19th-Century Australian Travel Writing
Joseph Charles Byrne (?1800-?1863) was an entrepreneurial immigration agent and author of a series of emigration guides. Byrne's short (66 page) pamphlet Emigrant’s Guide to South Australia begins with a general guide to emigration to Australia, then gives a history of the settlement of South Australia, followed by a description of its mode of government, institutions, industry, and infrastructure. The Aboriginal population is discussed and dismissed in only three sentences: they are "migratory in their habits, cannibals, and practicers of infanticide." Byrne wrote a series of similar guides to other colonies; each is prefaced by the same general introductory material about emigration to Australia. Byrne also published Twelve Years' Wanderings in the British Colonies (1848), Emigrant’s Guide to New South Wales Proper (1848), and emigration guides to Port Natal and the Cape of Good Hope.
