to the 
 mysterious tree, and the prospect of a tire, supper, and a 
 little rest, was equally welcome to each. A quantity of 
 dead wood was collected, and, a space being cleared near 
 the tree by dragging up the grass, Dubec soon started 
 a good fire with a pinch of gunpowder, and, having 
 searched about a little, speedily brought a good supply of 
 taro — a good esculent root, which when baked or roasted, 
 
92 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 forms a capital substitute for potatoes. A couple of 
 parrots they had knocked over with sticks during their 
 tramp up from the bay were roughly plucked, and in 
 a surprisingly short time they had a fair meal ready. 
 Presently Harold, having taken the edge off his appetite, 
 observed : — " If anybody — you yourself — had told me that 
 he could sit here quite quietly a few feet off a treasure 
 tree, as you call it, and not go right mad with excitement, 
 I should have declared it to be impossible." 
 
 "Ah! "replied Dubec drily, "I have seen men going 
 to a new gold field act like lunatics until they arrived, 
 and the sight of the expanse of common-looking land 
 generally sobered them pretty much. There is no use for 
 us to go into a fit because we are here. The tree is there, 
 safe enough ; the next thing is to get in it." 
 
 "Get in it ?" -inquired Harold, with genuine surprise. 
 " I thought it had to be climbed." 
 
 " You wouldn't find that an easy job ; and if the story 
 is true we shall find that this tree is very like an old 
 Breton tower that my old friend Philippe had in his mind 
 when he chose this spot for his sylvan chateau. It has, 
 or should have, a regular door and a zigzag sort of stair 
 inside, going up to the dwelling part, which is built out 
 on the branches, and which we cannot see now, on account 
 of the darkness and the foliage." 
 
 Harold felt his heart begin to beat with a sinister 
 agitation. The fever and fatigue of the toiling journey 
 had deadened his finer perception, but now, as the legend 
 narrated by Dubec recurred to his mind, in a somewhat 
 confused shape, a strange, undefined fear possessed him, 
 and he found his mistrust of his companion swallowed up 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 93 
 
 in a growing horror of the tree itself, and of the dark and 
 pent-up terrible secrets enclosed within it. A certain hesi- 
 tation, too, seemed to have infected Dnbec, who, after a rest 
 by the fire, rose and walked about, approaching within a 
 few feet of the tree, and then turning off abruptly. At 
 last he ordered Harold to collect more fuel, and, aiding 
 himself in this work, fed the fire and made it up some- 
 what nearer the tree, and so as to cast a powerful light 
 on the whole of that side of the vast bole, which, thus 
 illuminated, revealed, in the dry bark and gnarled ap- 
 pearance of the surface, signs of an antiquity that seemed 
 quite in keeping with its enormous girth. 
 
 *' We may be, after all, on the wrong side," remarked 
 Dubec, " and if so must light up on the other, but there 
 should be an opening here somewhere." 
 
 Then, to the intense wonderment of his companion, he 
 began peering closely into the surface and feeling all over 
 it with his hands, as though in search of some familiar 
 object. At length he uttered an exclamation of delight, 
 and, aided by Harold, one with a hatchet, the other with 
 a knife, began scraping and laying bare the wood itself, 
 and exposed to view a very palpable and perpendicular 
 cut or cleft, that extended upwards about six feet, and 
 after some further patient chopping, hacking, and scrap- 
 ing, a transverse cut was exposed to view also, and then a 
 parallel perpendicular crack, thus revealing the paral- 
 lelogram of a small door such as is sometimes found in the 
 salient towers of mediaeval castles. A careful examination 
 and the use of a hatchet leverwise, wiiich Dubec applied 
 with all his strength, soon showed that the "door" con- 
 sisted of a solid slice of the tree pivoted in very thick 
 
94 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 wooden pins at the top and bottom, and leaving, when 
 this valve-like portal Avas fully opened, two rather slit- 
 like entrances, which led to an interior of impenetrable 
 darkness. 
 
 Dubec wiped the moisture from his face and forehead, for 
 the exertion had been great, and he had refused, with an 
 irritation not exhibited before, to accept Harold's aid. 
 He was evidently growing dreadfully excited, though 
 struggling to preserve a calm demeanour, while somehow 
 Harold did not feel, as he had expected, at all elated 
 now that the object of their search was before them. 
 
 " If that valve had jammed," remarked Dubec, "it 
 would have been a big job ; see, it is more than a foot 
 thick at the least, and no doubt it was made in the 
 thinnest part of the trunk. Now, before we go in, we 
 must have lights, that is certain." 
 
 Harold suggested manufacturing some torches, or brino-- 
 ing the fire still nearer, so as to cast its radiance well 
 into the opening. This last proposal Dubec rejected as 
 fi^ught with peril, and he pointed out to Harold how old 
 and dry the gigantic bole of this veteran of a tropical 
 forest had become. "There is," he said, "if Philippe 
 spoke truth, a hollow way right up to the house, and if 
 we once had fire in such a shaft as that nothing could 
 put it out. But we must have light to climb up, and, 
 besides, there is no knowing what may be inside." 
 
 It struck Harold that, although the coveted treasure 
 of glittering jewels had gleamed rainbow- like in the 
 imagination of both while they were yet afar, it was a 
 problem as to what would really be found, and he began 
 to shudder within himself as he remembered that, whether 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 95 
 
 a treasure-house or not, the tree was most certainly a 
 tomb. So strong was this feeling that he could not for- 
 bear from saying to Dubec, " You seem to forget the 
 dead." 
 
 " Oh ! no, nob at all, my young friend. But I do not 
 fancy that will trouble us much. In a place like this the 
 insects would soon leave nothing but bones. I only hope 
 that nothing worse has happened. In these countries it 
 is no uncommon thing to bury in trees, and the reptiles 
 and the birds soon make everything fresh and sweet," 
 and the old recidivist grinned a diabolical grin. Harold 
 shrank back in undisguised disgust, and exclaimed that 
 to his ears such words were profane and sacrilegious. 
 "Oh!" said Dubec, with more sternness than sarcasm, 
 for he was growing evidently more serious, and had lost 
 his mocking manner, " I quite comprehend. You have 
 scruples. You shall soon see, my brave, how many I 
 have. Now come and help me to make some torches. It 
 is no use torturing ourselves this way. Let us find the 
 treasure, if it exists, and then we can argue as much 
 as you please about sacrilege." 
 
 A terrible fit of gloom had seized on Harold. The 
 whole scene — and the crisis had arrived — seemed to him 
 a nightmare. Although Dubec had eaten freely of the 
 rough food that the sea and the forest had yielded them, 
 Harold had not even now become " seasoned " to such 
 fare, and he was more debilitated than he himself knew, 
 and the strain of helping to push the boat up the bed of 
 the shallow stream had told severely on his nervous 
 system ; and just now, in the midst of the deep gloom of 
 the mysterious glade and the fantastic shadows created 
 
96 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 by the flickering fire, he grew giddy, and it was only wath 
 a great effort that he Bucceeded in pulling himself to- 
 gether and assisting his companion in preparing some 
 torches of twisted and resinous rattans which Dubec 
 selected as likely to serve their purpose. When these 
 w^ere finished to his satisfaction he lighted one himself, 
 and, bidding Harold light another and carry some spare 
 bundles in case of need, our two adventurers stepped into 
 the interior of the tree, and then, by common consent, 
 paused at the strange sight that met their w^ondering 
 eyes. The interior hollow was evidently in part the 
 result of natural decay, and in part had been enlarged by 
 the use of tools, and the orifice, which at the base might 
 measure ten or twelve feet in diameter, seemed to contract 
 overhead, but the feeble light of the rude torches, which 
 emitted quite as much smoke as flame, entirely failed to 
 light many feet upwards, and only very partially revealed 
 the lower section, with its rugged discoloured surfaces, 
 pitted and gnarled, and presenting everywhere a most 
 forbidding appearance. Presently, as the eyes of our 
 adventurers became more accustomed to the gloom, what 
 was an evident ship's lantern was observed swinging 
 overhead, for the opening of the long-closed door in the 
 trunk had induced a strong upward draught, indicative 
 of openings above, and at first the object had struck 
 Harold at least with a thrill of horror, so closely did it 
 resemble a weird head suspended in the surrounding 
 gloom. Crossing and recrossing from side to side, and 
 having, so far as could yet be seen, small platforms by 
 way of landings, there went upwards a kind of half stairs, 
 half ladder, made of rattan, and evidently wound together 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 97 
 
 with great care, and giving ready access to tlie upper 
 portion of the mysterious tree. 
 
 " Just as he described it," muttered Dubec ; and then 
 he showed his companion that the door, or valve, at the 
 foot of this strange staircase was furnished with an ii'on 
 bar, made to fit into iron sockets let into the thickness of 
 the hollow trunk on each side, for the door itself was not 
 one-third of the thickness of the hollow trunk, and, being 
 flush outside, left, when closed, a deep recess inside. 
 
 While these observations were making, Harold noticed 
 that the wind was rising, and drew his companion's 
 attention to the fact that some of the red ashes of their 
 fire, which was still burning, were blowing in at their 
 feet, and, dreading the effect of this on the inflammable 
 rattans of the staircase, they shouldered to the door, 
 which worked reluctantly on its huge wooden pivots. 
 
 "Now," said Dubec, "we have only to go up and help 
 ourselves. It is very simple, is it not ? " 
 
 " What is simple ? " asked Harold, on whom an un- 
 defined, but unnerving, horror was slowly advancing, as 
 he expressed it to himself, inch by inch. 
 
 Dubec only laughed a low, strange laugh, and replied, 
 " Allez, go you the first, my friend;" and his companion, 
 upon whom the weird interior of the tree had already 
 produced a sort of nightmare, obeyed as in a dream, and 
 slowly went up the rattan stairway, followed by the 
 recidivist. 
 
98 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 VII. — Finding the Treasure. 
 
 Habold, although by no means constitutionally a 
 coward, such as civilisation and what may be convention- 
 ally called a carpet-and-pavement life now unduly fosters, 
 was not brave in the positive sense, and, as he expressed 
 it to himself inwardly, although not in those words, he 
 went up the rattan stairs with the grave before him, or 
 rather above him, and death behind, for somehow the 
 idea had taken a firm hold of his excited fancy that 
 Dubec, so soon as the treasure was actually found, had 
 resolved on his murder. 
 
 A yard or two up, and he perceived overhead a close kind 
 of ceiling of strong cane-work, and, cautiously exploring 
 with his smoking, flickering torch, found himself half 
 way through a kind of hatchway which opened on a sort 
 of chamber, pierced by another turn of the rude but con- 
 venient rattan stairs, and presently, stepping on the floor, 
 which was of great strength, he looked about him to see 
 what kind of a place it was. By degrees the fantastic 
 and forbidding shadows yielded to his eyes, as they grew 
 accustomed to the obscurity, and presently Dubec also 
 emerged on the platform, and thus adding to the general 
 illumination, the rough outline of the chamber became 
 vaguely visible. It appeared to have been used as a kind 
 of store. Casks and cases were built up against the sides, 
 and in one angle was a stand of old-fashioned muskets, 
 together with a number of swords, pikes, &c., and a small 
 pile of kegs, which, as Dubec's eye fell on them, caused 
 him to mutter " Gunpowder ! " Harold could not help 
 
THK TKKASL'RE TREE. 99 
 
 looking longingly at the arms, but somehow he felt 
 himself constrained not to go near them, as he had an 
 inward perception that his companion Avas eyeing him 
 suspiciously, and he dreaded the moment when the old 
 convict should throw off his clumsy mask, and declare 
 that he had only been amusing him with the promise of 
 sharing the spoil. 
 
 "Nothing here but the spiders, you see," observed 
 Dubec, gruffly, and obviously all had been undisturbed for 
 a long period, seeing that all around were thick festoons of 
 cobwebs — not such as are ever seen in Europe, but webs 
 capable of catching and holding fast any small bird. 
 
 •'If the spiders are like the webs," observed Harold, 
 breaking a strange silence that had fallen upon both, 
 *'they must be rather ugly customers." 
 
 " Certainement,'^ replied Dubec, and, approaching his 
 torch to one of the largest webs, he revealed to view a 
 spider quite as large as a small crab, ensconced in his 
 citadel, amid the debris of some recent meal off a terrible - 
 looking form of beetle which had already filled Harold 
 with a nameless horror. 
 
 Dubec did not offer to touch any of the articles in the 
 chamber, and presently, turning to Harold, he said, "I see 
 no sign of the treasure here. It is above — we must seek 
 it," and to his companion's surprise and secret relief — for 
 he shuddered to have the old convict behind him — slowly 
 climbed up the second staircase. 
 
 Presently the two emerged on another floor of woven 
 cane, and, as they simultaneously raised their torches, 
 paused in silent astonishment as they gradually took in 
 the details of the scene before them. It was a lar^re 
 
100 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 apartment, with what appeared to be French windows of 
 lattice work at one end, closed, and opening, as Harold 
 conjectured, on some kind of platform extended on the 
 branches of the tree, which he calculated began to run out 
 at about this height. The walls were draped with flags, 
 which he made out to be in many cases tattered and torn, 
 and here and there a mirror shone, dim and unreflecting^ 
 amid the strange drapery — mirrors that had once been the 
 adornment of some ship's saloon. Piles of soft cushions 
 lay along the floor, and there were musical instruments, 
 with heaps of music and books, and a number of small 
 objects for use or ornament, whose exact character they 
 could not immediately discern. Up in one comer, nearest 
 to the square hatch in the floor where the rattan stall's 
 ended, was a kind of alcove, and to this the eyes of both 
 turned and rested there, fixed for the moment by an over- 
 powdering fascination. 
 
 "Yes, yes," muttered Dubec, in a voice so subdued that 
 Harold drew nearer to distinguish his words ; " Philippe 
 was true. It is all as he said. See, my friend, this is 
 the bridal chamber, as he called it. Outside" (pointing to 
 the lattice-work windows) "w^as their general apartment, 
 right out on the tree — a kind of balcony, where, he told 
 me, they used tq hang up festoons of flowers and gaily- 
 coloured birds, and sing and play together. Here is the 
 treasure, my friend, unless reptiles can digest diamonds, 
 and spiders can swallow sapphires." 
 
 On a low kind of reclining chair, at the foot of the 
 alcove, was a dark oblong object, which Harold now took 
 up, an action that made Dubec turn sharply, and ask, 
 "What is that?" 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 101 
 
 " Only a kind of old-fasliioned prayer-book, so far as I 
 can see," replied Harold, holding out what was in truth 
 an ancient breviary, of great weight, richly embellished 
 and ponderously clasped. 
 
 " Now," said Dubec, drawing still nearer, first twisting 
 his torch into a chair back, and plunging one hand into 
 the bosom of his torn shirt, as though to feel for some- 
 thing there, "here we have bed and bier in one. See! the 
 glorious tricolour, the conquering flag of Philippe's ship, 
 covers the corpse and the treasure too. Look!" And, 
 twitching the corner of a large tricoloured flag that lay 
 like a counterpane on an unmistakable bed, he motioned 
 Harold to approach with his torch. The latter obe^^ed 
 him, moving as one in a dream, and still mechamcally 
 holding the breviary in his right hand. He approached, 
 raised the smoking torch so as to cast the light down- 
 wards, and saw, amid a terrible glitter of red and white 
 gems, a sight that seemed to him, overwrought as his 
 nerves were, so horrible in its living corruption that he 
 started back, wildly exclaiming, " My Grod ! my God, I 
 cannot bear it ! I cannot bear it ! " 
 
 " Fool ! " Dubec stamped his foot angrily. " Do you 
 think I brought you here for nothing. Fool, they are 
 only reptiles. Qaick, pick me out the stones instantly, I 
 say. Do you hear ? It is my fancy, my will that you do 
 this. Do you understand ? You are an Englishman, and 
 
 only fit for such dirty work as this. Quick, I say, or ," 
 
 and he drew forth his hand from his bosom and levelled 
 the pistol that had already done such execution among 
 the Queensland blacks point blank at Harold. For 
 him there was no time for thought. Apart from the 
 
102 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZKALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 peril that thus suddenly faced him, he had turned to fl}' 
 as far as possible from that indescribably horrible and 
 revolting sight, and in a blind, unreasoning impulse had 
 started to dash through the windows, regardless of what 
 lay beyond, or whither he was going, but as he turned, he 
 threw, more by a blind instinct than design, the heavily- 
 bound breviary at Dubec. It struck with full force the 
 hand that held the pistol, and, despite the iron muscles 
 of the old recidivist, beat his hand down, and, as the 
 muzzle pointed to the rattan floor, the charge exploded 
 just as Harold sprang right through the old and decayed 
 lattice, and, carried on by his impetus, fell sprawling on 
 the platform that extended far out, built solidly on the 
 horizontal boughs of the giant tree. 
 
 Then — as he lay prostrate, bruised, and half stunned — 
 a roar as of a thousand cannon seemed to rend the air, 
 and a lightning flash of awful red fire revealed each crack 
 and grain of dust on the platform on which he rested, 
 and the whole mighty mass of timber rocked to and fro 
 like the mast of a storm-tossed ship. 
 
 "Oh, my God!" he whispered, for his voice seemed to 
 have gone for the moment under the paralysing influence 
 of the awful shock. " The gunpowder — he has blown up 
 the magazine!" While he lay still he heard the un- 
 mistakable crackling of wood and the dull roar of fire, as 
 when a strong furnace is in full blast, and he knew that 
 the tree was on fire ! 
 
 Staggering up, like a drunken man, he retraced his 
 steps to the windows or door, through which he had 
 burst just in time to save himself from the effects of 
 the explosion, and there the sight he saw warned him 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 103 
 
 that by the way he and his companion had come there 
 was no passage now for anything in the shape of flesh and 
 blood. All before him was thick smoke, with that pecu- 
 liar odour that always accompanies gunpowder explosions 
 on a large scale, and this smoke was irradiated with a 
 fearful red glow. 
 
 The heat was intense, and evidently the fire was rapidly 
 srainino- a hold of the tree, and Harold tottered back, half 
 blinded, to the external platform, and then grew conscious 
 of what had previously escaped his attention. The 
 terrible roar and hissing of the fire within was now 
 answered by an increasing roar without — a growl, a 
 rattle, a scream ever and anon, but of hurricane magni- 
 tude, while splashes of tempest water, the mere drops of 
 the growing tropical storm, began beating in on the plat- 
 form on which he now lay clinging to the uneven surface, 
 for even in this comparative shelter the wind was blowing 
 with a mighty power, and he had not strength to stand 
 up against it. 
 
 All beyond his lofty station was not simply dark, but 
 solidly black, as it seemed to his straining eyes, and in 
 his awful solitude, thus strangely imprisoned on this 
 giddy platform, between fire and tempest, he felt his brain 
 reel and his heart stand still, as a dreadful deadening 
 presentiment came over him that now, indeed, he was 
 lost ! Then, while the choking smoke rolled out on the 
 platform, and the ominous hiss and seething of the fire 
 sounded each moment nearer, the solid darkness which 
 he dared not look at direct as he lay face downward on 
 the platform, now running with water like a wave- washed 
 deck — the solid darkness, I say, was not so much rent 
 
104 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALKS AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and split up as replaced by the most terrible blaze of 
 tropical lightning, followed by the crash around of falling 
 timber and then by a dowaipour of water as though an 
 aerial lake were being poured down upon the forest. 
 Even lying thus comparatively sheltered, for there were 
 mighty branches far over Harold's head, he felt as though 
 he should suffocate, so fierce was the swirl of the hurri- 
 cane, and an apathy stole over him — a deadness to all 
 feeling — against Avhich he did not even struggle, and a 
 merciful unconsciousness came to his rescue. 
 
 How long this swoon lasted Harold could never rightly 
 tell. Perhaps it Avas right through the night and succeed- 
 ing day, and the following night too, but suddenly he found 
 himself conscious, and, greatlj^ to his own astonishment, 
 alive. The platform, on which he still lay, was quite 
 dry, the air was distinctly warm and balmy with a 
 thousand SAveet and fresh scents, such as always succeed 
 one of these tremendous tropical storms ; the golden sun- 
 light was glancing through the foliage that partly cur- 
 tained the platform, and against a patch of bright sky 
 that came Avithin his vision Avere tAA'^o or three birds of 
 paradise lazily floating on their indescribably beautiful 
 plumage. 
 
 All Avas still and peaceful, and it seemed to him as 
 a dream from Avhich he feared to aAvaken. But the 
 sight of the platform on Avliich he lay recalled his 
 scattered senses, and, rising, he looked about him and 
 gradually managed to realise all that had happened. He 
 felt himself a changed man — Aveak from all he had gone 
 through, and sick for want of nourishment, he yet experi- 
 enced a strength unknown before, for his preservation 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 105 
 
 SO far appeared to him little less than miraculous. Pro- 
 ceeding with caution, he again entered the tree — for 
 there Avas now no sign of fire — and gradually took in a 
 view of what had been the extent of the catastrophe 
 which had apparently overwhelmed the treasure-seeker 
 and the treasure itself in a common ruin. 
 
 Terrible, indeed, had been the ruin and havoc wrought 
 by the explosion and subsequent fire. The whole interior 
 was charred black, and here and there heaps of ashes, or 
 in some instances fantastically-shaped masses of cinder, 
 showed where the fittings and appointments of the upper 
 chamber had once been. The alcove itself was gone 
 entirely. It had probably been deeply hollowed out of 
 the thickness of the comparative shell to which the tree 
 had been reduced, and the force of the explosion had torn 
 it out, leaving a great jagged gap. This had evidently 
 materially aided in putting out the fire, as the sheets of 
 tropical I'ain had been blown in, and Harold noticed that 
 much of the ash was turned into a kind of horrible slush, 
 in which he shuddered to tread. The whole force of the 
 gunpowder seemed to have been spent in an upward and 
 a lateral direction, and happily,, from some unexplained 
 cause, the principal stress of the concussion had been 
 exhausted on the very corner where Dubec had stood 
 almost overshadowing the glittering treasure he was 
 doomed to see, but not to touch! The whole of the 
 firmly woven floor here was gone, and, looking down in 
 the black gulf below, it became pretty evident that most 
 of the stairway was destroyed too, and so far as coukl be 
 seen the cavity was filled up to a great extent with the 
 water-soaked debris of the fire. Strange as it may 
 
100 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 appear, Harold felt no pang at the loss of the treasure. 
 A sense of unspeakable relief had come over him. He 
 did Dot in so many words rejoice at the catastrophe that 
 had swept his companion out of existence, but he ex- 
 perienced an all-pervading sense of freedom from some- 
 thing that had been really as loathsome to him as was 
 the hideous sight he had seen just for an instant under 
 the mocking canopy of the victorious tricolour. 
 
