CHAPTER II.
Table of Contents Campbell Town-Road-Housebreaking-Old mill near Perth-Flood-Launceston-Cataract Valley-Go on board the steamer-My state-room-Contrary gale-Waterloo Bay-Wind-bound-Boots, beards, and politics-Sporting talk-Cooking talk-Chorus.
The forest now began to show broader vistas, the trees grew more sparsely, and were of less gigantic proportions, and we emerged on the brow of the "Green Hills" (brown enough sometimes!) whence there is an extensive view over the flat central plain of the Island, with the dark Western Tier, the vertebral range of our mountain system, rising gloomy and cloud-wreathed beyond Ben Lomond's massive, square, buttressed form looming grandly on the N.E. Our only adjunct is wanting to render the view eminently beautiful; there is neither winding river, nor gleaming lake, nor far-off glimpse of the blue sea, to refresh and delight the eye. Still it is a lovely prospect, particularly in Spring, ere the grass has lost its too transient verdure. Because rivers are not visible from hence, it must not be supposed that none flow through the wide extent of country over which we looked, and past the meadows, woods, orchards, and gardens, which embosom so many English-looking country-houses and cottages; but these, the Macquarie, Elizabeth river, and others, are all small, and in dry seasons shrink to chains of ponds.
As we descended the hills, the buildings in Campbell Town became more distinct, and the increasing scarcity of dead wood and trees would alone have indicated our approach to a township.
It used to seem to me a strange colonial anomaly to call a very small village a "township" and a much larger one a "town." But the former is the term applied to the lands reserved in various places for future towns, many of which are in the heart of the primeval forest, or on open plains, unfrequented save by sheep, and with as little token of human habitation as there was, twenty years ago, on the top of Plinlimmon (perhaps, despite Wordsworth, there is a city and a railway there, now); a fingerpost, or board nailed on a tree with the name of the town, is perhaps, for years, the sole intimation to the traveller, of its long anticipated existence. Then, increasing traffic in the neighbourhood induces some adventurous individual to build and open a small public-house; a blacksmith probably follows, for there are marvellous subtle sympathies between the two callings; then perhaps a shoemaker, also of a thirsty temperament, embarks his all in the vicinity, and shortly after it becomes essential, that a police-office should watch over the general weal, under the guardianship of a constable, and visited periodically by either a stipendiary magistrate, or the nearest justice of the peace. A church and a school sometimes follow, but in many cases are far in the rear; whilst the taproom, the skittle-ground, and the gaol, perform their share in educating the rising generation, unchecked by any antidote, moral or religious.
Campbell Town probably germinated much in the same manner, but so long ago, that I never heard when it first became settled. Now it is indubitably a town of small degree, containing several straggling streets (the principal one being the main road from Launceston to Hobart), a church and good grammar-school, Roman Catholic and Presbyterian chapels, besides Dissenting meetings, some tolerably good "stores," (as we designate those colonial shops-of-all-work, where on one side we buy iron pots, groceries, glass, china, medicines, and door-mats; and on the other, a fashionable French bonnet, a packet of envelopes, a skein of Berlin wool, or a counterpane), and, as in all colonial towns and villages, the number of public-houses is absolutely astonishing. I believe I do not exaggerate in the least, in judging the proportion of the latter, as compared with the number of butchers or bakers, to be as twenty to one-in most places. Even so small a
"Pennyworth of bread,
To this intolerable quantity of sack!"
Most of the hotels here are superior in all respects to the generality of inns in the colony. Neither Hobart nor Launceston has any equal to them for comfort or quietness; and in the well-appointed rooms we were accustomed to occupy in one of them, and in the society of our eldest-born, a schoolboy in the town, who gladly gained permission to obey his brother's welcome summons to visit us, all travelling fatigues and troubles were soon forgotten.
