""Well! that is clever! They can't be so very stupid, after all-if any one would teach them."

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15. Perhaps not. But I am afraid they would not be very willing scholars! Very little has been done for them. They wander about, in the interior, where Englishmen can hardly live. And one other mark of cleverness is, that they can find water in spots where Englishmen would perish for want of it." 1

16. "Are they all like those I saw just now?"

"No! there are many tribes. Some have no beard or whiskers; some shave their heads from the forehead to the top. The persons employed in laying the telegraph line found the northern tribes 'hostile and treacherous;' the southern peaceable and friendly."2

17. "I wonder," said I, "they did not destroy the telegraph wires and posts."

"I believe they were afraid of them! A few natives, who came near at first, were treated to some smart electric shocks; and they told their friends that there was a spirit in these wires, who would kill all the black fellows!"3

1 See Wallace's Australasia, chap. v.

2 Harcus' South Australia, p. 204.

3 Ibid. p. 107.

X. THE GOLD-FIELDS.

I. 'THERE were so many things to amuse me on the banks of the Darling, that I almost forgot how the days were passing, and was surprised when I found that our little steamer had brought us from Wentworth to Bourke, a distance of 800 miles. Above this point there is no water for a steamer.

2. "A few miles more to the eastward," said Mr. Campbell, as we started to ride over the rough pasture-land, with sheep and cattle scattered over it, "and then we will strike southward, into the course of the Macquarie, the tributary which was first explored, and which guided Captain Sturt to the Darling."

3. 'It was a rough ride! Australian roads are rough at the best; but here, for a good part of the way, there was no real road at all! Soft marshy ground, tall reeds, hard rock, where our horses could scarcely keep their feet. When we reached Bathurst, where this part of our journey ended, every bone in my body was sore with the jolting! I was thankful that the hot weather was over, and that most of our riding was done in the cool of the day.

4. "Why is it," I asked, "that this little town

of Bathurst has a railway, when there are so few of them in the whole country?"

""Because, among other reasons, Bathurst is the centre of a gold-mining district. To-morrow, when you have rested, we will ride out to one of the gold-fields, at a place called Ophir."

5. 'But I won't stay to tell you of this visit; because, a day or two later, I saw a richer goldfield in Victoria. As we rode back to Bathurst, I said to Mr. Campbell :

"What a great thing it is for New South Wales to have these gold-fields! They must be worth more than all the other productions, put together."

6. "A mistake, Master Charlie! Her coal is worth more than her gold; though, no doubt, in the days of the 'gold fever,' when the gold was first discovered, there was a rush of people to Australia, increasing the population very quickly here, and in Queensland, and in Victoria."

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7. Coal!" I exclaimed. "We have seen no coal-pits."

"No! The coal-measures, as they are called, lie farther to the north, and nearer the coast. But come! let us pursue our journey. You see those hills to the eastward. Those are the Blue Mountains, and on the other side of them lies Sydney.

If we had time to go by road, we should see a grand ravine and a splendid waterfall.

"But we must make haste now: so we will take the train through the mountains to Paramatta, near Sydney, and then to Wagga-Wagga.”

8. 'At Wagga-Wagga, we crossed the Murrumbidgee, and at Albury the Murray.

"Have we seen all the great rivers?" I asked.

"Not quite all: we have missed the Lachlan, which joins the Murrumbidgee, before it runs into the Darling. I'm sorry we can't see more of the Murray. It is the one fine river of Australia. It rises in Mount Kosciusko, the highest point in the Australian Alps, and runs a course of 2,000 miles; receiving all these large streams as its feeders. Look in this map. These rivers seem to lie in a little corner of the continent; and yet, in that

corner, there is room for a course nearly ten times as long as the longest English rivers!"

9. 'At Ballarat, we saw a little of the golddiggings. Not much, though; for, as Mr. Campbell told me, "most of the gold is far down below the surface. At first, I believe, a good deal was picked up in gullies and water-courses; but now, most of the work is real mining. You see that great machine, and the lumps of rock, which the men are putting into it. That is a crushing

machine; and the rock is quartz, where all the gold lay, once upon a time, long, long ago. Now, though they get some gold by crushing, a great deal more is found below, in drifts, through which the gold has been washed down-before there were any men to look for it-till it came to rocks too hard and solid to let it sink any deeper."

IO. "But this is too hard and solid' for you, Charlie," he said, breaking off with a laugh. "Let us take the train to Geelong, on Port Phillip, and look out for a steamer to Tasmania, leaving Australia by the same channel by which you entered it in the 'Saucy Sally.'".

XI. TASMANIA.

'Hobart Town, June 1.

1. DEAR JOHNNY,-I have just got your letter about your tour in Ireland; and I have read over again the others about Scotland. You have seen a great many beautiful views; but I think I have had the best of it, except, perhaps, on the sea-coast. Certainly, I saw nothing like the Giant's Causeway in Australia; and we have not had time to go round the rocky coast of Tasmania. Tasmania, you know, is the little island, shaped something like a heart, at the south of Australia.