The Sun.
London, England, 1862-07-14 00:00:00

LIFE IN THE BUSH•

I passed the first night after leaving the river Goulbourn
by myself in the bush. The weather was unusually hot,
and the mosquitos were terribly annoying. As a protec-
tion against their attacks, I was obliged to cover myself,
before trying to go to sleep, from head to foot in a thick
horse rug. I was nearly suffocated, for I could not leave
even my nose bare with impunity, and I was in a fever
from the heat. My enemies were legion ; the very air
seemed.made of them; and I could not make furtive at-
tempts to get a draught a fresher air than was to be had
beneath the horse rug without inhaling them. Whenever
I turned for relief from lying in one position, I could hear
them buzzing in myriads from where they had settled on
my rug, and in spite of all my precautions they would fre-
quently find some undefended point d'appui, forcing me to
throw the rug off in despair, and shake it frenetically at
them that they might not close in upon me before I had
time to wrap myself up afresh. Thanks to the mosquitos
I did not feel in the least conscious of my lonely situation
in the bush that night—a night I shall never forget—it
seemed so long, like five or six rolled into one ; and I cer-
tainly never descried the first signs of the morning with
greater pleasure than when the mosquitos hied away, like
evil spirits of the dark, and left me to slumber undisturbed.
When I awoke the sun was high, and I felt almost done
up ; however, I put on a good face on matters, and was re-
joiced to find, about half a mile further on, a creek of de-
liciously cool, clear water, where I performed my ablu-
tions, and breakfasted on devils on the coals" and bacon.
I had heardly commenced my day's journey before I nearly
stumbled over a guana, an animal of the lizard kind, about
two feet long. Presently I came upon a strange-looking
object, which at a little distance I took for a stump of a
small tree, capped with an inverted tin dish, such as
diggers use to wash out their gold in; but it turned out to
be a man, Ni
ho greeted me, after the fashion of the bush,
with a " Good day, mate I" and, without further ceremony,
rose and walked along with me. Like me, he had, accord-
ing to his own account, left his party, and had picked up
th tin dish on the road, intending to return to work on
the Bendigo ; between which and the Goulbourn I saw
articles of various kinds that had been cast away on the
road by overburdened diggers—enough to stock a small
store. I was not much prepossessed with my companion's
appearance—he was not unlike a monkey, his face almost
entirely covered with hair, and he did not look so clean as
he might even under the circumstances. Ho stuck to me
all day, and all my efforts to get quietly rid of him were
futile ; but in time I began to be reconciled to his company,
especially as he saved me a great deal of trouble in finding
water, in which he was an adept ; and at last, when we
camped for the night, and got sociable over our tobacco
and tea, we agreed to work on the Bendigo together. This
same evening I found an enormous red ant, more than an
inch long, and armed with a most formidable pair of nip-
pers, walking over me. I feared the nest might be near,
and looked carefully for it, as it would have been no plea-
sant neighbourhood, but there were no other signs of one.
There are a great many different species of ant in Austra-
lia, amongst others the pis-ant, very diminutive—as its
name implies—but troublesome in an inverse proportion to
its size, spoiling all eatables by the peculiarly disagreeable
smell and taste imparted by its body. There is also the
sugar-ant,so named from its particular weakness forsweets.
I have noticed likewise a winged ant, its wings being ap-
parently mere ornamental appendages; no use whatever,
that I could perceive, being made of them. It disengaged •
its body from them on the slightest provocation, and with
little or no effort. I have sometimes caught one of these
ants by the wings, when it invariably left them behind,
proceeding on its way with seeming unconcern; The en-
trances to their nests, for which they select decayed or
fallen trees, are always scattered with countless wings.
One of the most vindictive insects possible is a small black
ant. I remember once sitting down unwittingly near a
nest of these ants, and soon became aware of their proxi-
mity by quickly repeated nips all over my body, instantly
followed by an intolerable though transient pain when the
sting was inserted in the wound caused by the nippers. I
literally tore off my clothes to get rid of my assailants.
With his companion he once more tried his hand at
gold-digging. " Our manner of living," he says,
was of the roughest, as we had determined to be
at as little expense as possible till we had hit upon
gold. Our meat we toasted in slices on forked
sticks, or threw it on the ashes to cook itself—black
fellow fashion—but afterwards we manufactured a
gridiron out of a piece of old hoop iron. Plates
we had none, nor forks." But from overwork and
sameness of diet he got out of health, was forced
to give up gold-digging, and started for Melbourne,
to look out for some kind of light employment,
having on his arrival there exactly one shilling in
his pocket. But the only occupation to be had was
road-making, for which the wages were Io
adaY
The monotony of the employment, however,
his ban a
toge-
ther
with the heat and dust, soon sickened hi
of
it, it, and he returned to Melbourne to try
house painting, from which he was
employment for a few
dismissed after
a day's trial, and he next got
weeks at a stone quarry.
he took to wood-cutting, andOn c e
thusm ogr
fiveso u t
hisof work,
expe
rience of
ownte
lifea ecouanta,
LITITDE.
SO .
I got
Finding that my was given to unlimited rum,
removing the tent to_arnked
rid of him, and wen salpaont
;e
andon myyd
hard. I carried my own pro-
hermit,own clothes. If ever_. a man felt
fiY'mcoyoked my own food, washed my store,wn
thoughi.tiwuupan my back, from a Bush
iles °
mended
ees and incon-
rat
t eowt another
savisioiruotsnst,t'anwof:rar at this period, during which I had a
experience of the ckionnvdeniofen
i will
le 4 inoi
tt
d o betterf omr
_id Robinson Crusoe
nvoeniveeityn—w-o-re offl liked it, and should
socialhatievse life. Till the
goffsomany-
if I had had a Man Friday. After all, the liberty that
Pm
Ca
any length of time. It is only fit for gorillas or madmen.
A man must have a tolerably unburdened
superna-
turally—or hardened—conscience, to endure, —or a
much less to en-
joy, a solitude prolonged for any length
such solitude as may be found in the
Australian Bush. It
is true that he is there surrounded
by Nature in her sun-
niest aspect, perennial foliage, and bright skies • but it is
in the silence of such scenes as this that the small
voice" is most eloquent. Such solitude is a sort of holy
ground, where I should imagine none that are greatly bur-
dened with sin dare remain alone for long; where man and
his Maker speak as it were face to face, mere than any-
where else with
Nature as one of the chief mediums of
connounication ; where, in a manner, " the invisible things
of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen,
being understood by the things that are made, even His
eternal power and Godhead." (Rom, i. 20.)
Never till I thus began to live by myself in the Bush did
I experience the vastness of solitude—that shrinking up • of
oneself into such infinitesimal smallness that one began to
realize that half-mad state of mind, which some men are
said to have undergone, of disbelieving in one's own
identity. I can readily believe that those great religious
impostors, who have from time to time sprung up, have
actually, after a prolonged , solitude believed in some of the
visions and apparitions which they professed to have seen ;
and indeed we see by the Scriptures that bona
fide inspired men, and. our Lord Himself, practi-
cally owned the desirableness of not unfrequent
retirement. Possibly it was a necessity for he
Prophets to live much alone, in order to keep up that
• hty-wrought, intensified state of mind in which most
highly-Wrought,
of the Scripture prophecies appear to have been coniVrt_i,
And for myself, though I have never been in the reigi:oir
seeing visions, yet during my few weeks' coo Para the con-
tude there were moments when I felt as it were on
a me seemed
fines of two worlds,--when everything arourt-
=real Weird-hike,. maw= to which I was Ma.

