TASMANIA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1749, 13 September 1905, Page 15

TASMANIA.

By Robert Brothers, in the “Bulletin.”

I always think of Tasmania as a land of myrtle and blue-gums, of tree-ferns and foaming falls, an undulating clime of peace and old people. It seems as if Australia was designed for ambitious beings, and Tasmania was added as a paradise for the hot Northerners to cool off in. The land would be nothing but for the moneyed mortals who visit the place. It is true they have sheep; and in the north they have potatoes (and dirt which weighs in with the potatoes); and in the east blue gum and eucalyptus oil; and in the south the beautiful apple. But these seem to be merely incidentals. The country reminds me of a cow shewing the cud- It seems everlastingly reflecting what it will do next, without ever doing it. When a person reaches a street corner he pauses, irresolute which way to turn. That is -why so many loungers hang ahout the street intersections. Not that it looks out of place—this is a land to doze in. Everything is so lovely. There are such noble forests of blue gum, and velvety tracts of myrtle; it is so gemmed with placid lakes, and streaked with turgid streams, and noisy with roaring, foaming falls. You cannot walk a few miles - anywhere without getting views which make you stand and think, and when you drag yourself away you come on other bits of tangled ferny foliage scintilating crystal cascades which cause you to forget your first love. From the Anchor tin mines to Ringarooma is a mountainous tract of country with scenery right through, and every inlet provides as good fishing as you will find in any part of the world. Ringarooma is called the Garden of Elden. The forests of Tasmania rival those of Gippsland; its cascaded . gullies outclass BMaoriland’s; and what with, forest and gully and extended views, you never walk a mile without seeing something that makes you glad you are alive/ It is very patchy in the matter of soil, like Westralia, but with this advantage over Westralia, that its poor land is good scenery. Settlement was retarded in the early days by bands of convict bushrangers, who terrorised the farmers into the towns; and now there are land-owning syndicates of even poorer morals but better legal position who keep the people in the same place. The waterless plains of Australia are not known in the Land of Sleep; in fact, they get toe much rain in some parts, notably the West Coast. Drought times in Australia bring boom times here. For the rest, it is the home of petrified conservatism and self-satisfied ignorance. Politically, it is where IMaoriland was twenty-five years ago, when men lost their jobs through their votes. Visitors notice that the nativeborn is a curt, impatient fellow. He is never in a hurry, but seems to “kid” himself that he is. My earliest impression of the country was how old everything appeared—the old look of the young people,; the old, steep-roofed, moss-grown, shingled houses; the old, hoop-backed people with' hobbling gait and faces you could strike matches on ; and even the old hills which seem to give all their subStan oe to feed the plains. And inside those old domiciles there is the oldfashioned furniture, the old style antimacassars hanging on the straightbacked chairs, the glass-covered wax fruit, and there are even old volumes of Dante and Milton illustrated with wood-outs. And my second, and alltime impression, was the scarcity of the aspirate. Tasmania is the most h-less State of Australasia. This comes of the desire of the people to he as English as possible. All the Other States hail the man with capital, hut in Tasmania he is looked on in the light of an invadedThe newcomer has a precipitous cliff of prejudice to scale before he can obtain a foothold as a citizen; but if he is single, and marries into a Tasmanian family, and then by dogged endeavour and indomitable courage he be comes- a nominee to this hoard and that board, and is appointed a J.P., there is no man so secure from misfortune and worry the wide world over. He begets a son who grows up in the beliefs of his father, thinking the old manure is the best, and that the old machine can’t be improved on, and that the old methods of business are the most commendable. And when it rains, the oldfashioned smoek-froek of the English rustic is still worn. There are a few beautiful girls in Doderydom, and there are hundreds Who have narrowly escaped being lovely. They are mostly marred by the mouth, the kissing member protruding coarsely, so that you forget the other really fine features in looking at the all-too-forward lips. The women outnumber the men in the towns —hops, apples, tourists, and “spuds” not being sufficient to keep the lads at home in the land of No Enterprise. Another point about the people the visitor must notice is the way they palliate the “taint.” They are always careful to tell you how persons were transported for trivial offences. New South Wales has lived down its past, and, anyway, doesn’t car© a curse how

