The Profilist

by Adrian Mitchell

  Beyond the northern outskirts of the township the land is both amazingly flat and astoundingly open. There is a slight depression in one place, on the basis of which it is called Dry Creek. I have yet to meet anyone who has seen water there. The famous theological problem of where upstream was at the moment of the Creation presents no confusion here. Besides, although with our widespread observance of an orthodox Sunday Christian convictions are open to scrutiny, that is not a warrant to embarrass them. The colony makes claim to being a non-conformist community, but that term is best understood as limited in its range of application.

  You can imagine Dry Creek, the large vicinity that is, as the bed of a broad dried-up shallow lake, such as Mr Eyre has reported in the far north of the colony. Except that here under the faded blue sky is a dusty plain, not a merciless and unrelenting expanse of glittering white salt crust. Captain Strutt seems intent on seeing for himself, in his own prospective expedition into the interior, whether Mr Eyre may have mistaken the oppressive flatness. Which may indicate either a want of confidence in Mr Eyre, or an expression of rather too much confidence in himself. It remains to be seen. For my own part, I do not anticipate any grand discoveries, and certainly not a vast inland sea such as has been spoken of. You have only to experience the heat of the winds coming down from the north to know that there is no cooling ocean in that direction.

  At Dry Creek they have established a racecourse, unlikely to rival the fixtures and arrangements at Goodwood for quite some time to come. Nevertheless, everyone here is quite enthusiastic about our race meetings. That enthusiasm compensates for the provisional nature of the facilities. The fencing around the actual track consists of saplings resting on frail posts, and the booths and shelters and stables are not much more reassuring to look at. It is not recommended to press up against the railings as the horses approach; an unwary spectator could all too easily find himself entering the field. The course is ostentatiously level, but it lacks grass. When you see the horses sweep around the bend into the home straight they seem to be galloping desperately in front of an oncoming rolling storm, so much dust is kicked up. That is undoubtedly an encouragement to the riders to lead the field.

  A stand has been constructed to elevate the dignitaries and to shade the ladies, who have learned to maintain their parasols at the alert, to shelter from the twigs and little flecks of bark that keep sifting down from the roof.

  Everyone goes to the races. Which is to say, perhaps about a full third of the total population, the gentry in their top hats and tails, their ladies in fashionable bonnets and superfluous shawls but such are the dictates of fashion, the squatters in ostentatious waistcoats, all arriving in a jostle of spring carts and gigs and sulkies and perhaps even a coach or two. The less well-established arrive in carts and buggies and wagonettes and even on an occasional dray. Some of the gentlemen arrive on horseback, their mounts carefully brushed for the outing. These are left in a paddock in the care of boys happy to be entrusted with them, and even happier to earn a sixpence, and more if the owner happens to back a winner. Small dogs run around barking bravely at the larger dogs tethered to wheel axles. The protectors of the peace move about in their uniforms.

  A goodly portion of the crowd mills about the stables and the saddling paddock, learnedly discussing the records of the various horses, and their jockeys, and their owners, and advising those not so knowledgeable where to place their bets. Some other portion of the crowd, now more enlightened, mills about the bookmakers. Some much smaller portion of the crowd inspects the Nobs in the stand, which of course is why the gentry are up there, to be on display, and to be observed, if at a sufficient distance. As though they have never forgotten those heady days on the quarterdeck.

  And most of the crowd, in between the actual races, circulates about the refreshment booths and the dancing pavilions. This race meeting is after all held in the New Year heat, with the sun not only brilliant but relentless; and truth to say there is more time between the races than in the actual racing. In fact, it might be more accurate to say that the taking of refreshments throughout the afternoon, when the day has arrived at its highest temperature, is the primary activity, punctuated by a race or two. The Nobs of course have their drinks brought to them by waiters, a different kind of steward.

