AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATIONS.—THE BLUE MOUNTAINS FIRST TRAVERSED.—DISCOVERY OF THE LACHLAN, MACQUARIE, MURRUMBIDGEE, AND MURRAY RIVERS.—EXPLORATIONS OF STURT, MITCHELL, CUNNINGHAM, HUME, AND OTHERS.—EYRE'S JOURNEY ALONG THE SOUTHERN COAST.—SUFFERINGS AND PERILS.—BURKE AND WILLS: HOW THEY PERISHED IN THE WILDERNESS.—MONUMENT TO THEIR MEMORY.—COLONEL WARBURTON AND HIS CAMEL TRAIN.—STRAPPED TO A CAMEL'S BACK.—PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE AUSTRALIAN DESERT.—ABORIGINALS OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA.—THROWING THE BOOMERANG.—A REMARKABLE EXHIBITION.—ORIGIN OF THE BOOMERANG.—DUCK-BILLED PLATYPUS: A PUZZLE FOR THE NATURALISTS.—VISITING A COPPER-MINE.—MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE COLONY.—WESTERN AUSTRALIA.—ALBANY, ON KING GEORGE SOUND.—DESCRIPTION OF THE COLONY.—CURIOUS POISON-PLANTS.—FAREWELL TO AUSTRALIA.—THE END.

The mention of the explorations that preceded the construction of the Australian overland telegraph drew the attention of our young friends to the men whose names are famous in the history of Australian discovery. They had already thought of the subject when they saw in Melbourne the bronze statue in memory of the explorers, Burke and Wills, but at that time they were too busy to make any extended investigation concerning it.

The result of their reading and other study of Australian explorations they briefly summed up as follows:

"For the first twenty-five years after the settlement at Sydney, in 1788, exploration was confined to the strip of land between the Blue Mountains and the sea; it was not until 1813 that the mountains were passed and the valley of the Fish River and the Bathurst plains visited. The Lachlan River was discovered in 1815, and the Macquarie shortly afterwards; both these rivers were traced to a marsh, and were supposed to lose themselves in an inland sea.

"The Murrumbidgee River was discovered in 1815, and the Murray in 1824, by Mr. Hamilton Hume. Afterwards Mr. Hume accompanied Captain Sturt, when the latter discovered the Darling River; later (in 1831) occurred Captain Sturt's descent of the Murray, which has been already mentioned. Major Mitchell, Mr. Cunningham, and other explorers continued the work of investigating the interior of the great continent, and every year added something to the maps of the country.

"A most perilous journey was made in 1839 and 1840 by Mr. Eyre, who was afterwards governor of New Zealand and Jamaica. He explored a portion of the eastern shore of Spencer Gulf, and then turned to the westward along the shore of the Great Australian Bight, a distance of twelve hundred miles. Two hundred and fifty miles from the head of the gulf he had lost four of his best horses; and as he could not carry sufficient provisions for his party, he sent back his companion, Mr. Scott, and three others, and continued the journey with his overseer, two natives, and a native servant of his own.

"To make sure of water Mr. Eyre explored in advance of the party before moving the animals, and was sometimes gone five or six days without finding any. Most of the horses died of thirst, and the men only kept themselves alive by gathering dew with rags and a sponge.

"One night the two natives armed themselves with guns, killed the overseer, and ran away, leaving Mr. Eyre, with his servant, Wylie, two horses, and a very small stock of provisions; they had six hundred miles of unknown desert before them, and their whole supply of food was forty pounds of flour, four gallons of water, and part of a dead horse. They had to go one hundred and fifty miles before finding any more water, and after struggling on for a month, living on horse-flesh, fish, and occasional game, with a little flour paste, they were rescued by a whaling-ship just in time to save their lives. They remained two weeks on the ship, and then continued their journey, with more sufferings for twenty-three days, to King George Sound.

