Page:The Coming Colony Mennell 1892.djvu/128

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
98
THE COMING COLONY.

the thickly timbered Black wood district. He comes of a stock of statesmen, though he is now fulfilling the family destiny more in the Cumberland sense of the word than in its usual acceptation.

One of my pleasantest reminiscences is of a visit I paid to the Hon. Josceline Amherst (to give him both his Im­perial and local title), a younger brother of the earl of that name, who, after being attached to the Governor's staff in Fiji, has taken up his permanent abode in the absurdly depreciated "Cinderella" of the Australian group. The splendid climate makes it the natural refuge of the weak­-chested, but Mr. Amherst, to his credit be it said, regards it as much in the light of a workshop as of a sanatorium. He has gone in for viticulture on a large scale in conjunction with Dr. Waylen, one of the most esteemed of old colonists and pioneers of the wine-producing industry, in which he embarked at Guildford as far back as 1859. The "Dar­lington" vineyard, as the partners call it, is situated close to the Eastern Railway, a few miles beyond Guildford, as one travels from Perth to Albany. Mr. Amherst lives in a stone villa, "mounted high" on a valley side above the railway line, and the whole estate shows evidences of the personal care expended on it. It is altogether a very pleasant retreat, divorced from the busy world to a certain extent, but still in easy proximity to it whenever a trip to the capital appears desirable. The house inside is made pleasant with hunting trophies, nicknacks, and family portraits, the latter of person­ages of English as well as Kentish renown, whilst outside gardens and avenues, only too rare in Western Australia, are being laid out on Mr. Amherst' s designs. Moderately endowed younger sons of the English nobility might do worse than follow Mr. Amherst's example, and seek this kind of busy seclusion, where, in what is really a model English shooting­ box, Mr. Amherst realises all the solid comforts without the superficial accompaniments and worries of a society which presents very little novelty after a few seasons' experience for those "born in the purple." On the principle that it is better to be acclaimed in a village than to be "one of the crowd" in