Chapter XIV (2)

Another cause, which added greatly to the increasing apprehension and aversion was the preaching of the communist doctrines in Paris, upon the first establishment of republican principles, and the support apparently given to these wild and spoliating principles by certain members of the Provisional Government itself. If there be any feeling more alive than any other in the breast of the French peasant, it is that attached to the acquirement and the possession of landed property in however humble a form, be it but a small field or a tiny vineyard. If he has any hope, any ambition, any sentiment, which he thinks worth living for, it is the extension, by any and every means, of his small domain. On the fact of this possession are concentrated all the mainspring motives and agencies of his whole existence--in this, his industry, his talent, his cunning, his thoughts, his affections, his very love for his children, to whom he hopes to transmit it. The great _mobile_ of the character of the French peasant is self-interest in this respect. The doctrines, then, which preached that the possession of all landed property by individuals is an infamous spoliation of the _res publica_, filled the country people in the provinces with the liveliest alarm, and contributed to establish a still greater hatred to a state of things that tended to produce results so fatally detrimental to all that they held dear. The Parisian, almost as blindly ignorant of the state of his own country--which, in his theory that Paris is all France, he looks upon with indifference, if not contempt--as he is proverbially utterly ignorant of every other country beyond the frontiers of France, even the most neighbouring--and, in fact, of every thing that touches upon geography or the state of nations, of which he has only the vaguest and most incorrect notions--thought that all his wild fraternity schemes, developed and accepted by those who possessed nothing, in the capital, would be received with enthusiasm also by the "miserable, oppressed, and tyrannised inhabitant of the fields and plains;"--such was the language used, and eagerly caught up. The Parisian soon found, by experience, that he had made a gross mistake. The emissaries sent down into the provinces by the professors and high-priests of communism, or by the ultra clubs, and supported, there is every reason to believe, by the members of the government before alluded to, met only with the most active repulsion. Their Utopian ideas of universal fraternity and spoliation of property were scorned, scouted, and opposed: themselves were hooted, pelted, almost lapidated as incendiary enemies of the peasant. "The innocent and humble inhabitant of the fields" was indignant, insulted, aggrieved, that he should be so contemptuously considered "miserable and oppressed:" he showed himself in the light of the landed proprietor, the most avariciously interested in the possession of property, and by no means the _naif_ individual the Parisian had been accustomed to believe him, according to his text-books of _vaudevilles_ and melodramas. The agents of communistic doctrines were forced to retreat in dudgeon, to declare the French peasant the most ignorant and pig-headed animal upon earth, still under the yoke of the tyrants, and _endoctriné_ by the aristocrats; and to avow that the departments were not ripe for the enlightenment of communism, perhaps even to denounce them as infamously reactionary. Certain it is that communistic doctrines found no enthusiastic disciples in the country; or, if the propagandism made any steps, it was after the fashion so characteristically depicted in a caricature published by the _Charivari_, in which a peasant appears before the mayor of his _commune_ to say, that, since a general _partage des biens_ is to take place, he puts down his name for the _château_, but makes a most wofully wry face upon hearing that his own field has been already divided among the paupers of the village. The propagation of communism, then, only excited fears instead of hopes, consternation instead of joy, and tended still more to indispose the country people, and excite their aversion and discontent towards a state of things likely to become so prejudicial to their interests: more than ever, they were disposed to revolt.

