A letter from New South Wales, by James Pickard
An original letter written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.
In this letter, written in 1863, a young bank clerk who has recently emigrated to Australia tells his mother in Bristol about a coach journey to a town in the interior of New South Wales.
My dear Mother, You will be glad to know that I have reached Coolabah Creek in one piece, or very nearly, and have begun my duties at the bank, which consist at present of counting very dirty banknotes in a very hot room. The journey up from the coast took four days by coach, and as I promised to tell you everything I shall, though you must not read it to Aunt Susan, who will only say she told you so.
The coach is a great red box on leather springs, drawn by five horses and driven by a Mr Daly, an Irishman with one eye and a whip twelve feet long, who can flick a fly from the leader’s ear without touching the ear. There were nine of us inside and three on the roof, and the road is not so much a road as a general agreement about which way to go. We were thrown against the roof so often that by the second evening a gentleman from Sydney had worn a bald patch in his hat.
On the third night we came to the river, which is usually, they tell me, a string of pools a child could step across. It had rained in the hills for a week, and it was now a brown flood as wide as the Avon at Clifton, full of whole trees going by at the pace of a galloping horse. Mr Daly said we must cross or wait a fortnight. There was a stockman at the crossing, a tall Wiradjuri man named Ishmael, who had worked those runs since he was a boy, and he waded out into the dark with a lantern, chest deep, feeling for the old ford with his feet while the water pulled at him. We watched his light go out into the middle and stop, and swing, and come slowly back. He said it could be done, if we went at once and did not stop.
We passengers walked over on a fallen tree a little upstream, holding a rope he had fastened to the bank. I will not pretend to you that I found it amusing. Halfway across, a branch came down upon the rope and the whole line of us swung out over the water like washing on a windy day, and I discovered that I knew a great many more prayers than I had supposed. Behind us the coach came down into the river with Mr Daly roaring at the horses and Ishmael at the leaders’ heads, and for a moment the whole thing tilted and the current took it sideways. Then the horses found the bottom and dragged it up the bank, streaming like a bath that has been pulled out of a pond.
We reached the inn at two in the morning. I was so tired that I fell asleep over my supper and woke with mutton fat in my hair. Mr Daly says it was nothing to the flood of ’59. Ishmael said nothing at all, but I noticed that he was the first person Mr Daly thanked. I am perfectly well, Mother, and you are not to worry, and I shall not cross a river at night again if I can possibly help it. Your affectionate son, James
“The writer makes light of the dangers of his journey.”
To what extent do you agree with this statement?
You should comment on:
You must refer to the text to support your comments.
120 exam-style questions on Eduqas GCSE English Language 2.1 Section A (30%) - Reading, covering 2.1.1 Two unseen non-fiction texts, 19th and 21st century. Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.