 His first impulse was to get out of the tree, which was 
 to him a thing accursed ; and, cautiously feeling his way, 
 he found it practicable to scramble down to the lower 
 chamber, where had been stored the magazine which, 
 fired by the shot from Dubec's pistol, had precipitated 
 the catastrophe. The tearing effect of the explosion had 
 left here and there great gaps in the sides of the hollow 
 part of the gigantic tree, and these facilitated descent, 
 but, w^hile on a projecting fragment of what had formed 
 the platform of the store chamber, Harold began to 
 consider w^hether he did not run a terrible risk of being 
 precipitated to the bottom of what w^as now a well of 
 soddened rubbish, and finding it impracticable, when once 
 there, to open the valve which he well remembered he 
 and Dubec had shouldered to on entering the tree. This 
 mode of exit, however, was obviously the best, and he 
 resolved to risk it, trusting to his agility to clamber up 
 again in the event of an unforeseen difficulty, and, slowly 
 feeling his way, he gradually lowered himself. This 
 j^ortion of the interior was by no means in thick darkness, 
 for the shock that the tree had sustained had opened 
 several rents in the trunk, through which shot a few 
 ghostly arrows of fitful light, and at the worst Harold 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. 107 
 
 fancied lie might enlarge some of the lovvtM" of these if 
 emergency arose. 
 
 Mncli as Dubec had revolted him, he now began to 
 feel, by a strange perversity, the loss of his companion^ 
 and, working his way in this sinister gloom, and amid 
 the slimy dehris of the explosion, he experienced an 
 indescribable longing for that human companionship that 
 "was now utterly beyond his reach. 
 
 Suddenly it glanced across his mind that the treasure, 
 after alJ, was not destroyed. Precious stones, he knew, 
 might be resolved to vapour in a properly constructed 
 furnace or crucible, but the fire in the tree had probably 
 not raged long before it was extinguished by the fearful 
 tropical rain ; and then, had he not seen that a great 
 part of the tree forming the wall of the alcove had been 
 blown bodily out P Clearly, it was worth while to make 
 a thorough search among the debris of the fire, and par- 
 ticularly of the glade round the tree ; and, burning with 
 a newborn eagerness to extricate himself, he redoubled 
 his efforts, for he clearly recognised the need in which he 
 stood to obtain some food, and to procure any he must 
 first extricate himself from the tree. Shaking off his 
 Aveakness Harold worked his w^ay to the bottom of the 
 shaft, which was not nearly so full as he had anticipated, 
 and having in his groping come across some ship's cut- 
 lasses, which had been hurled down by the explosion 
 from the upper wall around which they had been placed, 
 he soon discovered, and, to his great joy, succeeded in 
 prising back the secret door in the trunk, and admitted 
 the cheering light of noon into the space below, which 
 was strewn with a heterogeneous collection of articles 
 
108 AUSTRALIAN AND NE ZEALAND TALKS AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and utensils liurled froi' their place in the store chamber 
 by the force of the exp; sion. Once outside the tree lie 
 breathed more freely, id, before proceeding further, 
 quenched his thirst at . small pool among many minia- 
 ture lakes formed by tl ; late tempest, and then sought 
 for some taro root. He ■ hen rested, while surveying the 
 gi'ound around the bas of the tree, and perceiving at 
 a glance that it was c-vcred with ashes, cinders and a 
 variety of objects all m -e or less bearing the marks of 
 fire, this reminded him )f a new difiiculty. He had no 
 means of kindling the .^luallest spark, and must eat liis 
 meat, could he procure it, raw! He had heard, indeed, 
 of the way in which firt is kindled by the friction of two 
 dry sticks, but he doubt id his ability to prodace it thus, 
 and at present all the a ood about him was too damp or 
 too full of the living sa; for such an experiment to have 
 the slightest chance of icceeding. Having satisfied, or 
 rather stifled, the cravii . s of his stomach on some of the 
 taro root and some fru r. which he feared might prove 
 poisonous, he set to work to make a thorough search of 
 the debris and ashes an* remains generally of the explo- 
 sion and fire. He had a method, too, and marked out 
 the ground in segment of a great circle, struck from 
 the tree as a centre, and began a systematic search of one 
 of these at once. To his utter astonishment he was at 
 once rewarded by finding' several of the precious stones 
 that had shone out to him from the awful spectacle 
 of the funereal couch i; ider the canopy of the flag of 
 France, and, after pur uing a patient search as long 
 nearly as the light lastt 1, he found he had collected his 
 hands full three or fo^ r times over of white and red 
 
THE TRKASURI TREE. 
 
 109 
 
 stones, which he hoped might ] 
 and sapphires of which Dubec 
 ing day he continued his search 
 after some subsequently fruitl 
 seek the boat, and if possible g 
 make for some inhabited land, 
 by a passing vessel. Someho\A 
 and re-examining the stones l 
 fallen into his possession. Ha 
 certain that they were genui 
 feeling of this seemed to give 
 a strength and nerve into him 
 been a stranger. It is a granc 
 a fortune in the hollow of yoTi 
 to our hero this handling of por 
 means for imparting an enei'gy 
 strength to his body, he had ncA 
 In a day or two he felt 1 
 vigor ated to seek out the place 
 laid up, and found it exactly as 
 recent storm had converted the 
 into a swift-flowing river, and E 
 dropping down to the bay into \ 
 Here, indeed, he stayed awhile, c 
 as he could find by way of proY 
 for a coasting voyage, and in d 
 infinite pains, to get out of t 
 created by the reefs in this part 
 and then decided to stretch in ai 
 he thought, more likely to bring 
 merchant ship, or possibly, of so 
 
 ve to be the diamonds 
 
 1 spoken. The follow- 
 
 •ut found no more, and, 
 
 trials, he decided to 
 
 l^o sea, where he might 
 
 perhaps be picked up 
 
 fter carefully washing 
 
 it had thus strangely 
 
 d felt within himself 
 
 gems, and the mere 
 
 m new life, and to put 
 
 which he had hitherto 
 
 fling, no doubt, to hold 
 
 land, and imdoubtedly 
 
 >le property was a sure 
 
 his mind, as well as a 
 
 known before. 
 
 .self safficiently rein- 
 
 ere the boat had been 
 
 Mad been left; but the 
 
 r^merly shallow stream 
 
 )ld had no difficulty in 
 
 ch it discharged itsplf. 
 
 acting such necessaries 
 
 oning his little barque 
 
 course managed, with 
 
 many cross currents 
 
 uhe New Guinea coast, 
 
 sterly course, as being, 
 
 n in the track of some 
 
 mail steamer. 
 
110 AUSTKAIJAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Harold Avas now, indeed, fortune favoured. He liad 
 not been beyond the perilous " white water " of the reefs 
 that lie off North- West New Guinea many hours before 
 his little craft was sighted and picked up by a Dutch 
 merchantman bound for Amsterdam. As matters turned 
 out, it was no great loss to him that he had to com- 
 municate by signs. He was taken for a shipwrecked waif, 
 and kindly treated, and he had enough leisure to matui-e 
 his plan for getting his gems valued. He produced one 
 or two of the stones and traded them with the captain, 
 who, he soon found, knew them to be genuine ; and, 
 having thus obtained a change of clothes and a few^ neces- 
 saries, on his arrival at Amsterdam he set to work to 
 dispose of part of his stock of precious stones. He knew 
 all along that he was being terribly imposed upon, but 
 even at that disadvantage, he realised a very considerable 
 sum indeed by the sale of Philippe's diamonds, which 
 represented, by the way, the concentrated proceeds of 
 much piracy on British commerce. He sent no letter to 
 herald his arrival in England as a man of independence, 
 but it was not long before he married the object of his 
 boyhood's fancy. He sent out to inquire how much Mr. 
 Walcot had lost through the exchange of coats, and in 
 due course made the amount good, with interest. He 
 says that he cannot be too grateful to Providence, and 
 that, as he looks back and sees the way in which his 
 course of life, so far, has been mapped out, he is lost in 
 wonder at the good fortune that has been showered on 
 him, and both he and his wife are resolved to make really 
 good use of the wealth that has come to them out of the 
 pirates' hoards. Truth is stranger than fiction, and in 
 
THE TREASURE TREE. Ill 
 
 this story of the Treasure we have one more illustration 
 of the well-worn saying. Not only has Harold, as he 
 says, brought the gold for a weddmg ring from the 
 Austral world, but he has had three of the very finest 
 diamonds set in a ring for Norma, which she declares is 
 a great deal too splendid to wear, although I believe she 
 does wear it pretty often ; while Harold tells her that, after 
 all, it is not the sapphires and the diamonds, rich as they 
 Avere, but his wife that has proved the true Treasure of 
 the Tree to Which the old convict so strangely led him. 
 
■:'^ 
 
 '^m' 
 
 ''Si;-^^ 
 
 ^:^s^«i^ 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 
 fij^ 
 
 ^«^'-:'^ 
 
 . ^'nF 
 
 isr::^*^^!'::!^ 
 
 iS»P;;::5Si;j!^'- 
 
 ^aH!g^a;iar^f.g^pi^;; 
 
 A MAD PASSION. 
 
 I. — The Prologue. 
 
 We had done well that season. There was no doubt 
 about it, and my wife, who was rather of the pessimist 
 type, now admitted as much. Our farm lay snugly 
 nestled in a valley on a winding stream that ran, when 
 there was any water, into the Clarence, and we as 
 emigrants from dear old Devonshire had done our utmost 
 to plan everything as much like a typical farm there as 
 possible. I had several hired labourers, who swore my 
 service was better than independence, as well the rascals 
 might, seeing that I had nearly ruined myself during two 
 fearful droughts by maintaining them in comparative 
 idleness ; and we had a charming dwelling-house on the 
 top of a swelling green eminence rising out of a scooped- 
 out hollow among surrounding hills, for all the world, as 
 my homely-speaking and homely-thinking wife declared, 
 like a cup and saucer, only the cup was very small and 
 the saucer exceedingly large. I say my wife was homely, 
 but that is only in a domestic sense. She was essentially 
 
 9 
 
114 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 a lady by birth, breeding, and education, and althongb 
 one of my own ancestors has a representative in a bust of 
 a distinguished worthy in the Valhalla of the West of 
 England, the Taunton Town Hall, and although I had a 
 thorough old-fashioned English education at Cheltenham, 
 I often feel my inferiority to my wife intellectually, for 
 homely as she was domestically, she has another side to 
 her character, and when the Bishop of Sydney paid us 
 a visit not long ago, she received more than one evi- 
 dently spontaneous compliment from his Grace as to the 
 way in which she had trained up her son — our only child 
 — who is now a most promising scholar in a Sydney 
 collegiate school, whither we have sent him at a great 
 personal sacrifice, feeling that he cannot receive the right 
 kind of training here. Although quite a child in years 
 he is very precocious and exceedingly well-informed 
 generally for his age, and it seems that when the good 
 bishop visited the college he was much struck by our lad, 
 who had signalised himself by his altogether remarkable 
 knowledge of Scripture, which is decidedly the work of 
 his mother before we, with suppressed tears, sent him from 
 us to the metropolis of the colony. But this is all very 
 discursive. I, Andrew Chambers, came out some four- 
 teen years ago to try farming in the parent colony, and, 
 up to the present — barring droughts and some trifling 
 troubles — have had nothing but good fortune, until last 
 year, when something happened to us which unfortu- 
 nately has been grossly perverted by a scurrilous news- 
 paper in want of a sensation, and as I am determined 
 that no shadow of calumny shall rest on our good name 
 for the sake of our boy, I have determined to set down, in 
 
A MAD PASSION. 115 
 
 the most plain and matter of fact manner, the story of 
 the terrible incident that happened to ns some two years 
 since, and which has been raked up from the ashes of the 
 dead, and utterly perverted, because it pleased me to 
 offer myself as a candidate for a seat in the Assembly, 
 and my political opponents resorted to the weaving of a 
 most abominable tissue of libels to damage my moral 
 character with the electorate. Further, what happened 
 to me and furnished the unfortunate foundation for a 
 tissue of malicious reports, seems to me a thing that 
 might well, in the wonderful coincidences of life, happen 
 to any other settler so situated, and may indeed have 
 done so for aught I know. Thus much by way of pre- 
 face, and now for my story. 
 
 II. — My Story Begins. 
 
 About two years ago or so, when we were first 
 beginning to prosper and had sent our boy away to 
 Sydney, my wife fell into a bad state of health. She 
 had over-exerted herself, and I was so much engaged 
 with my sheep and crops that I had not noticed the fact 
 as I ought to have done, until at last her evident illness 
 Avas forced upon my notice. It happened that the wife of 
 one of my men had been called in to act as house servant, 
 but somehow my wife could not bear her. She was a 
 great, strong woman, who wore boots like a navvy's, and 
 slapped everything down, and not only spoke out at 
 the top of her voice, but laughed out and joined in our 
 
116 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 conversation when we sat down to dinner. Tliis sort 
 of thing was particularly offensive to my wife, and 
 indeed to me, only I was more generally absorbed in some 
 kind of all-engrossing business and did not notice. One 
 day my wife said, " I really think, dear, we might now 
 afford a servant. I mean one of those sent out speciall}^ 
 for domestic service. I do not feel so strong as I used, and 
 it wonld be a great comfort, I think, for ns to have a nice, 
 quiet young girl in the house. Besides, if you think 
 of having those Sydney people here I never could bear 
 to have that fearful, clattering cart-horse of a woman to 
 wait at table, and you would be laughed at as a regular 
 rustic, or a wild man of the Back Blocks." 
 
 When I went forth after the conversation just 
 recorded to my usual pastoral and agricultural duties 
 — for I raised both wool and corn, and had even a bit 
 of a vineyard too — I could not somehow get the subject 
 of the proposed servant out of my head. I had readily 
 consented that we should endeavour to obtain one from 
 Sydney, and my wife was to write to a trusted and 
 familiar friend there to look out for a suitable person. 
 I may here remark that Margaret, my wife, was colonial 
 born. I took up my allotment promptly on arriving, 
 sinking in it nearly all my available capital. After just 
 six months of the utter loneliness of a bachelor life as a 
 settler I felt I should go mad, and dstermined to find 
 a wife somehow. It is a habit of the Australian settler 
 to locate himself as fa/r as practicable from his neigh- 
 bour, instead of uniting to form one great village com- 
 munity, as they tell me is the case in Russia, and I went 
 up to Sydney, to look after some agricultural implements. 
 
i. MAD PASSION. 117 
 
 resolved to find a partner if I conld. Six months among 
 the sheep had been all too much for me. I did not mind 
 the day, for 1 worked hard, but the night ! Someone has 
 said that solitude is one of the highest enjoyments of 
 which OTir souls are susceptible. I cannot say it is to me. 
 I rather fancy that those persons are fitter for solitude 
 who are like nobody else and who are not liked by 
 anybody. 
 
 Anyway, I fell in with my Margaret, and somehow, 
 greatly to the surprise of her family, we made up our 
 minds to get married. Margaret was not happy at home, 
 for she had an intemperate brother, and she was glad, 
 she said, to exchange the town for the country, and I, too, 
 was certainly glad to have her. 
 
 And now I must confess that I had innocently practised 
 one deception on my part which, slight as it was, or as 
 it seemed to me at the time, was nearly fatal to us in a 
 way as terrible as it was unforeseen. 
 
 The facts, for this is the place to give them, are brief 
 and simple. Prior to emigrating, I had as a youth — at 
 that indeterminate period when one is neither man nor 
 boy — been sent to a clever " coach " at Cheltenham — a 
 place much affected by colonists and tutors — and I was 
 to be fitted for the army. I was not studious, but fond 
 of outdoor life, and I had, they said, no application ; and, 
 anyway, I know I did not learn anything. In the issue 
 my father, disgusted at my repeated failures, sent me 
 out to New South Wales with the little capital that was 
 to have been mine to eke out my pay as a subaltern had 
 I qualified for Her Majesty's service. "Well, there is 
 nothing very particular here, is there ? I never was 
 
118 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 used to the pen, so my awkwardness must be excused ; 
 but, nevertheless, there is very much in it, for while 
 at Cheltenham I had the misfortune to contract an 
 attachment with a girl that I can never think of without 
 a shudder, and I am not by any means naturally nervous. 
 She was a bold, finely-grown, and utterly precocious child 
 of about fifteen, and, as I conceived, of marvellous 
 physical beauty. In truth, there is no use in decrying 
 her personal attractions; they were many and real, and 
 quite turned my impressionable and giddy boy's head. 
 She was the daughter of our laundress, and came with 
 the washing, and that is how I first saw her. I and the 
 other lads at the tutor's had far too much liberty, and 
 Alice and I contrived to meet. I was full of all manner 
 of fine projects, and she was, as I know now, only too 
 anxious to entangle a simple-minded boy who was sup- 
 posed to have excellent prospects. I even went into 
 letter writing, and copied very silly verses in her praise, 
 and was such a young idiot as to address her as " wifie," 
 and other nonsense of the kind. Ay, it is grave enough 
 when I think of it all, and my story should be a warning 
 to all young fellows who fancy the first pretty girl who 
 crosses their path. In reality, on my side the whole 
 affair was perfectly innocent, only I shudder to think 
 how near the abyss I was once or twice when the artful, 
 wily creature affected a more than usual abandonment to 
 her feelings, and thus quickened mine into an enthusiasm 
 as perilous as it was pure, for all the time Alice was 
 acting a part. In the end I made such a mess of my 
 studies that my father descended on the scene and packed 
 me off as a parcel of bad goods to Sydney — a thing 
 
A MAD PASSION. 119 
 
 fathers in England do much too often, considering the 
 fact that such ne'er-do-wells as are thus expatriated 
 usually go from bad to worse, and finally help to swell 
 a mass of misery and vice which but for them would 
 hardly exist. 
 
 It happened that I went out to Sydney in a sailiag 
 ship, partly for economy to husband my little capital 
 and partly for health's sake, as I was supposed to have 
 developed a consumptive tendency, which turned out to 
 be a doctor's fallacy. The captain was Cornish borD, 
 of some sixty years. He was a temperance man, very 
 seriously minded, and disposed to play the father to all 
 on board. He took much notice of me, and somehow 
 won my confidence, and gave me much excellent advice. 
 Somehow he elicited the stupid story of my enthusiastic 
 attachment to the laundress's daughter at Cheltenham, 
 and advised me when I reached what he called a new 
 world to determine to begin all afresh. " Forget every- 
 thing of the past, and treat it as it had never been at 
 all," he urged. " Make up your mind to work hard ; 
 nothing is so moral, my lad, as downright hard manual 
 work. Go up country and stick to the soil ; if I hadn't 
 the good ship Hesperus, I should have a farm, I can tell 
 you ; the sea or the field — that is my motto. Look out for 
 some sensible girl — Australian born, mind you — and get 
 married early; that makes a man steady. You know 
 what Robbie Burns tells us — 
 
 To mak' a happy fireside clime 
 
 For weans and wife, 
 Is the true pathos and sublime 
 
 Of human life. 
 
120 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 And mind you, if yon are wise, say nothing about your 
 first attachment, your calf love. Let all be fresh and 
 straight ; feel that you have been born anew, as it were, 
 and you'll get on, never fear." 
 
 There was a good deal more that the honest old boy told 
 me, but this was the pith thereof, and when I settled down 
 on my allotment near the Clarence, I felt that I was real- 
 ising the fruits of good advice, and when I saw my Margaret 
 and she consented to abandon Sydney and go up with me 
 into rural loneliness, I was, as they say, in the seventh 
 heaven. I not only never breathed a word to Maggie, as 
 I delighted to call her, of my Cheltenham love affair, but 
 I practically forgot all about it — as far as anyone can 
 forget such an episode. It became to me, indeed, quite a 
 vague reminiscence and as a thing that had happened to 
 someone else, and — I do not pretend to any metaphysics 
 or psychology, as I believe the fine writers call it, but to 
 my plain common sense it did seem to have happened 
 to someone else. I did not feel like the creature I had 
 been in England, and when my wife archly asked me if I 
 had never spoken to any other girl as I spoke to her, I 
 could, with a clear conscience exclaim, " Never ! " I did 
 not mean a bit to be what is called Jesuitical ; I meant it, 
 and I now affirm that it was the truth. I may have used 
 some of the words, but as for the feeling — why, who would 
 dream of comparing a silly boy's fancied love to the 
 intense, utterly true, and passionate affection of a man 
 who cleaves to his wife with all the force implied in the 
 Bible phrase ? 
 
 Still, I now admit it had been better infinitely had I 
 told my wife about Alice, only I could not endare the 
 
A MAD PASSION. 121 
 
 idea of responding to all the curious enquiries that 
 would have resulted thence. My wife had a pretty way 
 of self-depreciation and calling herself " plain," and some, 
 times "an ugly thing," and I did not like the idea of her 
 asking was Alice pretty. And had she done so, somehow, 
 say what I might, I felt she would have drawn me into 
 confessing that Alice was not only pretty but beautiful, 
 and altogether I preferred to act on the counsel of my 
 Cornish friend and drop a veil over my past and youthful 
 folly. 
 
 I knew that I loved my wife utterly with an undivided 
 heart; why, then, rake up all the rubbish of my silly idle 
 youth ? 
 
 Still I now admit that I was wrong; but then how 
 could I possibly foresee what was in store for us ? 
 
 And now to my narrative. I was specially busy with 
 my agricultural and pastoral work, and also deeply 
 engaged in some experimental vine dressing, when one 
 evening my wife informed me that her Sydney friend 
 had found us a servant. " And," she went on, " I under- 
 stand, such a treasure ! Helen writes : ' I am sure you 
 will approve of my choice, and if I had not engaged the 
 girl she would have been snapped up fifty times over* 
 She is very nice, and quite refined, and yet so domesticated. 
 She is ready to do everything you want. When I read 
 out your little list, she said to each item, " Oh, certainly, 
 I should be quite willing to do that,'' and she seemed 
 anxious to get into "the Bush," and she appears to me 
 to be a very modest, well-meaning young woman, 
 only ' " 
 
 " Only what ? ' I asked, for my wife stopped, evidently 
 
122 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 reluctant to read further, but now ray curiosity was 
 roused, and men are quite as curious as women some- 
 times, and I repeated my question. 
 
 " Oh, nothing," replied my wife, folding up the letter 
 and putting it in her pocket. " Helen thinks that the 
 girl is too much of a lady in appearance, but if she is 
 really willing to do what we want, why should we 
 mind?" 
 
 " What is her name ? " I enquired, a strange feeling 
 suddenly coming over me, for which I could in no way 
 account. 
 
 " Elizabeth Carter ; she is coming down with those 
 things you are expecting, and is to be here at the end of 
 the week." 
 
 Elizabeth Carter. Something within me said " Thank 
 God! "for in an instant an awful tensor — I can use no 
 other word — had seized me, strong man as I am admitted 
 to be, and I felt as though some dreadful calamity had 
 been within a hair's -breadth of descending on our house, 
 like a destroying avalanche. 
 
 III. — ^My Wife Brightens up. 
 
 Mr experiments with the vines had come to a successful 
 crisis, and my shepherds gave me the most encouraging 
 reports of my approaching "clip." I had noticed my wife's 
 dulness and a worn look about her eyes and a drooping 
 of the figure, and I resolved, directly I had reached a cer- 
 tain point of prosperity, to take her to Sydney, where she 
 
A MAD PASSION, 123 
 
 could be better amused; I also thought that we might 
 have our boy home then and let him go to a day college. 
 
 I mentioned my future plans to Maggie, and was 
 delighted to perceive that she brightened much, and I 
 said, playfully, " You see, my dear, you were not designed 
 to blossom in the wilderness after all, and yearn back to 
 the pavement and the shops, and the city gas lamps." 
 