In this state was the feeling of the country at large when the general elections came on, accompanied by all the violence of party manœuvre to support the principles of ultra-republicanism, advocated by the unscrupulous minister of the nation; but all these efforts tended only to indispose it still more, and to call forth, in spite of the desperate opposition made, its sense in favour of respect of property, order, and moderatism of views in the republic, if republic there was to be. As is well known, an immense majority of those men of moderate principles, whom all the ill-judged and hateful efforts of the violent and reckless republicans at the head of affairs had so greatly contributed to form into a decided, self-conscious, and compact party of opponents, was returned to the Assembly. Most of the leading men of the liberal party under the former dynasty, who had stood forward as friends of progressive reform, but not as opponents to the constitutional monarchy principle, were likewise elected, with great majorities, by the suffrages of the people. The country declared its will to be against the views of the principal and stirring influence which emanated from the reckless man who governed the interior affairs of the country in the capital. But it did not forget, at the same time, and it still bears an inveterate grudge to the violent agents of that ultra-republicanism, chiefly concentrated in Paris, who had filled the country with disorder, tumult, terror, and, in some cases, bloodshed, by the atrocious and outrageous means it placed in the hands of a riotous mob to overawe them, and sway the direction of the elections, and by the base manœuvres employed to attain their ends. It does not forget the despotism of certain commissaries, who, after having their own lists of ultra-democratic candidates, whom they intended to force down the throats of the electors, printed, threatened the printer, who should dare to print any other, with their high displeasure, and caused them to shut up their press. It does not forget the seizure of those papers that proposed moderate candidates, with every attempt to strangle in practice that liberty of the press which was so clamorously claimed in theory. It does not forget the voters' lists torn from the hands of voters by a purposely excited mob. It does not forget the odious manœuvre by which agents were largely paid and sent about to cry "_Vive Henri V._" in the streets of towns, in order to induce the belief in a Bourbonist reactionary party, and thus rouse the passions and feelings of the flattered and declamation-intoxicated mob against the moderates, regardless of the consequences--of the animosity and the bloodshed. It does not forget the intimidation, the threat of fire and sword, the opposition by force to the voting of whole villages suspected of moderatism--the collision, the constraint, the conflict, the violence. It does not forget all this, nor also that it owes the outrage, the alarm, and the suffering, the ruin to peace and order, to commerce, to well-being, to fortune, to that central power which turned a legion of demons upon it, in the shape of revolutionary emissaries and agents. It forgets still less the scenes of Limoges, where a mob were turned loose into the polling-house to destroy the votes, drive out the national guards, disarm these defenders of order and right, and form a mob government, to rule and terrorise the town, while Master Commissary looked on, and told the people that it did well, and laughed in his sleeve. It forgets still less the fury of the disappointed upon the result of the elections, their incitements to insurrections, their preachings of armed resistance for the sake of annulling the elections, obtained, it must never be forgotten, by _universal suffrage_, in face of their culpable manœuvres: the emissaries again sent down from the clubs, and with an apparent connivance of certain ultra-members of the government, from the charge of which, now more than ever since the conspiracy of the 15th May, they will scarcely be able to acquit themselves: the efforts of these emissaries to make the easily excited and tumultuous lower classes take up arms, and the bloody conflicts in the streets of Rouen: the complicity of the very magistrates appointed by these members of the government--the terror and the bloodshed, and then the cry of the furious ultras that the people had been treacherously assassinated--the conspiracies and incendiary projects of the vanquished at Marseilles, the troubles of Lisle, of Amiens, of Lyons, of Aubusson, of Rhodez, of Toulouse, of Carcassonne--why swell the list of names?--of almost every town in France, all with the same intent of destroying those elections of representatives which the country had proclaimed in the sense of order and of moderatism. It forgets still less the dangers of that same 15th May, when the government was for a few hours overthrown, by the disorderly, the disappointed, the discontented, the violent ultra republicans, the conspirators of Paris,--when some of those, who had been formerly their rulers, were arrested as accomplices, and others still in power can scarcely yet again avoid the accusation and conviction of complicity.

All the other troubles of this distracted country, since the revolution of February, may be passed over--the ruin to commerce, the poverty, misery, and want, the military revolts excited by the same emissaries to cause divisions in the army, as likewise the unhappy troubles of Nismes, where the disturbances took a religions tendency--as a conflict of creeds between Roman Catholics and Protestants, rather than a political or even a social character,--although they still bore evidence of the disorder of the times and the disturbance of the country. The elections, then, contributed more powerfully than ever to the fermentation, the discontent, the mistrust, and the ill-will of the country.

In this state of France, with the feeling of impatient jealousy and irritation against tyranny and despotism expressed by the departments towards the capital, with the evident disunion between the provinces and Paris, what are likely to be the destinies of the Republic hereafter? Again it must be said--who can tell, who foresee, who predict? The Republic has been accepted, and is maintained, from a love of order and the _status quo_: but there is no enthusiasm, no admiration for the republican form of government throughout the country at large; there is, at most, indifference to any government, whatever it may be, provided it but insure the stability and prosperity of the country. If an opinion may be hazarded, however, it is, that the danger to the present established form of things will not arise so much from the conflict of contending parties in the capital, as from the discontent, disaffection, jealousy, and, perhaps, final outbreak and resistance of the departments. Terrorism has had its day; and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to apply the system once again to the country in its present state. What other means will the violent possess--what coercive measures, if, when parties come to an issue, the wearied and disgusted country should rise to protest against the disorders of Republican Paris? There seem at present to be none. The result of such an outbreak would be inevitable civil war. The strong instance before alluded to, of the determination of the departments to assert a will of their own, was given in a very striking manner in the affair of the 15th May. One of the conspirators got possession of the electric telegraph at the Home Office, and sent down despatches into all the provinces, to inform the country that the Assembly was dissolved, and the new government of the ultra-anarchist party had taken the reins of power. Instead of being awed into submission as heretofore, instead of calmly and resignedly accepting the _fait accompli_ as was their wont, the departments immediately rose to protest against the new revolution of Paris. Before a counter-despatch could be sent down into the provinces, to let them know that the former order of things was restored, the national guards of all the great towns were up and out, with the cry "to arms!" and it was resolved to march upon Paris. It was not only in the towns within a day's journey of the capital that the movement was spontaneously made. In the furthest parts of the country, from the cities of Avignon, Marseilles, Nismes, and all the south of France, the national guards were already on their way towards the capital, before the information that declared the more satisfactory result of the day could be made public. It is more than probable, then, that, should a desperate faction ever seize upon the power, or even should a close conflict of parties further endanger the safety of the country and its tottering welfare, that the provinces would again take up arms against Paris, and that a civil war would be the result.

