IMPRESSIONS

OF

AUSTRALIA FELIX,

DURING

FOUR YEARS' RESIDENCE IN THAT COLONY;

Notes of a Voyage Round the World;

AUSTRALIAN POEMS, &c.

BY RICHARD HOWITT.

"I don't know any pleasure equal to that of ranging at liberty, with no care upon
the mind, river, and wood, and coast, in new countries. We enjoyed ourselves up to
the very height of earthly delectation, you may be sure, especially after eighteen weeks'
sea imprisonment. Then almost everything we heard or saw were new. The trees, the
shrubs, the flowers, the birds all new-and although there is in all situations something
to be endured as well as enjoyed, I would not willingly leave the past undone as it
regards these countries. There is something for the memory worth retaining."
AUSTRALIAN LETTER.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

Epistle Bedicatory

TO GODFREY HOWITT, M.D.,

FELLOW OF THE BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH.

DEAR BROTHER,

On the same couch in infancy did we, the youngest of six brothers, sink to rest; in the same quiet old-fashioned English village were spent together our happy schoolboy days; and in our father's fields, than which none are more delightful, did Nature first surprise me into poetry, whilst you she fascinated with her insects and her flowers.

Together did we cross the immense ocean which now separates us; looking at the same time on the almost entirely new nature of Australia, amongst the wonders of which you still reside. To no one, then, could this volume be more appropriately dedicated.

Great was the change from the old land to the new for both of us; to me greatest. Society such as you had resigned received you-the refined, the intelligent. Books, intellectual converse, these, with my customary dress, were relinquished for the homeliest garb, to perform the humblest duties, and to contend with the commonest cares; adapting myself austerely to one undivided purpose. To you it is known how to my new vocation was devoted my whole heart, and with what results. The Port

Phillip past is a painful reality, and the future as painful an uncertainty. With new means, new opportunities in a new land, or where there ought to be such, it yet depends on our British Government, on the British heart, on its nobility and generosity, if not its justice, whether you, and, alas! how many others, have only exchanged one country for another; substantial good and imaginary evil, for real evil and imaginary good; on these it depends whether or not you are to look as in the old land on the future with all the anxieties of a parent. I trust it may prove otherwise.

One poem in this volume will remind you of the pale high forehead, thoughtful countenance, dark eyes, and dark and curled hair of one, by whom on shipboard it was recited with no common zest. For him, with deliverance and rest, the angel of death waved his wings over your threshold, as once before, to remind us that,—

Beside the eternal ocean we are dreamers;

We hear the billows whispering evermore;
We see fair barks with their departing streamers,
And lonely left, pace sadly on the shore.

With ardent solicitude for the prosperity of Australia Felix, notwithstanding what those who think falsehood can serve any cause or country may deem otherwise; and with the most anxious aspirations for your well-being, and not for yours only but theirs who make for you home, brightening it with many forms of happiness, I present to you this volume.

Your affectionate Brother,

Nottingham, Feb. 20, 1845.

R. H.

PREFACE.

We promise to ourselves many pleasant and profitable adventures in the world, which turn out in the acting, not so very advantageous, or felicitous. The Wimmera and Yarraine in Sir Thomas Mitchell's Australian Expeditions, were fine rivers flowing through a rich country: and in our day-dreams, four of us were to purchase on one of those streams a square mile of land each. We should have, we decided, as much back-run for cattle and sheep as we desired. Two of us were to be located on each side. Bridges we were to construct, houses to build, and roads to make, associated with a world of strength in such union, in the most congenial fellowship. We touched the land, and these air-castles vanished. Land so far up the country was not surveyed and special surveys there were none until afterwards, as there are none now. The spell which had bound us together was broken: we were scattered to the four winds of heaven: some to different lands. Change fell upon us; dispersion, darkness, and in some instances, death.

What a lesson it would be, how fraught with entertainment aud instruction, could we, without violating the confidence and courtesies of private life, reveal to the reader, the whole eventful history, the disquietudes, the vexations, the losses and disappoint