 " It is quite true," she replied ; " but you cannot imagine, 
 with all your work, during a long day, what it is to be 
 here in this large house almost alone, and you know how 
 seldom anyone calls to stay. If this girl is good for any- 
 thing I mean to set up some dairy work and find an occu- 
 pation there. I cannot bear doing things alone. I don't 
 think you would like to work without your men and 
 horses, and even the shepherds have their sheep, you 
 know. The truth is, I miss the child dreadfully, and I 
 would have him back to-morrow if it were not such a 
 cruel, selfish thing to do." 
 
 That was so like my good, dear, unselfish wife. I took 
 her in my arms on a sudden impulse and kissed her again 
 and again. 
 
 lY. — The New Maid. 
 
 During the next few days the coming of Elizabeth 
 Carter entirely escaped my mind. I had very much to 
 make me extremely anxious. All along I had been 
 ambitious and had toiled patiently in pursuit of an end 
 which now seemed coming into full view. In a word, I 
 
124 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 was looking for comparative emancipation from my lonely 
 and isolated position, and I began to dream dreams of a 
 course of social enjoyment, wherewith I longed to reward 
 my dear, uncomplaining wife for all her self-denial and 
 for all the terribly solitary hours she had to pass during 
 my long absences from home. 
 
 It is curious, but true, that the first near approach of 
 supreme success, or what a man deems to be such, is 
 harder to bear than the deferred hope and the toil and 
 burden of working to achieve that success. I found my- 
 self growing very nervous indeed, as I perceived signs, 
 unmistakable to me, that in all probability I should 
 soon be one more of the fortunate colonists who find 
 themselves suddenly wealthy men. I nursed all this 
 secretly, as I became more and more convinced of the 
 fact that this great change was nearing us. I became 
 more reserved, and, indeed, I had need of reserve to keep 
 down my inward excitement, and the more as I deter- 
 mined not to tantalise my wife with surmises and mere 
 anticipations, but to wait until our fortune should be 
 really assured. No doubt this was, after all, a piece 
 of personal, and perhaps selfish, eccentricity, but, any- 
 how, I persisted in it, and consequently presented just at 
 this time, I fear, rather a sullen front to my wife than 
 otherwise. 
 
 One evening I came in thoroughly exhausted, in a 
 physical scQse, for I had been far under a blistering sun, 
 and had been nearly blinded by a dust storm. 
 
 Our house was a flat, like most bush residences, and 
 the room where we usually sat and had our meals was 
 next to the kitchen, while opposite was a small affair, a 
 
A MAD PASSIOX. 125 
 
 sort of office, devoted to me alone, where 1 had put up a 
 rude desk, a stool, a home-made ricketty tripod and a 
 number of shelves, and where I had samples of wool, 
 glass jars containing different varieties of wheat berries 
 and some filled with flours, and here I worked at my 
 accounts and attended to my correspondence against the 
 calling of the mailman, calculated my wages and how 
 my stores of rations stood, and generally transacted 
 my business. My wife never came in here ; she said the 
 place smelled of grease and dust, and often rallied me on 
 bringing the smell away with me. There was a second 
 door from this sanctum opening on an enclosure behind, 
 where agricultural utensils were stored. The bedrooms 
 — we had three — lay back, and around the front of the 
 building was the usual verandah. 
 
 I say I was tired, and, sinking into a low wicker-work 
 arm-chair, I rested, uttering only one word, " Tea." I 
 was too weary even to light a pipe or a cigar, a thing 
 generally reserved for the quiet evening, and there I sat, 
 half dozing, utterly tired, drinking tea, until at last my 
 wife remarked : " You don't say what you think of her ? " 
 "Think of her?" I repeated. "What her?" "Why, 
 the new maid, to be sure ! Anybody would think we 
 had always been waited on. But it is like you, to be sure ; 
 when I have only one earring on, it's all the same to 
 you. However, the girl has come. She brought in the 
 things just now. You must be blind indeed not to have 
 seen her." 
 
 " Well, I was nearly blinded to-day by the dust, but 
 really, Maggie, I never saw anyone but you. She must 
 have a very noiseless footfall." 
 
126 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " I never thought of that," was the meditative rejoinder. 
 *' Now you mention it, I suppose she is very still, but she 
 seems quick and willing, and perhaps she may suit us. 
 I am sure I want some fellow-creature here." 
 
 I roused myself a little, inwardly chafed to think that 
 my wife should be thrown on such a resource, but I made 
 no remark, saying inwardly, " It will not be for long." 
 "Well," my wife went on, "you seem very glum indeed 
 to-night. Have all the sheep strayed away into 
 Victoria?" 
 
 " My dear, I am not ' glum,' only exhausted ; that's all. 
 I have taken too much out of myself to-day, and now am 
 good for nothing." 
 
 "T really don't know," she replied, getting out her 
 work basket, "what's the use of your toiling so hard. 
 Since we sent the child away I know the house has been 
 inexpressibly wretched, and now that we have this girl, 
 what are we to do with her? She can't sit all alone by 
 herself. I know what that is like, and I suppose we can't 
 have her in here " (this said tentatively) " to help me 
 with this needlework." 
 
 " You can have her in if you like " was my answer, 
 for, refreshed by my tea and rest, I recollected that some 
 work was awaiting me in my office, and now that the 
 fit was on me for work, I was glad of the excuse to be 
 alone. Somehow, such was the excitement into which I 
 had lately drifted, that I felt I must go straight on to 
 the end, and then — well then, if all turned out right, I 
 intended to bid a long farewell to all kind of business. 
 
 When I came out of my office I found the room empty ; 
 wife and servant had evidently gone to bed. I thought 
 
A MAD PASSION. 127 
 
 now that I would have a cigar before turning in too, and 
 accordingly lighted one. Somehow it would not " draw," 
 and I looked about for a long pin. My wife had left her 
 workbox open, and I sought there for a pin, and in doing 
 so came on the letter from our Sydney friend which she 
 had only partially read out to me. Some curious feeling 
 prompted me to take it up, and my eyes fell on the 
 passage omitted in reading out the letter aloud. The 
 words were " only she is almost too good-looking ; but I 
 know your husband is not like some of whom we have 
 heard, so I don't think it really matters." 
 
 My wife was asleep when I joined her, and as I had to 
 be a great way off by the following noon, I rose before 
 she did, breakfasted on bread and milk, and was away 
 before the new maid was visible. 
 
 V. — " I FIND YOU Married A Hard, Cold, Stone-like Man." 
 
 That day I found myself on my way back in a much 
 more pleasant frame of mind. There had been no dust 
 storm, and all had gone well; and as I cantered back 
 alone the remembrance of the previous day came back, 
 conveying the unpleasant conviction that I had been at 
 the best a very bearish kind of husband. " What a pity," 
 I said to myself, " that at such times our wives cannot see 
 within us, looking through and through us, and thus dis- 
 criminating between appearance and reality ! " 
 
 All along on one side, as I went thus communing with 
 myself, was a vast line of flame trees, looking for all the 
 
128 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 world like a forest of deep pink and crimson flames, 
 smokeless and stationary, for there was no wind, and 
 these vividly coloured masses of gigantic blossomings 
 struck even me as singularly impressive. As I rode 
 on past some beautiful spots I caught now and then 
 the note of a far-away bell or lyre bird. It is a very 
 strange note, not heard, I believe, anywhere out of the 
 Austral hemisphere, and resembles a soft bell gently 
 tolling forth low- voiced aerial chimes. The whole scene 
 was lovely and soft, and with the stillness and beauty 
 thereof a kind of enervating voluptuousness seemed 
 borne in on me while pausing to drink in the full effect 
 of the lovely surroundings. 
 
 Throwing off the feeling which somehow seemed 
 particularly unwelcome to my mood, I pushed on and 
 soon entered a sort of gully full of fine fern trees, which 
 led directly to my home. 
 
 The reins had dropped on the neck of my well-trained 
 horse, who was breaking into a canter, anxious to get his 
 evening feed and rest, when I suddenly caught up the 
 bridle and pulled up short, for just in front there darted 
 out from the fern fronds a woman — that was all I per- 
 ceived at first — who cast out her arms and stumbled up 
 against us. Instinctively I reached low to save her from 
 falling, and, as the fire comes from tlie striking of the 
 flint and steel, two words were uttered in a breath — 
 "Andrew!" "Alice!" Then my presence of mind 
 returned, I sprang down, drew my horse's bridle within 
 my arm and looked at the woman before me, trying to 
 trace out the form and features mirrored in the memory 
 of a Past I had believed to be dead and buried beyond 
 
A MAD PASSION. 129 
 
 all resurrection here or hereafter. Something of the 
 revulsion in my thoughts and look communicated itself to 
 my unexpected companion. She drew aside a little, but 
 was the first to speak, as I paused interrogatively. 
 
 " Yes, Elizabeth Carter, now your wife's servant. Do 
 you remember that you vowed you would never forget me, 
 that you would return some day or send for me r You 
 have done neither, but I have come, and for the sake of 
 my love I have humiliated myself. I am now at least 
 near you — I shall see you — I shall have some comfort 
 yet, before I pass away into oblivion.'' 
 
 T must own I was completely staggered by these words, 
 and still more by the manner of the speaker. Was it 
 acting — the artifice of a designing woman ? Alas, no ! I 
 would it had been. There was something in the tone, 
 much more than in the highflown words, that thrilled 
 me with a dread such as I had never felt before, and such 
 as I trust I shall never feel again. She went on : " You 
 are silent. How changed you are ! Do you remember 
 how you urged me to ' improve ' myself, to become 
 educated, to seek to raise myself ? Well, have I not 
 done it ? You shall soon judge. I have kept your 
 promises before me all these years, and mine I am ful- 
 fillins^. I have left all to follow and find you. I find 
 you married — a hard, cold, stone-like man, and yet 1 
 
 have things you wrote, things you swore " 
 
 " For God's sake !" I interrupted, "no more of this. Are 
 you in your senses ? I may have said and done foolish 
 things when I was a boy, but what is that to me now ? If 
 you had any true womanly feeling, and if what you say is 
 true, you would have avoided me of all men in the world. 
 
 10 
 
130 AUSTRALIAN AMD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Did I ever liold out hope or promise after our parting?" 
 " No ! no!" she replied passionately, "but I resolved to 
 be true, and, indeed, I could not help what has been 
 done. I have tried to forget you, but I could not. Some 
 power beyond my comprehension has drawn me to you, 
 and now I am content. I am your servant, Andrew, and 
 that at least is gain." 
 
 I paused to think. Was the poor girl mad ? That 
 was the question I asked myself seriously, or was she 
 simply a wicked, designing woman? I would test this, 
 any way. Summoning as much harshness as I could 
 into my voice and manner I said, " All this is folly, 
 and worse. Say * our service does not suit you, return 
 to Sydney and I will pay your way back to England 
 
 and " In my agitation, as I thought of my wife 
 
 and all the fearf q1 misconstruction that might be put on 
 all this, I felt mad myself and ready to promise anything; 
 bat Alice, for so I will call her, drew herself up and 
 burst forth in a passionate fit of sobbing, crying " Kill 
 me! kill me! but don't, don't send me away!" I hate to 
 narrate all this, but facts are facts, and after all, whatever 
 may have been my folly as a boy, I have nothing to 
 reproach myself with since, and it was only a feeling of 
 common humanity that led me to mollify my tone and 
 try to soothe the fearfully excited girl. All the time I 
 kept the bridle of the horse tightly over my arm, for 
 I felt that every moment she might cast herself in my 
 arms. And, in one word, I did not know what to do, and 
 was veritably at my wits' ends. 
 
 It is much too painful to give in detail the rest of that 
 fearful meeting. Briefly the case stood thus : Alice 
 
A MAD PASSION. 131 
 
 appeared to have been solely drawn to join me in TsTew 
 Sontli Wales by an ever-growing affection which she 
 herself could not account for, she candidly admitted, 
 declaring that my total silence had only made her more 
 resolute to find me out before she died. She bad pre- 
 served all my boyish effusions, and with a simplicity 
 which gave me inexpressible pain, she quoted some tender 
 passages which had been, she affirmed, her solace and 
 lodestar, and she protested that she had no choice but to 
 follow me to the end of the world. She indignantly 
 repelled the insinuation that she had any base motive. 
 No money, she affirmed, should buy my letters, and if we 
 sent her away she would return and lie across our door, 
 and, in a word, she went into a rhapsody of what was 
 doubtless high-flown nonsense, but which all the same 
 was inexpressibly shocking to me. I felt, as I have said, 
 at my wits' end. What should, what could I do ? 
 
 It is easy for those who read my story — dreadful even 
 to narrate — to be wise and virtuous and say what I ought 
 to have done, but things are very different at the time 
 of their occurrence from what they appear when coldly 
 related. Alice was in earnest and I felt full of unspeak- 
 able remorse for the foolish vows of my forgotten silly 
 youth. I finally did what was doubtless wrong, bat what 
 seemed to me, face to face with her intense excitement 
 and deep distress, essential — I temporised. I pacified her. 
 She should not be sent off, at any rate then. We must see. 
 She was foolish to feel as she did, and if she stayed on she 
 would soon perceive that the Andrew of Cheltenham 
 had no longer any existence. He had perished. I would 
 befriend her, but she must not dare to speak to me again 
 
132 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 as she had done, nor indeed to approach me in any way. 
 I was entirely devoted to my wife, and to no other woman 
 in the world, and here I spoke proudly, because 1 knew I 
 spoke truly. Let her get rid of all this hysteria. I 
 would be a good master and my wife a good mistress, and 
 so on ; and before I had come within sight of home I 
 persuaded her to leave me and to think over what I had 
 said, and my last words were : " Remember, there is no 
 more to me any Alice. I do not know her. Henceforth 
 to me you are only Elizabeth Carter." 
 
 YI. — The Plot Deepens. 
 
 On that eventful evening my wife accorded me a 
 warmer welcome than usual. The mailman had brought 
 her a letter from our boy of which we were both exceed- 
 ingly proud, seeing it was so well written and spelled. 
 As a rule Maggie was far from demonstrative, but 
 when she did go out of herself no one could be more 
 ardent, and even impulsive, than she, and her eyes 
 sparkled with eager delight when I told her that I was 
 deter-mined some way or other to have our boy again with 
 us. It happened that evening that one or two of our 
 neighbours, accompanied by their wives, rode over to 
 visit us, and Elizabeth had as much as she could do to 
 get tea and supper and help to make up two or three 
 beds in our large spare room for those who stayed the 
 night. These little interruptions to our monotonous, 
 money-grubbing life, as Maggie frequently called it, did 
 
A MAD PASSION. 13 
 
 US botli good. Husband and wife cannot well live alone 
 together without grinding with more or less friction upon 
 each other, and in the absence of any other society than 
 their own, the smallest differences are sure to be 
 magnified in a distorting atmosphere of self-assertion. 
 Some of our guests were very nice people indeed, and T 
 felt in wonderful spirits, the natural reaction after my 
 trying experience of the afternoon, but I felt a twinge ol 
 pain when a squatter friend of ours, a man not given at 
 any time to "trim" his conversation, burst out with 
 *' Where did you get that stunning pretty gal of yours ? " 
 while he gave great offence to my wife by adding that he 
 had not seen such a kissable piece of goods for many a 
 day, which rather coarse remark made his wife, who over- 
 heard it, give him a stinging box on the ear, which he 
 laughed off, although it was no laughing matter. The 
 fact is, some of us in this region were not particularly 
 refined, and I believe the good lady of this particular 
 squatter had, like her lord and master of many thousand 
 sheep, risen from a very lowly estate across the great 
 ocean. 
 
 That night, before sleeping, my wife spoke to me about 
 Elizabeth. "I cannot quite make her out," she said; "the 
 girl professes already to be very fond of me, and she cer- 
 tainly works well, but do you know, dear, she somehow 
 makes me afraid of her. I cannot bear to come into con- 
 tact with her, and then she is so dreadfully quiet and 
 quick in all her movements. AVhen we are not together, 
 after you have gone off, I am always being surprised 
 by her. She suddenly appears, as it were. I don't hear 
 a sound, and yet, on turning my head, there she is ! " 
 
134 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 This was a new trait to me, and aroased some uneasy 
 thoughts. I tried, however, to reassure my wife, and yet 
 I felt within a strange fear that was all the worse to bear 
 because it w^as quite vague. 
 
 Nothing occui'i'ed worthy of note for a while. Our 
 guests went their various ways. Work was resumed as 
 usual, and Elizabeth appeared to act perfectly well the 
 part of a really good and attached maid as far as her 
 mistress was concerned. To my inexpressible relief, she 
 made not the smallest attempt to speak to me alone or 
 in any way to revive the Alice of old. She seemed care- 
 fully to avoid meeting my eye, and I, for my own part, 
 fully reciprocated this demeanour. 1 was much out of 
 the house, 'and when in, took care never to enter the 
 kitchen as I used to do when my wife reigned there as 
 the only domestic deity. Still, although, so far, I had 
 really nothing to complain of, my mind and conscience 
 were ill at ,rest. I felt pity for Elizabeth, and an ever- 
 increasing love for my wife ; and it roally seemed to me 
 as though the advent of this girl, whom I was sometimes 
 inclined to regard as deranged in mind — mad at all 
 events on one point — had accentuated all my dormant 
 affection for her mistress. The truth is, at a certain 
 period in manned life, if the husband is greatly engrossed 
 in making his way, affection on his part is apt to become 
 dormant and wholly undemonstrative. He is contented 
 to repose on the recollection of long past endearments 
 and transports, and thus forgets that his wife may be 
 secretly starving for that very kind of heart-diet for 
 which he has lost all present appetite. 
 
 I have said my mind and conscience were ill at rest. 
 
A MAD PASSION. 135 
 
 Somehow I felt a dailj increasing remorse at my own 
 conduct. After all, said conscience, my con d act in 
 compromising matters witli Elizabeth had been cowardly 
 and contemptible. Innocence has nought to fear, I had, 
 after all, a secret understanding with a strange woman, 
 introduced under our roof as a servant, and whatever 
 might be the purity of my intentions I was so far 
 wrong. The truth was I could not endure the thought 
 of Maggie seeing any of the silly stuff I had once 
 written to Alice, and I dreaded that, if defied, the girl 
 would not hesitate in her mad passion to lay all these 
 things before my wife. Surely my position was pecu- 
 liarly cruel. Then, too, I had laid such stress to my wife 
 on the fact that sh*^ was my first and only attachment, 
 which was true enough in itself, and I had not, I suppose, 
 the moral courage to confess that as a boy I had acted 
 like a fool, and written letters, of the recollection of 
 which I was heartily ashamed. 
 
 The question that most 033upied me was how to 
 extricate myself safely from this, to me, horrible mess. 
 
 VII. — I HAVE AX Idea. 
 
 At last an idea came to me. Directly my circum- 
 stances allowed, I would realise, and remove with my 
 wife to Sydney and live there in a boarding-house or 
 at an hotel. This surely would cut off the connection 
 with Elizabeth Carter. I made up my mind to place 
 a sum of money to har cradifc, and if she evinced any 
 
136 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 further disposition to plague me, why we would take our 
 boy and go on a voyage somewhere. I could certainly, 
 I thought, manage so that she should not be in the ship. 
 No doubt many wall ridicule my weakness and fears. 
 I do so myself now in a sense ; but in these cases the 
 rule of put yourself in a like position should always 
 be observed, and to me the situation had become very 
 serious. I had got into the way of brooding over it 
 daring my lonely rides out in the bush and my woi-k 
 generally out of doors, and it happened, unfortunately, 
 that I had no healthy-minded friend to whom I could 
 resort. I had to keep the trouble to myself, and, as 
 is usual in all such cases, it soon multiplied and 
 exaggerated itself a thousand-fold. 
 
 My wife now openly remarked on my uneven, uncer- 
 tain, snappish temper, as she rightly called it. She 
 declared that if to prosper was to be so disagreeable, 
 it were better far not to prosper at all ; and what was 
 particularly galling, she now complained that I was 
 " a regular bear to Elizabeth." It was quite true. 
 When Elizabeth said "good morning " or " good night," 
 I did not take the smallest notice ; and yet the formula 
 went on all the same, and to me the iteration thereof was 
 at times simply maddening. Sometimes, indeed, I w^ould 
 laugh out apparently at nothing, greatly to Maggie's 
 astonishment, who could divine nothing of the cause ; 
 but I laughed in irony at the idea of my wife admonishing 
 me for behaving like a bear to Elizabeth, the servant. 
 Had she only known ! 
 
 Then, again, another disappointment seized me in its 
 grip. My wife now began preaching to me the advan- 
 
A MAD PASSION. 137 
 
 tages of simplicity and contentment. I had been blowing 
 a cloud in my low American arm-cbair and expatiating 
 on all tbe fine things that I thought we might do by-and- 
 by when the next " clip " was over, and supposing wool 
 went up. Indeed, I could not help breaking out into 
 lyrical gladness at thinking of what that might mean, 
 and rather astonished Maggie by shouting out . Garnet 
 Walch's well-known lines : 
 
 Fortune, ah ! I have thee holden 
 
 In what Scotia calls a " grup," 
 All my fleeces now are golden, 
 
 Full Troy weight — for wool is up ! 
 
 " I think, Andrew," she said, but in her kindest tones, 
 "that you have been a little beside yourself of late. 
 God knows, were it not for our boy I should ask nothing 
 beyond what we have. Have you forgotten, dear, what 
 you used to quote out of Ruskin when we first came into 
 this wilderness — where he says that all true and whole- 
 some enjoyments possible to mankind (I forget the exact 
 words) have been just as possible since the earth was 
 first made as now, and how he tells us that these true 
 enjoyments are chiefly possible in peace ? Do you not 
 remember how he says that to watch the corn grow and 
 the blossom set, to read, to think, to love, to hope — these 
 are the things that have power to make us happy ? Ah, 
 there was one phrase I had forgotten — he adds, to pray. 
 I am sure we oaght to pray not to be tempted by the 
 vanity of wealth if ever we come to it." 
 
138 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 YIII. — A Strange Form of Love Letter. 
 
 A WISE English, essayist has told us that motive is a 
 sign of moral weakness, for he remarks angels^ i.e., pre- 
 sumedly perfectly good arid pure beings, act on impulse 
 only. I have thought of and applied this to my own case. 
 On impulse I ought to have told my wife the w^hole story 
 and thus defied Elizabeth Carter at the outset, but owing 
 to my vacillation over the matter I now fell deeper and 
 deeper into the inherent difficulties of the abnormal 
 situation wherein I was now placed, and much as I 
 longed to confess all to Maggie I found the task grow 
 more impossible, as it seemed to me, every day. 
 