This is rather a suggestion hazarded, than a prediction made, as to the future fate of the French republic. Whatever that future may be, an uneasy submission on the part of a great anti-republican majority to the active agency of a small republican minority--but, at the same time, a desire of maintaining a government, whatever it may be, if supportable, for tranquillity's sake; a feeling of humiliation and degradation in this utter submission to the will of Paris throughout the country--but, at the same time, an apparent growing determination eventually to resist that will, should it at last prove intolerable--such is the present state of Republican France.

COLONISATION.

_Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia_, &c. By Lieut.-Colonel Sir T. MITCHELL, Surveyor-General, &c. 1 vol. London: Longmans.

Australia is the greatest accession to substantial power ever made by England. It is the _gift_ of a _Continent_, unstained by war, usurpation, or the sufferings of a people. But even this is but a narrow view of its value. It is the addition of a territory, almost boundless, to the possessions of mankind; a location for a new family of man, capable of supporting a population equal to that of Europe; or probably, from its command of the ocean, and from the improved systems, not merely of commercial communication, but of agriculture itself, capable of supplying the wants of double the population of Europe. It is, in fact, the virtual future addition of three hundred millions of human beings, who otherwise would not have existed. And besides all this, and perhaps of a higher order than all, is the transfer of English civilisation, laws, habits, industrial activity, and national freedom, to the richest, but the most abject countries of the globe; an imperial England at the Antipodes, securing, invigorating, and crowning all its benefits by its religion.

Within the last fifty years, the population of the British islands has nearly tripled; it is increasing in England alone at the rate of a thousand a day. In every kingdom of the Continent it is increasing in an immense ratio. The population is becoming too great for the means of existence. Every trade is overworked, every profession is overstocked, every expedient for a livelihood threatens to be exhausted under this vast and perpetual influx of life; and the question of questions is, How is this burthen to be lightened?

There can be but one answer,--Emigration. For the last century, common sense, urged by common necessity, directed the stream of this emigration to the great outlying regions of the western world. North America was the chief recipient. Since the conquest of Canada, annual thousands had directed their emigration to the British possessions: the conquest of the Cape has drawn a large body of settlers to its fine climate; but Australia remained, and remains for the grand future field of British emigration.

The subject has again come before the British public with additional interest. The Irish famine, the British financial difficulties, and the palpable hazard of leaving a vast pauperism to grow up in ignorance, have absolutely compelled an effort to relieve the country. A motion has just been made in Parliament by Lord Ashley, giving the most startling details of the infant population; and demanding the means of sending at least its orphan portion to some of those colonial possessions, where they may be trained to habits of industry, and have at least a chance of an honest existence. We shall give a few of these details, and they are of the very first importance to humanity. On the 6th of June Lord Ashley brought in a resolution, "That it is expedient that means be annually provided for the voluntary emigration, to some one of her Majesty's colonies, of a certain number of young persons of both sexes, who have been educated in the schools, ordinarily called 'ragged schools,' in and about the metropolis."

In the speech preparatory to this resolution, a variety of statements were made, obtained from the clergy and laity of London. It was ascertained that the number of children, either deserted by their parents, or sent out by their parents to beg and steal, could not be less than 30,000 in the metropolis alone. Their habits were filthy, wretched, and depraved. Their places of living by day were the streets, and by night every conceivable haunt of misery and sin. They had no alternative but to starve, or to grow up into professional thieves, perhaps murderers. Of the general population, the police reports stated, that in 1847 there had been taken into custody 62,181 individuals of both sexes and all ages. Of these, 20,702 were females, and 47,479 males. Of the whole, 15,693 were under twenty years of age, 3,682 between fifteen and ten, and 362 under ten. Of the whole, 22,075 could neither read nor write, and 35,227 could read only, or read and write imperfectly.

The average attendance last year in the "ragged schools" was 4000. Of these 400 had been in prison, 600 lived by begging, 178 were the children of convicts, and 800 had lost one or both their parents, and of course were living by their own contrivances. Out of the 62,000, there were not less than 28,113 who had no trade, or occupation, or honest livelihood whatever!

The statement then proceeded to consider the expense to which the nation was put to keep down crime. It will perhaps surprise those readers who object to the expenses of emigration.

In 1847. The expense of Parkhurst Prison was £14,349
" Of Pentonville Prison, 18,307
In 1846. Of County Gaols, 147,145
" Of County Houses of Correction, 160,841
" Of Rural Police, 180,000
" Of Prosecutions for Coining, 9,000
In 1847. Of Metropolitan Police, 363,164

The whole but a few items, yet amounting to a million sterling annually. In this we observe the Millbank Penitentiary, an immense establishment, Newgate, the Compter, and the various places of detention in the city, are not included; and there is no notice of the expenses of building, which in the instance of the Penitentiary alone amounted to a million.

Yet, to dry up the source of this tremendous evil, Lord Ashley asks only an expenditure of £100,000 annually, to transform 30,000 growing thieves into honest men, idlers into cultivators of the soil, beggars into possessors of property, which the generality of settlers become, on an average of seven years.

There can be no rational denial of the benefit, and even of the necessity, of rescuing those unfortunate creatures from a career which, beginning in vice and misery, must go on in public mischief, and end in individual ruin. Lord Ashley's suggestion is that the plan shall be first tried on the moderate scale of sending 500 boys, and 500 girls, chosen from the ragged schools of London, under proper superintendents, to the most fitting of the colonies; by which we understand Australia. The plan may then be extended to the other parts of the kingdom, to Scotland and Ireland. He concluded by placing his motion in the hands of government, who, through the Home Secretary, promised to give it all consideration.

