While leading this wild life, encamped by night near a stream for the
convenience of water, in a Ware, or hut, built open in the front, with a
roof sloping backward to the ground, and made of poles, covered and
enclosed with bark or fern, it was MR. BOOLEY’S singular fortune to
encounter Miss Creeble, of The Misses Creebles’ Boarding and Day
Establishment for Young Ladies, Kennington Oval, who, accompanied by
three of her young ladies in search of information, had achieved this
marvellous journey, and was then also in the Bush. Miss Creeble having
very unsettled opinions on the subject of gunpowder, was afraid that it
entered into the composition of the fire before the tent, and that
something would presently blow up or go off. MR. BOOLEY, as a more
experienced traveller, assuring her that there was no danger; and
calming the fears of the young ladies, an acquaintance commenced between
them. They accomplished the rest of their travels in New Zealand
together, and the best understanding prevailed among the little party.
They took notice of the trees, as the Kaikatea, the Kauri, the Ruta, the
Pukatea, the Hinau, and the Tanakaka—names which Miss Creeble had a
bland relish in pronouncing. They admired the beautiful, arborescent,
palm-like fern, abounding everywhere, and frequently exceeding thirty
feet in height. They wondered at the curious owl, who is supposed to
demand ‘More Pork!’ wherever he flies, and whom Miss Creeble termed ‘an
admonition of Nature’s against greediness!’ And they contemplated some
very rampant natives, of cannibal propensities. After many pleasing and
instructive vicissitudes, they returned to England in company, where the
ladies were safely put into a hackney cabriolet by MR. BOOLEY, in
Leicester Square, London.
And now, indeed, it might have been imagined that that roving spirit,
tired of rambling about the world, would have settled down at home in
peace and honor. Not so. After repairing to the tubular bridge across
the Menai Straits, and accompanying Her Majesty on her visit to Ireland
(which he characterised as ‘a magnificent Exhibition’), MR. BOOLEY, with
his usual absence of preparation, departed for Australia.
Here again, he lived out in the Bush, passing his time chiefly among the
working-gangs of convicts who were carrying timber. He was much
impressed by the ferocious mastiffs chained to barrels, who assist the
sentries in keeping guard over those misdoers. But he observed that the
atmosphere in this part of the world, unlike the descriptions he had
read of it, was extremely thick, and that objects were misty, and
difficult to be discerned. From a certain unsteadiness and trembling,
too, which he frequently remarked on the face of Nature, he was led to
conclude that this part of the globe was subject to convulsive heavings
and earthquakes. This caused him to return, with some precipitation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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