"The next great exploration was that of Captain Sturt towards the middle of the continent, mentioned in the previous chapter. About the same time Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt, a German naturalist, was fitted out by private subscription in Sydney, and explored Eastern Queensland from its southern border to the Gulf of Carpentaria. In less than five months he made a journey of three thousand miles, and was highly successful in every way.

"Afterwards he started with another expedition to attempt to cross the continent from east to west, carrying provisions for two years; but after struggling for seven months he was forced to turn back. Later he set out again with the same object, but since April, 1848, nothing authentic has been heard from him or any member of his party. Several searching parties were sent out, but beyond a few trees with the letter 'L' carved upon them, nothing was ever found to show where he went, and nobody knows what was his fate; the general belief is that he and his companions perished of thirst. About the same time Sir Thomas Mitchell explored a part of what is now Queensland, and a year or so later Mr. Kennedy started on an expedition in which he, with most of his party, was killed.

"And now," continued Frank, "we come to Burke and Wills, the explorers whose monument we saw in Melbourne. The Victorian Government fitted out an expedition in 1860, with Mr. O'Hara Burke as chief, and Mr. W.J. Wills second in command. The party consisted of eighteen men, twenty-seven camels (which had been imported specially for the service), a great many pack-horses, and several wagons.

"They formed a camp on Cooper's Creek, and left a party in charge of it, under command of a man named BrahÉ; Burke and Wills, with two men, King and Gray, with one horse and six camels, then pushed on to the Gulf of Carpentaria, and thus made the journey across the continent. On their return they suffered great privations; Gray died, and the others were so weak that they hardly had strength to bury him; the horse was killed for food, four of the camels were abandoned, and on the evening of April 21, 1861, the three men crawled into the camp on Cooper's Creek.

"Imagine their despair when they found the camp deserted, and the word 'dig' rudely cut on a tree. They did dig, and found a bottle containing a letter saying that the camp had been abandoned by BrahÉ that very morning. He had left a few articles of food, but no stimulants, tea, or clothing, of which they were in great need. They rested a few days, and then tried to reach a sheep-station one hundred and fifty miles away; but they were driven back by scarcity of water, and both the camels broke down and had to be shot. BrahÉ returned to the camp only two hours after Burke and Wills left it; but Burke had buried his despatches in the hole where the bottle was found, replaced the earth carefully, and left no sign to indicate that he had been there. Consequently BrahÉ supposed the explorers had not returned.

"The wanderers found some friendly natives who assisted them, but both Burke and Wills died of exhaustion within a few days of each other, about six weeks after their return to the camp. King joined a party of natives, and was eventually rescued and brought to Melbourne. He was found by one of four search expeditions that were sent out by the Victorian Government as soon as it was known that the depot on Cooper's Creek had been abandoned. Though only one of these expeditions was able to afford assistance to the missing explorers, all made interesting journeys, and added considerably to the stock of geographical information concerning the country.

"Since the unhappy termination of the expedition of Burke and Wills several expeditions have sought to explore Western Australia. The first man who succeeded in traversing the Great Desert from east to west was Colonel Egerton Warburton, who started from Alice Springs, on the overland telegraph route, in April, 1873, and reached the mouth of the Oakover River, in Western Australia, in the following December. He had seventeen camels when he started, but was obliged to kill or abandon all but three; the party nearly died of starvation, and for a part of the time Colonel Warburton was so ill that he was strapped at full length on the back of his camel. The country was a fearful desert, the heat was intense, and for hundreds of miles there was not a drop of water.

"Forrest, Giles, and other explorers have traversed various parts of Western Australia; and it may now be said that though there is a very large area of unexplored or little-known land, the character of the whole continent is sufficiently well known for all practical purposes. Not more than half of it is inhabitable by Europeans, or ever will be. Some few districts now considered sterile may be made useful by irrigation, but the western half of the continent is an arid waste, where even the native black man cannot make a living."

Frank paused as he read to Fred the foregoing paragraphs.

"Perhaps you'll have to change the last statement," said Fred.

"Why so?" queried his cousin.