  Mr Fisher, a leader in all matters to do with horse racing, is much in evidence on occasions like this. He is no longer the mayor. Governor Grey has scuttled Adelaide’s brief experiment with local authority. He could see how well Mr Fisher enjoyed the status and was not going to encourage an old Company hand. You can imagine that Mr Fisher is not well pleased with Government House. But that does not inhibit him from dressing himself up to the nines. And so there they all are, up in the box seat, and it is like the old days, with the Government party all in a coterie, and the Company loyalists somewhat askance, and yet to look at them you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between them. The Nobs and the Snobs, two sides of the same golden guinea.

  One easy distinction of course is in the degree of fawning that the Government party attracts. I noticed one fellow in a royal blue jacket with gold buttons and trim, offensively bright white trousers and waistcoat, and a poorly knotted dark blue tie, simpering here and there and spending more time watching to see if he were being noticed than in watching the proceedings below. He thought his regalia looked naval I suppose, but it was no uniform such as I had seen at Portsmouth, even though ships from all corners of the world put in there.

  The racehorses themselves are, as is right and proper, the real centre of attention. Several of them are enormous—their shoulders just about brush the roofs of the stables. Which is to acknowledge that the stables, bush-carpentered, are not as capacious as they should be. I made some sketches towards eventual paintings of these horses. In this colony the proprietors are more inclined to buy portraits of their local champions than of themselves. I cannot let myself admit that that shows incipient signs of good judgement on their part.

  The gallopers are sterling performers, and the imported steeds, brought in from the other colonies, are impressive in their stalls and as they walk out to the saddling paddock. But they do not compare in looks or in celebrity with the steeplechasers, who of course make wonderful pictures as they come at their jumps, or sail over the fences, or charge up the uneven ground—for those races are conducted on private land at the very foot of the Tiers. One of the most famous, Highflyer, owned, it goes without saying, by Mr Fisher and ridden by Mr Fisher’s son, in his usual blue shirt and black cap, is a regular prize winner, and his participation in any race is sure to bring out the crowds. He is one of the old-timers, a champion in Sydney who came across country with the overlanders, so testifying to his strength and endurance.

  This is one of the pieces of local knowledge that can be useful to a sporting man—horses like that have proven themselves as stayers. They can outlast any challenger. Not all of them have so much presence as Highflyer, but they are gallopers with stamina. I was pleased to pass on a few such tips, mostly picked up in the front bar at the Exchange Hotel, to a preposterously tall young man who happened to be nearby at the saddling yard, watching the various mounts and taking in the way the jockeys handled them. He was a serious-looking fellow, and his immense size and his presence seemed to keep him at a distance from everyone else; or perhaps his size kept them at a distance from him. I do believe he would even have towered above Mr Eyre. He made you think of the disadvantage of being outstanding. Nobody wants to stand in your shade. I pointed out to him where several bookmakers were lurking, but he did not wish to avail himself of anything in that direction. He was very proper in that respect.

  He was a little puzzling to me, as I hoped I was to him, for I do not think of myself as anything like a common tipster, nor even as a sporting man. He looked something like a new chum unfamiliar with the custom of the occasion, something like a squatter by the cut of his clothes and his high boots, and yet something like he was just down from the country, in
his straw hat and well-fitted corduroy trousers and, the detail I noticed, his boots were dusty. He was reserved in his manner yet friendly enough, though in his conversation you were not always sure which way his comments were going to jump. He accepted my invitation to join me at the refreshment booth. Horrocks, a Mr Horrocks, recently returned from England.

  He has land several days to the north of Adelaide, in what he says is a very promising valley; he is busy both stocking his property with sheep, and in looking for additional grazing lands. His ambition is evident; and while he was careful not to push the fact, I take it he has had considerable wealth at his disposal, and with which he was intent on increasing his fortune. No, he did not believe his cottage as it was at present would make a pleasing subject, and he certainly did not require a portrait of himself, but he did think I would appreciate the landscape thereabouts, and so we left it that if ever I were to find myself in that end of the province then I would be most cordially welcomed.

