Narrative of the surveying voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle, Vol. 3 [of 3] · Charles Darwin
AUSTRALIA.
JANUARY 12TH, 1836.--Early in the morning, a light air carried us towards the entrance of Port Jackson. Instead of beholding a verdant country scattered over with fine houses: a straight line of yellowish cliff brought to our minds the coast of Patagonia. A solitary lighthouse, built of white stone, alone told us we were near a great and populous city. Having entered the harbour, it appeared fine and spacious; but the level country, showing on the cliff-formed shores bare and horizontal strata of sandstone, was covered by woods of thin scrubby trees, that bespoke useless sterility. Proceeding further inland, the country improved; beautiful villas and nice cottages were here and there scattered along the beach. In the distance stone houses, two and three stories high, and windmills, standing on the edge of a bank, pointed out to us the neighbourhood of the capital of Australia.
At last we anchored within Sydney Cove. We found the little basin occupied by many large ships, and surrounded by warehouses. In the evening I walked through the town, and returned full of admiration at the whole scene. It is a most magnificent testimony to the power of the British nation. Here, in a less promising country, scores of years have effected many times more, than the same number of centuries have done in South America. My first feeling was to congratulate myself that I was born an Englishman. Upon seeing more of the town afterwards, perhaps my admiration fell a little; but yet it is a fine town; the streets are regular, broad, clean, and kept in excellent order; the houses are of a good size, and the shops well furnished. It may be faithfully compared to the large suburbs, which stretch out from London and a few other great towns in England: but not even near London or Birmingham is there an appearance of such rapid growth. The number of large houses just finished and others building was truly surprising; nevertheless, every one complained of the high rents and difficulty in procuring a house. In the streets, gigs, phaetons, and carriages with livery servants, were driving about; and of the latter, many were extremely well equipped. Coming from South America, where in the towns every man of property is known, no one thing surprised me more than not being able to ascertain readily to whom this or that carriage belonged.
Many of the older residents say, that formerly they knew every face in the colony, but now that in a morning’s ride it is a chance if they know one. Sydney has a population of twenty-three thousand, and is rapidly increasing: it must contain much wealth. It appears that a man of business can hardly fail to make a large fortune. I saw on all sides fine houses,--one built from the profits of steam-vessels,--another from building, and so on. An auctioneer, who was a convict, it is said, intends to return home, and will take with him 100,000 pounds. Another has an income so large that scarcely any body ventures to guess at it--the least sum assigned being fifteen thousand a year. But the two crowning facts are,--first, that the public revenue has increased 60,000_l._ during this last year; and secondly, that less than an acre of land within the town of Sydney sold for 8000_l._ sterling.
I hired a man and two horses to take me to Bathurst; a village about one hundred and twenty miles in the interior, and the centre of a great pastoral district. By this means I hoped to get a general idea of the appearance of the country. On the morning of the 16th (January) I set out on my excursion. The first stage took us to Paramatta, a small country-town, the second to Sydney in importance. The roads were excellent, and made upon the MacAdam principle: whinstone having been brought for the purpose from the distance of several miles. The road appeared much frequented by all sorts of carriages; and I met two stage-coaches. In all these respects there was a close resemblance to England; perhaps the number of alehouses was here in excess. The iron gangs, or parties of convicts, who have here committed some trifling offence, appeared the least like England; they were working in chains, under the charge of sentries with loaded arms. The power, which the government possesses, by means of forced labour, of at once opening good roads throughout the country, has been, I believe, one main cause of the early prosperity of this colony. I slept at night at a very comfortable inn at Emu ferry, thirty-five miles from Sydney, and near the ascent of the Blue Mountains. This line of road is the most frequented, and has been longest inhabited of any in the colony. The whole land is enclosed with high railings, for the farmers have not succeeded in rearing hedges. There are many substantial houses and good cottages scattered about; but although considerable pieces of land are under cultivation, the greater part yet remains as when first discovered. Making allowances for the cleared parts, the country here resembled all that I saw during the ten succeeding days.
