SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Phillipsland, or the Country hitherto designated Port Phillip: its preeent Condition and Prospects, as a highly eligible Field for Emigration. By John Dunmore Lang, D.D., AIL, Senior Minister of the Presbyterian Church, and Member of he

Legislative Council of New South Wales, tkc Longman and Co. Cooksland, in North-Eastern Australia, the future Cotton Field of Great Britain : its Characteristics and Capabilities for European Colonization. With a Disquisition on the Origin, Manners, and Customs of the Aborigines. By John Dunmore Lang, D.D., A.M., &c Longman and Co.

Firms,

Home and iii Influence. By the Hon. Adele Sidney. In three volumes....Bealley.

FINE ALT8,

Materials for a History of 011 Painting. By Charles Lock Eastlake, RA., F.H.B., P.S.A., Secretary to the Royal Commission for Promoting the Fine Arts in con- nexion with the Rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament, &c. ise• Longman and Co.

PHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY, Principles of Physics and Meteorology. By J. Milner, Professor of Physics at the University of Freiburg. Illustrated with 530 Engravings on wood and two co- loured Plates. Badliere.

DR. LANG'S PHILLIPSLAND AND COOKSLAND.

A milt; object of Dr. Lanes two volumes is to recommend the Austra- lian districts hitherto called Port Phillip and Moreton Bay as fields for Protestant emigration, in order to check the advancing flood of Roman• ism and Puseyism—" the Beast and the image of the Beast," which threat- ens to overwhelm them. Another purpose is to point out the natural ad- vantages of both places fix' emigration, with the economical object of re- lieving the poverty and pauperism of Great Britain, and the moral purpose of giving a death blow to American slavery, by supplying Europe with sugar and cotton raised by free White labour, in the district of Moreton Bay. Connected with these leading objects are many incidental and subordinate ones. Dr. Lang considers many districts in both places to be -as well fitted for cultivation as for feeding ; and he discusses the Squatter question, or agriculture versus pasture, in all its rights, claims, and territorial fitness. The mode of disposing of waste lands, the manner in which new districts have been thrown open, the state of religion and religious parties, not omitting sketches of their ministers, the treatment, character, manners, and customs of the Aborigines, with the fertile subject of Colonial misgovernment, are all handled, besides smaller topics. It will be seen that there is sufficient variety of subjects in Pkillipsland and Cooksland ; but there is great lack of order in their plan and treat- ment. Geography and statistics are the leading matters of the two books, and such Dr. Lang considers them in his formal arrangement. The first -chapters in each volume describe the physical features and characteristics of the country, with a history of the settlement of Port Phillip. These are followed by chapters devoted to each district, modified according to the nature of the country, the advance of settlement, and the materials at Dr. Lang's disposal. To these succeed the moot questions for discussion, —as the Squatting system, the Separation question, (that is, the separa- tion of Port Phillip from New South Wales,) and similar topics. So far so good ; but the manner in which this formal arrangement is filled up is very indifferent. There is no mastery of the matter or of the treatment; almost everything is crude ; there is rather confusion than variety. Except the mere physical features of the country, things are frequently presented not according to their real importance but to Dr. Lang's estimate of them; and this often depends upon their accidental .connexion with himself. The book, we suspect, is too exact a reflex of Dr. Lanes habitual mind for literary attractiveness. It has the loose and illogical outpouring which distinguishes second-rate speakers, especially of the platform. Continual digressions of a personal nature occur ; the writer stops his argument or his narrative to introduce some reminiscence, not always pertinent, or travels half round the world to import an anecdote of his experience. There are jokes whose point is not always perceived, and much of that familiarity which distin- guishes the received heads of small societies, accustomed to take liberties with their own cliques, or "to sit attentive to their own applause." The tone, too, is bad. We meet with the unscrupulous and attacking animus prevalent in the Colonies, and that cool assumption of more than Papistical infallibility which distinguishes the Nonconformist minis- ter, as well as a little of the odium theologieum. Scarcely anybody is right save Dr. Lang. Colonial Governors, with the whole train of offi- cials, the British clergymen of the colony, we think without any exception, the Scottish nation on the subject of colonizing, Popery throughout the world, Irish emigrants, squatters, American slavery, and other matters, as large and as wide, are all, in pugilistic phrase, "pitched into." Nor do small matters escape the quarrelsome Doctor of Divinity. His genius is "like the trunk of an elephant, which can rend an oak or pick up a pin." He is particularly great upon the names of places, and but for the style of doing it very often just enough. South Australia and North Australia are both "absurd," and he writes two prefaces to enforce the propriety of his new designation "Phillip's-Land" and " Cook's-Land." The indeco- rous latitude of personal animadversion which Dr. Lang allows himself, may be conceived from the following strange sketches of the two pastors of the Moreton Bay district (Cooksland).