"Because it does not harmonize with the opinions of some of the scientific men of Australia," was the reply. "Here is something I have just found in a late number of a Melbourne newspaper."

Frank listened with interest while Fred read the following:

"At a recent meeting of commercial and pastoral men in Sydney, an interesting paper on the Australian Desert was read by Mr. E. Favenc. Here are some passages from it: 'In looking back at the past history of Australia, the many disillusions that have taken place with regard to our knowledge of its geographical formation are very striking. In no particular is this more noticeable than in the gradual disappearance of the dreaded desert. Each successive adventurer has turned back with the tale that beyond his farthest point it was impossible to penetrate, only for after-generations to reverse his opinion and reclaim the waste land for habitation and settlement. In a pastoral community, from the earliest ages, the necessity of fresh grazing-lands for the increasing flocks and herds has existed; and the residents on the border-land of civilization soon found out that the herbs and shrubs of the interior possessed qualities hitherto unappreciated and unrecognized, and country looked upon as unfit to sustain animal life became eagerly sought after as first-class fattening country. That this has been the experience of New South Wales and Queensland has resulted in the shadowy desert being driven into the heart of South and Western Australia.

"'That immense areas of spinifex of the worst description exist in the interior, which may well be called desert, there is no doubt; but as yet we have no evidence to show that they are not belts. All through the alleged desert blacks are found all the year round. Although they can exist on a very small allowance of water, they cannot live without it, and this proves the existence of a permanent supply throughout the continent, although the springs that are the source of the supplies may be but scanty drainage and hard to find. Wherever large reservoirs are found—the standing waters of the interior—fish form one of the principal native dishes, and they are as a rule so fat as to be almost uneatable. On these waters, too, wild feathered game are in profusion, from the larger species—geese, pelicans, native companions, etc.—down to the smaller kinds, the little pigmy goose and the plover.

"'Country, then, which can sustain human and animal life throughout the year can scarcely be classed as an irreclaimable desert; and when we know from experience that even at their driest stages the edible grasses of this region can keep stock in good condition, and in the case of some of the grasses even fatten, the future occupation of the whole of the continent does not seem so very problematical. The wonderful success that has attended boring efforts to the northward of the Great Bight, long considered as the driest country in Australia, and stigmatized by Eyre as the most awful desert ever trodden by man, now being rapidly stocked with sheep, points out the way to the gradual reclamation of the desert. The knowledge we already have of some of the inland springs, slight as it is, proves the existence of these subterranean supplies throughout the continent. These springs are not what are known as surface springs—that is, the residue of a former exceptionally wet season, issuing from the foot of some well-soaked hill or ridge—but strong volumes of water that vary not in any season, totally unaffected by drought; in fact, running stronger during dry weather. I think, therefore, that in most cases a judicious selection of the site for boring will bring about a successful result; and in this country, so deficient in surface drainage, we shall find that Nature has provided a store that will render the settlers independent of variable seasons.'"

"That reminds me," said Frank, "of what Doctor Bronson was saying the other day when we were talking on this very subject. He said that when he was a boy the maps of the school geographies had a 'Great American Desert' between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains, and another desert between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevadas. But as civilization has pushed westward the desert disappeared, and all that region once supposed to be uninhabitable is now occupied as cattle-pastures, and thousands of farms have been established and are doing well where fifty years ago it was thought nothing could be made to grow. Quite likely it will be the same with the great Australian desert, but as my paragraph represents the present state of things we will let it remain as it is."

The conversation then turned to the aboriginals who had been mentioned in Mr. Favenc's address. Fred asked Frank if he had ascertained how many there were at present in South Australia, and how they lived.

"Yes," was the reply, "and here is what I've learned. When the colony was settled, in 1836, there were estimated to be twelve thousand blacks within its borders. Now the number has diminished to about five thousand; they have died of diseases of various kinds, and the annual number of births is considerably less than that of the deaths. They are protected by the Government, an official being charged with their care, and the annual distribution of twenty-five thousand dollars' worth of food, clothing, and medical comforts from some fifty depots which have been established for that purpose. Five special reserves of land, about six hundred and seventy thousand acres in all, have been set apart for them, and they are being taught in the ways of civilization, just as our American Indians are being instructed on their reservations."