UNLL-CliT COLON 'TSP.>• in,ba,nd wife,
Lodging in the same house with Inc were a A%
whose history may amuse the reader. The hut ,;:n.d, the
to his own account, had bee tt a lieuteria. '"n the
Russian army, and certainly he had the appears. lee Id
manners of a gentleman. He had landed in the • c,9l°n
with a few hundred pounds which he spent in
at a first-rate hotel while looking oat fc w
r sou gentlem ,znly
employment, which he did not succeed in getting ; thou~~2i,
in the meanwhile, he was imprudent enough to take to hint-
self a wife as 5t un ,if possible, for anything like a rom.-h,
colonial life., as hilim e/f. He must, however, have ,‘ieen
very sanguine man, tor he continued, like the illusltaiov.s
cawber, to hope something worthy of his expects tion 4
would turn up, till the honeymoon and his last pound ter- •
miliated together, and he and his wife were constraine, to.
quit their extravagant style of living. He took refuge in
stone-breaking, and it was whi_let in this capacity that _I
became acquainted with him. One wet night, when we
were all snug in our blankets (sleets az e myths out of;
Melbourne and the larger towns), the
1a ndlord became
aware of a series of timid raps on l'he oor, on opening
which, in walked Mr. and Mrs. I4n a bewildered
manner, quite unaware that they had st uml ded by chance
upon the right house, where, indeed, ths9y had been ex-
pected early in the day. The landlord was' n, of in the best
humour at being roused from his slumbers, b tit the poor
people were in such a sorry plight that it wag , hardly pos-
sible to be uncivil to them; and besides, their a PPearance
suggested such a comical sense of unfitness for.. the stony
occupation upon which they were to depend for a liveli-
hood, that the difficulty was to keep from laugh,lng out-
right.
The husband was not bigger than many a boy of thir-
teen and very slight, so that it was hard to see how he
was
to knock a living out of the stones even for himself, much
less for his wife too. It seemed probable that if hewovld
not be able to say, with Shakspiare's Rrinee Arthur,"
My
uncle's in these stones," he might be temp fed to exclaim
that somebody else was.
The wife was tall, slight, and very pale an d' delicate-
looking, dressed in a whitish Indian muslin, fw.s.,hionably
-
cut, and a white sun-bonnet ; altogether, rather ghost
like. Her dress had a draggled appearance, as well it
ot be-
might, considering that they had lost their way, CC
nighted, and wandered into stone quarries, ditche3l tand
ng
other abominations. Her shoes were too fragile for any.ti
but a town pavement in fine weather; and, if I rementher
rightly, she had lost one of them, the other having stuck
in some "slough of despond." Such persons cannot
called the "right people in the right places" in Australia,'
The wife's custom was to sit on a sofa, making futile at-
tempts at sewing, while her husband made equally futile
attempts to rap their bread and cheese out of the stones ;
the result of which was, that after a few weeks they had to
leave the place, greatly in arrears for board and lodging.
The last I heard of them was, that they had both been
turned away from a sheep station—whither he hod gone in
the capacity of shepherd—as incorrigibly uselese. I felt
really very sorry for them, though I could hardly look at
them without laughing, such " impossible" kind of people
were they for Australia.
Lime burning, brick making, and 'wood cutting
were again tried in turn ; he then became an un-
successful fisherman, and next took a spell at sheep
washing. That over, reaping was resorted to, at
first with scant success, and next he became atten-
dant on a threshing machine. But his troubles
were at length over, he was enabled, though he
does not explain how, to return to England, and
winds up with the following observations on