 A new fear now seized me. I found in the mornings, 
 placed ostentatiously on my desk in my little store-room 
 and office, some lilies and subsequently a book — a dingy, 
 brown paper covered volume, issued by Norgate & Co., 
 or some such firm, and having several passages marked 
 with w^arratah blossoms. I turned to the first of these 
 and found that it was an Agnostic's views of life, w^herein 
 he expatiated on the woe and misery arising from ill- 
 assorted marriage unions, and plainly recommended those 
 he called the victims and living sacrifices to old, exploded 
 notions of morality, to boldly sever the tie, and seek out 
 those for whom they felt they had a real affinity, and 
 there was much more in the same style. The passage 
 was marked in faint pencil strokes and evidently meant 
 for me. I felt hot and cold at once. Evidently Elizabeth 
 — I preferred to think of her by her assumed name — was 
 persistent, and, I feared, in earnest. I took up a blue 
 
A MAD PASSION. 139 
 
 pencil I used in my accounts, and wrote over the wkjle 
 page "A Damnable Doctrine," and closed the book, 
 leaving it exactly whete I had found it. Some hours 
 after, when I went in again the volume was gone. On 
 the same evening, Elizabeth, I noticed, when waiting on 
 us at supper, gave me one swift, steady look ; I avoided 
 meeting her eyes as much as practicable, and the look 
 struck me as defiant. 
 
 That night, long after Maggie had fallen into her usual 
 deep sleep, I spent some hours in reviewing the situation. 
 What I wanted was to put an end to all this without a 
 scene (I hated "scenes"), scandal or any disclosures of 
 the past, of which I was nervoasly fearful. I now 
 believe firmly that through unhealthy brooding over the 
 troubles, real and imaginary, that had sprung from 
 Elizabeth's resolute pursuit of me, I had to a great 
 exteat gone off my head. I do not wholly wonder at this, 
 for the trial had come at a season when long delayed and 
 long expected good fortune was at last fluttering her 
 brightest wings full in my mental eyes. A golden future 
 was ahead; a few more efforts and I, too, might take my 
 place among the band of successful colonists, and just at 
 that eleventh hour to be faced by such a trouble as mine, 
 so small and yet so great, so ridiculous from one view- 
 point, and so tragic from another, was too much for my 
 brain. I dared not confide in my wife ; I had noticed 
 much in her I thought strange for some time previously. 
 I knew well how intensely jealous she was in disposition, 
 and I dreaded to acquaint her with facts which she would, 
 I fancy, receive as insults and wrongs unbearable. 1 
 dreaded lest shj should imagine that I had something 
 
140 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 worse in reserve than what I could tell her. I remem- 
 bered, in bitterness and anguish of heart, how she had told 
 me, with flashing eyes and firm-set mouth, referring to a 
 relative, that she could never trust anyone who had once 
 deceived her ; and had not I unhappily declared that 
 until I saw and loved her, no woman had ever received 
 caress or endearment from my hands or lips. Oh, God ! 
 In the anguish of self-accusation that dreadful night I 
 sprang violently out of bed, and stamped on the floor ! 
 
 My wife woke up instantly, and very crossly asked me 
 what I was doing, and complained querulously of being 
 roused out of a nice sleep. " I am dull enough by day," 
 she remarked sharply, " and you might at least let me 
 sleep ; what has come over you of late ? You are as dis- 
 agreeable as you can be ! " 
 
 How could I unfold the truth in face of a demeanour 
 like this ? I had, I felt, brought all this misery on 
 myself, and must get out of it the best way I could. 
 There was nothing for me to say. I lay down again and 
 remained still and wideawake until dawn, when I rose 
 quietly, dressed, and went out of the miserable, ill- 
 omened house, and wandered far away into my own 
 solitary fields. My wife, to the best of my belief, 
 remained soundly asleep. 
 
 IX. — I AM Deeper in the Toils. 
 
 The quiet of the fields, very different from what is 
 understood by the word in England, rather contrasted 
 
MAD PASSION. 141 
 
 with than brouglit any balm to my fevered mind; and 
 when as the light increased a hundred parrots began 
 screaming, as is their wont, I longed for my gun that 
 I might blaze away some of my mingled wrath, remorse, 
 and fear. I felt that I had undoubtedly done a wrong 
 thing. I ought, of course, to have faced the trouble and 
 defied Elizabeth (I hate using the other name), and by 
 this time all would have been over. I was conscious, 
 too, within myself of a lurking compassion for the girl ; 
 for, assuming that she was not the most consummate 
 of artful actresses, she had been drawn to follow me, 
 as the familiar phrase runs, to the end of the world, 
 and most assuredly I could not discern any possible 
 worldly inducement for her conduct. I felt bewildered 
 among conflicting emotions, and could not decide what 
 was best to do. All I could resolve on was under no 
 circumstances to give this mad, unreasonable girl the 
 slightest encouragement, to hold no communion whatever 
 with her, and to await the event. It seemed to me that 
 masterly inactivity was now the best thing for me. If 
 the worst came to the worst, and a " scene " did ensue, 
 why I could then explain all to my wife, and as in reality 
 I was quite innocent in this unfortunate situation, what 
 need I fear ? 
 
 I returned homewards rather slowly and meditatively, 
 and was overtaken by one of my men, who had some 
 request to make. When I had done with him, he 
 remarked casually, " We shall have a stir up to-morrow,^ 
 I fancy, and no mistake." 
 
 I started, for I was so wrapped up in my own troubles 
 that I took everything to myself of that kind, and 
 
142 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 enquired more energetically than the occasion warranted, 
 "What?" 
 
 " Oh ! haven't you heard ? There's a mob coming 
 across here away, one of the biggest and wildest, I have 
 been told, ever seen in these parts, I shall be glad when 
 they're gone. There'll be a nice mess at our big ponds." 
 
 I must explain here to the non-colonial reader that 
 mobs of cattle, which frequently muster up to a thousand 
 head, are allowed bylaw to feed during their journeyings 
 on the ground of the settlers that they pass over, only 
 the law enjoins that they make at least six miles a day, 
 unless, indeed, they have calves. These journeyings 
 sometimes extend for immense distances and occupy 
 many months. Once lefore I had a large and wild 
 mob of cattle over my land, and did not like it at all, 
 the more so as my wife was very frightened and afraid 
 to stir outside the house until the " beasts," as she called 
 them, had all trotted off. 
 
 At present, however, this matter did not trouble me. 
 I was thinking of something much more serious, for it 
 had flashed into my mind with a sinister shock that 
 possibly there might be peiil of a kind I had not 
 dreamed of in allowing Elizabeth to remain with us. The 
 book she had evidently placed on my desk put some 
 strange, wild thoughts into my head, and I asked myself, 
 with a thrill, was my wife quite safe with such a com- 
 panion ? Previously — I could not deny it — selfish concern 
 for myself had quite blinded me to what now seemed a 
 very common-sense view of the situation, and I felt that 
 I was, indeed, to blame. 
 
 How strangely we are baffled in our best resolutions by 
 
A MAD PASSION. 143 
 
 circumstances ! That day I could not but be struck by 
 tbe alteration at home. My wife seemed so very nice, 
 contented and cheerful, and, above all, pleased with 
 Elizabeth ! The latter, for her part, had put on a most 
 innocent air, as it seemed to me, who saw her with very 
 different eyes, and neither by look or gesture did she in 
 the least indicate that our relations were different from 
 what they appeared to be before others. 
 
 And now I may remark that I have avoided attempt- 
 ing any direct description of this stran^T^e creature. The 
 fact is, the subject is far too painful and trying for me 
 to attempt a delineation of a form and face associated 
 with such awful reminiscences. I may say this, however, 
 that Elizabeth was tall, and had a pretty, oval face, with 
 a remarkably firm chin, rather full lips, and the most 
 peculiar eyes I have ever seen in any human being. 
 Ordinarily her eyes were sleepy-looking, but there were 
 times, under excitement or emotion, when they seemed to 
 literally blaze with a devilish fire, as though a concen- 
 trated fury looked out of each. Very much has been 
 written about women having eyes of a gazelle, and as a 
 boy I naturally remember the ox-eyed Juno of my early 
 classic studies. To me it has always seemed a kind of 
 diegradation to compare the human eyes to those of the 
 animal world, for no one who has studied closely the eyes 
 of our dumb friends can have failed to perceive the 
 radical difference that usually exists between their orbs 
 and those of men and women. 
 
 I say usually, because exceptions occur, and the eyes 
 of Elizabeth were a remarkable example of this. At 
 rest and when pleased she had, to my thinking — and 
 
144 AUSTRALIAN AXD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 others have said the same — the exact look in the eyes 
 that we note in those of an animal. There was a total 
 absence of higher intelligence, but the animal look, inno- 
 cent enough in the beast, had in her a peculiar sensuality 
 which has led me to associate, more or less, the sensuous 
 with the cruel in mankind ; and I am, I may at once say, 
 firmly persuaded that extreme sensuality is necessarily 
 closely allied to real cruelty. Any way, these eyes of 
 Elizabeth could be, when she pleased, terrible in passion 
 as in allurement, and I well remember that, as a boy, she 
 exercised a mastering spell over me by her tender looks, 
 which, during our absence from each other, impelled me 
 in those hot-blooded days to pen a thousand fantastic 
 things which now brought a shudder to me at only their 
 bare remembrance. I have often thought that it must 
 be eyes like these that account for not a little of the 
 dreadful things we read of in history, when men, appa- 
 rently good and morally strong in themselves, have, 
 through falling under the spell of this intense animalism, 
 plunged recklessly into a downward course of vice, crime 
 and ruin. 
 
 Had it not been, indeed, for the long interval that had 
 elapsed between my boyish parting with Elizabeth and 
 her advent at my Austral home, and for the fact that I was 
 devoted heart and soul to money-making, and grounded 
 on a solid love for my wife and child, I know not what my 
 fate had been. I shivered as I recalled one dreadful 
 episode of my boy's experience, when this horrible being, 
 for horrible she now seemed to me, tried to induce me to 
 raise a sum of money on my father's credit and to elope 
 and trust to his forgiveness afterwards ! I remember how 
 
A MAD PASSION. 145 
 
 very nearly I fell, as she twined herself close to me, gentle, 
 warm, and caressing, and pleaded with those soft, melt- 
 ing, sensual eyes of hers, that seemed to sap away 
 one's whole moral fibre, and to relax every nerve. To 
 me it is a miracle that I resisted, but I did; and then, 
 when she found it vain, our first quarrel ensued, and she 
 gave me a touch, of the tigress which lay latent in her 
 supple form. 
 
 All these things as reminiscences would at odd times 
 come crowding into my mind that day, and they filled me 
 with an unspeakable abhorrence of one whom I had 
 come to regard as a reptile. What had been her expe- 
 rience, I wondered, in the interval, and how came she to 
 emigrate ? Doubtless I might have drawn some story 
 from her lips, but I resolved to have nothing to do with 
 her again, and when, in the evening, my wife and I were 
 alone, I spoke out with a bluntness that was no doubt 
 startling to one who knew nothing of what was working 
 and seething within me, and said, quite abruptly — 
 
 " You must get rid of that girl.'' 
 
 My wife stared. Evidently she hardly understood me 
 by the way in which she replied, " What ? " 
 
 *' Get rid of her !" I repeated in some excitement. " I 
 hate the sight of her. You don't mean to say you like 
 her?" 
 
 " Most certainly I do. Why, what ever has come over 
 you of late ? You are all pepper and mustard. Matthews 
 was telling me this afternoon that you nearly snapped 
 his nose off yesterday ! Poor Elizabeth ! She has been' 
 telling me some of her troubles, and how she came to 
 emigrate. It seems that she was once engaged to a 
 
 11 
 
146 AUSTRALIAN AXD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 gentleman, she says, in England, but the parents in- 
 terfered, and then she had a succession of troubles, but 
 someone advised her to emigrate and thus begin a new 
 life ; she was ill a long while in Sydney, and spent all her 
 little capital, then my friend heard of her and recom- 
 mended her. Oh, Andrew ! if you knew all the poor girl 
 has gone through you would feel for her, I am sure. She 
 has quite taken me out of myself and done me much good. 
 I am sure that when we are dull and depressed it is a 
 good thing to concern ourselves sympathetically with the 
 trials of others. You'd be twice as happy, Andrew, if yon 
 cared for money less and for people more." And my wife 
 laughed out such a merry, light-hearted laugh that I felt 
 my brain almost turning. " What art had this dreadful 
 gii'l exercised to obtain such an ascendency as this over 
 my wife? " I asked myself in amazement. " My wife, who 
 was so full of common sense and shrewdness!" 
 
 X. — A Terrible End. 
 
 The next morning it happened that my wife complained 
 of a sick headache, and said she should lie awhile, adding 
 that Elizabeth would attend to her very nicely. 
 
 I cannot imagine why, but I woke that day feeling an 
 extreme depression and a great desire not to go abroad. 
 It happened, however, that my personal attention was, I 
 knew, required some few miles, and I resolved to ride 
 over, transact the business, and come straight home. 
 These great distances are the plague of all Australian 
 
A MAD PASSION. 147 
 
 cultivators and pastoralists, and tend naturally to mucli 
 separation and consequent isolation among settlers, 
 especially among those who, like ourselves, were a good 
 way out. 
 
 Ever since my wife had evinced a liking for and a 
 confidence in Elizabeth my anxiety had been intensified, 
 and my deep distrust of the girl had now increased a 
 hundred-fold. 
 
 "I shall be sure and return as soon as possible to-day," 
 I said at leaving; "you will be able to see me coming 
 back by the Sapphire hill, so look out for me in that 
 track about noon." 
 
 My wife smiled in spite of the pain she was evidently 
 suffering, and asked me what made me so very anxious to 
 get back to her all at once, and told me that when I got 
 OQ Mr. Watford's station, where I was going, and had 
 some of his own fine ale, I should forget all about coming 
 back early. 
 
 "You'll see," I cried. "There'll be no ale-drinking 
 for me to-day. I shall return and spend a quiet day 
 indoors for once. We have a mob of cattle coming over 
 the ground, and I shall not be sorry to be out of the 
 dust." 
 
 The horse was ready, and I went out. At the porch 
 stood Elizabeth. I carefully avoided meeting her eyes 
 and sprang up, and, as I pulled the horse's head round 
 to set off, she came quite close, and said : " This is the 
 last day." I paused, startled naturally by the queer 
 character of the words, and still more by the peculiar 
 deliberate and half-hissing tone in which she uttered 
 them. I looked the interrogation I did not utter, and 
 
148 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 then she repeated: "This is the last day," and, bursting 
 into laughter, ran into the house. [N'ever had I heard 
 such laughter, and for the moment I liad my frot out of 
 the stirrup and was more than half -minded to abandon 
 my expedition, bnt, somehow, the whole thing seemed too 
 ludicrous. How could I go ia and explain such rubbish 
 to my wife ? Had I heard the words aright ? Elizabeth 
 had said something that sounded like nonsense, and then 
 had laughed and run in. Well, what could be made of 
 that ? It seemed in the last degree undignified on my 
 part to stoop to explanation on such a point as this, and 
 I rode off, only resolving fully this time that, cost what it 
 might, on my return I would unfold everything to my 
 wife and get rid of a being whose very presence filled me 
 with an indescribable abhorrence and a nameless fear. 
 
 Goaded on with these thoughts I put my horse along, 
 and reached my friends' station in excellent time, and 
 soon transacted my business. It happened that the 
 station belonged to three exceedingly jolly bachelor 
 brothers, all excellent fellows, ranging from about thirty 
 to forty, and they one and all expressed keen disappoint- 
 ment at my refusal to accept their hospitality. No, I 
 must hurry back. I could not possibly sit down to a 
 rubber of whist. I knew well, from former experience, 
 what that meant in point of time. I was plied with ques- 
 tions as to what had come over me, and then one of the 
 three rather startled me by renaarking : " And how may 
 the fair Lenore be ?" 
 
 I stared. He saw my surprise was genuine, and, 
 changing his bantering tone, asked : " Can it be, old 
 fellow, that you don't know what your new handmaiden 
 
A MAD PASSION. 149 
 
 is reported to do at night, or, rather, in the early 
 morning ? " 
 
 " Do ? My handmaiden ? You speak in riddles. My 
 wife has set up a sort of ' help ' of late, but I nevei* 
 meddle with domestic arrangements. Wool and wheat 
 are quite as much as I can manage." And I laughed 
 rather a forced laugh, for I now felt that the eyes of all 
 three were fixed on me in a very curious manner. 
 
 " Well," observed the eldest, " you don't seem to know 
 aught of the matter, and perhaps it is none of our busi- 
 ness to tell you. However, you ought to know that your 
 handmaiden is given to an early gallop, Joan of Arc 
 fashion, when she thinks there are none to see her ; but 
 she is seen all the same, and she rides in such a daring 
 way that one of our people was silly enough last week to 
 sit up two nights running to see the sight, and according 
 to his account he was uncommonly near ridden over. I 
 wonder you have not found this out long ago. Is she a 
 bomnambulist ? That is the general idea." 
 
 I Avas, indeed, startled. No ; nothing of this had 
 hitherto come to my ears. And no wonder, for my people 
 were but few in number, and I fear of late I had been 
 rather of a driver, and none of them were likely, except 
 by chance, to discover a nocturnal rider. The intelli- 
 gence made me very uneasy indeed. What kind of a 
 being was this woman? During my boy attachment I 
 had never noticed anything unusual, except, as I have 
 already said, that she could exercise a species of strong 
 animal magnetic attraction to or influence on others. At 
 least I had felt the power of it ; but for the night ride, 
 if truly described, I could not in the least account. 
 
l^O AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 This was a new phase. It quite threw me off my 
 mental balance. What had I done, I asked myself, Avith 
 a cold thrill of vague but intense fear, to allow such a 
 woman as this to be in our house and about my wife ? 
 Anyway it should be ended one way or the other now. 
 I hastily bade my friends farewell, and rode straight home, 
 full of gloomy forebodings and many sharp pricks of a 
 fnlly aroused conscience. 
 
 I had not gone far before I noticed, as I rose on a 
 tolerably higb hill, a peculiar appearance in the distance; 
 and familiar with, such signs, it struck me that very 
 probably there was a bush fire in that direction. 
 
 There had been that season several fires of no great 
 importance, and in my present frame of mind such an 
 incident vaguely spelled out by a peculiar look in the far 
 horizon scarcely affected me at all. I was impatient to 
 be home. Home again ; and then — well, then I meant to 
 cut the Gordian knot some way. I could not exactly tell 
 how, but cut it I would ! 
 
 Nearer and nearer yet. I had entered the last of the 
 gullies and was proceeding at a smart trot, when, just at 
 a bend, where the track narrowed and the great ferns met 
 overhead, forming a natural arch with their beautiful 
 fronds, I just pulled up in time to avoid actual contact 
 with a horse standing still — one of my own, I saw that at 
 a glance ; and seated thereon, but not in Maid of Orleans 
 fashion, was Elizabeth Carter ! Her face was shaded by 
 a very wide-brimmed hat, and in the twilight of the kind 
 of sylvan tunnel wherein we faced each other I could not 
 distinguish her features very distinctly. The meeting 
 greatly startled me and I said inwardly, " What new 
 
A MAD PASSION. 151 
 
 move is this ? " She on her part appeared perfectly 
 composed. She backed her horse about a yard or so and 
 then managed to completely block the track by turning 
 him half across the narrow way, at the same time 
 extending an arm with a gesture that plainly said, stay 
 where you are. With Elizabeth face to face, I lost my 
 more pressing apprehension for the moment, and, I know 
 not why, a great curiosity as to what she meant and what 
 she really was now seemed to absorb every other feeling. 
 Remember that in my haste that dreadful day I had 
 taken scarcely anything to eat, and a good part of my 
 ride had been under a semi-tropical sun, which had 
 rendered me somewhat dizzy in the head, a fact that I 
 became more and more aware of now I was quietly 
 stopping after my furious ride to and from my friends' 
 station. 
 
 "You seem dumb enough now," were the first words 
 that reached my ears ; they were spoken in a mocking 
 tone that somehow struck a strange chill to my blood. 
 
 " I have told you, once for all, that I will have no kind 
 of communication with you a^ain. Let me pass by. I 
 don't know what has possessed you to ride my horsas 
 about like this. If you take my advice, Elizabeth Carter, 
 you'll just ride away. I give you the horse — go your 
 way and let me go mine ! " 
 
 I spoke out bravely, and remember well my exact 
 words. In truth every word almost that passed between 
 us on that terrible, fatal day has been in a manner 
 branded into my brain for evermore. 
 
 *' You give me the horse ? I am to go my own way 
 Do you remember, Andrew Chambers, what you swore? 
 
152 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Do you remember what you wrote — tliat you would be true 
 to me, that you w^ould send for me although seas rolled 
 between — that you would be true and tender ? Tender — 
 yes, oh, God ! " and here she shrieked as one stricken with 
 a mortal pain. I felt my face blanch beneath her awful 
 eyes. I knew, miserable man that I was, that it was 
 even as she had said, and I stood for the moment dumb. 
 Was she veritably mad? "Oh no!" she went on, 
 "I see you are flint — indeed you are the slave to tliat 
 dull glory of a virtuous wife that you used to spout to me 
 about when you were a lover. A lover ! I believed you 
 and your poetry, and see what it has brought me to. 
 But if I cannot make you keep your word — liar and 
 coward that you are — I will punish vou — ay, punish you. 
 Your wife shall know the kind of man you are ; she shall 
 see your fine verses." And she struck her bosom where 
 I suppose she carried that bundle of my foolish boyish 
 effusions. " I am past all care for myself. I have met 
 you to-day to tell you this — to tell you that I mean to 
 blast your home and ruin you as you have ruined me. 
 See !" The torrent of words, which takes some moments 
 to record, flowed from her in one passionate stream, and 
 before I could make a movement she levelled a pistol 
 (one of my own, as I afterwards found out) point blank 
 at my poor horse, and fired. He sank down, shot in the 
 head, and I had only time to throw myself off to avoid 
 being caught under him as he rolled over. Then she 
 turned her horse's head and urged him up the gully 
 at a gallop. I took it all in at a flash, and, in a spasm of 
 intense horror at the thought of what would happen if 
 such a fiend as this woman had proved herself to be 
 
A MID PASSIOIN-. 153 
 
 should reacli my home first, I dashed after her at the 
 top of my speed. 
 
 I noticed that in place of a proper riding habit this 
 horrible woman had wrapped round her a large plaid 
 shawl of my wife's, and as she galloped on, a corner got 
 loose and hampered the horse, causing him to stumble and 
 almost fall. This gave me the advantage and I almost 
 came up with the fugitive, but with gi^eat presence of 
 mind she caught up the shawl and soon increased the 
 distance between us, calling back once or twice in a shrill 
 mocking tone some unintelligible words which stung me 
 into redoubled exertions. I was in pretty fair condition, 
 and Ihis portion of the gully, which was not really a 
 proper road but only a very rough, irregular track, very 
 up and down, was so far in my favour, and I managed to 
 keep horse and rider in fair view, although even here I 
 could not gain on this mad woman, who rode in a per- 
 fectly reckless manner, and more than once, as I could see, 
 was within an ace of being unseated by the projecting 
 branches of some of the trees that overarched the track. 
 Only those who have been running a losing race, and yet 
 determined to win if it costs them their life, can form an 
 adequate idea of that desperate and hoirible chase. My 
 heart was ready to burst and the blood throbbed hammer- 
 like in my temples. Now and then I spurted and gained 
 on the horse and appeared almost to fly over the rough 
 ground, and then I seemed turned to a leaden man, 
 staggering wildly over the broken ground and gasping 
 for breath like a drowning man among ilie surf of a 
 storm-beaten shore. At last the horse shot clear of the 
 gully and I knew that the chase was hopeless. Still I 
 
154 AUSTT?AL[AN AXD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 struggled on to the exit, whence I looked on a vast flat 
 that fell away before me, and then — in my wild excite- 
 ment no sound had reached my ears — I was aware of a 
 fearful torrent — there is no other way to describe it — of 
 cattle pouring across the slope right in front — a torrent 
 of tossing heads without beginning or end as it seemed. 
 
