Station Life in New Zealand | Page 3

realized
that all the tosses and tumbles of so many weary days and nights were
over, and that at last we had reached the haven where we would be, my
first thought was one of deep gratitude. It was easy to see that it was a
good moment with everyone; squabbles were made up with surprising
quickness; shy people grew suddenly sociable; some who had
comfortable homes to go to on landing gave kind and welcome
invitations to others, who felt themselves sadly strange in a new
country; and it was with really a lingering feeling of regret that we all
separated at last, though a very short time before we should have

thought it quite impossible to be anything but delighted to leave the
ship.
We have not seen much of Melbourne yet, as there has been a great
deal to do in looking after the luggage, and at first one is capable of
nothing but a delightful idleness. The keenest enjoyment is a
fresh-water bath, and next to that is the new and agreeable luxury of the
ample space for dressing; and then it is so pleasant to suffer no anxiety
as to the brushes and combs tumbling about. I should think that even
the vainest woman in the world would find her toilet and its duties a
daily trouble and a sorrow at sea, on account of the unsteadiness of all
things. The next delight is standing at the window, and seeing horses,
and trees, and dogs--in fact, all the "treasures of the land;" as for
flowers--beautiful as they are at all times--you cannot learn to
appreciate them enough until you have been deprived of them for two
months.
You know that I have travelled a good deal in various parts of the
world, but I have never seen. anything at all like Melbourne. In other
countries, it is generally the antiquity of the cities, and their historical
reminiscences, which appeal to the imagination; but here, the interest is
as great from exactly the opposite cause. It is most wonderful to walk
through a splendid town, with magnificent public buildings, churches,
shops, clubs, theatres, with the streets well paved and lighted, and to
think that less than forty years ago it was a desolate swamp without
even a hut upon it. How little an English country town progresses in
forty years, and here is a splendid city created in that time! I have no
hesitation in saying, that any fashionable novelty which comes out in
either London or Paris finds its way to Melbourne by the next steamer;
for instance, I broke my parasol on board ship, and the first thing I did
on landing was to go to one of the best shops in Collins Street to
replace it. On learning what I wanted, the shopman showed me some of
those new parasols which had just come out in London before I sailed,
and which I had vainly tried to procure in S---, only four hours from
London.
The only public place we have yet visited is the Acclimatization

Garden; which is very beautifully laid out, and full of aviaries, though
it looks strange to see common English birds treated as distinguished
visitors and sumptuously lodged and cared for. Naturally, the
Australian ones interest me most, and they are certainly prettier than
yours at home, though they do not sing. I have been already to a shop
where they sell skins of birds, and have half ruined myself in purchases
for hats. You are to have a "diamond sparrow," a dear little fellow with
reddish brown plumage, and white spots over its body (in this respect a
miniature copy of the Argus pheasant I brought from India), and a
triangular patch of bright yellow under its throat. I saw some of them
alive in a cage in the market with many other kinds of small birds, and
several pairs of those pretty grass or zebra paroquets, which are called
here by the very inharmonious name of "budgerighars." I admired the
blue wren so much--a tiny birdeen with tail and body of dust-coloured
feathers, and head and throat of a most lovely turquoise blue; it has also
a little wattle of these blue feathers standing straight out on each side of
its head, which gives it a very pert appearance. Then there is the
emu-wren, all sad-coloured, but quaint, with the tail-feathers sticking
up on end, and exactly like those of an emu; on the very smallest scale,
even to the peculiarity of two feathers growing out of the same little
quill. I was much amused by the varieties of cockatoos, parrots, and
lories of every kind and colour, shrieking and jabbering in the part of
the market devoted to them; but I am told that I have seen