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Page 1 : THE BUSHMAN: LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY BY EDWARD WILSON LANDOR (ILLUSTRATION: "KANGAROO HUNTING.") ---------------------------- THE BUSHMAN. LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY BY EDWARD WILSON LANDOR. PREFACE. The British Colonies now form so prominent a portion of the Empire, that the Public will be compelled to acknowledge some interest in their welfare, and the Government to yield some attention to their wants. It is a necessity which both the Government and the Public will obey with reluctance. Too remote for sympathy, too powerless for respect, the Colonies, during ages of existence, have but rarely occupied a passing thought in the mind of the Nation; as though their insignificance entitled them only to neglect. But the weakness of childhood is passing away: the Infant is fast growing into the possession and the consciousness of strength, whilst the Parent is obliged to acknowledge the increasing usefulness of her offspring.

Page 15 : The government officers had now to abandon their half-built stone villas, and construct new habitations of wood, as there was no stone to be found in the neighbourhood of Perth, and brick clay had not then been discovered. It was in one of these abandoned houses (called the Cantonment), situate on the banks of the Swan, about half a mile from Fremantle, that, by the advice of our friend, we resolved to take up our quarters. The building was enclosed on three sides by a rough stone wall, and by a wooden fence, forming a paddock of about three quarters of an acre in extent. It comprised one large room, of some forty feet by eighteen, which had a roof of thatch in tolerable repair. The north side, protected by a verandah, had a door and two windows, in which a few panes of glass remained, and looked upon the broad river, from which it was separated by a bank of some twenty feet in descent, covered with a variety of shrubs, just then bursting into flower.

Page 29 : The distance from Fremantle to Perth, by water, is about twelve miles, and it is about as many more from Perth to Guildford. After passing the ferry-reach, the river appeared about a quarter of a mile broad, having abrupt rocky banks on either side; far a-head was the wooded bottom of Freshwater Bay. Instead of coasting round this bay, we passed through a channel cut across the spit into Melville water. Here is a beautiful site for a house: a sloping lawn, covered with fine peppermint trees, which in form resemble the weeping willow, and a great variety of flowering shrubs, down to the water's edge. The view from the house (lately the seat of Alfred Waylen, Esq.

Page 43 : I was awakened by his sudden appearance at my bed-side, but no sooner sat up than I fell back again, appalled by the ghastliness of his visage. "The d---ls," said he, "have been again, and have scrat up the earth far and wide; and (he added using a strong expression,) I'll be dashed if there's a seed left!" Alas! "'twas but owre true." The ground so neatly raked the evening before, which I had returned again and again to look at with fond pride, until it was obscured by darkness, was now torn up and defaced throughout its length and breadth. "Well!" I exclaimed, as soon as I could speak, "there are dragons in the world." I could now enter into the feelings of the poor husbandman of the dark ages, when he got up in the morning, and found a dragon finishing the last of his highly-prized dairy cows. If I could only catch him at it! I felt immediately a fit of blood-thirstiness creep over me. I could have destroyed a dozen dragons with pleasure, might I only come within reach of them.

Page 57 : Knowing that there was no escape for the herd of cattle up the valleys, as they terminated in steep rocks, and that therefore they would either cross over the side of the hill, or return down the first valley towards the plains, Tom hung back, leaving the rest of the party to head them. After some time had elapsed, he distinguished the bull and several cows trotting along the hill-side; and hastening to meet them, he posted himself behind a tree, close to which he saw they would soon pass. Anxious, however, to get a view of the game, he stepped out from his ambush just as the bull had approached within fifty yards. Each saw the other at the same moment. The bull stopped short, and Tom felt rather queer. He did not like to fire at the vast head of the animal, lest the ball should glance off without effect. The bull, instead of turning aside, began to bellow and tear up the ground with his hoofs.

Page 71 : A man thinks himself in the midst of the world in Great Britain, because he reads the newspapers and knows what is passing and being enacted around him. But the same newspapers are read with equal diligence in a colony, and the same knowledge is acquired there, though some three months later. To read the newspapers, and to hang, close as a burr, upon the skirts of society, is not to be in the world. The world is, in truth, the heart of Man; and he knows most of the World who knows most of his species. And where, alas! may this knowledge, so painful and so humiliating, be better acquired than in a colony? There we have the human heart laid open before us without veil or disguise: there we see it in all its coarseness, its selfishness, its brutality.

Page 85 : We have heard of eagles soaring into the sun, but I doubt whether even they could soar much higher, or look much grander, than the noble pelican of the desert. The sheets were eased off, the long boom of the graceful sliding-gunter (a kind of latteen) sail, stretched far over the gun-wale of the boat, which slipped along easily and rapidly through the water, the rolling waves heaving up her stern, and sending her forward with a gentle impulse. We were opening the broad mouth of the Canning, when Meliboeus pointed out two other pelicans fishing in-shore on the lee-bow. Gently we edged away towards them; Meliboeus standing before the mast with his double-barrel ready, and motioning to me how to steer, as the main-sail hid the birds from my view. They perceived us, and began to swim along shore at a rapid rate; the water was shoaling fast, and we greatly feared they would escape, but still we held on.

Page 99 : The first step must be to ensure a regular and frequent intercourse between the countries, without which there can be no real protection; without which there is no sufficient encouragement given to trade; and the parent state can therefore reap but little advantage, comparatively, from a colony whose powers are only imperfectly developed. Since the above remarks were written, accounts have reached England of the arrival at Fremantle of her Majesty's surveying vessel Bramble, Commander Lieutenant Yule, after passing some time in Torres Straits and on the coast of New Guinea. Mr. Yule having kindly placed the notes of his voyage at the disposal of a friend in the colony, they were partially published in one of the local journals in the month of January last. The portion relating to Torres Straits is instructive. The Bramble sailed from Port Jackson about the end of December 1845, in company with the Castlereagh tender, Lieut. Aird, Commander. Touching at Moreton Bay, Mr.

Page 113 : Another shrub of this order is found in the Vasse district, and produces galls similar to those of the oak, which might also be collected for exportation. The gum of some of these species is used by the natives as food, and the seeds, when ground, give them a tolerable substitute for flour. Instead of entering more at large into dry botanical details, I will transfer to these pages a letter from my respected friend, Mr. James Drummond, the botanist already alluded to, which perhaps will prove more acceptable to the general reader. This letter was published at the time in the local journals. "Dear Sir, -- I send you a few extracts from a journal of observations which I made in a journey to the north, in company with Mr. Gilbert, the ornithologist.

Page 127 : Behind us rode his Excellency's man, no longer the smug gentleman in a black suit, with a visage as prim as his neck-cloth, but blazing in a red woollen shirt, and grinning incessantly with amazement at his own metamorphosis. Strapped to his waist by a broad belt of leather, was a large tin-kettle, for the purpose of making his Excellency's tea in the evening. Huge saddle-bags contained provisions, knives and forks, plates, and everything necessary for travelling in the Bush in a style of princely magnificence. No scheik or emir among the Arabs wanders about the desert half so sumptuously provided. I could not help laughing (in my sleeve, of course,) at the figure produced by the tout ensemble of John mounted on his ewe-necked and pot-bellied steed. In excellent spirits we jogged along to the Canning, and then eleven miles farther, to a muddy pool called Boregarup, where we baited the horses, and lunched on one of his Excellency's cold meat-pies.