MR. MERE WEATHER'S DIARY OF A WORKING CLERGYMAN IN TASMANIA
AND AUSTRALIA,
THERE may be a good deal of what is common and every day in this journal of a " working clergyman's" experiences and observa- tions in Tasmania, Victoria, a wild district of New South Wales, and Sydney itself. It is, however, an interesting book from its obvious reality and truth, the sketches of colonial life and charac- . ter with-.which it abounds, its pictures' of Victoria and New South Wales before and after the discovery of the gold fields, and the glimpses it gives of human nature. Mr. Mereweather's . various duties brought him into connexion with all sorts of cold-
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. • Diary of a Wonting Clergyman in Australia and Tasmania, kept during tha years 1850-1853; including his return to England by way of Java, Singapore, Cey- lon, and Egypt. By the Rev. John Davies Mereiveather, B.A., Author of " Life on Board an Emigrant Ship." Published by Hatchard.
nista, especially convicts, and his incidental accounts of them are more favourable than might have been expected. The generality were respectful, kindly disposed, anxious for the education and morals of their children, and rather yielding themselves to habit and temptation than intending vice. Among the worst there was mostly some human feeling, and some reason for their crimes in the colony. The clergyman, however, prefers the old rough dia- mond to the new mock polish. Newgate in the olden time sent out a better raw material than it did of late, while the relaxation of colonial discipline, consequent upon philanthrophy and educa- tional ideas, lowered the probationership ; but the worst thing of all is a "model-prison" man.
"This hard' discipline, [flogging ad lib.] however, produced capital ser- vants, who could turn their hands to anything, and who when their time was up, would settle down and make steady fathers of families, capable of being depended on in everything except abstinence from drink. Now, things are altered. Those who come out are better educated, and are good for nothing as far as general usefulness is concerned. They are wonderful talkers, hate bard work, can quote Scripture enough to dazzle the clergy- man, are clever at forgery and petty larceny, are sober rather than other- wise, have no sense of honour or gratitude, are wonderfully plausible and soft in their manners, and corrupt everything about them. The rough, old, brutal convict, who was a very good fellow in his way, is fast diaappearing, having amalgamated with surrounding society : the new style of people still remain, serving their masters as ill as they can, having no triangles and a three-dozen in the perspective. But the style of convicts most universally disliked by the gentry, and thoroughly hated by the other prisoners, are those from Pentonville, called Penton-Villains. They are an exaggeration of all the bad qualities I have just enumerated. Most abominable hypo- crites, one is never sure of them."
Our author's sojourn in the Australian regions was upwards of three years, reckoning from the 17th June 1850, when, glad to escape from the monotony of a long voyage, he was driven into Adelaide in a " Whitechapel cart" that did duty for an omnibus, till August 25th, 1853, when he sailed out of Sydney harbour on his homeward voyage, his health having been shaken by his la- bours in the bush. Adelaide (in South Australia) was but a call- ing place, his first station was Melbourne, of which and his labours he gives a pleasant account before the gold discoveries had demoral- ized the country. His next post was a curacy with two churches to serve in Tasmania. There he was getting on successfully with his people, notwithstanding that many were Wesleyans, when he was induced to undertake a wild outlying district in the -government of Sydney. This parish or rather country was not measured by miles, but by degrees of longitude and latitude. It was situate between the 34th and 36th degrees of South latitude and the 141st and 147th of East longitude, the Murray and the Murrum- bidgee in part forming its boundaries, but the only town likely to be found on a common map is Albuiy. The nature of the soil and country, and a destructive North wind, blowing from the interior desert, render it unfit for agriculture, and not well aaapted for pasturage. Settlers are few and widely scattered ; roads and bridges may be said to be nonexistent ; what ferrys there are cannot, in the estimation of the ferrymen, be always used with safety after floods ; common waters you must ford or swim ; in dry weather, you are choked with dust ; in wet weather, you stick in the mud ; your main diet is salt beef, indigestible damper," green tea, coloured with copperas and well-sweetened with coarse brown sugar, which is medicinal, neutralizing the copperas. As for stimulants, all the publicans in these regions adulterate their beverages ; rum, in particular, is strengthened and flavoured by having tobacco steeped in it, the result of which is head-ache on a small dose, and delirium tremens on a full al- lowance. Mr. Mereweather is not a man given to complaint; but he does not speak of the Australian climate so favourably as many writers ; though he admits it to be healthy ; except ophthalmia in certain districts, including his own. What the accommoda-
tions and weather are there he thus describes.
