The Bushman

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THE BUSHMAN: LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY

BY EDWARD WILSON LANDOR

(ILLUSTRATION: "KANGAROO HUNTING.")

----------------------------

THE BUSHMAN.

LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY

BY

EDWARD WILSON LANDOR.

PREFACE.

The British Colonies now form so prominent a portion of the Empire,
that the Public will be compelled to acknowledge some interest in
their welfare, and the Government to yield some attention to their
wants. It is a necessity which both the Government and the Public
will obey with reluctance.

Too remote for sympathy, too powerless for respect, the Colonies,
during ages of existence, have but rarely occupied a passing thought
in the mind of the Nation; as though their insignificance entitled
them only to neglect. But the weakness of childhood is passing away:
the Infant is fast growing into the possession and the consciousness
of strength, whilst the Parent is obliged to acknowledge the
increasing usefulness of her offspring.

The long-existing and fundamental errors of Government, under which
the Colonies have hitherto groaned in helpless subjection, will soon
become generally known and understood -- and then they will be
remedied.

In the remarks which will be found scattered through this work on the
subject of Colonial Government, it must be observed, that the system
only is assailed, and not individuals. That it is the system and not
THE MEN who are in fault, is sufficiently proved by the fact that the
most illustrious statesmen and the brightest talents of the Age, have
ever failed to distinguish themselves by good works, whilst directing
the fortunes of the Colonies. Lord John Russell, Lord Stanley, Mr.
Gladstone -- all of them high-minded, scrupulous, and patriotic
statesmen -- all of them men of brilliant genius, extensive
knowledge, and profound thought -- have all of them been but slightly
appreciated as Colonial rulers.

Their principal success has been in perpetuating a noxious system.
They have all of them conscientiously believed their first duty to
be, in the words of Lord Stanley, to keep the Colonies dependent upon
the Mother Country; and occupied with this belief, they have
legislated for the Mother Country and not for the Colonies. Vain,
selfish, fear-inspired policy! that keeps the Colonies down in the
dust at the feet of the Parent State, and yet is of no value or
advantage to her. To make her Colonies useful to England, they must
be cherished in their infancy, and carefully encouraged to put forth
all the strength of their secret energies.

It is not whilst held in leading-strings that they can be useful, or
aught but burthensome: rear them kindly to maturity, and allow them
the free exercise of their vast natural strength, and they would be
to the parent country her truest and most valuable friends.

THE COLONIES OF THE EMPIRE ARE THE ONLY LASTING AND INALIENABLE
MARKETS FOR ITS PRODUCE; and the first aim of the political economist
should be to develop to their utmost extent the vast resources
possessed by Great Britain in these her own peculiar fields of
national wealth. But the policy displayed throughout the history of
her Colonial possessions, has ever been the reverse of this. It was
that grasping and ungenerous policy that called forth a Washington,
and cost her an empire. It is that same miserable and low-born
policy that still recoils upon herself, depriving her of vast
increase of wealth and power in order to keep the chain upon her
hapless children, those ambitious Titans whom she trembles to unbind.

And yet poor Old England considers herself an excellent parent, and
moans and murmurs over the ingratitude of her troublesome offspring!
Like many other parents, she means to do well and act kindly, but
unhappily the principles on which she proceeds are radically wrong.
Hence, on the one side, heart-burning, irritation, and resentment; on
the other, disappointment, revulsion, and alarm.

Is she too deeply prejudiced, or too old in error, to attempt a new
system of policy?

In what single respect has she ever proved herself a good parent to
any of her Colonies? Whilst supplying them with Government Officers,
she has fettered them with unwholesome laws; whilst giving them a
trifling preference over foreign states in their commerce, she has
laid her grasp upon their soil; whilst allowing them to legislate in
a small degree for themselves, she has reserved the prerogative of
annulling all enactments that interfere with her own selfish or
mistaken views; whilst permitting their inhabitants to live under a
lightened pressure of taxation, she has debarred them from wealth,
rank, honours, rewards, hopes -- all those incentives to action that
lead men forward to glory, and stamp nations with greatness.

What has she done for her Colonies -- this careful and beneficent
parent? She has permitted them to exist, but bound them down in
serf-like dependence; and so she keeps them -- feeble, helpless, and
hopeless. She grants them the sanction of her flag, and the
privilege of boasting of her baneful protection.

Years -- ages have gone by, and her policy has been the same --
darkening the heart and crushing the energies of Man in climes where
Nature sparkles with hope and teems with plenty.

