This little book is meant for those who have never read any Welsh
history before. It is not taken for granted that the reader knows
either Latin or Welsh.
A fuller outline may be read in The Story of Wales, in the “Story of
the Nations” series; and a still fuller one in The Welsh People of
Rhys and Brynmor Jones. Of fairly small and cheap books in various
periods I may mention Rhys’ Celtic Britain, Owen Rhoscomyl’s Flame
Bearers of Welsh History, Henry Owen’s Gerald the Welshman, Bradley’s
Owen Glendower, Newell’s Welsh Church, and Rees Protestant Nonconformity
in Wales. More elaborate and expensive books are
Seebohm’s Village Community and Tribal System in Wales, Clark’s
Medieval Military Architecture, Morris’ Welsh Wars of Edward I.,
Southall’s Wales and Her Language. In writing local history, A. N.
Palmer’s History of Wrexham and companion volumes are models.

Sku: shorthistoryofwales

It may be deemed presumptuous that one of my age and sex should venture
to give to the public an account of personal adventures in a land which
has so often been descanted upon by other and abler pens; but when I
reflect on the many mothers, wives, and sisters in England, whose
hearts are ever longing for information respecting the dangers and
privations to which their relatives at the antipodes are exposed,
I cannot but hope that the presumption of my undertaking may be
pardoned in consideration of the pleasure which an accurate description
of some of the Australian Gold Fields may perhaps afford to many; and
although the time of my residence in the colonies was short, I had the
advantage (not only in Melbourne, but whilst in the bush) of constant
intercourse with many experienced diggers and old colonists–thus
having every facility for acquiring information respecting Victoria and
the other colonies.

CONTENTS
Chapter I.    INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Chapter II.   THE VOYAGE OUT
Chapter III.  STAY IN MELBOURNE
Chapter IV. CAMPING UP–MELBOURNE TO THE BLACK FOREST
Chapter V.  CAMPING UP–BLACK FOREST TO EAGLE HAWK GULLY
Chapter VI.  THE DIGGINGS
Chapter VII.  EAGLE HAWK GULLY
Chapter VIII. AN ADVENTURE
Chapter IX.   HARRIETTE WALTERS
Chapter X.    IRONBARK GULLY
Chapter XI.   FOREST CREEK
Chapter XII.  RETURN TO MELBOURNE
Chapter XIII.  BALLARAT
Chapter XIV. NEW SOUTH WALES
Chapter XV.  SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Chapter XVI. MELBOURNE AGAIN
Chapter XVII. HOMEWARD BOUND
Chapter XVIII. CONCLUSION

Sku: golddiggingsaustralia

The first town we came to was Laguna, which appeared to be of some
importance; it is distant about four miles from Santa Cruz. On this road
we passed many camels laden with heavy burdens; a circumstance which
rather surprised me for I had always imagined that, owing to the peculiar
formation of its foot, the camel was only fitted for travelling over
sandy ground, whilst the way from Santa Cruz to Laguna is one continued
mass of sharp rocks, utterly unworthy of the name of a road; yet these
animals appeared to move over it without the least inconvenience.
After leaving Laguna the country for some miles bore a very uninteresting
appearance; for, although apparently fertile, it was quite parched up by
the extreme heat of the sun; our guides, who were on foot carrying our
carpet bags, kept up with us by running, and, occasionally when tired,
catching hold of the horses’ tails to assist themselves along

Sku: westernaustralia.vol1

The exploration of Northern Australia, which formed the object of my
first journey in 1831, has, consistently with the views I have always
entertained on the subject [* See London Geographical Journal, vol. vii.
part 2, p. 282.], been found equally essential in 1846 to the full
development of the geographical resources of New South Wales. The same
direction indicated on Mr. Arrowsmith’s map, published by the Royal
Geographical Society in 1837, was, in 1846, considered, by a committee of
the Legislative Council of New South Wales, the most desirable to pursue
at a time when every plan likely to relieve the colony from distress
found favour with the public.

