AN AUSTRALIAN PILGRIMAGE. By LEE L'ACTON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXII, Issue 1851, 17 May 1884, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN AUSTRALIAN PILGRIMAGE. By LEE L'ACTON.

INTBODUOTION. This is an age of pilgrimages, not, it is true, in the sense the word was understood in the past, when sandalled gentlemen with scrip, staff, and scallop shell, not to mention the colony of insects they carried, defrauded the pious under the name of palmers, and that they palmed some inconsiderable trifles, we may be certain. Fat geese were never safe in those times, and plump hens trembled when Jhe (gray or russet robe appeared in the dis. ■ j^Ance. Therf at goose »nd the plump rooster j

have as good cause to dread the modern pilgrim as he of old, for the heartless landlord sacrifices them, albeit he gets what the owner in old times never did, full value ; that is unless he deals wpfti an impecunious or roguish traveller. Tip is seldom the case, for nature .has .ftpnsiderateiy given & sixth serise to all whp.'xfaal in money 1 , from the Jew pawnbroker ''to the Christian (or unohristian) landlord, and they can "smell a moneyless man a mile off. The nose oould detect the ancient palmer -ten miles off, but the pious in those times never thought of analysing the ancient and fishlike smell. Mown money dealers must surely have borrowed from the spectroscopic science which teaches us to detect in certain lines of the spectrum the existence of particular metals, &c, in such distant stars as Sirius, and have applied its laws to the kindred olfactory science. In fairness it must be acknowledged that the modern pilgrim is a vast improvement on his predecessor. He generally wears clean linen and socks and boots, and often is stylishly attired, especially if he is a commercial traveller, or that übiquitous " traveller " who, when one town has become too hot to hold him, seeks another in which to earn his bread at cards, dice, betting, or anything else that his fertile mind may propose to prevent his having to earn bis living by the sweat of his brow. I must say I belong to another and a very different description of pilgrim, as will presently appear. It has been my lot recently to make a trip of over a thousand miles, from south to north, on the Australian continent, and I have had such adventures and seen so many types of Australian life that I have thought a description of my lour would make good reading could I but commit it to good writing. " Trips " we have to any number in the heavy hebdomadals of each colony, but the writers are either leaden, or describe things from such a surface point of view that there is little information to be obtained. I intend to pay little attention to the suiface, but rather to " dig down " and display the many influences that are at work to mould an Australasian nation and to give to the several localities, special characteristics. When I have finished I will have, I hope, presented to the readers a panorama of Australian life and character, never before presented. It will, however, be neoessary for me to, in some instances, use fictitious names for places and persons, to avoid wounding the feelings of anyone. The reader must not be offended because I make the writer a somewhat central figure, for that is necessary to my scheme, and the value of descriptions of life and scenery greatly depend upon the medium through which they are seen, and the character of the traveller.