"There's one thing we've forgotten to describe in our accounts of the Australian aboriginals," said Fred.

"What is that?"

"The boomerang," was the reply. "No account of Australia is complete without a description of the boomerang."

"That's so," responded Frank. "But first we ought to see it used."

Fred agreed to this, and in compliance with their desire one of their Australian friends arranged that they should see a performance with this remarkable weapon. Here is Fred's account of it:

"The performer was a half-wild aboriginal who had been promised a reward for displaying his skill. Our friend explained that there were several kinds of boomerangs. The differences are in shape and weight; the variations in shape are hardly perceptible to the eye of a novice, though readily distinguished by those accustomed to them. The weight[Pg 527]
[Pg 528] varies from four ounces to ten and a half ounces; the blacks of Western Australia used lighter ones than those of the eastern regions.

"Some of the boomerangs are intended for playthings, while others are for war or hunting purposes. The playthings can be made to return to the feet of the thrower, but the war boomerangs are not expected to return; you can readily understand that a boomerang would be deviated from its course or stopped altogether by hitting an object, and if it did not hit anything it would not be of much use as a warlike weapon.

"We examined the boomerang that the man was to perform with. It was about nineteen inches long from point to point, two and a half inches wide in its broadest part, half an inch thick, and weighed eight ounces and a half. Its shape was somewhat like that of a slightly bent sickle, the curve being about a quarter of a circle.

"When we had done looking at it the fellow took it and examined it carefully, and then he looked at the trees and the grass to note the direction of the wind. Our friend cautioned us to stand perfectly still, especially after the weapon had been launched; the performer selects beforehand the spot where he wishes the boomerang to fall on its return, and sometimes a spectator in his excitement moves to that very spot and is injured. We promised to obey, and we did.

"Two or three times the man made a motion to throw it but did not. Finally, when he felt that he could strike the wind at the proper angle, he launched the weapon almost straight into the air; it went up a few yards, then turned and seemed to glide along a little way above the ground, gyrated on its axis, made a wide sweep and returned with a fluttering motion to the man's feet. The farthest point of the curve was about a hundred yards away. We are told that skilful throwers can sometimes project the boomerang nearly two hundred yards before it starts on its return.

"We offered him a sixpence for every time he would bring it back to his feet and make it fall in a circle two yards in diameter which we drew on the ground. In ten throws he brought it within the circle four times, and in the six misses it dropped only a short distance outside.

"He did not throw it the same way every time. Once he made it skim along the ground for at least fifty yards, then rise into the air fully one hundred feet, and after making a great curve it returned. Next he threw it so that it made at least half a dozen great spirals above him as it came down, and another time it passed around a tree in its course.

"Frank paced off fifty yards from the performer, and placed a shilling in the end of a split stick four feet long, which was then stuck in the ground just far enough to hold it up. We offered the shilling to the man if he would knock out the coin without disturbing the stick, and he did it, but the boomerang did not return.

"Our friend told us that the powers of the return-boomerang had been greatly exaggerated. The non-returning one is the real weapon, and is greatly to be feared in the hands of a skilful thrower. It has been known to hit a man behind a tree or a rock, where he was quite safe from bullet, spear, or arrow; and if an expert in its use comes within throwing distance of a kangaroo or an emu, the creature's fate is sealed.

"He further said he had never known a white man to become expert in the use of the boomerang, though many had practised with it for years.

"We asked if the natives knew how long ago and by whom the boomerang was invented. He shook his head and said no one could give any account of it; but as all the tribes throughout the country are familiar with it, it must be of very ancient date. He said there was a theory that the natives derived the invention from observing the peculiar shape and turn of the leaf of the white gum-tree. As the leaves fall to the ground they gyrate, very much as does the boomerang, and if one of the leaves is thrown straight forward, it gyrates and comes back.

