Peeps At Many Lands: Australia

Melbourne-The sheep-runs-The

first place of call. It is the port of Perth, which is the capital of West Australia. That great State occupies nearly a quarter of the continent; but its population is as yet the least important of the continental States, and not very much ahead of th

by steamer to Port Adelaide, for Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It is a charming city, surrounded by vineyards, orange orchards, and almo

, whose main idea was to seek in the new world a place where poverty and its evils would not exist. To a very large e

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e Australian Alps, and gathers on its way to the sea the Murrumbidgee and the Darling tributaries. There is a curious floating life on these rivers. Nomad men follow along their banks, making a living by fishing and doing odd jobs on the stations they pass. They are called "whalers," and follow the life, mainly,

the Murray cod. It grows sometimes to a vast size, to the size almost of a shark

d on the stake hangs a bell. Then the fisherman gets under the shadow of a gum-tree and enjoys a quiet life, reading or just lazing. If a cod takes

assed through the cod's lip, and it is tethered to a stake in the water near the bank. Thus it can swim about and k

g waters, will not live in them. But in the smaller mountain streams, which feed the big inland rivers, t

fall over one-third of its area is greater than that of England. In most places the rainfall is, however, badly distributed. After long spells of very dry weather there will come fierce storms,

er River (N.S.W.) was marked by the drowning of the Speaker of the local Parliament. But great loss of human life is rare; sacrifice of stock is sometimes, however, enormous. Cattle fare better than sheep, for they will make some wise e

common danger, though the snakes and the rabbits were rarely given the advantages of the truce if there were human beings present. An incident of that flood was that the little township of Terry-hie-hie (these aboriginal names are strange!) was almost wiped out by starvation. Beleaguered by the waters, it was cut off from all communication with the railway and wi

n by having great rollers drawn over it by horses; that in time kills it. Then the roots are dug up for firewood, and the land is sown with wheat. Quite good crops are now being got from the mallee when the rains are favourable, but in dry seasons the wheat scorches off, and the fa

ing at all about digging, and also lacked the knowledge of how to get along comfortably under "camping-out" conditions, when every man has to be his own cook, his own washer-up, his own laundryman, as well as his own mining labourer. But the best of the men learned quickly how to look after themselves, to pitch a tent, to cook a meal, to drive a shaft, and to do without food for long spells when on the search for ne

fields. Public order was generally respected, though there were at first no police. The miners, however, kept up Vigilance Committees, the main p

i-Chinese riots on the goldfields. The result of these was that Chinese were prevented by the Government from coming into the country, except in very small numbers, and on payment of a heavy poll-tax. When thi

in Australia to be equal in the eyes of the law and in social consideration. As you travel through Australia, you will probably learn to recognize the wisdom of this, and you will get to like the Australian socia

curving round bays, sometimes just a mile in length, sometimes of huge extent, as the Ninety Miles Beach in Victoria. The water on the Australian coast is usually of a brilliant blue, and it breaks into white foam as it rolls on to the shelving sand. Around Carram, Aspendale, Mentone and Brighton, near Melbourne; at Narrabeen, Manly, Cronulla, Coogee, near Sydney; and at a hundred other places on the Australian coast, are beautiful beaches. You may

beach two brothers were bathing, and they had gone outside of the broken surf water. One was attacked by a shark. The other went to his rescue, and actually beat the great fish off

as they can walk. Through exposure to the sun whilst bathing their skin gets a coppery colour,

d with fine English trees. You will see as good oaks and elms and beeches in Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne, as in any of the par

utions, because, as the idea of Empire grows, it is recognized that all people of British race, whether Australia

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soon seen that a mistake had been made in splitting up altogether. The States were like children of one family, all engaged as partners in one business, who, growing up, decided to set up housekeeping each for himself, but neglected to arrange for some means by which they could meet together now and again and

rliament, which at present meets in Melbourne, but one day will meet in a new Federal capital to be built somewhere out in the Bush-that is to say, the wild, empty country. Some people sneer at the idea of a "Bush capital," but I think, and perhaps you will think with me, that there is something very pleasant and ve

e, so that you will have some solid knowledge of the conditions of the country, and can, later on, in chapter

towns, growing rich from the industry of men who graze cattle, grow wheat and oats and barley, make butter, or past

ary for first-class cloth-making. The story of merino wool is one of the romances of modern industry. Before the days of Australia, Spain was looked upon as the only country in the world which could produce fine wool. Spain was not willing that British looms should have any advantage of her production, and the British woollen manufac

, until to-day the Australian sheep is the greatest triumph of modern science as applied to the culture of animals, more wonderful and more useful than the thoroughbred race-horse. It is only

abbits out. The rabbit is accounted rather a desirable little creature in Great Britain. A rabbit-warren on an estate is a source of good sport and g

ns more will yet have to be spent, for though the rabbits are now being kept in check, constant vigilance is needed to see that they do not get the upper hand again. The rabbit in Australia increases its numbers very quickly: the doe will have up to eighty or ninety young in a year. There is no natural check to this; no winter spell of bitt

The march inland of the rabbit was like that of a devastating army. Smiling prosperity was turned into black ru

within wire-netting, which is rabbit-proof, and within this enclosure to destroy all logs and the like which provide shelters for the rabbits, to dig up all their burrows, and to hunt down the rabbit with dogs. The best of the lands are being thus quite cleared of rabbits. The worst lands are for the present left to bunny, who has become

ope towards Sydney, the capital of New South Wales, the chief commercial city of Australia, and one of the great ports of the Empire. Sydney is, I do

a way through a great cliff-gate, and that made Sydney Harbour. Entering Sydney by sea, you come, as the ocean does, through a narrow gate between two lovely cliffs. Turn sharply to the left, and you are in a maze of blue waters, fringed with steep hills. On these hills is built Sydney. You may follow the harbour in all directions, up Iron Cove a couple of miles to Leichhardt suburb; along the Parramatta River (which is not a river at all, but one of the long arms of the ocean-filled gully system) ten miles to the orange orchard country; along the Lane Cove, through wooded hills, to another orchard tract; or, going in another direction, you may travel for scores of miles al

s, and men who are mostly over six feet high; up the New England Mountains, through a country which owes its name to the fact that the high elevation gives it a climate somewhat like that of England; then into Queensland along the rich Darling Down studded with wheat-f

bane first. Taking a "British India" boat you would have come down the north coast of Queensland and seen something of its wonderful tropical

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ry through its great forests and its rich plains. There are wild buffalo to be found on these plains, and in the rivers that flow through them crocodiles lurk. The crocodile i

ittle Tasmania, a land of apple-orchards and hop-gardens, looking like the best parts of Kent. But you have been introduced to a good deal of

to co