Chapter 8 FARMS ON THE RIVER.

First impressions endure the longest, and are recalled with most pleasure. Further acquaintance does not always give us a truer idea of the value of the object, as familiarity frequently makes us overlook as insignificant that which is constantly before us. It is not the object that is proved to be really less valuable as we become better acquainted with it, but our own views which change with our position. My first impressions on visiting the various farms, or rather gentlemen's residences, on the banks of the Swan, were extremely agreeable.

I thought nothing could be more delightful than to live at one of those picturesque and lovely spots. If the romance of that first feeling be now faded from my heart, it is not because I have discovered that all which I then saw was an illusion, but because a more sober state of mind-that state into which the mind settles as the excitement of sudden change and unwonted novelty subsides-teaches that happiness is not local, and that it is no more likely to be found in the finest country residence than in the main street of a town.

At the first view we are apt to imagine that people who live in one of these pleasant retreats must needs be happier than ourselves, who possess nothing but a miserable shilling.

This is the delusion; and when with increasing knowledge, we recover from this, we cease to envy and to covet.

My first ride up the Swan was a most delightful one. No park in England could be more beautiful than the grounds around some of the dwellings.

The ride through the scattered village of Guildford, with a view of the rich and extensive flats of Woodbridge, the property of Sir James Stirling, and the frequent bends of the river, is a very agreeable one. The whole country of the middle and upper Swan resembles a vast English park. We passed the pretty country church of the Middle Swan, with its modest parsonage beside it, and then proceeded through wooded ravines along a pleasant drive to one of the most hospitable mansions in the colony. Extensive stables, barns and out-buildings occupied the back of the premises. As it was now too late in the evening to see much of the surrounding scenery, we entered the house of Samuel Moore, Esq., and sat down to an excellent dinner. In the evening we had music-pianos are as common in Western Australia as in England. At night I occupied a sofa in the parlour. The excitement and novelty of my present situation-so many thousands of leagues removed from the spot on which, only a few months before, I had deemed I was to spend my life-kept me wakeful; and about one o'clock I arose, and opening the French window, stepped out into the verandah. How solemn was the scene before me, faintly lighted by the moon! In front of the house was a pretty sloping garden, and below this stretched a broad clearing, now waving with corn, amidst which rose up a number of scattered, lofty, dead trees, which had been purposely killed by ringing the bark. How mournful they looked in that gloomy light!

The river bounded this clearing, and beyond the river stretched its high bank, covered with forest trees, the advanced lines, as it were, of the vast wilderness which lay behind. From out the depths of those woods rose the occasional shrieks of an owl, or other night bird, and at intervals the long dismal howl of a wild dog-the only carnivorous animal indigenous in that country. The air was balmy, but there was something in the mournful aspect of the scene that weighed upon the spirits, and made one feel inexpressibly lonely in the midst of that boundless wilderness of forest.

Time soon takes off the edge of novelty, and long ago I have learned to feel perfectly at ease and cheerful, whilst lying in the midst of much deeper solitude, with no companions but my horse grazing near me, and the fire at my feet. There is no country in the world so safe for the traveller as Western Australia.

The next day we went over the farm of our host. His best land was on the flats at the river side, but his upland, by judicious cultivation, is made productive and valuable. A carriage-drive extends through the grounds and affords beautiful prospects of the river, and of the estates through which it runs; and on the other side, of the Darling Hills. The hedge-rows on this property are planted with olive, almond, and peach trees-an admirable policy, which ought to be adopted throughout Australia. In a few years- for the olive bears fruit much sooner here than in the south of Europe-a valuable traffic in olive-oil may be expected from this colony.

The ingenious gentleman who owns this property (which is, in point of soil, one of the worst farms on the Swan) continues annually to add to its value by his persevering system of improvement. He has had a steam-engine constructed on his own premises, and under his personal superintendence; and he grinds his own flour as well as that of his neighbours.

The neighbouring estate of W. L. Brockman, Esq., is a more valuable property, and equally attractive in possessing a well-cultivated farm, a beautiful situation, a comfortable residence, and an amiable family.

With similar energy and savoir faire, all the beautiful farms on this river might be made most enviable residences.

Whilst on the subject of farming, I may mention a reaping-machine which has been introduced into this colony from South Australia, where it was invented. It is only adapted to a very dry climate, but there it is most valuable. A pair of horses push a machine before them, which consists of a threshing-machine and a set of revolving combs, some six feet wide. These combs, in their revolutions, catch up the wheat, and tear off the ears from the stalks, throwing them back into the threshing-machine. A field of wheat is thus reaped and threshed as fast as the horses can walk over it. The straw is afterwards mown.

The roads are hard and good in this neighbourhood, and some of the settlers keep their open carriages.