  He seemed a thorough gentleman, courteous and civil, and very pleasant company. He had no false airs. I do not like condescension, and the presumption of superiority—I do not concede social elevation to anyone just because of the good fortune of their birth, or the more vulgar good fortune they may have accumulated or had bestowed upon them. At the racecourse, the big-bellied squatters who milled around looked as though they were accumulating wealth off other men’s backs. So too did the prosperous businessmen. Two different groups, both on the make, both displaying the trappings of their success. At least my new acquaintance had dust on his boots.

  But they were nothing by comparison with the busily ingratiating gentleman I had observed up in the grandstand. As I soon found out, back in Adelaide, he regards himself as well connected, and so he may be, if it counts as an advantage to be related to the Croesus who was the chief instigator of and investor in the settlement Company. Why would it not, in the scale of what appears to signify here? This is his main claim to fame, and gains him the Governor’s notice; but more than this he fancies himself as an artist and a connoisseur. He is glutinous in his attentions to the Governor and his lady, a toady in twill; he is always bustling around the vice-regal party.

  And he bustles and ducks and swans at advantageously proper occasions. There have been meetings by the gentry and other respectable members of the public to consider what to do about our various lending libraries and the Mechanics’ Institute, and how to encourage the arts and whether there should be a means of public support for musical performance and so on. All very worthy proposals, and of course irresistible to the likes of Mr Flute, for that is his name. Mr Florian Flute. His prissy little mouth purses up like a cherub’s when he offers his name; more risible still, his voice is flute-like, and as high as a curate’s, and indeed that is what his looks suggest should have been his proper vocation, with his glittering glasses and his inferior chin. He stands there simpering, expecting people to like him, though his is a waning smile. You can see that he does not expect to like people. He looks over their heads. He looks like he is still up there on the quarterdeck with the Nobs. Up on the poop, which is where you expect to find the nincompoops, as my sailor acquaintance Trumble used to say. Hor hor hor.

  When Flute is announced, you can almost hear the gap where an introductory ‘Honourable’ should have come. Only he is not in fact entitled to it. He is no more than any of the rest of us. But that unworthy thought has never occurred to him. When he is called upon to speak, he rises gracefully from his chair, in a much too practised movement. Most men, especially of the sort we see here, when they stand they are momentarily quite undignified. They prop their hands or fists on their knees and rock forward, all bottom one way and counterbalancing the other with their head thrust forward, brawny fists pushing up from their knees. Flute just floats. A seraphic touch this time. And up goes his nose, and he sways his head just such a little, and looks so languid as to just fall short of being disdainful. I am not in the least surprised that he gets on so well with the Governor’s lady. They understand each other perfectly.

  So was it languour or disdain when I overheard him speaking of what he had so far discovered of local painters. Dibble, said he in his high tootling voice, Dibble? More like scribble. Dibble scribble. Dibble dabble, what? Snicker snicker. The pompous snoot. Did he think that was witty? And who was he to be so impertinent? Who was he to be so free with his obnoxious opinions? He might think himself high and mighty but we had yet to see any evidence of his accomplishment, if that is what he has. Did he imagine we would be instantly convinced by his air of careless superiority? And grateful for his rare critical judgement? The insolence. You can understand I was suddenly not at all anxious to meet him. And determined to prove that some of us were every bit as able as he considered himself, and more. I for one was all the more resolved that my paintings of life in the new province would be just as memorable and true as I could make them.

  My chance came with the departure of Captain Strutt. Just as Mr Eyre had been accompanied by an excited cavalcade at the outset of what became his harrowing expedition, so on this occasion there was a ceremony of public acclamation at the outset. The day for this new departure was made a holiday in honour of the expedition, and a public breakfast was attended by something like two hundred or so gentlemen, who survived all the speeches about gallantry and dedication to the common good and the like. It was not such a breakfast as to inhibit the gentlemen’s confidence in handling their horses. Early in the afternoon the whole party took to their mounts and gigs and traps and whatever else and clattered off with the expedition carts and cattle, amid cheers and the waving of hats and cracking of whips and the inevitable accompaniment of excited boys and dogs. This was an historic moment, perhaps; depending on what Captain Strutt discovers, if anything. It was a moment for the citizens to savour. It was a moment for me to record.