The extreme uniformity of the vegetation is the most remarkable feature in the landscape of the greater part of New South Wales. Every where we have an open woodland; the ground being partially covered with a very thin pasture. The trees nearly all belong to one family; and mostly have the surface of their leaves placed in a vertical, instead of as in Europe, a nearly horizontal position: the foliage is scanty, and of a peculiar, pale green tint, without any gloss. Hence the woods appear light and shadowless: this, although a loss of comfort to the traveller under the scorching rays of summer, is of importance to the farmer, as it allows grass to grow where it otherwise could not. The leaves are not shed periodically: this character appears common to the entire southern hemisphere, namely, South America, Australia, and the Cape of Good Hope. The inhabitants of this hemisphere and of the intertropical regions, thus lose perhaps one of the most glorious, though to our eyes common, spectacles in the world,--the first bursting into full foliage of the leafless tree. They may, however, say that we pay dearly for our spectacle, by having the land covered with mere naked skeletons for so many months. This is too true; but our senses thus acquire a keen relish for the exquisite green of the spring, which the eyes of those living within the tropics, sated during the long year with the gorgeous productions of those glowing climates, can never experience. The greater number of the trees, with the exception of some of the blue gums, do not attain a large size; but they grow tall and tolerably straight, and stand well apart. The bark of some falls annually, or hangs dead in long shreds, which swing about with the wind; and hence the woods appear desolate and untidy. Nowhere is there an appearance of verdure, but rather that of arid sterility. I cannot imagine a more complete contrast in every respect than between the forests of Valdivia, or Chiloe, and the woods of Australia.
Although this colony flourishes so remarkably, the appearance of infertility is to a certain degree real. The soil without doubt is good, but there is so great a deficiency both of rain and running water, that it cannot produce much. The agricultural crops, and often those in gardens, are estimated to fail once in three years; and this has even happened on successive years. Hence the colony cannot supply itself with the bread and vegetables, which its inhabitants consume. It is essentially pastoral, and chiefly so for sheep, and not the larger quadrupeds. The alluvial land near Emu ferry was some of the best cultivated which I saw; and certainly the scenery on the banks of the Nepean, bounded to the west by the Blue Mountains, was pleasing even to the eye of a person thinking of England.
At sunset, a party of a score of the black aborigines passed by, each carrying, in their accustomed manner, a bundle of spears and other weapons. By giving a leading young man a shilling, they were easily detained, and threw their spears for my amusement. They were all partly clothed, and several could speak a little English; their countenances were good-humoured and pleasant; and they appeared far from being such utterly degraded beings as they are usually represented. In their own arts they are admirable: a cap being fixed at thirty yards distance, they transfixed it with a spear, delivered by the throwing-stick, with the rapidity of an arrow from the bow of a practised archer. In tracking animals or men they show most wonderful sagacity; and I heard of several of their remarks which manifested considerable acuteness. They will not, however, cultivate the ground, or build houses and remain stationary, or even take the trouble of tending a flock of sheep when given to them. On the whole they appear to me to stand some few degrees higher in the scale of civilization than the Fuegians. It is very curious thus to see in the midst of a civilized people, a set of harmless savages wandering about without knowing where they shall sleep at night, and gaining their livelihood by hunting in the woods. As the white man has travelled onwards, he has spread over the country belonging to several tribes. These, although thus enclosed by one common people, keep up their ancient distinctions, and sometimes go to war with each other, in an engagement which took place lately, the two parties most singularly chose the centre of the village of Bathurst, for the field of battle. This was of service to the defeated side, for the runaway warriors took refuge in the barracks.
The number of aborigines is rapidly decreasing. In my whole ride, with the exception of some boys brought up in the houses, I saw only one other party; these were rather more numerous than the first, and not so well clothed. This decrease, no doubt, must be partly owing to the introduction of spirits, to European diseases (even the milder ones of which, as the measles,[1] prove very destructive), and to the gradual extinction of the wild animals. It is said that numbers of their children invariably perish in very early infancy from the effects of their wandering life. As the difficulty of procuring food increases, so must their wandering habits; and hence the population, without any apparent deaths from famine, is repressed in a manner extremely sudden compared to what happens in civilized countries, where the father may add to his labour, without destroying his offspring.
Besides these several evident causes of destruction, there appears to be some more mysterious agency generally at work. Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. We may look to the wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia, and we shall find the same result. Nor is it the white man alone, that thus acts the destroyer; the Polynesian of Malay extraction has in parts of the East Indian archipelago, thus driven before him the dark-coloured native. The varieties of man seem to act on each other; in the same way as different species of animals--the stronger always extirpating the weaker. It was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic natives saying, they knew the land was doomed to pass from their children. Every one has heard of the inexplicable reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook’s voyages: although in that case we might have expected it would have been otherwise; for infanticide, which formerly prevailed to so extraordinary a degree, has ceased, and the murderous wars have become less frequent.