I doubt whether I have conveyed to the reader a just idea of some of the pleasantest spots which are to be met with in this colony; but I would not have him (full of romantic thoughts and agricultural purposes) rush hastily into the mart and sell his substance in order to lead a life of tranquil retirement in this distant Eden. It requires a good deal of philosophy to make a contented settler. Most colonists leave England full of virtuous resolutions-with bosoms glowing with the ardent love of nature; and fully persuaded that they need nothing to make them happy but a small farm, beautifully situated, with its cottage ornee, and its spreading vines, and a noble fig-tree, beneath which they are to sit in the cool of the evening, with their little ones around them. All this they may really possess; and for some time they are in raptures at the novel feeling of being men of landed interest. This is always the first ambition of a colonist-to have some property which he may lawfully call his own. And, indeed, the human heart never expands with more satisfactory pride than in the breast of him whose territorial possessions have hitherto been confined to a few flower-pots in his parlour-window, but who now stands firmly beneath a lofty gum-tree, and looking round him, murmurs "This is mine!" It is, indeed, a very pleasant sensation, but, unfortunately, it is very short-lived.

Men do not come out to a colony to spend an income, but to make a living. When once their capital is laid out in the acquisition of a farm, and in the necessary purchase of stock, they have to raise money out of it to pay their labourers' wages, and find their households with tea, sugar, clothing, and "sundries." Many things may be grown upon your farm, but not everything. At first, the settler is satisfied with finding that he can sell sufficient produce to enable him to pay his way, provided he practise the utmost economy, and exhibit a reasonable degree of good management.

But soon there are extra expenses to be liquidated; a long illness in his family brings him in debt to the doctor; or his neighbour has injured him, and he has, thereupon, further injured himself by going to law and avenging the wrong. He now becomes discontented, and thinks he is as badly off as he was before he left England; or, perhaps he may have sustained no losses, and is just able to live on his property without getting into debt; he forgets, however, the principles on which he came out to settle; he begins to complain that he is not making money. It is true he leads an easier life than he did in England; he is not striving and struggling for existence as he was there, but he is making no money. His wife asks him daily, in the pleasantest connubial key, why he brought them all from England, to bury them there, and see nobody from morn till night? What, she urges, is to become of their children? Will Jonadab, their first-born, be a gentleman like his maternal ancestors?-But how, indeed should he, with the pursuits of a cow-boy and the hands of a scavenger? It is very well for one who cares nothing for genteel society, and whose bearish manners, in fact, unfit him for it, to lead such a life; but is she to endure this for ever, and see her daughters married to men who wear long beards and Blucher boots?

These incessant attacks at length overthrow the ennobling philosophy of the colonist. He knows not where to procure more than he already possesses, or he would gladly return to the country of his fore-fathers; but alas! he sees no prospect of gaining even a bare livelihood there. Without knowing, then, how or where to improve his condition, he deplores the penury of his lot, and sighs for wealth which he has no prospect of ever obtaining.

My own opinion has ever been that colonists, with few exceptions, must always be poor men. They may possess large estates and numerous herds; but the more numerous these herds, the less is their marketable value: for population and demand can never increase in equal ratio with the supply. A man, therefore, who possesses the elements of wealth, may still be poor in the article of money.

Nor will his estates produce him more income than his herds; for in most cases the only rent which his tenants can afford to pay is in kind. 'The only real wealth to a colony is the incessant influx of immigration, combining capital and labour.'

There are some of us, happily, who still retain the ancient philosophy. We have not thought of pecuniary wealth, and are content to live easily, with those moderate blessings which attach to a beneficent climate and a simple mode of life.

So very little is required which money can buy, that men seem to be annoyed at the fact, and insist upon creating new wants.

A great deal of discontent and repining generally prevails in a colony. People who have lived miserably in England, who have long doubtfully hovered between suicide and highway robbery, determine at length to adopt the still more melancholy alternative of emigration. After bequeathing a few tender sighs to the country which they have hitherto regarded rather as a step-mother than a parent; and having pathetically solicited the sympathy of those who more readily bestow upon them a few pounds than a few tears, in the pious hope of never seeing them more, our emigrants betake themselves to the favoured land of their adoption, in the full and confident belief that they have nothing now to do, but live "like gentlemen," though without the means, or any other qualifications of that class. Their Faith is of that affecting and unlimited description, as to lead them to suppose that He who beneficently feeds the ravens will not neglect the rooks or the drones.

In a very short time, however, they find that they are no better off in the new than they were in the old country. The gum-trees do not produce bread, nor the banksias shoulders of mutton; and, consequently, their hopes have been miserably disappointed, and they loudly proclaim their wants and sorrows in the streets. There are unfortunately in all colonies-those 'refugia peccatorum'-many emigrants of this class, idle and worthless, who have never done well, and never will succeed in any part of the world.

A colonial life is not for these men, and we recommend them to pass on to some other region as quickly as possible.