Maturin Ballou - Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands

This new home of the British race in the South Pacific, surrounded by accessible seas and inviting harbors, inspires us with vivid interest. We say "new," and yet, geologically speaking, it is one of the oldest portions of the earth's surface. While a great part of Europe has been submerged and elevated, crumpled up as it were into mountain chains, Australia seems to have been undisturbed. It is remarkable that in a division of the globe of such colossal proportions there was found no larger quadruped than the kangaroo, and that man was the only animal that destroyed his kind. He, alas! was more ferocious than the lynx, the leopard, or the hyena; for these animals do not prey upon each other, while the aborigines of Australia devoured one another.

What America was to Spain in the proud days of that nation's glory Australia has been to England, and that too, without the crime of wholesale murder, and the spilling of rivers of blood, as was the case in the days of Cortez and Pizarro. The wealth poured into the lap of England by these far-away colonies belittles all the riches which the Spaniards realized by the conquests of Mexico and Peru. Here is an empire won without war, a new world called into existence, as it were, by moral forces, an Eldorado captured without the sword. Here, Nature has spread her generous favors over a land only one-fifth smaller than the whole continent of Europe, granting every needed resource wherewith to form a great, independent, and prosperous nation; where labor is already more liberally rewarded, and life more easily sustained, than in any other civilized country except America. It is difficult to believe while observing the present population, wealth, power, and prosperity of the country at large, characterized by such grand and conspicuous elements of empire, that it has been settled for so brief a period, and that its pioneers were from English prisons. The authentic record of life in the colonies of Australia and Tasmania during the first few years of their existence, is mainly the account of the control of lawless men by the strong and cruel arm of military despotism.

Up to the present writing Australia has realized from her soil over three hundred and thirty millions of pounds sterling, or $1,650,000,000. Her territory gives grazing at the present time to over seventy-five million sheep, which is probably double the number in the United States. When it is remembered that the population of this country is sixty millions, and that Australia has not quite four millions, the force of this comparison becomes obvious. The aggregate amount of wool exported to the mother country is twenty-eight times as much as England has received in the same period from the continent of Europe. The combined exports and imports of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland are a little over one hundred dollars per annum for each one of the population. In Australia the aggregate is a trifle over two hundred dollars per head. The four principal capitals of Australia contain over eight hundred thousand inhabitants. The railroads of the country have already cost over two hundred million dollars, and are being extended annually. New South Wales has in proportion to its population a greater length of railways than any other country in the world, while there are some thirty thousand miles of telegraph lines within the length and breadth of the land.

The country is divided into five provincial governments: New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, and West Australia. The island of Tasmania forms another province, and is separated from Victoria by Bass's Strait, the two being within half a day's sail of each other. Sydney is the capital of New South Wales; Melbourne, of Victoria; Adelaide, of South Australia; Brisbane, of Queensland; Perth, of West Australia; and Hobart, of Tasmania. It may be remarked incidentally that South Australia would more properly be designated by some other title, as it is not South Australia at all. Victoria lies south of it, and so does a portion of West Australia. The government of these several divisions is modelled upon that of New South Wales, which is in fact the parent colony of them all.

New South Wales is governed under a constitution, having two houses of Parliament. The first, a legislative council, is composed of a limited number of members nominated by the Crown, and who hold office for life; the second, or legislative assembly, is composed of members elected by the people and chosen by ballot. All acts, before becoming law, must receive the approval of the Queen of England, though this is nothing more than a mere form. There is a resident governor in each colony, also appointed by the Queen.

As compared with our own land, we find this to be one of strange contradictions. Here, the eagles are white and the swans are black; the emu, a bird almost as large as an ostrich, cannot fly, but runs like a horse. The principal quadruped, the kangaroo, is elsewhere unknown; and though he has four legs, he runs upon two. When the days are longest with us in America, they are shortest here. To reach the tropics, Australians go due-north, while we go due-south. With us the seed, or stone, of the cherry forms the centre of the fruit; in Australia, the stone grows on the outside. The foliage of the trees in America spreads out horizontally; in this south-land the leaves hang vertically. When it is day with us it is night with them. There, Christmas comes in mid-summer; with us in mid-winter. Bituminous and anthracite coal are with us only one color, – black; but they have white bituminous coal, – white as chalk. The majority of trees with us shed their leaves in the fall of the year; with them they are evergreen, shedding their bark and not their leaves.

Adelaide is situated about seven miles from the sea, and is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills rearing their abrupt forms not far away from the town. The capital is so perfectly level that to be seen to advantage it must be looked upon from some favorable elevation. The colony should be known as Central Australia, on account of its geographical position. It is destined in the near future to merit the name of the granary of the country, being already largely and successfully devoted to agriculture. This pursuit is followed in no circumscribed manner, but in a large and liberal style, like that of our best Western farmers in the United States. Immense tracts of land are also devoted to stock-raising for the purpose of furnishing beef for shipment to England in fresh condition. This province contains nearly a million square miles, and is therefore ten times larger than Victoria, and fifteen times larger than England. It extends northward from the temperate zone, so that nearly one-half of its area lies within the tropics, while it has a coast-line of five hundred miles along the great Southern Ocean. A vast portion of its interior is uninhabited, and indeed unexplored. The total population of the whole colony is about four hundred thousand. Wheat, wool, wine, copper, and meat are at present the chief exports. Over four million acres of land are under the plough. Though gold is found here, it is not so abundant as in other sections of the country. Good wages equalling those realized by the average miners are earned by a dozen easier and more legitimate occupations than that of gold-digging. "Let us cherish no delusions," said a San Francisco preacher on a certain occasion; "no society has ever been able to organize itself in a satisfactory manner on gold-bearing soil. Even Nature herself is deceitful; she corrupts, seduces, and betrays man; she laughs at his labor, she turns his toil into gambling, and his word into a lie!" The preacher's deductions have proved true as regards bodies of miners in California, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia. And yet the finding of gold mines has stimulated labor, immigration, and manly activity in many directions, and has thus been the agent of undoubted good in other fields than its own.