 It was an appalling stampede of cattle, such as I had 
 never seen before, and as I looked the flying horse charged 
 right into the flank of this roaring, bellowing river of 
 terrified, maddened beasts, and disappeared from sight ! 
 Then as I looked, hardly comprehending what had hap- 
 pened, the awful tightness that seemed to confine my 
 heaving chest like a biting chain of steel relaxed. I lost 
 at once all sense of pain and terror, and, as it appeared 
 to me at the time, sank down, down, deep into the earth 
 that yielded before me as water, and with the sound as of 
 many waters in my ears, I passed into complete oblivion, 
 and for a time was, as it were, annihilated. 
 
 There is little more forme to tell. By the most careful 
 and tender nursing my wife brought me through a most 
 perilous illness, and, as the doctor insists, did far more 
 then he to effect a complete recovery. In my intense 
 exertions to overtake the flying horse which had been 
 goaded into a gallop I broke a blood-vessel, and was thus 
 saved very probably from the awful death that befel its 
 rider, whom subsequent evidence proved pietty conclu- 
 sively to have been both a somnambulist and a mono- 
 maniac. My wife's friend who recommended the unhappy 
 girl to us kept back facts that had really come to her 
 knowledge, viz., that on the voyage out Elizabeth Carter 
 had a severe attack of brain fever. My wife knows all. 
 
A MAD PASSION. 155 
 
 There is no more any veil between us, and she is, I 
 know, mightily proud of her skill, patience, and tireless 
 attention in *' snatching " me, as the doctor put it, " right 
 out of the jaws of death." 
 
 We are now happy and prosperous, and our boy is 
 growing up strong, bright, good, and clever. There is 
 no speck on the clear horizon of our life's sky, excepting 
 only that ill-natured and altogether abominable scandal 
 set on foot by my political opponents, who have used the 
 "Carter affair" as an agency for a cruel attack on me 
 personally. It is to meet and crush these foul slanders 
 that I have determined to set forth, as I have done above, 
 the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 
 
SKETCHES, &c. 
 
AUSTRALIA TO ENGLAND. 
 
 1887 
 
 We warmly greet thee, England's Queen, 
 
 From every Austral land, 
 United by the seas between, 
 
 Those bulwarks true and grand. 
 That made us great and keep us free, 
 And hymn with us thy Jubilee ! 
 
 It is not yet a hundred years 
 
 Since Sydney first arose, 
 Unbought by blood, unstained by tears 
 
 Of conquered nations' woes — 
 Of honourable toil the fee. 
 She joins with us ihy Jubilee ! 
 
 Thy shield is charged with glories rare, 
 
 We have our triumphs, too. 
 In clusters here, of Britain s fair. 
 
 And, England, all from you ! 
 What wonder is it then that w^e 
 Are joyous at this Jubilee ? 
 
160 AUSTRA.LIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 The victories of Peace we claim 
 
 Beneath the Austral sun ; 
 Our shield hath not one blot of shame, 
 
 Our wealth is labour- won ; 
 And o'er the waves, with Saxon glee, 
 We greet, oh Queen, thy Jubilee ! 
 
 From golden Melbourne's stately streets. 
 
 From Adelaide the fair, 
 From Brisbane with its tropic heats. 
 
 From Auckland's cooler air. 
 There ringeth forth from Peoples free 
 The chorus of thy Jubilee. 
 
 Australia wears no threatening sword, 
 
 But she can guard her own ; 
 And, England, if a foreign horde 
 
 Assailed the Island Throne, 
 All Europe — all the world — should see 
 Australia's one in blood with thee ! 
 
EDWAED GIBBON WAKEFIELD; 
 
 AND 
 
 HIS WORK IN NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA. 
 
 Historically England is the one grand exception to 
 the rule that empire has usually been achieved through 
 the concerted action of statesmen, that is, through govern- 
 TYient. In the case of Great Britain the creative political 
 force has been the individual, and too often governments 
 have actually opposed, and even frustrated, grand efforts 
 made by far-sighted patriotic men for the development of 
 the national atrength and the extension of the national 
 dominion. All the ancient empires were systematically 
 built up on the governmental plan. France, Germany, 
 Russia, and indeed every one of the powers of the Conti- 
 nent, has been reared on a like basis ; but with ourselves, 
 owing to party being the fundamental principle in the 
 State, no general national concerted action has ever been 
 practicable, and hence what has come to England of 
 imperial greatness has been principally the work of indi- 
 
 12 
 
162 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 viduals, who have often had to fight against their own 
 government as well as against the natural difficulties 
 in their path. 
 
 This, indeed, is one of the main causes for that extra- 
 ordinary political ingratitude and apathy towards some 
 of our very greatest men so noticeable in English history, 
 and thence it has come about that if it is not exactly true 
 that England knows nothing of her greatest men, it is 
 certain that the mass of the people know comparatively 
 little of some of them. 
 
 Happily there is always an historical court of appeal, 
 and I propose here, in as succinct a manner as possible, to 
 rescue one who was in some respects our foremost and 
 most gifted colonial statesman (a statesman, however, 
 outside the precincts of St. Stephen's) from the partial 
 oblivion which has so unjustly descended on his name 
 and concealed from the general public the character and 
 magnitude of his services in founding our Austral 
 colonies. 
 
 It is now more than a quarter of a century since there 
 passed away at Wellington, New Zealand, at the age of 
 66, after a distressing invalid existence of seven years, 
 Edward Gibbon Wakefield, of w^hom it is not too much 
 to say that he, more than any other man, contributed to 
 consolidate the present Australasian dominions. Yet how 
 little, comparatively speaking, is known of him ! In 
 1876 a subscription was started, headed by the late 
 William Purdy, of the Bank of South Australia, to place 
 a marble bust of Wakefield in the vestibule of the 
 Colonial Office, and a very valuable collection of his 
 letters, relative to the settlement of Canterbury Pro- 
 
EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD. 163 
 
 vince, New Zealand, was reviewed favourably some years 
 ago by tbe Saturday Hevitw, but the mass of the people 
 do not greatly heed a bust in the lobby of a Government 
 office, and still less over 300 pages of correspondence 
 whereto they hold not the key. 
 
 Let us then briefly sum up some of the salient points 
 in the public life of this remarkable man. 
 
 Pirst of all, he is the author of the system of colonisa- 
 tion under which public lands in the colonies came to be 
 sold, in place of being given away, the proceeds being 
 devoted to emigration, surveys, roads, churches, and 
 schools. This was a most important economic reform. 
 Then Wakefield's great book, " A View of the Art of 
 Colonization," is really a standard work, and was so 
 described by John Stuart Mill. But Wakefield was a 
 maker of States rather than of books ; he had the special 
 organising and formative mind of the statesman who 
 rises high above the whole region of party — or shall 
 I say professional ? — politics ; and if we take, first of all, 
 his general services to the cause of emigration, we shall 
 perceive that here alone he wrought, in the teeth of 
 enormous difficulties, a great, an expansive and enduring 
 work. Let us remember that he was the first in the 
 present century to persuade respectable persons to emi- 
 grate. During the spacious times of Elizabeth, and 
 far later than those, gentlemen had emigrated, but after 
 the declaration of American Independence, a change 
 ensued. The thing wore a new aspect owing to the 
 practice of transportation for such a wide range of 
 crimes, and at the beginning of the present century a 
 respectable retail tradesman considered it a disgraceful 
 
164 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALKS AND SKETCHES. 
 
 thing to have a son who had emigrated. There is no doubt 
 that ignorant people confounded colonists with convicts, 
 and we know that even now something of this old pre- 
 judice still lingers, and " colonials " are not unfrequently 
 regarded coldly by certain sections of society. Thus, a 
 shade of scorn has even passed to the honourable order 
 of St. Michael and St. George, because it has been 
 extensively bestowed on distinguished colonists. 
 
 Wakefield w^as unquestionably the first to oppose and 
 overthrow the strong prejudice that existed in his day 
 against emigration in the minds of the respectable, and 
 especially the well-born and upper, classes. As an 
 evidence of his success in this we have only to reckon up 
 the leading men w^hom he either induced to try their 
 fortunes at the Antipodes, or to take an active part in 
 promoting emigration thither. That men like the 
 Lambtons, the Lyttletons, the Petres, the Molesworths, 
 Tancreds, Dillons, Cliffords, Welds, Hanmers and hosts 
 of others should be won over to colonisation proves that 
 Wakefield must have been as convincing in argument as 
 he was earnest in principle, and alone marks him out 
 conspicuously as a born leader of men. 
 
 And then only consider the serious difiiculties that in 
 those days stood in the path of the emigrant. Look at 
 the length of the voyage, the absence of telegraphs, the 
 tedious mails, the very difEerent equipment of the ships 
 of those days, the fact that the Maoris of New Zealand 
 were known to be cannibals, and marked besides by an 
 intense ferocity towards all strangers. Then, too, there 
 was the fearful sense of complete isolation, and the entire 
 cutting off of the well-to-do and educated emigrant from 
 
EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD. 165 
 
 all the enjoyments and triumplis of English social 
 existence— a complete abandonment of all that consti- 
 tutes the pomp and circumstance of life at its best. 
 Surely a man to win over men such as he did, must have 
 had a strange magic in his manner, and that masterful 
 will which belongs, indeed, especially to the founders of 
 States. 
 
 It was by Wakefield that, in 1837, an association was 
 formed to colonise New Zealand, an association subse- 
 quently known as the New Zealand Company, 1839, and 
 eventually the New Zealand Company, which founded 
 the settlements of Wellington, Nelson, New Plymouth 
 and Wanganui. 
 
 At the close of 1843, Wakefield conceived the grand 
 idea of a Church of England settlement in the Britain 
 of the South ; and, although difficulties were, as usual, 
 encountered, the project began to take shape two years 
 later. Among those who took a warm interest in the 
 project w^as Archbishop Whately. 
 
 Unhappily here, as has so often happened in our 
 "rough island story," the Government was distinctly 
 against the individual who was seeking to extend the 
 empire ; and Earl Grey, who in opposition had been 
 sympathetic Avitli these colonial schemes, when in power 
 yielded to a foolish and prejudiced influence from "Exeter 
 Hall politicians," and sought to destroy the New Zealand 
 Company which Wakefield had created, and from which 
 such enormous Imperial gains were to spring. It is not 
 surprising that the great shaper of the Australasian 
 destinies of England should have yielded at last to the 
 effects of undue brain pressure and disappointment, and 
 
166 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 he was struck down bj serious illness, and for some 
 considerable time was invalided in a cottage at South 
 Stoke, in the delightful valley of the Arun, just under the 
 walls of Arundel Park, Sussex. He then went to Great 
 Malvern to undergo hydropathic treatment, and then 
 became acquainted with Mr. Godley, an acquaintance 
 cemented afterwards into an enduring friendship. 
 
 Then came the grand scheme for the settlement of 
 Canterbury, N^ew Zealand, and he almost persuaded 
 Sir William Bellairs, of Mulbarton, near Norwich, to 
 emigrate with his wiiole family and property — the latter 
 about £70,000. This fell through; but it served to 
 show how great an influence Wakefield exercised in 
 England in regard to emigration. 
 
 It was ever a desire of his to spend his closing years in' 
 the fair land where he had done so much to reproduce 
 England ; but to him it was as a duty to work on at 
 home in the cause of that great colonisation which he 
 had himself created, and he was in fact able to do more 
 here than he could on the other side. In the year 1848 
 he resided at Boulogne for the special purpose of ^vriting 
 the book referred to above on the art of colonisation, and 
 a work playfully referred to in his correspondence as 
 "My Mrs. Harris," because it had been long projected 
 and friends thought it would never see the light. This 
 work, however, was finished, and when at length the 
 New Zealand Constitution Act was passed, Wakefield 
 felt that his great life work was in a manner accom- 
 plished, and in 1853 he arrived at Lyttelton, and had the 
 pleasure of seeing the great settlement he had created. 
 But he was not a man to rest on laurels, however bright. 
 
EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD. 167 
 
 He embarked on the troubled waters of New Zealand 
 politics, and became a member of tbe House of Repre- 
 sentatives ; and, being assailed by his political opponents 
 — he was dead against tlie delusive cheap land scheme of 
 Sir George Grey — he gave a memorable address of over 
 five hours' duration. Exhausted by his oratory, he 
 returned home against a south-east gale in an open 
 vehicle and fell ill. Unhappily he never recovered, and 
 for seven long years of suffering he endured the martyr- 
 dom of a sick chamber, dying in May, 1862. 
 
 Such is a feeble and comparatively colourless outline 
 of the work of Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Let us not 
 forget that to him we owe not simply the colonisation, 
 but the very possession of JSTew Zealand. Had not 
 Wakefield by his daring but quite irregular act of send- 
 ing out an expedition to colonise N^ew Zealand, without — 
 observe — waiting for Government sanction, the Govern- 
 ment of the day would not have been in a manner forced 
 to take possession of the Britain of the South. There is 
 no doubt whatever that France w^ould have seized l^ew 
 Zealand. It is well known that England took actual 
 possession of the Southern island only a few days before 
 the French ships, commissioned for the same purpose, 
 actually arrived off the coast ! 
 
 Rarely has there been in history such a race between 
 two rivals, and here, as we see, the individual completely 
 triumphed over the Government. Obviously Australia 
 owes an enduring debt of gratitude to the man whose 
 energy, courage, and forethought preserved New Zealand 
 from being occupied like New Caledonia. Think from 
 hoAv many perils Australia has been preserved ; for if New 
 
168 AUSTEALIAN AXD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Caledonia is a thorn in the side of tlie Austral Dominion, 
 what would a French New Zealand have been ? Then, 
 as far as Australia is concerned, let it be never forgotten 
 that Wakefield was the principal founder of Adelaide. 
 
 Let it be remembered that he not only practically 
 founded the cities of Wellington and Nelson, but he 
 founded also Christchurch and Dunedin, for the late 
 J. R. Godley and Captain Cargill were his lieutenants, 
 so to speak. Will it be credited by the general reader 
 that in none of these cities is there a statue or public 
 memorial to his honour? Christchurch alone has a fine 
 portrait of him, by Collins, R.A., but even that was 
 presented by English subscribers. 
 
 At home there is, indeed, the bust in the vestibule of 
 the Colonial Ofiice, whereto I have already referred, 
 which bears the subjoined inscription : — 
 
 "Edward Gibbon Wakefield, author of the 'Art of 
 Colonisation.' Born in London 20 March, 1796; died 
 in Wellington, New Zealand, 16 May, 1862. To com- 
 memorate his statesmanlike qualities and his disin- 
 terested efforts for the improvement of the Empire, his 
 friends and subscribers have presented this bust to the 
 Colonial Office." 
 
 Some reference ought in justice to be made here to 
 Wakefield's brothers. Captain Arthur Wakefield, H.N., 
 after very long and distinguished service in the Koyal 
 Navy, sailed for New Zealand, and founded the colony 
 of Nelson in 1841. Captain Arthur belonged to the type 
 of Drake. He was under fire, and a heavy one, too, at 
 Batavia, when only 11 years old, and actually captured 
 a standard at Bladensburg when but 14 ! 
 
EDWARD GIB150N WAKEFIELD. 169 
 
 At kelson he did very mucli service to the new-bom 
 colony, and was deservedly popular. Unfortunately he 
 was killed during the lamentable massacre of Wairan on 
 June 17, 1843. He had surrendered to the rebels, but 
 was murdered in cold blood by the scoundrel Rangihaiata, 
 who, to the shame of the colony, was shortly after feted 
 and caressed by the Governor and Bishop of the colony. 
 The death of Captain Arthur, and that of those who fell 
 with him, were never avenged, and the colony of Nelson 
 seems never to have recovered from the untimely death 
 of Captain Arthur Wakefield. 
 
 Then Colonel William Wakefield, after greatly dis- 
 tinguishing himself in the constitutional cause in Spain 
 under Sir De Lacy Evans, led the first body of English 
 colonists to New Zealand and founded the city of 
 Wellington in 1839. He first arrived in Port Nicholson 
 on September 20, and was at once struck by the mag- 
 nificence of the nature-made harbour and by the central 
 character of the situation. There was much opposition 
 offered by the Governor of the colony, w^ho founded 
 Auckland for the express purpose of thwarting the New 
 Zealand Company, which really was to the colony what 
 the old East India Company was to India, but the wisdom 
 of Colonel Wakefield's choice was finally justified, for 
 Wellington has now long been the capital of the colony. 
 From 1839 Colonel Wakefield conducted the affairs of the 
 Company in the face of the most appalling difficulties 
 and his premature death in 1848 was universally deplored. 
 His funeral was marked by many honours and he was 
 followed to the grave by the Governor, and all the army 
 and navy officers, together with virtually the entire body 
 
170 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 of settlers. There is, I believe, a fund at Wellington for 
 the purpose of founding some fitting memorial to his 
 memory, but, from one cause or another, it has never yet 
 been applied. 
 
 Some passing reference should be made here to Daniel 
 Wakefield, Attorney- General of the Southern Province of 
 New Zealand, and one of the earliest judges of the colony. 
 He was the elder brother of the two already mentioned, 
 and was commissioned by Colonel Wakefield to negotiate 
 the purchase of a great part of the South Island, including 
 the site of the noAv famous city of Dunedin. 
 
 That the Empire, indeed, owed much to the Wakefield 
 family must be obviou?, but I must not pass over entirely 
 unnoticed the great Canadian work of E. G. Wakefield, 
 although, of coarse, this has bat a remote bearing on 
 Austral interests. It is surely worthy of record here that 
 the Earl of Durham, Governor- General of Canada during 
 a most critical period, Avrote in a book which he pre- 
 sented to E. G. Wakefield that all the successful acts of 
 his government were due, and had been performed by 
 Wakefield's advice, and that all the unsuccessful acts 
 had been when he acted contrary to that advice ! 
 
 It follows, then, that the Wakefield family — this noble 
 and gifted baud of brothers— has really wrought out 
 great things for the Empire, and have emphatic and, 
 indeed, irresistible claims to be remembered as among 
 the foremost of England's best sons. 
 
 One word more. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, whether 
 in the persons of his brothers or others, had brave and 
 loyal lieutenants to serve him and carrj^ out his gi'and and 
 comprehensive plans. His was the creative and forma- 
 
EDWARD GIBBON WAKEFIELD. 171 
 
 tive mind, and theirs tlie powerful executive. No man 
 ever did greater work with more limited means or in the 
 teeth of such tremendous obstacles. Yet Wakefield lived 
 to surmount and triumph over them all; but he also 
 lived amid galling neglect and misunderstandings, and 
 was ill-recognised by the nation for which he did so much. 
 Probably our annals rarely, if ever, exhibit a man of 
 equal capacity and power who was so little of a self- 
 seeker. What he had — and that was, emphatically, 
 governmental genius — he gave royally for the benefit 
 of his countrymen, and in preserving New Zealand from 
 France, he conferred a benefit on mankind, as a French 
 New Zealand would inevitably mean war in the Austral 
 world. 
 
 To write the true history of the founder of New Zealand 
 as a colony, would require at least a volume. Here I 
 have but ventured on a modest monograph, impelled by 
 the fact that on looking around in current Australasian 
 history for some fitting record of this great man, I found 
 it not. It is, therefore, in the interests of biographical 
 truth and historical justice that I adduce the above 
 testimony to the inestimable services of a man to whom 
 England owes, indeed, much, and Australia and New 
 Zealand infinitely more. 
 
TASMANIA 
 
 A SKETCH AXD A PKOPHECY. 
 
 Some time since a Chicago journal boasted that within 
 a few years the neighbourhood would swarm with a 
 population of full five millions ! This seems to me, 'per se, 
 by no means a matter for national trumpet-blowing — 
 unless, indeed, we could know that the quality of these 
 citizens to be would at least bear some proportion to their 
 numbers. I often fear that some of our Australasian 
 pioneers are inspired by the same fatal craze for numbers 
 and size, forgetting that, after all, in human, as in all 
 other things, qualit:/ alone will bear the test of time and 
 the vicissitudes of fortune. 
 
 Athens was a small city, and the Athenians were 
 capable of being all stowed on board two or three of the 
 P. and 0. steamers — that is, the leading citizens ; yet 
 they live to us, while millions and millions of the " bar- 
 barians " around them perished utterly, and left no sign 
 behind. 
 
174 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Thus, it may be positive gain to a commiinity to want 
 unlimited " elbow room," and to find itself witbin natural 
 conditions wbich operate as a matrice to condense and 
 give definite expression to the natural bent of its national 
 genius. 
 
 Big-ness is all very well, but it has necessarily nothing to 
 do with greatness, although this is frequently overlooked. 
 Comparatively speaking, I judge that Tasmania is, 
 of all members of the Austral group, the least known to 
 average non-colonial Englishmen and women, Avhich is, in 
 truth, a strangely ironical paradox, seeing that it is a far 
 more perfect analogue of Grreat Britain than Kew 
 Zealand, and that in a far greater number of physical 
 circumstances it recalls to all natives of the United 
 Kingdom who once visit it the best and most endearing 
 features of England, especially England as she is em- 
 balmed in the cameo-like sonnets of Wordsworth or the 
 sweet and pure domestic lyrics of Mrs. Hemans. 
 
 It has sometimes struck me that Tasmania is jast 
 a little like the formation that might be anticipated 
 if Titans, like those the ancients fabled, broke olf a 
 i-oughly heart-shaped portion, about the size of Ireland, 
 say, and managed to preserve the loveliest of our lakes, 
 the most picturesque of our Welsh mountains and 
 Devonian hills, the most delightful of our rivers, the 
 fairest of our typical valleys, and the healthiest of our 
 table lands. Yet even this would be far from all that 
 iS'ature herself has done for the real Tasmania of the 
 Austral world, since there we have forests, vast and 
 dense as those which marked England in the Feudal 
 period, when the oak was a power of the land, and over 
 
TASMANIA: A SKETCH AND A PKOrHECY. 175 
 
 fifty islands clustering about its sliores; while its sinuous 
 coasts exactly resemble those of the British Isles in the 
 number and magnitude of the nature-made ports and 
 harbours that have been so freely provided. 
 
 Physically we have here an analogue of a highly 
 condensed England, blessed, as many have declared, with 
 the climate of Italy, minus some of the drawbacks there, 
 for Tasmania has summers devoid of scorching heat, and 
 winters that bring cheery and bracing frosts and sun- 
 shine almost always bright. 
 
