Tasmania

“ Notwithstanding that Tasmania is noted for the salubrity of its climate, and the magnificence of its scenery from one end of the island to the other, still there are localities which may claim the preference, perhaps, in the eyes of the visitor who is in search of health and the picturesque. There is no part of the beautiful island that offers the same attractions as the North East Coast in the neighborhood of George’s Bay, for here there is a combination of majestic grandeur with Arcadian beauty. ”

“ The dead past has buried its dead; the island is now purified; as in the parent colony, free immigration has gradually extinguished the evils and almost the remembrance of the convict days, and a new Tasmania has arisen on the ruins of the old penal Van Diemen's Land. As the island has one of the finest climates in the world, it is a favourite resort for excursionists during the summer season. ”

“ Domestic servants are in demand and their wages are fair.
The Australians of the mainland seem to consider the people of Tasmania as slow as the New Yorkers do the Philadelphians. They have a saying: “Don’t send a live man to Tasmania; send flowers.” I have heard it said that the island used to be peopled by women, children, and graybeards; for as soon as the boys reached man’s estate they crossed Bass Strait to Victoria or New South Wales. This, however, is no longer true; Tasmania is waking up, and its people think it has a big future as a manufacturing centre for all Australia. ”

“ On account of its beautiful mountain scenery, Tasmania is called the Switzerland of Australia. Deep winding valleys, clothed with groves of ferns, give added charm to its scenery. In recent years it has become a famous summer resort for Australians, many of whom pass a portion of the hot season in its wonderful forest solitudes and secluded fern-tree vales.
No attempt to colonize Tasmania was made until 1803. In that year four hundred convicts were brought there and the vessel containing the prisoners sailed up Derwent River and landed them where the city of Hobart now stands. ”

“ There is room for a very great further development of the resources of Tasmania; but the colony is now on the right track, and her future is certain to be prosperous.
The Tasmanian natives were of a different type from those of Australia, having more of the negro in them. They were even ruder and less advanced in their habits, although not without qualities of simplicity and good-humour that were attractive. When white men first landed in their island there were about 7,000 of them roving through the forest and living upon opossums. ”

“ We have left Australia proper far behind us, but the Bass Strait which separates that land from Tasmania is evidently of modern formation. The similarity of the vegetation, minerals, animal, and vegetable life of the two countries shows that this island must, at some time in the long-past ages, have been connected with the mainland. And yet the aborigines of Tasmania were a race quite distinct from those of Australia, so different, indeed, as only to resemble them in color. They were a well-formed, athletic people, with brilliant eyes, curly hair, flat noses, and elaborately tattooed bodies. ”

“ Yet, out of sixteen and a half million acres which Tasmania contains, only three and a half are alienated, and on this small portion, including the towns, the population is less than one person for thirty-five acres!
Can any country be more perfectly delightful? Once mounted (and, rich or poor, there are few who cannot possess or borrow a horse of some sort in Tasmania) one is free with a freedom known only in dreams to dwellers in the old country of hedges and Enclosure Acts, where to quit the dreary flinty roads is to trespass and to break the law. ”

“ And since that time Tasmania has settled down to the production of potatoes, contentment, and jam. The guide-books call the island the Sanatorium of the South. That, of course, is the alliterative sort of thing guide-books usually give way to; but Tasmania really has a most delightful climate, which Sir Edward Braddon very justly describes, after dinner, as balmy, and which is as much its characteristic boast as is his Harbour to the Sydney man. The island is about twelve hours by steamer from Victoria: and for many years it has been known to jaded Melbourne folk as a holiday resort ”

“ The charming cloud-effects which hang over and about the lofty hills which environ the capital of Tasmania, recall vividly those of the Lake of Geneva, near Chillon, while the Derwent itself, reflecting the hills upon its blue and placid surface, forms another pleasing resemblance to Lake Leman. In ascending Mount Wellington, the lion of Tasmanian scenery, when we find ourselves at an elevation of about two thousand feet, it is discovered that we have reached the Old World ocean-floor. ”