THE DIGNITY OF LABOUR.
I feel that my sympathies have been enlarged. I have
experienced what a labourer's life is ; I have felt that there
is real dignity in labour of all kinds, that physical labour
is very far from being incompatible with refinement of tast't
and feeling. I cannot now look upon another as an infe-
rior in himself, because his conventional grade in society
is lower, because his hands are rough and toil-stained.
Real inferiority is often, of course, a concomitant lof a
humble position in society; but a humble station is not the
soil from which the inward inferiority of which I am speak-
ing springs; the soul must originally have been allowed to
come down to the same level with the outward social posi-
tion. In point of wealth, outward rank and education,
which wealth in a manuer brings'. there must always, in a.society such as ours, be social differences; but with a very
small degree of education—such a 9 our labouring classes
can generally afford, if they choose—there may always be
that refinement of heart and soul that makes all men
brothers, which all, whatever their rank, are constrained
to respect, whether they will or no.
The heart is the common level whet,©
meet as
brethren; and that is the level whereon, whenever I meet
my fellow-men, I have learned, I trust, to meet them on
equal terms.
In conclusion, I need hardly say that, so far from having
anything like a feeling of degradation, when I .speak of
my labouring life in Australia, I feel conscious of having
been raised by it to a higher level ; for in it I have learned,
I do believe, in a considerable measure to separate tinsel
from reality ; to understand, without any republicieni, the
true grounds upon which all men are equal. Of course, in
saying this, I do not pretend to have made any discovery ;
but it is one thing to know a thing practically, and another
to believe it theoretically—the latter, if it go no further,
is
a mere cold abstraction, the former is a warm, Tiring
reality.

