Cirrus@Austlit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

Nehemiah Bartley (1830-1894), merchant and commercial traveller, travelled between England, Australia, the Pacific, and America during his varied career. His memoirs, written retrospectively as Opals and Agates, provide an illustrated account of his travel and life in Australia and Polynesia. Originally a diary begun in 1846, Bartley was encouraged by friends to publish his recollections in the 1890s. The contents and indexing of this text are fastidious. The work is not divided into chapters, but rather an ongoing first-person narrative of the author's path around the world, his memories of these places, and insights into the behaviour of others. In Australia, Bartley travelled through Tasmania, to Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and he dedicated his memoirs to "the girl patriots" of Australasia: Bartley's diaries at the Mitchell Library reveal his restlessness and obsessive interest in women (ADB). In the 1870s and 80s he was one of Brisbane's best-known eccentrics.