“ Passing between Tasmania (formerly Van Diemen's Land) and neighboring islands--islands whence the poor exiled Tasmanian savages used to gaze at their lost homeland and cry; and die of broken hearts. How glad I am that all these native races are dead and gone, or nearly so. The work was mercifully swift and horrible in some portions of Australia. As far as Tasmania is concerned, the extermination was complete: not a native is left. It was a strife of years, and decades of years. The Whites and the Blacks hunted each other, ambushed each other, butchered each other. ”

“ Tasmania, reached the south coast of that island, and landed there on 10 March, 1773, finding the soil very rich and the country well clothed with woods, and plenty of water falling from the rocks in brilliant cascades 200 or 300 feet perpendicularly into the sea. They were the second white men to land in Tasmania. The Adventure anchored for five days in the bay since called after her. The trees of the forest they found mostly burnt or scorched near the ground, owing to the natives setting fire to the underwood, so as to make passage easy through the forest. ”

“ The main axis of the Great Cordillera—so termed originally by Sir Roderick Murchison—bordering the eastern coast-line of Australia, may be traced across Bass Strait in the chain of islands forming the Furneaux and Kent group, which almost continually link Tasmania with Wilson's Promontory, the nearest and most southerly part of the Australian mainland. Tasmania is wholly occupied by the ramifications of this chain, and in itself may be said to embrace one and all of its characteristic features. ”

“ You see, Tasmanian women have many points of difference compared to those in the other colonies. Tasmania is only a small island and the inhabitants, especially in the South, do not trouble themselves much about business or anything that conduces to worry. They pass their days in happy serenity so long as they have enough to live upon. Being a very healthy country, the birth-rate is enormous, considering the population. ”

“ Yet there was no part of Australia as to which the French could have made out stronger claims on moral grounds; for though the voyage of the first French navigator who landed in Tasmania was one hundred and thirty years later than Abel Tasman's discovery, still it was a solid fact that both Marion-Dufresne and Dentrecasteaux had contributed more than any other Europeans had done to a knowledge of what Tasmania was, until Flinders and Bass in their dancing little 25 ton sloop put an end to mystery and misconception, and placed the charming island fairly for what it was on the map of the world. ”

“ His lady friends tremble for the Australian bachelor who spends a leisure month across the straits. And then there are many territorial families in Victoria and New South Wales whose sires emigrated from Tasmania in the early days of colonisation. It is not surprising therefore that there is a strong attachment between the rich sons and the poorer motherland which it will take much to sever.
Bass Straits separate Tasmania from Australia, but the journey is easily made in large well-equipped steamers which leave Melbourne regularly, and which speedily reach the smooth water of the Tamar. ”

“ The ladies of the colony protected and advanced them; and some, whose want drove them from their native country, remember the day with gratitude when they first pressed the soil of Tasmania. 1,280 females were brought to the colony in three years, ending 1835; and rather more to New South Wales.
The emigrant rarely appears to advantage: the occupation of a new sphere, in which his position is uncertain, renders his manners awkward, and his expectations ridiculous. The disorderly conduct of many made their presence a burden, and their civil condition no great advantage to their masters. ”

“ Moreover Tasmania is held in affectionate regard by thousands of Australians whose birthplace she is. Her material prosperity is not so great as that of her neighbours, and consequently her youth are lured to the mainland, where they usually establish themselves successfully, and where they also acquire such substance as enables them at frequent intervals to revisit the old land. So great is the migration of the young men that it would have fared ill with the damsels of the isle but for a compensatory influence. ”

“ However, there were private settlers in Tasmania who would have carried out the undertaking with much more energy. For in Tasmania the sheep had been multiplying at a great rate, while the amount of clear and grassy land in that island was very limited. One of the residents in Tasmania, named John Batman, who has been already mentioned, conceived the idea of forming an association among the Tasmanian sheep-owners, for the purpose of crossing Bass Strait and occupying with their flocks the splendid grassy lands which explorers had seen there. ”