"The Episcopalian minister at Brisbane is the Reverend John Gregor, A.M., a regularly educated and ordained minister of the Established Church of Scotland, who was sent out to New South Wales as a Presbyterian minister, on the recom- mendation of the General Assembly's Colonial Committee, in the year 1837. In consequence, however, of certain difficulties in his position, the result of his own heartless cupidity, Mr. Gregor gave out that a new light had broken in upon his mental vision, and declared publicly, in the church of St. James the Apostle, in Sydney, that he was moved by the Holy Ghost to renounce the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Presbyterian C.01111M11310D, and to take an oath of im- plicit obedience to a Puseyite Bishop.' "Mr. Gregor is, without exception, the most worldly-minded person I have ever known in a clerical habit; and be is so ignorant withal of the world as even to be utterly destitute of that thin veil of hypocrisy which in such cases is indis- pensably necessary to shield the hireling from general disgust. Through the fre- quent exhibition of this quality, combined with others equally unclerical, Mr. Gregor had contrived, within a very shirt period from the time of his arrival at Moreton Bay, (to which locality he ivas ordered to proceed by his Bishop,) to alienate the affections of the entire Episcopalian community in the district from his person and ministry, and to. forfeit all title to their confidence and respect. Public meetings had been held both before the period of my visit and since, to represent his utter unfitness for the office he held, and to petition the Bishop for his removal. But obsequiousness and servility are the never-failing attribttes of the Episcopalianized Scotch Presbyterian, whether in church or in state; and by 'the diligent use of these outward and ordinary means' of success in such quar- ters, Mr. Gregor has managed to retain his position in spite of the petitions and remonstrances of an outraged and indignant people. He is a thorough latru-

sionist. • • • • .

"The Episcopalian incumbent at the Clarence River is a Mr. M'Connell, a very young man, and evidently knowing as little of mankind, to say nothing of Chris- tianity, as Mr. Gregor."

The matter is partly original, derived from a visit to the immediate vicinity of Moreton Bay itself, and pretty extensive tours through New South Wales and the colony of Port Phillip, at various times and on va- rious occasions. Besides these results of actual observation, there is a good deal of floating knowledge—the reports and anecdotes of the colonists, perhaps not always of the most trustworthy kind. The greater part of the materials, however, are second-band. Direct statis- tics, and extracts from voyagers and travellers, descriptive of the dis- covery or character of the country, form the most valuable portion of this class, especially the outline Of Dr. Leichhardes and Sir T. L. Mitchell's explorations towards the North and interior of the continent. Reports of Colonial officers, or the evidence delivered before Colonial Committees of inquiry as to the natural qualities of districts and their fitness for set- tlement, stand next in point of value, though partaking of the " blue book" nature. Some of the extracts from Colonial journals could well have been spared, especially the speeches of Dr. Lang either at Council or after dinner, and his own report of his own sermon.

As a collection of raw materials relating to the climate, soil, produc- tions, and probable capabilities of the two settlements, the volumes are entitled to praise; and they have frequent passages descriptive of Colo- nial life, or examples of successful industry : but the literary value of the books is impaired by an incongruous mixture of topics, and by the tone and style of composition we have already spoken of. The person with patience to search and capacity to judge may resort to Dr. Lang's volumes as to a store of mixed materials. We will give some samples of the more popular portions.

EXAMPLE OF MDT:STET'.

