The Bushman | Page 2

are radically wrong. Hence, on the one side, heart-burning, irritation, and resentment; on the other, disappointment, revulsion, and alarm.
Is she too deeply prejudiced, or too old in error, to attempt a new system of policy?
In what single respect has she ever proved herself a good parent to any of her Colonies? Whilst supplying them with Government Officers, she has fettered them with unwholesome laws; whilst giving them a trifling preference over foreign states in their commerce, she has laid her grasp upon their soil; whilst allowing them to legislate in a small degree for themselves, she has reserved the prerogative of annulling all enactments that interfere with her own selfish or mistaken views; whilst permitting their inhabitants to live under a lightened pressure of taxation, she has debarred them from wealth, rank, honours, rewards, hopes -- all those incentives to action that lead men forward to glory, and stamp nations with greatness.
What has she done for her Colonies -- this careful and beneficent parent? She has permitted them to exist, but bound them down in serf-like dependence; and so she keeps them -- feeble, helpless, and hopeless. She grants them the sanction of her flag, and the privilege of boasting of her baneful protection.
Years -- ages have gone by, and her policy has been the same -- darkening the heart and crushing the energies of Man in climes where Nature sparkles with hope and teems with plenty.
Time, however, too powerful for statesmen, continues his silent but steady advance in the great work of amelioration. The condition of the Colonies must be elevated to that of the counties of England. Absolute rule must cease to prevail in them. Men must be allowed to win there, as at home, honours and rank. Time, the grand minister of correction -- Time the Avenger, already has his foot on the threshold of the COLONIAL OFFICE.
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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER.
1. -- COLONISTS.
2. -- ST. JAGO.
3. -- THE MUTINY.
4. -- THE PRISON-ISLAND.
5. -- FIRST ADVENTURES.
6. -- PERTH. -- COLONIAL JURIES.
7. -- BOATING UP THE RIVER.
8. -- FARMS ON THE RIVER.
9. -- THE MORAL THERMOMETER OF COLONIES.
10. -- COUNTRY LIFE.
11. -- PERSECUTIONS.
12. -- MICHAEL BLAKE, THE IRISH SETTLER.
13. -- WILD CATTLE HUNTING.
14. -- WOODMAN'S POINT.
15. -- HOW THE LAWS OF ENGLAND AFFECT THE NATIVES.
16. -- REMARKS ON THE PHYSICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE NATIVES.
17. -- SKETCHES OF LIFE AMONG THE NATIVES.
18. -- THE MODEL KINGDOM.
19. -- TRIALS OF A GOVERNOR.
20. -- MR. SAILS, MY GROOM. -- OVER THE HILLS. -- A SHEEP STATION.
21. -- EXTRACTS FROM THE LOG OF A HUT-KEEPER.
22. -- PELICAN SHOOTING. -- GALES. -- WRESTLING WITH DEATH.
23. -- THE DESERT OF AUSTRALIA. -- CAUSE OF THE HOT WINDS. -- GEOLOGY.
24. -- COLONIAL GOVERNMENT.
25. -- ONE OF THE ERRORS OF GOVERNMENT. -- ADVENTURES OF THE "BRAMBLE".
26. -- SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERIES. -- KANGAROO HUNTING. -- EMUS. -- LOST IN THE BUSH.
27. -- THE COMET. -- VITAL STATISTICS. -- METEOROLOGY.
28. -- THE BOTANY OF THE COLONY.
29. -- MISFORTUNES OF THE COLONY.
30. -- RESOURCES OF THE COLONY: -- HORSES FOR INDIA. -- WINE. -- DRIED FRUITS. -- COTTON. -- COAL. -- WOOL. -- CORN. -- WHALE- OIL. -- A WHALE HUNT. -- CURED FISH. -- SHIP TIMBER.
31. -- RISE AND FALL OF A SETTLEMENT. -- THE SEQUEL TO CAPTAIN GREY'S DISCOVERIES. -- A WORD AT PARTING.
(PLATES.
KANGAROO HUNTING (Frontispiece). THE BIVOUAC. SPEARING KANGAROO. DEATH OF THE KANGAROO. EMU HUNT (woodcut).)
THE BUSHMAN;
OR,
LIFE IN A NEW COUNTRY.

CHAPTER 1.
COLONISTS.
The Spirit of Adventure is the most animating impulse in the human breast. Man naturally detests inaction; he thirsts after change and novelty, and the prospect of excitement makes him prefer even danger to continued repose.
The love of adventure! how strongly it urges forward the Young! The Young, who are ever discontented with the Present, and sigh for opportunities of action which they know not where to seek. Old men mourn over the folly and recklessness of the Young, who, in the fresh and balmy spring-time of life, recoil from the confinement of the desk or the study, and long for active occupation, in which all their beating energies may find employment. Subjection is the consequence of civilized life; and self-sacrifice is necessary in those who are born to toil, before they may partake of its enjoyments. But though the Young are conscious that this is so, they repine not the less; they feel that the freshness and verdure of life must first die away; that the promised recompense will probably come too late to the exhausted frame; that the blessings which would now be received with prostrate gratitude will cease to be felt as boons; and that although the wishes and wants of the heart will take new directions in the progress of years, the consciousness that the spring-time of life -- that peculiar season of happiness which can never be known again -- has been consumed in futile