Time, however, too powerful for statesmen, continues his silent but
steady advance in the great work of amelioration. The condition of
the Colonies must be elevated to that of the counties of England.
Absolute rule must cease to prevail in them. Men must be allowed to
win there, as at home, honours and rank. Time, the grand minister of
correction -- Time the Avenger, already has his foot on the threshold
of the COLONIAL OFFICE.

-----------------

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER.

1. -- COLONISTS.

2. -- ST. JAGO.

3. -- THE MUTINY.

4. -- THE PRISON-ISLAND.

5. -- FIRST ADVENTURES.

6. -- PERTH. -- COLONIAL JURIES.

7. -- BOATING UP THE RIVER.

8. -- FARMS ON THE RIVER.

9. -- THE MORAL THERMOMETER OF COLONIES.

10. -- COUNTRY LIFE.

11. -- PERSECUTIONS.

12. -- MICHAEL BLAKE, THE IRISH SETTLER.

13. -- WILD CATTLE HUNTING.

14. -- WOODMAN'S POINT.

15. -- HOW THE LAWS OF ENGLAND AFFECT THE NATIVES.

16. -- REMARKS ON THE PHYSICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIVES.

17. -- SKETCHES OF LIFE AMONG THE NATIVES.

18. -- THE MODEL KINGDOM.

19. -- TRIALS OF A GOVERNOR.

20. -- MR. SAILS, MY GROOM. -- OVER THE HILLS. -- A SHEEP
STATION.

21. -- EXTRACTS FROM THE LOG OF A HUT-KEEPER.

22. -- PELICAN SHOOTING. -- GALES. -- WRESTLING WITH DEATH.

23. -- THE DESERT OF AUSTRALIA. -- CAUSE OF THE HOT WINDS. --
GEOLOGY.

24. -- COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.

25. -- ONE OF THE ERRORS OF GOVERNMENT. -- ADVENTURES OF THE
"BRAMBLE".

26. -- SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. -- KANGAROO HUNTING. -- EMUS. --
LOST IN THE BUSH.

27. -- THE COMET. -- VITAL STATISTICS. -- METEOROLOGY.

28. -- THE BOTANY OF THE COLONY.

29. -- MISFORTUNES OF THE COLONY.

30. -- RESOURCES OF THE COLONY: -- HORSES FOR INDIA. -- WINE. --
DRIED FRUITS. -- COTTON. -- COAL. -- WOOL. -- CORN. -- WHALE-
OIL. -- A WHALE HUNT. -- CURED FISH. -- SHIP TIMBER.

31. -- RISE AND FALL OF A SETTLEMENT. -- THE SEQUEL TO CAPTAIN
GREY'S DISCOVERIES. -- A WORD AT PARTING.

(PLATES.

KANGAROO HUNTING (Frontispiece).
THE BIVOUAC.
SPEARING KANGAROO.
DEATH OF THE KANGAROO.
EMU HUNT (woodcut).)

THE BUSHMAN;

OR,

LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY.

CHAPTER 1.

COLONISTS.

The Spirit of Adventure is the most animating impulse in the human
breast. Man naturally detests inaction; he thirsts after change and
novelty, and the prospect of excitement makes him prefer even danger
to continued repose.

The love of adventure! how strongly it urges forward the Young! The
Young, who are ever discontented with the Present, and sigh for
opportunities of action which they know not where to seek. Old men
mourn over the folly and recklessness of the Young, who, in the fresh
and balmy spring-time of life, recoil from the confinement of the
desk or the study, and long for active occupation, in which all their
beating energies may find employment. Subjection is the consequence
of civilized life; and self-sacrifice is necessary in those who are
born to toil, before they may partake of its enjoyments. But though
the Young are conscious that this is so, they repine not the less;
they feel that the freshness and verdure of life must first die away;
that the promised recompense will probably come too late to the
exhausted frame; that the blessings which would now be received with
prostrate gratitude will cease to be felt as boons; and that although
the wishes and wants of the heart will take new directions in the
progress of years, the consciousness that the spring-time of life --
that peculiar season of happiness which can never be known again --
has been consumed in futile desires and aspirations, in vain hopes
and bitter experiences, must ever remain deepening the gloom of
Memory.

Anxious to possess immediate independence, young men, full of
adventurous spirit, proceed in search of new fields of labour, where
they may reap at once the enjoyments of domestic life, whilst they
industriously work out the curse that hangs over the Sons of Adam.