"Such an origin is certainly quite possible. Children might be playing with such leaves, and to please them a man might make a large leaf of wood, and from this the boomerang may have been developed. Quien sabe?

"And with this query of 'Who can tell?' we will drop the boomerang, or leave it in the hands of the aboriginals of Australia, who alone of all the people in the world know how to handle it."

"That is true as to the return-boomerang," said Doctor Bronson when Fred read the foregoing account, "but not of the non-returning one. According to those who have carefully studied the subject, such a weapon was used by the ancient Egyptians and by the Dravidian races of India. The Moqui Indians of Arizona and New Mexico have a form of boomerang for killing rabbits, and a similar weapon is said to be used by some of the tribes of California Indians. The Moqui boomerang resembles the Australian one in its general shape, but it is not a returning one. It gyrates along the surface of the ground and is fatal to a rabbit twenty-five or thirty yards away."

"There's something else peculiar to Australia that you've forgotten," remarked the Doctor, after a slight pause.

"What is that?"

"It is the platypus, or duck-billed mole," said the Doctor, "the paradoxical animal of Australia."

"We had not forgotten him," Frank responded, "though we have not yet written a description of this singular creature. He seems to be the connecting link between bird and beast, as he has the body of the mole or rat and the bill and webbed feet of the duck. The female lays eggs like a bird, but it suckles its young, which no bird was ever known to do. The one we saw at Melbourne was larger than the largest water-rat; they told us that it lives in a hole which it digs for itself on the banks of the rivers, is very sensitive to sound, and hard to catch. Its fur is as fine as sealskin, and if it were larger it would be systematically hunted for its skin."

"When the first specimens were taken to Europe," said Doctor Bronson, "it was thought to be a hoax like the Feejee mermaid, and it was some time before the naturalists were convinced of its genuineness. When its existence was officially acknowledged, it received the name of ornithorhynchus."

"But isn't there a question as to whether the platypus lays eggs?" Fred asked.

"I believe there is," replied the Doctor, "but the latest student of the subject, Mr. W.H. Caldwell, of Cambridge College, England, who visited Australia in 1884-85 for the special purpose, says the creature is oviparous; so we will rest on his authority."

From Australia in general the conversation changed to South Australia in particular. It was directed to the mineral products of the colony, in consequence of an invitation that had just been received by the Doctor to visit a famous copper-mine. The Doctor explained to the youths that copper was the principal mineral resource of the colony; the exportations of mining products in the year 1885 amounted to £344,451, of which £322,983 were in refined copper or copper ore.

"Gold has been found in several localities in the colony," he continued, "but never in such quantities as in Victoria or New South Wales, the annual export rarely exceeding £70,000, equal to $350,000. There are also deposits of silver, lead, bismuth, and tin, and many persons believe that the colony will ultimately prove very attractive as a mining region; but up to the present time copper is very far in advance of anything else."

They accepted the invitation, and went to the copper-mine which is known as the Burra-Burra, and is one hundred and one miles by railway from Adelaide. Starting at seven o'clock in the morning, they reached the station near the mine a little past noon, spent three hours at the works, and returned to Adelaide in the evening. It was a long day and a wearying one, but the ride and visit were greatly enjoyed.

The Burra-Burra mine was discovered by a shepherd name Pickitt, in 1844, and has proved highly profitable to its owners; for a good many years its annual product of ore was ten thousand tons, yielding two thousand five hundred tons of pure copper. More than twenty million dollars' worth of copper has been taken from this mine, and the supply is by no means exhausted.

But our friends heard of even richer mines than the Burra-Burra. They were told of the Moonta mines, which paid from the very start; not a penny of capital was ever subscribed, but the mines have yielded large dividends, in some years as high as eight hundred thousand dollars, in addition to paying for costly buildings and machinery. It should be added that the success of these and other mines led to a great deal of mining speculation which was very disastrous for nearly all the investors.