But the finest scenery I beheld in either locality was the moral scenery I had the pleasure of beholding on the well-cultivated farm of a humble fellow country- man of my own at Brighton; of whose colonial history I beg to present the follow- ing sketch to the intelligent reader, as an antidote to some at least of the Im- pressions of Australia Felix, by Mr. Richard Howitt. Mr. John M'Millan is a native of Skipness, and his wife of Turbot, in the Western Highlands of Scotland. Having an increasing family, and no means of providing for their subsistence in either of these localities, he had crossed over to the Lowlands, and became, like many other Highlanders in the large towns of Scotland, a porter on the streets of my native town of Greenock. In this pre- carious situation he had been for six years, supporting his family with great difficulty, when he obtained a free passage by the David Clarke, one of the Go- vernment Bounty Emigrant ships, for himself and family to Port Phillip, in the year 1840. On his arrival in Blelbourne, he had only from five to ten shillings in the world, and this small 'gum he had earned by some petty service rendered on board ship to one of the cabin passengers: but he had nine sons and a daughter, of whom the eldest was about twenty years of age, and the youngest in infinity. Labour was high-priced at the time, as everything else was; and, having no mecha- cal employment, he hired himself as a stone-mason's labourer at 21. a week. These of his sons who were fit for service of any kind were also hired at different rates of wages to different employers. The earnings of the family appear to have been all placed in a common purse; and with their first savings a much cow was par- chased at 121.; another and another being added successively thereafter at a some- what similar rate. Pasture for these cattle, on the waste land quite close to the town, cost nothing; and there were always children enough, otherwise unem- ployed, to tend them; while the active and industrious wife and mother lent her valuable services to the common stock by forming a dairy. In this way, from the natural increase of the cattle, and from successive purchases, the herd had in- creased so amazingly, that in the month of February 1846 it amounted to four hundred head; and as this was much too large a herd to be grazed any longer on the waste land near Melbourne, a squatting-station had been sought for and ob- tained by some of the young men on the Murray River, about two hundred miles distant.

THE SPINIT-AND :WATER-CURE.

I had been unable to take any food from Friday morning at Maralan: my breakfast, before divine service, had been carried away untouched; aud, notwith- standing the excitement of public speaking, after the cold and sleepless night from Goulburn I had no inclination to taste a morsel of anything on my return to the inn. The waiter, who seemed a goodnatured, warm-hearted lad, observing me drooping, and expressing a degree of sympathy with which I was much pleased, recommended to me very strongly a glass of hot brandy and water, with a little dry toast. I thought it a strange prescription at the moment, for the sun was again burning hot; but on taking it, which I did at the young man's sug- gestion, I felt much revived and refreshed.

TURTLE FISHING: COOKSLAND.

Turtle are very numerous in their proper season, particularly at Kaneipa, the Southern extremity of the Bay, where small coasting-vessels take in cedar for Sydney. An intelligent Black Native whom I met with on the Brisbane River, about the middle of December, when asked when the turtle would come to the Bay, held up five fingers in reply, saying, "that moon"; signifying that they would come about the middle of .May. The greatest excitement prevails in hunt- ing the turtle—for it can scarcely be called fishing; Black Natives being always of the party, and uniformly the principal performers. The deepest silence must prevail; and if the slightest noise is made by any European of the party, the Na- tives, who assume the direction of affairs, frown the offender into silence. They are constantly looking all around them for the game, and their keen eye detects the turtle in the deep water when invisible to Europeans. Suddenly, and without any intimation of any kind, one of them leaps over the gunwale of the boat, and dives down in the deep water between the oars, and perhaps, after an in- terval of three minutes, reappears on the surface with a large turtle. As soon as he appears with his prey, three or four other Black fellows leap overboard to his assistance, and the helpless creature is immediately transferred into the boat. A Black fellow has in this way not unfrequently brought up a turtle weighing five hundredweight. Great personal courage, as well as great agility, is required in this hazardous employment, the Black fellows being frequently wounded by the powerful stroke of the animal's flippers. A NAUTICAL SETTLER.

