AustLit

19th-Century Australian Travel Writing

Francis Jeffrey Cockburn (1825-1893) travelled to Australia from India in 1853 for medical reasons. During his convalescence in Australia he wrote letters to two friends in Patna, which form the backbone of this privately published work. Written in a conversational style, the work was organised around individual letters that are all written from Tasmania, excepting the first which was penned in Melbourne. They include anecdotal accounts of Cockburn's travels, describing the towns, industry, flora and fauna, the convict system, and descriptions of the unique foods that he has consumed while in Australia. “God bless Tasmania,” he concludes after 18 months in the colony.Cockburn served in the Indian Civil Service and as a judge: posthumously, the family published Recollections of an Indian Civilian (1906).