It is certainly lamentable that such statements are to be made; and we have little doubt that the foreign journalist will exult in this evidence of what they call "the depravity of England." But, it is to be remembered that London has a population of nearly two millions--that all the idleness, vice, and beggary of an island of twenty millions are constantly pouring into it--that _foreign_ vice, idleness, and beggary contribute their share, and that what is abhorred and _corrected_ in England, is overlooked, and even cherished abroad. It is also to be remembered, that there is a continual temptation to plunder in the exposed wealth of the metropolis, and a continual temptation to mendicancy in the proverbial humanity of the people.

Still, crime must be punished wherever it exists, and vice must be reformed wherever man has the means; and, therefore, we shall exult in the success of any judicious plan of emigration.

It happens, at this moment, that there is an extraordinary demand for emigration; that every letter from Australia calls for a supply of human life, and especially for an emigration of females,--the proportion of males to females in some of the settlements being 9 to 1, while the number of females predominates, by the last census in England.

There is a daily demand for additional labourers, artificers, and household servants, and with offers of wages which in England neither labourer nor artisan could hope to obtain. Thousands are now offered employment, comfort, and prospective wealth in Australia, who must burthen the workhouse at home. The advantages are so evident, the necessity is so strong, and the opportunity is so prompt and perfect, that they _must_ result in a national plan of constant emigration, until Australia can contain no more--an event which may not happen for a thousand years.

It happens, also, by a striking coincidence, that Australian discovery has just assumed new vigour; and that instead of the barrenness and deformity which were generally supposed to form the principal characteristics of this vast territory, immense tracts have been brought to European knowledge for the first time, exhibiting remarkable fertility, and even the most unexpected and singular beauty. We now give a sketch of the journey in which those discoveries were made.

To explore the interior of this great country has been the object of successive expeditions for the last five-and-twenty years. But such was the want of system or the want of means, that nothing was done, except to increase the tales of wonder regarding the middle regions of Australia. The theorists were completely divided; one party insisting on the existence of a mediterranean or mighty lake in the central region, _because_ there was a tendency in some of the small rivers of the coast to flow inward. Others, with quite as much plausibility, laughed at the idea; and, from having felt a hot wind occasionally blowing from the west, had no doubt that the central region was a total waste, a desert of fiery sand, an Australian Sahara! while both parties seem to have been equally erroneous, so far as any actual discovery has been made.

But it seems equally extraordinary, that even the only two expeditions which within our time have added largely to our knowledge, alike should have neglected the most obvious and almost the only useful means of discovery. The especial object of exploration must be, to ascertain the existence of considerable rivers pouring into the sea, because it is only thus that the government can effectively form settlements. The especial difficulty of the explorers is, to find provisions, or carry the means of subsistence along with them. Both difficulties would be obviated by the steam-boat, and by nothing else. The natural process, therefore, would be, to embark the expedition in a well appointed and well provisioned steamer; to anchor it at the necessary distance from the coast, which in general has deep and sheltered water, within the great rocky ridge; and then send out the explorers for fifty or a hundred miles north and south, making the steamer the headquarters. Thus they might ascertain every feature of the coast, inch by inch, be secure of subsistence, and be free from native hostility.

Yet all the expeditions have been overland, generally with the most imminent hazard of being starved, and occasionally losing some of their number by attacks from the natives. Thus also the present expedition of the surveyor succeeded but in part, though it had the merit of discovering that the reports of Australian barrenness belonged but to narrow tracts, while the general character of the country towards the north was of striking fertility. The purpose of Sir T. Mitchell's late expedition was, to ascertain the probability of a route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria. But as this route was to be made dependent on a presumed river flowing into the gulf, the actual object was to reach the head of that river--an object which could have been more effectually attained by tracing it upward from the gulf; and, in consequence of not so tracing it, the expedition ultimately failed.

To establish an easy connexion between the colony of New South Wales and the traffic of the Indian Ocean had long been a matter of great interest. Torres Strait, the only channel to the north, is a remarkably dangerous navigation; while, by forming an overland communication directly with the Gulf of Carpentaria to the west of the strait, the commerce would find an open sea. A trade in horses had also commenced with India, which was impeded by the hazards of the strait. There had also been a steam communication with England by Singapore, and there was a hope that this line might be connected with a line from the gulf.

The idea of tracing a river towards the north was a conjecture of several years' standing, in some degree founded on the natural probability that an immense indentation of the land could not but exhibit some outlet for the course of a considerable fall of waters, and also that there had been a report by a Bushman, of having followed its course to the sea.

