‘The house is a beautiful model being higher at one end than another: about two feet from the ground stick up large pieces of bark of trees, from this it rises like the roof of a house, which is made of coarse sacking..(near the door) is an immense fireplace outside the hut, built up with mud and stones, then long bark above all. Round the outside is a deep trench to carry the rain past us. The gable is patched up with large pieces of bark. The door is pieces of bark nailed across, then canvas nailed on it, the hinges made of string.

Table we had none...logs of wood and a cask did for seats, no sofa, no bedsteads...hanging along the roof are loaves of bread, mutton, pannikins, a gun and bundles of clothes, etc. At one side lie all our digging implements and firewood. A bottle does for a candlestick: we have no carpet, no spoons, knives, mirror or other luxuries.’

‘...hundreds on hundreds of tents were clapped down in the most dusty and miserable of places; and all the ground was perforated with holes, round or square, some deeper, some shallower, some dry, some full of water...All between the holes the hard, sand-coloured clay lay in ridges, and you had to thread your way carefully amongst them if you did not mean to fall in. Still horrider stenches from butchers’ shops and garbage pits : the scene thickened, and tents after tents, stores and bark-huts crowded upon you like a great fair.’

Image (First Picture): Domestic Bliss in Australia
Artist: Samuel Calvert
Text (First Quote): James Arnot Diary

Image (Second Picture): Forest Creek, Mt Alexander, from Adelaide Hill
Artist: George French Angas
Text (Second Quote): Land, labour and gold, or, Two years in Victoria.
Author: William Howitt


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