NOTES

New Zealand Tablet, 22 January 1920, Page 26

NOTES

A Pilgrimage Being in Melbourne, and Hobart but a night's sail distant, the memory of the Felons of our Land who endured exile and British brutalities in Van Dieman's Land a generation ago inspired us to book a berth in the Loongana for Launceston. Accordingly, one morning we awoke at an early hour to find ourselves gliding swiftly between the green banks of the riverTamar within a few hours of Launceston. The low hills, the fresh verdant pastures, and the snug homes scattered here and there among the trees on each side of the river, recalled memories of Irish landscapes on the Blackwater and the Barrow; and the Tamar itself compares favorably with the noble rivers of Eire — with the Shannon itself. Some 40 miles from the bar, Launceston appears, enthroned on an amphitheatre of hills around the river. The approach is very beautiful, and there are many interesting and picturesque places within easy reach of the town. Ten minutes' walk from the Post Office will bring one to the Cataract Gorge, which for rugged grandeur and beauty has few rivals in the world. We did not spend sufficient time in Launceston to visit innumerable beauty spots in the vicinity, and, strange to say, most of our conversation there was in Italian; for when the grand old Monsignore meets one who studied within the halls of the GoHegio Urbano he loves to converse again in the favella toscana which he learned to speak in his youth. ■ ■ .j From Launceston to Hobart We had no leisure to visit the little towns on the coast, or to make a detour from the mam line to see the lakes and caves. Indeed, as the rather cautious express carried us across the island, we had time to repent that we did not arrange for a longer visit, and we made a resolution that, if Providence permitted, we would come again another day to see more of Tasmania and to enjoy a real rest in its bracing atmosphere. Along the railway, the country is thinly populated. For many miles out of Launceston there are prosperous farms, well watered and sheltered, and studded with flocks and herds. But in the interior the way lies across weary tracts of unbroken land, and the middle of the island is covered with bush that has not the wonderful variety of the New Zealand forests. The landscape recalled Goldsmith's lines:— < 111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay. Large estates, populated by a man, a dog, and a flock of sheep, are no asset to Tasmania; and the worst of it is that there seems little likelihood of an immediate change. Nearing Hobart the scenery became more interesting. The magnificent outline of Mount Welling-

ton stood out in grand relief, against the evening sky, and the broad stream of - Derwent Water, winding among wooded hills, heralded the approach of the capital. - - -■ Hobart Somebody said to us, "'Doesn't Hobart remind you of Dunedin?" The question was a compliment to both cities. We will not make any comparisons, but will content ourselves with confessing our frank admiration of the loveliness of the Tasmanian capital crowning the slopes above that fine harbor. Let the man whose memory has made Hobart sacred for us tell of it: —■ "The mountainous southern coast of Van Dieman's Land ! It is a soft blue day; soft airs, laden with all the fragrances of those Antarctic woods, weave an atmosphere of ambrosia around me. As we coast along, passing promontory after promontory, wooded to the water's edge, and 'glassing their ancient glories in the flood,' both sea and land seem to bask and rejoice in the sunshine. Old Ocean smiles—that multitudinous, rippling laugh seen in vision by the chained Promotheus. ... It must have been on these mountains that strength and force bound the victim Demigod—for did not Kratos say unto liephaistcs, 'We have come now to the utmost verge of the earth'? . . . We arc becalmed in the channel ; but can see the huge mass of Mount Wellington, ending to the eastward in steep cliffs. In the valley at the foot of these cliffs, as they tell me, bosomed in soft green hills, -bowered in shady gardens, with its feet kissed by the blue ripples of the Derwent, lies that Metropolis of murderers, and university of burglary and all subter-humau abomination, Hobart Town." Hobart Town has fortunately changed since Mitchel's day, and unless you go to the gruesome Museums which a foolish Government preserves as a record of British inhumanitv von will see little trace of the old Hobart. On the contrary, there lies before one a quiet, peaceful town, streets with at tractive shops, men and women perhaps more kindly and hospitable than are to be found in other Australasian towns. And on the hill above there stands the fine pile of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Convent, the Brothers' College, and the Archbishop's residence—a goodly block of buildings, forming the stronghold of the army of Christ whose outposts are guarding every sentinel hill in this ultima Thule. r • I The Exiles "There among or behind those shaggy mountains," said Mitchel, looking shorewards from his convict ship, "wander Martin, O'Brien, Meagher, each alone in his forest-dungeon. . . . There to port loom the mountains, whereunto I am to be chained for years, with a vulture gnawing my heart." Tasmania is the place to read the Jail Journal, and to follow, with it in hand, the footsteps of the exiles from Erin. And when you have seen the ghastly Museums, handled the leg-irons and the shackles and manacles and whips which drove so many poor fellows to suicide, you will realise what a hell the English Government made of that island whither they sent the men who loved Ireland. Oh, it was not long, long ago, in the bad, old days, dear friends, that these things were done. The name of her Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria is set on many of the infamous documents which sent to this living hell, now a child who stole a cheese, now a woman who stole a few yards of linen, and again a man who loved a small oppressed nation. You will find, too, the name of that great English humanitarian, W. E. Gladstone, appended to some disgraceful papers; and if you read that terrible book of Marcus Clarke's you will comprehend a little into what misery and suffering her Gracious Majesty and his Right Honorableness sent poor wretches for crimes which were as nothing compared with the crimes of the profiteers in the late lamented war. Bead, in conclusion, this picture of Smith O'Brien in the British Inferno: "He seems sinking in health; his form is hardly so erect, nor his step so

stately; his hair is more, grizzled and his face bears traces of pain and.passion' It is sad to look upon this noblest of Irishmen, thrust in here among the offscourings of England's gaols, with his home desolated, and his hopes ruined, and his defeated life falling into the sere and yellow leaf. Tie is 50 years of age, yet has all the high and intense pleasure of youth in these majestic hills and woods, softened, indeed, and made pensive by sorrow, and haunted by the ghosts of buried hopes. He is a rare and noble sight to see: a man who cannot be crushed, broken, or bowed; who can stand firm on his feet against all the tumult and tempest of this ruffianly world, with his bold brow fronting the sun like any other Titan, son of Obelus and Terra anchored immovably upon his own brave heart within his clear eye and soul open as ever to all the melodies of earth and heaven, and calmly waiting for the angel death." O'Brien, Mitchel, Meagher, and Martin! Your memory lives still among the descendants of the Gael in Tasmania, and here too England's tyrants have left another bloody page that tells of Ireland's cruel wrongs: one page that, with many other pages, scattered wherever the sun shines, tells tho tale of despotism and outrage for all to read.