Where golden fields of maize-crops, sunny flowers, And slopes of verdure on the lea, Glow 'neath the fair white walls and battled towers, Or Arno flashes through the pines, and gloom And shadowy dells and gorges flushed with bloom- And through the broken hills-the one ravine And shades, that bar the blooming vales and hills, Where midway basks a convent lone; Or happy flocks by silver chiming rills, Stray, grazing, one by one. Σ. SCRATCHINGS FROM AUSTRALIA. PRAY don't be alarmed, reader! I'm not going to give you a "Physical and Political Geography of the Continent of Australia, including all the latest discoveries," nor am I about to "investigate the causes of the scantiness of its rain-fall, and the distinguishing peculiarities of its flora and fauna," or anything of that sort: if it is upon such points as these that you seek for information, I must refer you, for the elementary parts, to some such amusing and instructive publications, as "Cornwall's Geography for Schools," which will present you with a series of statements, at once highly interesting and totally incorrect; while, for the more abstruse matter, you must be content to wait till my big book is published. No! I merely wish to have a little pleasant chit-chat about the antipodes,-just such as we might have, were we seated cosily round a sparkling fire, with the curtains drawn, the shutters closed, and the wind whistling and howling outside (how deliciously snug that sound does make one feel), while Bacchus, and, by far his better half, 'Bacca, conduce to our quiet contentment. "But," perchance you ask, "how can anything about Australia, interest us in England?" Ah, Reader! Possibly you, in common with too many Englishmen, consider that Australia is "one of the five quarters of the globe," situated somewhere near the South Pole,-a biggish sort of place, consisting chiefly of arid sandy desert, inhabited by white people who live in mud huts, are clad in skins, whose manners are unsoftened and who are permitted to be brutal by reason of their ignorance of the fine arts, and who go out potting natives before breakfast in order to acquire an appetite, and by black men, whose normal condition is a state of nudity, and who rejoice in a fiendish contrivance called a boomerang, and in grievous clubs, such as may be seen in the British Museum, wherewith it is their wont to belabour one another. Well, Australia is part of one of the five quarters of the globe, and is rather a biggish sort of place, seeing that it almost equals Europe in area; but know, oh! my friend, that the white inhabitants do, on Sundays, wear suits of black cloth, and tall hats; that silk dresses have been seen there; and that by the last mail, news was brought of a pair of lavender-coloured kid gloves having been imported: moreover, is it not written in the chronicles of the city of Adelaide, that H.M. Royal Mail was once delayed, in consequence of the government officer in charge of it requiring three and a-half hours to complete his toilet! Englishmen in general, seem to have most shadowy ideas respecting the geography of the Colonies. Upon informing my friend Smith, the other day, that I had but lately left Adelaide, he observed, "Ah! then, you probably are acquainted with my cousin Jones, who went either to Tasmania or to Van Diemen's Land; I forget which ;" and he presently stated, with evident pride, his acquaintance with the well-known fact, that Victoria was the capital of the province of Sydney. Australia is, without doubt, a remote and out of the way place, but, with respect to natural advantages, cannot be surpassed. Its immense resources in the shape of metals and arable and pasture land; its vast extent of new country; its peculiar qualifications for sheep and cattle farming; and the enterprising nature of its colonists, combine to render it a rich and profitable field for speculation. As a place of residence, its glorious climate gives it a superiority over any European country. Though the heat there is often intense (the thermometer having been known to indicate 125° in the shade, and thin-skinned individuals being occasionally forced to enter their houses from the back, owing to the sun having shone on the front-door handle), yet the atmosphere is so clear and dry, that the Australian summer is far more bearable than is that of England, while the delicious evenings more than compensate for any discomfort that may have been felt during the earlier part of the day. I know nothing more delightful than sitting out, as I have often done, till 2° or 3° A.M. within sound of a murmuring fountain, and fanned by the gentle sea-breeze, under a cloudless sky of the deepest blue, bespangled with stars more numerous and more brilliant than those of the Northern hemisphere, and lit by a moon, the brightness of whose rays, while it enables you to discern every blade on the ground beneath your feet, at the same time gives an indescribable softness VOL. V. E to the deeply-shadowed landscape, and seems to impart a holy peace and quiet to all around, and to forbid aught that might tend to disturb the