PICTURES OF LIFE IN AUSTRALIA.

GOING TO CHURCH.

There is something in the dress of an Australian Settler that is no less characteristic than becoming,—what a splendid turn-out of this class may be seen at some of the townships as they meet on the Sunday for Divine service. I have looked at such assemblages in all parts of the colony, until my eyes have dimmed with national pride, to think that to England should belong the right to own them; the old-fashioned Sunday scenes and manners of England, seen in her younger colonies, being thus revived. The gay carts, the dashing gigs, that are drawn round the fence of the churchyard enclosures,—the blood-horses, with side saddles, that are seen quietly roaming about, add much to the interest of the scene. True, there are no splendid equipages, but, then, there are no poor. The dress,—the appearance of the men,—the chubby faces of the children,—the neat and comfortable habiliments of the women (and here let me remark,—for the information of some of the gay young bachelors of England, that, among these Sabbath meetings may be seen here and there the blooming native maiden in a riding habit of the finest cloth, and of the newest fashion, the substantial settler’s daughter riding her own beautiful and pet mare; I say “pet mare,” because some of these maidens have a little stud of their own)—all these realities of rural life strongly impress a stranger with the real comforts which these people enjoy.

CHRISTIAN CHARITY.

As people of different religions meet at times on the highway, somewhere near their respective places of worship, it is delightful to observe that, whatever faith they possess, Christian charity reigns. As neighbours, the men group together, sitting upon, or resting their backs against the fence, whilst a brilliant sun smiles on them. At the same time, their children may be seen decorating themselves with flowers, or dragging a splendid creeper, in order to beautify the horses, and make fly-brushes for them. After the weather has been commented upon, a political shade is seen to pass over the countenances of the assembly. There is great earnestness amongst them. The females arrange for their own comfort, by resting on the shafts of the carts, or seating themselves on the grass. Matrimony and muslins, births and milch cows, by turns engross their attention, while the men make free with matters of State.

As the soft sound of the bell gives notice that the hour of service is near, the party may be seen to break up: children throw aside their garlands, wives join their husbands, and with sober countenances and devout demeanour enter the House of God. There is one circumstance worthy of remark, namely, the perfect security with which they all leave their conveyances—great coats, and shawls, whips and saddles, in gigs and carts; proving that a fair day’s labour for a fair day’s work is a better protection for property than the police.

When divine service is over, the families keep more together. There is a sober reverence about them which shows that they have listened attentively. As they move to their conveyances, or walk on, it is pleasing to see that if their neighbours have been kept longer at another church, the first party out will often delay their departure till they arrive. These charitable pauses are delightful to witness; these neighbourly greetings make bigotry in dismay crouch to the earth, and show, that when the mind is rightly directed, the being of different religions is not inimical to friendship, for frequently in these cases the elder girl of a Catholic family may be seen in the cart of a Protestant neighbour; the wife of one carrying the younger child of the other, at the same time that the two husbands, as they get into the open road, slowly pace their horses, so that they may converse on their way home, occasionally interrupted perhaps by their sons, who, mounted on good horses, try their speed to please their fathers, and throw bunches of wild flowers to their mothers, while younger hands catch at the prize.

DINNER IN THE BUSH.

I unexpectedly joined the party I am now attempting to describe, and leaving my own travelling spring-van at the church-door, took 308a seat in their cart. On arriving at the farm, the elder son met the party at the slip-rail (homely gate). He was a tall, healthy, open-hearted lad, who greeted us with—

“Come, Mother, be careful. Jump out, girls. Now, Mrs. C——, how welcome you are; and the dinner just ready! Ah! you need not tell me who gave you the sermon: he’s as good as the clock.”

As the girls had all been to church, and there was no female servant in the house, the description of this rural home, and a short detail of the dinner, may be acceptable.

The family room was large, with a commodious fire-place. The table was laid for twelve; the plates and dishes were of blue delf; the knives and forks looked bright and shiny. It may be remarked, that the Settler’s table in New South Wales is somewhat differently arranged from what one is accustomed to see in England, for here the knife and fork were placed at the right of the plate, while a chocolate-coloured tea-cup and saucer stood at the left; a refreshing cup of tea being made a part of the dinner repast. By the fire-place might be seen a large black pot, full of potatoes, with a white cloth laid on the top for the purpose of steaming them. Again, at the outer door might be noticed the son with a man-servant, looking into an oven, and drawing from thence a large hind-quarter of pork, followed by a peach pie.

“Lend a hand here!” shouted the son.

“Ah! I thought you could not do without me,” said the father.