After some difficulties with the governor, which were obviated by a vote of the Colonial Legislature of £2000 for the expenses of the expedition, it set out from Paramatta on the 17th of November 1845. The expedition consisted of Sir Thomas Mitchell; E. B. Kennedy, Esq., assistant-surveyor; William Stephenson, Esq., surgeon and naturalist; twenty-three convicts, who volunteered for the sake of a free pardon, which was to be their only payment; and three freemen. They had a numerous list of baggage conveyances, &c. &c.; eight drays, drawn by eighty bullocks; two boats, thirteen horses, four private horses, three light carts, and provisions for a year, including two hundred and fifty sheep, which travelled along with them, constituting a chief part of their animal food. They had also gelatine and pork. The surveyor-general preferred light carts, and horses in place of bullocks; but it was suggested that the strong drays were necessary, and that bullocks were more enduring than horses--the latter an opinion soon found to be erroneous. It is rather singular, that either opinion should not have been settled fifty years ago.

Some natural and well-expressed reflections arise, in the course of this volume, on the lonely life of the settler. Its despondency, and its inutility to advance his moral nature, are in some measure attributed to the absence of the "gentler sex."

"At this sheep station," says Sir Thomas, "I met with an individual who had seen better days, and had lost his property amid the wreck of colonial bankruptcies; a 'tee-totaller,' with Pope's 'Essay on Man' for his consolation, in a _bark hut_. This man spoke of the depravity of shepherd life as excessive.... The pastoral life, so favourable to the enjoyment of nature, has always been a favourite with the poets. But here it appears to be the antipodes of all poetry and propriety, simply because man's better half is wanting. Under this unfavourable aspect the white man comes before the aboriginal. Were they intruders, accompanied with wives and children, they would not be half so unwelcome. In this, too, consists one of the most striking differences between settling and squatting. Indeed, if it were an object to _uncivilise_ the human race, I know of no method more likely to effect it, than to isolate a man from the gentler sex and children. Remove afar off all courts of justice and means of redress of grievances, all churches and schools, all shops where he can make use of money, and then place him in close contact with savages. 'What better off am I than a black native!' was the exclamation of a shepherd to me."

A general description of the aspect of New South Wales would be difficult, from its extreme diversity in parts; but the general face of the country is marked by lines of granite hills; short water-courses, which in summer are dry, or retain the water only in pools; clumps of trees, generally dotted over the soil, and occasional _prairies_. But the soil is generally fertile, and, in the spring, exhibits a great variety of flowers. Thus the land is every where fit for European life, though in the same latitude with the hottest portions of Africa. It has occasional gushes of intense heat, but they seem not to have affected the health of the expedition; and with that progress of comforts which follows all civilisation, the heat and cold alike may be successfully mitigated. We have not heard of any endemic in Australia; the epidemic has never visited its shores. The chief want in the pasture-grounds is water, but even that is merely the result of the rudeness of early settling; for vast quantities of water run to waste, or are lost in swamps, which future colonists will receive in tanks, and check with dams. The capricious abundance and deficiency of this prime necessary of life, for it is more essential than food, is shown in a striking, passage of this picturesque Journal. They were still within the sheep-feeding country. Water was much wanted. Mr Stephenson, the naturalist, was sent out on the inquiry. He returned soon, having met two of the mounted police, who told him that "a flood was coming down from the Turon Mountains."

"But the little encampment was held in suspense. Still, the bed of the Macquarie continued so dry, that the report could scarcely be believed. Towards evening, a man was stationed with a gun, to give a signal on the appearance of the flood. The shades of evening came, but no flood; and the man returned. This was a period of considerable anxiety, for the need of water was urgent.

"Some hours later, and after the moon had risen, a murmuring sound, like that of a distant waterfall, mingled with occasional cracks, as of breaking timber, drew our attention." They then returned to the river bank. Still no flood appeared, though they continued to hear the sounds of the crashing timber. At length an increase of the sounds told them that the water was in the next bend. All this, in a serene moonlight night, was new. At length it came, and came in power and beauty.

"It rushed into our sight, glittering in the moonbeams, a moving _cataract_; tossing before it ancient trees, and snapping them against its banks. It was preceded by a _point_ of meandering water, picking its way, like a thing of life, through the deepest parts of the dark, dry, and shady bed of what thus again became a flowing river." The phenomenon might make a fine subject for the pencil, if our artists were not divided between the palace and the pigstye. The noble river rolling along under a _tropical_ moon; the wild country around, with its forests and hills touched by the light; the bronzed faces and bold figures of the men of the expedition, gazing with natural surprise and gladness at this relief, and at the majestic object before them; and even the cattle hurrying up from the encampment, to cool the thirst which had pressed so severely on them during the day, all were made for the finest efforts of the pencil.

"By my party," says Sir T. Mitchell, "situated as we were at the time--beating about the country, and impeded in our journey solely by the almost total absence of water--suffering excessively from thirst and extreme heat,--I am convinced the scene can _never_ be forgotten! _There_ came abundance at once, the product of storms in the far-off mountains, that _overlooked our homes_! My first impulse was to have welcomed this flood on our knees; for the scene was sublime in itself, while the subject, an abundance of water sent to us in a desert, greatly heightened the effect to our eyes. I had witnessed nothing of the kind in all my Australian travels."

