Finch-Hatton, Harold
"Advance Australia!" by Harold Finch-Hatton is a travel memoir and colonial-era reportage written in the late 19th century. It charts the author’s eight years in Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, blending adventurous travel with sharp observations of bush life, frontier industries (cattle, sugar, gold), and the emerging colonial cities.The opening of the work traces a long, opinionated sea journey from Marseilles via Naples, Port Said, the Suez Canal, the Red Sea, Aden, and Galle to Singapore, then a foul, perilous run to northern Australia on the decrepit Somerset marked by heat, stench, a burst boiler, a fatal man‑overboard, and a collision that drowns a native boat’s crew. Landfall at Somerset introduces a rough pearl-fishing outpost and tense relations with local Aboriginal groups, before a coastal passage inside the Barrier Reef leads to Keppel Bay and on to the sugar town of Mackay, whose dust, heat, and heavy drinking leave a stark first impression. At the start of his inland journey up the Pioneer River, he revels in lush cane-fields, clear pools crowded with waterfowl, and sightings of large alligators, then enjoys warm hospitality at “Sleepy Hollow,” where Mr. Rawson, a popular planter, serves the district’s signature rum “swizzle” amid luxuriant gardens. First impressions of the bush mix awe and disorientation; he takes a spill learning to trust his horse in thick timber, then arrives at the striking Mount Spencer station set by a broad lagoon teeming with…
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