Reminiscences of the Bev. T. Hartwell florne

Longman and Co.
This little tribute to the memory of the Rev. Mr.
Home, well known as the author of the " Introduc-
tion to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the
Holy Scriptures," and from his connection for many
years with the British Museum, has an introduction
by the Rev. J. B. M'Cane, is edited by his daugh-
ter, and contains a brief account of the principal
events in his career, together with a portion of his
correspondence. He was born in 1780, in Chan
cery-lane, where his father, who was the youngest
son of a village tradesman at Eversley, in Hamp-
shire, resided as barrister's clerk. He first went to
a dame-school at Eversley, but subsequently became
a scholar of Christ's Hospital, being contemporary
with S. T. Coleridge, who gave him private instruc
tion in the vacation. When he was 13 his father
died, leaving him the eldest of six orphans, and for
eight years he was forced to toil as barrister's clerk.
He lost no opportunity, however, of improving his
mind, learned French in his leisure time, and began
to translate and write for the publishers, his first
work, produced in his twentieth year, being " A
Brief View of the Necessity
and Truth of the Chris-
tian Revelation."
In 1803, at the time of Buona-
parte's threatened invasion, he became a volunteer,
attended at Nelson's funeral, was present at the
great review by George the Third, and had a
per-
fect recollection of Rowland Hill's sermon to the
Volunteers in the Surrey Chapel. "The service
ingni Hundredth Psalm, and before
began .9
on the flowing hymn, composed by Mr.
the serm
Hill for the occasion, was sung to the tune of " God
Save the King":
$$ come thou incarnate Word,
Gird on Thy mighty sword,
people bless
Our prayer attend ;
ComeAn and Thy
give Thy word success,'
Spirit of holiness,
On us descend.

0, may Thy servant be
Fill'd with sweet liberty,
Clothed with power.
Bid, Lord the
dead arias,
By Thy almighty voice;
May we in Thee rejoice,
In this glad hour I"
" The text was from Psalm xx. 7, B—' Some trust
in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remem.
bar the name of the Lord our God. They were
brought low and fallen, but we are risen and stand
upright.' The service was closed by singing another
hymn, adapted to the national air ' Rule Bri-
tannia." Shortly after this he became clerk to
Mr. Butterworth, through whom he became ac-
quainted with Dr. Adam Clarke, and was employed
to make an index to the catalogue of the Harleian
manuscripts in the British Museum. In 1818 he
published his " Introduction to the Critical Study
of the Bible," which led to his ordination by the
Bishop of London in 1819, and appointment to the
curacy of Christ Church, Nowgate-street. In 1821
he was engaged by the trustees of the British
Museum to make a classed catalogue of the printed
books, and his connection with the Library only
ceased in 1860 on account of his failing health and
advanced years. In 1833 hew as appointed to the
rectory of St. Edmund, in the City, which he held
to the time of his death, in 1861 ; during which
period he was indefatigable in attending to the
duties of his incumbency, though he still found
time for literary
avocations. A complete listf aaonfhis
works is given at
at the end of the volume,
a portrait from a photograph.
the beginning is

The
Amen
at the Helm. By W. H. Davenport
dams. Hogg and Sons.

Under this title we find a series of biographical
sketches of Great English Statesmen, commencing
with the Earl of Strafford and concluding with the
Earl of Aberdeen. The author admits
contains little with Which the well educated reader
is not already familiar," that " it
but states that it is especi-
ally meant for youthful students. To them it may
be both interesting ani useful.