 Few, I believe no, countries of the world are so well 
 watered with rivers, many of which arise in the table 
 lands from natural reservoirs of some of the best water 
 in the whole world. The Derwent, the Tamer, the 
 Mersey, the Esk, North and South, and many others 
 spread fertility and beauty throughout the interior, while 
 of the lakes, that known as " the Great " covers an area of 
 28,000 acres, and Lake Sorell, in Westmoreland county, 
 extends to 17,000 acres. 
 
 The climate has been compared to Cheltenham during 
 summer and to Sicily in winter, and some say that in 
 that season it resembles Lisbon. Any way it is free from 
 keen and nipping cold east winds, damp fogs and all the 
 thousand and one malign influences which so frequently 
 convert the English climate into tveatJier simply, and 
 weather that is invariably bad. 
 
 No other part of the Austral world furnishes such a 
 low death rate for infants, and that is conclusive testi- 
 mony to the vivifying qualities of the air and general 
 meteorological conditions. The usual death-rate is but 
 a decimal point or two over 16 per 1,000, and the ordinary 
 
176 AUSTRALIAN AXD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 " cause " of death to residents in this nature-favoured 
 colony, is just that one really incurable disease — old age. 
 Whether we take seascape or landscape, the prevailing- 
 appearance of still life is thoroughly English, but it is 
 English in a highly concentrated state, as though all the 
 commonplace, monotonous dead-levels had been, by some 
 violent but aesthetic spasm, squeezed up into a pocket 
 Lake District, a pocket Wales and a fair reproduction of 
 Devonshire and Somersetshire, with a few more of our 
 most picturesque counties thrown in. 
 
 The greatest and most charming varieties of scenery 
 are common sights in Tasmania, where we have within 
 the range of one eye-sweep of the horizon the snow- 
 crowned mountain peak, the crystal lake, the green 
 valley, the undulating pasturage, and the well-tilled 
 fields, such as form the pride of agricultural England. 
 This is not all. Grarden, and hedgerow, and well-kept 
 road exactly recall to mind rural England, and the new 
 arrival cannot without difficulty forget that he has left the 
 land which he finds so wonderfully reproduced by nature 
 and industry beneath the Southern Cross. 
 
 Although there are now no noxious animals, the fauna 
 is numerous and includes over 15G birds, among which 
 are larks, magpies, blue wrens, sandpipers, gulls, teal, 
 duck, herons, bitterns, and very many more, to say 
 nothing of swans and cockatoos. 
 
 The rivers and adjacent seas are well supplied with 
 fish, and salmon, salmon-trout, and trout have been 
 acclimatised. The local flounder, rock cod and trumpeter 
 compare most favourably with salmon or turbot. 
 
 The flora includes quite a thousand indigenous plants, 
 
TASMANIA: A SKETCH AND A PEOPHECT. 177 
 
 and flowers dear and familiar to English, eyes bloom 
 prolifically. 
 
 Tlie forests are veritable mines of wealtb in timbers, 
 many of whicb, like tbe well-known Huon pine, tbe 
 red myrtle, and various species of gums, are of un- 
 doubted value and thorouglily mercbantable, whenever 
 proper trade openings shall be provided for their outlet. 
 
 The mineral wealth of Tasmania is at present but 
 imperfectly known. The marvellous mountain of tin — 
 Bischoff — is but a type of other like deposits, and besides 
 silver, lead and gold, which undoubtedly exist in great 
 quantities, we have on the east coast a vast region where 
 iron and coal can be worked in enormous quantities. 
 
 At present the smallness of population has effectually 
 kept Tasmania in the rear, although of late the fine fruit 
 put on the London market by Tasmanian growers has 
 attracted a little attention to the island colony. Unlike 
 some other sections of the Austral dominion, Tasmania 
 has been spared any great social throes. It is not by any 
 means, socially, a land of millionaires, but it is the land, 
 per se, of comfortable competence, of domestic enjoyment, 
 of true social solidity, and has less want and suffering, 
 less vice and crime than any other corner of the whole 
 British dominions. Here, in truth, where a Cabinet 
 Minister receives but £900 a year, we have a community 
 really keeping the golden mean; and here, curiously 
 enough, where the inequalities are the least, and the 
 middle class prosperity of England seems to flourish 
 best, we have that intense loyalty to the old country 
 and to the great principle of federation, whereon alone 
 the future Austral Empire can be securely founded. 
 
 13 
 
178 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 It is, then, no wonder wlien Tasmania sees herself 
 a fairer England, an ideal country beantifnlly planned 
 out by a benign Nature, and so far aided by fortune into 
 the attainment of a flattering miniature of England, 
 such as Sir Philip Sydney loved and died for. 
 
 All this happy social state has come aboat naturally 
 enough. The results speak eloquently for the moral 
 quality and pith of the pioneers of the colony ; but much 
 might now be done beyond if some sort of general 
 direction were now given to what seems to me to be the 
 genius of the colony. "I know well that the Anglo-Saxon 
 has a distrust of Grovernments as shaping powers, and 
 while he has utter faith in himself individually, he feels 
 grave doubts when he has to be dealt with collectively. 
 Yet it is certain we should gain enormously by making 
 what use can be wisely made of the formative hand of 
 Government, and by sometimes forming a well-matured 
 matrix of future human usefulness, wherein population 
 may be gradually poured, so as to work out double results 
 simultaneously, viz., prosperity for both the individual 
 and the community. And be it noted by those who 
 cavil about " paternal rule," that the gain to the com- 
 munity ultimately benefits the individual, and is to him 
 or her, in point of fact, a pure gift. 
 
 The population of Tasmania is about 150,000. Of 
 these, say, 75,000 are males, and then, if we deduct 
 thence the very young and the old, we shall not have 
 above, in round numbers, say, 25,000 men to account 
 for the present material prosperity of the colony. Truly, 
 this community, which reminds one much of one of the 
 ancient confederate Greek States, has accomplished not 
 
TASMANIA : A SKETCH AND A PROPHECY. 179 
 
 a little. There are, to begin witli, nearly half a million 
 acres of good land under cultivation, whereof on Marcli 31, 
 1887, 40,498 acres were under wheat, oats 21,169 acres, 
 and potatoes 42,526. Then 793,130 acres were leased 
 from the Crown chiefly for pastoral purposes. 
 
 For 1888 the sheep were reckoned at 1,547,242, the 
 cattle at 147,092, the horses 29,528, and the pigs at 
 52,508. The wheat yield is high and good, and the fruit 
 harvest is simply abundant and overflowing. Jams and 
 green fruit to the value of £139,901 were exported in 
 1887. The railways extended 318 miles, and the tele- 
 graphs 2,407 miles. 
 
 The public revenue for the year 1887-88 was £594,976, 
 while the imports were valued at £1,449,371, and the 
 exports at £1,596,817. 
 
 This is pretty well for less than twenty-five thousand 
 men as a working force. 
 
 If, however, we turn to shipping, we shall find here 
 the same marvellous progress. On December 31, 1887, 
 the total registered shipping Avas 34 steamers and 174 
 vessels, with a tonnage of 16,948. The inward entries 
 were 677 (tonnage 360,404), and the outward entries 
 were 714 (tonnage 348,773). 
 
 Evidently there is great activity in the mercantile 
 m.arine of the island colony. The future of Tasmania 
 seems greatly to point towards maritime enterprise such 
 as has not yet engaged any member of the Austral group. 
 
 When Mr. Firth, of Auckland, lately visited the 
 United States, he specially noticed the utter decay that 
 is taking place there of any interest in seafaring matters. 
 The people of America are turning their faces inland 
 
180 ATJSTEALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 and the race of sailors is dying out. In like manner will 
 it be, to a considerable extenl, in continental Australia as 
 tbe railways open np tbe interior more and more to occu- 
 pation. But as Tasmania becomes more populated, the 
 drift of industry will be, if I mistake not, rather to than 
 from the sea. The matchless natural harbours which 
 abound everywhere, the many good docks that exist 
 ready made, cannot fail to attract capital and labour. 
 Dredging, of course, is needed, and probably a vast 
 amount of constructive engineer's work ; but all this 
 will come, and undoubtedly ore and timber exist in 
 unlimited quantities, and need but to be opened up 
 to present Tasmania in an entirely new aspect to the 
 outside world. 
 
 Tasmania is by nature destined to be the maritime 
 member of the Austral group, and she will eventually 
 engross the carrying trade of her sister communities. 
 
 Under proper financial organisation and Governmental 
 direction, there is no doubt that Tasmania might be 
 made a great shipbuilding colony ; and from her many 
 ports of the future — ports that could easily be made 
 impregnable — might issue some day the dominant navies 
 of the Southern Ocean. 
 
VfCTOEIA AND ENGLAND: 
 
 A OONTEAST AND A SUGGESTION. 
 
 YiCTOKiA — the smallest, in point of area, of tlie Austral 
 continental colonies, and, as a colony, not yet half a 
 century old — is altogether the most remarkable of all 
 members of the group in regard to material wealth and 
 moral progress. Its entire area comprises 87,884 square 
 m.iles, and the population is, in round numbers, slightly 
 over a million. The climatic conditions are wonderfully 
 good ; there is a birth-rate of 31-23 per 1,000 (1886), and 
 the death-rate then was only 15*15 per 1,000. In round 
 numbers no less than 2,500,000 acres were under success- 
 ful culture, over 1,700 miles of railways were completed, 
 and the telegraphs extended over 4,094 miles in 1886. 
 The mileage of wire was over 10,000, and in a year two 
 millions of telegrams were received and ti-ansmitted. 
 The net income thence was over a million sterling, 
 equivalent to nearly five per cent, on the debenture 
 capital. These are big facts and striking figures, and 
 
182 ArSTRALlAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 show what can be done by a small population under really 
 favourable conditions. But mncli more remains. The 
 material wealth of the colony is amazing. In round 
 numbers there are 10,700,000 sheep, and a wool "clip" 
 running to, say, 120,000,000 lbs. There are 300,000 
 horses, 1,300,000 cattle, 250,000 pigs and 70,000 goats. 
 There are nearly 10,000 acres under the vine, producing 
 1,003,827 gallons of wine, and 3,875 of brandy. The 
 olive and the mulberry thrive. The output of gold since 
 1851 is estimated at £212,000,000 ! Some 1,753 miles of 
 railways are complete, and over 300 miles more in course 
 of construction. 
 
 Manufactures have advanced, as there are now 2,813 
 factories and works, whereof 1,409 employ steam power, 
 and about 50,000 persons — the offensive word " hands " 
 ought not to be used in connection with Victorians. The 
 capital invested in these manufactories is reckoned to be 
 fully £10,900,000. Certainly, Victoria, the smallest in 
 area of all the members of the group, stands first in 
 regard to real wealth and progress. The revenue, raised 
 from a population somewhat exceeding one million, is 
 extraordinary, and plainly evidences how very high must 
 be the average of even the lowest classes. Thus, as 
 an example, in July, 1888, the Budget was found to 
 present a very remarkable surplus, the amount actually 
 raised being £8,236,000. The expenditure, by the way, 
 amounted to £7,398,000. It is little over fifty years ago 
 (1836) that the city of Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, 
 and virtually the Metropolis of Australasia, consisted of 
 but half-a-dozen huts on the banks of the Yarra ! 
 
 Let us turn to trade. In 1886 the value of the total 
 
VICTORIA AND ENGLAND. 183 
 
 imports amounted to £18,530,575, of wliicli amount 
 £8,851,801 came from the United Kingdom. For the 
 same year the value of the total exports amounted to 
 £11,795,321, of which sum £6,566,118 went to the 
 United Kingdom. Then during the same year (1886) 
 4,631 vessels, of an aggregate tonnage of 3,735,367, and 
 carrying 147,857 men, entered and cleared at Victorian 
 ports. This is but the barest statistical skeleton of the 
 solid prosperity of the Victorian million, and does not 
 include the industrial quickening effect of the mighty 
 sum of gold raised in the colony since 1851, amounting 
 to — if reckoned at only £4 the ounce — £217,572,000, an 
 unthinkable sum of wealth. I^Towhere else, I suppose, in 
 the world have the actual and producing industrial forces 
 of such a numerically small community yielded such 
 stupendous results, and distributed among all grades of 
 society such a high general average of well-assured pros- 
 perity. Nor should it be forgotten that the colony con- 
 tains numberless really admirable institutions of various 
 kinds for mental, moral and religious improvement, and 
 especially for thrift. There are museums, libraries, savings 
 banks, numerous provident organisations, and a host of 
 hond-Jide working men freeholders constitute in this 
 colony the most remarkable and glorious triumph yet 
 achieved by labour, pure and simple. There religion 
 flourishes, and the 200,000 Roman Catholics, outside the 
 ordinary Protestant churches, form a decided contrast 
 to the laxity of religious opinion which unfortunately 
 prevails in other quarters, where indifferentism is help- 
 ing on amain the subtle and pernicious sap of various 
 immoral free thoaght movements. 
 
184 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 And all this marvellous progress and prosperity lias 
 resulted, as we know, from a Protectionist regime sucli 
 as is tlie opprobrium of tlie Manchester School in this 
 country. Surely, then, no common interest attaches 
 to an enquiry as to how such a state of affairs has been 
 brought about. The late Melbourne Exhibition alone 
 was enough to impress the whole world with a due sense 
 of the solid greatness of the colony ; and obviously the 
 state of Victoria — ^rich, self-sustained, progressive, and 
 popularly cultured — is a tremendous antithesis (allowing 
 for the difference in point of population) to that of the 
 United Kingdom, now dependent on imports for much 
 more than half the very bread of the people. 
 
 I venture to assert that in England the producing class, 
 so far as food is concerned, is approaching virtual extinc- 
 tion. Yet it is certain that the constant increase in the 
 non-producers must necessarily throw the entire weight 
 of the State oa external trade props, which clearly may 
 be cut by war at any moment. It is certain, however 
 enamoured individuals may be of the supposed advantage 
 of receiving staple food from foreign sources, that agri- 
 culture, pure and simple, must after all be the base 
 and core of the world's very life ; and it logically follows 
 that the people who voluntarily give the work of their 
 victualling into exclusively foreign hands, must forfeit 
 all true political independence, and consent to live as 
 those who supply their daily bread dictate. To this 
 it really comes in the end, however slow and complex 
 the process be. The outlook, too, is aggravated for the 
 United Kingdom, owing to the known fact that Europe 
 generally scarcely produces sufficient food for the exist- 
 
VICTORIA AND ENGLAND. 185 
 
 ing popnlation, and thence, if in this country the existing 
 condition of political economy remains intact, the imme- 
 diate future may see what will, I believe, be at last the 
 inevitable sequel of cheap food from abroad, viz., ultimate 
 famine prices whenever the true pinch shall come. 
 
 Now, in Victoria the existing state of things is exactly 
 the reverse. The colony rests securely on the solid basis 
 of a vast majority who are all on a plane of permanent 
 prosperity and of great domestic comfort. Here, then, 
 is the contrast between Free Trade and Protection, and 
 in this case facts are worth much argument. Before 
 saying more of Victoria, however, let us enq^uire into 
 the true nature of national wealth. Whatever enables 
 man to feed, clothe, and shelter himself and family is 
 'positive wealth. Now, when a man is required to esti- 
 mate the value of all he has, he naturally reckons the 
 amount of exertion involved in others to obtain like 
 advantages, and that amount really measures his com- 
 parative wealth. But as positive wealth increases, it is 
 evident that relative wealth decreases. It may appear 
 Utopian, but if men really obeyed the physical laws that 
 govern creation, each individual (supposing no inter- 
 ference from the greed of others) would possess a full 
 measure of positive wealth, and thence comparative 
 wealth would hardly exist. The diminution of values 
 would be exactly proportioned to the development and 
 more general distribution of utilities. Evidently the 
 value of any commodity is simply the measure of the 
 existing obstacles to its attainments, and consequently 
 utility increases as value decreases. 
 
 Divide a country into thousands and ten thousands of 
 
186 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 small holdings and production is immediately developed 
 in the highest possible degree ; loss by unnecessarily 
 distant transits is minimised, and the swarm of carriers 
 and non-prodacing agents is proportionately diminished. 
 Ten farms of one hundred acres each, assuming equally 
 good work upon each, will always yield very much more 
 than ten times the gross outturn of one colossal holding 
 of a thousand acres. And similarly ten farms of ten 
 acres each will produce more than one of one hundred 
 acres. As to the question of machinery, now almost 
 indispensable in many operations of the husbandman in 
 the case of small holdings, it would only be necessary to 
 have them properly apportioned to districts, and hired 
 out as required by the small holders. All cultivation 
 on a small scale when it is on freehold soil is remarkable 
 for the quantity and quality of the outturn. This is 
 strikingly shown in the peasant proprietorships of the 
 Continent. Here, then, we have the happy results, 
 supposing the greater part of the soil to be sub-divided 
 into moderate sized holdings, of a greatly enhanced yield 
 of all the necessaries of life, and, at the same time, an 
 enormous increase in the number of actual producers, 
 while the non-producing classes would be proportionately 
 diminished. This, indeed, is one of the most cogent 
 arguments in favour of small holdings, and an argument 
 that must eventually prevail in a country so thickly 
 populated as England. We want most of all to increase 
 our rural population by the magical stimulus of making 
 them freeholders, and by so much to lessen our merely 
 manufacturing population. The great end of the new 
 polity of these islands should be to encourage the creation 
 
VICTORIA AND ENGLAND. 187 
 
 of real wealth and to discourage the growth of artificial 
 wealth. People being born into the world must live, and 
 if too great a proportion of a nation have nothing but 
 wages to subsist upon, the outcome must be increasing 
 pauperism, social vice, and, in the issue, violent revolu- 
 tion, when emigration ceases to be an adequate social 
 safety valve. 
 
 It is certain that mankind cannot live upon wages, but 
 on what Avages produce. !N'ow if, by a mistaken policy,, 
 the wages-earning classes of any people increase beyond 
 a certain ratio to the rest of the population, the period 
 must come when wages will fail, and then they have 
 nothing ! This is no extreme assertion ; England is 
 tending fast to this perilous point. The safety of any 
 society is to be measured by the proportion of its 
 members who have positive wealth, and unless the per- 
 centage of this conservative section of the community 
 remains high, there is always danger of a social collapse. 
 No revolution dangerous to society can ever occur in 
 any nation where the number of persons having small 
 independencies is great. The only true independency is- 
 that conferred by the possession of land., and it is only 
 by in some way creating a large number of small land- 
 holders that a fearful revolution in the United Kingdom 
 can be rendered absolutely impossible. 
 
 Obviously Victoria is, as we have seen, a most striking 
 contrast to the Great Britain of Free Trade principles, 
 and it is naturally most interesting to enquire into the 
 agencies whereby the great and happy change was 
 effected which, by making Victoria Protectionist, lifted 
 her at once to a place among the communities of the 
 
188 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 English-speaking world, wHcli before must liave appeared 
 unattainable. 
 
 Much, of this benign work is that of one man, Sir 
 Graham Berrj, the present Agent-General for Victoria, 
 whose political life and ser\^ices are about co-extensive 
 with the whole effective period of Victorian progress 
 since the separation from 'New South Wales. 
 
 It is but fact to say that Sir Graham is a kind of living 
 chronicle of Victorian history in connection with tbe 
 marvellous progress achieved during the past thirty- 
 years, during which, he was engaged in shaping the 
 rough-hewn ends of Victorian life into its present forms 
 of prosperity and power. 
 
 In an interview I had with Sir Graham on tbe subject 
 of Victorian progress, he gave me a sketch of the history 
 of the colony, and interested me greatly by liis graphic 
 account of tbe Gold Field discoveries, which, brought 
 in population at the rate of 2,000 a week. 
 
 Subsequently there came a time when vast numbers 
 of men, disappointed and heart sick by repeated failure 
 to find gold, crowded off to the capital of the colony, and 
 sought for work at the various trades to which, they bad 
 been trained in the old country. But here came in a 
 grave difficulty. A Free Trade policy had loaded the 
 warehouses, and encumbered the wharves with a super- 
 abundance of the very articles these men were accus- 
 tomed to make, and as a natural consequence they were 
 soon seen parading the streets of Melbourne in a state of 
 absolute distress. 
 
 Obviously the proper and natural outlet for this 
 industrial army was the land. In Victoria, however, 
 
VICTORIA AND ENGLAND. 18^ 
 
 a strange state of things existed, and tlie land was 
 practically closed to these distressed and despairing' 
 men, for about seven hundred sqnatters occupied virtually 
 the entire territory. Reform in the land laws ultimately 
 ensued; but the problem to be solved, was how to deal 
 temporarily with the great industrial problem, so as to- 
 retain all this " bone and sinew " for the good of the 
 colony. 
 
 It was soon shown that gold, i.e. money, is not wealth 
 in a vital sense, and Sir Graham confessed that it was 
 a pitiable time for those who actually witnessed the 
 industrial misery of the day. Skilled mechanics and 
 tradesmen were driven to stone-breaking, and then it 
 was that Mr. Berry considered it high time to form the 
 now famous and historic Protection League, the object 
 of which was to secure a tariff behind which manu- 
 factories, mills and workshops could be successfully 
 established. 
 
 So indoctrinated with the principles, and, it may be 
 added, the fallacies of Free Trade, was the multitude of 
 the middle and upper classes, fresh from the struggle^ 
 of the Anti-Corn Law League, that a shout of derision 
 at first welcomed the new movement. 
 
 But is it not ever thus with all truly great popular 
 reformers ? Agitation and discussion, however, told in 
 time, and branch leagues were formed on the Gold Fields, 
 and at other industrial centres. The Protectionists soon 
 made their influence felt at elections, and in 1870 the 
 Government was defeated on a purely fiscal question, and 
 Mr. Berry then became the Treasurer, and at once 
 introduced and triumphantly carried the famous 20 per 
 
190 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 cent, duties, which, with some few subsequent modifica- 
 iions, form the basis of the present tariff. 
 
 There is no need, in point of fact, to do more than cast 
 a bird's-eye glance over the length and breadth of the 
 colony. There we see, indeed, the monuments of the 
 industrial, commercial, and financial greatness that have 
 grown out of the daring insight which converted the 
 gold-digging population into a nation of productive and 
 prosperous citizens, in what is perhaps the most self- 
 ■contained, and, all things considered, the most self- 
 supporting community in the world. Nowhere in the 
 world have there been, as there now are in Victoria, such 
 great facilities for the acquisition of property in land and 
 houses by the laborious classes, and thus the whole com- 
 munity is sound to the core, and in the comparative 
 independence of the actually producing classes ^ve have 
 the assurance for a perfectly settled political State — 
 so rarely found in European history. This, and much 
 more that need not be particularised here, would cer- 
 tainly have never been but for the foresight and courage 
 of Sir Graham Berry, of whom it may be aptly said that 
 he knew the occasion when to make the bounds of rational 
 freedom wider yet. 
 
 A little fact is worth much argument, and w^hen one 
 calmly reflects on all that Protection has wrought for 
 Victoria, one cannot help seeing how it renders a people, 
 and necessarily so, self-supporting and really independent 
 of all external aid, and capable, indeed, of resisting those 
 external assaults which are ultimately fatal to nations 
 who look in whole or part to foreign sources for the daily 
 bread of the masses. 
 
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 AUSTRALIAN ART. 
 
