Separation of New South Wales and Australia Felix Homer and Horace read and enjoyed by a Shepherd in Australia IMPRESSIONS OF AUSTRALIA FELIX. JOURNAL OF A VOYAGE TO VAN DIEMEN'S LAND AND AUSTRALIA FELIX. "ARE we, too, amongst the Arcadians?" Sigh we to keep sheep in the beautiful wilds of Australia Felix? "By sweet rivers, to whose falls Sooty girls sing madrigals?" Is it not enough that two brothers have already traversed the vast wilds, the savannas, the prairies, and forests of North America; that one of them yet feels in his constitution the effects, after twenty years, of privations and fatigues then and there endured; and that the other, smitten with brain fever, moulders in an alien grave in New York? Are the wishes, the prayers, the anxieties of our parents in their extreme age nothing? No; all is in vain; some fatality, like that which impelled Robinson Crusoe to go to sea, in spite of entreaties, forebodings, and presentiments of disaster, urges us to this voyage. Undeluded by the scene-painting in emigration-books, unfascinated by the felicitous name of Australia, the beautiful and happy! my brother, the physician, his brothers-in-law, J. and R. B., and myself, have decided on emigrating to Port Phillip in Australia Felix. What we promise to ourselves is briefly this: the Doctor is B anxious for a more salubrious climate to improve the general health of his family, but more especially, if possible, to save the life of his eldest boy, to whom one more English winter would be certain death. As a naturalist, also, he has dreams and expectations. He expects, moreover, to better his condition, rationally I hope, in this world's wealth. The last consideration is, I believe, the sole inducement his brothers-in-law have in quitting their native country. Mine, with none to care for, and uncared for, neither doing myself much good or harm in England, in a worldly point of view; I who, Have been a dreamer in the land; The things which others understand: " I expect to slip the time not unpleasantly, to see and hear something new, to somewhat expand my mind, and to enrich it with novel imagery. Never had any one more boldly developed, say the phrenologists, the organ of locality; something then must be endured in quitting England-the home of our heart, the fountain of our intellect, the source and foundation of our moral being. The separation is past. We have seen London," that mighty heart," probably for the last time, as it was the first. Londonthe one city of the universe-the home both of the living and the dead-of sages, poets, and statesmen-peopled as it was by the past and the present-haunted by the immortality of Milton and Shakspeare-by all that is greatest in thought or act-everything sublimest and most majestic of the ancient world seemed there concentrated and perpetuated.-A Chatham, a Nelson, a Burke, and a Goldsmith-these names, and how many others? have consecrated it. A noble and a famous city it appeared to them -they were proud of it; yet they, little as they seemed in their own estimation, how have they shed a golden splendour upon it! Pacing its streets, the common pageantry of wealth and fashion were its dull realities; to me more real was its world of heart and intellect—the unseen, yet ever present. Thus, in the one city, I seemed overpowered, so full was it of old and living memories. Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem-these were no longer in ruins here they and their races had more powerfully and beautifully sprung up; London, to me, was a city made out of many cities; and its soul—the Divine human spirit-had there invested itself with the light and grandeur of all earth's greatest in all ages and nations. No wonder that Rome, Greece, and the Holy City itself, and their visitation, seemed now a diminutive ambition. I saw London with exultation, and passed away from it with pain. Here let me warn persons of sanguine temperament, who are at all made of excitable stuff, not to wander much about, seeking out the most delicious spots in their native land, if they are about to emigrate, especially in spring and autumn; at which times England is a paradise; bnt to shut their eyes and ears, and dash right off for the port. Merry England is studded all over with old ruined castles, on breezy eminences; many throned amongst rocks of savage sublimity and amongst hoary woods. It has also rich abbeys and monasteries, splendid in their decay, embosomed deep in green valleys, haunts of delicious quiet and seclusion by lakes and rivers, amidst scenes of the most bewitching beauty. How grand, too, are its venerable cathedrals, minsters, and churches, many of them the most magnificent specimens of architecture in the world! It is sprinkled also with numberless quaint old rural villages and farms; overshadowed by, or sleeping amongst, grave woodlands. Moreover, go whereever you will, its localities are famous, rich in lingering traditions, imbued perpetually by the spirit of the past; it is full of history and poetry. Forget all these, good emigrant, and make right off for your ship. We have ourselves endeavoured to do so.* And now the pests of emigration :-the leave-taking, the packing up, the nuisance of custom-house and custom-house officers, and the dry-as-dust weariness of dockyards and jetties, the lumber of chests and packages-thanks to patient endurance, is all over. EMBARKATION AT GRAVESEND. August 30, 1839.-We have left London for Gravesend by the steamer, 30 miles; and, for us an uncomfortable beginning, it has rained most of the way. We have seen Greenwich Hospital; a place that does honour to our country; where, after life-long wear and tear, many a jolly old tar has cast anchor for the last time, and in a good port too. There let them spin long and tough yarns, enjoying themselves to their hearts' content. We left Gravesend about noon for the ship, lying two miles * Vainly. The "Visitor of Remarkable Places " led us away, from our ship and port, to visit Winchester and other famous localities. |