Captain Griffin's house was oldie same primitive character as those of squatters generslly; consi: flag of rough slabs fixed in sleepers below, and in a grooved wall- plate above, and roofed with large sheets of bark, supported by rough saplings for rafters. Mahogany tables, chairs, sideboards, &e., and the other moveables of a respectable family in a town, appeared rather incongruous articles of furniture in such an extempore structure; but they gave promise at least of a better house, which I was told it was intended to erect as soon as the more important out-door operations of the establishment should afford the requisite leisure for the purpose,

e present house being intended eventually for the barn. I was amused at the ingenious nautical expedient that had bee* had recourse to to form an additional apartment. The carpet which the family had had in use in their dining-room in Sydney was " triced up," to use the nautical phrase, during the day, to the wall- plate of the slab-house; but on the usual signal of "Let go the haulyards," being given at the proper hour for retirement at night, the carpet descended like the curtain of a theatre, and not only formed a partition between the sitting-room and a commodious bedroom, but stretching, as it did, along the whole extent of the slab-wall of the latter, served to exclude the cold night wind which would other- wise have found a thousand entrances by the interstices between the slabs. These, indeed, were so numerous as to render the formality of a window quite un- necessary, and a work of supererogation. As being the greater stranger on the occasion, the use of this bedroom, in which I found a Colonial cedar post-bed, with the usual furniture of a respectable bedroom in a town, was, in the absence of the lady of the house, assigned to me; my fellow-traveller being accommodated with a stretcher in a detached building along with Captain G.'s sons. On the whole, I was mach gratified with my visit to this recently-formed Squatting-station so far to the Northward; as it showed how very comfortably a respectable family could be settled in the bush, with comparatively moderate means and exertion, in Aus- tralia, with all their flocks and herds around them, like the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob of old.

The chapter on the Aborigines of Australia brings together old opinions from well-known authors, and some new facts from some persons familiar with the natives by long intercourse with them. As regards theory, it is pretty similar to Dr. Lang's View of the Origin and Emigrations of the Polynesian Nation, with the facts and arguments limited to the Australians. One of the most novel parts is the assertion, on the author- ity of a runaway convict named Davies, that cannibalism is not the in- dulgence of a revengeful spirit, or adopted from the pressure of hunger, but a sort of religious festival ; friends being eaten as well as foes, and the parties feeling they discharge a duty in so doing. The description of their processes is curious, though not over agreeable.

"Davies has seen as many as ten or twelve dead bodies brought off by one of the parties engaged, after such a fight as Finnegan describes; all of which were skinned, roasted, and eaten by the survivors. And when I observed that so large a quantity of human flesh could not surely be consumed at once, he replied, that there were so many always assembled on such occasions that the bodies of the dead were cut up and eaten in a twinkling, there being scarcely a morsel for each. * • C •

"When the dead body of a person who has either fallen in battle or has died a natural death is to be subjected to this horrid process, it is stretched out on its back, and a fire lighted on each side of it. Firebrands are then passed carefully over the whole body, till its entire surface is thoroughly scorched. The cuticle, consisting of the epidermis or scarfskin, and the reticulum mucosum, or mucous Membrane of Malpighi, in which the colouring matter of the skin is contained, is then peeled off, sometimes with pointed sticks, sometimes with muscle-shells, and sometimes even with the finger-nails, and then placed in a basket or dilly to be preserved. And as the cutis vera, or true skin, is in all varieties of the human family perfectly white the corpse then appears of that colour all over; and I have no doubt whatever, that it is this peculiar and ghastly. appearance which the dead hod/ of a Black man uniformly assumes under this singular treatment, and with Ai& the Aborigines must be quite familiar wherever the practice obtains, that hits suggested to them the idea that White men are merely their forefathers re- turned to life again; the supposition that particular White men are particular deceased natives, known to the aborigines when alive, being merely this idea carried out to its natural result under the influence of a heated imagination. There is reason also to believe, e converso, that wherever this ides prevails, the practice in which it has originated—that of peeling off the cuticle previous to the other parts of the process to be described hereafter—is still prevalent also, or has been so at least very recently. "After the dead body has been subjected to the process of scorching .with fire- bmnds, it becomes so very stiff as almost to be capable of standing upright of it- self If the subject happens to be a male, the subsequent part of the process is performed by females, but if a female, it is performed by males. The body is then extended upon its face; and certain parties, who have been hitherto sitting apart in solemn silence, (for the whole affair is conducted with the stillness of a funeral solemnity,) step forward, and with a red pigment, which shows very strongly ri the white ground, draw lines down the back and along the arms from each s.oulder down to the wrist. These parties then retire, and others, who have pre- viously been sitting apart in solemn silence, step forward in like manner, and with sharp shells cut through the cutis vera or true skin along these Hues. The entire skin of the body is then stripped off in one piece, including the ears and the finger-nails, with the scalp, but not the skin of the face which is cut off. This whole process is performed with incredible expedition; and the skin is then stretched out on two spears to dry; the process being sometimes hastened, as in the case described byFinnegan by lighting a fire under the skin. Previous to this operation, however, the skin is restored to its natural colour, by being anointed all over with a mixture of grease and charcoal."

