Ellisland

“ So we find him with some three hundred pounds only, saved out of the new book and the junketings of the Capital, going off to lease quietly the farm of Ellisland, near to Dumfries, and turn ploughman once more.
It is a poor place, but very beautiful; it is in Nithsdale, and the murmur of the river through its wooded banks makes the poet forget the crop of pebbles which every ploughing turns to the top. ”

“ The view from the windows was pleasing, though some travellers might have been disposed to quarrel with it for its general nakedness; yet there was abundance of corn. It is an open country—open, yet all over hills. At a little distance were many cottages among trees, that looked very pretty. Brownhill is about seven or eight miles from Ellisland. I fancied to myself, while I was sitting in the parlour, that Burns might have caroused there, for most likely his rounds extended so far, and this thought gave a melancholy interest to the smoky walls. ”

“ All day that string of human beads waits there, jerks forward, waits again; all day and every day, constantly replenished, constantly dropping the end beads through the wicket, till the units mount to hundreds and the hundreds to thousands....
Yes, Ellis Island is quietly immense. It gives one a visible image of one aspect at least of this world-large process of filling and growing and synthesis, which is America. ”

“ Ellermore itself was a comparatively new house, built upon a fine slope of lawn over the lake, and sheltered by fine trees—great beeches which would not have done discredit to Berkshire, though that is not what we expect to see in Scotland: besides the ashes and firs which we are ready to acknowledge as of northern growth. I was not prepared for the luxuriance of the West Highlands—the mantling green of ferns and herbage everywhere, not to say the wealth of flowers, which formed a centre of still more brilliant colour and cultivation amid all the purple of the hills. ”

“ The most famous of these islands was the Isle of Ely, a patch of dry land seven miles long and four miles broad, well remembered as one of the last strongholds of the Saxons against William the Conqueror. But the vast morass which once surrounded Ely has long been drained and converted into fruitful soil, forming the immense flat amidst which rises in stately and majestic fashion the noble cathedral of Ely.
Yet the sea is not altogether the loser in the battle with man along this coast. Much land has been won from it, much land has been lost to it, and is being lost to this day. ”

“ Washington, D. C. The west coast of Ellesmere Land, which is to be the object of your expedition, is, in my opinion, the one field of exploration in all the Arctic that promises the largest results with the least amount of labor and danger. With a good boat and provisions for the party at the entrance of Jones Sound, four or six active young men should be able, with ordinary caution, to trace at least 300 miles of that unknown coast, in perfect safety, during a single summer. ”

“ There is one little corner of England; here is another.
The Isle of Ely lying on the fens is like a starfish lying on a flat shore at low tide. Southward, westward, and northward from the head or centre of the clump (which is where the Cathedral stands) it throws out arms every way, and these arms have each short tentacles of their own. In between the spurs runs the even fen like a calm sea, and on the crest of the spurs, radiating also from Ely, run the roads. Long ago there was but one road of these that linked up the Isle with the rest of England. ”

“ If you were to search the whole of Australia you could not find a more beautiful place than “Hawthorne,” the residence of little Elsie Barton Elsie’s father was a merchant with plenty of money. He therefore erected a large house, a little way in the country, away from the dust and noise of the city. The building stood on a lofty hill, surrounded by trees and a lovely garden, with a broad river flowing down below among crags and thick foliage, and where the water seemed like a great mirror fixed in an emerald frame. ”

“ Bessels from the Smith-Sound natives, and from information and drawings I received last summer during my stay on Davis Strait from natives who had crossed Lancaster and Jones Sound, and lived on Ellesmere Land, it is possible to learn something more about this long and unexplored coast. ”

“ In the former account of the English Colony of New South Wales, which was brought up to the 29th September, 1796, it will be seen, that on that day His Majesty's ship the Reliance and the Britannia hired transport, sailed, with the Francis colonial schooner, for Norfolk island; whence, being there joined by the Supply, the Reliance was to sail to the Cape of Good Hope, to return with cattle for the colony, and the Britannia was to proceed to England. ”

“ Colonies seem peculiar instruments for discovering and trying man's heart and fibre. The survival of the fittest is here an axiom, whose truth is ever tested and confirmed. Pluck, heart, courage—summed up in the narrow word "fortitude" are virtues which Western Australia has ably put to the test. We have had many dauntless adventurers since the first days of Anstey, and each one's history constitutes a narrative at once teeming with romance and shimmering in the gilded edges of success. ”

“ Another feature of New Zealand rural life which struck me was the frequency of villages—the nearness of neighbours—in a word, settlement in communities, as contrasted with the isolated, detached way in which habitations are found set down at wide, weary intervals, in most of the country districts of New South Wales. Indeed, village life, such as we know it in the old country, or as it is found in many parts of New Zealand, is scarcely known in our older colony. ”

“ Wilson writes:—"So much has been said of the scenery in New South Wales resembling noble English domains, that the comparison is rather trite. Imagine a rich valley of considerable width, extending east and west as far as the eye can survey, bounded on the south and north by a succession of undulating and moderately elevated hills, thinly but sufficiently ornamented with trees of gigantic form, and you may have some conception of the beauty of the spot." ”

“ South Australia is a misnomer; the parent colony is in the southern part of the continent, but its jurisdiction extends from ocean to ocean to the northern shore, and includes the so-called Northern Territory, or Alexandra Land, which will one day, no doubt, form an independent government. To the eastward of the Northern Territory and South Australia is Queensland, and south of Queensland and eastward of South Australia is the parent colony of New South Wales. Then comes the colony of Victoria, south of New South Wales ”