profound slumber in which Nature is buried. True it is, that, during the summer months, hot winds scorch the face of the country, and turn the grass into hay (and grasshoppers) before it is a month old :-true it is that whirlwinds daily raise the dust into columns higher than the eye can reach; but the clearness and buoyancy of the air, which produce an indescribable sense of exhilaration; the delicious nights, and the grateful fruits which no milder sun could bring to perfection, far more than counter-balance the annoyances attendant upon the unusual heat. I once heard an intimate friend of mine, who had lived in the colonies for many years, describe England as "one huge stew-pan, where a cloudless sky is a comparatively rare phenomenon, and the atmosphere is semi-opaque; where the moon is upside down and of a bilious complexion; where the fruits are inferior and the trees diminutive; and where the grass and sky seem to have been washed out and hung on the Line to dry during their passage from South to North. As a contrast to this, imagine a country where quick motion will, on a hot day, produce sufficient evaporation to keep you moderately cool; where, in a flat neighbourhood, a view of from thirty to forty miles may always be obtained from a very slight elevation; where grapes to which the English bullets so mis-called, are as pumpkins to pine-apples, are brought to your door for one penny per pound, often in bunches of nine pounds weight, and the other fruits are similarly fine and plentiful; where there are no hedges to make the landscape resemble mosaic, or a Chinese puzzle ; where a perfect stranger may, except in the immediate neighbourhood of a town, walk, ride, or drive as far as he likes, without the danger of encountering a pitchfork wielded by an infuriated country-bumpkin; and where sunsets, such as have never been "read of in books, or dreamed of in dreams" are of frequent occurrence, where the molten sun may be partially seen through a bank of purple-black clouds, fringed with gold, and surrounded by floating rose-coloured masses, and succeeded by the brilliant beams of the Aurora Australis, shooting across the zenith in bands of brightest pink, alternating with the deep-blue sky between. Two terrible drawbacks, however, I must confess to: they are, flies, and poisonous insects and reptiles. When a small boy, it was always a source of awful reflection to me, where the flies went to after the plague of Egypt: when I reached Australia, the problem was at once solved, -they simply emigrated, possibly for the sake of their health. O happy reader, who peradventure, art in blissful ignorance on the subject of Australian flies, may you never experience the assiduous attention of a solitary musca, or fly from the untiring pertinacity of a band of these Southern Erinnyes! The musquitoes also make themselves very obnoxious to "new-chums," and the ants are so numerous that cupboards have to be "insulated" by placing their legs in tins of water, in order to preserve their contents from the visitations of Dr. Watts' favourite protéges. Centipedes and scorpions are exceedingly common; the former I have frequently seen ten inches in length. An eccentric and short-sighted individual once told me, that, on arriving in Adelaide (in the early days of the colony), he was kept in a state of constant perturbation by the dreadful accounts poured into his horror-bound ear, of the ubiquity of these uncomfortable creatures, insomuch that he could scarcely light his pipe without half expecting to see an evil beast crawl out of the tobacco: one morning he awoke (he was living in a tent on the sea-beach at the time), and the first sight that met his awe-stricken gaze, was a pair of fearful eyes, glaring fiendishly at him from the sand which formed the floor of his tent: he lay still for some time, fearing lest any motion might arouse the "thing's" displeasure, and incite it to attack him: at last, encouraged by the sleep-like stillness of the apparition, he seized a Wellington boot that was standing at his bedside,-with trembling hand and palpitating heart took aim,-flung,—and rushing to the spot-sorrowfully proceeded to pick up the remains of his shattered gold spectacles. Our snakes are simply a caution to themselves. All except two species destroy life by their bite, and of these two, one is a rare python, and the other highly poisonous. They attain a great size-I have seen one 6 ft. 2 in. longand in many of the comparatively unsettled districts, are as common as spiders in England. If a bushman of any experience encounters a snake, he immediately seizes the nearest stick, and gives chase, knowing well that unless he be between it and its hole, the reptile will certainly run away: when he comes up to it, he strikes it smartly on the back, breaking the spine, and thus destroying that power of coiling and re-straightening itself in which consists its chief means of attack: the snake may then be coolly poked, pushed, pulled, pummelled, and finally slain with impunity, so long as no point de resistance is given it above the fracture. The |