“Keep the youngsters out of the way, and look about you, girls;” cried the mother.

Moving where I could better see the cause of the outcry, a round of beef, cut large and “handsome,” as the settlers say in the Bush, had been forced into a pot; but no fork, although a Bush-fork is rather a formidable tool, could remove it.

“You ought to have put a cord round it,” remarked the mother.

“Turn the pot on one side,” said the father.

“Over with it; out with it; shake!—oh, here we have it now.”

As the pot was removed, the beef was seen to advantage, reeking in a bright clean milk-pan.

“Now, let us make it look decent,” said the self-trained cook, as with his knife he cut the out-pieces off to improve its appearance. His trimmings were substantial cuttings, and displayed to advantage the fine quality of the beef; each cutting he threw to his dogs, as they watched at a respectful distance his operations. Now, though some of my readers may not much admire this bush-culinary art, and this mode of dishing-up a dinner, still there was in the whole scene so much of honest hospitality, so much of cheerful and good humoured hilarity, exhibiting in the most pleasing form the simple manners of a primitive people,—the germs, in fact, of the class of English yeomanry, too often unable to flourish in their own native land, ingrafted and revived in a foreign distant shore, that even the most fastidious and refined could not but feel at such a moment a peculiar zest in joining a family so innocently happy and guileless as this, surrounded as they were by abundance of all the essential necessaries of life. Not a shade of care clouded the party, as they sat down with thankfulness to partake of those things with which God had blessed their labour.

The arrangement of the table was something in unison with the rest. The pork, so well seasoned, graced the head of the table, while the burly piece of beef, now reeking and streaming from its late trimming, was placed before the honest master of this patriarchal family, with a plentiful supply of potatoes, peas, and greens, ranged in their proper places. As soon as the party had partaken of the substantials, the eldest daughter poured tea into the cups set by each one’s plate—for this is the custom amongst the Australian settlers; at the same time the good landlady cut up the peach pie.

The eldest son could now be seen through an open doorway, peering again into the rudely constructed oven, from which he pulled, with a good deal of self-importance and glee, an orange tart, whilst his assistant-cook placed custards on the table in tumblers. The good wife looked amazed, the husband thoughtful.

“How did you get the oranges,” asked the mother.

“Why, Frank Gore brought ’em,” he replied.

“And who made the custards?”

“I made ’em!”

WANTED, A GOOD WIFE.

“What! our Tom make custards!” exclaimed the mother.

“Why not?” replied the young man, evidently anxious to show that he could turn his hand to anything useful.

“I see, I see how it is,” said the father, “Tom heard that Mrs. C. was coming, and he wants a wife.”

“A wife! the like of him want a wife,” said the mother, who, for the first time, looked on his athletic and manly form with sad anxiety.

“Tom made the custard,” said Jane, “and William the tart.”

“I did not bring the oranges,” replied Tom, as Frank Gore entered with a dish of grapes.

“It’s a regular plot,” said the mother.

“A down right contrivance—and I expect it is a settled affair,” observed the father.

“Jane, don’t blush,” sportively remarked Lucy.

“Let me see,” said the father, thoughtfully. “Tom is four years older than I was when I married, so he is,—but Jane is too young.”

“Say a word,” whispered the mother to me; “say a word, Mrs. C.”

“A snug home indeed,—I only wish my 309father could have seen the comforts I now enjoy.”

The young people, seeing the turn matters were taking, scampered off with glowing cheeks.

“We have four farms I can say master to,” pursued the father, “and eight hundred sheep, and six hundred head of cattle, forty pigs, and a bit of money in the bank, too, that the youngsters don’t know of. Well, all the lad will want is a good wife. Let me see,—I’ll be in Sydney next Monday five weeks,—I must buy them a few things, a chest of drawers,—yes, they’d be handy; and I might as well buy one for Jane, poor girl. Like to deal out to all alike; and the wife wants one. I only thought of taking the cart, but I will want a dray, and eight good bullocks, besides,—that’s easy enough to be seen. Well, well; it’s a nice snug home—one hundred and four acres,—two acres laid out for a vineyard,—forty under crop,—handy for the station, too.” Thus the good man musingly spoke, partly to himself, and partly addressing his wife, who, with a cheerful and approving look, nodded consent.

HOMELY HINTS TO MARRIED STATESMEN.

At this little homestead there were five men, whose savings would have enabled them to have taken farms, if they could have met with suitable girls as wives; and they pretty plainly animadverted upon the policy of those whom they considered the proper persons to have rectified their grievances. One remarked, “What does Lord Stanley care, so that he has a wife himself!”