The Rev. J. Williams, in his interesting work,[2] says, that the first intercourse between natives and Europeans, “is invariably attended with the introduction of fever, dysentery, or some other disease, which carries off numbers of the people.” Again he affirms, “It is certainly a fact, which cannot be controverted, that most of the diseases which have raged in the islands during my residence there, have been introduced by ships;[3] and what renders this fact remarkable is, that there might be no appearance of disease among the crew of the ship, which conveyed this destructive importation.” This statement is not quite so extraordinary as it at first appears; for several cases are on record of the most malignant fevers having broken out, although the parties themselves, who were the cause, were not affected. In the early part of the reign of George III., a prisoner who had been confined in a dungeon, was taken in a coach with four constables before a magistrate; and, although the man himself was not ill, the four constables died from a short putrid fever; but the contagion extended to no others. From these facts it would almost appear as if, the effluvium of one set of men shut up for some time together, was poisonous when inhaled by others (and perhaps more so, if the men be of different races). Mysterious as this circumstance appears to be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one’s fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction has commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality, that the mere puncture from an instrument used in its dissection should prove fatal.
JANUARY 17TH.--Early in the morning we passed the Nepean in a ferry-boat. The river, although at this spot both broad and deep, had a very small body of running water. Having crossed a low piece of land on the opposite side, we reached the slope of the Blue Mountains. The ascent is not steep, the road having been cut with much care on the side of a sandstone cliff. At no great elevation an almost level plain extends, which, rising imperceptibly to the westward, at last attains a height of more than three thousand feet. From so grand a title as Blue Mountains, and from their absolute altitude, I expected to have seen a bold chain of mountains crossing the country; but instead of this, a sloping plain presents merely an inconsiderable front to the low land of the coast. From this first slope, the view of the extensive woodland to the eastward, was striking, and the surrounding trees grew bold and lofty. But when once on the sandstone platform, the scenery becomes exceedingly monotonous; each side of the road is bordered by scrubby trees of the never-failing Eucalyptus family; and with the exception of two or three small inns, there are no houses, or cultivated land: the road, moreover, is solitary; the most frequent object being a bullock-waggon, piled up with bales of wool.
In the middle of the day we baited our horses at a little inn, called the Weatherboard. The country here is elevated 2800 feet above the sea. About a mile and a half from this place, there is a view exceedingly well worth visiting. By following down a little valley and its tiny rill of water, an immense gulf is unexpectedly seen through the trees which border the pathway, at the depth of perhaps 1500 feet. Walking on a few yards one stands on the brink of a vast precipice, and below is the grand bay or gulf (for I know not what other name to give it), thickly covered with forest. The point of view is situated as if at the head of a bay, the line of cliff diverging on each side, and showing headland behind headland, as on a bold sea-coast. These cliffs are composed of horizontal strata of whitish sandstone; and so absolutely vertical are they, that in many places, a person standing on the edge, and throwing down a stone, can see it strike the trees in the abyss below. So unbroken is the line, that it is said, in order to reach the foot of the waterfall, formed by this little stream, it is necessary to go a distance of sixteen miles round. About five miles distant in front, another line of cliff extends, which thus appears completely to encircle the valley; and hence the name of bay is justified, as applied to this grand amphitheatrical depression. If we imagine a winding harbour, with its deep water surrounded by bold cliff-like shores, laid dry, and a forest sprung up on its sandy bottom, we should then have the appearance and structure here exhibited. This kind of view was to me quite novel, and extremely magnificent.
In the evening, we reached the Blackheath. The sandstone plateau has here attained the elevation of 3400 feet; and is covered, as before, with the same kind of scrubby wood. From the road there were occasional glimpses into a profound valley, of the same character as the one described; but from the steepness and depth of its sides, the bottom was scarcely ever to be seen. The Blackheath is a very comfortable inn, kept by an old soldier; and it reminded me of the small inns in North Wales. I was surprised to find that here, at the distance of more than seventy miles from Sydney, fifteen beds could be made up for travellers. JANUARY 18TH.--Very early in the morning, I walked about three miles to see Govett’s Leap: a view of a similar but even perhaps more stupendous character than that near the Weatherboard. So early in the day the gulf was filled with a thin blue haze, which, although destroying the general effect, added to the apparent depth at which the forest was stretched below the country on which we were standing. Soon after leaving the Blackheath, we descended from the sandstone platform by the pass of Mount Victoria. To effect this pass, an enormous quantity of stone has been cut through; the design, and its manner of execution, would have been worthy of any line of road in England,--even that of Holyhead. We now entered upon a country less elevated by nearly a thousand feet, and consisting of granite. With the change of rock, the vegetation improved; the trees were both finer, and stood further apart; and the pasture between them was a little greener, and more plentiful.