They who thus become emigrants from the ardent spirit of adventure,
and from a desire to experience a simpler and less artificial manner
of living than that which has become the essential characteristic of
European civilization, form a large and useful body of colonists.
These men, notwithstanding the pity which will be bestowed upon them
by those whose limited experience of life leads to the belief that
happiness or contentment can only be found in the atmosphere of
England, are entitled to some consideration and respect.

To have dared to deviate from the beaten track which was before them
in the outset of life; to have perceived at so vast a distance
advantages which others, if they had seen, would have shrunk from
aiming at; to have persevered in their resolution, notwithstanding
the expostulations of Age, the regrets of Friendship, and the sighs
of Affection -- all this betokens originality and strength of
character.

Does it also betoken indifference to the wishes of others? Perhaps
it does; and it marks one of the broadest and least amiable features
in the character of a colonist.

The next class of emigrants are those who depart from their native
shores with reluctance and tears. Children of misfortune and sorrow,
they would yet remain to weep on the bosom from which they have drawn
no sustenance. But the strong blasts of necessity drive them from
the homes which even Grief has not rendered less dear. Their future
has never yet responded to the voice of Hope, and now, worn and
broken in spirit, imagination paints nothing cheering in another
land. They go solely because they may not remain -- because they
know not where else to look for a resting place; and Necessity, with
her iron whip, drives them forth to some distant colony.

But there is still a third class, the most numerous perhaps of all,
that helps to compose the population of a colony. This is made up of
young men who are the wasterels of the World; who have never done,
and never will do themselves any good, and are a curse instead of a
benefit to others. These are they who think themselves fine, jovial,
spirited fellows, who disdain to work, and bear themselves as if life
were merely a game which ought to be played out amid coarse laughter
and wild riot.

These go to a colony because their relatives will not support them in
idleness at home. They feel no despair at the circumstance, for
their pockets have been refilled, though (they are assured) for the
last time; and they rejoice at the prospect of spending their capital
far from the observation of intrusive guardians.

Disgusted at authority which has never proved sufficient to restrain
or improve them, they become enamoured with the idea of absolute
license, and are far too high-spirited to entertain any apprehensions
of future poverty. These gallant-minded and truly enviable fellows
betake themselves, on their arrival, to the zealous cultivation of
field-sports instead of field produce. They leave with disdain the
exercise of the useful arts to low-bred and beggarly-minded people,
who have not spirit enough for anything better; whilst they
themselves enthusiastically strive to realize again those glorious
times,--

"When wild in woods the noble savage ran."

In the intervals of relaxation from these fatigues, when they return
to a town life, they endeavour to prove the activity of their
energies and the benevolence of their characters, by getting up balls
and pic-nics, solely to promote the happiness of the ladies. But
notwithstanding this appearance of devotion to the fair sex, their
best affections are never withdrawn from the companion of their
hearts -- the brandy flask. They evince their generous hospitality
by hailing every one who passes their door, with "How are you, old
fellow? Come in, and take a nip." Somehow or other they are always
liked, even by those who pity and despise them.

The women only laugh at their irregularities -- they are such
"good-hearted creatures!" And so they go easily and rapidly down
that sloping path which leads to ruin and despair. What is their
end? Many of them literally kill themselves by drinking; and those
who get through the seasoning, which is the fatal period, are either
compelled to become labourers in the fields for any one who will
provide them with food; or else succeed in exciting the compassion of
their friends at home, by their dismal accounts of the impossibility
of earning a livelihood in a ruined and worthless colony; and having
thus obtained money enough to enable them to return to England, they
hasten to throw themselves and their sorrows into the arms of their
sympathizing relatives.

Nothing can be more absurd than to imagine that a fortune may be made
in a colony by those who have neither in them nor about them any of
the elements or qualities by which fortunes are gained at home.

There are, unfortunately, few sources of wealth peculiar to a colony.
The only advantage which the emigrant may reasonably calculate upon
enjoying, is the diminution of competition. In England the crowd is
so dense that men smother one another.

It is only by opening up the same channels of wealth under more
favourable circumstances, that the emigrant has any right to
calculate upon success. Without a profession, without any legitimate
calling in which his early years have been properly instructed;
without any knowledge or any habits of business, a man has no better
prospect of making a fortune in a colony than at home. None,
however, so circumstanced, entertains this belief; on the contrary,
he enters upon his new career without any misgivings, and with the
courage and enthusiasm of a newly enlisted recruit.

