To the Australian Emigrant, The Illustrated London News was an important link to the outside world, where news from "home" took   months to arrive.

Here are some articles relating to Australia, from a bound volume of the I.L.N dated January to June 1849

 

A Settler's Hut in Australia

 

From the above illustration... No photographs in these days - all the pictures shown here were carved into wooden blocks. The detail on some of them is astounding, and the resampling for these illustrations doesn't do the original artist justice.

Interior of Settler's Hut in Australia

This pair of Emigration Scenes is from the pencil of Mr. Skinner Prout whose pictures on a voyage to Australia the reader will doubt
-less remember in No. 354 of our Journal. The Sketch of the Settler's Hut represents an Australian dwelling, of a class commonly met with in the Bush.  It is constructed of rudely split logs placed upright in the ground, the interstices being in most cases filled up with mud or clay; but the peculiar circumstance connected with the Hut here drawn was this:--

On one of his sketching excursions our Artist was anxious to cross some mountain tiers, in order to make a straight line to a spot he was
anxious to visit at some twelve miles distant He was aware that there was no marked road; and that to attempt it without a guide would be
to run a serious risk of losing himself in the intricacies of the wild forest with which the country is covered. However, he very soon had the
gratification to reach a clearing, and to see, a few hundred yards before him, a column of bright blue smoke rising among the gum-trees, and
indicating the hut of some settler. Australian hospitality has become proverbial, and, says Mr. Prout, " perhaps few persons have experienced it more frequently than myself. My wanderings as a sketcher have often led me among scenes and in situations where I have been wholly dependent on such sources for food and shelter; and I have ever received it with a hearty good-will, andin such a manner as one might have inferred that I had been rather the dispenser than the recipient of such kindness.  It was just so, at the time to which I have alluded. I made my wants known, and a young man who was the shepherd on the station offered to become my guide.

This matter being settled, the iron pot was placed on the fire, and a plentiful repast of mutton chops and sassafras tea prepared us
for our journey; but before we started, my friend 'Joe' must have his pipe, and I must have my sketch. The interior of the little hut pre-
sented so quiet, so enticing a bit, that I must needs make a memorandum of it. Joe had smoked himself into a state of semi-dreaminess,
and seated on a log of wood, displaying an attempt at the formation of a chair, was contemplating with a most thoughtful visage a large post-
ing-bill--an advertisement of the ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, announcing the Queen's visit to Drayton Manor, &c. Doubtless, dreams of
greatness, and thoughts of home, were passing through the poor shepherd's mind: he appeared quite lost in thought, and in imagination was
far, far away from the wilds of Australia; but his kangaroo dog, which had been lying at his feet, roused himself, disturbed his master's
reveries, and at the same time afforded me an intimation that it would be well to commence our journey."

How the posting-bill, announcing the Visit of Queen Victoria to the Midland Counties of England, had found its way into the Settler's Hut,
we are not informed; but there our Artist witnessed the affiche, treasured as a picture.

THE tide of Emigration has unquestionably set in towards Australia, notwith-standing the gold of California may lead to a temporary diversion in favour of that country. We are persuaded, therefore, that the accompanying pictures will possess considerable interest at the present moment, over and above their artisticmerit, which is of no common order. They, however, combine the actualities of experience with pictorial ability in a remarkable degree. The dranghtsman of these scenes from life on board an Emigrant ship bound to Australia is Mr. T. Skinner Prout, who has visited that country, and profited by some years, exploration of its natural beauties, as fit scenes for his clever pencil. Upon his voyage, he drew the arkite episodes which an emigrant ship constantly presents even to the common-place observer. In these Sketches, then, we have no artistic invention; they are pictures of what the draughtsman saw daily, and here presents to us with truly vivid effect. These pictures are, indeed, illustrations of the artist's own diary, which must, therefore, he the best accompaniment to them.

Time was, when a voyage to the Antipodes was considered a very serious undertaking; when even experienced, hardy, and weather-beaten seamen, bound to those distant regions, took their last look of dear old England, with anxious hearts and ideas of difficulties and dangers to be encountered, which were then considered to be inseparable from so long a voyage; and long indeed it once was, as we find by the following paragraph from 'Collins's New South Wales.' The Colonel, speaking of the arrival of the first fleet at Port Jackson, New South Wales, says:-' Thus, under the blessing of God. was happily completed, in eight months and one week, a voyage, which, before it was undertaken, the mind hardly dared venture to contemplate, and on which it was impossible to reflect, without some apprehension as to its termination.' In the present day, however, a voyage to Australia is so well understood by navigators, and, generally speaking, known to be so safe, that it has become divested of its once attendant horrors; and the four months' sojourn on the ocean (the average time occupied in the voyage). to most persons, passes pleasantly enough.