“ Another island in the harbor is called Ellis Island, where most of the emigrants who have left their homes in other countries, land when they reach the United States. Irish and Poles, Italians and Russians, men with children clinging to their sides, and women with arms clasped around tiny babies, all dressed in the fashion of their old homes, step from the big ships and take their first breath of the free air of America almost under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. ”

“ In order to explain what my object was, and what my plan of procedure was to be, it will be necessary to give a short sketch of the history of exploration and advance of settlement in Western Australia. The Colony, occupying one third of the continent, has an extreme length of 1,500 miles and a breadth of one thousand miles. The length of coast-line exceeds three thousand miles. A most noticeable feature of the coast-line on the South is the entire absence of rivers — for nearly seven hundred miles no rivers or even watercourses are met with. ”

“ That we had not a thorough knowledge of the coast from Van Dieman's Land as far as Botany Bay, though to be regretted, was not to be wondered at. As a survey of the coast cannot very conveniently be made by any of the ships belonging to the settlement, it must be the business of government to provide proper vessels and persons for this service; and it is to be hoped that we shall not be much longer without a knowledge of the various ports, harbours, and rivers, and of the soil and productions of the country to the southward of the principal settlement. ”

“ Ellermore lay in the heart of a beautiful district full of mountains and lochs, within the Highland line, and just on the verge of some of the wildest mountain scenery in Scotland. It was situated in the midst of an amphitheatre of hills, not of any very exalted height, but of the most picturesque form, with peaks and couloirs like an Alpine range in little, all glowing with the purple blaze of the heather, with gleams upon them that looked like snow, but were in reality water, white threads of mountain torrents. ”

“ Nelson.—The emigration spirit was at this time strong in England; for it was in the year 1840 to 1841 that free settlers chiefly colonised both Victoria and South Australia. New Zealand was as much a favourite as any, and when the New Zealand Company proposed in 1841 to form a new colony somewhere in that country to be called Nelson, nearly 100,000 acres were sold at thirty shillings an acre to men who did not know even in which island of New Zealand the land was to be situated. ”

“ From what has been said of the province of South Australia, and setting its mines entirely out of the question, the description that has been given of its pastoral and agricultural capabilities, of its climate, and of the prospects of success which present themselves to the intending emigrant, it will naturally be inferred that the impression I have intended to convey is, that, as a colony, it is most peculiarly adapted for a British population, whether rural or other. ”

“ My husband has, however, been fortunate enough to meet most of the politicians and leading public men, for at Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane the Parliaments have been in session, and this, after all, is the main object of our visit to the colonies. I have before given our reasons for not attempting to visit South Australia; and the Crown Colony of Western Australia, with its capital of Perth and still barren settlements, one would hardly go to except under compulsion. The few emigrants who arrive there rarely remain, and 25,000 numbers the entire population of Western Australia. ”

“ It now remains for the reader to be made acquainted with the natural features, civil divisions, and present state of the British Australian colonies,—especially of the oldest and most important of them, called New South Wales. Were we not already informed of the sad reality of things, we might be tempted to indulge in the daydreams of an explorer, and to join in the bright and hopeful visions of a most pleasing writer, respecting the blessings to arise out of a change of any district from wild bush to civilized colony. ”

“ Ely is in the province of the East Angles, a country of about six hundred families, in the nature of an island, enclosed, as has been said, either with marshes or waters, and therefore it has its name from the great plenty of eels taken in those marches; there the aforesaid servant of Christ desired to have a monastery, because, as we have before observed, she was descended from that same province of the East Angles. ”

“ The town of Ely was roomy, but it was crowded; vast were the monastery, and hospitium, and dependencies, but they were crowded also: and far and near, on the dry hillocks, and in the green plains fenced from the waters, were seen huts and rude tents, and the blue smoke of many fires rising above the grey willows and alders. ”

“ I have been much struck in South Wales, on a market day, when observing the people, to see how like they were in build, and colour, and manner, and features to those one might encounter at a fair in Tavistock, Launceston, or Bodmin.
I positively must again quote Mr. Havelock Ellis on the Cornish woman, partly because his description is so charmingly put, but also because it is so incontestably true.
"The special characters of the race are often vividly shown in its women. I am not aware that they have ever played a large part in the world, whether in life or art. ”

“ Many, after being charmed with the exquisitely picturesque appearance of Port Jackson and Sydney, on a very cursory inspection of the surrounding country, come to the conclusion that the whole province of New South Wales is a barren desert only fit for feeding sheep a conclusion which is not more correct than to judge of the agricultural capabilities of England by Dartmoor, or of France by the "Landes." ”

“ New Zealand is so bountifully endowed with that merciful gift of heaven—water—that she has an undeniable superiority over us in this drought-infested colony of New South Wales; but this is only another argument to strengthen my contention that we do not utilize our gifts to the full as we might. ”

“ The most valuable tracts of land are in the interior, to the east of the Darling Range of mountains; and similar tracts approach to within twenty-five miles of the coast, in the south-east parts of the colony, between Cape Leeuwin and King George’s Sound. The best land of these tracts is not confined to the vicinity of lakes, rivers, or hills, as is mostly the case on the west side of the mountains, where the principal body of the settlers are at present located. ”

“ Although Van Diemen's land seems to possess few or none of those vast depths of soil with which the happiest spots of New South Wales are blessed; yet it seldom sickens the heart of its traveller with those extensive tracts which at once disarm industry, and leave the warmest imagination without one beguiling project. ”