“Ah!” responded another; “and Peel, with all his great speeches, never said a single word about wives for us.”

“Lord John Russell, too,” said Tom Slaney, “seems just as bad as the rest. What does he think we’re made of? wood, or stone, or dried biscuit?”

“It ought to be properly represented to Earl Grey,” observed the fourth. “Do they call this looking after a young colony? Has nobody no sense?”

“Yes,” replied the most sensitive of the party, “the Queen ought to know it,—it is a cruel shame.”

A COTTAGE, ROMANTIC AND REAL.

John Whitney had now made his hut a comfortable cottage. In the centre of the room stood a neat table, shelves were arranged over a bush-dresser, and at one corner of the room could be seen a neat little plate-rack. A young carpenter in Australia cannot make these things without thinking of matrimony; and the one in Whitney’s cottage was beautifully made, evidently intended as a bridal gift. At the opening of the small window was a neat box of mignonette; whilst a footstool, a salt-box, a board, a rolling-pin, afforded sufficient evidence that a wife was all that was wanted to make this abode a happy home.

Nor did the exterior lack any of those embellishments that are required to invest a cottage with those charms which the hand of nature alone can fully set forth. The tasteful mind and apt hand of Whitney mingled art and nature so well that the first could hardly be distinguished by the luxuriance of the latter. The workman laid first the train, and then allured nature in a manner to follow and adorn his handy-work. He first erected an open verandah of posts, saplings, and laths along the whole front of his cottage, leaving three or four door-ways, or spacious apertures for entrance. Against these posts he planted rose-trees, which in Australia grow to an extraordinary height; and around them he carefully trained beautiful creepers, passionflower, and other wild plants of the Bush, so that in the course of a short time the framework became almost invisible. The posts seemed to have grown into pillars of rosebush, thickly entwined with flowery creepers, threading their way the whole length and height of the verandah, and here and there forming the most fanciful festoons over the doorway, or round the tiny windows, thus throwing a coolness and a freshness of shade into the inmost recesses of the little cottage. There also might be observed two or three well-trained vines intermixed with all, which produced the most tempting clusters of grapes, as they could be seen to hang through the open lattice of the verandah; while, all over the roof of the house grew fine water-melons, the strong stems of which closely encircled the chimney.

It was truly delightful to view this sylvan cottage in the calm and balmy coolness of a dewy morning, and to behold this structure, as it were, of rose-trees and creepers, as the warmth of the morning sun opened those closed flowers that seem thus to take their rest for the night, and the fresh-blown rosebuds that were hardly to be seen the evening before; most of those could now be observed to be tenanted by that busy little creature, the bee, sent “as a colonist,” from England to Australia, humming, in all the active vivacity of its nature, a joyful morning carol to the God of Nature. Indeed, were it not that there were appearances of some more substantial domestic comforts to be seen in the background—such as rows of beans, sweet peas, beds of cabbages, &c., set in the garden, and some young fruit-trees; while near a shady corner might be noticed young ducks feeding under a coop, and “little roasters” gambolling outside the pig-stye, which by the way was deeply shaded by large bushy rose-trees, this cottage at a distance might have been mistaken for a green-house. We ought not to omit that a number of fowls could be observed quietly roosting in some trees at the end of one of the outer buildings.

Truly, it was a little fairy home, with no rent, no taxes, no rates, to disturb the peace of the occupier; and no one, who has not 310lived in Australia, can conceive with what ease and little expense such rural beauties, such little paradises, and domestic comforts can be formed and kept up in that country. Notwithstanding, however, the beauty of all this—the variety of flowers—the magnificence of the creepers—the stillness and quietness that reigned around, it must be frankly confessed there was a certain vacuum that required filling up. If the animal senses were gratified, the mind felt somehow dissatisfied. There was a coldness, a death-like silence, which hung over the place; there appeared to be a want of rationality in the thing, for there seemed to be no human beings to enjoy it, or not a sufficient number. Yes, this spot of beauty, to make it a delightful happy home, required, what one of our favourite poets, and the poet of nature, calls nature’s “noblest work”—woman. ’Tis but too true—John Whitney wanted a wife to make his home a fit habitation for man. What is John Whitney without her? He may be an excellent carpenter, but he is at the same time a desolate, morose being, incapable of enjoying these beauties of nature. Poor John Whitney keenly felt this; and it was the hope alone, warming and clinging to his heart, that some day he could call himself the father of a family, that inspired him to gather all these beauties and comforts around him.