 AuSTEALiAN Art — some, perhaps, will ask is tliere such 
 a thing at all ? And certainly, to those with only con- 
 ventional ideas on the subject, it must sound strange to 
 speak of the fine arts at the Antipodes, where gold, wool, 
 and mutton are the great commercial potentates, and the 
 racecourse the great outlet for' the recreative genius of 
 the people. Yet if we enquire a little we shall find that, 
 just as there is a growing Australian Literature, of which 
 many evidences have now been given, so there is an 
 Australian Art — a school of Antipodean painters — who 
 win assuredly make their permanent mark in the records 
 of nineteenth century painting. 
 
 In reality this Australian art is British to a great 
 extent, as its leading exponents are rarely colonial born, 
 with some notable exceptions, and the Anglo- Australian 
 artist has, as it were, refreshed and revivified his genius 
 by bathing his perceptive faculties in new worlds of 
 loveliness unmatched by any portion of the accessible 
 universe. 
 
192 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 In Australia and New Zealand the conditions of life are 
 unique. Many of the settlements have as yet lasted but 
 the space of a single ordinary human existence, and the 
 environment, unlike that of the American people for 
 example, does not suggest aught of history, or even tradi- 
 tion, that mi^ht colour or influence the artist. At present 
 no Australian in his own region gazes on a building that 
 is over a century old, and the vast continent has not yet 
 acquired the 'charm of association. We have no historic 
 rivers, no remarkable monuments of faded or utterly 
 vanished glory, no spots canonised by heroism or devo- 
 tion, and sending, by their name alone, a thrill to the 
 coldest heart — in a word, there is nothing to link the 
 mind closely to the past, or to impress on it the tender 
 touch of reverent sentiment for decay, which in the old 
 world evokes some of the sweetest strains of song, but, on 
 the contrary, so far as the human element is concerned, 
 Australia is the land of the future, the land of promise 
 and of aspiration. 
 
 But if from the painters' view-point we have here none 
 of the features which in Europe furnish of themselves a 
 form of ever- enduring art inspiration, there is, under the 
 Southern Cross, a fauna and a flora and a scenery which 
 are equally unique and extraordinary. Singular are the 
 sights and sounds of the Australian "bush," which in 
 England we should call " forests " or " woods," and strange 
 are some of the creatures that inhabit these solitudes. 
 Thus we are told by an Antipodean poet — 
 
 The eucalyptus blooms are sweet 
 
 With honey, and the birds all day 
 
 Sip the clear juices f orth j brown-grey, 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 193 
 
 A bird-like thing with tiny feet 
 
 Cleaves to the boughs, or with, small wings 
 
 Amid the leafy spaces springs, 
 
 And in the moonshine, with shrill cries, 
 
 Flies bat-like where thy white gums rise. 
 
 Such is the " flying mouse " of New South Wales. 
 Then we have the bell bird — 
 
 The stillness of the Austral noon 
 Is broken by no single sound ; 
 No lizards even on the ground 
 Rustle among dry leaves ; no tune 
 The lyre bird sings. Yet hush ! I hear 
 A soft bell tolling silvery clear ! 
 Low, soft, aerial chimes unknown, 
 Save 'mid those silences alone. 
 
 In like manner we have the poetic setting of the rock 
 lily- 
 
 That mighty flower towering high, 
 With carmine blooms crown'd gloriously, 
 A giant amongst flowers it reigns, 
 The glory of the Austral plains. 
 
 While of the flame tree we are told — 
 
 For miles the Illawarra range 
 Runs level with Pacific seas : 
 What glory when the morning breeze 
 Upon its slopes doth shift and change 
 Deep pink and crimson hues, till all 
 The leagues-long distance seems a wall 
 Of swift, uncurling flames of fire. 
 
 Then in New Zealand we have a new form of Alpine 
 scenery, and probably the famous pink terraces, recently 
 shattered by an earthquake and volcanic eruption, were 
 
 14 
 
194 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 matcUess. They have been compared to a mighty cataract — 
 
 Over a hundred steps of marble, 
 But all frozen and dumb. 
 
 Or 
 
 A cataract carved in Parian stone, 
 Or any purer substance known. 
 
 And then there are Mounts Cook and Egmont, and 
 the lovely fern glades and the mountainous Kauri pines, 
 the sylvan giants of the Austral world. 
 
 But these are the merest hints of the kind of scenery 
 of Australia and New Zealand, while unquestionably in no 
 other part of the world is there such a pure atmosphere. 
 
 These landscape beauties were first attempted by 
 Mr. Gilbert, a pastel painter of considerable talent, but 
 desultory nature ; afterwards he relinquished Art, became 
 one of the gold commissioners at Mount Alexander, and 
 married the widow of Sir John Byerly. Mr. "William 
 Strutt was the next artist. He made great use of the 
 new material by which he was surrounded. His early 
 records of ancient Melbourne and its environs are now 
 collected in album form, and should find a permanent 
 home in the Melbourne Library. They would be more 
 suitably placed there, I venture to think, than in Mr. 
 Strutt's home. Mr. John Pascoe Fawkner (the founder 
 of Melbourne) soon formed his friendship, and commis- 
 sioned him to paint his portrait, as also to make a sketch 
 of the opening of the first Parliament Melbourne had. 
 This sketch now hangs in the fine Legislative Council 
 Library. 
 
 Mr. Strutt visited the gold fields, and did a little 
 digging and delving, adding to his experience of the 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 195 
 
 rough, life all were compelled to live in those early days. 
 The artist then went to New Zealand for 18 months, 
 and here for the present I will leave him, giving a 
 critical account of his work later on, now supplying 
 somewhat the order of other artistic arrivals in Victoria. 
 Mr, Conway Hart's name appears. He was a portrait 
 painter solely, and his efforts met with large apprecia- 
 tion. Then came Eugene de Guerrar, an Austrian 
 landscapist, of keen perceptions. His love for detail 
 found ample scope in the splendid fern trees and rugged 
 gullies of the Australian bush. About this time Mr. 
 Bateman, a charming pencil draughtsman, arrived. He 
 was much employed by Judge Barry to illusi?rate a 
 catalogue of the Public Library with plant ornamental 
 capitals and tailpieces. He made lovely designs of 
 indigenous plants for fabrics ; some of the Manchester 
 houses took them up, and his work in this form (textile) 
 was exhibited at the 1862 Great Exhibition. Mr. 
 Bateman had many friends amongst the Australian 
 squatters, and travelled in the bush. On one of these 
 journeys he was thrown out of the dog cart, and so 
 injured that paralysis of the right arm followed. Nothing 
 daunted, he learned to draw just as well with his left. 
 After a time he left for Scotland, where I hope he may 
 be now enjoying life. 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Chevalier, a Swiss painter of versatile 
 qualities, achieved position and success. To him, also, 
 I must refer again later on. 
 
 Dr. Ludwig Becker, a miniature painter, contributed 
 all kinds of illustrations to literary work, particularly 
 Dr. McCoy's "Natural History." Poor Becker accom- 
 
196 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 panied the fated exploring party to Gulf Carpentaria, 
 and died at Cooper's Creek, at wliich place lie was 
 making many scientific studies. 
 
 Charles Summers, a Royal Academy student, winner 
 of the Prize of Rome for Sculpture, was the first sculptor. 
 He came out heated with the gold fever, and did some 
 digging, but found it uncongenial, and soon discovered a 
 field for his ability in his own line. His principal work 
 in Melbourne is the " Burke and Mills " memorial group 
 at the corner of Collins Street. In London from time to 
 time various portrait busts have been exhibited, and won 
 deserved praise. Poor Summers died in Rome a few 
 years back, and leaves behind him a gifted son still 
 resident in Rome, and progressing most favourably. 
 W. Strutt, Chas. Summers, and Nicholas Chevalier, who 
 may be justly termed the pioneers of Australian Art, 
 started the first exhibition of Art ever held in the colony, 
 under the patronage of Sir H. Barkly. 
 
 With these early art spirits Robert Dowling's name 
 must be mentioned. He was first in Tasmania, but after 
 in Melbourne, where he won many friends and patrons ; 
 but Australia was to him only a temporary home. He 
 came to England and lived here for many years ; visited 
 the East, and brought back useful studies, many of which 
 ultimately bore fruit in important pictures. Mr. Dowling 
 had a number of pupils; some have risen to note, and 
 others are on the road ; the sudden death, several years 
 ago, of Mr. Robert Dowling, was keenly felt by his many 
 artistic friends, and the world is poorer and colder now 
 he is gone ; and a variety of circumstances removed all 
 the others whose names I have referred to from the 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 197 
 
 land of the Golden Fleece. Here, then, let me come to 
 those who, having returned to Europe, hold acknowledged 
 and famous positions. 
 
 Mr. Nicholas Chevalier accompanied the Duke of 
 Edinburgh round the world and made at the time many 
 interesting and valuable drawings, besides finding subjects 
 of such unique nature as inspired him for his " Tahiti 
 Girl going to Market," a picture of great charm in the 
 Eoyal Academy some years gone by. 
 
 This artist is, however, primarily a landscapist, and 
 very lately I saw a splendid picture of Mount Cook rising 
 in all its glory over the great Tasnian glacier, which was 
 exhibited in the Melbourne Exhibition of 1888. 
 
 Artists' homes are always interesting, and that of this 
 painter especially so. Passing through a small tropical 
 garden the drawing-room is reached, and from thence to 
 the studio, where Mr. Chevalier asks you what country you 
 would like to visit, and on your decision brings out his 
 folios of studies, charming mementoes and delicate im- 
 pressions of the Pacific Isles, or scorching India, or it 
 may be Madeira, where he spends the winters now. The 
 painter has executed some portraits, and many of his 
 architectural scenes are remarkable for their intricate 
 detail and truthful effect. 
 
 Mr. William Strutt is known best to fame as the 
 painter of " Black Thursday," a work of wonderful force 
 and of absorbing interest. It relates to a well-known 
 episode in early Victorian annals. A bush fire caused a 
 fearful stampede of cattle, and much loss resulted both 
 of life and property. 
 
 Mr. Strutt is a direct descendant of the famous anti- 
 
198 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 quary, Joseph. Strutt, who, as an engraver, illustrated 
 the " Pilgrim's Progress " with great success. He was 
 born in 1742, and died in London 1802. He is best 
 known, perhaps, on account of his authoritative works, 
 " The Sports and Pastimes of the People of England," 
 and several other similar books. 
 
 Remotely the Strutts, by the way, come from the 
 Swiss hero and patriot, Arnold Winkelreid, whose glo- 
 rious and triumphant death at the battle of Sempach is 
 the subject of one of Sir Walter Scott's poems. 
 
 In Mr. Strutt's home at West Kensington there are 
 many objects of interest, for as an animal painter he has 
 collected various trophies of the chase, and has made a 
 collection of lion studies that are believed to be unique, 
 and which appear to form a visible history of the royal 
 beast in all his phases of action or rest. 
 
 To very many Mr. William Strutt is, no doubt, re- 
 garded principally as a painter of animals ; but he is 
 inuch more than that, and may worthily be regarded 
 as both a historic and a religious painter. In these days, 
 when for the Royal Academy of 1889 no fewer than 
 18,000 paintings went in, there is always a great tendency 
 to the more or less serious obscuration of the finer forms 
 of genius. Life assimilates more and more in the mass 
 to tbe railway type of locomotion, and the art that 
 is the acting poetry, as it has been put. The picture 
 when really good is in great danger of eclipse, total and 
 permanent. In 1889 Mr. William Strutt had in his 
 studio two very remarkable pictures, which, although 
 each represented the labours of nearly a decade, had not 
 been exhibited or in any way noticed ; such is occasionally 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 199 
 
 the eccentricity of tlie artistic genius. One of these 
 works depicts the child Samuel reclining in front of 
 the altar in the midst of the various offerings that his 
 parents regularly presented to the high priest. The pose 
 of the child is equally graceful and natural. He muses 
 and fondles a beautiful kid, and at his feet are some 
 exquisitely-painted pigeons, the eyes in particular being 
 life-like, while fruits, including clusters of grapes, doves 
 in baskets, and a fine calf (a specially good specimen of 
 his genius) represent the fauna and flora of the offerings. 
 The altar, with its horns, forms the background, whence 
 a suggestive smoke curls slowly up. The ritual of the 
 Hebrews, the full ceremonial law of sacrifice, is here 
 typified, while in the one human figure, that of the 
 young Samuel, earnest, thoughtful, imaginative, we see 
 in anticipation the coming regal glories, sublime pro- 
 phecies of the shepherd king, who four years after the 
 death of Samuel ascended the throne of Judah. The 
 composition of this work, which is of considerable size, is 
 full of details, all of which are harmoniously co-ordinated 
 to the central idea of the picture — the Hebrew rite 
 of sacrifice, the offering up to the Creator of the first 
 fruits; while in Samuel himself there is fully expressed 
 the spiritual perception which underlay the visible 
 worship of the ancient Hebrews, and was so strongly 
 .expressed in the Divine prohibition as to graven images. 
 The colouring is throughout rich and fine, and the whole 
 painting is one which makes a deep impression on the 
 memory. In strong contrast to this fine and powerful 
 , delineation of a striking phase of the old dispensation, is 
 another work — one that has taken several years to paint 
 
200 AUSTRALIAX AXD NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 — representing Martha, Mary, and tlie Saviour at the 
 grave of Lazarus. The grouping is admirable, and the 
 light about the head of the Saviour is a wondrous bit of 
 painting. It is light that stands out distinct from, and 
 yet is subtly blended imperceptibly with, the surround- 
 ing atmosphere. The faces of Martha and Mary are 
 wonderfully given. In the former we have in expression 
 and pose the full indication of her somewhat material 
 form of feeling ; there is the impatience of calamity and 
 the urgent desire to have it at once removed ; while in 
 Mary we have a touching representation of the resigna- 
 tion, the faith, and the spiritual devotion of the true 
 believer, who knows that what is not seen is more real 
 than the visible. The yearning of the look, the ineffable 
 love that glorifies, the faith which overcomes all things — 
 all these are somehow (I cannot verbally express how) 
 shown in Mary; and this fills the whole picture with 
 a kind of spiritual atmosphere that touches the higher 
 plane of true religious art. All the accessories to this 
 superb work have been carefully studied, as in the palms 
 of victory over sin and death shown on one side, while 
 afar, on the right as you look, are seen the lamenting and, 
 perhaps then, not over confident disciples. There is 
 complete unity in this work, which breathes forth the 
 very intensity of devotional art, and reminds us how very 
 sacred is the vocation of the true artist who has to do 
 with the works of God, and interpret the teaching of 
 Creation to mankind. Indeed, one is inclined to say, in 
 the face of such a painting as this, that to the painter, 
 as to the poet, is given that divine afflatus which elevates 
 art to the highest plane, and justifies the saying that the 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 201 
 
 higliest art is tlie most religious, for we cannot conceive 
 a scoffing R/aphael, and thus we reach that incarnation of 
 fancy which is poetry made visible to the eyes and 
 audible to the soul itself. 
 
 The details I have given of those men who have lived 
 for years in the Antipodes may be looked upon as 
 sufficient evidence of the amount of ability these colo- 
 nies have supported and given birth to, in some cases. 
 Mr. C. E. Hern, late of Sydney (but now resident in 
 London), may be classed with the latter. He has lately 
 adapted his artistic feeling to very pretty and acceptable 
 transcripts of London churches. A special show in Bo ad 
 Street attracted much attention and brought him many 
 commissions. Mr. Hern is very conscientious and 
 careful in his drawing, and paints his subjects straight 
 off from Nature, visiting the scenes (where much thronged) 
 at early morn. 
 
 We now come to Mr. E. Wake Cook, pupil of Chevalier, 
 a skilful delineator of landscape — singularly happy in 
 rendering the aerial perspective of vanishing hills ; 
 you can sit and dream yourself away when following his 
 masses of trees or lines of distances blending off into 
 the intangible cloudscape. Whether it be at Whitby, 
 Arundel, or looking across the valley of the Thames, 
 Mr. Cook supplies an air of enchantment to his vistas of 
 soft, fading light. I have seen some of his Italian lake 
 drawings, the mountains coming down to the water's 
 edge, casting their reflections into the placid depths, 
 whilst above vapoury clouds brooded over those glorious 
 -heights, giving by their thin veil inexpressible beauty 
 and imagination. 
 
202 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 These artists and all I shall refer to subsequently 
 belong to a new and flourishing society — "the Anglo- 
 Australian " — constituted for the purpose of holding 
 exhibitions in the colonies of Victoria, Adelaide, and 
 Sydney; and after, to invite the resident Australian 
 painters to an exhibition here. The list of members is 
 long and honourable 5 several of the Royal Academy 
 magnates are on the roll and it is supported by the lead- 
 ing artists of to-day — Mr. Yeend King, for instance, one 
 of the strongest of our landscape men. All visitors to 
 the Royal Academy in 1889 will call to mind his 
 successes; and primarily that beautiful type of the old 
 English village street, down which a loving couple are 
 walking to church— for it is Sanday — as quaintly told in 
 the not to be forgotten title, " Between a Saturday and 
 Monday." At the Grrosvenor the same year was Mr. King's 
 " Miller," flour-crusted, yet leaning over the doorway of 
 his grist-room waiting for a somebody to pass, and 
 with a bouquet for that body — truly admirable in 
 power of painting and colour, in execution unaffected, 
 and masculine in treatment, tender and strong. Here 
 is a canvas destined to teach the artist and try the 
 critic sorely to describe its charms. Mr. W. Bromley 
 is an artist of the same type, with much of the same 
 view of nature, daring great things, and doing them 
 well — his powerful water colours at the. Royal Society of 
 British Artists are impressive in their restrained force. 
 Given but the name of Cox and people would rave oveu 
 them. I love them as much by Bromley, and more, 
 because this artist can compass various themes and deal 
 with each adequately. He gives the wild grey sky over 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 203 
 
 a Welsh moorland, lie renders the absolute stillness of a 
 moated grange, where trees look down and see themselves 
 below ; and he introduces the accent of interest and life 
 just at the right point, as when a moorhen skims the 
 still waters or swims in coquettish manner on its glassy 
 surface. 
 
 I must speak of the President of the Anglo-Australian 
 Society of Artists, Mr, W. Ay erst Ingram, a man of great 
 energy and administrative skill. His choice of subject is 
 usually marine, a large picture entitled " Helpless," 
 representing the wreck of a vessel in a terrific sea, with 
 a group of fisher folk in the immediate foreground, has 
 been exhibited at the Antipodes, and is the joint per- 
 formance of this painter and his figure-painting friend, 
 Mr. T. C. Gotch, well known in Australia, where he has 
 spent considerable time. 
 
 Mr. Gotch has executed excellent portraits and delights 
 in genre incidents gleaned from our southern villages. 
 
 Mr. H. J. Johnstone, also a painter of genre, but 
 principally water colours, has a claim upon our attention. 
 He lived in Melbourne many years, and at that time gave 
 most of his energies to landscape art. I have seen 
 wonderfully characteristic pictures of his of the bush with 
 its gum trees — also others with the gnarled and dead stems 
 standing out, bleached skeletons, against the hot sky, very 
 realistically treated — he always introduces the figure 
 element so happily. 
 
 Art seems hereditary in the Strutt family, and the soq 
 of Mr. William Strutt, Alfred William Strutt, is a painter 
 of much excellent performance, as well as of grea^ 
 promise, seeing that prior to 1889 he had exhibited, with 
 
204 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 marked success, at the Royal Academy, and that some of 
 his work has been engraved — a very conclusive evidence 
 of popularity. 
 
 Mr. M. L. Menpes is, I believe, a Colonial by birth, and 
 is best known for his sometimes serious, oftener capricious 
 etchings, many a Japanese motif forming his theme. He 
 visited the land of blossom and parasols several years ago, 
 and brought back a quantity of material. 
 
 Mr. A. W. Weedon is most decidedly a remark- 
 able artist ; his Sussex hayfield subjects have fully 
 justified a fame created by his Scotch pictures of 
 spates and storms. Mr. Weedon revels and excels in 
 cloudscape ; he renders with wondrous facility the filmy 
 cirri, and gives what so few do — the immense distances 
 'twixt series of cloud masses, producing upon the mind 
 that impression of infinity which Ruskin delights to 
 record and finds such glorious allegories in, and yet in 
 the foreground he lets you down gently to some little 
 homely feature of the hayfield, where tired workmen 
 regale themselves, or happy children play hide-and-seek 
 behind the fragrant stacks. 
 
 Most people know, or ought to know, Mr. R. W. Allan's 
 name and pictures, for his powerful method, good colour, 
 and astute choice of subjects are ever something to 
 remember. Whether it be a Dutch canal through flat 
 meadows, and the hay craft floating thereon, or old boats 
 by an estuary of the river, or quaint blocks of houses in 
 some Brittany town, it matters not — each transcript is 
 full of power and feeling. Mr. R. W. Allan is vice-presi- 
 dent of the Anglo- Australian Society of Artists. 
 
 Mr. W. F. Bishop, known best as the " Bishop of 
 
AUSTRALIAN ART. 205 
 
 Burnliam," has brought out of that district so many 
 important and truly artistic productions, that it were 
 obviously impossible here to mention them specifically. 
 Visitors to the Royal Academy from year to year have 
 been refreshed and charmed with the beauties wrested 
 from Mother Nature in this neighbourhood. Mr. Bishop 
 is most assiduous ; often at daybreak — ah, and earlier — 
 you may find him in his hut waiting for the great day 
 king, and watching for his golden flood of light to tip 
 with exultant glory some woodland slope, and gild the 
 silver birches. These moments of gorgeous patronage 
 are, like all Royal visits, short ; and, therefore, the artist 
 struggles day by day to catch a memento of them — and 
 very sweetly he does it. 
 
 Mr. Huybers is, I believe, an Australian by birth. He 
 paints figure subjects, but I have not the pleasure of 
 knowing his work. The Anglo-Australian Society is 
 strong in such figure painters as Mr. E. Blair Leighton, 
 the artist of " Fame " in Royal Academy, 1889 — an old 
 bard with faded laurels sitting in foreground, discon- 
 solate, and a young singer charming a company of people 
 behind; a thoroughly thought-out canvas. Our sympa- 
 thies are entirely with the dear old harpist and his songs- 
 of yesterday. 
 