"The huts are so small and inconvenient, that retirement and quiet study are out of the question. My calculation with regard to the weather in this country, according to my experience, is as follows : Incessant rains, re- solving the tracks into glutinous swamps, prevail from about June 8 to September 23 =109 days ; draughts and heats of summer—extreme heats, I mean, such as to render travelling disagreeable, and almost impossible— prevail from December to the end of March; heavy floods—rendering tra- velling intricate and very dangerous, the more so, as the watercourses are very numerous—prevail from September to November, at least sixty-six days. Then, it must be recollected that the various paddocks are short of good feed for seven or eight months in the year. In short, unexceptionable good travelling in the Edward district, so far as climate, feed, and absence of floods are concerned, I found to exist only from November 20 to Decem- ber 10, a period of twenty days. All the rest of the year is chequered by some difficulty or other. Whoever my successor may be, I hope he may be gifted with excellent health, great capacity for enduring fatigue on insuffi- cient nourishment, and, above all, a patient, meek disposition. And he must not expect a very high appreciation of the sacrifices ho makes in coming into such a country. Many of the squatters are not Fcntlemen, but rather people who will broadly-hint that, having paid a certain sum towards [clergyman's support, they expect to get something:for their money in the hape of so many visits a year, be the weather what it might." •
On leaving this district, with its pleasures and refinements, Mr. Mereweather was located at Sydney. There he was progress- ing favourably enough with his city flock, and his penitents at the gaol, of which he was chaplain, when his health failed, as intimated, ntiniated, and he had to return to England. The reader who follows him through his various peregrinations of exertion, exposure, hardship, and privation, will not much wonder at the result. Here is one example, an unpleasant way of making a
night-of it. • to "August 29.—Started alone for a station thirty r-five miles off. the track being faint, I missed my way to the public-house where wis pass the night, and got at nightfall, after riding fifty miles, into the mi of a forest-swamp. In my confusion I forgot the direction by which I hale come, and felt very forlorn indeed, for the water was up to my horse's .shoulders. Darkness came on rapidly, and then I discovered &dull, red light, on an eminence at a great distance. Spurred my floundering .beast towards it, and found, to my great joy, that the light was a pine-tree on asand-hill, burning itself out. The fire was devouring its interior, and burst through the bark at intervals, and blazed up through the top. Thus, when I had given myself up for lost, He who feeds the ravens gave me a .dry soil and a good fire, not the less acceptable from my having been wet through several times during the day. Soon after a shepherd, who had .lost his way, came up, also attracted by the light, so that we sat upon a trunk of a tree together all the night, as near the burning tree as we could get, .whilst my wearied horse, carefully, hobbled, grazed near. As to any supper, it was out of the question. Good bushmen never think it necessary to take any food in their pockets in the shape of lunch ; and I, who am not at all a good bushman, had foolishly followed their example. And the shep- herd related to me his past life, and told me how silly he had been, and how bitterly he repented of his folly—which I have no doubt was quite true, for he seemed miserable enough ; and how, if he had to live his life over again, he would live it over in a quite different way--which, I dare say, Was not quite true, though be beheved it all at the time. And then I ex- horted him to make good resolves for the future, instead of regretting the past ; and he said he would try. But my exhortations were continually eliding down to mere worldly advice. Yet this is a wrong course of action. I have often found myself giving mere moral and wordly advice to worldly people, instead of purely spiritual exhortation, forgetting that these same versors are themselves as capable, perhaps, of doing that as I am. It is in practice where the generality of people fail, not in theory."
The matter of the volume consists of the author's personal travels and adventures, passing sketches of members of his flock, and accounts of his religious successes or failures. Colonial so- _ eiety, especially in the bush is touched upon, as well as the scenery and climate, and the character of the natives, the last subject hav- ing both freshness and thought, from the scholarly mind brought to bear upon it. The homeward voyage was by Batavia, Singapore, Ceylon, and thence by the regular overland route. His journal of this part is rather slight, except as regards Batavia. He so- journed there some little time, waiting for a vessel, and gives an interesting description 'of the town and its vicinity. Morals have improved, and with them, as a cause, health. Batavia is no longer the deadly residence it was formerly ; but on the contrary a de- lightful place of residence if you get away from the commercial part.
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