the nation began, and in Westralia the old lags are so devoid of shame, and will tell you so much for a long Ibeer, noat it is not much use trying to draw a cloak over the back years. But Tasmania is like tlye girl whose skirt ought to be longer; she keeps pulling it down over her stockings with a shame for her understandings. Yet the convict history of the country is not its least point of interest. Such places as Port Arthur and the “Old Curiosity ©hop” at Brown’s River, where the gyves and ■manacles of the old regime are still on view, bring more visitors than some far lovelier pleasure resorts. Tourists take a vast interest in the rook at Port Esperance, where 300 convicts were shot as they swam ashore from a wrecked barque. They swam ashore to save their lives from drowning, and they . were shot because the officers reckoned that when they were dead they would be less likely to escape. The old convict-time officer was a logical and conscientious man. It was told of one that after he bad a convict flogged he found that it hadn’t been done with, the right cat, so he had him flogged over again, using the right cat this time. '

There is a great difference between Launceston and Hobart. Launceston is the live town of the two- It is said to be the best-lighted town in the universe. Besides, it has a gorge. They will tell you in Launceston how “slow” the Hobart people are, though the Derwent dwellers are none too slow when it comes to getting your money. Hobart is about the most quaint and lovely town in the Southern Hemisphere. It is an old, slothful-looking place, largely composed of pubs., gum trees, old stone •walls, and bits of cemetery. There are graveyards scattered all over it.. As for the beershops, they are more plentiful than little grocery stores in other towns. There are three different kinds of license, consequently the .Hobart drinkeries are divided into “hotels”’ “public houses,” and “dealers in wines and spirits.” The shanties of the “dealers in W. and St” seem to consist in every case of a bar, a bedroom, and. a lean-to for a kitchen. The names of these puibs. are original, or very old, I don’t know which. I noticed the “Man at the Wheel,” “The Steam Hammer,” “Doctor Syntax,” and “The Ocean Child.” I also noticed two hang-dog-looking men standing 'before “The Bright Smile.” Then another distinctive feature of Hobart is the great number of ketches a.nd barges which wander to and fro in the timber trade, or carry fruit or firewood from the Hu on. They don’t seem to have much use for steamers in Hobart, almost all the traders being small sailing craft. You would wonder how they paid their way, but they seem to do very well. And Hobart is very proud of its sailing boats. Hobart people J>oast that many of their barges are faster than crack yachts on the other side. Borne of them are very old; the Royal William was pointed out to me as the boat which first carried the mail between Maoriland and Tasmania in the early convict days, and it is as staunch as ever.

Hobart is like the large old-world cities with its destitution. You see men raking out the dust-bins. I heard a local doctor say that the convict taint is still noticeable among the lower classes —the old grandfather in. a bene-' volent asylum, the sous living on charity, and the grandchildren in industrial schools. A whole family is thus a burden on the State. Schoolmasters observe that the children off these old convict families cannot remember; they are always being taught the same lessons. But the animal faculty is fully, developed, the families being larger than those of normal persons.

There are many scenes of desolation in beautiful Tasmania. Sometimes the: steamers cannot get round South 'Clape, and they turn from the big resistless Polar waves and shelter in Research Bay. This is the oldest Tasmanian whaling station. There is no whaling done there now, but a timber mill and some scattered houses along the beach make it one of the outposts of tbe world. It was an . uncanny night I spent there. A dead whale was lying alongside the wharf, its decomposing smell coming across to us with the wind. The odour of a dead whale is something to carry away with you. In fact, if you take on the contract to cut it up, its effluvia is likely to remain, with you for months. It soaks right to the bone, and as far as smell goes, you might as well be a dead whale yourself. In the night the water was phosphorescent with sharks, their teeth gnashing as they fought like dogs over the carcass. It seemed in keeping with the general desolation —the dead whale, the fighting sharks, and the few isolated families on the beach.

A still lonelier place is Port Davey, the cliff-bound inlet where the southern rollers boom, and where, the captain said, we might escape, if wrecked, could we only cling to the rooks like limpets. Near by are the Headland Isles, where thousands of sea birds gather. Wild, wind-swept, and visited by sleet and snow, these dreary spots give me the creeps. The child in the big house dreads certain rooms. He steals by them with a shudder. The lonely poles are the haunted rooms of the world. It seems that a black hand

may steal out and grab you. Men like to he near warm humanity, and consequently they do not go much to those lone and icy parts.