 Mr. H. S. Tuke is a remarkably able and graphic painter 
 of subjects connected with life on sea-shore and ocean 
 wave, its joys, perils and stem realities. " All Hands to 
 the Pumps " is Mr. Tuke's latest and greatest achieve- 
 ment, and 1 am not at all sure it is not the finest picture 
 in the Academy of 1889, for, taking into consideration 
 the difficulties to be fought and the uncompromising 
 
206 AUSTKALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 facts, he lias won a victory. Mr. T. B. Kennington has 
 chosen the homeless, workless, joyless, hapless, father- 
 less, and sometimes almost clothesless, as his models, and 
 with these he makes an appeal straight to the heart. 
 With his paint he can beg most patiently and potently. 
 Out with your purses, ye Sybarites ; come over and help 
 us ; God has made of one blood all nations of men. These 
 are the works to foster — sympathy for the sufferers — and I 
 hope they may prove a very hammer to break the hearts of 
 thoughtless, self-indulgent slumberers. Mr. Kennington 
 has sought for and found a field for his knowledge of 
 form and scope for healthy sentiment. Lastly — ^because 
 I wish to interest to the end — Mr. Solomon J. Solomon's 
 name and fame have been so much talked about, it is 
 needless to say more than that he is the painter of " Cas- 
 sandra," " Samson," and " Mobe," and that his portrait 
 of Serjeant Simon in the Royal Academy, 1889, is un- 
 doubtedly the grandest man's portrait of the year. Space 
 fails ; there are a host of other names as worthy, such as 
 Leslie Thomson, Charlton (the horse painter), Percy 
 Thomas (the figure painter and accomplished etcher), 
 James Whistler (the notorious picker of quarrels with 
 everybody, but wonderful artist of the etching point), 
 and Arnold, Morgan, Wilfrid Ball, F. Bramley, Stanhope 
 Forbes, W. Wilkinson, G-. P. Jacomb-Hood, David Law 
 (the beautiful etcher) — ah ! and a host of others. This 
 noble list will show, any way, what Australian and 
 Anglo- Australian artists are doing and have done in the 
 way of art. 
 
UNITED EMPIEE 
 
 "Very soon after I became somewliat familiar with 
 the practical working of the Australasian agencies 
 here, I thought what a mistake it was not to locate the 
 whole in a building devoted to them exclusively and 
 appealing silently but eloquently to the eyes of the public 
 in the same way as the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, 
 or the India Office. It is probable that the true value of 
 national education through the eyes alone, by the agency 
 of imposing architecture and beautiful and appropriate 
 sculpture, is not yet understood among us. The ancient 
 Greeks knew well the value of what I may venture to 
 call the politically aesthetic ; and who can doubt for a 
 moment that the glories of Athens, as fixed in stone, 
 exercised a power in inspiring her veterans to behave as 
 heroes when far away amid the enervating influences of 
 the Orient ? Man is compounded strangely of matter as 
 well as of spirit, and a visible symbol of the heroic is 
 often a great stimulus to heroic deeds. A neglected 
 English poet tells us — 
 
208 AUSTKALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Heroic leaders make heroic bands, 
 
 As stones turn statues in the sculptor's hands ; 
 
 and I wish that our public spaces and broad thorougli- 
 fares had more teachings of history in bronze and marble 
 to counteract the vulgarising influences that meet us 
 everywhere, and which are omnipotent over the lower and 
 uncultured classes. 
 
 This, however, must remain among the things to be 
 hoped and, I trust, worked for, and failing a national and 
 an official habitat for the colonising genius of England, I 
 turn with real pleasure to the solid granite front of the 
 B/Oyal Colonial Institute in [N'orthumberland Avenue, 
 which is in very truth a visible presentment of British 
 dominion beyond the seas in more ways than one. 
 
 Unity is essentially fundamental to all really enduring 
 forms of empire, and the Institute, now approaching a 
 quarter of a century in age, has decidedly accomplished 
 very much io unify, and thereby consolidate, British 
 Empire. 
 
 The Institute was formed as long back as 1868, when a 
 small band of enthusiastic and patriotic gentlemen, who 
 foresaw what the colonies would become, united to 
 furnish a central point, a common pivot, and a focus for 
 the forces of British colonies to rally upon. 
 
 Lord Bury was the first President, and the initial 
 Council included not a few men of the time who have now 
 passed away from among us. 
 
 For a while the number of members was small, the 
 funds of the Institute were limited, and the influence of 
 the whole organisation was held in little esteem by out- 
 -siders. The base of the Institute, however, had been 
 
UNITED EMPIRE. 209 
 
 broadly planned on right lines, and year by year it 
 gathered strength ; in 1882 the roll of members con- 
 tained 2,000 names, and the income was over £3,000 per 
 annnm. The Prince of Wales was, as he still is, Presi- 
 dent, and it was perceived fully that at last the British 
 Colonies had a local habitation in the world's metropolis, 
 whence there radiated forth a power, not included in the 
 book of the Constitution, which was nevertheless mighty, 
 and one that increased with every year. The Council 
 became a kind of Colonial Parliament, most conveniently 
 located in the centre of the Empire, and having the advan- 
 tage of unifying all the colonies into one great represen- 
 tation, and thereby imparting to them that solidarity 
 which is essential to power and permanence in all matters 
 political. 
 
 The habitat of the Institute is decidedly a structui^e in 
 all ways worthy of the purposes for which it is designed, 
 and one that will well serve as a visible monument of the 
 solidarity of the great and growing association to which 
 it belongs. 
 
 Well might Lord Bury, in his inaugural address, 
 delivered in 1868 at Willis's Rooms, compare the 
 Institute to a tree which, once planted, has only to grow 
 and expand. The "objects" of the Society were then 
 dimly foreseen, but it was hardly understood how 
 important an office it would hold, how mighty a function 
 it would fulfil as a means for building, or rather welding, 
 together the various outlying portions — now called 
 colonies, but more properly provinces — of the British 
 Empire. 
 
 At the "coming of age'* celebration of the Royal 
 
 15 
 
210 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 Colonial Institute on March 13, 1889, a banquet took 
 place at whicli tlie Prince of Wales, the President of the 
 Institution, presided, and in his speech of the evening, 
 referring to the colonies, he said : " I always take the 
 deepest interest in their welfare. It is the duty, if it be 
 possible, of all Englisbmen, and, above all, of all states- 
 men, to visit those great colonies, which will prove to 
 them how proud w^e may be of being Englishmen, and of 
 what the indomitable energy of Englishmen can do." 
 As to the fears that arose at one time in regard to the 
 Imperial Institute clashing with the Colonial Institute, 
 the Prince of Wales himself said when the subject was 
 mentioned by Sir Henry Barkly, " I can confidently, and 
 mpst emphatically, assure you that nothing in the nature 
 of absorption of the Royal Colonial Institute by the 
 Imperial Institute is involved in the suggested scheme, 
 as appears in some quarters to have been supposed." 
 
 For the peace of the world England ought to be omni- 
 potent on every sea, and this state of things, if it be 
 brought about, will result eventually, I believe, through 
 tbe action of the principal Australian colonies in building 
 up naval forces of their own, and in creating eventually a 
 mercantile marine over the Indian and Pacific oceans. 
 Influences are ofttimes more than forces, or, rather, they 
 are forces concealed for a time ; and it is difficult to over- 
 estimate what must have been the value to England in 
 its true political solidarity of the Institute during the last 
 twenty years in checking effectively the many insane but 
 strenuous movements which of late years have been so 
 manifest on the part of the ultra-Liberal party towards 
 disintegration. 
 
UNITED EMPIRE. 211 
 
 An empire of peace — a true and united Christendom — 
 would be the natural and glorious fruits of a perfectly 
 consolidated British dominion, wherein the fundamental 
 principle was all for one and one for all. It is to this 
 great end that the Institute has laboured so long, so well 
 and, on the whole, with such marked success. 
 
 In truth, an Institute like that which the Council and 
 the officials have laboured so heartily to advance, in 
 conjunction with a host of earnest and patriotic colonists, 
 is probably of far more real benefit to the empire than 
 any number of seats that could well be accorded to 
 colonists, supposing for a moment that the oft-mooted 
 idea of representation of the colonies at St. Stephen's 
 could ever be carried out. The Institute rises above all 
 party considerations ; it has no badge expressive of a 
 political clique ; it is essentially Imperial and wholly 
 national. Parliament, viewed collectively, is not alto- 
 gether a pleasing spectacle to the unprejudiced patriot, 
 who sees therein too many signs of the House divided 
 against itself, while, as we all know, it is exceedingly 
 difficult at times to disentangle the national good from 
 the constrictor-like folds of party envy, hatred and all 
 uncharitableness. In our Royal Colonial Institute we 
 have a kind of revived Witena Gemot of the highest 
 character, a Chamber of Freemen convened for the 
 enduring good of Great Britain in its most compre- 
 hensive and world-embracing aspect. I believe it is 
 capable of mathematical proof that the stronger and the 
 more world- enveloping becomes the British Empire, 
 the more is the peace and progress of mankind generally 
 guaranteed, and in days like these such an Institute 
 
212 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 is not simply desirable; it is necessary. Year by year 
 the best sons of England are more and more projected 
 on the limitless area of the great colonies, and in their 
 union with each other for all external ends and with the 
 mother country, we have the pledge of a coming reign of 
 peace and prosperity such as the world has not yet 
 known. 
 
 But it must not be forgotten that both this peace and 
 prosperity depend really on obtaining a foundation of 
 irresistible strength to repel and crush all external 
 assault, and the sole secret of this strength lies in the 
 permanent unity of the empire, whereby, as a correlative 
 consequence, the great ocean highways of civilising 
 commerce, British at all their extremities, or subordinate 
 to the strength of Great Britain, will be preserved 
 inviolate under the red ensign of that mercantile marine 
 which has really won an empire greater than Alexander 
 dreamed of, grander than Caesar organised. 
 
A MELBOUIiNE TEAGEDY 
 
 AND 
 
 SOME THOUGHTS ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. 
 
 One day I had an argument with a certain Agent- 
 General for one of the Australian colonies — it does not 
 signify who or which — on the subject of capital punish- 
 ment, and in the course of our discussion the Agent- 
 General in question mentioned that many years ago when in 
 the parent colony, he visited Darlinghurst Prison, and saw 
 there the notorious bushranger, Gardner. That Gardner 
 was guilty of some cruel murders seems indisputable, and 
 he was regarded by many who could not well be wrong as 
 a very great villain indeed. However, he was not hanged, 
 as many thought he must be, and my informant found 
 him on the industrial side of the well-ordered prison, 
 actually engaged in the pleasing and innocent task of 
 binding music ! This, the arch-criminal remarked, he had 
 taught himself, and he added, " I find it a very interest- 
 
214 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 ing occnpation." I should add tliat Gardner might have 
 sat for the original of Haidee's piratical papa in " Don 
 Juan," and was 
 
 . . . the mildest manner'd man 
 
 That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat ; 
 
 and to see him thus engaged in the simple and soothing 
 Avork of binding music formed certainly a strange anti- 
 thesis to those who knew the terrible antecedents of the 
 ruffian that had been. In due time Gardner was set at 
 liberty. He left Australia, and was lately — and very 
 likely is now — a peaceful and law-abiding hotel keepei' 
 somewhere in California. 
 
 I chanced, in connection with the respiting of Gardner 
 and his apparent reformation, to express a pretty strong 
 opinion against capital punishment, and this elicited the 
 following, which, though I do not give names, is strictly 
 true. There was in Melbourne, a good many years ago, 
 a man of what my informant tersely called the " tiger " 
 species — as he added, in human shape — who had a stall 
 in the market then, and used to cause much inconvenient 
 obstruction with his empty crates and cases. This went 
 on for some time, and was found to be such a nuisance 
 that strong complaints were made to him, but always 
 without producing any effect. One evil day an official of 
 the place spoke to him — it must be confessed, rather 
 angrily, for which, indeed, there was ample cause — and 
 " the tiger in the shape of a man " went into his stall, 
 caught up his gun, and shot the man dead. 
 
 He was, of course, tried for murder, and found guilty, 
 but through the usual reluctance to inflict capital punish- 
 
A MELBOURNE TRAGEDY. 215 
 
 ment the sentence was changed into one of imprisonment. 
 The murderer was shut up in a cell by himself, and to 
 him there went as a periodic visitor a Wesleyan minister, 
 who used to exhort the convict to repentance, and spent 
 much time in preaching to him about his sins. One day, 
 when the convict and the minister were shut up together, 
 after awhile groans were heard, but, as such were sup- 
 posed to proceed from the fervour of religious exercises, 
 no heed was taken at the time ; but on the cell being 
 visited it was found that the impenitent convict had 
 actually murdered his charitable and sympathetic friend 
 in a barbarous way, with a weapon made out of a bone 
 saved from some meat, and patiently ground down and 
 wrought into a substitute for a knife. Now, said my 
 iaformant, " Who murdered the minister ? " I need 
 hardly say that the miscreant on this occasion was not 
 respited, but hanged ; and I must confess that this was a 
 strong case for those who believe in the efficacy of capital 
 punishment. 
 
 I thought over this particular case much, and, super- 
 ficially considered, it must seem conclusive to many minds, 
 but, rightly viewed, it fails as an argument. Bentham 
 says that in the infancy of a State, when anyone committed 
 an offence, the question arises, "How shall we prevent 
 these evils ?" and the answer most likely to occur to 
 barbarians would be, "Extirpate the offender." This, 
 however, is simply force in its brutal shape, and has no 
 root whatever in morality. The Marquis Beccaria, in 
 his Essay on Capital Panishment, denies the right of the 
 State to deliberately take the life of anyone, and, as is 
 well known, Count Tolstoi holds the same opinion. 
 
216 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 It seems to me, liowever, simply, that tlie supposed 
 justification of capital punishment rests on power insti- 
 gated by expediency and a strong sense of what is con- 
 venient, and not at all on right, pure, simple, and 
 abstract, which is the only absolute basis of true law. 
 The advocates of capital punishment cite cases like the 
 lamentable Melbourne tragedy mentioned above, and 
 deduce thence a strong special plea why murderers should 
 themselves be murdered — for that is the right way to 
 express the whole thing. 
 
 Murder is dreadful, but, ethically viewed, capital punish- 
 ment is even more dreadful, and thence it has ever proved, 
 and ever will prove, practically useless to prevent the 
 crime for which it is meted out. The shutting up of a 
 murderer to prevent him from exercising his homicidal 
 propensity is different altogether from taking his life. 
 The fallacy in dealing with capital punishment on the 
 part of its advocates appears to arise from the funda- 
 mental idea in their minds that life, per se, is the most 
 important and precious thing of which we know. This 
 is really a Pagan or anti- Christian notion, for Truth, 
 Right, and many other purely ethical, intangible things — 
 but none the less realities — are infinitely more precious 
 than the individual animal life of man, although that was 
 made sacred even in the case of Cain ! It must be wrong 
 to deliberately take human life, and I could never per- 
 ceive why the State or any combination of men should be 
 able to do what an individual manifestly may not do. 
 One of the very worst signs of the materialistic and 
 mechanical morality of the times is the scientific atten- 
 tion being paid to modes of putting criminals to death, 
 
A MELBOURNE TRAGEDY. 217 
 
 when public attention ought to be directed to the question, 
 have we any right to execute them at all ? 
 
 That the whole spirit of Christianity is entirely 
 against capital punishment under any circumstances 
 whatever is obvious enough ; but to descend to non- 
 religious grounds, surely life would be held as a still 
 fiiore holy thing if even the life of the murderer were 
 sacred. How infinitely more awful would the crime of 
 murder appear if even murderers could not be executed ! 
 Even suicide, whereto so great a tendency now exists, 
 would unquestionably receive a most absolute check if 
 taking human life deliberately under any circumstances 
 was universally regarded as a thing utterly abominable. 
 
 To kill the man who kills is, after all, only the bad old 
 plan of employing force for moral ends. Force is the 
 tool of ignorance at the best. Men and women may be 
 persuaded into becoming better, but they can never be 
 forced into a better state of feeling. It is, after all, the 
 everlasting rebuke to those who seem to think that the 
 chemist, the physiologist, and the engineer will be the 
 new triune hierarchy of civilisation, that no sort of 
 material agencies alone can ever bring about of themselves 
 moral reformation. It is the eternal rebuke of the spirit 
 to mere matter. The things unseen are the real powers 
 over mankind, and must ever be so, although blind and 
 foolish bigots fighting in the cause of materialism would 
 persuade us that the visible and the tangible are not the 
 unrealities, the deceptive appearances, that they are. 
 
 All true and enduring triumphs are those of love, 
 gentleness and mercy ; these alone can transform human 
 evil into good, a thing force and ferocity can never 
 
218 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 accomplish. The tr'iiimpliant crusades of Christianity 
 were only those oE the martyrs. When the Christian 
 girded on the sword, even though it were what is mis- 
 called the sword of justice, he relinquished half his 
 strength and became earthy, like the agencies on which 
 he weakly and faithlessly relied. 
 
 We may be sure that crime is not killed by punish- 
 ment, but by the enlightening of the mind of evil-doers 
 and by softening their hearts. It is easy to anticipate 
 the sneers and mockery which such an assertion must 
 evoke from many, but had laws been shaped from the 
 first in accordance with humanity, and not from the 
 impulses of selfishness, cruelty and fear, the world 
 would have had no criminal classes in it now, and if 
 crime did exist, it would have come under the head of 
 insanity alone. 
 
 A wrriter in the Fortnightly Review remarks : " Out of 
 every hundred committals for murder in England there 
 result about 49 convictions, and of these 49 convicts 
 about 14 on an average are insane. But besides this, 
 there can be little doubt that many have been hanged 
 who were practically not responsible for their actions. 
 In fact, the whole question of moral responsibility is 
 surrounded with so much doubt and difficulty as to 
 furnish one more strong argument against taking an 
 irrevocable step. The tendency of medical science at 
 the present day is more and more to refer moral de- 
 linquencies, in part at least, to physical causes, and it 
 may often happen that a convict's reformation is begun 
 by the prison doctor sooner even than by the chaplain." 
 Then again, it has been pointed out that if the threat 
 
A MELBOURNE TKAGEDY. 219 
 
 of hanging deters men from crime, surely the threat 
 of burning or a preliminary course of torture would be 
 still more efficacious. Nay, why not hand over the 
 convict to the vivisectors, and thus at one stroke safe- 
 guard society, spare dumb animals, and further the 
 advancement of science ? The only logical answer that 
 could be given to such a query would be, that we should 
 in the long run lose more than we should gain. That 
 which is seen would be a diminution for the time in 
 the number of murders. That which is not seen would 
 be the slow but certain deterioration and brutalisation 
 of society by the use of such means. And precisely the 
 same reasoning applies to hanging without torture. As 
 Mr. John Bright well said: — "Whenever you hang a 
 man, if you do in the slightest degree deter from crime 
 by the shocking nature of the punishment, I will under- 
 take to say that you by so much — nay, by much more — 
 weaken that other and greater security which arises 
 from the reverence with which human life is regarded.'^ 
 
 Nothing hinders the abolition of murder like the main- 
 tenance of capital punishment. The enforcement of the 
 rule for private executions was a tacit admission really of 
 the failure of capital punishment, and the only marvel is 
 that after such an admission it could still keep its appall- 
 ing place amid the laws of a Christian country — if, indeed, 
 a Christian country can now be found in the sense of the 
 old-fashioned times when some yet dreamed of a common 
 Christendom. Finally, let me conclude by quoting 
 Coombe, who declares that when parents beat their 
 children it is to make them behave well by force. When 
 a drunken husband strikes his wife it is with the view of 
 
220 AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND TALES AND SKETCHES. 
 
 improving her hy force. When a criminal is panished it 
 is with a view of improving the world hj force. I answer 
 that the world is invariably made worse by force^ and 
 always must be, and the whole effect of punishment as 
 such has been evil. This obviously does not apply in any 
 sense to mere imprisonment, which is quite another thing 
 and comes under a different category altogether. Finally, 
 I would earnestly ask all who are forming opinions on the 
 subject of capital punishment to begin by enquiring, not 
 is it convenient, or expedient, or wise, but is it right to 
 put anyone to death ? To this ultimately there can be 
 only one answer. 
 
 It has been said by some that the Saviour, on one 
 occasion, sanctioned the arming of his disciples. Far too 
 much has been made of the incident; but to defend is very 
 different from attacking, and if in defence the assailant 
 lose his life, this is neither marder nor execution. As 
 to war, there can be no doubt whatever that all offen - 
 sive war is a stupendous crime, and morally wrong. In 
 a word, the taking of human life — the direct result of the 
 first murder recorded in the Bible — which, by the way, 
 was not visited by capital punishment — is, to my mind, 
 distinctly wrong. 
 
221 
 
 The following particulars respecting the Eoyal Colonial 
 Institute are inserted on account of the importance of 
 the subject to Colonists generally: — 
 
 THE EOYAL COLONIAL INSTITUTE, 
 
 NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, LONDON, W.C. 
 
 Founded 1868. 
 Incorporated by Royal Charter 1862. 
 
 Motto-" UN I TED EMPIRE." 
 Objects. 
 
 "To provide a place of meeting for all Gentlemen connected with the Colonies 
 and British India, and others taking an interest in Colonial and Indian affairs ; 
 to establish a Reading Koom and Library, in which recent and authentic 
 intelligence upon Colonial and Indian subjects may be constantly available, and 
 a Museum for the collection and exhibition of Colonial and Indian productions ; 
 to facilitate interchange of experiences amongst persons representing all the 
 Dependencies of Great Britain ; to afford opportunities for the reading of Papers, 
 and for holding Discussions upon Colonial and Indian subjects generally ; and 
 to undertake scientific, literary, and statistical investigations in connection with 
 the British Empire. But no Paper shall be read, or any Discussion be permitted 
 to take place, tending to give to the Institute a party character," (Rule I.) 
 
 Membership. 
 
 There are two classes of Fellows, Resident and Non-Resident, both elected by 
 the Council on the nomination of two Fellows, one of whom at least must sign on 
 personal knowledge. The former pay an entrance fee of ;^3, and an annual sub- 
 scription oi £i ; the latter an entrance fee of £ji is., and an annual subscription 
 oi £\ IS. (which is increased to £,2 when temporarily visiting the United Kingdom). 
 Resident Fellows can compound for the annual subscription by the payment of 
 ;^20, or after five years' annual subscription on payment of ^15; and Non- 
 Resident Fellows can compound for the Non-Resident annual subscription on 
 payment of ;^io. 
 
 Privileges of Fellows whose Subscriptions are not i7i arrear. 
 
 The pri\ileges of Fellows, whose subscriptions are not in arrear, include the 
 use of Ro( ms, Papeis, and Library. All Fellows, whether residing in England or 
 the Colonies, have a repoit of each Meeting, and the Annual Volume of 
 Proceedings forwarded to them. 
 
 To be present at the Evening Meetings, and to introduce one visitor. 
 
 To be present at the Annual Conversazione, and to introduce a lady. 
 
 The support of all British subjects, whether residing in the United Kingdom or 
 the Colonies— for the Institute is intended for both — is earnestly desired in 
 promoting the great objects of extending knowledge respecting the \arious 
 portions of the impire, and in promoting the cause of its permanent unity. 
 
 Contributions to the Library and Museum will be thankfully received. 
 
 J. S. O'HALLORAN. 
 
 Secretary. 
 
CL ASS versus J IN- 
 
 EDGE'S "LION" ESSENCE OF BEEF 
 
 AND OTHER FOOD DELICACIES. 
 
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 BEEF TEA 
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 STOCK for SO UP, 
 
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 Pure Concentrated 
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 In Skins and In Tins If desired 
 
 
 BRITISH LION 
 SAUCE, 
 
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 BRITISH LION 
 RELISH, 
 
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 To be had of all Chemists and Grocers. 
 
 EDGE BROTHERS, Farringdon Road, London, E.C, 
 
GRIMBLE'S 
 
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 AND 
 
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 Wherever Exhibited, f Adelaide, i887. 
 
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