In his views upon the subject of colonization Dr. Lang exhibits the same confusion between the possible, the probable, and the certain, which distinguished his View of the Polynesian Nation. In his prospectus for the cultivation by free White labour of cotton, sugar, indigo, and silk, in the half-tropical district of Moreton Bay, he is still the same "system- monger, allowing nothing to stand in his way," as when he undertook to demonstrate, inter ails, that the Malayan language was one of the tongues of the Tower of Babel. We do not mean to deny that the above articles can be raised in Moreton Bay : the questions are—whether they can be raised systematically and with a profit ; and whether, as men are constituted and colonization is carried on, they can be produced in quantities to constitute a staple commodity. Grant all the necessary conditions, and the thing can be done. Let the climate and soil be really such that the canes in yield and quality will rival those of America, and that Whites can bear the continuous labour of crop and boiling time ; let a complete and peculiar social system be carried out and located in the country, the farmers with the requisite knowledge and disposition to culti- vate the sugar-cane, and capitalists disposed to establish sugar-mills for crashing the purchased canes of their district ; and suppose that an article SO liable to undergo chemical change as sugar, can be cultivated, cut, and manufactured in the way proposed, and there are no physical obstacles to the scheme. But, from all we know of modern colonization, the necessary society is not likely to be transplanted ; and it still remains a moot point whether these products are the most profitable mode of exercising in- dustry. The example of the actual settlers answers this question in the negative, and so seems to set the question at rest. Cut off, under the modern system of colonization, from all the conveniences of an old so- ciety and the pleasures of social life, the colonist looks for his reward in large returns to a rough and ready but not very tasking sort of la- bour; and although, under a better system of settlement, greater so- cial conveniences and refinement with a somewhat more careful industry might obtain, still, large returns to individual and therefore to coarse la- bour must be the base of all really judicious territorial settlement. Sugar is a manufacture as well as a crop, and requires the machinery of slaves, or a dense population, for success. Neither is there any proof that the district could produce sugar as a profitable export. The sugar-cane can be grown in Sicily and Madeira ; but it cannot compete with the sugar of the Tropics. The idea of silk-raising is even less practical : no produc- tion requires more patient, sustained, and skilfully-trained labour, and of the cheapest kind. Cotton may possibly be grown at a future period by the introduction of Chinese or Malays, or when population is more dense; but in such case labour will be cheaper, and provisions of course dearer. For Dr. Lang involves himself in the confusion of assuming a dense po- pulation and that the present cheapness of mere food would continue under a large demand. He also urges the employment of women and children in growing cotton : but surely an occupation so fit for them that they are to pass into another hemisphere to engage in it cannot be so very hard for the Negroes of the more temperate Southern States. In short, Cooksland, so far as it relates to this project, is a leaf out of the Colo- nial books of Mr. Montgomery Martin, who made each successive colony. a wonder of the world, and sank the practical in the possible. The opi- nion of Dr. Lang in favour of cultivation, wherever it is practicable, in opposition to the occupation of immense districts by the grazing squat- ter, is entitled to more consideration.