Alas! the disappointment which so soon and so inevitably succeeds,
brings a crowd of vices and miseries in its train.

CHAPTER 2.

ST. JAGO.

The reader may naturally expect to be informed of the reasons that
have induced me thus to seek his acquaintance. In one word -- I am a
colonist. In England, a great deal is said every day about colonies
and colonists, but very little is known about them. A great deal is
projected; but whatever is done, is unfortunately to their prejudice.
Secretaries of State know much more about the distant settlements of
Great Britain than the inhabitants themselves; and, consequently, the
latter are seldom able to appreciate the ordinances which (for their
own good) they are compelled to submit to.

My own experience is chiefly confined to one of the most
insignificant of our colonies, -- insignificant in point of
population, but extremely important as to its geographical position,
and its prospects of future greatness, -- but the same principle of
government applies to all the British settlements.

A few years ago, I was the victim of medical skill; and being
sentenced to death in my own country by three eminent physicians, was
comparatively happy in having that sentence commuted to banishment.
A wealthy man would have gone to Naples, to Malta, or to Madeira; but
a poor one has no resource save in a colony, unless he will
condescend to live upon others, rather than support himself by his
own exertions.

The climate of Western Australia was recommended; and I may be
grateful for the alternative allowed me.

As I shall have occasion hereafter to allude to them incidentally, I
may mention that my two brothers accompanied me on this distant
voyage.

The elder, a disciple of Aesculapius, was not only anxious to gratify
his fraternal solicitude and his professional tastes by watching my
case, but was desirous of realizing the pleasures of rural life in
Australia.

My younger brother (whose pursuits entitle him to be called
Meliboeus) was a youth not eighteen, originally designed for the
Church, and intended to cut a figure at Oxford; but modestly
conceiving that the figure he was likely to cut would not tend to the
advancement of his worldly interests, and moreover, having no
admiration for Virgil beyond the Bucolics, he fitted himself out with
a Lowland plaid and a set of Pandaean pipes, and solemnly dedicated
himself to the duties of a shepherd.

Thus it was that we were all embarked in the same boat; or rather, we
found ourselves in the month of April, 1841, on board of a certain
ill-appointed barque bound for Western Australia.

We had with us a couple of servants, four rams with curling horns --
a purchase from the late Lord Western; a noble blood-hound, the gift
of a noble Lord famous for the breed; a real old English
mastiff-bitch, from the stock at Lyme Park; and a handsome spaniel
cocker. Besides this collection of quadrupeds, we had a vast
assortment of useless lumber, which had cost us many hundred pounds.
Being most darkly ignorant of every thing relating to the country to
which we were going, but having a notion that it was very much of the
same character with that so long inhabited by Robinson Crusoe, we had
prudently provided ourselves with all the necessaries and even
non-necessaries of life in such a region. Our tool chests would have
suited an army of pioneers; several distinguished ironmongers of the
city of London had cleared their warehouses in our favour of all the
rubbish which had lain on hand during the last quarter of a century;
we had hinges, bolts, screws, door-latches, staples, nails of all
dimensions -- from the tenpenny, downwards -- and every other
requisite to have completely built a modern village of reasonable
extent. We had tents, Macintosh bags, swimming-belts, several sets
of sauce-pans in graduated scale, (we had here a distant eye to
kangaroo and cockatoo stews,) cleavers, meat-saws, iron skewers, and
a general apparatus of kitchen utensils that would have satisfied the
desires of Monsieur Soyer himself. Then we had double and
single-barrelled guns, rifles, pistols, six barrels of Pigou and
Wilkes' gunpowder; an immense assortment of shot, and two hundred
weight of lead for bullets.

Besides the several articles already enumerated, we had provided
ourselves with eighteen months' provisions, in pork and flour,
calculating that by the time this quantity was consumed, we should
have raised enough to support our establishment out of the soil by
the sweat of our brows. And thus from sheer ignorance of colonial
life, we had laid out a considerable portion of our capital in the
purchase of useless articles, and of things which might have been
procured more cheaply in the colony itself. Nor were we the only
green-horns that have gone out as colonists: on the contrary,
nine-tenths of those who emigrate, do so in perfect ignorance of the
country they are about to visit and the life they are destined to
lead. The fact is, Englishmen, as a body know nothing and care
nothing about colonies. My own was merely the national ignorance.
An Englishman's idea of a colony (he classes them altogether) is,
that it is some miserable place -- the Black-hole of the British
empire -- where no one would live if he were allowed a choice; and
where the exiled spirits of the nation are incessantly sighing for a
glimpse of the white cliffs of Albion, and a taste of the old
familiar green-and-yellow fog of the capital of the world.
Experience alone can convince him that there are in other regions of
the world climes as delightful, suns as beneficent, and creditors as
confiding, as those of Old England.