Sku: interioroftropicalaustralia

It has appeared very strange to some very able judges of voyages, that
the Dutch should make so great account of the southern countries as to
cause the map of them to be laid down in the pavement of the Stadt House
at Amsterdam, and yet publish no descriptions of them. This mystery was
a good deal heightened by one of the ships that first touched on
Carpenter’s Land, bringing home a considerable quantity of gold, spices,
and other rich goods; in order to clear up which, it was said that these
were not the product of the country, but were fished out of the wreck of
a large ship that had been lost upon the coast. But this story did not
satisfy the inquisitive, because not attended with circumstances
necessary to establish its credit; and therefore they suggested that,
instead of taking away the obscurity by relating the truth, this story
was invented in order to hide it more effectually.

Sku: australianvoyages

In a former narrative, published in the preceding volume of the illustrated travels, I gave an account of a terrible cyclone which visited the north-eastern coast of Queensland in the autumn of 1866, nearly destroying the small settlements of Cardwell and Townsville, and doing an infinity of damage by uprooting heavy timber, blocking up the bush roads, etc. Amongst other calamities attendant on this visitation was the loss of a small coasting schooner, named the ‘Eva’, bound from Cleveland to Rockingham Bay, with cargo and passengers. Only those who have visited Australia can picture to themselves the full horror of a captivity amongst the degraded blacks with whom this unexplored district abounds; and a report of white men having been seen amongst the wild tribes in the neighbourhood of the Herbert River induced the inhabitants of Cardwell to institute a search party to rescue the crew of the unhappy schooner, should they still be alive; or to gain some certain clue to their fate, should they have perished.

Sku: australiansearchparty

As you sit so, in the firelight, your hand is the color of
new bronze.
I cannot take my eyes from your hand;
In it, as in a microcosm, the vast and shadowy Orient
is made visible.
Who shall read me your hand?
You are a large man, yet it is small and narrow, like the
hand of a woman and the paw of a chimpanzee.
It is supple and boneless as the hands wrought in pigment
by a fashionable portrait painter. The tapering
fingers bend backward.
Between them burns a scented cigarette. You poise it
with infinite daintiness, like a woman under the
eyes of her lover. The long line of your curved
nail is fastidiousness made flesh.

Sku: profilesfromchina

The earliest remains of primitive man probably will be found somewhere in
the vast plateau of Central Asia, north of the Himalaya Mountains. From
this region came the successive invasions that poured into Europe from the
east, to India from the north, and to China from the west; the migration
route to North America led over the Bering Strait and spread fanwise south
and southeast to the farthest extremity of South America. The Central Asian
plateau at the beginning of the Pleistocene was probably less arid than it
is today and there is reason to believe that this general region was not
only the distributing center of man but also of many of the forms of
mammalian life which are now living in other parts of the world. For
instance, our American moose, the wapiti or elk, Rocky Mountain sheep, the
so-called mountain goat, and other animals are probably of Central Asian
origin.

Sku: campsandtrailsinchina

The Whang-poo looked like the Thames, and the Shanghai Bund like the
Embankment, when I embarked on board a Jap boat _en route_ for Hankow,
and thence to Ichang by a smaller steamer, on a dark, bitterly cold
Saturday night, March 6th, 1909. I was to travel fifteen hundred miles
up that greatest artery of China. The Yangtze surpasses in importance to
the Celestial Empire what the Mississippi is to America, and yet even
in China there are thousands of resident foreigners who know no more
about this great river than the average Smithfield butcher. Ask ten men
in Fleet Street or in Wall Street where Ichang is, and nine will be
unable to tell you. Yet it is a port of great importance, when one
considers that the handling of China’s vast river-borne trade has been
opened to foreign trade and residence since the Chefoo Convention was
signed in 1876, that Ichang is a city of forty thousand souls, and has a
gross total of imports of nearly forty millions of taels.

Sku: acrosschinaonfoot