But the writer is an accomplished man of science, and he leads the contemplation to still more glorious things, "Even the heavens presented something new, at least uncommon, and therefore in harmony with this scene. The variable Star of Argol had increased to the first magnitude, just above the beautiful constellation of the Southern Cross, which slightly inclined over the river, in the only portion of sky seen through the trees. That very red star, thus increasing in magnitude, might, as characteristic of her rivers, be recognised as the 'Star of Australia,' when Europeans cross the line. The flood gradually filled up the channel nearly bank high, while the living cataract travelled onward much slower than I had expected to see it; so slowly, indeed, that more than an hour after its first arrival, the _sweet music_ of the head of the flood was distinctly audible from my tent, as the murmur of waters and crash of logs travelled slowly through the tortuous windings of the river bed. I was finally lulled to sleep by that melody of waters."

It has been often remarked, that Europeans once accustomed to a life of wandering, can never return to the life of cities; and even the clever journalist before us appears to have been a little captivated with this life of the wilderness. It may be easily admitted, that vigorous health, and active exercise, variety of objects, even if those objects are no more than new ridges of mountains or new rills of water; with keen appetite and sound sleep, are all excellent things in their style. But, is life given to man only to eat, gaze, and sleep? What is the life of the wilderness above that of the brute? The true improvement of man, and, therefore, the especial employment intended for man, is, that increase of knowledge, of command over the powers of nature, and of the various means of adding to the conveniences, comforts and value of human existence, which, delivered down to us by our forefathers, it is our part to deliver with increase to our posterity. But the savage improves in nothing; he is as much a brute this year as he was a thousand years ago. Savagery is, in practice, a total defeat and denial of all the original purposes for which our nature was made. And it is with some regret and more surprise, that we quote, from such a source, such language as the following:--

"We set out, guided by our native friend," (a savage whom they had hired to lead them to some water-courses.) "He was a very perfect specimen of the _genus_ homo, and such as is _never_ to be seen, except in the precincts of savage life, _undegraded_ by any scale of _graduated classes_; and the countless _bars_ these present to the free enjoyment of existence." Whether this is actually a recommendation that we should throw off our clothes and walk in nudity, for the purpose of recovering the original elegance of our shapes, or whether it is the borrowed rapture of some savage in person which the gallant officer has transplanted into his pages, to vary his more rational conceptions, we know not; but he has _not_ made us converts to the pleasures of cold, hunger, filth, and bloodshed, which furnish the realities of savage life, even in the paradisaic solitudes of Australia.

The savage, in his original state, is simply an animal, superior to his own dog only in sharpness of intellect; but wholly inferior to his dog in fidelity and affection. All savages are tyrannical--cruel to their wives, if wives they can be called--and in general cheating and plundering wherever they can. As to their bodily organs, of course, they cannot be perverted where they cannot reach temptation; but no savage comprehends moral restraint, and he gets drunk whenever he has the opportunity, and robs wherever he finds any thing to steal. On the other hand, civilisation necessarily enfeebles no man, and what the gallant Colonel regards as its "degradation of man by classes," produces quite the contrary effect; for the humbler the class, generally the more vigorous--as the peasant is a stronger man than the artisan, and the artisan than the nobleman. Even the idea that savage limbs can do more than civilised, is equally erroneous. A well clothed and well fed Englishman, if well formed, and with some training, will outwork, outrun, and outwrestle any savage from pole to pole. A ropedancer, a tumbler, or a horserider, at any of our theatres, though bred in the very heart of civilisation, or even in the hotbed of its temptations, will perform feats of activity which would defy all the muscles of a generation of savages. The truth is, that civilisation improves the features, the form, and the powers of the human frame. Men in society may be indolent, and throw away their advantages; but society is the place for man. Rousseau, once made a noise by talking nonsense on this subject; but Rousseau _knew_ that he was talking nonsense. Whether his imitators are equally cognisant of their own performances, is another question; but we come to better things.

This journey settled the disputed point of "horses or bullocks, light carts, or heavy drays." The bullocks and the drays were a perpetual annoyance; to feed and water the one, and to drag the other, soon became the grand difficulty of the expedition. We find the Colonel perpetually leaving them to follow, when any peculiar object of exploration was in view. At length the whole "park" was left to take its rest, under the second in command; and the Colonel, with eight men, two native boys, fourteen horses, and two light carts, with provisions for ten weeks, moved to the northward, to trace where the division of the waters was to be found, and then follow some of them down to the Gulf.

We were not prepared for the beauty sometimes exhibited by the Australian landscape. The Journal compares it to a succession of Ruysdaels. "The masses of rock, lofty trees, shining sands, and patches of water in wild confusion; the mimosæ, the Anthistiria-grass, of a red brown, contrasting most harmoniously with the light green bushes; all those again so opposed to the dark hues of the casuarinæ, mimosæ, and rifted rocks, that a Ruysdael or a Gainsborough might have found an inexhaustible stock of subjects for the pencil."

This wild travelling has its discomforts, and now and then its dangers; but it is a perpetual source of exciting sensations. Every step is new, and every day's journey may place the traveller within some region of unexpected value or beauty. One of the hopes of the Journalist, on commencing this portion of his travels, was to discover a chain of hills to the northwest, from which he might trace the course of a river to the Gulf. At last this chain rose before his eyes.

