Austral English Part 269

vol. i. p. 227:

"The totarra or red-pine."

1845. E. J. Wakefield, `Adventures in New Zealand,' vol. i.

p. 221:

"The totara is one of the finest trees in the forest, and is the princ.i.p.al wood used by the natives, whether for canoes, houses, or fencing."

1854. W. Golder, `Pigeons' Parliament,' [Notes] p. 80:

"The place received its name from a number of large totara trees."

1867. F. Hochstetter, `New Zealand,' p. 134:

"Totara (Podocarpus totara) and Matai (Podocarpus spicata) are large and beautiful trees found in every forest."

1872. A. Domett, `Ranolf,' p. 107:

"One lone totara-tree that grew Beneath the hill-side."

1875. T. Laslett, `Timber and Timber Trees,' p. 308:

"The Totara Tree (Taxus or Podocarpus totara).

Height, eighty to ninety feet. The wood is red in colour, close, straight, fine and even in grain ... a good subst.i.tute for mahogany."

1889. T. Kirk, `Forest Flora of New Zealand,' p. 227:

"With the exception of the kauri, the totara affords the most valuable timber in New Zealand, but unlike the kauri it is found almost throughout the colony."

Towai, n. Maori name for New Zealand tree, Weinmannia racemosa, Forst., N.O. Saxifrageae, i.q. Kamahai in south of South Island, and Tawhero in North Island (Wellington).

1845. E. J. Wakefield, `Adventures in New Zealand,' vol. ii.

p. 95:

"Its banks ... are covered almost wholly with the towai.

This tree has very small dark leaves.It is used for s.h.i.+p- building, and is called by Englishmen the `black birch.'"

1851. Mrs. Wilson, `New Zealand,' p. 43:

"The ake ... and towai (Leiospermum racemosum) are almost equal, in point of colour, to rosewood."

1883. J. Hector, `Handbook of New Zealand,' p. 132:

"Towhai, Kamahi. A large tree; trunk two to four feet in diameter, and fifty feet high. Wood close-grained and heavy, but rather brittle... . The bark is largely used for tanning. The extract of bark is chemically allied to the gum kino of commerce, their value being about equal."

Towns.h.i.+p, n. a village, a possible future town.

In the United States, the word has a definite meaning--a district, subordinate to a county, the inhabitants having power to regulate their local affairs; in Australia, the word has no such definite meaning. It may be large or small, and sometimes consists of little more than the post-office, the public-house, and the general store or shop.

1802. D. Collins, `Account of New South Wales,' vol. ii. p. 7:

"The timber of a hundred and twenty acres was cut down ...

a small towns.h.i.+p marked out, and a few huts built."

1861. Mrs. Meredith, `Over the Straits,' vol. ii. p. 40:

"It used to seem to me a strange colonial anomaly to call a very small village a `towns.h.i.+p,' and a much larger one a `town.' But the former is the term applied to the lands reserved in various places for future towns."

1873. J. B. Stephens, `Black Gin,' p. 79:

"There's a certain towns.h.i.+p and also a town,-- (For, to ears colonial, I need not state That the two do not always h.o.m.ologate)."

1888. Gilbert Parker, `Round the Compa.s.s in Australia,'

p. 439:

[Mr. Parker is a Canadian who lived four years in Australia]

"A few words of comparison here. A pub of Australia is a tavern or hotel in Canada; a towns.h.i.+p is a village; a stock-rider is a cow-boy; a humpy is a shanty; a warrigal or brombie 1s a broncho or cayuse; a sundowner is a tramp; a squatter is a rancher; and so on through an abundant list."

1892. A. Sutherland, `Elementary Geography of British Colonies,' p. 276:

"Villages, which are always called `towns.h.i.+ps,' spring up suddenly round a railway-station or beside some country inn."

1894. `Sydney Morning Herald' (date lost):

"A towns.h.i.+p--the suffix denotes a state of being--seems to be a place which is not in the state of being a town. Does its pride resent the impost of village that it is glad to be called by a name which is no name, or is the word loosely appropriated from America, where it signifies a division of a county? It is never found in England."

1896. A. B. Paterson, `Man from Snowy River,' p. 38:

"There stands the town of Dandaloo-- A towns.h.i.+p where life's total sum Is sleep, diversified with rum."

Traveller, n. used specifically for a Swagman, a Sundowner. See quotation.

1868. Marcus Clarke, `Peripatetic Philosopher' (Reprint), p. 41:

"At the station where I worked for some time (as `knock-about-man') three cooks were kept during the `wallaby'

season--one for the house, one for the men, and one for the travellers. Moreover, `travellers' would not unfrequently spend the afternoon at one of the three hotels (which, with a church and a pound, const.i.tuted the adjoining towns.h.i.+p), and having `liquored up' extensively, swagger up to the station, and insist upon lodging and food--which they got. I have no desire to take away the character of these gentlemen travellers, but I may mention as a strange coincidence, that, was the requested hospitality refused by any chance, a bush-fire invariably occurred somewhere on the run within twelve hours."

1893. `Sydney Morning Herald,' Aug. 12, p. 8, col. 7:

"Throughout the Western pastoral area the strain of feeding the `travellers,' which is the country euphemism for bush unemployed, has come to be felt as an unwarranted tax upon the industry, and as a mischievous stimulus to nomadism."

1896. `The Australasian,' Aug. 8, p. 249, col. 2:

"... never refuses to feed travellers; they get a good tea and breakfast, and often 10 to 20 are fed in a day. These travellers lead an aimless life, wandering from station to station, hardly ever asking for and never hoping to get any work, and yet they expect the land-owners to support them. Most of them are old and feeble, and the sooner all stations stop giving them free rations the better it will be for the real working man. One station-owner kept a record, and he found that he fed over 2000 men in twelve months. This alone, at 6d. a meal, would come to L100, but this is not all, as they `bag' as much as they can if their next stage is not a good feeding station."

Travellers' Gra.s.s, i.q. Settler's Twine (q.v.).

Tree-creeper, n. popular name applied to members of an old Linnaean genus of birds. The Australian species are enumerated by Gould in quotation.