Five Years Under the Southern Cross: Experiences and Impressions. Frederic C. Spurr
enchanted garden, over which some generous genius presides. Trees only a few years old literally groan under the weight of fruit. Often the branches are entirely hidden, so thickly packed are the oranges. A visitor who views the spectacle for the first time is apt to imagine that in such a Garden of Eden the fruit would be ever welcome. He is surprised to learn that the men who live in the midst of it loathe it. They never taste an orange. Familiarity with the golden globe has bred contempt for it. It is regarded merely as a marketable commodity. The orange is no longer succulent fruit for personal consumption; it is an edible sphere which can be exchanged for money. So the enchanted garden becomes a place of commerce.
The orange and the lemon, we were told, are shy and delicate trees in their early years. They need much humouring and much attention. But when once established they fulfil their own destiny. The doyen of the orchard is a tree sixty years old. It still bears fruit, but of an ever inferior quality. Few leaves are seen upon this tall stalwart. The tree resembles an erect colonel whose fighting days are over and upon whose head bald patches have come. It lives upon its pension. The owner has not the heart to cut it down. It remains, amid the forest, the one favoured tree, spared because it is the parent of these prosperous golden children.
The orange tree is singular in one particular: it lives through all the seasons of the year at one time. Upon the same tree, blossom, bud, green fruit and yellow fruit flourish together. The round of growth is perpetual.
There comes a time when the orange blossom puts forth the full strength of its magic perfume. When a man owns but one orange tree the scent is penetrating, fragrant, grateful, satisfying. But when 5,000 trees pour forth their fragrance at one time the effect is terrible. The perfume is as intangible and oppressive as a nightmare. The air is heavy with an all-pervasive odour which weighs upon the brain and makes it ache. The vast garden celebrates its nuptials, and every orange tree is smothered with blossom. Burdened with this atmosphere of perfume, man learns that Nature can crush with her excess of sweetness as well as smite with her fist of mail.
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South Australia seems as if it might become the home of the orange. The soil is ferruginous, and admirably adapted to the culture of the golden fruit. An amazing example of what is possible is supplied by the case of Renmark. Twenty years ago the site of this town, situated at one elbow of the River Murray, was an apparently hopeless desert. It seemed to be abandoned to sterility. To-day it is a flourishing irrigation colony, where all manner of fruit is grown. Renmark oranges, currants, and raisins are becoming famous. They have already found their way to many London tables. In twelve years the value of the produce has risen from £6,878 to £78,000. And the miracle of conquering the desert has been wrought solely by scientific culture. Irrigation has been the magician. When all the “deserts” of the Commonwealth are treated after the manner of Renmark, Australia will become the fruit garden of the world.
South Australia is a veritable paradise of fruit; besides the orange there are miles of peaches, pears, grapes, figs, and apples. We saw the largest mulberry-tree in Australia, if not in the world. This giant tree sheds thousands of rich, ripe berries, which lie where they fall, dyeing the soil with their red juices, and rotting on the ground for want of gatherers. I heard with astonishment that it “does not pay” to gather this fruit. The wages demanded by boys are too high to make it worth while to employ them, while the employment of men is, of course, simply out of the question. The peaches beggar description. I plucked one at hazard, and found that it weighed ten and a half ounces and measured ten and a quarter inches in circumference. It will be readily believed that in those parts people do not buy peaches by the pound! The big peach may be matched with a big fish story. A round dozen of us went out for a day’s fishing from the pier at Semaphore. In advance we promised to divide our spoils upon our return. Alas! we caught no fish; but we caught what we had not bargained for, but what was worth catching—seven sharks. It was a novel experience. How those creatures fought! The larger ones had to be shot when they were drawn to the surface, or they could not have been landed. Two of them had the heads of huge bulldogs; one was a “hammer-head” shark. When they lay dead upon the deck we examined their jaws. The teeth were like steel rivets for strength and orderly array. Rows of cruel teeth lined the jaws. Beyond, the throat was smooth as velvet. Little wonder that, with these ocean pirates roaming about, we failed to catch our schnapper.
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The story of the beautiful city of Adelaide and its fruitful environs is a veritable romance. A few decades ago the entire country was “bush,” abandoned to the natives, of men, bird, and beast. Then one day, in 1836, at Glenelg, under the branches of a gum tree, the State of South Australia was proclaimed. From that moment on, the story has been one of ever-increasing prosperity. The founders of the city deserve every commendation for their admirable foresight. Unlike Sydney, which has “grown,” Adelaide was deliberately planned as a “garden city,” long before the days when it became fashionable to speak of garden cities. The park lands which encircle the capital will remain for ever the pleasure grounds of the people. Never can speculative builders cut up this beautiful property and convert it into rows of cheap and ugly houses. Adelaide will have to the end of time “lungs” unexcelled by any city in the world. It is a model of town planning. The streets are all wide, and are flanked by avenues of trees. The public buildings are imposing and substantial. The climate is nearly perfect. The only unpleasant elements are certain days of intense heat and dust storms. The heat, however, is “dry,” and therefore more supportable than that of more humid climates. The air is light, while the ring of mountains around the city completes the charm of an ideal situation. And the simple fact that South Australia has the second lowest death-rate in the world speaks volumes. When transit between South Australia and England has become more rapid, and better methods of conveying delicate fruit have been invented, the unique fruit of South Australia should be put upon the English market at prices accessible to all.
CHAPTER V
THE ROMANCE OF MELBOURNE
What the over-learned but fascinating Burton, in his “Anatomy of Melancholy,” wrote of Australia, nearly three centuries ago, remains true for vast numbers of people in the Old Country to-day—it is a terra Australis incognita. It is not to the credit of Britons that they know so little of the outlying parts of their great Empire. Doubtless things have advanced since the day when a London lady said to a prominent cleric who was leaving England for Melbourne, “So you are going to preach to the aborigines!” (Poor aborigines—there are very few of them left. Civilisation is killing them with its manners, as formerly it murdered them with its guns.) In the remarkable official “Commonwealth Year-Book” there is contained a series of maps showing the progress of Australian exploration during the last century. It is a suggestive study. In 1808 the map was one black mass, indicating ignorance of the continent, with a white corner in Victoria, showing the one place known to explorers. At the end of each decade the maps grow lighter, until the final one published contains only a few black patches indicating the unexplored country of the great central desert and of the north-west territory. It is only by comparing the first and the last maps that the marvellous advance in Australian exploration becomes manifest. What will the next hundred years bring? The first hundred years have seen the country opened up to knowledge. Will the second hundred years see it filled with a happy and prosperous population?
It seems hardly credible to one who gazes in admiration at the beautiful modern buildings of Melbourne that less than eighty years ago there was no vestige of a city there. And it is even more incredible, in view of the ever-extending suburbs of the city, that sixty years ago a plot of ground at the top of Collins Street was rejected by a church on the ground that it was “too far in the bush.” What miracles in stones and streets have been wrought since then!
At an anniversary dinner in Melbourne recently there was distributed, as a precious souvenir of the growth of the city, a lithographed copy of the first agreement made between John Batman and the native chiefs as to the transfer of an enormous tract of land upon which the Port Philip settlement was subsequently built. It was a bargain of the rarest and keenest kind. Little did the chiefs dream, on that memorable day, what their