Written in 1898 by Mrs Ellis Rowan, an Australian naturalist and well known illustrator of flowers, this book consists of 20 letters written from Queensland (between 1890 and 1892) and 8 letters from New Zealand.
Apart from the discoveries she made of flowers and insects she gives an insight into life in the North Queensland area in the late 1800s – Rockhampton, Mount Morgan mine, Habana, Charters Towers, Georgetown, Geraldton, Myola, Herberton, Cairns, Cooktown, Bloomfield River, Thursday Island, Banks Island, Murray Island and many other locations. In New Zealand she travelled through many places also including Auckland, the Waiotapu Valley, Napier, New Plymouth, Wellington, Christchurch, Picton, and Dunedin. Apart from describing the scenery, flora and fauna she also touches on other issues of the time – Kanakas, cannibalism, and religious customs.
The book contains a map of her journey in Queensland and quite a number of black and white illustrations – not of flowers as might be expected but of places Rowan visited.
My first walk in the wild tropical jungle next morning I cannot forget. I entered, sketch-book in hand, by a narrow little pathway, probably made by an alligator. I kicked, as I thought, a grey stick aside —it was a snake, and quick as lightning it darted off, while I grew hot and cold by turns. There was such a death-like silence about me that I felt an intruder there, and the thick and tangled mass of rank vegetation completely hid the sun from sight.
This CD contains high quality scanned images of the original book, and has been bookmarked for easy navigation. Pages can be searched, browsed, enlarged and printed out if required.
Click here to download a file of sample pages from this book
Right click on the link and select "save as" - to a location on your hard drive. The sampler can be opened, navigated and searched as with the full CD file/s.
Sample files usually contain the title page, contents, some introductory pages and sample pages from the body of the book. Often the complete index from the original book is included.