  And so I made my sketches for a formal painting, which would show that insipid Flute among others just what I could do. The scene arranged itself for me. There were two sets of figures here, those on horses and those without horses; or as one might say, those who had inserted themselves into the procession and trotted through, and those who stood to one side and looked on. Those who had been invited to breakfast and those who had not. That is, the nobs and the snobs, all looking much the same, at the top of my picture as in a layered cake, and the good people of the colony in the foreground, standing up against one of the whimsical rickety fences you see everywhere in Adelaide, whereas the exploration party was to make its way into the vast unfenced unknown.

  Mr Flute was not there. At the breakfast I mean. As I heard it, he had just a little before this taken himself off to New Zealand to look around in his own inimitable manner, and do a little dibble dabble daubing of his own. A whiskery constable grinning at a small group of natives caught my attention. These had made an effort too; they were properly dressed for the occasion. Behind them, on what you might call my side of the fence, were tell-tale empty bottles, and perhaps the constable was interested in establishing their recent ownership. He was evidently more interested in that than in the array of pomp and circumstance he had turned his back upon.

  All that parade, all those high-stepping horses, all that ordure. Like the chicken in the riddle, you would have to be careful about crossing the road. The onlookers had taken care to stay well back from the passing cavalcade, of course. The proper distinctions are observed here as elsewhere.

  But that is not the whole of the story. The bullocks and drays and carts and horses were to be escorted out of town, which unintentionally might seem to reflect diminished confidence in their abilities to find their own way. The entire procession went spattering through the dirty roads of North Adelaide, kicking up mud and filth and quite spoiling the initial spit and polish on the gentlemen’s boots, all the way to Dry Creek, where, unremarkably, it had not rained sufficiently to make a local impression, and where Captain Strutt, having had his breakfast, wheeled about and returned home for dinner, leavi
ng his party to go forward as they would. He did not take to the road until the following week, along with a select group of other gentlemen, one of whom subsequently kept pace with the intrepid explorers, travelling up river by boat from Mr Eyre’s residence at Moorundie. Perhaps he hoped by example to encourage the Captain to launch his whale boat, rather than leave it up on the great heavy dray. He might of course have had the opposite effect.

  Which all gives quite another idea of what exploring is about. And that I think is what these celebratory paintings should accomplish. They open up their own story of the event. I felt that on this occasion the painting could be its own witness, and for that reason I neglected to put my own mark on it.

  I was somewhat surprised, to say the least of it, when Mr Flute’s brother approached me with a commission for several paintings of his property upcountry in a wide pleasant valley somewhere in the vicinity of where Captain Strutt had passed his second night on the track to the north. Not that that was why Mr Flute the younger had presented his request. My surprise was that he had not thought to ask his older brother. Perhaps he knew better than to place a commission with an absentee. Perhaps he knew something of his brother’s work and did not put such a high valuation on it. Perhaps he disapproved of his older brother’s shameless wheedling about Government House. Perhaps, as brothers will, they preserved a distance from each other. That would seem very probable to me.

  The niggling doubt in my mind was whether this might possibly be a means by which the older Mr Flute hoped somehow to expose me to ridicule. Whether or no that was the case, I was in no position to turn down a handsome return, and I experienced no such quiver of distaste in my dealings with the younger brother as swept over me whenever I saw, or even thought of, the older. This I resolved was my opportunity to get inside the barbarian’s stronghold, and make young Florian take note, make him eat his words. Disturb his imperturbability. It was a challenge I delighted in taking up.