Early one Thursday morning it was announced that the regular mail steamship of the Peninsular & Oriental Company was at Glenelg, and would leave in the evening for King George Sound, Western Australia. Doctor Bronson had taken passage for himself and his young companions; his first intention was to stop at King George Sound, but owing to the limited facilities of travel in Western Australia, the small population, and the slight development of the country compared to that of the eastern half of the continent, the idea of making an extended tour through the only remaining colony of Australasia was definitely abandoned.

The steamer left Glenelg in the evening of Thursday, and on the morning of the following Monday arrived at Albany, in King George Sound, one thousand and seven miles from Adelaide. She anchored about a mile from shore, and our friends were landed in a row-boat on payment of one shilling each, the same fare being charged for the return trip before the departure of the vessel in the evening. King George Sound is about five miles long and nearly the same in width, and forms a good anchorage for ships. Its advantages as a naval possession were long ago recognized, the British Government having secured it by establishing a colony there in 1826. There are two entrances on opposite sides of an island called Breaksea, a massive rock that reminded Frank and Fred of Alcatraz Island, in the harbor of San Francisco, or Capri, in the Bay of Naples.

The youths were disappointed with Albany, which they had imagined to be a place of some importance. It stands on rising ground on the north shore of the harbor, and has not far from one thousand two hundred inhabitants—hardly enough to give it the dignity of a city, which most of its residents claim for it.

Frank asked how they could get away from Albany in case they had decided to travel through Western Australia.

"There is a road from here to Perth, the capital of the colony," said the gentleman to whom the inquiry was addressed. "The distance is two hundred and sixty-one miles; and whenever the mails arrive here they are sent through to Perth by a coach, which makes the journey in about fifty-three hours. You may travel by the mail-coach, or you can take a coasting steamer once every fortnight, and touch at all the ports worth seeing, as well as some that do not pay for the trouble."

"How many railways have they in the colony?"

"Not many," was the reply. "The Northern Railway, thirty-five miles long, runs from Champion Bay, on the coast, to the town and mining district of Northampton. The Eastern Railway, ninety miles long, extends from the port of Freemantle, at the mouth of Swan River, to Perth, and thence to Beverley, whence it is to be extended to Albany. There are branches from both these lines, but none of great length, and there are some private railways belonging to timber companies. All the lines of the colony are of three feet six inches gauge; several new lines are projected on the land grant system, in the same way that many of your railways in the United States have been constructed, and on some of them work is now under way. But it will be several years yet before the country has an adequate system of railways."

"Western Australia is territorially the largest colony of Australia, but there are not yet fifty thousand inhabitants in its whole area," the gentleman continued. "The largest place is Perth, which has a population of about six thousand. Freemantle, its port, twelve miles lower down on the Swan River, has four thousand, and the other places of consequence are Guildford, Geraldton, and Roebourne, the latter the centre of the pearl-fishery."

Fred asked what were the products of the country, and how it happened that Western Australia, while nearer to Europe than any other colony of Australasia, had been so neglected.

"To your first question I will reply," said his informant, "that wool is our largest item of export, and then come sandal-wood, lumber, pearl-shell and pearls, horses, and sheep. We send many horses to India, Singapore, and Java, and our trade in this line promises to increase. Our annual exports of all kinds amount to £290,000, and our imports to something less than that figure. We have mines of gold, lead, copper, iron, and tin, but up to the present, though there have been a few gold rushes, very little attention has been given to our mineral resources, and we really know little about them.

"There is an abundance of fine country in Western Australia. There are splendid forests in the south-west, and excellent pasture lands in the west and north. An American visitor once said that Western Australia had been run through an hour-glass, alluding to the great number of sandy regions in the limits of the territory. Of course we have considerable areas of desert, but his remark is unfair as a general description. We could support a large population, and when our advantages become better known we shall have it too.

