

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

                          [Picture: Book cover]

                  [Picture: Despatching the wool-packs]





                              ON THE WALLABY
                             THROUGH VICTORIA


                                * * * * *

                                    BY
                               E. M. CLOWES

                                * * * * *

                               ILLUSTRATED

                        [Picture: Heinemann logo]

                                  LONDON
                            WILLIAM HEINEMANN
                                   1911

                                * * * * *

_Copyright_, _London_, _1911_, _by William Heinemann_

                                * * * * *




INTRODUCTION


This is not supposed to be a national or political history of Victoria.
When I was asked to write something about the country which has extended
its hospitality to me, and given me bread and cheese—sometimes no cheese,
it is true, and more often than not no butter, but still always bread,
and an ever-increasing appetite—I must confess I felt frankly scared.
There is a very good, if somewhat vulgar, expression in use out here,
which speaks of anyone who attempts what is beyond them as “biting off
more than they can chew.”  And the thought frightened me.  There seemed
to be so many people who had lived all their life in the country, and
were therefore much more capable of writing about it than I could ever
possibly hope to be.

However, I found that other “fools rushed in,” who had been here for even
a shorter period than myself; who had never participated in any way in
the true life of the country, or depended on it for their own life, which
after all teaches one more than anything else ever can about a place.  I
may not be an “angel,” I thought, still I know it, which is one point in
my favour; and, after all, eight years can scarcely be described as a
“rush.”  Besides, every proverb and popular saying seems to be balanced
by another which is completely contradictory—and while it may be true
that “fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” it is also true “that
lookers-on see most of the game,” and perhaps score somewhat in the
freshness of their impressions and in their facilities for comparison.

As it is I can only write about Victoria as I know it.  There are many
mistakes that I may have made through my inability to see all sides of a
question; but they are at least honest mistakes, and not the deliberate
misstatement of facts, from which Australia has so often suffered.

Of course, there are numberless phases of life out here which I have
never even touched: my nose has been too close to the grindstone, while
life has resolved itself for the most part into a mere struggle for
existence.  Still, that very struggle has brought me into touch with real
people, and with the many grades of society which are to be found here as
elsewhere, in spite of all the theories of democracy.

I have edited a woman’s fashion paper, of sorts, and was dismissed
because—I confess it—the compositors were quite incapable of reading my
writing.  I have written short stories and articles; I have decorated
houses, painted friezes, made blouses for tea-room girls, designed
embroideries for the elect of Toorak, even for the sacred denizens of
Government House.  I have housekept, washed, ironed, cooked.  Once I made
a garden, drew out the estimates, engaged the men, bought soil and
manure, shrubs and plants, laid out a croquet-lawn, delved, sowed and
planted shrubs which, now threatening to become trees, perhaps represent
the best result of all these years of continuous labour.  Palpable
results, I mean, for the other results, the enlarged outlook, the
humanity, the pathos, and the friendship, with which the memory of them
is crammed, form, after all, an asset which is by no means to be
despised.

Still, when I recollect that I have been here for more than eight years;
and that even now less than ten times that number of years has actually
passed since the natives ceded to Batman, for knives, and beads, and
looking-glasses, the present site of Melbourne, and much of the
surrounding country, I am filled with the most abject shame at my own
achievements and unlimited admiration for these people, so often
dismissed by the ignorant at home and abroad as only “colonials,” who
have built up such a town as Melbourne and such a country as Victoria is
to-day.




CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
           INTRODUCTION                                              v
       I.  EARLY DAYS IN VICTORIA                                    1
      II.  SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MELBOURNE                     