This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
ON THE WALLABY
THROUGH VICTORIA
BY
E. M. CLOWES
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1911
p. ivCopyright,London, 1911,by WilliamHeinemann
p.vINTRODUCTION
This is not supposed to be a national or political history ofVictoria. When I was asked to write something about thecountry which has extended its hospitality to me, and given mebread and cheese—sometimes no cheese, it is true, and moreoften than not no butter, but still always bread, and anever-increasing appetite—I must confess I felt franklyscared. There is a very good, if somewhat vulgar,expression in use out here, which speaks of anyone who attemptswhat is beyond them as “biting off more than they canchew.” And the thought frightened me. Thereseemed to be so many people who had lived all their life in thecountry, and were therefore much more capable of writing about itthan I could ever possibly hope to be.
However, I found that other “fools rushed in,” whohad been here for even a shorter period than myself; who hadnever participated in any way in the true life of the country, ordepended on it for their own life, which after all teaches onemore than anything else ever can about a place. I may notbe an p.vi“angel,” I thought, still I know it, whichis one point in my favour; and, after all, eight years canscarcely be described as a “rush.” Besides,every proverb and popular saying seems to be balanced by anotherwhich is completely contradictory—and while it may be truethat “fools rush in where angels fear to tread,” itis also true “that lookers-on see most of the game,”and perhaps score somewhat in the freshness of their impressionsand in their facilities for comparison.
As it is I can only write about Victoria as I know it. There are many mistakes that I may have made through my inabilityto see all sides of a question; but they are at least honestmistakes, and not the deliberate misstatement of facts, fromwhich Australia has so often suffered.
Of course, there are numberless phases of life out here whichI have never even touched: my nose has been too close to thegrindstone, while life has resolv