"The most interesting sight to me was that of blue pics at a great distance to the northwest, the object of all my dreams of discovery for years. _No white man had before seen them._ There we might hope to find the division of the waters still undiscovered--the pass to Carpentaria still unexplored. I called this hill Mount First-View, and descended, delighted with what I had seen from its rocky crest." The latitude was 27°, yet the thermometer at sunrise was but at 45°, at noon 68°, and at 9 P.M. 45°.

The captivations of the scenery were equal to the delights of the temperature, though so near the tropics.--"An Australian morning is always charming. Amid those scenes of primæval nature it seemed exquisitely so. The barita or gymnoskina, the organ-magpie, was here represented by a much smaller bird, whose notes, resembling the softest breathings of a flute, were the only sounds that met the ear. What the stillness of evening adds to such sounds in other climes, is felt more intensely in the stillness of morn in this."

The forms of the vegetation, both tree and shrub, are picturesque, and the colours are finer still:--"Instead of autumnal tints, there is a perpetual blending of the richest hues of autumn with the most brilliant verdure of spring; while the sun's welcome rays in a winter's morning, and the cool breath of the woods in a summer morning, are equally grateful. This was in the depth of the Australian winter, and, which sounds oddly to the European ear, in the 'merry month of June.'"

Advancing still to the north, a country of an extraordinary kind was reached in July; and they had now found, that most important of all objects in a wilderness, a fine "flowing stream, full of sparkling water to the margin." The Journalist seems quite enamoured with the surrounding scene, a miniature Australian Switzerland:--"The hills overhanging it surpassed any I had ever seen, in picturesque outline. Some resembled Gothic cathedrals in ruins; some forts; other masses were perforated; and being mixed and contrasted with the flowing outlines of evergreen woods, and having a fine stream in the foreground, gave a charming appearance to the whole country. It was a vision worthy of the toils of a pilgrimage. Those beautiful recesses of unpeopled earth could no longer remain unknown. The better to mark them out on any map, I gave to the valley the name of Salvator Rosa. The rocks stood out sharply and sublimely from the thick woods, just as John Martin's fertile imagination would dash them out in his beautiful landscapes. I never saw any thing in nature come so near those creations of genius and imagination." But this river, which they followed for some time, ran so far to the east, that they justly began to doubt its being the one of which they were in search and they turned again to the north. They now passed into a fine level country, incomparably formed for settlement. "An almost boundless extent of the richest surface in a solitude corresponding to that of (southern) China, yet still unoccupied by man. A great reserve provided by Nature for the extension of his race."

They left the Salvator between the 21st and 22d degrees of latitude, and moved to the north-west. There at length their aspirations, though only partially, were probably realised. In the middle of September they reached some heights, from which lay before them a vast extent of open downs traversed by a river, traceable to the utmost verge of the horizon, and falling to the _north-west_! "Ulloa's delight at the first view of the Pacific could not have surpassed mine," is the natural exclamation of the Journalist. "Nor could the fervour with which he was impressed have exceeded my sense of gratitude for being allowed to make such a discovery. From that rock the scene was so extensive as to leave _no room for doubt_ as to the course of the river, which, then and there revealed to me alone, seemed like a reward direct from Heaven for perseverance, and as a compensation for the many sacrifices which I had made, in order to solve the question as to the interior rivers of tropical Australia."

From the 16th to the 24th of September the course of the river was followed, which still was north-west, but at this period the party returned. The reason stated is the failure of provisions. This must have been a most vexatious disappointment--so vexatious, that we cannot comprehend how it could have been submitted to without some more remarkable effort than any thing that we find recorded in these pages. That an expedition equipped for a four months' journey should have turned back at the very moment when a few days', perhaps a few hours', march, might have completed its object, is altogether incomprehensible, while it had any conceivable means of subsistence. In such a condition of things, the traveller ought to have eaten his horse, if he could get nothing else. But there was actually, at no great distance behind, a depôt of their own bullocks and sheep, all feeding comfortably, and, as the party found on marching back to them, "Sheep and cattle fat, the whole a sort of farm." A good stackyard had been set up, a storehouse had been built, a garden had been fenced in, and contained lettuce, radishes, melons, and cucumbers. Indeed, the whole establishment exhibited the effects of good order and discipline.

Why, then, did not the Journalist return on his track, and establish the discovery which was the express object of his mission? This exceeds our knowledge. The only direct intimation of his necessities in these pages is, "our provisions were nearly out, the sun having reduced the _mess sugar and melted the bacon_, which had been boiled before we set out." Whether the _lean_ of Australian bacon may liquefy in the sun is more than our European experience can tell, but we presume it must be ranked among the wonders of a new country; at all events, the Journalist returned without having done the very thing for which his expedition had been fitted out, and left the object to be completed by his subordinate, who was subsequently despatched in the direction of the north-west. Thus, though probabilities are in favour of the river, which the Colonel named the Victoria, the point is by no means settled, and Australian curiosity may be disappointed after all.