“ Yet while the Tasmanians are so distinctly separated in physique and customs from the Australians, the fauna and flora of Tasmania and Australia prove that at one time the two formed one continent, and it would take an enormous time for the formation of Bass Strait. How did the Tasmanians with their Papuan affinities get so far south on a continent inhabited by a race so differing from Papuans? ”

“ No one ignorant of the western country of Tasmania can form a correct idea of the travelling difficulties. While I was resident in Hobart Town, the Governor, Sir John Franklin, and his lady, undertook the western journey to Macquarie Harbour, and suffered terribly. ”

“ Tasmania is about half the size of England, but its population is only 120,000. There are only two towns of any size [Pg 62] —Hobart in the south and Launceston in the north. A great deal of the interior is marshy, and there are lakes of some considerable size, which in the winter are sometimes frozen. The north-west coast is very barren and sparsely inhabited. The doctors and clergy in these parts have often long journeys to make through the bush. In climate, Tasmania is preferable to Australia. The temperature is much more equable, and therefore not so trying to weak constitutions. ”

“ Tasmania, a large, beautiful island to the southeast of Australia, when discovered by Van Dieman, was peopled with a magnificent race of savages, resembling somewhat the American Indian. Civilization, with its attendant advantages and evils, proved too much for the primitive child of the forest. The last Tasmanian, a woman, died in 1885, and the once splendid race is now extinct. ”

“ For many years the island was inhabited by greybeards and children; the young men and women of all classes, so soon as they bad reached manhood and womanhood, crossed Bass Strait, and entered upon the wider life and the more brilliant prospects which first Victoria, and subsequently New South Wales and Queensland, afforded them. It was not till the sixties that Tasmania embarked upon a new period of prosperity. ”

“ It is difficult to believe that the Tasmanians were scions of the continental tribes. Their physical character stands out prominently as an objection to the theory. If Tasmania was peopled from Australia, it was at a time when Australia supported a race that in feature, character, and language was Tasmanian; and we must, therefore, regard the race that now inhabits the continent as intrusive. ”

“ Australia and Tasmania possess many specimens of strange animal life; even in the latter, or Van Diemen's Land, are found several species which exist only on that small bit of the earth's surface. Tasmania, which is separated from the southern extremity of Australia by a strait about one hundred and forty miles in width, was first discovered in 1633, by Abel Tasman, a famous Dutch navigator, who supposed it to be a portion of Australia, then known as New Holland. ”

“ To Tasmania we will sail, we will sail, we will sail
And catch a kangaroo's big tail, his big tail, his big tail.
To Tasmania we will fly, we will fly, we will fly
And see the wheat which grows this high, grows this high, grows this high.
In Tasmania we have heard, we have heard, we have heard
Lives the funny penguin bird, penguin bird, penguin bird.
In Tasmania we will spy, we will spy, we will spy
An emu bird which cannot fly, cannot fly, cannot fly. ”

“ Necessarily, the human interest is the first interest in the log-book of any country. The annals of Tasmania, in whose shadow we were sailing, are lurid with that feature. Tasmania was a convict-dump, in old times; this has been indicated in the account of the Conciliator, where reference is made to vain attempts of desperate convicts to win to permanent freedom, after escaping from Macquarrie Harbor and the "Gates of Hell." In the early days Tasmania had a great population of convicts, of both sexes and all ages, and a bitter hard life they had. ”

“ Tasmania, and especially Hobart, has had a reputation for the beauty of the women; Anthony Trollope and other writers mention it. Many men from Melbourne have brought their wives from across the straits. I am bound to say that my own observation scarcely bore out this tradition, but one must be very insensible not to admire the fresh and clear complexions both of women and men; they have the same complexions as we see in England, than which there cannot be higher commendation. Although the total population of Tasmania is so small, the machinery of government is large. ”