The luggage had safely arrived by its circuitous route, and from hence, sending our favourite horses back home by a servant, we proceeded to Launceston by coach, without further adventure, unless the imperilling of our lives and those of the other passengers by the yoking up of wholly unbroken horses, may be mentioned as such; the proprietor of the coaches, now a monopolist of the business on the whole line of road (120 miles), having purchased a number of young, wild, unbroken horses, promised his coachmen a pound a head for each colt they could make go in harness "without the bother of breaking in." Two of these were accordingly put in at each change, with two old stagers, and the consequences were such rearing, plunging, kicking, entanglements with the traces, and general disorder, as might be expected, amidst a confused Babel of cries-"Hold him. Jack!" "Stand o' one side!" "Free the traces!" "Woa!" "Keep off!" "Take his head!" "Hold that mare!" "Legs over the pole!" "Look out!" "That'll do-LET 'EM GO!" and off they went, assuredly; and off the road on the other side; then backed nearly into the doors of the inn; but after a few more eccentric manoeuvres, more lively than pleasant, the poor scared creatures became so far manageable, as to gallop along the road, with only a few serpentine deviations, until their task ended for awhile, at the next stage, when the same performance ensued, with new characters.
What would have been said at Home, in the days when railways were not, if the "crack" coaches on the main roads had been horsed in like style? In one most essential point, I must give all praise to the proprietor. However he might underrate our necks, his horses were all in good condition, and without wounds. The very recollection of the frightful cruelties I have seen and remonstrated against in the treatment of coach-horses on this same road some years back, is absolutely sickening. I have seen the collars when put on, fitting into red, raw hollows in the galled shoulders; and open holes, chafed by ill-managed harness, on the bleeding sides of the wretched animals; and not one of the other spectators of the iniquity seemed to think it worth an observation; but on the contrary, looked amazement at my horror and indignant expostulations.
The excellent road from Campbell Town to Perth, is as straight as a railway, and nearly as level. It passes through a monotonous woody tract, named Epping Forest, with few views of any interest, except when openings give a peep of grand Ben Lomond. In the vicinity of Perth, and on the banks of the South Esk river, some of our wealthy colonists have made most English-like homes, with deer-parks, gardens, conservatories, and other adjuncts of comfort and luxury; but as we are whisked along in the coach, all we see of them is perchance the glint of a glass-roof in the sun, a wreath of curling smoke, and a chimney-top, or a handsome carriage turning in at one of the white gates beside the road.
During one of my pleasant sojourns in this neighbourhood, I was introduced, when on a sketching expedition, to a most picturesque old water-mill, seated in a verdant hollow, on the bank of a broad, placid pool of the river. Woody hills rose behind it, and the intervening banks of the winding stream shut out all sign of the world beyond. The mill was built of wood, irregular in shape, with all sorts of odd excrescent lean-tos and projections, and a high peaked roof, with droll little cock-loft windows peering out at the top; and so old, that every portion was Time-tinted, mossy, and mellow. Not two lines in the whole fabric ran parallel; the windows sloped one way, the doors sloped another; and the steps, each one slanted away from its brother. In token of its advanced age and infirmities, props, consisting of trees-every one crooked-cut down, and not barked, but merely the branches lopped off, had been stuck up against it for crutches; but these too had been up so long, that they harmonised in tone with the rest. The heavy primitive old wheel, green and grey, and not quite true in its circularity, went bumbling and tumbling round, making a suitable bass to the soft coo of the pretty white pigeons that were daintily pacing on the high roof; and the bright spout of water, falling in flakes of sunlight, chafed into impatient foam, and hurried angrily away at being received with such imperturbable apathy by the superannuated old wheel, that ever purred sleepily on, as it made each deliberate turn. A slender, graceful young Tea-tree (Leptospermum), growing up between the massy mossy old props, dropped some of its long sprays of snowy blossoms over the dark wheel, and into the falling water, as though to deck itself with the glittering drops that flashed around like jewels; and a group of Acacias, their blueish blooming foliage laden with fringed golden clusters, hawthorn-like in fragrance, grew just beyond the corner of the mill, where the eddying water gurgled past, to rejoin its parent river.
How I wished that some artist, who could worthily paint the picture, had been there to see it! But were any now to seek the spot, he might "dree as weary a weird," as did the brave Roland de Vaux in the Valley of St. John,* and not the spells of a thousand Merlins could avail him to win a glimpse of my beautiful old mill. The next winter...