The voyage, of course, was tedious enough; but some portion of it was
spent very pleasantly in calculating the annual profits which our
flocks were likely to produce.

The four noble rams, with their curly horns, grew daily more valuable
in our estimation. By the sailors, no doubt, they were rated no
higher than the miserable tenants of the long-boat, that formed part
of the cuddy provisions. But with us it was very different. As we
looked, every bright and balmy morning, into the pen which they
occupied, we were enabled to picture more vividly those Arcadian
prospects which seemed now brought almost within reach. In these
grave and respectable animals we recognised the patriarchs of a vast
and invaluable progeny; and it was impossible to help feeling a kind
of veneration for the sires of that fleecy multitude which was to
prove the means of justifying our modest expectations of happiness
and wealth.

Our dogs also afforded us the most pleasing subjects for speculation.
With the blood-hound we were to track the footsteps of the midnight
marauder, who should invade the sanctity of our fold. The spaniel
was to aid in procuring a supply of game for the table; and I
bestowed so much pains upon his education during the voyage, that
before we landed he was perfectly au fait in the article of
"down-charge!" and used to flush the cat in the steward's pantry with
the greatest certainty and satisfaction.

Jezebel, the mastiff-birch, was expected to assist in guarding our
castle, -- an honourable duty which her courage and fidelity amply
warranted us in confiding to her. Of the former quality, I shall
mention an instance that occurred during the voyage. We had one day
caught a shark, twelve feet long; and no sooner was he hauled on deck
than Jezebel, wild with fury, rushed through the circle of eager
sailors and spectators, and flew directly at the nose of the
struggling monster. It was with difficulty that she was dragged away
by the admiring seamen, who were compelled to admit that there was a
creature on board more reckless and daring than themselves.

We were now approaching the Cape Verd Islands. I daresay it has been
frequently mentioned, that there is in these latitudes a vast bed of
loose sea-weed, floating about, which has existed there from time
immemorial, and which is only found in this one spot of the ocean; as
though it were here compelled to remain under the influence of some
magic spell. Some navigators are of opinion that it grows on the
rocks at the bottom of the sea, beneath the surface on which it
floats. Others maintain that it has been drifted across the
Atlantic, having issued from the Gulf of Mexico. Here, however, it
is doomed to drift about hopelessly, for ever lost in the wilderness
of waters; on the surface of which it now vegetates, affording
shelter to small crabs, and many curious kinds of fishes.

One of the latter which we caught, about an inch in length, had a
spike on his back, and four legs, with which he crawled about the
sea-weed.

We approached the Island of St. Jago, sailing unconsciously close to
a sunken rock, on which (as we afterwards learnt) the "Charlotte" had
struck about six weeks before whilst under full sail, and had gone
down in a few minutes, barely allowing time for the crew to escape in
their boat.

Notwithstanding we had been five weeks at sea when we dropped anchor
in Porto Praya roads, the appearance of the land was by no means
inviting to the eyes. A high and extremely barren hill, or large
heap of dry earth, with a good many stones about it, seemed to
compose the Island. Close to us was the town, a collection of white
houses that looked very dazzling in the summer sun. Beside, and
running behind it, was a greenish valley, containing a clump of
cocoa-nut trees. This was the spot we longed to visit; so, getting
into the captain's boat, we approached the shore, where a number of
nearly naked negroes rushing into the sea (there being no pier or
jetty) presented their slimy backs at the gun-wale, and carried us in
triumph to the beach. The town boasted of one hotel, in the only
sitting-room of which we found some Portuguese officers smoking pipes
as dirty as themselves, and drinking a beverage which had much the
appearance of rum and water. There was no one who could speak a word
of English; but at length a French waiter appeared, who seemed
ravished with delight at the jargon with which we feebly reminded him
of his own lively language "when at home." Having ordered dinner, we
wandered off in search of the coca-nut valley, and purchased bananas
for the first time in our lives, and oranges, the finest in the world.

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