As the party approached the river, they saw considerable numbers of the natives. On reaching one of the lagoons, the shrieks of many women and children, and the angry voices of men, apprised them that they had at length overtaken the tribe, and unfortunately had come on them by surprise. "Aya, minya!" was vociferated repeatedly, and was understood to mean, "What do you want?" I steadily adhered to my own tactics towards the aborigines, and took not the slightest notice of them, but rode on according to my compass-bearing. On looking back for my men, I saw one beckoning me to return. He had observed two natives with spears and clubs hide themselves behind a bush in the direction in which I was advancing. On my halting, they stole away. The whole seemed to have been amusing themselves in the water during the noonday heat, which was excessive, and the cool shades round the lagoon looked most luxuriant. Our position, on the contrary, was any thing but enviable. Even there, in the heart of the interior, on a river utterly unheard of by white men, an iron tomahawk glittered in the hand of a chief. The anxious care of the females to carry off their children seemed the most agreeable feature of the scene. Some had been digging in the mud for worms, others searching for fresh-water mussels, and if the whole could have been witnessed unperceived, such a scene of domestic life among the aborigines had been worth a little more risk. The strong men assumed a strange attitude, which seemed very expressive of surprise, having the right knee bent, the left leg forward--the right arm dropping, but grasping clubs--the left arm raised, and the fingers spread out. "Aya, aya, minya," they continually shouted. However, the party rode on, and the shouts died away.

The Journalist occasionally recovers from his enthusiasm for savagery. We have no more bursts in his earlier style, "Such truth and exemption from disease, such _intensity_ of existence, in short, must be far beyond the _enjoyments of civilised men_, with all that art can do for them. And the proof of this is to be found, in the failure of all attempts to persuade these free denizens of uncultivated earth to forsake it for the tilled ground. They prefer the land, unbroken and free from the earliest curse pronounced against the first banished and first created man." All this unfortunately shows nothing, but that the gallant Colonel would be the wiser for going back to his Bible, where he would find the words, "I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake." But at last (page 328) we have a sketch of the reality. "It would appear that, the finer the climate and the fewer man's wants, the more he sinks towards the condition of the lower animals. Where the natives had passed the night, no huts, even of bushes, had been set up. A few tufts of dry grass only marked the spot, where, beside a small fire, each person had sat, folded up like the capital letter N. Their occupation during the day was only wallowing in a muddy hole, in no respect cleaner than swine. They have no idea of any necessity for washing themselves between their birth and the grave, while groping in mud for worms." After admitting the filth, the indolence, and the uselessness of the savage; contrasting, however, his teeth and tongue favourably with those of the civilised man or child, of which he pronounces it to be "ten to one but he should find _only impurity and decay_," (a point in which we are wholly at issue with him,) he asks, "what then is civilisation in the economy of the human animal?" He answers, "Cultivated man despises the perishable substance, and pursues the immortal shadow." We are but little satisfied with the language of this solution, nor is its meaning much more intelligible. In the first place, man, in a civilised state, does not necessarily injure his bodily organs. The fool who cannot stir, or even sit, without a cigar in his mouth, or the drunkard who continually sacrifices health and understanding to intoxication, has only to condemn himself. But, give the savage tobacco and rum, and he will as speedily destroy his organs, and bring himself to the grave, as the most civilised profligate in existence. And as to the grand supposed use of civilisation--the fixing our minds on "immortal shadows"--if by this he meant giving us ideas of religion, there are many highly civilised nations which think but very little of religion, and many highly civilised persons who think of it nothing at all. Yet, it is only justice to the gallant Colonel to quote this sentence. "Animal gratification is transient and dull compared to the acquisition of knowledge, the gratification of mind,--the raptures of the poet, or the delight of the enthusiast, however imaginary. Such were my reflections on this day of rest, in the heart of a desert, while protected from the sun's rays by a blanket."

But even his metaphysics are entirely a misconception. The original purpose of civilisation is, to enable man to live in society; that is, in peace, with the advantages of mutual assistance. That those objects are powerfully aided by religion is true, and that science may be best cultivated in settled life, is equally true; but those are merely collateral. Civilisation means the work of law, of safe intercourse, of secure property, and of all the safeguards of society which ultimately enable man to polish the general manners, and to improve the general mind. Religion is not the consequence, but the origin of Civilisation.

We now take leave of the journey, with the sketch of the rivers. After moving for some distance between two streams, they approached the junction, which formed--"the broad, deep, and placid waters of a river as deep as the Murray. Pelicans and ducks floated upon it, and mussel shells of extraordinary size lay in such quantities, where the natives had been in the habit of eating them, as to resemble snow covering the ground. But even that reach seemed diminutive, when compared with the vast body of water of which traces had been left there; affording evidence, that though wide, they must have been impetuous in their course. Verdure alone shone now, over the wide extent to which the waters sometimes rose. Beyond that channel lay the almost boundless plains; the whole together forming the finest region I had ever seen in Australia."

Still the luckless character of the Australian rivers appears; and after expecting that this fine channel, which there seemed navigable for steamers, would continue, in a few miles more it exhibited only ponds. Whether the great central stream may not exhibit the same caprice, is still the question.

The party returned to Sydney in January 1847; and in March, Mr Kennedy, the second in command, was sent, as has been already stated, to explore the course of the Victoria.