"I ought to tell you that some of our most fertile land in the south-west is unfit for pasturing sheep and cattle, owing to the poison-plants that abound there. There are several of these plants, four of them being well known and easily recognized. The most common is the York-road plant, a low scrubby bush with narrow green leaves and a white stem. Sheep feed eagerly upon it, swell to a great size, and live only a few hours; at certain times when the plant is full of sap a single mouthful is sufficient to kill a full-grown sheep. The plant will also kill horned cattle, but does not affect horses, or only slightly. As you go to the north you cease to find this dangerous plant, and the pastures there are as good for sheep as those of Victoria or New South Wales.

"The latter half of your query," he continued, "compels me to speak of something which the most of us wish to forget. In the first place, when the colony was formed, in 1829, enormous grants of land were given to a few individuals of capital and influence who were to bring out colonists and otherwise develop the country. The grants were all the way from one hundred thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand acres, and the system proved a bad one. The capitalists came here to live on their estates, and not to work, and the colony was the reverse of prosperous. The stories of the old colonial days would be ludicrous if they were not saddening; of fine gentlemen and ladies, blooded horses, pianos, carriages, packs of hounds, and other belongings of old countries landed on this desolate coast, and nobody knowing where his allotment of land could be found. These kid-gloved colonists ate up all the provisions they had brought, came near starvation, and then returned to England, or went to Victoria and New South Wales to seek new homes.

"In the languishing condition of the colony it was sought to galvanize it into new life by allowing the Government to send convicts here under the stipulation that there should be an equal number of free colonists brought out at Government expense.

"The system was continued until 1868. It was stopped in that year, partly because no free emigration could be induced to come here as long as the colony received convicts, and partly because of the opposition of the other Australian colonies. One of the Governments of the eastern part of the continent proposed to exclude from its ports all ships that came from ours, through fear that our convicts would escape to their shores. Every free immigrant shunned us as he would shun the cholera or the plague, and if the system had been kept up to the present time our population would consist almost entirely of convicts and their guards. All our prosperity dates from the suspension of transportation, and we want to forget that there was ever anything of the kind."

A desultory conversation followed, in which Frank and Fred learned many things concerning the colony, but we have not a place for all of them in this narrative. Talking about the pearl-fishery, they were told that in 1883 a mass of nine pearls, forming a perfect cross, was found in Nicol Bay, each pearl being the size of a large pea, and perfect in form and color. About the same time a rich bank of pearl oysters fifteen miles long (the bank, not the oysters) was found in the vicinity of Beagle Bay, and a single pearl weighed two hundred and thirty-four grains.

They further learned that capitalists of Melbourne and Sydney had recently obtained large blocks of land in the north, and were sending their flocks and herds into these new pastures. The climate was claimed to be delightful, and their informant quoted the words of a clergyman who averred that it was no exaggeration to say, generally speaking, that Western Australia possessed one of the most healthful climates in the world.

But in spite of its praises they had no wish to remain, and after strolling through the streets of Albany, looking from the heights in its rear upon the peaceful waters of King George Sound, and gazing upon the spot where, with much ceremony, ground had been recently broken for the railway to Beverley, they walked to the end of the long pier which juts into the harbor, and were soon once more on the deck of the steamer.

Just as the sun was dipping into the west the great vessel left her anchorage, passed through the channel at the side of rugged Breaksea, and then skirted the coast to the westward for several hours. In the morning Cape Leeuwin, the last headland of the island-continent, was dimly visible in the distance; before the sun marked the meridian the cape and all behind it had disappeared, and the great steamer, her only companions the sea-birds, ploughed the waters of the Indian Ocean, with her prow turned towards the shores of spicy-breezed Ceylon.

As Cape Leeuwin sank from sight beneath the waves our friends murmured a farewell to the land whose skies are stippled at night by the stars of the Southern Cross, and whose arid plains are cooled by breezes from antarctic seas. And their farewell was accompanied with the heartiest good wishes for the people whose enterprise and energy are so admirably exemplified in the populous and busy cities and the prosperous colonies which have been described in these pages by those veteran though still young travellers, Frank and Fred.

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