At Hassan’s Walls, I left the high road, and made a short detour to a farm called Walerawang; to the superintendent of which, I had a letter of introduction from the owner in Sydney. Mr. Browne had the kindness to ask me to stay the ensuing day, which I had much pleasure in doing. This place offers an example of one of the large farming, or rather sheep-grazing, establishments of the colony. Cattle and horses are, however, in this case, rather more numerous than usual, owing to some of the valleys being swampy, and producing a coarser pasture. The sheep were 15,000 in number, of which the greater part were feeding under the care of different shepherds, on unoccupied ground, at the distance of more than a hundred miles, and beyond the limits of the colony. Mr. Browne had just finished, this day, the last of the shearing of seven thousand sheep; the rest being sheared in another place. I believe the profit of the average produce of wool from 15,000 sheep, would be more than 5000_l._ sterling. Two or three flat pieces of ground near the house were cleared and cultivated with corn, which the harvest men were now reaping: but no more wheat is sown than sufficient for the annual support of the labourers employed on the establishment. The usual number of assigned convict servants here is about forty, but at the present time there were rather more. Although the farm was well stocked with every requisite, there was an apparent absence of comfort; and not even a single woman resided here. The sunset of a fine day will generally cast an air of happy contentment on any scene; but here, at this retired farm-house, the brightest tints on the surrounding woods could not make me forget that forty hardened, profligate men, were ceasing from their daily labours, like the slaves from Africa, yet without their just claim for compassion.
Early on the next morning, Mr. Archer, the joint superintendent, had the kindness to take me out Kangaroo-hunting. We continued riding the greater part of the day, but had very bad sport, not seeing a kangaroo, or even a wild dog. The greyhounds pursued a kangaroo rat into a hollow tree, out of which we dragged it: it is an animal as big as a rabbit, but with the figure of a kangaroo. A few years since, this country abounded with wild animals; but now the emu is banished to a long distance, and the kangaroo is become scarce; to both, the English greyhound is utterly destructive. It may be long before these animals are altogether exterminated, but their doom is fixed. The natives are always anxious to borrow the dogs from the farm-houses: the use of them, the offal when an animal is killed, and milk from the cows, are the peace-offerings of the settlers, who push further and further towards the interior. The thoughtless aboriginal, blinded by these trifling advantages, is delighted at the approach of the white man, who seems predestined to inherit the country of his children.
Although having bad sport, we enjoyed a pleasant ride. The woodland is generally so open that a person on horseback can gallop through it. It is traversed by a few flat-bottomed valleys, which are green and free from trees: in such spots the scenery was like that of a park, and pretty. In the whole country I scarcely saw a place without the marks of fire; whether these had been more or less recent--whether the stumps were more or less black, was the greatest change which varied the uniformity, so wearisome to the traveller’s eye. In these woods there are not many birds; I saw, however, some large flocks of the white cockatoo feeding in a corn-field, and a few most beautiful parrots; crows like our jackdaws were not uncommon, and another bird something like the magpie. The English have not been very particular in giving names to the productions of Australia; trees of one genus (Casuarina) are called oaks for no one reason that I can discover, without it is that there is no one point of resemblance. Some quadrupeds are called tigers and hyenas, simply because they are carnivorous, and so on in many other cases. In the dusk of the evening I took a stroll along a chain of ponds, which in this dry country represented the course of a river, and had the good fortune to see several of the famous Platypus, or _Ornithorhyncus paradoxus_. They were diving and playing about the surface of the water, but showed so little of their bodies that they might easily have been mistaken for water-rats. Mr. Browne shot one: certainly it is a most extraordinary animal; the stuffed specimens do not at all give a good idea of the recent appearance of its head and beak; the latter becoming hard and contracted.
A little time before this I had been lying on a sunny bank, and was reflecting on the strange character of the animals of this country as compared with the rest of the world. An unbeliever in every thing beyond his own reason might exclaim, “Two distinct Creators must have been at work; their object, however, has been the same, and certainly the end in each case is complete.” While thus thinking, I observed the hollow conical pitfall of the lion-ant: first a fly fell down the treacherous slope and immediately disappeared; then came a large but unwary ant; its struggles to escape being very violent, those curious little jets of sand, described by Kirby[4] as being flirted by the insects tail, were promptly directed against the expected victim. But the ant enjoyed a better fate than the fly, and escaped the fatal jaws which lay concealed at the base of the conical hollow. There can be no doubt but that this predacious larva belongs to the same genus with the European kind, though to a different species. Now what would the sceptic say to this? Would any two workmen ever have hit upon so beautiful, so simple, and yet so artificial a contrivance? It cannot be thought so: one Hand has surely worked throughout the universe.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.